Cyberpunk

by Victoria Blake

  candy store. Then let’s go sit by the river.”

  “Twilight of the gods at River Lethe. In the groove, Al, in the gr-gr-oove.”

  He seemed fairly uninterested in talking to me and spoke only in such

  distracted snatches, spoke like a man playing pinball and talking to a friend

  over his shoulder. Off and on I had the feeling that if the soul-player were

  turned off, I’d be the one to disappear. But he was the one with black

  whirlpools instead of eyes. Kerouac was the ghost, not me.

  But not quite ghost either; his grip on the bottle was solid, his drinking was

  real, and so was mine, of course, as we passed the liter back and forth, sitting on the grassy meadow that slopes down the Neckar River. It was March 12th,

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  basically cold, but with a good strong sun. I was comfortable in my old leather jacket and Jack, Jack was right there with me.

  “I like this brandy,” I said, feeling it.

  “Bee-a-zooze. What do you want from me anyway, Al? Poke a stick in a

  corpse, get maggots come up on you. Taking a chance, Al, for whyever?”

  “Well, I . . . you’re my favorite writer. I always wanted to be you. Hitchhike

  stoned and buy whores in Mexico. I missed all that, I mean I did it, but

  differently. I guess I want the next kids to like me like I like you.”

  “Lot of like, it’s all nothing. Pain and death, more death and pain. It took

  me twenty years to kill myself. You?”

  “I’m just starting. I figure if I trade some of the drinking off for weed, I can stretch it out longer. If I don’t shoot myself. I can’t believe you’re really here.

  Jack Kerouac.”

  He drained the rest of the bottle and pitched it out into the river. A cloud

  was in front of the sun now and the water was grey. It was, all at once, hard

  to think of any good reason for living. At least I had a son.

  “Look in my eyes,” Jack was saying. “Look in there.”

  I didn’t want to, but he leaned in front of me to stare. His face was hard and

  bitter. I realized I was playing way out of my league.

  The eyes. Like I said before, they were spinning dark holes, empty sockets

  forever draining no place. I thought of Edgar Allen Poe’s story about some

  guys caught for days in a maelstrom, and thinking this, I began to see small

  figures flailing in the dark spirals, Jack’s remembered friends and loved ones

  maybe, or maybe other dead souls.

  The whirlpools fused now to a single dark, huge cyclone, seemingly beneath

  me. I was scared to breathe, scared to fall, scared even that Kerouac himself

  might fall into his own eyes.

  A dog ran up to us and the spell snapped. “More trinken,” said Jack. “Go get another bottle, Al. I’ll wait here.”

  “Okay.”

  “The player,” rasped Jack. “You have to leave the soul-player here, too.”

  “Fine.” I set it down on the ground.

  “Out on first,” said Kerouac. “The pick-off. Tell the bitch leave me alone.”

  With that he snatched up the soul-player and ran down to the river. I let

  him go.

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  Well, I figured that was that. It looked like Kerouac turned himself off by

  carrying the soul-player into the river and shorting it out . . . which was fine with me. Meeting him hadn’t been as much fun as I’d expected.

  I didn’t want to face Karla with the news I’d lost her machine, so I biked

  over to my office to phone her up. For some reason Diaconescu was there,

  waiting for me. I was glad to see a human face.

  “What’s happening, Ray?”

  “Karla sent me. She saw you two from her window and phoned me to meet

  you here. You’re really in trouble, Alvin.”

  “Look, it was her decision to lend me that machine. I’m sorry Kerouac

  threw it in the river and ruined it, but . . .”

  “He didn’t ruin the machine, Alvin. That’s the point. The machine is

  waterproof.”

  “Then where’d he go? I saw him disappear.”

  “He went underwater, you idiot. To sneak off. It’s the most dangerous thing

  possible to have a dead soul in control of its own player.”

  “Oh, man. Are you sure you don’t have any weed?”

