Intertext Journal 1992

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Volume 2, Number 2 March-April 1992

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INSIDE THIS ISSUE

FirstText / JASON SNELL & GEOFF DUNCAN

Frog Boy / ROBERT HURVITZ

Cannibals Shrink Elvis' Head / PHIL NOLTE

The Naming Game / TARL ROGER KUDRICK

Boy / N. RIDLEY MCINTYRE

The Unified Murder Theorem (2 of 4) / JEFF ZIAS

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Editor: Jason Snell (jsnell@ucsd.edu)

Assistant Editor: Geoff Duncan (sgd4589@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu)

Assistant Editor: Phil Nolte (NOLTE@IDUI1.BITNET)

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InterText Vol. 2, No. 2. InterText is published electronically on a

bi-monthly basis, and distributed via electronic mail over the

Internet, BITNET, and UUCP. Reproduction of this magazine is

permitted as long as the magazine is not sold and the content of the

to stories belong to the authors. The ASCII InterText is exported

from PageMaker 4.01 files into Microsoft Word 5.0 for text

preparation. Worldwide subscribers: 1100. Our next issue is scheduled

for May 1, 1992. A PostScript version of this magazine is available

from the same sources, and looks a lot nicer, if you have access to

laser printers.

For subscription requests, e-mail: intertxt@network.ucsd.edu

->Back issues available via FTP at: network.ucsd.edu<-

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FirstText / JASON SNELL

It's hard to believe that it's been a year.

I remember when I first discovered that Jim McCabe's _Athene_

would be ceasing publication, and I remember thinking to myself: hey,

there's something I wouldn't mind doing. An electronic magazine. Why

not?

And here we are, one year and six issues later.

The magazine has grown and changed over the past year, with the

amount of text per issue growing by leaps and bounds. We've got more

subscribers now, though the official number has been hovering

slightly over 1,000 for quite some time now.

One of the stories in this issue, "Cannibals Shrink Elvis' Head"

by Phil Nolte, has quite a history behind it. It is one of the "lost"

stories of _Athene_, a story slated for appearance in the final issue

of that magazine (my own "Peoplesurfing" was another) that never

appeared. I've had the story sitting around for quite some time. The

catch is, I didn't know who wrote it.

Now -- this may seem unrelated, but trust me -- about a month

ago I participated in a strange meeting that has only really become

possible with the advent of computer communications: I met, face-to-

face, one of my assistant editors and contributors, a man whose

stories I've been reading for four years. His name is Phil Nolte, and

he works at the University of Idaho. As you may or may not know,

Idaho is famous for its potatoes, so much so that their license

plates have the phrase "Famous Potatoes" stamped right on them.

Here's the catch: the University of Idaho has a special potato

testing farm (or something like that -- all I know about potatoes is

that you're supposed to poke holes in them before you stick them in

the microwave oven) in Oceanside, a town just a few miles north of

San Diego. And Phil Nolte was going there for an 'Open House.'

I met him at a restaurant about a 10 minute walk from the UCSD

campus, and we talked for a few hours over lunch before he headed for

the airport and, eventually, back home.

I've done things like this before: my first girlfriend was

someone I met on a computer bulletin board I ran in high school (see

my story "Sharp and Silver Beings," in the Dec. 1990 issue of

_Quanta_, for details), and since then I've met a few other bulletin

board or computer network folk face-to-face. It's even a strange

experience to talk to them on the phone, as I did with Dan Appelquist

a few months back.

I digress. At any rate, it was fun actually >talking< to Phil,

about writing, computer communication, and all sorts of other stuff.

And at one point, as we were discussing Jim McCabe and _Athene_, I

mentioned a story I had called something like "Aliens Stole Elvis'

Brain."

"Why, that's 'Cannibals Shrink Elvis' Head!'," he told me. "I

wrote that!"

So it was. I had never bothered to ask Phil in e-mail, but over

lunch we finally overcame a year-long communication barrier.

The moral of this story? Maybe that while computer communication

is an incredible thing, it also can foster a lot of

misunderstandings. (So, of course, can live human communication --

it's just that the misunderstandings fostered by computer

communication are of a different type.)

In addition to Phil Nolte's store, this issue brings us a few

other fine short stories and the continuation of Jeff Zias' "Unified

Murder Theorem." Jeff informs me that a few readers have mailed him,

asking to be sent the rest of the story so they can know what happens

before the conclusion (which should appear in mid-June... we're only

halfway through now.)

I encouraged Jeff to make the readers wait. First off, waiting

will make the cliffhangers much more interesting, and we are

providing synopses to refresh your memory of the previous

installment. In addition, the version of the story that appears in

InterText will be somewhat different than the version Mr. Zias has at

home. Geoff Duncan and I have been jointly handling the editing of

"Unified Murder Theorem," and if we haven't been completely lax in

our duties, what you see here will be the "preferred form" of

"Unified Murder Theorem."

Before I go, I'd like to thank Mel Marcelo for providing us with

the special "First Anniversary" cover art (sorry to those ASCII

subscribers who can't see it).

I'd also like to mention that ASCII subscribers should hopefully

have an easier time reading the stories with this issue -- italicized

words in the PostScript version are indicated by >these< in the ASCII

version.

Finally, I'd like to thank Geoff Duncan -- an act which is

becoming a habit of mine -- for contributing a column of his own for

this special issue. It's well worth reading, I can assure you. (As a

sidelight, while I've met Phil Nolte and spoken with Dan Appelquist,

Geoff and I have never even spoken. His hometown of Reno, Nevada is

only a couple of hours from my hometown (Sonora, California), so I'm

hoping I'll get to meet him sometime in the future.)

Enough of me, already.

Until next time, I wish you all well.

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FirstText / GEOFF DUNCAN

Recently, I had the opportunity to have lunch with one of the

people who got me started in computing. I'd been the wide-eyed first-

year undergraduate who had barely touched a computer; he'd been the

intimidating electroculture veteran, mentor to everyone who was

anyone on the machines. He'd lived during a local "golden age" of

electronic fiction, when there had been a virtual writer's community

on the campus mainframes. Now he was a computing professional wearing

a suit and passing out business cards, while I still worked on campus

and hadn't cut my hair. Funny how times change and people change with

them.

Over cafeteria food we reminisced about computer gurus,

primitive graphics, and the old days of e-mail serials. It was time

well-spent, a validation of our pasts and the things that had been

important to us. I discovered his interests include avant-garde

gothic rock; he was amused to learn I was an assistant editor for a

network-based fiction magazine. "Don't you ever grow up?" he asked

between sips of coffee. "Electronic fiction is dead, if it ever lived

in the first place."

Mildly offended, I pressed him on the issue. It's not dead, I

explained. It's doing better now than ever before. "That's not the

point," he said. "Electronic fiction will probably continue to grow

for some time. But it's crippled by its medium. Computing is based on

information, and information is measured by volume, not by content.

You only offer content. You'll eventually run out of stories, then

writers, then readers." He sat back and crushed the paper cup. "It's

just a matter of time."

I laughed in his face. We'll see who's right in the end, bucko.

We spent a few minutes exchanging e-mail addresses and then parted

amicably. I went back to my office and my usual routine; he went back

to Brooklyn and a high-rise office tower. And that was the end of it.

Except what he'd said kept bothering me. Is electronic fiction

doomed from the start? Is its very media -- information technology --

going to be its demise?

It's obvious that electronic fiction wouldn't exist without

information technology. What's not so obvious is that information

technology supports the >amount< of information available without

regard to the meaning of that information. Technology lets us store,

organize, and retrieve more material than ever before. But what is it

that we're storing, organizing, and retrieving?

"Signal-to-noise ratio" is a term used to describe exactly this

dynamic. In a nutshell, "signal" is the content you want to receive

and "noise" is any other information that comes along with it. The

term actually predates computers: on a telephone system, noise was

literally "noise" -- hissing and crackling. But the idea still

applies: the lower the ratio of signal to noise becomes, the less

worthwhile it is for you to pay attention to the information as a

whole. It hurts your ears.

The signal-to-noise ratio of information technology today (and

of large computer networks in particular) is generally low. This has

a lot to do with the diversity of information available -- not

everyone is interested in a constant feed of Star Trek trivia. But it

also has to do with the way in which people >use< information

technology. From the point of view of any particular person, most

users don't generate much >signal<, but they do generate a fair bit

of noise. Most electronic information is addressed to a narrow

audience or is related to the use of the media itself. Very little of

the available material is intended for a wide audience.

I realized that this is what my friend was trying to tell me

about electronic fiction. The people producing the signal are vastly

outweighed by all the people producing the noise. My friend doesn't

believe that projects such as _Quanta_ and InterText can be heard for

long above the din of the mob. And even if these projects survive,

how many people will try to distinguish them from the tumult? It's

easier to ignore it all.

Well, maybe my friend is right. There is evidence. To my

knowledge, none of the network magazines have much of a catalog on

hand, perhaps with the exception of _DargonZine_. I've seen most

network-magazines print outright pleas for submissions. Maybe there's

already a lack of >signal< in electronic fiction.

And perhaps I shouldn't say this, but editorial support is also

a problem. At most, a small group of people produces each

publication; the departure of one person can seriously affect a

magazine. _Athene_ shut down because of the time commitment involved.

Furthermore, network access is not guaranteed. A graduation or a

career change can stop a publication overnight. So coupled with a

weak signal, we may have a weak transmitter. Maybe we >are< a match

in the dark, merely putting off the inevitable.

But looking back, I still think my friend doesn't quite know

what he's talking about. Electronic fiction has come a long way since

its indeterminate inception. Beginning with Orny Liscomb's _FSFnet_,

we've seen a very long-running shared universe in _DargonZine_, the

on-line magazine _The Runic Robot_, the irrepressible "PULP", and a

new set of far-reaching magazines -- _Athene_, _Quanta_, and (of

course) InterText. And that doesn't take into account commercial

services and local electronic institutions: published novels have

made their first appearances on networks such as GEnie, and e-mail

serials continue like clockwork. New publications are emerging such

as Rita Rouvalis' _CORE_. I used to be able to count the editorship

of electronic fiction on one hand; now I scarcely know where to

start.

Cooperation between publications is astounding. InterText's page

of ads is one example; a more significant one is the comprehensive

access site recently created at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Looking through that site, I am impressed by what a few hyperactive,

impulsive editor-types have managed to coax out of the on-line

community. I'm a little bit proud to be part of it.

All this may add up to a little more >noise<, but it also

creates a much stronger >signal<. "Real" publications (and with them

"real" authors) are taking notice. Subscriptions aren't flagging.

There has to be fuel for the fire, and for now things are getting

brighter.

The funny part is that my friend sent me some e-mail the other

day. "That magazine thing you mentioned," he wrote. "Sign me up. And

it'd better be good, or I'll give you a swift kick in the disk

packs." Maybe my friend shouldn't try to be an electronic comedian,

but he only verified what I knew all along: >content< is what counts.

Or none of us would be involved.

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Frog Boy / ROBERT HURVITZ

Johnny Feldspar woke up one February morning feeling slightly

different. He couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was, but it

bothered him nonetheless. He got out of bed, walked over to his

aquarium, and pulled out his pet frog, Jumper.

"And how are you feeling today?" Johnny asked his frog, gingerly

stroking the cool, damp skin.

"Ribbit," said Jumper noncommittally.

Johnny held the frog up to his face. "You look kinda hungry.

I'll stop by the pet store after school and get some food for you.

Okay?"

"Ribbit," Jumper repeated.

Johnny put his frog back in its little home, locked the lid, got

dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. His mother was pouring

milk into a bowl of cereal when Johnny sat down at the kitchen table.

She placed the cereal bowl and a spoon in front of him.

"And how are we feeling today, Johnny?" she asked.

He took a mouthful of cereal and said between chews, "I feel

kinda funny, Mom--"

"Don't speak with your mouth full," his mother said. "It's

impolite." She reached over and tousled his hair. "How many times

have I told you that?"

Johnny grinned sheepishly and swallowed. "Sorry, Mom."

"That's okay. Now what were you going to say?"

"I feel kinda funny."

"Are you sick?" She sat down next to him and put her hand on his

forehead. "You're not running a temperature." She looked at her watch

and scowled. "Damn. I've got an important meeting at nine, so I don't

have time to take you to a doctor..." She drummed her fingers on the

formica table-top.

"I'm not sick, Mom. I just feel kinda funny." He frowned. "I'm

not sick."

Johnny's mother crossed her arms and looked at him. Then she

smiled. "I know what it is," she said. "You're just nervous because

it's Valentine's Day and you're afraid you won't get any valentines,

right?"

Johnny looked at his hands. >Valentine's Day.< The words came

crashing down on his ears like panes of glass, shattering. How could

he have forgotten? He'd spent the last three nights churning out

valentines for all the girls in his class, as per his mother's stern

instructions. If it had been up to him, in everybody's Valentine's

Day mailbox, which they had all made out of cardboard the previous

week as an art lesson, he would have put frogs.

>Frogs...<

Palm up, fingers stretching out to infinity, Johnny's right hand

had slowly gained his complete attention. He clenched his hand into a

fist, turned it over, and squinted.

"Johnny?" his mother asked, concerned.

He looked up, blinked. "Uh, yeah, Mom. That's probably it." He

smiled weakly. "I guess I just must be nervous."

"Hey, snot-face!"

Johnny stopped in mid-chew, turned his hand inward to protect

the peanut butter and jelly sandwich he held.

"That's right. I'm talking to you, snot-face. Or should I say

lover-boy?"

Johnny turned around and stared at Fat Matt.

"I saw you stuffing all those mushy love cards into the girls'

boxes." Fat Matt laughed, the small rolls of fat bunching up about

his face. His beady eyes glanced down at Johnny's lunch, in which

several pieces of heart-shaped candy bearing messages such as "Will U

B Mine?" and "I Luv U" were strewn. "I see you also got your own

share of valentines, didn't you, lover-boy? You know, I didn't get

any valentines, or valentine candy."

Johnny felt his face flush. He knew what was going to happen.

"It seems to me, lover-boy, that, since you got so many candies

and I didn't get any, that it would only be fair if you shared some

of yours with me." He moved forward and grabbed up the candies.

"Thanks, snot-face," Fat Matt said with a laugh. "Oh, that

doesn't leave you with any candy, does it?" He picked out a heart

from his sweaty grasp and licked it. "Well, here you go, snot-face,"

Fat Matt said, dropping it into Johnny's pint of milk.

At that moment, Rebecca Moyet, the prettiest girl in school, and

Quinn, her little brother, walked by. Quinn laughed, pointed at

Johnny, and said, "There you go, snot-face!" He laughed some more.

Rebecca frowned.

Fat Matt popped a few hearts into his mouth and looked once

again at Johnny's lunch. "Hey, snot-face, what else you got there?"

Quinn laughed once again, and Rebecca looked down at him

sternly.

Johnny looked around at the crowd that had suddenly gathered

around the four of them. Dozens of eager faces shifted left and

right, vying for a clear view of whatever further ridicule Johnny

might soon suffer. He felt nauseous, and his hand began to tingle...

A shout erupted from the crowd as Johnny's half-eaten peanut

butter and jelly sandwich fell, hit the pint of milk, knocked it off

the bench and onto the asphalt. The initial spray of milk spattered

the blacktop with white spots; the rest puddled around the fallen

carton.

Johnny's outstretched hand, raised toward Fat Matt, burned with

an increasingly painful pulsing. Sweat ran down, dripped off Johnny's

forehead, his nose, his chin. His lips twitched. "Frog," he said

gutturally, and slouched, exhaling, cooling, feeling spent.

Johnny hadn't expected there to be any noise; he hadn't expected

anything, really. He certainly hadn't expected, when he looked up, to

see Fat Matt screaming, to see his body spasm violently. He hadn't

expected his hair to shrivel acridly and to come out in tufts as his

hands clawed at his face, his head, his throat. He hadn't expected

his skin to turn green, to bubble, to drip off in clumps and sizzle

away on the asphalt into foul vapor.

The nausea that Johnny had felt only moments earlier gripped his

stomach fiercely. The shriek continued, stabbing progressively deeper

into Johnny's ears.

Fat Matt wobbled, what was left of his legs buckled, and he

collapsed to the ground with a crash of shattering bone. On impact, a

noxious cloud of green and red steam erupted from his body, obscuring

the view.

The vapors made Johnny's eyes water, and he grabbed the bench to

steady himself from vomiting.

The cloud dissipated, and all that remained of Fat Matt was a

pile of stained clothes and, sitting in the middle of them, a frog.

The crowd gasped, stared in disbelief.

Quinn's laughter sliced through the heavy aura of astonishment.

He pointed down at the newly created amphibian. "Frog!" he cried out,

and laughed harder.

Johnny felt ill. He wiped his forehead, his trembling upper lip.

His skin felt cold.

The frog tried to hop away, but slipped on the slick clothing

and landed on its side, making the rest of the children laugh loudly.

Johnny saw Rebecca try to hide the nervous smile on her face. The

frog stopped, then tried to bury itself under the clothes.

Quinn rushed forward and grabbed the frog. "Gotcha!" he said,

hefting it.

"Hey! Put it down!" Johnny said. "Can't you see it's scared?"

The frog squirmed in Quinn's grip.

"Put it down?" Quinn smiled wickedly. "Okay. I'll put it down."

