Dial O for O.R.G.Y.

Now the muzzle of the gun was nestling under what was left of his jaw. The shot had gone straight up, blowing off the top of his head. His lifeless body sprawled on the floor, one hand clutching the gun, the other still grasping the phone.

There was a message in the grisly scene, a telephone message, or, if you like, a built-in moral:

He who lives by the phone dies by the phone!

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It was strictly a mop-up operation now. The first step was to disentangle the phone from what used to be Tom Swift. What with his brains splattered all over the place, it was pretty icky going. Somehow I managed it without pushing the upchuck button.

I disconnected the cassette player and hung up the phone. From what Swift had told me before, I knew that would abort phase three before the supercomputer turned the microbes loose. Hanging up severed the connection with the big brain in South America, so that put a dent in phase two. It also was the first step in bringing phase one to an end and restoring phone service around the country.

As everybody knows by now, however, there was more to reviving Ma Bell than my just ending the one call. The way Swift & Co. had scrambled the long-lines and tandems, it was a good ten days before most people were able to be soaked by the increased rates. I didn’t hang around that broken-down Mississippi cabin to wait for that to happen.

What I did do was search Tom Swift’s pockets. Tucked in his wallet, I found an index card on which he’d listed the combinations of frequencies which made up the new code he’d used to reprogram the computer. I took it, along with the cassette tape he’d been feeding into the phone, and made tracks out of there.

I hoofed it to the highway. Luck was with me. Just as dawn was coming up, I caught a lift from a pickup truck which dropped me on the outskirts of Memphis. Here I caught a stray cab to the airport. By midmorning I was on a plane headed for Washington, D.C.

When I got there, I went straight to the private address Charles Putnam had given me. He wasn’t there. But the gent he’d left in charge had instructions regarding me.

“You’re to write a full report regarding the Tom Swift affair for Mr. Putnam,” he informed me.

“Tom Swift is dead,” I told him.

“Mr. Putnam wants it in writing. All aspects are to be covered in detail.”

“Listen . . .” I changed the subject. “Did he mention anything about paying me?”

“He said to say you’ll be paid when the book on the case is closed.”

“The book is closed. And I can use the money. Do you have it?”

“I’m not authorized to pay you until you submit a written report in full detail.”

“NOW HEAR THIS!” I roared. “I have here the code which should enable you lunkheads to straighten out that monster computer. I also have the tape Swift was feeding into it. With Swift dead, they’re all you need to clean everything up. And they’re yours—just as soon as I get paid!”

“Mr. Putnam said—”

I snarled something unprintable and started for the door.

“Just a minute.” He stopped me, as I figured he would. “Have a seat and I’ll get right back to you.”

I sat down, and he exited. About ten minutes later he returned. I looked at him questioningly.

“All right,” he said. “I’ve been authorized to pay you if you hand over the code and the cassette.”

I gave him the goods. He unlocked a desk drawer and came up with a thick envelope. When he handed it to me, I opened it. I smiled. It was stuffed with crisp green lettuce of the negotiable variety. I started out the door

“But your report . . .” he called after me.

“Write it yourself!” I told him. “In triplicate!” I slammed the door behind me and kept going. I kept going right back to the airport. That’s what I’d decided to do. Hell, I’d been through some rugged scenes. Now I figured I was entitled to resume the vacation Putnam had interrupted. I caught the first plane headed for Nassau in the Bahamas.

It was after midnight when it set down. I caught a cab over the bridge to Paradise Island. “Where do you want to go in Paradise?” the driver wanted to know as we started over the bridge.

“I’ll let you know in a minute,” I told him. I fished a coin out of my pocket and flipped it. Heads, Leila, my Arabian delight; tails . . . “Drop me at the Casino,” I told the driver.

It hadn’t changed. The croupiers still looked like their underwear was starched. The decor was still as pretentiously plush as ever. Even the crapshooters still spoke in hushed voices, and the dice made no sound as they bounced off the padded side rails of the crap table.

My luck hadn’t changed, either. That first night at the crap table put a sizable dent in the fee I’d received. And by the end of the second night, the envelope was only half as thick as when I’d arrived.

