Jacob's Trouble 666

by Terry James

  He was not prepared for what he saw, and his vision darkened, his headache becoming lost in the emotionally dimming realization of what he was witnessing.

  On the screen, close up and in stunning color, he and Fredria VanHorne were in the throes of passion. Their naked bodies were writhing on Fredria's bed, slamming against each other at frenzied pace! Why had they taped them that night?! Blackmail? The clinical dissection went through his thought processes before the shock wore off, and his embarrassment and rage surfaced.

  "Porno flick?" Melissa's question was put with amusement. "You....!?" Her declaration was not.

  He got up and turned the machine off, his face reddening as much from anger as from embarrassment. "Look. You don't want to see this. I don't know what it means or why they did this, but I've got to see if it leads somewhere."

  "Oh, I'm sure it will. Let's watch together. Maybe I'll learn something, too."

  "Suit yourself." He restarted the recorder, recounting silently their sexual activity that early morning in the Naxos apartment. Watching the almost unnaturally white bodies, whose undulations he, strangely, did not remember experiencing. He was relieved when after another 30 seconds the video cut to him and the girl sitting up in the bed sipping from glasses, which, he remembered, had contained screwdrivers. He was relieved further that there was no audio while he and Melissa watched the mouths of the man and woman move in conversation between sips.

  "Who is she? Karen?"

  "A girl I met at Naxos. Fredria VanHorne. A scientist in the project."

  "I can see you met her. What was she researching at the time? I can see who she was researching."

  He held up his hand for quiet, fixing his concentration on the scene to which the video had just changed--Fredria standing naked over his own nude body.

  He was asleep now, and she turned to face the camera after checking his eyes, and gave a signal that beckoned. Momentarily, two men wearing orange jumpsuits entered the room, walked to the bed and turned his body onto its stomach. The camera's angle changed from the one which had given view of the whole bed to one more mobile, obviously involving someone with a hand-held camera, whose operator moved to shoot from different positions while Fredria VanHorne and the men worked over the body.

  "What's going on? What are they doing to you?" Melissa questioned.

  "I'm not sure, but I think I know." He again held up his hand for quiet, sitting forward to watch the uniformed men help the woman.

  One of the men handed Fredria a small, square box, which she opened and from it removed a gleaming vial. Both men held the body still to prevent reflexive jerking, while Fredria VanHorne inserted a hypodermic needle into the vial and drew its contents into the syringe. When she injected the left arm, the video faded to black before resuming a new scene.

  People in pastel green surgical garb worked beneath bright lights, their faces and mouths covered with surgical caps and face masks. An unseen narrator spoke in English, but with a German accent.

  "The subject will be implanted with the most advanced biochip, which, as you know, consists of living cell properties being married to the chip, in this case, to form the most sophisticated biosensor yet devised. Our subject, a highly placed member of the American diplomatic community, will be monitored as to his location, as well as his biological functioning, that is, his respiration, et cetera, et cetera, so long as the chip is active. The device is activated by galvanic stimulation... electronic impulses from the subject's surrounding tissues. The sensor's internal battery is stirred to life and will remain activated for many years. Because the element is small and extremely resilient against damage, it will even survive the subject, should he come to his end violently through electric shock, fire, impact trauma, or any of a thousand ways. Its only limitation is that its signals weaken considerably from distances greater than 100 kilometers. It can still be tracked, and eventually found, for distances of thousands of kilometers, but it is as yet a very slow process. At such distances, it takes considerably longer to zero in on our chip."

  On the screen were the surgically gloved hands of two people, one holding the subject's head in a face-down position, the other one wielding a scalpel. The hand with the knife made an almost imperceptible cut on the scalp beneath the dark hair on the back of the head.

  "The procedure takes only a moment, and is being done with such caution in this instance because this is our first major testing of the device. It must be conducted with utmost care, to assure its best chance for success. In this case, we must maintain the best possible controls to test our postulate."

