Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester (28 page)

Litt.D. Frank H. Vizetelly does not use that word. It is my own because roadblock now faces me on 59th Street bridge. I should have anticipated. Should have sensed patterns, but too swept up with this inviting girl. Probably there are roadblocks on all exits leading out of this $24 island. Could drive off bridge, but maybe Bennington College has also neglected to teach Jemmy Thomas how to swim. So. Stop car. Surrender.

“Kamerad,”
I pronounce. “Who you? John Birch?”

Gentlemans say no.

“White Supremes of the World, Inc.?”

No again. I feel better. Always nasty when captured by lunatic fringers.

“U.S.S.R.?”

He stare, then speak. “Special Agent Hildebrand. FBI,” and flash his identification which no one can read in this light. I take his word and embrace him in gratitude. FBI is safe. He recoil and wonder if I am fag. I don’t care. I kiss Jemmy Thomas, and she open mouth under mine to mutter, “Admit nothing. Deny everything. I’ve got a lawyer.”

I own thirteen lawyers, and two of them can make any court tremble, but no need to call them. This will be standard cross-examination; I know from past experience. So let them haul me off to Foley Square with Jemmy. They separate us. I am taken to Inquisition Room.

Brilliant lights; the shadows arranged just so; the chairs placed just so; mirror on wall probably one-way window with observers outside; I’ve been through this so often before. The anonymous man from the subway this morning is questioning me. We exchange glances of recognition. His name is R. Sawyer. The questions come.

“Name?”

“Peter Marko.”

“Born?”

“Lee’s Hill, Virginia.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s a very small town, about thirty miles north of Roanoke. Most maps ignore it.”

“You’re Russian?”

“Half, by descent.”

“Father Russian?”

“Yes. Eugene Alexis Markolevsky.”

“Changed his name legally?”

“Shortened it when he became a citizen.”

“Mother?”

“Vera Broadhurst. English.”

“You were raised in Lee’s Hill?”

“Until ten. Then Chicago.”

“Father’s occupation?”

“Teacher.”

“Yours, financier?”

“Arbitrageur. Buying and selling money on the open market.”

“Known assets from identified bank deposits, three million dollars.”

“Only in the States. Counting overseas deposits and investments, closer to seventeen million.”

R. Sawyer shook his head, bewildered. “Marko, what the hell are you up to? I’ll level with you. At first we thought espionage, but with your kind of money— What are you broadcasting from your apartment? We can’t break the code.”

“There is no code, only randomness so I can get a little peace and some sleep.”

“Only what?”

“Random jamming. I do it in all my homes. Listen, I’ve been through this so often before, and it’s difficult for people to understand unless I explain it my own way. Will you let me try?”

“Go ahead.” Sawyer was grim. “You better make it good. We can check everything you give us.”

I take a breath. Always the same problem. The reality is so strange that I have to use simile and metaphor. But it was 4:00
A
.
M
. and maybe the jumble wouldn’t interrupt my speech for a while. “Do you like to dance?”

“What the hell …”

“Be patient. I’m trying to explain. You like to dance?”

“I used to.”

“What’s the pleasure of dancing? It’s people making rhythms together; patterns, designs, balances. Yes?”

“So?”

“And parades. Masses of men and music making patterns. Team sports, also. Action patterns. Yes?”

“Marko, if you think I’m going to—”

“Just listen, Sawyer. Here’s the point. I’m sensitive to patterns on a big scale; bigger than dancing or parades, more than the rhythms of day and night, the seasons, the glacial epochs.”

Sawyer stared. I nodded. “Oh yes, people respond to the 2/2 of the diurnal-nocturnal rhythms, the 4/4 of the seasons, the great terra-epochs. They don’t know it, but they do. That’s why they have sleep-problems, moon-madness, sun-hunger, weather-sensitivity. I respond to these local things, too, but also to gigantic patterns, influences from infinity.”

“Are you some kind of nut?”

