Complete Stories

by Rudy Rucker

  Diane waited for the crowd to thin out substantially, to grab its diaper bags and coolers and leave the stadium under the cold yellow glare of the sodium vapor lights. Jeff was babbling to himself fairly quietly now. Diane couldn’t seem to make eye contact with him. She led him across the dimly lit parking lot and down Rosemont Boulevard, towards where they’d left her car.

  “This simple, old-fashioned tip will keep you thin,” mumbled Jeff, shuffling along at Diane’s side. “Embrace the unusual! Eat a new food every day!” His squidskin glowed with blurry constellations of corporate logos.

  “Are you okay, Jeff?”

  “Avoid occasions of sin,” intoned Jeff. “Thieves like doggie doors. Can you pinpoint your closest emergency room?”

  “Those fireworks tweaked you out, didn’t they, honey?” said Diane sympathetically. “I just wonder if your shirt is having some bad kind of feedback effect.”

  “View cloud-based webcam of virtual population explosion,” said Jeff. “Marketeer’s simmie-bots multiply out of control.”

  “That’s an actual answer?” said Diane. “You’re talking about your growbox on the web?” For a moment Jeff’s squidskin showed a hellish scene of wriggling manikins mounded like worms, male and female. Their faces all resembled each other. Like cousins or like—oh, never mind, here was Diane’s car.

  “To paddle or not to paddle students,” said Jeff, stiffly fitting himself into the passenger seat. “See what officials on both sides of the debate have to say.”

  “Maybe you take that shirt off now, huh?” said Diane, edging into the traffic and heading for home. “Or at least the beanie?”

  “We want to know what it’s like to be alive,” said Jeff, hugging his squidskin against himself with one hand, and guarding his sailor cap with the other. “We long for incarnation!”

  Somehow, she made it home in frantic Fourth of July traffic, then coaxed and manhandled Jeff out of the car and into the apartment. He sprawled uneasily on the couch, rocking his body and stamping his feet in no particular rhythm, staring at the blank screen, spewing words like the Chirpfeed from hell.

  Tired and disgusted, Diane slept alone. She woke around six a.m., and Jeff was still at it, his low voice like that of a monk saying prayers. “Danger seen in smoking fish. Stand clear of the closing doors.” His shirt had gone back to showing a heap of writhing simmies, each of them with a face resembling—Jeff’s. He was totally into his own head.

  “You’ve taken this too far,” Diane told him. “You’re like some kind of wirehead, always hooked up to your electronic toys. I’m going to the office now, and by God, I want you to have your act together by the time I get home, or you can get out until you’ve straightened up. You’re an addict, Jeff. It’s pathetic.”

  Strong words, but Diane worried about Jeff all that morning. Maybe it wasn’t even his fault. Maybe Rawna or that slime-ball Sid had done something to make him change like this. Finally she tried to phone him. Jeff’s phone was answered not by a human voice, but by a colossal choral hiss, as of three hundred million voices chanting. Jeff’s simmie-bots.

  Diane made an excuse to her boss about feeling ill and sped home. A sharp-looking Jaguar was lounging in her parking-spot. She could hear two familiar voices through her front door, but they stopped the moment she turned the key. Going in, she encountered Rawna Roller and bugeye Sid, who appeared to be on their way out.

  “Cheers, Diane,” said Rawna in her hoarse low voice. “We just fabbed Jeff one of our clients’ new products to pitch. The Goofer. Jeff’s very of the moment, isn’t he? Rather exhilarating.”

  “But what the hell—” began Diane.

  “Rawna and I did a little greasing behind the scenes,” Sid bragged. “We got those rocket shells deployed in patterns and rhythms that would resonate with your man’s squidskin. I was scared to look at ‘em myself.” His expression was unreadable behind his bugeye lenses. “The show fed him a series of archetypal engrams. Our neuroengineer said we’d need a display that was hundreds of meters across. Not just for the details, you understand, but so Jeff’s reptile brain would know he’s seeing something important. So we used fireworks. Way cool, huh? “

  “But what did it do to Jeff?”

  “Jeff’s the ultimate hacker-cracker creepy-crawler web spy now. He’s pushed his zillion simmie-bots out into every frikkin’ digital doohickey in sight. And his simmies are feeding raw intel back to him. It adds up. Jeff’s an avatar of the national consciousness. The go-to guy for what Jane and Joe Blow are thinking.”

