The Simulacra

5

In the little building at the back of Jalopy Jungle Number Three, Al Miller sat with his feet up on the desk, smoking an Upmann cigar and watching passers-by, the sidewalk and people and stores of downtown Reno, Nevada. Beyond the gleam of the new jalopies parked with flapping banners and streamers cascading from them he saw a shape waiting, hiding beneath the huge sign that spelled out LOONY LUKE.

And he was not the only person to see the shape; along the sidewalk came a man and woman with a small boy trotting ahead of them, and the boy, with an exclamation, hopped up and down, gesturing excitedly. ‘Hey, Dad, look! You know what it is? Look, it's the papoola.'

‘By golly,' the man said with a grin, ‘so it is. Look, Marion, there's one of those Martian creatures hiding there under the sign. What do you say we go over and chat with it?' He started in that direction, along with the boy. The woman, however, continued along the sidewalk.

‘Come on, Mom!' the boy urged.

In his office, Al Miller lightly touched the controls of the mechanism within his shirt. The papoola emerged from beneath the LOONY LUKE sign, and Al caused it to waddle on its six stubby legs towards the sidewalk, its round, silly hat slipping over one antenna, its eyes crossing and uncrossing as it made out the sight of the woman. The tropism being established, the papoola trudged after her, to the delight of the boy and his father.

‘Look, Dad, it's following Mom! Hey Mom! Hey Mom, turn around and see!'

The woman glanced back, saw the platter-like organism with its orange bug-shaped body, and she laughed.

Everybody loves the papoola, Al thought to himself. See the funny Martian papoola. Speak, papoola; say hello to the nice lady who's laughing at you.

The thoughts of the papoola, directed at the woman, reached Al. It was greeting her, telling her how nice it was to meet her, soothing and coaxing her until she came back up the sidewalk towards it, joining her boy and husband so that now all three of them stood together, receiving the mental impulses emanating from the Martian creature which had come here to Earth with no hostile plans, no capacity to cause trouble. The papoola loved them, too, just as they loved it; it told them so right now -- it conveyed to them the gentleness, the warm hospitality which it was accustomed to on its own planet.

What a wonderful place Mars must be, the man and woman were no doubt thinking, as the papoola poured out its recollections, its attitude. Gosh, it's not cold and schizoid, like Earth society; nobody spies on anybody else, grades their endless relpol tests, reports on them to building Security Committees week in, week out. Think of it, the papoola was telling them as they stood rooted to the sidewalk, unable to pass on. You're your own boss, there, free to work your farm land, believe your own beliefs, become yourself.

Look at you, afraid even to stand here listening. Afraid to.

In a nervous voice the man said to his wife, ‘We'd better ... go.'

‘Oh no,' the boy said pleadingly. ‘I mean, gee, how often do you get to talk to a papoola? It must belong to that jalopy jungle there.' The boy pointed, and Al found himself under the man's keen, observing scrutiny.

The man said, ‘Of course. They brought it here to sell jalopies. It's working on us right now, softening us up.' The enchantment visibly faded from his face. ‘There's the fellow sitting in there operating it.'

But the papoola thought, what I tell you is still true. Even if it is a sales pitch. You could go there, to Mars, yourself. You and your family can see with your own eyes -- if you have the courage to break free. Can you do it? Are you a real man? Buy a Loony Luke jalopy; buy it while you still have the chance, because you know that some day, maybe not so long from now, the NP is going to crack down. And there will be no more jalopy jungles. No more crack in the wall of the authoritarian society through which a few -- a few lucky people -- can escape.

Fiddling with the controls at his mid-section, Al turned up the gain. The force of the papoola's psyche increased, drawing the man in, taking control of him. You must buy a jalopy, the papoola urged. Easy payment plan, service warranty, many models to choose from. This is the time to sign; don't delay. The man took a step towards the lot. Hurry the papoola told him. Any second now the authorities may close down the lot and your opportunity will be gone forever.

‘This -- is how they work it,' the man said with difficulty. ‘The animal snares people. Hypnosis. We have to leave.' But he did not leave; it was too late: he was going to buy a jalopy, and Al, in the office with his control box, was reeling the man in.

