The Big U

by Neal Stephenson

  As he watched, the hiss of running water lowered and died away, and a few seconds later the leak from above was stemmed. There was the KLONK of an air hammer in a pipe. Fred Fine put his hand on the mystery pipe, and began to feel the gentle vibration of running water underneath, and a sensation of coolness spreading out from the interior.

  The hackers saw him wandering slowly toward the Janus, which rose like an ancient glyph from the tumbled, sodden blocks of paper. He had a distant look, and was consumed in thought.

  “These are the End Times,” he was heard to say. “The Age draws to a close.”

  He was no weirder than they were, so they ignored him.

  Tiny landed on a burning sofa not far from my window. The impact forced much excess lighter fluid out of the foam cushions and created a burst of flame whose origin we did not know until later. Once the water had come back on, and we had soaked the elevator and the Christmas tree, we aimed the fire hose out my living-room window and drenched the heap of dimly burning furniture that was Tiny the Terrorist’s funeral pyre. It was a few minutes past midnight, the second strangest midnight I have ever known, and my first semester at the Big U was at an end.

  SECOND SEMESTER

  JANUARY

  The fog of war was real down here. The knee-deep glom on the tunnel floor exhaled it in sheets and columns, never disturbed by a clean wind or a breath of dryness. Through its darkness moved a flickering cloud of light, and at the center walked a tall thin figure with headphones sprouting long antennae. He carried an eight-foot wizard’s staff in one hand, a Loyal Order of Caledonian Comrades ceremonial sword in the other, and wore hip waders, a raincoat, and a gas mask. His headlamp’s beam struck the fog in front of his eyes and stopped dead, limiting his visibility to what he could see through occasional holes in the atmosphere. From the twin filters of his gas mask came labored hissing sighs as he panted with an effort of wading through the muck.

  “I’ve come to the intersection of the Tunnel of Goblins and the Tunnel of Dragon Blood,” he announced. “This is my turnaround point and I will now return to rendezvous with Zippy the Dwarf, Lord Flail and the White Priest in the Hall of the Idols of Zarzang-Zed.” True to his word, Klystron the Impaler laboriously reversed direction by gripping his staff and making a five-point turn, then paused for a rest.

  A voice crackled from his headphones, a lush, tense introvert’s voice made tinny by the poor transmission quality.

  “Roger, Klystron the Impaler, this is Liaison. Please hold.” There was a brief silence, but the flickering of her fingers on the computer keys up there, and her ruffling of papers, kept her voice-operated mike open. She snickered, unaware that Klystron, Zippy, Flail and the White Priest could hear her. “Oh ho,” she gloated, “are you in for trouble now. You don’t hear anything yet.” More fingers on the keyboard. Klystron concluded that Shekondar had generated a monster with many statistics and at least three attack modes, a monster with which Consuela was not entirely familiar. Perhaps, for once, a worthy opponent…

  Klystron the Impaler drew his mask down to dangle on his chest. Taking care not to breathe through his nose, he brought out his wineskin, opened the plastic spigot and shot a long stream of warm Tab onto his tongue. God, it stank down here. But Klystron could deal with far worse. Anything was better than doing this in a safe light place, like the D & D players, and never experiencing the darkness, claustrophobia and terror of reality.

  Liaison was ready. “Klystron the Impaler, known to his allies as the Heroic, High Lord of Plexor, Mage of the CeePeeYu and Tamer of the Purple Worm of Longtunnel, is attacked by the ELECTRIC MICROWAVE LIZARD OF QUIZZYXAR!” She nearly shrieked the last part of this, as frenzied as a priestess during a solar eclipse. “You are not surprised, you have one turn to prepare defense. Statement of intent, please.”

  Klystron corked the wineskin with his thumb and let it drop to his side, sliding the mask back over his face. So, it was the electric microwave lizard of Quizzyxar. Consuela’s reaction had hinted it was something big. He was ready.

  “As you will recall, I took an anti-microwave potion six months ago, before the Siege of Dud, and that has not worn off yet. As he will probably attack with microwaves first, this gives me an extra turn. I begin by flipping down the visor on my Helm of Courage. Is he charging?”

