Firestarter(125)

Cap, what the f**k are you up to?

16

He spent the rest of that night and the early hours of Tuesday morning at a computer console, calling up every scrap of information he could think of on Charlie McGee, trying to make out some kind of pattern. And there was nothing. His head began to ache from eyestrain.

He was getting up to shut of the lights when a sudden thought, a totally off-the-wall connection, occurred to him. It had to do not with Charlie but with the portly, drugged-out cipher that was her father.

Pynchot. Pynchot had been in charge of Andy McGee, and last week Herman Pynchot had killed himself in one of the most grisly ways Rainbird could imagine. Obviously unbalanced. Crackers. Toys in the attic. Cap takes Andy to the funeralmaybe a little strange when you really stopped to think about it, but in no way remarkable.

The Cap starts to act a little weird-talking about golf and passing notes.

That's ridiculous. He's tipped over.

Rainbird stood with his hand on the light switches. The computer-console screen glowed a dull green, the color of a freshly dug emerald.

Who says he's tipped over? Him?

There was another strange thing here as well, Rainbird suddenly realized. Pynchot had given up on Andy, had decided to send him to the Maui compound. If there was nothing Andy could do that would demonstrate what Lot Six was capable of, there was no reason to keep him around at all... and it would be safer to separate him from Charlie. Fine. But then Pynchot abruptly changes his mind and decides to schedule another run of tests.

Then Pynchot decides to clean out the garbage disposal... while it's still running.

Rainbird walked back to the computer console. He paused, thinking, than tapped HELLO COMPUTER/QUERY STATUS ANDREW MCGEE 14112/FURTHER TESTING/MAUI INSTALLATION/Q4

PROCESS, the computer flashed. And a moment later: HELLO RAINBIRD/ANDREW MCGEE 14112 NO FURTHER TESTING/AUTHORIZATION/ "STARLING'/SCHEDULED DEPARTURE FOR MAUI 1500 HOURS OCTOBER 9/AUTHORIZATION "STARLING'/ANDREWS AFB-DURBAN (ILL) AFBKALAMI AIRFIELD (HI)/BREAK

Rainbird glanced at his watch. October 9 was Wednesday. Andy was leaving Longmont for Hawaii tomorrow afternoon. Who said so? Authorization Starling said so, and that was Cap himself. But this was the first Rainbird knew of it.

His fingers danced over the keys again.

QUERY PROBABILITY ANDREW MCGEE 14112/SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY/CROSS-REF HERMON PYNCHOT

He had to pause to look up Pynchot's code number in the battered and sweat-stained code book he had folded into his back pocket before coming down here.

14409 Q4

PROCESS, the computer replied, and then remained blank so long that Rainbird began to think that he had mis-programmed and would end up with nothing but a "609" for his trouble.

Then the computer flashed ANDREW MCGEE 14112/MENTAL DOMINATION PROBABILITY 35%/CROSS-REF HERMAN PYNCHOT/BREAK

Thirty-five percent?

How was that possible?

All right, Rainbird thought. Let's leave Pynchot out of the goddam equation and see what happens.

He tapped out QUERY PROBABILITY ANDREW MCGEE 14112/SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY Q4

PROCESS, the computer flashed, and this time its response came within a space of fifteen seconds. ANDREW MCGEE 14112/MENTAL DOMINATION PROBABILITY 2%/ BREAK

Rainbird leaned back and closed his good eye and felt a kind of triumph through the sour thud in his head. He had asked the important questions backward, but that was the price humans paid for their intuitive leaps, leaps a computer knew nothing about, even though it had been programmed to say "Hello," "Good-bye," "I am sorry [programmer's] name," "That is too bad," and "Oh shit."

The computer didn't believe there was much of a probability Andy had retained his mentaldomination ability... until you added in the Pynchot factor. Then the percent jumped halfway to the moon.

He tapped QUERY WHY SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY ANDREW MCGEE 14112 (PROBABILITY) RISES FROM 2% to 35% WHEN CROSS-REFERENCED W/HERMAN PYNCHOT 14409 Q4

PROCESS, the computer answered, and then: HERMAN PYNCHOT 14409 ADJUDGED SUICIDE/ PROBABILITY TAKES INTO ACCOUNT ANDREW MCGEE 14112 MAY HAVE CAUSED SUICIDE/ MENTAL DOMINATION/BREAK

There it was, right here in the banks of the biggest and most sophisticated computer in the Western Hemisphere. Only waiting for someone to ask it the right questions.

Suppose I feed it what I suspect about Cap as a certainty? Rainbird wondered, and decided to go ahead and do it. He dragged out his code book again and looked up Cap's number.

FILE, he tapped. CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER 16040/ATTENDED FUNERAL

OF HERMAN PYNCHOT 14409 W/ANDREW MCGEE 14112 F4

FILED, the computer returned.

FILE, Rainbird tapped back. CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER 16040/CURRENTLY SHOWING SIGNS OF GREAT MENTAL STRESS F4

609, the computer returned. It apparently didn't know "mental stress" from "Shinola."

"Bite my bag," Rainbird muttered, and tried again.

FILE/CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER 16040/CURRENTLY BEHAVING COUNTER TO DIRECTIVES REF CHARLENE MCGEE 14111 F4 FILED

"File it, you whore," Rainbird said. "Let's see about this." His fingers went back to the keys.

QUERY PROBABILITY ANDREW MCGEE 14112/ SUPPOSED MENTAL DOMINATION ABILITY/ CROSS-REF HERMAN PYNCHOT 14409/CROSS-REF CAPTAIN JAMES HOLLISTER 16040 Q4

PROCESS, the computer showed, and Rainbird sat back to wait, watching the screen. Two percent was too low. Thirty-five percent was still not betting odds. But-