The Big U

by Neal Stephenson

  HYACINTH.

  No shit.

  FRED FINE.

  I have computed where to place the charges.

  CASIMIR.

  It’d be a very complicated setup, wouldn’t it? Lots of timed detonations?

  BUD (drunk).

  So do you think that the decay of the society is actually built into the actual building itself?

  SARAH.

  The reason he likes me is because he knows I carry a gun. He saw it in the Caf.

  EPHRAIM.

  Of course! How else can you explain all this? It’s too big and it’s too uniform. Every room, every wing is just the same as the others. It’s a giant sensory deprivation experiment.

  HYACINTH.

  A lot of those science-fiction types have big sexual hangups. You ever look at a science-fiction magazine? All these women in brass bras with whips and chains and so on—dominatrices. But the men who read that stuff don’t even know it.

  EPHRAIM.

  Did you know that whenever I play anything in the key of C, the entire Wing vibrates?

  FRED FINE.

  This one worked out the details from the blueprints. All you need is to find the load-bearing columns and make some simple calculations.

  EPHRAIM.

  Hey! Casimir!

  CASIMIR.

  Yeah?

  SARAH.

  What’s scary is that all of these fucked-up people, who have problems and don’t even know it, are going to go out and make thirty thousand dollars a year and be important. We’ll all be clerk-typists.

  EPHRAIM.

  You’re in physics. What’s the frequency of a low C? Like in a sixty-four-foot organ pipe?

  CASIMIR.

  Hell, I don’t know. That’s music theory.

  EPHRAIM.

  Shit. Hey, Bud, you got a tape measure?

  CASIMIR.

  I’d like to take music theory sometime. One of my professors has interesting things to say about the similarity between the way organ pipes are controlled by keys and stops, and the way random-access memory bits are read by computers.

  BUD.

  I’ve got an eight-footer.

  FRED FINE.

  This one doesn’t listen to that much music. It would be pleasant to have time for the luxuries of life. In some D & D scenarios, musicians are given magical abilities. Einstein and Planck used to play violin sonatas together.

  EPHRAIM.

  We have to measure the length of the hallways!

  The conversation split up into three parts. Ephraim and I went out to measure the hallway. Hyacinth was struck by a craving for Oreos and repaired to the kitchen with a fierce determination that none dared question. Casimir followed her. Sarah, Fred Fine and Virgil stayed in the living room.

  FRED FINE.

  What’s your major?

  SARAH.

  English.

  FRED FINE.

  Ah, very interesting. This one thought you were in Forestry.

  SARAH.

  Why?

  FRED FINE.

  Didn’t our host mention your forest?

  SARAH.

  That’s different. It’s what I painted on my wall.

  FRED FINE.

  Well, well, well. A little illegal room painting, eh? Don’t worry, I wouldn’t report you. Is this part of an other-world scenario, by any chance?

  SARAH.

  Hell, no, it’s for the opposite. Look, this place is already an other-world scenario.

  FRED FINE.

  No. That’s where you’re wrong. This is reality. It is a self-sustaining ecosociosystem powered by inter-universe warp generators.

  (There is a long silence.)

  VIRGIL.

  Fred, what did you think of Merriam’s Math Physics course?

  (There is another long silence.)

  FRED FINE.

  Well. Very good. Fascinating. I would recommend it.

  SARAH.

  Where’s the bathroom?

  FRED FINE.

  Ever had to pull that pepper grinder of yours on one of those Terrorist guys?

  SARAH.

  Maybe we can discuss it some other time.

  FRED FINE.

  I’d recommend more in the way of a large-gauge shotgun.

  SARAH.

  I’ll be back.

  FRED FINE.

  Of course, in a magical universe it would turn into a two-handed broadsword, which would be difficult for a petite type to wield.

  Meanwhile Casimir and Hyacinth talked in the kitchen. They had met once before, when they had stopped by my suite on the same evening; they didn’t know each other well, but Casimir had heard enough to suspect that she was not particularly heterosexual. She knew a fair amount about him through Sarah.

  HYACINTH.

  You want some Oreos too?

  CASIMIR.

  No, not really. Thanks.

  HYACINTH.

  Did you want to talk about something?

  CASIMIR.

  How did you know?

  HYACINTH.

  (scraping Oreo filling with front teeth). Well, sometimes some things are easy to figure out.

  CASIMIR.

  Well, I’m really worried about Sarah. I think there’s something wrong with her. It’s really strange that she resigned as President when she was doing so well. And ever since then, she’s been kind of hard to get along with.

  HYACINTH.

  Kind of bitchy?

  CASIMIR.

  Yeah, that’s it.

  HYACINTH.

  I don’t think she’s bitchy at all. I think she’s just got a lot on her mind, and all her good friends have to be patient with her while she works it out.

  CASIMIR.

  Oh, yeah. I agree. What I was thinking—well, this is none of my business.

  HYACINTH.

  What?

  CASIMIR.

