Ron Goulart - Nemo

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Nemo

Ron Goulart

Chapter 1

Ted Briar screamed.

His narrow bed jiggled him gently and asked, "Another nasty dream?"

Not really a bad dream, no. Not something you'd bother a

psychotherapist like his wife's with, or even one of those coin-operated

'bot analysts they have in airport and hotel lobbies. Yet every time Ted had

the dream, he fought, breathing hard and thrashing, to get out of it.

Ted sat up, eyes and mouth wide open, and looked around his

gunmetal-gray sleeping pit.

What was there in the damned dream to do this to him, two or three

times a week lately? Actually it was more a comedy than a horror dream.

Ted would be walking down a street in some impossibly pleasant small

town in a last-century town, the kind of town which had vanished long

before he was born. It was always a warm summer day and he'd be

wearing an ankle-length old-fashioned nightgown. Nobody seemed to

notice. And he was carrying some kind of heavy suitcase.

The thing was, if he ever delivered that suitcase where it was supposed

to be delivered somebody was going to die. That was why he always had to

scream himself away from there.

Shaking his head, Ted mumbled to himself, "Don't be stupid." He

squinted in the direction of the wall clock.

A thin wire arm snaked up from under the bed, and after squirting two

squirts of a liquid, poked Ted's contact lenses into place on his eyeballs.

"It's six-seventeen A.M. if it's the chronometers you're trying to see," said

the soft narrow bed. "Six-seventeen going on six-eighteen, that's the

time."

Ted rasped his tongue over his upper teeth. "Is Haley home yet?" He

found he had a strong compulsion to blink.

"No, nope, she's not," replied the speaker mechanism in the

computerized bed. "Would you like a cup of coffee-like cereal beverage or

perhaps some nice warm soymilk?"

Ted kept blinking, rubbing at his eyes. "What the hell did you spray in

my eyes instead of antipollution mist?"

"Golly, I'm not sure. Could it have been, maybe, protein-rich hair

conditioner? I'm doing my best, but I really do need a tuneup. You haven't

had a house mechanic in for a long time, you know."

"We're on the damn waiting list. They can't come till April 22, 2021.

Next year."

Another thin metal arm appeared, holding a cup of something

steaming. "Sniff this and see if it's coffee-like cereal beverage, will you?"

Ted sniffed. "Nope."

"Listen, how about you go back to sleep for maybe fifteen minutes while

I get myself straightened out?"

"No, I never sleep very well the nights Haley's working up at the

Dynamo Hill Children's Hospital." When Ted swung his feet over the edge

of the bed, his furry slippers came scurrying toward his bare feet.

He'd had the dream even nights when Haley was home. What could be

in the damn suitcase that would kill somebody?

"Forget it," he told himself aloud. "It's stupid."

"Huh?"

"Nothing." Ted walked slowly over the pit floor, climbed the ladder up

into the earth-colors bedroom. He was a lean blond man of just over

thirty, average looking though slightly quirky around the edges. He

shuffled across the thermal floor to glance down into his wife's sleeping

pit. No, she wasn't there.

You could carry a bomb in that suitcase. No, it wasn't a bomb. It was

heavy, but not a bomb. He shook his head, hoping to make the last shreds

of the dream fade.

Ted looked toward the draped windows. The drapes snapped open,

pleasant rustic music drifted down out of the main overhead audio

speaker. "Looks like another mighty fine day here in Brimstone,

Connecticut," announced the house computer. "A brisk, autumnal

Wednesday, September 8, 2020. You'll especially enjoy today's predicted

temperature of—"

"Who the hell's that guy?" There was an overweight man crouching on

the front lawn with a self-operating movie-disc camera cradled in his lap.

Ted loped closer to the wide gently curved window to grab up the

public-address mike for his lawn area. "Who the hell are . . . Oh, is that

you, Mr. Swedenberg?"

The overweight man in the two-piece green travelsuit nodded, smiling

sadly toward Ted. The outdoor monitoring system gave his voice a mildly

squeaky tone. "I'm only here in the United States for eight more hours this

trip," he explained to Ted. "I craved another look. Also, if you don't object,

I'm shooting some full-color tri-op to show Mrs. Swedenberg and the

children."

"No, that'll be okay," Ted told him. "How's the fishmeal business over in

China-3?"

"Can't complain," replied Swedenberg while his camera went on taking

pictures. "You're still prospering with the Federal Repossession Bureau

Office over in New Westport?"

"Still with FRB, yeah."

"And your attractive young wife, Haley?"

"She's fine. How are Mrs. Swedenberg and the kids? I guess Lars must

be in college now."

