by Rudy Rucker
But I was mad at Jena again. What was that number she’d pulled at the Roasting just now? First of all, no thanks or praise, and then she’d been shaking her head when I asked her to stop Spazz—and then she’d pointed me out to Sante? Bitch. Well, maybe she hadn’t been shaking her head. I shouldn’t always be so fast to turn against Jena. Maybe it had been more of a worried, who-knows-type shrug. And maybe Jena had been right to make sure Sante saw me being hauled off in cuffs. Give the guy a little comradely sympathy for me. Help him like grasp that Joe Cube wasn’t carrying around a million bucks in pocket change for the first bullying cheeseball who asked for it. That smile and thumbs-up Sante had given me, what had that been about? Somehow I had the feeling Sante wasn’t really going to try and do anything to Jena. In any case, she’d be smart enough to hang with the cops till he was gone.
I turned my thoughts to higher things. To Drabk, and the way we’d climbed that endlessly dimensional vine to Okbra. To the Presence. I tried to bring back the state of mind I’d been in, that feeling of being One with the essence of the Cosmos. Inching along the freeway in handcuffs, I couldn’t quite get it back. For that matter, I was finding it hard to even imagine hyperspace. I’d had the fourth dimension in my mind for these last two months, what with my third eye sticking vout into the All to peer vinn at our world, and me able to see the insides and outsides of everything all the time. But now that was gone. I could remember the feelings, and some isolated images, but I couldn’t put them together into a four-dimensional whole. Vinn and vout—where were they?
Even though there was a Kevlar window between the front and back seats of the cop car, I could clearly hear the staticky messages crackling over the cops’ radio. There was some kind of accident up ahead. The driver took this as excuse to turn on his siren and swing into the breakdown lane. We were still only halfway to San Jose. At slack time on a good traffic day, you could drive to Jose from Los Perros in fifteen minutes. But we’d already been on the road for half an hour. The rain still pouring down. Californians had no clue about how to drive in rough weather. Even this cop wasn’t doing too good a job; I could feel our car fishtailing. Of course if I said anything he’d probably Taze me or club me. It occurred to me that I was sick of Californians. Deep down, I didn’t really like it here. In an odd kind of way, being in Flat Matthewsboro had made me miss Colorado.
We maneuvered our way around the accident, and then the traffic lightened up a little. I could see the stubby office buildings of San Jose with an airplane gliding over them for a landing. Seen from the side like this, you couldn’t see the plane’s wings. It looked like a silver pod, settling down like a saucer. That got me to thinking about the Kluppers. It was kind of a miracle they hadn’t stopped me from fixing the hole in space. If they’d really come after the Wackles in force, they could easily have driven them away. It must have been only Momo’s family and their grolly guards behind the plot to destroy Spaceland.
If Spazz and Treed didn’t turn the Mophones back on, everything might be okay. It was hard to believe they were even considering doing something so reckless. Like oil companies who wouldn’t admit there was such a thing as global warming. But more so, much more. Surely Jena would be able to tell them how crazy their idea was. The hole of Nothing had almost swallowed her, for God’s sake. Had she really shaken her head when I’d asked her to stop them?
Oh well. I slumped back into the seat. If I leaned on my shoulder instead of onto my cuffed hands, it was pretty comfortable. My body felt better than it had in a long time. Not only was I no longer four dimensional, I wasn’t hooked on grolly anymore. I was light instead of heavy Slack instead of tight. Content instead of needy. The Presence was everywhere.
We splashed through the wet, gritty dusk and pulled up at the central San Jose jail, a six-story concrete building on First Street near Route 880 and the airport. It was ugly here; the planes were screaming past overhead. My mood had darkened again. You save the freaking’ universe and they hall you off to jail?
A TV crew had gotten there before us; they shot footage of me being taken out of the car. It was live for the six o’clock news, and my two cops walked extra slow to get some camera time. I could hear the newswoman talking as we approached. She was trim, heavily made-up, Vietnamese. She had the perfect sprightly California accent, with each word chirped and bitten-off just so. It was like you were listening to juicy high-school gossip.