“Certainly. Of course. I respond to the patterns of the entire galaxy, maybe universe; sight and sound; and the unseen and unheard. I’m moved by the patterns of people, individually and demo-graphically: hostility, generosity, selfishness, charity, cruelties and kindnesses, groupings and whole cultures. And I’m compelled to respond and compensate.”

“How a nut like you ever made seventeen mill— How do you compensate?”

“If a child hurts itself, the mother responds with a kiss. That’s compensation. Agreed? If a man beats a horse you beat
him
. You boo a bad fight. You cheer a good game. You’re a cop. Sawyer. Don’t the victim and murderer seek each other to fulfill their pattern?”

“Maybe in the past; not today. What’s this got to do with your broadcasts?”

“Multiply that compensation by infinity and you have me. I must kiss and kick. I’m driven. I must compensate in a pattern I can’t see or understand. Sometimes I’m compelled to do extravagant things, other times I’m forced to do insane things: talk gibberish, go to strange places, perform abominable acts, behave like a lunatic.”

“What abominable acts?”

“Fifth amendment.”

“But what about those broadcasts?”

“We’re flooded with wave emissions and particles, sometimes in patterns, sometimes garbled. I feel them all and respond to them the way a marionette jerks on strings. I try to neutralize them by jamming, so I broadcast at random to get a little peace.”

“Marko, I swear you’re crazy.”

“Yes, I am, but you won’t be able to get me committed. It’s been tried before. I’ve even tried myself. It never works. The big design won’t permit it. I don’t know why, but the big design wants me to go on as a Pi Man.”

“What the hell are you talking about? What kind of pie?”

“Not pee-eye-ee-man. Pee-eye-man. Pi. Sixteenth letter in the Greek alphabet. It’s the relation of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 3.14159+. The series goes on into infinity. It’s transcendental and can never be resolved into a finite pattern. They call extrasensory perception Psi. I call extrapattern perception Pi. All right?”

He glared at me, threw my dossier down, sighed, and slumped into a chair. That made the grouping wrong, so I had to shift. He cocked an eye at me.

“Pi Man,” I apologized.

“All right,” he said at last. “We can’t hold you.”

“They all try but they never can.”

“Who try?”

“Governments, police, counterintelligence, politicals, lunatic fringe, religious sects … They track me down, hoping they can nail me or use me. They can’t. I’m part of something much bigger. I think we all are, only I’m the first to be aware of it.”

“Are you claiming you’re a superman?”

“Good God! No! I’m a damned man … a tortured man, because some of the patterns I must adjust to are outworld rhythms like nothing we ever experience on earth … 29/51 … 108/303 … tempi like that, alien, terrifying, agony to live with.”

He took another deep breath. “Off the record, what’s this about abominable acts?”

“That’s why I can’t have friends or let myself fall in love. Sometimes the patterns turn so ugly that I have to make frightful sacrifices to restore the ‘design. I must destroy something I love.”

“This is sacrifice?”

“Isn’t it the only meaning of sacrifice, Sawyer? You give up what’s dearest to you.”

“Who to?”

“The Gods, The Fates, The Big Pattern that’s controlling me. From where? I don’t know. It’s too big a universe to comprehend, but I have to beat its tempo with my actions and reactions, emotions and senses, to make the patterns come out even, balanced in some way that I don’t understand. The pressures that

So. There is darkness and silence.

“The other arm now,” Jemmy said firmly. “Lift.”

I am on my bed, me. Thinking upheaved again. Half (H ) into pyjamas; other half (H ) being wrestled by paleface girl. I lift. She yank. Pyjamas now on, and it’s my turn to blush. They raise me prudish in Lee’s Hill.

“Pot roast done?” I ask.

“What?”

“What happened?”

“You pooped out. Keeled over. You’re not so cool.”

“How much do you know?”

“Everything. I was on the other side of that mirror thing. Mr. Sawyer had to let you go. Mr. Lundgren helped lug you up to the apartment. He thinks you’re stoned. How much should I give him?”

“Cinque lire. No. Parla Italiano, gentile signorina?”

“Are you asking me do I speak Italian? No.”

“Entschuldigen, Sie, bitte. Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”

“Is this your patterns again?”

