Caltraps of Time (23 page)

~ * ~

23.17. It was so late when I got away, I decisioned a detour via the megastore. Found Pete missioning there. He was saying the mail was so slow and the set so blinky, he was considerating tabling purchase of a private lasercom just to liaise with Droffield’s and Willenhausen’s. They’re both in eyeline, all three being so high. I said right, go ahead, peg in my name with it. The versionizer hasn’t come yet, how we’re going to cope with the Jap mergees I don’t know; they aren’t in resonance with Commart English.

When I homed in on the unit Maggy was connectioning her matebureau business. Jane was culturing the creepers. A sparrow shot past me ... Time Jane initiated tapping a non-talk write-set. Must call up one her size keys.

Anyway I was glad to shed my wear and relax. Maggy had a horror story, though. ‘You know a man got caught today,’ she said, ‘in a paternoster, a vertipater, not a horipater, crushed, killed? Well, what they’re saying at the salebox is, it wasn’t an accident. They say the block mafia are running a transplant supply, undercover.’

‘How do they calculate it could have been done?’ I said.

‘Someone pushed in with him,’ she said, ‘staged the rest, they say. They say they’ve a health squad in their pocket, zipped him off. Been a crop of “accidents” like that. Always young, healthy ones, ideal for transplant donors.’

‘They’re fictioning!’ I said; but all the same ... Then to cheer her up, I asked re her horoscope. I’d just missed out on the horocast. It was a bright one for her
and fair
for all of us, as it happens, so we dialogued this-ward a bit. The twins came in, so
this
was all right. Then there was a screen-and-button ‘puterpoll for Midlandia parliament on the alternatives for the new airport site. Maggy and I voted for the Northsea platform and new HVT links. Johnny and Denise griped it isn’t fair, they should poll too; serious. The rest of the evening we had educasts and spottoquiz. The colour was a bit blinky, though. Have to file a mendation order. Time for bed.

~ * ~

See what I mean. Got possibilities. No ants either. We’ll use this big one for us, see, the front rolls up and down, and there’s a peephole in the roller. Next one for stores. This one here for wood and such. Escape staircase’ll do for lookouts, over by the house. Salvage some things there, chairs, exetra. Might manage to knock a hole from one garage to the next, in case of trouble. Soon get dark now — you settle in, I’ll have a quick butcher’s round the house, what’s left.

~ * ~

2000. 224. 23.35. Must have been religion day or something. First a Jove’s Witness, then an Anglican Methodist, then a Yogist called up. Made short work of the AM; but the Witness and the Yogist persistented. The Yogist call must have been a computerized interview — you could tell from the pauses. Clever how the ‘puters analyze your vocabulary and switch in the right reply. Only this must have been pitched for high persistence, it wouldn’t take no for an answer. Endwise I had to operate the control and fade him out in mid-gesture. Then sod it if a neo-Marxist didn’t screen up. He was personalized but even more persistent. Had to control him out too. Following this an Ortho-Catholic who was easy stuff, especially as he called just following an aggressive redecoration rep who brain-rinsed me to exhaustion; to rehabilitation, I’d just ingested a pep with a real kick, when the O-C screened up.

Next thing was a door call. Imagine our surprise when Uncle Ned and Aunt Olga screened up. When they came in they said they were transiting and could they visit a couple of days with us. I had to miss my hour’s exercise at the autosquash court, sod it. Aunty said, My, wasn’t Denise a ‘sexy’ bird already; she’s going to be quite sexational, I opinion, and she imaged this then, with some jewellery that really resonated. They’re all in bed now. Uncle’s aged up, really in the higher-succession bracket, you’d opinion: at sixty-odd he images well over seventy; almost ready for a gerry, a retiring home. Aunt Olga actually wears wear indoors now — to act parallel with him, I suppose — although she’s only forty-five; brought a shift and floorwear with her. First news we watched, Uncle started on his usual gripe re the news being anaesthetized, not like in his young days. Thank goodness this is only a couple of days they’re staying. I was hoping to see the musical of Kafka’s
The Castle,
but now they’ve come we had to switch to another channel and see the underwater ballet of
West Side Story.
Maggy doesn’t even
like
underwater ballet. The sparrows didn’t either, they kept nuisancing around during it. One positioned momentwise on Aunt’s head. The block’s infested with them. The twins fed their predecessors when they were infants and now they’re triple-hardened.

