by Rudy Rucker
8. Indiana.
9. Baumgard.
10. How the blunzer works. Tell Harry.
THE list, in my own handwriting, seemed to be complete. I tucked it in my shirt pocket and got to work.
As I’ve mentioned, I was able to see in every direction at once. More than this, I was also able to see through any obstacles. In ordinary vision, what one does is to combine various two-dimensional retinal impressions to build up a three-dimensional mental image. But now that I was master of space and time, the whole world around me was somehow contained in my head. I could see everything that everyone was doing.
But this was not all. By a slight effort, I was able to see not only the present world but also the worlds of the past. Normally such an influx of information would be staggering, but to me it was as pleasant as the sea is to a fish. It was no trouble at all to fix my attention on my Buick in the Softech parking lot, ten days ago. I could see the little images of Harry on the dashboard, and I watched as he warped my past self into a doubly infinite regress. When my past self turned on the radio, it took only a touch of my volition to make the circuits speak my piece. I didn’t need to send my body back like Harry had. It sufficed to send my will.
“THE RED GLUONS ONLY WORK ONCE,” I informed my past self, “USE BLUE GLUONS THE SECOND TIME.”
A bit more chitchat and my first task was done. Sondra’s body was next on the list. By keeping part of my attention on the past I was able to use her original body as a model. I turned her hair back to a kinky brown, flattened out the proud mounds of her breasts, thickened here and thinned there. End of second task.
3:10.
Now the Gary-brains. Here the little Fletchers came in handy. Just as Harry had done, I sent my little echoes out into the world around me to seek out and disintegrate each Herber-brain they found. As an additional precaution, I teleported the five Herberites back out into the street. I didn’t want them to attack on sheer momentum when I reentered their timestream. My little helpers came flying back—all the aliens had been destroyed.
2:50.
The Plaza penthouse was the hardest wish yet. First I had to find Nancy and read her mind for the plans. Rapidly I scanned all over Manhattan till I found her. She was—I was surprised to learn—in a jail cell downtown. They’d busted her at the studio. I sent the thumb-sized Fletcher to reassure her and look into her mind. Once I could see what she wanted, I had to will the penthouse into existence—furnishings and all. And on top of that I had to create the paper that went with: titles, deeds, variances, and tax records. Not only did I have to create them but I needed to place them in the proper bureaucratic file cabinets. When I finally had the thing done, I plucked Nancy out of jail and moved her into our new home. For the finishing touch, I plopped ten thousand thousand-dollar bills down in front of her. Whew!
1:45.
Over a minute I’d wasted on that! What else did I still have to wish for? My mind seized up in panic. I got out my little list. Five down, five to go. Next was Power of flight for Nancy.
I didn’t quite understand how Harry had gone about giving Sondra the power of flight. I recalled him saying that he’d done it by turning her atoms into “null matter in EPR synchronicity with her state of mind,” which may or may not have meant something. Instead of trying to think it through, I just looked back in time and copied the mind-state that Harry had when he did it. Holding the strange, Gerberesque thought pattern steady, I applied it to Nancy’s body. Good.
Now for those food plants.
My tiny echomen came in handy again. I sent the endless flock of them out to scour the planet for porkchop bushes and fritter trees. This took some doing, as Nancy had mailed the seeds far and wide. That was what she’d been arrested for, apparently: a slew of customs violations. I found and destroyed all the documents relating to her case while my echomen repaired all the damage the plants had done. What next?
Indiana. Get serious. Those stupid kids could just . . . I stopped myself. It behooves a god to be merciful. I located them and shoved the desired drug confection into each of their stupid faces.
Baumgard. That was the really tough one. I was a lot more powerful than I’d ever been, but I wasn’t really much smarter. What had he asked to know? Why do things exist?
1:25.
