Jim and the Flims

by Rudy Rucker

  “It’s not one particular electron?” I asked. “But Weena said—

  “The other world is inside every electron, yes,” said Skeeves. “You go inside any electron, you’re in the same place. Heaven is everywhere. It’s a hall of mirrors.” But over on this side, only the one electron has a nick. Thanks to you, fuckhead.” He laid his bony finger along the side of his nose and winked. “I’m a sage.”

  “And what about the thing that came through to kill Val, asshole?”

  “Go to hell,” said Skeeves, pushing me aside. “I want pizza. And some of Header’s vitamin dust. And I want to hang with my boy Ira.” He grabbed a slice and went off to the other end the room.

  Wondering about Weena, I went upstairs to poke around. In the first room, I found the messy mattress where Header and Ginnie slept—I could see Ginnie’s underwear and an overblown poster for a Metallica videogame that had to belong to Header.

  Next door was a smaller room that was Ira’s, with some library physics books scattered around. He’d drawn a bunch of occult patterns on the wall with magic marker, poor guy. I glanced out the window overlooking the back yard. Droog was sleeping down there, staying out of trouble. Fine.

  The weird thing about Ira’s room was that it had a miniature staircase in the corner that only went about half a floor down. That is, instead of going down to the kitchen, these little stairs went to an in-between room with a ceiling about three feet high. And I could glimpse a door to still smaller room beyond that. Just like—the chambers of a snail shell.

  “Hello?” I called, crouching by the little staircase. No answer.

  I took one of the work lights on orange cords and wormed headfirst down the little stairs, trying to see down the sequence of rooms. Skeeves’s hide-out would be in there. But I couldn’t squeeze in far enough to see Weena. Maybe the border snail had a way of shrinking Skeeves and his companions when they wanted to work their way in. Why not? Snaily was able to surround herself with a maze of space warps. She could do all kinds of things.

  My hand was shaking, and the lights and shadows swayed back and forth. I could see a third room down around the doll-house corridors, and maybe a fourth. Something tiny was moving down there, like an ant on two legs. A little woman. The figure lurched this way and that, hiding herself in bits of shadow. She grew recognizable as she approached. It was Weena.

  “Spying on me?” she said, her voice small and cracked. “Make way.”

  I scooted back out of the little staircase leading down from Ira’s room. Sighing and muttering with the effort, Weena hauled herself up the stairs.

  “I can’t believe you’d let Skeeves—” I began.

  “He’s useful,” said Weena. She regarded me with something of the old sparkle in her bleary eyes. “You’re jealous, aren’t you? How sweet. Help me back down to the party, and I’ll see that Skeeves gets thrown out for the night.”

  I should mention that the surfers’ marijuana was really strong, and they’d been passing around hard drugs pretty freely as well. On our way downstairs, I began getting an unpleasant effect akin to what audio buffs call “clipping.” That is my sensations and thoughts were so radically spiked away from the norm that my cautious reptilian brain stem was cutting off the tops of the peaks to leave featureless mesas.

  Ira’s and Ginnie’s mix of aquatic sounds, music samples and synth raged on. Tottery though Weena was, she prevailed on me to dance with her for awhile. But by now I didn’t really like touching her.

  Soon Weena twisted away and got into sharing her wriggly colored sprinkles with Header and Skeeves. They went after the stuff as if it were premium coke. After Header had his second round, Weena abruptly cut Skeeves off.

  “No more for you,” she told Skeeves, choosing her words for maximum impact. “You’re a demented pervert. I don’t want you here. A live woman has no use for you. I’ll spend the night with Jim. Or perhaps with Header.”

  Instantly the tall, tormented Skeeves was in Weena’s face, and it was only moments till the argument expanded to include Header, who stepped forward to give Skeeves a rough shove.

  “You’re a zombie, Header!” hollered Skeeves, windmilling his arms to keep his balance. “You’ve got an alien slug instead of a brain! I never should have kept you on.”

  Header took a step forward and punched Skeeves in the stomach so hard that skinny freak collapsed.

  “Give him his comeuppance, Header!” said Weena, like a rabid floozy at some old-style barroom fight. “Remove him from the premises!”

