The Holy Machine

4

And then I was there, in the lobby, standing on the red carpet, smelling the sickly smell of scent and disinfectant, hearing the dreamy muzak.

‘Good evening, sir. Do you have an appointment?’

The receptionist was a syntec in the likeness of a plump, cheerful, middle-aged woman.

My mouth was so dry I could barely form the words.

‘No… I…’

‘Would you like to choose from the menu – or from one of our special offers? Or would you like to go through to the lounge and make your own selection personally?’

‘I… the… lounge.’

‘That’s fine sir. You’ll see it’s just through the door there. Have a nice evening!’

I glided like a sleepwalker across the corridor.

There were thin women and fat women, black women and white women, barely pubescent girls and handsome motherly women of forty. Some of them were almost naked, others dressed as nurses, as teachers, as housewives, as schoolgirls… There were boys too, and muscly men in posing pouches… And even stranger things: boys with breasts, girls with penises, elfin creatures, impossibly slender and covered in smooth fur, with pointy cat-like ears and narrow cat-like eyes…

They were waiting round the edge of a big dark-red room, some reclining on sofas, some perched on stools, others standing. If you looked in their direction, they would smile and try to catch your eye and start to move towards you. If you looked away they would stop.

The music meandered on and on and on. Sometimes it seemed like saxophones, sometimes like an orchestra of violins from long ago and sometimes like girlish voices that repeated the same few words over and over: ‘Love me, baby, baby love me, baby, baby, my baby love…’

Male sleepwalkers wandered round and round the room, blank-faced, avoiding one another’s eyes, round and round. From time to time one or other of them would come to a stop and a smiling syntec would step forward. The man would be led from the room, as meek and docile as a lost little boy.

‘George!’

A plump, balding middle-aged man stood in front of me.

‘It is George isn’t it? Nice to see you! What’s a good-looking young man like you doing in a place like this?’

He had a faint Irish accent and I vaguely recognized him as one of Word for Word’s clients, an export manager for some firm that peddled technological trinkets to the near-medieval states beyond our frontiers.

‘Paddy, remember? Old Paddy Malone. The one with the stupid computer that’s supposed to talk Turkish but can’t! A nice piece of work you did for us there, young George, a very good job indeed!’

He was grinning, he was slapping me jovially on the shoulders but sweat was pouring down his face.

‘What a feast, eh?’ he chuckled, gesturing around the room, ‘Look at that black one over there, isn’t she a peach?’

A robot coated in silky black skin saw him pointing, smiled and made to get up from its seat, but the watery eyes of the export manager had moved on.

‘And will you look at that little thing! Don’t you just want to…’

Passing ghost-like men modified their course slightly so as not to run into us.

‘I tell you what, George my old buddy, this place has been the making of my marriage! Any time that little itch comes along, you know, I just get down here and sort it out, no problems, no grief for anyone, at no more than the price of a half-decent meal out! Not that I’d actually want to bother the dear wife you know with the actual…’

Again he tailed off. His eyes looked past me. Sweat poured off his bald head. Sweat dripped from his chin. The ghosts went gliding by.

‘Hey! Look over there! That is new! Just look at the tits on that thing! I think I can see where old Paddy’s going to find his berth tonight.’

Some sort of reaction was building up inside me. I shook away his arm. He wasn’t paying any attention in any case, but was grinning stupidly as the big-breasted syntec came to greet him as if old Paddy was what it had been waiting for all its life.

Horrified, I rushed from the room. I was in such a hurry that I crashed straight into one of those syntec elfin boys which was leading out a bewildered Albanian guestworker with three days stubble on his chin. I sent it flying across the floor.

‘Allah have mercy,’ whispered the dazed Albanian.

As I crossed the lobby, I saw Lucy coming down the stairs. I recognized her at once. She was even prettier than she had been on the TV, wearing a loose jumper and a pair of jeans, like a student, like a girl of my own age. She saw me looking at her and caught my eye and smiled…

But the experience of the lounge had broken the illusion. This was not really a she at all. It was an it, a doll, a mannequin, no more real than Ruth’s SenSpace.

‘Ugh!’ I muttered as I turned away and headed for the door.

‘Enjoy the rest of your evening!’ called out the receptionist, ‘Hope we see you again soon!’

‘No chance, plastic one!’ I called back as I stepped out into the street and breathed in the evening air.

I felt pleased with myself as I headed for the subway that would take me home. That was that dealt with, I said to myself, that was that nonsense out of my system.

I remember I noticed a fly-posted notice at the subway entrance.

‘The Holist League,’ it read, ‘The whole is more than the parts…’

It brought into my mind again the strange image of Ullman in reverse, creating man out of dust.

Then I bought a bag of fresh doughnuts from a Greek vendor and made my way down to the train in its warm bright tunnel.