Dick Longg: Sexual Saviour of the Universe (10 page)

‘Well it still sounds like a high risk strategy’, said Dick.

‘I’d be lying to you if I told you it wasn’t’, said
Taylor
adding, ‘But desperate times require desperate measures’.

Dick voiced his doubts. ‘But surely you must have given this same sort of fake identity to the other guy you mentioned. The one that was probably exposed by the Party and killed?’

Ignoring this remark
Taylor
just repeated what he’d said earlier, ‘You’re the best choice’ and from the briefcase, handed Dick a bulky folder crammed with every single detail of his invented life. Dick flicked through it anxiously. As an actor in his particular field, Dick didn’t usually have many lines to remember but now he found himself having to memorise a whole back story. He left the room and returned to his temporary quarters to study his file and learn more about the oppressed world of 2150. As the door closed
Alice
spoke to
Taylor
.

‘Will he succeed?’, she asked gravely.

‘He has to’,
Taylor
replied, even more gravely. ‘For all his faults he’s the best chance we have. And given the time scales, he’s the only chance we have’.

‘But he knows about the previous attempt’,
Alice
commented.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Taylor
nodded. ‘Whatever happened, happened’. He put both his hands on
Alice
’s shoulders and looked intently at her. ‘But we need to play that down since we don’t want to dishearten him. This time the Oracle says she is completely certain’.

Taylor
moved his hands down from
Alice
’s shoulders to her chest and began opening her blouse. A few minutes later he was enjoying energetic sex with her on the table, not the sort of behaviour you’d expect from a serious-looking leader of the Resistance given the fact that he had just started co-ordinating their biggest, most important and critical mission. But he was only human, after all.

CHAPTER 8

Now, if ‘Uprising!’ was a movie (and I’m looking to sell the rights if any agent, producer, director or studio exec is reading this), at this point you’d see a montage showing Dick studying his comprehensive fake history and undergoing his induction. You’d see him in a classroom environment being tutored by Taylor and Alice, frowning at handwritten notes that covered an entire blackboard, You’d see him cramming late into the night, the strain of the mission and the pressure to succeed showing on his face. You’d see his frustration at having to learn such a huge amount of information in such a short period of time, coupled with his fears of being trapped in the future - all to an upbeat rock soundtrack. The whole sequence would be like Rocky’s training regime albeit not as dramatic. After all, studying and writing on six by four index cards is nowhere as exciting nor strenuous as running energetically up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

So, you’ll have to take it from me that Dick studied and trained as well as he could, given his extremely low boredom threshold and his butterfly mind. Still, what he lacked in concentration he made up with determination and a photographic memory. Seated opposite Taylor and Alice in a small, stark room, Dick was being bombarded with quick-fire question after question after question. This had been going on for several days.
Taylor
would become angry and bang the table when Dick was slow at responding or got an answer wrong.
Alice
however, although just as serious, was more forgiving. Dick felt he was being cross-examined rather than tested, and looked at his inquisitors not so much as good cop and bad cop, as bad cop and good lay. He wasn’t sure what it was about
Alice
that aroused him. It could have been her distinctive perfume, her full breasts or her pert buttocks. Or the fact that he hadn’t had sex with anyone for two days (well, 142 years and two days) and at this point he’d have screwed anything with a shadow.

‘Well?’,
Taylor
asked with a tone of annoyance.

‘Sorry?’ asked Dick, tearing his gaze away from
Alice
’s chest.

‘Where do you live?’

‘Pinner.
North west
London
. Abode 16876,
Elm
Grove
Tower
’.

‘And what were your parents’ names?’
Taylor
continued.

‘Thomas and Victoria’.

‘Where do they live?’

‘They don’t’, Dick explained. ‘They died in a tragic hovercar crash eleven years ago’.

The questioning went on and on and on. Then it went on and on a bit more. Like it did every single day. At the end of what Dick thought must have been the twenty fifth session
Taylor
at last gave a sigh of relief and smiled at
Alice
, then at Dick.

‘Full marks again Dick. I think we can say you’re now ready to begin your new life’.

With that he reached into the table drawer and pulled out an intricate brass mechanical device that resembled the sort of thing Dick imagined would insert a biometric chip under your skin. That or do something unimaginatively painful to your genitals. Fortunately Dick discovered it was the former. He offered his palm to
Taylor
and moments later was the recipient of both a small implant and a sore hand.

‘Right’, said
Taylor
triumphantly. ‘Say goodbye to Dick Longg, pornographic film star and say hello to Jeremy Brunel, a potential new Assistant Communications Under Manager at the Ministry of Information’.

Alice
saw lines forming on Dick’s forehead so she jumped in before the frown was fully formed. ‘It’s the media monitoring and propaganda-generating machine of the Party’, she explained. ‘Its eyes, ears and mouth’. She told Dick that the Ministry of Information was responsible for devising publicity campaigns to inform and persuade; its main purpose was to influence the public.