The third night I switched to roulette. It was better. I didn’t win. But I didn’t lose quite as badly as I had the first two nights, either. I told myself the tide was turning.

With turning tides like that, a guy could drown. So help me, that wheel not only came up with numbers I hadn’t bet on, it turned up numbers I hadn’t even heard of. I tried the birdcage for a while, but that was for the birds. Finally I went back to my first love — craps.

It was at the crap table, about a week after I arrived on Paradise Island, that I finally threw the envelope away. Why not? It was empty. Even the stamp was canceled. It was a good thing I’d given up smoking. I didn’t even have the price of a pack of cigarettes left. There was still Leila. No small blessing that. I hot-footed it over to the villa where she was staying, determined to drown my sorrows in sex. Her green eyes lit up when she saw me, and I’ll never forget her greeting.

“Ugly American male chauvinist swine!” The alarm clock she hurled parted my hair. “You think you can leave without saying anything and come back when you feel like it!” A hurtling lamp sent me diving behind a couch for cover. “You think I’m just a sex object!” A small end table followed the lamp. “Men are all the same! You think all women are just sex objects!” She was behind the couch now, and I found myself fending off her kicks. “Well, there are going to be some changes!” Her sharp nails went for my eyes.

I gathered there had already been some- — changes, that is. While I’d been gone, Women’s Lib had found Leila. My soft, warm, docile, loving Arabian nymph had been transformed into a tigress on the rampage. I was sensitive enough to restrain myself from telling her, but she was really sexy and attractive as hell when she was angry.

Her long, blue-black hair swirled like a storm cloud around her flushed, heart-shaped face. Fury made her full, round melon breasts swell under the gauzy material of her harem gown so that the berry tips stood out like thrusting spearheads. The sulky undulation of her hips, the angry bouncing of her high, plump rear, the rage-tensed muscles of her sleek legs—all these expressions of her hostility were turning me on instead of off. Leila’s angelically sweet disposition may have turned sour, but her erotic appeal was greater than ever.

“I’ll show you who’s the sex object!” She pummeled me.

I backed oil and held up two fingers in the “V” sign. “Peace,” I suggested.

“A piece!” She misunderstood. “That’s all you’re interested in!”

“Look! I surrender. I’m guilty on all counts. Just give me another chance.”

“I’m not your sex object anymore!”

“Agreed. And you’re entitled to your revenge,” I told her. “So I’ll tell you what. I’ll be your sex object.”

She stopped attacking and considered the idea. “Suppose I don’t want you?” she asked finally.

“Then I’ll be shattered. But it’s your decision to make.”

“And if I relent?”

“I’ll be your slave -- erotically speaking, that is. Use me. Abuse me.”

“Abuse you?” The idea obviously appealed to her. “My sex slave . . .” For Leila, who’d been a harem girl, this was a reversal which had obvious appeal. “Well . . . all right . . .” she decided.

Which is how, kiddies, this little male chauvinist piggie wangled his way back into the Arabian sex market. Lest Women’s Lib rejoice over a dependent male at last forced to swap his pristine body for the shelter of a bed, let me point out that there was more to it than my penniless condition and need for a pillow upon which to rest my weary head. I really dug Leila, and it had been a long time between ballings. If the price was that she was to be the aggressor and I the object, then so be it. It’s better to be used and abused than strong and stranded!

She took me up to the bedroom, that same bedroom of fond memories of a thousand and one Arabian de- lights. “Undress!” she told me.

I complied.

“Lie down.”

I stretched out on the bed.

“Not bad.” Leila stared at me. “But you could be a little larger.”

Ouch! That hurt. “It’s not the size, it’s what you do with it.”

“That’s the cop-out of fifty percent of the American male population.”

Penis envy! I didn’t dare say it aloud. My consciousness had been raised enough to know that if Norman Mailer couldn’t withstand the barrage of Fem Lib response to such a charge, I probably couldn’t either. Besides, I didn’t want to take the chance of Leila changing her mind.

