VARIETY WITHIN UNITY.
That was one of the most-displayed government slogans, one that school pupils heard from kindergarten on. The trouble was that the government had been getting from the beginning of the New Era more variety than it wanted. And the varieties had not always been desirable—from the state’s viewpoint. As Padre Cob Cabtab had once said, “The outlaw slogan is: ORNERINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. He who kicks against the pricks hurts the bureaucrats. Let him who denies this fall into a latrine.”
Duncan went out by himself to shop for clothes at the nearest store. He came back with twelve outfits, folded them, and placed them on a shelf in his personal closet. They occupied a space six inches square and a half-inch high. Afterward, he ate lunch with Snick and Cabtab at the nearest dining hall, a room large enough to hold two thousand people. It was almost full, not because the food was so excellent but because the locals liked to gather here for socializing. Duncan, looking around, spotted at least ten men and women who he believed were organics. Though they were dressed like civilians, they had the slightly withdrawn, contemptuous, and weary expression of the policeperson. Bad actors, he thought. He and Snick lacked that attitude that soaked upward from the organic soul and oozed from their flesh.
It was not true that once a cop, always a cop. Or was he just fooling himself? No. After all, though some of his former personae had been establishment-loyal, others had been antiestablishment. In his present and, he hoped, last incarnation, he certainly was against the government.
At one o’clock, he went to the office of the super block leader, Francisco Tupper Min. After cooling his heels for an hour, his neck getting hotter with every minute of delay, he was admitted into the presence of the august personage. The squat, enormously overmuscled, and shaven-headed Min rose from behind his desk and greeted Duncan with an apology. He held out his huge hand, and it took Duncan a few seconds to realize that he wanted to shake hands.
Min laughed—his voice was very high-pitched—and said, “Our customs in L.A. are different, Citizen Duncan. We pride ourselves on being progressive, pioneers, always in the forefront of the new. But we have gone back to some ancient customs. Why worry nowadays about spreading disease by handshaking when there are none to spread? This bowing and holding your hands prayerwise is too formal. Shake hands, touch, feel human warmth!”
Duncan took the hand and felt a powerful pressure. It intimated that Min could have crushed Duncan’s bones if Min had wanted to. But Min was too good a politician to humiliate any voter.
Not that, as Min pointed out, Duncan was one just now. He had to wait six submonths and pass an elector’s examination before he could send in his vote through a computer.
“I always have a tight schedule, but I keep to it,” Min said. “Sit down. Have a drink. No? Well, you’re an understanding man. You perceive how busy I am and don’t want to waste my time…and yours, too. I thank you for that consideration. As I was saying, in normal times I’d have plenty of time to get acquainted with you, and I plan to do so after all these pressing issues are disposed of. I like to know all about my blockers, not just from the files, but from eye-to-eye meeting. I want them to be more than just data on a screen.”
Bullshit, Duncan thought. There’s no way you could know two hundred thousand people intimately.
“Anyway, as I was saying, this flood of immigrants, the present election for block leaders, and there’s the big experiment coming up. The particular items of the experiment will be voted on two days from now, subdays, that is. It’s—”
“Big experiment?” Duncan said.
Min stared at him as if he could not believe his ignorance.
“You mean you haven’t heard about it?”
Duncan shook his head.
“It’s been on all the channels, night and day.”
“I haven’t even looked at the news,” Duncan said. “There was something on the dining hall screens, but the noise was so bad I couldn’t hear it. Anyway, I just got here.”
“It’s been on all of Tuesday’s channels for some time now,” Min said. “In fact, this is such an important experiment, if it’s voted in, that is, that I don’t doubt it’s been transvised to all the other days.”
“What?”
“The world and national governments have long been concerned by the many complaints about oversurveillance of people. A lot of people all over the world have organized protest groups. And the government, as you well know, is very sensitive to civil rights.”
Min, Duncan noticed, did not even smile when he said that.
“On the other hand, Citizen Beewolf, the government has to keep as its first rule, its upmost and everpresent, the greater good of the people. It doesn’t believe that a relaxation of surveillance will benefit its citizens.”
Taped speech number 10A, Duncan thought.
“However, since there has been so much objection, even though the government regards it as ill-founded if not basically trivial, the government has decided to make a test and find out what will happen if surveillance is lessened to a certain extent. This is to be an experiment, so it won’t be conducted worldwide. Only a few cities will be chosen for the experiment. Los Angeles is one of these.”
“Any reason why L.A. was picked?”
Min smiled widely and gestured violently. “Because we’re one of the most progressive cities in the world, of course!”
Duncan wondered if that was correct. It seemed to him that the government should pick out the less liberal metropolises for its experiment.
“However,” Min said, “it’s not determined that this test will be run. Today’s election day, and if the majority of the voters are against it, the experiment won’t be run.”
“Ah!” Duncan said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just an exclamation.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t know about it.”
“Why would I?” Duncan said. “I come from New Jersey. I doubt that any city there is big enough to be in the experiment.”
“That wouldn’t matter. The news has been on every Tuesday area. You should have seen it on the train screens, if no place else.”
