The Big Aha

by Rudy Rucker

  * * *

  6: Loulou in the Oddball

  Sure enough, the DoG had a guard at my front door, a blocky nurb resembling one of Craig Gurky’s mover golems, with a stingray nurb for backup. Looking in through my store’s windows, I could see the place was trashed. Not only had they melted my retail stock with a biomodder wand, they’d burned my nurb furniture, and they’d scraped the paint off my Cold Day in Hell pictures. While they were at it, they’d smashed a few of my Mom’s ceramic pots that I had. Nothing left but shards, empty shelves, puddles of goo, heaps of ashes—and my blank, stained canvases. It could have been a funky art installation. My Career Thus Far.

  “Please move along, Mr. Zad Plant,” said the Department of Genomics guard. He had a boxy head with a jutting jaw. “You no longer have legal access.”

  I walked around the street corner and followed an alley to the rear of my store. No guard here, but the back door was sealed tight with nurb lichen, grown all along the door’s cracks. I could faintly see the DoG logo in the lichen’s scrolled swirls. And my Lincoln was still with the cops.

  But there were two bits of good news. My vat of qwet nurb-paint remained full. And my roadspider Xiz was in the alley—idling around, hoping for some chow, dainty on her long legs. Somewhere along the line today she’d shed Loulou, and she’d come home on her own. Xiz was her old self. Typically for a nurb, she wanted me to feed her before she’d talk to me.

  The DoG had failed to ransack the chow shed. Moving as quietly as possible, I got a bucket of feed for Xiz. She ate quickly, hungrily, and while she was eating, I decided to have a shot at what Loulou had been suggesting. I’d try and biomod my vat of nurb-paint. Make it into something that could follow Xiz and me out of here. Maybe something like a dog.

  My shop’s biomodder wand was long gone or shattered to bits, but Loulou had insisted I could mod my nurb-gel with my own qwet mind. As she’d been saying, there were two things I needed to do.

  First of all, I needed to figure out what exact gene pattern I should use to make a dog—I was thinking of a big, crooked yellow dog with bristly spikes instead of hair. When we were boys, Carlo had a nurb dog like that and I’d always wanted one.

  It was easy enough to find generic patterns for dog DNA online, and I was able to home in on something close to what I wanted. But, being an artist, I wasn’t satisfied with that. I wanted my own personal stamp on my dog. I wanted to grow a dog like the one I had in my head.

  And this is where it might have gotten hard, given that I didn’t know jack shit about nurbware design. A genemodder wand would have helped here—but I didn’t have one. So I did what Loulou had said. I got in tune with the cosmos and found my genemods with cosmic logic.

  It was easier than it sounds. Like reaching out and picking up a coffee cup. Your hand knows where to go in space. Or—it was like poking around in my paints with my palette knife until I came up with the desired hue. Junko Shimano would have said I was letting the universal wave function comb through all possible genemods.

  Whatever you want to say, I soon had a wriggly strand of virtual DNA in my virtual hand. And now came the second thing.

  I needed to install my genemods into each of the cells in the vat of nurb-paint. This was another cosmic mode trip. A type of teep, but kind of—multifarious. In my head it felt like I was a tornado spawning off sub- and subsub- and subsubsubtornadoes—all the way down to molecule-sized force fields, tickling the teensy antennae within the cell nuclei, zapping the genes with my news.

  “You’re a dog now,” I told the vat of gel. “Refresh yourself.”

  It roiled and rolled, spilled out onto the ground, flailed out some pseudopods, tightened up, grew quills and—yeah baby, the job was done.

  “Oof,” said my new nurb dog, grunting from his throat. “Oof, oof, oof.” Something about my genemod design had given him a weird bark. In any case, I could teep that he had a fine mind.

  “I’ll call you Jericho,” I said. “Is that okay?”

  “Oof.”

  Jericho was happy to be here, and ready for a run. I fed him a little nurb chow, just to put our relationship on a sound basis.

  “Follow me,” I told him.

  “Oof, oof, oof.”

  And then I was on my roadspider’s back and we three were in the street. It looked like rain was coming—but that wouldn’t be a problem. Xiz had a domed transparent carapace she could pop over me.

