"Okay. I'll do that too; I'll see if cigarettes in a random store in Baltimore have been affected. I'll check other products as well; I'll make random samplings. Do you want to come with me, or do you want to go upstairs and tell them about Wendy?"
Joe said, "I'll go with you."
"Maybe we should never tell them about her."
"I think we should," Joe said. "Since it's going to happen again. It may happen before we get back. It may be happening now."
"Then we better get our trip to Baltimore over as quickly as possible," Al said. He started out of the office. Joe Chip followed.
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They selected the Lucky People Supermarket on the periphery of Baltimore.
At the counter Al said to the autonomic, computerized checker, "Give me a pack of Pall Malls."
"Wings are cheaper," Joe said.
Irritated, Al said, "They don't make Wings any more. They haven't for years."
"They make them," Joe said, "but they don't advertise. It's an honest cigarette that claims nothing." To the checker he said, "Change that from Pall Malls to Wings."
The pack of cigarettes slid from the chute and onto the counter. "Ninety-five cents," the checker said.
"Here's a ten-poscred bill." Al fed the bill to the checker, whose circuits at once whirred as it scrutinized the bill. "Your change, sir," the checker said; it deposited a neat heap of coins and bills before Al. "Please move along now."
So Runciter money is acceptable, Al said to himself as he and Joe got out of the way of the next customer, a heavy-set old lady wearing a blueberry-colored cloth coat and carrying a Mexican rope shopping bag. Cautiously, he opened the pack of cigarettes.
The cigarettes crumbled between his fingers.
"It would have proved something," Al said, "if this had been a pack of Pall Malls. I'm getting back in line." He started to do so - and then discovered that the heavy-set old lady in the dark coat was arguing violently with the autonomic checker.
"It was dead," she asserted shrilly, "by the time I got it home. Here; you can have it back." She set a pot on the counter; it contained, Al saw, a lifeless plant, perhaps an azalea - in its moribund state it showed few features.
"I can't give you a refund," the checker answered. "No warranty goes with the plant life which we sell. 'Buyer beware' is our rule. Please move along now."
"And the Saturday Evening Post," the old lady said, "that I picked up from your newsstand, it was over a year old. What's the matter with you? And the Martian grubworm TV dinner-"
"Next customer," the checker said; it ignored her.
Al got out of line. He roamed about the premises until he came to the cartons of cigarettes, every conceivable brand, stacked to heights of eight feet or more. "Pick a carton," he said to Joe.
"Dominoes," Joe said. "They're the same price as Wings."
"Christ, don't pick an offbrand; pick something like Winstons or Kools." He himself yanked out a carton. "It's empty." He shook it. "I can tell by the weight." Something, however, inside the carton bounced about, something weightless and small; he tore the carton open and looked within it.
A scrawled note. In handwriting familiar to him, and to Joe. He lifted it out and together they both read it.
Essential I get in touch with you. Situation serious and certainly will get more so as time goes on. There are several possible explanations, which I'll discuss with you. Anyhow, don't give up. I'm sorry about Wendy Wright; in that connection we did all we could.
Al said, "So he knows about Wendy. Well, maybe that means it won't happen again, to the rest of us."
"A random carton of cigarettes," Joe said, "at a random store in a city picked at random. And we find a note directed at us from Glen Runciter. What do the other cartons have in them? The same note?" He lifted down a carton of L&Ms, shook it, then opened it. Ten packs of cigarettes plus ten more below them; absolutely normal. Or is it? Al asked himself. He lifted out one of the packs. "You can see they're okay," Joe said; he pulled out a carton from the middle of the stacks. "This one is full too." He did not open it; instead, he reached for another. And then another. All had packs of cigarettes in them.
And all crumbled into fragments between Al's fingers.
"I wonder how he knew we'd come here," Al said. "And how he knew we'd try that one particular carton." It made no sense. And yet, here, too, the pair of opposing forces were at work. Decay versus Runciter, Al said to himself. Throughout the world. Perhaps throughout the universe. Maybe the sun will go out, Al conjectured, and Glen Runciter will place a substitute sun in its place. If he can.
Yes, he thought; that's the question. How much can Runciter do?
Put another way - how far can the process of decay go?
