by Keith Laumer
"Can you supply what I want, or can't you?" Bailey said patiently.
"I can supply a full Class One socio-cultural matrix, yes," the old man snapped. "As to providing a magical entrйe into high places-"
"If what you've got to offer won't fill the bill, I'll be on my way." Bailey got to his feet. The old man rose quickly, stood stoop-backed, eyeing him.
"Why aren't you content to absorb a useful skill, a practical knowledge of a saleable trade? Why these grandiose aspirations to a place you can never fill?"
"That's my business," Bailey said. "Yes or no?"
The old man's puckered face tightened. "You're a fool," he said. "Come with me."
9
In a back room, Bailey took a seat in a worn leather-covered reclining chair; the tapelegger clucked and muttered to himself as he attached the electrodes to Bailey's skull, referring frequently to the dials on the wheeled cart beside him. As he pressed buttons, Bailey felt the stirrings and tinglings of the neuro-electric currents induced within his brain by the teaching machine.
"Make no mistake," the old man told him. "The material you'll receive here will be in no way inferior to that offered in the most exclusive universities. My prints were coded direct from the masters filed at HEW Central. Once assimilated, a bootleg education is objectively indistinguishable from any other."
"I'm counting on it," Bailey said. "That's why I'm paying you fifty M."
"A tiny fraction of the value of what is encoded here." The 'legger weighed the reel on his palm. "The essence of a lifetime of cultured ease. This particular Trace was made by Aldig Parn, Blue One, the critic and collector. You'll have a fabulous grounding in the arts. Parn was also a Distinguished Master at the game called Reprise. You'll get it all-and much, much more. It's not been edited, you see. It's all as it came from his brain, even to personal tastes and mannerisms, all those subtleties and nuances of culture which we cut from authorized tapes."
"If it's as good as that, why sell at all? Why not use it yourself?"
"Why?" the print man snapped. "So that I could become even more acutely aware of the horrors of life in a petrified society? I've too much education already. One day I'll present myself at Unicen for voluntary wipe and begin again as a pink tag crude-labor gangman. The solace of nepenthe."
"That's not much of a sales talk," Bailey said.
"I'm not urging you to buy. I'd recommend a limited tech indoc, sufficient to guarantee you a yellow tag."
"Never mind; I won't hold you responsible. Just be sure you watch those meters. I don't want a burned cortex for my trouble."
10
Bailey had had headaches before, but nothing like this.
"You'll live," the 'legger said briskly. "It was you who insisted on haste. You took it surprisingly well. Your metabolic index never dropped below.8. Rest for a few days, avoid any creative mental activity, problem solving. I don't want any blankages to mar the imprint."
Bailey muttered and lay back in the chair. Through the thudding pain, a kaleidoscopic whirl of images danced; phantom voices rang in his ears against the complex shapes of abstract patterns.
"I don't feel any smarter," he said. "Are you sure it took?"
The old man snorted. "Of course you're no more intelligent than when I began. But you'll find your mind is imprinted with a very great mass of new data. Of course, the current-status portion will be out of date by some years: the fads, catch phrases, in-group gossip of the moment. After all, I don't have access to the daily addenda. But that will hardly be of importance, I imagine."
Bailey ignored the implied question. He paid off, made his way to the loft he had rented as temporary quarters. On the third day, the headache was gone. Gingerly then, he probed at his memory. Slowly at first, then more swiftly, a mass of data-concepts flowed into his awareness as the taped information swam into focus: The proper mode of address to a magistrate in a situation of formality degree five; the correct instruction to a groom when requiring disengagement from an awkward social context; the control layout of the Monojag Sport Twin, model 900; the precise gait appropriate to an unescorted entrance to a public dining salon, early evening, formality three; the names of the leading erotistes of the moment; the entry codes to clubs, the proper wardrobe combinations for this situation and that, the forty-one positions and three hundred and four strokes of the katcha-gat, the membership ritual for the Fornax Club…
"Good enough," he murmured. He dressed and left the loft, headed for the address he had purchased for an extra M from the tapelegger.
