He had little regard for what might be called the
morality of architecture, and was more inclined to develop
his own. Within his own set of mores he was unimpeachable,
a good thing. He was also consummate, and this quality allowed
him the unique distinction of being appropriate. There lay
his inner self turned outward for the purposes of public
consumption, he dared but after so long, he knew that those
inner secrets were inscrutable. By the force of reason or
compulsion, he was vaguely certain of which but that was
closely guarded, Francis de Lablanche Cary had managed to
sway others to his own point of view. A family recipe.
It had been his grandfather, over in the land 'O
Emeralds who had first identified the family
relationship at work. When the land turned foul, his
own kind were the only ones capable of picking up
entirely and relocating to the new lands. There they
found the locals to be malleable beyond expectations.
But Francis was a kind man, unlike some of his
forbears. He knew the value of one's word, and was
true to those who kept theirs. He distanced himself
from those who were unscrupulous, when possible. Only
on occasion would he deal with the charlatan or the
thief. Why bother? Divine retribution could take care
of them in the long run or sooner.
One quality that allowed him to be a master over his
associates was his ability to weave layers of subtlety
into his interactions. In the game of brinksmanship,
he could always up the ante. Deal with the simple at a
simple level, with the sublime at whatever level would
seem to be appropriate, with fakers at a level that
they wouldn't understand, and so on.
He sat in his Manhattan office, pondering. He thought
about Noir. Their meeting had been enjoyable, yet
disconcerting. Cary was a shrewd judge of character,
and he relied on his innate ability to size people up
to enable him to understand, and interact with others
most effectively. He was rarely misunderstood since he
understood so well the argument that the other person
was trying to put forward.
Noir was different. He was unassuming, had no apparent
personal axe to grind, and radiated a sense of inner
strength that Cary had encountered only twice before.
Once he had seen those same qualities in an estate
gardener in Quebec. Once he had seen them in a roguish
sociologist named Chad Stew, or somesuch name.
Noir understood brinksmanship. He revealed nothing
about himself, and courteously steered conversation to
politely discourage intrusion into his personal
affairs. Cary could not help but try to gain
information. From what he had gathered from his
daughter child love, Noir was the closest link to G2S
that had ever been discovered.
G2S was like an old chestnut. A perfectly legitimate
company that was as old as incorporation itself, it was
privately held and controlled. With a head office
situated in the Principality of Serpres, a tiny island
in the Indian Ocean, it was beyond the reaches of
conventional investigation or litigation. Every
espionage attempt that had been made, had apparently
failed. The G2S edifice seemed to be harder than a
diamond. The most intractable diamond seemed to be the
meaning of the initials themselves... G2S, goody two
shoes. Got to shit? For all he knew, it might even be
the name of a distant sun, out there in the galaxy.
Check that out, he put in memo to himself. and find..
A drill bit harder than diamond...
Cary was a private banker with affiliations with
carriage trade banks worldwide. He had done his share
of travelling from one country to the other, attending
to the specialized needs of his clients. From what he
could detect through his own contacts, Bartholemew
Hermon Noir was without a banker of any kind, but he
suspected that G2S, which probably had its own bank,
might serve as Noir's bank.
This told Cary two things about Noir. Firstly, he was
a man beyond the boundaries of the conventional. He
shared with street people the lack of a bank account,
he had no social security number, nor any insurance
policies. Not much of anything, except a driver's
license. Secondly, on contingency, if he had some sort
of banking arrangement with G2S, or one of its
subsidiaries, he must have a special relationship with
them. Why?
There was one other possibility that did not fail to dawn upon Cary. Noir was
someone that he had identified, by luck, through his daughter's
curiosity. Perhaps there were others who, like Noir, had
bypassed normal channels of infrastructure interaction.
Cary was smitten by the mystery of it all. Not to mention,
a bit envious.
He called his secretary. "Elaine, can you go down to
archives and dig up a dossier on a company called G2S.
You'll have to look through the files from the 1940's.
I seem to recall having looked at it about 20 years
ago. Also, see if there have been any other dossiers
compiled on that company since then."
Elaine returned, several minutes later with a thin
file. "This is all that I could find on G2S. It's
from 1948. I also ran a query on the Trace and there
have been three subsequent references to G2S, all which
refer back to this dossier."
"Is Trace the only way that we can source references?"
