by Rudy Rucker
“Oh, very well.”
The Empress’s shape shifted as she pushed her head and arms further through Spaceland and into Dronia. A lump of her midsecrion remained in my cell, swathed in crimson hypercloth whose fuzzy nap was thick in some spots and thin in others. Soon she rocked back into the cell—and a Wackle appeared beside her, a full-sized red devil, just like all the times before.
“True Empress of Klupdom?” he said, reaching out to touch the Empress’s green hand. “First contact hi.”
I glanced up at the camera in the ceiling outside the cell, wondering if the guards would come. Maybe they were napping. I still had the feeling of plenty of time.
“You have to eliminate our antenna crystals,” I told the Wackle. “Those things that made the hole before.” The Wackle’s expression was blank, as in complete incomprehension. “The hole in Spaceland?” I coaxed.
“Memory bank withdraw for who you I do now,” said the Wackle. “Replay. Our smeel is one. The hole in space that Drabk fixed. Long long ago this was.”
“Two hours ago,” I hissed. “Listen to me. There’s thirty thousand antenna crystals scattered around Spaceland. Each of them projects a millimeter vinn to Dronia. Find them all and pull them out. Hurry! Get all the Wackles on the cliff working together and you can do it in like two or three minutes.”
“Why for?”
“So there’s no more holes in Spaceland, pinhead! So the grolly doesn’t grow all over your cliffs!”
The Empress made a disapproving click. “I can express this more eloquently in our higher tongue.” She leaned vinn and made some noises, a series of four-dimensional sounds. Most of her speech went off into Dronia, but some of the sound leaked into Spaceland.
My stomach vibrated so much I almost crapped my pants. One of the tubes in the hall lights went out. The tweakers went ape. The drunk started bellowing.
There were footsteps and the rattling of bolts. The guard was coming. I turned to warn my visitors—but they were gone. And, as it turned out, I never saw them again.
“The yuppie’s goin’ dark side!” one of the tweakers called to the guard. “The dude is five-oh-one, he’s doin’ voices like wuuuuh.”
“No man, he’s like grooooh, not wuuuuh,” interrupted the other tweaker.
“You in a condition, homes?” the guard asked me, peering into my cell.
“I’m fine,” I said. “Have they set my bail yet?”
“That’s it,” said the guard, jingling his keys. “You got a bail bondsman came in for you too. Any luck, you’re not comin’ back to this cell, so don’t leave nothin’.” He paid no attention to the tweakers or to the darkened light.
Out at the booking desk was the same detective I’d talked to before. She was a round-faced Hispanic woman with deep wrinkles in her forehead and around her mouth. Kind-looking, but serious and worldly-wise. “The bomb squad’s report just came in from the house on Los Perros Boulevard,” she told me. “No evidence of explosives. Can I see your hands?”
I held out my hands; she turned them over and felt my fingers and my palms. “Soft,” she said. I noticed she had a little tape recorder going. “Desk-worker hands. No blisters or calluses. Unlikely that Mr. Cube destroyed the house manually.” She glanced up, regarding me with clear, hazel eyes. “Is Clement Treed angry with you?”
“Yes,” I said. “We had a disagreement on a strategy decision.”
“Dot-commers,” said the detective, like she was talking about termites. Guys like me were making people like her pay a lot more in rent. She’d probably been born in San Jose. “I asked the magistrate to set your bail at ten thousand dollars,” she said. “That’s low. Tell your bondsman to do the paperwork and you can go.”
Who was this bondsman they kept talking about? And then he appeared from around a corner of the hallway, carrying a manila folder in his hand. It was Sante Machado, his oily hair shiny in the fluorescent lights. He’d taken his hat and shades off, but he was still wearing his Raiders jacket. His lips parted in a wolfish grin.
“Hey Joe,” he said, stepping forward. “I got your bond all set for you.” He laid the papers down on a corner of the detective’s desk. “Put your John Hancock here and here and here and you’re sprung. You need a ride anywhere when we get out?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll take the light rail.”
