chapter forty‑four

"Andrew, Andrew, wake up."

Andrew opened his eyes; the secretary was talking to him.

"You can go in now."

"Oh yeah, thanks," Andrew stood up, knocked on the managing director's door and walked into the office.

Andrew felt very muddled, still drowsy from his nap, nothing seemed real any more.

A tall angry‑looking man wearing a smart grey suit was pacing up and down behind a desk.

"Sit down," snapped the man.

Andrew did.

The man stopped pacing and leaned menacingly across the desk at Andrew. "Do you have any idea what you've done?" demanded the man.

"Um ... wasn't it something about not selling enough Cola?" said Andrew uncertainly.

"Not that, you idiot! That was just a dream."

"What? Really? You're kidding. Oh, thank God!" Andrew was, understandably, ecstatic.

"Calm down for heaven's sake. Or we'll send you back there."

Andrew calmed down, very quickly.

"Do you have any excuse for your flagrant disregard of your instructions?"

"Instructions?" said Andrew feebly.

"The," the man banged his fist on the table, "instructions, BANG, that, BANG, you, BANG, were given in the Orange Room, BANG BANG BANG."

"Ah well," said Andrew nervously, "I didn't read them."

"You didn't read them!" The man stared at Andrew in disbelief. "You didn't read them." The man whirled around to look out the window.

Andrew could see the man's knotted shoulder‑muscles twitching through his suit.

"Why," thundered the man, clearly fighting to keep his voice even, "why didn't you tell somebody?"

"Oh I did," assured Andrew, thankful for a reprieve, "I definitely told Alex and I think I told Henry."

"But you didn't tell Brian? Brian was your contact - couldn't you tell? Didn't you notice he was always hanging around? Why didn't you tell Brian?"

"Well, we didn't trust him."

"We? We didn't trust him," said the man swinging back to face Andrew.

"Me and Alex. Maybe you should talk to Alex; he knows more about all this than I do."

"Oh he does, does he? Alex knows more about it than you do. Well let's get him in here, shall we? And why not Alice too? Let's get them both in."

The man stabbed his finger onto the button of an intercom, "send in those other two," he commanded.

Alice and Alex entered the room, Alex was back in his E‑Type body. He raised an eyebrow questioningly at Andrew, who raised both of his in reply.

"Sit down, sit down. Well here they are," said the man glaring at Andrew, "your creations."

"My what?"

"Your creations," said the man accusingly.

Andrew looked at Alex and Alice for confirmation that the man was, indeed, completely gaga. They gave it.

"Look," said Alex, "why don't you tell us what this is all about."

"Yeah," said Alice, "instead of ranting and raving like a demented idiot."

"All right, all right, just shut up and listen."

They shut up and listened.

"For decades we have been searching for a better society for the human race. After much research we came up with several possibilities, all of them, we felt, were equally good. After all; practically anything is better than what you had set up for yourselves. At great expense we set up miniature demonstration environments so that we could test the different alternatives on a representative of the end‑users. To make the test rigorous, we chose a section of the present society which complained the most and also had the least to complain about. We chose the, so called, Middle Class of the western world. Within that large group, we wanted Joe Average, somebody who was so ordinary that even computer‑programmers thought he was boring, so ordinary that even his own mother wouldn't recognize him in a crowd. So we picked you, Andrew Smith, or ..." the man paused dramatically as if he was about to unmask the murderer in an Agatha Christie novel, "should I call you Nigel Tork?"

Andrew blinked in confusion, "er, I think I prefer Andrew Smith."

"All right, so here we have Andrew Smith, the perfect guinea pig. Carefully we remove any memories of his previous life - if you can call it a life - that we thought could distract him from his task. Then somebody has a brain‑wave, or at least it seemed so at the time. Why not give the guinea pig the ability to change the environments? That way, he can smooth out any little problems he might find. A small change here, a bit of fine tuning there. Of course the amount of training required to handle the equipment that changes the environments is quite phenomenal, certainly well beyond the capacity of Mr Average, but we could link the equipment to the desires of the subject's brain - that was when we were still assuming he had one. All he had to do was wish for something hard enough and the machines would pick up the instruction and change the environment accordingly. Okay, so it doubles the cost of the project and uses an immense amount of power; it's worth it to get a perfectly tailored solution. After a long battle we are given the extra money, but only after I stake my reputation on it," the man paused again to glower at Andrew.

Andrew dutifully cowered back.

