FSF, October-November 2008

by Spilogale Authors

  "If I write about Merv again."

  "You will,” he assured. “Probably not often, but it will happen. At random intervals, and for the rest of your life."

  "Okay,” I managed. “But what's this all mean?"

  He dropped his gaze, and with a sly smile, he told me that he knew quite a bit more than he would ever admit.

  "And who's ‘us'?” I asked again.

  My benefactor set the business card on top of the hundreds and then sat back in that awful old chair.

  "I don't understand,” I confessed.

  With a shrug, he said, “But you're a bright youngster. From what I see, you're even a little bit clever. Keep filling the pages with words, and there might actually be a modest little career waiting for you."

  That was heartening news, I thought.

  "But you're never going to publish my story? Ever?"

  The old writer's patience frayed a little. “Here's one very good lesson, son. One freelance writer to another: If somebody offers to buy your very worst work, and they pay you real money, and on top of that, they swear that the world will never see what you have done ... well, you should take their charity, my boy, and smile while you do it.

  "Am I understood?"

  My benefactor had a talent for predictions.

  As promised, I gradually built up a small, tidy career as a writer. Within six months, I'd made my first professional sales—a little story to a failing anthology, another to a minor magazine. One of those efforts was noticed in larger circles, and through it, I managed to sell my first novel—a rambling, exuberant, and exceptionally youthful stack of pages for which I was paid a fraction of what my unreadable novella had earned. But long before my novel's pub date, my various monies ran out and my talents with short fiction were proving uneven at best.

  Ask any writer: Careers often begin with long droughts.

  After I sold a third story, I went blank. I went cold. I forgot how to write, or I was too self-conscious after my little successes to work effectively. Whatever the culprit, the only way to pay my rent was to bring “Merv” out of his strange little box, inviting him to take over my brain for as long as he wished.

  But even Merv proved to be a difficult muse.

  When I wanted him, the man wasn't there. I would sit and sit and sit, my butt going numb in an office chair that I'd bought second-hand from Goodwill. In those years, I wrote on a manual office Royal typewriter—a chunk of steel as reliable as the sunset—and my paper was the cheapest stock I could find, and my little desk was another worn-out gift from home. I would type Merv's real name again and again, but that did nothing. Retyping the original story seemed to help, but I eventually decided that was just a byproduct of wishful thinking. Weeks and months would pass, and then during some moment devoid of significance, I would see or hear something that wasn't entirely real. Usually a disembodied voice would call me Merv, or sometimes a random face would swim into the corner of an eye, or maybe I'd feel somebody's fingers slipping inside a phantom pocket, hunting for a set of cold car keys. And if I happened to be close to my Royal, I'd begin transcribing whatever decided to reveal itself to me.

  Most of the time I managed only a few disjointed pages.

  The “Merv” stories felt about as urgent and genuine as what I did when I wrote well—immersed in the images, lost to time. But unlike my sf work, there never was that delicious sense of the profound, much less any trace of an authentic plot line. And afterward, rereading the raw manuscript, the whole mess always felt contrived, cluttered, and pointless.

  Like the dream you enjoyed at dawn, the experience enthralled until the moment you opened your eyes.

  Around the fourth time he slipped inside my skull, I began wondering if Merv was real.

  That story began and ended with my protagonist sitting before an enormous television, and I did nothing but describe what he was seeing and hearing on an ever-shifting, seemingly endless array of channels.

  Seven pages was the sum total of that effort. But somebody must have liked what I did, because as payment, I received a sealed plastic package containing three thousand dollars in cash.

  What if I was seeing the future?

  Yet this was a rather anemic gift, as mind-bending wonders go. I had no control over when the magic would strike, much less any influence in Merv's motions, words, or thoughts. Imagine a video camera wielded by a stranger, and worse still, a stranger who had never used a camera before. The views kept leaping from this to that and back again, no rhyming reason to the mess and not a single landmark looking even a little familiar. In those seven pages, the longest pause came when Merv picked up a cold beer, barley and hops swirling against my tongue as well as his. Then I felt his belch and heard somebody say, “Excuse you."

  I didn't recognize her voice or know her name. But Merv turned to look at a girl pretty enough to earn a long stare from me. I'm going to call her “Mary.” But Merv didn't stare. He barely gave his companion a glance. I heard him grunt, “Sorry,” before flipping over to a screaming commercial for some kind of computer game. Over the roars of exploding tanks, he added, “Excuse me for living, darling."

  On his finest day, Merv was an unrepentant male animal.

  Yet some cosmic purpose—maybe just to serve as the punchline for a god's joke—had connected the two of us in this fundamental way.

  Perhaps other people had this odd gift, I reasoned. Perhaps millions of us did. But few of us enjoyed that very peculiar habit of sitting alone in front of a typewriter, looking at bare white paper, begging images and compelling words to find their way into an otherwise empty brain.

  * * * *

  Just once, I used a piece of Merv's world inside one of my regular stories.

  The first magazine rejected the work for unrelated reasons.

