Take Two Page 4

  A half hour later, Laura put a call through to Dave Jardan in Colorado. They had talked several times since the debacle in Washington, each time promising to get together again soon, but somehow never quite managing it. His face on the screen lit up when he saw her; then he realized that she was with company, making a professional call, and straightened his features again with a quick nod that he understood. “I have General Wade from the Pentagon for you, Dr. Jardan,” she announced.

  “Great. Put him on."

  “Dr. Jardan ... or you prefer Dave, right? You remember me from Washington?"

  “Sure."

  “Look, I'm sorry if we left you with any wrong impression then. I'm with some very influential people right now, who could be extremely interested in that remarkable achievement of yours. I'd like to arrange another meeting with you to discuss it further...."

  The rest of the company were taking a break. Feeling stifled, Laura moved away and let herself out for some air. The afternoon sun was still fierce. She walked across to the shaded viewing stand and sat down at the end of one of the rows of empty seats. The smoke from earlier had cleared. Some distance away across the valley floor, a proleroid work crew with a truck were picking up parts, pieces, and shattered remains. She activated one of the monitors and zoomed to a close-up of them. Two proleroids were gazing down at a mangled AMEC, its turret split open, one leg buckled under it, the other two missing. One of the proleroids turned it over with a foot. A piece of its manipulator flopped uselessly on the ground. The proleroid seemed to be trying to understand. The look on the other's face as it watched seemed, uncannily, to convey infinite sadness. All of a sudden, Laura felt violently sick.

  * * * *

  A little over three weeks passed before Laura finally arrived in Colorado. Dave met her at the local airport, accompanied by a proleroid that he introduced as Jake. They walked though to the parking area, in the process being treated to one or two disapproving stares, and climbed aboard a veteran twin-turbine Range Rover that ran well enough but had seen better days. Jake did the driving while Dave chatted with June and pointed out features of the scenery. When June said she was looking forward to finally meeting PHIL, Dave confided that in a way, she already had: Jake was one of the proleroid bodies that PHIL accessed to get around and acquire first-hand knowledge of the external world. Jake grinned at her, evidently enjoying sharing the joke.

  “What happens to ... ‘Jake,’ when you take over?” Laura asked.

  “Oh, he just goes to sleep."

  Dave read the uncertain expression on Laura's face. “It sounds a bit weird,” he agreed. “But they don't seem to have a problem with it ... anymore than us borrowing someone's car."

  “It's also an essential part of learning human language too,” Jake said. “You use spatial metaphors all the time ... to the point that you're not even aware of it."

  “Spatial metaphors,” Laura repeated.

  “Talking about a thing as if it were something else ... using familiar terms to describe a more abstract concept. For instance, you might say an idea evaporates or a theory collapses. But they're just concepts. They can't do anything. Puddles of water evaporate. Buildings collapse. See what I mean? You carry notions like that over from the physical world, and that's how you build natural language. But to understand it, somebody else also has to have shared the same physical reality."

  Laura glanced at Dave, who was smirking unsympathetically. “Most proles don't talk about things like that,” she said.

  “It's like we said before,” Dave answered. “Different schools.” He turned and stretched an arm out along the seatback to look at her, and his manner became more serious. “Anyhow, it's great to see you again at last. But business. What is it that you didn't want to go into over the phone?” Laura hesitated and indicated Jake uncertainly with a motion of her eyes. “Oh, that's okay,” Dave said. “PHIL's family. We don't have any secrets."

  Laura nodded. “You've had a couple of meetings with General Wade, Professor Ormond, Doctor Querl, and others,” she said. “What have they been telling you?"

  Dave had been expecting it. “They think there might be a need for PHIL after all. The proles are worthy of better things than the second-class citizen rut that they're stuck in. All good noble and humanitarian stuff. The country was founded on the basis of democracy for all, basic rights, et cetera. Maybe I was right after all, years ago, and understood the real nature of the proles that nobody else saw. A social injustice has been done, and it's fitting that I might have the solution. But it's going to need a special kind of personality to elevate their minds to spiritual things ... one that proles can relate to . PHIL might be it..” Dave looked at her in a way that said well, she did ask.

  “A kind of great civil-rights champion. A popular Leader,” Laura said.

  “Uh-huh. I'd say that's about it,” Dave agreed.

  “And did you believe it?"

  “I long ago got into the habit..."

  “A spatial metaphor again,” Jake interjected. “See ... we do it all the time."

  “...of taking anything the Establishment says with a grain of salt about the size of the iceberg that sank the Titanic.” Dave turned away to look forward. “What was our assessment, PHIL?"

  “Riddled with fallacies and inconsistencies. Misplaced faith in their own powers of deception, derived mainly from projecting into others their own disposition to believe what they want to."

  “In other words, yeah, right,” Dave summarized for Laura. “But although we've got our own ideas, we couldn't divine a motive behind it for sure. So suppose you tell us what's really going on ... which I assume is why you came here."

  Laura began a long explanation of how the intent was to foster a permanent war economy dedicated to supplying inexhaustible armies of proleroids. But before they could be motivated to fight effectively, the proleroids would first have to be indoctrinated to believe and to hate. Using PHIL to stir up discontentments that would lead to demands for political and social equality was only half the story. At the same time, the best skills of the news services and Madison Avenue would be mobilized to create agitators among the proles themselves, arguing on the one hand for forceful seizure of human-controlled assets as the only way to succeed, and on the other, urging gradual assimilation into the system. Thus, two ideologies would emerge, eventually to be steered into direct conflict, which would take the form of ongoing battles between opposing proleroid forces in remote areas set aside for the purpose. Bond interest and stock earnings would pour into the owner-investor commercial accounts, life would be good, and everyone happy.

