by Rudy Rucker
“A third-order uncertainty,” mused Bitter. “An ingenious device. And you say that you invented it?”
“No one invented it, I tell you. I got it from Harry and Harry got it from me. It made us build it.”
“Yet it only wants to work three times,” said Bitter, sitting back in his chair. “What do you think of all this, Sybil?”
“I think you’re right to let Nancy have the third wish,” said Bitter’s wife. She had lighted a cigarette and was holding her head tilted back to keep the smoke out of her eyes. “It’s like a fairy tale. Do you remember the story of the magic fish that we read, Serena?”
“Yus.”
“How does it go?” asked Nancy.
“Like this,” said old Sybil. “A poor fisherman catches a magic fish. The fish says, ‘Put me back in the water and you can have anything you want.’ So the fisherman throws the magic fish back in the water. When he gets home to his little hut, he tells his wife. The wife says she wants to live in a mansion. So the fisherman goes back to the ocean and asks the fish for a mansion. Fine. When the fisherman gets home, there’s a mansion, but his wife isn’t satisfied for long. ‘This isn’t enough,’ she says. ‘I want to be a queen in a castle.’ So the fisherman goes back to the ocean and calls to the fish again. When he gets home, his wife is a queen in a castle, but she still isn’t happy. ‘I want to be empress of the sun and the moon,’ she says. Well, the fisherman goes back to yell for the magic fish again, but this time the fish gets mad and takes everything away.”
“It was the wife’s fault!” I exclaimed. “It was the wife’s fault that they ended up with nothing.”
“It wasn’t the wife who kept going back to bother the magic fish,” said Sybil, looking at me through a haze of smoke. “The fisherman should have thought for himself. I know another three-wish fairy tale, too.”
“I’ve heard it,” I interrupted. “‘The Peasant and the Sausage.’”
“Yes,” said Sybil. “And I suppose you blame the wife in that one too, don’t you, Joe?” She was just backing up Nancy because they were both women.
“Of course it was the wife’s fault. If she hadn’t asked for that stupid sausage—”
“And what if the husband hadn’t been so mean? They would have had two good wishes left. A husband should think for himself and keep his temper.”
I was going to yell something back, but Bitter interrupted me. “Don’t try to argue with Sybil. It’s hopeless. I’ll try and get you the yellow gluons, Joe, but Nancy will have to be the one to get blunzed.”
“All right,” I sighed. “But what are you going to wish for, Nancy? Make sure you get me back my right body, and get Harry and Sondra and me out of trouble with the law.”
“I’ll wish what I like,” said Nancy tartly. That Sybil was a bad example, a real troublemaker.
“I made a big wish once,” said Alwin suddenly. “It was a long time ago. I was involved with a dangerous experiment—an experiment even more dangerous than yours, Joe. It gave me endless power, but the world was being destroyed. I had to use my power to renormalize reality. I had to use my power to get rid of my power.”
“Do all the wish stories have to end that way?” protested Nancy. “With everyone back where they started?”
“One could argue that the world is perfect just as it is,” said Bitter. “The world is the sum of all our wishes about it. And all of us are aspects of the One.”
“I understand,” said Nancy softly. “I understand, Alwin.”
“Well, I sure don’t,” I said, rising to my feet. My skirt was rucked up awkwardly around my waist. I patted at my big hips, trying to smooth the fabric down. “Come on, Dr. Bitter, less talk and more action. Let’s go get those gluons.”
“All right. I’ll make a phone call first.”
Nancy and I said goodbye to Serena while Bitter made his call. Sybil kept staring at me in curiosity. She seemed fascinated by the idea of a man trying to move a woman’s body around.
“Don’t you like being a woman?” she asked me finally.
“No, it’s too hard. There’s a fairy tale about that too, isn’t there?”
“That’s right,” said Sybil. “‘The Farmer Who Would Keep House.’” Her soft eyes were dancing and her broad mouth was amused. It was hard to stay mad at this woman.
“Can you watch Serena just a little longer?” asked Nancy.
