This individual came as close to being the President of our country as anyone could nowadays.
Until deposed, he had the power to order certain consequential actions across his sphere of influence by fiat; to countermand bad decisions; to embark on new projects without prior approval: the traditional role of any jimmywhale. But in this case, his sphere of influence included the entire country.
Currently this office was held by Ivo Praed of the Libertinearians.
FooDog set out to put me in Ivo Praed’s seat.
“The first thing we have to do,” Foolty Fontal said, “is to register our wiki.”
The three of us—myself, a fully recovered Cherry and the Dog—were sitting on the restored deck of the Sandybump house, enjoying drinks and snacks under a clear sunny sky. (This time, concrete pilings upheld the porch.)
“What should we call it?” I asked.
Cherry jumped right in. “How about the Phantom Blots?”
FooDog laughed. I pulled up the reference on the ubik, and I laughed too.
“Okay, we’re registered,” said FooDog.
“Now what? How do we draw people to our cause? I don’t know anything about politics.”
“You don’t have to. It would take too long to play by the rules, with no guarantees of success. So we’re going to cheat. I’m going to accrue power to the Phantom Blots by stealing microvotes from every citizen. Just like the old scam of grifting a penny apiece from a million bank accounts.”
“And no one’s going to notice?”
“Oh, yeah, in about a week, I figure. But by then we’ll have gotten our revenge.”
“And what’ll happen when everyone finds out how we played them?”
“Oh, nothing, probably. They’ll just seal up the backdoor I took advantage of, and reboot their foolish little parliament.”
“You really think so?”
“I do. Now, let me get busy. I’ve got to write our platform first—”
FooDog fugued out. Cherry got up, angled an umbrella across the abstracted black man to provide some shade, and then signalled me to step inside the house.
Out of earshot of our pal, she said, “Russ, why is FooDog going to all this trouble for us?”
“Well, let’s see. Because we’re buddies, and because he can’t resist monkey-wrenching the system just for kicks. That about covers it.”
“So you don’t think he’s looking to get something personal out of all this?”
“No. Well, maybe. FooDog always operates on multiple levels. But so long as he helps us get revenge—”
Cherry’s expression darkened. “That’s another thing I don’t like. All this talk of ‘revenge.’ We shouldn’t be focused on the past, holding a grudge. We came out of this accident okay. I’m healthy again, and the house is fixed. No one was even really to blame. It’s like when those two species of transgenic flies unpredictably mated in the wild, and the new hybrid wiped out California’s wine grapes. Just an act of God….”
In all the years Cherry and I been together, we had seldom disagreed about anything. But this was one matter I wouldn’t relent on. “No! When I think about how you nearly died— Someone’s got to pay!”
Shaking her head ruefully, Cherry said, “Okay, I can see it’s a point of honour with you, like if one of the Oyster Pirates ratted out another. I’ll help all I can. If I’m in, I’m in. I just hope we’re not bringing down heavy shit on our heads.”
The door to the deck slid open, admitting a blast of hot air, and FooDog entered, grinning face glistening with sweat.
“Okay, nephew and niece, we’re up and running. Even as we speak, thousands and thousands of microvotes are accumulating to the wiki of the Phantom Blots every hour, seemingly from citizens newly entranced by our kickass platform. You should read the plank about turning Moonbase Armstrong into the world’s first offworld hydroponic ganja farm! Anyhow, I figure that over the next forty-eight hours, the Blots will rise steadily through the ranks of the politco-wikis, until our leader is ready to challenge Praed for head jimmywhale.”
Suddenly I got butterflies in my stomach. “Uh, FooDog, maybe you’d like to be the one to run the UWA…”
“No way, padre. The Dog’s gotta keep a low profile, remember? The farther away I can get from people, the happier I am. Nope, the honour is all yours.”
“Okay. Thanks—I guess.”
