Counterfeit World (2 page)

Siskin laughed at the man’s obstinate formality, seized his arm and drew him across the room. “Come on. We’ll have a drink. Then maybe I’ll decide to answer after all.”

Its “admit” circuit relieved of the pollster’s biocapacitance, the door started to swing closed. But it paused and remained ajar in deference to a second caller.

Bald, lean-faced, he stood there scanning the room while his fingers meshed restlessly. He hadn’t yet seen me because I was behind the door watching him through the video panel.

I stepped into view and he started.

“Lynch!” I exclaimed. “Where have you been for the past week?”

Morton Lynch was in charge of internal security at REIN. Lately, he had worked an evening shift and had become quite close to Hannon Fuller, who had also preferred night work.

“Hall!” he whispered hoarsely, his eyes boring into mine. “I’ve got to talk with you! God, I’ve got to talk with
somebody!
”

I let him in. Twice before, he had turned up missing—only to return haggard and wrung-out following a week-long electronic brain-stimulation binge. Over the past few days, there had been speculation over whether his absence had been a bereaved reaction to Fuller’s death, or whether he had merely holed up in some ESB den. Oh, he was no addict. And even now it was plain he had not been on a cortical-current spree.

I led him out into the deserted roof garden. “Is it about Fuller’s accident?”

“Oh, God yes!” he sobbed, dropping into a latticework chair and pressing his face into his hands. “Only, it
wasn’t
an accident!”

“Then who killed him? How—”

“Nobody.”

“But—”

To the south, beyond the scintillating lights that spread out like a carpet of symmetrical radiance far below, the Lunar Rocket loosed a thunderous roar and limned the city with crimson reflections as it lumbered spaceward.

As the sound erupted, Lynch almost bolted from his chair. I seized his shoulders and steadied him reassuringly. “Wait here. I’ll get you a drink.”

When I returned with the straight bourbon, he downed it in a single toss and let the glass drop from his hand.

“No,” he resumed, no less shakily. “Fuller wasn’t murdered. ‘Murder’ couldn’t begin to describe what happened.”

“He walked into a high tension lead,” I reminded. “It was late at night. He was exhausted. Did you see it?”

“No. Three hours before then he and I had a talk. I thought he was crazy—what he told me. He said he didn’t want to let me in on it, but he had to tell
somebody.
You were still on leave. Then—then—”

“Yes?”

“Then he said he thought he was going to be killed because he had made up his mind not to keep it a secret any longer.”

“Not to keep
what
a secret?”

But Lynch was too wound up to be interrupted. “And he said if he turned up missing or dead, I would know it wasn’t an accident.”

“What was this secret?”

“But I couldn’t tell anybody—not even you. Because if what he said was true—well, I guess I just spent the last week running and trying to decide what to do.”

Held back until then by closed doors, the cacophony of the party surged out into the garden.

“Oh,
there
you are, Doug, darling!”

I
glanced
over at Dorothy Ford, silhouetted in the doorway and swaying against the effect of too many drinks. I emphasize the word “glanced” as a means of pointing out that my eyes could not have been off Morton Lynch for more than a tenth of a second.

But when I looked back at the chair it was empty.

By noon the next day, Siskin’s promotional efforts were reaping dividends. As far as I could ascertain, two morning video programs had presented “inside” commentary on the imminent development in simulectronics. And the early editions of all three afternoon newspapers carried front-page articles on Reactions, Inc., and its “incredible” total environment simulator, Simulacron-3.

In only one spot, however, could I find anything on Morton Lynch’s disappearance. Stan Walters, in the
Evening Press,
had ended his column with this item:

And it seems police are today concerned, but only superficially, with the reported “disappearance” of one Morton Lynch, supervisor of internal security at tycoon Horace P.

Siskin’s fabulous new property, Reactions, Inc. It would be our bet, however, that not much sleep is going to be lost in the search. The complainant claims that Lynch just “vanished.” It all supposedly happened at Siskin’s penthouse party last night. And everybody knows that much more incredible things than that have been reported at Siskin blowouts.

Of course I had gone to police headquarters with the account. What else could I do? Watching a man disappear isn’t something you simply shrug off and forget.

The intercom buzzer sounded on my desk but I ignored it, watching instead an air van lower itself onto the street’s central landing island. Establishing its six-inch hovering altitude, the vehicle skewed across traffic lanes until it came to rest against the curb. A dozen men with CRM armbands piled out.

Spacing themselves at intervals on the sidewalk in front of the REIN building, they hoisted placards that read:

There it was—the initial, impulsive response to the labor-saving promise of simulectronics in its most advanced application. It wasn’t new. The world had gone through such pangs before—during the Industrial Revolution, the Automation Transition.

The buzzer rang more insistently and I flicked the switch. Miss Boykins’ face flared on the screen, anxious and impatient. “Mr.
Siskin
is here!”

Appropriately impressed with the visit, I urged the receptionist to send him on in.

