💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › magazines › INTERTEXT › ITv2n4.etx captured on 2022-06-12 at 12:59:01.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
--
** *******
* * * *
* *
* ** * ******* ***** **** * ***** ** ** *******
* ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * *** **** * *** * *
* * ** * * * * * * * * *
* * * * * * * * * * * *
* * * * **** * * * **** * * *
==========================================
InterText Vol. 2, No. 4 / July-August 1992
==========================================
Contents
FirstText: Where Are They Now?....................Jason Snell
Short Fiction
One Person's Junk_...............................Warren Ernst_
Was_..............................................Ken Zuroski_
Glow_............................................Brian Tanaka_
Rufus Won't Wake Up_.............................Brian Tanaka_
Serial
The Unified Murder Theorem (Conclusion)_............Jeff Zias_
....................................................................
Editor Assistant Editor
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@etext.org gaduncan@halcyon.com
....................................................................
Proofreader Send subscription requests, story
Melinda Hamilton submissions, and correspondence
mhamilto@ucsd.edu to intertext@etext.org
....................................................................
InterText Vol. 2, No. 4. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published
electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this
magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold
(either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire
text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1992, 1994 Jason
Snell. Individual stories Copyright 1992 by their original
authors.
....................................................................
FirstText: Where Are They Now? by Jason Snell
================================================
This issue of InterText is a milestone of sorts -- this marks
the final time I'll be writing to you (and assembling this
magazine) from San Diego, where I started this thing.
I'm done with my undergraduate education at UC San Diego, and
it's time to move on. But before I leave here, I thought I'd use
this column to mention the names of a few people who have been
involved with this magazine, and mention what they're up to now.
The first issue's cover artist, Jeff Quan, left UCSD last year
for a job at the Stockton Record newspaper. He is now the
resident Macintosh Graphics Expert (and a staff illustrator,
too) at the much larger Oakland Tribune newspaper. Jeff's been
quite a success since his departure from San Diego; I can only
hope that he's not the only one.
The cover artist for the balance of our issues, Mel Marcelo,
doesn't have a job lined up yet, but he has completed his work
at UCSD and will no doubt have a great job by the fall. Mel has
also had graphics in just about every issue of U. -- The
National College Newspaper this year, and will have a big
graphic in U.'s summer orientation issue, sent out to all the
incoming college freshmen in the United States. (As a sidelight,
a column by your humble editor is also in there, and I will
likely be a contributor to U. from Berkeley.)
One of our main contributors for the first three issues of
InterText was Greg Knauss, a person described by his "about the
author" blurb as being "loopy as a loon." (I might mention here
that most "about the author" blurbs are written by the authors
themselves -- but I chose to write goofy little blurbs about
Greg myself. He didn't appreciate it, I think.)
Anyway, Greg graduated from UCSD last year and is now
greg@duke.quotron.com -- yes, he's put his degree in Political
Science (with an emphasis on Political Theory) to work as a
programmer for Quotron, Inc., where he can be a Political
Science major surrounded by Computer Science majors... Greg's
still loopy as a loon, but his new job has pretty much drained
all of the time he used to spend on hanging around my office,
wasting time, and writing goofy stories like the ones we printed
in InterText.
Philip Michaels, author of last issue's "Your Guide to High
School Hate," was recently elected as the 1992-93 opinion editor
of The UCSD Guardian. I wish him the best luck in the coming
year.
You will notice that the name of Phil Nolte, my sometime
Assistant Editor, disappeared from our staff box last issue.
Phil's large workload and tenuous network connection makes it
impossible for him to do the volume of work that Geoff Duncan
does for the magazine. When Phil's workload eases or his
computer link changes, we may see him back to that position. As
it is, I'm going to refer to him as a "contributing editor," a
venerated position in magazines, reserved for only the most
revered.
Geoff Duncan, my Assistant Editor and a person who should be
credited with doing a vast amount of work on this magazine, has
wrapped up his year-long job at Oberlin College's computer lab
and is now hoping to hook on with a computer company located on
the West Coast. (Gee, aren't most of them?) As a result, his
electronic mail address will disappear for awhile, though he can
still be contacted through me. Hopefully by next issue both
Geoff and I will be ensconced in our new locales, ready to go.
This issue is dated July-August 1992, so it may be a bit of a
mystery as to why it's coming out in mid-June. The answer is
simple -- it's an attempt by me (and I think it helps Geoff,
too) to get InterText done before I move about 500 miles away
from the nearest UCSD ethernet dial-up line. While I'll still be
dialing in, uploading the massive InterText files is a chore I'd
rather not to from far away.
Our next issue is very tentatively planned for September, though
unforeseen circumstances could put that off. I've yet to
discover what classes I'll be taking in the fall, or where I'll
be living, or just what kind of computer access I'll get at UC
Berkeley. As a result, we'll just have to play it all by ear.
But one way or another, you'll be seeing a Vol. 2, No. 5 of
InterText come fall.
In two days, I'll pack all of the possessions that I've
accumulated over the past three years into a truck. The day
after that, I'll spend two hours in the sun, sitting through my
graduation ceremony. And the day after that, I'll make the
arduous 500-mile drive northward, to home.
It will be a drive through the high deserts of eastern Los
Angeles county, through fertile San Joaquin Valley farmland,
cities like Bakersfield and Fresno, and, eventually, to a tiny
town nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain
range. The place where I grew up, far away from the place where
I've made good friends, done a lot of work, grown quite a bit --
and started an interesting little computer magazine.
No doubt things will change with you, too, between now and the
next time we meet. We'll be back here, electronically speaking,
in a few months. Until then, I wish you well.
Jason Snell
-------------
Jason Snell has graduated Cum Laude and Phi Beta Kappa from the
University of California, San Diego, with a B.A. in
Communication and a minor in Literature/Writing. He will work as
an intern at his hometown newspaper, the Union Democrat, this
summer, and will attend UC Berkeley's Graduate School of
Journalism beginning in August. He writes this biography blurb
at the end of his column both to fill space and to allow readers
to ignore these lapses into egotism.
One Person's Junk... by Warren Ernst
=======================================
"And this is the third time I've put in a request for more DNA.
My sample will completely degenerate in less than a week!" Faye
started to raise her voice as small droplets of saliva flew from
her teeth and clung to her comm panel. "Just because I'm here
doesn't mean that I have any less priority for raw materials
than anyone else!"
Her next sentence might have begun, "And another thing..." if
her Hypno-Chip hadn't cut in and swept her away.
"Sleep now..." it whispered into her auditory nerve, still
monitoring her. Faye's adrenaline level and pulse rate were
slightly below activation levels, but this time her brainwaves
set the small silicon wafer off. "You're now feeling very
comfortable, very warm, very safe, very relaxed. With every
breath you can just feel yourself getting more and more relaxed,
falling deeper and deeper into a soothing, relaxed state..."
While orderlies quickly ushered themselves into Faye's room, the
Hyp-Chip continued to soothe her. "While in this comfortable
state, you find it easy to imagine yourself doing anything,
anywhere you wish." The orderlies picked up Faye's limp body. "I
want you to imagine yourself resting in a comfortable, wide
hammock, strung between two great oaks, on top of a rolling,
green hill. As you look up, you can see the warm breeze shifting
the branches above you, causing yellow rays of sunlight to shine
down onto your face."
"I wonder what got 'er that time?" asked one orderly gently to
the other. "My money's on alpha waves. She was startin' to get
steamed there."
"Doesn't surprise me," said the other. "You've gotta be real
uptight to get the Nobel at this age." He chuckled quietly,
reaching as if to touch Faye intimately. They both knew that
while she was under hypnosis, they could shake her silly and she
wouldn't "awaken," but it was difficult to dispel the impression
that Faye was simply asleep. After all, the orderly thought, it
looks like she was just napping.
Faye relaxed on her hammock, smelling the delightful spring air.
Baby birds chirped in a nest above her, singing, she could
swear, "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."
From someone very close by, she heard "Just above, you see that
there are exactly 100 leaves." She could see them all. Of
course, she thought, one hundred. "Now I want you to count them
down, starting from 100, and as you count each leaf, you will
feel ten times more relaxed than before, all the way down to
one. Let's begin... 100... 99..."
Faye awoke gently, finding herself on a new bed, but one made up
with her old sheets. The wallpaper seemed different too.
I hadn't done any of the rooms with this, she thought. She
slowly lifted herself off her bed and stepped to the window,
throwing the switch from opaque to clear. She wanted to simply
look out, and maybe see, oh, rolling hills and trees, maybe some
birds too.
Instead she saw the institution, its low, beige buildings
sprawling every which way, with only a patch of grass here and
there. More disquieting to Faye, however, were the bars.
"What are bars doing here? Where am I? Phil!"
She glanced about the room, and heard a scream come from
somewhere. And another scream. Then in rushed an alarmed man
wearing a white lab coat. Not her Philip, she thought, but he
seemed very familiar. Doctor someone or other.
He grasped her shoulders tightly.
"Who am I?" he politely demanded.
"Why, you're Doctor--" She searched for a name tag. Her eyes
kept scanning him, settling on his lapel, "Ross?"
"Damn," he muttered, running his fingers through his dark hair,
"it did it again. Faye. I want you to listen very closely and
very carefully. OK? Are you ready? 'Command: Umdez.' "
"Your name is Faye Harrower, geneticist," he firmly said,
removing the name tag. "You are being treated at The Methany
Institute and recovering from a nervous breakdown you suffered
seven months ago. My name is Dr. James Chandly." Dr. Chandly saw
a glint of recognition in Faye's eyes, as if it were all coming
back to her, and let out a deep breath. "Do you remember, Dr.
Harrower?"
"Doctor, I am trying to retain my composure as best I can," she
said, "but that's the third time this week that Hyp-Chip decided
to step out for lunch and leave me in limbo. For the third time
in as many days I woke up thinking I was still home, but some
colorblind idiot redecorated the place. And this is the third
time I've impressed upon the project my need for more DNA. They
haven't told you anything, have they?" she said, lightening her
tone. "They must know by now how low... they must know...
they..."
Faye felt the stinging of tears against the insides of her eyes,
and she blinked, hard. Cool down, she thought, get control. You
don't need to nap on the hammock again so soon. She took a deep
breath, letting the furrows on her brow smooth. A new angle of
attack occurred to her, and she said softly, "Didn't you say
that working on the project was good for me, Dr. Chandly? Maybe
-- maybe you could say something for me? Maybe cut through some
red tape?"
"Well, I have thought about rattling some terminals for you; I
think I could speed some things along. Let me see what I can
do." He smiled warmly to her, and started to leave her room.
"And the chip," she asked, "can you do something about it? Get
me a new one, perhaps?" She scratched behind her ear, as if she
might affect it by touching the skin covering it.
Dr. Chandly looked thoughtful for a moment, leaning against the
door. His hand went for his chin, as if he was stroking the
beard he used to have. "I think you're ready for something a
little less heavy-handed. I'll have it reprogrammed tonight. It
will let you relax wherever you want for however long you want
using your memories as backdrop. This one won't leave you fuzzy
afterward. All right?"
She nodded slightly, withholding a supreme feeling of
accomplishment behind her small smile. This is a real sign of
improvement, she thought, the first in a long time.
"Oh, and one more thing, Dr. Harrower. You do know about Philip,
don't you? You do remember what the situation is?"
"What? Oh, yes. Did I call out for Mr. Harro-- um, him just
now?" That bastard, that son of a bitch, she thought, trying to
suppress a sudden trembling in the pit of her stomach. How could
Phil, after 23, um, 22 years, up and do that to me? She sat down
on her firm bed, her smile now noticeably gone. "Yes, I
remember. Thank you, Doctor."
Her door closed, and she heard it latch shut and lock. And she
cried.
Two.
------
Fresh DNA arrived from the Human Genome Mapping Project
coordinator herself, or at least from her office. A long letter
of apology was transcribed for Faye, but as with all Faye's
contact with the outside, it was screened and in this case,
heavily edited. Faye never saw the point of this concerning
messages of a technical or official nature, and it seemed to her
that this note from the Coordinator was both.
"CLAUDE," Faye asked in the direction of her computer, "are you
sure you can't get the original text of this letter displayed?"
CLAUDE, for its part, tried to requisition a copy of the
original letter from COREY, Methany's central computer core, but
COREY had the final word in these matters, and if the letter was
for Faye, the word was "no."
"Access denied, Doctor. It is not permissible for you to view
the original letter, by order of Dr. Chandly and the rest of the
staff. Would you like to see the edited version again?"
