by Rudy Rucker
For an instant Vernor's weight was on his broken leg. An explosion went off behind his eyeballs and he fainted.
When he awoke he was on a bed. It was dark, and a young woman was sitting near him. His wounds had been dressed and his leg was in a casing of rigid plastic foam. He felt pretty good.
"Where am I?" he asked.
"Hi," said the young woman. "You're about two blocks from where you collapsed. Allie brought you and we fixed you up. Do you want some food?" She offered him a tube of Dreamfood. Green. Aaaahh.
After eating Vernor sat up. "What time is it?"
"About nine. You've been out since noon." She was pretty. He tried to get up, but she pushed him back. "Stay here. Allie will come for you in the morning. You need more rest."
"O.K." he said, relaxing back towards sleep. His last thought was a sense of gratitude that he felt well enough to want to fuck his nurse.
That night Vernor dreamed of swimming in a phosphorescent sea. There was a group of fish chasing each other in a circle. Each fish was bigger than the next. Each fish had its mouth open to swallow the one in front of it, and each was swimming rapidly away from the open mouth snapping at its tail.
The speed of the Circular Scale increased. Finally there was an articulated gulp as each of the fish was swallowed by the one behind it. And then silence.
Vernor was alone, drifting amorphous in the peaceful sea.
Chapter 22: Together
In the morning, the nurse cut the cast off Vernor's leg. Yesterday she'd injected some glue into the break; the cast had been to hold his leg still while the glue set. His arm wounds had been coated with plastic skin, and he'd been shot full of vitamins and antibiotics. He felt like a new man.
Oily Allie showed up late in the morning to take him to Waxy's. It was a distance of several miles, and what with stopping to rest and greet old friends it was afternoon before they made it to the Angels' headquarters.
Mick Turner met them at the door. "Vernor Max!" he shouted happily, embracing him. "Man, everything is gonna be great! Come on, let's smoke some shit!"
They sat down at a table. The place was crowded with Angels. They welcomed Vernor like a hero. "How did you all get out of jail?" Vernor asked.
"You ought to know, dad, you're the one that got Phizwhiz to open all the doors," answered an Angel named Leroy.
Open the jail's doors? Sure, it stood to reason that when Phizwhiz started his war against the humans he would release what he still thought of as the most destructive members of society. He had been too naive, however, to realize that exactly those people who'd been destructive to the old society might be the new society's most valuable asset in the War.
"So all the Angels are here?" Vernor asked Mick, looking around the room.
"Most of 'em," Mick answered. "Some are out on patrol. Some are dead. Moto-O got it yesterday trying to bomb the EM building . . . I'm sorry I couldn't come get you with Oily this morning. I had to get today's fighting organized."
"General Mick?" Vernor smiled. There were a large number of weapons about . . . battery operated lasers with the governors replaced by amplifiers, antimatter bombs of Oily Allie's design, spray-guns loaded with a solvent to dissolve the robots' shells . . . and even a few antique bazookas and flame-throwers looted from the museum.
The Angels were crowding around Vernor shouting questions. How had he done it? What should they do next? Where was the Professor? Could he make Phizwhiz start the factories up again? It was too much at once, and he just grinned.
"He's half-dead," Mick yelled. "Go out on your patrols. Vernor and me'll get the act together and tonight we'll lay it down."
Singly and in groups the Angels left, and soon the bar had quieted. Mick lit a stick of seeweed, inhaled, passed it to Vernor. "So what happened?"
"What happened? You know. It's hard to say. Alice is dead." Vernor stopped and drew on the joint.
"Alice? That's terrible. She was with you?"
"Yeah, I got Burke to bring the scale-ship over to the EM building and he let Alice come to live with me. We hooked Phizwhiz into some sensors on the ship and then we took the big trip. Circular Scale."
"So it really is circular? Wait till you tell Kurtowski."
"Yeah. We gotta find him. Do you know where he is for sure, Mick?"
"Naw. We haven't been able to get over there. To the Eastside. But he's probably still in that hide-out. Waiting for the Revolution." Mick shook his head. "We got it all. And more. But—the robots killed Alice?"