“I have to go meet a friend,” said Sybil. “But my daughter Ida will be home from school soon. She’ll keep an eye on Serena. Make a good wish, Nancy!”
“It’s all set,” said Bitter, coming back into the room. “Tri Lu has some yellow gluons you can have for one million dollars.”
“Let’s go.”
Alwin and Nancy and I set out on foot. Lu’s office wasn’t far.
26
I Do It
TRI Lu had big teeth, a skinny yellow face, and an unruly shock of dry, black hair. It was love at first sight.
“Ah Joe Fletcher you?” Long, jerky laughter. “You very lucky!” More laughter. He stuck out his thumb and pinkie and put his hand to his ear—miming a telephone call. “I talk Dr. Baumgard. He very angry you.”
“Has he called the police?”
“He want information you promise. He want right away. You sit my lap now, Joe. I call.” He was laughing again, pulling in lungfuls of air between each spasm. Hohawhaha-gasp-hohawhahaha-gasp. Finally it turned into a coughing fit and he buried his face in his hands. He was embarrassed by how much he wanted me.
“Are you sure this is the right guy?” I asked old Bitter.
“Yes. He’s our finest experimentalist. If he can’t help you, no one can.”
“I don’t like the way he looks at you, Joe,” said Nancy.
Nervously I reached up to ruffle my hair. Tri Lu had recovered now. He was watching me. He was ready to eat me alive, drumsticks first.
“Why don’t you two wait outside,” I told Nancy and Alwin. “Dr. Lu and I will work this out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Please leave us alone till I call you. Go for a walk or something.”
They went out and I closed the office door. I leaned against it, hands behind my back, and gave Tri Lu my biggest smile. He smiled back.
“Come here, Joe. I dial.”
I went and sat in Lu’s lap while he dialed Baumgard’s number. It seemed like the easiest thing to do. Hell, I had nothing to be scared of. I had twenty pounds on the guy, easy.
“I hope I’m not too heavy for you, Dr. Lu.”
He handed me the receiver and threw his arms around me. “Good fat American cowgirl. I love.”
“Hello?” quacked the little voice on the phone. “Baumgard here.”
“Dana. This is Joe Fletcher.” Lu had his hands on my breasts. The nipples were starting to tingle. It was hard to concentrate on the secret of the universe. “I’m in Tri Lu’s office, and he said I should call you, so . . .” I broke off in a squeal as Lu’s hungry Vietnamese fingers dug too far into my ripe American flesh.
“You sound odd, Fletcher. Has something happened to you?”
“I’ll say. Never mind. I wanted to call you about the reason why things exist.”
“The experiment was a success?”
“Yes. The universe is a sort of perpetual motion machine. It funnels energy from the future back to the past. The universe is a self-excited system.”
A pause. Then, “That’s not enough, Fletcher. Where does the whole system come from at all? The world-snake bites its tail—fine. Where did the snake come from?”
Lu was trying to force his hand between my thighs now. I had my knees pressed tight together, but I could feel myself weakening. This skinny little guy was awfully cute. “What did you say, Dana?”
“Where does the self-generating universe come from?”
“Uh—I don’t know. I didn’t ask. I just looked at the Big Bang. I helped the universe make the Big Bang.”
“This won’t do, Fletcher. I’m in tro
uble over the missing gluons. I should call the police and—”
“Would you take a million dollars?” Lu was straining his face upward toward mine for a kiss. I let him have one. He tasted nice. I noticed I still had the phone in my hand. Oh, yes, Baumgard. “I’ll give you a million dollars,” I repeated and hung up.
I made sure the office door was locked, and then I let Tri Lu take off all my clothes. He swarmed onto me like an excited tick. I was huge and beautiful. We made love. I was glad to finally do it. I was glad to be a sexy woman.
An hour passed, maybe more. The office windows had Venetian blinds, and the afternoon sun was striping us with shadows. I sat up, remembering Nancy. Time to get dressed again, time to cover up.
