by Fritz Leiber
IV
Early next morning windowless walls began to crawl up the strippedskyscraper between them and the lake. Daisy pulled the black-outcurtains on that side. For a day or two longer their thoughts andconversations were haunted by Gusterson's vague sardonic visions of ahorde of tickler-energized moles pouring up out of the tunnels to teardown the remaining trees, tank the atmosphere and perhaps somehowdismantle the stars--at least on this side of the world--but then theyboth settled back into their customary easy-going routines. Gustersontyped. Daisy made her daily shopping trip to a little topside daytimestore and started painting a mural on the floor of the empty apartmentnext theirs but one.
"We ought to lasso some neighbors," she suggested once. "I needsomebody to hold my brushes and admire. How about you making a tripbelow at the cocktail hours, Gusterson, and picking up a couple ofgirls for a starter? Flash the old viriler charm, cootch them up abit, emphasize the delights of high living, but make sure they'recompatible roommates. You could pick up that two-yard check from Microat the same time."
"You're an immoral money-ravenous wench," Gusterson said absently,trying to dream of an insanity beyond insanity that would make hisnext novel a real id-rousing best-vender.
"If that's your vision of me, you shouldn't have chewed up the VVmask."
"I'd really prefer you with green stripes," he told her. "But stripes,spots, or sun-bathing, you're better than those cocktail moles."
Actually both of them acutely disliked going below. They muchpreferred to perch in their eyrie and watch the people of ClevelandDepths, as they privately called the local sub-suburb, rush up out ofthe shelters at dawn to work in the concrete fields and windowlessfactories, make their daytime jet trips and freeway jaunts, do theirnoon-hour and coffee-break guerrilla practice, and then go scurryingback at twilight to the atomic-proof, brightly lit, vastly exciting,claustrophobic caves.
Fay and his projects began once more to seem dreamlike, thoughGusterson did run across a cryptic advertisement for ticklers in _TheManchester Guardian_, which he got daily by facsimile. Their threechildren reported similar ads, of no interest to young fry, on the TVand one afternoon they came home with the startling news that themonitors at their subsurface school had been issued ticklers. On sharpinterrogation by Gusterson, however, it appeared that these last werenot ticklers but merely two-way radios linked to the school policestation transmitter.
"Which is bad enough," Gusterson commented later to Daisy. "But it'dbe even dirtier to think of those clock-watching superegos beingstrapped to kids' shoulders. Can you imagine Huck Finn with a tickler,tellin' him when to tie up the raft to a tow-head and when to take aswim?"
"I bet Fay could," Daisy countered. "When's he going to bring you thatcheck, anyhow? Iago wants a jetcycle and I promised Imogene a Vina Kitand then Claudius'll have to have something."
Gusterson scowled thoughtfully. "You know, Daze," he said, "I got afeeling Fay's in the hospital, all narcotized up and being fedintravenously. The way he was jumping around last time, that ticklerwas going to cootch him to pieces in a week."
* * * * *
As if to refute this intuition, Fay turned up that very evening. Thelights were dim. Something had gone wrong with the building's oldtransformer and, pending repairs, the two remaining occupiedapartments were making do with batteries, which turned bright globesto mysterious amber candles and made Gusterson's ancient typewriteroperate sluggishly.
Fay's manner was subdued or at least closely controlled and for amoment Gusterson thought he'd shed his tickler. Then the little mancame out of the shadows and Gusterson saw the large bulge on his rightshoulder.
"Yes, we had to up it a bit sizewise," Fay explained in clipped tones."Additional super-features. While brilliantly successful on the whole,the subliminal euphorics were a shade too effective. Several hundredusers went hoppity manic. We gentled the cootch and qualified thesubliminals--you know, 'Day by day in every way I'm getting sharper_and more serene_'--but a stabilizing influence was still needed, soafter a top-level conference we decided to combine Tickler withMoodmaster."
