Paycheck (2003) (32 page)

Norm said, ‘And in addition there’s actually an embryo outfit—’

‘Yes,’ Fran said. ‘You have to open Connie up, of course, to see—’

‘No,’ Jean Regan said. ‘Please, no.’

Hooker said, ‘No, Mrs Schein, don’t.’ He backed away.

Fran said, ‘It shocked us of course at first, but—’

‘You see,’ Norm put in, ‘it’s logical; you have to follow the logic. Why, eventually Perky Pat—’

‘No,’ Hooker said violently. He bent down, picked up a rock from the ash at his feet. ‘No,’ he said, and raised his arm. ‘You stop, you two. Don’t say any more.’

Now the Regans, too, had picked up rocks. No one spoke.

Fran said, at last, ‘Norm, we’ve got to get out of here.’

‘You’re right,’ Tod Morrison told them. His wife nodded in grim agreement.

‘You two go back down to Oakland,’ Hooker told Norman and Fran Schein. ‘You don’t live here any more. You’re different than you were. You - changed.’

‘Yes,’ Sam Regan said slowly, half to himself. ‘I was right; there was something to fear.’ To Norm Schein he said, ‘How difficult a trip is it to Oakland?’

‘We just went to Berkeley,’ Norm said. ‘To the Berkeley Flukepit.’ He seemed baffled and stunned by what was happening. ‘My God,’ he said, ‘we can’t turn around and push this wheelbarrow back all the way to Berkeley again - we’re worn out, we need rest!’

Sam Regan said, ‘What if somebody else pushed?’ He walked up to the Scheins, then, and stood with them. ‘I’ll push the darn thing. You lead the way, Schein.’ He looked toward his own wife, but Jean did not stir. And she did not put down her handful of rocks.

Timothy Schein plucked at his father’s arm. ‘Can I come this time, Dad? Please let me come.’

‘Okay,’ Norm said, half to himself. Now he drew himself together. ‘So we’re not wanted here.’ He turned to Fran. ‘Let’s go. Sam’s going to push the wheelbarrow; I think we can make it back there before nightfall. If not, we can sleep out in the open; Timothy’ll help protect us against the do-cats.’

Fran said, ‘I guess we have no choice.’ Her face was pale.

‘And take this,’ Hooker said. He held out the tiny carved baby. Fran Schein accepted it and put it tenderly back in its leather pouch. Norm laid Connie Companion back down in the wheelbarrow, where she had been. They were ready to start back.

‘It’ll happen up here eventually,’ Norm said to the group of people, to the Pinole flukers. ‘Oakland is just more advanced; that’s all.’

‘Go on,’ Hooker Glebe said. ‘Get started.’

Nodding, Norm started to pick up the handles of the wheelbarrow, but Sam Regan moved him aside and took them himself. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

The three adults, with Timothy Schein going ahead of them with his knife ready - in case a do-cat attacked - started into motion, in the direction of Oakland and the south. No one spoke. There was nothing to say.

‘It’s a shame this had to happen,’ Norm said at last, when they had gone almost a mile and there was no further sign of the Pinole flukers behind them.

‘Maybe not,’ Sam Regan said. ‘Maybe it’s for the good.’ He did not seem downcast. And after all, he had lost his wife; he had given up more than anyone else, and yet - he had survived.

‘Glad you feel that way,’ Norm said somberly.

They continued on, each with his own thoughts.

After a while, Timothy said to his father, ‘All these big fluke-pits to the south … there’s lots more things to do there, isn’t there? I mean, you don’t just sit around playing that game.’ He certainly hoped not.

His father said, ‘That’s true, I guess.’

Overhead, a care ship whistled at great velocity and then was gone again almost at once; Timothy watched it go but he was not really interested in it, because there was so much more to look forward to, on the ground and below the ground, ahead of them to the south.

His father murmured, ‘Those Oaklanders; their game, their particular doll, it taught them something. Connie had to grow and it forced them all to grow along with her. Our flukers never learned about that, not from Perky Pat. I wonder if they ever will. She’d have to grow up the way Connie did. Connie must have been like Perky Pat, once. A long time ago.’

