My name is James P. Trodd. I was born on Amosha, the great colony world,
and spent the first thirty-two years of my life there. My parents sold me to Fabrication Services
when I was two, (childrearing was more expensive than they had planned,) and I
was trained in my division as a Calibration Specialist.
I had my own office by the time I was
thirty, and had it decorated in scheme 73e.
The walls were painted with trees, fields, and a smiling cow, and the
ceiling was blue with little pink clouds.
The textureless carpet was green.
The reason I picked the scheme, though, was the three plastic bushes
that came out of the floor. One was next
to the door, and had pretty colored lights in it. One was next to the wastebasket. The other, through imperfect planning, was
under my desk. I had tried to get that
last one moved. The maintenance man had
measured the desk, poked at the bush with the handle of his screwdriver, and
then noticed that the fluorescent tubes in the ceiling fixture were
flickering. Three men came the next day
and tore out the fixture. They were in
my office for a week, gutting walls, rewiring the room, standing on my desk and
scattering plaster chips everywhere.
When they were done, I had a ceiling fan that came on with the light,
blowing papers all over, and the bush was still under my desk.
My job was to calibrate liquid
surrogate pyristors (LSPs), which arrived in my office through a chute in the
side of my happy cow. I won’t bore you
with the technical details, but the pyristors were temperamental. I was always on the phone contracting
barbershop quartets, ordering various dilutions of aqua regia, setting up
strange antenna arrays in the middle of the night. Once the calibration was done, the LSPs went
back in the happy cow, and on to the Ninety-Two-Degree Rotation Division.
One day an LSP arrived that didn’t
match my color standards. It wasn’t Pink
25. It wasn’t Mauve 03. Imagine my confusion. The requisition was from one Jucie Legate,
room 955, Quality Control Division 4, Earth.
I phoned that division.
“Ms. Legate doesn’t work here
anymore,” the receptionist said impatiently.
“She’s been transferred to Amosha.”
“Well I need to talk to someone.”
“Okay, I’ll transfer you to someone.”
The image changed to that of an
unshaven teenager in a baseball cap.
“Receiving,” he said.
“Yes, I’ve got an LSP that’s not
matching my color standards. I need to
know how to log it,” I said. “Should I
use a non-conformance report?”
“LSP?” the kid said. “We don’t have any of those, do we?” he
looked over his shoulder.
“No!” came a call from off-screen.
“Do you know the invoice number?” the
kid asked, taking off his cap to scratch his head.
“No, look,” I said, “just transfer me
back to the receptionist.”
“Okay.” The boy stared at the keypad for a
second. He started to press one button,
then pressed another. The line went
dead.
I decided to waste no more time on
that order. I filled out a dud report
and started toward my supervisor’s office with the LSP.
His office was decorated in scheme
38. The walls, floor, and ceiling were
all mirrors, so that in any direction you looked the room was repeated
infinitely. When I closed the door the
effect was complete. In the wall were
countless pairs of me facing myself and my supervisor facing toward and away
from me. He had a vacant look on his
face and a gathering of wrinkles on the back of his neck.
His thick blue lips moved as he read
the requisition, and then the dud form.
I sat in the chair across from him.
I crossed my legs, uncrossed them, recrossed them the other way. I read the bottom of my shoe: “Proletariat
footwear. Unisex style 9. Made on Amosha.” I stared at my countless reflections, and
pretended that one of those was the real me and I was just a reflection,
waiting to respond at the speed of light.
Finally my supervisor looked up. “I’ll have to give this to the department
head for approval,” he said.
Back in my office the clock, a large
melon, read
The next day I got a call from Jucie
Legate. I hit the record button on my
videophone the moment I saw her. She was
beautiful, a square jaw, cleft chin, thick red lips, and attached
earlobes. Her teeth were large and
aggressively white. Part of the effect,
though, was the lighting. Her office was
decorated in a scheme I hadn’t seen. The
wall behind her was covered with a faux zebra skin, and the light in the room
was red. Her skin looked perfect in that
light, and her eyes were in shadow.
“Mr. Trodd,” she said, “I’m calling
about that rush LSP. What’s the
hold-up?”
“Why, Ms. Legate, Jucie-- Do you mind if I call you Jucie?” Her expression didn’t change. “I called your office at the QC Division and
they said you’d transfered. I’m sorry, I
didn’t know what to do so I filed a dud report and gave it to my
supervisor. I don’t know what he’s done
with it by now. It didn’t match any of
my color standards!” I was panting from
talking too fast.
“Transferred?” Ms. Legate said. “I haven’t been transferred.”
A voice from off-screen: the
receptionist. “Oh, Ms. Legate, you’re
being transfered to Amosha.”
“When did this happen?” Jucie asked,
turning in her seat. What a
profile! Her nose was a perfect right
triangle.
“I just decided yesterday,” the
receptionist said.
“You
decided?”