"No, that's all right, CLAUDE." Faye grinned inwardly, glad that
there was at least some recognition of her professional title
once in a great while, even if only from a stupid computer. "It
was only something like 'Sorry for the mix-up, blah-blah, I
appreciate your contribution to the Project, blah-blah, I'm very
happy that you can personally complete the Harrower Rung after
all, blah-blah, Get well soon, blah-blah, Maybe something
interesting will show up in your Rung, blah-blah, Sincerely,
Janice Brooke, blah-blah-blah-blah.'"
"To what letter are you referring?" asked CLAUDE, "There have
been no letters that you have read which contained the
expression 'blah- blah.' In fact, Dr. Chandly has never
transcribed those words before."
Such a bland computer, Faye thought, sighing. My personal model
has much more personality, even had the makings of a sense of
humor thanks to Phil... damn. I sure could use him -- CHIP, I
mean. Phil can rot in Hell. "Never mind, CLAUDE. Are you up to
getting back to the rung?"
"We may continue sequencing your rung in twelve minutes, which
is when the new genetic material will be fully immersed and the
bare DNA liberated," CLAUDE reported. Somewhere in one of
Methany's laboratories, technicians prepared the new batch for
analysis, placing the pod cradling the genetic material into the
scanning sequencer, which fed raw information into CLAUDE, which
in turn fed filtered information to Faye. Or so CLAUDE informed
Faye as it occurred.
"All right, are we ready to go yet?" she asked fifteen minutes
later. Faye always liked to keep herself busy, and here at
Methany, these were the only two hours a day she could. Doctor's
orders.
"Yes, the matrix has assimilated properly," said CLAUDE. "We may
proceed, Doctor."
"Very good," sighed Faye. "Now where were we? Oh, at RungStart
plus 410,211. CLAUDE, throw up visual display beta and start
spinning the sequencer."
And so work continued on Faye's section of the human genome, her
"rung" it was called, as in the rung of a ladder. That's all the
DNA was, a molecules-thick ladder, except that in the human
genome, the ladder had three billion steps. Each "step" was a
nucleotide base pair, every three a codon, every 20 to 200 a
gene, every several thousand or so a genetic trait, and every
million a Rung. Each geneticist on the Project was responsible
for mapping out their Rung, and after the 3000 Rungs were
complete, presumably all there would be to know about humanity's
DNA would be known, all the codes decoded, all the mysteries
solved.
Obviously entire chromosomes were cut to pieces, there only
being 42 of them in humans, but occasionally Rungs had within
them the whole code for something substantial. In her Rung, Faye
found the mechanism whereby hair loosens and falls out at a
given length, the procedure to make red blood cells, and all the
code for a functional sixth finger, although that one went very
recessive maybe a hundred thousand years ago. Sometimes the
small tidbits of information like these made the project seem
interesting, worthwhile; it broke down the tedium of having to
sort through a million repetitive chemical bonds.
"Okay," started Faye, "so that pair's a T, then an A, and then a
G -- another Stop Codon. What's it look like to you, CLAUDE?"
To CLAUDE, it resembled a Thymine-adenine pair, followed by an
Adenine-thymine, and a Guanine-cytosine after that. However,
CLAUDE could only be 99.4% certain of its interpretation of the
data, hence the reason for any human involvement in the project
at all. Assuming this codon was a T-A-G, then Faye's conclusion
matched CLAUDE's; this string of genetic code would, in fact,
end here. "Yes, I concur, Doctor. This is a Stop Codon, ending
the sequence of amino acids producing phenzotase. The total
number of base pairs in the sequence is 624, beginning at
RungStart plus 409,590 and--"
"Thank you, CLAUDE," Faye interrupted, "I'll ask you for the
math when I need it." She wondered why CLAUDE did that, kept
such careful track of irrelevant numbers and then reported them
so earnestly. Numbers have their place, she thought, and that's
nowhere near me.
"Okay, CLAUDE, start sequencing again, Display gamma, and stop
when you find an A-T-G." She leaned back in her chair and
waited. Generally, there was some noncoding intron,
affectionately called Junk DNA, between the chunks of active DNA
that actually translated into amino acids. The junk ended when a
Start Codon, A-T-G, was found. Junk DNA averaged 300 base pairs
long, but one chain of junk found in the Marshal Rung numbered
more than 36,000.
After five minutes of reclining, Faye noticed the screen wink
out, though CLAUDE's "thinking" indicator light flashed
furiously, indicating a flurry of electronic activity. Well,
this intron's a lot bigger than average, she thought.
After an hour of silent, though relaxed, pacing, Faye needed to
talk. "Ummmmmm, CLAUDE, still sorting through the junk, huh?"
CLAUDE's screen jumped to life, though still quite devoid of
information, and said, "That is correct Doctor. I have so far
sequenced 12,060 base pairs without finding a Start Codon.
Furthermore--"
"Wait just a minute, though. What are the odds you missed the
Codon entirely, and are now running through active code?"
"In my present mode," answered CLAUDE, "the likelihood of this
occurring is approximately 6,210,000 to one against." The
"thinking" light blinked for a moment, then stopped, as CLAUDE
awaited instruction.
"All right, I can live with those odds. You can keep sequencing
through the night, can't you?" After all, she reasoned to
herself, no point in wasting tomorrow's allotment of
work-therapy time just sitting around checking over an endless
line of junk.
This request was a new one for CLAUDE, but after consulting
COREY it said, "That would be possible, but I cannot accurately
estimate a time of completion."
"Just get to it, CLAUDE, and I'll get back to you tomorrow.
Bye," she said, realizing that the day's interactive time was
almost up. "Oh, can you summarize what you've found about this
junk so far, and put it in some sort of chart or table, please?"
Faye wondered why she'd asked so politely. She knew CLAUDE would
comply instantly without complaining. Chalk it up to a lack of
staff, she thought.
"Certainly, Doctor," CLAUDE said, displaying a summary on
screen, "Goodnight."
But this is wrong, she thought, studying the screen. This
couldn't be; CLAUDE must have goofed something up. Where are all
the C's in this thing? Faye had already shut down CLAUDE for the
day, so she was left to figure the math herself in her head.
Overall, she thought, of the four base pair combinations A, T,
G, and C, nothing more advanced than bacteria uses much more of
one than another. In fact, after 22 Rungs, the level was
something like 25 percent all around. And now here's this junk
totally devoid of G's. In fact, the A's and C's are impossibly
low too, each less than 5%. That leaves, oh my God, 90 percent
T's. If CLAUDE is losing it, then the Rung won't get done for
days while it gets debugged. Unless the sequencer is messed up.
Faye froze in mid-thought. Everything about her ground down to a
standstill, except for her pulse rate. "Sleep now..." she heard
softly. "As you enter this deeply relaxed state, you find that
you are feeling very safe, very warm, and very comfortable..."
The Hyp- Chip continued to weave its web as orderlies ran
through their routine, scooping Faye up gently, placing her on
her bed, and quietly slipping out the door. "In this state you
can picture any scene and see yourself doing anything you want,
either familiar and from memory or totally original..."
Faye passed through her laboratory and into her office in the
Bio- Engineering Department at UNYA, and the lights turned
themselves on.
"Hi Faye. It's good to see you looking so well," declared CHIP,
as its screen lit up. "It's Saturday, June 20th. You have new
mail, a lot of it in fact, though most of it is garbage."
"Thanks, CHIP. I know, mail piles up after two weeks," Faye
said. She felt good, real good, and ready to dive into the Human
Genome Mapping Project again. She sat in her chair in front of
CHIP, but it felt a little too big for her now. Her smile grew
bigger. "You really think so, about me looking good?"
CHIP navigated through the system to Faye's electronic mailbox,
and responded, "Well, you know I don't have any feelings in the
matter per se, but, in terms of what you told me you wanted to
have done to yourself, all of the procedures appear successful.
You look like you've lost 40 pounds. The collegen and enzyme
treatments have rejuvenized your skin. Your hair is once again
dark brown, thick, and long. The repolymerizing of your tissue
with the silca implants appears very natural. In every respect
you look twenty-five years younger. Oh, by the way," CHIP added,
"both your Polymer and Reconstructive Surgeons e-mailed to say
that your tissue samples are all in the green, and that you can
consider yourself completely finished with treatment."
"Well, that is good news," Faye responded. "Do you know what I
did with the rest of the Nobel money? Wardrobe. Never had so
much fun shopping before. I bought everything: new skirts, new
shorts, new blouses, new slacks, of course new bras, and even
new shoes, my sizes have changed so much. Know what, CHIP? I
even bought some lycra and a knock 'em dead evening gown. I
don't think anyone there would have believed I'll be 57 next
month."
"Mazeltov, Faye. And they say money can't buy happiness. Do you
want to read your mail now?"
"Okay, but just the important letters." Faye tried to get
comfortable in her chair, but, like everything else, it just
didn't fit her anymore. "Oh, can you requisition a new chair
from the University, something to handle a more svelte figure?"
"You got it. Here's the first relevant letter," announced CHIP,
displaying it to the screen. It was from a friend, but its tone
was all business and to the point. The gyne-genetic engineers
could not de-integrate Faye's DNA into new haploid eggs, and
while in the future the technology might exist to do so, Faye's
menopause was, for the time being, permanent.
She closed her eyes, exhaled deeply through her nose, and placed
her hand on her newly smoothed and flattened belly. Damn, she
thought, they were my last chance. Well, at least the rest of me
is young again. Look at the bright side: ha-ha, no more stained
underwear to worry about; my new panties are safe. Faye tried to
stop her grimacing, asking CHIP for the next letter, but a smile
didn't come easy.
The next several letters were personal, and Faye's newfound
enthusiasm didn't shine through at first, but by her fifth, she
seemed as elated as when she first sat down.
"This last letter is interdepartmental, from the head honcho
himself: Dr. Horner," said CHIP. "Want me to delete it?"
"No, better let me see what Jason has to say." More fluff,
thought Faye, a general morale booster, a new grad student
Melinda someone- or-other is our newest intern... oh wait, a
little something welcoming me back. At least it's nothing
embarrassing. "It says here that everyone else's rungs are
getting sequenced pretty well. One of them is even done."
"Yep, though despite your absence, you've decoded more than most
everyone," answered CHIP.
"That's because I enjoy it. And speaking of which, let's do a
little work on the Rung before I go home. I think Phil's in for
a surprise when he sees me now, a week ahead of time."
"I should say so, Faye. I'm firing up the sequencer now."
Through the door from the lab, a machine growled to life,
revving up to speed. "When you left we had come across some
junk. It was sort of long-ish, and these first 453 base pairs
are really unusual."
"Oh yeah, all those C's and that pattern after it," remembered
Faye. "You make anything of it?"
"Yes, and you might find it interesting. That pattern after the
C's doesn't code for anything biological, but maybe for
something else. It's a set of prime numbers."
Inside herself miles away, Faye's Hyp-Chip, satisfied with its
patient's current status, released her from its trance. Faye
fell asleep without stirring.
Three.
--------
Work continued on the Harrower Rung, after only a day's delay.
Both CLAUDE and the sequencer checked out fine, and after
surveying a section of the junk sequence personally, Faye felt
that she wasn't chasing down a mere mistake, but something
unusual, something worth studying further, an anomaly never
before recorded in anyone else's Rung.
CLAUDE found a Start Codon after about 107,000 base pairs,
making this the largest hunk of junk ever found, and that in
itself warranted a further study. The first 400 and last 500
base pairs were all C's, something also never seen before.
"The likelihood of this occurring randomly is 1.6 x 10^120 to
one against," volunteered CLAUDE.
It's gotta be proud of itself when it does that, Faye thought;
there's no other reason for it. She smiled and let CLAUDE
indulge itself further, hoping the diversion would let a new
hypothesis pop into her head.
"And the sequence between these beginning and ending numbers of
Cytosine-guanine base pairs," continued CLAUDE, "is exactly
106,387 base pairs long, a Casidak number which--"
"What's that, a Casidak number? I've never heard that one
before," piped Faye. She leaned forward in her chair as CLAUDE
explained.
"A Casidak number is any number which factors into two and only
two different prime numbers other than itself and 1, the
smallest of which is 6, which factors into 3 and 2. In the case
of 106,387, the factors are 557 and 191."
CLAUDE droned on about other Casidaks, primitive positive roots
of Casidaks, and prime numbers in general. CLAUDE displayed the
first several base pairs of the 106,387, and something about the
sequence struck Faye as soon as CLAUDE said "Prime numbers are
one of the few abstract mathematical principles understood by
most primitive cultures."
"T-A-T-A-A-T-A-A-A-T-A-A-A-A-A-T-A-A-A-A-A-A-A, that doesn't
code for any useful amino acid chain," Faye mumbled, thinking
aloud. "But, oh my God, those right there are some prime
numbers! A whole bunch of them, right CLAUDE? Look at this set
right here," she said raising her voice in excitement and
touching the screen, "there's 1 A, then 2, then 3, then 5, and
then 7 A's, you see the pattern, don't you?"
