The Penultimate Truth

by Philip K. Dick

The ruling monad of the Agency’s official archives clicked a few times, as if gnashing its electronic gearteeth, and then it said, “Mr. Adams, do not be alarmed at this.” “Okay,” he said, thoroughly alarmed already. Behind him those in line, his fellow Yance-men, waited impatiently. “Let’s have it,” he said. The ruling monad said, “You are respectfully referred back to Source One. The two documentaries of 1982, both versions, A and B; with no criticism intended you will, if you step to the counter directly to your right, be handed the spools of Gottlieb Fischer’s original work.” The bottom, the support and structure, the form itself, of Joseph Adams’s world, fell out. And, as he made his way to the counter to his right, to receive the spools, he died inside, and died in great pain, deprived of the fundamental metabolic rhythm of existence. Because if he didn’t yet understand Gottlieb Fischer’s two documentaries of 1982, he didn’t understand anything.