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  Full of fire, the car flew along freeways, then slammed down an exit to a minor road where it came to a stop.

  Vern pointed at a large white building some distance from the road. ‘There she is. VIMNUT.’

  By God, Fred thought, against all odds. Like an American success-story. Up from the gheddo. Overcoming polio to become an Olympic pole-vault champion. Fighting dyslexia to become a Supreem Cuort Jistuce.

  The long white building lay before him on its lawn like a white leather jewel-box on a green velvet cushion, waiting to be opened. With all the signs of activity: hundreds of cars gleaming in the parking-lot (someone was here), sprinklers working away at the lawn, a row of flagpoles where a dozen or so American flags snapped in the wind. In the sky, a hot-air balloon disguised in rainbow colours drifted overhead. Civil War artillery-spotters, no doubt, come like a heavenly host to witness his triumph.

  Chapter Two

  Fred’s first feeling of elation wore off quickly as he began his approach to the building. Though its whiteness shimmered only a hundred yards away, it seemed somehow to recede before him as he moved forward, the way a distant mountain retreats behind its foothills.

  The foothills in this case were fences, roads, ditches, even a kind of moat (where a family of mallards could practise being picturesque); there was everything except a direct footpath to a door. For what seemed hours, he worked his way through parking-lots, past sealed hatches marked RECEIVING – NO ADMITTANCE and AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. And when he finally turned a corner and saw the main entrance it was flanked by a forty-foot sign: CYBERK CORPORATION. The wrong place! That drunken bastard had dropped him at the wrong place! Cursing to himself, Fred limped in the front door.

  The young receptionist looked up with a cautious smile. Fred was suddenly aware of his torn jacket, his split lip.

  ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where VIMNUT Industries are located?’

  ‘Right here.’ She had a nice smile. ‘Today’s the official changeover to our new name, Cyberk Corporation.’

  ‘What a relief,’ he said. ‘M. E. Jones. I’ve come about a job.’

  Her finger ran down a list. He was about to apologize for being late, when suddenly she beamed at him.

  ‘Please take a seat, Mr Jones.’

  ‘Er, would you happen to have a pin?’

  ‘Well, let me see, here.’ He noticed Minneapolisians often began sentences with well and ended them with here or there. And here he was, criticizing the speech patterns of someone who was helping him.

  ‘Here you go.’ She leaned over the desk and pinned up the torn flap for him. She had soft-looking dark hair. He smelt her perfume. ‘There you go.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  He sat down and thumbed through the VIMNUT annual report: pictures of men in grey suits smiling, pictures of women in white gowns, shower-caps and surgical gloves assembling tiny components, pictures of people pretending to look at computers and models of plumbing. Then he brought the rag of advertisement out of his pocket and reread it:

  TECHNICAL WRITER

  Challenging Opportunity

  for

  A Right Stuff Person

  VIMNUT Industries is a world leader in Artificial Intelligence and plumbing innovations. We’re looking for a self-starting, take-charge, real-time, stand-alone, team-oriented, highly motivated, can-do technical writer to develop on-target installation manuals for bathroom fixtures. Clean driver’s licence.

  Apply: Dave Boswell, Human Resources and Working Interrelationships Manager, VIMNUT Industries, Inc., 39004312 Paradise Drive, Paradise Valley.

  – An Infirmative Action Employer –

  He kept smelling the receptionist’s perfume.

  ‘Er, I wonder if you’d like to come out with me this evening.’

  ‘Hey, I’m an old married lady,’ she said, flashing the dazzling smile again. ‘But thanks for asking.’

  He sensed a practised reply, and wondered if receptionists were used to this, like air hostesses. Still, she seemed friendly enough. A few minutes later she waggled her fingers goodbye to him as she went off duty.

  Her replacement was a hard-looking middle-aged woman who didn’t smile. Fred got up and limped over to introduce himself and ask her the time, but he saw that she was busy, loading an automatic pistol down behind the desk.

  Poker watched LeRoi pick up the cheap paperback book and the shoe. The shoe was real cheap shit. Made in England.

  ‘Hey man, what you got there?’

  ‘It say somethin’ about a Time Machine. By H. G. Wells.’

