2000

The year 2000 functions as a recurring access date: a police file is locked away until then, and a separate sealed jacket is described as remaining inaccessible on the same timetable. The date turns official secrecy into a concrete duration, while the novel’s expanding computer surveillance makes the future both a promised moment of access and a warning about how much information power can gather in the meantime.

Records Sealed Until 2000

When Doc asks about a person’s status, he is told that it is inactive and that the file is unavailable. He answers that Internal Affairs has locked everything down until the year 2000, making the date a barrier imposed by police procedure rather than a personal choice. The exchange leaves the underlying matter unresolved while identifying the institution controlling access.

The date recurs when Doc seeks to inspect a jacket described as ancient history but still under seal. His contact treats the request as routine, and Doc points out the contradiction in breaking into officially sealed records while professing faith in the system. The matching deadline connects two restricted records without establishing that they concern the same case; what they share is the prospect of information withheld for years.

Information, Surveillance, and Delay

The novel places this archival delay beside newer forms of monitoring. Federal agents have a file on Doc, including a telephoto photograph taken in a parking lot, and explain their interest through the sequence of Tariq Khalil’s visit, a subsequent killing, and Mickey Wolfmann’s disappearance. Their chronology offers an investigative rationale, but Doc redirects them toward Bigfoot Bjornsen, who has the fuller case file. Information is thus distributed unevenly among agencies and investigators, while the subject of surveillance is also aware of being watched.

Elsewhere, Fritz reports that the FBI keeps asking Doc about Shasta Fay Hepworth after she appears at LAX, and Doc suspects that the agents can monitor his computer connection. The ARPAnet can make a person’s movements and associations newly legible, but access to a network does not mean access to every truth: files can remain sealed, and the agency’s questions can expose its own interest without explaining its purpose.

The Future as a Moving Threshold

Sparky rejects the idea that the ARPAnet has taken anyone’s soul. He describes it instead as a means of finding out what another person did not expect to be discovered, one whose speed and capacity keep changing. His account distinguishes information gathering from a mystical merging of minds, while emphasizing that the practical limits of the present technology may not last.

That projection gives the year 2000 a double significance. It marks a promised end to particular restrictions on records, yet the developing surveillance system points toward a future in which knowledge may spread faster than anyone can control and there may be nowhere to escape observation. The date is therefore not a resolution in itself: it measures the wait for disclosure while the means of watching continue to advance.