The Tomorrow File (80 page)

“You mean I’d falsify results?” Squalid smile.

“Let’s just say you’d misrepresent conclusions.”

“So you don’t trust me?”

“On this particular matter—no.”

He stood up. Trying very hard to keep himself under control. But his voice, when he spoke, was pitched higher than normal. Not hysteria, but a furious anger that threatened to break into screams and shouts.

“Nick ...” he said. Drew a deep breath. “I’m trying to trail-blaze, and you’re stonewalling me. I’ve noticed, more and more, you’ve been influenced by obso moral considerations. You’ve been corrupted by humanism. It’s decaying your judgment and perverting your decisions. You were the em who preached total objectivity. Presenting a facade of humanitarianism was to be part of the scenario. That was operative, and I believed it. I still believe it. But now you have defected. What is it, Nick? Don’t you have the courage to follow your convictions to their logical ends? Well, I do. And I’m not alone; I can tell you that.

“Something you haven’t realized. ... All your brave words about the Tomorrow File not being a Christmas list, and how we had to effectualize it as soon as possible—a lot of kaka, Nick! That’s exactly what it is for you: a Christmas list, a never-never inventory of brilliant ideas. Created so you can postpone actions you know are inevitable but don’t have the courage or energy or desire to fructify.

“The Tomorrow File
is
tomorrow, Nick—and you know it! Right now we’re on the edge, the verge, the fulcrum. The balance is shifting. The change will be enormous. Overwhelming! And the Tomorrow File is the scenario, the Department of Creative Science the organism. I thought we’d do it together. Everything we projected. But you’ve become an obso, Nick. In your computing. You’re no longer able to keep up. You can’t accept change. You’ve been passed. Events have gone beyond you. And ideas. You’re no longer able to translate scientific principles into political doctrine. I don’t know why; I don’t know what’s happened to you. I could guess, but I won’t. All I know is that your retrogression is sad.

Personally, to me, sad. But you can’t stop us, Nick. That’s not a threat; it’s a resolution.”

He marched out of there. I inhaled an eight-hour Somnorific and found darkness.

I came out of it about 0830 on the morning of September 9,1999. I lay awhile in bed. Sheet pulled down to my waist. Hands behind my head. Staring at pale sunshine washed through the curtained windows. Was Grace Wingate lying alone as I was then? Perhaps I had been Wrong. . . . We had been wrong. . . . I wasn’t sure. . . .

Light knock on the door. Then it was opened immediately. Paul, carrying a tray. Orange petrojuice, toasted soybread, a pot of coftea, cups, saucers, cutlery, petrobutter, natural grape jelly, paper napkins.

“Peace offering.” He smiled. Radiant smile.

“Greeks bearing gifts.” I laughed. “Bring it over here.”

He sat on the edge of my bed. We breakfasted there. Sharing the same knife, same tub of butter, same jelly.

“Listen, Nick,” he said. “About last—”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

He swallowed obediently.

“About last night,” he said. “I’m sorry. But it’s important to me.”

“I compute,” I said. “Paul, if we can’t talk to each other as operatively as that, we’ve got nothing.”

“Right,” he said. “Well, I’ll forget about that research project.”

“No,” I said, “don’t forget about it. Paul, I’m not trying to demolish your theories. It’s just your timing I object to. Let’s get the Department of Creative Science finalized. Once that’s in existence, the stratosphere’s the limit. But at this point in time, we’ve got to walk tippytoe. Gloss all our activities on the UP. If it ever gets out, i we’re stopped. You compute that, don’t you?”

“Oh sure, Nick.”

“But that doesn’t mean your ideas might not be operative. But for the future. Put it in the Tomorrow File.”

“I already have.” He grinned mischievously.

We both laughed. He took the tray from my bed, set it aside. Then he skinned out of his robe, slipped under the sheet. Close to me.

“What’s this?” I said.

“One guess,” he whispered.

“Wait,” I said. “Wait just a minute.”

I slid out of bed, got a liquid graphite pen and a pad of paper from my desk. Brought them back to the bed.

“ESP,” I said. “Let’s try it again. A two-word phrase.”

“Right,” he said.

We both scribbled. Then turned into each other’s arms.

His corpus had become firmer. Harder. But still beneath that incredibly tender, limpid skin. Through which I could feel the rushing course of blood, heartpump, the rising heart of sexual excitement.