She took her own sweet time about undressing. Her slowness was annoying, but it was also kind of tantalizing. I suspected she knew that.

Finally she knelt over me on the bed. Resting on her haunches, her knees were on either side of my hips. She leaned forward a little so that her breasts bobbled over my face. “Do you think you can arouse me?” Leila asked sarcastically.

“You’re the boss. What do you want me to do?”

“Touch my breasts.”

I reached up and put my hand on one of her breasts. She couldn’t quite keep from gasping, and it swelled under my caress. The flesh was firm and warm. They were a tawny-gold color, and the aureoles were sharply defined, wide, and pink. The nipples, still soft, were a darker red.

I traced the outline of one breast, letting my middle linger dip into the deep cleavage between them, moving it up and down like a piston, rhythmically. Leila squirmed a little, and her plump buttocks flattened out over my stomach. They were very warm. When I caught the tip of one breast between my fingers and manipulated it, she squirmed again.

“Kiss it! Gently!” she commanded.

My head came up to do her bidding. I caught the nipple between my lips and flicked it very softly with my tongue. Soon its length increased, its color deepened until it was almost purple, and it became very hard.

“Enough! Insensitive fool! Can’t you tell it’s time for the other one?” She cupped her other breast with her hand and guided it to my mouth.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. But the word was incoherent. My mouth was stretching wide to accommodate the demands made by her other breast. She pushed as much of it into my maw as possible. So much, indeed, that the nipple rested somewhere near the base of my tongue. It tickled as it hardened. For a minute I had to concentrate on breathing through my nose.

Meanwhile, Leila had reached behind her and grasped me. “Aha!” she discovered. “Did I give you permission to get an erection?” She withdrew her breast from my mouth. “Well? Did I?”

“I apologize. I couldn’t help—”

“We’re not interested in your pleasure today! Remember?” She slapped her hand back and forth — hard—trying to reduce the rigidity.

To no avail. It hurt. But it was also excitement.

“You’re not cooperating!” she accused me.

“I can’t seem to control it.” I tried to look ashamed.

“Men never have control! The woman is always the one who’s expected to exercise control in sex. Well, it’s not going to be that way today! You’re to suit your timing to mine! Do you understand?” She punctuated her remarks by rising up and coming down hard on my stomach. I felt a warm dampness as she shifted her weight from back to front.

“I’ll do my best,” I promised.

“You’d better!” With force, she flicked a fingertip against the underside of my swollen scrotum. She started to guide her breast back to my mouth, and then she changed her mind. Instead, she rolled off me. “Stand up!” she ordered.

I stood. She lay back on the bed, limbs spread with wide abandon, and looked at me for a long moment. She was obviously sizing up my erotic machinery, and it made me feel damn uncomfortable.

“Are you embarrassed?” she asked.

“No,” I lied.

“Then why is your face turning red.”

“I must be overheated.”

“That’s an understatement.” She chuckled and reached out to tickle the hairs of my groin. “How does it feel to be looked at?” she asked.

“It’s disconcerting,” I admitted.

“Is it? Well, now you know how women feel when men stare at their breasts—which happens all the time. You have stared at girls’ breasts, haven’t you?”

“On occasion.”

“Gone to topless joints and passed all kinds of value judgments?”

“I guess so.”

“Made comparisons?”

“Inevitably,” I confessed.

“Well, that’s what I’m doing right now.”

Yeah. It deflated me. Temporarily, anyway. And when Leila laughed at this response, rigidity copped out altogether.

But it was still only temporary. She made sure of that. She ordered me to stand beside the bed where her head was. Her tongue flicked out and laved the length of my limpness. Very quickly it was restored to its former glory. And when it was, she abruptly stopped.

“Now, you just remember to control yourself!” Leila instructed. “Kiss my breasts again. Both of them.”

I bent over and kissed her breasts.

“That’s not right. I can do it better myself. Watch and learn!” She cupped one breast and held it up to her mouth. Her tongue darted out and circled the tip, laving the aureole. Then it flicked back and forth, strumming the long nipple. “Now, you do it,” she ordered me.

I did it.

