Psychoshop

by Alfred Bester

“When Adam gets a little free time he’ll deal with it.”

  “How did you come to be his nursemaid?”

  She smiled.

  “I was the logical choice,” she said, “for I was the closest my species came to producing the Kaleideion.”

  “Oh. Of course. Makes eminent good sense. You and Adam are from different points in time, aren’t you?” I asked.

  She gave the longest hiss I had ever heard her utter and sat bolt upright. Her eyes flashed and her hair swam about her head as if with a will of its own. She seemed to radiate— something like heat, but without temperature; there was a pressure there, as of the emanation of force. She seemed much larger, filling, dominating the room. When she spoke, her voice possessed the same persona quality I had heard Adam use in much smaller doses. The skins of her former selves stirred and rattled upon the walls. Her fangs were suddenly apparent. Her tongue darted, and I drew back, spilling my coffee. When she spoke, it was even worse:

  “How is it that you know this yet deny other knowledge of the affair?”

  “Easy, lady!” I cried. “Take it easy! It was just a journalist’s mind at work. If it’s so damned hard to breed a Kaleideion that the effort had been going on for ages, it seems statistically unlikely that two of you should come along at the same time.”

  “Of course,” she said, seeming to shrink as I watched, “of course,” and she stroked my cheek and made the worst . of the moment vanish. I reached out and returned the compliment.

  “Ssss,” I said.

  “Sss,” she corrected, “but your accent’s getting better.”

  “Sss,” I repeated, and I slithered toward her, after my fashion. Nor was she hard to come by.

  Somewhere between a pair of sleeps I found myself in the kitchen with Glory, filling a picnic basket.

  “A shady grove near a stream, a stone bench,” I said.

  “Right you are,” she replied.

  “Without throwing the Switch?”

  “Again, yes,” she answered, adding napkins and a matching tablecloth. “Ready now.”

  I raised the basket.

  “Lead on,” I said.

  I followed as she turned away and walked down the small hallway off the kitchen’s rear.

  “I don’t recall there being an arboretum up this way,” I said, thinking back to the post-Urtch search.

  She laughed softly and halted before an unfamiliar door. When she opened the door and entered, it proved to be the entrance to a small area holding a few odds and ends of equipment. Closing the door behind us, she turned and took a step. Immediately, the room vanished, to be replaced by a rolling green field dotted with wildflowers, leading off toward a distant hilly area. Ahead and to the left, a line of trees bordered what must be a stream. Birds passed among them, and after a brief walk I heard a faint gurgling sound.

  “Virtual reality setup,” I said. “Nice trick.”

  “We can set reality levels here,” she said, “even making things more real than your own reality, should we wish. I usually just call it the multi-purpose room.”

  “More real than real. Now that might be worth experiencing,” I said, as I helped her unpack the basket and spread our fare. “How real is it right now?”

  “If you were to fall into the stream you could drown in it,” she replied.

  “What do you use it for, besides picnics?”

  “It’s multi-purpose,” she said.

  “You already told me that. Show me what it can do.”

  “All right.”

  She looked past me, out from the grove, across the field toward the hills. Abruptly, the countryside vanished.

  We stood in a gray place of diffuse lighting, three-dimensional clusters of variously-colored tubes extending in most directions. Globes of yellow light drifted within the tubes, taking turns at their junctions.

  “It looks like a big schematic,” I said, “only at an enormous level of complexity. The insides of a microprocessor,

  perhaps.”

  “These, I believe, might have been distant ancestors.”

  With her fingertip, she traced a small rectangle in the air before her. It assumed a bright, metallic opacity, covered with numbers or letters in a language I could not read. She touched a small red spot at its lower right-hand corner then, and the characters changed each time her finger moved. As they did, the area about us flowed from one prospect to another. Finally, she simply held it depressed and the characters flowed. So did our surroundings. I clenched my teeth and fists and waited. At length, she slowed it, then stopped it. I beheld another set of schematics.

  “There,” she said. “Name a primary or secondary color.”

  “Green,” I said.

  “All right,” she told me. “That shall be the color of its walls and spires.”

  “What’s walls and spires?”

  “This city,” she replied.

  Then her hands began to move, darting forward, passing somehow into the tubes, pushing glowing balls through junctions, creating new tubes and junctions as if she were shaping dough. She directed some of the spheres down these new courses.

  “What are they?” I asked. “The glowing balls?”

  “What you would call electrons,” she replied, extracting , One and tossing it to me. I caught it. It was near-weightless, neither hot nor cold, and yielded to pressure like a tennis ball.

  I tossed it back.

  “What are you making?”

  “The shaping of a seed,” she replied. “I chose this one because I’ve worked with the model before and recalled some easy ways to make minor changes.”

  I shook my head.

  “Is it all simulation?” I said. “Or were you doing something real?”

  “Both,” she said. “Either. You’ll see. We can use it however we would. This is a design and manufacturing center, among other things. Multi-purpose.”

  “And you just edited an existing design?”

  “Yes.”

  “To what?”

  “Those things you spoke of … ?”

  “Microprocessors?”

