Corpus Chrome, Inc.

by S. Craig Zahler

  The blonde man wiped sweat from his face, double-tapped the lily in his right ear and said, “Play: Memo.” He heard his own voice say, “Seventy-two Gregs Street; apartment six-twelve; owner, R.J. the Third.”

  Champ strode down the hall (which, for some reason, was far quieter than the others in the building), stopped in front of the door marked 612 and tapped the chime placard. He wiped the sweat from his brow, breathed and waited. The lens housed in the metal door hissed; its iris narrowed, and glass planes shifted.

  “Are you Champ Sappline?” inquired a man with a loud tenor voice that matched the one in the audiad.

  “I am. Are you R.J. the Third?”

  “You are early.”

  Champ triple-tapped the lily in his ear and heard a demure woman’s voice say, “The time is thirteen fifty-eight.” His appointment was at fourteen.

  “I’m sorry,” said Champ. “I can wait.”

  There was no response.

  The blonde man fidgeted, shifted his weight and swallowed spit while he stared at a scratched lens for one hundred and twenty slow seconds.

  “Enter!” ordered the tenor voice.

  The fleximetal door slid into the ground and revealed an obese gray Persian cat. Although the audiad had mentioned nothing about pets, there it was—haughty and shaped like an abundant bag of garbage.

  “Architect,” R.J. the Third called from farther within the apartment, “please escort Mr. Sappline into the common area.” The cat eyed the intruder derisively and strode away, its tail stuck in the air like a middle finger. Champ followed the beast down the copper hall; the animated posters on either side of him exhibited blossoming explosions, bone-crushing karate kicks and burning brassieres in two- to five-second loops, depending upon the thickness of the poster. The blonde man did not know much about collectibles, but he knew that these were valuable pieces.

  The cat led him into a square room that was nearly ten meters wide; the walls were painted metallic gold and the floor was covered with thick silver carpeting. Seated upon a fur couch was a tall slender man with protuberant eyes, red cheeks, a large nose (thrice pierced) and messy black hair. He wore silver shorts and a matching shirt, both monogrammed “RJ # 3.” The feline walked before the man’s bare feet and redistributed its tonnage, apparently sitting. The man’s toes disappeared beneath the fat cat.

  “Hi. I’m Champ Sappline.”

  “I am R.J. the Third,” the seated man said with musical flourish, as if he expected applause. He looked at the cat upon his toes and then up at Champ. “Architect does not appear to hate you.” The twenty-five-year-old pointed to an inflatable chair that rested beside the mote aquarium and said, “You will sit.”

  “Danke,” Champ said as he sat.

  “It is a very difficult thing—to determine if a person is trustworthy,” said R.J. the Third, shifting his toes beneath the feline. “Why should I rent the room to you, hmmm?”

  “I’m reliable. And I can pay four months’ rent in advance.”

  “How about friends? This isn’t a place for parties.”

  “I don’t have any friends.”

  “Why not?”

  “My wife got them all. Even the ones who were mine.”

  R.J. the Third became uneasy. “Wife?”

  Architect, sensing its owner’s displeasure, swiveled its pumpkin to face the interviewee. The beast’s head turned twenty degrees further than cat vertebrae typically allowed, although it was possible that the body had shifted somewhere deep within the blubber.

  “You’re married?” pressed R.J. the Third, cat eyes demonically agleam at his feet.

  “Not anymore. She left me.”

  “Oh.” R.J. the Third relaxed, and Architect’s head swiveled away. The tall skinny man in silver posited, “So you’re depressed, single and friendless?”

  “I wouldn’t disagree with that assessment.”

  “Terrific. What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a garbage man.”

  “That isn’t going to make you popular.”

  “Nope.”

  “Anything else?” asked R.J. the Third.

  “I did some stand-up comedy for a while, but it didn’t work out.”

  “You don’t seem humorous.”

  “Most people agree with you.”

  R.J. the Third leaned over and grabbed Architect; limbs sprouted obliquely from the furry mass; a purr like tires redistributing gravel emanated from deep within the bloated beast. The skinny man in silver stroked the feline between its ears and inquired casually (as if to trick Champ), “What did you think of the mote aquarium experience The First and Final Rocket?”

  “I haven’t seen it.”

  “What!?!” R.J. the Third cried out in disbelief; Architect did not know what to do with its paws, but there was flapping. “It was a huge hit! Enormous!”

  “I haven’t had a mote aquarium in almost a year.”

  R.J. the Third’s bulging eyes lit with horror, summarily replaced by something that looked like grief. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said.

  Architect looked dolorously at the window, as if the creature had just been diagnosed with cat cancer.

  “I don’t miss it all that much,” defended Champ. “I like movie sheaves more. I just flip through those when I’m bored.”

  “Movie sheaves,” said R.J. the Third, derisively. “Are you a great supporter of all the dead, two-dimensional arts? Novels? Cave paintings?”

  Champ had learned to tolerate rudeness during the latter years of his marriage, and thus replied with well-concealed irritation, “I haven’t read a book since I was in college.”

