Buy or Die. There cometh a time of ruthless advertising

He took a deep breath. It was no good to argue with Toy.

“ОК. I will explain. The dog. It jumped out onto the road right in front of us and I instinctively turned the wheel away. You know, I love dogs. Maybe I love dogs way too much. I understand that this is a serious flaw, and I am working on it, but… Let us move ahead step by step. Alcohol is the first item on the agenda.”

Toy was silent.

“You should visit a psychoanalyst more often,” he said finally. “Remember my word, citizen, these dogs won’t make you well. Unfortunately, your unhealthy love for animals will not be a surprise for the authorities. I see no point in informing them again.”

“Again?”

“Actually,” Toy replied calmly, “I have reported three…”

There was a barely audible click.

“… three percent discount for umbrellas today in honor of the birthday of the senior cashier in the ‘Bears and the Bees’ shop right near your home.”

Toy choked and coughed.

“Three times.”

He sighed.

“I hoped they would at least forbid you from carrying that hairy stuff with a tail in the back seat!”

He sighed again.

“How naive I was! Just see what I am carrying now!”

“Are you finally done?” asked Z wearily.

“Yes.”

“Great. Then take me to the doctor.”

Chapter 2 | Wai

“Leave me alone, eh?” requested citizen Y334XT, or simply Y, pulling the blanket back over his head.

“Boom-boom-bam-boom bam-bam-boom bam-boom bam-boom-bam boom bam bam-boom-bam, boom boom-boom-boom, bam-bam-bam bam bam-bam-bam-boom bam boom-bam, boom-bam-boom-bam-boom-boom,” in despair, the servant tapped out quarter to seven on the blanket in Morse code.

He knew that Y didn’t understand Morse code, but just in case… what else could he do? His voice unit had burned out a month ago, though it would have been of little help anyway: at night, Y used earplugs. He also used them in the daytime. The apartment was old, the furniture and appliances were cheap and, consequently, talkative. Dignity, restraint and silence were not in fashion here. The house was full of sounds. Things mumbled, whispered, advised, recommended, sang, persuaded and exhorted. The fridge was positively unbearable. Its contents kept silent as long as the fridge’s door was closed, but started to shriek in dozens of tiny voices as soon as the door was opened. Expired products were the most boisterous: they had nothing to lose. Their desperate cries did not subside even with the closed door. The bathroom had gotten into the habit of thinking out loud all the time. The toilet just could not shut up. The kitchen was even worse… So Y was rarely seen without earplugs at home.

The servant stepped back from the bed and waited for a result in vain; the Morse code had no effect on his master. Unbelievable! Last night, he put a sheet with the Morse code alphabet under his master’s pillow. Moreover, he saw with his own lenses that the master had found the sheet and even read it. And yet he did not remember.

The servant, like all robots, greatly overestimated his master’s mental abilities. Made in his image and likeness, he judged everyone by himself, and he simply could not believe that everything was so bad. The unwillingness of the master to yield to such a trifle as an upload of a miserable kilobyte of data to memory served as an inexhaustible source of frustration for the poor fellow.

The servant looked at his watch. Six hours fifty-five minutes. He went to the kitchen, borrowed some ice cubes from the fridge, returned to the bedroom, and stuck the ice under the blanket. His efforts were immediately rewarded with fierce curses. Y finally sat up in bed and glared at the dial.

“Bloody hell!” he groaned. “Five to seven! Are you kidding? We’re too late. How many times have I asked you to wake me up earlier?”

The servant bowed silently and went into his corner.

Y looked around. Tess slept soundly, not aware of Twick’s heel, which was, without doubt, very dirty and smelly, right under her nose. Twick (who had had nightmares lately, making him move from his own bedroom to his parents’ in the mornings) slept like a log, and only Tess could wake him up. Kwick slept across Twick. He could sleep until the Judgment Day, or until Twick woke up – whichever came first. And finally, like a cherry on a cake, Mick crowned the heap. He slept like a baby, was a baby, and, most importantly, was utterly content to be a baby. It was Kwick’s job to wake Mick up in such a way he immediately was in a good mood, skipping all the numerous other gloomy states.