  The narrator paused for several seconds while the operation proceeded, then the animated voice continued. "Later, we can do the procedures on a run-them-in and run-them-out basis. As you can see, the wound is so tiny that the subject will think it no more than perhaps a scratch or insect bite. Being so finely done with surgical expertise, this person will most likely not know the procedure has been done at all. And, the biosensor you see here..." A gloved hand held the minuscule chip between index finger and thumb. "...is flexible and especially medicated, thus making it innocuous and unnoticeable to the bearer."

  Tweezers, holding between their metal pinchers the glinting biosensor, probed the tiny slit in the skin at the base of the hair follicles, then inserted the chip. "See how the tiny wound closes behind the sensor, which, incidentally, we call the 'Allegiant' and... the procedure is completed!"

  The scene changed again to electronic equipment encased in dark plastic, trimmed in chrome and adorned with scopes and colored lights and controls which Jacob recognized as equipment not unlike that he had seen at Naxos, near the Holophone Chamber.

  "All of these things you see here..." The camera drew back to include the narrator, a small man in his late fifties with a black patch over one eye, standing in front of the gadgetry. Jacob had not seen him before, "...are responses to the Allegiant, which has now been activated by the galvanic activity within our subject's body."

  A video dissolve on the television screen brought the viewers back to Fredria VanHorne's bedroom, the artificial sunlight streaming through the window that opened to a special-effects area just off the apartment. Fredria stood over Jacob, a cup and saucer in her hand, her mouth moving without making sounds, while she talked and smiled.

  "Our subject will not know he is being monitored, but will think only that, other than the headache, he had a very good time last evening."

  Jacob watched himself having a good time, Fredria having joined him in bed, and remembered the words of Conrad Wilson: "Watch out for that girl, Son. Remember Salome, Delilah, Mata Hari and all the rest..."

  He was glad the tape ended. Not because of embarrassment he felt while Melissa sat beside him watching, but because what he had thought at the time was sweet and good and something at least stronger than overnight affection was but another rape of his individuality. He was no longer angry; rather, he wanted to vomit, so physically sick did the thought of being with Fredria VanHorne make him.

  "You okay?" Melissa put her arms around him, seeing that he looked like he might topple.

  "No... But I will be."

  He straightened and managed a deep breath. "You have any ammonia?"

  "I think so. Why?" She was already on her way to the kitchen when she asked.

  He didn't answer because he could not. Feeling the sickness crawl up his throat, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and cradling his forehead in his palms. He sniffed, trying not to be overwhelmed by the odor when she had handed him the open bottle.

  "Thanks." He handed the bottle back to her.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Sick stomach. Ammonia sometimes helps."

  The nausea subsided and he began probing for the device, using his fingertips to examine the flesh of his neck just below his skull.

  "I've got to get it out," he said calmly, although feeling anything but calm. "See if you can tell where they put it."

  She knelt on one knee over him when
he turned sideways on the sofa and parted his hair methodically.

  "Here. I think I've found it. It's a small, reddened spot. Looks almost like a tiny mole." She pinpointed the spot with a fingernail.

  "You're going to have to take it out. I can't stand the thought of it being there," he said, a slight tremble in his voice. He convulsed in her arms, shivering.

  Melissa kissed the back of his head. "Yes... Yes. We will get it out."

  "There's no time. It's got to be done now. They'll be getting a fix on it. Do you have any kind of razor blades?"

  "Just the injector kind, I think."

  "Get them, and some alcohol, tweezers, adhesive tape, if you've got it, and some ice cubes to freeze the area."

  When she returned with the items, he hurriedly wrapped the white adhesive tape around one end of one of the blades taken from the injector cartridge. The thought of what he had in mind apparently hitting her, Melissa turned pale.

  "Oh, no!... I can't do it, Jacob!"

  "Look, I can't reach it. You want to help, don't you?"

  She nodded, looking wide-eyed at the wrapped blade. "I just can't do it. I'll hurt you."

