by Rudy Rucker
“Look,” laughed Babs. “She’s imitating the jellyfish in Persistence of Memory. Hey, Sally! Do a soft watch!”
While her arty friends watched admiringly, Sally formed herself into a large smoothly bulging disk that bent in the middle to rest comfortably in her chair. She made her skin shiny—gold in back and glassy in front with a huge watch dial with warping hands. Her soft richly computing body drooped off the edges of her chair like a fried egg. Salvador Dali had predicted the moldies. It was perfect.
But Stahn was too benumbed to appreciate Sally’s visual pun. “I’m kind of surprised they let her in here,” he said thoughtlessly. “What with the stink.”
“Do I stink in restaurants?” demanded Wendy. “Some of us are civilized enough to know when to close our pores. You should talk, Stahn, the way you’ve been farting recently.”
Saint cackled to hear this. “Da stinks. Da’s a moldie.”
Stahn quietly poured himself another glass of champagne.
“How did you like the parade, old man?” asked Babs.
“I must say, it made me feel straight. That’s not a way I like to feel, mostly.”
“Men are so worried about being macho,” said Wendy.
“Will everyone stop picking on me?” snapped Stahn.
“We’re not picking on you,” said Saint, reaching over to give Stahn a caress followed by a sly poke.
“Da is a wreck,” said Wendy. “He stayed up most of last night.”
“What did you do, Da?” asked Saint.
“Never mind.” Stahn didn’t want to tell his kids about the camote. He was ashamed to be such an eternal example of out-of-control drug-taking; in recent years he’d backslid terribly. “It has to do with this new way to control moldies.”
“Are you scheming to control me?” Wendy wondered suddenly. “Me, in the sense of Wendy’s Happy Cloak?”
“No,” said Stahn. “I wouldn’t dream of it. Though it might not hurt for you to try seeing how a leech-DIM feels sometime. They say for a moldie it’s like being lifted. Then you’d understand. Instead of always being such a straight goody-goody.”
“I’ve been busy making a farm,” said Babs, changing the subject. “Did I tell you? It’s so floatin’. Place moistened humus between two glass sheets and add one pint red worms. Voila!”
“You’re doing this for fun?” asked Stahn. “Or is it art?”
“If you mean, ‘Can I sell worm farms?’—waaal, old-timer, I just dunno. So maybe it’s fun. But, wave, if I were to put DIM worms in with the real ones, why then it’d be ye new Smart Art and maybe I could sell some. But making the boxes is so damn hard. You wanna make me some worm farm boxes, Saintey? Eeeeeew! What are those gross things crawling on your head?”
“Lice,” said Saint. He’d taken off his foil helmet and shrugged his coat onto the back of his chair. His hair looked like upholstery on cheap furniture—it was buzz-cut, half-bleached to a punky orange, and there was a paisley filigree cut into it, revealing curving lines of scalp that seemed to have small translucent insects crawling along them.
“You have lice, Saint?” exclaimed Wendy. “How filthy! We have to get you disinfected! Oh! And we’ve all been hugging you!”
“I think he’s teasing you, Wendy,” said Stahn, peering closer at the tiny creatures on his son’s scalp. “Those are micro-DIMs. I know they’ve been used for barbering, but I’ve never heard of them doing paisley before. Did you program that yourself, Saint?”
“My friend Juanne taught the lice,” said Saint. “But I found the DIM beads. I’ve been finding some really floatin’ ware in this building I’m maintenance-managing, Da.”
“This is your new janitor job?” said Stahn.
Saint was suddenly very angry. “Don’t you always say that, you stupid old man. A maintenance manager is not a janitor. I like to fix things. I’m good at it. And for you to always act like it’s—”
Stahn winced at the intensity of his son’s reaction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,” he said quickly. “I’m senile. When I was your age, I was Sta-Hi the taxi driver, so who am I to talk? Maintenance is wavy. Retrofitting. Tinkering. It’s almost like engineering.”
“Saint doesn’t want to go to engineering school, Da,” put in Babs. “Get over it. His friends already look up to him like a teacher.”
“They do?” asked Stahn.
“Yes,” said Saint. “I like to think about the meaning of things. And what to do with life. Every day should be happy. My friends listen to me.”
“Well, hell,” said Stahn. “Then maybe you can be a senator.” He put up his hands cringingly. “Just kidding!”
