Cyberbooks

by Ben Bova

  He had sweated over the computer for practically the entire day. It had told him everything he asked of it; a most cooperative witness. But it had not been enough. Now he had an inspiration.

  While the nurses were making their rounds, replacing the IV bottles that fed the comatose patients in the intensive care ward, Moriarty asked the computer for photographs of the members of Tarantula's board of directors. Maybe. Just maybe.

  The pictures were slow in coming. The simple laptop computer, with its limited capability, built up each photo a line at a time, rastering back and forth across the screen like the pictures sent by an interplanetary probe from deep space.

  The chief nurse herself brought Moriarty a skimpy dinner tray and laid it on the swinging table beside his bed with an expression on her face that said, "Eat everything or we'll stick it into you through an IV tube. Or worse."

  Moriarty actually felt hungry enough to reach for the tray and munch on the bland hospital food while the computer screen slowly, slowly painted pictures of Tarantula's board members, one by one, for him to examine.

  It wasn't until the very last picture that his blood pressure bounced sky high and his heart rate went into overdrive.

  "It's him!" Moriarty shouted. "I'd recognize those eyes anywhere!"

  He flung back the bedsheet and started to get to his feet, only to be surrounded instantaneously by a team of nurses and orderlies that included two hefty ex-football players. Despite Moriarty's struggles and protests, they pushed him back in the bed The chief nurse herself stuck an imperial-sized hypodermic syringe into Moriarty's bare backside and squirted enough tranquilizer into him to calm the entire stock exchange.

  "You don't unnerstand," Moriarty mumbled at the faces hovering over his suddenly gummy eyes. "There's a life at stake. Whoever bought Tarantula stock . . . his life's in danger. . . ."

  Then he fell fast asleep and the team of nurses and orderlies left, with satisfied smiles on their faces.

  *

  Weldon W. Weldon was forced to call a recess to the board of directors meeting after the orderlies had finally cornered the all-singing, all-dancing Gunther Axhelm and carted him away. The conference table was a scuffed-up mess, and several of the older directors needed first aid.

  He sat in his powered chair, Angora blanket across his lap, and watched the maintenance robots polish the table and rearrange everyone's papers neatly. The conference room's only door swung open, and a malevolently smiling P. Curtis Hawks stepped in. His red toupee was slightly askew, but Weldon said nothing about it.

  "You wanted to see me?" Hawks snapped. He self-consciously planted his fists on his hips, just above the pearl handles of imitation Patton pistols.

  "Yes I did," Weldon replied, adding silently, You stupid two-faced idiotic clown.

  "Well?"

  "Close the door and come down here," said Weldon. "What I have to tell you shouldn't be shouted across the room."

  Hawks pushed the leather-padded door shut and slowly walked down the length of the long conference table, avoiding the robots that were industriously polishing its surface back to a mirror-quality sheen.

  Pulling up a heavy chair and sitting directly in front of the Old Man, Hawks slowly took the pacifier from his mouth and said, "You forced me to do this."

  "Did I?"

  "Yes you did," the younger man said, his voice trembling just a little. Like a little boy, Weldon thought. A little boy who's mad at his daddy but knows in his heart that he's being naughty.

  Weldon said carefully, "You thought that I sent Axhelm into your operation to destroy you."

  "Didn't you?"

  "No. I sent him to Webb Press because the operation had to be cleaned out before we could transfer to electronic publishing. And you wouldn't have the kind of cold-blooded ruthlessness it took to clean house."

  "Clean house? He's driven us out of business!"

  "Not quite," said Weldon. Then he added with a smirk, "Your losses are going to save Tarantula a walloping tax bite next fiscal year."

  "Webb Press shouldn't be run as a tax loss. . . ."

  "And it won't be," said Weldon softly, soothingly, "once you've converted to electronic publishing."

  "You mean you . . ."

  "Haven't you been paying attention to the industry news?" The old man was suddenly impatient. "Haven't you seen what's happening at Bunker Books? Their own sales force is suing Bunker over Cyberbooks."

  Hawks gaped at him, uncomprehending.

