Free Fun With Problems by Robert Stone Page A

remember the last pack of weird bird watchers we had?" He turned the rictus back on its subject. "They were Feds, Eric. They were government spies. Now, you say you're here for that conference. You say you're talking to local people. What's up, partner?"
    "Well, not really." Eric proposed to explain himself further.
    "Maybe you know something we don't, Eric."
    Perhaps because of the bird outside, the dark Paraclete descended on Eric once again.
    "Know something you don't?" He turned to Annie with a radiant countenance, then to Taylor. "That may be."
    Taylor trembled.
    "Taylor probably doesn't believe a lot of what he reads in the papers," Eric ventured, addressing Annie.
    "You got that right," said Taylor. "I disregard the trash."
    Annie watched, less anxiously. Having seen these situations before helped. Fraught as they got, they usually ended with some bloodless antler-rattling when she rallied herself to protect Taylor's feckless prey.
    Eric had fallen under the spell of his demon.
    "This is wise," he said. "It's not just a matter of slanted perspective. It's a matter of arrant fictionalizing. They rarely get caught."
    "He says it himself!" Taylor declared. "Admits it's all bullshit!"

    "I've never heard it put that way, Taylor, have you?" Annie asked. "I want to hear." And she did, if she could not change the subject.
    "Like those planes!" Taylor did not raise his voice but spoke with great passion. "That was faked, wasn't it? The planes into buildings. For oil, wasn't it?"
    "There were no planes," Eric said.
    "But wait," Annie exclaimed.
    "I knew it!" Taylor shouted. He half rose from his chair. "No planes whatsoever!"
    "No, Taylor," Eric said. "No planes." The force within him drove him to assume a wise condescending expression. An air, perhaps, of punditry. "Annie? There were no planes, do you understand?"
    "But people were killed," Annie said. Taylor, triumphant, only grew more angry.
    "Annie? Taylor? Have either of you ever heard of fractal imaging?"
    "I have," Annie said. "I think." Taylor looked as though he were hearing something he had always known without quite realizing it.
    "Did you know," Eric asked, "that in professional wrestling the outcome was always agreed to? The referee called the signals. This did not mean that people didn't get hurt." Eric chuckled. "Oh yes, Annie, people got hurt. Even killed. Did you know that the former Soviet People's Army accepted a four percent casualty rate in maneuvers?"
    "This wasn't the Russians," Taylor said. "This was no maneuver."
    Eric looked at the empty fruit jar and spoke thoughtfully. "That depends, Taylor, on what you mean by a maneuver. Think about it."

    "What are you trying to do, man," Taylor asked, "make some bullshit excuse or something?"
    "No no no, Taylor, don't misunderstand."
    Annie watched Eric carefully. Taylor took a deep breath and puffed through closed lips. Eric leaned backward in his uneven captain's chair with an air of complacency.
    "Watch the chair, Eric," Annie warned, but Eric took no notice.
    "I've been doing this all my professional life, my two friends. I've been—you might say—behind the scenes. Listen to your Uncle Eric, as I'll call myself tonight. Whatever you think is happening, be certain it's not happening. Nothing you ever see or hear is correct. Shit, it's not even real. See, some are content. Others confused. Some shocked into a dreadful unprotesting silence. Some incensed, filled with impotent rage. All persuaded."
    "I'll give you impotent rage," Taylor said softly.
    "It's a funny idea," Annie said. "But our rage isn't impotent at all, I'm afraid. Although," she said to Taylor, "we're very peaceful people. We've accepted peace."
    "You!" Taylor kept his seat but turned corpse-white. "Maybe it's your job to keep people persuaded! Could be that's what you're doing here."
    Eric laughed.
    "Think it's funny, Eric? You gonna tell me those planes weren't part of a U.S. government conspiracy? Invented in every detail?" He raised