Wikiworld and Other Stories

Providence-3

I didn’t know what the long-dead carnals were singing about, and I didn’t care. I knew the carnals had talked about “beauty” and “harmony” and “melody” and a thousand other attributes of “music.” But none of that registered with me. All I cared about was the architecture of the spiral. The way all the pieces hung together. The song’s information complexity.

This was the mystery the carnals had been able to produce at will that we could not.

But there was even more to spiral than that. It was analogue.

The song was encoded continuously and physically, in the microcosmic mountain ridges of the black spiral. It wasn’t just a string of lonely ones and zeroes. Hell, anybody could access millions of hours of digital music files for free. But the kick they gave was pale and weak, almost nonexistent next to real spiral.

* * * *

“My Baby’s Gone” stopped playing.

The universe flooded back in.

And now that piece of spiral was dead to me.

My player was non-destructive. Optical-based, in fact. No needle ever touched the spiral, just photons. This 45 was still virgin.

But my mind wasn’t. I had heard and dissected the song fully, with cybernetic precision. The novelty factor was gone. It had imparted its kick, and that kick had been analyzed and stored. Oh, I could get a few waning thrills from triggering a simulation of what I had felt. But the sim was not the same. And after a few repeats, even those secondary thrills evaporated.

And then I would want more spiral. And after that, more still.

Somebody else could still get juiced with “My Baby’s Gone.” But not me. I could make a profit renting it out, just like Vend-o-Mat planned with his share of the goods. But I could never experience it again myself.

I ejected the disc, put it back in its sleeve, and replaced it on the pile.

The Big Tube’s hand spoke again. “So, as promised…?”

“Yeah, yeah. Heavy action.”

But I didn’t feel any excitement as I turned to go and the vault door swung shut temporarily on the trove of spiral.

Just a kind of sickness at what I had lost through having.

* * * *

You had to hand it to The Big Tube: he really knew how to throw a party. A wide plaza downtown was lit up that night like the brightside of Mercury. Scores of machines flowed in from all parts of the city. Plenty of free juice and plug-ins. Plus the women. These babes made fusion look like steam power. It was the biggest blowout I had been to in years, and I entered into it kinda desperately and wildly, looking to forget the melancholy that the hit of spiral had produced in me.

One of the plug-ins I scored was a temporary virus to randomly wipe sections of my mind, and my memory went out the window. I only retained snatches of the party. I remember having a girl on each arm. With one track locked, I spun around on the other in a circle until the girls became airborne, shrieking and squealing.

Somewhere in the deliberate insanity, I lost Kitch. But I figured he was on his own, and could manage his own fun.

The party began to wind down around dawn. Everybody had duties. Guarding the city perimeter against incursions from predatory wildlife. Shoring up the dikes along Narragansett Bay. Scavenging consumables. I hung in there till the last citizen left. Then I got my s**t together, and went back to arrange with The Big Tube to pick up the spiral.

I was thinking about Chippie, and whether we’d ever get back together again, when Kitch caught up with me.

“Ya sleep good, Reddy? I sure did. All set for the road now, sure thing.”

“Kitch, please shut up. Your voice is hurting my new ears.”

“Okay, Reddy, sure, I’ll shut up.”

Kitch hoisted himself on my back, and we went to say goodbye to The Big Tube.

“My hands saw you enjoying yourself, Reddy K. Glad I could show you a good time. Be sure to tell Vend-o-Mat how we do things up here in New England, that we treated you right. If he ever hits a big node of spiral, I want him to remember me.”

“Will do, Big Tube. I guess I’d better go now. Road to Manhattan ain’t getting any shorter.”

Back at the vault, I began to load the spiral into my storage bins.

All the old famous labels.

Matador, Geffen, Atlantic, Chess, Sun, Stax/Volt, Okeh, Decca, Aladdin, Enigma, Blast First, Columbia, RCA Victor, Motown, Polygram, IRS, Stiff, Rough Trade, Enigma, Barsuk, Epic, Roulette, Monument, Island, Red Bird, Kama Sutra, Fantasy, Sire, Blue Note, Curb, Sugar Hill—

I was getting high just handling and smelling them.

