The Sex Sphere

by Rudy Rucker

  The multiplexed image of Babs's lovers and haters faded out, and it was dark. There was a sensation of motion. I struggled and struggled, trying to find my way back out to light.

  And then, all at once, I was free.

  * * *

  Well . . . how do you want it? Music and a light show? Strobing image-montage? Men in funny hats? Did you see Ken Russell's Altered States? My favorite part was after the guy takes the mushroom potion in the FZAAAAT cave ZUZZZUZZZUZZ and THUBBZZZT reels out. Lizard out there. Or his wife. Lizard. Sphinx. Tits. The sand is blowing hard. They're both gray with sand, she sphinxing on her elbows, he fetal on his side. The wind blows and blows and blows. The sandblast eats away at the two figures, which go from real to rudimentary to elemental. Then there is only the wind and the rippled desert.

  Start with the noise of that wind. It's a sound you may have heard before, some night when your brain kept running though your body was asleep. What is a dream really like? How can we forget them so easily?

  What is it like in Hilbert Space? You should know. You live there.

  At the most elemental level, reality evanesces into something called Schrödinger's Wave Function: a mathematical abstraction which is best represented as a pattern in an infinite-dimensional space, Hilbert Space. Each point of the Hilbert Space represents a possible state of affairs. The wave function for some one physical or mental system takes the form of, let us say, a coloring in of Hilbert Space. The brightly colored parts represent likely states for the system, the dim parts represent less probable states of affairs.

  The arrangement of the color shades is a subtler affair. A system's tendency, for instance, to move from State A to State B, but not from State B to State A . . . a tendency like this is not any specific event which you can point to in space and time. These nonspecific properties correspond to overall gestalts in the Hilbert Space coloring. Alternating bands of red and green might, for example, represent a particle which is moving from left to right but which has no specific location. A good mood could be a golden haze not tied to any particular cause.

  We can think of Hilbert Space as a vast cataloging of all possible events. The events are arranged along infinitely many perpendicular axes: right/left, happy/sad, near/far, sober/drunk, past/future, hot/cold, true/false, male/female, wet/dry, sun/moon, bitter/sweet, matter/antimatter, etc.

  Each part of the universe makes its own contribution. You are reading, I am writing. Two spots of brightness. Going out from you are various bands of color, indicating your moods and predilections. Bands emanate from me as well . . . and where our color-bands cross each other there is interference. You change me and I change you. Each part of the universe makes its own contribution.

  Taken as a whole, these individual contributions add up to the world as it is: a certain coloring in of Hilbert Space: the Universal Wave Function. Keep in mind that time itself is coded into the pattern. The pattern is not something that evolves: the pattern is.

  Theologically, this idea is expressed by saying that God creates the whole universe now. God makes yesterday, today and tomorrow at the same time. Has to, since everything depends on everything else. The image is of a heavyset white-haired figure throwing a bucket of mingled paints at a wall. SPLAT, fiat lux, the job is done.

  For whatever reason, we find it easier to "read" Hilbert Space patterns in terms of time, even though the patterns exist outside of time. Thinking timelessly is not some unusual skill: when you remember last night's supper you sense a whole meal, rather than a chew-by-chew replay. To know a novel's action is not to memorize the word-for-word order; it is simply to grasp the four-dimensional spacetime whole described.

  When Babs released me in Hilbert Space I was outside of time, outside of hypertime, outside of all that tick-tick-tock. I have always been there, and I am still there as I write this. You are there as well; there's no place else to be. What does it look like?

  It looks like the stuff that's inside your head. Your mind is a direct window into Hilbert Space. Infinite-dimensional? Sure. Look past the words, at the continual dark flowing of thought-forms. It's especially vivid when you come.

  Japanese landscape, rotten corpseface, bedpan, biblelips, flying carpet, Old Glory, potter's wheel, ten years, Ixtlan, 5.297890718, dog with human legs, what Maisie knew, fireworks, smell of Scotch Tape, the Supremes, flume-ride, the turrets and blue waters.

  The flash of orgasm lights up this tangle, like lightning over Venice, like a Very flare over the Amazon. It's always too much to take in; it's always the same.

