Strange Trades (16 page)

6.

The bad news is, we may be lost; but the good news is

we’re way ahead of schedule.

—David Lee Roth

Outside Wargrave’s office, Howie thumbed the volume control higher for a brief blast of “Shock the Monkey” by Peter Gabriel. Thus armored, he went in.

Wargrave’s desk was messier than ever. The mound of papers topped with video and audio cassettes was so high as to almost hide the huge man from view. Only his shiny pate and anthracitic eyes were visible.

When he saw Howie enter, he arose and came around the desk.

“Have a seat, Mr. Piper. Please.”

Howie was taken aback by this unexpected solicitude. He sat warily.

“I assume,” said Wargrave, “that you have finished perusing the material I required you to master.”

Reaching up to doff his headphones, Howie nodded wordlessly. Lately he had taken to saying less and less.

Wargrave seemed to accept Howie’s silence as a satisfactory response. Pacing up and down the small office in his stiff way, he continued to speak. Howie, his ears ringing from near-continual music, had to strain to hear the big man’s small voice.

“Well then, Mr. Piper, you no doubt have a firmer conception now of how our organization works. But if I may, I will recapitulate briefly. It always thrills me to contemplate its functioning.

“Our company is perhaps the only one modeled on truly twentieth-century scientific principles. All other businesses, no matter how seemingly modern, actually function according to nineteenth-century paradigms. Ours is different.

“We realize that information, however abstract it seems, is the only real thing of value. And also that information can be manipulated to attain certain ends.

“Governing our actions are three basic precepts derived from scientific research done in this most exciting of centuries.

“First, perhaps most important, we abide by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which, simply put, tells us that information cannot exist without an observer, and that the observer, by the very act of observing, changes reality.

“Second, the work of Godel figures importantly in our actions. It was Godel who proved that any formal system must contain certain tenets that are forever unprovable. It is a small step from this observation to realize that our physical world is such a formal system—or system of systems, if you will—and thus must contain many unprovable truths.

“Last, we derive from information theory the fact that any carrier signal can hold only so much information before noise obscures it, no matter how deviously the information is encoded.”

Wargrave halted both his speech and his stride and regarded Howie closely.

“I’m sure,” he said, “you can see where this leads us.”

Howie shook his head in a gesture that could be interpreted as either yes or no.

Wargrave resumed his lecture, perhaps with a trifle less certainty about Howie’s readiness to hear what he had to say.

“Any group that adopts the enactment of Godelian unprovables as its goals can manipulate information in such a way as to impose its worldview on the rest of humanity. And by flooding the human brain with information, it is possible to exceed the carrying capacity of that rather primitive organ, rendering the mass of men unable to interfere.”

Howie stared at his boss. Finally, as if his voice had grown rusty with disuse, he said, “But what—what are the goals?”

“I would tell you if I could,” promised Wargrave. “But it is impossible to state them. We keep nothing secret, you know. Secrets are part of the old paradigm. Our methods embrace openness. We tell everything. All information is equally manipulable, equally valuable. We make no distinctions between secrets and common knowledge. Neither do we discriminate between viewpoints. We embrace everyone’s information.

“We spread the views of the FBI, the CIA, DARPA, the NSA, the KGB, Ml5, M-19, the Cosa Nostra, Mossad, the Sandinistas, Service A, the National Information Service, the PLO, the Shining Path, the IRA, SWAPO, the Polisario, Islamic Holy War, the Red Army, the Posse Comitatus, Department Two, Gobernacion, Move, B’nai B’rith, and the Silent Brotherhood—just to name a few.

“Our members belong to all religions and races and ethnic groups. We have operatives who are Catholics, Quakers, Protestants, Shiites, Sunnis, Sufis, Hindus, Buddhists, Baptists, Scientologists, Anglicans, Jews, brujos, and the followers of macumba and vodun. Every country feels our touch.

“We welcome every possible outcome of our actions—and none. We are for flood—and drought. Fire—and ice. War—and peace. Anarchy—and totalitarianism. Love—and hate. We stand by leftists, rightists, and middle-of-the-roaders. We find every system of government equally congenial to our company. The world as you see it is just right for us. But we are working to change it.

“Do you understand?”

Howie sat speechless for a full minute.

“I’m afraid,” he said at last, “I do.”

7.

Some revelations show best in a twilight.

—Herman Melville

Somewhere a door opened.

Howie, eyes shut, heard it—ever so faintly—from within his music, eerie synthesizers and alien chimes tinkling in a hydrogen wind: “Deeper and Deeper” by the Fixx.

Not particularly caring about who was coming into his room unannounced, Howie continued to listen to the music, probing its depths for some guidance.

The music suddenly stopped; the pressure of the foam pads left his ears.

Howie reluctantly opened his eyes.

Lesley stood there.

“Vegging out?” she asked.

Her voice was light, but her face expressed concern. Howie felt an almost forgotten sense of responsibility to his girlfriend reawaken. Much as he disliked speaking now, he forced himself.

“Yeah, I guess I am. Nothing serious, though. Just waiting for a call.”

“From whom?”

Howie shrugged. “You know. My job.”

Lesley regarded Howie sternly from beneath her cap’s bill. “Howie, listen to me. This work is not good for you. I haven’t liked it from the start. And I know you haven’t told me everything about it. I’d probably like it even less then. Why don’t you just quit? Just ignore them when they call you.”

“I can’t. I’m in too deep now.”

