Identity Matrix (1982) (22 page)

The scientist looked past us. "Jeff! You might as well come on in, too." The agent came over and took another scat, facing us. He looked older, I thought, but still the same. Only Stuart never changes, it seemed.

"I can't believe it!" Dory said in an amazed tone. "What did they
do
to you?

You shouldn't look all that different after three years."

"I can explain that," Overmeyer said. "Parch arranged with a man named Al Jordan, who runs a high-class sex palace up in Tahoe, to take on a new recruit.

Jordan has some ties to organized crime, and was nailed a number of years back, but never spent any time in jail. Instead, he does favors for the U.S. on occasion, from sexual blackmail to taking on people like Vicki here—or should I still call you Vicki? It doesn't seem the same
any
more."

My mind was reeling from all this. Al a Parch man? It didn't seem possible! I felt somehow betrayed and used. Still, Jeff's question deserved an answer.

Which one was I?

"Make it Misty," I told him. "I've been her for a long time now, and it's the only real identity I have. It seems—
right.
I dunno."

"O.K., Misty. Anyway, knowing where you were going, they fiddled with some areas of your brain. Doc? You know more than me about that."

He nodded. "Yes, they changed the orders to parts of your body. Increased hormone production, that sort of thing. It's wery complicated to explain, but easy to do. Basically, they adapted your physical body perfectly to your, er, occupation, in the same way they might increase steroid production in a bricklayer to develop big-ger muscles. They overrode the genetic instructions—but while it is permanent it is not inheritable."

I was shocked, but also oddly relieved to find the changes in me explained.

Still, I said, "A tailor-made
nymphomaniac?"

He shrugged apologetically. "That is the potential of this process, I fear.

Tailor-made anything. That is vy ve had to find you both and get you back now.

They are to the point vere they are starting to process the staff here, actually
inwiting
big shot politicians to come in, that sort of thing. They are out of control. Acting now vas a big risk, but acting later may have been impossible."

Overmeyer nodded. "I'm due next week. Oh, not for processing, not officially. Just having my matrix taken, they say. But I know better. I've seen the people they've been processing lately and it's scary."

"Wait a minute! Let me get my breath and bearings!" I protested. "We—we
do
have some time, don't we?"

"A little," Stuart replied. "I took a leaf from Herr Parch's own book. Only their routine duty staff is on right now—and I have some of my people at key sta-tions. Ve are not being monitored here, and the big vuns in Security, like Parch, are all back East until tomorrow.

I relaxed a little. I had to trust these two men, since I knew so little myself about this labyrinthine place.

Labyrinthine, I thought idly. Misty wouldn't even be able to
think
of the word, let alone pronounce it.

I looked at Dory. "What—where did they send you?" I wanted to know. "

Speaking of changes—you're some little sexy bomb yourself. If I'd known I was gonna grow up to be that I wouldn't have changed bodies."

She laughed a little. "It is hard on me, too," she replied. "But, for the last few years, I've been growing up on an Indian reservation in northeast Arizona. A school for Indian orphans. Oh, they knew I wasn't Navaho, but they finally sort of accepted me. While you were having all that fun, I was going through high school again—or a poor excuse for one. It's terrible what's been done to the Indian, and they're such good people. I wasn't much of a student anyway. All I knew was I'd finally get married to some buck and we'd live in some hovel out in the wilds and have babies and try and manage."

I nodded, seeing the pattern of Parch's "placement" concept. "You sound different, you know," I told her. "Sort of an accent there."

She nodded. "They programmed me with Navaho—a real bitch of a language, by the way—and Corho, which is a northwest language so it'd seem right, but not much English. I was supposed to be a half-breed by their standards—half Navaho, half Corho. A good part of me, maybe proportionately more of me than you consider-ing our ages, is Delores Eagle Feather, and everything I say is sort of filtered through Navaho. I find I think in Navaho, mostly, where there are word equivalents, but my whole English and French vocabulary is there for the asking."

"So are you Dory—or Delores?" I asked.

