by Rudy Rucker
"I don't understand why people don't use DIMs to make big brainless flapping things that aren't moldies. Kind of like Randy's giant snail?"
"The problem is that safely flying a person takes enough mass and enough computational ability that you'd have to give a flapping thing a fairly elaborate mold-based nervous system. And then it would end up turning into a moldie and not being willing to work for you. A blimp's brain can be a lot simpler. My secret is that I'm going to give my blimps a kind of hair. But what giant snail of Randy's are you talking about?"
Yoke was expecting to start laughing about Randy again, but her recent contact with the White Light had sapped the meanness right out of her. The story ended up coming across as something pathetic that had happened to a friend.
"Poor Randy," said Phil when she was done. "What a story! If all the snail needed to do was to repeat things and to crawl on him, it could perfectly well be a wad of dumb imipolex with a DIM. Like those little dinosaurs Babs just made. The mind boggles at the kilp that's gonna come down when everyone gets an alla. What was all that talk about plutonium on the Anubis?"
"Cobb told Siss to tell Om to not let people make atomic bombs," said Yoke.
"Just in case. We feel like everyone on Earth should get an alla -- and there's bound to be someone who would make an atomic bomb on purpose. And even if there weren't, somebody might worry about it so much they'd end up accidentally making an atomic bomb themselves while they were dreaming. Having a really bad dream."
"Isn't there a way to turn off your alla before you go to sleep?" asked Phil.
"You just take off your uvvy," said Yoke.
"Oh, right. Which of course I always do."
"Once I forgot and slept with my uvvy on and people were coming into my dreams. Pervs. Some of them make a point of sleeping with their uvvies on."
"Bad news. Are you tired yet?"
"Almost," said Yoke. "I'm looking at my necklace." She'd set it down next to a candle. The gem was lazily cycling from square ruby to round diamond and back.
"Oh, let me show you the other two things I brought back," said Phil, reaching out to get his pants off the floor. He took out a pearl-handled pocketknife and a black ball with bright spots in it. "The knife has a fuzzy blade, it's pretty nice," continued Phil. "I already carved your name on a tree with it, Yoke."
"Good boy. What's this little ball?"
"I think of it as a fish bowl with luminous tadpoles," said Phil, handing it to her.
"They're more like brine shrimp and flat little jellyfish," said Yoke, peering in. "Funny how they jump around when I look at them. I mean -- how can they tell?"
"Alien tech. Who knows? But I like it. I think I'll keep it in my pocket for good luck."
"I know what it is!" exclaimed Yoke after studying the toy a bit longer. "It's an alien star map!"
"Oh, I like that idea," said Phil. "I bet that's why Wubwub seemed interested when he noticed me holding it."
They played with the star map a little longer, and indeed, the bright spots were like stars and galaxies -- and once or twice Yoke thought she recognized one of the constellations.
"So far, so good," said Yoke, yawning and handing the star map back to Phil. "We still haven't figured out what's gonna happen next."
"Let's trust God."
Phil pulled the nice smooth quilt over them, and Yoke fell asleep in his arms, lulled by the patter of the rain.
In the middle of the night something made her wake up. Phil talking on the uvvy. He sounded upset. Yoke woke just as the conversation ended.
"What?" asked Yoke, lighting a candle so she could see. Phil was sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked beautiful, his hooded eyes thoughtful, his strong chin covered with whiskers.
"That was Derek. He found Kevvie in the bathroom. Dead of an OD." Yoke hated to ask the next question. "Can --Can he bring her back with her alla?"
"Derek didn't say anything about Kevvie's alla offering to recorporate her. It looks like that really only happens if it was an alla that killed you. Kevvie's alla went ahead and registered itself to Derek."
"Are you sad?"
"Yes. But I'm glad you're safe."
