The Turing Option

“Lots of ways, bug the office, maybe bug the whole building. But I think we will find out that it was the telephones. They are all solid-state now and never malfunction. Filled with gadgetry. They record calls, answer calls, remote page, conference, fax facility, you name it. Easy enough to fix a phone so that it is always turned on, always being monitored and listened to by another number. Put some plastic explosive inside with a coded detonator. It could sit there for years waiting for the right moment. Then when the day comes and whoever is listening doesn’t like what he hears he presses the button — and boom. End of conversation, end of party.”

“That’s terrible!”

“These are terrible people.”

“But they would have to listen in twenty-four hours a day… no, I take that back. Easy enough to use automatic word-recognizing machines. Let it be on the lookout for certain words like FBI or Megalobe, that’s all you have to do. It would sound the alarm when one of the words triggered the program, get someone on the line at once to listen in, decide what to do. The people behind this are horrible. While we were listening to what was happening in that office — somewhere else, someone evil, was listening as well. When he heard what was happening, understood the situation—”

“He ended the conversation. This is bad but don’t let it depress you too much. This is not the end of the investigation but only the very beginning. They hid their tracks well — but you and Sven found them. One villain dead, more in hiding, but all the evidence to hand. We’ll get them yet.”

“Meanwhile I’m still locked inside Megalobe. It’s like a life sentence.”

“It won’t be forever, I can guarantee that.”

“You can’t guarantee anything, Ben,” Brian said with a great tiredness. “I’m going to lie down for a while. I’ll talk to you in the morning.”

He went to his quarters and dropped onto the bed, fell asleep at once. When he awoke it was after ten at night and he realized that it was his stomach that had growled him awake, protesting the fact that he hadn’t eaten in over fourteen hours. He had drunk a lot, too much probably. There was cereal and a fresh quart of milk in the fridge and he poured himself a bowl. Turned on the recently installed window that really wasn’t a window and pulled a chair up before it. Ate the cereal slowly and looked out at the moonlit desert. Stars right down to the horizon. What was going to happen next? Had they reached another dead end with Thomsen’s murder? Or would the investigation turn up the people behind it? The dark and murderous group mat had planned the theft, the killings.

It was very late before he pulled his clothes off and finally fell into bed. Slept like a rock until the buzzing telephone woke him up; he blinked at the time, after eleven in the morning.

“Yes?”

“Morning, Brian. Going into the lab today?”

He hadn’t thought about it at all, too tired, too depressed. Too much else happening.

“No, Shelly, I don’t think so. It’s been a seven-day week for too long a time. We both could use a day off.”

“Talk about it over lunch?”

“No, I’ve got — things to do. You take care of yourself and I’ll phone when we are ready to get back to work.”

The black depression just would not go away. He had got his hopes up so high when they had traced his AI to DigitTech Products. He had been so sure that this would be the end, that his imprisonment was going to be over soon. But it wasn’t. He was still inside and not getting out until they found the conspirators. If ever. It didn’t bear thinking about.

He tried watching television but it made no sense. Nor did the National Almanacs that he had printed and bound. Usually he enjoyed browsing through them to catch up on his missing years. Not today. He made himself a margarita, sipped at it, wrinkled his lips at the taste so early in the day, then poured it down the sink. Turning into an alcoholic wouldn’t help. He slapped together a cheese and tomato sandwich instead and permitted himself one beer to wash it down.

When Ben hadn’t called by noon Brian phoned him instead. No news. Slow progress. Stand by. Contact you the instant anything happened. Thanks a lot.

In the end he fell back on an old favorite, E. E. Smith, and reread four volumes, then some Benford robot stories before he went to bed.

It was noon of the second day before the phone rang again — he grabbed it up.

“Ben?”

“It’s Dr. Snaresbrook, Brian. I’ve just got to Megalobe and I would like to see you.”

“I’m, well, a little busy now, Doc.”