Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said

Set in a dystopian 1988 America shaped by a period of civil unrest called the Insurrection, the novel depicts a society ruled by a powerful police apparatus. Citizens must carry identification cards at all times; those without them face arrest and consignment to forced-labor camps. Students live in underground warrens beneath sealed-off campuses, and the Black population has been halved each generation by a compulsory sterilization law. Jason Taverner, a world-famous television host and singer with 30 million weekly viewers, finishes taping his Tuesday-night variety show. Jason is a "six," one of a secret line of genetically engineered superior humans created decades earlier. His longtime lover and guest star, Heather Hart, also a six, banters with him backstage. That evening, Jason visits Marilyn Mason, a former protégée, who attacks him with a Callisto cuddle sponge, a parasitic alien organism that burrows feeding tubes into his chest. Jason kills the creature but collapses, and Heather gets him to a hospital.

Jason wakes alone in a cheap hotel room wearing his wrinkled silk suit, cash in his pocket, but all his identification cards are gone. He calls Al Bliss, his agent of 19 years, who does not recognize his name. His attorney's office has never heard of him. The newspaper contains no mention of him, and no birth certificate exists for Jason Taverner. He has become an "unperson": Without identification, he risks arrest at any random police checkpoint.

Jason pays the hotel clerk, a low-level telepath named Eddy, to take him to Kathy Nelson, a 19-year-old underground ID forger operating a hidden workshop in Watts. She produces expert forgeries for $2,000 but warns Jason privately that Eddy is a police informant who planted a microtransmitter on him and that her documents contain tracking dots for her police contact, Inspector McNulty. She removes the dots, saying she wants Jason to escape. Kathy cooperates with police because she believes her husband Jack is alive in a forced-labor camp and that her work as an informant will secure his release.

At Kathy's apartment, Jason lets slip that he is a six. Kathy mentions that "sevens," supposedly an even higher line of engineered humans, prevented a coup by the sixes' leader. Jason has never heard the term. Kathy suffers a violent psychotic episode at a restaurant when Jason tries to leave, and he breaks away from her. Jason attempts to call Heather Hart, but she dismisses him as an obsessive fan. His forged cards pass a police checkpoint, and he reluctantly returns to Kathy's apartment, where McNulty is waiting. McNulty reveals that Kathy's husband died three years ago and that her belief in his survival is a fixed psychotic delusion. At the precinct, Jason improvises a cover story, and McNulty issues him a seven-day police pass but confiscates his forged cards.

The narrative shifts to Police General Felix Buckman, who arrives at the Los Angeles Police Academy for his evening shift. Buckman, a cultured man who loves the lute music of John Dowland and collects rare stamps, holds a high rank in the global police hierarchy, with only five police marshals and the national Director above him. He discovers McNulty's notes on the Taverner case and becomes intrigued by a man whose fingerprints, voiceprints, and biometric records match nothing on earth. Buckman's twin sister Alys is found asleep in his office, high on an exotic drug.

Jason travels to Las Vegas and stays with Ruth Rae, a former lover with a history of alcohol addiction and multiple marriages. Ruth does not remember him as a celebrity. Jason cruelly tells her she is too old, and she hurls a platter at his head. Both apologize, and Ruth delivers a meditation on grief, arguing it is the most powerful emotion because it reunites a person with what they have lost. Police track a microtransmitter to Ruth's apartment, arrest Jason and Ruth, and transport them to Los Angeles.

Buckman interrogates Jason using a deliberate lie: He claims to be a "seven," exploiting the sixes' fear that a more advanced genetic line exists. Jason becomes more forthcoming and confirms he did not erase his records. Buckman releases him but secretly orders staff to plant a microtransmitter, a miniaturized hydrogen bomb called a seed warhead, and a voice tap on him.

Outside the academy, Alys intercepts Jason. She removes the seed warhead and disables the other devices. She confides that she and Felix have an incestuous relationship and a three-year-old son, Barney, kept by a nurse in Florida. At their estate, Alys shows Jason two of his own record albums and gives him a white capsule she identifies as mescaline. As the drug takes effect, Jason tries to play his records, but both produce no music. Increasingly disoriented, he stumbles upstairs and discovers Alys's body: not a fresh corpse but an ancient yellow skeleton still wearing her clothes. The estate's security guard confirms the sight is real, and Jason escapes.

Jason persuades Mary Anne Dominic, a shy 32-year-old potter, to help him flee. At a coffee shop, patrons recognize his song on the jukebox; his public identity is returning. At Mary Anne's apartment, his records play normally. Jason realizes his fame corresponds to the drug's effects: While it was active, he existed as a celebrity; when it wore off, he ceased to exist publicly. He accidentally breaks one of Mary Anne's blue-glazed vases and pays her for it; she gives him another, one of her finest pieces.

Buckman learns of Alys's death. His assistant Herbert Maime warns that the police marshals, higher-ranking officials who oppose Buckman's relatively humane policies, may use the incest scandal to force Buckman's retirement. They frame the death as a homicide and pin it on Taverner, alleging Jason was jealous over a sexual relationship between Heather and Alys. Meanwhile, Jason's complete file suddenly arrives from Data Central, the government's central records database, as if it had always existed.

Jason returns to Heather's apartment, his identity restored, but headlines declare he is wanted for Alys's murder. He gives Heather the blue-glazed vase Mary Anne made; despite her fury, Heather finds it beautiful. Jason calls the Police Academy and insists on surrendering. The chief deputy coroner identifies the drug as KR-3, an experimental substance that forces the user to perceive an alternate universe. Herb explains the crucial implication: Alys, not Jason, took the KR-3. Because she fantasized about knowing Jason personally, the drug created an alternate reality in which he did not exist as a public figure, pulling everyone into that space. When Alys died, the drug's effects ceased and Jason's identity snapped back into place.

Buckman, overwhelmed by grief, briefly contemplates killing Taverner but allows Herb to talk him down. He drives through the night, weeping. At a gas station, he encounters Montgomery Hopkins, a manufacturer of inexpensive bio-feedback headphones. Buckman draws a heart pierced by an arrow on a slip of paper and hands it to Hopkins, then flies away, turns back, and embraces the stranger. Hopkins responds with gentle kindness and invites Buckman to visit. Buckman flies home, thinking of Dowland's "Flow My Tears" and resolving to bring Barney from Florida.

An epilogue traces the characters' fates. Jason is acquitted and his ratings rise. Kathy suffers a psychotic break and is permanently hospitalized. Ruth Rae dies in 1994. Heather abandons her career and disappears. Buckman moves to Borneo, writes an exposé of the police apparatus, and is assassinated in 2017. The forced-labor camps dwindle, and the rank of police marshal is abolished in 2136. Jason dies in 2047, his passing little noticed except by Mary Anne, who in her eighties still considers meeting him an important milestone. The blue vase she made, which Jason gave to Heather, ends up in a private collection, where it remains "openly and genuinely cherished. And loved" (247).