Fractal Paisleys

by Paul Di Filippo

  “This is the second time today I’ve been called an insulting name,” complained Catalina. “I don’t like it.”

  “Me neither,” said Tracey. “Jay Dee—whatcha gonna do about it?”

  Jay Dee lowered one arm to his side and with his free hand scratched his head. “Well, I guess I’ll have to come down on these jerks like a ton of bricks. Box, the cars!”

  An enormous shower of bricks fell from nowhere, completely crushing and burying all the syndicate cars, including Larry’s prized Cadillac.

  For a moment the only sound was the clink of a few tumbling bricks. Then, almost but not quite simultaneously, Jay Dee and the head goon yelled.

  “Wall!”

  “Shoot!”

  A twelve-foot cinderblock barrier topped with razor-wire and including a portion of guard-tower intervened between Jay Dee and the women and the toughs. It ran across the whole street, from building to building. Futile gunfire echoed behind it.

  “I borrowed part of the local incarceration facility, as I judged these men were lawbreakers. I hope it is suitable.…”

  Jay Dee laughed. “Sure should be an interesting scene at the old exercise yard! Let’s go.”

  In the car the remote said, “I feel I am coming to understand your commands much better. A growing empathy now exists between us.”

  “I love you too. Okay, Trace, pick up the interstate. We got what we came for. The garbage is in the can. We just gotta figure out the best way to dispose of it.”

  They were on the outskirts of town when the sirens began to wail. Just as they were pulling onto the entrance ramp to the expressway, a bevy of police cruisers screeched through an intersection and, spotting the Lincoln, converged like pouncing panthers.

  “Flower to the spirit,” said Tracey enigmatically, before stomping on the accelerator and rocking Catalina, Jay Dee and Mister Boots back into their seats. The big car leaped up the ramp, narrowly missing a tiny Honda bearing a pack of Cub Scouts and Den Mother as it merged into the freeway traffic.

  The cops were soon behind them.

  Stiff-armed, Captain Tracey whipped the land-cruiser through the crowded sea lanes as her passengers turned green. Cars swerved onto the roads shoulder and collided with Jersey barriers. Still the sirens pursued them, all her maneuvers failing to shake the squad of cop cars.

  “Time for tougher tactics,” said Jay Dee. “Box, can you make those ribbons like elastics?”

  “Would you care to specify the Poisson ratio or the strain/stress dyadics?”

  “No, man, I wouldn’t! Just string a big tough elastic band across the road to stop the cops.”

  “Done.”

  Tracey cautiously slowed. Jay Dee looked back.

  A wide golden ribbon bisected the highway, anchored to the median barrier and the roadside fence. As Jay Dee watched, its rubbery surface bulged in the shape of four car noses. Instead of braking, the stubborn drivers continued to race their engines. The belt strained forward, bowing out from its anchor-points.

  Realizing they were getting nowhere, the cops lifted their feet from the accelerators.

  Released, the band snapped the cars backward. There was the sound of tires shredding and exploding, and the crunch of metal and glass.

  “Oo-whee!” wailed Jay Dee. “Just like the slingshot I had when I was a kid!”

  “I’m glad you’re having fun,” said Tracey, removing one hand from the wheel and flexing her fingers. “But I do wish you’d learn to drive, Jay Dee, just so we could share moments like this.”

  “You know I flunked the road test five times, Trace. I just ain’t got the right skills somehow. But if I was perfect, you couldn’t live with me.”

  “You may not believe this, Jay Dee, but I find it hard to live with you sometimes anyhow.”

  Catalina spoke. “‘Flower to the spirit?’”

  Tracey smiled. “Pedal to the metal.”

  They cruised slowly on, laughing and recounting the chase to themselves.

  At the next on-ramp, three more cruisers sat with engines purring.

  “Shit!”

  Tracey got a good lead on them, since they had to accelerate from zero. “Another ribbon, Jay Dee?”

  “Variety is the goddamn spice of my life, hon. Box, do you think you can do this…?” Jay Dee whispered with the Master Remote close to his lips.

  “Surely.”

  The road beneath their rear tires disappeared into a trench with a forty-five-degree slope. The police vehicles went helplessly over the lip and down. Within seconds there issued forth a loud glutinous plop, a sound between a belch and an underwater fart.

