Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (37 page)

“Oh, I’m not armed.”

“You’re endowed with deadly weapons that you’re using ruthlessly.”

“If you love this work of art for its beauty alone, why not share it with us? Or are you the kind of man you hate, the kind that must own?”

“I’m getting the worst of this.”

“Why can’t you leave it here? If you give it up now, you’ll have won a half interest in it forever. You’ll be free to come and go as you please. You’ll have won a half interest in our family—my father, me, all of us… .”

“My God! I’m completely outclassed. All right, keep your confounded—” He broke off.

“What’s the matter?”

He was staring at her left arm. “What’s that on your arm?” he asked slowly.

“Nothing.”

“What is it?” he persisted.

“It’s a scar. I fell when I was a child and—”

“That’s no scar. It’s a vaccination mark.”

She was silent.

“It’s a vaccination mark,” he repeated in awe. “They haven’t vaccinated in four hundred years—not like that, they haven’t.” She stared at him. “How do you know?”

In answer he rolled up his left sleeve and showed her his vaccination mark.

Her eyes widened. “You too?”

He nodded.

“Then we’re both from …”

“From then? Yes.”

They gazed at each other in amazement. Then they began to laugh with incredulous delight. They embraced and thumped each other, very much like tourists from the same home town meeting unexpectedly on top of the Eiffel Tower. At last they separated.

“It’s the most fantastic coincidence in history,” he said.

“Isn’t it?” She shook her head in bewilderment. “I still can’t quite believe it. When were you born?”

“Nineteen fifty. You?”

“You’re not supposed to ask a lady.”

“Come on! Come on!”

“Nineteen fifty-four.”

“Fifty-four?” He grinned. “You’re five hundred and ten years old.”

“See? Never trust a man.”

“So you’re not the Webb girl. What’s your real name?”

“Dugan. Violet Dugan.”

“What a nice, plain, wholesome sound that has.”

“What’s yours?”

“Sam Bauer.”

“That’s even plainer and nicer. Well!”

“Shake, Violet.”

“Pleased to meet you, Sam.”

“It’s a pleasure.”

“Likewise, I’m sure.”

“I was a computer man at the Denver Project in seventy-five,” Bauer said, sipping his gin and gingersnap, the least horrific combination from the Webb bar.

“Seventy-five?” Violet exclaimed. “That was the year it blew up.”

“Don’t I know it. They’d bought one of the new IBM 1709s, and IBM sent me along as installation engineer to train the Army personnel. I remember the night of the blast—at least I figure it was the blast. All I know is, I was showing them how to program some new algorisms for the computer when—”

“When what?”

“Somebody put out the lights. When I woke up, I was in a hospital in Philadelphia—Santa Monica East, they call it—and I learned that I’d been kicked five centuries into the future. I’d been picked up, naked, half dead, no identification.”

“Did you tell them who you really were?”

“No. Who’d believe me? So they patched me up and discharged me, and I hustled around until I found a job.”

“As a computer engineer?”

“Oh, no; not for what they pay. I calculate odds for one of the biggest bookies in the East. Now, what about you?”

“Practically the same story. I was on assignment at Cape Kennedy, doing illustrations for a magazine piece on the first Mars shoot. I’m an artist by trade—”

“The Mars shoot? That was scheduled for seventy-six, wasn’t it? Don’t tell me they loused it.”

“They must have, but I can’t find out much in the history books.”

“They’re pretty vague about our time. I think that war must have wiped most of it out.”

“Anyway, I was in the control center doing sketches and making color notes during the countdown, when—well, the way you said, somebody put out the lights.”

“My God! The first atomic shoot, and they blew it.”

“I woke up in a hospital in Boston—Burbank North—exactly like you. After I got out, I got a job.”

“As an artist?”

“Sort of. I’m an antique-faker. I work for one of the biggest art dealers in the country.”

“So here we are, Violet.”

“Here we are. How do you think it happened, Sam?”

“I have no idea, but I’m not surprised. When you fool around with atomic energy on such a massive scale, anything can happen. Do you think there are any more of us?”

“Shot forward?”

“Uh huh.”

“I couldn’t say. You’re the first I ever met.”

“If I thought there were, I’d look for them. My God, Violet, I’m so homesick for the twentieth century.”

“Me too.”

