And there was the alarm of course....
Anne turned her head sharply. Blond, slightly greasy hair spun and whipped at him.
For Christ’s sake watch the road! What are you doing...
Anne turned into a side-street and pulled up.
Well, he was coming to the alarm wasn’t he? Jesus, just a red button. Yes, red. Look, you can’t stop here. He pushed the button if anything untoward happened. What untoward? He meant unusual. OK, he meant if anything went wrong. He didn’t know what was likely to go wrong. Nothing. Nothing would go wrong. They wouldn’t make him sit there if it was dangerous would they? He meant it wasn’t likely to explode was it? He meant that if it exploded, then they wouldn’t need an alarm, would they? Everybody would know about it, you bet. Yes, he realized it wasn’t funny.
Anne said she didn’t like it. Not at all. But she started up the car. Looking out of the window as the city swallowed the Volkswagen, Carpenter smiled so that she wouldn’t see. She was pretty when she worried and wasn’t it nice to have somebody worry about you? He’d marry her when things were better. This job was only the beginning. Hadn’t he thought that about all the others? Sure but the gas station, the drugstore, all the no-hope jobs that anybody could get, that had a high turnover rate unemployment or no unemployment...losing those jobs had at least taught him the importance of keeping this one. Wait until they had enough money put by to go east. Everybody knew the best jobs were in the east. He’d marry her then, in the east.
* * * *
Later that evening at his apartment she made him promise.
If you don’t promise you don’t get your reward. You know what I mean. Promise you’ll find out what’s in that box. Promise you’ll find out if it’s dangerous. I don’t want you involved in anything dangerous. Please. You know I get worried about you.
She smiled and looked pretty.
He promised.
* * * *
The cell was white, or had been once.
Its walls were blank, or had been once.
The prisoner slept on a discolored pallet that stank of decaying weeks and months. He wore a coarse shut and trousers that itched upon his skin and caused rashes. Apart from the prisoner and the pallet, and the pail into which he urinated and defecated, there was nothing.
The light, which came from a small barred slit high on one wall of the cell, was dim and constant during the day, nonexistent during the night, which, like the dawn, always came on abruptly. If he jumped he could just reach the window slit with his fingers and, hanging there, could usually just manage to draw himself abreast of it for a few seconds. The slit was only a few inches high and possibly a foot deep in the wall. Through it he could see only blue sky. He never saw a trace of cloud, nor any birds.
The temperature was constant too. Constantly warm. At the window slit he never saw either rain or snow, or any manifestation of the seasons, although he assumed, as with the absence of clouds and birds, that this was merely bad luck. He seldom had the strength to hoist himself to the slit more than twice a day, usually after the meager warmth and sustenance of a meal.
A typical meal was a lukewarm soup with a little meat in it and two ounces of something spongy that might have been bread. It was served to him regularly through a narrow, hinged flap in the door, so regularly that his stomach had become attuned to it. He could tell if it was even thirty seconds late, and it never was. The food was served in a flat metal pan. Sometimes, when the pan was slid through the door, he would be kneeling there, waiting by the slit. He never managed to see the hand that fed him, however. Sometimes he would shout through the slit as his meal was pushed in—requests for small comforts, for a word, for a sight of his captors.
Once he refused to eat the food. He couldn’t remember what his crime was or why he should be in prison. He was convinced they had done something to his mind to make him forget. He thought they might be using drugs in his food, slowly poisoning him, so for six days (he counted them with fecal smears on the wall) he starved. And remembered nothing.
After that he searched his scalp through his long matted hair for a surgical scar. He found nothing, but this didn’t shake his conviction that somehow they had interfered with his mind: why had they taken his memory? Had they done it thinking it to be a kindness? Or had they done it in the hope that, not remembering, he would come to accept his guilt? He would never do that. He was sure that things like guilt and innocence transcended memory. They were qualities of mind, and wherever mind was, memory or not, they would be there. And innocence was there in his case, he was sure of it. He did not believe he had committed any crime. He could not believe he should be punished. “Give me a trial,” he cried through the dinner slit. “Tell me what I am accused of.” But his captors, whoever they were, gave no sign of having heard him.
He began to take food again. When he finished, he would fling the pan into a corner. The following day, when he awoke, the pan was always gone and a new pail (or perhaps it was merely the old one emptied and cleaned) had been placed there for his droppings. He assumed that, when he slept, one of his captors entered the cell to perform these duties. For three nights he tried to stay awake but succumbed eventually to the absolute womb darkness and the comforting warmth. Always the pan was removed, the pail changed.
The next night he succeeded, standing in a corner and scoring his arms against the stone wall to achieve additional discomfort, in staying awake until dawn came. He was certain that nobody had entered the cell, but once again saw that the pan had been removed and the pail changed.
