"Don't do this," Son says.
Why doesn't he just leave?
"Cisco." She's addressing the crib in front of her. This creek‐side version of their Doll. A glimmer of hope contends with the cold lump that settles in her gut at the thought of what she might be unlocking. For sure Son's no help.
"Give me the ball."
"No."
The holo infrastructure disappears again as Dee Zu gives the ball a last twist before running it back through its various functions. Containing a quick spill of solar system over its rim, she screws the hemispheres back together, and then stands there waiting for things to settle down again.
"This is crazy dangerous."
•
"Cisco." Like an incantation. "Cisco?"
The soil stirs and something like a miniature slowjoe begins to rise.
"Yes. That's it. Yes."
The legoite matrix shivers and contorts as though trying to conform to obscure and contrary impulses.
"Cisco!"
"Think what you're doing," Son says.
"I need to talk to him."
"He's dead."
"So you say."
"This is crazy."
"He's here."
"Come back to the house."
"You go. We don't need you here."
"We? What we?"
"I can negotiate him."
"He's dead. Think of everything we've got here. Think of Eva. You have no idea what you're doing."
"Go away," Dee Zu tells him. "Leave us be."
"'Us.'" He snorts.
"Just go." Dee Zu's own manner hardens. Discussion is at an end.
"Cisco," she says.
•
It flickers back and forth, in and out. One moment it's nearly there. The next it's nothing but bits of near‐sentience tossed amid a storm of other bits. A dissonant avatar, a badly tuned telep, it's a crude prototype. A broken fax of a telep piloting an inconsistently specified World, it remains incoherent, smeared across a manifold of partial and inconstant Worlds.
It tries to inhabit a sieve‐like World, invaded by bits of other Worlds even as it leaks bits of itself into them. It lightens with structure and depth. It darkens again. It wears thin. It fragments and slips away. It re‐emerges.
It feels a call… He feels a call.
He feels the call again, an attractor. A locus of inchoate identity. The other beckons, and the cloud of chaotic bits implodes. It establishes a corresponding center of attraction, an accretion of increasingly personal junk.
He achieves critical mass, his own center of gravity. He falls toward the other. Toward the light and warmth of some promise that pulls at him, this rubbly proto‐history of a person.
•
"Don't do this." Son tries to put an arm around her. "We're happy the way things are." He's pleading. "We don't need this."
She shrugs him off.
Her delight at these first stirrings of something that might be Cisco contends with the cold lump in her gut at the thought of what she might be unlocking. And that's only partly Son's doing.
"This is crazy," he says. "Think what you're doing."
The thing grows. It ramifies. It wobbles, bits flapping loose, a prototype person uncertainly animated.
"Cisco?" she says. "Is that you?"
The mouthhole moves, but no sound issues.
"It's okay," she tells it. "Don't try too much too soon."
"This is a big mistake." Even as Son speaks, the thing turns his way, and Dee Zu sees him recoil.
•
Some other is interfering. Something familiar. This in itself offers hope, this forgotten sense of something being familiar. Then anger arrives like an old friend. Because now he feels. He is angry at this thing, this person, that interferes.
Goddamn it.
He's losing it. He flickers in and out.
•
"Just shut up," Dee Zu tells Son.
"This is trouble. A monster."
"What part of 'go away' don't you understand?"
"You have no idea what you're doing."
"And you do?"
"What the hell …?"
The thing, this ciscothing, grows two more mouths, to no greater effect. It convulses, mouthholes writhing soundlessly. Then it sags.
•
He slips away.
A jumble of unconnected words and ideas. Anonymous others. Consciousness, but no point of reference.
It lies outside itself somewhere. Though there is no outside and there is nothing else. It is nothing. This is awful.
It craves oblivion. It needs to exit this soul‐sickening chaos with no source, no center, no meaning.
•
"No, mommy." Eva has found them. "Wait. You're doing it wrong."
No more than a fat puddle of legoite by now, the thing oozes toward Dee Zu.
green ultra
Half a dozen creatures carve wakes this way and that though deep grass up in Lower High Meadow. Son watches to see if they're what Dee Zu calls velociraptors.
He's standing here alone down by the creek. Dee Zu and Eva have gone back to the Homestead.
Nobody else really appreciates how dangerous this world is becoming. Except maybe the Land itself, or at least some of its resident spirits. Some part of the Land is concerned to protect them, even if—or maybe because—they won't look after themselves. Outside the wall around their Homestead, for example, the Land now presents a minefield of tapdoors and latent huggivines.
Son hardly notices the first, only hesitant caress, brushes it off before he jerks away from a more aggressive tug at an ankle, then at a wrist. He turns just as something emerges from the Land.
•
This is the huggivine of all huggivines, more like a green Ultra. An Ultra of the later, tentacled variety, last seen in large and fast‐growing numbers pressed up against the force‐field bubble outside Happy Chillin. Its tentacles, about ten of them, are sparsely feathered with delicately veined leaves and it's teetering about on ragged, root‐like feet. Two of its tentacles lash out to ensnare Son as another gropes for his catchbag.
"Daddy?"
It's Eva. Spiff and Poof stand beside her.
"Don't worry," Son calls to her. "Go back to the Homestead, okay? Run."
"That's a huggivine. A bad one."
"Run. Go back to the house." A third tentacle has him now, and all three constrict to the point Son can't get a full breath to yell at Eva any more. "Where's your mommy?" he tries to say.
"No, no." Eva starts throwing rocks at the thing. "Bad huggivine." One of the rocks narrowly misses Son's head. "You're a badthing."
Poof darts in to nip at one of the Ultra's root‐feet, to no visible effect, while Spiff paces the periphery.
Son expands his chest as much as he can, flexes his arms, squeezes enough room to apply his knife. The fat green tendrils squirm as he saws at them. He makes room to start slashing, and then he's free, drenched in sweat and huggivine juice. The Ultra, clear of the soil now, lumbers around on its crooked feet to confront Son.
Poppy would proclaim him a goddamned fool, but the thing has Son's ball, and that ball is part of who he is. In some way he can't say, it's part of what this world might become. He almost got Dee Zu and himself killed because of this ball, back before Happy Chillin, and he doesn't mean to give it up without a fight.
"No, Daddy. No, no."
The huggivine juice stings. Ignoring both that and a throbbing ache in his groin, Son flies to the attack, lunges in to slice away the tip of a tentacle and grab the catchbag. Bam, bam. As he turns to run, another tentacle snatches at a foot. He slashes himself free, stumbles and hits the ground rolling. Meanwhile the Ultra staggers around, a tangle of misshapen appendages, before heading toward Eva.
Son is quicker. He's back on his feet to snatch Eva up and sling her over his shoulder, catchbag in his other hand. But he has only started to run toward the Homestead when his world dissolves into a buzzy confusion of POVs. Then everything comes together in one
crystalline, stop‐motion image, and Son spins around to view the scene behind him. The shaggy plant‐beast is coming at them fast.
At the very moment Son concentrates his multitudinous perspective on the threat to Eva, the godbolts strike. Behind the Ultra, the creek explodes in an eruption of steam and boiling water.
"Run!" Son yells.
Another flash‐flash‐flash leaves a stench of burnt plant matter mixed with the earthy‐acrid reek of fused soil. All that marks the spot where the Ultra stood is a blackened patch of glassy melt marred with ash.
"Did you do that, Daddy?"
"No." It almost seemed that he had, though it was merely coincidence, this thing getting blasted at the very moment Son focused all his attention, his entire will, on stopping it.
"No, chum," he says. "It wasn't me." Which leaves the question of who, then? Sky couldn't be back at the gunsights, could she?
"Wow!" Eva says. "Wow, wow, wow. Fuck."
"Eva!"
"Sorry, Daddy. Sorry. But wow, eh?"
Spiff and Poof stand there either side of Eva, staring at Son as if dumbstruck. Meanwhile Son finds himself subvocalizing his relief and gratitude: "Our father, Hallow Ed be his name…" Gran‐Gran is with him; all that's missing now is some useless piece of advice from the Lode.
"That was a badthing," Eva says.
Spiff and Poof remain silent.
quantum lizards & sweetiethings
Dee Zu sits with Eva up in her treehouse, a privilege.
She has no idea where Son is. She hasn't seen him since Cisco failed to manifest. Eva has told her a wild story of giant huggivines and lightning bolts down by the creek, the upshot of which is that Daddy is okay.
"You should have seen him, Mommy! He's amazing."
•
This tree, so recently revealed as a mango tree, has generated more than fruit. A few days ago it came up with a bright turquoise lizard nearly as big as Spiff. They've only seen it once, but Eva claims it's still there. She says it's a genius at staying on the other side of the trunk from anyone who tries to see it.
"Oh, yeah?" Dee Zu asks her. "Then why is it we still can't see it when I stand on one side of the tree and you're on the other?"
"I told you. Mr. Blue is a genius." Eva giggles. "Anyway, you can know what color he is, or you can see where he is. You can never know both at the same time. And we already know what color he is. See?"
"Quantum lizards," Dee Zu says. "What's next?"
"He's blue, but he's also green."
"Turquoise."
"Yeah," Eva says, though there's no way she could have seen turquoise before.
"Mr. Blue is fucking stealthy."
"What?"
"What?"
"Where did you learn 'stealthy'?"
"From a fuckinfuck."
"Your daddy is right. You mustn't play with the brianthing."
"Why not?"
"We'll explain when you're older. You must believe me for now—the brianthing will hurt you. And Daddy and me."
Eva looks thoughtful. "Who's Sweetie?" she says.
"Sweetie? Where did you meet a Sweetie?"
"I don't like how she laughs. She might be a badthing."
"Is she another brianthing?"
"I think so."
"You mustn't talk to her, okay? Don't talk to any brianthings. Please."
•
"The rabbit told me to tell you something."
"The rabbit? My God. What did I tell you?"
"He says to stop using the ballthing. He says go down to the creek. Quick, quick. While there's still time. Take me and Spiff, he says. Now. Talk to the ciscothing again. He can help. The rabbit says to hurry."
"Stop playing with the brianthings. Please, Eva. You must do what we say."
"But you and Daddy won't do what the fuckinfuck says you must."
goodthings & badthings
The fuckinfuck is really all the brianthings. And what he really said was, "You must stop using the ball. Hurry, hurry, hurry. Hee, hee. Shut the fuck up, Sweetie. No time, no time. You too, Rabbit. Dear God." And he sounded quite cross.
Dear God is like my God. And my God is another thing Daddy says I'm not supposed to say. Mommy says it a lot.
The fuckinfuck is a goodthing. Even if he does say fuck a lot. Sweetie's a badthing, though. Rabbit is okay, except he's always in a hurry.
The Land is full of things. Some are goodthings, and some are badthings. We must help the goodthings, because they can help us back. We must stop the badthings doing bad things.
Mommy and Daddy don't see some things. And sometimes the things they see aren't the real ones. Or they talk about otherthings from other places. Maybe from the old times. Sometimes they worry about the wrong things.
downlow vickle
"I want you to stop playing with the brianthings, okay?"
"But the brianthing says he needs me to help him."
"What? Help him how?"
"He says that we can help him."
"Who's 'we'?"
"Spiff and me."
"Help him how?"
"To make a deevi."
"What on earth are you talking about?"
"A deevi. The brianthing told me the ciscothing was a deevi."
"Cisco?"
"Yes. But it didn't work."
"Eva."
"Yes?"
"What's a deevi?"
"A downlow vickle."
"I don't understand."
"A vickle. Something to go around in."
"A vehicle?"
"Yes."
"Oh, my God."
"You always tell me not to say my God."
•
"I need to tell you some things," Dee Zu says. "Things about Brian. Also things about Son and me. And about Cisco."
"The ciscothing?"
"The real Cisco. Before the ciscothing."
"Okay, tell me. It's a story, right?"
"Yes, it is. It's about how we came to be here. How you got here. Who you really are. And why you mustn't talk to brianthings."
But what's important, Dee Zu needs to tell her why, if she can bring Cisco back, then she has to do this. Eva should know what her other father did for Dee Zu. Why, even if she didn't love him, she'd have to do this. How Cisco gave up his chance at immortality to help her. And why.
So she wouldn't have been able to ascend, in any case. She would have had to abandon that other life that was growing within her. Unthinkable. Whatever. Eva is now her main shot at immortality.
•
Eva listens. Though she's too young to understand, and way sleepy besides, she drifts along on the stream of words till it seems to come to an end.
"So, you see."
Eva doesn't. Bits of a story filter into her half‐dreams, and some of it is lovely. But some of it she can't understand, and most of it she doesn't remember. The terrible things Mommy said about a man named Brian were difficult, and she might have slept through parts of it. She tries to listen some more.
"So neither Cisco nor I ever had mothers, though we did have a MOM. And now you know how Daddy can be only twenty years old, never mind he was born forty‐two years ago. I was born four or five years before him, but I'm twenty‐four. I can't say how old Cisco is. He used to be two years older than me, though I believe he could now be twenty‐four years older. Or he could be younger. It depends. Not only that, he was born twice, if we can believe him, once in this world and once in another. And he may have died in both.
"Daddy believes he has. Died in both worlds, that is. And forget about how we've seen he has in fact survived. Anyway, dead or alive Cisco is part of us, especially part of you, maybe. So are the goshdarnit‐things, and the nownowbits."
Eva comes awake at this. "I thought everything was part of me. We're all part of each other. Aren't we?"
"Yes. But Cisco and the others are special parts of how we came to be who we are here, now."
Eva is running down again. "Don't understand," she says. She struggles
to keep her eyes open. She wants to listen. The problem is, her mother's voice enfolds her like a deep nest of blankets in the cool season.
"We were few, then. Very, very few. And we faced what we thought was certain death. Final extinction."
Eva knows this word. She has heard it often. But never used to speak of her family.
"In the end, there was only Son and me. In all this wide world, only us two, really. And we were strangers. As I said, we had been three, but Cisco was taken from us."
Her mother continues, though by now hardly anything leaks through to where Eva is busy with other things in a dream.
"We must bring Cisco back. He's very special to both of us. To you and to me. But Brian must stay where he is. We must never help him make a deevi."
•
It was a good story, met now with lusty wee snores from the new world's happily zonked‐out best hope for a human renaissance. Eva has signed off.
good dreams & bad
Scaly patches glisten rose‐orange‐turquoise‐lavender‐yellow in the late afternoon western sky. It's lovely. Too much of this world is lovely. Not enough of it wears its claws in full view.
Son is looking for a word. How do you describe something more extreme than a knievel, a super‐knievel crossed with a booby? Poppy would propose "fuckwit."
Here they are, living on borrowed time. Hoping they survive a real‐life Mad Hatter's tea party, trying to protect their family without the help of a reliable ken. And what does Dee Zu do? She goes around calling up monsters. The Land is full of good stuff, stuff they need. Overall, it's trying to help them. Whatever Poppy might have to say about that proposition. And now look. As though they didn't have enough to deal with already. As though they weren't already up to their butts in a real situation.
What you do under these circumstances, you don't coax monsters up out of the Land. No. You hunker down. You build your defenses. Rebuild your ken one observation at a time, lesson by lesson. You kick the world to see what happens, but cautiously. Or next thing you have no foot to kick with. Nothing to hang a foot on even if you had one. Just another extinct booby.
•
Not that it's easy to deal with this world. "It's what I told you, boy. Go ahead and play with that toy long enough, Auntie's 'kaleidoscope,' and you'll come to see the world that way permanently. But you just wouldn't listen." Maybe. Except this world is itself twice as gaga as anything Poppy ever had to deal with. Maybe there is no right way to do things. Too often, Dee Zu and Eva seem to believe it's all just fun and games.
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