by Larry Niven
Jerryberry repeated, "What happened here?" while a dozen C.B.A. men around him were interviewing the crowd, and police were pouring out of the displacement booths. The flow of blue uniforms looked like far more than they were. They had to use their shock-sticks to get through the crowd.
Some of the spectators-shoppers-strollers had decided to leave. A wise decision, but impractical. The nearest booths could not be used at all. They held passengers cased in glass, each trying to get his door open against the press of the mob. Every few seconds one would give up and flick out, and another trapped passenger would be pushing at the door.
For blocks around, there was no way to get into a displacement booth. As fast as anyone left a booth, someone else would flick in. Most were nondescript citizens who came to gape. A few carried big cardboard rectangles carelessly printed in fluorescent colors, often with the paint still wet. A different few, nondescript otherwise, had rocks in their pockets.
For Jerryberry, kneeling above the felled policeman and trying to get audible sense out of him, it all seemed to explode. He looked up, and it was a riot.
"It's a riot," he said, awed. The directional mike picked it up.
The crowd surged, and he was moving. He looked back, trying to see if the policeman had gained his feet. If he hadn't, he could be hurt.. .
but the crowd surged away. In this mob there was no conservation of matter; there were sources and sinks in it, and today all the sinks were sources. The flow had to go somewhere.
A young woman pushed herself close to Jerryberry. Her eyes were wide; her hair was wild. A kind of rage, a kind of joy, made her face a battlefield. "Legalize direct-current stimulus!" she screamed at him. She lunged and caught the snout of Jerryberry's camera and mike and pulled it around to face her. "Legalize wireheading!"
Jerryberry wrenched the camera free. He turned it toward the big display window in Penney's. The glass was gone. Men crawled in the display window, looting. Jerryberry held the camera high, taking pictures of them over the bobbing heads. He had the scene for a moment-and then three signs shot up in front of the camera. One said ""TANSTAAFL." and one bore a mushroom cloud and the words 'POWER CORRUPTS!" and Jerryberry never read the third because the crowd surged again and he had to scramble to keep his feet. There were men and women and children being trampled here. He could be one of them.
How had it happened? He'd seen it all, but he didn't understand.
He tried to keep the camera over his head. He got a big brawny hairy type carrying a stack of teevees under his arm, half a dozen twenty-inch sets almost an inch thick. The thief saw the camera facing him and the solenm face beneath, and he roared and lunged toward Jerryberry.
Jerryberry abruptly realized that there were people here who would not want to be photographed. The big man had dropped his teevees and was plowing toward him with murder on his face. Jerryberry had to drop his camera to get away. When he looked back, the big man was smashing the camera against a lamp post.
Idiot. The scene was on tape now, in the C.B.A. buildings in Los Angeles and in Denver.
The riot splashed outward. Jerryberry perforce went with it. He concentrated on keeping his feet.
- 2 -
The explosive growth of the mall riot has taken enforcement agencies by surprise. Police have managed to hold the perimeter and are letting people through the lines, but necessarily in small numbers.
The screen showed people being filtered through a police blockade, one at a time. They looked tired, stunned. One had two pockets full of stolen wristwatches. He did not protest when they confiscated the watches and led him away. A blank-eyed girl maintained a death grip on a rough wooden stick glued to a cardboard rectangle. The cardboard was crumpled and torn, the Day-Glo colors smeared.
Meanwhile all displacement booths in the area have been shut down from outside. The enclosed area includes fourteen city blocks. Viewers are warned away from the following areas.. . . These scenes were taken by C .B .A. helicopter.
Most of the street lights were out. Those left cast monstrous shadows through the mall. Orange flames flickered in the windows of a furniture store. Diminutive figures, angered by spotlights in the helicopter, pointed and shouted silently into the camera viewpoint. The deep, earnest voice went on: We are getting no transmissions from inside the affected area. A dozen C.B.A. newsmen and an undisclosed number of police in the area have not been heard from....
