Drug of Choice Page 11

  PART III: Madness

  “It is indeed harmful to come under the sway of utterly new and strange doctrines.”

  Saying of Confucius

  17. THE SCIENTIFIC COMING

  HE HEARD A SOUND like the roar of a huge forestfire, and he smelled smoke. The sound was very loud, deafening, but somehow familiar at the same time.

  He opened his eyes, and looked to the direction of the sound. He was lying on a couch, fully dressed, in some kind of office. There was a window to his right. He got up slowly and walked over to look out.

  Traffic.

  A freeway, thick with automobiles. Yellow-gray sky and faint, diffuse sunlight.

  “Los Angeles,” he said, and shook his head. He didn’t remember what had happened. There was something about boarding an airplane, and later, being met at the airport by a limousine—

  “My God, you look awful,” Harvey Blood said.

  Clark turned. Blood was standing just inside the door.

  “You’re…you’re an absolute mess,” Blood said, gesturing to Clark’s clothes. “You can’t go like that.”

  He came up and pushed Clark into a chair.

  “No, that would ruin everything,” he said. “Just a minute.”

  He went to the door, and came back with two girls. One began to comb Clark’s hair while the other shaved him with an electric razor. A boy came in with a suit on a hanger, a fresh shirt, and a tie; he hung it on the back of the door and walked out. Blood stood in the center of the room and watched the girls working on Clark.

  “Hurry it up, girls,” he said. “We’re behind schedule already.”

  Clark said, “Behind schedule for what?”

  “The audition,” Blood said.

  “What audition?”

  “For Project GG,” he said. “The Angela Sweet mockup.”

  Clark said nothing. He didn’t understand what Blood was talking about.

  Blood seemed to realize this. “It’s all strange at first,” he said. “And of course you’re tired from your journey. But that will pass.”

  Clark said, “Where are we?”

  “Advance. We landed in LA last night. Do you remember that?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Well, it went very smoothly. Let’s go, girls.”

  The girls finished and stepped back. Clark stood; they helped him out of his clothing, and handed him the clean clothes. He dressed slowly.

  “Clark, come on, come on,” Blood said.

  Roger Clark knotted his tie as slowly as he could.

  “Look,” Blood said. “This kind of funny business won’t go. You’d better understand that. You’re in trouble and you need me.”

  “I do?”

  “You’re damned right you do. Now hurry it up.”

  Walking down the steps to the waiting limousine, Clark said, “Why do I need you?”

  “Because you’re in trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  Harvey Blood glanced at his watch and entered the limousine. Clark followed him; two men were already there, sitting on the little fold-down seats. They had charts and briefcases opened, papers out.

  The limousine started off.

  Clark said, “What kind of trouble?”

  “Later,” Blood said. He turned to the two men.

  “We’ve got it down to twenty, Harvey,” one said. “They’re a pretty good group.” He laughed. “Some of them can even sing.”

  “The hell with that,” Blood said. He looked at the other.

  “Psychological testing is completed,” the man said. “On all twenty finalists. The correlation with somatotyping of body form is quite precise. You’ve got a split into two basic groups, really. What we call the projection-affective group, with high raw scores on scales twelve, delta, and nine. Then there’s the ego-flexor group, which scored high on scales five, beta, and two. It’s hard to say which would be the better choice.”

  “I see,” Blood nodded.

  The first man said, “We’ve got standardized costumes waiting, and the pattern is set. All it requires is your final decision.”

  “How about the costume for GG?”

  “We have a preliminary model. All the girls will wear it. The plastics people have just finished wiring them.”

  “Fine. And the sound?”

  “We’ll go there afterward. The mixing studios are doing fine work, I think you’ll agree. And the boys are coming together nicely.”

  Blood nodded and sat back. The second man handed him a sheaf of graphs, with points plotted on peculiar circular axes. It was a kind of graph Clark had never seen before.

  There were also several pages of photographs, but they were also peculiar. One page was the faces of twenty girls, but the other pages were isolated photos of legs, elbows, shoulders, feet. Each page was stamped: “PROJECT GLOW.”

  “What’s that?” Clark said.

  “Shut up,” Harvey Blood said. “I’m thinking.”

  An auditorium, empty, the rows of wooden seats stretching back into darkness. In front of them, a bare and lighted stage.

  Harvey Blood slumped down in the front row and looked up at the stage. The two men sat on either side of him; Clark sat next to one of them.

  Nobody said anything, but after a moment, a man in a dark suit came onto the stage, carrying a microphone on a heavy base. He set the microphone down in the middle of the stage, right in front of Blood.

  “Are you ready now, sir?” he asked.

  “Ready,” Blood said. He took out a pair of glasses, wiped them on his tie, and put them on. He folded his hands across his chest and looked up expectantly.

  “There are three runs,” one of the men said, leaning over to Clark. “Dr. Blood can eliminate at any time. Do you understand?”

  “No,” Clark said.

  “You’ll get the hang of it, after a while,” the man said.

  The stage lights went down. A voice said, “Number one,” and a girl walked out. She was tall and slender, with dark hair and a gentle face. She wore black slacks and a frilly white blouse.