"His name is Nils, and yes, he is," said Swedenberg. "We're all doing as

well as can be expected. Fortunately, the starvation rate among the locals

in China-3 is much lower than it is in China-2. So Mrs. Swedenberg and

the children aren't exposed to as many dead and dying people." He

watched his camera scamper over the pseudograss. "We do, of course, still

miss our little house here in Brimstone very much."

"Well, your fishmeal company will probably transfer you back to

Connecticut someday. Then you'll be able to buy another place pretty

much like this one."

"Oh, not like this one." Swedenberg sighed. "There'll never be another

Sixty-three Limestone Hills Road, which is why I appreciate your allowing

me to drop by now and then when I'm in America."

"That's okay. But listen, Mr. Swedenberg. Haley and I bought this house

from you three years ago, right after I started working for the Repo

Bureau. I've been thinking maybe you're too sentimental about this place,

too attached to it still."

Swedenberg dismissed the idea with a slow shake of his head. "By the

way, I hope I didn't scare your friend away. My arrival sent him flying, I'm

afraid."

"What friend?"

Buzz! Buzz!

"And I hope his pictures won't be spoiled."

Buzz! Buzz!

"That's the telephone," reminded the house.

Ted scowled up at the speaker grid. "Stay right there, take more movies,

Mr. Swedenberg. I have a phone call." He ran, skirting the sleep pits, to

the bedroom phone alcove. Sobbing was coming out of there. "Shit,"

muttered Ted, slowing.

The pink-faced old man who showed on the oval pixphone wallscreen

was dressed up as Uncle Sam, except that his shaggy gray beard was stuck

under his nose and not on his chin. He was wiping his eyes on a

star-spangled sleeve.

"Good morning, Mr. Woodruff."

"Would it make you retch to call me Father or Dad or even Pop?"

"Probably, yes. You're not my father, Mr. Woodruff, you're Haley's

father. And your beard's fastened on the wrong place."

"A lot you know about American history and the question of where

Uncle Sam's beard goes." Haley's father was calling from a street-corner

booth. Outside on the early morning Florida street was parked a landtruck

with a huge lollipop of plastic mounted on top. "Where's my little girl?"

"Not here."

"Drove her from the house again with your foul behavior?" Woodruff

removed his stars-and-stripes hat. A plastic bubble of bourbon was

concealed within the hat. He took a long swig.

"Cheers," said Ted.

"Who wouldn't take to drink with his only girl married to a raving

maniac and suffering all the remorse a blighted career can bring?"

"I didn't blight Haley's career. If anybody did it was you."

The bubble didn't get sealed quite tight enough, and when Haley's

father slammed his topper back on, bourbon squirted onto his scalp. "She

had such great potential. Do you know what her 26Q rating was?"

"Two hundred and forty, you've told me before." By twisting and

hunching slightly he got a glimpse of the lawn. Swedenberg was still out

there. It looked like he was crying, too.

"Where's my little girl?"

"Not home yet, this is one of the nights she works up at the kids'

hospital."

"If Haley was happy with you, she'd stay home nights."

"Perhaps, Pop. Why did you say you had your beard pasted on your

nose?"

"I'm taking out one of the trucks today, helps me keep in touch." The

old man gestured at the landtruck in the background. Emblazoned on its

side were the enormous words Woodruff's Instant Patriotic Breakfast

Popps! "Thousands of schoolchildren all over the South are awaiting the

cheerful arrival of a friendly Woodruff truck. I don't suppose, though, you

understand a man who has a true calling, seeing as you're stuck in a

dead-end job."

"Do all your drivers dress up like Uncle Sam?"

"Some are Abraham Lincoln," said Woodruff. "Tell Haley to phone her

poor infirm father soon as she gets home."

"I have to get back to a guy on my lawn who—"

"If only Haley's mother had lived. If only my little girl hadn't left me. If

only—"

"Goodbye. God bless America." Ted flicked off the screen. "Don't accept

any more calls from that old lush."

"That's no way to refer to your wife's poor infirm father," observed the

house.

"If it weren't for him . . ." Ted shook his head, went trotting back to the

window. "Hey, Mr.

Swedenberg, you saw some guy on our lawn taking pictures?" "It may

not have been a camera. Some sort of instrument, possibly a camera. Is he

perhaps someone you hired to do a job for you?"

"I haven't hired anybody to do anything. What did he look like?"

"I think he was a black man. He was very much bundled up for such a

lovely autumnal morning."

To his house Ted said, "Didn't you see the other one out there?"

"No, sir," replied the voice of the house computer. "We saw no one

except Swedenberg, and he's okay. Anyone strange and the alarms, I

assure you, would have gone off."

Ted frowned for a few seconds. "Probably some kind of maintenance

man— most of them have electronic immunity." Out to Swedenberg he

said, "Well, goodbye, Mr. Swedenberg, nice talking to you." He turned off

the hand mike.