"Yes, I do," CLAUDE replied. "The chance of this sequence
randomly occurring are approximately 2.6--"
"Fine, fine, fine, CLAUDE, I get the picture." Faye didn't want
any more huge numbers breaking her chain of thought. "There's a
greater chance of me getting run over by a hoverbus than this
happening completely by chance, apparently, okay, okay. Does
this, uh, pattern occur at any other point in the junk?"
CLAUDE's thinking light flashed as it surveyed the junk. "No,
Doctor, this is the only such arrangement in the junk sequence,"
it answered. "And to what hoverbus are you referring?"
"Never mind about the hoverbus, CLAUDE. There is no hoverbus. I
wasn't talking to you anyway -- and don't ask me who I was
talking to, got it? Ok, how do you account for these--" How
would I classify this anyway? Faye thought. There's no set
category for this kind of code. "--unusual sections, the C's and
the primes?"
"I am not capable of answering that question, Doctor, due to a
lack of data," CLAUDE answered mechanically, "however I can
offer some suggestions which you may conclude upon."
"All right. Fire away, CLAUDE."
Faye ambled around her room, brushing dust off her newly
acquired knick-knacks, while shooting down possible explanations
much faster than CLAUDE could send them her way. After about 20
suggestions, Faye was glancing through her photo album.
"Recombinant obligate intracellular parasites?"
"A virus? That could account for the phenomenon, but not the
actual sequence. This stuff wouldn't code for anything useful to
a virus." She turned a page.
"Extreme missense mutation?"
"Nope. That might re-write a section of DNA, but the resulting
pattern would be just as random as the original." Faye smiled,
thinking of the story behind that photo of the stripper her co-
workers got for her surprise birthday party. God, was I over the
hill then, she thought, sighing.
"Errors in Okazaki Fragment placement from DNA ligase?"
"Possible for small repeating fragments, but certainly not for a
couple hundred C's or those primes. And besides, this sequence
isn't just in one human's sample; it's everyone's." Faye looked
up from her album, still remaining seated. "That's one of the
reasons why the Human Genome Mapping Project exists; the samples
The Project distributes are representative, a collection of DNA
from tens of thousands of people. Individual differences are a
moot point. You're talking about things that affect just an
individual's DNA; not a whole species', not all of mankind's."
"Any one of these conditions might have occurred some time ago,"
responded CLAUDE. "The older the genetic modification, the more
representative it would be today. It is a simple matter of
inherited traits, or in this case, genes."
"Can you break down the sample, CLAUDE, determine what
percentage of it has this junk?" Maybe we can see how far back
this junk came to be, she thought. Faye settled back down into
her chair, slowly turning pages.
CLAUDE stopped thinking, and declared "Almost 100 percent of the
sample possesses this sequence of junk, Doctor, indicating this
junk was present from the earliest times of mankind's
development, most likely in the first examples of Homo Sapiens."
Faye looked up, startled that CLAUDE would make such a sweeping
conclusion. Wait, she thought; statistically speaking, that
would have to be the case. "Humanity's last evolutionary jump,"
she said softly, "was about 120,000 years ago, and apparently
this junk was along for the ride." As she pondered it, she
asked, "Any more ideas about how it got there?"
CLAUDE settled into its "suggesting how the junk got this way"
mode, and Faye settled back into her scrapbook.
"Histone contamination?"
"Couldn't make something this long, plus the changes would be in
a lot more places than just here in this junk." Faye found
another photo of a lab party, celebrating the completion of the
department's first Rung. It was a big occasion, and would bring
the department more prestige and funding that it had ever known.
Everyone was there, including families and support personnel. It
was her unveiling too, and heads turned as friends and
colleagues recognized that stunning, curvy brunette with Phil as
Faye. And there in the background was Jason, introducing Melinda
to Phil. That asshole, Faye thought. Wait, Melinda? Was this the
first time they met? Jason introduced them? Why I didn't figure
it out until now?
"Genetic engineering?"
"What?"
"Genetic engineering. It is my last suggestion," said CLAUDE.
"But 120,000 years ago?" was all Faye remembered murmuring. Her
mind, for the moment, raced. Well Melinda is beautiful -- and
young, real youth... and blooming. Look at how she's looking at
him! What chance could I have had? she thought. Faye's eyes felt
hot on the insides, and her last thought was "Again?" as the
Hyp-Chip kicked in and brought her down.
"Sleep now..." the chip suggested, almost knowing Faye possessed
no real power to resist. It continued through its routine, "In
this state you can picture any scene and see yourself doing
anything you want, either familiar and from memory or totally
original..."
Four.
-------
"Hi CHIP," said Faye as she walked into her office, "how goes
the junk?"
"Good morning Faye. It's Monday, June 22nd," responded CHIP,
"You have new mail -- just a note from Dr. Horner, though. And I
can't wait to talk to you about the junk."
"Yes you can, CHIP," said Faye, not missing a beat, "for just
long enough to tell me what Jason wants."
"Oh, all right. He just wants you stop by his office sometime
before lunch. Can I delete the message now?" CHIP sure seems,
well, chipper today, Faye thought.
"Fine, fine, go ahead. Now, what about the junk?"
"Well first of all, I sorted through all the junk, and that took
almost all day yesterday. Total number of base pairs before the
next active sequence of DNA: 107,287."
"That's huge," interrupted Faye.
"The biggest section of junk yet found, in fact. Remember those
400 C's at the beginning? Well, there are 500 more at the end,
leaving 106,387 in between. That's a Casidak number you know."
"Actually, I didn't," she said, repositioning her bra straps. I
wish someone told me they would dig in more with the extra
weight and all, Faye thought. She hoped it was just a matter of
getting used to. "Should I?"
"Well, they're kind of obscure; I doubt a geneticist would have
ever heard of them, though some astrophysicists are really big
on them. Basically, it's a really big number that only divides
into two big primes. So far so good?" asked CHIP.
"You haven't lost me yet."
"Excellent. Now, some astrophysicists, who observe other stars
in their search for intelligent life, think that the first
messages Earth will get will involve Casidaks. Here's why:
astrophysicists assume that aliens would want to keep the
message simple and easily decoded, without references to
language, so they would send a picture." CHIP's screen cleared
and formed a rectangle, with an "x" on a horizontal side and a
"y" on a vertical. "So say you receive a message with a Casidak
number of 0's and 1's, which is also easy to send across space,
by the way; you can lay the whole sequence into a grid with x
columns and y rows of 0's and 1's, just like filling up a sheet
of graph paper. The 0's make up the background and the 1's make
up the lines the picture is drawn with"
"Does this have a point?" Faye asked, wondering where this would
lead.
"Sure it does," answered CHIP. "Between those C's are a Casidak
number of T's and A's. Those primes just after the C's are what
made COLLIN, the Physics Department's computer, wonder what
running it though a Casidak Square might produce."
"Wait, you chat with other computers at night?"
"Just to keep busy. I don't chat about anything secret," CHIP
said. Almost sheepishly, Faye thought. "But the point is COLLIN
hit something. The resulting Casidak Square was 557 by 191 dots,
and believe it or not, what I think is a picture resulted. Here
it is."
CHIP's screen displayed the "drawing" encoded within the junk of
her rung. The coarse resolution and lack of color looked out of
place on CHIP's normally vibrant and animated display; the
picture itself looked as if a someone had drawn figures on a
sheet of printer paper with a thick crayon. Human figures,
albeit stick figures, were definitely present. Along with some
other, less readily identifiable ones.
"This is the real McCoy, no BS?" Faye questioned. "I still
remember when you--"
"Not this time, Faye. Here's the numbers, you can see the
corroboration yourself. See?" CHIP displayed a chart.
"Well, these numbers look all right, I suppose."
OK, let me work this out, she thought, displaying the picture
again. That looks like a stooped-over man, like a weird
hunchback with long arms, and there's an arrow pointing from it
to this tall stick-figure man. And from that line, there's
another arrow pointing to, whoa, what looks like an octopus? And
what about this line here?
Hours later, Faye had a printout of the picture on Jason's desk,
and interpreted it.
"Now let me get this straight," said Dr. Jason Horner. A little
too loud for comfort, thought Faye. "You think this picture does
the following: one, establishes a base ten counting system based
on this character's fingers." He pointed to the upright stick
figure. "Two, that this hunched-over character with the big
forehead and thick arms is an early human, Homo Erectus." He
pointed to the hunchback figure. "Three, that this octopus thing
had something to do with the change of this hunched-over thing
to this tall thing." His hand swept all over the paper. "Four,
that this octopus thing comes from a star in this constellation,
as seen from Earth." He pointed to a set of dots bearing a
strong resemblance to Virgo. "Five, and that now someone should
go to someplace that you and your computer say is off the Baja
Californian coast and do something." Jason pointed to what
looked like a map of the western coast of the Americas. "And
six, that doing this will contact these octopus creatures or
something?"
Faye had no idea that it sounded so stupid in context, but CHIP
and she, with the help of COLLIN, had spent hours reasoning it
out. She stood her ground. "It could be. I was planning on
letting the astrophysicists across campus play with it. They've
been looking for this kind of thing for decades. Let them be the
judges."
"No way," Jason proclaimed, getting louder. "You may be on a hot
streak, Mrs. Nobel Prize winner, but these sort of sensational
conclusions can only make trouble for this department. Remember
the University of Utah and their cold fusion claims, or UC San
Diego's aquatic mammalian communication 'breakthroughs?' They
lost all their academic credibility and respect after those
fiascos." Jason began to pace around his office. "This
department has just completed its first Rung for the Human
Genome Mapping Project, with more on the way, and one of our
staff, namely you, is a recent Nobel Prize winner. To throw all
this prestige away by letting this 'alien picture' thing leave
this office is academic, scientific, and financial suicide, and
that's final."
I might not have had any problems with Jason before, thought
Faye, but I can see why CHIP thinks about him the way it does.
"That's right, I am Mrs. Nobel Prize winner," said Faye, raising
her voice more than she had in a long time, "and I think that
qualifies me to judge what is scientifically legitimate and what
isn't!" Faye slammed the door on her way out.
"You have new mail," said CHIP, "interdepartmental in nature."
"Let me see it already. It's about the damn Rung Completion
party isn't it?"
"Dr. Horner shot down the picture theory, didn't he?" CHIP
asked, knowingly.
"It's more than that," stammered Faye. "He's got dollar signs in
his eyes and he thinks that he can push me around, that he can
keep this theory under wraps indefinitely."
"What are you going to do?"
"Well, the party is tomorrow night, so I can talk with some
people, important and otherwise. Maybe Phil would have an idea."
"And to totally change the subject, was Phil surprised to see
you?" questioned CHIP.
"Yeah, he was surprised, but not all that happy, I thought."
Faye's voice lost the edge it had very recently acquired. "But
that's not important now. I'm going home to cool off."
Faye returned to the labs the next night, wrapped in her evening
gown, ready to schmooze and lobby. Phil knew what he was talking
about, Faye thought. Hours into the gathering, Jason approached
Faye and Phil with Melinda, and leaving Melinda with Phil, Jason
invited Faye into his office in order to speak privately.
"I've been chatting with colleagues all night, Doctor Horner,"
Faye said coldly, "and I think I have a strong enough leg to
stand on to push this picture business through."
"Faye," Jason said smiling, "I've changed my mind. You're right,
I think maybe you should shuttle it across campus, and see what
they come up with."
"Wait, what's the catch?" she questioned.
"No catch, I've just had a change of heart. I consider you a
valuable asset to this department, and therefore, your opinions
are valuable to me as well." He poured two glasses of champagne,
offering one to Faye. "But let's just keep it on campus, all
right?"
She eyed the extended glass for a moment, and accepted it,
taking a sip.
Faye felt funny as she slumped into one of Jason's chairs. Her
senses suddenly numbed and she started shaking uncontrollably.
She saw Jason smile smugly as he poured his glass into a potted
plant and turned toward his computer.
"CORBIN," he said, "I need to access to Dr. Harrower's files and
notes. Copy them all to my location, deleting her originals,
administrative clearance level sonza. I'll modify them later."
Faye tried to move, struggled to yell, fought to stop shaking,
but she could not do anything.
"Now compose a letter to Janice Brooke, Coordinator of the Human
Genome Mapping Project, something to the effect that
unfortunately, due to a sudden mental or nervous breakdown
probably resulting from extreme personal stress following
dramatic physical reconstruction, Dr. Harrower will be unable to
finish sequencing the last, oh," he calculated a number which
would exclude the recently discovered junk, "700,000 base pairs.
