by Rucker, Rudy
Alan felt sure they could best these bullying fools. Malleable as his flesh was, even a bullet at close range should be manageable.
“Oh hell,” said Landers, seeing the determination in Alan’s eyes. He drew out his own gun as well. “We need to finish them off, Norvell. I say we lock the two of ‘em in our car till the others come. And then pour on a few gallons of gas and burn the car.” The approaching sirens had risen to a fever pitch.
“Let’s say that’s my idea,” said Norvell, after a brief pause. “I get the credit.” He gestured at Alan with his gun. “You first. Walk to our vehicle. And, Landers, you sic those police dogs on them again.”
Alan and Ned exchanged a pulse of teep, and now Alan understood what Ned had done to the dogs. He’d sent tendrils from his feet, through the sand, and up into the animals’ paws. He’d pricked their flesh and skugged them. The slightest infusion of skug tissue was enough. Reaching out with his teep, Alan could see a grayscale wide-angle view of the scene through the eyes of the nearest dog.
Landers let out a sharp whistle, and the skugged dogs began a charade of barking and nipping at Alan and Ned. Gun at the ready, Landers backed towards the cops’ black and white station wagon and opened the rear door. Norvell stood to one side, his heavy pistol at the ready.
As if cowed by the dogs, Alan and Ned shuffled forward. But they were in teep synch with the dogs and with each other. Like a ballet. And now the dogs charged the policemen.
Ned sent a quick tentacle around Norvell’s thick waist—and let the tentacle burrow into the cop’s pale flesh. For his part, Alan lost a precious half-second watching Ned. And thus the shot from Landers’s gun caught Alan by surprise. The bullet shattered his right knee.
As Alan fell, he let his right shin and foot come fully free—and he sent his lower leg dancing across the sand to spring onto Landers’s face.
By the time the other police showed up, Alan and Ned had the situation well in hand. Alan had regrown his leg with no trouble at all, losing only a little fat from around his waist. He and Ned were sitting in the rear seat of the cop’s station-wagon, as if in captivity. The dogs rested peacefully in a cage in back. And the now-comradely officers were standing outside.
“These ain’t the ones,” the skugged Norvell announced to the newcomers. “A false alarm like last night. These just a couple of vags. Landers and me gonna run ‘em in anyway.”
After a few minutes of tiresome American witticisms, the police dispersed. Norvell started the cop car and drove slowly down the West Palm Beach streets.
He glanced back at Alan and Ned, his pudgy face wreathed in a smile. “Being a skugger feels pretty damn good, don’t it?” he said. “Its like I’m a touch sharper than before. I can’t say as I’m sorry you infected us. So how can we help you on your way?”
“We need wheels,” said Ned.
“We have a mint 1955 Pontiac Catalina in the impound lot back of the West Palm substation,” said Landers. “Norvell and me took it off a dope dealer last month.”
“You can run hog wild,” said Norvell.
The four of them burst into a round of laughter—and the dogs joined in. Alan got perhaps too deeply involved in the laughing and yipping. He was modulating his sounds in frequency and amplitude, savoring the patterns of beats that arose as the joyful vibrations overlapped and bounced within the small cabin of the car, drawing the laughter out for as long as he could. Alan was no longer alone
There were only four other police at the small substation. For the sake of appearances Ned and Alan squeezed their flexible hands into those cuffs that Landers had. Leaving the dogs in the back of their wagon, Landers and Norvell herded the “captives” inside, talking roughly. It might have been okay, but Ned didn’t like attitude of the booking officer at the desk inside the station, who referred to Ned as “low-tide Black trash.”
In response, Ned grew one of his fingers out like a vine and skugged the white-haired officer on the spot. Exhilarated by the wild energy, the old cop let out a cracked hoot yelp and wriggled his arms like serpents.
“Did you see that?” yelled one of the other cops, drawing his gun. “All mutants!”
“You all right, Zeke?” a second cop called to the ecstatic convert at the desk. He drew out his gun and stood beside his partner. “Holy hell, that mutant-woman’s arm is sproutin’ like a kudzu vine—”
Growing rapid tentacles from his hand, Alan zapped both the cops before they could fire. But the fourth policeman, the substation’s captain, had been been concealed in an office to one side. He appeared in his doorway and shot Ned in the ribs.
