Fiction - Total Immersion
'Nanotech, Inc' or 'One of our carpets is missing!', or: 'Total Fitting (previously known as 'We can underlay it for you, wholesale.')'.
by Paul Silver, 1993
The time: Eight-thirty, AM. The date: 12th March, 2045. The place: Citi-comm 31.
City Community, number thirty-one, was made of two main section, in the west: the 'Hives', the towering rounded blocks housing millions of the well off and rich, in it's northern quarter the residences of the hugely rich and extremely well off. To the east: the 'Mounds', conical towers of the workers and doers in life, those who make the city work and actually have a proper use in life, or so they claim. Sandwiched in between in a small strip the new buildings, the 'Hybrids', a collection of towers only before viewed in the manic dreams of mad scientists, the most recent, and most strange, part of the city. It is here we meet one of the more average, sane, members of the younger part of the Hybrids; his name is Zack Murphy, we meet him as he argues with his bedroom carpet.
"Just give it back!" The carpet would not listen, it was obviously ignoring Zack's plea and kept a firm grip on his sock.
There was a shuffling sound and Zack swung around to see another section of the carpet had crept up to his chest of drawers and was sucking up the rest of his unruly sock collection. The carpet noticed he was distracted and took the opportunity to absorb the sock they had been fighting over. It finished with the drawer and seemed determined to take every last sock, even pulling the one off of Zack's left foot in it's lunatic feast.
Zack had just seen his best pair of day-glo green and purple socks sink into the carpet and was less than pleased, it should not have needed feeding for at least a couple more weeks and even then it was not supposed to binge on clothing. Zack fled as the carpet spat out the remains of his favourite socks, at least it had some remnants of taste.
Zack ran to his mother.
"Mum, mum, the carpet's eaten all of my socks, and it might eat me next."
"Come on Zack," she said calmly, concentrating on her soap opera, "you know that can't happen, it's impossible, look it up in the carpet owner's manual."
Zack ran to the bookshelf and turned on the manual. The index gave no ideas about what to do if your carpet ate your socks, but he asked anyway.
"Refer to page ninety-one." said the book. Zack used the flip button until he reached the relevant page.
Rogue behaviour from your carpet. Was the title of the page. It is completely impossible for your carpet to show any anti-social or otherwise strange behaviour, they are grown especially for their calm temperament and love of their owners.
"Does that extend to eating their owner's clothing?" asked Zack, the book referred him to the end of the page.
If, by some strange freak of nature, and by no means any action of ours, or anything to do with our company, your carpet does start acting in any way strange, or anti-social, please observe and bring copious notes and proof of any damage, and a member of any professional legal organisation you may feel you may need, to our offices: Nanotech, Inc, 65307, tower 291, the Hives.
Better go and observe it then, thought Zack, and he went back to his room.
The carpet had gone.
Zack was surprised, the only evidence of the carpet's existence was a pair of shredded socks and some empty drawers. "It went through all of my clothes. Just like that!"
"Mum, the carpet's gone. I'm going after it."
"Okay, make sure you take Grid with you, I don't want him left in the house alone. And take a sweater, it's probably cold outside." Mrs Murphy used one of her favourite catchphrases from one of the many soaps she regularly watched.
Zack went into the hall cupboard and dragged out a machine, it was about half his size and ran on small caterpillar tracks, it did not wish to leave the cupboard, but Zack insisted.
"C'mon, Grid, we've got to find the carpet." The small machine swivelled an antenna in his direction and buzzed it's puzzlement.
"It ate all my stuff and ran-" he corrected himself "slithered for it. It could be anywhere."
Grid powered itself up for the off, following Zack as he ran to the door. It would not open.
"House, open the door." Zack said to the panel by the door.
"I cannot let you out, Zack, I am programmed not to allow you to leave if there is not an emergency and you are not properly dressed."
"This is an emergency, the carpet's slithered off and I've got to get after it."
"That is not among my list of possible, or even impossible, emergencies. You are still not properly dressed. I cannot allow you out without express authorisation from a parent."
Zack looked down and realised he was still wearing his pyjamas, he went to see if his mother would let him out anyway, but she was too engrossed in her soap to know what he was talking about. He went back to his room and discovered that not only had the carpet eaten all of his clothes, it had also devoured half of his toys and comics, he was now doubly determined to get a hold of it.
He thought furiously, clothes, where could he get some clothes?
He finally spied his brother's room. It would not let him in, but it had a flap for his personal robot, so he sent Grid in with instructions to get some clothes that would fit him.
