PARANOIA A1 The Computer is Your Friend
Page 5
“Never mind the smart mouth.” He fell silent. His eyes glittered in the flash beam. Then: “You’re lying.”
She made her voice quaver. “N-no! I’m, I’m not—”
Suddenly his laser was in his hand, and at her throat. “What’s in there? Now!”
“Oh no, oh no,” she said, counting the seconds for a plausible stalling action. “No, please! Okay, all right—you win. It’s—there’s a whole bunch of scrubots—”
“Talk!”
She fenced with him a while longer, to convincing length, then admitted it: “Th-there’s a—a combot.”
“Reee-ally.”
Just like that, he bought it. Thaddeus was like a human lie detector. With his laser under her chin, she thought calmly, A mutant power?
Before, she’d been nervous—fearful of Thaddeus, apprehensive for her new Troubleshooting job. The fear—that’s why she couldn’t lie. But compared to a warbot, Thaddeus just looked puny. Her old notion of “heroic Troubleshooters” had gone away with “lovable scrubots.”
Of course, she wasn’t lying now—just omitting detail. She described the combot, but left out the warbot and the name “J-10 Expunger.” Thaddeus never noticed.
“And what was your little scheme, newbie?”
“I—I was going to come back for it later.”
“Not bad. You’re starting to think like a Troubleshooter. But only starting.” He shoved her against the wall. “You and I are going in there together—you first—and we’re bringing out that combot. For the greater glory of Alpha Complex—or anyway, the glory of parties to be named later. Now, what’s the pass-phrase?”
Ooh, he is good. “P-pass—?”
He leaned on her, hard. It hurt, so she cut short this stage of the convincing-evasion act. She tried a couple of fakes, phrases any Pro Tech engineer would be proud of—“correct horse battery staple,” “insipid dolts won’t guess this”—but Thaddeus only snarled until she finally gave Annalise’s lamebrain motto. That one he accepted immediately.
It had to be a hidden mutation. Thaddeus could infallibly spot the truth.
But—inwardly she relaxed—not the whole truth.
“Learn to lie, newbie.”
“Right,” she said. “Rule Number 1.”
—————
“Never give a sucker an even break,” Thaddeus said triumphantly.
They were back on the arena floor. They had passed the bot passage without incident, because Sheila had already ordered the bots to shut up.
“PASS-PHRASE ACCEPTED,” said J-10 Expunger—or, as far as Thaddeus knew, the combot. Sheila had instructed J-10 not to reveal its presence. Thaddeus could countermand the order—but he’d have to be aware of it first.
Thaddeus looked on the combot with fierce satisfaction. Even a combot was a huge find. She was content to give it to him, knowing she’d keep the true prize. As she quietly retreated up the stairs, she wondered what he’d do with it.
She’d almost reached the lip of the arena, near the hulking carcass of the dead warbot, before Thaddeus noticed. “Where are you going?”
Truth-sense. “I expect you’re going to kill me now.”
He chuckled. “Good guess. Nothing personal—it’s just good Troubleshooter strategy.”
She broke into a run, hoping he’d pull his laser. The combot would interpret that as an attack.
But Thaddeus was sharper than she thought. He turned to the combot. “Shoot her.”
Operated by J-10, the combot raised an arm and extruded a submachine gun. Red targeting dots raced crazily across the steps ahead of her, then vanished; she knew they had converged on her back. The volley of bullets hit her like six fast hammer blows. She screamed and fell.
Thaddeus turned back to the combot. “Good. Now, tell me how you got here.”
While J-10 related the combot’s story, Sheila wished they would just leave. She’d instructed the combot to shoot her with rubber bullets; she was unharmed, save for bruises, but she hadn’t quite understood how much rubber bullets can hurt.
Thaddeus looked ready to go. She held her breath, and not only to play dead. She had instructed J-10 Expunger to make the combot follow Thaddeus.
But even now, Thaddeus was still sharper than she thought—and greedier. He asked the combot, “Are there other valuable bots here?”
“YES.”
Thaddeus swept his finger in a wide arc around the arena, not knowing or caring what he pointed at. “All of you bots, follow me.”
