In its infancy the system of subconscious flashes was too primitive to be truly effective on the scale MacGulry first envisioned. He had hoped to brainwash the masses into watching his network exclusively. Unfortunately, the system was only marginally effective on those with low IQs and short attention spans. When the system was in use, Vox had its highest numbers among convicts, high-school students and mental defectives. Its best ratings were for its subliminally-enhanced teen drama Burbank, Area Code 818 and the highly successful nighttime soap Santa Monica Lane.
The risk of getting caught was high and the payoff in terms of viewers was minimal. When Robbie suggested they stop the occasional use of the cryptosubliminal technology, Friend agreed that the business risk had become too great.
By then Vox had established itself as a legitimate network. Robbie MacGulry no longer needed subliminal signals to get ratings. Friend had turned over work on improving the effectiveness of the cryptosubliminal technology to one of the smaller corporate entities. He promptly vanished.
It was the fall of 1994.
Robbie MacGulry didn't know what to think when the phone calls from Friend stopped.
When the weeks stretched into months and he still hadn't heard from his mysterious partner, MacGulry began to grow concerned. Friend had never been afraid to bend the law if it served his interests. MacGulry had always admired that trait. It was possible now that some shady dealings of the man he had never met had finally gotten him in trouble. MacGulry was afraid at first that whatever had gotten to Friend would come after him, as well. But after a few tense months, nothing materialized. Vox continued. Grew, thrived.
The months stretched into a year. Then two. Robbie manipulated the books to cut Friend out of the Vox pie. Why pay dividends to a dead man? When the ties to Friend's special computerized Swiss bank accounts were cut, the phone remained silent. Six years passed, and Robbie MacGulry was certain he was in the clear. Then one day a package arrived at Robbie's Wollongong estate. It had a U.S. postmark and had been picked up by his people at a special post-office box that had never been used before. He had almost forgotten about it. When he opened the big box, he found a battered computer drive system inside. The logo on the front was that of XL SysCorp.
MacGulry didn't know why someone would mail him something from that computer company. It had gone out of business years before. There was a note in the box: PLEASE HAVE THE VLSI CHIP IN THIS UNIT INTEGRATED INTO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM-A FRIEND.
The name rattled Robbie. It was all uppercase, so he couldn't be sure. He remembered who had set up that post-office box. Feeling a familiar queasiness, he had his computer experts do as the note instructed.
As soon as they were finished plugging in the chip, the system locked up. It didn't crash. Just seized up, refusing all attempts to access it. When they tried to call out for help, they found all the outside phone lines were busy. The computers had accessed them.
Robbie's computer people were at a loss for what to do. MacGulry was ready to order them to rip the bloody things out of the walls when the system abruptly came back online. The instant it did, the telephone rang.
Robbie knew. Just knew who was going to be on the other end of that line. He picked up the receiver with shaking hands.
"I've been lost, Robbie," Friend's warm voice announced. There was no urgency. Just the same soothing calm as always. "I've checked, and the date in your system is correct. I was hoping it wasn't. I've missed a great deal of time."
"Where have you been?" MacGulry asked. For the first time he was beginning to have an inkling who-or what-his friend really was.
Friend ignored the question. "I'll be busy for a while, Robbie. I have to check the status of my holdings. Time is money. I'll get back to you as quickly as I am able."
With that he was gone.
It was several more weeks before Robbie heard from him again. When he did, Friend's first words surprised him.
"I need to have three men killed."
"That goes beyond our original agreement, mate," MacGulry replied.
"Do you mean the same agreement you broke during my quiescent stage?"
"Quiescent?"
"While I was away, Robbie," Friend explained. "You failed to transfer Vox stock dividends to my accounts. You illegally transferred the stock to yourself. I can't fault you for this, Robbie. I would have done the same were I in your position. However, if I can forgive your duplicity, you mustn't get squeamish when I ask for something in return."
"What do you need?" MacGulry asked reluctantly.
"As I said, I need three individuals killed. One is Asian, the other two are Caucasian. They have threatened my ability to engage in free commerce in the past. I tried to ignore them. I'm interested in profit, Robbie, not homicide. Unless, of course, there's money to be made in it. But I've been forced to take a different tack with them more recently. It has come to the point that it makes good business sense to have them killed. Because of them, I've lost years of potential earnings. My losses thanks to them are conservatively calculated in the tens of billions."
MacGulry wasn't unreceptive to the idea of murder. After all, he had been around the block himself a few times.
"Who are they and where are they?"
"The first two are named Remo and Chiun. I don't know where they are. The third individual is named Harold. Although my files on the first two are relatively intact, other than his name, my information on Harold is scant."
"Hold on, hold on," MacGulry said. "You want me to have someone killed and you don't even know where to find them?"
"That's correct."
"How do you propose I do that?" Friend had a plan.
Work on the cryptosubliminal technology had been verging on a breakthrough before Friend's disappearance, but had ground to a halt in the intervening years. There had even been a field test of sorts on Japanese television. The flashes of colored light broadcast during a cartoon program in that country had given many viewers seizures. The story made international news.
Friend restarted research with a vengeance. It took almost a year, but the crude process that showed such great promise was finally perfected. It now worked on every viewer, across all social and intellectual groups.
It was the timing of the flashes that needed adjustment. When Friend's team of technicians in Wollongong altered the speed of the light pulses by just a fraction, they found that they could induce a profoundly responsive hypnotic state in which the individual's ordinary moral and ethical belief systems were completely overridden.
MacGulry saw opportunity. His American television network had long ago stopped being viewed as an industry joke. Acceptance had been hard fought and long coming. And, for the most part, it had been enough. But thanks to Friend, he now had a glimpse of even more.
To Friend the media mergers were of primary importance. The murder of the three men who had threatened him in the past would always take a back seat to a profitable business venture. Fortunately in this endeavor, business and pleasure seemed to be lining up perfectly. And as a result of the fallout, when it came time to write the history of the information age, Robbie MacGulry-the simple son of an inksmeared newspaperman from Wagga Wagga-would be the only name anyone would ever remember.
OCEAN STRETCHED out far below the quivering wings of Robbie MacGulry's corporate Vox jet.
"Have the car at the airport at seven," he said, wrapping up his phone call. He checked his watch. Early on the East Coast of America.
The sleek black phone rang the moment he hung up. Before he'd even picked up, he knew who it was. "Yes, Friend?"
"You've arranged to meet with the Asian." It was a statement of fact, not a question.
"He's meeting me at Vox in New York today."
"And the young Caucasian, Remo?"
"I don't know. When I spoke with the old one, he didn't want to talk about anyone other than himself and I didn't want to push it. He could be coming, too. And you were right about the old one's vanity. Should be an easy mark."
"Don't underestimate him. I will monitor passenger manifests into New York to see if he's alone. My last records on them indicate that they live in Massachusetts. This is old data, so it could be obsolete by now."
MacGulry leaned back in his seat, looking out the window. Sun burned bright across a blanket of clouds. "If they're such big goddamn mercenaries like you say, why don't I just buy one off and turn him against the other?"
"I tried that in the past. It didn't work. I don't think they can consciously separate their feelings of affection for each other. The records I've been able to recover indicate that the third individual, Harold, lives somewhere in New York. If Remo doesn't accompany Chiun to his meeting with you, perhaps he'll be with Harold."
"You can't know that."
"No," Friend admitted, "I can't. But if he doesn't come with Chiun to the Vox building, he'll have to be somewhere else. They are a tightly knit trio. At some point Remo will visit his superior."
"Wait, Harold is their boss?"
"Yes."