by Rudy Rucker
“Good God!” I exclaimed. “Whatever for?” The hotshot table had been a popular execution device during the early nineties, when capital punishment had made a big comeback. A hotshot table was like a hospital gurney, a bed on wheels, but a bed with certain built-in servo-mechanisms. It was a kind of mechanical Dr. Death, equipped to give fatal brain injections to condemned criminals. Lying down on a hotshot table was like lying down on a black widow’s belly. The needle would stab right down into the top of your head. The point of the thing was that it had helped resolve the AMA’s scruples about helping to kill people. But now capital punishment had been voted out again.
“That’s aw-reet,” McCormack was saying. “We got ’em in stock. New or used? Used costs extry—people buy ’em for parties, like.”
“Good God! A new one!”
“Got me one still in the crate. Over on aisle naaane.” Great mounds of machinery slid past, lit by our little truck’s headlights. Some heavy robots pounded along behind us, ready to help with the loading.
“A large vacuum pump,” said Harry. “And a walk-in refrigerator.”
“Kin do, kin do.”
“Thirty square meters of copper foil.”
“Uh-huh.”
“A mater-driven microwave cavity.”
“Got one on sale.”
The truck darted this way and that.
“A vortex coil,” said Harry. “And two meters of sub-ether wave guide.”
“Yowzah!”
“And the key ingredient—a magnetic bottle with two hundred grams of red gluons!”
“Great day in the mornin’!”
“And that’ll do it.”
“Don’t he beat all?” McCormack asked me. “Some of these bohunks is smart, and that’s no lie.”
Before too long we had everything hauled to the front of the store. McCormack fiddled with his calculator. “Ah make it tin thousand dollar.”
“Get serious.”
“It’s them gluons. They’re high, even in red.”
“Pay him,” Harry urged. “Once I get blunzed, we’ll have it all.”
“Blunzed?” inquired McCormack, glancing at Harry.
“Once I get blunzed I’ll be able to control reality,” Harry explained. “I’ll get you all the money you want.”
“Ah don’t want all the money. Ah want tin thousand dollar.”
“Uh, I have two thousand in cash, Mr. McCormack. Can I give you a check for the rest?”
McCormack threw back his head and laughed. There were cords in his skinny neck.
“How would you like to be a partner?” I suggested. “We’ll issue you some shares of stock.”
McCormack laughed harder. It wasn’t really a pleasant sound.
Harry had been off to one side, looking over our intended purchases, but now he rejoined me. “Let’s go out to the car for a minute, Fletcher. I just thought of something.”
“Ah hope ah din’t haul all this gear up front for nothin’!” complained McCormack.
“We’ll be right back,” Harry assured him. “I believe we’ve got some more money out in the car.”
McCormack’s guard robots followed us out to my Buick. “You left money out here?” I asked Harry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, it just now occurred to me that I might have. When I came back from the future to your car yesterday, I could have created money and put it under your seat. It would be the obvious thing to do, right?”
I got the door unlocked and reached under the driver’s seat. Sure enough, a dense wad of bills: eight thousand dollars’ worth, exactly what we needed.
“If these are from the future, then why aren’t they real small?” I asked Harry. “Like you were.”
“I made them the right size, is all. It’s obvious. Master of space and time!”
I stared at him for a long time. “Why couldn’t you create the whole ten thousand? Why make me put up my only two?”
“You offered your money of your own free will, Fletch. You’re in this, too.”
I sighed and took all our money in to Jack McCormack. “Ten thousand, right?”
“Tin thousand and the three hunnert from before.”
Suddenly I lost my temper. The fact that I’d had eight thousand bucks in my car without knowing it really got to me.
“The deal’s off, Jack.” I turned to leave. I had an overwhelming urge to take the money back to Nancy and forget about these little guys.
“Hey now,” McCormack cried. “Y’all kin still owe me that five hunnert. And tell you whut. Ah’ll truck yore goods home free.”
“Give him the money, Fletch. Bring it to 501 Suydam, McCormack. Gerber Cybernetics. There’s an alley in back.”
5
Godzilla Meets the Toad Man
“LETS take the Jersey Turnpike home,” suggested Harry. “It’s faster.”
