by Ben Bova
Slightly dazed-looking, the man obediently undipped the badge from his lapel and slipped it into the reader. He waited patiently until the machine buzzed at him, then took the badge back.
“Thank you. And may we recommend an extra dosage of sedation? Etracene, enervol and pinural are compatible within group 3A.” The old man nodded dumbly and shuffled off, to be swept up by the crowd streaming by. LUH cut the picture and turned her attention to a pair of children who, giggling, were peeking in at the edge of the screen and then ducking out of sight, to hide behind a plastisteel bench in the middle of their school plaza. LUH smiled as she pressed a series of keys on her panel. A kind but stern baritone voice said:
“This monitor is to be used for emergencies or special requests only. All routine information can be easily obtained through the bulletin panels installed at every intersection.”
One little boy got up from behind the bench, stuck his tongue out at the screen, and then ran off laughing. LUH watched him until he disappeared around the corner of a building.
Then another scene, in a screen far up in the left corner of her set, caught her eye. She transferred the picture to the four main screens directly in front of her.
“What’s wrong?”
A man was screaming hysterically as he stood in a sanitary. There was no sound coming from him, though. Frantically, LUH worked the switched on her panel.
“… me… help me…” the man was shrieking.
“What’s wrong?”
The man thrust both hands into the medicine cabinet, knocking bottles everywhere. As they clattered to the floor, he dropped to his knees and started pouring out handfulls of pills and swallowing them madly.
LUH punched a single red button. A taped voice began saying:
“Take four red capsules, in ten minutes take two more. Help is on the way. Do not be afraid… Take four red capsules…”
She called Mercicontrol. “Okay, got it,” said a brash young man’s voice in her earphones. “You can let go now, we’ll take care of him.”
With a weary sigh, she acknowledged and let the screaming, pill-gobbling man’s image return to its upper left screen. The central screens showed four different robot assembly bays now. THX sat at one of them. LUH stared at him. There was no sound from the screens, only the constant cacophony of voices in her earphones.
But she ignored them now. She watched THX as he worked, all concentration, all sinew and hard, steady nerves, manipulating the metal hands as they did their delicate work of breathing radioactive life into a new chrome robot. Like bringing a baby to life, she thought.
“Concourse 5… cross three monitor.”
“Concourse 5… 3417-LUH… LUH.”
“Are you there? Relate. Relate.”
Suddenly realizing that they were talking to her, LUH snapped her attention to the frowning man whose image was now filling her right bottom main screen.
“LUH 3417,” she said. “Go ahead.”
“This is a control check,” the man said. “Bracket all request limitations. One: Have you received your ratio of enervol? Check 643 grams?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“Did you receive an etracene ration during your last work unit?”
She nodded.
“You’re due for a medical check. All remote monitor findings are within low-normal range. A mina plus three was detected but it’s not considered dangerous. Thank you.”
The screen flashed and then showed a commercial shopping plaza once again.
The cacophony in her earphones became impersonal again, leaving LUH to worry about how long she could go without taking a medical check. How long would it be before they found out she was guilty of drug evasion?
The voice of her supervisor, SEN 5241, cut in: “Scan inspectors are on their way. Be on the lookout, check back.”
“Yessir,” she said.
But THX was still on her top left main screen, still working steadily, intently.
LUH never saw the explosion in the assembly bay on the screen next to THX’s image. She never noticed the bay blow out in a shower of sparks and sudden choking billows of white smoke, men running, danger lights flashing balefully.
“Monitor concourse 5, cross three… 3417… emergency… emergency!”
She snapped out of her trance, eyes widening at the sight of the accident. Her hands worked the keyboard automatically and all four of her main screens showed the scene. LUH began frantically punching response keys.
A deep, calm, male voice said: “You are a true believer. Blessings of the State, Blessings of the masses. Thou art a subject of…”
Startled, she hit another sequence of keys. The screens showed men crawling through the smoke, others lying sprawled inert, broken. Flames licked evily through the area. Still no sound. Then:
“Eject… eject… evacuate all personnel…”
“There’s thirty-eight men trapped in there…”
“Seal all blast hatches! Mark!”
“Stay calm. Correct procedure is essential. Do not fail to remove auxiliary command circuits before evacuation. Vacuum detail…”
“Turn that damned tape off and get those men clear before the whole area goes up!”
“Mercicontrol! Emergency…”
LUH patched the pictures and sound directly to Mercicontrol. Involuntarily, she looked up at the screen where THX’s image had been transferred. It was a small screen, up at the top row, but she could see him still working. In her earphones she heard what he was hearing:
“There has been an accident in Blue sector, 1-14. Do not abandon your post. Repeat, do not abandon your post. There is absolutely no danger of radiation leakage. Repeat …”
LUH tapped another key and the radiation levels in THX’s assembly bay area appeared on her main data screen: already four points above normal and rising.
“The accident in Blue sector destroyed another 63 personnel, giving them a total of 242 lost to our 195. Keep up the good work and prevent accidents.”
“Are you all right?”