He put his soft lips to my nipples, loins, thighs. A sweet butcher. Carving me up. His breath was young. All of him scented. We traced each other. Flung the sheet aside. Rolling.

His eyes fluttered, closed. I eased him onto his back. Knees rose and parted. Conditioned reflex. The pleasure I felt was not heightened by penetrating an em. But heightened by guilt at surrendering to the demands of my own corpus. Brain denied. Animal all.

We fumbled some.

“Out of practice,” I gasped.

He grunted.

But we finally linked, moaning. His hips pillowed. My back arched. Both of us in heat. Lightly sweated. We held back. As long as we could. Ultimizing the swoon.

We summited in a fury. Nails. Crying out. As elemental as a storm. Something despairing there. I pronged as deeply as I could. Waiting to split him. Rend. And he wanting to surrender. Rend. Surrender. From
renda,
to tear? Or from
rendre,
to give back, yield? What difference? Who was slave and who master? Both of us slick and coughing with our passion.

We pumped in deescalatory rhythm. Then rested until the slime dried and stuck us fast. Disengaged cautiously. Pulled away.

“Oh,” Paul breathed. “Oh, how beautiful.”

“Yes,” I said.

We lay in silence for minutes. Both upon our backs. Staring at the brightening sunshine streaming through the window. Watching the mad motes dance.

“What did you write?” I asked him.

He showed me his paper: “Ultimate Pleasure.”

I showed him mine: “Checkered cap.”

He looked at me.

“Checkered cap?” he said. “Nick, what does
that
mean?” 

“Just a thought,” I said. “A vagrant notion.”

“Well”—he sighed—“it didn’t serve. We’re far apart.”

We lay in silence another five minutes. Resting. Sharing a single cannabis cigarette. Watching how the white smoke bloomed and billowed up into the strengthening sunlight. Finally:

“What are your plans for today?” he asked lazily.

"Back to GPA-1, ” I said. “But before I leave, I want to visit that Twenty-first Century exhibit at the Mall. After I see that, I thought I’d walk over to Union Station and take the Aeroglide home.” 

“Oh, yes,” he said. “That’s fun. It really does feel like you’re riding on air.”

“You’ve taken it?” I said, surprised. “When?”

“While you were on the PR tours,” he said. “I had to go to New York, and the airports were socked in.”

“Why did you have to go to the compound?”

“Talk to Phoebe Huntzinger,” he said. “About the direct-wire link for Operation Lewisohn. And once to check out Leo Bernstein’s scenario for moving his equipment down.”

“Oh, yes,” I said. “Of course. Sure.”

“Well. ...” He yawned. “I better get back to the political world. Have a good time at the Mall exhibition.”

He got out of bed. Pulled on his robe and belted it. Smiling at me. A beautiful em! Then he leaned down. Kissed my lips. Patted my cheek with his fingertips.

“Take care,” he said lightly.

I spent a slow morning showering, shaving, dressing, packing. It was almost noon when I took the Metro to the Mall. Carrying a thin attache case of reports, papers, journals. Kaka to scan on the train trip north.

Finishing touches were being applied to the Twenty-first Century Celebration Festival along the Mall. Servers were testing the lighting of an enormous sign that would flash YOU NEVER LIVED SO GOOD! every three seconds until the turn of the century. Ropes were up, keeping out the general public until the following week. But that week was a preview for US Government servers; my BIN card and official ID got me past the guards with no trouble.

I started at the log cabin, circa 1700, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, and wandered slowly through American homes of 175
0, 
1800, 1850, 1900, 1950, up to the present. I had come prepared to scoff at this patent public relations stunt. But I found myself fascinated. Touched. Unaccountably troubled.

The obso homes had been built or assembled with careful attention to authentic detail. They might be placed in artificial settings of plastiturf and plastirub shrubs and trees. But the structures themselves were the originals or accurate reproductions. Using primary materials. The houses were complete to bed linens, pictures on the walls, tables set for a meal, rugs, bric-a-brac, etc. They were even “inhabited.” By actors dressed in appropriate costumes. Silently moving through their obso roles: serving, dancing, gathering about an ancient harmonium to mouth the words of long-stopped songs.