Y gently touched his wife by the shoulder. She instantly opened her eyes.

“Just a second. Everything is almost ready,” she said vigorously, and closed her eyes again.

Y smiled and, leaning toward his wife’s ear, said clearly: “Five minutes to seven.”

There was a terrible curse in return, but in less than a minute, Tess woke up Twick, who woke up Kwick, who somehow managed to jolt Mick wide awake. The most amazing thing is that all three were in excellent spirits.

“They’re probably not my children,” Y mused aloud. “I never, never managed to smile before ten o’clock!”

“What? What? What? What? Wait a second.”

Four pairs of eyes stared at him questioningly. Four pairs of hands stretched to pull the earplugs from their ears. Y shook his head hastily.

“Nothing. Nothing at all. Good morning to everyone!” he yelled as loudly as he could.

Tess herded the whole flock to the bathroom, and Y went to the kitchen to chat with the chef.

“Good morning, Poe,” he said. “What are you going to feed us today?”

In response, the cook opened the door of the refrigerator. It was empty.

“Well, I know you’ll manage somehow,” Y said. “I trust you, my friend. By the way, we’re running late.”

The cook’s lenses flashed, but he turned away silently and began to rattle some utensils.

At ten minutes past seven, breakfast was ready. The family tradition required that everyone was able to speak and hear each other at breakfast. Earplugs were pulled out.

Twick took his plate and the smile at once disappeared from his face.

“Oatmeal,” he announced darkly. “Again. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Yeah, really,” added Kwick. “I’m fed up with it too. Do you take us for done cases?”

“For donkeys, dear,” Tess automatically corrected. “Don-keys.”

“Thanks, ma.” Kwick replied. “So, you do. I always thought so.”

Mick anxiously twisted his head, assessing the situation, but so far he was silent.

“Oatmeal is very wholesome,” Tess said with a lack of confidence.

“And if someone wants something harmful?” Twick retorted.

“It is not!” cried Kwick with his lips treacherously quivering. “It’s the opposite. Oatmeal is killing us!”

Mick frowned at this and began to push the plate slowly away from him.

“Boys!” Tess raised her voice.

“What?!” Twick exploded. “I can’t eat it, and that’s it!”

“I can’t either!” Kwick joined hastily.

Mick perked up and forcefully pushed his plate away, spilling the contents onto the table.

“Me too!” he announced happily. “Me too cannot. Oats meal is a bad meal!”

“Ma,” Twick whined, “why it is always a porridge? Why can’t we have, say, an omelette for a change?”

“Omelette! Omelette! Omelette!” the trio began to chant.

Y glanced at his watch and shook his head.

“What’s an omelette? We are already late.”

After thinking this over for a second, Kwick clenched his teeth decisively.

“Then I will not go to school,” he declared.

“If he doesn’t,” Twick added hastily, “I won’t either.”

“Me too!” Mick yelled happily. “Never ever forever!”

The adults exchanged glances. Y looked at his watch again, sighed, leaned back in his chair, and said casually:

“I bet you can’t guess what I dreamed about last night…”

The children froze.

“Jack of Air?” still not believing his luck, suggested Kwick cautiously.

Y raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“How did you know? Right, it was Jack in person. And guess what happened this time!”

The children, as if spellbound, slowly took their spoons, scooped up the porridge, and brought it towards their mouths. Tess turned away, hiding a smile. Jack helped invariably. He was always at hand – in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.

