The Tomorrow File Read Online Free PDF Page A

black. Eyes: Blue. Race was not noted since by assimilation (especially interbreeding), classification by race, color, or ethnical stock was no longer meaningful (or even possible). Creed was not noted since religious persuasion was of no consequence.
    My BIN was NM-A-31570-GPA-1-K14324. That is, I was a Natural Male with a Grade A genetic rating, bom March 15, 1970, who lived in Geo-Political Area 1, and whose birth registration number was K14324. The invisible magnetic coding made it almost impossible to forge a BIN card. Almost, but not quite.
    I put it away when the stewardess came down the aisle, pushing her cart of nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, Smack, Somnorifics, tranquilizers, decongestants, antidepressants, antibiotics, diuretics, steroid hormones, and narcotic sedatives. In her white zipsuit and white cap, she looked exactly like a pharmaceutical nurse making the rounds in a terminal ward.
    I asked for a two-hour Somnorific, but all she had was one-hour or three. I took the one. I settled back in my seat, the alumistretch strap holding me securely, and turned the inhaler over in my fingers before removing the seal.
    About five years previously, the Space Exploration Section (formerly NASA, now a division of the Department of the Air Force) had let a contract to Walker & Clarke Chemicals to develop a controlled hypnotic. SES had found that on extended flights and tours of duty in the space laboratories, the crews frequently suffered from boredom and/or insomnia. SES wanted a precisely timed sleeping pill, inhalant, or injection with no side or toxic effects.
    After some clever molecular manipulation of glutethimide, a nonbarbiturate hypnotic, Walker & Clarke came up with a powder that oxidized when exposed to air, releasing a gas that had the required somniferous effect when inhaled. After tests, the Space Exploration Section accepted the new product and felt it safe enough to license for unrestricted use. They claimed it was nonad-dictive.
    “It is nonaddictive,” Paul Bumford agreed, “unless you want to sleep.”
    Anyway, Walker & Clarke, after a massive preproduction advertising campaign (“Don’t wait for sleep; make it come to you!”) brought out Somnorific—plastic inhalers of precisely controlled strengths, from one to twenty-four hours. You peeled off the foil seal, waited about ten seconds for oxidation to take place, plugged the Somnorific into each nostril for a deep inhalation, and away you went.
    Initially, Somnorific was a colossal failure. Customer complaints mounted, unopened cartons were returned to jobbers by drugstores, to wholesalers by jobbers, and to Walker & Clarke by wholesalers.
    Investigation soon proved where the problem lay: customers were simply not waiting the required ten-second oxidation period despite clearly printed instructions for use. They were yanking off the foil seal, plugging the bullet-shaped containers up their noses, and taking deep breaths. Nothing.
    I knew all this because Tom Sanchez, Director of Research at Walker & Clarke, had brought his troubles to me. We sometimes did favors for lovers in the drug cartels. They, in turn, helped us on sweetheart legislation. In this case, I assigned the problem to my Human Engineering Team.
    They came up with the solution in one day. It was a classic. They recommended that the foil seal on each Somnorific inhaler be attached with a more tenacious adhesive. It was now difficult to pick off with your fingernails. When you finally got the damn thing off, it stuck to your fingertips and you had to ball it up between thumb and forefinger before you could flick it away. By that time, oxidation was completed and the Somnorific ready for use. We were all manipulated, in small matters and large.
    I finally flicked the foil seal off my fingers, took two inhalations of my one-hour Somnorific, and was gone: black, deep, dreamless.
    I must have drifted into natural sleep after the hypnotic wore off because we were letting down when I