The five way secret agen.., p.1
The Five Way Secret Agent (UC), page 1
part #1 of Lagrange Series
I
Rex Bader took down two bottles from the medicine cabinet in his efficiency bath and shook out one pill and one capsule. He looked at the capsule in distaste. Theoretically, there was no aftereffect but that was theory. Speed up the pace at which you could assimilate learning and when the effect of the medication wore off you had a somewhat drugged feeling, a hangover if you will. The pill seemed to be of another nature, perception was broader, insight quicker and he was darned if he could find any payoff otherwise. Rex Bader was no pharmacologist but he understood the second drug was distantly related to mescaline.
He washed them both down with water, went over to his desk in that corner of the mini-apartment's living cum bedroom which he called his library, sat down before the TV library booster screen and put his student's headphones over his ears. He ran a finger over the typer keyboard, sighed and dialed for his lesson in Spanish for that day.
He flicked the activating button and tuned in on the school's central computer-teacher.
He progressed fairly slowly at the beginning, memorizing when memorizing was called for, recited when drawn upon for pronouncing practice. He was called up abruptly several times on this. At the age of thirty-odd without any other language background beyond English, Rex Bader had his troubles with such matters as rolling his "r's" and mastering the Castilian lisp.
As the pill and capsule he had swallowed took effect he sped up the lessons and then sped them up again.
And was irritated when the door buzzed.
He looked over at the identity screen and saw an unknown there. A very natty, impressive and prosperous looking unknown, but an unknown.
Rex Bader sighed, removed his headset, left the lesson he was currently at on the screen and got up to answer the door.
Outside, ultra-expensive appearing briefcase in hand, the other emanated still more prosperity. In fact, Rex Bader decided inwardly, this was possibly the most affluent looking character he had ever run into. Not that the other was ostentatious in dress, he was just rich in dress and Rex wondered vaguely where one acquired the gentle gray material of the other's suit; England, probably. Wherever you acquired it, citizens on Rex Bader's economic level didn't.
The newcomer said, "Mr. Rex Bader? My name is Temple Norman."
"O.K. Come in. What can I do for you?" Rex led the way to the living-room couch which converted into a bed during the hight hours, motioned the other to be seated and took his. own place in his comfort chair.
Temple Norman put his briefcase on his knees, activated the opening mechanism and dipped in for a handful of facsimiles. He flicked quickly through the sheaf, nodded several times and said, "Of course."
It was too early in the day to offer the other a drink from the autobar. Rex cleared his throat and said, making a slight gesture at the papers, "What's that, if you don't mind my asking?"
The other looked up. "Your dossier, from the National Data Banks, Mr. Bader."
"My dossier! What are you doing with my dossier? Are you an official of the computer-data banks?"
Temple Norman shook his beautifully barbered head. "No. However, Mr. Bader, it is possible, though somewhat expensive, to secure any person's dossier if one has the proper connections."
"And you have the proper connections to pry into my personal life, eh?"
"The enterprises for which I work do, Mr. Bader."
Rex took a breath. "All right. Let's get.to the point. What can I do for you?"
"Perhaps you will be offered employment, but a few questions first, if you will." He looked about the mini-apartment, his nostrils held slightly high. Rex Bader waited him out. The other had impressive nostrils, very aristocratic.
"First of all, Mr. Bader, under Meritocracy, pragmatism is the word. Your I.Q. and your education would indicate a man of potential abilities. However, your establishment would indicate that you exist on a level little different from that of an unemployed living on NIT, his Negative Income Tax."
Rex said patiently, "Mr. Norman, three things are needed to make your place under Meritocracy. One, a reasonably high I.Q.; two, a reasonably good education
"And three?" the other said, frowning slightly, as though he hadn't known there was a third.
Rex said, "The term I.Q. as we usually use it these days is a misnomer. Our psychologists do not really assess all-around intelligence, there is no such thing. What they assess are the qualities needed to benefit from a higher education. And the early I.Q. tests have been augmented with others that check out your verbal ability and fluency, your spatial ability, numerical ability, perceptual ability, memory ability, driving ability, accident proneness, digital dexterity, analogizing power, mechanical aptitude, clerical aptitude, emotional maturity, tone discrimination, sexual attraction even, taste sensitivity, color blindness, accuracy, persistence, neurosis, and powers of observation. But there is just one thing they don't and can't test, and that's the third thing needed to succeed under Meritocracy."
The other was still frowning his puzzlement.
Rex said, "Luck."
"Ah. And you feel that fortune has passed you by?"
"Let's say, so far. I'm still trying. When I got out of the university, Mr. Norman, I studied aviation with the intent of becoming a pilot."
"A most unfortunate choice."
"Wasn't it though? By the time I graduated from the air school, practically all aircraft were automated. Those jobs that still were left went to old-timers, highly experienced veteran pros. So I went back to school and took some more courses which I figured would wind me up doing chores for the petroleum industries."
"I see. Undoubtedly just in time for the introduction of cheap power from nuclear sources."
