They've tuned in at the end of a motivational self-help show. So far as Stan can make out, it's about channelling the positive energy rays of the universe through the invisible power points on your body. You do it through the nostrils: close the right nostril with the index finger, breathe in, open, close the left nostril, breathe out. It gives a whole new dimension to nose-picking.
The star of the show is a young light-haired woman in a skintight pink leotard. She looks familiar, but then such generic women do. Nice tits - especially when she does the right nostril - despite the air bubble chatter coming out of her mouth. So, something for everyone: self-help and nostrils for the women, tits for the men. Distractions. They don't go out of their way to make you unhappy here.
The pink leotard woman tells them to practise every day, because if you focus, focus, focus on positive thoughts, you'll attract your own luck to yourself and shut out those negative thoughts that try to get in. They can have such a toxic effect on your immune system, leading to cancer and also to outbreaks of acne, because the skin is the body's largest organ and extra sensitive to negativity. Then she tells them that next week the feature will be pelvic alignment, so they should all reserve their yoga mats at the gym. She signs off with a freeze-frame smile.
Could that be Sandi, Stan wonders, Charmaine's erstwhile low-rent friend from PixelDust? No, too pretty.
New music comes on - "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," sung by Judy Garland - and with it the Consilience logo: CONSILIENCE = CONS + RESILIENCE. DO TIME NOW, BUY TIME FOR OUR FUTURE.
Yes, it's another Town Meeting. Stan yawns, tries not to yawn again. He opens his eyes wider. Here come the usual head-deadeners: the graphs, the statistics, the hectoring disguised as uplift. Violent incidents are down for the third time in a row, says a small guy in a tight suit, and let's keep that arrow moving: shot of a graph. Egg production is up again. Another graph, then a shot of eggs rolling down a chute and an automatic counter registering each egg with a digitized number. Stan has a pang of nostalgia - those chickens and eggs were once his chickens and eggs. They were his responsibility, and, yes, his tranquility. But now all that has been taken away from him and he's been demoted to chief toe licker for Jocelyn the spook.
Suck it up, he tells himself. Close the right nostril, breathe in.
Now another face comes on. It's Ed the confidence man, onscreen to make them all feel confident, but an Ed who's more substantial and assured, weightier in manner, more full of himself. Maybe he's scored a major contract. In any case, he's puffed up with the importance of what he's about to deliver.
The Project has been going well, says Ed. Their unit, here at Consilience, was the first, the pioneering town, and others in the chain have similarly prospered. Head office is getting inquiries daily from other stricken communities, who see the Project as a way of solving their own problems, both economic and social. There are different, more old-fashioned solutions to these problems - Louisiana has kept its honey-hole model, the for-profit hosting of recalcitrants from other states, and Texas is still dealing with its criminality statistics by means of executions. But many jurisdictions are looking for a more rewarding...for a more humane, or at least a more...for something more like Consilience. There is every reason to believe that their twin city is being viewed at a high level as a possible model for the future. Full employment is hard to beat. He smiles.
But now, a frown. In fact, says Ed, the model has been shown to be so effective - so conducive to social order, and, because of that, so positive in economic terms, and indeed so positive for the invest - for the supporters and visionaries who'd had the courage and moral fibre to see a way forward in a time of multiple challenges...The Consilience model has been, in a word, so successful that it has created enemies. As successful enterprises always do. Where there is light, it does seem a rule that darkness will shortly appear. As it now has, he is sorry to inform them.
An even deeper frown, a thrusting of the forehead, a lowering of the chin, a raising of the shoulders: an angry-bull stance. Who are these enemies? First of all, they are reporters. Muck-raking journalists trying to worm their way in, to get evidence...to get pictures and other material that they can distort for so-called exposes, in order to turn the outside world against everything the Positron Project stands for. These shady so-called reporters aim to undermine the foundations of returning prosperity and to chip away at trust, that trust without which no society can function in a stable manner. Several journalists have actually made it inside the wall, pretending they wanted to sign on, but luckily they were identified in time. For instance, just the other day a female TV journalist with excellent credentials had been given a mini-tour under strict conditions of confidentiality but had been discovered in the act of taking clandestine pictures intended to present a slanted view.
How to explain the wish of such people to sabotage such an excellent venture? Except by saying they are maladjusted misfits who claim to be acting as they do in the interests of so-called press freedom, and in order to restore so-called human rights, and under the pretense that transparency is a virtue and the people need to know. But isn't it a human right to have a job? Ed believes it is! And enough to eat, and a decent place to live, which Consilience provides - those are surely human rights!
These enemies, not to mince words - says Ed - have already been involved in stirring up protest gatherings, luckily quite small ones, and have been writing hostile blog posts, though happily without credibility. None of this has gone very far as yet, because what evidence do such malcontents have for their scurrilous allegations? Scurrilous allegations that he will not dignify by repeating. These people and their networks must be identified, and then they must be neutralized. For, otherwise, what will happen? The Consilience model will be threatened! It will be attacked on all sides by what may seem at first like small forces, but together in a mob those forces are not small, they are catastrophic, just as one rat is negligible but a million rats is an infestation, a plague. So the sternest of measures must be taken before things get out of control. A solution is required.
