{"id":13566,"date":"2022-01-06T13:13:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T21:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/?p=13566"},"modified":"2022-01-06T13:24:02","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T21:24:02","slug":"everything-is-everything-sf-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/06\/everything-is-everything-sf-story\/","title":{"rendered":"“Everything Is Everything.” SF Story."},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s the January, 2022, version of a story I’ve been revising off and on for a couple of years.\u00a0 I think this version is pretty tight and funny.\u00a0 I published an early version of it in the zine Big Echo<\/em> back in October, 2020. And that would\u00a0 make it hard to publish the new version on in a zine, so I’m posting it here.\u00a0 And I have some hopes that this story may yet work as a chapter of a new novel.<\/p>\n

The story’s a little long for a blog post, so I broke it into three parts with links to the parts—in case you want to read it in separate sessions.<\/p>\n

\n

Everything Is Everything,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>by Rudy Rucker
\n 1. Vi<\/a>
\n 2. Wick<\/a>
\n 3. Vi<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

1. Vi<\/h3>\n

Vi\u2019s husband Wick has always been a good napper. He announces one, settles in, and a minute later he\u2019s gone. Vi neither admires nor belittles the behavior\u2014it\u2019s just an aspect of how Wick is. But, okay, maybe his napping makes him seem lazy. Like a dog. Vi prefers to stay awake and keep an eye on things.<\/p>\n

Wick and Vi are spending an August weekday afternoon on Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz. It\u2019s windy. Wick is half an hour into his nap. As soon as they arrive, he made a shelter by opening their beach umbrella, laying it on its side, and wedging the umbrella\u2019s edge into the sand.<\/p>\n

Vi walks down the beach to the lighthouse and back. The wind is strong enough that it\u2019s the main thing she thinks about. Usually at the beach she thinks about the shapes of the waves, about where the pelicans are flying to, and about the possibility of sighting seals, dolphins, or whales. Also she likes to recall the bygone days she spent on this beach with the kids when they were in high school. Damn<\/em> the wind.<\/p>\n

Vi sits down beside the inert Wick. As far as Vi is concerned, the umbrella isn\u2019t a wind break, not with her sitting on her beach chair. Her hair whips at her eyes. Her book pages flutter savagely.<\/p>\n

\u201cWick.\u201d\u009d Silence. \u201cWake up, Wick. We have to move.\u201d\u009d Silence. \u201cWick!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

He makes a low noise. Moves his arm. He\u2019s quick to sleep, and quick to wake. Maybe quick isn\u2019t the right word.<\/p>\n

