I didn’t bother reading those last three paragraphs, because what was on Page 7 looked much more interesting. The printed day and date had been scored out. In block capitals, written in pencil, were the words, THE PET SHOP.
The handwriting under those words was completely different from the diary entries. It was smaller, more disciplined, and ran across the printed date dividers. And it was in fresh pencil, rather than faded ink. I quickly saw that the content was as different as the appearance.
It was a novel. Tim McCann’s latest work, no doubt. Within a few pages he’d drawn me into a world of the future, just as the travel articles of Calum Tait drew me into the past. While the world Calum described was one I lamented the loss of with my heart and soul, tomorrow’s world was one I quickly came to fear.
Cities were completely enclosed in domes. The fertility of people living in these sanitized biospheres was beginning to recover, but the outside world was still a toxic, sterile place. As a result, resources were even more limited than at present, creating a problem the governing computer solved in a logical but chilling way. It was assumed everyone would live for eighty years, so a couple were expected to use 160 years of consumables. If they had a child, the total resources allocated to the three of them stayed at 160 years. In short, any parents who wanted their child to live a full life had to agree to end their own existence prematurely. This created heartbreaking acts of self-sacrifice, not only involving parents never living long enough to see their children grow up, but a husband ending his own life to give his wife longer to live, or vice-versa.
There were no such dilemmas for Numbers in this world. They felt no urge to have children of their own, and were content to do the logical thing and let genetic engineering maintain the balance between population and resources.
As if the scenes Tim McCann described at The Passing Place—where parents went to be put down—weren’t bad enough, there was another harrowing twist. The idea was that you could transfer your credits to a dependent and declare yourself in Valid but, rather than going to The Passing Place, you could go to what was known as a Pet Shop. You were literally putting yourself in the shop window, and anyone with enough credit to spare could buy you and take you home and feed you, in return for your undying gratitude and obedience. Such shops met the need for pets in a world without animals, and status symbols in a world with few material possessions.
McCann’s novel told of children entering one such shop with morsels to feed ‘pets’ they couldn’t afford to take home; and of a pet rescue circle comprising Names who’d banded together to buy a ‘pet’ which they’d take turns sharing their food rations with. The scene where they had to choose which person to save from The Passing Place was a truly distressing one.
The final passage Tim McCann had written was equally disturbing, but in a very different way. It started with a group of Numbers entering the shop and saying they wanted to buy some pets to act as their dancing tutors. It was quite plausible, since most Numbers have a limited repertoire of dance moves and execute them in a mechanical fashion. Anyway, they’d asked the inValids to go through everything from hip-hop to waltzes with imaginary partners.
Then, at the end of the pathetic little talent contest, the Numbers gave a collective sneer which made it clear they’d never had the slightest intention of taking an inValid home.
I was glad Tim McCann hadn’t written any more. I couldn’t imagine it was the sort of story that had a happy ending.
I switched out the light, trying to forget about The Pet Shop, and turned my thoughts to Paula.
In an ideal world I would have dreamed about Niagara Falls and Paula or Marilyn Monroe. Come to think of it, in an ideal world I would dream about Niagara Falls, Paula, and Marilyn Monroe. If I had to choose two out of the three, I’d have forgotten about the falls.
What I actually got was one and a half out of three: Niagara without the falls, but with Paula.
Oh, I also got Jen—and a guilty conscience for not having included her in my initial three wishes.
Unfortunately, I got something else as well. The Pet Shop.
How predictable was that?
The Pet Shop was located slap bang in the touristy heart of the town of Niagara Falls. And of course I was in one of the display cabinets, and Jen was in another one. Her hands were pressed to the glass and she was whispering something to me that could have been ‘I love you’ or ‘Help me.’
Behind her, in another cabinet, someone was waving to me. Their face was hidden because Jen was in the way. All I could see was the waving hand. It was Annie MacDougall’s hand, shriveled up and growing almost right out of her shoulder.
A bell tinkled behind me. It was a small brass bell, over the door of the shop, and it announced the arrival of a Pareto.
He walked past me and stopped in front of the cabinet containing Jen. Annie MacDougall knocked on the glass with her withered hand to get his attention, but all she got was a sneer. The Pareto turned back to Jen and said something I couldn’t make out. Then Jen was taking her clothes off and turning around slowly so the Pareto could inspect her. He nodded his approval to the shopkeeper, who I noticed for the first time.
It was Doug MacDougall.
In front of my eyes, Doug and the Pareto haggled over what Jen was worth, and finally Doug said, “I’ll throw in the other one for nothing, a ‘buy one, get one free’.”
My heart skipped a beat, thinking Doug was talking about me and I’d be joining Jen.
But after Doug unlocked Jen’s cabinet he moved over to the glass case containing Annie.
I had both hands pressed to the glass of my case as Jen was led out of the shop. As she passed by she put one hand up to press against mine.
And then she was gone, and I knew I would never see her again.
As Annie MacDougall passed she tried to press her hand against the glass next to my palm, like Jen had done. But she couldn’t reach, and in the end she just waved me goodbye with her withered, armless hand.
