The Computer Connection Page 3
“Does she know about the Group?”
“Not yet.”
“What is a Bunny?”
“An antique waitress.”
“But who is that child?”
“She adopted me and I can’t get rid of her.”
“Now Guig… .”
“Would you like the whole story?”
“Of course.”
“Well, I was editing Dek Magazine, freebie cassettes full of comics and commercials, and, believe it or not, I got a letter. A letter in this day and age. I was absolutely flabbergasted, so I answered it. Wait a minute, I’ll pull the entire correspondence out of my diary.”
TERMINAL. READY?
READY. ENTER PROGRAM NUMBER.
147
FEE FILE HAS BEEN LOADED.
LOC. + NAME. START COUNT.
FEE FILE HAS FINISHED RUN.
MCS, PRINT. W.H. END.
The printout rattled like a machine gun for a few seconds. I handed Jacy the length of tape, printed in XX, of course; I don’t want outsiders reading my personal private diary. We’d both written in Spang but I’d translated.
2 the edt. of Dekkk. I wish to rite a article on hisory of minor groups in cuntry like Indians & siberians who discover America in 1492 comeing over from Rusia on boats. Coloumbus was a liar. Truley yrs.
Fee-5 Graumans Chinese
Mexiforn, USA
DEAR MR. CHINESE:
Thank you so much for your interesting proposal. Unfortunately we feel that the subject is not suited to the editorial policy of Dek which is entirely dedicated to comics, commercials, sex and sadism.
Most sincerely,
The editors
Two edtrs. Dec. Your ansr irellevant. Indians and eskimos minor groups been put down in U.S. of A. since 1492. You robing them of man hood 320 yrs. Make them 2rd class citysens. Gen. Custer got what was comeing to him.
Fee-5 Chinese
Mexiforn
DEAR MR. CHINESE:
Subtracting 1492 from 2080 gives us 588 years. What happened to your other 268 years, or will that be part of your proposed article?
Most sincerely,
The editors
Edtrs of Dk. Nomber is irelivant. You don’t do something too wipe out injustice to grt indians who made U. Spangland of A. grt proves you not relateing 2 valus for meanful dialg and our MSs will confront you.
Fee-5 Chinese
DEAR MR. CHINESE:
What is MSs? Is it the abreviation for “Manuscripts”? We must warn you that dek will only consider one submission at a time.
Most sincerely,
The editors
Rottn establish mint edtrs. Not MSS. MMS. Stands for militantes for more militante socity. We take over yr office. We throw you out. We sit in foreverr. Bring p-nut butter & jelli sandwich & sleep on floor.
Fee-5 (mad)
DEAR MR. FEE:
Could you give us some idea of when your militant organization will take over our offices? We’d like the chance to clear out in advance. You see, we’re on the twentieth floor, so we can’t go through the windows like deans and faculty members.
Most sincerely,
The editors
You think MMS gone give you warneing in advance so cort orders & police pigs can comit fashist brutality? We confront you when MMS decide & if no meanful dialog you go out windows we don’t care if even 268 floors hi.
Fee-5 (Pres. MMS)
DEAR PRESIDENT FEE:
Is that what happened to your missing 268?
Most sincerely,
The editors
O Kay. You regect democratic prosiss. You force MmS to take militante actions for militante soceyety & indians & eskimos & 100% minor groups will arise.
Beware
That was the end. Jacy looked at me in such perplexity that I had to laugh. “She showed up all right,” I said. “Ten years old, militant as hell, and we fed her so many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that she got sick and I had to take her home. Now I can’t dump her. She’s adopted me.”
“How long has she been here?”
“Three years.”
“But has she no family?”
“They were happy to get rid of her. They’re just average goons and this kid jumbled them. She’s a lusus naturae, a freak, a sport. She actually taught herself to read and write. There’s no end to her potential.”
“What does she do here?”
“Makes herself useful.”
“Guig!”
“No, no. She’s ripe but she’s only thirteen. Too young for me. It’s not what you think, Jacy. For shame.”
