that happen often around here? Or am I hallucinating again?’
‘You really do seem to be a stranger here. That’s a telephone. Like this –
Telephone, please!’
A head appeared in a frame that had contained a rather dull still life, a male head
in this case. ‘Your call, sir?’
‘Cancel.’ The head blinked out. ‘Like that?’
‘Yes. But a girl.’
‘Of course. You’re female and the call reached you in a bathroom, so the computer
displayed a head matching your sex. The computer matches lip movements to words…
but the visual stays an impersonal animation unless you elect to be seen. Same for
the caller.’
‘I see. A hologram.’
‘Yes. Come along.’ He added, ‘You look quite fetching in that towel but you looked
still better in your skin.’
‘Thank you.’ We went out into the hotel corridor; Pixel cut back and forth in front
of us. ‘Doctor, what is “The Committee for Aesthetic Deletions”?’
‘Huh?’ He sounded surprised. ‘Assassins. Criminal nihilists. Where did you hear of
them?’
`That head I saw in the bathroom. That telephone.’ I repeated the call, word for
word, I think.
‘Hmm. Interesting.’ He did not say another word until we reached his office suite,
ten storeys down on the mezzanine.
We ran across several hotel guests who had ‘jumped the gun’. Most were naked save
for domino masks but several wore full masks – of animals or birds, or abstract
fantasy. One couple were dressed most gaudily in nothing but paint. I was glad that
I had my terry cloth caftan.
When we reached Dr Ridpath’s office suite, I hung back in the waiting-room while he
went on into an inner room, preceded by Pixel. The doctor left the door open; I
could hear and see. His office nurse was standing, her back to us, talking ‘on the
telephone’ – a talking head. There appeared to be no one else in the suite.
Nevertheless I was mildly surprised to find that she had joined the epidemic of
skin; she was wearing shoes, minipanties, a nurse’s cap, and had a nurse’s white
uniform over one arm as if caught by the phone while she was undressing. Or
changing. She was a tall and slender brunette. I could not see her face.
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Heinlein, Robert A – To Sail Beyond the Sunset.txt
I heard her say, ‘I’ll tell him, Doc. Keep your guard up tonight. See you in jail.
Bye.’ She half turned. ‘That was Daffy Weisskopf, Boss. He has a preliminary report
for you. Cause of death, suffocation. But – get this – stuffed down the old
bastard’s throat, before the catsup was poured in, was a plastic envelope with a
famous – or infamous – card in it: “The Committee for Aesthetic Deletions.” ‘
‘So I figured. Did he say what brand of catsup?’
‘Fer cry eye yie!’
‘And what are you doing peeling down? Festival doesn’t start for another three
hours.’
‘Look here, slave driver! See that clock – ticking off the precious seconds of my
life? See what it says? Eleven past five. My contract says that I work until five.’
‘It says that you are on duty until I relieve you, but that overtime rate starts at
five.’
‘There were no patients here and I was changing into my festival costume. Wait till
you ser it, Boss! It’d make a priest blush.’
‘I doubt it. We do have a patient and I need your help.’
‘Okay, okay! I’ll get back into my Florence Nightingale duds.’
‘Don’t bother; it would just waste time. Mrs Long! Come in, please, and take off
your clothes.’
‘Yes, sir.’ I came in at once, while peeling off that scrounged caftan. I could see
what he was doing: a prudent male doctor has a chaperone when examining a female
patient; that’s a universal. A multi-universal. If the circumstances happen to
supply a chaperone in her skin, so much the better; there need be no time wasted on
“angel robes” and other such nonsense. Having helped my father and having stood
years of watches in the rejuvenation clinic at Boondock and in the associated
hospital, I understood the protocol invoked; a nurse in Boondock wears clothes only