Psychoshop

by Alfred Bester

  “I wonder whether we might have a little more light? Un peu? It’s awfully dark in here.”

  “Adam has found this part of the spectrum and this intensity to be best for him when working with stuff of the mind. But to oblige a partner—” I reached up and unzipped space, drew forth a trouble light, and touched it to life. “What did you want to see?”

  “That icon over there. Ah. ‘Scrying by aggression.’”

  “A recent acquisition of mine,” I said.

  “I thought you worked for a magazine americaine.”

  “I do. But I decided to cover this properly. I really had to learn the business from the ground up.”

  “Commendable. Tres ban! Where are the controls?” He pointed at the space into which I was stuffing the light. “In one of those pockets?”

  A cascade of bleeding wounds flashed upon the wall to my right.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, sealing it off.

  “The master controls for the whole business,” he said. “This place is a ship, oui? I mean the controls by which M’sieur Maitre brought it here.”

  “Oh,” I said, recalling Glory’s recounting that it had once been some sort of vessel they’d ridden in from the future. “I don’t know. It’s not relevant for my story.”

  “They must be around here somewhere, if the singularity’s off that way—”

  “I wouldn’t know,” I said. “Why is it important?”

  “Oh, it isn’t really. De rien. I was just curious what they’d look like for something so grand and powerful.”

  His eyes kept searching and I began to feel uncomfortable. Drifting amputations and strings of organs passed between us, along with a horde of aggressions. “I’m afraid I can’t help you. You’re going to have to ask Adam about that one, too, when he gets back.”

  He shrugged. “Pas important,” he said. “The body will be placed in stasis here, at the end of the storage field, while we install its attributes, yes?”

  “Not really,” I told him. “There’s a different field for doing such work.” I gestured. “It’s farther to the rear. We’ll set him up there and transport this stuff back.”

  “Then why is it all up here?”

  “Adam is a perfectionist. He set up this special area, away from other business, for purposes of reviewing each quality. He’ll move it all back when the time comes.”

  “Admirable. May I see that other area?”

  A love-hate scherzo played suddenly through my breast and a collection of welts on every color skin imaginable flowed underfoot.

  I felt myself possessed by a determination that Cagliostro not see the clones. So, “Sorry,” I told him. “That’s off-limits just now. There’s another project underway at the moment back there.”

  “Certainement, I wouldn’t disturb it.”

  “I didn’t think you would. By the way, what sort of body is to host this milieu? I think Adam said something about a fancy android from your period?”

  “Ah! Oui, a top-of-the-line twenty-fifth-century android body known as an adaptoid. It’s used for work on other planets and in deep space. It has enormous capacity to change itself: It reads the environment, writes its own specs, and effectuates them.”

  “I can see why you’d want to remove the Frankenstein factor then,” I said. “It sounds as if it could be a tough sparring partner.”

  “True,” he said, “but careful design conquers all.”

  “Despite Adler?”

  He chuckled. “Everybody plays Adler’s games. It doesn’t make everybody dangerous.”

  “And if aggressive capacity comes with the turf? If it’s hardwired into humans and will accompany any human trait we instill, like a part of the hologram of the rest?”

  “My, we are pessimistic,” he said, as flames leaped behind him. “Where’d you reach to find that one?”

  “Got it from Bertrand Russell.”

  “Bah! It goes against all his thinking.”

  “He wasn’t proposing it as a thesis. He was examining it as a speculation and offering it as a caution.”

  “Bertrand Russell! Mon Dieu! Who’d have thought he’d get involved in my petit project? Still, even if he is correct it does not follow that aggressive behavior will manifest just because the capacity is present. Do you go around striking people you dislike? Of course not. Or not usually. Non, there’s a difference between the capacity for aggression and the tendency to turn on one’s creator.”

  “—Or father-figure,” I suggested. “Terribly Freudian, I admit. Is that why you don’t like the idea?”

