The Creature from Cleveland Depths | Page 6

stared at Fay dazedly, rasping the back of her hand across her
mouth, while Gusterson yelled, "Quit that! What's got into you, Fay?
Have they transferred you out of R & D to Company Morale? Do they
line up all the secretaries at roll call and make you give them an
eight-hour energizing kiss?"
"Ha, wouldn't you like to know?" Fay retorted. He grinned, twitched
jumpingly, held still a moment, then hustled over to the far wall. "Look
out there," he rapped, pointing through the violet glass at a gap between
the two nearest old skyscraper apartments. "In thirty seconds you'll see
them test the new needle bomb at the other end of Lake Erie. It's
educational." He began to count off seconds, vigorously semaphoring
his arm. "... Two ... three ... Gussy, I've put through a voucher for two
yards for you. Budgeting squawked, but I pressured 'em."
Daisy squealed, "Yards!--are those dollar thousands?" while Gusterson
was asking, "Then you're marketing the tickler?"
"Yes. Yes," Fay replied to them in turn. "... Nine ... ten ..." Again he
grinned and twitched. "Time for noon Com-staff," he announced
staccato. "Pardon the hush box." He whipped a pancake phone from
under his coat, clapped it over his face and spoke fiercely but inaudibly
into it, continuing to semaphore. Suddenly he thrust the phone away.
"Twenty-nine ... thirty ... Thar she blows!"
An incandescent streak shot up the sky from a little above the far
horizon and a doubly dazzling point of light appeared just above the top
of it, with the effect of God dotting an "i".

"Ha, that'll skewer espionage satellites like swatting flies!" Fay
proclaimed as the portent faded. "Bracing! Gussy, where's your tickler?
I've got a new spool for it that'll razzle-dazzle you."
"I'll bet," Gusterson said drily. "Daisy?"
"You gave it to the kids and they got to fooling with it and broke it."
"No matter," Fay told them with a large sidewise sweep of his hand.
"Better you wait for the new model. It's a six-way improvement."
"So I gather," Gusterson said, eyeing him speculatively. "Does it
automatically inject you with cocaine? A fix every hour on the
second?"
"Ha-ha, joke. Gussy, it achieves the same effect without using any dope
at all. Listen: a tickler reminds you of your duties and
opportunities--your chances for happiness and success! What's the
obvious next step?"
* * * * *
"Throw it out the window. By the way, how do you do that when you're
underground?"
"We have hi-speed garbage boosts. The obvious next step is you give
the tickler a heart. It not only tells you, it warmly persuades you. It
doesn't just say, 'Turn on the TV Channel Two, Joyce program,' it brills
at you, 'Kid, Old Kid, race for the TV and flip that Two Switch! There's
a great show coming through the pipes this second plus ten--you'll
enjoy the hell out of yourself! Grab a ticket to ecstasy!'"
"My God," Gusterson gasped, "are those the kind of jolts it's giving you
now?"
"Don't you get it, Gussy? You never load your tickler except when
you're feeling buoyantly enthusiastic. You don't just tell yourself what
to do hour by hour next week, you sell yourself on it. That way you not

only make doubly sure you'll obey instructions but you constantly
reinoculate yourself with your own enthusiasm."
"I can't stand myself when I'm that enthusiastic," Gusterson said. "I feel
ashamed for hours afterwards."
"You're warped--all this lonely sky-life. What's more, Gussy, think how
still more persuasive some of those instructions would be if they came
to a man in his best girl's most bedroomy voice, or his doctor's or
psycher's if it's that sort of thing--or Vina Vidarsson's! By the way,
Daze, don't wear that beauty mask outside. It's a grand misdemeanor
ever since ten thousand teen-agers rioted through Tunnel-Mart wearing
them. And VV's sueing Trix."
"No chance of that," Daisy said. "Gusterson got excited and bit off the
nose." She pinched her own delicately.
"I'd no more obey my enthusiastic self," Gusterson was brooding, "than
I'd obey a Napoleon drunk on his own brandy or a hopped-up St.
Francis. Reinoculated with my own enthusiasm? I'd die just like from
snake-bite!"
"Warped, I said," Fay dogmatized, stamping around. "Gussy, having
the instructions persuasive instead of neutral turned out to be only the
opening wedge. The next step wasn't so obvious, but I saw it. Using
subliminal verbal stimuli in his tickler, a man can be given constant
supportive euphoric therapy 24 hours a day! And it makes use of all
that empty wire. We've revived the ideas of a pioneer dynamic psycher
named Dr. Coué. For instance, right now my tickler is saying to me--in
tones too soft to reach my conscious mind, but do they stab