Piers Anthony: Total Recall

“They sell fake memories!” Quaid prompted.

Now Harry remembered. “Oh, yeah,” he said, and bellowed the company’s jingle at the top of his lungs. Then he stopped his machine and asked, “You thinkin’ of goin’ there?” Quaid took a break, too, leaning on his jackhammer while it hissed in neutral.

“I don’t know,” he said, brushing the rock dust from his gloves. “Maybe.”

“Well don’t,” Harry said firmly.

The bluntness of the reply took Quaid by surprise. Harry obviously knew something about Rekall, Incorporated that the commercials didn’t mention. “Why not?” Quaid asked. If there was something fishy about the place, he wanted to know about it.

Harry leaned closer and lowered his voice. “A friend of mine tried one of their ‘special offers.’ Nearly got himself lobotomized.”

A chill went down Quaid’s back. “No shit…” Quaid breathed, raising a hand to his brow.

Harry clapped him on the shoulder and stood to his machine once more. “Don’t fuck with your brain, pal. It ain’t worth it.” His jackhammer roared to life, and Quaid revved his, too. He turned back to the work at hand while he mulled over Harry’s words. It was good advice, surely. Only a fool would ignore it.

But when he got off work, he went to a phone unit. He ran his finger down a long list of businesses and their office numbers, stopping at Rekall, Incorporated. He wasn’t sure yet that he was going to do it, but he was going to find out more. It might be foolish, but it might also be the only way to deal with his dream.

Quaid paused before the computer console of the building directory before selecting Rekall, Inc. from the list of names. The screen displayed the office’s location, but still he hesitated.

Was this the answer? Harry had warned him off, but Harry wasn’t subject to chronic dreams of Mars. Mars was an incubus he simply had to get off his back, one way or another. He had to either banish the notion, which was impossible, or go there, which might also be impossible, or find a compromise. This just might be that compromise.

He knew that an illusion, no matter how convincing, remained nothing more than an illusion. Objectively, at least. But subjectively—that could be quite the opposite.

Well, he had an appointment. Within the next five minutes. Now was a point of decision; he had to either go up and be subject to their sales pitch or leave, chickening out. He would have flattened any man who called him chicken—fortunately, none had since he got his adult growth—but now he was accusing himself. He felt the crazy lure of Mars, but also his terror of falling down that mysterious pit. Did he really want to make that dream seem real?

There was only one way to know. Taking a deep breath, he boarded an elevator and made his way to the company’s reception area.

The receptionist was a nicely articulated blonde, painting her fingernails by tapping each nail with a white stylus. Red pigment instantly saturated each nail. For a moment she looked bare-bosomed, her breasts sprayed blue, but then the light shifted and he realized that it was the effect of one of those now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t variable translucency blouses. Seen from one angle, in one light, she was fully covered; seen from another angle, in other light, she was nude. Mostly she was somewhere between, the effect changing intriguingly as she shifted position. He would have to mention that to Lori; she would probably get a similar outfit for herself.

The woman hid her paraphernalia without embarrassment. She smiled in a practiced manner. “Good afternoon. Welcome to Rekall.”

Was he doing the right thing? He felt like a schoolboy approaching an adult gambling joint. “I called for an appointment. Douglas Quaid.”

She checked a list. He was sure this was a pose; he did have an appointment, and there was no one else in the office. She looked up. “One moment, Mr. Quaid.” She spoke quietly into a videophone while keeping an appreciative eye on Quaid, who glanced restlessly at the video travel posters that lined the walls. “Mr. Quaid?” she said. “Mr. McClane will be right with you.”

As she finished speaking, a salesman emerged from an inner office.

“Thank you, Tiffany,” he said. He winked at the receptionist, then grinned and offered his hand to Quaid. “Doug… Bob McClane. Good to meet ya. Right this way.” Quaid followed him out of the reception area.

McClane seemed to be a jovial hustler. He was in his mid-fifties, and he wore the latest Martian frog-pelt gray suit. The frogs weren’t native, of course; there was no surviving native life on Mars. But imported terrestrial frogs, raised in special Martian farms, had developed unusual characteristics in the reduced gravity and increased radiation, and now there was quite a market for their hides.

McClane led the way into his stylishly decorated office. “Have a seat, sit down, make yourself comfortable.”

Quaid lowered himself into a sleek, futuristic chair that adjusted itself subtly to accommodate his weight and configuration. This, too, Lori might like to know about; these people were right up with the times.

McClane sat behind his big pseudo-walnut desk. “Now you wanted a memory of…?”

“Mars,” Quaid said, realizing that the line between doubt and commitment had somehow already been crossed.

But the man’s reaction surprised him. “Right, Mars,” McClane said unenthusiastically.

“There’s something wrong with that?”

McClane frowned. “Enhhhh, honestly, Doug, if outer space is your thing, I think you’d be much happier with one of our Saturn cruises. Everybody raves about ’em and it’s nearly the same price.”

Oh. So this was a bait-and-switch operation, to jack him up to a higher price range. “I’m not interested in Saturn,” Quaid said firmly. “I’m interested in Mars.”

McClane put the best face on it, his ploy having fallen flat. “Okay, okay, Mars it is. Now hold on a second while I…” He typed on his computer keyboard, and figures came up on his screen. “All righty… our basic Mars package goes for just eight hundred and ninety-four credits. That’s for two full weeks of memories, complete in every detail.” He glanced up. “A longer trip’ll run you a little more, ’cause you need a deeper implant.”

More bait-and-switch. “I just want the standard trip.” Actually he wanted the real thing, but even the fancier memory-trip would be out of his price range.

McClane put on the expression of a reasonable man faced with an unreasonable or slightly ignorant customer. “We have no standard trip, Doug. Every journey is individually tailored to your personal tastes.”

He was a slippery one! He was going to push up the rates one way or another. “I mean, what’s on the itinerary?”

The man got down to business. “First of all, Doug, when you go Rekall, you go first class. Private cabin on an Inter-World Spaceways shuttle. Deluxe accommodations at the Hilton. Plus all the major sights: Mount Olympus, the canals, Venusville …” He leered with the same polish as the receptionist’s smile. “You name it, you’ll remember it.”

“And how does it really seem?” Quaid had heard about Venusville, one of the most notorious sleaze dens in the Solar System. He doubted that he would find his dream woman there.

“As real as any memory in your head.”

Quaid did not bother to conceal his skepticism. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m telling you, Doug, your brain won’t know the difference—or your money back. You’ll even have tangible proof. Ticket stubs. Postcards. Film-shots you took of local sights on Mars with a rented movie camera. Souvenirs. And more. You’ll have all the support you need for your memories. We guarantee—”