This was more serious than being hit in the knee. Ned curled on the floor, focusing into himself to put his body back in repair. In a state of panic, Norvell fired his pistol at the Captain, hitting the man smack in the middle his face. The cop went down in a nauseating explosion of gore.
So now there was a corpse in the substation. And seven skuggers. Alan helped Ned to his feet. Urged on by their inner skugs, the cops gathered around their dead captain, lying crooked in a pool of blood.
“So long, Captain Jackson,” said one of them, with a hint of mockery in his voice.
Working on instinct, the skugger cops sent tangles of roots from their feet, sinking the tendrils into the body of the fallen Captain, rapidly absorbing his flesh and blood.
“Like mangroves growin’ on a dead alligator,” said Norvell.
Meanwhile a woman’s voice was quacking from the phone on the dead Captain’s desk.
“Damn,” said Landers. “His wife. She heard all this.”
He went over and hung up the phone. And then he turned his arm into a bouquet of tendrils that he ran along the Captain’s desk, wall, rug, and ceiling like a feather-duster, cleaning up all signs of the execution.
“Captain should just have let us skug him,” said Norvell. “Not that I’ll miss him none.”
“I’ll be skugging Captain Jackson’s wife in half an hour,” said Landers, starting for the door. “I’ll nip the trouble in the bud.”
“I’ll come too,” said Norvell. “Captain’s wife’s a looker.”
The five policemen burst into merry hooting, and the skugger dogs chimed in with howls.
“Don’t forget our new car,” put in Ned.
An hour later, Ned and Alan were back in the posh part of Palm Beach, driving their lavish populuxe car along the ocean boulevard. It was a mild, day, brilliantly sunny. The liberated Pontiac Catalina was a two-tone, maroon on the bottom and cream on top. America at her best.
By way of avoiding further confrontations with Southern police, Alan and Ned had their teep blocks up. And they’d switched their skin pigment back to the pinky-tan shade called “white.” But Ned still wore the busboy’s facial features, and Alan had kept his Abby look, although he’d plumped up his lips and breasts a bit. He was hoping to stun Vassar with his sexual allure.
“Now we’re all legal,” said Ned. The skugged cops had issued them driver’s licenses made out to Ned and Abby Smith, as well as a vehicle registration slip in Ned Smith’s name. “My keen skug-amplified mind noticed something about the number on our license plate,” Ned added. “Did you notice, mister math prof?”
“Oh, let’s not talk about numbers,” said Alan, practicing his Abby role. “Not on our honeymoon, Neddie dear.” He put on a simpering smile.
“I just hope those pigs didn’t find some way to double-cross us,” said Ned. “And what if that Captain’s wife calls in the FBI?”
“One assumes that Norvell and Landers have dealt with her in a timely manner,” said Alan, going back to his usual style of speech. “He peered in the car’s side mirror, adjusting the shade of his lips. “You’re so pessimistic, Ned. This is a glorious adventure.”
“I’m the one who got gut-shot,” said Ned. “Not you. If they chew us up with machine-guns, we might not bounce back. Who’s to say that eye in the sky won’t send a fresh wave of killer pigs?”
“I think the eye is gone,” s
aid Alan, remembering a bit of his dream about Burroughs this morning. Had Bill really said he was coming here? Did Bill actually care about Alan that much? It was good that Alan had left a messenger skuglet in the Burroughs parents’ home.
“I don’t care what you say, I bet the cops will be on us like stink on shit,” said Ned gloomily. “We’re public enemies. We started a wave of mutation. And we killed a police captain.”
“Norvell killed the poor fellow,” said Alan. “Not you and I. If we go gently, we can win our campaign in peace.” The pleasant ocean air beat against his face, riffling his bobbed hair. He felt safe and powerful. And he was jazzed at the thought of seeing Bill Burroughs again. Vassar was sexy, Ned was nice, but only Bill was his intellectual equal.
“Win how?” said Ned, dogged in his pessimism. “Win what?”
“Oh, bother. My tweaks have made the skugly biocomputation exceedingly contagious, in case you hadn’t taken that in. Tangier is ours, I’ll hazard. And Palm Beach falls soon too. Before long I’ll find a way to convert the whole world at one go.”
“I’m getting these world conquest vibes from my inner skug,” said Ned. “I think maybe the skugs are a little too gung-ho.”