  “So what happened with Loulou?” I asked Xiz when we were a block from my store. I glanced back to check that my new nurb dog was still at our heels. Loping right along, yeah. I felt proud of myself for making him. Things were opening up for me at last.

  “Loulou—singing to me,” said the roadspider. “Not loud. I carry her to Garber farm. Loulou go inside. They argue. I hear crash. Loulou not singing to me. Loulou gone. I run home. Where we go now?”

  “My parents’ house,” I said, for lack of a better idea. We took off in that direction, with Jericho galumphing along behind. Even though his shape was crooked, he ran smooth. Thanks to cosmic logic, his deformations balanced out.

  Dad was drinking a lot these days, but he remained a handsome old man—with a mane of white hair. He was still picking up a few society portrait gigs, mostly from old ladies. That’s one thing about being a dissolute artist. The artist tag gives you cachet, and the dissolution tag makes a certain kind of woman want to be your redemptive muse. Or your drinking partner. Dad liked having women in his studio, and even better he liked visiting them in their luxor homes.

  Mom was annoyed by Dad’s decline, and increasingly bitter about his belles. She herself had abandoned her wedding-planner business. It had ended when she had a very public screaming argument with an overly fussy mother-of-the-bride.

  “Enough is enough,” was all Mom had ever told me about the fight. “I’m tired of weddings.”

  Lately she’d had taken up ceramics—making nurb glazed clay pots that she fired in her own kiln. She was selling a few of these around town. I’d had some of her pots in my shop—all shattered in the DoG rampage.

  It had been a while since I’d gone to visit my parents. I wasn’t being a very good son. But they were always glad to see me. I was a welcome distraction from their chronic bickering. They were proud of my success.

  Oh, but wait—I wasn’t successful anymore. Not with my art career dead, my wife separated from me and my store closed down. I had no place to live—and a manslaughter charge on my head.

  “Murder!” exclaimed Mom, when I started telling her why I’d come home. “Why did you do it, Zad?”

  “I didn’t! God, Mom.”

  “Well, who died?”

  “Gaven Graber.”

  “Poor boy. Nobody ever liked him. Such a know-it-all. Living on Todd Trask’s old farm. Were you doing business with him?”

  “I was supposed to sell some of his stuff at Live Art. Smart rats. I went out to Gaven’s at two this afternoon, and he was dead. The tests show that he smothered to death. Lief Larson got the judge owl to charge me with manslaughter. Lief says I’m not telling him everything I know.”

  “Disgusting person,” said Mom. “I hate the police. They can go to hell.” She was still an attractive woman, and very confident in her blunt opinions.

  “That’s more like it. Where’s Dad?”

  “In the barn getting drunk with a slut who stinks of perfume. Your father—he’s ready to throw me out like an old dish.”

  “Oh, Mom. It’s that bad?”

  “Dreadful. Worse every day.” Mom’s eyes grew watery. “I’m glad to have you home. I have a list of chores by the way.”

  “Okay. What’s first?”

  “The nurb lightbulbs. They’re all too dim, and I can’t make them brighter. Maybe I’m going blind. You won’t believe who Lennox’s new woman friend is.”

  “Let’s not get into the full soap opera yet, okay? Let me fix the bulbs.”

  Our house had a single great room encompassing the kitchen, dining area, a
nd living room—with Mom and Dad’s quarters partitioned off at one end. My old room was in the basement, facing the back, looking out on an empty clearing by the woods. Our barn was in the field on the front side of the house.

  Over the years, my parents had fixed up their house to match the luxor country estates of their clients. Old-school walnut tables, leather couches, plaid blankets, overstuffed armchairs, cherrywood chairs. Gilt-framed paintings everywhere—some Dad’s, some mine, and some from the twentieth century. A blackened stone fireplace. Heavy bare timbers holding up the high ceiling, and a narrow mezzanine looking down on the room. Oriental rugs and oak floors. Pewter, silver, and porcelain. Two stuffed ducks upon the wall. Brass lamps with cloth shades and—here was Mom’s problem, dim nurb lightbulbs.

  Outdoors the wind had risen. A thunderstorm coming on, the sky slate gray. The trees flailed their branches, scattering colored leaves. It was past six o’clock, and the lamps were too feeble.

  “Have you been feeding them?” I asked Mom.

  “Feeding lightbulbs,” she sneered. Meaning the answer was no. “Everything’s such a big production with these stupid nurbs.”