Uh-oh. Recalling his words—“When I need you to back me up, you back up”—Sheila backed up.
Thaddeus turned to go—and with a deafening creak from gears eight decades unused, J-10 Expunger wheeled behind.
Thaddeus jerked around so fast he almost fell. He gazed up, up at the warbot’s huge bulk. His jaw hung. He stood motionless for most of 20 seconds; then, breathing heavily, he pointed at J-10 Expunger. “Warbot,” he began, “Rule Number 1—”
With a thunderous roar, the concrete ceiling ripped wide. An entire 20-meter-wide, ten-meter-high food vat—by coincidence, the one immediately next to the one Sheila had seen destroyed earlier—dropped from above, followed by several shrieking FunFoods bots. Smashing onto the arena floor, the vat burst open, sending an unstoppable wave of 2.5 million liters of pink-gray goop surging across the floor. In moments the arena bay became a viscid lake of warm, cultured Emulsion 14b.
Sheila looked on, her arms folded, her eye appraising. J-10 Expunger was still intact, if drenched, but there was no sign of the combot or Thaddeus.
The calamity would draw Internal Security. She headed for the exit.
She’d lost the combot and the warbot, and that stung. But she was learning the ways of Troubleshooting—starting to see her way ahead. She had obeyed, and she meant to keep obeying, the rule that overruled all rules.
Survive.
—————
Say, what happened to that stolen docbot the Troubleshooters were looking for? Where did Team Leader Fabian-O get to? To find out, check the PARANOIA novel T1 Stay Alert (Book 1 of The Troubleshooter Rules trilogy) by Allen Varney. Published by Ultraviolet Books, it’s available where you obtained this book. There’s a FREE preview chapter at the end of this book.
Also, what is up with Sheila’s hair? Find out more about her derangement in the free bonus story “Rules Lawyer,” available Summer 2012 on the Ultraviolet Books website (ultravioletbooks.com).
Orientation (Revised)
Attention, $NewCitizen_POTENTIALLYSUBVERTED! Owing to sabotage by traitors, you were previously given orientation materials that had not been officially approved by the relevant HPD&MC History Purification service firm. The Computer instructs you to forget all subversive, dubious, corrosive, or unhygienic content in the previous orientation and replace it with the following material, which you are REQUIRED to read and understand:
SERVICE GROUPS
Eight bureaucracies that administer municipal functions. Each service group outsources most of its duties to a multitude of competing service firms.
Housing Preservation and Development & Mind Control is the service group that builds and maintains structures, manages education and recreation, and produces the news and entertainment that keep citizens properly informed.
MUTANTS
Genetic impurities that represent an unpredictable threat to The Computer’s hard-won social order. Some innocent citizens unwittingly possess a treasonous mutant power; they patriotically register their mutation with Internal Security. As registered mutants, they may use their inhuman powers openly, for the good of Alpha Complex, in hopes of overcoming their unfortunate terrible stigma.
“MARKET RESEARCH”
Rayford-O’s simple trip to the Buyatorium turns into an exciting opportunity to share his opinions on oral hygiene products—though the excitement doesn’t start until the opportunity becomes an interrogation.
Market Research
Greg Ingber
“Mouthwash?” R
ayford-O-GGA-1 leaned back into the beige folding chair.
“That’s right. Mouthwash.” The executive closed the door and peered at him from across the table.
Rayford hadn’t planned to spend his day in a conference room somewhere in an HPD&MC office complex. He’d just wanted to hit the Buyatorium. That was where they’d found him, at the Deep Discounts kiosk outside Approved Apparel.
Since The Computer had elevated him to Security Clearance ORANGE, Rayford had gained “promotion kilos,” the consequence of better food and less strenuous work. After weeks of squeezing himself into ill-fitting slacks, he concluded improving his diet and exercise would be less pleasant than shopping for new clothes. However, after ten minutes of haggling with an assistant sales manager over the price of a relaxed-fit tool belt, physical exercise was looking relatively less agonizing.
