THE FEELIES

Ralph glanced into the nearest case. The occupant was an overweight, self-satisfied, middle-aged male. Plastic tubes went up each nostril, and a tangle of thin, multicolored wires were attached to shaved parts of his head. Ralph knew from experience that other tubes and wires were hooked into the stiff's torso, but these were hidden by the green plastic body bag that covered everything but its head.

The stiff's name was stenciled on the body bag. Morton Jonas Berkowitz. It was followed by a serial number. Ralph shrugged. It was as good as any other. He hunkered down on the floor and rested his back against the cabinet. He took a long pull on the bottle. The sudden explosion of warmth in his gut was intensely satisfying, so satisfying that it killed the feeling of self-disgust that usually followed him around. Ralph was aware that booze was well on its way to being all that he lived for.

It was obvious that the place was getting to him. He looked around at 5066 section of the vaults. Not that it was different from any other section. It was gray. The same deathly gray quiet was broken only by the continuous electric hum. There were the same flat gray concrete walls, gray roof, and solid gray supporting pillars. The vault was lit by cold neon lights, spaced so far apart that it was a place of almost sinister, antiseptic gloom. The shadows went on as far as the eye could see. If you worked in the vault you could start to think it went on forever.

Ralph took another drink. The disgust was starting to come back. Even the goddamn job was a farce. There was no need for human operators in the vaults. The whole place was run automatically off the computer bank.

"Operators!"

Even the word was a joke. They weren't operators. They were just fucking unemployables, stuck in the vault, sitting around, drinking, taking drugs, and maybe doing a spot of sweeping. They were only kept there by the union agreements.

"Motherfuckers."

Ralph slammed his fist into the control pac of the nearest cabinet. The red light didn't even blink. The red lights were the only warm color in the entire place. The Krupp DR.40 control pacs were just about indestructible. Ralph knew that he didn't have a dog's chance of ever getting on a feelie. You had to have a B+ or more even to hook in for a weekend. Ralph's credit card had an unmistakable D on it. The lifers, the ones he had to watch all day, were solid As. They were the fat bastards who had cashed in all their assets and retired to a world of total fantasy for the rest of their lives. The only chance that Ralph had to go that route was to win one of the big prizes on the TV quiz shows, and everyone knew the quiz shows were fixed.

Ralph felt a helpless, impotent anger welling up inside him. He felt like hurling the bottle across the vault. He restrained himself. There was still about three inches of Scotch in the bottle.

He climbed unsteadily to his feet and lurched down the row of cabinets. He had to make an effort to focus his eyes. A red light had gone out and the plastic cover on the case was misted over on the inside. It was coated with a kind of dirty, off-white condensation.

"Jesus Christ!"

Ralph tried to pull himself together. The booze made it difficult. "Sam?"

Sam didn't move. The fat figure was apparently asleep.

Ralph yelled louder. "Sam!"

Sam lifted his head. "Huh?"

"Get on your feet, will you? We've got a malfunction over here."

Sam's small eyes blinked rapidly. "A malfunction?"

Sam was obviously too tranquil to be able to take much in.

"Just get on your feet, will you?"

"Huh?"

"Christ, Sam! Just get up, you cretin."

While Sam struggled to get to his feet, Ralph opened the inspection cover on the control pac. He located the emergency release button and pressed it. The cabinet seals popped and the cover swung slowly open. Ralph almost gagged at the stench that emerged from inside. He grabbed the cover and slammed it shut.

"Sam! Will you get the hell over here?"

"I'm coming, Ralph, I'm coming."

The shock had cleared Ralph's head a little. He went to the nearest pillar with a phone point on it. He picked up the white wall phone and waited. After a minute or so, a bored voice came down the line.

"Yeah?"

"This is 5066, we've got a malfunction down here."

"Shit." The voice sounded a

"It sure smelled dead."

"You cracked open the cabinet?"

"Right."

"Okay, wait a minute." There was a pause while the voice seemed to be talking to someone else. "Listen, 5066 is a lifer section, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, okay."

There was another pause. Finally the voice came back. "Okay, 5066, stay where you are and we'll get someone down there to deal with it."

The voice sounded bored again. Ralph hung up. Sam was staring glumly at the misted-over cover of the cabinet.

"We don't get many of these."

"For Christ's sake, don't touch anything. It stinks to high heaven under that cover.''

The two of them stood by the cabinet. Ralph hitched his thumbs in the back pockets of his overalls.

"Ain't nothing we can do but wait, I guess."

Sam grunted. "Ain't nothing else we ever do but wait."

Ralph sniffed. "That's a fact."

Sam absently scratched his armpit. "Sometimes I wonder what we're waiting for."

It was a good fifteen minutes before they saw the white golf cart coming almost silently down the avenue between the cabinets. It halted with a metallic click. Two men climbed out. They were uniformly clean shaven, healthy, fresh-faced, and scrubbed. They both had the same neat blond crewcuts. Their starched white intern suits contrasted sharply with Ralph's and Sam's stained tan overalls.

They got out of the cart with an air of assured efficiency.

"Okay, what we got here? A malfunctioning stiff, right?"

Ralph stuffed his hands deep in his pockets. "Right."

"Dead?"

"Seems that way."

The clean-cut young men moved toward the cabinet.

"We'll take care of this now."

One of them flipped open the cover of the control pac. Ralph walked in a small circle, hands still in his pockets.

"I wouldn't-"

He was stopped briskly. "It's okay. I told you we're taking care of things now."

"Suit yourself."

The other pressed the emergency release. Both the fresh-faced young men doubled up as the stench hit them. Ralph already had a rag pressed to his face. Sam didn't appear to notice.

Ralph walked over to the cabinet and banged down the lid. "I warned you."

The scrubbed young men gradually regained their composure.

"How the hell long has that stiff been dead?"

Ralph shrugged. "How the hell should I know?"

"You work in this section."

"So?"

"You should have seen the light had gone out."

"I sent for you, didn't I?"

"That was all of half an hour ago."

Ralph pulled his hands out of his pockets. "What exactly are you trying to say?"

"Jesus Christ, man, that stiff's been dead for a week. How come you didn't notice until half an hour ago?"

Ralph shrugged again.

"You haven't even walked down this row for a week."

"Sure I've walked down this row. I stash my goddamn-" Ralph realized he had gone too far. The clean-cut young men's eyebrows shot up. "Nothing."

One of the crewcut young men started in again. "We're going to report this whole thing, make no mistake about that."

The other one grabbed him by the arm. "Come on, Craig. We don't have time to argue about all this."

Ralph gri

Craig scowled. "Okay, okay, we don't have time to argue about it."

"Let's get down to it."

The scrubbed young men took two gas masks out of a compartment in the golf cart. Craig waved in the direction of Ralph and Sam.