He lifted the frog above his head and then, with the help from a

little jump, he hurled it to the ground. It hit the asphalt with a

wet splat and lay there awkwardly, legs twitching slightly. Quinn

laughed. "Want me to scare it some more?"

"No!" Johnny cried, as Quinn swung his arms and launched himself

into the air, feet held together to ensure that his landing would

strike true. At the last moment, though, just before Johnny was about

to cover his eyes, Quinn jerked his feet apart and ended up barely

straddling the injured frog.

The crowd let out a sigh.

Glancing around, Quinn laughed, lifted up his right leg, and

forcefully brought it down on the frog.

The crowd let out a sound of disgust, and Johnny jumped to his

feet, enraged.

Quinn stepped away from the dead frog and looked down at his

blood-stained Reeboks. He frowned and poked his shoes into Fat Matt's

soiled clothes, in an attempt to wipe them clean.

Hatred coursed through Johnny's veins. "Quinn! You... You..."

The air seemed to thicken, grow hot and humid, as he struggled to

express his anger. "You..." Each breath he took became more difficult

than the one before. He strenuously dragged each mouthful of air down

into his lungs, only to have it slip through his throat and rush back

out into the world. And all the while he stared at the grinning

Quinn, who was now busy entertaining the crowd with theatrical

attempts at cleaning his shoes.

Johnny's vision blurred, the air coagulating into a sickly grey

soup, as if the day were hazardously smoggy or he were looking

through a grimy pane of glass. He squinted and saw Quinn kick the

dead frog toward the crowd, which immediately widened with shrieks of

amusement.

Johnny violently snapped his arm forward, his elbow joint

popping, and pointed at Quinn. One word, dripping acid, burned

through his lips: "Frog."

Quinn jerked his head around, a surprised look on his face, and

looked at Johnny before he screamed. His small body shuddered with

convulsions as the hideous transformation began.

The crowd, frightened and confused, screamed in macabre

accompaniment to Quinn.

"That's my brother!" Rebecca yelled, running up to Johnny. Her

face was flushed, violent. Tears were forming around her widened

eyes. "That's my brother!" She slapped him across the face. "That's

my brother!" She kicked him in the leg. "Make it stop! Make it stop!"

As she raised her hand to strike again, chorused with screams from

Quinn, the crowd, and herself, Johnny pointed at her and said meekly,

"Frog."

In horror, Johnny watched Rebecca's face contort monstrously as

she shrieked and as her hair, crackling, shrivelled and burst into

dark, acrid smoke.

Johnny reeled back, tripped over the bench, and tumbled to the

ground. He stared up at Rebecca, who was still screaming, though

Quinn had by then stopped, and saw her skin begin to dissolve.

The crowd swarmed into his view, rushing up from behind Rebecca

and from the sides, surrounding him. Every face was twisted with

desperate fear, every pair of eyes burned wildly, and every hand was

clenched into a fist.

The sudden closeness of the bodies of all his schoolmates made

the air so stifling that Johnny was not able to breathe. He raised

his hand in an attempt to defend himself, but could not utter a

single sound.

ROBERT HURVITZ (hurvitz@cory.berkeley.edu) will finally be graduating

from UC Berkeley in May, despite all attempts on his part to avoid

the real world for as long as possible. He assume he'll have to get a

job or something.

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Cannibals Shrink Elvis' Head / PHIL NOLTE

It started out as a joke. I mean, we were just going to have a

little fun. You know, do something weird. That, and we thought we had

them cold this time.

"Them" is the folks that publish those idiotic tabloid

newspapers. Every now and then someone will bring one of them in to

work. You know the ones, they're right beside the checkout counter in

the grocery store. That's right, the ones with headlines like

"Vampire Mummies Repel Space Alien Invasion" or "Tammy Faye's New

Miracle Diet." The stories are always about odd things that were

supposed to've happened. Trouble is, they always happen in foreign

countries or in little towns that you never heard of like Slapshot,

Wyoming or something. Not this time. This time they'd made a mistake;

they'd picked a real town.

It was Raymond who pointed it out. "Hey guys, look at this!

There's two brothers in Absaraka, North Dakota who have a space alien

ship in their barn!"

I replied to that with something very intelligent; something

like: "Huh? Bullshit!"

"I'm not kidding," he said. "Here, read it yourself."

"Bachelor Brothers' Barn Houses Space Alien Ship," I read aloud.

"Trygve and Einar Carstenson found the strange craft in an abandoned

field near their farm. 'We could barely lift it on to our trailer

with the endloader,' says Einar. Well-known Yugoslavian experts say

it probably came from Rigel." I could barely keep from laughing as I

read it. "Shit!" I said. "Absaraka? That's only 30 miles from here."

It was Neil who had the next thought. "Let's drive out there and

see if that farm even exists. What the hell, we could grab a twelve-

pack to make the trip go a little faster. It won't take an hour both

ways. Come on guys, what d'ya say?" Neil could be very persuasive.

"Yeah, let's do it!" We might have been a chorus. It was kind of

a slow day anyway. We left Knutsen to mind the store. He didn't like

it much, but it was his turn.

Fifteen minutes later we were in Neil's Caravan out on

Interstate 94 and we were all on our second beers. ZZ Top was blaring

on the stereo. Draper had brought the newspaper and was reading it

out loud to a very appreciative audience: "Milkman Bites Dog. Ninety-

year-old Woman Gives Birth to Twins. Love Boat Attacked by 150-Foot

Shark." We were all in high spirits when we took the Wheatland exit.

"Absaraka, five miles," announced Neil.

We went to the post office-grocery store to get directions to

the fictitious farm. We were surprised to find out that there were

two Carstenson brothers who had a farm about four miles out of town.

The guy at the post office said they were a couple of bachelors and

that they were kind of weird. I didn't say anything but I thought the

whole town was kind of strange.

Five minutes later we pulled up to the mailbox at the end of a

long winding farm road. "Trygve & Einar Carstenson," it read. You

couldn't see the buildings from the road, there were too many trees

and too much brush.

"Well, we've come this far," said Neil. "Let's go."

The road was nearly half a mile long. When we got to the farm,

we found a ramshackle three-room house and some dilapidated farm

buildings. In one corner of the yard was a rust-red Studebaker pickup

truck. It was a nineteen forty-something, I wasn't sure. It looked

like junk, with a cracked windshield and one staring headlamp.

Draper was the youngest so we made him go to the door. He

knocked a couple of times but there was no answer. We were about to

call it a day when the old geezers surprised us all by coming up on

us from behind the machine shed.

"What the hell do you sumbitches want?" said one of them. I

guessed it was Einar.

Old, grizzled, and Norwegian they were, and not in the least bit

friendly.

"We came to see the spaceship," I managed to squeak out.

Trygve was holding a double-barreled shotgun!

"Yew ain't from some Gad-damned lib-ral newspaper are ye?" said

Trygve.

"No, we're from Fargo!" said Raymond. Brilliant, Raymond,

brilliant!

"There ain't no Gad-damned spaceship here and git to hell off

our property!"

So much for country hospitality! We took his advice and "got to

hell out of there!"

We had finished our twelve-pack and were in need of another. We

were also getting hungry, so we stopped in Casselton for a bite. Half

an hour later, we were leaving the restaurant. It was Draper who

noticed them first.

"Well I'll be go-to-hell!" he said. "Look at this, you guys."

Rattling and smoking down the main street of the little town

came an apparition. An honest-to-god, rust-colored, forty-something

Studebaker pickup truck. In it were two other apparitions. Or

fossils, if you prefer. Sure enough it was old Trygve and Einar

(which was which?), come to town. The ever-devious Neil was the first

to grasp the significance of the event.

"Wonder who's at the farm?" he mused.

"Shit, probably nobody!" said Raymond.

"What say we go back and have a look around?" said Neil.

I don't know if any one of us really wanted to but no one wanted

to be accused of not having any nerve either. I guess I was the most

cautious. "Christ!" I said. "That old son-of-a-bitch had a shotgun!"

"Well he can't hardy hit you from Casselton, can he?" Neil

replied. That ended the argument. Neil's good at saying the right

thing to end an argument. He's brave, too. When we got back to the

Carstenson farm he showed his courage by offering to stay in the car

with the motor running while the rest of us did the snooping. It was

Raymond and I who found the ship! No shit! Believe it or not, Ripley!

It was in one of the old buildings that had a big door on one end.

"Jesus, would you look at that!" said Raymond, his voice rising

with excitement. "That thing is gorgeous!"

No doubt about it, it was beautiful. Long and slender and

smooth, it was sleekly aerodynamic and obviously intended for use in

atmosphere. It was much smaller than I would have expected -- it must

have been some kind of scout ship. It simply couldn't have come all

the way from Rigel. It was only about forty feet long and made of

some kind of totally unfamiliar metal or plastic. It was sky-blue and

shiny. Raymond and I looked at fun-house reflections of ourselves in

the side of it.

Raymond made a funny face. I slapped his shoulder.

"Cut that out!" I said. "This is an alien spacecraft! It should

be treated with dignity! Jesus, can't you ever be serious?"

The little craft was beautiful, but it showed the after-effects

of one hellacious impact. One of the "wings" was bent and torn and

the nose and bottom were covered with dirt, like it had landed in a

swamp or something. There was an obvious hatch on one side. From the

way the mud was caked on the seams of it, it had not been opened. The

way the little ship was damaged we had to assume that its occupant(s)

were dead. We were just about to get a closer look when we heard the

horn of the Caravan honk and Draper screaming at the top of his

lungs. We high-tailed it for the van.

Trygve and Einar had come back from town. Hell hath no fury like

a pissed-off Norwegian farmer! Fortunately, all they had was that old

Studebaker truck and we had a head start. Neil has a couple of dents

and one broken window on the back of his Caravan from the shotgun

blast, but it could have been worse.

Within a day there was an Air Force barrier thrown up a mile

around the house. No one goes in or out. We don't know what to make

of it. Trygve and Einar must have gone into town to call them.

One thing that really irks me is that no one thought to bring a

camera. One lousy picture and we all could have been rich and famous!

Well, we won't be caught napping this time. We're on our way to

Clear Lake, Iowa to visit a Miss Nellie Rawlings, RR 2. It seems that

the large oval rock she was using as a doorstop on her hen house

turned out to be a Tyrannosaurus Rex egg. Hatched into a hungry

little needle-toothed monster. She says it ate a bunch of chickens

and her cat. By God, we're gonna get this one on film!

PHIl NOLTE (NOLTE@IDUI1.BITNET) is an extension professor at the

University of Idaho, in addition to being an assistant editor of

InterText.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Naming Game / TARL ROGER KUDRICK

His mother's name was Sherry.

His father's name was Nathaniel.

His best friend's name was Warren Denaublin. His worst enemy's

name was Emily Pirthrull. Some of his classmates were Susan Fench,

Gordon Quellan, and Irving P. Rinehauser the third.

>His< name was John Smith, and he was >not< happy.

He wouldn't have cared so much if his name was at least

>spelled< differently. Jon Smyth, Jonn Smithe, or something like

that. But it wasn't. It was J as in Joshua, O as in Orville, H as in

Harvey, N as in Norman, S as in Samuelson, M as in Mitchell, I as in

Idall, T as in Terniard, H as in Hutchington -- John Smith. His older

sister (Josephine) had an English teacher (Mrs. Starnell) who talked

about the Everyman. John thought that John Smith was the perfect name

for an Everyman, but he was only eleven, so he couldn't even qualify

for that.

There had to be at least a >million< John Smiths in the world.

Didn't his parents >realize< that? What was wrong with them? What

could they have been thinking when they'd named him?

His mother would have talked first. She always did. "Oh

Nathaniel dear, look, it's our new baby. What'll we name him?"

"Oh Sherry darling, how about 'John Smith?' "

"Why 'John Smith?' "

"It's the most boring name I can think of."

That just about summed it up, John figured. Then his dad

would've gone on about something else, probably football. John hated

football. All the players had their names proudly displayed across

their backs, so everyone could see how great they were. Once, he

>had< seen a player with the last name Smith, and felt some hope.

Then it turned out the man's first name was Ebineezer and John lost

all faith in the world.

If only there was a famous president, or rock star, or something

named John Smith. Or a movie star. Anything. Of course, those people

would never >call< themselves John Smith, even if that was their real

name. Those people never used their real names. They made something

up. And that's what gave him the idea:

He would get his name changed. Officially. Right now, right on

this bright Sunday morning, before he even got dressed. Why put it

off? He felt better already.

The hard part, of course, would be convincing his parents.

Nathaniel Smith was sitting in his armchair in the living room,

reading the newspaper, completely ignorant of the storm of self-

confidence and assurance that was about to come flying out of its

room, demanding to have its name changed. Thus, he regarded the

request with considerable surprise.

"You want to what?"

"Dad," John repeated, "I want to change my name." It had far

less effect than he'd hoped for, especially the second time.

"You want," John's already washed, shaved, combed, groomed, and

perfectly dressed father slowly said while staring blankly over the

rims of his shiny glasses, "to change your name."

John, unwashed, uncombed, and still in his pajamas, said "Um...

yeah."

John felt the moment slipping away from him.

Seeing no real response from his father, he used what he'd been

saving as a last resort.

"Movie stars do it!"

"You aren't a movie star."

Leave it to parents to be logical when their only son in going

through the ultimate crisis of his life, John thought. "You don't

understand. I >have< to."

"Why? Are you hiding from the police?"

"No!" Why did parents have to >say< stupid things like that? "I

just have to, that's all."

"Oh," said his father, turning and looking at the wall. John

looked there too, but didn't see anything. And apparently, neither

did his father. After a couple moments he turned back to John and

asked "Why?"

"It's >boring<," he answered. He spread his arms out in a

gesture of emphasis that was completely lost on his father. "There

are millions of people called John Smith."

"Name one."

John stopped for a minute, thought, then realized he'd been

tricked. "Daaad! You aren't taking me >seriously<!"

His father chuckled. "Okay. Look, have you talked to your mom

about this?"

John reluctantly admitted that he hadn't. But, he added, she was

next.

"Well, why don't you see what she thinks, and then talk to me."

"But she's at >church<! She won't be home for a long time!"

"She's always back by lunch time. You can make it that long." He

ruffled John's hair. John slumped his shoulders and went back to his

room.

"And stand up straight," his father called after him.

John got caught up in other things and forgot about the whole

problem until after dinner. Then, his mother was shopping. She always

shopped after dinner. It never made sense to John, but then, nothing

his parents did made sense. He >had< to talk to her as soon as she

got back! School started tomorrow, and there was no way he was going

to start fifth grade as John Smith.

When he heard the sound of his mother's car coming into the

driveway, he ran out of his room to let her into the house. He threw

open the door just as his mother was about to unlock it.

"Hi Mom!" he shouted, scaring the unprepared Sherry Smith almost

to the point of dropping her groceries.

"Hi John! Hey, you scared me there." She wondered why he was

opening the door for her. She figured he wanted something, and tested

this by asking him to bring in the rest of the groceries.

"Sure, Mom!" He ran out and made four trips from the house to

the car and back without a complaint.

Even when that was finished, though, John still hadn't asked for

anything, and Sherry began wondering instead what John had done.

Finally, she came out and asked him if he wanted anything.

John beamed, then became ultra-serious. "I'd like to change my

name," he said.

Inwardly, Sherry Smith groaned. Josephine had gone through

several different stages of "but Mom, I just >have< to (fill in the

blank)," and was working on another one. She'd hoped John wouldn't

fall prey to it too. But, the best way to handle these fads, she'd

long ago decided, was to just play along.

So she asked him what he wanted to be called.

John opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no idea what

he wanted to be called.

"Larry," he finally said, proudly.

"Larry," she repeated, as if trying on a new hat. "Sounds like

my name! Why Larry?"

John didn't know, so he said, "It sounds good."

"Larry," she mused. "Larry Smith."

John almost had a heart attack. "No! Not Larry >Smith<! Larry...

Quartz! Larry Quartz."

His mother looked dubious, but John loved it. "Yeah. Larry

Quartz. It's great. It's >exactly< right." Seeing no complaint from

his mother, he went back to his room, smiling. He could hardly wait

until tomorrow.

The next morning, after washing and dressing, John came out to

eat breakfast. His mother was making pancakes. No one else was in the

room yet.

His mother greeted him with a smile. "Good morning, John."

He almost responded, but then remembered and said "Who?"

His mother sighed. "Right. Who are you again?"

"Larry," he said slowly. "Larry Quartz." He sat down at the

table.

His father came in from the living room. "Hi John." Both wife

and son quickly corrected him. He looked at them, confused, but then

just shrugged.

His older sister was next. She bounded into the room, her silky

and wet black hair flopping behind her like a confused flag. She sat

down at the table and, much to John's dismay, ignored him completely.

He wanted to get her to call him John too.

So, he started humming quietly underneath his breath, and

playing with his fork, hoping Josephine would tell him to stop. She

did give him an odd look, and he paused and returned a false smile,

but nothing else happened. He went back to his humming.

Pouring some pancake batter into a pan, John's mother said "Jo,

we have a new member of the family this morning."

John stopped humming. What was she doing?

Josephine studied her mother. She looked around the table. "I

don't get it," she said finally.

Sherry put the batter down and waved an arm at John. "Meet Larry

Quartz."

Josephine stared at John, who paled slightly. "Whaaattt?" Her

voice rose in disbelief.

John sat still, wondering how to turn this to his advantage.