"So the subject has been scrubbed clean of any germs of thought which might infect or pollute our delicate environments. Then we have to brief him on his role and duties. We give him instructions that he is to spend at least a month getting to know each place, and then use a little of his power to make any improvements that he feels are vital. We never suspected, not for one moment, that he wouldn't bother to read them, after all, we reasoned, his brain had been half emptied; it would be starving for information, for some purpose. How wrong we were," the man shook his head sadly.

Andrew bit his lip and looked at Alex and Alice.

They both sat dumbfounded with their mouths open and their eyes bulging.

"What happens next? Andrew Smith is placed in the first environment, but having previously altered his personality badge he had absolutely no chance of fitting in. And what does he do?"

"Um ..." said Andrew.

"Does he study the society? No. Does he devise improvements? No. What does he do? He gets lonely! In one foul swoop he uses up all the power and creates himself an alter ego. Well not quite all, what little remains he uses to change and refine his new found buddy. Does he create another ordinary person, who would at least be useful to the project? No, of course not. He creates somebody who embodies everything which he lacks; intelligence, confidence, and drive. People with those qualities are perfectly happy in your old society, we don't need them wandering around screwing up our project."

"Um, no," agreed Andrew.

"Okay, we say, okay we made a mistake. The person we intended to be your confidant and best friend, Brian, couldn't perform his role correctly because by changing your badge you turned him into your lover. So we went back and asked for some more money to replace the power you wasted. After a lot of crawling we managed to get it. Meanwhile you and Alex are stumbling around creating all kinds of problems. Of course with Alex on the scene our calculations have gone right out of the window. He somehow manages to get to the commune ahead of you and steal the woman we had lined up for you. So what do you do?"

"Er ... I," began Andrew.

"Do you try to win her back? No. Do you accept it and enjoy the single life? No. You wait until we have provided the power and then create your idea of the perfect woman. Zap there goes all the power again. He's got everything he needs, we say, surely he will use it wisely this time. So we manage to get a drop more. And now comes, what I find, the most idiotic thing you did. Certainly the most self destructive. There you are, you have, in your opinion, the perfect woman, and the person who is good at everything you're not. The only thing which is likely to stop the perfect woman running off with the perfect man is the fact that he is a pimply faced teenager. So how do you use our final precious drop of power? You turn an acne ridden youth into an Adonis. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant."

Andrew was too overwhelmed by all of the pieces of jig‑saw falling loudly into place to say anything.

The man continued his tirade, "our one consolation is that at least you have been through all the environments and even if you haven't taken a blind bit of notice, your subconscious must have picked up something. So finally we come to the debriefing, we put you in a dream‑state and your subconscious, we thought, would show us what it felt was wrong with the different societies. We thought. In fact it takes off on a magical mystery tour, indulges itself with orgies and ridiculous fantasies. From which we can deduce ... nothing! I have a report here," said the man snatching a single sheet of paper from the desk and waving it in the air angrily. "Do you know what it says?" The man began reading from the sheet without waiting for a reply. "Psycho‑analytical report on subject Andrew Smith. Point one: subject shows an unusual preoccupation with electric toothbrushes - no evident justification. Point two: subject exhibits an irrational fear of being homosexual - probable cause: maternal influence." The man crushed the sheet into a ball and flung it at the wall. "That's it. Nothing more. Not a thing. All that work thrown away for garbage."

"But what ... I mean how ... Surely ..." Andrew didn't know what he wanted to say, but he knew he wanted to say something.

"But," said Alex firmly, "we did find the faults with all those societies."

"Hah!" said the man contemptuously, "do you really think those pitiful attempts at logic actually made any sense?"

"But you moved us on to the next place," argued Alex.

"Because," said the man, "it was obvious that you had stopped trying to integrate your self with the environment. There was nothing to be gained by leaving you there. We even tried to split you up, so that Andrew would have to act without your influence. But that was a waste of time because all he did was concentrate on trying to find you again."

"Ah," said Alex.

"Well," said Alice coming to the rescue, "why didn't you do something to correct the problem? Why didn't you tell Andrew what he was supposed to be doing? Why didn't you start again and make sure he was briefed properly?"

"You evidently don't appreciate the difficulties in setting up these environments. There are a lot of limitations on what we can or cannot do once the process has started. We can't take people in or out of the system while it's running, and our resources only allow for a few fully functional people, that's why we had to keep re‑using them."

"But we saw hundreds of people in the cities," protested Alice.

"They weren't fully functional, they could only walk up and down looking in shop windows," said the man in an exasperated voice.

