The Egg Code (42 page)

Rights My Ass

It was noon by the time Gray arrived at the prison, having stopped in Vega to pick up a tasteless little present—Derek Skye’s new book,
Life
Is Fair
. He’d never been inside a prison before. The low, brick-brown building looked neither menacing nor sternly reassuring. It looked like a wall, solid all the way through.

The guard near the visitors’ entrance was eating his lunch, a garden salad in a plastic tray. Gray passed his book through the security clearance, then followed an escort into a room divided by a wall of Plexiglas. The escort was a short guard named Dale. As they waited for the prisoner to arrive, he offered Gray a stick of bubble gum. The gum was stale and had the medicinal taste of non-minty mouthwash.

After a while, Dale cleared his throat and said, “Normally, while we’re waiting, I like to talk about racecars.”

Gray feigned interest. “You . . . you do?”

Dale sniffed. Jaw set, he seemed to suppress an awful responsibility. “Yep. When people come in here? I sure do.”

Crossing his legs, Gray focused on the other half of the room, where an open door marked DO NOT CROSS RED LINE led into a corridor of yellow tile. Looking back at the guard, he said, “You like the racecars, huh?”

Dale took off his sheriff’s hat and held it in his lap. “Yes, sir, I really do. I think they’re just super.”

A few minutes passed before Olden was escorted into the room by a guard with a leathery brown head. His wrists were not bound, and his uniform was a loose jumpsuit of parti-colored scraps, harlequin bright.

“I’ve been trying to get a new lightbulb for over my bed,” he said, leaning over a microphone bolted to the counter. Dale tapped Gray on the shoulder and handed him a bulky pair of headphones. Olden waited for Gray to put them on, then repeated himself, adding, “They make you sign a bunch of forms, and I guess I filled out the wrong one.”

“When did it burn out?”

“Two days ago. Two fuckin’ days.”

Gray reached into his jacket and pulled out the Derek Skye book he’d purchased earlier that morning. He squinted at the Plexiglas wall, searching for a slot, some place to slide the package through. “I brought you this book.”

“What is it?”

“Something stupid. Here . . . where do I—”

“Oh, you have to give it to the guard on the way out. Dale’ll take care of it. He’s cool.”

Gray raised one side of his headphones and relayed the compliment to the guard, who shrugged and said
Who gives a shit?

“I don’t think he appreciates it.”

“Has he talked about the racecars yet?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“He does that with everyone. That’s his little thing.”

Gray laughed; it made him feel ashamed of himself, but he didn’t know what else to do.

Olden continued: “They don’t normally have him working out where you are. Most of the time, he’s in here with the other guards. That guy knows everything there is to know about the Baltimore Orioles.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes, he does. Dale’s got it down. Ask him something.”

Gray looked over at Dale and said
So, he says you know a lot about
the Baltimore Orioles
, to which the guard replied
I know a little bit, sure
, and Gray thought for a moment, then asked
Who’s their best player?
but Dale only shook his head and said
There’s just no way to answer that
question, sir.

“Some other time, I guess.”

“Yeah, maybe. Most of the guards in here are pretty cool. This isn’t really where they keep the hardened criminals.”

Again, Gray laughed.
Why am I laughing?
he wondered.
What’s
wrong with me?
Controlling himself, he asked, “How long are you going to be stuck here?”

“Who knows? I could use some time off, anyway.” Olden touched the Plexiglas wall, his fingertips turning white where they pressed against the glass. “It’s not that bad, Gray. It’s not luxury living, but it’s okay. Besides, it’s fun hanging out with my dad.” Martin Field, Gray remembered, had been imprisoned here for the past five years. “And I’ll have more energy when I get out. I might even start up a new version of the Egg Code.”

Gray glanced at the two guards, worried for his friend’s sake, but Dale was too busy picking his teeth with the side of an American Express card, and the guard with the leathery head was more interested in staring at the ceiling, pointing at it first with one finger, then two, then three, then four, then none, then one, then two, then three, then four.

“I won’t call it the Egg Code, though,” Olden said. “I think I proved my point. Technology can’t change the world. Things are what they are. It doesn’t matter what
typeface
you use, for God’s sake.”

Gray swallowed; something hard and shaped like a ball stayed inside his throat. The vague need to apologize faded as the conversation followed a lazy course. Both men enjoyed talking about Scarlet Blessing’s new gig at the Casa d’Freak in downtown North Crane City. Scarlet— another name, like Martin Field, from the not-too-distant past.

