Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (7 page)

"She'd have a hard time shopping if she couldn't speak." "
Tosh
, shoppin' wouldn't be so bad," said the old man. "They've got supermarkets out there where you can shop and not say a word. The child really likes supermarkets, she's always going to them. Office to supermarket, supermarket to office. That's her whole life." "Doesn't she go home?"

"The child likes the office. It's got a kitchen and a shower, everything she needs. At most she goes home once a week." I drank my coffee.

"But say, you managed't'talk with her all right," the old man said. "How'd you do it? Telepathy?"

"Lipreading. I studied it in my spare time."

"Lipreading, of course," the old man said, nodding with approval. "A right effective technique. I know a bit myself. What say we try carrying on a silent conversation, the two of us?"

"Mind if we don't?" I hastened to reply.

"Granted, lipreading's an extremely primitive technique. It has shortcomings aplenty, too. Gets too dark and you can't understand a thing. Plus you have't'keep your eyes glued to somebody's mouth. Still, as a halfway measure, it works fine. Must say you had uncanny foresight't'learn lipreading."

"Halfway measure?"

"Right-o," said the old man with another nod. "Now listen up, son. I'm tellin' this to you and you alone: The world ahead of us is goint'be sound-free."

"Sound-free?" I blurted out.

"Yessir. Completely sound-free. That's because sound is of no use to human evolution. In fact, it gets in the Way. So we're going't'wipe sound out, morning to night."

"Hmph. You're saying there'll be no birds singing or brooks babbling. No music?"

"'Course not."

"It's going to be a pretty bleak world, if you ask me."

"Don't blame me. That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution," said the old man. He stood up and walked around his desk to retrieve a pair of nail clippers from a drawer. He came back to the sofa and set at trimming all ten fingernails. "The research is underway, but I can't give you the details. Still, the general drift of it is… well, that's what's comin'. You musn't breathe a word of this to anyone. The day this reaches Semiotec ears, all pandemonium's goint'break loose."

"Rest easy. We Calcutecs guard our secrets well."

"Much relieved't'hear that," said the old man, sweeping up his nail clippings with an index card and tossing them into the trash. Then he helped himself to another cucumber sandwich. "These sure are good, if I do, say so myself."

"Is all her cooking this good?"

"Mmm, not especially. It's sandwiches where she excels. Her cooking's not bad, mind you, but it just can't match her sandwiches."

"A rare gift," I said.

"Tis," the old man agreed. "I must say, I do believe it takes someone like you to fully appreciate the child. I could entrust her to a young man like you and know I'd done the right thing."

"Me?" I started. "Just because I said I liked her sandwiches?"

"You don't like her sandwiches?"

"I'm very fond of her sandwiches."

"The way I see it, you've got a certain quality. Or else, you're missin' something."

"I sometimes think so myself."

"We scientists see human traits as being in the process of evolution. Sooner or later you'll see it yourself. Evolution is mighty gruelin'. What do you think the most gruelin' thing about evolution is?"

"I don't know. Tell me," I said.

"It's being unable to pick and choose. Nobody chooses to evolve. It's like floods and avalanches and earthquakes. You never know what's happening until they hit, then it's too late."

I thought about this for a bit. "This evolution," I began, "what does it have to do with what you mentioned before? You mean to say I'm going to lose my powers of speech?"

"Now that's not entirely accurate. It's not a question of speaking or not speaking. It's just a step."

"I don't understand." In fact, I
didn't
understand. On the whole, I'm a regular guy. I say I understand when I do, and I say I don't when I don't. I try not to mince words. It seems to me a lot of trouble in this world has its origins in vague speech. Most people, when they go around not speaking clearly, somewhere in their unconscious they're asking for trouble.

"What say we drop the subject?" said the old man. "Too much complicated talk. It'll spoil your tabulations. Let's leave it at that for now."

No complaints from this department. Soon after, the alarm rang and I went back to work.