Please reassign the Harrower Rung, et cetera. You clean it up,
CORBIN."
Jason turned to Faye, and said "What you've just drunk contains
a little bug I whipped up yesterday, which is even now reacting
with the trace anti-aging proteins still in your bloodstream,
which will block all of this alien visitation nonsense from your
memory once and for all." Jason grinned hard, looking Faye right
in her trembling face. Unfortunately, the process will in all
likelihood unbalance you mentally, but a good institute should
be able to help you along. And," he added, "I think Melinda will
be able to ease Phil's loss. She's quite the temptress; an
effective tool, I've found."
Faye's Hyp-Chip had never sensed everything it monitored jump
into the red so suddenly. As if by reflex, it totally shut Faye
down, and she slammed into sleep.
Five.
-------
The charter boat Santa Maria bobbed gently in the Pacific,
swinging Faye's hammock. Despite the cooling effect of the
setting sun, she didn't shiver in her bikini.
"Sweet," she whispered, nuzzling Juan's ear, "I have to get up
now and check the asgal device."
He turned slightly, allowing her to roll off onto the deck with
both feet. "Si." She pulled part of her suit up from her ankles
and went below.
The device registered the magnetron waves stronger than ever
before, winking softly. She stepped to the uplink board, and the
satellite pinpointed them to the fifth decimal place off the
coast of Baja California.
It matches, she thought, putting her copy of the Casidak Square
CLAUDE printed out back into her tote. There really is something
to this map after all.
As she put the sheet away, her tote tipped, spilling some of her
papers. No biggie, she thought, casually scooping them up. I'll
have to frame these someday, she thought as she held Methany's
release forms. She glanced at the charred remains of Phil and
Melinda's wedding announcement in the ashtray on the console,
noting that it burned differently than Phil's divorce papers and
his pathetic, whining letters, and chuckled. And those too, she
thought as she went topside, loosening her bikini again.
"Phil," she said looking at Juan, "eat your heart out."
Warren Ernst (wernst@ucsd.edu)
---------------------------------
Warren Ernst graduated from the University of California, San
Diego on June 14, 1992 with a B.A. in Political Science. He now
plans to look for some sort of gainful employment. Warren wrote
this story, originally titled "Unsoccessive Sequential Events,"
for a class in science writing. Warren is a friend of famed
InterText writer/loon Greg Knauss. According to Greg, there are
a few things in this world which have weathered the ages: the
pyramids, Stonehenge, and Warren's hairstyle.
Was by Ken Zuroski
=====================
When I first saw her, she was walking through the park on a warm
summer day. She was wearing a long dress and a small piece of
multicolored twine around her wrist as a bracelet. I was alone,
watching people in the crowd. She was surrounded by her friends
and didn't notice me.
Half a year passed; we were introduced through a friend of a
friend. Then one night as I was working late, the phone rang. I
picked it up and it was her, asking me to dinner in a wobbly
voice.
"You know," I said, "I think I'm going to take you up on that."
Over dinner, she told me that she didn't believe in God and that
her favorite singer was Dylan. She had been in a terrible
motorcycle accident when she was young, and now she didn't
drive. She was studying to be a biomedical engineer. Also, her
Walkman headphones weren't working and did I think I could fix
them? I told her to bring them by tomorrow and I'd have a look.
I grew accustomed to waking with her body next to mine. She
would always entwine herself about me, her head on my chest.
Late at night, I would lie motionless, listening to the sound of
her beating heart; somehow I was reassured.
"Who will love me when I'm old and bald?" I asked rhetorically,
one day, gazing grimly into a mirror at my receding hairline.
I felt a kiss on the back of my head. "It's good luck to kiss
your lover's bald spot," she said, laughing. And, after a
moment, I laughed too.
At a bar one time, I sat on a stool, fidgeting nervously and
watching as she, with sublime nonchalance, beat an astonished
steelworker at a game of pool: one ball after another vanishing
into the pockets in rapid succession, the challenger standing
there furious, his swagger evaporated, his pride depleted.
We visited some friends who owned a cabin in the mountains. The
hour was late, but she was anxious to begin the return trip; she
had an exam to study for the next day. I was tired and wanted to
sleep, but we climbed into my truck, pulled onto the highway,
and headed for home.
She fell asleep immediately, her head in my lap. I drove alone
through the empty country roads. The panel-lights glowed yellow-
green; outside the truck, all was darkness.
I grew tired. I could barely hold my head aright. The truck was
swerving and the lines on the highway blurred; I had to pull
over to sleep. I switched the engine off, and the night was very
still. I lay my head back and closed my eyes.
She stirred, and I felt a kiss on my knee. "Someone cares," I
heard her sleepy voice say.
I peered up into the sky. Overhead, the stars blazed furiously
-- hundreds, thousands, billions. "I care, Sue, very much," I
said, and stroked her hair; but she was already asleep.
Then one day she came to me -- it doesn't really matter where.
She hesitated for a moment, and then said uncertainly: "I don't
feel the same way I used to."
I stared for a while at the tabletop, then at the floor. Then I
stormed from the room, slamming the door open with the flat of
my hand. I strode away with giant, prideful steps. I heard her
call my name, but I didn't look back.
We had one or two more telephone conversations after that.
Toward the end of the last, she began to cry. I was astonished.
I said: "Why are you crying?"
"Because I love you," she wailed.
"If we love each other," I said, "then we can work it out." But
she hung up a moment later.
Ken Zuroski (kz08+@andrew.cmu.edu)
-------------------------------------
Ken Zuroski is currently completing the requirements for a Ph.D.
in Rhetoric at Carnegie Mellon, where he is studying the "folk
psychologies" of graphic designers. He steals time from his
thesis to write works of lugubrious fiction.
Glow by Brian Tanaka
=======================
Annabella stepped forth into the twilight. Five years old.
Curiosity on two skinny legs.
Her home was a trailer propped uncertainly on cinder blocks in a
backwater town. At the edge of a backwater town. And in the dark
interior of the trailer her father was passed out. Drunk. Lost
in a boozy nightmare. Inert at the folding kitchen table.
Forehead pressed to the flaky, plastic, simulated wood grain.
And Annabella stepped forth into the twilight.
There were no other kids for company. No playgrounds nearby.
Just a burnt-out warehouse, and a public garbage dump. She
followed the gravel road up to the chain-link fence that
surrounded the dump. The heavy stench from the heap, a smell so
familiar to Annabella, was being pushed off away from her by a
choppy breeze. She put her fingers up to the fence and walked
slowly beside it; feeling her hand vibrate as it skimmed the
links. A raccoon crawling out of the dump through a hole under
the fence heard her coming and froze halfway out of the hole. Of
the two, Annabella was the least startled, but she watched
warily as the creature considered her, then jogged off into the
low, leafy brush.
The hole under the fence was new and small. The kind of rut a
raccoon would make. Or a dog, or a rabbit. The beige earth was
dug away to form a U-shaped trough under the links, and the
bottom of the fence was bent up and away to make a larger
passage.
The evening was cold, and growing colder as it dipped into
night. Annabella folded her arms across her body. She considered
the hole, and continued on along the fence. But it wasn't long
before she turned back and returned to the hole.
She gathered her skirt before her and crawled into the passage.
Her head passed through easily, but her shoulders were just a
bit too wide. She began pushing with her legs. Pushing. Pushing.
At last she came free and emerged fully from the passage,
crawling on her hands and knees.
The dump was a great, dark desert of garbage, with rolling dunes
of used diapers, newspapers, washing machines, and rotting table
scraps. Annabella climbed over the nearest dune. And the one
after that. And in the descending darkness, from the crest of a
stinking dune, she looked down into a ravine of refuse whose
dark shadows were but a stage for a glow. Some slab of
phosphorescent, fluorescent, green garbage. Some toxic waste
tossed over the fence by disposal workers too lazy to drive the
last five miles to the official toxic dump site for one measly
slab of deadly whatever-it-is was glowing down there. Beckoning.
Annabella half-climbed, half-tumbled down the hill to the glow.
It drew her to itself, charming her with its steady, light.
Trailer park Annabella. Drunk daddy Annabella. Dark world
dwelling, brown-eyed Annabella. Turned on by the radioactive
slab. Entranced by the magic in the night. She kneeled by the
glow and studied it intently. Breaking free of her silent
reverence, she giggled at the thought of a thing of such
unearthly beauty somehow being abandoned in a garbage dump.
Tenderly, she picked it up. And carefully, she stole back over
the dunes.
Rufus Won't Wake Up by Brian Tanaka
======================================
The sight before the first officers on the scene was undoubtedly
the most bizarre thing they had ever seen. A child's toy, a "Big
Wheel" plastic tricycle, lay cradled in the front seat of a
Mercedes Benz amongst the shards of remains of the shattered
windshield it had burst through. The front wheel was lodged
firmly in the vicinity of what should have been the jaw of the
shattered skull of one Ned Dirkheim, sole occupant of the
vehicle. As if this were not enough, a trail of blood,
apparently left by the fleeing assailant, described a path from
the site of impact, across the hood, through the parking lot,
and out into the muggy night, signifying the impossible -- or at
least the highly improbable: Someone had ridden that tricycle
through the windshield, and walked away.
"Where is he?"
"He's always late."
Ned Dirkheim, his face lined with deep furrows, looked at his
watch for the fourth time in as many minutes. "Where is he?" he
asked again.
Mark didn't feel he needed to answer. Instead he dropped his
cigarette to the marble floor and crushed it with his foot.
"We ought to leave without him," Ned said, scowling. "That would
teach him."
"Take it easy, Ned. He's always late. You know that."
Ned fidgeted with his car keys.
Mark continued, "Well, don't you? You should by now."
"Yeah, yeah."
"Well, if you don't want him in our carpool..."
"I know. Just tell him. I know. I just might do that."
"You've been saying that for the last..."
"I know! The last eight years." He regained a bit of composure
and said, "I'm tired and I want to get home."
Mark just laughed. He was about to light another cigarette when
he saw Douglas get out of an elevator on the far bank of the
lobby.
"It's about time," Ned muttered to Mark. He turned and started
toward the parking lot before Douglas could join them.
"What's up with him?" said Douglas, motioning toward the rapidly
disappearing Ned.
Mark laughed and said, sarcastically, "Douglas, I'm surprised at
you. Don't you know you shouldn't keep the Junior Vice President
of Dayton Realty waiting?"
"Jesus. I forgot my briefcase, so I had to go all the way back
up to..."
"Save it. Save it. I don't give a damn. Ned's just a little
high-strung these days."
They caught up with Ned at his Mercedes Benz and he let them in
without a word. They rolled out of the parking complex and Ned
barreled out onto the Hollywood freeway. He pulled into the
first lane and joined the thousands of other commuters bumper to
bumper on their long, slow voyage to their suburban homes. The
traffic crawled, threatening always to come to a complete halt,
like a steel river on a concrete bed, flowing and snaking into
the smoggy, brown horizon.
It was nearly an hour later when they crept off the Hollywood
and onto the Ventura freeway. Ned took the Woodman street exit
and dropped off Douglas in front of his home.
"Goodnight, Mark. Goodnight, Ned," Douglas said.
"Yeah, see ya' tomorrow, Doug," said Mark. They both glanced at
Ned staring out of the windshield, but he said nothing.
The car roared off, back to the freeway, and out again into the
Los Angeles twilight.
"If you don't mind me saying so, I think you should try to
unwind a little," Mark said.
"Well, I do mind."
Mark decided it was not worth the effort to talk to Ned. He lit
a cigarette and sat back to enjoy the ride.
A car passed them, swerved in front of them, cut into another
lane and sped ahead.
"Damned kids!" Ned bellowed. He gripped the steering wheel
tightly, and fear raced through him. "I swear to you, I'm never
having kids as long as I live! They just grow up to be maniac
teenagers."
"All right, Ned. All right. Calm down. Watch the road. Just get
us home. Look, if the freeway is getting you so wound up, why
don't we just get off at the next off ramp, instead of the one
we usually use, and take surface streets to my house. We're
nearly there anyway."
"What the hell." He turned down the off-ramp, and onto a wide
boulevard.
"Slow down a little," Mark said.
"Just leave the driving to me," he said, violently snapping on
the headlights and swerving onto a side street.
Suddenly a thump sounded in the car and a small white shape flew
up in front of the windshield.
"What the fuck was that?" asked Mark.
Ned slammed on the brakes and the car came to a lurching halt.
Both men looked back down the street. Ned felt dizzy as he
recognized the lifeless shape in the street. It was a dog. A
very dead dog.
"Let's get out of here," he rasped, his throat tight with
revulsion.
"But, Ned, shit. That's someone's dog."
"I don't give a shit. It's not my fault some..."
"Look!"
