The Tomorrow File (2 page)

“You’re against it?”

“I’m against anything that weakens the FCA. So is DEPDIRSAT. So is DIROB. But this time the obsos have some clout. It comes from two directions: the Department of Peace and the Department of Creative Services. The generals want more bodies because it increases their options in the event of a pop war. The labor pols want it because they’re getting a lot of kaka from union leaders whose objects are steadily dwindling as consumption declines under Z-Pop.”

A two-em security patrol passed us, sauntering slowly. They had flechette guns slung over their shoulders. Each had an attack beast on a chain leash. The beasts were a new mutant our San Diego Field Office had developed: DNA from hyena, jackal, and wolf. Prototypes had no tails, but more recent models were bred for tails, to improve their balance when attacking.

“So that’s why the film is being made?” Paul asked. “To defend the FCA?”

“Right. It’s intended for Public Service distribution only, with a restricted PS-3 rating. You won’t even be able to view it, legally. But it’s political clout. It holds out hope to the generals that the possibility of sending chimeras into battle isn’t as remote as they may have thought. And it scares the Department of Creative Services, because if we can put animals to work on assembly lines, what’s going to happen to their precious unions?”

“I’m computing,” Paul said. “A promise and a threat, all in one.”

“Correct,” I said. “Maybe now we’ll get an answer to the great CR debate. In Conditioned Response, which has the higher efficiency—the promise of reward or the threat of punishment? How do you opt?”

“Threat of punishment,” he said. Promptly.

“I’m not so sure. And there’s another factor involved that makes me want to defeat that amendment to the FCA. If natural ems and natural efs are permitted to breed without licensing, it’s only a matter of time—little time—before naturals will consider themselves as elite. Then our society will become structured strictly by genetic classes.”

“Now you’re talking like an obso. There’s elitism right now. The scientific elite. And it exists because we
are elite.”

“
That’s
a lot of kaka.”

We turned into the restaurant. We had to wait almost ten minutes, but finally got a table in the Executive Dining Room. We didn’t need menus. Few in the restaurant did. Most of the customers were from my Division, all on Supermem.

If I was asked to name the greatest technological discovery of the past fifty years, I would have to say it was the synthesizing of protein from petroleum, first in the lab and then in a commercially viable process. If I was asked to name the most disastrous technological discovery, it would be that same development.

When my square of prosteak, rare, was put before me, surrounded by propots and probeans, I knew I was in for a mild attack of RSC. Sighing, I fumbled in the side pocket of my bronze-colored zipsuit for my pill dispenser.

About a year previously I had become aware of a curious and bothersome mental irregularity. It first occurred after my annual hippocampus and amygdala treatment. In effect, my memory, triggered by a sight, sound, smell, or almost any other input, ran wild. I could not control a flood of associative memories that engulfed my brain and temporarily extirpated my ability to respond normally to subsequent stimuli, or to learn, deduce, or fantasize.

After the second attack, I went to my Memory Team leader, a molecular neurologist, and described the symptoms. He was not at all surprised. I was suffering from RSC, Random Synaptic Control. It was fairly common in both ems and efs who had been memory-conditioned in the 1975-1985 period. It was due to an inaccurate stereochemical configuration of the hormone administered. Therapy was by ingestion of a corrective hormone isomer.

If Proust could write a novel of that length inspired by a piece of madeleine soaked in tea, you can appreciate why a plate of food derived from petrochemicals and artificial flavorings might drive my synapses out of control. The memories came flooding in. . . .

. . . my father’s shrewdness. He was a successful toy manufacturer with a BS in chemistry. When the production of protein from petroleum was announced as commercially feasible, he had immediately put a lot of love into companies producing spices, flavorings, and seasonings. He made a bundle, and then, as he followed the chemical journals carefully and noted the inevitability of synthetic salt, pepper, thyme, tarragon, garlic, curry, mustard, dill, etc., he withdrew with a tremendous orgasm that made him a decamillionaire in new dollars.

. . . my mother’s adamant refusal to consume
any
synthetic food or drink, and especially artificially flavored whiskies made from petrochemicals. She existed in an alcoholic stupor maintained with a rare Eastern vodka produced from natural potatoes.

