Master of Space and Time

by Rudy Rucker

  I got a taxi at Penn Station. “The Plaza Hotel,” I told the driver.

  “Sure thing, little lady.”

  I sat back and watched the buildings sweep past. People, people, people. And all of them thinking, all of them just as conscious as me. When I’d been a kid I’d always thought of grown-ups as a race apart—big meat robots, really. Then once, when I was in my twenties, my father had said something funny to me. We were playing golf behind a foursome of businessmen in colored trousers and billed caps.

  “Look at them, Joe,” my father had said. “They really look like they know what they’re doing. I’d always thought I’d be like them someday. I’d always thought I’d get to be a grown-up. But I’m not. I still don’t feel any different. I’m sixty and I still don’t know what I’m doing.”

  As the years passed, I’d come to understand what my father meant. Even though I was almost forty, I still didn’t feel like a grown-up. I didn’t really feel much different from how I had in high school.

  And now in the taxi I was thinking that the same thing is true for men and women. As a man I’d always assumed that women are somehow not like real people. Of course I never put it that baldly, but the feeling had been there all along. Yet now here I was, with the tits and ass and lipstick—still just a person. The woman on the train—I’d never quite talked to a woman that way before, without the sex game somewhere in the background. As she’d unselfconsciously told me about her boyfriend and her job and her roommates, I realized something that I’d only seen in flashes before.

  Everyone is just a person trying to be happy. Everyone is really alive.

  What a liberation to know this! What a burden!

  22

  Strictly from Detroit

  “Do you expect me to have sex with you?”

  “Well, sure. I’d rather do it with you than with anyone else.”

  “The way I feel now, Joe, I’d rather do it with anyone else but you. How could you pull this on me?” She paced back and forth across the enormous living room. Outside the big French windows lay the wonderful clutter of Manhattan. “We could have been so happy.” There were tears in her eyes.

  “Come here, Nancy. Come sit on the couch with me.”

  “No. And you killed the fritter trees, too.”

  “They were taking over. You know that. That’s what you got arrested for: distributing dangerous, nonapproved seeds.”

  “I suppose the police will be coming for me again?”

  “I don’t think so. I repaired the damages, and I erased all the documents relating to your case. With no documents and no more fritter trees or porkchop bushes, I don’t see how—”

  Someone was pounding on the door. It was the police, two of them.

  “Hello, ladies,” said the older of the two. He was a white-haired man with a weathered face. “Is this the residence of Joseph Fletcher?”

  “Yes,” said Nancy. “But—”

  “He’s not here,” I interrupted, getting up from the couch and swiveling over to the cops.

  “Do you mind if we take a look around?” asked the old cop, giving me an appreciative once-over. “You see, we have a warrant for his arrest.”

  “Come on in, boys,” I cooed. Nancy look disgusted. I winked at her and sat back down on the couch. I was too tired to stay standing.

  The police left after a while, and Nancy finally came over to sit next to me. The sun was going down. I wished we could go to bed, but I knew better than to suggest it. We held hands and the silence deepened.

  “I could have you declared dead,” Nancy said after a while. “And then remarry.”

  “You can not,” I snapped, letting go of her hand. “Joseph Fletcher may be missing, but without a corpse he’s not legally dead.”

  “Serena needs a father.”

  “Where is Serena, anyway?”

  “I left her with Sybil Bitter.”

  “Alwin Bitter’s wife?”

  “That’s right. I went back down to Princeton before coming to New York. My TV interview was really exciting, Joe, you should have seen it.” As the room darkened, Nancy was finding it easier to talk to me. “They arrested me right on the Brad Kurtow show. I was in jail all day, and then suddenly I saw this thumb-sized little man who looked like you.”

  “That was me, all right. An echo of me.”

  “And then I was here in this wonderful penthouse. I still haven’t looked at all of it yet. And I can fly, Joe. I’ve only tried it a little but—”

  “Would you take me flying with you now? It’s dark and no one will see us. We could fly over to the World Trade Center and back.”

  “But you can’t fly, can you, Joe?”

