Analog SFF, March 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  * * * *

  "Oh, Dr. Peale?"

  Lucinda stopped halfway to her bunk space. The information officer usually didn't call for someone. Part of her thought it might be Dr. Garritty, getting in touch after three days of nothing. The rest of her tightened up in a grimly familiar way as she walked to the booth.

  "You have one internal message,” the officer said, “and a pass.” He wore a smirk he probably didn't know he was making.

  Lucinda passed him her pocket-comp to upload the message. When she got it back, there was a scan-card placed across its screen. “Um, where is this pass for?"

  "I believe the message says that, ma'am. Yes, Doctor?"

  She stepped aside for someone else using the booth and called up the new message.

  * * * *

  Lucinda,

  It was good to see you again a few nights back. It was better to find you might be interested. If you like, we could talk about that tonight, in my quarters. A map's attached.

  There's no pressure. If you don't want to come, you don't have to. If you just want to talk, we'll do that. If you want to do more—we can do that too.

  Curt

  * * * *

  She wasn't looking at the information officer, but she could feel his look, his leer. She walked to her bunk, not looking back, and read the note again. Anger began to coalesce inside her like ice, before a moment of dispassion melted it. His plan had worked, after all.

  Lucinda wasted a few minutes sitting on her cot, still warm from its other occupant, before gathering herself up to go. The information officer watched her pass with a vulgar satisfaction. She ignored it, telling herself it was for the best, as she scrolled up the map on her pocket-comp.

  The directions led her onto familiar ground: she had been billeted here when she first arrived, when she was a needed and respected visitor. A soldier at a guard post took her card and scanned it. “Up one flight,” he said, handing it back, “and second on the left. Pass your card over the scanner by the door once you're there."

  She reached the door and waved the card. A chime sounded inside. She waited, trying not to stare at the guard standing watch down the hall. The doorknob rattled, and then there stood Curtis Garritty, his hair mussed and his shirt looking like he had just rebuttoned it.

  "Dr. Peale,” he said, smiling. “So glad to see you. Won't you come in?"

  She stepped inside, recognizing the layout immediately, feeling strangely at home. She dropped herself into a chair before Garritty could close the door.

  "I guess my subterfuge worked.” He read Lucinda's eyes right away. “I know, I'm sorry. Creativity failed me, so I went for plausibility. The fiction that we're lovers will let you come here at least every couple of days without talk.” He caught himself and turned a bit red. “Well, without suspicion."

  Lucinda found herself nodding. “I understand. I'm not skilled at subterfuge either. Except maybe the solo kind."

  His look showed understanding. “Anyway, we can talk freely now. Just keep it low, in case the walls are thin.” He had walked over to a mini-fridge before seeing Lucinda's face. “What?"

  Lucinda's eyes darted around the room. “What if you're bugged?” she said, barely more than mouthing it. “My information officer read your note, or acted like it. Couldn't they—?"

  Garritty glanced up at the ceiling. “In that case, we're doomed anyway.” He took two cans out of the mini-fridge. “But Lew said I'd get VIP treatment here, and I'm guessing that includes my being spared close surveillance, even if you still get the business."

  He sat on the bed near Lucinda's chair and offered her one of the beer cans. She took it before realizing what it was, then looked at it funny. “Oh, I'm sorry,” Garritty said. “Do you drink?"

  "Not really.” She popped it open and took a long drink. “But there are exceptions.” Garritty grinned. “Such as when talking to someone who knows the President of the United States as ‘Lew.’”

  Garritty blushed again. “I'll give you the short version. Lewis Burleigh was two years ahead of me when I enrolled at Northwestern. He stayed there for business school, so we were together my full four years before I went for my M.D. We were good friends then, and if that diminished on my side, it never really did on his. When he began bringing in people he could trust for his grand project, I was on his short list. It was already becoming pretty clear that you didn't say ‘no’ to him without paying for it, so I chickened out and said ‘yes.’”

  "I know how that feels."