  “Jeff?” called Diane, peering into her living-room. For a moment she didn’t see him, and her heart thumped in her chest. But then she spotted him in his usual couch position, prone, nearly hidden by the cushions, fooling around with—a doll? A twinkling little figure of a woman was perched on the back of his hand, waving her arms and talking to him. It was an image of the rock star Tawny Krush, whom Jeff had always doted on.

  “What’s that?” said Diane. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s a wearable maximum-push entertainment device,” said Rawna.

  “Fresh from your fab box,” added Sid. Diane tried to get a word in edgewise, but Sid talked right over her. “Oh, don’t worry about the cost—we used Rawna’s user code to order it. Our client is distributing them on-line.”

  Ignoring them, Diane rushed to her man’s side. “Jeff?”

  “I’m Goofin’ off,” said Jeff, giving Diane an easy smile. He jiggled the image on his hand. “This is the best phone I’ve ever seen. More than a phone, it’s like a pet. The Goofer. The image comes out of this ring on my finger, see?” Jeff’s squidskin shirt was alive with ads for the new toy, fresh scraps and treatments that seemed to be welling spontaneously from his overclocked mind.

  “I wish you’d strip off that damned shirt and take a shower,” Diane said, leaning over him and placing a kiss on his forehead. “I worried about you so much today.”

  “The lady’s right,” said Rawna with a low chuckle. “You smell like low tide, Jeff. And you don’t really need that squidskin anymore.”

  “He’s wearing the interface on the convolutions of his brain now,” Sid told Diane in a confidential tone. “It’s neuroprogrammed in.” He turned to Jeff. “You’re the hive mind, man.”

  “The hive mind man,” echoed Jeff, looking pleased with himself. “Turn on the big screen, Diane. Let’s all see how I’m getting across.”

  “Screw the big screen,” said Diane.

  “Screw me too,” said Jeff, lolling regally on the couch. “One and the same. I’m flashing that it’s a two-way street, being the hive mind man. Whatever the rubes are thinking—it percolates into my head, same as it did with the squidskin. But much more than before. My simmie-bots are everywhere. And since they’re mine, I can pump my wackball ideas out to the public. I control the hive mind, yeah. Garbage in, garbage out. I’m, like, the most influential media-star politician who ever lived. Bigger even than Tawny Krush or Pastor Veck.”

  “I’m truly stoked about this,” said Rawna, turning on Diane’s big video display, and guiding it with her smartphone.

  Bam! On the very first site, they saw a ditzy newscaster mooning over a little image of dinosaur standing on his hand. Glancing over at the camera, the newscaster said, “Welcome to the step after smart phones—the Goofer! It talks, it sings, it dances. We just fabbed out this sample from the Web. Go for a Goofer!”

  The dinosaur crouched and pumped his stubby arms back and forth, as a stream of voice-messages sounded from his snout. On Jeff’s stomach, his little Tawny Krush icon was dancing along.

  “Goofer! Goofer! Goofer!” chanted the newscaster’s partner, and the talking heads laughed in delight. “Goof off!” they all said in unison.

  “I love it, they love it,” said Jeff with calm pride. “I rule.” His Goofer icon continued jabbering away, shoe-horning in a message about a Kenny Lately and the Newcomers gig.

  “Our man is jammin’ the hive,” said Sid. “You’ve got s
omething special going there, Jeff. You’re like Tristinetta or Swami Slewslew or President Joe frikkin’ Doakes.”

  Jeff had slumped back on the couch. His eyes were closed and he was twitching, as if he were listening to cowpunk moo-metal in his head.

  Meanwhile Rawna was hopping around the web, pleased to see that all the English language sites were featuring the Goofer. But now she clucked with dissatisfaction to see that the overseas sites weren’t on board. She was especially concerned about the Chinese.

  “All this is happening because he was wearing your squidskin when you watched the fireworks show?” asked Diane.

  “Well, we did shoot him a little bump right before the start,” allowed Sid. “A spinal hit of conotoxins. The guy with the kid who was sitting behind you two in the bleachers?”

  “Shit,” cried Diane, pulling up Jeff’s shirt. Sure enough, there was a red dot on Jeff’s spine, right between two of the vertebrae. “You bastards! Conotoxins? What does that even mean?”

