of Thompson. We would meet, for the first time in our lives, hundreds, perhaps thousands of others like ourselves, and we’d find new people we liked better than the old. We’d make new friends, and our old friends would gradually move to the periphery of our lives.
Another sign came up on the right, a city limits sign. Over it, we saw as we drove closer, someone had placed a poster: the white background and blue bar code of generic plain-wrap products. In place of the name THOMPSON was CITY, written in block computer letters.
At least someone here had a sense of humor.
“Is this going to be heaven or hell?” James asked quietly.
None of us answered.
We drove past two gas stations and a mini-mall and found ourselves in downtown Thompson.
The view from afar had been deceiving. Up close, this was without a doubt the most depressing city I had ever seen. It was not shabby, squalid, or run-down, it was not gaudy or in bad taste, it was just… average. Completely and totally average in every way. The houses were not alike, though they possessed the blocky sameness of suburbs everywhere. Attempts had obviously been made to decorate each house individually, but the sight was just pathetic. It was as though, knowing they were Ignored, each homeowner had tried desperately to be different. One house was painted shocking pink, another red, white, and blue. Still another was festooned with Christmas lights and Halloween decorations. But sadly, though the houses were different from one another, they were all equally nondescript, all equally forgettable.
And I knew that if I could tell, everyone else could, too.
That was really depressing.
Downtown looked neither tastefully planned nor eclectically jumbled but somehow put together in the most bland and inoffensive way possible. It had no character whatsoever.
We drove up and down the streets of the city. It was still early, and we saw very few people. A couple of cars were at a gas station, their owners tanking up, and here and there people were walking or driving to work, but for the most part the streets were empty.
We drove past a park, a public swimming pool, and there, in front of a square two-story building identified by a freestanding sign as THOMPSON CITY HALL, we saw a middle-aged man standing on the curb, waving us over. He was tall and somewhat heavyset, with a thick walrus mustache, and was smoking a pipe. “Here!” he called, pointing to the marked parking spot directly in front of him. “Park here!”
Jim looked at me, I shrugged, and he pulled into the space. We opened up the van doors and got out, stretching, our bodies cramped and tired after spending so much time in the vehicle. I walked up to the man, not sure of what to say.
He took the pipe out of his mouth, smiled at me. “You must be Bob,” he said.
I nodded.
“Dan called. Told me you’d be coming. I’m Ralph Johnson, mayor here.” He held out a thick hand, which I shook. “I’m also the welcoming committee and the adjustment coordinator, which means that it’s my responsibility to show you around, answer your questions, find you a place to live, and find you jobs if you intend to live here.”
“Questions, huh?” Don shook his head. “We have a lot of those.”
“Everyone always does.” He looked us over, each of us, nodding to himself as he did so and puffing on his pipe. “Dan said he was very impressed with you guys. And gal,” he added, nodding toward Mary. “He must have been. That’s the first time he’s called home since he left.”
“Really?” I said, surprised.
“I guess it was because you were all together. As you’ve probably noticed, people who are Ignored don’t tend to travel in packs. They don’t organize. But you guys…” He shook his head. “You guys are really something.”
“Philipe,” I said. “That would be Philipe.” I wanted to give credit where credit was due. “He’s the one who started the terrorists, got us all together.”
“The terrorists?”
“Terrorists for the Common Man. It was Philipe’s idea. He thought we’d been Ignored long enough. He thought we should act as terrorists on behalf of all the people who were Ignored, who couldn’t or wouldn’t stand up for themselves.”
Ralph shook his head admiringly. “This Philipe must be quite a man. Where is he now?”
“He’ll be coming in the next day or so, with another group of us.” James looked over at me questioningly. I knew he was wondering if he should bring up what had happened. I shook my head.
“I’ll be looking forward to it,” Ralph said. “In the meantime, I guess we should start on your orientation. Why don’t you begin by telling me your names and where you’re from. Introduce yourselves.”
We gave our names and hometowns, brief bios.
The mayor took his pipe from his mouth when we were through, looked at us thoughtfully. “I don’t know quite how to put this,” he said. “There’s no way to say it except to just say it. Have you all, uh, — ”
“Killed our bosses?” I asked.
He smiled, nodded, relieved. “Yes.”
“Yeah,” I told him. “We have.”
“Then welcome to Thompson.” He started walking slowly up the cement path toward the blocky building. “We’ll get you signed in and signed up and then we’ll be all ready to go.”
The mayor’s office, on the first floor of city hall, looked disconcertingly like a larger version of my office at Automated Interface. There was only one window — a small glass square overlooking the side parking lot. The rest of the room was blank, the walls bare, the desk covered with bureaucratic papers, no trace of personalization anywhere. We were given forms to fill out, generic questionnaires that looked like job applications but were supposedly “residency declarations.”
After a few minutes, Jim looked up from his form. “You guys have stores here, homes, a city hall. How come this place isn’t on any map?”
“Because this is not a real town. Not technically. It’s owned by Thompson Industries. They test-market their products here. If we don’t like them, then they figure the average American won’t like them. We get all the free products we want: food, clothes, electronic equipment, household appliances. We get it all.”
I felt a sudden hollowness in my gut. “You mean this city wasn’t founded by the Ignored for the Ignored?”
“Hell, no.”
“It’s not a real Ignored city then.”
“Sure it is. To a certain extent. I mean, we’re left alone here, we’re completely autonomous. It’s just that — ”
“Just that Thompson owns the land and the buildings, and you work for the company instead of yourselves.” James put down his pen.
Ralph laughed heartily. “It’s not as bad as all that. I admit, the concept may take some getting used to, but after a while, you don’t even think about it. For all intents and purposes, this is
A thought occurred to me. “If you’re a subsidiary of Thompson here, if the corporation bankrolls you and supports you, that means you’re not Ignored. Thompson notices you. Thompson knows you exist.”
That seemed important to me somehow.
He shrugged. “Not really. The statisticians record the number of units of each product we consume, report the figures to their superiors, who forward them to the company’s analysts, who report their findings to their superiors, who relay the information to their superiors, until the data finally reaches someone who can make a decision. No one really knows who we are. The big cheeses at the company probably don’t even know this town exists.”
We were silent.
“We used to be owned solely by Thompson,” the mayor continued. “Well, we still are, but we’re not
