Drug of Choice

What the hell?

He padded across the dirt beneath the board; it was now rather muddy with rain. He went on, toward the tennis courts, all twelve of them, beautifully maintained, the white lines carefully laid out each day.

Once again, he paused.

No tennis courts.

Instead there was only a small metal shack, standing in the midst of scrubby vegetation. He opened the door to the shack and found some electronic equipment, including a tape recorder.

He flicked it on.

Thwock!.. Thwock!

A woman’s laugh, and a man’s deeper chuckle.

Thwock!

He flicked it off. The sounds died.

“Very neat,” he said aloud.

“We think so,” a voice replied. He turned and saw the smiling, white-haired man whom he recognized as Mr. Lefevre, the manager.

“I see you’re ready for work,” Lefevre said.

“Work?”

“Yes, of course. Come this way, please.” He looked up at the sky. “Ugly night. It’ll pour, any minute. We’d best get inside, don’t you think?”

Dazed, he followed Lefevre back through the underbrush to the hotel. They walked into the lobby where the waiters were still turning the guests beneath the sunlamps; the waiters nodded politely to Clark. They did not seem surprised to see him.

“This way, Dr. Clark,” Lefevre said. He led him into a private office, comfortably furnished, and closed the door.

“You’re soaked through,” Lefevre said. “There’s a towel in the bathroom—” he nodded to a door “—that you might want to use. Wouldn’t do to catch a cold, you know. Matter of fact, that’s one of the problems you’re going to face very shortly.”

“What’s that?”

“Colds, Dr. Clark. We try to guard against them, but…”

He shrugged.

Clark went into the bathroom, took a towel, and rubbed his hair. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s some kind of mistake—”

“No mistake,” Lefevre said, smiling.

“But I don’t understand. You people are—”

“On the contrary, Dr. Clark. You understand perfectly. We people are operating a resort which does not exist. As you demonstrated to your own satisfaction just a few moments ago. We have a facade — this building, the rooms upstairs — but behind that, there is nothing. Everything else that is needed, we supply by means of the drug.”

Clark nodded. “The drug that turns urine blue.”

“Precisely. A most useful drug. You see, doctor, we are engaged in a kind of experiment here, an experiment in perception. We know, indeed everybody knows, that perception is altered by mental state. You may dine in the finest restaurant in the world, and eat the most superb food, but if you are in a bad mood, if your business has just gone bankrupt, if your wife has just left you, then this delicious, excellent food will taste like sawdust. And conversely: a ghastly meal in a tawdry restaurant may seem like a king’s banquet if your mental state is disposed to make it so.”

“I don’t see what all this—”

“All this,” Lefevre said, waving his hand around, “all this is a kind of extreme experiment. We assume that mental state colors our experience irrespective of objective reality. Normally, one must control experience in an attempt to produce the correct mental state — to be happy, healthy, and carefree, one must spend vast sums to go to some resort where your whims are realized. But suppose that the mental state could be controlled independent of experience? Eh? What then?”

“The drug,” Clark said.

“Yes indeed. It is the drug of choice for controlling mental state. It produces mental… well, pliability. Suggestiveness is heightened to an extraordinary degree. One is receptive to suggestion, any suggestion, and one will live quite happily within the framework of that suggestion until another suggestion is supplied.”

“My tennis racket.”

“Exactly. Two days ago, one of the boys went into your room, cut a string on your racket, and suggested to you that you had broken it in a fierce game of tennis. You accepted that idea quite happily.”

“I’ve been on the drug all that time?”

“Oh yes. From your first mango punch. And, of course, the sound…”

“In the television?”

“Yes. It is a particular frequency, which can be duplicated with a tuning fork, such as this one here.” He held up a small, polished fork, and struck it against the table. It hummed softly.

“This fork vibrates at 423 cycles. That is a resonant frequency of an audio output of the brain’s alpha waves. A normal person finds it no more than a passing irritant. But under the influence of the drug — well, shall I show you?”

Clark said, “Please do.”

“Very well.”

They went outside; Lefevre said to the waiters, “Anyone making love tonight?”

One waiter said, “The one in room 24.”

“Has she been sounded yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“All right.”

He led Clark to the elevator; they rode up to the second floor, and went down the corridor to room 24. Lefevre unlocked it and went in.

A girl lay on the bed. It was the same girl that Clark had seen earlier, walking upstairs with the waiter. She was a pretty young blond with a white bikini.