Dr. Identity

by D. Harlan Wilson

  The pockets were extremely user-friendly. No sense of weight at all in my britches. The more I filled them up, in fact, the lighter they seemed to become. I started to feel like I might float away.

  I didn’t know how much time passed before it began. As little as fifteen seconds. As much as two minutes. Probably closer to fifteen seconds—any longer and a BEM would at least have us in its sights.

  One moment I was grabbing speculative weapons. The next I was the centerpiece in a montage of gore and ultraviolence.

  I blacked out…

  Dr. Identity told me about the skirmish later. We were sitting in a bratwurst bar, sipping cognac and eating pâté. “What do you remember?” it asked.

  “Nothing. Nothing.”

  “Nothing twice over. Hmm. Well. We looked good. Our disguises were state-of-the-art. But that didn’t stop the Babettas. Or the Bug-Eyed Monsters.”

  Not coincidentally, they looked exactly like aliens who belonged to the universe of pulp science fiction. Each BEM had been patterned after a creature illustrated on the cover of an early issue of Amazing Stories, a twentieth century pulp science fiction magazine whose founder and editor, Hugo Gernsback, had in recent years been retrospectively held accountable for the terminal depthlessness of the film industry. The bulk of the BEM’s body, of course, consisted of two gigantic, greasy eyes. Its other prominent features included shark’s teeth, long crablike pincers, and a scorpion’s tail fully loaded with venDom, a substance that, once injected, literally turned victims into commodities, rearranging their molecular structure so that they metabolically devolved into the product they had purchased most frequently at Littleoldladyville. Hilda Grumpstead was an avid reader of Amazing Stories as a little girl, even though the magazine had long been out of print, and this particular BEM terrified her. Hence she recruited it as her scarecrow and executioner.

  I would have never survived on my own.

  Dr. Identity told me how it played offense and defense for both of us. I stood there dumbly.

  The first BEM galloped towards me, snorting like a rhinoceros. Veins popped out of the great whites of its eyes. Its tail loomed above its grotesque head. The BEM’s stinger was a drooling vampire’s mouth complete with blood red lips and fangs.

  “You reminded me of a crash test dummy I once knew,” Dr. Identity remarked. “I’ve scarcely witnessed such passivity before in the line of fire, especially from a human. My my my.” It removed a bratwurst ball from the tower of hors d’oeuvres that a stickbot with a gondolier mustache set down in front of us. It examined the ball apprehensively…

  Dr. Identity took out the BEM, hacking off its tail with a swarm sword and then driving the blade between its eyes. The BEM’s body twitched as if electrocuted. The vampire mouth of its tail cursed in an extinct Romanian dialect.

  I stood there dumbly.

  The razorsharp spidersteel bees that constituted the swarm sword melted out of formation and, at Dr. Identity’s behest, projected towards two more attacking BEMs.

  Dr. Identity yanked a superchilled scythe out of its pocket. It leapt ten feet in the air and came down on another BEM like a sledgehammer, spearing it with the commanding fluidity of a matador. Dr. Identity became one with the alien—its arm, its shoulder, its cheek pressed against a clammy eye. The BEM froze from the inside out. Dr. Identity stomped on its head and shattered it. Adopting the full-fledged stance of a matador now, my ’gänger conjured a red cape and exhibited a series of graceful veronicas as BEMs charged us. He finished each of them off quickly and somewhat cleanly with a different brand of technosword, then pulled out a sawed off ray gun and incinerated an entire herd.

  “I must have taken out forty, fifty of those bastards,” Dr. Identity explained, half-drunk now from the cognac. “Then things really started to get hairy.”

  Melodrome played constantly in Littleoldladyville. Different departments featured different pieces. The sporting goods department, for instance, played instrumental renditions of old Boxcar Willie songs like “Mule Train” and “Polly Wolly Doodle,” whereas sleeker, neobourgeois renditions of more recent artists’ work piped into the hairware department. As it barraged consumers with a perpetual flow of subliminal messages encouraging them to shop with more and more gusto, Melodrome reflected the process of consumption. When mass shopping sprees broke out, it accelerated and became more strident, representing the mania of so many furious transactions taking place at once; when shopping droughts occurred, it flowed with turtlelike sluggishness.

  There were few if any transactions taking place in the speculative weapons department. For whatever reason, the Melodrome treated the brawl like a consumer’s apocalypse, mirroring the ebb and flow of the ultraviolence.

