Chapter 12: Mischief

I was determined to not let the disaster depress me too much as I remembered Lexa's wish about this beautiful island. Maybe there was something we could do about evil in the long run. The harmony, the second part of her sincere wish, was already shot to hell and gone. At least for the time being and at least till I could come up with some explanation.

Not being able to make use of Alfred's mind searches, his bio-feedback, I thought about the stranger in my home. And realised that my situation was precarious, if not downright dangerous. She could, if she so wanted, cut me off here in splendid isolation and nothing I could do about that. Sure, sooner or later Alfred and Wilbur would come to the rescue, but then what? Better to be safe and make certain now.

The hop to my study went without a hitch. The house was deadly quiet and I went about my business silently as well. Hiding the PowerBook was easy, making sure that it could run continuously, and undetected, took some thinking about. The solution to the problem was rather clever, if I say so myself. With Elise being ignorant about anything technical I set up my old Mac in full view. She would not notice the difference. This setup allowed me to put the PowerBook inside the large cabinet housing my bookplate collection, well hidden behind all those books and files, the hook-up to power and net invisible, air flow sufficient to keep the machine cool and quiet. And the best, knowing where it was hidden I could reach beyond the books and files, send myself airborne and none the wiser.

When I heard our car move out from the driveway I considered going up and leaving a note for Elise. But no, it would surely spook her to have me 'go behind her back'. With heavy heart and dull mind I left for the island once more.

There was a lot of food left in the larder, ample drinks. But without a conscious decision I lived very Spartan. Got up early, did my exercises in the gym religiously, swam long lengths in the bay, said hello to the creatures and spent untold hours just staring into space. My philosopher friends let me down badly. No help forthcoming, which is not at all surprising since Nietzsche was singularly inept at handling women or any practical problems and none of the other great thinkers were shining examples in setting up inter-gender relations. They were just as miserable about it as I was.

After spending many a bleak, boringly sunny day I got into such a foul mood that I played God once more. I created booming thunderstorms, let rain lash the landscape, dabbled in hail, made storms howl around my lofty abode and felt curiously calmed by the huge mess I created. Even the roof of the ablution facilities was ripped to shreds. Good, I could do with some manual labour.

But I also needed to check over Elise's log. I could not put that dreaded task off any longer. Whatever happened, there was bound to be some clue in it. Compared to Alfred's or mine, the log was rather short and simple, listing the few ills and minor ailments as healed, adjusted, removed. Even the gall bladder trouble had only been some obstruction, easily cleared. Nothing untoward whatsoever — until I reached the next line, that is: Mindset of subject altered. Where the fuck did this come from? And who the hell did it? This was not Alfred's doing, of that I was certain. The explanation had to be in those four words. If so, we were in deep shit. Rage I felt, a murderous helpless rage. And knew I needed help.

"Alfred, Wilbur, help please."

No answer, but within moments both of them appeared some ways down the path, peering up at me. With a heavy heart I went to meet them, already immensely relieved to be not alone any longer.

"Bert, you look terrible. What happened?"

"Good of you to come so quickly, my friends. But let's go up first. I have something to show you and we will all need a drink with it."

Silently we went up to the cave were Alfred was quick to spot the logs on the table, reached for them...

"Please wait a moment longer, Alfred, have a drink now."

I poured a glass of wine for us and sat down heavily. Telling them about the healing didn't take all that long, even though I was groping for words, fighting my constricted throat, trying to describe as closely as possible the events as I experienced them.

"Look at the line just after the 'gall bladder' in the log. You may be able to tell us what this is about."

It took only one glance to shatter Alfred. He jumped up like stung, his face a deathly pallor, hands shaking so bad the sheet slipped from his grip. Wilbur snatched it up in midair, looked at it and whispered dejectedly.

"How, Alfred, how could the bastards break into our programme? The multiple passwords, the additional safeguards we installed — how, where and when did they crack them? The 'who' is immaterial at the moment I think. We discussed this, when we asked ourselves whether Bert should have access to all the features of heavy matter. We thought we were safe, guarded against all malintent. I am so sorry, Bert, sorry for you and Elise. And I am sorry for those rotten swine too, because I will not rest before I bring them down. For once and for all."