“I do not apologize. I know your reputation. You live entirely for mechanical pleasure.”
Mind you, this to me, who’d cleared every woman out of the house for Visitation. That’s the trouble with these dedicated reformers; they’re wonderful guys but they have no sense of humor. Scented Song says that Confucius was exactly like Jacy, always serious. Sheba says the same thing about Mohammed; you could stand all that earnest wisdom for just about an hour and then you had to sneak out for a few laughs. None of us ever dated Moses but I’ll bet he was the same.
This is what got Jacy into trouble, but I’m not complaining because that’s how I met my first successful recruitment. The bods at Union Carbide, our local university, were mounting their ritual protest. It was the traditional daily rioting, with screamings, burnings, and killings. The only thing that changed was the cause, and the pressure groups had to sign up months in advance for representation. Jacy said he was going down to the campus to see if he could stop it. He was all for the kids’ goals but he didn’t like their methods.
“You don’t understand,” I told him. “They love their tradition of death and destruction. They don’t even ask what it’s for. They’re issued posters and scripts and then they have themselves an orgasm. The ones that dig the death wish are obliged.”
“Destruction of any of God’s work is an attempt to destroy God,” he said earnestly.
“Maybe. Let’s find out what they’re destroying for today. Hey, Fee!”
Fee-5 came in, playing the vampire bit now. “Kiss me, my fool;” she said and smote me across the chops with an artificial rose.
“Tune in. What’s the riot about today?”
She cocked her head and listened hard.
“What is she doing?” Jacy asked.
“Jacy, you live in the homes of our Group and you don’t know what’s going on in the crazy culture outside. It’s a bugged and drugged world. Ninety percent of the bods have bugs implanted in their skulls in hospital when they’re born. They’re monitored constantly. The air is crisscrossed with thousands of broadcasts. Fee is unique. She can pick them up and sort them out without a receiver. Don’t ask me how. The kid’s a genius. Let it go at that.”
“Honk Lib,” Fee-5 said.
“There you are,” I said. “Would anybody in his right mind burn down a library for the sake of Honkies? There aren’t a million pure whites left in the world, and most of them are Jukes and Kallikaks from inbreeding.”
“Come here, my child,” Jacy said.
Fee sank into his lap and kissed him seductively. He put his arms under the vampire to make her comfortable and instantly the scene was transformed into Michelangelo’s “Pieta” That’s Jacy’s magic.
“Do you use drugs, my love?”
“No.” She glared at me. “He won’t let me.”
“Do you want to?”
“No. They’re ditt. Everybody else does.”
“Then why are you angry with Guig?”
“Because he makes me do what he wants. I have no identity.”
“Then why don’t you leave him?”
“Because—” She was hung up. She fell back and regrouped. “Because I’m waiting for the day when I make him do what I want.”
“Are you bugged, love?”
“No,” I answered. “She was born in the gutter and she’s never been in a hospital. She’s clean.”
&
nbsp; “I was born in the fifth row from the front in Grauman’s Chinese,” Fee said with enormous dignity.
“Good heavens! Why?”
“That’s where my family lives,” Fee said reasonably. Jacy looked at me in bewilderment.
“She’s stuck-up because her family made it down to the orchestra from the balcony,” I esplained.
He gave up, kissed Fee, and disengaged himself. She actually clung to him for a moment before letting go. Charisma. He asked Fee if the riot had started and she said yes, half the fuzz were picking up the bug broadcasts and sounded irritated with it. They were getting bored with the repetitions. One of them was suggesting sending in an agent provocateur to incite a more entertaining sort of riot.
So off Jacy went, the dearest Knish-head I’ve ever known. He still wore the longish hair and the beard and still looked his Mole age, thirtyish, so I thought that would make him safe but I followed all the same, just in case. I didn’t think the bods would hurt him but the fuzz might try to incite him to a more entertaining riot. He was capable of it. Nobody’s ever forgotten the brouhaha he started in that temple in Jerusalem.