"He changed his name?" Josephine drawled. Then she started

laughing. "He changed his >name<?"

She turned to John. "What's wrong with the name they gave you?"

"Now Josephine," John's father began.

"It's Jo, Dad, not Josephine," she reminded him.

"What's wrong with the name they gave you?" John mimicked.

She glared at him. "John!"

"Who?"

"All right!" John's mother announced. "The first pancake is

ready."

"Well, why don't we let John have it?" suggested Josephine

sweetly.

"Who?" John replied innocently.

"Well, if >he's< not around, I guess I'd better have it!" She

took the pancake.

Not taking any chances, John quickly added that he wanted the

next one.

All in all, breakfast turned out pretty good for John. His

mother called him John once, his father accidentally called him

Harry, and his sister, for sake of argument, called him John every

time. It was great. He just >knew< that he was going to have a

wonderful day.

He didn't, of course, know about the new girl in his class.

Her name, and the month she was born in, was June. She had the

nicest hair and the sweetest smile, and she had just the right

mixture of shyness and audacity to get anything she wanted from

anyone. She was a knockout, or as much of a knockout as a fifth-

grader could be, and this was certainly the impression held by the

male population of the class.

In fact, no one dared sit near her. The boys didn't, because

they didn't want to do something stupid. And the other girls didn't

quite trust her. June, and the seat next to her, were left alone.

So when John walked in, just barely before the bell as always,

the only available seat was the one next to her, and all eyes were on

him as he sat in it.

With no formal training at all, John performed a perfect double-

take, and the result was a spontaneous burst of giggles as John found

himself trying not to stare at June as rudely as he was.

Then the bell rang and the teacher walked in, and everyone

turned to the blackboard.

The teacher was new. He walked in front of his desk and said

"Hello, class!" His voice was deep and clear. "As you may have

noticed, I'm new here. But I've taught fifth grade before, so I'm

very good at it. I hope that you will all think the same after you

get to know me. But first," he said, placing a pile of notebooks he'd

been carrying onto his desk, "I would like to get to know >you<. My

name is Mr. Carniss." He wrote it on the chalkboard with precise

handwriting and opened up one of his notebooks. "Now I have here a

list of names, but I don't know whom each one belongs to. So I'm just

going to read off each name and if that's you, just raise your hand.

How does that sound?"

Sounds terrible, thought John. This name-changing business was

going to be harder than he'd figured.

What were his friends going to say? He glanced around. Sure

enough, they were all there. About two-thirds of the room knew him,

or at least his name. He vaguely remembered being laughed at only a

couple of minutes ago and he didn't want to go through that again.

Then he thought of June. He didn't know her name was June, of

course, but whoever she was, she didn't look like she'd think much of

a John Smith. He found himself staring at her again, and looked away.

Why did he even care what some dumb girl thought, anyway? He wasn't

sure, but he did.

Mr. Carniss began.

"Sue-Ann Aldring?"

A girl in the last row raised her hand as if it were going to

explode if moved too quickly. Mr. Carniss looked up, smiled a smile

that melted Sue-Ann, and made a mark in his book.

"Michael Bern?"

And so it went. Name after name was called. Denaublin, Ewing,

Garth...

"June Golden?"

June raised her hand as far as it would go. John felt sick. June

Golden, he marvelled. What a name. She'd >never< have to change it.

If I had a name like that, thought John, I wouldn't change it for a

million dollars. Not for ten million. I wouldn't even change it if my

parents threatened to kill me. I wouldn't...

John stopped thinking and sank into his chair. He felt like he'd

just been hit with a sledgehammer. That was it. The answer. That was

how he could get away with this and not be the laughingstock of the

fifth grade.

Excited, he smiled, and could barely restrain himself until,

eleven names later, Mr. Carniss said

"John Smith?"

John raised his hand, slowly, faking uncertainty. He hoped he

looked like he wasn't sure he was doing the right thing.

Mr. Carniss looked up at John and made a mark in his notebook.

Then he looked back at John. "Is something wrong, John?" he asked.

John couldn't tell if it was real concern, or just the usual

kind teachers had for their kids. "Um...yeah," he said finally. "Kind

of. That's...that's not my name anymore."

Mr. Carniss looked surprised. So did the other kids. John kept a

perfectly straight face, but mentally crossed his fingers as he said,

"My parents changed it."

Next to him, June Golden's eyes went wide with pity. On the

other side of him, his best friend Warren almost fell off his chair.

Mr. Carniss was disoriented. For the first time, he seemed

unprepared. But he quickly regained his composure and said, "I see.

And what is your name now?"

Here we go, John thought.

"Larry Quartz."

Warren gave him a look which translated as "You've got to be

kidding." Some of the other students were looking at each other in

awkward disbelief. June seemed slightly bothered at the idea, and

turned away from John just as he looked over to see her reaction. But

none of this fazed Mr. Carniss, who had once again taken control.

"Well," he replied cheerfully, "what would you like me to call

you? John or Larry?"

John looked at him, sinking. Why did he have to be so nice? But

it was too late to back out now.

"I guess you'd better call me Larry, Mr. Carniss. I should get

used to it."

"You should get new parents," whispered Warren, but Mr. Carniss

simply nodded and made some more marks in his book. He finished off

his list of names and then class started.

The day went badly for John. Things hadn't gone at all like he'd

hoped. When he thought about it, he wasn't even sure what kind of

reaction he'd been looking for, but he did know he hadn't gotten it.

As it turned out, Mr. Carniss was only his homeroom teacher.

That meant he had to repeat his story and his act for five more

teachers throughout the day. By the afternoon he no longer wanted to,

but he kept having people he knew in some of his classes, and the

story had spread through the entire fifth grade by lunch hour. John

heard people talking about him from time to time, but he could never

quite hear what they were saying.

By the end of the day, the misery he'd feigned for his first

class was real. No one wanted to talk to him. No one knew what to

say. A brand new student would have been treated better. John had

forgotten how many friends he'd really had, until none of them seemed

comfortable around him anymore. It was like he'd died and some new

kid had come along, trying to take his place. It isn't fair, John

wanted to shout. I'm still the same person! I'm just called something

different!

After his last class, he collected his books and went to the

bike rack where he traditionally waited for Warren. He unhitched his

bike and, after a couple minutes, Warren arrived.

Warren smiled, started to say "Hi John," and then remembered and

mumbled "oh yeah."

"It isn't >that< bad, is it?" John asked.

Warren stared at him. "You mean you >like< it?"

"Don't you?"

Warren started to say something, but stopped. "It's okay," he

said. "But I like John better."

John looked at his bicycle. "Maybe I can get them to change it

back, or something," he said. He didn't like the idea.

Warren did. His spirits lifted immediately. "You think you

could?"

John was slightly taken back at the force of Warren's question.

"Well, I don't know. They haven't actually made the change yet, but

they said..."

"Well don't >let< them!" Warren shouted. "Shit! Tell them not

to! I'll help! Want me to come over? I'll stand up for you!"

"No! No--that's okay." John wanted to change the subject. "I'll

tell them. I won't let them. I...I like being John Smith." But he

wondered who he was trying to convince, Warren or himself.

He rode Warren home, and then went on to his house, deep in

thought. He still thought John Smith was a boring name, but nobody

seemed to mind. Maybe the name actually helped somehow. "John Smith?

Yeah, his name's boring, but >he's< cool..."

He got back home and put his bike away. When he walked inside,

his mother smiled at him. "Hi Larry! How'd school go?"

"Who?" John asked.

TARL ROGER KUDRICK (AUELV@ACVAX.INRE.ASU.EDU) has been making up

stories since he could talk and writing them since he was twelve.

He's written numerous short stories and first drafts of two novels,

one of which is on-line at Oberlin College

(owrite@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu). His major goal in life is to earn a

Ph.D. in psychology. He stays sane through both being weird and

running AD&D sessions.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Boy / N. RIDLEY MCINTYRE

1. Start Switch

Shitamachi. The Manhattan Outzone. The Year of the Rat.

Darkness and rain pervade the quiet streets of the Outzone.

Here, the Federal Government in its infinite wisdom has cut off all

electricity, and left the running of the place to its inhabitants. In

Shitamachi, the Asahi Tag Team run everything.

The DJ in Snakestrike is a tiger-haired poserboy with his brain

connected to the turbo sound system at the end of a large dance

floor, two thin blue wires dangling from the tiny electrodes stuck to

his forehead. He is engrossed in the world of the music, every

digitized blip and beep and thump pulsing through his nerves like the

very blood in his veins. Electrical signals interfacing the sound

system to his nervous system to allow him complete control over the

mix. The ersatz sensory stimulation that runs through the 'trodes

overrides his own natural senses. Every three minutes he switches to

life to take a request.

The dance floor swarms with a thousand Shitamachi teenagers,

sticking their heads into the blue lasers and flashing fluorescent

gloves under the ultra-violet strobes. Every wall of the club writhes

with holographic snake scales, a reptilian world that's constantly

moving.

There's a hole above the dance floor where people from the level

above can watch the dancers. Up here, on the left at the cocktail

bar, Snakestrike stinks of dancer sweat. It also reeks of business.

And for once, Dex has nothing to do with it.

Two women serve the cocktail bar. One dark-haired with natural

beauty, the other a made-up half-Japanese blonde doll who is well

known as an Asahi Tag Teamster. They call themselves sisters when a

drunken Japanese Sony slave plays being a suit to them, despite his

slave's company-grey jumpsuit. Dex watches them all with interest,

then calls the dark-haired girl over to order his third Vijayanta

tequila slammer.

Dex is here to see Laughing Simon, the Asahi Tag Team's best

technojack, but he's been stood up again. So, he sits by the bar with

his face cupped in his hand and a pocketful of stimulant wetware in

his black pilot's jacket. He is just thinking of leaving when he

feels a tap on his shoulder from the billy on the grey stool next to

him: a muscular Australian kid with sideburns, a blue denim jacket, a

quiff and a ginger moustache.

"So what do you do?" asks the billy.

"Why, are you collecting taxes?" Dex answers. His voice is

English. The dark-haired girl returning with a plastic tumbler

wonders if there are any Americans left in Manhattan. She turns the

glass three times and fizzes it with a bang on the bar and Dex calmly

downs it.

"You look like a ghost to me," says the Australian.

Dex shakes his head the way he's supposed to when they ask him

these questions. All the time thinking, does it show that much?

"Sorry, matey. Just your average ho-hum chipster."

The billy shuffles closer, his voice slipping gently into a

business tone. "Shame. I'm looking at some hot paydata and I really

need a ghost. One of the best. Someone like the Camden Town Boy.

Dexter Eastman."

"You've found Dexter Eastman, matey. But I gave up the ghost

over a year ago."

The billy makes a swift move from his jacket and Dex can feel a

cold plastic tube dig into his hip. The Australian raises his

eyebrows. "Looks like I've found my man, then." He motions to the

exit with his head. "We're walking."

"You're walking. I'm here for a drink."

The Australian squints in Dex's face. "You'd better move, cause

if you don't it's gonna be a Kodak moment."

Dex sits still. "Go ahead. Shoot me. You won't get out alive.

The decision, as they say, is yours." A flick of Dex's eyes motions

the Australian to look at the dark-haired bargirl. She holds the HK

assault shotgun usually kept under the bar. Casually, and with a

feisty smile, she rests the barrel on the bone of the Australian's

nose and crunches the first round into the chamber.

"If you're takin' anyone out at my bar, it won't be with a

plastic pistol, matey," she says curtly. "Give me the piece and deal

with the man friendly-like."

The Australian gives over the gun with a taut look from Dex to

the bargirl and back. He wipes sweat from his moustache.

Dex gives a thankful look to the bargirl. "Respect to you," he

says.

"S'okay," she replies, "If he didn't look so dumb, I'd shoot him

anyway." She puts the guns behind the counter, out of reach, and goes

back to the Japanese slave.

Dex turns to the Australian. "You've got two minutes. Deal or

step."

The billy talks through clenched teeth. Being challenged down in

a club full of strangers by a girl who looked about seventeen has

raised a storm inside his pride. It is a storm that has to subside

just this once.

"My name's Priest. I'm a dealer for Kreskin."

"Kreskin the rigger?"

"The very same. Kreskin says you two used to work together. You

used to do overnight laundry for him with the World Bank."

"That was a year ago."

"Yeah, well he's coming up against some tough opposition from

the Martial Government Air Force along the North Route and he needs

you to run the Ether for him. Hack into the MGAF shell and find out

the reconnaissance flight plans for next week. Rabies just broke out

again in the Seattle Metroplex and Kreskin has the contract to ship

vaccine over the line. He says you did it before for him. He says

you'll do it again."

Dex narrows his eyes. "Read my profile. Ex-hackerjack."

Priest smiles. "Kreskin said you'd be a little reluctant. I have

read your profile. Ex-hackerjack. Ex-MGAF pilot. Ex-joker. You've

done a lot in your time. Kreskin needs someone he can trust. Someone

he knows. And of course if you refuse..." Priest takes a cold gyuza

dumpling from a bowl on the bar and bites half of it.

"Kreskin publicly announces my whereabouts to the MGAF."

"I think he had something even worse in mind, but you're on the

right track. Strictly business, you understand, Dex. Nothing

personal.

Somehow Dex wishes it was personal. Then he'd have an excuse to

smash Priest's face in.

Kitty slips into Dex's room and hands him steaming ration coffee

in a polystyrene cup. She's like him, another smart young refugee

from the authorities. The Manhattan Outzone is an excellent place to

hide, but she wasn't born to this, and no one could hide forever.

She looks at Dex through superchromed Sony eyes as he drinks his

coffee, sitting on his black leather swivel chair and fidgeting, and

she realizes that she knows very little about him. He grew up in a

shanty town in the Thames Midland Metroplex and found a way out

through running the Ether; the Camden Town Boy. He was a hackerjack

legend by the age of fourteen, teaching others like Dagger and Man

Friday to run the Ether. At fifteen he was involved with a team

rivalry squabble and left for North Am District, where he joined the

Martial Government Air Force, flying missions against the nomad joker

clans who smuggled anything from weapons to computer parts from one

Metroplex to another, figuring that the MGAF's high security would

make him harder to track down.

She heard that he turned joker after he had to shoot down his

own wingman to save a busload of joker kids from being rocketed. So

he joined the nomads as a pilot running recon missions and every once

in a while he would launder joker clan money through the Ether.

Kreskin got him a new identity and he left the game for the

Manhattan Outzone, where he moved in with Kitty and the Asahi Tag

Team and became a chipster. Once, he told her that his main ambition

was to live a normal life. Buy himself a piece of Happyville. The

biggest problem he had was dropping his past.

Kitty only has to see the look on his face to know that the past

is on its way back.

Dex downs the coffee and crushes the cup inside a sinewy hand.

"You don't think I should do this, do you?"

Kitty stands with her back to the wall by the door to the

kitchen, her arms neatly folded over her _Omni_ T-shirt. She bites

her bottom lip.

"No," she says to him. She kicks herself off the wall and leaves

the room, closing the door behind her.

Dex is alone in a grimy-grey room with a swivel chair, a desk

and a foam mattress to sleep on. Something inside him claws his

stomach. An empty feeling.

A hunger.

He takes the machinery out of its bubble-plastic wrapping. It's

been in storage in a tea chest in Kitty's room for so long that the

wrapping sticks to the molded form of the Sony electronics, making

the job more difficult. The sense 'trodes, like sticky silver beads

with microthin wires, are wrapped around the Etherdeck. A procured

military item in cold matte black, designated Ares IV.

The Ares IV has a stream of wires that plug into the input port

of his stolen, unlicensed Fednet computer. Built in Poland, its

bright red plastic casing and molded keyboard with old chunky keys

seems tasteless to all but the billy tribe. Dex is no billy, he's too

dragon, but he likes things in strange colors. The whole setup that

has been updated for high-speed bias by Laughing Simon is plugged

into the socket that runs a tap into the groundline. He sticks the

trodes to his forehead and switches on all the equipment. "On"

telltales glisten in the darkness of his room. The screen on the

Fednet computer displays a prompt. Everything's ready except Dex.

He sits cross-legged in front of the setup and hesitates. The

hunger inside his guts claws him again, and he nearly buckles with

tension. With his left hand, he fingers the keyboard of the Fednet

computer, preparing himself for sensory takeover.

With the other poised over the Ares IV, he touches the Start

switch.

2. Ether

Just as Dex had taught the Dagger and Man Friday, so a girl

called Kayjay introduced him to the Ether on a cold London night in a

Sony-owned flat in the Camden Secure Zone. He was twelve years old

and Kayjay was a small, thin- boned, pretty little Bangladeshi girl

with nothing better to do than follow the latest fads.

She had spent most of the day playing with her father's

electronic toys. His Sony computer... black and sleek and totally

unlike the low-tech kit-boxes that Dex had seen in the shanty town.

His wallscreen color TV that was constantly tuned into Disney 7 (The

Children's Channel), showing the latest adventures of baby-faced

anthropomorphic soldiers in space jungles, fighting the evil

insectoids with their nuclear battlesuits, and Dex and Kayjay acted

them out in the living room, firing remote control units at each

other (Dex was always Mark and Kayjay was always Sukhi), and Kayjay

won. When they raided the wardrobe for fancy costumes, Kayjay came

across the thin non-descript box that she had seen her father use. It

was densely heavy and as big as a Federal Government daily ration

box.

