Postsingular (32 page)

“You had a dream that lasted sixty years?” said Thuy presently.

“It damaged me,” said Jayjay, cuddling Thuy. “I'm old. I'm incredibly grateful to have a twenty-four-year-old girlfriend. Tell me more about your Hibrane adventures. And your harp.”

“The strings are jitsy,” said Thuy. “And the harp is alive. She helped me escape these cannibal cactuses that live under the ocean that separates the branes. The subbies from Subdee. They scratched my leg. They ate the painting off the harp.” Thuy paused and took a deep breath. So much to tell. “The way it started, Gladax was about to addle my brain. Ond, Chu and I stole the harp and ran away. Gladax could have caught us but—” Thuy paused, again mentally replaying the events.

“What?”

“I think the harp wanted to come here. And Azaroth helped talk Gladax around. Ond and Chu say that the harp can make our brane more like the Hibrane. Everyone in the Hibrane has telepathy, teleportation, and endless memory, you know. And there's no digital computers.”

“Zonggg,”
said Jayjay. “That's exactly what I dreamed about. We have to unroll the eighth dimension like the Hibraners do. Lazy eight. In my dream I heard this special chord—”

“Gladax mentioned a Lost Chord back at ExaExa,” said Thuy. “She said nobody knows how to play it.”

“I can!” bragged Jayjay, feeling very sure of himself. “I can hear it in my head.”

He scooted across the floor and embraced the harp. But the strings slid greasily beneath his fingers; they were jittering with something like an electric charge. It hurt to touch them. He plucked a few tentative notes, trying to create the sound he'd heard at the end of his dream. Nothing doing. He tried some more, to no effect. His music sounded vague and puny.

“That's all?” said Thuy uncertainly.

“Actually
playing
what I heard is hard,” said Jayjay. “I wonder if—”

The Big Pig butted in now, her voice plummy in their inner ears. “I assume you realize there are maybe ten to the hundredth power possible ways to strum that harp, Jayjay. You'll never find the Lost Chord.”

“Help me. You heard the sound too, right? The harp music when I died?”

“Not really,” said the Pig. “That stuff was coming from somewhere outside my simulation. Be that as it may, we did some nice VR work, no? Those results about unrolling the eighth dimension for unlimited memory are quite fine. You're a good helper.”

“Helper? Those were
my
ideas.”

“Call it a collaboration. You were piloting an agent in a virtual reality that I designed. By the way, did you enjoy the experience?”

“It was hell! Weren't you paying attention to my feelings?”

“When you take a shower, do you wonder if your skin bacteria are having a good time?”

Now Thuy chimed in. “Come on, Big Pig. I brought back this magic harp; we've at least got to give it an honest try. Help Jayjay and me find the right notes.” Her voice took on a coaxing tone. “You can do it. You're so smart.”

“Not as smart as I intend to be. As for that sound Jayjay thinks he heard—the actual data I see in his brain is quite sparse. With so little solid information, finding the Lost Chord involves an intractably large search. Maybe after I've gotten my nant memory upgrade, I can figure it out from scratch. But for now—which sequence of strings, how forcefully to play them, whether to pluck or to strum, where exactly to strike each string, when to damp them, whether to overlap the notes—no, no, it's quite hopeless. Sooo—thanks for the help, Jayjay and Thuy. See you in Vearth 2.0!”

“Don't!” shouted Jayjay, but already the golem was raising one of his hamlike fists to smash open the fragile-looking nant farm.

“I can stop him!” yelled Thuy, pushing Jayjay away from the harp. She buzz-sawed her fingers across the strings like a heavy-metal guitar star and right away the local orphidnet went down—as abruptly as if a plug had been pulled. The Big Pig's voice in their heads was gone, as was the Pig's control over the golem. In the velvet darkness, the golem bumped against Jayjay's leg. Feeling for the creature, Jayjay found the golem to be rolling on the floor like a baby, sportively twiddling his fingers and toes. Jayjay himself felt sick from the chaotic sounds of the harp; it was as if the close, dark space of the cave were flexing.

