‘Not really. Any stories that have been passed down are dismissed as old wives’ tales or fanciful myths. And it doesn’t matter if anyone believes them anyway; the Party will detect and make sure they stamp out any “unnatural” acts or behaviour before they can spread’.
‘Yeah, but according to the Party, having sex more than once a week is an “unnatural act'!” exclaimed Dick. ‘l could tell the Party a thing or two about unnatural acts that would make their hair curl! Sex with pets. Inserting fruit in your ass. Inserting fruit in your pet’s ass. Inserting pets in your ass — with or without fruit’.
‘Ass?’, asked Taylor.
‘You know, your rectum…’, explained Dick who suddenly smelled that distinctive rose-scented perfume again.
‘But why would you want to insert a pet in your rectum?’ asked a soft, feminine voice.
Dick turned around to see that Alice had entered the room.
‘Good question’, Dick responded, slightly embarrassed. ‘The thing is, I personally don’t know, but people got turned on by many different things’.
‘Turned-on?’, Alice enquired blankly.
‘Yeah. You know. Get off to’.
More blank looks. ‘Stuff that gives you the horn’, continued Dick.
Alice looked even more confused, ‘The horn?’
‘Stuff that makes you aroused… sexually excited’.
Alice nodded her comprehension and Dick continued. ‘In my time there was a market for photographing and filming every variation of the sex act. People wanted to see heterosexual sex, same-sex sex, group sex, sex with dwarves, sex with fat people, sex with old ladies, sex with transsexuals, sex with transvestites, sex with old fat dwarf transsexuals.
‘There was a demand for seeing people dressed up having sex’, continued Dick. ‘I'm not just talking about revealing outfits or sexy uniforms, I'm talking about dressing-up as bee-keepers, fishermen, coal miners, even deep sea divers complete with the big brass helmets and lead boots. Hell, I know of two films, ‘Three Ring Circus’ and ‘Banging Bozo’ where the male star was a sex-crazed clown. I guess some people out there found size 24 shoes, green hair and a bright red nose erotic’.
‘And it was a fact, was it not,’ interrupted Taylor, ‘That many people liked watching others being harmed when they had sex — or they derived pleasure from harming others?’
‘True’, confirmed Dick. ‘There was a huge market for movies featuring people being spanked, whipped, beaten or punched. And don’t even get me started on golden showers’.
‘Golden what?’, asked Alice.
Dick opened his mouth to explain but as the words were on the way from his brain to his mouth another part of his brain went into action to comprehend how ridiculous his explanation would sound and fortunately the two actions cancelled each other out. While a completely different part of Dick’s brain considered what to do next, Taylor interjected to save Dick’s embarrassment.
‘Well, that’s enough small talk for now. We’ve got a busy schedule’.
‘So’, Dick asked, now relieved he wouldn’t need to tell Alice about urination as a source of sexual pleasure. ‘I assume the Resistance High Command has a plan.’
‘We do’, said Taylor optimistically.
‘ls it a good one?’
‘lt’s the best one we've thought of’, Taylor added, with slightly less optimism than before. ‘And we think it's the only one that can succeed. It involves infiltrating the Party, gaining their trust, finding out about this rumoured secret weapon and then destroying it’.
‘And I'm going to be the one infiltrating the party’, said Dick, still secretly hoping that Taylor might say something like, ‘Actually no. We've thought about it some more and decided that you're not really suitable. Oh, and by the way we've just discovered a way to send you safely back to your own time’.
But he didn't.
What he did say, showing Dick the small electronic chip implanted just below the skin in his palm was, ‘You're the best choice. All of us have been tagged by the ID chips I mentioned. These record our name, address, occupation, family records — anything and everything about us’. He continued. ‘We can give you a fake identity to avoid detection. One of our members works in the Ministry of Population Control and through him we've arranged to get you a pre-programmed biometric chip that will give you a complete new identity’.
‘Great’, replied Dick. ‘But how can I suddenly ‘pop-up’ in your society from nowhere? Won’t it seem odd when a brand new member of the population appears out of the blue?’
‘Not at all’, said Taylor, this time with renewed confidence. ‘We’ll also be able to create all the records relating to your existence. Your education, employment, taxation, medical history. As far as the Party is concerned it will be like you’ve always existed here. There will be absolutely no reason to think otherwise’.
‘And all the falsified records will withstand the most detailed scrutiny’, added Alice. ‘We are absolutely certain of that’.
‘Well it still sounds like a high risk strategy’, said Dick.
‘I’d be lying to you if I told you it wasn’t’, said Taylor adding, ‘But desperate times require desperate measures’.
Dick voiced his doubts. ‘But surely you must have given this same sort of fake identity to the other guy you mentioned. The one that was probably exposed by the Party and killed?’
Ignoring this remark Taylor just repeated what he’d said earlier, ‘You’re the best choice’ and from the briefcase, handed Dick a bulky folder crammed with every single detail of his invented life. Dick flicked through it anxiously. As an actor in his particular field, Dick didn’t usually have many lines to remember but now he found himself having to memorise a whole back story. He left the room and returned to his temporary quarters to study his file and learn more about the oppressed world of 2150. As the door closed Alice spoke to Taylor.
‘Will he succeed?’, she asked gravely.
‘He has to’, Taylor replied, even more gravely. ‘For all his faults he’s the best chance we have. And given the time scales, he’s the only chance we have’.
‘But he knows about the previous attempt’, Alice commented.
Taylor nodded. ‘Whatever happened, happened’. He put both his hands on Alice’s shoulders and looked intently at her. ‘But we need to play that down since we don’t want to dishearten him. This time the Oracle says she is completely certain’.
Taylor moved his hands down from Alice’s shoulders to her chest and began opening her blouse. A few minutes later he was enjoying energetic sex with her on the table, not the sort of behaviour you’d expect from a serious-looking leader of the Resistance given the fact that he had just started co-ordinating their biggest, most important and critical mission. But he was only human, after all.
CHAPTER 8
Now, if ‘Uprising!’ was a movie (and I’m looking to sell the rights if any agent, producer, director or studio exec is reading this), at this point you’d see a montage showing Dick studying his comprehensive fake history and undergoing his induction. You’d see him in a classroom environment being tutored by Taylor and Alice, frowning at handwritten notes that covered an entire blackboard, You’d see him cramming late into the night, the strain of the mission and the pressure to succeed showing on his face. You’d see his frustration at having to learn such a huge amount of information in such a short period of time, coupled with his fears of being trapped in the future — all to an upbeat rock soundtrack. The whole sequence would be like Rocky’s training regime albeit not as dramatic. After all, studying and writing on six by four index cards is nowhere as exciting nor strenuous as running energetically up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.