Collective Mind

by Klyukin, Vasily

  “And here, take this,” said Isaac, handing the commissioner a local phone.

  The commissioner nodded and walked to the elevator, stretching his back.

  He obviously didn’t fly the Concorde, or in business class. “That’s a government employee’s business trip for you,” Isaac thought in sympathy as he watched the brass doors close.

  Chapter three

  Tomorrow arrived and the plotters walked into the Guggenheim again.

  Pellegrini hung back at the entrance. Once inside, he went straight to the head of house security and introduced himself, saying that he worked in the police department in Paris and collaborated closely with UNICOMA.

  “I’m on leave here and I found out this interesting conference was taking place,” Pellegrini went straight to the point. “Could you please help me, as a colleague, get into it?”

  “Of course,” the head of security replied with a beaming white smile. “I’ll give you a guest pass. Here you are.”

  Pellegrini thanked him, examined the pass without giving away the disappointment: that was not exactly what he wanted. No chip, no magnetic strip. He obviously could not get into the basement with that.

  “Tell me, I have another question,” he continued, mangling the words slightly in the French manner. “Can I take a look at the list of speakers?”

  “Certainly. Over there,” said the American, pointing towards a square table. “Pick up the program. Only don’t take it away, it’s my last one.”

  A stroke of luck this time. A double one. Firstly, the head of security obviously was not curious and did not ask questions why Pellegrini wanted the list. And secondly, the sponsors of the conference were listed on the program, including a five-star hotel. For the first time in ages, Pellegrini was able to use a detective’s most important skill: a good memory. He memorized several names and the name of the hotel where these scientists would be staying for the next three days. To be on the safe side, so that the American would understand why he had wanted to look at the list, Pellegrini muttered: “Oh, Dr. Cohen decided to come after all, wonderful! I definitely must listen to his talk. You are really helpful. I am most grateful.”

  “You can take a photo of the program on your cell phone. So you won’t forget anything,” the head of security suggested.

  “That’s even better!” said the commissioner, giving him a broad smile.

  When he found Isaac and Bikie, Pellegrini only showed them his pass for the conference. He decided to tell them the rest later.

  “Excuse me, you were here yesterday!” a pretty girl in a white uniform caught up with Isaac. “Have you decided to get your level measured after all? The stand is over here on the right, you almost walked past it.”

  “Good guess,” Isaac gasped in relief and smiled. “I decided to get measured after all.”

  Isaac sat down in a comfortable chair. They put a disposable cap on his head, asked him to close his eyes and relax.

  “Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt at all,” it looked like the girl was flirting with him a little.

  “I’m not worried. I just don’t want to appear stupid in your eyes,” Isaac said with a wink, joining her game.

  Bikie was observing this scene from a short distance and he gave Isaac a thumbs-up.

  A soft melody began playing in the helmet and Isaac started feeling drowsy. The melody obviously had some kind of hypnotic effect, because the next thing he saw, or rather, felt, was that he had woken up. Everything was exactly as his first time, in Monaco.

  They helped Isaac take off the helmet and get up out of the chair.

  “Congratulations, you have a very high level. I’m awed! Here you are, I’ve printed out your result and potential fee.” The girl was clearly impressed by both his high rating and the six-figure number.

  Isaac glanced at the certificate. The rating was five points lower than his previous result. “But even so, that’s a margin of error of only 0.01%,” he calculated.

  “Maybe you’d like to take part in the records competition?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “You don’t want to fill out a questionnaire?”

  “No thanks, I don’t. And to be honest, this isn’t the first time. I’m already registered.”

  “So you were trying to impress me like this?”

  “You read my mind,” said Isaac feigning embarrassed. “Can I come back to you later?”

  “Of course, you can!” said the girl, rewarding Isaac with an expressive smile.

  Bikie slapped Isaac on the shoulder and murmured his approval.

  “Well done, you’re making progress. She could be useful!”

