Prescription for Chaos (5 page)

Meanwhile, if you have an argument with someone who insists you said what you know you didn't say, you can "back-key" to the appropriate stage of the argument, set the device for "Databanks—Repeat Conversation" and have the indescribable thrill of hearing your own voice blow your own argument to bits.

As if they had not done enough already, the manufacturers of CCI are out with a handheld boasting "extended capabilities." This is CCCI—"Constant Companion
and Counselor
, Mark I." This device incorporates an earphone on a cord that goes down the back of the neck under the shirt collar, to just behind the shirt pocket, where a pin-type connector passes through into CCCI itself. The cord and earphone permit CCCI to talk directly into your ear.

CCCI has its own sensing apparatus, plus tiny skin and pulse attachments, and a set of special glasses ("two hundred flattering styles available"). Its sensing apparatus follows what's happening, its skin and pulse monitors watch your emotional reactions, and the special glasses enable the device to tell where you are looking; the device's circuits then correlate what is going on outside with your inner responses.

That it can do this is, of course, impressive. But do you want it doing it to
you?

CCCI was, naturally enough, made to sell, and to do that somebody has to buy it. It is priced at twenty-five thousand. There is a little problem there.
Who
will pay for it?

Two answers seem to have been arrived at.

First, it can be
rented
. Under a "special introductory offer," you can now use it for a week for "only three hundred and fifty dollars." That's the first answer.

In groping for a second answer, the planners seem to have asked: What
might
lead anyone to pay the price?

To see the answer arrived at, consider the slant of this sample from the advertising brochure, which incidentally is headed, "You Don't Have Everything If You Have No Constant Companion To Guide You In the Most Intimate Affairs of Your Life." The brochure reads:

". . . In this ultramodern era, the powerful logic and memory capabilities of the high-speed electronic computer have long since revolutionized manufacture, transportation, and communication—but they have left mankind still wandering in jungles of personal emotional ignorance.

"NOW, with the scientific miracle of CCCI, for the first time the mighty djinn of the Computer Age stands at your side to guide you adroitly through the mazes of ignorance to mysterious pleasure palaces of the senses. The jeweled secrets of ecstasy, hidden to others, are opened to you, who know their value to be beyond price.

"Where others blunder and hesitate, your guardian djinn guides you on a magic carpet to the heart of whatever tempestuous interest rouses your imperious fancy.

"Wise in the ways of human nature, encoded deep in its capacious memory banks for instant reference and lightning retrieval, CCCI represents a fusion of new knowledge and ancient wisdom, of—"

In case anyone hasn't caught on, the following paragraphs get the idea further pinned down for the wide-eyed reader, using words like:

"Houri . . . enchantment . . . delights . . . forbidden knowledge . . . wisdom . . . harem . . . silken . . . seductive . . . sensuous . . ."

Without ever exactly getting to the specifics, the general idea planted in the mind of the prospective buyer is clear enough. And—Who knows—this approach may make sales.

But what is the device worth?

Consider the experience of an acquaintance we will disguise as "S. L.," for "Secret Lover."

S. L. was secretly fascinated by a certain brunette, but was also sunk in tortured despair because of his own inadequacies. The exact nature of S. L.'s inadequacies can be left to the imagination, the
important
thing being that, to deal with them, he rented CCCI for a week, and at once confided his troubles to his new "constant companion and counselor."

"I'm scared," he concluded, after unloading his store of tortured doubts into CCCI's capacious memory banks. "What if she rejects me? What can I
do?
"

Into his ear there spoke a wise elder-statesman voice:

"Success is impossible at a distance. Closeness creates opportunity."

