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On the way home, while Xavier was in heated
discussion with some of the droids, Prunella caught up with Noel and thanked
him for his diplomacy.
"It does us no good if Xavier gets into a scrap. I know its hard for
him, but he just has to put up with their rudeness sometimes."
Xavier was again training strenuously the next day. Prunella showed Noel
more of the Quarter in the company of some other droids. As they were passing
down a side road Noel heard an odd beeping sound. He was suddenly shoved
to one side and then dragged under one of the ubiquitous steel arches. It
was only just in time for Noel to see bricks, girders, and masonry crash
into the middle of the street. A siren wailed.
"Sorry about the shoving," said Prunella. "I forgot you weren't
used to the brickfalls."
It had all happened so fast, that Noel could not work out what he had seen
that was somehow nagging him. He helped Prunella and other droids as they
joined passers by in investigating the rubble for any injured or trapped
people. Luckily not much had fallen, and the inhabitants' long-conditioned
reactions had meant that no one had been caught by the fall. They sat down
for coffee and kass and Noel realised what it was that was bothering him.
As the warning had come the droids and people alike had run for the cover
of the archways. But droids were programmed always to think of themselves
last...
Noel felt the old tension rise in him again.
The next night was the night before the Games, and the whole Quarter seemed
to buzz with excitement; Noel, Xavier and Prunella went out to celebrate.
They went to a dance hall in the centre of the Quarter. It was crowded with
people, some local, some from far away, drawn by the Games and the betting.
There were a scattering of droids. Large sums of money were already changing
hands, and some of the principal contenders in the Games, like Xavier, were
being shown off to the punters.
The Games had a curious history. They had began as an off-shoot of the conventional
games, held as purely sporting occasions. In the early years of the Continent,
when droids held slave status, they were not allowed to compete. Break-away
illegal games sprang up as people realised that competing with droids gave
an extra edge to the sports. With the New Constitution droids were officially
allowed to compete, but sponsors were unwilling to take them on, and instead,
the alternative Games grew in numbers and attendances. In the last two hundred
years, as the Continent had isolated itself and began its slide into division
and barbarity, the traditional games faded away. The alternative games,
now mainly held in parts of the Cities like the Poets Quarter, became more
violent. What had started as traditional races and unarmed combat sports
became gradually more deadly. Many games now continued to the point of serious
injury and sometimes even death. Medical science had reached the stage where
surgery on severely injured people had the same kind of success rate as
repairs on androids. This may have contributed to the degree of risk that
competitors were willing to take, but some saw it simply as a sign of an
increasing barbarity. However only in the last fifty years or so had droids
and humans entered the arenas in full combat against each other. It was
strangely enough a good match of abilities: androids generally had greater
strength and stamina than humans, but tended to be a bit slower and more
clumsy.
Xavier was smiling and joking as the evening went on. He was dressed in
a white outfit and wore the standard Games body-belt complete with heavy
studs. It was an important occasion as underworld bosses and wealthy punters
mingled and sized up some of the contestants. In one part of the hall an
informal game was being placed with arrows and a board. Xavier declined
to play. He whispered to Noel:
"Only amateurs and beginners play on this night. They hope to attract
a sponsor by showing their skill with the arrows. The old pros just mingle
and try and get the sense of the opposition. The punters likewise are looking
for tips and clues about form. However a good player knows just the right
air of confidence to assume. He musn't give away any of his training secrets
though. Sometimes you can tell just by the way someone is walking how they
have been training. The most important thing is to look at people's eyes;
sometimes a man or droid will give away that they think too highly of themselves.
Sometimes they show a quiet confidence. Those are the dangerous ones."
A tough looking man accompanied by two surly-looking droids came up to Xavier
at that moment.
"We want to talk with you," said one of the droids. Noel looked
at him curiously. His inflection was flat and his eyes looked drugged.
"Sure," said Xavier. "There's a quiet bar over there."
As they moved off Prunella made a slight signal with her eyebrows at two
droid friends of Xavier's. Unhurriedly they drifted off after Xavier.
"No-one is safe on a night like this," said Prunella to Noel.
"There is big money around and various vested interests to be catered
for. The man with Xavier is a well-known underworld figure. He is a killer,
but luckily absolutely without principle. That makes him unlikely to support
the A.D. League. Those are the really dangerous guys, the fanatics. They
haven't moved against Xavier yet, but they are always watching. Brrr. they
are watching me too." She looked sad for a moment.
"Noel," she whispered, taking his arm, "Buy me a drink."
