Orson Card - Maps in a Mirror - The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

For a few seconds there I actually believed that it was going to be all right. But then I knew from the way they looked, from the way they acted, I knew the same way I know about passwords.

They brought in Dogwalker and handed me a book. Dogwalker was very quiet and stiff and he didn’t look like he recognized me at all. I didn’t even have to look at the book to know what it was. They scooped out his brain and replaced it with glass, like me only way over the line, way way over, there was nothing of Dogwalker left inside his head, just glass pipe and goo. The book was a User’s Manual, with all the instructions about how to program him and control him.

I looked at him and he was Dogwalker, the same face, the same hair, everything. Then he moved or talked and he was dead, he was somebody else living in Dogwalker’s body. And I says to them, “Why? Why didn’t you just kill him, if you were going to do this?”

“This one was too big,” says the guy. “Everybody in G-boro knew what happened, everybody in the whole country, everybody in the world. Even if it was a mistake, we couldn’t let it go. No hard feelings, Goo Boy. He is alive. And so are you. And you both stay that way, as long as you follow a few simple rules. Since he’s over the line, he has to have an owner, and you’re it. You can use him however you want—rent out data storage, pimp him as a jig or a jaw—but he stays with you always. Every day, he’s on the street here in G-boro, so we can bring people here and show them what happens to boys who make mistakes. You can even keep your cut from the job, so you don’t have to scramble at all if you don’t want to. That’s how much we like you, Goo Boy. But if he leaves this town or doesn’t come out, even one single solitary day, you’ll be very sorry for the last six hours of your life. Do you understand?”

I understood. I took him with me. I bought this place, these clothes, and that’s how it’s been ever since. That’s why we go out on the street every day. I read the whole manual, and I figure there’s maybe ten percent of Dogwalker left inside. The part that’s Dogwalker can’t ever get to the surface, can’t even talk or move or anything like that, can’t ever remember or even consciously think. But maybe he can still wander around inside what used to be his head, maybe he can sample the data stored in all that goo. Maybe someday he’ll even run across this story and he’ll know what happened to him, and he’ll know that I tried to save him.

In the meantime this is my last will and testament. See, I have us doing all kinds of research on Orgasmic Crime, so that someday I’ll know enough to reach inside the system and unplug it. Unplug it all, and make those bastards lose everything, the way they took everything away from Dogwalker. Trouble is, some places there ain’t no way to look without leaving tracks. Goo is as goo do, I always say. I’ll find out I’m not as good as I think I am when somebody comes along and puts a hot steel putz in my face. Knock my brains out when it comes. But there’s this, lying in a few hundred places in the system. Three days after I don’t lay down my code in a certain program in a certain place, this story pops into view. The fact you’re reading this means I’m dead.

Or it means I paid them back, and so I quit suppressing this because I don’t care anymore. So maybe this is my swan song, and maybe this is my victory song. You’ll never know, will you, mate?

But you’ll wonder. I like that. You wondering about us, whoever you are, you thinking about old Goo Boy and Dogwalker, you guessing whether the fangs who scooped Doggy’s skull and turned him into self-propelled property paid for it down to the very last delicious little drop.

And in the meantime, I’ve got this goo machine to take care of. Only ten percent a man, he is, but then I’m only forty percent myself. All added up together we make only half a human. But that’s the half that counts. That’s the half that still wants things. The goo in me and the goo in him is all just light pipes and electricity. Data without desire. Lightspeed trash. But I have some desires left, just a few, and maybe so does Dogwalker, even fewer. And we’ll get what we want. Every speck. Every sparkle. Believe it.

There was no line. Hiram Cloward commented on it to the pointy-faced man behind the counter. “There’s no line.” “This is the complaint department. We pride ourselves on having few complaints.” The pointy-faced man had a prim little smile that irritated Hiram. “What’s the matter with your television?”

“It shows nothing but soaps, that’s what’s the matter. And asinine gothics.”

“Well—that’s programming, sir, not mechanical at all.”

“It’s mechanical. I can’t turn the damn set off.”

“What’s your name and social security number?”

“Hiram Cloward. 528-80-693883-7.”

“Address?”

“ARF-487-U7b.”

“That’s singles, sir. Of course you can’t turn off your set.”

“You mean because I’m not married I can’t turn off my television?”

“According to congressionally authorized scientific studies carried out over a three-year period from 1989 to 1991, it is imperative that persons living alone have the constant companionship of their television sets.”

“I like solitude. I also like silence.”

“But the Congress passed a law, sir, and we can’t disobey the law —”

“Can’t I talk to somebody intelligent?”

The pointy-faced man flared a moment, his eyes burning. But he instantly regained his composure, and said in measured tones, “As a matter of fact, as soon as any complainant becomes offensive or hostile, we immediately refer them to section A-6.”

“What’s that, the hit squad?”

“It’s behind that door.”

And Hiram followed the pointing finger to the glass door at the far end of the waiting room. Inside was an office, which was filled with comfortable, homey knickknacks, several chairs, a desk, and a man so offensively nordic that even Hitler would have resented him. “Hello,” the Aryan said, warmly.

“Hi.”

“Please, sit down.” Hiram sat, the courtesy and warmth making him feel even more resentful—did they think they could fool him into believing he was not being grossly imposed upon?

“So you don’t like something about your programming,” said the Aryan.

“Your programming, you mean. It sure as hell isn’t mine. I don’t know why Bell Television thinks it has the right to impose its idea of fun and entertainment on me twenty-four hours a day, but I’m fed up with it. It was bad enough when there was some variety, but for the last two months I’ve been getting nothing but soaps and gothics.”

“It took you two months to notice?”

“I try to ignore the set. I like to read. You can bet that if I had more than my stinking little pension from our loving government, I could pay to have a room where there wasn’t a TV so I could have some peace.”

“I really can’t help your financial situation. And the law’s the law.”

“Is that all I’m going to hear from you? The law? I could have heard that from the pointy-faced jerk out there.”

“Mr. Cloward, looking at your records, I can certainly see that soaps and gothics are not appropriate for you.”

“They aren’t appropriate,” Hiram said, “for anyone with an IQ over eight.”

The Aryan nodded. “You feel that people who enjoy soaps and gothics aren’t the intellectual equals of people who don’t.”

“Damn right. I have a Ph.D. in literature, for heaven’s sake!”

The Aryan was all sympathy. “Of course you don’t like soaps! I’m sure it’s a mistake. We try not to make mistakes, but we’re only human—except the computers, of course.” It was a joke, but Hiram didn’t laugh. The Aryan kept up the small talk as he looked at the computer terminal that he could see and Hiram could not. “We may be the only television company in town, you know, but—”