  "I had to clean out Webb Press," Weldon explained, "before you could even hope to start with electronic publishing. One thing I've learned over the years, never expect a staff to change the way it does business. If you're going to go into a new venture, get a new staff. That's an ironclad rule."

  "So you were going to get rid of me, too," said Hawks grimly.

  Weldon felt exasperation rising inside him like boiling water. "Dammit, Curtis, you can be absolutely obtuse! I told you your job was safe! I told you I wanted Webb to lead the world into electronic book publishing. What do I have to do, adopt you as my son and heir?"

  Hawks thought it over for a long moment, chewing hard on his pacifier.

  "It would help," he said at last.

  Now it was Weldon's turn to go silent as he thought furiously. This is no time for a split on the board. The Sicilians will take advantage of it and move in for good. Yet—Hawks has already risen to his level of incompetence. If I promote him one more step . . .

  The old man smiled at his erstwhile protégé, a smile that had neither kindness nor joy in it, the kind of smile a cobra might make just before it strikes, if cobras could smile.

  He wheeled his powered chair up to Hawks's seat and reached out to pat the younger man on his epauletted shoulder.

  "All right, Curtis," Weldon said softly, almost in a whisper, "I'll do just that. Make you my heir. How would you like to take over the responsibilities of chief executive officer of Tarantula Enterprises?"

  The pacifier dropped out of Hawks's mouth. "CEO?"

  Nodding, Weldon said, "I'll remain chairman of the board. You will still report to me. But instead of merely running Webb Press, you'll have the entire corporation under your command."

  Hawks looked as if he were hyperventilating. It took several gasping tries before he could say, "Under . . . my . . . command!"

  "I take it you accept the offer?"

  "Yes!"

  "Fine. Now let's get the rest of the board in here and finish our business."

  Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Hawks agreed, "Right. Let's tell them the good news."

  Weldon smiled again. Chief executive officer, he snorted to himself. I'll let you enjoy the office and the perks for a few months, and then out you go, my boy, on your golden parachute. Or maybe without it.

  Hawks was grinning ear to ear. Chief executive officer! From that power base I'll be able to get rid of the Old Man in six months and take over the board. You're a gone goose, Weldon W. Weldon, only you don't know it yet.

  Telephone Transcript

  Harold D. Lapin: Hello, this is Lapin.

  Mobile Phone: (Sounds of street traffic in background) Yes, I can hear you.

  Lapin: The trial adjourned for the day, just five minutes ago.

  Mobile: Justice only works a short day, eh?

  Lapin: It will resume tomorrow at ten o'clock.

  Mobile: Okay, okay. So how did it go today?

  Lapin: The plaintiff scored all the points. Judge Fish seems to be leaning over backwards in their favor. I don't think Bunker has a chance.

  Mobile: Good. Good.

  Lapin: Bunker himself did not show up. His wife and several of his editorial employees were present. And the inventor, Carl Lewis.

  Mobile: He didn't recognize you, did he?

  Lapin: No, certainly not. I sat in the last row, while he was all the way up front. I'm wearing a false mustache and an entirely different style of clothing.

  Mobile: Good. Good.

  Lapin: Bunker Ju
nior was there, too.

  Mobile: What did you find out about him?

  Lapin: It wasn't easy. I had to bribe three members of the family's personal law firm.

  Mobile: But what did you find out? Has he made out a will or hasn't he?

  Lapin: He has not.

  Mobile: So if he should suddenly die, he dies intestate.

  Lapin: That's right.

  chapter2 Mobile: His estate will be tied up in probate court for months, maybe years.

  Lapin: Yes.

  Mobile: And the Tarantula stock the little fool has been buying will be tied up along with everything else. No one will be able to vote the stock. Not even the Sicilians.

  Lapin: I believe that means his proxies will automatically be voted by the corporation, isn't that right?

  Mobile: I'm not sure. The lawyers will have to look into it. But at least the Sicilians won't be able to get their hands on it.

  Lapin: If young Bunker should suddenly die.

