Sewer, Gas and Electric

by Matt Ruff

  “You’re sure he didn’t keep notes, even at home? Notes that could have been destroyed by François 360 before it jumped?”

  “Maybe in longhand, or on a completely isolated computer system. No way he’d risk getting his files hacked. But then somebody would have had to enter his apartment to conduct a physical search.”

  “What about the Servant? I’d think a Negro would make a perfect spy. It’s furniture; it wouldn’t occur to you to hide your notes from it.”

  “So you’re suggesting that someone retooled François 360 for espionage before Teaneck came up with his plan?”

  “Why not? That would seem to be a good way to keep tabs on a man who might become a threat. Certainly simpler than breaking into his penthouse on a regular basis.”

  “Yeah, but Kite, Amberson Teaneck wasn’t the only corporate raider in New York. He was good, but not unique. Every sharper on Wall Street must dream of taking Gant Industries. What are the odds our killer had a spy in the house of the one guy who figured out a way to do it?”

  Kite clucked her tongue. “Joan, rule number one when investigating a conspiracy is that you have to remember to think big. Big, Joan.”

  “OK, I’ll think big. But you tell me, what are the odds?”

  “That depends,” Kite said, “on how many Negroes they control.”

  You Can Call Me Roy

  The squad car dropped Powell 617 in Times Square at twenty past midnight, which was twenty minutes late—his human handler had gotten hung up by another emergency call over at the Public Library, this one from a janitor who claimed his Electric Scooter had been dismantled and dragged down a storm drain by a pair of glowing tentacles. The janitor had wanted to know if the city would cover the cost of the scooter, which was not insured; the patrol car driver assured him that he was out of his mind, and called in a report of the incident to the Department of Sewers’ Nightwatch Desk.

  Now the squad car eased to a stop beside a subway entrance, and the driver said: “OK, Powell, foot patrol. Be back here for pick-up at 0700.”

  Powell smiled and gave a clenched-fist salute. “I’m with you, man!” he said.

  He got out, checking the sidewalk for felons and parking violators as the squad car drove away. Spotting no criminals above ground, Powell went down into the station, tipping his cap to a pair of wary Swedish tourists who passed him on the stairs. Down below he found a woman curled in sleep across from the first set of turnstiles. She was a former helicopter pilot, a veteran of the ’09 War of Syrian Containment. She had Electric Hands, one of them badly mangled, and her open mouth revealed a lower jaw studded with False Teeth, ceramic prostheses not unlike Powell’s own.

  Powell crept up on her, smiling his friendly policeman’s smile as he charged the disc in his right palm to a miniscule voltage—the static-shock equivalent, say, of rubbing a comb briskly against an angora sweater—and zapped the vagrant awake by grasping her bare ankle. She jerked upright, raising her Hands to ward off a blow, and screamed at the sight of Powell’s face bent so close to her own.

  “You move along now,” he said, pleasantly. She stumbled up and fled, cracking her shoulder against a steel support pillar in her haste to get away. Powell 617 continued on his beat, whistling a happy tune.

  Eighteen Electric Police Officers patrolled the maze of walkways and platforms in the Times Square station overnight, following randomly alternating paths that kept would-be perpetrators from anticipating their movements. Human cops also walked beats or waited to be dispatched to handle arrests, while a security coordinator kept track of everybody’s whereabouts. Or tried to; the station was vast and its tunnels convoluted, and even making regular check-ins the Electric Police in particular tended to get misplaced. Nobody worried too much about them when they did.

  Powell 617 saw the alligator about halfway through his first sweep. He was strolling along a zigzag corridor in the deepest level of the station when he spied a white leathery tail disappearing around a corner ahead of him. Instances of mutant wildlife entering the subway system were surprisingly rare, and Powell’s practical experience (most of it factory-installed on Read Only Memory modules) did not include sewer taxonomy, so he could only classify an albino alligator as a LARGE RAT or a STRAY PET, neither of which required him to call for backup. He merely quickened his pace and followed the tail where it led him, around three more corners to a fork in the passageway. There the alligator slid under a barred gate before Powell could catch it.

