_Here is another look at the America of tomorrow--by a
Wilkes College sophomore, winner of the 3rd prize in IF's
College Science Fiction Contest.... An America in which
there is no more school, no more art, no more enterprise,
no more intellectual pursuit--a nation of hedonists.
And in such a land, how could there be malcontents?_
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The girl's body was small, slender, and perfectly proportioned. Her
hair had been dyed platinum and was drawn back from her face by a mesh
net which sparkled with red jewels. She stood in the middle of the
room, head tilted back, eyes closed, moving in time to the music coming
from an invisible transmitter. Her hands glided sinuously up and down
either side of her body. She seemed oblivious to the people circling
the room enjoying Gil Patton's party. It was only when she heard
Brant's voice that she opened her eyes.
"Lisa, you go for that stuff, I see," Brant called to her, referring
to the music being piped into the room from one of Dreamtown's many
Sensory Communications Centers.
"It's really out of this world, Brant, way out, all out!" Lisa replied.
She came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which Brant sprawled.
"You can feel it way down here," she said, and placed her hand on the
pit of her stomach.
"Wonder how we ever got kicks out of that old stuff that you couldn't
_feel_?" Brant asked as he placed his arm about Lisa's waist. "Just
_hearing_ music doesn't give you any glow."
Brant slid farther down in the chair and stretched his legs out before
him. The bluish light in the room glinted from the highly polished
surface of his knee length boots. He wore loose-fitting yellow trousers
and a black suede shirt split open almost to the waist, revealing his
chest.
"Have you tried one of Gil's new pebbles?" he asked Lisa.
"No, what's new about them?" she asked. She wriggled into Brant's lap
and rubbed her cheek against his chest.
"They're slaughter. Instead of just getting a deeper feeling from real
experiences, you can sit back and imagine something--anything--and you
can feel the sensations of your fantasy. You can feel all that way down
here, too," he said, touching, in repetition of Lisa's gesture, the pit
of her stomach.
"Get me one, Brant. Let's see what goes."
Brant lifted Lisa to her feet and rose from the chair. His boots
clicked against the green metal floor as he pushed his way through
the crowd of merry makers toward a transparent glass bubble which was
suspended from the ceiling by a silver chain. He pushed back the
dispenser on the bubble and a cylindrical pill rolled out onto his
hand. He carried it back to where Lisa sat swaying to the music which
continued to fill the room.
"Here child. This will really give you a dream," he said as he handed
her the pill.
Brant watched Lisa sink into the half coma that the sensation pills
produced. He leaned over and kissed her shoulder. Then he straightened
and moved across the room to where Gil Patton stood in front of a
glass wall which afforded a panoramic view of the entire city.
"Good party, Gil," Brant said to his host.
"I hoped it wouldn't be sad. Anything clicking?"