The loan fee for the ten thousand dollar bond was eight hundred bucks. Good enough. I was eager for freedom, and I didn’t ask Sante any questions in front of the detective. In a couple of minutes, we were outside the jail, standing under the overhang with the rain coming down past it. It was dark; the raindrops sparkled in the pink sodium lights of the parking lot.
“C’mon and ride in my car,” urged Sante.
“Gimme a break, man.” Sante was still taller than me, but I wasn’t scared of him anymore. “You wanted to stick an ice-pick in my guts. I’m not going anywhere with you. And listen up, man, either Mophone’s about to go outta business or the world’s coming to an end. Either way you don’t get your million.”
“I got fired from Nero’s on accounta you and that million,” said Sante, his eyebrows slanting mournfully down. “You owe me. That’s why I bailed you out, to remind you to do me a favor.”
“Since when are you a bail bondsman? And what exactly do you want?” Eager as I was to get up to MeYou, I needed to finish my business with Same.
“I grew up here in San Ho,” said Sante. “I was a bondsman before I worked in Vegas. When the rubber hits the road, Sante collects the dough.”
“Except for my million,” I said, unwisely rubbing it in. Sante clenched his teeth and a muscle moved in the side of his jaw. He stared out at the rain for a minute, then glared down at me.
“Don’t disrespect me, Joe. I don’t wanna do nothin’ we’ll regret. Let’s say the million is water under the dam. Me and Nero’s is through. I’m lookin’ for a new career, you know what I’m sayin’? This high-tech jazz, I wanna get in on it. Stock options, like that. You gotta find me a job at this new outfit of yours. Mophone. Deal?” He stuck out his hand.
This man I’d been so frightened of—he was asking me for help. He was a son of San Jose, briefly gone wrong in Vegas, now come home to partake in his fair city’s boom. My heart opened to him. I shook his hand.
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “But like I said, there’s a good chance Muphone’s going out of business. Not to mention the fact that our big money guy fired me and got me arrested. Clement Treed.”
“Ah, that’s bull,” said Sante. “You got an in. You can do it, Joe. Make me head of Security. Or Personnel. I’m good with people.” Over on First Street, a train had just gone by. It would be twenty minutes till the next one. “C’mon and let me give you a ride,” said Sante, seeing me notice the train. “We’re friends now, Joe.”
“You got a gun on you?” I asked.
“Always,” said Sante. “I’m licensed, bro.”
“Let me hold it while we ride,” I said. “Just so I’m sure you don’t start in on me with the ice-pick.”
“My man,” said Sante, handing me his pistol butt-first. “We’re all learning. Grow or die, hey? C’mon, my car’s over here. You’re goin’ up to MeYou on North First, right? Your little hottie told me. Jena Bonk. Hey Joe, how’d you duck that ice-pick anyway? I never seen anything like it. Was that like some Eastern marital art?”
“Yeah,” I said, getting into Sante’s black Lincoln. “I learned it from Momo.”
“That woman I tried to shoot? Where’s she at now?” He wheeled out of the lot and sped north on First Street.
“Rubbed out by a rival gang,” I said, trying to sound tough. “The Wackles.” The gun felt weird in my lap. I put it in Sante’s glove compartment. “From now on we’re strictly nonviolent, you dig?”
“That’s cool,” said Sante. “High-tech, right Joe?”
The reflected traffic lights made long red and green stripes in the rain-wet streets. I imagined hyperspace Wackle ten
drils feeling all over our planet like an anemone opening a mussel. Tried to visualize it and make it true. If only it was working. If only Jena was okay. My heart beat faster and faster as we approached MeYou.
I couldn’t help but notice that Jena was the one I was worried about the most. Face it, I was stuck on her. Earlier today she’d talked about seeing a marriage counselor. I’d blown her off; I’d been high on grolly and wrapped up in all my resentments. I’d been wrong. I needed to let go a little bit. Learn to stop thinking that every slight change in Jena’s happiness was about me. Learn that Jena was a separate person.
“It’s up there on the right,” I told Sante. There were a few lights in the MeYou tilt-up, and four cars in the lot. Jena’s Beetle, the old beater Chevy pickup that Spazz drove in the rain, Clement’s limo, and Tulip’s new green Mercedes. I strained to see if there were any signs of movement behind the lit windows. “Park in the shadows,” I told Sante, thinking ahead to the worst that might happen.
