The Alternative, Page 2

  THREE

  The double doors to the auditorium were situated in a deep archway, and as they stepped through it, Kirk and Sharon were bombarded by bright spot lights. the brilliant lighting seemed excessive to the young physicist and he shaded his eyes until they adjusted to the glare.

  In the entryway stood a very straight, very correct middle aged usher who held a heavy velvet rope barring their way.

  “Just a few moments, please,” the man said a bit patronizingly. “The seating must be done very precisely.”

  Kirk and Sharon stood patiently in the pool of brilliance. Inside the auditorium they could see other ushers seating other guests. Again Kirk had an uneasy feeling. So far the evening had been filled with odd premonitions--something he wasn’t used to.

  What they couldn't see was everywhere around them: in the eyes of the statues, the guilt moldings and even in the folds of the red velvet draperies were the lenses of hidden cameras. Cameras which were trained on the couple from every conceivable angle--studying them. The images of the young couple were reflected in the lenses of the cameras--cameras of an unusual design. They resembled neither television nor motion picture paraphernalia.

  Finally the usher spoke again. “May I have your names please”.

  Puzzled by the unusual request, Kirk offered: “Mr...uh...and Mrs. Kirkland Miller.

  “Doctor. and Mrs. Kirkland Miller,” Sharon corrected him.

  Kirk ignored his wife’s amendment. He preferred to leave titles to others.

  “Not THE Dr . Miller?” gushed the usher, making an attempt to look impressed.

  As they stood there chatting, suddenly elsewhere in the fabulous old building, surprising things began to take place. The young couple began to divide like cells. In two’s, four’s, eight, sixteen--and continued to separate and multiply into dozens of Sharon's and Kirk's. Images that revealed every conceivable view of the young physicist and his wife. Some of the images were close up, others full length. Some were individual and some together: backs, fronts, sides and three- quarter shots. Each picture apparently served a particular and unique function. The couple was not only shown realistically in three dimensions on hundreds of view screens, but in some cases they were viewed in the abstract. There were close cropped pictures of skulls in silhouette. These forms reveal no recognizable external features, but were more like highly detailed X-rays. They seemed to concentrate on the modulations of the sense organs and even the brain itself inside the cranium. Within the brain pan, strange and mysterious colors glowed. bright reds, blues, greens and yellows pulsated within the minds of the young couple.

  One of the view screens showed a greatly magnified reproduction of the young Nobel Prize winner’s right eye. It was huge and exceptionally detailed as the apparatus set about learning not only what the young man saw, but exactly how he saw things.

  Almost as astonishing as the equipment itself was the huge darkened room that contained it. One end was taken up with hundreds of view screens. In front of the screens, shadowy figures worked at a mammoth console. At the moment, the multi-images of the physicist and his wife seemed to be their only concern.

  From somewhere in the darkened room, a voice whispered delightedly,

  “Ah, yes...yes! most assuredly, those two!”

  A finger pushed a button and elsewhere in the room amazing and exotic computers and recorders began to whirr.

  The voices of the trio on the screen took on an amplified quality, as if their words were issuing from ultra high-fidelity speakers. Other machines read out the electronic impulses of the voices and words being uttered by the threesome in the entrance. Oscilloscopes and meters jumped and wavered as each word was spoken.

  “What have you heard about our movie, Mrs. Miller? questions the usher.

  “She giggled slightly. “Just that THE Movie is the movie to see.”

  The voice whispered again. “Perfect!”

  As the pictures moved and changed there was the constant impression that all these unusual instruments combined to plumb the very s souls of this man and his wife. Searching out the most suppressed or enshrouded thoughts or memories of the individual under study; recording, analyzing, digesting the privileged information being fed into the computers by the miraculous equipment

  “I’m certainly looking forward to tonight’s showing” continued the wife of the young scientist.

  “We’re certain you won’t be disappointed,” the usher replied with an odd smile. “Oh, I think we can seat you now.”

  Another usher had come to the entrance and the head usher lowered the rope and let the couple pass.

  The commanding voice in the darkened whispered again.

  “Yes. They ‘ll do very nicely!”