Not interested in what his father was saying - who really cared about dolls and games with dolls? - Timothy scampered ahead, peering to see what lay before them, the opportunities and possibilities, for him and for his mother and dad, for Mr Regan also.

‘I can’t wait,’ he yelled back at his father, and Norm Schein managed a faint, fatigued smile in answer.

An hour before his morning program on channel six, ranking news clown Jim Briskin sat in his private office with his production staff, conferring on the report of an unknown possibly hostile flotilla detected at eight hundred astronomical units from the sun. It was big news, of course. But how should it be presented to his several billion viewers scattered over three planets and seven moons?

Peggy Jones, his secretary, lit a cigarette and said, ‘Don’t alarm them, Jim-Jam. Do it folksy-style.’ She leaned back, riffled the dispatches received by their commercial station from Unicephalon 40-D’s teletypers.

It had been the homeostatic problem-solving structure Unicephalon 40-D at the White House in Washington, DC which had detected this possible external enemy; in its capacity as President of the United States it had at once dispatched ships of the line to stand picket duty. The flotilla appeared to be entering from another solar system entirely, but that fact of course would have to be determined by the picket ships.

‘Folksy-style,’ Jim Briskin said glumly. ‘I grin and say, Hey look comrades - it’s happened at last, the thing we all feared, ha ha.’ He eyed her. ‘That’ll get baskets full of laughs all over Earth and Mars but just possibly not on the far-out moons.’ Because if there were some kind of attack it would be the farther colonists who would be hit first.

‘No, they won’t be amused,’ his continuity advisor Ed Fineberg agreed. He, too, looked worried; he had a family on Ganymede.

‘Is there any lighter piece of news?’ Peggy asked. ‘By which you could open your program? The sponsor would like that.’ She passed the armload of news dispatches to Briskin. ‘See what you can do. Mutant cow obtains voting franchise in court case in Alabama … you know.’

‘I know,’ Briskin agreed as he began to inspect the dispatches. One such as his quaint account - it had touched the hearts of millions - of the mutant blue jay which learned, by great trial and effort, to sew. It had sewn itself and its progeny a nest, one April morning, in Bismark, North Dakota, in front of the TV cameras of Briskin’s network.

One piece of news stood out; he knew intuitively, as soon as he saw it, that here he had what he wanted to lighten the dire tone of the day’s news. Seeing it, he relaxed. The worlds went on with business as usual, despite this great news-break from eight hundred AUs out.

‘Look,’ he said, grinning. ‘Old Gus Schatz is dead. Finally.’

‘Who’s Gus Schatz?’ Peggy asked, puzzled. ‘That name … it does sound familiar.’

‘The union man,’ Jim Briskin said. ‘You remember. The stand-by President, sent over to Washington by the union twenty-two years ago. He’s dead, and the union—’ He tossed her the dispatch: it was lucid and brief. ‘Now it’s sending a new stand-by President over to take Schatz’s place. I think I’ll interview him. Assuming he can talk.’

‘That’s right,’ Peggy said. ‘I keep forgetting. There still is a human stand-by in case Unicephalon fails. Has it ever failed?’

‘No,’ Ed Fineberg said. ‘And it never will. So we have one more case of union featherbedding. The plague of our society.’

‘But still,’ Jim Briskin said, ‘people would be amused. The home life of the top stand-by in the country … why the union picked him, what his hobbies are. What this man, whoever he is, plans to do during his term to keep from going mad with boredom. Old Gus learned to bind books; he collected rare old motor magazines and bound them in vellum with gold-stamped lettering.’

Both Ed and Peggy nodded in agreement. ‘Do that,’ Peggy urged him. ‘You can make it interesting, Jim-Jam; you can make anything interesting. I’ll place a call to the White House, or is the new man there yet?’

‘Probably still at union headquarters in Chicago,’ Ed said. ‘Try a line there. Government Civil Servants’ Union, East Division.’

Picking up the phone, Peggy quickly dialed.

