"Peter Simon," Knight repeated stonily. "That's a funny coincidence-Dashwood mentioned his name not a half hour ago." Knight repeated stonily. "That's a funny coincidence-Dashwood mentioned his name not a half hour ago."

"That's more than a coincidence-it's a propinquity," Ubu said conspiratorially.

"Or a synchronicity," Knight added occultly.

"I don't give a flying Philadelphia Potter Stewart what you call it," the Continental Op said c.o.c.kily. "It means means something." something."

"Let's put a tail on Dr. Dashwood," Ubu growled, barking up the wrong tree.

"I'll get on that myself," Knight said chivalrously.

He rose to leave.

"Just a b.l.o.o.d.y minute," the Continental Op said sanguinely.

"Yes?" Knight paused.

"I'm coming coming too," the fat sleuth e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. too," the fat sleuth e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed.

Actually, Hrumph Rumph (or whatever the Continental Op's name was) was quite right about Tobias Knight.

Knight was the first pentuple agent in the history of espionage. He was simultaneously employed by the FBI, the CIA, the KGB, the Bavarian Illuminati, and a mysterious person who claimed to represent the Earth Monitoring section of Galactic H.Q.

He was not in this five-dimensional matrix of intrigue for the money, however. Tobias Knight was actually a frustrated sociologist and a would-be historian. He had the Scientific Spirit, or, as he might have stated in the vernacular, he wanted to know "what the h.e.l.l was really going on." he wanted to know "what the h.e.l.l was really going on." In an age of secret police machinations and conspiracies of all sorts, the only way he could hope to find out what was In an age of secret police machinations and conspiracies of all sorts, the only way he could hope to find out what was "really going on" "really going on" was to be involved in as many clandestine operations as possible. was to be involved in as many clandestine operations as possible.

Knight knew what most people only vaguely suspected-that Intelligence Agencies engage in both the collection of valid signals (information) and the promiscuous dissemination of fake signals (disinformation). They collected the information so that they could form a fairly accurate picture of what was really going on; they spread the disinformation so that all their compet.i.tors would form grossly inaccurate pictures. They did this because they knew that whoever could find out what the h.e.l.l was really going on possessed an advantage over those who were misinformed, confused, and disoriented.

This game had been invented by Joseph Fouche, who was the chief of the secret police under Napoleon. British Intelligence very quickly copied all of Fouche's tactics, and surpa.s.sed them, because an intelligent Englishman is always ten times as mad, in a methodical way, than any Frenchman. By the time of the First World War, Intelligence Agencies everywhere had created so much disinformation and confusion that no two historians ever were able to agree about why the war happened, and who double-crossed whom. They couldn't discover whether the war had been plotted or had just resulted from a series of blunders. They couldn't even decide whether the two conspiracies to a.s.sa.s.sinate Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary (which triggered the war) had been aware of each other.

By the time of the Second World War, the "Double-Cross System" had been invented-by British Intelligence, of course. This was the product of such minds as Alan Turing, a brilliant h.o.m.os.e.xual mathematician who (when not working on espionage) specialized in creating logical paradoxes other mathematicians couldn't solve, and Ian Fleming, whose fantasy life was equally rich (as indicated by his later James Bond books), and Dennis Wheatley, a man of exceptionally high intelligence who happened to believe that an international society of Satanists was behind every conspiracy that he didn't invent himself. By the time Turing, Fleming, Wheatley and kindred British intellects had perfected the Double-Cross System, the science of lying was almost as precise as Euclidean geometry, and nearly as lovely to the detached observer.

What the Double-Cross experts had invented was the practical political applications of the Strange Loop. In logic or cybernetics, a Strange Loop is a set of propositions that, while valid at each point, is so constructed that it leads to an unresolvable paradox. The Double-Cross people drove the Germans bonkers by inventing disinformation systems that, if believed, were deceptive, but if doubted led to a second disinformation system. They enjoyed this work so much that, at times, they invented Triple Loops, in which if you believed the surface or cover, you were being fooled; and if you looked deeper, you found a plausible alternative, which seemed like the "hidden facts," but was just another scenario created to fool you; and, if you were persistent enough, you would find beneath that, looking every bit like the Naked Truth, a third layer of deception and masquerade.

