Science Fiction Originals Vol 3 Part 29

"Your mother named you Slackwell?"

"My first name is Arnold. Call me Arnie," he said.

"I'm Melody," she said.

"Your voice is like a melody," said Slackwell, surprising even himself.

"Is that the bourbon talking?" she asked.

"If the bourbon talked, I probably wouldn't have turned you on," he said.

"Do you like being a salesman?"

"It's a job, a routine. The other day I was thinking of it as a trap. I don't know what real freedom is."

"I know about traps," she said.

"Tell me," said Slackwell, pouring another drink.

"When I sleep, when you turn me off, I dream. In my dreams, I have my body again. I never realized how beautiful I was when I was whole. I breathe in the air and it's cool and electric with life. I see trees and the clouds in the sky, the faces of people I loved, and they are all wonderfully complex and mysterious. I take my children to the ocean and we swim in the waves. We eat lemon meringue pie on a blanket on the sand and the ocean breeze blows around us, the sun beats down. But always, I reach some limit, like running into an invisible wall and I begin to disintegrate. My atoms begin to disperse, and I try to hold myself together but I can't. The hands that clutch at my disappearing head vanish themselves and eventually the world goes dark.

The darkness is claustrophobic and so exquisitely boring."

"Kids?" asked Slackwell.

She told him about her children-two girls. It was just her and her girls. Her husband had left them. They were better off, because he had lost his job and eventually became so depressed by his own uselessness, he took to drinking. Then came the anger. She raised her girls as best she could, working in a waitress job she hated. She had gone to school for anthropology and gotten a degree. Her dream had been to travel to exotic lands and meet those near-extinct groups of people who still tried to live in nature. One night, at closing time, the restaurant she worked at was robbed. The gunmen shot all of the employees. She was still alive when they found her and rushed her to the hospital.

"Luckily," she said, "I had signed the papers only six months earlier to sell my brain to Thinktank in case anything happened. I figured it was a long shot, but if something happened, I wanted to leave my daughters something. Insurance was too expensive."

Slackwell shook his head. "How can you stand it?" he asked.

"How can you?" she asked.

"Touche," he whispered and finished off his gla.s.s.

They made a pact never to speak again of those things in the past that brought sorrow or of the crystal globes that bounded each of their lives. Instead, they just made small talk about places, and people, and events like friendly neighbors meeting on the street, like old friends. This discussion carried on for hours, punctuated with laughter and the sound of bourbon pouring, the click of the cigarette lighter. Some time just before the sun showed itself red from between the tall buildings of Lindrethool, Slackwell and Melody said goodnight. He promised to see her tomorrow before turning her off. Then he lurched over to his bed and literally fell into a dreamless sleep.

4.

When the alarm clock went off at seven, he pulled the plug out of the wall and fell immediately back to sleep.

Waking a little after noon, he got out of bed like a somnambulist and began going through his usual routine. It was in the shower that he finally came fully awake. He was amazed at how minor his hangover was; a slightly dry mouth, a vague headache, but no nausea or dizziness. His back no longer hurt that badly and his foot, though it was swollen and the color of an overripe banana, was capable of bearing his full weight. All at once, the memory of his having opened the case came to him, and he smiled. "Melody," he said.

He dressed only in his pants and a t-shirt. Instead of bourbon for breakfast, he called down to room service and had them send up a pot of coffee and two cups. While he waited for his order to arrive, he plugged the 256-B into the wall and recharged its batteries.

After the coffee had arrived, he unplugged the unit and turned on the battery setting. There was something disturbing for him about her being connected to the wall socket. It interfered with his desire to see her asmore than an appliance. As the ambient liquid of the globe began to glow, he put the pot and two cups on the table next to it. He lit a cigarette, closed his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts and then pushed the consciousness b.u.t.ton at the base of the Thinktank.

"Hey, you'll sleep the day away," he said.

"Arnie?" asked the voice.

"Who else?" he said. "I ordered coffee."

"Strong or light?" she asked.

"How do you like it?"

"Strong," she said.

"You're in luck," he told her.

"And what is the weather like today?"