“It’s grotesque here; it’s all B picture,” Bauer said. “Pure Hollywood cliché. The names. The homes. The way they talk. The way they carry on. All like it’s straight out of the world’s worst double feature.”

“It is. Didn’t you know?”

“Know? Know what? Tell me.”

“I got it from their history books. It seems after that war nearly everything was wiped out. When they started building a new civilization, all they had for a pattern was the remains of Hollywood. It was comparatively untouched in the war.”

“Why?”

“I guess nobody thought it was worth bombing.”

“Who were the two sides, us and Russia?”

“I don’t know. Their history books just call them the Good Guys and the Bad Guys.”

“Typical. Christ, Violet, they’re like idiot children. No, they’re like extras in a bad movie. And what kills me is that they’re happy. They’re all living this grade Z synthetic life out of a Cecil B. DeMille spectacle, and the idiots love it. Did you see President Spencer Tracy’s funeral? They carried the coffin in a full-sized Sphinx.”

“That’s nothing. Did you see Princess Joan’s wedding?”

“Fontaine?”

“Crawford. She was married under anesthesia.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I am not. She and her husband were joined in holy matrimony by a plastic surgeon.”

Bauer shuddered. “Good old Great L.A. Have you been to a football game?”

“No.”

“They don’t play football; they just give two hours of half-time entertainment.”

“Like the marching bands; no musicians, nothing but drum majorettes with batons.”

“They’ve got everything air-conditioned, even outdoors.”

“With Muzak in every tree.”

“Swimming pools on every street corner.”

“Klieg lights on every roof.”

“Commissaries for restaurants.”

“Vending machines for autographs.”

“And for medical diagnosis. They call them Medicmatons.”

“Cheesecake impressions in the sidewalks.”

“And here we are, trapped in hell,” Bauer grunted. “Which reminds me, shouldn’t we get out of this house? Where’s the Webb family?”

“On a cruise. They won’t be back for days. Where’s the cops?”

“I got rid of them with a decoy. They won’t be back for hours. Another drink?”

“All right. Thanks.” Violet looked at Bauer curiously. “Is that why you’re stealing, Sam, because you hate it here? Is it revenge?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s because I’m homesick… . Try this; I think it’s Rum and Rhubarb… . I’ve got a place out on Long Island—Catalina East, I ought to say—and I’m trying to turn it into a twentieth-century home. Naturally I have to steal the stuff. I spend weekends there, and it’s bliss, Violet. It’s my only escape.”

“I see.”

“Which again reminds me. What the devil were you doing here, masquerading as the Webb girl?”

“I was after the Flowered Thundermug too.”

“You were going to steal it?”

“Of course. Who was as surprised as I when I discovered someone was ahead of me?”

“And that poor-little-rich-girl routine—you were trying to swindle it out of me?”

“I was. As a matter of fact, I did.”

“You did indeed. Why?”

“Not the same reason as you. I want to go into business for myself.”

“As an antique-faker?”

“Faker and dealer both. I’m building up my stock, but I haven’t been nearly as successful as you.”

“Then was it you who got away with that three-panel vanity mirror framed in simulated gold?”

“Yes.”

“And that brass bedside reading lamp with adjustable extension?”

“That was me.”

“Too bad; I really wanted that. How about the tufted chaise longue covered in crewel?”

She nodded. “Me again. It nearly broke my back.”

“Couldn’t you get help?”

“How could I trust anyone? Don’t you work alone?”

“Yes,” Bauer said thoughtfully. “Up to now, yes; but I don’t see any reason for going on that way. Violet, we’ve been working against each other without knowing it. Now that we’ve met, why don’t we set up housekeeping together?”

“What housekeeping?”

“We’ll work together, furnish my house together and make a wonderful sanctuary. And at the same time you can be building up your stock, I mean, if you want to sell a chair out from under me, that’ll be all right. We can always pinch another one.”

“You mean share your house together?”

“Sure.”

“Couldn’t we take turns?”

“Take turns how?”

“Sort of like alternate weekends?”

“Why?”

“You know.”

“I don’t know. Tell me.”

“Oh, forget it.”

“No, tell me why.”

She flushed. “How can you be so stupid? You know perfectly well why. Do you think I’m the kind of girl who spends weekends with men?”

