Authors: Rudy Rucker
Spaceland (10 page)
I pulled harder, and then Dad was up above his flat world. He had trouble seeing much of it with his regular eye. The problem was that his flat eyes only saw things that lay in the plane of his body.
In my dream I knew he was able to get a true two-dimensional view of things by using the stalk of his extra eye. But it took him a while to figure out how to interpret this vision. For him it was as if he could look at a thing from every side at once. I began trying to get him to see my face, to really see me at last.
Down in Flat Matthewsboro, the flat people were boiling down the main street, climbing over the buildings like an army of ants, heading for Dad's place. A lynch mob.
I thought I was safe from them, but the three-dimensional space around me started collapsing, squeezing in from either side, crushing me and Dad down into the world of two dimensions, down into that dull, level wilderness.
I came down in our flat house's backyard. I'd been smashed
flatter than road kill. My arms and legs could still move, but only left/right and up/down. I was a Flatlander, with my vision reduced to a single bright line.
flatter than road kill. My arms and legs could still move, but only left/right and up/down. I was a Flatlander, with my vision reduced to a single bright line.
I heard the flat locals coming closer, yelling for my blood. I took off over the neighbor's house, and over the house after that, on and on, with the yelling coming closer. I was doomed.
A Narrow Escape
I woke
to the beeping of my cell phone. For a second I lay there, gathering my wits. The long, complicated dream dropped right out of my head.
to the beeping of my cell phone. For a second I lay there, gathering my wits. The long, complicated dream dropped right out of my head.
I could tell from the sound of the traffic on 85 that I'd overslept. Nine-thirty on a Sunday morning. I could see the traffic with my subtle vision. The bed felt cool and empty and quiet. No Jena. I didn't want this day to begin.
It was her on the phone. “Joe! I've been worried sick. I thought something had happened to you. How could you leave without telling me?”
“I saw you together with Spazz, Jena. Don't you understand I can look through walls?”
It took her a second to formulate her comeback. “You were
spring
on me? Like a pervert?”
spring
on me? Like a pervert?”
“Don't try to turn this around, Jena. I saw what you were doing. and I left. It's over.” I was just saving this for effect. I pretty much expected she'd contradict me. But she didn't.
“It's been over for a while now, Joe,” she said softly. “I didn't
want to admit it to myself. But I can't live with you. You're too cold. Too selfish.”
want to admit it to myself. But I can't live with you. You're too cold. Too selfish.”
“Go to hell.” I cut the connection and started getting dressed. Khakis, a clean blue shirt and a beige V-neck sweater. My hands were shaking. It was hard to button my shirt. A minute later the phone warbled again.
“What?” I answered.
“I think you should move out,” said Jena. “I don't want to live with you for one more minute. I'd like you to vacate by the time I come back this afternoon.”
“Why should I be the one to move out? Why not you?”
“I don't want to get cheated out of my share of the house.” I heard Spazz coughing in the background. And then the sound of his voice. He was advising her. “Vacate, Joe,” repeated Jena.
“Fine,” I said coldly. “I'll rent someplace better. Or maybe I'll buy. I've got a million dollars, you know. Seven hundred and eighty thousand, actually. You were wrong about them not collecting taxes.”
“Half of it's mine,” said Jena.
this time I didn't curse. I turned off the phone and put it in my pocket. I opened my metal attaché case and looked at my million dollars again. It made me feel better to see it. The money meant I was still someone. Not a loser. The shaking ebbed away and I began to feel cold and strong. If the bitch wanted me to vacate, I was gone. I went outside, taking the attaché case with me.
It was a sunny day, reasonably warm for the start of January. I drove down to the corner shopping center. On the way there, I tried to take my mind off Jena by getting into the subtle vision thing. You always have a kind of image of what's around you. By glancing this way and that, you keep this full three-dimensional map off the world reasonably well updated inside your head. But with
my third eye looking vinn at Spaceland from its stalk, I didn't have to be glancing. I had the whole image, right there, all the time, and my mind's eye could pick out whatever viewpoint I needed. I could see what was behind things and inside things and underneath things. I didn't even need to look at the road while I was driving. I could point my face in pretty much any direction I liked. My third eye could always see where everything was.
my third eye looking vinn at Spaceland from its stalk, I didn't have to be glancing. I had the whole image, right there, all the time, and my mind's eye could pick out whatever viewpoint I needed. I could see what was behind things and inside things and underneath things. I didn't even need to look at the road while I was driving. I could point my face in pretty much any direction I liked. My third eye could always see where everything was.
It should have felt nice to be seeing all around me all at once. But thanks to Jena, I felt unhappy and numb.
At the shopping center I got a pack of cigarettes at the drugstore. It was time to start smoking again. Jena hated for me to smoke. Too bad. And then I filled up the back of my Explorer with empty boxes. I could pack and be out by noon. Not being home when Jena got back was starting to feel like a really good idea. Vacate. That was so Jena to fixate on a word like that.