A small boy had walked up to the dog. He pushed it a few times
with his sneakered foot, and turned to face the car. Ned felt a
strange bolt of energy race up his spine. For a moment, the
child seemed larger than he should have been, his eyes more
penetrating than they should have been. Ned felt a clammy panic
embrace his heart -- the boy seemed to loom over the car,
towering there in the suburban street. He felt the child's gaze
burst through his very soul like a buzz saw through butter.
The sound of the passenger door opening brought him back to his
senses.
"Get back in here, dammit, Mark!" he said.
Mark turned to him and said, "Are you kidding me? That dog
belongs to that kid. We better talk to him. And you should
probably make some sort of arrangement for compensation with his
parents."
Ned was feeling more like himself now. He glanced into the rear-
view mirror. Yes, the small child was merely a small child.
Apparently, he had gone through a momentary delusion -- probably
from the stress of the incident. That child, he thought, is too
young to think of taking my license plate number; I could drive
off and no one would know.
"Well, aren't you going to get out?" Mark said.
"No. No, I'm not going to," Ned said, "Let me take you home
first -- it's only a few blocks away -- and then I'll come back.
No use both of us being home late just because of some stupid
dog." He put the car in gear and drove to Mark's house.
"Well, Ned. Good luck with the kid and his dog. I hope his
parents don't give you too much hell."
Ned chuckled. "Oh, they won't."
"What makes you so sure?"
Ned just chuckled again.
"Look, Ned. This is the first time you've laughed all night.
You're making me nervous. You are going back to the kid, aren't
you?"
"Oh, Christ, Mark, why the hell should I? It's just some stupid
dog. The kid'll get over it in no time. Next week he'll have
some new toy and he won't even remember he had a dog." Mark
didn't look convinced. "Just forget about it, Mark. You can bet
I'm going to. Hell, I honestly couldn't even tell you exactly
where it happened."
"Forget about it? How could I forget? That kid was standing
there staring at us."
"Look. To tell you the truth, I don't really give a shit."
Mark had trouble hiding his contempt and said, "I don't think
I'll need a ride in tomorrow. I'll take the bus." He slammed the
door.
Ned drove back to the freeway. Of course, I did the right thing,
he told himself. I'm a busy man. I don't have time for some
brat's tragedy. God knows no one had time for mine when I was a
boy.
Under the freeway overpass he paused for a red light. He noticed
some graffiti scrawled across the concrete wall. Damned kids,
writing on the walls, he thought. He read aloud: "Rufus won't
wake up." Must be the name of some new rock group.
The light changed and he slid back onto the freeway. Soon he was
near his home. He had almost put the incident with the dog out
of his mind, and to completely eradicate it he decided to pull
into his favorite neighborhood bar. He parked the car in the
lot, got out, and locked his door. He noticed a tuft of fur
caught in the chrome around the headlight and stopped to pull it
out. There was more caught in the center of the grillwork, and
he methodically pulled it all out. Amid the gore and fur was a
dog tag. He read it and his initial fear rose up again in him.
It said:
"Rufus"
1314 Kilgore Lane
555-6345
In his mind's eye he saw the graffiti under the freeway: Rufus
won't wake up. It must be pure coincidence, he told himself. He
looked down at the tag. His hand was trembling. He tossed the
tag into a nearby hedge and headed into the bar. Stupid kid, he
thought. Stupid dog.
"Hello, Mr. Dirkheim. Good to see ya'. Come on in and make
yourself comfortable," Nick the bartender said upon spotting
Ned.
"Hello, Nick."
"Say, you look a little shook up. Everything all right?"
"Gimme a bourbon, Nick. And make it snappy."
"Comin' right up." He poured a glass.
Ned promptly tossed it down. Jesus, he thought, I've got to pull
myself together. He walked to the men's room and stepped inside.
There in the brilliant florescent glare he saw, amongst the
other graffiti, the last phrase in the world he wanted to see:
Rufus won't wake up.
He stood stunned for a few moments, then rushed to the sink and
soaked a paper towel in the lukewarm water. With determination
he scrubbed at the scrawl on the wall. He noticed with horrified
fascination that it was written in a child's hand. He scrubbed
furiously but the words would not be removed.
Suddenly, the sound of barking from the bar grabbed his
attention. He tossed the towel in the garbage and hurled himself
through the door. A few people at the bar were laughing
uproariously, and Nick was wiping down the far end of the bar,
but no dog could be seen.
Ned strode up to Nick and said, "Is there a dog in here?"
"What?"
"A dog. Is there a dog in here?"
"You know I wouldn't let a dog in my bar, Mr. Dirkheim."
"Did you hear a dog just now?"
"No, sir."
Ned sat himself down on a stool. "Say, Nick, give me another."
Nick did, and then returned to wiping down the counter.
"Funny you should mention dogs, Mr. Dirkheim."
Ned lifted his glass to his mouth. "Why's that?"
"Well, there's all this dog hair on my bar. I can't get it off,
it seems like..."
Ned spilled his drink, coughed and sputtered.
"It wasn't my fault!" he blurted out. "The damned thing ran
right out into the street!"
"What the hell are you talking about? Keep it down!"
The knot of people at the other end of the bar laughed riotously
again, but to Ned the laughter sounded like a pack of dogs
barking. That this explained the barking he had heard in the
men's room calmed him not at all. He jumped off his stool,
tossed a wad of dollar bills on the bar, and dashed out the
door.
Just outside he slipped and fell. He jumped back to his feet. To
his great dismay, he saw that he had skidded on a pile of canine
dung. He spun on his heels and headed in a dash for the car.
Someone had carved into the paint on the hood with something
sharp. It said: Rufus won't wake up.
Ned gasped. He fished his keys out of his pocket and fumbled
with them, dropping them to the asphalt. He retrieved them and
unlocked the door. Once seated, with the doors closed and
locked, he picked up his car phone and dialed Mark.
"Hello."
"Hello, Mary Ann? Is Mark around?"
"Why, yes. He's here. Hold on a moment."
Ned held on. It seemed much longer than a moment. The seconds
ticked by. They felt like minutes, hours, days. He began to
wonder if they had been cut off. He pushed down the automatic
door lock button again and glanced out the side window. He was
horrified, but not entirely surprised, to see scrawled across
the front wall of the bar in five foot letters: Rufus won't wake
up.
He felt his bowels convulse involuntarily. Come on... Come on...
he thought, pick up the goddamned phone. He knew he had to get
back to the scene of the incident to straighten out the mess he
had begun, but what he had told Mark was horribly true -- he
couldn't remember exactly where it had happened. All those dark
side streets looked much the same. It could have been any one of
them. But, Mark could tell him exactly where it had happened.
A faint rustling sound on the receiver blossomed suddenly into a
burst of static, followed by a low whine, an oozing howl
slithering down the phone line and into Ned's ear.
"Hi," said a voice on the phone.
"Hello, Mark?" said Ned, although he knew it wasn't Mark. It was
the voice of the child.
"Mister... Rufus won't wake up."
Ned's world spun. It's impossible, he told himself. Yet the
voice continued.
"Did you hear me, mister? Rufus won't wake up."
"I hear you," he said. "Listen, kid. I -- I -- I'm sorry I hit
your dog."
"No you're not!" The child's voice rose with emotion. It was
plain to hear he was crying, and angry.
"I am. I'm really sorry, kid." He realized suddenly that he
really was sorry. And almost against his will he shot back
through the murky years of memory to his own childhood and all
the pleas unheard, all the tears unseen. He once again felt his
young, needy arms embrace his father who felt stiff and
unyielding under the hug. His father who was a cold stone
monolith. His father who could never return an embrace.
"No you're not!" the child repeated.
"Yes. Yes I am. I truly am." He felt somehow offended the child
would not believe him just as he had come to this revelation
that startled even himself.
"You're not sorry! You're not, you're not, you're not!"
"Please believe me."
"Rufus won't wake up, and neither will you." the child said.
And Ned Dirkheim drew his last breath in a rasping, rushing
gasp. And Ned Dirkheim watched a speck in the sky turn to a
distinguishable shape with impossible speed. And Ned Dirkheim
recognized the shape as a Big Wheel. And Ned Dirkheim felt the
convulsion of his car as the windshield burst. And Ned Dirkheim
tasted plastic and came apart at the seams.
Brian Tanaka (btanaka@well.sf.ca.us)
---------------------------------------
Brian Tanaka lives and frolics in San Francisco. He continues to
enjoy writing despite having just graduated from San Francisco
State University with a B.A. in Creative Writing.
The Unified Murder Theorem (Conclusion) by Jeff Zias
======================================================
SYNOPSIS
----------
They killed the guitar player on a Thursday night, as he sat in
the bar, playing his blue-glowing guitar. The last words the hit
men said were simply: "Goodbye from Nattasi."
Jack Cruger, an accordion instructor, leads a mundane life --
?except when trying to make a baby with his beautiful wife
Corrina. But all of that changes the moment that Tony Steffen
walks in his door. Tony gives Cruger an accordion to play -- and
blue light appears inside it when he plays. In addition, he
plays better than he's ever 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
the "Company," -- an organization whose job it is to create and
support all worlds, galaxies, and universes. The company's
chairman prefers to have living beings "spin" the fates... but
there's a catch -- there's another company, one that does what
you 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.
Tony, occasionally accompanied by a beautiful young woman named
Sky, sometimes visits with Cruger. Tony tells him that many of
the company's executive positions are still held by aliens, most
from the planet named Tvonen. The Tvonens are now very advanced
--?but their technology is completely analog-based, with no
digital electronics at all. Earth is quickly becoming more
technologically adept than the Tvonens. The Tvonens believe that
human thought, with its pursuit of the Grand Unified Theorem
--?a theorem 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.
Tony is in charge of implementing the 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.
But then Cruger finds Tony dead on his doorstep, and Cruger's
neighbor Leon Harris, watching from next door, comes over and
takes Cruger inside to call the police. In a panic, Cruger runs
outside, only to find Tony's body gone. When Harris tries to
grab him, he gets a powerful taste of Cruger's otherworldly
insurance policy. Cruger, now without Tony, decides to let
Harris in on what the Company is.
In the wake of Tony's death, the two go in search of Tony's
girlfriend Sky. They succeed in tracking her down, but she says
she's never heard of anyone named Tony. The school has no
records of Tony's existence. It's as if he's been erased from
existence.
After being attacked by a group of thugs from the Other Company
-- and being saved by the insurance policy -- Cruger and Harris
try to figure out Tony's notes and how he could have been using
his computer to control the entire universe.
From above, in a ship orbiting the Earth, God -- the company's
Chairman -- looked down down on Harris and Cruger and saw
possible sucessors. He had been Chairman for two thousand years,
but it would be time to go soon. Since the use of Earth's
technology would be what gave the Company power over the
universe, it seemed fitting that a human should be the next
chairman. These two men, the Chairman realized, were the
Company's best hope, if the Other Company didn't get to them
first.
Cruger and Harris are introduced to Neswick, an IRS agent who
doubles as their new Company supervisor. His daughter, Tamara,
quickly becomes intimately involved with Harris.
One night, while playing, Cruger is paid a visit by someone who
seems to be a future version of himself: except this one says he
and Harris have become God. The future Cruger also plays a
guitar and is conspicuously missing a wedding ring. After
exchanging arguments, the future Cruger disappears.
In a fit of suspicion about Neswick, Cruger follows Neswick to
the airport, where he sees him rendezvous with his daughter,
Tamara. Nothing strange there. But then, almost under his nose,
Cruger recognizes a face: Sky! She kisses Neswick and then
Tamara, laughing and talking.
Cruger feels his stomach sink at least a yard. He knows innocent
coincidences like this are harder to find than dodo birds. Much
harder.
Chapter 29
------------
The unconscious is not just evil by nature, it is also the
source of the highest good: not only the dark but also the
light, not only bestial, semihuman, and demonic, but superhuman,
spiritual, and, in the classic sense of the word, "divine."
--Carl Gustave Jung
"Leon, I have a strange question for you. If you tell me to eat
dirt, I'll understand."
"Wow, I can't wait to hear it: ask away."
"Will you let Corinna hypnotize you? I have a theory I want to
follow up on."
Harris was surprised. "Does your wife know how to hypnotize
people?"
"Sure. She was a therapist before we were married. They taught
her in school: it's a standard technique." Cruger grinned. "No
sweat."
"Has she done it since then?"
"Well, she hypnotized me once before we were married, but it's
like riding a bike, you know? If you've done it you don't
forget."
"And how do I know my brain won't be scrambled? And there might
be things I wouldn't want to tell your wife." Harris grinned.
"Might make her think twice about being with a guy like you."
"Um," Cruger said, "I'll take my chances."