"No, I can put in queries to a number of other systems
under the BRS network, but I probably won't get an answer
until tomorrow. All are physical files."
"Okay. Could you do that? Also, compile a list of all of
the G2S references and request copies of those files. If
you come across any that are restricted, get that externals
guy, McKeown to open up access. Oh, one more thing. Get
the foreign languages people to translate any files that
aren't in English, but be sure to include all of the originals
with the translated copy."
"Understood."
"Thank you, Elaine."
Cary settled back to read the single page contained
within the dossier:
"G2S: A holding company located on island of Serpres, Indian
Oc. 07s:074. (See USGS-GLS 1946 00121 P.MER for reference).
Non-aligned, Serpres was never colonised by any European
nation per records of past 4c. There is no clear reason
for this, but folklore suggests that the island was found
to be a place of ill fortune, and of little value. However,
local residents engaged in trade with visiting ships, mostly
reprovisioning."
An interestingly vague statement to summarise what his
instincts told him was a very large organization. He
buzzed Elaine, and had her compile whatever maps were
on hand that showed the Indian Ocean basin. He threw
the single, yellowed sheet back into its dossier. All
that investigation had turned up, apparently was the
location of the company itself.
Moments later Elaine entered with a handful of rolls.
Leaning over, she indicated the cartographic location
of Serpres. It was part of an island group, a southern
extension of the Maldives. The map did not offer names
for the individual islands which made up the group.
"This is no good. Get me our man in the East Indias.
Maybe he can shed some light on this thing."
His call came through within a few minutes. The office
was closed for the day, it being close to midnight, local
India time. Cary found himself talking to a nonentity with
some rudimentary obfuscation skills.
"What's the name of the managing officer?"
"His name is Bid Prashadhh."
"Bid... Patch me through to him."
"Patch you sir? I am sorry, I do not understand."
"Set up a conference call from your location. Surely
you can do that."
"No, I am sorry sir, but I do not know how."
"Well then, get me his phone number and I will call him
directly."
"Oh no sir, I cannot allow that. It is very late here and
I cannot allow Mr. Prashadahh to be disturbed. Excuse me
and thank you for your understanding."
Cary paused, took a deep breath, exhaled. "What do you
do."
"I am sorry sir?"
"Your job, what is your function."
"I am a transactions clerk."
"I see. Well clerk, The only word of advice that I
can give you is that when a call for any reason comes
from New Amsterdam, you should notify your managing
officer. I suggest you do that now. Have Mr. Pravdash
call me within five minutes, do you follow me?"
"This I cannot do. Who is to say that you are not some
criminal with bad motives against..."
What but dismal could his day become with static such as
this. Some parts of the banking community were a bit antiquated,
but this was backward. He reflected upon the absurdity of
the conversation just passed as he disengaged. 'She disclosed
my sequence disengage, disengage' he fumed. Telephones were
so impersonal.
The phone blipped, random fashion. He hit talk, barked
"Cary here."
"Joyce here. Pardon me, Noir to you Francis. My suspicions
are that you are doing some digging. My latest query shows
a total of twenty seven records containing the keywords
G2S or Serpres. Cut to the chase, Cary. If you want an appointment,
I'll give you one."
"When."
"Now if you like. Head to the elevator of your choice,
empty it, for I am reclusive, lift the emergency
receiver, and when the person on the other end asks you
what the problem is, say, and use these exact words,
'nine six times', hang up and wait. I'll expect you
shortly." The line went dead.
"What?"
Elaine looked in, "Did you want something sir?"
He was distracted. She came to his side, kneeling. "Would
you like a glass of water?" He gazed into her eyes. She
had become his strength. Her beauty came so very close to
that of his daughter, his sister, his wife, his mother.
She was part of the family. He had decided to have another
child. His wife had become too ill for childbearing, and
the inherited gene that had followed her line doomed their
children; the family also seemed to age more rapidly than
others. Free of the marker, Elaine would bear his next family,
once she reached her maturity. They would move to Japan,
perhaps Canada after that; returning home to Amnesia an
integral family. Distanced by travel, altogether integral.
But for now, he brushed her hair back, and kissed her softly
on her forehead, looking into a pair of eyes that were a
mirror of his own.
His phone speaker came to life: "Time, Francis, we must
be getting on. Remember, nine six times."
