Mount Dragon

Harper guffawed. “Not really,” he repeated, clearing a water-clogged ear with the tip of his little finger. “If you plan to have children, Carson, I’d get that thing away from your gonads.”

Vanderwagon shook his head. “You’re a vulgar sod, Harper.”

Singer turned to Carson. “They’re best friends, although you’d never know it.”

“How did you get started at GeneDyne, anyway?” Carson asked, tossing the pebble back to Singer.

“I was the Morton Professor of Biology at CalTech. I thought I was at the top of the profession. And then Brent Scopes came along and made me an offer.” Singer shook his head at the memory. “Mount Dragon was going civilian, and Brent wanted me to take over.”

“Quite a change from academia,” said Carson.

“It took me a while to adjust,” Singer said. “I’d always looked down on private industry. But I soon came to realize the power of the marketplace. We’re doing extraordinary work here, not because we’re smarter, but because we have so much more money. No university could afford to run Mount Dragon. And the potential returns are so much greater. When I was at CalTech, I was doing obscure research on bacterial conjugation. Now I’m doing cutting-edge stuff that has the potential to save millions of lives.” He drained his beer. “I’ve been converted.”

“I was converted,” Harper said, “when I saw the kind of dough an assistant professor makes.”

“Thirty thousand,” said Vanderwagon, “after six or eight years of graduate education. Can you believe it?”

“I remember when I was at Berkeley,” said Harper. “All my research proposals had to go through this decrepit bureaucrat, the chairman of the department. The fossilized SOB was always grousing about cost.”

“Working for Brent,” Vanderwagon said, “is like night and day. He understands how science operates. And how scientists work. I don’t have to explain or justify anything. If I need something, I e-mail him and it happens. We’re lucky to be working for him.”

Harper nodded. “Damn lucky.”

At least they agree on something, thought Carson.

“We’re happy to have you aboard, Guy,” Singer said at last, nodding and raising his beer in salute. The others followed.

“Thanks,” Carson smiled broadly, thinking about the quirk of fate that had suddenly landed him amongst the pride of GeneDyne.

Levine sat in his office, the door open, listening in silent fascination to a telephone conversation, his secretary Ray was having in the outer office.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Ray was saying, “I swear I thought you said the Boylston Street Theater, not the Brattle—”

There was a silence.

“I swear, I heard you say Boylston. No, I was there, at the front door, waiting for you. At the Boylston Theater, of course! No wait, hold on. Baby, no—”

Ray cursed and hung up the phone.

“Ray?” Levine said.

“Yes?” Ray appeared in the door, smoothing his hair.

“There is no Boylston Street Theater.”

Comprehension dawned on Ray’s face. “Guess that’s why she hung up.”

Levine smiled, shaking his head. “Remember the call I got from that woman at the Sammy Sanchez show? I want you to call her back, tell her they can book me after all. I’ll appear at their earliest convenience.”

“Me? What about Toni Wheeler? She won’t like—”

“Toni wouldn’t approve. She’s a stick-in-the-mud about those kinds of television shows.”

Ray shrugged. “Okay, you got it. Anything else?”

Levine shook his head. “Not for now. Just work on your excuses. And shut the door, please.”

Ray returned to the outer office. Levine checked his watch, picked up the telephone for the tenth time that day, and listened. This time, he heard what he had been waiting for: the dial tone had changed from the usual steady tone to a series of rapid pulses. Quickly he hung up the phone, locked the office door, and connected his computer to the wall jack. Within thirty seconds, the familiar log-in device was on his screen once again.

Well, dust my broom, if it ain’t the good professor-man, came the words on his screen. How’s my mean mistreatin’ papa?

Mime, what are you talking about? Levine typed.

Aren’t you a fan of Elmore James?

Never heard of him. I got your signal. What news?

Good and bad. I’ve spent several hours poking around the GeneDyne net. It’s quite a place. Sixty K worth of terminal IDs, connected above and below. You know, satellites and dedicated land lines, fiber-optic networks for asynchronous transfer videoconferencing. The architecture is impressive. I’m something of an expert in it now, of course. I could give tours.

That’s good.

Yes. The bad news is that it’s built like a bank vault. Isolated-ring design, with Brent Scopes at the center. Nobody except Scopes can, see beyond their own profile, and he can see everything. He’s Big Brother, he can walk the system at will. To paraphrase Muddy Waters, he’s got his mojo working, but it just won’t work for you.

Surely that isn’t a problem for the Mime, Levine typed.

Have mercy! What a thought. I can stay cloaked without much effort, sipping a few milliseconds of CPU time here, a few there. But it’s a problem for YOU, professor. Setting up a secure channel into Mount Dragon is a non-trivial undertaking. It means duplicating part of Scopes’s own access. And that way danger lies, professor.

Explain.

Must I spell it out? If he happens to contact Mount Dragon while you’re in the channel, his own access may be blocked. Then he’ll probably run a bloodhound program back over the wire, and it’ll bay up the good professor, not Mime. ISHTTOETOOYLS.

Mime, you know I don’t understand your acronyms.

“I should have thought that obvious even to one of your lame sensibilities.” You won’t be able to dawdle, professor. We’ll have to keep your visits short.

What about the Mount Dragon records? Levine typed. If I could get at those, it would speed things up considerably.

NFW. Locked up tighter than Queen Mary’s corset.

Levine took a deep breath. Mime was unreadable, immovable, infuriating. Levine wondered what he would be like in person: no doubt the typical computer hacker, a nerdy guy with thick glasses, bad at football, no social life, onanistic tendencies.

Why, Mime, that doesn’t sound like you, he typed.

Remember me? I’m the Monsieur Rick of cyberspace: I stick my neck out for no one. Scopes is too clever. You remember that pet project of his I was telling you about? Apparently, he’s been programming some kind of virtual world for use as a network navigator. He gave a lecture on it at the Institute for Advanced Neurocybernetics about three years ago. Naturally, I broke in and stole the transcripts and screen shots. Very girthy, very girthy indeed. Groundbreaking use of 3-D programming. Anyway, since then Scopes has clamped the lid down tight. Nobody knows exactly what his program is now, or what it can do. But even back then, he was showing off some heavy shit at that lecture. Believe me, this dude is no computer-illiterate CEO. I found his private server, and was tempted to take a peek inside. But my discretion bested my curiosity. And that’s unusual for me.

Mime, it’s vitally important that I gain access to Mount Dragon. You know my work. You can help me to ensure a safer world.

No mind trips, my man! If there’s one thing I’ve learned, only Mime matters. The rest of the world means no more to me than a dingleberry on a dog’s ass.

Then why are you helping me at all? Remember that it was you who approached me in the first