Jack was the hero of the book that Y had been writing for many years in the evenings after the work, regularly falling asleep at the keyboard. The venture was almost hopeless, but Y did not give up, and the work slowly moved forward. As far as Tess could judge, the book was going to be a good one, but even now it was already too large and intimidating. The book was about Jack, or rather, as Y had explained after taking in a serious extra portion of alcohol, the book was about all of us, born human and ceasing to be human gradually. So gradually that, going along this road, nobody sees the changes and only gets horrified at the very end, after turning and seeing the completed path. Jack had a model or, rather, two models, taken from the few men Y could more or less get along with. These two were himself and his friend, Z. More of Z, actually, as Y was well aware that he himself was too far from the generally accepted male format.

Jack’s days, no matter how inspirationally Y colored them on the pages of his book, were coming out one worse than the other, as slow gray drops, flowing down into a common dead puddle. The nights were better. At night, Jack could fly in his dreams. In his dreams, he knew and could do things that he never thought of in daylight. In his dreams, he was light as air. Damn it, he was the air! And they called him Jack of Air in these dreams. At first, true, his name was Air Jack, but later, to avoid unpleasant allusions to that stupid device for lifting heavy objects, he became Jack of Air, the fearless and noble hero in a consistently good mood. Very canonical. And it was these very dreams that Y fed together with porridge to his children for breakfast in the mornings. All in all, it was better than just storing them in a drawer. Y strongly doubted that anyone would ever publish his book (that is, of course, if he ever finished it).

***

“And guess what happened with Jack this time?” Y asked. “I must say, it was a rather nasty affair.”

He paused, watching the children mockingly.

“As a matter of fact,” he announced finally, “Rock Doc lured him to the factory of air balloons!”

“But how?” Kwick gasped.

“Outwitted…” Y cut off.

“And not only to the factory,” he continued, “but straight into the machine that fills the balloons with air. Here it is. Jack hardly had time to look around, as he was already pumped into one thousand balloons. Or maybe two thousand. I did not count, you know. I slept.”

“Bloody shit!” Kwick exclaimed.

“Wha-at?” Tess drawled menacingly.

“Nothing,” Kwick replied hastily. “Keep going, Dad. Keep going.”

“So,” Y continued, “Jack was pumped into one or, maybe, two thousand air balloons, delivered to stalls all over the city and, in less than an hour, he was all sold out. At a discount. So he found himself in a thousand or, maybe, two thousand different places at the same time, locked securely in a rubber casing, dangling on a thin rope without the slightest chance of getting out… And do not forget your porridge.”

Spoons obediently plunged into the bowls, and Rock Doc issued encouraging yet ominous (he was still a very bad guy) laughter: “A-ha-ha!” And then: “O-ho-ho!” And, finally, “E-he-he.” Why not? Nobody could prevent him from taking possession of the whole Earth now.

“Doc started with a visit to a president. The president was watering his favorite ficus at the moment.

“Hey, you!” Doc called from the doorway in a boorish tone. “Are you the big boss here?”

The president paid him no attention at all, continuing to water his ficus as if nothing had happened. They, these presidents, had been taught not to pay attention to rudeness and criticism from their very childhood. But the Rock Doc was not a guy to be easily embarrassed.

“Well now,” said Doc, “kindly leave the flower alone and get out of this nice place immediately. I’m the boss here now!”

The president did not answer to this either. He just pressed the alarm button on the bottom of the ficus’ pot, a bit more nervously than before. Well, and he poured too much water into the pot. Trained as he was, he was not a superhero.

Rock Doc saw that peaceful methods would not work, and calmly pressed his index finger to the wall. And we all remember why he is called Rock Doc, don’t we? Exactly! The moment his finger touches something, that something turns into solid stone immediately. So it did: right before the president’s eyes, a stone wave started to spread out from the finger on the wall like circles on the water. The next moment, all the president’s bodyguards broke into the room, waving with their pistols, and immediately turned to stone. The president saw his guards stuck in the most ridiculous poses, while the petrification steadily approached his favorite ficus. The president understood: sticking to the protocol somehow would not help today.

