749632- 32. standing on the corner

by red jones

part thirty-two of 32

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delilah stood on the corner waiting for the light to change, clutching the piece of paper lyman slade had given her, with the addresses of her new dwelling place and her new work place. * ali 35 bumpo had a lot of time on his hands, and he liked to go for long aimless walks in the city streets at any time of the day or night. he recognized many people that he seemed to see over and over on his various routes. he found himself standing on a corner beside a young woman clutching a small piece of paper as if she were afraid of its blowing out of her hand. she looked familiar - but not completely familiar. maybe. ali thought, she is a sister of another young woman i have seen before, maybe many times before. stop staring at me, you creep. what? were you talking to me? is there some other creep standing between the two of us? i apologize, miss. i must have been lost in thought. that is what they all say.. the light changed. ali hurried across, ahead of the young woman, lest she think he was following her. what awkward encounters the modern world was filled with! the end

749632- 31. kari and larry

by red jones

part thirty-one of ?

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this is a very dark highway, delilah said, just to break the silence. and very straight. yes, it is, the voice from behind her and to her right replied. why don’t you tell us something about yourself? so far, the person directly behind delilah in the back seat had not spoken. there is not much to tell, delilah said. and what there is, i can not remember. then i will tell you about myself. please do. my name is kari wade. i was born in a castle in the south of france, and i was an heiress to a great fortune, including several solar systems,, and my every wish was indulged to the fullest. one day when i was still an innocent child, i was introduced to a little boy named rodrigo. he seemed nice, and i was told he was heir to a fortune that dwarfed mine and included the riches of several galaxies. i liked him a lot, and decided to give my heart to him forever. after we had our tea and cookies, rodrigo was taken away. my governess, miss stein, told me that she hoped i had enjoyed the meeting, but that henceforth i must never see rodrigo again, or make any attempt to see him, as we lived on different levels of different worlds. i was having none of it. no sooner had i returned to my room, than i penned a note to rodgigo and gave it to what i thought was a trusted servant, but who turned out to be anything but. in the morning i was rudely awakened - something that had never happened before. i was informed that my sister was to replace me as heiress and i was stripped of my finery and relegated to the lowest kitchen in the castle where i spent the next ten years peeling and chopping onions and potatoes. to this day i can hardly bear to look at a potato or an onion. on my eighteenth birthday i was told to pack a bag and i was taken to the big city where i got a job as a social coordination technician at the r-99 corporation. life at the r-99 corporation was not that bad. i just wish the coffee had been a little bit better. well, that is my story. now that it has been told, i will leave you here with larry. the car stopped, and kari got out. so your name is larry? delilah asked without looking behind her at the last remaining other occupant of the car as it started up again and left kari behind. yes, it is. tell me a little bit about yourself. i like star trek and bette davis movies, the voice replied. and blueberry pancakes with tofu syrup. and? delilah asked. she turned around to look at larry. but the seat was empty. and then i woke up, delilah told lyman slade. lyman made a note on a small pad of paper, with a pencil. next

749632- 30. shari gets out

by red jones

part thirty of ?

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i can not tell you who you are, the person in the front seat beside delilah said, but i can tell you who i am, if you are interested. very well then, if that is the best you can do. my name is shari blaine, and i am a romantic at heart. i live for love. i was born on a mountaintop in mongolia, and raised in the canebrake by an old mama lion. i fell in with a bad crowd, and was left by the side of the road. i met a wise man sitting under a tree, and he told me i was destined for love and fame. but it never worked out. and that’s it? delilah asked. yes, that’s it. in a few minutes the car will stop, and i will get out. and the strange man who got out before you, who was he? his name was harry slade, the voice from the back seat said. he was not a very interesting person, and nobody liked him much. where was he born? delilah persisted. i think somewhere in canada, or maybe it was ukraine, he ended up in the big city with the rest of the slobs and drones and dreamers. well, here we are, shari said. the car stopped, and she got out, leaving delilah with the two persons in the back seat. * harry walked along the highway. he wondered if another car would come along and pick him up. next

749632- 29. no problem

by red jones

part twenty-nine of ?

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delilah waited. the person in the front seat of the blue rackworth, behind the left side of the control panel, finally rolled the window down. can i help you? he asked delilah. are you lost? i do not know if i am lost, but i do not know where i am. i would have liked a lift in any direction, but i see that you are full up, so i will simply ask you where i am, if that is not too much to ask. a polite one, a voice came from the back seat. we would be happy to give you a lift to wherever you want to go, the man who had rolled the window down informed delilah. but there is no room. one of us will get out. oh, i could not impose on you in such a manner. it is no problem. it is what we do, drive around and pick up lost wayfarers. we aim to please. and what about the person who gives up their seat? do not worry about them. it is what we do. we are here to serve. well… if you insist. i will get out myself. the man opened the door and got out and motioned delilah to take his place. she hesitated. i do not know what all these buttons on the control panel are. they are just there for show. the car completely controls itself. all right. delilah got in the car and it started down the dark highway. she looked back but saw no sign of the man. who was that strange man? she asked the shadowy figure beside her on her right. i thought he looked familiar. most people look familiar to somebody. i meant familiar to me. who are. you? i do not know. i thought maybe you could help me. politer and politer, the voice from the back seat said. next

749632- 28. delilah

by red jones

part twenty-eight of ?

