The Tomorrow File (14 page)

“It computes.” Paul nodded.

“Yes. Now there are three possible roles I can play to uncover her degree of involvement in this intrigue, plot, conspiracy— whatever you want to call it. And to identify who is ruling her. One: I can play the clown, a microweight snagged on alcohol, cannabis, sex, anything. She or her rulers might find me useful. Two: I can pretend a heavy profit. For her. Beneath that pleasant, charming self-assured manner is a strong ego drive, an operative passion. I told you what a furious, violent user she is. She might respond to a similarly undisciplined passion in me. Third: I can act the Public Service malcontent, dissatisfied with the orders he is given, disgusted with official government policy. Reactions?”

I had expected Angela to opt for the third possibility. She approved of the second. But the real surprise was Paul. I had expected him to select the first role. He argued for the third, vehemently. My own choice was the third. After almost an hour of sometimes rancorous debate, we convinced Angela; she agreed I was to play the rebel looking for a cause.

“Good,” I said. “I’ll go ahead with it. There is something else. Lydia’s apartment should be shared. Angela, I know you don’t want to bring Klein in on this—at this point in time—but is there anyone else in DIVSEC you can trust?”

“No,” she said decisively. “I don’t want them alerted. But I know an em who can handle it. A private investigator. He’s served me before.”

I looked at her with wonder, trying to guess how many strings dangled from those long cool fingers, how many marionettes jerked when she gestured.

“Leon Mansfield,” she said, looking directly at me. “Peace of Mind, Incorporated. At 983 West Forty-second Street. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t flash him, go see him. Mention my name, but tell him nothing except that you want Lydia’s apartment shared. He’ll ask no questions. Just reward him.”

“How much?”

“Start with a hundred. Cover it in petty love.”

I nodded. We separated then. I think we all had the sense of events set in motion, a quickening tempo.

Late that night, wearing a robe, I lay on the couch to watch a televised debate that involved one of Hyman R. Lewisohn’s innovative ideas. He was much on my mind. After stabilizing, his blast count had fallen dramatically. We went to a manipulated methotrexate. His survival was important, of course. Even more important was that his therapy did not cloud the functioning of that marvelously clear, seminal brain.

Late in 1982, Lewisohn had proposed the United States of America open its federation of sovereign states to other nations. Upon application and approval, countries beyond our mainland, beyond the seas—just as Alaska and Hawaii—would be accepted for statehood with all the rights and privileges inherent thereto.

A foreign nation becoming one of our states could retain its native language, if it wished, but English would also be taught in the schools. Each nation joining, like a mainland state, would be entitled to two Senators, and Representatives commensurate with its population. The United States of America would become simply the United States. The abbreviation would be changed from U.S. to US, for semantic reasons.

The suggestion for a worldwide US was proposed in a special message delivered to the Congress on January 15,1983, by the then President, Irving Kupferman. Enabling legislation was passed by Congress on October 21, 1983 (by a 2-vote margin in the Senate, incidentally).

The Dominican Republic was the first nation to make application, and won immediate approval. At once, teams of social engineers swarmed in. Enormous amounts of love were spent. It was vital that the first foreign state should become a showcase of the Lewisohn Plan. So it did. The birthrate dropped, public health improved, average annual income rose, and roads, factories, new towns, and an American life-style appeared almost overnight.

Realizing what was happening, Puerto Rico applied almost immediately for statehood. They were soon followed by Mali, Chad, Ecuador, Taiwan, Colombia, Upper Volta, and others. In 1998, the United States, US, consisted of ninety-seven states and was growing at an average rate of three new states per year.

The most recent development was a tentative inquiry from Great Britain. There was a great deal of domestic British opposition, of course. Crowds gathered before Buckingham Palace and sang an obso song, “Rule Britannia!” But the great majority of Britons, and their rulers, were weary of their endless economic crises. Pan-Europe (formerly the European Economic Community) had been referred to by President Kupferman as “ten Switzerlands,” and he was right. The main problem was whether Great Britain should be admitted as one state, which we preferred, or as three states—England, Scotland, Wales—as they preferred. That was the subject of the TV debate I was viewing.

