The Hard SF Renaissance

by David G. Hartwell

Comes down to this. Some drug company hired his lab to do Phase One tests for its new product. It’s a lotion to relieve foot blisters. No brand-name for it yet. Experiment calls for me to walk a treadmill for eight hours the first day with a one-hour break for lunch, or at least until I collect a nice bunch of blisters on the soles of my feet. Then they’ll apply an ointment to my aching. doggies, let me rest for twelve hours, but put me on the treadmill again the next day. This will be repeated every other day for the next two weeks.

  Do I get paid for the days I’m not on the treadmill?

  Of course, he says, but you have to stay here at the test facility. Got a private room in the dorm for you upstairs. Private cafeteria and rec room, too.

  Does it have a pool table?

  Got a really nice pool table, he says. Also a VCR and a library. Computer, too, but no fax or modern. Company has strict policy against test participants being permitted open contact with outside world. Phone calls allowed, but they’re monitored by security operators. Can receive forwarded mail, but all outgoing mail has to be read by a staff member first.

  Nod. Been through this before. Most test facilities work this way. Sounds reasonable, I say.

  When you’re not on the treadmill, he says, you have to be in bed or in a wheelchair. No standing or walking, except when you’re in the shower or going to the bathroom.

  Shrug. Not a big deal. Once lay in bed for three days, doing nothing but watch old Flintstones cartoons on closed-circuit TV. Some kind of psychiatric experiment for UCLA. Ready to shout yabba-dabba-do and hump Betty Rubble by the time it was over. After that, there’s nothing I can’t do.

  Dr. Bighead stops smiling now. Folds hands together on desk. Time for the serious stuff now.

  The ointment we put on your feet may not be the final product, he says. May have to try different variations on the same formula. Side-effects may include persistent itching, reddening or flaking of the skin, minor swelling. Computer simulations of the product have produced none of these results, but this is the first time the product has undergone Phase One testing.

  Nod. Been there, done that.

  Goes on. Tells me that there’s another three other volunteers doing the same experiment. Three of us will be the test subjects, the other one the control subject who receives a placebo. We won’t know in advance who gets the product and who gets the placebo. Do I understand?

  Test subjects, control subjects, placebos, and my feet may rot and fall off before this is all over. Got it, Doc. Sounds cool.

  Dr. Bighead goes on. If any of this bothers me, I can leave now, and his company will pay me a hundred dollars for one day of my time and supply me with airfare back home. However, if I chicken out during the test period, or if I’m caught trying to wash off the ointment, they’ll throw me out of the experiment and I won’t be paid anything.

  Yeah, uh-huh. He has to tell me this because of the way the laws are written. Never chickened out before, I say. Sounds great to me. When do we get started?

  Dr. Bighead grins. Likes a nice, cooperative rat. Tomorrow morning, he says. Eight o’clock sharp.

  Ask if I can go catch a little night-life tonight. Frowns. Tells me I may have to submit another urine sample if I do so. Nod my head. No problem. He shrugs. Sure, so long as you’re back by midnight. After that, you’re in here until we’re through with the experiment.

  No problem.

  Spend another hour with contracts and release forms. Dr. Bighead not surprised that I don’t read very well. Must have seen the file my agent faxed his company. Make him read everything aloud, while I get it all on the little CD recorder I brought with me. Agent taught me to do that. Means we can sue his company if it pulls any funny stuff. Maybe this rat can’t read, but he’s still got rights.

  Everything sounds cool. Sign all the legal stuff. Dr. Bighead gives me plastic wristband and watches me put it around my left wrist, then lets me go. Notice that he doesn’t shake hands again. Maybe afraid he’ll catch functional illiteracy.

  Same kid waiting outside. Takes me up to dorm on the seventh floor.

  Looks like a hospital ward. No windows. Six private rooms surrounding a rec area. Small cafeteria off to one side. Couple of tables, some chairs and sofas. Bookshelf full of old paperbacks and magazines. Fifty-two-inch flatscreen TV, loads of videos on the rack above it. Pay phone in the corner. Pool table, though it looks like a cheap one. Look up, spot fish-eye camera lens hidden in the ceiling.

  Same as usual. Could be better, could be worse.