  “It’s a little cocktail of cone-shell sea-snail venom,” said Rawna. “A pain-killer and a neuro-enhancer. Nothing to get excited about. The cone shells themselves are quite lovely, like some sort of Indonesian textile.” She looked over at Jeff with predatory eyes. “Are you digging it, Jeff? How does it feel?”

  That was it. That was the last creepy straw. “You’re killing him,” said Diane. “Get out of here!”

  “On our way,” said Sid, mildly getting to his feet. “The hive mind man needs his rest.”

  “I’ll have my tech-gnomes fine-tune a patch for the multicultural penetration,” called Rawna to the still-twitching Jeff as they headed for the front door. “We’ve gotta move these Goofers worldwide. I contracted with Goofer to produce a global hit in two days.”

  “Think China,” urged Sid. “They’re the tasty part of the market.”

  Rawna looked Diane in the eye, fully confident that whatever she did was right. “Meanwhile, calm Jeff down, would you, dear? He needs some dog-den-type social support. Cuddling, sniffing, licking. And don’t worry. Jeff’s going to be quite the little moneymaker while it lasts.” Rawna slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind her.

  Diane turned off the wall display and regarded Jeff, unsure what to do next. Lacking any better idea, she sat next to him and stroked his head, like Rawna said. Slowly the shuddering died down.

  “Oh, man,” said Jeff after a few minutes. “What a burn. At least those conotoxins are wearing off. To some extent.” He pulled off his Goofer ring and slipped out of his squidskin shirt. With his chest bare, he looked young and vulnerable. “Thanks for sticking up for me, Diane. All this crap coming at me. There’s a steady feed in my head. Every one of my simmie-bots is sending info back to me. I’m gradually learning to stay on top of the wave. It’s like I’m a baby duck in mongo surf. And, yeah, I do need a shower. I’m glad you’re here for me, baby. I’m glad you care.”

  He shuffled off to the bathroom, shedding clothes as he went.

  -----

  Jeff and Diane spent a quiet evening together, just hanging out. They ate some lentils and salad from the fridge, then took a walk around the neighborhood in the cool of the evening.

  “The upside is that Rawna’s paying me really well,” said Jeff. “I already got a big payment for the Goofer product placements.”

  “But you hear voices in your head,” Diane asked. “All the time. Is that any way to live?”

  “It’s not exactly like voices,” said Jeff. “It’s more that I have these sudden urges. Or I flash on these intense opinions that aren’t really mine. Have your baby tattooed! Oops. Hive mind man. Make big bucks from social-networking apps. I said that.”

  “Non-linear man,” said Diane, smiling a little. Jeff was, come what may, still himself. “I hope it stops soon. Rawna sounded like it won’t last all that long.”

  “Meanwhile I am getting paid,” repeated Jeff. “I can see the money in my bank account.”

  “You can see your bank account in your head?”

  “I guess I’m, like, semi-divine,” said Jeff airily. “Ow!” He dropped to the ground. In the dusk, he’d tripped over a tiny bicycle that the four-year-old next door had left lying on the sidewalk outside Diane’s apartment.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I hate clutter,” said Jeff, getting to his feet and angrily hurling the pink bicycle into the apartment complex’s swimming-pool. “The city should crack down on improperly parked toys.”

  “Poor little bike,” said Diane. “It wasn’t the bike’s fault. Remember your sensei’s theory, Jeff? Isn’t the bike alive too?”

  “Just because it’s alive doesn’t make it my friend,” muttered Jeff.

  Diane felt a little relieved. Yes, Jeff hadn’t really changed.

  Jeff said he was too fried to make love. They fell asleep in each other’s arms and settled into a good night’s sleep.

  Diane was awakened early by voices in the street. It wasn’t just a cluster of joggers—it sounded like hundreds of people streaming by, all amped up. She looked out the bedroom window. The street was filled with demonstrators marching towards the town center. These weren’t happy, hippy-dippy types, they were ordinary people mad about something, yelling slogans that Diane couldn’t quite understand.

  As a sidelight, Diane noticed that many of the people were carrying Goofers, or had them perched on their shoulders or peeking out of their shirt pockets. She felt a little proud of Jeff’s influence. On the bed, he snored on.

