Deathwish World

by Mack Reynolds

  There were few questions. Roy had been hoping for one or more from the note-taker in the back row. You could usually tell the extent of a newcomer’s real interest by his questions.

  Following the meeting, while the balance of the small audience drifted from the hall, the membership gathered around to shake his hand and congratulate him. As a National Organizer, he was used to the plaudits of his fellows who were unable to express themselves in public speaking. So far as he was concerned, the meeting was a flop and he could see that the chairman felt the same way. Not even the little stranger in the rear had remained.

  When the other members had gone their way, the chairman asked Roy if he’d like to come home with him for pseudocoffee and talk. He was the local Group Organizer, a good man, but Roy was aware of the fact that the man’s wife was rabidly against the Wobblies, in fact was a militant member of the United Church who considered all radicals slated for hell. Besides, Roy Cos was emotionally exhausted. His depression had been growing over a period of weeks.

  “No thanks, Jim,” he said. “I think I’ll get on to bed. I have to take the vac tube to Newark tomorrow for another meeting. And you know Newark. The membership there is so apathetic they probably haven’t gotten around to hiring a hall. I’ll wind up on a soapbox in the park and damned few people are out in the parks anymore.”

  “Yeah,” Jim said. “Only those who have no place else to go and screw. Well, see you on your next trip around, Comrade.”

  Roy said wearily, “Jim, for God’s sake: please, please, don’t call me comrade. I hate the word. If you use it, ninety-nine people out of a hundred think you’re a Eurocommunist, or some other reactionary bastard.”

  They separated at the door and Roy Cos headed for his third-class hotel. His mind was empty.

  The streets were deserted as usual at this time of night, especially of the few vehicles that were allowed surface traffic. He was surprised when two figures materialized to either side of him and he could hear the footsteps of a third close behind him. His first inclination was to think it was three of the organization members who happened to be going in his direction.

  The voice of the one to his right disillusioned him on that score. It snarled, “We didn’t like what you had to say, chum-pal.”

  Roy’s mind raced for options, but found none. He continued to stroll at the same speed. “Sorry,” he said. “It was what I believe.” He had been through this sort of thing before. He expected a beating. Probably not bad enough to hospitalize him, this time, since they didn’t seem particularly heated up, but probably enough of a working over to keep him from the Newark meeting.

  The other said, “We reckon you need a little lesson in Americanism.”

  “Your version of…” Roy began, but was interrupted by a heavy blow from the man on his left, then another in his back, even as he reeled sideways.

  Neither blow was crippling, but between them, they threw him against the wall of the decrepit building, so that he banged his head against the bricks. Stars flashed before his eyes, red heat bloomed in his brain, and he began to fall. The pain was such that he hardly felt the kick in his side. The three were surging in, babbling incoherently about their anger, their frustrations, their hate of the nonconformist. All three were younger and in all probability in better shape than he. His chances of meaningful resistance were all but nil. He struggled to bring his arms up over his head, unable to restrain a groan of pain—though he tried.

  More kicks came. They weren’t pros and the beating was less damaging than it might have been. His best bet was to wait it out, curling into a fetal crouch to guard his head and groin.

  But then came a shout and a pounding of feet. “Halt! Get away from that man! Halt or I’ll fire!”

  Cursing in surprise, the three were off in as many directions.

  Panting, he staggered erect and tried to assess the damages. Except for bruises, there weren’t any. His three assailants hadn’t had the time for a complete mauling. He brushed at his street-grimed clothing with shaking hands.

  He looked around. Down the avenue he heard another order to halt but, unless his rescuer was actually willing to shoot, he wasn’t going to have much luck.

  Only a few doors down was the entrance to a prole autobar. He staggered toward it, still brushing his jacket. Just before he entered, he straightened up as best he could, but the attempt was needless. The sorry little bistro was empty of customers.

  He fumbled himself into a chair at the first table he could get to and for a time sat there, catching his breath. For all he knew, the police officer would return and pick him up on general principles, and before he could make adequate explanations, he might wind up in the banger. He might even louse up his schedule and miss the Newark meeting.

