NOT IMPROBABLE NOTES
SETTING:
a. Three-Dimensional Plotters: grid of heat sensors (analogues to electric eyes, but work on the heat of the body) in 3D, follows X into room, molds furnishings for him.
b. Door-panel fingerprinter: put hand on door (X tries one finger and it doesn't work---only with five fingers---works through handkerchief, once again by heat) and computer knows it's X from fingertips.
c. Computer: used as beauty parlor: everyone fantastically beautiful, sculpted to their own likes. Used as suicide parlor: merely will yourself out of existence, to maximum entropy. Projects a person: X's ideal, on the screen, and lip synch moves. The person is projected in 3D on an electron matrix that actually FORMS a person's 3D imago.
d. Computerized furnishings: machine produces just what X wants: seat just as X likes it, colors, drinks, smells, touches, etc.
e. Computer operation: electron beams to CUT neuron paths in brain. As soon as a "bad" thought is thought, the computer CUTS that thought OUT. (Though X, like "smart-alecks" everywhere, has found that a diffuse "impression" cannot be pinned down, and exorcised, by the computer).
SITUATION:
X is unhappy with "reporting", will always be unhappy with "reporting." Machine tries to get the best of him, but X can always think of something else to be unhappy with. Machine cannot "cut him off at the pass."
THEME:
MAN WILL NEVER BE PERFECTLY HAPPY EVEN IF HE SHOULD BE PERFECTLY HAPPY. X must always come back, but he always manages to think of something more he doesn't like. Everyone produces a hang-up; X's hang-up is the SYSTEM. Controller: "More and more are against "system", though the system is "perfect".
CLIMAX: "When the NEW model computer comes out, we won't HAVE these conflicts."
CHARACTERS:
X (X is really 57Q83.2K748. Alund): Main Character---stands for Everyman. Inquisitive, independent, loving, grateful, appreciative of art and music and food and drink, faithful to wife, intelligent, rational; his Imago is a "brother", considered a good sign. Speaks his mind, good background, unfrustrated, contented with his life (except for the "system"). He's a musician (nightclub pianist) ("The Artist"), but a little fearful that the computer will take over HIS job, too, but he's skillful and liked by the club owner and the faithful clientele.
Controller: "His mother and father LIKED the system. Fear this is only "Anti" rebellion (Theme again) against anything the parents are for. He grew up learning to manage a computer in elementary school, because his parents wanted him to, but when he was old enough to rebel; he did so and tackled the arts. His parents have been disappointed, and told him so, and the computer allowed these thought-linkages to remain. The system would like to discourage the artist-class, since they're the most unpredictable. So there's a slow, constant attrition of people like X, thanks to the system, but those LIKE X get more militant, rather than less, when they find they're a dying crew: literally, since the computer gave X an over-dose of beams which quietly sterilized him (X hasn't realized this yet, and won't during the story). X thinks they might resort to such tactics, but has faith in his relative difference from his parents, thinking the computer wouldn't suspect he might have a great grandfather in his background who donated his "Artistic Gene" to X, and that the Controller wishes that this great grandfather could have been made sterile before X's father was born. X's father was non-artistic, but also non-productive.
Two Minor Characters:
Controller Y (Y is really 33J84.3T239. Johnathan): Stickler for detail (The Scientist). Wise in experience: older man. Knows X, looks on him a bit affectionately. Y is retiring, has to turn X over to the Trainee.
Trainee: Young, enthusiastic, eager in inexperience. Cross between artist (youth) and scientist (age). Z, but Z hasn't been categorized fully yet.
QUOTES:
Controller: We can't combat diffuse hate---the whole brain pulses with hate. To conquer that hate, we'd have to wipe out the brain. It's the same when someone LOVES his Imago. It can't be fought.
Trainee: I'm beginning to like him. Con: That's good. Imago acts as old-time psychiatrist, and an intense feeling must develop between the two before good can be done. Both Con and Tra, of course, have their OWN reporting sessions.
Con: Only way system can be perfect is by constant reporting, yet they don't LIKE reporting. Perhaps they don't like the IDEA of perfection.
Con: Good, you like him. Consistency is important. Computer can cover up many blunders, but we may be left with optionless automaton. The Supervisor (not known whether it's man or machine) wouldn't like that.
Con: More and more are against the "system."
Tra: (Amazed) How could ANYONE be against the "system"?