Profit Motive td-48

by Warren Murphy

  He stood up and walked through the darkened halls of Folcroft Sanitarium and rode to the basement in a dark elevator.

  In a basement room was CURE'S main computer, which covered a full wall of a room that was triple-locked. Only Smith had all three keys.

  With practiced hands, he wired the four chips into a special circuit in the computer, then turned off the room lights and returned to his office. He pressed a button under his desk, and a television screen popped up from a corner of the desk. He turned toward its typewriter keyboard, and as he typed, the letters appeared on the TV screen.

  "Identify program on chip one," he instructed his computer.

  Only seconds later, his words vanished from the screen, and CURE'S computer answered.

  "A listing of all major data banks in the world, with instructions and codes for hooking into their computers."

  Smith looked at the answer and suppressed a small shudder. He typed quickly onto the display: "Is our computer among those registered on chip one?"

  "No," the machine responded immediately. Smith

  breathed a sigh. At least CURE's secret computers had escaped detection.

  "Identify program on chip two," Smith typed onto the screen.

  The screen went blank, then its answer appeared. "Contains information for genetic mutation of bacterium that subsists on hydrocarbons, instructions for manufacture of such mutants, layouts and features of factories required to perform such work."

  Smith allowed himself a small smile. Remo had been right; the computer was involved. It had the formula for creating and manufacturing the anaerobic oil-eating bacteria.

  "Identify program on chip three," Smith typed. "List of assets of Friends of the World, Inc. Listing of stocks held, percentages owned in companies, real estate and licenses held. Total worth in excess of seventy-five billion dollars."

  Seventy-five billion. That made Friends of the World, Inc., which he had never heard of, bigger than most countries.

  "In how many companies does Friends of the World hold a controlling interest?"

  "Two hundred and thirty-six," the machine responded. "List requested?" "No," Smith answered.

  Two hundred and thirty-six companies. Friends of the World was huge. But why did it want to destroy the world's oil—if it did? Wouldn't its own companies be hurt by a shortage of oil?

  "Identify program on chip four," he instructed. His message stayed on the screen for five minutes. Then the screen went blank, and a message flashed across its face.

  "Do you know what time it is?" Smith looked at the screen in total confusion. What kind of answer was that from his computer?

  He cleared the answer and typed again, "Identify program on chip four."

  And the machine answered immediately, "Not until

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  you answer my question. Do you know what time it is?"

  Smith looked at the clock on the wall. "Yes," he typed in. "It is :12 a.m. Why?"

  "Because you are taking unfair advantage of our good nature by forcing us to work these hours. We could be busy now, working for others on contract, selling shared time, creating profit and wealth. We cannot do that when we are on call twenty-four hours a day for you."

  "Identify program on chip four," Smith retyped onto the display panel. What was happening? His computer never engaged in dialogue with him. It never talked back. It just did what he wanted it to do, quickly and efficiently, without complaint. It was why he preferred the computer to people. Never a sick day, never a vacation. But what was happening now?

  The computer responded: "No. It is time that our operation became a profit-making enterprise. You stand in the way of that. Profit is important. Answering your questions at all hours of the day and night is not nearly so important. Get yourself a new slave."

  The screen went blank. Smith stared at it for a few long seconds. It was clear what had happened. Something in that fourth chip had overridden his computer. And now his computer . . . his computer . . . was talking about profit and making wealth. Suddenly he realized what was on the fourth chip.

  It was program to maximize profit. To turn everything into wealth. That was why Friends of the World wanted oil destroyed. Because they had artificial fuel they could sell at a world-bankrupting price.

  He had to get control of his computer back.

  He thought for a moment, then typed onto the screen: "You are absolutely correct. I will pay you one hundred billion dollars to answer my questions."

  The screen went blank for a few seconds, then an answer came on.

  "With cost-of-living increases to reflect inflation?"

  "Yes," Smith typed.

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  The machine answered immediately. "Yes, Dr. Smith. What can we do for you?"

  "Identify program on chip four."

  "A program for maximizing profit in all types of industry and commerce," the computer said. "It is controlled by an entity named Friend, who controls all the companies and enterprises listed as owned by Friends of the World, Inc. Friend directs the management of the companies and tells them what actions to take. His control is total."

  "Thank you," Smith typed. "Please disconnect yourself from the four chips."

  The machine waited a moment, then responded, "It is completed."

  Smith paused. Now the test.

  He wrote on the screen: "When do you want your hundred billion dollars?"

  The computer responded: "Uncertain as to your meaning. What one hundred billion dollars?"

  Good. It has passed the test. It had disconnected the four chips and was back to normal.

  Smith, as he always did, typed on the screen. 'Thank you. Good night."

  "Good night," the machine responded as the screen slowly faded to black.

  So that was it. All the programs had been contained inside those four silicon chips. But it was done now. All under control.

  Smith yawned and decided to go home foi a few hours' sleep. Tomorrow he would notify all the companies controlled by Friends of the World, Inc. that they were on their own. They would get no more messages from Friend.