. \u201cI was in a dream,\u201d\u009d mutters Wick. \u201cI heard your voice. I thought it was part of the dream.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cFraid not,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cI\u2019m real. The wife<\/em>. We have to move closer to the bluff. Or drive downtown.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cLie flat on the ground like me. Next to the umbrella. And put a towel over your head.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Grunting with every motion, Wick sits up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI dreamed I was in the \u00a0seminar room on the top floor of Cal Berkeley math building,\u201d\u009d he says. \u201cWhere they have these classic math models on shelves, things made of balsa wood or glass or plaster or strings stretched between pins. Not exactly<\/em> that room because it\u2019s my dream. And I keep trying to understand what they\u2019re talking about in the seminar.\u201d\u009d Wick pauses, then presses on. \u201cThey weird thing is that I keep going back to this same dream.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cMath seminar<\/em>?\u201d\u009d says Vi, fastening on that. She giggles. Wick\u2019s thoughts amuse her. \u201cWhy not a wild party? Or flying in the clouds? Or sex? Why not let your dreams be fun?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Wick rises to his feet. He\u2019s out of sorts. \u201cThe seminar would<\/em> be fun if I could understand it. The speaker\u2014well, the speaker is an alien.\u201d\u009d Wick snugs his straw hat down onto his head as far as it will go. Peers up and down the beach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe seminar speaker has a whole lot of faces,\u201d\u009d Wick tells Vi. \u201cHer name is Ma\u2019al. She\u2019s like a sea anemone with a head on the tip of each feeler? And the heads are telling riddles. All of them talking at once.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cRiddles about what?\u201d\u009d asks Vi, intrigued despite herself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the riddles are from math. Like: Can you untangle Alexander\u2019s Horned Sphere? Is Conway space larger than the class of all ordinal numbers?\u00a0 What\u2019s the square root of alef-one? Never mind. There were some children\u2019s riddles too. Why is the Sun like a loaf of bread?<\/em>\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou used to tell that one to the kids,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cIt<\/em> rises in the yeast, and it dies in the vest!<\/em>\u201d\u009d She pats her stomach the way Wick always does after he tells that joke. \u201cYou got it from your father, right?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Wick nods. \u201cYes. In fact I saw Pop\u2019s head on one of the anemone\u2019s arms just now, and Pop was the one asking that riddle. So is Pop the Sun, and my dream is a loaf of bread? Or I\u2019m the son of the Sun and I bred the bread to make a Conway space sandwich?\u201d\u009d Wick shakes his head. \u201cProbably I\u2019m imagining the part about Pop. But the math is real.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re saying that every time you nap you have this dream?\u201d\u009d asks Vi, beginning to feel uneasy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt started last week. I didn\u2019t want to tell you. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s really a dream. I have a feeling they\u2019re homing in on me because of my papers about Conway space.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey<\/em>?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe anemone and her friends in the seminar room. It\u2019s a place in Conway space\u2014named after John Horton Conway, who formalized the mathematics of our world\u2019s space-time-scale plenum. Absolutely continuous above and below. You\u2019ve heard me talk about it a million times.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cYadda yadda,\u201d\u009d says Vi.\u00a0 \u201cTell me more about the weird aliens.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey welcome me,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cI\u2019m, like, a beacon for them. A couple of, ah, plenum scouts<\/em> might visit. I\u2019ve been talking to them.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cStop this, Wick. It\u2019s not funny. You\u2019re going too far.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to be funny<\/em>. I\u2019ve been dreaming the seminar room for days and days. Doesn\u2019t that prove something?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo. I say you had the stupid dream for the very first time just now. I say you\u2019re imagining<\/em> you had it before. A fake deja vu. A Wick glitch. Not a conversation with Conwy space aliens. Come on now, Wick.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

He haves a sigh and gives Vi a loose hug. \u201cI\u2019m glad you\u2019re here. You\u2019re probably right. Thank you for living with me.\u201d\u009d He hoists his pack onto his back. Folds up the umbrella. \u201cSo\u2014screw the beach? We go downtown?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst let\u2019s sit on the bluff,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cIt\u2019s such a pretty day. Let\u2019s not waste it on being crazy.\u201d\u009d They start across the sand toward the stairs on the cliff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was almost there,\u201d\u009d mutters Wick after a bit, turning rebellious. \u201cI only needed a little more nap.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy do we even come to the beach if all you want to do is nap?\u201d\u009d snaps Vi.<\/p>\n

\u201cA beach nap has twice the value of a couch nap,\u201d\u009d intones Wick. This is one of his pet sayings. Vi can tell he\u2019s trying to be jocular now, trying to recover lost ground. He raises his finger like a wag offering a quatrain. \u201cI feast on ocean roar \/ Old dreamer in the sand \/ My skull transmits the sun \/ My canny brain grows tan.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like napping is your religion,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cA religion for dogs.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Oh yeah?\u201d\u009d goes Wick. \u201cJust wait till those plenum scouts bring me my magic egg.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Vi doesn\u2019t bother to answer. It\u2019s too ridiculous. They trudge along in companionable silence. They\u2019re used to each other.<\/p>\n

Seabright Beach is half a mile long and nearly a hundred yards wide. Vi was hardly able to believe her good fortune when first she saw it, thirty years ago. Wick had landed a job as a math prof at San Jose State. And Vi had a gig as a research librarian at Stanford\u2014with a fatter salary than Wick\u2019s. They had good careers, and they retired last year. And Wick is still writing papers about Conway space. And now he\u2019s dreaming about it. Losing his shit.<\/p>\n

Mounting the stairs, Vi admires the succulent, flowering ice plants on the bluff. Some wasps are feeding on a dead rat, the insects very elegant with their striped abdomens, like fashionistas at a low-down dive.<\/p>\n