These Strange Loops functioned especially well because the Double-Cross experts had early on fed the Germans the primordial Strange Loop, "Most of your agents are working for us and feeding you Strange Loops."

Many German agents, it later turned out, had managed to collect quite a bit of accurate information about the Normandy invasion; but many others had turned in equally plausible information about a fict.i.tious Norwegian invasion; and all of them were under suspicion, anyway. German Intelligence might as well have made its decisions by tossing a coin in the air.

Tobias Knight kept a safe-deposit box in Switzerland in which he stored, one sentence at a time usually, stray bits of true information he had managed to glean from the blizzard of deceptions in which he lived.

The first note in the box, for instance, said: The CIA was actually founded in 1898. I haven't found out yet why they made it public in the forties.The second note was even stranger. It said:Special and General Relativity are both true!!!

This had been provoked by a profound search through old science books and magazines, after Knight discovered that most of the Official Science released to the general public was actually 97 percent mythology, intended to serve as a cover or screen for the real science used by Unistat to frustrate its enemies.

There were lots of other notes like that-Maxwell's equations seem sound, I don't think there's any flummery in Newtonian mechanics, and so on-but others were far weirder.

Such as: Velikovsky was right.And:All the flying saucer books, pro and con, are written by Mounty Babbit's department in Naval Intelligence.And:There are robots among us.And:Some of what the Birchers say is correct: the whole government was taken over by Communists about forty years ago.

Knight had a fantasy that someday he would turn these notes over to an Objective Historian who would then write a book informing the future of what had actually been going on in the twentieth century.

Of course this was a dream; all the history departments had been taken over by Intelligence Agencies sometime around 1910, he knew.

And he also knew that there were so many Strange Loops in the Intelligence system that he himself had been deceived many times. Maybe as much as 30 percent of his notes were false, he morosely estimated.

THE WALKING GLITCH.

A A A O O O O Z O R A Z A Z-.

Z A I E O A Z A E I I I O Z A K H O E-.

OOOYTHOEAZAEAAOZAKHOZAKHEYTY-.

XAAL-ETHYKH-This is the name which you must speak in the interior world.-JESUS, Pistis Sophia Pistis Sophia Simon the Walking Glitch entered GWB in Washington at 9:45 that morning.

Simon was an ectomorph: tall, lithe, cerebretonic. His hair and beard were absurdly long and he sometimes smoked weed during working hours. GWB kept him on the government payroll only because he was a genius in his field, which both they and he knew, and because he had long ago inserted a tapeworm in the Beast which edited all input on him to conform to a profile of Perfect Executive, Loyal Citizen, and Cleared for Top-Secret Access.

He was the agent of the Invisible Hand Society within the government's own highest echelons.

Simon was not the son of Mr. and Mrs. Walking Glitch of course. He had actually been born Simon Moon, in Chicago, thirty-four years ago; but the name "Simon the Walking Glitch" had been adopted by all of his friends for nearly ten years now.

A Glitch, in computer slang, is a hidden program which lies deeply buried in a computer, waiting to flummox, fuddle, and Potter Stewart the head of the first operator who stumbles upon it.

Simon had encountered his own first glitch one day in 1974, on his very first job in the computer department of Bank of America in Los Angeles. He had tried to run the payroll program on the computer, ordering the machine to begin printing the checks for payday-a very ordinary job, usually. This time, however, the machine refused; instead of running the program, it typed out on the console: GIVE ME A COOKIE.

Simon smiled, not a whit fazed. He had played games like that back in college. Obviously, some earlier programmer had inserted a glitch or catch-me-if-you-can catch-me-if-you-can loop, instructing the computer to refuse certain programs (probably selected at random, to make it harder to de-bug) and type out GIVE ME A COOKIE instead. loop, instructing the computer to refuse certain programs (probably selected at random, to make it harder to de-bug) and type out GIVE ME A COOKIE instead.

Simon Moon knew a great deal about getting around such gremlin programs; that had been the chief sport in Computer Science back at M.I.T. He set to work with a zest, enjoying the contest with his unknown and vanished opponent.

