Schrodinger's Cat Trilogy Part 14

When he woke up most of the guests had left and Mary Margaret was telling Dr. Dashwood about the burglars who had ransacked her apartment last week. "The worst part of it," she was saying, "was that they even took Ulysses."

"Oh, were you very fond of him?" Dashwood asked. He obviously thought she was talking about a dog or cat.

Mary Margaret t.i.ttered, aware of the misunderstanding. "Ulysses was part of me," she said.

Case got to his feet and made his polite adieus. He couldn't stand any more ambiguity in one evening.

Ulysses was actually Mary Margaret Wildeblood's p.e.n.i.s, which was now in Dashwood's laboratory-a fact which neither of them realized.

Mary Margaret was not a born born woman (which was commonplace, since 51 percent of the Terran primates qualified for it), but a woman (which was commonplace, since 51 percent of the Terran primates qualified for it), but a manufactured manufactured woman. This was something new and exotic. It had only been possible on that primitive planet for around forty years. woman. This was something new and exotic. It had only been possible on that primitive planet for around forty years.

Epicene Wildeblood, Mary Margaret's former self, had been the b.i.t.c.hiest literary critic in Manhattan, the man that writers love to hate. His aphorisms were known and quoted everywhere in the world that was important by his own standards-i.e., from St. Mark's Place to 110th Street (East). Each Wildebloodism was a pearl of wit and a poison dart of malice: "Norman's mailer-than-thou-att.i.tude," "Either McLuhan has had a divine vision or he is merely incoherent, and it is obvious that he has not had a divine vision," "Illuminatus "Illuminatus is just two nursery Nietzsches daydreaming about a psychedelic Superman," "Nixon's memoirs will never be placed beside Casanova's in the annals of amusing rascality, but they may well stand beside Mussolini's play about Napoleon in the archives of stentorian dullness." is just two nursery Nietzsches daydreaming about a psychedelic Superman," "Nixon's memoirs will never be placed beside Casanova's in the annals of amusing rascality, but they may well stand beside Mussolini's play about Napoleon in the archives of stentorian dullness."

Wildeblood had named his p.e.n.i.s Ulysses way back in Gilgamesh Junior High School in Babylon, Long Island, where he grew up.

He named it Ulysses because it had Greek proclivities and a tendency to invade dark, forbidden places.

Wildeblood was by no means a simple or uncomplicated WoMan. The s.e.x-change operation had been only stage one in a plan to totally transform himself. After that, she intended to become a nun.

By 1983 it was a sane and sensible decision for one living at the hot center of New York intellectual life. Like the Southerners who think "d.a.m.n Yankee" is one word, Wildeblood's milieu milieu had long ago forgotten that "male chauvinist" was two words. The slightest, kinkiest remnant of masculinity was a definite handicap, a suggestion of possible viciousness-like members.h.i.+p in the John Birch Society, owning a Mississippi accent, or a conviction for a major felony. had long ago forgotten that "male chauvinist" was two words. The slightest, kinkiest remnant of masculinity was a definite handicap, a suggestion of possible viciousness-like members.h.i.+p in the John Birch Society, owning a Mississippi accent, or a conviction for a major felony.

Besides, Wildeblood did did urgently want to be a nun. A priest or even a monk had a certain arrogance in his very role urgently want to be a nun. A priest or even a monk had a certain arrogance in his very role qua qua priest or priest or qua qua monk, however pa.s.sionately he might cultivate Total Submission to the Will of G.o.d. Only a nun could experience the true endlessness of humility. monk, however pa.s.sionately he might cultivate Total Submission to the Will of G.o.d. Only a nun could experience the true endlessness of humility.

Wildeblood, simply, was tired of being the b.i.t.c.hiest male in Manhattan. He wanted to become the saintliest woman.

FOREVER.