  Room is small. Single bed, desk, closet. No windows here either, but at least it’s got a private bathroom. Count my blessings. No roommate this time. Last one snored, and the one before that went nuts six days into the experiment and was punted.

  My bag is on the bed. Notice zipper is partly open. Been searched to make sure I didn’t bring in any booze, dope, butts, or cellular phones.

  Kid tells me he’s got to go. Reminds me not to leave without my badge. See you tomorrow, I say.

  Unpack bag, leave room. Want to get a bite to eat and check out the night life.

  Two people sitting in the rec room now, watching TV news. A guy and a woman. Guy looks like he’s about thirty. Thin, long-haired, sparse beard. Paperback book spread open on his lap. Barely glances my way.

  The woman is different. Another rat, but the most beautiful rat I’ve seen in a while. Long brown hair. Slender but got some muscles. Good-looking. My type.

  Catch her eye as I walk past. Give her a nod. She nods back, smiles a little. Doesn’t say anything. Just a nod and smile.

  Think about that nod and smile all the way to the elevator.

  Found a good hangout last time I was in Boston, over in Dorchester. Catch a rickshaw over there now.

  Sign above the door says No * Allowed. First time I was here, someone had to read the name to me, then explain that the symbol in the middle is an asterisk. What part of your body looks like an asterisk? Still don’t get it, I say. Laughs and says, bend over, stick your head between your legs and look harder. Get it now, I say.

  Can smoke a butt inside wherever you want, if you can find a butt to smoke these days. Fifty-six brands of beer. Not served only in the basement, but at your table if you want. Hamburgers, hot dogs, chicken-fried steak and onion rings on the menu. No tofu pizza or lentil soup. Framed nude photos of Madonna, Keith Moon, Cindy Crawford, and Sylvester Stallone on the walls. Antique Wurlitzer jukebox loaded with stuff that can’t be sold without a parental warning sticker on the cover.

  No screaming kids, either.

  Cops would shut down this place if most people knew it existed. Or maybe not. Several guys hanging out at the bar look like off-duty cops. Cops need a place to have a smoke and drink, too, y’know.

  Good bar. Should be a place like this in every city. Once there was, before everyone took offense to everything and no one could stay out of other people’s business. Laws got passed to make sure that you had to live in smoke-free, low-cholesterol, non-alcoholic, child-safe environments. Now you have to go slumming to find a place where no *s are allowed.

  Cover charge, tonight, though. Can’t have everything.

  Find seat near the stage, order ginger ale, watch some nuevo-punk band ruin old Romantics and Clash numbers. It’s Boston, so they’re obligated do something by the Cars. Probably toddlers when Ric Ocasek was blowing speakers.

  Usually have a blowout the night before an experiment. Never binge, but have good fun anyway. Lots of babes here tonight, most of them with guys who look like they should be home wanking off on Internet. A couple of their girlfriends throw gimme looks in my direction.

  Should do something about it. Still early. Can always get a hotel room for a few hours. Use the line about being a biomedical research expert in town for an important conference. Babes love sleeping with doctors.

  Heart not into it. Keep thinking about the girl in the rec room. Don’t know why. Just another rat.

  Find myself looking around every time the door opens, hoping
she’ll walk in.

  Leave before eleven o’clock, alone for once. Tell myself it’s because the band was dick. Know better.

  On the way back to the test center, wonder if Mom’s not right. Maybe time to get a job. Learn how to read, too.

  Bet she knows how to read.

  Eight o’clock next morning. Come downstairs wearing my rat gear. Gym shorts, football jersey, sneaks. Time to go to work for the advancement of science and all mankind.

  Dr. Bighead is waiting for me. Not as friendly as he was yesterday. Takes me to clinic and waits while I fill another bottle for the doctor. Escorts me to the lab.

  Four power treadmills set next to each other on one side of the room, with a TV hanging from the ceiling above them. Stupid purple dinosaur show on the tube. Sound turned down low. College kids wearing white coats sitting in front of computers on other end of the room. One of them is the guy who picked me up at the airport. Glances up for a second when I come in. Doesn’t wave back. Just looks at his screen again, taps fingers on his keyboard. Too cool to talk to rats now.

