Mercury Man Page 15

  “Miranda, leave me with Tom for a moment, will you?” Paul Daniel put his arm around his daughter. She looked happy, and Tom guessed that she was pleased to see him with her father at last.

  “We’ll join you after he tries on the costume,” Paul Daniel went on. He had started to strip off his own colourful outfit. “Right now we have to talk.”

  Miranda slipped away and Tom began to peel off his clothes. Paul carefully removed the Tom Strong outfit from the mannequin and handed it to him, piece by piece. When he was fully dressed, Tom put on the black mask, peered at himself in the mirror, laughed, and flexed his muscles comically.

  “Don’t worry — it suits you fine,” Paul Daniel said. “You’re a well set-up kid. But there are a couple of things I want you to consider before you do anything rash.”

  They sat together on a long bench and Paul Daniel addressed Tom in his calm, slow manner.

  “I’m glad Miranda got in touch with you. You can imagine what it’s been like to have her shut up here so much — just because the world out there believes that I’m a criminal. A while ago Dad switched her to a private school, and we’ve had home lessons for her, too, but she hasn’t been happy at all. She’s a wonderful girl and she’s going to be all right. I can see you like her and I’m glad.”

  Tom took a deep breath and waited. After a brief silence, Paul Daniel continued. “When I found out you had something on Fabricon and Tarn I was ecstatic. I watched, I waited — I had to be careful, because I thought they might con you.”

  “They almost did,” Tom told him. “I’m sorry.”

  Paul Daniel slapped him on the shoulder. “I know. Your grandfather told me. But now you know the truth. Your grandfather’s news is incredible. With that information we can go after them, and we even have some hope of sympathy from the police — so long as we don’t screw things up.”

  Tom nodded. Suddenly the dreary city seemed exciting, while this storeroom, with its fantastic pictures and its models, was no longer a cabinet of toys: it was the centre of action, the centre of reality.

  “Inside Fabricon there are computer files that will blow their whole conspiracy. They haven’t been able to clean them up because they themselves need the information. I know exactly where those files are and I intend to go after them.”

  “Mr. Daniel — Zak — seems to have a plan.”

  “Yeah, and I’m pretty sure I know what it involves. It probably involves you and your grandfather, for a starter.”

  “We want to be part of it.”

  “That’s fine, but there’s one other person involved. You know who I mean?”

  Tom shook his head. “Miranda?” he guessed.

  “I mean your mother. I saw her a couple of times while I was watching your apartment. She seems like a fine, decent woman. We have to make sure that she knows what’s happening.”

  Tom remembered. Tomorrow was the day of the company party. Chuck Reichert would be pitching for the supermarket softball team. She wanted Tom to be there, to be with her and with Reichert, whom she would be marrying some day.

  All of a sudden Tom felt miserable again.

  “Don’t worry!” Paul Daniel reassured him. “I think I can make her understand. But if she has the least objection to whatever lunacy my dad’s got planned, then you’re gonna have to pull out of it. Agreed?”

  Tom nodded his head slowly. “Agreed.”

  In the middle of pulling on a T-shirt, Paul Daniel stopped, seemed about to speak, then hesitated.

  “What is it?”

  “One more thing. You know something about what Fabricon’s doing, and eventually you’ll learn more. I don’t believe in breaking the law, but if you think about what they’re up to, the situation changes. They really think that human beings are ultimately just flesh machines, that they can play with us and reprogram us once they know enough about our biological makeup. Fabricon is bad enough, but when I think who they might sell their secrets to it scares the hell out of me.”

  “But what exactly are they trying to do?”

  “We’ll talk about that later. Let’s put it this way: they have a program that I find pretty terrifying.”

  “You really think their program can work?”

  Paul Daniel shook his head. “I believe it can, although how far they can go with it, I don’t know. Nobody does. Not yet. The point is, Tom, I hate what they stand for. They have a contempt for human beings. It’s never occurred to them that there’s an X factor in everyone, something they can’t touch, something that has to do with the old-fashioned word soul.”