“I didn’t.”
Min had quit smiling. Eyes narrowed, he thrust his ballshaped head forward on his massive neck.
“You’re not one of those who ignore the TV, are you? Every citizen should keep himself well informed.”
“I was busy looking at the countryside,” Duncan said. “This is the first time I’ve ever been out of New Jersey. In fact, anywhere more than ten miles from New Ark.”
If Min wanted to check that, he could consult the data from Duncan’s ID card. He probably had done so before Duncan came into the office.
“Welcome to the big world, Beewolf. May I call you Andrew? Last names are so formal. I like to think I’m the buddy of every person in my block. A sort of father, too.”
“Andy is fine.”
“Since you don’t seem to know about the election, I suggest, Andy, that you bone up on it. You can’t vote for block leader yet, but you are entitled to vote on the surveillance issue.”
“I’ll do that, of course,” Duncan said. “Meanwhile, I have to get a lot of things done before I go to my job tomorrow.”
“Yes, do that.” Min put out his hand. “Good luck to you, Andy, and may you be happy here. You have any problems, my screen is always open.”
15
The Snorter was a half-mile walk from the apartments of Duncan (Beewolf), Cabtab (Ward), and Snick (Chandler), though none of the three lived less than a quarter-mile from each other. They met in the courseway, thirty feet wide and thirty feet high, near the entrance of the tavern. It was eight in the evening, and the election results had been displayed on the news screens. Seven million, three hundred thousand, one hundred and eleven had been in favor of decreasing surveillance. Approximately three million had voted against the measure. Three million, two hundred thousand and one had neglected to vote. Apparently, the el
ection had pleased everybody in the neighborhood; all seemed drunk with joy. Now they were on the way to the tavern to get really drunk.
The three moved through the wide doorways into an immense room divided into four compartments by walls reaching halfway to the ceiling. In the center of each was a huge four-leaf-clover-shaped bar encircled by a dance floor, and outer rings of tables and booths. Here and there were huge pots holding the beautiful pimalia, a synthetic tree. The walls were filled with screens displaying the news and various shows. Though their sound could not be heard above the uproar, no one cared.
“They’re mad with the foretaste of freedom,” Snick said. “A freedom they didn’t even know they didn’t have until some radicals pointed it out to them.”
They were threading through the mob toward a table against the wall.
Cabtab apparently did not hear her. Duncan was close enough to catch the words. He said, “You talk like a gank.”
“No. I’m just being rational. Does that make me gankish?”
They sat down, Cabtab saying, “This looks like the last table open.”
Duncan looked at a wall screen. “Twenty minutes to go.”
The padre leaned forward so his lips could be close to their ears.
“You think she’ll show? This is a hell of a place to talk subversive. You have to shout to make yourself heard.”
“It’s the best place,” Duncan said. “Who the hell can overhear us?”
A sweating and tired-looking waitress appeared after ten minutes. “Sorry, folks,” she said. “Tonight’s bedlam and chaos.”
Snick ordered a limewater; Cabtab, a beer; Duncan, a bourbon. The waitress disappeared into the yell and the swirl. When she showed up twelve minutes later, spurting out of the crowd like a grapefruit seed, she looked even more harassed. Just as she reached them, she was shoved against the table, and her tray fell. The drinks splashed onto Snick and Cabtab. The waitress, snarling, picked up the tray, turned, and banged the man behind her over the head with the tray. Protesting that he was innocent, the man punched the waitress in the belly. Cabtab, bellowing, shot from his chair and hurled himself against the man. A woman, shrieking, fell over the waitress, who was on all fours and in agony trying to get her wind back.
Duncan was not able to follow clearly the train of events after that. The entire tavern seemed to explode into fist fights, face-clawing, screaming, and war cries or shrieks for help. He, like any sensible person, of whom there seemed to be few there, got down on his hands and knees and crawled to the wall. He reached out and pulled the table, which was now on its edge, toward him as a shield. He expected that Snick would join him. But, looking around the side of the table, he was amazed to see her chopping a man in the back of the neck with the edge of her palm. Then she went down under a woman who had jumped on her back. A man staggered backward and slumped against the table, jamming Duncan against the wall for a moment. By the time he had shoved table and body out from him and looked again, he could find neither of his companions. Somewhere in the hue and din, though, the padre was thundering threats of mayhem.
What would Henry V do in a situation like this? Duncan thought. He would sally forth and get a black eye, a bloody nose, a broken jaw, a concussion of the skull, and possibly a wrenched back and injured kidneys.
What would Falstaff do? He would stay behind the table and rationalize his cowardice, which he would call discretion.
Duncan compromised by leaving the shield of the table but crawled close to the wall, the exit his goal. If Snick and Cabtab had any sense, they would get out, too. The organics would very soon be swarming into the place with their cattle prods and stun mist. They would arrest everybody and then, to separate the sheep from the goats, would administer truth mist to the suspects. Though the ganks were required by law to confine their questions to the particulars of the situation in which the suspects had been arrested, they did not always do so. Anyway, when Snick and Cabtab were asked to identify themselves after breathing the mist, they would give their true names. These would be checked inside a few seconds against the organic data bank, and their name would not be mud. It would be stone.