  “What’s at the bottom?”

  “Enough molasses to float a battleship.”

  “Sweet.”

  “Do you think,” asked Catalina, “they might know by now what our car looks like?”

  “Gotcha. Trace, pull over a minute. Great. Box, can you smudge this car with us in it, without smudging us?”

  “Your morphic resonances are now locked into my sheldrake chip.”

  “Uh, good. Go to it.”

  They were sitting on solid nothing. The windows had gone to impenetrable nothing so that they were blind to the world.

  “Jesus, I didn’t count on not being able to see.… Box, peel us off a new appearance from what’s passing. Something inconspicuous.”

  The world reappeared. They were sitting in a commercial van. From the rear came a highly suspicious reek, emanating from many canvas drawstringed bags.

  Tracey craned her head out her window. “‘Blaylock and Powers Diaper Service,’” she reported smugly. “Good going.”

  “Just drive.”

  Several times packs of police cars raced past them, oblivious to the laundry van. During these moments, Jay Dee and Catalina hid in the back while Tracey drove.

  “Jay Dee, don’t the smell of a wet baby just get to you in a certain way? It’s so earthy, like. It makes me all quivery inside.…”

  “Well, it makes me wanna puke, so keep your hands where they belong.”

  They passed some cruisers drawn up to the side of the road.

  “What’s going on, Trace?”

  “They’re rounding up some escaped prisoners. Maybe we should take out another chunk of important wall someplace, just to keep them busy.”

  “I’ll think on it.”

  Pretty soon they had crossed the state line. A road sign announced:

  JETER’S LAKE STATE RECREATION AREA

  CAMPING, BOATING, SKIING

  “Jeter’s Lake,” said Tracey wistfully. “I haven’t been there since I was a kid.”

  “Last time I was there, I was too pregnant to fit into a swimsuit. Leastwise, any I’d wanna be seen in.”

  “Well, hell, let’s stop. I could enjoy some peace and quiet.”

  Tracey took the appropriate exit. The secondary road began to curve under arcades of firs. Soft sunlight dappled the van’s interior, and a balsalmy scent began to compete with the odor of a quarter ton of cotton-wrapped, pee-soaked baby shit.

  A rustic wooden sign heralded the park’s drive. The entrance fee was three dollars, which they paid to a Smokey-the-Bear-hatted Ranger who regarded their van with frank curiosity.

  “On our lunch break,” offered Tracey.

  “It’s mighty hard work,” contributed Jay Dee.

  “A regular calling, though,” Catalina affirmed.

  Down a narrow paved road to a half-empty lot surrounded by forest. Once parked, they eagerly climbed out. Catalina carried Mister Boots.

  “Lord, I got to clean out my lungs! Let’s head down to the water.…”

  The forest gradually fell away to reveal an extensive body of sparkling water surrounded by tall hills, two of which were partially denuded, their ski trails now grassy, the lifts immobile. A small manmade beach, occupied by a few sunbathers, stretched to left and right; several red-stained log structures held changing rooms, showers, rest rooms, and a small snack bar cum grocery. Beyond the swimming are
a was a dock occupied by several rowboats, canoes and outboards.

  Spying the boats, Tracey said, “Oh, Jay Dee, let’s see if we can rent one. It’d be so nice to be out on the water.”

  Beneath the sign that said “Rates: $5/hr, $10 deposit” sat an old codger who looked carved out of an inferior grade of wood. His chair was tipped back, his hat was down over his eyes, and a dead pipe was held firmly between his teeth, indicating, if not life, then at least recent rigor mortis.

  “Hey, fella, can we rent a boat?”

  The ancient relic slowly raised a hand to lift his cap. He squinted suspiciously at the trio with one eye before declaring, “All taken.”

  “All taken? What’re those?”

  “Ree-zerved.” He dropped his cap.

  “Reserved, huh? No problem.”

  Jay Dee took out the Master Remote. “Window.” A square plane appeared in midair. In it was portrayed a posh marina, numerous yachts abob at their berths. “Girls?”

  “That one’s cute.”

