Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

  “I’ll be usin’ my computer here. You just take care of the before and after. That is, if you don’t mind.”

  “So much the better. Saves me a lot of trouble.”

  The old man stood up from his chair and pressed a coordinate on the wall behind him. An ordinary wall—until it opened. Tricks within tricks. The old man took out another folder and closed the wall. Resealed, it looked like any other plain white wall. No distinguishing features or seams, no nothing.

  I skimmed the seven pages of numerics. Straightforward data.

  “This shouldn’t take too much time to launder,” I said. “Infrequent number series like these virtually rule out temporary bridging. Theoretically, of course, there’s always that possibility. But there’d be no proving the syntactical validity, and without such proof you couldn’t shake the error tag. Like trying to cross the desert without a compass. Maybe Moses could do it.”

  “Moses even crossed the sea.”

  “Ancient history. To my knowledge, at this level, never once has a Semiotec succeeded in securing illegal access.”

  “You’re sayin’ a single-conversion trap’s sufficient, eh?”

  “A double-conversion trap is too risky. It would effectively reduce the possibility of temporary bridging to zero, but at this point it’s still a freak stunt. The trapping process isn’t solidly grounded. The research isn’t complete.”

  “Who said anything ’bout double-conversion trapping?” said the old man, working another paperclip into his cuticle. The right index finger this time.

  “What is it you’re saying, then?”

  “Shuffling, son. I’m talkin’ shuffling. I want you to launder and shuffle. That’s why I called on you. If it was simple brainwash laundry, there wouldn’t have been any need t’call you.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said, recrossing my legs. “How do you know about shuffling? That’s classified information. No outsider’s supposed to know about it.”

  “Well, I do. I’ve got a pretty open pipeline to the top of the System.”

  “Okay, then run this through your pipeline. Shuffling procedures are completely frozen at this time. Don’t ask me why. Obviously some kind of trouble. Whatever the case, shuffling is now prohibited.”

  The old man handed me the request folder once again.

  “Have yourself a good look at the last page. Should be shuffling procedure clearance there somewhere.”

  I opened the folder to the last page and ran my eyes over the documentation. Sure enough, shuffling clearance authorized. I read it over several times. Official. Five signatures, no less. What the hell could the Brass be thinking? You dig a hole and the next thing they say is fill it in; fill it in and they tell you to dig a hole. They’re always screwing with the guy in the field.

  “Could I ask you to make color copies of all pages of this request. I might find myself driven into a nasty corner without them.”

  “Fine,” said the old man. “Glad to make you your copies. Nothing to worry ’bout. Everything’s on the up and up. I’ll give you half your fee today, the other half on final receipt. Fair and square?”

  “Fair enough. Now, to get on with the laundry. After I’m done, I’ll take the wash home with me and do the shuffling there. Shuffling requires special precautions. I’ll be back with the shuffled data when I’m through.”

  “Noon, four days from now. It can’t be any later.”

  “Plenty of time.”

  “I beg of you, son, whatever you do, don’t be late,” the old man pleaded. “If you’re late, something terrible will happen.”

  “World going to fall apart?” I kidded.

  “In a way,” said the old man, “yes.”

  “Not this time. I never come in late,” I said. “Now, if it’s not too much to ask, could I please trouble you for some ice water and a thermos of hot black coffee. And maybe a small snack. Please. Something tells me this is going to be a long job.”

  Something told me right. It was a long, hard job. The numerics themselves were the proverbial piece of cake, but with so many case-determinant step-functions, the tabulations took much more doing than they first appeared to require. I input the data-as-given into my right brain, then after converting it via a totally unrelated sign-pattern, I transfer it to my left brain, which I then output as completely recoded numbers and type up on paper. This is what is called laundering. Grossly simplified, of course. The conversion code varies with the Calcutec. This code differs entirely from a random number table in its being diagrammatic. In other words, the way in which right brain and left brain are split (which, needless to say, is a convenient fiction; left and right are never actually divided) holds the key. Drawn, it might look something like this:

  Significantly, the way the jagged edges do not precisely match up means that it is impossible to reconvert data back into its original form. Nonetheless, Semiotecs can occasionally decode stolen data by means of a temporary bridge. That is, they holographically reproduce the jagged edges from an analysis of the data-as-retrieved. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. The more we Calcutecs up our technologies, the more they up their counter-technologies. We safeguard the data, they steal it. Your classic cops-and-robbers routine.

  Semiotecs traffic illegally obtained data and other information on the black market, making megaprofits. And what’s worse, they keep the most valuable bits of information for themselves and the benefit of their own organization.

  Our organization is generally called the System, theirs the Factory. The System was originally a private conglomerate, but as it grew in importance it took on quasi-governmental status. In the same way as, say, Ma Bell in America. We rank-and-file Calcutecs work as individual independents not unlike tax accountants or attorneys, yet we need licenses from the state and can only take on jobs from the System or through one of the official agents designated by the System. This arrangement is intended to prevent misuse of technologies by the Factory. Any violation thereof, and they revoke your license. I can’t really say whether these preventative measures make sense or not. The reason being that any Calcutec stripped of his qualifications eventually ends up getting absorbed into the Factory and going underground to become a Semiotec.

