Harlan Ellison - Approaching Oblivion - Road Signs On the Treadmill Toward Tomorrow

“Yes, varks. Do you know where that came from?” Joe Bob shook his head.

The old man settled down and started talking, and as if he were talking to children around a hearth, the others got comfortable and listened. “It comes from the Dutch Afrikaans for earth-pig, or aardvark. They just shortened it to vark, don't you see.”

He went on talking, telling stories of days when he had been younger, of things that had happened, of their country when it had been fresher. And Joe Bob listened. How the old man had gotten his poached egg in a government medical shop, the same place Paul had gotten his metal hook, the same place Walter had lost his tongue and Marty had been done with the acid that had turned him ha1f-white in the face. The same sort of medical shop where they had each suffered. But they spoke of the turmoil that had ended in the land, and how it was better for everyone, even for roaming bands like theirs. And the old man called them bindlestiffs, but Joe Bob knew whatever that meant, it wasn't what he was. He knew one other thing: it was not better.

“Do you play Monopoly?” the old man asked.

The hunchback, his plastic dome flickering in pastels, scampered to a roll-up and undid thongs and pulled out a cardboard box that had been repaired many times. Then they showed Joe Bob how to play Monopoly. He lost quickly; gathering property seemed a stupid waste of time to him. He tried to speak to them about what was happening in America, about the abolition of the Pentagon Trust, about the abolishment of the Supreme Court, about the way colleges trained only for the corporations or the Trust, about the central computer banks in Denver where everyone's identity and history were coded for instant arrest, if necessary. About all of it. But they knew that. They didn't think it was bad. They thought it kept the sabooters in their place so the country could be as good as it had always been.

“I have to go,” Joe Bob said, finally. “Thank you for helping me.” It was a stand-off: hate against gratitude.

They didn't ask him to stay with them. He hadn't expected it.

He walked up the gravel bank; he stood under the long bird-shadow of the aerial tramway that hurtled from coast-tocoast, from Gulf to Great Lakes, and he looked up. It seemed free. But he knew it was anchored in the earth, deep in the earth, every tenth of a mile. It only seemed free, because Soleri had dreamed it that way. Art was not reality, it was only the appearance of reality.

He turned east. With no place to go but more of the same, he went anywhere. Till thunder crashed, in whatever dark closet.

Convocation, at the State University of New York at Buffalo, was a catered affair. Catered by varks, troops, squirters and (Joe Bob, looking down from a roof, added) bulls. The graduating class was eggboxed, divided into groups of no more than four, in cubicles with clear plastic walls. Unobstructed view of the screens on which the President Comptroller gave his address, but no trouble for the quellers if there was trouble. (There had been rumors of unrest, and even a one-page hectographed protest sheet tacked to the bulletin boards on campus.)

Joe Bob looked around with the opera glasses. He was checking the doggie guards.

Tenure and status among the faculty were indicated by the size, model and armament of the doggie guard robots that hovered, humming softly, just above and to the right shoulder of every administrator and professor. Joe Bob was looking for a 2013 Dictograph model with mist sprayers and squirt nozzles. Latest model...President Comptroller.

The latest model down there in the crowd was a 2007. That meant it was all assistant profs and teaching guides.

And that meant they were addressing the commencement exercises from the studio in the Ad Building. He slid back across the roof and into the gun tower. The guard was still sleeping, cocooned with spin ex. He stared at the silver-webbed mummy. They would find him and spray him with dissolvent. Joe Bob had left the nose unwebbed; the guard could breathe.

Bigger killer!

Shut up.

Effective commando.

I told you to shut the hell up!

He slipped into the guard's one-piece stretch suit, smoothed it down the arms to the wrists, stretching it to accommodate his broader shoulders. Then, carrying the harness and the rucksack, he descended the spiral staircase into the Ad Building proper. There were no varks in sight inside the building. They were an on perimeter detail, it was a high caution alert : commencement day.

He continued down through the levels to the central heating system. It was June. Hot outside. The furnaces had been damped, the air conditioners turned on to a pleasant 71° throughout the campus. He found the schematic for the ducts and traced the path to the studio with his finger. He slipped into the harness and rucksack, pried open a grille and climbed into the system. It was a long, vertical climb through the ductwork. Climbing

20 do you remember the rule that was passed into law, that nothing could be discussed in open classes that did not pertain directly to the subject matter being taught that day 19 and do you remember that modern art class in which you began asking questions about the uses of high art as vehicles for dissent and revolution 18 and how you began questioning the professor about Picasso’s Guernica and what fever it had taken to paint it as a statement about the horrors of war 17 and how the professor had forgotten the rule and had recounted the story of Diego Rivera’s Rockefeller family 16 and how, when the fresco was completed, Rivera had painted in Lenin prominently, and Nelson Rockefeller had demanded another face be painted over it, and Rivera had refused 16 and how Rockefeller had had the fresco destroyed 14 and within 10 minutes of the discussion the Comptroller had the professor arrested 13 and do you remember the day the Pentagon Trust contributed the money to build the new stadium in exchange for the Games Theory department being converted to Tactics and they renamed the building Neumann Hall 12 and do you remember when you registered for classes and they ran you through Central and found all the affiliations and made you sign the loyalty oath for students 11 and the afternoon they raided the basement 10 and caught you and Greg and Terry and Katherine 9 and they wouldn’t give you a chance to get out and they filled the basement with mist 8 and they shot Terry through the mouth and Katherine 7 and Katherine 6 and Katherine 5 and she died folded up like a child on the sofa 4 and they came in and shot holes in the door from the inside so it looked like you’d been firing back at them 3 and they took you and Greg into custody 2 and the boot and the manacles and the confessions and you escaped and ran 1

Climbing-

Looking out through the interstices of the grille. The studio. Wasn’t it fine. Cameras, sets, all of them-fat and powdered and happy. The doggies turning turning above their shoulders in the air turning and turning.

Now we find out just how tough you really are.

Don’t start with me!

You’ve got to actually kill someone now.

I know what I’ve got to doe.

Let’s see how your peace talk sits with butchering someone-

Damn you!

-in cold blood, isn’t that what they call it?

I can do it.

Sure you can. You make me sick.

I can: I can do it. I have to do it.

So do.

The studio was crowded with administrative officials, with technicians, with guards and troops, with mufti-laden military personnel looking over the graduating class for likely impressed-men. And in the campus brig, seventy feet beneath the Armory, eleven students crouched in maximum security monkey cages: unable to stand, unable to sit, built so a man could only crouch, spines bowed like bushmen in an outback.

With the doggie scanning, turning and observing, ready to fire, it was impossible to grab the President Comptroller. But there was a way to confound the robot guards. Wendell had found the way at Dartmouth, but he’d died for the knowledge. But there was a way.