THE FEELIES Page 8

  "Y-yes."

  Frank Zola found that he was actually nodding, responding to a piece of software.

  It was so sudden that it took him completely by surprise. The big close-up was of a construction worker, tanned and smiling in yellow hard hat, blue jeans, and a red plaid workshirt-a total blue-collar stereotype. He grinned into the camera.

  "I tell you one thing, buddy, when I get my bonus, I'm going to have me a feelie. Ain't no son of a bitch gonna stop me."

  The hard hat image froze. The Hal 9000 voice came back.

  "Are you surprised, Frank? We used the word feelie. You probably thought we never said that word. Standing Directive 1341 stipulates that the word 'cheapens and degrades the image of the IE service and will, under no circumstances, be used in a public context.' You'll probably be even more surprised to learn that the word was made up right here in PR. The word feelie is our gift to the people. It is the common colloquial term. It's not our word-it's their word. IE belongs to the corporation, but feelie is the property of the people."

  The screen showed hundreds of stereotyped workers marching across a vast flat expanse, rank behind rank, all the way to the horizon. It had to be a computer simulation. Heroic music began to swell under the voice.

  "It's the people's word, Frank. It's something that belongs to them. It's their ultimate hope. It's the machine that can solve all their problems."

  The CM logo was back, but this time it was hewn from black stone, dark and forbidding, a brooding monolith that cast a long dark shadow over the marching workers. The Hal 9000 voice was mournful.

  "The people don't like the corporation, Frank. They don't like us at all. We are the only thing that stands between them and the fulfillment of their fantasies. The corporation is the bogeyman. It set up the price system that limits the service to the wealthy. It is the corporation that excludes the poor and the underclass. They hate us, but we don't mind. We understand, and we forgive. We know what is best, and we will do what is best even if cruelty is the only route to the ultimate kindness. It is better they resent the corporation than feel that the service was something being inflicted on them. This way they want the service, Frank. And they believe that it's their own idea that they want it. And it doesn't stop at wanting. They covet it; they yearn for it. They'd go into debt or steal for it if they thought that would bring it within their reach."

  The voice suddenly hardened. "Anything that will one day be the ultimate means of confining the excess population of this planet has to be something that the excess population desires with all its collective being. That's public relations, Frank."

  The CM logo was back, proud as an eagle. The flag was behind it. The background music wasn't quite the national anthem, but it came very close. Tears streamed down Frank Zola's face. A small part of his mind kept telling him that it was all chemical softeners and bullshit, that what the computer had been saying to him was knee-jerk nonsense, but he couldn't help himself. Waves of powerful if patently phony emotion were coursing through him like deep gasping shudders-and the voice still wasn't through with him.

  "Listen to me carefully, Frank. Listen to me. The IE is the machine that will solve the world's problem. Solve is an anagram of loves, Frank. Did you hear that? Solve is an anagram of loves, Frank. In public relations, Frank, we have to love the public. Our power is based only in love, Frank. We love every last one of them."

  Frank was nodding helplessly. He wanted to love the public. He wanted the power to love the public. He wanted the power of love. He wanted the power. He wanted the power to love the bastards right to death.

  "In the next few months, Frank, we will have more of these little chats. They are a crucial part of the indoctrination process. In thirty seconds, the pod door will open. Please leave quickly and quietly."

  WANDA-JEAN WAS STARTING TO GET TO know some of the other regular contestants. There was the hostile girl with dark hair called Sylvia; Danny, the long-haired kid from some small town who seemed to train all the time; Paul, the blond boy who kept himself to himself; and Nancy, who came on real friendly, but who was probably more of a ruthless gouger than any of them.

  The five of them were kind of thrown together. The competition was too intense on any game show for the players ever to form proper friendships. The only reason these five knew one another's names was because they were all at the same level on the show. They had all survived their initial appearances, and had one more show to go before they could get on the Dreamroad.

  Of course, by the time they reached the Dreamroad, there would no longer be five of them. At the most, two might have come through, more probably it would be one, or maybe they would all go down during the next screening.

