by Paul Dueweke
CHAPTER THIRTY
Robot Spies
Elliott read the unsigned note in disbelief, then reread it in swelling anger: “You’re being surveilled by COPE. They think you’re an anarchist. You may be in danger. I’ll call you at the appropriate time. Please destroy.”
The entrenched tactics of bygone tyrannies skulked from the note and filled the air with acrid vapors. This was an artifact of centuries past. Yet this was the twenty-first century, the age of freedom and enlightenment. This memorial to the age of monarchs eulogized a palace guard protecting the privileged, reaffirming the ageless dogma of “might makes right.”
Elliott envisioned some faceless bureaucrat signing an order to surveil one Elliott T. Townsend for expressing an opinion contrary to the monarch’s. He was just a name on some list of anarchists in a computer file somewhere with gigabytes of other trivia. He considered how it might have happened, maybe with some baseball slugger newly arrived in Congress, knocking mud from his cleats by doing a favor for a COPE bureaucrat to expand some surveillance program, each the master of the other—and now each the master of him.
He’d spent his career in the quest for truth, pure truth, the secrets of the building blocks of the universe. It was not the truth of convenience, not the sensational truth so easily dispensed by his accusers. But what were they accusing him of? Anarchy? He was no anarchist. He felt some ubiquitous organization tightening its coils about him. Dobbs’s eyes suddenly confronted him.
He entered the TV room where Martha was watching The 404 Place, a late morning soap that boasted of being the most prolific political career-launching medium in the industry. It had introduced over two-dozen national political figures to the public. Entertainers with political ambitions actually paid NBC to make appearances on the show.
“A few days ago you said something about them hurting me. I thought you were just angry. What were you talking about?”
“Ted, what’s the matter? What happened?”
“You remember that woman I went to see at the CBS office, and then I went to have lunch with her the next day?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I got this note from her today. She says COPE is surveilling me.”
“You mean somebody is following you? Are you sure?” Martha questioned in disbelief. Her eyes darted from one window to another.
“Yes, I guess that’s what it means. But the other day, you said somebody could hurt me. Were you talking about COPE?”
“I read an article a long time ago, but then I never heard anything else about it. Some reporter said that COPE uses illegal means to monitor people, and he even said there were several unsolved murders suspiciously linked to COPE. But that was the only thing I ever heard about it. The story just disappeared, and I forgot about it. It sort of reminded me of those CIA stories we used to read about a long time ago.”
“But you didn’t really forget about it, did you,” Elliott replied. “You really believed it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have said that to me.”
“Elliott, I new there was going to be trouble. You’re just too outspoken … and too old fashioned. Things just aren’t the way they used to be. You’re acting like nothing has happened in the last forty years—like we’re still back in the twentieth century. Times have changed. It’s a more mellow time now.”
“You call that stuff you watch on TV mellow? The times aren’t mellow, Martha. But everybody’s brains are mellow. The people running the country sure aren’t mellow—just everybody’s brains. I don’t know if its mellow or jello. All I know is that I’m living in a world of bullshit. And now this. I’m being watched like a common criminal.”
“You aren’t a criminal but you are suspicious. You’re so far out in left field or right field or somewhere, that people are suspicious of you. You’re just going to hurt yourself, and me too. This foolishness of yours has to stop. I didn’t think you could get into trouble that fast. I thought it would take you months. You’ve done it in just a few days. I’m impressed.”
Elliott wanted to ignore Martha’s sarcasm, but it reflected an image painfully close to reality. Without responding, he turned and walked away.
His logical mind drove him toward trying to determine the seriousness of his situation and the capability of his surveillant. A simple test might tell him about whoever was assigned to tail him, if, in fact, it wasn’t all just a ruse. He backed his car out of the driveway, trying to nonchalantly scan the neighborhood for something unusual. The only misplaced object he noticed was a small gray car parked nearby, but it could easily have been one of the many robotic delivery cars that plied the streets.
As he started down the street, the small gray car came to life and start to follow him. When he stopped, it also stopped. When he moved, it waited a discrete time and then followed. Elliott was amused by the antics of his robotic shadow. It had clearly been programmed to follow him and probably report his comings and goings to some central computer. He drove around the block and returned to his driveway. The little gray car politely returned to its spot. He knew that he would have no trouble evading this spy at the desired time. If this was the best COPE could do, he could safely ignore them until they tired of his mundane brand of anarchy and went home.
