Spaceland

by Rudy Rucker

  She had her hand back inside my stomach again. I had no choice but to stand and listen.

  “You’re bewildered,” said Momo. “Try to understand that I didn’t dematerialize your wall. I lifted you over it—lifted you in your voutwards direction, that is. More precisely, I rotated you, lifted you, and carried you to the park, all the while pressing in upon your sides lest your innards should spill out. And then I rotated you back and laid you down again in Spaceland. Didn’t things look odd to you while we were in progress?”

  “Like outlines,” I said grudgingly.

  “You were seeing a cross section of your world,” said Momo. “As would the flat gingerbread man looking at his plane from outside it. You must revolve these matters in your intellect until you understand them. Analogies are most useful. Four is to three as three is to two. A flat man would have a small, line-like retina at the back of his eye. If you lifted him up from his plane and turned him to look down upon his world, he would see only along the line where the extended plane of his body crosses the plane of his world. A cross section.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “For the flat man to see properly in three dimensions, he must grow a three-dimensional eye, an eye with a disk-like retina. For you to see properly in the four-dimensional All, you need a four-dimensional eye with a ball-like retina. A third eye! You’ll have subtle vision. It’s part of the augmentation, Joe. A third eye and higher skin.”

  She released her hand from my stomach then. I seized the moment and took off running across the field in the direction of my house. I didn’t hear or see Momo following me, and for a moment I thought I was free. But then something hit me—a great gush of liquid coming at me from every side. It filled my mouth and nose and lungs, warm and tasting of bitter salt.

  At the same time I felt a staggering pain in the center of my head, something like an electrical shock, powerful enough to knock me flat on the ground. The electrical energy kept on coursing through the salty liquid all around me, spreading out from my head to the rest of my body.

  I lay there twitching, desperate for air. The liquid in my lungs was drowning me. With a supreme effort, I coughed it out and began to breathe.

  As I gasped down air, the electrical tingling continued. My brain felt like there was something writhing around inside it. An uncoiling snake. It was a terrible sensation. I forced myself up onto all fours, trying to find my voice for a scream.

  A second wave of pain hit me, this time all over my body, spreading into my skin, my muscles, my organs, my joints and my bones. A crawling sensation in every part of me, as if I’d been infested by a billion flesh-eating worms. The crawling reached a fever pitch and then diminished, replaced by a faint itch.

  And then something poked me in the side, sharp as a commandant’s jackboot kicking a prisoner of war. Momo? I thought I saw her hovering somewhere nearby. I felt in control of my muscles again. Full of adrenaline, I jumped to my feet and ran for home, the night air cold on my wet hair. I was running faster than I’d ver run before in my life, yet I didn’t feel out of control. My arms and legs were wonderfully powerful.

  I cut between two blocks of houses to get to Silva View Crescent. My footsteps pounded across the asphalt. I grabbed the doorknob of our townhouse and rattled the flimsy metal. Locked. I pounded on the door so hard that I made a dent in it. Take it easy, Joe. I looked behind me. It was strange—in one way I thought I could see a ghost of Momo, yet in another way it looked as if our street was empty. I knocked again, not quite as hard as before.

  “Come on, Jena,” I murmured. “Please let me in.”

  And now, as I stared at the door and thought about Jena, I realized I could see the inside of my house. I had a third eye sticking up into the fourth dimension.

  This is hard to describe. I knew our little townhouse really well, of course. We’d been in there for almost four months. I carried a full mental image of it in my head. The difference was that now all of a sudden I was seeing the image in real time. I could see Jena stirring in our bed.

  Let me back up and try to explain this better. You can always visualize the place where you live—the rooms, the furniture, the stuff in the drawers. You know where everything is and you know what everything looks like. You don’t normally visualize your house from any particular point of view. It’s not like imagining a picture or even like imagining a whole bunch of pictures. You know where everything is in relationship to everything else and you know what everything looks like from every side. You know your house from the inside out. If you want to imagine it from any particular direction you can immediately do that. You know your house like your own body.

