ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 28
television sets in their suburban homes. Brendon thought of perhaps walking to the park
as he had done so often before, to be alone and observe the way the orange poppies
trembled like sunlit anemone, like irresolute stringed eyes in the soft evening breeze.
The familiar voice of the man with the pipe filed into his reverie and drew his attention
yet again.
"Now, if you've ever read a major news magazine, I'm talking about the ones
printed in those huge computerized underground printing presses like the ones they ' ve
got in Red China where they make those little red books that they sometimes are thinking
about dropping in mass quantities on American cities, but of course they'll never do it
trust me, but if you're talking about any major systems you know then well you've got
to get to the source and I mean DNA. Primate survival. Brain! Believe me, I've studied
all the bullshit and I know what is really going on."
Really, Brendon thought Glad he knows.
"But I've got this idea that involves some pretty heavy-duty concepts, and I know
this may sound as far-fetched as hell but I can't talk to just anyone about this." Again
he lightly twisted his cheek between his thumb and forefinger and gave Vince a knowing
look. "You know, I mean, you know what I mean."
Vince nodded and said, "Yeah, I know what you mean." Brendon guessed that
the only thing Vince was sure of at this point was that Jim was losing him somewhere
in all this"intellectual" jargon. He understood a little about the Chinese printing press,
but no one could have tied it in with DNA. But Vince had superfluously assured Jim and
Jim again put down his pipe and pulled a ballpoint pen from his breast pocket. He made
scattered notations on the crumpled paper with the flow-charts, looked up as if in deep
contemplation, then shoved the paper into his pocket.
"Now, just for the sake of argument, I mean, just for the hypothetical, imagine
pressing the .. .I mean for the pure sake of seeing the system of the thing, imagine ...
imagine pressing the button on any major commercial city." With this he made a gesture
of pressing a button with one hand while twisting his cheek with the other hand.
Vince put down his muffin and nodded slowly. Brendon looked around at some
other customers. He was now able to block out, except at the noise level, most of what
the man with the pipe was saying.
"Now we 're talking mass destruction here-I bet they wouldn't find a body in one
piece unless of course it was like a whole-roasted chicken. That is to say, if you were
involved with something like this, believe me, some ve-ry heav-y concepts would
suddenly occur to you. Now you may think systems would go out the door here but you
know that DNA wants to replicate itself. See that's all covered in my plans, you know ,
it's all industrial."
For the first time since sitting down, Brendon acknowledged the depth of his
discomfort. No longer did he try to follow the conversation but merely watched out the
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