Read This Perfect Day for Free Online Page A

Chemotherapists. More bunting was on the desk, a roll of red and a roll of green, and Mary’s open telecomp with a container of tea beside it. “Li?” she said, not turning. “That was quick. Sit down.”
    Chip sat down. Lines of green symbols glowed on the telecomp’s screen. The answer button was held down by a souvenir paperweight from RUS81655.
    “Stay,” Mary said to the bunting and, watching it, backed down off her chair. It stayed.
    She swung her chair around and smiled at Chip as she drew it in to her and sat. She looked at the telecomp’s screen, and while she looked, picked up the container of tea and sipped from it. She put it down and looked at Chip and smiled.
    “A member says you need help,” she said. “The girl you fucked last night, Anna”—she glanced at the screen— “VF35H6143.”
    Chip nodded. “I said a dirty word,” he said.
    “Two,” Mary said, “but that’s hardly important. At least not relatively. What is important are some of the other things you said, things about deciding which classification you would pick if we didn’t have UniComp to do the job.”
    Chip looked away from Mary, at the rolls of red and green Christmas bunting.
    “Is that something you think about often, Li?” Mary asked.
    “Just sometimes,” Chip said. “In the free hour or at night; never in school or during TV.”
    “Nighttime counts too,” Mary said. “That’s when you’re supposed to be sleeping.”
    Chip looked at her and said nothing.
    “When did it start?” she asked.
    “I don’t know,” he said, “a few years ago. In Eur.”
    “Your grandfather,” she said.
    He nodded.
    She looked at the screen, and looked at Chip again, ruefully. “Didn’t it ever dawn on you,” she said, “that ‘deciding’ and ‘picking’ are manifestations of selfishness? Acts of selfishness?”
    “I thought, maybe,” Chip said, looking at the edge of the desktop, rubbing a fingertip along it.
    “Oh, Li,” Mary said. “What am I here for? What are advisers here for? To help us, isn’t that so?”
    He nodded.
    “Why didn’t you tell me? Or your adviser in Eur? Why did you wait, and lose sleep, and worry this Anna?”
    Chip shrugged, watching his fingertip rubbing the desktop, the nail dark. “It was—interesting, sort of,” he said.
    “ ‘Interesting, sort of,’” Mary said. “It might also have been interesting, sort of, to think about the kind of pre-U chaos we’d have if we actually did pick our own classifications. Did you think about that?”
    “No,” Chip said.
    “Well, do. Think about a hundred million members deciding to be TV actors and not a single one deciding to work in a crematorium.”
    Chip looked up at her. “Am I very sick?” he asked.
    “No,” Mary said, “but you might have ended up that way if not for Anna’s helpfulness.” She took the paperweight from the telecomp’s answer button and the green symbols disappeared from the screen. “Touch,” she said.
    Chip touched his bracelet to the scanner plate, and Mary began tapping the input keys. “You’ve been given hundreds of tests since your first day of school,” she said, “and UniComp’s been fed the results of every last one of them.” Her fingers darted over the dozen black keys. “You’ve had hundreds of adviser meetings,” she said, “and UniComp knows about those too. It knows what jobs have to be done and who there is to do them. It knows everything. Now who’s going to make the better, more efficient classification, you or UniComp?”
    “UniComp, Mary,” Chip said. “I know that. I didn’t really want to do it myself; I was just—just thinking what if, that’s all.”
    Mary finished tapping and pressed the answer button. Green symbols appeared on the screen. Mary said, “Go to the treatment room.”
    Chip jumped to his feet. “Thank you,” he said.
    “Thank Uni,” Mary said, switching off the telecomp. She closed its cover and snapped the catches.
    Chip hesitated. “I’ll be