"Duncan?" Hanna asked.
* * *
"Jeremy, it's good to see you again," Carl Lenzke said, standing in the doorway of his modest office, which was part a series of row houses converted into offices. The tone of his voice was friendly -- even cheerful -- but his face was somewhat grave. "I figured you'd get around to visiting me one of these days."
Jeremy was marching up the walk to the office like a man on a mission. Lenzke stood still, waiting to see what Jeremy was going to do. He walked up to the door and stood on the mat, being careful to stand a little too close to Lenzke, showing just a touch of belligerence and disrespect. They both stood eye to eye for a minute. Neither blinked nor spoke.
"Why did you lie to us?" Jeremy finally asked, spitting out the word "lie."
"I don't have to explain my actions to you," Lenzke said. Jeremy tensed up to spring at him, but Lenzke stepped back into the brick foyer of the office, opening the heavy wooden door wide and gesturing for Jeremy to enter. "By all means stay outside if you'd rather fight, but if you wish to talk about something, please come in. I am at your disposal, either way."
Jeremy was a young man, physically fit, agile, and hopping mad, but Lenzke, although more than 30 years his senior, was no slouch. He was powerfully built and had that calm, serious air of a man who knows how to handle himself in a fight.
Jeremy stepped in, once again careful to invade Lenzke's space just enough to be rude. Lenzke pointed him to a small, lounge-like room to the right and the two of them went in. The office was an old brick row house, tastefully decorated on the inside and out. Its formal look was designed to inspire calm confidence, but it wasn't having any effect on Jeremy.
"So you're above explaining yourself to one of your Community guinea pigs, is that it?" he asked. "What kind of an experiment were you working on, Mr. Lenzke?"
Lenzke looked up at a painting of a fox hunt that hung on the wall above the fireplace. He showed no sign of concern about Jeremy's remarks. He looked like a wise tutor who is saddened that he can't get through to one of his favorite students.
"All I can say, Jeremy, is that there were things going on that you don't know about; things I wish you would never, ever know about." A slight look of distant fear filled his eyes. "Or me, for that matter," he said with a lighter expression. "I wish I didn't know what I know. But every man has to do what he can with the hand he is dealt in life. I'm not playing this hand with you, Jeremy, so you don't get to see my cards. All I can tell you is that I did what I thought was best, and I still believe it to have been the best decision, just as I believe that you made the right decision."
Jeremy looked at him with a confused expression. "In coming here?" he asked, continuing to look out the window and refusing to make eye contact, except to threaten.
"No, in leaving the Community. You would never have received a fair trial in there. The man you killed was too well connected, and Community justice has a very narrow view of justifiable homicide."
Jeremy looked at him sharply. The Advocate knew all about his case, of course, but Jeremy didn't like to be reminded of it. "The man I killed was a nut and a murderer. He should have been locked up years ago." He looked Lenzke in the eye now.
"Of course he should have," Lenzke replied. "If it makes you feel any better, I urged that myself, but the council wouldn't hear of it. His father wouldn't allow it, and his father exercised more power than you know." There was something in his voice, or his expression, that told Jeremy there was a deeper meaning to that remark. "It was only after his son killed your wife that the Community started to recognize how much control he had over them. But still, you would have been convicted of murder by any jury in the Community. You did the right thing to leave."
"And you want me to believe that you did the right thing in lying to us all those years? In telling us that Society was ready to storm in and take over?"
Lenzke didn't reply, he just looked at Jeremy, and his face said everything. He had no remorse, and he was confident he was in the right. For a second, Jeremy softened in his judgment. Lenzke seemed so sincere, and so empathetic. It was hard to believe that he was quite as bad as Jeremy had imagined. For a second, he almost believed that there were extenuating circumstances, but only for a second.
"I don't know why I came here," he said, and stormed off.
Chapter 12
"So what can I do for you today, young lady?" Dr. Berry asked after MacKenzie came into her office. The large, exquisitely decorated room was designed so that a guest's attention was drawn to the exact center, which is where Dr. Berry sat in her chair behind a large desk.
A doctor's ego, MacKenzie thought.
She had seen Dr. Berry in the sociology class, but she hadn't paid her much attention. Here, it was unavoidable. Even the furniture had been altered to make Dr. Berry stand out. MacKenzie realized that her seat was several inches lower than Dr. Berry's, which, added to the fact that Dr. Berry was a fairly tall woman, made her dominate the room.
"I'm a hole communications major," MacKenzie explained, "and I've been doing some research on how the implants interact with our brains. I have some ideas about ways to expand the range of things we can do with implants, but I need to know a few things about the connection between the implant and the optic nerve." MacKenzie was very nervous about this meeting and wasn't completely convinced it was the right thing to do. She needed some information about the implants to follow a few of her theories, and Dr. Berry was the most accessible local expert on the subject.
Dr. Berry nodded. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" she asked.
"You visited our sociology class when that guy from one of the Communities was there. Phyllis -- my teacher -- told me that you were an expert on implants." That was as close as she wanted the conversation to get to talking about Jeremy, but Dr. Berry wouldn't have it.