  Matter, mind, spirit: all are patternings of Hilbert Space. I saw this and let my awareness move out and out from Alwin Bitter. The whole is/was there in flashes, but each time I touched it, "I" jittered back as a limited seeker. Babs was near me and I knew her mind at last.

  Babs herself was once a whole race of beings. She began as a sort of group-mind or racial memory. The beings she derives from no longer bother to exist . . . they have passed fully into her. This is as it should be. A form in Hilbert Space is, after all, any race's ultimate evolutionary stage. Penultimate, really, for at the end lies the joyous dissolution into White Light.

  But what about physical existence? Isn't that a lot to give up? Physical existence is, in Hilbert Space, a purely relative notion. Relative to you, the letter images of these words have physical existence. Relative to me, Alwin Bitter, Babs has physical existence. The Donald Duck archetype is a reality for Daisy. Romeo, meet Juliet; Juliet, Romeo.

  The race of beings Babs derives from were never in fact "real" for you. They were not even organisms . . . they were a certain class of mathematical theorems, I suspect, or something to do with spacetime fault-lines in one of the alternate universes.

  When Lafcadio trapped that cross section of Babs she was well-embedded in Hilbert Space, on the verge of a final union with the One. Part of her mind-stuff was doing duty as this or that exotic particle. Lafcadio caught hold of a piece and knotted it. Looking kata, Babs saw our world and resolved to fight free. So, at her direction, the bomb took shape and blew her loose. But then, but then . . . she chose to return.

  In her contact with the human race, Babs was like God's tongue finding a shred of food in some fissured tooth. We rotted here all blind and lonely until our new Redeemer found us. Babs came to bring us all together. Swing low, sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home!

  At some point I was back. Finally I understood the meaning of Babs, and I comprehended the great task before me.

  I sat up on my cot. The shiny sphere was gone . . . . I had no need of it now. I wished to be free of these prison walls. I closed my eyes and saw in Hilbert Space. A bright spot, my body. Probably in jail, less probably not. Rejoicing in God's love, I let my isness flow from here to there, quantum-tunneling across the profane barrier.

  I opened my eyes and stood there for a moment in the parking lot next to the Army jail. It was dark. I could see glowing sections of Babs drifting around here and there in the cool night. Noble Babs wanted all to share my vision.

  I started walking. I was barefoot. The asphalt felt nice. I walked past some Army housing-units. I wondered how many in there were communing with Babs. Soon all would.

  My mind was boiling with plans to bring Babs to everyone. I saw myself as John the Baptist or even—why not?—Jesus.

  Messiah. I said the word to myself, relishing the sound. Messiah. Somewhere behind me a harsh alarm-bell sounded. The guard must have noticed my escape. Fool.

  Where to go? Not home, not yet.

  Huba. I'd visit my friend Huba Moller. How to get there? Why not fly!

  Chapter Fourteen: What Do Women Want?

  "Why is Daddy in TV again?" demanded Ida. "I want him right here."

  "He has to go to jail," said Sorrel. "Was Daddy bad, Ma? Pass the ketchup, please."

  "BOOM!" shouted Tom. "Remember, Ida? BOOM!"

  "Will you be quiet?" snapped Sybil. "I'm trying to hear the news."

  The well-fed, blond German newscaster
-woman continued talking on their rented TV. She wasn't plump exactly . . . just very solid. Buxom. Sybil wondered, once again, how the Germans could eat so well, yet look so trim.

  "Do you children want more spaghetti? Ida, you haven't touched your food. There'll be no dessert until you empty that plate."

  "Mean!" shouted Ida, bursting into tears.

  "S.A.D.," taunted Sorrel. "Shrink And Die. Mommy, Ida's going to shrink and die."

  "Hush, Sorrel."

  "Well that's what Daddy always says when we don't eat."

  "BOOOOM!" bellowed Tom. The picture of the smashed museum was on the screen again. Sybil thought briefly of Virgilio.

  "I'm sure that Daddy will be back tomorrow," she told the children comfortingly. "The bomb wasn't really his fault. He just has to explain to the police how it happened."

  "What's for dessert?" inquired Ida.

  "Canned pineapple. At least eat your meatballs."

  "Okay." The sound came out a fat quack. "But no buscadey."

  "Mommy?" asked Tom, looking up. "Mommy, if you dreamed that you died would you never wake up?"

  "You always wake up."