  Most of the shoppers in the aisle had fled. A few shoppers had been peripherally mauled by a BEM or Dr. Identity; incapacitated, they studied and clutched their wounds. All of the BEMs had been destroyed or rendered inoperable. A junkyard of machinery surrounded us.

  My idiocy knew no end. I continued to behave like a stone tablet, physically and psychologically. Despite myself, however, I was never in any real danger. Every BEM that locked on me was slain before its tail had the chance to sink its fangs into my flesh. I emerged without a scratch.

  Then the Babettas fell. The Melodrome surged as they rained from the labyrinthine electric sky of Littleoldladyville.

  There were hundreds of them. “Four hundred and forty-six,” Dr. Identity bragged.

  Somewhere in the neon maze of catwalks, spiral escalators, chutes and ladders above us must have been a storage facility. I had no idea so many Babettas even existed in one place.

  Regiment after regiment swan dove to the floor on bungee cords, then sprung backwards onto high heels and assumed various scikungfi stances. Accompanying the old bags were a few gangs of bounty hunters and professional vigilantes summoned by the fasttime imagery of the Papanazi to avenge and capitalize on the death of Voss Winkenweirder. So far only a handful of Papanazis loomed overhead. But that was enough. One would have been enough. They hung above us like light fixtures, suspended in the air by propeller beanies, filming the scene with their technologized gazes.

  Dr. Identity admitted to feeling momentarily overwhelmed. So much so that he punched me out and stuffed me into the hollowed out corpse of a BEM. “I’m sorry, friend. I concluded at that point that you were more of a burden than a boon. This had been the case all along, of course, but I didn’t want to injure your already ailing morale.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “Trust me. You didn’t want to have anything to do with consciousness. There were little old ladies running around on stilts for goddsakes. Stilts! I don’t like stilts. I harbor an irrational fear of them. And they serve no real purpose outside of a circus.” It set down the bratwurst ball it had been inspecting, picked up another one, and popped it into its mouth without hesitation.

  I finished my cognac and ordered a shot of tequila from a stickbot wearing an oversized beret that made it look more like a hat rack than an emaciated French waiter. “Tout suite!” it exclaimed. Another exclamation followed, this one from a man sitting at a nearby table who was apparently excited about using the restroom. “I can’t wait to get my ass on that toilet!” he told his wife-thing and hurried off.

  “I wish everybody would calm down,” I said disgustedly. “This fucking enthusiasm is killing me.”

  Dr. Identity shook its head. “A little enthusiasm never hurt anyone.” It scratched its chin. “Actually that’s not true. Enthusiasm is essentially a product of the adrenal glands, and adrenaline leads to all kinds of preposterous havoc. It makes sense. Adrenaline exists in the human body as a safeguard against dangerous phenomena, or rather what’s perceived to be dangerous phenomena. I lack the juice myself, but then again I don’t need it, do I. In any event, those Babettas were ‘on the rag,’ as it were. The only weapons they used were their claws and the occasional set of brass knuckles. Had I been of lesser mettle, they would have trounced me. But I
made quick work of them. I made quick work of all our attackers, especially the Papanazis. All this in spite of your initial skepticism. I don’t know why you continue to doubt my skills: you programmed me. It’s not my fault you programmed me to be the physical, intellectual and ideological superhero you’ve wanted to be since you read your first comic book. You should have seen the mess I left behind. Littleoldladyville was a steaming landfill of carcasses and car parts when we jetpacked out of there. But we made it, and with plenty of booty, I might add. We have enough designer disguises to last more than a few lifetimes, not to mention the refrigerators full of food and drink that Jean-Claude Baudelaire Hillary Wapakoneta de la Footwa permitted us to stash away. It certainly is fun to be an übermensch. You should try it sometime.”

  Ignoring Dr. Identity’s ever-increasing megalomania, I said, “Women that old can’t menstruate. Most women go through menopause in their seventies or eighties. Babettas were patterned after a 140-year-old woman.”

  Dr. Identity’s facemask altered slightly when he frowned—a mustache popped onto his overlip and his chin sharpened. “I don’t understand.”

  “The Babettas couldn’t have been ‘on the rag,’ as you say, because they’re too goddamn old.”

  “But they’re machines.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I still don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand why you still don’t understand. ‘On the rag’ is an improper use of language. The colloquialism doesn’t function in the context you use it in.”

  “It’s just an expression. What does context have to do with an expression’s metaphorical impact?”