“Now, lower. Slowly.”

I kissed my way slowly down her body, licking the undersides of her breasts, running my lips over her flat belly, dipping into the deep well of her navel. Then I moved lower, nibbling at the top curls of her pubic triangle.

“Not yet,” Leila panted. “First my thighs. Kiss my thighs.”

I moved my mouth to the inner surfaces of her thighs. The rippling flesh was butter soft, quivering with the tension of the muscles underneath. I sought out those muscles and probed them with my tongue. Leila’s lower body abruptly jerked.

She turned over and lay flat on her belly. I kissed the backs of her burning thighs, and then nuzzled between them again. They parted, and I saw that the warm juices were beginning to flow. But when I touched the lips of the well, Leila abruptly closed her legs.

“First there!” She slapped her rosy, plump bottom.

I kissed one cheek and then the other one gently. First Leila responded by bouncing. Then she lay quivering like a taut bowstring.

“Bite it!” she gasped. “Not too hard.”

Gently I bit into the delectable flesh of her derriere. She moaned, a deep, long moan. I nibbled the other side. The flavor was a little like abalone meat-— sweet, with the faintest tang of salt.

Leila rolled over on her back again. “No more biting,” she gasped. Her thighs parted, and her pulsating mound of passion thrust upward. It was high and deeply cleft. Her clitoris nestled there like a hard, red, oily, quivering finger of invitation.

Forgetting myself, I swung my legs over her and started to mount. A sharp knee in my stomach brought me to my senses. It let me know that she was still calling the shots.

“Not yet. Play with me first,” Leila demanded.

I cupped the throbbing mound gently with my hand. Meanwhile, she contrived to get her foot between my legs, and her toes wriggled a complicated and maddening rhythm up and down the length of my penis. Now it was my turn to squirm.

“Tickle it!”

I chucked her clitty lightly.

“Ahh! That drives me crazy!”

Thanks to her educated toes, that went double for me.

“Deeper!” she commanded. “That’s it! All the way!” She wriggled frantically as three of my fingers disappeared to the third knuckle. The honey flowed freely now.

“Use your mouth! Your lips! Your tongue!” She caught one of her wildly bouncing breasts and sucked greedily at it.

I tongue-tipped her clitty. My lips pressed against the lips of her honeypot. I plunged into the well and drank deep of the nectar. . . . And all the time her maddening toes were tickling and squeezing and pinching, flicking the hot, moist head of my penis, tracing its rigid length, probing the fullness of the sac beneath. It was all I could do to keep from releasing my passion. The pressure was the greatest I’d ever felt.

Then, finally: “Now!” she cried. “Give it to me now!”

My head came up from between her feverish thighs like a bucking bronco. I flung her legs up on my shoulders and slammed down on her like I’d been shot from a cannon. The hell with Women’s Lib! I was in charge now! That’s the way it was! I had her doubled over like a folding cot. My weight was on her buttocks. I was as deep inside her as it was possible to get. And when I relaxed and thrust again, she half-screamed with the intensity of it. Long, deep, swirling circular movements—that was the rhythm I established. Her burning butt and clutching, syrupy honeypot followed suit. We kept it up for a long, ecstatic, passion-building time, and then . . .

The telephone rang!

We both froze for a moment. Then, without moving anything except the one arm, Leila reached out and answered it. “Hello?”

She listened and then handed it to me. “Yeah?” I growled into the mouthpiece.

“Mr. Victor?” It was Charles Putnam. “I want to congratulate you on a job well done. You’ll be happy to hear that phone service has just been restored around the country.”

“I’m not happy,” I told him.

“I beg your pardon?” When I didn’t say anything, Putnam continued. “A job well done,” he said, “which brings me to my reason for calling. . . .”

“Get off the phone!” Leila hissed angrily. “That’s an order!”

“I do hope I haven’t caught you at an inopportune moment,” Putnam said.

“Hoping won’t help,” I sighed.

“Get off!” she snarled.

“The thing is, Mr. Victor, I’m afraid I’m in need of your services once again.”

Leila dug her nails into my rear end.

