The Tomorrow File

by Lawrence Sanders

  We fumbled some.

  “Out of practice,” I gasped.

  He grunted.

  But we finally linked, moaning. His hips pillowed. My back arched. Both of us in heat. Lightly sweated. We held back. As long as we could. Ultimizing the swoon.

  We summited in a fury. Nails. Crying out. As elemental as a storm. Something despairing there. I pronged as deeply as I could. Waiting to split him. Rend. And he wanting to surrender. Rend. Surrender. From renda, to tear? Or from rendre, to give back, yield? What difference? Who was slave and who master? Both of us slick and coughing with our passion.

  We pumped in deescalatory rhythm. Then rested until the slime dried and stuck us fast. Disengaged cautiously. Pulled away.

  “Oh,” Paul breathed. “Oh, how beautiful.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  We lay in silence for minutes. Both upon our backs. Staring at the brightening sunshine streaming through the window. Watching the mad motes dance.

  “What did you write?” I asked him.

  He showed me his paper: “Ultimate Pleasure.”

  I showed him mine: “Checkered cap.”

  He looked at me.

  “Checkered cap?” he said. “Nick, what does that mean?”

  “Just a thought,” I said. “A vagrant notion.”

  “Well”—he sighed—“it didn’t serve. We’re far apart.”

  We lay in silence another five minutes. Resting. Sharing a single cannabis cigarette. Watching how the white smoke bloomed and billowed up into the strengthening sunlight. Finally:

  “What are your plans for today?” he asked lazily.

  "Back to GPA-1, ” I said. “But before I leave, I want to visit that Twenty-first Century exhibit at the Mall. After I see that, I thought I’d walk over to Union Station and take the Aeroglide home.”

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s fun. It really does feel like you’re riding on air.”

  “You’ve taken it?” I said, surprised. “When?”

  “While you were on the PR tours,” he said. “I had to go to New York, and the airports were socked in.”

  “Why did you have to go to the compound?”

  “Talk to Phoebe Huntzinger,” he said. “About the direct-wire link for Operation Lewisohn. And once to check out Leo Bernstein’s scenario for moving his equipment down.”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “Of course. Sure.”

  “Well. ...” He yawned. “I better get back to the political world. Have a good time at the Mall exhibition.”

  He got out of bed. Pulled on his robe and belted it. Smiling at me. A beautiful em! Then he leaned down. Kissed my lips. Patted my cheek with his fingertips.

  “Take care,” he said lightly.

  I spent a slow morning showering, shaving, dressing, packing. It was almost noon when I took the Metro to the Mall. Carrying a thin attache case of reports, papers, journals. Kaka to scan on the train trip north.

  Finishing touches were being applied to the Twenty-first Century Celebration Festival along the Mall. Servers were testing the lighting of an enormous sign that would flash YOU NEVER LIVED SO GOOD! every three seconds until the turn of the century. Ropes were up, keeping out the general public until the following week. But that week was a preview for US Government servers; my BIN card and official ID got me past the guards with no trouble.

  I started at the log cabin, circa 1700, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and wandered slowly through American homes of 1750, 1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, up to the present. I had come prepared to scoff at this patent public relations stunt. But I found myself fascinated. Touched. Unaccountably troubled.

  The obso homes had been built or assembled with careful attention to authentic detail. They might be placed in artificial settings of plastiturf and plastirub shrubs and trees. But the structures themselves were the originals or accurate reproductions. Using primary materials. The houses were complete to bed linens, pictures on the walls, tables set for a meal, rugs, bric-a-brac, etc. They were even “inhabited.” By actors dressed in appropriate costumes. Silently moving through their obso roles: serving, dancing, gathering about an ancient harmonium to mouth the words of long-stopped songs.

  What impressed me so? First, the texture of these obso homes. Rough-cut wood. Nubby plaster. Carving. Crude painting. Hooked rugs. Odd shapes. Rooms that were not boxes. I was made doubly aware of the charm of obso texture when I entered the ‘ ‘Home of the Present.” All smooth, glossy, bland, perfect. Obso homes were palaces of error: ill-fitting beams, three steps up or down from room to room, a bow window where a flat square would have served as functionally well.

