Fantastic Metropolis

4. Reality Cubed

Lester Barton knew who he was because his flapper told him so. He knew where he was for the same reason. The invaluable device lay open in front of him like the two jaws of a large yawning clam. The single word MEMINI, repeated without a break, snaked around the lip of each unfolded half—around the screen that occupied one half, and the keyboard/voice-input panel of the other—just as the Memini corporation itself spanned both global hemispheres. Lester’s flapper gave him access to all the data he needed to orient himself to the two halves of his world: the “objective” half that included his public self, the world of clock and calendar; and the “subjective,” private realm of his memories, which he’d had personalized at great expense.

By and large, he found it comforting to be reminded by his flapper just who he was supposed to be, where he was supposed to be, and what he was scheduled to do when. It was he, of course, who made up his own schedule (with the help of his executive secretary, to be sure), but he wouldn’t have had the slightest idea how to structure his day if his schedule didn’t play itself back to him, repeatedly issuing its prods—in the form of stern or gentle reminders in his own unmistakable voice—until the demands were either heeded or else canceled and replaced with new ones. (He allowed only Sibyl to reprogram his flapper; she made all changes seamlessly, in the sounds of his own voice, supposedly—a voice that to him sounded frighteningly mature compared to how he sounded to himself whenever he was actually speaking.)

The security of having such a firm orientation to reality, of constantly being reminded (was it at five-minute intervals now or four?) of his coordinates in public space and time, was not to be taken for granted. Moments came on him, how often he couldn’t say—but right now, for example, he was experiencing a wild, loony desire to ignore what was next on his schedule. He felt like refusing to turn on the in-house 3V for his weekly yak with his Meminet psychoprosthetist—just as he had canceled meeting Gibbich and fat-ass Tingworth after letting them sit around waiting for three hours. For that matter, why not even cancel his periodic ID advisory? The hell with being assured every four-five minutes (or was it every three minutes now?) that YOU ARE LESTER BARTON, etcetera, etcetera, and so forth!

This would mean, of course, a plunge into the void... but the void sometimes exerted an enormous attraction—like the world of a treasure-strewn ocean bed that reveals itself with tantalizing suddenness just when the diver must surface for air. Horrendous as it was to experience the void, it was not really empty. If you held your breath and clenched your teeth against fear, shining things began to shimmer out of the depths, and you were no longer in your great big Persian-carpeted office in mid-Manhattan facing the blank gray stage of your 3V that stared at you reproachfully, impatiently, menacingly, focusing on you, with its blank grayness, the horror of the void. Lester’s heart began pounding as he kept his tongue locked behind his lips, as he willfully delayed uttering the scheduled command that would fill the box that faced him with the face of his psychoprosthetist.

The “skeeter” or “mosquito” in his ear, however, picked up on his mounting anxiety. His skeeter, which communicated with his flapper, now tripped his anxID, the special ID advisory that, in his “own” authoritative voice, was designed to rescue him from the void:

YOU ARE LESTER BARTON, FORTY-TWO YEARS OLD…. I’m not! I’m not even eighteen! he wanted to hurl back. I’m in my last term of high school and you bastards don’t want me to graduate! “Don’t worry, if you don’t graduate, it won’t be the end of the world!” you guys’re telling me. That’s okay for you old farts. You’ve “made” it, so to speak. But what about me? Do I become just another disgruntled ghost doomed like every other dropout to wander forever through the back alleys of Worldnet in search of myself?... YOU MUST NOT LET YOURSELF BE DELUDED BY ANY PASSING HALLUCINATIONS. YOU ARE THE DYNAMIC, INVENTIVE PRESIDENT OF THE MEMINI CORPORATION, WORLD LEADER IN MNEMONIC PHARMACEUTICALS AND HARDWARE WITH A CONTROLLING SHARE IN TWO-FIFTHS OF WORLD BANKING, INFORMATION, ENTERTAINMENT, AND COMMERCE…. He wanted to shout back his true name. It had just been on the tip of his tongue…. It was lost. Perhaps he would never find it again…. YOU MUST KEEP TO YOUR SCHEDULE, LESTER. YOU ARE ONE MINUTE BEHIND. YOU MUST NOW BEGIN YOUR 3V SESSION WITH YOUR PSYCHOPROSTHETIST, DR. PROSS. TO DO SO, SAY “DR. PROSS.” DO NOT DELAY, LESTER. YOU MUST NOW SAY —
“Dr. Pross!” snapped Lester at the gaping box in front of him. Instantly, a life-like figure filled the cavity, that of a man comfortably seated, also behind a desk, one arm slung casually over his chairback. Kindly eyes locked onto Lester’s from under bushy white eyebrows. A widening smile bespoke genuine concern, and a deeply etched forehead conveyed the impression of profound wisdom and experience. Lester did not really recognize him, but neither did his stereotypical features look strange. The man’s tranquilizing gaze began to expunge Lester’s heady urge to toy with the void. At the same time, anger against that benign face welled up in the president of Memini.