  I filled my knapsack up with beer bought at a newsstand—they sell alcohol

  everywhere in Germany—and pedaled on home. The seven- kilometer bike-

  ride from my university office to our apartment in the Foreign Scholars Guest

  House was usually a time when I got into my body and cooled out. But today

  my mind was boiling. The death and depression coming off Kerouac had been

  overwhelming. What had that been in his eyes there? The pit of hell, it’d

  seemed like, a vortex ring sort of, a long twisty thread running through each

  of his eyes, and whoever was outside in the air here was variable. The thought

  of not being able to die terrified me more than anything I’d ever heard of: for me death had always seemed like sweet oblivion, a back-door to the burrow,

  a certain escape. But now I had the feeling that the dark vortex was there,

  full of thin hare screamers, ineluctable whether or not a soul-player was

  around to reveal it at this level of reality. The only thing worse than death is eternal life.

  Back home my wife, Cybele, was folding laundry on our bed. The baby was

  on the floor crying.

  “Thank God you came back early, Alvin. I’m going nuts. You know what

  the superintendent told me? He said we can’t put the dirty Pampers in the

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  garbage, that it’s unsanitary. We’re supposed to tear them apart and flush the

  pieces, can you believe that? And he was so rude, all red-faced and puffing.

  Jesus I hate it here, can’t you get us back to the States?”

  “Cybele, you won’t believe what happened today. I met Jack Kerouac. And

  now he’s on the loose.”

  “I thought he died a long time ago.”

  “He did, he did. This witch-girl, Karla? I met her over at Diaconescu’s?”

  “The time you went without me. Left me home with the baby.”

  “Yeah, yeah. She conjured up his ghost somehow, and I was supposed to

  keep control of it; keep control of Kerouac’s ghost, but we got drunk together

  and he freaked me out so much I let him get away.”

  “You’re drunk now?”

  “I don’t know. Sort of. I bought some beer. You want one?”

  “Sure. But you sound like you’re off your rocker, Alvin. Why don’t you just

  sit down and play with the baby. Maybe there’s a cartoon on TV for you two.”

  Baby Joe was glad to see me. He held out his arms and opened up his mouth

  wide. I could see the two little teeth on his bottom gum. His diaper was

  soaked. I changed him, being careful to flush the paper part of the old diaper, as per request. As usual with the baby, I could forget I was alive, which is,

  after all, the only thing that makes life worth living.

  I gave Cybele a beer, opened one for myself, and sat down in front of the

  TV with the baby. The evening programs were just starting—there’s no

  daytime TV at all in Germany—and, thank God, Zorro was on. The month

  before they’d been showing old Marx Brothers movies, dubbed of course, and

  now it was Zorro, an episode a day. Baby Joe liked it as much as I did.

  But
there was something fishy today, something very wrong. Zorro didn’t

  look like he was supposed to. No cape, no sword, no pointy mustache. It was

  vortex-eyed Kerouac there in his place, sniggering and stumbling over his

  lines. Instead of slashing a “Z” on a wanted poster, he just spit on it. Instead of defending the waitress’s honor during the big saloon brawl, he hopped over

  the bar and stole a fifth of tequila. When he bowed to the police-chief’s

  daughter, he hiccupped and threw up. At the big masquerade ball he jumped

  on stage and started shouting about Death and Nothingness. When the

  peasants came to him for help, he asked them for marijuana. And the whole

  time he had the soul-player’s strap slung over his shoulder.

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  After awhile I thought of calling Cybele.

  “Look at this, baby! It’s unbelievable. Kerouac’s on TV instead of Zorro. I

  think he can see me, too. He keeps making faces.”

  Cybele came and stood next to me, tall and sexy. Instantly Kerouac

  disappeared from the screen, leaving old cape ’n’ sword Zorro in his place.

  She smiled down at me kindly. “My Alvin. He trips out on acid but he still

  comes home on time. Just take care of Joe while I fix supper, honey. We’re

  having pork stew with sauerkraut.”

