The Feelies

"5066."

"Bringing down a new client."

"Right now?"

The voice took on a sarcastic edge. "You busy or something?"

Ralph scowled into the phone. "Anytime you like."

"They're on their way."

The connection clicked off, and Ralph hung up. He looked at Sam, who seemed to have come out in a puzzled expression.

"New stiff."

"What?"

"They're bringing down a new stiff from the upstairs."

"A lifer?"

"What else would it be in this section?"

Sam looked around and scratched his head. "I don't see where they're going to put it."

"They'll put it in the cabinet they just took the dead one out of.''

"But they didn't do anything to the cabinet. It could be faulty."

"So who gives a fuck?"

"But if the last one died, so could this one."

"You're really being profound today."

Sam looked scared. "I gotta take a Serenax."

He fumbled in his overalls. Ralph leaned on his broom and stared into space. Sam gulped down his pill. Ralph began to hurt for a drink, but he couldn't risk it right now. If the installation crew showed up and caught him with a bottle, it would be him out on his ass instead of Artie. He wasn't quite at the point where he didn't care.

When Sam finally broke the silence his voice was slurred. "I wonder what it'll be like."

Ralph was too busy wondering when Sam would finally take an overdose to hear the remark. "Huh?"

"I said I wonder what it'll be like."

"What what will be like?"

"What the new stiff will be like."

"You interested?"

Sam hesitated. "Yeah… sure I am."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, come on. You've got to know. What's so fucking interesting about a stiff? Huh?"

Sam twisted about uncomfortably. "I…"

"Yeah?"

"I suppose I like to think about what they've given up."

Ralph's face curled into a bullying sneer. "You sure you ain't getting the same itch as your good buddy Artie?"

Sam became indignant. "I ain't sure I like that, Ralph."

Ralph let loose all his needing-a-drink spite on Sam. "Want to get in and fool around with them cold ladies, do you, Sam?"

Sam went bright red. "You got a foul mouth, Ralph."

Ralph's next assault was cut short by the arrival of a golf cart with two clean-cut young men. Ralph noted that although they weren't the two that had taken away the dead stiff, they might just as well have come out of the same mold. The new stiff was on a stretcher on the back of the cart.

"It's another one for your tender loving care."

Ralph scowled. "We'll treat him just like a brother."

"It's not a him, it's a her."

Sam, who had been staring at his fingers, looked up sharply. "A her?"

Ralph gave him a quick sideways leer. "Maybe you are getting like Artie."

Sam went red and opened his mouth to say something. Then he thought better of it and closed it again.

One of the clean-cut young men looked quizzically at them. "What's up with you two?"

Ralph put on a bland smile. "Nothing, just a private joke."

"You vault jockeys get damned odd down here."

"Vault jockeys? Is that what you're calling us upstairs? Who thought up that one?"

The clean-cut man ignored the question. "Where's the cabinet where the stiff died?"

"Back down the row a piece."

Sam looked shocked. "You're not going to put her in there, are you?"

The young man looked at him in blank amazement. "What the hell do you think we're going to do? It's the only empty cabinet in the whole damned vault."

Sam still seemed dully horrified. "It just don't seem right."

The young men weren't interested. They were already reversing the golf cart along the row of cabinets until it was level with the empty one. They jumped out with efficient briskness, disconnected the old control pac, and put in a new one. Next they carefully removed the inert body from the golf cart and placed it in the cabinet. Then they started the complex process of inserting the electrodes and feeder tubes.

Sam and Ralph moved closer. Even Ralph was surprised at the youth of the woman. From what he could see of her face, she was little more than a girl. It was an attractive, doll-like face, with white blond hair like spun sugar. Sam had started to look profoundly unhappy.

When the smart young men had finally finished, they banged down the lid of the cabinet with an air of finality and closed the seal. As they climbed back into the golf cart, the one who had done all the talking couldn't resist a parting shot.

"Try not to let this one die on you, okay?"

Ralph gave them the finger as they drove away. Sam still looked unhappy. Ralph turned on him.

"What the fuck's the matter with you?"

"I was just thinking about that girl."

"You crazy or something?"

"I was just thinking what a girl like that was doing spending the rest of her life in a feelie."

Ralph made an impatient gesture. "Everyone wants to spend their life in a feelie, or hadn't you heard?"

"But she was so young and nice-looking."

"And rich, so what?"

"She must have had so much going for her. What's she want to end up here for?"

"Listen, dummy, she's probably in there being Attila the Hun. No matter what people got, they always think they can get better. That's why feelies got made."

