Flux Tales Of Human Futures Read online

  No one but Charlie. I can't do this to Rachel, he thought. And then the THIEF

  carried him back and put him in his own mind, in his own body, on 28 October 1973,

  at ten o'clock, just as he was going to bed, weary because he had been wakened that

  morning by a six A.M. call from Brazil.

  As always, there was the moment of resistance, and then peace as his self of that

  time slipped into unconsciousness. Old Charlie took over and saw, not the past, but

  the now.

  A moment before, he was standing before a mirror, looking at his withered, hanging

  face; now he realizes that this gazing into a mirror before going to bed is a

  lifelong habit. I am Narcissus, he tells himself, an unbeautiful idolator at my own

  shrine. But now he is not unbeautiful. At twenty-two, his body still has the depth

  of young skin. His belly is soft, for he is not athletic, but still there is a

  litheness to him that he will never have again. And now the vaguely remembered needs

  that had impelled him to this find a physical basis; what had been a dim memory has

  him on fire.

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  He will not be sleeping tonight, not soon. He dresses again, finding with surprise

  the quaint print shirts that once had been in style. The wide-cuffed pants. The

  shoes with inch-and-a-half heels. Good God, I wore that! he thinks, and then wears

  it. No questions from his family; he goes quietly downstairs and out to his car. The

  garage reeks of gasoline. It is a smell as nostalgic as lilacs and candlewax.

  He still knows the way to Rachel's house, though he is surprised at the buildings

  that have not yet been built, which roads have not yet been paved, which

  intersections still don't have the lights he knows they'll have soon, should surely

  have already. He looks at his wristwatch; it must be a habit of the body he is in,

  for he hasn't worn a wristwatch in decades. The arm is tanned from Brazilian

  beaches, and it has no age spots, no purple veins drawing roadmaps under the skin.

  The time is ten-thirty. She'll doubtless be in bed.

  He almost stops himself. Few things are left in his private catalog of sin, but

  surely this is one. He looks into himself and tries to find the will to resist his

  own desire solely because its fulfillment will hurt another person. He is out of

  practice-- so far out of practice that he keeps losing track of the reason for

  resisting.

  The lights are on, and her mother-- Mrs. Carpenter, dowdy and delightful,

  scatterbrained in the most attractive way-- her mother opens the door suspiciously

  until she recognizes him. "Charlie," she cries out.

  "Is Rachel still up?"

  "Give me a minute and she will be!"

  And he waits, his stomach trembling with anticipation. I am not a virgin, he

  reminds himself, but this body does not know that. This body is alert, for it has

  not yet formed the habits of meaningless passion that Charlie knows far too well. At

  last she comes down the stairs. He hears her running on the hollow wooden steps,

  then stopping, coming slowly, denying the hurry. She turns the corner, looks at him.

  She is in her bathrobe, a faded thing that he does not remember ever having seen

  her wear. Her hair is tousled, and her eyes show that she had been asleep.

  "I didn't mean to wake you."

  "I wasn't really asleep. The first ten minutes don't count anyway."

  He smiles. Tears come to his eyes. Yes, he says silently. This is Rachel, yes. The

  narrow face; the skin so translucent that he can see into it like jade; the slender

  arms that gesture shyly, with accidental grace.

  "I couldn't wait to see you."

  "You've been home three days. I thought you'd phone."

  He smiles. In fact he will not phone her for months. But he says, "I hate the

  telephone. I want to talk to you. Can you come out for a drive?"

  "I have to ask my mother."

  "She'll say yes."

  She does say yes. She jokes and says that she trusts Charlie. And the Charlie she

  knows was trustworthy. But not me, Charlie thinks. You are putting your diamonds

  into the hands of a thief.

  "Is it cold?" Rachel asks.

  "Not in the car." And so she doesn't take a coat. It's all right. The night breeze

  isn't bad.

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  As soon as the door closes behind them, Charlie begins. He puts his arm around her

  waist. She does not pull away or take it with indifference. He has never done this

  before, because she's only fourteen, just a child, but she leans against him as they

  walk, as if she had done this a hundred times before. As always, she takes him by

  surprise.

  "I've missed you," he says.

  She smiles, and there are tears in her eyes. "I've missed you, too," she says.

  They talk of nothing. It's just as well. Charlie does not remember much about the

  trip to Brazil, does not remember anything of what he's done in the three days since

  getting back. No problem, for she seems to want to talk only of tonight. They drive

  to the Castle, and he tells her its history. He feels an irony about it as he

  explains. She, after all, is the reason he knows the history. A few years from now

  she will be part of a theater company that revives the Castle as a public

  amphitheater. But now it is falling into ruin, a monument to the old WPA, a great

  castle with turrets and benches made of native stone. It is on the property of the

  state mental hospital, and so hardly anyone knows it's there. They are alone as they

  leave the car and walk up the crumbling steps to the flagstone stage.