  “You see,” one of the men whispered to Clark, “on the first run, the girls wear whatever they want. The next two runs are standardized. But this run is important to personality projection and affect penetrance.”

  “Oh.”

  The girl walked slowly across the stage, oblivious to the men in the front row. She reached the opposite side, turned, and walked back. Clark looked over to see what Blood was doing. He was frowning.

  Blood said, “Why slacks?”

  “Ego interference,” one man said. “Subconscious withdrawal complex. She relies on conveyed fragility.”

  Blood continued to frown. “Cut her.”

  The aide picked up a small hand walkie-talkie. “Cut one,” he said.

  There was a pause, and then a voice said, “Number two,” and a second girl walked across the stage. This one was short, with large breasts and hips, and a pert face. She wore a miniskirt and sweater.

  “Projection-affective,” one of the men whispered. “Written all over her.”

  “Oh,” Clark said.

  This girl Blood seemed to like. He smiled slightly, and said nothing. The girl walked off the stage and a third one came on, a dark-haired girl in a leather skirt, vest, boots.

  “Strangely enough, this one is ego-flexor, though she doesn’t look it.”

  Clark leaned over to see Blood’s reaction, but his face was enigmatic.

  The fourth girl wore a jumper; she had large breasts and blond hair.

  “Look at the way she walks,” Blood said. “Terrible. Cut her.”

  And so it went, through all twenty girls. Clark tried to make sense of what was happening, but he could not. Every once in a while, one of the men would lean over to explain things, but the explanations never helped. About all he understood was that they were selecting a girl.

  For something.

  At the end of the first run, Blood said, “How many?”

 
; “Thirteen left”

  “All right. Let’s get on with it.”

  The new sequence began, this time starting with number two, since number one was eliminated. Number two wore a brief black bikini. She had not taken two steps onto the stage before Blood hissed: “She has a scar!”

  “Yes,” one of the men said, “appendix…”

  “You knew that? And you kept her? That’s absurd.”

  “We thought perhaps it would increase identification, help in the human element, a girl with a—”

  “A scar?” Blood shuddered. “Never. Glow Girl can’t have a scar. Cut her.”

  Over the walkie-talkie: “Cut number two.”

  The next girl came out, in an identical bikini. Clark watched her, but he was rapidly losing interest. In his mind, the girls began to merge; he lost the ability to differentiate them. He found himself listening to Blood’s comments.

  On number five: “Bad hips. Awkward in the hips. Cut her.”

  Number seven: “Terrible breasts. And she doesn’t move right. Cut her.”

  Number eleven: “Ugh! Cut her.”

  Number fourteen: “Too shy. She comes over shy. Cut her.”

  Number nineteen: “That’s brazen. It’s flaunting: cut her.”

  Number twenty: “She acts tired. Cut her.”

  At the end of the run, he said again, “How many?”

  “Six.”

  Blood sighed. “Still six? Hell. All right.”

  He sat back and waited for the third run. Five minutes passed before the first of the girls came onstage. She wore a strange dress, made of plastic squares, loose. But the plastic, Clark saw, was glowing. The dress moved gently with the girl, glowing bright pink.

  Blood smiled. “Very nice. Where are the batteries?”

  “In the collar. Mercury-cadmium.”

  “Very nice.”

  Another girl came on, before the first had left, and then another, until all six were lined up on the stage. Each wore the same glowing dress of plastic.

  Blood looked from one to the next. He was frowning hard. He said, “Let’s hear the one on the far right.”

  “Far right,” one of the men shouted.

  The girl on the far right, a redhead, seemed surprised at first, and then pleased. She walked up to the microphone, skirt moving gently, and said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl. Nice to meet you.”

  “Hmmm,” Blood said. “Try the third from the left.”

  “Third from the left!”

  Another girl walked up to the microphone and said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl. Nice to meet you.”

  This was repeated until finally the last girl said, “My name is Angela Sweet. I’m the Glow Girl, and I wish I knew what the hell I’m doing here.”

  There was nervous laughter from all the girls.

  Blood smiled.

  Then, without taking his eyes off the line of girls, he said, “Clark, what’s your decision?”

  “My what?”

  “Decision. Which one do you pick?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t even know what you’re picking them for.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” Blood said. “Choose.”

  “But why me? I don’t—”

  “Listen,” Blood said, “do you think we brought you down here for the ride? Choose!”

  Clark hesitated. He looked at the girls. Finally he said, “Second from the left.”

  “Second from the left,” Blood repeated, nodding.

  “Second from the left,” the man said into the walkie-talkie.

  Blood stood. “That’s that,” he said, and walked out of the auditorium. The others followed, Clark last of all. He was stunned. He looked back to the stage; the girls were clustered together, talking. The one he had chosen was a dark-haired girl with large eyes.

  Up ahead, by the door, Blood shouted, “Come on, Clark, we haven’t got all day.”

  Clark hurried up the aisle, away from the stage.