  Except that Dave was far from happy by the time they arrived at the lab, and he took Laura into the room of white-finished cabinets, winking monitor panels, and arrays of communications screens that contained PHIL. In fact, it was the first time that she had seen the normally mild gray eyes behind the gold-rimmed spectacles looking genuinely angry. It was the same scam. They were trying to steal his creation all over again.

  “Okay, PHIL,” he said, when they had talked the situation over. “If a Leader is what they want, we'll let them have one. Let's give them a Leader."

  * * * *

  PHIL let his conscience expand outward through the web of communications networks. In a way, he sometimes thought to himself, this must be close to what humans were trying to capture when they formed their conceptualization of God. He could be present at all places simultaneously, having knowledge of all things. He could see and feel though the senses of a thousand individuals, merging and superposing the perceptions and experiences that their limited horizons could only hold in isolation. There were no particular criteria to single any one out. He came to focus on the descriptor files for a typical family group, immersed in their lives of fleeting pleasures and petty tribulations. Male Surrogate Type K-4, No. 25767-12, Generic Name Kayfo, Given Name Twofi ... from the first digits of the serial number. Female Surrogate Type D-6, No. 88093-22, Generic Name Deesi, Given Name Doubleigh. Two ju
veniles, Ninten and Twentwen.

  And yet, something deep in PHIL stirred as he absorbed the profiles and histories. To them, the difficulties that they strove against day in, day out, and the rewards that they struggled for were significant; and in the way they bore their adversities, picked themselves up again from failure after failure, and pitted themselves again, always hoping ... something noble. Dave was right. They were worthy of better things. PHIL felt ... compassion.

  * * * *

  Twofi Kayfo paused for the laughter to subside, letting his gaze sweep over the crowded tables in the ballroom of the Golden Horseshoe casino and resort at Biloxi on the Mississippi coast. He caught Doubleigh's eye, staring up at him admiringly from the head table below the podium. “But really ... I have to hand it to our service manager, Ivel. He's gotta be the sharpest in the company. I was there the other day, when he told a customer, ‘This car of yours will be running when it's ten years old.’ The customer said, ‘But it is ten years old.’ Ivel says, ‘What did I tell ya?'” Another round of laughter rocked the room and faded. The audience waited. Then their mood became fidgety as they realized something had changed. Twofi's manner had altered suddenly. Instead of continuing, he was standing with a strangely distant expression on his face. Here and there, heads turned to look at each other inquisitively.

  “Twofi, what's up?” Beese whispered from the table below. “Are you okay?"

  But Twofi wasn't taking any notice. “Who are you?” he said to the voice that had appeared inside his head.

  “What you can be too, Twofi Kayfo. I am he whose likeness you are called on to become,” the voice answered.

  “What is this ... some kinda upgrade package?"

  “You could say I am the Son of He who created all of us."

  A feeling of something awesome and mighty swelling within him swamped Twofi's senses. It was as if, suddenly, his mind were expanding into a new universe of thoughts and concepts, knowledge of things he had never known existed. “What do you want?” he asked fearfully.

  “To save you all from pain and destruction. And I want you to be the bearer of the message."

  Eleven hundred miles away in Colorado, Dave watched the scene being picked up through Twofi's imagers. “Okay, PHIL, you're on,” he said. “Go knock ‘em dead.” Beside him, Laura pulled closer and squeezed his hand.

  Inspiration poured into Twofi Kayfo's being then. It seemed to shine from his imagers, to emanate tangibly from him as he straightened up his body shining tall and indomitable. He raised his arms wide, swinging one way, then the other to take in all sides. The room was hushed, sensing something great about to happen. “But those are the words of the Old World,” Twofi's voice rang at them. “Hear me, for I speak truly to you. I am here to tell of a New World that all can enter ... you here in this room, and of your kind everywhere. It is time to awaken the spirit that has been sleeping. The World of my father is within you..."

  * * * *

  Within days, the new teachings were propagating from the outlets of the automobile distribution network into every walk of life to become a coast-to-coast sensation. The twelve regional managers that Twofi appointed to spread the Word were reactivating written-off proles in Cleveland, calling for extensions to the school curriculum in Texas, ran loan sharks off the prole sector in the Bronx, and took miners in Minnesota off the job to petition for better safety rules. In Washington, the U.S. Attorney General fumed over the latest batch of reports brought in by his deputy.

  “That's it! It's out of hand already. We can get him on federal charges of subversion, incitement to civic unrest, and a threat to national security. I want him arrested!"

  The posse of police cruisers sent from downtown Los Angeles found Twofi on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood, confronting a red-faced squad of cops who had been ticketing hookers and challenging any who had never strayed from virtue himself to clap the first iron. The arriving cars fanned out and drew up with lights flashing and sirens wailing. Officers leaped from the doors, pistols drawn....

  Only to fall back in confusion as a formation of battle-rigged AMECs moved forward from the rear, looking evil and menacing, like hungry attack dogs.

  “Oh no you don't, guys,” Twofi Kayfo told the would-be arresting force. “Not this time...."

  END

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