“My name’s Damon Hart,” he said. “I’m the biological son of Conrad Helier and the foster son of Silas Arnett and Eveline Hywood. It might be to the advantage of the foundation if someone in authority were to read this document. It might also be to the advantage of the foundation if lesser mortals—including yourself—refrained from reading it. Personally, I don’t care at all; if you or anyone else wants to take the risk of looking at it, you’re welcome.”
That, he figured, should get the item as far up the chain of command as was feasible without the contents of the enigmatic message becoming common knowledge.
The fetcher-and-carrier disappeared into the inner offices again, leaving Damon to his own devices for a further ten minutes.
Eventually, a woman came to collect him. She had silky red hair and bright blue eyes. For a moment Damon thought that she was genuinely young, and his jaw tightened as he concluded that he was about to be fobbed off, but the hair and eye colors were a little too contrived and a slight constriction in her practiced smile reassured him that she had undergone recent somatic reconstruction of the kind that was misleadingly advertised as “rejuvenation.” Her real age was likely to be at least seventy, if not in three figures.
“Mr. Hart,” she said, offering him the piece of paper, still folded, in lieu of a handshake. “I’m Rachel Trehaine. Won’t you come through.”
The corridors behind the security wall were bare; the doors had no nameplates. The office into which Rachel Trehaine eventually led Damon was liberally equipped with flat screens and fitted with shelves full of discs and digitapes, but it had no VE hood. “Perhaps I’d better warn you that I’m only a senior reader,” she said as she waved him to a chair. “I don’t have any executive authority. I’ve had an encrypted version of your document relayed to New York, but it may take some time to get a response from them. In the meantime, I’d like to thank you for bringing the matter to our attention—we had not been independently informed.”
“You’re welcome,” Damon assured her insincerely. “I hope you’ll show me the same courtesy of bringing to my attention any pertinent matters of which I might not have been independently informed.” He winced slightly as he heard the pomposity in his tone, realizing that he might have overrehearsed his opening speech.
“Of course,” said Rachel Trehaine, with the charming ease of a practiced dissembler. “I don’t suppose you have any idea—if only the merest suspicion—who this mysterious Operator might be, or why this attack on your family has been launched?”
“I thought you might know more about that than I do,” Damon said. “You’ll have complete records of any dealings between Ahasuerus and Conrad Helier’s research team.”
“When I say that I’m a senior reader,” she told him mildly, “I don’t mean that I have free access to the foundation’s own records. My job is to keep watch on other data streams, selecting out data of interest, collating and reporting. I’m a scientific analyst, not a historian.”
“I meant you plural, not you singular,” Damon told her. “Someone in your organization must be able to figure out which particular closeted skeleton Operator one-oh-one intends to bring out into the open. Why else would he have sent me to you?”
“Why would he—or she—have sent you anywhere at all, Mr. Hart? Why send you a personal message? It seems very odd—not at all the way that Eliminators usually operate.”
The delicate suggestion was, of course, that Damon was the source of the message—that he himself was Operator 101. As a scientific analyst Rachel Trehaine would naturally have considerable respect for Occam’s razor.
“That’s an interesting question,” Damon said agreeably. “When Inspector Yamanaka referred to the situation as a puzzle he was speaking metaphorically, but that message implies that the instigator of this series of incidents really is creating a puzzle, dangling it before me as a kind of lure—just as I, in my turn, am dangling it before you. Operator one-oh-one wants me to go digging, and he’s offering suggestions as to where I might profitably dig. Given that Conrad Helier is dead, he can’t possibly be the Eliminators’ real target—and if their promise that Silas Arnett will be released after he’s given them what they want is honest, he isn’t the real target either. If the note is to be taken at face value, Operator one-oh-one might be building a file on Eveline Hywood, with particular reference to her past dealings with your foundation.”
Rachel Trehaine took a few moments to weigh that up, presumably employing all her skills as a senior reader. Anyone but a scientific analyst might have challenged his conclusions, or at least pointed out the tentative nature of his inferences, but she was content merely to observe and record.
“Have you spoken to Eveline Hywood?” she asked.
“I’ve tried,” Damon told her. “She isn’t accepting calls at the moment. There’s nothing sinister in that—she tends to get engrossed in her work. She never liked being interrupted. I’ll get through eventually, but she’ll probably tell me that it isn’t my business anymore—that I forfeited any right I might have had to be told what’s going on when I walked out on the Great Crusade to run with the gangs.”
The red-haired woman pondered that information too. Damon judged that she was under real pressure to make sense of this, or thought she was. However lowly her position within the organization might be she was obviously in charge of the Los Angeles office, at least for the moment. She knew that she might have decisions to make, as well as orders to follow from New York.
“The Ahasuerus Foundation’s sole purpose is to conduct research into technologies of longevity,” she said sententiously. “It’s entirely probable that we provided funding to Conrad Helier’s research team if they were involved in projects connected with longevity research. I can’t imagine that there was anything in our dealings to attract the interest of the so-called Eliminators.”