11
It was an unprepossessing front of ancient, natural stone, a hideous dull purple in color, with steep steps and a corroded iron railing. He rapped, waited. The door was opened by a small, bandy-legged, jug-eared man with a shiny scalp and the face of an intelligent Rhesus.
"Yes?" the man demanded, wiping at his face with a towel draped around his stringy neck.
Bailey showed a cred-card, almost fully charged.
"I want to see Goldblatt."
"Looking at him." The small man glanced up and down Bailey's slight frame.
"Rehab case?" he asked doubtfully.
"No. I want a Maxpo course."
The man jumped as if he had been jabbed in the kidneys. "You a kidder, Mister? What you think this is, Doose Center? I run a quiet house of physical fitness here, strictly on the flat-"
"I've got ten M's that say differently," Bailey cut in softly.
Goldblatt stared. "Out," he said firmly. He put a surprisingly sinewy hand against Bailey's chest. "You got the wrong Goldblatt."
Bailey took his other hand from his pocket, showed the glossy blue of the One Category tag. "Don't worry, it's faked," he said, as the gym operator jerked his hand back. "I'm showing it to you to convince you I'm in no position to call in the Bugs. I can pay for what I want."
Goldblatt took a fold of Bailey's tunic in his fingers and pulled him inside, closed the door quickly, hustled him through a frowsty room where a pair of sweating men pulled listlessly at spring-loaded apparatus. In a small office he said, "What's this all about, mister?"
Bailey eased half a dozen full-charge cash cards from his pocket, fanned them out. "These tell it all," he said. Goldblatt's frown lingered on the green- and blue-edged plastics.
"You said… Maxpo? What makes you think I can help you?" He shot a sharp look over Bailey's spare frame. "Or that you could handle the gaff if I could, which I'm not saying I can?"
"How I handle it is up to me." Bailey placed the blue tag on top of the cred-cards, offered the stack. "You hold them until the job's done."
Goldblatt put up a hand, made a pushing motion. "Nix. Don't show me a fixed tag, mister." His hand reversed, became an open palm. "But maybe I could take a retainer while we talk about it."
Bailey handed over the cards. "I want to start today," he said. "How long will it take?"
12
"How long it takes," Goldblatt said half an hour later, "depends on a couple of things. First, how good the equipment is." He slapped the curving metal case, like a streamlined coffin, that rested on a stand in the surprisingly clean and well-lit basement room. "And I've got the best. Private custom job, less than five years old, best circuitry a man could ask for-except no blanking circuit. You take it cold. That's how I got it cheap."
"How long?" Bailey repeated the question.
"Second, what we got to work with," Goldblatt continued, unruffled. He rubbed his hands together. "Frankly, my friend, you offer a man a challenge." He frowned happily at Bailey's bare ribs, reached out to squeeze his thin arm above the elbow. "You look like about what we call a three: minimum normal range, about point 4 musculature, probably no better'n a five vascular rating, same for osteo-"
"I understand it's a fast process," Bailey said. "Can you do it in a week?"
The trainer's mouth snapped open. He wagged his head in wonderment. "The ideas some people got," he said. "Forget it, mister. A week? In a week maybe you can see the first results. What you
think a Maxpo is, some kind of magic trick? It's pain! Pain that will burn your heart out. Not every man can take it; not even most men. And frankly, you don't look to me like one of the tough ones. Maybe better we talk a standard toning course, two weeks and you feel like a new man-"
"Maxpo or nothing," Bailey said. "And in minimum time."
"You know how it works, mister?" Goldblatt turned to the tank, poked a button. The top slid back, exposing a padded interior of complex shape, fitted with numerous wide web straps with polished buckles.
