"As we mentioned before the implant," Zeldo finally said, "the biochips do more than just restore his normal capabilities."
This struck Mary Catherine as evasive. "You hackers aren't very good at playing these kinds of games, are you?" she said.
"No comment," Zeldo said. "I didn't spend half my life learning what I know so that I could get tangled up in politics."
The snappy technical patter had been replaced by a completely different sort of conversation. Both of them were now speaking elliptically with long pauses between sentences. Suddenly, Mary Catherine realized why: both of them knew that they were being listened to. Both of them had things to hide.
She had said something to Mel earlier in the day: Zeldo was in the Network but not of the Network. His fear of speaking freely in the bugged room was confirmation.
"As Ogle may have told you, I'm the campaign physician," she said.
"Yes," Zeldo said. "Congratulations. It's going to be a grind."
"Nothing like residency, I'm sure," Mary Catherine said.
"Because of... because of these pesky bugs and glitches," Zeldo said, framing the words carefully, "I've been assigned to travel with the campaign, at least for a while. So let me know if there's anything I can do to help you out."
"For starters you could tell me exactly what happens when he goes near a microwave relay station."
Zeldo answered without hesitation. Now that they had gotten away from dangerous topics he had relaxed again. "He has a seizure."
"That's all?"
"Well... before that there are other symptoms. Disorientation. A flood of memories and sensations."
"When these memories and sensations enter his mind, can he tell that they are just hallucinations from the chip?"
This question made Zeldo pause for a long time.
"You shouldn't grind your teeth. Bad for the enamel," Mary Catherine said, after at least sixty seconds had gone by.
"That's a profound question," Zeldo said. "It gets us into some heavy philosophical shit: if everything we think and feel is just a pattern of signals in our brain, then is there an objective reality? If the signals in Argus's brain happen to include radio transmissions, then does that mean that reality is a different thing for him?"
Mary Catherine held her tongue, for once, and did not ask why Zeldo was referring to her father as Argus. It was most definitely a slip of the tongue, a glimpse into something that Mary Catherine hadn't been allowed to see yet. If she got inquisitive, Zeldo would just clam up again.
Another, more interesting, possibility occurred to her: maybe Zeldo had slipped the word in deliberately.
"And if so," Zeldo continued, "who are we to say that one form of reality is preferable to another form?"
"Well, if he says things that simply aren't true, and seems to believe them, I would say that that was a problem," Mary Catherine said.
"Memory is a funny thing," Zeldo said. "None of our memories are really accurate to being with. So if he's got a memory that works a little differently from ours, and is otherwise healthy and happy, is that better than being aphasic in a wheelchair? Who's to say?"
"I guess it's up to Dad," Mary Catherine said.
Clearly she had to find the GODS envelope. The events of the day had convinced her beyond doubt that Mel was right: there was a Network, and it was up to something. Mary Catherine went back to her room, changed out of her daughter costume, put on a bathrobe, and walked downstairs. The caterers were at work in the kitchen, cleaning up the aftermath of the party; all of the guests had gone home except for a few old Vietnam buddies of Cozzano's who sat around the coffee table in the living room having a few drinks and reminiscing about the war, alternately laughing and crying.
Mary Catherine avoided them and went out on to the back porch. A row of black plastic garbage bags were lined up against the wall, waiting to be collected. She opened one of the bags, sorted through a few loose pieces of paper, and found the brightly colored enveloped, still intact except for the broken seal. The mailing label was a bewildering panoply of numbers, code words, and bar codes; the inscrutable mutterings of the Network. Mary Catherine folded the envelope, stuffed it into her bathrobe, closed up the burn bag, and called it a day.
Floyd Wayne Vishniak
R.R. 6 Box 895
Davenport, Iowa
Aaron Green
Ogle Data Research
Pentagon Towers
Arlington, Virginia
Dear Mr. Green:
Just for starters, I figured out your game that you are playing. When you came here you gave me some shit about working for that Ogle Data Research. Like you were some scientist writing a dissertation. But now I have figured out what you really are: you are working for William A. Cozzano. He must be paying you money to work on his campaign.
How did I figure it out? By just noticing what things you put on the little TV set on my wrist. You always show Cozzano but you don't show the other candidates as much.
Well, I watched Cozzano announcing that he would run for president this afternoon. I did not watch it on the little wristwatch. I went down to Dale's, which is a bar, and watched it on the big-screen TV there with some other guys. And I can tell you for your information that just about all the guys who were in that place thought it was real impressive.
I thought it was impressive too. But now it is two o'clock a.m. and I can not get to sleep. Because I am thinking about some of the things that Cozzano said and it troubles me.
When he was in that debate in Decatur, Illinois, he spoke about his dad's parachute factory and how important it was to the men on D day standing in the open door of the plane. But today, he told a whole story about a bunch of paratroopers and how one of them came to personally thank his dad. This is a strange discrepancy, don't you think?
My opinion: something got scrambled up inside Cozzano's head when he had those troubles. And now, either he has memory troubles or else he can't tell right from wrong. So don't expect me to vote for him.
You will be hearing again from me soon, I am sure.
Sincerely, Floyd Wayne Vishniak.
42
Mel Meyer drove into Miami, Oklahoma, in his black Mercedes 500 SL at 4:30 on a hot mid-July afternoon. The sky was a sickening, yellowing white. He stopped at the Texaco station to fill up with gas and check his oil. He checked his oil religiously -though the car used none to speak of- because thirty years ago the Cozzanos had made fun of him for not knowing how.
He also needed to ask for directions. As he opened the window to talk to the attendant, the 103-degree heat poured in on him like boiling water. He ordered ultrapremium from the Texaco pump and popped the hood for the oil check. "How far to Cacher," he asked the grease-streaked, acne-ridden kid smearing his windshield with an equally appetizing-looking rag.
The kid had never seen anything like Mel Meyer - dapper, intense, clad in a perfect black silk suit - nor had he seen many 500 SLs. "Why d'ya wanna go to Cacher? Nobody lives in Cacher except some crazy old farts," he said. He went to the front of the car, could not figure out how to raise the hood, looked pleadingly at Mel.
Mel did not like the kid, did not like Miami, Oklahoma, and would have given anything to avoid being there. But this was the closest thing to a lead he had come across in four months of investigating the Network. He could have hired a private investigator in Tulsa or Little Rock and had him drive out to the place and look around. But he knew that, whatever this Network might be, it was good at hiding itself. A private investigator, who made his living watching unsubtle people commit marital infidelities in cheap motels, could not be trusted to pick up the nearly invisible spoor of the Network. In the end Mel would have to come out and look around himself. He might as well get it over with.