Chapter 4

The fastest way back to his own apartment was the slideway that whisked through the main pedestrian corridor. But the slideway was stopped, THX saw.

People were milling around in the corridor and on the stilled conveyor belt of the slideway itself, some patient, others obviously irritated.

“Fourth time it’s broken down this month.”

“Been out of service for an hour.”

“An hour? I’ve been waiting for two hours!”

And purring from the overhead speakers:

“Please hold the handrail and stand to the right; if you wish to pass, pass on the left… Please hold the handrail and stand on the right. If you…”

THX started shouldering his way through the crowd. But soon it got thicker and slower- moving as he worked down the corridor. Finally he reached a point where the throng wasn’t moving at all, just shuffling, murmuring, complaining, buzzing like an immense clot of swarming insects. Jammed shoulder-to-shoulder with pill-nibbling strangers, THX couldn’t move forward. Nor backward.

“Never seen a traffic jam like this one.”

“Nah… last week, you should’ve seen that one. Lasted six hours. I fell asleep standing up!”

There were no police robots in sight. No repair crews. No orders or instructions or apologies from the overhead speakers. Nothing but the insane, “Please hold the handrail and stand to the right…”

Through a forest of heads, THX saw a lift tube entrance. He squeezed and pushed and elbowed his way through the mostly docile crowd and took the lift up one flight, to the shopping level.

I can get across up at this level, and then go back down.

It was crowded here, too. The people had a different attitude in the shopping plazas: more frenzied, eyes glittering, arms clutching packages, hands grabbing at displays. There were plenty of chrome robots here in police helmets and black leather uniforms.

The ubiquitous overhead speakers were saying in a friendly, smiling voice:

“Remember! Only two more days to fulfill Consumption Quota 88. Don’t be caught underconsuming. Be the first in your unit to complete Consumption Quota 88. Buy now!”

I ought to, THX realized. He had underconsumed on his last quota, and didn’t want to get docked for the same thing again.

The stores looked crowded. LUH. I want to get home to LUH.

But the overhead voices insisted:

“Only two more days to fulfill Consumption Quota 88. Don’t be caught underconsuming. Be the first…”

Somehow it sounded almost like a command.

“Buy now!”

It’ll only take a minute.

“Buy NOW!”

He stepped into the nearest store entrance and found a head-tall pyramid of bright orange plastic hexagons. Each one was stamped Consumption Quota 88.

He picked up one of the hexagons and walked over to the credit machine next to the display. Unclipping the badge from his lapel, he inserted it in the box-like machine.

Then he realized, “Wait… this is the old type…” An observer’s voice, thin and metallic- sounding, came from the credit machine. “What’s wrong?”

“This consumption unit… it’s the old type. I just had my consumall changed last month to take the new type. This one won’t fit.”

There was a barely perceptible click from the machine and a warm, soothing feminine voice said:

“For more enjoyment and greater efficiency, consumption is being standardized. We are sorry if you have experienced any temporary inconvenience. Place your identification badge in the reader and we will have units transferred to your account as soon as possible.”

“No…” THX said. “You already have my badge… and this is the wrong hexa…”

“For more enjoyment and greater efficiency,” the voice began repeating.

THX didn’t feel warmed or soothed. “Wait! You have my badge in the reader akeady. I want it back.”

The observer’s voice came back, “The mechanism seems to be jammed. Stay where you are, and we will have a member of the store’s staff assist you.”

“But I’m in a hurry to get home!”

No answer.

Feeling foolish and angry at the same time, THX stood by the machine, orange hexagon in hand, waiting for someone to come and help him. Several shoppers stepped up to the machine, most of them women.

“It’s… jammed,” he told them each, lamely.

One old woman scowled at him and said, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m going to get a policeman here.”

She scuttled off.

“What seems to be the trouble?”

THX turned and saw a man of his own age, thin, polished-looking, smiling at him without feeling.

“My badge is stuck in the machine… and I picked up the wrong-sized consumption unit.”

The store manager made a tch! sound somewhere between his lips and teeth. Shaking his head, he muttered, “Something like this is always happening. Come back into the office with me and we’ll make out a temporary badge for you. We’ll send yours to you when the machine repair crew gets it out.”

THX said, “But that’ll take too long. Can’t you get mine now? It’s right here.”

The manager shrugged. “Do I look like a mechanic? I can’t get your badge out. It will only take a few minutes to make out a temporary badge for you.”

By now a handful of shoppers had gathered around them. One of them, an elderly man, cackled, “I can get your badge back for you—stand aside.”

He pushed THX out of the way with a frail arm and then whacked the machine on its side with his closed fist. The machine seemed to shudder, click, and THX’s badge popped out into the receiver slot.

“See?” The old man grinned, his mottled skin folding into accordion pleats. “You got to know how to do it!” The store manager looked as if he was going to have a stroke.

“Uh… thank you,” THX said.

“I’ll exchange this unit for a proper-sized one,” the manager said to THX, ignoring the old man.

A few minutes later, with a slightly smaller, yellow hexagon under his arm, THX left the store. But as he was leaving, another shopper—a middle-aged man—was banging on the same credit machine with his fists.

“Idiot machine! Someone ought to fix the machine! All the damned machines!”