  “Jesus. Forget it.” But I couldn’t let it go. “Look. What I’m saying is—“

  The distant, familiar bark of DNA hounds interrupted me. The bratwurst bar was located on the 12,302½th floor of an anonymous spacescraper that stood on the outer limits of one of Bliptown’s many French-Canadian quarters. The sky outside the futique Venetian windows of the bar grew darker as the barking grew louder and patrons glanced querulously over their shoulders.

  “Cunt on a stick. We have to get our DNA reconfigured.” I stood and wiped my mouth. “I’m tired of running around like a couple of assholes.”

  Dr. Identity smiled politely at a patron who looked in our direction. “Don’t be silly. There’s only one asshole in this relationship.” It stood up and rearranged its cuff links and ear lobes. “Just kidding. Anyway I’m enjoying the challenge of being on the lam. Actually it’s not much of a challenge. But it’s interesting. It’s certainly more interesting than trying to teach student-things how to read and not act like amoebas. In spite of your nagging moral conundrum, you must admit this simplistic truth.”

  “No more holocausts,” I said, pointing at Dr. Identity with an admonitory finger. “Ultraviolence is for the weak.”

  “Not if you commit it with flair. Not if you turn it into poetry. That’s the nature of the future.”

  “Poetry died with the modernists. T.S. Eliot was the last real poet.”

  “I agree!” said the man sitting next to us to his wife-thing after a period of intense deliberation. He wasn’t talking about my assertion. He was talking about the taste of a lemon cookie, which the wife-thing had casually remarked was delicious.

  Dr. Identity pressed a sensor in the middle of its chest. A streamlined, platinum-plated, single-engine jet unfolded out of the crease in the back of its Beethoven blazer. Barely visible, the machine was the most expensive, efficient model on the market: the Bobafett 4001. It would very likely remain the most expensive, efficient model for another two, possibly three weeks, an unheard of length of time in Type 1 countries. “Nobody’s going to die today,” Dr. Identity announced so that the entire bratwurst bar could hear. Its facemask was sentient and telepathic. It told the facemask to take the form of its actual visage. “That’s a promise from me, Dr. Identity, to all of you.”

  “Shit.” I fired up my own Bobafett 4001. “Get rid of your face, goddamn you.” I could see the DNA hounds outside the window now. They were reconstructions of the mythological Cerberus with the exceptions of caricatured human noses and vast pterodactyl wings. They flapped towards the bar at ramming speed.

  On our way out, the ’gänger of a fan asked Dr. Identity for its autograph, pulling out a synthetic triple-D breast and handing it a needle. Dr. Identity’s pupils morphed into stiff exclamation points as it inscribed its name in an impeccable cursive font around a perfectly circular, perfectly hard nipple.

  The ’gänger’s owner, in turn, asked for my autograph, assuming I was Dr. Identity’s sidekick regardless of my facemask. I didn’t know what made me refuse her more: Time’s winged chariot hurrying near, my merciless inability to remember my real name, or the fact that she handed me a pen and paper.

  08

  THE WIFE-THING & OTHER MINUTIA – 3RD PERSON

  On a skyscreen situated between the Slipslide Interpass and the Rigor Mortis Flyway, a commercial for a new and improved brand of prosthetic genitals dissolved into the digitized headshot of Anchorman Dominique Erstwhile. His face was a great white smile atop which sat two grafted lobster eyeballs and a sculpted Yabbadabba hairdo.

  “Plaquedemics!” he exclaimed. The camera cut to an enormous amphitheater full of movie-goers who responded to the exclamation with a communal tsunamic shriek…

  The camera cut back to Anchorman Erstwhile. “Good morning, citizens,” he intoned in a flawlessly articulated, freakishly resonant monotone. “The doctors have struck again. The havoc they have wreaked over the past few hours has been monstrous, devastating, evil, and downright unsportsmanlike. What kind of fucking shitheads are these assholes? FOXXX Channel 7,934 Newsman Bing Dingaling is at the home of Dr. ——— and his wife-thing to field this very question. Bing?”

  Traffic near the skyscreen screeched to an impossible halt and hovered silently in the flyways…

  Wide view of a fat, plaid loveseat positioned in front of a kitchenette. Out-of-date wallpaper. Pastiche of miniature cabinets and appliances…Police Pigs rummaged through the cabinets with razorsnouts, throwing cups and plates and silverware over their shoulders. Their projectile eyes were the objective lenses of high-powered microscopes. Two Pigs tore off a refrigerator door and leapt inside. Another Pig sat on the couch next to Dr. ———’s wife-thing. Her hair was an abandoned bird’s nest. Dried tributaries of mascara described her sallow cheeks. A tattered Billingsley dress hung over her undernourished although not ill-built frame.