At the top of the bluff, Wick and Vi stash their stuff in Vi\u2019s car, which is parked on a lane that runs along the edge of the cliff, with a sidewalk and a railing on the ocean side. They sit on a bench beside the car, enjoying the horizon, the wrinkled sea, the little sails.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see?\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cPerfect day.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beach never disappoints,\u201d\u009d agrees Wick. After a bit, his head droops and he slips back into his nap. Like a dog licking his balls, thinks Vi, exasperated with her husband. But she lets him doze.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Her mind drifts peacefully\u2014but then here comes a new problem. A man and woman parallel-park their white Mercedes in the space ahead of Wick\u2019s and Vi\u2019s car. The couple sits there with their windows open, looking at their phones, ignoring the view. They\u2019ve left their engine running. Boring, unnecessary noise. Vi hates that. And the fumes. She elbows Wick.<\/p>\n

He snorts, snaps awake, and peers at the Mercedes\u2014on high alert.<\/p>\n

\u201cHear the engine?\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cThey\u2019re entitled pricks.\u201d\u009d This\u00a0 is a phrase Wick and Vi use. You need it a lot in the Bay Area these days. EPs for short.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was talking to my seminar crowd just now,\u201d\u009d Wick tells Vi.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell the entitled pricks to turn off their engine,\u201d\u009d says Vi, bearing down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re the Conway space scouts!\u201d\u009d exclaims Wick. \u201cWith my special egg.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want that engine noise off<\/em>,\u201d\u009d repeats Vi. \u201cYou\u2019re not hearing me.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI do,\u201d\u009d he says. \u201cBut I\u2019m shy about talking to the scouts.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cShy?\u201d\u009d cries Vi. \u201cA brick shy of a full load! I\u2019ll do it myself.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Vi marches over to the Mercedes. The blonde woman passenger is turned slightly away from the window, looking down at her phone. The screen shows something like a super-intricate tribal tattoo.<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s hair is a mussed bed-head do. Vi can see the curve of her cheek, but not the corner of her mouth, nor the tip of her nose. The woman must know Vi is here, but she shows zero sign of noticing her. EP that she is.<\/p>\n

Vi walks to the other side of the car and glares at the driver. His strong, tan arm rests on the frame of the open window. Naturally he wears a chunky, oversized gold watch.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey!\u201d\u009d says Vi, a little louder than polite. The driver turns toward her.<\/p>\n

Instead of a face, he has a smooth, undulating patch of skin that follows the contours of his skull. As if his features have been sanded away\u2014with a supple sheet of human leather laminated over the holes.<\/p>\n

Vi hears a throaty giggle from the EP woman next to the guy. The woman has, Vi now realizes, a face like the man\u2019s: a Zen garden of blank mounds and blind hollows, framed by her ratty blonde do.<\/p>\n

Vi\u2019s stomach turns; she tastes acid in her throat. The mannequin-like EPs have their heads cocked at snotty, confrontational angles. And now the mouthless man speaks. He\u2019s humming from his throat, vibrating his skin.<\/p>\n

\u201cTake the magic egg, Vi.\u201d\u009d His voice is a damp flutter. \u201cIn the back.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

With a machined thunk, the trunk of the idling white Mercedes pops open.<\/p>\n

The EP woman is throat singing too, but not in words. Her grainy croon rises and falls. The EP man yodels a warped, screwed recitative\u2014too fast to understand. Like a magic spell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWick!\u201d\u009d calls Vi.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Finally in action, Wick is out of their car. He makes his way to the rear of the Mercedes and reaches into the trunk.<\/p>\n

\u201cScore!\u201d\u009d he calls to Vi, holding up a leathery little ball like a turtle egg.<\/p>\n

Vi runs to their car and throws herself into the driver\u2019s seat. Clumsy with panic, she presses the gas too hard, and she rear-ends the Mercedes. As if weightless, the vehicle skitters forward, hops the railing, coasts outward, and hangs in the air, thirty yards beyond the edge of the cliff. It\u2019s not really a car.<\/p>\n

The Mercedes-thing swathes itself in translucent shells of colored light. It makes a sound like neon bacon in an X-ray pan. The faceless man and woman stick their arms out the side windows. Their fingers grow and branch, silhouetted against the sky and sea, with the twig-tips sputtering black sparks. The vehicle expands like a trick reflection from a concave mirror..<\/p>\n

As the phantom passes through Vi\u2019s body she feels a sense of\u2014exhilaration. Like an ozone gasp of Alpine air.<\/p>\n