I tried looking into the future in hopes of finding a book with the knowledge Baumgard sought. But the future was not accessible to me. As far as I could tell, it didn’t really exist. Trying to see into the future was like looking at a page of movie ads. Lots of pictures, but no way to be sure which one you’re going to visit. Why do things exist?
Instead of looking forward, I tried peering back through the eons. There were the dinosaurs—I sought till I found some small mammals, our ancestors. Before that, the great empty seas—I brought some molecules together into a double helix. Further back. Great disks of dust slowly clumping into planets and stars. I nudged them to make the lumps show better. But I needed to look much further, back to the very start!
My vision shook with the effort. I held to the task. Back, back, back through the billions of years. Almost at the start now. Space filled with radiation, utterly symmetrical. The symmetry has to break, I thought, and made it happen. Further.
Energy-filled space. So small, so big. Earlier. Where did it come from? Why do things exist? Someone had to put it there. But who?
I focused all my energy on the initial moment of our universe. I drew strength from all the space and time around me, and funneled raw existence back to—make our universe begin.
Why do things exist? Because I created this universe. Baumgard wasn’t going to like the answer.
:38.
There was a tenth item on the list: How the blunzer works. Tell Harry. I didn’t recall having wanted to make any wishes like this. But better do it. I still had time.
I stared at the blunzer next to me and let myself merge into the essence of its workings. Then I flipped back through time to feel its action as it blunzed me, and earlier, Harry. I understood it then, I understood it totally. But I couldn’t quite put my understanding into words.
With part of me still in the past, I reached out to the resuscitated Harry on the floor next to me and read the physics terminology off the wrinkles of his brain. Now I had it. Now I really knew how the blunzer worked.
But there was still one last part to the tenth wish. Tell Harry. Why tell him when he already knew? The answer hit me like a ton of bricks. Harry hadn’t always known how to build a blunzer. When I’d asked him on that Saturday how he figured it out, he’d told me he got the the idea in a dream. A dream he’d had the night before.
I scrambled back to the night of Friday, September 21. As I’d been doing all along, I sent only my consciousness, not my whole body. Harry’s whole song and dance about having to send your body back and send a lizard forward was easily avoidable. My will could reach back in time and do whatever was needed.
My immaterial eye found Harry peacefully asleep in his double bed. Plain Sondra was next to him, snuggled against the soft curve of his fat back. I’d come to the right place, but how was I to get into Harry’s dream?
It was easy. I reached into his mind as before, but this time I did more than observe his thoughts. I altered them. I set up a feedback loop between my thoughts and his; it felt as if I’d stepped right into his dream.
In the dream, Harry is sitting by a river with a beautiful girl. She is his anima, a projection of subconscious goodness. They have a picnic basket, and they are throwing all their food into the river. A duck is eating the food—a strange duck that walks on the surface of the water.
“Harry,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.
He gave a hoarse cry of surprise, and the anima disappeared. “What are you doing here, Fletcher?”
“I’ve only got a few seconds. I’ve come to tell you how to build the blunzer.”
The duck and the river had disappeared now, too. Still in the dream, Harry and I were sitting face to
face at a long table. In the space of an instant, I took everything I knew about the blunzer and coded it onto Harry’s brain.
:10, read the clock. I snapped back to my body in Harry’s workshop. I tried to understand everything I’d just done, but it was too much for me now. I twisted my time line back parallel to the world’s. The people in the room with me started moving again.
:09.
Harry felt his throat gingerly, then sat up and grinned up at me. “Thanks, Fletch. I needed that.”
:08.
“Oh, Joe,” exclaimed Sondra, looking down at her flat body, “it’s perfect.”
:07.
Seeing Sondra so dull and plain again really bothered me. I could still see into the past, and I feasted my eyes one last time on the way she’d been.
:06.
At the same time I looked over my list again, making sure I hadn’t left anything out. I had a feeling there was one more wish I wanted.
:05.
Sondra and Harry didn’t realize I’d been out of their time for four minutes. They thought I was just beginning. I could see it in their minds.
:04.
“Don’t you have any deep, hidden desires you’re going to ask for?” Sondra was saying.
:03.
Suddenly I realized what my real wish was.
:02.
“I WANT TO BE A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN!” I cried. “I WANT TO LOOK JUST LIKE SONDRA DID.”
:01.
The numbers disappeared. My field of vision narrowed back down to what it had been. Something was hanging in front of one of my eyes. I reached up to touch it.
Long, blond hair.
21
Men Are People Too
“WHAT a homo!” exclaimed Harry once again. “I can’t believe it.”
I ignored him and continued to stare down at my new body. I still had on the same clothes as before. “If you don’t mind, Harry, I’d like to go to the bathroom.”
“I bet you would. Can I watch?”
“Forget it. I’m happily married.”
“Do you know where we can reach Nancy?” Sondra asked.
“She’s in a penthouse on top of the Plaza Hotel. Call the operator, it’s a new listing. Or just wait a minute. I can tell her myself.”
I walked out of the workshop and up the stairs to Harry’s apartment. The bathroom was right off his bedroom. I was eager to look myself over in privacy. I was having trouble grasping what I’d done.
As I passed the bedroom window, I looked out to see how the stupid groovers were doing. Still shirtless, most of them, but all their Gary-brains were gone. Thrown back on their own limited mental resources, the zealots didn’t seem to have much to say for themselves.
I locked the bathroom door and took all my clothes off. It was a nightmare, a dream come true. I was a woman as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe. I pressed my hands between my legs. My big breasts slid this way and that, jiggling with every motion. My hips and butt stuck out like shelves.
I was horrified, yet of course I was thrilled as well. Whatever regrets my conscious mind may have had, my subconscious was in ecstasy. I got into the shower and soaped myself all over, getting to know my new body.
Someone knocked on the door as I was toweling myself off.
“Who’s there?” My voice was sweet and melodious.
“It’s Sondra, Joe. Do you want one of my dresses?”
“Yes, thanks. That candy-striped one? And a bra and stockings.”
“Unlock the door.”
“Okay.”
I held the towel up over myself while Sondra brought in her new clothes for me. They fit perfectly. Acting like a friendly sister, she showed me how to put on lipstick and mascara.
My new face didn’t look exactly like Sondra’s had. Somehow you could vaguely tell that it was still Fletcher.
“I want heels, too,” I said, brushing out my long hair. “I might as well do the whole number. And can you give me a little handbag with some money in it?”
“Joe—”
“Call me JoJo.”
“JoJo, what are you going to do now?”
“Get the train to New York. I want to look at our new penthouse.”
“I called Nancy, JoJo. She’s pretty upset.”
“Oh, she’ll be glad to see me.”
“I’m not so sure.”
I left Harry’s shop soon after—it embarrassed me to try to talk to him while I looked like this—and walked down to the train station. Now that the invasion was over, I figured the passenger trains to New York would be stopping in New Brunswick again.
My heels—shiny red ones—were a little tricky to manipulate, but I found that if I walked slow and swayed a lot it wasn’t too hard. The volunteer Herberites in the street seemed pretty disoriented; most of them were drifting back out to the parking lots at the edge of town. The men all stared at me, of course. I was careful not to meet their eyes. This quickly became a real drag—having always to look at the sidewalk or the rooftops—but I certainly didn’t want some ugly bristly man to try to pick me up.
This probably takes a little explaining. You’d think that any man who wants to be a woman is basically homosexual. But—at least on the surface—this didn’t seem to be true for me. My wanting to look like the blond Sondra was really a heterosexual impulse: the craving for a supreme merging with the object of desire. But what was I going to do now—spend all my time looking in mirrors and taking showers? More and more, I was realizing how badly I’d blown it.
There was quite a crowd of people up on the train station platform, most of them just regular citizens happy to be free of the slugs. The station-master assured me that a train for New York would be stopping in twenty minutes. I sat down on a bench outside the waiting room.