“Coming towards us now is suspected bomber Joe Cube. Apparently distraught over his job termination from the high-tech communication start-up, Mophone Inc., Cube has been accused of blowing up his workplace. The blast leveled the Mophone headquarters in Los Perros, temporarily closing down the Mophone service. A low-speed police chase ended at the Lots Perros Coffee Roasting Company less than an hour ago. Reports of damage to the popular coffee shop are still coming in. How does this affect the wildly popular new Mophone? Mophone founder Clement Treed promises to restore service in twenty-four hours.” She held a microphone towards me. “Are you guilty, Mr. Cube?”
The cameraman had me in his sights. This was my chance to warn the public. “Whatever you do, don’t turn your Mophones back on,” I said, talking fast before the cops could pull me away. “They made a hole in space. I fixed it. Arresting me was a big mistake. I’m a hero. I saved the universe!”
The newswoman’s eyes stared past me at the camera. “Suspected Mophone bomber Joe Cube,” she repeated. “Live from the San Jose Courthouse. More on this breaking story on the ten o’clock news. This is Thu Nguyen. Back to you, Jim.”
Up on the fourth story of the jail, they booked me on the bombing charges. A lady detective read me my rights and asked me to make a statement. I declined. While I’d been talking to the TV camera, I’d been able to step outside of myself a little bit and hear how I sounded, all naked and wrapped in a blanket. I sounded like I was nuts. Anything I put in a statement would just make things worse. My best bet was to wait for Clement to drop the charges. Or for the facts to sort themselves out. And to try, if I could, to get out on bail. The detective said a magistrate would set the amount when he came in after his supper. She had one of her assistants dig up some homeless-shelter-type free clothes for me, mustard-colored polyester bell-bottoms and a Judas Priest heavy metal sweatshirt, both of them too small. And some running shoes that were too big.
Before they locked me up, I got a chance to make my phone call. It was a pay phone on the wall, with a bored guard standing a few feet away watching me. No need to call Jena, she knew where I was. And calling the Mophone lawyer Stu Koblenz seemed like a waste of time. Clement Treed was paying Stu’s bills; he wasn’t going to help me unless Clement told him too. The detective said I’d get a second call to find a bail bondsman after the magistrate came in. So, what the hell, I called Tulip. Maybe she was the one to talk sense to Spazz.
“Joe!?” she exclaimed. “I just saw you on TV! Are you out of jail so fast?”
“I’m still in here, Tulip. You’re my one call. I had to talk to you.”
“To me?” Her voice cracked. “About what?”
“You left in such a hurry this morning,” I said. “Holding up your cross at me. Get real, Tulip. Those things you saw weren’t devils, they were Wackles. Hyperdimensional aliens who happen to be red. They’re no more Satanic than house plants.”
“I’ve been wondering all day,” said Tulip. “Maybe I did jump to some conclusions. Like I’ve told you, I’ve seen a lot of supernatural horror movies. You’re not really evil at all, are you, Joe?”
“Science and business, Tulip,” I said. “That’s all it ever was. Until today anyway. Today—I guess you could say I saw God. There’s no Devil out there at all, Tulip. Just the Presence. Infinite Love.”
“I’d like to think that too, Joe. But when I woke up this morning there was blood in your room, and shooting and yelling. I don’t want to see that kind of thing ever again. It was like my worst dream. How could you make that happen right after—right after—”
“I didn’t make it happen,” I began. But then I thought back. It was my need for grolly that had brought Momo into the room in the first place.
“Let’s go, homie,” said the guard next to me. “We’re on a schedule here. Gotta take your picture, process you in. We don’t got all night.”
I ignored him and pressed the phone tighter against my ear. “It won’t happen again,” I told Tulip. “I’m done with all that. I’d like to see you when I get out.”
“When’s that going to be?” asked Tulip. “They said you blew up the house.”
“The Wackles knocked it down,” I said. “You saw how hyper they were. They were fighting with these other four-dimensional aliens. Momo and her family. Kluppers.”
The guard tapped me on the shoulder.
“I’m not done,” I cried. “Please!”