On the way back home, smoking a cigarette, I drove slow so I could soak up what all the people were doing in their houses. It was comforting to see them. They were eating breakrast, showering, watching TV, yelling at their kids, like that. And then I noticed a couple doing it. What was the big deal about sex anyway? It was always the same. Why cheat on your partner? I'd always dreaded ending up like Mom, all stiff and bitter and crazy. If Jena was going to do me this way, maybe it was really better to get free. But I couldn't visualize my life without her.
My dream came back to me then. My Hat Dad had bucked up into the third dimension to escape the knife. I wondered if there was any way I could lift my own augmented body into the fourth dimension. I felt around inside myself, but couldn't seem to find a way to do it.
But all this time, more than anything else, I was thinking about Jena and Spazz. Jenaâwell, maybe I could forgive her. I'd been
treating her poorly, and perhaps this was what I had coming to me. She'd been drunk. It didn't have to count.
treating her poorly, and perhaps this was what I had coming to me. She'd been drunk. It didn't have to count.
But as for SpazzâI wanted to kill him, pure and simple. I even got to the point of wondering if I should go buy a gun. That would be something. Walk right up to the smug son of a bitch and pump a clip into him. Shoot him in the heart and stomach so I could watch his face. And, yeah, use my subtle vision to look into his body and see his punctured heart pumping his blood into his abdominal cavity and see his stomach acid digesting the adjacent organs. Thinking this way made me start shaking again. I did my best to push the hate thoughts back. If I killed Spazz I'd go to jail instead of ending up rich. If I was rich I could get a better woman than Jena. A woman who wasn't moody and didn't get drunk all the time. I looked over at my attaché case. I needed to stay focused.
Back at the house, I switched on my phone and saw on its screen that I'd gotten three messages from Jena's phone. I deleted them without listening. I needed to vacate. I remembered then that Ken Wong had scheduled a series of special Y2K meetings with staff members today. Sunday morning meetings to iron out any problems before the real work started on Monday. My meeting was in an hour. I wasn't going to make it.
I phoned Kencom and got hold of Ming Wong, the secretary. I told her I was taking a sick day. Ming was Ken Wong's cousin. Ken was a product of Cupertino High School and Stanford, a Silicon Valley smoothie, but Ming was a recent immigrant from Taiwan, and she didn't speak very good English. She was strict and bossy anyway.
“You know where is Spazz?” Ming demanded. “He missing meeting with Ken right now. Bad start for Western New Year. Has Spazz make report to you?”
“Spazz is in Las Vegas,” I said. “And Ming, I may not make it in tomorrow either.”
“This very bad.”
“I've got gastroenteritis. There's diarrhea all over my sheets. Have a nice day.” I'd learned long ago that the more disgusting your sickday excuses were, the less likely it was that anyone would call you on them.
When I turned around to start packing, Momo was there, big and pink and womanly, wearing a gold dress cut open in back. She was sitting on her little metal dish, the saucer thing she used to travel long distances. “Are you and Jena going to start on the business plan today?” asked Momo. Seeing Momo made me mad. She was the cause of all my troubles.
“Plan for what?” I snarled. “For Jena doing it with Spazz?”
“I see you're upset with your wife,” said Momo, settling down on my floor as if for a long chat. “I've been reading up on Spaceland business styles, you know. Jena's suggestions about the marketing campaign were very apropos.”
“Forget Jena!” I snapped. “It's all over between her and me.”
“I think you two could still work together,” said Momo. “I'd rather not have to bring more and more people in on our secret, you know.” She took on a coaxing tone. “Surely your subtle vision has increased your empathy. How can you refuse forgiveness to someone whose very innards lie open to your view?”
“We have a phrase that might apply here,” I said. “It's called hating someone's guts.” But did I really hate Jena? Hard to say. At this point I really didn't know anymore. “Leave it alone,” I said. “Right now I have to find a new place to live. And, Momo? Before you come nagging me, why don't you figure out exactly what the hell kind of product we're supposed to be developing.”
“But this is precisely what I've come to discuss!” exclaimed. Momo. “Calm yourself and hear my plan, Joe Cube. Our product will be the key hardware for a third generation cellular phone system. 3G broadband wireless, as your fellows say. We'll send wideband,
packet-switched, hundred-gigahertz radio signals through the fourth dimension. There's an unlimited band of unused frequencies out here, and our air doesn't scatter your signals. They'll travel parallel to normal space, but exactly one millimeter above it. Our core business will be providing little antenna crystals that project vinn from your space. Vinn to the fourth dimension. Little loop antennas in hyperspace. For signals in the ten- to hundred-gigahertz range, an antenna can be a mere centimeter long. We'll kink the antenna wires with two right angles so they run your signals along your vinn/vout axis. The sending antenna shunts the signal vinn to our All where there's no smog, no buildings, no mountains, no other signals, no interference. The signal flies along parallel to your space. And then the receiving antenna shunts it hack vout to your world.”