FooDog’s calculations were a little off. It only took thirty-six hours before the Phantom Blots knocked the Libertinearians out as most influential politco-wiki, pushing Ivo Praed from his role as “president” of the UWA, and elevating me to that honour.
Sandybump, a speck of land off the New England coast, was now the White House. (Not the current museum, but last century’s nexus of hyperpower.) I was ruler of the nation—insofar as it consented to be ruled. Cherry was my First Lady. And FooDog was my Cabinet.
Time to get some satisfaction.
8. WIKIWAR
The day after my political ascension, we reconvened the meeting we had conducted at Gerontion, this time at Sandybump. All the same participants were there, with the addition of Cherry.
(Lots of other important national matters were continually arising to demand my attention, in my new role as head jimmywhale, but I just ignored them, stuffing them in a queue, preferring not to mess with stuff that I, for one, did not understand. This abdication of my duties would surely cause our charade to be exposed soon, but hopefully not before we had accomplished our goals.)
FooDog and I restated our grievances to the South Americans, but now formulated as a matter of gravest international diplomacy. (Foolty showed me the avatar he was presenting to the South Americans and our coastal management wikis, and of course it looked nothing like the real Dog.) This time, with the weight of the whole UWA behind our complaints, we received less harsh verbal treatment from the foreigners. And our compatriots caved right away, acknowledging that they had been negligent in not protecting our waterways from shipworm incursion. When FooDog and I announced a broad range of penalties against them, the mermaid shimmered and reverted to a weepy young teenaged boy.
But the South Americans, although polite, still refused to admit any responsibility for the Great Teredo Invasion.
“You realize, of course,” said FooDog, “that you leave us no recourse but to initiate a trade war.”
One of the Latinos, who was presenting as Che Guevara, sneered and said, “Do your worst. We will see who has the greater balance of trade.” He stood up and bowed to Cherry. “Madam, I am sorry these outrageous demands cannot be met. But believe me when I say I am gratified to see you well and suffering no permanent harm from your unfortunate accident.”
Then he vanished, along with the others.
Cherry, still un-SCURFED, had been wearing an antique pair of spex to participate in the conference. Now she doffed them and said, “Rebels are so sexy! Can’t we cut them some slack?”
“No! It’s time to kick some arrogant Venezuelan tail!”
“I got the list of our exports right here, nephew.”
From the ubik, I studied the roster of products that the UAW sold to Venezuela, and picked one.
“Okay, let’s start small. Shut off their housebots.”
After hostilities were all over and I wasn’t head jimmywhale anymore, I had time to read up about old-fashioned trade wars. It seems the tactics used to consist of drying up the actual flow of unshipped goods between nations. But with spimed products, such in-the-future actions were dilatory, crude and unnecessary.
Everything the UWA had ever sold to the Venezuelans became an instant weapon in our hands.
Through the ubik, we sent commands to every UWA-manufactured Venezuelan housebot to shut down. The commands were highest override priority and unstoppable. You couldn’t isolate a spimed object from the ubik to protect it, for it would cease to function.
Across an entire nation, every household lost its domestic cyber-servants.
“Let’s see how they lik
e washing their own stinking windows and emptying their own cat-litter!” I said. “They’ll probably come begging for relief within the hour.”
FooDog had pulled up another roster, this one of products the Venezuelans sold us. “I don’t know, nephew. I think we might take a few hits first. I’m guessing—”
Even as FooDog spoke, we learned that every hospital in the UWA had just seen its t-ray imagers go down.
“Who the hell knew that the Venezuelans had a lock on selling us terahertz scanners?” I said.
FooDog’s face wore a look of chagrin. “Well, actually—”
“Okay, we’ve got to ramp up. Turn off all their wind turbines.”
All across Venezuela, atmospheric powerplants fell still and silent.
The response from the Southerners was not long in coming. Thirty percent of the UWA’s automobiles—the Venezuelan market share—ground to a halt.
