Walling didn't wait for Jack to comply; he was already flickering out the door.
Abruptly, the room became very bright and the walls were pulling away—or dissolving. Or something. Jack's head hurt so bad he couldn't tell. He stood up, shielding his eyes against the glare. The room felt as if it was spinning, or moving. It felt like an elevator rushing upward.
And then all sense of motion stopped. Jack turned around slowly, staring, trying to see what was happening. The stone floor had become almost painfully cold. Something was going pocketa-pocketa very close by.
“Where am I?” Jack called.
“NORCOL Control Center.” Somebody replied quietly. The voice sounded distant and disembodied.
“Oh.” It meant nothing to Jack.
Squinting, Jack was able to make out that he was now in the center of a deep circular room, very large and very bright. Moving in toward him were a number of huge robot probes and mobile scanners.
“Lay down, please,” said the voice.
Jack looked back at his bed and saw one of the robots removing the blankets and sheets. The bed was a platform on a pedestal. It was some kind of a scanning bed.
“Lay down, please,” repeated the voice. There was a nervous edge to it.
Jack lifted himself onto the bed, shielding his eyes against the glare. He couldn't tell how many people were looking down at him. He saw two technicians at a console behind a thick glass window. They were frowning at their controls. He thought he could make out other people higher up, also behind thick glass windows.
The voice spoke softly now, “Thank you. I'm going to give you some instructions. Do not try to figure them out. Just follow them. Do you understand?”
Jack nodded.
“Do you understand?” The voice asked again.
“Yes, I understand,” Jack said.
“Thank you. Close your eyes.”
Jack closed his eyes.
“Visualize yourself lying on a bed.”
That was easy. Jack imagined he was floating over his supine body, looking down at himself. HalfJack again. He noticed he had an erection. Damn! I'm a horny bastard! He was almost painfully hard.
“Thank you,” said the voice. “Now, visualize your internal organs.”
The body below became transparent to Jack. He could see the dark mass of his liver. The steady expansion and deflation of his lungs. He could see his heart beating. He stretched out a ghostly hand to see if he could touch his—
“Don't do that!” said the voice. It wasn't angry, just firm. Jack pulled his hand back. “Good.”
How did the voice know?
“Now, I want you to imagine that you can change the shape of your body.”
HalfJack floated and studied his body. He wondered what shape he should change it into. He thought about it.
“Don't try to force the change. Just let it change any way it wants to.”
“Boy, if all dope were this good—” Jack started to make a joke.
“Shut up,” said the voice. “Stay on purpose. Let your body change shape if it wants to.”
Jack looked back down at his body. He said to it, Go ahead. Change into what you want to be. The body twitched. A second time, and then a third.
And then it flowed.
At first, Jack was startled—then he was frightened—
“It's all right,” cautioned the voice. “We're here. We're watching you. You're safe. Let it flow.”
All right.
The body flowed, rippled, flowed—began to reform, rippled, flowed, formed, twitched, shuddered—shuddered and was still.
The body solidified.
Jack floated above his own body and stared. The body was still recognizably Jack. But it was smaller, less developed, the breasts had enlarged slightly and softened, the face had gone all boyish, as if the years had melted off.
And the skin had changed; it had gone all silvery-pearlescent.
The body had become an androgyne.
Jack felt a curious thrill of recognition and horror. Was he supposed to return to that body now? Could he change it back? Was this permanent? Was this who he really was—or was this merely an illusion? The body opened its eyes and looked up at him. It was oddly beautiful and strangely terrifying sensation to be recognized by yourself.
“It's all right, Jacca. Take your time.”
Jacca studied its body. So that's what an adrogyne has between its legs. I'd forgotten.
“If you want to return, Jacca, you can.”
Jacca floated.
The voice suggested quietly, “Jacca. Why don't you return for a while.”
Jacca floated toward its body—
— and woke up in the hospital bed again. Blinking.
Colonel Walling was still sitting in the chair.
“What happened?” Jack/Jacca/HalfJack/Who-Am-I-Anyway? blinked in confusion. He/She/It looked at its hand. It looked gray. The room was too dark to tell.
“A little test. You passed.”
“What would have happened if I'd failed?”
Walling did not look uncomfortable. He merely said, “We wouldn't be having this conversation now.”
“Go on.”
“Do you remember anything?”
Jacca thought hard. It shook its head. “Nothing else. Is that bad?”
“We'd hoped that maybe you'd taken some embryonic engrams and that we could bring them to the surface by rejuvenating; but it was only a slim chance. Damn. Now you're going to have to come back the hard way. You're going to have to relearn everything by experience.”
“You're telling me that I'm not who I thought I was?”
Walling nodded. “I'm telling you that nothing is the way you thought it was. No one. Nothing. You cannot trust even the evidence of your own senses. Stop trying to figure things out. Remember—explanations are the tunnel with no cheese!”
