The 2084 Precept (9 page)

"Uh huh, well maybe. But it all sounds very
futuristic to me, Mr. Parker. Nevertheless, and be that as it may,
it seems that I do owe you some thanks. It certainly looks as if I
have the chance of an agreeable evening ahead of me. And, if you
will allow, I have a final, last question on another subject. I am
an interviewee of yours. Why me? And have you any others, have you
paid money to other people as well? And based on what criteria do
you select them?"

"I must admit, Mr. O’Donoghue, that I was
wondering whether you would ask this question as well. The search
for interviewees has indeed been very haphazard, for two major
reasons. First of all, I am not in a position to be able to
judge
in advance
if a person is in possession of the
necessary intelligence and necessary knowledge which, needless to
say, only genes and an education of a certain level can provide. I
have consequently been obliged to talk to many people, nearly all
of whom were inadequate for my purposes, and a few were simply not
interested. Not unexpected of course. But there were side-benefits
to the search in that I was able to increase my insight into the
wide deviations in your species' individual intelligence and
knowledge levels."

He looked at me again. I looked back at him
again.

"I then abandoned the ad hoc search idea” he
said, “and applied specific research criteria to determine which
candidates would merit a contact. The criteria used are individual
to each case and of little interest to you as you would not
understand them anyway. There have been five people who appeared to
meet the necessary standards up to this point. Three of those
agreed to a meeting with me but didn't appear, presumably judging
me to be a fraudster or a lunatic, or both. A fourth person, a
young lady, did turn up for our meeting and received her €100,000
in the same way as you have received yours. But that was the last I
saw of her. She didn't appear for the next meeting as planned and I
haven't heard from her since. I presume she arrived at the same
conclusion as the other three, perhaps also concluding that the
situation was not without risk, perhaps even a potentially
dangerous risk of the kind specific to young females on your
planet. And that this risk outweighed the slight possibility, as
she probably evaluated it, of receiving a further €400,000."

Understandable. Weigh the size of the risks
and compare to the potential benefits, see which way the scales
fall, and take a decision. As I am doing right now.

"And the fifth person," he continued, "is
yourself, Mr. O'Donoghue. I need only one interviewee for the
purposes of this project and I would be delighted if it turns out
to be you, you seem to fit the bill very well. Nevertheless, I
appreciate that may turn out not to be the case. In which event, I
shall simply have to continue with the process until I am
successful. Which I will be, eventually, a mathematical
certainty."

Maybe, maybe, I wasn't going to argue the
point. But it was more likely a probability rather than a
certainty. I am no laggard in mathematics, including probability
mathematics, and I considered this exercise of his to be compatible
with the mathematical rules governing the vehicle registration
numbers' game. If you take the last two digits of vehicle
registrations, you obviously have a hundred possibilities, from 00
to 99. And if you are driving your car or walking down the road and
if you note these two digits from 20 consecutive vehicles, you are
going to find that two of them are the same. From a sample of only
20 vehicles, mark you. But although this works ten times out of ten
on many occasions, it works on average only nine times out of ten,
and is therefore a mathematical probability rather than a
certainty. Even so, if you bet on this a few times with a friend,
it's an easy way to earn yourself some money or a few drinks.

But…as I have said, I wasn't going to argue
the point with him, I wish him well, he'll have to find it out for
himself and without my cooperation, I won't be around.

"A final minor point," I said, "which has
just come to mind. Totally unimportant and definitely my epilogue
question of the day. Why do you only have a mobile 'phone number on
your business card? That is unusual and not particularly
professional, wouldn't you agree?"

"Indeed I would," he laughed, "but the
answer is a simple one. This card is not a business one. The number
on this card is exclusively for contact purposes in connection with
my student activities. I strictly separate these activities from my
business ones and," he continued with a knowing glance, "there are
the small matters of encryption and GPS location blocking. To avoid
unnecessary complications, you understand, which from time to time
might arise as a result of any unwelcome interest on the part of
certain third parties."