  But two days before that manuscript returned home, a familiar voice called me. With considerable disappointment, the old writer informed me that I had broken one cardinal law: I'd employed a brand name that belonged to him. To them. “And before you send that story out again,” he growled, “I want the name removed from the text."

  I felt rather brave that night.

  Or maybe I was in an abnormally bad mood.

  Either way, I refused to see how one word mattered. I reminded him that there wasn't any contract between us, and I claimed that “Merv” was just another character and I could do what I wanted with the bastard and the world that I was drawing around him.

  My benefactor let me ramble for a while. Once my energy was spent, he firmly reminded me, “Through us, you have earned thousands and thousands of dollars. And now perhaps you can tell me, how much of that good cash have you declared on your taxes?"

  None.

  "I don't want to bring in the IRS,” he said. “And you don't want me to make that phone call either. Do you?"

  It is amazing the things that make a young man crumble.

  I whispered, “Please don't."

  "Pardon me?"

  "Don't call them."

  There was a long pause. Then he mentioned, “Oh, and by the way. You made two small mistakes with your story. And I think you missed a killer ending too. But I can help you fix those problems. I even know the editor who definitely needs to see your manuscript next."

  And that's when I found a new and compelling reason to cherish our rich, very odd relationship.

  * * * *

  My first novel garnered fair to good reviews, plus a few calls for readers to watch my newborn career. My second novel had the typical sophomore problems, but the third novel found a modest audience. Then after several miscues, I stumbled into a far-future series full of distant worlds and brave humans—my own private playground for the imagination.

  Combined, my writing money and “Merv money” proved good enough to lift me into the middle-class.

  I joined my professional organization, and whenever attending the big conventions, I'd seek out the hotel suite that served as a party hub for writers and editors and their suffer
ing spouses. At one Worldcon, I noticed an older woman wearing a rather flattering dress, and more importantly, I noticed that she was staring at me. The ribbon on her badge identified her as a writer. What with the difference in our ages, her interest was pleasant but not too inviting. I returned a couple of her stares with polite, empty smiles. I drifted close enough to catch her name and a peek at her ample cleavage. And being human, I made up a story with me as the protagonist, and she was the horny old lady who had a thing for my work and maybe my body too.

  I was completely, foolishly wrong.

  Eating dinner with colleagues, I brought up the woman's name. Did anybody know her?

  One of them did. I learned that my lady admirer was a writer by the narrowest margins—a single sale to a marginally professional market, and that more than twenty years ago. And why, by the way, was I asking about her?

  "She's got her sights on me,” I boasted.

  "Oh, I seriously doubt that,” my colleague laughed. “Since she's gay and always has been."

  I must have looked disappointed.

  Then with the typical writerly tact, somebody else piped in, “You're going to have to find another grandma for your May-September thing."

  But I was right; the woman was keeping tabs on me.

  I sat on a panel the next morning: The Effective Habits of the Working Writer. I find that success in that public environment means saying as little as possible, yet leaving the audience believing you might not be a total idiot. I thought I managed that trick quite nicely. Two minutes before we finished, the mystery woman slipped into the conference room. She sat in back, dressed for a fancy cocktail party, smiling intently at no one but me. After the panel concluded and I autographed a few books for fans, my admirer approached, waiting her turn before handing me a business card with a phone number and P.O. box that I knew by heart.

  On the back of the card was a hand-scrawled note asking me to meet her in an hour, in the hotel's darkest bar.

  That's where we finally made our introductions.

  I was nervous in ways I normally don't feel: Heart-thudding anxiety and a drought on the tongue, my panicked brain fighting to sound brave, asking, “Why do you keep watching me?"

  Her smile was the brightest thing in the room.

  "I just wanted to meet the next so-and-so,” she admitted, naming my benefactor. And her benefactor too, it seemed.

  Three words best describe humanity's attitude toward the universe:

  I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

  That's what I confessed to her. I pleaded complete ignorance, and she responded with amusement and some disappointment. “I thought he would have explained this to you,” she mentioned. “Or you would have pieced it together for yourself, at least."

  I didn't tell her my guesses. Suddenly I had no faith in any of them.

  "Want to hear a story?” she asked.

  "Always."

  "There used to be so many pulp magazines,” she began, the face and voice turning wistful. “One of the pulps had a certain young editor—I doubt you'd recognize his name—but he was very lucky, and he was exceptionally gifted, particularly when it came to talents that editors don't need. For instance, the youngster had a spectacular memory for useless detail. And he had a paranoid's ability to string together unlikely events. And where wiser editors would have stopped after page two of a bad manuscript, he would push through to the end, absorbing every cliché and lame plot twist into his cavernous brain.

  "He was the genius who noticed certain key repetitions in the slush-pile submissions. Settings and time periods—near-future, you'd call this—and most important, he found a string of shared colloquialisms. Not the usual sf terms, mind you. Nothing about hyperdrives or phasers. But in two unreadable manuscripts submitted by two separate authors, there were clear references to a terminal disease called AIDS."

  She paused, weighing my response.

  "When was this?” I asked.

