The Egg Code

by Mike Heppner

  “Corporal Terrence R. Daley, sir!” the officer called out.

  Nixon winced a little, the sound getting to him. “Right, right.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Take the young Miss Tree out to see King Timahoe. I think it’s sunning in the yard with Pat.”

  The officer nodded and left through a gap in the curtains. Watching the young girl follow, Nixon smiled and patted his cheeks. She seemed like a good kid. He always believed that a strong woman should know how to stick up for herself. Pat was a fighter—stable, impervious. He’d tried to instill these same values in his own daughters, urging them to never settle for mediocrity, to marry up, to hold out until the best proposal came along. Nothing would’ve made him happier than to see Trish or Julie married to a future president of the United States. Ed Cox, maybe not—but David Eisenhower, maybe!

  “Kay, what can I get for you?” He motioned toward a tiny wet bar, where an array of liquor bottles stood in a scattered assortment. “A little Drambuie? Maybe a nice mimosa for the summah-time.” He snapped his fingers and jerked his head from side to side—his unfunny impression of a swinging hipster.

  “Nothing, Mr. President, thank you.” Kay blushed, then lied: “I’ve been sick for the past few weeks. Doctor’s orders.”

  “Aw, what do those dumb Jews know?” He laughed but quickly dropped the subject, obliging himself with a swig of whiskey. Kay looked down; all who knew the president were well aware of the depths to which his excessive drinking could lead. “You’ll have to forgive me,” he said. “Things have been rather hectic around here lately.”

  “I appreciate you doing this, sir.”

  “Doing what?” His eyes flashed dangerously. Kay had seen that look before, in those old photos of Nixon the prosecutor trying to trap a Red in a lie.

  “Coming down here. Going through with this ceremonial nonsense. I’m sure it’s probably the last thing on your mind.”

  “Not at all.” He slicked back his hair, which seemed to hover over his head like a mantle. “This is the job, you know . . . the presidency! Hand out awards. Smile at the little girl. Never mind what the Russians are doing—it’s not important. That’s for the Congress to decide.”

  Kay interrupted, determined to keep the president on course. “Listen, I know you don’t want to talk about this, but a lot has been going on lately, and my people need to know whether their resource commitments will still be honored in the event of an executive shake-up. The specs on the TCP configuration have all been drawn up, and I’d like to start working on an encryption plan before we go ahead with the protocol.”

  Nixon straightened in his seat. Even with the administration crumbling around him, he still managed to keep a few steps ahead of his advisors. This was the great irony, after all the sins of Watergate: Nixon was a good president. “There’s not going to be any executive shake-up, Kay. We’re going to ride this through. The Congress may despise me, but the American people don’t.”

  “You’ve got a lot of supporters out there.” Kay—a mother, after all— reached out and patted his hand.

  “Of course I do.” He crossed his legs, his pants riding high above his bare ankles: the president had forgotten to wear his socks today. “Do you know what this is all about? This is about the eastern liberal establishment sticking it to Dick Nixon. I tell you, Kay—and you ought to know because this is your old stomping ground—but I can smell a Kennedy all over this.”

  “Well . . .” Kay hedged, resisting the drag of Nixon’s paranoia. “Who knows . . .”

  “I did not like Jack,” he asserted, clenching his jaw. “I respected Jack. I respected his intelligence. But I did not like him. Bobby was the devil incarnate, and I did not shed one genuine tear when he died. But Teddy . . . Teddy is a punk.” His face softened as he remembered all the slights and insinuations that had plagued him, probably ever since grade school. “Those Kennedy boys sure knew how to work the media. That’s always been the Republican Party’s problem—bad public relations. You’d think that the Democrats were the party of creativity and progressive thought. What did Jack Kennedy ever do for the space race? ‘We will put a man on the moon’? Give me a break. NASA was an Eisenhower program. ARPA was an Eisenhower program. All of those scientists were Eisenhower appointees. Eisenhower did more for science and creativity than any other president this century. Turn on the TV, all you hear about is how dull the fifties were.” He looked up at Kay; his pupils were big, and Kay thought for one terrible moment that the president was stoned. “The 1950s were the most adventurous decade in this nation’s history. The liberals don’t want you to know this. They’d rather have their big bongo freakout.”