Joe Malik, the editor of Confrontation Confrontation magazine, published Justin Case's music criticism only because it confused (and, therefore, amused) him. Like most of his readers, Joe couldn't make head or tail out of whatever it was that Case was trying to say; but, unlike the readers-who were perpetually writing letters protesting Case's baroque inscrutability-Joe enjoyed puzzles. Joe was a chess puzzle and logical paradox addict; like William S. Burroughs, he was perpetually poring over the Mayan codices, trying to unscrew those inscrutable glyphs for which no Rosetta Stone has yet been found. magazine, published Justin Case's music criticism only because it confused (and, therefore, amused) him. Like most of his readers, Joe couldn't make head or tail out of whatever it was that Case was trying to say; but, unlike the readers-who were perpetually writing letters protesting Case's baroque inscrutability-Joe enjoyed puzzles. Joe was a chess puzzle and logical paradox addict; like William S. Burroughs, he was perpetually poring over the Mayan codices, trying to unscrew those inscrutable glyphs for which no Rosetta Stone has yet been found.

Three years earlier, in 1981, Joe had been a white-haired man who clearly showed his sixty-odd years. Now, in 1983, he had jet-black hair again, a face free of wrinkles, and could easily pa.s.s for a man in his early forties. This was because he had started using the rejuvenation-longevity drug FOREVER as soon as it appeared on the market. Fundamentalist Christians and the People's Ecology Party (PEP) denounced FOREVER as blasphemous and against G.o.d's will-"the ultimate insanity of the rational-technological mind," it had been called by Furbish Lousewart V, who almost defeated Hubbard in the 1980 election. Joe despised religionists and ecologists and went on using FOREVER. Dissident scientists began reporting disastrous side effects of FOREVER when they gave it in horse-doctor's doses to laboratory mice; Joe remembered the similar antimarijuana research of the sixties and seventies and went on using FOREVER, gambling that if there were anything wrong with it, it wouldn't kill him before a better rejuvenation drug was on the market.

Joe hoped to be around for several hundred years and take advantage of Time Travel when it arrived to make Eternity accessible to mankind. Above his desk at Confrontation Confrontation was a motto from the English biologist J. B. S. Haldane which succinctly summarized Joe's view of the cosmos. It said: was a motto from the English biologist J. B. S. Haldane which succinctly summarized Joe's view of the cosmos. It said: THE UNIVERSE MAY BE NOT ONLY QUEERER THAN WE THINK BUT QUEERER THAN WE CAN THINK.

ALIEN SIGNALS.

Carol Christmas, an aspiring actress who had not yet achieved better than Off-Off-Broadway, was always a bit sensitive about her second source of income, so she heard Joe Malik saying "no wife, no wh.o.r.es, no mustache." Oddly enough, Blake Williams, who was picking up parts of several conversations during his own interstellar rap, also thought Malik was saying "no wife, no wh.o.r.es, no mustache." Williams and Carol Christmas both heard Malik's explanation through the semantic carousel around them something like this: MALIK: Premarital s.e.x Premarital s.e.x, mind you. I was really terrified about the whole younger generation careening to h.e.l.l in a handbasket with IUD's and condoms sprinkling on all sides. I began to see Commie threats Commie threats everywhere. Everybody I knew, all my friends, the whole city of New York, seemed foreign subversive unwholesome. By G.o.d, I everywhere. Everybody I knew, all my friends, the whole city of New York, seemed foreign subversive unwholesome. By G.o.d, I was was Middle America. Middle America.

"EGGS" BENEDICT: "Joe s.h.i.+t!" "Bulls.h.i.+t!" "Who s.h.i.+t?" ...

"FIGS" NEWTON: Alien signals. He said alien signals.

WILLIAMS: ... which is why we're all deviates. If Mother DNA had wanted us to be replicable units, She'd have made us insects instead of primates.

DASHWOOD: Well, actually science has been studying o.r.g.a.s.ms for quite some time now, but what's new about our work is certain psychological intangibles....

CAROL CHRISTMAS: Marvin, has anyone seen Marvin ...

BENEDICT: Well if I were Vlad I know who I'd impale....

CAROL CHRISTMAS: Are you sure he isn't in the kitchen? Marvin, are you out here in the kitchen?

MALIK: That was when I stopped the experiment. There I was, totally at one with Middle America, totally inside the Readers Digest Readers Digest, and then I came to that t.i.tle: "No Wife, No Wh.o.r.es, No Mustache."

DASHWOOD: Shattering into atoms Shattering into atoms is male and is male and undulating undulating is female, but is female, but balloons bursting balloons bursting is common to both. is common to both.

MALIK: I closed the magazine and threw it in the fire. The t.i.tle was too good to be ruined by an explanation.