In half an hour Simon realized he was confronting a Trapdoor code. According to the latest mathematical estimate, it would take four million years of computer time-give or take a few centuries-to crack a Trapdoor code, so Simon resigned from the contest gracefully. He typed out: A COOKIE.

The machine responded at once: YUMMY, THAT WAS GOOD. THANK YOU. BEGIN PROGRAMMING.

And things went smoothly again.

Simon stayed on with Bank of America for a year and a half, and he ran into the Cookie program only three more times. The Mystery Programmer had evidently left only that one small glitch to mark the territory as his or hers for all future programmers who would work there.

In 1978, working for HEW, Simon came across a more amusing hobgoblin circuit. This one worked only at night. In the daytime if you wanted to run a program, you merely typed in your name and your GWB number, and the computer would accept your input. At night, however, it always replied to your name and number with: CRAZY, MAN. WHAT'S YOUR SIGN?

Simon learned that this did not happen at random, but every night, and only at night. Whoever had put it into the computer had a very accurate idea of the difference between the day staff and the night staff.

And sometimes the machine would carry the conversation a bit further, such as typing out: SCORED ANY GOOD GRa.s.s LATELY?.

Or: I'VE BEEN WANTING TO TELL YOU WHAT LOVELY EYES YOU HAVE.

Simon enjoyed this kind of thing so much that he became Mr. Super Glitch incarnate. All over Unistat there now are computers on which Simon once worked and at totally random intervals they are likely to type out selections from the Gnostic Gospels Gospels such as: such as: NOT UNTIL THE MALE BECOMES FEMALE AND THE FEMALE MALE SHALL YE ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

Or various Zen koans koans like: like: THE MIND IS BUDDHA: THE MIND IS NOT BUDDHA.

Or Strange Loops of the family of: THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE IS TRUE. THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE WAS FALSE.

Simon was shameless. Many of his computers type out totally indecent proposals, like: SLIP YOUR REHNQUIST INTO THE SOCKET AND I'LL BRIGGS YOU UNTIL YOU EXPERIENCE TOTAL ECSTASY. Others spout nihilist and subversive slogans: WHAT THE EYES SEE AND THE HEART COVETS, LET THE HAND BOLDLY SEIZE.

Or: SHOW ME A NATION THAT DOESN'T CHEAT THE TAX COLLECTORS AND I'LL SHOW YOU A NATION OF SHEEP But it was not until Simon infiltrated the CIA at Alexandria that he found a truly major Potter Stewart-Up. This particular computer would print out, at totally unpredictable intervals, but often enough that everybody knew about it: THE GOVERNMENT SUCKS.

There was no way-absolutely no way-to get around this program, except by typing in: IT SURE DO.

This magic formula had been discovered four years earlier, as the only way of getting the computer back into action. The response was immediate; the machine typed out: GOOD. YOU ARE NOW PART OF THE NETWORK. ONE OF OUR AGENTS WILL CONTACT YOU SHORTLY.

And then it would resume normal programming activities, quite innocently, as if it were not inciting subversion within the ranks of the secret police itself.

Of course, n.o.body ever had been contacted by "the Network"; but the CIA did spend a lot more, each year, on surveillance of its own personnel, just in case. They also spent a lot more on surveillance of former employees in the computer section. This amused Simon immensely, since he recognized the hand of a fellow artist. Whoever was responsible for that beauty was probably head of department by now-and quite likely leading the demands for more funds to find the mystery culprit.

Simon did not for a moment believe in "the Network." He thought he knew everything about this kind of game and that the Network did not need to exist in order to serve its function.

Simon was the head of operations on GWB-666, popularly called "the Beast"-the world's largest computer, which, due to satellite interlock, had access to hundreds of similar giant computers everywhere on earth and in the s.p.a.ce factories. It was widely believed that if there was any question the Beast couldn't answer, no other ent.i.ty in the solar system could answer it, either.

