David said briskly, "As long as he continues to sell it, Hiram doesn't care what we do with it. Why don't you tell me why you've come so far to see me, Special Agent Mavens?"
Mavens dug into a pocket of his crumpled jacket, and pulled out a thumbnail-sized data disk; he turned it like a coin, and David saw hologram shimmers in its surface. Mavens placed the disk carefully on the small polished table beside his drink. "I'm looking for Kate Manzoni," he said. "And Bobby Patterson, and Mary Mays. I drove them into hiding. I want to bring them back. Help them rebuild their lives."
"What can I do?" David asked sourly. "After all, you have the resources of the FBI behind you."
"Not for this. To tell the truth the Agency has given up on the three of them. I haven't."
"Why? You want to punish them some more?"
"Not at all," Mavens said uncomfortably. "Manzoni's was the first high-profile case which hinged on WormCam evidence. And we got it wrong." He smiled, looking tired. "I've been checking. That's the wonderful thing about the WormCam, isn't it? It's the world's greatest second-guess machine.
"You see, it's now possible to read many types of information through the WormCam: particularly, the contents of computer memories and storage devices. I checked through the equipment Kate Manzoni was using at the time of her alleged crime. And, eventually, I found that what Manzoni claimed had been true all along."
"Which is?"
"That Hiram Patterson was responsible for the crime—though it would be difficult to pin it on him, even using the WormCam. And he framed Manzoni." He shook his head. "I knew and admired Kate Manzoni's journalism long before the case came up. The way she exposed the Wormwood cover-up."
"It wasn't your fault," David said levelly. "You were only doing your job."
Mavens said harshly, "It's a job I screwed up. Not the first. But those who were harmed—Bobby and Kate—have dropped out of sight. And they aren't the only ones."
"Hiding from the WormCam," David said.
"Of course. It's changing everybody..."
It was true. In the new openness, businesses boomed. Crime seemed to have dropped to an irreducible minimum, a bump driven by mental disorder. Politicians had, cautiously, found ways to operate in the new glasswalled world, with their every move open to scrutiny by a concerned and online citizenry, now and in the future. Beyond the triviality of time tourism, a new true history, cleansed of myths and lies—and no less wonderful for that—was entering the consciousness of the species; nations and religions and corporations seemed almost to have worked through their round of apologies to each other and to the people. The surviving religions, refounded and cleansed, purged of corruption and greed, were reemerging into the light, and—it seemed to David—were beginning to address their true mission, which was humanity's search for the transcendent.
From the highest to the lowest. Even manners had changed. People seemed to be becoming a little more tolerant of one another, able to accept each other's differences and faults—because each person knew he or she was under scrutiny too.
Mavens was saying, "You know, it's as if we have all been standing in spotlights on a darkened stage. Now the theater lights are up, and we can see all the way to the wings—like it or not. I guess you've heard of MAS?—Mutually Assured Surveillance—a consequence of the fact that everybody carries a WormCam; everybody is watching everybody else. Suddenly our nation is full of courteous, wary, watchful citizens. But it can be harmful. Some people seem to be becoming surveillance obsessives, unwilling to do anything that will mark them out as different from the norm. It's like living in a village dominated by prying gossips..."
"But surely the WormCam has been, on balance, a force for good. Open Skies, for instance."
Open Skies had been President Eisenhower's old dream of international transparency. Even before the WormCam there had been an implementation of something like that vision, with aerial reconnaissance, surveillance satellites, weapons inspectors. But it was always limited: inspectors could be thrown out, missile silos camouflaged by tarpaulins.
"But now," said Mavens, "in this wonderful WormCam world, we're watching them, and we know they are watching us. And nothing can be hidden. Arms reduction treaties can be verified; a number of armed conflicts have been frozen into impasse, both sides knowing what the other is about to do. Not only that, the citizens are watching as well. All over the planet..."