  ‘Shit, that ain’t no good.’

  ‘I know it ain’t no good. Jiveass shit. White fucker comes down here like he owns the fuckin’ sidewalk, thinks he can just drop his jiveass shit all over our street.’

  ‘Hey, what you doin’, man?’

  LeRoi sat down on the step and opened the book. ‘What the fuck does it look like? I am readin’ this here book.’

  Poker, who could hardly spell his way through a comic book, took off his baseball cap and started adjusting the adjustable band in the back. ‘Shit, man. I thought we was gonna do something.’

  ‘I am doin’ something.’

  ‘Yeah. But, shit, man, what am I supposed to do?’

  LeRoi handed him the shoe. ‘Why don’t you go piss in this? And leave me be.’

  ‘Mr Jones?’ Another kind of hostess was standing over him. She was short and fine-boned, almost attractive despite her baggy black denim suit. Her hair was bright blue, and there was a small, lighter blue tattoo on her cheek, no bigger than a dimple. He couldn’t help noticing that she wore a beer-can on a toilet-chain around her neck, Black lipstick and nail polish. What did I do to be so black and blue? She was not smiling. ‘Come with me.’

  He limped after her to a small interrogation-room.

  ‘Sit down,’ she ordered. ‘Mr Boswell will be with you in a minute.’ She paused before leaving. ‘Hey, I like your one shoe. Neat idea.’

  In the grand police tradition, Boswell let Fred cool his heels – or his neat one heel – for a few minutes, no doubt to ensure his later co-operation. Then he banged open the door, bounced in, and slapped a file on the table. It was a very thick file.

  ‘Hiya fella!’ Boswell was a stocky beef-faced man with a moustache that looked false. He grinned often. There was a hearty handclasp, two sweaty palms embracing Fred’s hand. ‘I’m Dave Boswell. Call me Dave. Mind if I call you Manny?’

  ‘Er – no, fine.’

  Boswell flipped through the file for a moment, then uncapped a pen. ‘OK, down to business. I’ve been looking over your application here.’

  ‘My application?’ Fred had yet not filled in an application.

  ‘Yep. You look real good on paper, Manny. Real good. I see you’re an American citizen. That’s important.’

  ‘I am?’ Sweat stung his armpits. What was happening? He tried to maintain a poker face.

  There was a brief answering blankness in Boswell’s beef features, before they relaxed into another grin. ‘Ha, ha. Sensa humour. I like that. A successful man is a man who can turn his sensa tivity into a sensa humour.’

  It seemed to be some kind of quotation, and Boswell seemed to be waiting for a reaction. After a moment, he grinned on. ‘I guess you’ve been treated like a second-class citizen plenty of times, right? Lotsa places, lotsa times. Been down so long it looks like up to you, right? What did I do to get so black and blue?’

  ‘Mm.’ Fred nodded very cautiously. He had the feeling he had wandered on to the stage in the middle of some drama. He was still trying to work out who the characters were, and what transaction was unfolding. What’s my motivation here?

  ‘But not here, fella, not here. We don’t got no second-class citizens here. You probably noticed in our ad, we’re an affirmative action company, Manny.’

  ‘The ad said … er, “infirmative”.’

  ‘Ha, ha. Good eye. Little misprint there. You know, it’s a pleasure to meet an engineer who can re
ad.’

  Engineer?

  ‘Anyhoo, Manny, we got no second-class citizens here. We’re on your side alla way.’

  Second-class citizen? thought Fred. Manny? Maybe he thinks I’m a Jew. Still, in for a penny …

  Boswell consulted the thick file. ‘You haven’t had a lot of experience, have you?’

  ‘Well, I –’

  ‘Now, then.’ Boswell threw himself back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. His hands came together as in prayer over his heavy thorax. ‘I want you to tell me why you want this job.’

  Because I’m broke, you twit. ‘Dave, let me say this: I think I can bring a lot to this job. As you notice, I’m literate, and that’s no accident. I’ve done lots, a lot of writing, writing of all sorts, types. Not only training but experience.’

  ‘Go on.’

  Fred stole a look at the ragged advertisement. ‘I’m a self-starting take-charge sort of bloke, kind of guy.’