He remembers her words now as she tried to explain the concepts

to this bright, but uneducated, boy, lying on the thick carpet floor

of her bedroom. She tapped the ridge on her black leather swivel

chair.

"See this chair?" she said. Twelve-year-old Dexter Eastman

nodded softly. "This chair doesn't really exist. It's just an

amassment of atomic particles. But the way the light reflects from

them, and the way our eyes see that light, leads our brains to come

to the conclusion that this pack of particles is a chair. Without a

way of translating the fact to us, it doesn't really exist. Without

sight it has no color. Without touch it has no texture. Without taste

it's not organic. Without sound it doesn't squeak when you turn it.

Without smell it isn't leather. A person without senses has no world.

It just doesn't exist, there's no way of translating it to them."

Kayjay moved around the room like some eccentric Disney 9

(Education Channel) science instructor and ended up grinning,

pointing to her red telephone.

"Ever listened to the sound a modem makes when you send it down

a phone line?" She made a weird screeching sound and an equally

appalling face and Dex gave a little giggle.

"Data. Raw data. A computer talking to another computer. Not to

us, because it doesn't speak our language, but that's by-the-by. The

fact is that data has a sound. And if it has a sound, it has a smell.

And a taste, and a texture and you must be able to see it. It exists.

Only normally, there's no way to translate it to us."

She edged over to Dex and kissed him softly, ran thin brown

fingers through his spiky black hair. "Somedays I go there... to this

other world. Father calls it the Ether. Like ethereal, I suppose. But

it's more like a checkboard than anything else. You want to go? I'll

get Father to bring home another set of trodes. After that, we'll do

it together..."

The processor is an empty blue cathedral. Code embodies him as

the virus runs its course. There is a soft dent in the defense shell

and Fednet's watchdog program lays in wait. Dex knows this, though,

and avoids the obvious weakness in favor of the silent meltdown.

Another key is tapped and a silver thread streams from the

melting roof where Dex has lived all this time toward the bounty. The

defenses have been breached, the virus has become part of the defense

program, shaping itself to the contours and Dex knows his trojan

software can work well enough without him, that he can switch off any

time and let a demon do the work for him. But it seems too easy, and

something must be wrong.

He stays with it, observing... watching the trojan open and

close files with lightning speed, knowing it's true target, but

running a trick that it really is a routine file check. As soon as it

finds the file, the thread snaps back, and Dex sends a program to

cover its tracks. It doesn't matter. The breaching virus is old and

faulty, and has caused a cancer in the defense shell that the

watchdog can't fail to notice. Dex waits just long enough for the

thread to return before he tries to rescue the virus which has gone

wild. Eventually, before he can tear the trodes from his forehead, he

feels the crushing smash of the MGAF trace program as it finds his

home shell. His senses are dazed, rocked back and forth and he is

pulled like spaghetti as he sees the trace's toothy smile.

He tears the trodes from his forehead and fights for breath.

Suddenly nauseated, he crawls so fast through the door but vomits

across the kitchen floor before he can reach the sink. Passing out,

he can sense the far off rank smell of stagnant water and the cruel

touch of a rough cloth. The stern tones of Kitty's voice echoing

through his head...

Snakestrike. The pretty, dark-haired girl brings his drink over

to him, loosely covered with a small cloth. She draws him closer to

her. Her voice is an urgent whisper. "Your name's Dex, isn't it?"

Dex nods.

"Man in that booth behind you was asking for you not two minutes

ago. He said he was an old friend. I told him you weren't here. He

said he'd wait. If you're in trouble, matey, call for another drink.

I'll bring the shotgun. Escort him out for you."

Dex sits back. She circles the tumbler three times and bangs it

on the bar, turning the drink into wet foam. Dex lets her take away

the cloth before downing it.

"What's your name?"

"Jess," she says.

"Enough respect to you, Jess." He taps the bar and takes a

breath before pushing himself off the stool and looking for this

Mister Dangerous. He spots him immediately, and knows his name is

Turk.

"What are you doing here, Turk?"

Turk has his arms spread along the back of the seat, a dumb,

superior grin on his Dixie City fat face. He wears a blue flight

suit, wing commanders tapes on the epaulettes. He even has his own

row of medals, including a purple heart that he must have got when

Dex shot down his own wingman.

"Thought ah'd find you heah, Eastman," he drawls drunkenly. "Ah

was gonna ask you that question mahself. How the hell can you live in

this dump, anyways? What do the Sammies call it? Shitter-what?"

"Shitamachi. It's Japanese for downtown. Look, cut the gomi,

Turk, just tell me what you want."

Turk laughs raucously and chews gum, bobbing his head. "Jeez,

Eastman. You been heah so long, you'se even spoutin' like a Sammie.

Bah the way, your friend Priest is dead. Ah did him mahself. But not

before I managed to spill your deal outta him. So gimme the file you

copied and we'll be friends again."

"We were never friends. What makes you think I've got it with

me?"

Turk leans forward and takes a sip from his beer, then returns

to his reclining position, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers

against the ultra-suede. "Ah told you, Eastman. Ah know the deal. So

gimme the data, 'cause I know you got it."

Dex takes on a wounded, irritated look. He runs his hands

through his spiky black hair and then takes out a black silicate cube

from his jacket pocket and tosses it over to him. Dex is angry as

hell now, but he knows he has to contain it if he wants to stay

alive.

"Sammie for downtown," Turk mutters. "Down is the operative

word, Eastman." He turns his head to the end of the booth, which

backs onto the hole above the dance floor. "CAN'T YOU PLAY SOME NEIL

YOUNG OR SOMETHIN'? ALL THIS SAMMIE NOISE SOUNDS THE SAME AND HALF OF

IT AIN'T GOT NO WORDS!" He comes back and laughs. "You got insurance,

Eastman? Ah'd take some out if Ah were you." He stands and finishes

his beer.

"And don't let those Sammies take you in. Remember Pearl Harbor.

Catch you 'round." Turk slips out of the booth and past the cocktail

bar, shaking his head and laughing to himself when Jess throws him a

dirty look.

Dex and Jess exchange a glance. Somehow the look on her face

tells him exactly what to do.

3. Rehash

"Nixon. How are you? It's the Camden Town Boy. No, not anymore,

I'm a free man now. In Shitamachi dealing software to the Asahi Tag

Team. Yeah I know... fifty-five points last night, you get a share?

Better luck tonight, eh? Anyway, I've got something you might like. I

did a run for Kreskin last week, MG Air Force flight plans along the

North Route. Yeah, well I asked for 750 marks, but Kreskin dropped

his price, said he couldn't go any higher than 500 marks. Yeah, I

know, I should have guessed he'd take me for a sucker. Anyway, the

MGAF are wise to it, so they've changed their flight plan. Yep. And

I've got the new one, too. I'll let you have it for 600 e-marks, what

do you say? Ace, it's a deal. Transfer the money into a World Bank

bin under the account name of Peter Townshend. Of course I know who

Pete Townshend was, but they're too stupid to figure it out. I'll fax

the details to you. Better send one of your jokers. Pickup point will

be on the fax. Anyway, time is money and you're eating my phone bill.

See you sometime."

Dex has an airbrushed wheel-dial telephone, the color of

turtleshells. Kitty says he has no taste whatsoever. When Dex

reiterates that he likes strange colours, she just shakes her head.

"Who was that?" asks Kitty. She stands half-in, half-out of the

doorway to the kitchen. There is still a trace of vomit smell in the

air in there after a week.

"Nixon's another Rigger. Officially him and Kreskin are rivals.

So he'll buy it just to have something Kreskin hasn't." He wipes

sleep from his eyes and pulls at itchy hair.

"Think it'll work?" Kitty sips on ration Vijayanta coffee and

makes a face as she burns her tongue.

Dex collapses onto his mattress and sighs, looking out through

his window at the condemned block across East 10th Street. Lines of

age wrinkling the building. The circular port-hole windows, like a

thousand eyes all crying at once.

"It bloody well better work," he finally replies, hoping that

soon, things could get back to normal.

Nixon has his package. Another group of mercenaries known as the

Harlequins are also interested in the information. Something to do

with a hit they have to make on the MGAF.

He meets them at dusk in Tompkins Square, when the day is

hottest, and the shadows are longest. The Harlequin Rigger's name is

Fly, and he is a frail twig of a man who needs a metal walking stick

to stand upright. He is known more for his abilities as a fence than

for running a good merc group.

The boys around him are typical San Angeles Ronin, they are all

six feet two inches and have deep tans, dressed in Twin Soul Tribe

garb (very baggy green jeans and hooded sweaters). Dex has seen a

million like these two muscleboys, and they don't impress him. Fly

informs him that their names are J.D. and Mavik.

"So what's business like now, Dex?" Fly speaks in a dreamy,

whispering tone, a voice much older than he is; looking at him with

eyes that are much wiser than the frail man could ever be.

"To tell the truth, the chipster business could be bottoming out

here. I might need to expand."

"Expansion's always a good thing, Dex. If you're going to think

at all, think big. A real famous businessman said that once... But

I'm damned if I can remember his name."

Fly gives a hoarse laugh and Dex joins in. J.D. and Mavik look

calmly at the decrepit housing blocks that surround the concrete

plaza of Tompkin's Square. Thermographic Sony vision scanning the

windows for possible threats. They don't even have to show what

weapons they carry. They have rewired nerves for inhuman speed and

could probably take out a potential assassin before the hammer falls

on his gun. Stuff like that doesn't come cheap, though. Most of the

Asahi Tag Team who have rewired nerves had to go as far as the Tokyo

Metroplex to find a neurosurgeon good enough to do it. These boys

have it as standard with all the Martial Government trickery behind

it. They probably don't even know about the glitches in the

triggering software that runs the nervous system, something that Dex

had to pay a lot to get ironed out when he deserted the air force.

"Where's Man Friday? How's he doing these days? I haven't heard

from him in a long time."

Fly pulls a nicotine stick from his black denim jacket and bites

a piece off the end. "He's still trying to find out what happened in

Rio. Did he leave a girl behind there or something?"

Dex nods. "A wife, from what I remember."

"Oh. Well, we think the Feds caught up with her and she's gone

missing. He's organizing an expedition to find her, I think. We're

gonna go in with him. He wishes you were running Ether again. Says it

ain't so much fun with you not around."

"Well, I'm officially retired. Except for this stuff. Good luck,

anyway. If you need any chips for Portuguese, you know where to find

me."

Dex and Fly banter this way for only a few more minutes, as both

of them have other places to go to. Fly eventually gives him about

400 marks' worth of yen for the data cube.

Kitty watches Dex throughout these events. She can see his life

here burning out slowly. She can see from his blue-eyed, thousand-

yard stare that his feet are getting itchy again. Track record has

proven that he doesn't stay in one place for too long. Kitty needs

him here, or at least with her. The two of them aren't in love, not

exactly, but what they have is more than a friendship. Some kind of

closeness that she can't afford to live without.

He flicks the stop switch. Sweat pours from his face, stings his

eyes, leaves salt on his pink lips. His black hair is stuck to his

wet head. He gasps for air and finds the atmosphere is too thin for

him in this grimy little room. He pulls the trodes from his head,

rushes to the round port-hole window and wrenches it open.

Lukewarm air hits his face, cools him down. He sticks his head

out into the night's rain. It rains every night in Manhattan.

Something to do with the high humidity during the day condensing when

the hot sun goes down.

Across East 10th Street, three Asahi Tag Teamsters in their

canary yellow jackets and purple tiger-striped skintight jeans suck

on nicotine sticks and slap with each other about previous clashes.

One of them breaks into a spurt of superhuman martial arts to

demonstrate his actions. Just visible behind the kid's ear a mini

datacube shines from his neural software port. Chipped for Hapkune-

Do, reflexes rewired and boosted by 10 percent, zen flowing from

their new Sony eyes. Dex looks at these kids and sees the future of

the world. A future he doesn't much care for.

He slides back inside and closes the window. Walking over to the

middle of the floor, he looks at the green screen of the unlicensed

Fednet computer and sees the results of this day's work. Two tickets

to Heathrow waiting for him whenever he wants. One way. His life here

is falling to pieces, and it's getting near the time to skin out.

Tiny words glowing green in a dark room. He looks at that screen and

thinks he can see his future.

4. Times Square

"Kreskin says he'll met you outside the old Slammer Cyberena at

noon."

"Times Square."

That's where he is now. The north side, across from the entrance

to the Cyberena. He sits in the uncomfortable seat of a magnesium

alloy rickshaw that belongs to a young Irish-American kid called

Bobby, who wears a white BIG PIERROT SAYS WATCH YOUR BACK T-shirt and

a conical straw hat to keep the blazing sun off him. Kitty's next to

him, watching the windows behind the dead neon signs. She's not happy

about this choice of venue at all. It's out of Shitamachi. Out of the

protection of the Asahi Tag Team. It's the lower end of the Tangerine

Tag Team's kill zone and it's totally open.

Dex figures the poor security of the area will work to the

advantage of everyone, but he knows that Kitty doesn't get nervous

without good reason. So when Kreskin's red rickshaw arrives and Kitty

hands him a HK pistol, he doesn't give it back. Dex hates guns. He

snaps a magazine in and loads a round, letting the hammer down

softly. Before climbing out, he stuffs the thing down the back of his

baggy red jeans.

Kreskin climbs out wearing a cheap business suit, hiding his

eyes behind a pair of Mitsubishi anti-laser glare glasses. He keeps

two of his joker muscleboys close to him, watching the area while

toying playfully with their HK uzi copies. For a moment it almost

looks like Kreskin doesn't recognize Dex as he strides across the

street. But soon he's there and the smile creeps onto the Russian's

chubby face. The huge arms extend and the two old friends hug each

other with subtle reservation.

There's a swift conversation that seems to arrange another

meeting time, and Dex hands over the data cube. Dex is full of

himself as they talk. He's given Kreskin what he wanted, made enough

money for Kreskin to sort him and Kitty out with new ID's so they can

go to London when the heat is on. He has his future in his hands at

last. A chance to create his own destiny.

There's a stifled thump and a cry and a woman's urgent shout

behind him.

"DEX!"

He spins to see the scene, pulls the HK from his jeans.

Bobby lies in a growing pool of blood, his life evaporating

under the heat of the sun. Turk has Kitty by the throat, using her as

human body armor; the cliched hostage position, with a thick chrome

revolver pressed into her temple.

"Hi there, Eastman!" Turk breaks into his dumb grin showing

bright white teeth and a piece of strawberry gum. "Think ah'd leave

heah without takin' you wi' me? Ah think not."

Dex levels the automatic at Turk's head. Behind him, he can feel

the presence of Kreskin and his boys, the sights of HK uzi copies

sending shivers along his neck. Sweat tickles his chin before

dripping off him.

"Let her go, Turk. This is you and me here."

Turk whistles and makes a face. "You been watchin' too much Big

Pierrot, Eastman. Come up wi' an ole cliche like that. You put away

your piece an' maybe, jus' maybe, Ah might let your li'l lady go."

Dex shakes his head. His guts wrenched with the feeling of

betrayal, like nothing has happened but he's lost everything he has.

"Come on, man. I throw this away and I'm giving you the edge."

Turk flicks back the hammer on the revolver, Kitty sucks in a

breath. "What edge, fool. Don't try an' pull that mental shit on me,

Eastman. Ah know you ain't gonna shoot me."

"Did it once before, Turk, remember? Nothing can happen without

you dying at the end of it. You run and I'll shoot. You shoot me and

I'll shoot you. You point the gun at me and I'll shoot you. You kill

her and I'll shoot you. They shoot me and I'll shoot you. No win

situation."

Dex cocks an eyebrow at Turk's expression. The smile falling

from the fat Dixie City man's face, turning to a sneer.

"What's up, Turk? Run out of choices? Then call Kreskin's men

off."

Turk licks salt from his lips.

"Better do as he says, man. You won't be quite so good-looking

with a hole in your face." Kitty's mind is racing. She doesn't have

the advantage that these boys have. All of them are probably rewired.

Dex, she knows, definitely has been, she's seen how fast he can be.

Only a 5 percent reflex boost, but it's enough of an edge against an

unmodified man. No, she can't outrun them, so she has to outthink

them. Be faster by pre-empting them all.

"Shut up, bitch!"

"What's it going to be, Turk, eh?" Dex can feel his wired

nervous system, courtesy of the MGAF, speeding up. An effect like

pins and needles all over the body. A slight vertigo and then the

neural processor that runs it all from the base of his spine kicks in

and the world turns slow-mo.

Frame by frame, a second of violence.

Everyone is surprised because Kitty moves first. Her elbow lifts

up and back to push Turk's arm away and the revolver slips from his

grasp and Kitty is in the air, diving for the cover of the rickshaw.

Turk is a standing target, but Dex doesn't fire, instead, he jumps at

wired speed to the floor and shoots at the red rickshaw. He empty's

half a magazine into Kreskin.

Kreskin's boys are too slow, only now starting to speed up.

Their first bursts of fire are at the place where Dex was, and find

only Turk's fat body at the far side of the street, catching him in

the throat and upper torso. Bullets rip through his spine and out the

other side, pulling Turk with them like puppet strings.

The tall Dixie City man slaps against a metal shop front and

slides silent to the ground in a bloody, crumpled heap of flesh.