“That is strange, isn’t it?” Damon said, trying to sound insouciant. “The usual Eliminator jargon charges people with being unworthy of immortality—a formula which takes it for granted that your researchers will eventually hit the jackpot. In a way, you and the Eliminators represent different sides of the same coin. If and when you come up with an authentic fountain of youth you’ll be forced into the position of deciding who should drink from it.”
“We’re a nonprofit organization, Mr. Hart. Our constitution requires us to make the fruits of our labor available to everyone.”
“I looked up your constitution last night,” Damon admitted. “It’s an interesting commitment. But I also glanced at the way in which you’ve operated in the past. It’s true that Ahasuerus has always placed its research findings in the public domain, but that’s not the same thing as ensuring equal access to the consequent technologies. Consider PicoCon’s new rejuvenation procedures, for example: there’s no secret about the manner in which the reconstructive transformations are done, but it’s still an expensive process to carry out because it requires such a high level of technical expertise and so much hospital time. Effectively, it’s available only to the rich. It seems highly likely to me that the next breakthrough in longevity research will be a more wide-ranging kind of somatic transformation which will achieve an authentic rejuvenation rather than a merely cosmetic one.
Assuming that it requires even more technical expertise and even more hospital time, it’s likely to be available only to the very rich, at least in the first instance, even if all the research data is in the public domain. If so, the megacorps will still have effective control over its application. Isn’t that so?”
“In the first instance is the vital phrase, Mr. Hart,” she informed him, still carefully maintaining the stiffness of her manner. “The early recipients of such a treatment would be those who could most easily afford it, but it would eventually filter through the entire population. The rich are always first in every queue—but that only means that the poor have to be patient, and in the New Utopia even the poor have time enough. Provided that your hypothetical technology of
authentic rejuvenation were to take the form of a treatment that a person need only undergo once—or even if it needed to be repeated at long intervals—there’d be plenty of time to work through the queue. No one has any interest in delaying our work, Mr. Hart—and that includes the lonely and resentful individuals who have nothing better to do with their time than denounce the follies and failures of their fellow men and urge maniacs to attempt murder.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Damon said, although he wasn’t sure that the matter was as simple as she made it out to be. “As I said, I’ve read your constitution. It’s a fine and noble commitment, even if it was written by a man who made his fortune by turning a minor storm in the troubled waters of the world’s financial markets into a full-scale hurricane. But lonely and resentful individuals often nurse paranoid fantasies. Operator one-oh-one might have got it into his head that you’ve already developed a method of authentic rejuvenation, but that you’re keeping it very quiet. Perhaps he thinks that you’re the real Eliminators, standing by while the people you consider to be undesirables peacefully pass away, and saving your immortality serum for the deserving few.”
“That’s absolutely untrue,” said Rachel Trehaine, her bright blue eyes as fathomless as the California sky.
“A paranoid fantasy,” Damon agreed readily. “But I did happen to notice, while inwardly digesting your constitution, that although it commits you to releasing the results of the research you fund, it doesn’t actually specify when you have to do it. You’re not the only player in the field, of course—I dare say there’s not a single megacorp which doesn’t have a few fingers thrust deep into this particular pie—but you’ve been going for a long time and you have a good deal of expertise. If I were a bookmaker, I’d make you third favorite, after PicoCon and OmicronA, to come up with the next link in the chain that will eventually draw us into the wonderland of true emortality. Some day, someone like you is going to have to decide exactly how and when to let the good news out. Whoever makes that decision runs the risk of making enemies, don’t you think?”
The remark about Ahasuerus being third favorite after the biggest players of all was pure flattery, but it didn’t bring a smile to Rachel Trehaine’s face. “I can assure you,” the red-haired woman said, “that the Ahasuerus Foundation has no secrets of the kind you’re suggesting. You’ve already admitted that this mysterious Operator is deliberately teasing you, trying to draw you into reckless action. If that’s so, you ought to think very carefully about what you say, and to whom. If Operator one-oh-one has paranoid fantasies to indulge and lies to spread, it might be wise to let him be the one to do it.”
Damon would have assured her that he agreed with her wholeheartedly, but before he could open his mouth her attention was distracted. One of her machines was beeping, presumably to inform her that urgent information was incoming. From where he was sitting Damon couldn’t see the screen whose keyplate she was playing with, and he didn’t try to sneak a peep.
“The Ahasuerus Foundation thanks you for bringing this matter to our attention,” the red-haired woman said, reading from the screen. “The Ahasuerus Foundation intends to cooperate fully with Interpol and suggests that you do the same. If the Ahasuerus Foundation can help in any way to locate and liberate Silas Arnett it will certainly do so.”
Damon knew that he was being slyly rebuked for not taking the note straight to Hiru Yamanaka, but he couldn’t guess whether the rebuke was sincere or not. He had no way of knowing whether coming here had made the general situation better or worse—or, for that matter, what might count as “better” or “worse.” When he saw that she was finished, he rose to his feet.
“I’m afraid I have a plane to catch,” he said. He knew perfectly well that he was about to be thrown out, but figured that he might as well seize whatever initiative remained to be seized. “If I hear any further mention of the foundation I’ll be happy to pass the news on. I take it that my discretion wasn’t necessary, and that you won’t mind in the least if I simply use the phone in future?”