Alfred's answer was barely audible.

"It has to be somebody connected to the computer store in New York. That is the only time and place when any access to the programme was even remotely possible. Bert, I do not want to make excuses. They avail nothing. But I could not have foreseen this. I would never have involved you, you have to believe that at least.

"As to how, Wilbur, I can't even make any guesses at this stage. I need to get into the source code to find where they cracked it. Doing any work on it while we are here is extremely dangerous for all of us. They could maroon us, kill us with total impunity. Nobody could find out anything. That's it, we go back now. We will not be coming back before this is sorted out. Maybe not ever. But sort it out I will.

"Bert, please have patience with Elise. I am sure that we can reverse the brainwashing eventually. Help her as much as you can, stay gentle and tolerant, do not try and influence her mind at all. We will talk to you constantly, I promise. You will soon know, my friend. No, you don't go. I will transport you."

"Alfred, Wilbur, for once I am sorry not to have taken any photographs. I always thought the taking of pictures of people to be a decadent habit. If I had a few of our great feast together now, I should think that perhaps they could trigger Elise's original personality. What the hell. You two have to promise me: let me help in any way I can. Messing with Elise I will never forgive."

"Bert, photographs of people are silly, I agree. But they seem to satisfy some deep craving for permanency that females so often have. In other words, Sabreena sneaked a camera over here and took some pics. I will mail you a few. Maybe they work as you wish. I hope so. If not, they are still nice tokens of a fabulous time."

I hugged Alfred.

"Even if I do not know what I can do, will you let me help, please?"

"Thank you, Bert. Yes, we are in this together. Use your old computer. Wait a moment, I will fetch a small programme for your e-mails, code and decode, since we shall not speak with each other for the time being. Do not share it with anyone, use it when writing us. I do not know how safe it is for us to talk"

He was gone. I had a few quiet words with Wilbur and asked him to give my regards to Sabreena when Alfred re-appeared with a mini disc.

"Here you are, Bert. Installation instructions, the programme, codes. Hide the CD really secure, please. You may need it as a back up, but no more risks. We will keep in touch constantly. Take care. You are going now..."

Of course, Elise hadn't returned yet, the five-minute time span still applied. I switched on a couple of lights, living room, kitchen, my den, to warn her of my return, and resented the need for doing so.

This was one of the more enervating aspects of The Great Island Adventure: even though I had just spent almost a week on my own there, Elise would not know it, had no reason even to believe me if I told her. After fixing a cup of coffee, installing the programme and sending the confirmation to Alfred and Wilbur, I settled down in my chair in the living room. Waiting for Elise...

Now just imagine that a crime had been committed in my village, a rascally little murder of my slandering gossip-mongering snitch of a neighbour, with myself heavily implicated and the cops grabbing me without hesitation.

Where were you today at 11h15? Oh, you were on an island. Where is this island? You don't know? When did you go there? Today? How did you get there? You can't tell? How long have you been there? 6 days? I understand, you are going to plead insanity. It won't work, let me tell you that. Look, your neighbour was a spiteful lying bitch, we all know that, but you will still remain our guest for some very long years. After all, you cannot just bump off everybody whom you dislike. That would make it too easy, wouldn't it? And where would you stop? Save us both unnecessary hassle and tell me everything now. TELL ME!

Things could get very complicated. I wondered whether Alfred had ever considered these ramifications. No need for it, since he had been single and unattached and Wilbur would have been rather carefree too. Not that I could blame them. The danger clearly was in greater numbers. Alfred had been right when he warned me about telling the children. We would have to keep our secrets from them. With those dark thoughts going through my mind I just hoped that Elise would not mess it up completely.

Thinking of her, I heard the car arrive, the garage doors slam closed. When she came into the living room hesitantly, I got up to greet her.

"Hello, Elise, are you feeling better now?"

"No, I am not feeling better. How silly can you get? It has only been a few hours since I left that place. But I have some things to say. Don't interrupt, I will be brief.