Grid came out after much scuffling around and dumped some clothes in front of Zack. He picked them up dubiously, they were the pits of fashion but he knew he had to wear them. The worst part was the dungarees, he put them on over the T-shirt, but under the jumper so no one could see the top part. They were all blue and white, not one fashionable mauve boilersuit in the whole lot. Grid had also bought out some trainer boots, though even Zack found it difficult to believe the carpet had eaten his own, he had to put them onto his bare feet as there was no way he was going to wear white sports socks, no matter what the emergency, he had to draw the line somewhere.
He approached the main door again.
"C'mon, what now?" The door would still not open.
"You are not wearing a sweater, your mother was specific that you should leave only when you had one on."
"I don't believe this." Zack sent Grid back into his brother's room, adjusting the turn ups which meant he could see his feet under the huge mass of dungarees, his brother was much bigger than he was. Grid finally arrived and Zack removed the jumper and replaced it with the sweater.
"Happy now?" He asked, the front door sprang open, allowing him to the short hall and the lift. "Thanks, thanks a bunch."
"You're welcome." the house computer shut the door behind him.
Zack entered the lift with Grid at his heels, he had noticed blue fibre on the door letter box, the carpet had managed to squeeze through and gain access to the city. He pressed the button for the ground floor, first having to roll the sleeve up several inches to expose his fingers. If the carpet had been in a lift it would have only been able to reach the bottom button.
Several other people caught the lift on the way down, although frustrating this was not unexpected, when travelling three hundred floors it was difficult not to pick up passengers. One arrived panting.
"It's after me." He gasped as the door shut, something heavy thudded against it, Zack and the other passengers looked nervous.
"What is after you?"
"My sofa, a light green one with matching cushions, it just went berserk." Everyone but Zack looked at the man oddly, Zack looked curiously and recognized the man, it was Mr Smyth, a bingo player at the local hall.
"I'll tell you something, I'm going directly to Nanotech, Inc to complain. They're not going to get away with giving me a suicidal sofa."
"Surely if it was suicidal it would have tried to kill itself, not you." This came from Mrs Nibble, a founder member of the pedantic debating society (Wednesday eveningings, hall four, level twenty.)
Mr Smyth's retort was a hard glare.
Mrs Nibble returned his hard glare, making it harsh.
Mr Smyth's silent retort was even harsher.
Mrs Nibble was sizing herself up for the full-slit eyes and pursed lips expression for which she was justly feared as the doors opened, it was lucky for Mr Smyth, he was not in Mrs Nibble's league as far as non-verbal attack techniques were concerned (Non-verbalism and expressions as a means of beating oppression in society, Thursday mornings, hall two, level twenty, bring your own eyebrows). Mr Smyth rushed out, Zack followed him, Grid followed Zack, his motors whining in protest.
Mr Smyth went directly to the walkway terminal and chose one facing west, he quickly shuffled along to the fastest moving strip and sped off towards the Hives. Zack leapt nimbly onto the same strip and made his way towards his neighbour, Grid accelerated swiftly and joined them.
"My carpet ate my socks." He explained, Mr Smyth muttered an answer, he was obviously trying to work out what he was going to say to Nanotech, Inc. Zack kept quiet and took in the blurred scenery as it swept past.
The Hybrids were just that, an amalgamation of talent and art which gave rise to some strange structures, when a strip of the city had been dissolved in an accident involving a universal solvent (Unmentionable due to legal requirements, though it does rhyme with cooper-blue), a competition was set up to design new tower blocks to replace those gradually seeping into the earth. Many designs came from schools, down to those in nursery schools, these were all rejected as being far too sensible and structurally sound. The result was a splattering of talent and a glob of madness, the Hybrids also gave the opportunity of a new consumer group to test out innovative concepts in home improvement. Nanotechnology meant carpets could be made which ate dust and dirt, sofas which would grow into the most comfortable position, tablecloths that ate the leftovers. It all seemed like a pretty good idea at the time.
The smear now going past was the Hives, they were all painted brightly and appeared smart even through the blur. All of the Hives were built on the theme of bee hives, the stacking of disks with rounded edges on top of each other, bulging slightly around a quarter of the way up, then coming to a rounded point, was recognisable to anyone as the work of Reginald Huzzah, renowned artist and bee-lover (Now residing in the Ever-peace sanatorium, believing himself to be the only king bee in existence and in contact only with his favourite pets through a series of high-pitched buzzing sounds. Doctors fear the worst). To Zack it said two things: business and money; to Mr Smyth it said: a place to complain; to Grid it said: cuter hoovers.
They had to swap strips twice at various terminals, and then they found tower 291. On the six hundred and fifty-third floor was the office of Nanotech, Inc, in office number seven.