Babs, April 1
"Well I think it's worked out fine," said Babs. "And it's going to get better." She was sitting in the living room of her parents' fine Victorian mansion on Masonic Avenue above Haight Street. Her gray-haired father, Stahn, was lounging in a soft, low armchair, and her mother, Wendy, was doing aerobic exercises with a little set of dumbbells. Wendy's personality lived in a Happy Cloak moldie attached to the neck of her flesh body. Of course the Wendy 'Cloak could have taken off on its own, but, for whatever reason, the 'Cloak was in love with Stahn, and chose to live with him, driving around a blank-brained tank-grown flesh body. The Wendy 'Cloak had in fact gotten herself a new tank-grown flesh bod just before Christmas. Babs was still getting used to having a mother who looked not much older than herself. But that wasn't the issue today. The real issue was the big news that Babs had come to tell her parents. But it would have to wait till they were done talking about allas. The main thing on everyone's mind anymore was allas.
It had been a little over a month since Babs and Yoke had driven around San Francisco distributing allas, telling each person to split their alla into seven and to pass them on with the same instructions. It had worked like a chain letter. After a dozen cycles there were billions of allas, one for every person and moldie on Earth -- and that was enough. You couldn't register yourself to more than one alla. Darla had gotten Cobb to ferry her back up to the Moon -- so the allas were all over the Moon as well, though news from the Moon was sporty. It was harder and more expensive to uvvy the Moon these days. Many of the sky-ray satellite moldies like Cappy Jane had quit work. Fortunately there were still a handful of moldies interested enough in money to keep a couple of the big communication satellites going. Not that moldies needed to buy imipolex anymore. It was free now, like everything else except real estate and personal services. Things were different everywhere. Real different.
"Sure, there's been some initial problems," said Babs, "but--" "I think it sucks," said Stahn staring out his window. He was almost sixty now, and it showed.
"Medical advisory, Da," said Babs. "Your rectum's showing." Wendy tittered, set down her dumbbells and walked over to pat Stahn's head. "Poor curmudgeon. He's upset about our view. We used to be able to see a little bit of the bay." Looking out the window, the only thing Babs could see now was pieces of other houses, all fresh and pastel in the sun of a mild spring day. It seemed like most of the people in her parents' neighborhood had tacked on extra stories, cupolas, widow's walks, minarets, and sky-decks. Farther up the hill, Babs saw an entire three-story house suddenly appear on what had been a vacant lot. The big house went up in pieces--pop, pop, pop, pop.
"There goes another one," said Wendy. "It's like a sped-up movie or something. Some people have been changing their houses every few days. See the big tower across the street on the Joneses' house?"
"The one that blocks your view. What are all those boxes in the Joneses' yard?"
"They keep alla-making themselves new stuff," said Wendy, shaking her head.
"Kitchen appliances, furniture, luggage, recreational vehicles, sports equipment, home entertainment consoles, on and on. You can see from the writing on the boxes. They've been doing this nonstop for a month and their house is completely full and they can't figure out where to put everything, but they won't just turn the extra stuff back into air. People are so ridiculous. Speaking of ridiculous," continued Wendy, "yesterday your father went over to their yard and turned their big tower back into air--you would have thought he was drunk, the way he was acting, but it's just the real Stahn coming out. Of course Mr. Jones allaed his tower right back into place again. And then Stahn scuttled home, and Mr. Jones came pounding on our door and told Stahn he'd kill him if it happened again. He was carrying the most amazing gun. At least Stahn didn't zap the tower while one of the Joneses was ins
ide it."
"I wish I had," grumbled Stahn. "And there's no use complaining to the zoning board. They've totally punted. They can't begin to deal. And it's not just the yuppie greedheads that chap my ass, it's the stoner yurts everywhere." Some homeless freak in the Haight had passed a stuzzy Tibetan hut design on to all his brahs, and now every sidewalk, alley and parking spot in the neighborhood was cluttered with the muffinlike little people-nests. In a hurried emergency session, the city had approved the use of temporary sleeping shelters up to a certain size, with the proviso that the squatters removed their structures between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. But of course people got attached to their little homes, and most of the yurts were starting to look permanent, with walls ever more bedizened with stick-on alla graffiti. Amazing stuff, really. Babs liked it.
"And more and more people keep showing up," said Stahn. "Nobody has a job anymore, and everyone wants to be in San Francisco. We're being invaded by the fucking scum of the Earth." Given that people could use their allas to make whatever they needed, most factories were going out of business. And the few people who could have kept their jobs were quitting work. You could pretty much live anywhere you wanted.
