Read Online The Cosmic Puppets by Philip K. Dick - Free Book Online Page A

part of town as being so bad.
    “Everything is worse!” he said.
    “That's right. This wasn't nearly so bad before the Change. It looked pretty good, in fact. My place was a nice little three-room cabin; I built it myself. Wired it, put in plumbing, fixed the roof up fine. That morning I woke up and what was I living in?” The old man halted and fumbled for his key. “A packing crate. Wasn't nothing more than a packing crate. Not even a foundation. I remember pouring that foundation. Took me a whole week to get it right. And now nothing but a mud sill.”
    He found the key and in the darkness located the handle of the door. He fooled around, muttering and cursing. Finally the door squeaked back, and he and Barton entered.
    Christopher lit an oil lamp. “No electricity. What do you think of that? After all my work. I tell you, Barton, this thing's diabolical. All the hard work I did. All the things I had, everything I built up. Wiped out overnight. Now I'm nothing. I didn't drink before. Get that? Not a drop.”
    The place was a shack, nothing more. A single room; stove and sink at one end, bed at the other. Junk was littered everywhere. Dirty dishes, packages and boxes of food, bags of eggshells and garbage, moldy bread, newspapers, magazines, dirty clothes, empty bottles, endless old furniture crowded together. And wiring.
    “Yeah,” Christopher said. “I've been trying for eighteen years to wire the goddamn place again.” There was fear on his face, naked, hopeless fear. “I used to be a hell of a good electrician. Serviced radios. Ran a little radio shop.”
    “Sure,” Barton said. “Will's Sales and Service.”
    “Gone. Completely gone. There's a hand laundry there now. On Jefferson Street, as it's called now. Do a terrible job. Ruin your shirts. Nothing left of my radio shop. I woke up that morning, started off to work. Thought something was odd. Got there and found a goddamn laundry. Steam irons and pants pressers.”
    Barton picked up a portable B battery. Pliers, solder, a soldering iron, paste, spaghetti, a signal generator, radio tubes, bottles of condensers, resistors, schematics—everything. “And you can't get this place wired?”
    “I try.” Christopher examined his hands miserably. “It's gone. I fumble around. Break things. Drop things. Forget what I'm doing. Mislay my wire. Step on and break my tools.”
    “Why?”
    Christopher's eyes glittered with terror. “They don't want me to bring it back. To make it like it was. I was supposed to be changed like the others. I was changed, partly. I wasn't all run-down, like this. I was hardworking. Had my shop and my ability. Led a good clean life. Barton, they stop me from fixing it up. They practically take the soldering iron out of my hands.”
    Barton pushed aside a litter of cables and insulation and sat down on the edge of the work bench. “They got part of you. Then they have some power over you.”
    Christopher rummaged excitedly in a cluttered cupboard. “This thing hangs over Millgate like a black fog! A filthy black fog, creeping in all the windows and doors. It's destroyed this town. These people are imitation people. The real ones are gone. Swept aside overnight.” He got out a dusty wine bottle and waved it in front of Barton. “By God, I'm going to celebrate! Join in, Barton. I've been keeping this bottle for years.”
    Barton examined the wine bottle. He blew dust from its label and held it up to the oil lamp. It was old, plenty old. Imported muscatel. “I don't know,” he said doubtfully. He was already beginning to feel sick from the bourbons. “I don't like to mix my drinks.”
    “This is a celebration.” Christopher spilled a heap of rubbish onto the floor and found a corkscrew. The bottle between his knees, he expertly speared the cork and began twisting it out. “Celebration for you and me finding each other.”
    The wine wasn't too good. Barton sipped a little from his glass and studied the aged, seamed face of the