THX 1138

by Ben Bova

  LUH called to him, “Don’t… don’t take anything.”

  “What?” He was staring at his own face in the medicine cabinet mirror: puffy-eyed, tired- looking.

  “Try not to take anything… please,” her voice came to him.

  “I’ll try,” he answered softly. “I’ll try.” But his hands were already shaking.

  The shift was a nightmare. He couldn’t concentrate. He kept thinking about LUH. Twice his supervisor had to warn him. THX knew that those warnings went into the permanent record for review by Control. Yet, despite the babble of voices in his earphones, despite the tension of the work, the exasperated looks of the supervisors, his own gut-turmoil and shaking hands, THX felt—not happy, certainly, but different. These things, these people around him, they didn’t touch him. And he realized that they never did. LUH was the one who counted. She was the only one that mattered to him.

  He left the assembly center after his shift, walking tiredly through the homeward-bound workers.

  “I’ve put in forty-three requests for a transfer,” he heard someone in the crowd say, “but I haven’t heard one word. DRG, my superior, agrees that I’m better suited to work in the fantasy bureau…”

  “Please move briskly. Do not stop or block passageways.”

  “Please do not linger in module dispersal areas. The carbon monoxide rate is plus eight hundred.” Abruptly, he saw LUH standing at the edge of the slideway, searching the crowd. For him. Then she saw him and pushed her way against the homebound pedestrians who were streaming up onto the slideway belt.

  “What are you doing here?” he shouted at her, over the hubbub of the scurrying masses.

  “I thought… THX, I’m afraid…”

  He took her by the arm and guided her through the rushing pedestrian traffic. “You’re not cleared for this precinct. They’ll spot your badge. Let’s get across the slideway and out of here.”

  They walked silently, swiftly, cutting across the main traffic flow and heading for the spiraling ramp that bridged the slideway. THX walked with his head down slightly, as if he didn’t want anyone to recognize him. Up the ramp they went, around twice, and out across the spidery bridge. The slideway was below them, jammed with workers. The outer belts of the ’way moved slowly, about the pace of a leisurely walk. But the center strip was almost a blur of speed, with people covering every square inch of it. Just a continuous blur of standing bodies, heads shaved, sexless and isolated from each other as they stood packed like meat animals riding to the slaughterhouse.

  An elderly woman stumbled and fell on the outermost, slow beltway. People stepped over her as she struggled to get up. Finally a chrome police robot took her arm and helped her to her feet.

  “Old fool!” a man’s voice grumbled up from the slideway. He kept on yammering but he was whisked away and his voice trailed off into the general din of the crowd.

  THX and LUH didn’t slow their pace until they reached a new, half-unfinished commercial shopping plaza. Even here, though, the crowds were milling brainlessly and the overhead speakers were hard at work:

  “If you buy more than five dendrites at a time you get the sixth one with only three percent more credits. Buy in volume and save.”

  Slightly out of breath, LUH hung back on THX’s arm and forced him to slow down.

  He turned to look at her. Her face was grave.

  “You slipped on a circuit transfer just before lunch, didn’t you?” she asked. It wasn’t really a question.

  “You were watching?”

  She nodded.

  Nearly angry with her, he said, “You shouldn’t be doing that! They’ll get suspicious. Control watches you observers.”

  “But… I had to see you… I can’t just sit there all day and know that by touching a key I can see you… and then not do it.”

  Shaking his head, “You’re going to get us both arrested if you’re not careful.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “So am I,” he admitted. “Look… I can’t work this way. I need something. I’m too tense on the job… can’t concentrate. Got to shut out everything and concentrate.”

  “You can do it by yourself. I know you can.”

  “I can’t… a human being can’t do this kind of work unassisted. If I make a mistake, it’s all over. You see it every day. Do you want to see me taken away in pieces?”

  “I don’t want to lose you,” she said.

