"You wait until I see Renfield. You'll find out what shit is."
"All I've got to do is play him the tape. So far you've come up with nothing. Nada, zilch."
"That's a lie."
"All you have to do is play back the tape. You'll feel it for yourself. We're supposed to be doing Catherine the Great. The stuff you've been giving me could be dubbed into Rebecca of Sunny brook Farm."
Ahmed, the chief engineer on this session of orgasm inserts, made the mistake of trying to act as mediator. "Maybe this just isn't happening. Perhaps the basic chemistry isn't there. We could just use an orgasm out of stock. I doubt anyone would notice if we juiced the sample enough."
He immediately became the object of both women's scorn.
Connie's face twisted into a sneer. "There's nothing wrong with my chemistry."
Felicity shook her head. "I don't use stock material."
Connie reached for the remote to the XC 400. "What the hell, let's give it one more try. This time I'll take this thing off stun."
Felicity was immediately encouraging. "All we need is one good solid teeth rattler and we're out of here."
The control room was filled with the soft hum of the vibrator as it was picked up by the talkback mike. It went on for a full ten minutes before Felicity angrily shook her head.
"It just isn't happening."
Out on the altar, Connie cursed loudly. "Maybe it's a goddamned technical fault."
In the control room Ahmed shook his head. "Everything registers on line, Connie. In fact, I'm getting good levels on everything you're doing. In fact, the only problem…"
He glanced back at Felicity, leaving the sentence hanging. Ahmed seemed to have decided that he was in a no-win situation. He probably wouldn't work with Felicity Springer again anyway, so he might as well keep in with Connie. Connie wielded a good deal of power around the corridors of IE.
Connie raised herself on one elbow. "Hey, Felicity, maybe you oughta go with the levels and just admit that you ain't getting close to it."
Felicity's face seemed stretched by keeping her anger under control. "Listen, eventually I'm going to have to mix this thing, and I can't mix what I can't feel."
Connie laughed. "You never said a truer word, dearie."
"Don't call me dearie, goddamn it."
Connie stretched lazily on the altar. "I'll tell you what I'll do, honey. I'll give it one more shot, and if that doesn't work, we're all going to have to do some radical rethinking." She turned her attention to Ahmed. "You better be paying attention, handsome, because I'm only going to do this once." She again picked up the remote on the XC 400. "This time I'm really going to take this sucker off stun, so be ready for the maximum. Okay?"
Ahmed nodded. "Okay."
Again the soft whine of the vibrator came over the talkback speakers. Connie's eyes closed; her hips began to rotate with a circular motion. The vibrator sound was augmented by small gasps of pleasure. Her raised knee was slowly swinging from side to side.
"This is… one hell of a way to… make… a living. Hold on… I think… I think it's starting to happen. Yeah… I think… I'm… falling in love…"
Felicity didn't look impressed. "I don't… wait a minute."
Her eyes closed and her fists clenched.
"Wait… a… minute!"
She began to rock from side to side on her stool. Her thighs involuntarily rubbed themselves together.
"Oh, Jesus-yes!"
"Oh!"
"Oh, yeah! Yeah!"
"Don't stop! Please!"
Connie and Felicity became a two-voice counterpoint of groans and whimpers. Then, simultaneously, both women's backs arched. They both cried out. Felicity's voice was low and deep in her throat; Connie's was a high-pitched wail. Finally they both slumped.
There was a long silence. Felicity sat with her head drooping on her chest. Connie was sprawled out on the bed. Finally Connie opened her eyes. She regarded Felicity from under heavy, languid lids.
"How did you like them apples, darling?"
"THEY OUGHT TO BE HERE BY NOW."
"There's a few minutes to go yet." It was the very end of the shift. Ralph's speech was slurred. He made no attempt at even seeming sober. He sat propped up against a cabinet with his legs stretched out in front of him. Not only was he drunk, he was also querulous.
"If they don't turn up in the next couple of minutes, I'll just get up and fuck off."
"You shouldn't do that, Ralph."
"You just see if I don't."
"You know we ain't supposed to leave until the next shift comes on. It's against regulations."
Ralph sniffed. "So wait for them."
Sam blinked and looked unhappy. "I wouldn't like to stay here on my own."
Sam was in almost as bad a condition as Ralph. He too was slumped against a cabinet. His knees were drawn up so he was a fat, fetal ball. Ralph had occasionally noticed, when he was capable of noticing, that if he drank more, Sam swallowed more pills. When he was capable of wondering, which was less often than he was of noticing, even, he wondered if it was coincidence or cause and effect. Most of the time he didn't care anyway, particularly at the end of a shift. Each day seemed to drain off everything except hostility, hostility that he took out on Sam.
"There's always Artie. He's probably around somewhere to keep you company.''
"I don't think I'd really like to be left alone with Artie."
"You might be, and sooner than you think."
"What's that supposed to mean, Ralph?"
"You'll find out."
"You ain't talking about quitting again, are you, Ralph?"
"Maybe."
"You won't quit, Ralph, you won't ever quit."
"Don't be so sure."
"You won't quit."
"What makes you so smart?"
"I just know."
"Yeah?"
Sam didn't answer. When Ralph looked up, he saw Sam's eyes were shut. How could the bastard go to sleep a minute to leaving time? The silence between them was harder for Ralph to take than the conversation. He looked bitterly across the vault. He'd show them. He'd show all the bastards. Maybe he'd even quit tonight. He imagined himself strolling in the next day, suitably late, and telling the motherfuckers upstairs that he was through. He was so lost in his own fantasies that Sam startled him when he spoke.
"What about Artie, Ralph?"
"What about him?"
"We ought to do something about him. I ain't seen him in so long I even forget what he looks like."
Ralph scowled. "I remember what the perverted son of a bitch looks like."
"I wish he'd come back."
Before Ralph could answer he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Across on the far side of the vault something was moving. A golf cart was silently making its way along the rows of cabinets.
"About time, too."
Sam raised his head. "Not Artie?"
"Of course not. Bob, Dave, and Ali finally decided to come to work."
The golf cart came closer. It was a bit more beat up than the immaculate white ones used by the clean-cut young men from upstairs, the ones who wore the starched white suits. Riding on it were three men. They were dressed in the same drab tan overalls as Sam and Ralph. They also had the same dead complexions that came from spending too much of their lives in an underground vault.
The golf cart finally rolled to a halt beside Sam and Ralph. The men climbed off the cart with the stiff weariness of those who have dragged themselves out of bed before they were good and ready. They all stared wanly at Sam and Ralph, who had not yet bothered to get to their feet.