Philip Dick - Ubik

“ Runciter Associates ,” Al said, “being run by a man who can’t keep fifty cents on him. Here’s a quarter.” He got it from his pocket, tossed it to Joe. “When you make out my paycheck add it on.”

Joe left the lounge and wandered down a corridor, rubbing his forehead blearily. This is an unnatural place, he thought. Halfway between the world and death. I am head of Runciter Associates now, he realized, except for Ella, who isn’t alive and can only speak if I visit this place and have her revived. I know the specifications in Glen Runciter’s will, which now have automatically gone into effect; I’m supposed to take over until Ella, or Ella and he if he can be revived, decide on someone to replace him. They have to agree; both wills make that mandatory. Maybe, he thought, they’ll decide I can do it on a permanent basis.

That’ll never come about, he realized. Not for someone who can’t manage his own personal fiscal responsibilities. That’s something else Hollis’ precog would know, he realized. I can find out from them whether or not I’ll be upgraded to director of the firm. That would be worth knowing, along with everything else. And I have to hire the precog anyhow.

“Which way to a public vidphone?” he asked a uniformed employee of the moratorium. The employee pointed. “Thanks,” he said, and wandered on, coming at last to the pay vidphone. He lifted the receiver, listened for the dial tone, and then dropped in the quarter which Al had given him.

The phone said, “I am sorry, sir, but I can’t accept obsolete money.” The quarter clattered out of the bottom of the phone and landed at his feet. Expelled in disgust.

“What do you mean?” he said, stooping awkwardly to retrieve the coin. “Since when is a North American Confederation quarter obsolete?”

“I am sorry, sir,” the phone said, “the coin which you put into me was not a North American Confederation quarter but a recalled issue of the United States of America’s Philadelphia mint. It is of merely numismatical interest now.”

Joe examined the quarter and saw, on its tarnished surface, the bas-relief profile of George Washington. And the date. The coin was forty years old. And, as the phone had said, long ago recalled.

“Having difficulties, sir?” a moratorium employee asked, walking over pleasantly. “I saw the phone expel your coin. May I examine it?” He held out his hand and Joe gave him the U.S. quarter. “I will trade you a current Swiss ten-franc token for this. Which the phone will accept.”

“Fine,” Joe said. He made the trade, dropped the ten-franc piece into the phone and dialed Hollis’ international toll-free number.

“Hollis Talents,” a polished female voice said in his ear and, on the screen, a girl’s face, modified by artificial beauty aids of an advanced nature, manifested itself. “Oh, Mr. Chip,” the girl said, recognizing him. “Mr. Hollis left word with us that you’d call. We’ve been expecting you all afternoon.”

Precogs, Joe thought.

“Mr. Hollis,” the girl said, “instructed us to put your call through to him; he wants to handle your needs personally. Would you hold on a moment while I put you through? So just a moment, Mr. Chip; the next voice that you hear will be Mr. Hollis’, God willing.” Her face vanished; he confronted a blank gray screen.

A grim blue face with recessive eyes swam into focus, a mysterious countenance floating without neck or body. The eyes reminded him of flawed jewels; they shone but the faceting had gone wrong; the eyes scattered light in irregular directions. “Hello, Mr. Chip.”

So this is what he looks like, Joe thought. Photographs haven’t caught this, the imperfect planes and surfaces, as if the whole brittle edifice had once been dropped, had broken, had then been reglued—but not quite as before. “The Society,” Joe said, “will receive a full report on your murder of Glen Runciter. They own a lot of legal talent; you’ll be in court the rest of your life.” He waited for the face to react, but it did not. “We know you did it,” he said, and felt the futility of it, the pointlessness of what he was doing.

“As to the purpose of your call,” Hollis said in a slithering voice which reminded Joe of snakes crawling over one another, “Mr. Runciter will not—”

Shaking, Joe hung up the receiver.

He walked back up the corridor along which he had come; he reached the lounge once more where Al Hammond sat morosely picking apart a dry-as-dust former cigarette. There was a moment of silence and then Al raised his head.

“It’s no,” Joe said.

“Vogelsang came around looking for you,” Al said. “He acted very strange, and it was obvious what’s been going on back there. Six will get you eight he’s afraid to tell you outright; he’ll probably go through a long routine but it’ll boil down like you say, it’ll boil down to no. So what now?” He waited.

“Now we get Hollis,” Joe said.

“We won’t get Hollis.”

“The Society—” He broke off. The owner of the moratorium had sidled into the lounge, looking nervous and haggard but attempting at the same time to emit an aura of detached, austere prowess.

“We did what we could. At such low temperatures the flow of current is virtually unimpeded; there’s no perceptible resistance at minus 150g. The signal should have bounced out clear and strong, but all we got from the amplifier was a sixty-cycle hum. Remember, however, that we did not supervise the original cold-pac installation. Bear that in mind.”

Al said, “We have it in mind.” He rose stiffly to his feet and stood facing Joe. “I guess that’s it.”

“I’ll talk to Ella,” Joe said.

“Now?” Al said. “You better wait until you know what you’re going to say. Tell her tomorrow. Go home and get some sleep.”

“To go home,” Joe said, “is to go home to Pat Conley. I’m in no shape to cope with her either.”

“Take a hotel room here in Zurich,” Al said. “Disappear. I’ll go back to the ship, tell the others, and report to the Society. You can delegate it to me in writing.” To von Vogelsang he said, “Bring us a pen and a sheet of paper.”

“You know who I feel like talking to?” Joe said, as the moratorium owner scuttled off in search of pen and paper. “Wendy Wright. She’ll know what to do, I value her opinion. Why is that? I wonder. I barely know her.” He noticed then that subtle background music hung over the lounge. It had been there all this time. The same as on the chopper. “Dies irae, dies illa,” the voices sang darkly. “Solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sybilla.” The Verdi Requiem, he realized. Von Vogelsang, probably personally with his own two hands, switched it on at nine A.M, every morning when he arrived for work.

“Once you get your hotel room,” Al said, “I could probably talk Wendy Wright into showing up there.”

“That would be immoral,” Joe said.

“What?” Al stared at him. “At a time like this? When the whole organization is about to sink into oblivion unless you can pull yourself together? Anything that’ll make you function is desirable, in fact necessary. Go back to the phone, call a hotel, come back here and tell me the name of the hotel and the—”

“All our money is worthless,” Joe said. “I can’t operate the phone, not unless I can find a coin collector who’ll trade me another Swiss ten-franc piece of current issue.”

“Geez,” Al said; he let out his breath in a groaning sigh and shook his head.

“Is it my fault?” Joe said. “Did I make that quarter you gave me obsolete?” He felt anger.

“In some weird way,” Al said, “yes, it is your fault. But I don’t know how. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out. Okay, we’ll both go back to Pratfall II. You can pick Wendy Wright up there and take her to the hotel with you.”