  Oh, last semester I figured out that she was dating some other guy, you know? Though she wouldn’t tell me anything about him. Did she have some kind of a breakup that’s been painful for her?

  HYACINTH.

  No, no, she and her lover are getting along wonderfully. But I’m sure she’d appreciate knowing how concerned you are.

  (Long silence.)

  HYACINTH.

  (slinging one arm around Casimir’s waist, feeding Oreo into his mouth with other hand). Hey, it feels terrible, doesn’t it? Look, Casimir, she likes you a hell of a lot. I mean it. And she hates to put you through this kind of pain—or she wishes you wouldn’t put yourself through it. She thinks you’re terrific.

  CASIMIR

  (blubbering. Well what the hell does it take? All she does is say I’m wonderful. Am I unattractive? Oh, I forgot. Sorry, I’ve never talked to a, ah…

  HYACINTH.

  You can say it.

  CASIMIR.

  Lesbian. Thanks.

  HYACINTH.

  You’re welcome.

  CASIMIR.

  Why can she look at one guy and say, “He’s a friend,” and look at this other guy and say, “He’s a lover?”

  HYACINTH.

  Instinct. There’s no way you can go against her instincts, Casimir, don’t even think about it. As for you, I think you’re kind of attractive, but then, I’m a dyke.

  CASIMIR.

  Great. The only woman in the world, besides my mother, who thinks I’m good looking is a lesbian.

  HYACINTH.

  Don’t think about it. You’re hurting yourself.

  CASIMIR.

  God, I’m sorry to dump this on you. I don’t even know you.

  HYACINTH.

  It’s a lot easier to talk when you don’t have to worry about the sexual thing, isn’t it?

  CASIMIR.

  That’s for sure. Good thing I’ve got my sunglasses, no one can tell I’ve been crying.

  HYACINTH.

  Let’s talk more later. We’ve abandoned Sarah with Fred Fine, you know.

  CASIMIR.

  Shit.


  Casimir pulled himself together and they went back to the living room. Shortly, Ephraim and I returned from the hallway with our announcement.

  BUD.

  Isn’t it interesting how the alcohol goes to your head when you get up and start moving around?

  EPHRAIM.

  The hallway on each side of each wing is a hundred twenty-eight feet and a few inches long. But the fire doors in the middle cut it exactly in half—sixty-four feet!

  BUD.

  And three inches.

  EPHRAIM.

  So they resonate at low C.

  FRED FINE.

  Very interesting.

  VIRGIL.

  Casimir, when are you going to stop playing mum about Project Spike?

  CASIMIR.

  What? Don’t talk about that!

  SARAH.

  What’s Project Spike?

  CASIMIR.

  Nothing much. I was playing with rats.

  FRED FINE.

  What does this one hear about rats?

  VIRGIL.

  Casimir was trying to prove the existence of rat parts or droppings in the Cafeteria food through a radioactive tracer system. He came up with some very interesting results. But he’s naturally shy, so he hasn’t mentioned them to anyone.

  CASIMIR.

  The results were screwed up! Anyone can see that.

  VIRGIL.

  No way. They weren’t random enough to be considered as errors. Your results indicated a far higher level of Carbon-14 in the food than could be possible, because they could never eat that much poison. Right?

  CASIMIR.

  Right. And they had other isotopes that couldn’t possibly be in the rat poison, such as Cesium-137. The entire thing was screwed up.

  FRED FINE.

  How large are the rats in question?

  CASIMIR.

  Oh, pretty much your average rats, I guess.

  FRED FINE.

  But they are not—they were normal? Like this?

  CASIMIR.

  About like that, yeah. What did you expect?

  VIRGIL.

  Have you analyzed any other rats since Christmas?

  CASIMIR.

  Yeah. Damn it.

  VIRGIL.

  And they were just as contaminated.

  CASIMIR.

  More so. Because of what I did.

  SARAH.

  What’s wrong, Casimir?

  CASIMIR.

  Well, I sort of lost some plutonium down an elevator shaft in the Big Flush.

  (Ephraim gives a strange hysterical laugh.)

  FRED FINE.

  God. You’ve created a race of giant rats, Casimir. Giant rats the size of Dobermans.

  BUD.

  Giant rats?

  HYACINTH.

  Giant rats?

  BUD.

  Virgil, explain everything to us, okay?

  VIRGIL.

  I am sure that there are giant rats in the sewer tunnels beneath the Plex. I am sure that they’re scared of strobe lights, and that strobes flashing faster than about sixteen per second drive them crazy. This may be related to the frequency of muzzle flashes produced by certain automatic weapons, but that’s just a hypothesis. I know that there are organized activities going on at a place in the tunnels that are of a secret, highly technological, heavily guarded nature. As for the rats, I assume they were created by mutation from high levels of background radiation. This included Strontium-90 and Cesium-137 and possibly an iodine isotope. The source of the radiation could possibly have been what Casimir lost down the elevator shaft, but I suspect it has more to do with this secret activity. In any case, we now have a responsibility. We need to discover the source of the radioactivity, look for ways to control the rats and, if possible, divine the nature of the secret activity. I have a plan of attack worked up, but I’ll need help. I need people familiar with the tunnels, like Fred; people who know how to use guns—we have some here; big people in good physical condition, like Bud; people who understand the science, like Casimir; and maybe even someone who knows all about Remote Sensing, such as Professor Bud again.