“Not a chance,” I told him.

“You don’t understand, Mr. Victor. Your country needs you.”

I held the receiver away from me and leaned down to calm Leila with a kiss. Her teeth almost tore off my lower lip.

“Your country needs you,” Putnam was repeating.

Violently, Leila was moving under me again. I realized that I was in imminent danger of being left behind. Quickly I started to move with her rhythm.

“Your country needs you.”

I stopped. I leaned over the side of the bed and located the cord leading from the wall to the telephone. I yanked it with all my strength. When it came loose from the wall, I hurled the telephone, cord and all, out the window. And then I turned my full attention back to Leila.

I slammed down on her hard two or three times to reassert my dominance. Then I rolled like a corkscrew, and her fiery bottom and honeyed joy tunnel rotated with me. Soon we were back on the crest again. And then . . .

Our mutual release lasted a long time. A long, long time! It should have left us exhausted. It didn’t. Within ten minutes we were fondling one another again. Why not? We had plenty of time. And there weren’t going to be any interruptions now. Tom Swift, you see, wasn’t all wrong.

There are advantages to not having a telephone!

Notes

[←1 ]

Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was an American soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British and executed. Hale has long been considered an American hero and, in 1985, he was officially designated the state hero of Connecticut.

[←2 ]

Mary Frances "Debbie" Reynolds (April 1, 1932 – December 28, 2016) was an American actress, singer, businesswoman, film historian, humanitarian. She was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for her portrayal of Helen Kane in the 1950 film Three Little Words, and her breakout role was her first leading role, as Kathy Selden in Singin' in the Rain (1952).

[←3 ]

80 kilograms

[←4 ]

AT&T Corp., originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. During its long history, AT&T was at times the world's largest telephone company, the world's largest cable television operator. In 2005, AT&T was purchased by Baby Bell and former subsidiary SBC Communications. Its name was changed to AT&T Inc.

[←5 ]

Affectionate monicker, referring to the Bell Telephone Company, which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984. Later it was acquired by AT&T.

[←6 ]

Somewhat far-fetched metaphorical reference to French author Emile Zola’s open letter published on 13 January 1898 in a newspaper, accusing the French government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who (although later proved innocent) was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Taken out of context, J’accuse means “I strongly accuse.”

[←7 ]

This lengthy exposé of the MF technology (and its being hacked by Phreaks) is correct and authentic. Multi-frequency signaling (MF) is a signaling system that was introduced by the Bell System after World War II. It uses a combination of tones for address (phone number) and supervision signaling. The signaling is sent in-band over the same channel as the bearer channel used for voice traffic. Multi-frequency signaling allowed the use of modern DTMF signaling (TouchTone). In-band M.F.-signalling began to disappear as electronic switching systems displaced mechanical switchgear. Out-of-band Common Channel Signaling (CCS) became nearly universal at the end of the 20th century in the United States. Common-channel signaling is the transmission of signaling information (control information) on a separate channel than the data, thereby defeating the MF Phreaks.

[←8 ]