  A mushroom-shaped cloud bloomed on the wall behind him. “That has nothing to do with it!” he cried. “The Dominoid requires a capacity for aggression! We need only prevent its developing undesirable complexes! Such as the Oedipus! We need only keep control of that primal drive! We know how! Enough said.” Then he caught himself. “Pardon, I didn’t mean the aggression. I meant the power drive,” he said.

  “Sure,” I told him. “But one thing more. Off the subject.”

  “Oui?”

  “What’s it for? You must have some use in mind for the thing.”

  He looked away. The cloud at his back collapsed and blew on, to be succeeded by the image of fish nibbling at a floating corpse.

  “Mainly research,” he said, “into synthetic life. If it meets all our expectations, however, there are some small cosmological observations I’d like to use it for. I’m sure they’ve occurred to Adam, also, and I don’t see how we can be in disagreement—though we must discuss it soon. Thank you for the reminder.”

  “What sort of observations?”

  He glanced back along the tunnel.

  “Like the work back there,” he said. “Off-limits. After all, you are a writer working on a story, not a true employee. Your tenure here is limited. Let us leave it at that.”

  I nodded, as the fish swarmed and the corpse vanished. I turned toward the doorway. “Let’s head back out then,” I said.

  “It’s amazing, the art displays in this room,” he told me.

  “A function of the place,” I said.

  “Have they appeared around me, too?” he asked suddenly.

  “You bet. All bunny rabbits and butterflies.”

  “Oh. I take it they’re not really indicative of anything but the general.”

  “Wouldn’t know,” I said. “I don’t really work here.”

  After I’d conducted him to the parlor, where he gave Glory, who was there, book in hand, a courtly bow, he squeezed my shoulder and hand again and was gone.

  “What was he doing in the Hellhole?” she asked me.

  “He wanted to see how far along his project is.”

  “I wonder whether Adam would have approved?”

  “He pretty much asserted his rights as a partner. I could have stopped him if he tried to mess with anything.”

  “I’m sure you could have. No real choice. No harm done.”

  “Did Adam tell you what he wants the thing for— above and beyond seeing whether the experiment will work?”

  “Yes,” she said. Then she smiled.

  “Another of those Do Not Discuss things?”

  “For now,” she said, putting the book aside and stretching. “You ready for more clients? Or you want a break?”

  I was in the foyer and had the Switch thrown in a moment.

  “Break time” I said. “That was a rough one.”

  Later, in the washroom, it seemed that my reflection winked at me. Then, “The coin trick, Orrie. Do the coin trick,” it ordered, and I remembered.

  I dug into my right-hand pocket and removed a handful of coins. Tossing them high, I plucked them one by one from the air and repocketed them, save for the last one—a quarter—which I tore in half.

  “Time for you to have your speed back,” my voice seemed to say, “so that you can have some time to get used to it again. Hate to dump everything on you at once.”

  I stared.

  “Look,” I
said finally, “obviously I’m living with a load of masking memories. For how long I’ve been doing it, I have no idea. They all seem real, and at least some of them must be. Whatever I’m finally to get in the way of real ones, please—don’t take away my being a boy in the Bronx, my years at Brown, my friends, my work as a writer. I don’t care if they’re fake. They’re real to me. If there are a lot more I don’t know about, yes, give them to me. I’ll take them. Give me whatever you want. No complaint. But please, please let me keep these, too, for I just realized how dear they are to me.”

  Then my eyes brimmed over and my reflection’s did the same. No more answers.

  I waited for as long as it took, then washed my face and went to look for Glory, careful to keep my speed down.

  I found her in her room, stretched out on the bed. She gave me a small smile. “Love is a strange business,” she said.

  “Agreed,” I responded, still standing just inside the door.

  “It should make you happy, not sad.”

  “It should,” I said. “In fact it does, me.”

  “But you won’t be with me much longer.”

  I stroked her nearest skin. “Soon old Alf will be changing his skin, too,” I said. “No telling what we might find underneath, eh?”