  As for the Factory, much less is known. It apparently started off as a small-scale venture and grew by leaps and bounds. Some refer to it as the Data Mafia, and to be certain, it does bear a marked resemblance in its rhizomic penetration to various other underworld organizations. The difference is that this Mafia deals only in information. Information is clean and information makes money. The Factory stakes out a computer, hacks it for all it’s worth, and makes off with its information.

  I drank a whole pot of coffee while doing the laundry. One hour on the job, thirty minutes rest—regular as clockwork. Otherwise the right-brain-left-brain interface becomes muddled and the resulting tabulations glitched.

  During those thirty-minute breaks, I shot the breeze with the old man. Anything to keep my mouth moving. Best method for repolarizing a tired brain.

  “What are all these figures?” I asked.

  “Experiment data,” said the old man. “One-year’s worth of findings. Numeric conversions of 3-D graphic-simulated volume mappings of the skulls and palates of various animals, combined with a three-element breakdown of their voices. I was tellin’ you how it took me thirty years t’get t’where I could tune in each bone’s waveform. Well, when this here calculation’s completed, we’ll finally be able t’extract that sound—not empirically, but theoretically.”

  “Then it’ll be possible to control things artificially?”

  “Right on the mark,” said the old man.

  “So we have artifical control—where does that get us?”

  The old man licked his upper lip. “All sorts of things could happen,” he said after a moment. “Truly all sorts of things. I can’t go spoutin’ off about them, but things you can’t begin t’imagine.”

  “Sound removal being only one of them?”

/>   The old man launched into another round of his belly laugh. “Oh-ho-ho, right you are, son. Tunin’ in the signal of the human skull, we’ll take the sound out or turn it up. Each person’s got a different shaped skull, though, so we won’t be able t’take it out completely. But we can turn it down pretty low, eh? Ho-ho-ho. We match the sound-positive to a sound-negative and make them resonate together. Sound removal’s just one of the more harmless applications.”

  Harmless? Fiddling with the volume was screwy enough. What was the rest going to be like?

  “It’s possible t’remove sound from both speakin’ and hearin’,” resumed the old man. “In other words, we can erase the sound of the water from hearing—like I just did—or we can erase speech.”

  “You plan to present these findings to the world?”

  “Tosh,” said the old man, wiping his hands, “now why would I want t’let others in on something this much fun? I’m keepin’ it for my own personal enjoyment.”

  The old man burst out laughing some more. Ho-ho-ho.

  He even had me laughing.

  “My research is purely for the specialist. Nobody’s got any interest in acoustics anyway,” the old man said. “All the idiot savants in the world couldn’t make head or tail of my theories if they tried. Only the world of science pays me any mind.”

  “That may be so, but your Semiotec is no idiot. When it comes to deciphering, they’re genius class, the whole lot of them. They’ll crack your findings to the last digit.”

  “I know, I know. That’s why I’ve withheld all my data and processes, so they wouldn’t be pokin’ into things. Probably means even the world of science doesn’t take me seriously, but what of that? Tosh, a hundred years from now my theories will all’ve been proved. That’s enough, isn’t it?”

  “Hmm.”

  “Okay, son, launder and shuffle everything.”

  “Yessir,” I said, “yessir.”

  For the next hour, I concentrated on tabulations. Then took another rest.

  “One question, if I might,” I said.

  “What’s that?” asked the old man.

  “That young woman at the entrance. You know, the one with the pink suit, slightly plump …?”

  “That’s my granddaughter,” said the old man. “Extremely bright child. Young’s she is, she helps me with my research.”

  “Well, uh, my question is … was she born mute that way?”

  “Darn,” said the old man, slapping his thigh. “Plum forgot. She’s still sound-removed from that experiment. Darn, darn, darn. Got t’go and undo it right now.”

  “Oh.”

  4

  The Library

  THE Town centers around a semicircular plaza directly north of the Old Bridge. The other semicircular fragment, that is, the lower half of the circle, lies across the river to the south. These two half-circles are known as the North and South Plazas respectively. Regarded as a pair, the two can impress one only as complete opposites, so unlike each other as they are. The North Plaza is heavy with an air of mystery, laden with the silence of the surrounding quarter, whereas the South Plaza seems to lack any atmosphere at all. What is one meant to feel here? All is adrift in a vague sense of loss. Here, there are relatively fewer households than north of the Bridge. The flowerbeds and cobblestones are not well kept.

  In the middle of the North Plaza stands a large Clocktower piercing skyward. To be precise, one should say it is less a clocktower than an object retaining the form of a clocktower. The clock has long forfeited its original role as a timepiece.

  It is a square stone tower, narrowing up its height, its faces oriented in compass fashion toward the cardinal directions. At the top are dials on all four sides, their hands frozen in place at thirty-five minutes past ten. Below, small portals give into what is likely a hollow interior. One might imagine ascending by ladder within but for the fact that no entrance is to be found at the base. The tower climbs so high above the plaza that one has to cross the Old Bridge to the south even to see the clock.