"Berthold, I made an appointment with my doctor for tomorrow. A full physical and I am not looking forward to it. If he finds anything untoward, even the slightest thing, we are through. I could not take you messing me up with your reckless fumbling. For the time being you will sleep in one of the spare rooms. I will prepare meals for you but we will not eat together. I could not stand it. Do not approach me with your ideas of talking it over. There is nothing to say in any case. In fact, stay as far away from me as possible. You will hear it when I have got something to tell you. That is all."

This was not the Elise I had known, her warmth, her loyalty, her quiet, strong sense of humour replaced by a frightening deadness of soul. Those harsh words were spoken fast, under great pressure, yet every now and then I saw some disturbance on her face, like some stirrings from deeply within, as if she herself could not believe the words she uttered. Maybe, just maybe there was some faint hope for the two of us. Time, and Alfred, would tell.

"As you wish, Elise. But since this seems to be the time for conditions, no matter how ridiculous it may seem, I have a few conditions for you as well. Simple, really. Firstly, you are not to tell your doctor, or anyone else, about the healing. Let him check you over like a new patient. Do not, under any circumstances, tell our children about it either. Secondly, you are to stay away from my office. It is, until we sort this out together, totally off limits to you. Do not tamper with power or telephone connections. If you can agree to that, there will be a future for us. What is it to be?"

"Berthold, as if I would ever set foot into your office again. I have had my fill of your childish games, believe me. But the children, I will have to tell them something. They are bound to ask."

"Tell them whatever you like, except the truth. Paint me totally black, blame me, hate me as much as you want, let them believe I am the callous pig you make me out to be. I couldn't care less at this stage, but do not tell a word to anybody. You would be messing with things, dangerous things you don't understand. Now, do I have your word?"

Again I saw shadows of doubt on her face, in her eyes, before her features hardened again.

"Yes, you have my word, but I have one more condition for you too: stay away from the children. Do not speak with them at all. I will tell them not to phone you. And this condition will remain in place until I tell you otherwise. Now go and do whatever. Leave me alone."

Ok, final dismissal. I left her to her misery and took mine to my den. I remembered Alfred's warning to hide the disc. Options were plentiful, but every time I thought to have found a safe hiding place I had to reconsider. If somebody came looking they would not hesitate to trash everything, so inside one of my computers or peripherals was out. And nobody is silly enough to believe that books make a good spot. They would unceremoniously dump them all on the floor, if only to spite me. In the end, my options were reduced to one.

I have this small but extremely heavy hand-printing platen, over 100 kg of cast iron, an anachronism from the days of printing from lead, which I use occasionally for embossing, die-cutting and such. It can be taken apart and I had performed that odious task when moving house. Therefore I knew of the hollowed-out base plate of the platen that needed only two very large bolts to be undone to be accessible. If one were to look for the bolts and try to loosen them: good luck. They are locked from underneath, the locking screws all but invisible under multiple layers of accumulated grime. Printing ink, talcum, oil residues and other sludge. It did not take me more than an hour and a half, a torn fingernail and a sprained back to pop in the disc and fit everything back together. When I was finished there was no evidence that the bolts had ever been undone since the days of manufacture, more than 60 years in the past. Alfred's secret was safe.

Alfred answered immediately in kind when I sent him the e-mail.

"Hi, Bert. You did manage everything? Good. Wilbur and I have been very busy and made some headway already, since hacking works both ways of course. I found the man in the computer shop and I found the people behind him. Frightening, really. Have you heard about the US government farming out their more disgusting ventures to private companies under the guise of 'support'? Halliburton, DynCorp and so on? It appears that one of the more obnoxious companies amongst this elite group, CareWell they call themselves, somehow got a whiff of things and went in to exploit it for their own profit.

"The guy in the computer shop is an excellent programmer but a little too fond of gambling, it seems. He clipped money left, right and centre to feed his habit. They threatened him, rode him till he complied with their instructions. He doesn't know how they found out about the computer to be sent to you. I think they got the link from the professor or the dean. But he was told to hack it, corrupt the programme in some manner so that they could observe results. He was extremely clever with what he did, recognising my bio-feedback feature as the ideal tool to gain insight into the setup. Fortunately, and I hate the way this may sound to you, he only managed to corrupt the healing procedure for Elise. I believe it was supposed to be a first test. If he had been able to twist me during my healing the results would have been catastrophic. We were lucky, because now we can apply ourselves to rectifying things with Elise. After dealing with those bastards first, of course. By the way, the management of that shop was not involved.

