Million Mile Road Trip

by Rudy Rucker

  Far below, Zoe and the purple whale disappear through the rumbling cliff of water.

  18: Beach Party

  ZOE

  Uneasily Zoe watches the deeply roaring wall sweep Villy into the sky. In seconds he’s the size of a fly, impossibly high on the wobbling cliff of water. But now she has to look away and trim her course to ride the corkscrew through the cavernous hole in the great wave’s base.

  They emerge to see another wall wave looming a few miles ahead. The space between the two walls is oddly peaceful. Like a nature preserve, with calm glassy water—calm, that is, except for the corkscrew wave. The sea gleams with colorful slugs and silvery fish. Birds like pelicans loop and dive. Alien narwhals poke their heads above the surface and whistle. They gather in groups and rub together their unicorn tusks together, watching the outlandish purple whale upon the helical wave.

  “You drive for now,” Zoe tells Scud and lets him take the wheel. So now it’s Zoe and Scud in the front seat, with him on the left and her on the right. Pinchley’s alone in the back seat, and Meatball’s way back in the pig’s nest.

  Zoe leans out the right front window, staring at the wall wave behind them, hoping to get a glimpse of Villy at the top. The long lip is adorned with a breaking crest. Zoe squints at it, with the wind beating at the back of her head, and then, off to the left, yes, she sees two spots of color. Red and blue, Villy’s and Yampa’s boards, deep inside the curling tube. They’re maybe a mile above sea level, two miles behind Zoe—and falling further behind.

  “You guys think we can maybe circle back?” Zoe asks the others. “I’d like to be there for Villy after he slides down that skyscraper. And for Yampa too.”

  “Negatory,” says Scud, fully into his sixteen-year-old asshole mode.

  “Just jump off the blade of the corkscrew,” says Zoe. Scud acts like he doesn’t hear her. Maybe he’s scared to try. Probably he doesn’t understand how to surf the car. He’s never ridden a board in his life.

  “If we slide off the blade, we’ll coast onto wall wave number two,” says Pinchley, annoyingly taking Scud’s side.

  “Shit,” says Zoe, focusing on what’s ahead. Indeed, the next goddamned wall wave is nearly upon them. With its own big corkscrew hole in the bottom. Scud has a white-knuckled death grip on the steering wheel and his face is a frozen blank. He’s got them aimed at the wrong angle. He’s going to frikkin miss the hole.

  Zoe seizes the boy’s shoulders, drags him away from the wheel, and resumes control. She changes the angle as sharply as she can without capsizing, then gives the paddle-wheels all she’s got. Even so, they nearly eat it. As they enter the tunnel, the car slides way out along the corkscrew blade and, oh wow, up onto the tunnel’s arched water ceiling. The surface tension and the centrifugal force hold them in place but—strictly speaking—they’re upside down.

  “Damn you, Scud,” mutters Zoe.

  “You look hot when you’re mad,” says Scud. Like, with Villy gone, Scud’s seeing what he can get away with, leering sophomore horndog that he is.

  “I don’t give a shit what you think is hot,” snaps Zoe.

  And then, sigh, she’s made it through this difficult passage. How many more will there be? They’re riding across another calm nature-preserve-type zone, this one between the second and the third monster-wall waves. Turns out there’s going to be seven of them in all.

  Okay, now they’re emerging from the tunnel through that seventh wave, and by now Zoe isn’t especially mad at Scud anymore. The corkscrew dies down, and the nearby waves aren’t so big as before. It’s dusk. But some distance ahead of them is a really high dark shape—

  “Please don’t let that be waves,” says Zoe.

  “Cliffs,” says Pinchley reassuringly. “Leading up to Flatsie Pass.”

  “Hope we can make the beach,” says Zoe. “Such effing gnarly surf.” Although not huge, a lot of the waves are heading out from shore, same as before. Fubar. Zoe jiggles the rudder and tap-dances the accelerator, hoping to thread her way through the darkening maze. And all the time she’s worrying about Villy.

  “I teep some Flatsies over there,” announces Scud, pointing towards the right. He’s clearly glad not to be driving, but he relishes his role as navigator.

  “It’s dodgy being a Freeth,” says Meatball out of the blue. As if she’s trying to apologize. “That’s why I’m a maverick.”

  “Maverick isn’t the right word,” says Zoe. “Traitor is more like it. You’re on the side of the leech saucers.” She’s not taking her eyes off the waves. If it gets much darker they’ll be screwed.