Ted made his way to the ramp leading to the primary living room. This

way he'd see Haley as soon as she got back from the graveyard shift at the

children's hospital.

An olive-green chair met him at the doorway. Ted sat, the chair rolled

him over closer to the TV wall. The wall image popped on.

Sprawled corpses, stick-thin, filled the big screen. ". . . and so another

small nation, this time Angola, has starved to death. Late last night United

Nations observers flew over the capital and determined that less than five

percent of the population was left alive." The telescope camera roamed

along the dry twilight street, ticking off the dead.

Ted looked away. "I don't like to see stuff like this, not so early in the

morning, anyway."

"How do you feel when you view scenes such as this?" asked a jovial,

and deep, voice. "Guilty maybe?"

It was Dr. Norvell Perola. This was the show Ted wanted to watch after

all.

"Well, chums, I am here to tell you you needn't bother feeling bad,"

continued Dr. Perola. A giant bald man he was, with an enormous grin

and a pair of antique horn-rim spectacles. He was wearing a sleeveless

tweed tunic over his one-piece lycra worksuit. "It's not your fault, not my

fault, a bunch of illiterate savages can't manage their country. You aren't

expected to put the burden of the whole and entire stupid world on your

shoulders."

"Yeah, that's right," agreed Ted.

The philosopher was standing in a sunlit field of high yellow grass. In

the distance rolling hills, dotted with neat thatch-roof cottages, could be

seen. "Here at Utopia East we concentrate on ourselves. That's what my

doctrine of Selfism is all about, chums, about finding out what our true

natures are, about discovering our true likes and dislikes and then . . .

enjoying ourselves!" Dr. Perola laughed a huge laugh, took a large, hearty

deep breath. "Whether you visit us here at our model community nestled

in the Massachusetts countryside or simply join me each morning for

these talks, the thinking of Utopia East can help you, chums. This

morning's talk, for instance, will—"

Buzz! Buzz!

The chair wheeled Ted over to the phone alcove. "I don't want to talk to

that cockeyed Uncle Sam."

Buzz! Buzz!

He picked up the speaker unit. "Hello?"

The plate-size screen glowed on, a freckled man of about the same age

as Ted appeared. It was Wally Klennan, one of Ted's few close friends in

Brimstone. "Going to have to cancel on our lunch today, Ted."

Wally worked at the Repo Bureau, too, and they usually had lunch at

least twice a week. "What's happening?" asked Ted.

"Oh, Connie's got the Brazilian flu again," explained his friend. "We

think that's what it is. Our medgroup android took a look at her over the

phone, says she's probably got all the symptoms of that new bug. So I'm

going to stay home to give her the shots."

"Can't your medical 'bot handle it?"

"Robot's broken down again," said Wally. "They can't get out to fix it

until next April sometime. I'll see you tomorrow probably."

"Okay, give my best to Connie." Ted turned off the phone. He was en

route back to the TV wall when the front door wooshed open.

Haley came in. She was a tall, coltish girl of twenty-seven. Dark-haired

and pale. This morning her long hair was disordered, smudges of black

underlined her wide brown eyes.

"Little late, huh?" said Ted, standing.

"Um," said his pretty wife.

"Don't feel like talking?"

"Oh, Ted. . ."

Getting free of his chair, he went to her. "Something?"

"No, not really. No." Haley shook her head. "Was that Mr. Swedenberg

out on the lawn?"

"Yeah." He touched her cheek. "Swedenberg said he saw some guy out

there with a camera or some kind of listening gadget this morning. That's

sort of odd."

Haley made a small humming sound, saying nothing.

"Oh, and I had the dream again, the thing about the suitcase. I don't

understand quite why—"

"You really ought to talk to Dr. Waggoner or somebody, Ted. There's no

reason to have a dull dream like that more than once." She exhaled,

blinking. "I better get to bed now. See you tonight. Same as always."

"Haley, would you rather be a dancer than—"

"We can talk tonight or sometime." She kissed him once on the chin—

her lips were chill —and wandered away toward the ramp leading to the

bedroom area.

"Because your father called and he thinks you'd be happier if you were

still—"

Her sigh shook her slender body."He must be doing some heavy

drinking again. He always talks about my dancing when he's . . . We'll talk

tonight." She went away into the bedroom.

Ted slumped down and his chair rushed to catch him.

Chapter 2

Ted turned off the morning news. His car turned it back on.

"The Bishop of Rio," said the unattractive girl newscaster on the tiny

dash screen, "is still missing in Brazil."

Slouching down in his contour seat, Ted took a noisy sip from his cup of

vitamin-enriched beeflike broth. Outside his landcar it was all trees and

sunshine up beyond the two lanes of Stem 33 of the New England Slotway.

