by Jim Stark
"All we're saying,” Beth took over, “is that for a couple of generations, until Human Three Consciousness gets entrenched worldwide, an elected, civilian WDA will probably have to proscribe in law the most damaging or dangerous Human Two behaviors."
"What ... like you'll get arrested for lying?” asked Sébastien.
"At the very least,” said Leo, jokingly.
"Well, not arrested,” said Beth, in a more serious tone. “But fined, like for a parking offense, for instance. I mean it's already an offense to lie in court—perjury—or to lie in advertising, or to misrepresent the financials of a company, for example. A Human Three law would simply make it general—no lying ... anywhere ... period ... except for fun, I suppose."
"And what other perfectly natural behaviors would your so-called Quiet Revolution proscribe?” asked Sébastien.
Leo shifted in his chair. He wasn't sure if this new guy just didn't get it, or just liked playing devil's advocate ... or just wasn't a very nice person. Jeeze, raping and pillaging used be perfectly natural for Human One, he thought, but didn't say. “Actually,” he said, “a lot of us figure that would about do it. If nobody ever lies, the rest sort of ... follows,” he explained patiently. “I told my last whopper in...” His eyes flicked up at the ceiling as he tried to remember. “That was ... back in twenty-nine,” he said with the satisfaction of certainty. “I had a stupid fuss with my third wife ... it's not important what it was about ... but I'd already been Human Three for about six years then, and I just ... collapsed...” His face trumpeted the shame he still felt about that cave-man incident. “I made a fist and drew it back and just about smacked her ... in the face,” he said timidly. “Astonishing! I jumped right from Human Three to Human One—didn't even stop at Human Two on the way by! Total fuckin’ regression! The whole thing took about half a second! Bang! and I was there."
He slapped his flat hand very hard on the table when he said “bang,” and Sébastien winced.
"Scared the shit out of me!” continued Leo. “Her too! In fact she walked right out the door with no clothes on, and never came back. She won't even face me on the Net now, and I don't blame her either. Life is too short and lovely to have to put up with violence."
"She could forgive you,” said Beth, “if she realized you—"
"Oh, she did,” said Leo. “Forgiveness is the easy part. It's the trust that I killed. But ... better I killed that than her,” he finished, with “whew” written all over his face.
"Under a Human Three WDA, you'd likely get a thousand-dollar fine just for feeling that, I suppose,” offered Sébastien.
"And a hundred extra hours of SST work, I would think,” contributed Beth. “Just for reinforcement and example."
Sébastien decidedly did not want to start debating the appropriateness of particular sentences—that would have conceded the righteousness of the overall game. “What did she do that pissed you off?” he asked Leo.
"Oh, nothing so terrible, really,” said Leo. “I came home and found her on the couch in the living room, having a for-old-times-sake romp with her first husband Joe. She still loved him a lot, and she still loved me, too. It wasn't anything that I hadn't done with my ex-wives. And it wasn't her first ‘last tingle’ with Joe either, but I didn't ... you know ... I didn't actually see the other two incidents, so it didn't bother me much when she told me about them, even though I didn't like the guy. I didn't realize that my dislike for him had anything to do with jealousy, which I guess I would've found out if we'd had access to a LieDeck. I just found him to be a goof—actually, he's a pretty good guy. Anyway, I totally flipped out for about a second when I caught them in the act. I even smashed the guy's head in with a baseball bat ... in my mind,” he hastened to explain for Sébastien's benefit.
"I knew that,” said Sébastien.
"Way to go, guy!” exuded Beth—to Sébastien. “Listen, can I make dinner for you some evening? I make the best honey-garlic meatballs you ever tasted."
"I—uh—think that would be—uh—lovely,” said Sébastien. “But for now I'd better get back to my munchkins,” he said as he went to the sink to wash his cup.
"I'll do the washing up, Sébastien,” said Leo, rising to get at the task—he snatched Sébastien's cup from him and started running hot water into a stoppered sink. “Really ... no sweat."
"Penance?” asked Beth, a former nun. She pushed back her chair and grabbed her bag from the tabletop.