I watched Tri Lu stepping awkwardly into his underwear. I loved him. He was a person, a person who wanted to be happy. I was happy, but I still wanted something more. I wanted yellow gluons.
“I have two million dollars,” I said, taking the packets of bills from my purse. “One for you, one for Dana.”
“Silly paper. Not worth like good love me you.” He gave me one of his all-purpose smiles. His long hair stuck straight up from the top of his head.
“Oh, Lu.” I hugged him one last time. “Thank you so much.”
“I thank more. Soft cowgirl.” He kissed his fingers and touched my breasts. I patted his cheek and then took out my compact to check my makeup. Hopelessly smeared. Nancy would know. Well, let her. I had to use my femaleness at least once, didn’t I?
We left the money on Lu’s desk and took the elevator down to the basement laboratory. There was a giant linear accelerator there, a silver tube stretching off down a tunnel leading out of the basement. Our end of the accelerator—the business end—was surrounded by a thicket of machinery. To one side of the machinery was a table littered with papers and rubber bands.
“Quark and gluon,” Lu said, stepping over to the table. “Look, Joe.” He handed me a little model, a single band of rubber with rubber-cement globs at either end. The blackened globs were the size of acorns.
“Like quark,” said Lu, pointing to one of the globs. “Gluon connect.” He strummed the rubber band.
I toyed with the little model for a minute. As long as the quark-globs were near each other, they experienced no particular attraction. But if you tried to pull them apart, the connecting band stretched tighter and tighter, drawing the quarks back together.
“If cut here,” said Lu, pointing at the middle of the band, “make two new quark.”
If the gluon was a band holding the quarks together, the quarks could be thought of as the ends of the gluon-band. Cutting the band would make two new loose ends, two new quarks.
“Instead I pinch off,” said Lu, handing me a different model. It was like the first one, except here the connecting gluon-band had been folded back to meet itself and form a loop. If you pinched the loop free, you’d get a circular gluon-band, a free gluon with no quarks attached.
“Two year work,” said Lu, starting to laugh again. He was handing me a little magnetic bottle from a cabinet by the accelerator. “One thirtieth gram yellow gluons. Million dollar.” His laughter slid into another coughing fit.
I opened the little bottle and looked inside. The gluons were yellow as the sun in water, yellow as Lu, yellow as an ear of corn. Hot, golden yellow. I put the bottle in my purse.
We said our goodbyes and I left the physics building to look for Nancy. I found her with Alwin on a stone bench a few hundred meters off. Leaves were blowing around, and the bright air was like cold water.
“You’re a mess,” said Nancy. “What took so long?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I held up the gluons. “Here they are. Enough gluons for two and a half seconds. Have you figured out your wish?”
“I want to know what you did to smear your makeup like that, Joe.”
“You know. I had to. I had to do it, Nancy.”
“God, you’re disgusting.” She turned her face down and picked at a spot on her pants. Suddenly we were both in tears.
“I’m sorry, Nancy. I’m sorry I’m so twisted up. But the gluons will make everything right again. I’m sure they will.” I sat down on Bitter’s other side. “Tell her, Alwin. Tell her I love her.”
“You tell her,” said Bitter, getting to his feet. “I’m going home.”
So I told Nancy that I loved her. I told her I wanted things to be the same again, only better. I told her I’d only let Lu have me so he would sell me the gluons. After a while Nancy believed me. A little longer, and I believed it too.
“So what are you going to wish for?” I asked when we’d finished making up.
“I was talking to Alwin and—I think I have an idea,” said Nancy. “But I want to make sure I do it right. Could you explain about the Planck length again?”
“The Planck length is ordinarily about 10-33 centimeters,” I said. “Much smaller than an atom or an elementary particle. The Planck length is the size scale below which ordinary physics breaks down. There’s no cause and effect for things smaller than Planck length. There’s total uncertainty down there, and anything can happen. Now, the idea behind the blunzer is to magnify the Planck length all the way up to one meter. When you get blunzed, the Planck length will get that big in a region around your head. So for a few seconds you’ll be in a zone of total uncertainty. Anything you want to have happen will be true.”