  R.J. the Third nodded, placated by this information. “It is unfortunate that you have not seen The First and Final Rocket.” The wan timbre of his voice caused Architect to lower its head and flatten its ears, disheartened. “Unfortunate.”

  The conversation sank into a ponderous silence.

  Champ thought of the storage niche that awaited him if he did not find a new place to live, and inquired of his host, “Does this part of our discussion have any bearing on whether or not you’ll rent the room to me?”

  “Tremendous bearing.”

  Architect haughtily raised its chin.

  “I’m just looking for a room—we don’t need to be pals. I work lots of nights and we probably won’t see all that much of each other. I’ll respect the rules.”

  R.J. the Third shook his head in refutation. “I will need to know far more than that if you are going to take up residence in my apartment.”

  “And this m.a. movie—”

  “Experience! Mote aquarium experience.”

  “My opinions on it will let you know whether I’m a suitable tenant?”

  “They will.”

  “Will you show it to me? The First and Final Rocket?”

  R.J. the Third’s mouth became slack, and his eyes widened. Architect looked at its master as if the man had just malfunctioned.

  “That is a brilliant idea! I will show you this landmark work, this zenith achievement in the history of the arts (including all those dead ones you prefer), and afterwards, continue and conclude the interview. You should know this ahead of time: The First and Final Rocket is a life-altering experience that will change you, thoroughly and irrevocably.”

  “How long is it?”

  “Six minutes.”

  “Great.”

  R.J. the Third whistled a C-sharp and said, “Darkness!” The windows became opaque, and the room plunged into night. Another C-sharp pierced the silence and was followed by the command: “Play: My meisterwerk!”

  Chapter IV

  The First and Final Rocket (A Science-Fantasy

 
Meisterwerk by R.J. the Third)

  “Full volume! Maximum brightness!” cried the popinjay.

  Architect’s eyes sparkled as it gripped the fur couch with excited paws.

  Champ spun the inflatable chair around to face the mote aquarium, which was one of the largest that he had ever seen. It was a two-meter wide, one-meter tall and one-meter deep frame of black bars that housed thousands of micromagnetic engines. The device heated up with a dull whir, radiating the smell of hot copper.

  Three hundred thousand magnetized pixels sprayed into the viewing stage, luminous motes that were red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. The haze coalesced, took the form of a comet, and then flew to each of the rectangular cuboid’s eight corners like a parakeet trying to escape a cage.

  “That’s the test pattern,” said R.J. the Third, didactically.

  The luminous motes converged to form

  Buddha. The porcine deity was clothed in a sumo diaper and a fedora; he held a double-barreled sawed-off shotgun in his right hand and the hair of a dripping severed head in his left. Buddha pointed the weapon forward and fired.

  “Pause,” ordered R.J. the Third.

  The smoke and sparks froze in midair, just outside the gun barrels. “Before the narrative begins,” the host said, “I want you to see how beautiful a properly-calibrated mote aquarium can be. This image has no background, so you can look at it from all angles.” He motioned for his guest to rise and inspect the unit.

  Champ stood and walked toward the mote aquarium, his patience almost exhausted. Buddha was as clear as reality itself—even up close, the pixel sculpture had no errors or limitations in resolution. The garbage man circled the unit and saw that the fat deity was just as fully rendered from behind, and when he looked through the top of the cuboid, he descried gentle creases in the big man’s superb fedora. Champ knelt and looked up through the bottom of the unit: The soles of Buddha’s splayed feet (victims of fallen arches, apparently) and the diaper that covered the sacred groin in between were also sculpted without error. (A notice of copyright inhering in R.J. the Third had been embossed on the Asian’s right heel.)

  “Gorgeous, right?” inquired the host. “Inspect the muzzle flash.”

  Champ withheld expletives and surveyed the puff of smoke frozen before the weapon’s dual barrels.

  “Do you see the pellets in there? The shotgun pellets caught in midair?”

  “I do.”

  “In order to capture that level of detail, the unit must refresh flying pixels six hundred times per second—ten times faster than the human eye can even discern.”

  “Amazing,” said Champ. (He felt that this must be the appropriate response.)

  “Touch them,” implored R.J the Third. “The pellets.”

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to touch a mote sculpture.”

  “That is the case with inferior units. It’s fine with this one—unless you are wearing a ring or have metal inside your hands. You don’t, do you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Go ahead.” R.J. the Third nodded his head like an emperor.

  Champ cautiously slid his right hand into the mote aquarium and toward the muzzle flash frozen in front of Buddha’s sawed-off shotgun. Nine tiny spheres, each one-tenth the circumference of a green pea, pressed against his extended fingertip and then burst into white flashes of light. Champ jerked his hand from the unit. The smears of light contracted and again became nine shotgun pellets—the sculpture was fully restored.

  “They call it childproofing,” said R.J. the Third. “Lots of m.a. sets were ruined by toddlers reaching in and touching things—to say nothing of the frequent pornographic accidents—so Tante Werks developed a model that could cope with tactile intrusions. The flying pixels are bonded and spatially retentive.”