"The principle," Bailey responded instantly, "is that of selective electronically triggered isometric and isotonic contraction, coupled with appropriately neuro-synaptic stimulation and coordinated internal physiochemical environmental control. The basal somatic rhythms are encoded, brought into a phased relationship, and-"
"You know plenty fancy words, bub, I'll give you that," Goldblatt said wonderingly. "But what it works out to is I put a micro-filament tap into your spinal cord, right where it leaves the skull. We use the trial-and-error method for coding the motor nerves. It hurts. When I finish, all I have to do is push a button and the muscle it's wired to contracts-max contraction, more than you could trigger with the voluntary nervous system. Once I've got you wired, I slap you in the frame and strap you up rigid. The frame is articulated, so you get isotonic work along with the 'metrics. Then I work you over like one of them guys in a torture chamber, know what I mean? You'll come out of it screaming for mercy, every muscle in your body yelling for help. You'll turn black and blue all over. This goes on for a week. Then it gets worse." He shook his head. "Like I said, not many fellows can take it."
"How long?"
"Give yourself a break, mister. A few times a year I sell a tank job, not a max but just whatever somebody needs, like a demo player is slowing down, he needs toning up fast; or some of these specialty show people, after a long layoff. And even at that-"
"How many hours a day do I spend inside?"
"A day?" Goldblatt barked. "You work day and night-that's if you're talking minimum time. But that's for lab cases, theory stuff-"
"We'll test the theory."
"You must be in some kind of hurry, mister."
"That's right. And we're wasting time."
Goldblatt nodded heavily. "It's your bones that'll get bent, my friend, not mine. All right, strip down and I'll run you across the 'tab monitor and see what we got to work with."
13
The insertion of the hair-fine electrodes took three hours-three uncomfortable hours of probing in sensitive flesh with sharp-pointed metal, alternated with tingling shocks that made obscure muscles jump and quiver. At the end of it, Bailey touched the coin-sized plastic disk nestled against the base of his skull and winced.
"That's the easy part," Goldblatt said cheerfully. "Now we start the hard work. You know, it's funny," he rambled on as he strapped his victim in position. "They invented this device to take the will power out of physical training. What they forgot was it still takes will power to climb in under the straps, knowing what's coming."
"If you scare me to death, you don't collect," Bailey said. "Those cards are no good without my prints."
Goldblatt grinned. "Ready?" he asked. "Here we go."
Bailey felt his right thigh twitch. He yelled as a full-fledged cramp locked to the rectus femoris-the name popped into his mind-like a red-hot clamp. The limb strained against the straps, quivering.
"… four seconds, five seconds, six seconds," Goldblatt counted off. Abruptly the pressure was gone. The pain receded.
"Hey," Bailey started-and yelled as his left leg jerked against the restraint. Six more endless seconds passed. Bailey lay gasping as a lever moved, flexing his knee to a new position.
"Cry all you want to," Goldblatt said cheerfully. "This baby works over three hundred separate muscles, max contraction, three positions. How you like it, hah? Ready to get some sense now and settle for a toner like I said to begin with?"
Bailey gritted his teeth against the rubber bite protector and endured another spasm.
"Whatever you say, my friend," Goldblatt sighed. "Here we go again…"
14
"Only two and a half hours?" Bailey inquired weakly. "It seemed like two years."
"You build muscle by tearing down muscle," the trainer said. "You just tore down a couple billion cells-and that hurts. But the body's a fast worker. She rebuilds-and then we tear down again. So she works faster. But she hurts. She hurts all the time. For a week. For a month. Max job? Make that three months."
"That's cutting it fine," Bailey said. "Can't you rush it any?"
"Sure-if you want to sleep in the tank," Goldblatt said sardonically.
"If that's what it takes."
"Are you serious? But I don't need to ask, do I? You're a man that's driven, if I ever saw one. What is it that's eating at you, young fellow? You've got a lot of life ahead of you. Slow down-"
"I can't," Bailey said. "Let's get started on what comes next."
In the third week Bailey, out of the tank for his alter-hourly session in the treadcage, paused to look at himself in the mirror. His face was gaunt, knobbed below the jawline with unfamiliar lumps of muscle; his neck was awkwardly corded; his shoulders swelled in sinewy striations above a chest which seemed to belong to someone else.
"I look wrong," he said. "Misshapen. No symmetry. Out of balance."
"Sure, sure. What do you expect, to start with? Some sectors respond quicker, some were in better shape. Don't worry. First we go for tone, then bulk, then definition, then balance. You're doing swell. We start coordination and dynamics next. Another sixty days and you'll look like you were born under that blue tag." He rubbed a hand over his head, eyeing Bailey. "If it wasn't so crazy, I'd think maybe that's the way you were thinking," he said.