But he wasn’t alone. That much I could see via the screen. In the background, beyond Miss Boykins’ image, were Lieutenant McBain of Missing Persons and Captain Farnstock of Homicide. They had both been in once that morning already.

Radiating indignation, Siskin burst into the office. His hands were drawn up into insignificant fists as he strode forward.

He bent over my desk. “What the hell are you trying to do, Hall? What’s all this about Lynch and Fuller?”

I rose respectfully. “I merely told the police what happened.”

“Well, it’s stupid and you’re making yourself and the whole Establishment look ridiculous!”

He came around the desk and I had to offer him my chair. “Nevertheless,” I insisted, “that’s the way it was.”

McBain shrugged. “You’re the only one who seems to think so.”

I squinted at the plain-clothes man. “What do you mean?”

“I’ve had my department checking with every guest at the party. Nobody else even
saw
Lynch there last night.”

Siskin lowered himself into the chair and his small form was swallowed within its curving arms. “Of course not. We’ll find Lynch, all right—after we raid enough ESB dens.”

He turned to McBain. “The guy’s a cortical-current addict. This isn’t the first time he’s been out for his electrode kicks.”

McBain stared severely at me, but addressed Siskin. “You sure
Lynch
is the one who’s addicted?”

“Hall is all right,” Siskin said grudgingly, “or I wouldn’t have him in my Establishment. Perhaps he had a few too many last night.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” I protested.

Farnstock moved in front of me. “Homicide’s interested in what this fellow Lynch supposedly said about Fuller being murdered.”

“He made it clear Fuller was not murdered,” I reminded.

The captain hesitated. “I’d like to see where this accident happened and talk with someone who was there.”

“It was in the function integrating room. I was on leave of absence at the time.”

“Where?”

“At a cabin I have up in the hills.”

“Anybody with you?”

“No.”

“How about a look at that function room?”

“That’s in Whitney’s department,” Siskin said. “He’s Mr. Hall’s assistant.” He flicked a switch on the intercom.

The screen lit up, danced through a herringbone pattern or two, then steadied with the picture of a compact young man, about my age but with black, curly hair.

“Yes, Mr. Siskin?” Chuck Whitney asked, surprised.

“A Lieutenant McBain and Captain Farnstock will be coming down the hall in about ten seconds. Pick them up and show them through the function integrating department.”

After the police officers had left, Siskin repeated himself. “What in the hell are you trying to do, Doug—wreck REIN before it even gets off the ground? In another month we’ll start advertising for commercial research contracts. Something like this could set us on our heels! What makes you think Fuller’s death wasn’t an accident?”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t an accident.”

He missed the distinction. “Anyway, who’d want to kill Fuller?”

“Anybody who doesn’t want to see Reactions succeed.”

“Like who?”

I jerked a thumb toward the window. “Them.” It wasn’t a serious indictment. I was just proving the point that felony was not all that farfetched.

He looked and saw—for the first time, obviously—the Association of Reaction Monitors pickets. That brought him up out of the chair and sent him reeling into an elfinlike hop.

“They’re
picketing,
Doug! Just like I expected! This’ll put us squarely in the public eye!”

“They’re worried about what REIN will mean to them—in terms of unemployment,” I pointed out.

“Well, I just hope their apprehension isn’t misplaced. Unemployment among the pollsters’ association will be directly proportional to REIN’s success.”

He rushed out with an impulsive “See you later.”

And he had left not a moment too soon. The room spun crazily and I staggered against the desk. I managed to lower myself into the chair, then my head slumped forward.

A few moments later I was all right again—uncertain and apprehensive, perhaps, but at least in possession of myself.

Then I realized I couldn’t ignore my lapses of consciousness much longer. They were a good deal more frequent now. And even a month of rusticating at the cabin had done nothing to interrupt the pattern of sporadic seizures.

Nevertheless, I
wouldn’t
give in to them. I was determined to see Reactions properly launched.

Nothing could convince me that Lynch hadn’t actually disappeared. It was possible that no one else at the party had noticed his arrival. But that I had only fancied the entire incident was a concession I couldn’t bring myself to make.

With that as a stepping-off point, three immediate incongruities had to be faced: that Lynch had, indeed, just vanished; that Fuller had, after all, not died accidentally; that there was some sort of “secret,” as Lynch had put it, which supposedly had cost Fuller his life and resulted in Lynch’s disappearance.

If I was going to verify any of those assumptions, however, it would have to be on my own. Police reaction had been about as unsympathetic as could be expected on so grotesque a complaint.

But it wasn’t until the next morning that the only logical course suggested itself. That approach had to do with the system of communication that had existed between Fuller and me. It was also inspired by something Lynch had said.

Harmon Fuller and I had followed the practice of going through each other’s notes periodically in order to co-ordinate our efforts. In making such memoranda, we used red ink to signify material that should be noted by the other.

Fuller, according to Lynch, had confided something of a secret nature to him. But the intimation was that I would have been told instead—if only I had been available. So it was just possible that Fuller had
already
arranged for transmission of the pertinent information—through the medium of red-ink notes.