"Hold on, hold on," said Alex smiling, "this is all very simple, this is just another dream."

Andrew and Alice smiled in relief.

"Yes of course," said Andrew, "these dreams are becoming more and more realistic. The last one I had, Jesus, it was depressing, and I even had memories to go with it."

"Yeah," agreed Alice, "I have dreams like that. My favourite one is where I remember how to fly. It starts off with me doing something really normal and then suddenly, POW, I remember that I can fly! And off I go, swooping about all over the place, it's fantastic. When I wake up I feel really great."

"Ooooh," said Alex, "very sexual."

"This must be one of yours, Andrew." said Alice. "What a conceited subconscious you must have to imagine that you created me and Alex. Still, I like the bit about being the perfect woman."

"No, it can't be one of mine, it makes me out to be a perfect idiot," said Andrew.

"And besides," said Alex, "it's much too clever for one of yours, I reckon it's a combined effort."

"Hey," said Andrew, "did I tell you that I found the Design Centre? I got the guy to reduce the elephant's memory, so I guess the Magic Forest is-"

"Hello, hello," interrupted the man impatiently, "I'm still here. Far be it from me to break up this social gathering, but you're totally wrong, this is not a dream."

"Well you would say that wouldn't you?" said Alex. "Why don't you prove it?"

"Shut up," shouted the man, he waved his hand angrily at Alice and Alex, they disappeared.

"As I was saying," continued the man, "this is not a dream, this is the closest thing to reality that you can remember."

"Hey, what have you done with them?" said Andrew furiously.

"What does it matter? You can always create some more friends," said the man condescendingly.

"But I didn't create them!"

"Of course you did, it must be obvious, even to you; you've all got the same juvenile sense of humour."

"But they exist now. They're real whether I created them or not, you can't just kill them off."

"I'll do what I damn well please. But for your information, they're quite safe. Quite safe, that is, until we devise a method of extracting all that power out of them. It's a pity we can't get it out of you."

"Well what are you going to do with me?"

"I suppose we'll have to send you back to your original society, though it will be expensive to wipe your memory and restore all the old stuff."

"What's it like there?"

"Well," said the man grinning fiendishly, "you remember the last dream you had? The one which you said was so depressing?"

"No, please not that," begged Andrew.

"It's the least you deserve. Now get out of my office while I think about it."

Anxious not to annoy the man further, though he doubted that was possible, Andrew left the office. Outside he found that the secretary had been replaced by Henry.

"Oh God, Henry, am I pleased to see you," said Andrew sitting down on a chair in front of Henry's desk. "You've always been pretty straight with me, at least I think you have. Tell me, this is just another dream isn't it?"

"What can I say? I just work here, it's not up to me to decide whether it's a dream or not."

"Decide? Surely it's not a matter of what you, or anybody, decides. I want to know the facts, is it real or not?"

"Well somebody has to decide what reality is, it can't decide for itself, you know. Or perhaps you don't? In fact now that I think about it, it's obvious that you don't, rather a silly question really, but then it was basically a rhetorical question, and they're usually such a waste of time, but somehow they find their way into conversations and once they're there it's hard to get them out. I gave up trying years ago, about the same time as I gave up smoking, actually. Heavens, that was a tough time, non‑smokers don't appreciate the enormity of the problem, there are no parallels, what else do you do twenty or thirty times a day, every day? Apart from breathing - I'd like to see them give up that," Henry paused to allow himself a short chuckle.

"Henry?" said Andrew before he could resume.

"Yes?"

"Who decides what reality is?"

"Well the individual, of course. Apparently you're an exception, but most people decide on their own reality, in fact they prefer it. I know I do. That's why I like books with ambiguous endings, so that I can decide what happens. Why should I let someone else dictate whether I'm cheered‑up or depressed? If I pick up a newspaper and it tells me that something really dreadful has happened, I just think; well, it's not really that bad, it's been blown up out of all proportion, and I forget about it. Why should I distress myself because someone else's reality is worse than mine?" Henry paused and looked at Andrew thoughtfully. "You know, Andrew, one thing I've noticed about you is that you're never willing to face up to your own responsibilities, now if you can find someone to decide your reality for you, then good luck to you. But personally I think it's time you made a few decisions for yourself."

"But who am I to decide on reality?"

"Oh for goodness' sake!" exclaimed Henry, finally losing his patience. "Do me a favour, Andrew, go back to sleep!"

Andrew closed his eyes and began counting sheep.