The waitress arrived with a pitcher of sangria, more potatoes, and the grilled prawns. Stahn passed Saint the prawns and poured out glasses of the sangria.
“What’s the building you’re doing maintenance for?” Wendy asked Saint.
“Meta West Link,” said Saint. “They own the satellites and dishes for sending uvvy signals to the Moon.”
“Wholly owned by ISDN since 2020,” put in Stahn. “I can certainly believe that Meta West would have some interesting things in their basement.”
“Give me some DIM lice, Saintey?” pleaded Babs. “I’ll make a Smart Art flea circus! I want lice right now!” She crooked one arm around her brother’s neck and began picking at his head. “I’m the lice doctor!” When Babs had been younger, she’d enjoyed taking ticks off the family dog.”
“Don’t be so disgusting, you two,” said Wendy severely. “You’re in a restaurant. Stop it right now.”
The kids broke apart with a flurry of screeches and pokes, and then both of them sat there calmly with their hands folded.
“It’s Da’s fault,” said Saint.
“Da did it,” added Babs.
“Da’s bad,” said Saint.
“Da’s lifted and drunk,” said Babs.
“Da has a drug problem,” said Saint.
Stahn got the waitress and ordered himself a brandy and an espresso. “Anyone else for coffee or a drink? Anything? Dessert, kids?”
Saint and Babs ordered cake, but Wendy didn’t want anything. She said she thought it was about time they got going.
“Mind if I join you?” said Sally the moldie, suddenly appearing at the end of the table. Her body was a cubist dream of triangles and bright colors.
“Sally, ole pal!” said Babs, hilarious on her four drinks. “Sit down.” Sally pulled up a chair and Babs introduced her. “This is my brah and my rents—Saint, Stahn, and Wendy. This is Sally, guys.”
“I’ve been wanting to meet Wendy,” said Sally. “We moldies all wonder about her. How do you do it? Emulate a human wife and mother, I mean. It’s a pretty bizarre thing to do.”
“I’ve been doing it so long it feels normal,” said Wendy. “Though I am getting a bit tired of this particular human body.”
Sally produced a screw-top jar from the folds of her flesh and took off the top. “I like to have a little rub of this when I’m around people getting high,” she said, using a green-striped finger to crook out a glob of ointment. She rubbed the goo into her chest and handed the jar to Wendy. “Try some, Wendy. It’s betty. Fine, fine betty.”
“We still have a long trek home,” objected Stahn. He counted on Wendy being the sober one.
“Just chill sometime,” said Wendy, scooping up two fingers of betty and smoothing it onto her ’Cloak self.
By the time Sally could put the jar away, she and Wendy were completely lifted. “Wave this new take on the soft watch,” said Sally, turning beige. In seconds she was shaped like an old-time computer box with a monitor on it—the box melting and drooling off the edge of her chair to make a puddle on the floor, and the monitor was displaying—the face of that Jenny-thing who’d been on-line with Tre Dietz last night?
At the same time, Wendy was tweaking quite savagely. Her Happy Cloak stopped being a demure red Wendy the Witch cape and bunched up around her neck in a big convoluted green dinosaur ruffle. “I’ve
been a good wife and mother all these years, but I don’t want to get any older. I want a full upgrade! You need to understand this meat body isn’t me,” she raved. “Watch!” The ruff on her neck bucked up, pulling a frightening tangle of rootlike connectors out of her flesh and into the air. Wendy’s face went slack and her head pitched forward to lie on her crossed arms on the table. Wendy’s ’Cloak gestured nastily with its tendrils, then wormed them back into Wendy’s neck. Wendy straightened up, a triumphant gleam in her eyes. “See?”
“We’re outta here,” said Stahn, getting to his feet and throwing down money for the check. “You shouldn’t have given her that damn shit, Sally.”
“Bye, Sally,” said Wendy. She winked and pointed a finger upward. “Thanks for the lift and the lift.”
“Have a good trip,” said Sally.
Stahn tried to take Wendy’s arm to steady her, but she twisted away from him with frightening vigor. She pushed out to the street, followed by her family.
“I wish I hadn’t seen that,” said Babs quietly. “Is Ma all right?”
