“Are the books bugged, too?”
“Some of them. Eyes Only on selected volumes, plus Library Bindings on some of the hate literature. And of course we keep a mailing list.” He took a remote control from his pocket and pointed it at the picture of the Reichstag that hung above the Aryan Lit. bookcase; the picture slid aside, revealing a computerized map of the U.S. covered in blinking points of light. “Green dots are customers we believe to be harmless—people who think it’s cute to have How to Find Your Ex-Wife as bathroom reading copy. Red dots are customers who want to do damage. Yellow dots, we’re not sure yet.”
“Lot of red dots around Vegas right now,” I observed.
“Yeah, we noticed that too. But here, take a look at this…” He pressed another button on the remote, and all the dots vanished except for one in southern California. A picture and a name appeared at the bottom of the screen. “Recognize him?”
“The gas-station attendant.”
“He had some unfortunate ideas about anthrax and the U.S. Postal Service.”
“If he was a bad monkey, shouldn’t I have taken care of him?”
“Well, if you’d bothered to check the back of your vehicle for stowaways, we would have had time to discuss that. As it was, it just seemed simpler to handle him myself. Plus I really was feeling pretty cranky. You hungry?”
Besides the printing press and bindery, the building had a full industrial kitchen. I sat at a stainless-steel counter making small talk while Wise cooked me breakfast.
“So how’d you end up a Clown?” I asked him. “I mean, axwork aside, you seem like a normal guy.”
“Don’t let the haircut fool you,” Wise said. “I was originally in intel, but when I came out here to start up the Press, the head of the Scary Clowns made me an offer.”
“Panopticon to Clown seems like a popular career path. Did you know—”
“Gacy?” Wise shook his head. “Before my time.”
“What about a guy named Dixon? You ever cross paths with him?”
“You could say so. I was his Probate officer.”
“You trained Dixon?…So does that mean you were in Malfeasance?”
“No, regular Panopticon. Dixon was too at first, but he was bucking for a Malfie post from day one.”
“Did you like him?”
“He was a good student. A little overzealous, maybe. Why, what’s he to you?”
“He’s running my background check.”
Wise laughed. “I bet that’s fun.”
“Thrilling. Listen, maybe you can explain something to me: when Dixon called me in for an interview, I had to wear this wristband…” I described it to him.
“Sounds like a shibboleth device,” Wise said.
“What’s a shibboleth?”
“It’s from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. The men of Gilead went to war against the men of Ephraim, and the Ephraimites got slaughtered. When the survivors tried to pass themselves off as members of another tribe, their accents gave them away: Ephraimites couldn’t pronounce the ‘sh’ sound, so when they said the word ‘Shibboleth,’ it came out ‘Sibboleth.’”
“And a shibboleth device…?”
“Same basic idea. It’s a tool for sorting good monkeys from bad monkeys.”
“By the way they talk?”
“By the way they feel. The device tests for inappropriate emotional responses. Like, someone tells you your mother died, and you’re happy instead of sad. Or someone makes you talk about this shameful thing you did, only you’re not ashamed.” He laughed again. “You look worried. Don’t be. I don’t know what went on between you and Dixon, but if he had any serious doubts about you, you wouldn’t be here. This operation’s too important.”
“What is the operation, anyway?”
He handed me a silver medical bracelet like the kind epileptics wear. On one side was a cluster of Egyptian hieroglyphs over the legend OZYMANDIAS LLC. On the other side was an inscription:
in case of death
keep body cool & call
1-800-EXTROPY
for further instructions
—————————
$50,000 cash reward