  He brought forth his Universal Credit Card, put it into the table payment slot, and dialed a syntho-beer. He knew that his monthly GAS credits were low and there were several days to go before next month’s deposit was credited to his account, but he needed that drink. Largely, national organizers of the Wobblies had to be self-supporting. The membership made minor contributions to the National Fund, but since they were all on GAS themselves and needed their credits for their own survival, it couldn’t be much.

  The beer had come and he had taken his initial swallow before the newcomer entered the autobar, looked around, and then descended on his table.

  Roy Cos brought his gaze up. He had expected a uniform, but the other was in ordinary garb. Then Roy recognized him. He was the note-taking stranger.

  The gray-faced man couldn’t have weighed more than fifty kilos. He wore a wispy mustache, in a day when facial hair was long out of style, and his faded eyes had a perpetual squint. He slid into the chair opposite Roy.

  Roy said, in resignation, “I thought you were an IABI man. But thanks, anyway. You came up like the Seventh cavalry rescuing the wagon train.”

  “Who, me?” the other said in false innocence, dialing for a drink. He looked at Roy’s beer. “You look as though you could use something stronger than that. How about a whiskey?”

  “Can’t afford it. You mean you’re not a cop?”

  “No, I’m a reporter. And I can afford it.” He dialed for the whiskey, his own credit card in the table slot.

  Roy eyed him. “What was all that about, ‘Halt, or I fire’?” The other grunted sour amusement and fished a package of cigarettes from a side pocket. “If I’d shouted, ‘Halt or I’ll write,’ they’d be kicking my butt right now. I figured they’d hardly hang around demanding to see my badge.”

  He stuck a smoke into his thin pale mouth and lit it with a lighter. To Roy’s surprise, it wasn’t marijuana, but tobacco. You couldn’t mistake the odor of this forbidden narcotic.

  Roy said, “Well, thanks again. You think you ought to be smoking like that in a public place?”

  “There’s nobody here but us. What happened?”

  “You know as much about it as I do. I suppose it was those three hecklers. Who in the hell are you?”

  The other extended a scrawny hand. “Forrest Brown. Call me Forry. I’m from the local area Tri-Di news—stuff that you don’t get on the national networks.”

  As they shook hands, Roy said, “You’re a news commentator?”

  Brown shook his head. The smoke drifted up his face from the cigarette that drooped in his mouth, making him squint still more.

  “Just a leg man. Oh, I go on video occasionally, when one of the regular men is off. But I never reached commentator level. I suppose I wasn’t pretty enough. You’ve got to project personality to hit commentator level.”

  The center of the table had sunk and returned with the whiskey. Roy took a glass, still shaky, and said in defiance, “Here’s to the revolution,” and knocked it all back.

  The gray little man nodded and swallowed a third of his own booze. “You think it’ll ever come—at this rate?”

  Roy ignored that and focused on his job again with professional ease. “You were going to do a stor
y on the Wobbly movement?”

  The other shook his head. “No, actually I just stopped by your meeting from sheer boredom. I had nothing else to do.”

  Roy was bitter. “The conspiracy of silence, eh? It’s like pulling teeth to get any of our meetings or demands into the news. But what should I expect? The news media are owned by the enemy.”

  But Forry Brown shook his head again. “You people overemphasize that. Oh, it applies to a certain extent. Word from above is to not give too much coverage to any minority organizations. Not just your Wobblies, but the Neo-Nihilists, the Libertarians, the Luddites, the Gay Libbers, and all the rest. But there’s no taboo, no conspiracy of total silence. The thing is, you people aren’t news. Nobody cares about your programs. They want something exciting. You’re not exciting. A good murder, some scandal about the latest Tri-Di sex symbol, government corruption, one of the bush wars in Africa or Asia, even a hurricane or earthquake, bring in more viewers than some yawner about a Wobbly meeting attended by fifteen people. But that isn’t the big reason I’m not filing a story on you, even after you were attacked by members of your audience. If they’d killed you, maybe somebody would have a story.” He took another cigarette and lit it from the butt of his last.

