This Perfect Day

Bob tapped the input keys. Chip watched his quickly moving fingers. Bob kept tapping and then pressed the answer button; a line of green symbols glowed on the screen, and then a second line beneath the first. Bob studied the symbols.

Chip watched him.

Bob looked at Chip from the corners of his eyes, smiling. "Tomorrow at 12:25," he said.

"Good!" Chip said. "Thank you!"

"Thank Uni," Bob said, switching off the telecomp and closing its cover. "Who told you about the incurables?" he asked. "Jesus who?"

"DV-something," Chip said. "He lives on the twenty-fourth floor."

Bob snapped the telecomp's catches. "He's probably as worried as you were," he said.

"Can he have an extra treatment too?"

"If he needs one; I'll alert his adviser. Now to sleep, brother; you've got school tomorrow." Bob took Chip's comic book and put it on the night table.

Chip lay down and snuggled smilingly into his pillow, and Bob stood up, tapped off the lamp, ruffled Chip's hair again, and bent and kissed the back of his head.

"See you Friday," Chip said.

"Right," Bob said. "Good night."

"'Night, Bob."

Chip's parents stood up anxiously when Bob came into the living room.

"He's fine," Bob said. "Practically asleep already. He's getting an extra treatment during his lunch hour tomorrow, probably a bit of tranquilizer."

"Oh, what a relief," Chip's mother said, and his father said, "Thanks, Bob."

"Thank Uni," Bob said. He went to the phone. "I want to get some help to the other boy," he said, "the one who told him"—and touched his bracelet to the phone's plate.

D The next day, after lunch, Chip rode the escalators down from his school to the medicenter three floors below. His bracelet, touched to the scanner at the medicenter's entrance, produced a winking green yes on the indicator; and another winking green yes at the door of the therapy section; and another winking green yes at the door of the treatment room.

Four of the fifteen units were being serviced, so the line was fairly long. Soon enough, though, he was mounting children's steps and thrusting his arm, with the sleeve pushed high, through a rubber-rimmed opening. He held his arm grownuply still while the scanner inside found and fastened on his bracelet and the infusion disc nuzzled warm and smooth against his upper arm's softness. Motors burred inside the unit, liquids trickled. The blue light overhead turned red and the infusion disc tickled-buzzed-stung his arm; and then the light turned blue again.

Later that day, in the playground, Jesus DV, the boy who had told him about the incurables, sought Chip out and thanked him for helping him.

"Thank Uni," Chip said. "I got an extra treatment; did you?"

"Yes," Jesus said. "So did the other kids and Bob UT. He's the one who told me."

"It scared me a little," Chip said, "thinking about members getting sick and running away."

"Me too a little," Jesus said. "But it doesn't happen any more; it was a long, long time ago."

"Treatments are better now than they used to be," Chip said.

Jesus said, "And we've got UniComp watching out for us everywhere on Earth."

"Right you are," Chip said.

A supervisor came and shooed them into a passball circle, an enormous one of fifty or sixty boys and girls spaced out at fingertip distance, taking up more than a quarter of the busy playground.

Chapter 2

Chip's grandfather was the one who had given him the name Chip. He had given all of them extra names that were different from their real ones: Chip's mother, who was his daughter, he called "Suzu" instead of Anna; Chip's father was "Mike" not Jesus (and thought the idea foolish); and Peace was "Willow," which she refused to have anything at all to do with. "No! Don't call me that! I'm Peace! I'm Peace KD37T5002!"

Papa Jan was odd. Odd-looking, naturally; all grandparents had their marked peculiarities—a few centimeters too much or too little of height, skin that was too light or too dark, big ears, a bent nose. Papa Jan was both taller and darker than normal, his eyes were big and bulging, and there were two reddish patches in his graying hair. But he wasn't only odd-looking, he was odd-talking; that was the real oddness about him. He was always saying things vigorously and with enthusiasm and yet giving Chip the feeling that he didn't mean them at all, that he meant in fact their exact opposites. On that subject of names, for instance: "Marvelous! Wonderful!" he said. "Four names for boys, four names for girls! What could be more friction-free, more everyone-the-same? Everybody would name boys after Christ, Marx, Wood, or Wei anyway, wouldn't they?"

"Yes," Chip said.