The little park in front of the hospital was pleasant, one of the newer models ingeniously designed to provide an illusion of isolation almost immediately one entered it. It took a sharp eye to determine which of the shrubs, trees and flowers were synthetics at this time of year, when everything was determined to grow, no matter what the odds. Joe noticed that the grass had recently been replaced: there was one spot where the manufacturer hadn’t got enough green into it. In all, though, the effect came through, and he began to relax a bit for the first time since his card had been rejected. It was almost dusk, when the robo-watchman arrived and the concealed air rejuvenators had begun to hum, before he decided to try his luck at the admittance entrance.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped slowly through the doors and up to the desk, where a slim and decidedly junior staff member was busily stacking punched cards. In a hoarse and, he hoped, sick-sounding voice, he gave his name and asked to be admitted. The girl straightened up, faced him, and asked, “Could you give me some idea of what the, uh, nature of your complaint is?”
Joe had already thought this out in the park, and now he looked down at the floor, shuffled a little, looked at the back wall of the office and muttered, “Well, Miss, I’d rather tell a doctor. But it hurts a lot, a lot, you understand. If I have to ... I could wait a little . . .” He let his voice trail off and shuddered slightly.
“I’ll let you go to one of the emergency stalls,” the girl said quickly, “and send an intern as soon as possible.”
“Thanks,” Joe said between gritted teeth. “Which way is it.”
“Down this hall to your left,” the girl answered, and as he turned to leave she continued. “You have your ID card with you, of course.”
“Sure,” Joe said, fishing it out and holding it up in front of the desk while she rose as if to glance at it. Then, faster than he could have anticipated, she reached out and took it from him, held it between trim thumb and forefinger, and slipped it into the admissions machine. Numbly, Joe stood waiting, not sure of what might happen next, but certain that something would. It did.
While the girl watched, horrified, two light-green robo-attendants moved swiftly and silently to a stop, wheeled stretcher between them. Before she could do anything to prevent it, they had picked up a submissive Joe, slipped him on to the stretcher, strapped him down and headed back down the hall. Joe had no idea of where he was going, but he was fairly sure it wasn’t to an emergency stall. He was deftly wheeled into an elevator, plummeted into the depths of the building, and just as deftly wheeled out into a subterranean corridor.
In front of a door labelled Morgue they stopped for a brief second, and as it opened soundlessly Joe suddenly realized what had happened. He was paralysed with fear as the robo-attendants lined him up with toes pointing towards a bank of overlarge drawers. One of the machines opened the drawer as the other efficiently loosened the straps. Without really thinking, Joe sat bolt upright, slipped around the attendant, and made for the end of the bank of drawers. Looking back over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of the two robo-attendants moving in futile circles, searching the floor for their missing body. Then the door opened in front of him and he was through it, into the corridor, and leaning weakly against the wall.
Summoning up his strength, Joe headed back to the elevator, punched the button and glanced feverishly over the floor list beside it. “Walkway Admissions—35,” he read, and as the elevator door slid back he whipped in and punched 35. Breathing deeply as the car ascended, he tried to slow his racing pulse. Then, moving quickly without actually running, he retraced his path. Ahead, the little girl, as white now as her uniform, was explaining to a full-fledged nurse, waving his ID card to give emphasis. Breaking into a run, Joe passed between them, grabbing his card on the way. Only when he was across the walkway and into the park did he stop, slumping down on to a bench to seek for calmness after his narrow escape.
The robo-watchman had passed twice, and was standing unobtrusively but warily in the shadows of a Manchurian Elm down the path, before Joe had collected his wits sufficiently to consider his next move. Hospitals were out. The Coroner’s Office was closed. His “accredited Spiritual Advisor” seemed like the only remaining hope, and here there was a small problem. He had never had even a nodding acquaintance with a Spiritual Advisor, though he knew they existed in some sort of continental association whose advertising he had been exposed to.
Trying hard to remember the name of the association, he went quickly back across the street, down the express escalator till he came to a visitors’ entrance, and cautiously moved through the hospital lobby to a seetalk booth. Thumbing the scanner for the Yellow P., he watched racing capitals until S appeared, then hit the mid-speed until Sp came up, and switched to slow until Spiritual Advisors showed. “Christian Unitarian Spiritual Society” was second in a short list that began with “Buddhist Friends Society”. Scanner reversed, he moved at high speed back to the C range, stopping at CUSS. It took a short time to find the address of his nearest advisor, the list again containing fewer names than he had expected. He was about to place his call when he realized that he could no longer do so, since one had to present his ID card even for a collect call. Instead, he memorized the address and took to the walkway yet again, happy to be doing something to keep his mind from being paralysed by creeping hysteria. Within fifteen minutes he was standing before the sub-level apartment door of Benjamin Scroop, B.A., M.A., B.D., Ph.D., D.D., Spiritual Advisor.