. . . Millie’s service. The young ef was a CF-E, an embryo-cloned female with a Grade E genetic rating. She was a packer in the Qik-Freez Hot-Qizine factory in Detroit. It was possible she had packaged the prosteak I was about to eat. Millie and I were users.

. . . almost atavistic memories of the taste of farm-fresh eggs, vine-ripened melons, cucumbers, fresh beef, gravel-scratching chickens, wine made from grapes. . . .

I popped my RSC pill. Paul watched me sympathetically.

“Bad?”

“Not too,” I said. “There are some memories I can do without. ”

“Tememblo?”

“Too gross,” I said. “It erases everything.”

Tememblo (Temporary Memory Block) was a restricted drug we had developed. Given by injection, it produced complete forgetfulness, either immediately before or after the events, for periods of one to forty-eight hours, depending on its strength. But the duration of the effect was limited.

Paul was instantly alert and interested.

“You’re suggesting a specialized memory inhibitor?” he said. “To block, say, a color memory without inhibiting a scent memory?”

“Something like that.” I nodded. “But we can’t take it on now. Better put it in the Tomorrow File.”

We no longer smiled at that, though it had started as a joke.

Soon after Paul Bumford joined DIVRAD, he sent me a memo tape suggesting that every individual in the US have his BIN (Birth Identification Number) tattooed on his forearm. The idea was preposterous, but I admired the organization of his argument.

I called him in and explained why his suggestion was impractical for social and political reasons.

“If it’s the cosmetic effect of the tattooing that might offend, ’ ’ he offered, “we could use a skin dye visible only under ultraviolet light.”

“Paul, you’re not computing. We still have some objects in this country who have harsh memories of Germany’s Third Reich, the concentration camps, the arm tattoos. If I suggested such a program, all hell would break loose.”

“Obsoletes,” he said. “They can be manipulated.”

“Obsos,” I agreed. “And they probably could be manipulated if I felt the project was important enough. But I don’t. Do you know how long it took us to get the National Data Bank accepted? Five years! By a massive-all-media effort to convince objects it was not a computer but just a highly sophisticated filing system.
Files,
not dossiers. And it was only after the Fertility Control Act was passed that we were able to assign Birth Identification Numbers. You must learn that what is practical and useful scientifically is not necessarily practical and useful socially, ethically, or economically. And especially politically.”

“I still think it’s a good idea,” he said stubbornly.

“As a means of personal identification? Well. . . maybe. About as good, and bad, as fingerprints, I’d guess. But we’re working on something much better.

He came alive. “Genetic codes?”

“No good. Not in the case of identical twins or clone groups. Ever hear of forensic microbiology?”

“No.”

“Suggested about 1970. But nobody did anything about it at the time because most of the biomedical research then was therapy-oriented. But this could be big. Right now I have only one object serving on it. Mary Bergstrom, a neurophysiologist. She’s good, but she needs help on the microbiology. I want you to serve with her.”

“Will she rule me?”

“No. You’ll be equals, reporting only to me. I’m very interested in this. I’ll code you and Mary the IMP Team, for Individual Microbiological Profile.”

He reached for his memo tape.

“Then I guess I can erase this.”

“Don’t do that.” I smiled, putting my hand on his. “Have it transcribed and filmed. “It’s not a
bad
idea. But for the future. Put it in the Tomorrow File.”

“The Tomorrow File?” He liked that. He smiled.

We became users that night.

Since then, whenever we—together or separately—came up with an idea that could not be developed because of the current social, economic, or political climate, we put it in the Tomorrow File. Paul kept the film spindles in his office safe.

We finished our dinner.

“How do you feel?” Paul asked. “The spansule work?”

“Fine, ” I said. "So far. Knock on wood." I rapped the table top.

“That’s plastic,” Paul said.

“Old habits stop hard,” I said.

“Yes.” He nodded. “That’s the problem.”

We went back to my apartment. Paul wanted to watch the AGC Network—Avant-Garde Cable. They were presenting Walter Bronkowsky on the Leopold Synthesizer, playing his own symphony,
Variations on the Rock of Ages Mambo.
We watched and listened to about five minutes of Bronkowsky twiddling his dials and flipping his switches. Then Paul and I exchanged grimaces. He tried other channels.