\u201cA taste of the raw Conway space plenum,\u201d\u009d babbles Wick, who feels it too. \u201cThe primeval quintessence. Absolute infinity, unmodified. Foof<\/em>!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

The tingly sensation fades, along with any vestige of the alien craft. Vi is alone with Wick in her car. Time to go home. She sets the car into motion, and finds her way to Ocean Street\u2014which injects them into Route 17, bound for their house in Los Perros.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo what happened?\u201d\u009d Vi asks Wick.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s because I finally understood the math seminar,\u201d\u009d says Wick, quietly exultant. \u201cWe found a cascade of diffeomorphisms that maps from there to here.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me an answer with no math.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a beacon. I glow. The plenum scouts came to me. Riding that Mercedes like a UFO with my magic egg in the trunk.\u201d\u009d Wick keeps shifting the little ball from one hand to the other, as if weighing it. \u201cNot literally an egg, I hope. More like a capsule is what I\u2019m thinking. With special stuff in it. They call it smeel. And once it gets out\u2014\u201d\u009d Wick\u2019s voice trails off.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a horrible,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cA nightmare.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cA dream come true,\u201d\u009d says Wick.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

2. Wick<\/h3>\n

Despite his show of bravado, Wick is afraid. The ball from the aliens has an adhesive quality against his palms. Like a barnacle wanting to settle onto a rock. Like a leech that\u2019s ready to dig in.<\/p>\n

He isn\u2019t fully clear what the smeel is supposed to do. Surely Ma\u2019al the anemone and the scouts explained this at the seminar\u2014but it\u2019s hazy. Something to do with the scale axis.<\/p>\n

According to Wick\u2019s papers, physical space is a transfinite, absolutely continuous Conway space, a plenum extending through every size level. Very few read Conway\u2019s seminal On Numbers and Games<\/em>, some read Donald Knuth\u2019s Surreal Numbers<\/em>, and nobody reads Wick. Such is the fate
\nof genius.<\/p>\n

But now, yes, someone does care about his work! Off in some bizarre cranny of Conway space, Ma\u2019al the alien anemone sensed Wick\u2019s thoughts and dreams. And with mad recklessness, Wick has guided the space scouts here. Did they make some kind of deal?<\/p>\n

Anxious Wick feels an overwhelming need for a session of deep meditation\u2014what Vi would call a nap. But he doesn\u2019t dare annoy her more than he already has. Nor, as a matter of fact, does he want to take the risk that the leathery ball\u2019s tissues might, say, grow all over the surface of his body and transform him into a paralyzed stash of living food.<\/p>\n

And so, during the half hour drive to Los Perros, Wick fills the car with what he imagines is cheerful chatter about his philosophy of the absolute scale-free continuum. It doesn\u2019t go over.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut that sick egg on the charcoal grill and torch it,\u201d\u009d says Vi as they pull into their driveway.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo!\u201d\u009d cries Wick. \u201cHow can you say that?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Their house is on a slope, with a carport and a guest room beneath the main house and its deck. Beside the carport, amid straggling bamboo, \u00a0a small chicken coop houses a cock and a hen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWrap the egg in newspaper,\u201d\u009d instructs Vi as she kills her car\u2019s engine. \u201cDrench it in charcoal lighter. Ftoom<\/em>! I mean it.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s valuable,\u201d\u009d protests Wick, keeping the egg out of her reach. \u201cFull of smeel. I\u2019ll let our chickens watch over it.\u201d\u009d His lips feel numb and his voice sounds quacky. His body feels overly tuned. Maybe some of that smeel is seeping through the egg\u2019s rubbery shell.<\/p>\n

Moving fast, Wick goes into the chicken coop and \u00a0nestles his wondrous egg on a clump of dirty straw. The cock and the hen don\u2019t like it. They squawk and flap; they scratch compulsively at the dirt.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re hopeless,\u201d\u009d says Vi, nearly in tears. She stumps up the front steps to their house\u2019s main door. Slam<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Wick takes the downstairs door into the guest room, flops onto the bed, and falls instantly asleep. He\u2019s back in the seminar room. Break time. The semi-familiar figures are chatting. All along he\u2019s been thinking of them as lumpy, shaggy mathematicians. But none of their shapes is right. They\u2019re not humans at all. Funny he hadn\u2019t noticed this before.<\/p>\n

