The Tomorrow File (44 page)

We marched up to that ugly heap. There were a few reporters lounging about, a few photographers. No TV coverage.

“Get them, Larry,” a voice shouted. A photographer stepped in front of us, aimed his camera, clicked the shutter.

The shouter, a reporter named Herb Bailey, on the Washington Bureau of a news syndicate, came strolling forward to stroke our palms.

“Nick,” he said. “Paul. You two look full of piss and vinegar. ” 

“At the moment,” I said, “Paul’s full of vinegar, and I'm full of piss. Got to get inside, Herb.”

“Sure,” he said. “But just for the record, Deputy Director, do you anticipate any earth-shaking decisions resulting from this meeting of the Department of Bliss?”

“Just for the record,” I said. “No comment.”

He shook his head dolefully. "The Dragon Lady runs a tight ship. What about off the record?”

“Herb”—I sighed—“this is a routine monthly meeting of DOB. We have nothing heavy pending on the Hill. Zilch. Now let me ask you a question: Why the photographer catching Paul and me? We’re not news.”

“You will be if you get blown up inside.” He grinned.

I glanced toward Paul.

“Happy Herby,” I said. “The public servants’ best friend.”

“Herb,” Paul said, “are you sticking around until the meeting ends?”

“I suppose I’ll have to,” the reporter said disgustedly. “Just to get the canned handout.”

“Buy you a drink?” Paul asked.

“That’s the best bribe I’ve had this week.”

The Department of Bliss, at that point in time, was organized into five gross divisions:

1.    Prosperity Section (PROSEC), ruled by a Deputy Director (DEPDIRPRO), was responsible for all welfare, poverty, arid antihunger operations, plus what was formerly Social Security, now called Personal Happiness.

2.    Wisdom Section (WISSEC), ruled by DEPDIRWIS, controlled all federally financed conditioning programs, from nursery schools to universities, including the Science Academy.

3.    Vigor Section (VIGSEC), ruled by DEPDIRVIG, administered public health laws, including HAP (Health Assurance Plan) that had replaced Medicare, Medicaid, etc.

4.    Culture Section (CULSEC), ruled by DEPDIRCUL, was in charge of all government programs in communicative and performing arts, including what had formerly been the Federal Communications Commission, Commission of Fine Arts, American Battle Monuments Commission, Architect of the Capitol, National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities, etc., etc.

5.    Satisfaction Section. My section, SATSEC, of which I was DEPDIRSAT.

Angela Teresa Berri, DIROB, also had a constantly expanding Headquarters Staff. Its two main groups were: (1) Security & Intelligence, ruled by Art Roach, which in addition to the duties indicated by its title, also controlled all personnel files of the Department of Bliss; (2) PUBREL, the public relations and publicity group for the entire Department.

And, of course, Angela now had a small army of Administrative Assistants, assistant AA’s, legal counsels, specialists, secretaries, clerks, and Congressional liaison representatives who did the Department’s lobbying on the Hill.

The monthly meeting of DOB was held in a cavernous conference hall which Angela Berri, thankfully, had had redecorated. Each Deputy Director was supplied with a comfortable swiveled armchair upholstered in real white leather. On the glass before him, exactly positioned, was a carafe of ice water, a plastiglass, two sharpened pencils, a pad of legal-size yellow paper. Behind each DEPDIR sat his Administrative Assistant, in a straight-back, upholstered chair. All proceedings were taped.

In addition to the tape engineer, Angela was served by her chief legal counsel, her AA, her executive secretary, the chief of PUB-REL, and Art Roach. They like everyone else in the room, wore the zipsuits of their rank.

The structure of these meetings was quite unlike the conferences of SATSEC Angela had ruled in GPA-1. According to Public Service regulations, all departmental conferences began with the reading of what was properly called the “Menace,” a statement rattled off by DIROB’s Administrative Assistant:

“Accordingtoregulationfortysixdashbeesubsectiononethree-da shkay of theinternal security pro visiopsof thePublicServiceco-deasamendedbysubsectiononeohtwodashgeeadoptedsixMarch-nineteeneightynineallpresentareherebyinformedtheseproceed-ingsarerestrictedandany thin gsaidheardscannedorobserved with intheconfi nesandli mi tsofthismeeti'ngaredeemedofacon fid-entialnatureandnothingshallbedivulgeddisclosedproclaimed-revealedormadeknowntoanyobjectgroupor.. .etc,,etc.” 