  “I can ride on your back. I did it with Sondra.”

  “Well . . . take that silly dress off first.”

  In the bedroom there was a dresser that looked like mine. The top drawer was filled with money—Nancy had stored all our money in here for me. The other drawers were filled with Joseph Fletcher clothes. I selected a pair of corduroys and a flannel shirt. Stepping into the bathroom, I noticed a pair of scissors. I took them and cropped my long hair short. Then I used a washcloth to get the makeup off my face.

  Nancy was in the living room, hovering above the floor. She smiled when she saw me, appreciative of the gesture I’d made

  “That’s much better, Joe. You look almost like your old self. I was just thinking—with all our money, maybe you could get surgery to . . . you know . . .”

  She flew down and hugged me. “Oh, Joe, why did you do it?”

  I gave a quick shrug. “A subconscious desire. I’ve always wanted to be a beautiful woman.”

  “Me too,” laughed Nancy.

  “But you are.”

  “Not the kind that drops men in their tracks. I thought those policemen were going to pass out when they saw you.”

  “Hey, let’s go flying. If you really want me to be dead, you can just drop me on Times Square.”

  “You’d make quite a splash.”

  We opened a big French window and flew out into the night. Nancy’s wiry body felt nice between my soft thighs. The cool air beat against us as the staggering city perspectives swept past. We looped around the Empire State Building, zoomed along a cable of the Brooklyn Bridge, and finally alighted on the flat top of one of the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

  “You fly well, Nancy.”

  She closed her eyes and let me kiss her. The kiss felt just like it always had.

  “Are you still my same Joe?” said Nancy after a while.

  “I’m still the same. I’m still the same inside.”

  “Then let’s go back. Let’s go back to our new house and try to be happy together.”

  I’d like to be able to say that we had a steamy night of all-girl sex, but it didn’t work out that way. I ended up sleeping on the couch. When it came right down to it, Nancy couldn’t face the thought of me sleeping with her. Ever again.

  The morning TV news was bad, too. Harry Gerber had been arrested and charged with criminal negligence in the deaths of seventeen people who had died of shock when the slugs got them in New Brunswick. His laboratory was under heavy police guard, and Sondra Tupperware had been arrested as an accessory. Joseph Fletcher was still being sought, but charges against Nancy Lydon Fletcher had been dropped. All the mutant food plants had disappeared, and their depredations had been undone. Some scientists speculated that perhaps the fritter trees had been a kind of mass hallucination brought on by the Gary-brains.

  Someone was pounding on our door again. Nancy was still asleep. I went to look through the peephole. Newsmen, with video cameras.

  “Go away,” I fluted. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

  “Please, Mrs. Fletcher,” shouted back the reporters. “Just a few questions.”

  I went to the phone and called Security. After a while the noise at our door died down. Nancy was up now, and I made us breakfast.

  “Sooner or later, one of them’s going to talk,”
I said over the eggs.

  “Who?”

  “Sondra and Harry. Sooner or later they’ll tell the police that I’ve turned into a woman. And then I’ll get arrested, too.”

  “Arrested for what?”

  “It was on the news. Seventeen people died from having the spine-riders on them, and they’re charging Harry with criminal negligence. Sondra and I are supposed to be accessories. And I bet Professor Baumgard is going to charge me with armed robbery.”

  “You’d better call Don Stuart. The lawyer I hired yesterday.”

  “Oh, lawyers . . . There must be a better way to fix all this. Don Stuart isn’t going to give me back my sausage, is he?”

  “Well, with plastic surgery—”

  “I want my real body back. This just won’t do. I want to have more children with you, Nancy. And I want poor Harry out of jail.”

  “What about Sondra?”

  “Oh, she’ll get out. The first time they put her in an exercise yard, she’ll fly away. If they handcuff her to a guard, she’ll just take the guard with her. You don’t have to worry about Sondra, Nancy. It’s just Harry and me that are getting screwed.”

  “Not literally, I hope.” Nancy smiled and ruffled my spiky hair. As long as we weren’t in the bedroom she felt able to act affectionate.