  “No. She’s advancing slowly.”

  “I stand my ground on the left side of the tunnel and fire a freeze-blast from my Staff of Cold.” He wheeled his staff into firing position as though it were a SAM-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft missile launcher and his body shook with imagined recoil as he CHOONGed a couple of sound effects into the mike.

  But why had Consuela specified the lizard was a she? With Consuela it could not have been a mere Freudian slip.

  “Okay,” Con said slowly, typing in Klystron’s actions, “your freeze-blast strikes home, hitting her in the left head. It has no effect. The lizard’s microwave blast does not hurt you but explodes your wineskin, causing you two points of concussion damage. It continues to advance at a walk.”

  “Touché.” So much for Tab.

  “Liaison, do we know about this yet?” It was Lord Flail.

  Liaison asked Shekondar. “Yes. The lizard makes a lot of noise and you hear it.”

  “Okay!” cried Lord Flail. “We’ll proceed at top speed toward the melee.”

  “Me too,” added Zippy the Dwarf.

  “It’ll take us forever to get there,” said the White Priest, who did not seem to be very far into his character. “We’re at least a thousand feet away.”

  Klystron the Impaler took advantage of these negotiations to do some planning. Obviously the female type was immune to cold—highly obnoxious to the male type.

  “In my quiver I have a fire arrow which I took from the dying Elf-Lord during that one time when we space-warped into Middle Earth. I’ll fire that. Which head is it leading with?”

  “Left.”

  “Then I aim for the right head.”

  “The arrow finds its mark and burns fiercely,” announced Consuela with relish. “The lizard bites you on your left arm, which is now useless until the White Priest can heal it. While you switch back to your sword it claws you with a tentacle/claw appendage, doing five points of damage to your chest. The claw is poisoned but…you make your saving throw.”

  “Good. I’ll take a swipe at the appendage as it attacks.”

  “You miss.”

  “Okay, I’ll make for the right head.”

  “The lizard has succeeded in clawing the fire arrow out of its hide. Now it makes a right tongue strike, sticking you, and begins drawing you into its mouth. Will you attack the tongue, or parry the poison claw attacks?”

  Klystron considered it. This was a hell of a situation. As a last resort he could use a wish from his wishing sword, but that could be risky, especially with Consuela.

  “I will defend myself from the claws, and deal with the mouth when I get to it. I’ve been swallowed before.”

  “You parry three swipes. But now you are just inside the mouth and it is exhaling poison gas, and you have lost half your strength.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Klystron in disgust. “I’ll make a wish on my wishing sword. I’ll say…”

  “Wait a minute!” came the feminine squeal of Zippy the Dwarf. “I just spotted him!”

  Snapping to attention, Klystron scanned the surrounding mist with the beam of his headlamp and picked out Zippy’s red chest waders. “Confirm contact with Zippy the Dwarf. Estimated range ten meters.”

  “In that case,” observed Consuela, “she is right behind the lizard. Your action, Zippy?”

  “Three double fireballs from my fireball-shooting tiara.”

  “I duck,” said Klystron hastily. Shekondar was just clever enough to generate an accidental hit on him. He sighed in relief and his pulse became leaden. It was going to be fine.

  “All fireballs strike in abdominal area. Lizard is now in bad shape and moving slowly.”


  “I cut myself loose from the tongue.”

  “Done.”

  “Two more fireballs in the right head.”

  “As soon as I’m out of the way, that is.”

  “Okay. The lizard dies. Congratulations, people. That’s ten thousand experience points apiece.”

  Klystron and Zippy joined up, edging together against the tunnel wall to avoid the imaginary lizard corpse sprawled between them. They shook hands robustly, though Klystron had some reservations about being saved by a female dwarf.

  “Good going, guys!” shouted Lord Flail, overloading his mike.

  “Yeah. Way to go,” the White Priest added glumly.

  “Flail and Priest, give estimated distance from us.” Klystron was concerned; those two were the weakest members, even when they were together, and now that one monster had been noisily eliminated others were sure to converge on the area to clean up.