Annie left the little shop of horrors just as Perfect Paula came in.
My LogiPol partner got me to strip, which was a role reversal from my other kind of dreams—the daydreams, where you actually have some say in what’s going on. Anyway, stripping for Paula was fine by me, although it would have been a whole lot better if she’d reciprocated and I hadn’t been in a glass case.
What happened next wasn’t so good, however—she looked me over from head to foot, and a mocking sneer appeared on her face. I didn’t have to be a psychotherapist to figure out her sneer had something to do with the inadequacy Names feel in the presence of Numbers.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, after looking me over and mocking me Perfect Paula turned to Doug MacDougall, shook her head and left without a backward glance.
Doug came over and said, “Sorry, Ben. Better luck tomorrow.”
After switching off the lights Doug walked to the door, turning over a cardboard sign so the word CLOSED faced the outside world. He hesitated with his fingers on the door handle, as if he’d forgotten something, and came back to the counter. He brought out a bowl and shoved it through a slot near the foot of my display cabinet.
“Goodnight, sleep tight and don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he said, and headed for the door. The brass bell tinkled, but I didn’t see Doug MacDougall leave The Pet Shop because I was looking down at the bowl.
It was full of golden yellow moss.
CHAPTER 17
THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME
“YOU OWE ME AN APOLOGY,” I TOLD PAULA AT THE station house the next morning.
“Sorry.”
“That’s not what you were supposed to say.”
“Okay, Travis, what was I supposed to say?”
“You were supposed to say, ‘what do I owe you an apology for’?”
Paula sighed, then said, “What do I owe you an apology for?”
“Making me take all my clothes off, sneering, then walking out the shop without buying me.”
“Sorry,” she said. “Happy now?”
“Don’t be a spoilsport. You were supposed to ask what H on earth I’m talking about.”
“I don’t think I want to know.”
I told her anyway.
“You’re making me glad I can’t dream,” she said. But we both knew that wasn’t true.
“Last night was enough to make me wish I couldn’t dream, either,” I told her.
“I watched the movie,” she said. Her abrupt change of subject caught me by surprise. It shouldn’t, because it’s a Number trait I should be used to by now. Whereas we say something like ‘by the way’ to warn whoever we’re talking to that we’re about to change tack, Numbers don’t observe such linguistic niceties. I suppose it’s because their brains work faster than ours and they don’t need any warning of a change of subject to make sense of what follows. Sometimes I think they do it on purpose to throw us and make us look stupid—like I must have looked as I tried to follow Paula’s conversational shift.
Then it dawned on me. She was talking about Niagara. Trying to sound casual, but not quite pulling it off, I said, “And?”
“It looks like an amazing place.”
“You’ll come then?”
“I’d like to, but it probably wouldn’t—”
I didn’t let her get any further. I hate the word ‘probably.’ They use it all the time, and it makes me think they’re constantly weighing up all the possibilities to reach the most logical conclusion without the slightest emotional input in the decision-making process. If I had to pick one word that summed up the difference between us and them, it would be ‘probably.’ Notice I didn’t say it would probably be ‘probably.’ “Paula,” I said, “forget what would ‘probably’ be for the best, and for once in your life do something spontaneous without analyzing the likely consequences. Listen to your heart and tell your head to shut up.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t change who you are, what you are.”
“Can’t you see that’s exactly what you’re trying to do? Part of you wants to go with me to Niagara Falls. I know that for sure, just as I know you can’t ever be happy or fulfilled if you continually deny part of what you are.”
“What’s wrong with that sentence is it went on eleven words too long.”
I counted back my words but ran out of memory before I ran out of fingers. The very fact Paula had been able to effortlessly count the words in real time should have made me want to give up on her. But, for all the differences between us, something drew me to her so powerfully that giving up wasn’t an option. “Paula, you talk about not being able to change who you are, what you are—I think the problem is you’re not sure of who and what you are. The community, where everything is geared to logic, doesn’t let you express the part of yourself that’s all about emotion.”
Paula still didn’t look ready to say ‘yes’ to the Niagara trip, but she wasn’t saying ‘no,’ so I said, “Look, I’m shallow enough to admit I’m hoping whatever it was that happened between us in Newport library will happen again at Niagara Falls. I’m hoping it’ll happen more powerfully, too powerfully for you to deny. But, more than that, I’m hoping that going to Niagara will let you find yourself. I’m hoping its wild beauty will set your spirit free.” That hadn’t occurred to me until I said it—my motives had been of a more selfish and sordid nature—but I didn’t feel disingenuous once the words were spoken because I meant every one of them.
“Won’t I be more conflicted than ever when I get back?” Paula said.
“You’ll have a better idea of who you are.”
“Maybe the whole problem is that I’m afraid to find out.”
“How can you be comfortable with yourself if you don’t really know who and what you are?” I said. “You make it sound like you’re scared there’s some sort of monster lurking inside you, when in fact it’s the opposite.”
“You mean the monster’s on the outside.”