At the time of writing, there did not exist personal computers. The technology was emergent but generally unknown by the public at large. The term computer designated “mainframe computers”, considered mastodons today (2018), operable only by specialized personnel in air-conditioned vaults. In late 1972, a French team patented a micro-computer called Micral-N, mainly for scientific and process-control applications. Another French team developed the Alvan, a small computer for office automation which found clients in banks and other sectors. In late 1972, a Sacramento State University team built the Sac State 8008 computer, able to handle thousands of patients' medical records. In early 1973, Sord Computer Corporation completed the SMP80/08 which, however, did not have a commercial release. Virtually all early microcomputers were essentially boxes with lights and switches; one had to read and understand binary numbers and machine language to program and use them. Of the early "box of switches"-type microcomputers, the MITS Altair 8800 (1975) was the most famous. The MITS Altair just mentioned played an instrumental role in sparking significant hobbyist interest, which itself eventually led to the founding and success of many well-known personal computer hardware and software companies, such as Microsoft and Apple Computer. Although the Altair itself was only a mild commercial success, it helped spark a huge industry. The period from about 1971 to 1976 is sometimes called the first generation of microcomputers. By 1977, the introduction of the second generation, known as home computers, made microcomputers considerably easier to use than their predecessors because their predecessors' operation often demanded thorough familiarity with practical electronics. The ability to connect to a monitor (screen) or TV set allowed visual manipulation of text and numbers. While two early home computers (Sinclair ZX80 and Acorn Atom) could be bought either in kit form or assembled, most home computers were only sold pre-assembled. They were enclosed in plastic or metal cases similar in appearance to typewriter or hi-fi equipment enclosures, which were more familiar and attractive to consumers than the industrial metal card-cage enclosures used by the Altair and similar computers. By 1982, an estimated 621,000 home computers were in American households. After the success of the Radio Shack (Tandy) TRS-80, the Commodore PET and the Apple II in 1977, almost every manufacturer of consumer electronics rushed to introduce a home computer. Large numbers of new machines of all types began to appear during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Mattel, Coleco, Texas Instruments and Timex, none of which had any previous connection to the computer industry, all had short-lived home computer lines in the early 1980s. Some home computers were more successful – the BBC Micro, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Atari 800XL and Commodore 64, sold many units over several years and attracted third-party software development. Introduced in August 1981, the IBM Personal Computer would eventually become the standard platform used in business. In the late 1970s, the 6502-based Apple II series had carved out a niche for itself in business, however it would quickly be displaced for office use by IBM PC. Apple Computer's 1980 Apple III was underwhelming, and although the 1984 release of the Apple Macintosh introduced the modern graphical screen to the market, it wasn't common until IBM-compatible computers adopted it. Throughout the 1980s, businesses large and small adopted the Personal Computer platform.

[←9 ]

In those days, computers used punched cards (12 rows of 80 columns) as input.

[←10 ]

Dr. Fu Manchu is a fictional villain character introduced in a series of novels by British author Sax Rohmer during the first half of the twentieth century. The character was also featured extensively in cinema, television, radio, comic strips, and comic books for over 90 years, and has become an archetype of the evil criminal genius and mad scientist. Fu Manchu's murderous plots are marked by the extensive use of arcane methods; he disdains guns or explosives, preferring members of secret societies as his agents armed with knives, or using "pythons and cobras ... fungi and my tiny allies, the bacilli ... my black spiders" and other peculiar animals or natural chemical weapons. He had an abhorrence for the truth, and used torture and other gruesome tactics to dispose of enemies.

[←11 ]

James Riddle Hoffa (February 14, 1913 – disappeared July 30, 1975) was an American labor union leader who served as the President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) union from 1958 until 1971. Hoffa became involved with organized crime from the early years of his Teamsters work, and this connection continued until his disappearance in 1975. He was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud in 1964, in two separate trials. He was imprisoned in 1967 and sentenced to thirteen years. In mid-1971, he resigned as president of the union as part of a pardon agreement with President Richard Nixon. Hoffa vanished in late July 1975 and was declared legally dead in 1982. It is generally accepted that he was murdered and his body disposed of. “Hoffa” became a metaphor for unsolved murder cases. At the time of writing this novel, Hoffa was still alive.offa was still alive.HoffaHHvvv

[←12 ]

Kate (Ma) Barker (October 8, 1873 – January 16, 1935), better known as Ma Barker, was American mother of several criminals who ran the Barker gang during the "public enemy era," when the exploits of gangs of criminals in the U.S. Midwest gripped the American people and press. She traveled with her sons during their criminal careers. After Barker was killed during a shoot-out with the FBI, she gained a reputation as a ruthless crime matriarch who controlled and organized her sons' crimes. J. Edgar Hoover (head of the FBI) described her as "the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade".

