“Look.” She put fists on hips. “It’s none of your business, okay? Just forget about it.”
Ralph leaned back against the inside of the kitchen doorway. “I thought we were all supposed to be on the same team now.”
The anger flared in her eyes. “All right,” she said quietly. “That’s why I’m asking you not to tell the others. Believe me.”
He watched as she turned and left, pulling the door shut behind her.
The sound of her footsteps faded. I don’t believe her, he thought.
Distractedly, he studied the space she had occupied in the middle of the room and wondered how he was going to tell the other members of the fraction.
The door swung open again and Sarah walked back into the apartment.
“I’m sorry,” she said, standing only a couple of feet away from Ralph. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you—maybe it’s because of all the pressure we’re under. I guess I didn’t like the idea of being spied on.”
“What were you doing out there, though?” said Ralph. “And why didn’t you tell the others?”
She took a deep breath before speaking. “I was out in the desert because I’d had a feeling about Mike—I knew something had happened to him. I got that crummy old camera from a pawn shop and drove out near the base. It didn’t take me long to find the bloodstain. I’ve got kind of a knack for finding things. Or at least things that concern people important to me. It was only after I got back to L.A. and had the pictures developed that I realized they couldn’t help anything. I couldn’t even explain them, and it was too late to do anything for Mike.”
“Wouldn’t the others have understood if you’d told them?”
“I wasn’t worried about Spencer and Mendel.” She paused for a moment. “It’s Gunther that scares me. Something’s happening to him. We all thought he was stable, but the tension seems to be pushing him back into his army memories. He was given a psychiatric discharge before he joined the RWP.”
Ralph nodded, remembering the stories he’d heard of certain wards in the veterans’ hospitals where they kept the ones who’d been totally consumed by war’s guilt and horror. Even from over a viewscreen it had been too much for some. So that’s what’s wrong with Gunther, thought Ralph. You can see it in him— all the burning villages and towns, and the screaming South American children compressed in his gut.
“That’s why I didn’t tell them,” said Sarah. “I was afraid Gunther might go off the deep end if he thought that one of us had betrayed something he identified with. No telling what he might do.”
“All right,” said Ralph. “I won’t tell the others.” He turned away. A few seconds later, he heard the door open and close again, and he was alone, wondering how important Michael Stimmitz had been to her.
Some time later, Spencer returned. He was carrying a small box that rattled and clinked with some type of electronics’ gear. “I phoned Mendel,” he said. “It’s all set for tonight.” He went into the kitchen and set the box down on the table. “Anything happen while I was out?”
“Sarah came by with some groceries,” said Ralph.
Chapter 10
The moon shone above the blue mercury-vapor street lamps.
Sandwiched between Mendel at the wheel of the van and Spencer on the other side, Ralph watched the L.A. streets flick past. In the rearview mirror, he could see the rows of electronic equipment banked along the van’s interior walls. Mendel steered hard around a corner and all three sets of shoulders bumped into one another.
“Okay,” said Spencer, straightening up. “Now here’s the deal. We’ve already managed to get a tap on the computer terminal at the Opwatch recruiting office. It’s what’s called a vector tap—that’s like a long-range bug without wires. We’ve gotten a printout of all of the Opwatch programs on the duplicate terminal here in the van. Got the picture so far? Now, everything we’ve gotten through the tap up to this point hasn’t been very revealing—mostly just material requisition records and stuff like that. But we’ve discovered the existence of a Master Historical Program, Limited Access, which should contain the data we’re looking for. That’s what you’re going to help us get.”
“What do you need me for?” said Ralph. “As long as you’ve got a tap on their computer, why not just pull out what you need, like the other programs?”
“Ah. Not so easy.” Spencer shook his head. “There’s a lock on that program. Limited access, right? Before the Master Historical Program can go through the Opwatch computer, and then into our tap terminal, the locking device has to be deactivated.”
“And you want me to do that?” Ralph stared at him. “You think I’m a cat burglar or something? I can’t sneak in there and flip the switch or whatever it is any better than one of you could.”
“Wrong. You’re the only one who can.” Spencer grinned. “The program lock isn’t in the Opwatch recruiting office.”
Ralph felt exasperated. “Then what are we going there for?” he demanded. “And what’s so special that only I can do?”
“The program lock isn’t in the recruiting office,” said Spencer. “And it is. They’re got a field projection device there, a miniature version of the ones out on the base. The little one in the office creates a separate dreamfield of about three square meters. The locking device for the Master Historical Program is in that space, that pocket universe.”
“Wait a minute. How could that work? I thought the dreamfield was a projection of the people who are hooked into it through their subconscious. Like the kids out in the Thronsen Home. So who’s dreaming this little field?”
“The computer.” Spencer looked pleased. “Ingenious, really. One of its programs is a continuous analogue of a human dream. It’s as if part of the computer is actually dreaming of a nine-by-nine-foot room with the program locking device in it. To deactivate the lock, you have to get into that little dreamfield.”
“And I suppose you’ve figured out a way to get in,” said Ralph.
Spencer pulled a scuffed-looking briefcase from beneath the van’s seat.
He snapped its latches and set it open on his lap. Inside was a flat rectangular box made of gray metal. Two copper wires emerged from the sides and were formed into loops, resting atop a black plastic knob.
“This,” said Spencer, “is the way in. It’s a miniaturized version of the line shack out at the Opwatch base. It’s got enough power to put one person into a small field like the one we’re talking about. All you have to do is hold these two loops and turn the—”
“Hold it.” Ralph drew away from him. “What do you mean, you? Are you planning on me doing this?”
“You have to. You’re the only one who can.”
“How come? Why can’t somebody else do it?”
“Dammit,” muttered Mendel, hunched over the steering wheel. “Show a little backbone.”
Spencer’s grin had evaporated. “Uh, we found out something about what happens when you hire on as a watcher for Operation Dream watch; something they don’t tell you about. Some kind of surreptitious alteration, using microwave energy, is made in your brain chemistry, in order for it to be possible for you to go out on the dreamfield. They do it to you while you’re sleeping. Without that change, the insertion device—the line shack—doesn’t work at all. Mike was going to be the one who entered this little dreamfield and unlocked the program, but he was killed before I had the equipment ready. That’s why you have to go instead.”