Leisurely, Al rose to his feet. Time to go out and close the deal. He shut off the papoola, opened the office door and stepped outside on to the lot. And he saw a once-familiar figure threading its way among the jalopies, towards him. It was his one-time buddy, Ian Duncan and he had not seen him in years. Good grief, Al thought. What's he want? And at a time like this!

‘Al,' Ian Duncan called, gesturing. ‘Can I talk with you a second? You're not too busy, are you?' Perspiring and pale, he came closer, looking about in a frightened way. He had deteriorated since Al had last seen him.

‘Listen,' Al said, with anger. But already it was too late; the couple and their boy had broken away and were moving rapidly on down the sidewalk.

‘I didn't, um, mean to bother you,' Ian mumbled.

‘You're not bothering me,' Al said as he gloomily watched the three prospects depart. ‘Well, what's the trouble, Ian? You sure as hell don't look very well. Are you sick? Come on inside the office.' He led him inside and shut the door.

Ian said, ‘I came across my jug. Remember when we were trying to make it to the White House? Al, we have to try once more. Honest to god, I can't go on like this. I can't stand to be a failure at what we agreed was the most important thing in our lives.' Panting, he mopped at his forehead with his handkerchief, his hands trembling.

‘I don't even have my jug any more,' Al said presently.

‘You must. Well, we could each record our parts separately on my jug and then synthesize them on one tape, and present that to the White House. This trapped feeling, I don't know if I can go on living with it. I have to get back to playing. If we started practising right now on the "Goldberg Variations" in two months we -- ‘

Al broke in, ‘You still live at that place? That big Abraham Lincoln establishment?'

Ian nodded.

‘And you still have that job with that Bavarian cartel? You're still a gear inspector?' He could not understand why Ian Duncan was so upset. ‘Hell, if worst comes to worst you can emigrate. Jug-playing is out of the question. I haven't played for years, since I last saw you, in fact. Just a minute.'

He dialled the knobs of the mechanism which controlled the papoola; near the sidewalk the creature responded and began to return slowly to its spot beneath the sign.

Seeing it, Ian said, ‘I thought they were all dead.'

‘They are,' Al said.

‘But that one out there moves and -- ‘

‘It's a fake,' Al said, ‘a simulacrum, like those things they use for colonizing. I control it.' He showed his old-time buddy the control box. ‘It brings in people off the sidewalk. Actually, Luke is supposed to have a genuine one on which these are modelled. Nobody knows for sure and the law can't touch Luke. The NP can't make him cough up the real one, if he does have it.' Al seated himself and lit his pipe. ‘Tail your relpol test,' he said to Ian. ‘Lose your apartment and get back your original deposit. Bring me the money and I'll see that you get a damn fine jalopy that'll take you to Mars. How about it?'

‘I tried to fail my test,' Ian said, ‘but they won't let me. They doctored the results. They don't want me to get away. They won't let me go.'

‘Who's "they"?'

‘The man in the next apartment at The Abraham Lincoln. Edgar Stone, his name is -- I think. He did it deliberately. I saw the expression on his face. Maybe he imagined he was doing me a favour ... I don't know.' He glanced around him. ‘This is a nice little office you have here. You sleep in it, don't you? And when it moves, you move with it.'

‘Yes,' Al said, ‘we're always prepared to take off.' The NP had almost got him a number of times, even though the lot could obtain orbital velocity in six minutes. The papoola detected their approach, but not sufficiently far in advance for a comfortable escape; generally it was hurried and disorganized, with part of his inventory of jalopies being left behind.

‘You're barely one jump ahead of them,' Ian mused. ‘And yet, it doesn't bother you. I guess it's all in your attitude.'

‘If they get me,' Al said, ‘Luke will bail me out.' So what did he have to worry about? His employer was a powerful man; the Thibodeaux clan limited their attacks on him to deep-think articles in popular magazines harping on Luke's vulgarity and the shoddiness of his jalopies.

‘I envy you,' Ian said. ‘Your poise. Your calmness.'