Uncle keeps on boring us re he used to roar round Brands Hatch when he was young, or how there used to be woods where our blocks stand, or recalling back to the rationing when he was an infant, in the Welsh mountains because grandmother was evacuated there in the 1939-45 war. Aunt Olga isn’t on the same wavelength: edgy and never announces. She was a great free-sexer for years, prior to settling down with Uncle. I suppose that’s why she doesn’t interface with infants or pre-inductees — Jane especially just emigrates when she’s around — and why she images so dehydrated.

Following the children had blasted off to bed, though, she told us she had it on the salebox grapevine that the Heyns-Suit Babies are demanding all the key positions in forecasting, industry and government, otherwise they’ll organize a brain drain. Where would they go, I said, to the US? No, she said, to Scandinavia apparently, Japan, and NZ. Seems the Panpacific Alliance has them drooling. These HSBs think they’ve got it made, as Uncle would say, but who wants all these brains around? I wouldn’t give a nupe for them. We’ll outvote them a thousand to one at next week’s centregov screen referendum, anyway.

~ * ~

Living off the fat of the land, we are. Oh ray stomach. Acorns. Truffles. Garlic. A thrush and a pheasant. Not to mention these dogs ... Maggy, come here, Maggy, come on now, yes, come on ...

~ * ~

2000. 225. 19.45. My hairstyler’s off the blink now, thank goodness ... That cartoon of
Moby Dick
was a riot. Went on too long though. The whale had some funny numbers. Something more serious, though. I didn’t tell Uncle and Aunt -they’re next door just now — but I saw Larry Gibson on my way back from the megastore where I’d missioned to get away from
them
for a bit. Larry was in a crowd of all pigments, all queuing for the vertipater. Quite a sexational low-pigment bird in partywear was standing in front of him — and the wear was more minus than plus, of course. I was orbiting and trying to get through transit. The crowd pushed him and he just about knocked the bird down. He turned round — there was a higher-pigment type just in rear of him — and shouted, ‘Get back you!’ A neon-dearth-al-looking lower-pigment type close by, who I think was trying to make the bird, shouted out something, and Larry ripped out some object, rammed him in the diaphragm, and pulled twice. It was all over so quickly. The neon-dearth-al collapsed, blood all over the place, screams everywhere, the cops homed in in microseconds (the corridor TVs will have picked it up), and there’s Larry standing shaking over the corpse. What he’d done was use an instapeg wall-hook gun. One peg must have cut a big blood vessel, the second must have targeted on the vagus nerve or something. Says he, ‘Bastard called me a racist!’ Cops quizzed me. I said, yes, it sounded just like this. Course, this would be justifiable homicide. But I knew sodding well he was sodding well errored — it was only ‘rapist’. Anyway they took my word for it. By good luck, the bird had stayed grounded, and she relayed me to the nth. The ‘puter’ll never convict, now.

I had to tell somebody or something, so now I told
you
. Shaking, I was, had to have a pep when I got in. Just told Maggy quietly Larry had killed a man up the corridor, and I hoped it would be OK.

~ * ~

Denise shouldn’t have gone off like that, even with the fence post with her. Been all day now and she’ll never make it in the dark. I’ll sit up a bit and wake you later, Johnny. Let Ma have some sleep till dawn. Might hear something, perhaps.

~ * ~

2000. 226. 13.18. The supply-tube milk’s changed. The flavour’s queer and it’s more green. Have to try with natural cow milk for a bit, if we can call it up. Anyway, this is something: the old couple are gone. I opinion, if it wasn’t for the drier being cold they’d have stayed much longer. I put in ninety minutes autosquash to make up for yesterday exetra.

The lunchtime edscreen is on early literature. Maggy likes it, but me-wise it’s a drag. I could never understand these great historical novels like
The Sotweed Factor
and
The Spire,
and I don’t make much interface with socio-philosophy ones like
Ulysses
or
The Trial.
Anyway I’d sooner call up my lunch and ingest it in peace. I don’t mind listening to a magazine in parallel of course.

