Chasing Shadows: Visions of Our Coming Transparent World

by David Brin

  “It’s all up to the deAngelis operators. They’re the kingpins; they make the system work. Not Simon deAngelis who invented it, or the technicians who install it, or the Police Commissioner who takes the results to City Hall. The operators make it or break it. Sure, they have rules to follow—if they want. But a good operator ignores the rules, and a bad operator goes by the book, and he’s still no damn good. It’s just like radar was sixty, seventy years ago. Some got the knack, some don’t.”

  “Then the deAngelis doesn’t do the job,” said the cub.

  “Certainly it does,” the older man said. “Nothing’s perfect. It gives the police the jump on a lot of crime. Premeditated murder for one. The average citizen can’t kill anyone unless he’s mad enough, and if he’s mad enough, he registers on the deAngelis. And ordinary robbers get caught; their plans don’t go just right, or they fight among themselves. Or, if they just don’t like society—a good deAngelis operator can tell quite a bit if he gets a reading at the wrong time of day or night, or in the wrong part of town.”

  “But what about the sweet old lady who registers sixty-five and then goes berserk?”

  “That’s where your operator really comes in. Usually that kind of a reading comes too late. Grandma’s swinging the knife at the same time the light goes on in the station house. But if she waits to swing, or builds herself up to it, then she may be stopped. You know those poor operators are supposed to log any reading over sixty, and report downtown with anything over eighty. Sure they are! If they logged everything over sixty, they’d have writer’s cramp the first hour they were on watch. And believe me, Sonny, any operator who reported downtown on every reading over eighty would be back pounding a beat before the end of his first day. They just do the best they can, and you’d be surprised at how good that can be.”

  * * *

  The old man woke up, but kept his eyes closed. He was afraid. It was too quiet, and the room was clammy with an early morning chill. He opened his eyelids a crack and looked at the window. Still dark outside. He lay there trembling and brought his elbows in tight to his body. He was going to have the shakes; he knew he’d have the shakes and it was still too early. Too early. He looked at the clock. It was only a quarter after five. Too early for the bars to be open. He covered his eyes with his hands and tried to think.

  It was no use; he couldn’t think. He sobbed. He was afraid to move. He knew he had to have a drink, and he knew if he got up he’d be sick. “Oh Lord!” he breathed.

  The trembling became worse. He tried to press it away by hugging his body with his arms. It didn’t help. He looked wildly around and tried to concentrate. He thought about the bureau … no. The dresser … no. His clothes … he felt feverishly about his body … no. Under the bed … no … wait … maybe. He’d brought some beer home. Now he remembered. Maybe there was some left.

  He rolled over on his stomach and groped under the bed. His tremulous fingers found the paper bag and he dragged it out. It was full of empty cans; the carton inside was ripped. He tore the sack open. Empty cans … no! There was a full one … two full ones …

  He staggered to his feet and looked for an opener. There was one on the bureau. He stumbled over and opened his first beautiful, lovely can of beer. He put his mouth down close to the top so that none of the foam could escape him. He’d be all right ’til seven, now. The bars opened at seven. He’d be all right ’til seven.

  He did not notice the knife lying beside the opener. He did not own a knife and had no recollection of buying one.

  It was a hunting knife and he was not a hunter.

  * * *

  The light at the end of the second row was growing gradually brighter. The needle traveled slowly across the dial, 68.2, 68.4, 68.6.…

  King called over to the audio controller. “They all report in yet?”

  The controller nodded. “Squirrel Hill’s got your signal on, same reading as you have. Bloomfield thinks they may have it. Oakland’s not too sure. Everybody else is negative.” The controller walked over. “Which one is it?”

  King pointed to the end of the second row.

  “Can’t you get it on your screen?”

  “Hell, yes, I’ve got him on my screen!” King swiveled in his chair and turned on the set. The scope was covered with pale dots. “Which one is he? There?” He pointed to the left. “That’s a guy who didn’t get the raise he wanted. There?” He pointed to the center. “That’s a little girl with bad dreams. She has them every night. There? That’s my brother! He’s in the Veterans’ Hospital and wanted to come home a week ago.”

  “So don’t get excited,” said the controller. “I only asked.”

  “I’m sorry, Gus,” King apologized. “My fault. I’m a little edgy … probably nothing at all.”

  “Well, you got it narrowed down anyway,” Gus said. “If you got it, and Squirrel Hill’s got it, then he’s in Shadyside. If Oakland doesn’t have him, then he’s on this side of Aiken Avenue.” The controller had caught King’s fever; the “it” had become a “him.” “And if Bloomfield doesn’t have him, then he’s on the other side of Baum Boulevard.”

  “Only Bloomfield might have him.”

  “Well, what the hell; you’ve still got him located in the lower half of Shadyside. Tell you what, I’ll send a man up Ellsworth, get Bloomfield to cruise Baum Boulevard in a scout car, and have Squirrel Hill put a patrol on Wilkens. We can triangulate.”

  “No,” said King, “not yet. Thanks anyway, Gus, but there’s no point in stirring up a tempest in a teapot. Just tell them to watch it. If it climbs over 75 we can narrow it down then.”