She screwed up her face a little. "I never liked Delores much, although, like you, it's the only legal identity I've got. I'm going to go back to Dory, I think. It's gonna be harder getting used to you as the old Vicki, though. You sure don't look like I remember."

"I'm not the old Vicki," I told her. "But I don't know who I am yet, either."

"Both of you have. some adjusting to do," Stuart said, "and it vill take some time. It vill come gradual, not in one
woosh.
I had the option of restoring you vere you
left off or just feeding your old matrix back in on top the new, and I decided it vas best to do the latter. You should know your whole life, and, particularly in your case, Vic—Misty, the new parts of you are better equipped to handle that body of yours. I could erase the new encoding for the genetic instruction override, but it vouldn't be a service. Your body vould be out of bal-ance. It vould cause fat, and your enlarged boobs they vouldn't shrink, just kind of deflate and sag. Better ve keep both of you in at this stage."

Dory nodded. "I prefer it that way anyway. I'm not the same person I was when I left here, but I think I'm the better for it in some ways. I feel more Indian now, and that's good, not only because of what I now am but also because, for all the terrible life most Indians have, they still are a great people. I learned a lot from them, and I'll always be a part of them."

I looked at Stuart. "You must have had more of a reason than this to bring us back now. Where do we go from here?"

He looked at us seriously. "Listen, the both of you. A lot has happened in the past three years. For vun thing, obviously, ve can do anything they can do and at least as veil. Parch, and the people over Parch, are mad vith power. If they aren't stopped, I don't know vere it viii lead. I fear that I, too, might be put under my little babies out there after a vile. Eventually—veil, the whole country? The vorld?"

"But there's an equal threat," Overmeyer put in. "This Association, or whatever, is on the march. It's winning. You can't really see 'em, just smell 'em, in a nasty way. Last month the four largest religious cult organizations, different as night and day, all merged into one huge body. Their followers can't be deprogrammed by anybody short of IMC. Their combined assets are in the
billions,
their followers fanatical and growing, and they're everywhere, not just the U.S."

I frowned. "But most of the world is communist. That wouldn't work there—unless you're suggesting a war."

He shook his head. "Not a war between us and the communists, no. But they'

re working there, too. A whole new Chinese philosophical group has arisen, cultlike, and has gathered powerful friends in Peking. It appeals to the ideals of communism and argues their present attainability. The Soviets will probably be the hardest nut to crack, but even there we see similar forces at work. They're patient, this Association. I think they'd be willing to simply grow up into powerful positions in the party until they
were
the leadership. Once in charge of even a single Soviet Republic, their work efficiency, dedication, and production would propel their leaders to the top in Moscow—and in that kind of society people can be ordered to be processed."

I shook my head, a feeling of hopelessness coming into nee. How much nicer, more comfortable, to be Misty Carpenter, to not worry about things like this or even be able to conceive of them in her little world.

"What can we do?" I asked.

"Ve can do the only thing possible," Stuart responded. "Ve can take the biggest gamble in all of human history. Listen, you remember long, long ago, interviewing the alien Pauley?"

I nodded.

"Veil, remember vat he said? That the Urulu vould save us if they could be convinced ve vere vorth saving?"

I strained to remember. It seemed a long time and another life ago. Still, I nodded. "Go on."

"Vic—Misty, look, ve have talked about it and ve think now that it may be our only hope. Ve must contact the Urulu, somehow conwince them that ve are vorth redemption, and get them to come in. To destroy IMC and face down this Association before it is too late."

My old conversation came back to me now, and I was dubious. "But he said there was a chance they'd just decide we were infested and destroy the entire planet."

"Misty, the planet's already
being
destroyed," Over-meyer put in. "Weren't you listening? Ten years, twenty, and you might neither recognize nor want to
be
human on this planet, if that word has any long-term meaning. IMC is making the enemy's task easier here, although you can't convince them of it. The world isn't going to collapse tonight, or tomorrow, or next year, but it's rapidly reaching the point of no return, when they'll be in such control that this sort of plan will be impossible. The Urulu have to see us humans the way we are, not the way we'll be remade. Dr. Eisenstadt and the rest of us who are sick at the way things are going are con-vinced that we must make our move now."