  She is entranced. She stands in the middle of the stage, facing the benches. He

  watches as she raises her hand, speech waiting at the verge of her lips. He

  remembers something. Yes, that is the gesture she made when she bade her nurse

  farewell in Romeo and Juliet. No, not made. Will make, rather. The gesture must

  already be in her, waiting for this stage to draw it out.

  She turns to him and smiles because the place is strange and odd and does not

  belong in Provo, but it does belong to her. She should have been born in the

  Renaissance, Charlie says softly. She hears him. He must have. spoken aloud. "You

  belong in an age when music was clean and soft and there was no makeup. No one would

  rival you then."

  She only smiles at the conceit. "I missed you," she says.

  He touches her cheek. She does not shy away. Her cheek presses into his hand, and

  he knows that she understands why he brought her here and what he means to do.

  Her breasts are perfect but small, her buttocks are boyish and slender, and the

  only hair on her body is that which tumbles onto her shoulders, that which he must

  brush out of her face to kiss her again. "I love you," she whispers. "All my life I

  love you."

  And it is exactly as he would have had it in a dream, except that the flesh is

  tangible, the ecstasy is real, and the breeze turns colder as she shyly dresses

  again. They say nothing more as he takes her home. Her mother has fallen asleep on

  the living room couch, a jumble of the Daily Herald piled around her feet. Only then

  does he remember that for her there will be a tomorrow, and on that tomorrow
Charlie

  will not call. For three months Charlie will not call, and she'll hate him.

  He tries to soften it. He tries by saying, "Some things can happen only once." It

  is the sort of thing he might then have said. But she only puts her finger on his

  lips and says, "I'll never forget." Then she turns and walks toward her mother, to

  waken her. She turns and motions for Charlie to leave, then smiles again and waves.

  He waves back and goes out of the door and drives home. He lies awake in this bed

  that feels like childhood to him, and he wishes it could have gone on forever like

  this. It should have gone on like this, he thinks. She is no child. She was no

  child, he should have thought, for THIEF was already transporting him home.

  "What's wrong, Charlie?" Jock asked.

  Charlie awoke. it had been hours since THIEF brought him back. It was the middle

  of the night, and Charlie realized that he had been crying in his sleep. "Nothing,"

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  he said.

  "You're crying, Charlie. I've never seen you cry before. "

  "Go plug into a million volts, Jock. I had a dream."

  "What dream?"

  "I destroyed her."

  "No, you didn't."

  "It was a goddamned selfish thing to do."

  "You'd do it again. But it didn't hurt her."

  "She was only fourteen."

  "No, she wasn't."

  "I'm tired. I was asleep. Leave me alone."

  "Charlie, remorse isn't your style."

  Charlie pulled the blanket over his head, feeling petulant and wondering whether

  this childish act was another proof that he was retreating into senility after all.

  "Charlie, let me tell you a bedtime story."

  "I'll erase you."

  "Once upon a time, ten years ago, an old woman named Rachel Carpenter petitioned

  for a day in her past. And it was a day with someone, and it was a day with you. So

  the routine circuits called me, as they always do when your name comes up, and I

  found her a day. She only wanted to visit, you see, only wanted to relive a good

  day. I was surprised, Charlie. I didn't know you ever had good days."

  This program had been with lock too long. It knew too well how to get under his

  skin.

  "And in fact there were no days as good as she thought," Jock continued. "Only

  anticipation and disappointment. That's all you ever gave anybody, Charlie.

  Anticipation and disappointment."

  "I can count on you."

  "This woman was in a home for the mentally incapable. And so I gave her a day.

  Only instead of a day of disappointment, or promises she knew would never be

  fulfilled, I gave her a day of answers. I gave her a night of answers, Charlie."

  "You couldn't know that I'd have you do this. You couldn't have known it ten years

  ago."

  "That's all right, Charlie. Play along with me. You're dreaming anyway, aren't

  you?"

  "And don't wake me up."

  "So an old woman went back into a young girl's body on twenty-eight October 1973,

  and the young girl never knew what had happened; so it didn't change her life, don't

  you see?"

  "It's a lie."

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  "No, it isn't. I can't lie, Charlie. You programmed me not to lie. Do you think I

  would have let you go back and harm her?"

  "She was the same. She was as I remembered her."

  "Her body was."

  "She hadn't changed. She wasn't an old woman, lock. She was a girl. She was a

  girl, jock."

  And Charlie thought of an old woman dying in an institution, surrounded by yellow

  walls and pale gray sheets and curtains. He imagined young Rachel inside that

  withered form, imprisoned in a body that would not move, trapped in a mind that

  could never again take her along her bright, mysterious trails.

  "I flashed her picture on the television," Jock said.

  And yet, Charlie thought, how is it less bearable than that beautiful boy who

  wanted so badly to do the right thing that he did it all wrong, lost his chance, and

  now is caught in the sum of all his wrong turns? I got on the road they all wanted

  to take, and I reached the top, but it wasn't where I should have gone. I'm still

  that boy. I did not have to lie when I went home to her.

