by Jim Stark
"White boy?” asked Michael as he walked up the stairs and bewitched her out of her retaliatory intentions. He slid his arms around her narrow rib cage as she stood straighter, and he kissed her lightly on the mouth, a kiss she returned. “Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow,” he squeaked when she grabbed his earlobe and brought him to his knees. “I'm sorry,” he professed ... unconvincingly, if he judged by the twist she added. “I'll never goose you again,” he promised through the pain.
"Beep!” Lilly snorted as she let go the ear disdainfully and knelt in front of him. She kissed him on the tip of the nose and drove her fingers deep into his hair. “My last lover was black,” she said. “Does that bother you?"
"No,” said Michael seriously, “not ... the fact that he was black..."
Ellipsis, she thought. His face betrayed concern, or perhaps fear ... maybe dread. No way is this acting, she assessed, worriedly. “Then ... what?” she asked.
"Well,” said Michael, “I ... sort of ... assumed you were a virgin,” he said gravely.
"Yeah right,” said Lilly as she tackled him down to the floor and tickled him until he begged for mercy.
They never made it to the bedroom for their first time. They clumsily tugged at each other's clothes while their mouths frantically tasted every newly exposed area, until they were naked under the soft electric light. Michael fumbled his way hurriedly into her and lost it in ten seconds flat. As he came, he made the strangest whimpering noises Lilly had ever heard. Then he lay on top of her, still in her very wet embrace, and breathed heavily as the last few involuntary gasps escaped his lips. “Was it ... was it good ... for you?” he finally asked.
Lilly snickered. “The best I ever had?” she said, with the clear upturn of a question in her inflection.
"The night is young,” said Michael as he pulled out slowly. “Come,” he said, standing and drawing her up.
Lilly gawked at his sopping, semi-erect penis as she stood. “Good old Ed” was hung like a bull; Michael wasn't, and she was glad. He won't hurt me that way, she knew. Not any way, she truly knew. This lovely man will do whatever it takes to make me and my body sing. She didn't know exactly how she knew those things, but she did. She enfolded his neck with her long arms and pressed her naked body against his. “I ... have ... a tiny confession to make,” she said to the bluest eyes she'd ever looked into at close range.
"What?” he asked.
"Sometimes I get sort of ... you know ... selfish ... during sex,” she said. “I ... don't consciously decide to, it just ... sort of—"
Michael's mouth put an end to that silliness, and it turned out she was right. He was a creative lover, and her body sang almost every variety of tune save the dirge. It was four in the morning before they finally got to sleep, too worn out to try for another go-around, too exhausted to even talk any more.
Chapter 39
FORTY DAYS
Thursday, March 10, 2033—5:00 a.m.
It was five o'clock in the morning, the only time that “the gang” could agree on for their collective Netlink. The governing council had assigned the gang—the eleven remaining founders of Victor-E plus Julia—the job of getting the clan through the forty consecutive days of “zero lying tolerance” that Victor had demanded, and it was time to take stock. But when?
Julia was busy—in spite of her wealth, she held two jobs. The other eleven “gangers” were either officially or unofficially retired, of course, having worked hard, saved hard and invested prudently for seventeen years (the cost of living in Evolution was about a third of what it would cost to live on the outside, so the whole process was accordioned up). The problem was, most “retired” Evolutionaries just kept on working—not so much for the money as for the fun of it. They all had duties, if not jobs, to go to, so it was only after much chatter on the Net that they had agreed on this awful hour.
Victor had agreed only reluctantly. The gang evidently had no accurate notion of how much juggling of medication it took to alter his shrinking daily allotment of lucid, pain-free hours.
"So,” said a bleary-eyed Victor Helliwell at his MIU screen, “we seem to have—uh—reached the point of no return.” He noticed that the square screen was split into sixteen boxes to accommodate “the gang” plus himself—four rows of four boxes each. It rankled him that one of the boxes was dedicated for the user himself or herself—he didn't want to see himself and he didn't need to see himself, although he knew that most everybody else liked and used that feature. And it rankled his innate sense of symmetry that the last three boxes had to be left empty. Why not the first three? he wondered petulantly. Or why not three corner boxes, or—
"No we haven't,” said Tammy Lucas, holding a forefinger and thumb up to form an “L” to make sure the other members of the gang knew that she was lying ... on purpose ... a “tickler,” apparently.