He looked out the window at the sun trying to shine through a soot squall. "Perfect," he said. "Warm with blue skies and a light breeze out of the southwest."

"It's late, shouldn't you be out selling?" she asked.

"Not to worry," he said. "I'm on top of it."

He drank his coffee and eased back in the chair. The conversation of the previous night resumed with him telling her about a dog he had when he was a child, and then it just continued on, rolling out across the afternoon like some epic Chinese scroll.

Late in the day, she told him of her love for music, and he turned on the radio. They listened to each selection and commented on it, spoke of the memories that it elicited. Slackwell couldn't think of the last time he had bothered to so much as hum a tune. She sighed with delight at the sound of instruments and voices weaving a song. "Before I was married," she told him, "I loved to dance." He got up and turned the k.n.o.b to a station that played old-time jazz. Before long a beauty of a number came on, Lester Young doing Polka Dots and Moonbeams. He lifted the 256-B off the table and they moved around the room to the smooth sound of the tenor sax. She whispered in his ear that he was a wonderful dancer.

That night, he packed the unit in its case and they went out to dinner. Slackwell never noticed the quizzical stares of the other diners as he sat eating with a crystal encased brain on his table. He ordered her the lobster tail she had been dying for and described in explicit detail each mouthful. He was well into a second bottle of wine, his voice now very loud, when the restaurant manager, a short, bald man in a tuxedo, came over and asked him to leave.

"Sir, you are disturbing the other customers, and this bizarre... curio," he said, pointing to the unit, "is ruining their appet.i.tes."

Slackwell stood up, poked the manager in the chest with his index finger and yelled, "Too d.a.m.n bad. My date and I aren't bothering anyone." There was real door-to-door menace in his voice, and the little man backed away. It was Melody who was finally able to calm him down and convince him it was time to go back to the hotel. She even prevailed upon him to leave a tip, saying, "It's not the waiter's fault." He carried her under his right arm as they walked along the streets of Lindrethool, the empty case swinging to and fro in his left hand. They laughed about the incident with the manager, and then Slackwell described for her the brilliance of the stars, the full moon, the aurora borealis.

The next morning there was a knock on the hotel room door at nine o'clock sharp. Slackwell got out of bed and quickly pulled on his pants and t-shirt.

"Who is it?" he called.

"Sir," came the reply, "I have something here to show you that could very well change your entire life. A new invention that will revolutionize the way you run your household."

"Hold on," said Slackwell, realizing it was Merk.

He opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.

Merk stood there impeccably dressed in his Thinktank uniform, case in hand, derby c.o.c.ked slightly to the left. "Where have you been?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" said Slackwell.

"They called me from the office this morning and said that the info they are getting from your implant indicates that you weren't out pounding the pavement yesterday. They tried to call you but they said you aren't answering your calls. When you weren't at the diner this morning again, I thought I better check up on you."

"My back," said Slackwell. "It was bad yesterday. I couldn't get up."

"You look all right now," said Merk.

Slackwell immediately hunched slightly and breathed in through clenched teeth. "The truth is it's about all I can do to stand here. I'll get out this afternoon."

"You sure you're okay?"

"Yeah."

Merk stared into his eyes. "You haven't been talking to that floater have you?" he asked. "You know it's against the rules," said Slackwell.

"Listen, Slack, get back out there today. If they don't see some action from your implant reading, they'll send one of their goons out to check up on you, if you know what I mean. Those boys play rough."

"No problem."

"This city is better than I first thought," said Merk. "Yesterday, a guy in a penthouse apartment over on Grettle Street gave me the whole payment for a 256-B, in cash. I'm packing over forty thousand dollars." His face lit up with a smile as he patted his overcoat pocket. "The section boss is gonna c.r.a.p 'em when he sees that."

"Amazing," said Slackwell, mustering as much enthusiasm as he could.

"Well, remember what I told you about the office and good luck today. Float easy," said Merk as he turned and walked down the hallway lined with doors.

Slackwell breathed a sigh as he straightened to his full height. He let himself back in the room and locked the door behind him. Then he removed his clothes and got back in bed next to Melody.

"What was that about?" she asked.