  “And just who was my teacher? Mr. Chrome Casanova himself!” Isaac joked.

  They looked at a semi-transparent screen. A video sequence started and a voice over informed them about the operating principle of the system.

  “In order to use the creative energy, the operator puts on the helmet and starts thinking about the problem; immediately a lot of ideas occur to him. He notes down these ideas. The computer has a faultless memory. Even if the answer given is not complete, it contains, at least, a definite part. Like a skeleton, in which some bones may be missing, either large or small, but most tasks result in absolutely complete formulae.”

  Bikie set off resolutely towards the testing chair. He had his OE tested previously too. But unlike Isaac, he did not refuse to take part in the ratings, and he didn’t regret it.

  “Well now, here’s a little gift certificate for you,” the girl at the stand twittered. “It says here that you set the record of the day and the record of the week, so congratulations once again.”

  “You know, I saw you have a conference on OE here. I just can’t make up my mind whether I should download. Maybe I could attend the conference, as the winner of the week?”

  “I wouldn’t mind going too,” Isaac put in.

  “You know, there were tickets on sale. But now it’s sold out, unfortunately. Although, wait a minute I’ll be right back.” And she disappeared through a door with the words “Staff only.”

  Five minutes later she was back, with a colorful leaflet.

  “There, take that. It’s an invitation. We sent them out to some journalists and scientists, and a few came back because of the wrong address. This one is a spare. My gift to you.”

  “Why, you’re absolutely fantastic!” Bikie exclaimed. “I’m almost in love.”

  “Go and enjoy. I see you’re a nice guy too, maybe you will contribute to the system somehow.”

  “Superb! I definitely will!”

  Isaac and Bikie couldn’t believe their luck when they saw that the invitation was for two persons! That really improved the situation.

  “Now,” murmured Isaac, barely moving his lips, “counting Pellegrini, all three of us are inside already.”

  “Don’t get too overjoyed,” Pellegrini remarked when they left the laboratory and museum. “You and I have got guest passes. They don’t give access to the basement where the server is. But don’t get too upset either,” the commissioner continued ironically. “I’ve got the names of the people who have full-access passes, and their address.”

  Half an hour later the full team assembled in Link’s room, studying the faces of the people who would be going to the conference with a full access pass in their pocket.

  “This is the plan,” Link was instructing. “I know the hotel where they are all staying, I’ve stayed there before. The central hall there is very convenient – you can see everyone coming in or going out. There are sofas and tables in the hall. You will position yourselves there, pretend to be engrossed in a conversation and wait for someone from the list. Follow him to see which room he is in and, gentlemen, I would rather not even pronounce the word ‘steal,’ but that is exactly what you’ll have to do with his pass.”

  Chapter four

  Wasting no time, the team set off to carry out the plan. At the entrance to the hotel, Bikie bent down and picked up a little piece of
blue plastic.

  “Bikie, you’re like a kid, picking up all sorts of bright colored garbage.”

  Bikie grumbled something to himself. If there was such a thing as a translator for grumbling, it would have produced approximately the following: “You are a little kid, you don’t realize that I’ve picked up a room key card from the hotel. I would explain to you how it could be useful, but you wouldn’t understand anyway.”

  They took up a position on a sofa in the central hall. Bikie opened his laptop and started sharing his impressions of New York with Isaac. Pellegrini pretended to be listening. About half an hour went by. Isaac noted that the commissioner was poised like a pointing gun dog. Except that he wasn’t nuzzling at the wind.

  “Our first one,” the commissioner whispered.

  Isaac looked round at the front desk, where a man with a suitcase on wheels was checking in. It was Dr. Burgers, one of the conference participants. From the polite way in which he was spoken to, he seemed to be an important person. Isaac thought regretfully that he did not take the trouble to find out about the participants’ achievements; for them Dr. Burgers was just someone with a full access pass.