"My God," Gusterson interjected, "do they have a machine now that doesthat?"
"Of course. They've been using them on ex-mental patients for years."
"I just don't keep up with progress," Gusterson said, shaking his headbleakly. "I'm falling behind on all fronts."
"You ought to have your tickler remind you to read Science Servicereleases," Fay told him. "Or simply instruct it to scan the releasesand--no, that's still in research." He looked at Gusterson's shoulderand his eyes widened. "You're not wearing the new-model tickler I sentyou," he said accusingly.
"I never got it," Gusterson assured him. "Postmen deliver topside mailand parcels by throwing them on the high-speed garbage boosts andhoping a tornado will blow them to the right addresses." Then he addedhelpfully, "Maybe the Russians stole it while it was riding thewhirlwinds."
"That's not a suitable topic for jesting," Fay frowned. "We're hopingthat Tickler will mobilize the full potential of the Free World forthe first time in history. Gusterson, you are going to have to wear aticky-tick. It's becoming impossible for a man to get through modernlife without one."
"Maybe I will," Gusterson said appeasingly, "but right now tell meabout Moodmaster. I want to put it in my new insanity novel."
Fay shook his head. "Your readers will just think you're behind thetimes. If you use it, underplay it. But anyhow, Moodmaster is a simplephysiotherapy engine that monitors bloodstream chemicals and bodyelectricity. It ties directly into the bloodstream, keeping blood,sugar, et cetera, at optimum levels and injecting euphrin or depressinas necessary--and occasionally a touch of extra adrenaline, as duringwork emergencies."
"Is it painful?" Daisy called from the bedroom.
"Excruciating," Gusterson called back. "Excuse it, please," he grinnedat Fay. "Hey, didn't I suggest cocaine injections last time I sawyou?"
"So you did," Fay agreed flatly. "Oh by the way, Gussy, here's thatcheck for a yard I promised you. Micro doesn't muzzle the ox."
"Hooray!" Daisy cheered faintly.
* * * * *
"I thought you said it was going to be for two." Gusterson complained.
"Budgeting always forces a last-minute compromise," Fay shrugged. "Youhave to learn to accept those things."
"I love accepting money and I'm glad any time for three feet," Daisycalled agreeably. "Six feet might make me wonder if I weren't aninsect, but getting a yard just makes me feel like a gangster's moll."
"Want to come out and gloat over the yard paper, Toots, and stuff itin your diamond-embroidered net stocking top?" Gusterson called back.
"No, I'm doing something to that portion of me just now. But hang ontothe yard, Gusterson."
"Aye-aye, Cap'n," he assured her. Then, turning back to Fay, "Soyou've taken the Dr. Coue repeating out of the tickler?"
"Oh, no. Just balanced it off with depressin. The subliminals arestill a prime sales-point. All the tickler features are cumulative,Gussy. You're still underestimating the scope of the device."
"I guess I am. What's this 'work-emergencies' business? If you'reusing the tickler to inject drugs into workers to keep them going,that's really just my cocaine suggestion modernized and I'm putting infor another thou. Hundreds of years ago the South American Indianschewed coca leaves to kill fatigue sensations."
"That so? Interesting--and it proves priority for the Indians, doesn'tit? I'll make a try for you, Gussy, but don't expect anything." Hecleared his throat, his eyes grew distant and, turning his head alittle to the right, he enunciated sharply, "Pooh-Bah. Time: Inst ohfive. One oh five seven. Oh oh. Record: Gussy coca thou budget. Cut."He explained, "We got a voice-cued setter now on the deluxe models.You can record a memo to yourself without taking off your shirt.Incidentally, I use the ends of the hours for trifle-memos. I'vealready used up the fifty-nines and eights for tomorrow and started onthe fifty-sevens."
&nb
sp; "I understood most of your memo," Gusterson told him gruffly. "Thelast 'Oh oh' was for seconds, wasn't it? Now I call that crude--whynot microseconds too? But how do you remember where you've made a memoso you don't rerecord over it? After all, you're rerecording over thewallpaper all the time."