Hats off to him, he has the answers for
everything and they all fit with a certain amount of logic into
that imaginary world residing in his demented brain. He's certainly
got it all worked out. This fantasy of his has probably been
developing over a period of several years, and he has been building
up more and more details as time has gone by, accumulating a whole
series of convincing micro-delusions to support the macro one. Not,
as I seem to have read in some medical report someplace, that this
is an unknown or unusual symptomatic manifestation. Fascinating in
a way, but then all I want to do now is return to the real world.
The sane world. The one I live in.

"I understand and accept," said Jeremy,
"that this has been an unexpected and extremely confusing
conference from your point of view. And I would guess that you are
far from being convinced about any part of it—but I would be
grateful if we could provisionally agree to a time and date for
another meeting. Just on the off-chance of course."

"Well," I said, "no harm in that. Let me
see. On Monday I have a conference at a factory in Slough, then
nothing to do for a whole week after that, and so I'll be
travelling home to Germany on the Tuesday. I'll be travelling back
on the following Saturday and attending a meeting here in London on
the Monday. So…a week on Tuesday would be convenient to me; how
does that sound?"

But he looked somewhat disappointed at this.
"Yes," he said, "I saw from your C.V. that you are domiciled in
Germany. Forgive my forwardness," he continued, "but that would
constitute an unfortunate delay for me. Is there the slightest
chance, Mr. O'Donoghue, do you think, that you could possibly
return to Germany a day later than planned, thereby allowing us to
meet next Tuesday?"

* * * * *

No problem, I said to myself, I wouldn't be
attending any more meetings with him anyway, so it really didn't
matter what arrangements I agreed to. I said O.K., we agreed on
10.00 a.m., we shook hands, and I took off like an electrified hare
at the greyhound races. I lit a cigarette, yes much needed, and
smoked it while heading across Aldwych and into the first pub I
came across, the Dog and Duck it was called. Not too grotty, fairly
decent place in fact. I ordered a cold pint of lager, took it to a
table in the corner and sank into a fairly comfortable lounge
chair.

Whew! What an experience! Wow! I took a long
pull at my pint, hey, welcome back to reality Peter, and settled
down to drink the rest at a leisurely pace while recuperating my
composure, returning to normal, getting back into my day's good
mood. And as I thought back over this afternoon's bit of fun,
something else occurred to me. He might be mad, but he wasn't
stupid, that was for sure. By next Tuesday, I wouldn't be able to
check on the €100,000, he would have made sure that it wouldn't hit
my bank account until Wednesday at the earliest. His way of
retaining the chance of my still being curious enough to turn
up.

Clever boy, no doubt about it, but who
cares. No way am I going to another meeting and there won't be any
money anyway, just part of his overall delusion.

And thinking about the meeting itself, there
had been no aggressiveness, which was fully in his interest
obviously—I would otherwise have been gone in a flash, as he had to
know—but it had definitely been a formal meeting, a serious one
even, including from my side.

I was still under the influence of something
similar to a mild state of shell-shock. Well, who wouldn't be,
listening to a mentally disturbed person's tale of the kind that—I
have no experience of the different types of inmate to be found in
mental institutions, but that does not stop me having an
opinion—must be quite unique. However, and it bears thinking about,
he is not even in a mental institution—not at all.

He is running around loose, as free as a dog
off the leash in Hyde Park, and with some extraordinarily unusual
powers to boot.

I looked at the time, hey, nearly 7 o'clock.
I emptied my glass, caught a cab within a couple of minutes, not a
problem when it's not raining, back to the hotel, up to my room,
teeth, shower, fresh shirt and down to the lobby with a good five
minutes to spare.

"Excuse me, Mr. O'Donoghue sir," a female
receptionist called to me—unfortunately an ugly female
receptionist, don't get me wrong, not meant nastily, not her fault,
nor will it cause her any problems in life, plenty of ugly men
around—"there is a message for you." I went over to the desk and
she handed me an envelope, a sleek, light blue envelope, together
with an ingratiating and probably hopeful smile. Poor girl, don't
be hopeful when it's hopeless, sorry and all that, but we swim in
different waters, I prefer filet steaks.