“Okay if I come in too?” said Sante as he stopped the car. “I’ll give you backup in case Treed cracks wise. Anyway, if these guys gonna hire me, they may as well see my face.”
“Yeah, fine,” I said, opening my door. “One thing, though, Sante, there’s a chance—” The words caught in my throat. “There’s a chance they’ll all be dead.”
“Them Wackles you talked about? That was a Wackle who phoned me about how you cheated at cards that time, right? Some kind of overexcited nut. I thought you said high-tech wasn’t rough. Hell Joe, we’re right back in my world now.” Sante leaned across me and took his gun out of the glove compartment, sliding it inside his jacket. “Anyone’s iced in there, we get out fast, right? We don’t wanna take no fall. And, Joe—use your handkerchief to open the door. Never leave no prints on a crime scene.”
We hustled across the shiny wet parking lot. The MeYou door was unlocked. We went inside. Quiet, quiet, quiet, nothing but computer hums. And then, to my joy, I heard a shout. Spazz yelling, “Goddammit!”
“High five,” I said to Sante, and we slapped palms.
A minute later we were down the hall and in a lab room with a conference table, two computers, and four people in the pink of health. Jena, Tulip, Spazz and Clement Treed.
Jena looked over at me, her lips red, her narrow brown eyes bright and excited. I ran across the room and hugged her. “I love you,” I told her. “I was worried I’d never see you again. I love you, Jena. And I’m off grolly. Let’s try and work things out.”
“Um … okay,” she said, her voice going way high on the second, word. And then she giggled. “Why not? I love you, too, Joe. We’ve been acting so dumb. I’ve been worried sick. Look at my nails.” Indeed, they were chewed right down to the quick. I kissed them.
Tulip looked over at us and mimed a vomiting face, sticking out her long pink tongue and shaking her head so hard that her earrings bounced around. And then she started laughing like she was glad to have me off her case. She was standing next to Spazz, who was, as usual, sitting at a computer. There was that same picture of Bettie Page on the screen that Spazz had guided me to earlier that afternoon.
“Just in time, Joe,” said Spazz, his silver nose-ring glinting in the light. “Did you screw up my website or something? Do you remember exactly what you typed in? I keep trying to turn the Mophones on—but they’re not working right. And mine’s broken too now.” He gestured at half a dozen Mophones lying next to the computer. “I can’t get anything but standard PacBelI service on any of them.” He turned and began typing into his dialog box.
“Don’t!” I cried, letting go of Jena. “Are you crazy? Didn’t Jena tell you about the hole?”
“they didn’t think it would happen again,” said Jena. “They said they’d have to do more research to see if there’s really a problem—but meanwhile it would be okay to run the Mophones. It’s good you’re finally here, Joe. Sante promised he’d get you out of jail, so I came straight to the meeting. But these greedheads won’t listen to me.”
I started around the conference table towards Spazz. Clement Treed stepped in my way. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he demanded, looking down at me in my too-tight Judas Priest sweatshirt and mustard-colored polyester flares. “Dressed like that? I fired you this afternoon. This is a private company meeting. I’ll call Security if you don’t leave.” His angry big mouth seemed to wrap halfway around his head.
“I’m Security,” said Sante, staring Clement right in the eye. “I say Joe stays.” Something about the way he said this made Clement, hack off and sit down.
“You can’t fire him anyway, Clement,” said Tulip. “You only have forty percent of the stock. Jena, Spazz, Joe, and me, we own the other sixty. And we say Joe stays. Right guys?”
“Of course,” said Jena. “I was about to say the same thing. There’s no Mophone without Joe.”
“Hell yeah,” said Spazz. “Now come here and show me how you broke my site, Joe. We gotta get those Mophones happening again or there’s not gonna be an IPO. And don’t start jabbering about holes in space again, cause Tulip and I just ran a simulation in Mathematica and the chances of another breakdown before IPO next week are like—”
“Hold on,” I said and picked up one of the Mophones on the table. I pried its case open and looked inside. Yes. The antenna crystal was gone. I checked another and another. “Thank you, Wackles!” I shouted. “Praise the Empress of Klupdom! Hail Drabk the Sharak of Okbra!”