  Roy Cos forgot his bruises temporarily and said, “Damn it, I’d almost be willing. How can we present our program to the people if we can’t get any media coverage?”

  The little man’s grimace was sour. “Wish I could help you, but just this morning the computers spelled me down. I’m surprised that I was able to hang on this long, even as a second-rate legman in a backwater Tri-Di area. It’s not enough being selected by the damned computers for a job. Each year a new batch of journalism graduates apply for positions. As you said in your talk, over ninety percent of the population is unemployed. We who have jobs try desperately to hang onto them, and sometimes the experience we’ve accumulated helps out. But sooner or later some new kid with a higher Ability Quotient steps into your boots.” He shrugged. “I’ve been expecting the axe for a long time.”

  Roy Cos had never held a job in his life—not that he hadn’t religiously applied each year. He said, in compassion, “I’m sorry. What happens now? Do you get a pension or something from your Tri-Di network?”

  The other snorted and finished his drink. “Hell, no. I go back on GAS. Theoretically, I should’ve saved a portion of the pseudodollar credits I earned while I was working and invested them in Variable Basic government stock, or one of the private corporations. The dividends would supplement my GAS.” He snorted again, took his cigarette from his mouth and looked at it. “I’m afraid I developed some expensive habits. Lady Nicotine doesn’t come cheap these days.”

  The Wobbly organizer took him in. He had never met anyone before who was actually hooked on tobacco. He didn’t move in the circles that could afford it. He also had the usual prejudice against the use of the poisonous weed.

  Roy said, “Why didn’t you ever take the cure?”

  Brown laughed dryly. “Because, once you take it, you’re allergic to nicotine for the rest of your life. I guess I didn’t really want to be cured. I like to eat better than you proles can afford, like to drink better, travel better. I even took a trip around the world once and I’ve been in Europe a couple of times. Free rocket shuttle fare as a newsman, but the other expenses were largely on me. You ought to see some of the bordellos they have in the East.” He sighed. “That’s one thing they’ll never automate. Knock on wood.”

  As a Wobbly, Roy Cos didn’t approve of prostitution any more than he did of the deadly nicotine, so underneath was a certain smug satisfaction when he said, “So now you’re in the same position as all the rest of us. You should join the Wobbly movement.”

  Brown ground out his cigarette and brought forth another. “Not me,” he said. “What I’ve got to do is dream up some other manner of supporting my vices.”

  Roy switched subjects, knowing the unlikelihood of the ex-newsman ever accomplishing that. “Any idea how we could get more media coverage? It’s a sore point with us. When those old American revolutionists wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it never occurred to them that freedom of speech and of press and assembly would one day become meaningless. In those days you got up in the village square, or the town meeting, and stated your beliefs. If your program had merit, it was probably accepted. Starting a newspaper was in the range of almost any individual, or certainly of any small group. But today, unless you can get on Tri-Di, you simply aren’t heard. Freedom of the press is fine; sure, you’re perfectly free to get out a little magazine and circulate it as best you can. But who reads it? A few hundred people, most of whom already have the same beliefs you do. Freedom of speech is meaningless if all you can do is stand on the beach and shout your message to the wind.”

  Forrest Brown thought about it, squinting through curls of smoke. He said finally, “You’ve got to have enough money to buy Tri-Di time, but above all, you’ve got to be newsworthy. You’ve got to have something that makes people want to listen to you, watch you.”

  “Great,” Roy said sarcastically. “And how do I accomplish that?”

  The newsman, half joking, said, “Start a religion. Become a Tri-Di star. Take out a Deathwish Policy.”

  The Wobbly organizer scowled at him. “What for?”