  "It hurts me now knowing the thing's in there! Take this blade and do what I tell you. They'll kill me for sure, if you don't get it out of there. They'll kill us both!"

  She hesitatingly took the blade and held it with both hands while he held the ice cube against the area for more than a minute.

  "Find the red mark again and cut it...," he said, "...just deeply enough to get to the thing. Be careful not to cut into the sensor. I don't want it damaged." He sat forward, like before, trying to help hold back the hair on the back of his neck and head so she could better see the spot.

  "The light's not good enough. I can't see it well enough to do this. Let's move to the balcony door."

  They did so and Jacob applied the ice again, then stepped onto the balcony, retrieved a patio chair and placed it just inside the open door.

  "Are you sure you feel up to this right now?"

  "I don't feel up to having this thing in my head one more second than I have to. Start cutting, but don't cut into the chip."

  Sitting in the chair, the stench of the suffocating dampness assaulting his nostrils, the sounds of what seemed a thousand television sets blasted the stagnant air with a single incantation. "Six Ways to Law! Six Ways to Order! Six Ways to Peace! Six! Six! Six!!"

  Chapter 15

  Tragedy hung in the early morning darkness like death's decay-sweet odor. The sense of euphoria at Brussels, which had briefly touched Boston, was not evident now, while Jacob drove Melissa's small station wagon toward Cambridge. Downcast men and women milled about or shuffled along the streets. Some were the victims of the human predators who roamed, others were still dazed from the sudden loss of people they loved. Herrlich Krimhler's message of hope had made, then lost, its impact upon these pathetic souls, who, when Jacob moved past them, looked at him, then at the car, as if it might be a source of help out of their torment. Realizing they would not awake from their nightmares, their glazed, stuporous looks returned, their minds once again in their private hells.

  The sense of hopelessness was once more upon him, as well. The manic-depressive pendulum of emotion had swung from the high optimism he had felt when Melissa removed the Allegiant from his scalp (at that time thinking that now he could operate free of the chains binding him to Naxos) to this depth of knowing the odds he faced.

  Why not give up? Appeal to them? Tell them he had not understood the good intentions of the Naxos planners, but now, after hearing Krimhler, his outlook was changed. After all, he was not without talents to offer them. He could fight them better from inside their ranks, maybe win others to his point of view. Surely there were others who, like him, saw beyond their promises of Utopian bliss -- saw the megalomania of their design.

  If he gave himself up, convinced them he now saw the light, the error of his ways. No! He had proven he knew what they were up to and that he was death-pledged against them. He proved, too, that he could think independently, and to have members of the glorious new order who could think in such a way would be unacceptable. "He is incorrigible," they would say when they sentenced him to whatever death method was prescribed for the enemies of INterface.

  They would be right, of course. They could not change him, and so if they intended to eliminate him, they would have to find him. He had the capability of throwing them off his trail by using the biosensor, which was no longer their tool, but his. But, how to use it? The ploy must be developed — and quickly, because they could home in on the device as easily with it wrapped in a handkerchief and tucked away in the overnight bag as they could if it remained in his flesh.

  His mind, now refreshed and clearer, and at an even higher emotional peak than it had been in days, formed an embryo of stratagem. Far-fetched as the hope of putting them off his scent while at the same time getting inside INterface machinery seemed, things even more bizarre had come to pass in an unbelievably short time. Things unthinkable. The selling of the United States to a European oligarchy headed by a computer genius. The disappearance of hundreds of millions of people, as if on cue by some master director. The astounding swiftness with which the Naxos Utopians consolidated power and put INterface networking into place following the unexplained devastation of the Russian federation's war machine. The zeal shown by the representatives at Brussels, most, ideologically incompatible with each other. The dramatic ideas put forward by the young German ecumenically hailed by hardened veterans of the world's diplomatic community.

  "Watch out!"

  Jacob jammed the brake pedal when Melissa screamed, but the face seemed already in the car with them. Huge, fear-bulging eyes that smashed into the windshield, breaking the glass into a million crystalline fractures and smearing it crimson. The rolling, thumping of the body seemed to go on forever after the man's head-first crunch into the station wagon's front end. Jacob had swerved, but too late! He eased the wagon to a stop along the curb.

