The GoldenCity

Susan was the only one who took the program’s informational brochure. She studied it during lunch. Norm-All was something called a “personal parameter program.” Thousands of people working for the U.S. Defense Department had been monitored for five years, and this had established the benchmarks for acceptable behavior. Each person was given a number-a sort of equation-that gradually changed as the computer gained more data about their particular lifestyle. If the number went beyond a certain parameter of normalcy, then the employee was more likely to have mental and physical problems.

A few days later infrared cameras appeared in all the buildings. The cameras automatically scanned everyone’s body and recorded blood pressure, heart rate and body temperature. There were rumors that phone calls at the Foundation Research Center were evaluated by a computer program that measured the stress level in your voice and the use of various “trigger” words.

Most of the monitoring was unobtrusive. Norm-All could track the movement of your car and evaluate the purchases you made with your bank card. Susan wondered how much weight was given to certain negative actions; your personal equation would certainly be damaged by an arrest for drunken driving, but how much did the number change when you checked out a “negative” book from the public library?

There were rumors that two people were fired because of unacceptable Norm-All equations, and several part-timers were not given full-time jobs. Within a month, her research team stopped talking about anything controversial. The three acceptable topics of conversation were shopping, sports and TV shows. One Friday they all went to a bar to celebrate a colleague’s birthday; when they ordered a third round of drinks, a programmer joked, “Well, this is going to screw up our Norm-All equations!”

Everyone laughed, but there was no discussion. They just resumed their conversation about the new models of hybrid cars, and that was it.

Susan had spent her life working with computers and knew how easy it was to trace IP numbers on the Internet. In March, she stopped using her home computer, bought a used laptop at a swap meet, and began to access the wireless connection at a local café. Susan felt like an alcoholic or a drug addict-someone with a shameful problem she couldn’t control. When she left work and drove to the café, she felt as if she were entering a bad part of town with broken street lights and abandoned buildings. In obscure chat rooms, people who called themselves Free Runners made allegations about the Evergreen Foundation. Apparently the Foundation was the public face of a secret organization called the Tabula that wanted to destroy freedom. This plan was opposed by an alliance that called itself the Resistance.

At first, Susan did nothing but read the various discussion threads. But three days ago, she had taken the first step and began to chat with a few Free Runners based in Poland.

“I work for the Evergreen Foundation,” she typed. “We are about to start testing a new version of a quantum computer.”

“Where are you?” a person asked.

“Are you in danger?” asked another. “Can we help you?”

Susan switched off her notebook computer and immediately left the café. On the way home, she obeyed the speed limit and waited a few extra seconds when the stop light turned green.

***

She placed a frozen dinner in the microwave oven and stepped out into the back yard to find Charlie. The dog had disappeared and she could see that the door to the garage was half open. That was unusual. On two occasions, the gardener had forgotten to lock up, but he didn’t come on Wednesday. Cautious, she stood in the doorway, found the switch and flicked it on. Nothing happened. And then she heard the dog whimpering in the darkness.

“Charlie?”

A man stepped from the shadows and grabbed her arms. She fought back, kicking and screaming. Suddenly, a light came on and she saw a second man standing on a kitchen chair. Someone had loosened the light bulb and now the man was screwing it back into the fixture. Susan stopped fighting and gazed up at the person holding her arms. It was Robert-no, everyone called him Rob-a big man in his thirties who worked as a guard in the administration building.

“What are doing?” she asked.

“Don’t kick me,” Rob told her. He looked like a little boy with hurt feelings.

The man standing on the chair had a military haircut and slender body. When he stepped down and approached her, she saw his face. It was Nathan Boone-Head of Security for the Evergreen Foundation.

“Don’t worry, Susan.” Boone had a calm, measured voice. “Your dog hasn’t been hurt. But we do need to talk to you.”