My doorbell rang. Paul’s distinctive ring: three shorts, one long. He wasn’t aware he was ringing Beethoven, and I never told him. I switched off the TV and went to the door,

“Interrupting you?” he said.

“No, no. Come in. Drink?”

“No, thanks. Mind if I have a Bold?”

“Of course not. May I have one?”

“I thought you were off.”

“One won’t hurt me.”

I had sworn off cannabis cigarettes almost a year ago. After we lighted up, and I took the first deep draught, I wondered why. “What were you doing, Nick? When I knocked?”

“Watching a debate on TV. Should Great Britain come in as one state or three?”

“Which do you prefer?”

“I couldn’t care less—as long as we get them.”

“Why so important?”

“Seventy million underconsumers there. Through necessity, not choice. But I want them for different reasons. England has some of the most originative neurobiologists in the world. Scotland’s surgeons and biomedical doctors are the best.”

“And Wales?” Paul asked.

“Well ... we could use some good poets, too.”

He laughed.

“Nick, can we talk business for a minute?”

“Sure. As long as you like.”

“Remember the night of Angela’s party? You and I had a drink down here before we went up, and you said you had something for the Tomorrow File. What was it?”

I looked at him. “Paul, your memory is improving.”

He blushed with delight.

“You really think so?”

“No doubt about it. How’s the theta coming?” “Progressing.”

He was beginning to imitate my speech patterns. Short phrases. Laconic. I was amused—and touched.

“Stick with it,” I advised him. “Big advantage. Yes, I have something for the Tomorrow File. Inspired by a letter I received that afternoon from an obso. An old, old obso. He was a Nobel Prize winner a long time ago. An environmentalist. It had been a good brain then. Senile now. Atheromata, I suppose. We've made some great advances there, but too late to help him.”

“You’re suggesting a new antiatherosclerosis drug?”

“No. A drug to
reverse
the effects of atheromata, to flush out those clogged arteries, particularly in the brain.”

“Brain cells can’t regenerate.”

“Thank you, doctor,” I said with heavy sarcasm. “God damn it, Paul, don’t lecture
me
on physiology. It seems to me that in a case like this—an old, old obso with what was originally a fine brain—a drug that could reverse atherosclerosis would be invaluable.” “You mean, keep objects alive for one hundred twenty-five, one hundred fifty, or two hundred years?”

“Well ... if that was necessary. But not for everyone, of course. Can you imagine the social and economic chaos that would result if we shoved the average lifespan up by fifty years? No, it would only be for selected individuals. Or perhaps just their brains.”

“What’s the point?” he asked. “Why not a
new
brain?” “We could start with an infant’s brain,“ I acknowledged. “One with a Grade A genetic rating potentiality. But even that would not

guarantee its creativity. A brain that over a period of years had demonstrated inventive genius—like that old obso’s brain I men* tioned—-that would be best. But in addition to regenerating it in a biomedical sense, we would also have to erase its memory, totally. Get rid of old habits, conditioning, prejudices, conceived opinions, and so forth.”

“Didn’t you suggest that for the Tomorrow File once before?” “No, I suggested a selective memory block, less gross than Tememblo. What I am now suggesting is
total
memory erasure. Perhaps a manipulated isomer of eight-azoguanine might do it. Something like that. Well. . . it’s for the future. Add it to the File.” Paul nodded. “Now I’ve got one. Remember that ef on the Gerontology Team? The one who suggested a program of Government-Assisted Suicide?”

“Of course I remember. Maya Leighton. Only I changed her suggestion to Government-Assisted Peace. I told you she might be your second secretary. Did you speak to her?”

“Yes. We’ve had two lunches.”

“And?”

“Tall. Imposing. Wide shoulders and hips. Narrow waist. Red-haired. Wears her zipper down. A good brain, Nick. Really good.” “Rating?”

“Well. . . Grade B, but some very original thinking. She’s been working on another idea. She’s running a computer study on what it costs the government to maintain nonproductive objects of any age who have a Grade F-Minus genetic rating.”

