Planet Fever (32 page)

For reasons I will save for another story, I’ll just say I defected. A few of us have, because we are creatives, not bureaucratic hound dogs for a creative-stifling corporation. But there are still many trackers around, and they have hit the jackpot and located a cell of RAs and REs, right here on the planet Earth. All but two of the RA/REs have been coerced, bamboozled, or just plain sold out their rights. Only two remain: one a Reality Author and the other a Reality Engineer.

The Reality Author is you, Edward T. Bikaver.

The Reality Engineer is you, Ezekiel Buckminster.

EZ AND
Eddie watched as Woods continued writing in the notebook. The entire time he telepathically “told” them the tale, he had been writing diligently. When he stopped writing and put the pen back into his flannel pocket, the place morphed back into Candi’s Diner, prior inhabitants et. al.

The counter waitress slid EZ’s plate of French toast and sausages to him and the omelet to Eddie. Her nonchalance notified the two that, to her, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. In her reality, three guys had been sitting at the counter the entire time, one writing stuff into a notebook.

EZ was, as usual, deep in thought, solving whatever the equation was that he thought needed to be solved.

Eddie was, as usual, perplexed; his mind spinning in a million directions, wondering how he would be able to take all this information down and put it into his novel.

Everyone sat with a quiet attentiveness, eating breakfast and ruminating over the ontological question: what next?

What next indeed.

Woods handed the notebook back to Eddie, along with a cassette tape bearing a striking resemblance to the one Ed had listened to a while back—the one that his lame tape-deck in his truck had eaten up.

“Word to the wise: always make back-up copies. Hard copies, if possible.” Woods took out a wad of cash, paid for all of their meals, left a nice tip, and stood up. “See you around.”

He made his way to the exit, grabbing a toothpick out of the little dispenser next to the register as he did so.

EZ stared at the counter, rubbing his temples. This was one equation he wasn’t certain he would be able to figure out.

Eddie cleared his throat. “I’m going to guess that you experienced the same thing.”

EZ half-nodded. “Maybe you’d like to be the one to verbalizeit, since you’re the certifiably crazy one, and I have a feeling what you are about to spit is going to sound non-compos mentis,
cray-to-z
.”

Eddie messed with his napkin, folding it then refolding it. “Uh, yeah. That guy Woods just came in here, ordered breakfast, asked to write in my notebook, began writing stuff down and as he did both you and I found ourselves in his inter-dimensional ship, also known as ‘his head’ and were given the lowdown that we’re both being tracked down by beings whose task it is to get us to give up our ‘rights’ to aspects of reality that have been bequeathed to us by the CEO of all known universes. That’s what I got out of the conversation. You?”

“Yup—that’s about it in a nutshell. So either we just shared an identical hallucination, or Woods is one hell of a magic man, or we just hit the Twilight Zone full steam.”

The waitress came over. “Everything all right, fellas? Can I get you more coffee?”

“Everything is brilliant. I’m all good on the coffee. Thank you, ma’am,” EZ said.

Eddie shook his head and thanked her.

They picked up and walked to the exit, Eddie grabbing a mint and EZ grabbing a toothpick on the way out.

“MMM … CINNAMON,”
EZ said after popping the toothpick into his mouth. He fired up the Camaro and scooted out onto the road. “I don’t think hallucinations like that can be shared to a
T
. We wouldn’t have had precisely identical experiences, because hallucinations occur inside the mind and we would’ve had differing deals going on. I’m ranking that one as low on the probability.” EZ veered to the on-ramp and accelerated onto the Interstate. “Magic or hypnosis? Possible. But then one would have to ask: why would a cat like that go through all the trouble of pulling a fast one like that on us? He had no motive. No payoff.” EZ grabbed his aviator shades from the visor and pulled it down. The morning sun was climbing over the Rocky Mountains, which they were driving into. “This one’s gotta be shaved with Occam’s Razor-blade, you feel me?”

Eddie checked his mind for what his pal EZ had just stated and its meaning. Ahh, yes, Occam’s Razor. The “keep it simple” philosophy, meaning that usually the simplest explanation tended to be the correct one, rather than a bunch of complicated mind-twisting to get at the conclusion.

So what EZ was getting at was this: Woods
had
transported
the two into an alternative dimension, and had been forthright in his dissertation to them.

It was that simple.

The two sat in silence for a while, the growling muscle car engine working the inclines and curves of the interstate, which now wound its way through rocky canyons, paralleling the white-watered Colorado River.

“What the blazes
is
a ‘Reality Engineer’ anyway?” EZ said.

“You got me,” Eddie said.

“Hey, man—kick that cassette into the deck. Let’s check this jive to score some elucidations.”

He pulled the tape from his backpack and opened the case. It had a label with the words “The Thought Police: Art B. Wells’ Take on Real Reality” written on it with a green pen and the brand
Memorex
on the face. He slid the tape into the deck.