At half past twelve, Dale placed his sheriff’s hat back on his head and tightened the chin strap. It was time to go. The two friends waved goodbye and promised to meet again in a few months. Leaving the room, Olden followed the guard with the leathery head down a hallway illuminated by bright fluorescent panels; one of them flickered far ahead, but the men turned before reaching it and entered a small library, where about a dozen or so prisoners sat around laminated tables, reading law manuals and potboilers donated by the Citizens’ Action League. The librarian was a resentful, ugly man named Curt who warded off conversation by hiding behind a copy of
The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar
Wilde
. He spoke with a heavy Swedish accent, and his favorite catch-phrase was “Put the book . . . down!” which he delivered with action-movie zeal at least once every hour. Standing in the doorway, Olden noticed his father sitting at one of the computer terminals near the back of the room. A few of the prisoners looked up from their reading as he walked by.

“Hey, O-Nice!” said a long-haired prisoner in an orange jumpsuit. On the cover of his book, a cowboy wrangled an angry steed as a woman in a red dress clung to his waist. Smiling, the prisoner bobbed in his seat. “O-Nice . . . eatin’ the rice . . . like sugah an’ spice . . . gonna sell it for a
price
. . . don’t worry ’bout the
mice
. . . ’cause he’s got some
lice
. . . gonna give it to ’em
twice
. . . his favorite drink is bourbon and
Slice
. . . when he goes to the shrink, he says gimme some ad-
vice
. . .”

“Why are you reading that crap, Cleet?” Olden asked, nodding at the book.

The man laughed, smoothing the part of his mustache with his pinky. “Yo, we got some sex going on, bay-bee! Love in the fields, know what I’m saying? Love in the fields.”

Olden shook his head, not understanding. “Love in the fields?”

“Yeah!” Closing the book, Cleet pointed at the author’s photo on the back cover. “I’m talking about some full-frontal, butt-wild, au naturel, muthafuckin’—”

Curt’s voice boomed over the rustle of pages. “Put the book . . . down!”

Cleet glared at the librarian and thumped his chest with both hands. “Ey, ey, ey, I’m talking to my friend! You wanna take that away from me? You wanna take that away from me?”

Setting aside his copy of
The Wit and Wisdom of Oscar Wilde
, Curt nodded at a pair of his muscle-shirted cronies, who descended on the man and yanked him out of his chair. Cleet kicked with both feet, his long hair making wild, wet-mop whipping motions as he struggled to break free.

“You are the best!” he screamed, pointing at Olden as the guards dragged him out of the room. “Attica, bay-bee! Attica, ’71!” Raising his fist, he disappeared around the corner, still calling out: “You are the best, bay-bee! I’ma sell you some cigarettes, cuz! I GOT THE HOOK-UP! I GOT THE HOOK-UP! I’ma sell you some cigarettes . . .”

The commotion faded as Olden returned Cleet’s fallen chair to the table. Another prisoner—a stubby, baby-faced fella with a Revolutionary War–era musket tattooed on his fat cheek—picked up the romance novel and shook his head. “Brother got to know,” he said, “when you start to strut, that’s when you get beat down.”

Olden nodded and joined his father by the computers. Startled, the older man looked up from his work. Martin Field had changed considerably since ’94. The GC had been right to prosecute, petty as it seemed; the routing tables he’d stolen had ultimately led to thousands of dollars’ worth of vandalism and computerized hijinks. It wasn’t much money, but after so many years, the Gloria Corporation had learned to look after every dime.

At least being in prison had brought Martin closer to his son, and every few days they would meet in the library to discuss his upcoming release. As the time drew near, Martin’s fears increased. He didn’t want to leave. There was too much unresolved in the outside world. “Don’t worry about it,” Olden assured him. “Mom’ll take care of you.”

Martin closed his eyes. “I can’t ask her to do that.” As always, he felt nervous talking about this. Even after five years, he still thought about Donna Skye—her legs, her tits, the improbable fact of ass-fucking her in a motel near the airport. “I mean, I feel very bad personally.”

Olden looked at his own face in the dark computer screen. “Mom admires you a lot.”

Martin tried to smile; he felt dishonest, even doing that. “You think so?”

“Sure! I mean, she works for the fucking navy. She knows how this country operates. You did the right thing.”

