Nova 3 Read online

  Subject bought: two reconverted M-l rifles, one hand grenade, one hand-grenade launcher, one fatigue jacket, one duffel bag and three captains bars, infantry, USA. The captain’s insignia were not on the list but I always wanted to be an officer and felt that in the New Era it would be a harmless indulgence.

  I then, per instructions, raced downtown and located myself on the abandoned thirty-first floor of a building adjoining the square, awaiting the visit of the campaigning senator scheduled for two hours hence. The senator, promptness and efficiency being those qualities that made him so dangerous to the aliens, was there exactly on time and, equipment at ready, I used the rifle to kill him. I then used the hand grenade to incinerate personnel and property in the ensuing confusion.

  It would have been exciting to stay and watch developing events but as the aliens had suggested I left immediately, made an incisive withdrawal through the service entrance, and arrived home with the duffel bag a half hour later. No one looked at me in the subway nor did I regard any of them. Machinery in machinery, I ground toward my destination unmolested.

  Subject then took to his bed for several hours, preparing himself for the great tasks that lay ahead and also trying to forget how the senator’s head had looked as it exploded to the shot like a flower. Strange, strange, the guilt I felt although the aliens had warned that guilt would be an inevitable part of the exculpation and could be controlled by concentrating upon being a machine. I am a machine. I am a machine. Subject reviewed the events one last time, then thought about the coming assignment. I was only sweating a little by now and heartbeat was in the normal range: seventy-eight strokes per minute at rest. Horrible: it was horrible! The coming glory of the planet through union with the galactic overlords justifies the minor upheavals that must occur.

  Promptly at six, Beverly returned. I had completely forgotten her and left the stuff all over the room. She noted my complexion and asked what was wrong and precisely “what the hell was the meaning” of the weaponry which I had thoughtlessly unloaded and scattered over the room to admire while sitting in my captain’s bars. She asked questions of subject which he elected not to answer. How could I answer? She asked more questions. She would not stop. She began to scream. What could I say? She came upon me with threats that would have aborted the exculpation before it was properly begun. The bitch would not keep quiet. I begged her but she would not stop. She threatened to go to the “authorities” and then she threatened again. She went toward the door as if she were leaving to see the “authorities” immediately.

  Subject did the oh God the necessary. Subject performed his tasks and well.

  Tomorrow. Tomorrow at noon it will be the mayor. Now I sit here and wait. Subject remains in quarters pending his next assignment. He thinks of this and he thinks of that, running his hands over the grenade. He considers how good it would be to have another visit from the aliens if only to confirm that he was really doing the job he was appointed to do and that it is not his fault if there were complications. The aliens would reassure me and do something about the body: they could not leave me alone to confront the logistics.

  The aliens have not come. After a time subject realized that they were never going to come and that he was on his own to accomplish the mission as he could. How did I ever get into this? Why does everything always fall upon me? I must not think of this; it is a singular and moving thing to be charged as I have with the responsibility of the destiny of the earth. Of the universe for all I know.

  Of all recorded time for that matter. Why not? Aliens returned at 7:00 p.m.; greeted subject in his rooms, took expressionless note of corpse which had been placed in a subtle but decorative position of removal beyond the skylight. “What is this?” the alien equipped with vocal device stated, “what is going on?”

  Subject told them what was going on. “I told you what was going on,” I concluded to the alien, having spoken with many flourishes but at intense brevity since the alien warned me not to fool around. “Why have you come back? You said that you would not return.”

  “We said that we would not return,” alien grumbled, “but had no awareness that things. Would come to this pass. The girl an unintended victim. A scattering of fire.” Transcription is breaking down or perhaps the alien’s transmission was breaking down. His voice had lost that soaring evenness of pitch and assurance, which is the way I will always remember him, no matter what. “Business is business,” the alien said, “but this is not business. You were not supposed to become emotionally involved. You were warned. Warned of the dangers. Dangers of emotional involvement.”

