Read Online The Minority Report and Other Classic Stories by Philip K. Dick - Free Book Online Page B

slammed and locked it, straightened up, bowed briefly at Courtland.
    “Good evening,” he said frigidly. And vanished.
    The circle of watchers had nothing to watch. The swibble repairman had gone back to where he came from.
     
    After a time Pesbroke turned and signaled to the man in the kitchen. “Might as well shut off the tape recorder,” he muttered bleakly. “There’s nothing more to record.”
    “Good Lord,” Hurley said, shaken. “A world run by machines.”
    Fay shivered. “I couldn’t believe that little fellow had so much power; I thought he was just a minor official.”
    “He’s completely in charge,” Courtland said harshly.
    There was silence.
    One of the two children yawned sleepily. Fay turned abruptly to them and herded them efficiently into the bedroom. “Time for you two to be in bed,” she commanded, with false gaiety.
    Protesting sullenly, the two boys disappeared, and the door closed. Gradually, the living room broke into motion. The tape-recorder man began rewinding his reel. The legal stenographer shakily collected her notes and put away her pencils. Hurley lit up a cigar and stood puffing moodily, his face dark and somber.
    “I suppose,” Courtland said finally, “that we’ve all accepted it; we assume it’s not a fake.”
    “Well,” Pesbroke pointed out, “he vanished. That ought to be proof enough. And all the junk he took out of his kit—”
    “It’s only nine years,” Parkinson, the electrician, said thoughtfully. “Wright must be alive already. Let’s look him up and stick a shiv into him.”
    “Army engineer,” MacDowell agreed. “R.J. Wright. It ought to be possible to locate him. Maybe we can keep it from happening.”
    “How long would you guess people like him can keep the swibbles under control?” Anderson asked.
    Courtland shrugged wearily. “No telling. Maybe years … maybe a century. But sooner or later something’s going to come up, something they didn’t expect. And then it’ll be predatory machinery preying on all of us.”
    Fay shuddered violently. “It sounds awful; I’m certainly glad it won’t be for a while.”
    “You and the repairman,” Courtland said bitterly. “As long as it doesn’t affect you—”
    Fay’s overwrought nerves flared up. “We’ll discuss it later on.” She smiled jerkily at Pesbroke. “More coffee? I’ll put some on.” Turning on her heel, she rushed from the living room into the kitchen.
    While she was filling the Silex with water, the doorbell quietly rang.
    The roomful of people froze. They looked at each other, mute and horrified.
    “He’s back,” Hurley said thickly.
    “Maybe it’s not him,” Anderson suggested weakly. “Maybe it’s the camera people, finally.”
    But none of them moved toward the door. After a time the bell rang again, longer, and more insistently.
    “We have to answer it,” Pesbroke said woodenly.
    “Not me,” the legal stenographer quavered.
    “This isn’t my apartment,” MacDowell pointed out.
    Courtland moved rigidly toward the door. Even before he took hold of the knob he knew what it was. Dispatch, using its new-fangled instantaneous transmission. Something to get work crews and repairmen directly to their stations. So control of the swibbles would be absolute and perfect; so nothing would go wrong.
    But something had gone wrong. The control had fouled itself up. It was working upside down, completely backward. Self-defeating, futile: it was too perfect. Gripping the knob, he tore the door open.
    Standing in the hall were four men. They wore plain gray uniforms and caps. The first of them whipped off his cap, glanced at a written sheet of paper, and then nodded politely at Courtland.
    “Evening, sir,” he said cheerfully. He was a husky man, wide-shouldered, with a shock of thick brown hair hanging over his sweat-shiny forehead. “We—uh—got a little lost, I guess. Took a while to get here.”
    Peering into the apartment, he hitched up his heavy leather belt,