The adult male simulacrum said, ‘This is indeed a distressing exchange.'
‘I feel the same way,' its mate added.
Glaring at them, Maury spluttered, ‘Tough, I mean, mind your own darn business. Who asked for your artificial, contrived opinion?'
Chic murmured, ‘Leave them alone.' He was stunned at the news; emotionally, he had been caught totally by surprise, despite his intellectual forebodings.
‘If Mr Strikerock goes,' the adult male simulacrum stated, ‘we go with him.'
Sourly, Maury grunted at the simulacra, ‘Aw, what the hell, you're just a bunch of artefacts. Pipe down while we thrash this out. We have enough troubles without you getting involved.' Seating himself at the desk he opened the morning Chronicle.
‘The whole world's coming to an end. It's not us, Chic, not just Frauenzimmer Associates. Listen to this item in today's paper: "The body of Orley Short, maintenance man, was discovered today at the bottom of a six-foot vat of gradually hardening chocolate at the St Louis Candy Company."‘ He raised his head. ‘You get that "Gradually hardening chocolate" -- that's it. That's the way we live. I'll continue. "Short, 53, failed to come home from work yesterday, and -- "‘
‘Okay,' Chic interrupted. ‘I understand what you're trying to say. This is one of those times.'
‘Exactly. Conditions are beyond any individual's power. It's when you got to be fatalistic, you know: resigned-like. I'm resigned to seeing Frauenzimmer Associates close forever. Frankly, that's next.' He eyed the famnexdo group of simulacra moodily. ‘I don't know why we constructed you fellows. We should have slapped together a gang of street hustlers, floozies with just enough class to interest the bourgeoisie. Listen, Chic, this is how this terrible item in the Chronicle ends. You simulacra, you listen, too. It'll give you an idea of the kind of world you've been born into.
"Brother-in-law Antonio Costa drove to the candy factory and discovered him three feet down in the chocolate, St Louis police said."‘ Maury savagely closed up the newspaper. ‘I mean, how are you going to work an event like that into your Weltanschauung? It's just too damn dreadful. It unhinges you. And the worse part is that it's so dreadful it's almost funny.'
There was silence and then the male adult simulacrum, no doubt responding to some aspect of Maury's subconscious, said, ‘This is certainly no time for such a bill as the McPhearson Act to come into effect. We require psychiatric help from whatever quarter we can obtain it.'
‘ "Psychiatric help," ‘ Maury mocked. ‘Yeah, you've put your finger on it, Mr Jones or Smith or whatever we named you. Mr Next-door Neighbour, whoever you are. That would have saved Frauenzimmer Associates -- right? A little psychoanalysis at two hundred dollars an hour for ten years ... isn't that how long it generally takes? Keerist.'
He turned away from the simulacra, disgusted, and ate his doughnut.
Presently Chic said, ‘Will you give me a letter of recommendation?'
‘Of course,' Maury said.
Maybe I'll have to go to work for Karp und Sohnen, Chic thought. His brother Vince, a Ge employee there, could get him put on; it was better than nothing, better than joining the pitiful jobless, the lowest order of the vast Be class, nomads who roamed the face of the Earth, now too poor even to emigrate. Or perhaps he should emigrate. Perhaps the time had at last come; he should face it squarely. For once give up the infantile ambitions upon which he had traded for so long.
But Julie. What about her? His brother's wife made matters hopelessly complex; for example was he now responsible financially for her? He would have to thrash it out with Vince, meet him face to face. In any case. Whether he sought a position with Karp u. Sohnen Werke or not.
It would be awkward, to say the least, approaching Vince under these circumstances; the business with Julie had happened at a bad time.
‘Listen, Maury,' Chic said. ‘You can't lay me off, now. I've got a problem; as I related to you on the phone, I have a girl now who -- ‘
‘All right.'
‘P-pardon?'
Maury Frauenzimmer sighed. ‘I said all right; I'll keep you on a little longer. So it hastens the bankruptcy of Frauenzimmer Associates. So what. He shrugged massively.
‘So ist das Leben: that's life.'
One of the two children simulacra said to the adult male, ‘Isn't he a good man, Daddy?'
‘Yes, Tommy,' the adult male answered, nodding. ‘He most certainly is.' It patted the boy on the shoulder. The whole family beamed.
‘I'll keep you on until next Wednesday,' Maury decided. ‘That's the best I can do, but maybe it'll help a little. After that -- I just don't know. I can't foresee anything. Even though I am slightly precognitive, as I've always said. I mean to a certain extent I've generally had valid hunches as to the future. Not in this case, though, not one damn bit. The entire thing is a mass of confusion, as far as I'm concerned.'
Chic said, ‘Thanks, Maury.'
Grunting, Maury Frauenzimmer resumed reading the morning paper.
‘Maybe by next Wednesday something good'll come along,' Chic said. ‘Something we don't expect.' Maybe, as sales manager, I can bring in a huge order, he thought.
‘Say, maybe so,' Maury said. He did not sound very convinced.
‘I'm really going to try,' Chic said.
‘Sure,' Maury agreed. ‘You try, Chic, you do that.' His voice was low, muffled by resignation.
6
To Richard Kongrosian the McPhearson Act was a calamity because in a single instant it erased his great support in life, Dr Egon Superb. He was left at the mercy of his lifelong illness-process, which, right at the moment, had assumed enormous power over him. This was why he had left Jenner and voluntarily checked in at Franklin Aimes Neuropsychiatric Hospital in San Francisco, a place deeply familiar to him; he had, during the past decade, checked in there many times.
However, this time he probably would not be able to leave. This time his illness-process had advanced too far.
He was, he knew, an anankastic, a person for whom reality had shrunk to the dimension of compulsion; everything he did was forced on him -- there was for him nothing voluntary, spontaneous or free. And, to make matters worse, he had tangled with a Nitz commercial. In fact, he still had the commercial with him; he carried it about with him in his pocket.
Getting it out now, Kongrosian started the Theodorus Nitz commercial up, listening once more to its evil message.
The commercial squeaked. ‘At any moment one may offend others, any hour of the day!'
And in his mind appeared the full-colour image of a scene unfolding; a good-looking black-haired man leaning towards a blonde, full-breasted girl in a bathing suit in order to kiss her. On the girl's face the expression of rapture and submission all at once vanished, was replaced by repugnance. And the commercial shrilled, ‘He was not fully safe from offensive body odour! You see?'
That's me, Kongrosian said to himself. I smell bad. He had, due to the commercial, acquired a phobic body odour; he had been contaminated through the commercial, and there was no way to rid himself of the odour; he had for weeks now tried a thousand rituals of rinsing and washing, to no avail.