  “You’re absolutely right, Mr. President.” Staunchly apolitical, Kay kept her responses limited to what Nixon wanted to hear. “For too long, the Republicans have been painted as the party of warmongers. Eisenhower loved his scientists more than his generals.” Getting no response, she went on: “That’s how it worked in those days. Researchers always knew that if you needed money, the best source was the Defense Department.” She stopped, suddenly unsure of herself. “Are we . . . ?”

  Nixon frowned, unable to grasp Kay’s meaning; a light dawned, and he laughed, slapping the table. “No! God, no. This room is squeaky clean. Just like the rest of my administration.”

  For ten minutes, they discussed plans for the network project—a national priority, Nixon believed, and one he preferred to keep a secret. The liberals in the news media always misinterpreted anything remotely connected to the Defense Department. Their careers depended on making the president look like an idiot. The beauty of the network, he realized, was that it allowed other voices to challenge the liberal stranglehold—educated men, passionate about their country; generals and physicists and engineers, not these glorified cue-card readers who understood nothing beyond their own ambition. Most journalists were too dumb to understand network technology; bored by the subject, they’d go on to something else, leaving the government to conduct its business where it really belonged—in private.

  Wrapping up the conversation, he pressed a floor-mounted button with the heel of his shoe and buzzed Lydia back into the briefing room, followed by King Timahoe and the two aides. Lydia’s clothes were stained with grass, and Kay could see russet-colored dog hair sticking to her fingers. She must have given the poor thing quite a workout. Lydia always preferred the company of animals to humans. Animals obeyed, plain and simple; they were a kind of living art.

  “Excellent,” Nixon said, barely noticing the dog. “I think we’re about ready to join the reporters in the other room.” From his desk, he brought out a velvet jewelry box and set it on the table. The copper-plated medal inside looked chintzy, mass-produced.

  “Wait!” Lydia wailed, kicking King Timahoe in the rump. “You haven’t seen my trick yet.”

  “Your trick?” In a playful mood, Nixon moved around the desk and stood over the girl. Most children disliked the president, sensing an awkwardness that no amount of effort could disguise. “I thought it was King Timahoe’s trick.”

  “It’s my trick because I showed him how to do it,” Lydia said, coaxing the dog into an empty chair. Going through her pockets, she pulled out three acorn shells and arranged them on the desk, inches away from the creature’s paws.

  “Ah, a shell game,” Nixon laughed, playing to the adults in the room. “Well, do your worst. I’ve always been a sucker for certain failure.”

  With Lydia’s help, King Timahoe clumsily mixed the shells. Nixon reached for the one on the right, adding a little joke—“Always loyal to the cause”—as he flipped it over and looked inside. “Nope . . . Guess I’ll have to compromise. I don’t like to do it, but I’ll move to the center.” Nothing under that one, either. Confused, he winked at Kay and smiled. “Ah, well, the lefties win again.” When the third shell came up empty, he turned to Lydia and asked, “Well, where’s the pea?”

  “He’s just a dog,” she said, rolling her eyes. “He can’t do it with the pea.”
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  On cue, King Timahoe yawned, yapping its mouth. Both Bull and Ziegler lurked in a far, dark corner of the room, other things on their minds.

  “That’s wonderful!” Nixon laughed. “Oh, I like that trick.” Taking the medal from the box, he gently draped it around Lydia’s neck. “Little Miss Tree, I hereby proclaim you an honorary Republican for life!”

  Reaching behind her head, she freed her ponytail from the strap as a noisy group of reporters began to assemble on the other side of the curtain. Someone pointed at their watch and said, “Let’s go.” Solemnly and without a smile, Lydia followed Kay and the president into the next room.