  Mobile: When he dies, yes. When he dies.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Scarlet Dean ran a lovingly manicured blood-red fingernail along Ralph Malzone's hairless chest and all the way down to his navel.

  "Don't stop there," Ralph said, pulling her closer to him.

  She giggled girlishly. They were in Scarlet's apartment, where Malzone spent almost every night. It was a spacious room in an old Manhattan building that had once been used as the setting for a horror movie. But although the outside of the building was dark and ornately Gothic, it had been completely modernized inside. The only way to tell it was an old building, from the inside, was to realize that no modern building would have such high ceilings. Nor such elegant moldings where the walls and ceiling met.

  Scarlet's bedroom was completely mirrored. All of the walls, including the closet doors (where roughly half of Malzone's haberdashery was stored) and the high ceiling. On the rare occasions when sunshine made it through the polluted air and grime-covered window, the room dazzled and sparkled. It was like being inside a gigantic jewel.

  But now the window blinds were drawn tight, and the only light was a dull red flicker from the artificial fireplace.

  "Do you still love me?" Scarlet asked him.

  Malzone turned his rusty-thatched head to gaze into her emerald eyes. "You bet I do."

  "Even though our romance started with chemical warfare?"

  It was by now a private joke between them. "I don't care how it started, Red. It started. And I never want it to end."

  "Me neither," she said, snuggling closer.

  Malzone sighed. "But we'll probably both be out of a job in another few days, the way the trial's going."

  "This was just the first day," Scarlet said. "Our side didn't even get a chance to speak, yet."

  "You mean management's side."

  Propping herself on one elbow, Scarlet replied, "You're on management's side, aren't you?"

  "Kinda." Malzone shifted uncomfortably on the bed.

  "What do you mean?"

  His lean, long face contorting into a miserable frown, Malzone admitted, "I know how Woody and the rest of the sales staff feel. Hell, I was one of them for a lot of years before I got kicked upstairs to sales manager. . . ."

  Scarlet's expression softened. "You feel sorry for them."

  "I feel sorry for all of us. I don't see this as one side versus the other side. I don't think of us as management versus labor. This is a family fight. It's damned unhappy when members of the same family have to fight. In public, yet."

  She plopped back on the mattress and looked at their reflection in the ceiling mirror. Ralph was a coiled bundle of muscle and nervous energy; it excited hex to look at his naked body. And she was glad that she kept herself ruthlessly to her diet and exercises; she wanted to keep on looking good to him.

  "Maybe there's a way to get both sides together," Ralph was saying, "so we can stop this fighting and be all one happy family again."

  Scarlet shook her head. "I don't see how."

  "I do," he muttered, so low that she barely heard him.

  Without taking her eyes off the ceiling mirror, she asked, "How?"

  "We give up on Cyberbooks."

  "What?"

  "It's the only way. We tell Carl to pack up and leave."

  "But you can't do that to him! And P. T. would never—"

  "I know P. T. won't back down, so it's all a pipe dream. And I know Carl's a good guy, a friend, somebody I like a lot." Malzone hesitated a moment, then went on, "But the only way to save Bunker Books is to drop the Cyberbooks project. If we don't, the company's going to be torn apart and go down the tubes."

  She turned toward him again, her heart suddenly beating faster. "Ralph, I have a confession to make to you."

  "Another one? You sure you're not a closet Catholic?"

  "Be serious!"

  "Okay."

  "I was planted at Bunker Books by my boss at Webb Press. I was supposed to be a spy. My assignment was to steal Cyberbooks away from Bunker."

  Malzone's face brightened. "Great idea! Let's give it to them! Let them tear themselves apart!"

  Scarlet stared at him. "Do you think . . . I mean . . ."

  Ralph slid a wiry arm around Scarlet's trim bare waist. "Let's do it! And afterward, let's figure out how to get Cyberbooks to Webb Press."

  *

  Alba Blanca Bunker was in bed also, but for more than an hour she had nothing to say except moans and howls of passion. The voice-activated computer that ran the bedroom's holographic decor system had run its gamut from deep under the sea to the exhilarating peaks of the Himalayas, from a silent windswept desert in the moonlight to the steaming raucous orchid-drenched depths of the Amazonian jungle.