“We just need to get home and kick,” said Stahn. “I wonder if there’s any chance of a rickshaw or a streetcar. Oh good, it looks like Wendy’s calling one.” Wendy was gesturing broadly, and the dragonfly hopped off its perch and circled as if searching for a ride.
“It’ll be here soon,” said Wendy, smiling crookedly. “And, kids, I’m sorry about freaking in the restaurant, but it’s for true. I’m about to shed.”
She didn’t elaborate, and nobody knew what to say, so for a half minute the four of them just stood there among the people and the moldies passing by. A streetcar ground past, going the wrong way. A sudden breeze swept up from the Bay, startlingly strong and chilly. Stahn turned his back against it, wishing he’d worn a thicker coat. Wendy and the kids were facing him, and for a moment he thought the kids were teasing when they began to scream.
“Here’s our ride, Stahn!” whooped Wendy.
The wet frigid air whirled like a tornado, and a huge blue pterodactyl shape swooped down toward them. Its wingspan was so large that it could barely fit in between the buildings. It would have to break through the streetcar wires if it wanted to reach them; they might have time to escape!
“Run!” yelled Stahn. “Back in the restaurant!”
But before he could move, Wendy’s Happy Cloak lifted off and flapped toward Stahn like a pair of ragged bat wings. Stahn was too slowed by drink and too distracted by the sight of Wendy’s body falling to the ground to stop the ’Cloak from wrapping itself around him. Quickly the ’Cloak sank its tendrils into Stahn’s neck and froze him in place. Stahn stood there staring at his children trying to tend their mother’s imbecilic limp body—and then the great pterodactyl pecked down in between the wires, pecked up Stahn and swallowed him and Wendy’s Happy Cloak whole.
Stahn heard the muffled sound of the pterodactyl’s screeching caw of triumph, and he felt himself borne up and away. All was dark and airless, but then the Wendy ’Cloak began feeding Stahn air and information.
“Don’t be scared, dear Stahn,” said Wendy’s voice. “I’ll take care of you. Flapper here is going to help us fly to the Moon. It’ll be a good change of pace for you. The loonie moldies are eager for you to visit. And I’m going to the Nest to get a new wendy from the pink-tanks. You’ll be wearing me until then.”
“The Moon,” said Stahn numbly. “You’re kidding. Who’s Flapper?”
“She’s like a customs official for the loonie moldies; she keeps an eye on what goes between the Earth and the Moon. Since the loonie moldies want you to visit, Sally had the idea of asking Flapper to come down and peck like a pterodactyl.”
“Wait a minute. Can you still see through the dragonfly? How are the children? Show them to me.”
The Wendy ’Cloak fed Stahn the uvvy image of Saint squatting by his mother’s body, with desperate Babs out in the street trying to flag down a rickshaw. The vacated wendy just lay there twitching.
“Those poor children,” said Stahn, his eyes filling with tears. “Those poor, poor children.”
“Tsk,” said the ’Cloak. “It is sad. But I hope they don’t waste a lot of money and emotion on that brainless worn-out old body. I should have killed it before I left.” She cut off the dragonfly video feed and all was black again.
“Wendy, what’s happened to your feelings? Does it even make sense to call you Wendy anymore?”
“Sure, I’m Wendy. Yeah, I guess I am being a little cold, huh? Not too characteristic of my usual persona.” The ’Cloak giggled. “I guess it’s the betty makes me act this way. Now you can see how it feels, Stahn. You’re always so heartless to me when you’re lifted.”
“If you’re going to nag me like a wife while I’m wrapped up inside you, I’m going to go crazy. I’d rather die! We’re high above Earth by now, right? Why don’t you and this damned Flapper push me out and let me drop? Do it! I’d be glad to die, Wendy, glad to get the endless misery over with!”
“You just feel that way because you’re strung out on drugs, you fool.”
“I’m coming down again, baby! All I do is get high and come down; nobody likes me anymore; I’m no good to anyone; I might as well be dead; let me fuckin’ drop and die.”
Flapper’s soprano voice interrupted in operatic song, “I wonder if he really means it? Look at this, Stahn Mooney!” There was a doughy rubbing against Stahn’s body from head to toe, a lumpy peristalsis as if he were feces being squeezed down a long rectum. The pressure on the top of his head was great. Clever small folds in the plastic took off Stahn’s clothes and spirited them away.
“Yeah, pop us halfway out, Flapper,” laughed Wendy. “Let Stahn see!”
