The Simulacra

Al said, ‘Thanks, Luke.'

‘But I'll operate the papoola,' Luke said. ‘By remote. I'm a little more skilled than you; after all, I built them.'

‘Sure,' Al said. ‘I'll have my hands full playing anyhow.'

‘Yes,' Luke said, ‘you'll need both hands for that bottle.'

Something in Luke's tone made Ian Duncan uneasy.

What's he up to? he wondered. But in any case he and his buddy Al Miller had no choice; they had to have the papoola working for them. And no doubt Luke could do a good job operating it; he had already proved his superiority over Al, just now, and as Luke said, Al would be busy blowing away on his jug. But still ...

‘Loony Luke,' Ian said, ‘have you ever met Nicole?' It was a sudden thought on his part, an intuition.

‘Sure,' Luke said steadily. ‘Years ago. I had some hand puppets; my dad and I travelled around putting on puppet shows. We finally played the White House.'

‘What happened there?' Ian asked.

Luke, after a pause, said, ‘She -- didn't care for us. Said something about our puppets being indecent.'

And you hate her, Ian realized. You never forgave her.

‘Were they?' he asked Luke.

‘No,' Luke answered. ‘True, one act was a strip show; we had follies girl puppets. But nobody ever objected before. My dad took it hard but it didn't bother me.' His face was impassive.

Al said, ‘Was Nicole the First Lady that far back?'

‘Oh yes,' Luke said. ‘She's been in office for seventy-three years; didn't you know that?'

‘It isn't possible,' both Al and Ian said, almost together.

‘Sure it is,' Luke said. ‘She's a really old woman, now. Must be. A grandmother. But she still looks good, I guess. You'll know when you see her.'

Stunned, Ian said, ‘On TV -- ‘

‘Oh yeah,' Luke agreed. ‘On TV she looks around twenty. But go to the history books ... except of course they're banned to everyone except Ges. I mean the real history texts; not the ones they give you for studying for those relpol tests. Once you look it up you can figure it out for yourself. The facts are all there. Buried down somewhere.'

The facts, Ian realized, mean nothing when you can see with your own eyes she's as young-looking as ever. And we see that every day.

Luke you're lying, he thought. We know it; we all know it.

My buddy Al saw her; Al would have said, if she was really like that. You hate her; that's your motive. Shaken, he turned his back to Luke; not wanting to have anything more to do with the man now. Seventy-three years in office -- that would make Nicole almost ninety, now. He shuddered at the idea; he blocked it out of his thoughts. Or at least he tried to.

‘Good luck, boys,' Luke said, chewing on his toothpick.

It's too bad, Al Miller thought, that the government cracked down on those psychoanalysts. He glanced across his office at his buddy Ian Duncan. Because you're in a bad way, Al realized. But actually there was one of them left; he had heard about it over TV. Dr Superb or something like that.

‘Ian,' he said. ‘You need help. You're not going to be able to blow that jug for Nicole, not the way you're feeling.'

‘I'll be okay,' Ian said shortly.

Al said, ‘Ever been to a psychiatrist?'

‘Couple times. Long ago.'

‘You think they're better than chemical therapy?'

‘Anything's better than chemical therapy.'

If he's the only psychoanalyst still practising in the entire USEA, Al thought, he's no doubt swamped. Couldn't possibly take on any new patients.

However, for the heck of it, he looked up the number, picked up his phone and dialled.

‘Who're you calling?' Ian asked suspiciously.

‘Dr Superb. The last of the -- ‘

‘I know. Who's it for? You? Me?'

‘Both of us maybe,' Al said.

‘But primarily for me.'

Al did not answer. A girl's image -- she had lovely, enlarged, high-rise breasts -- had formed on the screen and in his ear her voice said, ‘Dr Superb's office.'

‘Is the doctor accepting any new patients at this time?' Al asked, scrutinizing her image fixedly.

‘Yes he is,' the girl said in a vigorous, firm tone of voice.

‘Terrific!' Al said, pleased and surprised. ‘I and my partner would like to come in, whenever it's possible; the sooner the better.' He gave her his name and Ian's.

‘What about Friday at nine-thirty in the morning?' the girl asked.

‘It's a deal,' Al said. ‘Thanks a lot, miss. Ma'am.' He hung up violently. ‘We got it!" he said to Ian. ‘Now we can thrash our worries out with someone qualified to render a professional assist. You know, talk about mother image -- did you see that girl? Because -- ‘

‘You can go,' Ian said. ‘I'm not.'

Al said quietly, ‘If you don't go, I'm not playing my jug at the White House. So you better go.'

Ian stared at him.

‘I mean it,' Al said.

There was a long, awkward silence.

‘I'll go,' Ian said, at last. ‘But once only. No more after this Friday.'

‘That's up to the doctor.'

‘Listen,' Ian said. ‘If Nicole Thibodeaux is ninety years old no psychotherapy is going to help me.'

‘You're that much involved emotionally with her? A woman you've never seen? That's schizophrenic. Because the fact is you're involved with -- ‘ Al gestured. ‘An illusion. Something synthetic, unreal.'

‘What's unreal and what's real? To me she's more real than anything else; than you, even. Even than myself, my own life.'

‘Holy smoke,' Al said. He was impressed. ‘Well, at least you have something to live for.'

‘Right,' Ian said, and nodded.

‘We'll see what Superb says on Friday,' Al said. ‘We'll ask him just how schizophrenic -- if at all -- it is.' He shrugged.

‘Maybe I'm wrong; maybe it isn't.' Maybe it's Luke and I who are the insane ones, he thought. To him, Luke for example, was much more real, much more an influencing factor, than Nicole Thibodeaux. But then, he had seen Nicole in the flesh, and Ian had not. That made all the difference, although he was not sure quite why.

He picked up his jug and began practising once more.

And, after a pause, Ian Duncan did the same, joining in.

Together, they puffed away.

10

The Army Major, thin, small and erect, said, ‘Frau Thibodeaux, this is the Reichsmarschall, Herr Hermann Goering.'

The heavily built man, wearing -- incredibly -- a toga-style white robe and holding on a leather leash what appeared to be a lion cub, stepped forward and said in German, ‘I am glad to meet you, Mrs Thibodeaux.'

‘Reichsmarschall,' Nicole said, ‘do you know where you are at this moment?'

‘Yes,' Goering nodded. To the lion cub he said severely, ‘Sei ruhig, Marsi.' He fussed with the cub, calming it.

All this Bertold Goltz watched. He had gone slightly ahead in his time, by use of his own von Lessinger equipment; he had become impatient waiting for Nicole to arrange the transfer of Goering. Here it was now; or rather, here it would be in seven more hours.

It was easy, possessing von Lessinger equipment, to penetrate the White House despite its NP guards; Goltz had merely gone far back into the past, before the White House existed, and then had returned to this near future. He had done such a thing several times already and would do it again; he knew that because he had run on to his future self, caught in the act. It amused him, that meeting; not only was he able to observe Nicole freely but he could also observe his past and future selves -- the future, at least, in terms of possibility.