  Subject explained with all the control left available to him that he had done the best he could. A novice at this great task he would certainly get better. “Then why . . .” alien stated, pointing to Beverly or what remained of Miss M—, “why . . .” and added something to the effect that this was a victim outside of the plan. Am not sure of this. Recollection faults. What do you want of me?

  Subject explained or tried to explain that victim had stumbled into information about plan and had had to be eliminated for its continuing safety. Alien became abusive and said that subject was totally incompetent in his assigned task and would have to be dealt with. He said I would have to be dealt with. At this point, the nonspeaking alien made threatening gestures which could not be misinterpreted within the context of the day. The corpse glinted. The skylight seemed to emit virtual streams of light, pure radiance which my fevered skull converted into reason. I dashed for the M-l rifle (cheerfully reloaded only hours before for the next assignment) and killed the nonspeaking alien. Apparently he had vocal devices after all. After all he had vocal devices. He perished in a glaze of green beneath me.

  “Now wait,” the speaking alien said, “you are becoming overcharged. This understanding never was. To be broached. Business is business. Involvement is one thing but this enthusiasm. Stop,” he said, “stop,” it said, “stop,” the monster said, “stop,” the fiend stated and I shot this alien too in its voicebox and it died more horribly, gentlemen, than I care to describe in this vital and essentially aseptic set of notes. It was necessary; he would have interfered with the execution of the great task. That was what he called it. The great task. I cleaned up the rooms but necessarily this took some time and I missed the schedule of the assignment by a full day and a half for personal reasons.

  Nevertheless, I caught up. I shall always catch up. Subject will catch up on everything. Alone: on my own, unwavering, committed; I knew that it would always be this way. At the end it would have to be on my own. Aliens or no aliens, Beverly or no, depersonalization or not . . . I shall clean up the world.

  INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION

  This is the third time that I will murder my mother. The first two times were not entirely satisfactory but brought me, regardless, toward the more central material: one of these go-rounds I will surely get it. “You lousy bitch,” I say, raising the knife, “you ruined everything. My whole attitudes toward sex were entirely warped for thirty-eight years by your pointless moralizing. Also you insisted that I get a fifty-cent allowance when my three best friends were all taking more than a dollar. I’ll never forgive you for that. Never!” I say and in the midst of her protests and shrieks, drive the knife straight toward her heart and part her like a fish, watch with some limited satisfaction while she collapses to the floor. “Grrll,” she says, dwindles, and vanishes. They have made great progress with the simulacrums but still have difficulty in mimicking human speech.

  “So much for that,” I say, sheathing the knife and placing it back in its proper place on the table, turning away from her and toward the exit before my time-span is ended and the lights collapse on me. (I find this very embarrassing.) Behind me I hear the sound of the Sweepers; before me I hear the sound of the machinery taking coins but my business is done for the day, I push straight ahead, past the crowds and there on the street I merge with the others and am gone. Still damaged, still cursed, the taint of my mother lying cro
sswise against my heart until I realize again, gasping in the open air, how they have always cheated me and how yet I will be back tomorrow.

  For the fourteenth time I allow my father to kill me. I have killed him only eight times myself; there is some vague imbalance here but it is not to be corrected and only barely understood. “This is for you,” he says, standing before me terrific and powerful, the man that I have not seen thus for thirty-three years, stripped to the waist, the prematurely gray hairs of his chest winking at me in the dangerous light, “this is for ruining your mother’s figure, turning that gay, small girl into gloom and disaster, sowing the seeds of disunion in our marriage, locking me into my miserable job, ruining my life. I don’t have to take this any more,” he says almost conversationally and raises the gun; he fires the gun, I feel the bullet in my intestine and with a grateful moan fall to the floor dying for him as I have always wanted. Spaces contract, sounds diffuse and I come to myself in the Recovery Room where an old attendant who looks strangely like an uncle leans over and asks me in a whisper if I want to go again. “A bargain rate,” he says, “another death for halfprice or you can take a kill for only three-quarters. Wouldn’t you like to kill?” he says with a horrid wink and I tear the helmet from my head and stumble from the table, leaving quite rapidly although some tug of responsibility makes me turn at the door and say politely, “No, I don’t want to get hooked on this; I’ll take it within limits.” Infinitely compassionate, infinitely tender, the old attendant nods and I push my way into the street, gasping in the open air, knowing how they have always cheated me and how yet I will be back tomorrow.