  Garritty took his first sip. “I guess you do. I had heard about you, how early you were part of the program, but I didn't know the details until our pas de deux in the exam room. I am sorry about the colleagues you lost in Washington, even Dr. Petrusky."

  "Thanks.” The cover story she had concocted for the president involved her battles in office politics, and other kinds, with Pavel Petrusky. He had wanted overlay technology used in ways very similar to how Burleigh was using them now, and Burleigh had explicitly cited Pavel's influence on his decision. Lucinda played that as her motivation for resisting the president then, and resenting him afterward. Bitterness over petty politics seemed something Burleigh would find wholly plausible, from experience. She had been right.

  Thinking about Pavel got her thinking about the outside world again. “Would you be able to get messages out? Without being opened or censored? I have a couple colleagues back at Berkeley who could help us. Don't laugh. Not everyone at Berkeley is like that. And there are things I'd want to tell my parents, my friends.” She stopped short of speaking Josh's name.

  "I think that might be impossible. Security's looser for me, but not lax. I'll try testing the bounds, though."

  "Please.” She took a good look at him, something she'd never done before. He was close to her age, his black hair dashed with gray, his eyes a dark, shadowed brown. He had a cleft dividing the point of his jaw, what she had called a “chin-butt” back when she was young and the future was nothing to fear.

  "Dr. Garr—” She shook her head at herself. “What should I call you? Curt? Curtis?"

  "The president calls me Curtis,” he said, “so why don't you call me Curt?"

  "I'll do that. And I'm Lucinda: Luci never caught on with me.” She took another swallow of beer. “You've got a better connection to the outside world. Could you tell me some news?"

  "Don't you get news in here?"

  "There's the official daily digest. Might as well be Pravda. I could solicit gossip, but I'm not quite in the social mainstream here."

  "I suppose you aren't.” He took a sip, and rubbed his mouth. “Well, the country's still in crisis mode, and the government's taking advantage. They have the media pretty well tamed, accepting censorship over any information that might aid America's enemies."

  "The terrorists?"

  "Them, and ... others. A few papers and stations didn't play ball. Their licenses have been, ahem, suspended. Plenty of websites aren't playing ball, either, and they're tougher to suppress, especially the smaller ones. Their hosts are getting pressured, and a lot of ‘volunteers,’ a sort of hacker militia, are taking down sites that don't toe the line."

  Lucinda shook her head. “Hard to accept that people would go along with that."

  "They're going along with a lot of new restrictions. Commercial airline flights were only permitted again six weeks ago and you need a pass."

  "Let me guess. You have to undergo a brain screening to qualify, to show you aren't an extremist."

  "Not everyone,” Curt said, “but most. They even did that with the new Congress, if you can believe it. Burleigh found a few members he couldn't abide and told the rest to refuse to seat them."

  "I'd heard that. The Congresspeople are down here: I couldn't avoid picking up that gossip.” Lucinda sloshed her beer can. There wasn't much left. “Curt, what does the public know about the attack, the people behind it?"

  "Oh, a few names, but Burleigh tries to keep them secret, now that they've been made respon
sible members of society again. As for anyone behind them—” Curt gave Lucinda a pointed look. “Do you know something about them?"

  "Well, yes.” She laid out what she had heard those first couple of days after the attack, from the perpetrators she had scanned and overlaid. She named the countries: Iran and China. “I wouldn't call it ironclad, and China wasn't as clear, but it was pretty persuasive."

  "And Lew knew about this."

  Lucinda nodded. “I can't imagine he wouldn't."

  Garritty looked ill for a moment, and set his beer aside. “Because the government has been laying out a lot of insinuations. Nothing outright, but enough to let people draw conclusions. They've been implying things about a band of hard right-wingers—"

  "Oh, God."

  "—who would've been glad to see the seat of evil government destroyed, and to exploit it to start a great purge, in America and abroad, fueled by the hate."

  "Are people believing that?"