"Right. So that was the second field that technology-did me out of. Next time, I decided, I'd be too smart for them and get into something technology wouldn't touch. I'd always been an inveterate reader of suspense, detective and international intrigue novels since I was a boy reading Ian Fleming and John D. MacDonald. So I took courses that led to my being able to apply for a private investigator's license. And that's where I am now."
"Collecting Negative Income Tax?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Why? Because there's practically no demand for private investigators. With the coming of the universal credit card and the cashless-checkless use of the pseudo dollar, ninety-five cases out of a hundred that a private detective used to deal with have been eliminated. Crime, as we knew it in the old days, has practically been erased. We don't even have many divorce cases any more. How can you have divorce if so few bother to marry these days?"
"I see. And you have given up, then?"
"No. My detective shingle is still out but on the side I'm studying various other subjects."
The other looked down at the dossier in his lap. "So I see. Spanish among others. Why?"
Rex shrugged impatiently. "Because although aviation in the States is almost universally automated there are still some of the more backward countries, especially in South America, where our corporations still utilize human pilots."
"Then you don't object to work abroad?"
"I don't object to work anywhere."
"Not even in the Soviet Complex, Mr. Bader?"
Rex looked at him.
The immaculate Mr. Norman coughed gently and said, "But that can come later. Now then, I note that you have no political affiliations."
"I stopped having interest in politics when I decided there was no difference between the major parties and they had so sewed up election laws that an emerging third party was all but impossible."
"Um-m-m, um-m-m. Unmarried. No close relatives. Moderate user of alcoholic beverages."
"Tell me what's all this about?"
Mr. Norman ignored the question and looked up and said; "Mr. Bader, what do you think of Meritocracy as a socio-economic system?"
"I don't know. What is there to think about it? I can't come up with any alternative. I only wish I was a little higher on the totem pole, is all."
The newcomer suddenly stuffed his sheaf of papers back into his briefcase and flicked the button that closed the automatic zipper. He came to his feet.
"Very well, let us be on our way."
Rex said, "Do you mind if I ask you where and why?"
"Yes."
Rex Bader made a gesture of resignation with his two hands. "O.K. I suppose it's all in a day's work and Lord knows I can use work. Wait'll I get my jacket. You realize, of course, that I charge by the hour and under these circumstances my time starts as of right now."
"If you are found suitable for the assignment, Mr. Bader, you will be recompensed beyond your dreams of avarice. If you are not found suitable, your time will be paid for at your customary fee—at least."
"Them's mighty pretty words, Stranger," Rex Bader muttered under his breath as he sought out his jacket.
At the elevator banks, Rex Bader turned to the other. "What level?" he said.
"StreeJ level," Norman told him. "My vehicle is parked there."
His vehicle yet, Rex thought, shrugging inwardly. He said into the elevator's phone screen, "Street level."
"Street level," the robot voice answered and the compartment began to rise.
At the street level Temple Norman led the way. When they emerged from the entrance he selected, he looked up at the one-hundred-and-ten-story, aluminum-sheathed twin towers of the high-rise apartment building.
"Tell me, Mr. Bader. Why have you chosen to
"It is," Rex said wryly. "It is also one of the cheapest. I'm down on the service levels along with the ultra-market and the garages and theaters. But the rent on my mini-apartment is less than half what it would be on any of the top ten levels. When you're on NIT, you watch your pseudo-dollars."
"I see," the other said, nostrils slightly high again. "Here we are."
Rex Bader did a double take. The electro-steamer limousine was obviously not only privately owned, but was chauffeur-driven. As a city dweller, Rex Bader seldom saw a privately owned car; he had never before seen a chauffeur-driven one that he could recall.
The uniformed flunky had popped from his position behind the controls upon their approach, now he held the back door open for them. When they were seated, he scurried around to his place again.
"Return to the offices, Martin," Temple Norman told him.
"Very good, sir." The electro-steamer smoothed into motion, under manual control.
Rex said to the driver, "The nearest entry is straight ahead about a half kilometer."
"Yes, sir," the chauffeur said, "I know." There was a slightly supercilious element in his tone.
What is it about the servants of the very rich, Rex asked himself, that some of the superiority complex of their employers rubs off on them?
Rex said to Temple Norman, in the way of make-conversation, "I thought it was against the rules to bring a privately owned vehicle into a pseudo-city."
They were proceeding through the acres of parks and playgrounds which surrounded his house.
"Against the rules, Mr. Bader, but one is able to surmount rules if one has the proper connections, though it is somewhat expensive."
"I'm beginning to suspect that you have proper connections," Rex said wryly.
The driver pulled up to the entry of the ultra-expressway and skillfully came to a halt on a dispatcher. He reached to the dashboard and dialed what was obviously their destination, then relaxed back into the seat—if relaxed you could call it. His hands were folded in his lap, in an almost military posture. One hell of a way to make a living, Rex decided sourly.
The auto-controls of the underground ultra-expressway took over and within minutes they were up to a three-hundred-kilometer clip.
They rode in silence for possibly half an hour and then the speed of the electro-steamer began to fall off.