NATALIE DREST: Ooh I get that undulating undulating a lot especially when some er guy is you know giving me you ... know ... head.... a lot especially when some er guy is you know giving me you ... know ... head....

DASHWOOD: Yes sixty-eight percent of the females report an undulating undulating experience during c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s.... experience during c.u.n.n.i.l.i.n.g.u.s....

But at this point Williams realized that he would never recapture the audience previously listening to his outer-s.p.a.ce theories, and he also wanted some air. He edged crabwise to the balcony and stood breathing deeply, raising his eyes to study the southern sky and then pick out the bright red glare of Sirius.

"Is Marvin out here on the balcony?" asked a contralto. It was Carol Christmas.

"I'm afraid not," Williams said. "I think he left the party already."

"Oh, did he take all the c.o.ke with him?"

"I guess so."

Alone again, Blake Williams communed briefly with the Big Dipper and asked himself what the h.e.l.l Malik had been talking about: No wife? No wh.o.r.es? No mustache?

"WHO s.h.i.+T???" Benny Benedict was yelling inside.

The actual t.i.tle of the Readers Digest Readers Digest article had been "No Wife, No Horse, No Mustache," not "No Wife, No Wh.o.r.es, No Mustache." Joe Malik, as he had been trying to explain amid the din of the Wildeblood article had been "No Wife, No Horse, No Mustache," not "No Wife, No Wh.o.r.es, No Mustache." Joe Malik, as he had been trying to explain amid the din of the Wildeblood soiree soiree, had been engaged in neuroprogramming research, trying to become one with the Readers Digest Readers Digest, when he found that wonderful t.i.tle, which led him to immediately abort the experiment. He knew, intuitively, that the mystery of a t.i.tle like that was much better than the solution, the explanation of the t.i.tle, could ever be.

Joe, whose experiments with has.h.i.+sh had always been guided by the sixth-circuit metaprogramming theories of Hagbard Celine, had brainwashed himself on numerous occasions to become one with not just the Readers Digest Readers Digest, but with publications and even ca.s.sette tapes put out by such organizations as the John Birch Society, Theosophy, the Trotskyists, various a.s.sa.s.sination buffs, UFO societies, Buddhism, the First Bank of Religiosophy, Scientific American Scientific American, the Rosicrucians, the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade, the Flat Earth Society, the Missouri Synod Lutherans, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and anybody and everybody who lived in a tunnel-reality different from that of his environment. Thus, where most people look at the world through the grid of a single reality map, Joe Malik perceived cosmos through dozens of such grids, changing focus at will. This was not quite the no-ego experience of Zen, he would cheerfully admit, but rather a multiego experience and therefore an alternative way to escape from the stupidity of a single self.

Joe had learned how to move the walls of his neurological reality-tunnel, and even how to wander from one tunnel to another without being infected with Chaneyitis, schizophrenia, mysticism, or the other pathological forms of this sixth-circuit Relativistic consciousness.

He was one of the pioneers of the HEAD Revolution.

He called it a simulation of satori.

Once, while very stoned, he had even gone so far as to call the experience "I-opening."

DEFECTION.

How many Zen Masters does it take to change a light bulb?Two: One to change it and one not to change it.-Private j.a.pes of Mr. G.

NOVEMBER 23, 1983:.

"Defection," said Roy Ubu. "That must be it."

Ubu was a darkish man: his hair was brown, his skin was tan, and he had a penchant for brown suits with matching cinnamon-colored ties and socks. He looked about forty, but was actually sixty-eight. Like Joe Malik, Ubu had been using FOREVER from the day it came on the market.

"They're not in Russia or China," said Sylvia Goldfarb, Scientific Advisor to the President. "You can forget all about that. We know everything about them these days."

"They couldn't have gone to h.e.l.l," Ubu ventured.

Sylvia Goldfarb raised a sardonic eyebrow. It had been a witless suggestion.

"They couldn't have," Ubu repeated, as if she had confirmed his judgment. "We can rule that out."

Sylvia Goldfarb waited. There was something ominous in her waiting. Ubu cleared his throat.

"I'll put five men on it right away," he said.

The chair squeaked screeee as Ms. Goldfarb leaned forward impatiently. "Five won't do it," she said. "This is a priority investigation. We can't have over a hundred scientists just disappear off the face of the earth. Not when they're as important as these women and men."

