Specimen Days

"Yeah, well, I do, too. Want to hear the tape with me?" "Nothing would please me more."

She went with Pete down the corridor to the audio room. Pete stopped en route in the lunchroom for a cup of late-day, bottom-of-the-pot coffee sludge, with four Equals. Cat graciously declined. She and Pete went into the audio room, which was in her opinion the least unpleasant place on the premises. It was ten degrees cooler and not quite as relentlessly lit. They sat in the synthetic-plush gray chairs. Aaron had cued the tape for them. Pete punched the button.

Hello. This is Cat Martin. Like everybody, she hated hearing her own voice on tape. Inside her skull it didn't sound so flat, so harsh. To herself she sounded muscular and musical, smoky, a little like a young Nina Simone.

Hello? There it was again, that throaty boy voice, utterly unexceptional. Nervous, a little squawky, probably thirteen. Are you a policewoman?

And your name is?

/ called the police, and they patched me over to you.

What can I do for you?

Nothing. You cant do anything for me.

His poor mother must have been hearing those words ever since puberty turned her sweet little boy sullen and strange and fetid. Had some mother out there started wondering yet?

Why are you calling, then? I want to tell you something. What do you want to tell me?

Silence. She could picture him all over again, desperate little wanker with a room full of slasher-movie posters, summoning his courage. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing at all.

Tm going to blow somebody up. Who?

I can't tell you.

Why do you think you can't tell me?

People have got to be stopped.

Why do you think that?

We've got to start over.

You're thinking of stopping someone in particular?

It doesn't matter who.

It does matter. Why do you think it doesn't?

I mean, it doesn't matter to the company.

What company?

The one we all work for.

Who do you work for?

You work for it, too.

Is the company telling you to hurt somebody? You think Pm crazy, don't you? I think you're angry.

Please don't talk to me the way you talk to crazy people. I mean, one per son doesn't matter. The numbers don't crunch in single digits.

You want to hurt somebody who's hurting you. Is that right?

I can't talk to you.

Yes, you can. Tell me your name.

I'm in the family. We gave up our names.

Everybody has a name.

I just wanted someone to know. I thought it would be better.

Better for who?

/ wasrft supposed to call. Shit. There it was.

You can work this out without hurting anybody. Tell me your name.

Tm nobody. Tm already dead. Click.

She had in fact messed up, then. The moment a caller referred to anyone else, it was an automatic red tag. Any caller who claimed to be receiving instructions from a friend, from Jesus, from the dog next door or the radio transmissions that came through the fillings in his teeth, got promoted to the next level of seriousness. This one had been vague enough he wasn't supposed to call anyone but still. She should have kept him talking, shouldn't have pressed quite so hard for his name.

Had she been making a list? Probably. Had she paid more attention to her list than she had to the caller? Hoped not.

" Tm in the family,'" she said." 'We gave up our names.' What's that about?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Is there a rock band with lyrics like that?"

"We're checking."

"Good."

"The family. What family?"

"The Brady Bunch. The Mafia. IBM. You know."

Right. She'd had one just the other day. Mild-voiced citizen who'd said he was going to start driving around the country and running down illegal immigrants, under orders from Katie Couric. They tended to like the idea of working for celebrities or international corporations.

I do," Cat said. "I do know."