Ernest Hill - Atrophy

“Why?” Oppel asked.

“Meryl’s left me,” Elvin’s lip quivered.

“It happens,” Oppel’s eyes strayed back to his screen. They lost focus.

“Please, Oppel!”

“I’d miss my programmes and see yours. I don’t know your programmes.”

“I’ll do your shift as well as mine and you can watch both.”

“Twelve hours in a day!”

“It’s all right. I could do it. No one would know. I’ll press your button instead of mine.”

“Oh! All right!”

“Thanks Oppel!” But Oppel had already faded. Elvin could only hope that he would remember. The habit of 2200 till 0400 is hard to break. He would forget and press in at the 2200 tweet.

But Oppel apparently did remember. There was no Oppel on the travelator. Punctually on the tweet of 2200, Elvin stepped from the tunnel, nodded vacantly to the evening shift, who passed from sight without a glance of non-recognition. One Worker was very like another.

It was a long, dull shift. The lights moved in their accustomed sequence change, electronic notes sounded at intervals, demanding the register of presence, assimilation, response. He coped. He ackled. Nothing, apart from the sign-on button, demanded registration of personality and that had been simple. A depression of the “Oppel”. No As. No Bs.

0400 came far too soon. It was surprising how quickly time passed in the necessity of application. He could not face the return home. To the empty pad. To the pad where Meryl was not. At the tweet of 0400, he begged Oppel’s relief to let him do the morning shift. The relief was 75%comatose and gave no trouble. Elvin turned him about, put his hat in his hand and his iron ration dispenser under his arm and guided him back to the travelator. He returned, believing it was 1000.

The morning passed uneventfully, 1000 tweeted and he at last pressed his own “Elvin” button. He was himself again. Dubois had not noticed, if he ever used the Welfare Monitor. He was punctual on his own shift. One face was the same as another. Stay alert and the day would have passed. Twenty-four hours between him and the jolt of last night’s emotion. Time to assess. To re-assess. To think. Whether to fight back somehow, or slip into the comatose and quietly atrophy.

Stay alert! A stimulator!

A 1,2,3,4. A 8,7,6,5. Miss one. A 13,14,15,16. Below the A lights, the Bs flashed in synchronous unison. A/B 17,18,19,20. “I love her.” A/B 24,23,22,21. “Meryl come back to me!” 36,37,38,39. “I won’t atrophy, Meryl, I promise I won’t atrophy.” 48,47,46,45. “Come back to me, Meryl!” Reverse the sequence and back. A 2,3,4. A 8,7,6,5. “Meryl come back….” What was that? The A 1 missed. The B 1 missed. Warning red over A and B. A B 1? Reactor wild? It couldn’t be, not now on his shift. Tiredness and the stimulator? He rubbed his eyes. The red lights still glowed. My God! It was a B 1. Inform the Foreman. Foreman activated. Check reactors closed — B 2. Reactor doors still open. The Foreman! Activate B2! Oh no! The Foreman didn’t ackle on B 2. A faulty Foreman!

He screamed at the Foreman, “Ackle B 2!” The. Foreman had missed. B 2 still red. Hose nozzles functioning. Alarm. Fire brigade. Radiation disposal squad. Military. Police. Defence organizations alerted. All in order. Reactor doors still open.

“What do I do?” he screamed at the Foreman. What should he do? Routine. Inform management. Dubois. No— not Dubois, it wouldn’t be Dubois this time. This wasn’t a personnel job. This was it. This was a real B 1. Whose face was that on the screen. A physicist? An electronics director? None of his business.

“Sir! B 1 alarm. Foreman faulty. B 2 check missed!”

The face on the screen raised dull unseeing eyes, holding for a moment a glimmer of partial animation before the thick lids fell and the flaccid mouth parted in a sigh of uncomprehending weariness, sagged and dropped open. A trickle of saliva glistened on the chin.

“He’s atrophied!”

This Thinker, this minion of management — he’s atrophied! It couldn’t be. Not a Thinker. Or could it? What was this vacant, drooling shell, this vacuous inanity? A Thinker who had thought. Once, for a while — how long ago? Years of flawless automation, years of waiting for the fault that never came, the fault that should claim the focus of a thought. Years since a B of any sort, a B 1, perhaps, never. And the Thinkers had no IT. IT was for the Workers. A device of Management and Unions to stimulate some animation in the ceaseless checking of the automated flow. To stave off atrophy.

What was he doing, thinking and speculating on the atrophy of a physicist, an automotive engineer, whatever the Thinker was or had been? A faulty Foreman, a wild reactor, reactor doors open and himself — a Worker. Who cared? What was a wild reactor and why should the doors be shut? He was a Worker, why should he care? He did care. The evacuation! My God! Had the message gone out? He had heard no message from the faulty Foreman, from that flashing expanse of non-ackle. What was the message? Evacuate an area of ten miles radius with all speed. Anti-radiation precautions to be taken in a fifty mile radius. The disposal squads could not warn everyone — it must go out on the screens. Radiation level? Radiation level 120 milliPennies. God what a lot of milliPennies. Whatever milliPennies were. The message had got to go out. The A was flashing on the Foreman check but the B was dead. Damn the Foreman! Think, Elvin, think!

Long ago at the Tech, what had they said about manual? There was always a manual somewhere. What did a manual look like? What would it look like? What did it do, or what did you do to it? Something to speak into, like a toy microphone, somewhere under cameras for the visual. Where? Where else but on the Foreman? He ran to the Foreman, to the maze of lights and knobs and buttons, relays and microscreens. Somewhere there must be a device that called for the grasp of a hand. A lever switch. In all his life, he had never pulled a switch. And there it was. There they all were. A lever switch, a tag marked “Manual” and a microphone. For a moment, he hesitated. For a Worker to question the Foreman was unthinkable. Only management could override the Foreman and Management never did. To tinker with a Foreman was worse than sacrilege. No one ever tinkered with a Foreman.

“But,” he thought, “he’s faulty. He didn’t ackle. And the Management has atrophied.”

A hundred thousand people like himself in nearby pads and a radiation level of 120 milliPennies. He shuddered.

He pulled the lever and the Foreman died. Not a light flashed, not a needle quivered. The control room was empty, silent, a tomb with a dead Foreman and a half-dead Worker. Manual as never before. What now? A message must go out. He picked up the microphone and the cameras swivelled their focus on him. That much ackled.

“1, 2, 3, 4.” He tested. “1, 2, 3, 4,” boomed from the video-screens. He saw himself in every corner of the room. White and pasty-faced, limp sagging shoulders, insubstantial knees. A yellow boiler-suited, anti-radiation clad Worker like any other. A Worker who had just killed a Foreman.

“Emergency!” He shouted. “Wild reactor at No. 129. Map Reference H67. B 346. Radiation level 120 milliPennies. It is urgent that an area of ten miles in radius from 129 should be evacuated immediately. Anti-radiation precautions should be taken in an area of fifty miles radius. Your anti-radiation squads in the area will advise you. This is Elvin speaking — a Worker in the control. The Management has atrophied.”

Waldorf was on the video demanding to know if it was an A. Probably the disposal and evacuation squads were taking their time, none caring, none knowing that this was it.

“It’s a B!” he shouted.