  “Perhaps it seems that way, but my actions are not of my own volition,” says Meatball. “The Freeth do sometimes act as mercenaries. But, aside from that, we’re jolly, we mean well, and—”

  “Beat it, Meatball,” interrupts Pinchley. “Told you already. Amscray. Last thing we frikkin need is a leech-saucer spy in our car. I got a feelin’ you’re gonna call down another hit on us.”

  “That’s unfair,” says Meatball. “I—”

  “I said git!” cries Pinchley in a sudden access of rage. He draws a new critter from his tool belt and places it on his palm. Zoe steals a quick glance. It’s a toad with glowing eyes. Its mouth is partway open. Zoe has a sense that you don’t ever want that toad’s tongue to touch you. Pinchley extends his arm towards Meatball.

  Meatball wedges herself into the farthest corner of the pig’s nest and forms one of her bulges into the conical shape of a zapper node. She and Pinchley glare at each other.

  “Look out!” yells Scud right then.

  A rogue ziggurat rams into the hood of their car—a wave as big as the pyramid of Cheops. It sinks them into the swirling depths of the inky sea. And just as they begin to float back up, something grabs hold of them. Tentacles, faintly luminous, creamy white against the windows of the car, dragging them down and down. Zoe’s ears pop. Water seeps in around the doors and windows.

  “The mandatory attack of the giant alien squid,” says Zoe, almost too fried to care.

  Moving with alacrity, Meatball presses herself against the rear window and tries sending a zap through the glass. Not all that much oomph to it, but it’s enough to make the squid flinch. But still it maintains its hold. The squid’s foul beak scrapes against the windshield, as if wanting to break through. Its enormous eye peers in. They sink deeper. The air in the car grows dense and cold.

  Meatball makes her way around the car’s interior, sending warning zaps through the windshield and through the side glass panes. None of the jolts are that strong, but they’re starting to bother the squid. The beak clacks, the eye squints, the tentacles contort and writhe. Zap, zap, and zap. Finally, tiring of Meatball’s routine, the abyssal monster sets them free. Slowly, with maddening aplomb, the car begins to rise. Zoe dares to let herself wonder if she’ll ever see Villy again.

  “Good save,” Pinchley tells Meatball. He sets his poison toad aside.

  But they’re still not done. Everything around them is getting dark. It’s like an enveloping shroud is growing up from the sea-bottom and closing in on them.

  “A Neptune’s tablecloth!” Pinchley yells. “Quick, Zoe, head straight up!”

  Zoe revs the paddle-wheels once more. They lurch against a big, rubbery, seaweed-like sheet that’s reaching up around them. It’s a great disk with wrinkles along its sides. The disk’s edge is above them, and it’s starting to pinch closed. Like a kerchief closing around a melon. A flexible living sheet that becomes a pouch.

  Yet another lucky break for our cosmic heroes: the purple whale’s paddle-wheels propel them out of the shrinking mouth of the sack before it shuts. And now the whale’s absurd finned monster-truck tires are churning the sea’s heaving surface. Overcome by the stress and the chaotic motions, Zoe leans forward and pukes between her feet.

  “Flatsies!” sings out Scud after a moment of intense mental scanning. “On the comber wave over there. They know we’re here!” He opens his window and hollers.
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  It’s hard for Zoe to see the Flatsies in the dim light. They’re small, and they’re lying on surfaces of the waves. These little dudes don’t ride surfboards, they are surfboards. But now—whoosh—one of them whizzes along the comber’s long barrel, goes airborne like a Frisbee, skims in through Scud’s window, and lands gracefully on the front seat. A three-foot-tall gingerbread man.

  “I hight Madclaw, milord and milady,” he says with a bow.

  “Is he speaking olde English?” asks Zoe.

  “That’s what they do,” says Scud. “It’s like each mappyworld alien has to be weirder than the one before.”

  “Can you help us reach the shore?” Zoe asks the Flatsie. “Please. I’m losing my mind. And there’s two more in our party, still out to sea.”

  “Knowing not thy name, I am hard put to hear thee,” says Madclaw.

  “You’re talking about etiquette?” cries Zoe. “Can we cut through the effing bullshit before another zillion-ton pyramid of water lands on us? I’m Zoe, and the idiot next to me is Scud. And that’s Pinchley and Meatball in back. Meatball’s a traitor. Even though she saved our butts just now.”