  “To be frank, I’m not sure,” answered the White Priest. “I kind of thought we’d be getting to an intersection near you by now, but apparently not. The layout of these tunnels isn’t what I saw on the Plex blueprints.”

  Klystron winced at this gross violation of game ethics and exchanged exasperated glances with Zippy. “You mean that the secret map you found was incorrect,” he said. “Well, don’t continue if you’re lost. We will proceed in the direction of the Sepulchre of Keldor and hope to meet you there.” He and Zippy plugged off down the tunnel.

  They wandered for ten minutes looking for one another, and every sixty seconds Liaison had them stop while Shekondar checked for prowling monsters. Shortly, Klystron overheard an exchange between the Priest and the Lord, who apparently had removed their masks to talk.

  “Take it easy! It doesn’t take very long, you know,” said the White Priest. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”

  “I don’t think we should separate. Your Holiness,” pleaded Lord Flail. “Not after a melee that’ll attract other monsters.”

  Klystron turned up the gain on his mike and shouted, “He’s right! Don’t split up,” in hopes that they would hear it without earphones.

  The Priest and Lord Flail conversed inaudibly for a few seconds. Then Flail came back on, having apparently replaced his mask. “Uh, this is to notify Shekondar that the White Priest has gone aside,” he said, using the code phrase for taking a leak. Klystron chuckled.

  A few seconds later came another prowling monster check. Everyone tensed and waited for Shekondar’s decree.

  “Okay,” said Liaison triumphantly, “we’ve got a monster. Lord Flail, now solo, is attacked by…giant sewer rats! There are twelve of them, and they take him by surprise.”

  “We’ll listen for his battle cry and try to locate him that way,” announced Klystron immediately, and pulled his headphones down to listen. Oddly, Flail had not responded.

  “Statement of intent! Move it!” snapped Consuela.

  But no statement of intent was forthcoming from Flail. Instead, a ghastly series of sound effects was transmitted through his mike. First came a whoosh of surprise, followed by a short pause, and some confused interjections. Then nothing was heard for a few seconds save ragged panting; and then came a long, loud scream which obliged them to turn down the volume. The screaming continued, swamping the others’ efforts to make themselves heard on the line.

  Finally Consuela’s voice came through, angry and hurt. “You’re jumping the gun. The melee hasn’t started yet.” But Lord Flail was no longer screaming, and the only sounds coming over his mike were an occasional scraping and shuffling mixed with odd squeals that might have been radio trouble.

  Klystron and Zippy, headphones down, could hear the screams echoing down the tunnel a second after they came in on the radio. Flail’s plan was clear; he was making a godawful lot of noise to assist the better fighters in tracking him down. A good plan for a character with a fighting level of three and a courage/psychostability index of only eight, but it was a little overdone.

  The odd noises continued for several minutes as they tramped toward the scene of the melee, which was in a higher tunnel with a much drier floor.

  Ahead of them, Flail’s headlamp cast an unmoving yellow blotch on the ceiling. On the fringes of that cone of light moved great swift shadows. Klystron slowed down and drew his sword. Zippy had dropped back several feet. “Making final approach to Flail’s location,” Klystron mumbled, edging forward, falling unconsciously into the squatting stance of the sabre fighter. At the end of his lamp’s beam he could see quickly moving gray and brown fur, and blood.

  “At your approach the rats get scared and flee,” said Consuela, frantically typing, “though not without persuasion.”

  He could see them clearly now. They were dogs, like German shepherds, though rather fat, and they had long, long bare tails. And round ears. And pointy quivering snouts. Oh, my God.

  Several scurried away, some stood their ground staring at his headlamp with beady black and red eyes, and one rushed him. Reacting frantically he split the top of its skull with a blow of the dull sword. The rest of the giant sewer rats turned and ran squealing down the tunnel. Lord Flail was not going anywhere, and what remained of him, as battlehardened as Klystron was, was too disgusting to look at.

  “You are too late,” said Consuela. “Lord Flail has been gnawed to death by the giant sewer rats.”

  “I know,” said Klystron. Hearing nothing from Zippy, he turned around to see her sitting there staring dumbly at the corpse. “Uh, request permission to temporarily leave character.”

