The Parallax View by Loren Singer

Author:Loren Singer [SINGER, LOREN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781453551158
Publisher: Xlibris US
Published: 2010-08-06T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Bickering, squabbling, uproar among the masses over the appearance of a “seat of empire” are of little importance to us. We must learn to accept the superficial facade of our civilization whatever it may be in our time, and dwell instead upon the improvement of our inner selves.

THE HANDBOOK

Sitting in the rear of the shuttle to Washington, Graham closed his eyes and read the journal he had typed the day before. He had included every detail of what had occurred since Tucker had shown him the films. It was lying in a metal box in an envelope addressed to the Attorney General of the United States. He had sat before his typewriter for some time after he had finished, deciding to whom it should be addressed.

Even as he wrote the envelope, he was aware of what small comfort the act engendered. Still, if Peggy had indeed done the same thing, and if Tucker did, as well, it was conceivable that even if they were eliminated, some light might shine sometime.

It was also conceivable that a bottle with a message thrown into Long Island Sound would one day arrive in the Algarve, he thought wryly.

The flaps eased out of the trailing edge of the plane’s wings, and they began to let down toward the runway. Today there was no sense of anticipation, no pleasure in arrival; rather than that, there was simply an extension of the consciousness that the testing program had inflicted on him: that of a predictable animal responding to a proved stimulus.

He took the limousine into town as he had been instructed to do in the same type of mimeographed instruction sheet that he had received before his first Parallax appointment.

According to the sheet, he tore up the airline ticket receipt he still held, RETAINING the BAGGAGE type check that he had received with the ticket. This BAGGAGE type check had printed upon it the same NUMBER that had appeared on his original instructions to appear for an INTERVIEW.

He took a taxi to the address mentioned and, again following instructions, walked around the block once and then two more blocks in the direction from which he had arrived.

The building in which the Parallax Research Corporation had its offices was completely undistinguished architecturally from any of its neighbors.

It sat wrapped in semi-anonymity with an insurance company on one side and a labor union on the other, half a dozen potted plants in its lobby to soften the outlines of the formica slab of the walls and the stainless steel of the elevator doors.

Parallax reception was on the seventh. There was a young woman there who looked as though she had been produced entirely by machine. She glanced at his BAGGAGE type check but did not take it, and copied the numbers on it on a glass screen set into her desk top. Then she drew a cover down over the glass screen, waited five seconds and lifted it.

Graham read the message upside down.

“Room 715, Dr. Malinoski.”

She repeated this to him and the directions.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.