Free The Simulacra by Philip K. Dick Page A

Maury grunted at the simulacra. “Aw, what the hell, you’re just a bunch of artifacts. Pipe down while we thrash this out. We have enough troubles without you getting involved.” Seating himself at the desk he opened the morning
Chronicle.
“The whole world’s coming to an end. It’s not us, Chic, not just Frauenzimmer Associates. Listen to this item in today’s paper: ‘The body of Orley Short, maintenance man, was discovered today at the bottom of a six-foot vat of gradually hardening chocolate at the St. Louis Candy Company.’ ” He raised his head. “You get that ‘Gradually hardening chocolate’—that’s it. That’s the way we live. I’ll continue. ‘Short, 53, failed to come home from work yesterday, and—’ ”
    “Okay,” Chic interrupted. “I understand what you’re trying to say. This is one of those times.”
    “Exactly. Conditions are beyond any individual’s power. It’s when you got to be fatalistic, you know: resigned-like. I’m resigned to seeing Frauenzimmer Associates close forever. Frankly, that’s next.” He eyed the famnexdo group of simulacra moodily. “I don’t know why we constructed you fellows. We should have slapped together a gang of street hustlers, floozies with just enough class to interest the bourgeoisie. Listen, Chic, this is how this terrible item in the
Chronicle
ends. You simulacra, you listen, too. It’ll give you an idea of the kind of world you’ve been born into. ‘Brother-in-law Antonio Costa drove to the candy factory and discovered him three feet down in the chocolate, St. Louis police said.’ ” Maury savagely closed up the newspaper. “I mean, how are you going to work an event like that into your Weltanschauung? It’s just too damn dreadful. It unhinges you. And the worst part is that it’s so dreadful it’s almost funny.”
    There was silence and then the male adult simulacrum, no doubt responding to some aspect of Maury’s subconscious, said, “This is certainly no time for such a bill as the McPhearson Act to come into effect. We require psychiatric help from whatever quarter we can obtain it.”
    “ ‘Psychiatric help,’ ” Maury mocked. “Yeah, you’ve put your finger on it, Mr. Jones or Smith or whatever we named you. Mr. Nextdoor Neighbor, whoever you are. That would have saved Frauenzimmer Associates—right? A little psychoanalysis at two hundred dollars an hour for ten years . . . isn’t that how long it generally takes? Keerist.” He turned away from the simulacra, disgusted, and ate his doughnut.
    Presently Chic said, “Will you give me a letter of recommendation?”
    “Of course,” Maury said.
    Maybe I’ll have to go to work for Karp und Sohnen, Chic thought. His brother Vince, a
Ge
employee there, could get him put on; it was better than nothing, better than joining the pitiful jobless, the lowest order of the vast
Be
class, nomads who roamed the face of Earth, now too poor even to emigrate. Or perhaps he should emigrate. Perhaps that time had at last come; he should face it squarely. For once give up the infantile ambitions upon which he had traded for so long.
    But Julie. What about her? His brother’s wife made matters hopelessly complex; for example was he now responsible financially for her? He would have to thrash it out with Vince, meet him face to face. In any case. Whether he sought a position with Karp u. Sohnen Werke or not.
    It would be awkward, to say the least, approaching Vince under these circumstances; the business with Julie had happened at a bad time.
    “Listen, Maury,” Chic said. “You can’t lay me off, now. I’ve got a problem; as I related to you on the phone, I have a girl now who—”
    “All right.”
    “P-pardon?”
    Maury Frauenzimmer sighed. “I said
all right;
I’ll keep you on a little longer. So it hastens the bankruptcy of Frauenzimmer Associates. So what.” He shrugged massively. “So
geht das Leben:
that’s life.”
    One of the two children simulacra said to the