The massive, purplish-green anemone named Ma\u2019al squats against a wall, feeding on a large smoked salmon, that is, the faces at the tips of the anemone\u2019s feelers are nibbling at the pink flesh. Wick\u2019s father\u2019s face isn\u2019t there anymore.<\/p>\n

Maybe the food isn\u2019t salmon. Maybe it\u2019s Pop\u2019s body. Like Jesus? Dies in the vest<\/em>. Wick and Pop argued the week before Pop died\u2014and Wick still feels bad about it. He peers at the salmon that might be Pop\u2019s corpse.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u201cA treat to your taste?\u201d\u009d says the faceless and deeply tanned entitled prick from the Mercedes. The plenum scout, with his partner at his side. Him with his gold retro watch, her with the expensive bedhead do. Wick wonders what they really look like. Or if that question makes sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe egg you gave us,\u201d\u009d begins Wick. \u201cYou say it\u2019s full of smeel. But I can\u2019t remember what smeel does.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlways happens when we make deals with low rezzers like you,\u201d\u009d rasps the woman. As before, her face vibrates the sounds. \u201cYou goobs wave with it when you\u2019re on the dark dream. But when you come down, you\u2019re jaggy and lost. Voxelated. No flow. Mental gaps. Empty Dedekind cuts.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cSmeel lets you control size scale with your eyes,\u201d\u009d interrupts the smooth-faced man. \u201cI\u2019m Qoph and she\u2019s Fonna.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Wick.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know,\u201d\u009d says Qoph. \u201cWe had this conversation before.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWick\u2019s a lightweight,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cHe\u2019ll never learn to drift.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI fully understand the scale-free nature of Conway space,\u201d\u009d insists Wick. \u201cDown past the fractions and the irrationals, past the infinitesimals, past the reciprocals of the transfinite alefs. And upwards just the same.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cA sniff of smeel, and you\u2019re at the wheel,\u201d\u009d Qoph says in an encouraging tone..<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to be,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cI\u2019d like having smeel. But what do you<\/em> want? I forget.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to settle into your and Vi\u2019s niche,\u201d\u009d said faceless Fonna, with a toss of her tousled head. \u201cQoph and I will move to your level. Imitate you. So you and Vi have to clear out. Okay?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cMore of us will come later,\u201d\u009d puts in Qoph. \u201cMa\u2019al the anemone is heavily promoting Los Perros. Thanks to your mighty mind, Wick.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Wick feels very uneasy. \u201cAnd that egg is what Vi and I get in return?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe egg\u2019s just a sample,\u201d\u009d says Fonna.\u00a0 \u201cA taste. Once we close, \u00a0you and Vi get a keg<\/em> of smeel.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cA small<\/em> keg,\u201d\u009d puts in Qoph. \u201cRound, with a handle and a nozzle. About six inches across.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cAmple supply for wandering Conway levels,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cWick and Vi sniffing out a new home! What an adventure!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a dream,\u201d\u009d says Wick, not liking this. \u201cIt\u2019s a dream and it\u2019s not true.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll be with your chickens in the coop when you wake,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cReady to move in! We\u2019ll peck open your sample egg of smeel. It\u2019s a gas, gas, gas<\/em>.\u201d\u009d She does a giggle thing in her throat.<\/p>\n

\u201cRaw smeel,\u201d\u009d adds Qoph. \u201cSlippery. Tingly. Potentiating scale transformations.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cShould our goob friends shrink or should they grow?\u201d\u009d Fonna asks Qoph, pertly cocking her head as if in thought.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig is small,\u201d\u009d observes Qoph with a shrug. \u201cSmall is big. Conway space has no standard meter. Right, Wick?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cMain thing is that Wick and Vi will be clearing out<\/em>,\u201d\u009d repeats Fonna. She glares at Wick\u2014or surely she would<\/em> be glaring, if she had a face and eyes. \u00a0\u00a0\u201cO. U. T.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is all wrong!\u201d\u009d cries Wick.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo right,\u201d\u009d says Fonna.<\/p>\n

All the creatures in the so-called seminar room are laughing at Wick. Including Ma\u2019al the anemone, waving her stalks in glee. Wick looks again at the little objects in the glass cases. Those aren\u2019t math models. Those are 3D images of houses. And this is a real estate agency.<\/p>\n