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good morning, delilah. good morning. thank you for seeing me on such short notice. not at all. here at the department of location and relocation, we aim to please. that sounds reassuring, thank you. so - what brings you here? i woke up this morning in a strange room. i could not remember where i was or who i was. that is nothing to be alarmed about. there has been a veritable epidemic of such cases in recent months and so far we have had a success rate of almost 100 percent in restoring the afflicted parties to their assigned positions in society. that sounds good, but if you do not mind my asking, has the cause of this so-called epidemic been identified and is anything being done to alleviate or end it? an excellent question. but the only answer i am authorized to give at this time is that we are working on it. now, as you were saying? i woke up this morning in a strange room. i could not remember where i was or who i was. could you remember anything? i could remember a strange dream i had just before i woke up. how do you know it was a dream? um - i guess i do not know, but i just assumed it was. may i continue? please do. i was walking down a dark highway. i needed to get back to someplace but i was not sure what or where. i did not feel particularly frightened. i wished a car would come along, and one finally did, it was a dark blue 4 passenger rackworth 53-a. there were four people in it. i waved to it and it stopped. i walked over to it, but no one rolled a window down until i tapped on it. as i said, there were four people in it. two in front, and two in back? of course, what else would they be? they could have been sitting in each other’s laps. or they could have been children, or small people. ii do not think i have ever seen a child, except in the movies. or a small person, except in the circus. so they were four ordinary sized people? can you describe them? i will try. can i have a cup of coffee? were you not just given one in the waiting room? yes, but i would like another one, if it is not too much trouble. of course. we aim to please. what is your name, by the way.? lyman slade. at your service. how did you know my name is delilah? we did not, we assigned it. if i remember my old name, can i have it back? why not? we are here to serve. next

749632 - 27. the programmer

by red jones

part twenty-seven of ?

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lyman slade, on the 129th working day in the 14th year of his employment as a deputy population programmer, randomly selected four files from the pile on the corner of his desk. he placed them in the center of the desk, and with a sigh, took the lid off the container of coffee he had purchased at the oftice cafeteria. every hour of his six hour day, he reviewed four files of four persons each who were scheduled to be consolidated into one person under the new plan. the “new plan” which, in theory, only administrators and underlings of the population department knew about. lyman took a sip of his coffee. if only the coffee were a little more drinkable, and the donuts a little more edible, he thought, life might be tolerable. he opened the first file. it was a “d” file, describing four persons selected completely at random from the 20 billion inhabitants of the planet. * buford ae-13, an openminded underachiever with a youthful pompadour, from city 18. oliver twist, an underachiever from a quiet town in the middle distance. jesse james hood, a charlatan from behind the great wall of samarkand. george washington, a flower seller and street performer from city 5. * lyman did not think this group sounded very promising. he took a sip of his coffee, and decided that, rather than try to describe exactly why he did not think they sounded very promising, he would order a preliminary test of them. the first of his quota of 12 preliiminary test orders of his work day. * he picked up the second file - an “a” ftle describing four people living in the same building in the same city as each other. the four persons lived in a building in a mediium sized city - city 223. they were larry payne, a class 5 drone in a make work corporation. shari blaine, an aspirant to fame writing romance novels. kari wade, a drreamer 88 percent divorced from reality. and harry slade, a temporary drone seeking status and security. this looks like an easy one, lyman thought. i think i will process it myself. lyman earned 2 bonus points for every file he processed himself. next

749632 - 26. the prince

by red jones

part twenty-six of ?

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only emotional neanderthals read that slop. as soon as the words to shari were out of kari’s mouth, she wanted to take them back. not because she might have hurt shari’s feelings, but because she might have revealed her own thoughts, at all, however ambiguous, to another person. kari wade lived in apartment 4-c, on the fourth floor of a ten story apartment building in a medium sized city of the planet earth of the modern world. shari blaine lived in apartment 4-b, larry payne in 4-a, and harry slade in 4-d. to shari and kari, larry and harry were typical male losers and creeps. shari loved romance novels and dreamed of getting hired to write them herself. kari had not actually read a romance novel for years, nor did she have any inclination to write one. her great secret was that she dreamed them. she dreamed them sleeping and she dreamed them awake. she dreamed them in her lonely room, she dreamed them at her job as as a second class social coordination technician at the r-99 corporation, and she dreamed them on her way back and forth to the offices of the r-99 corporation. the dreamed ones had different names, but were all the same. they were kyle, or jason, or carlos, or rodrigo, or prince khan, or prince mobo. they were always a prince. they would inherit their father’s kingdoms and empires. but first they suffered. their suffering blazed forth smolderingly from their dark eyes. they had suffered in battle, but also at the hands of treacherous women, human and otherwise. and their agony could only be quenched in the arms of a real woman. a woman like - excuse me, young lady, i think you dropped this. what? oh thank you, thank you so much. kari smiled at the woman who had picked up her paper bag with the strawberry croissant in it. another narrow escape. at least i did not walk into a door, she thought. * kari, shari, larry, and harry did not know it, but they were about to be thrown together in a manner unsuspected by, and incomprehensible to, any of them. next