As he was threatening to take his business elsewhere—presumably to another Buyatorium in an adjacent subsector, where he’d find the same belt at the same price and possibly the same assistant manager—Rayford felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned to find a pair of RED-Clearance Marketing Scouts, the relentlessly chipper grunt workers of HPD&MC. Lyle-R and Kyle-R (no doubt paired up by a supervisor with an adolescent sense of humor) informed Rayford he had been selected to participate in a market research study. They promised it would not take long. They also promised there would be “delicious refreshments” and “an amazing free gift” at the end.
Strictly speaking, Rayford was not obliged to cooperate with RED citizens. The O in his name outranked the R in theirs. But Rayford suspected these two worked for someone who outranked them all.
As a low-level voltage checker in Technical Services, Rayford had never before been in the same room as a BLUE-Clearance HPD&MC executive. If he had been asked to imagine what one might look like, he would have described someone like Evelyn-B-BEL-4. She was sharp-featured, taller than Rayford, with closely cropped blond hair and wearing a perfectly tailored navy suit. Her smile was dazzling. She looked the part of a big-shot marketing executive.
Rayford felt HPD&MC’s unofficial motto (“We Sell Everything”) raised the question why they were so obsessed with product marketing. HPD&MC advertised every product a citizen could want, and a great many products nobody wanted but were required to purchase anyway. They had no competition, save for internal competition between rival firms within the service group. Yet they still collected huge quantities of consumer data: tastes, trends, opinions.
And on this particular Sixday afternoon, Evelyn the BLUE executive wanted Rayford’s opinions. About mouthwash.
“I’m sorry. I don’t really use mouthwash.” Rayford crossed his legs and tried to look relaxed. “I don’t think I’d be much help here.”
“Of course, I understand.” Evelyn glanced briefly at her Personal Digital Companion, clearly a top-of-the-line model. “But you see, we’re looking to expand our market base, reach out to new people. People like you, Rayford-O. People who may have never considered using mouthwash.”
“I’ve considered it.”
“Oh?”
“I’ve simply chosen not to use such a product.”
“I see. May I ask why?”
“Don’t think it’s necessary. My mouth is pretty clean.” Rayford tried to force out a causal chuckle, and instead produced a sound that resembled a dry heave.
“So, to be clear, Rayford-O, you feel your mouth is already clean?”
“Well, yeah.”
She looked at him for a moment, tilting her head slightly. “Interesting.” She began typing into her PDC.
Rayford had not excelled in school, but he always had a good sense of when he had given a superior the wrong answer. “I meant to say, my mouth—it’s clean enough.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, I figure my mouth is as clean as anyone else’s mouth. That is, I don’t believe my mouth is dirtier than the mouth of an average citizen. That’s all I’m saying.”
“I understand. And would you say you’re satisfied with that?”
“With what?”
“With having a mouth no cleaner than that of an average citizen?”
“I didn’t say that!”
“Then you’re not satisfied?”
Rayford didn’t like where this was going. He defaulted to his natural instinct: to play dumb. Or, perhaps more accurately, to cease playing not dumb. “Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t much think about my mouth. I mostly use it for chewing. And talking. But mostly chewing.”
Evelyn grinned. “That’s perfectly all right. You know what? I think that’s great. It really helps us that you have no preconceived notions about existing product lines. In fact, your lack of attention to matters of oral hygiene makes you a perfect study. You’re really going to help us out today. Oh, I’m sorry, before we begin, would you like anything to drink?
“Um—” Before he could determine whether he was supposed to want a drink, she called out to an assistant. “Lyle-R!”
Lyle instantly popped his head through the door.
“He can get you anything you’d like. Water?”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
“Are you sure? Bouncy Bubble Beverage, CoffeeLyke?”
“No, thank you.”
Evelyn waved two fingers in the direction of her assistant, and Lyle disappeared, closing the door behind him.
“So, Rayford-O. You’re probably wondering what you’re doing here.”
There was something strange about the fluorescent lighting. Rayford felt the initial pulses of a headache.
