Sales Talk by Con Blomberg (read book TXT) 📖

day and they'll take me into an operating room and put some tiny probes into my brain, and aside from a momentary twinge or two, I won't feel a thing. And then when it's over I'll walk out of the room looking just the way I did before, except that I'll have a neat little connection mounted high on the left side of my head where it can be tastefully covered with hair when not in use.

"And I'll probably come back to this apartment to find the Electronic Living Machine installed in that corner, tastefully decorated to look like an old-fashioned antique bookcase, or a modern bar, or whatever I want it to look like. But whatever it looks like, there will be a comfortable chair unobtrusively attached to the ELM and sooner or later I'll sit down in that chair and read over the list of Life Experiences and select one.

"Then I'll sink back in the chair and the little connection on my head will fit neatly into another little connection on the chair, because my chair will fit only me, and it will fit me perfectly.

"And then, while I drift off to EL-land, the chair will unfold around me so that all sight and sound and almost all feeling will disappear and I'll be like a chrysalis in a cocoon.

"So for two or three or eight hours I'll stay inside the cocoon, living another person's life. And while I'm in there, everyone will be sighing a sigh of relief that here is another potential producer who has finally given up the ghost and turned consumer.

"Then when the tape is through, the cocoon will open and I'll wake up tired or refreshed or satiated or somehow changed, and then I'll get out to the food center and dial a meal or call someone up, or go out and walk around or something."

I was really getting wound up, but Long broke in on me. "Tell me a little more," he said, "about that one idea, will you? You know, the idea about how you will give up being a producer and will be all consumer?"

"I was just coming to that," I said hotly. "Yes, they'll probably enroll my name on the EL subscribers roll with a big cheer, and all my non-EL friends will hear about it and they'll raise their eyebrows, or maybe they'll sign up too.

"But the point is this. Is it right for me, a big, strong, healthy human being with powers of perception and reasoning and a capability for work and creativeness—is it right for me to substitute this dream world of EL for actual real thinking, or doing, or creating? Do any of us have the right to subvert our normal impulses for creation and for living in this way?"

"A good question," said Long with a sigh. "I'm afraid he's put it in pretty unanswerable terms, all right. Except for one minor point, I couldn't help but agree with everything he said, in spite of the fact that I—well, I'm sold on EL, naturally."

We sat for a while just sort of gazing around at nothing.

Finally Blik spoke up. "What was that one point that you disagreed on Jack?" he asked his partner. "I've been running Mr. Gaines' statement over in my mind and I can't seem to find the flaw you mentioned."

"Oh, it was nothing," said Long impatiently. "Just a minor point."

"No, I mean it," said Blik. "I'd really like to know."

"Not worth talking about. Let's pack up and not take any more of Mr. Gaines' time."

"Come on, Jack, tell me what it was," said Blik, in a rather positive way, I thought.

"Really, Arnie," said Long, firing up a little, "take it easy, will you? We don't want to have to argue about some little point that doesn't mean anything. Just forget it."

His attitude changed quickly from irritation to downright nastiness. Apparently, as head of the sales team, he wasn't going to take anything from a subordinate. It kind of irritated me in turn, because he gave me the impression that he felt as if he was too good to talk with us about it.

"All right, all right," said Blik, "the hell with it. So it was a minor point."

"Why not tell him?" I asked Long, cutting in quickly as Blik made a move to pack up the Sim.

Long turned toward me with a supercilious look that put me in the same category as assistants who had the temerity to question the boss. Then in an instant the mask returned and he was just as polite and smooth as ever—but I'd seen the crack in the slickness before he changed. It really got me where I live. That's one thing I can't stand—an assault on the ego by a slick bum like that, who thinks he's so good.

"Oh, I don't see how it can be that small a point," I said. "Especially if you thought of it." I said the last part as insultingly as I knew how, and I saw the color rise in his face.

"Yes, speak up," said Blik, siding with me. "He's got a right to know."

"All right," said Long with some asperity that even the professional mask couldn't hide, "but I warn you that it's strictly a minor point."

"So it's a minor," said Blik. "Tell us."

"The point is," said Long, after a short pause to collect his thoughts, "that EL fills a need for some people. You see, with the big upsurge in automation years ago, it got harder and harder for a production-oriented economy to survive. Jobs got fewer and easier. People were thrown out of work. During the early years of automation, there was a lot of population displacement because of a lack of jobs, and this made for a lot of economic juggling which really didn't help matters.

"It wasn't until some ten years ago that people finally came to the conclusion that production was outstripping the need for labor and that, in fact, production was beginning to become a burden on the economy. And so they turned things around a bit. Instead of giving rewards and subsidies to the production end of the economy, they began giving it to the consuming end. That was really the only way out of the hole.