  “No wonder they’re dim,” I said. “They’re starving.” The nurb chow cupboard by the sink opened for me. I took a few chow cubes, and walked around the room, feeding little bits of the stuff to the lightbulbs. They had toothy little mouths on their sides, and they went nyum nyum nyum when they chewed. Problem solved.

  I peered outside to see if Xiz and Jericho the mind-made slime-dog were okay. They’d found temporary shelter in the front door’s overhang. They were clamoring for food.

  “I should feed Xiz and my dog and send them down to the barn,” I said. “I made that dog myself, by the way. His name is Jericho. Don’t you think he looks like Carlo’s old dog?”

  “He’s crooked and yellow and his hair is like porcupine quills,” said Mom. “I like him.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “He’s my first real nurb.”

  “So break out more Roller nurb chow,” said Mom, who’d settled into one of the dining chairs. “Roller, Roller, Roller. I despise Weezie Roller. Old bag.”

  “Jane’s mother? I’m not wild about her myself. With Jane and me separated, I haven’t seen her for a few—”

  “Weezie is your father’s new girlfriend. In the barn with him right now. Like animals. Supposedly he’s painting her portrait. Who wants to see it? Her husband’s dead, her son’s cuckoo, and Jane doesn’t give a damn. Jane’s always told me that I’m more of a mother to her than Weezie ever was.”

  I collapsed into the chair beside Mom. “Wait a minute. Mrs. Roller? Dad?”

  “Read it and weep,” said Mom.

  “But—but I’m still hoping to get back together with Jane,” I said.

  “You should get back with her, yes. Apologize. Stop lolling. Treat Jane right. Start a family with her. Accept that you’re not twenty-five years old. I’m completely on Jane’s side.”

  “As usual,” I said, smiling. I kind of liked Mom’s loyalty to Jane. “But wait—I can’t grasp this. Dad and Weezie? She’s not going to come in here and talk to us, is she?”

  “Their tête-à-têtes last into the evening. And then she flaps home to her Glenview mansion on her custom red flydino. If you look, you can see the dino under the eaves beside the barn. With the long beak and the bat-wings? He’s noisy sometimes. I’d like to chop off his head.”

  “Qrude move.”

  “After Lady Roller leaves, your fat drunken father lurches in here and yells at me. He yells because he’s ashamed of himself. I’m at the end of my rope, Zad. Frankly I’m about to evict Lennox. Before he does it to me. Old fool. I’m glad you’re here to back me up. I’ll live here in peace and make pots with Petrus. He’s my teacher.”

  “Uh, where does Dad go after you throw him out like an old dish?”

  “He can go to hell!” said Mom, and cackled. Talking to me was making her feisty. “My son the murderer can send him there!”

  “Not a murderer,” I muttered. “Let’s have some food.”

  “There’s a nurb horn of plenty on the counter,” said Mom. “Ask it for whatever you want. I’ve abandoned the weary charade of making proper food. Petrus says nurb food is good for you. And have a drink.”

  “Drink like Dad?”

  “Fat drunken old fool.”

  I fed Xiz and Jericho, and sent Xiz down to the stables where my parents kept their roadspiders. I was a little worried Jericho might run off, so I led him down to my old living quarters in my parents’ basement—a bedroom and a bathroom. The bedroom seemed to be full of pottery crap. I herded Jericho into the bathroom and left him there.

  “Oof,” he said. He couldn’t even bark right. Definitely a first-draft dog. But I was loath to turn him back into a puddle.

  I went upstairs and the storm was upon us—drops rattling against the windows, stuttering flashes of lightning, sharp cracks in the sky. Cozy to be in the house, with the lights on, a glass in my hand, eating supper with Mom.

  Except that suddenly, amid the chaos of the storm, I started hearing things. Someone nearby whispered my name. Loulou’s voice.

  “Zad. Help me.”

  I looked around, not seeing her. I had a sense of her presence nearby; I could smell her breath and her skin. I reached out my hand and seemed to touch something, but then it moved out of reach. At the same time I was hearing a knocking from downstairs. Before I could process any of this, I heard a wild hooting from the barn. I jumped up from my chair.