Whereupon the old man opened a drawer and pulled out what looked like a pair of stainless-steel fire tongs. He walked over to the shelves of skulls and, like a master violinist examining his Stradivarius collection, picked up one or another of them, tapping them with the fire tongs to listen to their pitch. They gave out a range of timbre and tones, everything from the clink you might get from tapping a whiskey glass, to the dull thud from an oversized flower pot. To think that each skull once had skin and flesh and was stuffed with gray matter—in varying quantities—teeming with thoughts of food and sex and dominance. All now vanished.

I tried to picture my own head stripped of skin and flesh, brains removed and lined up on a shelf, only to have the old guy come around and give me a rap with stainless-steel fire tongs. Wonderful. What could he possibly learn from the sound of my skull? Would he be able to read my memories? Or would he be tapping into something beyond memory?

I wasn't particularly afraid of death itself. As Shakespeare said, die this year and you don't have to die the next. All quite simple, if you want to look at it that waVrjfe's no piece of cake, mind you, but the recipe's my own to fool with. Hence I can live with it.

But after I'm dead, can't I just lie in peace? Those Egyptian pharoahs had a point, wanting to shut themselves up inside pyramids.

Several hours later, the laundry was finally done. I couldn't say how many hours it had taken, but from the state of my fatigue I would guess a good eight or nine hours. I got up from the sofa and stretched my stressed muscles. The Calcutec manual includes how-to illustrations for limbering up a total of twenty-six muscle groups. Mental wear-and-tear takes care of itself if you relieve these stress points after a tab-session, and the working life of your Calcutec is extended that much longer.

It's been less than ten years since the whole Calcutec profession began, so nobody really knows what that life expectancy ought to be. Some say ten years, others twenty; either way you keep at it until you the day you die. Did I really want to know how long? If it's only a matter of time before you burn yourself out, all I can do is keep my muscles loose and my fingers crossed.

After working the knots in my body out, I sat back down on the sofa, closed my eyes, and slowly brought my right brain and left brain together again. Thus concluded all work for the day. Manual-perfect.

The old man had a large canine skull set out on his desk and was taking measurements with slide calipers, noting the figures on a photo of the specimen.

"Finished, have you?" asked the old man.

"All done."

"You put in a very hard day," he said.

"I'll be heading home to sleep now. Tomorrow or the next day I'll shuffle the data and have it back to you by noon two days later. Without fail. Is that satisfactory?"

"Fine, fine," said the old man, nodding. "But remember, time is absolutely critical. If you're later than noon, there'll be trouble. There'll be real trouble."

"I understand."

"And I beg of you, make certain no one steals that list. If it gets stolen, it'll be both our necks."

"Don't worry. We receive quite thorough training on that count. There'll be no inadvertent straying of tabulated data."

I withdrew a flex-metal document cache from a pocket behind my left knee, inserted the data list, and locked it.

"I'm the only one who can open this. If someone tampers with the lock, the contents are destroyed."

"Mighty clever," the old man said.

I slipped the document cache back behind my knee.

"Say now, sure you won't have any more to eat? There're a few sandwiches left. I don't eat much when I'm caught up in research. Be a shame't'let them go to waste."

I was still hungry, so I squared away the remaining sandwiches. The old man poured me a fresh cup of coffee.

I climbed back into rain gear, pulled on my goggles, took flashlight in hand, and headed back into the subterranean passage. This time the old man didn't come along.

"Already put out ultrasonic waves't'drive those INKlings away, so shouldn't be any of them sneakin' around for the time bein'," the old man reassured me.

Apparently, these INKlings were some kind of subterranean entity, which made me feel a bit squeamish about walking all alone out there in the dark. It didn't help that I didn't know a thing about INKlings, not their habits nor what they looked like nor how to defend myself against them. Flashlight in my left hand, knife in my right, I braced myself for the return trip.

When I saw the chubby pink-suited young woman waving her flashlight and coming my way, I felt saved. I made it over toward her. She was saying something which I couldn't hear over the rumble of the de-sound-removed river. Nor could I see her lips in the darkness.

