Dixie Mae thought back over the last week. There had been no strangeness about her experience at Olson Hall: the exams, the job interview. True, the johns were fantastically clean–like a hospital, now that she thought about it. She had only visited them once, right after she accepted the job offer. And then she had ... done what? Taken a bus directly out to LotsaTech ...
without even going back to her apartment? After that, everything was clear again. She could remember jokes in the Voxalot classes. She could remember meals, and late night talks with Ulysse about what they might do with this great opportunity. "It’s brainwashing," she finally said.
Ellen nodded. "It looks like Gerry has gone way, way too far on this one."
"And he’s stupid, too. Our team is going to a party tonight, downtown. All of a sudden, there’ll be sixteen people who’ll know what’s been done to them. We’ll be mad as–" Dixie Mae noticed Ellen’s pitying look.
"Oh." So tonight instead of partying, their customer support team would be in a drugged stupor, unremembering the week that never was. "We won’t remember a thing, will we?"
Ellen nodded. "My guess is you’ll be well-paid, with memories of some one-day temp job here at LotsaTech."
"Well, that’s not going to happen," said Victor. "I’ve got a story and I’ve got a grudge. I’m not going back."
"We have to warn the others."
Victor shook his head. "Too risky."
Dixie Mae gave him a glare.
Ellen Garcia hugged her knees for a moment. "If this were just you, Victor, I’d be sure you were putting me on." She looked at Dixie Mae for a second. "Let me see that email again."
She spread it out on the table. "LotsaTech has its share of defense and security contracts. I’d hate to think that they might try to shut us up if they knew we were onto them." She whistled an ominous tune. "Paranoia rages... . Have you thought that this email might be someone trying to tip you off about what’s going on?"
Victor frowned. "Who, Ellen?" When she didn’t answer, he said, "So what do you think we should do?"
Ellen didn’t look up from the printout. "Mainly, try not to act like idiots. All we really know is that someone has played serious games with your heads. Our first priority is to get us all out of LotsaTech, with you guys free of medical side effects. Our second priority is to blow the whistle on Gerry or ..." She was reading the mail headers again, "... or whoever is behind this."
Dixie Mae said, "I don’t think we know enough not to act like idiots."
"Good point. Okay, I’ll make a phone call, an innocuous message that should mean something to the police if things go really bad. Then I’ll talk to the others in our grading team. We won’t say anything while we’re still at LotsaTech, but once away from here we’ll scream long and loud. You two ... it might be safest if you just lie low till after dark and we graders get back into town."
Victor was nodding.
Dixie Mae pointed at the mystery email. "What was it you just noticed, Ellen?"
"Just a coincidence, I think. Without a large sample, you start seeing phantoms."
"Speak."
"Well, the mailing address, ‘[email protected]’. Building 0925 is on the hill crest thataway."
"You can’t see that from where we started."
"Right. It’s like ‘Lusting’ had to get you here first. And that’s the other thing. Prof. Reich has a senior graduate student named Rob Lusk."
Lusk? Lusting? The connection seemed weak to Dixie Mae. "What kind of a guy is he?"
"Rob’s not a particularly friendly fellow, but he’s about two sigmas smarter than the average grad student. He’s the reason Gerry has the big reputation for hardware. Gerry has been using him for five or six years now, and I bet Rob is getting desperate to graduate." She broke off. "Look. I’m going to go inside and tell Graham and the others about this. Then we’ll find a place for you to hide for the rest of the day."
She started toward the door.
"I’m not going to hide out," said Dixie Mae.
Ellen hesitated. "Just till closing time. You’ve seen the rent-a-cops at the main gate. This is not a place you can simply stroll out of. But my group will have no trouble going home this evening. As soon as we’re off-site, we’ll raise such a stink that the press and police will be back here. You’ll be safe at home in no time."
Victor was nodding. "Ellen’s right. In fact, it would be even better if we don’t spread the story to the other graders. There’s no telling–"
"I’m not going to hide out!" Dixie Mae looked up the hill. "I’m going to check out 0925."
"That’s crazy, Dixie Mae! You’re guaranteed safe if you just hide till the end of the work day–and then the cops can do better investigating than anything you could manage. You do what Ellen says!"
"No one tells me what to do, Victor!" said Dixie Mae, while inside she was thinking, Yeah, what I’m doing is a little bit like the plot of a cheap game: teenagers enter haunted house, and then split up to be murdered in pieces ...
But Ellen Garcia was making assumptions, too. Dixie Mae glared at both of them. "I’m following up on this email."
Ellen gave her a long look. Whether it was contemptuous or thoughtful wasn’t clear. "Just wait for me to tell Graham, okay?"
Twenty minutes later, the three of them were outdoors again, walking up the long grade toward Building 0925.
Graham the Red might be a smart guy, but he turned out to be a fool, too. He was sure that the calendar mystery was just a scam cooked up by Dixie Mae and Victor. Ellen wasn’t that good at talking to him–and the two customer support winkies were beneath his contempt. Fortunately, most of the other graders had been willing to listen. One of them also poked an unpleasant hole in all their assumptions: "So if it’s that serious, wouldn’t Gerry have these two under surveillance? You know, the Conspiracy Gestapo could arrive any second." There’d been a moment of apprehensive silence as everyone waited the arrival of bad guys with clubs.
In the end, everyone including Graham had agreed to keep their mouths shut till after work.
Several of them had friends they made cryptic phone calls to, just in case. Dixie Mae could tell that most of them tilted toward Ellen’s point of view, but however smart they were, they really didn’t want to cross Graham.
Ellen, on the other hand, was persona non grata for trying to mess up Graham’s schedule. She finally lost her temper with the redheaded jerk.
So now Ellen, Victor, and Dixie Mae were on the yellow brick road–in this case, the asphalt econocart walkway–leading to Building 0925.
The LotsaTech campus was new and underpopulated, but there were other people around. Just outside of 0999, they ran into a trio of big guys wearing gray blazers like the cops at the main entrance.
Victor grabbed Dixie Mae’s arm. "Just act natural," he whispered.
They ambled past, Victor giving a gracious nod. The three hardly seemed to notice.
Victor released Dixie Mae’s arm. "See? You just have to be cool."
Ellen had been walking ahead. She dropped back so they were three abreast. "Either we’re being toyed with," she said, "or they haven’t caught on to us."
Dixie Mae touched the email in her pocket. "Well, somebody is toying with us."
"You know, that’s the biggest clue we have. I still think it could be somebody trying to–"
Ellen fell silent as a couple of management types came walking the other way. These paid them even less attention than the company cops had.
"–it could be somebody trying to help us."