  “I’ll be off your hands as soon as we land,” puts in Meatball.

  “High time,” counters Zoe. She turns back to the Flatsie. “The missing two members of our party are my boyfriend Villy, and Pinchley’s Yampa—I guess you’d say she’s his wife?”

  “Don’t make your info so intricate,” Pinchley warns Zoe, pushing his head into the front seat. “Flatsies are dumb.”

  The Flatsie glares at the Szep. “I mislike thy tone, thou wasted, liverish man.”

  “Please, no quarreling,” says Zoe, laying one hand on Madclaw’s chest and using her other hand to give Pinchley a good hard shove—sending him back to the rear. With the Flatsie in the car, the waves around them have already begun to calm.

  “Thy touch is warm and cogent,” says Madclaw, patting Zoe’s hand with one of his paw-like gingerbread-man mitts. “Thou and thy retinue shall be guests at this eve’s feast.”

  “Guests meaning that we’re sitting around eating with you?” puts in Scud. “Am I teeping the image right? It’s confused. It’s not that you Flatsies want to kill us and roast us, is it? I feel like I’m seeing that too.”

  “Fret not, oh timorous youth,” intones Madclaw. “Veils of ifness do ever billow in the teepful mind.” He makes a commanding gesture with his stubby arm, directing Zoe to steer towards a gap in the waves. “Onward, milady. At my behest, the ensorcelled waves do grant fair passage. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing will be well.”

  “What about my Villy?” asks Zoe as she steers through the parting seas. “You’ll save him, too?”

  “There is one who even now seeks your mate, milady. She is a woman like you, and yet unlike. Villy will be at your side anon. Onward now, say I.”

  “Fine,” says Zoe. “Excuse the mess in here…”

  She risks opening the car door for a second so she can sweep most of her puke out the door with her foot. A lively gout of water splashes in to finish the job. That’s a relief. Her stomach feels fine again. She likes Madclaw’s vibe. The waves here are like friendly, rambunctious dogs. Pinchley is mellow, Scud seems more or less human, and they’re almost rid of Meatball. Onward.

  What with Madclaw’s high-flown manner of speech, Zoe is expecting a turreted castle with pennants and crenellated battlements, but the Flatsies’ village is a dump. Four-foot-high huts assembled from washed-up flotsam—junk like smelly narwhal hides and the shells of giant crabs, with the pieces lashed together by leathery squid tentacles. A bonfire roars, fueled by dry seaweed stems. Gingerbread men and women caper in the flickering light.

  “Home sweet home,” says Zoe. She pulls the purple whale to a stop on the hard-packed sand.

  Exhausted and a little wobbly-legged, she and Scud and Pinchley lower themselves to the sand. Almost immediately Meatball silently disappears into the sky. Gone for good? Zoe hopes so.

  The fire is warm, the Flatsies are jolly. Several of the them are tending a pair of spits with something heavy on them—oh my god! Zoe’s blood pressure shoots up to, like, a thousand. “They’re roasting Yampa and Villy!” she cries. But she’s only picking up on the same hallucination that Scud briefly had.

  “Two giant crabs, milady,” says calm Madclaw at her side. “Be merry, I implore you!” He strides over to the fire and joins his fellows.

  “Them’s definitely crabs on the fire,” Pinchley reassures Zoe. “You was just trippin’ off the crabs’ teep. They trying to mind-game you. To show you that this really is kind of a cannibal-type feast. Seeing as how those giant crabs are as smart as that fella Einstein. Real good eatin’ though—if you set your scruples aside. Thing is, the crabs sneak over here from another basin like the saucers do. Foraging. And Flatsies figure anyone’s fair game if they’s not native.”

  “In other words, the Flatsies would eat us!” exclaims Zoe.

  “Naw,” says Pinchley. “They don’t like Szep meat nor human meat neither. They say we taste like oily rags, and they call you fellas long pigs—and not meaning that as a compliment.”

  “Pigs are delicious,” protests Scud, much louder than necessary. “Bacon, ham, pork chops…”

  “I’d put a lid on that if I was you,” goes Pinchley. “Not a real good idea to piss off the Flatsies.”

  At least they’re on dry land. And there’s no red-eyed saucers in sight. And, hell, they’ve got a gala crab dinner coming up. Over by the fire, Madclaw makes some kind of speech to introduce them. He’s uses gestures, song, and teep.

