Fun House

by Appel, Benjamin

  Suddenly the conditioning shots ended. The miniature TV-movie house was lifted from my head, the metal clamps that had gripped me at the temples, numbing thought itself, sliding back into the carven chair. Dizzy, half-maddened, half-hypnotized, I blinked at the real faces of real people in an unreal world.

  There before me was Doctor 73, Gladys, and Commissioner Sonata. “Men,” the Commissioner called and two L. and O. operatives entered. “Take him outside.”

  They escorted the doctor out of the office. The Commissioner glanced at me, and shrugging hopelessly, he wandered over to the doctor’s desk. He stared down at the picture book and slowly began turning its pages. The soft voice of Theda Rumppe sounded. “Oh, Commissioner, only you can make me happy …”

  Gently, Gladys took the book from him. “They’ve won,” he said. “They’ve put the professor in an H.R.L.H.1”

  Only now could I get the words off my tongue. “The A-I-D?”

  “The A-I-D,” he echoed and laughed wildly. “The nuclear mass!” he shouted. “What’s your opinion of that, gentlemen? The isotope of any fractionating power, Mr. President, is related to the gravitational field by one thousand million megatons. This is the principle we have to contend with and without delay. Members of the Supreme Court of Supreme Thought! Without delay and without regard for the quantum theory! Energy cannot be created or destroyed but altered in form. Matter into energy into radioactivity into strontium. That is the fundamental decision for the Rulers. The thermal absorption modified by resonance capture can only lead to dire results for humanity and the generations unborn, the direct results, to an isotope with a half-life at the very best.”

  Commissioner Elvis Sonata had cracked up. There was nothing to do but summon Doctor 73 and put the raving man into one of the dark brown chairs. With tears in my eyes I watched the metal clamps slide up, gripping him tight at the temples. The metal frame dropped down over his head, bringing him visions of the Past, Present and Future …

  There isn’t much to add to this historic report. The A-I-D obviously did not go off on July 4th, 2039. And it is now September as I write this final page. Perhaps the Rulers were right in Their argument that even the maddest of power-mad professors wouldn’t want to destroy himself. Nevertheless THE QUESTION still hangs over mankind.

  Did the professor set the A-I-D? And if he did, did he set it for some day in the near or distant future?

  I only escaped imprisonment in an H.R.L.H. because I was a Reservation man. On July 5th, I returned home, and almost immediately I began to record my experiences for Posterity.

  And before I conclude, let me express a word of thanks to the writer Gladys Ellsberg1 who returned to the Reservation with me, and helped in the preparation of this eyewitness report. I cannot ever express my gratitude for her many professional skills. I should add that both of us have spoken throughout the Reservation against the St. Ewagiow and for the need to establish a Life Party to oppose that Death Party. The result has been the formation of the St. Samfu2 which has swept the Reservation like a prairie fire, and leaping the atomic-powered fence that separates us from the Outside, achieved great popularity there. In fact, it has won members in every nation of the world, and is the first international organization in years capable of defeating the St. Ewagiow.

  Posterity, one last word. The A-I-D must be found and returned to international custody! Report any odd or mysterious parcel of medium weight to the officials of your Government! This is mankind’s last chance! JOIN THE SAMFU!

  1 Power equals Status.

  2 Alliance minus allies equals absolute power.

  3 Although even Bangani (Barnum F.) didn’t know where the professor was hiding, and no Brain-Confessor could have dug what he didn’t know out of him, the Court, or rather the Minister of Police Affairs, had been very ingenious. A comprehensive statistical analysis of all recorded telepathic thought waves had revealed the secret.

  1 Probability equals Possibility.

  1 Russoplayo was entered at Union Square in New York City. But most of its 64.5 square miles were located underground on nearby Staten Island in New York harbor.

  2 Players bound for the various playlands used official craft provided by the administration. For Russoplayo, the play began before departure. I had signed documents stating that I voluntarily chose “to leave the country” and was aware it was at my own risk.

  1 See Appendix for Founding Fathers of Communism.

  1 One of the many devices that had eliminated dictaphones, tapped wires, etc.

  1 J. Archer Chubb, a native of McKeesport, Pennsylvania, after two months in Russoplayo had won the top position of “Ivan Radizl.”