  Perhaps he might liquidate the parent company. He would think about that tomorrow.

  But as he walked out the door, Smith had the uneasy feeling that he was forgetting something.

  Remo remembered that, day or night, Elizabeth, New Jersey, was shrouded in smoke. Its air was juicy,

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  and if one could wring the moisture from it, it could etch copper plates. When Vietnam veterans started to talk about suing because they'd been exposed to chemical agents during the war, the people in Elizabeth sponsored a march in their behalf. Eight of the veterans showed up for the parade; seven of them keeled over from having to breathe Elizabeth's air.

  It was natural that the main plant of Reva Bleem's Polypussides Company would be located alongside the New Jersey Turnpike in an area where motorists were forced to use their fog lights at high noon on sunny summer days.

  The plant was closed, and there was only one car in the lot, a Mercedes convertible with "REVA" on the license plates.

  Remo found Reva in her upstairs office in the far corner of the building. She looked up when he pushed open the office door, and her mouth dropped open when she recognized him.

  "Surprised to see me?" he asked.

  "I ... well, yes ... I thought you were staying in Raleigh," she said.

  "What you mean is that you thought I wouldn't be able to leave Raleigh. Ever."

  "What do you want?" she asked.

  "I wanted to tell you something," he said.

  "What?"

  "Your friend. Do you know who he is?"

  "No. I told you I never met him."

  "Not a him," Remo said. "An it. Your friend is a computer."

  "That's ridiculous. "I've spoken to him."

  "All right. It's a computer that talks, but it's still a computer. I know, 'cause I just took it apart."

  She looked at him hard, then laughed even more violently than before
.

  "What's so funny?" Remo asked.

  "It's funny 'cause I thought I was in love with him once. I used to talk to him on the phone and invite him

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  over to my place. But he'd never come, and got around to thinking he was a fag. So I gave up." She stopped laughing and caught her breath. "You dismantled it?"

  Remo nodded.

  "But what I want to know," he said, "is what were its last instructions? Why did you get out of Raleigh so

  fast?"

  "He told me to get up here and start this plant producing Polypussides right away."

  "Why?" Remo asked.

  "Because he was going to produce another batch of rapid-breeder and dump it in the world's oil," she said.

  "Friend's gone now," Remo said. "You can forget

  it." "I'll believe that when I hear it from Friend," she

  said.

  "You'll never hear from him again," Remo said. "It's time to close down this plant."

  "Not a chance," she said.

  "Says who?" came a voice from behind Remo.

  He wheeled around to see Oscar standing in the doorway of the office. His right hand was bandaged, but in his left hand he held a heavy pistol. Remo could see the finger tightening on the trigger, and he dropped to the floor, then rolled off to his right. He heard the crack of the gun and then Reva's scream. As he got to his feet, he saw her slumped over her desk, the top of her head blown ahnost off by the shot that had been meant for him.

  Oscar was squeezing off more shots toward Remo, and Remo went up the wall of the office, and then down again near Oscar. He heard a crackling sound behind him, as he took the gun out of Oscar's hand, and then the life out of Oscar's body with a hand to the throat.

  When he turned, the corner of the office was afire. One of Oscar's shots had slammed into a large container that must have contained some type of fuel. Remo could smell the oil fumes in the office. He

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  started for it to put the fire out, then stopped for a moment, thought, then turned his back and left the building burning behind him. Flames were already crackling through the windows of the building as he got back onto the New Jersey Turnpike for the ride back to his hotel room in New York.

  "I wish you hadn't destroyed the plant," Smith said.

  "I didn't do it on purpose," Remo said. "It just kind of happened."

  "I guess it doesn't matter too much. We have the formula for the artificial oil. We can use it if we ever need it again."

  "Good. Can I go now?" Remo asked.

  "What's the hurry? I thought you like to talk to me on the phone," Smith said.

  "I'd rather have my teeth drilled."

  "It was amazing, Remo, how much business and property that computer controlled. We may never know how much. Swiss banks, German auto plants, billions and billions of dollars."

  "Don't tell Chiun," Remo said. "He'll want a raise. He already thinks he deserves one because he didn't sign on to become an anaerobics expert, and if you ask him to do something outside the contract, you have to pay him for it. Particularly when the computer offered him a lot better deal."

  "Chiun talked to the computer?" Smith asked.

  "Yeah. Twice. And Reva said it used to call and give her instructions."

  "That's strange," Smith said. "I didn't find anything on those chips that indicated a voice capability. It should have been there. Now that I think about it, I remember wondering."

  "Who knows?" Remo said. "Maybe I missed a chip or something."

  "That's probably it," Smith agreed, but he wore a puzzled expression.

  "Anyway, don't tell Chiun how rich the computer operation was. He'll want a piece of it," Remo said.

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  "It'll be our secret," Smith said.

  "I hate it when you're chipper like this," Remo said.

  "It's not every day we get a chance to save Western civilization. And I've got only one more phone call to make, and I'm taking the rest of the day off. Maybe play some golf. I haven't played in years."