The guard chuckled and shook his head. “You doin’ phone sex, or what?” But he stepped back for another minute.
“You’re going to the meeting at MeYou, right?” I said to Tulip.
“Yeah,” she said. “I have to leave in a few minutes. Ordinarily I’d hate to drive down there, but I’ve got my new Mercedes. It’s green. Why did you turn off the Mophones? Are you trying to ruin our IPO?”
“The antenna crystals, they were a trick. Momo gave them to us so that we’d make a hole in space. The Mophones send out more energy than they take in. I told Spazz, but I don’t think he believes me. And Clement doesn’t even want to think about anything that’ll hurt the IPO.”
Tulip was quiet for a few seconds, putting the pieces together. “Conservation of energy,” she said. “I should have thought of that. How soon would the Mophones make the vacuum decay?”
“It already happened,” I said. “this afternoon at the Coffee Roasting. There was a hole in space. I got there just in time. I went into hyperspace and tied it closed and then I found a patch. Jena saw it happen, but I don’t know if she really gets it.”
“She never does,” said Tulip. contemptuously.
“She’s smarter than me,” I said protectively. “Anyway, can you make sure that Clement and Spazz don’t turn the Mophones on again?”
“I’ll think about it,” said Tulip. “You realize that if Mophone stays dark, we don’t get the IPO. Maybe the hole in space at the Roasting was a fluke. I bet Jena talks on her phone more than anyone else alive. I’ll go to the meeting and we’ll do some calculations and—”
The guard reached over my shoulder and pushed down the cradle of the phone. I wanted to yell at him, hut I didn’t. I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb.
14
The Empress
So they processed me in and I was alone in my cell. There weren’t any windows, just flickering fluorescent lighting from some fixtures in the hall. The cell had a cot and a sink-toilet. Lots of initials and curses and gang signs were scratched into the shiny beige paint. I’d glimpsed a few of the other inmates on my way down the cellblock hall. An anxious gang kid, a sullen drunk, and two maniacal tweakers. Inside my cell, I couldn’t see them anymore; there were concrete walls in between us. The cells were kind of like stable stalls.
I lay back on the cot, resting. There was a line of pain on my forearm. When I rolled back my shirt to look, I saw a singed dark line. A welt from the fire in Flatland? Too weird. I rolled my sleeve back down and thought about dimensions.
I was fantasizing how easy it would be to get out of here if I were still augmented. Even though I couldn’t visualize hyperspace anymore, I remembered all the things it had let me do. If I were augmented, I could go vinn to Dronia, flap through hyperspace to the sidewalk outside the jail, and pop back into Spaceland. The cops had taken my wallet when they processed me into the jail so, if I were augmented, before leaving the jail area, I’d first flap over next to the valuables locker and reach in, just like when I’d robbed the bank. And then I’d be out on First Street with my wallet. There was a light-rail line that went by here and up North First Street to where a bunch of high-techs like MeYou had their offices in tiltups, which were one-story buildings made by hauling in prefabricated concrete walls, laying them flat, and then using cranes to tilt the walls up to the vertical. I’d been to MeYou a couple of times. It was right next to one of the light-rail stops, at Component Drive, if you can believe anyone would ever give a street such a dumbass name. Easy name to remember though. Like a sore place on your gum that your tongue keeps wanting to touch. Yeah, if I were augmented, I’d get my wallet, flap out of here and catch the light-rail to Component Drive. But I wasn’t augmented.
Even though I’d lost my watch to the bubble of Nothing, I’d noticed the time when they were booking me. It was a little after seven by now. Jena, Tulip, Spazz, and Clement Treed were at MeYou, deciding what to do. It was crazy for me to be locked up! I went to the barred door of my cell and shook it.
“I’ve gotta get out!” I hollered. “I’ve got a meeting to go to!”
“Meeting,” echoed one of the tweakers, his voice a fueled whoop. “I’ve got a meeeeting!”
“Yuppie meeting!” screeched the second tweaker. “Intel down two, Apple down three, Cisco down four, crank up five, Scotty up forty-nine!” The last two meant speed and PCP, which were the big tweaker favorites. Cheap, dirty drugs.