"Nothing, baby," he said.

"I need a smoke," she said.

He reached over, took a cigarette from the pack on the stand next to the bed and lit up. Blowing a smoke ring, he put one hand lightly around her globe and said, "You certainly have a way with words."

5.

Two days later, at an outdoor cafe on Lindrethool's waterfront, Slackwell watched the huge barges of coal steam in from off the high seas and described their filthy majesty to her. He had still not returned to work, but as a vague concession to the job had dressed that morning in his uniform.

"When did they go back to using coal?" asked Melody.

"About five years ago," he told her, tipping back his derby. "It's a fact that the world's resources are almost completely tapped out, and burning it pollutes the h.e.l.l out of everything. You know, it's expedient. Big business finally said, screw it, let's just squeeze every black dollar we can out of the moment. No body thinks about the future anymore," said Slackwell.

"I do," said Melody.

He sipped at his drink.

"I'm thinking about how I'll miss you once I'm sold and I'm running some schlub's refrigerator and heater, turning his lights on and off, and scouring the internet for free p.o.r.n sites. Think of the drivel I'll have to listen to, day in and day out until the components of my unit simply wear out from use. What's the guarantee on me, seventy years?" she said.

"I've considered it," said Slackwell.

She began crying.

"That's why I've decided I'm not selling you. We're going to split this dump and find a new life," he said.

"Arnie," she said, "you can't do that. The company will stop you."

"The company," he said. "They'll have to catch me first."

She tried to speak, but he silenced her by saying, "Shhh, let's go back to the hotel and get our stuff."

He had forgotten to charge her batteries that morning, so they decided it was better he turn her off until they could. The instruction manual had warned that it could be detrimental to the unit to run them completely dry. As much as he hated to pack her away in the case, he needed some time to think through the logistics of how they would make their escape. Money was tight, but he had enough to buy two train tickets that would get them a good distance away from the city. He walked on a little further before he realized he would only really need one ticket. Slackwell considered the danger of what he was planning, but for once he could see a crack in the globe that contained him. Envisioning himself smashing through the boundary, he said aloud, "You can't live without love."

A block away from the hotel, he pa.s.sed an alleyway and heard a voice call to him. He stopped, looked down the shadowed corridor and saw Merk standing, partially hidden by a dumpster.

"Slack, come here," he said, waving him into the darkness.

Slackwell looked cautiously around him and then slowly went to his colleague.

"They're up in your room, waiting for you," said Merk. He appeared nervous and his eyes kept shifting suspiciously.

"Who?" asked Slackwell.

"The section boss and a Thintank security officer big as an ape."

"Bulls.h.i.t," he said and his body tensed with anger.

"Listen, Slack, just listen to me. You've got to hand the unit over to them now. If you don't want to see them, give it to me and I'll take it up." "I'm not giving it up," said Slackwell.

"If you run with the unit, and they catch you, which they will, you're bound to have an accident, if you know what I mean. They'll say they pursued you to get back their merchandise, you put up a struggle, and then they had to off you out of self-defense. Don't forget about the clause in the contract, Slack. They get your sponge if anything happens to you while you work for the company."

Slackwell leaned over and put the case on the pavement. He rose calmly and said, "You're not taking the d.a.m.n unit, Merk." His arm came up quickly then and his hand circled his colleague's throat. The pressure applied by the grip of the hand that had carried that case through two dozen cities for nine hours a day, six days a week, was intense. "I know how close you are to them, invited to all the sponge harvest parties, the first one to get the good merchandise. Now tell me, where's the implant." He pushed Merk back up against the dumpster and brought his other hand up to join the first.

Merk's face grew red, then blue, and eventually he lifted his right hand and with his index finger pointed to his left eyebrow.

Slackwell loosened his grip and his colleague gasped for breath.

"The eyebrow?"

"Behind the eyebrow," Merk wheezed out, doubling over to catch his breath. "The hair of the eyebrow acts as an organic antenna for it. Shave it off and it will confuse the signal."

"Are you sure?" asked Slackwell.

"I saw them pull one out of Johnny's head the other night. I've been around enough to know this stuff."