Evelyn continued. “Our marketing team has put together an amazing campaign to introduce a new oral cleansing product to the public. A big part of that will be a series of billboards, projected in high traffic areas: transbot routes, autocar tunnels, flybot pathways. I’m sure you’ve seen these kinds of promotional images around the complex.”
“I guess. I take the transbots to work every day, but I usually spend that time reading.” Rayford actually spent that time playing idiotic games on his PDC, but preferred not to say so. “So yeah, if I do see one of those billboards it’s only out the corner of my eye.”
She nodded understandingly. “You know, I hear that a lot! We live in a vivid, exciting complex that offers constant visual stimulation. As a marketing specialist, I realize I may only have a fleeting moment to present my product to a given citizen. I need to make that moment count. And that is why you’re here today.”
Evelyn reached behind her and pressed a silver button on the wall. A large vidscreen emerged from behind a recessed area in the wall.
“Here’s what we’re doing today. In a moment, I’m going to ask you to look closely at that vidscreen. When you are ready, I’ll press a button on my PDC and an image will flash on the vidscreen, very quickly. What you’ll be looking at is a scale mockup of a billboard advertisement for our new mouthwash product. You’re going to look at that image, then tell me what you see.”
“That’s it?” Rayford felt a rare surge of confidence.
“That’s it!” Evelyn swiped a finger across her PDC display. It made a faint clicking sound.
“Well, okay then. I think I can probably manage that.”
“Outstanding. Are you ready?”
Rayford tilted his chair toward the vidscreen. “Sure. Go for it.” He heard a soft chime sound out from Evelyn’s PDC as he stared at the black screen. The room lighting dimmed for a moment, then returned.
Evelyn clapped her hands together. “So. What did you see?”
“Nothing yet.” Rayford remained fixated on the screen, still waiting for an image.
“Nothing at all?”
“Well, the lights went out, but nothing came up on the screen. Are you sure you hit the right button or whatever?”
“Of course. I assure you, Rayford-O, the image did display on the screen. For precisely one two-hundred-twentieth of a second.”
“That seems really quick. I mean—can a person even see that fas
t?”
“Generally, yes. Research has shown that 77 percent of citizens can at least partially discern an image displayed at that speed. It’s possible your visual acuity is below average. Are you certain you didn’t see anything?”
Rayford didn’t like being labeled “below average.” He was comfortable with actually being below average, just so long as nobody brought it up in conversation.
Evelyn tapped her PDC a few times. “Tell you what, I’ll show it to you again. This time, for twice the duration. That’s a full one-hundred-tenth of a second. Please focus on the vidscreen. Whenever you’re ready.”
Rayford leaned forward in his chair, forcing himself not to blink. “All right. Go.” Again, the PDC chimed and the lights dimmed.
“What did you see?”
“I saw—” Rayford closed his eyes, hoping to find a lingering after-image. “—Maybe there was a flicker?”
“Ah. Can you describe the flicker?”
“It flickered.”
He turned around in his chair to find Evelyn looking mildly disappointed. “But surely you saw something more than that? A shape, perhaps? There’s no right or wrong answer here.”
Rayford believed there was no right answer. But in his experience, there were always wrong answers, and they always carried consequences.
“Well, I saw the outline of—” Rayford gestured with intentional vagueness. He decided to make an educated guess. “A bottle, maybe? A bottle filled with liquid?”
“Yes. Yes!” She tapped some text into her PDC. “What else did you see?”
“That’s all I saw. Just that shape.”
“Did that shape have a color?”
“It was—green?”
“Just green?”
“I’m not sure what you mean. It looked green to me. Green is green.”
“Of course, green is green. But how you perceive that particular shade of green is critically important. For instance, research shows that consumers associate a bluish green with freshness and mintiness, whereas a yellowish-green is more often associated with—”
“Toilet water in the INFRARED barracks?”
“Yes. Among other things.” She peered at him for a moment. “I’m curious, Rayford-O. I’d like to show you something different now. Please redirect your attention to the vidscreen.” She poked and swiped at her PDC for a while, until an image appeared on the vidscreen. “What you’re seeing right now are four distinct shades of green. Which of these four green tones most resembles the color you saw in the advertisement?”