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                      SEX, LIES, AND NECROMANCY

                                  by

                    Daniel Parsons and Brandi Weed

      With every exertion, the best of men can do but a moderate
         amount of good, but it seems within the power of the
       most contemptible scoundrel to do incalculable mischief.
                         -- Washington Irving

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Bright and early the next morning, the agents checked out of their
hotel, got into Ardrin's car, and headed out for the University of
Glasgow.  It was a clear, calm drive, and they were able to park right
outside his building.  The receptionist glanced up as they walked in.
     "Are you here to see Professor Samuels again?"
     "Yes, we are," Ardrin answered. "Is he in?"
     The receptionist smiled. "He certainly is.  Go right on back, and
please, you don't need to knock.  It's quite unnecessary, just walk
right in."
     "Uh, sure."
     They walked back to Samuels' office, and stopped at the door,
still puzzled by the receptionist's directions. Inside, they could
hear some faint noises, but couldn't quite make out what they were.
Finally, they opened the door and stepped in.
     Professor Samuels was there.  So was a young female student.
They were industriously engaged in an indiscretion the likes of which
will usually get a professor fired, or at the very least result in
loss of tenure.  There was a shriek from the student, and Samuels
shrieked "GET OUT!!" at the surprised agents.
     "Should we leave?  This is rather urgent."
     "At least let him pull his pants up.  I don't want to see any
more of this."
     The agents quietly filed out and closed the door.  From down the
hall, they could hear the receptionist quietly humming a happy tune as
she innocently busied herself with the copy machine.  After a minute,
the female student darted out of Samuels' office and down the hall,
still adjusting her very tiny, very tight skirt, and Samuels stood in
the doorway, his necktie in disarray. "May I help you?" he asked with
deep insincerity.
     "Yeah." Ardrin smirked. "But let's us not hang out here in the
hall.  Your office?"
     Samuels glared at Ardrin, then ushered them all in. "I do hope
this will be a short visit, as I am a very busy man."
     "Obviously," said Janie, avoiding the wet spot on Samuels' desk
as she sat down. "We wanted to ask you a few questions.  Think you can
spare us some time?"
     "I believe so, if you're willing to keep it brief.  I have a very
important departmental meeting in a very short while, and it would ill
behoove me to be late."
     "Who is she?" Angel icily looked down her nose at Samuels. "And
what kind of grade does she want?"
     Samuels' eyes squinted up behind his glasses, and a sneer slowly
traced across his features. "The young lady you unfortunately just met
was not a student here.  I am in no way involved in any conflict of
interest as far as my professorial duties are concerned."
     "Certainly, Professor.  Now, to our questions.  Do you know
anything about the chocolate chip banana nut bread being served in
your physics department's tea room?"
     "Just that it's awful.  Mrs. Drudge obtained a very great deal of
it, wholesale I believe.  I'm afraid you'd really have to ask her, as
I don't know anything more about it."
     "Actually, we did ask her." Ardrin took a small ship in a bottle
off a high shelf and examined it. "She says you got it.  You donated
about 1000 kilos, in the original shipping crates."
     Samuels blinked, then laughed. "Oh, dear.  I don't know where the
bread came from, but it certainly did not come from me.  Perhaps a
student stole it somewhere, and said it was from me as part of some
prank."
     "Mrs. Drudge was very specific.  And I really don't know where a
student would get a hold of this much mix."
     "Besides," Janie added, "there's only one place it could have
come from.  It's Pillsbury, an American company, and not normally sold
in this country.  We only know of one shipment of this stuff ever
coming across the Atlantic.  It was part of a promotional package sent
over on the _Caduces_, the same ship that was carrying your Cray."
     "It was on the same ship as the Cray?" Samuels pondered this.
"That's all very fascinating, but the ship was sunk, and everything on
board was lost, supposedly.  How could this be the same bread?"
     "The serial numbers matched.  In fact," Angel fixed Samuels with
an icy stare, "bits and pieces of that ship's cargo have been turning
up all over Scotland.  You wouldn't happen to know anything about
that, now, would you?"
     "I don't see how I possibly could.  What, how would I fake the
loss of a cargo vessel?  And what possible reason would I have for
doing so?  I don't have the resources to use the Cray myself; it would
be useless to me outside of the university.  I really don't see how
you have any grounds to accuse me of anything."
     "No one is accusing you of anything, Professor." Angel took the
bottle away from Ardrin and put it back on the shelf. "We simply want
to know where the banana bread came from, and it seems to have come
from you."
     "And I must say that it most certainly did not come from me, no
matter what Mrs. Drudge says.  It's quite ridiculous.  If I thought it
would implicate me in anything, I'd have dumped it in a river."