  “But . . .”

  “Are you so far gone you don’t remember taking it? The Black-Star that

  Dennis DeMentis sent you last week. I saw you put it in your knapsack this

  morning. You can’t fool me, Alvin.”

  “But . . .”

  She disappeared into our tiny kitchen and Kerouac reappeared on the

  screen, elbowing past the horses and soldiers to press his face right up to it.

  “Hey, Al,” said the TV’s speaker in Kerouac’s voice. “You’re going crazy

  croozy whack-a-doozy.”

  “Cybele! Come here!”

  She came running out of the kitchen, and this time Kerouac wasn’t fast

  enough; she saw him staring out at us like some giant goldfish. He started to

  withdraw, then changed his mind.

  “Are you Al’s old lady love do hop his heart on?”

  “Really, Cybele,” I whispered. “My story’s true. That Black-Star’s in my

  desk at school and Kerouac’s ghost’s inside our TV.”

  “A beer for blear, dear.” The screen wobbled like Jello and Kerouac wriggled

  out into our living room. He stank of dead fish. In one hand he held that

  stolen bottle of tequila, and his other hand cradled the soul-player.

  “Just don’t look in his eyes,” I cautioned Cybele. Baby Joe started crying.

  “Be pope, ti Josie,” crooned Jack. “Dad’s in a castle, Ma’s wearing a shell,

  nothing’s the matter, black Jack’s here from Hell.”

  I’d only had one sip of my beer, so I just handed it over to him. “Isn’t there

  any way out?” I asked him. “Any way into Nothingness?”

  Just then someone started pounding on our door. Cybele went to open it,

  walking backwards so she could keep an eye on Kerouac. He took a hit of

  tequila, a pull of beer, and lit one of the reefers the peasants had given him.

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  RUDY RUCKER

  “Black-jack means sap,” he said. “That’s me.”

  It was Karla at the door. Karla and Ray Diaconescu. Before Jack could do

  anything, they’d run across the room and grabbed him. He was clumsy from

  all the booze, and Karla was able to wrest the soul-player away from him.

  “Turn it off now, Alvin,” she urged. “You turned it on and you have to be

  the one to turn it off. It only worked because you know Jack so well.”

  “How about it, Jack?” I looked over at him. His eyes were swirling worse

  than ever. You could almost feel a breeze from air rushing into them.

  He gave a tight smile and passed me his reefer. “Bee-a-zlast on, brother.

  They call this Germany? I call it the Land of Nod. Friar Tuck awaits her

  shadowy pleasure. The cactus-shapes of nowhere night.”

  “Do you want me to turn it off or what? I can’t give the player back to you.

  You’ll drive me nuts. But anything else, man, I mean I know your pain.”

  Suddenly he threw an arm around my neck and dragged me up against him.

  Karla, still holding the soul-player, gasped and took a step back. Kerouac’s

  voice was harsh in my ear.

  “I knew a guy who died. That’s what Corso says about me now. Only I didn’t.

  He’s keeping me in the whirlpool, you are. Let me in, Al, carry me.” I tried to pull back, repelled by his closeness, his smell, but the crook of his arm held

  my neck like a vise. He was still talking. “Let me in your eyes, man, and I’ll

  keep quiet till you crack up. I’ll help you write. And you’ll end up in the

  whirly dark, too. Sweet and low from the foggy dew, corrupting the boys from

  Kentucky ham-spread dope-rush street sweets.”

  He drew back then, and we stared into each other’s eyes; and I saw the thin

  hare screamers in the black pit same as before, only this time I jumped in, but really it jumped in me. All at once Jack was gone. I turned Karla’s machine

  off for her, saw her and Ray to the door, then had supper with Cybele and

  Baby Joe. And that’s how I became a writer.