  “It’s your show,” said Gus.

  * * *

  The old man finished his second can of beer. The trembling was almost gone. He could stand and move without breaking out in a cold sweat. He ran his hand through his hair and looked at the clock. 6:15. Too early. He looked around the room for something to read. There were magazines and newspapers scattered everywhere; the papers all folded back to the sports section. He picked up a paper, not even bothering about the date, and tried to interest himself in the batting averages of the Intercontinental League. Yamamura was on top with .387; the old man remembered when Yamamura came up as a rookie. But right now he didn’t care; the page trembled and the type kept blurring. He threw the paper down. He had a headache.

  The old man got up and went over to the bathroom. He steadied himself against the door jamb and kicked the wadded sweater out of sight beneath the dresser. He went into the bathroom and turned on the water. He ran his hands over his face and thought about shaving, but he couldn’t face the work involved. He managed to run a comb through his hair and rinse out his mouth.

  He came back into the room. It was 6:30. Maybe Freddie’s was open. If Freddie’s wasn’t, then maybe The Grill. He’d have to take his chances, he couldn’t stand it here any longer. He put on his coat and stumbled out.

  * * *

  At eight o’clock the watch was changed; Matesic replaced King.

  “Anything?” asked Matesic.

  “Just this one, Chuck,” said King. “I may be a fool, but this one bothers me.” King was a diplomat where Blaney was not.

  King showed him the entry. The dial now stood at 72.8. “It’s been on there all night, since before I had the watch. And it’s been climbing, just slow and steady, but all the time climbing. I locked a circuit on him, but I’ll take it off if you want me to.”

  “No,” said Matesic, “leave it on. That don’t smell right to me neither.”

  * * *

  The old man was feeling better. He’d been in the bar two hours, and he’d had two pickled eggs, and the bartender didn’t bother him. Beer was all right, but a man needed whiskey when he was sick. He’d have one, maybe two more, and then he’d eat some breakfast. He didn’t know why, but he knew he mustn’t get drunk.

  * * *

  At nine o’clock the needle on the dial climbed past seventy-five. Matesic asked for coverage. That meant that
two patrolmen would be tied up, doing nothing but searching for an echo. And it might be a wild-goose chase. He was explaining to the captain, but the captain wasn’t listening. He was looking at the photographs in the deAngelis file.

  “You don’t like this?” the captain asked.

  Matesic said he didn’t like it.

  “And King said he didn’t like it?”

  “King thinks the same way I do; he’s been on there too damn long and too damn consistent.”

  “Pick him up,” the captain turned and ordered the audio controller. “If we can’t hold him, we can at least get a look at him.”

  “It’s not too clear yet,” said Matesic. “It’ll take a spread.”

  “I know what it’ll take,” the captain roared. “Don’t tell me my job! Put every available man on this; I want that guy brought in.”

  * * *

  The old man walked back to his room. He was carrying a dozen cans of beer, but the load was light and he walked upright. He felt fine, like a million dollars. And he was beginning to remember.

  When he entered the room he saw the knife, and when he saw the knife he smiled. A man had to be smart and a man had to be prepared. They were smart—wicked and smart—but he was smarter. He’d bought the knife a long, long time ago, in a different world; they couldn’t fool him that way. They were clever all right; they fooled the whole world.

  He put his beer on the bureau, then walked into the bathroom and turned on the water in the tub. He came back out and started to undress. He was humming to himself. When he finished undressing, he went over to the bureau and opened a can of beer. He carried it into the bathroom, put it beside the tub, and lowered himself into the water.

  Ah … that was the ticket. Water and being clean. Clean and being water. Being water and being candy and being smart. They fooled the whole world, but not him. The whole, wide world, but they couldn’t fool him. He was going to fool them. All pretty and innocent. Hah! Innocent! He knew. They were rotten, they were rotten all the way through. They fooled the whole world but they were rotten—rotten—and he was the only one who knew.

  He finished the beer and stood up in the tub. The water ran off his body in greasy runlets. He didn’t pull the plug. He stepped out of the tub and over to the bathroom mirror. His face looked fine, not puffy at all. He’d fool them. He sprinkled himself with lilac water, put the bottle to his lips, and swished some of it in his mouth. Oh yes, he’d fool them. A man couldn’t be too clever; they were clever, so he had to be clever. He began to shave.

  * * *

  The captain was on an audio circuit, talking to an assistant commissioner. “Yes, sir, I know that.… Yes, sir, it could be, but it might be something else.… Yes, sir, I know Squirrel Hill has problems, but we need help.… Yes, Commissioner, it’s over ninety now—” The captain signaled wildly to Matesic; Matesic held up four fingers, then two. “—94.2 and still going up.… No, sir, we don’t know. Some guy gonna quit his job—or kill his boss. Maybe he found out his wife is cheating on him. We can’t tell until we pick him up.… Yes, sir.… Yes, sir.… Thank you, sir.”

  The captain hung up. “I hate politicians,” he snarled.

  “Watch it, Captain,” said Matesic. “I’ll get you on my board.”

  “Get me on it, hell,” the captain said. “I’ve never been off.”

