Fantastic Metropolis

Pick up the shirt, hold it out to assess the shape, place it back on the rack, take three steps, glance back at the shirt, walk back, check the price, look for customer service and…

“Hello there,” said Reginald to the woman holding the sky-blue business shirt. “May I be of assistance?”

“Oh! You’re wearing the same shirt,” she said. “Is it comfortable?”

“Very comfortable,” said Reginald, turning to model the shirt. “All synthetic-cotton, machine washable, fade resistant, ink-proof inner pocket,” Reginald cocked one sleeve, “and triple cuff buttons.”

“Thank you,” she said, dismissing him as she returned the shirt to the rack.

Reginald checked that all his price tags were neat—belt, trousers, shirt, tie, shoes, socks—then scanned his department for other customers.

Most were browsing the departments closest to the store’s huge coral reef aquarium, the heart of every J.F. Retail Outlet, awaiting the big event. Reginald’s department, Men’s Apparel, was only two away from being flush with its curved transparent side. Reginald took a moment to ensure his department’s monitors were feeding underwater images that complemented the surrounding merchandise. To his left, colorful swimwear framed a delicate magenta sea-slug, on his right, a massive sponge filtered nutrients among underwear and socks, and between the two, closer still, a tiny crab with an oversized purple claw excavated its burrow among swaying green sea-grass and hanging silk neck ties.

9:50 am. Time for his break. In the bathroom he checked the merchandise and his appearance, one and the same, squaring his tie and positioning his belt-buckle dead centre. With his height he was lucky, but he kept his weight the perfect male average and his hair neat and dyed a neutral shade of brown—no strong features to hamper a customer imagining someone they knew in the clothes Reginald was wearing. He was permitted to tuck away his tags during his breaks, but he never did.

In the hallway he checked the hourly bulletin board, then used his remaining eight minutes memorizing the updates of customer query responses and statistically probable conversation topics. Afternoon rain-showers predicted; suspected arson downtown had been only a malfunctioning furnace; warning about a variety of in-store paint that reacted poorly if used with an undercoat from another store…

Below were the updates of the previous fortnight, each more summarized to reflect the descending likelihood of a customer query. Many staff didn’t bother watching the television news, saying the billboard was better, but Reginald watched anyway, just to be sure. It was the little things, he told himself, that got you closer to the glass.

At the top of the board was the countdown until Sally, the store’s Sparisoma viridi, a fully-grown and pregnant Parrotfish, gave birth.

As Reginald returned to his department, Sally’s graceful form glided across every monitor, the underwater cameras tracking her tiny occipital implant perfectly, and Reginald heard cheers. Sally’s colors were J.F. Retail Outlet’s colors. Every new Outlet needed a Sally, hence the excited crowds to witness the birth of Sally’s brood.

The images reverted to two hundred angles through the aquarium as in the main aisle Reginald noticed customers parting for a metal box following a petite woman. After a moment he realized it was Veronica Vance from the channel eight news. The box rolled to a smooth stop near her feet and then split apart. Like a cobra rising from a basket, a flexible camera reared up from the box and twisted to focus on Veronica. She looked smaller in person, Reginald thought.

Reginald was distracted from Veronica by warning body language in his department. A customer was scratching his head.

Reginald rushed to offer assistance, but stopped short and stared at the man.

The customer held an item that didn’t exist, at least as far as J.F. Retail Outlets were concerned. It was a tube of men’s facial scrub…and the writing claimed it contained compacted coral fragments! Impossible! No product could really contain coral. On the shelf rested an entire row of the facial scrubs, lime, mauve, and pink colored, each with J.F. price tags and descriptions. Reginald scanned the writing on the back for warning advice. Who had done this? Competitors? And why the impossible claim the product contained coral material? It was ludicrous!

“What kind of fish is that?” the man asked.

Reginald glanced up to recite the fish’s details.

He looked at the fish again. Blue dorsal marks, yellow ventral patches, a sloping head and a parrot-like beak that cropped polyps from a sprawling pink coral. He had never seen the fish before in his life.

“Should it be eating the coral like that?”

