Summer of Love, a Time Travel (7 page)

Down
to business. Evidence supports Chi’s probable presence in this Hot Dim Spot.
His skipfather traced the Open Time Loop himself.

Oh,
fine. What is this evidence? Three pieces of evidence, no more and no less.

First,
there’s the carving on the pillar in the Portals of the Past. The key, a
reference to Chiron. But the carving is gone. Mega. There goes Chi’s fifty-one
percent probability.

Second?
There’s an advertisement. A local newspaper at the time called the
Berkeley
Barb
ran personal ads. And there, among guys looking for swinging chicks
and chicks looking for swinging times, was an ad placed during the summer of
1967 by someone looking for a guy with long red hair. And, yes, Chi is a guy
with long red hair.

At
least, he
would
be a guy with red hair if he hadn’t taken the radiation
vaccine and suffered the aftereffects like everyone else his age. He has red
hair now—very long red hair—thanks to implants, an unpleasant business to which
he submitted most reluctantly. Bella Venus had been understanding, if a bit
distant. On reflection, he realizes the red hair is a self-fulfilling time loop.
A small time loop, but a loop just the same. Not good.

And
third? The third piece of evidence is the CBS News footage that caused such
excitement among the Archivists. The footage shows a tall, slim, red-haired
person standing in the background of a scene shot on Haight Street sometime
during the summer of 1967. The original footage, when discovered, was
reconstructed into a holoid.

That’s
it. That’s the evidence, all three pieces. Whoop-dee-doo.

His
skipfather had said, “You’re the one, Chi.” He had tears in his eyes, but he
was sure. His skipmother must not have been so sure. Why else had she slipped
contraband in his jeans pocket at the very last moment?

The
noise, the stench, the giddy energy, the sheer weirdness of it all overwhelms
him. Chi decides to avoid the main drag. Hungry, but he decides against
swallowing a nutribead from his nutritional necklace. Drowsy, but he decides
against another neurobic bead from his pharma necklace. His supplies are
limited. He’s got to make everything last seventy-six days.

Find
a place to rest, that’s what he’ll do. He can sleep anywhere quiet, anywhere
private. His t-port training included camping on the ground.

He
sets out down Oak Street, but people crowd the back alleys, too. Man oh man! He
keeps to the shadows, avoids people. The shrewd inspection by the boy in the
bush hat unnerved him.

Does
he look okay? Does he fit in?

Or does
he arouse suspicion. There’s plenty of suspicion in this Day.

His
costume was designed by Archival specialists with--so they claimed--scrupulous attention
to detail. Beatle boots with absurd pointed toes. Straight-leg Levi’s that have
been styled much the same since 1849 to Chi’s day. The pharmaceutical necklace
and nutritional necklace will easily pass for love beads. His French flight
jacket in a tough brown synthy looks, feels, and smells like real goatskin.

Everything
is bacteria-resistant, waterproofed, and dust-proofed. The payload on a t-port
has got to be light, so he’ll have to wear the costume for seventy-six days.
The Archivists assured him no one will think this unusual. Runaways to the
Haight-Ashbury often brought nothing but their ideals and the shirts on their
backs.

His
jacket pockets are well supplied: Block, a maser, a scanner, a scope, filters,
wipes, and a good supply of prophylaks. It’s imperative he avoid the bacteria,
pollutants, and viruses of this Day.

His
knuckletop is the largest payload and was the object of the fiercest
contention. It looks just like a man’s ring of carved silver with a raised
bezel. The power in there—wow. No t-porter before Chi had been allowed to take
such a modern tool. The temptation to violate Tenet Seven of the Grandmother
Principle—which forbids the use of modern technologies in the past--was just too
great.

His
skipmother insisted over the objections of several directors.
My skipson
takes the knuckletop
, she said,
or he doesn’t go.

Now
Chi pats his jeans pocket. The moment he touches it, he knows what his skipmother
slipped him. He fishes out the stash cube. What’s inside? Tiny crystal slivers
he can insert in the knuckletop. Holoid discs.

What’s
on the discs? He can’t wait to view them.

Chi
breaks into a jog. Where to? Just keep moving. He dodges through the crowd,
seeking someplace quiet, someplace private. He sprints down Page, crosses over
to Clayton Street.

Suddenly
he sees something that stops him in his tracks in the middle of the street. A
flatbed truck jammed with kids screeches to a halt. The driver yells and flips
him the finger.

Chi
doesn’t care. Excitement squeezes his chest as he sprints down the block.
There, at the corner, is a three-story Victorian commercial building. The
address, 555 Clayton Street. Above a door on the ground floor is the sight that
has sent him sprinting. There’s a sign above a shop:

Wow!
Like the carving that’s supposed to be on the Portals of the Past!

But
not the same. He calms down. The two other symbols are missing. Not the same,
at all.

Still,
the resemblance is striking. The resemblance is good enough for him.

Chi raises
the knuckletop to his lips. “K-T,” he whispers and cups his hand behind the
ring. A little field of lavender light pops up halfway between his hand and his
face.

He
whispers a description of the shop sign.

The
knuckletop analyzes his description against the Archival files in its memory
and calculates how meaningful the information may be. Bright red alphanumerics
flash. Not that meaningful, it turns out, but there is some probability edging
up to forty percent.

Some
probability is also good enough for him. It’s a sign, a portent, a good omen.

Chi
slides a prophylak out of his jacket pocket, shakes it free of its folds. With
a gesture he’s practiced hundreds of times, he sweeps the fine PermaPlast over
his hand. The prophylak adheres to his palm and fingers, forming a shield
against the toxins of the past.

He
pulls open the door handle and enters the shop. A flickering blue neon sign
informs him the place is called the Mystic Eye.

