The Ignored (39 page)

We were parked on the side of an otherwise deserted two-lane road.
Behind us were warehouses and railroad tracks, vacant lots filled with cacti and
growing weeds and the detritus of old construction crews. Before us, shimmering
in the clear sunlight of dawn, looking like the Emerald City to our tired
desperate eyes, was Thompson.

I blinked, pulled apart my sticking eyelashes. “Are you sure that’s it?”
I asked. “Are you sure that’s Thompson?” I knew the answer, but I had to ask
anyway.

James nodded. “Check it out.” He pointed out the side window of the van
at a green sign I had not noticed before.

THOMPSON, the sign said. 5 MILES.

“We’re home,” Mary said, and there was awe in her voice.

“What are we waiting for?” I asked. “Let’s move out.”

Jim put the car into gear, and we drove toward the shining vision before
us.

I would have expected us to be wildly excited, enthusiastically talking
nonstop, but instead we were quiet as we drove down the deserted road. It was
like we were in the last act of a movie, when the heroes, having accomplished
their goal, are heading home and will soon part to go their separate ways. The
feeling in the van was like that. There was an air of sadness and melancholy,
and though none of us knew why, we were all rather subdued. We should have been
happy to finally find the city, but I suppose we all realized, at least
subconsciously, that this meant that our current lifestyle was coming to an end,
and that depressed us.

I stared through the front windshield as we drew closer. I was glad to
finally find a society in which I would fit, in which I would belong. And I
would not miss a lot of the morally questionable things we’d done with the
terrorists. But I would miss the closeness, the camaraderie. For despite what we
would say to each other, despite what we would promise ourselves and want to
believe, that closeness would not be maintained. We would drift apart. It was
inevitable. The intensity of our life would be dissipated as we were assimilated
into the day-to-day life 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
our
city.”

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
used
solely by Thompson. Other companies pay
Thompson for our use. Kind of an inter-business partnership. A whole host of
corporations now provide us with their products. So we get everything free. We
get free cable TV, all the movie channels, because they want to know what people
want to watch. All of our food is free because they want to find out what people
eat. Our stores are stocked with the latest fashions because they want to know
what clothes people will buy. The Gallup people have a permanent office here.
The random polls you hear about? They’re all conducted here, in Thompson.”

“
Everything’s
free?” Don said.

“Everything. You can take whatever you need. We like to joke that we
have the only communist system that actually works. Of course, it’s bankrolled
by money-grubbing, multi-billion-dollar capitalist corporations.”

“Does the government know about this place?”

Ralph sucked on his pipe. He leaned back in his chair. “I don’t think
they do. You know, I’ve thought about that long and hard, and I don’t believe
they’re aware of our existence. Otherwise, we probably would’ve been studied to
death. Some military use probably would’ve been found for us in the Cold War
days. No, I think we’re one of those corporate secrets that private enterprise
keeps under wraps.”

“The reason Don asked,” I said, “is because men have been after us.
Official government-looking guys.”

The mayor’s face clouded over. “National Research Associates. They’re
hired by a consortium of companies who’re in with Thompson.”

“Why?”

“They don’t want any of us outside the city, don’t want us infiltrating
the general population. Figure it’ll throw off their outside polls. Right now,
see, they run parallel polls, question us, question the general population.
We’re a big expense. Other companies have to pay through the nose for our
services. Some of them don’t like it. They keep trying to trip us up, prove
we’re out of sync.”

“And they’d kill us for that?”

He shrugged. “What are we to them? Nothing. Who would notice if we were
gone? Who would care?” He smiled slightly. “Thing is, we screw ’em up every
time. Either they can’t find us or they forget about us. We’re almost impossible
to catch. Even people specifically looking for us don’t notice us.”

“They caught one of our guys,” I said. “Killed him. In Familyland.”

Ralph looked grave. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know that.” He was
silent for a moment, then he looked up at the clock above his office door.
“Look, it’s getting late. It’s almost nine. Places are starting to open. Finish
those forms, and I’ll take you around. We’ve got a lot to go over today.”

We finished filling out the questionnaires, handed them back to him. He
placed them in a folder on his desk, and stood. “Let’s take a walk.”

I had not noticed it before, but Thompson was modeled after all those
Hollywood movie small towns. The park and the city hall/police station/fire
station complex were at the center, the hub of the wheel, and everything spread
out from that. The surrounding blocks contained businesses—grocery stores,
offices, gas stations, department stores, auto dealerships, banks, movie
theaters—and beyond that were homes and schools.

We walked through the business district, Ralph acting as tour guide.
Nearly all of the stores were chains—Sears, Target, Montgomery Ward, Von’s,
Safeway, Radio Shack, Circuit City—and even those that weren’t had display
windows filled with brand-name items. I felt comfortable walking here. I was
aware, intellectually, of the city’s complete and utter mediocrity, but I could
not help but enjoy a pleasurably gratifying feeling of familiarity as I walked
with the others down the sidewalk. It was as though the city and everything in
it had been designed specifically with me in mind.

No, I told myself. My wants and needs and desires were not that common.
I was not that generic.

But I was.

“Is everyone here Ignored?” I asked Ralph. “Aren’t there normal wives or
husbands of Ignored people?”

“There were. Still are, sometimes. But if those marriages don’t break
up, the couples leave.” He smiled. “Love really is blind. Turns out we’re not
Ignored to those who love us. Somehow, though, on a practical level, on a
day-to-day basis, those kinds of mixed relationships seem to work better in the
normal world than our world. And before you ask, yes, all of our children are
Ignored. It is passed on. By those of us who can
have
children. A lot of
us seem to be sterile.”