Many of the rioters are armed. A C.B .A. helicopter was shot down early today but was able to crash-land beyond the perimeter. Close shot of a helicopter smashed against a brick wall. Two men being carried out on stretchers, in obvious haste. The source of weapons is not known.
Police conjecture that they may have been looted from Kerr's Sport Shop, which has a branch in the mall.
How did it all start?
The square brown face looking out of the tridee screen was known throughout the English-speaking world. When news was good, that wide mouth would smile enormously, the filter cigarette in the middle of it smoldering delicately between white front teeth. It was not smiling now.
That expression was more earnest; it was shaken.
Jerryberry Jansen looked back with no expression at all.
He had thrown away his camera and seen it destroyed. He had dropped his coin purse and ear mike into a trash can. Not being a newsman was a good idea during the mall riot. Now, an hour after the police had let him through, he was still wandering aimlessly. He had no goal. Almost, he had thrown away his identity.
He stood in front of an appliance-store window, watching teevee.
The deep, precise voice of Wash Evans was audible through the glass-barely.
How did it all start?
Evans vanished, and Jerryberry watched scenes taken by his own camera. A milling crowd, mostly trying to get past a disturbance. . . a blue uniformed man, a brawny woman with a heavy purse... . The officer was trying to arrest a suspected shoplifter, who has not been identified, when this man appeared on the scene.
Picture of Jerryberry Jansen, camera held high,~ caught in the view of another C.B.A. camera.
Barry Jerome Jansen, a roving newstaper. It was he who reported the disturbance (The woman swung her purse. The policeman went down, his arms half-raised as if to hide his head.) and reported it as a riot, to this man. Bailey, at his desk in the C.B.A. building. Jerryberry twitched.
Sooner or later he would have to report to Bailey. And explain where his camera had gone.
He'd picked up some good footage, and it was being used. A string of bonuses waiting for him. . . unless Bailey docked him for the cost of the camera.
George Lincoln Bailey sent in a crew to cover the disturbance. He also put the report on teevee, practically live, editing it as it came.
At this point anyone with a teevee, anywhere in the United States, could see the violence being filmed by a dozen veteran C.B.A. newstapers.
The square dark face returned. And then it all blew up. The population of the mall expanded catastrophically, and they all started breaking things. Why? Wash Evans flashed a white grin with a cigarette in it. Well, it seems that there are people who like riots.
Jerryberry cocked his head. He had never heard it put quite like that.
Now, that seems silly. Who would want to be caught in a riot? Wash Evans had long, expressive fingers with pink nails. He began ticking off items on his fingers. First, more police, to stop what's being reported as a riot. Second, more newstapers. Third, anyone who wants publicity. On the screen behind Wash Evans signs shot out of a sea of moving heads. A girl's face swelled enormously, so close she seemed all mouth, and shrieked, "Legalize wireheading!"
Anyone with a cause. Anyone who wants the ear of the public. There are newsmen here, man! And cameras! And publicity!
Behind Evans the scene jumped. That was Angela Monk coming out of a displacement booth! Angela Monk, the semi-porno movie actress, very beautiful in a dress of loose-mesh net made from white braided yarn, very self-possessed in
the split second before she saw what she'd flicked into. She tried to dodge back inside and to hell with the free coverage.
A yell went up; hands pulled the door open before she could dial again; other hands pulled her out.
Then there are people who have never seen a riot in person. A lot of them came. What they think about it now is something else again.
Now, all of these might not be a big fat percentage of the public.
How many people would be dumb enough to come watch a riot? But that little percentage, they all came at once, from all over the United States and some
other places, too. And the more there were, the bigger the crowd got, the louder it got-the better it looked to the looters. Evans folded down his remaining finger. And the looters came from everywhere, too. These days you can get from anywhere to anywhere in three flicks.