  “Exactly,” she said. “You will get all of your old memories and you will become my enemy.”

  “No. I will not become your enemy.”

  “Dammy’s then. Same thing. We stand together.”

  “I do not believe you have seen the entire picture.”

  “But we have evidence and you have nothing.”

  “I have my feelings, and I do not think I would have them if they were not basically true,” I said. “For somewhere inside I know what’s going on, and I do not believe that that part of me would mislead this part of me this way.”

  She laughed. “There are awfully subtle conditioning techniques,” she stated, “and the mind is a very malleable thing.”

  “I know,” I agreed, “and I haven’t anything left to say on the matter.”

  “Come here,” she said, opening her arms. “I want you while you’re still you.”

  I went to her and sat beside her and looked down at her. Her eyes were big and moist and far apart and wondrous deep.

  “You’ve come here from the end of the universe,” she said slowly. “That sword Mother Shipton saw had to be yours. Your destiny is chaotic.”

  “That may well be the case, but it has nothing to do with your fears.”

  “The computer was unable to locate an English translation of the poem anywhere,” she went on.

  “That’s its problem, not mine.”

  “Speak, that I may record it.”

  I did.

  “When I hear you I almost believe you,” she said. “But I don’t see how it could be.”

  “Once on a journey I outsmarted myself,” I explained, “and I never recovered.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “But I remember the constellation you made me—I see it now—and the stars in your eyes are my only destination tonight.”

  I moved nearer those primal lights and was lost among them.

  SEVEN · A MAN OF MANY PARTS

  The week that followed was but a continuation of the routine that had gone before, without Adam. Certain cases stick in memory: The Whistling Shadow, the Senile Assassin, the Corpse at the End of the Rainbow, the Robot Who Needed a Heart, Those Are Gloves That Were His Hands, and the Unsaintly Stigmatist. Some hard work and some easy work, punctuated by spells of panic, frenzy, and madness—between long periods with Glory that made anything worthwhile.

  When Adam and Prandy returned, they were arm in arm and smiling. Prandy was enthusiastic about most places they had visited, things they had seen. “And Adam is very famous. One paparazzo followed us everywhere, shooting him,” she stated.

  “Really,” I said. “What did he look like?”

  “Oh, short red hair,” she replied, “purple and white polo shirt, sweat pants. Wore mirrorshades most of the time, and had on studded wrist straps.”

  “Case of mistaken identity, I’m sure,” Adam said.

  “No,” I said. “No.”

  “I need a nap,” Prandy announced. “Come with me.”

  “Of course,” Adam said.

  I met his gaze and held it. “But you’ve one little promise to keep before you sleep or get snowed on,” I said.

  “Oh? What is that?”

  Glory entered the room as I replied. “The fancy Proustian memory. I want it now.”

  We continued to stare into each other’s eyes. His shoulders sank and moved forward. “Now?” he repeated. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Glory was at my side. “Must it be now?” she asked.

  “Believe me. It must.”

  Prandy turned away, releasing Adam’s arm.

  “It will seem a matter of seconds,” she said to Glory. “Then it will be all over.”

  “I know,” Glory responded.

  Adam smiled. “True,” he said. “Come along, Alf.”

  I followed him to the Hellhole and Glory came up beside us. “I will assist you on this one, Dammy,” she said.

  “No,” he replied. “No assistance.”

  “It’ll be all right,” I told her.

  “I’m going to insist,” she said.

  He shook his head. “It’s not an area where you can insist,” he stated. “I’m boss in there. Come on, Alf.”

  I gave Glory a wink. “See you in a bit,” I told her, as Adam opened the door.

  She turned away and seated herself on the couch as Prandy mounted the stair. I followed Adam inside and the door closed behind us. We walked through a gentle fall of knives.

  “Moment of truth for you,” he said.

  “I suppose so,” I responded, following the fiery clawmarks. After a time, I asked, “Aren’t we going back pretty far?”

