Operation Sherlock

by Bruce Coville

  “Well, then, come in,” said Dr. Remov. He stood aside so the gang could enter. “You know my friend, Dr. Mercury, I presume?”

  Dr. Armand Mercury, short and round, heaved himself to his feet and came waddling out of the living room. “Of course,” he said jovially, tucking a large black pipe into his pocket. “We met at Dr. Hwa’s little get-acquainted party. How good to see you all again.”

  “I must say,” said Dr. Remov as he led the way to the living room, “I’m rather happy with the houses they’ve provided for us. When Dr. Hwa told me we would be living on an abandoned Air Force base, I hardly expected anything this pleasant.”

  “Officers,” said Dr. Mercury, picking up a bowl that sat next to his chair. “They always did know how to live right. You know that, Stanley.”

  To the gang’s astonishment, Dr. Mercury then took his pipe from his pocket, dipped it into the bowl, and began blowing bubbles.

  “Lovely things, aren’t they?” he asked of no one in particular. “Always was partial to ’em.”

  “Now,” said Dr. Remov, ignoring his friend, “what brings you here?”

  “We wanted to know if you could help us trace a message,” said Roger. “Someone is sending threatening notes to our terminals, and we want to find out what’s going on.”

  “Dear me,” said Dr. Mercury. There was a twinkle in his voice. “You don’t suppose it’s G.H.O.S.T., do you, Stanley?”

  The five youngsters looked at him in puzzlement. “Ghost?” asked Rachel.

  “This is no joking matter, Armand,” said Dr. Remov sternly. Turning to the kids, he added, “Despite Dr. Mercury’s jollity, G.H.O.S.T. is a real group. The name is an acronym standing for General Headquarters for Organized Strategic Terrorism.”

  “Balderdash!” said Dr. Mercury, who had just produced a remarkably large bubble. “The whole idea is nonsense, no more real than Bigfoot and UFOs. The group doesn’t exist, any more than their mysterious agent”—and here he wiggled his fingers and made a spooky face—”Black Glove.”

  “I tell you, it does!” cried Remov, his face growing red. “And it’s fools like you who make them so powerful, Armand. You’ll sit there saying they don’t exist until the day they take over the world.”

  “Pay no attention to Stanley,” said Dr. Mercury, poking his finger through a bubble that was hovering in front of his round face. “He tends to get overexcited. It goes with the freckles.”

  “That,” said Dr. Remov in a low but deadly voice, “is about as scientific as saying that fat people are always jolly.”

  “Low, Stanley,” said Dr. Mercury, sounding hurt. “That was very low.” Picking up his bowl of bubble water, he headed out of the room. “I’ll leave you people to your own devices,” he said as he disappeared into the kitchen.

  Behind his freckles Dr. Remov’s face was still red. “Two things,” he said tersely. “One: You should know that G.H.O.S.T. is a real group, and their chief operative is an agent named Black Glove. Like my portly friend Dr. Mercury, many people who should know better do not believe that either the group or the spy actually exist. They claim it’s all some nutball conspiracy theory. But I saw too much in my years in intelligence work—intelligence as in spies, not computers—to believe that. The group is real, and a grave menace to the peace of the world.”

  Having gotten that out of his system, Dr. Remov seemed to relax. “The second thing is, I think it highly improbable that your mysterious messages are coming from G.H.O.S.T. Though the group might be interested in this project, I can’t think of why it would stoop to threatening you. More likely it’s some prankster here on the island.”

  Dr. Remov took a sip of some heavy amber liquid. “Come here,” he said. “I want to show you something.”

  He led the way to an adjoining room, where he turned on a computer terminal. “Watch these codes carefully,” he said. “I will show them to you only once.”

  Fingers flying over the keyboard, Dr. Remov typed in a series of numbers. Wendy, watching Rachel watch the keyboard, was satisfied that their memory expert had recorded Dr. Remov’s movements.

  A map appeared on the monitor. Numerous red circles were scattered across it, some solid, some blinking.

  “This shows us all the terminals on the island,” said Dr. Remov. He squinted at it for a second, then said, “My goodness. Look at that!”

  The gang gathered closer.

  “Look at what?” asked Ray at last.

  “That!” said Dr. Remov, pointing a long finger at a certain circle. “That shouldn’t be there.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Wendy.

  “Because I looked at the chart before.”

  “And memorized it?”

  He looked pained. “Of course. And don’t tell me I couldn’t have done it, because just now I watched you making sure your friend memorized the code I used to pull this up. So you know it can be done, even if you can’t do it yourself.”

  Wendy took a step back. This guy was spooky!

  “Now,” said Dr. Remov, “that mark is located in one of the abandoned housing units about a mile up the road. I would wager it’s where your messages are coming from.”

  Suddenly the red circle began to blink.

  “You’re in luck!” cried Dr. Remov. “It looks like your mysterious messenger is at work right now!”

  Halfway across the island a figure wearing black gloves slipped into the ultra-restricted basement of the computer center. The spy smiled. All the advance preparation had paid off. In fact, things were going so smoothly, the job was almost boring.