  Ira was in the mix now too, shrilling insults at Header, trying to keep the beefy surfer away from Skeeves. Header brushed Ira aside and hoisted Skeeves onto his shoulders. He lumbered onto the porch, down the stairs, and out to the point where the street faded into a spatial maze. Humping his thick torso, Header tossed Skeeves into the invisible zone.

  “Hurrah!” called spindly old Weena, watching from the porch.

  “Good show.”

  “I’m bringing him back in here later on, you bitches!” yelled Ira. “Skeeves lives here too!”

  Back in the house, Weena gave Header more sprinkles. He got into an intense low-voiced conversation with her, all the while keeping one arm around the petite Marcy. Judging from Header’s body language, he wanted something more than drugs or sex from Weena. For her part, Weena seemed to be temporizing, leading him on, all the while plying him with her pixie dust.

  My sense of time broke into streaks and patches. At some point, I found myself on the back deck, leaning over the railing, wondering if I was going to puke—and then not wondering, just doing it, as naturally as a dog.

  Weena appeared at my side, still looking well over a century old. With my consciousness slowly coming back, I observed that all the guests were gone—and that the fuzzed borders of the space-maze were starting to glow. Dawn. I’d missed out on the last couple of hours.

  “I have grave news,” Weena told me.

  “Careful where you step,” I said. “There’s vomit on the deck.”

  Weena waved off this information. “Now I must kill the Graf ’s agent,” she whispered, leaning very close. “Header. This is a key aspect of my mission.”

  Something suddenly came clear to me. “When the Graf was murdered in that car—you sent Skeeves to do it, didn’t you, Weena?”

  “I did what was necessary,” she said.

  “But why mess with Header now?”

  “There is a link,” said Weena stubbornly. “How else could Header have unleashed a yuel? Header knows who I am. He was pleading for a pardon tonight, and tendering offers. But I’m not to be swayed.”

  Hearing a clunk on the deck floor beside me, I glanced down.

  “You have an axe?” The appearance of this unlikely weapon set off a firestorm of images and emotions in my weary mind. The axe’s handle was painted green.

  “I found it in Header’s closet,” said spindly Weena. “Do you know how to use an axe?”

  “You use the axe,” I said. “This is your crazy idea. Not that killing Header is necessarily a bad thing to do.” Saying this, I giggled. I was still fairly high. Yes, Weena was holding the green-handled axe that Skeeves had threatened me with in high school. “Ask Skeeves to do it for you,” I said. “Your old boyfriend.”

  “You know that Skeeves is gone,” was all that Weena said. “And you’re barely in any shape to help me at all. A fine state for my cosmic mailman.”

  “Is, uh, Header teeping this conversation?”

  “No. Header is a weak fool. He reeled upstairs in a stupor. And now he slumbers.”

  “Ginnie must be upset,” I said. Weird music was drifting from the house—Ira and Ginnie were still jamming.

  “Oh, now you’re after Ginnie instead of me?” said Weena with sudden spite. “And what about your wife? Never mind. The salient fact is that my deadly enemy’s guard is down. I’ll restore my strength, and I’ll do what’s necessary. And then, Jim, then you’ll open that round cellar door so we can escape.”
<
br />   “What about that, that—” I gestured at the shaggy eucalyptus trees that beetled over the yard. In my wasted state, I’d forgotten what Weena called the blue baboon thing. But sure enough, I could glimpse the faint glint of his yellow eyes.

  “Yes, yes, the yuel,” said Weena. “We’ll eliminate him first, and then Header. All the Graf ’s Earthly influences must be annihilated. The Graf is the enemy of the jivas and of the Duke. He took advantage of the confidences I shared with him. He sought to thwart our plan.” She gave me a stern look. “I don’t look kindly on faithless lovers.”

  “Whatever you say,” I said, beginning to wonder how I could get out of here.

  Weena stretched high her arms and whistled, far and wee.

  11: The Jivas

  Cued by Weena’s call, intense cries and yelps erupted a block or two away, the sounds muffled by the spatial labyrinths. I recognized, in particular, the agitated and angry tone of Diane Simly, her voice growing in a crescendo. I grinned, coldly imagining her husband’s fate—then felt guilty. Sure, the Simlys were jerks, but—

  Lights appeared in the sky, blurred and warped by multiple reflections. But they were feeling their way closer to us, and soon their forms became clear. They resembled illuminated flying turnips with dangling tails. And now they were hovering over the Whipped Vic’s back yard, four of them, their luminous tendrils brushing the trees. The uncanny jivas were quite beautiful. Each of them had a particular pattern of spots and stripes, a bit like children’s tops.

  The biggest jiva—Weena’s partner, Awnee—had refined her look since I’d last seen her. Awnee was now a warm shade of reddish-yellow with three embossed blue bands like necklaces around her tail. She bore a mauve zigzag stripe around her waist, with six pale blue gems set above that, each gem centered in a splashy burst of color. She’d added something like a hat on top—a flat green disk with a golden knob. Her two children were equally elaborate, each in a different way.

  The yuel gibbered his defiance at the jivas, something like, “Sing, fight, die.” He leapt heavily to the ground and his eyes locked onto Weena. Showing his teeth, he charged across the lawn, and then leapt up to the deck’s railing.

  The rush of events had me off balance. I had no idea how to fight the yuel. Fortunately the jivas entered the fray. Their vine-like tails lashed through the air, and wrapped the yuel around his middle, squeezing him tight.

  But the yuel had another card to play. He began singing an eerie little tune, a song of almost unbearable sweetness. It seemed to get into my head and vibrate my sinuses—the sensation was somehow unbearable. The jivas were even more affected by the ghostly sound—they dropped the yuel and backed away.

  The yuel might have won the day, but now Weena stepped in. Straining her spindly old arms to the utmost, she raised high her green-handled axe and slammed the butt-end of it against the yuel’s baboon head, stunning him into silence.

  The three jivas seized the opportunity. Within moments, the fine hairs of their branched tails were sinking deep and deeper into the yuel’s blue flesh, dissolving him with a burbling hiss and a smell like ammonia.

  The yuel’s tune was still echoing in my head, like a particularly viral advertising jingle. “What was that creepy song ?” I asked Weena.

  “We call it a yuel lullaby,” she answered. “It’s the yuels’ preferred defense against jivas. A certain type of song.”

  “Grim and grimmer,” said Ira, now standing on the back porch. He and Gina had drifted out to join us.

  “I just hope those fighting things aren’t devils and angels,” said Ginnie. “I never liked the religion trip.”

  “The four flying turnips are jivas,” said old Weena. “They’re a part of Flimsy—some people say they’re Flimsy’s brain cells. And the yuels—they’re a part of Flimsy as well, playing an obscure but vital part in Flimsy’s metabolism. Don’t trust the yuels. The jivas are our protectors and our friends. Behold.” She held out a gnarled hand and beckoned to the zigzag-banded one. “Come,Awnee! Come back aboard, my dear one. I need you. Forgive me if I ever made you feel unwelcome.”

  The gaudy turnip compressed her branching tail into a single strand. And now she shrank—from the size of an armchair to a pumpkin to a fist and down to the size of a robin’s egg. Weena opened her mouth and Awnee wriggled inside, disappearing down the old woman’s gullet. My former lover pursed her thin lips and drew in the pinkish-yellow tail like a wayward strand of spaghetti.

  Almost immediately, Weena grew young again. Her skin was smooth, her stance lissome, her lips plump. “You should do this as well, Jim,” she said, her eyes sparkling with nervous energy.

  “Why do jivas want to live inside people?” I asked, temporizing. “What’s in it for them?”

  “They’re nosy,” said Weena. “They like to learn personal secrets and to become involved with people’s lives. Not intending any insult to Awnee, one might say that jivas have a dull emotional life when left on their own. So—are you ready, Jim?”

  An awkward silence fell. Running on automatic now, Ira and Ginnie’s ghostly sound-mix was echoing through the empty house. And upstairs, sodden Header slept on.

  “I’d feel weird about eating a flying jellyfish,” said Ginnie. “And what’s with the green axe, Weena?”

  Weena didn’t answer that one. “Open that round portal door in the cellar, Jim,” she told me, clutching the axe in her now-vigorous hands. “The border snail wants you to. Meanwhile, I’ll proceed upstairs to serve justice.”

  “Stop her, Ira! ” exclaimed Ginnie, suddenly getting the picture. “Sure, Header’s majorly obnox, and right now he’s cheating on me, but—”

  “Hear me, Ginnie!” interrupted Weena. “This Header person is the tool for the fop whom you released from the tunnel. The Graf from Flimsy. The Graf took control of Header’s mind. Now stand aside.”