  And the whimsy! All shapes of stained glass inserts. Enormous brass door-knockers. China bulldogs on the hearth. Dried flowers under bell jars. Framed tintypes on a mahogany piano. A cast-iron wood-burning stove as artfully decorated and embellished as an altar. The humanness of it all!

  I came out of the Twenty-first Century Celebration Festival chastened by a vague feeling that I had been bred too late. I would have flourished in those obso days. Perhaps lecturing on anatomy at Johns Hopkins to an audience as bearded as I. Returning to a gaslit home of gleaming wood and glittering crystal. Logs snapping in the fireplace. Wife and children. No amusements but our own company. Conversation. Laughter. Singing.

  So I exited the “Home of the Present,” still thinking of the past. The way they lived. As I passed through the guarded gate, a tall, heavyset em stepped into my path. Our eyes locked. He nodded once, briefly, turned and walked quickly away. He was wearing a checkered cap.

  I looked about. There were three black official sedans parked in file along Fourteenth Street, in front of me. Another on Washington Drive to my right. Another on Adams Drive, to my left. Black zipsuits standing outside each car. Watching me.

  I walked slowly toward Fourteenth. A group of three, led by a short, chubby ef in a red zipsuit moved to intercept. I stopped. The officer came close. The three black zipsuits moved quietly around me.

  “Dr. Nicholas Bennington Flair, sir?” she said.

  “May I see your identification, please?” I said.

  “Certainly, sir,” she said.

  She showed BIN card and official ID. A lieutenant of the Bureau of Public Security.

  “Very well,” I said. “I am Nicholas Bennington Flair.”

  I proffered my BIN card and ID. She scanned them quickly. Returned them to me.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said. “Dr. Flair, I have orders to take you.”

  Silence. We stared at each other.

  “On whose authority?” I asked her.

  “Warrant from the Chief Prosecutor, sir,” she said.

  “May I see it, please?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  She pulled her zipsuit down far enough to extract a folded paper. A warrant for my taking. “On suspicion of activities contrary to public interest. ” Nothing unusual about it. But I scanned it slowly.

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” I said. Returning the warrant to her.

  “I must now read you a statement of your rights, sir,” she said.

  “That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I know my rights.”

  “Please, sir,” she said. “I’m required to recite it. I must recite it.”

  “Very well,” I said. “Recite it.”

  She withdrew a crumpled card from her opened zipper and began scanning it aloud. I had the right to remain silent, I had the right to legal counsel of my choice. I could call at US Government expense. If I could not afford legal counsel, the US Government would provide such counsel without charge.

  “Do you fully understand what I have told you, sir?” she inquired anxiously.

  “I fully understand it,” I assured her.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said gratefully. “Would you sign this release, please? It states only that I have explained your legal rights to you, and that you fully understand them.”

  She pulled a third paper from her bodice. A walking file cabinet. I scanned the rel
ease swiftly. She had a pen ready.

  “What can I write on?” I said.

  She turned her back to me and bent over slightly. On her broad, soft back, I scrawled my signature on the release. She returned all documents to her body and zipped up.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  “Thank you,” I said. “Now what?”

  “This way, please, sir.”

  They walked me to one of the black sedans. Before I got in, my attache case was taken from me and I was patted down. Quickly. Expertly. Then I was seated in the rear between two black zipsuits. The lieutenant got in front, next to the driver.

  It didn’t take me long to realize where we were going. Across the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Past the A&N Country Club. Down into Alexandria.

  “Hospice No. 4,” I said aloud.

  No one answered. No one spoke.

  To the building set off by itself. The Public Security Ward. With white plastisteel mesh over the windows. Surrounded by plastiturf. They hustled me into the main entrance hall. Lined with stainless steel tiles. The room marked Admittance was divided by a wire grille. Several objects, ems and efs, in white hospital garb, were serving on the other side. They looked up when we entered. A small yellow em came over to the opening in the grille and stood behind a counter.

