DicLoc

"Come in." Gwynneth called to the woman standing in the doorway.
"You can sit there." She indicated a chair next to the window.

The woman walked between Gwynneth's desk and the window, sat down and
looked outside at the hundreds of brightly coloured birds.

Gwynneth went on typing without looking up. "You're Marlene, aren't
you? From the agency."

"Yes, they said you wanted to see me." Marlene giggled. "Sorry, but
'see me' is such a stupid old-fashioned expression."

Gwynneth grinned briefly over her keyboard. "I must say it's a relief
not to have to look at anyone any more. It's hard to believe it's only
a hundred years ago since DicLoc was made generally available." She
closed the computer and pushed it away from her and started watching
the birds out of the window. "Do you remember how everyone used to look
so?individual?"

Still looking out of the window Marlene smiled. She watched the birds
hop from branch to branch. Little birds, big birds. All shapes and
sizes. She didn't look at Gwynneth because there was no need. Gwynneth
looked just like her. Everyone did. DicLoc injections, at any age,
turned you into a thirty-five year old pleasant-looking woman with
mid-brown hair, a slim figure, regular features and all with the same
skin, height and mannerisms. Everything fell into place so nicely with
DicLoc.

"I'd just retired," mused Marlene. "I was a sixty-five year old man,
overweight, bald and with bad teeth."

Leaning back in her chair Gwynneth watched some toucans clash beaks. "I
was a man too," she said, "but I was more than happy when I started
having the DicLoc jabs and all those?er?male appendages fell
away."

"Oh God, yes!" Marlene watched fascinated as a large white cockatoo
mounted a squawking blue female, pin her down and impregnate her.

"It's about the play." Gwynneth lit a long red non-carcinogenic smoking
stick and inhaled the harmless smoke deeply. "We need a cast of about a
hundred for Saturday night. People who aren't afraid of dressing up.
You see we want?"

"?to recreate the time when we were all one-offs?"

"Exactly. There's a great demand for it, you know. The DicLoc Company
are making a bit of a fuss, of course, but?" Her voice trailed off. One
of the birds, red and black with shiny plumage and a hugely long tail
landed on the windowsill and started scratching at the glass. Gwynneth
threw a magazine at it and the bird flew off, catching its magnificent
tail on the leaves.

From her bag Marlene pulled out a folder and started flicking through
it. "We've got a lot of suits of various vintages, even suits of
armour," she said.

"Good." Gwynneth leaned over to look at Marlene's book. She suddenly
let out a guffaw and pointed to a picture of a man from the 1970s with
blow-dried hair, sideboards, flared trousers and a skinny striped shirt
with an enormous stiff collar. "Something like that'll go down very
well!"

Marlene flicked back a few pages and pointed to a picture of a muscular
man in nothing but a leopard skin loincloth. "This one's very popular.
The costume consists of a skin-tight leotard complete with chest and
leg hair."
Gwynneth pointedly turned her eyes back to the birds. "There's no need
to go to those lengths, you know. People can use their imagination and,
after all, they've all seen photographs and old films."

"You're right." Marlene closed the book. "We mustn't make people feel
uncomfortable."
Opening her computer Gwynneth resumed typing. "Do you think you can
have it all assembled by 8 o'clock on Saturday?"

"Yes, of course." Marlene stood up and walked towards the door. "Don't
worry. They'll all be in their places on time, in costume. I think it
arouses some primordial thrill in them."

Gwynneth snorted and stubbed out her scarlet smoking stick. "We don't
want to go back to those days, do we?"

"Good God no!" Marlene laughed as she disappeared through the door.
"Anything but that!"