  Women in Science

  1988

  Old and alone, Kay rode in the back of a taxi heading west on I-94, past the outskirts of metro Detroit. Her contact was a Gloria representative named Jersey Crater, who taught at the University of Michigan, just ten miles down the road. Together, the university and the GC managed the NSFNET backbone; IBM and MCI both contributed equipment, man-hours, headache and worry, their efforts aimed at constructing a network of 1.544 Mbps T-1 fiber optics, able to serve thirteen sites across the country. For nearly twenty years, the network had remained the domain of special interests—academics primarily, plus a few thousand enthusiasts who traded tips on public-access bulletin boards. With the new system in place, things would change. It was time to go commercial.

  The headquarters for the Gloria Corporation were set back in a thicket of spruce and pine. A low sign marked the entrance: GLORIA, it said, a squat little box, glowing from within. Once inside, Kay was greeted by Crater, an unhealthy-looking young man who walked with a stoop, stopping sometimes to shake his leg before moving on. “Bad circulation,” he muttered as they rode the elevator two flights down to sub-level B. “This job’ll kill you.”

  Past the elevators, they entered a computer room, where a half-dozen technicians gathered around a drafting table. Quiet men, they smiled at Kay with exaggerated formality, then returned to work. Near the back of the room, she noticed a little girl dressed in rugged clothing—overalls, black leather boots. Her hair was cut short, and her big round face quaked tearfully as she sat cross-legged in her chair. “Daddy,” she cried.

  “Hey, K-ster,” Crater said, picking her up and setting her back down on a counter. Catching his breath, he rifled through a messy pile of charts and pulled out a stack of graph paper. “Katie’s going to help us out today,” he explained. “There’s a problem with the access port. We need tiny hands.”

  Working quickly, he sketched a diagram, lines and crosses representing wires and circuits. The girl hopped down and peered at the drawing. “That’s not what it looks like,” she said.

  The pen slowed; Crater frowned, annoyed. “What do you mean?”

  She pointed at the diagram. “Look,” she said, grabbing a pencil. “Here’s the NOC—right here, see—so if I divert the signal, then we’re screwed—”

  “Don’t say ‘screwed.’ ”

  “I always say ‘screwed.’ ”

  “Not anymore you don’t.” Crater smoothed the page, including both Kay and Katie in the conversation. “Here’s the deal. Right now there are two systems running. The old NSFNET and the new one. The old one’s a piece of junk, so we’re going to take it down. This is where Katie’s little-bitty fingers come in.” Turning in his chair, he tried to kiss his daughter’s hand, but she snatched it away and glared at the ceiling.

  Kay flushed. Neither she nor Macheath had ever talked down to their kids. Lydia in particular would not have tolerated it. Now almost thirty, her youngest daughter lived in Crane City with her husband and their first child, Simon, who’d turned one just a few days ago. A nervous mother, Lydia had nearly lost the baby; throughout the pregnancy, the fetus seemed to dangle on a wire-thin cord, forever on the verge of liquid oblivion. Even now he looked sickly, undersized. Kay secretly felt sorry for the boy. Lydia as a parent! Good luck, kid, you’ll need it.

  Across the table, Crater and his daughter were still arguing over the diagram. Settling on something, Katie led the way to a low opening in the wall, about two feet across. The other researchers followed, bringing their coffees as they gathered around the hatch. A steel panel blocked the entrance. On his knees, Crater unscrewed the four corners and the panel banged to the floor. Dull green light filled a narrow tunnel that tilted out of view.

  Kay moved through the crowd, pulling the little girl to one side. “Have you done this before?” she asked.

  “Not exactly,” Katie explained, snorfling between words, her nose running. “But when I was six? And my dad took me to New York? That was almost the same thing, because I had to set up all these High Speed Network Relays, and my dad said, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing, you’re just a little gurrrl,’ and I said, ‘Nunt-unh, I know better than you—wanna see?’ and so I showed him, and the lady from the university was really impressed, and she gave me this award called Women in Science.”

  “Oh, well . . . that sounds real . . . good . . .” Dazed, Kay stepped aside as an in-house photographer took a few pictures for the quarterly newsletter. Tiny Katie stood in front of the opening, holding a miner’s helmet under her arm. Kay stayed out of the way; when the little girl smiled at her, she smiled back.

  “Now listen,” Crater said, tightening a leather utility belt around his daughter’s waist. “This is important. Don’t touch the T-1 connection—”

  “I won’t.”