"Uh huh." Harris paused a moment. "Ok, what the hell."
The two of them walked the fifty feet to Cruger's house. Corinna
was home; they found her in the kitchen sorting through the
mail.
"Hi, honey," Cruger said, and kissed her on the cheek. "You
remember Leon Harris? Lives next door?"
"Sure," Corinna smiled and extended her hand. "Good to see you
again, Mr. Harris."
"I've got a favor to ask, Corinna. Could you hypnotize Mr.
Harris?"
Corinna stopped, junk mail in one hand and bills in the other.
"Could I what?"
"You know, take him under so I can ask him a few questions."
"You've got to be kidding." She looked at Harris. "He's kidding,
right?"
Harris fidgetted. "Uh, I thought you said this wouldn't be a
problem, Jack."
"It's not." Cruger set his hand on Corinna's arm. "It's nothing
serious, honey. It's just that, um, he's curious. He's never
been hypnotized before and wants to see what it's like."
"That's not a good reason." Corinna said in a firm voice.
"Well, that's not the whole reason, really..." Cruger went on.
His thoughts were racing. Should he tell her about the Company?
About what he and Harris were doing? He wished he'd thought this
through a little further.
"So what's the real reason for this?" Corrina was looking hard
into his eyes.
"Um," Cruger started. "You see, uh, we..."
"We have a bet." Harris said sheepishly. Corinna and Cruger both
turned toward him.
"A bet?"
"Well, not exactly," said Cruger.
"He doesn't believe that I was at the airport last night."
Corinna's eyes narrowed. "I don't get it."
Cruger jumped in. "See, I don't think he was at the airport
because he was on a hot date with Tamara, and he says there's
nothing going on between them." Cruger crossed his arms and
smiled. "I've got fifty dollars on this."
"This is crazy, Jack." Corinna dropped the junk mail into the
trash. "No."
Cruger took her hand. "Please, just once? I'll never bug you
about it again." He looked into her eyes and tried to seem as
sincere as possible. He knew sincerity counted at times like
this.
Corinna appeared to reconsider. She turned back to Harris.
"You're really willing to do this?"
Harris shifted and put his hands in his pockets. "Um, sure.
Yeah."
"Alright." Corinna's mouth formed a straight line. "But just
this once. And you'll use that money to take me to dinner. When
did you plan on doing this?"
"Well, how about now?" said Cruger.
"Now? I've got to work in three hours!"
"How long will this take?"
"Long enough!"
"We don't have much time... we really need to get this settled.
Please?"
There was a moment when Cruger almost thought she was going to
say no, but then she nodded and led them into the living room.
She made Harris sit down and, with a glare at Cruger, she began.
First, she systematically relaxed each part of his body, then
told him a repetitive story about a man traveling downward, and
further downward, on a fast, smooth, elevator. When Harris was
definitely under, she nodded to Cruger.
"Leon, it's last night and you're at home. Can you remember
that?"
"Yes." Harris' voice was entirely relaxed.
"What did you do?"
"Tamara came over. We talked and had some wine."
Cruger's raised his eyebrows; Corina pursed her lips. "Anything
else you can remember?" Cruger asked.
"We had sex, then we went to sleep. We were tired."
Cruger smiled widely for Corinna's benefit, then thought for a
minute."When you went to sleep, do you remember anything in
particular, any dreams?" Corinna glared at him, but he ignored
her.
Harris was silent. His face was slightly tensed compared to a
moment before. Finally, he began forming words.
"I do remember a little. I was dreaming, I think. Yes, I was
with Tamara." Harris's talking was very soft, barely audible.
Cruger moved closer to hear better.
"She stood me up, and held my hands," Harris said. "We were both
naked. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be meditating,
thinking very hard. My body became light and for a minute I
couldn't see at all because of a bright light shining all around
us. But, I could still feel Tamara's hands, warm, almost too hot
to touch, in my hands."
Cruger paused for a moment, trying to anticipate Corinna's
objections to the direction of his questions, but her objections
never came. He glanced at her; she sat silently, leaning forward
in her chair. "Um, go on," Cruger said, trying to make his voice
sound calm and assured.
"I must have just slept more for a while and then, all of a
sudden, I was awake, and everything was extremely cold. I slowly
opened my eyes, just a little at a time because hot, sticky air
was sort of stinging. When I opened them up I was in a strange
place, really strange.
"The air was misty with pockets of steam, and the ground was
this dark green and purple color. Bright and shiny. The land was
flat but all I saw around me were really smooth shiny black
rocks, the ground, and these big balloon-looking things all over
the place which were kind of like trees.
"I heard a noise and then looked around behind me. There was
this little purplish thing, a creature. It had lots of arms and
legs and the face was ugly -- looked like a monkey with a frog's
skin. This thing took my arm and led me toward this big smooth
rock. There was a hole in the ground next to it, and this thing
led me down the hole; it was like an entrance to a cave but very
steep.
"We went down these corridors and then came to a room with
torches lighting it. The room was filled with these creatures,
they just appeared out of nowhere with all of their arms and
ugly skin. A few of them blended into the walls behind them like
chameleons."
Harris seemed to lose his train of thought as he paused for a
moment, swallowing hard and licking his lips.
Corinna was still silent, so Cruger pressed on. "What happened
next?"
"Then they all started making noise. They all seemed to be
talking at once. They started forming this circle, joining all
of their hands together and making this noise, this humming sort
of noise. One of them pushed me into the center of the circle,
then I swear I heard one of them laugh -- I mean a real human
laughing sound.
"They closed in really tight all around me. They stuck out hands
and touched me, but, all of a sudden, I wasn't scared. Their
hands were warm and smooth; I relaxed and stood there with their
hands holding me up. Then it was very strange. I felt myself
talking to myself, in a way. It was as if they were asking me
hundreds of questions rapid fire and my brain was answering
them. Every thought I had seemed to elicit some kind of feedback
that I felt in their hands. I don't know how much time passed. I
remember feeling tired then. Next thing I knew, I was in my bed
at home just waking up."
"Did you feel like you just dreamed this?" Cruger asked.
"No. It seemed real. I told Tamara. She thought it was pretty
funny. She said I've been reading too much science fiction
lately."
Cruger paused, then looked toward Corinna. "I think we're done."
Corinna took a moment to respond, then she slowly began to bring
Harris out of the trance. Cruger stood up and made for the
bathroom, closing the door behind him. Then he sat down and
slowly began to rub his temples. From the living room, he could
hear Corinna's gentle voice--just a soothing sound, no words.
As Harris' story sunk in, Cruger's stomach muscles tightened to
a knot. He could almost smell his own sweat, as the perspiration
crept down his shirt sleeves. The pieces of the puzzle were
starting to fit together, and he didn't like the image that was
forming. It looked like a big lemon. Now, how to make lemonade?
Chapter 30
------------
The next evening Cruger went over to see Harris at Tony's
office, carrying a beaten-up guitar behind him and feeling a bit
guilty about abandoning his accordion.
Had Harris figured out the whole picture, part of the picture,
none of the picture, or just about everything? Hopefully he had
figured out enough, because it was beginning to look like they
were in a race against time.
"Do you know how this spinning works? Have you found anything
like the code for that in the programs?" Cruger asked.
"I think I know how it's set up. I've made a basic assumption
concerning the transference of energy -- given the models for
spinning that I know about."
"Well, good. Actually, I have a reason for asking. You promise
not to laugh at me when I ask you a question?"
"All right," Harris said, "I can't wait to hear this one. I
promise to not split a gut or anything, but can I just smirk a
little bit?"
"OK; smirk away. Here it is: I've been thinking of playing --
and spinning -- with a guitar. Do you think you can fix it so
that my spinning works with the guitar?"
To Cruger's surprise Harris answered seriously, although it did
look like he was smirking. "I was wondering why you had that
thing with you. Look, I think I know how to set it up. It would
be a pretty good test to see if my theory about spinning is
right."
"Now wipe that smirk off your face; you've enjoyed this enough
already," Cruger said.
"Why do you want to have a guitar to spin with anyway?" Harris
asked as if he wanted the information for his files. Probably
very orderly files.
"All of this is so ironic, don't you think? Once I saw a cartoon
that showed a man on his way through the pearly gates being
handed a harp. The caption read: 'Welcome to heaven.' In the
frame below, a man was being handed an accordion and the caption
read: 'Welcome to hell.' I want to make sure my name shows up on
the correct employee roster."
"Good point," Harris said. "the accordion is pretty hellacious.
I'll chalk this up as a piece of pro bono work -- change for the
good."
Harris sat at the computer, entering new descriptive identifiers
for Cruger's guitar. After about fifteen minutes had gone by,
Harris asked him to try playing the guitar a little to see if it
worked yet. Cruger struck a few chords on the instrument, and
played a quick melodic minor scale, up and down. No blue light
-- nothing in the tone of the instrument was extraordinary in
the least. The cheap thirty-dollar guitar sounded like a cheap
thirty-dollar guitar.
"Wait, I think I know what's wrong." Harris shook his head and
kept on working.
Cruger held the guitar across his knee and struck a simple
chord. Something was different; the sound was deeper, fuller. He
continued to play and the instrument gained momentum, starting
to resonate fully on every note. The higher harmonics
intensified, ringing out richly across the room. Then, bending
over the instrument as he played, Cruger saw a pale blue light
shining from within the body of the small guitar.
Chapter 31
------------
Getting the jump on them was easy. Cruger grabbed the phone,
called Ms. Branner at the IRS, and said he was from the travel
agency. Just confirming the flight to Denver, that's right miss,
Mr. Neswick's next flight is... what did you say? The
twenty-third, 1 p.m., that's correct. And rental car is... Avis,
did you say? Right again.
So Cruger got to Denver on an earlier flight.
But the stakeout wasn't much fun. A stakeout is especially
tiresome for a guy who doesn't know what he's doing.
Cruger sat in his rental car waiting for Neswick to pull out of
the airport. There was only one exit from the Avis lot; he hoped
he would recognize Neswick when he drove past. Cruger's stomach
started to rumble every couple of minutes; it sounded loud
enough Cruger worried a cop would come knock on his window,
telling him to turn down his subwoofers. Ain't no subwoofers, he
would have to say, it's my goddamn stomach: You have a candy bar
or something? and the cop would go away with that puzzled-cop
look on his serious face.
Finally, twenty minutes after Neswick's plane was supposed to
have landed, Cruger saw him pulling out in a Ford Taurus. Must
not have had luggage, Cruger thought as he turned the key in the
ignition.
Cruger kept a safe distance; but he could see two passengers
that looked to be Sky and Tamara. Neswick went south on 25 and
stayed on all the way to Colorado Springs, then went through
town and back into the foothills.
They stopped at a large house on quiet street that gave at least
an acre to each home. The lots were lined by random assortments
of gigantic boulders and jagged granite.
Cruger pulled up to the house down the street. He was close
enough to see Neswick, Tamara, and Sky as they walked up to the
door and knocked. It opened a crack, and the three filed inside.
Cruger thought he saw a glint of silver from the clothing
inside, but the door closed before he could be sure.
Cruger drove up to the house, got a closer look. The name
NATASSI, in small white letters, was painted on the cedar box
resting on the cracked 4x4 post alongside the steep driveway.
Cruger drove down the hill and got himself the closest Best
Western hotel room. There was only one Natassi in the phone
book. Theodore Natassi. He was on 266 Garden Rock road, right
where Cruger had followed Neswick and crew. He imagined a
trained detective would know what to do as he showered and lay
on the bed, drifting into an unplanned nap.
Neswick and Tamara were talking in the other room -- Natassi
could hear Neswick with his annoying, dull voice telling her
about the mountains and the American Indians and the Rockies
wildlife as if he were lecturing a college class.
Natassi turned towards Sky. She was sitting the parquet kitchen
table, eating dozens of cookies, seemingly oblivious to the
ponderous bulk he turned towards her.
"Tell me about the school you attend," he asked Sky. He watched
for her reaction, more important to him than anything she would
say. Her expression did not change. He wanted to probe, but
would start soft. Maybe in conversation she'd slip -- a grimace,
a frown -- and tell him something, maybe something he really
wanted to know.
"Not much to tell," she said without looking up, and then, "You
know, I can eat a million of these things, these cookies, and
not get fat. All the girls at school are starving themselves to
try to get thin, and I eat all day long. Cracks me up." Sky, the
wicked mistress of pure innocence. Natassi both hated and
admired her ability to play the innocent foxy-cute teenager.
They should give awards, he thought, for such great acting. She
was the best. An Oscar to the alien girl who plays the airhead
but is really Satan's handmaid.
"You've heard about someone breaking the rules? The deletions?"