  “So rich and cultural,” says Zoe, feeling comfortable enough to be ironic again. “Like a Renaissance Faire.”

  “I bet Villy’s lost,” says Scud. “I bet he’s dead.”

  “Thanks for that,” snaps Zoe. “For, like, one nanosecond I was almost happy.”

  She turns and stares out to sea, reaching for Villy with her mind. This place is so wacked out with mappyworld teep—it’s like being at a party where all the other kids are on shrooms—Zoe’s picking up on this mind-reading thing. She can sense the rough playful minds of the waves, the giddy excitement of the Flatsies, and just now coming into visible sight—is that her weird sister Maisie? With Villy and Yampa close behind?

  “Yes,” says Pinchley, right in sync.

  A perfectly formed wave approaches, lit from within by phosphorescent plankton. Clearly outlined in the sweet spot of the wave’s slope are two archetypal surfer silhouettes—Villy and Yampa. And flying ahead of them is a glowing woman with a disk skirt like a saucer’s rim. She’s carrying a clutch purse.

  The wave breaks into a gentle wash of bubbly foam. Villy and Yampa stride ashore, bearing their boards. The woman who led them—now she’s gone. Was that really Maisie? Is she hiding? No matter. It’s a day of miracles, with too many wonders to explain.

  Zoe runs to Villy and they embrace for a very long time. His skin is cold.

  “Don’t leave me again,” Zoe whispers to him. “Don’t leave.”

  “Same here,” says Villy, no Shakespeare with the love talk. But his hug says enough. Zoe holds him for a while, glad to know her body is warming him.

  And then she leads him to the Flatsies’ bonfire. The little gingerbread men and gingerbread women cheer. This is a big entertainment event for them. Scud is cheering too, and here comes Pinchley carrying Yampa, cradling her sideways in his arms like he’s a groom carrying his bride across a threshold. Stop obsessing on marriage, Zoe.

  Did she herself think that, or someone else? Hard to tell, with all the teep.

  Zoe and Villy find seats on some big spiral shells close to the water, and the Flatsies bring them chunks of cooked crab meat.

  “So delicious,” says Villy, his mouth full.

  “E equals m-c-squared,” says Zoe, eating crabmeat too.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. Was your ride…epic?” Even as she says this, Zoe scolds hersel
f for being sarcastic. Like, what is her problem?

  “The best,” says Villy, gamely playing along. “Beyond words.” He teeps her a memory of his ride. It’s like Zoe is seeing through Villy’s eyes, with Villy’s arms and feet at the edges of her new field of view, and with the gnarly Yampa up ahead, surfing the tube atop the wall wave. The hollow barrel of the tube is filled with pale light. The sound is a rich hum. Everything is in slow motion. And there’s a numinous presence all around. The one mind.

  “Yes,” murmurs Zoe. She watches for a long time.

  The Flatsies are serving up some kind of drink now, very sweet and aromatic. They call it tuj. Scud and the two Szep are going for it, but Zoe and Villy turn it down. The Flatsies are tapping the stuff from a large iridescent bladder. A seaweed float? A squid’s ink sack? No telling what the juice actually is, nor what its effects might be.

  Despite her various false moves, Zoe has pretty much decided that tonight’s going to be the night for her and Villy. And Villy—she’s sure he feels the same way. They’re holding hands. In a way, a handclasp’s as good as teep. A rich channel.

  Right then two narwhals come wallowing across the shingle to join the party. Actually, one of them’s not wallowing—he’s levitating. Their wheezy whistles are a form of speech, and Madclaw is talking to them, making some kind of deal. The floating narwhal coughs a shiny iridescent ball onto the sand, then thuds to the ground.

  “That’s the saucer pearl from before,” says Villy. “I recognize that narwhal too. With the leopard spots on his back? Look how excited Madclaw is. He’s putting the ball in his body-pouch. He has a pouch at his waist like on a kangaroo. And dig it, he’s already hovering in the air. That must feel great. I wonder what the narwhal gets in exchange.”

  The answer comes quickly. Madclaw drops back to the sand and drags out a still-living giant crab who’s been lying there in the shadows, all tied up. A powerful specimen with lively eyestalks, and a dappled green shell, he’s—much more than an ordinary crab. He’s chirping and clicking like he’s talking. Highly intricate and sophisticated sounds. Zoe recalls Pinchley’s remark: as smart as that fella Einstein.