  * * *

  The old man finished dressing. He knotted his tie and brushed off the front of his suit with his hand. He looked fine. He’d fool them; he looked just like anybody else. He crossed to the bureau and picked up the knife. It was still in the scabbard. He didn’t take it out; he just put it in his pocket. Good. It didn’t show.

  He walked out on the street. The sun was shining brightly and heat waves were coming up from the sidewalk. Good. Good. This was the best time. People, the real people, would be working or lying down asleep. But they’d be out. They were always out. Out all sweet and innocent in the hot sun.

  He turned down the street and ambled toward the drug store. He didn’t want to hurry. He had lots of time. He had to get some candy first. That was the ticket, candy. Candy worked, candy always worked. Candy was good but candy was wicked. He was good but they were wicked. Oh, you had to be smart.

  * * *

  “That has to be him,” Matesic said. The screen was blotched and milky, but a large splash of light in the lower left-hand corner outshone everything else. “He’s somewhere around Negley Avenue.” He turned to the captain. “Where do you have your men placed?”

  “In a box,” the captain said. “Fifth and Negley, Aiken and Negley, Center and Aiken, and Center and Negley. And three scout cars overhead.”

  The old man walked up Ellsworth to the Liberty School. There were always lots of young ones around Liberty School. The young ones were the worst.

  “I’m losing him.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Center and Aiken.”

  “Anybody getting him stronger?”

  “Yeah. Me. Negley and Fifth.”

  “Never mind. Never mind, we got him. We see him now.”

  “Where?”

  “Bellefonte and Ivy. Liberty School.”

  She was a friendly little thing, and pretty. Maybe five, maybe six, and her mommy had told her not to talk to strangers. But the funny old man wasn’t talking; he was sitting on the curb, and he was eating candy, and he was offering some to her. He smiled at the little girl and she smiled back.

  The scout car settled to earth on automatic. Two officers climbed out of the car and walked quietly over to the old man, one on either side. They each took an arm and lifted him gently to his feet.

  “Hello there, old timer,” said one.

  “Hi, little girl,” said the other.

  The old man looked around bewildered. He dropped his candy and tried to reach his knife. They mustn’t interfere. It was no use. The officers were very kind and gentle, and they were very, very firm. They led him off as though he were an old, old friend.

  One of the officers called back over his shoulder, “Bye, bye, little girl.”

  The little girl dutifully waved ’bye.

  She looked at the paper sack on the sidewalk. She didn’t know what to do, but the nice old man was gone. She looked around, but no one was paying any attention; they were all watching the softball game. Suddenly she made a grab and clutched the paper bag to her body. Then she turned and ran back up the street to tell her mommy how wonderful, wonderful lucky she was.

  It can take ingenuity to counterbalance

  misuse of ingenuity.

  THE WEREWOLVES OF MAPLEWOOD

  JAMES MORROW

  For many years I dismissed my undergraduate experiments in lycanthropy as mere youthful dalliances. Organic chemistry majors are forever wandering into forbidden zones, especially at hippie schools like Casaubon College. In devising a serum whereby a person might know the werewolf lifestyle—the heightened senses, the increased prowess, the unruly joy of it all—I had no aim beyond hedonism.

  At the risk of getting too technical at the outset, I’ll reveal that my molecule goes by the name CXYHXZNZO. Although I never managed to get the thing into capsule form, my college friends were more than willing to endure injections. For a while my clever little chemical, which I dubbed Lupina-11, eclipsed synapsine as the campus euphoriant of choice. (Casaubon was a druggie school even back then.) You can imagine my satisfaction whenever I overheard someone say, “Let’s visit Winkleberg and get hairy tonight.” I charged twenty dollars per transformation. Soon I became solvent beyond my wildest dreams, able to take my dates to the best restaurants in Albany and pay my tuition bills the instant they arrived.

  I must hasten to explain that Lupina-11 was a fundamentally innocuous divertissement. The effect never lasted more than four hours, and, as far as I know, no werewolf of Joshua Winkleberg’s making ever harmed another human being. True, while under the influence you found yourself craving chunks of raw meat sodden with blood and stippled with fat, but this urge s
imply took you to the nearest butcher shop. The thought of treating people as potential sources of protein never occurred to you. Truth to tell, Lupina-11 was largely about having sex while enfurred, the rough coupling to which you and your partner were driven by the sight and scent of one another’s pelts, the fang-linked and claw-dependent arousal that, for most users, was so unlike anything in their previous erotic experience. Occasionally you came away from your partner’s bed sporting an abrasion or two, but after all we’re talking about unbridled animal passion, not square dancing. Scratches and love bites and sex: so what else is new?

  Near the end of my senior year, I realized to my chagrin that chemistry wasn’t my calling. I forthwith decamped to Princeton, seeking a doctorate in analytic philosophy. Against the odds, I managed to say something novel about the world’s most famous lens-grinder, in a thesis titled Thinking Flesh and Cogent Bones: The Physicalist Essence of Spinoza’s Pantheism, and in time I became a full professor at Brook Haven University in Caster County, Pennsylvania, a bucolic and congenial region occupying the geographic center of the state.