Talking about filet steaks, I once lost a
live-in girlfriend because of that. We were having dinner with a
friend of mine and his girlfriend in a restaurant, the wine was
flowing, and after finishing his steak my friend said, "You know
the actor Paul Newman? He was being interviewed once and was asked
how he had managed to maintain such a long and trouble-free
marriage in an environment such as Hollywood's. Well, he replied,
it's easy. When you've got a filet steak at home, why are you going
to want to go out and eat a hamburger? Upon which the whole of
American womanhood fell in love with him, and that's the way it is
between Jeannie and me, am I right Jeannie?" This immediately
prompted a wine-induced joke on my part. "With me," I said, "it's a
little different. When you've got a hamburger at home, why would
you want to go out and eat a meatloaf?" At which I bellowed with
laughter, vinous mirth at its best. My girlfriend did not, however,
bellow with laughter. She stood up, placed her napkin quietly and
carefully on the table, left the restaurant and had already moved
out by the time I got home. And apart from a 'phone call in which I
received a detailed description not only of myself, but also of my
mother, I never heard from her again.

I moved away from the reception desk, giving
Little Miss Ugly a very interested smile, spread a little
happiness, and opened the envelope. Same blue paper as the envelope
and a handwritten note:

I am terribly, terribly sorry, but I shall be
unable to join you for dinner this evening. I believe we do not in
fact know each other, a very embarrassing mistake on my part and I
do apologize most sincerely. Goodness knows what you must have
thought of me. Hoping you will nevertheless have an enjoyable
Saturday evening, and hoping for your forgiveness, Yours,
Fiona.

Shit, that was some girl. A really swish
lady, and not just to look at, judging by the cultured note and the
sophisticated handwriting. But then that's life, isn't it, a
surprise gift here and a surprise smack in the face there, you just
have to get on with it. Extremely disappointing though, I would be
telling a lie if I were to claim otherwise. No surname, no address,
no telephone number, message received, crystal clear, thank you
very much.

Now what to do? I suddenly didn't want to do
anything, Saturday night or not. Coming on top of today's episode
with my friend Mr. Parker from faraway places, Fiona's message had
left me feeling dispirited. The joys of Spring had departed for new
destinations, at least momentarily. The best thing to do was go to
bed. Another of Cain's brilliant short novels awaited me:
'Double Indemnity'
. And my good mood would be back by
tomorrow morning.

And so I had a light dinner in the hotel
dining room, and did just that.

I woke up with Mr. Jeremy Parker bugging my
brain. That girl was not a coincidence. She couldn't be. Nor was
the waiter. Obvious. Equally obvious on the other hand was the fact
that our friend Jeremy was a five-star nutcase.

Mind you, he seemed to possess considerable
knowledge of certain things pertaining to his dream world. Perhaps
I would go into the Internet and check out a few items such as the
quasar, or some of the distances he mentioned and so on. But on
consideration, what would that tell me? Absolutely nothing, he
could easily have done precisely the same thing himself. O.K.,
leave it alone, no more thinking about it today, today is Sunday.
Fresh air is what I need, no IHT on Sundays but yesterday's
Financial Times will do, see if I earned any money this week with
my shares or, as happens often enough, lost some.

* * * * *

This is perhaps a good moment, on the
off-chance that you are desirous of knowing a little more about me,
for me to digress.

Now…let me see. I believe I can claim to be
one of the more normal specimens of human being wandering around
the planet, albeit characterized by certain of the distinctive
singularities peculiar to my type.

Some say that you can divide the human race
into two types, extroverts and introverts, and I hold that to be
true. Others say that you can divide it into two other types,
optimists and pessimists, and I hold that to be true as well. But
there is more to it than that. A type is defined by several other
traits, influences, behavioral characteristics and, for most types
anyway, specific peculiarities.