The Shockwave Rider (33 page)

Inspection of computerized records has revealed that over half the credit standing to your name derives from nonlegal undertakings, details of which have been forwarded to the Attorney General of the United States. In anticipation of criminal proceedings your permissible credit is limited to the Federal Supportive Norm, viz. $28.50 per day.

The Commission on Poverty has held this insufficient to provide an adequate diet; however, upgrading to the proposed norm of $67.50 per day still awaits presidential approval.

This is a cybernetic datum for the public service.

AN ALARMING ITEM TO FIND ON YOUR DESK COME MONDAY MORNING

To all employees of Marmaduke Smith Metal Products Inc.

The decision taken to commission the building and launching of an orbital factory for your company by Ground-to-Space Industries Inc. (contract noncancelable) was reached as the result of a warning from the chief accountant Mr. J. J. Himmelweiss that the corporation faces certain bankruptcy.

At the same meeting of the Board which confirmed the placing of the G2S contract all officers were voted an additional 100 percent of their respective holdings of stock to dispose of at temporarily inflated prices prior to the company’s voluntary liquidation which is scheduled for the end of next month.

Thsi is an unauthorized cybernetic announcement.

AN ALARMING ITEM TO FIND ON A COSMETICS PACKAGE

This product contains a known allergen and a known carcinogen. The manufacturers have expended over $650,000 in out-of-court settlements to avoid legal suits by former users. This is a cybernetic datum imprinted on the wrapper without the manufacturers’ knowledge or consent.

AN ALARMING ITEM TO FIND ON A PACK OF “HONEST-TO-GOODNESS”
^®
BEEF STEW

Despite being advertised as domestic, this stew contains 15 to 35 percent imported meat originating in areas where typhus, brucellosis and trichinosomiasis are endemic. Authority to label the contents as domestic produce was obtained following the expenditure of appx. $215,000 in bribes to customs and public-health inspectors. This is a cybernetic datum derived from records not intended for publication.

AN ALARMING ITEM TO FIND ON A MONTHLY AUTO-DEBIT NOTICE

Advice to clients of Anti-Trauma Inc.

A status check of the first one hundred juveniles treated according to this corporation’s methods, all of whom are now at least three years past termination of their courses of therapy, reveals that:

66 are receiving prescribed psychotropic drugs;

62 are classed educationally subaverage;

59 have recently reported nightmares and hallucinations;

43 have been arrested at least once;

37 have run away from home at least once;

19 are in jail or subject to full-time supervision orders;

15 have been convicted of crimes of violence;

15 have been convicted of theft;

13 have been convicted of arson;

8 have been committed to mental hospitals at least once;

6 are dead;

5 have wounded parents, close relatives or guardians;

2 have murdered siblings;

1 awaits trial for molesting a girl aged three.

Totals do not sum to 100 because most are entered under more than one head. This is a cybernetic announcement in the public interest.

AN ALARMING ITEM TO FIND ON YOUR OVERDUE-TAX DEMAND

For the information of the person required to pay this tax
Analysis of last year’s federal budget shows that: * * * 1 7 % of your tax dollar went on boondoggles

***13% ………………. propaganda, bribes and kickbacks

***11% ………………. federal contracts with companies

which are (a) fronting for criminal activities and/or (b) partly or wholly owned by persons subject to indictment for federal offenses and/or (c) hazardous to health and the environment. Fuller details may be obtained by punching the code number at top left of this form into any veephone. They take about 57 minutes to present.

This is a cybernetic datum appended without Treasury Department authorization.

AN ALARMING ITEM TO HEAR OVER THE VEEPHONE

“No, Mr. Sullivan, we can’t stop it! There’s never been a worm with that tough a head or that long a tail! It’s building itself, don’t you understand? Already it’s passed a billion bits and it’s still growing. It’s the exact inverse of a phage—whatever it takes in, it adds to itself instead of wiping … Yes, sir! I’m quite aware that a worm of that type is theoretically impossible! But the fact stands, he’s done it, and now it’s so goddamn comprehensive that it can’t be killed. Not short of demolishing the net!”

THE OUTCOME OF THE BRAIN RACE (COMPUTED)

The first shall be last and the last shall be first.

THE WHOLE CONTINENT ON THE BRINK OF ONE PRECIPICE

The press conference automatically called by Nick’s program was to be held in the largest auditorium on the UMKC campus. The students had been delighted to commandeer it. Discreetly, the university authorities declined a request from the state governor to intervene. Among the persons credited with work on Miranda and those like her were two incumbent faculty members, and they were—sensibly—spending today behind locked doors and steel shutters. The students were very unhappy about those deformed babies.

Moreover, for the first time in well over a generation, the mass of public opinion was in agreement with the students. Gratifying. If it didn’t heal the split, at least it moved the split to a healthier location.

The hall was packed—it was crammed. If modern technology hadn’t shrunk three-vee cameras and sound-recording equipment to a size that the engineers of fifty years ago would have called impossible, the puzzled but dutiful reporters who had arrived to cover a story they were certain must be sensational … whatever the hell it was, would have been unable to put anything on their tapes. As it was, they were obliged to use poles, electric floaters and their longest-range mikes and lenses because they couldn’t get anywhere near, the rostrum, and there was a squabble over priority in respect of lines of sight which delayed the start of the conference until well past the scheduled time of noon.

At long last, however, Kate was able to appear on stage, to be greeted by a standing ovation that threatened never to end. It took her a long time to pat down the noise. When she finally did so, the putter-of-cats-among-pigeons made his appearance, and the audience settled to an expectant hush.