"Maybe,” said Leo. “Or ... maybe not. Maybe I get some sort of perverted kick out of doing dishes! Tell you what. What if I accept your invitation to a dinner of honey-garlic meatballs? Would that be just as...?” He turned around as he swooshed liquid soap into the dishwater, and laughed heartily. It seemed that Beth had left the room, presumably in pursuit of prey.
* * * *
Sébastien walked out of the teachers’ room determined to put all this Quiet Revolution stuff out of his mind and have a good rest-of-the-day with his students. He felt like a real live teacher again, for the first time since his return. He told himself he'd stay until five o'clock, if necessary, or until the last damned kid was worn out and ready to go home for supper. But as he arrived at his classroom door, he came across the principal, Six-fois Bellehumeur, who had just come up the stairs from his first-floor office.
"I looked in on your class earlier,” said Six-fois. “Have you—uh—got a minute to talk?"
Oh shit, thought Sébastien. I've never walked out on a class in my entire career, and now I get—
"No, no,” said Six-fois, sensing his fuss. “Your class was humming along just fine."
Christ I hate that when they read your fucking mind, Sébastien thought. “What can I do for you, sir?” he asked.
"Six-fois,” said the principal. “Whenever I get called ‘sir,’ it makes me feel like I'm turning into my absentee dad, which is something I'd like to avoid."
"Six-fois,” obliged Sébastien, trying to do it in a good spirit. “What can I do for you, Six-fois?"
"You can take this,” said Six-fois as he reached into his coat pocket, pulled out an unsealed envelope and handed it to his newest volunteer teacher.
Sébastien opened it, and was astonished to find a paycheck for his first week of service. “I thought you said—"
"I did,” said Six-fois. “Julia Whiteside—she's rich, you know—she sent her trustee, Mr. Wu, over to see me, and he told me that she'd cover your salary for as long as it took for you to—"
"Give it back,” said Sébastien, handing back the envelope and check.
Six-fois studied his new volunteer teacher carefully. The redheaded man didn't seem angry or flummoxed or indignant. He seemed ... Human Three! “Why?” he asked.
"First,” said Sébastien, “I don't want any favors from a stranger just because she's loaded. If Julia wants to do good with her money, she can give it to the SST. But mostly...” Sébastien found it very unusual, somewhat frightening, and curiously sexual to find himself thinking and saying these things, especially when he didn't even want to be doing so. “But mostly,” he repeated, “I'd prefer to earn my way onto the team, sir—uh—I mean Six-fois."
"Well hot damn!” exclaimed Six-fois, with the sort of grin that most men reserved for news of their first-born. “I'd hug the shit right outa you if I didn't think that would make you feel uncomfortable!"
"It's the thought that counts,” said Sébastien as he edged towards his classroom. “It was awful nice of her, though,” he added.
"She's a peach,” said Six-fois. And so are you, he thought as he stuffed the check back into his pocket and watched a proud man walk away ... jauntily, he thought. “She'll be so friggin’ proud of you she'll likely bust out crying,” he said to the back of the novice Human Three.
Sébastien just waved his acknowledgement, without turning around. He was in a hurry, after all. He had kids to teach.
Chapter 69
STRONG MEDICINE
Friday, May 6, 2033—9:46 p.m.
V
ictor loved working maintenance at the Royal Oaks Golf and Country Club. It wasn't the money—he had tons of that already—it was the fresh air and the flexible hours and the sunshine baths and the pleasant way the regular members called him by name and stopped to ask how he was feeling as they played through. Today was different though. For some reason, in spite of glorious weather, the course was utterly deserted. Still, he had flowerbeds to tend and a Sarlo to push around tree-trunks where the gang-mowers couldn't reach. He had sand traps that needed raking, and divots to repair, and there was never any shortage of spike marks to be smoothed over on the greens, even though the new rule required spikeless shoes. He worked on one hole per day, and every nineteenth day he rested, or played a whole round of golf by himself. Of course he played at night, which presented certain difficulties, but he knew his place, and plus he didn't want any acrimonious gossip in the Royal Oaks dining room about uppity help.