LUH turned and saw SEN 5241-middle aged, face starting to go into jowls and bags under the eyes.
“You should be at your post,” she whispered. SEN’s observation console was next to hers.
“You looked upset… not yourself.” He reached into a pajama pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic envelope that held two yellow pills.
“Here. Try these, they’ll help.” He smiled at her.
“Thanks.”
He stood there, watching her. LUH slowly tore the plastic open, shook the pills into her hand, and put them to her mouth.
“There. You’ll feel better in no time. I use them all the time. Special issue. You can’t get them in the regular stores and dispensers.” He smiled again, toothily, and LUH shuddered.
“Uh, thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. My pleasure to help you.”
SEN blinked his watery eyes and then turned and went back to his own console. As he sat down he put on his earphones and began scanning the screens. LUH glanced down at the yellow pills still in her palm. Quickly she let them fall to the floor.
THX shuffled down the busy roaring pedestrian corridor, letting the crowd’s mindless momentum carry him along.
“So he just jumped off the tram platform. Just like that,” someone was shouting into the ear of his companion, a few bodies up ahead of THX. “Just like that. Ffftt. Destroyed.”
“You mean you haven’t tried ekterol?” a woman beside him was saying to her friend. “It comes in blue capsules and it’s just heaven.”
And from the eternal overhead speakers, the announcements. Always the announcements:
“Please keep your causeways clean.”
“Performance perfect is perfect performance.”
“The level 6421 intermural stadium will have open day on series 621T.”
“Central Plaza stay to right. Con 6 move to left.”
THX battled his way through the surging crowd and stepped onto a slide
way. Here at least he could stand still and let the conveyor do the work. But still, from overhead:
“Please hold handrail and stand on the right; if you wish to pass, pass on the left… Please hold handrail…”
Up ahead he saw a vertitube that would carry him down to his apartment level. He edged to the side of the slideway and gingerly stepped off. A chrome police robot standing alongside the slideway curbing stepped politely aside to let him pass.
There was a prayer booth near the tube entrance. THX looked around, almost guiltily, then quickly stepped in and shut the plastic door. It didn’t fit tightly enough to turn on the light, he had to tug on it. Finally the light went on, illuminating OMM’s kindly face. A warm, taped voice said gently:
“My time is yours. Go ahead.”
THX tried to remember the proper prayer. It had been so many years since…
“Very well, proceed,” said OMM’s voice.
“Well,… this morning I almost slipped on a radioactive transfer. It’s never happened before. I wasn’t concentrating enough. Things haven’t been…”
“Yes,” said the voice, expectantly.
“Everything’s piling up on me,” THX went on. “I don’t understand what’s happening to me. The medicines don’t seem to be keeping me adjusted anymore…”
“Yes,” said the voice, knowingly.
“And my roommate’s been acting very strange. I can’t explain it… I don’t know, maybe it’s me. I haven’t been feeling very well lately. I feel jumpy all the time, as if something’s going to happen… something…”
“Yes,” said the voice, patiently.
“I can’t understand it. The sedatives… I’m taking etracene but it doesn’t seem strong enough anymore. I have a hard time concentrating. Please forgive me, I can’t…”
“You are a true believer. Blessings of the State. Blessings of the masses. Thou art a subject of the divine. Created in the image of man, by the masses, for the masses. Let us be thankful we have an occupation to fill. Work hard; increase production; prevent accidents; and be happy.”
THX slumped back on the bench of the booth. Be happy.
He was nearly home, almost at the door of the apartment. The crowds of the upper levels were thinned down now, quieter, slower. A man could stroll calmly here, or try to unwind after the noise and tension of the upper working and shopping levels.
The timebox was at the corner of the two main corridors. THX crossed over to it, took the badge from his lapel, and tried to insert it in the proper slot. It didn’t fit. They’ve changed the mechanism again, he thought wearily. Nothing works the way it’s supposed to. They keep changing things, but still nothing works right.
He struggled with the badge for a few moments, and finally it slipped into the slot. The mechanism rang dimly once. THX nodded. His working time was entered into the computer satisfactorily.
Turning as he clipped his badge back on, he saw LUH standing silently, holding a punch card in her hand.
“What is it?” he asked her.
She shook her head without replying. Her .face looked troubled, and somehow this bothered him.
Glancing at the card in her hand, he asked, “What did you get?”
“I have to see SEN. I’ve just been given a shift change.”
“When?”
“Now… Just now. SEN wants me to come to his quarters to talk about it.”
THX felt his brows knitting into a scowl. “SEN can’t change your shift. Shift changes have to come through the scheduling office.”
She said nothing.
“Why does he want to see you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t go,” THX said.
She looked up at him. “I have to… he’s a G-34.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, feeling more and more annoyed. “I don’t trust him, and I don’t want you to go.”
But she only smiled. “No, don’t make trouble. It’s nothing.”
“I ought to file a report against him. He can’t change your shift and order you around.”
“No, please. You’ll only make trouble for yourself. I’ll go see what he wants… I’ll be back soon. It won’t take long.”
