Dreamtown U. S. A.
BY LEO P. KELLEY
Here is another look at the America of tomorrow—by a
Wilkes College sophomore, winner of the 3rd prize in IF's
College Science Fiction Contest.... An America in which
there is no more school, no more art, no more enterprise,
no more intellectual pursuit—a nation of hedonists.
And in such a land, how could there be malcontents?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, February 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The girl's body was small, slender, and perfectly proportioned. Herhair had been dyed platinum and was drawn back from her face by a meshnet which sparkled with red jewels. She stood in the middle of theroom, head tilted back, eyes closed, moving in time to the music comingfrom an invisible transmitter. Her hands glided sinuously up and downeither side of her body. She seemed oblivious to the people circlingthe room enjoying Gil Patton's party. It was only when she heardBrant's voice that she opened her eyes.
"Lisa, you go for that stuff, I see," Brant called to her, referringto the music being piped into the room from one of Dreamtown's manySensory Communications Centers.
"It's really out of this world, Brant, way out, all out!" Lisa replied.She came over and sat on the arm of the chair in which Brant sprawled.
"You can feel it way down here," she said, and placed her hand on thepit of her stomach.
"Wonder how we ever got kicks out of that old stuff that you couldn'tfeel?" Brant asked as he placed his arm about Lisa's waist. "Justhearing music doesn't give you any glow."
Brant slid farther down in the chair and stretched his legs out beforehim. The bluish light in the room glinted from the highly polishedsurface of his knee length boots. He wore loose-fitting yellow trousersand a black suede shirt split open almost to the waist, revealing hischest.
"Have you tried one of Gil's new pebbles?" he asked Lisa.
"No, what's new about them?" she asked. She wriggled into Brant's lapand rubbed her cheek against his chest.
"They're slaughter. Instead of just getting a deeper feeling from realexperiences, you can sit back and imagine something—anything—and youcan feel the sensations of your fantasy. You can feel all that way downhere, too," he said, touching, in repetition of Lisa's gesture, the pitof her stomach.
"Get me one, Brant. Let's see what goes."
Brant lifted Lisa to her feet and rose from the chair. His bootsclicked against the green metal floor as he pushed his way throughthe crowd of merry makers toward a transparent glass bubble which wassuspended from the ceiling by a silver chain. He pushed back thedispenser on the bubble and a cylindrical pill rolled out onto hishand. He carried it back to where Lisa sat swaying to the music whichcontinued to fill the room.
"Here child. This will really give you a dream," he said as he handedher the pill.
Brant watched Lisa sink into the half coma that the sensation pillsproduced. He leaned over and kissed her shoulder. Then he straightenedand moved across the room to where Gil Patton stood in front of aglass wall which afforded a panoramic view of the entire city.
"Good party, Gil," Brant said to his host.
"I hoped it wouldn't be sad. Anything clicking?"
Brant pointed to Lisa. "She is. Been trying your new pebbles."
"How's the Assistant Director of Sensory Communications