Cascade Point

The job lottery idea itself came out of a long discussion of such matters with a friend, after which I sat down and hammered at the logic, cash flow, and loopholes until I got to the system you've just read about.

Would it work? I don't know. Though I don't see any flaws, of course (or I would have corrected them before sending the story out in the first place), I've never had an expert in such arcana take it apart for me. Even if it would work, I suspect it would be impossible to actually get there from here.

For which—I'm sure—we can all bow our heads in silent thanks.

Teamwork

The hospital bed was uncomfortably hard, with a lump that poked into his lower back no matter how much he squirmed. Not that he could squirm far, of course; the straps across his chest and legs were quite adequate to their task. Staring at the ceiling, tracing imaginary patterns among the holes in the acoustic tile there, he tried to shut out the gurgling sounds from the next bed. The gurgling he hated even more than the crying and laughing.

"Mr. Charles Bissey?"

New voices weren't common here. Lowering his gaze, he focused on the two men at the foot of his bed. One was Dr. Housman, who often appeared in his nightmares these days. The other, standing rather stiffly, was a stranger in a military-type uniform. "Yes," he acknowledged. "Who are you?"

"My name is Colonel Lee, Charles," the stranger said. "We need your help."

Charles glanced at Dr. Housman and sighed. "Sure you do. What is this, Doctor, another of your tests?" "It's no test, Charles," Housman shook his head. "Please listen to the colonel. This is deadly serious."

"Charles," Lee said, "have you ever heard of the San Bernadino Dome?"

"I'm allowed to read newspapers," Charles told him mildly. "It showed up one night a week ago in a shopping center parking lot. The newspapers think it may be the start of a space invasion."

"Right, although the invasion angle is pure speculation at this point." Lee seemed to be relaxing a bit now. Doubtless he was relieved to find Charles wasn't a raving madman. "But we believe the dome to be a threat in other ways. We'd like you to help us destroy it."

"Suicide mission?" Charles asked. Not that it really mattered.

Lee shook his head. "We hope not. But it will be dangerous."

"Why should I help you? What do I get out of this?"

He was prepared for a lecture on patriotism, and Housman's words were therefore a surprise. "Perhaps," the doctor said quietly, "you'll have your dream."

Charles stared hard at him. So many times he'd hoped... so many times had watched it all crumble. But he had little else to live for. "I accept," he said.

—

The preliminary psychomedical work took two days. Charles was in hypnotic sleep a good portion of that time, but it was a strangely exhausting sleep, and he hoped he'd have a chance to rest after it was over. But Colonel Lee was apparently in a hurry, and within an hour he had called a mission orientation meeting.

"Good day to you all," Lee nodded as he strode into the room. "I know you're tired, so I'll make this brief." He touched a switch on the console next to his chair and a picture of a huge gray hemisphere appeared on the room's screen. Behind it could be seen a long building with several different business signs, as well as a section of a city street, all looking like it had been in a war. No people were in sight anywhere.

"The San Bernadino Dome," Lee said. "Thirty meters high at the center, ninety meters across at the base. Completely impervious to everything we've tried against it. Even the best antitank missiles don't do so much as scratch the surface."

"How about atomic weapons?" Arthur asked.

"We haven't tried anything that drastic yet, but all the extrapolations indicate that even that wouldn't do any good from the outside. From the inside, though... possibly." "Wait a minute," Frank growled. "You're not go

"We could get hurt!" De

"Hold it, hold it," Lee said, raising a hand for order. "Getting into the dome shouldn't be physically dangerous. There are already nearly a hundred people inside, by our estimates."

"What do you mean, not physically dangerous?" Susan asked in her prim alto. "What kind of dangerous is it?"

Lee took a deep breath. "Well... it seems that the dome is surrounded by a sort of... effect, I guess you could call it. Everyone who's gone inside a certain distance drops whatever else he's doing and heads straight for this door." He indicated a black triangle on the dome. "We've tried sending people just over the edge of the effect and then hauling them back with ropes, and once they're back outside they're okay again. They report a tremendous compulsion to get into the dome, but no idea why they were wanted. Our experts say the effect resembles a strong hypnosis, but they have no idea how the order was implanted. What happens inside is anyone's guess; all we know is that the agents we sent in with bombs apparently never triggered them. Yes, Charles?"

Charles spoke up hesitantly, still shy in the presence of the others. He'd met them barely three hours earlier, and his natural bashfulness with strangers made his tongue feel awkward. "I take it, Colonel, that you think we can get past this conditioning?"

"Of course he thinks that, dummy," Arthur snapped. "Why else would we be here?"

"Actually, we don't expect all of you to get through untouched," Lee said quickly, perhaps seeing Charles's blush. "Frankly, we'll be happy if any one of you can get in with enough control left to carry out the mission. We really don't know what will happen to you since—well—"

"Since everyone else who's gone in has been perfectly sane?" Charles suggested.

"Now, Charles, don't pick on the colonel," Susan admonished.

Lee spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. "I know it sounds cruel and manipulative, but yes, that's precisely why we recruited you. The hypnosis isn't perfect; it has limitations—"

"How do you know?" Arthur spoke up quickly.

"Because on that first morning people were dribbling into the dome in ones and twos until we set off the sirens; after that there was a general rush. From that we gather the hypnosis wasn't strong enough to wake people up or make them walk in their sleep. People like you, we hope, will also be outside the thing's capabilities. The experimental technique that set you up with your new pseudotelepathic intercommunication may help, too—spread the effect around or something."

"Or maybe it won't," Frank said. "If y'ask me, this is a whole lotta work for nothin'. The door to the thing's open, right? So toss in a nuke and get it over with."

"Frank!" Susan was aghast. "There are a hundred people in there. Not to mention whoever was there to begin with."

"So what?"

"Actually," Lee said, "we couldn't do that even if the dome were empty. There's an airlock sort of arrangement that seems to be made of the same material as the dome. As an absolute last resort, we might try sending in a volunteer with an activated time bomb. But even if that worked—which isn't at all certain—it would mean sacrificing anybody who may still be alive in there." He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Anyway, the high-level decision was made to give you a chance first."

"That's all well and good, Colonel," Susan said, "but I, for one, want to know why you want so badly to destroy this artifact. It doesn't seem to be doing anything threatening, so as long as you keep people away from it, what's the trouble? Death and destruction are easy, I suppose, but they're so final."

"The trouble," Lee answered, "is that, whatever the owners of the dome want with the people they've grabbed, they've decided they want more... and since we've evacuated the whole area they can't get them. So they're expanding their compulsion-effect field. The thing's pushed another hundred meters out in the past four days and shows no signs of stopping."