"Well, I guess somebody had to do that,” said Annette resignedly. “I hope ... you all realize that kind of joke can backfire if you forget to signal your intent."
"What's the point of no ... what did you call it, Victor?” asked Julia. “The point of no ... something?"
Victor ran a hand over his bald pate and wished he could bequeath his IQ to Julia in his will. He had demanded forty straight lie-free days before he would elaborate on his phase 2 for Evolution, and the clan had decided to try to achieve this goal within just fifty days. They had a streak of eight days going now, but they'd started the campaign eleven days ago, when the digicorders and lapel mikes had been issued to all 267 adult members of Victor-E. There were sixty-one alleged lies the first day, all not too serious, all of them convictions, and all resolved. There were only nine admitted lies the second day, two the third day, and none since ... none proven, that is. So if they had to start over now, they'd lose eleven days, and the best they could do would be fifty-one days before they achieved the forty consecutive lie-free days.
"Point of ... no return,” said Victor. “I'll explain it to you tonight after supper, okay?"
"Okay,” chirped Julia. “I like having supper with you. I'll help Noel and we can make some nice soup and—” She suddenly remembered that Noel was in Freeport with Mikey, her brother, and Lilly, and that one of the manor's cooks was filling in at the lodge. There were times, like this one, when life was just too complicated for her to keep it all straight in her mind.
"So, how many outstanding challenges do we have right now?” asked Tirone Lucas, without waiting for Julia to finish her tangent.
Annette checked her notes. Each digicorder could carry 100 hours of recorded sound, and the machines only kicked in if the wearer spoke ... or if a truck horn blasted nearby. Most people, it seemed, only actually talked for two hours a day or less, although those with jobs such as Netsex players or CQ advisers tended to get up into the seven- to eight-hour-a-day range. “In the last eight days we've had twenty-one challenges, and nineteen acquittals, so we've got two outstanding cases, two that we still have to resolve—both of which came in yesterday."
"Do you expect acquittals on those two?” asked Victor.
"I certainly hope so,” sighed Annette, “or we'll have to start over. One had to do with Albert Fowler, who said that he'd never cheated on his taxes. The prosecutor dug up his past tax returns, and it seems he claimed a charitable donation back in twenty eleven, like before the Revolution, that he had no receipt for. We're checking with the charity now, to see if they can—"
"So the challenge was based on a hunch, and not actual information,” said an elderly gentleman, Bob. Often, it seemed that Bob didn't “get” things until the third time around, but his problem wasn't his intelligence. He just never paid very much attention, and that annoyed the rest of the gang, with the obvious exception of Julia.
"Hunches count,” said Annette.
"Yeah,” said Bob, “but maybe this Fowler guy just forgot, so even if he did cheat a little back in ... when was that?"
"Twenty eleven,” said Annette, rolling her eyes. “And it's ‘Albert’ Fowler. D
on't you know him from—"
"I'm just saying that maybe this Fowler fellow simply forgot about it,” said Bob, “so, like, he didn't actually lie, right? I mean maybe he didn't know that what he said wasn't true ... didn't know consciously."
"Victor, do you want to take that one?” asked Annette as she rubbed her eyes.
"Sure,” said Victor. “Bob, if you're not positive, then you don't say it,” he explained. “Fowler could have said ‘I don't remember ever cheating on my taxes.’ That's a part of being Human Three, Bob. When in doubt—even when there might be a doubt—you gotta qualify what you say. You risk your credibility if you're not, like, ultra-careful. You risk getting challenged, and you show that you're not really tuned in to how others might see you. If others doubt you and they're too polite to say so, it puts up a wall. It will alienate the speaker from the listener. I know it sounds like I'm nitpicking, but absolute honesty is the foundation of Human Three Consciousness. You can't go on to the rest of it, to phase two, until you're solidly grounded in phase one. I mean, I could die never telling anyone about phase two, eh? And it's no skin off my nose, you know what I mean? But it would be a real shame for..."