At seven o’clock in the morning Maximilian Fischer sleepily heard noises; he lifted his head from the pillow, heard the confusion growing in the kitchen, the landlady’s shrill voice, then men’s voices which were unfamiliar to him. Groggily, he managed to sit up, shifting his bulk with care. He did not hurry; the doc had said not to overexert, because of the strain on his already-enlarged heart. So he took his time dressing.

Must be after a contribution to one of the funds
, Max said to himself.
It sounds like some of the fellas
.
Pretty early
,
though
. He did not feel alarmed.
I’m in good standing
, he thought firmly.
Nuthin’ to fear
.

With care, he buttoned a fine pink and green-striped silk shirt, one of his favorites.
Gives me class
, he thought as with labored effort he managed to bend far enough over to slip on his authentic simulated deerskin pumps.
Be ready to meet them on an equality level
, he thought as he smoothed his thinning hair before the mirror.
If they shake me down too much I’ll squawk directly to Pat Noble at the Noo York hiring hall; I mean
,
I don’t have to stand for any stuff
.
I been in the union too long
.

From the other room a voice bawled, ‘Fischer - get your clothes on and come out. We got a job for you and it begins today.’

A job
, Max thought with mixed feelings; he did not know whether to be glad or sorry. For over a year now he had been drawing from the union fund, as were most of his friends. Well what do you know.
Cripes
, he thought;
suppose it’s a hard job, like maybe I got to bend over all the time or move around
. He felt anger.
What a dirty deal
.
I mean
,
who do they think they are
? Opening the door, he faced them. ‘Listen,’ he began, but one of the union officials cut him off.

‘Pack your things, Fischer. Gus Schatz kicked the bucket and you got to go down to Washington, DC and take over the number one stand-by; we want you there before they abolish the position or something and we have to go out on strike or go to court. Mainly, we want to get someone right in clean and easy with no trouble; you understand? Make the transition so smooth that no one hardly takes notice.’

At once, Max said, ‘What’s it pay?’

Witheringly, the union official said, ‘You got no decision to make in this;
you’re picked
. You want your freeloader fund-money cut off? You want to have to get out at your age and look for work?’

‘Aw come on,’ Max protested. ‘I can pick up the phone and dial Pat Noble—’

The union officials were grabbing up objects here and there in the apartment. ‘We’ll help you pack. Pat wants you in the White House by ten o’clock this morning.’

‘Pat!’ Max echoed. He had been sold out.

The union officials, dragging suitcases from the closet, grinned.

Shortly, they were on their way across the flatlands of the Midwest by monorail. Moodily, Maximilian Fischer watched the countryside flash past; he said nothing to the officials flanking him, preferring to mull the matter over and over in his mind. What could he recall about the number one stand-by job? It began at eight
A
.
M
. - he recalled reading that. And there always were a lot of tourists flocking through the White House to catch a glimpse of Unicephalon 40-D, especially the school kids … and he disliked kids because they always jeered at him due to his weight. Cripes, he’d have a million of them filing by, because he had to be on the premises. By law, he had to be within a hundred yards of Unicephalon 40-D at all times, day and night, or was it fifty yards? Anyhow it practically was right on top, so if the homeostatic problem-solving system failed -
Maybe I better bone up on this
, he decided.
Take a TV educational course on government administration
,
just in case
.

To the union official on his right, Max asked, ‘Listen, goodmember, do I have any powers in this job you guys got me? I mean, can I—’

‘It’s a union job like every other union job,’ the official answered wearily. ‘You sit. You stand by. Have you been out of work that long, you don’t remember?’ He laughed, nudging his companion. ‘Listen, Fischer here wants to know what authority the job entails.’ Now both men laughed. ‘I tell you what, Fischer,’ the official drawled. ‘When you’re all set up there in the White House, when you got your chair and bed and made all your arrangements for meals and laundry and TV viewing time, why don’t you amble over to Unicephalon 40-D and just sort of whine around there, you know, scratch and whine, until it notices you.’

‘Lay off,’ Max muttered.

‘And then,’ the official continued, ‘you sort of say, Hey Unicephalon, listen. I’m your buddy. How about a little “I scratch your back, you scratch mine.” You pass an ordinance for me—’