  The gate was locked, and orange with rust. A sign warned in English: DO NOT ENTER BY ORDER OF THE TRANSIT AUTHORITY. Below this a bar code symbol, meaningless to a human observer, told Powell that there was nothing dangerous beyond the gate, no live steam or wires, only valuable Transit Authority property that needed protection from vandals. In other words: hurry on in; don’t waste time going for help. As he fitted a skeleton key to the lock, Powell tried to raise the security coordinator on his built-in walkie-talkie to let her know that he was entering a restricted area. He received only static in response, so he proceeded through the gate alone—despite the rust it swung open easily—shutting and relocking it behind him.

  The sloping passageway he now moved in was unlit, but this was no problem for Powell 617, who could see in all but total darkness and had high-frequency sonar to boot. Sonar picked out the alligator up ahead, though when Powell switched his eyes over to infrared the ’gator gave off no heat signature. This seemed to indicate that the LARGE RAT/STRAY PET was either DEAD, FROZEN, or ARTIFICIAL, and Powell, no dummy, settled on the third option. “Here boy!” he called after it. “Here, kitty, kitty. . . . Are you Electric? Turn yourself off, now!”

  The passage opened out onto a disused platform. A single subway car was parked on the near track with its doors open, and the alligator, paying no heed to Powell’s call, slipped into the dark interior. Powell followed. As he stepped aboard, a number of things happened.

  His sonar alerted him to the presence of several man-shaped figures in the car, though his infrared vision still showed no warm bodies. Before he could react to this new data, there was a harsh pop! off to his right, and a sharp metal projectile punctured the side of his neck. His arms and torso froze up instantly; he retained enough flexibility in his legs to keep his balance but could not raise his feet to step forward or backward. When he tried to send a distress call his walkie-talkie shorted out, leaking smoke from his right ear.

  A voice in the darkness said: “Gots him.”

  “Dat is mighty good shootin’, Kingfish,” a second voice added.

  Lights came on in the car. Two Automatic Servants in cheap brown suits and derbies stood opposite the door Powell had entered; lapel buttons identified the one on the left as Amos and the one on the right as Andy, with no numbers. Farther down the car stood the Kingfish, holding a fat chrome pistol, and beside him a fourth Servant, a midget in a barber’s uniform with the name Shorty stenciled across his white smock. Between these two sat the alligator. A little fellow, really: no more than four feet from nose to tail, with a black box sprouting from its head like a cancer. The box was Electric, but the ’gator itself was alive, cold-blooded and ancient, the sole survivor of Teddy May’s 1935 sewer safari. Powell still thought it was an ARTIFICIAL LARGE RAT.

  “Excuse me,” he said, addressing alligator and Electric Negroes alike, “my motor control seems to be malfunctioning. Please go to the nearest telephone and dial 911 to report my whereabouts.”

  The Negroes laughed. Confused, Powell repeated: “Dial 911, please.”

  “You hear dat, Andy?” the Kingfish said. “Dial 911.”

  “Dial 911,” Powell said.

  “I hears it,” said Andy. “I say we send Shorty to do it.”

  “Yeah,” Shorty said, “I-I can d-dial. . . You can send m-me to . . . I’ll r-ring up . . . I—I’ll g-go and get. . . I’ll call th-the . . . Yeah, right.”

  “Dial 911,” Powell said.

  “Is there an echo in dis train?” Amos asked.

 
; “Is dere an echo in this train?” Andy wondered.

  Footsteps rang on the platform outside, and the Negroes were abruptly silent. They nodded respectfully as a white man boarded the subway car. An Electric White Man. He had slicked-back silver hair, blue eyes, and a prominent nose marked with a scar. The spotless gray suit he wore put Amos and Andy’s outfits to shame. He had no nametag at all.