"Done!” he said as he looked over his handiwork with pride. He picked up his rake, shovel, trowel, lunchbox and hardhat and headed out to check out the eighteenth fairway and green—tomorrow's canvas. Eighteen was one of his favorites, the hole that forever stood between now and his next day off. He felt very good, although he was becoming concerned about a persistent rumbling sound he had been hearing for the last couple of hours ... there must be a thunderstorm coming.
He turned around, and saw, to his astonishment, a hundred-foot-high glacier working its way down the sixteenth fairway! Big dirty chunks of ice were falling off its front edge, and it was gouging up grass and earth like a monster plow, even uprooting trees—in fact it was demolishing everything in its path! He signaled a teenaged girl driving the gang-mower tractor on the eighteenth hole. She was just doing the loop at the tee-off end of hole, and she shifted into neutral and waited for Victor to come puffing up to her. “Where ... the hell ... did that come from?” he asked, pointing at the icy juggernaut.
"Fifteen fairway,” she said. “It's moving about twenty feet a minute, they figure. I should have time to finish this fairway before it gets here ... if I hurry.” She shifted back into drive and continued to mow.
Victor saw that she was right. It was moving up the sixteenth fairway from the vague direction of number fifteen ... but what is it doing here, and what's the point of mowing number eighteen? The glacier was making a God-awful mess of things, of fairways that Victor had tidied yesterday and the day before, and soon it would ruin today's effort. It'll take the regular crew years to repair all that damage.
He walked glumly back to the clubhouse to put away his tools, entering by a concrete ramp at the back that led down to the maintenance area. When he got to the bottom, he saw that the basement had recently been converted into a sort of a warehouse. There were electrical devices piled all over the place—hand-operated toasters, old-fashioned cassette tape recorders, used MIUs—all trade-ins, according to their tags ... antiques, I suspect. That was one thing about his job that really and truly burned his ass—nobody ever told him anything. “I'm just going to go home,” he said out loud, to no one.
He threw his gardening tools onto a stack of obsolete MIUs and looked around. A red neon sign flashed: “Elevators.” That's new, he thought. And a damn good idea! Walking up stairs always made his head hurt.
Victor hadn't noticed this before, which was odd, but there were ten men in dark suits waiting in two straight rows of five for elevators, holding electrical appliances, new ones, judging by the shiny, un-taped-up boxes. They sniffed him, then turned away in unison—throwing each other knowing glances. Victor was profoundly offended, but said nothing. He worked outdoors, with his hands, in the heat! What did they expect?
There were two elevators, freight elevators, it seemed, and one of them arrived with a pleasant-sounding “bing.” Victor got in, then looked outside, and the dark suits were all laughing. At me! he realized. He peeked outside at the label near the “up-down” button, and horror of horrors—he'd gone in the women's elevator! His face faded to deep purple as he hurried out and rejoined the vigil.
Finally, after what seemed an interminable wait, the men's elevator arrived. They all got in, with the ten suited-up men huddled on one side and Victor alone on other, in his soiled green overalls. The doors closed, but just after the elevator started up, there was a disturbing “clunk,” and the thing listed to the heavy side. All four walls and the ceiling continued their upward journey, but the elevator floor had somehow become wedged between the walls of the shaft, between the basement and the first floor. Suddenly, the elevator floor sank sharply, to a forty-five-degree angle, towards the gaping front. All the suit guys grabbed the upper edge of the elevator floor, letting go of their boxes, which tumbled onto the basement floor. Victor grabbed too, but only managed to latch onto a man's ankle ... which snapped off!
He slid down the sloped elevator floor, slipping beneath the underside of the first floor of the building, and landed in a heap in the basement, among the crunched boxes. He wasn't hurt, but he was stunned to realize he was still holding a foot in a black leather shoe and a black and green Argyle sock! There was no blood on it, but it scared him all the same. He threw the foot back, and the man who owned it caught it, said thanks—a nice touch, considering he was clinging for dear life with the other hand—and put it back on, one-handed, as if it were a comfy old loafer. The man with the refitted foot said: “Sir, there's a lot of good stuff down there—you can have it for your new SSTs if you want."