“No, it shouldn’t,” croaked Reginald, torn for a moment between the facial scrubs and the fish. He scooped an armload of facial scrubs and rushed to the offices.

Store Manager McKinley cursed at Reginald in the hallway, his plastic-surgery smile lines rebelling disturbingly against his face. “Quickly, Reginald, into the office!”

Reginald found the office jostling with staff around foreign product-laden tables. Adding his own, Reginald saw others—sea-kelp extract shampoo, scented fish-liver massage oil, sea-cucumber personal deodorant, crayfish shell earrings, bath towels with sea-sponge fibers, whale-milk moisturizer…

“Could they be real?” someone behind Reginald, Penny perhaps, asked. “Who could make them?”

Store Manager McKinley’s surgery-confused face struggled, twitching under his left eye, twice next to his chin, then in a short series across his cheek. It wouldn’t be very ‘customer-pleasing’ if they could see it right now, thought Reginald, ignoring the facial tics.

“They’re not real,” said McKinley. “I have an important announcement to make. We received a recorded message ten minutes ago. The Post-Utopian Radicals are targeting the store.”

Around the room everyone murmured and looked for Radicals.

“Stay calm,” said McKinley. “Undercover police are searching the crowds for Radical observers. These fake products are the Radicals’ first attack, the rogue fish the second, which means we can expect three more.”

Everyone knew how the Radicals worked. Always five events, never anyone found responsible, and always incredibly well orchestrated, progressively more technically impressive attacks.

The store’s aquarist, presumably soaked from extracting the aquarium’s intruder, rushed in.

“It’s a coral polyp grazer!” he announced. “Do you understand? It’s been eating it!”

“Much damage?” prompted McKinley.

“It could be unquarantined! Have parasites! The ecosystem could be destabilized!”

Reginald hated seeing the man, whose little monitoring chamber he often visited for its privileged aquarium views, so distressed.

“Why today? Sally’s due any moment!” Rushing out, the aquarist called back, “I need to check the water. They have all types of experts. They could do anything!”

“I’m addressing the media now,” McKinley told the staff. “Whatever happens, do your best to keep everything under control.”

Easier said than done, thought Reginald, who had watched the ingenuity of other Radical demonstrations with interest. But why were they attacking a J.F. Retail Outlet?

Back in his department Reginald switched a monitor to the live broadcast as Veronica introduced McKinley to the camera. Veronica wore a pink blouse and a black puffy tie arranged sailor fashion.

McKinley was wearing his face, now behaving, and the current season’s business apparel. Reginald noticed he had tucked the tags away. No—they weren’t just tucked away; they were completely cut off. Reginald fingered his own tags as he listened.

“What kind of damage is this rogue fish likely to have caused the aquarium?” Veronica began.

“The damage was contained to three coral colonies on the northern side of the aquarium. Thankfully the intruder was found quickly.”

“Have you been contacted by the Radicals?” Veronica said.

“Not directly.”

“But you are undoubtedly aware of the mass recruitment the Radicals are achieving. How do you think this reflects on what we’re seeing in-store today?”

“It’s a confusing situation given the contribution that J.F. makes towards native species rehabilitation. However, it will not affect our ability to provide the most competitive customer service experience. At this point, J.F. Retail Outlets would like to reconfirm its commitment to combining the enhancement and conservation of our native biodiversity with the modern retail experience.” His face excelled in what it was designed to do.

The camera swayed towards Veronica. “For those viewers only now joining us, I am broadcasting live from J.F. Retail Outlet, the target of the Post-Utopian Radicals’ latest demonstration….”

Reginald scanned his department, the perfect lurk for a Radical observer. Not so close to the aquarium to be obvious, but close enough to see everything. Identifying a Radical would cut six months off his time to reach the glass, he was sure.

After one full sweep of his department, Reginald’s eyes backtracked to a previously discounted suspect. The young woman carried a pair of bright yellow underpants. Most women buying underwear either collected the article last or carried them in a semi-concealed fashion. This woman left no doubt she carried a pair of size twelve yellow cotton underpants. Her knee-length lime skirt, thin plastic belt and cherry red open-sleeved blouse were none of them J.F. apparel or accessories, nor did she seem interested in the several monitors that customers had changed to view the broadcast.

