“Are you with me?” he called brightly. “All together then, swallow!”
Erl Kramer and Melanie popped the tablets in their mouths, and took the surge lying down. That was when Hip Jones on the screen cried, “Well, who’s it going to be today, good people?” Then, as one of the outside cameras zoomed through a bedroom window and caught a man yawning, Hip’s voice called, “It could be you, Mr Joe Barratt of King Vale! But don’t worry, it isn’t. We were just seeing if you were awake.”
“Will you look at the look on the poor boob’s face?” said Erl, laughing with everyone else at Joe Barratt of King Vale.
“Well, how would you feel?” Melanie said. “It can be anyone, anywhere, any time. I think I’d drop dead with sheer fright if they sprang a camera at me.”
“I wouldn’t,” Erl said grimly, and Melanie reached out and gripped his arm, and they stared at one another a second while Hip Jones shouted, “This is the Invig Show, a day-long adventure brought to you by the Invig Corporation, your hosts for that loving-to-be-alive kind of living.”
Then the camera showed a door, and tracked along a passage, and Hip Jones’s voice asked, “Who’s it gonna be?” And then as he said “It could be you ...” they pulled the switch on him and took the cameras into the studio and focused on Hip Jones, who yelled in not altogether mock surprise, “Mr Hip Jones, care of the Invig Corporation. Hey fellers, that’s me!”
Melanie and Erl laughed with the other million viewers, and Hip cried, “Oh no, not old Hip. All you lovely people out there, you wouldn’t want that, would you? They’re only kidding—I think.”
“He doesn’t sound too sure,” Erl said, laughing. “Wouldn’t it be a joke if it did turn out to be him some time? If his rating fell, for instance.”
“Here we go again,” Hip cried. “It could be you, Mrs Zella Ignacio of Moonstone. But it isn’t. No, I’ve been authorized to say it’s a man today. That makes the odds 987,000 to one for you men, or something even more astronomical.”
“They had a woman yesterday,” Melanie said.
“Did you watch?”
“You know I never do. Only until they give the name, and I’m sure it isn’t you, or someone I know.”
She had breakfast ready when he came out dressed for work. And Hip Jones on the morning-room screen cried, “It could be you, Mr Logan Ross of Satin Plains,” The cameras zoomed to a middle-aged man alighting from an inter-urban Hovercraft. He stopped in midstride and almost fell over. Hip Jones said, “Remember, the prize all this week is £100,000. Is it Mr Ross, now? Is it? No,” he said, “it isn’t, because the man today never wears a hat. Of course, he might go out and buy one as soon as the stores open. We can’t stop him doing that, can we?”
Erl already had taken his I.C.B.Y. book of statistics from his pocket, and Melanie looked over his shoulder. “Three hundred and thirteen thousand men usually hatless,” he reported, and Melanie said, “Will Central Stores ever sell a few hats this morning!”
Erl laughed and said, “I’m glad I’m not in hats. I haven’t got over the rush to get rid of grey suits last week. We sent over 3000 to the dumps, and all the other stores likewise. Hey, remember the time it was a cat-lover, and they all threw their cats out into the streets?”
Melanie remembered.
“You’ve got to hand it to them,” Erl said. “I.C.B.Y. shifts goods. It must have been a genius who started the show even in its original form, way back there. And I’d better get to work.” He tested his portable, kissed Melanie good-bye, and hurried to the transit station. He was not alone. There were plenty of hatless men on the station and more in the car when it arrived.
He listened to the Invig News and the World Hit Parade on the way in, leaving the video off so that he could read yesterday’s main story in the morning papers. The next I.C.B.Y. clue was due at nine o’clock, but sometimes they inserted one unexpectedly.
Hip Jones was there, even larger than life, on the Central Stores screens when Erl arrived at work. Hip had just selected the winner of the daily Invig Holiday, a heavyweight woman who had won a trip to Spain, and a free course of Inslim.
“There’s something happening all the time on the Invig Show,” Hip proclaimed. “And now for the next clue in our day-long adventure, ‘It Could Be You!’”
At Central Stores the door has been opened, and hatless men were streaming into the store as Hip said, “ ‘It Could Be You’ with eyes of blue. And according to my little data book, that brings us down to 90,000 possibilities. That’s still a lot, but keep looking in.” By this time most of the hatless had turned and walked out of the store. They had brown eyes, or carried coloured lenses for eye-colour days.
“Well, we’re part of the chosen band so far,” Erl said to his best friend Steve.
“Are we? Yes, I suppose we are. I never take much notice, I’ve been in the last thousand or so, dozens of times.”
“Lately? I didn’t think ...”
“No, when I was in the Force. They had a long run on outdoor workers at one stage, and it was often a cop or a postie.”
Hip cried, “It could be you, Mr Wu,” and on the screen was a Chinese shelling shrimp, and grinning at the cameras. “Mr Wu scents a blue,” Hip remarked. “A blue-eyed Chinaman? Well, hardly. No, we just threw him in for luck and he wasn’t a bit worried, was he? Lovely. Keep watching. More cluey coming up, chop chop.”
“Aren’t there really any blue-eyed Chinese?” Erl asked, and Steve shook his head.
Hip was handed a slip of paper, and cried, “He has black hair.” And the cameras roved a crowd and hovered over a bald head.
“It certainly couldn’t be him,” Erl chuckled. Invig made everyone good humoured in the mornings. Both Erl and Steve had black hair.
“Thirty-two thousand, now,” Steve read from the statistics. “I’ll split the prize with you.”
“Oh, sure. Me too.” Erl could see three customers approaching. “I suppose you’ve worked out what you’d do with it.”
“Many times,” Steve said. “And also if it was me.”
Erl hadn’t. He’d never been among even the last 100,000 before. But now he had no time to think about it because suddenly there seemed to be a rush on suits. It was more than an hour before he and Steve could exchange a word again.
“I missed a couple of the clues,” Erl said. “I got the early thirties one, and the business suit.”
“You only missed one then, man. Sun-tanned complexion. They’re clever, the way they string it out. It’s still only down to 8000.”
“And we’re still in,” Erl said. “But 8000 is a lot.”
Steve shrugged. He was watching two women who were pretending to examine a suit special, but were covertly looking at Erl and him. It had started. “Yes, we’re still among the 8000,” Steve said, loud enough for them to hear. But quietly he said, “I have a damn feeling.”
Erl walked over to the women and said to the nearest, “Can I help you, madam?”
“We’re just looking,” the other one said. They wandered away, but did not leave the level.
On the screen Mr Invig appeared again to see that Hip Jones and everyone else took their midday booster tablet. It made Hip hilarious, and after the bubble dancers had finished the Invig Song he produced a huge pin and threatened to burst their bubbles.
Then Hip sobered up, and said, “Let’s see what’s going on outside. Ah yes, it could be you, Mr Darrell Darling, down in Dent Street.” The cameras zoomed to a man struggling with three youths while other people were running towards them. Darling was punching and kicking and shouting, “Let me alone.” One of the youths fell down.
“Hey, there’s some excitement down in Dent Street,” Hip said coolly. “But it isn’t Mr Darling. No siree. He’s left-handed, and you’re looking for a right-handed man.”