Maggy keeps impacting with Johnny for saying ‘followings’ instead of ’afters’. Personally I don’t mind what a pre-inductee says. Anything for peace at meals. It’s different with Jane, she’s still an infant. This lark re speaking right, it’s all alf garnet, I don’t resonate with it.

The megastore held a telecommittee this morning. We decisioned to production several new lines. They agreed to the lasercom too. In the middle in came Jane and started announcing. I had to alarm Maggy to come and incentive her off. As Maggy was calling over for the matebureau, Jane wasn’t very popular.

I was going to visitation my cousin Michael at his disability home. He’s an LSD baby — his parents used the stuff. Born too early to get classified for prostheses. But when I called up the spa they said his viability had diminished and he wouldn’t survive long; he was sedationed and wouldn’t be worth seeing now. That’s what they
said,
anyway.
I
opinion they’ve initiated culling the inmates.

~ * ~

I know why Denise ran off like that: you were trying to mate with her, last night in the garage after that blowout we had. I didn’t realize then, but I know now. Don’t say no, your face gives you away. Trying your own sister, you — you — I’ve no words ... I bet she was a match for you, anyway, for all she’s no older than you. I’m right, aren’t I? I heard the roller door in the middle of the night. She must have gone then to hide in one of the other garages. Or else that’s when she went off for good.

~ * ~

2000. 226. 22.51. Denise has sprung it on us that she’s going on this world nature tour. It’s in thirty days, and durates a hundred days. She’d connectioned it herself without asking us, and showed us her classification card today, so it was all fixed. Most on these tours are inductees, say thirteen to twenty-two, and handpicked too. Many of them are Heyns-Suit Babies. She’s only twelve and no HSB. All the same she was classified OK. It struck me it might be a kidnap syndicate forgery, so I connectioned a recall from the original ‘puter, but the data were OK. Recall systems are spoofproof, so this is final, I suppose. And as things are, there’s no appeal unless we can incentive her to reverse. I don’t think this is worth it, nor does Maggy. But I must say it’s a trauma.

~ * ~

Come here, boy. This bloody leg’s broken, I’m sure. Virus take that bloody bird’s nest. Wish I’d never gone after those eggs. If Denise had been here I’d have sent her up, she was nimbler. If I could have brought myself to ask you, John, but we weren’t on speaking terms. It’ll never heal. You three ought to have left me there, instead of heaving me back. You’ll never thrive with me lying here. Don’t say anything to Ma and Jane. Let them sleep.

~ * ~

2000. 227. 12.10. We have to evacuate this unit. It came on the screen, early. The whole block’s being traded in for a new gerry, a retirement home. And the next block’s being switched for a reciddy, a psychopathology home. We’ve all been given fifteen days to move. Maggy fed our requirements by call-up into the ‘puter system, to integrate on to our classification. Including the desired move radius, which we settled at two hundred kilometres. It turned up only nine units within a range of 60 to 70 per cent on the desirability scale, and this is the best it could do. Six were filled units with families leaving inside four days, three were new units. Two of the three were pods in pod-batteries, the third was an unbooked unit in a new block. I spent the rest of the morning trying to call them up for teleview. I got five: the two pods and three filled block-units. We visitaped the views and tonight we’ll run them through for the twins, but I think we’ll take one of the pods. (One of them’s in the state of Yorkshire, but their laws aren’t too tough.) It’ll be a change; the only thing is, a lot of the facilities and supplies are only piped to the battery centre. And they say these centres have pigeons the way we have sparrows. But we’re sick of the block life, maybe the pod-batteries won’t be so mafia’d and kinged, and we might resonate well with community life.

We’ll have to try and call up the other four by the end of tomorrow.
Then
we’ll have to get the schoolab facilities confirmed.
Then
we’ll have to decision on which unit.
Then
we’ll have to trade off our immobiles exetra locally against replacements in target.
Then
we’ll have to fix goods transportation.
Then
we’ll have to lodge all the addresses for readdressment-service, friends, firms, unaymit. I can hardly face these fifteen days. And Denise off fourteen days following then. Have to recall confirmation that her route’s been recast. The cold drier’ll stay cold now, sod it.

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