Paycheck (2003) (34 page)

‘You mean because I didn’t get
voted
in?’ Max said. ‘Just because of that?’

‘Yes sir. Briskin is asking the Federal Courts to rule on this, and meanwhile he has announced his own candidacy.’

‘WHAT?’

‘Briskin claims not only that you must run for office and be voted in, but you must run against him. And with his popularity he evidently feels—’

‘Aw nuts,’ Max said in despair. ‘How do you like that.’

No one answered.

‘Well anyhow,’ Max said, ‘it’s all decided; you military fellas go ahead and knock out those alien ships. And meanwhile—’ He decided there and then. ‘We’ll put economic pressure on Jim-Jam’s sponsors, that Reinlander Beer and Calbest Electronics, to get him not to run.’

The men at the long table nodded. Papers rattled as briefcases were put away; the meeting - temporarily - was at an end.

He’s got an unfair advantage
, Max said to himself.
How can I run when it’s not equal, him a famous TV personality and me not? That’s not right; I can’t allow that
.

Jim-Jam can run
, he decided,
but it won’t do him any good
. He’s not going to beat me because he’s not going to be alive that long.

A week before the election, Telscan, the interplanetary public-opinion sampling agency, published its latest findings. Reading them, Maximilian Fischer felt more gloomy than ever.

‘Look at this,’ he said to his cousin Leon Lait, the lawyer whom he had recently made Attorney General. He tossed the report to him.

His own showing of course was negligible. In the election, Briskin would easily, and most definitely, win.

‘Why is that?’ Lait asked. Like Max, he was a large, paunchy man who for years now had held a stand-by job; he was not used to physical activity of any sort and his new position was proving difficult for him. However, out of family loyalty to Max, he remained. ‘Is that because he’s got all those TV stations?’ he asked, sipping from his can of beer.

Max said cuttingly, ‘Naw, it’s because his navel glows in the dark. Of course it’s because of his TV stations, you jerk - he’s got them pounding away night and day, creatin’ an
image
.’ He paused, moodily. ‘He’s a clown. It’s that red wig; it’s fine for a newscaster, but not for a President.’ Too morose to speak, he lapsed into silence.

And worse was to follow.

At nine
P
.
M
. that night, Jim-Jam Briskin began a seventy-two-hour marathon TV program over all his stations, a great final drive to bring his popularity over the top and ensure his victory.

In his special bedroom at the White House, Max Fischer sat with a tray of food before him, in bed, gloomily facing the TV set.

That Briskin, he thought furiously for the millionth time. ‘Look,’ he said to his cousin; the Attorney General sat in the easy chair across from him. ‘There’s the nerd now.’ He pointed to the TV screen.

Leon Lait, munching on his cheeseburger, said, ‘It’s abominable.’

‘You know where he’s broadcasting from? Way out in deep space, out past Pluto. At their farthest-out transmitter, which your FBI guys will never in a million years manage to get to.’

‘They will,’ Leon assured him. ‘I told them they have to get him - the President, my cousin, personally says so.’

‘But they won’t get him for a while,’ Max said. ‘Leon, you’re just too damn slow. I’ll tell you something. I got a ship of the line out there, the
Dwight D
.
Eisenhower
. It’s all ready to lay an egg on them, you know, a big bang, just as soon as I pass on the word.’

‘Right, Max.’

‘And I hate to,’ Max said.

*

The telecast had begun to pick up momentum already. Here came the Spotlights, and sauntering out onto the stage pretty Peggy Jones, wearing a glittery bare-shoulder gown, her hair radiant.
Now we get a top-flight striptease
, Max realized,
by a real fine-looking girl
. Even he sat up and took notice. Well, maybe not a true striptease, but certainly the opposition, Briskin and his staff, had sex working for them, here. Across the room his cousin the Attorney General had stopped munching his cheeseburger; the noise came to a halt, then picked up slowly once more.

On the screen, Peggy sang:

It’s Jim-Jam, for whom I am,
America’s best-loved guy.
It’s Jim-Jam, the best one that am,
The candidate for you and I
.

‘Oh God,’ Max groaned. And yet, the way she delivered it, with every part of her slim, long body … it was okay. ‘I guess I got to inform the
Dwight D. Eisenhower
to go ahead,’ he said, watching.