By this time he had become obsessed with the pan and the pail and decided he would make it impossible for either to be removed without his knowledge. He ripped a sleeve from his shirt and, lacing it through the pail’s handle, used it to secure the pail around his neck. The stench itself was enough to keep him awake that night. The pan formed an uncomfortable pillow for his head. In the morning both the pail and the pan were untouched. His captors, spying on him, had obviously noted his precautions and had refrained from entering the cell. The prisoner let out a cry of triumph. He had achieved communication of a sort; he had at least done something to influence the actions of his captors. He set the utensils down in a corner and went back to his pallet exhilarated. That morning, however, when he came to use the pail he found it clean and empty. He looked for the dinner pan but it had disappeared. He thought about this for a long time but was unable to find an explanation of the phenomenon.
* * * *
Chemitect was a campuslike layout of small island structures surrounding a massive central hive. Anne dropped him at the entrance of the main building. On the raised piazza fronting the entrance, water dribbled over a chunk of shiny basalt in a concrete bowl. Beyond this, over the entrance itself, “Chemitect” was picked out in low relief. The whole hive was faced with a specially treated sandstone, like some Nubian desert fortress.
“What goes on in there anyway?” asked Anne.
Carpenter paused with his hand on the Volkswagen’s door. “It’s a research foundation,” he said. “There are a lot of college kids about, too. I think its function is partly educational.”
“But what do they do?”
“I asked Horden that and he said, ‘Anything and everything.’ He speaks like that. He’s actually got a plaque with ‘THINK!’ on the wall of his office. It’s probably a joke though.”
“What does it mean, ‘Anything and everything’?”
Carpenter shrugged. “It doesn’t bother me as long as they know what they’re doing.”
“Do they though,” said Anne and Carpenter threw a playful punch at her and closed the Volkswagen’s door. Anne watched him until he had entered the building.
Horden’s office was windowless, snug in the core of the building, along a mirror-sleek, waxed corridor that made Carpenter feel as though he were walking on ice. He knocked on the door once and went in. Inside it was cool and the air conditioner blew out an artificial scent of pine. Horden was checking typed
columns of figures. He looked up from his papers and nodded Carpenter to a seat. Carpenter sat looking at the plaque which said “THINK!” and finally decided he didn’t understand it. On the opposite wall there was a print of an “impossible object,” a spiral staircase that ate its own tail and spiraled downward (or upward) forever. It was rather easier to understand.
Horden shuffled his papers together and shifted his weight in his chair.
“Carpenter, isn’t it? How does it feel to be one of the team?”
“It’s okay. It’s a job and jobs are hard enough to get. I’d feel a bit better if I knew what I was doing though.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Watching a shiny steel box isn’t exactly taxing work, mentally or physically. I could feel a bit more interested if I knew the point of the exercise. What’s in the box? What’s it for?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“You can’t?”
“I mean I don’t know myself. My job is to hire administrative personnel for this establishment. I’m an administrator myself, not a scientist.” Horden leaned back in his chair and fixed his gaze on the “THINK!” plaque. When he spoke his tone was almost nostalgic. “Once I was curious about Chemitect’s role in society too. When I first came here. I knew its business was research, the kind of research that only makes the headlines in the technical press, but I thought it would be interesting to know a little more. A general view is always more rewarding than a narrow one, and like everybody else, I thought it would be nice, too, to be able to point to some gadget or scientific achievement and say, I played a small part in that. So I went on a grand tour of the various departments. I asked what the processes involved were and what the end results were supposed to be. Most of the scientific staff were pleased for an opportunity to explain their work, and when they weren’t available the students always proved equally willing. They told me everything, explicitly, in the minutest detail. And do you know what?”
“What?”
“I didn’t understand a word of it. Not a fact, not a theory, not a concept, not an idea. I never thought I was an exceptionally intelligent man, just normal, but to have kids of nineteen and twenty run mental rings round you is a frightening experience. I could arrange it for you if you feel you’d fare any better than I did. Do you want a grand tour?”
“No, I’m not looking for godlike knowledge. All I want to know is one very simple thing: what’s in that box?”
Horden smiled and sighed. “And I must tell you again that I can’t help you.” He swiveled in his chair and switched his gaze from the “THINK!” plaque to the impossible object. His eyes seemed to follow the staircase in its eternal descent/ascent. Carpenter left the office.
Levinson was reading a newspaper. He was a small man with black nervous eyes that seemed to be perpetually flinching away from something nobody else could see. They flinched as they wandered across the newspaper columns and they flinched as they looked up to greet Carpenter.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Carpenter said. “I went to see Horden.”
Levinson looked at his watch and dropped his newspaper to the floor. “I hadn’t noticed,” he said. “What did you see Horden about?”
“I wanted to know what we’re all supposed to be watching the Box for. Don’t you ever get curious?”
“I never think about it.” Levinson stood up, stretching himself.
“How long have you been here?”
“Three-four months. It’s only temporary, though. My uncle’s got a delicatessen out east. He’s going to die soon and leave it to me. Then I’ll pack up and take my family the hell out of here.”
“What’s wrong with your uncle?”
“Bad heart. He’s just going to fold up someday.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, he’s been like it for years. I’m over that now. He’s going to die soon though. Real soon.”