"The thing that I can't figure out," Ubu said, "is why now? now? There's never been an administration so favorable to science-never so many huge grants, not just for work on the s.p.a.ce-cities and life-extension, but in computers and transplants and cloning and all over the shop. Why would a group of scientists pick this time to jump s.h.i.+p?" There's never been an administration so favorable to science-never so many huge grants, not just for work on the s.p.a.ce-cities and life-extension, but in computers and transplants and cloning and all over the shop. Why would a group of scientists pick this time to jump s.h.i.+p?"

Dr. Goldfarb smiled. "Well," she said, "I'll tell you my guess. They found something to investigate, something that really excited them, but unfortunately something too far out for the government, even in 1983. That's what I suspect, and that's what I hope you'll find. But until we know for sure, we have to a.s.sume that something dangerous may be afoot. Just find one of them, Mr. Ubu, and prove that she or he is doing something harmless, and you will begin to take a great load off my mind."

"Yes, ma'am," Ubu said, looking sharp.

He was thinking: This is going to be a p.i.s.scutter. This is going to be a p.i.s.scutter.

One of President Hubbard's first acts on a.s.suming office had been to abolish the FBI-thereby throwing Roy Ubu out of work.

"The American people survived one hundred fifty years without secret police opening their mail and tapping their phones," Hubbard said. "They can survive without it again."

Most of Ubu's colleagues fled Was.h.i.+ngton, seeking employment in police departments and private detective agencies. Roy had stuck around, shrewdly convinced that he understood government better than Hubbard. Within a month he was hired by the newly formed National Bureau of Information.

The ostensible purpose of the NBI was to collect data for the Beast-GWB-666, the computer that had virtually become a fourth branch of government, since its memory was searched before any important decision was made.

Actually, since bureaucracies have learned, like other gene pools, to survive over aeons, the NBI replaced many of the functions of the FBI. This was so intricately concealed in the budget figures that neither Hubbard nor any of her close advisors ever found it. (Bureaucracies do not die when terminated; they change names: (Bureaucracies do not die when terminated; they change names: Gilhooley's First Fundamental Finding.) Gilhooley's First Fundamental Finding.) Still, there was an important difference. Since Hubbard had abolished prisons, the only citizens who had anything to fear from government were those increasingly rare, bizarrely imprinted biots who committed violence against others, and they were only sent to h.e.l.l.

M.O.Q.

Rhesus monkeys, like other higher primates, are intensely affected by their social environments-an isolated monkey will repeatedly pull a lever with no reward other than the sight of another monkey.-EDWARD WILSON, Sociobiology Sociobiology DECEMBER 23, 1983:.

Dr. Dashwood had been rather pensive and preoccupied at lunch that day, back at o.r.g.a.s.m Research in San Francisco.

"So we take a guy like that-a meathead with no more knowledge of psychology or anthropology or sociology or medicine or history or ethics or logic than he has of nuclear physics-and we give him a gun and a club and a can of mace and turn him loose, my G.o.d, to 'police' the rest of us. Insanity. Total insanity."

That was Dr. Mounty Babbit, the wiggiest member of o.r.g.a.s.m Research's staff, and, like all too many scientists these days, a bit of a radical. Dr. Dashwood hunched over his steak to avoid getting drawn into the discussion.

"You want to disarm the police, like in England?" old Dr. Heyman asked. Heyman was still cas.h.i.+ng in on the fact that he had once worked with Kinsey and otherwise had nothing to recommend him to any employer. "Would never work here. Americans don't have the respect for Law and Order that Britons do."

"Well, then," Babbit said calmly, "arm the public. Make sure everybody has a gun and knows how to use it. Even up the odds some way or other."

"Rubbis.h.!.+" Heyman cried. "That would lead to sheer anarchy."

Dr. Dashwood painfully concentrated on his watery mashed potatoes.

"How's Three-A?" a soft contralto asked him. It was Dr. Harriet Hopgood, aware that the boss was bored by the political discussion. Three-A was part of the code-the research subjects were never mentioned by name in any conversation-and it designated the young lady in laboratory Three, Ms. Rhoda Chief.