While Jucie glared at her
receptionist the maintenance man barged into my office.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Working on the wiring,” he
said. He started making marks on the
wall.
Jucie was yelling at her
receptionist. I turned the volume down
on the vidphone.
“What are you doing?” I asked again.
“Bypassing the switch for the ceiling
fan.”
“Why?”
“Ceiling fans should stay on all the
time,” he said. “They cut down the
heating bill and get rid of air pockets.”
“I don’t want it on.”
“Look, it’s in the building code,” he
said.
“Then I don’t want the ceiling fan,”
I said.
The maintenance man rummaged in his
toolbox. “Well I don’t know about that.”
“Now listen, I am not going to have
that...” I noticed Jucie staring at me from the vidphone. “Oh, sorry,” I said, turning the volume up.
She crossed her legs, sniffed loudly. Behind her, the receptionist crouched in a
corner. “I don’t know about you, Mr. Trodd,” Jucie finally said, “but I’m very
busy.”
“Of course, Ms. Legate.” I fidgeted with my pen. “Sorry.”
She leaned closer. “Now where is the LSP?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll have to talk to my supervisor.”
Jucie opened her mouth, and there was
a loud roar. The maintenance man was
drilling. I turned up the volume on the
phone.
“--track it down,” she was
saying. “It’s very important that we
have it ASAP.”
“Okay, Jucie,” I said. “I’ll do my best.”
She stared at me blankly. Behind her, the receptionist rose, stumbled
out of the corner and off-screen.
“Can I ask you,” I blurted. “I love your office. What scheme is that?”
“199-2,” Jucie said, glancing to the
side.
“Really?” I shrieked. “Really?” I said again, pitching my voice
low. “I don’t remember that one.”
“You don’t have it on Amosha,” she
said, taking a longer look off-screen.
“Please try to find that LSP. I
have to go--” The line went dead.
That night, I loaded my recording of
Jucie into the Sex-O-Matic and put it on the highest setting. The scrapes and bruises weren’t so bad,
though one of the legs of my bed collapsed and a picture got knocked of the
wall. Finally the cycle ended and the
Sex-O-Matic dropped me on the floor, where I lay awake for hours.
The next day I bought a desk lamp on
the way to work, so I wouldn’t have to use the ceiling fan light. After plugging it in and adjusting the little
green shade, I went to my supervisor about the LSP. He told me that he had sent it on to his supervisor. After a few calls I learned that my
supervisor’s supervisor had sent it to his supervisor for approval, who had
sent it to a QC officer for review, who subbed it out to a lab for testing,
which sent it to another division for analysis, where the analyst gave it to
his supervisor for review, who then gave it to his supervisor, and beyond that
point I despaired, took out my shears, and did a little trimming on the bush by
the wastebasket.
I decided to call Jucie and let her
know my progress. I dialed the Earth
exchange, and then Jucie’s office number.
“Ms. Legate doesn’t work here
anymore,” the receptionist said. She was
sitting at Jucie’s desk, leaning back in the chair. “She’s been transferred to Amosha.”
“Yes,” I said, “you told me that last
time.”
“Yes, I did.”
“So how can I reach her here on
Amosha?” I asked.
“I’m in charge here now,” the
receptionist said, chomping her gum.
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I have an update on your LSP.”
“Our what?”
I spent the next thirty minutes
explaining what an LSP is, how the QC division sometimes requisitions
replacements for bad parts, how to fill out a requisition, and how to enter it
in the computer.
“Wow, thanks,” the receptionist
finally said.
“Sure,” I said and turned off the
vidphone.
I stared at my desk, trying to think
of what I needed to do next. My mind
kept coming back to Jucie. I couldn’t
work--I kept imagining me and Jucie sitting face-to-face on a swing. A tranquilizer would do me good, I thought,
and rose to go to the breakroom.
Rounding my desk my foot caught on the cord of the desk lamp. I tripped, falling on the hard green carpet,
and the lamp went out. Rolling over, I
felt my way along the floor until I found the cord. Running my hand along the wall I searched for
the outlet. I stopped when I noticed a
point of red light coming from the wall, about three feet off the floor. Running my finger over it, I found there was
a little hole there, from where the maintenance man had drilled. I put my eye up to the hole and looked
through.
There was a room lit in red. All I could see was the edge of a
desk--granite--and a zebra-skin hanging.
Out in the hall, I could find no door
leading to the red room. The next door
down was the breakroom, and between that and my office door was at least thirty
feet of blank wall. I circuited the
halls on my floor. There was no way to
that part of the building. The building
map near the elevator showed just blank space between my office and the
breakroom. The red room shouldn’t have
been there at all.
Back in my office, I dialed the
building operator. “Have any additions
been made to the building lately?” I asked.
The operator’s hair was pink and
twisted. “Well, yes sir,” she said. “New archives were built on the 580th and
589th floor, a child sedation room was added to the daycare center, the
plans--”
“What about on floor 932?”
