The Year of the Sex Olympics and other TV Plays (20 page)

MISCH
(giggling)
: Crazy!

OPIE
: Where you pick ’em?

NAT
: Audition. New bodies.

OPIE
: They act like this?

NAT
: Well, I—

OPIE
: I bet not.

MISCH
: I picked ’em.

OPIE
: You? Nat, you let her?

MISCH
: Why not?

NAT
: Make a funny pick, put some buzz in it.

OPIE
: Buzz . . .

MISCH
(at the Audience sampler)
: They need buzz. What it always says.

OPIE
: Buzz means just . . . not asleep. This not buzz, this . . . got ’em all . . . well, look at ’em!

The Sampler groups are uneasy, moving about in their seats.

NAT
: They not like it.

He turns to the main screen to watch the competitors.

NAT
: What got those two? Can’t they do it?

MISCH
: Just fun.

OPIE
(disgusted)
: Aah!

MISCH
: Just play.

OPIE
: Just nothing. No sex, not anything.

NAT
: Studio fright, maybe.

OPIE
: Babies!

NAT
: Okay, take ’em out. Just the two.

MISCH
: Aw . . . !

NAT
: Flash the judges. Our decision.

Opie presses a button. For a moment a muffled voice is heard.

VOICE OF JUDGE
: . . . Number Nine Team, 57 faults . . .

OPIE
(to desk)
: Control Pod to judges. Number Nine team is out.

He briskly presses more buttons to eliminate the offenders’ image.

MISCH
: But why? Just the audience?

NAT
: Got ’em jumpy. You saw.

MISCH
: It’s good for ’em.

NAT
: Bad.

MISCH
: Aaagh!

NAT
: Apathy Control. Very tricky.

OPIE
: First rule on the tape. Keep Cool, Cool the Audience, Cool the World.

NAT
(watching the Sampler)
: Better now.

OPIE
: Hey, Misch—
(He nods at the main screen)
That’s sex.

MISCH
: I know what sex is!

NAT
: She knows.

OPIE
(conciliatory)
: I mean . . . Sportsex. Like it got to be. Look at those other twos. Look at ’em! Super-king bodies, the toppest in the whole area. Moving lovely, who can beat that? See that two now. That pretty, that style! Clean action!

MISCH
: She not so pretty.

OPIE
: To you not, to them yes. To that audience she’s like the toppest. See the ratings?

The ratings-strip in the desk glows and throbs with the audience’s contentment.

NAT
(slowly)
: They got to feel: “I can not do like that, I not even try. Sex is not to do, sex is to watch . . .” That’s what they got to feel. So . . . they watch.

Small sounds of ecstasy come from the competitors on the big screen.

OPIE
: Pretty. So nice and pretty. Oh . . . lovely . . .

He touches a button.

VOICE OF JUDGE
(muffled)
: Number Four Team, 11 faults total.

NAT
: Misch—Round Two coming up.

MISCH
: Okay, coddy.

She returns to her dome.

VOICE OF JUDGE
: . . . Number Nine team out. So Number Five leads, with only three faults. Melamine Tarr and Jay Fowler.

Synthetic applause.

A grey, bland man scrambles into the production pod. In his late forties, Co-ordinator Ugo Priest is a senior citizen of Output. He is worried.

PRIEST
: So, Nat.

NAT
: So, Co-ordinator.

PRIEST
: What went on?

NAT
: A dud team. Non-starters.

PRIEST
: I saw. Audience upset?

NAT
: Ten points.

Priest whistles.

OPIE
(treacherously)
: Misch picked ’em.

PRIEST
: Misch? Nat, you let her?

NAT
: I let her.

PRIEST
: Why?
(Nat shrugs. He watches the transparent dome descend over the girl’s head)
That bust a rule, Nat.

NAT
: Yes.

PRIEST
: Apathy Control rule. Boss of show to check on all triers. Check means you carry the can. You, Nat. Not Misch.
(Gratified, Opie lowers his head to enjoy this the better. But not before Priest notices and continues the reproof more quietly)
They got to be top stuff, Nat. The complete toppest. They got to giddy the whole audience every time, make ’em feel: “Aaah . . . !”
(An eloquent sigh of despair)
“. . . I can’t compete!”

NAT
: Hard to find the top ones.

PRIEST
: Don’t tell me. When I had your job I used to wait for that “aaah” inside me here.
(Patting his middle)
Then I knew. I’d found one. Didn’t happen often.
(He turns to the screen, anxious to say something approving now. He nods)
Those are good.

OPIE
: Round Two just coming up.

Misch’s voice floats mechanically from the system.

MISCH
: This round we got some real old pals. Bob Hartshorn and Dibby Shale, outright winners of the Casanova Cup—

Through the burst of mechanised applause, Priest turns to Nat.

PRIEST
: Got a moment?

Nat follows him towards the exit. Opie watches them go, itching with malicious curiosity. Misch notices too, as she continues her patter.

MISCH
: Know something? Each time they come on this show, Dibby got her hair done special by—guess who!—Bob!

But the Sample Audience is not amused.

PASSAGE NEAR STUDIO

A few competitors pass by, loose drapes covering part of their bodies. All have competition numbers stuck on them.

Priest and Nat appear. Priest looks after the competitors like a farmer appraising pigs.

PRIEST
: Good, Nat. Look like real top stuff.
(Quietly)
You didn’t let Misch pick any others?

NAT
: No.