  Wanda-Jean knew a few more of the contestants by sight. They were the ones who had come onto the show after her. The mere fact of getting through two programs unscathed made her a veteran already.

  And, of course, there was Ramone, the dark, faggy field leader who was almost at the end of the Dreamroad. Not that she spoke or even got close to Ramone. The network had him stashed away in a top downtown hotel. He was constantly guarded so no one could interfere with him. There was a buzz, however, that Ramone wouldn't make it through to a feelie contract. Behind the scenes rumor had him going down to Suzie, the vacant-looking farm girl, in the very next show. Wanda-Jean had learned that behind the scenes rumor was uncannily accurate.

  Wanda-Jean had learned a great deal during her short time on "Wildest Dreams." Most of it didn't do much to make her any happier about the life she was living. One of the first things she had discovered was that fucking Murray wasn't going to do a damn thing for her. As she had suspected at the very beginning, Murray was far from being Bobby Priest's right hand. He was a gofer, and a pretty low-level gofer, at that. She had compared notes with some of the other girls. It turned out that he pulled the same stunt on just about every personable female who passed the audition. The most galling part was that his bullshit usually worked.

  Murray Dorfman's proposition wasn't the last of that kind, either. As Wanda-Jean moved closer toward the Dreamroad, the offers simply came from higher up the studio hierarchy. All Wanda-Jean could do was to become more selective as she progressed through the show. She still couldn't afford to upset anyone who mattered. There was too much at stake.

  Wanda-Jean knew she ought to have been happy. With two shows under her belt she was turning into a minor celebrity. Her name had appeared in one of the game show gossip sheets. Her phone rang all the time. Old boyfriends, whom she hadn't seen in months, suddenly remembered how desirable she was and wanted to date her. Again, she had to learn to be selective.

  The most surprising part was the way that total strangers yelled at her in the street. Some wished her luck, others made smutty comments. They treated her as though they knew her intimately. It was as if she had become part of their lives.

  Wanda-Jean ought to have been reveling in it all. It was a way of life that she had always dreamed about. For the first time in her life, she was somebody. Admittedly she was only a minor somebody, not a star like Bobby Priest or Fay Fox from "The Torture Garden," but a somebody all the same.

  There was a problem, however. It just wasn't the way she had imagined it. Something was wrong. She wasn't sleeping at nights. She was drinking more and feeding herself a whole lot more pills. At first she thought it might have been the procession of Murrays who came knocking on her door, with their eager, smooth faces and busy, clammy hands. She dismissed that theory. She could handle the Murrays. Christ, she'd been handling them, to one degree or another, all her life.

  She also found she could handle the way the show was specifically set up to degrade the players. So she got knocked down and pushed around, so the animals in the crowd yelled abuse at her, so she generally ended each game bare-ass naked. She found that as long as she was winning she could almost take a perverse pleasure in what they put her through.

  "As long as she was winning" seemed to be the key phrase. The thing that s
topped her enjoying her newfound fame was exactly that. She only had to foul up once and it would be all over. A single mistake and she'd be nobody again, just like that. There was a current of tension that ran through every aspect of her new life. It made it impossible for her to relax. Even if she got through to the Dreamroad, it would only get worse.

  Wanda-Jean knew she ought to be looking forward to the Dreamroad. The idea of the downtown hotel, the crowds that would gather outside the hotel or the studios just to stare at her, and the bodyguards in constant attendance should have been the experience of a lifetime, something to wait for with bated breath. As it came closer, however, it just didn't feel right. She was starting to view the whole thing with extreme trepidation.

  She even felt guilty about her doubts and fears. She knew that she wasn't reacting in the right way. There were millions of people who'd give their right arms to be in her place. It didn't seem fair. How could you possibly enjoy anything that came neatly packaged with a constant reminder that it was likely to be taken away in an instant?