I pressed the intercom switch. “Miss Boykins, have Dr. Fuller’s personal effects been removed yet?”

“No, sir. But they’ll have to be shortly. The carpenters and electricians are just about to descend on his office.”

I remembered now: The space was going to be converted for other use. “Tell them to hold off until tomorrow.”

When I found the door to Fuller’s office ajar, I wasn’t at all surprised, since we had been using his outer reception room to store simulectronic equipment. But after crossing the thick carpeting to the inner doorway, I drew back tensely.

There was a woman seated at the desk, thumbing through a stack of papers. That she had done a good rifling job was suggested by the still-open drawers and piles of articles beside the blotter.

I stole into the room, circling behind her and trying to draw as close as possible without being detected.

She was young, certainly not more than in her early twenties. Her cheeks, though rigid in the attention she was giving Fuller’s papers, were smooth, evenly textured. Lips vied with rather large eyes as the dominant features of her face. The former, though full and vivid, had been rouged with a tasteful restraint. Intent upon the memoranda, her hazel eyes contrasted with ebon hair that flared out from a hat only token in size and somewhat impertinent in design.

I drew up behind her but delayed betraying my presence. Either she was here as an agent of one of the computer-type simulectronic foundations that stood to be pushed into the background by Reactions, or she was connected in some way with Fuller’s cryptic “secret.”

The girl had gone almost completely through the notes. I watched her turn over the second-to-last page and place it face down on the pile she had already inspected. Then my eyes fell on the final sheet.

It was in red ink! But there were neither words nor formulas nor schematic diagrams on it. Only a crude, meaningless drawing. The sketch showed a warrior of some sort—Grecian, judging from the tunic, sword and helmet—and a turtle. Nothing else. Except that each figure was heavily underlined with red strokes.

I might note here that whenever Fuller wanted to call my attention to something important in his memoranda, he underscored it one or more times, depending upon its significance. For instance, when he had finally drafted his transduction formula for programming emotional characteristics into the simulator’s subjective reactional units, he had underlined it five times in heavy, red ink. As well he might have, since it was the cornerstone on which his entire total environment system was built.

In this case he had underscored the Grecian warrior and turtle at least
fifty times—
—until he had run out of paper!

Finally sensing my presence, the girl sprang up. Fearing she would bolt for the door, I seized her wrist.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded.

She winced from the pressure of my grip. But, oddly, there was neither surprise nor fear on her face. Instead, her eyes were animate with a quiet, dignified fury.

“You are hurting me,” she said icily.

For a moment I puzzled over the impression that I might have encountered those determined eyes, that diminutive, upturned nose before. I relaxed my grip, but did not release her.

“Thank you, Mr. Hall.” There was no lessening of her indignation. “You are Mr. Hall, aren’t you?”

“That’s right. Why are you plundering this office?”

“Well, at least you’re
not
the Douglas Hall I used to know.” With an uncompromising pull, she freed her wrist. “And I’m
not
plundering. I was escorted here by one of your guards.”

I stepped back, astonished. “You’re not—?”

Her features remained frozen. And the very absence of moderation in her expression was affirmation enough.

Suddenly I was staring through her—past the proud image that blended a lingering demureness with newly-won sophistication—back through the haze of eight years to an awkward, fifteen-year-old “Jinx” Fuller. And I recalled that even then she had been pert and impulsive, surrendering none of her competence to dental braces, academy-style braids, and adolescent uniforms.

I even remembered some of the details: Fuller’s embarrassment on explaining that his impressionable daughter had developed a “crush” on her “Uncle” Doug; the mixed emotions I felt from the lofty heights of twenty-five years’ maturity and a soon-to-be-acquired Master of Science degree as Dr. Fuller’s protégé graduate. Realizing how complicated fatherhood could be for a widower, Fuller had bundled his daughter off to a sister in another city for pseudomaternal upbringing and subsequent schooling.

She retrieved me from the past. “I’m Joan Fuller.”

“Jinx!” I exclaimed.

Her eyes moistened and some of her self-assurance seemed to drain away. “I didn’t think anybody would ever call me that again.”

I took her hand solicitously. Then, purposely redirecting her attention, I explained my rudeness. “I didn’t recognize you.”

“Of course you didn’t. And about my being here—I was asked to come pick up Dad’s effects.”

I led her back to the chair and leaned against the desk. “I should have taken care of it. But I didn’t realize—I thought you were away.”

“I’ve been back for a month.”

“You were staying with Dr. Fuller when—?”

She nodded and purposely glanced away from the items she had gathered together on the desk top.

I shouldn’t have pushed headlong into the matter at that particular moment. But I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity.

“About your father—did he seem concerned or worried?”

She looked up sharply. “No, not that I noticed. Why?”

“It’s just that—” I decided to lie in order to avoid distressing her. “We were working on something important. I’d been away. I’m interested in finding out whether he solved the problem.”