  “Let me finish.” Miffed, he raised his hand; Katie stood on one leg, unimpressed. “This equipment is very expensive, and I don’t want you to break anything. That means no guessing, no screwing around.”

  “I’m not retarded,” Katie sang out as the researchers smiled and sipped their coffees.

  “Don’t be funny,” her father said. “Just remember, those LSI-11 Fuzzballs have got to go. All six of them. And be sure to test the NCSA link before you come out. Otherwise we lose the Midwest.”

  Saluting, Katie dropped to her knees and peered down the tunnel. “It’s cold in there,” she said, then crawled inside, moving ahead in short bursts, sliding one leg, then the other. Reflected light bled along the walls before shivering into darkness.

  “How long will this take?” Kay asked, trying not to sound like a grand-mother.

  Crater appeared unconcerned as he monitored his daughter’s progress over a walkie-talkie. “Half an hour, maybe,” he shrugged. Catching a look from Kay, he added, “It’s warmer near the bottom.”

  “I’m sure.” Feeling anxious, Kay gazed into the empty hatchway and listened. Katie’s sliding kneepads made a soft noise, like a bird’s wing brushing against a window.

  “This is the last time,” Crater assured her, playing with the dials of his walkie-talkie. “When we revamp the network for good, we won’t have to worry about this stuff anymore.”

  “For good?”

  “Sure. This upgrade won’t last the decade. That’s why we set up the Network Operations Center. Too many problems—renegade routers freaking out, sending bad signals. They’re like bratty little kids. Everyone’s got to be number one.” He looked at his watch, then raised his walkie-talkie and pushed the button. “How you doing down there, hon?” Finally, a soft voice answered, “It smells.”

  “She sounds scared,” Kay said, cursing herself for worrying about the kid. Let her learn, she thought. Wandering away, she found a small break room and poured herself a cup of decaf. Nothing happened for a while. Nervous, she went back to Crater, who was speaking into the walkie-talkie. “What’s going on, K-ster?”

  “I’m busy!” a high voice raged. Her father winced and put the radio down.

  After a few minutes, Kay began to fidget, so she kneeled to peer inside the tunnel. It extended back about ten feet, then split into five corridors, each attached to the same main branch. It looked, she imagined, like the inside of a heart.

  Soon the floor of the tunnel began to shake. “Hold on,” she called out. “She’s coming back up.”

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p; She backed away as Katie appeared, her face smudged with mud. She looked pale and tired, as if she’d been gone for days. Cheering, the researchers lifted her out and propped her against the wall.

  Crater came up from behind, hefting a bottle of champagne. “Think I should let her have a sip?” he asked, smiling at Kay.

  For a moment, Kay felt like scolding him; this kind of behavior—so reckless, so arrogant—was something unique to the federal government. Seeing the little girl, however, she changed her mind. “First get her some oxygen,” she said. “Then the champagne.”

  Crater laughed, and Kay felt an odd gratitude toward the man, considering the network, the years ahead. Strange times posed strange questions. She wondered whether she, too, would have the courage to send her own child into the heart of the machine.

  The Planning Stages

  October 13, 1989

  Lydia:

  Here’s twelve thousand dollars, which should take care of your third-quarter payments, plus any extra cash you might need to cover the moving expenses. I hope you and Steve and darling Simon are enjoying your new home! I’ve set your mortgage at seven percent over thirty years, which should average out to about $2,750 per quarter, which is quite reasonable given the location. I’m dealing directly with the banks out here in Washington, but if something happens to me you’ll need to know who to contact. My financial advisor is Mitchell Frenkle, and you can reach him at the P.O. Box listed below. When I die, I’ve ordered Mitch to manage this account, because I know how busy you are, what with a new child in the house and probably many more on the way. I trust that you will not need to relocate anytime soon. Steve may find the commute inconvenient at first, but in time he’ll come to enjoy the drive. It is my wish that you will remain in Big Dipper Township for many years. Simon will have children of his own one day, and it’s every family’s dream to own a house and then pass it along. I’m sure you’ll learn to appreciate your little piece of wilderness. God knows, you deserve it.