Reginald moved into her path to test if she would divert. She didn’t. “Can I help you at all?” he asked.

The woman crumpled the underpants into a tight ball. “Actually, I think maybe you can,” she said. “Would you mind terribly if I asked you a personal question?”

“Of course not. What would you like to know?”

She reached for the tag hanging from his shirtsleeve. “Do you always wear clothes from the racks?”

“I have to. It’s part of my job. Store policy.”

“Yes, I know…it’s just…what about outside of work? Do you wear other things at home?”

“I only buy products from this store. Why would I go anywhere else?”

The woman searched Reginald’s eyes. “Aren’t you tempted by other things? Things from other stores? Don’t you wonder what other things are like?”

“Not enough to risk my job.” Strange questions, thought Reginald. People sometimes came in to play mental games and prod at staff through the immutable bars of store policy. Generally they were quite poor at it, although Reginald had once found himself changing into the most ludicrous clothing combinations until, with a young couple’s fun over, they had left without purchasing any of the articles. But Reginald had a different feeling about this woman.

“You get a discount, I suppose?” she said.

“A modest discount. Owning the products helps us provide customer service.”

The woman pointed to the crowd surrounding Veronica Vance. “Too bad when something new appears on the shelves.”

Reginald moved to block her escape, his hunch, as unlikely as it first seemed, accurate. “How would you know we found new products on the shelves?”

“It’s all over the news,” she said. “On the monitors, I mean. Veronica Vance was saying so.”

“No she wasn’t. She doesn’t know. She’s only been told about the fish. The only people who know about the contraband products are the staff who found them and the Radicals. You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Reginald could see the arteries in her wrist pulsing as she stretched the underpants.

“Please, let’s just talk for a minute, OK? I can hardly do anything with you standing here, can I?”

She was nothing like what he had anticipated. In any other situation, and maybe even a little now, he would be easily attracted to her. “You’re not what I expected. You look nervous.”

“Of course I’m nervous. We’re just people like you!”

“I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

She relaxed slightly when he didn’t immediately call the security. “You helped me choose a shirt for my father last year. I remember thinking it was more than just your job to be nice to me.”

“Red shirt, eighty percent cotton, twenty percent polyester, oversized pocket, offset double white stitching,” said Reginald.

“You were right, my father liked it.”

“I said it was a well-made shirt. I didn’t say he would like it. What’s your name?” When she hesitated, Reginald said, “I can check our transaction records, but I’ll have to call security to watch you.”

“All right. My name’s Jessie.”

“Why are you carrying the underwear, Jessie?”

“The security cameras don’t follow women carrying underwear or sanitary items.”

The young woman intrigued Reginald for how she disfigured his preconceptions of the Radicals. He hadn’t imagined pretty young women wondering through apparel racks clutching underwear to invoke electronic invisibility.

“It’s against store policy,” said Reginald. “Who told you that? Someone who works here told you that!”

Reginald heard a sharp bark and then nervous laughter from customers across the aisle. Two junior staff were struggling to clean a small spill. Abruptly, as through smitten by some invisible entity, both staff crashed to the floor, a pair of newborn antelopes able neither to rise nor move as their hands and feet shot away. Their struggling dispersed the liquid.

“Don’t go near them,” said Jessie, grabbing Reginald’s arm. “They’ll need a rope. It’s impossible to escape.”

“How the hell did they just get that stuff in here?”

“Four children spilled four drinks,” said Jessie, perhaps hoping to stall Reginald.

“Four spills?” Reginald saw several customers, still laughing, use replacement clothes-line cord to pull the victims to the edge.

The rescuers suddenly went down, joining the two staff in an in-store-wrestling contest. One of them laughed harder. Everywhere customers backed away as someone called for a tarpaulin or bed-sheets to throw over the malicious spill.

Reginald heard commotions all over the store as Veronica’s camera telescoped upwards. The monitors showed three other struggling groups then returned to Veronica and the comedy of victims in her background. Reginald caught her commentary.

