Buy or Die. There cometh a time of ruthless advertising

“Thirty units,” Toy said drily.

“Come on! The limit is still fifty.”

“It’s the second time in a week.”

“So what?” snarled Z.

Toy kept silent.

“Okay.” Z clenched his teeth. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe. I will think this over thoroughly in the evening, I promise. Now can we go?”

“No,” Toy answered calmly. “You must promise that you will radically reconsider your relationship with alcohol.”

“Bullshit. Are we in kindergarten?”

“Citizen,” Toy repeated, and he did it much louder this time. “You must promise that you will radically reconsider your relationship with alcohol.”

Z turned around in fright, but the garage seemed to be empty.

“Not that loud!”

He drew air into his lungs, opened his mouth, then cast a look at his watch and changed his mind:

“ОK. I promise.”

“What exactly do you promise?”

“To reconsider. Radically reconsider my relationship with alcohol.”

Toy grunted with obvious mistrust.

“Perfect. You can hardly imagine how sensitive the self-assessment module is in cars of my class. If the driver is as drunk as a marquis…”

“As a lord,” Z corrected mechanically.

“Lord,” Toy agreed. “If the driver is as drunk as a lord every other day, a car of my physique can easily fall into depression. Do you understand how this would affect the quality and safety of driving?”

“Of course,” Z nodded solemnly. “I hate myself for doing this to you.”

The car’s engine came to life, but the door remained open.

“I guess I’ll start reconsidering right now,” Z added.

“Good,” Toy noted.

“Already started,” Z said.

“Congratulations. We set off…”

Toy faltered and added in a strange, frivolous, voice:

“By the way, the best whiskey is sold in ‘Good Wees Key’ market, right around the corner. Discounts on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Free tasting on Mondays and Thursdays.”

Toy recovered his normal voice.

“It’s unbearable! Why? Even you with your tiny IQ must understand how humiliating it is! You promised to unsubscribe from advertising last week.”

“Surely I remember,” Z grinned, “but when, did you say, do they have free tasting?”

Toy choked.

“Mondays and Thursdays,” he repeated readily in that strange, sugary, voice. “Gentlemen who bring a lady are entitled to a free condom.”

There was a pause.

“Are you making fun of me?” asked Toy in his ordinary voice.

“Never! I just have a bad memory. Just imagine, I have already forgotten what days they have a discount!”

“Discounts are on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays,” Toy informed readily. “Stop it now! I am sick.”

“Oh, I am so sorry. But we are late, do you remember?”

“Fasten your belt then,” Toy growled with hatred, “Estimated travel time is twenty minutes.”

The door slammed shut at last, and Z, with a sigh of relief, got rid of his earphones, glasses, and nose filters. There was no need for them in the Alpha class car. Full protection was standard. “Feel like an embryo in the womb, like a chick in an egg, like a fish in an aquarium. And let this mad world wait outside!” And so it did: arrogant, loud, acidic. Quiet and harmless when viewed through Toy’s windows. Z glanced at his watch and frowned. Hell! Where did this traffic jam come from?

Time seemed to freeze outside. Cars, like drops of tar, flowed unbearably slowly along the gray plane of the highway. Toy was only a drop now, one amidst thousands of others. Inside, Z gnawed his nails with impatience, counting down the minutes before the beginning of the morning instruction. Fourteen… Thirteen… Twelve…

“Toy, is there any other way?”

“No.”

Eleven… Ten… And finally the source of the jam! A worthless fool unable to cope with the few remaining laws. An imbecile who stole time from hundreds of decent citizens. Toy was already passing an asphalt grave hill, and Z turned away. The hill began to melt, turning into intricate black lace on the body of the arrested car. One had to have good nerves to watch the contents of such cars: depending on the crime, a car with its driver could have been blocked this way for an hour, a day, or a week, with all the ensuing consequences. The latest novelty in the penitentiary system. Full exemption from arrest, investigation, and trial. No more doubts. No expenses. No human factor. And no more prisons. Caught on the spot – punished on the exact same spot. Otherwise – innocent. Z shivered and carefully moved his foot away from the gas pedal.

***

At two minutes to eight, Toy drove up to the massive gray cube, whose walls, it seemed, were repelling not only inscriptions but also paint. They needed no spectacles to do this. The Undo service building was the only one in the city that had neither advertisements nor color. Even the ubiquitous goggles manufacturer logo slid off its immaculately clean walls. The Service had always stood firm, an impregnable cliff of purity and innocence protruding from the raging ocean of colors, sounds, and smells. And, like smaller cliffs, officers of the Service drifted around the city, immaculately gray, perfectly neutral, resembling eerie cracks in the colored madness of the universe, where everything alive, colored, and warm disappears without a trace. The missing glass in the kaleidoscope pattern, the blind spot on an eyeball, the dark cloud in a clear sky – Undo officers were all this and more. People were afraid of them and avoided them. Not only because the number of human attributes was minimal in them, but also because, according to rumors, their powers were limited only by working hours. Z looked at his watch again and finally sighed with relief. He was on time.

“Good job, Toy,” he had time to say before hitting the windshield hard with his nose. The car came to a stop a few inches from a pedestrian who appeared in front of the hood suddenly. Rubbing his nose, Z glared at the pedestrian, trying to understand what he was doing on the roadway.

It turned out that he just wanted to smoke a cigar. Apparently, he was not able to light it because of the wind. So he was trying and trying and trying.

There was no way around a cigar lover. There was no success in setting that damned cigar on fire in the wind, too. Z beeped softly. The pedestrian did not pay any attention. Nobody would pay any attention to anything while wearing the kind of headphones the pedestrian had on. One could buy Toy with Z inside him for such money. Z looked at his watch again and, clenching his teeth, pressed the siren button forcefully.

The sound wave swept dust off the road, frightened a couple of clouds from the sky and carefully moved the pedestrian a few meters ahead. Once in his new place, the pedestrian stumbled, barely kept his balance, but still dropped the cigar. Having carefully examined the cigar that was floating in the puddle, the pedestrian slowly turned around and examined first Toy, and then Z behind the wheel in the same leisurely manner. Then he took aim and spit deftly and copiously right on Toy’s windshield.

***