[←13 ]

The Black Panther Party or the BPP (originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense) was a political organization founded in October 1966. The party was active in the United States from 1966 until 1982. At its inception, the Black Panther Party's core practice was its armed citizens' patrols to monitor the behavior of officers of the Oakland Police Department and challenge police brutality in Oakland, California. In 1969, community social programs became a core activity of party members. The Black Panther Party instituted a variety of community social programs, most extensively the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, and community health clinics to address issues like food injustice. The party enrolled the largest number of members and made the greatest impact in the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Philadelphia. Black Panther Party members were involved in many fatal firefights with police including Huey Newton allegedly killing officer John Frey in 1967 and the 1968 ambush of Oakland police officers which wounded two officers and killed Panther Bobby Hutton. The party was also involved in many internal conflicts including several murders of suspected police informants among their ranks. Government oppression initially contributed to the party's growth, as killings and arrests of Panthers increased its support among African Americans and on the broad political left, both of whom valued the Panthers as a powerful force opposed to de facto segregation and the military draft. Scholars have characterized the Black Panther Party as the most influential black movement organization of the late 1960s. Other commentators have described the Party as more criminal than political.

[←14 ]

Robert George "Bobby" Seale^[1] (born October 22, 1936) is an American political activist. He and fellow activist Huey P. Newton co-founded the Black Panther Party.

[←15 ]

Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, academic, and author. She emerged as a prominent counterculture activist in the 1960s working with the Communist Party USA, of which she was a member until 1991, and was involved very briefly in the Black Panther Party.

[←16 ]

Daniel Joseph Berrigan SJ (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, and poet. Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration, but it was his participation in the Catonsville Nine (nine Catholic activists who burned draft files to protest the Vietnam War) that made him famous. It also landed him on the Federal Bureau of Investigation's "most wanted list" (the first-ever priest on the list), on the cover of Time magazine, and in prison.

[←17 ]

Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-sellers of all time. Spock was an activist in the New Left and anti Vietnam War movements during the 1960s and early 1970s. At the time, his books were criticized for propagating permissiveness and an expectation of instant gratification which allegedly led young people to join these movements.

[←18 ]

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was an American law enforcement administrator and the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. In his later life (i.e. at the moment of writing this novel) Hoover had become a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive abuses of power began to surface.

[←19 ]

Reference to a known painting by the American-born painter James McNeill Whistler in 1871. It is best known under its colloquial name Whistler's Mother. The subject of the painting is Whistler's mother, Anna McNeill Whistler. The image has been used since the Victorian era, especially in the United States, as an icon for motherhood, affection for parents, and "family values" in general.

[←20 ]

This written before the coming into existence of AIDS.

[←21 ]

Victory over Japan Day (also known as V-J Day, Victory in the Pacific Day, or V-P Day) is the day on which Imperial Japan surrendered in World War II, in effect bringing the war to an end.

[←22 ]

