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"You see," Van Dyne said, speaking with the quiet assurance and patience of a stockbroker explaining the market to a new investor, "we have to start with birth certificates We keep computer files of infant deaths all over the western United States, going back at least fifty years We’ve already searched those lists for the years each of you was born, trying to find babies who died with your hair and eye colors-and with your first names, too, just because it’s easier for you not to have to change both first and last We found a little girl, Nora Jean Aimes, born October twelfth of the year you were born and who died one ht here in San Francisco We have a laser printer with virtually an infinite choice of type styles and sizes, hich we’ve already produced a facsimile of the kind of birth certificate that was in use in San Francisco at that time, and it bears Nora Jean’s name, vital statistics We’ll make two Xeroxes of it, and you’ll receive both Next, we tapped into the Social Security files and appropriated a nuiven one, and we also created a history of Social Security tax payh quarters to qualify you for a pension when you retire Likewise, the IRS now has computer records that show you’ve worked as a waitress in half a dozen cities and that you’ve faithfully paid your taxes every year"
Travis said, "With a birth certificate and legitiet a driver’s license that would have real ID behind it"
"So I’m Nora Jean Aimes? But if her birth certificate’s on record, so is her death certificate If someone wanted to check-"
Van Dyne shook his head "In those days, both birth and death certificates were strictly paper documents, no computer files And because it squanders overnment has never had the funds to transfer records of the precoets suspicious about you, they can’t just search out the death records On computer and learn the truth in twoback through the coroner’s files for that year, and find Nora Jean’s death certificate But that won’t happen because part of our service involves having Nora Jean’s certificate removed froht her identity"
"We’re into TRW, the credit-reporting agency," one of the twin Spielberg look-alikes said with obvious delight
Nora saw data flickering across the green screens, but none of it had anysolid credit histories for our new identities," Travis told her "By the tie of address with the DMV and TRW, our mailbox will be flooded with offers for credit cards-Visa, MasterCard, probably even American Express and Carte Blanche"
’Nora Jean Aihly her new life was being built
Because they could locate no infant who had died in the year of Travis’s birth with his first na Samuel Spencer Hyatt, who had been born that January and had perished that March in Portland, Oregon The death would be expunged from the public record, and Travis’s new identity would stand up to fairly intense scrutiny
Strictly for fun (they said), the bearded young operators created ahi hi a peace-keeping-ht, he asked if they could also create a valid real-estate broker’s license under his new naht data banks and did the job
"Cake and pie," one of the young men said
"Cake and pie," the other echoed Nora frowned, not understanding
"Piece of cake," one of them explained
"Easy as pie," the other said
"Cake and pie," Nora said, nodding
The blonde with copper-penny eyes returned, carrying driver’s licenses imprinted with Travis’s and Nora’s pictures "You’re both quite photogenic," she said
Two hours and twentyVan Dyne, they left Hot Tips with twotheir new identities Out on the street, Nora felt a little dizzy and held on to Travis’s arh the city while they had been in Hot Tips The blinking lights and flashing-rippling neon of the Tenderloin were softened yet curiously nified by the ht air ith strange lights, with an aurora borealis brought down to ground level Those sleazy streets had a certain , but not if you’d seen theht first and remembered what you had seen
In the Mercedes, Einstein aiting patiently
"Couldn’t arrange to have you turned into a poodle, after all," Nora told him as she buckled her seat belt "But we sure did ourselves up right Einstein, say hello to Sam Hyatt and Nora Aimes"
The retriever put his head over the front seat, looked at her, looked at
Travis, and snorted once as if to say they could not fool him, that he kneho they were
To Travis, Nora said, "Your antiterrorist trainingis that where you learned about places like Hot Tips, people like Van Dyne? Is that where terrorists get new ID once they slip into the country?"
"Yeah, soh not usually The Soviets supply papers for al ih not the poor ones, and crie arrest warrants"
As he started the car, she said, "But if you could find Van Dyne,for us can find him"
"Maybe It’ll take them a while, but maybe they can"
"Then they’ll find out all about our new identities"
"No," Travis said He turned on the defroster and the windshield wipers to clear the condensation off the outside of the glass "Van Dyne wouldn’t keep records He doesn’t want to be caught with proof of what he does If the authorities ever tuo in there with search warrants, they won’t find anything in Van Dyne’s co records for Hot Tips"
As they drove through the city, heading for the Golden Gate Bridge, Nora stared in fascination at the people in the streets and in other cars, not just in the Tenderloin but in every neighborhood through which they passed She wondered howunder the names and identities hich they had been born and how s like her and Travis
"In less than three hours, we’ve been totally remade," she said
"So else, that’s what high technologyever more fluid, malleable Most financial transactions are now handled with electronic money that flashes from New York to LA-or around the world- in seconds Money crosses borders in a blink; it no longer has to be suards Most records are kept in the fores that only co’s fluid Identities are fluid The past is fluid"
Nora said, "Even the genetic structure of a species is fluid these days"
Einstein woofed agreement
Nora said, "Scary, isn’t it?"
"A little," Travis said as they approached the light-bedecked southern entrance to the fog-e, which was all but invisible in theSocial and financial fluidity guarantee freedoe when the role of governments will inevitably dwindle, when there’ll be no way to regulate and control people as thoroughly as was possible in the past Totalitarian governments won’t be able to stay in power"
"How so?"
"Well, how can a dictatorship control its citizens in a high-tech society of h tech to intrude,
seal the borders, and live entirely in an earlier age But that’d be national suicide for any country that tried it They couldn’t coines, priht now, for instance, the Soviets try to restrict computers to their defense industry, which can’t last They’ll have to computerize their entire economy and teach their people to use coht when their citizens have been given the means to manipulate the system and foil its controls on thee, no northbound toll was collected They drove onto the span, where the speed limit had been drastically reduced because of the weather
Looking up at the ghostly skeleton of the bridge, which glistened with condensation and vanished in the fog, Nora said, "You seem to think the world will be paradise in a decade or two"
"Not paradise," he said "Easier, richer, safer, happier But not a paradise After all, there will still be all the problems of the human heart and all the potential sicknesses of the hu us so that killed your landlord," she said