"Which brings us back to what we have to do with this," Dory responded.

"Why us?"

"I vould like to say it's because I love the both of you, vich I do, but it goes deeper than that. This fellow Pauley, he was the most reasonable of the vuns they caught. The most
human,
you
might say. He'd lived vith us a long time and understood us a bit better. Also, according to your own reports, he seemed to feel some sort of guilty conscience, particularly around you. Ve think he is our only hope. Ve intend to free him—and, vunce ve do, you may be the only hold on him ve have."

Dory looked dubious. "I don't like it. I can still remember the absolute
contempt
that woman, that alien, on the ferryboat had for us. I can't imagine that they'd be any better than the enemy."

Overmeyer looked at her. "They are because they
have
to be—don't you see that, Dory? If they're no better, then we're already lost. It's a gamble, sure. Lots of things could go wrong. They might be as bad as the others—they can't be any worse. They might not listen. Pauley might just say to hell with us and leave.

They might blow us all up. But
what is the alternative?"

She didn't like the idea despite the arguments, that was clear, but she could only shrug. "I'm just along for the ride."

"Not qvite," Stuart told her. "There vere several reasons for taking the added risk of bringing you back, all carefully vorked out and thought out. For vun thing, if Pauley
does
feel real guilt about—Misty—then you are a double dose, and a reminder to him. She will also need somevun to help and support her. It is a big burden to carry alone. And, of course, you are more practical than she—sorry, my lady, but it's true.
You
came up vit the plan for the newspaperman, yes?
You
had better sources of information within IMC than did Vicki, who vas in a much higher place. You complement each other. You are a better team than either alone. You see?"

I was a little put out by Stuart's assessment of me, but the more I thought of it the more I had to agree, particularly now. I was being raised from the dead, as it were, and entrusted with the fate of the whole human race, the heroine of a bad thriller that just happened to he so damnably
true,
and I needed somebody badly.

"How do we begin?" I asked them.

"First we talk with Pauley," Overmeyer said. "He's
here?"

He nodded. "Always has been, on a special security level with the few others we have. It's computer-monitored and watched, but we have the computer here, and if we can feed false data into brains it's no trick at all to feed false data into security pictures, sound monitors, and the like. Once we spring him, we arrange the computer so you walk right out of here. It's the wonderful thing about relying on computerized security systems—they only work if the programmer's honest.

We've had time to prepare this, Misty." He reached in his pocket, pulled out several cards and handed them to us. I recognized them at once—the same credit card-like security keys as before. "Your voice codes we'll give you in a few minutes, and we'll arrange for instructions to reach the elevator guards ahead of time. Isn't bureaucracy wonderful? As much as it obscures and slows, it also makes things painfully simple—if you understand it, and if you get the paperwork right. You will be able to leave—but once you're in that parking lot upstairs you're on your own."

"You're not gonna be able to keep this from Parch for long," Dory pointed out. "Even if we get out, he'll know when he gets back."

Stuart nodded. "Yes, but ve vill give him a little something to puzzle over first.

It is time ve vill buy, no matter how little. An hour, a day, can make the differ-ence."

I looked down at myself. "Some getaway," I commen-ted. "Super low-cut slit, sparkling green evening dress, high heels ... I'm really going to be inconspicuous.

"

"You couldn't be inconspicuous anywhere," Jeff noted. I smiled sweetly at him. How different it would be for the two of us now, I thought wistfully.

I looked over at Dory. "Well? What do you think now?"

She smiled and shook her head in wonder. "God! You're so
sexy!
I can't believe it!" Then she turned back to the two men.

"Let's do it," she said.

Chapter Eleven

Stuart and Jeff left us to prepare our going away party. I felt uneasy about it all, but, as Jeff had said, there really wasn't any choice in the matter. The alternative was that Parch or this Association or both would take over, remaking us into happy little robots. I only hoped that the two of them were up to matching Parch trick for trick; otherwise, I'd still open Joe's new joint in Vegas and Dory would be opening a beads and trinkets stand on U.S. 89.