  “Soul?”

  “Call it a kind of metaprogramming, or higher functioning, if you like. This is something you have to remember, Tom — that freedom is a very precious thing, and it depends on our ability to be ourselves, to be human in the best way we can. As far as I can see, that’s where soul comes in.”

  Paul Daniel stood up. He didn’t look at Tom, but without another word he turned and walked out of the room.

  Tom followed him through the corridor, past the photographs and displays, and back toward Zak Daniel’s bedroom. From that direction, just then, roars of laughter sounded. His grandfather and Zak Daniel were obviously hitting it off very well.

  He found them in close conversation. Zak was already tucked in bed; Jack sprawled in a chair beside him. A bottle of whiskey sat on the night table between them.

  “Come and have a drink, Paul,” Zak said. “But only a small one. We want your head clear so that you can size up this plan of mine!”

  The three men laughed. “We’ll get sandwiches in a minute,” Zak went on. “I’m almost tempted to suggest a restaurant … haven’t been out to a restaurant in five years or more. But no, we don’t dare go out — we can’t risk being seen together. We’ll make our plans right here, and then we can go our separate ways — until D-Day, anyway.”

  Miranda beckoned to Tom and he followed her slowly down the stairs. He watched her carefully as she descended in front of him. It was funny; he felt himself constantly staring at her, almost as if he was trying to memorize what she looked like. Yet every time he gazed at her (her eyes, her hair, her bare knees) he felt a pleasant shock of surprise, as if he were seeing something new and wonderful.

  In the kitchen she pulled a manila folder from a pile of papers on the counter. Inside was a newspaper clipping, and when he read it Tom was astounded to find that it recorded his first-year high essay triumph. “YOUTH ADVISES ‘REACH FOR THE STARS,’” the caption read, and went on to describe how Tom had beaten out every student in the city with his eloquent prose. Just a year ago he had reread the essay and had found it ridiculously simple-minded. He would have thrown away his copy of the frayed clipping, and the essay too, except that he knew his mother would have been horrified.

  Now, with Miranda smiling at him, he was very glad to have been the author of the piece. That she had enjoyed it and kept it was almost a miracle.

  Even that miracle became as nothing, however, when — without any preamble — she crossed the room to where Tom stood, took his ringed hand in hers, and squeezed it gently. He smiled — awkwardly, he felt, for she was very close — and looked into her deep blue eyes.

  This is perfect — he felt it with his mind and body together. But there was more, for, holding his fingers in a tight grasp, she said in a low, small, but very distinctive voice the single word: “Welcome.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  The Computer from Hell

  Tom’s mother paced up and down the room. The apartment seemed to shrink around her.

  “It’s not possible!” she said, for the third or fourth time. “It’s just not possible.”

  Jack squirmed on the couch and once again tried to explain. “I’ve talked to the police,” he said. “They’re more or less on our side, Karen. Otherwise we wouldn’t think of going in.”

  “Rubbish! You’d do it no matter what they said. And when you talk about the police, I know what you mean: you mean a few old boozing cronies who
think the same way you do. And what happens if everything goes wrong? I don’t want my son with a criminal record, thank you!”

  “Mom!” Tom started to object, but thought better of it. His grandfather had given him a look. Paul Daniel, who had said nothing so far, sat on a chair by the kitchen door. To Tom’s amazement, his usual grim expression had softened; he seemed to be controlling himself, enjoying the situation, barely suppressing a smile.

  Tom hoped Paul wouldn’t laugh at his mother. All hell would break loose if he did. He’d never seen her so angry or so frustrated. At any moment, he thought, she might burst into tears.

  “I just don’t believe that you couldn’t trust me,” she continued. “That you got into all this without letting me know. God — talk about chauvinism! A bunch of silly boys who have to protect me from reality. Who think it’s a game to break into a respectable business, just because they have a few wild suspicions about what’s going on inside.”

  “Mrs. Blake —” Paul stood up. He crossed the room, intercepted her, and held her gently by the arm. He was serious now.