  Melissa was bent forward holding her face between her hands, sobbing; she stiffened when he touched her.

  "We've got to keep ourselves together," he heard himself say coldly, thinking of the probability of being caught because of the attention drawn by the accident. Thinking, too, that he felt like slapping the girl to make her act contrary to her natural instinct. "Did you hear me? We cannot do anything about that man, but if we don't handle this right, we might be worse off than him. Do you understand, Melissa?!"

  He shook her violently but managed to restrain himself from striking. She nodded, trying to stifle her sobs.

  "I'll take care of it. All you have to do is sit here. Try to compose yourself." Forcing himself to use a more soothing tone, Jacob analyzed their situation, looking around at the men and women who gawked through the windows. Faces, distorted...more zombie-like than human with their silent, dispassionate stares.

  When he stepped to the pavement, a vehicle, its blue lights flashing, converged on them. Now he would have to produce identification, go to a police station, and have his life searched by computers. Computers almost certainly linked by now to those of the Naxos system. These officers would not be directly a part of the hunt for him, but would they have an APB out? Or a high-priority missing persons report? If so, and the policemen discovered that they had found the subject of such a search, he would take the first chance to bolt. Melissa would have to be left behind. But she knew a great deal of what he knew. He was stupid to have shared so much with her. She didn't know everything, however. Not about his plans.

  "Are you the driver of this vehicle, sir?" The big policeman said, approaching from behind the station wagon.

  "Yes." Must stop shaking. Maintain control! "Give me your UNIVUSCARD, please." How long before they would run down the fact that he was being sought? Should he lie? Tell them he had lost his wallet? No. That would prompt a computer check for certain. The uniformed officer who asked the question looked past Jacob to a short
, thick man in a sport coat and tie. The approaching man had just stepped out of a black car that had pulled to a stop behind the police cruiser.

  "I'll take care of it," the plainclothes officer said, taking the UNIVUSCARD from the uniformed man and glancing at it, then handing it to Jacob. There seemed a glimmer of recognition in the man's eyes. Probably just a policeman's naturally suspicious way.

  "Mr. Zen. You look like a sober, law-abiding guy. A guy who wouldn't hit anybody intentionally." The stocky man's tone was facetious, but not maliciously so.

  "To be honest with you, this is your lucky night, because we don't have time to spend on this sort of thing right now, what with the more pressing problems we're having to contend with. If we take you in, it'll tie you up, it'll tie us up. And, what's one more body more or less these days? The guy felt it just wasn't worth it any more, so he chose you to end all his problems for him. That's how I see it. Why should we be penalized for his lunacy? It wouldn't cramp you too much if you just wash your car, straighten your dents, and we forget that it ever happened, would it?"

  "No, sir." Jacob tried to hold the smile, wanting to keep from the policeman his nervousness and relief.

  "Clear the area!" the plainclothes officer shouted gruffly, causing the onlookers, their faces still devoid of expression, to wander aimlessly down the streets as they had been doing before they were attracted to the death scene.

  "You'd better move along now, Mr. Zen, before my chief calls for me and I have to tell him about this. He might cause us both problems we don't have time for."

  "Uh... yes... I will," Jacob stammered, feeling as dull-witted as the people who had surrounded them, the numbing effects caused by the rush of events having returned in greater measure.

  "Is the man dead?" Melissa said when he slid into the driver's seat. He turned into the traffic lane and edged by the policemen, who knelt over the the blood-soaked corpse.

  "Yeah. He's dead."

  Suddenly he felt conflicting emotions: relief, almost joy, over being freed from what could have ended in capture, and profound sadness, seeing in the incident the deterioration of humanity. The people, not concerned that a man had been killed, merely curious; the officers, who wanted only to get it over with by discarding the carcass, like one would discard a dog, dead in the street.