  Curt's smile was pained. “I'm sure at least some people do. And contrary points of view have had a tough time getting through. Of course, those who don't believe it are getting really outraged—which makes it easier to go after them as hate-mongers and discredit anyone connected to them."

  Lucinda's head bowed. The worst of it was how little surprise she felt at Burleigh's doings. “I guess the candidates have to tread a fine line."

  "The ones that are left. Burleigh's got his nomination bagged. He all but ordered his two challengers to drop out, as a show of national unity and of respect to the late President Davis."

  "The one they were running against in the first place. No doubt, they obeyed."

  "No doubt. A few of the Republicans did too, but they didn't have a chance in the first place. That race isn't settled. Three are still running, and it could easily go to the convention."

  He gave a summary of their half of the race, but Lucinda began tuning it out. It didn't seem to matter. Curt soon picked up on her mood.

  "Lucinda, the president's going to be defeated. The American people won't stomach all of this forever. When they turn, when the facts get through to them, Burleigh's going to be blown away."

  Lucinda tried to feel cheered, but it was like the wind trying to lift a leaden kite. “I used to believe that, back when I agreed to work here rather than be locked away. The last four months here, seeing things, doing things—that hope's fled."

  "Of course!” Lucinda suddenly found him near, gripping her shoulders with strong hands. “Who wouldn't despair here, with no connection to the outside world? But things are different from the pinhole view you get here. Will you try to believe that?” Her breath hitched, as she felt her skin tingle under his hands. He soon backed away, sensing he had crossed a boundary. “Please?"

  "Yes. Yes, I'll try.” She saw his relief. “So what can we do here to work against Burleigh?"

  Curt sat back down. “We'll have to think that over. It's not something to decide in haste. For now, though, the best thing you can do is to keep doing what they expect of you. Don't give anything away. As for me ... I'll do what I can to get us out of here. Both of us, into one of the new facilities, someplace less oppressive where we might have more room to act."

  Lucinda thought, drinking the last of her beer to give her time. “If it were only doing what I've been doing, I could stand it. If they start making me do worse things ... I've borne a lot, but I can't handle much more. There are lines I cannot cross—and they're close."

  Curt reached for her again, this time gently clasping her hand. “I'll do my best,” he said. “And I'm sure you'll do yours."

  * * * *

  "Watch the orbitofrontal activity, Lucinda. We might get something there."

  "Yes.” Lucinda did as Nancy LaPierre bid. She noted the lowered activity there: it came of the subject in the scanner talking in a fast, loud stream of consciousness to drown out his interrogator.

  There were no questions about the terror attack this time. The technician in the scanning room was asking the fettered man about his associates in rural Michigan: whether they were stockpiling guns or explosives; whether they maintained hate websites; who in the family was part of his plots. None of those questions had gotten an answer.

  Lucinda kept up her monitoring work by rote, not letting herself think. Soon, the questioner gave up. He rolled up the subject's trouser leg and jabbed in a syringe, drawing a scream. It was some specialized sedative they had been using here for a few months. The patient would become passive but still alert. Scans would no longer be cluttered, and they could read his innermost reactions to questions or suggestions or mere words. They would get their answers.

  "Unbelievable,” Nancy said, “how scary some people are. Depressing, sometimes. But knowing our thought reforms can make a difference makes it worthwhile. Don't you think?"

  The words “thought reform” echoed in Lucinda's head. “It's why I got into this field,” she replied, not actually lying.

  Nancy smiled. “I know, and I'm glad you're here."

  Lucinda made herself nod. She turned back to her work, while her mind turned back to a few nights before, the end of that first evening with Curt.

  "This was a tool for good once. A weapon against violence, against the fear that creates—and now it's being used to create so much fear."

  She didn't tell him how so much of that fear was hers, but she probably hadn't needed to.

  The subject's shouts had faded to a fervid murmur. Lucinda strained to catch some of his words.

  "...restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths..."

  Whoever this man was, he was terrified. Suddenly, whatever he had or hadn't really done, there was a bond between him and Lucinda.