  “I understand how you feel, Karen. But a lot of things are at stake here. I’m thinking of my family, too. You understand that I have to clear my name. And, believe me, our suspicions are based on fact.”

  “What facts? You haven’t told me anything yet.”

  Paul Daniel gently steered her toward the sofa. To Tom’s amazement his mother let him do this. She settled down, took a deep breath, and gave Paul Daniel a close, searching look. It was as if she were seeing him for the first time.

  “I don’t know … I just don’t know,” she murmured. “You can’t expect me to approve of this. Surely there’s a better way.”

  “There’s no other way, Karen,” Paul said quietly. “I didn’t want to have to tell you this — at least not until I had the proof to hand you. I haven’t told anyone the whole story, not even my friends here.” He waved in the direction of Tom and Jack. “We talked last night about how to break into Fabricon, I’ll admit it, but even then I was being a bit cagey about what I knew. Frankly, I didn’t want to disgust anyone.”

  “What we heard was bad enough already,” Jack said. “And I’ve got a pretty strong stomach.”

  “Tell me and I’ll make up my own mind,” Karen said. “And I want Tom to know what he’s getting into.”

  Paul nodded grimly. “Have you ever heard of the molecular computer?”

  He looked at each of them in turn. Tom was baffled and the others looked equally blank.

  “I thought not. You see, most computers are made of silicon strands, but the molecular computer is different. It’s made of DNA.”

  Jack whistled softly. “You mean genetic stuff, the stuff of life? That sounds crazy!”

  “It’s not crazy at all. A California scientist discovered the possibility years ago. DNA is actually a digital entity — that means it can count. It fact, it can count like almost nothing on earth. Scientists agree on the fantastic capabilities of the molecular computer. It can calculate a hundred million billion things at once.”

  Tom shook his head. “Gosh, that would put today’s computers to shame, wouldn’t it?”

  “Exactly. It would be the most incredible thinking machine in the history of the world.”

  “It sounds amazing,” Karen said. “But why is it evil?”

  “Like most scientific discoveries, it’s not evil at all,” Paul explained. “Whether it’s evil or not depends on how responsibly you use it, and what you have to do to create it.”

  Tom leaned forward, listening closely as Paul continued in his quiet monotone. “DNA chips can be implanted in the human body. They can serve good purposes, such as monitoring illness, but they can also be used to manipulate people. Tarn has not only taken advantage of this, but he’s gone much further. I’m sure he talked a lot of grandiose nonsense to you two in the restaurant — he’s good at that. But let me tell you what I discovered …”

  Paul Daniel got up and began to pace the room. “When Tarn came to Fabricon, he decided to jump ahead of the world’s scientists to create a very special super DNA computer. So instead of using just any DNA material, he decided to base his computer on human brain tissue.”

  Tom shuddered and found himself rubbing his hand across his forehead, as if his grey cells were already under threat.

  “That sounds horrible,” Karen said.

  “It is horrible. Tarn’s idea is that with human brain tissue he can create a DNA computer that will itself be a kind of ultra programming machine, one that will be able to manipulate us absolutely because it would be constructed of living human material, of thinking matter. Such a machine — or genetic super-being, which is what it would really be — might well find ways to control whole populations, to reshape the whole planet.”

  “What’s the poor world coming to?” moaned Jack. “Destruction, I greatly fear, if Tarn has his way.”

  “It could well be. He’s worked out a three-stage plan. Stage one, recruit bright young people and condition them so that they would be docile enough to be used as guinea pigs. Stage two, take them in a hypnotized state to the Pavlov Room and scan and map their brains for a later operation. Stage three, take actual genetic brain material from them and recombine the DNA in order to produce the world’s most powerful DNA computer. It’s significant that Tarn was going to call that room Pavlov, after the famous scientist. Pavlov experimented on and controlled rats or dogs, but this computer could be used to control not only the machinery of society, but our very thought processes themselves. Once this monster gets built, there’s no telling what will happen to human beings on this earth.”