  “Granted. What’s going on down there?”

  “Consuela, this is Fred. It’s Steve. Steven has been, uh, I supposed you could say, uh, eaten, by a bunch of…” Fred Fine stepped forward and swept his beam over the brained animal at his feet. “By giant sewer rats.”

  “Oh, golly!” said Zippy. “What about Virgil? He went off to go tinkle!”

  “Jeez,” said Fred Fine, and started looking around for footprints. “Liaison, White Priest is solo in unknown location.”

  The twelve giant sewer rats had run right past the White Priest and ignored him. He was standing with his chest waders around his thighs, relieving himself onto a decaying toilet paper core, when the mass of squealing rodent fervor had hurtled out of the fog, parted down the middle to pass aroung him, rejoined behind, their long tails lashing inquisitively around his knees, and shot onward toward their rendezvous with Lord Flail.

  He stood there almost absentmindedly and finished his task, staring into the swirling lights in front of his face, breathing deeply and thinking. Then the screaming started, and he pulled up his waders and got himself together, unslinging the Sceptre of Cosmic Force from its handy shoulder strap and brandishing it. Fred Fine and Consuela had insisted he bring along convincing props, so he had manufactured the Sceptre, an iron re-rod wrapped in aluminum foil, topped with a xenon flash tube in a massive glass ball that was wired to a power supply in the handle. When they had mustered for the expedition, he had switched off the lights and “convinced” them by turning it on and bouncing a few explosive purple flashes off their unprepared retinas. After he had explained the circuitry to Fred Fine, they entered character and descended a long spiral stair into the tunnels. In the ensuing three hours the White Priest had used the Sceptre of Cosmic Force to blind, disorient and paralyze three womp rats, a samurai, a balrog, Darth Vader and a Libyan hit squad.

  He began to slog back toward Steven, and the screaming ended. Either the rats had left or Steven was dead or someone had helped the poor bastard out. Tramping down the tunnel, his lamp beam bounding over the discarded feminine-hygiene products, condoms, shampoo-bottle lids and Twinkie wrappers, Virgil tried to decide whether this was really happening or was simply part of the game. The tunnels and the chanting of Consuela had made a few inroads on his sense of reality, and now he was not so sure he had seen those rats. The screams, however, had not sounded like the dramaturgical improvisations of an escapist Information Systems major.

 
; He stopped. The rats were coming back! He looked around for a ladder, or something to climb up on, but the walls of the tunnel were smooth and featureless. He turned and ran as quickly as he could in the heavy rubberized leggings, soon discarding the gas mask and headphones so he could take deep breaths of the fetid ammonia-ridden air.

  The rats were gaining on him. Virgil searched his memory, trying to visualize where this tunnel was and where it branched off; if he were right, there were no branches at all—it was a dead end. But the blueprints had been wrong before.

  A branch? He swept the left wall with his lamp, and discerned a dark patch ten paces ahead. He made for it. The rats were lunging for his ankles. He kept his left hand on the wall as he ran, flailing with the Sceptre in his right. Then his left hand abruptly felt air and he dove in that direction, tripping over his own feet and falling on his side within the branch tunnel.

  A rat was on top of him before he had come to rest, and he stood up wildly, using his body to throw the screaming beast against the wall. Grabbing the Sceptre in both hands he swung it like a scythe. Whatever else it was, it was first and foremost a rod with a heavy globe at one end, a fine mace.

  Virgil stood with his back to the wall, kicking alternately with his feet like a Crotobaltislavonian folk dancer to shake off the bites of the rats, lashing out with the Sceptre at the same time. He was then blinded as his hand touched the toggle switch that activated the powerful flasher at the end. He cringed and looked away, and at the same time the rats fell back squealing. He shook sweat and condensation from his eyes, snapped his wet hair back and waved the Sceptre around at arms’ length, surveying his opponents in the exploding light. They were gathered around him in a semicircle, about ten feet away, and with every flash their fur glistened for an instant and their eyeballs sparked like distant brakelights. They were hissing and muttering to one another now, their number constantly growing, watching with implacable hostility—but none dared approach.