PRIEST
: Good. Have a brightener.

From a wall dispenser they draw small plastic shapes like lollies. Nat cracks his in his mouth and sucks it dry in a moment, then tosses the empty plastic husk in a disposer. Priest drains his more slowly.

PRIEST
: You know, I was in on the very start of Apathy Control.
(Smiling)
“I remember . . . I remember”. That’s my vice.

NAT
: Vice?
(He grins)
A real old-days word.

PRIEST
: Yes. I’m an old-days man.
(Nat takes another brightener, feeling already cheered by the first)
The big breakthrough . . . when they found out the sheer power of watching. It took ’em a long time. Old-days, they always said there were things you couldn’t show, things you mustn’t say. You ever hear the word “pornography”?
(Nat shakes his head)
“Censor”?
(Nat shakes his head again)
Ah. Meant a man that . . . well, he’d have put a stop to all this. All of Sportsex, Artsex—the lot.

NAT
(baffled)
: Why?

PRIEST
: Stupidness.

He takes another brightener. Nat wonders obscurely if he is being got at.

NAT
: Like . . . like I stop that kinky team in there?

PRIEST
(shaking his head)
: A censor stopped things for going too far. We stop ’em for not going far enough.
(He sucks at the brightener)
But then this breakthrough. They found that if they screened everything . . . and screened it real kingstyle . . . then basically the audience would make do with that. In place of the real thing. Take all experience at second hand and just sit watching, calmly and quietly.

NAT
: Watch, not do.

PRIEST
: Watch, not do—that’s when it started. Of course they wondered if it would work. Well, it’s what we got out there now. And we know it does. The vicarious society.

Nat, who has been sucking brighteners fast, stares.

NAT
: Vic—victorious?

PRIEST
: Vicarious. Means substitute. This-for-that.

NAT
: Oh, this-for-that.

PRIEST
: Sorry, Nat, dropping into old-days words. With thinking about those times.
(Kindly)
There
was
such a word, “victorious”. To do with war.

NAT
(more confidently)
: War was . . . a kind of tension.

PRIEST
: Right. And riots, and crises. Worst of all was the explosion. Of people. Too many people in the world. I remember the old slogan: “Fight fire with fire, sex with sex!” They doused it—
(He waves a hand round them)
—with this. Doused everything in the end. No more tensions, nothing. Just cool.
(After a moment)
So you see, Nat, I’m not just old but I know. I know the reasons. I can help you.

NAT
(surprised)
: I need help?

The contact shrills at his wrist. Mildly annoyed, he answers it.

NAT
: Yes . . . Deanie? No, I still not . . . Not now . . . no . . . well, what she sick with? . . . Okay, look I come down to Foodshow and talk. Soon. Soon.
(He cuts the contact, turns in slight embarrassment to Priest)
Just about a kid.

PRIEST
: Your kid?

NAT
: Yes.

PRIEST
: Bother you?

NAT
(shrugging)
: Look, Co-ordinator, you say I need help. What about?

PRIEST
: Your job. You comfy in it?

NAT
: Comfy? Yes.

PRIEST
: Area 27 is big. Big audience, big network. A lot to see to. You ever think of a switch to—well, say a light area like 222 or 950?

NAT
: I been run over?

PRIEST
: Just the regular computer-check.

NAT
: How was it?

PRIEST
: Not so good, Nat, not quite so good. So I wondered, just then, about the kid?

NAT
: No. Not that.

PRIEST
: What, then?

NAT
: I don’t know.

PRIEST
(seriously)
: This summer we got the Sex Olympics. Nat, you got work there, getting in all the high-drive talent, grabbing new triers. Screen tests, all kinds of tests, meetings and talks non-stop. That’s a four-hour show every night, the Olympics.

NAT
: I know the programme.

PRIEST
: It’s a great trust, Nat. A good Olympics is overpowering, cuts the population graph right down. Now—

NAT
: I can do it.

PRIEST
: I can only help if you let me. I can only feed the computer what you tell me.

NAT
(nodding)
: So, Co-ordinator. You’re good. I—I better get back now.

PRIEST
: No. Go down to Foodshow, like you said. See about the kid.

NAT
(nodding again as he moves off)
: So.

PRIEST
: So, Nat . . .

FOODSHOW STUDIO

Blazoned across the side of a glass booth is the caption:

“THE HUNGRY ANGRY SHOW”

Inside the booth there is a roar of rage. A fat man is suddenly smothered by a faceful of flung custard. Instead of wiping it off, he crams all he can catch into his mouth. He is stripped to the waist, like his equally fat opponent at the other end of the narrow glass booth. At waist level they are canvassed in like kayak paddlers. This canvas, which thus stretches between them, is divided halfway by a low plastic wall. Both ends are piled with the synthetic custard, and the men are plastered with it as they fling it at each other and gobble it down. They snarl and roar in deadly earnest all the time.

Outside the booth a couple of assistants are preparing another tub of custard, stirring up powder and water. And other fat contestants sit waiting their turn.

A young woman is watching, stop-watch in hand. This is Deanie Webb. She is pretty, but in a characterful way, quite unlike Misch. Nat comes in and joins her.

NAT
: Deanie.

DEANIE
(pleased)
: Nat. Glad you come.

She returns to the stop-watch.

NAT
: Taping this?

DEANIE
: Foodshow’s never live.

NAT
(studying the contestants)
: How you tell which eats more?