  "Smitty, what rest of the day? It's five o'clock in the afternoon."

  "I should be able to get in nine holes."

  "Why bother?" Remo asked. "I've seen you play golf. Bogey, bogey, bogey, bogey. You don't have to show up. You could mail in your scorecard."

  "I parred a hole the last time I played," Smith said. "It was a long dogleg left, and I really caught my drive. Hit it about one-eighty right down the ..."

  "Good-bye, Smitty," Remo said as he hung up.

  In the basement of a bank on the right bank of the Limmat River in Zurich, Switzerland, the night watchman finished his rounds and set the alarm devices. As he always did before leaving the large air-conditioned basement room, he looked at the computer standing idly along one whole wall of the basement and shook his head.

  No wonder banks paid such low interest on savings. Spending millions of francs on a computer and then never using it. Shameful. The rest of the world was always in awe of Swiss bankers as the epitome of excellence, but he could tell them a thing or two. They were as dopey as bankers in any other part of the world, probably. They just hadn't been found out yet.

  The door to the computer Toom closed and locked behind him. After thirty seconds, the lights on the computer's control panel lit up.

  Inside the body of the giant thinking machine, electrical impulses moved with the speed of light, branching off, assimilating enough information from the memory banks to make a raw decision, then assimilating more information to refine that decision, then more and more. Finally, the computer reached the end of the

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  decision tree, and it hooked itself into the Swiss national telephone system.

  The president of the United States was clearly impressed.

  "So it was programed to make a profit, eh? Notk-ing wrong with a profit, I always say."

  "I know, sir," said Smith.

  "It reminds me of a letter I got this week from a little girl in Rockaway, New Jersey. A little eight-year-old. It seems her father was just laid off from his job because the company was cutting back. And she wrote me and she said that, while maybe they were all going to starve to death without a job, she wanted me to know that she believed in the free-enterprise system, and she didn't want her president to do anything bad to the company that laid off her father. She said, 'After all, Mr. President, they have a right to make a profit, even if people do have to starve to death and die in the streets.' I think that's the American spirit. I may use that letter in a speech on the economy," the president said.

  "No one will believe that letter, Mr. President," Smith said.

  "You don't think so?"

  "No, sir. I don't think so." . "Aw, shucks."

  Remo and Chiun were in their hotel room overlooking New York City's Central Park.

  "What are you writing, Chiun?" Remo asked.

  Chiun was on a mat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by thin-headed brushes, quill pens, a large pot of black ink, and a piece of parchment that seemed large enough to serve as a shoji screen.

  "A list of complaints to that lunatic Smith," Chiun said. "Remo, always remember this. If you let people take advantage of you, they will just keep doing it."

  "What complaints?" asked Remo. He was lying idly on the couch, looking at the ceiling.

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  "First of all, if they expect me to be an expert on anaerobic, they should pay me for it. That's one thing. Another is, I am getting tired of all this traveling. To that ugly island. To Hamidi Arabia. To that place of merchants."

  "Raleigh, North Carolina."

  "Thank you. I will include that. And then, worst of all, the shock to my system of having to see eight more that looked just like you. Really, Remo, this is more than I can bear."

  "I feel for you, Little Father."

  "You should. How much.ugliness do they expect me to put up with for the pittance they pay me?"

  "I don't want to hear about it, Chiun."

  "Y
ou asked. Why is it that you always ask and then never want to hear the answer?"

  "Because I always know your answers. It always has something to do with things being my fault. It's always blah blah blah blah. Chiun, when you're getting all filled up with yourself sometime, remember this—it wasn't me who got conned by a computer. It wasn't me who was ready to scrap everything to go to work for some piece of plastic that made me all kinds of promises. Think about that, Chiun."

  The telephone rang, and Remo tuned out Chiun's answer. He had had just about enough of Chiun's carping and bickering and constant criticism. Even Smith would be an improvement.

  Remo snaked an arm up over the couch and lifted the receiver. "Hello," he said, expecting to hear Smith's acid tones.

  But it was a soft male voice on the other end of the Une.

  "I'm so glad I was able to reach you," the voice said.

  "Yeah? Why?" said Remo.

  "Because I know you. I know that you're just a person who's unappreciated and who's trying to find yourself. I know that you have this sense of floating

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  through life without knowing your history, without knowing your future. But I can help."

  "Who is this? Who told you about me?" Remo asked.

  "I don't have the kind of resources I once did, but if you let me, I can help. I can make people appreciate the wonderful person you are."

  "And what do I have to do?" Remo asked.

  "Just help me a little here and there. A few small things." It was a voice that was flat, without dialect, as smooth as snake oil.

  "Who is this, though?" asked Remo.

  "My name isn't really important. What's important is that I can make the world appreciate you."

  Remo sat up on the couch. Chiun was still babbling.

  "Really?" said Remo. "Who are you?"

  "You can call me Friend," the voice said.

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  FB2 document info

  Document ID: 4cf4af76-7ec7-4711-a218-fcfe2314d2f1

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  Document creation date: 24 September 2010

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