This Perfect Day (18 page)

He hurried down the stairs.

He had to get out, out of the building and onto the walkways and plazas. He would walk to the museum—it wouldn’t be open yet—and hide in the storeroom or behind the hot-water tank until tomorrow night, when Lilac and the others would be there. He should have grabbed some cakes just now. Why hadn’t he thought of it? Hate!

He left the stairway at the ground floor and walked quickly along the hallway, nodded at an approaching member. She looked at his legs and bit her lip worriedly. He looked down and stopped. His coveralls were torn at the knees and his right knee was bruised, with blood in small beads on the surface.

“Can I do anything?” the member asked.

“I’m on my way to the medicenter now,” he said. “Thanks, sister.” He went on. There was nothing he could do about it; he would have to take his chances. When he got outside, away from the building, he would tie a tissue around the knee and fix the coveralls as best he could. The knee began to sting, now that he knew about it. He walked faster.

He turned into the back of the lobby and paused, looked at the escalators planing down on either side of him and, up ahead, the four glass scanner-posted doors with the sunny walkway beyond them. Members were talking and going out, a few coming in. Everything looked ordinary; the murmur of voices was low, unalarmed.

He started toward the doors, walking normally, looking straight ahead. He would do his scanner trick—the knee would be an excuse for the stumbling if anyone noticed—and once he was out on— The music stopped, and “Excuse me,” a woman’s voice loudspeakered, “would everyone please stay exactly where he is for a moment? Would everyone please stop moving?”

He stopped, in the middle of the lobby.

Everyone stopped, looked around questioningly and waited. Only the members on the escalators kept moving, and then they stopped too and looked down at their feet. One member walked down steps. “Don’t move!” several members called to her, and she stopped and blushed.

He stood motionless, looking at the huge stained-glass faces above the doors: bearded Christ and Marx, hairless Wood, smiling slit-eyed Wei. Something slipped down his shin: a drop of blood.

“Brothers, sisters,” the woman’s voice said, “an emergency has arisen. There’s a member in the building who’s sick, very sick. He’s acted aggressively and run away from his adviser” —members drew breath—“and he needs every one of us to help find him and get him to the treatment room as quickly as possible.”

“Yes!” a member behind Chip said, and another said, “What do we do?”

“He’s believed to be somewhere below the fourth floor,” the woman said; “a twenty-seven-year-old—” A second voice spoke to her, a man’s voice, quick and unintelligible. A member about to step on the nearest escalator was looking at Chip’s knees. Chip looked at the picture of Wood. “He’ll probably try to leave the building,” the woman said, “so the two members nearest each exit will move to it and block it, please. No one else move; only the two members nearest each exit.”

The members near the doors looked at one another, and two moved to each door and put themselves uneasily side by side in line with the scanners. “It’s awful!” someone said. The member who had been looking at Chip’s knees was looking now at his face. Chip looked back at him, a man of forty or so; he looked away.

“The member we’re looking for,” a man’s voice on the speaker said, “is a twenty-seven-year-old male, nameber Li RM35M4419. That’s Li, RM, 35M, 4419. First we’ll check among ourselves and then we’ll search the floors we’re on. Just a minute, just a minute, please. UniComp says the member is the only Li RM in the building, so we can forget the rest of his nameber. All we have to look for is Li RM. Li RM. Look at the bracelets of the members around you. We’re looking for Li RM. Be sure that every member within your sight is checked by at least one other member. Members who are in their rooms will come out now into the hallways. Li RM. We’re looking for Li RM.”

Chip turned to a member near him, took his hand and looked at his bracelet. “Let me see yours,” the member said. Chip raised his wrist and turned away, went toward another member. “I didn’t see it,” the member said. Chip took the other member’s hand. His arm was touched by the first member, saying, “Brother, I didn’t see.”

He ran for the doors. He was caught and arm-pulled around —by the member who had been looking at him. He clenched his hand to a fist and hit the member in the face and he fell away.

Members screamed. “It’s him!” they cried. “There he is!” “Help him!” “Stop him!”

He ran to a door and fist-hit one of the members there. His arm was grabbed by the other, saying in his ear, “Brother, brother!” His other arm was caught by other members; he was clutched around the chest from behind.

“We’re looking for Li RM,” the man on the speaker said. “He may act aggressively when we find him but we mustn’t be afraid. He’s depending on us for our help and our understanding.