     Angel looked at her companions. "I suppose we could always go get
Mrs. Drudge, and ask her to sign a statement.  Then we could arrest
the Professor, and have a great deal more freedom to act."
     "That'd work." Ardrin got up and walked toward the door.
     Samuels, with surprising speed, jumped up and darted in front of
the door. "Wait, did you mean the chocolate chip banana nut bread?
I'm sorry, I thought you meant the banana bread that's being served in
one of the other tea rooms!  Of course, I know where the chocolate
chip banana nut bread came from."
     "Yes, Professor." Angel smiled. "That's the bread we mean.  Do
you care to explain where you got it?"
     "Of course I can explain!  Naturally, I can explain." Samuels
grinned engagingly and busied himself with the ships in bottles on the
shelf next to Ardrin. "There, all back in good order.   Now, about the
bread."
     Janie tapped her foot impatiently. "Yes.  About the bread."
     "About the bread, yes.  You see it's all very simple."
     "Then I would love to hear you explain it, professor."
     "Certainly, glad to help to you fine officers.  The explanation
is very simple.  I was told in an E-mail message that there were a few
boxes of mix available for a low price in a market downtown.  I know
that Mrs. Drudge is always looking for new things to serve for tea, so
I naturally trotted on down and found them selling crates out of the
back of a truck.  I asked the price, and it sounded reasonable, so I
paid them, without knowing that I'd just bought the whole truck full!
I naturally took this amiss, but they were gone before I knew it,
leaving me there with more chocolate chip banana nut bread mix than I
could shake a stick at.  I took it back and gave it to Mrs. Drudge,
hoping she'd be able to do something with it, and that's the last I
saw of it, except at tea time, when we are all subjected to it."
     Samuels smiled ingenuously.  All three of the agents merely
stared at him for a while, slowly blinking.  Finally, Ardrin broke the
silence. "Professor Samuels, I hope you realize that we think that's
the biggest load of crap we've heard in years."
     "But it's true!  Every word!"
     "Who sent you the E-mail message?"
     "I'm afraid I don't know his real name, only his computer name,
which is, uh, Green Dragon.  I don't know where he's located, and I'm
afraid I deleted the message too."
     "How'd you get the stuff off the truck and back here?"
     "Oh, the truck was included in the price.  I just drove it back."
     "You mean to tell us that they sold you the whole truck?  For a
price you thought was for one box of bread mix?"
     "It's true, every word.  They must have been quite desperate to
get rid of it."
     "And you didn't think this was suspicious?"
     "Well, I did think it was very odd, certainly.  But who's to
imagine that a lot of bread mix would be stolen goods?"
     Janie glanced at Angel and Ardrin.  They both looked extremely
dubious. "This doesn't sound all that likely, does it?"
     "My bullshit detector is screaming."
     Angel stared coldly at Samuels. "Actually, I think it's obvious
that Professor Samuels has been lying to us.  I believe we have
sufficient grounds to make an arrest."
     "But it's the simple, unvarnished truth!  I know it doesn't sound
very likely, but I can't change the truth.  Wait... I think I may not
have deleted that mail message.  It should still be in my account, and
I'd be glad to show it to you."
     "Perhaps we should just look at it ourselves.  Where is your
terminal?"
     "We don't have terminals in the offices. The building's too old."
     "Then we're going to have to ask you to give us your username and
password." Janie took out her notebook. "Don't worry, this will be
held in the strictest confidence."
     Samuels stared at her for a moment, then told her his password.
"I will have to change it after you've left."
     "Of course, sir.  We understand about security.  But we do need
to check that mail message."
     They left and went over to the physics department building.  Down
in the basement terminal room, Janie logged in with Samuels' password.
     "Hmmm... here's something just arrived from a Green Dragon."
     Angel peered over Janie's shoulder. "What does it say?"
     "'We need the item, and your performance hasn't been up to specs.
A revision to a better version may be called for.'  That sound pretty
mysterious."
     "It sounds like someone trying to talk like a spy.  The path
seems to come out of the University of Chicago."
     "Yeah.  There's some more mail here too, from GDAVIS, and a
couple of portal addresses.  Hey, the Green Dragon message just
vanished."
     "What?"
     Janie brought the mail index back up; it was now empty. "Shit!
What's going on here?"  Janie quickly left mail and looked in the
process directory. "Somebody's deleting things!"
     "I thought Samuels didn't have a terminal."
     Angel and Janie suddenly looked at Ardrin. "Wasn't one of us
supposed to stay with Samuels?" Janie asked slowly.
     Ardrin blinked. "Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw."
     "Later! I promise!" Janie quickly commanded the computer to print
a couple of files, hoping they would be safe in the print queue.
"Somebody go get him!  I'm gonna try to save what I can!"
     Angel and Ardrin ran upstairs and across campus back to Samuels'
