The Second Science Fiction MEGAPACK®. Robert Silverberg
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here,” he said.
Here was somewhere north of the Hollywood Hills, where the desert almost starts, in a non-committal way. We walked across a parking lot just a little bit too small to have its own moon to a completely nondescript bungalow which had a little brass sign by the door that read SIMULACRUM STUDIOS INC., which told me nothing at all, but told Henry enough that he got out an I.D. card of some sort, slid it into a lock, and the door buzzed open.
“I hope we’re not late,” I said. “The traffic.”
“They know about that.”
After a minute or two, I didn’t doubt that “they” knew about everything, because we’d just walked into what could have been the set for a spy movie. Henry used the I.D. card again, and again. Doors buzzed open. Panels slid back. Guys in uniforms made phone calls in hushed tones. We had to place our hands on scanners. The next thing, I was sure, was that we’d be crowded into a phone booth and there’d be no question that Henry knew what the secret number was, and then the floor would drop out…but no, it was just endless escalators, like the ones at Universal Studios where by the time you’re halfway down you realize you’ve left your stomach behind in the stratosphere and there’s a dinosaur waiting to eat you up at the bottom in the Jurassic Park ride…but I digress, and down we went, and down, and down, until we came to yet another series of vast, sealed off, secret rooms where scientists in lab coats passed silently this way and that and there wasn’t a crackling Jacob’s Ladder or cackling hunchbacked assistant in sight.
At last a very polite lady who could well have been the Chief Assistant Sub-Deputy Aide at the C.I.A. ushered us into a little circular theater of some kind and closed the door behind us.
I thought I heard air hiss, as if we’d been sealed into a space capsule.
The lights dimmed.
“Henry, what is this?”
“Be quiet. It’s what you’ve got to see.”
A panel slid back in the ceiling. Apparatus lowered.
And for a moment after that I thought we were going to die, or at least be blinded by the searing flash, because the thing coming out of the ceiling looked was a dead ringer for the gigantic laser that almost took Sean Connery’s balls off in Goldfinger—but the beam was gentle. It just touched the floor in front of us and then other beams shot out from the walls on either side, and in front of us, and right over our heads, and all these beams of light mixed and whirled somehow, like paint you drop onto one of those little gizmos that spins the paper; only the result wasn’t just sunburst splotches and streaks. Not after a second or two anyway. A shape began to form in the middle of the air. It spread out, and split, until it had what we distinctly two legs, which lowered themselves down to the floor. The lights changed color now, and texture, if light can be said to have texture. From the apparatus came a high-pitched whining and the smell of ozone. The light rippled, like a reflection on a pool in sunlight, and the thing before us was definitely human-shaped now, a man, yes; I could make out the face, a little, a bit more.
Then the machinery stopped, the lights came back up, and there he was, standing in front of us, as real as could be, if such words have any meaning anymore.
My agent got up and went over to the man in the Galactic Avengers uniform who stood in the middle of the circular floor. Then he turned back to me.
“Jerry Jack Miller, I’d like you to meet Carl Sanderson.”
I didn’t know what to say or do. I just gaped.
He, it, Sanderson or the thing which looked like Sanderson, square jaw and all, flashed me his famous smile, twinkled his blue eyes, and said, “Don’t bother to get up.”
He held out his hand, and I reached for it, but he missed and his hand passed right through my forearm. Sparks flew. I felt a shock and gave out a yell and drew back.
Sanderson rippled, his whole body shifting side to side real fast, and his head seemed to jerk in a way no living human being’s head could ever move, and he said, “Pl—please—pleased to—”
“Sometimes it takes them a moment to get the calibrations exactly right,” Henry whispered. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
Henry flashed me his famous smile, which is closer to what a rat sees when confronted by a hungry cobra who says to him, Let’s make a deal; but he was my agent and I remembered that he was on my side.
Then Sanderson shook my hand, and his touch was warm and firm, and he said, “Always pleased to meet one of my fans.”
The C.I.A. lady came in and said, “Would you excuse us? Mister Sanderson has to meet the press before tonight’s appearance.”
The two of them went out and it was Sanderson who very solidly opened and closed the door for the lady, being a far more impeccable gentleman in “life” than he was on TV.
I stared at Henry.
“So, what was that? Is this the big secret, that Sanderson’s even more of a fake, that they’ve got holograms to take his place for his public appearances—?”
“It’s not a hologram, exactly. It’s a multiple-task, self-programming, holographic AI.”
“AI?”
“Artificial Intelligence. It’s generated as you have seen. If they put enough power into it, it can retain its integrity for weeks at a time. A single zap and a Virtual Cast Member can last through an entire film shoot.”
“But this is ridiculous. No, it’s obscene. What does the real Carl Sanderson do, just hang around in his palace, get laid, and collect his checks?”
“That was the real Carl Sanderson, Jerry. He does everything an actor is expected to do, only better. He never forgets his lines.”
“I’ll bet.”
“That would be a very safe bet, Jerry. He is totally reliable.”
“But the original, human, flesh-and-blood Sanderson—?”
“You don’t get it, Jerry, do you, unless I have to spell it out. There is no such person as Carl Sanderson, not anymore. There is only the simulacrum. The guy who started out as a TV cowboy in the ’60s, well, his career didn’t go forward. Only a few of his, you might say, talents, have continued—”
“But that’s awful—”
“So as you see, his famous square jaw is not a prosthetic. He is a prosthetic.”
“Oh, shit.… What does it mean?”
“What it means, Jerry, is that you are the author of all those books you write. You and nobody else? Even AI programs aren’t smart enough to write novels yet. So doesn’t that cheer you up? Isn’t everything all right now, kiddo?”
I was almost in tears then.
“No,” I said. “No, it isn’t.”
“Jerry,” he said sternly. “You knew what you were getting into when you became my client. Grow up, kiddo. If you can’t take the heat, get out of the damn swimming pool.”
“Metaphors were never your strong point, were they Henry?”
“I got plenty of strong points. But you, kiddo, need a good talking to.”
#
So I got a good talking to, later, at Frankenstein’s Haunted Restaurant (now a chain, under new management) where one of the trick tables nearby tipped over suddenly while the waiter was taking an order, and everybody tittered nervously. I looked up. When I looked down again a hand rose up out of our table top and put an eyeball in my drink, which lit up like a Christmas ornament and winked.
When I looked up from that, Boris Karloff as the The Bodysnatcher was sitting across from me, and explaining in that sinister, lisping voice of his, “We’re all dust in the end, Jerry, or random electrons. What does it matter? It’s what you