The campus was the traditional mess: missiles, lasers, firebombs, and burnings, so everybody was happy. They were chanting and shouting jingles, “One, two, three, four,” and something that rhymed with four. “Five, six, seven, eight,” and another rhyme with eight. They couldn’t go much higher because arithmetic was no longer compulsory. The guards were maintaining the ritualistic barrier lines and haggling with each other for the right to arrest and rape the prettiest girls. Crazy Jacy marched right into the middle of the ceremony.
I thought, “It’s going to be another Sermon on the Mount and I didn’t bring a recorder. Drat!”
He never got the chance to adjure them. About twenty militants attacked an innocent parked chopper that was doing nobody any harm. They rocked it. They turned it on its side. They smashed the vanes and landing gear off and tried to hammer the cabin off the chassis. They rocked it some more, trying to overturn it completely, and they must have rocked too hard in the wrong direction. The wreck slammed down upright, directly on top of Jacy.
I ran to it. There were half a dozen dull thunks and there was gas (laced with LSD today) and the kids stopped cold and took in deep breaths. I was gassed too but I reached the chopper and tried to heave it up. Impossible. Three guards materialized and grabbed me.
“Help me get this up,” I choked. “There’s a man underneath.”
We all heaved together. Nothing. Then a tall guy, long-boned, with deep-set eyes and a coppery complexion appeared, grabbed the edge of the frame, and turned it over. Christ went up with it, crucified by the chassis, and hat’s how I met my first successful candidate for eternity.
2
He was the epileptic type, I was positive the moment I saw him. A lovely candidate, big, rangy, strong. He carried the Knish to the university hospital slung over one shoulder. Jacy was groaning in Aramaic, the language he learned at his mother’s knee. In Emergency my guy was treated with great respect. It was, “Yes, doctor (Yassuh, medico), no, doctor, certainly, doctor.” I figured he must have done something sensational like reviving plague to combat the pop. ex. Good. A genius, too.
We saw Jacy into a bed. I wasn’t worried about him; it takes more than minor injuries to endanger a Moleman, but I was terrified by the possibility of Lepcer. That’s the real, the constant peril. More about Lepcer later. I whispered to Jacy, “I’ve registered you as J. Kristman. Don’t fret. I put me down as next of kin and I’ll take care of you.”
My guy said in XX, “Hey, man, you speak Early English. How come?”
I said, “How come, you?”
“Maybe some day I’ll tell you.”
“Likewise, I’m sure. Could you stand a drink?”
“Any time, but I’m not allowed firewater. I’m a ward of the state.”
“Easy. I’ll order and you sneak it. What am I drinking?”
“Firewater.”
“You mean there’s such a thing?”
His face was wooden. “Do I look like the joking type?”
“You look like something in front of a cigar store.”
“Is there such a thing?”
“There used to be. Where are we drinking?”
“The Passionate Input. I’ll show you.”
It was a typical campus trap, spaced-out psychedelia, a mooing orgasm tape, tripping bods on the floor blown out of their minds, projection commercials standing around like realsies. “Hello,” a jolly giant was saying. “I’m your friendly recycling bank. In our friendly efforts to conserve ecology we want you to let us recycle your money which—” We walked through him and went to the empty bar.
“Double Firewater,” I said. “Double soda for my friend.”
“Gas in the soda?” the bar wanted to know. “Hash? Phet? Sub?”
“Just plain soda. He trips on it.” All this in Spanglish, you unnastand. So it was a double Fire and a double soda and the glasses got kind of intertwined like the lovers on the floor. But I tried the Firewater and nearly had a convulsion.
“I nearly had a convulsion,” I said.
“You did,” he said. “It’s the strychnine we put in. The palefaces love it.”
“What d’you mean, ‘we’?”
“We moonshine it on the Erie reservation and sell it to the palefaces. Quite a switch, isn’t it? That’s how we got rich. Firewater and Ugly Poppies.”
“I’ll figure that one out later. I’m Prince. Ned Prince. Who you?”
“Guess.”