“What if the Planck length blew up to ten meters? Couldn’t several people get blunzed at once then?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Only one person really needs to get the injection. The brain acts as a kind of amplifier.”
“What injection?”
“The final stage of getting blunzed is where a needle jabs in through your fontanelle—you know, where Serena had her soft spot?”
“Right on top of my head?” Instinctively Nancy raised her hand to her scalp. “Does it hurt?”
“No, not really. You hear a sort of crunching, but it doesn’t hurt. And then you’re blunzed.”
“You say I’ll only have two seconds?”
“Two and two-fifths, actually. Now will you tell me what your wish is going to be?”
“No. Alwin told me not to. He said you might try to change my mind.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue with you,” I sighed. “Just make sure I get my body back. Shall we fly to New Brunswick?”
“Okay.”
Nancy lay down on the ground, I sat on her butt, and we took off.
27
Nancy’s Wish
WITHOUT a windfoil, Nancy couldn’t fly as fast as Sondra had. We got up to a few hundred meters and followed the turnpike north to New Brunswick. When we were about halfway there, I spotted a big black dot approaching. A hawk? A guided missile?
No, it was Sondra, fresh out of the Carteret Correctional Center. She cruised up to us and we hovered there together for a minute.
“Isn’t flying fun, Nancy?” said Sondra. Her face was flushed with excitement. “They let me out into the exercise yard and I took off. I’m going to see Alwin.”
“We just saw him,” I said. “He helped me get some more gluons.”
“And I asked him what to wish for,” added Nancy. “I get to make the wish.”
“Why don’t you just wish for lots of wishes?” Sondra suggested. “Wish for all the wishes we want.”
“That’s too vague,” I protested. “I don’t think wishes about wishing are allowed.”
“It’s just a machine,” said Sondra. “Not a leprechaun or something. Nancy ought to ask for a hundred wishes.”
The two women were hovering side by side. With the bright sun, I felt like a bather on a float. There were fields below us and, off to the right, the Jersey Turnpike, with cars crawling like ants.
“Don’t worry, Sondra,” said Nancy. “I’m going to ask for something really big. I think my wish is the real reason the blunzer made itself.”
“What’s your wish?” I asked again. But Nancy still refused to
tell me.
“How’s Harry?” Sondra asked me.
“I saw him this morning. He’s in the Rahway prison. He wants to get out.”
“I just wish those seventeen people hadn’t died,” said Sondra. “I feel bad about them. If I could wish one thing, I’d wish for them to be alive again. Nancy, do you think—”
“She’s only going to have about two seconds,” I interrupted. “And the main thing is to get my body back. She’ll try to fix up our legal troubles too, but—”
“Leave it to me,” said Nancy. “I know just what to do.”
Some schoolchildren in the fields below had noticed us. Their tiny shouts floated up on the gentle autumn breezes.
“You know,” said Sondra, “I keep having trouble believing I can fly. I really have to concentrate to keep from falling down. Like in a flying dream. Don’t you feel that too, Nancy?”
“Hey,” I interrupted anxiously. “That’s no way to be thinking right now.”
“. . . and just drop like a stone,” Nancy mused. “If suddenly you forget how. Yeah, I can really feel that, Sondra. How about you, Joe?”
“Hey, look, girls, this is—” A farmer drove his pickup into the field beneath us and got out with a rifle. There came a faint popping of gunfire.
We said a hurried goodbye to Sondra and flew the rest of the way to New Brunswick. Nancy came in low and touched down in a parking lot near Harry’s place. At first I thought no one had noticed us, but then an old bum came stumbling over.
“Take me for a ride, angels.” He had the weather-beaten skin of a sailor. “Take me out to sea.” He seemed deranged, albeit strong enough to cause serious trouble.
“Go away,” I said curtly. “Leave us alone.” We started out of the parking lot with the bum tagging along after us.
“Give me something,” he begged. “I need money to buy a pet fish.”