Noel looked at her in surprise, but let her guide him over to a crowded
bar. She asked for a some strong mixture, and he had the same.
"You are so different to Xavier," she said as they sat down in
a corner. "Tell me, what did you do mainly?"
"I worked with children a lot," said Noel. "Teaching for
a long time and then baby-sitting, and then as things became harder for
droids, more manual things like washing and sweeping streets. The last twenty
years I have been doing factory-work. I really miss the kids though."
"I thought droids were supposed to like assembly line stuff,"
said Prunella.
"Yes, we are programmed that way."
Noel picked up a nut from a bowl in front of him and placed it a few inches
along the table. He did the same with another nut, exaggerating the mechanical
nature of the act, then with a third and a fourth.
"Oh wow," he said shaking his head and rolling his eyes. "This
is really great. I feel so fulfilled." He spoke with a thick early-model
accent. Prunella burst out laughing.
"You idiot," she said. They sat there grinning for a while. Then
she leaned over and whispered to him:
"Have you ever danced with a woman?"
Noel had not. The clubs and dance-halls outside the Poets Quarter were supposed
to allow droids in, but in practice an effective bar existed on the mingling
of droids and humans in social settings. The droids had their own clubs
but they were few and far between, and poorly organised. He shook his head.
"Come on then," she urged, and led him over to the dance floor.
The hall was very crowded by now and a lot of drinking was going on. Muscular
young men looked on from the archways around the hall ready to break up
fights and throw out offenders. Noel and Prunella, arm in arm, passed a
couple of these men but they didn't bat an eyelid. The atmosphere in the
club was thick with the smoke of various natural and synthetic mixtures,
and on the walls at the rear of the dance floor there were huge luminous
projections that changed shape and colour with the music. To one side was
a small raised stage with a number of near-naked women dancing with automata:
these were made of shining pieces of articulated metal deliberately avoiding
the human form, but allowing for quite fantastic choreography. The automata
moved stiffly but accurately with the music, while the women seemed to flow
around them.
Noel was clumsy at first on the dance-floor. Slowly however the music and
the atmosphere of the night took him over, and he lost his nervousness and
awkwardness. Prunella led him on. She was by this time a little drunk, or
so it seemed to Noel. The dance floor became more and more crowded, and
the music was dark and heavy, an electronic barrage of sound with a relentless
mechanical beat. Xavier joined them with another woman and a group of droids
from the same tenement. Noel began to really enjoy the dancing; Prunella
had a certain rhythm to her movements and after a while Noel understood
them and could move with her. He found himself making up little movements
to complement hers, and she responded in turn. The music seemed to drive
both in unison and each new piece would inspire a new mood and rhythm in
them. After a while Noel and Xavier swapped partners and Noel continued
dancing with the new girl, whose name he did not know. Somehow he could
not find the rhythm with her.
From time to time Noel would catch a glimpse of Prunella and Xavier dancing
together. Xavier moved with a dignified grace, towering above Prunella despite
her unusual height. He made no movement in excess, but captured the essential
rhythm of the music and added his own dimension to it; one of purposefulness
and strength. His movements also would leave no casual onlooker in doubt:
Prunella was his woman.
That night, as Noel drifted into sleep on a rough mattress in the room he
shared with several other droids, he thought of Prunella and the things
she said. He felt protective towards her, and an odd sort of glow existed
in his mind when he thought about her. She had been telling him how the
deep-rooted view of people as 'human' and androids as machines had blocked
so many people's minds to the simple phenomenon in front of them: that on
a day-to-day basis there existed no difference. People could be thought
of as machines, and droids as humans. Perhaps there was something in it,
he thought to himself. The deep-rooted prejudices and opinions of the world
he had found himself in had prevented him from recognizing that he was a
person. A person constructed from a different flesh, a flesh that was asexual,
incapable of propagation. Only of longevity; possibly immortality. What
did Prunella really think of him? Feel for him?
As Noel lay there, his thoughts turned again to his dreams; odd glimpses
of the dreams he had awoken with that morning returned to him. One of these
days he would turn some mysterious corner in his sleep and finally know
what was haunting him. He felt the old dread and fear return with this thought,
and with a conscious summoning of courage he allowed himself to drift off
into sleep.