  Wanda-Jean's train of thought was cut off and jerked back to earth by the ringing of the phone. At first she ignored it. There were a lot of phone calls since she'd appeared on TV. Most of them wanted something, frequently her body.

  It went on ringing. Despite her state of mind Wanda-Jean had never had what it takes to sit by a ringing phone. By the time it had rung seven times, Wanda-Jean's willpower crumbled. She picked it up.

  "Hello."

  "This is building security," a female robot voice said.

  Wanda-Jean sighed. "I don't want to see anyone."

  "A letter has arrived for you. It came Fedex."

  Wanda-Jean's heart stopped. The letter had to be about the next game. The specifics were sent to each contestant on the day before the taping of each show. The letter would tell her exactly which obstacle course she had drawn.

  "I'll come down and get it."

  "Your letter is with the duty doorman. Please hold the line. He will be with you momentarily."

  There was a brief burst of easy-listening hold music.

  "Hello, Wanda-Jean, this is Reuben."

  Reuben was one of the token human doormen. He was a tiny birdlike Hispanic with a scarcely concealed drinking problem.

  "Yeah… uh… listen, Reuben, I'll be right down to pick it up."

  "I'll bring it up if you like."

  "You would?"

  "Sure. No trouble."

  "Hey, thanks."

  "I'll be up right away."

  Wanda-Jean hung up. From where she sat, she could see out of the apartment window. There was really nothing to look at. Only the smog and the identical apartment building across the street. It suddenly seemed to her that Reuben was about the only person she could trust. A doorman was the only person she could count on. She knew she ought to take some pills and snap out of this mood. It was probably only a comedown.

  The door buzzed. Wanda-Jean got up to answer it. As she had expected, it was Reuben. Reuben wasn't the most impressive figure of a man Wanda-Jean had ever seen. He was a good two inches shorter than her. The pale gray uniform provided by the owners of the building was about two sizes too large.

  He had the familiar white envelope with him. He held it out to Wanda-Jean, but she didn't take it. Suddenly she didn't want to be alone when she opened the message from the show.

  "Why don't you come inside for a moment, Reuben?"

  Reuben hesitated. "I didn't ought to be away from the door for too long. There ain't no one to cover for me."

  "A few minutes won't make all that much difference."

  Reuben reluctantly came inside. Wanda-Jean went over to the liquor cabinet.

  "You want a drink?"

  "I…"

  "Sure you want a drink. Why don't you sit down?"

  Reuben settled uncomfortably on the very edge of an easy chair that was solely designed to be lounged in. His uniform threatened to drown him. Wanda-Jean mixed the drinks. One of the compensations of being on "Wildest Dreams" was that she could now afford Scotch from Scotland. She handed Reuben a drink.

  "You look in a sorry state."

  Reuben raised an eyebrow. "You don't look exactly on top of things yourself.''

  Wanda-Jean laughed. Somehow she couldn't stop the laugh coming out brittle. "I don't?"

  "Not for a big game-show star."

  Wanda-Jean sighed. "Don't even talk about it."

  "It's getting to you."

  Reuben was still holding the envelope. He held it out. "Aren't you going to open this?"

  Wanda-Jean still didn't take it.

  Reuben turned it over between his fingers. "You want I should open it for you?"

  "Would you?"

  "Sure."

  Reuben quickly slit open the envelope. The icy chill grabbed Wanda-Jean's gut with a vengeance.

  "Read it to me. Which game is it?"

  Reuben scanned the single sheet of crisp, expensive notepaper. "They've put you on Personality Fall Down."

  "Jesus Christ!"

  "It's not that bad."

  "It's the worst. I'll never get through that."

  "Sure you will."

  Wanda-Jean sagged into a chair. She looked a picture of misery.

  "It's really nice of you to try and encourage me, Reuben, but this has got to be the end for me."

  Wanda-Jean had seen Personality Fall Down enough times to convince herself that she didn't have a chance. It was a game where the contestants stood in glass booths. Under the booths was a tank of liquid mud. Rapid general knowledge questions were fired at you. If you didn't keep getting them right, the floor of the booth slowly opened and you dropped through into the mud.

