Twenty Sixty-Four

Chapter 6

At last it had happened. The message had come. All his life, he had been waiting for this.

He was walking down the long corridor of his section, almost at the spot where Marsha had slipped him her note, when he became aware that someone larger than himself was walking behind him. To excuse themselves, the person gave a small cough. Bradley stopped abruptly and turned. It was O'Neill. His bushy mustache curled at a quick smile underneath.

Finally, they were face to face. Bradley's only impulse was to run away. His heart raced violently. He was incapable of speech. O'Neill increased his stride and laid a friendly hand for a moment on Bradley's arm, so the two of them were walking side by side. He began speaking with the grave courtesy that differentiated him from the majority of Upper Management.

'I was hoping for a chance to talk to you,' he said. 'I read one of your Ronspeak posts on Fax the other day. I've heard you have an academic interest in Ronspeak.'

Bradley had recovered part of his self-control. 'Not academic,' he said.

'I—I mean, I'm no scholar. Only an admirer. It's not my subject. I've never had anything to do with the actual construction of the language.'

'But you write it so elegantly,' said O'Neill. 'That's not just my opinion. I was talking recently to a friend of yours who is certainly an expert. His name has slipped my memory...'

Again Bradley's heart throbbed painfully. It was inconceivable this was anything other than a reference to Simms. But Simms was not only dead, he was canceled, an un-man. Any open reference to him was now explicitly dangerous. O'Neill's remark was obviously intended as a signal, a codeword. By sharing a small act of truthcrime he had implicitly turned Bradley into his accomplice. O'Neill halted their slow stroll down the corridor. With the disarming friendliness he always managed to accompany the gesture, he resettled his glasses on his nose. Then he went on:

'What I really wanted to say was I noticed your post used two obsolete words. Don't worry, it's only recent. Have you seen version twelve of the Ronspeak Dictionary?'

'No,' said Bradley. 'I didn't know it was official yet. We are still using version eleven-nine in my Department.'

'Yes. The twelfth edition is not to appear for some months. A few advance copies have been circulated. Paper copies only, you understand. I have one myself. Maybe you'd like to look at it?'

'Very much so,' said Bradley, immediately seeing where this was headed.

'Some of the new developments are ingenious. The reduction in the number of verbs—that is the point that will appeal to you, I think. Let's see. I could send a courier to you with the paper version? But I nearly always forget to follow up with that. Maybe you could pick it up at my apartment some time that suits you? Wait. Let me give you my address.'

They were standing in front of a faceboogle. Somewhat absentmindedly O'Neill felt two of his pockets and then produced a small leather-covered notebook and a gold pen in the shape of miniature golf club. Bradley noticed the notebook's cover was embossed with a golf ball on a tee. Immediately beneath the faceboogle, in such a position that any AI watching at the other end could read what he was writing, he scribbled an address, tore out the page and handed it to Bradley.

'I'm usually home in the evenings,' he said. 'If not, my mandroid will give it to you.'

He was gone, leaving Bradley gaping at the scrap of paper, realizing it was pointless to conceal it. Nevertheless he carefully memorized what was written on it, and some hours later dropped it into the memory flush along with a trumpot wrapper as cover.

They spoke for a couple of minutes at most. There was only one meaning this could possibly have. It was a way of letting Bradley know O'Neill's address. 'If you ever want to see me, this is where I can be found,' O'Neill was saying to him. Maybe there would even be a message concealed in the dictionary. The thought of a paper dictionary especially excited Bradley. But one thing was certain, the conspiracy he had dreamed of existed, and he had reached the outer edges of it.

He knew sooner or later he would obey O'Neill's summons. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps after a few days—he was not certain. It was the working-out of a process started years ago. The first steps were his secret, involuntary thoughts, then the opening of the diary. He had moved from desires to explicit thoughts, thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step would be into the doors of the Department of Human Resources. He accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning. It was frightening. It was a foretaste of death, like being a little less alive. Even while speaking to O'Neill, when the meaning of the words sunk in, a chilled feeling took possession of his body. He had the sensation of slipping into deep dank water. Knowing that the watery grave was there and waiting for him did not make plunging into it any easier.