Fun House (15 page)

The crowd roared at this silly concoction published, no doubt, by the National Dictionary of Pocket Humor. I rushed over to the clown, snatched the scrap of paper out of his hand and tore it into bits. There might have been a riot, but just then a Reservation woman whom I knew — Esther Silo — recognized me and called, “There’s Crockett Smith, the dirty renegade, the wife-deserter!”

I regretted my impulsive action, but it was too late. The crowd of Outsiders was grinning, waiting to hear more. “Esther,” I said. “I’m here on official business.”

“Since when is deserting your poor wife and children official business?”

“You’ll be sorry you said that, Esther!”

“Look at him in his fancy dude clothes,” she sneered, pointing at my leaf-green Wearitwunce suit. “Fancy clothes, fancy women — we know his kind.”

There was nothing to do but skulk off. I only calmed down when I was with the Commissioner and had lit up one of his U-Latu cigars. “My own people,” I concluded my bitter story with a smile.

“They’ll welcome you back as a hero when they know all the facts, Crockett.”

The news he had was all I could have hoped for. He had seen the president, who approved of everything I had done. An emergency meeting of the Cabinet had been scheduled for eleven o’clock. Also at eleven, to expedite matters, the Commissioner and I would present the case of Bangani (Barnum F.) to the lower Supreme (human) Court in New Washington. “If They approve, the Supreme Court will go along, Crockett!”

New Washington when we got there was swarming with tourists. Not only was it Lobby Day, but June and July had always been big tourist months in the Capital. Tourists stared at the huge windowless skyscrapers and crowded about the outdoor QanA’s or Question-and-Answer Think Machines, asking all sorts of questions. Simple questions of how much was in their wallets, and more difficult ones such as predictions of the future. They were enjoying the answers too. These QanA’s were fun machines more than anything else, the most recent novelty. In fact, they were a harmless adaptation of the subversive You-Too-Can-Be-A-Think-Machine project that had led to the conviction of Barnum Fly.

We walked through a park, bright with exotic flowers, the flaming red muscamortis
¹
, the black and purple magicientist, whose petals changed to pink and blue when they dropped to the ground, and the national flower, the three leaved red, white and blue clover. The park attendants, I noticed, were wearing Japanese kimonos. “A new summer style?” I asked the Commissioner.

“No. Japan happens to be Nation of the Month. It’s a diplomatic courtesy of the Rulers. They honor the nations of the world on an alphabetical basis.”

On the other side of the park, there was a second row of windowless skyscrapers. Guards paraded in front of their entrances — automatons with arms and legs, and numbers for heads, mostly 2’s but with an occasional 4 or 7. In honor of Nation of the Month, they wore Japanese uniforms.

The Commissioner approached a Number 4 and said in code, “M (9X-N
²
).”

It conducted us to an inner court wheer the windowless walls rose on three sides. Here there was no one, human or antihuman. Then, from one of buildings came a man who was either Japanese or had been made up to resemble a Japanese. He bowed and said, “I am to conduct the honorable gentlemen to the Court of Problems.” We followed him to where a brass ring was set in the stone. He bowed again with the proverbial courtesy of the Orient and pulled on the ring. I heard a hum, a strong sustained hum. The stone before us, a section of about ten feet by ten, began to sink. When the hum stopped, an escalator like some living thing emerged out of the space. It grew and grew until it reached the wall of what must have been the Court of Problems.

We stepped on the escalator, the guide behind us. He smiled at the surprise and excitement he must have observed in my face. “Problems,” he singsonged. “Problems, problems. Gentlemen, are you aware that the people of Japan whom we honor this month have no problems? Their Rulers have eliminated all problems. Twelve hours of dreamless sleep. Four hours work, four hours pleasure, and four hours of prayer to their Supreme Ruler-Mikados.”

I listened to this good-will propaganda that evidently he had been spieling from June 1st to June 30th. “Tomorrow’s another month,” I said. “And you’ll be giving another speech on the glories of life in another country.”

“Yes, on Kanada
¹
,” he smiled.

He was just another bureaucrat with a bureaucrat’s lack of imagination. What he needed was an injection of Gladys’ Bee-Ambo, I thought. I had been thinking about her all morning, if the truth must be told.