  ‘Good, good,’ Boswell said to the ceiling.

  ‘I work in real time. I stand alone, though I am team-oriented. My high motivation makes me a can-do –’

  ‘Fine. Now, why do you want to work for us in particular?’

  ‘VIMNUT – or is it Cyberk? – anyway, it seems like my kind of company. An on-target, highly motivated place.’

  ‘Good. What do you see yourself doing in five years?’

  Fred’s mind was blank. His brain became a bowl of instant pudding, bland, jelled, inert, useless. He had used everything in the ad but the clean driver’s licence, whatever that meant.

  ‘I guess I’d like to be doing my best at whatever –’

  ‘Fine, fine.’ Boswell sat up to pray at his desk. ‘Now let me tell you where we’re comin’ from. You’ve heard of the fifth generation, the sixth generation, all that good stuff?’

  Fred nodded cautiously. Computers?

  ‘Well forget all about generations. We’re shootin’ for something beyond all that. This is an AI project of a very unusual kind, as you’ll see. And the Pentagon is very interested.’

  ‘I see.’ Fred didn’t see at all. ‘And the bathroom fixtures?’

  ‘Ha, ha. Very good, Manny. Sensa humour’ll take you a long way. But seriously, as a software engineer, you’ll be a key member of the software development team for this top-priority project.’

  ‘Software engineer,’ Fred echoed faintly.

  ‘Not much experience, I see. And your college grades, h’m.’

  ‘Well, actually, I –’ Two years at Charing Cross Polytechnic. Could they possibly know about that? Had someone like the FBI been sieving and sorting through his life? Where had this thick file come from?

  ‘Relax. Do I look worried?’ In fact Boswell seemed far beyond mere worry – his beef face exhibited that extreme pitch of anxiety normally seen only in performing dogs, hopping on their hind legs along the see-saw while the trainer’s little whip flicks mercilessly at their flanks.

  ‘We aren’t worried,’ he amended. ‘We know you can do the job, and you’re our kind of guy.’

  Software engineer. There’s been a mistake. He’s got me mixed up with someone else. Christ, the Pentagon! He cleared his throat to speak up. Boswell added: ‘There’s a healthy salary-scale that goes with it. The salary would be in this range.’ He scrawled a figure on a card and passed it over. ‘Would that be acceptable?’

  ‘Uh, very. Yes.’ It was more money than Fred had earned in the past five years together.

  ‘Just a ballpark figure, you understand. We’d have to work out your final salary. Could you start Monday?’

  ‘Yes. I mean, sure.’

  A sweaty hand was offered. ‘Welcome aboard, Manny.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Uh, only a couple of formalities. You need to interview with Melville Pratt – he’s your boss – and with Sturges Fellini, the PE.’

  ‘The PE.’

  ‘Project engineer. Mel can tell you about job details and so on, and Sturge will sprinkle holy water on you – ha, ha, ha. But don’t worry. You have my recommendation, and I know you’ll do just great! OK?’

  ‘Uh, yes, thanks.’

  ‘Way to go! A wright!’

  Boswell jumped to his feet and pounded a fist aloft – possibly a vague sign of Marxist solidarity, but more likely a simulated athletic gesture – before scooping up his papers and bouncing out. As he banged the door, one paper slipped from the thick file and fluttered back into the room.

  ‘Um,’ Fred said, but Boswell was gone.

  The paper was called ‘Form 249A: Personnel Entry Evaluation’. One side of it was covered with boxes with cryptic names.

  Under ‘Remarks:’ Boswell had scrawled: ‘Not recommended. Seems inarticulate, slovenly, slow even for a. Can’t we do better than this? Hire only if nothing better turns up. DB.’

  Even for a what? Yet, however mysterious the crossed-out bit, the rest was plain enough. We’re on your side alla way, are we? You have my recommendation. What a shit. Fred slipped the paper into his torn breast-pocket and limped out to the secretary. The name-sign on her desk said MAUVE TOASTER. Could this possibly be her name?

  ‘Hi!’ she said, grinning brightly. Some of her black lipstick was on her teeth – though that might be deliberate. ‘Hey, I really like that one shoe.’