  He didn’t respond. They walked slowly, side by side. THX looked straight ahead, not at her, his face set in a bitter scowl.

  LUH said, “If you… if you go back on sedation, you won’t feel the same about me. You’ll report me for drug evasion.”

  He stopped in his tracks. “No! I couldn’t turn you in… not now. I… I know I couldn’t!”

  “You don’t know. You don’t…”

  Shaking his head miserably, THX muttered, “If I take something, you suffer. If I don’t, I suffer.”

  “You can live without sedation,” she said firmly. “You can. I know you can.”

  He felt excited and afraid at the same time. “I’ve got a slip movement to install on my next shift. I’ll never make it the way I am now. There’ve already been three explosions this…”

  “You can do it without etracene,” she insisted.

  People were drifting past them, staring at them as they just stood in the middle of the half- finished shopping plaza, not going anywhere, not buying anything, just standing there talking to each other. Relating. Not alone, not isolated. Together.

  “Maybe I can do it without etracene,” THX said. “But then what? It can’t go on forever. You know it can’t. People can’t live without drugs.”

  “Yes they can! I have! Others have!”

  “Natural-borns,” he said, then seeing her face reacting to the way he said it, he wished his tongue had withered first.

  Very slowly, deliberately calm and precise, LUH said, “There’s no difference between the physical makeup of a natural-born and a clinic-born. It’s merely a matter of conditioning. You can overcome the conditioning—if you want to.”

  “I want—I want to be with you.”

  “Then let’s leave,” she said suddenly. “We can leave here, live in the superstructure…”

  “The superstructure?” He felt shocked. “But nobody lives up there except the shelldwellers. It’s all radioactive. The air’s poisonous.”

  LUH shook her head, “No, I don’t believe that. It’s a lie.”

  It’s too much, THX thought. Everything is upside down… so many new feelings, new ideas. I need time to think, to figure it all out.

  LUH started walking toward the nearest vertitube entrance. “My series is over. You only have one more shift left, don’t you? We could be gone before our next series started.”

  Following her, catching up beside her, he answered, “Gone? But they’d never let us leave. They’d stop us, catch us…”

  They walked to the vertitube and went down to their quarters. When they were safely inside, LUH turned to THX and put her arms around his neck. Looking up into his eyes, she said simply: “Don’t let them separate us.”

  He held her, he clung to her, and there was no question of it. I can’t lose her, I can’t, I can’t.

  Much later, as they lay in bed together, half-drowsing, LUH murmured, “They know. They’ve been watching us. I can feel it.”

  “No… they don’t know.”

  “Control’s watching us now,” she said, her voice trembling.

  “No one can see us here. We’re alone.” But he glanced around the room. There were a dozen places where a camera might be hidden.

  Chapter 6

  THX walked stolidly down the pedestrian corridor, following the directional signs that led to Mercicontrol Station 7B73.

  “Help reduce critical noise levels in this area. Be sure to report all decibal surges in excess of one-point-five on the miura-wiegand scale.”

  The corridor was practically empty at this hour, a
nd unusually quiet.

  He reached the Mercicontrol station, with its symbol of a stylized marijuana leaf blazoned next to the station number. He hesitated before the door. Then, face grim with determination, he pushed through the black plastic door, which swung shut behind him.

  He had expected something like a hospital, or at least an infirmary such as the one up by the assembly center. Instead it was little more than an oversized prayer booth. There was a comfortable-looking contour chair with headrest and three viewscreens set into the otherwise blank wall in front of it. The other walls seemed bare. Everything was colored a cool pastel, and from the inevitable overhead speaker, a woman’s voice was giving a lecture of some sort:

  “Load alteration can be achieved only with adequate gating. High-speed gating is dangerous and may result in impaired unity gain. Reduce the setting time of the dosage by one- third…”

  No one else was in the tiny room. Frowning with uncertainty, THX fidgeted by the door.

