Warren Murphy: Infernal Revenue

"I do not need any upgrades beyond the optical drives."

"Suit yourself. Like I said, these are the best. You planning to store data permanently, a WORM drive is your best bet. Write it once and it's on the drive forever. No accidental erasures. No more screwing around with tape drives."

"I intend to keep my tape drives as backup."

"Reasonable choice for a careful man. And you, I can tell, are careful." Kuttner shook a cluster of connecting cables. "So which is the master unit?"

"The one beside the standpipe," the disembodied voice of Jones said.

Kuttner looked around. He saw the standpipe in a corner, next to the last mainframe in the line. It was vaguely rusty, but out of the open bottom trailed a flat ribbon cable.

"Man, this baby is old."

"I have no need for cable upgrade," said the disembodied voice of Jones.

Kuttner pulled the jukebox cables to the master mainframe and started to hook everything up in a cable arrangement called a star. He kept up his end of the conversation.

"How far up does that ribbon cable go?"

"To the second floor."

Kuttner blinked. He craned his neck around and addressed Jones. "You mean you've got two whole floors between your system and your terminals?"

"Yes."

"Okay. I guess you really don't want anyone to know about this hybrid system of yours," muttered Kuttner, suddenly wondering if the mainframes had been skimmed out of some warehouse, as well. If so, it was a hell of a long time ago. Still, they had been good in their day. IDC mainframes. Too bad about IDC. Kuttner had worked for them once, back in the days when if you knew computers you could write your own ticket.

As he attached the cables, Buzz Kuttner noticed that the standpipe wasn't a standpipe. From the outside, yes, but inside it was a double sheath. Looked like copper and some other conductive metal. Maybe a nickel compound. It was the perfect shielding to soak up radio emissions. They used shielding like this on CIA and NSA computer lines so no one could intercept the radio signals computers naturally emitted and reproduce them on a remote screen. The government had a word for it. Tempest. Yeah, these cables were Tempest shielded.

What the hell kind of hospital is this? Kuttner wondered. Then he wondered if it was really a hospital at all. He remembered that Jones had given him travel instructions to Woodlawn, but in fact there were no signs. Not even at the gate. He had only Jones's word that this place was in fact Woodlawn Asylum. And how much good was the word of a guy who stayed in the shadows and called himself Jones?

Kuttner put these thoughts out of his mind. Whatever this weird place was, he had a job to do and a deadline, and best of all a big chunk of change waiting at the end of one heavy night's work. Who cared what this place actually was?

He kept talking. "Once you dedicate these jukeboxes to their tasks and roll the data off the mainframes, you can junk all but one of these old monsters, you know."

"I know."

"You need a guy to off-load your data, I got the interface. Of course, I'll have to come back with a minicomputer. I can do a direct channel link. Take maybe two or three weeks, depending on how much data you got in these mainframes."

"Thank you, no," said Jones, his voice no longer a growl but very dry. There was the suggestion of an accent. New England, or maybe the South. They had a lot in common if you really listened.

"Anyway," Kuttner resumed, "you won't need but one mainframe. Each jukebox contains one hundred optical platters, and each platter can store one hundred megabytes. You got an even dozen jukeboxes, so you're talking terabytes, if not googolbytes, of data storage and retrieval. Hell, if these XL's hold out-and that's their reputation-you won't need to upgrade until your grandchildren are great-grandparents."

"That is an exaggeration," Jones said, his voice flat.

"But not much of one, right?"

"I am not in the habit of buying a pig in a poke," Jones said. "I understand what I have acquired. The jukeboxes are sealed units. Inside is an arrangement very much like that of a record jukebox. A robot arm selects the correct WORM disk from the disk array on command and places it on the carousel for reading. It is the perfect system for Wormwood Asylum."

"I thought you said this place was called Woodlawn."

Jones cleared his throat with such violence Buzz Kuttner clenched his teeth. It was a very nervous clearing of the throat. "I misspoke," said Jones. "I was thinking of the WORM drives."

"Yeah, anybody can forget the name of the place where he works," Kuttner said dryly.

Jones said nothing, so Kuttner continued installing. Going back to the jukeboxes-they looked like squat beige refrigerators all in a row-he noticed the ragged edge of the long niche where the mainframes stood. Bits of copper showed through the poured concrete. Grounded copper mesh, he realized. These mainframes had been practically walled in and Tempest shielded.

Woodlawn Asylum, or Wormwood or whatever it was, was no run-of-the-mill nuthouse, Buzz Kuttner decided. That was for damn sure.

SOMEWHERE in the hours before dawn-reading his watch was not easy in the dim light-Buzz Kuttner finished installing the last XL SysCorp optical WORM drive data-storage units.

They purred so softly that once the triple-locked door was locked, no one standing where he stood now would suspect that an incredibly powerful hybrid computer system was operating on the other side.

"Okay, it's all set," Kuttner said, brushing concrete dust off the knees of his denim work pants.

"You have completed your task?" a voice asked. It was a different voice. Buzz Kuttner whirled. In the weak light, he saw no one.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

"I asked you a question," the voice said. Buzz Kuttner felt his heart jump high in his throat. The voice was now directly behind him. And he hadn't seen or heard anyone move,

"Who... is... there?"

"I am but a servant who cleans up untidiness," said the voice.

His heart pounding now, Kuttner declined to turn around. The voice sounded vaguely squeaky.

"You mean you're the janitor?" asked Kuttner.

"I have told you what my duties are."

"Then you're the janitor,"

"In which case," the squeaky voice countered, "you may consider yourself trash."

Kuttner turned then. He turned completely around. "Where are you?"

"Behind you."

Buzz turned again. "I don't see you."

"That is because I am behind you," insisted the squeaky voice.

It was crazy. Buzz Kuttner was turning in place, repeatedly making 360-degree turns, and the voice was continually behind him. Therefore, it could not be behind him. It was coming from somewhere else. A hidden speaker or intercom. Kuttner stopped turning in search of the source.

"What did you mean, I'm trash?" he asked the disembodied voice.

"You are a thief."

"I'm an out-of-work media consultant and technical installer just trying to make payments on a house that's worth less than the mortgage. What do you expect me to do, walk the floor in a department store?"

"Your wife would not like that," the squeaky voice suggested.

"What wife? She walked when the severance pay ran out."

"You must miss your children terribly," the squeaky voice clucked sympathetically.

"No kids. That was my one break in life."

"That is good."

"I'll say."

"For without a wife or children, a thief such as you will not be missed."

"Missed?"

The squeaky voice grew deep and sonorous, as if telling a story. "Men such as you were chosen by the pharaohs of Egypt for the important tasks of palace building. Men who would toil long days and nights, their efforts unbroken by thoughts of family."

Buzz Kuttner didn't like the way this was going, so he began backing out of the ill-lit room. The voice seemed to follow him. Now it seemed near his left ear, but that was impossible. There was no one there.