‘Doesn't your building have a skypilot? Go talk to him.'

Ian said bitterly, ‘That's no good. Right now it's Patrick Doyle and he's as badly off as I am. And Don Tishman, our chairman, is even worse off; he's a bundle of nerves. In fact our whole building is shot through with anxiety. Maybe it has to do with Nicole's sinus headaches.

Glancing at him, Al saw that he was actually serious. The White House and all it stood for meant that much to him; it still dominated his life, as it had years ago when they had been buddies in the Service. ‘For your sake,' Al said quietly, ‘I'll get my jug out and practice. We'll make one more try.

Speechless, Ian Duncan gaped at him.

‘I mean it,' Al said, nodding.

With gratitude, Ian whispered, ‘God bless you, Al.'

Sombrely, Al Miller puffed on his pipe.

Ahead of Chic Strikerock the small factory at which he worked grew to its full but meagre proportion; this was as large as it was going to get -- this hatbox-like structure -- of late a light green, modern enough if one's standards were not too critical. Frauenzimmer Associates. Soon he would be in his office, at work, and fussing with the blinds of the window in an effort to restrict the bright morning sun. Fussing, too, at Miss Greta Trupe, the elderly lady secretary who served both him and Maury.

It's a great life, Chic thought. But perhaps, since yesterday, the firm had gone into receivership; it would not have surprised him -- and it probably would not have much saddened him, either. Although, of course, it would be a shame for Maury, and he liked Maury, despite their ubiquitous clashes. After all, a small firm was much like a small family. Everyone rubbed elbows in close, personal fashion and on many psychological levels. It was much more elaborately intimate than the depersonalized human relationship held by employees and employers of cartel-sized Operations.

Frankly, he preferred it. Preferred the closeness. To him there was something horrible about the detached and highly reified bureaucratic interpersonal activity in the halls of the mighty, within the geheimlich powerful corporations. The fact that Maury was a small-ltime operator actually appealed to him. It was a bit of the old world, the twentieth century still extant.

In the lot he parked, manually, beside Maury's elderly wheel, got out and walked, hands in his pockets, to the familiar front entrance.

The small cluttered office -- with its heaps of unopened unanswered mail, coffee cups, work manuals and crumpled invoices, tacked-up girly type calendars -- smelled dusty, as if its windows had never at any time been opened to fresh air and the light of day. And, at the far end, taking up most of the available space, he saw four simulacra seated in silence, a group: one in adult male form, its female mate and two children. This was a major item of the firm's catalogue; this was a famnexdo.

The adult male style simulacrum rose and greeted him with civility. ‘Good morning, Mr Strikerock.'

‘Maury arrived yet?' He glanced around.

‘In a limited sense, yes,' the adult male simulacrum answered. ‘He's down the street getting his morning cup of coffee and doughnut.'

‘Jolly,' Chic said, and removed his coat. ‘Well, are you folks all ready to go to Mars?' he asked the simulacra. He hung up his coat.

‘Yes, Mr Strikerock,' the adult female said, nodding.

‘And we're cheerful, too. You can count on that.' Obligingly she smiled in a neighbourly way at him. ‘It will be a relief to leave Earth with its repressive legislation. We were listening OH the FM to the news about the McPhearson Act.'

‘We consider it dreadful,' the adult male said.

‘I have to agree with you,' Chic said. ‘But what can one do?' He looked around for the mail; as always it was lost somewhere in the mass of clutter.

‘One can emigrate,' the adult male simulacrum pointed out.

‘Um,' Chic said absently. He had found an unexpected heap of recent-looking bills from parts suppliers; with a feeling of gloom and even terror he began to sort through them. Had Maury seen these? Probably. Seen them and then pushed them away immediately, out of sight. Frauenzimmer Associates functioned better if it was not reminded of such facts of life. Like a regressed neurotic, it had to hide several aspects of reality from its percept system in order to function at all. This was hardly ideal, but what really was the alternative? To be realistic would be to give up, to die. Illusion, of an infantile nature was essential for the tiny firm's survival, or at least so it seemed to him and Maury. In any case both of them had adopted this attitude. Their simulacra -- the adult ones -- disapproved of this; their cold, logical appraisal of reality stood in sharp contrast, and Chic always felt a little naked, a little embarrassed, before the simulacra; he knew he should set a better example for them.