"Why me?" Rex said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Obviously, you could afford to hire anyone in the country for whatever this mysterious assignment of yours is. So why me?"
"We put our requirements on the computers, Mr. Bader. You were selected. Several others, as well, so that we have a choice, but thus far you seem to fill our needs. We shall see."
Their speed dropped still farther and shortly they branched off the main road, went on three or four kilometers, and took a still smaller branch. Another half a kilometer and they came to an entry and the vehicle came to a halt on a dispatcher.
Martin took over the controls again and they proceeded, remaining underground.
The road was evidently a private one and shortly they entered a building and came up before an entrance. The building was obviously sizable, very recent, and damnably expensive. A doorman, uniformed like nothing so much as a Bulgarian admiral, opened up for them and said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Norman."
Temple Norman nodded to him distantly and moved toward the entry, very brisk. No one else seemed to be around. Rex Bader got the impression that this was a private entrance, in spite of its magnitude and swank. All over again, he was impressed.
Inside, there were only two elevators. Rex followed his guide inside one of them.
"Penthouse," Norman said.
"The penthouse. Yes, sir," the robot voice said.
The compartment accelerated, accelerated again, accelerated again, then after what seemed a fantastically long time, slowed, slowed, came to a halt.
Rex cleared his throat. "This must be a high one."
"Yes."
They emerged into what would seem a private establishment, rather than offices. Once again, no one seemed to be around.
"This way," Temple Norman murmured.
As they went along an ornate hallway, Temple Norman looked at Rex from the side of his eyes. "You are a detective. Have you detected anything as yet, Mr. Bader?"
"Yes. You aren't the boss. You're a secretary, or something. We're on the way to see the boss. We're going by a route so as to avoid anyone seeing me."
"Ah, I'm impressed. And who is the boss?"
"Evidently, one of the richest men in the United States."
"No," Temple Norman smiled. "You are wrong there, Mr. Bader."
They approached a heavy door and Rex Bader's guide stood before its identity screen and murmured something. The door opened.
And Rex Bader stepped into the most attractive room in which he had ever been in his life.
Without ostentation whatsoever, it yielded every comfort of which a man in his middle years could have conceived. Large, without being overly so, its windows overlooked a breathtaking distance of forests and streams and with mountains in the far beyond. The furniture was solely for comfort, not for decoration as was so often the case these days. The paintings ignored the current realistic-abstraction school and half a dozen schools that had gone before; in fact, the most recent was evidently a Degas and Rex Bader had the feeling that it was an original. There were bookshelves with real books, an anachronism in these days of computer library banks.
It came as a mild surprise that there seemingly was no TV screen, phone or otherwise, in the room. Nor, for that matter, any sort of a delivery-box compartment, leading up from the ultra-market which Rex assumed was in the cellar of the building. This was a room out of yesteryear and obviously an escape sanctum.
The sole occupant looked up from the heavy leather chair in which he sat and put his book to one side. He came to his feet, a man of possibly fifty-five and obviously in the best trim one can be in at that age. He was about Rex Bader's height and build, pushing two meters, pushing eighty kilos and only a touch of gray at temples prevented his hair from being as full and dark as Rex's own. He had a piercing, quizzical quality about his open face and a no-nonsense air. However, his personality projected itself across the room and seized you. He had a likableness even before he had opened his mouth.
He was dressed informally in what would seem well used sports clothes, even to golf shoes upon his feet. He came forward easily, stretched out a hand to be shaken.
"Mr. Rex Bader, of course."
Rex shook hands.
"My name is Westley, Mr. Bader. That will suffice for the time. My dear Temple, drinks if you will. Be seated, Mr. Bader."
Temple Norman said to Rex, "What would you prefer?"
Rex found a chair, across from the one that Westley had been occupying and said, "Whiskey's fine for me. On rocks."
Norman said, "Pseudo-whiskey, or real Scotch?"
"Pseudo-whiskey's all right with me. If anything, I prefer its taste."
There was a slight curl to Temple Norman's lips as he made his way toward the old-fashioned bar which occupied a goodly portion of one corner of the room. He said to Westley, "Sir?"
Westley said gently, "Pseudo-whiskey is fine. I agree with Mr. Bader. We turn out better potables as products of our laboratories today than the Scots ever dreamed possible. Drinking the old stuff is a status symbol. I don't need status symbols."
Norman coughed, even as he reached for bottle and glasses. "Yes, sir. I feel the same way, of course."
Westley took his chair again and looked at Rex Bader. "Mr. Bader," he said, "what do you think of world government?"
That curve had come a bit fast. Rex said cautiously, "I think it's a great idea but I doubt if I'll live to see it."
"To the contrary, my dear Bader, it exists today, at least in embryo."
"Well, O.K., if you mean the Reunited Nations."
But Westley was waggling a finger negatively at him. "No, of course not. The League of Nations, the United Nations and its development, the Reunited Nations, were not capable of being steps toward a real world government. An organization of sovereign national states is not a satisfactory base for world government."