  “Yes, what seems to be the trouble?” a man’s voice said smoothly. It sounded like a tape.

  “I… I need some advice… psychological advice. For a friend.”

  A click. Then, “Very well. Please sit down. A trained psychologist will be with you momentarily.”

  Uneasily, THX got into the chair. “This isn’t for myself, you understand. It’s for a friend.”

  No answer.

  Then a different voice, friendly, alive, asked, “What can we do for you today?”

  The viewscreens were still blank, but at least the overhead lecture had been cut off.

  THX answered nervously, “I… uh, I have a friend who’s troubled…”

  “Have you tried the prayer booths? Most problems can be handled by conventional prayer.”

  “It’s not me!” THX repeated hastily. “I’m talking about… my friend. He… he’s too upset to come to you himself…”

  “I see.”

  Abruptly the central viewscreen lit up with the image of an intense, middle-aged man hunched forward in a chair identical to the one that THX sat in.

  “A friend?” he said unbelievingly.

  THX nodded.

  “All right, what’s your… friend’s problem?”

  It’s hot in here. “He—eh, well, he’s committed a crime…”

  The psychologist’s eyebrows raised the barest millimeter.

  “Oh? Then perhaps you should be talking to the police.”

  “No… not yet. He needs help.” A sudden fear flashed through THX. “These medical visits are private, aren’t they? I mean, this conversation isn’t being recorded or monitored?”

  For the first time, the psychologist smiled. “All medical discussions are privileged. No records, no monitoring. The sacredness of the doctor-patient relationship is one of the cornerstones of our society.”

  THX tried to relax. But the fear was still there.

  “Besides,” the psychologist said, “if you’re merely talking about your friend, there’s no need for you to be afraid.”

  “Yes… but it’s a serious matter. For him.”

  “I understand. Why don’t you just tell me all about it?”

  Nodding, THX answered, “I… don’t know how to begin…”

  “You said your friend committed a crime. Was it a serious crime?”

  “Sexact.” The word came out almost involuntarily, fast and clipped.

  The psychologist looked impressed. “Ah-hah. I thought so. How did it happen?”

  “W… with his roommate. A natural-born.”

  “Hmm. Male or female?”

  “The roommate? Female.”

  Shaking his head, the psychologist muttered, “When will they learn? No matter what the conditioning, you can’t put opposite sexes together without causing trouble. Especially if one of them’s a natural-born.”

  “They’ve both stopped taking sedatives and everything else… no boosters, no tranquilizers… nothing!” THX blurted.

  “I thought so. This is very serious, you know.”

  “I know.”

  The psychologist said, “If the police find out, and they will in time, your friend will be jailed. His roommate, being a natural-born, will undoubtedly be destroyed.”

  “No!”

  “I’m afraid it’s true. Society must protect itself. We can’t allow indiscriminate procreation to pollute our gene pool. It’s taken generations to bring society to its present high level of efficiency. If we let sex take over again—start dropping genetically random babies everywhere—where will we be?”

  “But—” THX caught himself barely in time. “But… my friend is… so attracted to her. It seems so good to be with her—he claims. Why is sex a crime?”

  With a patient smile, the psychologist answered, “Sex isn’t a crime. There are plenty of healthy, safe sexual outlets that society approves of. It’s unregulated sex that’s dangerous. There was a time when men and women just coupled together, driven by uncontrolled and unregulated sexual drives. The children they had were genetically inferior. And there were too many of them. The world suffered from a population explosion. It was so overcrowded that mankind permanently polluted the atmosphere and oceans up above. Why do you think we live safe and happy underground? Because indiscriminate, sex-driven, unthinking people wrecked the world up on the surface. They killed themselves off, while we disciplined ourselves and built a strong, stable society here below.”

  THX had learned all that in history class as a child. But now it sounded unreal, hollow.