"The island is still safe, as are you and Elise, I hope. There was no log entry about data being sent off yet. I have rewritten major parts of the programme, using the bio-feedback now to reject any attempt to tamper and to scramble the brain of the person doing it immediately. This part I detest, you should know me that well by now, Bert, but when he messed with Elise's mind he turned himself into the Evil One. Lexa was afraid of exactly something like that happening. The programmer is now a very harmless, bland young man, useful to sweep streets but not much else. He smiles to everybody, is very polite and humble and tries to help all around him. And he forgot how to even boot up a computer. All evidence of his hacking has been destroyed, his notes, his discs, everything. Wilbur is satisfied as well, since he used his stuff to destroy the chap's small house completely, even snapped a water mains to make sure that no trace was left. I should mention that no outsiders were hurt or suffered any losses. Possibly we will try and rescue the man when all dust has settled. By the way, he now has no interest in gambling whatsoever. Consider him healed.

"How to get at the bastards behind it all bears some heavy thinking. Only the head guys are involved, but there are quite a few of them and they are totally ruthless. Even in that illustrious circle of misfits their reputation is fearsome. They abduct, rape, kill, destroy wherever their services are needed and paid for. Have you got some ideas, Bert? Alfred."

"PS. Lexa and Sabreena send their love and ask you to be very patient with Elise. They are confident that we shall find a way out of this mess.

"PPS. I have set this mail-prog to disable printing or screen shots. Read carefully and hit Enter. The note will be deleted immediately.

"PPS. This is Wilbur meddling again. Can you come to the island? Now? He says he has some ideas he wants to discuss with us."

"Coming now. Bert."

Hiding my laptop, leaving the G4 running, I went to my miniature wine cellar and packed a few bottles, locked my den from the inside and left. Being incommunicado with Elise worked to my advantage here even if only a freak would call it that.

"Hi, Alfred, Wilbur. Good to see you again. Here, some liquid nourishment."

"I hope some things will never change. These wines look very good, Bert. You dispense your choice of fluid while Alfred and I get ready to show you what we are up against."

We enjoyed our first appreciative sips and Alfred brought up an organigram of CareWell Corporation.

"This is the enemy, Bert, from the top down. These seven names are the ones behind it all. We couldn't find anybody else in the know, even though we used my bio-feedback subliminally throughout their administration. So we have to assume that they wanted our heavy stuff for themselves. They have a permanent staff of about 50 people; they hire mercenaries as they are needed, keeping only administrative staff, a few specialist officers and non-coms on a steady payroll. Obviously, we cannot do a search of their premises; these will have to be destroyed. Easy to do and, again, no risk to innocents. They own the building, there are no tenants. It will go, together with their offshore banking accounts.

"How do we deal with the people, though? If we do not silence them forever, this island, and our heavy matter, will be finished. We could not risk leaving anything at all. But..."

"Alfred, I have told you, we will have to kill them. It is not a nice choice, I know, but what else could we do? We would be pulled into a game of chance, bad chances all the way, with all our lives at stake. I do not want that. I don't see myself as a killer, but I will do it if I have to. The alternatives are even worse. We have no guarantee, your words, that your bio-feedback would scramble them as securely as that hacker bloke."

"Bert, do you agree to that? Should we do it as Wilbur suggests, since killing the lot of them would be easy. We do have the means. There would be no way whatsoever that we could be found out." His voice faded to a mere whisper. "We got ourselves a licence to kill."

A heavy, deadly silence settled over us as these cold words sank in. It would all be so easy: bump the top guys off, raid their little savings books, incinerate the building and that's it, we are home scot-free. But, damn it, we would be monsters ourselves, our careless pranks, our innocent gluttonous orgies and, yes, our searching talks in the quiet nights, our wrestling with the ideas of the great thinkers of the world, the fun of science, Wilbur's greatest contribution, would be a thing of the past, never to be enjoyed again. I said as much.