“I’m for them,” said Alan. “Let’s be double sure that our teep blocks are on before we discuss my plan.” He surveyed his inner walls and found everything in order. It wasn’t so hard keeping up the block once you’d learned how. “Right. You mustn’t share my plan with anyone, Ned.”
“I’ll pile on the lead bricks,” said Ned. “Tell me.”
“My skug and I have reached the conclusion that we should proceed to the National Laboratories in Los Alamos, New Mexico,” whispered Alan. “Stanislaw Ulam works there, a very fine mathematician. Ulam and I have followed each other’s papers for years, not that we’ve never met face to face. He studies lovely mathematical arcana—nonlinear waves, cellular automata, higher infinities, and phase space. Along the way, he and that fathead Teller invented the hydrogen bomb. The bomb is the tool that the skugs really need.” Alan pursed his lips, thinking. “I won’t immediately tell Stan Ulam who I am.”
“I know Los Alamos,” murmured Ned. “I was there for my Navy sub nuke-training. Secrets of about uranium 238 and plutonium 239. The heavy-metal brothers, you might say.”
“Excellent,” said Alan. “You can help me worm my way in.” He snaked a cheerful arm across the seat and chucked Ned under the chin.
“Back up a second,” said Ned. “You’re saying you want the skugs to get hold of an H-bomb? Doesn’t sound like a real good idea.”
“Think of a thermonuclear explosion as a short-lived sun,” said Alan. “A source of health and enlightenment. A global revolution is imperative. Humanity has truckled to cretins for long enough. More on this later. Store our discussion in your deepest, darkest memory-crypt, dear boy.”
“Okay, fine. But I may still want to argue with you.”
“Agreed. Slow down now. We’re almost at Cobblestone Gardens.” Alan glanced at a gold ladies’ wristwatch he’d nicked from the police evidence room. “Noon. Time for my—tryst. I do hope you’re not insanely jealous.”
“Definitely not a problem,” said Ned evenly. “I’m glad to be your pal, Alan. You’re the wildest guy I ever met. And we’ll share wetware now and then with a morphodite slug-slime conjugation. But, no, I’m not hankering to carry you as any kind of steady girlfriend.”
“Very well,” said Alan, perhaps a little relieved. What with Vassar Lafia and Bill Burroughs he had enough romantic prospects.
Ned pulled into a parking spot beside Cobblestone Gardens, a medium-sized shop filled with fripperies. Laura Burroughs herself was visible within, arranging dried flowers. Noticing them, she smiled, as if eager for customers. For the moment she gave no sign of recognizing Ned and Alan in their current states.
An old black pickup truck rattled in next to Alan, with a high flat windshield and odd music wafting from within. Vassar was in the passenger seat, with a dark-haired woman driving. She peered at Alan, sizing him up, naturally taking him for a woman as well. The dark-haired woman smiled, with dimples forming in her pale skin. The smile wasn’t entirely friendly.
“You’re Abby? Hi there. I’m Susan Green. The wife. Your rival.”
“Abby, baby!” called Vassar, hopping out of the old truck and hurrying around to the Pontiac. “We made it. Had to change a tire on the way up. Who’s the guy?”
“Says Ned Smith on my license,” said Ned, getting out of the car. Even though he was using the same first name, he looked nothing like the Ned who’d been on the ship. “And you’re Vassar Lafia.” He smirked knowingly and waggled his hand in a floppy kind of way. “What do you say we bring them into the fold, Abby?”
“Not yet,” said Alan. “You behave yourself, Ned. And say hello to Susan Green.”
“A natural born woman,” said Ned, taking Susan’s hand. She’d unlimbered herself from the pickup. “A thrill,” continued Ned. “I’ve been penned up with men in a sub for months. Are you guys New Yorkers?”
“How would you know?” said Susan, cocking her head. “I thought I’d managed to go native down here. I’m wearing the jeans, the man’s shirt, the tennie-pumps? A good old gal. Where are you from, anyway?”
“Kentucky,” said Ned. “You have a New York face. That wised-up look. I knew some New Yorkers in the Navy. Before I deserted.”
“All I ever meet are the problem boys,” said Susan mildly. She glanced at Alan. “Go ahead and give Vassar a hug if you want to, Abby.” She raised her eyebrows. “I’ll bide my time.”