  "...of the valley of death, I will ... I will fear no..."

  His voice gave out. The drug had taken hold.

  "Good,” Nancy said. “Now we can get some work done."

  * * * *

  III

  He picked up on the third ring. “Hello?"

  "Josh? Josh, it's Lucinda."

  "Luci! Oh, Luci, it's great to hear your voice. Things must finally be getting straightened out, if they let you use a phone."

  "No. Josh, they're not. It's starting all over again. Listen, I don't have much time. I need help. I'm out of money, and—"

  "Hold on.” Josh spoke to someone off the line. Lucinda couldn't make either one out. “Okay, that new facility you're in, in Ohio, right, a couple miles outside—"

  "I'm not in the facility. I broke out. I'm maybe a mile west of the city proper, at—” She craned her neck and read off the diner's name. “I don't know the street, but—"

  "That's okay, that's great. Hang on there, say fifteen minutes. It's gonna be all right.” The line clicked and static whispered.

  "Josh? Josh!?"

  * * * *

  Lucinda listened to Donna Laskey running down her agenda, with waning attention. It was the weekly meeting in the Memorial Room. The president had been called away by some unexpected political activity, and Laskey held the chair. Nancy LaPierre was sitting next to Lucinda, as always. Curt was several seats down, not looking his best.

  Nothing noteworthy was being said, and Lucinda felt the urge to let Laskey's drone put her to sleep. She did drift away for a second, before something in Laskey's tone roused her.

  "...our international students, coming in to be instructed in our overlay techniques. This is a vital part of our initiative in carrying our mental reforms across the globe. Dr. LaPierre, I'm sorry, but I'll have to borrow your assistant part-time, for some more teaching."

  Laskey had barely referred to Lucinda by her name in two months. She was usually “Dr. LaPierre's assistant.” Lucinda absorbed the news, keeping her face unmoved.

  "I understand,” LaPierre said. “We all have to play our parts. How soon?"

  "Our honored colleagues from China will arrive in a week and a half. Will that be enough time for you to adapt your lesson plan, Dr. Peale?"

  "I...” Lucind
a concentrated, searching for some way out of this. “I hope you're aware, Ms. Laskey, that I don't speak a word of Mandarin."

  "Our guests speak excellent English, Doctor."

  "And ... I hate to speak against myself, but I never thought I was that good a teacher."

  "Your students have disagreed. Several of them praised you quite highly, including Dr. Garritty here."

  Lucinda shot him a shocked look, but he wasn't facing her way.

  "Dr. LaPierre is also well satisfied with your work, which I suppose she now has reason to regret reporting.” She laughed, half the room following her. “So you're our pick, Doctor."

  Lucinda had her guard back up by now. “All right. Let me see a schedule, and I'll get to work."

  Laskey slid a few sheets down the walnut table for others to pass down to Lucinda. “Other groups are going to our satellite facilities, but I'll inform everyone here when new students are coming to the Mount. Now, next on the agenda..."

  "How could you do that to me, Curt? The Chinese?"

  Curt winced under Lucinda's words, even though she was keeping her voice down to guard against eavesdroppers on his quarters. “I wasn't trying to angle you toward any specific assignment, Lucinda, much less this one. I was telling people the truth, and maybe a bit more, to put you in good odor."

  "All right. I understand that, and I'm sorry. But the Chinese? They're responsible—not the students coming in, at least I hope—but for Burleigh to treat them as friends, make them part of his plans? It's—” She caught herself on the edge of a shriek. “It's monstrous."

  "I know.” Curt sat on the edge of his bed, shoulders caving in. “I'd say he must know something exculpatory about China, but I don't really believe that. And bringing them under the Mount? The super top-secret hideaway?” His head drooped. “But why should I be surprised?"

  Lucinda regarded him, then sat by him on the bed. “Okay, enough about me. What's got you in a funk? You've been looking miserable since this morning."

  "You haven't heard? Oh, right. You ought to read the news digests, even if they are slanted."