Up the long aluminum ladder we went, to where there was light. I climbed/first, she followed. Coming down, I hadn't been ableTiTsee anything, so there was nothing to be afraid of, relatively speaking, but going back up was something else entirely. I could picture the height only too well—a two- or three-story drop. I wanted to stop to regather my wits, but she was on my tail. Safety first, I always say, so I kept climbing.

We made it through the closet back into the first room and stripped off our rain gear.

"Work go well?" she asked. Her voice, now audible for the first time, was soft and clear.

"Well enough, thanks."

"I really appreciate your telling Grandfather about my sound-removal. I would have been like that for a whole week."

"Why didn't you tell me that in writing? You could have been straightened up a lot sooner, and I wouldn't have been so confused."

She did a quick turn around the table without a word, then adjusted both of her earrings.

"Rules are rules," she said.

"Against communicating in writing?"

"That's one of them."

"Hmph."

"Anything that might lead to devolution."

"Oh," I said. Talk about precautions.

"How old are you?" she asked out of the blue.

"Thirty-five. And you?"

"Seventeen. You're the first Calcutec I've ever met. But then, I've never met any Semiotecs either."

"You're really only seventeen?" I asked, surprised.

"Yes, why should I lie? I'm really seventeen. I don't look seventeen, though, do I?"

"No, you look about twenty."

"It's because I don't want to look seventeen," she said. "Tell me, what's it like to be a Calcutec?"

"We're normal ordinary people, just like everyone else."

"Everyone may be ordinary, but they're not normal."

"Yes, there is that school of thought," I said. "But there's normal and then there's
normal
. I mean the kind of normal that can sit down next to you on the train and you wouldn't even notice. Normal. We eat food, drink beer—oh, by the way, the sandwiches were great."

"Really?" she said, beaming.

"I don't often get good sandwiches like that. I practically ate them all myself."

"How about the coffee?"

"The coffee wasn't bad either."

"Really? Would you like some now? That way we could sit and talk a little while longer."

"No thanks, I've had more than enough already," I said. "I don't think I can manage another drop. And besides, I need to get myself home to bed quick."

"That's too bad."

"Too bad for me, too."

"Well, let me at least walk you to the elevator. The corridors a-e extremely complex. I bet you couldn't find your way on your own."

"I doubt it myself."

The girl picked up what looked like a round hatbox, sealed several times over with wide adhesive tape, and handed it to me.

"What's this?" I asked.

"A gift for you from Grandfather. Take it home and open it."

I weighed the box in my hapds. It was much lighter than I would have guessed, and it would have had to be an awfully big hat. I shook the box. No sound.

"It's fragile, so please be careful with it," the girl cautioned.

"Some kind of souvenir?"

"I don't know. You'll find out when you open it, won't you?" /

Then the girl opened her pink handbag and gave me an envelope with a Bank check.

Filled out for an amount slightly in excess of what I'd expected. I slipped it into my wallet.

"Receipt?"

"No need," she said.

We exited the room and walked the same long maze of corridors back to the elevator. Her high heels made the same pleasant clicking on the floor, but her plumpness didn't make as strong an impression as it had at first. As we walked along together, I almost forgot about her weight. Given time, I'd probably even get used to it.

"Are you married?" she asked, turning to me.

"No, I'm not," I said. "I used to be, but not now."

"Did you get divorced because you became a Calcutec? I always hear how Calcutecs don't have families."

"That's not true. Some Calcutecs are fine family men. Though certainly, most seem to pursue their careers without a home life. It's a nerve-racking line of work, sometimes very risky. You wouldn't want to endanger a wife and kids."

"Is that how it was with you?"

"I became a Calcutec after I got divorced. The two had nothing to do with each other."

"Sorry for prying. It's just that you're my first Calcutec and there're so many things I don't know."

"I don't mind."

"Well then, I've also heard that Calcutecs, when they've finished a job, that they get all pumped up with sex drive."

"I couldn't… umm… really say. Maybe so. We do work ourselves into a very peculiar mental condition on the job."