“Forty-niner!” echoed the first tweaker. “I got a meeeeting.”
“Shaddup!” hollered the drunk. “Shaddup or I’ll kill you bastards. Shaddup shaddup shaddup.”
The guards didn’t respond to any of this. They had cameras on the ceiling to watch us with. There was no reason for them to come in here. Me yelling was no different than a dog barking in the pound.
I sat down on my cot, staring intently into the empty center of my cell, hoping to see something, ignoring the way my polyester pants cut into my waist.
“Can you hear me, Drabk?” I whispered. “Wackles? Can you hear me? We have to stop them from turning on the Mophones!”
And now, yes, there was a flicker in the air. But it wasn’t Drabk, and it wasn’t a Wackle. It was something green and leathery and wriukted—a hand, two hands, a face—it was the Empress of Klupdom. She gazed at me and spread her knobby old hands as if in friendship. Her neck was wrapped in a muff that was pinned with a large and intricate gem. Crimson sleeves led part-way from her hands to her invisible body.
“Greetings, Joe Cube,” she said in her deep, furry voice. “You did well to patch the hole in Spaceland. Momo’s family has been punished.”
“It was the crystals Momo gave us,” I said quietly. “They weaken the fabric of our space.”
“I understand,” said the Empress. “Before his end, Voule confessed that he and Momo supplied you with tens of thousands of them.”
“That’s right,” I said. “We packaged them into Mophones. They’re turned off now, but they may yet be turned back on.”
“I know this,” said the Empress. “Even now my troops are watching the meeting of your wife, your lover, your rival, and your master. My marshal relays the news to me as we speak. If I say the word, he will pluck the hearts from all four. Does this sit well with you?”
“No!” I yelped. “There has to be another way.”
“You are ingenious, Joe Cube, you are blessed with a Spacelander’s low cunning. So I have come to ask you this: What is the other way?”
I was temporarily too panicked to think. “We won’t turn the Mophones on again,” I babbled. “We’ll recall them. Don’t hurt Jena. We’ll get all the Mophones back.”
“From what my marshal is overhearing at the meeting, this is not your partners’ intent,” said the Empress. “It’s hard work to unsow seeds cast to the wind.”
“Can’t you fix things from vout there? Reach down and take all the Mophones away?”
“Perhaps we could, in time. But if your partners act so unwisely, then of time there is none. It does seem best the four should die. Only then may we have the leisure to hunt down each and every crystal.”
“Don’t kill Jena!” I cried, so lou
d that the other inmates could hear me.
“Kill Jena!” cackled one of the tweakers. “Dude! Kill Jena good!”
“Beam me up, Scotty,” shrieked the other tweaker. “Beam me and Jena up!”
“Shaddup shaddup shaddup,” went the drunk.
There was madness all around me, but once again I felt the Presence. All grew still and calm. I had plenty of time. I thought of Dronia and of her cliffs. I thought of tens of thousands of tentacles, each of them splitting at the tip. “The Wackles,” I said to the Empress in a low tone. “They can do it! There’s so many of them!” And here came the best part of my thought. “The antenna crystals stick vinn to the Wackle’s side of Spaceland, Empress. It’ll be easy for the Wackles to find the crystals. They can feel them like stubble. Like rough spots. They look like little squares sticking out of Spaceland. Call the Wackles, Empress, bring one of them here to talk with us.”
“I am to bawl an invitation into Dronia?” said the Empress, her hands curling in a gesture of disdain. “I shall entreat vermin?”
“I’d gladly do it,” I said. “But I’m not augmented anymore.”
“And a good thing too,” said the Empress, making no move to call anyone. “You became a menace.”
“Call the Wackles, Empress, and all our problems will be solved.”
She paused, as if listening to an invisible voice. “My marshal tells me that your wife, lover, rival and boss are now very nearly agreed upon reactivating the Mophones. What folly. Yes yes, quite soon they must die.”
“Call the Wackles!”
“You are most importunate, you flat man.”
“Please. You owe me this much. After the way Momo used me.”