The operator pulled off a puff of
hair and ate it. “No sir, nothing on
932.”
“Then the building map is wrong.”
She chewed thoughtfully. “Wrong?”
“There’s a room next to my office
that’s not supposed to be there.”
“I’ll transfer you to maintenance.”
“No--it’s a room,” I said. “An
office. It is, or was, Jucie Legate’s
office. 955, Quality Control Division
4.”
She ate more hair and punched keys on
her computer. “Sir, that office isn’t
even on this planet. It’s--”
“On Earth. Yes, I know.
But it’s not. It’s right next to
mine. How do I get to that office?” I
asked. She’s not supposed to tell me, I thought. Quality Control monitored the audio channel,
but not the video. I scribbled on a
piece of paper and held it up to the vidphone’s camera: “I’ll pay you!! $1000?”
“Well, sir,” the operator said,
reaching off-screen, “I don’t think I can help you.” She held up a sign that read, in large
type-set letters: “Fuck off!”
I switched off the phone. Pushing away from the desk, I reached down my
slacks and scratched my leg. I got up
and headed to the breakroom.
Two maintenance men were sharing a
microwaved burrito that smelled like bile.
“Do you guys have a sonic hammer?” I
asked from the doorway. “My desk drawer
is stuck.”
“Sure we do,” the tall one said, his
eyes lighting up.
I followed the men to my office,
locking the door behind me. The short
one moved toward my desk with the sonic hammer.
“Oh, let me do that,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to use one of those.”
“We’re not supposed to,” the tall one
said.
“Oh, come on. I’m cooped up in here all day. I don’t have a fun job like you guys.” I slouched more than normal, fishing for sympathy. “I hardly ever get to use my hands.”
“Well, I guess it’s okay this time,”
the short one said, shrugging. “Here,”
and he handed me the hammer.
I’d never seen it used on human flesh
before, and had no idea how messy it would be.
The bushes caught a lot of the chunks, and stood draped in pink
slime. That got to me a little, and I
had to sit in my chair a minute. When I
was ready I walked over to the wall where I found the hole. I pulled the trigger on the hammer and the
wall erupted into powder.
I can only imagine what I looked
like, emerging from the cloud of dust into Jucie’s office, a nimbus of white
light piercing the red glow. Like a
ghost, judging by the look on Jucie’s face.
“What the hell?” Jucie backed toward the door of her
office. I saw the granite desk, the
zebra-skin, everything just like it had been on the vidphone. Even the receptionist was there, tied up in a
corner near the door. “You!” Jucie
said.
“Jucie!” I started toward her. She threw a letter opener that bounced of me
and onto the floor.
“Get out of my office,” she said.
“My
office!” the receptionist corrected, squirming in the ropes. “Get out!
Both of you.”
“Jucie,” I said, “what planet are we
on?”
“What?” Jucie said. “You’re crazy! Crazy!”
She leapt at the vidphone and punched the emergency button. An alarm sounded and an operator came on the
screen.
“What’s your emergency?” It was the woman with pink hair.
I shoved Jucie out of the way. “What planet am I on?” I asked the operator.
“Is this an emergency sir?” She picked at her hair. “Let me transfer you to the Service
Department.”
“It’s a simple question.”
She reached off-screen, held up a
sign: “Freak!” “You’re on Earth, sir,”
she said.
“And where is James Trodd?”
She punched some keys. “I have a James P. Trodd on Amosha,
Fabrication Services 23. Shall I connect
you?”
“But you just said I was on Earth.”
The operator turned, looked at me
more closely. Her eyes went wide. “Please hold,” she said. The screen went black and there was soft music.
“So you mean...” Jucie stared at the
screen.
I turned to look at her. Finally, I broke the silence. “You look so lovely, Ms. Legate,” I
said. “Your skin is clear and your eyes
are shining.”
“Well, thank you,” she said,
smiling. There was a gap between her
large front teeth. “It’s the red
light. Everyone looks good in red
light.”
“You look wonderful in it.”
Just then the police, in their bright
orange slickers, broke down Jucie’s door.
“It wasn’t locked,” she said angrily
as they handcuffed us.
I knew what was coming, and in the
holding cell I chipped a piece of wood off the bench and showed Jucie how to
wedge it at the back of her throat, behind a tonsil. When the guards came and made us take memory
wipes, that’s what we did with those little pills, too. The sedatives were injections, though. When I woke I was back in my office. The wall I had destroyed was back as if
nothing had happened.
I stood at the wall, near the happy cow, my ear to the plaster. I knocked three times. There was no reply. At my desk, my hand hovered over the vidphone
keys. Jucie answered on the sixth
ring. I shuddered with relief to see her
lips, the red light. She looked at me in
silence. Finally, she rose and moved
off-screen. The silence was like the
fringe of a dream, when reality is hovering, unresolved. I closed my eyes, and heard her knock three
times.