  “You’d have the credits to buy Tri-Di time. Deathwishers are news. Everybody’d be in a tizzy wondering how long it’d be before you got hit. There’d be standing room only at your hall lectures. You’d be out in the open and they’d come in hopes that they’d be there when the Graf’s boys, or whoever, got to you. Something like in the old days in Spain and Latin America, where they’d pony up for bullfight tickets in hopes they’d see the matador gored to death.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Roy said. “What’s a Deathwish Policy?”

  Forry grunted and dialed another two whiskeys before lighting a new smoke off the old. “Oh,” he said, “just a jargon term we use in the news game. You’ve probably never heard it. You have your life insured in return for having an international drawing account for a million pseudodollar credits continually at your disposal—for as long as you live.”

  “Never heard of… oh, wait a minute. I guess I did. Something in the news about six months ago. Somebody was blown up with a grenade or something. His life had been insured for something like five million pseudodollars only a few days before. I forget the details. I don’t usually follow crime news.”

  “It’s crime, all right,” Forry said, putting his thumbprint on the table’s payment screen to pay for the new drinks. His credit card was still in the slot. “The thing is, so far, the law hasn’t been able to get at them. It’s too complicated. Most of the insured are Americans. But you never sign the policy with an American company. The outfit that’s going to collect the benefits is usually based in the Bahamas, or Malta, or Tangier, or somewhere else where practically anything goes. They shop out the deal to Lloyd’s of London, where they’ll insure anything—dancer’s legs, a violinist’s fingers. Hell, they’ll insure an outdoor entertainment against loss due to rain. So you’ve got four countries involved: the insured is usually a citizen of the States, the beneficiary is in the Bahamas or wherever, Lloyds of London is in England, and your credits come from Switzerland. For that matter, you might say five different countries are involved, since it’s said that the Graf has his headquarters in Liechtenstein.”

  “Now, wait a minute,” Roy Cos said, taking up his new drink and swallowing part of it. For the first time in years, he felt the itch of intrigue. “Start at the beginning.”

  Forry shrugged thin shoulders. “You sign a contract that grants you what amounts to an unlimited credit account for as long as you live. If and when you die, the beneficiary collects the benefits. The company you’ve signed with pays huge daily premiums. It’s a gamble, as all insurance has always been since the days when Phoenician ships set sail from Tyre to Cadiz for a cargo of tin. The insure
r was gambling that the ship would get back safely and the insuree was gambling that the ship would sink. Well, in this case, the insuree is gambling that you’ll die before the premiums paid mount up to more than the benefits he’ll collect when you kick off. Lloyd’s is gambling the other way: that you’ll live so long that the premiums accumulated are higher than the life insurance benefits.”

  Roy looked at him blankly. “But suppose you lived for years? And you have a million pseudodollar account to draw on to any extent you wish? Hell, the company that’s the beneficiary would go broke paying the premiums plus your expenditures.”

  Forry Brown laughed shortly. “Don’t be a dizzard. From the moment that policy goes into effect, you’re on the run. Some of the insured don’t live the first day out.”

  Roy stared, then tried a tentative smile. “You’re kidding, of course.”

  “Yeah? The Graf’s hit men are the best-trained pros in the world. He usually gets the contract, I understand.”

  Roy slumped down into his chair. “Jesus,” he said. “Who’d be silly enough to sign up for that?”

  The newsman let smoke dribble from his nostrils. “Somebody who had already decided to commit suicide but couldn’t bring himself to do it and decided he might as well go out in a burst of glory, living in one of the biggest hotels in one of the swankest resorts in the world, drinking champagne and gorging himself with caviar.”

  “I can see that, but nobody else would sign.”

  Forry finished his second drink and said slowly, “You underestimate human desperation. Take some prole who’s fed up with living right at the edge of poverty on GAS. He figures he might as well live it up for a few weeks, or hopefully months. Frankly, this guy’s a dreamer. His chances of lasting for any length of time at all are just about nil. Most of them think they’ve figured out some dodge to beat the odds, some special gimmick. They haven’t. They can’t.”