Ernest Hill - Atrophy

Waldorf’s cheeks blanched visibly as he rummaged for his anti-rad helmet. “My leggings!” he moaned. “I’ve come without my leggings. We all have!”

“Your legs will drop off,” Elvin told him tersely and returned to the microphone. It was imperative to broadcast continually. Many of the Workers and perhaps Thinkers too, would be comatose. Only constant repetition would reach them. Over and over again on the screens until it registered. Till some semblance of urgency rubbed off.

“This is Elvin, Worker in 129, map reference H67. B 346…”

For how long he continued to broadcast, he never knew. Time lost its meaning in the exhilaration of doing. He had repeated his message at least a hundred times before he became aware of a figure standing by the travelator, watching him. A short spare man in the antique dress of a pre-automotive age. Black coat, black trousers with white stripes, a bowler hat. An umbrella. Elvin recognized at once the symbol of Higher Management. A common figure on the programmes, but rarely seen in life itself. Higher Management in person!

“Sir!” he said.

“You are Elvin?” the Higher Management asked quietly.

“Yes, sir!”

“I am the Managing Director.”

He had heard of Managing Directors. They were unbelievably important, very near to the top. Higher than High. Much higher than Dubois. He trembled.

“Tell me what happened.” Elvin was near to tears. The strain of thinking, of acting and now of cross-question was damping his last feeble rhythm to an intermittent flutter.

“There was B 1. The reactor doors stayed open — B 2. The Foreman missed the check. The A linked with the screens but the B missed the ackle.”

“So you found the manual and killed the Foreman?”

“Did I do right, sir?”

“Sit down, Elvin.” The Managing Director steered him to the chair with the ferrule of his umbrella. “As it happens you did not do right. There was no B 1. The fault was a moth settling on a relay in the alarm circuits, unfortunately also affecting the radiation readings. But the Foreman was certainly faulty and the Management, as I have since ascertained, was indeed comatose.”

“Then it was all for nothing?” Elvin began to sob.

“No, Elvin. It was not for nothing. You thought. I am amazed to find a Thinker among my Workers. Not only this company, but the entire outside world has far too few Thinkers left. Too few to waste them here in the control room. There will be a new job for you tomorrow, Elvin. You have watched your last light sequence.”

“As a Thinker?” Elvin breathed.

“You are now Management,” the Managing Director directed. “Tomorrow, you will report to me. Tomorrow you will continue thinking.”

He patted Elvin on the shoulder with his umbrella and disappeared down the travelator. 1600 tweeted and Elvin’s relief arrived with two Thinkers to tinker with the Foreman.

“All quiet?” asked the relief.

“All quiet,” Elvin told him, a song in his heart and a dizzy surge in his alpha rhythm. He ran to the travelator, eyes animated, eager to go. Home to the pad. A Thinker! Management!

“A Thinker! Management!” He told himself over and over again the cycle of the day’s happenings. The B 1. His thought processes. His killing of the Foreman. His broadcast. The Higher Management. He couldn’t wait to get home. To tell Meryl.

Meryl. Suddenly the elation died within him. There was no Meryl. No one at all to tell. What use to see up his fellow travellers on the video, pour out his excitement into their dull ears and meet the uncomprehending stares of their inanimate eyes? No. There was no one to tell. No one who could generate a flickering ten seconds interest to share his programme from real life, live with him the drama of a B 1, a faulty Foreman and an avuncular Higher Management.

His eyes were tired again as he reached the pad door, twiddled his alpha rhythm around the lock code relay. 17 beat 3.

There was a ripple of fabric inside, the undulation of nylon tights, a swift pert bobbing of breasts and Meryl’s arms were around his neck.

“Elvin! I heard you! You thought!”

“Yes,” he said, dazed and giddy. “I think I did.”

“Elvin, I’ve come back to you!”

She led him to the bed at an angle of five degrees to the horizontal and supported him as he sagged on to the fibre-glass. Her kiss was the warm, soft, salty tremble of the south seas under the potted palms. It was urgent. Demanding. He turned his head and looked at the dials.

“There’s another two hours…” he said.

“Damn the sexometer,” she whispered. “I know my own rhythms best.” It was good to be a Thinker.