The Computer Connection

“I see. You’ve been invaluable as usual, Fee. Thank you.”

“If I’m so valuable why didn’t you help me against the guards? We could have taken them.”

“Maybe. I’ll explain another time, another place. No S. Now go take care of Sequoya, love. I need a while to think about this.” And that was when I thought what I reported earlier about Guess being possessed by a demon. Trouble is, I said it wrong. I put it in terms of passion. There is no passion in a computer, there’s only cold logic, if precisely programmed. Yet the crux of it was this: If Fee was right and the Extro had indeed taken possession of Guess, plus all the other electronics in the world, what would be the outcome of this commensalism, collaboration, symbiosis or, most probably, parasitism? Who was feeding on whom? It was a question I couldn’t answer.

A segment of the bubble swung open and a guard came in, pulling a float of food. “Mini,” he called cheerfully. Meals these days are named Mini, Semi, Demi, Grandi, and Midi. “Come and get it, you contemptible bubbirds, before the Board gets you. The condemned man ate a hearty meal before execution.”

Suddenly I realized he was speaking XX and then I saw it was Houdini.

“Harry!” I exclaimed.

He winked. “Eat your food. Leave the rest to me.”

“But what are you doing here?”

“Why, I got your message and came.”

“What message? Who message?”

“That can wait. Make the scalp mavin eat. I can’t spring a weak man.”

He left and the segment closed. Houdini is an escape artist and has been under contract to organized crime (in alternate generations) since it became organized, and if you want to know how Wu Tao-tzu did it, ask Harry. Wu was the greatest painter of his time. He created a tremendous mural on a wall of the Imperial Palace in Peking. When he unveiled the painting to the court, he walked up to it, opened a door painted in the mural, stepped through, and was never seen again. That’s Harry’s style.

“I don’t want to die. I’m too young to die,” I said happily and began to eat.

Poulos joined me. “You know, Guig, we might have gnawed our way out of this bubble if we were willing to light up like a glowworm. What’s in this carafe?”

“Looks like a burgundy to me.”

“Ah, no. It is Argentine. Trapiche viejo. Very good but of no great distinction.”

“How d’you know?”

“I own the vineyard. My dear, coax Dr. Guess to drink a little wine and give him some of this meat custard. We must restore his strength. Guig, I have always disagreed with your assertion that epilepsy is associated with brilliance and the unusual. I suffer from the petit mal myself — you know, momentary blackouts — but that in no way proves your theory. I don’t regard myself as brilliant. Do you? What is your candid estimate of me?”

“Brilliant and unusual.”

“Pah! You dorer la pilule.”

It turned into a ridiculous argument. It’s preposterous trying to convince a cat who owns a quarter of the world that he’s brilliant and unusual. Most of the Group is well fixed; time and the Greek’s advice do that for us, but a quarter of the world! I tried a flanking attack. I called, “Fee, love, come and eat something.”

She joined us at the floater. “I’ll tell you a little story about the transformation of a member of the Group,” I went on. “A long time ago he led a peasant revolt in Cappadocia.” The Syndicate stiffened slightly, but that was all. His control is magnificent.

“The revolt got out of hand and many outrages were committed. He could do nothing to stop it. When the revolt was crushed and he was captured, the nobles devised an ingenious death for him. They sat him on a red-hot throne, wearing a red-hot crown, holding a red-hot scepter. He endured the torture superbly.”

Fee shuddered. “What saved him?”

“One of those Turkish earthquakes that still kill by the thousands. This one shook the castle apart and when he came to he couldn’t believe he was alive. He was under the dead bodies of the nobles, and their corpses had shielded him from the falling masonry.”

Fee is no fool. She looked at Poulos with awe. “You are the most remarkable man in the world.”

“Have I made my point, Greek?”

He shrugged.

“But the torture,” Fee asked. “No damage? No scars?”

“Indeed yes,” the Syndicate answered. “No one could look at me without turning queasy. That’s another reason why I became a gambler. We game at night and in those days it was by candlelight. Even so it is said that I gave rise to the Dracula legend. They called me Count Drakon. Drakon is Greek for serpent, so you can imagine.”

“But you’re stu

“All skin grafts and bone prosthesis, my dear, courtesy of the great Lucy Borgia. It might amuse you that Len da Vinci supervised the reconstruction. He said he’d be damned if he’d trust a physician’s taste in esthetics. Borgia has never forgiven him for that.”

Five guards entered the bubble, terrifying in their white neutral suits which made them look like Abominable Snowmen. Their captain gestured and four of them stripped, revealing perfectly i

“Come.”

“Where?” the Chief’s voice asked.

“Chopper.”

“No. Capsule first.”

“Are you Guess?”

“I’m Guess.”

“Guig, which one are you?”

“Here.”

“Must I listen to him?”

“If you can deliver, do what he says.”

“I can deliver anything. R. Come.”

As Harry led us, making the correct code gestures at checkpoints, an Abominable Snowman nestled up to me and took my hand. “I’m scared, Guig.”

“So am I, but let go. U-Con doesn’t hire faggot guards.”

When we got to the landing theater we were shocked. U-Con had installed a vibrator shield in front of the double doors. Taking no chances. Better Leukemia Lavalier should have used this instead of a ca

“New model,” Harry said.

“How do you know?”

“I’ve never seen this moiré pattern before.”

“Can’t you bust it?”

“Certainly, but it’ll take time to study it and we can’t spare the time just now. So what?”

“Out,” I said, “if you can out us.”

Oh, he out us all right, giving the correct signals and code words at every checkpoint. I’m not putting down Harry’s ingenuity but I’ll bet he spends a million a year greasing security forces all over the world, just in case. That’s preparation for you. That’s a pro for you.

We chopped back to my ex-house, stripping off the neutrals en route, and Jimmy Valentine was waiting for us. Also my bride, stark naked and painted from head to toe with a Picasso (his blue period). M’bantu gave me an embarrassed smile. “This is the dernier cri, Guig,” he said. “And it is definitely this side of contemporary sanity.”

“Thank heaven the Chief is too weak to react,” I said.

When I’d finished greeting Natoma she went to Fee and Sequoya, much concerned. I turned to Valentine. “What are you doing here, Jimmy? Not that you don’t come pat when we need you.”

“Why, I was on a job in Vancouver and I got your message.”

Jimmy, as you might guess from his nickname, has been a breaking entering artist for centuries. Like most great thieves, a colorless, anonymous man, and when he speaks it’s con sordino. He’s also a man of honor. He has never ripped any of the Group’s holdings.

“Fee, Natoma, put the Chief to bed. M’b, try to locate Borgia and bring her. Harry, Jimmy, I must get something straight. Who did you get the messages from?”

“You.”

“How?”

“Radex.”

“What did they say?”

“That you needed special help.”

“Did they specify?”

“Mine said you were cooped in U-Con and wanted out,” Harry said.

“Mine said you were outside U-Con and wanted in,” Jimmy said.