My Jena was the first to get the picture. “All the crystals are gone?” she said. “Too cool. We’re safe!”
Clement rushed across the room and unlocked a cabinet. I guess he’d stored a bunch of the extra antenna crystals in it. But there was nothing inside.
“The Mophones are all empty?” he demanded.
“Not empty,” I said. “It’s just that the antenna crystals are gone. They’re still perfectly good cell phones.”
“In other words we no longer have a product,” said Clement. He sighed and shook his head, looking more tired than angry. He’d been playing this particular game as hard as he could, and now the game was over. “Write-off time,” he added.
“How about you drop those charges against Joe?” put in Sante.
“Sure, sure,” said Clement. “That was just to keep him out of this meeting. No hard feelings, Joe?”
“I wonder if I should press false arrest charges,” I said. Clement looked unimpressed. No way I could beat a titan of the industry at legal saber-rattling. “How about this,” I said. “Can you give Sante here a job? He’d like to be the head of Mophone Security.”
“What Mophone?” said Clement. “Did you leave your brain in the jail, Joe? Without the antenna crystal, we don’t have a product.”
Tulip and Spazz had been whispering as we talked, and now Tulip spoke up. “What about our peer-to-peer architecture?” she said. “The Motalk operating system. That’s new. So, yeah, our bandwidth’s gone, but for short ranges a Mophone works without having to use a server.”
“The messages can hopscotch from one Mophone to the next without using PacBell,” said Spazz. “Distributed telecommunications. You buy a Mophone and, if you only use it locally, you never have to pay another cell-phone bill.”
“I’m listening,” said Clement Treed, straightening up in his chair.
“We’ve got an incredible publicity buzz,” said Jena. “We could still turn this around. We come out and admit that the Mophone high-bandwidth feature is gone for now, hint that it might come back someday, offer a rebate to our customers, and keep selling the heck out of what we have. A cell phone with no cell-phone company. And of course we keep after-marketing the PacBell service as an add-on.”
So that’s what we did. And Sante got his job. Mophone did OK for a little while. None of us but Clement actually made a whole million out of it, but Jena and I came close enough.
We two stayed another year in California and finally we got so tight with each other that we wanted to have babies. We w
anted a bigger house first, but the money from Mophone—which folded around then—wasn’t enough for the Bay Area.
So we cashed in our condo for double what we paid, headed to Arizona, and bought a good house on a nice piece of land in the red rocks not too far from Sedona. Jena and I started up a public relations and ad agency business. We have some high-tech customers and we do some pro bono for the tribes. We’ve got a little girl now. She’s great; Jena and I call her the Empress.
Jena still likes business meetings. Me, a lot of the time I watch over our Empress and work from home. I get off on the vibe from those weather-carved red rocks. The way they morph from one shape to another with the changing light—it’s almost higher dimensional.
One thing about Sedona, it’s a place where I can tell people about my experiences, and they’ll listen. Now and then I even teach a workshop. People can’t get enough of hearing about Drabk the Sharak of Okbra. And when I talk about him, I get a good feeling like Drabk hears me.
One of these days I might even write a book.
Flatland will never be the same? No, reality will never be the same!
“Rudy Rucker’s Spaceland is a homage to Abbott that challenges readers to imagine what life might be like in a world with four spatial dimensions … . It is Rucker’s determination to one-up the dimensional explorations of Flatland that gives Spaceland [its] appeal.”
—The New York Times
“The current crop of SF humorists … don’t seem to pack the same intellectual punch as their forebears. With one exception that is: the astonishing Rudy Rucker … . Like the mutant offspring of Jonathan Swift and Philip José Farmer, Rudy Rucker finds mankind a species whose glorious buffoonery is matched only by its capacity to laugh at itself.”
—The Washington Post
“Spaceland puts the hyper into hyperspace and the high into higher dimensions. A fast-paced tribute to the classic Flatland that challenges all of our comfortable assumptions about the world we inhabit.”
—Ian Stewart, author of Flatterland and The Annotated Flatland