Identity Matrix (1982) (20 page)

"What, then?" I wanted to know, just wishing it was all over with.

"Dr. Eisenstadt and his top people are all in Washington for a conference,"

Parch replied. "We arranged it that way. The rest of his people who are not also my people are, interestingly, not working this evening. In the course of research, our people took the matrices of a huge number of people. Thousands, I'd say.

They didn't know what was being done, of course, and the process isn't important. We were looking to see the differences, of course. To compare them.

When it became clear that we would reach this point, my people started working on looking at those matrices, taking parts from various ones, literally creating new identity matrices, complete people who never lived."

"Violins," Dory mumbled.

Parch ignored her. "Each of you received quite detailed individual attention.

We needed real people—that is, ones that might be—and we needed ways of life for each of you that would allow you to live normal, if obscure, lives, out of the mainstream as it were, where you wouldn't be likely to even be discovered by accident."

"A retired salesman from Akron and his homemaking wife," I sighed, resigned to almost anything now. "Huh?"

"Like the people in bars and dance saloons, on vaca-tion. The kind that go to Vegas on a four-day, three-night package holiday. The normal folks who live and die and nobody cares."

He looked at me a bit puzzled. Finally he said, "This is the best way, believe me. Best for you, too. No more sexual or identity hangups. No more learning how to walk in high heels. No more lusting after other women, either. I'm aware of its partial physiological basis, but it can be overridden. The brain can be fooled into almost anything."

"I'll bet," I said sourly. I was shaking slightly and I couldn't stop.

"You'll be real people," he went on. "You'll remember your pasts, you'll fit in where you're put comfortably, and you'll live your lives with not even a thought of us, a hint, a lingering memory."

"When are you going to do this to us?" I asked him.

The men in the back of the office stepped forward. "In a few minutes," he said. I felt a prick on my arm and turned with a jerk to see a man already holding a spent syringe. Dory had received the same treatment.

"Wha—" I managed.

"You'll be fully conscious," Parch assured us. "We need that. But we find this drug will make you much less inclined to argue and much more eager to cooperate. Just relax and let it take hold."

Already I could feel it working. A strange numbness came over me, as if my whole body were going to sleep. My eyelids grew heavy and finally closed, my mouth became dry, my tongue felt thick and limp, and I strug-gled unsuccessfully as my thoughts seemed, also, to go to sleep. And yet, as Parch said, I was somehow fully conscious, a lump of clay.

"Open your eyes," Parch said gently, and I stirred slightly and did so. "I'm your friend," he told me. "I'm the only really good friend you have."

Yes, I knew him now. He was my friend. My very best friend.

"You trust me," he continued in that same soothing tone. "You know I won't do anything to hurt you. I want to help you. I want only good things for you.

You'd trust me with your life, wouldn't you?"

I nodded, both awake and not awake. He was my very best friend and I trusted him with my life.

"You'll do anything I tell you to do, won't you?" he prodded. "Just anything."

I nodded eagerly. I'd sure do anything at all he asked me to do. He was my very best friend and I trusted him.

"Now, get up from the chair and go with these nice men. They are your friends, too, and mine. Go with them to where they take you and do what they ask. You want to go, don't you?"

I smiled, nodded, and got up. Such nice men. Friends of my very best friend.

I trusted him so I trusted them, too. I'd go with them anyplace they wanted and do just what they said.

One of them took my hand. "Let's go," he said, and we walked out of the office. Behind me I could hear Harry Parch speaking to Dory, but it just didn't concern me and registered not a bit.

They seated us in the large chairs on the raised, green-carpeted area of the lab center. A tiny part of me seemed to know what was going on and tried to fight against the drug, but it was hopeless.

Seated where I was, I could see part of the lower level. The consoles were all on, with thousands of multicol-ored switches thrown, some blinking, some changing colors, while CRT screens showed everything from odd patterns to rows upon rows of print. Technicians sat at the different consoles, many with headsets, fiddling with dials, controls, and keyboards.

A white-clad technician came up to me, fixing straps around my arms, legs, and below my breasts, securing me in one position in the chair. Then she reached be me, there was a clicking sound, and the large helmet-like device came down over my head. The tech-nician guided it with one hand while fixing my hair in a certain way for ease of the probes, I suppose.

