IV

Arriving the China train station was nothing special. Everything looked exactly like it did when he left Europe. Even the ticket punchers looked the same. They had the same gamma green suits, the same shoes, but most importantly they had the same height, the same weight, and the same face. They were identical twins and obviously from the same Bokanovsky group. As Helmholtz had read on the trip over, China had no Hatchery or Conditioning center for making people and had to order them from other major cities. Obviously London had a few extra and sent over a few gammas. The train station looked exactly like The Kings T Station that he had left from in Europe, as it was the design that was adopted by all other countries after the nine years war.

Taking a taxi from the station, Helmholtz flew to the harbor where he boarded a special charter boat for the trip over to Japan. Helmholtz wondered why the taxi didn't simply fly him over to the Japanese mainland, but he was told that that was restricted airspace. Restrictions weren't uncommon, so this inconvenience did not bother him. During the trip Helmholtz ate a late lunch and played a game of Double-Sticked Multi-Layered Magni-Shuffleboard.

After docking, everything still seemed the same and it wasn't until later that Helmholtz noticed something odd. No one looked the same. Of course there were the alphas and betas that were always unique, but even the people running the taxis and doing maintenance work were 100 individual. And the farther into the city Helmholtz wandered, the less their uniforms matched, until people were wearing whatever color they wanted, and even mixing.

Helmholtz thought this all very odd and decided to go directly to the Department of Relocation to get his papers double-checked and to inquire as to this strange phenomenon. However, when Watson reached the office, he saw something he had never in his life seen before. First of all, none of the doors had the societies slogan of Community, Identity, Stability. But the thing that really got to Helmholtz was the sign hanging on the doorknob, it read in hastily scribbled handwriting:

Closed for the day

Sorry for the inconvenience

Closed? How could this government office be closed on Monday? It wasn't even near time to close. Helmholtz knocked, but just as the sign suggested, no one was there to answer. Instead of fuming over it, Helmholtz decided to go pick up a nuke able meal on his way to his new apartment. He hailed a taxi-copter and except for the lack of any Bokanovsky twins, saw nothing too out of the ordinary until he got to his apartment. Upon arrival, he punched his identification code into the keypad lock, but the light above the handle stayed red. Helmholtz tried the door anyway, but of course it wouldn't open. After six tries Helmholtz got fed up, asked the neighbor across the hall where the maintenance office was, and took the elevator down to the first floor where it was located. The attendant was slightly puzzled by Helmholtz's inquiries, but he led the way back up to the flat none-the-less and opened the door for Helmholtz by pressing the number "7" six times.

"This door will now accept any code you wish to put into it," explained the attendant, "but make sure you remember your number or you won't be able to get back in without my help."

"Thanks." Replied Helmholtz as the attendant was leaving. The only response from the attendant was a wave without even turning around. Because he had no idea what to enter besides his ID number, he entered it. 823543. The light went yellow for two seconds before turning green. Helmholtz promptly tried the door handle and it worked. Opening the door, Helmholtz got his third and largest shock of the afternoon.

There was nothing there. Whenever a person is transferred, they only ever keep their clothes (which were coming tomorrow morning) and everything else is provided for them before they move in, but there was no furniture, no plants, no imitated bearskin rugs, nothing. He stepped into his new room and everything was off. Both the kitchen and the door to the bedroom were to his right instead of them being on opposite sides of the main room. First Helmholtz opened the door to the bedroom, nothing there either. Watson stepped back out again and rounded the corner into the open kitchen. There was a stove and an oven. A microwave oven and a refrigerator, but there were no utensils in the drawers, no food in the refrigerator.

Watson pulled out his cellular phone and called information, got the number for the office downstairs and called the attendant.

"Hello?" came the voice of the attendant on the other end. His speech was slurred because he was eating something and talking at the same time.

"Yes," started Helmholtz, "This is Helmholtz Watson in room 714-" he was cut off by the attendant.

"You again?" at first Helmholtz was taken aback that he would actually be interrupted by a mere attendant, probably a delta, but secondly, he just didn't like this man's attitude. "What do you want?" came the voice on the other end of the phone." Watson decided to let it slide … this time.

"Yes," Helmholtz said in a clear voice. "I was just transferred here and it appears that you have forgotten to supply my room with the proper accessories. May I ask why?"

"Is this a prank?" came the voice of the attendant, quite clearer now that he had stopped eating. "I don't have time for this." And he hung up. Normally Helmholtz would have been disgusted with this attitude, and indeed he was, but he was to tired to go put the young man in his place and decided that he would do it tomorrow after his visit to the Department of Relocation.