Barry N. Malzberg - Uncoupling.pdf

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303219370 UNPDF
Science Fiction
Uncoupling
By Barry Malzberg
contemporary
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Uncoupling by Barry Malzberg
Fictionwise Publications
This ebook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©1976 Barry Malzberg
First published by Pocket Books, 1976
NOTICE: This ebook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or
distribution via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means to a person
other than the original purchaser is a violation of International copyright law and
subjects the violator to fines and/or imprisonment. Fictionwise Publications offers a
$500 reward to anyone who provides information leading to the conviction of a person
infringing on any Fictionwise ebook copyright.
COVER DESIGN BY CHRIS HARDWICK
This ebook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.
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Uncoupling by Barry Malzberg
I came to the Towers fuming. The walk across town had bent
my breath, shaken the substance, broken the spirit (too often I
tend to think in expletives, but pardon: it is an old trait), but the
flesh unmortified quivered, reaching for its own purposes. At the
unoccupied desk I stood there for a while, inhaling great
mouthfuls of hydrogenated 02 (one of the chief lures of the
Towers is that it offers an atmosphere of pure oxygen, no small
thing in these difficult, crumpling times) and screaming for
service. “Come here!” I shouted to the gleaming walls, the
spick-and-span corridors, the aerated passageways of the
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Uncoupling by Barry Malzberg
fluorescenced. “I need attention. Je bien attendu. Je desiree a
fornication. ”
An attendant appeared, neutered in flowing robes. Everything
in the Towers is done for effect; go one inch under the surface
and the substance disappears. Nevertheless, one must
persevere. The world is plastic. The world is corrupt. Still, in or
out of it there is no alternative.
“ Je suis au pardonne, monsieur ,” the attendant said in
execrable French. “ Je desire a’ service mais je non comprendre
votre desiree .... ”
“Speak English!” I snarled, hitting the counter, a tall, bitter
man in my late thirties, the snakes of purpose wending their
way through his shattered but wise features. (I often tend to
depersonalize, sometimes lapsing even into the third person in
my desperate attempts to scrape free of the trap of self: au
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Uncoupling by Barry Malzberg
pardonniere. ) “Speak English!” the tall, bitter man shouted, his
voice echoing through the amplifiers in the walls of the Towers,
and the attendant trembled, adjusted his/her robes more tightly
about himself/herself.
“Yes,” he/her said. “I am here to help you, all of us are here
to help you, but you must understand, you must simply
understand that in order to achieve you must modulate ... “
“I will not modulate!” I screamed, slamming a bitter fist into
the gleaming and refractive surfaces of the desk ‘. “There is no
need for modulation. I am entitled to service, service and
understanding—don't you clowns understand this?—and
furthermore,” I added more quietly as several threatening robot
policemen, noiseless on their canisters, glided into the reception
area holding cans of Mace at ready, “anyway,” I whispered to
the attendant, the gentlest and most winsome of expressions
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