Flapper sphinctered open a hole and pushed out Stahn’s upper body. She clamped lightly down on the top of Stahn’s pelvis to keep the wind from ripping him away.
So here was Stahn hanging out of a giant moldie pterodactyl’s ass, staring down at the great dark world below. The air beat at him, but he felt it only thinly, for the Wendy ’Cloak was stretched over him like a bubbletopper spacesuit, and the ’Cloak’s smart imipolex was twitching and shuddering to cancel out the resonant vibrations.
Far off to the west, a crescent of the Earth was still in sunshine; it was a blazing arc of hot blue ocean. But most of the planet was a silvery monochrome, bathed by the light of the Moon. The high clouds beneath Stahn were stippled in a regular pattern like fish scales, a mackerel sky. Off to the east, the clouds transmuted into flowing mares’ tails, with each tail shaped the same. The world was beautiful.
“I don’t want to die after all,” volunteered Stahn. The city of San Francisco was a speck of brightness far far below. “How high are we?”
“Fifty miles and rising fast. Flapper’s going to squirt you and me toward the Moon like a torpedo when she gets to sixty miles! I don’t have enough oomph to fly us all the way from the Earth to the Moon, see, but with Flapper launching us we can make it. We’ll do the next two hundred thousand miles on our own!”
As his eyes adjusted, Stahn could make out more and more detail in the moonlit clouds below. Once again he marveled at the world’s fractal beauty, at its fondly loved structures recurring across every size scale—in the clouds, the land, the sea—ah, the great living skin of sacred Gaia.
“This is wavy,” said Stahn presently.
“It’ll take us a week to get to the Moon,” said Wendy. “Enough time for you to dry out for the first time in years. It’ll be like a honeymoon.”
“Except you don’t have a human body,” said Stahn. “A body’s considered kind of important on a honeymoon.”
“I can give you hand jobs, Stahn. I can stick fingers up your butt. You’ll like it. You’ll see.”
As they flew higher and higher, the pterodactyl’s wings grew larger and thinner, till finally she looked like a giant stingray.
“I’m nearly ready to launch you!” trilled the great ray’s voice. “Let me draw you back in so I can push yo
u harder. Brace Stahn tight, Wendy.”
“Okay, Flapper,” said Wendy.
Flapper puckered her flesh and drew Stahn and Wendy into herself. Stahn was starting to feel panicky. “Even if she launches us, how are you going to get the energy to decelerate us into lunar orbit, Wendy? You’re not very big. I doubt if you weigh more than fifteen pounds. When you and me flew down to Earth on Spore Day in 2031, our Happy Cloaks were beefed up to ten times that much. Are you sure you have enough stored-up energy to keep me warm while we’re floating though space?”
“Flapper gets lots of energy from the Sun up here, and she stores it as quantum dots. And Flapper’s going to give me a whole gram! We’ll have a full tank of gas, big guy.”
“Yes, Wendy, here come your quantum dots,” sang Flapper. “I’m spraying them into your flesh. And now I’m nearly ready to birth you!”
By craning his head back, Stahn could see down the tunnel of flesh that led from inside Flapper to the outside. The tube was more vagina than rectum now, and Stahn was a baby instead of a turd.
“Straighten out your neck, Stahn,” said Wendy, her voice vibrant with energy. “It’s time for me to go rigid.” She squeezed very tightly around Stahn and made the imipolex of her flesh as stiff as steel.
Flapper started a great loop-the-loop to bring her underside uppermost. As she rose to the top of the loop, she bunched her body into a huge mass of muscle and pushed.
Stahn and Wendy shot out from Flapper with incredible speed; the strength of the g-forces was such that Stahn fainted dead away.
When he came to, he was staring out into black starry space. Wendy had lost her rigidity. Stahn could look down past his feet at the great planet Earth falling away, or crane his head back and look up toward the disk of the Moon. The Sun was hidden behind the Earth for now.
To maintain Stahn’s temperature, Wendy had silvered her surface inside and out; except for the half-silvered patch over Stahn’s eyes. Stahn spent some time moving his arms and legs and marveling at the multiple reflections of himself, the Earth and the Moon. How beautiful it was. But how lonely. He was all by himself, hurtling farther and farther away from home, with nothing but a moldie ’Cloak for company. Tumbling through the dark, forever alone.