Their stories would also expose Duncan.
“Damned fools!” he muttered. He stopped because a falling woman’s head had slammed into his ribs. Grunting with pain, he scrambled on as fast as he could.
“No, you don’t!” a man yelled at him and kicked at him. Duncan shot forward, grabbed the man’s ankle, and yanked. The man went down but was stopped halfway by impact against two struggling men. Duncan let go of the ankle and squeezed the man’s testicles. The man’s knee came up hard against Duncan’s jaw. For a few seconds, Duncan did not know who he was or where he was. But he recovered enough then to start crawling again. He could hear whistles shrilling faintly. The ganks were coming.
He rose, shoved an entwined and bellowing male couple away and plunged, head down, through the fray. Bleeding, panting, he fell out through the door, got up, and ran across the courseway into a store. The screen over the door advertised it as Ibrahim Izimoff’s Candy and Legal Drugs. He and the proprietor or clerk were the only ones in the place. The tall pudgy middle-aged man, pale-skinned, sporting bushy purple-dyed sideburns, said, “What in hell is going on over there?”
“A stupid brawl,” Duncan said. “Is there a back exit?”
“Sure. Several. Just a minute. I’ll close up the place and go with you.”
Another Falstaffian, Duncan thought. He did not want to be anywhere near the place when the ganks started arresting. He could be pulled in as a witness.
“You Izimoff?” Duncan said.
“Yes. You Beewolf?”
“For God’s sake!” Duncan said. “You the one supposed to meet us?”
“Not exactly. I was going to get your orders to you. Come on!”
“My colleagues are still in there,” Duncan said. “If they get arrested…”
He went to the door and looked both ways down the courseway. Here came the men and women in green, running, blowing their whistles. But there were only five. Many more would soon appear.
Just before the first one, slowing down, reached the entrance, Cabtab, pulling Snick along with one hand, charged out of the doorway. His leviathan body slammed into a gank and knocked her down. The second to arrive, a big man, was floored by a huge fist. Cabtab, roaring like a lion, plunged across the courseway. Snick, now trailing along by her arm, her toes scraping against the floor, was dragged like a bundle of grain. The third gank to get there, a tall well-built woman, tried to spray stun mist in Cabtab’s face. He quit bellowing because he was holding his breath. His fist shot out again, tore the can loose from the gank’s grip, and with it still clenched, hit the point of her chin.
Others spilled out of the tavern and formed an unplanned barrier between the padre and the two remaining officers. But from right and left down the courseway a horde of green uniforms was running toward them.
Izimoff had by now turned out all the store lights. Duncan held the door open until Cabtab and Snick were inside. He shut it but could not, since it was a nongovernment store, lock it.
“For God’s sake, let’s get out of here!” Izimoff said, and he ran toward the back. There was enough light from the courseway for Duncan to see Cabtab’s and Snick’s puffed lips, swollen eyes, and bloodied scratches.
“Another fine mess you’ve gotten us into,” Duncan said.
“Hell with that! It was fun!” the padre said.
“I’m sorry now,” Snick said, panting, “but I worked off a lot of my anger. I would’ve preferred to do it on the ganks, though.”
They hurried out through the store behind Izimoff’s, causing some stares from the few customers and clerks, and into 10AB3 Courseway, also known as Welcomewagon Avenue. Some of the wall screens between the stores were already displaying the riot, the newspeople having arrived close on the heels of the peace officers.
Izimoff, puffing, sweating as if he were in a sauna, led them quickly down
the courseway for a hundred feet. He turned into another store, went to the one behind that, and came out on a courseway that was part business, part residential. After they had gone a hundred yards, he stopped before a filigreed and rainbow-colored door that matched his frilly rainbow-slashed garb. He inserted his ID card into a slot, and the door swung inward. When he stepped inside, the lights went on.
As he led them down a hallway, he said, “First, we get rid of your bungs and bruises.”
That was quickly done with medicine from the communal cabinet in the bathroom. In twenty minutes, the sorry faces were half-healed.
“Modern medical science,” Izimoff said as he took them to the living room. He sighed. “Would that we could cure all social ills with stuff from a bottle.” He stopped and waved his hand. “Sit down. Make yourself comfortable. I’d offer you a drink, but I doubt you need any more.”
“We may stink like booze,” Snick said sharply, “but we never had a chance to get even a single sip.”
“Well, I don’t stock any liquor,” Izimoff said with a hint of smugness. “And I’m not about to break into the personal closets of the other days. Anyway, I don’t think you should stay here long. I hadn’t planned to bring you here. I was just going to venture into that den of iniquity long enough to pass on the data I’d been ordered to give you. And I have to get back to my store. I’m not supposed to close it until ten. I may be fined if the ganks notice it’s shut. I can plead I was worried about the brawl, didn’t want the drunks coming into my place and smashing things up. Also—”