  For kicks I elect to kill an old girlfriend. I have not seen her for fifteen years; now, as I last remember her she stands before me, naked to the waist, pathos and lust intertwined in her features, her delicate hands cupping her breasts as last she did. “You can if you want to,” she says with great sadness, “but I’ll never have any respect for you as long as I live if you think I’m so cheap,” and I administer poison: shovel the vial between her lips and administer it in choking draughts. She falls with a gasp, her limbs coming open and I am seized by need, a mad necessity comes over me and I collapse on the floor to mount her but before I can do anything her body retracts, retracts very quickly and attendants seize me by the shoulders. “Not here,” they say, “you know perfectly well that that isn’t part of your contract,” and with great speed and force they usher me through the hallways and toss me past bystanders into the street; gasping in the open air I know that they have cheated me again and yet I will be back tomorrow.

  I am told that my contract has expired and am offered a new series of treatments at a higher rate. “That’s impossible,” I say, “you’re extorting money from me and besides I don’t need the process at all; I’m perfectly free,” and they say to me, “If that’s so don’t renew, go into the street,” and suddenly I realize that I am not free and I do not want to go into the street so I renew for twenty-five more treatments at three times the per-treatment cost which it was when I began and they thank me and dismiss me and I say, “When will I be free? It doesn’t seem to work; when will I be purged of these needs as you promised?” and they rub their hands and shake their heads, say vaguely that there is no way of telling but the rate of purgation in the long run is very favorable and besides the treatments of themselves are catharatic and I go gasping into the street feeling that they have cheated me again and yet I will be back tomorrow.

  I allow my mother to kill me. It is the culmination of an old grudge; it has to do with my poor eating habits and sloppy table mannerisms. “I’m sorry, sorry, but this is necessary,” she says and cuts me ear to ear with a knife and I fall dying and yet ascending, moving toward consciousness and my mother leans toward me: her face has the calmness and certainty of a very young girl and “Yes,” she says, “yes, yes, yes,” and falls toward me; I touch her, feel a well of excitement, realize that she is as fully at my mercy as once I was at hers and this fills me with perverse excitement, excitement is not the word for it, it is more a feeling of latent gathering of profound forces and drawing her against me I perform upon her an unspeakable act, which even within the context of this important and highly confidential series of case notes I dare not repeat; perform upon her this act again and again and it is satisfying, more than I had bargained for in the beginning of course but less than that which I now know may await me at the end. Unquestionably I have reached a new level. All of the time I thought that things were heading toward repetition and it turns out that the Institute was merely holding out on me. Ah the cunning, the cunning! as I leap upon her and ride my mother down all the halls of forever, sensing behind me approving chuckles, the rubbing of energetic palms and the contract for permanent treatment which I always knew, someday, they would offer me.

  BREAKOUT IN ECOL 2

  By DAVID R. BUNCH

  Of course we must have some kind of international population controls or we will out-populate our food supplies and starve—or worse. We are all vaguely and uncomfortably aware of this, but only mildly, so that very little is being done about it. Wryly, David R. Bunch gives us a glimpse of one of our possible futures if we don’t shape up now.

  WE COUNTED OUR blessings, knowing how lucky we were, we marshals in Ecol 2, that the juices were thin in our old-man veins now; and we laughed just thinking of those youngsters being whammed silly all the time by the chemistry of their healthy young bods. And we watched The Board. For Sign. It was our job!