‘If you say so, Max,’ Leon said. ‘I assure you, I’ll rule that you acted legally; don’t worry none about that.’

‘Gimme the red phone,’ Max said. ‘That’s the armored connection that only the Commander-in-Chief uses for top-secret instructions. Not bad, huh?’ He accepted the phone from the Attorney General. ‘I’m calling General Tompkins and he’ll relay the order to the ship. Too bad, Briskin,’ he added, with one last look at the screen. ‘But it’s your own fault; you didn’t have to do what you did, opposing me and all.’

The girl in the silvery dress had gone now, and Jim-Jam Briskin had appeared in her place. Momentarily, Max waited.

‘Hi, beloved comrades,’ Briskin said, raising his hands for silence; the canned applause - Max knew that no audience existed in that remote spot - lowered, then rose again. Briskin grinned amiably, waiting for it to die.

‘It’s a fake,’ Max grunted. ‘Fake audience. They’re smart, him and his staff. His rating’s already way up.’

‘Right, Max,’ the Attorney General agreed. ‘I noticed that.’

‘Comrades,’ Jim Briskin was saying soberly on the TV screen, ‘as you may know, originally President Maximilian Fischer and I got along very well.’

His hand on the red phone, Max thought to himself that what Jim-Jam said was true.

‘Where we broke,’ Briskin continued, ‘was over the issue of force - of the use of naked, raw power. To Max Fischer, the office of President is merely a machine, an instrument, which he can use as an extension of his own desires, to fulfill his own needs. I honestly believe that in many respects his aims are good; he is trying to carry out Unicephalon’s fine policies. But as to the means. That’s a different matter.’

Max said, ‘Listen to him, Leon.’ And he thought,
No matter what he says I’m going to keep on; nobody is going to stand in my way
,
because it’s my duty; it’s the job of the office
,
and if you got to be President like I am you’d do it, too
.

‘Even the President,’ Briskin was saying, ‘must obey the law; he doesn’t stand outside it, however powerful he is.’ He was silent for a moment and then he said slowly, ‘I know that at this moment the FBI, under direct orders from Max Fischer’s appointee, Leon Lait, is attempting to close down these stations, to still my voice. Here again Max Fischer is making use of power, of the police agency, for his own ends, making it an extension—’

Max picked up the red phone. At once a voice said from it, ‘Yes, Mr President. This is General Tompkins’ C of C.’

‘What’s that?’ Max said.

‘Chief of Communications, Army 600-1000, sir. Aboard the
Dwight D
.
Eisenhower
, accepting relay through the transmitter at the Pluto Station.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Max said, nodding. ‘Listen, you fellas stand by, you understand? Be ready to receive instructions.’ He put his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. ‘Leon,’ he said to his cousin, who had now finished his cheeseburger and was starting on a strawberry shake. ‘How can I do it? I mean, Briskin is telling the truth.’

Leon said, ‘Give Tompkins the word.’ He belched, then tapped himself on the chest with the side of his fist. ‘Pardon me.’

On the screen Jim Briskin said, ‘I think very possibly I’m risking my life to speak to you, because this we must face: we have a President who would not mind employing murder to obtain his objectives. This is the political tactic of a tyranny, and that’s what we’re seeing, a tyranny coming into existence in our society, replacing the rational, disinterested rule of the homeostatic problem-solving Unicephalon 40-D which was designed, built and put into operation by some of the finest minds we have ever seen, minds dedicated to the preservation of all that’s worthy in our tradition. And the transformation from this to a one-man tyranny is melancholy, to say the least.’

Quietly, Max said, ‘Now I can’t go ahead.’

‘Why not?’ Leon said.

‘Didn’t you hear him? He’s talking about
me
. I’m the tyrant he has reference to. Keerist.’ Max hung up the red phone. ‘I waited too long.

‘It’s hard for me to say it,’ Max said, ‘but - well, hell, it would prove he’s right.’
I know he’s right anyhow
, Max thought.
But do
they
know it? Does the public know it? I can’t let them find out about me
, he realized.
They should look up to their President, respect him. Honor him. No wonder I show up so bad in the Telscan poll. No wonder Jim Briskin decided to run against me the moment he heard I was in office. They really do know about me; they sense it, sense that Jim-Jam is speaking the truth. I’m just not Presidential caliber
.