"Very impressive," Dr. Dashwood said. "She had reached twenty-three when I broke for lunch, and she was still going strong. I left Jones in charge."

"Twenty-three," Dr. Babbit said. "Incredible."

"A most most impressive woman," Dr. Hopgood added, a tone of envy creeping into her voice. Dr. Dashwood darted a glance at her plump face and quickly looked away again; she was transparently wistful. impressive woman," Dr. Hopgood added, a tone of envy creeping into her voice. Dr. Dashwood darted a glance at her plump face and quickly looked away again; she was transparently wistful.

Just then Dr. Dashwood's secretary appeared at the table. "A telegram came for you," she said. "I thought it might be important."

When Dr. Dashwood tore open the envelope, he was confronted with a rather curious message: King Kong died for your sins.Ezra Pound.

Ezra Pound, thought Dr. Dashwood, now where have I heard that name before? Then it came to him: that fellow who called at an embarra.s.sing moment this morning, from the Fernando p.o.o.p Committee (or was it the Hernando Foof Committee?). He looked again at the idiotic message. My G.o.d, he thought, some d.a.m.n crank is trying to put me on. put me on.

Ezra Pound had called when Rhoda was reaching her third thunderous o.r.g.a.s.m, and Dr. Dashwood had been on the edge of forgetting all professional ethics and seizing her himself. It had been a weird phone call-all about the plight of Giovani Oops or some such place.

Fortunately, Rhoda's o.r.g.a.s.ms since then had been-comparatively-tepid. Dr. Dashwood had resumed his professional persona persona, although he was a little bit s.p.a.cey.

"I heard a rumor that they've got one hundred ninety-eight gorillas gorillas working as cops in Chicago," Mounty Babbit went on. working as cops in Chicago," Mounty Babbit went on.

Dashwood was getting annoyed. "Freud," he said coolly, "had an interesting theory about what motivates fear of the police."

That put a damper on the conversation, and Dr. Dashwood soon regretted it. Without the distraction of Babbit's baiting of old Heyman, nothing prevented Dashwood's mind from circling back, again and again, to the lovely Rhoda, nude, drawing the King Kong fourteen-incher into her in seemingly interminably ecstasy. Like an arrow, like Ulysses itself, his mind plunged toward that golden-haired and juicily moist little honey-s.n.a.t.c.h, hot with twenty-three o.r.g.a.s.ms....

Science, he reminded himself, is eternal self-discipline.

But the old Latin joke came back to him: p.e.n.i.s erectus non compos mentis; p.e.n.i.s erectus non compos mentis; a stiff p.r.i.c.k knows no conscience. a stiff p.r.i.c.k knows no conscience.

O Galileo and Darwin, did you have days like this?

WASHY.

NOVEMBER 30, 1983.

The NBI had a.s.sembled a complete dossier on the missing George Was.h.i.+ngton Carver Bridge, the first scientist to disappear after leaving government employ.

Ubu had all the facts about Dr. Bridge that had ever been recorded. He knew that Bridge had been born June 16, 1953, in Bad a.s.s, Texas, and weighed nine pounds, three ounces at the time. He knew that Bridge's Social Security Number was 121-23-1723, his GWB number 345-36-5693, and his s.e.xual penchant was for light-skinned Black or Oriental women with college degrees who would wear black lace bras while he p.r.o.nged them. He knew that Bridge had a B.A. from Miskatonic University in Black Studies, an M.S. from the same source in Sociobiology, and a Ph.D. from the University of Ingolstadt in Primatology. He knew that Bridge had been baptized three times-once at the age of two weeks, by the Afro-Methodists via total submersion, again at the age of fourteen by the Roman Catholics by wetting the brow, and a third time at the age of seventeen by the Ku Klux Klan with a pail of cow p.i.s.s. He knew that Dr. Bridge had left Bad a.s.s one month later and never returned. He knew that Dr. Bridge had studied or worked in Arkham, Ma.s.sachusetts, New York City, Los Angeles, Ingolstadt, Bavaria, the Transylvanian section of Hungary, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., and Berkeley.

He knew that Dr. Bridge was called "Washy" by his cla.s.smates at Miskatonic.

He knew several thousand similar things, none of them helpful in any way toward explaining why Dr. Bridge had disappeared off the face of the earth at the head of a parade of similar disappearees which now numbered 167.