We Can Build You. Philip Dick K.

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       6

      After having told Doctor Horstowski that I was a simulacrum I could not get the idea out of my mind. Once there had been a real Louis Rosen but now he was gone and I stood in this spot, fooling almost everyone, including myself.

      This idea persisted for the next week, growing a little dimmer each day but not quite fading out.

      And yet on another level I knew it was a preposterous idea, just a lot of drivel I had come up with because of my resentment toward Doctor Horstowski.

      The immediate effect of the idea was to cause me to look up the Edwin M. Stanton simulacrum; when I got back to the office from my visit to the doctor I asked Maury where the thing could be found.

      ‘Bundy’s feeding a new tape to it,’ Maury said. ‘Pris came across a biography of Stanton that had some new material.’ He returned to his letter-reading.

      I found Bundy in the shop with the Stanton; having finished, he was putting it back together. Now he was asking it questions.

      ‘Andrew Johnson betrayed the Union by his inability to conceive the rebellious states as –’ Seeing me, Bundy broke off. ‘Hi, Rosen.’

      ‘I want to talk to the thing. Okay?’

      Bundy departed, leaving me alone with the Stanton. It was seated in a brown, cloth-covered armchair, with a book open on its lap; it regarded me sternly.

      ‘Sir,’ I said, ‘do you recall me?’

      ‘Yes sir, I do. You are Mr Louis Rosen of Boise, Idaho. I recall a pleasant overnight stay with your father. Is he well?’

      ‘Not as well as I wish he was.’

      ‘A pity.’

      ‘Sir, I’d like to ask you a question. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that although you were born around 1800 you are still alive in 1982? And doesn’t it seem odd to you to be shut off every now and then? And what about your being made out of transistors and relays? You didn’t used to be, because in 1800 they didn’t have transistors and relays.’ I paused, waiting.

      ‘Yes,’ the Stanton agreed, ‘those are oddities. I have here a volume –’ He held up his book. ‘Which deals with the new science of cybernetics and this science has shed light on my perplexity.’

      That excited me. ‘Your perplexity!’

      ‘Yes sir. During my stay with your father I discussed puzzling matters of this nature with him. When I consider the brief span of my life, swallowed up in the eternity before and behind it, the small space that I fill, or even see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces which I know not, and which know not me, I am afraid.’

      ‘I should think so,’ I said.

      ‘I am afraid, sir, and wonder to see myself here rather than there. For there is no reason why I should be here rather than there, now rather than then.’

      ‘Did you come to any conclusion?’

      The Stanton cleared its throat, then got out a folded linen handkerchief and carefully blew its nose,‘it seems to me that time must move in strange jumps, passing over intervening epochs. But why it would do that, or even how, I do not know. At a certain point the mind cannot fathom anything further.’

      ‘You want to hear my theory?’

      ‘Yes sir.’

      ‘I claim there is no Edwin M. Stanton or Louis Rosen anymore. There was once, but they’re dead. We’re machines.’

      The Stanton regarded me, its round, wrinkled face twisted up. ‘There may be some truth in that,’ it said finally.

      ‘And,’ I said, ‘Maury Rock and Pris Frauenzimmer designed us and Bob Bundy built us. And right now they’re working on an Abe Lincoln simulacrum.’

      The round, wrinkled face darkened. ‘Mr Lincoln is dead.’

      ‘I know.’

      ‘You mean they are going to bring him back?’

      ‘Yes,’ I said.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘To impress Mr Barrows.’

      ‘Who is Mr Barrows?’ The old man’s voice grated.

      ‘A multi-millionaire who lives in Seattle, Washington. It was his influence that got sub-dividers started on the Moon.’

      ‘Sir, have you ever heard of Artemus Ward?’

      ‘No,’ I admitted.

      ‘If Mr Lincoln is revived you will be subjected to endless humorous selections from the writings of Mr Ward.’ Scowling, the Stanton picked up its book and once more read. Its face was red and its hands shook.

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