office, with guns drawn.  Bursting through the door, they found the
office to be empty.  The window was open, so Angel looked through onto
the parking lot.  Samuels was not in sight. "Oh, dash it all!"
     Ardrin and Angel looked around the room.  A large poster had been
pulled away from one wall; behind it was a door they hadn't noticed
before.  Inside, there was a small closet with an old IBM PC, with a
phone cord running through a hole drilled in the floor.
     Ardrin hmphed. "Looks like he wired his own room."
     "Very clever.  Do you suppose that runs right into the phone
lines?"
     "I wouldn't know.  Tell you what, I'll look around the office and
see if I can find anything.  You go back and get Janie."
     Janie hadn't had much luck with Samuels' account.  She had been
able to rescue two things, files called Brain.net and AI.net by
shunting them to the print queue, then piping them out to other files.
Everything else had been unrecoverably deleted, even the disk section
written over with a string of random 0's and 1's.  There wasn't much
in Samuels' office either, though they did find plenty of evidence
that the young lady had been a student, and she had plenty of company.
There were a few letters, a couple of boxes of Polaroids, and his
grade book, with several alterations made to the records of certain
female students.
     "What a horndog," Ardrin opined.
     Angel smiled a bit. "I think his activities should be reported to
his superiors.  They would love to know about this, especially the
parts with Muffy."
     Janie laughed. "Oh, yes.  That was hysterical."
     "Sounds like a plan.  What about after that?"
     "After that..." Angel looked around the room. "We should return
to London and report to Mr. Samuels.  He will probably not be pleased
with us, but we will have to face up to him eventually, and plan our
future course of action."
     "You know, he's almost as good as my mother at making me feel
guilty."
     "Janie, that's not very nice.  Mr. Samuels is simply very good at
motivating people."
     "So's my mother."
     "Yeah, yeah.  Let's get out of here."
     The head of the U. of G. computing sciences department was very
surprised to see the grade book, and the letters, and the pictures,
and the GIFs, and the videotape... he promised that steps would be
taken to investigate Prof. Samuels' activities, for which the agents
thanked him.
     The drive back to London was mostly smooth, except on Janie's
turn to drive.  She was coasting down the road, singing to herself to
keep from being bored.  The other two, who'd been trying to ignore
her, were slightly bemused to find out she was a tenor.
     "I don't like your peaches, they are full of stones!  I like
bananas, because they have no bo--" *WHUMP!*
     Ardrin looked over the back seat. "What the fuck was that?"
     "I think I hit something.  The engine's making a funny noise."
     Janie pulled over, and they all got out to assess the damage.
There was blood and animal hair on the grill, and something inside the
engine was making rattling noises. "Shit." Ardrin opined. "Better
check to see what that is."
     "Well, I know a little about motors." Janie opened the bonnet and
looked inside. "I think it's just the radiator's been knocked back
against the fan."
     "How bad's the damage?"
     "Let me look." Janie rolled her sleeves up and groped around the
engine compartment, managing to somehow make the long reach with ease.
"They're rubbing against each other, but not too much.  We should make
it back with no problem.  You'll have to have it fixed, though."
     "All right.  I guess I can charge it to the agency."
     "Certainly.  We are on company business after all."
     The remainder of the trip was uneventful, and they arrived back
in London at a little after 4 o'clock.  Mr. Samuels was waiting for
them.  They told him about Mikleway, to which he nodded quietly.  They
told him about Samuels, to which he also nodded quietly.  As they
wound their tale down, and finally ground to a halt, Samuels patiently
listened without comment.
     "And so Professor Samuels was nowhere to be found."
     "No, sir.  We could find no trace of him."
     "I see.  Well, perhaps it was a good idea to order these, then."
Samuels gestured to a pile sitting on top of his desk. "Mr. Hartree
and I decided that it would be a very good idea for you to have some
discreet protection.  Violence may come to you again."
     The pile contained three bullet-proof vests, smelling of fresh
plastic. "Yes, sir, thank you sir!" Angel smiled involuntarily. "This
will make me feel much, much better."
     "I think you might want a helmet, Angel."
     "That will be quite unnecessary, Jane.  This can be worn under
clothing."
     Samuels quietly let his gaze wander over them, looking slightly
disturbed as they examined their windfall. "One thing, please."
     "Yes, sir?"
     "Once, three men were watching a flag wave.  One said 'The flag
is moving.' The second said 'The wind is moving.' The third said 'You
are both wrong. The mind is moving.'  Remember this."
     Ardrin stared at Janie, Janie stared at Angel, and Angel stared
at Ardrin.  None of them dared ask why. "Yes, sir.  Thank you, sir.
We'll remember that."
     Samuels regarded his charges with satisfaction.



Daniel Parsons                                             Brandi Weed

                   Questions or comments to bweed@muddcs.claremont.edu