“Okay. And give me another beer.” I was feeling happy again. “This blunzer is really going to work. I mean, here you’ve already traveled back in time and created eight thousand dollars. It’s fantastic.”
“One thing about time travel,” said Harry musingly. “There probably has to be a counterweight. Action equals reaction, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if I travel from the future to the past, then something has to travel from the past to the future. To balance things out. When I jump back to Friday afternoon, I’ll probably have to jump some organism forward a few days.”
“If you jump an animal forward, it’ll seem real big,” I reminded Harry.
“That’s right. Every object in the universe is shrinking, so if something jumps forward a few days it seems enormous. Did you ever see any Godzilla movies, Fletch? With the giant lizard?”
I shot a look over at Harry. His expression was bland and unreadable. I started to say something, then let it drop. He was just trying to get a rise out of me.
The Jersey Turnpike’s pavement was in good repair today. A Porsche passed us, doing what looked like 120 miles per hour. Its tires threw up a long, blinding shock-cone of rainwater. I stuck to the slow lane and kept my eyes open. To the right were the refineries, to the left were docks and railyards.
Harry powered down his window and inhaled deeply. “Ah! This is the smell of American richness.”
Many years ago Fletcher & Company had done some business designing stack scrubbers for one of these companies. But now times were so hard that nobody much cared about pollution. The main thing was just to keep the factories open. As long as they stank, you knew they weren’t idle.
Although I couldn’t share Harry’s pleasure at the unearthly smells, this stretch of the Jersey Turnpike was one of my favorite places. I was particularly fond of the refinery cracking towers, those great abstract totems of knotted pipe and wire. And the big storage tanks, the code-painted conduits, the webs of scaffolding, the catwalks, the great pulsing gas flares—all sheerly functional, yet charged with surreal meaning. I felt like a cockroach in a pharmacy.
“What is that over there?” said Harry, interrupting my reverie. “Do you hear that noise?”
There was a deep, spasmodic roaring coming from the direction of the docks. The sound grew louder, and now you could hear sirens as well, sirens and gunshots. I slowed down a bit, and Harry and I peered off to the left. There was something big there, an immense shadowy form, a giant lizard stomping a warehouse. Crashes and roars. A boxcar went flying. A high-tension electrical tower crumpled and great sparks flew.
I stepped on the gas, but Harry reached over and took the key out of the ignition.
“Stop!” he commanded. “I want to enjoy this!”
I had no choice but to pull off into the emergency lane. Some other rubberneckers had already done the same. Just a few hundred meters off was a huge predatory lizard, a two-hundred-foot Godzilla with a head like a man-eating garbage scow. One of the refinery’s gas flares pulsed up just then, and the monster threw back his head to roar defiance.
GWEEEEEEEEEENT! AH-ROOOOOOOOO-OOOOOONKH!
A police car pulled up on the side of the turnpike and one of the cops opened up on the monster with a heavy machine gun.
Budda-ba-budda-burrtttt!
RRRAAAAAAANH! RRWAAAAAAAAAEEE-EEEEEE!
Budda-burrtttt-brrt!
RRRRWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The ground shook as the monster charged.
I was yelling, yelling at Harry. “Goddamnit, Harry, I know this is your fault! You jumped a lizard up in time! Give me those keys before—”
“Shut up, Fletcher. I’ve always wanted to have Godzilla real. The noise!”
The police car flew into the air and crashed, burning, on the roadway nearby.
FWWWWWUUUUUEEEEE! WWREEEEEEE-EENH!
“Good God, he’s headed for us! He knows you, Harry! Let’s get out of here!”
Harry was too enraptured to recognize our danger. I bundled him down the highway embankment. At the bottom was a culvert, a four-foot cement pipe running right under the turnpike.
“In here!”
GUH-WHEEEEEEEENT! REEEEEEEENTH-REEEEEEEENT-REEEEEEEEEENT!
The giant lizard was really getting excited. And—God, God, God—it was Harry and me he was after. We barely made it into the culvert in time. A huge claw probed in after us, and was replaced by the creature’s immense basilisk eye.
“Isn’t this exciting, Fletch? Watch this!”