Martin shifted in his seat; his son’s political views had never made much sense to him. “Well, to the extent that I did anything at all, I just . . . I don’t know.”

“Sure you do! You were saying to people, Look, this network is fragile. It’s not what those dipshits were going on about in the early sixties. Paul Baran and all that. Yes, theoretically it’s true. When you have a distributed network, the chances of taking out the entire system in one shot are almost nil. Who cares? That’s the cold-war mentality right there. Yes, it can survive a full-force attack from the Soviets.
Most
cases of subterfuge aren’t that obvious. These are computers we’re talking about here. There is always going to be an anomaly. That’s just the nature of systems. And it doesn’t matter how fine the margin is. The fact that the anomaly exists renders the whole thing corrupt. That’s what you pointed out. And that’s why you’re here today.”

His father laughed nervously. “Olden, I’m glad that you’ve taken such an interest in my work.”

Olden shrugged—a ho-hum expression, maybe yes, maybe no. “Well, that’s just because you finally decided to stop working for the DoD. TCP/IP is the Esperanto of the computer age. It’s economic fascism.”

“I don’t know, Olden. These are old issues. I’ve lost interest in them. But you’re still quite young, and I would suggest if you feel that something is wrong, then you should devote your energy toward bringing about change. That’s what the people of my generation did, and that’s just . . . America.”

Olden started to rant. “I’ve already done all I can. I showed ’em— right here in the Midwest! In this stupid town. Why there? Who owns the property? That’s what I want to know. Who owns that tower? Most of the land out there is private, even the little dump I was living in. That all belonged to Bartholomew Hasse. Does
he
own the tower?”

Martin looked away; his words traveled over a treacherous ground. “Mr. Hasse owned several pieces of property in that area, but the tower was not one of them. The tower was the reason why you were out there, because he suspected of the likely candidates, it was our best bet, according to the information we had.”

“Which
you
supplied, right? The routing tables. You at least explained them to him. Hasse couldn’t decipher that information on his own.”

The dangerous ground broke under Martin’s feet. “Well, the actualities are a bit muddled. Mr. Hasse certainly wanted you out there. I don’t think he ever suspected you’d try to demolish the thing. What he needed was a presence. An interested party. Someone on the scene who felt the way he did.”

“Which was?”

“Which was . . . well, personally I think his only concern was money. To him, the Internet was a threat to his publishing business. But he knew you were idealistic, and that you loved books. I guess those things go hand in hand.”

Restless, Olden let the conversation drop. Anything was better than hearing his father pontificate about technology and the generation gap. Whatever gap existed between the two of them had nothing to do with generations. Olden’s point of view was informed by a reluctance to identify himself with any of his peers, anything not contained within his own self-ratified constitution. It was a losing battle, but being in prison made it easier.

Saying goodbye, he waited by the door for an escort, then led the guard with the leathery head down a corridor, past a series of bad smells, to the cell block on the north side of the building. Prisoners held their hands out as they walked by.

“By the way,” the guard said, hefting his keys. “I put your blue form through.” He unlocked the gate and winked. “You got your light back.”

“All right, my man.” Olden smiled at the star-badge on the man’s chest. “Hey, what do they call you around here anyway?”

Gently guiding Olden back into his cell, the guard shut the gate and turned the lock. “You’re not gonna believe this, but—” Down the hall, someone screamed “GIMME MY SHOE!” but the guard just clacked his teeth and said, “Most folks ’round here don’t even know my name.”

“No?”

“No sir. Most folks just call me ‘the guy with the leathery head.’ ” The guard’s black eyes glinted under the brim of his wide hat. “You b’lieve that?”

“That’s a good one.”

Taking off his hat, the guard leaned forward and said, “My head look leathery to you?”

Olden shrugged. “Not particularly leathery.”

“My point exactly.” The guard replaced his hat and started down the hall. A few prisoners called out to him, and someone even yelled, “HEY, SERGEANT—YOU GO HOME AND FUCK YOUR WIFE? YOU GO HOME AND FUCK YOUR WIFE?” but the guard just muttered, “You don’t talk about my wife,” and continued on. Olden climbed up onto his bunk and found something waiting for him on the pillow—a thin book with a simple white cover. He opened the book and held it in his lap. There, under the glow of a bare sixty-watt bulb, a few black shapes burned across an otherwise empty page. Like a blind man, he ran his fingers over the letters. The letters pressed back: