by Rudy Rucker
I scrambled across one of the beds and made for the door, but the platypus got there before me. And he started closing in on me again—surprisingly menacing for something that could have been a child’s plush toy. This was absurd. But I was in grave danger of becoming Gaven. I grabbed a object off Gaven’s dresser and threw it. A hairbrush. The platypus dodged and hissed.
Somehow Skungy had scrambled atop the dresser too. There was all sorts of crap on it. A glass, a bottle, a bowl, candy, a vase. Fumbling for something massive to throw, I knocked Skungy into the crack between the back of the dresser and the wall.
“Nurb back there!” squealed the rat, dragging himself back onto the dresser top. “Hidden in a slot.”
This was it, the big clue I’d been hoping for. Keeping one eye on the advancing platypus, I located the nurb hidden in the slot behind the dresser, and I grabbed it, even though it made an effort to wriggle away. It resembled a gold watch with a crocodile-skin band. Yes. Gaven’s wristphone. Loaded with data, no doubt. In the confusion of his resurrection, Gaven had neglected to strap it on. Score.
Skungy shrilled another warning. Ah yes, there was still the matter of getting out of here with my mind intact. The platypus was ramping up for a charge. If he took a flying leap, he’d have a shot at scratching me with his spurs. The way he was set up, he’d have to paralyze me with conotoxin before transferring Gaven’s personality into me. Last week’s tech. If I could physically avoid him, I’d be okay. But if the platypus stalked me long enough, he’d win. But I was leery of trying to stomp on him.
“Do something!” I yelled to Skungy.
My qwet rat was crouched at the edge of the dresser top, with bunched muscles visible beneath his skin. As the platypus came racing toward me, Skungy leapt like a tiny panther—or no, more like a rabid flying squirrel. Guiding his path with his tail and his limbs, my rat landed square upon the platypus’s back.
Skungy sank his yellow fangs into the nape of his victim’s neck. The platypus hissed furiously, rolled over, and curled into a ball, extending his dripping spurs—but to no avail. Skungy clung tight to back of his neck, and his jaws were not idle. In seconds he’d severed the creature’s spinal cord. For a coup de grace, he ripped out the platypus’s throat.
Proud of himself, my clever rat squatted by his felled rival for a moment, cleaning himself by rubbing his paws and his snout against the dead platypus’s fine fur. And then, with Skungy in one hand and Gaven’s wristphone in the other, I galloped down the stairs and onto the porch.
Joey was waiting on his roadspider, about to head for the decrepit little grown home across the way. The cottage where I’d once lived. I’d called her Bel. Already so many years ago.
Joey seemed not to have noticed—or not to care—that I’d just won a life or death struggle. “Loulou just called to say she’d relish a session in our old house,” he reported. His smile was more queasy than lubricious. “She’s waiting in bed in the altogether. Wants to patch things up.”
“It’s over,” I said, fully realizing this was true. “I’m heading to the Rollers’ alone.”
“Loofy with me,” said Joey, his face brightening. “Thanks, qrude.”
“Skungy here killed Gaven’s platypus for us,” I said. “So you’re safe.”
“Well—there’s two of them platypuses,” said Joey. “But never mind. I’m guessing Gaven made off with the other one.”
Meanwhile I could feel Loulou’s teep, checking out my emotions. She was annoyed about me rejecting sex with her. And jealous about my having phoned Jane.
Back at the Roller mansion, Dad was on the terrace outside the ballroom, drinking bourbon and working on a portrait of Weezie, using tubes of oil-paint that he’d found around the house, relics from one of the Rollers’ passing hobbies. Dad had managed to turn off his teep entirely, like a hen-pecked geezer taking out his hearing aid.
“More relaxing,” said Dad. “Who needs to know what’s on everyone’s mind? So what? I’m into the light behind everything. See?” Dad gestured at his painting. It was done in shades of pastel, with a halo around Weezie that bled into a pale glow at the edges of the canvas.
“Like I’m a saint,” said Weezie, quizzical and proud.
Given that Weezie was breaking Mom’s heart, I wasn’t into this line of thought at all. My two-legged miniature whale Jericho was nudging my legs, and that gave me an excuse to walk off.
I fed Jericho some nurb chow, and we headed across the lawn to where Kenny and Kristo were fooling with some of the new jellyfish houses that had settled into the trees. The young jellies were the size of horses—iridescent, undulating, their sparkling tendrils in constant motion.
“Kenny vants to convince them he is a good guy,” said Kristo, laughing. “But they’re all being born with Junko’s personality. It disturbs Kenny if so many quallen are wanting to kill him.”
“While you were gone, I ordered an elephruk-load of nurb chow from the family plant,” Kenny told me. An elephruk was an amped-up elephant that had been gene-tweaked so that its rear was a big leathery bin like the back of a dump truck. Elephruks came with diamond-fiber struts in their bones, and they could lug huge loads, up to fifteen tons.
“My jellyfish ratings are on the mend,” Kenny continued. One of the wobbly disks drifted down to the ground and allowed him to flop himself onto her—like a kid on an inflatable round raft.
“I love you,” Kenny told the jelly cajolingly. “You’re not a geek. You’re wonderful.” Was he sincere? To some extent, yes. Spending so much time in the cosmic mode was polishing away our nasty spikes. The jelly bucked and giggled. Three more of them floated down.
Jericho bit onto a tendril and tugged. The jelly tugged back—and suddenly Jericho was entangled beneath the disk and in some danger of being eaten. Kenny intervened with promises of more chow, and the jelly allowed Jericho to perch himself on her top surface.
Kristo and I got onto the other two jellyfish, and we organized something like a game of tag, wobbling around the lawn like four fingers of a single hand. When we were done, I asked Kenny to order me an elephruk load of nurb-gel from the Roller plant as well.
“If it’s easy for you,” I added.
“I’m the boss,” said Kenny. “I’ll call for the stuff right now. Oughta be here tomorrow by noon. It’d be loofy if you make some arty servant nurbs for us to have around the house. With the Zad Plant touch.”
“Strolling minstrels?” suggested Kristo. “Like at a Christmas fair?”
“Something like that,” I said, biting back a snotty put-down. Please the clients, right?
Yes, I was imagining a new phase in my career as an artist, even with my wife gone, a manslaughter charge on my head, and society on the verge of falling apart. If you’re an artist, the career comes first. That’s how we are.
* * *
9: Spreading Qwet
Loulou and Joey showed up at the Funhouse a little later, lugging stuff on their roadspiders. Loulou didn’t even look at me. They went upstairs and busied themselves with redecorating their room. Dad and Weezie went upstairs too. As the evening set in, Carlo, Reba, Junko, Kenny, Kristo and I began a soap opera called Goobers on a wall-sized squidskin. My mind wandered back in time.
It occurred to me that the worn old squidskin on the wall might be the very same one that Mr. Roller had used for showing us that scary movie at Kenny’s birthday party all those years ago. That movie had been about penguins and squid. Jane with her red-gold hair had been sitting between Whit Heyburn and me. When a mean squid darted out at a penguin, Jane had thrown her arms around me. I could still remember her scent, like honey and something salty that tasted good, a scent that locked into my brain for life.
Goobers ended and Junko spoke up. “I want to start giving away qwet tomorrow. It’d be more, like, ethical if we could get people to volunteer. Maybe we need to post an ad. Like, you need qwet now.”
“At this point qwet is mostly a rumor,” said Carlo. “We’ve been keeping it undergr
ound. Although, yeah, lately Jane Says has been orchestrating some leaks.”
“And now we’re blossoming into daylight,” said Junko. “Come on, let’s talk about the pitch. What are the marketing points? We used to do this in our classes at Stanford. I’ll start. Qwet is free.”
“It gets you stoned,” said Kenny.
“We don’t say stoned,” cautioned Junko. “We use a code word. Enlightened.”
“Gives you telepathy,” said Reba. “That’s the best.”
“Telepathy, yes,” said Junko. “And empathy and mutual understanding and, what the hell, love. We’ve got a product to move, people.”
“Direct nurb control,” I put in, running my hand across Jericho’s sandy skin. “It’s awesome to biomod a nurb just by thinking at it.”
“Cosmic logic,” said Junko. “Creativity. Power.”
“Shouldn’t someone say what qwet actually is?” put in Kristo.
“Quantum wetware!” exclaimed Reba.
“But that doesn’t even mean anything,” I protested. “It’s mumbo-jumbo bullshit.”
“Ahem,” said Junko. “It means reprogramming your body.”
“That sounds scary,” said Carlo. “Take it from a salesman. Quantum wetware is fine on its own. Who wouldn’t want that? Wetware means genes. Quantum means new and improved. Biology’s first upgrade since the dinosaur age!”
While we were talking, Junko had linked into the squidskin on the wall. She was crafting a commercial based on our words, overlaying images of us onto dreamy backgrounds. And now a happy T. Rex filled the screen and let out a joyful roar.
“Be the king of creation!” said Junko’s voice, light and peppy. “Qwet. Enlightenment. Love. Power. A free personal upgrade coming to you from Junko—starting tomorrow. Ask for qwet now!” A link symbol flashed on screen, a stylized letter Q within a star burst.
“Nice draft,” said Reba. “Let’s work on it some more. And maybe you’re being a little, uh, egotistical saying it’s from Junko?”
“People like my name,” said Junko. “It’s fun to say. And I did invent qwet, so there. And, Reba, that’s not a draft. I put it up live just now. Behold.” Junko set a graphic counter to running in a corner of the screen. A needle was spinning round and round, ever faster. That much response.
At this point Loulou came downstairs with Joey. “Lamers,” she said. “You’re watching ads?”
“Junko’s ad,” I said, kind of itching for a chance to argue with Loulou. “Too bad Jane isn’t here to work on it too. She’d kick it up a notch.”
Loulou scowled. “Mooning over the little woman. You and I are really through.”
“We can be friends,” I essayed.
“I don’t have friends,” said Loulou theatrically. “There’s the people I’m fucking, and there’s everyone else.”
“Hot,” said Carlo. “Qrude.”
“Dumb,” said Reba. “Vain. Let’s pretend we’re the cast of Goobers and we’ll put our dirty laundry on the screen. I’ll be Ella Mae Goober and Loulou, you be Sammy Sue. Everyone else pick a character too. We’ll trance out and rip a trip.”
Being a cosmic cast of Goobers was fun for a while, with Loulou and Reba really going after each other. Basically they were enjoying it—like playing a game. I was cast as a minor background character, but Loulou was watching my reactions. Yes, she claimed she didn’t want to be friends with me, but maybe she did. Maybe there was something else she was still hoping to get from me. With Loulou I never knew. But I did know I wasn’t going back to her.
After everyone went to bed, I stretched out on one of the living-room couches with Jericho my pet nurb whale. I was totally in cosmic mode. The Funhouse felt like a dollhouse where one wall is missing and you can look into all the rooms from the side. I could see the teep patterns from everyone’s minds. The patterns were overlaying each other to make moiré interference fringes like you’d see in old-school Op Art, only the teep patterns were three-dimensional, and they were moving all the time, meshes of dull lavender and dim orange, shaping themselves to fit the corners of the living room’s vaulted ceiling. I was qwet and cosmic for true.
Just as I was getting comfortable, I remembered about the cops threatening to kill me. The memory came at me like an epileptic fit, like an airborne moray eel rushing towards my face.
“Ungh!”
And then I was back into a tight-ass robotic private detective mode. I took Gaven’s wristphone out of my pocket. My clue. Supposedly this nurb was secure, but I won it over by making it qwet. And then I delved into it, spending an hour tracing through Gaven’s message threads, his notes, and his formal reports. Gaven’s basic plan had been to pump up the price of qwet-related services, and then to sell his Slygro stock to United Mutations. No big surprise. Reba buying all that stock had thrown a kink into the plans. Gaven had been talking to Whit Heyburn several times a day, still hoping to work something out.
Whit seemed to be everywhere. Loulou was spying for Whit, Whit was in cahoots with Gaven, Whit had bought a qwet rat from me, and Whit was talking about orchestrating a freeware qwet giveaway just like Junko wanted to do.
What I truly couldn’t stand about Whit was that he might be having an affair with Jane. It wasn’t only about jealousy, I told myself—it was about wanting to protect her. If you’d grown up with Whit, you knew he was dangerous and more than a little unkind. I got so worked up that I tried calling Jane again—but this time she didn’t answer.