"That's probably what someone in a big house said when you showed up. Da," said Babs. "Maybe you're so uptight because you're off drugs. Not that it isn't wonderful. Are you still going to your N.A. meetings?"
"Yeah, yeah," said Stahn. "The meetings help. More people in the program all the time. The ones that don't OD. Can you imagine junkies with allas?" He chuckled briefly, his mouth spreading in his long, sly grin. "Some of these kids are going through twenty years worth of addiction in three weeks. There's definitely some learning taking place. Do you think that if I asked Mr. Jones to move his tower a little to the left he would?"
"Don't even," said Wendy. "If you care so much about the view, why not put a high deck on our house."
"I don't want to be part of it."
"Why not a tree house?" suggested Babs.
"We don't have any trees except our avocado," said Stahn. "It's only twenty feet high. We'd need more like a hundred and twenty feet."
"Then alla up a redwood!"
"A redwood," mused Stahn. "You can make a plant that
big?
"It can be done," said Babs. "Phil figured out that the maximum size of an alla control mesh is four pi meters on each side. About forty feet. I don't know what pi has to do with it, but there it is. You'd have to make your redwood in pieces.
That's okay for a house, but it's tricky for a plant. For it to work, you have to make all the pieces at exactly the same time. Otherwise the cells at the seams die off and it doesn't join up and the sections fall apart. I know about this because we put some big palm trees in front of my warehouse."
"Phil --you mean Phil Gottner?" said Wendy, sticking to the personal level. "How are he and that cute little Yoke doing?"
"They're engaged! And --" Babs broke off, still not quite ready to tell her news. She jumped to another topic. "Speaking of building, Yoke and Phil made themselves a nest in my alley. They keep adding to it; it's grown up the side of my warehouse and onto the roof. Like a shelf-fungus. Yoke's busy designing artificial coral and Phil's trying to invent the perfect personal flying machine."
"And what about you and Randy?" pressed Wendy. "Is it true love?" Even though she looked like a twenty-year-old, Wendy still had the personality of a nosy old mom.
Now would have been the moment for Babs to make her announcement, but Da spoke up before she could.
"The other day I talked to the man who was Randy's boss in India," said Stahn.
"Sri Ramanujan. He called Randy a 'degenerate bumpkin.' "
"Why do you always have to dump on my boyfriends, Da?" snapped Babs. "Is it a Freudian thing?"
"You of all people can't be prejudiced against someone who likes moldies, Stahn," put in Wendy.
"Sorry, I'm just telling you what Ramanujan said. He's a snothead, a scientist mandarin, I'm not saying I agree with him. If Randy makes you happy, Babs, that's the main thing. I wish you'd let me meet him for myself."
"Why don't you introduce him to us, dear?" asked Wendy. "There's not something you're hiding from us or from him is there? Uvvy Randy to come over right now! He could help us put up Da's redwood. With four of us using our allas at the same time we could get sixteen pi meters, which is, urn, 164 feet and 10.95 inches." Wendy's moldie brain could effortlessly crunch any calculation. "We need that much because at least thirty feet are going to get used up by the roots. Three of us wouldn't be enough to make a proper-sized tree. Randy will be happy that we need him."
"Well -- I'd like to," said Babs. "It's high time. As a matter of fact Randy and I rode over here together, but he was scared to come in. He's wandering around looking at the Haight. I told him I would uvvy him if it looked like Da could act normal. Can you, Da?"
"Of course I can. I'm sure he's a fine boy. I won't scare him off." So Babs uvvied Randy and a few minutes later he walked up the front steps. He was pink with self-consciousness and his Adam's apple was bobbing. He was wearing a new T-shirt with an incredibly intricate stippling of colors. Babs thought he looked so cute that she planted a kiss on him when she opened the door.
"Come on in, Randy. Ma, Da, this is Randy. Randy, this is Stahn and Wendy."
"Hey," said Randy, shaking their hands. "It's an honor. I've heard about you two all my life. The Heritagists back in Kentucky are still squawkin' about that Moldie Citizenship Act."
Babs noticed Randy's nostrils flaring as he sampled Wendy's odor.. Wendy had successfully infected her Happy Cloak with Cobb's new stinkeater bacteria last week, so the smell was quite mild. But Babs didn't want to tackle the topic of Randy and the smells of moldies. "How were things down on Haight Street today, Randy?" she asked.