Sam still wasn't happy. "I sure hope Artie doesn't get at her."

DETECTIVE IZZY STEIGER WALKED INTO the squad room of the Ninth Precinct and looked around wearily. Murty and Rojas were sitting behind their desks doing nothing in particular. He dropped into his own empty chair. "You heard the latest?"

Rojas shook his head. "What's the latest?"

"The Seventh busted a bootleg feelie parlor over on Jay Street."

"What the hell is a bootleg feelie parlor?"

Murphy looked up from doing the Post crossword. "I heard of one of those a couple of years back. They started up again?"

Rojas was still looking baffled. "How the hell can some sleazo on Jay Street bootleg a feelie? They definitely don't have the technology."

Steiger picked up a sheaf of arrest reports and then put them back down. The station's climate control was once again out, and it was too hot to work. Out on the street, the temperature must have been over a hundred degrees, with seventy percent humidity. And the president goes on TV to tell everyone that the greenhouse effect is nothing to worry about, he thought. Yeah, right.

"They don't have the technology, but they have some awful stupid customers."

Murphy folded up the Post and placed it on the desk. "It's what you could call voodoo technology."

Rojas got up from his chair and walked over to the water cooler. "So how do they work this?"

Steiger put his feet up on the desk. "Basically it's a con. The guys running the scam get hold of a space-a garage, a storefront, whatever, God knows spaces aren't hard to find down around Jay. They build some fake feelie coffins out of lengths of thirty-inch plastic pipe or something of the sort and hook them up to dummy control pacs. Like I said, their customers are pretty stupid, so just about anything will do, the inside of an old TV and a couple of flashing lights, just so long as it looks marginally "Star Trek." Once that's all in place, they start hustling for business."

Rojas crushed the paper cup he had been drinking from and tossed it backhand into the wastebasket.

"So how do they actually do the feelie? What's the illusion?"

Steiger laughed. "In a word, crude. The come on is usually sexual, and most of the marks are men. Once they've got the mark in the coffin, they shoot him full of some crap IV cocktail. Usually it's one thing to put them half out and something else that'll make them hallucinate like crazy. Dust and barbiturate, acid and MPTP, Ser-enax and PCP, synthetic heroin and DMA-I guess pretty much what they can get their hands on."

Murty grunted. "You can get your hands on practically anything down there."

Rojas sat down again. "Sounds like a class act."

Steiger went on. "So once they've got the mark doped out of his mind, they stick a google TV on the front of his face. You know, a Sony Maskman or one of those. They run a porno loop, and at the same time some old whore, one who's probably too fucked up to work the street anymore, gives the guy a blow job."

Rojas was shaking his head in disbelief. "Oh, choice. How the hell does anyone fall for this shit?"

Steiger spread his hands in a don't-ask-me gesture. "What can I tell you? Seems there're fools out there who want to be in a feelie so bad, they'll convince themselves of anything. The experience, if you can call it that, maybe only lasts a few minutes, and they spend the next two or three hours sleeping off the drugs. When it's all over, they wake up with a motherfucker of a headache and no memory but determined to believe that they had a hell of a time."

"What do they pay for all this?"

"Upward of five hundred."

Rojas eyebrows shot up. "Jesus Christ, five hundred bucks for a blow job and a chance to OD."

Steiger grimaced. "And the chance to get any one of a half-dozen retroviruses. The way I heard it, the IVs weren't any too sanitary. Like I say, there's fools out there who'll believe anything. Also you'll be able to hear all about it on the late news. Pictures at eleven."

"Kowalski again?"

"Seems like it. Kowalski of the Seventh, the reporters' friend. I hear he has a smartcard with all the numbers of his press contacts on it. When he wants to tip them off, he doesn't even have to dial."

Murty's lip curled. "Good old Kowalski. I don't know why they don't just make him the official PR of the Seventh Precinct."

Steiger shrugged. "He's better off as he is. If he went official, he wouldn't make as much money."

Rojas was furious. "Kowalski burns my ass. What's with him? He got to spend more time on the phone tipping off the media than doing his fucking job, whatever that might be. Don't he got no dignity?"

Murty spat on the floor. "He's got to supplement his income somehow."

Steiger leaned back in his chair. "You ain't heard it all yet. Kowalski really outdid himself on this one. He didn't only tip the media that this feelie bust was going to go down. He even called out the publicity office of CM. They had cameras down there. They're apparently going to make a commercial out of it, warning the public that the only good feelie is a CM feelie. Kowalski's going to be hired on as a technical advisor."