  We took our coffee out on the terrace and stared down into the chunked canyons of Manhattan. This was really a neat place to live. If only . . .

  “Why don’t you use the blunzer again?” asked Nancy suddenly.

  “Didn’t I tell you about the red and blue gluons?”

  “Yes, but you said there were yellow gluons, too. If you find some yellow gluons, then the blunzer should work one last time, shouldn’t it?”

  “It’s a thought. But I don’t think anyone has yellow gluons. They’re even rarer than the blue ones. If I could only talk to Harry—”

  “Well, you can. Find out where he’s locked up and go visit him. No one’ll recognize you.”

  “They don’t let just anyone off the street come visit killers, Nancy. I’d have to be a relative.”

  “So get a fake ID. Say you’re his sister. Does he have a sister?”

  “Yes! I’ve heard him talk about her. Sister Susie. She lives in Detroit.”

  “Good. That means she’s not likely to be here yet.”

  “Right. But where do we get a fake ID?”

  “You’re the criminal, Joe, not me.”

  “All I can think of is Eddie Match.” Eddie was an old friend of ours who lived way uptown. He made a generally honest living as a photographer, but he did know a lot of criminals. I’d heard him talk about forging IDs. “Let’s take a cab uptown to see Eddie.”

  “Okay. Wait here while I get dressed.”

  “Can’t I watch?”

  “No.”

  She went in the bedroom and closed the door. I really hoped we’d find those yellow gluons today. It had been uncool to use a gun on Baumgard. This time I’d use money. I found a big purse in the hall closet and stuffed it with a little over two million dollars’ worth of thousand-dollar bills.

  Nancy was still dressing. I decided to phone up Alwin Bitter to see how little Serena was doing. His wife answered the phone.

  “Hello, Mrs. Bitter?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is . . .” In sudden panic, I realized I didn’t know how to finish the sentence. “How’s Serena?” I blurted.

  “Serena is fine. Who am I speaking to, please?”

  I hung up.

  I had on my Joe Fletcher clothes from last night. I looked in the hall mirror and wondered whether to put on makeup. Just because Nancy was so uptight didn’t mean I couldn’t get a little fun out of my new body. My hair was a real mess.

  “Hey, Nancy,” I called.

  “Hold your horses, I’m not ready yet,” she shouted through the closed bedroom door.

  “I’ll be downstairs in the beauty salon.”

  I left before she could protest. I’d spent my whole life waiting for women to finish dressing; now it was my turn to get back.

  The hairdresser was chic and in his twenties. He cluck-clucked over the way I’d butchered my hair.

  “Whatever possessed you, dear?”

  “I—I thought someone would like me better with short hair. Can you fix it up?”

  “Of course, dear. He’ll love the new you.”

  “She. Not too much off the sides and make it spiky on top.”

  They did my hair and nails, and then they fixed my face. I told the makeup girl I wanted to look like I was from Detroit. She got the picture. When they were done, I looked even better than I had yesterday. Except for the clothes. I wondered if I should go back upstairs and . . .

  “Come on, Joe,” said Nancy, stomping into the beauty salon. “I’ve been waiting and waiting for you.”

  We hit the street and caught a cab. Nancy didn’t want to get our Corvette out of the hotel garage. On the way uptown we stopped to buy me a tailored tweed suit in earth tones. I was starting to look kind of butch. But from Detroit, strictly from Detroit.

  23

  Way Uptown

  “OPEN up, Eddie.” I could see his eye staring out the peephole in his steel-covered door. “It’s Joe and Nancy Fletcher.”

  “You’re not Joe Fletcher.” His voice was slow and amused. He was kind of a wirehead. “If I let you in, will you—”

  “Here,” said Nancy, pushing me aside. “You recognize me, don’t you, Eddie?”

  “Who’s your girlfriend? Does she like men?”

  “Open the goddamn door, Eddie!” I could hear someone coming up the stairs after us. This was a terrible place to be standing around with two million bucks in my purse.