  280

  MR. BOY

  By James Patrick Kelly

  I was already twitching by the time they strapped me down. Nasty pleasure

  and beautiful pain crackled through me, branching and rebranching like

  lightning. Extreme feelings are hard to tell apart when you have endorphins

  spilling across your brain. Another spasm shot down my legs and curled my

  toes. I moaned. The stiffs wore surgical masks that hid their mouths, but I

  knew they were smiling. They hated me because my mom could afford to

  have me stunted. When I really was just a kid I did not understand that.

  Now I hated them back; it helped me get through the therapy. We had a

  very clean transaction going here. No secrets between us.

  Even though it hurts, getting stunted is still the ultimate flash. As I unlived my life, I overdosed on dying feelings and experiences. My body was not big

  enough to hold them all; I thought I was going to explode. I must have screamed because I could see the laugh lines crinkling around the stiffs’ eyes. You do not have to worry about laugh lines after they twank your genes and reset your

  mitotic limits. My face was smooth and I was going to be twelve years old

  forever, or at least as long as Mom kept paying for my rejuvenation.

  I giggled as the short one leaned over me and pricked her catheter into

  my neck. Even through the mask, I could smell her breath. She reeked of

  dead meat.

  Getting stunted always left me wobbly and thick, but this time I felt like last Tuesday’s pizza. One of the stiffs had to roll me out of recovery in a wheelchair.

  The lobby looked like a furniture showroom. Even the plants had been

  newly waxed. There was nothing to remind the clients that they were bags of

  blood and piss. You are all biological machines now, said the lobby, clean as

  space-station lettuce. A scattering of people sat on the hard chairs. Stennie

  and Comrade were fidgeting by the elevators. They looked as if they were

  thinking of rearranging the furniture—like maybe into a pile in the middle of

  the room. Even before they waved, the stiff seemed to know that they werer />
  waiting for me.

  JAMES PATRICK KELLY

  Comrade smiled. “Zdrast’ye.”

  “You okay, Mr. Boy?” said Stennie. Stennie was a grapefruit-yellow

  stenonychosaurus with a brown underbelly. His razor-clawed toes clicked

  against the slate floor as he walked.

  “He’s still a little weak,” said the stiff, as he set the chair’s parking brake.

  He strained to act nonchalant, not realizing that Stennie enjoys being stared

  at. “He needs rest. Are you his brother?” he said to Comrade.

  Comrade appeared to be a teenaged spike neck with a head of silky black

  hair that hung to his waist. He wore a window coat on which twenty-three

  different talking heads chattered. He could pass for human, even though he

  was really a Panasonic. “Nyet,” said Comrade. “I’m just another one of his hallucinations.”

  The poor stiff gave him a dry nervous cough that might have been meant

  as a chuckle. He was probably wondering whether Stennie wanted to take me

  home or eat me for lunch. I always thought that the way Stennie got reshaped

  was more funny looking than fierce—a python that had rear-ended an

  ostrich. But even though he was a head shorter than me, he did have

  enormous eyes and a mouthful of serrated teeth. He stopped next to the

  wheelchair and rose up to his full height. “I appreciate everything you’ve

  done.” Stennie offered the stiff his spindly three-fingered hand to shake.

  “Sorry if he caused any trouble.”

  The stiff took it gingerly, then shrieked and flew backward. I mean, he

  jumped almost a meter off the floor. Everyone in the lobby turned, and

  Stennie opened his hand and waved the joy buzzer. He slapped his tail against

  the slate in triumph. Stennie’s sense of humor was extreme, but then he was

  only thirteen years old.

  Stennie’s parents had given him the Nissan Alpha for his twelfth birthday,

  and we had been customizing it ever since. We installed blue mirror glass,

  and Stennie painted scenes from the Late Cretaceous on the exterior body

  armor. We ripped out all the seats, put in a wall-to-wall gel mat and a fridge

  and a microwave and a screen and a minidish. Comrade had even done an

  illegal operation on the carbrain so that we could override in an emergency

  and actually steer the Alpha ourselves with a joystick. It would have been