The Select

But when Verran had picked up the Cleary girl's voice in last night's bull session, he'd stopped his wandering ways and settled down to record the whole thing. Alston had said he was looking for any tidbits that would give him another look into Cleary's views on the future of medicine. Verran had recognized one of her rare participations in the bull session as a golden opportunity. Originally he had planned to tease Alston along with it, dangle the recording before him like a carrot before a mule. But when he'd heard Cleary sounding off like she did, he knew he couldn't wait. He had to dump the whole thing on Alston in one shot...and watch him squirm.

Verran watched the growing concern on Alston's face as he listened. He barely moved. He was still sitting there listening even after Cleary had quit the session. He knew exactly what Dr. Tightass was thinking: Who can I blame this on?

But Louis was ready for him when Alston finally swiveled in his chair and faced him.

'What do I have to do, Louis, to induce you to repair that young woman's defective SLI unit?'

'There's nothing to repair.'

'It's quite obvious to me, and I am sure it will be equally obvious to our overseers from the Foundation, that you are not getting the job done.'

Verran had suddenly had enough. He wanted to grab this twit and shake him until his brain rattled inside his skull. Instead he squeezed the arm rests of his chair.

'I'm not in the mood for games, Doc, so here's the story: Her unit checks out. Elliot and I went back to her room again last weekend while Cleary and her boyfriend were off campus boffing each other. It checks out. You hear that, Doc: Her SLI is in A-1 shape. Perfectamento. So stop blowing smoke and tell me what you're going to do about it?'

Alston was silent for a moment. His voice sounded tired when he finally spoke.

'What else can I do? She'll have to flunk out.'

SEVENTEEN

Tim was feeling restless, edgy. He couldn't handle studying tonight. He wanted to be with Quinn but she was booking it for the anatomy practical tomorrow. So he wandered.

He wound up in the north wing's first-floor lounge—soft, shapeless leather couches, a dropped ceiling for acoustical effect, snack and soft drink machines lined up against the rear wall. Joe Nappo was stretched out in front of the big rear-projection screen watching some cop movie. Tim dropped into one of the rear seats. He didn't recognize the movie but he did recognize Peter Weller's face from the Robocop flicks. On the screen, Weller was tearing his apartment apart, looking for something. Tim didn't know what the film was about and didn't care. He stared at the screen without really following the action. He had other things on his mind.

Like his own mind, for instance.

His last bull session—the one Quinn had sat in on—still bothered him. It baffled him how he could believe one way and think another. The shrinks had a term for it: cognitive dissociation. Two conflicting points of view existing within the same person.

...on the screen Peter Weller pulled his telephones apart, then began unscrewing the plates over the electrical outlets in his walls...

Tim realized he had two intellectual positions, one very much like Quinn's, the other identical to Harrison's, warring within him. The first seemed to spring from his gut, seemed to belong to him, but it had been battered into the mud by the second position. He might have forgotten it had ever existed had not Quinn's arguments caused it to stir. And that stirring had pointed up the vague strangeness of Harrison's position. What was it doing in his head? It sounded like an echo of everybody else who spoke up at the bull sessions.

Everybody else.

Tim had always prided himself on not thinking like everybody else. Yet he could sense himself becoming an intellectual clone of Dr. Alston. The guy was a charming and disarming lecturer, true, but he wasn't that good.

...on the screen Peter Weller was holding up something he had found. A small dark object. He was examining it, turning it between his fingers. The camera moved in for a close-up...

Tim bolted upright in his chair.

'What the hell?'

The object in Peter Weller's hand looked startlingly familiar, like a tiny hockey puck on a pin.

'Hey, Joe,' he said. 'What is this?'

Nappo spoke without turning around. 'Called Rainbow Drive or something like that.'

'What's going on?'

'His partner got killed in the opening scenes and—'

'No. I mean now. What's he up to?'

'He just found out his apartment's bugged.'

Tim stared at the screen in cold shock, then got up and hurried for the door. His thoughts swirled in a chaotic jumble as he trotted down the hall and burst into the chill December night outside. The sky was a clear bubble and the stars seemed to spin as he walked aimlessly along the paths between the buildings that made up The Ingraham. He jammed his hands into his pockets against the late fall chill.

A bug. His mind shied away from accepting the fact that his little stick pin had been an electronic pick-up. He'd heard of them, but he'd never expected to see one in real life. Not at The Ingraham. Certainly not in Quinn's room. The possibility had never even occurred to him.

Was The Ingraham bugged? Or more specifically, was the dorm bugged? The very idea seemed ludicrous. A paranoid delusion of the first order. Because why in the name of sanity would anyone want to monitor the blatherings of a bunch of medical students? The idea zoomed past the ludicrous to the laughable.

And yet...How come I'm not laughing?

Because in some way he couldn't fathom, it seemed to dovetail with whatever it was that was making him so edgy lately.

Okay, he told himself. Let's run this through and follow the likely scenarios to wherever they lead. Let's assume the dorm is bugged. Or more specifically, since I found the bug in Quinn's room, that Quinn's room is bugged.

Why?

Who knows? We'll leave why for later. For now, let's just get logical.

Premise: Room 252 is under electronic surveillance.

If we accept that premise, who would be in charge of that surveillance?

Obviously, campus security.

Who's in charge of campus security?

Mr. Louis Verran.

Who has been caught twice in Quinn's room when she was scheduled to be out?

Mr. Louis Verran.

Tim shook his head as the pace of his walking slowed of its own accord. This was getting scary. Syllogistic logic had its flaws, but this little syllogism hit a too close to recent events: If room 252 is bugged, and if campus security is in charge of the bugging, and if Louis Verran is in charge of campus security, then one would expect Louis Verran to display an inordinate level of interest in room 252. Which he had.

Tim stopped short and watched his breath fume in the cold air as his thoughts raced through his mental pantries, grabbing incidents and observations from the shelves and tossing them helter-skelter into the stew. He didn't like the aroma that was beginning to rise from the pot.

Fact: Louis Verran saw the bug in my lapel last month— that so-called exterminator with him had pointed it out. And twelve hours later I get rolled in A.C., supposedly for my winnings. But maybe those guys were after a different sort of chip. They put a lot of effort into ripping up my coat, and afterwards, my little stick pin just happens to be missing along with my chips.

He swung around and headed back toward the dorm. Normally the glow of the lights in the rooms would have