I nod.

“Can’t you stop?”

After stopovers in Greece and Portugal, Ye Englische finally returns to me. “Can you stop breathing, Jemmy?”

“Is it like that, Peter? Truly?”

“Yes.”

“When you do something … something bad … do you know why? Do you know exactly what it is somewhere that makes you do it?”

“Sometimes yes. Other times no. All I know is that I’m compelled to respond.”

“Then you’re just the tool of the universe.”

“I think we all are. Continuum creatures. The only difference is, I’m more sensitive to the galactic patterns and respond violently. So why don’t you get the hell out of here, Jemmy Thomas?”

“I’m still stuck,” she said.

“You can’t be. Not after what you heard.”

“Yes, I am. You don’t have to marry me.”

Now the biggest hurt of all. I have to be honest. I have to ask, “Where’s the silver case?”

A long pause. “Down the incinerator.”

“Do you … Do you know what was in it?”

“I know what was in it.”

“And you’re still here?”

“It was monstrous what you did. Monstrous!” Her face suddenly streaked with mascara. She was crying. “Where is she now?”

“I don’t know. The checks go out every quarter to a numbered account in Switzerland. I don’t want to know. How much can the heart endure?”

“I think I’m going to find out, Peter.”

“Please don’t find out.” I make one last effort to save her. “I love you, paleface, and you know what that can mean. When the patterns turn cruel, you may be the sacrifice.”

“Love creates patterns, too.” She kissed me. Her lips were parched, her skin was icy, she was afraid and hurting, but her heart beat strong with love and hope. “Nothing can crunch us now. Believe me.”

“I don’t know what to believe anymore. We’re part of a world that’s beyond knowing. What if it turns out to be too big for love?”

“All right,” she said composedly. “We won’t be dogs in the manger. If love is a little thing and has to end, then let it end. Let all little things like love and honor and mercy and laughter end, if there’s a bigger design beyond.”

“But what’s bigger? What’s beyond? I’ve asked that for years. Never an answer. Never a clue.”

“Of course. If we’re too small to survive, how can we know? Move over.”

Then she is in bed with me, the tips of her body like frost while the rest of her is hot and evoking, and there is such a consuming burst of passion that for the first time I can forget myself, forget everything, abandon everything, and the last thing I think is: God damn the world. God damn the universe. God damn GGG-o-ddddddd

T
he girl driving the jeep was very fair and very Nordic. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a pony tail, but it was so long that it was more a mare’s tail. She wore sandals, a pair of soiled bluejeans, and nothing else. She was nicely tanned. As she turned the jeep off Fifth Avenue and drove bouncing up the steps of the library, her bosom danced enchantingly.

She parked in front of the library entrance, stepped out, and was about to enter when her attention was attracted by something across the street. She peered, hesitated, then glanced down at her jeans and made a face. She pulled off the pants and hurled them at the pigeons eternally cooing and courting on the library steps. As they clattered up in fright, she ran down to Fifth Avenue, crossed, and stopped before a shop window. There was a plum-colored wool dress on display. It had a high waist, a full skirt, and not too many moth holes. The price was $79.90.

The girl rummaged through old cars skewed on the avenue until she found a loose fender. She smashed the plate-glass shop door, carefully stepped across the splinters, entered, and sorted through the dusty dress racks. She was a big girl and had trouble fitting herself. Finally she abandoned the plum-colored wool and compromised on a dark tartan, size 12, $120 reduced to $99.90. She located a sales-book and pencil, blew the dust off, and carefully wrote:
I.O.U. $99.90. Linda Nielsen
.

She returned to the library and went through the main doors which had taken her a week to batter in with a sledgehammer. She ran across the great hall, filthied with five years of droppings from the pigeons roosting there. As she ran, she clapped her arms over her head to shield her hair from stray shots. She climbed the stairs to the third floor and entered the Print Room. As always, she signed the register:
Date—June 20, 1981. Name—Linda Nielsen. Address—Central Park Model Boat Pond. Business or Firm—Last Man on Earth
.