Murty laughed. "So Kowalski's in with CM. He ain't going to be long for the department now. He's going to be moving on to better things."

Rojas lit a cigarette. "You guys ever think that what those bootleggers are doing isn't all that different to what CM is doing? I mean, CM is a lot more hygienic, but it's really all the same ball game."

Murty looked at him sadly. "You really don't have a clue."

"What do you mean, I don't have a clue?"

"The world runs on diplomacy, Rojas. It's something you don't appreciate. That's why you're still D2 after seven years, and Kowalski drives a Jaguar."

Rojas turned away. "Fuck Kowalski."

Steiger had walked over and picked up Murty's copy of the Post. He idly leafed through it, finally stopping at the ratings for the day. "Today's top feelie is a cop fantasy. You become a police homicide detective."

Murty's eyes rolled heavenward. "It's a wonderful world."

THUNDER CRASHED AROUND THE apartment building, and through the window, Wanda-Jean could see the lightning repeatedly striking the CM Tower over on the west side. The heat and humidity had temporarily exploded into a violent storm, but nobody who knew the city's weather patterns believed that it would be anything but the most brief relief. As soon as the storm was gone, the streets would be steaming again. Wanda-Jean sat and stared out the window at the bursts of electricity and the gray sheets of rain. She thought about turning on the TV. It was almost time for "Torture Garden." Somehow, though, she couldn't. She had a strange feeling of unease. It had started with the "Wildest Dreams" audition and had been with her ever since. She had been asking herself the same question for the past two days, ever since she had heard that she had made it onto the show. What was she really getting into?

The phone rang. Wanda-Jean looked at it suspiciously. She wasn't expecting anyone to call, particularly not in the middle of a raging storm. She picked it up with a feeling of misgiving.

"Hello?"

"This is building security." The building's security system had one of those annoyingly smooth female cabin-attendant voices.

"What is it?"

"You have a visitor."

Wanda-Jean reached for the remote for the living-room wall TV. "Put him on the screen please."

"If you turn on your TV and switch to channel ninety-seven, I will give you the visual image."

That was another annoying thing about the building's security system. Although it was nowhere near sophisticated enough to actually conduct a conversation, it left pauses between statements, in which a person could sound like an idiot by asking the thing fatuous questions.

The wallscreen came to life, and Wanda-Jean tapped up channel ninety-seven. A man was standing in the lobby. He wore one of those transparent, one-piece, plastic slicks over a dark suit. Water dripped from the slick. She didn't recognize him and spoke into the phone.

"I don't know you, do I?"

There was distorted audio from the lobby in her ear.

"Hello? Wanda-Jean?"

She experienced a moment of panic. Maybe it was some forgotten guy she had met in one of the boom-boom rooms when she had been drunk. "I don't think I know who you are. What do you want?"

"I'm Murray Dorfman, Wanda-Jean."

"I'm sorry, I don't think I know you."

"I'm personal assistant to Mr. Priest. We met at the audition the day before yesterday."

Wanda-Jean's heart jumped into her mouth. Bobby Priest's assistant. What was he doing there?

"Oh, my God, Murray, I'm so sorry. The visual image isn't too good on our system here."

Wanda-Jean was lying. There had been so many young men in dark suits at the audition that they had all become a blur.

"May I come up and speak with you for a couple of minutes?"

Wanda-Jean was instantly anxious to please. "Yes, of course. Take the express elevator to twenty-five."

Wanda-Jean hung up. As she did that, she was struck forcibly by a thought. It took about three minutes plus to ride up to the twenty-fifth floor. He would be there in three minutes and both she and the apartment were in a terminal mess. She dragged a brush quickly through her hair and changed out of her jeans and sweatshirt into a slinky kimono. Then she ran around the apartment picking up the things that were most obviously out of place and adjusting the light. She was about finished when the door buzzed again.

She didn't remember Murray Dorfman at all. It was quite conceivable that he might have been at the audition, but he certainly hadn't made any impression on her.

"Hi, Murray."

"I hope I'm not disturbing you, Wanda-Jean."

"No, no. Not really."

He was inside the apartment. He was medium height, clean shaven, and slightly overweight. If her nose didn't deceive her, he was wearing Klein's Bushido. He was dressed in one of those Tokyo designer lounging suits with the drooping hapi shoulders. His only jewelry was a heavy corporation club ring. His face was the kind that fitted-smooth, well proportioned, and unmarked by extremes of either stress or emotion. It fitted so well, in fact, that there was absolutely nothing remarkable about it, nothing to remember it by.