A chrome police robot suddenly appeared at the man’s side and grasped him by the arm. Looking badly surprised, the man was hauled away. THX felt his stomach beginning to churn again. He left the store and hurried homeward.

She’ll be there. LUH will be there.

The apartment was dark.

THX stood by the front door as the overhead light panels automatically glowed to life. There was no sound in the apartment. Grim-faced, he went to the kitchen and popped the hexagon into the consumall. The bright plastic obligation disappeared with a hiss of suddenly released pressure.

He looked into the holoroom. She wasn’t there. With a boiling mixture of anger and hurt and fear rising inside him, THX went to the sanitary. He reached for the medicine cabinet.

“No, don’t.”

He whirled and saw her standing in the doorway. Her face looked so concerned, so beautiful. Childlike. Yet…

“You don’t need the drugs,” she said, her voice an earnest whisper.

“But…”

“No.” She stepped toward him and reached out to touch his shoulder. “Don’t hide behind the pills. Face the world… the real world.”

“I don’t understand.”

She was looking directly at him, her lovely eyes troubled and yet almost happy. “You don’t need the drugs,” she repeated.

“I… I was sick.”

Nodding, she asked, “Would you like something to eat? Or do you want to rest?”

“No… no food. I think I’ll lie down for a while. I’m tired…”

He leaned on her shoulder and together they went into the bedroom. He lay down and she sat on the edge of the bed, next to him. He felt as if he was burning, his heart hammered. Yet he didn’t feel sick. Something in him was elated, wildly happy.

With trembling hands, he reached out for LUH. She leaned forward and they kissed. His hands slid over her body, then they slipped inside her blouse, feeling her skin warm and soft and incredibly lovely. He felt her soft soft breasts and the erect little nipples and their mouths melted together and she was lying beside him.

Something far, far back in his mind was warning him of danger but he ignored it. She was beside him, holding him, bodies pressed together, wanting him as badly as he wanted her. For a ludicrous moment he fumbled her blouse off. She had to help him with her pants.

“What about you?” she whispered as he stared at her nude body.

For an agonizingly self-conscious moment he didn’t know what to do. Then he sat up quickly and slipped off his clothes.

Her fingertips traced a design of pleasure across his chest. “You’re beautiful,” she said, smiling at him.

“You… no, you’re the beautiful one,” he replied. “You’re…” And then he couldn’t find the words he wanted so he pulled her against him and kissed her and felt the whole world disappear except for her. She was the whole world, all the warmth, all the beauty, all the incredible unbearable ferocious delight of it.

She was saying something to him, something urgent, her lips at his ear, but he couldn’t hear her. He was holding her, seizing his world, the world they made together, hearing nothing and seeing nothing but feeling, feeling it all explode in a frenzy of joy.

When they lay side by side again, touching yet apart, the warning voice came back to him: What you’ve done is wrong! Immoral! Illegal! He turned his head and looked at her, drowsing warmly next to him, her eyes closed, her lips parted in the smallest of smiles. And he thought: To hell with them. To hell with everything. She’s what I want. She makes me happy.

And then he added: Besides, how can they know? The chances that they’re observing this apartment at this moment are infinitesimal. They’ll never know.

He slept. When he awoke, she was in the kitchen. He padded in there, wearing only his pajama pants. She was fully dressed.

She turned from the cooker and said, “Hello,” as if it was the first time they had seen each other in years.

Grinning, he went to her and started opening her blouse.

She reached up and took his face in her hands.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

“Yes.” He opened the blouse completely and circled her waist with his arms.

“For food?”

He laughed.

She reached over to the counter beside the cooker and took a squeeze tube of mock cheese and squirted it at him.

“Hey, no…” He flinched back. “Don’t… don’t… you’ll get it on the floor.”

LUH tossed a whole plastic pack of food pellets at him. He ducked instinctively, laughing. The pellets scattered all over the floor. Still laughing, he got down on his hands and knees and started picking them up. LUH dropped down too, and they met head to head beside the kitchen table. She was giggling at him.

With as much seriousness as he could muster, THX said, “I’ve never been under a table before.”

She was giggling like someone who’d taken too many stimalls. “Look,” she pointed to the underside of the gleaming white table. “Dirt.”

THX stared at the smudge under there. “That’s not dirt… can’t be dirt. Dirt’s a violation.”

“Looks like dirt.”

He thought a moment, then said, “I have something better.” He held out his fist. Her tiny hand touched it and he opened, palm up, revealing the pellets. “Look, food.”

She shook her head. “That’s not food… can’t be food.”

THX sat on the floor next to her. “Looks like food.” He put one of the pellets in his mouth. “Tastes like food.”

She smacked the underside of his hand and the pellets flew into the air. Laughing, she scooped up a handful and tossed them into the consumall. “Produced to be consumed!”

THX sat there on the floor, laughing at her. She opened a cabinet door and pulled out more pellet packs.

Ripping them open, she tossed them into the hissing consumall.

“Hey, wait a minute!” He scrambled to his feet. “Not all of them. I’m hungry!”

She threw some of the pellets at him. He ducked and grabbed for her. They both went down and his hands were on her breasts again.

“Ow… you’re hurting me!”

He let her go.

“Don’t stop,” she said.

“But…”

She took his hands in hers and put them back on her breasts. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”