They entered and tagged onto the end of a long, snaking queue, a very long, very snaking queue. Zack left Mr Smyth at the end of the queue and scouted ahead, several minutes later he found the start, the queue looped through several sub-officies and actually went down a flight of stairs and back up to another office in the process of the snake. All along the queue people were muttering about Nanotech, Inc products which had malfunctioned, sofas which attacked, more rogue carpets, a ceiling which had eloped with a strip of wall paper ("It just ruined the pattern, I'll never get a bit to match in the right batch number.")
The tales of irritation and woe were all being recorded by a shifty looking employee at a desk at the end of the queue. Zack evesdropped as another complainer took the chair in front of the desk:
"Hello, Miss?"
"What do you mean, Miss?" said the man behind the desk.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I have a temporary physiological disfunction."
"So what do you want?"
"It's about my lounger, which I purchased from your company in it's offer not a week ago."
"Ah yes, the Paisley deluxe, lovely antimacassars, what's wrong with it?"
"It's dead, that's what's wrong with it."
Zack left, it all sounded a little too strange to stand around listening to. Anyway, he had a carpet to catch.
He went back down to the ground floor and thought. Where would he go if he were a carpet? A nice big floor to cover? A place in the country with friends? A mate, a pregnant wife he was split from when laid? A revenge attack on those who fitted it? To join a terrorist group, destined to carry out brief attacks on carpet fitters in short spates of violence?
He realised this line of reasoning was getting him no where, he tried a different tack. If he were a carpet, where would he hang out? The answer: Concurrent.
Concurrent Carpets main depot lay on the border of the divide between the Hives and the Hybrids, it took twenty minutes to reach it by moving walkway. The walkway Zack took actually went inside the store, it was so large it had it's own minor network of walkways. Zack went to the department under the huge 'Living Carpets' sign.
As Zack neared the sign, and the large displays beneath it, he noticed a large amount of people taking the walkway moving in the opposite direction, they were not only taking the fastest walkway, they were running on it to make extra time. There was a huge roar ahead, it only made Zack more eager to find out what was going on, he ran towards the sound, Grid buzzed after him.
Concurrent Carpets always took great pride in their own products, all of their available floorspace was covered by their own carpets, and there was even an idea in development of carpeting the moving walkways, only slightly hampered by the way carpet clogged the conveyer-belt type mechanism at the end of each walkway. To this end every section within every Concurrent shop was carpeted with the carpet sold in the section. This meant in the 'living carpets' section there was a carpet developed by Nanotech, Inc on the floor. This branch of Concurrent Carpets was proud to have the largest made living carpet covering their concrete floor.
Unfortunately the carpet was no longer covering the floor, it was fed up with being trodden on and had decided as long as it lay there the situation was not going to change. To this end it had decided to get up, and move to a better area.
All Zack saw of this straightforward decision was a huge form, a good thirty square yards of deep pile beige carpet rear up on one edge, throwing stands aside as it did so, and teeter above him. He launched himself across the walkway and hit the opposite flowing strip with a jarring thud, it slid him quickly away from the gigantic carpet, Grid was not so quick and was carried even closer.
The carpet had discovered balancing was not as easy as it looked, and weaved back and forth as it attempted to stay upright. It was momentarily distracted by a form it recognized, the person who had walked across him most often, most often with high heels on: the senior sales executive (shop floor, living carpets division) Mr Nesbit Throobe. It lunged.
The amount of air shifted as the carpet returned to it's more natural horizontal position was as huge as the carpet itself, a miniature tornado picked Zack up and flung him across the floor, off of the walkway and onto another carpet. Racks of rugs and mats whirled around him. Then all was still once more.
Zack stood up gingerly, he was bruised but nothing seemed to be broken. The beige carpet appeared to be dormant once more, though it was resting not on level floor but over several lumps, large and small. He looked around for Grid, then saw the walkway led directly under the carpet, Grid must have been caught underneath it in the collapse.
"Grid, Grid," called Zack, "are you under there?"
The was a faint buzzing sound, then one of the small lumps shifted, slowly, like a mole burrowing close to the surface, the lump made it's way to the edge of the carpet, leaving a small tunnel behind it. Out of the furrow came a familiar box-shaped form, a couple of antenna bent, but none the worse for wear.
After making sure his robot was all right Zack took more notice of the world around him. The place was a mess, the wind made by the carpet falling had scattered racks and displays all over the shop, it would take weeks to sort out. The sound of metal dropping on soft surfaces could still be faintly heard as the last of the display racks came to rest. Sobbing could also be heard.
To get to the source of the sobbing Zack had to skirt around part of the beige carpet, he did this nervously but it stayed dormant.
The sound came from a man in a fashionable yellow and pink suit, he was cowering against one wall. As Zack approached he started to babble.
"I knew one day they'd turn against us, you just can't trust carpets." He moaned.