The following day, in another part of the Capital, Zebulun woke next to
his wife, almost screaming in frustration at her soft warm body next to
his. For a brief period after Dan Amalek's visit Zebulun had chosen to satisfy
his wife, but he quickly returned to discipline of the unemotional charade
he had created years ago, that left him with the outward semblance of a
normal marriage, but inwardly free to further his ambitions. He got up,
told her that he would have breakfast at work, dressed rapidly, shaved carefully
around his pencil moustache and left their flat. As he closed the door,
wearing just the right expression for the entryvid, he thought for some
reason of all the new fittings that Althea had insisted on in their new
flat: the complete range of techno-gadgets that they had owned before, but
with the latest styling, a kind of soft vertical gradation that coordinated
the features around the home. Pah! The finest creative minds of the Continent
were wasted on the endless re-styling of a stagnant and totally predictable
technology. At least he had not given in about his car: the NuPower series
11 was perfectly adequate, and however normal it might be to trade it up
at this point, he was not going to pander this slavishly, and in his own
view, uselessly, to fashion. Zebulun's features, once cold and set, had
become a little twisted, the left eye noticeably more open than the right,
which had sunk behind the folds of his cheek and forehead. The long waiting
that had been his life, the pretence at mediocrity which hid his service
to the Brotherhood and the development of the serum, was changing, and he
felt the temptation to burst out of his self-imposed shackles. His walk
to work calmed him, but when he saw that his list of patients that day included
several NuSense addicts, he felt the boiling up again of his near-at-hand
ascent to power, and the lust he felt for it shook him. Realising that he
was in a dangerous state, he concentrated his mind on an old chant, which
he repeated silently to himself, and decided to test his will-power and
the determination to conceal his identity, by examining an NS addict first.
Zebulun noted with perverse satisfaction the puny physique of the adolescent,
his unhealthy pallor, and the obvious giveaway: the staring eyes and look
of apathy. He examined the notes, which indicated an illegal trip to the
local Quarter, and a period of nearly a week on NuSense machines. He had
squandered a small fortune of his parents' money, and they were lucky to
have got an agency to search for him and retrieve him in time. Zebulun was
going to help this lad as an exercise in control, but hidden from view was
the desire to kill him slowly and agonizingly.
City clinics had a range of licensed NS machines that were programmed to
bring the participant to a progressively more physical interaction with
their environment, weaning them from the artificial worlds created through
synthetic sensory perceptions. The fantasies in the Health System machines
were designed to stimulate their interest in the outside world, and would
lead after a period to wrestling and sporting activities which helped them
relate to other youngsters. Good, good, thought Zebulun, a nice well-adjusted
client at the end of it, a nice fat fee, but by God where could he find
a man with any discipline? This thought hardened his features as he entered
his own discipline of being the perfect opposite of his own nature: he would
simulate that hated condition, that of a man of sympathy.
He returned to their new home that night, with a growing unease as Althea
hated him leaving so unceremoniously in the mornings, and would be in a
bad temper. To his surprise she was not. Althea had a new dress on, smiled
at him, and told him that she was cooking his favourite supper. Zebulun
was at first too relieved to care about the transformation, and began to
relax, watching the C-vid, and his thoughts turned to his transfer to the
Capital. The Brotherhood must soon let him know why he was there, and what
new tasks he was to carry out, now his work with the serum was over. He
let himself be absorbed gradually in the show that he was watching, then
went for a bath. On his return to the living room found that Althea had
gone through one of her bewilderingly rapid changes of mood that even after
all these years was prone to catch him off guard. She blocked his way, her
hands on her hips and stared at him coldly.
"You didn't notice then?"
"Oh, your hair - its very nice," he spluttered, inwardly berating
himself up for slipping up over such a simple thing.
"It was done a week ago."
"Look," he said weakly, "It's been hard at work, did you
know that I have at least a couple of NS addicts a day now?"
"How could I if you never talk to me?" she snapped.
As she became more angry, Zebulun felt more in control, and played out the
spineless hen-pecked husband, the role he had chosen years ago, a mask that
rarely slipped. She went through the usual things, adding to them her new
complaint that the move to the Capital did not seem like any kind of promotion
to her. He responded limply. He waited for the storm to pass, but with a
new determination that this game would be over before long, and he would
be free.
"Anyway, I have taken a lover."
Zebulun started. His mind raced, in one way this was excellent news, as
she would make less demands on him, but surely he would have to punish her,
and what would be appropriate?
"A lover? Are you crazy?" He played for time.
Althea tossed her head, and he could see that as well as a new dress, she
had taken far more care over her appearance than usual. He decided to play
at the angry husband.
"How could you? We have only been in the Capital a few weeks, and you
have found some man to go with behind my back? While I have to work so much
harder?"