I took my time, culling the most interesting-looking for myself as my agreement permitted. These I kept separate.

Finally, by late afternoon I was done, and Kitch and I picked up the Interstate heading south.

We made pretty good time, following the trail I had blazed coming north. But still, what with the late departure and some residual sluggishness on my part from over-indulgence in plug-ins, darkness began to overtake us before we were halfway home.

“How’s your night vision, Kitch?”

“So-so, Reddy. How come ya asking?”

“Well, mine’s not good, not good at all. I been meaning to upgrade, but no components have come on the market this year. Whatta you say we pull over till the morning?”

My brain began to itch with Kitch’s penalty twitchings, and I got resentful. “Listen, I’m not planning a scam! It’s just too dangerous. You want us to go over a bridge rail?”

“No, no, I guess you’re right. Can you find us someplace safe?”

“Sure, don’t worry about a thing.”

I pulled off the highway at a rest stop, and, while Kitch watched from a safe distance, backed my ass right through the wall of a building so that the relatively lightweight girders and roof fell down harmlessly around me, making me look like part of the old decaying scenery. In the morning, I’d power out as easy as a carnal climbing outta bed.

Kitch rejoined me.

“Better talk privately,” I said, “so we don’t attract any unwelcome visitors.”

“Gee, Reddy, you don’t really think—”

“We’ve been lucky so far, but there’s no telling what’s out there.

Let’s play it safe.”

So for an hour or so, Kitch and I shot the s**t about people and places we knew back in the city. I found out he had a girlfriend, name of Roomba, and teased him for a while till he made me stop.

The talk had kept my mind off my cargo. But once we stopped, I couldn’t help thinking about what I carried.

Finally, I said, “Kitch, I’m just gonna have a little hit of spiral to help me get through the night.”

“You think that’s smart, Reddy K?”

“Sure. You’ll keep an eye open while I’m out of it, right?”

“I guess so“

I dug delicately in the pod that held my personal stash and came up with an LP. It was a double album, but I had counted it as just a single when I made my selection. Vend-o-mat hadn’t specified I couldn’t, so screw him.

Daydream Nation was what the carnal writing said. I slid out one disc and slotted it home.

Bliss slid over me, wiping out the lousy world of ruins and shortages and entropy. Everything made sense while the spiral played.

Eternity ran loose and cool, but then it ended too abruptly, in the middle of a song.

Pain shot through my entire being, and halted the spiral playback. The kind of interior pain only Kitch could administer.

Rust him! What was he thinking!

The pain ended as instantly as it had started. My senses returned, and the first thing that registered was Kitch’s shouts.

“Reddy, help! Help, Reddy! They got me!”

I didn’t have any spotlights. But part of me integrated a Survival Research Labs flamethrower, and I cut loose.

The mega-blast of flame ignited a nearby stand of shrubs, and illuminated the whole scene.

RAMivores had Kitch, and were making off with him into the woods, skittering like crabs or spiders.

I let out a bellow of static across the spectrum and blew chaff to confuse their radar. I surged outta the blind and started to overtake the little predators.

But they were fast and tricky, zigging and zagging, eluding my pincers.

Kitch’s voice wailed. “Reddy, they’re draining my power, they’re yanking my boards! Do something!”

What could I do other than what I was doing? Trouble was, it wasn’t enough.

The RAMivores gained the protection of the woods. The trees were giants, too big for me to topple and follow.

Kitch’s wailing voice dopplered off in a daisy-daisy farewell of nonsensical ravings, and then I was alone.

I went slowly back to the ruined building in the inferno light of the burning shrubs. I couldn’t reinsert myself into the rubble, so I hunkered down beside it for the rest of the night. Every now and then I shot off a burst of flame, for all the good it did.

In the morning, I looked around a little for Kitch, all the while knowing it was useless. I didn’t find so much as a wire or LED. So I got on the road again and started south.

I tried to feel guilty about Kitch getting taken while I was high, but all I could really feel was disgust that I had wasted one side of spiral.

On the way I kept rehearsing what I was gonna tell his girlfriend, Roomba. I’d say Kitch was brave and put up a good fight. But other than that, what could I say?

I figured if she liked spiral, maybe I’d give her “My Baby’s Gone.”