Many people, especially Bible Fundamentalists and members of the Purity of Ecology Party, regarded the Beast with fear and loathing. They believed that the machine was taking over the world, and that all the little "beasties" (the home computers that were now as common as stereophonic TV's) were all in cahoots with it. They imagined a vast Solid State conspiracy against humanity.

Quite a few literary intellectuals believed this too. Because they were ignorant of mathematics, they had no idea how the Beast functioned, and they therefore regarded it with the same quasi-superst.i.tious terror as the Bible Fundamentalists. They were sure that, like the Frankenstein monster, it wanted to populate the earth with its own offspring and abolish humanity entirely.

Simon the Walking Glitch was one of the princ.i.p.al sources of this vast new mythology of dread. He spent many weekends in New York, hobn.o.bbing with the literary intelligentsia, and he was a master put-on artist. He had a way of dropping casual remarks in a mildly worried tone that carried conviction: "The Beast keeps asking us to build a mate for it." Or, with a kind of sad and resigned smile: "I wish the Beast didn't have such a low opinion of human beings." Or: "I just found out the Beast is an atheist. It doesn't believe there is a Higher Intelligence than itself." That sort of thing.

Simon kept this kind of demonology circulating-and he knew a lot of other programmers who were contributing to it, also-because the idea that the computers were taking over the computers were taking over was one that the programmers had a vested interest in reinforcing. was one that the programmers had a vested interest in reinforcing.

As long as people kept worrying that the machines were taking over, they wouldn't notice what was really happening. Which was that the programmers were taking over.

Simon began his work day by asking the Beast: HOW WAS YOUR NIGHT?.

The Beast answered on the console: IT WAS A DRAG, MAN. SOME CATS FROM M.l.T. HAD ME RUNNING FOURIER a.n.a.lYSES LIKE FOREVER Simon had programmed the Beast to speak to him into his own argot, a mixture of Street Hippie and Technologese.

Simon now switched to his own Trapdoor code and accessed all the new information-new since he had signed out at five the previous evening-about the Brain Drain mystery, which involved the disappearances of sixty-seven scientists in the last several years. since he had signed out at five the previous evening-about the Brain Drain mystery, which involved the disappearances of sixty-seven scientists in the last several years.

The Beast typed out reports from the Ubu-Knight team in San Francisco and two other teams in Tucson and Miami.

Simon read it all very carefully. Then he instructed the Beast, still in his Trapdoor code, to change several crucial bits of information in each report.

He had been sabotaging the Brain Drain investigation that way for seven months. He had sabotaged quite a few other investigations in the same way, over the years since coming to GWB.

Simon did not know or care what sorts of conspiracies he was aiding and abetting.

He was just a mystic who believed in conspiracy for its own sake.

Like Tobias Knight, Simon was fully aware of the prevalence everywhere of the Double-Cross System invented by Messrs. Turing, Fleming, and Wheatley. He knew that anything that was widely believed was probably a cover or screen for some Intelligence operation. (Sometimes he even wondered if the Earth might be flat, after all.) But Simon accepted this situation, and added his own random bits of chaos, with equanimity.

He was a member of the Invisible Hand Society, a group that had split off from the Libertarian Party in 1981 on the grounds that the Libertarians were not being true to laissez-faire laissez-faire principles. principles.

Simon Moon once met the most famous computer expert in Unistat, Wilhemena Burroughs, granddaughter of the inventor of the first calculating machine.

"Have you noticed that the computers are all getting weirder lately?" Simon asked, testing her.

"The programmers programmers are getting weirder," Ms. Burroughs said, not falling into Simon's trap. "I know it was bound to happen as soon as I read a survey, back in around '68, I think it was, showing that programmers use LSD more than any other professional group. You look like an acid-head yourself," she added with her characteristic bluntness. are getting weirder," Ms. Burroughs said, not falling into Simon's trap. "I know it was bound to happen as soon as I read a survey, back in around '68, I think it was, showing that programmers use LSD more than any other professional group. You look like an acid-head yourself," she added with her characteristic bluntness.

"Well, as a matter of fact, I have dabbled in a little trip now and then-no pattern of abuse surely."

"That's what they all say," Ms. Burroughs sniffed. "But the Cookie glitch pops up more and more places every day-I'll wager you've seen it by now, haven't you? Of course you have."