  Surrounded by electronic equipment, dials and switches, they sat in the soundproofed room and looked through the glass at the group in the inner room. Five young men with long hair, guitars, drums, an organ.

  Blood stared at them, and placed earphones over his head. “Let’s hear them.”

  At a signal, the group started to play. One of the other men leaned over to Clark.

  “This is the group, the backup,” he said. “The Scientific Coming. We’ve finally got them polished into some kind of shape, but it was a battle, I can tell you. This first cut is a standard.”

  He handed Clark a set of earphones. Electronic sound blasted him. As he listened, somebody handed him a sheet of words:

  SHOCK TREATMENT

  My little analeptic

  She meets me at the door.

  Gives me a kiss,

  And I’m rolling on the floor.

  In shock treatment,

  Shock treatment,

  Shock Treatment,

  Rolling on the floor… or… or…

  Blow my mind,

  In a catatonic fit,

  Losing my cool,

  But loving it.

  In shock treatment,

  Stock treatment,

  Block treatment,

  But loving it… it… it…

  Gotta admit,

  It’s really a show.

  Wears me out,

  And leaves me kinda low.

  From shock treatment,

  Rock treatment,

  Mock treatment,

  Leaves me really low… low… ow…

  The song was finished. Clark took off the earphones. “Nothing special,” he was told. “They’re just warming up. This next is a very sensitive ballad, very now, very today.” Clark put the headphones back on.

  SICKIE, SICKIE

  Sickie, sickie, where you goin?

  All day long, and night time glowin.

  There you go,

  Poppin’ pills.

  Seeking out,

  Those extra thrills.

  Don’t you know,

  It’s really here.

  Can’t you see,

  It’s only fear.

  Sickie, sickie, where you goin?

  All day long, and night time glowin.

  Out of sight

  Mind a fog.

  Big machine

  A little cog.

  Don’t you know,

  It can’t be done.

  You must see,

  That you’re the one.

  Pick you up,

  Or put you down.

  Start you high,

  Or crash you down.

  We don’t care

  It’s what you do

  But you know

  We’re really true.

  “Doesn’t that grab you?” someone asked Clark. “Here, check this out.”

  He was handed an album cover: SIX INCH INCISION. Glow Girl and the Scientific Coming. The cover photo showed the group of hairy young men in the other room, but there was a blank space—for Glow Girl, he presumed. He turned the album over to look at the song titles.

  “These are just tentative, of course,” he was told. “We may still call the album Acid Fast. The song titles are tentative as well. Molecular Love, for instance, may be changed to Cryin’ Ions Over You.”

  Harvey Blood looked over at Clark, obviously relishing his confusion.

  “You see the general principle,” he said. “Science. Everyone is afraid of science. Terrified of it. And yet fascinated by it at the same time. We’re bringing science down to the masses, making it agreeable, understandable. We’re educating people.”

  “Oh,” Clark said.

  “Now, all that remains,” Blood said, “is to make our new creation palatable to the public. In fact, enthusiastically received. There are slightly more than seventy rock groups which are, in any sense of the word, big-time. Of those, perhaps ten are really important. We intend to beat them all. T
he Beatles, the Stones, the Airplane, the Cream, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix, the Chambers Brothers—we are going to put them all out of business.”

  “I see.”

  “You doubt me. You shouldn’t. After all, look what we did with a product as untalented and basically boring as Sharon Wilder, the former Alice Blankfurt?”

  Harvey Blood laughed.

  “Isn’t science wonderful?” he said.

  18. GLOW GIRL

  “YOU SEE,” HARVEY BLOOD said, as they drove back in the limousine, “the true purpose of Advance is the harnessing of science to turn a comfortable commercial profit. The drug of choice is just one example. Our use of it to operate a resort hotel may seem strange at first, but think about it. It’s wholly logical. In the same way, the Glow Girl will utilize advances—”

  “What about Sharon Wilder? What scientific advance does she represent?”

  Blood chuckled. “Applied psychology. We had it all worked out in advance—what she should look like, how she should act, what kinds of things she should talk about, what kind of photographs she should pose for, what kind of movies she should appear in. It was a careful balance, designed to fulfill the nationwide expectations for a modern sex symbol. I think you will grant,” he said, “that we’ve succeeded handsomely.”

  “And the Glow Girl?”

  “Ah. Now that is an interesting matter. Those inane songs you listened to are actually quite carefully prepared. The rhythm is timed as multiples of brain-wave frequency and function. If played loudly it can have quite a hypnotic effect. This, combined with the image of the Glow Girl, the scientific-sexual overtones of the group—”

  “Scientific-sexual?”

  “Of course. But Advance is not stopping there. We are already engaged in the manufacture of a new line of perfumes for women, and cologne for men. We are planning the introduction of a new game which will, we predict, replace professional football as the most interesting game in America. We have a new contraceptive device which needs to be taken only once a year—a great boon for teenagers trying to hide nasty facts from their parents. Very shortly, we will begin marketing three-dimensional television. And finally, we have reason to believe that we are on the track of a mild viral illness which increases sexual potency.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Clark said, but he really did.