  Unlocking the door of the central chamber, Black Glove entered the super-cooled room where the computer was housed. What a delight this machine was; a true monument to the mind of man! All it would take was the right scientists, the right programming—the right brains gathered in the right place—and this machine could change the world.

  In fact, in all the world only one computer could match the potential power of this one. Of course, the necessary scientists could never be convinced to work on that machine. They would be appalled at the very idea.

  But that didn’t matter anymore. With this transmitter in place, their work would be sent to that other computer. Black Glove’s smile grew broader. If the Project Alpha scientists only knew what they were really creating! It would change the world all right—but not in the way they expected.

  Once at the heart of the computer, the spy made a final check of the transmitter to verify that its switches were set properly. It would have been more comfortable to do that outside the chilly chamber, but also more risky.

  Everything was in order. Time to begin the final installation.

  Though shivering, the agent chuckled contentedly while working. How these smug scientists would react if they knew there was an electronic spy in the very heart of their great computer; knew that soon every keystroke they made, every idea they recorded, would be sent elsewhere!

  The task was nearly finished. Black Glove gave the wires a final check, then applied the carefully designed cover that would hide the transmitter from anyone doing repair work here.

  That done, the spy scurried back to the door, peeled off the black gloves, stuffed them into the pocket of a white lab coat and slipped out of the refrigerated area.

  Now Black Glove made no effort to stay quiet, to avoid being seen. Without the transmitter to conceal, being seen was no problem—especially if anyone who might spot you would instantly recognize your familiar face, and automatically assume that you were here for a good reason.

  The Mad Messenger

  With barely a word to Dr. Remov, the gang went barrelling out of his house and down the road.

  Despite their speed, when they arrived at the house to which their new friend had directed them, they found that whoever had been using its terminal had already fled.

  Even so, it wasn’t long before Dr. Remov was proven correct in his belief that the mysterious messenger had been in action again. When Trip Davis arrived ho
me that night, he found the message light blinking on the terminal in his bedroom. Nervously he punched in the code to call up the message. The words Someone knows what you did! flickered onto his screen.

  He was not surprised when they disappeared before he could get his parents to come in and see them.

  “A stakeout,” said Trip the next morning as he paced back and forth in the Phillipses’ living room. “That’s what we need. A stakeout.”

  “I’d love a steak,” said Paracelsus. “If I could eat.”

  “I’d settle for a burger,” said Wendy. “But what are you really suggesting, Trip?”

  “A constant watch on that house, to see who comes and goes.”

  “Sounds tiring,” said Rachel. “Why don’t you come here for a minute?”

  Leading the others into the computer room (with Trip carrying Paracelsus, who begged not to be left behind), Rachel ran her fingers over the keyboard. A few seconds later the map Dr. Remov had shown them appeared on the screen.

  “You’ve got to teach me how to do that,” said Wendy.

  “It’s a simple code.”

  “I don’t mean how to call up the map. I mean how to remember things that way.”

  “That’s a simple code, too. It’s a tag system. Anyone can do it with a little training. It has more to do with practice than with intelligence.”

  “I’m intelligent,” said Paracelsus. “Alas, it’s all a fraud.”

  “Which one of you programs that thing?” demanded Ray.

  “Why?” asked Roger.

  “Because one of you has a sick sense of humor, and I want to know who it is!”

  “It’s a secret,” said Rachel. “Now listen. As I see it, we have two choices. We can set up a stakeout at the house, which would be boring and time consuming. Or we can set up something right here so that as soon as the light for that house begins to blink, we’ll hear an alarm. Then we can shoot over and try to catch our mysterious messenger in action. I figure if two of us go sign out a pair of dune buggies, we could get from here to that abandoned house in just a couple of minutes when we need to.” She frowned. “That’s another mystery we need to figure out.”

  “What?” asked Ray.

  “Why we can still sign those things out after what happened yesterday,” said Wendy, remembering the conversation she had had with Mr. Swenson the night before.

  “Exactly,” agreed Rachel. She turned back to the terminal. “Of course, there’s a chance this might not work. But it seems more productive than a stakeout. And if it doesn’t do the trick, we can always go to Plan B.”

  “What’s Plan B?” asked Ray.

  Rachel smiled. “A stakeout.”

  “Sounds fine to me,” said Trip. The others quickly agreed.

  “Great,” said Rachel. “Wendy and I will go get the dune buggies. You guys can set up something to monitor the screen, then get back to work on Sherlock.”

  “SETBACK!”

  The word was written in large, shaky letters that covered an entire page of the fanatic’s journal.

  Jaws clenched, eyes steely, she stared at the page for a while. Then she turned it over and began to write in smaller letters at the top of the next page:

  “My plans have been delayed. This is upsetting, but not entirely bad. After all, the reason for the delay is of my own doing. I have broadened my goals, and as a result, it will take me longer than I had expected to complete my preparations.

  “The delay will be worth it, for the end result will be far greater than I had initially dared to dream.”

  She paused and stared straight ahead. The room was dark, the wall bare. But to her fevered eyes it was like a movie screen, where the action she was considering could be played over and over again, savored in all its fearful glory.

  It started with a package—a simple package no bigger than a man’s head.

  A package placed in just the right location.