"The Bishop of Rio, as you know," continued the tiny red-haired

newscaster, "parachuted from a military craft over the Mato Grosso

jungles of Brazil late last week. His object was to bless government troops

and their United States Military Force advisers who are battling in that

embattled section of rebellion-rocked Brazil. So far only his miter and

some shreds of his chute have been found. Now here is Ed Skeet via

satellite from Rio."

Gentle furrows formed on Ted's forehead. Why did the Brazilian war

remind him of that stupid dream he kept having?

"This is Ed Skeet in front of the Church of Sao Norberto in downtown

Rio de Janeiro, where a special mass for the speedy location of the

much-loved Bishop of Rio is now in progress." Skeet was a tiny,

unattractive red-haired man. "United States Ambassador Plaut was

expected to appear but he has since disappeared and it is feared in

government circles that he, too, has fallen victim to the dreaded pro-Brazil

guerrillas who have unleashed a veritable reign of terror here in recent

months."

Ted switched channels.

"Here, for a change, is a piece of good news," said the black newsman

on the dash screen. "The Department of Agriculture announces the price

of soybeans has risen only 4.4 percent in the past thirty days. This new

increase, while seemingly larger than last month's figure of 2.7 percent, is

actually a sign of better times and lower prices. This according to

Presidential Publicity Chairman Bobby Bolden, who issued the statement

late yesterday from the summer White House in Barbados. Now here's

Happy the Clown with today's weather."

"Forty days of rain," said Ted as he clicked off the news once again.

"Leave it off," he told the car. "I'm informed as I want to be for today."

His dash pixphone made a peeping sound.

When Ted answered his pretty, coltish wife showed on the screen. "Is

everything okay, Haley?"

"Yes, more or less. I had a call from Captain Beck and—"

"Captain Beck?"

"You know, Bill Beck."

"Listen, I went out and measured the pseudo-grass again last night. It

doesn't exceed the official Brimstone Way of Life Authority height. In fact

. . . why's he a captain now?"

"Seems they've changed the Way of Life Authority Team into the Way of

Life Patrol. Mainly, I guess, so Bill and his people can wear these

skin-tight one-piece sky-blue uniforms with a white stripe all down here."

Ted asked, "Has he got some new complaint?"

"Bill says our cruiserport is leaning."

"It's not leaning. Listen—"

"Argue with him. He reports several complaints about its unsightly

list."

"Nobody'd complain about a list—"

"It's okay, Ted, I already called an outfit in Old Danbury. They specialize

in straightening up leaning ports."

"But if it's not actually leaning, there's no reason to spend—"

"That isn't really why I called you anyway," Haley said. "I'm also sorry I

wasn't in the mood to talk to you when I came home. I'm sorry, really,

you're having these bad dreams still. I wish I knew what to do to help

you."

"It's something I have to work out," he said. "Don't worry. How did

things go at the kid hospital last night? How's little Terry Malley doing?"

"Who?"

"Little Terry. You told me he was having bad dreams, too."

"Oh, little Terry." Haley tangled one finger in her long dark hair. "He

slept like a log."

After a few silent seconds Ted said, "We ought to talk more than we do,

Haley."

"Sometimes . . ."

"Sometimes what?"

"I wish I hadn't taken that five-year birth-control capsule the day before

we got married. We've still got a year and a half to run on the damn

thing." She turned her head. "Mr. Swedenberg seems to be back on . . .

Ted! That's not Swedenberg. Hold on a sec."

"What?" Ted asked the now empty screen. He could hear his wife asking

anxious questions over the public-address mike.

When Haley reappeared she said, "It was a black man, Ted, all muffled

up in black clothes."

"Must be the guy Swedenberg scared off. Did you get a good look at

him?"

"No. All I can say for sure is he was black and muffled," she said,

glancing over her shoulder. "And he was carrying some kind of portable

monitoring device. When I asked him what he was doing he ran off."

"If he turns up again, call the cops. Don't go out and try to befriend him

or anything. Don't be sympathetic, call the police. Then call me and I'll try

to get off work."

"You don't have to screw up your job over a simple prowler. I can

handle it."

"He's not a prowler if he's carrying around bugging equipment. So

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NemoRonGoulartCopyright©1977,byRonGoulartChapter1TedBriarscreamed.Hisnarrowbedjiggledhimgentlyandasked,"Anothernastydream?"Notreallyabaddream,no.Notsomethingyou'dbotherapsychotherapistlikehiswife'swith,orevenoneofthosecoin-operated'botanalyststheyhaveinairportandhotellobbies.YeteverytimeTedhadthedre...

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Ron Goulart - Nemo

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