Penalties were not specified. They didn’t have to be.

After this cheery introduction, Angela would speak, usually briefly, bringing us up to date on the progress of legislation affecting DOB. She would then relate any additional information of governmental plans and activities she thought might be of value or interest to her Deputy Directors. At this particular meeting, after running quickly through an especially dull recital of Congressional action, or inaction, Angela concluded by saying:

“You may be interested to learn that the Chief Director has decided to ask for enabling legislation establishing a new department of Public Service, to be called the Department of National Assets. The DNA will rule the management and income of all real property of the US. Any questions?”

She looked directly at me. With hostility. What an ef! I knew she blamed me—partly, at least—for her loss in this particular political cockfight. I did admire her then: the tailored gold zipsuit, pointy breasts, whippy corpus bathed in the soft beam of a spot directed onto her chair. A wig of parsley curls. Her witch’s face perfectly symmetrical, almost frightening in its lack of blemish. So composed. So
sure.
Exuding power as naturally as sweat. I could look at those green-painted lips and marvel where they once had been. On me.

“Nick,” she said tonelessly, “you seem amused.”

“Only because of the name of the new department,” I said smoothly. “Department of National Assets. DNA. That’s my Section’s abbreviation for the molecular basis of heredity. Deoxyribonucleic acid. The double helix. Why we are what we are. It seems an apt title for a department dealing with national assets.”

There were a few smiles, a relaxation. I think the others were vaguely conscious that an unpleasant confrontation had been avoided.

“Very good, Nick,” she said. “Well, let’s get started. Anyone?”

Problems presented and discussed during that particular meeting —with one exception—were of monumental inconsequence. My own report, though deviously contrived, could have had little significance to the others present. I said that my Division of Research & Development had noted an increasing arrest rate for drug abuse, and we had started a research program to determine possible chromosomal damage from habitual use of hallucinogens. They all looked at me blankly.

The reports of the other Deputy Directors were equally as enervating.

DEPDIRCUL read a long, numbing research study on the feasibility of including commercials in the US Government’s satellite broadcasts to every nation wealthy enough to own TV receivers. The conclusion was that commercials of products distributed internationally would provide a dollar revenue approximating 83.4 percent of the total cost of providing the world with free US films, US cartoons, US news programs, artfully interspersed with short features on happy US servers on the assembly line, tuna fishing off California, the splendid array of electric bidets available to US citizens, and the whitewashing of Mt. Rushmore.

Heavy interest in buying commercial time on US satellite TV broadcasts had already been expressed by Kodak cameras, Ford cars, IBM typewriters, Pepsi-Cola, and Jiffi condoms (“I'll be with you in a Jiffi!”).

It was decided to recommend to the Chief Director that such commercial time be sold.

DEPDIRWIS, a tall, gaunt ef with a reported predilection for young, plump boys, complained of the scruff she was receiving on the government-sponsored program to provide methylphenidate tablets for hyperactive children in elementary schools. It was the same drug I had popped a few hours previously to overcome hangover depression. With the children, of course, the reaction was exactly the opposite: It sedated them.

It was agreed a new public conditioning program would be necessary to convince unreasonably anxious parents of the benefits of the drug to their children. It was so ordered.

I came alive only during the presentation by DEPDIRPRO. This fussy little em, a prototype bookkeeper, droned through a list of depressing numbers that revealed how much love the US Government was expending on indigent, nonproductive, and underconsuming obsos. Including costs of food, clothing, shelter, medical care, etc.

I was alerted because it had been Maya Leighton’s memo on exactly the same subject, when she had been a member of my Gerontology Team, that had first brought her to our attention. I remembered her suggestion, now in our Tomorrow File. I was conscious of Paul Bumford shifting position behind me, and knew he remembered it, too.

DEPDIRPRO begged for possible solutions to his dilemma, saying:

“The annual drain on the US Treasury is rapidly approaching the point where it will no longer be financially tolerable. To say nothing of the essential unfairness to young, productive, consuming, tax-paying objects of our population.”