Bauer was taken aback. “But I had no such proposition in mind, I assure you. The house has two bedrooms. You’ll be perfectly safe. The first thing we’ll do is steal a Yale lock for your door.”

“It’s out of the question,” she said. “I know men.”

“I give you my word, this will be entirely on a friendly basis. Every decorum will be observed.”

“I know men,” she repeated firmly.

“Aren’t you being a little unrealistic?” he asked. “Here we are, refugees in this Hollywood nightmare; we ought to be helping and comforting each other; and you let a silly moral issue stand between us.”

“Can you look me in the eye and tell me that sooner or later the comfort won’t wind up in bed?” she countered. “Can you?”

“No, I can’t,” he answered honestly. “That would be denying the fact that you’re a damned attractive girl. But I—”

“Then it’s out of the question, unless you want to legalize it; and I’m not promising that I’ll accept.”

“No,” Bauer said sharply. “There I draw the line, Violet. That would be doing it the L.A. way. Every time a couple want a one-night stand they go to a Wedmaton, put in a quarter and get hitched. The next morning they go to a Renomaton and get unhitched, and their conscience is clear. It’s hypocrisy! When I think of the girls who’ve put me through that humiliation: Jane Russell, Jane Powell, Jayne Mansfield, Jane Withers, Jane Fonda, Jane Tarzan—Iyeuch!”

“Oh! You!” Violet Dugan leaped to her feet in a fury. “So, after all that talk about loathing it here, you’ve gone Hollywood too.”

“Go argue with a woman.” Bauer was exasperated. “I just said I didn’t want to do it the L.A. way, and she accuses me of going Hollywood. Female logic!”

“Don’t you pull your male supremacy on me,” she flared. “When I listen to you, it takes me back to the old days, and it makes me sick.”

“Violet … Violet … Don’t let’s fight. We have to stick together. Look, I’ll go along with it your way. What the hell, it’s only a quarter. But we’ll put that lock on your door anyway. All right?”

“Oh! You! Only a quarter! You’re disgusting.” She picked up the Flowered Thundermug and turned.

“Just a minute,” Bauer said. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going home.”

“Then we don’t team up?”

“No.”

“We don’t get together on any terms?”

“No. Go and comfort yourself with those tramps named Jane. Good night.”

“You’re not leaving, Violet.”

“I’m on my way, Mr. Bauer.”

“Not with that Thundermug.”

“It’s mine.”

“I did the stealing.”

“And I did the swindling.”

“Put it down, Violet.”

“You gave it to me. Remember?”

“I’m telling you, put it down.”

“I will not. Don’t you come near me!”

“You know men. Remember? But not all. about them. Now put that mug down like a good girl or you’re going to learn something else about male supremacy. I’m warning you, Violet… . All right, love, here it comes.”

Pale dawn shone into the office of Inspector Edward G. Robinson, casting blue beams through the dense cigarette smoke. The Bunco Squad made an ominous circle around the apelike figure slumped in a chair. Inspector Robinson spoke wearily.

“All right, let’s hear your story again.”

The man in the chair stirred and attempted to raise his head. “My name is William Bendix,” he mumbled. “I am forty years of age. I am a pinnacle expediter in the employ of Groucho, Chico, Harpo and Marx, construction engineers, at 12203 Goldwyn Terrace.”

“What is a pinnacle expediter?”

“A pinnacle expediter is a specialist whereby when the firm builds like a shoe-shaped building for a shoe store, he ties the laces on top; also he puts the straws on top of an ice cream parlor; also he—”

“What was your last job?”

“The Memory Institute at 30449 Louis B. Mayer Boulevard.”

“What did you do?”

“I put the veins in the brain.”

“Have you got a police record?”

“No,
sir
.”

“What were you perpetrating in the luxurious residence of Clifton Webb on or about midnight last night?”

“Like I said, I was having a vodka-and-spinach in Ye Olde Moderne Beer Taverne—I put the foam on top when we built it—and this guy come up to me and got to talking. He told me all about this art treasury just imported by a rich guy. He told me he was a collector hisself, but couldn’t afford to buy this treasury, and the rich guy was so jealous of him he wouldn’t even let him see it. He told me he would give me a hundred dollars just to get a look at it.”

“You mean steal it.”

“No,
sir
, look at it. He said if I would just bring it to the window so he could look at it, he would pay me a hundred dollars.”