Dictatorial and repressive regimes, exposed to the light, were crumbling. Though some totalitarian governments had sought to use the new technology as an instrument of oppression, the (deliberate) flooding of those countries by the democracies with WormCams had resulted in openness and accountability. This was an extension of past work done by groups like the Witness Program, who for decades had supplied video equipment to human-rights groups: Let truth do the fighting.
"Believe me," Mavens said, "the U.S. is getting off lightly. The worst scandal we suffered recently was the exposure of the Wormwood bunkers." A pathetic, halfhearted exercise, a handful of hollowed-out mountains and converted mines, meant as a refuge for the rich and powerful—or at least their children—on Wormwood Day. The existence of such facilities had long been suspected; when they were exposed, their futility as refuges was quickly demonstrated by the scientists, and their builders mocked into harmlessness. Mavens said, "If you think about it, there was usually a lot more scandal than that to be exposed, at any moment in the past. We're all getting cleaner. There are some who argue that we may be on the brink of a true consensual world government at last—even a Utopia."
"Do you believe it?"
Mavens grinned sourly. "Not for a second. I have the feeling that wherever we're going, wherever the WormCam is taking us, it's somewhere much stranger."
"Perhaps," David said. "I suppose we've lived through one of those perspective-changing moments: the last generation was the first to see the Earth whole from space; ours has been the first to see all of true history—and the truth about ourselves. You know, I should be able to deal with all this." David forced a smile. "Take it from a Catholic, Special Agent Mavens. I grew up encouraged to believe I was already under the scrutiny of a kind of WormCam... but that 'Cam was the all-seeing eye of God. We must learn to live without subterfuge and shame. Yes, it's hard for us—hard for me. But thanks to the WormCam, it seems to me everyone is becoming a little more sane."
And it was remarkable that all of this had flowed from the introduction of a gadget which Hiram, its driving force, had thought was no more than a smarter TV camera. But now Hiram, in deep hiding, was, in the manner of such entrepreneurs all the way back to Frankenstein, in danger of being destroyed by his machine.
"Maybe in a generation or two this will leave us cleansed," Mavens said. "But not everybody can stand being exposed. The suicide rate remains high—you'd be surprised if you knew how high. And there are many people, like Bobby, disappearing off the registers—poll returns, censuses. Some even dig traceable implants out of their arms. We can see them, of course, but we can't give them a name." He eyed David. "This is the kind of group we believe Bobby and the others have joined. They call themselves Refugees. And those are the kind of people we have to trace if we want to pick up Bobby."
David frowned. "He has made his choice. He may be happy."
"He's on the run. He has no choices right now."
"If you find him, you'll find Kate too. And she will face her sentence."
Mavens shook his head. "I can guarantee that won't happen. I told you, I've evidence she's innocent. I'm already preparing material for a fresh appeal."
He picked up the data disk and tapped it on the table. "So," he said. "You want to give your brother a lifeline?"
"What is it you want me to do?"
"We can track people with the WormCam simply by following them," Mavens said. "It isn't easy, and it's labor-intensive, but it's possible. But eyeball-tracking can be fooled. Nor can a WormCam trace reliably be keyed to any external indicator, even an implant. Implants can be dug
out, transferred, reprogrammed, destroyed. So an FBI research lab has been working on a better method."
"Based on?"
"DNA. We believe it will be possible to begin from any analyzable organic fragment—a flake of skin or a nail clipping, enough to record the DNA fingerprint—and then track back the fragment until it, umm, rejoins the individual in question. And then, using the DNA key, we can track the subject back and forward in time as far as we like.
"This disk contains trace software. What we need from you is to tie it to an operational WormCam. You guys at OurWorld—you specifically. Dr. Curzon—are still ahead of the game with this stuff.
"We think it might be possible ultimately to establish a global DNA-sequence database—children would be sequenced and registered as they are born—and use it as the basis of a general search procedure, without relying on holding a physical fragment..."