  A sudden wave swept over the shore. Half the boats tethered at the dock capsized and sank. At the end of the pier rode a proud forty-foot yacht, chrome gleaming, wood polished, radar turret aimed at the horizon. It bore the name THE BISHOP’S JAEGERS.

  Startled by the commotion, the codger glanced out from beneath his cap. He jerked upright, his chair went out from under him and he toppled backwards.

  Luckily, no one was aboard their new vessel; Mister Boots’s prowling through every hatch would surely have aroused them. Quickly mastering the controls, Tracey swung the vessel about, demolishing the dock with elan.

  They stopped in the middle of the lake and dropped anchor.

  “Now we can relax,” said Jay Dee.

  Catalina said, “I want to go swimming, don’t you? But we don’t have suits.”

  “So? Go bare-ass. Nobody can see you from the shore, less it’s some birdwatcher with his binoculars.”

  Catalina pouted prettily.

  “Cat, are you trying to pretend you got any modesty left, after what you ee-nitiated last night?”

  “No, it don’t have nothing to do with modesty. It’s just fashion. I like to dress nice, whatever the occasion.”

  “Oh, all right. But it’s a waste of energy if you ask me.” A concerned look blossomed on Jay Dee’s features. “Box, your batteries ain’t running low, are they?”

  “I have extrinsic sources of power several magnitudes greater than your era’s annual energy budget.”

  “Oh, good. Well, let’s see some nice bathing suits for the ladies then.”

  Soon Tracey and Catalina were clad in the outfits they had selected, complete down to sunglasses, floppy hats and Grecian sandals laced up their charming legs. Jay Dee had been convinced to don a pair of flower-print baggy shorts.

  “I feel like a goddamn idiot.”

  “No, you look sharp, Jay Dee.”

  “Mighty attractive.”

  Jay Dee smiled. “Well, okay, if you all say so. But I’ll look even better underwater, where no one can see these pants. Last one in’s a talking moose!”

  Jay Dee hurled himself over the side. Tracey and Catalina soon followed.

  The trio splashed and stroked until they had had enough exercise and fun. They climbed an aluminum ladder back into the yacht. Below deck, in a luxurious cabin, they stripped off their clammy suits and began to towel themselves off.

  “That’s a horny ol’ devil you got there on your arm, Jay Dee,” observed Catalina.

  “That ain’t his arm you’re holding, honey,” reminded Tracey.

  “So it aint.”

  An hour or two later, Jay Dee walked out on the deck, alone and clothed. Mister Boots appeared from somewhere and began rubbing against Jay Dee’s ankles. Jay Dee hefted the Master Remote with an expression of thoughtfulness on his face. Then he spoke to it.

  “Box, what am I gonna do with that Catalina? She needs a steady man something wicked.”

  “You are a man.”

  “Not the kind of heavy-duty boyfriend she needs! And besides, I got Tracey.”

  “What about the man in the cube?”

  “Gene? Oh, he’s handsome enough, but he’s too ornery and spiteful and conceited to wish on the worst bitch, let alone a nice girl like Cat. She did like his looks though.… Nah, forget it! I— Boots! What the hell do you want?”

  Mister Boots had stretched up with his forelegs and was using Jay Dee as a scratching post. Jay Dee unhooked his claws and picked him up. “Look, go hang out with Catalina, she loves you—”

  Jay Dee stopped dead. A smile big as a slice of watermelon grew on his face.

  “Get me the cube with Gene in it,” he ordered.

  The cube appeared, hanging six feet off the ground.

  “Dump him out.”

  Gene Smith fell out of the cube’s missing bottom into a heap on the deck. He appeared quite dazed.

  “I could see inside myself…,” he said. “Wherever I was, I could see inside myself. And around the whole world too.”

  Gene spotted Jay Dee. “You. You did this to me.” He began to climb to his feet.

  “Smudge the cat.”

  Mister Boots went formless.

  “Peel off Gene and layer him on Mister Boots.”

  “Compensating for the extensive mass-difference between origin and target will require my tapping a new source of power.”

  “Do it.”

  There was something casting a shadow between Jay Dee and the sun. Or so it seemed. He shaded his eyes and looked up.

  The sun had a black notch cut into its circumference. Even as Jay Dee watched, the spot disappeared, reconquered by nuclear flames.