Parch came into the room and looked around, then nodded. He went over to one of the technicians. "Gonser first," he told the man at the screen. "You set up?"

"All systems normal," the man responded, then, into his headset, "Loud cubes. Memory insertion modules six through eight. On my mark. Now."

The screen flickered. Idly I thought, he isn't even look-ing at me. He has his back to me. It was an independent thought and I tried to grab onto it, cling to it, but I failed. I steeled myself for what might come next, mar-shalling as much will as I could. It wasn't going to work. Somehow, they were going to blow it.

Somehow, I was still going to be me, that little part of myself not drugged cried out.

"Initial I.M. sequence, probes out, Chair One," the chief technician said, and suddenly I was aware of a tremendous vibration from the middle of my forehead up and all around me. The humming sound was quite uncomfortable.

"Matrix probes go, report on probe lock."

My whole head started to feel funny, like millions of tiny needles were being stuck in it. Actually there was nothing physical at all; there would not be until one of the little light probes found what it was looking for.

The humming subsided, to my relief, and so did the odd, ticklish sensation of the probes.

"Probe lock on," a voice from one of the other con-soles said crisply.

"Probe lock, aye," the chief responded. "Prepare pri-mary sequencing.

"Prepared. Locked on."

"Stage one. Begin manual stimulus."

The woman who had strapped me in and lowered and adjusted the helmet now spoke to me.

"What is your name?" she asked. "You needn't re-spond to these. Just relax.

Do not answer the questions."

I struggled against the drug, against everything, but it was no use. Every time she asked a question the answer would always come to mind, the same way it was im-possible not to think of the word "hippopotamus" once you'd been told not to think of it.

"Where were you born? Sex? Mother and father?"

The questions went on and on, like a job question-naire you didn't have to fill out, only read. The ques-tions, however, covered a wide range of my personal life and experiences, my attitudes, quite a bit more than the basics with which they'd started. It was frustrating to realize what they were doing—locating holographic keys, master bits of cross-referenced material which the com-puter itself could trace from there. There was no sensation.

"We've got sequencing!" Somebody shouted, and the woman stopped asking me questions and stepped back. I recalled Stuart's explanation and knew what they were doing now. The computer had located enough key pieces of information that it was now asking the questions itself, asking them directly of my brain at a speed so fast my consciousness wasn't even aware of it. I have no idea how it works, but I have no doubts about it.

It seemed to go on forever. Finally a buzzer sounded somewhere and the chief technician, still huddled over his console, nodded.

"Initial sequencing completed. Begin recording on one, two, and three," he ordered. "Read out on my mark… now!"

Again there was no sensation, but there wouldn't be. The brain had no senses of its own, and this was a read-out, a copy of what was there, not anything actu-ally being done to it.

For the slowness of the first stage, this one seemed to be over before I knew it. Again the buzzer sounded. "Recording complete. Analysis. Run two-six-five."

"Running."

"Analysis completed."

"Run comparator with new I.M. on 4-5-6."

"Running ... Completed. Comparator confirmed. Some slight adjustment in levels required. Got it. Matched. Go:"

"Very good," the chief technician said. "Prepare for manual check."

"Manual check ready, aye. All systems stable and normal."

"Begin manual check."

Again the woman technician next to me spoke. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Victor Leigh Gonser," I responded aloud, and with it I felt some triumph.

The drug was wearing off! I felt sure of it! If I could just hold on I could break this control!

"What is your name?" she asked again.

"Misty Ann Carpenter," I replied, feeling more confi-dent now. It wasn't working!

"How old are you?"

"Thirty-six," I responded.

"How old again?"

"Twenty—just."

"What sex were you born, Misty?"

"Male."

"What sex?"

"Female." Dumb questions. I was beginning to relax. They couldn't do anything to me! Maybe it was the double switch, but I was sure now I was immune.

"And where were you born?"

"Alexandria, Virginia."

"Where?"

"Cedar Point, Oregon." I was feeling relaxed now, the tension easing out of me. It wasn't going to work. Sooner or later they'd realize that. I didn't know what Parch would do then but at least I would still be me.

"We've got it," a technician called. "No problem. Run program."