Fonna flips into a fake flirtation routine.\u00a0 She puts her arms around Wick. \u201cDon\u2019t fret, dear man,\u201d\u009d she hums. \u201cYou\u2019ll find someplace else. If you\u2019re good, I might come visit you. We could have a fling.\u201d\u009d \u00a0She moves closer, as if meaning to kiss him. But she doesn\u2019t have lips. She\u2019s a skin-covered skull with big hair.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Wick wakes with a strangled scream. Outside in the coop, the chickens are going wild. Crowing and cackling. Wick\u2019s heart sinks when he sees that an extra hen and rooster have appeared. The new chickens are going after the leathery egg. Pecking the hell out of it.<\/p>\n

The egg pops with a tiny sound, very clear, very precise, as if demarcating the end of Wick\u2019s old life.<\/p>\n

A heavy, amber gas oozes from the sagging egg.. It curls through the air like whiskey in water, an exquisite tangle of fanciful swirls. Smeel. It drifts into the guest room as if the house\u2019s wall weren\u2019t even there\u2014and enters Wick\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s near the end of the long summer day. The most gorgeous day Wick has ever known. The chickens are calm. He looks around the shabby guest room, perfect in every way, beautiful beyond imagining. He hears Vi moving around upstairs, perhaps making supper, perhaps not angry at him. Her sounds are intricate, delicate, refined. He\u2019s in paradise.<\/p>\n

Wick feels he can nudge the size scale with his eyes.\u00a0 He narrows his gaze and\u2014he’s a two-legged ant on the rumpled rug. Whoops! He widens his vision and he\u2019s \u00a0back to normal size, no, bigger than that, he\u2019s a gawky giant who hunches to fit below the low ceiling.<\/p>\n

Here comes a sharp knock on the door to the yard. Wick\u2019s smeel-rush fades, and he\u2019s his own right size. Opens the door. It\u2019s a man and a woman in business-casual summer attire, their voices \u00a0garbled. Qoph and Fonna.<\/p>\n

They have features now. Standard-issue Los Perros entitled pricks who might be tech execs or heavy-hitter realtors. And a minute ago they were the extra chickens in the coop. And before that, they were Conway space scouts in the phantom Mercedes.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re ready to wrap this up,\u201d\u009d says Qoph.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m stoked,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cMa\u2019al has been pitching your place bigtime.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Qoph holds up an amber plastic sphere with a hand-grip and a screw-capped snout. \u201cSmeel keg!\u201d\u009d he says. \u201cDo you love it? You and Vi can go scouting. \u201cLike newlyweds.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

But Fonna is frowning as she looks around. \u201cI can\u2019t believe Ma\u2019al said this place has vintage charm<\/em>,\u201d\u009d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s\u2014shoddy. Grotty. The ceiling so low.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll give it a try,\u201d\u009d says Qoph. \u201cA starter home. Gets into the Los Perros loop while we learn to blend in. Did you hear Ma\u2019al say you can model a human personality as a Baire set of cardinality alef-three, Fonna?. Fun!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Fonna is scowling. \u201cI\u2019m telling you now, if we acquire this this shitbox, we raze and rebuild.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cCan do,\u201d\u009d says the equable Qoph. \u201cReady to close, Wick? Go ahead, take the smeel keg. With that in hand, you and Vi can rove. Take a shot at being high plenum drifters.\u00a0 Hell, you can take our Mercedes if you like.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t really have<\/em> to give them all that,\u201d\u009d Fonna says to Qoph. \u201cWe could just kill them. That\u2019s what some of the scouts do.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot our style!\u201d\u009d booms Qoph. \u201cI\u2019m giving Wick his keg, you bet! And, hey Wick, I picked up on you jiggling your scale just now. You\u2019re born to be a scout, no doubt. So don\u2019t harsh the man\u2019s buzz, Fonna.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Fonna switches gears. \u201cThere\u2019s some especially nice territory if you scale down from here by a factor of -alef-two,\u201d\u009d she trills. \u201cGo homesteading among the wee!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where you\u2019ll find planet Gnab, as a matter of fact,\u201d\u009d adds Qoph. \u201cWhere Fonna and I used to live. Take your smeel keg to wriggly old Ma\u2019al, pay her a squirt, and she\u2019ll show you the way to Gnab.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s Gnab like?\u201d\u009d asks Wick, curious despite himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cMostly water, with lush islands. No cities. Maybe a little like your South Pacific atolls. There\u2019s some local humanoid Gnabbies. Fonna and I used to eat them. We were flying jellyfish there, you understand.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an easy pattern to instantiate,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cMa\u2019al can show you that too.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cSounds fun,\u201d\u009d says Wick, his voice flat. \u201cBut, um, Vi might not like it.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cBuk-buk<\/em>,\u201d\u009d squawks Fonna, \u00a0as if annoyed by Wick\u2019s hesitation. She drifts back into chicken mode and begins scratching the guest room floor with a large, clawed foot. As if hoping to turn up worms. Worms like Wick and Vi.<\/p>\n