  “Who made the take?” he asked.

  “I did,” the red zipsuited lieutenant said. “Object’s name: Nicholas Bennington Flair.” She slapped down the warrant. “On authority of the Chief Prosecutor.”

  The yellow em behind the grille turned to a data processing machine and began to type. Talking as he served.

  “Flair, Nicholas Bennington. Warrant BPS-91641-99G. BIN card and ID, please.”

  I fished them out again, handed them over. He slid them into an electronic verifier, then typed out the numbers on his report.

  “Personal property?” he asked.

  One of the black zipsuits handed over my attache case. It was unlocked. The yellow pawed through it swiftly.

  “One attache case of papers, reports, magazines. Empty your pockets, please.”

  I dumped everything onto the counter. He began to sort it.

  “One ring of keys. One pigskin wallet containing forty-six dollars in bills, three credit cards, and assorted membership cards. One handkerchief, white. Thirty-eight cents in change. One digiwatch, silver finish, marked ‘Loxa.’ One black comb, pocket size. One container of white spansules. Correct?”

  “Correct,” I said.

  “Dentures or prosthetic devices?” he asked.

  “None,” I said.

  “Object is assigned number 4 dash 618 dash 99,” he said.

  “Sign the receipt, please,” the ef lieutenant asked the yellow.

  They exchanged and countersigned papers. She waited until he had typed up an inventory of my personal possessions in quadruplicate. I signed all copies. She signed all copies. He signed all copies.

  The BPS servers waited patiently until two objects appeared in the corridor. Coming toward us. Heels clicking. Their images were distorted by the stainless steel walls and polished floor. Two big ems. White hospital garb.

  “Right,” the red zipsuit said. When they had taken their places on each side of me. “That does it.”

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” I said.

  “Thank you, sir,” she said.

  I was taken to a room in the back of the ward, on the ground floor. White desk, chair, metal detector, electronic monitors. The obso ef behind the desk, wearing a nurse’s uniform, looked up when I entered with my guards.

  “Flair,” one of them said. “Nicholas Bennington: 4 dash 618 dash 99.”

  “Undress, please,” she said to me. “Everything. Including shoes.” I stripped naked. All my clothing was folded neatly, put into a white metal box labeled with my number. A receipt was typed out in quadruplicate. We all signed all copies.

  I was given a cursory medical examination. Blood pressure, heart, temperature.

  “Step through the frame, please,” she said.

  I stepped through. Nothing buzzed. She moved an electronic wand around my head, back, legs, arms. She looked into my ears with a lighted probe. Examined my armpits. Tapped my teeth lightly with a little hammer. Felt my scalp and beard, fingers prying under the hair.

  “Bend over and spread your buttocks, please,” she said.

  I did so. She explored my rectum with a rubbered finger.

  “Shower,” she said.

  They took me through a clear glass door into an adjoining room. I stepped into a tiled shower stall. No projections inside. No curtain. One of the guards turned a knob. A hot germicidal spray.

  “Scrub your hair,” one of the guards shouted. “On your head, chest, armpits, nuts, and ass.”

  I did as directed.

  The water was finally turned off. They motioned me out onto a plastirub mat before a panel of infrared lamps. By the time I was reasonably dry, beginning to sweat, they had ready a pair of paper slippers and a one-piece paper suit. Styled like a zipsuit but closed with strips of paper tape.

  They took me out into the corridor again. I shuffled along, trying to keep the heelless slippers on my feet. Trying not to trip on the long cuffs of the paper suit. They stopped me before a bank of elevators.

  One of them pressed a button and leaned forward to speak into a small microphone inset in the tile wall.

  “Pearson and Fleming,” he said loudly. “Coming up. We have one: 4 dash 618 dash 99.”

  Then both guards turned and stared at a small closed-circuit TV camera mounted near the ceiling.

