s [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

cell. Fortunately, I had been using my itinerary for a bookmark and the travel
agent one-eight-hundred number was on there. It turned out that I couldn't get
back to the airport in Dayton until five-thirty, which was about the same time
the kennel closed. No way I would make it to Laz tonight. "So that solves
that," I told myself.
A post-Rain storm came through about one p.m., so I took in the Smithsonian
Museums along the
Mall and then went to the Spy Museum. I also hailed a cab and rode up Capitol
Hill to the backside of the Capitol building and saw the Supreme Court and the
Library of Congress. Then I had the cabby drop me at the closest Metro and I
went back to King Street and the hotel.
Later that evening Larry and I had the free beer and then walked down King
Street all the way to the river. We stopped and ate dinner at one of the
seafood shops along the way. I asked Larry about the meetings and my status
and so on. He just told me not to ask. Then we talked about the sights that I
had seen. The Library of Congress specifically intrigued Larry. He said he had
never been there before.
I finished
Glory Road on the plane back to Dayton and went from the airport straight to
the kennel.
I'm not sure who was happiest to see whom, but Laz and I hugged each other
dearly. He licked my face and whimpered at me a time or two.
"Good boy!" I told him. "I missed you, buddy, d'you miss me?" I tugged at his
ears and stroked his back. "Sit fella, sit." He sat and allowed me to put his
leash on. Then we loaded up in the SUV and were off to the apartment.
I didn't bother to unpack and we went for a long walk first thing. We stopped
in the park by the local high school and played Frisbee some, and then we went
back to the apartment and sprawled out on the couch together. Laz laid his
chin on my lap and I stroked his fur between his ears, gently, until we went
to sleep. I belonged there, I missed Laz, and he missed me; my only real
connection to the entire damned planet. Oh, sure I had grown a little closer
to Larry Waterford, but it was in an employer to employee relationship. That
just isn't the same. I couldn't cry on Larry's shoulder and hug him for
reassurance that things would be okay. Laz didn't mind at all, and I loved him
for it.
CHAPTER 10
When I went back to the office the next day Larry gave me a new task that was
completely unrelated to the quantum connected computer project. He gave me a
Chinese rocket computer operating system and wanted me to learn how to talk to
it. It was boring, hum-drum stuff. It wasn't much harder than
Sequencing that old video game that I did for Larry so long ago. I would ask
Page 37
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Larry about the project on a daily basis and it seemed to annoy him a bit. He
would always tell me that I couldn't be told anything and that I shouldn't
think about it anymore until the clearance comes through. So, of course, then
I would ask, "Well, when will my clearance come through?"
"When it comes, Steven. That's all I can tell you."
"Well, I thought they needed my help with the SuperAgent code?" I would ask.
"I don't know any more than you do." He would fiddle with his tie and then
change the subject. He would always seem irked that I wasn't focused on the
current busywork project he had given me.
So, I worked on reverse engineering some of the most benign devices you could
imagine by day and then went home and sat with Lazarus by night. The drugs had
begun to diminish in effect against the depression again and occasionally I
would wake up and not realize hours had passed. But good ol'
Lazarus would always be there to help me through it. I would hug him and sob
some and tell him that he was my buddy. That seemed to help almost as much as
the drugs did.
Then, in a morning-depressed haze, I would go into work for more run-of-the
mill reverse engineering busywork. I reverse engineered a tank turret control
computer, ejection code for a French fighter plane, the reaction control
system of a recovered satellite (although I never figured out how the
satellite had been recovered), and I was working on a radio jamming device
found in North Korea nearly six months later. Don't get me wrong; some of the
work was challenging, but nothing like the reverse engineering of that magical
green and orange quantum cube device. The biggest depressing fact was that
after more than six months, there was still no clearance.
One day I was so bored I thought I would go further out of my mind, so I
sloughed off work and I
went surfing on the Framework instead. My office hook-up wasn't as fast as at
home but I didn't feel like measuring voltages on a Russian computer
motherboard. So I logged on and started to look up that Dr.
Who fellow. It didn't take long for me to figure out the reason that Dr.
Daniels had brought him up. That guy was some very old British television
character who apparently lives in a phone booth, or whatever the British call
it. On the outside it looks like a regular phone booth, but on the inside it
is large enough for a very comfortable apartment. It is explained as some sort
of space warp or something. Just like the
"warped" RAM chips Dr. Daniels's wife had theorized.
I was still on the Framework when the phone rang. Finally, Larry called me
into his office for a chat; I
hoped every time the phone rang that it was about my clearance. This time it
was.
"Steve, we need to talk."
"Yeah, what about?" I hoped this was it. After all, it had been nearly seven
months since we had been to Washington, D.C.
"Sorry, Steve, but your advanced clearance has been declined," he said and
looked down at his feet for second. My heart fell to my shoes.
"Why? I mean, I told the truth about everything. I . . . I . . . don't
understand, I'm a good American, aren't I?"
"Son, nobody really believes otherwise." He paused. "Except that . . ." He
stopped again.
"Except what?"
"Well, son, as far as your background investigation is concerned, you just
suddenly appeared in
Dayton, Ohio, at about the age of eighteen. There is no proof that you ever
existed before that. No hospital records, not any living witnesses that can
say you are the same kid that came out of your mother's birth canal, nothing.
In fact, the only proof to corroborate your life is that your parents' tax
records can be found and that they paid taxes on a dependent."
Page 38
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"So, there you go; I was their dependent," I argued.
"No, son, there is no evidence that it was you. Oh sure, they filed a social
security number for you when you were nine, but there are no pictures, no
birth certificates, no DNA samples, nothing."
"But . . . but I can't help that. The Rain killed them! The Rain killed them
all
! Don't you understand?
There is nothing I can do about that!" I was frantic. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]