  2 These Superior Beings were facetiously known as S.B.’s.

  1 The first Sputnik or earth satellite was launched by the Russians almost ft hundred years ago in 1957.

  1 Periodicals of the previous century that were guides to form.

  2 The Searchorod was first perfected by geologists seeking uranium.

  3 An underground train that had first come into use in the great cities of the world.

  4 The Universal Translator operated on the principle of reversal. The language to be translated was broken down to its basic syllables which were relayed to that part of the brain where memory was stored. There it was electronically converted into syllabic combinations native to the user of the U.T.

  1 Above ground, Russoplayo was a replica of Moscow. It was built on Staten Island in the harbor of New York.

  2 The Urban Recorder.

  1 Smoke clouds (denicotinized) were in common use in Russoplayo among the various conspiratorial cliques.

  2 The St. Ewagiow trained their raw recruits in the decontrolled playlands.

  3 The blade imitated a human rib while a human skull in silver was on the handle.

  1 The sunlight had been piped in from the surface.

  2 Red Sea of Paradise, an aphrodisiac.

  1 No lethal weapons were permitted in Russoplayo. The cannon were harmless models.

  2 The skywriter wrote in Russian. Gladys-Ekaterina translated for me.

  3 The Voice was carried over a public address system.

  4 In the country proper, the Voice was also a way of describing the President. A result of the Presidential elections where each of the two candidates selected the voice of a former president from the registered voices in the Archives-Machines to campaign with. Popular voices included Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower. The Voices of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were obligatory for all candidates.

  1 My party name or Crockett spelled backwards. My family name was too on-pronounceable, Smith or Hums.

  1 A slang phrase for false-memorized. He meant that his brain had been treated by a False Memory Machine, a device that put lies into the brain box. It had been invented in the early days of the Pleasure State and was widely used by unfaithful husbands and wives as protection in divorce proceedings against Brain-Confessors.

  1 Like Smile-At-Mother-Pills, No-Canno had made life more pleasant. It had first been used in public places before its acceptance in private homes. Yet many individuals, for a variety of reasons, still used the old-fashioned facilities. Among them were people who didn’t want to improve on nature, the religious-minded and still others, a minority with bookish attachments.

  1 This national institution was the final development of the silent and talking movie, of radio and TV, Cinemascope and Ultrascope, TV-Ultra and Midnight Partner — the final evolution of the American Dream. See Appendix for ‘History of Entertainment on the Outside.’

  2 The main boulevards and avenues in the cityurbs used the light-dark system of illumination. The dark streets were for the convenience of lovers who wanted to exchange a quick kiss or embrace.

  3 Vacations were on a sliding scale, beginning with three months and increasing to nine depending on length of employment.

  1 The Little White House was fifty storeys high, one for each state in the uni
on. It contained the laboratory and offices of the Presidential Board — the name of the Think Machines assigned to the Executive Branch of the Government.

  2 All Cineramours featured three simultaneous shows: Present, Past, Future.

  3 In many cities, the authorities prohibited all household pets. In the previous tea years when there had been no such ban, people had kept all sorts of beasts. Children had been devoured by Tigers, innocent bystanders crushed by pythons or bitten by cobras.

  1 Named after two great entertainers of more than a century ago.

  2 The Scientific principle of audioempathy.

  3 The 28th Amendment contained a clause stating that nobody could interfere with anybody’s displeasure unless the larger interests of Society were adversely affected.

  1 See Appendix for ‘Do-Gooding Across the Ages.’

  2 Games of past epochs.

  1 A dog who starred in movies during the 1920’s.

  2 Made of interwoven vitamized fibres, insuring a minimum balanced diet.

  3 Since everyone attended the Cineramours, the Government had arranged its compulsory medical exams to be given in the lobbies.

  1 Reform institutions, H.R.L.H. or Habit Rehabilitation Leads to Happiness.

  1 My wife Ruth was unable to see the situation in its historical perspective. She divorced me, and worse, in a fit of rage left the Reservation for the Outside, taking the children.

  2 St. Samfu or Society To Save All Mankind For Utopia.

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  Text Copyright © 1959 by Benjamin Appel

  Cover Art, Design, and Layout Copyright © 2013 by F+W Media, Inc.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover image(s) © clipart.com

  Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 10: 1-4405-6284-9

  ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6284-6

  eISBN 10: 1-4405-6283-0

  eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-6283-9