Mark is having a satirical go here at various VIPs of his time. Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 37th President of the United States from 1969 until his resignation in 1974, making him the only U.S. president to resign from office. Donald Francis Shula (born January 4, 1930) is a former professional American football coach and player who is best known as the head coach of the Miami Dolphins. Spiro Theodore "Ted" Agnew (November 9, 1918 – September 17, 1996) was the 39th Vice President of the United States, serving from 1969 to his resignation in 1973. Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun (March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977) was a German (and, later, American) aerospace engineer and space architect. He was the leading figure in the development of rocket technology in Germany and the father of rocket technology and space science in the United States. He was responsible (with his team) of placing Americans on the Moon. Martha Elizabeth Beall Mitchell (September 2, 1918 – May 31, 1976) was the wife of John N. Mitchell, United States Attorney General under President Richard Nixon. She became a controversial figure with her outspoken comments about the government at the time of the 1972 Watergate scandal (which may just not have been known to Mark at the time of writing). Hubert Horatio Humphrey Jr. (May 27, 1911 – January 13, 1978) was an American politician who served as the 38th Vice President of the United States from 1965 to 1969. He was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1968 presidential election, losing to Republican nominee Richard Nixon. Aristotle Socrates Onassis (20 January 1906 – 15 March 1975) was a Greek shipping magnate who amassed the world's largest privately owned shipping fleet and was one of the world's richest and most famous men. He was known for his business success, his great wealth and also his personal life, including his affair with famous opera singer Maria Callas; and his 1968 marriage to Jacqueline Kennedy (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994), the widow of American President John F. Kennedy. Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy (February 22, 1932 – August 25, 2009) was an American politician who served in the United States Senate from Massachusetts for almost 47 years, from 1962 until his death in 2009. For many years, Ted Kennedy was the most prominent surviving member of the Kennedy family. Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923) is a Germany-born American statesman, political scientist, diplomat and geopolitical consultant who served as the United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presidential administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. A Jewish refugee who fled Nazi Germany with his family in 1938, he became National Security Advisor in 1969 and United States Secretary of State in 1973. He was instrumental end effective in negotiating a ceasefire in Vietnam thus helping to bring this war to end. Jack Northman Anderson (October 19, 1922 – December 17, 2005) was an American newspaper columnist, considered one of the fathers of modern investigative journalism. Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990), commonly known as B. F. Skinner, was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. Skinner considered free will an illusion and human action dependent on consequences of previous actions, according to his principle of reinforcement. Norman Kingsley Mailer (January 31, 1923 – November 10, 2007) was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film-maker, actor, and liberal political activist. Richard Gordon Kleindienst (August 5, 1923 – February 3, 2000) was an American lawyer, politician, and a U.S. Attorney General during the Watergate political scandal. Daniel Joseph Berrigan SJ (May 9, 1921 – April 30, 2016) was an American Jesuit priest, anti-war activist, and poet. Like many others during the 1960s, Berrigan's active protest against the Vietnam War earned him both scorn and admiration . Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was an, acclaimed British-born American actress, businesswoman, and humanitarian. Richard Burton (10 November 1925 – 5 August 1984) was an internationally acclaimed Welsh actor. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor. He was married twice to Elisabeth Taylor. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American business tycoon, investor, record-setting pilot, film director, and philanthropist, known during his lifetime as one of the most financially successful individuals in the world. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by a worsening obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD), nosophobia, chronic pain from several plane crashes, and increasing deafness. Granville Oral Roberts (January 24, 1918 – December 15, 2009) was an American Charismatic Christian televangelist, ordained in both the Pentecostal Holiness and United Methodist churches. He is considered the godfather of the charismatic movement and one of the most recognized preachers worldwide. Ralph Nader (born February 27, 1934) is an American political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney, noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism and government reform causes. Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed "The Duke", was an American actor and filmmaker. An Academy Award-winner for True Grit (1969), Wayne was among the top box office draws for three decades. Sir Leslie Townes Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) known professionally as Bob Hope, was an English-American stand-up comedian, vaudevillian, actor, singer, dancer, athlete, and author. With a career that spanned nearly 80 years, Hope appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, with 54 feature films with Hope as star. Abbot Howard Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist, anarchist, and revolutionary who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies"). Rodney Marvin "Rod" McKuen (April 29, 1933 – January 29, 2015) was an American poet, singer-songwriter, and actor. He was one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s. Irwin Allen Ginsberg (June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet, philosopher, writer, and activist. He is considered to be one of the leading figures of both the Beat Generation during the 1950s and the counterculture that soon followed. He vigorously opposed militarism, economic materialism and sexual repression.

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Marcel Marceau (born Marcel Mangel, 22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was a French actor and Mime artist most famous for his stage persona as "Bip the Clown". He referred to mime as the "art of silence", and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years.

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In computing, time-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking at the same time. Its introduction in the 1960s and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s represented a major technological shift in the history of computing. By allowing a large number of users to interact concurrently with a single computer, time-sharing dramatically lowered the cost of providing computing capability, made it possible for individuals and organizations to use a computer without owning one. Computers were huge and costly mainframes in that time-period.

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Madame Thérèse Defarge is a fictional character in the book A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. She is a tricoteuse, a tireless worker for the French Revolution, and the wife of Ernest Defarge.

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Telstar is the name of various communications satellites. The first two Telstar satellites were experimental and nearly identical. Telstar 1 launched on July 10, 1962. It successfully relayed through space the first television pictures, telephone calls, and telegraph images, and provided the first live transatlantic television feed. Telstar 2 launched May 7, 1963.

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