This sounded reasonable. So, after some further vacillation, S. L. got himself invited to a party whose only redeeming feature was the likely presence of the brunette. As S. L. circulated amongst the guests, the wise elder statesman voice in his ear was reassuring:

"Confidence is the key. You are assured and confident. There is every prospect for success. You
will
succeed . . . That is she? . . . Yes, pulse, respiration, visual focus, and all other indicators agree. The subject is now being fixed for reference in memory banks, and all channels are—
One moment—
"

The elder-statesman voice suddenly sharpened, freezing S. L. to the spot as he stared at the girl, who also froze, staring wide-eyed at him, while in S. L.'s ear, CCCI poured out urgent warnings:

". . . Attention! Subject is equipped with an Allectronics Elder Brother Mark III Protector! This is a dual-function device to guard against emotional entanglement in the user while repelling external advances, using high-voltage fine-wire shock prods!"

S. L. stared, paralyzed by this intelligence.

The girl stared back, blushed, winced, and suddenly whirled and walked fast toward a door leading to an inner hall of the apartment. CCCI was pouring instructions into S. L.'s ear:

". . . pursuit is inadvisable! The Allectronics Mark III will deliver a warning shock to subject if she has any interest, and will deliver a severe shock to you on contact. This will condition subject against you, and you against subject. The correct tactic is to withdraw at once, and attempt to determine—"

S. L. abruptly jerked the plug out of his ear, and went through the door after the girl. Totally forgetting CCCI, he called out in a low angry voice, "What are you running away for?
I
haven't done anything!"

"Because," came the angry reply, "every time you looked at me, I get an electric shock!"

"Well—that isn't
my
fault!"

"Well, it certainly isn't mine! All I'm trying to do is protect myself! You've got
Wolf Wiring!
"

S. L. had never heard CCCI spoken of as "Wolf Wiring" before. But the unexpected exhilaration of the conversation carried him past the confusion:

"If you don't like Wolf Wiring, I'll get rid of it. At least,
I'm
not a human lightning rod!"

"Ouch!
Damn
this thing!"

"Why not send Elder Brother home, too?"

"All right! I can't stand
this!
"

Anyone who considers this incident can decide for himself just what CCCI and Elder Brother Mark III Protector are
actually
worth.

The thing to do seems clear enough. Stick to handhelds of types that have been around for a while, and try one at twenty bucks or less first. That makes it easier to get an idea how they work, what the one you have lacks, and what you want, before you spend more.

As for any existing model that will benevolently run your life for you—Well, as they say: "This approach shows great potential promise for the future; at present, however, considerable further development work appears to be needed."

The last word on this subject seems to be that there isn't any last word
yet
; but keep your eyes open and your guard up—They no doubt are already struggling with that "further development work" that appears to be needed.

Morton Hommel, Ph.D., Director of the Banner Value Drug and Vitamin Laboratories, Inc., pressed himself flat on the floor as the bullets stitched a line of holes through the laboratory wall at about waist height overhead.

A foot away, against the wall, sat a sample of the cause of the trouble, and as Hommel lay pinned from either side by his breathless assistants, he could not help seeing the label on the little bottle: DE-TOX The Antacid Detoxifier. Take one to three tablets per day as required, to counteract harmful mental effects of mild overindulgence in alcoholic beverages, sleeping pills, stimulants, stay-awake pills, nicotine, tranquilizers, etc., etc. De-Tox is a new formulation, designed to fortify the critical faculties of the human brain. Used in moderation as directed, it will overcome that groggy, fuzzy feeling that follows mild over-indulgence. . ..

Hommel had thrown himself under the table with the haste of a man who has only a fraction of a second to pick his spot and dive for it. Now that he was under there, he remembered the half-full carboy of sulfuric acid that was in the lab somewhere. Was it on a neighboring bench, or was it directly overhead?

He lay paralyzed, hardly able to breathe, with his heart hammering to the whine of the bullets, the clatter of breaking glass, and the smash and rattle of falling plaster. A heavy thud made the floor jump beneath him. Viola Manning clung moaning and trembling to his left arm, and Peabody, his fanatical young research chemist, kept trying to mumble the results of his latest experiments in Hommel's right ear. And all the while, scarcely a foot away, that bottle of little pale-green pills stared him in the face. The flag at the bottom of the label, and the motto underneath, seemed to jump out at him:

"A Banner Value Product of the Banner Value Drug and Vitamin Laboratories, Inc. At all better druggists, everywhere."