  "But what if you have a heart attack?" put in Sorrel. "From being scared to death!"

  "Do you children have bad dreams?"

  "Night before last I did," said Sorrel.

  "In Rome?" asked Tom, glancing at her.

  "Yeah, everything was all mixed up like scrambled eggs."

  "I had bad dweams, too," added Ida. "It was awful."

  "You poor children. That dream was from something Daddy did. You helped to bring him back."

  "He's not here now."

  "I'm sure he'll be home tomorrow. Now let's put the dishes in the sink, and you'll get pineapple."

  The girls helped, but Tom crawled under the table to look for his new Superball. When Sybil brought out the pineapple the way the kids liked it, in bowls with toothpicks, Tom had found his ball and was bouncing it between floor and ceiling.

  BAT-a-PAT-a-Bat-a-Pat-a-bat-a-pat-a-babab'b'b'b'bbbbbbbrrrrrrrthok. It bumped to a stop against the table leg. Tom retrieved it and flung it down on the floor again. BAT-a-PAT-a- . . .

  "Tom, would you sit down and have your dessert?"

  . . . 'b'b'bbbbbbrrrrrrrt. The ball was stuck under the couch this time. Tom wormed about on the floor, trying to get his arm in far enough.

  "That's a neat ball," said Sorrel. "Have you looked inside it, Mommy? You can see things moving in there. Like our dream."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's magic. All three of our Easter toys are magic. Right, Ida?"

  "Rwight. My mousie whispers to me. She's alive, rweally!"

  "And your special pillow talks, too, doesn't it, Ida?" Sybil gave her little daughter a kiss.

  "No, no, Ma," insisted Sorrel. "I heard the mouse talking. And my doll-heads smile at me when no one's looking."

  "I think you children are still dreaming. It's time for bath and bed. Come on, Tom, you can get that ball out tomorrow."

  The kids had a happy, noisy bath together. Afterwards Sybil read them Mr. and Mrs. Pig's Evening Out, the current favorite. Kisses, prayers, kisses, lights out, last kiss. Tom was already asleep.

  Sybil closed the bedroom door and sat down on the couch where she and Alwin usually slept. It was hard to believe they were living in a two-room apartment. A bedroom and a dining/living room with a couch for sleeping. Just a year ago they'd had a four-bedroom house. But then Alwin had lost his teaching job and had gotten a grant to do research in Heidelberg. A two-room apartment in the foreign visitors' housing complex was all they could afford.

  In a way it was liberating not to own anything. But why did the apartment floor have to be concrete with a thin covering of green felt? Inexplicably, the expected wood parquet floor was mounted on the ceiling. Wood ceilings and green felt floors. Worst of all, the couches had no arms.

  Sybil went to the kitchen and opened a green liter-bottle of white wine. That was the one thing that was cheap in Germany. Cheap and good. She drank off a quick glass and took a refill. Thank God that sex sphere, that Babs thing, was gone now. All Alwin had to do was tell the police how he'd been kidnapped. After being threatened by Cortland Burton and his lawyers, Vice-Consul Membrane had agreed to support Alwin's story.

  When Sybil went back into the living room, the lack of arms on the couch suddenly maddened her so much that she set down her glass and shoved the couch across the floor. Scooted it over to the bookcase so she could rest her arm on the lowest shelf. There. She lit a cigarette, tilting her head back to keep the smoke out of her eyes. The light was better here, too. Now, where was that new book?

  Something bright glistened on the floor where the couch had been. Tom's ball. But it was moving, oh no, and growing just like at the museum!

  "Babs?" Sybil had trouble getting out the name. "Are you the sex sphere?"

  The glistening globe hovered in front of her. Images swam in it like fish in a bowl. It was as if Sybil kept seeing what she expected to see: color swirls, Giulia, ass-cheeks, bloody teeth, an A-bomb. How she wished Alwin or Virgilio were here.

  The sphere shrank a bit and took on the form of Virgilio's face. "Hey, svheetie. You OK?"

  "Oh, stop," protested Sybil. "Don't."

  "Vhant to fuck?" purred the sphere. Virgilio's features furred over and his nose grew into a stiff mauve prick. Nodding suggestively, it glided closer.

  "That's not what I want," cried Sybil, lashing out with her fist. "Don't!"