  Not waiting for an answer, Weena brushed past Ginnie and Ira, carrying the axe across her chest like a firefighter. Just to make the scene crazier, two of the new-born jivas crowded into the house in her wake, bouncing along the ceiling like balloons on New Year’s Eve.

  Ginnie followed as far as the doorway and stopped there—shocked, scared, unsure, adorable. Ira put his hand loosely on her shoulder. The fourth jiva draped her tail over my arm. I could pick up a little teep from her. She was talking to me by stringing together nouns.

  “Friend Jim partner life me Mijjy.”

  Lately I’d been Weena’s pawn, reacting to events as they arose. It was time to do something for myself—or so I thought. “Come on in, Mijjy,” I said, and opened wide. I wanted teep and the ability to make zickzack. I was ready to be a superman. Fool that I am, it didn’t cross my mind that I’d be making myself into a slave.

  The jiva shrank to the size of a radish and floated forward. I hardly felt her going down my throat. What I felt, rather, was a body-wide tingle as Mijjy linked her root hairs into my nervous system. Immediately I felt less drunk and stoned than before.

  And there was a physical effect as well. The jiva was souping up my body. My belly grew firm and my features tautened—thanks to a web of tendrils beneath my skin. More than that, the jiva thickened my tendons, cushioned my joints, and bulked my muscles. I flexed my supple fingers, savoring my new strength.

  Ginnie was staring at me, fascinated. I was as fit as a pro surfer.

  But all this paled beside the jiva’s mental effects. It was as if the world around me were made of glass. I could see microbes, I could see all of Santa Cruz. And I could pick up the vibes of the others’ minds—especially Weena’s. Our jivas seemed to be in a subtle connection with each other.

  Looking through Weena’s eyes, I could see her marching up to Header’s room, her axe at the ready, the two other newborn jivas bouncing along behind her. Weena wakened Header with a rough shove and began talking to him in a low, even tone. She was reciting a death sentence. Header began to bellow. His voice sounded different than before. Less human.

  “Oh this is hor
rible,” said Ginnie, holding her ears.

  “So okay, I’m going down to open the cellar door,” I said quickly. “Do you two want to watch?”

  I led the way down the deck’s stairs—everything was pink and yellow from the dawning light. The round door was still in the cellar wall, with the hand-shaped depression awaiting my touch. My dog Droog appeared, yawning and shaking his ears. He’d been lying low. I took a quick peek into his mind, as simple and comfortable as a cartoon. Food?

  Just then the screaming upstairs peaked, and we heard the nightmarish thud of that green-handled axe hitting home. I closed off my images of what Weena was doing. Shrieks and gurgles sounded in the air. Ginnie bust into sobs. More thuds, staggering footsteps, and—an upstairs window burst outwards in a shower of fragments. Header tumbled through, landing on the lawn with a sodden thump. He was wearing a blood-soaked terry bathrobe. The two extra jivas drifted in his wake, watching.

  Header had a gory wound in his chest, and another blow of the axe had split the top of his skull. Surely he was dead. For two long seconds we silently stared at his remains.

  But now—how horrid and strange—something moved. The halves of his skull. They were pulsing, quivering, spreading apart like a clamshell. Droog howled and ran into the house. Ginnie covered her face and groaned.

  I saw a blue slug lurking within Header’s ruined skull. Impossible. But this was real. The blue shape oozed forth from the skull’s crack, growing protuberances and taking on a rounded form—it was another yuel, a four-legged baboon-thing, just as powerful as the one before. I was able to pick up on this one’s name. Rickben.

  “Save love buzz slosh,” he teeped.

  The two airborne jivas began flailing at the new yuel, but right away he started up with a sweet and creepy song like the other yuel had used. A yuel lullaby. Unable to bear the insistent vibrations, the jivas drew back a few dozen yards. And, given that I had a jiva inside me now, the music was even more excruciating for me than before—it disturbed me at a deeply visceral level. Rickben the yuel was crawling towards Ginnie, who seemed paralyzed with fear. The yuel had stretched out a slimy pseudopod, a slender vine that was already wrapping around Ginnie’s foot.