Free Doc Ford 19 - Chasing Midnight by Randy Wayne White

the times we’ve talked about it, about time, huh? Trouble is, there’s no quantitative data available. And the qualitative knowledge base is, like, zero, zilch,
nada
, because it’s never happened before—thank this nation’s lucky stars.”
    Over his shoulder, he had added, “Try to come up with a good acronym. Even behavioral scientists go goofy for a sexy acronym—probably because we’re too introspective to get reliable hard-ons. Present company excluded, of course.”
    I didn’t bother replying.
    “Something spelled close to the word ‘serious’ because it’s,
you know
, a damn serious subject. I’m getting close with Sudden Internet Isolation Response. Just need a couple of more bell ringers. Words that fit without straining—you’re familiar with the drill.”
    I had sniffed, squinted acidic tears from my eyes and looked at the legal pad. Tomlinson’s penmanship is unusual. After all the acid
he’s
dealt with over the years, you’d expect spidery impressionism. Instead, his writing reminds me of the eloquent calligraphy that Iassociate with previous centuries—beautifully formed and slanted loops and swirls. Spenserian script, he calls it, and credits his writing hand to a former life in which, he says, he worked as a shipping clerk, eighteenth-century London, on the Thames River.
    After he’d left the room, I mumbled the title aloud, then experimented with variations because I couldn’t help myself. I’m obsessive, which I have no problem admitting. I’m also a linear thinker who follows avenues of thought as if they were tunnels. By blindsiding me with the problem, Tomlinson had successfully elbowed me into a new tunnel.
    As he returned to the lab, and plugged in the fan, I was saying, “Sudden Internet Isolation Response. Uhhh… Sudden Isolation
Reaction
… After… After Undetected Electronic Sabotage? No, that stinks. Sudden Isolation Response to… to… ?” I looked at him and shrugged. “I’ve got work to do. Write your own damn paper.”
    Tomlinson had snapped his fingers, grabbed the legal pad and found his pencil. “How about this?”
    I watched him write
Sudden Internet Isolation Response In an Unsuspecting Society
.
    “‘Unprepared Society’ is better,” I told him. ‘It’s stronger than ‘Unsuspecting.’ More accurate, anyway.”
    The man thought about it, then nodded as he made the change. “When you’re right, you’re right. Let’s see how it looks on paper: S—I—I—R—I—U—S. Sweet,
hermano
—perfect.
Serious—
” He grinned. “Now I’ve just got to do the mule work. Write the intro. Put together my materials and methods. I’ll have to slip through a few time barriers, take a peek into the future to assemble data. A couple of hash brownies should do the trick. But this’ll get me to the starting gate.”
    Marijuana-laced brownies and time travel—standard equipagefor academic research in Tomlinson World. I knew better than to ask questions.
    It kept Tomlinson quiet for all of ten minutes, during which he had found a stool and sat at the stainless steel dissecting table, scribbling, erasing, then scribbling some more. He had stopped only once to go to the galley and grab a fresh quart of beer.
    I finished cleaning the tank, and had moved to my desk where there was a file labeled
Mote/Sturgeon Farming/Caviar
. Even though it was four weeks before Kazlov’s party, I was already well into my research. In the file were the notes I’d made in Sarasota while touring Mote Marine Lab’s aquaculture facility. There were also articles and research papers on sturgeon.
    I had been reading an article about the Caspian Sea’s black marketeers when Tomlinson returned to the subject of Internet isolation. “Wireless communication is our new tribal lifeline, man. It worries me. Like,
obsessively
worries me. Have you noticed that I rarely carry my cell phone anymore?”
    “Maybe they’ll start making sarongs with pockets,” I had replied. “I don’t