Philip Dick - Ubik

“Don’t open it,” Joe said.

“I’m not going to open it. This morning or last night?”

“Evidently, it happened early, before she even reached my room. We—that moratorium owner and I—found bits of cloth in the corridor. Leading to my door. But she must have been all right, or nearly all right, when she crossed the lobby; anyhow, nobody noticed anything. And in a big hotel like that they keep somebody watching. And the fact that she managed to reach my room—”

“Yeah, that indicates she must have been at least able to walk. That seems probable, anyhow.”

Joe said, “I’m thinking about the rest of us.”

“In what way?”

“The same thing. Happening to us.”

“How could it?”

“How could it happen to her? Because of the blast. We’re going to die like that one after another. One by one. Until none of us are left. Until each of us is ten pounds of skin and hair in a plastic bag, with a few dried-up bones thrown in.”

“All right,” Al said. “There’s some force at work producing rapid decay. It’s been at work since—or started with—the blast there on Luna. We already knew that. We also know, or think we know, that another force, a contra-force, is at work, moving things in an opposite direction. Something connected with Runciter. Our money is beginning to have his picture on it. A matchfolder—”

“He was on my vidphone,” Joe said. “At the hotel.”

“On it? How?”

“I don’t know; he just was. Not on the screen, not the video part. Only his voice.”

“What’d he say?”

“Nothing in particular.”

Al studied him. “Could he hear you?” he asked finally.

“No. I tried to get through. It was one-way entirely; I was listening in, and that was all.”

“So that’s why I couldn’t get through to you.”

“That’s why.” Joe nodded.

“We were trying the TV when you showed up. You realize there’s nothing in the ’papes about his death. What a mess.” He did not like the way Joe Chip looked. Old, small and tired, he reflected. Is this how it begins? We’ve got to establish contact with Runciter, he said to himself. Being able to hear him isn’t enough; evidently, he’s trying to reach us, but—

If we’re going to live through this we’ll have to reach him.

Joe said, “Picking him up on TV isn’t going to do us any good. It’ll just be like the phone all over again. Unless he can tell us how to communicate back. Maybe he can tell us; maybe he knows. Maybe he understands what’s happened.”

“He would have to understand what’s happened to himself. Which is something we don’t know.” In some sense, Al thought, he must be alive, even though the moratorium failed to rouse him. Obviously, the moratorium owner did his best with a client of this much importance. “Did von Vogelsang hear him on the phone?” he asked Joe.

“He tried to hear him. But all he got was silence and then static, apparently from a long way off. I heard it too. Nothing. The sound of absolute nothing. A very strange sound.”

“I don’t like that,” Al said. He was not sure why. “I’d feel better about it if von Vogelsang had heard it too. At least that way we could be sure it was there, that it wasn’t an hallucination on your part.” Or, for that matter, he thought, on all our parts. As in the case of the matchfolder.

But some of the happenings had definitely not been hallucinations; machines had rejected antiquated coins—objective machines geared to react only to physical properties. No psychological elements came into play there. Machines could not imagine.

“I’m leaving this building for a while,” Al said. “Think of a city or a town at random, one that none of us have anything to do with, one where none of us ever go or have ever gone.”

“Baltimore,” Joe said.

“Okay, I’m going to Baltimore. I’m going to see if a store picked at random will accept Runciter currency.”

“Buy me some new cigarettes,” Joe said.

“Okay. I’ll do that too; I’ll see if cigarettes in a random store in Baltimore have been affected. I’ll check other products as well; I’ll make random samplings. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to go upstairs and tell them about Wendy?”

Joe said, “I’ll go with you.”

“Maybe we should never tell them about her.”

“I think we should,” Joe said. “Since it’s going to happen again. It may happen before we get back. It may be happening now.”

“Then we better get our trip to Baltimore over as quickly as possible,” Al said. He started out of the office. Joe Chip followed.

They selected the Lucky People Supermarket on the periphery of Baltimore.

At the counter Al said to the autonomic, computerized checker, “Give me a pack of Pall Malls.”

“Wings are cheaper,” Joe said.

Irritated, Al said, “They don’t make Wings any more. They haven’t for years.”

“They make them,” Joe said, “but they don’t advertise. It’s an honest cigarette that claims nothing.” To the checker he said, “Change that from Pall Malls to Wings.”

The pack of cigarettes slid from the chute and onto the counter. “Ninety-five cents,” the checker said.

“Here’s a ten-poscred bill.” Al fed the bill to the checker, whose circuits at once whirred as it scrutinized the bill. “Your change, sir,” the checker said; it deposited a neat heap of coins and bills before Al. “Please move along now.”

So Runciter money is acceptable, Al said to himself as he and Joe got out of the way of the next customer, a heavy-set old lady wearing a blueberry-colored cloth coat and carrying a Mexican rope shopping bag. Cautiously, he opened the pack of cigarettes.

The cigarettes crumbled between his fingers.

“It would have proved something,” Al said, “if this had been a pack of Pall Malls. I’m getting back in line.” He started to do so—and then discovered that the heavy-set old lady in the dark coat was arguing violently with the autonomic checker.

“It was dead,” she asserted shrilly, “by the time I got it home. Here; you can have it back.” She set a pot on the counter; it contained, Al saw, a lifeless plant, perhaps an azalea—in its moribund state it showed few features.

“I can’t give you a refund,” the checker answered. “No warranty goes with the plant life which we sell. ‘Buyer beware’ is our rule. Please move along now.”

“And the Saturday Evening Post ,” the old lady said, “that I picked up from your newsstand, it was over a year old. What’s the matter with you? And the Martian grubworm TV dinner—”

“Next customer,” the checker said; it ignored her.

Al got out of line. He roamed about the premises until he came to the cartons of cigarettes, every conceivable brand, stacked to heights of eight feet or more. “Pick a carton,” he said to Joe.

“Dominoes,” Joe said. “They’re the same price as Wings.”

“Christ, don’t pick an offbrand; pick something like Winstons or Kools.” He himself yanked out a carton. “It’s empty.” He shook it. “I can tell by the weight.” Something, however, inside the carton bounced about, something weightless and small; he tore the carton open and looked within it.

A scrawled note. In handwriting familiar to him, and to Joe. He lifted it out and together they both read it.

Essential I get in touch with you. Situation serious and certainly will get more so as time goes on. There are several possible explanations, which I’ll discuss with you. Anyhow, don’t give up. I’m sorry about Wendy Wright; in that connection we did all we could.