FooDog sounded a little nervous when next he spoke. “Several adjacent countries derived electricity from the Venezuelan grid, and now they’re demanding we restore the wind turbines. They threaten to join in the trade war if we don’t comply.”
I felt nervous too. But I was damned if I’d relent yet. “Screw them! It’s time for the big guns. Bring down their planes.”
Made-in-the-UWA airliners around the globe running under the Venezuelan flag managed controlled descents to the nearest airports.
That’s when the Venezuelans decided to shut down the half of our oil-refining capacity that they had built for us. True, oil didn’t play the role it once did in the last century, but that blow still hurt.
Then the Brazilians spimed their autos off, and the nation lost another 40 percent of its personal transport capabilities.
Over the next eight hours, the trade war raged, cascading across several allied countries. (Canada staunchly stood by the UWA, I was happy to report, incensed at the disruption of deliveries from the Athabasca Oil Sands to our defunct refineries. But the only weapon they could turn against the Southerners was a fleet of Zamboni machines at Latin American ice rinks.) Back and forth the sniping went, like two knights hacking each other’s limbs off in some antique Monty Python farce.
With each blow, disruptions spread farther, wider and deeper across all the countries involved.
The ubik was aflame with citizen complaints and challenges, as well as a wave of emergency counter-measures to meet the dismantling of the infrastructure and deactivation of consumer goods and appliances and vehicles. The politco-wikis were convulsing, trying to depose me and the Phantom Blots. But FooDog managed to hold them at bay, as Cherry rummaged through the tiniest line items in our export list, looking for ways to strike back.
By the time the Venezuelans took our squirm futons offline, and we shut down all their sex toys, the trade war had devolved into a dangerous farce.
I was exhausted, physically and mentally. The weight of what Cherry, FooDog and I had done rested on my shoulders like a lead cape. Finally I had to ask myself if what I had engineered was worth it.
I stepped out on the deck to get some fresh air and clear my head. Cherry followed. The sun was sinking with fantastically colourful effects, and gentle waves were lapping at Sandybump’s beach. You’d never know that several large economies were going down the toilet at that very moment.
I hugged Cherry and she hugged me back. “Well, babe, I did my best. But it looks like our revenge is moot.”
“Oh, Russ, that’s okay. I never wanted—”
The assault came in fast and low. Four armoured and be-weaponed guys riding ILVs. Each Individual Lifting Vehicle resembled a skirt-wearing grasshopper. Before either Cherry or I could react, the chuffing ILVs were hovering autonomously at the edge of our deck, and the assailants had jumped off and were approaching us with weapons drawn.
With cool menace one guy said, “Okay, don’t put up a fight and you won’t get hurt.”
I did the only thing I could think of. I yelled for help.
“FooDog! Save us!”
And he did.
SCURF mediates between your senses and the ubik. Normally the SCURF-wearer is in control of course. But when someone breaks down your security and overrides your inputs, there’s no predicting what he can feed you.
FooDog sent satellite closeups of recent solar flares to the vision of our would-be-kidnappers, and the latest sludge-metal hit, amped up to eleven, to their ears.
All four went down screaming.
Cherry erased any remnants of resistance with a flurry of kicks and punches, no doubt learned from her bar-brawling brother Dolphin.
When we had finished tying up our commando friends, and FooDog had shut off the assault on their senses, I said, “Okay, nothing’s worth risking any of us getting hurt. I’m going to surrender now.”
Just as I was getting ready to call somebody in Venezuela, Che Guevara returned. He looked morose.
“All right, you bastard, you win! Let’s talk.”
I smiled as big as I could. “Tell me first, what was the final straw? It was the sex toys, wasn’t it?”
He wouldn’t answer, but I knew I was right.
9. FREE TO BE YOU AND ME
So that’s the story of how I ran the country for three days. One day of political honeymoon, one day of trade war, and one day to clean up as best we could, before stepping down.