We had been carried by the escalator to an elevated street, sixty or seventy feet above the stone court below; not a street so much as a ledge or shelf attached to the doorless and windowless wall of the skyscraper.

The guide bowed and without another word descended.

“Look!” the Commissioner said, pointing. I turned around. Even in the sun, the tiny yellow tail light, fixed to what in a human would have been the end of the spine, gleamed brightly.

“He seemed so real!” I said.

“You never can tell any more to whom you’re talking.”

“Elvis, I’m worried. No use concealing it. All this red tape — ”

“I won’t move a step until you calm down,” he said, taking out a box of U-Latus. We each ate two of the happiness pills and then walked over to the entrance or what should have been an entrance. Twenty feet above our heads there was a carved legend in the white marble; E=MC
₂
¹
.

“I suppose there’ll be a door somewhere, a seeing eye,” I said cheerfully.

There was. As our shadows fell
²
on the blank wall, it slid open. We entered a big reception room which had also been decorated in honor of the Nation of the Month. There were screens with conventional Japanese designs — storks, cherry trees, geishas. At the desks, the receptionists were wearing silk kimonos. To me, they looked real enough, even though they were remarkably alike, with black hair and slanted eyes. “The Garden of Eden Salons are certainly kept busy, Elvis,” I said.

They looked real, but as we approached, they simultaneously lifted their heads and smiled. Maybe it was the U-Latus but somehow it struck me as the funniest thing I had ever seen. And when the wall behind us slid back into place, I laughed. A solemn-faced official hurried over to us. This one, I was positive, was human. First of all there was nothing Japanese about him, but more importantly he had a wart on his chin and a crooked mouth. There was absolutely nothing machine-made about him. He was, if I may use the phrase, divinely human.

“Commissioner Sonata and Chief of Police Smith,” he greeted us, “I must say your humor is ill-advised. On behalf of the Court of Problems — ”

“We have no problems,” I said.

The Commissioner was flipping through the pages of his pocket dictionary of humor. “Wall, wall. Here it is between ‘Walk of Life’ and ‘wallpaper.’ Oh, here’s a nice epigram.” He lifted his smiling face and recited: ‘Life is a happy sheet of wallpaper where we mortal flies walk upside down.’ ”

The official frowned at him, and reaching into his pocket he took out an atomizer which he pressed. A light blue vapor
¹
formed for a second and then vanished, and with it our sense of fun. “I regret that I was compelled to eliminate your good humor,” he apologized. “Mr. Smith, as a stranger among us, you can be pardoned.”

“Pardoned for what?” I said gloomily. “Yes, pardon me for laughing. I should have known there are some things sacred here! Your Think Machine!”

“Thank you for your understanding, Mr. Smith. On behalf of the Court of Problems, I want to express Their gratitude for your services to the State. Dr. Bangani or should I say Mr. Barnum Fly was the most serious menace to our national security in generations. The problems presented by that disloyal magicientist were formidable. These problems still continue when one reflects on the obsessive traits of his character, particularly the obsession for vindication. The fact that he has entrusted the A-I-D to his associate, the Professor Fleischkopf, a man with an exaggerated killer instinct, indicates better than words the delicate margin between life and total death. I repeat, Mr. Smith, your services are appreciated and valued. Thank Univac
²
, you were not murdered at Bangani Castle by your schizoid host.” He bowed and said, “Perhaps, before you see the Court, you would care for some breakfast, Mr. Smith? Three cups of black coffee aren’t really sustaining.”

He knew all about us
³
. I stared at his solemn face and said, “The professor worries me. I couldn’t eat a thing. When I think of him at large — ”

“I insist that we be brought to the Court immediately,” the Commissioner said. “The President is meeting with the Cabinet right now. Let’s go to the Court. The sooner They can advise S.C.O.S.T. the better.”

“It is the Supreme Court of Supreme Thought,” the official corrected him. “You should know that the proper title for the Rulers is so specified in Government Regulations and Procedures, Chapter Two, Sub-section 19A.”

“Let’s not waste any more time,” I said impatiently.

“Proper procedure is never a waste of time, Mr. Smith. As for you, Commissioner, I will report you to the Court.”