“Okay, okay,” the president says in a great haste. “Why this terrible violence? It is absolutely unnecessary between the two of us. You won – I’m leaving. But remember: you will never get this wonderful flower. Never!”

He jerked the ficus out of the pot (which was too heavy to be carried away) and plodded towards the exit sadly. At the threshold, he turned around just to say gloatingly:

“We’ll see how you like this. The position is unenviable.””

Y paused.

“So, then what?” Kwick urged him on.

“Well, it surely would have been the end of the story and, most likely, the end of everything else had Jack not recovered by that time.

At first, right after Jack was packed, there were several rather shameful moments of serious bewilderment and abashment. Well, these moments were shameful but excusable: it’s hard to remain focused when your right eye is visiting the zoo, while the left is swiftly leaving town in a wedding car; one ear is visiting a paleontological museum and another is attending a children’s party; your arms, legs and body are devil knows where, and your brain seem to be lost altogether. It’s expected that some minor confusion is quite natural and even welcome in such circumstances.”

“Yeah!” Twick breathed out, highly impressed.

“Sure!” affirmed Kwick.

“My wudnat confuse!” assured Mick, as self-confidently as any person under five.

“And nobody doubts it, dear,” Y agreed. “Jack “wudnat’ be confused for too long either. He clenched his teeth and, with one terrible effort of will, gathered himself back. The air balloons, sure enough, had no choice but to flow to him like little obedient clouds. Oh, what a wonderful sight it was! At once, they all rushed into the heavens, leaving their perplexed little owners far beneath, although not all of them – a dozen or so kids had flown away on their balloons. Either they didn’t have time to let go of the string, or their mothers had tied the strings to their sleeves. Later on, Jack, of course, returned them to their parents. No, Mick, do not worry, he returned the balloons too.

So, with or without the kids, all the balloons finally came together. The whole thousand or two. And together they composed a huge monster all built of balloons. Two thousand balloons, just imagine. Huge as it was, it appeared to be very light. The slightest breeze was a disaster for him. Now and then a leg or an arm would come off with a gust of wind. It was twice as bad if it was the hand that was holding his head. For his head itself only seemed to think about how to fly away. In general, Jack had enough problems to deal with. He had no time to be bored, that was sure. Such a loose body he had; more a travesty than a body.

As you know, Jack did not like to waste his time. It was not that easy, and took him a while to get to the president’s apartments. Anyway, he got there. Once there, he grabbed the fence, so as not to fly away by chance, and shouted in a menacing voice: “Come out, villain, and fight!”

Rock Doc almost choked on a pie he was eating (the president’s refrigerator was stuffed with the best pies). Well, had there been any choice left to him? Nope. Not a single one. So, he finished the pie and came out for battle. He looked around and at once spotted Jack, who fluttered in the wind, grabbing the fence with one hand and holding his own head with the other. Rock Doc had never laughed so much before.

“Oh,” he said, having calmed down a bit, “I’m so scared, bro. I’m so scared. Even more so, as I need to sneeze and can’t even imagine where we will find you if that happens.”

He started to laugh again and just couldn’t stop, as if someone had tickled him. Jack, not saying a word, just waved his hand (which had some three hundred balloons in it) and hit Doc right in the ear! Doc stopped laughing at once and shook his head fiercely to get rid of the awful ringing in his ears. I must say that Doc got angry very quickly. And this very anger played a very nasty joke on him, because Doc, not thinking for long, poked Jack with his finger and ordered him to turn to stone. So Jack did. That is, he turned to stone at once.”

The hushed trio at the table gasped.

“Yes, Jack was petrified,” continued Y. “More precisely, the balloons were, not Jack. How on earth can you turn air into stone? Air is air and air it will remain. Balloons are another matter. With their new stony weight, they poured down on the ground like peas. Each pea, hitting the ground, shattered into pieces, setting free yet another part of Jack. In less than a minute, Jack was complete again.”