That, he thought, was the trouble. The stuff was all over the world, like aspirin. No, even that didn't do it justice. It was more widespread than aspirin. Any place where they ate, drank, or breathed anything that befogged their wits, there was a ready-made market for De-Tox.

Hommel experienced the fervent wish that he'd thrown the original report in the wastebasket. Or touched a match to it. Or just slid it in a drawer of his desk, ignored its possibilities, and put the men onto something else. In the beginning he could have suppressed it in any number of ways. Instead, never imagining how it would turn out, he had gone straight out to the golf course, where old Sam Banner himself instantaneously saw the commercial possibilities, and said, "O.K. Push it."

Hommel had come back with a faint professional contempt for Banner's apparently snap decision, but quickly lost that as the old man breathed fire down his neck. Meanwhile, the work unfolded like a freshman laboratory exercise, no untoward side-effects showed up, and the next thing Hommel knew, they were in production.

After that, it was a succession of new sales records, bonuses, and salary raises, plus fantastic coverage in national magazines, with Banner himself turning down honorary degrees, and trying to explain that he was a business man, not a Benefactor of Humanity. Banner solved the problem by shoving the credit off on Hommel, while Hommel, who would willingly have kept the credit, had it violently wrenched away from him by the chemist who had sent in the original report.

The uproar finally died down, the new drug became a standard household item, and there was nothing to do but work the cash register, and send out friendly reminders that De-Tox was a registered trademark, and not to be referred to as "de-tox" or "detox."

It was not many months after this that Hommel, a little before noon one morning, got word to come to Sam Banner's office without delay.

Banner was seated at his desk, swirling a glass about half-full of water, and staring out the window. He glanced at Hommel.

"Something funny about these De-Tox pills."

"What do you mean?"

Banner swung his chair away from the window. "This psycho thing. They can't put the subject under after he takes the pills."

Hommel frowned. "You mean, the drug interferes with induction of the hypnotic trance?"

"Can't put them under," corrected Banner, who had a distaste for long words. "They go through all the usual stuff, and the subject won't go under. Even when they've got him trained to go under at the snap of a finger. Funny."

"Hm-m-m," said Hommel. "That is curious."

Banner nodded, and set down his glass. "TV sales are down."

Hommel blinked, but said nothing. If there was a connection, it would appear shortly.

Banner said, "New car sales are down. Used car sales up. Liquor sales way down. Movies are in trouble. Buying on time is down all across the board."

Hommel started. "Are you saying there's a connection between the fact that hypnotic suscept . . . er . . . that it's hard to put the subjects under, and that there's been a change in sales patterns?"

Banner nodded. "You've been tied up, Mort, so I don't know if you noticed it. But not long ago, the biggest car maker in this country came out with a campaign to put over a new style car design. For a month, anybody who used TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, or looked at a billboard was blind, deaf, and dumb from having the thing thrown at him. You know how many of this new style they've been able to unload so far? Eighteen thousand."

"That's fantastic."

"You bet it is. You study enough sales charts, and you'll see things that will stand your hair on end. People just don't react the way they used to. Not since we came out with these pills."

"But are we sure there's a connection?"

Banner tossed over a professional journal opened to an article titled, "Complex Interrelations of Social Phenomena and Waking Suggestibility."

Hommel frowned at it. It was out of his field, and the style made it abundantly plain that the article wasn't intended for the general public.

"Hm-m-m," said Hommel a few minutes later. "Well, I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with the terminology—"

"Take a look at the footnote on page 1040, Mort."

Hommel dutifully turned pages, and read:

"Curiously enough, the proprietary preparation known as 'De-Tox' was found to affect negatively all the above-mentioned correlations. The values given are, therefore, those obtained when both experimental and control groups had refrained from the use of 'De-Tox' for a period of fourteen weeks."

Hommel hunted through the body of the article, written in a far less congenial manner than the footnote, and after a brief hard struggle, gave it up.