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bridge. That is, they holographically reproduce the jagged edges from an analysis of the data-as-retrieved.
    Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. The more we Calcutecs up our technologies, the more they up their counter-technologies. We safeguard the data, they steal it. Your classic cops-and-robbers routine.
    Semiotecs traffic illegally obtained data and other information on the black market, making megaprofits. And what's worse, they keep the most valuable bits of information for themselves and the benefit of their own organization.
    Our organization is generally called the System, theirs the Factory. The System was originally a private conglomerate, but as it grew in importance it took on quasi-governmental status. In the same way as, say, Ma Bell in America. We rank-and-file Calcutecs work as individual independents not unlike tax accountants or attorneys, yet we need licenses from the state and can only take on jobs from the System or through one of the official agents designated by the System. This arrangement is intended to prevent misuse of technologies by the Factory. Any violation thereof, and they revoke your license. I can't really say whether these preventative measures make sense or not. The reason being that any Calcutec stripped of his qualifications eventually ends up getting absorbed into the Factory and going underground to become a Semiotec.
    As for the Factory, much less is known. It apparently started off as a small-scale venture and grew by leaps and bounds. Some refer to it as the Data Mafia, and to be certain, it does bear a marked resemblance in its rhizomic penetration to various other underworld organizations. The difference is that this Mafia deals only in information. Information is clean and information makes money. The Factory stakes out a computer, hacks it for all its worth, and makes off with its information.
    I drank a whole pot of coffee while doing the laundry. One hour on the job, thirty minutes rest—regular as clockwork. Otherwise the right-brain-left-brain interface becomes muddled and the resulting tabulations glitched.
    During those thirty-minute breaks, I shot the breeze with the old man. Anything to keep my mouth moving. Best method for repolarizing a tired brain.
    "What are all these figures?" I asked.
    "Experiment data," said the old man. "One-year's worth of findings. Numeric conversions of 3-D graphic-simulated volume mappings of the skulls and palates of various animals, combined with a three-element breakdown of their voices. I was tellin' you how it took me thirty years t'get t'where I could tune in each bone's waveform. Well, when this here calculation's completed, we'll finally be able't'extract that sound—not empirically, but theoretically."
    "Then it'll be possible to control things artificially?"
    "Right on the mark," said the old man.
    "So we have artifical control—where does that get us?"
    The old man licked his upper lip. "All sorts of things could happen," he said after a moment. "Truly all sorts of things. I can't go spoutin' off about them, but things you can't begin't'imagine."
    "Sound removal being only one of them?"
    The old man launched into another round of his belly laugh. "Oh-ho-ho, right you are, son. Tunin' in the signal of the human skull, we'll take the sound out or turn it up. Each person's got a different shaped skull, though, so we won't be able't'take it out completely.
    But we can turn it down pretty low, eh? Ho-ho-ho. We match the sound-positive to a sound-negative and make them resonate together. Sound removal's just one of the more harmless applications."
    Harmless? Fiddling with the volume was screwy enough. What was the rest going to be like?
    "It's possible't'remove sound from both speakin' and hearin'," resumed the old man. "In other words, we can erase the sound of the water from hearing—like I just did— or we can erase speech."
    "You plan to present these findings to the world?"
    " Tosh" said the old man, wiping his hands,