Natassi watched her face closely. "I want to find out who it
is," Natassi said, making his voice stern. "You wouldn't have
any ideas, would you? Operatives behaving abnormally? Getting
too... involved here on Earth?"
She met his eyes for a moment but didn't say anything, her blue
eyes tranquil and seeming to say, "I wish I could help but,
alas, I can't." She sat still, wrapped in shorts that barely
reached her thighs and a tiny halter top.
Natassi let the silence hang in the room. Why would she do it?
Why would Tamara, or any other operative? Maybe a grudge, maybe
personality clashes, maybe some of these humans rub you so far
the wrong way you just have to take them out. Like Neswick --
like all the Chysans -- rubbed him, only much worse.
Chapter 32
------------
Cruger didn't get much further the next day -- no one entered or
left the Natassi home. Then Cruger had to catch his flight back,
wondering what he accomplished on his trip.
He had told Corrina he was going to the Polka festival in
Pueblo. He talked about hearing the Detroit Polish Moslem
Accordion Warriors play Love Potion Number Nine and other big
hits. He said he sat in with Nose Harp players from New Orleans.
She didn't seem to care much, and the next morning was
affectionate and athletic in bed, especially for a pregnant
woman.
Neswick gestured for Harris and Cruger to sit. It was three days
after the mystery weekend and Neswick had called them into an
early evening meeting.
"The Company has a large and complex organization, but I'll tell
you what you need to know. As you probably already know, a good
percentage of the Company is composed of people from Earth.
"Many of the executive positions are still held by managers from
elsewhere. The vast majority of these -- well, I'll call them
foreigners, sounds better than 'aliens' -- most of them are from
the same planet: Tvonen. You won't find this planet on any of
your astronomy charts; I assure you. The Chairman himself is a
Tvonen."
Cruger raised his eyebrows and exchanged a quick glance with
Harris.
"These Tvonen went through a process of evolution quite similar
to what the humans have endured. However, a few major
differences exist, and I'd like to call attention to these
differences."
Cruger noticed that Neswick always sounded as if he were
addressing the graduating class at Harvard. The man's stiff,
arrogant style bothered him.
"First of all, the Tvonens have creationist mythology like ours.
The only irony is, their mythology is not allegorical but
factual."
"We're familiar with the origin of the Tvonens. Tony filled me
in," Cruger said.
"So you know about a Tvonen undergoing 'the change'?"
Both Cruger and Harris nodded.
"That special enzyme in their bloodstream controls the secretion
of the hormone for sexuality. Isn't that cruel?"
"What is their civilization like now?" asked Harris.
"Now they are what we would call a very advanced society. They
have technology that you would consider staggering. But, keep in
mind, they are much different from humans. For example, they
never devised any digital electronics. Their entire technology
is based on analog computing and mineral crystals. They also
have terrific projective holograms that can transmit with
pinpoint accuracy. For clothing, they wear trained
microorganisms that are self-cleaning and form-fitting.
"They may be more advanced than humans, but humans are about to
pass them up. Digital electronics are more precise, more capable
of the infinite. See," said Neswick, "the problem you men have
is that you have no concept of the infinite. Once you master
that concept, everything else is simple to understand.
"To picture the infinite, look at it this way: think of
everything there is -- I mean everything. Okay. Now realize that
there is actually a little bit more. You see?"
Harris wondered if this was like when he tried cleaning things
dirt and dust from behind the back of the refrigerator.
Cruger scratched his shoulder and felt like a not-particularly-
bright Orangutan.
"Always, no matter what, there is a little more. Never can there
be everything."
Cruger thought he understood but sarcastically played with the
idea that he may not have understood everything that Neswick
meant.
Neswick had a different meeting later that day. Now that he had
them all in the same room, he could get the message across
quickly and simply.
"It has come to my attention that someone is breaking
regulations by performing unnecessary deletes."
He scanned the room quickly but, as expected, they all had
blocks up.
"The importance of this mission cannot be overemphasized. Every
extra delete greatly jeopardizes the work we are doing. Is that
clear?"
Of course, they all had entirely unreadable, impassive looks on
their faces. He excused them and they left, single file, no one
talking.
He wondered if his management would see this as weakness on his
part. How could he let this behavior go unpunished? But, how
could he punish before he was sure of the identity of the
perpetrator?
But playing with the Big Enigma was dangerous. It could only go
on for so long.
Chapter 33
------------
Sky walked out of class with a small collection of books and a
few floppy disks, and Cruger was waiting for her.
"Sky," Cruger said.
"Oh, Hi." She looked at him with some apprehension. If she were
a normal high school girl, she might simply be wondering why
this grown man had come to talk to her for a second time.
Cruger guessed the apprehension was for a different reason.
"Do you have a few minutes? I need to ask you a couple of
questions."
She waved her hand at a few classmates walking by. "Well, okay.
I've got some time right now," she said.
They kept walking, drifting toward the benches at the side of
the paved walkway.
"What class was that you just got out of?" Cruger said.
"Oh, that's computer lab -- pretty good class."
"Sounds worthwhile. What do you do in there, the whole works?"
"Yeah, I guess," she said.
They sat on a wooden bench, facing away from the flow of
students. There was a stretch of grass was in front of them as
well as the school's token piece of art, a small bronze statue
of a Spanish missionary.
Before he got a word out he knew it was too late. She could
evidently read him much better than he thought.
"So you know a lot about us, Cruger. It doesn't matter. Your
knowledge is irrelevant," Sky said. Her soft schoolgirl's voice
had become steely cold and hard.
"Know what?" Cruger's insincerity was clear both telepathically
and explicitly.
Sky smiled a wicked, gleaming smile . "I hope you're proud of
yourself. And to think, I sort of liked you." She moved towards
Cruger as he stood stationary, ignoring all the impulses he felt
to run or do something equally cowardly.
She put her arms around his shoulders and brushed her lips
across his cheek. She was changing now, into a taller, more
womanly figure. Her light brown skin was unnaturally smooth and
perfect, like a photo on a magazine cover. Her eyes became the
deepest blue-green Cruger had ever seen.
"You like me too," she murmured.
He tried to move away but she held him with surprising strength.
Cruger almost laughed at his predicament: here he was trapped by
a student of feminine beauty. Sky had metamorphosed into
(probably) the most beautiful woman in the world. She pressed
herself closer to him, nearly smothering him in her soft face
and cascades of golden-white hair. With one hand she locked his
face in a grip much too strong to be coming from her delicate,
perfect fingers. Her full lips pressed against his. She caressed
his face with her other hand.
"You're mine now," she said.
Cruger tried to take a deep breath to stop his trembling, but it
was no use. He was under her control -- no longer a
free-thinking individual but a prisoner, a victim, an object of
a desire that he had no control over. One pocket of Cruger's
frantic brain screamed the survival siren, the other repeated an
inappropriate punch line over and over, softly: what a way to
go. But it wasn't. This wasn't passion, love, or even
animalistically physical. She laughed, reading his small,
self-pitying thoughts.
"I don't care what you like. I have plans for you," she said. He
listened and felt the reality of her statement dance across his
body. Sometimes God throws you a slider, but Satan has the
wicked sinker. And he sank. Like a caged animal, he stopped
dreaming of escape through the cage door: his spirit was broken;
he sank into submission; he gave up.
Chapter 34
------------
Cruger came to consciousness and Sky stood before him. She was
once more Sky the woman-child; her look of innocence mocked him.
Cruger's quick self-survey told him that he was mostly uninjured
and sitting cross-legged on the floor, but he felt dizzy. He
also felt groggy; his throat felt dry; his eyes were swollen.
"What happened?" he said.
"You passed out. Out cold," she said, emitting a gleeful
innocent giggle, as if she had just collected for Unicef or
returned from a Girl Scout outing. The perfect voice was back,
dancing like snowflakes in a breeze. "You were scared, poor Mr.
Cruger," and she laughed again, this time with an air of scorn
in her angelic voice.
"What are you going to do to me now? Rape me? Kill me?"
"I've been thinking about it," she said. "You'll be interested
to know that I think I'll just let you go."
The thoughts rushed through Cruger's mind before he could stop
them: he wanted to immediately go to the office and have Harris
delete her. Kill her, erase her, get rid of her forever. Cruger
quickly clouded his thoughts with his emotions of relief and the
self-applause of his survival system. It seemed to work, Sky
showed no visible reaction to his thoughts, if she had been
reading him at all.
Cruger's voice was hoarse and weak. He said, "What would they do
if they found out about that?"
"Nothing, nothing at all," she said, laughing as she shook her
head from side to side. "They're a little disappointed in me,
though. Even devils have standards, rules, limits, a sense of
balance. I violated them. They can do take me back to Chysa,
which is what they were planning anyway. My tenure here is up."
"Your two years of service?"
"Right," she said. "What good would it do for them to kill me?
I'm a good little devil -- maybe even an overachiever --
especially if I'm back home where I can't do much damage. I
trained for years to do my job; I became one of the very best."
A frown came over her inappropriately innocent face; her eyes
darkened. "I don't want to go back, but I have to."
"You couldn't hide from them, staying here on earth? Not that
I'd want you to stay," Cruger said.
She smirked at him. "No, they can find me anywhere here -- we
have tools for that. Within hours they would have me retrieved.
No point in trying to hide." She looked him squarely in the
eyes. "You know something? I love life here. I've become so
human that I can't remember the body I had back home. I'm so
human that I'm moony over boys and I shop until I drop and do
the mall scene, I mean all the way, Nordstrom cards and an
analyst and the whole bit -- all my spoiled friends at school
with divorced parents have 'em. I love this body, I love your
food and sports and sex and wine. I fit in better here than on
Chysa."
Cruger wondered about the implications of devils enjoying
themselves on Earth. Not like a duck out of water at all, he
thought. The fact that she fit in so perfectly was frightening.
She read his mind. "Right, you aren't just a bunch of angels
here, you know."
"And to think you haven't even been to Las Vegas or Manhattan or
Bangkok; I think you would love it most of those places," he
said.
For a moment she looked almost overwhelmed, as if she were
finally imagining her life away from Earth. Her large eyes
focused directly on Cruger's. "No, I really can't kill you," she
said. "Though you tempt me. What you're doing is important and
we have this policy of minimal homicidal intervention with
humans. It especially goes for you, since you're important to
the future of the universe and that stuff. If I mess with you
too much, I might cause a Big Enigma."
"What do you mean, Big Enigma?"
Sky laughed. "You know how the Big Bang starts a universe? Well
the Big Enigma is a condition where all of the strings existence
conditions cannot be resolved. Everything cranks to a halt. The
solution set for all universal planar coordinates would become
zero. Consciousness would be static, and we're stuck forever.
Major bogus deal, huh?"
Cruger thought about the implications. he wondered if he flirted
with the Big Enigma every time he spun. And people had been
worried about nuclear weapons and the greenhouse effect, he
thought.
"We need to continue the game. There's no game if we don't have
players on both sides, right? Go ahead, do what you have to do.
Go." Her words were matter of fact. She had decided what to do
and luckily it left him alive.
She turned around and said one more thing: "And you know, I'm
not the one you're really looking for."
Unfortunately, Cruger knew -- he was now certain. Sky was
telling the truth.
She walked away, leaving him to think about that.
In ten minutes Cruger was home and walked next door to see if
Harris was there. No luck. Corrina was at work. Thank God. He
walked back from Harris's house feeling somehow encapsulated as
if a fine magical lore surrounded him and the pavement were
undulant and insubstantial. The space in which he moved seemed
crystalline and empty; what he felt was horror and relief, all
rolled into a tight rock that somehow fit into his gut.
Cruger felt guilty from the start, but he figured he had to do
it. He decided to tail her because, what the heck, he was
running out of ideas. And he still remembered that his future
self hadn't been wearing a wedding ring.
She drove to a nearby shopping mall with a small medical center
that Cruger had often seen, but never been to. He saw that there
must be some mistake. It wasn't the doctor's office -- at least
not the right kind of doctor.
Cruger walked into the waiting room after he saw her, through
the half-closed blinds, get up and walk past a large ornate
wooden door, into what Cruger presumed were the doctor's inner
offices.
He gently walked into the waiting room, happy to see no one was
around -- even the receptionist was gone from her counter next
to the ornate wooden door. Cruger skulked up to the receptionist
area, looked into the appointment book, and read her name, clear
as day, even upside-down, written in the book.
Then he got out fast, his heart beating faster than ever, palms
cold and sweaty, legs threatening to sink him to the ground.
Damn, I knew it ... I knew it, he told himself. When he made it
to his car, he just sat there for a while, shaking, waiting for
the ability to drive to return so he could get the hell out of
there.
Chapter 35
------------
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the
rest. -- Mark Twain
Cruger called Tony's office -- they still called it that -- and
Harris answered. He didn't tell Harris anything except that he'd
be there in a few minutes.