Lesley made as if to throw down Howie’s expensive headphones and stomp them. Howie grabbed them back from her. She looked like she wanted to cry.

“Howie, this is awful! You’re not yourself anymore. You’re all wrapped up in some wild-goose chase. You’re yelping after a red herring. You’re, you’re—you’re trapped in a
fata morgana
.”

Howie jumped. “You know her?”

“Know who?”

Howie realized his mistake. “Nothing. No one. Just forget it.”

“All right!” Lesley yelled. “I will!”

She ran out, slamming the door.

Howie re-donned his ’phones.

Somehow a day slipped by. Maybe two.

His telephone was ringing.

The only reason he heard it was that his batteries were dead.

He stood, moved, and picked up the receiver.

The line was full of noise: interstellar static, subterranean tectonic plate grinding.

Howie recognized Wargrave’s voice.

“Mr. Piper. Would you please come to the office?”

“Sure,” said Howie. “Be right there.”

He hung up.

What else could he have said?

He made it to the offices of The United Illuminating Company in half an hour, stopping only for new Duracells.

Wargrave handed him a folded sheet of paper. Studying him closely, the stiff-suited man said, “We have one final messenger job for you before you move into your new position. Please deliver this paper to the address indicated, and then return home. We will be in contact with you afterward.”

“Sure,” said Howie mechanically, taking the paper.

He went out.

In the rattling, steamy subway car, Howie felt a minor curiosity akin to an itchy mosquito bite. Why wasn’t this message sealed? Could something that wasn’t secret still be potent? What did the paper say?

Giving in, Howie unfolded it, expecting one of those duplicitous messages that shifted between examinations.

This one didn’t. It was a map of the city. There was an X at the western end of the Queensboro Bridge. At the bottom of the map was written:

GRASS TRUCKING—12:17 P.M. EVERY THURSDAY

So much for potent secrets.

Howie got off in Times Square.

Aboveground he was struck by the welter, the barrage, the assault of information. The density here was incredible. Howie tried to ignore it as he walked toward the address given.

On a plywood facade masking construction, layers of torn posters formed a palimpsest. Howie read, from several layers:

PERFORM SMOKE SALE OF VALUES GREEN LIFETIME

It reminded him of something Herringbone might say.

At an intersection, Howie witnessed a near accident. The drivers swore vociferously at each other. Howie thought of Fatima Morgenstern, her eyes like cleaning fluid.

Wind blew some unspooled recording tape around Howie’s ankles. He kicked it away.

At the proper address, Howie went up two flights of shabby stairs and came to a frosted-glass door. He knocked, and a man’s voice said, “C’mon in.”

The nondescript room held three people: two young bearded men, and a woman dressed in a military-style jumpsuit. One of the men extended his hand, and Howie gave over the paper.

No one said anything else.

Howie departed.

Out on the sidewalk, he bought a newspaper, just to learn the day.

It was Tuesday.

On Thursday at 11:30, Howie walked down Fifty-ninth Street toward the Queensboro Bridge. As always, whenever he approached this particular structure, he found himself humming Simon and Garfunkel.

“Slow down, you move too fast.…”

Where the bridge debouched onto the street, Howie positioned himself to wait. He watched the people-buckets of the aerial tramway move fluidly on their cables, as if they could carry one up and up, out of the atmosphere and into another world.

At noon, Howie thought he recognized one of the people he had given the map to. The man was carrying a large knapsack and a duffel bag.

At 12:17 a big sixteen-wheeler came off the bridge and stopped at the red light. On its side the truck said:

GRASS TRUCKING

W.A.S.T.E.

Instantly it was swarming with people with guns in their hands. One ejected the driver, while others stood guard. Still others began to attach things to the truck.

Howie watched with an indifference that lay uneasily atop an incipient queasiness. The civilians around him, however, were not so jaded, and began to scream and run.

One of the commandos lifted a megaphone to his lips and said, “Attention! This truck carries nuclear wastes every week through the streets of your city. We intend to stop this insanity. Therefore, we have now rigged this truck with explosives. You have one minute to clear the area.”

Those who hadn’t moved yet—the eternal gawkers —now took off.

Howie did too.

Out on Park he heard the explosion rip the truck open, scattering its contents to the winds.

Sirens began uselessly to wail.

8.

Are we not threatened with a flood of information? And is this not the monstrousness of it, that it crushes beauty with beauty, and annihilates truth by means of truth? For the sound of a million Shakespeares would produce the very same furious din and hubbub as the sound of a herd of prairie buffalos or sea billows.

—Stanislaw Lem

The boat rocked.

Howie sat on a toilet, the door to his stall closed and bolted.

He was on the Staten Island Ferry, the Samuel I. Newhouse. He had been living in the toilet for a week, ever since the guerillas had blown the W.A.S.T.E. truck. He had fled the scene unthinkingly, trying to get as far away from the consequences of his actions as he could.

When he hit the southern tip of the island, he stood and stared at the water. Spotting the ferry terminal, he went instinctively inside, paid his quarter, and boarded the outbound ferry.

He hadn’t left since.

He lived off purchases from the concession stand. He washed at times in the sink. He read newspapers left behind, following the spread of radioactivity, the cleanup efforts, the panic, the suffering, the noise. At times he stood on the stern or the bow, watching either Manhattan or Staten Island retreat or approach, depending on the trip. The ferry ran twenty-four hours a day, in an endlessly reiterated voyage.