They both stood awkwardly in the middle of Wanda-Jean's small living room.

"Can I get you a drink?"

Murray Dorfman glanced around. "That would be nice."

"Scotch?"

"That'd be fine."

Wanda-Jean was relieved. Scotch was all she had. Unfortunately even her single bottle of Scotch might not prove acceptable-Ashai White Label, only one step above generic. This guy seemed to be well up the status ladder and probably expected Glen something or other.

"Freaz?"

"Sure."

That was another hook she was off. Anyone who took Freaz in their drink wasn't exactly a connoisseur. The splash of the supercold aerosol made a drink taste of nothing but cold without the dilution of ice. Scotch, Freaz, and a sugar cube was the hot drink around the boom-boom bars at the moment.

"Sugar cube?"

"Not for me, I'm sweet enough already."

Wanda-Jean winced. She started to wonder if Murray Dorfman was nothing but an asshole in a good suit. When she came back with a glass in each hand, he was still looking around the room. She nodded to the couch. "Why don't we sit down?"

He made Wanda-Jean tense. She hated the kind of guy who gave her home the hard scrutiny. It invaded too much of her costly privacy.

He sank down onto the couch. Wanda-Jean handed him his drink. She noticed that as he sat down, he carefully pulled up the knees of his pants so the draped silk wouldn't wrinkle.

Wanda-Jean took the armchair. Side by side on the couch would be a lot later, if at all. She tucked one foot under her and watched him take the first sip of his drink. His expression gave no indication that he realized just how rotten the booze was. Either the intense cold of the Freaz hid a multitude of sins, or he didn't know Scotch from shinola.

"So, Murray, what's this all about?"

Murray smiled blandly. "Well, being what you might call Mr. Priest's strong right arm, I thought maybe we should have a little talk."

Anxiety coursed through Wanda-Jean. "Everything's okay, isn't it?"

"Okay?"

"I mean, I'm still on the show, aren't I? I did get through the audition and everything, didn't I?"

Murray laughed. "Yes, of course. That's okay. You've got to realize, though, getting on the show is only the start."

"You have to go on and win. Even I know that."

Murray's smile became somewhat superior. "It's not as easy as that."

"I never imagined it was easy. I found that out at the audition."

"There are ways that it could be made a little easier for special players."

Wanda-Jean didn't like the way the conversation was going, but she kept it to herself. She made her eyes round and innocent. "You're not saying that the games can be fixed?"

Murray made a hasty gesture. "No, no, I'm not saying that at all. There's nothing dishonest about 'Wildest Dreams.' "

"So what are you talking about?"

Murray smiled and leaned back in his seat. He spread his legs so Wanda-Jean was presented with a clear display of the tight material that covered his crotch. "You ever heard the expression 'an inside track'?"

"No."

"It means that some players, selected players, can get a slight edge. It's not a fix, it's just a technique we use to build a more entertaining show."

Wanda-Jean felt a slight chill grab at her. This was the pitch. It was dirty, but there was no way around it. She asked the obvious question. "And which players get this edge?"

"The attractive ones. The ones who really want to win badly enough."

"You think I'm attractive?"

"Very attractive."

"You're pretty nice yourself."

"That's good."

"Is it?"

"Oh, yeah, it really helps if a player's a special friend of one of us who put the show together.''

That was it. Wanda-Jean's mind clicked over at high speed. She loathed creeps who didn't have the confidence to get laid on their own account, the ones who thought they had either to bribe you, blackmail you, or get you so stoned that you didn't notice. Shit, he wasn't even bad-looking, she'd have picked him up on a slow night. It was his attitude she objected to. He probably didn't swing all that much muscle on the show. He was more likely to be Bobby Priest's gofer than his right arm. She doubted that there was all that much that he could do for her. On the other hand, if she didn't come across, he probably had enough clout to spoil it for her.

Wanda-Jean made up her mind. She had fucked guys who didn't appeal to her just because she was bored, or she didn't want to be on her own. At least if she fucked this creep it might do her some kind of good.

She smiled and looked at the creep from under her eyelashes. "It'd be good to be someone's special friend."

"You could be mine."

Wanda-Jean put on her best provocative smile. "Really?"

"Really."

She slid out of the chair, letting the kimono fall open slightly. She moved to the floor by Murray's feet. She put a hand on the inside of his thigh. "I think I'd like to be your special friend, Murray."