  Isaac turned towards Pellegrini, but the commissioner wasn’t there as he had set off towards the front desk. No one but Isaac seemed to notice the way he walked past Dr. Burgers at the precise moment when the receptionist was handing him a blue key card and telling him how to get to his room.

  Pellegrini came back and said curtly:

  “Two, one, zero.”

  Burgers had taken room two hundred and ten.

  “Let’s wait for one more before we leave.” The commissioner’s voice had a professionally commanding tone. That couldn’t be helped. But this time, his tone turned out particularly harsh. “This one is an Austrian. So he must be jet lagged. He’ll settle into his room and probably won’t leave it again until morning catching up on sleep. Best to drop in for the pass when he’s out. Tomorrow morning that is.”

  Bikie protested:

  “One will be enough. I’ve got a little idea. You go on, I’ll come out with Isaac later, so as not to create a crowd at the exit.”

  “Bikie, have you come up with something?” Isaac asked after the commissioner left.

  “You bet! Look, the shift is changing. The new staff haven’t seen what the new guest looks like yet. And that’s our chance.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Look and learn.”

  Bikie walked across to the attractive looking brunette who had just started working at the reception desk. Reaching her, he lowered his eyes and asked with a slight stammer:

  “Do you happen to have a charger for a phone like this? I’ve got an old model, it discharges quickly.”

  Bikie put his mobile phone, brightly colored in rock’n’roll style, down on the desk.

  “Certainly we do. Are you a guest in our hotel?”

  “Yes I am. I’ll leave the phone with you to be charged and go and get a coffee at the Starbucks nearby.”

  “Very well, certainly. Your name?”

  “Burgers. Please, I’m so forgetful, can you stick the number of my room, 210, on the phone. If I forget it, just send it to the room.”

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Burgers.”

  “Oh, you’re so kind!”

  The girl smiled, pleased with the good start to her shift.

  “Let’s go and have a coffee,” Bikie said when he came back.

  In the coffee bar, he explained:

  “Look Isaac, have you never noticed that the more brazenly you behave, the more timid people around you get? And vice versa, the more modest you are, the more aggressive others get. As if there a constant amount of cockiness in the air, and if someone breathes in more of it, then others get less. But never mind that, the main thing is, if you act with self-assurance, other people will believe in you too.”

  “Bikie, why have you suddenly started talking like a business trainer on TV? What are you driving at?”

  “Right now I’m not talking about training, you know. But about how I’ll get the key to the doctor’s room.”

  “And how’s that?”

  “You’ll see. Just watch.”

  Bikie went back to the hotel, walked up to the same girl and asked for his mobile phone. Then, holding out a key-card, he added:

  “You know, there’s something wrong with this plastic card. It’s probably demagnetized, it doesn’t open the door.”

  “Just a moment, do you have any ID?”

  “Not with me. I left it in the room.” Bikie ran one hand across his breast pockets to illustrate.

  “Hmm, well, not to worry. I’ll reprogram it right now. Are you in two hundred and ten?”

  “Yes, glad you remember me,” Bikie said with a broad smile. “Although it’s hard to forget someone who keeps annoying you with stupid requests, isn’t it?” the pseudo guest asked, still flirting with the receptionist.

  She smiled back.

  “Here’s your card. Enjoy your evening.”

  Bikie and Isaac went to the elevator, rode up to the floor where the doctor was staying, came back down and walked out into the street.

  Bikie, you say I’m lucky, but the real lucky dog here is you,” Isaac declared.

  “Why is that? Psychology is neither more nor less than a science, Isaac.”

  “Bikie, just imagine if that girl had asked for some detail out of your ID.”

  “It was all covered, I have already read everything about that doctor and I know his full name and date of birth.”

  “You mean you were ready to state his date of birth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm, Bikie, did you realize that the Professor you just impersonated is about sixty?”

  “Oops… Touché! So I am lucky,” Bikie laughed.

  Later Pellegrini, who was least conspicuous and had most practice, sneaked into the room and collected the sleeping Doctor Burgers’ pass.

