sort of remote-control guide to the arrow on the screen.
Right.
I began to move the mouse around, and, presto, magic, computer science at work, the arrow moved around the screen.
Oh-kay.
The mouse had a button on top. I moved the arrow on the screen to a title under “Directory browser,” and pushed the button on the mouse. Did I know what I was doing? Hell, no, but at least things were happening on the screen.
One by one, positioning the arrow and clicking the mouse, I got a series of lines of type popping up on the screen. I rattled through “NeXT Developer” and “Demos” and “Score Player.”
Fascinating. I hadn’t a clue what it all meant.
Could I penetrate into “Operation Freeload”?
Well, anything was possible.
On the screen, I had somehow summoned up a curious list of titles. The list was stacked vertically, and it read, “clouds, eagle, fish, gravity, holey, hotspin, mosaic …”
“Holey?”
I moved the arrow to “holey” and clicked the mouse.
All of a sudden it was like Chicago and the St. Valentine’s Day massacre on the screen. Bullet holes, authentic-looking bullet holes, shreds around the edges and everything, studded across the screen, and the sounds of gunfire erupted into the room.
I jumped in the chair and spilled vodka on my pants.
“Holey?” Bullet holes! Was this a computer joke? Swell sense of humour, guys.
The screen went quiet. I mopped my pants and poured a new drink.
The weird list was back on the screen. “Clouds, eagle, fish, gravity …”
Was any of this going to lead me to Operation Freeload? Or had I stumbled into some kind of computer backwater? I couldn’t fathom what was happening, but there didn’t appear to be any turning back. Where could I turn back to? I pointed the arrow at another entry on the list, “Bach fugue.” Well, why not? And I pushed the mouse’s button. I got sound again, music this time. Or something approximating music. A Bach fugue came out of the computer, but the guy at the piano wasn’t Glenn Gould. In fact, the closer I listened, the more I realized it wasn’t a person at the piano and it wasn’t a piano. The computer was playing a synthesized brand of Bach. Disillusionment was beginning to replace the euphoria I’d had when I embarked on this journey into the computer universe. The answer to Operation Freeload lurked somewhere inside the computer, but did I want to have a relationship with an instrument that sullied the works of a revered eighteenth-century German composer? Gimme a break. I went back to the oddball list and pointed the arrow at “fish.” No surprises there. A fish swam across the screen. Actually a drawing of a fish. Lot of detail in the drawing too. Same thing with “eagle.” The eagle swooped and dived and generally behaved like a patriotic American bird. I drank some more vodka and pondered the wisdom of pushing ahead. I could be sitting at the damn machine all night and never come within hailing distance of Operation Freeload. Or I could go home and think about rounding up someone who would handle the computer detail for me.
I positioned the arrow opposite “gravity” and clicked the mouse.
Everything on the screen bounced and vibrated. Words and symbols and boxes trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
Then — zip — nothing. The screen went blank, nothing except a sea of off-white.
Was this a silent metaphor? Was there a hidden message in the damn blank screen? Was the computer telling me to sign up for a course at George Brown College? Study up your Disk Drive 101 and come back in a year, fella.
“Well, thank you very much,” I said to the NeXT.
Talking out loud to an inanimate object. Bad omen. Maybe a sign I should bid adieu to the NeXT. But not to the disk. I pushed the Power button, and the machine went into another round of hums and drones. As they dwindled toward silence, the light on the screen faded to black and the slot on the annex box beside the main computer burped out the disk. Good old Operation Freeload, whatever it was.
I stuck the disk in my pocket, made one more small vodka, and organized myself to head home. The hell with technology.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At home, I phoned Pamela.
“This is the Cartwright residence.”
It wasn’t the housekeeper who answered, not unless her voice had dropped an octave since the afternoon. It was a man on the line, sounding as pear-toned and snooty as Arthur Treacher used to in the movies. I gambled it wasn’t Archie being funny, or even being serious, and asked for Mrs. Cartwright.
“May I say who is calling, sir?”
“The credit manager at Creed’s.”
“One moment, please.”
Pamela took less than one moment to get to the phone.
“Is this a joke?” she said into the receiver.
“It’s Crang.”
“Close enough.”
“Was that a real butler who answered?”
“Real part-time butler. He comes in when we have a dinner party. Which is what’s going on right now. Why are you calling? And speak fast.”
“Jamie’s got a NeXT in his den.”
“A birthday present from me.”
“What’s he do with it?”
“Plugs into the Pentagon for all I know,” Pamela said. Behind her, I could hear the subdued buzz of the party.
“There are little square disks that go with it. With the NeXT.”
“Optical disks. Get the terminology right, Crang. Those, if you want to know, hold words and pictures and sound. A person could store a whole novel on one disk, a James Michener, though God knows why anyone would want to.”
“Gee,” I said, “you’re practically an expert.”
“I couldn’t help picking up something, the way Jamie rabbits on about that bloody NeXT.”
“Did he ever rabbit on about an optical disk labelled Operation Freeload?”
“Should he have?”
“I was hoping.”
“He didn’t, and, listen, couldn’t this wait? The dinner party’s really for Archie’s sake, business friends of his. It isn’t polite for the hostess to ignore them. Or good for Archie’s business either.”
“Michel Rolland, heard of him?”
“Who’s he, the director of Operation Freeload?”
“He