Victor stopped the flow of words. The reality of his disease slammed his emotions down to Human One levels of anger. He'd passed the denial stage, but he saw no reason why he had to go all the way to “acceptance.” Dying was for other people, not for him. Why hasn't science perfected cryonics? How am I supposed to do what I have to do if I die before I get the chance? I'm not remotely ready to die. Nobody's ever ready. There is no getting ready for death. Oh well, at least all my Human Three stuff is on those three reel-to-reel audio recordings I made before the Revolution. He tried to remember where he'd hidden them, and then it came to him. He hadn't checked that they were still there since just after the Revolution, the day before his beloved Winnie Jopps had walked out on him. I wonder if I should look her up before I—
"Speaking of which,” said Annette softly, “how are you feeling today?"
"It's sort of like a permanent headache,” muttered Victor, “in spite of the painkillers. When it gets to be like a permanent migraine, they say I'll have to go on morphine, but I'm gonna try to..."
The gang was getting used to Victor's habit of petering out, and they all admired his determination, if not the arbitrary pre-condition he'd placed on them, the sine qua non of forty straight lie-free days. There was still the scary possibility that Victor could pass away before he got to tell them about his “phase 2” concept, but most of the gang figured he'd back down and tell them if he had only days to live and they hadn't yet succeeded in meeting his condition. “No fuckin’ way,” Annette had shouted whenever this hoped-for loophole had come up for discussion in the gang. “This is a man who didn't say a word for almost twenty years.” Annette felt certain that Victor would take phase 2 to the grave with him if they screwed up, so she had insisted that they get it right the first time, and not tempt fate. She knew about the old reel-to-reel audiotapes that Victor had made many years ago, but she didn't know if they still existed, or if they included that phase 2 stuff, or even the phase 1 economic model that Evolution had been founded on, and Victor had yet to speak about those tapes, so...
"What's the other challenge that's still ... standing?” asked Julia.
Annette was glad for the change of course. “Well, the other outstanding"—she over-pronounced the word without insult—"challenge involves a more serious matter. It seems Brenda McAndrew claimed credit for some time that she allegedly didn't work. If that's true, then her lie—and the reality behind it—nicked us all. That's ... rock bottom Human Two! She's adamant that she did work the hours in the pool, supervising the kids, but the other lifeguard says he was on duty alone for the first part of the shift, from six o'clock to about eight-thirty, and he's adamant too."
"What's the disk from her digicorder show?” asked Victor.
"Well, that's the thing,” said Annette. “It's silent from four o'clock that day until ten twenty-one the next day. Either the digicorder stopped working, and then spontaneously restarted, or she turned it off by accident, or ... or something."
"Didn't you guys superglue the ‘record’ button in the ‘on’ position like I suggested?” asked Victor.
"Uh—no,” said Annette. “You couldn't extract a used disk and put in a blank one if we did that ... plus—uh—that would wipe out the re-sale value of the equipment."
The financial angle irritated Victor no end—money meant nothing to him—but he had to respect their Human Three emphasis on not wasting money ... or anything else. The other reason—the problem of not being able to put in a new disk when the old disk was done—was reason enough for the decision not to glue the buttons. He hadn't thought of that. “Jeeze,” he said, “how could I have made such an asinine suggestion? Me ... the guy who invented the LieDeck? I mean..."
"It's probably the brain tumor,” said Julia. “I get all mixed up on stuff too sometimes, and I don't even have one."
Victor had asked Annette to keep his health situation private, or at least out of the conversation, but she had told him that word had already been leaked from somewhere—possibly from a doctor, an X-ray technician, or the WDA—and the Netnews had reported it. Victor grinned tenderly at Julia's image on the bottom left corner of his MIU screen. “Sweet Julia,” he said. “I think you may be right."
"Digicorders don't quit and restart like that on their own,” said Bob. “Normally,” he conceded, belatedly. “I mean if you have cancer, you can have a—what do they call that? Spontaneous..."