He called me “sir,” thought Victor. He must want something.
The basement was starting to flood badly, no doubt because the glacier was melting ... and all that traded-in electrical shit will be no good if it gets wet. Victor figured that was why the man in the suit was suddenly so generous—that and getting his foot back, which surely must have come as a great relief.
He scratched his bald head and tried to ignore the terrified whimpers emanating from the elevator shaft. Might as well save what I can. He tried to load himself up with the appliances, but never got more than two or three items onto his free arm. The stuff kept falling off. He didn't want to get caught using the women's elevator, so he tried to think where he could get a truck ... to drive up the ramp. The only vehicles he could see were little things, like the cars used by clowns at the Shriners’ Circus. Golf carts, he realized. Useless little farts, although quite handy on, for example, golf courses. He'd forgotten, momentarily, that he worked on a golf course, and that he was theoretically still at work.
The desperate cries from the much-tilted elevator floor weren't helping matters at all. The muddy water was cold, and it was getting deeper. Victor was afraid of drowning, so he walked up the stairs, empty-handed. And he didn't bother to punch out; he just headed through the empty liquor lounge and went straight for the parking lot and his 2002 Buick.
He turned the key over and over, and pumped the gas pedal as mightily as he could, but the stupid old machine wouldn't start. The water reached the rocker panels, and began seeping in under the doors. Even with the windows closed, he could still hear the rumble of the glacier as it plowed its way mindlessly across what used to be a prime piece of real estate. He could also still hear the screams of those men in the elevator. If they would just let go of the floor, they could save themselves, he thought. Stupid Human Twos.
He abandoned his car and walked through the empty streets, heading generally uphill, for obvious reasons. He was on dry land again, but his shoes and socks were still sopping, and he was lost. He wasn't even sure he could remember where he lived, but his memory kept saying “Elm Street.” Once he got to Elm Street, he'd be fine, he figured.
He asked a young man with a nose-ring where Elm Street was. “Follow me,” said the teenager. “It's tricky to get there from here, but I'm going sort of that way, and once I get to my rooming house, it's easy from there."
Victor followed for almost an hour, about ten yards behind, struggling to keep up. He figured he had to be succeeding in terms of pace, because he wasn't falling a
ny further behind, but for some reason, he wasn't able to actually catch up. Finally, the boy turned in a walkway to what had to be his rooming house.
"It's getting late,” said the kid. “You'll never make it to Elm Street before dark, and all the street lights are out because of that glacier or iceberg or whatever it is. So you can stay at my rooming house, but I only got a single room with a single bed, so you'll have to sleep with my sister. She won't mind, but you have to go barefoot in her place or she gets violent. I don't know why she's like that, but she's been like that ever since she was a kid. Never grew up, I guess."
Victor reluctantly agreed. Jeeze, she didn't even make it from Human One to Human Two! he thought. Bummer!
He walked inside and was shown to the door of the sister's place on the second floor of the old house. It was sort of a two-room apartment, really, and the room just inside the door was so cluttered with garbage, toys, clothes and magazines that one would be hard-pressed to put a foot onto the actual floor. The table and chairs and counter of the kitchen area were completely covered with dishes, new and used, and food, new and used, and the cupboard doors were open, with loaves of French bread, cellophane-wrapped candles and all kinds of stuff sticking out or rammed in any old way. Victor was careful to take off his shoes and place them on the floor out in the hall. He took off his wet socks, put them inside his shoes, and then he introduced himself, explaining his predicament and the offer he'd been given by her brother. He was still outside the door, unable to step inside without drawing attention to the obvious problems that that move would pose.
"My name is Spot,” the sister said. It sounded like a name you'd give to a dog, not a girl. She was in her twenties, naked, and balder than himself, and she was standing across the kitchen, in the doorway leading to the bedroom, shining in the bright overhead lights. She had blue and red tattoos from head to toe, an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth, and even from across the room, Victor could see that her fingernails were unkempt. And her eyes! They seemed wonky, as if they were taking quite separate decisions about just where to look, like a lizard.