  “Yes. Think of a complex of billions of them, each serving special ends. Think of them as having access to tiny manipulators which can be ordered to create more of themselves. Think of a master program which switches them on and off in various appropriate sequences. Now imagine them as having access to the necessary raw materials to fulfill their programs.”

  I laughed.

  “It sounds like a genetic code. But since you said ‘city’ it must be an inorganic artifact.”

  She raised her hand and traced the rectangle again. This time she pressed a sequence of colored places along its top. Immediately she had finished, the structure collapsed in upon itself, imploding to a bright point, leaving us to regard it there in the gray place of diffuse lighting.

  “Yes,” she said, and she stooped and picked up the olden mote. Rising, she touched my right fist, which I had not noticed was still clenched. “Open,” she said.

  I did so, and she deposited a tiny seed on the palm of my

  band.

  “Don’t lose it,” she said. So I closed my hand and held it.

  Then, taking my arm, “This way.”

  We took only a few paces along a rocky trail which had suddenly appeared beneath our feet, blue sky overhead, bright sun behind. Looking back and downward, I beheld a greener plain, perhaps a half-mile distant, running up to a line of trees.

  “Is that our picnic area way over there?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I hope the virtual ants didn’t get at the sandwiches. If they can be as real to them as the tablecloth is to the table—”

  “Pick a spot,” she said.

  “Is that a proposition?”

  “No. I want you to cast your seed upon the ground.”

  “There’s a biblical injunction against that sort of thing.”

  “Plant that designer seed anywhere you wish—or just toss it onto a likely spot around here.”
r />   “Okay.”

  I knelt, brushed back a little dirt, laid the seed on that spot, brushed some over it.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  “That’s it. You’re finished.”

  I rose.

  “What now?”

  “We walk back and have our lunch.”

  She took my hand and we walked the walk.

  From our picnic area, we did have a view of the rocky hill where I’d planted the thing. Nothing untoward occurred during the next half-hour or so, though, and I almost forgot about it.

  “Shall I uncork the wine now?”

  “Please.”

  Then, almost between eyeblinks, the surface of the distant hill was altered, losing its gentle curves.

  “Damn!” I said.

  “Here. Let me.” She reached for the bottle.

  “No. It’s that hilltop.” I gestured.

  “Ah. Yes, it’s starting.”

  An irregular line worked its way across the hill, continuing a constant stirring along its length. It pushed itself higher, also.

  I finally opened the bottle, poured us two glasses.

  The city’s pace of development seemed to increase as we watched. Slow at first, it rose higher, beating out the rate at which the hilltop sank. Soon its towers grew visibly, almost swaying, as its walls broadened and rose.

  “Now this has to be a virtual readout of the seed’s program, right?” I asked.

  She sipped her wine.

  “It is whatever I want it to be, dear Alf, whatever I choose to make it. This is omniality, remember? I could even reverse it and make the city go to seed.”

  “Most cities do that on their own, anyway. Says more about citizens, though, than it does about cities.”

  The sunlight glinted on the spires, which had taken on a distinctly greenish coloration.

  “One can set up a world for habitation in a day’s time, this way,” she said.

  “I’ll bet you have other seeds you might sow that could overwhelm the other guy’s,” I said.

  “Yes, and there are counters to those, and counters to those,” she said. “It’s a memorable sight to see an entire planetary surface awash in colors—overwhelming each other, falling back, rising to the top.”

  “How might something like that end?”

  “I once saw a totally furnished world. Every possible spot was taken. But no one could live there. Too much had been planted by the warring factions. The planet’s resources were exhausted.”

  “A whole world—wasted.”

  “Well, no. The matter was settled elsewhere—whether by war or money, I forget—and the winner came back and seeded a total breakdown for a return to basics, then started over again on a smaller scale. Place needed a lot of landscaping later, though.”

  I took another drink and watched the spreading city.

  “Could we have taken that seed and planted it somewhere on the surface of the Earth and still produced the city?”

  “Yes.”

  “But here in omniality we can just shut it down and file it away when the picnic’s over?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your technology fascinates me,” I said. “It’s a wonder we can talk to each other at all.”

  “I’ve had the advantage of living through your history.”

  “True. And you know where we’re headed.”

  “Only in general ways. And it’s not immutable, as I tried to tell you earlier.”

  “You’re not really going to ride this thing all the way back to your own times, are you?”

  “We’ve ridden it this far.”

  “You said yourself that the Earth doesn’t even go that distance.”

  “Well, there’s that. But we’ve still a goodly way to go.”

  “You’re looking for something, aren’t you? Hunting after some event in time you’re not certain about—or some turning point. It’s a probability thing, isn’t it?”

  “Which question do you want me to answer first? Yes, there is an element of probability there, as in everything. Who knows what we might find? And the nature of the beast determines its disposition.”

  I refilled our glasses.

  “Still not giving anything away, are you, Medusa?”

  Her hand moved nearer mine, our fingers intertwined. We watched the emerald city rise before us.

  FIVE · BRAINS AND BISCUITS

  Finally, the emerald city slowed in its growth and came to a halt. I applauded lightly.