  I remember especially a night. Although, naturally, by the very nature of our job, we had many and many a night and many and many a day to remember and many many “very interesting situations” to mentally tally up. Old Bronk and I—Old Bronk, my ride partner! How can I ever forget Old

  Bronk!? We each raced for our scoots this night that The Board went wild with Sign. Like some superfast firemen going for the pole we were in our great speed, and we were soon streetborne. There was no doubt that we were two who were dedicated to Mission, and when that signal came in for trouble we were on it like a cat on a tuna can, full-fresh-and-open tuna can. We were ready to go, sail, ride, speed, get there. Those smart youngass hardons weren’t about to put anything over on Old Bronk and me. Not in our Area of Responsibility. Which was, in a way, the world, the whole Ecol-drawered spread. Yes! In a way . . .

  The discrepancy this time was in a comer of a southern-western district of Ecol 2, and we floorboarded our scoots, as the saying is; we raced the wind. The leatherglass thongs on our handlebars’ gleamy reach lay out along the air made solid by our swift passage, and the long leatherglass cowboy fringe on our big-stud cowboy saddlebags rippled with the speed of our charge. We were minions of the law—street-borne on scout scoots and, in our own ways, the saviors of the entire people-plagued universe, the whole Ecol-drawered package.

  The night came apart with bedlam as we rode. All the districts that bordered Ecol 2 threw up warnings and each one offered standby, if it transpired there should be the need. (Which standby meant, per district, two or three old juicy-noodle duffers such as Bronk and I, far past capability of any erection or lewd desire, would be alerted and, in their fine purity, kept awake all night hard by the seats of their scoots.) And there were the standard and standing plans of mobilization for General Outbreak. For who knows, when the Wall chips even a little the whole big wide sturdy standing may soon tumble away.

  “Some young smartass hardon, I’ll betcha,” I yelled at Old Bronk through my road mike, “couldn’t stand the gaff of this spring weather.”

  “More’n likely maybe it’s just this overcrowdin’,” Old Bronk yelled back. “Worse’n the full times of the moon, really, to send people all giddy nuts. I still say what they should do is give all them young smartass hardons either castration or aging shots. Aging shots, properly applied would solve the troubles of the whole world. All of them. Even wars. Hee haw huck! Believe me!”

  “Yeah?” I said hard against the wind tearing at me and my scoot. “You may
be right, Old Bronk. And then again, you may be wrong, Old Bronk.” I was just making noises, really. Small talk, you know, as we rode. I knew Old Bronk was right, ultimately and finally, although I didn’t for a minute think he had meant it that way, ultimately and finally. Aging shots, properly applied would solve it all; no doubt about it. We’d all, each and everyone, be dead! No need for Ecol drawers, or anything else, then . . .

  “Look at us,” Old Bronk Bronked on, “we’d never in the world kick up a fuss like this on The Board. Even if we could, now would we? Or even want to?”

  “Speak for your own, Old Bronk. Who says we wouldn’t if we could, or even want to? But no one has to worry about mine now. Limp as a juicy noodle forevermore, now, and I’ve accepted the facts. And God knows, that’s really the reason we’ve qualified for our jobs, you and I. A proddy rammer young smartass hardon could never do it, and you know it, now could he?”

  “Nope, a proddy rammer young smartass hardon could never be a law marshal in this proud service of the drawers where that we serve, and that’s the truth. His sympathies ’uld be all otherwise. He’d screw it up!”

  We found him cowering in a tiny cluster of plastic weeds, a little old downspread guy all drooped, not much bigger than a simple dwarf. “Why man,” I said, “what’s your act?

  You’re probably about as capable nowadays as a bent soda straw. And that’s not much, man! Hee haw hee.”

  “Come out wit’ yehre hands up flaggin’, and no nonsense wit’ the law!” Old Bronk shouted, all business and all bustly fully the law marshal now, from his white white hair inside his clear helmet to the very toes of his scoot boots black proud gleam. He’d dismounted, had Old Bronk, had kicked his scoot stand down in a very businesslike way with one of his high blacks and was now ready for come-what-would. I had to admire him, because that’s the way to do it in law enforcement. Always be stance ready and keep your zap hand clear-out-free, ready to fill it fast if need there should arise. I was a little more casual most times myself, sometimes seeing the comedy in a situation, the freakiness of it all more than the lawman’s law enforcement pose. I sometimes thought I’d probably get it because of this, and die laughing.