  Eddie let us in just as the footsteps reached our landing. Instead of a mugger, it was a neighbor, a young professional like Ed. I wondered where all the weirdos I’d seen outside lived. What a crowd! Wireheads, she-males, black’n’whites, oz-drippers, and God’s own number of gunjy mues.

  Eddie ushered us down his long hall and into the living room. His two big dogs were barking.

  “Tasp?” he offered, holding up a little machine the size of a flashlight. It was a remote stim-unit: if you beamed it at the base of your skull you’d get colors and a pleasure flush. Usually I didn’t indulge, but right now I really needed a lift. Nancy had been cold-shouldering me ever since the beauty parlor. She’d waited in the cab—fuming—while I’d visited the dress shop. I guess it was all kind of freaking her out. She’s just a person too, I reminded myself as I raised the tasp to my head. A person who wants to be happy.

  I pressed the button and things got better real fast.

  “What’s your name?” Eddie was saying, smiling at me and holding out his hand for the little pleasure machine.

  “It’s Joe, Eddie, it really is.” Nancy refused Eddie’s offer of the tasp and kept talking. She was here to do business. “Yesterday he was Marilyn Monroe and today he wants to be Susan Gerber. We want for you to make him some ID.”

  Eddie zapped himself again and wandered over to the window. “Come here, Joe, look at this.” Now that Nancy had confirmed it, he didn’t seem to have any trouble accepting my changed appearance. He’d been living uptown for a long time. “Look at those dead cars,” said Eddie.

  I tasped myself once more and looked down at the cars Eddie was talking about. There were three of them on his block, cars with headlights, tires, chrome, and engine parts all gone.

  “Picked clean,” I chuckled.

  “Check,” said Eddie. “I’m always looking at them and thinking about valet parking. A salesman from Iowa, right? He leaves his car with the valet at the Sheraton, and this is how the car looks the next day. The one up at the corner was mine.” He was laughing so hard now that he had to lean on the windowsill for support. “What’d you say your name was? How’d you get in here, anyway?”

  “I came with her.” I jerked my head at Nancy.

  “Oh, right. Joe Fletcher. So you went tr
ans-sex?”

  “Yeah, basically. And I need ID. Susan Gerber from Detroit.”

  “Check. Hold on to this and don’t let me have it back till I finish.” Eddie passed me the tasp. At least he didn’t have a socket yet. Once you got the socket in your skull you were pretty well done for.

  “Nancy and Joe,” said Eddie, sitting down at his desk. “Wow. Would you throw me that tasp, Joe?”

  “You just told me not to.”

  “Check.” Eddie turned on the desk’s screen and put his fingers on the keyboard. “Susan Gerber from Detroit? Got a street address?”

  “You’ll have to look it up.”

  “Okay.” He punched a few buttons and got the information. “105 Madius Street. You got a picture of the lovely new you, Joe?”

  “No.”

  “Okay we’ll do that next.” Eddie hit some more buttons and the screen displayed three different ID cards, front and back. The thing had a typesetting program built in. Another push of the button and a hard copy of the cards slid out onto the desk. “Now we get the pictures and paste these up. Could you just hand me that tasp?”

  “I’ll take the tasp,” said Nancy, snatching it out of my hand.

  I followed Eddie into his photo room and we got the shots. He had a videoscan still camera, so there was no waiting for the prints. I studied one of the pictures, trying to believe it was really me. I was still light-headed from the stim, and it all seemed pretty exciting.

  “I could do with one more pulse,” I told Nancy as we came back into the living room.

  “Check,” said Eddie. “Me too.”

  With both of us standing over her, Nancy gave in. We each took a couple more pulses before she got the tasp back from us.

  “Where were we?” Eddie asked.

  “IDs,” nagged Nancy. “If you guys are going to keep getting blasted, you could at least offer me a drink or something, Eddie.”

  “A beer?”

  “Fine.”

  While Eddie was getting the beer, Nancy took the opportunity to chew me out. “You’re going to go right down the drain in a hurry, Joe, if you don’t get your real body back. It’s not like you to be using stim this way.”