Cary stood statue still as the elevator moved upward. He
had felt ridiculous reciting the code but the person at
the other end merely responded by saying thank you. He pondered
on the power of a man who had offices on a floor higher
than his own. This was a venerable building, by invitation
only in practice. Tenants liked it that way. In his grandfather's
day, Sarnoff had walked these halls. The Major had an antenna
array on the roof, a laboratory in the penthouse.
The elevator door opened, revealing a cavernous space
filled with antiquated transmitting equipment. Noir stood
in front of a glass wall, behind which lay a series of massive
vacuum tubes.
"Ah, you made it. See these?" He pointed to the large
tubes. "The secret lay in voltage, ultimately. Armstrong
planned for the future when he fabricated them. When he
placed them in service they dissipated five kilowatts, open
ended. The plates are pure platinum, and can easily withstand
two hundred kilowatts, assuming you could deliver that much
power to them. Now they are running fifty thousand in class
C. The Yankee Broadcasting Network, station one. Forty four
point one megacycles, channel one. Interference indeed!"
"Cary paused, then queried: "You've lost me, I'm afraid."
Noir fixed a stern glance. "History lesson time. You were
a kid when this all took place. This workshop was where
Armstrong spent a good few years during the Thirties. He
came in here hoping to create a box that would take static
out of broadcasting. In the end, he developed a new model
for transmitting and receiving, which he called frequency
modulation. This was the site of his first transmissions,
on a frequency later assigned to television. As it happened,
that part of the spectrum, forty four to fifty Mc., began
to suffer from the most appalling interference, apparently
due to sunspot activity. So much so, that television's channel
one was abandoned. TV's loss was The Yankee Network's posthumous
gain." Noir laughed.
"Those were nasty times for Armstrong. He and Sarnoff
had been dear friends during the youthful twenties, and
practically all of the successes attained by Sarnoff's company
were built on Armstrong's ideas and designs. When Sarnoff
refused to support Armstrong's new technology, he also made
it difficult for the man to succeed on his own. He kicked
him out of this space to clear it for television experiments,
and then refused to pay royalties due to Armstrong when
the FCC declared that television audio would be broadcast
via frequency modulation, and convinced others to withhold
payment as well. Then he struck a death blow by convincing
the FCC to reassign FM to a bandspread some 50 megacycles
higher, thereby rendering useless all of the Armstrong radios
that were in service.
"Some years later, after Sarnoff and his gang had driven
Armstrong beyond the point of no return, a decision was
made to mothball this laboratory. It was saved by the intercession
of a major shareholder who put his foot down, called in
a few favours from friends in the Marconi family who also
owned shares, and got this whole part of the building taken
out of circulation in perpetuity. The shareholder, who admired
Armstrong greatly, reinstated the lab as it had been during
the development of FM.
"Later on, I recommissioned this transmitter at its original
frequency, along with a host of other transmitters that
are scattered across the country. If you really look hard,
you just might find one of the few tuners that can receive
the signals of Armstrong's network."
Noir moved toward the side of the transmitter booth, opening
a door that revealed ductwork behind. "Quick, give me a
hand. I've shut the air handling unit down in order to change
filters." A foursquare bank lay beyond. Noir grabbed a metal
filter by its handles. It came out of its frame to reveal
another filter behind. He handed the metal filter to Cary,
who examined it with small interest. It's description read
simply 'Type 44.' Noir came out with the filter that had
been behind it. "The one you have in your hands is washable,
and indestructible. "Before the filter that I'm holding
was added, the prefilter which you are holding was oiled
to increase its efficiency. Ingenious. These two are safety
filters now, more than anything, since the outside air passes
through much more modern equivalents."
"That's all very good, Noir, but I didn't come here to
help you change filters."
"Pity, because I could use a hand.
He backed off, turning, and pointed to the tubes behind
the glass wall. They were glowing a brilliant white, radiating
the heat that Cary felt.
"There is now an ambient temperature in excess of seventeen
hundred degrees farenheit within the vacuum of those tubes.
They are capable of getting hotter still. An ordinary transmitter
tube would be a molten pile at this point." He threw a switch
and adjusted some controls on a large panel. "I run stress
analysis whenever I do maintenance. Force of habit, really."
He turned to face Cary. "You could use a drink."