  “All of the really good stuff is stored near the rear,” he said. “Aha!”

  We had not gone quite as far back as the other Alfs, though I could see them swaying ahead. Adam reached into a small stasis field to his left, and an icon appeared. “Installation will only take a few moments,” he said, touching the icon, “though you will be unconscious for a time afterwards. I’m not sure how long, but time means nothing in here.”

  “When I come around I’ll tell you something,” I told him.

  “Perhaps,” he said, and he slapped me lightly on the side of the head and everything went away.

  I woke with the taste of madeleine in my mouth. I was standing in a somewhat wider stance than usual, staring back at the doorway. It was still closed, Adam was nowhere in sight, and moments later I realized that something was wrong. The door was upside down. Then I knew that I was standing on the ceiling, though I did not feel upside down. In that I felt in no way secured in my position, it occurred to me that I might always have been capable of the feat. I had simply never tried it. I could probably walk right along the ceiling and down the wall. Might as well do it, I decided. I was more used to things below. I raised a foot, began turning to the left.

  There was a flash of movement to my right and a sharp pain in that side. Adam had leaped into view, and he had just struck me.

  “What gives?” I called, more in surprise than pain.

  Another movement, to my left. Another pain, left side this time.

  I jumped upward then, drawing up my knees, tucking, spinning through several somersaults as I broke the ceiling’s odd grav-field. I could tell that I would not return to it, so when my feet pointed toward the floor I shot them down to it, falling into a low crouch. Partway down I threw a backfist in either direction. My left connected and I heard a soft grunt. I rode the reaction to my right, turning; then I saw a foot coming toward me. I caught it and twisted hard.

  I saw the surprised look on Adam’s face. I’m sure he hadn’t expected me to catch it, but if I did
I think he’d anticipated my jamming it and throwing him away. Instead, I pretended it was a steering wheel I was cutting sharply to the left. He extended his right arm then, throwing himself over backward, made contact with the floor with his right hand, and rode the torque I was applying, rotating his entire body along its vertical axis. I switched hands and did it again. This time his left arm went out. … I took him in several complete circles in this fashion. I didn’t care where he’d picked up these moves—or if he’d been good enough simply to manufacture them on the spot. I knew them by dozens of different names from scores of times and places.

  He grinned at me. I straightened my legs, and he stopped grinning as I increased my momentum. Soon he was my unwilling satellite at about shoulder height.

  “Why’d you jump me, Adam?” I called.

  “You know why—now,” he said.

  “Nope,” I replied. “I’ve a suspicion, but I’m not sure. Say it.”

  “Fuck you. I’m the one who toys with his prey.”

  I let go, continuing to spin several times as I braked.

  He tucked and converted his momentum from linear to rotational, presumably ready to meet any surface with hands or feet, rebound, and come at me again. But I’d thrown him amid the hanging clones. When he struck, they fell about him in a heap. I didn’t feel like going after him and digging him out. I just stood there and called, “I admit you’re tough and beautifully coordinated. Let’s call it a draw. We’ve a lot to talk about.”

  I heard him spitting. Then he rose from the heap, holding one of the clones—the Vandal, I believe. Suddenly a crew of sexual organs, human and otherwise, appeared, to dance in a ring about him. “Come away, come away, Death,” they sang.

  Adam tore off the Vandal’s right arm and hurled it at me. I caught it and threw it back. By then, he’d twisted off the head, and it was coming my way. Somewhat disconcerting, that, seeing your own features—caput decapitatum—flying toward you. Adam ducked the arm and tore at the body again, as the dancing line around him was joined by a staggering line of Lilliputian men and women, zombie-like, each bearing evidence of its death—protruding knives, dangling ropes, rows of bullet holes, the bloated, pale puffiness of drowning victims. They walked the circle in the opposite direction to the dancers and provided a bass line. Adam tore out a handful of intestines and threw them at me as it began to rain blood.