FROM THE
hi-fi and perfectly equalized Blaupunkt speakers within Ezekiel Buckminster’s Z-28 Camaro poured forth spacey bumper music from a popular overnight radio show Eddie had become quite familiar with over the years:

“From Greenwich around back to Greenwich, from the South Pole to the North Pole—this is Art B. Well’s Take on Real Reality. We’re back and I’ve been talking to my guest who is an ex-covert operative who worked for an entity he calls ‘the tracking unit of the Thought Police.’ He claims to be of part alien descent, and has the capability to manifest reality, much like a painter or musician or writer can create works of art. He goes by the moniker ‘Agent W.’ So you say you were part of a ‘tracking’ unit. What, or who were you tracking?”

Agent W: “Our unit is to track down RAs and REs. Those are Reality Authors and Reality Engineers, who have been given special privilege to create and engineer realities. They are commissioned by the OAR of all known universes, OAR being ‘Originator of All Realities.’”

Art: “The Originator of All Realities? Wow, that sounds like a powerful guy.”

Agent W: “Indeed, the oldest and most powerful for a while. He is the only uncaused thing that exists, which nobody but he can quite fully comprehend. His pronounceable name is Atoz Al Ways. But anyway, his business partner, a cavalier by the name of Phos Atomos Paradosi held some different opinions about how the business should be run and operated, so he quit and took about a third of the company with him, along with trade secrets, etc.”

Art: “Why would this guy Phos go up against the most powerful being that exists?”

Agent W: “Hubris. And he thought the way the company was being run was too old school, unhip, and uncool. Plus, Atoz had plans to make these newer creations—humans—as co-creators and joint-stockholders of the company. Phos saw the future and saw his role both in the company and in the Universe becoming less and less relevant. He defected and set up his own rival company, which has been slowly taking over all the market share of the Universe.”

Art: “Hmm … wow. But isn’t this Phos character way out of his league? I mean, couldn’t the most powerful being that exists—Atoz—simply rub him out of existence?”

Agent W: “Great point. I’ve thought about that many times, and the answer is ‘yup.’ But I have concluded that Atoz is a being of principles and class. I mean he invented the concept of ‘principles’ and ‘class.’ Atoz has invented beings that are at liberty to choose how to conduct themselves in life. And he has stuck with that principle. He could’ve made a bunch of robots that he wound up and did exactly what he wanted them to do, but that would get boring quickly, especially when you have nothing but infinite time on your hands. He opted to populate a universe with creatures that could, in a manner of speaking, choose their destinies. They could opt to like Atoz or hate him. They could decide to work for him or against him. They could choose to ignore him. Whatever. Phos, on the other hand, prefers the ‘command-and-control’ method. He’s pretty much a control freak. But he pretends like he’s a nice guy. He’s a narcissist and a pathological liar, by the way.”

Art: “And so he set up his own shop, begins taking over realities from Atoz, to try to squeeze him out of his own Universe. Where do you come in?”

Agent W: “Well, Atoz figured out the takeover plans of his former buddy, Phos (he is, after all, the most sentient being who exists) and dispersed a large quantity of these beings I mentioned earlier called RAs and REs—you remember, Reality Authors and Reality Engineers—to continue manifesting Realities under the aegis of Atoz Al Ways and his company. So long as they are flooding the Universal market with their reality shares (so to speak—if the Universe continues ‘expanding’), Phos Atomos Paradosi’s shares become devalued. In other words, as long as there are beings with free will working for Atoz, Phos is not in complete control. And like I said, he is a control freak.”

Art: “Ahh.”

Agent W: “Where I and my kind come in is here: we’re a race of proto-inventors and creators who have mastered the craft of reality-manifestation via our minds. This makes us very efficient at detecting others with similar traits. Most beings in the Universe can read minds, but if you think about it that’s an awful lot of data to sift through if you want to track down specific entities. We have the ability to create realities around large amounts of people, and the non-creative ones will simply inhabit them, but the creative ones will attempt to break free from them, and that is how we are able to discern and discover them.”

Art: “Hmm, so it is like you’ve built a big aquarium and surrounded a bunch of fish, and only the ones you’re seeking would try to get out of it, so they’re the ones who bump into the glass.”

Agent W: “That is a great way of putting it, Art. You got it. They leave distinct ‘creative signatures’ and ‘thought patterns’ that we zero in on. Once we’ve tracked them down, we hand them over to the Mind Technicians and Operations specialists, who must first confirm our ‘catch’ is, in fact an asset of Atoz and not some anomalous rube that happens to have random creative undulations. Once they’re confirmed, they’re manipulated, coerced, cajoled, bamboozled, bribed, begged or psychically manipulated to give up their creative and technical interests. Many give in without realizing what they have done, because Atoz had never
overtly
told them who they were in the first place. For all intents and purposes, by omitting the detail in their consciousness that they were candidate agents for Atoz Al Ways’ grand scheme made it harder for them to be tracked down. And he likes to test their mettle that way. Also, many of them do not know what they had given up because they’re inhabiting a fabricated reality created by Phos’ agents (like what I was) and become so confused and mystified by what is going on that they just want to be left alone. So they give up.”