  And now, staring at our door and wondering if Jena had heard me, I was seeing a total image of our house—and not just as some stored-memory mental database, no, I was seeing the real thing. The total contents of my house with real-time updates, everything at once, seen from any angle or viewpoint I liked. This was what Momo meant by subtle vision. I saw Jena sit up and feel around and say something, and then, as I knocked again, I saw her stand up and rub her face and walk to the door.

  “It’s me, Jena,” I said. “Let me in.” My voice sounded the same as before. I used my regular eyes to glance all around the front stoop and sidewalk. A puddle of liquid had dripped off me. I didn’t see any Momo in the real world, but somehow my third eye could see her watching me from hyperspace. She was sitting on a little metal dish, a miniature flying saucer. Hopefully she was done with me for now. I’d definitely been augmented.

  “What are you doing, Joe?” slurred Jena, her narrow eyes squinting in the light. “You’re all wet.” My subtle vision made her look funny. It was like I could see the flesh and blood beneath her skin. But it wasn’t horrific, it was more like I was experiencing her body from the inside. A deeper form of reading someone’s mood from the expression on their face. I could sense Jena’s headache, her need to pee and brush her teeth.

  I didn’t know where to begin to explain. “I locked myself out,” was all I said. “I’m sorry. Let’s get in bed.” My number one priority was to fall asleep and wake up and have all of this crazy stuff be gone like some weird dream.

  I threw my soaked clothes in the washer and dried myself with a towel. Jena used the bathroom, and when she came back out, she snuggled tight against me. With my subtle vision, our bodies felt at one, the way they did when we made love. But even though I could feel every bit of Jena’s body, I couldn’t read her mind.

  She reached around and touched me. “I love you, Joe,” she murmured.

  It didn’t take telepathy to know that it was time to make love. But I wasn’t up for it. I ached all over and Jena was still drunk. She caressed me a bit more, but nothing happened.

  “Are you mad at me?” whispered Jena.

  “I don’t feel right,” I said, rolling away from her.

  “Jerk.”

  I put my head under my pillow and fell asleep.

  3

  Momo’s Cross Sections

  Jena approached me again in the morning, but again I put her off. I don’t know why. I guess I felt I needed some quiet time to process what had happened to me. In any case, Jena got really huffy. She thought I was freezing her out, as I sometimes did.

  While Jena was in the shower I took stock of myself. My third eye was on a slender stalk about four inches long, sticking vout of the center of my head. If I turned my third eye vinn towards our world, I could look at where my eyestalk met my higher skin—a sheet of skin and muscle that closed my innards off from the fourth dimension. It was really true.

  Though my third eye could see its stalk, it couldn’t see itself, so I couldn’t judge how big the eye was. Maybe quite small, like a lobster’s eye. Jena couldn’t see the third eye and it wouldn’t show up in any normal mirror either, because the stalk to my third eye led vout of our Spaceland into the fourth dimension.

  I used my new eye’s subtle vision to take in my surroundings. As I moved my mental
viewpoint around within the image, I could see Jena soaping herself, see the dishes in our sink, see the yellow grass outside and even the cars droning past on Route 85. A Volvo, a Ford, a Toyota, a Lexus, a VW, another Volvo … I snapped out of watching traffic and thought some more about how I was seeing all this. It was like my third eye held a copy of the world that I could study from any side I chose.

  I went into the kitchen and started the coffee. Jena liked her morning coffee; this was a special grind from the Los Perros Coffee Roasting coffee shop. Maybe it would help get us back into a friendly mood.

  My arms had an extra powerful feel to them. Presumably that sheet of muscle under my higher skin was helping me. I went over to my barbells in the corner and hefted them. And, yes, I was a little stronger than before.

  I was still playing with looking at things in different ways with my third eye. When I turned it vinn towards our world it formed a complete view of everything, inside and out. I could contemplate my third eye’s image from any location or direction I chose, and by controlling my viewpoint in some ill-defined way I could even see inside things.

  I could see the sand inside the plastic disks of my barbells. I could see the bottom of the chair I was sitting on. But, again, when I turned my third eye upon my own body, I didn’t see inside it at all. Instead I saw my higher skin.