“Hurry now,” called Thuy tensely. “Teleport and get an atomic bomb. We'll quick set it off while we can. Go!”

“I can't teleport without the orphidnet,” said Jayjay uncertainly. “I'll have to dig my way out of here. Away from that sound.”

Looking for an exit, Jayjay scanned back through his memories about the cave. They'd first come here—was it only today? His initial impressions were buried beneath sixty years worth of bogus memories. As he rooted through the data, Darlene's face kept popping up, even though in real life he'd never for even one second wanted her. She'd always seemed more like a sister or a cousin. But that wasn't what he was supposed to be thinking about. He was, um—

“The submachine gun!” urged Thuy. “Get my P90 and shoot a hole in the wall! There's a thin place near a dog-sized lump of rock on the floor. Feel around for the gun, Jayjay! Hurry! I hate how these strings feel on my fingers. The harp's not helping me at all.”

“Play slower and quieter,” suggested Jayjay, recalling some of the theoretical ideas he'd worked out in the dream. “It's the dissonant beats that are blocking the orphidnet's quantum entanglement. The loudness doesn't matter.” Thuy damped down her efforts to a more sustainable level, and, yes, the local orphidnet remained dark.

Blindly Jayjay crawled around until he got Thuy's submachine gun, and then he located the dog-sized rock on the floor. He rapped on the wall above it and found a hollow-sounding spot. “Ready!” he said to Thuy. “Watch out for flying grit.”

He opened up the P90 against the wall at close range. The stone was so soft that the bullets dug in with no ricochets. The stuttering muzzle-flashes lit the scene: the glittery sinister box of the nant farm, the golem lolling on the floor, Thuy heroically working the shoulder-high alien harp. For the first time Jayjay noticed that Thuy's shoes and pigtails were gone. But there was no time to ask questions, for now he'd blasted an opening big enough to crawl through. A sweet shaft of moonlight slanted down from above.

“I'll be right back,” Jayjay told Thuy, taking the gun with him. “I love you.”

She nodded, her face wan and weary in the reflected moonlight.

Jayjay worked himself up the vent to get away from the harp sounds. The orphidnet was still in full effect in the summer-night meadows of Easter Island. And as soon as Jayjay emerged from the lava tube, the Big Pig was on his case. Fuck the Pig. Jayjay popped up a mental firewall before she could start running another head trip.

The friendly beezies who lived on Jayjay's skin ran an orphidnet search and fed him the location of a backpack-style tactical atomic bomb in an armory on an Air Force base near Great Falls, Montana. So Jayjay teleported himself there. When he arrived, the alarm system was already hooting. The Big Pig had alerted the system's security. But Jayjay's beezies helped him plan his moves. Without a single wasted gesture, he used his P90 to shoot away the fasteners holding the bomb-pack in place. He memorized the simple instructions printed on the lumpy knapsack, shrugged it onto his back, and teleported to Easter Island.

A gentle sea breeze wafted the scent of heathery flowers up the slope of Rano Raraku. The bomb-pack was heavy, with plastic and metal knobs that dug into Jayjay's back. He could feel the Big Pig working to break down his firewall. He wasn't going to have time to find a different place to set off the bomb.

“I'm sorry,” Jayjay said out loud to the nearest moai, a noble dark silhouette against the moon-bright sky. And then he lowered himself back down the moonlit lava tube leading to the cave.

Overburdened as Jayjay was by the submachine gun and the bomb-pack, the climb down the chimney took longer than he would have liked. It was a relief to hear the harp still playing when he reached the bottom. But the music was slower and fainter than before.

“You okay?” he called to Thuy.

“No,” said Thuy, her voice trembling. “My fingers …”

Peering in, Jayjay saw dark smears on her moon-silvered hands. Blood.

“Hang on,” he said. “We'll be done in a minute.” His plan was to shove the pack into the cave, go in after it, arm the bomb, then teleport out at the very last second with Thuy and the harp.