Her hand made its way up his leg. Her fingers went to work on the zip of his pants. She slipped her hand inside. As she began to manipulate him, she glanced up. Murray's eyes were closed. She stuck out her tongue and pulled a face. Then she inclined her head and went down on him.

HE WAS A VIOLENT, THRUSTING GIANT, little short of a monster, plunging into the girl beneath him, giving loud animal cries of passion. His whole being was centered on the uncontrollable power in his loins. The girl rose to meet him, squirming sinuously, her head rolling from side to side, her black hair matted with sweat. Her arms twined desperately around him like urgent seeking snakes. Her nails drew blood from his back. She too cried and moaned as her legs gripped his waist and her sharp white teeth sank into his shoulder.

The power mounted inside him going further and further beyond control and even past the point that he could bear. The threatening explosion rolled nearer and nearer like thunderheads born on a barbaric wind. The girl thrashed about on the hard ground with even greater ferocity.

And finally he came. He burst with a tearing, throbbing cry. The girl also screamed, arching her back as though her spine was going to crack. For long seconds they clung to each other in rigid tension, then, bit by bit, it ebbed away. They sank down, hot sweating flesh pressed against hot sweating flesh. Their limbs tangled together.

With slow leaden movements he disengaged himself. The girl made small soft noises, but he ignored her. He rose to his feet and, drawing himself up to his full height, he raised his arms to the black sky, the pale moon, and the cold stars. His lips parted and a high scream of defiance was drawn from him.

The scream echoed off the dolmens of the stone circle and out across the ancient lake. Even the shamans broke off in their ritual torture of the princess. The circle of ghost girls halted their dance and came toward him. Their pale hands reached out. Their cold, dead fingers touched his skin. He shuddered as the living warmth seemed to be drawn out of him.

The stars above him whirled faster and faster. The scene around him grew dim. The power within him failed. It ebbed away and everything became dark. For a terrible instant he was absolutely alone in silent, empty darkness.

There were noises around him. A light shone into his face. He tried to blink it away. Hands were gently lifting him into a sitting position. A woman's face swam into his blurred vision.

"You'll feel just fine in a moment, Mr. Flynn. Just drink this."

A container of hot liquid was placed in his hands. Flynn was back in the real world.

"How did you enjoy Savage Ceremony VI, Mr. Flynn?"

RALPH MOVED WITH THE HEAVY-footed, less than steady stealth of the near drunk. His vision had the crystal clarity that comes at the point when focus is all but lost. One more belt from the bottle and it would be all gone. Ralph, however, hadn't had that belt yet.

Ralph was creeping up on Sam. He had been off on the other side of the vault section, drinking by himself. He had heard Sam talking. Sam had gone on and on talking. Ralph had become partly irked and partly curious. He had decided to creep up on Sam and find out what was happening.

Ralph turned the corner of the row from where Sam's voice was coming. Sam was standing up. That in itself was quite a surprise to Ralph. Sam was usually too tran-quilized to stay on his feet for any long space of time. That wasn't the only surprise, though. Sam was staring into the clear plastic cover of one of the cabinets. His face was animated by anxiety. His tone was pleading. Every few seconds he twisted his fat hands together in gestures of extreme frustration.

"How come you got to lie there like that? You must have had so much. You're beautiful and all, and you must have been rich. I mean, you know… You could have had it made on the outside. What you want to be lying down here for? You ain't no slob like me. Now me, I couldn't do no better than this, but you… You got all the things you could…"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Sam swung around. Guilt froze his face. He slowly turned a deep crimson. "Unh…"

"Have you gone quite crazy?"

"I… er…"

Ralph advanced quickly on Sam and grabbed him by the front of his overalls. "You're babbling to a fucking stiff!"

Sam's face was still bright red, but as soon as Ralph took hold of him the flush seemed to take on a different meaning. Ralph was about to make a crack on the lines of Sam getting like Artie when he abruptly changed his mind. An instant flash of drunken insight took in Sam's florid face and whitening knuckles. Ralph quickly let go of him and took a step back. Sam glowered at him. "I don't like for you to be touching me that way, Ralph."

Ralph took another pace backward and bit his lip. He didn't like the look of this transformed Sam. He wished he were still across the other side of the section, sucking on his bottle. He looked down at the cabinet Sam had been talking to.

"Jesus Christ." The exclamation came out before he could stop it.

Sam glared at him. "What?"

Ralph tried to keep his voice as even as possible. "That's the new stiff, Sam. The one they just brought in."