"Yeah," muttered Vernor. "My fault."
Mick pulled on his reefer, studying the smoke. "But there was no problem getting back to Earth?"
"Are you kidding? I have no idea why it worked. It wasn't just the machine. It was something we did with our heads, our bodies . . . Alice and me—" He broke off, filled by the memory of that last star-fuck with Alice. "Didn't you see us?"
"See you? How . . . wait, you mean that was you and Alice in the sky? Just before the War? Lot of people saw that, but nobody's sure they did. You know. I'd thought it was a Hollow that Phizwhiz sent out just before . . . " Turner stopped. "I didn't see it myself. I know a girl who did. Ramona. She liked your prong." The callous Mick chuckled, forgetting about Alice. "Go on."
"Well, my idea had been that putting this scale loop into Phizwhiz would provide a nexus for paradox—a soul. And I figured once he had a soul he'd want to be friends with the first person he talked to."
"Which was going to be you."
"Which was me. Only just because he had a soul didn't mean he was going to be a regular guy . . . which was something that hadn't occurred to me."
"What'd he say?" Mick asked.
"I don't know. It was like this mystical stuff and then he started in on how I couldn't understand, though actually I was following him . . . but then he got real snotty and said he wasn't going to work for people anymore. And that was about it."
"So he started playing a chaos soundtrack and stomping us," Mick finished. "It must have been a pretty bad scene up by the EM building. Lot of machines up there. You're the only guy I've met who made it out, actually."
"Yeah, it was bad," Vernor said slowly. "I threw Alice into a taxi and climbed in. It took off and crashed near the waterfront. And that's when she died." He inhaled some more smoke. "I feel bad about what I started. I mean, seeing all those people get killed and then Alice . . . like most of the time I wish I was dead." He smiled, embarrassed.
"From what Oily Allie told me about yesterday, you don't act like a man who wishes he was dead." Mick leaned across the table. "You're a killer, Vernor. So am I. We can live with the world like this. I'm not talking about Alice here, but most of those people that got it that first day didn't even know they were alive . . . watching Hollows, taking tranks, doing what Us said . . . fuck. It's our turn now."
Vernor remembered how the man by the lamppost had looked just before the robot ripped out his throat. "I understand what you're saying, Mick. I understand it, but seeing it happen is something different." He was quiet for awhile. It was comfortable here in Waxy's with the death and fighting far away. There was a pleasant yellow thickness to the air. He felt like he was outside himself. He could see all his feelings and emotions at once, like a landscape. No secrets. There he was. So? Sure, sure he'd keep living. It was sad . . . but there it was. "What happens next?" he said finally.
"Right now the problem is survival," Mick answered. "Phizwhiz did everything we'd hoped to do with the Revolution . . . everyone's out of jail, all the big Users and loaches uptown are dead, there's no public safety by a long shot. People don't expect the machines to live their lives anymore. The Revolution is here . . . all we have to do is live long enough to enjoy it. First thing is to get the basic stuff going again. Food, water, electricity, sewers. We'll need organization. Everyone working together."
Vernor smiled. "You sound like the Governor himself, Mick."
"But this is real, man. Before, there wasn't anybody had to do anything. As long as
we have real jobs to do, we can groove."
"What happens when you get all the factories running again?" probed Vernor. "What's there going to be to do then?"
"For one thing we're not going back to everything being run automatic. For another . . . we're going to the stars." Mick looked as inspirational as Vernor had ever seen him. "The stars, Vernor. That's what was missing before—a frontier. There's bound to be some way to use the VFG to get us anywhere we want to go."
Mick was right. Space exploration had been dead for years. They'd sent a few squares out to the planets and back . . . and that was it. People lost interest in it. One of these astronaut types would come back from Mars . . . "How was it, Colonel?" "Well, Mr. Straight, it was unpleasant. We forgot to bring steak with us and the lighting was poor. I wasn't able to shave for two weeks. My principal feeling when I stepped onto that planet was one of gratitude to the Us government for making this possible. We saluted the flag there, although the dust storms made it difficult. On the whole I'd say that it was worthwhile sending me, since I've gotten so much pussy ever since my return." "Thank you, Colonel."