"Speaking of your class, have you seen Mr. Mitchell since then?" Dr. Berry persisted. "He seems to have disappeared." MacKenzie got a lump in her throat. This woman seemed to be the center of all the 'coincidences' involving Jeremy recently. It was hard to predict what she might know and MacKenzie didn't want to have to lie to her.
"Is that the guy from the class?" MacKenzie asked innocently. "I'm sorry, I'm not very good with names. I'm somewhat of a computer fanatic. I don't recognize people too well."
"You recognized me," Dr. Berry said, and MacKenzie felt she was being interrogated. She had to play to the good doctor's weakness.
"You're hard to forget," she said in a shy voice.
"So what can I do for you?" Dr. Berry asked again.
"About the optic nerve, I don't understand how the connection with the implant works. Obviously the implant feeds visual information to the optic nerve for the visual interface, and we know there is some feedback from the optic nerve to the implant, but I'm curious how much."
"How much?" Dr. Berry asked. "Everything. When they designed the implant, they had two options for the connection with the optic nerve, exclusively one-way, or two-way. There was no sensible way to filter it, and no need. Since the implant needs some feedback from the user to be able to adjust brightness, sharpness and color, and to create the illusion of 3-D, the one-way connection was out of the question. So the implant gets everything the optic nerve has to tell it. But of course it isn't sophisticated enough to interpret that information the way the brain does. The microcomputer in the implant just disregards that part of the data stream."
But what if it doesn't? MacKenzie wondered.
"That's great," she said aloud. "All of our computer simulations of the implants don't register that feedback at all. Somebody in class asked about it one day and the professor said that was a physiology question, not computer science, but it got me thinking. Maybe my project will work after all."
"What are you trying to do?" Dr. Berry asked with some interest.
"I want to design an implant utility that can take photos. I think it would be cool to be able to take a snap shot of what we see and send
it as part of a message."
Dr. Berry shook her head. "Good luck. Nobody really knows how the brain processes all that information, so it's pretty ambitious to think that you could design an artificial system to do it. And besides, the implants aren't designed to do that. You'd need to design a new implant, and who would want to have a new one installed just to be able to take pictures?"
A new implant, MacKenzie thought. Maybe that's the secret.
"So why can we design an artificial system to give visual information to the brain, but we can't build one that uses the visual information the eye collects?" MacKenzie asked, wondering if she was playing this correctly. Hanna's the one who should be doing this kind of thing, she thought.
"That's just the point, really," Dr. Berry said. "The visual information we feed to the brain through the implant is quite different from what the brain normally receives from the eye, but somehow the brain figures it all out and we see the image. The implant can only do what we program it to do, but the brain has the ability to adapt to differing kinds of sensory input. It's really quite remarkable."
MacKenzie was lost in thought for a moment. Hanna would have said she was in genius mode. Dr. Berry just watched, patiently.
"You might talk to a friend of mine," she said in an odd tone of voice after more than a minute. "He does a lot of contract work for me when I need a special analysis of implant problems. He knows more about the technical side of implant communication than anyone. His name is Duncan Douglas." She paused and studied MacKenzie's face. "Do you know him?"
MacKenzie was certain she had lost some color in her face. It was just too coincidental. "Know him? I don't think so. I may have heard the name around the lab. But there's one more thing I'd like to ask of you. Can I borrow an implant? A new one."
"Sure, but why would you want to?" Dr. Berry asked. "There are computer simulations available that are 100 percent reliable. If you tried to set up an interface between a workstation and an actual implant, you'd probably get noise in the signal."
"I just want to be thorough -- just in case something was overlooked in the simulation programs."
"On one condition," Dr. Berry said. "When you're done with it, come back and tell me about your research. That is, if you find anything. And be sure to talk to Duncan."
"Deal," MacKenzie said
Dr. Berry's expression was inscrutable as she led MacKenzie to the storage closet, gave her a small, sealed package, and escorted her out. "I hope to see you again soon, MacKenzie," she said. "By the way, is that your proper name?"
"It's my last name. I don't like my first name, so everybody calls me MacKenzie. See you soon."
* * *
"How did it go with the dragon lady?" Hanna asked over a burger in the dorm cafeteria. Hanna and MacKenzie usually met there for lunch, and almost always for dinner.
MacKenzie laughed. "That's a good description of her, I think. She's formidable, has strange, unknown powers," she said this in an eerie voice, like a magician casting a spell, "and a very large and obvious weak spot."
"So where's she vulnerable?" Hanna asked, straining to get her mouth around the over-sized sandwich.
"An ego like this," MacKenzie replied, holding her hands out as far she could reach. "But I found out something really important." She paused until she had Hanna's full attention. "She knows Duncan."
Hanna's jaw dropped open, and then she giggled at herself for having such a stereotyped reaction. MacKenzie shook her head. "Do you think that's how she knew all those creepy things about Jeremy?" Hanna asked. "Do you think Duncan has been feeding her stuff?"
MacKenzie shrugged. "It's the best guess we've got so far. If not, it sure is a remarkable coincidence." MacKenzie didn't believe in coincidences, and Hanna knew it.