“My name is Nicholas Haflinger.” In a loud clear voice, capable of filling the auditorium without the aid of microphones. “You’re wondering why I’ve called you here. The reason is simple. To answer all your questions. I mean—
all.
This is the greatest news of our time. As of today, whatever you want to know, provided it’s in the data-net, you can now know. In other words,
there are no more secrets.”

That claim was so sweeping that his listeners sat briefly stunned. Long seconds slid away before there came a diffident call from a woman reporter near the front, one of the lucky ones who had arrived early.

“Rose Jordan, W3BC! What about this story that was on the beams, the bait that pulled us in? This thing where you said G2S will sue officials of the Bureau of Data Processing for kidnaping one of its employees, and also some girlfriend of his?”

“That was me, and the story’s absolutely true,” Kate said. “But you didn’t have to come here for the details. Ask any veephone.”

“Yesterday you’d have had to come here,” Nick amplified. “If there’s one thing BDP has brought to a fine art, it’s preventing the public from digging unpleasant truths from behind the scenes in government … right?”

A rattle of agreement: from the students on principle, but from several reporters too, who looked so glum one might presume they’d encountered that kind of trouble.

“Well, that’s over. From now on: ask and you shall know.”

“Hey!” In an incredulous tone from a man beside Rose Jordan. “All kind of weird stuff has been coming off the beams since yesterday, like they’ve been paying women to bear kids that are sure to be deformed. You mean this is supposed to be true?”

“What makes you doubt it?”

“Well—uh …” The man licked his lips. “I called my office half an hour back and my chief said it’s been authoritatively deeveed. By Aylwin Sullivan personally. Something about a saboteur.”

“That must be me.” Cocking one eyebrow. “Any word of this sabotage being stopped?”

“Not that I heard.”

“Good. At least they didn’t make that ridiculous promise. Because it can’t be stopped. I guess you all know about tapeworms … ? Good. Well, what I turned loose in the net yesterday was the father and mother—I’ll come back to that in a moment—the father and mother of all tapeworms.

“It consists in a comprehensive and irrevocable order to release at any printout station any and all data in store whose publication may conduce to the enhanced well-being, whether physical, psychological or social, of the population of North America.

“Specifically, whether or not anybody has required a printout of it, information concerning gross infringements of Canadian, Mexican and/or United States legal enactments respecting—in order of priority—public health, the protection of the environment, bribery and corruption, fair business and the payment of national taxes, shall be disseminated automatically to all the media. For this purpose ‘gross’ is defined by setting a threshold: no such infringement shall be published unless at least one person made from it an illegal profit of at least ten thousand dollars.”

He had straightened as he spoke. Now he was arrow-rigid, and his voice boomed in huge resounding periods like the tolling of a death bell.

“This is indeed the father and mother of a tapeworm. It’s of a type known as parthenogenetic. If you’re acquainted with contemporary data-processing jargon, you’ll have noticed how much use it makes of terminology derived from the study of living animals. And with reason. Not for nothing is a tapeworm called a tapeworm. It can be made to breed. Most can only do so if they’re fertilized; that’s to say, if they’re interfered with from outside. For example the worm that prevents the Fedcomps from monitoring calls to Hearing Aid, and the similar but larger one that was released at Weychopee—Electric Skillet—to shut down the net in the event of enemy occupation: those are designed to lie dormant until tampered with. That’s true of all phage-type worms.

“My newest—my masterpiece—breeds by itself. For a head it wears a maximum-national-advantage rating, a priority code that I stole from G2S. It was allocated to the corporation because like other hypercorps it’s been treated for years as though it were above the law. Imagine how embarrassing it would be to make known all the bribes, all the graft, all the untaxed kickbacks, which don’t appear in G2S’s annual report to the stockholders. …

“Right behind that, my worm wears a U-group code, which does the same for individuals. The owner of a U-group code will never find himself in court.
Never.
No matter if he rapes the mayor’s daughter at midday on Main Street. You don’t believe me? Go punch a veephone. Ask for a plain-language printout of the status label worn by a U-group code. As of about an hour and a half ago it will print out for anybody … and it’s enlightening.”

Two or three people rose in the body of the hall as though bent on confirming Nick’s assertion. He paused to let the disturbance subside.

“In back of that again, there’s the key which opens the secure data banks at all secret psychological research establishments, including Tarnover and Crediton Hill. Behind that is one which opens the Treasury files on tax-avoidance suits unpursued by presidential order. Behind that is the one which opens similar files belonging to the Attorney General. Behind that is the one which opens the files of the Food and Drug Authority. And so on. By now I don’t know exactly what there is in the worm. More bits are being added automatically as it works its way to places I never dared guess existed. The last I found out about before I came along to talk to you was a key for the CIA’s sexual-blackmail file. There’s some raunchy material in there, and I predict it will be popular home viewing this winter.

“A couple of final points before someone asks me. First, is this an unforgivable invasion of privacy? Invasion of privacy it is; unforgivable … Well, do you believe that justice shall not only be done but shall be seen to be done? The privacy my worm is designed to invade is that privacy under whose cover justice is not done and injustice is not seen. It doesn’t care whether the poker who leeched his tax-free payoff spent it on seducing little girls; it cares only that he was rewarded for committing a crime and wasn’t brought to book. It doesn’t care if the shivver who bought that congressman was straight or gay; it cares only that a public servant took a bribe. It doesn’t care if the judge who misdirected the jury was concerned to keep her lover’s identity secret; it cares only that a person was jailed who should have been released.