The Dead Town

Chapter 57

The plasma screens are positioned at far too many places in the Hive. Excessive care has been taken to be sure that Victor Immaculate can be informed of developments in a timely fashion. When funds are unlimited, there is a tendency to overdesign critical systems, and this is certainly an example of absurd redundancy. The screens are everywhere. They are ubiquitous. He wishes only to walk and think, to allow the invigorating torrents of brilliant ideas, theories, and analyses to pour through his singular mind. But everywhere he turns, there is a plasma screen taunting him with its three-note alert. They are annoying in the extreme.

None of the news is of any import, the usual gnats in the path of the Communitarian war machine. The Builders gestating in cocoons at Meriwether Lewis School are no longer transmitting their progress. This is not a problem with those Builders, however, but it is yet another malfunction of the monitoring equipment, which is worse than government surplus, which is government surplus made in China.

And now the Communitarians sent to the radio station to retake it have also ceased transmitting. Of course the problem is not in the Communitarians, for they are an unstoppable force, perfectly designed and manufactured. Any problem is here on the receiving end, the less than adequate Chinese-made monitoring equipment failing yet again, no doubt sabotaged by disgruntled laborers in Shanghai or Shenyang or Guangzhou, who don’t think they should be working for two dollars a day and therefore take out their anger on total strangers who are using their products half a world away. Idiot-human economic systems.

The answer to every little glitch is the same, and Victor moves on without repeating it, because the Communitarians are at all times operating according to that directive: Consult the master strategy-and-tactics program, apply the appropriate remedy, and press forward without delay.

Of the virtually infinite number of problems with human beings, one of the worst is the economic systems that they create. Whether capitalism or communism, or something between, they are all grossly inadequate, and essentially for the same reason: Every system relies on workers who expect to be compensated in some way for their labor.

That isn’t the case with Communitarians. They do not need money to go to a movie or to attend a concert, or to purchase the latest novel by the current literary darling. They have no interest in such things. They don’t need money for cars or for new clothes, because they just take what they need. And they won’t continue needing and voraciously consuming forever because eventually they will all drop dead at once. That is a perfect economic system.

Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo. “The People’s Republic of China.” The problem can be seen in the name of the place: People.

Another plasma screen sounds its three-note alert, and this time the scrolling report informs Victor that the gestating Builders at the house of Reverend Kelsey Fortis ceased to transmit hours earlier. Their silence has not been noticed by the monitoring system until now.

He prefers to descend again to the levels of this installation that are below those given to his work, to the peace of corridors and rooms free of plasma screens. But with no Communitarians down there to attend to him, he must remain here, especially now. After being afflicted by these unending reports of problems that aren’t problems, that are only errors of monitoring, he needs perhaps more attention than usual.

When Victor turns another corner, the three-legged table waits for him. On it stands a cold bottle of water. Beside the bottle is a lavender dish. In the dish wait two burnt-orange capsules and a sour-yellow tablet as big as a dime.

He is surprised that these things should be put before him so soon after he took the shiny red capsule and the white tablet that were offered in a yellow saucer. But of course he must need them.

Not just his vital signs but also his brain waves — alpha, beta, delta, and theta — and an array of hormone levels are meticulously monitored telemetrically at all hours of the day and night. In the interest of having the fullest power of his unprecedented intelligence at his command 24/7, he developed a brilliant regimen of natural substances — herbs, exotic spices, ground roots, ultrapurified minerals — and a wide array of pharmaceuticals in exquisitely measured doses, which are provided to him as the telemetric data indicate he requires them.

The bottle of water is cold, yes, but it seems less cold to Victor than it ought to be. For burnt-orange capsules and a sour-yellow tablet, a lavender dish is inadequately coordinated. On the other hand, he has never needed burnt-orange and sour-yellow mental enhancements simultaneously, so the Communitarians programmed to attend to him were required to wing it. And, after all, they have no interest in design or art.

He swallows what has been provided. As the clone of the great Victor Frankenstein, distilled into greater brilliance than his namesake, further self-refined, he is incapable of error. Therefore the Communitarians, his creations, are likewise without the capacity for error.

After he walks a few minutes, Victor begins to feel better than he has felt for several hours. The waters of his mind are clearer and deeper and thrillingly colder than they have ever been previously, sparkling with thoughts no man or clone has ever entertained before, great schools of ideas like silvery fish darting after one another in dazzling patterns and profusion.

The plasma screens are silent for a while, but then one sounds its tones and scrolls up the news that the Moneyman has canceled his visit. In Denver on business, he has with great stealth decamped with his entourage to a safe house in Billings. From there he is supposed to come secretly to the Hive at dawn, by helicopter or in a fleet of Land Rovers if weather grounds the chopper. He is to receive a tour of this facility. He will instead return to Denver, canceling his plans because of the KBOW broadcast, which he claims is being recorded by people outside Rainbow Falls and uploaded to numerous sites on the Internet.

Victor has planned an unforgettable reception for the Moneyman, and he is not pleased by this absurd and cowardly response to what is an easily addressed problem. Communitarians are even now applying the appropriate remedy and pressing forward without delay. The Moneyman is a mere human being, however, and even though wealthy and powerful, he is prone to errors of judgment. When KBOW is taken and its crew replaced with Communitarians, they will begin broadcasting an apology for the hoax perpetrated by some of their staff. The public is easily aroused but just as easily sold a false sense of security. In time the Moneyman will realize — though never admit — his error, and he will be more supportive than before.

Because Victor Immaculate has all the memories of the original Victor, he has known many like the Moneyman. They share the same desires and corruptions. Their behavior is predictable.

All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well in this Victor Immaculate world.