  Several rings of stone and brick buildings fan out from the North Plaza. No edifice has any outstanding features, no decorations or plaques. All doors are sealed tight; no one is seen entering or leaving. Here, is this a post office for dead letters? This, a mining firm that engages no miners? This, a crematorium without corpses to burn? The resounding stillness gives the structures an impression of abandonment. Yet each time I turn down these streets, I can sense strangers behind the façades, holding their breath as they continue pursuits I will never know.

  The Library stands in one block of this quarter. None the more distinguished for being a library, it is an utterly ordinary stone building. There is nothing to declare it a library. With its old stone walls faded to a dismal shade, the shallow eaves over the iron-grilled windows and the heavy wooden doors, it might be a grain warehouse. If I had not asked the Gatekeeper to explain the way there in some detail, I would never have recognized it as a library.

  “Soon as you get settled, go to the Library,” the Gatekeeper tells me my first day in town. “There is a girl who minds the place by herself. Tell her the Town told you to come read old dreams. She will show you the rest.”

  “Old dreams?” I say. “What do you mean by ‘old dreams’?”

  The Gatekeeper pauses from whittling a round peg, sets down his penknife, and sweeps the wood shavings from the table. “Old dreams are … old dreams. Go to the Library. You will find enough of them to make your eyes roll. Take out as many as you like and read them good and long.”

  The Gatekeeper inspects the pointed end of his finished peg, finds it to his approval, and puts it on the shelf behind him. There, perhaps twenty of the same round pegs are lined.

  “Ask whatever questions you want, but remember, I may not answer,” declares the Gatekeeper, folding his arms behind his head. “There are things I cannot say. But from now on you must go to the Library every day and read dreams. That will be your job. Go there at six in the evening. Stay there until ten or eleven at night. The girl will fix you supper. Other times, you are free to do as you like. Understand?”

  “Understood,” I tell him. “How long am I to continue at that job?”

  “How long? I cannot say,” answers the Gatekeeper. “Until the right time comes.” Then he selects another scrap of wood from a pile of kindling and starts whittling again.

  “This is a poor town. No room for idle people wandering around. Everybody has a place, everybody has a job. Yours is in the library reading dreams. You did not come here to live happily ever after, did you?”

  “Work is no hardship. Better than having nothing to do,” I say.

  “There you are,” says the Gatekeeper, nodding squarely as he eyes the tip of his knife. “So the sooner you get yourself to work, the better. From now on you are the Dreamreader. You no longer have a name. Just like I am the Gatekeeper. Understand?”

  “Understood,” I say.

  “Just like there is only one Gatekeeper in this Town, there is only one Dreamreader. Only one person can qualify as Dreamreader. I will do that for you now.”

  The Gatekeeper takes a small white tray from his cupboard, places it on the table, and pours oil into it. He strikes a match and sets the oil on fire. Next he reaches for a dull, rounded blade from his knife rack and heats the tip for ten minutes. He blows out the flame and lets the knife cool.

  “With this, I will give you a sign,” says the Gatekeeper. “It will not hurt. No need to be afraid.”

  He spreads wide my right eye with his fingers and pushes the knife into my eyeball. Yet as the Gatekeeper said, it does not hurt, nor am I afraid. The knife sinks into my eyeball soft and silent, as if dipping into jelly.

  He does the same with my left eye.

  “When you are no longer a Dreamreader, the scars will vanish,” says the Gatekeeper, putting away the tray and knife. “These scars are the sign of the Dreamreader. But as long as you bear this sign, you must beware of light. Hear me now, your eyes cannot
see the light of day. If your eyes look at the light of the sun, you will regret it. So you must only go out at night or on gray days. When it is clear, darken your room and stay safe indoors.”

  The Gatekeeper then presents me with a pair of black glasses. I am to wear these at all times except when I sleep.

  So it was I lost the light of day.

  It is in the evening a few days later that I go my way to the Library. The heavy wooden door makes a scraping noise as I push it open. I find a long straight hallway before me. The air is dusty and stale, an atmosphere the years have forsaken. The floorboards are worn where once tread upon, the plaster walls yellowed to the color of the light bulbs.

  There are doors on either side of the hallway, each doorknob with a layer of white dust. The only unlocked door is at the end, a delicate frosted glass panel behind which shines lamplight. I rap upon this door, but there is no answer. I place my hand on the tarnished brass knob and turn it, whereupon the door opens inward. There is not a soul in the room. A great empty space, a larger version of a waiting room in a train station, exceedingly spare, without a single window, without particular ornament. There is a plain table and three chairs, a coal-burning iron stove, and little else besides an upright clock and a counter. On the stove sits a steaming, chipped black enamel pot. Behind the counter is another frosted glass door, with lamplight beyond. I wonder whether to knock, but decide to wait for someone to appear.

  The counter is scattered with paperclips. I pick up a handful, then take a seat at the table.

  I do not know how long it is before the Librarian appears through the door behind the counter. She carries a binder with various papers. When she sees me, her cheeks flush red with surprise.

  “I am sorry,” she says to me. “I did not know you were here. You could have knocked. I was in the back room, in the stacks. Everything is in such disorder.”