"But it was soon found that people are not merely organisms geared to consume. At first it was grand and glorious, but after a bit the urge to create, to work, to think began to assert itself strongly, and that's where EL came along. EL was developed to give unsatisfied people satisfactions that they couldn't get anywhere else. They couldn't be allowed to produce because that was what was wrecking things. So they had to be provided with a synthetic 'production-fulfillment.'

"Today these producer-minded people can get any sort of satisfaction they need from EL, and it keeps them from wandering around trying to produce something that would just be a hindrance. After all, what we need is consumership, not production.

"But that's a relatively minor point, as I said earlier," Long concluded looking at me with a superior air. "It's such a minor point, it won't even bear discussion."

His manner, underneath the slick facade, implied that he wouldn't deign to discuss it with two peasants like Blik and me under any circumstances.

"Just a minute," I said. "It's not a minor point at all. It seems to me that you've hit the core of the problem."

"A minor point," insisted Long, his eyes blazing, although his face retained the mask of the smiling salesman.

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear," I said. "Have you ever stopped to think that if you take EL into the larger picture, it does serve a purpose, and perhaps we are all here for a different reason than I had originally discussed? Maybe the thing to be is a super-consumer—maybe definitive consumership is the most vital thing in our life, not the production of things."

"Well, that's an idea, sure enough," said Blik suddenly. He had been silent during the flare-up between Long and me. "But I can't help but think," he continued, "that your original argument was a little tighter. The old virtues do have a place, don't they?"

You see how slick, how well-trained, how cunning they were? When Blik opened his mouth, the bubble burst, and I knew that they had neatly switched me around to where I was arguing against myself. Up until the instant Blik started talking, I was actually selling myself on EL, and the truth was that I had almost completed the job by that time. If he had remained silent, I probably would have signed the contract—I think I would have fought to sign it.

I felt an emotion of strength and power then. A top EL team had given me the works and I had seen through them. They still didn't know they had lost, but they would—just as soon as I opened my mouth to speak. The emotion of victory is sweeter than almost anything else, and all the sweeter for having skirted defeat.

"You know, Arnie," I said, "I agree with you. The old virtues are best. I think EL is a living hell."

It was a sight to see, believe me. Their slick, slick faces folded like paper houses in a hurricane. Blik's hands were shaking as he bent over and started packing up the Sim without another word. You have to be good to know that fast that you have lost irrevocably.

They got up then and scooped their hats up from the floor and put them on. The gracious, gentlemanly conduct was a thing of the past.

"Tell me," said Long, his hand on the door, the edge of the EL contract peeking untidily out of his expensive briefcase, "where did we make our mistake?"

I laughed a good loud whoop. It felt good. "It was when Arnie here switched sides."

"Stupid fool," said Long, looking as though he wanted to slam the square box containing the Sim over Blik's head.

"Sorry, old man," Blik said, coloring a deep red. "I'll try to make it up next time."

"Not with me, you won't," said Long. "Technician!"

They opened the door and went out. I jigged with glee as I looked out the window and watched them cross the court. Long was walking along in a high dudgeon, his briefcase swinging angrily with every step. Blik was trotting along to one side and behind him, his shoulders slumped, defeat written all over his form and walk.

I looked around as the wall swung open and Rommy walked in with his hand outstretched.

"Congratulations!" he said, beaming widely. "It was perfect! My God, it's a delight for a director to work with a real group of competent actors. All three of you were perfect!"

"Thanks," I said. "I hope I was as good as you think when we play the tape back." I felt along the base of my skull where the transmitter hung encased in Natur-flesh and covered with fake hair. I could hardly believe it was there, it felt so natural.

Rommy looked out the window. Long and Blik were walking back through the gate, talking and waving their arms the way people do when they're excited about doing a good job.

"There's a pair of sweethearts," said Rommy. "Real actors, those boys. I checked out the transmission right up to the last minute and they really gave out—you couldn't find a quiver of disbelief or strain. They felt it."

"So did I," I said, sitting down and putting my feet up on a low table on the set. "Tell me, Rommy, what in hell is EL going to use these tapes for, anyway? It seems to me it would be sort of dangerous to put all this on tape."

"We couldn't tell you before because it might have spoiled your reactions, but we have a lot of EL subscribers who are down deep opposed to EL, and this tape will be sort of a catharsis for them. It'll give them a real jolt."

"Oh, producer types who are struggling to become consumer types," I said. "They'll experience the role I just got through playing, and it will make them feel they didn't sign the contract, huh?"

"There's more to it than that," said Rommy. "There are some people who just like to experience an extremely strong sales-resistant emotion, mostly because they're pushovers. We wouldn't make a tape like this just for the anti-EL jerks. It's too expensive."

"Tell me," I said, "what are you using Long and Blik for? I thought I detected transmitters on them, too."

"Just the opposite from what you were doing. Some people like to experience a setback or even a complete failure now and then. Sort of an opposite to the 'high' tapes. Lord knows we got hundreds of 'high' tapes, but not many low ones, so we're starting to build a