Jacca was beginning to feel a sense of recognition. Of familiarity. But—maybe it was the drug.
Walling looked hot. He took off his jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. He loosened his tie. He was a big man with a broad chest. Jacca wondered if he was very hairy or only a little hairy. Where did that come from?
Now, Walling pulled his chair forward and leaned in close. “Listen to me, Jacca. Listen very hard.” His words seemed to be echoing across a vast distance. “This next part if very important. Am I getting through to you?”
Jacca nodded.
“Good. You must come back to us! We need you. We cannot close the circle without you. Do you understand that? You must relearn everything. You must master the powers again. Do you understand that?”
Jacca nodded and smiled. It hoped it was a reassuring smile. It didn't want to disappoint this man. He was so beautiful. Jacca wondered if he were tender or rough—
What?!!
“Jacca—” The Colonel's voice was an echoing intensity. “The honker sting. Do you understand about honkers?”
“They sting.” Was that the right answer?
“Yes, they do. They sting. Jacca—honker stings are chronically hallucinogenic!”
Jack sat up straight.
Colonel Walling was taking off his shirt now. He unzipped his chest. He pulled off his skin. The Vampire pulled off the pink skin, pulled it down to its waist. The creature was black and chitinous and when it finally pulled off its mask, its mandibles clacked against each other like knives. “It's all a hallucination—but in your case, it's going to be a delicious hallucination—”
Jack sat up straight in bed. What?!”
Colonel Walling was a broad-shouldered woman with deep gray eyes. And very attractive cleavage. Jack couldn't help staring into her cleavage. He had to force himself to look back into her eyes. “What?!”
“I'll say it again—Honker stings cause massive hallucinations. All kinds. Emotional. Physical. Neurological. Sexual. You've been hallucinating since the moment you were stung. I don't know what you
've seen or what you think you've seen or what fantastic visions have been triggered by things you think you've seen—but you can't trust anything that you remember. It probably didn't happen—or if it did, it didn't happen the way you think it did. It's very important that you stop trying to figure it out. You'll go crazy. We need you rational. Let it flow, Jacca.”
“The madryads and the androids and the spaceships?”
“Jacca—you are still hallucinating. Do you hear me?”
“The Paratime Marines, the Vampires, the—”
“Jacca, whatever you are hearing, whatever you are seeing, you cannot trust it—” Colonel Walling's voice was retreating again, echoing from a darkened tunnel. “You are still hallucinating. This conversation is a hallucination. It is the only way we can reach you.”
The walls were dropping away again. The room was rushing upward again. Jack had the sensation that Colonel Walling was climbing onto the bed on top of her. Him? Who?
Which of us has the hard-on?
“Jacca!” Somebody was screaming now. “There is no cure for honker stings. The hallucinations don't stop! Ever! You have to learn how to live with them. They are going to continue! You have to let them happen. Don't resist. Jack, listen to me—”
That's Tappy!
“—the only way out is to go through it. Let it flow around you. Ride the current and come out the other side. Jacqueline!”
Tappy?
Jack sat up straight.
Colonel Walling's eyes still looked odd.
“Are you a hallucination too?”
“No. Yes. What do you think?”
Colonel Walling began taking off her shirt now. Her breasts were very large. Now, she was unzipping her cleavage. The Vampire pulled off the pink skin, pulled it down to its waist. The creature was black and chitinous and when it pulled off its mask, its mandibles clacked against each other like knives. “Delicious. Yes, delicious.”
Jacca screamed.
And sat up in the forest.
Next to Tappy.
Tappy had a hard swelling under her skin, right between her breasts. The honker had stung her too.
She looked up at Jax and her eyes widened.
Jax clacked its mandibles. “—a very delicious hallucination.”
AUTHOR’S AFTERWORD:
Someday, when I have gone completely senile, when sense and sensibility no longer matters, then I shall write my last novel as an endless, annoying hallucination. This will be the first chapter.
The Amazing World Inside a Woollen Ball
Fiona Funda Duffin
The world is like a woollen ball. Within the ball there is a compact maze of life strings meshed and entwined together. Each twist and turn the individual wool strands make brings new experiences and emotions which mould into our lives. As we wander through the maze of life we will encounter many people and creatures along our journey, some will be cold or bring fear into our lives but others will bewitch us and enrich our experiences and bring warmth into our world. Many will drift in and out of the maze as time goes by but others will remain and be part of each other's journey of life. I hope one day we can travel together in the a-mazing world inside the woollen ball, with our journey unravelling each day and continuing until we reach the end of the string of life.
F I N I S
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The Sticky Situations of Zwicky Fingers
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The Ironic Fantastic #2 Page 6