Harry yelled and threw a sharp rock right into the giant eye’s center.
WHEEEENK-WHEEEENK-WHEEEENK! GUH-ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
“I love that noise,” chortled Harry. “I can’t get enough of it.”
The monster’s huge claws were tearing at the culvert’s end. Meters of sod crumbled and great chunks of concrete flew. Our tunnel grew steadily shorter. Harry was looking around for another rock to throw.
“Oh, God, Harry, I hate you so much, you crazy wrecked slob, you don’t care about anything real! Oh, Nancy, I’m so sorry I got involved! Please, God, help me, save me, save me—”
A third of our tunnel was gone now. The Godzilla-thing had us trapped like rats. The only escape was to run out the other end. I took off, leaving Harry behind. He was laughing and hefting a rock. Was he nuts, or did he know something I didn’t know.
It was marshy on the other side of the turnpike, too marshy to head off overland. The only way out was along the roadway itself.
The giant lizard was concentrating on its digging—there hadn’t been any roaring for several minutes. Gathering my courage, I crawled up the embankment to peer back across the turnpike.
There was the monster’s great lashing tail, and there, twenty meters off to the left, was my car, still unharmed.
“Oh, Nancy,” I moaned, “I’m coming, baby.”
I sprinted across the northbound lanes and the median. Every hair on my neck was standing up. I got back into my Buick. Harry had left the key on the seat. I fumbled it into the ignition and started . . .
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONT! SQUAA-ROOOOOOOONT-ROOOOOONT-ROOOOO-OOOONT!
Harry had just thrown his second rock. Forget it, man, and color me gone. I floored the accelerator and peeled out. I was still shaking when I pulled into my driveway back in Princeton.
6
The Central Teachings of Mysticism
NANCY was at the kitchen table, eating a dish of yogurt with Froot Loops. The TV was on full blast. A quiz show. Serena was lying on her side, sucking the corner of a blanket.
“Couldn’t you turn down the TV?” I demanded.
“Mr. Big Shot,” muttered Nancy, not taking her eyes off the screen. All the chairs had piles of laundry on them, so I flopped down on the floor next to Serena.
“What’s the matter, Nancy?”
“You,” she said. Her eyes were red and puffy. She’d been crying. Her head kept jerking the way it always did when she was really mad at me. “You gave all our money to your crazy friend, didn’t you? I wanted to go shopping, and the bank said we’ve got nothing left. Mr. Big Deal.”
She ripped open a package of Oreos and started eating the cookies two at a time. I could never understand where Nancy put all the food she ate. Someone on TV won a prize. The audience roared like a broken washing machine. Serena sucked on her blanket, staring blankly at the tube.
“I’m sorry, Nancy. You’re right, I gave our money to Harry. And I shouldn’t have. He’s not to be trusted. Did you hear the news yet? A giant lizard almost killed me on the Jersey Turnpike?”
Nancy stubbed her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray, and lit another, chewing all the while. She tilted her head back to keep the smoke out of her eyes. “All I can say, Joseph, is that—is that . . .” Abruptly she burst into sobs.
I got up and put my arm around her. I took the cigarette out of her mouth and put my cheek against hers. My frail strawberry-blond darling. My southern belle. “I—I did it for you, Nancy! I want us to be rich and happy again.”
“No!” She pushed me away, knocking her ashtray off the table. It shattered on the floor. Ashes and broken glass. Serena scrambled over to investigate.
“Look out, Serena, there’s broken glass. Let Daddy clean it up.”
Nancy and Serena watched me clean up the mess. I used a paper towel and piece of the Froot Loops box. At the end I cut my finger, probably on purpose. “Damn. Oh damn, damn, damn.”
Sunday morning we went to church, the First Church of Scientific Mysticism. The religion, vaguely Christian, had grown out of the mystical teachings of Albert Einstein and Kurt Gödel, the two great Princeton sages. Nancy and I didn’t attend regularly, but today it seemed like the thing to do. According to the evening news, Godzilla had suddenly disappeared after digging a trench across the Jersey Turnpike. The news didn’t mention if Harry had escaped, but it stood to reason that he had. I guess I was glad.
The sun was out, and the three of us had a nice time walking over to church.