“Let go of me!” he cried, trying to pull himself free of the arms tightly holding him.

“Help him!” members cried. “Get him to the treatment room!” “Help him!”

“Leave me alone!” he cried. “I don’t
want
to be helped! Leave me
alone,
you brother-fighting haters!”

He was dragged up escalator steps by members panting and flinching, one of them with tears in his eyes. “Easy, easy,” they said, “we’re helping you. You’ll be all right, we’re helping you.” He kicked, and his legs were caught and held.

“I don’t
want
to be helped!” he cried. “I want to be left alone! I’m healthy! I’m healthy! I’m not sick!”

He was dragged past members who stood with hands over ears, with hands pressed to mouths below staring eyes.

“You’re
sick,” he said to the member whose face he had hit. Blood was leaking from his nostrils, and his nose and cheek were swollen; Chip’s arm was locked under his. “You’re dulled and you’re drugged,” Chip said to him. “You’re dead. You’re a dead man. You’re
dead!”

“Shh, we love you, we’re helping you,” the member said.

“Christ and Wei, let GO of me!”

He was dragged up more steps.

“He’s been found,” the man on the speaker said. “Li RM has been found, members. He’s being brought to the medicenter. Let me say that again: Li RM has been found, and is being brought to the medicenter. The emergency is over, brothers and sisters, and you can go on now with what you were doing. Thank you; thank you for your help and cooperation. Thank you on behalf of the Family, thank you on behalf of Li RM.”

He was dragged along the medicenter hallway.

Music started in mid-melody.

“You’re all dead,” he said. “The whole Family’s dead. Uni’s alive, only Uni. But there are islands where
people
are living! Look at the map! Look at the map in the Pre-U Museum!”

He was dragged into the treatment room. Bob was there, pale and sweating, with a bleeding cut over his eyebrow; he was jabbing at the keys of his telecomp, held for him by a girl in a blue smock.

“Bob,” he said, “Bob, do me a favor, will you? Look at the map in the Pre-U Museum. Look at the map from 1951.”

He was dragged to a blue-lighted unit. He grabbed the edge of the opening, but his thumb was pried up and his hand forced in; his sleeve torn back and his arm shoved in all the way to the shoulder.

His cheek was soothed—by Bob, trembling. “You’ll be all
right,
Li,” he said. “Trust Uni.” Three lines of blood ran from the cut into his eyebrow hairs.

His bracelet was caught by the scanner, his arm touched by the infusion disc. He clamped his eyes shut.
I will not be made dead!
he thought.
I will not be made dead! I’ll remember the islands, I’ll remember Lilac! I will not be made dead! I will not be made dead!
He opened his eyes, and Bob smiled at him. A strip of skin-colored tape was over his eyebrow. “They
said
three o’clock and they
meant
three o’clock,” he said.

“What do you mean?” he asked. He was lying in a bed and Bob was sitting beside it.

“That’s when the doctors said you’d wake up,” Bob said.

“Three o’clock. And that’s what it is. Not 2:59, not 3:01, but three o’clock. These mems are so clever it scares me.”

“Where am I?” he asked.

“In Medicenter Main.”

And then he remembered—remembered the things he had thought and said, and worst of all, the things he had done. “Oh, Christ,” he said. “Oh, Marx. Oh, Christ and Wei.”

“Take it easy, Li,” Bob said, touching his hand.

“Bob,” he said, “oh, Christ and Wei, Bob, I—I pushed you down the—”

“Escalator,” Bob said. “You certainly did, brother. That was the most surprised moment in my life. I’m fine though.” He tapped the tape above his eyebrow. “All closed up and good as new, or will be in a day or two.”

“I
hit
a member! With my hand!”

“He’s fine too,” Bob said. “Two of those are from him.” He nodded across the bed, at red roses in a vase on a table. “And two from Mary KK, and two from the members in your section.”

He looked at the roses, sent to him by the members he had hit and deceived and betrayed, and tears came into his eyes and he began to tremble.

“Hey, easy there, come on,” Bob said.

But Christ and Wei, he was thinking only of himself! “Bob, listen,” he said, turning to him, getting up on an elbow, back-handing at his eyes.

“Take it easy,” Bob said.

“Bob, there are
others,”
he said, “others who’re just as sick as I was! We’ve got to find them and help them!”

“We know.”