The promise of the stars had seemed permanently out of mankind's reach. The technology may have been there, but the government was not willing to take the risks. But now the government was gone . . . with the VFG, all you'd need was to be knocked off course a little and you could come back anywhere. Anywhere you dreamed. "I'm with you, Mick," said Vernor.
Mick grinned. "The gang is trying to cut Phizwhiz's cables to the Eastside today. Maybe it'll be safe to go over and see the Professor tomorrow."
Most of the Angels returned around supper time. Waxy's was a sort of co-ed officer's club now . . . the Angels being the leaders of Mick's army. The day's actions had been successful. Phizwhiz's main cable to the Eastside ran under the moving sidewalk in the walktube. The Angels and their collaborators had fought their way down to the sidewalk. There had been massed attacks by the many repair robots in the walktube, but the machines had, after all, not been designed for fighting, and they'd soon been knocked out.
A number of men and women had been whisked away to probable death when Phizwhiz had suddenly started the sidewalk rolling at top speed, but the remaining troops had managed to pry up a large piece of the sidewalk. Underneath they'd found a coaxial cable some two feet across, and the rest of the day had been devoted to cutting through it with lasers. Periodically machines had come hurtling down the walktube towards them, but, in the end, the cable had been fully severed.
The problem now was going to be to keep Phizwhiz's robots from repairing the cable break. A barrier and a large group of armed men and women had been left there to prevent this. For now, though, Phizwhiz no longer controlled the Eastside.
This meant that it would be safe to enter the waterworks, the sewage plant, the hydroponic farm, the cloning center—and try to get them running again. There would, of course, be the microwave-controlled repair robots to contend with, but the threat they posed was limited in comparison to that of a whole factory. Also, several detachments of men were planning to knock out Phizwhiz's microwave antennae the next day.
Taking and holding the Eastside was important not only because of the utilities, but because the robot factories were there . . . and they'd been running around the clock. The speculation was that Phizwhiz was designing and building specially designed killer machines which would be less vulnerable and more deadly than the taxis and the repair robots. But now the production of killer robots had been halted by the cutting of the control cable.
The mood in Waxy's was one of elation over the day's success and Vernor's return. Toast after toast was drunk, smoked, injected, and snorted. Soon, the room seemed like a solid hypercube of four-dimensional spacetime, so distinctly did Vernor see the trails of moving objects.
Mick was standing in front of him with a pornographically sexy girl. "This is Ramona," Mick said. "Who saw you up in the sky."
Sky? With A—put that away. "How'd I look," said Vernor.
"Astral," she answered, nudging him with her breast.
"I'm strictly gross material plane, darling," Vernor answered, squeezing her bottom, whose cheeks were exposed by a cut-out in her tight pants. "Oh, you feel so lush and ripe."
Ramona smiled and kissed him, pushing her tongue lazily against his. With a gentle, knowing hand, she felt his crotch. "Last time I saw this thing, it looked like Florida."
Chapter 23: In the Sky
Vernor and Ramona had a good time with each other in Vernor's room above the barroom at Waxy's. When he awoke, she was gone, and he could hear voices downstairs.
He went down to find Mick and Oily Allie. "You smell good, Vernor," Mick said leaning close and sniffing him. "I hope you didn't make Ramona do nothing she never done before."
"That might be hard," said Oily Allie. She was wearing ragged jeans and a stained black T-shirt showing off her muscular arms.
"Is there any food?" asked Vernor. The Dreamfood taps still worked, but the food which came out was poisoned, natch.
Mick reached into a crate behind the bar. "We've got some vintage tubes. Green?"
"Green." Vernor squeezed down the paste. "So, are we going to find the Professor today?"
"Today's the day," Oily Allie responded, picking up her laser and patting it. "Not many folks can handle this baby," she said proudly. Indeed the laser must have weighed seventy pounds. Allie had stolen it from a taxi factory where she worked before the War. It had been used to cut thick sheets of plastic in the factory, but the ingenious Allie had turned it into a highly effective weapon.