  “God Almighty, that Tarn’s some kind of Dr. Frankenstein,” Jack said. “And he’s out to build the computer from hell.”

  “You’re right, but he’s worse than Frankenstein. This isn’t an experiment with dead matter. This involves real living people. And some of them have already been hurt by it.”

  Tom swallowed hard. He thought of what Zak Daniel had told him about Miranda. He understood now why Paul had wanted to bomb the company. But evil shouldn’t be answered with evil, he was sure of that.

  “There’s your horror,” Paul said. “The man will stop at nothing. But I know where the evidence is and I have to go and get it. I won’t succeed on my own, but if you don’t want Tom to go in there with me, Karen, I’ll go anyway. I can understand your feelings as a mother, believe me I can. But maybe you can understand my feelings as a father. My daughter infiltrated the program to try to vindicate me. The conditioning affected her negatively; she lost her speech and it’s taken her many months to regain any of it. Thanks to Tom here, she’s getting better by the hour, but it’s been a sad time for all of us.”

  Karen bowed her head. Everyone was silent. Then she said, “But can you beat them? If you get the evidence, won’t they just buy their way out of it? Is it a good idea to break the law?”

  “I’ve waited too long already,” Paul said. “You know that when Tom and his friends went for jobs in the spring they got turned away by Fabricon. Now it’s only midsummer and all the kids are being welcomed with open arms. It’s clear that the experiments began a while ago, then stopped while Tarn evaluated the results. Now they’re beginning again and he needs more people, more kids, more victims. They’re heading into the final phase. If Tom hadn’t scouted out their premises, if we hadn’t connected, no one would be challenging them. No, Karen, nothing can stop me from going in. They may arrest me but at least I’ll have tried.”

  A silence fell over the room. Finally, Paul stood up and said, “This isn’t getting us anywhere. Maybe I should get out of here and just let you three work it out. I’m going to wait in my truck downstairs. It was nice to meet you, Karen.”

  Tom’s mother looked at him; she seemed to be meditating on something. They stood in the centre of the room and shook hands. “It was nice to meet you, Paul,” she murmured. “And believe me, I wish you nothing but the best.”

  But
as soon as Paul Daniel had disappeared, she started in again.

  “Jack, you’re an idiot!” she told him. “And you” — she turned a searching glance on Tom — “of course it would have been too much for you to talk to me, to your own mother. I always said I wanted to hear about what was going on in your life. But no, you had to shut me out. Now you see the result.”

  “I’m sorry, Karen,” Jack said. “It’s my fault that it worked out this way. We didn’t even know half these things, Tom and I … but I’m committed to help Paul, you understand.”

  “I’ve got to help him, Mom,” Tom told her.

  “That’s fine for both of you. But if this is going to happen — and I can see that you won’t back down — I intend to be there. Besides, I want to meet this Miranda — and her grandfather, too, as a matter of fact.”

  Tom felt a thrill of joy when his mother said Miranda’s name. It was as if some unspoken barrier had been broken. He looked at his grandfather; Jack Sandalls looked at Tom.

  She was coming through for him. He wanted to hug her, to thank her.

  There was a knock at the door. All three of them jumped.

  “You see,” his mother said, “we’re acting like criminals already.”

  The door was flung open. Chuck Reichert stood there, outfitted for softball. He wore a baseball cap and a striped uniform that made him look like a convict. In his right hand he held a couple of bats; a catcher’s mask and two mitts were slung on a cord over his right shoulder.

  Reichert tipped up his sunglasses, looked at them expectantly, and said, “Play ball!”

  “Oh my God!” Karen Blake shook her head and half-closed her eyes. Tom thought, Maybe she’s seeing Reichert for the first time.

  Chuck seemed to miss her expression. “How are you, buddy?” he asked, beaming at Tom. “Ready to hit a few good ones for the old A&P?”

  “We’re not going to the game,” Tom said. “We have more important things to do.”

  “Tom!” his mother cautioned. He gulped and realized that he had nearly blown it.