As FooDog predicted, there were minimal personal repercussions from our teasling of the political system. Loopholes were closed, consensus values re-affirmed, and a steady hand held the tiller of the ship of state once again.
We never did learn who sent the commandos against us. I think they were jointly hired by nativist factions in league with the Venezuelans. Both the UWA and the South Americans wanted the war over with fast. But since our assailants never went on trial after their surgery to give them new eyes and eardrums, the secret never came out.
Cherry and I got enough simoleans out of the settlement with the Venezuelans to insure that we’d never have to work for the rest of our lives. But she still goes out with the Oyster Pirates from time to time, and I still can’t resist the call of mongo.
We still live on Sandybump, but the house is bigger now, thanks to a new wing for the kids.
As for FooDog—well, I guess he did have ulterior motives in helping us. We don’t see him much anymore in the flesh, since he relocated to his ideal safe haven.
Running that ganja plantation on the Moon as his personal fiefdom takes pretty much all his time.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My thanks to all the editors whose support made the original publication of these stories possible; and to Brett and Sandra for giving them a second home.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Paul Di Filippo sold his first story in 1977. In the subsequent thirty-five years, he’s had nearly that number of books published. He hopes the next thirty-five years are as generous. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his partner of many years, Deborah Newton; a calico cat named Penny Century; and a chocolate-coloured cocker spaniel named, with jaw-dropping unoriginality, Brownie.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“Providence” first appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three (February 2009, Solaris Books).
“Argus Blinked” first appeared in Nature, Vol. 449 (October 2007).
“Life in the Anthropocene” first appeared in The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF (May 2010, Robinson Publishing).
“Bombs Away!” first appeared in Nature, Vol. 460 (August 2009).
“Cockroach Love” first appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine #41 (October 2009).
“Waves and Smart Magma” first appeared in The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF (August 2009, Running Press).
“To See Infinity Bare” first appeared in The New and Perfect Man (Postscripts #24/25) (April 2011, PS Publishing).
“The End of the Great Continuity” first appeared in Postscripts #13, Winter 2007 (PS Publishing).
“Fjaerland” first appe
ared in Flurb #12 (September 2011).
“The HPL Commonplace Book” first appeared in A Book of Unspeakable Things: Works Inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s Commonplace Book (April 2008).
“Professor Fluvius’s Palace of Many Waters” first appeared in Postscripts #15, Summer 2008 (PS Publishing).
“Yes We Have No Bananas” first appeared in Eclipse Three: New Science Fiction and Fantasy (October 2009, Night Shade Books).
“A Partial and Conjectural History of Dr. Mueller’s Panoptical Cartoon Engine” first appeared in nobrow cartoons (October 2008).
“The New Cyberiad” first appeared in We Think, Therefore We Are (January 2009, DAW Books).
“iCity” first appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Two (February 2008, Solaris Books).
“Return to the 20th Century” first appeared in Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre (January 2007, Black Coat Press).
“Murder in Geektopia” first appeared in Sideways in Crime (June 2008, Solaris Books).
“The Omniplus Ultra!” first appeared in Nature, Vol. 464 (March 2010).
“Wikiworld” first appeared in Fast Forward 1: Future Fiction from the Cutting Edge (February 2007, Pyr).
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM CHIZINE PUBLICATIONS
THE INNER CITY
KAREN HEULER
Anything is possible: people breed dogs with humans to create a servant class; beneath one great city lies another city, running it surreptitiously; an employee finds that her hair has been stolen by someone intent on getting her job; strange fish fall from trees and birds talk too much; a boy tries to figure out what he can get when the Rapture leaves good stuff behind. Everything is familiar; everything is different. Behind it all, is there some strange kind of design or merely just the chance to adapt? In Karen Heuler’s stories, characters cope with the strange without thinking it’s strange, sometimes invested in what’s going on, sometimes trapped by it, but always finding their own way in.
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