"Remission,” said Victor, “and it doesn't happen very often, I'm sorry to say."
"Yeah,” said Bob, “but it doesn't happen at all with machines, and...” He hadn't gotten the connection before this, and now he felt like a jerk, and was seen as such by his fellow founders.
"I wish to hell we could use a LieDeck to sort this out,” said Victor. “It is so stupid that we can't even—” He cut himself off, and used his mouse to delete himself from the collective Netlink, without explanation or apology. He called Brenda McAndrew, who was at the Soft-E operation, overriding her link with a client. Who fools around at this ungodly hour!? he wondered.
"Jeeze,” she complained as she shut off the music and ducked down so that her MIU captured only her agitated face and tousled hair. “Get off my fuckin’ screen, you creep,” she demanded. “What kind of asshole pervert just cuts in like in the middle of somebody else's cybertingle? I'm going to report you to—"
Victor complied. He realized the woman hadn't recognized him, but that shouldn't have mattered anyway. Vitriolic outbursts were so Human Two, arguably Human One. He hadn't found out if she'd been lying about those disputed hours in the pool, but he'd seen enough to make a decision, so he re-pasted himself onto the collective Netlink with the gang. “Sorry about disappearing on you like that,” he said, “but I just Netlinked with Brenda McAndrew, and—” A sharp pang literally threw his head backwards, and it took almost ten seconds for him to recover and compose himself.
"Are you ... okay?” asked Annette.
"Yeah,” said Victor weakly. “Listen, I don't know if she lied about her hours working at the pool, but she hurt my feelings ... on purpose. Can you—uh—get her to transfer to another clan?"
"Is that fair?” asked Julia.
"No,” said Victor, “but somebody lied, either her or that guy who was on duty at the pool. At this moment, and with me being in this condition, I ... I frankly don't really care who it was. I just..."
Annette and the other members of the gang watched as Victor squeezed his temples against the pain. “Consider it done,” she said. “We'll make it a commercial transaction, pay her to move on, with no questions asked either way. She doesn't have to accept, but I know her. She'll accept."
"Thanks,” said Victor. “Look, I gotta go back to bed, okay?"
They said their goodbyes, and Victor decided to force himself to record a tract that he hoped would help
the Evolutionaries. He meant what he'd said about going to bed, but it seemed obvious to him that even the founders of Evolution didn't really understand the seriousness of lying. He opened up a new file on his MIU, left instructions that it was to be sent out over the Net after he died, and began:
Imagine a person who claims to have not only the power but the right to reach out his or her hands, grasp all of the past, alter any parts that he or she finds inconvenient or embarrassing, and then present this modified and distorted version of the past to the rest of the world as something which is valid, even if it is contradicted by the memories of others or by facts available on the Net, or whatever. That, in my view, would be the height of arrogance, the epitome of arrogance, the apotheosis of arrogance. It is also the opposite of integrity, and sanity, and honor ... and a lot of other good things.
What I have defined above, of course, is the basic act of lying. Arrogance is a characteristic that is imputed to someone, or used to describe a person, if he or she offensively exaggerates his or her own importance, or is excessively and unpleasantly sure of himself or herself. I have spent my life working on this whole thing of lying, lie detection, and truth, and I am more marginalized by my adoption of what I have aptly called “Human Three Consciousness” than I would be if I were a gay black cannibal living in Tennessee in the nineteen thirties! I live in a world that wrongly thinks that lying is normal, just part of life, without which civilization would implode. That, my friends, is not only nuts, it is what is wrong with a species that could have written a joyous and sterling history of and for itself, and has instead written a story of stupidity and destruction. And that is one reason why I refused to be part of our world. I refuse to be a card-carrying member of the species I have called Human Two. I am better than that, and so is anyone who decides to be.
Only a God would have the power to change the past, but if there were a God, He, She or It wouldn't do that! You don't have that power and you don't have that right. Lying is more than arrogance. It is quite literally an act of madness. For your own sake; for everyone else's sake; stop lying now, and stop forever. Goodbye.