that word. He provides little to no financial support, forcing her to live with and on handouts from friends, because they feel sorry for her and the children. By mutual agreement, they see each other only on weekends. He currently resides at a boarding house for young males at 1026 North Beckley, not far from his place of employment.”
The border of one of the screens flashed to show Hoken what would be discussed next.
“He has held one menial, unsatisfying, boring job after another,” said Gunnerr as he continued on with the seemingly infinite detailing of #1’s faults. “He leaves after several months or is released, fired. Once, he was escorted to the door by security and literally thrown out. There’s no stability, only continued wandering, looking for something he will obviously never find.
“He’s never happy with his job, and I assure you, Major, the feeling is mutual. His employers and supervisors are never satisfied with his performance, and for good reason. His work is slow, inattentive, and sloppy. The product is always inadequate. He’s uniformly disliked by his coworkers, at least in part because he continually harangues them with his extremist political views and criticizes their religious beliefs. In spite of being a loser with a capital L, he feels the world owes him something.”
This man has all of the faults, and even more, and none of the positive qualities of Rennedee, thought Hoken.
“Because of his activity and involvement in several political fringe organizations, we’ve been able to obtain about five minutes of an audio, which on Earth they call radio, transmission of his voice. Major, these transmissions are via electromagnetic radiation, a technology we’ve not used on Oria for more than five hundred years, since we developed virtual photon transmissions. Earth’s radio transmissions are either by amplitude modulation, called AM, or frequency modulation, called FM. In the U.S., the radio transmission stations are identified by three or four letters of the Roman alphabet.
“Major, we’re really lucky that we were able to obtain a five minute clip of his voice from a broadcast three months ago from a radio station with the call-letter designation WDSU. The first voice is the interviewer, the second is our man.”
Hoken now had a voice to go with the picture. To help himself get even more in the mood, he set his face with the smirkish frown. He listened intently. There was an intermittent crackle—like rubbing your hair right next to your ear—but the recording was otherwise clear, the words easily understandable. After the interviewer, speaking in the typical staccato Walter Winchell newsman style, provided some background and introduction, he asked, “How long has your group had an organization in this area?”
Human #1 responded, “We have had members in this area for several months now. Up until about two months ago, however, we have not organized our members into any sort of active group. Until, as you say, this week, we have decided to feel out the public, what they think of our organization, our aims, and for that purpose we have been, as you say, distributing literature on the street…”
Hoken shook his head in disbelief. He was stunned; stunned because he was so impressed. Since Hoken’s father was the chief political officer of the planet, he had heard hundreds of interviews. For a man in his early twenties, #1 could hardly have done a better, more polished, job. He was composed; he answered the questions quickly, accurately and succinctly, with obvious forethought. He had a solid vocabulary and a wide knowledge base. Questions that were clearly asked in a way to throw him off guard or probe for weakness or that were even meant to provoke him were easily, almost effortlessly, handled. Hoken admitted to himself that #1 did a better job at the interview than he could have done.
Hoken would replay this clip as many times as possible over the next three days on the trip to Earth—while he ate, while he exercised, sometimes even during his formal English lessons. He wanted to quickly memorize the content so he could talk along with the recording. This is where the computer’s voice recognition program would so useful. It could display visually the entire sound context of Hoken’s pronunciation of a word next to that of Human #1’s, and then give instructions, such as use a higher or lower tone, roll the R, don’t pronounce the T as hard, etc. He had to be able to mimic every intonation, every inflection, so that by the time he reached Earth, he would sound as much like Human #1 as possible. He would never be able to fool the computer, all he needed to do was to be able to fool co-workers, friends and family.
Everyone has “catch phrases,” things that for whatever reason they use over and over, as fillers for the conversation, such as “and so on and so forth.” Hoken noted #1 would often say “as you say.” He wanted to say as little as possible, but when he had to talk, he’d try to add “as you say” to the conversation.
“Major,” continued Gunnerr, “we’ve spent as much time analyzing #1’s personality as we have gathering facts on him. You can’t succeed without understanding the essence of this man. You’ll be in his body, so you also have to be inside his head.”
The previous information was replaced by his personality profile.
“Everything about him is a paradox. His areas of strength, and he does have some—as I know you appreciated from the interview—are like islands surrounded by an almost infinite ocean of weaknesses and failures. A variety of tests demon-strate above average, even bordering on superior, intellect. As I already mentioned, he scored in the high upper-normal range on their standard intelligence tests. When it’s his desire, and obviously when it’s to his advantage, he can appear erudite, logical, and intelligent. As you heard from the tape, because he is so well read, he can provide alert, detailed replies to almost all questions.
“But in his personal contacts, and thus in his functioning in society, he is an utter failure. The most telling and chilling observation that we could find was that he was ‘a puppy that everybody loved to kick.’ ”
Ouch, thought Hoken, as he visibly winced. He even mouthed, “How pathetic,” as he cringed at the thought. He had never really heard that type of a comment applied to anyone. He was going to have to think about that for a while.
“He’s never really satisfied with anything—his situation in life, his friends, or his coworkers. He is completely alienated from the world. His entire existence is characterized by isolation, frustration, and failures—almost all of his own doing. Of course, everything that goes wrong is always someone else’s fault, never his. He lacks introspection, compassion, empathy, or guilt. In spite of being married and having two children, a mother and brothers, he has no personal relationships of significance with anyone inside or outside of his family. He demonstrates perpetual hostility to his surroundings with ideations of grandeur and thoughts of oppression. He likes no one and distrusts—really despises—everyone.”
Hoken just shook his head as Gunnerr continued on with the narrative.
“We thought there would be nothing that surprised us about this man, but there actually was one thing we all expected and didn’t find: substance abuse, drug addiction. Fortunately, on Oria we’ve almost done away with that, but as you know, in less advanced, more backwards societies, it is much more common. Substance abuse on Earth is rampant,” said Gunnerr is a not-so-disguised disdainful tone. “Not only are illegal drugs easy to obtain, but two of the most addictive, namely nicotine and alcohol, are legally available—and are even promoted. Human #1’s personality seems to beg that he would be addicted to something, but from all the data we’ve gathered so far, he’s, as they say, clean, and always has been.”
“Huh, thought Hoken with a laugh of resignation. I might end up being a real jerk, but at least I won’t be a junkie.
Gunnerr continued on. “He continually, routinely and habitually rebels against authority, yet he feels he should be able to exercise it. His entire life—in school, in the Armed Services, in his employment—is characterized by disagreements with his superiors, with anyone in a position of authority. In almost every circumstance it is initiated by him. He seems to know no other way. He is a truly disagreeable man.
“In spite of this, he has fantasies of power. Although he is at the lowest end of the socioeconomic scale, he is sure he will have a place in history. He’s even gone so far as to state, to proclaim,