Commune 2000 AD. Mack Reynolds

A communard might be in a local commune in New England one day and travel down to one on the Florida peninsula the next. Or, for that matter, the whole commune might make such a move.

      He made his way into the living room and toward the door. That bastard Englebrecht hadn’t the foggiest notion, when he came up with this brainstorm, of what was involved. Ted had a sneaking suspicion that there were literally tens of millions of Americans now living in the many types of commune; fugitives from the ordinary way of life under this alleged Utopia, the ultrawelfare society which had evolved in the past quarter century.

      Tens of millions? For the first time it occurred to him that more than ninety percent of the population of United America lived by what was actually the norm, on Universal Guaranteed Income. It was from this huge number that the communes were being formed.

      The community buildings of West Hurley were about a kilometer from Ted Swain’s house. The inhabitants of the town valued privacy above all and their houses were not packed together. The very thought of living in a hi-rise apartment building along with several thousand others was enough to chill Ted Swain’s blood.

      He didn’t bother to summon a car, since he never rode if he could walk. A full-time scholar could go to pot in short order if he didn’t take advantage of every opportunity to exercise.

      The swimming pool, the tennis courts and even the jai alai court were getting a good afternoon play. Ted waved to various acquaintances, but pushed on to the restaurant, which he found practically empty.

      Mike Latimer was sitting at the bar, nursing a drink. When Ted sat down at a table, he picked up his glass and brought it over.

      He said, “You know what’s gone out of this world of ours?”

      “No,” Ted said, looking up from the menu set into the table top. “What?”

      “The bartender, that’s what. It used to be that a well-intentioned hard-drinking man could go into a bar and spend the afternoon telling the long-suffering bartender all his troubles. And the bartender had to listen. It was an occupational hazard. Now everything’s automated.” He sat down across from Ted Swain.

      Ted said, “You can always talk with a friend.”

      “No, that’s not it. You don’t get the scenario. If you’ve got a friend you’re drinking with he wants to tell you his troubles, not listen to yours. The old-fashioned bartender never told you his troubles, he just listened sympathetically to your woes.”

      Ted chuckled. Mike was a slight, amiable type, good-looking, dark of hair and brows and with a beautiful speaking voice. All of which fitted in with his trade. He was a TV news commentator, specializing in this immediate vicinity, local news, local gossip. His sense of humor was sparkling and he was popular. He liked his work, and since his listeners liked him, he was returned to the job time after time on work-muster day. He was one of the few in West Hurley who had employment.

      Ted ran his finger down the menu and ordered a whale steak, along with suitable vegetables and a salad. He felt ravenous. He put his transceiver on the payment screen, dialed the meal, leaned back and looked thoughtfully at his tablemate.

      He pulled on the lobe of his right ear, which was big enough as it was, without needing stretching, and said, “You know, it occurs to me that you’re just the man I want.”

      Mike Latimer pretended to wince. “So you’ve come to that, eh? Turned queerie. Well, no thanks. I go for girls.”

      “Doesn’t everybody know it? You’ve poked practically every mopsy in town. What I meant was, if anybody knew anything about the communes in this area, you would.”

      “Communes? What about the communes?”

      “Academician Englebrecht has come up with a subject for my dissertation. He wants me to do my book on a comparison between prehistoric communes and the modern ones.”

      Mike looked at him questioningly. “I thought your specialty was ancient society.”

      “It is. This is a new departure for me. There’s practically nothing in the data banks on modern communes, a fact that floors me. How can anything as big as they are currently have no data on them?”

      Mike Latimer took a pull at his drink. “They’re dropouts,” he said. “They’re misfits in this culture. Some of them are bitter about it. Some couldn’t care less. But they have no intention of living like the rest of us. They want to do their own thing, not be bothered by society. So they contribute as little as possible to the statistics compiled by the data banks.”

      Ted Swain said, “You mean, all of them?”

      “No, not all of them. West Hurley, here, is one type of commune. Less far out than most, perhaps, but a commune of single, largely young, people interested in lots of poking, lots of sports, lots of entertainment. But there aren’t many real rebels among us. Actually, we’re rather on the conservative side, as communes go. We cooperate with the authorities, including the National Data Banks, we vote in the civic elections, we get along with everybody. But we don’t live in apartments in one of the pseudocities; we’ve left the cities.”

      Mike thought about it for a moment before adding, “I suspect that this commune thing is considerably bigger than has been let out. And I suspect that it’s going to get bigger still. In a way, you might say that Robert Owen lives.”

      “Robert Owen?”

      “Never heard of him? An early 19th Century British reformer. Father of the cooperative movement. Sort of a Utopian socialist, I suppose you’d call him,” Mike said.

      The center of the table dropped and then returned with Ted’s meal. He took up his napkin and utensils and forked an initial bite.

      He said, “I met George Dollar at Englebrecht’s apartment He was hot for the project. I got the impression that he thought the communes were getting out of hand.”

      Mike was surprised. “Dollar, eh? He’s backing you?”

      “To the extent he can, evidently. From what he said, he’d like to see more information in the National Data Banks on the communes. They don’t seem to have had much luck getting information out of them.”

      Mike grunted. “I can see why. Suppose you wanted information on this new art colony mobile town that’s shaping up over toward Saugerties. Suppose you sent a man in, pretending he was an artist, to pry around. How long do you think it would be before they knew damn well he was no artist?”

      He cut a bite of the steak. It was, as always, superlative. Marsha had been right; the autochef never missed. However, he still had his unfounded prejudice against automated cooking.

      Ted said, “Why not send in a man who was an artist?”

      “Because if a man has been selected by the computers for a job in the National Data Banks, he’s no artist. He’s a data man and how many statisticians know one end of a paint brush from the other?”

      Ted said, “Well, I’m evidently committed. So tomorrow I start checking out the communes in this vicinity. You have any ideas?”

      “Yeah, don’t.”

      Ted scowled at him. “What do you mean? Why not? It’s my big chance to get my academician’s degree, hombre.”

      “It’s also your big chance to get your teeth kicked in.”

Chapter Five

      “What is that supposed to mean?” Ted said in irritation.

      “Look,” Mike said earnestly, after finishing his drink, “you’re not reading the script, you don’t get the scenario. These people don’t want to be bothered. They don’t want to be investigated by some stooge for Dollar. Sure, you won’t have any difficulty in some senior-citizen’s community, full of old folks who have banded together for companionship. But suppose you look into one of these youth communes where they refuse to vote, hide fugitives and all the rest