What impressed me so? First, the
texture
of these obso homes. Rough-cut wood. Nubby plaster. Carving. Crude painting. Hooked rugs. Odd shapes. Rooms that were not boxes. I was made doubly aware of the charm of obso texture when I entered the ‘ ‘Home of the Present.” All smooth, glossy, bland, perfect. Obso homes were palaces of error: ill-fitting beams, three steps up or down from room to room, a bow window where a flat square would have served as functionally well.

And the whimsy! All shapes of stained glass inserts. Enormous brass door-knockers. China bulldogs on the hearth. Dried flowers under bell jars. Framed tintypes on a mahogany piano. A cast-iron wood-burning stove as artfully decorated and embellished as an altar. The
humanness
of it all!

I came out of the Twenty-first Century Celebration Festival chastened by a vague feeling that I had been bred too late. I would have flourished in those obso days. Perhaps lecturing on anatomy at Johns Hopkins to an audience as bearded as I. Returning to a gaslit home of gleaming wood and glittering crystal. Logs snapping in the fireplace. Wife and children. No amusements but our own company. Conversation. Laughter. Singing.

So I exited the “Home of the Present,” still thinking of the past. The way they lived. As I passed through the guarded gate, a tall, heavyset em stepped into my path. Our eyes locked. He nodded once, briefly, turned and walked quickly away. He was wearing a checkered cap.

I looked about. There were three black official sedans parked in file along Fourteenth Street, in front of me. Another on Washington Drive to my right. Another on Adams Drive, to my left. Black zipsuits standing outside each car. Watching me.

I walked slowly toward Fourteenth. A group of three, led by a short, chubby ef in a red zipsuit moved to intercept. I stopped. The officer came close. The three black zipsuits moved quietly around me.

“Dr. Nicholas Bennington Flair, sir?” she said.

“May I see your identification, please?” I said.

“Certainly, sir,” she said.

She showed BIN card and official ID. A lieutenant of the Bureau of Public Security.

“Very well,” I said. “I am Nicholas Bennington Flair.”

I proffered my BIN card and ID. She scanned them quickly. Returned them to me.

“Thank you, sir,” she said. “Dr. Flair, I have orders to take you.”

Silence. We stared at each other.

“On whose authority?” I asked her.

“Warrant from the Chief Prosecutor, sir,” she said.

“May I see it, please?”

“Of course, sir.”

She pulled her zipsuit down far enough to extract a folded paper. A warrant for my taking. “On suspicion of activities contrary to public interest. ” Nothing unusual about it. But I scanned it slowly.

“Thank you, lieutenant,” I said. Returning the warrant to her.

“I must now read you a statement of your rights, sir,” she said.

“That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I know my rights.”

“Please, sir,” she said. “I’m required to recite it. I
must
recite it.”

“Very well,” I said. “Recite it.”

She withdrew a crumpled card from her opened zipper and began scanning it aloud. I had the right to remain silent, I had the right to legal counsel of my choice. I could call at US Government expense. If I could not afford legal counsel, the US Government would provide such counsel without charge.

“Do you fully understand what I have told you, sir?” she inquired anxiously.

“I fully understand it,” I assured her.

“Thank you, sir,” she said gratefully. “Would you sign this release, please? It states only that I have explained your legal rights to you, and that you fully understand them.”

She pulled a third paper from her bodice. A walking file cabinet. I scanned the release swiftly. She had a pen ready.

“What can I write on?” I said.

She turned her back to me and bent over slightly. On her broad, soft back, I scrawled my signature on the release. She returned all documents to her body and zipped up.

“Thank you, sir,” she said.

“Thank
you,”
I said. “Now what?”

“This way, please, sir.”

They walked me to one of the black sedans. Before I got in, my attache case was taken from me and I was patted down. Quickly. Expertly. Then I was seated in the rear between two black zipsuits. The lieutenant got in front, next to the driver.

It didn’t take me long to realize where we were going. Across the Arlington Memorial Bridge. Past the A&N Country Club. Down into Alexandria.

“Hospice No. 4,” I said aloud.

No one answered. No one spoke.

To the building set off by itself. The Public Security Ward. With white plastisteel mesh over the windows. Surrounded by plastiturf. They hustled me into the main entrance hall. Lined with stainless steel tiles. The room marked Admittance was divided by a wire grille. Several objects, ems and efs, in white hospital garb, were serving on the other side. They looked up when we entered. A small yellow em came over to the opening in the grille and stood behind a counter.