  A loudspeaker clicked on.

  “You are cleared to Three. Room 317.”

  An elevator door opened. We stepped inside. Another TV camera. The door closed. We went up. Door opened. We stepped out to face a white-clad guard sitting in the corridor behind a desk surmounted by a battery of TV monitor screens.

  "Pearson and Fleming, " one of the guards reported: "4 dash 618 dash 99 to Room 317.”

  The seated guard looked at his teleprinter.

  “All correct,” he said.

  We moved to the left until we came up to a gate of steel bars. And another TV camera. We stood there a moment. Then the barred door slid sideways. Into the wall. We walked down the corridor. I • heard the gate thud shut behind us.

  We walked to where another guard waited outside a dosed door. He held a clamp pad of teletype duplicates.

  “Four dash 618 dash 99,” one of my guards told him.

  The em outside the door looked at me.

  “Name?” he said. “Last name first, followed by first and middle names.”

  “Flair, Nicholas Bennington,” I said.

  “All correct, " he told my guards. Then made a small checkmark on his pad.

  He withdrew a ring of magnetic keys from his pocket. He unlocked the door. Room 317. They all stood aside. I entered. The door was closed and locked behind me. It looked like painted wood, with a small panel of clear glass. But when they clanged it shut, I knew it was steel.

  I took a few steps into the sunlit room and looked about.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Flair,” a metallic voice said. “How are you feeling?”

  Z-11

  I wish to go on record as stating that during the approximately six weeks I spent in Room 317, Public Security Ward, Hospice No. 4, Alexandria, Virginia, I was not physically abused or maltreated. I was provided with a fresh paper suit and paper slippers every week. The food brought to my room was plentiful, though bland. For some bureaucratic reason, I was not allowed salt, pepper, or any other seasonings. Although I requested them.

  My sleep was never deliberately disturbed, and I was furnished with most of the scanning material I asked for. I was not allowed newspapers, news magazines, radio, television, a watch or clock, or a calendar. Nor was I allowed Somnorifics or any other drugs. However, during the fourth week, I contracted a very mild viral infection, and the nurse who had conducted my initial examination arrived to a
dminister an injection. She would not tell me what it was, but it served excellently; I recovered fully within three days.

  That was the only medication I received during my stay. Of course, it was possible that my food was drugged. Or even the water flowing from the tap in the small nest attached to Room 317. But several times a week I conducted a self-examination. Taking my pulse and testing muscular and visual coordination. I never found even a hint of covert drug administration. It was operative that shortly before, during, and for a brief period following my interrogations in the Cooperation Room, pulse rate increased. But this was undoubtedly due to a stimulated adrenalin flow, and was to be expected under the circumstances.

  I exercised, faithfully, in Room 317. An hour after awakening and an hour before sleep. I practiced Yoga, isometrics, and my own version of T’ai Chi Ch’uan. In place of Somnorifics, I used selfhypnosis, alpha, and transcendental meditation. I would say that, during the six weeks of my stay, my physical health was excellent.

  The objects with whom I came in contact were remarkably few. The morning guard who brought me breakfast, took me to and from the first interrogative session of the day, and who brought me lunch, was a hulking but pleasant em who said his name was Horwitz. The afternoon guard who took me to and from the second interrogative session of the day, and brought my evening meal, was a squat, muscled ef who said her name was Kineally. I called her “Princess.” She liked that.

  And of course, I was on nodding acquaintance with several corridor guards, head guards who watched the TV monitors outside the elevator bank, and the gate guards. I never learned any of their names. Some were polite, some were not. But there was no physical brutality. Never. At least not to me. And none that I personally witnessed. On several nights I was awakened by screams coming from nearby rooms. But they may have been the results of nightmares. It was possible.

  I masturbated twice a week, on Tuesday mornings and Friday nights. Usually I slept soundly and woke refreshed. The scanning material that was provided kept my brain active and inquiring. When I wanted surcease from purely cerebral computing, I imagined what the objects looked like who spoke to me. The two Voices.