At this point Y noticed at last that Tess had been sending him desperate signals for some time now. He glanced at his watch, lifted his eyebrows and hastily finished the story.

“And this time, Doc got such a beating from Jack that I can hardly share the scene with you. Just believe me, the evil was punished. And now everyone needs to get dressed and do it very quickly. Twick’s lessons start in five minutes.”

Chapter 3 | Audiologist

“Hello, what seems to be the problem?” The doctor’s rosy face shone with optimism and self-confidence.

“My ear hurts,” Z replied gloomily.

“Does it hurt, ache, or hear poorly?” the doctor laid out his assortment smartly. “Or maybe you are just not happy with its shape?”

“Most likely the latter,” agreed Z. “I am not happy with its new shape.”

He gently touched the sticking plaster on his ear.

The doctor’s face froze.

“What happened?” he asked, for some reason now looking at the door and not at Z.

“An accident. I chopped it off with a car door,” Z explained.

“I see, I see,” the doctor said absently, never taking his eyes off the door.

The door opened, letting in two male nurses. One of them with a bored look remained on the threshold, the other went to the window and casually sat on the window sill.

For a while everyone was silent.

“What’s going on?” Z asked.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” the doctor replied. “So what were we talking about? Ah, yes, your ear. Well. Let’s proceed. Your identity, please.”

“Z368AT.”

“Occupation?”

“Undo service.”

“At what age did you have your first sexual experience that involved another person?”

“At sixtee…” Z stopped abruptly. “What on earth does that have to do with my ear?”

The doctor smiled wearily.

“Never mind. That’s just the formal questionnaire. So at what age did you have your first sexual experience?”

“At sixteen.”

“Your orientation?”

“Traditional.”

“Everything is traditional. May I have more details, please?”

“Women,” Z explained concisely.

“So old-fashioned…” The doctor was surprised. “Are you a sectarian?”

“No, just a man.”

“It’s okay,” the doctor reassured. “There is nothing to be ashamed of.”

He took off his spectacles.

“Okay, next question. Have you had any mental or sexual disorders in your family history?”

Z stood up from his chair with a jerk. Somehow he, the doctor, and the two orderlies managed to do this with amazing synchrony.

“What’s going on?” Z asked with annoyance.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” the doctor replied reassuringly. “I beg you, please sit down. We do not want to… Do we?”

He looked back at the orderlies. They shrugged indifferently.

“No,” Z decided. “We do not.”

He sat down slowly. The doctor, after a pause, sat down too. The orderlies remained standing. The doctor sighed heavily.

“Okay. Let’s see what you have there. Please remove the patch.”

Z felt the corner of the sticking plaster and gently pulled it down. The plaster peeled off surprisingly easily as if it hung on the skin only due to friction. The doctor and the two orderlies, with bated breath, watched the procedure.

“Here it is,” Z said modestly, removing the plaster completely and turning to the doctor sideways.

The doctor approached cautiously.

“But this is not a bite!” he exclaimed.

“This is not a bite,” the first orderly confirmed indifferently.

“Nope,” agreed the second.

“Then you both can go,” the doctor commanded, and the orderlies retired.

In the silence that followed, the doctor began filling out some papers.

“What was it?” Z asked.

“Pure formality, I told you already.”

“For what?”

The doctor sighed.

“This is a very characteristic injury. Just a marker. Well, right ear. We are obliged to detain such patients until the police arrives.”

“I do not understand,” Z admitted.

“Well… Every home robot has this feature.”

“What feature?”

“Well, a program that makes it bite off the right ear of a rapist.”

“What’s a rapist?”

“Usually the owner is the abuser,” explained the doctor reluctantly. “Or some other member of the family. Children, for example. Less often, pets…”

“You do not mean sexual abuse, I hope?” Z asked unbelievingly.

“Unfortunately, I do. And do not look at me like that. If you knew how many patients without a right ear I have here every month…”

Z opened his mouth, then closed it again and shook his head.

