The negligee was ice-blue.
The mannequin’s remaining eye, large and dark and lustrous, gazed serenely out at Lessing. Memories….
A figure skidded to a stop in front of the boutique: the lib-reb with the ITRAC. Magellan’s grenade launcher chuffed, and a projectile clunked off the pavement beside him. It did not explode.
All of the screens went white as the ITRAC-gunner landed a direct hit on Magellan’s hiding place. The explosion ended in mid-bang as the machine and its sensors disintegrated. That saved Lessing’s — and the others’ — hearing.
“Shit!” Eighty-Five remarked disdainfully into the ringing silence. “A dud! You humans need lessons in precision manufacturing!”
The triumphant progress of technical science in Germany and the marvelous development of German industries and commerce led us to forget that a powerful state had been the prerequisite for that success. On the contrary, certain circles went even so far as to give vent to the theory that the state owed its very existence to these phenomena; that rt was. above all, an economic institution and should be constituted In accordance with economic interests. This arrangement was looked upon and glorified as sound and normal. Now, the truth Is that the state itself has nothing whatsoever to do with any particular economic concept or a particular economic development. It does not arise from a compact made between contracting parties, within a certain delimited territory, for the purpose of serving economic ends. Rather, the state is the organizational structure within which exists a community of living beings who have kindred physical and spiritual natures; they organize the state for the purpose of assuring the conservation of their own kind and to help towards fulfilling those ends which Providence has assigned to that particular race or racial branch. Therein and therein alone lie the purpose and meaning of a state. ,… The qualities which are employed in the foundation and preservation of a state have accordingly little or nothing to do with the economic situation. And this is conspicuously demonstrated by the fact that the inner strength of a state only rarely coincides with what is called its economic expansion. On the contrary, there are numerous examples to show that a period of economic prosperity indicates the approaching decline of a state. If it were correct to attribute the foundation of human communities to economic forces, then the power of the state as such would be at its highest pitch during periods of economic prosperity, and not vice versa.
Television is the voice of the Establishment. Whoever controls it rules, and whatever values it promulgates become the values of the land. Such is the power of the media. In ancient Rome it was the arena, more than the Forum or even the palace, that swayed the mob: Nero yearned to be a singer and musician, Commodus a gladiator, etc. Our modern arena is the TV screen, and it is the actor, the commentator, the rock-star, the Born-Again evangelist, the athlete, or-Heaven help us-the Banger “so-man” (from “soul-man”) who is showered with applause, money, and popular acclaim. We already have had presidents and legislators who had little to offer besides their fleeting TV popularity. Some of these were backed by interests that do not have the public weal at heart but only the crassest, garden-variety, commercial motives. We have seen the results: the thinker, the philosopher, the educator, the soldier, the statesman — none of these can match the ratings of a painted-and-feathered Banger pog-dancer, a mere, a Born-Again speaker-in-tongues, or a steel-armored football quarterback. When such as these become the cynosures of our culture, the pinnacles of our ambitions, the role models of our youth, and the idols of our marketplace, then do we indeed deserve the Dark Ages that must certainly come hereafter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Monday, August 23, 2049
“I want the job,” Lessing said stubbornly. “I can do it.”
Wrench, crosslegged on the carpet in front of the Mulders’ wall-size, interactive TV screen, did not answer.
“Sit down, for God’s sake,” Sam Morgan twisted around to glare up at Lessing. “You had a change of heart?”
“If you’re asking whether I’m going to let the Party tell me which medal to wear on my jockstrap, then the answer’s no!”
“So?” Wrench inquired over his shoulder. He held the TV remote control up to the light so he could sec its buttons. He pushed one. The pretty brunette actress on the screen began to remove her net stockings.
“So you need me. The Party needs me.”
Wrench belched politely. “It’s you who needs the Party. You need us. You need Mulder. And you need a certain lovely, blonde person.”
“Let’s leave her out of this,” Lessing answered evenly. By unspoken mutual agreement he and Liesc had been polite but distant ever since the episode in the corn-link room. They each needed time to think.
Liese had stayed closeted with Mulder, Borchardt, and Jennifer all day Sunday, working on speeches for Eighty-Five; this morning she and Jennifer had gone horseback riding. Neither Mulder nor the Fairy Godmother knew which end of a horse ate hay, but the old man had purchased a stable full of handsome beasts anyway. If it made Mulder’s snobby Virginia neighbors accept him, then the animals served a useful purpose.
“Green light!” Wrench backed away from the sensitive topic of Liese. “But tell me, old buddy, why this passion to soldier for the Cadre? Stay a happy houseguest, watch Mulder’s security system, drill the beegees, and wind the clocks! Why do you want to go command a Cadre unit? What did the Cadre ever do to you?”
“lean help.”
“Come on, sweetie!” The little man hammered at the button again, and the actress wriggled lithely out of her bra, lay back on the tiger-striped sheet, and gazed up into the cameras. Her breasts, real or plastic, heaved nicely; they certainly were copious! The girl wouldn’t strip all the way; this was the wrong channel for that — and at ten in the morning! The TV’s interactive plot-choice system did have limitations. The Fairy Godmother had sealed off the porn channels, moreover, with a code that even Wrench hadn’t been able to break.
Morgan shifted to look at Lessing. “S ‘pose you’ve got reasons?”
“Good reasons… apart from being bored to death and wanting a real job! The main one is that you need more than fancy, black uniforms to tum the Cadre into a military unit. You need men with training and experience. That’s my specialty.”
Morgan stayed noncommittal, idly watching Wrench punching buttons.
“You shouldn’t depend on the regular military. What if some power-hungry general, the Joint Chiefs, or the closet lib-rebs still in Outram’s government decide to stage a revolution? One day you’re in, the next day you’re peeking up the barrels of a firing squad’s shiny rifles.”
“Can’t happen!” Wrench scoffed. “Not now!”
“Sure, it can. Did you ever think this would happen?” He waved all around to include everything since Lucknow. “You know it can. But if the Cadre builds its own military arm, like the Wajfen-SS, separate from the AllgemeineSS, it’ll be harder for a coup to get started. Gradually you take over the Army’s military responsibilities, and then you’re in. Solid.”
“The kid may have a point,” Wrench conceded. He jabbed a button, but the girl on the screen was down to her black Bylon panties and a smile, as far as her contract allowed. She wriggled, caressed her nipples, and gazed slumbrously out at the audience. The story would now revert to its main plot-line.