Hylozoic (42 page)

Chu shut out the bewildering farrago and shifted his focus to the subdimensional world behind the maelstrom walls. With Bosch at his side he saw: a flying fish with a village on her back, a sow in nun's garb, a demon with the screaming mouth of a cat, and a squalling King Bagpipe perched on a millstone with a flag. As a continuing benison, the subbies weren't attacking. The living force of the maelstrom was keeping them away.

“We have to go home, Jayjay,” called Thuy. “Think of the baby.”

“Which way is it, Groovy?” yelled Jayjay. He paddled over and grabbed the pitchfork's handle with his hands. “I'll break you in half, you bastard.”

“We ain't done yet,” said the pitchfork with a rough chortle. He executed a quick, vicious flip that catapulted Jayjay far out from the maelstrom's glassy slope. With snickersnack movements too quick to follow, he tossed Thuy and then Bosch in Jayjay's wake. Glee watched impassively, and Chu paddled away as quickly as he could—not that the pitchfork was coming after him.

The funnel of winds whirled Bosch, Thuy, and Jayjay toward the central axis; ever tinier, they plummeted into the profundities below. A momentary wobble in the wall gave Chu a glimpse of the full length of the tube. The funnel's inconceivably distant nether terminus was marked by a blazing triangle of white light.

Curling his twin tines, Groovy clawed the air in exultation, “Yee-haw! You ready, Glee honey?”

“I am.”

“What about me?” called Chu over the unearthly music.

“Jayjay will be back directly.”

Glee sat astride Groovy like a witch on a broom. He flattened his tines and formed them into a rudder. Propelling himself counter to the whirlpool's currents, the pitchfork carved a steep gyre up the maelstrom's slope, shooting high into the air. At the last instant, he shifted his shape back to Pepplese form; he became a lanky, green, three-eyed hillbilly.

And then Glee and Groovy were gone.

 

 

So now it was just Chu and the maelstrom. He drifted for an indeterminate period of time, ever deeper, mesmerized by the chiming song that sometimes segued into the voice of the maelstrom's aktual. Beth.

He was absorbing her notions about the alefs, which were transfinite numbers lying beyond simple infinity. Beyond the glassy walls Chu seemed to see a great white cuttlefish with alef-seven arms. Below it swayed a primeval sea cucumber, seining the currents with alef-eighteen fronds.

“We're in the subdimensional zone for true,” said Beth Gimel. “With the reciprocals of alef-ninety, alef-billion, alefalef-ten and more. Levels below levels, all the way down. The transfinite numbers are as quirky and individualistic as the finite integers. The march of alefs is an inexhaustible source of surprise. Yes, I know it's too much for you. But Thuy and Jayjay understand.”

As his helical descent continued, Chu's mind began feeling lighter than ever before, more agile. Perhaps he was a zedhead now, capable of teeking ten tridecillion atoms in a row. But what use was that, if he was stuck between the branes forever? Although he felt rested enough to attempt flying away, he had no idea which direction led home.

He recalled an incident from Thuy's metanovel,
Wheenk
,
about how she'd made her own way back from the interbrane. She'd reached out with her mind and found the warm pulse of the one who loved her: Jayjay.

But Chu had nobody who cared for him that way. His parents were fond of him, sure, but they were busy with their own lives and, truth be told, he was a bit of a burden. As for Bixie—probably they'd never be more than friends. He was a loner. He was doomed.

But all the while, the whirlpool was changing. The sides of the vast funnel became less steep, the gyrations of the whirl less violent. The bottom of the gulf rose and, for a wonder, the maelstrom flattened out. Beth Gimel was gone.

A moment passed. A last fat bubble burbled from the depths, bearing within it—a glistening crow. He cawed, rose into the air, and circled Chu. A subbie?

“Don't worry,” teeped the apparition in a friendly tone. “It's me, Jayjay. I'm still in aktualized form.”

“I'm totally lost,” said Chu. “Please don't be mad at me anymore.”

“No matter. Never mind. Jeroen and Thuy and I have done so many things since then. But we're not finished. You have to help us save Earth from the Peng. I want to spray that Hrull reset rune onto every atom of Earth. I'll finish the job I tried to do before. It'll be easy for me now. I can think endlessly fast.”

“Endlessly fast,” said Chu, almost able to smile. “I'm a zedhead, so Jayjay is an aktual. Always a step ahead.”

The crow feathered his wings and hovered above Chu, watching him with bead-bright eyes. “There's one catch,” he teeped. “With all the jumping around, I've forgotten the details of the reset rune. I probably could have gotten it from someone in Alefville, but I didn't think of that. And I'd rather not go back up there now. Do you remember it?”

“Um—no,” said Chu looking into himself. “But maybe we could figure it out. When you say you can think endlessly fast—does that mean you can see the end of every search?”

“That's a good way to put it,” said Jayjay. “Like, when I want to change my shape, I scan through all the possible ways to reprogram my atoms—and I find the best one.”

“Everything is always easy for you,” said Chu enviously

“Can you help me or not?” said Jayjay, with an impatient swoop at Chu's head. “Or would you rather stay here alone?”

Something sharp nicked Chu's leg. A fish holding an ax. With the maelstrom gone, the subbies were closing in. Quickly he lifted himself into the air. “I'm ready. I can help. Don't we have to wait for Thuy?”

“I'm hoping she's gonna meet me at the cabin. We left Alefville in a rush. Just follow me.”