"C'mon, we'd better get you out of here." Zack helped the man up, he automatically took the short cut across the carpet. As his high heeled boots dug into the deep pile of the carpet it came to life once again.
As it had collapsed the carpet had vowed never to let anyone walk across it again, especially no one with high heels, especially one particular person. It was unfortunate for Mr Throobe that he happened to fall into all three categories, just as the carpet was calming down, it was the worse thing that could have happened. Something inside the carpet snapped.
Zack retreated from his place on the bare floor near the carpet and watched it rear up once again. This time it folded one corner over, trapping a bawling Mr Throobe. The carpet took a moment to orientate itself, then headed towards a bank of large windows nearby, it moved in a curious rocking and slithering motion, like a slug doing a hand-stand.
The carpet reached the windows quickly, it lent it's huge bulk against them and they popped out one by one. They would not shatter, even when they hit the ground over a hundred stories down, Zack hoped they would not hit anyone.
The carpet squeezed it's huge bulk through the space left by the window panes, it bent itself upwards and managed to get a grip on the surface of the curved wall making up one of the Hive buildings' sides. It slithered quickly upwards.
Zack realised he could do nothing about the huge beige carpet and that he still had his own mission to fulfil. If he were a carpet and all this bedlam was going on, where would he go?
He took to a lift, checking each of the floors owned by Concurrent carpets, they all looked normal. He noticed the basement was used as a stockroom and took to a staff lift to gain access to it.
The stockroom was huge, but fortunately divided into sections like the floors above were. He soon found the living carpets division. Unfortunately one of the stockroom staff also found Zack.
"Oy, what're you doing down here?" he said politely, knowing he was in a family story.
"Looking for my carpet, it's not too big, and blue."
"We've got thousands of carpets, and none have wandered in off the streets, run away has it?" asked the man sarcastically.
"Yes, this morning. All of the Nanotech carpets have gone wild."
"Don't talk rubbish."
"It's true, just take a look at the outside of this building."
Another voice entered the conversation: "Oy, Burt, c'mon take a look at this, we're on TV."
Indeed, on the screen of the television in the office in the stockroom, (that none of the staff watched during work time, and didn't exist anyway) was a picture of the Concurrent Carpets building, on top of it was a huge square of beige carpet, one corner was folded over and held a struggling figure, the other corner not gripping the building waved angrily at passing aircars.
While the staff gawped Zack resumed his search of the stock room. Grid waved his antenna excitedly and zoomed off to one corner. Zack followed him into the depths of the stockroom where the building cooling system chugged to itself, then through a corridor of stacked boxes to a small alcove.
In the alcove was Zack's bedroom carpet, a now slightly battered and dusty blue, also in the alcove was a large pink carpet, between then slithered several small carpets the size of rugs, some pink, some blue, some a light shade of purple and one striped. The blue bedroom carpet looked up at Zack in an expectant way.
"Well why didn't you just say you had kids?"
Zack came out of the Concurrent building with a large trolley holding two rolled up carpets, on top of Grid was a pile of what looked like carpet tiles, both of the carpets on the trolley seemed to be watching the robot very carefully.
"Well at least that's sorted out," said Zack, "not much else can go wrong today." They walked onto the slow lane of a strip leading back to the Hybrids. Zack looked back, on the top of the Concurrent Carpets building a large beige square could still be made out.
A large, bulbous, fully automated airtruck made it's way slowly over the city, thousands made similar trips every day. It had been programmed to miss the tops of the huge towers which made up the city, but due to cost efficiency it had been programmed to miss them by a mere four hundred and fifty foot. The airtruck's computer brain was presently playing chess with a computer at base, and therefore was not concentrating on the sky ahead, it knew it was well above the buildings and nothing ever got in the way of an airtruck.
The mammoth airtruck hit the immense beige carpet dead-centre. The carpet folded around it, then bounced off and fell, a certain Mr Nesbit Throobe was left on the main windscreen of the truck, causing it to lose it's concentration and also fall to a simple checkmate from the base computer.
The dent in the carpet did not even out during it's trip down to the ground, the air whistling past it meant it could not. It did even out when it hit the mid-tower walkway sprouting from the side of the Concurrent Carpets tower, there was a terrible ripping sound and the carpet continued it's journey in two roughly even parts. The designers of Citi-comm 31 were not about to have their walkways damaged by a mere thirty square yard piece of living carpet on it's maiden plummet, the walkway continued as normal, having collected only a few beige fibres.
Zack turned a corner just before the two halves of carpet hit the ground with a loud thump, the wind the landing caused was still enough to knock everyone off their feet. Grid kept upright and his load was safe, he'd had enough of a tangle with Nanotech, Inc carpets to know he didn't want to get into an argument with two careful parents.