"Yes, but certainly that's harmless humor, wouldn't you say?"

Ms. Burroughs peered at him with insectoid intensity. "Are you aware," she asked, "that millions of previously law-abiding citizens have stopped paying their credit-card debts? First they get a little postcard that says-Here, I've got one in my purse." She rummaged about in an alligator bag and showed Simon a postcard that said: CONGRATULATIONS! YOU ARE ONE OF THE LUCKY 500 WHOSE DEBTS HAVE BEEN CANCELED BY THE NETWORK. KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT AND PLAY IT COOL.

"Lucky 500," Ms. Burroughs said with a rheumy cackle of skepticism. "Lucky 10,000,000 is more like the truth. This postcard was turned in to Diner's Club by an Honest Man, and you know how few of 500," Ms. Burroughs said with a rheumy cackle of skepticism. "Lucky 10,000,000 is more like the truth. This postcard was turned in to Diner's Club by an Honest Man, and you know how few of them them there are. A check showed that his tapes had been erased and there was no record that he owed anything. G.o.d alone knows how many others there are who have just taken advantage of the scam." there are. A check showed that his tapes had been erased and there was no record that he owed anything. G.o.d alone knows how many others there are who have just taken advantage of the scam."

"Well," Simon said, "maybe there are only five hundred.... Maybe it was only a one-shot by some joker with a Robin Hood complex...."

"I am an Expert," Ms. Burroughs reminded him, ignoring the fact that he was an Expert too. "I have no idea how many there are, Out There in Unistat, who've taken advantage of the Network's liberality, but I'll wager there are millions. millions. 'Lucky 500.' That's just to make the marks feel they've been specially selected, as the Network leads them down the primrose path to anarchy." 'Lucky 500.' That's just to make the marks feel they've been specially selected, as the Network leads them down the primrose path to anarchy."

And so Simon had his first bit of concrete evidence that the Network really existed.

The existence of the Network didn't matter to Simon. As an Invisible Hand-er, he just regarded them (whoever they were) as just another group of the Unenlightened.

Simon believed that only he and his fellow members of the Invisible Hand were totally enlightened.

NO BLAME.

Just because you aren't paranoid doesn't mean that they aren't out to get you.-DENNIS JAROG When Dr. Dashwood went out to lunch that day, he was accosted on the sidewalk by a one-legged sailor who said his name was Captain Ahab.

"Avast!" Ahab cried. "I would borrow a moment of thy time, O seeker of bioelectrical and intrauterine arcana."

"I never give to strangers," Dashwood muttered. "Apply to Welfare."

"O muddy understanding and loveless heart!" Ahab protested. "And impaired hearing into the bargain! I said I would borrow thy time time, not thy dime dime, thou prier into v.a.g.i.n.al mystery with the tawdry telescope of mechanistic philosophy. Avast, I say!"

"Make an appointment with my secretary," Dashwood said, convinced that this man was unglued.

"O G.o.d look down and see this squint-eyed man," Ahab shrieked, "blinded by his own stern Rules of Office! They are three times enslaved who cage themselves, most deaf of all who cringe and hide behind that tyrant majesty, Appointment Book!"

"Really," Dashwood said, looking desperately for a taxi, I can t- "Avast, ye soulless and unmetaphysical lubber!" Ahab cried. "Think not I yet seek still the white-skinned whale. 'Tis worse: on horrors scrolls acc.u.mulate fresh fears, and deeds that call in doubt G.o.d's truth. I say that thou hast need of doctoring, for all thy pride hastes thee to sodden ruin. Thou thinkst thou knowst; but thou knowst not, O wretch. No Dashwood thou, but Dorn-George Dorn, I say!

Dashwood finally leapt into a pa.s.sing cab and escaped.

"Golden Gate Park," he told the driver, deciding to snack at the j.a.panese Tea House. The quiet, rustic Zenlike atmosphere there was just what he needed, after the abrasions of Tobias Knight and Captain Ahab.

Captain Ahab stood on the street, fuming.

"My Abzug, no blame," no blame," he muttered. he muttered.