Cruger tried to act cool, natural. Harris showed Cruger how the
database of strings was laid out. The concept of digital
representation of every event and person known was staggering.
"Isn't it impossible to have this much information stored on a
small computer?" Cruger said.
"Yes, but it's not stored here. This is just God's front end.
Inside there's that glob of Tvonen technology that seems to be
doing most of the work."
"How close are you to finishing the whole project?"
"Pretty close. I think I can issue any command from here, but I
still haven't run the caretaker program."
Cruger looked puzzled.
"The two of us can't control the whole show -- I mean, even if
we do end up being God, we're still only human," Harris said.
"The caretaker will make sure everything runs smoothly, and will
keep threads from tangling. We'll still be able to issue
commands and guide the process, but it'll do most of the dirty
work."
Cruger nodded, let Harris' words sink in, and then spoke.
"I need you to make some deletions for me."
Harris looked astonished. "Delete people? Why?"
"I've found out who the Chysans are -- the aliens who are
working for the Other Company."
"Who?"
Cruger ignored the question. "Pull up the deletion program," he
asked. Harris nodded and brought up the routine.
"First, Theodore Natassi from Denver, Colorado."
Harris typed the name in, cross-listed with Cruger's thread.
"No entry. Who is this guy, and what kind of contact have you
had with him?"
"I think he's near the top of the Other Company. I've never met
him."
"Well," Harris said, "this won't work unless your string
intersects with his. How about someone else first, someone whose
string crosses his and yours?"
"Easy. Lyle Neswick."
Harris' face filled with disbelief.
"Neswick? No way, man. Neswick can't be Chysan. That would mean
that Tamara--"
"--is one of them, Leon. They've got to be deleted."
"No way," Harris repeated. "No way. I can't believe that
Tamara--"
"I saw her with Sky and Neswick. They're working together... Sky
admitted it to me."
"She was lying!"
Cruger shook his head. "She wasn't lying. I know -- I saw her
change shape. She's Chysan."
Harris swiveled around in his chair. "I can't believe it.
Tamara? It can't be true."
Cruger grabbed the computer's keyboard and typed Neswick's name.
Harris swiveled and grabbed it back, but Cruger managed to make
a final slap at the return key.
"If you delete him, she goes, too!" he said. "He's her father!
If he never existed, neither did she!"
"He's not her father! And now It's done, isn't it?" Cruger
asked.
Harris let out an angry laugh. "No, it's not done." He pointed
at the monitor.
Are you sure you want to delete this person?
Cruger tried to grab the keyboard back from Harris, but the
athletic programmer shoved him away.
"They're all working for the Other Company!" Cruger yelled.
"Neswick, Tamara, Sky... and Corrina." Cruger said.
"Corrina?"
"Never pregnant. Never an Earth woman. I suspected something was
weird with the first 'miscarriage'. I never went to a doctor
with her. Turns out she always went to shrinks instead of
OB/GYNs."
"Holy shit," Harris said.
"Yep, holy shit.!" shouted Cruger. "Makes sense now, though. Why
the hell else was I picked for the Company? Why did Tony come to
me? I suppose it was my job because of who my wife was. My wife,
a long- time agent from Chysa!"
Harris stared at Cruger in disbelief. Cruger stood for a moment,
then slumped into a chair. They both sat for a while, just
looking at the small computer and its screen sitting on the desk
in the stuffy room. The screen still asked, "Are you sure you
want to delete this person?"
"Let me tell you the story. Maybe it'll make it easier for you,"
Cruger said. "Sky was living with foster parents. She had been
sent there at the supposed age of fifteen. No records exist for
her whereabouts before that point in time. Also, she was pretty
handy in computer class at school. She had been doing some
extracurricular work there. Doing the code for Corrina -- that
murderous code. Before that, she had been keeping tabs on Tony."
"So they infiltrated the Company pretty well. How did they do
it?"
"I'm not sure. The only thing we can be sure of is that there
are more of them that we don't know about."
"Thank you," Harris said, "a very comforting thought."
Cruger continued. "Seems that Sky was having some real
adjustment problems to life here. She was referred to a
psychiatrist by the High School guidance counselor. Probably
same shrink Corrina originally went to. She stopped going a few
weeks ago, the records say. I got the name of the doctor from
the school counselor but I can't find that doctor listed
anywhere. Gone."
"That's suspicious, but a lot of things are suspicious."
"Another suspicious thing was that Sky, Tamara, and Neswick all
knew each other very well. I followed Sky over to Neswick's
place once. Then the three of them were all together over there,
enacting the words Menage a troi."
"Neswick and Tamara, that's disgusting," Harris said. His voice,
charged, higher than usual, rang of hurt.
"Come on, he was no more related to her than you were. That was
all an act." Realizing that Harris may have been more attached
to Tamara than he had guessed, said, "Sorry if this hurts --
but, it has to be done. We've got to delete them all."
"Don't worry about it. I wasn't going to ask her to marry me.
But I was dumb enough to get pretty involved with her. You know,
agents of Beelzebub make pretty good girlfriends. She did
everything to make me happy: had her own money, loved sex, loved
computers, and never had to visit her mom or go to
confessional."
"Sounds pretty good. Can't blame you for biting the hook,"
Cruger said. "I did."
"Yeah," Harris said, picking up the keyboard. "Let's get this
over with."
"Don't do it," said a muffled voice from behind them. Nobody had
come in the door, but someone was there. They both turned to see
who it was.
Standing in the corner was a huge figure in a silver spacesuit.
"My name," the figure said, "is Natassi."
Chapter 36
------------
That was when Cruger put it all together -- the mystery man in
the house in Denver.
"The devil himself, huh?" he said.
Natassi turned to Cruger. "That's what Uraken and the rest of
the Company would call me, yes. And it seems that you've taken
the biblical allusions to heart -- you're working for God, on a
mission against Satan."
"More or less," Cruger said. "Satan was a fallen angel, right? I
guess that makes you an outcast Tvonen."
"Very true." The figure stepped forward, the floor creaking with
his weight. Harris stood up suddenly but Natassi raised his
hand, signalling him to stop. "I'm not the evil creature they
would have you believe I am. I worked for the Company; I helped
form it before humans had domesticated a beast -- before Uraken
was born. And I was thrown out -- not because I was promoting
evil, but because I was promoting free will."
"What?" said Harris.
The figure shifted its weight and the silver suit hissed, making
it seem as if Natassi were sighing. "Do you know how the
universe works, Mr. Harris?" Natassi asked. "As it currently
stands, spinners guide the threads of the universe
subconsciously, with their art. It's an organic method, one that
allows for a great deal of... spontaneity. It's as close to free
will as anyone can get.
"But the goal of the Company is omnipotence. The Unified Theorem
is the ultimate application of that design. With your computer,
you'll be able to run everything -- anything. Total control."
"So you're saying you're a good guy looking out for the little
people?" Cruger said incredulously. "I'm supposed to believe
that?"
"What about you?" Harris spoke up. "How does killing people work
into this plan of yours?"
This time, Natassi may have sighed. "We take what help we can
get. Chysans are independent by nature: they despise authority
and control, and hence the goals of the Company. Chysans enjoy
as much violence and killing as they can find. We've tried to
keep the Unified Theorem as far away from completion as
possible. Tony was close, and he would have implemented the
program the second it was ready. We killed him."
"And now you're going to kill us?" Harris asked, trying to guess
how long it would take to quit out of the deletion routine and
launch the caretaker program. "Where are your Chysan thugs?"
"They aren't here," Natassi said. "And they won't be. It seems
that this meeting is the best we can hope to do. We're at the
last moment of free will, and I'm here to make my last request."
"Which is?"
Natassi stepped forward. "Stop the Company!" he hissed. "Make it
so there are no more spinners -- so that those blue glows
disappear forever! Then have the computer delete itself. Let the
universe be on its own, to do whatever it wants."
"Total chaos," Harris said. "Sounds like something the devil
would advocate."
Harris pressed down on the key combination that took him out of
the deletion routine, back to the main menu. The computer screen
flashed briefly.
"Don't start it!" Nattasi said, his voice rising. "Uraken's like
almost every other Tvonen -- he wants total control. You're
giving it to him! The Tvonen will rule the universe. Take it
from me. You don't want to see an omnipotent Tvonen."
Cruger looked at Harris. Cruger thought about Corrina, and about
what the alien in front of him represented. Then he nodded at
his partner, who tapped a few keys.
The disk drive whirred briefly; the program ran.
There was a God.
The alien began to fade away with an effect that looked more
like smoke dissipating in a breeze than the Star Trek sparkles
Cruger had expected to see.
"The Chysans won't be happy," Natassi whispered as he vanished.
"I hope you can live with your decision."
A little while later the menu bar of the computer's screen
flashed. The flash was followed by a gentle chiming sound effect
that snapped the two men into a state of alertness.
"I don't believe it," said Harris. "We got a message off the
network. Someone, something on the other end of that cable
finally contacted us."
"Are you sure?"
"Damned sure. The only way we get this alert message is an
incoming network packet."
The message, displayed across the screen in large italic type,
was short and simple:
Congratulations on a job very well done. You're both on your own
now. You're in charge. Congratulations on your promotions.
--Uraken
Cruger looked at Harris who returned the look. Cruger's mouth
was open. His eyes were blank and his mouth then twitched as if
either to begin talking or drooling.
"Congratulations?" Harris said.
Cruger composed himself a little. "Uraken?"
"What really gets me is the 'You're on your own' part. What do
you think?"
"I think we're in charge now," Cruger said. "Which means that
the people who are running the universe aren't Tvonens after
all."
"The people who are running the universe..."
They stood there, less Godlike than anyone would ever have
imagined, balancing their suddenly weak bodies on the feet of
men who had just finished a marathon. "Congratulations" was the
word that stuck with Cruger.
Cruger turned to Harris. "Congrats," he said, not sounding
jubilant. "I think I'm going to go home and tell Corrina to get
her ass back to Chysa."
"I'm thinking..." Harris said, letting the last word trail off
into nothingness.
"Of what?"
"Nothing much. A programming project I did in college is coming
back to me -- a random number generator. I'm thinking about
writing a new one."
Epilogue
----------
It was Thursday night and Cruger was playing his regular sets of
solo guitar at the Cafe Emerson. It had been two months since he
had become co-keeper of the universe, two months since he'd went
home to find Corrina already gone.
His guitar chops felt good, but remembering Corrina brought him
down. It takes a while to get over losing someone you loved,
even if they aren't what they appear.
When two guys came up to him and shot him through the head, he
wasn't even surprised. Spinners were being attacked all over by
Chysans unhappy with the dissolution of the Other Company. They
evidently didn't understand what "insurance" was.
So Harris's employee safety program kicked in immediately and
Cruger was alive again, the bullets back in the thirty-eight,
and two assailants erased forever. The only person in the Cafe
that even knew something had happened was Cruger. Within a few
seconds, he was able to take a deep breath and put it out of his
mind.
Cruger said a silent thank-you to Harris, made a mental note to
remember to thank him in person at the office in the morning,
and decided to do one more tune before ending the set.
He played Someone To Watch Over Me with a wry smile stretched
across his face. It was an excellent rendition, of course --
probably the best any of the people in the bar had heard. Even
the mistakes Cruger made -- and there were a few-- just added to
the feeling and humanity of the performance.
An a unique performance it was. After all, most people did the
song as a ballad. But not Cruger -- he played it fairly
up-tempo.
After all, if you can't set your own tempo, then who are you,
anyway?
Jeff Zias (ZIAS1@AppleLink.apple.com)
----------------------------------------
Jeff Zias 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.
FYI
=====
Back Issues of InterText
--------------------------
Back issues of InterText can be found via anonymous FTP at:
> ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/InterText/
and
> ftp://network.ucsd.edu/intertext/
You may request back issues from us directly, but we must handle
such requests manually, a time-consuming process.
On the World-Wide Web, point your WWW browser to:
> http://www.etext.org/Zines/InterText/
If you have CompuServe, you can read InterText in the Electronic
Frontier Foundation Forum, accessible by typing GO EFFSIG. We're
located in the "Zines from the Net" section of the EFFSIG forum.
On GEnie, we're located in the file area of SFRT3, the Science
Fiction and Fantasy Roundtable.
On America Online, issues are available in Keyword: PDA, in
Palmtop Paperbacks/Electronic Articles & Newsletters.
Gopher Users: find our issues at
> ftp.etext.org in /pub/Zines/InterText
....................................................................
Don't take any wooden magnets!
..
This issue is wrapped as a setext. For more information send
email with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the Subject:
line to <fileserver@tidbits.com>, or contact the InterText staff
directly.