Institute For Advanced Computing

The Denizens of the Institute ate pizza with a knife and fork

When I began the novel, The Shadow Warriors, I knew I wanted Goettingen to be a big part of the book, and I knew technology was a huge part of the story.  My in-laws lived in Goettingen on the Prinzenstrasse on the 4th floor of an office building.  I went through the phone book to make sure there was not already a computer institute.  Whew!  There was not.  I came up with the name "Institute for Advanced Computing" and created Dr. Mittelstadt, Jacob Loose, Marcus, Christof, Marlies and Verena.  All the folks who worked there.

Did you catch my beginning author boo-boo.  Marcus and Marlies.  Never have character names that are too similiar.

The Institute for Advanced Computing

University Buildings in Goettingen, Germany

Was I ever relieved when a check of the Göttingen phone directory didn't turn up any computer institutes connected with the university, freeing me up to invent one. I modeled mine on the gray building in the foreground, typical of many of the older university buildings.  Bet you didn't know that the Brothers Grimm of fairy tale fame were protesters at the university way back when.  Below is the description when Emma sees her "home away from home" for the first time.

            Wayne and I had heard about this Institute for so long that it had the mythic aura of a technical Valhalla where cyber gods programmed the universe. Our taxi hit all the green lights along the Bürgerstrasse, then turned into a long driveway and stopped. A light drizzle was falling on Göttingen, and everything looked gray, especially the old tree-shrouded, limestone buildings of the university.  The university wasn't confined to a campus, but scattered all over town. Signs pointed visitors to the nearby Mathematics and Physical Institutes. Franz paid the driver, and the three of us approached the Institute along a sidewalk of gray paving bricks. Our new home away from home had three stories, with a newer white stucco addition on the side. Franz translated the inscription on the brass plaque by the entrance: “Institute for Advanced Computing.”

            In the foyer, unfurled umbrellas stood drying. A few marble steps led down to a cellar and others up to the ground floor. Wayne and I followed Franz up the stairs. The building emitted an odor recognizable anywhere. Academe. Chalk, dust, floor wax and fusty classrooms. Franz opened a heavy wooden door; we crossed a wide hall and entered a large room cluttered with desks, chairs, CRT's, shelves crammed with binders, all old-fashioned and low tech. Along the windows on the back wall furiously blooming red geraniums trailed over the big wide sills.

Many scenes in The Shadow Warriors are set in the town and the Institute.  I wish that "Warriors" was for sale on Amazon.de, but it's not.  Sigh.  Guess the English speaking world (US and UK) will be the only readers for the time being.  

A pub in Göttingen

My nephew took me pub crawling when I did research for The Shadow Warriors.  Of all the bars we visited, the one described below was the most interesting.  I changed it's name and I'm sure the interior has changed in the passing years.  I made up the music, the crowd and even the "disco whisperer."

We retreated back along wet sidewalks toward the center of town, for Marcus and Christof had decided we should top the evening off with a visit to a disco. Marcus turned into a wide but dilapidated entryway, which led into a dim, blue-lit cave. Behind a counter, an aging longhair collected a few marks cover charge, and stamped Euclid across the backs of our hands in neat purple letters.

We advanced further into the cave, which had a seedy, disreputable look, with sloppily painted walls and cigarette butts ground into the concrete floor. Now we heard voices over a pulsing beat, and met a phalanx of bodies, noise and smoke. We pushed our way into a large dark room. Above the heads of the mob of drinkers, the skylines of Paris, Moscow, New York and London were painted starkly on the walls. 

Again, with nowhere to sit, we stood together in the crunch of bodies and guzzled beer. Time was a rubber band, stretched taut at one moment, slack the next, and in its elastic intervals, I didn't know if we'd been drinking there for a few minutes or a few hours.

From the dance floor, the music called with demon logic. Marcus had disappeared to order more beer, and Christof asked in his best English, "You dance, Ms. Davis, pardon, you dance, Emma?"

           

"Thought you'd never ask," I cooed.

Christof steered me through the swarm and up a few stairs to a packed dance floor. The number was over, and a few couples left, so we did a crowd swim and squeezed in. The Village People's “Macho Man” started pulsing, and the dancer's began moving. In my dopey universe, I felt a pleasant intimacy in the boozy closeness of strangers. Bodies twisting, elbows pumping, Christof and I were really getting into the spirit. I heard the low voice, but it wasn't until a hand touched my shoulder that I registered that the voice speaking to me.

            "Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. E. Robinson, why do you follow me?"

            Crazies on the dance floor. I didn't turn to look, but a tiny alarm sounded. A moment later, the voice spoke to me again.           

            "You are making life difficult, Mrs. Robinson. Difficult for me. Dangerous for you. Go home and sit on your sofa."

            Goofy English with an odd, non-German accent, succinct and scary. I tried to twist around to look at this joker, but the dancers surged, blocking me. When at last I turned around, I didn't recognize anyone.

            With his knees bent, and his arms flung out, Christof hurled himself about like a crazed St. Vitas.

            "Mrs. Robinson, do you still have the photographs?"

            Soft with menace, the disembodied voice approached my ear again. I tried to bring up some intelligence, but my brain was too deep into the twin narcosis of booze and pot, and I was simply afraid.

            "Get out of Göttingen,  Mrs. Robinson. Go back to Hong Kong. Or Singapore."

            Jesus! I whirled and danced with the stranger behind me. He grinned and gyrated, too friendly to be the Whisperer. The throb and thump of the music stopped, then ABBA started it up again. Trying to find a face to attach to the voice, I stared over the room at hundreds of faces, but they were all intent on pulling the most pleasure out of a rainy Friday night.

            Then I saw him, slipping into the cave that led to the entrance, the man from Stanley Market, the angry man I knew in my mind as “Dark Eyes.” His glance flickered back to the dance floor, and our eyes met. He smiled with his lips and teeth, raised his arm, pointed his index finger right at me, and slowly squeezed an imaginary trigger. Then he disappeared into the blue cave.

           

The Shadow Warriors is now on Kindle

Too late for Christmas, but in plenty of time for the long New England winter, my novel The Shadow Warriors is now available from Amazon on the Kindle.  The Shadow Warriors began life way back in 2001 as an e-book.  How is that possible?  I found a small e-book publisher and latched onto the technology before most readers had heard of it and long before the Kindle.  The publisher went belly up, and I got back my rights and published with Booksurge, now Createspace.

This fall I decided it was time to get the novel of technology on the latest technology.  Voila!

This blog will be devoted to all things Shadow Warriors:  the genesis of the book, photos of where scenes are set, some discussions of information warfare and other novels of technology.  We will talk about the element of fiction and also technology and some very scary stuff.  Come back often.