“I’m sorry I was so ugly to you yesterday, Joe.”
“And I’m sorry about the money, baby. Maybe we can drive up to New Brunswick today and see what Harry’s done with it.”
“No, thanks.” Nancy looked light and pretty in her Sunday dress. I took her hand. Serena skipped along ahead of us, light as dandelion fluff.
The church building was a remodeled bank, a massive granite building with big pillars and heavy bronze lamps. Inside, there were pews and a raised pulpit. In place of an altar was a large hologram of Albert Einstein. Einstein smiled kindly, occasionally blinking his eyes. Nancy and Serena and I took a pew halfway up the left side. The organist was playing a Bach prelude. I gave Nancy’s hand a squeeze. She squeezed back.
Today’s service was special. The minister, an elderly physicist named Alwin Bitter, was celebrating the installation of a new assistant, a woman named—Sondra Tupperware. I jumped when I heard her name, remembering that Harry had mentioned her yesterday. Was this another of his fantasies become real? Yet Ms. Tupperware looked solid enough: a skinny woman with red glasses-frames and a springer spaniel’s kinky brown hair.
Old Bitter was wearing a tuxedo with a thin pink necktie. The dark suit set off his halo of white hair to advantage. He passed out some bread and wine, and then he gave a sermon called “The Central Teachings of Mysticism.”
His teachings, as best I recall, were three in number: (1) All is One; (2) The One is Unknowable; and (3) The One is Right Here. Bitter delivered his truths with a light touch, and the congregation laughed a lot—happy, surprised laughter.
Nancy and I lingered after the service, chatting with some of the church members we knew. I was waiting for a chance to ask Alwin Bitter for some advice.
Finally everyone was gone except for Bitter and Sondra Tupperware. The party in honor of her installation was going to be later that afternoon.
“Is Tupperware your real name?” asked Nancy.
Sondra laughed and nodded her head. Her eyes were big and round behind the red glasses. “My parents were hippies. They changed the family name to Tupperw
are to get out from under some legal trouble. Dad was a close friend of Alwin’s.”
“That’s right,” said Bitter. “Sondra’s like a niece to me. Did you enjoy the sermon?”
“It was great,” I said. “Though I’d expected more science.”
“What’s your field?” asked Bitter.
“Well, I studied mathematics, but now I’m mainly in computers. I had my own business for a while. Fletcher & Company.”
“You’re Joe Fletcher?” exclaimed Sondra. “I know a friend of yours.”
“Harry Gerber, right? That’s what I wanted to ask Dr. Bitter about. Harry’s trying to build something that will turn him into God.”
Bitter looked doubtful. I kept talking. “I know it sounds crazy, but I’m really serious. Didn’t you hear about the giant lizard yesterday?”
“On the Jersey Turnpike,” said Nancy loyally. “It was on the news.”
“Yes, but I don’t quite see—”
“Harry made the lizard happen. The thing he built—it’s called a blunzer—is going to give him control over space and time, even the past. The weird thing is that it isn’t really even Harry. The blunzer is just using us to make things happen. It sent Harry to tell me to tell Harry to get me to—”
Bitter was looking at his watch. “If you have a specific question, Mr. Fletcher, I’d be happy to answer it. Otherwise . . .”
What was my question?
“My question. Okay, it’s this: What if a person becomes the same as the One? What if a person can control all of reality? What should he ask for? What changes should he make?”
Bitter stared at me in silence for almost a full minute. I seemed finally to have engaged his imagination. “You’re probably wondering why that question should boggle my mind,” he said at last. “I wish I could answer it. You ask me to suppose that some person becomes like God. Very well. Now we are wondering about God’s motives. Why is the universe the way it is? Could it be any different? What does God have in mind when He makes the world?” Bitter paused and rubbed his eyes. “Can the One really be said to have a mind at all? To have a mind—this means to want something. To have plans. But wants and plans are partial and relative. The One is absolute. As long as wishes and needs are present, an individual falls short of the final union.” Bitter patted my shoulder and gave me a kind look. “With all this said, I urge you to remember that individual existence is in fact identical with the very act of falling short of the final union. Treasure your humanity, it’s all you have.”