Wick wishes this was a bad dream.\u00a0 But it\u2019s not. He\u2019s here, and it\u2019s real, and he can\u2019t wake up.<\/p>\n

Qoph\u2019s face is beginning to flow. He\u2019s remodeling himself to look like Wick. And Fonna\u2014oh god, she\u2019s changing into Vi.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes this work for you?\u201d\u009d asks Fonna, cozying up to Wick once more. \u201cAs a mating trigger? Do you want to make love?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Wick emits a sob of terror. He was a fool to have gotten himself and Vi into this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happening?\u201d\u009d calls the real Vi from upstairs.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wait here,\u201d\u009d Wick tells the Conway space scouts. \u201cI\u2019ll talk to my wife. We\u2019ll see what we can work out.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

He runs upstairs. The unwanted visitors stay downstairs, softly clucking to each other.<\/p>\n

\n

<\/a>
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

3. Vi<\/h3>\n

Giddy from the smeel, Vi is taking Wick\u2019s ideas to heart. She likes them. Space is a glittering continuum that runs up and down, from Nothing to Everything, with stars twinkling within our very bodies, the stars like plankton in the sea, like spangles on an scarf. Yes.<\/p>\n

Wick has been yelling at someone downstairs, and now he stumbles up the basement steps, carrying a six-inch ball of\u2014piss? He trips on the top step, and falls flat on his face, still clutching his ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if I sink right through the floor?\u201d\u009d says Wick, lying there. \u201cThanks to the smeel. I could dissolve.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cStand up, Wick. It\u2019s scary when old men fall.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Laboriously he gets to his feet. \u201cThe entitled pricks want to replace us, Vi. They want to move in. We\u2019re supposed to trade our lives for this keg of smeel.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I heard them,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cThe ones from the car?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cAt first they didn\u2019t have faces. Then they were chickens in our coop. And now they look like you and me. Qoph and Fonna.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cHere to live our lives?\u201d\u009d goes Vi. She half-thinks this is a joke. \u201cWhy bother. It\u2019d be a laugh to see them try and put on Christmas for our kids..\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey want to be us, and we\u2019re<\/em> supposed to move to planet Gnab,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cScaling down by a factor of alef-two. I don\u2019t want to do it, Vi. I\u2019m scared.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Vi looks out the window, thinking things over.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook,\u201d\u009d she says after a bit. \u201cIf those entitled pricks can look like us<\/em>, and if they can look like chickens<\/em>, then they can look like anything at all. They can move here, fine.\u00a0 But there\u2019s no reason they have to replace us <\/em>in particular. To hell with that. I\u2019m not moving to fafa-two or whatever it is..\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou go tell them that,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cI\u2019m not good at making deals.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cVi will fix.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you.\u201d\u009d. They go downstairs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Vi starts right in on Qoph and Fonna. \u201cYou two look like crap. Like inflatable love-dolls. Like plastic masks. Uncanny valley, guys. Nobody will go for it. People will snub you. Being Wick and Vi is harder than you think.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can do it,\u201d\u009d insists Qoph. \u201cYou\u2019re just a fractal Baire set of cardinality alef-three.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cFafa three? Ha. We\u2019re deeper than you can ever know. You should imitate something easy. More your speed.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Qoph is taken aback. Vi has him worried. \u201cWhat if\u2014what if we came here and lived as chickens?\u201d\u009d he suggests.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre you crazy<\/em>?\u201d\u009d interrupts Fonna. \u201cThe chicken coop is even worse than this shitty house.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo rude,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cFact is, you\u2019re not classy enough for our house, Fonna. Although, yes, the chickens are worse.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not gonna just up and leave,\u201d\u009d says Fonna.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe wasps<\/em>!\u201d\u009d intones Vi. She leans forward for emphasis, and stares into Fonna\u2019s bogus face. \u201cYellow jackets. The most gorgeous creatures on our globe. Shiny and lethal. Like flying motorcycles. Amazing colony scene. They have underground burrows in our patch of bamboo. Yellow jackets\u2019 bodies are striped, and their wings are iridescent. Ultra-chic.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cShow them to me,\u201d\u009d says Fonna.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll lure some to our deck,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cCome on upstairs.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