  “Well-citied, lady.”

  She clinked her glass against my own and we finished

  the wine.

  Then she rose and nodded toward her handiwork.

  “The tour, of course,” she said.

  “Of course,” I responded, and we linked arms and hiked off toward the city singing, “We’re off to see the wizard.”

  “You say that you really are a writer for an American magazine,” she said, after catching her breath.

  “I not only say it, I am.”

  “Does that mean you’ll be going home once you’ve gathered enough material?”

  “Be serious, ” I said. “I don’t have a story. No one’s going to believe all this. I just want to be here with you.”

  “I like your attitude, Alf,” she said, and she entered the gates of the city and took me in.

  We wandered the streets and galleries, then took high bridges over broad thoroughfares, had views from a dozen lofty apartments. Moving like green thoughts in a green brain, we explored tunnels, parks, plazas, commercial districts. The place was quiet save for our voices, our footfalls, our echoes, and a few creaks of settling structures.

  It was as I swung my left foot forward, passing beneath an archway, that I knew it would come from my right— whatever it was. And Glory was to my left.

  I felt my body relaxing downward into my midsection as, with the motion of my left foot, I kept all of my weight on the right and pivoted on it, drawing the left back, inward.

  Suddenly, two men came around the corner at my right. The nearer threw a punch at me. The one to his right was reaching for Glory. Then another came into view behind them. I struck immediately, with my left foot, at the nearest shin. I felt a satisfying grating as the man’s expression turned to one of pain. With the second knuckle of the second finger of my left hand, I drove a blow into the hollow of his right temple, most of my weight behind it. He began to fall, but I caught hold of him, turned him slightly, and pushed him into the man who was reaching for Glory.

  Continuing my turning motion to my left, letting my arms lead it, I dropped to my left knee, raising my right fist to somewhere in the vicinity of my left ear. I uncoiled immediately as I rose, driving my right elbow into the low midsection of the second man.

  Then I was rising as he was bending forward—in slow motion, it seemed—and my left hand rose and fell, striking him across the back of his neck, my weight sinking again with the strike.

  Pivoting leftward as he fell, to where the man I had knocked off-balance with the body of the first had recovered, I leapt over his fallen companion. The man snapped a kick and threw a punch at me. I slid my left foot forward, turning, avoiding the kick, parrying the punch. My left arm passed behind him as I continued the turn, hand falling to rest upon his left shoulder.

  I attacked his eyes with my right hand, but he was able to catch my wrist. Immediately, I raised my left hand from his shoulder, caught hold of his left ear, and, with a twisting, wrenching movement, tore it loose.

  He screamed and his grip on my right wrist wavered as I let my left hand fall back to his shoulder, dropped my center, turned and, continuing my attack on his eyes, took him over backwards. As he struck the ground, my right elbow dropped to strike him in the solar plexus. This brought him partway upright again, and a perfect target for the blow that crushed his larynx.

  I rose, still alert, but there were no others. I brushed dust from my left knee. Glory spat once, to her left, and I glanced at her in time to see her tongue dart, he
r lower jaw change position.

  “Getting rid of some venom?” I asked.

  She shrugged, then smiled. “Reflex,” she said. “You’re a very good fighter, All”

  “Grew up in a tough neighborhood,” I said.

  “That was not tough neighborhood fighting, Alf. Those were killing techniques. You know them well and you used them without hesitation. The seven clones all had reputations as deadly warriors. Even Pietro, the artist, was a brawler—hung out with Cellini a good deal.”

  I gestured.

  “So who might these guys be, and why do you think they attacked us?” I asked.

  Even as I spoke, they vanished like pictures from a screen.

  “Nobody in particular,” she replied. “Omniality’s Central Casting sent them over when I UHFed my wishes on the way up here.”

  “Testing. You could have just asked me,” I said. “I’d have told you I’m pretty good in a scrap. Even studied a little self-defense technique, here and there.”

  “That was all offense, Alf.”

  “Generic term,” I said. “Thanks for showing me the city. Is there anything else?”

  “Don’t be angry,” she said. “It was too good an opportunity to pass up. No real danger. Let me show you the rest of the place. There is a lovely apartment with a master bedroom in the highest spire. Wonderful view.”

  She took my arm.

  “No more surprises?”

  “Only pleasant ones,” she said.

  Nor was she incorrect. Later, we lay for a long while, drowsing, watching through the spire’s great window as the day dimmed over our deserted city. An almost spiritual feeling of satisfaction came upon me in my sated state as I watched the spire’s long, pointed shadow go forth, along with those of the domes at its base. I remarked, “Hsssss.”

  “‘Hssss,’” she replied.

  “Hs hsss.”

  “Hss. Thank you.”

  “You’ve installed a day-night cycle here.”

  “Yes, everything for verisimilitude,” she said.

  I stretched and sat up. “Shall we go and walk under the stars? Head back to our grove?”

  “Hs— Damn!” she said. “Stars. I forgot. Sorry.” She raised a hand and pointed at the sky. A bright point of light burst within the heavens. “There,” she said. “A promise. It will hold us until I can fetch more.”