  Two other rats sitting in plastic chairs. Already wired up, watching Barney, waiting to go. Walk over to meet them. One is the skinny longhair I saw last night. Wearing old Lollapolooza shirt. Name’s Doug. Other guy looks like he works out a lot. Big dude. Shaved head, nose ring, truck stop tattoo on right forearm. Says his name is Phil.

  Doug looks bored, Phil nervous. Everyone swats hands. We’re the rat patrol, cruising for a bruising.

  Time to get wired. Sit on table, take off shirt, let one of the kids tape electrodes all over me. Head, neck, chest, back, thighs, ankles. So much as twitch and lines jump all over the computer screens. Somebody asks what I had for breakfast, when was the last time I went to the bathroom. Writes it all down on a clipboard.

  Phil asks if the TV has cable. Please change the channel, he says, it’s giving me a headache. No one pays attention to him. Finally gets up and switches over to The Today Show. Dr. Bighead gives him the eye. Wonder if this is the first time Phil has ever been on the rat patrol. If the scientists want you to watch Barney, then you do it, no questions asked. Could be part of the experiment for all you know.

  Don’t mess with the scientists. Everyone knows that.

  Last rat finally arrives. No surprise, it’s the girl I saw last night. Wearing one-piece workout suit. Thank you, Lord, for giving us the guy who invented Spandex. Phil and Doug look ready to swallow their tongues when they see her. Guy who tapes electrodes to her gets a woody under his lab coat when he goes to work on her chest and thighs.

  She ignores his hands, just like she ignores everyone else, including me and the boys. She’s a true-blue, all-American, professional rat.

  Time to mount the treadmills. Dr. Bighead makes a performance about us getting on the proper machines, as if it makes a difference. The girl is put on the machine to my left, with Doug on my right and Phil next to him.

  Grasp the metal bar in front of me. Dr. Bighead checks to make sure that the computers are up and running, then he switches on the treadmills. Smooth rubber matt beneath my feet begins to roll at a slow pace, only about a foot or so every few seconds. My grandmother could walk faster than this.

  Look over at the girl. She’s watching Willard Scott talking to some guy dressed like a turkey. Asks Dr. Bighead if he’d turn up the volume. He say, no, it would just distract his team. Think he’s pissed because Phil switched off the purple dinosaur.

  Just as well. Gives us a chance to get acquainted.

  She starts first. Asks me my name. Tell her. She nods, tells me hers. Sylvie Simms. Hi Sylvie, I say, nice to meet you.

  Scientists murmur to each other behind our backs. Sylvie asks me where I’m from. She tells me she’s from Columbus, Ohio.

  C’mon, man, Phil says. Turn up the volume. Can’t hear what he’s saying about the weather.

  Dr. Bighead ignores him.

  Look over at Doug. Got a Walkman strapped to his waist. Eyes closed, head bobbing up and down. Grooving to something in his headphones as he keeps on trucking.

  Been to Columbus, I say. Nice city. Got a great barbecue place downtown, right across the street from the civic center.

  Sylvie laughs. Got a nice laugh. Asks if it’s a restaurant with an Irish name. Yeah, I say, that’s the one. Serves ribs with a sweet sauce. She knows the place, been there many times.

  And so we’re off and running. Or walking. Whatever.

  Doug listens to rock bands on his Walkman, getting someone to change CDs for him every now and then. Phil stares at the TV, supplying his own dialogue for the stuff he can’t hear, bitching about not being able to change the channel. A kid walks by every now and then with a bottle of water, letting us grab a quick sip through a plastic straw.

  Sylvie and I talk to each other.

  Learn a lot about Sylvie while waiting for the blisters to form. Single. Twenty-seven years old. Got a B.A. in elementary education from the same university where I got my start as a rat, but couldn’t get a decent job. Public schools aren’t hiring anyone who don’t have a military service record, the privates only take people with master’s degrees. Became a rat instead, been running for two years now. Still wishes she could teach school, but at least this way she’s paying the rent.

  Tell her about myself. Born here. Live there. Leave out part about not being able to read very well, but truthful about everything else. Four years as a rat after doing a stint in the Army. Tell her about other Phase One tests I’ve done, go on to talking about places I’ve gone hiking.