"Waaald. Is it always that crowded? Or maybe it's on account of it bein' April Fool's Day. It's like a street festival, people ilk-making shit you can't believe."
"I haven't been on Haight Street in weeks," said Stahn. "I always go around the back way. And, yeah, All Fool's Day is very big in the Haight. What did you see?"
"Some of the stores have their windows painted over and you have to pay the owner to get in. Thanks to the individual Web address on each dollar bill, people can't alla up counterfeit, so money's still real anyway. Not that you need it for most things."
"I noticed those stores," said Wendy. "What do you get if you go inside?"
"Well, I paid one fella to find out," said Randy, looking a little embarrassed.
"Guess I thought he'd have something pretty racy behind them painted windows. But it was just a goddamn T-shirt store. He lets you pick out a T-shirt you like and then you alla yourself a copy. Can't hardly sell objects no more. All you can do is sell ideas."
"Exactly!" said Babs. "That's what I've been trying to tell Da. Intellectual property is all that matters now. It's wonderful."
"Yeah," said Randy, looking down at his T-shirt, which had subtle patterns like faces embedded in its fractal swirls. "Notice how much detail this shirt's got? I never could have seen it all in time to make a copy just from lookin' at it. The store-guy uvvied me the design. Reason he keeps the store windows covered is some folks will just eyeball one of his shirts and alla-make a half-ass knockoff of it. There was a gaaah right outside the store, matter of fact, who looked me over and made a copy of my new shirt, then turned around and sold it to a tourist. All smudged and blurry, though. Look over here on the sleeve, I just noticed this line o' little elephants. No way the pirated street copy picked that up."
"I think I'm too old for new ideas," sighed Stahn. "Don't want to buy, don't have to sell. What else did you see on Haight Street, Randy?"
"There was some folks in old-time metal armor with imipolex power hinges. Jumpin' around like silver jelly beans. I saw a guy givin' away jeweled Easter eggs, all diamonds and rubies, and when you took one, he'd make it disappear. April fool! Another fella was walking down the sidewalk poppin' out a concret
e lawn dwarf every step he took. Skinned my knee on one of those suckers, and allaed a bunch of 'em back into air. Some hairfarmers made themselves a pizza ten feet across and didn't eat but a corner of it, then just left it on the sidewalk so you had to step around it. Wasn't nobody bothering to clean it up, and when I went to turn that one into air, one o' the hairfarmers yelled at me not to waste food. One gaaah was standin' around naked doin' his laundry in the middle of the street; he had a washin' machine hooked to a quantum dot battery and he was usin' his alla to feed the water into it. He was just lettin' the wastewater spill out on the ground. He shoulda alla-made it back into air, but I didn't feel up to hasslin' him. There was a peck of musicians playin' electric guitars hooked to batteries, and a bunch of women doing brain concerts on sheets of imipolex hangin' off the lamp-posts -- right confusing, all the noise. One gaaah had a swarm of maybe a hundred dragonfly cameras buzzin' all over gettin' in everyone's face and he was mixing their video so you'd just about go crazy lookin' at the output--it was runnin' on an imipolex billboard he'd pasted to the wall. Lots o' cars and custom motorcycles. One of the choppers had a bathtub for the driver to sit in, and it wasn't just a tub, it was a merge love puddle. Can you imagine drivin' a hog while you're merged? Your eyeballs stickin' up on little stalks?" Randy laughed and shook his head. "I love this city. First place I ever felt normal. The craziest thing I saw in the Haight was two stoners taking turns zapping each other into air. And then recorporatin' the aired-out gaaah from his alla."
"Ow," said Babs. "I wouldn't do that for anything. Yoke said there's a real chance of not being able to come back."
"I hear there's been a lot of people getting 'aired out,' " said Wendy. "And not for fun. People trying to kill each other."
"Yeah, but remember that it hasn't been working," said Babs. "Seems like Om's got it set so that a dead person's alla starts beeping after a day. An alla is indestructible, and someone always finds it. And if it was an alla that killed you, your alla offers to bring you back."