“...to remove or contain any of the spills which have now claimed thirty-two victims. What I now understand to be their third attack on the store…”

“It’ll only last a few minutes longer,” said Jessie.

Reginald could only take her word on it. “Customers’ law suits are every Outlets’ nightmare.”

Jessie’s smile held a trace of pride. “We’re not here to hurt anyone. Don’t you want to see what we have in store, Reginald? Calling the security can’t stop anything. At least we can watch it together.”

Before he could answer, she spun towards the aquarium. “Do you know how rare these corals are? You’re lucky to see them everyday.”

“Then why has your group attacked them?”

“The coral was hardly effected,” said Jessie. “Every polyp in a colony is a clone of its neighbor. The genetic damage was zero, and the physical effect was minimal.”

“Damaging the coral wasn’t your goal anyway, was it?” said Reginald. “That’s why you picked such a bright fish. The real demonstration was getting the fish in the tank. The potential of what could be done is the real weapon.”

“Balistoides conspicillum,” said Jessie. “Clown Triggerfish. It tends to stand out, doesn’t it?”

“Very conspicuous,” said Reginald.

“Can you believe how much coral reef used to exist? People could swim over it any time they liked.”

Reginald doubted it, considering the effort spent maintaining the in-store aquarium. If coral reefs had existed over such large areas, he doubted it was as beautiful as the aquarium.

Reginald heard Veronica interviewing a J.F. Security Officer who claimed that tampered-with surveillance tapes suggested a staff member aiding the Radicals. Reginald shuffled the faces of the other staff through his mind like a deck of playing cards into which someone had slipped the joker card—the Radical card. The joker wasn’t revealed.

Reginald coughed and his eyes watered as he inhaled a foul taste. Jessie sneezed and rubbed her nose.

“What’s this?” demanded Reginald.

“Just breathe normally,” said Jessie. “It won’t hurt you. But don’t touch anything.”

“Like what?” said Reginald as waves of customers reacted to the invisible irritant.

“Anything. Don’t touch anything.”

Veronica Vance blinked twice and then, in an impressive display of self-control that belied her delicate appearance, neither coughed nor sneezed as she scarcely missed a syllable in her live coverage. Reginald found his handkerchief but stopped when his hand emerged stained. Around the store, every surface became wet paint—clothes, carpet, handbags, hats, boxes, books—everything but bare metal and glass imparted its pigment to bare skin as though shedding their colors to the humans who’d stained them. Veronica Vance’s neck was stained bright pink from her blouse; Reginald rolled his sleeve and found a bright blue arm. Rainbow children chased through the store.

“This shirt is supposed to be fade resistant. The colors aren’t supposed to run under any circumstances.” He knew it was a stupid thing to say. Reginald thought he should do something for the customers, but they seemed excited to be in the middle of the demonstration. Few had moved to leave the store.

“I don’t understand?” said Reginald. “What’s the point of this attack?”

Jessie lifted her skirt to expose her stained lime-colored legs. The unstained areas of her legs were smooth, brown and taut. “What type of fish am I, Reginald? Now the fish have something colorful to watch through the glass.”

Reginald wasn’t sure if she was being serious. “No special clothes to repel the effect?”

“That would have made me stand out a bit, wouldn’t it?”

Reginald smiled at what a foolish Radical he would make. “Tell me why you’re targeting J.F. Retail Outlets. It seems hypocritical with our contributions to species rehabilitation.”

Jessie squinted her pretty face, incredulous at his ignorance, then said, “J.F. Retail Outlets corrupted the Retail Contributions to Species Rehabilitation Act. They only built the aquariums to attract more customers!”

Reginald knew all about the Act. Updates were posted on the staff billboard. “But if their profits increase as a result of the aquariums,” he countered, “they contribute more to species rehabilitation in the long term.”