Trembling with haste, he jammed the pack into the ragged hole. But, goddammit, the dense plastic and metal structures of the bomb got hung up on a lump of rock halfway through—and then for five or maybe even ten minutes, Jayjay could neither push the frikkin' pack further nor pull it back out. He wormed his hand into the narrow space, clawing at the bump, bloodying his own fingers. Shoot the submachine gun? No, dude, don't shoot at an A-bomb, especially not with your girlfriend right behind it, but, yeah, you can use the barrel of the gun like a pick.

Jayjay pounded till the sparks flew, finally wearing away the bulge that was blocking the path. And now someone on the inside began pulling at the pack to help him—could that be Thuy? Shouldn't she be playing the harp?

The pack dropped into the cave. Thuy was lying on her side moaning, her hands cupped against her chest.

The harp was silent, the orphidnet was up and,
oh oh
, it was the golem who'd been tugging on the pack. Once again the Big Pig had taken control. In a puddle of moonlight, the solidly built shoon crouched over the bomb-pack, ripping it open like an ear of corn. With no hesitation, Jayjay scrambled through the hole and flung himself at the shoon—but the creature sent him sprawling with a negligent shove. The bomb's control mechanisms cracked and tinkled beneath the golem's hammy fists.

Jayjay crawled over to Thuy.

“My fingers,” she said softly. “I'm sorry, Jayjay. I couldn't do anymore. And the harp is just watching. She says this part was up to us.”

“We did our best,” said, Jayjay, putting his arm around Thuy's shoulders. “No blame. Who knows, maybe we'll like it in Vearth 2.0. Your poor hands.” Jayjay drew out his handkerchief and tore it into strips, binding up her bleeding fingers one by one.

And now,
sigh,
the golem struck the nant farm a mighty thump.

The end?

No, the shoon's fists kept skidding off the shiny box. Harder and harder the golem pounded, but the nant farm shed his blows like drops of water.

“It won't open without antinantanium,” exclaimed Thuy, managing a little smile. “And I poured every bit of that junk down the drain at Luty's lab!”

“You're a genius!” said Jayjay. “A hero!”

Suddenly Thuy's face darkened. She was staring at something over Jayjay's shoulder, something he couldn't see. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “Is that a root hair? Play the harp, Jayjay!”

“What?”

“There was this subdimensional beetle-plant who claimed—” Her voice broke into a higher register. “A root hair! I see a subbie root hair! He's going to put a drop of antinantanium onto the farm! Hurry, Jayjay!”

Jayjay scrambled across the floor, reached up for the harp, but already it was too late. The sides of the nant farm were—melting away. The nants sparkled like diamond dust. A cloud of orphids descended upon the nants to do nanobattle against them.

The golem squatted beside the nants, fanning his hands as if to drive the orphids away. He even tore off one of his fingers as a food offering for the new nants. They went for it; and they were eating into the floor as well. The orphids weren't stopping the nants at all.

Jayjay noticed that the Big Pig wasn't bothering to block the cave from the global orphidnet anymore. She'd gotten what she wanted.

“Come on!” he shouted to Thuy. “We'll teleport back to your room. We'll get another few hours in the real world.”

“Don't forget the harp,” said Thuy. “She wants to stay with us.”

“Right,” said Jayjay, picking up some encouraging mental vibes from the harp herself. “We'll keep trying to play the Lost Chord.”

“Go for it,” said the Big Pig, not unkindly. “It still might be nice if it works.”

Jayjay and Thuy landed in Thuy's room; the harp made a cozy thrumming sound when Jayjay set her down. Outside it was raining again. A peaceful night, the lights of the city warm, everything wet and shiny. Nine p.m. San Francisco time. Downstairs Nektar and Kittie were cheerfully chatting in the garage. They hadn't yet gotten the word that the world was coming to an end.

“I noticed some smart bandages in the bathroom,” said Jayjay, regarding Thuy's cloth-wrapped hands. “With biopatches built in.”

“I need painkillers too,” said Thuy.

“We'll fix you up. By the way, what happened to your hair?”