He turned and rushed to his desk. He came back holding a pen and a piece of paper on a golden tablet. "Oh, I'm so glad to have another witness! Sign this attestation please."
I signed but I felt the world was spinning around me.
Audio hallucination! Paranoid schizophrenia! Megalomania!
Just like Lombar!
Delbert John Rockecenter was a stark, staring lunatic!
I was working for TWO crazy men!
The next few days were a liberal education in how well a great and powerful organization like Rockecenter's, a juggernaut of efficiency, could (bleep) up a planet. I was overawed with admiration. No wonder Lombar studied Rockecenter so hard! I took notes wherever possible so I could send them through and curry favor with my chief. Earth might be deficient and primitive in many of its technologies but the Rockecenter organization was light-years beyond anything like it in outer space. Five generations of diabolical cunning had made it what it was today: a colossus! A whole planet dancing to the tune of one psychotic man! Magnificent! Compared to this, Heller was a puny nothing! And I would launch the avalanche upon him!
It started the moment I stepped out of Rockecenter's place of self-worship and back into the office of Miss Peace.
"(Bleep)!" she said, raising her pretty head, "It's five o'clock and I'm overdue at the abortion clinic! You sure took your God (bleeped) time!"
Discipline, tight schedules! That's what it takes to make a great empire!
"Open up your God (bleeped) shirt!" she ordered. She had her hat and coat on. She was tearing through her desk, throwing things in all directions. "Where's the God (bleeped) stamp!"
I had my shirt open. I was studying her every move.
She found what she was looking for under a stale peanut-butter sandwich. What a cunning way to hide a secret stamp!
It was a big disc with a handle and a trigger. She brought it up and, with a bent paper clip, shoved furiously at the changeable letters on the front of it.
I could read what she was making it say: Rockecenter Family Spi. It had a date and initial space. How efficient!
She started to advance upon me with such speed and fury, for a second I was alarmed. Her finger was on its trigger. "Are you sure," I began, "that 'spy' isn't spelled with a y, not an i?"
"Don't you question codes!" she snapped at me. "When that light panel," she gestured toward a flashing board in the wall, "flashes purple with twelve dots, he means 'Sworn in family spi.' You ain't going to get very far, buster, if you start questioning him! Hold your God (bleeped) shirt out of the way!"
Well, what could I do? A code is a code. I opened my shirt wider.
She slammed the stamp against my bare chest and pulled the trigger. It stung!
She grabbed a weird-looking stylus off her desk and, with her tongue gripped firmly between her teeth to the side of her mouth and concentrating very hard, she jammed the stylus into my chest and very laboriously wrote what must be her initials. She stepped back and threw the stylus over a peg on the coat rack.
I looked down at my chest.
There was nothing on it!
Well, it wasn't up to me to question. Buttoning my shirt, I started to move toward the door with the huge teeth.
"No, no, Christ!" she said in exasperation. "They've all gone home. Use this door!" And, muttering something about new, unindoctrinated staff, she herself went through a side door. I followed but she was going so fast I lost her at once.
I was in an ordinary office building hall, crowded with people going home. They sure kept tight schedules here. I made a note of the anxious strain on the faces as the employees sought to get away.
Thinking perhaps I should report to Bury, I wandered through a rush hour of people quitting work, pouring out of building after building. What an enthusiastic tide of humanity! What a thrill to see how well they kept their schedule!
By the time I had battered my way through the torrent to the Octopus Building, it was locked up tight!
As I was now a dedicated Rockecenter employee, I realized I would now be expected to enthusiastically rush home. I did. Fortunately, it was not far, as the security men had taken the five hundred dollars I had had in my wallet, leaving me only with my gun and Federal I.D.
After a bath to get the stench of antiseptic off of me, I spent some time in front of the mirror trying to see the stamp. Nothing there at all.
I called a bellboy to take away the antisepticized clothes and he called the public health service which sent a special truck. I dug some money out of the mattress and tipped him five dollars. He was very grateful.
As Utanc was nowhere to be seen, I had a huge and splendid dinner in my room, watched some TV and gratefully went to bed.
It had been quite a day, but I was duty bound now to be fresh and alert to report in at nine sharp the following morning.
Things were in motion now. Not even the Gods could help Heller!
At 9:00 A.M. sharp, nattily dressed in a brand-new suit and slouch hat, I presented myself at Mr. Bury's special office.
Nobody was there.
I waited for some time in the hall.
About 9:45, a janitor opened the door to clean the place up and I went in. I sat in the waiting room. About 10:00 a security team came in to check the offices and make sure they were safe. They didn't speak to me.
About 10:30, the fourth assistant receptionist came in, turned off the burglar-alarm system, unlocked his barricaded, bulletproof cage and sat down to read The Daily Racing Form.
At 11:00, I approached him. "I think I'm supposed to see Mr. Bury."
"Well, why cry on my shoulder?" he said. "Bad luck is bad luck." He went back to reading his racing form.
At 12:00 I heard a tremendous rush in the hall. It sounded like a riot! Alert to my duties, I sped out. It was a horde of people pouring out of offices going to lunch. I almost got trampled in the stampede. Dutifully, I went to lunch.
At 1:00 EM. I came in. The fourth assistant receptionist entered about 1:15. He eyed me with distaste. He went into his cage and pushed a button.
Five security guards came crashing through the door, guns drawn. The fourth assistant receptionist was pointing at me. So were the guns of the security guards!
"Wait!" I yelled. "My name is Inkswitch! I'm supposed to see Mr. Bury!"
The chief security man pointed through the glass of the fourth assistant receptionist. "Is he on that wanted list?"
It was hard to see what was going on because they had me with my palms flat against the wall, feet outstretched.
I heard the fourth assistant receptionist say, "No, he ain't on the wanted list. I can't understand it. Must be some mistake."
"You got another list there," said the chief security guard. "Is that a hit list?"
"Well, well," said the fourth assistant receptionist. "It's a note from Bury." He yelled at me through the glass. "Hey, you dumb (bleepard). You were due in Personnel at ten o'clock! Can't you get anything straight? You're late!"
The security guards rushed me over to an office marked:
Personnel
They dumped me inside and left.
"Inkswitch?" said a girl. "You're not on the combat team list for Venezuela. What are you doing here? Don't you realize that government is supposed to be overthrown by 4:00 P.M.?" It really caused an upset. The personnel manager himself came out to see what the flap was all about, snarling that he couldn't hear his favorite radio program with all this babble going on. He straightened them out. The Venezuela job had been turned over to the Russians. The staff looked very contrite that they had not been informed.
The personnel manager pushed a button. Six different security guards rushed in. The personnel manager was pointing at me. "He upset the whole office!"