One of Kreskin's boys managed to follow Dex's trajectory, and

when Dex rolls up onto his knees to fire the other half of the

magazine, bullets smash into his right arm and sends him spinning

back to the floor.

Then the boy that shot him has an instant to realize that his

boss is dead before his own head shatters sending blood and brain

matter across the red rickshaw. The last Kreskin boy is stunned and

silent. Kitty stands there with Turk's revolver in her small hands,

trained at his head. The boy drops his HK uzi copy. Kitty walks over

and kicks it away, then kneecaps the boy to stop him from leaving.

Dex is screaming in agony. He's been shot before, but that was

just a flesh wound. He figures a bone's been hit here and it's

drawing his entire mind to it. By the time Kitty's run over to help

him, he's passed out from the pain.

Dex climbs lazily out of cot and moves to the window. Looking

out, the hot sun is going down on East 10th Street and some half-

Japanese kids are playing soccer with a ball made from rubber bands.

These kids are going to grow up tough, he thinks to himself. Street

Darwinism. But there's no future for them if they can't think, and

Dex knows that being smart can just beat being tough. He knows, cause

it's not him lying in the street in Times Square waiting for the

Tangerine Tag Team to pick him up. That's Turk, and Turk was tough;

but stupid.

"Well, there go your dreams, kiddo." Kitty stands at the door,

the one place in his room where she feels comfortable.

"Not really. Turk said I may need an insurance policy. I'm going

to keep the tickets open for that."

"What about for now?"

He turns around and sees her there. He smiles. His bandaged arm

doesn't hurt much anymore. Not after Kitty pressed about 320

miligrams of endorphin analog into the bloody skin. He's as happy as

a rat in a hole. But the sudden realization in his mind is that he

needs Kitty. And he's never needed anyone before.

Dex shakes his head. "The chipster business is too slow to stay

alive here. I mean..."

"You want to be the Boy again, don't you?" Kitty seems to raise

her whole face, an expression which means to Dex that she knows the

answer already.

"Man Friday said he misses me."

Kitty's expression turns into a rueful grin. She shakes her head

and gives him a knowing look as she edges out the door.

Dexter Eastman looks back out the window, and for the first time

in years, he feels he's found home.

N. RIDLEY MCINTYRE (gdg019@cck.coventry.ac.uk)

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The Unified Murder Theorem (2 of 4) / JEFF ZIAS

SYNOPSIS

They killed the guitar player on a Thursday night, as he sat in

the bar, playing his instrument, blue light emanating from somewhere

within. The last words the hit men said before they shot him were

simply: "Goodbye from Nattasi."

JACK CRUGER, an accordion instructor by trade, leads the

mundane life one might expect of someone in his line of work. But all

of that changed the moment that TONY STEFFEN walked in his door.

Tony wasn't like most of his clients: he was tall, blonde, and

strong. As it turns out, Tony doesn't want to learn how to play the

accordion -- he wants to hear Cruger play it. As Cruger begins to

play it for the first time, blue light begins to emanate from inside

of it. According to Tony, the accordion is special, and will only

broadcast the blue light if Cruger plays it.

Before his next meeting with Tony, Cruger spends hours trying to

make a baby with his beautiful wife CORRINA, following it up with a

bit of time playing the strange new accordion with the magical blue

light. Much to his surprise, he begins to play songs perfectly --

songs he has never played before.

Tony informs Cruger that the blue strands of light coming out of

the accordion are STRINGS, each representing a path, a possible

outcome. Cruger has been chosen to be a "spinner" of strings by a

special organization. According to Tony, this "Company" is much more

than an international corporation -- its job is to create and support

all worlds, galaxies, and universes. Cruger laughs at this

suggestion, but Tony is serious -- God, or "the CHAIRMAN," prefers

to have living beings "spin" the fates, rather than just throwing

dice. But there's a catch -- there's another company, one that tends

to do the work we would normally expect the Devil to do. If Cruger

spins for the "good guys," he'll be given protection in return --

other spinners will ensure that neither he nor his family will be

harmed... except for what is beyond their control, such as

intervention from the Other Company. Cruger has no choice but to

accept -- after all, his acceptance has already been determined by

another spinner.

Cruger begins to spin, arousing the suspicion of nobody, except

his next-door neighbor, LEON HARRIS. Harris, a computer programmer

by trade, is a large, strong health-nut -- exactly what you wouldn't

expect from a programmer. He is, however, extremely nosy. He wonders

why the non-descript white accountant next door was suddenly playing

the black music that Leon Harris grew up with... and he wonders what

caused the blue light that appeared when Cruger played his accordion.

Months pass, and Corrina Cruger finally becomes pregnant for the

first time since her unfortunate miscarriage a few years before. Jack

Cruger continues to play his accordion, knowing that the Company's

"health plan" will also cover his new child. Tony, occasionally

accompanied by a beautiful young woman named SKY, sometimes visits

with Cruger.

Tony tells Cruger that many of the company's executive positions

are still held by aliens, most from the planet named Tvonen. God --

well, the Chairman -- is a Tvonen. The Tvonen evolved in a fashion

similar to humans, right down to their ancient tale of creation. The

catch is that the Tvonen creation story is completely true. Tvonens

were created as immortal, androgynous beings -- but then two of them

fell from grace, and became gendered, mortal creatures. To this day,

Tvonens must undergo a change and lose their immortality if they wish

to gain a gender.

The Tvonens are now very advanced -- but their technology is

completely analog-based, with no digital electronics at all. Earth,

with its digital technology, is quickly becoming more technologically

adept than the Tvonens. The Tvonens believe that human thought, with

its pursuit of the Grand Unified Theory -- a theory that could

describe every detail of the functioning of the universe -- would

give the Company a giant edge in its ability to guide the universe.

It is Tony, the teenage surfer, who is in charge of implementing

the Unified Theory into a computer system that will allow the Company

to have such control over the universe. Obviously, such a prospect is

not taken lightly by the Other Company, operated by renegade Tvonens

and shape-shifting aliens known as Chysans.

On his way to Cruger's house on a Saturday morning, Tony hears

the slightest rustle of a sound -- and turns to see something large,

colorful, and horrible. It is on him in an instant, throwing him hard

onto the concrete steps. By the time Cruger reaches the door, Tony

lays face down, a puddle of blood forming around his limp blonde

hair.

Cruger reaches down to feel for a pulse, but he knows the answer

before he even begins to bend over. The realization of Tony's death

hits him; he exhales loudly, "No... my God," and then sinks to his

knees, not knowing what to do.

Cruger then sees the black digital sports watch on Tony's wrist,

chirping its annoying repetitious chirp over and over.

Leon Harris sticks his head out of his front door, sees Cruger

doubled over in front of his young friend, who lays in an entirely

unnatural position, limp-armed and limp-legged. Harris runs across

his lawn to Cruger's front step. He bends down and checks both Tony's

carotid and radials arteries for a pulse, but finds none.

Cruger reaches down and unstraps the noisy watch from Tony's

lifeless wrist. Using the heel of his shoe, Cruger stomps down on the

fancy blue plastic watch a few times before it is silenced. He wants

to see a spray of springs and clamps and smoke pouting out like in

the cartoons, but the watch only lays there, in the stark sunlight,

like Tony: beaten, broken, and wasted.

Chapter 15

Cruger was in shock, and Harris recognized it quickly.

"Let's go inside and call the police," he said. Harris gently

grabbed Cruger by the arm and led him into the house. Harris spotted

a phone on the coffee table near the couch, and sat Cruger down next

to it.

"Are you going to be all right?" he asked Cruger.

Cruger didn't answer. He was bent over, holding his forehead

with one hand and rubbing his eyes with the other.

"Come on, man," Harris said, checking his watch. "I'm supposed

to be playing tennis in fifteen minutes, and instead I'm finding a

dead body. What the hell happened?"

"They got him," Cruger croaked.

Before Harris could even begin to dial 911, Cruger leaped up

from the couch and bolted for the door. Harris dropped the phone and

ran after him with reflexes he had worked years to condition. For all

Harris knew, his mousy neighbor with the rock accordion habit could

be the killer.

When Harris got to the door, Cruger was down the steps and

almost on the lawn, shouting the name "Tony" hysterically. Readying

his sprint, Harris took a long stride on the entryway -- and realized

that the body was gone.

"Shit," Harris mumbled, and bolted across the lawn, gaining

ground on the smaller man with every step. As Cruger neared Harris'

own lawn, Harris decided to dive for him.

And that was when it happened. Harris reached Cruger, grabbed

his legs, and tripped him. The accordionist fell over, his head ready

to crash onto the concrete strip that divided the two lawns. And

then, without explanation, both men were >pulled< ten feet, onto the

next lawn. Cruger's head landed softly, as if there had been a pillow

there.

"What the hell?" Harris said.

"Let go!" Cruger shouted. "I've got to find him. They've taken

Tony!"

"Calm down, man," Harris said. "Who are they? Where did they

take him?"

"Them! The other company! The ones that killed him!"

Cruger's shouts aroused the curiosity of some of their

neighbors. Harris could see Mrs. Conworth from across the street

peering at them through her kitchen window.

"Come on," Harris said. "You're attracting attention. Let's go

back inside."

Cruger swallowed, took a look around, and nodded.

Both of them stopped when they reached the entryway. Only the

small, scuffed black digital watch lay on the front steps, still

keeping time, advancing each hundredth and tenth of a second with

complete accuracy.

Cruger picked up the watch. Somehow it was comforting to know

that he could no longer see Tony's beaten body. No blood, no

sickening brutalization of body and limbs. This is good, he thought,

Tony's gone. Is this good? For an instant he thought he might

understand what had happened, but the thought escaped his mind as

quickly as it had entered.

Harris pushed Cruger inside and closed the door behind them.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked.

Cruger just shook his head. A strange twisted expression formed

on his lips. "You think I know?" Cruger shook his head in wonder.

"Look," Harris exhaled quickly, "I saw a dead guy out there, and

now he's gone. I've seen you having strange meetings with strange

people and playing that damned instrument of yours at all hours of

the night. And strangest of all, I just got pulled halfway across my

lawn by thin air. Something's wrong here, and I'm going to have to

find out what it is. I'm involved now, whether I like it or not."

Cruger felt more alone than he had ever felt in his life. His

one connection to what was important and exciting was now dead, or

least, inexplicably gone. His neighbor's response just highlighted

the fact that the strange unexplainable aspects of Cruger's own life

were not entirely private -- they had leaked into the lives of others

And no good explanation existed.

Cruger remained silent.

"Do you want to explain this to the police or to me?" Harris

demanded. He didn't like having to bully Cruger -- the poor guy

looked upset enough already.

"And why do you want to have this all explained to you?" Cruger

had found his voice again and it was tremulous, lacking resonance.

"I want to understand what's going on. There must be some

logical explanation," Harris said.

The words 'logical explanation' stuck with Cruger, playing an

obscene parody in his mind. The fact that this guy was thinking of

anything to do with logic nearly made Cruger laugh out loud. At that

moment Cruger wished he had never heard of Tony, of Tvonens and

Chysa, or of spinning. All that had been important and joyful now

seemed to be meaningless and chafing. With Tony had come the

confidence in The Company, the ties to other worlds and better things

and to progress itself. Without Tony ... what was there?

Cruger looked at Harris. He wants in. Maybe this guy should get

what he deserves. The line 'Be careful of what you ask for -- you may

get it' played in Cruger's mind.

"OK," said Cruger. "I can show you something that will explain

everything. It's in Tony's" -- his throat stuck -- "office. Can you

drive? I don't think I could handle it right now."

"Sure," Harris said.

"The whole thing's on a computer," Cruger said as they got into

his car. "Can you work one?"

"Neighbor," Harris chuckled, "that's what I >do< for a living."

Chapter 16

Humanity i love you because you are perpetually

putting the secret of life in your pants and

forgetting it's there and sitting down

on it

-- e. e. cummings

"I'm still not sure this is going to work," Cruger said. He was

still wary of the deception they planned. Harris seemed calm, not

worried at all. He had handled Tony's computer the same way, like a

pro. And he knew the computer system inside-out -- it was as if some

spinner, somewhere, had planned to provide Cruger with a computer

programmer. Judging from Harris' reaction to what he found on the

computer, he could continue with Tony's work on the unified theorem.

Maybe more than continue it, Cruger thought. Maybe make Tony's work

mean something.

"What are they going to do if they don't like our story? Take

away our birthday?" Harris pulled the car around the corner and

merged neatly into traffic. "We've got nothing to worry about,"

Harris said.

"Are you kidding? First thing they can do is call the cops. Then

we have lots of questions to answer. No thanks."

"Let me review our position on this," Harris said. "We don't

have anything to cover up because there is no body, no evidence, no

crime reported as far as we can tell, and nothing to guide us except

that we know what we saw. As far as the authorities go, we're not

involved in a murder or any other type of crime."

Cruger stared out the car window. "We know that we saw a murder

-- or the results of a murder. That's good enough for me."

"Well," said Harris, "you have to protect your own biscuits

because no one else is going to. The police aren't going to believe

any of your story without proof ... evidence. They would laugh at

this whole thing -- possibly put you in the nut house."

Cruger shrugged. The only crime that existed so far seemed to be

in the minds of two witnesses: he and Harris. Since the incident

Cruger had wondered if Tony's death was meant as a threat -- a threat

to him. Could this have been some kind of warning? Was someone trying

to manipulate him?

Or the whole thing could easily have been an optical illusion.

The people -- or whatevers -- that they were dealing with could be

capable of many types of trickery. Cruger hoped that it was in fact a

threat or a brutal hoax. He would enjoy seeing Tony sitting at school

in class as if nothing had happened, oblivious to his "death" that

they had witnessed.

Harris pulled in to Tony's high school and parked near the main

entrance. Then they found the Principal's office and walked in as if

the world revolved around their every action. They had decided that

to act like detectives meant to act like aggressive, cocky, arrogant

bastards. Cruger wished he had a toothpick to let hang out of his

mouth. Or maybe a smelly cigar. That was the image on detective

shows, and that was the image the Principal and others would expect.

In the Principal's outer office was the small overflowing desk

of the Principal's assistant. Behind the desk was a portable

partition with the nameplate "Vernal Buckney, Principal."

The kids must get untold mileage out of the name Vernal, Cruger

thought. Good old Vernal must have been born to be a Principal. Most

likely, plenty a spitball had Vernal's name on it.

The kids at this school would enjoy sitting outside the

Principal's office, too -- his assistant, Shirley Randolph according

to her nameplate, was a tall, shapely young lady. Her makeup was just

right, expertly applied, highlighting her high cheekbones and creamy,

tan complexion. Cruger noticed that her skirt was short, revealing a

long pair of very tan legs. In the corner of his eye, he saw Harris

noticed that too.

Harris spoke first, just like they had rehearsed it. Being a big

tall black guy, they figured Harris would be rather intimidating.

Cruger, on the other hand, only looked threatening if you thought he

might try to sell you life insurance.

"Hello, Ms. Randolph," Harris began. "I'm Mr. Harris, and this

is Mr. Cruger. We're investigating a child custody case and we may

need the assistance of Mr. Buckney."

Harris managed to say it all without even blinking. Cruger was

impressed -- but he was more impressed that she didn't sound an

alarm, scream for help, or laugh. So far so good.

"Hello," she said. "I take it that you gentlemen don't have an

appointment then?"

Shirley Randolph's eyes twinkled and she smiled easily at

Harris. Harris smiled back, seemingly concentrating on the underlying

extent of Ms. Shirley Randolph's grade-A tan.

So Cruger spoke. "We really don't need too much time. We only

have a few questions." Just then Harris noticed that Vernal was in

his office. Vernal's bald head bobbed up above the partition and then

down again.

Vernal Buckney, M.A. in Education was, as usual, busy in his

office. His job required hard work, the skills of a serious educator

and a trained politician, plus the ability to win the support and

encouragement of parents, teachers, as well as the educational board

and superintendents. On top of that, the job of Principal demanded a

solid technical foundation that could facilitate the development of

the most effective teaching methodologies, as well as the precise

application of these techniques. For this reason, Vernal spent most

of his time in his office with his golf putter in hand, putting into

his electric, auto-return golf cup. Stress reduction was top priority

for Vernal.

"I'll bring you in," the secretary said. "He has no appointments

now."

"Thank you very much, Ms. Randolph."

She smiled back at Harris. "Shirley," she said. It was the most

inviting 'Shirley' that Cruger had ever heard. Chances were that it

wasn't the most inviting one Harris had heard.

Shirley knocked on the Principal's flimsy excuse for an office

door and introduced the two of them in the most professional of

manners.

When Cruger and Harris stepped into Vernal's office, they saw

the shocking decor. The floor was covered with old educational

journals, magazines, and various trinkets such as small wooden

animals. A few golf clubs lay against the file cabinet, and the floor

was littered with golf balls, pencils, and pens.

"Nice to meet you gentlemen," Vernal said. He had a high-

pitched, wheezy, bureaucrat's voice that sounded like a band saw on

wet wood. His eyes darted around like a monkey's. Nothing made him

more nervous than meeting men from the Superintendent's office. She

had said that's where they were from, hadn't she?

"We just have a few simple questions, Mr. Buckney," Harris said,

sticking to the plan nicely.

"Now, Ms. Randolph did say you were from the Superintendent's

office, didn't she?"

"Oh, not at all. We're investigators, working on a child custody

case." Harris said it fast and gruff, as if meager child custody

cases were only what the two did between busting crack houses and

handcuffing Uzi-toting Colombians.