Not quite sure how things stood, Alan gave Vassar a quick squeeze. As always, the man smelled wonderful. And then they edged apart, both of them alert to Susan’s mood.
“I hope you play an instrument?” Susan asked Alan. “You should to know that music is my big thing.” An unsteady sequence of clacks and chirps was issuing from the pickup’s window.
“I don’t play, per se,” temporized Alan. But Susan Green seemed so intelligent that he wanted to offer a real answer. “During the war I invented a voice encryption system based on a system of radio tubes. We called it Delilah. It made rather interesting noises. Not unlike—” He gestured at the truck. “Is that musique concrète? On your radio?”
“Susan’s stuff, yeah,” said Vassar. “On her tape recorder. She’s a composer. Highly vibrational. Part-time teacher at the University of Miami. I’m proud of her. But back up for a minute, Abby. On Madeira you said you were an orchid breeder. Not an electronics whiz.”
“Everything Abby’s told you is bullshit,” put in Ned, as if wanting to stir up trouble.
“I dabble in electronics,” allowed Alan, not all that upset to see his old cover story start to fray. The best would be if Vassar loved him for who he really was. “You were saying, Susan?”
“I call my work acousmatics,” said Susan, seemingly enjoying the conversation’s twists and turns. “That shiny box with curved corners sitting on the truck seat? That’s my Ampex two-track, playing my sounds. I work on tape, I use it to compose. First I sample things like water, birds, traffic, cafes, dishes, sex—anything interesting that I hear. I’m always paying attention. Once I have the tapes, I tweak the speeds, paste up snippets, and re-record.” She smiled, happy to be talking about her work. “This part you hear now is Vassar snoring, only it’s slowed down a hundred to one. It makes me think of, I don’t know, hunting elephants in Africa.” Susan glanced at her husband. “And now my big tusker is home.”
“Yeah, Susan, yeah,” said Vassar a little impatiently. “But why does that weird woman in the store keep staring at us?”
“Oh never mind her,” said Alan. “That’s just Burroughs’s mother. This is her shop, remember. Cobblestone Gardens. She hasn’t really met Ned or me.”
“Well, actually she has,” said the antic Ned.
“So where is Bill Burroughs?” Vassar asked Alan, ignoring Ned. “I figured he’d be the one to drive you here today, Abby.”
>
“I wanted to get a look at Burroughs too,” put in Susan. “He’s kind of a legend.”
“Bill’s still in Tangier,” said Ned, dead set on making trouble.
“You’re wrong there,” corrected Alan, wishing Ned would keep silent. “I think Bill’s in London by now. Or already on the plane to New York. He wants to see me.”
“The point I’m making is that Bill was not on the ship with Vassar,” said Ned in a spiteful tone. “It’s like I’m telling you, Vassar. Everything you know is wrong.”
“What’s with this guy?” Vassar asked Alan. “How did he glom onto you?”
“I’m guessing that you people are friends of my son’s,” said Laura Burroughs, suddenly stepping out from her shop. “I think I heard his name? I’m afraid we had a bit of a family drama yesterday morning.”
“Oh, we’re about to leave,” said Ned hastily. “Sorry to be—”
“You,” said Mrs. Burroughs, staring at him. “I’m sure I saw you yesterday in—you know—the guest bedroom. What were you doing? It was such a jumble. And the smell! I’m afraid I quite lost my temper.” She stopped and pursed her lips. Getting no answer from Ned, she sighed. “My son is an irredeemable bohemian, and I have to accept him and his ways. I’m Laura, by the way.”
“I’m Abby,” interposed Alan with a bow. “And these are Ned, Vassar, and Susan.”
“Do you know if my Bill’s still in town, Abby?”
“He’ll be with you tomorrow, I think,” Alan assured her. “And he’ll be more like his old self.”
“Little Billy and my husband Mote will be so glad,” said Laura. “Of course they’re both making me out to be the heartless mother for ordering him out of the house. To make things worse, two policemen arrived after Bill left. They said dire things about plagues and mutants—they seemed quite unhinged. You’re sure Bill’s coming back?”
“Indeed,” said Alan. “I had a conversation with Bill last night. Long distance. His main concern—perhaps I shouldn’t mention this—he’s worried about you cutting off his stipend.”