"Tickler beeps and then hunts for the nearest information-free space."
"I see. And what's the Pooh-Bah for?"
Fay smiled. "Cut. My password for activating the setter, so it won'trespond to chance numerals it overhears."
"But why Pooh-Bah?"
Fay grinned. "Cut. And you a writer. It's a literary reference, Gussy.Pooh-Bah (cut!) was Lord High Everything Else in _The Mikado_. He hada little list and nothing on it would ever be missed."
* * * * *
"Oh, yeah," Gusterson remembered, glowering. "As I recall it, all thatwent on that list was the names of people who were slated to havetheir heads chopped off by Ko-Ko. Better watch your step, Shorty. Itmay be a back-handed omen. Maybe all those workers you're puttin'ticklers on to pump them full of adrenaline so they'll overworkwithout noticin' it will revolt and come out some day choppin' foryour head."
"Spare me the Marxist mythology," Fay protested. "Gussy, you've got acompletely wrong slant on Tickler. It's true that most of our masssales so far, bar government and army, have been to large companiespurchasing for their employees--"
"Ah-ha!"
"--but that's because there's nothing like a tickler for teaching anew man his job. It tells him from instant to instant what he mustdo--while he's already on the job and without disturbing otherworkers. Magnetizing a wire with a job pattern is the easiest thinggoing. And you'd be astonished what the subliminals do for employeemorale. It's this way, Gussy: most people are too improvident andunimaginative to see in advance the advantages of ticklers. They buyone because the company strongly suggests it and payment is on easyinstallments withheld from salary. They find a tickler makes the workday go easier. The little fellow perched on your shoulder is a friendexuding comfort and good advice. The first thing he's set to say is'Take it easy, pal.'
"Within a week they're wearing their tickler 24 hours a day--andbuying a tickler for the wife, so she'll remember to comb her hair andsmile real pretty and cook favorite dishes."
"I get it, Fay," Gusterson cut in. "The tickler is the newest fad forincreasing worker efficiency. Once, I read somewheres, it was salttablets. They had salt-tablet dispensers everywhere, even inair-conditioned offices where there wasn't a moist armpit twice a yearand the gals sweat only champagne. A decade later people wondered whatall those dusty white pills were for. Sometimes they were mistook fortranquilizers. It'll be the same way with ticklers. Somebody'll open amusty closet and see jumbled heaps of these gripping-hand silverygadgets gathering dust curls and--"
"They will not!" Fay protested vehemently. "Ticklers are not afad--they're history-changers, they're Free-World revolutionary! Why,before Micro Systems put a single one on the market, we'd made it arule that every Micro employee had to wear one! If that's not havingsupreme confidence in a product--"
"Every employee except the top executives, of course," Gustersoninterrupted jeeringly. "And that's not demoting you, Fay. As the R & Dchief most closely involved, you'd naturally have to show specialenthusiasm."
"But you're wrong there, Gussy," Fay crowed. "Man for man, our topexecutives have been more enthusiastic about their personal ticklersthan any other class of worker in the whole outfit."
Gusterson slumped and shook his head. "If that's the case," he saiddarkly, "maybe mankind deserves the tickler."
* * * * *
"I'll say it does!" Fay agreed loudly without thinking. Then, "Oh, canthe carping, Gussy. Tickler's a great invention. Don't deprecate itjust because you had something to do with its genesis. You're going tohave to get in the swim and wear one."
"Maybe I'd rather drown horribly."
"Can the gloom-talk too! Gussy, I said it before and I say it again,you're just scared of this new thing. Why, you've even got the drapespulled so you won't have to look at the tickler factory."
"Yes, I am scared," Gusterson said. "Really sca ... AWP!"