I’m not fit
, he thought,
to hold this office
.

‘Listen, Leon,’ he said, ‘I’m going to give it to that Briskin anyhow and then step down. It’ll be my last official act.’ Once more he picked up the red phone. ‘I’m going to order them to wipe out Briskin and then someone else can be President. Anyone the people want. Even Pat Noble or you; I don’t care.’ He jiggled the phone. ‘Hey, C of C,’ he said loudly. ‘Come on, answer.’ To his cousin he said, ‘Leave me some of that shake; it’s actually half mine.’

‘Sure, Max,’ Leon said loyally.

‘Isn’t no one there?’ Max said into the phone. He waited. The phone remained dead. ‘Something’s gone wrong,’ he said to Leon. ‘Communications have busted down. It must be those aliens again.’

And then he saw the TV screen. It was blank.

‘What’s happening?’ Max said. ‘What are they doing to me?
Who’s
doing it?’ He looked around, frightened. ‘I don’t get it.’

Leon stoically drank the milkshake, shrugging to show that he had no answer. But his beefy face had paled.

‘It’s too late,’ Max said. ‘For some reason it’s just too late.’ Slowly, he hung up the phone. ‘I’ve got enemies, Leon, more powerful than you or me. And I don’t even know who they are.’ He sat in silence, before the dark, soundless TV screen. Waiting.

The speaker of the TV set said abruptly, ‘Psuedo-autonomic news bulletin. Stand by, please.’ Then again there was silence.

Jim Briskin, glancing at Ed Fineberg and Peggy, waited.

‘Comrade citizens of the United States,’ the flat, unmodulated voice from the TV speaker said, all at once. ‘The interregnum is over, the situation has returned to normal.’ As it spoke, words appeared on the monitor screen, a ribbon of printed tape passing slowly across, before the TV cameras in Washington, DC Unicephalon 40-D had spliced itself into the co-ax in its usual fashion; it had pre-empted the program in progress: that was its traditional right.

The voice was the synthetic verbalizing-organ of the homeostatic structure itself.

‘The election campaign is nullified,’ Unicephalon 40-D said. ‘That is item one. The stand-by President Maximilian Fischer is cancelled out; that is item two. Item three: we are at war with the aliens who have invaded our system. Item four. James Briskin, who has been speaking to you—’

This is it, Jim Briskin realized.

In his earphones the impersonal, plateau-like voice continued, ‘Item four. James Briskin, who has been speaking to you on these facilities, is hereby ordered to cease and desist, and a writ of
mandamus
is issued forthwith requiring him to show just cause why he should be free to pursue any further political activity. In the public interest we instruct him to become politically silent.’

Grinning starkly at Peggy and Ed Fineberg, Briskin said, ‘That’s it. It’s over. I’m to politically shut up.’

‘You can fight it in the courts,’ Peggy said at once. ‘You can take it all the way up to the Supreme Court; they’ve set aside decisions of Unicephalon in the past.’ She put her hand on his shoulder, but he moved away. ‘Or do you want to fight it?’

‘At least I’m not cancelled out,’ Briskin said. He felt tired. ‘I’m glad to see that machine back in operation,’ he said, to reassure Peggy. ‘It means a return to stability.
That
we can use.’

‘What’ll you do, Jim-Jam?’ Ed asked. ‘Go back to Reinlander Beer and Calbest Electronics and try to get your old job back?’

‘No,’ Briskin murmured. Certainly not that. But - he could not really become politically silent; he could not do what the problem-solver said. It simply was not biologically possible for him; sooner or later he would begin to talk again, for better or worse.
And
, he thought,
I’ll bet Max can’t do what it says either … neither of us can
.

Maybe
, he thought,
I’ll answer the writ of
mandamus;
maybe I’ll contest it. A counter suit … I’ll sue Unicephalon 40-D in a court of law. Jim-Jam Briskin the plaintiff, Unicephalon 40-D the defendant
. He smiled.
I’ll need a good lawyer for that. Someone quite a bit better than Max Fischer’s top legal mind, cousin Leon Lait
.