  Everything else was ready for the break-in. They’d have to figure out the details on the spot.

  Chapter five

  Link declared that he had to be present at the moment of the break-in, it was essential in case of a technical problem. But he could be recognized, so this issue had to be addressed using the art of makeup. Bikie and Isaac went to a little carnival costume shop in the Garment District to buy what was needed.

  Isaac loved fantasizing on the subject of the past, and his imagination ran riot yet again.

  “Bikie, imagine that the two of us are living in ancient times, I’m a great king, you’re my advisor, and we’re walking along the market stalls, surrounded by merchants, local people and out-of-towners, silks and yarns.”

  A big wooden armchair stood on a large stone podium right at the entrance to the shopping mall. A fat elderly gentleman was sitting in it, with a shoe shine man on a low stool in front of him, moving his hands briskly as he worked on the man’s black crocodile shoes.

  Pointing to the chair, Bikie declared solemnly:

  “Oh king, there is your throne, it will be free very soon now.”

  “Oh my page, look, your stool will be free in just a moment.”

  They bantered with each other all the way to the costume shop. They bought a false beard, which looked very natural, a wig and some makeup putty for altering the shape of the nose and cheekbones. Link would be unrecognizable.

  As soon as they got back, Pellegrini told them he had a plan for getting the Professor in without an invitation.

  Evening started to draw in and Isaac went down to the lobby to call Michelle before it was too late by her time. She was glad to get his call. After hanging up the last time they spoke, she really didn’t want to call first. Good thing, the chill in their relationship had already thawed.

  “You are cruel to me, Isaac” Michelle rebuked. “You could have phoned sooner. There’s been no news from you for three days and I have been worried.”

  “Sorry, hon, I’ve been overwhelmed. These past days have been grue
ling.”

  “A call is just two minutes! You really could have found the time.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I’m just very tired. And not quite acclimated yet.”

  “How are things going?”

  “Everything’s fine. We’re making progress. We’re going to a conference tomorrow.”

  “Will it happen there?”

  “Possibly. Depending on the circumstances.”

  “Good God, and I have to stay here, sick with worry! Isaac, please, can I come?”

  “I love you, Michelle. But if you’re here, I’ll be distracted all the time thinking about you.”

  “Well thank you so much for that!”

  “Oh please, Michelle!” Isaac added in a pleading voice.

  “I want to be there with you. It’s my life, you don’t need to make decisions for me. Why are you fussing over me like a nanny? I am twenty-five. I am an independent, grownup girl!”

  “Do whatever you like.”

  “I always act as I think fit.”

  “Michelle, I have to go. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  Isaac walked wearily back to his room. In the morning, he had to call Vicky in the hospital. He kept forgetting that he could only do that in the morning because of the time difference.

  An hour later there was a knock at his door. Isaac reluctantly got up and opened it. Standing there in the doorway was Michelle!

  “Come in. I thought it must be you.” Of course, Isaac was absolutely delighted, but tried not to show it.

  “I’ve been in New York since yesterday. But mind you, if you hadn’t called first, I would never have come round!”

  “And of course, Bikie gave away where we’re staying?”

  “He’s not such a tedious dumb head as you are.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I like you especially when you are that serious.”

  Isaac immediately relaxed, hugged Michelle close and kissed her.

  “Thanks for coming.” There was nothing else he wanted to say.

  A long, tender kiss… How Isaac had missed that! He looked at her, as if trying to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, like he did when they didn’t yet know each other. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes. Keeping her eyes on him, with a gentle half-smile she started slowly unfastening the top buttons of her blouse, revealing her black lacy underwear. Letting him know very clearly what she wanted, but allowing him make the first move. After that he took over. As he removed her blouse, Isaac felt the ground slipping from under his feet. He was overwhelmed by an all-encompassing sense of adoration. Michelle was mind-blowingly sexy! “She is perfection, no, she’s even better!” was the last thought that flitted through his mind before he was swept into a different dimension of passion.