  An advantage of the Plex was that it taught you to accept any weirdness immediately. We did not question Virgil. He memorized a list of equipment he’d have to scrounge for us, and Hyacinth grilled us until we had settled on March 31 as our expedition date. Fred Fine said he knew where he could get authentic dumdums for our guns, and tried to tell us that the best way to kill a rat was with a sword, giving a lengthy demonstration until Virgil told him to sit down. Once we had mobilized into an amateur commando team, we found that our partying spirit was spent, and soon we were all home trying vainly to sleep.

  The strike itself has been studied and analyzed to death, so I’m spared writing a fun account. For the most part the picketers stayed within the Plex. Their intent was to hamper activities inside the Plex, not to seal it off, and they feared that once they went outside, S. S. Krupp would not let them back in again.

  Some protesters did work the entrances, though. A delegation of B-men and professors set up an informational picket at the Main Entrance, and another two dozen established a line to bar access to the loading docks. Most of these were Crotobaltislavonians who paraded tirelessly in their heavy wool coats and big fur hats; with them were some black and Hispanic workers, dressed more conventionally, and three political science professors, each wearing high-tech natural-tone synthetic-insulated expedition parkas computer-designed to keep the body dry while allowing perspiration to pass out. Most of the workers sported yellow or orange work gloves, but the professors opted for warm Icelandic wool mittens, presumably to keep their fingers supple in case they had to take notes.

  The picket’s first test came at 8:05 A.M., when the morning garbage truck convoy arrived. The trucks turned around and left with no trouble. Forcing garbage to build up inside the Plex seemed likely to make the administration more openminded. Therefore the only thing allowed to leave the Plex was the hazardous chemical waste from the laboratories; run-of-the-mill trash could only be taken out if the administration and Trustees hauled it away in their Cadillacs.

  A little later, a refrigerated double-bottom semi cruised up, fresh and steaming from a two-day, 1500-mile trek from Iowa, loaded with enough rock-frozen beef to supply American Megaversity for two days. This was out of the question, as the people working in the Cafeteria now were all scabs. The political science professors failed to notice that their comrades had all dropped way back and split up into little groups and put their signs on the ground. They walked toward the semi, waving their arms over their heads and motioning it back, and finally the enormous gleaming machine sighed and slowed. An anarcho-Trotskyite with blow-dried hair and a thin blond mustache stepped up to the driver’s side and squinted way up above his head at a size 25 black leather glove holding a huge chained rawhide wallet which had been opened to reveal a Teamsters card. The truck driver said nothing. The professor started to explain that this was a picket line, then paused to read the Teamsters card. Stepping back a little and craning his neck, he could see only black greased-back hair and the left lens of a pair of mirror sunglasses.

  “Great!” said the professor. “Glad to see you’re in solidarity with the rest of us workers. Can you get out of here with no problem, or shall I direct you?” He smiled at the left-hand lens of the driver’s sunglasses, trying to make it a tough smile, not a cultured pansyish smile.

  “You AFL-CIO,” rumbled the trucker, sounding like a rough spot in the idle of the great diesel. “Me Teamsters. I’m late.”

  The professor admired the no-nonsense speech of the common people, but sensed that he was failing to pick up on some message the trucker was trying to send him. He looked around for another worker who might be able to understand, but saw that the only people within shotgun-blast range of the truck had Ph.D.’s. Of these, one was jogging up to the truck with an impatient look on his face. He was a slightly gray-tinged man in his early forties, who in consultation with
his orthopedist had determined that the running gait least damaging to his knees was a shuffling motion with the arms down to the sides. Thus he approached the truck. “Turn it around, buster, this is a strike. You’re crossing a picket line.”

  There was another rumble from the truck window. This sounded more like laughter than words. The trucker withdrew his hand for a moment, then swung it back out like a wrecking ball. Balanced on the tip of his index finger was a quarter. “See this?” said the trucker.

  “Yeah,” said the professors in unison.

  “This is a quarter. I put it in that pay phone and there’s blood on the sidewalks.”

  The professors looked at each other, and at the third professor, who had stopped in his space-age hiking-boot tracks. They all retreated to the other end of the lot for a discussion of theory and praxis as the truck eased up to the loading dock. They watched the trucker carry his two-hundred-pound steer pieces into the warehouse, then concluded that a policy decision should be made at a higher level. The real target of this picket ought to be the scabs working the warehouse and Cafeteria. All the Crotobaltislavonians had gone inside, and the professors, finding themselves in an empty lot with only the remains of a few dozen steers to keep them company, decided to re-deploy inside the Plex.