And such a solution has indeed been devised, though not without much careful thought and the rejection of less viable alternatives. It is the best solution available at this time and in this place: they can take Ed's word for that.
And this is where he needs their cooperation. For the jewel in the middle of Consilience - Positron Prison, to which they have all given so much of their time and attention - Positron Prison has been chosen for a vital role in that solution. Every resident of Consilience will have a part to play, if only by keeping out of harm's way and being alert to subervsion from within, but for the present they can best help by simply going about their daily routine as if nothing unusual is happening, despite the unavoidable disruptions that may occur in that routine from time to time. Though it is earnestly hoped that such disruptions will be kept to a minimum.
Remember, says Ed, these enemies, if they succeeded, would destroy everyone's job security and very way of life! They should all bear that in mind. He has great faith in the common sense of the citizens of Consilience, and in their ability to recognize the greater good and to choose the lesser evil.
He allows himself a tiny smile. Then he is replaced by the Consilience logo and the familiar sign-off slogan: A MEANINGFUL LIFE.
--
Stan has found this news of interest, if it is news. Are there really subversives? Are they really trying to undermine the Project? What would be the point? He himself has fucked his life up, but for the other people in here - anyone he knows, at least - this place beats the hell out of what they had before.
He looks sideways at Jocelyn. She's staring thoughtfully at the screen, on which a toddler in the Positron preschool is playing with a blue knitted teddy bear, a ribbon around its neck. They've taken to running kiddie pictures after the Town Meetings, as if to remind everyone not to stray off the course Consilience has set for them, because wouldn't they be endangering the security and happiness of
these little ones? No one but a child abuser would do that.
Jocelyn switches the TV off, then sighs. She's looking tired. She knew what Ed was going to say, Stan thinks. She's in on his solution, whatever it is. Maybe she wrote the speech.
"Do you believe in free will?" she asks. Her voice is different; it's not her usual confident tone. Is this some kind of trap?
"How do you mean?" says Stan.
--
The first truck arrives the next morning. It's unloaded at the main gates: Stan sees this as he scooters to work. The people herded out are wearing the regulation orange boiler suits, but they're hooded, their hands plasticuffed behind their backs. Instead of being driven straight to Positron, they're shuffled along the street, shepherded by a batch of guards. The prisoners must have some way of seeing out the front; they don't stumble as much as you'd think. Some are women, judging from the shapes muffled beneath their baggy clothing.
No need to parade them like this unless it's a demonstration, thinks Stan. A demonstration of power. What's been going on in the turbulent world outside the closed fishbowl of Consilience? No, not a fishbowl, because no one can see in.
The other guys in the scooter repair depot glance up as the silent procession shuffles past, then return to their work.
"Sometimes you miss the newspaper," one of them says. No one replies.
THREAT
Charmaine saw the Town Meeting on TV, along with everyone else in the women's wing. Nobody had much to say about it, because whatever was happening wouldn't affect them, especially while they were inside the prison, so why worry about it? In any case, said someone in the knitting circle, so what if a reporter got in, because what could they report? There wasn't anything bad going on inside Consilience. The bad stuff was on the outside; that's why all of them had come in, to get away from it. Nods all round.
Charmaine isn't so sure. What if some reporter happened to find out about the Procedure? Not everyone would understand about that; they wouldn't understand the reasons for it, the good reasons. You could put a really unpleasant headline on such a story. She has a flash of herself, in a front-page photo, in her green smock, smiling eerily and holding a needle: DEATH ANGEL CLAIMS SHE SENT MEN TO HEAVEN. That would be horrible. She'd be the target of a lot of hate. But Ed won't let the reporters get in here, and thank goodness for that.
The next evening, after the communal meal in the women's dining room - chicken stew, Brussels sprouts, tapioca pudding - they all file into the main space, where the knitting circle meets. The teddy bear bin is half empty; it's their task to fill it before the month is out.
Charmaine takes up her allotted bear and sets to work. But when she's done only two rows, one knit, one purl, there's a stir. Heads turn: a man has walked into the room. This is almost unheard of, here in the women's wing. It's Ed himself, looking the same as when she saw him in Towel-Folding, though less relaxed. His shoulders are back more, his chin is up. It's a marching stance.
Behind him is Aurora with her PosiPad, and another woman: black hair, squarish face, a strong body, like someone who works out a lot - boxing, not yoga. Nice legs in grey stockings. Charmaine recognizes her: she's one of the talking heads from the validation screen in Medications Administration. So those heads are real after all! She's always wondered about that.
Is it her imagination, or has this woman singled her out, given her a brief nod, a quick smile? Maybe she's a secret ally - one of the behind-the-scenes rooters, one of those who's restored Charmaine to her rightful job. Charmaine gives a little nod in her direction, just in case.
Aurora speaks first. Here is Ed, their president and CEO - they will of course recognize him from his excellent Town Meeting presentations - and he has some very simple but very crucial instructions to give them at this juncture.
Ed begins with a smile and a gaze around the room. On the TV he's always friendly, makes eye contact, he somehow includes everyone in. He's doing that now, putting them at their ease.