  “Sex is fine, and a natural thing,” the psychologist went on. “But it was never meant to dominate human life. The trouble with unregulated sex is that it forces people to interrelate with other people. Whether it’s best for them or not. In our society, we’ve learned how to channel the sex drive. You can have all the sex you want or need, without the messy business of getting a partner. You have your sacred privacy, your holy isolation.”

  THX thought of being in bed with LUH, of holding her, feeling her warmth, the softness of her body against his. He squeezed his eyes shut. I must be insane!

  “And the children we produce in our clinics,” the psychologist continued, “are genetically superior in every way. Carefully matched, sperm and egg. Not dependent on who meets whom and where. Not dependent on the size of a woman’s breast or a man’s penis. All these trivial factors, all these emotional bits of nonsense, have been regulated out of the system. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, yes, I know,” THX agreed hastily.

  “People don’t realize how lucky they are. And we have a complete pharmacology of drugs to help overcome the primitive instincts that still threaten us every day.” The psychologist shook his head sadly. “When I think of how diligently and patiently the biochemical engineers work every day to produce new drugs, new aids to keep people contented and happy—the thought of a man or woman deliberately evading drug dosages is enough to make me angry.”

  THX nodded glumly.

  “But—that’s exactly why we have drugs. To help us to avoid such emotional nonsense.” The psychologist held up a yellow capsule. “Have you tried these yet? They’re called neuracol. Very effective.

  “Uh, no… I don’t think they’re on the market—are they?”

  Smiling as he popped the pill into his mouth, the psychologist mumbled, “No, suppose not yet.” He took a large gulp of water.

  “Well… I’d advise your friend to seek medical help in person. Naturally, since he’s guilty of drug evasion and sexact we’d have to notify the police. But with proper medical attention, perhaps he could be cured. It would be a shame to have him jailed and consumed. Or destroyed.”

  “Yes… I’ll have a talk with him…”

  The psychologist nodded and smiled his cheeriest smile as he watched THX get up out of the contour chair. The man’s face was a classic picture of guilt, fear and uncertainty.

  Leaning back in his own chair, the psychologist touched a button on the control desk before him and re-ran the t
ape of THX’s interview.

  He almost laughed at the man’s transparent lies. “THX 1138. Medical file, please,” he said to the microphone set into the control desk.

  Instantly the screens before him flashed THX’s medical history. Nothing unusual.

  “Roommate file.”

  One of the screens showed a photograph of LUH, with her record superimposed over it.

  The psychologist glanced at the white lettering and symbols, then concentrated on her picture.

  With a slow-grin, he thought, I can hardly blame him. If I were going to kill myself, that’s as good a way to do it as any.

  He reached into a pocket and took out two more pills, swallowing them without water. With his other hand, he flicked the switch that would send THX’s interview to Control’s attention.

  Chapter 7

  Tense, jaws aching and insides fluttering, THX entered the preparation chamber. He stripped slowly, let the cleansing fog settle over him. It felt warm and safe and good. From the speakers overhead, the preparatory ritual was being recited:

  “This is a reminder of the precision which must be taken at this stage. Three operating cells have already been destroyed in this series. Mercicontrol is supervising all operations during this phase. Prevent accidents and be happy… This is a reminder of…” The fog evaporated, leaving his skin feeling chill and prickly. THX dressed quickly, but with careful attention to all the rituals of detail. Right sleeve first, right slipper first.

  He was sitting on the bench, adjusting his cap’s chin strap, when SEN entered.

  “What are you doing here?” THX snapped, shaken. “You’re not cleared for this area.”

  SEN smiled conspiratorially. “You know I have a way with the computers. I can clear myself for any area… almost…”

  “I’ll report you. It’s…”

  “Listen to me,” SEN said, untroubled. “You have no need to distrust me. We’re going…”

  “Get out of here. Leave me alone. You’re interrupting codified ritual!”

  “I’ll only be a moment,” SEN said easily. “I wanted to tell you that I’ve taken care of LUH.”