The two touched down by the cottage in Yolla Bolly, Jayjay in crow form, and Chu still wearing the purple pants and green T-shirt he'd bought on Valencia Street—two days ago? He wasn't the least bit wet. After all, the Planck sea wasn't really water.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

T
he
pink Peng McMansions were still in place, and the redwood branches were swaying like metronomes. Fortunately it was nighttime. Suller, Gretta, Kakar, and Floofy were asleep. Chu took a seat on the cottage's moonlit porch steps.

While Jayjay flapped around the clearing, checking things out, Chu teeped across the planet. The viral Peng runes had been a complete success. Squawky tulpas were everywhere, riding high, strutting and pecking, killing off the mammals one by one. In contrast, nature's gnarl-deprived silps were stereotyped, stiff, sullen. The clouds, the ocean, the air—everything was as fake and lame as a low-grade virtual reality.

As for the human mindweb, the U.S. teep broadcasts were limited to ads for the Homesteady party and religious broadcasts from the Crown of Creation Church. And the media
situation was no better in other lands. Each nation's rulers had thrown in their lot with the triumphant Peng. Creativity didn't matter to the politicos. Docility and predictability were preferred.

Meanwhile, deep below the planet's surface, Gaia was fiercely stoking her volcanoes, preparing an apocalyptic rain of fire.

“We need to get that reset rune happening pronto,” teeped Jayjay, alighting on Chu's shoulder, his crow claws prickly against the boy's skin.

“Should be easy,” responded Chu. “As long as you're infinitely fast, you can just zap every atom on the planet with any old reset rune. And to find one of those—” His voice trailed off as he began crafting a plan.

Just then Thuy appeared on the cottage's porch, growing from a dot in the air, glowing with power, ending up with her usual shape, gently lit by the moon. “Hey! I'm glad you guys are here.” She looked a little sweaty and upset. “That's you on Chu's shoulder, right, Jayjay? Stop looking like a crow. You don't want to get stuck that way.”

Flexing his body like putty, Jayjay returned to his accustomed form, hopping from Chu's shoulder to stand on the porch. He looked upbeat and excited, like he'd been on a long vacation. Stepping forward, he gave Thuy a hug and a kiss.

“Safe at last,” she said, brushing back a damp strand of hair that had come loose from her pigtails. “It was rough getting away from Alefville.” Suddenly she noticed the silhouette of the Bosch house. “My God, those four Peng are still here? Why haven't you two cast the reset rune?”

“We, uh, don't happen to have a copy of it,” said Jayjay. “But Chu's gonna help me search one out.”

“Hurry! Our aktualization will wear off soon.”

“It's probably best not to have viral runes at all,” said Chu, still working out the details of how to orchestrate the search.
“Over time, they might interfere with matter's ongoing quantum computations.”

In the nest, one of the Peng let out a sleepy chirp.

“Get to the frikkin' point,” hissed Thuy. “This has to end.”

“Okay, then,” said Chu, feeling glad, after all, that he wasn't married to her. “I'll set Jayjay up for a flat-out search through the infinite space of all the possible runes.” With rapid mental moves, he teeped his friend a crisp set of requirements for the type of quantum computation he should be searching for.

“I'm starting now,” said Jayjay, even as he absorbed the specification. And then, after practically no time at all, he added, “I'm done.” He was displaying a grid of the million best candidates he'd found.

“Wow,” said Chu.

“Go ahead and pick one,” said Jayjay. “And I'll blast it all over Earth.”

“Let's do one more step first,” said Chu, even though he knew this would irritate Thuy. “Simulate each of these million guys for infinitely many years, just to weed out any of them that might ever break down or turn rogue.”

“Done again,” said Jayjay, displaying the best behaved of the reset runes. Lest they lose the prize, Chu fixed a copy in his own mind.

As he did this, he heard a definite squawk from the dark nest. The Peng were awake.

“You waited too long!” cried Thuy. “Here they come!” Suller and Gretta were halfway across the clearing. A femtoray drilled through the gloom.

“Take this, shit-birds,” said Jayjay. With a casual gesture of his aktualized mind, he put the reset rune into every atom on Earth. Just like that. The Peng were gone, all of them. Gaia and the silps sang with joy.

“We're done!” whooped Thuy. “A free world for our baby!”

But then, with a kind of sizzle, all the gnarl on the ranch was gone again. Suller and Gretta were just where they'd been before, with Kakar and Floofy climbing down from the nest behind them.

Wanting to use his zedhead power at least once, Chu warbled the reset rune onto the ten tridecillion atoms of Yolla Bolly. Though it was an effort for him, it worked—but not for long. After a single beat of calm, the Peng were back yet again.

“Let me do it,” said Jayjay. “Less sweat for me.” He reset the Yolla Bolly atoms, the Peng went away—and once more returned. Jayjay went into mental overdrive, pulsing the reset rune onto every single Yolla Bolly atom every single second. Suller, Gretta, Kakar, and Floofy became ghostly stop-action figures, ever so slowly continuing their ineluctable approach, growing closer with each reincarnation.

Teeping the outer world, Chu found that the problem was limited to the Yolla Bolly ranch. Everywhere else on Earth, the Peng were gone for good. Only on Jayjay and Thuy's settlement did the tulpas keep coming back. There was some ongoing contamination by viral Peng runes here.

“It's like I'm pumping up a leaky raft in a lake of piss,” complained Jayjay. “Where's the leak, Chu?”

By cranking up his mind's speed, Chu could view the world as if in slow motion. Now Jayjay cleared the ranch, now the Peng came back. Dialing his mental clock cycle higher and higher, Chu became able to track the spread of the viral runes that kept creating Suller's family. The waves of contamination were spreading out from Thuy and Jayjay's house. The three went inside the cabin.