He gave her a push, but forgetting his own strength, she was propelled backwards
and fell over a chair. For years Zebulun had practiced a kind of calisthenics
wherever he could be unobserved, and his apparently clumsy frame was in
fact very powerful. Althea scrambled to her feet and lunged at him, her
features twisted in rage, striking him a blow to the face that drew blood.
Alarmed that the situation was getting out of control, Zebulun gripped her
arms and forced her onto the sofa, where she spat into his face.
"You and your precious work," she hissed. "You are meant
to care for these people, but you don't have an ounce of caring in you.
You've never shown any feeling towards me, I don't think that you have any,
you bastard." She was screaming now.
Zebulun held her hard but after a while, as she relaxed in his grip, he
released her. Suddenly her mood changed again and she looked up at him with
wet and frightened eyes and said quietly:
"Why did so many of your derelicts die?"
Now it was his turn to feel a sharp pang of fear.
"What do you mean? Who told you that?"
"At the party. One of your Health System colleagues got drunk and started
joking that vagrants and drunks kept clear of your district because of your
reputation."
"Absolute rubbish. Are you going to believe anything that one of my
drunken colleagues says? When you know how jealous they were of my practice?
Here you are, telling me that you are cheating on me, and now you bring
up some ludicrous allegation just because we are having a fight."
Zebulun felt that the danger was passing as he turned their row back to
the original subject. Eventually he apologised for hitting her, saying that
if she wanted a lover he would not stop her, and she should just not tell
him anything about it. She scowled and gave him a quick flash with her eyes,
that could have been out of vindictiveness or triumph, but Zebulun missed
it. He was sorely tempted to take this opportunity to make arrangements
to sleep in separate bedrooms, but the moment passed, and some kind of equilibrium
was established. She seemed to relax again and there was no point in creating
more trouble.
In the night he lay awake, dwelling on the lost derelicts. She was right,
an accusation had been made against him a long time ago, before he had found
a way to alter the statistics, but he had no idea that the rumour was still
circulating. Thank God he did not have to supply the 'material' any more:
they had entered the Last Phase, and the supply of miserable wretches he
used to experiment on with his serum was no longer needed by the Brotherhood.
He had dealt with the matter for the time being, but he knew that she would
find another opportunity to use it against him, and worse still, she could
talk to the Health System people she was getting to know here. Very silently
there slipped into this mind the idea that he should take her life.
A few weeks later Dan Amalek turned up in his office, saying that he had
a present for the lovely wife. Inside his car, Dan showed Zebulun a huge
cuddly toy, talking in his loud and jovial way, but secretly guiding Zebulun's
hand to the fastening, inside of which there was a package with a hard plastic
wrapping that made Zebulun's blood run cold. He flashed Dan a query with
his eyes, and was met with an imperceptible nod.
"It's made from a new fibre, you'll find the washing instructions in
here, and a card for Althea."
Dan gave Zebulun an envelope, indicating with a casual movement of his forefinger
across his throat, as though he had a slight itch, the fact that it contained
a Brotherhood communication.
"Wish her the happiest of birthdays."
Zebulun nodded, and thanked Dan in as normal a voice as he could muster.
They parted with the usual handshake, and Zebulun took the ridiculous looking
toy to his car. It stayed in the boot for a few days until he could return
home on one of Althea's evenings out, which were becoming more frequent.
He brought it into the empty flat, made supper, took to bed early with the
animal beside him in Althea's place, and turned the lights off. Carefully,
with hands almost trembling, he withdrew the package from inside the toy,
and unwrapped it - his personal issue zeesuit. There could be no too great
a precaution to take with it: he was sure that the surveillance on him was
at a low or standard rating because of the years of precautions that he
had taken, but he held in his hands what every person on the Continent had
dreamed of for centuries: the means to fly. He slipped into
the suit, lying face down with the tiny power unit on his back, and under
the covers stretched out so that his hands were taut against the controls.
He gently rose a few inches into the air. He had the first unit outside
of the Brotherhood's secret headquarters on the whole Continent, and what
was more he was expected to use it on a mission in only a few days. He smiled
to himself for the first time in years, and felt the glorious dawning of
his power.
Carefully he lowered himself to the bed, slipped out of the suit, folded
it into his pillow case, and went to his study in the dark, where he placed
it in his hidden safe.
The next day he had another NuSense addict to see for the first time.
Note: client older than the usual addict; a designer.
"Roger Badcock?" enquired Zebulun, pronouncing it Badcow.
"Badcock, actually," replied his client, pronouncing it as spelt.
He did not smile or look up.