I dug deeper into Gaven’s wristphone files, cracking his feeble secondary encryption codes as I went along. And here I found a possible reason for Whit’s new connection with Jane.
I’d always known Jane was careless about contracts and legalese. And I now knew that, as part of the arrangement for the Jane Says agency to handle the Slygro publicity, she’d signed an agreement with Gaven that, oh hell, merged their assets. Even a flaky artist like me could understand what that meant—but not Jane. She probably hadn’t even read the contract. And for the crusher, Gaven had turned around and optioned his Jane Says agreement to Whit.
So if Whit took a mind to it, he could take everything Jane owned. He must have told that to her. She was trapped, abashed, uncertain. Should I walk up the road to the Heyburns’ house and save Jane right now? Don’t be a pest, Zad. Talk to her in the morning.
I flipped back into cosmic mode, watching the room’s moiré thought patterns shift and merge. Jericho twitched his legs and smacked his lips, having a whale dream. I had a nagging feeling there was something else in Gaven’s files. Something I’d only seen out of the corner of my eye.
Going back into the robotic mode, I rooted around. And there, in the depths of the wristphone, hidden amid some accounting data, I found the outlines of a plan involving the dirtbubble and the oddball.
The dirtbubble had appeared at Gaven’s lab soon after he and Junko had started making people qwet. It was connected to an eerie, powerful monster in Fairyland—a thing called a myoor. The myoor wanted Gaven to spread qwet, but he’d been hesitating. Via the dirtbubble, the myoor had told Gaven that, if things went well, she’d take steps to install Gaven as the emperor of our world.
The oddball herself was a separate agent. She was working with the spotted gub that I’d seen at my parents’ farm. Apparently the spotted gub was male and he was courting the green gub, who was female. As part of his campaign, the spotted gub wanted Jane and me to do something involving the myoor—something that went against the myoor’s natural inclinations.
A tangled intrigue.
Whit was in on Gaven’s hoped-for deal with the myoor—and Whit was a take-action guy. It was Whit who’d enlisted Loulou to get hold of Jane’s oddball. They’d hoped their team could wipe out the oddball, but so far that hadn’t worked out. Not only was the oddball backed by the spotted gub, she was a lively force of her own.
Perhaps Loulou had only slept with me so she could steal Jane’s oddball. And—just in case Loulou didn’t come through—Whit had advised Gaven about e
ntrapping Jane via the ruse of an asset merge.
I felt sad and sick. I’d spurned Jane for a woman who didn’t love me, and now the crooks were cheating my wife out of everything she owned.
In one of his personal journal notes on the wristphone, Gaven confessed that he was afraid of the dirtbubble and the oddball both. He didn’t trust either of them. And his fears had been justified. The oddball had killed him.
And all of this meant? I was too tired to sort it out. Nestling into the comfort of the cosmic mode, I fell asleep.
Sometime during the night a thump awoke me. Inevitably it was the oddball, hovering beside my face, as if examining me. She was larger than before, luminous, her pale lavender body the size of a cabbage, the inside of her conical mouth a fleshy shade of dark pink.
I tried to push her away. She didn’t move—no, she remained stock still, as if bolted to the fabric of space. Fascinated, like a mouse before a cobra, I ran my hand over the oddball’s grooved, mauve skin. Warm. Her mouth stretched open, as if in a yawn.
“No,” I implored. “Not yet.”
Scared to make any sudden moves, I laid my crossed hands upon my chest, throwing myself on her mercy.
The oddball continued hovering there. Watching me. She’d killed Gaven, and maybe she’d kill me. A breath of air swirled around my head. My hair fluttered, drawn towards the creature’s mouth. Desperately I teeped into her—hoping to make a connection—and then a mind began talking through her channel, telling me not to be afraid. It was the voice of the spotted gub. Initially his thoughts were simple, but then his monologue amped up a notch or two. And then a thousand notches. The spotted gub was feeding me a blast of information so dense and arcane that it knocked me unconscious.
Tuesday morning I slept late. When I awoke I lay there for a few minutes on the living-room couch, worrying about Jane and Whit. And then I remembered about the oddball and the voice of the spotted gub.