“Sure, but give me a hint.”
“No, no. That’s my name. Guess.” He gave me a deadpan glance. “Haven’t you ever heard about the late, great George Guess?”
“You?”
“My ancestor. That was the name the palefaces gave him. His real name was Sequoya.”
“Named after the tree?”
“They named the tree after him.”
I whistled. “He was that famous? What for?”
“He was the first great Indian scholar. Among other things, he invented the Cherokee alphabet.”
“You’re Dr. Guess?”
“R.”
“Physician?”
“Physicist, but they’re practically the same thing today.”
“Here at Union Carbide?”
“I teach here. I do my real work at JPL.”
“The Jet Propulsion Lab? What’s the real work?”
“I’m project scientist on the Pluto Mission.”
I whistled again. No wonder it was yes, doctor, no, doctor, certainly, doctor. This gonser macher was spending like a million a week on one of the most highly publicized NASA missions in history, financed by the United Conglomerate Fund in their friendly efforts to make the solar system a better place for deserving developers.
“Sounds to me like the state is your ward, Guess. Am I thirsty again?”
“Yeah.”
“This time let me have half. That strych grows on you.”
“Hell, dude, I was just putting you on about the no-drink shtik. All that went out ages ago.”
“Did it? I’m loose in the memory. Hey, bar. Two double Fires. You got a front name, Guess?”
“I’m S. Guess.”
“S for Sam?”
“No.”
“Saul? Sol? Stan? Salvarsan?”
He laughed, and you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a pokerface laugh. “You’re all right, Prince. Why in hell did your friend get mixed up in that silly brawl?”
“He always does; he won’t learn. Why in hell won’t you tell me your name?”
“What difference does it make? Call me Doc.”
“I can look you up in the U-Con stockholder reports.”
“No you can’t. I’m always S. Guess, Ph.D. Bar! Two more. On me.”
The bar objected to excessive alcohol and suggested we switch to something respectable like mescaline, so we obliged. A dead ringer for Columbus, including spyglass,
shot up through the floor. “Friends, have you ever considered what would happen to know-how without where-withal? Give generously to the Industrial Research Foundation by buying the products we endorse; Meegs, Gigs, Poons, Fubs—”
We ignored it. “If I show you my passport,” I said, “will you show me yours?”
“Haven’t got one. You don’t need a passport for space. Yet.”
“Don’t you travel?”
“They won’t let me out of Mexifornia, officially.”
“Are you that special?”
“I know too much. They’re afraid I may fall into the wrong hands. Con Ed tried to kidnap me last year.”
“I can’t stand the torture any longer. I’m really a spy for AT&T. In drag. My real name is Nellie.”
He laughed again, still deadpan. “You’re all right, Nellie. I’m pure Cherokee.”
“Nobody’s pure anything these days.”
“I am. My mother named me Sequoya.”
“No wonder you’re hiding the name. Why’d she play a dirty trick like that on you?”
“She’s romantic. She wants me to remember that I’m the twentieth in direct descent from the mighty Chief.”
Fee-5 came into the trap, playing the intellectual bit now; hornrim spectacles without lenses, stark naked and covered with spray-can graffiti, applied by herself.
“What’s this thing selling?” Guess asked.
“No, she’s a realsie.”
“Gas,” Fee told the bar and turned great dark eyes on us. “Benny Diaz, gemmum.”
“It’s all right, Fee. He speaks XX. An educated type. This is Dr. Sequoya Guess. You can call him Chief. Chief, this is Fee-5 Grauman’s Chinese. Talk about names!”
“Great grief is a divine and terrible radiance which transforms the wretched,” Fee said in somber tones.
“What is it and what’s it grieving for?” Sequoya wanted to know.
“Could be anyone. Newton, Dryden, Bix, Von Neumann, Heinlein. You name it. She’s my girl-Friday.”
“Also Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday,” Fee said, belting down her gas. She pierced the Chief with a clinical look. “You want to fondle my boozalum,” she said. “Go ahead. Don’t deny your manhood.”