"So?"

"But why the hell are you talking to her?"

"I like her, Ralph. She's so beautiful, and I feel sorry for her.''

Ralph felt a pressure inside his head. It was his turn to make frustrated gestures. "Listen, Sam…"

"I don't want to listen, Ralph."

"But she's a stiff."

"I like her, Ralph."

"But she doesn't even know she's here. In her brain she's somewhere else totally."

"I think I'm in love with her, Ralph."

Ralph opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He was about to tell Sam that he was crazy. Instead, he decided to keep quiet. In Sam's present mood, he was just as likely to tear Ralph's head off.

Sam was still looking at him belligerently. "Don't you have nothing to say about that, Ralph?"

Ralph shook his head. "Nothing. Except…"

"Except what, Ralph?"

"It's nothing."

"Except what, Ralph?"

Ralph edged away a little more. "I don't want you to get me wrong, Sam."

"Say it, Ralph."

"Well… I mean, you wouldn't do anything dumb, would you, Sam?"

"Dumb?"

"You wouldn't do nothing like opening up the cabinet? You wouldn't do nothing like that, would you, Sam?"

Sam gave him a long, hard look. "I think I'd kill anyone who tried to open her up, Ralph. I'm telling you. I think I'd kill anyone who tried to do that."

Ralph dropped his gaze to the floor. He took a deep breath. It required a good deal of effort to keep his voice calm and steady. "Sam."

"What?"

"Sam, I'm going to take myself off."

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to go away across to the other side of the section and go on drinking. I'm going to leave you to get on with whatever you're doing."

Sam nodded. "Okay, Ralph."

Ralph walked slowly away. Now and again he glanced back; Sam was once again talking to the girl in the cabinet, although his gestures were a lot less agitated. Ralph wondered if he had maybe taken a couple of Serenax.

Ralph reached the spot where his bottle was stashed. He sank down on the floor and unscrewed the cap. He took a liberal hit. The heat of the cheap whiskey hit his gut and his brain staggered slightly. He began to feel resentful. There was no doubt about it. He was getting a bum deal. Who needed to be stuck in a situation like the one he was in? First there was a fucking pervert like Artie shulking about, never showing his face and more than likely messing around with the stiffs. Ralph was sure that sooner or later trouble would come down on account of Artie. When it did, he knew the shit wouldn't just stop at him. Some of it would be sure to rub off on Ralph.

Then there was Sam. Sam may have been a pain in the ass, but he was at least reliable, in his own dumb way. He was always there when he was needed. That, however, was before he had decided to fall in love with the girl stiff. Bitterness, resentment, and disgust knotted in Ralph's throat. He compulsively took another drink. He needed it to stop himself choking. He looked across the orderly, silent rows of the feelie cabinets, each one with its scarcely living stiff.

The bitterness grew stronger and stronger inside Ralph. Those bastards had the right idea-they had gotten the hell out of the whole stinking world. The dirty rich bastards had the whole thing sewn up. They could escape. Ralph and people like him would have to stick with the entire filthy real world until they died and rotted. Ralph was strongly tempted to give it all up: leave the vault, leave the stiffs, and, above all, leave his two crazy partners before he got to be just like them. He ought to just up and quit, go on welfare. He would be just as well off being a wino.

The voices that lurked in the vaults seemed to laugh back at him. Ralph staggered to his feet. He swung around brandishing his bottle as though he was going to take on the whole of the vault.

"Fuck you all! Fuck every one of you!"

Tears sprang into the corners of his eyes. His hands went limp, the bottle fell to the floor. It bounced on the concrete but didn't break. Ralph was stooping to pick it up when the phone went. Ralph ignored it. He carefully set the bottle upright. The phone went on ringing. Ralph checked his bottle from all three sides. The phone still went on ringing. Ralph finally relented. He lurched to the pillar and picked it up.

"Yeah?"

"You took your time."

"So?"

"You all asleep down there?"

"We ain't asleep. What do you want?"

"Just a routine check. Everything okay down there?"

For an instant, Ralph was tempted to tell them all about Sam and Artie and how they were both stone crazy. The instant didn't last too long, though. Ralph suddenly thought, what the hell, they would only send two more mutants. They could be even worse.

"Sure everything's alright. What's with this routine check shit? We never had no routine checks before."

Ralph's belligerence got a mirror response from the other end of the phone.

"Don't take an attitude with me, Mac. It's a new policy order."

"Yeah, sure."

Ralph hung up.