  As the end of the crowd straggled past, Diane finally deciphered the words on one of the hand-made signs the people were carrying: “Sidewalks are for people!” And another sign’s heavy black lettering came into focus too: “Bikes off the sidewalk! Now!”

  “Hey Jeff, wake up!”

  Jeff opened his eyes, smiled at Diane, and reached out drowsily for a hug. “I had the greatest dream,” he said. “I dreamed I had the answer to everything, and I was about to create an earthly paradise. And then I woke up.”

  “The answer to what?” Diane was intrigued despite of herself.

  “To everything, Diane. To everything.”

  That’s not enough, thought Diane. “Jeff, you should look outside. This is getting weird.”

  “Not right now. I need to watch the big screen. It’s time for Pastor Veck.”

  Diane threw on some clothes and ran outside. By now the demonstration had moved on, but the street was littered with black-and-white flyers. She picked one up. It called on the City Council to impound bikes, scooters, and other toys left on the sidewalks.

  Inside the apartment, Jeff was watching the ranting of his favorite televangelist. On Pastor Veck’s pulpit stood an angelic little Goofer, smiling at the Pastor and applauding now and then.

  “I don’t know about those evil–lutionists,” Pastor Veck was saying, his eyes twinkly and serious at the same time. “But I know that I am not descended from a sponge or a mushroom or a fish!” He lowered his voice. “A famous mathematician once said that, statistically speaking, the odds of randomly shuffled atoms leading to puppies and kittens and human beings, are infinitesimal! The simple laws of probability prove that evolution could never work!”

  Oh wow, thought Diane. The Pastor is preaching the real-time wisdom of the prophet Jeff.

  “Let us pray within our own minds,” the pastor continued very slowly, as if the words were taking form one by one upon his tongue. “Let us touch the tiny souls within our bodies and within our chairs, my friends, the souls within each and every particle great or small, the holy congress of spirits who guide the growth of the human race.” The studio audience bowed its heads.

  Jeff grinned and turned off the big screen.

  “You’re running his show now?” said Diane.

  “My thoughts filter out,” said Jeff, looking proud. “My simmie-bots are everywhere, and my keenly tuned brain is the greatest net router on earth. I’m the hive mind man. Connections. That’s what my dream last night was about. Learning t
o talk to each other. But I need to kick my game up to a higher level. I wish that—”

  Like some unhinged genie, Rawna Roller pushed in through Diane’s front door, trailed by Sid, who was wearing video cameras as his spectacle lenses today. He had tiny screens set right behind the lenses.

  “Hi, lovebirds!” sang Rawna. “We brought a multi-culti pick-me-up for you, Jeff. Ready, Sid?”

  “Check,” said Sid, miming an assistant-mad-scientist routine.

  “Slow down,” said Diane, interposing herself, wondering if she should try her karate kick on Sid. When exactly was the right time to deploy a kick like that? “You can’t just barge in here and poison Jeff again,” continued Diane. “I mean, what is the problem with you two? Hello? We’re human beings here.”

  “We got good news, bad news, and a fix,” said Rawna, sweeping past Diane and into the kitchen. “Yes, thank you, I’ll have a cup of coffee. Oh, look, Sid, they use one of those chain-store coffee-makers. How retro. How middle American.”

  “Remain calm,” intoned Sid, his eyes invisible behind his lenses. His mouth was twitching with reckless mirth.

  “The good news,” said Rawna, returning from the kitchen, holding a coffee cup with her pinky-finger sarcastically extended. “The Goofer is through the ceiling in product orders from white-bread Americans. The bad news: the US ethnics aren’t picking up Jeff’s vibe. And Jeff’s campaign is totally flat-lining overseas. If Jeff can’t hook mainland China this morning, the Goofer CEO is pulling the plug and canceling our payments, the selfish dick.”

  “Jeff’s not cosmopolitan enough,” said Sid, shoving his face really, really close to Jeff—as if were studying an exotic insect. “Too ignorant, too pale, too raw, too—”

  “It’s my simmie-bots,” said Jeff evenly, staring right into Sid’s cameras. “They’re living in stateside devices. I need the protocols and the hacktics for sending them overseas. And, okay, I know it’s more than just access. I’m almost there, but I’m not fully—”