‘If you bought a jalopy and emigrated to Mars,' the adult male said, ‘We could be the famnexdo for you.'

‘I wouldn't need any family next-door,' Chic said, ‘if I emigrated to Mars. I'd go to get away from people.

‘We'd make a very good family next-door to you,' the female said.

‘Look,' Chic said, ‘you don't have to lecture me about your virtues. I know more than you do yourselves.' And for good reason. Their presumption, their earnest sincerity, amused but also irked him. As next-door neighbours this group of sims would be something of a nuisance, he reflected. Still, that was what emigrants wanted, in fact needed, out in the sparsely-populated colonial regions. He could appreciate that; after all, it was Frauenzimmer Associates' business to understand.

A man, when he emigrated, could buy neighbours, buy the simulated presence of life, the sound and motion of human activity -- or at least its mechanical near-substitute to bolster his morale in the new environment of unfamiliar stimuli and perhaps, god forbid, no stimuli at all. And in addition to this primary psychological gain there was a practical secondary advantage as well. The famnexdo group of simulacra developed the parcel of land, tilled it and planted it, irrigated it, made it fertile, highly productive. And the yield went to the human settler because the famnexdo group, legally speaking, occupied the peripheral portions of his land. The famnexdo were actually not next-door at all; they were part of their owner's entourage. Communication with them was in essence a circular dialogue with oneself; the famnexdo, it they were functioning properly, picked up the covert hopes and dreams of the settler and detailed them back in an articulated fashion. Therapeutically, this was helpful, although from a cultural standpoint it was a trifle sterile.

The adult male said respectfully, ‘Here is Mr Frauenzimmer now.'

Glancing up, Chic saw the office door swing slowly open; carefully carrying his cup of coffee and doughnut, Maury appeared.

‘Listen, buddy,' Maury said in a hoarse voice. He was a short, round, perspiring man, like a reflection in a bad mirror. His legs had an inferior look, as if they just barely managed to support him; he teetered as he moved forward.

‘I'm sorry,' he said, ‘but I guess I got to fire you.'

Chic stared at him.

‘I can't make it any longer,' Maury said. Gripping the handle of his coffee cup with his blunt, work-stained fingers he searched for a place to set it and the doughnut down, among the papers and manuals littering the surface of the desk.

‘I'll be darned,' Chic said. In his ears his voice sounded weak.

‘You knew it was coming.' Maury's voice had become a bleak croak. ‘We both did. What else can I do? We haven't turned over a major order in weeks. I'm not blaming you. Understand that. Look at this famnexdo group hanging around here -- just hanging. We should be able to unload them long before now.' Getting out his immense Irish linen handkerchief, Maury mopped his forehead. ‘I'm sorry Chic.' He eyed his employee anxiously.

The adult male simulacrum said, ‘This is indeed a distressing exchange.'

‘I feel the same way,' its mate added.

Glaring at them, Maury spluttered, ‘Tough, I mean, mind your own darn business. Who asked for your artificial, contrived opinion?'

Chic murmured, ‘Leave them alone.' He was stunned at the news; emotionally, he had been caught totally by surprise, despite his intellectual forebodings.

‘If Mr Strikerock goes,' the adult male simulacrum stated, ‘we go with him.'

Sourly, Maury grunted at the simulacra, ‘Aw, what the hell, you're just a bunch of artefacts. Pipe down while we thrash this out. We have enough troubles without you getting involved.' Seating himself at the desk he opened the morning Chronicle.

‘The whole world's coming to an end. It's not us, Chic, not just Frauenzimmer Associates. Listen to this item in today's paper: "The body of Orley Short, maintenance man, was discovered today at the bottom of a six-foot vat of gradually hardening chocolate at the St Louis Candy Company."‘ He raised his head. ‘You get that "Gradually hardening chocolate" -- that's it. That's the way we live. I'll continue. "Short, 53, failed to come home from work yesterday, and -- "‘

‘Okay,' Chic interrupted. ‘I understand what you're trying to say. This is one of those times.'