“Damn it!” he said emphatically. “Damn it all! Let’s return to my ear. What will we do with it?”

The doctor thought for a second.

“First, take off your suit. A nurse will clean the blood from it. Yes. Good. Wonderful.”

“I’m more concerned about the ear,” Z reminded him.

“An ear?” the doctor shrugged. “This is the smallest problem. We will just make a copy from your left ear, invert it and place it in the incubator. Tomorrow morning you will have a new one, and even better than before. After it’s grafted onto the old spot, nobody will see the difference.”

“It’s that easy?” Z was surprised.

“Sure. Had you chopped off, say, your head, then, of course, we would have some troubles. But your ear…”

The doctor waved his hand casually.

“In the meantime, so that you don’t scare passersby, let’s try on a prosthetic.”

He rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a plastic human ear.

“Here it is. This one should fit. I’ll put it on with glue; should hold until morning. Just don’t get it wet.”

“I won’t,” Z promised. “But may I have a sick leave certificate for today?”

“Of course. Without any doubt. You need a good rest.”

***

Half an hour later they parted.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” the doctor was saying. “Any time after six in the morning. By that time your new ear will be completely ready.”

“Thanks. See you tomorrow then,” Z answered.

On the street, he unrolled his loot and ran through it with his eyes greedily.

“Visit otolaryngologist from 8:15 till 9:15. Diagnosis… Recommendations… Here it was! Sick leave for 2 hours (till 11:15).”

Z spat. What a generous world!

***

“Unbelievable!” Z brooded sitting in a cafe and fumbling for a cigarette in his pocket. “To get out of the car without any protection in the very center of the city! Best way to turn into an imbecile. I wonder if I would ever notice?”

He touched the ear mechanically and pulled back his hand at once.

“Great,” he summed up. “Just great.”

A drink or two would have helped him feel much better. Z glanced out the window, where Toy, shiny and clean-fingered, was bathing in the sunlight. And while he was there, a drink was out of the question. Z remembered how, having detected the smell of fresh beer, Toy drove him to the police station without a word. Toy had received an honorary sticker on his hood then, and Z had got the subway for half a year. Recalling this period, he shivered. On the other hand, it was the subway where he had met Ness.

“Bloody bastard”, Z murmured, squinting at the car. He finally found a “Cameleon’ pack in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette and flicked his lighter. A fiery tongue, shaped like a camel and changing its color like a chameleon, touched the tip of the cigarette.

“I warn you,” the cigarette squeaked, “I can do harm. For example, I can impair potency. And I am actually going to do this! Also, I may increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases. And you will see, I will increase it. Draw a horizontal line in the air if you want to know the details. Draw a vertical…”

Z waved his cigarette up and down impatiently, cutting off the squeak in mid-sentence. His thoughts returned to the recent incident. A fight in the street… It seems to be in the category of socially dangerous crimes already. He could consider himself lucky. It was a very near escape. And, thanks to recent changes in legislation, justice had no retroactive effect any more. Until you were caught at the scene of the crime you were innocent. Z automatically touched his ear and turned cold.

“Here it was! Or better to say, was not. That is, it was exactly at the scene of the crime now!”

He thought this over carefully. If the ear was found, this could be interpreted as if he, Z, was, although partially, detained at the crime scene. Or as if he had not left it completely. In that case, formally, the judgment should probably be made in proportion to the arrested part…

“Bullshit,” he interrupted himself. “Nobody will pick up someone else’s ear off the street.”

He drank his coffee in a gulp and went outside; he had to hurry. A bunch of kids had already gathered near Toy. They looked very excited and were discussing something heatedly, poking Toy’s windows with their fingers.

The cook really looked bad. His open eyes were swollen and had turned pale, and unpleasant yellowish-green spots were creeping across his face.

“I was telling him that smoking is harmful,” Z explained to the kids, nearing from behind. “He never listened. Never! And just imagine; he was still under ten!”