Scroop, Joe quickly learned, was a man who clearly gave far more attention to the needs of the spirit than the body. He stood about six-five, weighed about one-sixty, and had huge, wistful brown eyes that looked from a distance like chocolate mints adrift in a bowl of instant milk. Eager to be of help, he invited Joe to step in and unburden himself, and Joe accepted. It was incredible, Joe thought, as he squeezed on to a thinly-upholstered bench at one side of a fold-down table, how much could be recessed into the walls of an Efficiency Living Space. He had read about the E.L.S. in passing, but this was his first experience with one. Here were three rooms, counting bathroom, in a space smaller than his one-and-a-half. No door, of course, between this and the bedroom, where he could see three triple-tiered bunks folded up to the wall. Scroop answered his casual question with a rueful “Seven. Seven children, my wife and myself. The children seem to spend every waking minute at the House Centre, and my wife works. It’s only crowded for breakfast, supper and sleeping.”
Joe made an inane comment about not needing an office with such an arrangement, thinking all the while that in these surroundings a well-fed soul would be much more comfortable than a well-fed body. But it was time to get down to his problem, since he figured the rest of the family would be back pretty soon. Briefly he sketched out what had happened to him, and filled in details in response to precise questions from the extremely sharp Scroop. This character, Joe thought, might be a Spiritual Advisor, but he certainly seemed to know the shape of the hard world outside his door. He allowed himself a bit of hope.
But any optimism he might have generated was soon squelched by Scroop, who said quite frankly that in his dealings with the Coroner’s office he had gone through more foul-ups than straightforward situations. No more than two months ago they had, on the same day, cremated a Fleshly Resurrectionist, and mummified a Fiery Purger, both with relatives seeking Scroop’s counsel. If anything, the robo-clerks were more to be trusted than the occasional human clerk, who invariably fed the wrong data into the larger machines. As for the Chief Coroner, he was in Danbury Proper and Scroop had suspicions that he wasn’t human either, since his decisions were arbitrary and calculated to inflict spiritual suffering on the living, if they could merely subject the dead to indignities. Joe commented that from his own knowledge of the world it sounded as if the Chief Coroner were all too human. However, he saw there would be little help in that direction, and asked if there were any other way Scroop could think of to get him out of his now-desperate situation.
&
nbsp; Scroop could think of little more that might be done, and they were slowly discarding possibilities when, in quick succession, the rest of the Scroops arrived home for sleep. A few of the youngest wanted milk, and Joe, after much urging, accepted the cup of coffee he had tried to get so long ago. Well, it seemed ages ago, even if it was only five hours. Scroop used his Householder’s ID Card, and Joe couldn’t help but notice in such close quarters, that the family was on the red. He felt an unaccustomed flush of guilt, as he realized how hard it must be to feed and clothe this mob. Scroop had seen his discomfort, however, and laughed a bit ruefully, trying to make Joe more at ease. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “In this house it’s the children who feed the rest of us, anyway.”
Joe wasn’t used to family life, but he knew that children didn’t get all that much government allowance, so he raised an eyebrow. Scroop explained. “You see, all the money that people donate to our Society is deducted from their accounts by the government. It’s used first to cover land taxes and rent, next mission expenses, then operating expenses, and finally the rest is evenly distributed in salaries. I make about half as much in a month as one of my children gets in subsidy. But the children, bless them, believe in the work I do, so they have all, at age six, given up their personal allowance entirely to our household account. It’s a rare display of faith in their parents on the part of youth, especially for these days.” Joe was forced to agree. Things hadn’t been so totally controlled by government until after he had left home, and he wondered if he would have consented to such a thing when he was a kid, considering the tough times his family had seen in the Soaring Sixties.
After the children and Mrs. Scroop had gone to bed, Joe and Scroop sat talking for a short time, but it was clear that there would be no solution here. Scroop promised to make out as many forms as he could think of that would be remotely related to Joe’s case, but he did not hold out much hope for quick relief. He offered to put Joe up and feed him, and he was sincere, but he and Joe knew it was next to impossible under the circumstances. Without seeming to rush, Joe brought the talk to an end. “If I don’t mosey along,” he finally said, “my friend Max will’ve gone to bed. And he doesn’t like to be woke up late at night. He gets real ugly. So thanks for everything, and I’ll be dropping around sometime. I might even take in one of your services.” After a firm handshake and a look of real compassion from Scroop, Joe found himself outside, heading for the blessed walkway, this time presumably to see the mythical Max, who, Joe decided, lived under a bench in the park across from the hospital.
Back in the park, with the time nearing a murky 2400, Joe carefully chose a secluded nook surrounded by thick shrubs and overhung by an original New England oak. He had not realized how tired he was until he stretched out with his jacket under his head. Then, despite the turmoil of his thoughts as he tried to find some way out of his dilemma, he dropped into a deep, uneasy sleep. He dreamed of running down long, twisting corridors whose walls pulsed rhythmically, threatening to close on him. Paradoxically, it seemed that he could always see a dark abyss at the end, no matter what direction he tried. Then, dimly, he became aware of an insistent, toneless voice, and slowly roused to find the robo-watchman standing over him in the darkness of the park.
“It is forbidden to remain off the pathways after dark,” the watchman repeated. Joe was stiff, incredibly tired and totally discouraged. He could think of nothing more to do, so he lay there in complete resignation.