He begins to talk. He knows they've seen the Town Meeting, and he has something to add about the crisis they are all facing - well, it isn't a crisis yet, and it's his job, and their job too, to make sure that it never becomes one. Scrutiny from the outside world is something Ed welcomes - he's happy to go out and speak on behalf of all of them here, and to gather support - but he will not allow the inmates to be pestered and slandered, because that is the aim of those who are set against them: pestering and slandering. Why should they be subjected to such treatment? It would be most unfair, after all the hard work they've been doing.
The women are nodding. He has their sympathy. How thoughtful he is, protecting them in this way.
The situation is under control, he continues, but meanwhile he's calling upon all of them to exert themselves even more than usual, in order to repel the barbarians at the gates who have declared themselves against the new way of ordering society they have been creating right here. The new order that is a beacon of hope, a beacon that risks being deliberately sabotaged.
But necessary steps are being taken. Some of those saboteurs have been identified, and they are being brought right here to Positron to be dealt with. Sticklers might not view such a move as strictly legal, but desperate situations require a certain bending of the rules, as he is sure they will agree.
He would ask them to help out in the following ways. No fraternizing with those new-style prisoners, even if an opportunity may present itself. Any unusual sounds are to be ignored. He can't say what these sounds might be, other than unusual, but they will know them when they hear them. Otherwise they are to carry on as normal, and to mind - he will put this colloquially - to mind their own business.
As if it's been orchestrated, there's a scream. It's distant - hard to say whether it's a man or a woman - but it's definitely a scream. Charmaine holds herself perfectly still; she wills herself not to turn her head. Did the scream come over the sound system? Was it from outside, in the yard? There's an imperceptible rustling among the women as they steel themselves against hearing.
Ed has paused a little, to make room for the scream. Now he continues. And finally, he says, he will now share with them, and he does apologize for this: during this crisis, and he does expect it to be cleared up soon, Positron Prison will not be the comfortable and familiar haven of friends and neighbours that they have helped to nourish. Regrettably, it will become a less trusting and open place, because that is what happens in a crisis - people must be on guard, they must be sharper, they must be harder. But after this interlude, if the forces acting for the greater good are successful, the normal pleasant and congenial atmosphere will return.
Now he hopes they will relax and keep on with what they're doing. He'll just stroll around and watch them at their work, because it is deeply encouraging to him to see them so peacefully and usefully employed.
"I guess that means keep on knitting," Charmaine's neighbour says to her. The knitting circle is being friendlier to her now that they know she's got her old job back.
"What was he talking about?" says another. "What sounds? I didn't hear anything."
"We don't need to know," says a third. "When people talk like that, it means don't even listen, is what they mean."
"I didn't get that about a crisis," says a fourth. "Did something blow up?"
Dang it to heck, thinks Charmaine. I dropped a stitch.
Then Ed is standing right beside her. He must have crept up. "That's an attractive blue bear you're knitting," he says to her. "It will make someone very happy." Charmaine looks up at him. He's against the light: she can hardly see him.
"I'm not very good at it," she says.
"Oh, I'm sure you are," he says as he turns away.
It comes to her in a flash: He knows about Max. She can feel herself blushing with shame. Now why did she have that thought? Why would he have any reason to know? He's too important to be bothered with people like her. She only had that thought because of the way she is, the way she can't shake Max out of her
head. Out of her body. The way she can't get clear.
VALENTINE'S DAY
It's Valentine's Day. Stan lies in bed. He doesn't want to get up, because he doesn't want to plod through the hours ahead, expecting to be ambushed at any minute by whatever foul or embarrassing surprise Jocelyn's planning to spring on him. Will it be a red cake plus tawdry heart-sprinkled crotchless lingerie for Jocelyn - or, worse, for himself ? Will there be a soppy and mortifying declaration of love from her, with the expectation of an equally soppy and mortifying one from him in return? Hard-shelled women like her can have slushy interiors.
Or will it be Option B - We're done here, you fail. Sandbag to the back of the skull from the lurking goon she's got hidden in the broom closet - he casts her regular chauffeur for that, supposing there is one and not merely a bot - then a needle in the arm to keep him out cold; then dragged into that creepy stealth car with the darkened windows and hauled off to Positron to be processed in whatever way they process people there. Then into the chicken-feed grinder, or wherever they dispose of the parts. The cake and the melting, tender, velvet-eyed confession, or the iron-fisted sandbagging? She's capable of either.
Having bullied himself upright, he pulls on his scooter-depot work clothes, then sneak-foots along the upstairs hall to listen at the top of the stairs. She must be in the kitchen; there are food smells and clinkings. He descends gingerly, peers around the doorframe. She's sitting at the kitchen table texting on her phone, a plate of tousled breakfast leftovers in front of her. She's wearing her I-mean-business outfit: tidy suit, gold earrings, the grey stockings. Her reading glasses are perched on her nose.
No cake. No goon. Nothing out of the ordinary.
"Sleep in?" Jocelyn says pleasantly. Should he say "Happy Valentine's Day," then advance and give her a kiss to forestall any nastiness? Maybe not. Maybe she's forgotten what day it is.