Genetic ratings were assigned by a government GE (Genetic Examiner) to every infant at the age of two, and updated every five years after that. The Grade F-Minus was assigned to all those in the retarded, feebleminded, moronic, imbecilic, and idiotic classifications, the single rating used for all of them since differentiating criteria did not exist.

“She says her preliminary findings indicate a program of euthanasia,” Paul said.

“And what did you say?”

“I told her that ideas and programs that were logically and scientifically sound were not necessarily politically, socially, or economically feasible.”

I laughed. “You’re learning. She seems to be terminally oriented, if her first two suggestions are any indication of the way she thinks.”.

“Not necessarily, ’ ’ Paul said. “You marked the memo about her first idea as ‘Original thinking.’ I believe that inspired her to try something along similar lines. Besides, is her suggestion any more impractical than the required abortion of embryos with untreatable genetic defects?”

“You may be right. Well, if you want her for a second secretary, go ahead. Angela won’t object after all we’ve been doing for her. ”

He stared at me a moment.

“What’s bothering you, Nick?” he asked.

“Remember your telling me Angela’s beachhouse was owned by the Samatin Foundation, arid the corporations that financed it?”

“Of course I remember. We decided she’s on the suck.”

“Yes. Well, we suspected it. That’s what’s been bothering me. This afternoon I went over to Data & Statistics and asked to scan the films on sales of licenses to Walker & Clarke Chemicals, Pace Pharmaceuticals, and Twenty-first Century Electronics. You know the mechanics of a license sale?”

“A product or process we developed is put up for license and advertised. Sealed bids are submitted.”

“Right. To Angela. At the cutoff time and date, the bids are opened. High bidder wins exclusive license. During the past four or five years, those three companies have been winning their licenses ' with late bids, some of them submitted just hours before closing. And they’ve been winning with bids just a few hundred thousand and, in some cases, just a few thousand new dollars higher than the second-highest bid.”

He looked at me, his eyes growing larger as he realized the significance of what I was telling him.

“'Tick,” he said, not believing, “has she been scanning previously submitted bids and tipping them off?”

‘ ‘Something like that. I don’t know her technique. Perhaps it’s as primitive as steaming open the envelopes and resealing them. Maybe it’s a fluoroscopic or ultrasonic scanning process. However she’s doing it, I’m convinced it’s being done.”

“But I thought all the big drug companies work together?”

‘ ‘They do—on cutting up world markets for aspirin, birth-control pills, tranquilizers, antibiotics, sulfas, steroids, and things like that. But on new, untried products and processes, it’s every em for himself.”

“Then Angela
is
on the suck?”

“I think so. ”

“But
why?”

“A very ambitious ef. With expensive tastes. And the talent for applying a knee to a groin that politics demands. Plus a complete lack of conscience. There may be psychopathology there.”

“My God.”

“That’s not all. Now compute this: When I returned the filmed record to the file clerk at Data & Statistics she remarked—quite casually—that those were certainly popular records, that Security Chief Burton Klein had been in just a week ago scanning the same films.”

Paul’s eyes grew even wider. “Nick,” he said, “what the
hell
is going on?”

“Let’s go to bed,” I said.

I sat up, my back against the headboard, and let him do what profited him most.

Then we snuggled down beneath the thermasheet and held each other. He was soft and warm, his pheromones sweetish. “Pleasure?” he said.

“Oh, yes! And for you?”

“Pleasure.”

“The last time I was home, my father talked about a pill that would give pleasure. I didn’t tell him about your suggestion in the Tomorrow File for the Ultimate Pleasure pill.”

“The UP pill.”

“Right. But I explained to him how difficult it would be to synthesize, since pleasure is so subjective. What does pleasure mean to you?”

“Physical orgasm, for starters.”

“And?”

“I’m not sure, Nick. A kind of surrender?”

I propped myself on one elbow and looked down at him. “Surrender? That’s interesting.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. I think the first problem is to differentiate between pleasure and happiness. How about this: Pleasure is momentary; happiness, or content, is lasting. Well... at least longer than pleasure. Agree?”

“Agree.”

“Then, for you, the orgasm is momentary pleasure, but the surrender is happiness?”

He was silent.