“No, I mean there’s something even more beautiful inside than outside. I mean you’re only half the person you can be. Occasionally I’ve glimpsed the other half: in the fleeting moments of doubt and uncertainty that sometimes cloud your eyes; in the flashes of longing or sadness that are gone almost before I can recognize them for what they were—gone so quickly I used to wonder if I’d imagined them, until we were in the library and I saw them for long enough to know for sure what they were. I saw the real you for the first time in the library, Paula, and there’s so much more to you than the person I see every day in this place—” I gestured to the spartan logica gray surroundings.
“I don’t know what to say,” Paula told me.
“You don’t need to say anything, just be at the jetport at quarter to six tomorrow morning.”
The jetport is built into the lower slopes of the hill, near the long, low factories the freightliners supply with raw materials. I meant to arrive there nice and early, but decided at the last moment to shave off my designer stubble.
There were seven people in the small passenger terminal by the time I finally got there.
Including Paula. She was standing in the middle of the terminal, looking lost and alone.
Two Paretos sat in the seats that lined the left-hand wall. They were dressed in gray coveralls with gold wings. Not big wings as in angels, but little ones of the kind that are embroidered on flight uniforms. They were toying with logic puzzles, not making any attempt at conversation with each other, let alone anyone else.
The other four people stood at the small, toughened glass windows at the far end of the terminal. The variety of their hairstyles, height and build told me they were Names. Their body language confirmed it: the smaller man, whose hair was bleached blond, had his arm around the shoulders of the woman beside him. The other man, who was taller and had dark hair, held his partner’s hand.
Paula was watching the four Names. The man with bleached hair said something, and the others laughed. I wondered if Paula would have laughed if she’d been part of the group. I wondered which group she felt closer to, the pair of Paretos or the four Names. Maybe she wasn’t sure about that herself. I hoped she’d have a better idea by the time the day was out.
“Paula,” I said, as I walked toward her. She was startled by my approach, as if she’d been miles away.
Then it was my turn to be startled. For once, Perfect Paula was wearing a hint of makeup: no lipstick—she probably figured it would get grotesquely smeared on her filtermasks—but a touch of eyeliner.
Taking in the fact I was clean-shaven, Paula said, “You look ten years younger, Travis. You should have shaved your beard off years ago.”
“That would have made me look about twelve,” I said.
I didn’t get the laugh I’d hoped for, but at least I got a smile.
The sexless Voice of Reason came through the loudspeakers:
“Niagara flight crew, report to craft. Passengers be advised, take-off is in fifteen minutes.”
“Excited?” I asked Paula.
She nodded, and there was a sparkle in her eyes I’d never seen before.
“We should introduce ourselves,” I said, glancing at our fellow day-trippers.
Paula hesitated, like this was something she’d been dreading, then nodded.
The four Names heard us coming and turned from the windows, no doubt curious about who they’d be sharing their big day with. I barely merited a glance—all eyes focused on Paula. The laughter stopped and the smiles died away. There was no overt hostility in their expressions, just a draining away of the warmth.
With my usual tact and diplomacy I broke the ice by saying, “Okay, which two schmucks paid ten thousand points for their seats?”
Paula rolled her lovely silvery-blue eyes. “The two of us aren’t friends or anything,” she said apologetically to the new buddies I’d just made. “We just work together.”
That got her a smile from Mr. Bleached Blond—a small, care
free-looking guy in his twenties; and a “Have you ever thought about looking for another job?” from the dark-haired older man—a serious type who looked like Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still. He followed his little witticism by turning from Paula to me and saying, “Incidentally, we all won our tickets on the lottery, so we thought you were the schmucks.” The tone of his voice and coldness of his eyes made me think he had some Numbered blood. It would be unusual, but not unheard of; for some reason unions spanning the genetic divide almost never result in conception. I suspect Paula detected Numerical traits in him, too, because I sensed some of the tension going out of her. Relaxed isn’t a word I’d use in connection with my partner, but at least she was looking a little less uptight.
Just as I like comparing people to Olden Days actors, so I have a habit of judging their personalities by their appearance. My LogiPol training told me not to do it, but experience has shown my instincts are usually right. I had the young bleached-blond guy, who turned out to be a Community General surgeon called Jonny Adams—pegged as someone you’d have to work hard to dislike. He’d enjoy a good practical joke and wouldn’t take anything short of a triple-bypass too seriously—and even then, only if his patient died on the table. Come to think of it, I could picture him shrugging his shoulders after a botched operation, saying, “Oh well, you win some, you lose some,” then restoring the morale of his theatre assistants by pinging a bloodied rubber glove at them across the lifeless corpse.
His wife was small and slight, with dark brown, bob-cut hair and the look of someone who was never short of an opinion or hesitant about expressing it. She introduced herself as “Dr Heather Adams—a researcher at Community General,” while giving me a handshake that was a lot firmer than her husband’s. I’d no trouble figuring out who wore the trousers in that relationship. Jonny appeared blissfully content, though. I’ve heard that some men enjoy being bossed around by their partners.
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