And she turned and left him standing there, tired and confused.
Chapter 3
THX sat alone in the holoroom, flipping channels at nearly eyeblink speed. A naked black mannequin dancing erotically, a newscaster rattling off the day’s events, a shapeless matron discussing drugs, a chrome police robot beating a man to death, and finally two men sitting at a table locked deep in discussion:
“… to stimulate the arithmetical and logical processes as an extension of the 5141. Never before have we been so contented, never before has life been so satisfying. A referendum of bliss, a gratification sustained by the benevolence of authority…”
Why can’t I be happy, then? What’s wrong with me?
He listened to the discussion for a few moments longer, then flicked back to the black dancer. But he felt nothing as she swung her rich shining body to the driving music. He flicked the hologram to the policeman, but the bloodied man crumpled on the floor and cried pitiably. Disgusted, THX turned off the hologram viewer completely. The picture vanished with a soundless bright flash.
He sat alone in the dark room. Then he heard something.
Jumping up from the chair, he called out, “LUH?”
No answer.
He walked into the main room, then to the bedroom, calling, “LUH, are you here?”
Standing alone in the empty bedroom, THX made a sudden decision. He left the apartment and headed for SEN’s quarters.
Out in the corridors the loudspeakers still called out their constant urgings:
“Save time, save lives.”
“Today only, blue dendrites are only forty-seven credits, buy now.”
“The consumer has a factor of advantage.”
“Did you repent today?”
THX tried to shut them out of his mind, but their voices—gentle, demanding, soft, strident—pried at his consciousness. He had heard them all his life and never really gotten accustomed to them. Maybe it was because the announcements were always being changed. All but:
“Did you repent today?”
By the time he reached SEN’s apartment area, THX calculated he had heard that one twenty times, at least.
In the corridor outside SEN’s apartment, a crew of men were piling multicolored packing boxes atop a power-cart. More men were inside, filling up more boxes with someone’s personal belongings. A woman supervisor, burlier than the movingmen, was checking items off a clipboard list:
“… sealed personal effects: three styrenes, an occupational syntax, a red magma base—old style, a box of neons, twenty-three hunter portapods.”
THX stepped past them to get through the front doorway of the apartment. The movers ignored him as they handled items and placed them in packing boxes.
“Where are the genotypes. Ahhh… could you come and look at this—these have been improperly labeled!”
“No they haven’t,” said another movingman, in a high, excitable voice. “I placed these in the proper categories myself.”
“But this isn’t genotyped…”
The woman waved her clipboard at them. “Your identification figures are all wrong. Get this mess straightened out or I’ll shift you to manual dredging!”
The two men scuttled out of her way.
THX looked through the apartment, stepping over packing boxes and around scattered personal belongings that had been strewn across the floor. He found SEN sitting hunched in a corner of the bedroom, looking as if he was trying to pretend there was no noise or upset in his apartment.
“Well?” SEN said as THX entered the bedroom. Then, seeing who it was, the older man beamed up at him. “It’s you… come in, come… You know, this is really odd. I was just thinking about you. What in the world are you doing here?”
THX didn’t answer. He merely stood over the
other man, his mind confused, trying to think of what he should say, where he should begin. The uproar of the movers jangled from the next room.
SEN flashed his toothy smile. “Sit down, why don’t you… I must apologize for all this chaos. They materialized this morning,” gesturing toward the movers, “and it’s been going on all day. Well, it’s a cross I have to bear. My roommate was destroyed, you know.”
THX didn’t move.
“No… I guess you wouldn’t know.” He craned his neck for a glimpse of the female chief mover. “I can’t understand why everything has to be packed and crated if it’s going to be destroyed anyway… It’s a strange life.”
He shook his head, as if trying to puzzle out the meaning of it all. “You have to keep things in perspective. You know? Do what you can to make things… fit. Forget the rest. Why don’t you sit down?”
SEN hauled himself to his feet and padded barefoot into the sanitary. THX watched him shake out a yellow pill from an unlabeled bottle and swallow it.
“You never answered my question,” SEN called from the sanitary as he filled a cup with water.
What question? THX wondered. Slowly, he sank down on the bed and leaned his back tiredly against the wall.
SEN came back to the bedroom, and sat again on the bench in the corner. He hunched his shoulders slightly, as if trying to protect himself from unseen forces.
“I can accept things up to a point,” he said, glancing around. Gesturing to the empty bed next to the one THX sat on, “My former roommate, for instance. Some people might wonder what he did, to be destroyed. Waste of time. He did something, obviously, and now he’s gone. That’s that.”
THX wanted to reply, wanted to ask about LUH, but couldn’t seem to get the words started.
Leaning forward to make his point, his voice intense with earnesty, SEN said, “But if you get a chance to make… adjustments… you’d be foolish to pass them up. You feel that way, don’t you?” He stared intently at THX. “You’re perspiring. It’s not very hot in here. Are you sick?” SEN straightened up and looked around. “I’m sure it’s warmer in here than outside, though. I haven’t been outside yet, but it usually is… the control never works properly…”