Vernal was visibly relieved. His eyes slowed their wild pace and

focused on Harris. "Yes, I see. Well, how can I help?"

"We need information on two of your students. I must tell you,

Mr. Buckney, that all of this must be kept completely confidential.

In fact, I must request that only you and Ms. Randolph know of our

visit. You are the only two that we can trust," Harris said. "We can

trust you, can't we?"

Cruger looked as tough as possible and nodded his head. He

wished he had that cigar to grind into the carpet -- it would match

the decor.

"Certainly you can trust us to keep it quiet," Vernal said. His

cheeks had become a little flushed.

"First of all, a student named Tony Steffen. Senior class. We

need his whole file," Harris said.

Cruger chimed in. "And a female senior named Sky. No known last

name." Cruger emulated the old Dragnet rerun tone of voice: just the

facts, Vernal.

"Okay, I can do that. I need Ms. Randolph to check the files for

me."

Vernal tried to ask Shirley to get the files, but he told her to

look up a boy named Tony Griffin and a girl named Sigh. Cruger

corrected him on each count.

When Shirley was gone, Vernal scratched his hairless head and

asked, "Are you sure you guys aren't from the School Board?"

"No, not there, not the PTA, the teacher's union or the Girl

Scouts either. How many students in the senior class here?" Harris

said, changing the subject and putting Vernal on the defensive, a

posture he was born for.

"We have 400 this year. The number's been dropping each year

since five years ago, when we peaked with 600." Vernal was still

nervous, his eyes moving quickly from Cruger to Harris to the

cluttered mess on his office floor. He preferred to look at the

floor.

"Yeah, the post baby-boomer years are here," Cruger said. "Do

you know what percentage of the kids go to college?"

"We have a very high college after graduation rate here. Last

year 35 percent went straight to a four-year college or university,

40 percent to a Junior college or trade school, and the rest are

unaccounted for, probably employed, skilled labor or what-not."

"Not bad."

Shirley came back into the office. She carried a thin manila

folder in the crook of her right arm; she held it like a football.

Harris took the folder from her and there was a mutual flash of white

teeth.

"No file on Tony Steffen," Shirley said, still smiling. "Must

not be a student here."

"Oh yes, he is," Harris said.

"No, I'm afraid your information is incorrect," she said. "He

appears in none of the records. Nobody by that name has ever been a

student here."

Cruger and Harris exchanged a look but no words. At least they

had the information on Sky -- they could get the rest later.

They said their thank-yous and good-byes and headed out toward

building L, room 116, where Sky's next class would begin in fifteen

minutes.

"I think Shirley had a soft spot in her heart for you," Cruger

said, as they walked down the hard red-top hall.

"She had some great soft spots, all in the right places; very

nice, soft and smooth, like a seal -- a foxy seal." Harris said it

straight and sounded detached, like he was a judge in a bikini

contest.

"But she screwed us on the Tony Steffen info."

"Mmm," Harris commented. "Yeah. Screwed."

Straight faced. Cruger loved the way Harris could say all that

stuff straight-faced.

They cut across the quad to find the L building. Cruger spotted

Sky at a picnic table. She was surrounded by classmates, but Cruger

was still able to distinguish her from a distance. As he and Harris

got closer, Cruger almost began to doubt if it was Sky. She seemed

different, wearing calf-high boots, a leather skirt, and a black t-

shirt with torn sleeves.

One of Cruger's buddies from high school, Steve Spitelli, had

developed a theory that the world really only contained fifteen types

of people. Some people were tall and thin, some were pudgy with wide

faces, and so on. All people fell into the category of models of one

of the fifteen different types. These types became known as Spitelli-

types. Cary Grant and Rock Hudson were the same Spitelli-type. Judy

Garland and Cher were different Spitelli-types. Spitelli's theory

more or less took the cake for oversimplification. Cruger had not

thought about Spitelli-types for more than ten years -- until this

moment.

Sky sat on a picnic table next to a tall blond guy that was

Tony's Spitelli-type -- an exact image, but not quite. The eyes were

a little too far apart; the eyebrows arched up on the sides in a

perpetually hostile look. Cruger tensed as they approached the table,

knowing that the sick feeling that the young man's looks stirred

within him would only worsen as they got closer. He felt like a

beetle in an ant colony.

"Hello, Sky," Cruger said.

The girl gave them both a questioning look. "Yeah, that's me."

She sounded defensive and her face registered a look void of

recognition.

"You don't remember meeting me before?" Cruger asked, trying

hard to avoid sounding like an insulted distant relative.

"No, mister, I'm afraid I don't."

The blond kid next to Sky was monitoring the whole conversation

like a radar operator. He slid over and put his arm around Sky.

"What do you guys want?" he said.

Harris, putting his leg up on the table bench, said "We want to

ask you some questions about Tony Steffen."

There was a pause. Sky looked at the guy and he looked back.

They independently shrugged: Sky's shrug was more convincing.

"I don't know any Tony Steffen," the blond kid said. The kid had

an attitude of the first degree. He probably practiced that sneer at

home, in front of the bathroom mirror. It was an exceptionally well-

rehearsed sneer.

"Yeah," said Sky, "he doesn't go to this school anyway -- if he

did, we'd know him."

Harris smiled a pathetic grin and shook his head. Cruger just

let the response seep in. These kids were either very good actors, or

...

"And your name is?" Cruger asked the blond kid.

"What's it to you?" His lip curled. The kid enjoyed his

rebellious act.

"Rick," Cruger said. The boyfriend or ex-boyfriend that Tony had

mentioned.

His eyes became dark pools of surprised hatred. His facade was

replaced by a look of disdain mixed with pomposity. He knows, thought

Cruger, he knows about Tony.

"Yeah, so you know who I am? Are you guys cops or something?

Ooh, tough guys gonna come around and hassle high school students?"

Rick laughed and squeezed Sky around the shoulder. She looked uneasy

and didn't laugh.

"Sky, you really have never heard of Tony Steffen?" Harris

asked.

Sky shrugged and shook her head. Cruger, watching intently, saw

that she was the same Sky that he had met before. She had none of the

"attitude" that Rick had. To Cruger, she was just keeping poorer

company these days. She was a young girl struggling to develop the

maturity to handle what life threw at her. Cruger figured she was

probably telling the truth. He motioned to Harris and turned to go.

In a moment, Harris followed.

The drive home was strained silence. Both men were afraid to

come to conclusions or to let their imaginations run wild since

reality seemed wild enough.

"So, it looks like Tony Steffen never went to school -- where do

you think he is?" Harris said.

"I hate to harp on the obvious," Cruger said, "but we saw him

disappear before our eyes, remember?"

Harris sucked in his breath. "And according to what we just

heard and saw, Tony never existed. He's not only dead, but erased

from the memories of everybody -- except for us."

"So it seems," Cruger said. "Deleted, that's what he is. It's

like he never lived and the world we currently live in is one that

never knew Tony Steffen. But for some reason we know that it's not

true. We remember seeing Tony, we remember what he did and who he

knew. I remember every interaction I had with Tony; the world we live

in, right here and right now has Tony's imprints on it because I

remember what Tony did and said. What's confusing is that other

people don't know or remember. The school, Sky, and everything seem

to indicate that they are operating in a parallel plane, a reality

that thinks it never knew Tony Steffen."

Cruger stopped and sat in silence, staring out the car window,

dreamily exploring the evidence and the possible conclusions. He

looked at the endless succession of speed-blurred lawns and sidewalks

they passed.

"Sounds to me like a mistake," Harris said, his jaw tensed in

determination. "Maybe we should have no memory of Tony. Once he

disappeared, he was erased from existence. We probably weren't meant

to retain his memory."

Cruger shook his head. "More likely that we were meant to

remember for some reason. Either that, or you and I are operating in

our own little parallel plane of the Universe. My wife tells me I'm

in my own little world all the time."

"And who would be motivated to get rid of Tony but allow us to

remember? I know that the Other Company would like Tony out of the

picture, but why wouldn't they want us gone, too?"

"That insurance policy of mine, the one that pushed us across

the lawn," Cruger said. "I'm betting that Tony had one, just like me.

And he told me that it was possible to kill people with insurance

policies. But I bet it's not easy, and it's probably even harder to

erase their existence wholesale. They probably couldn't have killed

both of us, and figured that I'd be lost without him."

"So they didn't kill you this time. There's always next time.

We'd better watch our backs."

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right."

Everything was moving so fast that Cruger just wanted to

withdraw, to take time to let this simmer and steam and cook a little

until it made sense -- if it ever could. Times like these you either

get philosophical or go crazy.

"Is it better to have lived and then died than to have lived and

then been erased -- like never living at all?" Cruger said.

"This is one of those 'If the tree falls in the woods and there

is no one around to hear it fall, does it make a sound?'-type

questions," Harris said, trying not to sound cynical but failing.

"It's almost that exact question except it is more like: 'if

nobody remembers the sound that it did make -- that lots of people

did hear -- when it fell, did it ever make a sound'?" Cruger said.

"Although this it is not the same issue. If you live and then become

erased, like Tony, you actually did have a life and have an impact,

at least on some level in some Universe. That is definitely different

than never having lived."

"What if that point in the time/space continuum doesn't exist

any longer? What if the erasure was clean and thorough?" Harris said.

Harris was able to pierce the heart of an issue with a needle,

draining the romance out and filling in with logic. What an engineer.

Chapter 17

The telephone rang, and Cruger picked it up. Tony's voice was

strange and faint -- he wheezed over the cracking phone line. Cruger

grabbed the phone tighter and pressed it hard against his ear,

desperately trying to hear Tony's faint voice.

"Far away," Tony said weakly.

"What."

"Far away, cold, very cold, very far..."

Cruger screamed, "What, Tony, what?!"

Cruger strained to hear Tony again, but the harder he tried, the

less he could hear.

Two hands were on his shoulders and Corrina's warm skin pressed

against his tight neck. His ear hurt. Cold sweat skated across his

wrinkled brow.

"What were you dreaming, honey?" she asked.

"Oh," Cruger said, "nothing, something weird, I can't really

remember."

He was lying. She wouldn't understand.

"Poor baby, you were screaming."

"Well, I'm okay now. Thanks." But he wasn't really okay. He

could feel his hands shaking, feeling weak and insubstantial under

the thick comforter.

They put their heads back down and settled into seemingly

comfortable positions. Cruger listened to Corrina's soft, steady

breathing break across the cold and lonely darkness of the bedroom.

He continued to listen to the steady silence.

A while later he heard it again.

"Far away, cold, help me ... ," Tony said. His voice was

stronger but tremulous as if he were shaking, his teeth chattering.

And just then Cruger heard the beeping, chirping sound of his

watch alarm. Tony's distant voice dissolved into the stark morning

light. Cruger was awake in a fraction of a second, reaching over to

turn off the alarm.

Chirp... chirp... chirp. He grabbed the watch and quickly

depressed the tiny plastic button, turning off the alarm.

Now he was more awake than ever.

"I never could trust them."

"You mean your parents?" Dr. Frederick said.

"Well, sure, I guess that's what I mean."

"You just said you 'guess' you mean your parents." Dr.

Frederick, against his will, was getting a little frustrated again.

"Does that mean it was your parents?"

"Yes, yes."

She frequently vacillated between self-assured and reticent.

Often she acted as if no one, including Dr. Frederick, could possibly

understand what she meant. He needed to build a foundation of trust

before he would really be able to draw it all out of her. Trust was

the key.

"The worst part is, I don't know if I could really trust them,"

she said.

She gave him a sly, knowing grin. Being a man of science -- a

man of medicine, by God -- he knew that her coincidental reference to

the word trust must be just that: a coincidence.

What bothered him was that she was so damned attractive. Made it

tough for him to be objective, and to keep his mind on his work. He

was glad, very glad, that he was a medical doctor as well as a

psychotherapist. His strong academic background enabled him to deal

with these situations in a professional manner.

God, she's got great legs, he thought.

"Your time's about up," he said.

Chapter 18

It was Harris's thirtieth birthday. Cruger had celebrated his

thirtieth a year ago, and had realized the potentially frightening

road of a new decade stretched before him. Thirty, thought Cruger, an

age of thinning hair, a thinning list of single friends, and thinning

muscle fibers. Either that or a decade of great sex -- what the hell,

may as well think positive.

Cruger knocked at Harris's door. He had surprised Harris by

asking to join him on his morning run. Harris knew he, the poor

flabby guy from next door, wouldn't be able to last too long or hack

the normal pace, but like any good fitness freak, he had appreciated

that Cruger was beginning to take an interest in getting in shape.

Cruger wondered: would Harris be one of those guys who sweeps the

fear of turning thirty under the rug like so much sawdust, or would

he stagger under the burden of advancing years?

Harris got the door.

"Hey, old man," Cruger said.

"I'm not bad for an old man, though. Run five miles a day,

strong as a Tibetan Yak."

"An Afghan Yak," Cruger said.

"Say what?"

"Afghanistan. That would be closer to your peoples, your

homeland."

"Has anyone told you," said Harris, "that for an accordion

player you have the personality of an accountant?"

"No, but thank you. I'd prefer being known for a mastery of

amortization tables than for playing a mean 'Hava Nagila' on the Bar

Mitzvah circuit."

"How about 'Moonlight Serenade' verses depreciation tables?"

Cruger relinquished a half smile. "Now that's a tough call."

They began jogging slowly down Henderson Street.

"I usually start out really slow to warm-up."

"No argument here," Cruger said.

"If you get tired or need to go slower, just let me know. It

takes time to build-up to longer distances and faster speed."

Cruger's strides were much shorter than Harris's. His feet moved

in a fast shuffle to keep up with the easy loose stride that Harris

established.

Cruger hadn't run much since high school, right after his

physical education class administered the President's National

Fitness Test. It was the worst humiliation of Cruger's life, the

"six-minute test." All the boys in class were required to run around

the track as fast as they could for six minutes. The number of laps

you completed in the six minutes time indicated your fitness level.

The fast boys were able to do well over four laps -- more than a mile

in six minutes. The vast majority did between three and three-and-a-

half laps. Cruger, chest heaving and stomach clamped into a tight

knot of muscle spasms, only finished two and one-quarter laps. The

single student who did worse than Cruger was Roger Sabutsky, the 200-

pound class flab-ball. Roger clocked in with less than two laps.

The next week, Cruger began to run every day after school. He

couldn't live with the fact that he was the worst runner (except for

Roger) in the entire class. Cruger yearned to be an average runner --

that would be nice.

The running practice worked. Within a couple months he could run

an eight-minute mile; this was even slightly better than average for

the class. Unfortunately, his running dropped off a year later, since

the need for avoidance of near-fatal embarrassment had ceased to

exist.

Cruger now remembered the torture of running when out of shape.

They had run for about 8 minutes, 23 seconds, and 35 hundredths,

according to Harris's watch.

"I really can't believe what we're involved with," Cruger said.

"especially when we're running down the street here, leading what

seems to be otherwise normal lives. This business of the Other

Company and everything is really Kafkaesque," Cruger said, between

gulps of air.

"Huh? Kafkaesque?"

"You don't read Kafka, I take it. What do you engineers read

anyway?"

"We read computer magazines with centerfold pictures of graphics

accelerator cards. And I hate it when the staple covers up the video

ram."

"How can a guy with big muscles like yours be such a nerd?

Amazing," Cruger said. Talking while running was starting to get more

than difficult.

"All this stuff happening is like a dream I keep having," said

Harris.

Cruger despised him for being able to run and talk with such

ease.

"In the dream," Harris continued, "everything is going bad for

me. My car expires, the furnace explodes. The next day, I get a giant

pimple on my nose and my shower faucet starts leaking. My life is

falling apart. I'm being picked on. I finally go to church and get

down on my knees at the alter and pray and pray.

"All of a sudden, the ceiling opens up and the clouds part. A

ray of light shines down and a strong, deep, resonant, booming voice

says 'YOU JUST PISS ME OFF.' "

Harris laughed and Cruger made a slightly higher pitched

wheezing noise than the wheezing noise he had been making. The guy

can run, talk and tell jokes too, Cruger thought. I hate him.

"Hey, I'm going to walk for a while, why don't you meet me back

on Franklin street," Cruger said.

Keeping the air moving wasn't easy for Cruger; his breaths were

desperate gulps of air followed by involuntary exhalations. His legs

were beginning to shake uncontrollably.

"OK, meet you going that way in about fifteen minutes."

Harris picked up his pace as Cruger slowed to a walk.

Cruger moved his legs in slow, deliberate strides. He didn't

need to be a great runner, just a consistent one. If he kept this up

every day after a while he would be in pretty decent shape. Slow and

steady, he thought. His arms swung at his sides and his legs kicked

forward in long even walking strides. He felt strong; he felt

invigorated; he felt nauseous.

Cruger walked half across the nearest lawn, and, bending over

the small shrubs, he spat up; it wasn't something you'd see in

_Runner's World Illustrated_.

Soon he returned to the sidewalk and started walking again. Slow

and steady. Not bad for a first outing.

A few minutes later Harris came running -- it looked like

sprinting to Cruger -- around the corner, his legs lifting high as

his thighs bulged out underneath his running shorts.

"OK, I've done my five miles," Harris said, barely short of

breath. "Let's walk out the rest."

They were turning the corner on Blaney street when they saw two

men in sports jackets and sunglasses.