  Wanda-Jean could picture the scene all too vividly. The crowd would be baying and screaming as she dragged herself out of the mud and into oblivion. At least she'd be spared the Dreamroad, and the torture of knowing that the behind the scenes gossip was busily predicting her fall. She would have taken her fall already.

  Reuben put his half-finished drink down on the floor. He began to get up. Wanda-Jean started in panic. Was even Reuben going to desert her?

  "You haven't finished your drink yet."

  Reuben looked unhappy. "I got to get back to work. I really only took time out to bring that letter up to you. I figured you'd want it straightaway."

  "You sure you won't stay? At least finish your drink."

  "I really got to go."

  Wanda-Jean arranged herself in the chair so she would look as appealing as possible. "Don't go yet."

  Reuben was almost at the door. He half turned. For a moment their eyes met. Then Reuben looked away. His voice was soft and regretful.

  "I can't do what you want, Wanda-Jean."

  Before Wanda-Jean could work out what he meant, he had let himself quietly out of the flat.

  For a long time, Wanda-Jean sat staring at the door. Her depression had gone past rational thought and descended into a morose blankness. The phone rang again. Wanda-Jean absently picked it up. It was a reflex action.

  "Yeah?"

  "Hi, is that Wanda-Jean?"

  The voice was gratingly enthusiastic and friendly. Wanda-Jean's was correspondingly dull and flat.

  "This is she, who's that?"

  "It's Charlie, honey. You remember, don't you?"

  "No."

  "Oh, come on now. Good old Charlie. Hell, we had one great night after…"

  Wanda-Jean hung up and cried.

  THERE HAD TO BE A WAY OUT. THERE just had to be.

  The sound of boots rang from somewhere at the other end of the corridor. They were coming. Christopher Elwin III never knew when they were going to come. The schedules were constantly being altered, and the prisoners were kept permanently guessing. It was all part of the general policy of psychological disorientation. Christopher Elwin III's conditioned instinct was to do something, to sit bolt upright, to scan the cell for any little thing out of place, any blemish on the code of absolute spotlessness. Unfortun
ately, Christopher Elwin III wasn't able to do anything. Christopher Elwin could hardly move a muscle. He and the female prisoner lay pressed together, face to face on the hard, narrow bunk. Leather straps held them secured together at the wrists and ankles. Their collars were joined at the neck, and a wide leather belt was cinched tightly around both their waists. Her breasts were squeezed against his chest, her stomach and thighs were pressed against his, and the two of them were completely helpless. While Major Freda, the section commandant, had looked on with that cold, cruel smile of hers, Inga and Greta, the daytime guards on their tier, had bound them in that position before lights out, and they had been left that way all night. Close as he was to her, he didn't even know the woman's name. When she had been brought into the cell, they had only referred to her as Female Prisoner #27, just as he was always called Male Prisoner #19. The final orders had been simple.

  "No talking."

  "No sex."

  There was no room for misunderstanding. The slightest attempt at either would result in the most severe of punishments. There was also no deceiving the guards. All through the sleepless, muscle-cramping night they had been relentlessly observed by the black lens of the cell's surveillance camera. A whispered word or the slightest movement would be instantly noticed as well as recorded on tape for later disciplinary review. One of the favorite tricks of the guards was to force prisoners to watch tapes of their transgressions while physical correction was being inflicted on them. Rumors circulated throughout the prison of edited versions of these tapes, along with tapes of the punishments and executions, being circulated on the black market for the amusement and titillation of the party matriarchs and ranking officers of the secret police.

  The boots were coming nearer. The flesh of Christopher Elwin III actually started to crawl in anticipation of what might happen when the guards reached his cell. He guessed that Female Prisoner #27 was going through a similar spasm of scared anticipation. Risking the wrath of the video camera, she silently rolled her eyes. Then the boots stopped. An order was barked. It was Greta's voice.