  “It’s Weezie’s goddamn flydino,” said Mom. “He does this every day. A big baby with a voice like a foghorn. He’s hungry, or lonely, or tonight he’s afraid of the storm. I’d like to chop off his head. Weezie’s too.” She was on her second glass of wine. “Sit back down and eat, Zad.”

  I was far too wound up for that. I heard another sharp tap from downstairs. And there were voices by the barn. Pressing my face to the kitchen window, I saw Dad and Weezie under the barn eaves by the sleek crimson flydino, thirty or forty yards away. Weezie was preparing to depart.

  Dad’s hair was white and full. He looked lively. Weezie was rubbing the flydino’s neck and cooing to the beast. Dad was feeding him a bucket of chow. Had I really heard Loulou’s voice a minute ago?

  Amidst all my confusion, I was still trying to process the concept of my mother-in-law as a sexually active person. Mr. Roller had been dead for a few years. Old Weezie’s features were pleasant enough, and she had a figure a little like Jane’s—curvy hips and small breasts. She had the same red-yellow hair as Jane, although Weezie’s was certainly biotweaked. She wore tight jeans and a red nurbskin jacket. And now Dad was holding her in his arms and kissing her goodbye. Faintly I heard Weezie’s laugh.

  And now Loulou was back, her voice directly behind me. “Zad! I’m here. But I’m—I’m in a tube.”

  I whirled and, impossibly, I glimpsed a flash of her mouth in mid-air.

  “I’ll wait for you downstairs,” said the mouth. And then it disappeared, leaving only a lenslike warp, a swiftly moving dimple in space. And then that, too, was gone.

  Stifling a yell, I darted my head this way and that, even going down on all fours to peer under the table.

  Mom stared at me, her glass frozen in mid-air. “What’s wrong with you!”

  “You didn’t hear a woman’s voice, Mom? Like from a ghost?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. Too busy listening to Weezie Roller laughing. That whore.”

  “I heard Loulou Sass. I slept with her last night. She went to Gaven’s, and then she was gone. She and Gaven—they left at the same time.”

  “Are you saying that you killed this Sass woman too?”

  I pressed my hands against the sides of my head, frantically teeping for a touch of Loulou. Her aura had faced away—it seemed she had a way of hiding her teep from me. Would I find her floating mouth downstairs?

  Teeping towards the basement, the only target I located was—a m
an in the rain, lurking outside the glass door to my downstairs bedroom. What? I tried to get a fix on who he was—but now he somehow hid himself from me too, compressing his personality into a tiny dark point. Maybe I’d been imagining him and Loulou both. Maybe I was losing my mind.

  My only defense was a return to that same soothing cosmic/robotic pulse. I slowed my breath and savored the hissing sweep of the rain on the roof.

  I looked at Mom. “If you didn’t hear Loulou’s voice, did you at least hear the loud knocking in the basement?”

  “Oh, that’s just my pottery kiln,” said Mom. “Cooling off. I don’t know if I told you that Petrus helped me move my pottery studio into your old room?”

  “I noticed.”

  “We didn’t like working in the barn, what with Lennox hanging around. He’s gotten so rude.” Mom seemed a little fuddled. She wasn’t a heavy drinker, and the two glasses of wine had gone to her head. She pursed her lips and cocked her head, studying me. “Are you really involved with two murders?”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” I shook my head and sighed. “It’s been a wack day. I’ll go downstairs and lie down. Use my wristphone to research some things on the web.” In reality I was hoping I’d find Loulou down there. Moving slowly and deliberately, I walked back to the dining table and drained my glass.

  “Wait and say hello to your father,” urged Mom. “I won’t start a scene with him. I don’t want to make you crack up completely, poor Zad.”

  The dino trumpeted once more. Reflexively I went to peer out the window again. At first I only saw Dad, walking towards the house alone, wearing a hooded yellow rain-slicker. But then the lightning flickered zzzt-zzt-zzt, and I glimpsed a great winged reptile strobing through the rain-spangled air. Weezie Roller was in a dome on the dino’s back, the queen of the night.

  Dad clomped inside.

  “Zad! Great to see you. Making any art?” Despite Mom’s warnings, Dad didn’t seem especially drunk. But you could never be sure. In any case he was glad to see me.

  “Not much painting these days,” I said. “The shop’s been eating up my time. And the nurbs. But today the Department of Genomics closed my place and—”