  Two Genes stood on the deck. The original stopped in his tracks.

  “It’s me.… You turned that cat into me! You mother—”

  “Smudge him.”

  There was a Gene-sized eye-wrenching hole in the air.

  “Now put that image of Mister Boots you saved at the motel on him.”

  “This is inconvenient. I now have to dispose of extra mass that I could have used in the first transformation. You must learn to sequence your commands more rationally.…”

  “Who’s the boss here? Screw rational! Just do it!”

  “How shall I dispose of the surplus mass?”

  “I don’t care what you do as long as you don’t mess with the sun no more. That’s too spooky. Just dump it somewhere.”

  “Very well.” The box paused. “Your planet’s satellite now has a new crater, its largest. Shall I inform the proper authorities, so that you retain the right to name it?”

  “No!”

  Jay Dee looked at the two other living creatures on the deck.

  Mister Boots—wearing Gene’s appearance—tentatively raised one hairy muscled arm into his line of sight, then began to lick it.

  Gene—on all furry fours—bent his body to look at his hindquarters. He yowled, and launched himself at Jay Dee.

  “Ribbons!”

  The cat thumped to the deck, neatly packaged. It continued to hiss and spit.

  Tracey emerged, rubbing her eyes sleepily. “Jay Dee, what’s all this noy—” She froze. “Gene, you’re free—”

  “It ain’t Gene, Trace.” Jay Dee explained.

  “Oh. My. God. Jay Dee, it’s inhuman!”

  “Sure. But ‘inhuman’ just might be what Catalina needs. C’mon, let’s introduce ’em.”

  Tracey and Jay Dee each took one of Mister Boots’s arms and walked him forward. The man-cat moved shakily, as if unused to the articulation of its new joints, walking on its tiptoes.

  They guided Mister Boots down to the cabin.

  Catalina stirred when they entered.

  When Mister Boots recognized her, he began to purr. The front of his shorts bulged.

  “Jay Dee, Tracey, what—”

  “It’s Mister Boots, Cat. He needs some petting.”

  “Nice kitty—oh!”

  Tracey and Jay Dee sat in deckchairs
, holding hands. The yacht had stopped rocking a few minutes ago. They silently contemplated the sinking sun, apparently none the worse for its loan of energy to Mister Boots. Then Jay Dee spoke.

  “You know what, Trace?”

  “No, what?”

  “Life can be good.”

  “Sometimes you forget, though.”

  “’Course we forget. Why shouldn’t we, the way we live? People like us, we rush from one bad day to another, never having enough money, usually sick, stuck in dead-end jobs. We’re forced by life and society to forget what we were born for.”

  “To mix men and cats in a blender?”

  “You wanna hear my philosophy or not? Okay. No, to have fun! To enjoy ourselves without worrying about where the rent money’s gonna come from. To laugh more than we cry. To relax our nerves and unknot our brains. To help our friends and confound our enemies. And this little box lets us do just that. Why, everybody should have one!”

  At that moment, a car bounced down the access road that led to the now-empty beach. It stopped in a spray of sand right at the water’s edge. Among others, a moose-headed man emerged and began to fire his pistol futilely at THE BISHOP’S JAEGERS.

  “Well, almost everyone.” Jay Dee got up. “C’mon, Trace, let’s go.”

  “Where to?”

  “Try the far side of the lake. Seems to me I remember Route 10 passing near there.”

  They upped anchor and motored off.

  As they drew closer to the far shore, they could make out the highway guard-rail running along the top of the banking raised a few feet above the lake’s surface.

  When they were about a hundred yards offshore, sirens began to sound.

  Soon the guardrail was lined with squad cars, their roof-lights flashing patriotic colors.

  “Shit! If only we wasn’t stuck on this boat! If only we had wheels!”

  “Done,” said the remote.

  “Wait a minute. That’s wasn’t a real wish—”

  “Jay Dee, the ship’s handling funny—”

  “You don’t figure— Trace, I got a hunch. Head straight for the shore.”

  As the yacht approached the road, more and more of it emerged from the water. But instead of grounding to a halt, its keel embedded in the bottom, it moved steadily forward.

  Catalina came up from below.

  “Where’s Gene? I mean, Mister Boots?”