"And then," David said slowly, "you will be able to sit in FBI Headquarters, and your wormhole spies will scour the planet until they find anyone you seek—even in complete darkness. It will be the final death of privacy. Correct?"
"Oh, come on, Dr. Curzon," Mavens pressed. "What is privacy? Look around you. Already the kids are screwing in the street. In another ten years you'll have to explain what privacy used to mean. These kids are different. The sociologists say it. You can see it. They are growing up used to openness, in the light, and they talk to each other the whole time. Have you heard of the Arenas?—gigantic, ongoing discussions transmitted via WormCam links, unmoderated, international, sometimes involving thousands. And hardly anybody involved over the age of twenty-five. They're starting to figure things out for themselves, with hardly any reference to the world we built. By comparison, we're screwed up, right?"
David, reluctantly, found he agreed. And it wouldn't stop here. Perhaps it was going to be necessary for the damaged elder generations, including himself, to clear their way off the stage, taking with them their hangups and taboos, before the young could inherit this new world, which only they truly understood.
"Maybe," Mavens growled when David voiced that thought. "But I ain't ready to quit just yet. And in the meantime."
"In the meantime, I might find my brother."
Mavens studied his glass. "Look, it's nothing to do with me. But—Heather is a wormhead, isn't she?"
A wormhead was the ultimate result of WormCam addiction. Since taking her retinal implants. Heather had spent her life in a virtual dream. Of course she was able to tune her WormCam eyes to view the present—or at least the very recent past—as if her eyes were still the organic original. But, David knew, she barely ever chose to.
Habitually she wandered through a world illuminated by the lost glow of the deep past. Sometimes she would walk with her own younger self, even looking out through her own eyes, reliving past events over and over. David was sure she was with Mary almost all the time—the infant in her arms, the little girl running to her—unable, and anyhow unwilling, to change a single detail.
If Heather's condition was nothing to do with Mavens, it was little enough to do with David. Perhaps his impulse for protecting her had been his own brush with the seduction of the past.
"There are some commentators," David said slowly, "who say this is the future for all of us. Wormholes in our eyes, our ears. We will learn a new perception, in which the layers of the past are as visible to us as the present. It will be a new way of thinking, of living in the universe. But for now."
"For now," Mavens said gently, "Heather needs help."
"Yes. She took the loss of her daughter pretty hard."
"Then do something about it. Help me. Look—this DNA trace isn't just a bugging device." Mavens leaned forward. "Think what else you could do with it. Disease eradication, for instance. You could track a spreading plague back through time along its vectors, airborne or waterborne or whatever, replacing what can be months of painstaking and dangerous detective work with a moment's glance... The Centers for Disease Control are already looking at that. And what about history? You could track an individual right back to the womb. It wouldn't take much of an extension to the software to transfer the trace to the DNA of either parent. And to their parents before them. You could follow family trees back into time. And you could work the other way, start with any historical character and trace all their living descendants... You're a scientist, David. The WormCam has already turned science and history on their heads—right? Think where you could go with this."
He held the disk out before him, before David's face, holding it between thumb and forefinger, like, David thought, a Communion host.
Chapter 24—WATCHING BOBBY
Her name was Mac Wilson. Her intent was clear, like a piece of crystal.
That was true from the moment her adopted daughter, Barbara, was convicted of the murder of her adopted son, Mian, and sentenced to follow her father—Mae's husband, Phil—to a room where she would be delivered a lethal injection.
The fact of it was that she'd gotten used to the idea that her husband had been a monster who had abused and killed the boy in their care. Over the years she'd learned to blame Phil, even learned to hate his shade—and, clinging to that, found a little peace.
And she still had Barbara, out there somewhere, a fragment left over from the wreck of her life, proof that some good had come of it all.
But now, because of the WormCam, that wasn't an option anymore. It hadn't been Phil after all—but Barbara. It just wasn't acceptable. The monster hadn't been the one who had lied to her all these years, but one she had nurtured, grown, made.