"Those guys look like Eagle Scouts to you, Jack?" Harris asked.

"Not unless they earned special merit badges in knee-breaking

and mugging."

"Get out your insurance policy, then."

The two goons were already walking towards them. The big one

must have been a good six foot three, maybe 230 pounds. The other guy

was smaller but possibly even more trouble. He had a bodybuilder's

physique, complete with waspish waist and thick trapezius muscles.

They both looked like flesh-built tanks ready to enter battle.

"What to do, >kemo sabe<?" said Cruger, trying to stay cool and

failing.

"Let me handle this," said Harris, a hint of false bravura in

his voice. "I have some modest experience in these matters."

Cruger didn't doubt it. Damned good thing I'm not alone, he

thought. The smaller guy, who was pretty damn big, looked like a

composite of Pee-Wee Herman's face pasted on a muscular thug's body.

The juxtaposition of the innocent, almost feminine face on the

tough's body was more than frightening, it was nearly sickening.

The big guy looked like a refrigerator with veins. He also had a

big mouth.

"Hi, gentlemen," he said. His tone was a malicious one, with a

sprinkle of sarcasm thrown in. "Just a little message for you guys

from Mr. N, our fearless leader."

"And who might that be?" said Harris.

"Just shut up and listen, dark meat. Your little amateur

investigation is over with, comprende?" It was not a question.

"And if we decide to forget your helpful advice, assuming that

we eventually stop trembling?" said Harris.

The Pee-Wee Herman thug moved toward them, shoulders raised,

fists in front of his face. A boxer. Not a good sign.

Just as Harris was planning the trajectory of his first kick,

Cruger jumped forward and landed two quick left jabs into Pee-Wee

Herman's chin. Pee-Wee swung a hook at Cruger. Cruger ducked and

placed his knee in Pee Wee's groin.

Refrigerator, from behind, got his hands around Cruger's neck.

Cruger flung his elbow backwards into Refrigerator 's kidney and

donkey-kicked him in the solar plexus.

The flurry lasted four seconds. Pee Wee and Refrigerator were on

the ground, groaning. Harris, finding himself standing there, jaw

dropped, looking like a mannequin with arthritis, stepped forward and

placed his foot on Pee Wee's Adam's apple. Cruger followed suit with

Refrigerator.

Cruger said, "Tell us, who is Mr. N, your 'fearless leader?'"

Before a second passed Cruger's foot sunk down to the hard

asphalt. Harris's foot also clacked down -- Refrigerator and Pee-Wee

were gone, leaving behind only thin films of steam rising into the

cool air. Harris looked at Cruger and they said nothing. Whoever they

were pitted against wasn't playing fair: this disappearing act was

getting tiresome, Cruger thought. Besides, who knows what tantalizing

conversationalists the two fine young gentlemen may have turned out

to be? Their sunglasses and sport jackets certainly had been

attractive.

Harris and Cruger hoped ideas would come to their stunned minds.

Harris scratched his head, perplexed with more than one issue: he was

6-3, 210 pounds, could bench press 360 pounds, and had a black belt

in Karate. Cruger was a pudgy 5-10 couch potato.

"You really handled those guys, I mean before they poofed away.

Shit, I don't want to run into you in a dark alley," Harris said.

"I don't know how..."

"No, I mean you were >awesome<." Harris had seen his fourth-

level masters of the martial arts at work, albeit in a tournament

setting, but, he had never seen anything like this.

"Listen to me," Cruger said in a high wheezy voice. "That wasn't

me. I can't do that. I don't know how it happened but I've never done

anything like that before in my life."

"The insurance policy?"

"Must be," Cruger said.

"Hell, all those years of Karate and pumping iron for nothing,"

said Harris. Cruger squeezed his right arm as if to check if he was

dreaming. They continued to walk, Cruger with a special bounce in his

step, feeling like a younger, stronger man.

"Why?" Harris asked. "Why not just blow us away? Erase us,

explode the planet, whatever. They probably are capable of all these

things -- and I'm afraid to think what else."

Cruger stared at his toes -- his best thinking posture. A smile

began to creep over his recently gloomy face. His eyebrows lowered

while his eyes widened and brightened.

"A cat and mouse game," he said.

Harris stroke his mustache. "Who's the cat and who's the mouse

-- or need I ask?"

"Both have whiskers -- tell me, do you think we have furry tails

or prehensile ones?" Cruger said.

"You've always seemed to be a prehensile kind of guy to me,"

Harris said.

They walked on with silly grins on their faces. The

inappropriately hot November sun beat on the cracked sidewalk. Cruger

enjoyed the heat against the top of his head. He reached up to feel

whether his skin had reached frying pan temperature. Do mice go bald,

he wondered. Regardless, if one is to be a little rodent, one may as

well enjoy it.

...She looked especially good today, and acted especially

jocular.

"I'll tell you doctor, I've been feeling pretty good."

"I'm glad."

"What I need to talk about today is sex."

Goddamn her if she didn't wink at him when she said that. A wink

so fast it could only be felt, not seen. He felt uncomfortable and

self-conscious again. Only she could make him feel this way.

"When I have sex," she continued, "I'm afraid to let go, you

know what I mean?"

He cleared his throat.

"When you say 'let go'," he said, "what exactly do you mean?"

"Well," she began, "I'm talking about orgasms. I mean, I can see

myself just ripping loose like a wild animal, screaming and

everything, but I'm afraid."

He crossed and uncrossed his legs.

"I see."

He made a note in his book: 'detachment, alienation.'

She raised her arms up, pulling her hair up behind her head. She

exhaled deeply.

She heard the familiar voices from her past. They sang out in a

mellifluous flood of improvised poetry. She loved the nostalgia of

those voices; but, the beauty of the voices and the environment also

ushered in the thoughts of the boredom, the cold, and the staid

heterogeneous groups. She was where she belonged now -- let me stay,

let me be one of them, she thought. Why had they told her that she

would be like an animal in a zoo display? They told her she would

never truly fit in, be counting the days until return. Liars! She fit

in better than humans themselves; by God, she was seeing a shrink --

what could be more California human than that?

'I'll show them, I'll show them,' she whispered to herself in

the gentlest of her intense, breathy whispers.

Chapter 19

He still heard the sound of the Corrina's shower water running.

Cruger sat at the breakfast table, eating his cereal and staring

at the multicolored box. When he was finished reading the

ingredients, he read the nutritional information and then the

trademark registration. Some mornings he couldn't handle newspapers,

television, the radio, or conversation. Some mornings only the

mindless reading of a hyped-up cereal box would do.

He especially liked brands that made claims such as: 50 percent

more real bran, 25 percent fat free, or no cholesterol.

And that's what was bothering him. The dishonesty factor

concerning his business with The Company.

He had not been able to tell Corrina about his spinning, the

situation he had with Tony, or anything. Concealing such an important

part of his life was stressful. It was starting to wear a hole in his

self-respect.

He reasoned that most of the shame, disgrace, and humiliation of

an extramarital affair was the sheer deception. If no deception were

involved, it would be called -- what's that term that was big back in

the seventies? -- an "open marriage." Wasn't he guilty of a similarly

large deception that involved an important part of his life? He knew

he wasn't guilty of the same 'crime' that an affair was -- but he

certainly felt guilty of something.

He decided that he would tell her about the spinning, Tony,

Harris, the whole thing. If she didn't believe and chose to laugh, or

worse yet, thought he was insane, then so be it.

Ten minutes later she came down, fully dressed, her hair wet.

"I'll grab a quick breakfast -- we have any bran muffins left?"

she said.

"Yeah, right in here. Two left."

"Great. I'll just have some orange juice and then I'm out of

here."

"Corrina, I need to talk..."

"Oh yeah," she said, remembering something. "What's the name of

that tune-up place on Stevens Creek? I need to have my oil changed,

maybe on the way home."

"It's APD Tune-up, near Woodhams," he said. "Now what I started

to..."

"Hey, I'm low on cash, too, honey. Do you have any? Otherwise

I'll have to stop by the bank before lunch."

"Yeah, sure." He fished down through his wallet and saw that he

could give her a ten without leaving himself too short for a couple

of days. He handed her the bill.

"Thanks," she kissed him on the cheek. She started to leave.

"Honey," he said, "I need to talk to you about something."

"Well, can it wait 'til tonight? I'll be home by seven."

"Okay. Have a good day." he said.

"Bye."

And she was out the door. Was it always like this in the

morning? She was gone in less than an instant.

He still felt the burden: white lies layered to a certain depth

became a single darker lie. No untruth was entirely transparent, not

staining the tint of the layered truths. Nothing was so perfectly

innocent and necessary as to qualify as spotless, indisputably

necessary: the perfect white lie. These off-white lies combined to

form a darker one; the dark consequence was a cloud over Cruger's

conscience, deflecting the sanctimonious beams of correctness cast

down from his superego.

If you believe Freud, he thought.

He wondered if he would feel like telling her about everything

that night. Maybe the time had come and gone. He looked out the

kitchen window and watched the morning wind blow the fallen leaves

across the back patio. The leaves tumbled and interacted randomly,

forming small ephemeral patterns on the cement. His body held him to

that position, eyes transfixed on the landscape that kept changing so

swiftly, so subtly, and so constantly.

"What do you think, Doctor Frederick," she asked. "Am I normal?"

He smiled meaninglessly and looked her in the eye. He didn't

realize that it came off as an entirely condescending gesture.

"In my field, normal is most certainly a relative term." He knew

she was starting to play with him, again. She was a manipulative

bitch deep down, the classic case of a borderline personality.

"However we decide to classify people must be considered to be

quite arbitrary, you understand."

"But, really doctor, you and I have become quite close, I

think." She leaned forward, pretending to adjust her shoe, squeezing

her breasts between her outstretched arms. She looked him in the eyes

as she did it, hoping he would get that look on his face again.

Sometimes he would even bite and chew his lower lip. "Don't you think

I come across as a pretty normal human, or, I mean, person?"

He wanted to kill her, that bitch. He wanted to throw her down

on the floor -- God, how could she have this stupid power over him.

He needed to be in control, not her... for God's sake, not her.

"Doctor," she said, her voice husky, her tone urgent. "I want to

throw you on the floor, Dr. Frederick. I'll tear your clothes off

you, I'll rub you and lick you all over, let me Doctor, let me..."

"Shut up!" he yelled. "Shut up... quiet! " He stood up, face

beet red, and pointed at her. "You bitch."

"I know you want to kill me," she said. "Let me tell you

something. I kill -- I kill all the time. That's why I'm here. How

about them apples, mister doctor?" She smiled and walked over to him,

in his face now. "I kill and I seduce and I rape. And it's your job

to help me, you horny little toad. Help me, make me a real woman."

She sat back down and slumped back into the arms of the big

leather chair. Look at him sit there all scared, shocked. The

Doctor's thoughts were still mixed, crazy, hard to read. He was a

wimp, but she figured he was really like all the others. A planet

full of wimps with no mental toughness, no control, no intuition.

Barbarians.

Chapter 20

About the size of a large pizza box, the clock on the wall swept

a steady course with its delicate hands. Framed in black plastic, it

hung on the stark white wall, looking like a large dark insect. Other

than the clock, the lack of decor in the office was startling. The

wooden desk and contoured chair barely gave the room an occupied air.

Cruger still thought of it as Tony's office.

"You been working too hard? You look pale -- I mean pale for a

black guy -- and tired. Where have you been?

"Shut up."

"Hey, don't get touchy..."

"No," Harris explained, "I mean I've been shut up in this room.

Working 'round the clock. This computer system had a nasty virus in

it."

Harris was sitting at the desk in front of the computer,

pointing at a display of numbers on the screen.

Cruger knew almost nothing about computers. He feared it could

be a long evening of listening to Harris talk about things that made

Latin seem intuitive.

"Ungh," Cruger said, grunting in a way that he felt was a fairly

intelligent sounding grunt; a grunt that could possibly signify some

level of appreciation for Harris' point.

"I found it when I was looking through code resources --

basically every program on the system -- and I found a few suspicious

ones."

"Ungh," Cruger said. The first grunt had been better.

Unfortunately Harris took it as an encouragement to go further

into detail. "I took a close look at each suspicious code resource I

found. Shit, it took a lot of time, but it was worth it. I

disassembled the code resources and found four of them that were

affecting the program Tony had set up."

Cruger's eyes had glazed over for the part about "code

resources," but he understood the part about affecting Tony's

program.

"What was it doing to Tony's program?" he asked.

"A number of things. To begin with, it added a security layer

for a certain set of people. I haven't broken the code to enable me

to know exactly who these people are, but I think this protection

layer explains what we saw with the two toughs that disappeared."

"The code in there made them disappear, deleted them?"

"Yes, it looks like a set of people -- I would assume that they

all are Other Company -- get automatically deleted if they get close

enough to discovery."

"Isn't that stupid?" Cruger asked. "The minute they get deleted

you know for sure that they were Other Company. It serves as a

validation. And how would they know that they're 'close to being

discovered?' Isn't that a subjective thing?"

Harris raised an eyebrow. "I commend you on your insight. Yes,

that and almost everything having to do with the algorithmic solution

to this Unified Theorem deals with the subjective. Life isn't

digital, it isn't black-and-white with no gray areas; the model is a

digital approximation that knows how to directly interpret and derive

what you call 'subjective'."

Cruger frowned. "I lost you back around the word >the<, I

think."

"The details are unimportant -- for you, anyway. What matters is

that I eventually completely understand these algorithms. And I

don't... at least, not yet."

"Well, do you understand how someone is deleted?"

"I've been looking at that. I could isolate that code because it

appeared in several of the code resources that have attached

themselves to Tony's work. In a nutshell, deleting is similar to

programming a black hole: it's just that the boundary conditions are

different."

"Unh." Cruger thought the grunt would serve him well again.

"Thing is," Harris went on, "we aren't connected to anything. We

aren't part of a network, as far as I can tell. We probably have some

kind of downlink to the company's home office -- uh, home planet --

that I don't understand yet, but that's probably it. I don't think

we're connected to anywhere else on Earth Tony was a one-man show."

They sat in silence for a while, thinking about their task,

thinking about who else was out there, who their friends were, who

their enemies might be.

"Tony left comments in his code, so the parts that he wrote are

well-described and easy to figure out. It's this other mess -- the

stuff written by someone else or a whole crew of other people --

that's tough for me to figure out. And here's the worst part," Harris

continued, "some parts of this stuff are incredibly difficult to

decipher."

Harris pulled a pad of paper over and began to scribble

something.

"Here, this is the kind of stuff I find written across the

comment fields in some of the code I read."

The sheet of paper had a set of symbols written across it;

symbols that didn't seem to be a part of any alphabet Cruger or

Harris could recognize:

"Okay, in a way this makes sense," Cruger said. "We know that

the Tvonens started this process; we also know that the basic

technology was adopted from the theoretical physicists' work and

converted to an implementation by a group, probably a combination of

Tvonens and humans. So, at least one and maybe more of the original

people working on this were Tvonen."

"Right, and I wish those damned aliens would have commented

their code in English, assuming they added comments at all. Maybe

that's the problem with their own technology they developed at home.

Remember, they're analog electronics all the way and don't have a

good feeling for digital logic design, Boolean algebra, or computer

algorithms."

"That's true to the extent of what they knew before they came

here and decided Earth would become the technology leader. Then they

must have started learning -- at least the ones from the Company that

they had stationed over here -- to use our digital technology,"

Cruger said.

Harris yawned loudly and then sucked in a very deep breath.

"That's a really important point. I should be looking for some

computer code to be very slick and polished -- and that is easily

defined as Tony's work, especially since most of it is commented. But

the other stuff I should look for to be amateurish, possibly error-

prone and full of bugs. I hadn't approached it that way before. I had

been looking at everything as if it were written precisely."

"Nah, look for some sloppy alien work, that's my guess."

Harris smiled and stretched, raising up his arms and twisting

his neck around until the small little cracking sounds subsided.

"I've been here too long already," Harris said. "But I have to

admit, this is actually bordering on being fun. It's like playing

detective, albeit electronically, walking through a maze of clues.

It's time consuming but fun."

"I'm glad you're doing it. In fact, that point scares me. What

are we going to do if -- excuse my distasteful scenario -- you go

away or take off or disappear or something like that? Right now,

you're the man running the show."

"I've thought about that. Hopefully, soon, I will have made the

program fairly understandable and easier to use. Someone pretty

knowledgeable in programming could come in and pick up where I let

off. Why, you have any plans to get rid of me?"

"Well, you know," Cruger said, "if you mouth off at me or

anything I may need to do something."

"Nice guy. Thanks."

"Any time. Now the other thing I've worried about is this: is it

too easy for someone we don't want to have involved to come in and

take over the whole mess?"

"Good question," Harris said. "I've thought of that one myself

-- in depth. That scenario is what I am most afraid of, actually. We

know that this system, the way it stands, can be infiltrated pretty

easily, so I've taken a few precautions. Most of them are a complete

secret, but, a couple of them I will share with you only, since you

may be around if I happen to get blown away or something.

"As you may have noticed, I've added a scanner to this whole

setup," Harris said.

Cruger pointed to the nearly flat, rectangular box next to the

computer.

"Yes, that's it. It can be used for many things, but in the

context of what we are discussing now, I have programmed it to scan

my hand to allow entry into the source code files. I could extend

this to allow you and your hand entry also."