“We have nothing to hide,” said Rachel Trehaine as she came to her feet, “but that doesn’t mean that we don’t appreciate your discretion, Mr. Hart. Privacy is a very precious commodity in today’s world, and we value it as much as anyone.”
Damon took that to mean that she would definitely prefer it if he exercised the utmost discretion in passing on any further information, but that she wasn’t about to feed anyone’s paranoid suspicions by saying so explicitly.
As soon as he got back to his car Damon checked into the net-board where Operator 101 had posted the notice Yamanaka had showed him, but there was nothing new. There were no messages from Madoc Tamlin or Eveline Hywood awaiting his attention. Having decided that everything else could wait, Damon sent the car forth into the traffic.
He had no doubt that his movements were being monitored by Interpol, and that the fact of his visit to Ahasuerus, if not its content, would be known to Yamanaka. His eastward expedition would also have been observed and noted, but Tamlin could be trusted to evade any surveillance to which he was subject as and when he wished.
While the car made its silent way along the city streets, observing the speed limit with mechanical precision, Damon took out the folded note yet again and scanned the tantalizing lines for the hundredth time. He had expected no more from Ahasuerus than he had got and he had no doubt that he would have got no more from Rachel Trehaine no matter what tack he had adopted in making conversation, but he couldn’t help wondering whether he had concentrated on the wrong part of the puzzle. The most remarkable allegation it made was not that Eveline Hywood and the Ahasuerus Foundation knew something significantly shady about Conrad Helier’s past but that Conrad Helier was still alive. How could that be, when so much solid evidence remained of his death?
Damon wondered whether the kind of reconstructive somatic engineering that had been used to make Rachel Trehaine look younger than she was could be used to alter a man’s appearance out of all recognition. And if some more extravagant version of it did exist, if only as an experimental prototype, might it be applied to other applications? Specifically, might it transform the cells of one body in such a way that genetic analysis would conclude that they belonged to an entirely different person? In sum, how easy was it, in this day and age, for a man to fake his own death, even to the extent of providing a misidentifiable corpse? And if it were possible today, what was the likelihood that it had been equally possible fifty years ago?
“Paranoid fantasies,” Damon muttered as the stream of unanswerable questions dwindled away. He knew well enough that even if the matters of practicality were not insuperable the question of motive still remained—not to mention the matter of principle that he had quoted to Madoc Tamlin.
The car came gently to a standstill and Damon realized that the traffic stream in both directions had ground to a halt. A quick look around told him that every emergency light in sight was on red and he groaned. Some idiot saboteur had hacked into the control system and thrown a software spanner into the works. He sighed and tried hard to relax. Usually, such glitches only took a few minutes to clear—but one of the reasons they had become so common of late was that rival parties of smart and prideful kids were trying just as hard to set new records as the city was.
By the time the car got moving again, Damon was not finding it at all difficult—in spite of his own checkered history—to sympathize with the hypothetical proposition he had put to Rachel Trehaine. Anyone who did come up with an authentic emortality serum might well be tempted to reserve it for the socially conscientious, while allowing all the lonely and resentful individuals who had nothing better to do with their time than fuck things up to fade into oblivion.
Seven
I
’m sorry we couldn’t bring flowers,” Madoc Tamlin said to Lenny Garon, “but they reckon flowers compromise the sterile regime and promote nosocomial infections. It’s bullshit, but what can you do?”
Le
nny Garon made the effort to produce a polite smile. Madoc couldn’t help contrasting the boy’s stubbornly heroic attitude with that of Diana Caisson, who hadn’t smiled all day and didn’t seem likely to start now. He wouldn’t have brought her along if he’d had any choice, but even though the hospital was nearly the last place in the world she wanted to be she’d insisted on tagging along. It seemed that what proverbial wisdom said about misery loving company was true—and when Diana was miserable, she certainly had enough to go around.
“I shouldn’t be here,” the novice streetfighter said, as if the hospital’s insistence on keeping him in were a slur on his manhood. “The intestine’s not leaking anymore and the nanotech’s taking care of the peritonitis. I was just unlucky that the cut reached my spleen—it was nothing, really. They’ll probably let me out in a couple of hours if I kick up a fuss.”
“It would have been nothing if you’d had IT as good as Brady’s,” Madoc told him cynically. “Pretty soon, you will. You have talent. It’s raw, but it’s real. Just a couple more fights and you’ll be ready to turn the tables. You hurt Brady too, you know—he might not be in the next bed, but he knows he was in a fight. One day, you’ll go even further than he has—if you stick at it.”
“Did you give the tapes to Damon Hart?”
Madoc couldn’t help glancing at Diana to see what effect the mention of Damon’s name had, and was unfortunate enough to catch her eye.
“Why should he give the tapes to Damon Hart?” she snapped at the boy, without taking her accusative eyes off Madoc.
“I thought that’s why he came to the fight,” Garon retorted innocently.
Madoc had a stoical expression all ready for display. He hadn’t had a chance to warn the boy to be discreet, and it was inevitable that the cat would be let out of the bag. Now it was his turn to be stubbornly heroic in the face of adversity. He waited for the storm to break.
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