Read Online 15 - The Utopia Affair by David McDaniel - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David McDaniel
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Dodgson; she didn't care. She touched the Clear button and punched in the next report.
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a pretty colored girl in a neat gray uniform answered a flashing red light and saw a line of green type march across her viewscreen.
1311670235 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 LOCATED PROBAB 74%. INFORM COUREP. Q: ACTION ADVISORY.
The operator was there for one reason: to introduce a flexible human element into what might otherwise become a mindless juggernaut of relentlessly irrational logic, basing everything on some piece of false or inaccurate data such as would inevitably pass into the vast memory banks. Her job was to fill gaps purposefully left in the chain of communication; in the present instance the Ultimate Computer had no way of knowing if the Council Representative was asleep, in conference, or didn't care, and her job was to decide whether he should be awakened at half past one in the morning.
She was aware of the Waverly situation; she tightened her lips and reached for a red telephone handset.
1311670241 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 AT UTOPIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA NAME OF LEON DODGSON PROBAB 78%. Q: ASSASSINATION.
A short elderly man in flowered pajamas sat at a desk in a bare office. The walls were stained concrete, and looked as if they sweated. Acoustical panels stood on painted lines here and there about the room, cables snaked through covered troughs in the concrete floor, and the wide steel desk bore no telephone, no pen and pencil set, no blotter. A screen rose up from its center, a typewriter keyboard extended to the old man's elbow, and a single fat loose-leaf notebook, heavily tabbed, lay open just to his right. To his left stood a beaker of coffee and a half-filled cup.
The message stood on his screen in block letters, awaiting an answer with the patience of the machine. He studied it for several seconds, then turned to the typewriter keyboard. The screen faded as he touched a switch, and as he typed other letters appeared.
DE: COUREP LIST METHODS AND PROBAB SUCCESS.
1311670243 Z UCR Q: DATA UTOPIA. SCANNING FILES.
He had hardly time to read the answer before it vanished and was replaced by five lines.
LOW-YIELD THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON: 97%
HIGH-SPEED SATURATION SHELLING: 91%
INFECTION OF AREA: 42% - 90%
POISON WATER SUPPLY: 82% - 89%
ATTACK DEPARTING AIRPLANE: 62%
The Council Representative stared at the screen and shook his head. Sometimes the Ultimate Computer seemed frighteningly ignorant of the real world. That was his job. He rejected the list and tapped at his key board for a second.
COUREP PROBAB SUCCESS COVERT METH ODS.
1311670245 Z UCR COVERT METHODS PROBAB
SUCCESS 28% - 51%. SAKUDA MATSUJIRO AND
KIAZIM REFET AVAILABLE THRUSH EASTERN.
Q: PULL FILES.
Their files were projected on command from micro film chips, complete with photographs of the gentlemen concerned. The Japanese was just past fifty years old, and the Turk was scarcely five years younger, but the two of them had a record for dealing silent death unmatched and unapproached within Thrush. Refet was better than expert with every weapon known to man; he could hurl a bola, shoot pips out of playing cards, trim moustaches with a bullwhip, juggle a broad axe, spin a quarterstaff and throw tomahawks. His favorite personal weapon was a perfect reconstruction of the original Bowie knife, designed by Rezin and made famous by Jim. He had been seen to nail a flying beetle to a ceiling with it. He was second in rating to his partner.
Matsujiro had been with Thrush only three years. He had brought with him twenty years of training in the secret practices of Shin-Jitsu, and was the only Ninja ever to have deserted the Emperor's bodyguard and sold his traditions for gain. It was said that he could hide from an army in an acre of woods without even climbing a tree; he could kill a man with a blow from a single finger, and could so gauge the blow that his victim would remain unaware of serious injury for several days
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a pretty colored girl in a neat gray uniform answered a flashing red light and saw a line of green type march across her viewscreen.
1311670235 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 LOCATED PROBAB 74%. INFORM COUREP. Q: ACTION ADVISORY.
The operator was there for one reason: to introduce a flexible human element into what might otherwise become a mindless juggernaut of relentlessly irrational logic, basing everything on some piece of false or inaccurate data such as would inevitably pass into the vast memory banks. Her job was to fill gaps purposefully left in the chain of communication; in the present instance the Ultimate Computer had no way of knowing if the Council Representative was asleep, in conference, or didn't care, and her job was to decide whether he should be awakened at half past one in the morning.
She was aware of the Waverly situation; she tightened her lips and reached for a red telephone handset.
1311670241 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 AT UTOPIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA NAME OF LEON DODGSON PROBAB 78%. Q: ASSASSINATION.
A short elderly man in flowered pajamas sat at a desk in a bare office. The walls were stained concrete, and looked as if they sweated. Acoustical panels stood on painted lines here and there about the room, cables snaked through covered troughs in the concrete floor, and the wide steel desk bore no telephone, no pen and pencil set, no blotter. A screen rose up from its center, a typewriter keyboard extended to the old man's elbow, and a single fat loose-leaf notebook, heavily tabbed, lay open just to his right. To his left stood a beaker of coffee and a half-filled cup.
The message stood on his screen in block letters, awaiting an answer with the patience of the machine. He studied it for several seconds, then turned to the typewriter keyboard. The screen faded as he touched a switch, and as he typed other letters appeared.
DE: COUREP LIST METHODS AND PROBAB SUCCESS.
1311670243 Z UCR Q: DATA UTOPIA. SCANNING FILES.
He had hardly time to read the answer before it vanished and was replaced by five lines.
LOW-YIELD THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON: 97%
HIGH-SPEED SATURATION SHELLING: 91%
INFECTION OF AREA: 42% - 90%
POISON WATER SUPPLY: 82% - 89%
ATTACK DEPARTING AIRPLANE: 62%
The Council Representative stared at the screen and shook his head. Sometimes the Ultimate Computer seemed frighteningly ignorant of the real world. That was his job. He rejected the list and tapped at his key board for a second.
COUREP PROBAB SUCCESS COVERT METH ODS.
1311670245 Z UCR COVERT METHODS PROBAB
SUCCESS 28% - 51%. SAKUDA MATSUJIRO AND
KIAZIM REFET AVAILABLE THRUSH EASTERN.
Q: PULL FILES.
Their files were projected on command from micro film chips, complete with photographs of the gentlemen concerned. The Japanese was just past fifty years old, and the Turk was scarcely five years younger, but the two of them had a record for dealing silent death unmatched and unapproached within Thrush. Refet was better than expert with every weapon known to man; he could hurl a bola, shoot pips out of playing cards, trim moustaches with a bullwhip, juggle a broad axe, spin a quarterstaff and throw tomahawks. His favorite personal weapon was a perfect reconstruction of the original Bowie knife, designed by Rezin and made famous by Jim. He had been seen to nail a flying beetle to a ceiling with it. He was second in rating to his partner.
Matsujiro had been with Thrush only three years. He had brought with him twenty years of training in the secret practices of Shin-Jitsu, and was the only Ninja ever to have deserted the Emperor's bodyguard and sold his traditions for gain. It was said that he could hide from an army in an acre of woods without even climbing a tree; he could kill a man with a blow from a single finger, and could so gauge the blow that his victim would remain unaware of serious injury for several days
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