"Right. Now, I'm Dr Zebulun March, and between the two of us we are
going to work out your therapy programme."
Roger just looked at the wall. He was in his early thirties and had long
dark hair and a straggly beard, all of which showed signs of physical and
dietary neglect.
Note: avoids eye contact.
Zebulun's patience was practiced and professional.
"Perhaps I can check with you some of the details here..."
"You know they are all correct," interrupted the young man.
"Most astute of you," said Zebulun, allowing a small smile. After
a pause: "It doesn't tell me what kind of product ranges you were designer
on though."
"Yeah, yeah."
Roger looked wearily at Zebulun for the first time.
"NuPower series 13."
Zebulun raised an eyebrow: this was a top assignment.
"I would have thought that just about one of the most exciting jobs
on the Continent right now."
Roger looked at him again, this time with a sardonic air that brought some
life to his face.
"You've summed it up buster."
Note: negative attitude with a undercurrent of aggression.
Roger looked away, grimaced faintly, and slumped a little more into his
chair.
Zebulun became more business-like.
"So, one of the top jobs in the country, but you got bored and disillusioned
and took to NS. Thousands of young designers would give their right hands,
no I guess their left hands, ha ha, for your job, and you throw it down
the pan with an illegal machine."
Zebulun glanced at the ElectroClip in his hand, dragged his thumb over the
word NuSense and read aloud from a new pane of text that appeared:
"Client stole NS unit from Health System depot, in a well-planned raid,
and was able to re-programme it with some highly illegal ScenarioPacks from
(as yet) unknown sources."
Zebulun glanced at Roger, who stared at his fingernails.
"You are highly skilled, highly paid, have cunning, daring, and - presumably
- a wide circle of contacts to help you evade Security for so long, so why
NS? Why throw your life away like that?"
"It was a cry for help, obviously."
Roger delivered this with a cynical sneer, but to the Health System analyst
there was a little crack opening up: underneath the evenly-delivered phrases
lurked a slight tremor in the voice.
Note: enter client for standard regression therapy.
Zebulun was too experienced to probe it now, he contented himself with:
"You know the kind of withdrawal programme that we er, offer, here.
With your cooperation we can work out the best pathway for you, and get
you back to normal life as soon as possible."
"You mean that if I play ball, I'll get out quicker. What you don't
realise is that I don't care a damn, also you don't realise that I am not
an addict in the first place."
Zebulun pressed on the phrase usage patterns on his clipboard, and
read again:
"Client locked himself into attic for weeks on end, neglected the house
and garden, rarely went out for food. Eventually forced to local clinic
because of illness traceable to infected data sleeve."
"You would bring that up. What's the difference if I get the clap from
a tart or a data sleeve? Why does that make me a menace to society? Haven't
you ever wanted to do it without worrying about getting involved with someone
and messing up their lives?"
Note: client's negative assumptions include area of relationships.
Roger was getting angry now, and Zebulun despaired of bringing back the
conversation to the programme they were supposed to agree on.
"Look, we can deal with all of this later. All I want to establish
in this first interview is that you will accept the programme. You know
what the alternative is."
"I don't accept your programme at all. I'm going to go through it because
I don't want to go to prison. There, does that make you happy?"
Zebulun sighed, almost imperceptibly.
"It does actually. We're here to help you, even if you don't see it
that way at the moment. A man of your talents and ability shouldn't be locked
up alongside ADL thugs and other riff-raff."
Roger glanced up briefly, giving Zebulun a cool stare.
"Any droid could do my job."
"Don't be ridiculous!"
Note: client has a severe sense of inadequacy.
After a pause Roger said:
"Incidentally, is that a model P9 ElectroClip?"
"Yes, er, I think so, why do you ask?"
"I thought I recognised it. I did some of the design work on that years
ago, not the styling, but the information design; you know, the way all
the text panes appear and disappear and all that. They had a strange quirk.
Press 'Hold' and draw a diagonal from top left to bottom right."
"Pardon?"
"Press the 'Hold' button, and draw a diagonal line from top left to
bottom right."
Zebulun frowned and carried out the instruction, peering at the ElectroClip.
"The whole thing goes into an infinite loop, trying to decide on whether
you wanted to draw a straight line or an arc of very large radius. Not many
people know that."
"Humph. Very impressive. Now how do you stop it?" said Zebulun,
repeatedly stabbing the 'Cancel' button.
"I just told you. It goes into an infinite loop. Infinite as in..."
"For ever," Zebulun snapped.
"That's it."
Note: nobody makes a fool of Zebulun March..
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