"Running."

Yes, I was still me. I was still Misty Ann Carpenter, twenty, female, from Cedar Point, Oregon, and I damned well was gonna stay that way.

Chapter Nine

I woke up slowly, as if from a very deep sleep. For a minute I didn't know who or where I was, but it all came back to me as I opened my eyes and looked out the large window of the Greyhound bus.

Ain't it funny how things go, I thought, and, for a moment, I just lay there, leaned back in the seat, and remembered.

Cedar Point was a small logging town. Just that. Daddy was a logger, and his Daddy'd been one, too. There weren't nothin' else to do. Mama was right pretty, but she didn't have much schoolin' and they got hitched when she was just sixteen. Three of us kids, me the only girl, later they closed the logging. Made a park outta it. Daddy, he didn't have nothin' and no place to go, so he started drinkin' hard. When he was drunk he was mean, and when he was mean he beat us, Momma hardest of all, and he was drunk more and more of the time. I remember him, all big and fierce and mean, with the blaze of drink in his eyes.

Mama, she was so pretty even after that, but she cried a lot and tried to bring us up proper, sendin' us t'church Sundays and doin' what she could on the welfare and the food stamps. 'Cept Daddy kept gettin"em and tradin' for booze.

One day he didn't come home at all, and they come and tole us he was in jail for killin' a man in a drunk fight. Things was better after that, but Mama she just couldn't get ahold of us.

Me 'specially. I kinda felt bad about it now, but what's done is done, as Mama us'ta say. In my teens I skipped school mor'n I was in it. It was dull and I never was too good at that readin' and writin' stuff, anyway. The boys, now, that'

s what I was good at. I finally just quit school, said the hell with it. Why go? I was just gonna finally find the right boy, get married, and have my own mess of babies. Didn't need school for that.

That's how I'd finally got in with Jeremy Stukes. He was a big hunk of muscle, real strong, and the biggest prick I ever did see. I fell for him like a ton of bricks, and, afore I knew it, I was listenin' to his big dreams about goin' to the big city and makin' a pile. I was seventeen then and the most I'd been from Cedar Point was Klamath Falls, once, with Mama when she had
trouble with the food stamps.

Jeremy, he and me made plans, and one night we got the big escape. I snuck out with a bag, and he picked me up in this real big, fancy car. I was so took I never even asked whose it was. Turned out it was stole, damn him. A cop picked us up goin' south and we beat him out, all right, but by then I was both scared and mad as hell at him. I started tellin' him what I thought of him and,

'fore I knowed it, he'd throwed me outta that car and drove off, leavin' me there in the middle of nowhere with a bag and a couple of bucks.

Well, I was plenty scared, sure, but I wasn't gonna go
home, either. For all I knew they might 'a thought I stole the car, and, besides, wasn't anything to go back to anyways. So I just started hitchin'—found it was real easy. Hell, I always knew I was pretty and stuck out in all the right places, so I didn't have much problem.

One ride was this nice salesman, and I needed a shower and he was
real
friendly, so we stayed overnight in a motel together. I knew what he had in mind, but I kinda needed it myself, and the only real surprise was that he give me twenty dollars when he let me off. I hadn't really thought of it before, but suddenly I saw there was lots of lonely men out there and somebody like me, well, she could maybe help 'em out and make some bucks at the same time.

I finally made Sacramento, but I got busted kinda quick there and it scared me. They couldn't tell how old I was, though, and they weren't real tough, just told me I hadta get outa town right fast. This one vice cop was real friendly, and him and me made it together, and he told me I should go to Nevada, where what I was best at wasn't a crime.

So I worked the roads up to Reno, only to find that it was legal everyplace
but
Reno and Vegas. Still, I had no place to go and nothin' else to do, and the money was good enough that I managed to pay the fines. Got to be a regular down at vice. Funny, though, cops in vice ain't like real cops. I kinda think they don't like some of the laws they carry out. Anyways, this one cop introduces me to this other guy he knows and, last week, I get an offer from this place called Cougar Lodge. This guy tells me I can get four hundred a week free and clear plus room, board, clothes, you name it, by turnin' one trick a day, minimum, more if I wanted. All nice an' legal.