3

Somebody to Love

Ruby
A. Maverick says, Dig It:

The
media moan and whine that they don’t understand these crazed folks with their
frolics and their TITillations. And since the media don’t understand—and why
should they? diatribe and invective make such good copy—it follows that the hip
community stands for nothing. Who knows what their principles are, let alone
their MORALS?

Yet
when the Mayor of San Francisco and the Chief of Police decline to do a THING
about the stampede of kids—who were
never
invited by the hip community,
the hip community has
nothing
to do with the Number One song on the Hit
Parade—why, the hip community sets up crash pads in churches and garages and the
backs of stores. The hip community cooks food and gives it away. The hip
community sets up a free medical clinic and free switchboards and free boxes on
the street and free entertainment in the park. The hip community sets up a job
co-op and a merchants’ association to employ the poor li’l refugees fleeing
AnyTown, U.S.A.

Why,
exactly, are the kids fleeing?

WE
SHALL SEE.

The
hip community does all these things at its own private and lean expense. But
GEE it’s strange. HEAVENS, it’s awful puzzling. The media want to know, what do
these crazed folks DO? Why, they dance. They sing. They read odd books. They
paint odd pictures. They ponder odd philosophies. They run shops and cafes and
newspapers.

HOW
SHOCKING. They are attempting to create a NEW COMMUNITY.

And
after the Man spies on them and pries into their lives and J-Edgar-Hoovers them
till it’s not funny, ALL OF A SUDDEN the hip community doesn’t want to hang out
with the media anymore. To the
Post
and
Time
and
Life,
the
hip community says BUZZ OFF.

And
that’s NOT NICE.

So
the media want to know—since the hip community stands for nothing—WHY OH WHY are
kids from all over America stampeding to join a pack of lawless, immoral,
fornicating, stoned, dirty, lazy freaks?

Uh-huh.
And you don’t know
half
the story.

“No,
sonny, the Mystic Eye does not sell Zig-Zag,” Ruby tells the scruffy
teenybopper. “You want rolling papers, you go around the corner to the
Psychedelic Shop.”

She
struggles to make change out of a buck from the teenybopper’s purchase of an
incense stick for thirty-nine cents. Damn Stan the Man. Holding onto her
calculating machine like he once held onto her common sense. Her heart-hostage
days. Not anymore. He won’t shuck her, running that game. Won’t get her back in
his bed, either.

She
keeps one eye on the red-haired dude who charges in the door, the other on the
teenybopper whose hands are little too nimble. Twenty minutes till closing on a
Wednesday night, another twelve-hour workday for her, and the cash drawer is
jammed with loot. The Solstice Celebration brought quite a crowd, not to
mention Jimi Hendrix and the Jefferson Airplane are playing the Fillmore.
Mercury is transiting Gemini, and the street is
jumping.

“No freakin’
Zig-Zag? What kinda hellhole is dis, anyway?” The teenybopper swaggers in front
of his hoodlum friends. Is he walking the walk, talking the talk? His bangs
straggle in his eyes, he hasn’t washed in a week, and his voice is gravelly
from way too many tokes. He thinks he’s cool, rapping trash.

At
thirty-five, Ruby is old enough to be his mother and big enough to tan his
hide. Bend the little jerk over her knee and whack his butt till he cries.

Leo
Gorgon, lounging at the counter, takes in the scene. “Hey, Ruby,” he says in a
fake-nice voice.”How come you don’t sell freakin’ Zig-Zag?”

She
bestows upon him a withering glance. “This shop,
my
shop, is the Mystic
Eye.” She leans across the counter, lowering herself nose-level to the
teenybopper. “We’re into magic, sonny.
Real
magic.” She expertly palms
his quarter, pulls the coin from his ear.

His
hoodlum friends stare. Their bloodshot eyes bug out.

“Like,
wow!”

“You
see
that?
”

“Aw,
hell,” the teenybopper says. Mr. Know-It-All. “So she’s got tha’ power. Lotsa
people do. I saw
that
dude”--he juts his chin at Gorgon--“pull flowers
right outta thin air on the corner of Stanyan.”

Gorgon
rolls his eyes and snorts. Like, what a shuck, Ruby, moonstoning flower
children with parlor tricks. Right. He’s a fakir and she’s a witch. Why should
they talk when they could communicate telepathically?

Ruby
shrugs. What
does
this Digger dude want with her? The Diggers have done
some good works, sure. They’ve supplied more than their fair share of free food
and free clothes. But Gorgon is a wild card. He’s got his own agenda. She’s got
spies, and her spies say this rooster’s boosting goods all over town. Breaking
and entering, mostly. No one outside the tribes is supposed to know what Gorgon
looks like, who or what he really is. It’s part and parcel of the Digger legend
playing in his mind. Leo the Gorgon, the man of many heads. Not a real person,
stupid. He’s like Robin Hood or Batman or the Joker. A myth.

Right.
Ruby trusts the mythical man about as far as she could pick him up and throw
him, which wouldn’t be very far ‘cause the dude’s got a good five inches on her
and is built lean and mean. And now you know what
she
wants with
him.
Why she allows him to situate his fine ass behind her counter and shoot the
breeze as if they’re old pals. ‘Cause booster or not, he is one righteous cat,
and she hasn’t made it with a man worth a second how-do-you-do since she and
Stan called it quits.

Adios,
common sense.

The
red-haired dude gives her a sharp, questioning glance. They all look too young
to Ruby, but at least this one isn’t still sucking his thumb. Does she know
him? Uh-uh. He’s got to be brand-new. Tall, slim, pale. Groomed. Rich Kid
written all over him. A tourist? With a touching sense of wonder, he looks
around her shop as if he’s never seen anything like it.