  The Pig perched on the loveseat like a little boy in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, its rear hooves barely hanging over the edge while one of its frontal hooves crept up the wife-thing’s thigh.

  As the hoof neared its mark, the Pig turned to the wife-thing and asked her a series of rapidfire questions in Squealspeak.

  She stared into the camera with her mouth half open.

  Newsman Dingaling’s head rose onto the skyscreen, blocking the action behind it.

  “Thank you, Dominique,” said the head. It was a smooth, square head that looked sculpted out of clay. The skin was bronze and moisturized. Matching dimples had been implanted into the tip of the chin and nose. Wingtip Wizard-of-Oz eyebrows had been grafted onto the forehead. “I’m here at the cubapt of Dr. ———, villain, fiend, homewrecker, and, as Dominique so accurately put it, fucking shithead. The plaquedemic and his ’gänger have been at large since this morning’s preliminary holocaust at Corndog University. At the moment they have perpetrated twelve additional holocausts, one of which involved the tragic death of Voss Winkenweirder. The loss of this national icon has incited virtually every destructive emotion in the collective consciousness of the science fictionalized world.”

  A montage of clips from Voss Winkenweirder’s ultraviolent scikungfi films flashed across the skyscreen.

  “Winkenweirder’s ’gänger, Victor Bleep, is reported to have mortally short-circuited upon hearing news of the celebrity’s death. No news as of yet when, if e
ver, it will be able to resume the shooting of the late great movie star’s current project, Finger Lickin’ Fürher, based on the dream life of the rapper of the same name.”

  A medley of Squealspeak blasphemes exploded behind Bing Dingaling. His head rotated 180 degrees as if on a turntable. Meticulously shaved into the back of his Hangman hairdo was an advertisement for a new brand of designer nostrils. The advertisement promised an inconceivable sniffing experience.

  Dingaling sized up the commotion and his head rotated back into place. One lip corner curled up as if yanked by a fish hook. “The motive for these seemingly random acts of ultraviolence is still unclear, but the Papanazi is on the case, and in due course the truth will inevitably be uncovered and revealed. Whatever the truth turns out to be, however, experts agree that there is simply no excuse for these repeated public displays of yobbery. I’m here at Dr. ———’s residence in an attempt to get a better sense of what makes this satanic plaquedemic and his mechanical henchman tick.”

  Boggle-eyed, Dingaling stepped back from the camera, exposing the cubapt again. The Pigs had gone. Dr. ———’s wife-thing lay spread out on the couch. One of her breasts hung free. Her mouth was a twisted hole. A family of cybernetic flies circled her.

  The newsman told her to put her breast away and scoot over. She didn’t hear him. He pardoned himself, took hold of the breast, squeezed and tested its resilience, smirked at the camera, returned the breast to its casing, pushed the wife-thing’s body to one side of the couch, and sat down next to her.

  He smirked at the camera again. “Good afternoon, Mrs. ———. Thank you for taking the time to meet with us. That’s a lovely dress you’re wearing. Is it edible? I’m tempted to make a meal out of it.” He tipped a microphone shaped like a dildo to her mouth.

  The wife-thing blinked.

  “Well then,” said Dingaling, “I’ll get right to the dirty little point. What can you tell us about that son of a bitch husband of yours? Why is he acting like such a bastard? What can you tell us about his ’gänger, Dr. Identity? Did Dr. ——— consciously program a mass murderer? Have you ever even met Dr. Identity? How many times a week do you have sex with your husband? What is his favorite position? How long is his penis? Is Dr. Identity equipped with a penis? If so, is it operational? Were you having an affair with your husband’s ’gänger? Do you have a ’gänger? If so, does it have nipples and a vagina? Are you a hermaphrodite? What are you hiding? Have you ever eaten poi? Do you have any illicit piercings, tattoos, or prosthetics? Have you ever used the word usufruct in casual conversation? Do you shave your pubic hair into funny shapes? Do you think plaquedemia has any use-value whatsoever? Are you proud to be the wife-thing of a wanted plaquedemic? Would you allow me to French kiss you if I asked politely? Tell us, Mrs. ———, why are you being so difficult? Why are you so reticent to discuss the lives of two criminals who are clearly possessed by the Devil?”