The Simulacra

There was a knock at the door and without waiting Garth McRae entered, looking grim. He held a copy of The New York Times.

‘That psychoanalyst, Egon Superb, informed a reporting machine,' he said to Nicole. ‘How he found out I don't have the slightest idea -- he's hardly in a position to know first-hand about you; obviously someone must have deliberately spilled it to him.' He studied the newspaper, his lips moving. ‘A patient. A Ge patient confided in him and for reasons that we may never know he called the newspaper.'

Nicole said, ‘I suppose there's no use arresting him now. I'd like to find out who's using him; that's what I'm interested in.' It was no doubt a hopeless wish, doomed to disappointment. Probably Egon Superb would never say; he would take the pose that it was a professional secret, something given him in sanctified privacy. He would pretend he did not want to get his patient into jeopardy.

‘Even Bertold Goltz,' McRae said, ‘didn't know that. Even though he roams around here at will.'

‘What we're going to see a demand for now,' Nicole said, ‘is a general election.' And it would not be she who would be elected, not after this disclosure. She wondered if Epstein, the Attorney General, would consider it his job to take action against her. She could count on the Army, but what about the High Court? It might rule that she was not legally in power. Actually it could be doing that at this very moment.

The council would have to emerge, now. Admit in public that it and no one else held the actual governmental authority.

And the council had never been voted into office of any sort. It was paralegal entirely.

Goltz could say, and truthfully, that he had as much right to rule as the council.

Perhaps even more so. Because Goltz and the Sons of Job had a popular following.

She wished, suddenly, that over the past years she had learned more about the council. Knew who comprised it, what they were like, what their aims were. As a matter of fact she had never even seen it in session; it had dealt with her indirectly, through elaborate screening devices.

‘I think,' she said to Garth McRae, ‘that I had better go before the TV cameras and address the nation. If they actually see me perhaps they'll take this news less seriously.'

Perhaps the potency of her presence, the old magical power of her image, would prevail. After all, the public was accustomed to seeing her. They believed in her, from decades of conditioning. The tradition-sanctified whip and carrot might still function, at least to a limited extent. At least partially.

They'll believe, she decided, if they want to believe. Despite the news being hawked by the news machines. Those cold, impersonal agencies of ‘truth.' Of absolute reality, without human subjectivity.

‘I'm going to keep on trying,' she said to Garth McRae.

All this time Richard Kongrosian had continued to stare at her. He did not seem able to take his eyes from her. Now he said hoarsely, ‘I don't believe it, Nicole. You're real, aren't you? I can see you, so you must be real!' He gaped at her piteously.

‘I'm real,' she said, and felt sad. A lot of people were in Kongrosian's position, trying desperately to maintain their view of her undamaged, unaltered from that which they were accustomed to. And yet -- was this enough? How many people, like Kongrosian, could break with the reality principle? Believe in something they knew intellectually was an illusion? Few people, after all, were as sick as Richard Kongrosian.

To stay in power she would have to rule a nation of the mentally ill. And the idea did not very much appeal to her.

The door opened and Janet Raimer stood there, small, wrinkled and businesslike. ‘Nicole, please come along with me.' Her voice was dry and faint. But authoritative.

Nicole rose. The council wanted her. As was customary with them they were operating through Janet Raimer, their spokesman.

‘All right,' Nicole said. To Kongrosian and Garth McRae she said, ‘I'm sorry; you'll have to excuse me. Garth, I want you to act temporarily as NP Commissioner; Wilder Pembroke has been busted -I did that just now before you came in. I trust you.' She passed by them, then, and followed after Janet Raimer, out of the office and up the corridor. Janet moved briskly and she had to hurry to keep up.

Flapping his arms miserably, Kongrosian called after her, ‘If you don't exist I'm going to become invisible again or even worse!'

She continued on.

‘I'm afraid,' Kongrosian shouted, ‘of what I might do! I don't want it to happen!' He came a few steps out into the corridor after her. ‘Please help me! Before it's too late!'

There was nothing she could do. She did not even look back.

Janet led her to an elevator. ‘This time they're waiting two levels down,' Janet said. ‘They've assembled, all nine of them. Because of the gravity of the situation this time they'll talk to you face to face.'

The elevator slowly descended.

She stepped out, following Janet, in what had been in the previous century the H-bomb shelter for the White House.

Its lights were on and she saw, seated at a long oak table, six men and three women. All but one of them were strangers to her, blank and totally unfamiliar faces. But in the centre she made out to her disbelief a man whom she knew. He appeared, from the seating, to be the chairman of the council.

And his ma

The man was Bertold Goltz.

Nicole said, ‘You. The street brawler. I never would have anticipated this.' She felt weary and frightened; across from the nine members of the council she hesitantly seated herself in a wooden straight-backed chair.

Frowning at her, Goltz said, ‘But you knew I had access to von Lessinger equipment. And all time-travel equipment constitutes a monopoly of the government. So obviously I had some form of contact at a very high level. However, that doesn't matter now; we have more urgent business to discuss.'

Janet Raimer said, ‘I'll go back upstairs again.'

‘Thank you,' Goltz said, nodding. To Nicole he said sombrely, ‘You're a rather inept young woman, Kate. However, we'll try to pick up and go on with what we have. The von Lessinger apparatus shows one highly distinct alternative future in which Police Commissioner Pembroke rules as an absolute dictator. This leads us to infer that Wilder Pembroke is involved with the Karps in their effort to unseat you. I think you should have him taken out immediately and shot.'

‘He's lost his post,' Nicole said. ‘Not more than ten minutes ago I relieved him of his duties.'

‘And let him go?' one of the female members of the council asked.

‘Yes,' Nicole admitted reluctantly.

Goltz said, ‘So now it's probably too late to take him into custody. However, let's continue. Nicole, your first action must be against the two monster-cartels, Karp and A.G. Chemie. Anton and Felix Karp are particularly dangerous; we've previewed several alternative futures in which they manage to destroy you and hold power -- at least for a decade or so. We've got to prevent that, regardless of what else we do or do not do.'

‘All right,' Nicole said, nodding reasonably. It seemed a good idea to her. She would have acted against the Karps anyhow, without advice from these individuals.

‘You look,' Goltz said, ‘as if you're thinking that you don't need us to tell you what to do. But actually you need us very badly. We're going to tell you how to save your life, physically, literally, and secondarily your public office. Without us you're dead right now. Please believe me; we've used the von Lessinger equipment and we know.'

‘It's just that I can't get used to the idea of it being you,' Nicole said to Bertold Goltz.