  "Maybe in the forties, maybe earlier.” She shrugged. “I probably shouldn't tell you that much. But somebody is going to approach you. Somebody you haven't met yet. This will be official business, and I want you ready. And for purely selfish reasons, I hope this heads-up helps me earn your trust."

  I had no idea what she was talking about. But flattery is flattery, and it was working on me.

  She continued: “Eventually that long-ago editor identified eight novice authors, none of whom could write their way out of obscurity. But each had a powerful interest in a single shared future. Each had a favorite protagonist. Like you have your ‘Merv.’ They might try to shoehorn their boy or girl into a space opera or a zombie fight. But even those inept attempts at creativity couldn't obscure the common threads.

  "After compiling his list, the editor traveled the country, meeting with each would-be writer. He discovered that all of his subjects had a consuming interest in the future. Their fascination began in early childhood, and the best two or three of them talked about closing their eyes and seeing some unborn world through someone else's gaze. Which is how I feel when I get into that state."

  "Who's your Merv?” I asked.

  "Her name's Yvonne, and she won't be born for another fifty-three years. Since our lives and theirs run at the same pace, that puts her more than a century in the future. Which is about as far ahead as any of us can see.” She closed her eyes, a fond smile emerging. “In every example, the visionary is linked to somebody of the same gender and age, a similar culture and essential beliefs. Merv is very much like you, I'd say—a white heterosexual Midwestern American male. While Yvonne is a Californian Free-Stater in her late fifties. She's white and a little heavy, and she's a very happy lesbian, and in a hundred other ways, she could be me.

  "And in a thousand ways, she isn't me at all."

  I had never asked this question aloud. But this was the perfect moment to say, “How the hell does this happen?"

  "You mean, what's the scientific underpinning?"

  "Yeah."

  "You're the young talent. How do two bodies separated by decades make contact each other?"

  I shrugged. “Somebody must have a guess."

  "Guesses are cheap.” My new friend finished her coffee, and then she told me, “I'm not a very good writer, you know."

  I didn't respond.

  "You're far more capable than me,” she continued. “I can see that, and I don't even like science fiction anymore."

  "But you once sent off stories."

  "In my school-girl years.” She shook her head, a young woman lurking in her laugh. “I was captivated by the twenty-first century. Enough so that my family wondered if I was mildly crazy."

  "That's how they found you?"

  "Of course. That old-time editor had built an organization around those first visionaries. He founded a mostly invisible society that still combs the slush piles, searching for key phrases or telltale words. And most important, his people are always hunting for souls like us."

  "Microsoft,” I said.

  "What about it?"

  "Through Merv, I saw an advertisement about them. It was a real corporation by then, but I didn't know it."

  "We're investment tools. Is that what you're thinking?"

  "Aren't we?"

  "We can be.” But then she warned, “There is a lesson that we like to share. Imagine that it's 1900, and you find a photograph from the future, and it shows the typical city today. Nearly a hundred years in the future. The streets are full of cars, the skies jammed with airplanes ... and what can you do with this rich glimpse of things not yet born?"

  "You tell me,” I said.

  "When cars were first manufactured,” she said, “there were dozens if not hundreds of competing companies. It was the same for planes, and how could anyone look up at those tiny jets and guess that Boeing would eventually build most of the world's airliners?"

  "That's why brand names are so important,” I offered.

  "But they're not always an answer. For instance, after decades of expansi
on and technological mastery, the major airlines are currently flying passengers and cargo to every part of the globe. Yet if you tally up all the bankruptcies and debts along with the profits, you end up with an industry that has never made a genuine dollar. Which leaves the airlines, as spectacular as they look, as rather bad investments, all in all."

  I hadn't thought of that.

  "And there's a bigger problem,” she continued. “Suppose you know about Microsoft's rich future. You go in early and buy up a ton of shares. But time is incredibly sensitive to small touches. You have to remain invisible. Your touch can't be felt. But at some point you are going to influence the company's evolution. Your capital will make the stock price too high, and management gets a little too confident, and the next thing you know, this baby monopoly of yours is lurching down the wrong path.

  "Which forces the question: How much can you do before you begin to strangle your golden goose?"

  I nodded, grinned. “So I'm a visionary, am I?"

  "The same as our benefactor is,” she said. “And the same as me. Except of course that I'm much, much better at this business."

  Now I took offense.

  "But why shouldn't I boast?” she asked. “Sure, you understand plot lines and characterizations. But Yvonne and I are as tightly joined as any two ladies can be, with or without the years stuck between us."

  "So you're the expert here,” I conceded. “All right. Do you have a guess how this process works?"

  "The vision trick? Oh, sure."

  I leaned forward.

  "Quantum mechanics,” she blurted. Then she laughed, at me or at herself. “I know, I know. That's just sf-speak for magic. But that's what this is. Magic. When I bother with the question, what I usually assume is that people have always had a tiny but useful capacity to see into the future. It wouldn't take much talent to give us an advantage, and a tiny blessing would eventually make an impression on our genetics. What we need are connections to unborn minds that happened to be wired like ours. Since minds are filled with flowing electrons, and since electrons are ghostly things on the brink of reality....