packet-switched, hundred-gigahertz radio signals through the fourth dimension. There's an unlimited band of unused frequencies out here, and our air doesn't scatter your signals. They'll travel parallel to normal space, but exactly one millimeter above it. Our core business will be providing little antenna crystals that project vinn from your space. Vinn to the fourth dimension. Little loop antennas in hyperspace. For signals in the ten- to hundred-gigahertz range, an antenna can be a mere centimeter long. We'll kink the antenna wires with two right angles so they run your signals along your vinn/vout axis. The sending antenna shunts the signal vinn to our All where there's no smog, no buildings, no mountains, no other signals, no interference. The signal flies along parallel to your space. And then the receiving antenna shunts it hack vout to your world.”
“My God!” I knew a killer pitch when I heard one. “You're talking the talk, Momo!”
“My family and I formed the notion of the hyperspace antennas before I came here, but we weren't quite sure yet of the application. While you were asleep, I read the contents of your local bookstore, with particular attention to the business and technology magazines. And then I had my idea. I feel this proposal is very much of your time.”
“It's dynamite. Momo.” I was pacing around the room, my heart pounding with excitement, all thoughts of Jena temporarily on hold. I had the better part of a million dollars and a great piece of technology. My big break at last! And then a brainstorm hit me. The perfect name.
“The Hyperphone!” I exclaimed. “You like?”
“I'll trust your sense of business on such details, Joe,” said Momo in a neutral tone. “That's why I picked you to be our Spaceland representative.”
“The Hyperphone.” I repeated, still hoping to get my nugget of
praise. Actually, come to think of it, maybe I'd heard that word used before? I pressed on. “We'll sellâwho knowsâmaybe a million of them!”
praise. Actually, come to think of it, maybe I'd heard that word used before? I pressed on. “We'll sellâwho knowsâmaybe a million of them!”
“Most excellent,” said Momo, brightening. “A very wide distribution was my intent. Though perhaps a mere fifty thousand antennas would be enough, were people to use them sufficiently.”
“Enough for what?” It occurred to me that I hadn't given much thought to Momo's motives for helping me. “Why are you really doing this, Momo?”
“Therein lies a complex and tangled tale,” said Momo. “I'll recount it to you at a more propitious time. But we have many tasks before us, so rather than discoursing any further, I'll set off for Klupdom.”
“Why?”
“To initiate the fabrication of yourâHyperphone antennas. My husband Voule is quite an accomplished craftsman. I'll return anon. Meanwhile you might ponder the best fashion in which to organize your new business. And you'd better think of a different name. I believe that when I read your bookstore, I noticed that Hyperphone is already trademarked.”
“Umâhow about Metaphone?” I said after a minute.
“That's taken too,” said Momo immediately.
“Christ.”
“Name it after me,” she suggested.
“How do you mean?”
“The Mophone. Nobody's registered that one yet.”
“Not bad,” I said, turning the word over in my mind. I was used to this kind of spitballing from endless hours of meetings. I was good at it. “Mophone has mobile phone in it straight up. Kind of retro, which fits in with the idea that we'll make life simpler. There's a black thing going on too. Mo' phone. That works.” I tried the word a few more times. “Mophone. Mophone. Mophone. I'm hearing
a touch of mofo in there? Kind of a rough word. But that's not a bad thing. Makes us edgy. I can see the ad. Black dude, initially menacing, but then he takes off his shades and he's smiling at you. He's your friend and he's talking to you. He likes you, even though you're a rich white geek. âStatic? Bad signals? Dropping your calls? Get a Mophone, mofo!'” I thought a bit more. “I guess the only things I worry about are the gayness and the drugs.”
a touch of mofo in there? Kind of a rough word. But that's not a bad thing. Makes us edgy. I can see the ad. Black dude, initially menacing, but then he takes off his shades and he's smiling at you. He's your friend and he's talking to you. He likes you, even though you're a rich white geek. âStatic? Bad signals? Dropping your calls? Get a Mophone, mofo!'” I thought a bit more. “I guess the only things I worry about are the gayness and the drugs.”
“Your reasoning is obscure,” said Momo.
“Morphine. Homo phone. Morphodite.”
“Might such connotations hurt your sales?”
“Oh, probably not. Morphine, well, who cares. And gay is hip. Let's go with it. Mophone. I love it!”
“I really must be on my way,” said Momo. “What will be your next step towards our Great Work?”
“I'll look for a place to rent,” I said. “And then I'll see about incorporating Mophone.”
“It is well,” said Momo. “And Joeâremain vigilant. I've seen some signs thatâwell, never mind. Just remember that you're augmented. That should get you through the day.” She was gone before I could ask questions.
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