"Pretty good idea, except the fact that the Chysa could probably

imitate the shape of your hand with no problem," Cruger said.

"Assuming they knew ahead of time that they needed to have my

hand shape and texture and my password to go along with it. I know

it's possible, but the best we can do in these situations is make it

difficult to get in. Making it impossible to get in probably is

impossible."

Cruger ran his hand across the top of the flat plastic box,

feeling the contours and minute corrugation on the slick plastic box.

Harris said, "I'm building in protection for us in addition to

the protection the Company gives us now. I figured that may be one of

the first things we need to finish this project."

And Cruger thought, protection. Yeah, they were up against

something or someone's they couldn't touch, feel, or sense. It didn't

feel good but it didn't feel too bad either, because the danger was

everybody's danger; if they didn't succeed, no one would. Made life

exciting. Just right if your heart could take it.

His TV, with the volume up, blared away. Harris sat on his

couch, thinking. Even if there were a set of complete equations that

accurately described the beginning, end, and maintenance of the

universe (or universes, whatever that may mean), what did this say

about the time before the creation of the universe? What existed

then?

Harris opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a beer. He

opened the utensil drawer, pulled out a can opener, and popped the

top off the Moosehead.

If there were a supreme being, or beings, able to create worlds

and planets and species and everything, how did it or they come

about? The real problem with a quantitative definition of the

universe was the boundary conditions, or more aptly, the inability of

a human to conceive of something before the creation of the universe

or the inexplicable nothingness after the end of the universe.

Harris's nose itched and he scratched it with the bottle,

rubbing the edge of the label against his itch.

How could there be nothing? What if this nothing were something?

What is outside the bounds of the universe right now? When the

universe expands, what is it expanding into?

One easy explanation -- too easy -- might be that there always

was and always is something. If a Big Bang started the Universe and a

contraction of the everything into a tiny black hole ends the

universe, this could be a continuous cycle that keeps reoccurring

every, say, trillion years or so. The nothingness outside of the

current expanding bounds of the universe could be time folded back on

itself: the same universe at another time, during contraction, in a

state of nothingness.

Harris walked over to the TV and flipped on a game show he had

seen before. The contestants spun a wheel and guessed letters and

giggled a lot. The host cracked inside jokes and the hostess pointed

to flashing boards and flashed her thighs and cleavage at the camera.

Harris sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table.

A soft drink commercial came on. Quick one second-camera close-

ups flashed pictures of bikini lines and men's rippling abdominal

muscles. Faceless bodies held cola cans and darkly tanned legs of

both sexes flexed and stretched and sweated. All this to sell sugar-

water.

Harris exhaled. Some things are just too hard to figure out, he

thought. The whole universe especially. But it was there, in the

computer code, somewhere in there, all the answers embedded. He was

glad someone had already done most of the work for him.

"Doctor, I've been thinking about what really bothers me and I

want you to hear it. You see, when they first sent me on this

mission, I really didn't want to go."

He wondered if she were actually further out of touch than he

had previously thought. Maybe she's had a schizophrenic episode?

"But," she continued, "they kept telling me it was good for our

planet, Earth being so close and all. It was actually a matter of

protection for my people."

He double checked his tape recorder and scribbled down what she

had said in his note pad. Definitely a psychotic episode.

"You see, your people are already crawling through space. It is

only a matter of time before you would discover us and ruin our way

of life.

"Frankly," she said, "you people are disgusting. There is only

one advantage to the way you live."

She licked her lips. Now she goes for the manipulation, he

thought.

"When I meet people for the first time, I think they're pretty

interesting. The problem is, then I get tired of them."

Now she had turned sweet, phony, pretending to be forthcoming.

Flashing those damn eyes, dimples, and gorgeous shoulders at him.

"What do other people do to stay interested in people?" she

asked.

"Many things, like common interests. Do you have any friends

with common interests?"

"Sure, I have lots of interests... strong interests."

She thought it would be funny. She put a couple of thoughts in

his head: he was easily within her range here. Thoughts of she and

him, together. She made the thoughts strong, vivid, realistic; but

not too strong because he wasn't a well man, she had decided. In the

thoughts she was on him; her smooth skin pressed against his chest

and her round breasts bounced across his writhing torso.

His eyes rolled up as he sat there in his chair, and he gasped

loudly, "Oh my God..." Sitting there in his chair, alone, his orgasm

was so strong and so thoroughly taxing to his body that he lost

consciousness.

His weakness disgusted her. She decided right there and then

that he was to be a dead man. A man who never lived.

And tomorrow I'd better find a new shrink, she thought.

Chapter 21

Garbage trucks. They were the great equalizers, clamoring

through the worst slums as well as the most affluent neighborhoods.

No matter what your station in life -- unless you lived in a rural

area or a veritable oasis -- you couldn't avoid being awakened by the

vociferous sounds of garbage trucks from time to time.

It was Cruger's time.

He lay in bed listening to the trucks. The deflected light of

early morning crept across the down comforter in the form of yellow

stripes of light. Bizarre thoughts and fantasies swept through his

mind like a hurricane through an Atlantic harbor.

The existentialists almost had it right, he mused. The life of a

man certainly can be defined as the sum total of his experiences.

Yet, that's not a full definition of a life. Doesn't the life also

correspond to boundaries painted by non-experiences? What a person

>does not do< is just as important as what he >does do<. A life must

be characterized using a careful consideration of all experiences as

well as all the paths not taken. The potential verses the kinetic.

And of course the potential can always continue to live throughout

time -- who knows what strings will lead where?

Although Cruger saw hints of sunlight shining into the room, he

also heard the pitter-splat-splat of a light early-morning rain.

Rain was another great equalizer. It soaked unprepared street-

people, millionaires, communists (wherever you could find one

anymore), and Rotarians. It probably even rained on the Other

Company, wherever they may be, if not everywhere.

He slipped back to dreaming. Is life a zero-sum game? Certainly

not. What a joke. Some may pack into five minutes of life what others

may take 20 years to do.

And the strings, they prove it, don't they? They reek of balance

and harmony. Isn't everything in life a cycle, a circle, a beginning

leading to an ending and another beginning?

But, if we don't have a zero sum, are the winners and leaders

truly a floating variable, unbiased by kitsch polar opposites such as

good and evil, truth and deception? If a point on a string defines a

time and a place, a plane of existence, can that time then be

arbitrary based on the artifice of our definition of time? The

strings must hold the answer...

"Wake up, sleepy-head," Corrina said with saccharine morning

cheer.

"Ugh."

"Wake up, lazy shit."

"Whad you call me?" Cruger droned. His eyelids fought to open.

"Wake up before I get downright profane. If you don't show signs

of life within 5 seconds, I'll be forced to begin CPR."

Cruger felt sly as well as tired -- he couldn't let the

opportunity pass. He played dead, and when Corrina's count got to

four-one-thousand he rolled over and gave her a big kiss.

Corrina whispered, "Who's reviving who?"

"I just thought you needed a little morning cheer"

"No, I need more than that."

Corrina rolled on top; their mouths met in a soft embrace.

Cruger punned, "Back to the business at hand?"

"Just checking out the merchandise." Corrina's voice was a

breathless husky growl. "Everything seems to be, ah, nicely in

order."

"Very nice."

Their voices stopped as attention to the incipient passion

robbed them their powers of speech. The pitter-patter rain helped. It

was a pleasurable morning free of inhibition, full of sensation,

garbage trucks or no.

When Corrina left for her early shift Cruger walked the hundred

feet next door to Harris's house.

Harris wasn't his usual impeccable self. He had on a terry cloth

robe that looked frayed and wrinkled. Harris himself was unshaven and

had only half-open eyelids.

"A late one last night?" Cruger said, trying to sound as

annoyingly perky as possible.

Harris ran his large hand over his lopsided hair, even his

muscled arms looking slacker than usual. "You're a wise-ass -- you'll

get your butt kicked," he said.

"No," Cruger said. "My ass can't be kicked. I have a uniquely

unkickable ass."

Harris smiled. "Don't let your unkickable ass go to your head,"

he said.

"Somehow I don't like the sound of that," Cruger said, "but I'll

keep it in mind, thank you."

Harris went to pour himself some coffee, a cup of instant that

smelled cheap and industrial to Cruger.

"So, you think they can do this whenever they want, erasing

people, I mean?" Cruger said.

Harris slapped the plastic cup down on the tiled kitchen

counter. "Not only whenever they want, but with the skill and

precision of a surgeon. All the interdependencies, the numerous

intersections of lives, times, and even physical objects would have

to be considered -- or at least dealt with somehow."

Cruger reflected on this so called 'surgery'. The ability to

control reality in this way had applications beyond belief.

"You think virtually anyone could become -- ah, let's say, an

unperson?" asked Cruger.

"Yes."

"Or anything?"

"Yes."

"Like nuclear waste?"

"Yes."

"Hazardous chemicals and pollution?"

"Yeah."

"Murderous dictators?"

"Yes."

"Old Jerry Lewis films?"

"Probably not. The French would hang on to them somehow."

"Someone with this type of power would be playing God. I spin,

but, I don't really know what I'm doing when I do it. This is

different, this is complete pinpoint control of the future, present,

and maybe the past."

Harris gave Cruger a stern look. "The person, or being, that

controls this is not only >playing< God, Jack."

"You've got the skills for it. It's >all< going to be computer-

run, and you're the man," said Cruger.

"I don't want to be God -- when would I work out?" said Harris.

Cruger laughed at that response. "You've got to think big, man.

When would you work out? You wouldn't have to worry about mundane

things like death or taxes or whether your cardiovascular system is

finely tuned. We will have transcended that."

Cruger looked at the pot of English ivy that Harris had on his

coffee table. The vine twisted upwards, working its way around the

redwood stake that was firmly anchored in the soil. The top-most

branches of the plant departed from the stake and reached out into

the air, seemingly to groping for more light and nutrients, without

the support of the stake.

"At this point, I would almost have to say we don't have a

choice," said Cruger.

"Oh, there are always choices," Harris said. "Just that they're

not necessarily >good< alternatives to choose from."

Cruger felt good and worried that he felt better than he should.

His mind played its dirty trick of listing things to worry about:

people disappearing, Tony gone, Corrina and their baby on the way,

the Other Company, his spinning and what the hell it all meant.

There, the list isn't so long after all, is it?

"Anyway, are we gonna run this morning or what?"

Chapter 22

Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled

About the centre of the silent Word.

- T.S Eliot

Uraken observed Cruger's developments closely. It was his job.

Uraken reflected on his own career -- who would have known he would

go so far?

Educated at the top five Shops (humans called them

Universities), he had been off to a good start. Indeed, wasn't

Tigaten -- the top Shop east of the divide -- the equivalent of

Earth's Harvard? Wasn't his first shop, Vonsten, similar to Berkeley,

complete with student protests and extremist radical factions?

But the politics, the absurd politics that he had endured during

his struggle up the corporate ladder -- that was the great

difference. The earthlings would just happen into their top jobs with

The Company, if all went well. But for him, the favors, the

promises...

He had been like a great human politician, kissing babies,

shaking hands (and even vice versa) -- whatever to took to get the

votes and to obtain the respect and trust needed to become number

one.

These days Uraken just observed from his unique vantage point.

More than anything, Uraken enjoyed watching American football.

Australian football wasn't bad, but the NFL, with the playoffs and

the Super Bowl, was great. Uraken was intelligent enough to know that

viewing the Earth through surveillance microphones and satellite

television was not that accurate. But, from his point of view,

football was tops. Joe Montana was his favorite player, accurate as

hell, the all-time best. And the pageantry, the contact, the athletic

conditioning, the cheerleaders -- what could better.

Uraken thought soaps sucked but he did like some of night-time

soaps, like "L.A Law". A few cartoons, like Road Runner and Deputy

Dawg, were among his favorites. None of that new Slimer, Beetlejuice

and New Kids stuff, though. It sucked.

Since he couldn't breathe their atmosphere -- the oxygen would

cut through him like a knife -- Uraken circled the Earth in his space

vehicle, a late model Oonsten. He only occasionally landed, and then

it was always in some rural area where only a few soon-to-be loonies

could witness his saucer-shaped Oonsten. The Southern states of the

U.S. were always a good choice for a landing. The rest of the world

considered them to be idiots, evidently, and even if they snapped a

few pictures of the Oonsten, they were never taken seriously.

On a few occasions, Uraken put on his air-tight protective gear

and left his Oonsten to walk on the Earth. His English, Russian,

German, French, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew, Japanese, Chinese, and

Latin were good, but he still could not communicate well with the few

humans he encountered. They all seemed to drop their jaws open and

shake a lot -- but then they would make strange mumbling noises and

do very little talking. They were hard to warm up to. Maybe they were

trying an old form of Swahili on him, he joked to himself. Better

brush up the African languages.

He longed for the day when he would relinquish his command and

return to Tvonen to become a >sensien<, to taste the good life, to

drink tikboo, to use foul language, and to have >sehun< with a hot-

looking young >gruchen< until he passed out.

Uraken had been the Chairmen of the Company for roughly two-

thousand earth years. The office was humbling -- God, Yahmo, Lord,

Master of the Universe; these titles were heavy duty. Embarrassing

even. His position was so important that he labored for years in

deciding the title on his business card. Uraken finally decided on

what turned out to be his singularly most politically sagacious move:

Uraken e Tvonen, Servant of all the People.

His early studies of Earth people had led him to the Tao

philosophy of leadership, which he held close to his hearts: leaders

were to serve and to teach, to hold the development of their people

in their humble and gentle hands. This was Uraken's way. He had been

criticized for being a non-leader of a leader, for being a delegator

and allowing the >Other Company< to gain more control of Earth. On

the Earth his presence was not hands-on -- thus the 'God is dead'

bumper stickers. But Uraken felt he could only lead in the style of

leadership that he felt most comfortable with.

He could see Cruger in the position next -- but just barely.

Only from Earth could a Jack Cruger have a shot at the top position.

His lack of education, his almost disgusting white skin, and his

total disregard for the political process, all combined to make him a

candidate that would be automatically rejected on the planet of

Tvonen.

Leon Harris was another story. He, in fact, was technically

trained, attractive (almost as dark as Uraken himself) -- an

organized, effective, person.

However, this would be no election. Uraken's own ascent to the

position of power was based on politics, public relations, and good

old-fashioned intergalactic marketing. The next Chairman would be the

Earth's first representative in the office, elected only by his

connection to the all-important discovery and implementation of the

Unified Theorem. Then Earthlings would have accomplished the greatest

evolutionary intellectual development ever in the history of the

Universe.

Even recently, common Tvonen thought said it would take another

hundred years, maybe another thousand, before the humans were ready

for their chance. However, humans made great recent advances in their

thoughts on theoretical physics and their implementation of digital

electronics. The original estimates of hundreds or thousands of years

soon compressed to a mere handful.

Uraken marveled at the human's theories that had come so close

to defining the bounds and origins of the universe. They had acquired

new stature in the great "scheme of things." The humans deserved the

office of God. A little more progress and their science and

technology would rank them tops, even more advanced than the Tvonen's

in their electronics and physics. Very impressive, Uraken realized,

considering that these humans started out as tiny-little-slimy

singled-cell things not all that long ago.

Of course, when they were slimy little sea creatures, the

Earth's entire company was run by sentient beings, all Tvonens. After

Homo Erectus began strutting his stuff, the company began hiring the

locals and promoting from within. People like Tony and Jack joined

the company. Unfortunately, many humans also joined The Other

Company. Like that Jack Nicholson movie, Uraken thought, where Jack

plays Satan. Uraken had just seen it on a cable frequency -- such a

convincing performance.

And now, as the original members of the company's Earth startup

team left to create job opportunities for the locals, Earth would

come closer and closer to being wholly regionally managed. Tvonens

remember the earth terminology for it: Darwinism. A species evolves

to the point of becoming its own God. Very impressive; the essence of

Darwinism; Uraken loved the poetic justice involved.

Uraken reflected that although impressive, this was not unusual.

Everything in life is a cycle. The company had always promoted from

within and taken on new characteristics and management styles.

It was risky, though. Things could go downhill. But, after all,

one must think >cycles<. Things get better, they get worse, they

constantly change -- this is the essence of life itself.

Interesting though that the Other Company was mostly stagnant.

Yes indeed, the essence of stagnation. Things had been the same there

for -- as far as Uraken knew -- since the beginning of everything.

Disadvantages to this are many. But, the Other Company was steady,

very steady. The cycles, if they existed, had a periodicity great

enough to have disallowed the empirical detection of them. Uraken

laughed: he was thinking like a human now -- 'empirical detection'.

But the future lay in the hands of the Crugers and the Harrises.

A new crop of talent to lead the way.

Uraken had never expected his current organization to last

forever. Someone would come along who could do a better job, add a

modern touch. Harris or Cruger would do just that.

If the >Other Company< didn't stop them.

TO BE CONTINUED...

JEFF ZIAS (ZIAS1@AppleLink.apple.com) has begun a stint with the

spin-off software company Taligent after a ten-year stint writing and

managing software at Apple Computer. Jeff enjoys spending time with

his wife and two small children, playing jazz with Bay Area groups,

writing software and prose, and building playhouses and other

assorted toys for his children to trash. Having actually been a

studious youth, Jeff has a BA in Applied Mathematics from Berkeley

and an MS in Engineering Management from Santa Clara University.

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