Buy or Die. There cometh a time of ruthless advertising

Z looked at the cook. The cook’s jaw fell open, and both eyes rolled to the bridge of the nose.

“The perfect colleague!” Z sighed.

“Seven hours and twenty-four minutes now,” came a smooth voice from the bedroom. “Which reminds me about ‘24’ cafe, where every 24th visitor gets a free cup of coffee.”

“Oh, shit!”

He was really late now. He gulped his coffee and looked at Holmes, who was scrutinizing him closely from his corner. Z shook his head.

“Sorry, buddy, I do not have time. Ness will take you for a walk as soon as she is awake.”

“You are a stupid stinky goat!” the dog collar translated.

Holmes remained Ness’s dog. Neither half a year of living together, nor kilograms of sausage could soften his canine heart.

“I love you too,” Z replied. “Be a good dog: try not to bite off your balls when you wash yourself up.”

“Worse than a goat,” the collar translated. “Cat’s goat!”

***

Z looked at his watch: almost half past seven. A little more than half an hour before the morning instruction…

He put on a suit and, tapping on the lapel, tuned the color to his favorite dark blue. Then he scrutinized the back in the mirror. Today, the advertising space was filled by a trailer for the new thriller. Lately, the trailer was in a hot rotation, but Z had still not seen the film yet. He remembered only the name: “4981”. Or was it “1984”? After the film industry eventually gave up the bad habit of giving names to its offspring, Z constantly confused them. Might as well be “9841”. It’s a pity Ness is asleep. She would have known for sure. She has too much memory for one person.

As always, having remembered Ness, Z lost his vigilance and kept his eyes on the trailer a little longer than he should have. After viewing it four times, he finally pulled himself back together: luckily for him, it was only a trailer.

There was less and less time remaining. Z put on his spectacles (he’d rather forget their price right after he bought them), put on the headphones, poked new filters into his nostrils and, with cook under his armpit, quickly left the apartment.

He closed the door, and stood motionless for a moment, watching the gray walls of the corridor sliding forth, slowly dissolving in a soft, dim light. Then he leaned forward a bit, took off his spectacles, and met the wave that rushed towards him. He rocked back and smiled. It’s useless to oppose the sea. Because it was the sea: the same mighty waves, tearing each other in splashes and foam, the same invincible power. Only instead of water, there was onon, theon, zeon, and even good old neon and xenon. Waves of light rolled along the corridor, mixing and merging with each other, raving, clashing and bursting, wetting the walls and ceiling with spatters of luminescent foam. Advertisements of this and that. News, announcements, and trailers. Notifications and messages. Appeals, warnings, cautions. Pointers, inscriptions, graffiti. Holograms, instagrams, projections… Z knew that oceans of sounds and smells were raging on the same space at the same time, but he was not crazy enough to mix those drinks.

He gasped and hurriedly put his glasses on. The gray walls cut off the colored madness like a guillotine. The only reminder left was the barely noticeable logo of the glasses’ manufacturer – it was hardly visible but it was something that was always present and everywhere.

Z shook his head harshly to get rid of the colored spots that were floating before his eyes, and having adjusted the cook under his armpit, hurried to the elevator.

***

And yet the glasses were worth the money. They filtered everything except for the “ghost-walkers’ which, although forbidden, still crowded the streets. A passerby would change his direction suddenly and, with a friendly arm around your shoulders, whisper intimately in your ear: “Best sushi in town. Fifty meters straight and twenty to the right. I swear, you will eat your fingers with it!” and immediately melt into the air. It was near to impossible to indict or fine their owners. Z made it down to the garage and started to search his car. It was not that easy since the car had been granted the right to repaint itself at its own discretion: an award for a year of accident-free driving.

After spending several minutes futilely wandering around the garage, Z gave up and called out as loudly as he could:

“Toy, come here!”

A minute passed in vain. Z gritted his teeth, and turning the other way, yelled again:

“Toy, that’s enough! We are late!”

And then, finally, in the quiet rustling of tires, Toy came, slowly and proudly. A proud beast male, a thoroughbred horse, a car of Alpha class, which, of course, could only belong to the real male, that is (according to the Charter) to any Undo service officer, including Z. Could the real male’s salary be less than the cost of a single wheel of his car? The Charter was silent. As well as about whether his IQ could be less than that of his car. Officers suspected that they could not. So did the cars. Naturally, the relations between officers and their cars were tinted with mistrust, misunderstanding and poorly hidden contempt.

“Good morning, Toy,” Z greeted his car, taking a gloomy look at the acid green corpus with a picture of a very naked and very welcoming girl on the hood, “you look great.”

“Thank you,” Toy replied politely, “I found this print in the last issue of ‘The Wheel’. Do you like it?”

“Very nice,” Z agreed through clenched teeth.

“Really pretty, eh?” continued Toy, opening the door.

Every day Toy tried to choose the most disgusting color and picture, slowly but surely getting closer to the hidden complexes and fears of his owner. The game went into one gate, and Z had nothing left to do but endure it silently.

“Too skinny for me,” he said indifferently, “and tits are too small.”

“Really?” Toy was obviously surprised, “I was afraid they would hang from the hood if I enlarged them.”

“Well,” Z drawled in disappointment, “let it be like this. Be so kind, open the rear door.”

There was a silent buzzing of moving cameras: Toy was carefully examining Z’s burden.

“What’s this?” he asked suspiciously.

“The cook,” Z explained.

“Why does he travel under your armpit?”

“He broke down.”

“Died?”

“Broken,” Z repeated stubbornly. “He is ninety percent machine.”

“Okay,” Toy agreed. “So he is ninety percent broken. Still, as far as I understand he is ten percent dead.”

“Well,” Z laughed awkwardly. “What is ten percent? One has to score at least ninety to become a real corpse.”

“Не will stink up all the upholstery,” Toy said with disgust. “Where are you going to take him? And what for. And, finally, why do you not just throw it out?”

“Because I need it. By the way, I’m late.”

“You could get up earlier,” Toy said.

“I could if I knew he would die. That is, break.”

There was a long silence. At last, Toy said reluctantly:

“ОK, bring him here. Carefully!”

The door swung open and Z sat the cook in the seat. When he slammed the door, the deceased, turning over like a jellyfish, slowly stuck to the window glass with his face. His dead eyes were looking in completely different directions. Z shivered and sat in the front seat.

“Let us drive. We are in a great hurry.”