This Perfect Day

"Why didn't you tell me? Or your adviser in Eur? Why did you wait, and lose sleep, and worry this Anna?" Chip shrugged, watching his fingertip rubbing the desktop, the nail dark. "It was—interesting, sort of," he said. " Interesting, sort of,'" Mary said. "It might also have been interesting, sort of, to think about the kind of pre-U chaos we'd have if we actually did pick our own classifications. Did you think about that?"

"No," Chip said.

"Well, do. Think about a hundred million members deciding to be TV actors and not a single one deciding to work in a crematorium."

Chip looked up at her. "Am I very sick?" he asked.

"No," Mary said, "but you might have ended up that way if not for Anna's helpfulness." She took the paperweight from the telecomp's answer button and the green symbols disappeared from the screen. "Touch," she said. Chip touched his bracelet to the scanner plate, and Mary began tapping the input keys. "You've been given hundreds of tests since your first day of school," she said, "and UniComp's been fed the results of every last one of them." Her fingers darted over the dozen black keys. "You've had hundreds of adviser meetings," she said, "and UniComp knows about those too. It knows what jobs have to be done and who there is to do them. It knows everything. Now who's going to make the better, more efficient classification, you or UniComp?"

"UniComp, Mary," Chip said. "I know that. I didn't really want to do it myself; I was just—just thinking what if, that's all."

Mary finished tapping and pressed the answer button. Green symbols appeared on the screen. Mary said, "Go to the treatment room."

Chip jumped to his feet. "Thank you," he said.

"Thank Uni," Mary said, switching off the telecomp. She closed its cover and snapped the catches. Chip hesitated. "I'll be all right?" he asked. "Perfect," Mary said. She smiled reassuringly. "I'm sorry I made you come in on a Sunday," Chip said.

"Don't be," Mary said. "For once in my life I'm going to have my Christmas decorations up before December twenty-fourth."

Chip went out of the advisory offices and into the treatment room. Only one unit was working, but there were only three members in line. When his turn came, he plunged his arm as deep as he could into the rubber-rimmed opening, and gratefully felt the scanner's contact and the infusion disc's warm nuzzle. He wanted the tickle-buzz-sting to last a long time, curing him completely and forever, but it was even shorter than usual, and he worried that there might have been a break in communication between the unit and Uni or a shortage of chemicals inside the unit itself. On a quiet Sunday morning mightn't it be carelessly serviced?

He stopped worrying, though, and riding up the escalators he felt a lot better about everything—himself, Uni, the Family, the world, the universe.

The first thing he did when he got into the apartment was call Anna VF and thank her.

At fifteen he was classified 663D—genetic taxonomist, fourth class—and was transferred to RUS41500 and the Academy of the Genetic Sciences. He learned elementary genetics and lab techniques and modulation and transplant theory; he skated and played soccer and went to the Pre-U Museum and the Museum of the Family's Achievements; he had a girlfriend named Anna from Jap and then another named Peace from Aus. On Thursday, 18 October 151, he and everyone else in the Academy sat up until four in the morning watching the launching of the Altaira, then slept and loafed through a half-day holiday.

One night his parents called unexpectedly. "We have bad news," his mother said. "Papa Jan died this morning." A sadness gripped him and must have shown on his face. "He was sixty-two, Chip," his mother said. "He had his life."

"Nobody lives forever," Chip's father said.

"Yes," Chip said. "I'd forgot how old he was. How are you? Has Peace been classified yet?" When they were done talking he went out for a walk, even though it was a rain night and almost ten. He went into the park. Everyone was coming out. "Six minutes," a member said, smiling at him. He didn't care. He wanted to be rained on, to be drenched. He didn't know why but he wanted to. He sat on a bench and waited. The park was empty; everyone else was gone. He thought of Papa Jan saying things that were the opposite of what he meant, and then saying what he really meant down in the inside of Uni, with a blue blanket wrapped around him.

On the back of the bench across the walk someone had red-chalked a jagged FIGHT UNI. Someone else—or maybe the same sick member, ashamed—had crossed it out with white. The rain began, and started washing it away; white chalk, red chalk, smearing pinkly down the benchback. Chip turned his face to the sky and held it steady under the rain, trying to feel as if he were so sad he was crying.

Chapter 4