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and if one could wring the moisture from it, it could etch copper plates. When Vietnam veterans started to talk about suing because they'd been exposed to chemical agents during the war, the people in Elizabeth sponsored a march in their behalf. Eight of the veterans showed up for the parade; seven of them keeled over from having to breathe Elizabeth's air.
It was natural that the main plant of Reva Bleem's Polypussides Company would be located alongside the New Jersey Turnpike in an area where motorists were forced to use their fog lights at high noon on sunny summer days.
The plant was closed, and there was only one car in the lot, a Mercedes convertible with "REVA" on the license plates.
Remo found Reva in her upstairs office in the far corner of the building. She looked up when he pushed open the office door, and her mouth dropped open when she recognized him.
"Surprised to see me?" he asked.
"I ... well, yes ... I thought you were staying in Raleigh," she said.
"What you mean is that you thought I wouldn't be able to leave Raleigh. Ever."
"What do you want?" she asked.
"I wanted to tell you something," he said.
"What?"
"Your friend. Do you know who he is?"
"No. I told you I never met him."
"Not a him," Remo said. "An it. Your friend is a computer."
"That's ridiculous. "I've spoken to him."
"All right. It's a computer that talks, but it's still a computer. I know, 'cause I just took it apart."
She looked at him hard, then laughed even more violently than before.
"What's so funny?" Remo asked.
"It's funny 'cause I thought I was in love with him once. I used to talk to him on the phone and invite him
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over to my place. But he'd never come, and got around to thinking he was a fag. So I gave up." She stopped laughing and caught her breath. "You dismantled it?"
Remo nodded.
"But what I want to know," he said, "is what were its last instructions? Why did you get out of Raleigh so
fast?"
"He told me to get up here and start this plant producing Polypussides right away."
"Why?" Remo asked.
"Because he was going to produce another batch of rapid-breeder and dump it in the world's oil," she said.
"Friend's gone now," Remo said. "You can forget
it." "I'll believe that when I hear it from Friend," she
said.
"You'll never hear from him again," Remo said. "It's time to close down this plant."
"Not a chance," she said.
"Says who?" came a voice from behind Remo.
He wheeled around to see Oscar standing in the doorway of the office. His right hand was bandaged, but in his left hand he held a heavy pistol. Remo could see the finger tightening on the trigger, and he dropped to the floor, then rolled off to his right. He heard the crack of the gun and then Reva's scream. As he got to his feet, he saw her slumped over her desk, the top of her head blown ahnost off by the shot that had been meant for him.
Oscar was squeezing off more shots toward Remo, and Remo went up the wall of the office, and then down again near Oscar. He heard a crackling sound behind him, as he took the gun out of Oscar's hand, and then the life out of Oscar's body with a hand to the throat.
When he turned, the corner of the office was afire. One of Oscar's shots had slammed into a large container that must have contained some type of fuel. Remo could smell the oil fumes in the office. He
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started for it to put the fire out, then stopped for a moment, thought, then turned his back and left the building burning behind him. Flames were already crackling through the windows of the building as he got back onto the New Jersey Turnpike for the ride back to his hotel room in New York.
"I wish you hadn't destroyed the plant," Smith said.
"I didn't do it on purpose," Remo said. "It just kind of happened."
"I guess it doesn't matter too much. We have the formula for the artificial oil. We can use it if we ever need it again."
"Good. Can I go now?" Remo asked.
"What's the hurry? I thought you like to talk to me on the phone," Smith said.
"I'd rather have my teeth drilled."
"It was amazing, Remo, how much business and property that computer controlled. We may never know how much. Swiss banks, German auto plants, billions and billions of dollars."
"Don't tell Chiun," Remo said. "He'll want a raise. He already thinks he deserves one because he didn't sign on to become an anaerobics expert, and if you ask him to do something outside the contract, you have to pay him for it. Particularly when the computer offered him a lot better deal."
"Chiun talked to the computer?" Smith asked.
"Yeah. Twice. And Reva said it used to call and give her instructions."
"That's strange," Smith said. "I didn't find anything on those chips that indicated a voice capability. It should have been there. Now that I think about it, I remember wondering."