  Champ returned to his chair and sat down, commenting, “It’s incredible.” (He did not understand why people took pride in the technical achievements of others.)

  “Resume play,” said R.J. the Third. The explosion reverberated in the seventy-two speakers embedded throughout the apartment;

  the flash of gunfire dispersed. Buddha spat on the ground, cracked open the sawed-off shotgun and flung the shells behind him, where they disappeared—

  beyond the perimeter of the mote aquarium.

  Upon the bottom of the stage were the words:

  Vengeful Buddha Presents…

  A Science-Fantasy Mote Experience

  Conceived, Wrought and Controlled by

  the Extraordinary New Talent:

  R.J. the Third

  The pixels dispersed with a bright flash that made Champ wince, and then rendered

  a speeding white rocket. Blood dripped from a crack in its nosecone as it pierced clouds. In the rocket’s wake, amidst sidereal spirals and plumes of exhaust, appeared the title The First and Final Rocket.

  The pixels dispersed and then rendered

  a bathroom. A handsome black man of forty set his four-year-old son into a bathtub. The boy looked up at his father. The boy’s eyes glowed; the father’s eyes glowed.

  The boy flapped his arms and splashed water. The father raised his index finger, shook his head and said, “Arthur. Don’t splash.” The boy stopped splashing. The father said, “Good boy.” The boy smiled.

  “I brought you a present,” said the father. The word “present” echoed five times in the boy’s mind. The father raised a small box that was tied with a red bow. The box glowed. The boy’s hands glowed. The boy said, “Let me have it.” The father said, “You forgot something.” The boy ruminated. The word “present” echoed five more times in his mind. The boy looked at his hands. His hands shone brilliantly. He looked at the box with the ribbon. The box shone brilliantly. He looked at his father and said, “Let me have it.” “You forgot something,” said the father. The boy looked at his glowing hands and at the glowing present. The word “present” echoed three times and stopped. “I know. Please let me have the present.” The father smiled; his teeth glowed. The boy smiled; his teeth glowed.

  The father set the box on the edge of the bathtub. “Can I get it wet?” asked the boy. “It is waterproof,” said the father. The boy said, “Waterpoof,” and untied the ribbon. He lifted the lid and looked inside the box. The boy cried out, “It’s a little man!” Inside the box was a translucent man filled with wires and doodads; he was fifteen centimeters tall. “It’s a homunculus,” said the father. “Honcles,” repeated the boy. “Homunculus,” said the father. “Honcles,” repeated the boy. The father laughed and said, “Honcles.”

  The boy scooped Honcles out of the box. Honcles kicked his feet and flapped his arms. The boy giggled; the father laughed. “Put him in the water,” suggested the father. “He won’t drown?” asked the boy. “No. He’s waterproof.” “Waterpoof,” said the boy.

  The boy put Honcles in the water; the homunculus floated, buzzed and then began a perfect breaststroke across the bathtub. “He can swim!” said the boy. “Put him on his back,” said the father. The boy flipped Honcles over. Honcles did the backstroke across the bathtub. “How does he work?” asked the boy. “Science,” said the father. Honcles reached the perimeter of the tub and turned around. He swam freestyle. The boy said, “I want to make science.” “A person who studies science is called a scientist.” “That’s what I want to be!” shouted the boy.

  The pixels dispersed and then rendered

  a book-filled study. Arthur, twelve years old, walked into the room. He wore a light blue uniform that said Science Academy.

  Arthur opened a drawer and withdrew Honcles. Arthur set Honcles down on the table. Honcles’ left arm spun backwards, and the toes on his right foot twitched. Arthur took out his microsurgery kit.

  Father came into the room and asked, “What are y
ou doing to Honcles?” “Repairs,” answered Arthur.

  The pixels dispersed and then rendered

  Arthur, seventeen years old, and Father, with gray hair. They sat in the living room on the couch. On the mote aquarium, an astronaut walked across orange rocks. A woman announcer said, “Ralph Jasper is the first man to walk on Mars!”

  Father looked at Arthur and said, “I wish I could walk on Mars.” Arthur shook his head and said, “I know from private calculations that Mars is covered with lava.” “All of it?” asked Father. “All of it,” replied Arthur.

  Father pointed to the mote aquarium stage and asked, “Then how can he walk on it?” Arthur answered, “He isn’t walking on it. No man can walk on Mars.” Father was confused; he scratched his gray hair with black fingers. Arthur said, “They are lying to us.” “The astronauts?” asked Father. “No. The government and the elder scientists.” “Why would they lie about Mars?” asked Father. Arthur frowned and said, “I don’t know.” Father scratched his gray hair.

  Arthur said, “I want to build a rocket so that I can visit outer space and learn the truth.” Arthur’s forehead glowed. Father asked, “How long will it take to build?” Arthur answered, “Seven years.” Father said, “I will help you.” Arthur’s eyes glowed; Father’s eyes glowed.