  I heard a noise behind me and, without turning around, I used my third eye to see Jena walking across the room towards me. She looked pale, tense and unhappy. She was wearing her robe with nothing under it. I adjusted my third eye’s viewpoint so that I was seeing her skin but not her internal organs.

  “So how’s your big Y2K bug, Joe?” said Jena.

  I hadn’t thought about it yet today. “Why don’t you turn on the TV,” I suggested.

  “I can’t,” said Jena. “Not with your stupid fish-tank thing attached to the cable.”

  The 3Set. Momo had said that’s what had gotten her attention in the first place. “I’ll unhook it,” I said. “I’ll take it back to Ken com.”

  “Oh great. And leave me alone on New Year’s Day?” Jena sighed and rubbed her temples.

  “You can come, too,” I suggested. “We’ll drop off the 3Set and get brunch somewhere. There’s a good sports bar near Kencom. We could watch the Rose Bowl.”

  “I’m hungry right now,” said Jena. “Starving for food and for love.”

  “Aw, Jena.” I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. She felt warm and soft in my arms. “I’m not myself today. Something weird happened last night.”

  “Are you mad because I puked?” A penetrating look from her narrow, hazel eyes.

  “That’s not it at all. The bar was fine. We had a good time. But last night, after you fell asleep I saw this, this—”

  “Porno site on the Web?” She shoved me away and glared at me, her eyes squeezing down to slits. “Are you doing that again? Is that why you’re giving me the cold shoulder? Just you and your little mousie and no real women needed?”

  “Jesus, Jena, are you out of your mind? I saw an alien last night. That’s what happened. Momo from the fourth dimension. She augmented me and now I can see through walls. I have a third eye.”

  Jena regarded me for a minute, then shook her head. Input rejected. “What were you doing outside last night, anyway? Was it raining?”

  “Momo took me there. She carried me through the wall.”

  “Did she give you sex?” said Jena, beginning to be amused. She got a wallop out of science fiction. “That’s what aliens usually do. Gathering the seed of Planet Earth.”

  “She augmented me,” I said. “Not up and down but some other way. She made me grow a new eye on a stalk into the fourth dimension. And now I can see past walls. I have subtle vision.”

  “Did you watch me in the shower?” Jena cheeks were shading back up to their normal shade of pink.

  “Yes. A little. And then I started looking at the cars on 85.”

  “Typical. I don’t know why I married you. Looking at cars. You should have been watching what I did at the end of my shower.” Jena walked past me to the kitchen counter and got some coffee.

  “You think I’m kidding, but subtle vision is real,” I said, getting a coffee too. “I need your help with this, Jena.” I glanced over at the fridge. “I can see inside the freezer,” I told her. “There’s a pack of Lender’s raisin bagels right beside the door.”

  “Whoo-hoo,” said Jena. “I subtly see a can of orange juice in there, too. You want some?”

  “Sure. Wait a minute while I think about how to convince you.”

  Jena opened the freezer, got out the juice, handed me the bagels. “Toast me one,” she said. “You think Spazz will be at Kencom?”

  “Probably. He’s there all the time.” I glanced over at Jena’s purse on the counter. A full image of it formed inside my mind. It was more like knowing than it was like seeing. Knowing exactly where everything was. “There’s two quarters and a penny inside your wallet’s change purse.”

  “I wonder if the ATMs will be working today,” said Jena, scooping the frozen juice into a pitcher.

  “Look in your wallet, Jena. See that I’m right.”

  “How do I know you didn’t already look at it?” said Jena, turning playful. “Let’s try something harder.” She added water to the pitcher, mixed up the juice, drank off a glass of it, wiped her hands on a dishtowel. She walked over to the other end of the counter. “Turn your back, Joe.”

  I obliged, but of course I could see her just as well as before. She picked up a pencil and a pad of paper, wrote on the top piece of paper, tore it off, folded it in four and dropped it into the pocket of her robe.

  “Okay, Joe, you can turn back around. What did I just do?” She cocked her head and smiled, waiting for my answer.