"Don't think about it, Hy," Bailey said. "Just keep the pressure on."
15
On the eighty-fifth day, Hy Goldblatt looked at William Bailey and wagged his head in exaggerated wonder.
"If I didn't see it myself, I would never of believed it was the same man."
Bailey turned this way and that, studying himself in the wall mirror. He walked a few steps, noting the automatic grace of his movements, the poise of his stance, the unconscious arrogance of his posture, the way he held his head.
"It'll do, Hy," he said. "Thanks for everything."
"Where you going now? Why not stay on, help out in the gym? Look, I need an assistant-"
"Pressing business," Bailey said. "What do you know about the Apollo Club?"
Goldblatt frowned. "I was in the place once, mat man for a cross-class match. Lousy. Fancy place, fancy people. You wouldn't like working there."
"I might like being a member."
Goldblatt stared at him. "You really think you got a chance-Dutch tag and all?"
Bailey turned, gave the trainer an imperious glare. "Are you questioning me?" he asked in a steely tone. Goldblatt stiffened; then he grinned wryly at Bailey's mocking smile.
"Maybe you do at that," he said.
16
Bailey devoted the next few hours to ablutions: a vacuum-and-pressure steam bath, mani- and pedicure, depilation, tonsure, skin toning and UV, bacterial purge. Then he turned his attention to costume.
The clothes he picked were far from new; but they had been handcut from woven fabric, rich and elegant. Bailey bought them from a doddering ancient whose hand shook with paralysis agitans until the moment when the scissors touched the cloth.
"You don't see goods like this anymore," the old tailor stated in his frail whisper. "Heat-seal plastics, throwaways, trash. Nothing like this." He wagged his hairless skull, holding the tunic against Bailey's chest.
"Where'd you get them?"
"They were found on a corpse," the tailor said. "They brought them to me. Dead men's clothes. Bad business. Man should be decently buried. But they don't even get that nowadays, eh? Into the converter. Save the chemicals. As if a man was no more t
han a heap of fertilizer. No respect. That's what's gone wrong. No respect."
"How far out of the current style is this outfit?"
"Cutting like this doesn't go out of style," the dodderer said sharply. "People don't understand that. Trash, yes; flash today, junk tomorrow. But quality-real quality-it endures. In this clothing you could be at home anyplace. Nobody could fault you. Of the finest."
17
It was almost dark when Bailey left the shop swinging his swagger stick, his newly altered garments snugged to his new body with a feel he had never known before. People on the sidewalk eyed him aslant and slid aside. In a dark shop with a smell of conspiracy he made a purchase.
Once out of sight on the utility stair, he clipped his bogus blue tag in place, checked his credit code: a charge of eight and a half M remained on the plastic: enough to live for a couple of years below-decks, he reflected-or to buy an adequate evening up above.
Attached to the steel gate barring access to Threevee Mall was a yard-high sign reading DEATH PENALTY FOR TRESPASS. Bailey pounded on it. In less than a minute the panel slid back to reveal a pair of Greenbacks, slammers leveled at belt-buckle height. Their jaws sagged as Bailey strolled through the forbidden gate.
"It's all right, Leftenant," he said to the corporal, and pushed the still-aimed gun barrel aside with a well-groomed finger. "Clear a path for me, there's a good fellow."
The Peaceman made a gobbling sound. "B-how… why…" He recovered a portion of his wits with an effort. "M'lord, that gate is interdicted-"
"And a good thing, too." Bailey's eye flicked to the man's tag number. "I'll mention your prompt action to Father-" He smiled with just the proper degree of guilt. "In another connection, of course. Wouldn't do for his Lordship to guess where I've been amusing myself. Shall we go now? I reek of the Quarters." Without waiting for assent, he started toward the wall of gaping passers-by. At a yell from the Greenbacks, they faded aside. Smiling a negligent smile, Bailey preceded his escort toward the lighted entry to the high-speed lift marked BLUE ONE.