“There’s a member called ‘Lilac,’ Anna SG38P2823, and another one—”

“We know, we know,” Bob said. “They’ve already been helped. They’ve all been helped.”

“They have?”

Bob nodded. “You were questioned while you were out,” he said. “It’s Monday. Monday afternoon. They’ve already been found and helped—Anna SG; and the one you called ‘Snowflake,’ Anna PY; and Yin GU, ‘Sparrow.’”

“And King,” he said. “Jesus HL; he’s right here in this building; he’s—”

“No,” Bob said, shaking his head. “No, we were too late. That one—that one is dead.”

“He’s dead?”

Bob nodded. “He hung himself,” he said.

Chip stared at him.

“From his shower, with a strip of blanket,” Bob said.

“Oh, Christ and Wei,” Chip said, and lay back on the pillow. Sickness, sickness, sickness; and he had been part of it.

“The others are all fine though,” Bob said, patting his hand. “And you’ll be fine too. You’re going to a rehabilitation center, brother. You’re going to have yourself a week’s vacation. Maybe even more.”

“I feel so ashamed, Bob,” he said, “so fighting ashamed of myself . . .”

“Come on,” Bob said, “you wouldn’t feel ashamed if you’d slipped and broken an ankle, would you? It’s the same thing.
I’m
the one who should feel ashamed, if anyone should.”

“I
lied
to you!”

“I let myself be lied to,” Bob said. “Look, nobody’s really responsible for anything. You’ll see that soon.” He reached down, brought up a take-along kit, and opened it on his lap. “This is yours,” he said. “Tell me if I missed anything. Mouthpiece, clippers, snapshots, nameber books, picture of a horse, your—”

“That’s sick,” he said. “I don’t want it. Chute it.”

“The picture?”

“Yes.”

Bob drew it from the kit and looked at it. “It’s nicely done,” he said. “It’s not accurate, but it’s—nice in a way.”

“It’s sick,” he said. “It was done by a sick member. Chute it.”

“Whatever you say,” Bob said. He put the kit on the bed and got up and crossed the room; opened the chute and dropped the picture down.

“There are islands full of sick members,” Chip said. “All over the world.”

“I know,” Bob said. “You told us.”

“Why can’t we help them?”

“That I don’t know,” Bob said. “But Uni does. I told you before, Li: trust Uni.”

“I will,” he said, “I will,” and tears came into his eyes again.

A red-cross-coveralled member came into the room. “How are we feeling?” he asked.

Chip looked at him.

“He’s pretty low,” Bob said.

“That’s to be expected,” the member said. “Don’t worry; we’ll get him evened up.” He went over and took Chip’s wrist.

“Li, I have to go now,” Bob said.

“All right,” Chip said.

Bob went over and kissed his cheek. “In case you’re not sent back here, good-by, brother,” he said.

“Good-by, Bob,” Chip said. “Thanks. Thanks for everything.”

“Thank Uni,” Bob said, and squeezed his hand and smiled. He nodded at the red-crossed member and went out.

The member took an infusion syringe from his pocket and snapped off its cap. “You’ll be feeling perfectly normal in no time at all,” he said.

Chip lay still and closed his eyes, wiped with one hand at tears while the member pushed up his other sleeve. “I was so sick,” he said. “I was so sick.”

“Shh, don’t think about it,” the member said, gently infusing him. “It’s nothing to think about. You’ll be fine in no time.”

O
LD CITIES
were demolished; new cities were built. The new cities had taller buildings, broader plazas, larger parks, monorails whose cars flew faster though less frequently.

Two more starships were launched, toward Sirius B and 61 Cygni. The Mars colonies, repopulated and safeguarded now against the devastation of 152, were expanding daily; so too were the colonies on Venus and the Moon, the outposts on Titan and Mercury.

The free hour was extended by five minutes. Voice-input telecomps began to replace key-input ones, and totalcakes came in a pleasant second flavor. Life expectancy increased to 62.4.

Members worked and ate, watched TV and slept. They sang and went to museums and walked in amusement gardens.

On the two-hundredth anniversary of Wei’s birth, in the parade in a new city, a huge portrait banner of smiling Wei was carried at one of its poles by a member of thirty or so who was ordinary in every respect except that his right eye was green instead of brown. Once long ago this member had been sick, but now he was well. He had his assignment and his room, his girlfriend and his adviser. He was relaxed and content.