Fay whirled around. Daisy was standing in the bedroom doorway, wearingthe short silver sheath. This time there was no mask, but her bobbedhair was glitteringly silvered, while her legs, arms, hands, neck,face--every bit of her exposed skin--was painted with beautifully evenvertical green stripes.
"I did it as a surprise for Gusterson," she explained to Fay. "He sayshe likes me this way. The green glop's supposed to be smudgeproof."
Gusterson did not comment. His face had a rapt expression. "I'll tellyou why your tickler's so popular, Fay," he said softly. "It's notbecause it backstops the memory or because it boosts the ego withsubliminals. It's because it takes the hook out of a guy, it takesover the job of withstanding the pressure of living. See, Fay, hereare all these little guys in this subterranean rat race withatomic-death squares and chromium-plated reward squares and enoughmoney if you pass Go almost to get to Go again--and a million millionrules of the game to keep in mind. Well, here's this one little guyand every morning he wakes up there's all these things he's got tokeep in mind to do or he'll lose his turn three times in a row andmaybe a terrible black rook in iron armor'll loom up and bang him offthe chessboard. But now, look, now he's got his tickler and he tellshis sweet silver tickler all these things and the tickler's got toremember them. Of course he'll have to do them eventually butmeanwhile the pressure's off him, the hook's out of his short hairs.He's shifted the responsibility...."
"Well, what's so bad about that?" Fay broke in loudly. "What's wrongwith taking the pressure off little guys? Why shouldn't Tickler be asuper-ego surrogate? Micro's Motivations chief noticed that positivefeature straight off and scored it three pluses. Besides, it's nothingbut a gaudy way of saying that Tickler backstops the memory.Seriously, Gussy, what's so bad about it?"
"I don't know," Gusterson said slowly, his eyes still far away. "Ijust know it feels bad to me." He crinkled his big forehead. "Well forone thing," he said, "it means that a man's taking orders fromsomething else. He's got a kind of master. He's sinking back into aslave psychology."
"He's only taking orders from himself," Fay countered disgustedly."Tickler's just a mech reminder, a notebook, in essence no more thanthe back of an old envelope. It's no master."
"Are you absolutely sure of that?" Gusterson asked quietly.
"Why, Gussy, you big oaf--" Fay began heatedly. Suddenly his featuresquirked and he twitched. "'Scuse me, folks," he said rapidly, headingfor the door, "but my tickler told me I gotta go."
"Hey Fay, don't you mean you told your tickler to tell you when it wastime to go?" Gusterson called after him.
Fay looked back in the doorway. He wet his lips, his eyes moved fromside to side. "I'm not quite sure," he said in an odd strained voiceand darted out.
* * * * *
Gusterson stared for some seconds at the pattern of emptiness Fay hadleft. Then he shivered. Then he shrugged. "I must be slipping," hemuttered. "I never even suggested something for him to invent." Thenhe looked around at Daisy, who was still standing poker-faced in herdoorway.
"Hey, you look like something out of the Arabian Nights," he told her."Are you supposed to be anything special? How far do those stripes go,anyway?"
"You could probably find out," she told him coolly. "All you have todo is kill me a dragon or two first."
He studied her. "My God," he said reverently, "I really have all thefun in life. What do I do to deserve this?"
"You've got a big gun," she told him, "and you go out in the worldwith it and hold up big companies and take yards and yards of moneyaway from them in rolls like ribbon and bring it all home to me."
"Don't say that about the gun again," he said. "Don't whisper it,don't even think it. I've got one, dammit--thirty-eight caliber,yet--and I don't want some psionic monitor with two
-way clairaudiencethey haven't told me about catching the whisper and coming to take thegun away from us. It's one of the few individuality symbols we've gotleft."
Suddenly Daisy whirled away from the door, spun three times so thather silvered hair stood out like a metal coolie hat, and sank to acurtsey in the middle of the room.
"I've just thought of what I am," she announced, fluttering hereyelashes at him. "I'm a sweet silver tickler with green stripes."