“I will be forced to call for the police if you do not leave at once,” said the watchman, and Joe thought, well, it had to come to this sooner or later. Then he brightened. Why not7 Why not go to jail? At least he would have a place to sleep in peace, and maybe someone would straighten the whole thing out when his case came up. Of course, loitering must be a minor offence and he would be dealt with by machine again, but at worst he would merely stay in jail. He put his hands behind his head, relaxed and waited.
It couldn’t have been more than three minutes later when the robo-cop arrived, moving swiftly and competently across the grass while his companion remained behind, at the cruiser. Joe had obligingly placed his ID card on his chest, and now he waited with grim satisfaction to be apprehended. But it didn’t happen quite that way. After a quick glance, the robo-cop’s tentacle flicked down and took his ID card, shoved it into its scanner, and transmitted the information. Joe watched with bewilderment as his card was placed back in his shirt pocket and the robo-cop stood still, obviously waiting. Then with a soft swoosh a “black hack’ settled on the grass close by, two attendants got out with wheeled stretcher, placed him on it and wrapped him in a sheet, put him in the back of the vehicle and took off.
This time it was the District Morgue, but the procedure was precisely the same. As the sheet was unwrapped, Joe slipped off his stretcher and made for the door. Glancing back, he saw the attendants making those same futile searching movements in widening circles around the floor. It was somehow ludicrous now, as Joe made his way in leisurely fashion through the sub-basement area, not really caring where his wandering took him. It was almost pleasant down here, the warm, dim passage inviting him to find a little nook or cranny, curl up and finish his sleep. He had to make a real effort to keep going, realizing that this was no solution either: that he had to make his way to the outside, if only to eat. And now that the thought had occurred, he was acutely hungry. It must be early morning, at least.
0530, said the clock over the back entrance to this level of the mammoth civic building. He knew he shouldn’t really be so hungry, but Joe had been through a lot since supper the night before, and it definitely wasn’t all psychological. He would have to find some way to get breakfast, and if it required desperate measures, well, it was a desperate situation. One or two meals he might go without, but he wasn’t going to starve, even if it seemed that the “machine” was intent on having him dead to make the records accurate. He set out for an autoteria, still not quite sure of what his next move would be.
There was a big one only a block down, and Joe stood across from it watching the early-morning crowd scurry in and out. There was no use going in until he knew what he would do. He could try to force the serving doors, but he couldn’t guarantee that they would pry open easily, and besides, there would be loads of people watching him. Not that it mattered much now, but he still wasn’t ready to commit an open theft. No, there had to be a better way. What about a back entrance, he thought. It has to have a service area. He began to search, and before long found a neutral grey door marked Food Services. Gently, he tried the door, opening it slowly until it stood wide, revealing a small room with three more doors. One said Accounts, one said Maintenance and the third said Unauthorized Persons Not Permitted. Like the old stories on Kid-vid, he thought, in a flash of wild humour. Obviously it was the last that he wanted, and without further delay he opened it and passed through.
To his left a scanner blinked officiously at him, demanding that he present his ID card, but he was interested in the magnificent view that stretched in front of him. Racks of prepared plates lined one side, coming up on a conveyor belt from an escalator at the far end, while smaller belts moved endless amounts of food to the pigeonholes where customers made their purchases. Entranced, Joe watched toast and jam, eggs, bacon and eggs, ham and eggs, pancakes, muffins, buns—enough for an orgy. Then, shaking his head as if hypnotized, he loaded himself down with pancakes, bacon and coffee. He reached across a belt and picked up knife, and fork, seated himself on a stack of waiting trays, and began wolfing his meal. Halfway through the coffee, the robo-cop came. Joe stood still, licking syrup off his fingers, as the cop moved warily into the room blocking his escape. “Please do not move,” said the cop, “or I will have to detain you by force.” Joe reached for his coffee cup, and almost too fast to be seen the robo-cop pinned his arms to his sides. Another tentacle snaked out and checked his pockets, removing his ID card and inserting it in the scanner. At the same time, Joe felt himself being touched at hea
d, chest, wrists and ankles; a procedure that had familiarity somewhere beyond the fringes of memory.
The robo-cop hummed as time spun out, and Joe began to sense that something was not going quite right. Gradually the hum increased, the robo-cop’s visual sensors began to glow brighter, and it even seemed to Joe that the tentacle that held him grew tighter. Soon he could smell the odour of scorched insulation, and see tiny wisps of smoke issuing from minute fissures in the robo-cop’s shell. At last, with a belch of smoke and a drunken lurch, the robo-cop disgorged his card, unrolled limp tentacles, and went dead. Amazed, Joe could only watch for a moment or so. He had never seen any piece of automated equipment do this before, particularly none with any degree of independent decision-making abilities. It was almost like watching a person die. He picked up his card half-expecting the cop to come to life and seize him again, but nothing happened. Regaining some composure, Joe moved cautiously to the belts, picked a slab of apple pie, and with studied disdain held it between thumb and fingers as he swaggered by the silent, burnt-out robo-cop. Only when he reached the outer room did he hurry.
New Writings in SF 8 - [Anthology] Page 14