“What’s your name?” the Commissioner demanded angrily.

“Mr. Wheel,
¹
Commissioner. I might add, sir, that your reputation for insubordination is not exaggerated. And furthermore, sir — ”

I was angry now myself. “Mr. Wheel, do you like your job?”

“It is a great honor to work in New City.”

“Make the most of it!” I shouted. “You’ve only got a few days left. How can you stand there arguing when the A-I-D is loose. My God, doesn’t it worry you, or aren’t you worried because you’ve got a pension and old age retirement?”

A smile touched his crooked mouth. “If I accept the proposition that the country will be destroyed on July 4th, how can I benefit from a pension or old age retirement? An amusing paradox, Mr. Smith. But fortunately for me it isn’t my problem.” And like the bureaucrat he was, he raised his bureaucratic hand.

One of the Japanese-type receptionists got up from her desk and glided over to us. “Conduct these gentlemen to the Court of Problems,” he told her.

“Kind and honorable sirs, will you accompany me?” she said. Her intonation was Japanese and when she moved it was with a charming and exotic swing of her hips. But as we followed her, I wondered moodily if she were real flesh and blood or sponge rubber and wires underneath her rose-colored kimono.

We entered a huge room where hundreds of technicians were working. On hundred-foot long wall charts, statistics were being written by electronic pens. In the next room there wasn’t a single human being. Only blinking signal lights, and file clerks made of metal rods busy at rows of filing cabinets. These automatons had fifteen or twenty fingers on each of their hands, their fingers or digits differently colored and probably color-magnetized. For as they held their hands over the open filing cabinets, sheets and papers and documents — each differently colored — floated up and attached themselves to the matching fingers. Blue sheets to blue digits, red documents to red digits etc. When the hands were full, the automatons whirred down the single steel tracks that covered the entire floor, passing out of sight through doors that opened and shut as if before an invisible wind.

“No more arguments, Elvis,” I whispered.

“Every time I come here I make enemies.” He sighed and took out his box of U-Latus. I refused them, and he popped three into his mouth. He chewed for a few seconds and then laughed. “What do I care about enemies? A man without enemies is a machine. Like that cute little doll. Never can tell any more in this part of town.”

“Elvis,” I warned him.

Before I could stop him, he hurried in front of our receptionist and wiggled his fingers under her nose. “Are you a human being, little doll?” He laughed as if he were drunk and drunk he was, on an overdose of that damned artificial good humor.

“Come back here, Elvis!”

He laughed. “All I want to know is if she’s a human being?”

“I have no problems, honorable sir,” the receptionist replied.

I ran forward and grabbed the Commissioner’s arm. “Damn you, do you want to ruin everything?”

“You’re too serious, Crockett,”, he laughed. “Have some.” He offered me the box of U-Latus and, when I tried to snatch the box away, he ducked and popped two or three more into his mouth. The added dose was too much for him. With a wild laugh he rushed to the receptionist and circled her waist.

“Life’s a sheet of wallpaper where we mortal flies are stuck!” he shouted happily as I tried to pull him away from the receptionist.

“I have no problems, honorable sir,” she singsonged and suddenly she raised her hands and clapped.

Maybe she had no problems, but we did. The instant she had clapped her hands I had felt as if we were slipping. And we were! The floor of the corridor was shifting slowly from the horizontal.

“The floor!” the Commissioner cried and burst into hysterical laughter as we began to slide as if on a chute. “The floor, the wall, the floor!”

Only the receptionist was unaffected by that tilting floor. “I have no problems, honorable sir,” she was singsonging. “I have no problems …”

“Jump!” the Commissioner yelled at me, leaping towards her or rather it. For that’s what she was, an automaton on a magnetized track. He managed to clutch its waist while I grabbed his ankles.

Perhaps a new circuit had been started when the floor reached a certain angle? Anyway, the receptionist was moving up the chute the corridor had become, and as it ascended, it clapped its hands. “My God!” I screamed while the Commissioner loaded up as he was with those happiness pills, laughed out his horror. His dangling feet smacked against my head. Second by second, the chute became steeper. I felt that I could no longer hold on. It wasn’t my strength giving out. It was those ankles. They were becoming too hot for human fingers. With a last scream I let go and fell….