‘Control them, you mean’, added
Taylor
. ‘We thought your previous marketing and publicity experience in the film industry would make you ideal for the job’.

Dick thought about it and had to agree. Two of his early jobs in the studio publicity department had been persuading people to see the absolute stinkers ‘King Ralph’ and ‘Hudson Hawk’. If he could manage this he was sure he could convince the public that pre-marital sex was evil. One thing Dick wasn’t sure about however, was his new name. He didn’t see himself as a Jeremy. He placed the name in the same category as Tarquin, Gerald or Adolf but Taylor told him it was too late to change it. The falsified records had been completed and fully integrated into all Party databases. The resistance member who arranged Dick’s new identity had engineered not just Dick’s entire back story, but also the job vacancy. It had been arranged that Dick’s resume and experience made him the most suitable candidate by a long way. In theory he was a shoo-in for the job. All he had to do was remember every single thing he’d been taught and not crack under the pressure of the forthcoming job interview.
Taylor
had told him that this would be far, far more strenuous and severe than any of the mock interviews he’d undergone so far.

- - o O o - -

This interview had been arranged for a Friday morning. Dick was taken there by Susan who, so they wouldn’t be observed together, dropped him off six blocks from his final destination. Only then was he permitted to remove his sunglasses and the blindfold they concealed. He breathed in deeply, gulping the clean air in lungfuls. This was the first time he’d been out of the resistance headquarters since his arrival and Dick savoured this refreshing antidote to the
L.A.
smog he was so familiar with. The streets were filled with hurrying commuters like him, too busy and pre-occupied to notice anything about Dick’s appearance that might make him stand out. Of course, there shouldn’t have been anything that gave this impression as Dick had been groomed and styled in the fashion of the time, which meant a severe suit and even more severe haircut. In fact he cut quite a dash as he followed the crowds to his potential employer.

Although he’d been given a street map it wasn’t difficult to find the Ministry of Information. Even a few blocks away it towered over the surrounding buildings, seemingly sucking workers towards its entrance like some monstrous vacuum cleaner. Turning the last corner Dick faced this thirty-storey monolith of a building. Craning his head, he surveyed its grey, faceless exterior. There was nothing about it that said this was a vitally important cog in the Party machine. If you didn’t realise its purpose, Dick thought, the innocuous building could have easily been the Ministry of Ball Bearings or The Ministry of Blotting Paper. But then Dick remembered that its stark, anonymous features were indicative of Party policy. The building’s appearance said ‘hard work’, ‘respect for authority’ and ‘mindless dedication and commitment’. It also said, ‘Abandon any hope of slacking, all ye who enter here’. Gulping again, a combination of nervousness and a desire to appreciate the air once more, Dick entered the double-height entrance lobby and crossed the foreboding cold marbled foyer like, he felt, a dead man walking.

Dick presented himself and explained the purpose of his visit to a very stern and very flat-chested receptionist. After checking and crosschecking a long list of names and appointments then making a verifying phone call to someone deep within the building, she directed him to the security desk. Here Dick held his palm over a scanner that flashed green. One of the security guards gave him the look that all security guards give; the look that says ‘I’m bored with this unbelievably dull job and am only doing it because I’m not clever enough for the police’. After being issued with his visitor’s badge Dick was directed to one of the gated elevators situated beyond reception. He pushed one of the ornately engraved ivory buttons and as the doors closed he was sure he heard a disembodied mechanical-sounding voice say, ‘We know who you are’. Or was it ‘We will kill you’? He hoped it had actually said ‘twenty fifth floor’ but the elevator had reached its destination before his paranoia became too acute.

Exiting on to a deserted corridor he followed the signs to section G. Here he was met by an even more flat-chested woman and directed to sub section G.3. Arriving here Dick was met by a woman so flat-chested that she might as well have been a man or an ironing board in a wig. She/he/it showed him to Interview Room 54.2 that was empty except for two chairs either side of a desk. Dick straddled one of the chairs, his arms resting on the back. He leant forward and curled his lip, then decided that this pose was a bit too confrontational, or just plain stupid, for an interview. He was just changing positions when in walked a large, formidable woman in her late-forties carrying a large, formidable file. Without shaking Dick’s hand or displaying any other form of greeting or courtesy, the stony-faced woman placed her file on the table and sat down opposite him. She introduced herself as Miss Vera Darling, the department head and therefore Dick’s potential boss.

Her assessment was less of an interview and more of an interrogation. Flicking through the file she bombarded him with question after question after question, not just about his background and previous jobs but also on his views on party ideology and sex. In fact, he found himself answering more questions on sex than he ever had in his entire life, and that included the time he found himself testifying before a Senate Sub Committee on Sodomy. Vera also probed him about his upbringing and his family, prying deep, Dick assumed, to find out if there were any subversive skeletons hiding in his cupboard.