Wick brings a chunk of smoked salmon from the fridge and sets it on a saucer on the railing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s dusk, the time of day when the wasps fly back to their nests in the dirt of the bamboo patch. They notice the salmon smell right away, and five or six of them land on the pink flesh. The wasps are dainty, with elegantly curved surfaces, cool compound eyes, intricate legs, expressive antennae.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love them!\u201d\u009d exclaims Fonna.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can replace the queen of a wasp colony right now,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cThe queen\u2019s larger than the others.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about me?\u201d\u009d says Qoph.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can be a sexless drone,\u201d\u009d says Fonna, needling him. \u201cOr a male who dies after inseminating his queen.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, Qoph can be the queen of his own colony,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cGive this \u00a0scout a break. There\u2019s at least three colonies in the bamboo, Fonna. I was looking at them the other day, wondering what to do. If you guys take over, you can get order the colonies not to land on our food while we eat. Win win.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cLive in separate colonies,,\u201d\u009d muses Qoph. \u201cI like it. Fonna and I can have full-on wars instead of bickering.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cSting, sting, sting!\u201d\u009d goes Fonna, taking to the plan as well. \u201cWe\u2019ll invade other colonies and take slaves. Summary executions! Royal jelly!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cSweet,\u201d\u009d goes Qoph. His eyes play across the rickety, unpainted deck. \u201cI hope you\u2019re not disappointed, Wick and Vi. I know it would be signal honor to have us assume your roles in the Los Perros ecosystem. But your house, it\u2019s\u2014\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeneath our status,\u201d\u009d says Fonna, fully into her entitled prick mode..<\/p>\n

\u201cHow did you two ever get so snotty?\u201d\u009d asks Vi.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could ask you the same,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cJust remember: quite recently we were dreaded flying jellyfish on Gnab.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd before that we were writhing Conway space flaws,\u201d\u009d says Qoph. \u201cLike cosmic strings.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cTitanic centipedes,\u201d\u009d says Fonna. \u201cAlef-seven miles long!\u201d\u009d Briefly she pauses, coolly gazing at Wick and Vi. \u201cBut that\u2019s enough about us. Toodle-oo, low peasants.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The odd beings\u2019 bodies flex, flow, warp, and rescale. And now they\u2019re wasp queens. Vi has a fleeting urge to swat them, but surely this would end in tears.<\/p>\n

The queens rise with the other wasps, angling through the dying rays of sun, threading through the bamboo shoots to their new homes\u2014two of the underground wasp nests, larva-filled burrows in the dirt. They\u2019ll decapitate the resident queens, and begin their reigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoom for all of us,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cAs above, so below.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou and me,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u201cIn our substandard home.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd look,\u201d\u009d says Wick. \u201cThey left us our keg of smeel. Let\u2019s take a hit.\u201d\u009d He releases a puff of the dense, amber gas. Like a cosmic bong. The aethereal substance percolates through bodies, like mist through trees.<\/p>\n

Vi flops into a deck chair and stares at the railing, pushing and pulling against it with her eye-beams. Her body waxes and wanes. Wick\u2019s doing the same. Getting the hang of it..<\/p>\n

\u201cShould we should go further?\u201d\u009d asks Wick.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot yet,\u201d\u009d says Vi. \u00a0\u201cLet\u2019s be ordinary for now. Let\u2019s go inside and make love.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n

\n

Copyright (C) Rudy Rucker 2022. An early draft of this story appeared in Big Echo<\/em> in October, 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s the January, 2022, version of a story I’ve been revising off and on for a couple of years.\u00a0 I think this version is pretty tight and funny.\u00a0 I published an early version of it in the zine Big Echo back in October, 2020. And that would\u00a0 make it hard to publish the new version […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13566"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13576,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13566\/revisions\/13576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rudyrucker.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}