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by the human brain.
    Again in a more esoteric scientific quarterly, the company was praised for its work—alongside the New York State Department of Health—training users to emit brain signals to command a computer to move a cursor around a screen.
    A seemingly small program that had apparently netted great results for the relatively obscure company, if the events at the Butler Bank were any indication.
    A few minor articles in some of the local Boston papers several years before mentioned that Dr. Curt Newton, a noted MUT researcher and lecturer in the fields of applied mathematics and cybernetics, had been lured away to PlattDeutsche. The scientist boasted in one article that the unlimited funding offered by the large corporation would, in less than a decade, allow him to become the world's first physical cryptologist.
    Smith wrinkled his nose at the phrase. At its most basic, cryptology was the science that dealt with en-ciphering and deciphering messages. He had known cryptographers since his OSS days during World War II. Indeed, it was a young Harold W. Smith who had worked alongside British and American cryptologists on the top secret Ultra project, which was one of the most successful counterespionage operations in modern history and broke the Nazi Enigma coding machine and contributed to the Allied victory in Europe. But Smith had never before heard of anyone referring to himself as a "physical cryptologist."
    He input the phrase into the computer and stuck the Search key. The computer responded almost instantaneously. There was only one article on the subject other than the one Smith had already read.
    It was in a European computer journal, and the phrase was highlighted seven times, all in reference to its cover interview subject, Dr. Curt Newton. He described physical cryptology as the science of deciphering the neural codes in a living subject and transferring them to an artificial host via an electronic uplink. Physical cryptology would break down the very codes that defined human thought.
    Preliminary research, he claimed, had reaped great results with servomechanisms and electrode attach-ments, but his ultimate goal was to make wire connection between human subjects and computers ob-solete.
    In the article—dated five years previous—Dr.

    Newton vowed that his process would eventually become simplified to the point that wires would be a thing of the past. Radio signals would take their place.
    Using the CURE mainframes' massive search ability, Smith sifted through all Pentagon information concerning PlattDeutsche. The search proved unen-lightening. There were files that concerned the company's dealings with the Air Force and Army, all inactive. Smith hit similar dead-ends with the NSC, NSA and CIA. All had had accounts with the corporation in years past, but all had either completed the specifications of their various contracts or pulled the plug on whatever arrangements they had with the company when the national-security funds dried up.
    In all the government, only the FBI continued to divert a modest hundred thousand dollars to PlattDeutsche for research into a prototype crowd-control device using radio-enhanced ocular signals.
    Smith returned to his computer's main menu.
    There were other articles, but none offered any great insight. Smith scanned them all carefully before finally snapping the computer off. The screen within the desk winked out dutifully.
    He turned slowly in his cracked leather chair and stared through the one-way glass office window at the silent black waters of Long Island Sound.
    PlattDeutsche was a virtual island in the field of technology. It had apparently earned enough in government contracts to sustain itself during the long dry period. Indeed, it had used its earlier wealth to buy up a few other small companies—not related to the computer industry—making it a miniconglomerate. It had also started up the PlattDeutsche America Security Systems Corporation.
    All of this was