Drug of Choice

“You’re such a dear,” Sharon said, and kissed his cheek. She settled back in the seat and buckled her belt. “Well,” she said. “At last: it’s trippytime, darling.”

“So it appears.”

“It was good of you to come,” she said, “on short notice. I felt terrible about calling you.”

“I’m glad you did.”

There was a whine as the jet engines were started. The few remaining passengers filed down the aisle to their seats; up in front, they could see the stewardess closing the door. The steps were wheeled away.

“This is going to be a marvelous flight,” Sharon said. “I’ve decided.”

Clark said, “What exactly do we do?”

“It’s very simple,” she said. “We fly direct to Miami. Then we have a little stopover, and get the plane to Nassau. From there, we go by seaplane to San Cristobal.”

“Which is where?”

She laughed. “Silly, that’s part of the thing. Nobody knows. It’s a secret.”

Clark remembered seeing the tickets in her bedroom. They had been paid for by Advance. “Tell me,” he said. “How did you hear about this place?”

She sighed. “You doctors. You never get away from your patients long enough to…”

She picked up the latest issue of Holiday magazine and thumbed through it quickly, finally turning back a page. She handed the magazine to Clark.

The full-page ad read:

EDEN ISLAND

Everything Under The Sun

Never was there a resort like this before! Name your game: tennis, swimming, badminton, skin-diving, deep-sea fishing, hunting (wild boar), water-skiing — Eden Island has the finest, most modern facilities for everything. Or you may prefer to spend your time in our casino, dancing and dining at one of our twelve different clubs. Everything has been provided for you, all under the most expert management.

The sun, of course, takes care of itself.

Eden Island: there’s never been anything quite like it before.

There was also a large color photograph showing a beach, a dock with sailboats, and back from the shore, secluded in manicured grounds and shaded by palms, an enormous white resort complex of hotels, swimming pools and tennis courts. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

“Ads like this,” Sharon said, “have been running for weeks. Everybody’s talking about it. Everybody’s going. They say it will be the resort of the century, when it’s finished.”

“It’s not finished?”

“No. San Cristobal — that’s the real name of the island — is five square miles. The company that is developing it says they won’t finish for twenty years.”

“What company is that?”

She shrugged. “Some American corporation.”

He looked at her steadily. “Advance?”

“Advance what?”

“The Advance Corporation,” Clark said.

For a moment, she seemed puzzled, and then she laughed. “You really did check up on me, didn’t you? That’s George’s company. He’s such a dear — but no, Advance has nothing to do with this.”

“How do you know?”

“Because George told me about it. They’re into all sorts of stuff — electronic control of the brain, and new birth control chemicals — but not resorts, love.”

“You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.” She was looking at him in an odd way, as if she might become angry.

“Where’d you get the tickets?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You’re a glutton for punishment.”

“Just curious.”

“George got them for me,” she said. “You see, I was originally going with him.”

“Oh.”

“But he canceled out at the last minute. Some conference on enzymes in Detroit.” She looked out the window as the plane taxied down the runway, gathered speed, and began to climb into the air.

“And now,” she said, “I’d like to change the subject.”

An hour later, over drinks, he said, “You were right about one thing. I did check up on you. I even went to see Abraham Shine.”

“He’s a dear man,” Sharon said, biting into a shrimp hors d’oeuvre.

“He mentioned that you were concerned about corporations.”

“Concerned? That wasn’t it at all.” She munched on the shrimp. “I was terrified.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It was this kind of irrational thing, a fear. Like there were so many huge complex companies, and I was just a little person, all alone. I felt… powerless.”

“And you were worried about—”

“Being controlled,” she said, nodding. “I was. It was an awful period in my life. I would go to bed at night and dream that some giant corporation was manipulating me, like a puppet and its master, behind the scenes, pulling the strings. I felt I couldn’t control anything, that I was just being tugged this way and that.”

“Why did you feel that?”