He left and Carpenter settled himself awkwardly in the chair. He picked up Levinson’s newspaper and began leafing through it. He glossed through articles on how the population growth curve was leveling out at last and on how the unemployment curve continued to skyrocket. There was an article on suicide as well but he didn’t bother to read that.
After ten minutes he put the newspaper aside. His back was stiff from the chair and he stood and walked over to the Box. He put a hand on its side. It was pleasantly cool and he thought he detected a slight vibration. He put his ear to the Box but could hear nothing.
* * * *
The fungus was a green patch about the size of a hand. It appeared one morning on the wall above the prisoner’s pallet. The prisoner moved his pallet into the opposite corner of the cell and a cockroach fell from the bedding, scuttling about on the dusty floor of the cell, as trapped as he was. He watched it with interest. He formed barriers in its path, diverting it, making it trek from location to location in the cell. He shook his bedding and succeeded in dislodging a second insect. He picked a cotton thread out of his shirt and tied one end around the thorax of each of the cockroaches. The cockroaches circled about each other, weaving the cotton into complex knots, occasionally indulging in a comic, scrabbling tug-of-war that would leave them quiescent for a while, as if dazed.
The day passed quicker than usual. That night he allowed the insects to return to the safety of the bedding. He slept fitfully. It seemed colder than usual and he dreamt that cockroaches swarmed on his body. He wanted to run, to shake them off, but he was tied down and wore the insect bodies like a suit until it seemed to him that he himself had become an insect.
He awoke at dawn, sweating. When he shook his bedding seven chitinous bodies fell to the floor like dry leaves. He killed them all in a fit of disgust but regretted it almost immediately.
It was distinctly colder in the cell. The drop in temperature prickled his skin and made him shiver. He ate the warm soup greedily when it was served and hoisted himself up to the window slit. There seemed to be a change in the quality of the light outside. It was hazier, grey, the sky itself seemed colder. It was winter’s initial foray into a long, timeless autumn.
Days passed and the cell became a beachhead for the cold’s attack on his body. Everything he touched seemed dead and inert. Warmth drained quickly from the soup when it was served, and it was cold and unnourishing before he finished it. Only very rarely now could he muster the strength to pull himself up to the window slit, and when he did, the sight was never encouraging, merely the usual empty expanse of cold sky.
He begged through the dinner slit for extra clothing or a small stove to heat the cell, but there was never any response. The cold affected his feet worst of all. When he awoke in the morning, there was no sensation in them, and the skin always seemed pasty and colorless. He forced himself to walk to restore some feeling in them, dragging them across the icy stone floor until they bled.
Occasionally he heard the sound of rain blustering outside the cell. He would have liked to see it, to feel the water on his skin, but he had to save his strength for the endless automatic hobble from cell wall to cell wall.
Day followed day and he began to hope that during the night his frozen body would finally sink through the surface of sleep to death. He always awoke, however. There was always another day.
The fungus continued to spread. Now its mottled pattern covered one wall and half the ceiling.
* * * *
Winter came suddenly, early, with a severe uncharacteristic blizzard that left the city snowbound for a day. The heating in his apartment was inadequate and Carpenter began to long for the controlled warmth of Chemitect. Anne called him to say she would come over. She lived on the other side of the city and he told her not to bother, traveling was impossible. But she said she had to see him. It was important.
She arrived two hours later with snow melting into beads of moisture on her hair. Carpenter kissed her. “You’re cold,” he said, touching her cheek. “You shouldn’t have come. What was so important?”
He
helped her off with her coat and she opened her handbag and took out a newspaper clipping headed “The Loneliest Man in the World.” She gave it to him. “This.”
“Where did this come from?”
“I was clearing out some old newspapers and it caught my eye. It’s about six months old. Read it.”
He read: “Today Richard Crofton Keller enters an eight-foot square cell at the Chemitect Research Foundation to become the loneliest man in the world. Keller, a thirty-four-year-old, unmarried ex-bartender, will spend eighteen months in voluntary solitary confinement in an attempt to discover the effects of prolonged periods of isolation. Dr. Thomas S. Maynard, in charge of the project, explained: ‘Keller will be fed, nourished and cared for by completely automatic systems built into the cell and during the term of his confinement he will have no contact whatsoever with the outside world. Experiments of this nature have been carried out in the past, but we believe this will be the first time in which the subject will be isolated in any absolute sense. Keller won’t even possess what is popularly termed a “chicken switch.” He will have no means to curtail the experiment should he feel it is going badly. We are using body sensors and other devices to record his behavior and condition, but will have no means of monitoring these while the experiment is in progress. This may seem inhumane but we feel the step is psychologically necessary if the experiment is to have any validity at all. Because this is the first time anything like this has been attempted we’re naturally reluctant to discuss the possible results of the experiment. It is, however, basically intended to provide information of use in the treatment of a wide range of schizophrenic and other mental disorders stemming from isolation and alienation in society.’“
Orbit 8 - [Anthology] Page 18