The Media Candidate – politics and power in 2048

CHAPTER FOUR

  Detective Townsend

  “My name is Professor Townsend from HPHC.” Elliott paused and extended his hand to the middle-aged lady seated in her office next to the receptionist.

  She slowly raised her head. Her hand followed reluctantly. “I am the Political Science Administrator.”

  “Dean Tresbien wanted me to come over to see if we could help sort out Professor Halvorsen’s things,” Elliott said.

  The administrator squinted up at Elliott form her desk without moving her head. “I see, but we weren’t expecting you, and I can’t imagine what Professor Halvorsen would be doing with anyone from the HyperCollider. This is the Political Science Department, as I’m sure you are aware.”

  “Yes, it’s a little strange, but we’d been collaborating on a data-analysis problem, something she was doing about candidates and funding. Anyway, it turned out that looking for correlations in her data was very similar to looking for certain high-energy-physics events in a chaotic background, so I was helping her apply our computer programs to her problem. Dean Tresbien thought I might be able to help sort out some computer files or something. I think there were several papers that were almost ready to publish, and we agreed it would be fitting for her name and the Political Science Department’s to appear in the journals as a tribute to her great work.”

  “Yes,” she drew out as she touched a button labeled Dean Tresbien. After listening for a half minute, she said, “Dean Tresbien is out of town today.”

  “It would only take me a few minutes to find the files we worked on together. I could put them together and leave them with you. It would be a snap, then, for the department to get them published.”

  “I wouldn’t want to put you to such a trouble, Professor Townsend. I’m sure we can—”

  “Oh, I’d be happy to do it. Terra was such a wonderful person, and she had such insight into political affairs. I want to do something to memorialize her name. I promise I won’t disturb anything, and I’ll be gone in a jiffy.” Elliott walked down the hall to a room marked Halvorsen, and entered.

  The administrator said, “Wait just a minute!” but was too late. She punched the button labeled COPE.

  Elliott was busy on Halvorsen’s computer when he was interrupted by a scratching sound behind him. He looked up to the flick of a lighter. Two eyes studied the glow of tobacco as smoke billowed around them. Two lips parted just enough to liberate sweet smoke where it convolved into fractals. Elliott met his gaze through the cloud just as another cloud was born. They played a waiting game in non-committed silence. Finally, Elliott rose and stared into the steel face of Sherwood.

  “I’m Professor Townsend. And you are?”

  “I understand you were advised not to interfere with any of the Halvorsen things. We take quite a dim view of burglary.”

  “And who is we?” Elliott asked.

  “I recommend that you leave behind anything you might have found here. This is all Government property, and you are liable for prosecution.”

  “I see,” said Elliott. “And by what authority do you claim this as so-called Government Property?”

  “You have precisely two options, Townsend. You may leave immediately with nothing more than what you arrived with, or …” He drew a long breath through the glowing tobacco and directed the rest of his sentence to the bowl of his pipe, punctuating it with aromatic bursts. “… you may leave immediately with some form of stolen property.” He then raised his eyes toward Elliott. The image of Sherwood was disfigured by a gray cloud, which slowly began to clear. “In the later event, we will surely have the pleasure of another meeting. Unless, of course, I am otherwise occupied, in which case I will apologize in advance for having to send one of my …” He removed the pipe from his mouth and exhaled the final word, “… associates.”