‘Exactly. Conditions are beyond any individual's power. It's when you got to be fatalistic, you know: resigned-like. I'm resigned to seeing Frauenzimmer Associates close forever. Frankly, that's next.' He eyed the famnexdo group of simulacra moodily. ‘I don't know why we constructed you fellows. We should have slapped together a gang of street hustlers, floozies with just enough class to interest the bourgeoisie. Listen, Chic, this is how this terrible item in the Chronicle ends. You simulacra, you listen, too. It'll give you an idea of the kind of world you've been born into.

"Brother-in-law Antonio Costa drove to the candy factory and discovered him three feet down in the chocolate, St Louis police said."‘ Maury savagely closed up the newspaper. ‘I mean, how are you going to work an event like that into your Weltanschauung? It's just too damn dreadful. It unhinges you. And the worse part is that it's so dreadful it's almost funny.'

There was silence and then the male adult simulacrum, no doubt responding to some aspect of Maury's subconscious, said, ‘This is certainly no time for such a bill as the McPhearson Act to come into effect. We require psychiatric help from whatever quarter we can obtain it.'

‘ "Psychiatric help," ‘ Maury mocked. ‘Yeah, you've put your finger on it, Mr Jones or Smith or whatever we named you. Mr Next-door Neighbour, whoever you are. That would have saved Frauenzimmer Associates -- right? A little psychoanalysis at two hundred dollars an hour for ten years ... isn't that how long it generally takes? Keerist.'

He turned away from the simulacra, disgusted, and ate his doughnut.

Presently Chic said, ‘Will you give me a letter of recommendation?'

‘Of course,' Maury said.

Maybe I'll have to go to work for Karp und Sohnen, Chic thought. His brother Vince, a Ge employee there, could get him put on; it was better than nothing, better than joining the pitiful jobless, the lowest order of the vast Be class, nomads who roamed the face of the Earth, now too poor even to emigrate. Or perhaps he should emigrate. Perhaps the time had at last come; he should face it squarely. For once give up the infantile ambitions upon which he had traded for so long.

But Julie. What about her? His brother's wife made matters hopelessly complex; for example was he now responsible financially for her? He would have to thrash it out with Vince, meet him face to face. In any case. Whether he sought a position with Karp u. Sohnen Werke or not.

It would be awkward, to say the least, approaching Vince under these circumstances; the business with Julie had happened at a bad time.

‘Listen, Maury,' Chic said. ‘You can't lay me off, now. I've got a problem; as I related to you on the phone, I have a girl now who -- ‘

‘All right.'

‘P-pardon?'

Maury Frauenzimmer sighed. ‘I said all right; I'll keep you on a little longer. So it hastens the bankruptcy of Frauenzimmer Associates. So what. He shrugged massively.

‘So ist das Leben: that's life.'

One of the two children simulacra said to the adult male, ‘Isn't he a good man, Daddy?'

‘Yes, Tommy,' the adult male answered, nodding. ‘He most certainly is.' It patted the boy on the shoulder. The whole family beamed.

‘I'll keep you on until next Wednesday,' Maury decided. ‘That's the best I can do, but maybe it'll help a little. After that -- I just don't know. I can't foresee anything. Even though I am slightly precognitive, as I've always said. I mean to a certain extent I've generally had valid hunches as to the future. Not in this case, though, not one damn bit. The entire thing is a mass of confusion, as far as I'm concerned.'

Chic said, ‘Thanks, Maury.'

Grunting, Maury Frauenzimmer resumed reading the morning paper.

‘Maybe by next Wednesday something good'll come along,' Chic said. ‘Something we don't expect.' Maybe, as sales manager, I can bring in a huge order, he thought.

‘Say, maybe so,' Maury said. He did not sound very convinced.

‘I'm really going to try,' Chic said.

‘Sure,' Maury agreed. ‘You try, Chic, you do that.' His voice was low, muffled by resignation.