black trim hidden behind the hedge. He parked in front of a brick walk that led from the drive to the front door.
As soon as he stepped out, a mechanical voice announced: “Halt! State your name and purpose of visit. Failure to do so within five seconds will result in defensive measures.” The deep voice appeared to emanate from the sky with the authority of the heavens.
Smith grinned. The bungalow owner was an electronic genius, and the driveway surface was booby-trapped with a catalog of nasty discomforts, from a cloud of eye-stinging gas to a mercaptan spray that bathed victims in a foul stench. The owner ? Smith's old friend Marty Zellerbach ? had been hauled into court a few times many years ago by irate salesmen, meter readers, postal officials, and delivery people.
But Marty had two Ph.D.s, and he always appeared mild and responsible, if a little naive. That he was also extremely wealthy and bought the best defense attorneys did not hurt. Their arguments were passionate and convincing: His victims could not have missed his signs. They had to know they were trespassing. They had been asked to perform a perfectly reasonable act of identification by a disabled man who lived alone. And they had been warned.
His security, while annoying, was neither lethal nor seriously injurious. He had always won his cases, and after a few times the police gave up charging him and advised complainants to settle for compensation and quit trespassing.
“Come on, Marty,” Smith said, amused, “it's your old pal, Jonathan Smith.”
There was a surprised hesitation. Then: “Approach the front door using the brick path. Do not step off the path. That would activate further defensive measures.” The stilted voice disappeared, and suddenly the words were concerned. “Careful, Jon. I wouldn't want you to end up stinking like a skunk.”
Smith took the route Marty described. Invisible laser beams swept the entire property. A footstep off the path, or intrusion from anywhere else, would activate God-knew-what.
He climbed to the covered porch. “Call off the watchdogs, Marty. I've arrived. Open the door.”
From somewhere inside, the voice coaxed, “You have to follow the rules, Jon.” Instantly the disembodied voice returned: “Stand in front of the door. Open the box to the right and place your left hand on the glass.”
“Oh, please.” But Smith smiled.
A pair of ominous metal covers over the door slid up to reveal dark tubes that could contain anything from paint guns to rocket launchers. Marty had always found childlike glee in ideas and games most people left behind at adolescence. But Smith gamely stood in front of the door, opened the metal box, and rested his hand on the glass plate. He knew the routine: A video camera snapped a digital photo of his face, and instantly Marty's supercomputer would convert the facial measurements into a series of numerical values. At the same time, the glass plate recorded Smith's palm print. Then the computer compared the collected data to the bar codes it kept on file for everyone Marty knew.
The wooden voice announced: “You are Lt. Col. Jonathan Jackson Smith. Therefore, you may enter.”
“Thanks, Marty,” he said dryly. “I've been wondering who in the hell I was.”
“Very funny, Jon.”
A series of dramatic clicks, clanks, and thuds followed, and the woodcovered steel door swung open on a creaky track. Maintenance was not one of Marty's top priorities, but theatricality was. Smith stepped inside what was a traditional foyer except for one imposing detail ? his progress was stopped by a walk-in metal cage. As the front door automatically closed behind, Smith waited, trapped by jail-like bars.
“Hi, Jon.” Marty's high, slow, precise voice welcomed him from beyond the foyer. As the cage's gate clicked open, Marty appeared in a doorway to the side. “Come in, please.” His eyes twinkled with devilment.
He was a small, rotund man who walked awkwardly, as if he had never really learned how to move his legs. Smith followed him into an enormous computer room in a state of utter disorder and neglect. A formidable Cray mainframe and other computer equipment of every possible description filled all wall space and most of the floor, and what furniture there was looked like Salvation Army discards. Steel cages enclosed the draped windows.
As Marty's right hand flopped aimlessly, he held out his left for Smith to shake, while his brilliant green eyes looked away at the left wall of computer equipment.
Smith said, “It's been a while, Marty. It's good to see you.”
“Thanks. Me, too.” He smiled shyly, and his green eyes made glittering contact and then skittered away again.
“Are you on your medication, Marty?”
“Oh, yes.” He did not sound happy about that. “Sit down, Jon. You want some coffee and a cookie?”
Martin Joseph Zellerbach ? Ph.D. D.Litt. (Cantab) ? had been a patient of Smith's Uncle Ted, a clinical psychiatrist, since Smith and Marty were in grammar school together. Far better adjusted and socially mature, Smith had taken Marty under his wing, protecting him from the cruel teasing of other children and even some teachers. Marty was not stupid. In fact, he had tested at the genius level since the age of five, and Smith had always found him funny, nice, and intellectually stimulating. With the years, Marty had grown even more intelligent ? and more isolated. In school, he ran academic circles around everyone, but he had no concept of ? or interest in ? other people and the relationships so important to preteens and teens.
He obsessed on one arcane curiosity after another and lectured at great length. He knew all the answers in many of his courses, so to relieve his boredom he would disrupt his classes with his wild and dazzling fantasies and manias. No one could believe anyone as smart as Marty was not being intentionally rude and a troublemaker, so teachers frequently sent him to the principal's office. In later years, Smith had to fight a number of enraged boys who thought Marty was “dissing” them or their girlfriends.
All of this unusual behavior was the result of Asperger's syndrome, a rare disorder at the less severe end of the autism spectrum. Diagnosed in childhood with everything from “a dash of autism” to obsessive compulsive disorder and high-functioning autism, Marty was finally diagnosed accurately by Smith's Uncle Ted. Marty's key symptoms were consuming obsessions, high intelligence, crippling lack of social and communications skills, and outstanding talent in a specific area ? electronics.
On the milder end, Asperger sufferers were often described as “active but odd” or “autistic-eccentric.” But Marty had a slightly more severe case, and despite specialists' attempts to socialize him, except for the few brief trips to court years ago, he had not left this bungalow ? which he had carefully and lovingly created as part electronic paradise and part haven for his eccentricities ? in fifteen years.
There was no cure, and the only help for people like Marty was medication, usually central nervous system stimulants like Adderall, Ritalin, Cylert, or the new one Marty took ? Mideral. As with schizophrenia, the medicines allowed Marty to function with both feet firmly planted on the earth. They restrained his fantasies, enthusiasms, and obsessions. Although he hated them, he took them when he knew he had to do “normal” activities such as pay bills or when his Asperger's was threatening to spin him completely out of control.
But when medicated, Marty said everything was dull and flat and distant, and much of his genius and creativity was lost. So he had eagerly embraced the new medicine that acted fast to calm him, as most did, but whose effects lasted only six hours at most, which meant a dose could be taken more frequently. Living sealed off from the world in his bungalow, he could be off his meds more than most Asperger's sufferers could.
If you needed a computer genius to do creative, maybe illegal, hacking, you wanted Marty Zellerbach off his meds. It was then up to you to keep him on track and to know when it was time to bring him back to earth if he threatened to fly off into an orbit of his own.
Which was why Smith was here.
“Marty, I need help.”
“Of course, Jon.” Marty smiled, a stained coffee mug in his hand. “It's almost time for a new dose of meds. I'll stay off.”
“I was hoping you'd say that.” Smith explained about the report from the Prince Leopold Institute in Belgium that did not appear to exist. About the outside phone calls Sophia could have made or received, yet the records were gone. About his need for any information relating to the unknown virus anywhere in the world. “A couple of other things, too. I want to find Bill Griffin. You remember him from school.” And finally he described his tracking the three virus victims to the Gulf War and the MASH unit. “See if you can find anything about the virus in Iraq as far back as ten years ago.”
Marty put down his mug and made a beeline for his mainframe. He flashed an enthusiastic smile. “I'll use my new programs.”