  "I know you pretty well, Charlie," Jock said. "I knew that you'd be enough of a

  bastard to go back. And enough of a human being to do it right when you got there.

  She came back happy, Charlie. She came back satisfied."

  His night with a beloved child was a lie then; it wasn't young Rachel any more

  than it was young Charlie. He looked for anger inside himself but couldn't find it.

  For a dead woman had given him a gift, and taken the one he offered, and it still

  tasted sweet.

  "Time for sleep, Charlie. Go to sleep again. I just wanted you to know that

  there's no reason to feel any remorse for it. No reason to feel anything bad at all.

  Charlie pulled the covers tight around his neck, unaware that he had begun that

  habit years ago, when the strange shadowy shapes hid in his closet and only the

  blanket could keep him safe. Pulled the covers high and tight, and closed his eyes,

  and felt her hand stroke him, felt her breast and hip and thigh, and heard her voice

  as breath against his cheek.

  "0 chestnut tree," Jock said, as he had been taught to say, "...great rooted

  blossomer,

  "Are you the leaf, the blossom, or the bole?

  "0 body swayed to music, 0 brightening glance

  "How can we know the dancer from the dance?"

  The audience applauded in his mind while he slipped into sleep, and he thought it

  remarkable that they sounded genuine, He pictured them smiling and nodding at the

  show. Smiling at the girl with her hand raised so; nodding at the man who paused

  forever, then came on stage.

  DOGWALKER

  I was an innocent pedestrian. Only reason I got in this in the first place was I

  got a vertical way of thinking and Dogwalker thought I might be useful, which was

  true, and also he said I might enjoy myself, which was a prefabrication, since

  people done a lot more enjoying on me than I done on them.

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  When I say I think vertical, I mean to say I'm metaphysical, that is, simular,

  which is to say, I'm dead but my brain don't know it yet and my feet still move. I

  got popped at age nine just lying in my own bed when the goat next door shot at his

  lady and it went through the wall and into my head. Everybody went to look at them

  cause they made all the noise, so I was a quart low before anybody noticed I been

  poked.

  They packed my head with supergoo and light pipe, but they didn't know which

  neutron was supposed to butt into the next so my alchemical brain got turned from

  rust to diamond. Goo Boy. The Crystal Kid.

  From that bright electrical day I never grew another inch, anywhere. Bullet went

  nowhere near my gonadicals, just turned off the puberty switch in my head. Saint

  Paul said he was a eunuch for Jesus, but who am I a eunuch for?

  Worst thing about it is here I am near thirty and I still have to take barkeepers

  to court bef
ore they'll sell me beer. And it ain't hardly worth it even though the

  judge prints out in my favor and the barkeep has to pay costs, because my corpse is

  so little I get toxed on six ounces and pass out pissing after twelve. I'm a lousy

  drinking buddy. Besides, anybody hangs out with me looks like a pederast.

  No, I'm not trying to make you drippy-drop for me-- I'm used to it, OK? Maybe the

  homecoming queen never showed me True Love in a four-point spread, but I got this

  knack that certain people find real handy and so I always made out. I dress good and

  I ride the worm and I don't pay much income tax. Because I am the Password Man. Give

  me five minutes with anybody's curriculum vitae, which is to say their

  autopsychoscopy, and nine times out of ten I'll spit out their password and get you

  into their most nasty sticky sweet secret files. Actually it's usually more like

  three times out of ten, but that's still a lot better odds than having a computer

  spend a year trying to push out fifteen characters to make just the right P-word,

  specially since after the third wrong try they string your phone number, freeze the

  target files, and call the dongs.

  Oh, do I make you sick? A cute little boy like me, engaged in critical unspecified

  dispopulative behaviors? I may be half glass and four feet high, but I can simulate

  you better than your own mama, and the better I know you, the deeper my hooks. I not

  only know your password now, I can write a word on a paper, seal it up, and then you

  go home and change your password and then open up what I wrote and there it'll be,

  your new password, three times out of ten. I am *vertical*, and Dogwalker knowed it.

  Ten percent more supergoo and I wouldn't even be legally human, but I'm still under

  the line, which is more than I can say for a lot of people who are a hundred percent

  zoo inside their head.

  Dogwalker comes to me one day at Carolina Circlce, where I'm playing pinball

  standing on a stool. He didn't say nothing, just gave me a shove, so naturally he

  got my elbow in his balls. I get a lot of twelve-year-olds trying to shove me around

  at the arcades, so I'm used to teaching them lessons. Jack the Giant Killer. Hero of

  the fourth graders. I usually go for the stomach, only Dogwalker wasn't a

  twelve-year-old, so my elbow hit low.

  I knew the second I hit him that this wasn't no kid. I didn't know Dogwalker from

  God, but he gots the look, you know, like he been hungry before, and he don't care