Scenes shifted in Evans's background. Store windows being smashed, a subdued wail of sirens. A C.B.A. helicopter thrashing bout in midair. An ape of a man carrying stolen tridees under one ann. Evans looked soberly out at his audience. So there you have it. An unidentified shoplifting suspect, a roving newsman who reported a minor disturbance as a riot-
"Good God!" Jerryberry Jansen was jolted completely awake.
"They're blaming me!"
"They're blaming me, too,' said George Bailey. He ran his hands through his hair, glossy shoulder-length white hair that grew in a fringe around a dome of suntanned scalp. "You're second in the chain. I'm tired.
If only they could find the woman who hit the cop!"
"They haven't?"
"Not a sign of her. Jansen, you look like hell."
"I should have changed suits. This one s been through a riot."
Jerryberry's laugh sounded forced, and was. "I'm glad you waited. It must be way past your quitting time."
"Oh, no. We've been in conference all night. We only broke up about twenty minutes ago. Damn Wash Evans anyway! Have you heard-"
"I heard some of it."
"A couple of the directors want to fire him. Not unlike the ancient technique of using gasoline to put out a fire. There were some even wilder suggestions... . Have you seen a doctor?"
"I'm not hurt. Just bruised. . . and tired, and hungry, come to think of it. I lost my camera."
"You're lucky you got out alive."
"I know."
George Bailey seemed to brace himself. "I hate to be the one to tell you. We're going to have to let you go, Jansen."
"What? You mean fire me?"
"Yah. Public pressure. I won't make it pretty for you. Wash Evans's instant documentary has sort of torn things open. It seems you caused the mall riot. It would be nice if we could say we fired you for it."
"But-but I didn't!"
"Yes, you did. Think about it." Bailey wasn't looking at him. "So did I. C.B.A. may have to fire me too."
"Now-" Jerryberry stopped and started over-"now wait a minute. If you're saying what I think you're saying. . . . but what about freedom of the press?"
"We talked about that, too."
"I didn't exaggerate what was happening. I reported a-a disturbance. When it turned into a riot, I called it a riot. Did I lie about anything? Anything?"
"Oh, in a way," Bailey said in a tired voice. "You've got your choice about where to point that camera. You pointed it where there was fighting, didn't you? And I picked out the most exciting scenes. When we both finished, it looked like a small riot. Fighting everywhere! Then everyone who wanted to be in the middle of a small riot came flicking in, just like Evans said, and in thirty seconds we had a large riot.
"You know what somebody suggested? A time limit on news. A law against reporting anything until twenty-four hours after it happens. Can you imagine anything sillier? For ten thousand years the human race has been working to send news farther and faster, and now. . . . Oh, hell, Jansen, I don't know about freedom of the press. But the riot's still going on, and everyone's blaming you. You're fired."
"Thanks." Jerryberry surged out of his chair on what felt like the last of his strength. Bailey moved just as fast, but by the time he got around the desk, Jerryberry was inside a booth, dialing.
He stepped out into a warm black night. He felt sick and miserable and very tired. It was two in the morning. His paper suit was torn and crumpled and clammy.
George Bailey stepped out of the booth behind him.
"Thought so. Now, Jansen, let's talk sense."
"How did you know I'd be here?"
"I had to guess you'd come straight home. Jansen, you won't suffer for this. You may make money on it. C .B . A. wants an exclusive interview on the riot, your viewpoint. Thirty-five hundred bucks."
"Screw that."
"In addition, there's two weeks' severance pay and a stack of bonuses. We used a lot of your tape. And when this blows over, I'm sure we'll want you back."
"Blows over, huh?"
"Oh, it will. News gets stale awfully fast these days. I know.
Jansen, why don't you want thirty-five hundred bucks?"
"You'd play me up as the man who started the mall riot. Make me more valuable.. . . Wait a minute. Who have you got in mind for the interview?"
"Who else?"
"Wash Evans!"
"He's fair. You'd get your say." Bailey considered him. "Let me know if you change your mind. You'd have a chance to defend yourself, and you'd get paid besides."