“This was never the Act’s purpose!” said Jessie, then lowered her voice. “It was designed so big companies funneled some of their profits into conserving nature. J.F. Retail Outlets went to court and established that the construction of their aquariums discharged their ecological responsibilities. And what do we have now? We have burger chain inner-city artificial wetlands, soft-drink zoos and aquarium department stores. This was not the point, and everybody knows it. It’s just been twisted for profit.”

“But J.F. is not about profits.”

“Then why does it employ sales staff? Why are you here, Reginald?”

“I’m not a salesman. I’m paid to know the products. J.F. provides excellent customer service and the option to buy if the customer chooses.”

Jessie pointed at him. “Your head office didn’t even close the store when they were warned of the demonstration. They can’t care about customers too much.”

Closing the store hadn’t occurred to Reginald. Why hadn’t they just closed the store?

Seeing Reginald had no immediate answer, Jessie continued. “You can’t be called a salesman because salesmanship is illegal. Manipulating people to purchase things is illegal. But there’s a price for everything, Reginald.” She pointed to his appearance. “You’re the one who’s paying that price, not the company. Look at these tags on your clothes. You don’t even experience anything not sold in this store!”

Reginald wondered when the discussion had become so personal. “Are you against the store’s method of discharging its environmental obligations or its customer service policies?”

“They’re the same thing, Reginald. We believe you have a responsibility to know what it is you are contributing to. Then the consequences are yours to enjoy or endure.”

Reginald pointed to the chaos of crowds waiting for the final Radical attack. “And terrorism is your way of promoting that ideal?”

“Terrorism? Does anyone here look scared to you, Reginald? Doesn’t it seem surprising that so many people with a scientific background are joining us?”

Reginald didn’t answer as he looked around the swirling crowds. “What’s the last attack going to be, Jessie?”

Jessie pointed to the nearest monitor. “Your fish is about to give birth. You don’t want to miss the birth of a dozen more J.F. Retail Outlets. Live young make it easier to forecast the opening of new stores.”

Reginald saw Sally dominating every monitor. Her sleek body spasmed twice then expelled a dozen tiny fish.

Something was very wrong. Nobody cheered. Nobody clapped. Staff and customers stared through the glass. Reginald realized the size and subtlety of the last Radical attack didn’t equate to the magnitude of emotions that it generated. The imbalance, after the other attacks, was hard to grasp, harder to process. They were just little fish, after all, but of all today’s events, for J.F. Retail Outlets, this was the most profound.

Their store colors were gone.

The tiny fish schooled, colorless, transparent, their tiny hearts beating in revealed anatomies, their distinctive colouration sponged away by the science of the Radicals.

Veronica Vance, first to react, triggered the in-store tumult.

“But they can’t function like that,” stuttered Reginald. “They need their colors to communicate and reproduce.”

“Their colors will return. They’ll become something bright and beautiful. Just like you can, Reginald.”

Reginald turned from the spectacle at Jessie’s unusual comment and the calm confidence that had suddenly entered her voice. “Why are you here, Jessie?”

“We’re not all scientists. I’m here to listen, and maybe talk to people. Talk to you.”

“You were here to talk to me? Try to convert me?”

“Remember, Reginald, it was you who approached me. I think you wanted to hear what I had to say.”

Reginald searched himself for any truth in her observation. “How will you know if you’ve been successful?”

“Well, when I leave, you won’t call security.”

Reginald saw Store Manager McKinley’s twitching aspect approaching.

“It’s time to find out,” she said. “Goodbye, Reginald.”

Reginald watched Jessie step into the crowds. She believed what she was saying. And so did a lot of other people.

McKinley glanced back. “Was she one?”

Reginald watched Jessie moving through over-colorful crowds towards the exit. He wasn’t the only one watching her leave. The aquarist glanced from Jessie to Reginald, held Reginald’s eyes for a moment, then turned back to the glass.

Reginald had found his Radical card. With one word he could have them both detained and be working up against the glass tomorrow. In fact, they’d probably let him swim in the tank!

“No,” said Reginald. “She wasn’t saying anything radical. Just another customer talking about the fish.”

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Shane Brown currently writes from Brisbane, Australia. “In Store” is story number 17 of his self-impossed 50 short story apprenticeship.