  “You wrote ‘Love Me’ on that piece of paper in your left pocket.”

  Her jaw dropped. And then finally we had sex. It should have been great—our first love-making of the Millennium—but it was only so-so. I was only just beginning to learn how to control my subtle vision. I kept getting distracted by all the things I saw around me, such as the neighbors and Jena’s wet, red innards. I wasn’t at all sure that subtle vision was really going to make me a better lover. And I still had the feeling of being stronger and more massive than before. I was almost worried that I’d hurt Jena, and it made me a little tentative. But she seemed to think I felt the same as ever. The equipment worked. We finished.

  “When I wrote on the paper in the kitchen, you saw me reflected in the window, didn’t you?” said Jena, smiling up at me with her hazel eyes wide open. “Subtle vision indeed.”

  “I’m telling you, Jena, it’s really true. I can see right into your womb.”

  “Oh no! I forgot! I haven’t been able to take my pill all week. People were stockpiling them because of Y2K and the drugstore ran out.”

  “What if we did have a baby?” I said idly, still lying on top of her.

  She pushed me off. “If you knock me up, I’ll kill you, Joe. I’m not ready to turn breeder for a long, loong time.” Jena ran into the bathroom to take precautions. I turned my attention elsewhere. The neighbor’s kitchen was right on the other side of the wall by the head of our bed. A fat guy called Dixon. He was sitting at the table peacefully studying the inner pages of his newspaper. It wasn’t much effort for me to read his front page.

  “No Y2K problems at all,” I called to Jena.

  “How do you know?” she said, stepping out of the bathroom. She was nibbling on one of her fingernails while she talked to me. The thought of getting pregnant always made her uptight.

  “I’m reading Dixon’s paper.” I hooked my thumb at the wall.

  Jena got a sudden gleam in her eye. “Cards!” she said. “can you read cards, Joe? Wait.” She rooted around in one of the suitcases she used for a dresser and came up with a deck of cards.

  We sat there cross-legged on the bed, naked and facing each other. One by one I told Jena the top card on
the deck and she flipped it over. I was always right.

  Jena began whooping and laughing. “Subtle vision! Let’s drive to Tahoe. Joe! You can break the bank at blackjack. We’ll take down Nero’s Empire. That particular casino’s on my hit list. They lobby like hell against Indian Gaming. We’ll make a million and then we’ll go skiing.”

  “I’ve never played blackjack. I don’t know the rules. The gangsters will beat me up.” And then I saw the look on her face, and I caught myself, realizing what a fuddy-duddy I sounded like. Sure I could do it. If Jena believed in me, I could do anything. “Reset. Actually, Tahoe sounds like a pretty good idea. Can you teach me about blackjack?”

  We had a little more breakfast in our robes, and then Jena gave me a blackjack lesson. She was interested in gambling. During her summers in high school and college, she’d worked as a bingo caller at the Yavapi-run Chucky’s Casino near her home town of Prescott. Thanks to Jena’s father having been a Yavapi Indian, Jena had plenty of contacts at Chucky’s, not that Jena had had all that much to do with Native American culture growing up. Her mother and stepfather tried to raise her Norwegian. There were a lot of Norwegians around Prescott.

  Jena’s mother Jean was this very buttoned-up country woman who’d inherited the family ranch outside of Prescott from her Norwegian widower father. Jena’s mother was an only child, and she’d never seen life as any kind of laughing matter at all. I always thought of old Jean when I heard Garrison Keillor talking about Lake Woebegone. According to Jena, Jean had been a virgin till she turned thirty, at which point she’d had a brief fling with a cowboy who worked on her ranch. This had been Jena’s father Sonny. Sonny had died in a motorcycle crash before Jena was born, but thanks to Sonny, mother Jean had finally gotten the hang of being with men, and she married a Norwegian insurance salesman named Oley. Jena’s stepfather. He looked like a long, slimy piece of white fish—like this one particular kind of preserved fish that Norwegians ate. Yeah, Oley was six feet of lutefisk. And a drunk as well.