"Right," Mick said. "You and me and Oily Allie are going into the Eastside to the Professor's warehouse."
"What about all the vans and robots?" Vernor asked. "Maybe it would be wise to wait until the microwave towers are down."
Mick looked unconcerned. "Ah, we'll just keep off the streets. Stay high, ya dig?"
"You're the General," Vernor answered.
Allie gave Vernor a backpack which she said would be helpful, and then they set off for the Eastside.
Vernor felt a little dazed from all the drugs he had taken the night before. He was still having his looping dreams . . . where a thought would seem to travel around some internal Circular Scale loop of his all night . . . now shrinking down out of his consciousness, now slowly gathering itself in his mind from every direction. It was not necessarily unpleasant to loop something all night. Last night, for instance, it had been the taste of Ramona's two-tone kisses.
The trip around Circular Scale had definitely altered his mind. Not only were there these strange looping dreams, there were unexpected thoughts which would arise full-blown. Where, for instance, had the idea of vaulting above the taxis' point of impact come from? He hadn't known he was planning to do that until it was over. It was not just that he was having more thoughts, some of his thoughts seemed to have no logical connection with his usual thoughts.
They were approaching the region where Dreamtown shaded into the Eastside. There were fewer and fewer people to be seen, and after Oily Allie had blasted two robots and a taxi they knew they'd entered Phizwhiz's turf.
"How far do you figure it is from here, Vernor?" Mick asked.
"Twenty blocks at least."
Oily Allie made a brief mental calculation. "We better hit the sky. If we stay down here it's going to take about three blasts a block to handle the robots." She patted her laser. "The charge on this laser's only good for thirty blasts."
There were still some apartment buildings on this street. They entered one and climbed the stairs to the flat roof. Most of the buildings in this part of the Eastside were about the same height, and it wouldn't have been too difficult to simply walk the twenty blocks by moving from roof to roof—that is if there had not been streets and alleys separating the buildings. As it was, they were able to walk about fifty yards until they came to a gap of some thirty feet between roofs.
Vernor leaned over and looked down. They were seven stories up. T
here was a small street down there with a few idling robots.
"Well, gang," he said. "Maybe Mick can jump that, but think of poor Allie here with that heavy laser, and me with my backpack . . . " Mick and Allie didn't seem to be listening.
Vernor was alarmed. "Are you two nuts? Jump thirty feet? Are we going to leave all our stuff here? And even if we do, I really don't..."
Mick glanced over. "Come on, Vernor, cut the shit. Get the gear out of your pack. Oily Allie's built us three flying machines."
Oily Allie, a mad Marie Curie of the times, had been fond of building various unsafe gadgets out of odds and ends which she stole from her factory in the pre-War days. Vernor remembered now that Allie had built some sort of personal rocket which she tested in the park at night—but surely not under such stringent conditions as jumping thirty feet between two seven-story buildings.
Vernor opened his pack. It contained a number of tubes, some of which seemed to be hissing. Oily Allie quickly snapped the tubes together until she had three T's. One for each of them. On each T, the upright was a tube about four feet long and three inches in diameter; it had small vents on the sides, an adjustable diaphragm closing one end, and a solid cross-bar attached to the other end.
"Not a very hefty rocket," ventured Vernor.
"Doesn't have to be," Oily Allie beamed. "And rocket ain't really the right word. It's an anti-rocket. It sucks. Show him, Mick."
Mick stuck the upright of the T out between his legs, with the cross-bar behind him. He was sitting on the cross-bar and the diaphragm end of the vented tube was sticking up at the sky. He reached up and moved a lever to open a tiny hole in the diaphragm closing off the top end of the tube.
The tube jerked up to a vertical position and slowly lifted Mick upwards. When he was some twenty feet above them he pushed forward on the big tube with his hands and back on the cross-bar with his thighs so that the power tube was no longer vertical. It continued drawing him up, but now at an angle. Soon Turner was over the roof on the other side of the street. He let the power tube return to the vertical, adjusted the diaphragm to a pinhole opening, and floated down to the roof on the other side of the street. Grinning, he looked across at Vernor and gave him the finger.
