“And?” Kevin prompted.
“Suddenly, nothing. We thought Jack was putting a case together to expose the whole thing. But instead, he quit the partnership with Garsten, disappeared with a lot of money, and set up his own practice somewhere back east. That was when Eric decided that Jack never had anything, and that he—Eric—had better things to do than waste any more time on it.”
Kevin thought through the implications. Why the sudden, apparent truce? If Jack possessed evidence solid enough to deter whoever had been behind the campaign from pursuing it further, what had dissuaded him from using it? He voiced the obvious. “You’re saying that Jack was bought off?”
Corfe nodded. “I’m pretty sure of it. All the years he was there, as a potential threat, we never heard more about it. But the moment he isn’t around any more to make trouble—” Corfe broke off and eyed Kevin uncertainly. “I assume you do know about that? . . .”
“Yes, I heard about it.” Two months before, Jack Anastole had been found dead in a hotel room in Seattle after a heart attack.
Corfe nodded and went on, “The moment he’s not around to make trouble any more, suddenly it looks as if the whole thing might be about to become news again. There’s a piece in Science this month that asks if all direct neural work—in other words read ours, here at Neurodyne—ought to be put on hold until the risks have been officially checked out.”
Kevin felt genuine alarm for the first time. “You mean us? Somebody could be trying to get Dad shut down?”
“Just so.” Corfe nodded his head slowly and gave Kevin a somber look. “I think the people behind it now are the same ones who tried it before—because Eric has cracked DNC and he’s about to run rings around them. And what we’ve seen so far is only on account of supposed concern over people who work at Neurodyne. Imagine how much more attention it’ll get when the world finds out that Ohira wants to make it a public attraction.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Hey, pull up, pull up! Watch that power line.”
“I see it, Taki. What’s the matter, don’t you trust me all of a sudden? See—all perfectly under control.”
“Oh God, he’s going under!”
“Sometimes I think you pick up a bit of that neurosis from your sister.”
“There’s a duck taking off. The noise has scared it. You’ll never—”
“Wheeeee! . . . Never what, Taki?”
“Jeez! I don’t care what you say—balance sensors or not, I still feel sick.”
“Look at this tree coming up. Wow, it’s like a mountain. This is way better than Disney.”
Since they were too young to fly real airplanes, they had settled for the next best thing and fitted one of Kevin’s models with onboard controls to override the radio-actuated system so that they could fly it as mecs. After some initial setbacks and a bit of trial and error, the experiment seemed to be working out just fine. And they didn’t need cubic miles of space to contend with all the restrictions and legalities that that would have entailed. The inlet of water at the back of the house provided as much of a world as they could have wanted.
“Take it up higher so we can switch places. It’s about time I had a turn,” Taki called via the intercom.
“Okay. Let’s follow the road and see what’s going on around the neighborhood. Boy, wait till Ohira sees this!”
Inside the house, Vanessa came into the front hall carrying a box containing a loaded slide carousel for her presentation at the neurophysiology seminar being held that weekend in Seattle, and in her other hand, a brown leather briefcase. She put the briefcase down beside the overnight suitcase, plastic bag containing books and files, and hanging bag already piled by the door, and the carousel box by the folders and several large envelopes stacked on the hall table. “Let’s see,” she said, checking over the items, “change of clothes for tonight, cosmetic bag, background files, journals . . . notes! I need my notes for the talk.” She took the briefcase and went back to the den just as Harriet came down the back stairs with Vanessa’s coat and purse.