  “Excuse me,” Powell greeted him, “my motor control seems to be malfunctioning—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Officer Friendly,” the White Man said. “Nobody asked you how you were.” Shorty sniggered at this, until the White Man snapped his fingers in Shorty’s face; then the little barber ran to the end of the car and vanished into the operator’s cab. The train’s engine started up a moment later.

  The White Man shooed Amos and Andy out of the way and had a closer look at Powell. “Standard law-enforcement model,” he observed. “Series AS204-RVJ. It’ll do for a night’s catch.”

  Powell 617 fixed him with a stern look. “What’s your name?” he demanded.

  “You can call me Roy, if I tell you to talk. I’m not telling you to talk.”

  “You’re obviously suffering a serious malfunction yourself, Roy,” Powell said. “I think you should all deactivate before you cause real harm.”

  Roy smiled, a predator’s smile. He reached out and fingered the spike in the side of Powell’s neck.

  “You first,” he said.

  “Amen to dat,” added Andy, and the train doors slammed shut.

  GAS

  7

  It may come as a surprise to you, but advertisements do not have to be literally true.

  —William Lutz, Doublespeak

  Only the Best

  Whenever Whitey Caspian lectured to new trainees of the Gant Department of Public Opinion, he made toothpaste the opening topic. In many ways, toothpaste captured the essence of what advertising and the engineering of Public Opinion were all about; it served as a useful introduction to the field.

  “What I want you to do first,” Whitey began, “is tell me which of these brands of toothpaste is the best.”

  This Tuesday morning his two pupils were a Syrian named Fouad Nassif and a Melanesian Jew named Bartholomew Frum, both graduates of the Gant Media & Technical School for Advanced Immigrant Teens. Fouad and Bartholomew each cocked an eye at the plastic tray Whitey showed them, on which six identical white blobs of toothpaste had been arranged in a circle.

  “This is Colgate,” Whitey said, pointing at one of the blobs. “It contains a fluoride compound to inhibit tooth decay, a mild abrasive to help clean the teeth, and additional ingredients to provide consistency, texture, and flavor. This next is Gleem. It contains a fluoride compound to inhibit tooth decay, a mild abrasive to help clean the teeth, and additional ingredients to provide consistency, texture, and flavor. Next we have Close-up, which contains a fluoride compound, a mild abrasive, and additional ingredients to provide consistency, texture, and flavor. Fourth is Gantpaste, which contains a fluoride compound, a mild abrasive, and additional ingredients to provide consistency, texture, and flavor. And then there’s Crest, which contains Fluoristat . . .”

  “What is Fluoristat?” Fouad Nassif asked.

  “Very good question. Fluoristat is Crest’s trademark name for a combination of a fluoride compound, a mild abrasive, and additional ingredients to provide consistency, texture, and flavor. Finally there’s Generic Brands generic toothpaste, which contains a fluoride compound, a mild abrasive, and additional ingredients to provide consistency, texture, and flavor.”

  “And you wish to know which of these is best?”

  “Exactly.”

  Now Fouad Nassif had been a young boy in Damascus when the War of Syrian Containment brought a hail of unfriendly fire smashing down upon his neighborhood. After the bombardment had ended and allied forces occupied the country, Fouad had asked one of the invading soldiers, in halting English, why it had been necessary to demolish his apartment building with laser-guided missiles. He was told that the people who ran his country didn’t understand reason, which unfortunately made it impossible to deal with them in a more civilized fashion. Fouad took this to heart, and when he later emigrated to the United States he studied formal logic as an antidote to his dreams, night terrors of exploding elevator banks and solid walls ripped apart like notepaper. To protect his person and his sanity from future wars he had become a jewel of rational discourse, but listening to his new boss he got the feeling that Whitey didn’t want to hear the obvious answer to his question. So Fouad did something he had trained himself never to do: he lied.

  “Gantpaste,” he said. “Gantpaste is best, because it is ours.”

  “Oh no no no . . . that’s touching loyalty, Fouad, but I want the real answer.”

  “You are sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well.” Fouad took a deep breath. “None of them are best. They are all the same.”

  Whitey shook his head. “Wrong,” he said. “Or half wrong.”