“At the moment,” Angela Berri said immediately and crisply, “the possibility of euthanasia is not politically expedient, and I want no discussion of the subject. But I will welcome any other suggested solutions for this serious problem.”

There was almost a minute of silence. Then I raised my hand, tentatively.

“Nick?”

I told them SATSEC had been aware of this problem for some time, that it was difficult and vexing, that we had expended a great number of object-hours brainstorming the situation. And we had evolved what might be, at least, a partial solution.

I then, briefly, explained the program of Government-Assisted Peace: X dollars paid to each indigent obso who signed a life-release statement, that sum to be spent or bequeathed before painless suicide, the means of which would be provided by the government at no extra cost to the object.

I pointed out that details would have to be refined: the amount of the grant, the wording of the voluntary release statement, the time allowed between signing and stopping, and so forth. But SATSEC estimated, I lied casually, that a minimum of ten million new dollars annually, and probably more, could be saved by the plan.
Not
euthanasia, I emphasized. Purely voluntary.

Again there was silence while they all stared at the water carafes on the table, at the walls, the ceiling, anywhere but at each other. Finally Angela turned to her Public Relations chief.

“Will it play in Peoria, Sam?” she asked.

He hunched forward in his chair, a benign, rubicund em with flashing rings on three fingers.

“If you want my tip-of-the-tongue reaction,” he said, “I would say yes. We got a motivation study here, of course, and we got some in-depth emotional analyses. But like I said, my instinctual gut feeling is go.”

“Vic?” Angela turned to her legal counsel.

“In my opinion—” he began.

“Yes or no, Vic,” she said sharply.

“I think we can manage it.”

“Very well, Sam.” Angela nodded at the PUBREL chief. “Move on it, Good computing, Nick. Anything else? Anyone?”

“Strange,” Paul Bumford said as we moved out of DOB headquarters into that bright afternoon sunlight.

“What’s strange?” I asked.

“That PROSEC business and Government-Assisted Peace. I had no idea that items in our Tomorrow File might be implemented so soon.”

“That’s what we’re creating it for, isn’t it? It’s not just a Christmas list. It’s a plan, a practical program that may not be feasible today but that we expect to be tomorrow.”

“You’re right, of course.” Paul nodded. “But tomorrow has become today so quickly. It’s just the speed that surprises me. Well . . . there’s Herb Bailey waiting for his drink. I better start my rounds. Where are you off to?”

“Chief Director,” I said shortly. “To deliver the prospectus for the Department of Creative Science.”

“He’s out of the country,” Paul said. “Left yesterday for talks with the British on their joining the US.”

“I know,” I said. “I’ll leave it with his wife.”

“Oh-ho,” Paul said.

I stared at him.

“We agreed she may prove lovable to us.”

“No argument, Nick,” he said hastily. “I may soon be meeting the ef myself.”

“Oh?”

"I joined the New York chapter of the Beists. A national convention is planned for next month. Here, in Washington.”

“Where are they going to hold it—in a phone booth?”

As anticipated, I had trouble at the gate. They took an electronic scan of my BIN card, ran a voiceprint check through their central computer, made me walk through a metal and explosives detector.

(Since 1981, by UN agreement, all explosives legally manufactured anywhere in the world contained a radioactive signature.)

After all this, I was told the Chief Director was out of the country. I expressed chagrin at my ignorance, then asked to see Mrs. Wingate. Reluctantly, they flashed the main house and I showed my phiz on screen. Grace Wingate vouched for me, I was allowed entrance, escorted to the bolted steel door by an armed guard.

She waved aside the zipsuited butler and held her hands out to me.

“Sorry about the fuss, Nick,” she said. Somewhat breathlessly. “How
are
you?”

“Well, thank you. And you?”

“In shamefully good health, doctor. Hungry? A drink?”

“A drink would be nice. I just stopped by to drop off a report the Chief Director wanted delivered personally. It’s restricted.”

“I’ll make certain he gets it personally,” she assured me. “Let’s go in here. ...”

She led the way into that same slightly shabby, chintzy parlor-type room where we had all been seated when the bombs boomed and flechettes sang during my previous visit. The portrait of John Quincy Adams still had a third eye.

She looked about vaguely.