  The sphere smoothed over and went blandly yellow. Two black dot-eyes and an upcurved black line-mouth. A living Smiley button . . . with a Hungarian accent.

  "Why are you back?" asked Sybil. "Alwin said his bomb set you free."

  "I vhant to set humanity also free," intoned the yellow face. "Alwin understands."

  "Can't you leave poor Alwin alone? He's done enough for you!"

  "Alwin is za Savior of za human race, you vhill see. But vhy did you reject me just now?"

  "You want to know why I didn't let you stick that gross penis-shape in me?"

  The great yellow head nodded.

  "Well, why should I? It was just an organ with no person attached. That kind of thing may be all right for men. But women . . . "

  "Vhat is it zat vimmen really vhant?"

  The same question that had stumped Sigmund Freud. There was still hope for humanity if this alien invader had to ask that.

  "If you don't know by now," said Sybil, lighting another cigarette, "Don't mess with us."

  "I have no time to mess. Vimmen must join me, and if not vhillingly, zen unvhillingly. If necessary I vhill eat you all up!" The long mouth-slash opened, and the sphere drew closer.

  Just then the phone rang. Sybil picked it up.

  "Hello, Sybil? Guess where I am?"

  "Alwin! Did you get out of jail? Should I pick you up? The sex sphere is back. She's threatening me."

  "I know. Dear Babs. She showed me everything. I'm like a god. Guess where I am!"

  "You're in a bar on Hauptstrasse."

  "Guess again!"

  The sex sphere squeezed up next to Sybil and the receiver, trying to eavesdrop. Sybil hit it as hard as she could.

  "Alwin, I don't really care where you are. Come home and help me!"

  "I'm in the sky, Sybil. I'm floating in the sky about three hundred meters above you. And get this: I'm not using a telephone!"

  "You're still in jail, aren't you, Alwin. Are you on something?"

  "I'm high all right, but not on false drugs. Step outside and look up if you don't believe me. Are the pigs there?"

  "You mean the children?"

  "The police, Sybil. Have the police showed up yet?"

  "No . . . ."

  "They will. Tell them to get fucked. Tell them the Second Coming is here and I'm it. Tell the newspapers."

  "I thought it was over, Alwin. I thought everything could go back to normal."

  "Step outside, I tell you. Look up!"

&nb
sp; The sex sphere darted over to the patio door and began tugging at its handle as if she were some pet dog eager for her walk. Sybil got the door open and stepped out onto their tiny concrete patio.

  The foreign scholars' Gästehaus apartments were located on a promontory some hundred meters above the Neckar River. As Sybil opened the door she could hear a barge's diesel engine laboring upstream, the barge way down there on the water, its long dark bulk lit by the headlights of cars speeding along the highways on either side of the river. There on the near road was the flashing blue light of a police car coming this way.

  Sybil tilted back her head, looking up past the brambles, up past the tall German pines. It was a clear, star-besprent night. High up there hovered something dark and ragged. Sybil shuddered with the deepest fear she'd ever felt.

  The sex sphere bounded up to join the bewitched form, and in the sphere's pale light, Sybil could see for sure: Alwin. Alwin floating, flying up there with his arms outstretched—oh Alwin, are you gone for good?

  Already there was heavy pounding on the apartment door, then the grating of a passkey in their lock. A child cried out. Sybil ran in to face the intruders.

  Herr Blöd was in the lead, his furious purple face aglow. He was the building superintendent, and hell on kids. They called him the "Killer Tomato." Close on Herr Blöd's heels were two aging American MPs with nightsticks, followed by three green-capped German Polizei packing automatic weapons.

  "Wo ist der Herr Professor?" cried Herr Blöd. "Er ist gesuchte Terrorist! Ihre Familie ist ab morgen ausgewiesen, Frau Professor!"

  Frau Professor. That was about the worst thing Sybil had ever been called. The title had no organic connection to anything relating to her existence as an individual person. "Wife-of-professor."

  "Get fucked," Sybil said, unconsciously following Alwin's advice.

  "What is it?" screamed Sorrel, standing terrified at the bedroom door. The Polizei noticed the open patio door and rushed on out. Alwin's voice came down from the sky, high and faint, shouting something garbled, something of a religious nature.