“Hi,” said a man, sitting down next to me. He was nicely dressed and had a polite expression. “I’m sure glad those naked brains are gone.”
“Me too,” I said. “I hope things will go back to normal now. The mutant plants are gone, too, aren’t they?”
“That’s right. Those guys Fletcher and Gerber are really going to get it.”
“Uh . . .” I tried to cover my confusion. I’d forgotten about that angle. As long as the Gary-brains had run New Brunswick, Harry had been safe from the authorities. But now . . .
“Would you like a cigarette?” He drew out a pack of menthols and offered me one.
“Thanks,” I said, accepting the cigarette and a light. His fingers brushed against my hand.
“My name’s Brad. I’m a stockbroker in the city.”
“I’m JoJo. I—I’m starting a new life.”
“You don’t have a husband?”
“No, but—”
“I’m surprised someone as gorgeous as you isn’t married. Are you a model?” Brad smiled at me, his eyes flickering over my voluptuous curves. “I love your dress.”
“Oh, I was in computers.” I felt increasingly flustered.
“Brainy, too!” Brad grinned and slapped his face in mock astonishment. “Look, JoJo, I know this is kind of sudden, but I’m going to be leaving the office at five, and if you’d like to have dinner—”
“No, no!” I squeaked. “I couldn’t possibly.”
“Tomorrow, then?”
Some cigarette smoke went down the wrong way and I went into a coughing fit.
Brad watched, smiling patiently. As far as he was concerned, anything I did was wonderful. “Can I get you some water, JoJo? A Coke?”
“No, I’m afraid I—” I lurched to my feet and gave him a smile. “I have to go.”
“Well, all right. Another time, maybe. I’ll be looking for you.”
Feeling suddenly unsteady on my heels, I teetered into the waiting room. It was three-thirty. Ten more minutes until the train. I went and hid in the ladies’ room.
The train, as it turned out, was filled with state troopers. They had come to make sure New Brunswick was really secure. Watching them get out, I realized that one of their first tasks w
as going to be the raiding of 501 Suydam Street, home of the mad scientist Harry Gerber. For the moment I was glad not to look like Joe Fletcher.
Fortunately my admirer didn’t get in the same train car as I. I plumped myself down next to a cute brown-haired woman with big glasses. Her clothes were kind of tattered.
“Isn’t it wonderful to be able to leave New Brunswick?” she said to me. “I feel like the last week has been a long bad dream.”
“Do you live here?” I asked, ready for some pleasant girl talk.
“No, I was just visiting my boyfriend at Rutgers. He’s a graduate student in engineering. My roommates must think I’ve been killed!”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s been awful. Did the aliens make you do anything that—”
“I don’t want to think about it,” the brunette exclaimed. “And all those rednecks showing up. I’m going to see my gynecologist as soon as possible. I bet they got after you too, what with your figure and blond hair.”
“Yes,” I lied. “Gary Herber made me go out in the streets at night. With the brains sliding around and everyone grabbing each other—”
“Men are so awful,” said the woman next to me, her face momentarily close to tears. “Those brains were like men, the way they glue onto us and try to use us. Even my Tommy’s like that, a little bit.”
“Men are people too,” I protested. “They just want to be happy like women do.”
“Don’t kid yourself, sister.” My companion’s voice took on a hard edge. “Men and women don’t want the same things at all. When’s the last time any man did something really romantic for you—without wanting to get paid back the same night?”
“You have to think about the genes,” I said. I’d heard a theory about this. “Basically all a person wants is to perpetuate his or her genes. The best strategy for men is to have lots of children with lots of different women. The best strategy for women is have children and make sure the father stays around to help take care of them.”
“Ha!” snapped the woman next to me. “Some man must have told you that. All a person wants is to perpetuate their genes. Boy, is that stupid.”
“Well, yes,” I said after a time. “I guess it is.”