It was a new laser-holograph three-dimensional set, with a one-meter box. But all we could get were sit-coms, talk shows, and the tenth rerun of
Deep Throat.
So we went to bed.

Paul’s mucus membranes were gainfully tender. Our investment had endured long enough for each to be attuned to the physical and mental rhythms of the other. We were, for instance, able to go into alpha together.

Recently, almost as a hobby, Paul had been researching ESP. He had evolved a theory that during sexual arousal, as during moments of other emotional stress—fear, anger, etc.—the ESP faculty was intensified.

We had been conducting a series of experiments to test this out. Before sexual relations, Paul or I would write a single word or simple phrase on a piece of paper, keeping it hidden from the other. During using, the sender attempted to transmit mentally the word or phrase he had written, and the other to receive mentally the identical word or phrase.

Results had been inconclusive but encouraging enough to continue. That night Paul was sending.

After we summited, and our respiration and cardiac rates had returned to normal, Paul asked, “What was it?”

I hesitated a moment, then said, “Ultimate pleasure.”

Paul switched on the lamp, reached to the bedside table. He picked up his note and unfolded it so I could read what he had written: “Ultimate pleasure.”

I shook my head. “Not conclusive. Too subjective. It may have been an emotional or purely physical reaction on my part.”

“Not so,” Paul said. “You’ve never used that phrase before. And besides, it
is
objective. It’s a subject I’ve been thinking about a long time. I put a memo on it in the Tomorrow File. It proposes the development of an Ultimate Pleasure compound. In pill form. Cheap. Addictive. No toxic effects. No serious side effects. Working directly on the hypothalamus or affecting the norepinephrine-mediated tracts.”

“That’s interesting,” I said.

I turned off the bedlamp and we went to sleep.

I was in the middle of an REM dream when I was awakened by the chiming of the bedroom flasher extension.

“Flasher” was not the correct name for this device, of course. Technically, it was a Video Phone. Why flasher? Because the new devices had spawned a new breed of obscene phone callers. The conventional table or desk set consisted of a 3 dm viewing screen with a 5 cm camera lens mounted above and centered between the video and sound control dials and the push-button station selector.

The obscene caller, ef or em, stood before the flasher so the face could not be viewed by the camera lens, and exhibited naked genitalia after calling a selected or random number. Such callers, and there were many, were termed “flashers.” The device took its popular name from them.

I pulled on a patterned plastilin robe and sat before the flasher on my bedroom desk. Paul climbed out of bed and stood behind the set where he could not be photographed. I flicked the On switch. The color image bloomed blurry and shaky, then steadied and focused. It was a pleasant-faced black ef, wearing the blue zipsuit of a PS-7. We stared at each other.

“Mr. Nicholas Bennington Flair?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. Flair, are you AssDepDirRad?”

“I am. ”

“Would you insert your BIN card, please.”

I motioned to Paul. He rushed to get my card from my discarded bronze zipsuit.

Meanwhile the ef was looking at my image and then down at her desk, obviously comparing my features to a photo. Paul handed me the BIN card over the set. I inserted it in a slot under the screen. The ef read her output, sent by the magnetic-inked numbers on my card. She seemed satisfied.

“Mr. Flair, this is DIVDAT in San Francisco. We have a message to you from Angela Teresa Berri, DEPDIRSAT. May I show it?”

“Go ahead.”

The printed message came on.

It was a memo, dated that day.

From: DEPDIRSAT.

To: AssDepDirRad.

Subject: IMP progress report.

You personally rush urgent latest. Emergency, /s/ Berri.

The operator came on again.

“Did you get that, sir?”

“I did,” I told her. “No reply, and thank you.”

The screen went dead, a little white moon fading, fading. . I flicked the Off switch. Paul and I looked at each other.

“She’s on a threeday,” he said finally. “Someplace south of San Francisco.”

“I know.”

“That report she wants—I wrote it. Strictly NSP—No Significant Progress. ’ ’