"I spoke with Jeremy today," Hanna said. "It looks like his new job, whatever it is, is going to keep him pretty busy for a while."
MacKenzie nodded. "I hope he's okay. Personally, I think he's in over his head."
"So are we," Hanna said. "I'm still wondering if I'm going to get kidnapped again. But you look as if you've got something else on your mind. What else is there?"
"I borrowed an implant from Dr. Berry," she said. "So far, all my computer work has been on the simulators at the lab, but I'm beginning to think that the simulators don't tell the whole story. This is starting to get too creepy, Hanna."
* * *
Whatever the agenda had been for Jeremy's 10:00 meeting with Peter, it had been torn up and discarded. From the moment he came back to the office Jeremy noticed a frightened calm among the other staff. He didn't know that this was the telltale sign that the boss was in a lather about something. Jeremy found out as soon as he walked into his office.
"Do you have any idea how much we paid to set up this office?" Peter asked Jeremy. "It's supposed to be a secret. Your training has already covered that -- several times, I believe. Maybe you haven't picked this up yet, but this is a secret operation, and right now you're one of our biggest secrets. So what do you do? Your first week on the job you run off on a private mission and bring two of your girlfriends into the office to impress them."
There were a lot of things Jeremy could have said, but he kept them in. He didn't think it was wise to argue with an angry person, much less an angry boss.
"And then this morning you go and visit Lenzke. I don't know what you're thinking, mister, but we don't let on who works for the agency. The network would just love to follow a few of us around and find out who all our contacts and co-workers are." Peter paced around the room.
"From now on, Mr. Mitchell," he said, turning to face him, "you're on a tight leash. The only reason I'm not getting rid of you," Jeremy thought that was an intentionally ambiguous choice of words, "is because that stupid stunt you pulled at the Chocolate Bar actually gave us some good information." Jeremy searched for any signs of a smile, or an "atta boy," but it didn't show.
And because nobody else can see the net spies, Jeremy thought, but it didn't do any good to argue.
"I know you're a young man, and this is all new to you, and you want to impress your girlfriends. But you need to grow up and get over it. This is serious business. The agency's work isn't for show and tell. Got it? We're dealing with a conspiracy that threatens the communications technology of the whole planet. There's no time for adolescent stunts."
Jeremy stood silent, waiting for the tirade to finish. Peter looked him over with something like approval.
"We want our agents to be risk takers. You've got that on your side, anyway. And I'm glad you can stand up to a good dressing down. But your training has only begun. You have no idea what you've gotten into."
"I'm transferring you to another office. Maybe you have what it takes to do field work, and maybe you don't. We'll find out. I'm sending you where you can be useful to me, and get some more training as well. The network has been trying to find our central operations center for a long time, and you're our only way to detect these spies they have. You leave immediately. There's a hovercar waiting for you outside."
Dismissed, Jeremy thought Peter should have said as he headed for the door.
* * *
"Amazing," MacKenzie muttered to herself for about the hundredth time as she continued to monitor the differences between the computer simulations of the implant's function and what the implant actually did.
"Hey, brain child," one of the other students said. The dull ones regarded that as an insult, but MacKenzie thought it fitting that even when they were being rude they recognized who really knew what was going on. "If you're not going to tell us what you're working on, can you at least keep the ejaculations to yourself?" MacKenzie didn't even hear him. She was so involved in her work that a fire might have singed her clothes before she noticed the heat.
She was running a series of comparisons between the implant she borrowed from Dr. Berry and the computer-generated model. They performed precisely the same on all the standard diagnostic tests. It wasn't until MacKenzie
started to simulate input from an optic nerve that the computer model and the actual hardware started to give different results. Whenever she entered any of the type of input the implant would use to adjust itself to its host, the computer model simply displayed an internal calibration routine. As far as the computer model was concerned, that information never made it onto the hole. The implant itself performed completely differently.
MacKenzie pushed her workstation to the limits of its remarkable abilities to find out what was going on. The artificial intelligence routines were searching everything ever written on the optic nerve and creating a database of its known, probable and even speculative functions. MacKenzie fed all of this into the computer model and, through an interface she designed herself, into the implant. The computer model's reaction was predictable: it didn't react at all, or it displayed the internal calibration routine. The implant, on the other hand, processed every type of input MacKenzie could throw at it and sent a corresponding signal into its communications relay.
The really disturbing thing was that all the normal functions -- all the things the implant and the computer model had in common -- corresponded to standard communications output. But whenever she fed simulated input from a human optic nerve into the implant, the resulting communications output had a completely different signature. MacKenzie could only think of one reason to give this output a different signature -- hiding it. Someone had designed the implant to feed visual information onto the hole with a carrier signature that every textbook on communications science said was not used or useful. Not only that, but the standard computer simulations of the implants were designed to cover over this feature.
The conspiracy was getting more and more complicated. MacKenzie called up the records on who designed the implant's communications routines, but the only record said "National Institute of Standards." The computer simulation, likewise, had been written by NIS. So what is it? Did Duncan infiltrate them or something? she wondered.
The Intruder Page 13