  Ever since his body-restructuring operations, Pandro had been a half-wild animal: a passionate, powerful animal who would sweep Alba up in his strong arms the minute she arrived home from the office and carry her off to bed, like some youthful Tarzan overwhelming a startled but unresisting Jane.

  Over the months since his operation, Alba had expected his ardor to cool. It did not. It was as if Pandro were trying to make up for all the years he had allowed business to get in the way of their lovemaking; as if he had stored all this passion inside himself and now, with his newly youthful and energetic body, was sharing his pent-up carnal fury with her.

  Now they lay entwined together, tangled in a silk sheet that was thoroughly ripped, soaked with the sweaty musky aura of erotic sexual love. The room's decor had shifted to a warm moonlit meadow. Alba could hear trees rustling in the soft wind, smell fresh-cut grass. Fireflies flickered across the ceiling.

  As if struggling up from a deep, deep sleep, P. T. asked in the darkness, "How did things go today?"

  "Oh—all right, I suppose. It's only the first day of the trial." She hadn't the heart to tell him her worst fears.

  But he sensed them. "All right, you suppose? That doesn't sound too good."

  "It wasn't so bad."

  Bunker looked into his wife's face. Even in the flickering shadows he could see how troubled she was.

  "Maybe I should go to the court with you tomorrow," he muttered.

  Her heart fluttered. He's willing to leave the house, in spite of his fear of people and crowds, just for me. He's willing to face the world, for me!

  Struggling to hold her emotions in check, Alba said, "That's not necessary, darling."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Yes, of course. It's all right."

  "Are you sure?" he repeated.

  All day long in that dreadful courtroom Alba had maintained her self-control. She had not cried or screamed when Woody's lawyer accused her of being a heartless money-mad despoiler of the poor. She had not taken after him with one of her spike-heeled shoes, as she had wanted to. She had remained cool and reserved, and had not said a word.

  But now, after the evening's wild lovemaking, all her defenses were down. She broke into uncontrollable, inconsolable sobs.

  "Oh, Pandro," she wep
t, "we're going to lose everything. Everything!"

  *

  The Writer was astonished at how easy it had been to acquire enough armaments to equal the firepower of a Vietnam War infantry platoon. He had been asweat with nervous fear when he walked into the gun shop. He had nothing bolstering him except the memory of an ancient video of an old Arnold Schwarzenegger flick.

  The gun shop owner had been wary at first; a shabby-looking customer coming in just before closing time, dressed in a threadbare gray topcoat and baggy old slacks. But the Writer smiled and explained that he was doing research for a new novel about terrorists, and needed to know the correct names and attributes of the kinds of guns terrorists would use. Within fifteen minutes the owner had locked his front door and pulled down the curtain that said CLOSED. He picked out an array of Uzi, Baretta, Colt, and laser-aimed Sterling guns. With the smile of a man who really cares about his merchandise, the shop owner proceeded to explain the virtues and faults of each weapon.

  "And they all use the same ammunition?" the Writer asked naively.

  "Oh no! The Baretta takes nine-millimeter . . ." Before long the owner was showing how each gun is loaded.

  It was simple, then, for the Writer to pick up the massive Colt automatic and point it at the owner's head.

  "Stick 'em up," he said with a slightly crazy grin.

  The owner laughed.

  The Writer cocked the automatic and repeated, minus the grin, "Stick 'em up."

  He walked out of the gun shop burdened by nearly thirty pounds of hardware. He actually clanked as he hurried down the street. The owner lay behind his counter, bound and gagged with electrician's tape that the Writer had bought earlier from a nearby hardware store with his last five dollars.

  *

  "I can't believe it," Carl said with a shake of his head.

  He and Lori were strolling slowly around Washington Square, still numb with the shock of the first day of the trial. They had gone to a tiny restaurant in the Village for dinner, but neither of them had much of an appetite. They left the food on the table, paid the distraught waiter, and now they walked aimlessly toward the big marble arch at the head of the square.