“You’re the first that we know of, so far.”
“It’s gone way past anything that was planned. I don’t know how it got to be taken this far, but the results are amazing.”
There was a pause, as if this was not the kind of reaction that Zehl had been expecting. “You’re . . . satisfied, then?” he said finally.
“Yes, for the most part,” Corrigan replied. “The memory-suppression took some figuring out at first, but I’m better off without it.”
“How do you mean?”
“It works better this way. I can do a lot more on the inside, now that I know what’s what. We should have set it up this way to begin with.”
“Okay.” There was an edge of relief in Zehl’s voice. “So it seems to be working out.”
“There might be a problem. One of the other surrogates has cottoned on to what’s happening too. The trouble is, she doesn’t know so much of the background, and she was pretty mad about the whole situation when I talked to her. I’m worried about what she might do.”
“Why not talk to her? Tell her whatever she needs to know. It can’t make a lot of difference now.”
“That’s what I want to do. The trouble is, I can’t locate her. What I need you people out there to do for me is . . .” Corrigan’s voice trailed off as he caught sight of the tall, dark-haired figure in a long coat, just coming into the lounge. He nodded a quick acknowledgement as he caught her eye, and turned his face back to the phone. “It’s okay. You don’t have to bother. I’ll call you back later. Guess what. She just walked in the door.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“I understand that congratulations are in order,” Jason Pinder said from behind the desk in his office in the Executive Building. It was a meticulously neat office, with everything arranged logically and every need anticipated. “You never cease to surprise us, Joe. Well, give my best wishes to Ms. Vance. . . . No, that’s wrong, isn’t it. It’s Ms. Corrigan now. Anyway, I hope you’ll both have a fine future.”
“Thanks,” Corrigan said from the chair opposite. It was his first morning back. The summons to Pinder’s office had come minutes after he appeared in the lab. Corrigan didn’t believe it was just so that Pinder could be the first to offer his best wishes.
Pinder stroked his mustache with a knuckle and regarded Corrigan pensively for a moment before continuing. “I wouldn’t want to spoil the romance of a time like this, but your going off without a word like that made it impossible for us to let you know what was happening. Nobody knew where you were.”
Corrigan was far from sure that anyone from management had been trying to find out. Certainly, Corrigan’s secretary, Judy Klein, had said nothing about being asked in the few minutes that Corrigan had had to talk with her before being called over to see Pinder. He knew that Shipley had been trying to get in touch with him before he and Evelyn left California for Ireland, but that was a different matter. Since Shipley was not expected in until the afternoon, Corrigan still didn’t know what that had been about.
Pinder went on. “As you know, the whole DNC program has been the subject of top-level discussions in the company for some time now. While you were away, I was notified of certain decisions that have been made concerning revisions to our goals, and the organizational adjustments that will be needed to accomplish them.”
Only then did the premonition hit Corrigan that a pie was about to hit him in the face. In the same instant, the certainty crystallized that this wasn’t something that had suddenly happened in the last few weeks. He waited, saying nothing. Pinder continued:
“The change that will have the most impact as far as you’re concerned, Joe, has to do with our reviews of the state of the art and the future developments that now seem likely in various fields. To put it bluntly, VIV technology is obsolete—or at least, on its way toward very soon becoming so. EVIE really can’t be justified any longer as the company’s main VR line. Going through the primary sensory system for vision and acoustics is a dead end. All the market indicators are for taking everything over to direct neural sooner rather than later.” He showed his palms, then sat back, watching Corrigan with his marbly gray eyes to await his reaction.