  Gets interested in the last part. Asks me where I’ve been. Tell her about recent trek through Nepal, about the beach at Koh Samui where you can go swimming without running into floating garbage. About hiking to the glacier in New Zealand and the moors in Scotland and rain forest trails in Brazil.

  You like to travel, she says.

  Love to travel, I say. Not first-class, not like a tourist, but better this way. Get to see places I’ve never been before.

  Asks what I do there. Just walk, I say. Walk and take pictures. Look at birds and animals. Just to be there, that’s all.

  Asks how I’ve been able to afford to do all this. Tell her about mortgaging my organs to organ banks.

  Looks away. You sell your organs?

  No, I say, I don’t sell them. Mortgage them. Liver to a cloner in Tennessee, heart to an organ bank in Oregon, both lungs to a hospital to Texas. One kidney to Texas, the other to Minnesota …

  Almost stops walking when she hears that. You’d sell them your whole body?

  Shrug. Haven’t sold everything yet, I say. Still haven’t mortgaged corneas, skin, or veins. Saving them for last, when I’m too old to do rat duty and can’t sell plasma, bone marrow or sperm anymore.

  She blushes when I mention sperm. Pretend not to notice. She asks if I know what they’re going to do with my organs when I’m dead.

  Sure, I say. Someone at the morgue runs a scanner over the bar-code tattoo on my left arm. That tells them to put my body in a fridge and contact the nearest organ donor info center. All the mortgage-holders will be notified, and they’ll fly in to claim whatever my agent negotiated to give them. Anything left over afterwards, the morgue puts it in the incinerator. Ashes to ashes and all the happy stuff.

  Sylvie takes a deep breath. And that doesn’t bother you?

  Shrug. Naw, I say. Rather have somebody else get a second chance at life from my organs than having them rot in a coffin in the ground. While they’re still mine, I can use the dough to go places I’ve never been before.

  Treadmill is beginning to run just a little faster now. No longer walking at a granny pace. Dr. Bighead must be getting impatient. Wants to get some nice blisters on our feet by the end of the day.

  Phil sweats heavily now. Complains about having to watch Sally Jesse instead of Oprah. Don’t wanna watch that white whore, he says. C’mon, gimme that black bitch instead. Doug sweating hard, too, but just keeps walking. Asks for a Smashing Pumpkins CD, please. One
of the kids changes his CD for him, but doesn’t switch channels on the TV.

  Couldn’t do that, Sylvie says. Body too precious to me.

  Body precious to me, too, I say, but it ain’t me. Gone somewhere else when I’m dead. Just meat after that. Why not sell this and that while you’re still around?

  She’s quiet for a long while. Stares at the TV instead. Sally Jesse is talking to someone who looks like a man dressed as a woman but looks like a woman trying to resemble a man, or something like that.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have told her what I think about organ mortgages. Being a rat is one thing, but putting your innards on the layaway plan is another. Some people don’t get it, and some of the ones who get it don’t like it.

  Sylvie must know this stuff. All rats do. Most of us sign mortgages. So what’s her problem?

  Bell dings somewhere behind us. Time for lunch. Didn’t even notice that it was noon yet. Dr. Bighead comes back in, turns off treadmills. Gets us to sit on examination tables and take off shoes. No blisters on our feet yet, but he still puts us in wheelchairs. Okay, he says, be back here by one o’clock.

  Can’t wait, Phil says.

  Lunch ready for us in rec room. Chicken soup, grilled cheese sandwiches, tuna salad. Push our way down the service line, carrying trays on our laps, reaching up to get everything. Been in a wheelchair before, so has Doug and Sylvie, but Phil not used to it. Spills hot soup all over his lap, screams bloody murder,

  Share a table with Sylvie. Newspapers on table for us to read. Intern brings us mail forwarded from home. Bills and junk for me, but Sylvie gets a postcard. Picture of tropical beach on the front.

  Ask who it came from. Her brother, she says. Ask where her brother lives, and she passes me the postcard.

  Pretend to read it. Only big word I know is Mexico. Always wanted to visit Mexico, I say. What does he do down there?

  Hesitates. Business, she says.

  Should shut up now, but don’t. What kind of business?

  Looks at me funny. Didn’t you read the card?