  And then there was the timer. It would tell the package when to do its job.

  And then there would be the explosion, a slow blossoming of fire and terror that would rip through the island, breaking it into a billion tiny pieces. So many pieces they could never be put back together again.

  The fanatic could picture it down to the last detail.

  “It’s a good feeling, this knowing what one has to do. I am at peace with the world now. I actually feel happy, knowing I will do something important before I die.

  “And I will have to die to accomplish this. Everyone on the island has to die. It took me a while to realize that. But the truth is that simply destroying the computer is not enough. It could be built again. Instead I must destroy the fools who would create such a monstrosity to begin with.

  “So my bomb must be far more powerful than I first realized, lest this devil machine have a chance to be born again.

  “For that reason, I see now that this delay is not really a setback at all, but a step forward. It is upsetting only because I am so eager to carry out my holy task. But I can wait, I must wait, until I can make sure that the bomb is great enough, powerful enough, to do what must be done…”

  “Hi, guys!” yelled Paracelsus, when Wendy and Rachel came through the door. “I’m watching the screen for you.”

  Rachel gave her brother a questioning look.

  “I put him in front of the monitor,” said Roger. “Then I got him to focus on the red circle that represents our friend’s computer. Then I programmed him to yell bloody murder if it began to blink.”

  “Bloody murder!” yelled Paracelsus. “Bloody murder!”

  The group ran into the room where Paracelsus was keeping watch.

  “Heh-heh-heh,” chuckled the bronze head. “I just wanted to see if you were paying attention.

  “Roger!” cried Rachel and Wendy together.

  “What are you looking at me for?” asked Roger, his face the picture of wounded innocence. “It was Paracelsus who called you in here.”

  “Yeah,” said Wendy, “but unless there’s been some great breakthrough in programming that will let him think for himself, it was you who put the words in his mouth.”

  Roger smiled. “Guilty as charged. But I’d like to point out something: You all reacted just as I expected you would.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Trip.

  “You ran in here.”

  “So?”

  “So what good does it do us to run in here? What we should do when Paracelsus sounds the alarm is head straight for the dune buggies so we can catch the mad messenger before he or she has a chance to get out of that house again. If that had been a real alarm, the time we wasted running in to check the screen might have meant the difference between catching this guy and losing him.”

  “You’ve got a point,” said Wendy reluctantly. “Yes,” said Paracelsus. “But the way he combs his hair covers it up.”

  “What did you use to program him?” asked Ray. “Old joke books?”

  “As a matter of fact, we did,” said Rachel. “At least, one of us did.” She looked at Roger meaningfully.

  “It’s part of the chatter factor I mentioned,” said Roger.

  “That brings up an idea I had for Sherlock,” said Trip. “I call it the random factor.”

  “Sounds interesting,” said Wendy. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Well, we’re going to make this a highly logical program, right?”

  Everyone nodded their agreement.

  “Okay, that’s fine as far as it goes. But it seems to me that that very logicalness might be one of the limitations of a thinking machine. One of the things that makes humans different from computers is the way our brains are built. A computer has a massive memory, and it can get at anything in there—but usually only in a very structured, very formal way.

  “Now think about the human brain. We have a massive memory, too, only we don’t always realize it because we can’t always get stuff back out when we want it. According to my father, everything we ever experience is stored away
in part of the brain called the subconscious.”

  “I thought your mother was the scientist,” said Roger.

  “She is. My father is an artist. But if you don’t think artists are interested in the way the brain works, you’ve got another think coming. Dad has spent a lot of time studying creativity—which is what I was coming around to.

  “The problem with human memory is we can’t always get at stuff when we want it. It’s like having files in your computer that you can’t access. But what does happen down there is that things scramble around, kind of bumping into each other. That’s why your dreams are so weird, such a jumble of images. It’s also one of the ways fresh ideas are born: the under-brain putting old things together in new ways.

  “That’s why some of the most brilliant thinkers get their best ideas in dreams. The things running around down in the bottom of their brains have connected in some new and exciting way.”

  “What does this have to do with the computer?” asked Wendy.

  “Well, why can’t we program Sherlock that way? Should we have him use logic? Of course. But how about programming him to try illogical solutions to problems, too? He might just end up being brilliant!”

  No one said anything for a moment as they tried to digest what Trip had been telling them.

  It was Paracelsus who broke the silence.

  “Bloody murder!” he screamed. “Bloody murder!”

  The kids pulled their dune buggies to a stop about a hundred yards from the house. Even though the engines were almost completely silent, they didn’t want to chance the sound of a wheel on gravel alerting their quarry.

  “Trip, you and Wendy circle around to the far side of the house,” said Roger. “Let’s not lose this dude through the back door.”

  The two of them, one towering over the other, moved quietly but rapidly through the long row of bushes that bordered the back lawns of the abandoned houses.

  Roger glanced at Ray and Rachel.

  They nodded their readiness.

  As he began to lead them forward, Roger found himself wishing the group had thought this through a little further. What were they going to do with this character if they caught him? Should they actually go into the house and try to detain him? Or would it be enough just to try to get a look at whoever it was and then go to Dr. Hwa?