"Then we'll begin."
Wanda-Jean looked at the arrangement of squares. There were at least two hundred of them, set in a square form. The squares were evenly divided into red, blue, yellow, green, black, and white. They interlocked on a tongue and groove system. There were enough empty spaces to allow them to be maneuvered vertically and horizontally, but not removed from the frame.
The floor under Wanda-Jean's bare feet was already covered with a quarter-inch layer of water, and she hadn't even made a move.
To guess at the correct pattern of colors and then move the squares to conform with it seemed an almost impossible task to complete before the water rose up to her chin.
Wanda-Jean put out a tentative hand. Along the top of the frame that enclosed the whole puzzle was a set of colored lights. There were fifteen of them, one for each vertical row of squares. At the start of the game the lights were all dead. When the particular row was arranged in the correct order, the light came on. It was the players' most valuable aid; in fact, it was their only one.
Wanda-Jean started quickly to rearrange the first row. She had made up her mind, at rehearsal, that there was no point in making a blind guess at the overall pattern. The way she had decided to work was to keep switching squares, one line at a time, until the light came on.
The trouble was that it didn't seem to be working. She frantically shifted the squares of plastic, but the water was already up to her ankles and not even the first light had come on.
This was the game that had cost "Wildest Dreams" its only fatality. A player could go on trying to solve the problem until the water finally forced him or her to float to the top of the cylinder and climb out in disgrace and failure. In order to stay on the Dreamroad, all the contestant had to do was get the right answer. One guy, some eight months earlier, had hung on so doggedly, trying to find the solution, that he'd drowned.
The water was almost up to her knees, when, totally unexpectedly, the first light came on. As Wanda-Jean started on the second line she flashed on the fact that the law of averages wasn't doing her any favors.
The only consolation of the game was that it didn't allow Wanda-Jean any time to think. The only thing that distracted her from total concentration on the little plastic squares was the water slowly creeping up her legs.
The water had started to eat away at the crotch of her costume when the second light came on. Wanda-Jean started on the third row, blessing the merciful release that inside the cylinder the noise of the crowd wasn't audible.
Out of the corner of her eye she could see them. By the time the water had eaten away her suit right up to where the tops of her buttocks curved in to meet her spine, the crowd was on its feet, waving and gesticulating. The third light had not come on yet. Wanda-Jean refused to admit that the game had become, in logical terms, hopeless.
Because of the water, she was now naked from the waist down. They had not bothered to heat the water. It was stone cold. It was hard to know whether the chill clutching at her stomach was the knowledge that she was going to lose or simply the chill of the rising water. There was a cameraman down in the floor in front of her with a handheld camera. He was shooting up at her. She couldn't see a monitor, but she could imagine the shot. There was no way she was going to recover from the humiliation of hundreds of millions of people seeing her like this. The water was creeping up to her breasts. She started to panic. She couldn't concentrate on the puzzle. She had to get out. She had to get away from the lights and the cameras and the howling crowd. The water was up to her neck. The last shred of her costume floated away, rapidly dissolving. She would drown before she would crawl naked in front of them. And then the water was coming up over her chin.
"Noooooo!"
She grabbed for a handhold to haul herself out. There was nothing left.
"WE ARE GOING TO BEGIN THE economy-class program. In one month we will announce a major technological breakthrough that will make IE available to everyone. Ladies and gentlemen, we are about to offer the feelies to the underclass. In a short while, the primary purpose of this endeavor will be in motion."
There had been shocks in the penthouse boardroom all through the meeting-but nothing like this. The heads of department were silent. It was what they always theoretically worked for, but they had never expected it so soon.
Lars Axton, the head of Procurement, was the first one to find his voice. "Is it possible?"
Deutsch nodded. "I believe so."
"The plant involved alone…"
"I have had discussions with the president of Krupp. He thinks that his people can handle the production end."
"But there's been no breakthrough."
"And the system was never expensive in the first place. The prices have always been artifically inflated."
Gorges Gomez was shaking his head. "We'll be inundated."
Deutsch smiled. "I'm not saying that we can do everything straightaway. In the beginning, there will be quotas and waiting lists, but those will only excite demand. It will be a year or more until we can offer life contracts to the poor, but we will be receiving considerable, if somewhat covert, financial help from the government."
Renfield frowned. "Why should the government…"
"Because the government is well aware that what we are basically offering is a painless alternative to the death by disease or starvation of hundreds of millions of people. The feelies provide a safety valve, a place to warehouse the excess population. The cost of maintaining a human being in a feelie fantasy is only cents per day, far less even than the most minimal welfare. Population control by birth control has failed. We have to face that. What we also have to face is that any species that is unable to regulate its birthrate becomes subject to regulation by death in one form or another. Either by plague or by famine or by killing one another. The system is self-selecting. Those who desire nothing more than to live in a garish fantasy will be allowed to do so."
Deutsch permitted himself a smile. "And believe me, my friends, the fantasies will become exceedingly garish."
Renfield sighed. "I can believe it."
Deutsch ignored him. "Those who remain in the real world will be those who are able to accept reality for what it is. We are using technology to reassert a very fundamental Darwinism. We may be giving humanity another chance. In fact, we may well be the last, best hope."
Deutsch paused to let that sink in.
"Do you now see that, when we are on the brink of something as immense as this, the last thing that we can afford to have is an Alamo state of mind?"
Gorge Gomez was looking exceedingly disturbed "This is more like Auschwitz than the Alamo."
Deutsch's eyes narrowed. "Is that what you believe Gorge?"
"We are talking about marketing a product that we know full well will kill the users in five to seven years. Is that mankind's last best hope?"
"We aren't forcing anyone to do anything. Anyone who enters the fantasy is doing it of their own free will."
"But we'll be concealing the long-term effects. They'll be making the choice without full knowledge of the facts."
"The facts, Gorge? Do any of us ever have full knowledge of the facts? Perhaps these people are merely exchanging duration of life for quality of life. Can you look at it that way, Gorge?"
WANDA-JEAN MOVED LIKE A ZOMBIE. She was trying not to see her cramped little apartment. The only way to hold back the truth that she was back there was simply not to see it. It was the only way to hold back the much more awful truth that the adventure was over. Her pill box was clutched tightly in her hand.
It was like slow motion. Keeping her back very straight, she sank to the floor and crossed her legs. She placed the box very carefully in front of her. She inspected it for a while, then she opened it and tipped the contents out on the floor. The collection had grown considerably since she had been on the show.