And she, Mae, wasn't a victim of deception, but, somehow, an agent of the whole disaster.
Of course to expose Barbara had been just. Of course it was true. Of course it was a great wrong that had been done to Phil, to all of them, in his wrongful conviction, a wrong now put right, at least partially, thanks to the WormCam.
But it wasn't justice or truth or tightness that Mae wanted. Nobody did. Why couldn't these people who so loved the WormCam see that? All Mae wanted was consolation.
Her intent was clear from the start, then. It was to find somebody new to hate.
She could never hate Barbara, of course, despite what she'd done. She was still Barbara, bound to Mae as if by a steel cable.
So Mae's focus shifted, as she deepened and developed her thinking.
At first she had fixed her attention on FBI Agent Mavens, the man who might have found the truth in the first place, in the old pre-WormCam days. But that wasn't appropriate, of course; he had been, literally, an agent, dumbly pursuing his job with whatever technology had been available to him.
The technology itself, then—the ubiquitous WormCam? But to hate a mere piece of machinery was shallow, unsatisfying.
She couldn't hate things. She had to hate people.
Hiram Patterson, of course.
He had blighted the human race with his monstrous truth machine, for no purpose she could detect other than profit.
As if incidentally, the machine had even destroyed the religion that had once brought her comfort—Hiram Patterson.
It took David three days' intensive work at the Wormworks to link the federal lab's trace software to an operational wormhole.
Then he went to Bobby's apartment. He searched it until he found, clinging to a cushion, a single hair from Bobby's head. He had its DNA sequenced at another of Hiram's facilities.
The first image, bright and clear in his SoftScreen, was of the hair itself, lying unremarked on its cushion.
David began to track back in time. He had devised a way to make the viewpoint effectively fast-rewind into the past—in reality a succession of fresh wormholes was being established, back along the world-line of DNA molecules from the hair.
He accelerated, days and nights passing in a blur of gray. Still the hair and the cushion sat unchanging at the center of the image.
There was a flurry of motion.
He backed up, reestablished the image, and allo
wed it to run forward at normal pace.
The date was more than three years in the past. He saw Bobby, Kate, Mary. They were standing, talking earnestly. Mary was half-concealed by a SmartShroud. They were preparing their disappearance, he realized swiftly; already, by this point, they had all three left the lives of David and Heather.
The test was over. The trace worked. He could track forward, approaching the present, until he located Bobby and the others... But perhaps that was best left to Special Agent Mavens.
His test concluded, he prepared to shut down the WormCam—then, on a whim, David arranged the WormCam image so that it centered on Bobby's face, as if an invisible camera had hovered there, just before his eyes, through the entirety of his young life.
And David began to scan back.
He kept the speed high as the crucial moments of Bobby's recent life unraveled: at the court with Kate, in the Wormworks with David himself, arguing with his father, crying in Kate's arms, braving the virtual citadel of Billybob Meeks.
David increased the pace of the rewind further, still fixing on the face of his brother. He saw Bobby eat, laugh, sleep, play, make love. The background, the flickering light of night and day, became a blur, an irrelevant frame to that face; and expressions passed so rapidly across the face that they too became smoothed out, so that Bobby's face looked permanently in repose, his eyes half-closed, as if he was sleeping. Summer light came and went like tides, and every so often, with a suddenness that startled David, Bobby's hairstyle would change: from short to long, natural dark to blond, even, at one point, to a shaven-head crewcut.
And, as the years unwound, Bobby's skin lost the lines he had acquired around his mouth and eyes, and a youthful smoothness lapped over his bones. Imperceptibly at first and then more rapidly, his de-aging face softened and shrank, as if simplifying, those flickering half-open eyes growing rounder and more innocent, the shadows beyond—of adults and huge, unidentifiable places—more formidable.