"No chance."
"All right." Bailey went.
- 3 -
For Eric Jansen and his family, displacement booths came as a disaster.
At first he didn't see it that way. He was twenty-eight (and Barry Jerome Jansen was three) when JumpShift, Inc., demonstrated the augmented tunnel diode effect on a lead brick. He watched it on television. He found the prospects exciting.
Eric Jansen had never worked for a salary. He wrote. Poetry and articles and a few short stories, highly polished, admired by a small circle of readers, sold at infrequent intervals to low-paying markets that he regarded as prestigious. His money came from inherited stocks. If he had invested in JumpShift then-but millions could tell that sad story.
It was too risky then.
He was thirty-one when commercial displacement booths began to be sold for cargo transport. He was not caught napping. Many did not believe that the magic could work until suddenly the phenomenon was changing their world. But Eric Jansen looked into the phenomenon very carefully.
He found that there was an inherent limitation on the augmented tunnel diode effect. Teleportation over a difference in altitude made for drastic temperature changes: a drop of seven degrees Fahrenheit for every mile upward, and vice versa, due to conservation of energy. Conservation of momentum, plus the rotation of the Earth, put a distance limit on lateral travel. A passenger flicking east would find himself kicked upward by the difference between his velocity and the Earth's. Flicking west, he would be slapped down. North and south, he would be kicked sideways.
Cargo and passenger displacement booths were springing up in every city in America, but Eric Jansen knew that they would always be restricted to short distances. Even a ten-mile jump would be bumpy. A passenger flicking halfway around the equator would have to land running-at half a mile per second.
JumpShift stock was sky-high. Eric Jansen decided it must be overpriced.
He considered carefully, then made his move.
He sold all of his General Telephone stock. If anyone wanted to talk to someone, he would just go, wouldn't he? A displacement booth took no longer than a phone call.
He tried to sell his General Motors, wisely, but everyone else wisely made the same decision, and the price fell like a dead bird. At least he got something back on the stock he owned in motorcycle and motorscooter companies. Later he regretted that. It developed that people rode motorcycles and scooters for fun. Now, with the streets virtually empty, they were buying more than ever.
Still, he had fluid cash-and the opportunity to make a killing.
Air
line stock had dropped with other forms of transportation.
Before the general public could realize its mistake, Eric Jansen invested every dime in airlines and aircraft companies. The first displacement booths in any city were links to the airport. That lousy half-hour drive from the center of town,
the heavy taxi fare in, were gone forever. And the booths couldn't compete with the airlines themselves!
Of course you still had to check in early-and the planes took off only at specified times. .
What it amounted to was that plane travel was made easier, but shortdistance travel via displacement booth was infinitely easier (infinitely-try dividing any ten-minute drive by zero). And planes still crashed. Cassettes had copped the entertainment market, so that television was mostly news these days; you didn't have to go anywhere to find out what was happening. Just turn on the TV.
A plane flight wasn't worth the hassle.
As for the telephone stock, people still made long-distance calls.
They tended to phone first before they went visiting. They would give out a phone-booth number, whereas they would not give out a displacement booth number.
The airlines survived, somehow, but they paid rock-bottom dividends. Barry Jerome Jansen grew up poor in the midst of a boom period. His father hated the displacement booths but used them, because there was nothing else.
Jerryberry accepted that irrational hatred as part of his father's personality. He did not share it. He hardly noticed the displacement booths. They were part of the background. The displacement booths were the most important part of a newstaper's life, and still he hardly noticed their existence.
Until the day they turned on him.
- 4 -
In the morning there were messages stored in his phone. He heard them out over breakfast.
Half a dozen news services and tapezines wanted exclusives on the riot. One call was from Bailey at C.B.A. The price had gone up to four thousand. The others did not mention price, but one was from Playboy.
That gave him furiously to think. Playboy paid high, and they liked unpopular causes.