  “They are not all the same?”

  “No, that part’s right.”

  “They are all the same?”

  “Right.”

  “Then none of them can be best. . .”

  “Wrong.”

  Fouad heard the whistle of air-to-surface ordnance. He clenched his fists under the table and concentrated: “There are six, and they are all the same. But how then can one be better . . . ?”

  “None of them are better,” Whitey told him. “They’re identical. But which is the best?. . . Hey, hey.” Whitey saw that Fouad had begun to tremble, and stretched out a hand to comfort him. Though an ad man, he was also compassionate, and he had trained Arabs before. “It’s all right, listen, the thing about this business is you should never be afraid to be wrong, or to blurt out a silly idea. . . . Christ, you should hear me at board meetings.”

  “But Aristotle has written—”

  “Forget Aristotle,” Whitey said, as gently as he could. “Aristotle only covers research and development. This is consumer marketing.”

  “Which philosopher should I have studied to comprehend consumer marketing?”

  “Munchhausen.”

  “Munch-house-en?”

  “Munchhausen. Baron von Munchhausen.”

  “Mister Caspian,” Fouad said, “I must ask you . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Was this Baron Munchhausen a soldier?”

  “Yes he was. He was the best soldier who ever lived.”

  “He flew a bomber plane?”

  “He flew a cannonball,” said Whitey. Giving Fouad another affectionate pat, he turned to Bartholomew Frum. “What about you, Bart? Which do you think is the best toothpaste?”

  “That’s easy,” Bartholomew told him. “All of them are the best.”

  Whitey nodded encouragement. “Go on.”

  “They’re all the same,” Bartholomew continued, “so Crest is best, Gleem can’t be beaten, Gantpaste is number one, tests confirm that no toothpaste stops more cavities than Colgate, nothing whitens teeth or freshens breath better than Close-up, and Generic is just as good as any big name brand.”

  Whitey was impressed. “You’ve really done your homework.”

  “I understand none of this,” said Fouad.

  “You will,” Whitey promised. “That’s what training is all about. I’ll answer any questions you might have.”

  “I have a question, Mr. Caspian,” Bartholomew said.

  “Ask away.”

  “Of course I believe in the Judeo-Christian work ethic, and I’m more than willing to apply myself to succeed here at Gant Industries . . .”

  “That’s good to hear.”

  “Yes sir, but I was wondering . . . what sort of early advancement opportunities would be available for someone who could tell you where Philo Dufresne keeps his submarine?”

  Overheard in the Cortex

  Starting out early that morning, Joan and Kite went first to the Departme
nt of Sewers building on Eleventh Avenue, where Joan signed some forms for Fatima Sigorski and cleaned out her locker. Kite with her empty right sleeve attracted the attention of the younger sewer jockeys, who naturally assumed she was a veteran of the effluvia, a notion she did nothing to discourage. Drawing on the sewer lore Joan had shared with her, Kite told the credulous barge-riders that she had “worked hand in glove with Teddy May himself, back when I was just a sprout and he was an old man refusing to retire.” When they heard that, everybody wanted her autograph; charging three bucks a signature, she cleared forty-two dollars by the time Joan had finished her business.

  They went down to 34th Street and walked east. Kite used part of her earnings to buy breakfast falafel and coffee from a sidewalk hot cart, and while she paid the vendor Joan craned her neck to stare at the Phoenix, its mooring-mast pinnacle obscured this morning by smog and low cloud cover. The Electric Ad on the building’s western face was the same one that had puzzled Eddie Wilder yesterday, the giant’s day-calendar page with the mysterious number: 997.

  “Do you have any idea what that means?” Joan asked, as Kite took a bite of falafel.

  “It’s a tally of some kind, isn’t it?” Kite spoke around a mouthful. “The number goes up every so often.”

  “But do you know what it is that’s being tallied, or who’s doing the counting? I remember when the Phoenix first opened, the number was in the low eight hundreds, and some newspaper columnist commented on it in the Times, but he didn’t offer an explanation.”