  ‘Well, actually, it’s – uh, Mauve?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I wonder if I could borrow some whiteout fluid?’

  ‘You mean like Liquid Paper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Neat. Sure.’

  She handed over the tiny bottle and watched him closely, to see whether he would sniff it or paint it on himself. Instead, he brought out Form 249A and whited out a few remarks until it read: ‘recommended. … Can’t … do better … DB.’ Then he limped over to the photocopying machine and made a copy of the form. The original went into the waste-basket, and the copy went on Mauve’s desk.

  ‘I think Mr Boswell dropped this page.’

  ‘I’m cool.’ She offered him a stick of black chewing gum.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Hey, you wanna see the Condoms?’

  Not sure what the question implied, he hesitated. Fortunately, Mauve decided that hesitation was cool. Everything he did or didn’t do was cool. ‘They’re playing uptown at Ed Gein’s.’

  ‘Why not?’

  That broke her up, too. When she grinned, the tiny tattoo on her cheek vanished into a dimple. When she sneered or scowled normally, it became a tiny perfect portrait of a nut and bolt.

  Just now she was laughing hard. Everything he said or didn’t say seemed to amuse her mightily. Between coolness and amusement, Fred seemed to be doing all right just existing.

  ‘Around seven?’ she finally managed to gasp.

  ‘I’ll call round for you.’

  ‘Call? No, just come over.’

  ‘Or I could meet you there.’

  ‘Cool.’ She slid Form 249A into his folder and stood up, her toilet-chain clanking. ‘I gotta take you to meet Mel Pratt.

  He limped after her into the bowels of the company.

  Mansour Efrahim Jones announced himself to the hard-looking middle-aged woman at the reception desk. ‘I have an appointment with Mr Boswell,’ he said.

  ‘One moment,’ she said coldly, and continued to watch him while she punched buttons. ‘There’s a Mr Jones here to see Mr Boswell … He claims he has … I see … Just a minute.’ She lowered the receiver. ‘Mr Boswell seems to be gone for the day. Are you sure about the time of your appointment?’

  ‘Eleven o’clock,’ he said. ‘I’m on time.’

  ‘Maybe you’ve got the wrong day?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you fill out a job application?’

  ‘Yes, I did. Look, if this is some kind of runaround, skip it. All you gotta do is put it in your ad: No niggers need apply. Save everybody a lot of time. Instead of all this “affirmative action” jive – crap.’

  Her eyes widened, but remained c
old. ‘My, we have a chip on our shoulder, don’t we? I assure you, Mr Jones, we are an informative action company. We couldn’t give you the runaround if we wanted to!’ Her tone indicated that if she had her way, however … ‘So, if there’s been some little mix-up, why don’t we just make another appointment, h’m?’

  He sighed. ‘OK.’ He was a sucker for cold motherly types.

  ‘And, while you’re here, you might fill out another application, just so we know where we are.’

  ‘OK.’ He took the application form, sat down at a writing-table, and uncapped his lacquered fountain pen. To keep the requirements in mind, he brought out the ad from his calfskin briefcase.

  SOFTWARE ENGINEER

  Challenging Opportunity

  for

  A Right Stuff Person

  VIMNUT Industries is a world leader in Artificial Intelligence applications. We’re looking for a self-starting, on-target, take-charge, team-oriented, highly motivated software engineer to develop problem-solving software for a stand-alone, real-time system. BSEE or Computer Science degree, American citizenship a must!

  Apply: Dave Boswell, Human Resources and Working Interrelationships Manager, VIMNUT Industries, Inc., 39004312 Paradise Drive, Paradise Valley.

  – An Affirmative Action Employer –

  Chapter Three

  Mauve Toaster, if that could possibly be her name, led him down dim corridors. Fred spotted a few other women wearing metal scrap – toilet-chains, beer-cans, broken keys, tin-openers, a necklace of nails – and asked if they, too, were secretaries.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Mauve. ‘Only the secretaries get to dress up around this dump. Everything else is real grungy.’

  Grungy here seemed to mean not wearing a uniform. He noticed men and women dressed in everything from blue jeans to business suits.

  Mauve conducted him past the lighted windows of conference rooms and offices. He could see meetings in progress.