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(c) Andrew S. Wade 2003 and for ever or till someone pays me enough With thanks to Dewi Brent Williams, inventor of the Emotional Display Unit and the Negative Peer Report. It was another day at the Institute of Grinding Technology. Personal Abuse machines were being fired up and subjects wired to the E.D.U, where their most intimate feelings and thoughts were broadcast to a waiting nation. A panel of experts laughed at the miserable neurotics' problems, the signal patched in en route to the television station, the effect being calculated to cause the maximum misery and psychic disruption to the unfortunates subjected to the treatment. It also formed a nice bit of filler for the gigabuck TV outfit known as the Violence Channel. Negative Peer Reports were being made, in which the victim was surrounded by a baying mob composed of their friends- former friends, that is after the NPR. They would scream, bully and cajole the unfortunate fucker into a catatonic depression, often using their E.D.U. output as an insight into the deepest insecurities of the victim, the whole NPR process also being televised on the more sedate Sadism Channel (just after the Abuse At Ten). The E.D.U. or Emotion Display Unit (a device similar in form and ubiquity to the V.D.U.) was also an invaluable psychological tool in profiling the effects of new forms of Grinding Technology, to calibrate exactly the sense of humiliation and defeat caused by such wheezes as the new 101-page application forms for social assistance, or the contents of any Information Management degree scheme, or the housing schemes for the poor and unfortunate where the rent is so high as to preclude the inhabitants from ever paying the rent without spending the rest of their lives filling in the dreaded 101-page social assistance forms, for example. Jim McCarthy sat down at his desk and got to work. He had a huge pile of papers to process and send to the Bureau of Defaulters, the Institutes' sister organisation. The Bureau then pissed on his forms and sent them back by courier, all the more unappetising for their new fragrance. At this point it would be Jim's job to send the paperwork off to a number of householders in England and Wales, where they would be expected to eat the forms, and send any stools produced in the following 72 hours to the Bureau. Suddenly, the intercom buzzed, sending a jolt of electricity into Jim's testicles. He got off the floor and answered it. "Mr. McCarthy? This is Dave Break, your manager." "Uh, uh... Hello Mr. Break My Name Is Jim What Can I Do For You?" he gibbered in abject terror. "Something's come up. A new case. We're putting you together with another operative, and you're to report back to me. Take your time on this one, Jim, it's a doozy. Be in my office at midday. That is all." "Th-thank you Sir.." he managed, before passing out. **** At 11:55 Jim McCarthy was waiting at door of his bosses' office like a school child waiting for his report card, if he'd been good he'd get a plum job and to screw his secretary, but if he'd been bad... Interrupting his train of thought, a scream of mingled pain and ecstacy emanated from Dave Break's office, followed by a grunting sound not unlike that produced by a swan being sexually abused by a dog; followed by the purest shriek of pleasure mingled with a SCHLUPP-ing sound of copious sexual intercourse. The loud sounds of zipppers being done up and people, apparently a man and a woman, going "Shhh." and "Someone's outside" dominated the remaining five minutes, then Break called out: "COME!!!!" Jim opened the door with some trepidation. Within, the office was completely normal, Jim's boss stabbed the STOP button of a portable tape recorder while a young woman shuddered with suppressed laughter in her chair. "Hello Jim, just trying out the new 'Someone's having it away with your wife' tape before it's distributed. Well, to business." "How-how can I help you?" he stammered, visibly shaken. "Meet Ivana Carter, your new partner, Jim." "You're ... THE Ivana Carter?" "Yes, I am." "The Ivana Carter who came up with the idea of sending poverty stricken widows on their last legs junk mail promising vast prizes for the price of a phone call, and then it turns out the phone call is to Mars, and the prize isn't a car or a house or whatever, but a picture of one?" Ivana smiled. She always enjoyed a spot of hero worship before lunch. "You're a pretty mean customer yourself, Jim, you're the one who designed the new windowed envelopes the D.S.S. send out to disabled people and pensioners with the reply forms you have to fill in if you don't want your benefits cut, and their poor arthritic fingers can't quite line up the reply slip with the window, so the address is totally illegible. The postie never delivers them, and the Government saved 10 billion quid to spend on cruise missiles and junkets." Jim grinned, pleased. He'd long considered the Undeliverable Pension Forms his best work to date. "Let's not start jerking each other off just yet" interjected the Boss. "I'm putting you both together on this Mission, because you're my best employees... Jim has the grasp of the technical side of causing misery and depression, while you, Ivana, have that spark of intutive nastiness without which all our major Grinds would just be feeble practical jokes." "Excuse me, Sir.." asked Ivana "...But what exactly are our mission operation parameters today?" "I'm coming to that, Ms. Carter. Jim, Ivana, we face an unprecedented calamity in the modern world today. Despite our best methods, our most sophisticated technology, and an economy ideally suited to extensive Grinding, making the lives of our citizens potentially more miserable than any other people before or indeed since, a few of our subjects insist on being happy. This could only happen if some of the Misery in our vaults was somehow being stolen, had away, ripped off... " Jim and Ivana looked at each other, pure fear in their eyes: the Misery In The Vaults was a highly toxic substance, a sort of psychological equivelant of Plutonium 233 only not as benign or useful.... "You're to go to the Emotional Display Unit downtown, any investigation must begin there... Yes?" "Err.. Sir.. we've got E.D.U.'s right here... I don't understand." "You poor fool, the Emotional Display Unit isn't a THING, it's a PLACE! You're thinking of the EMOTION Display Unit, completely different thing my boy, ha ha... "The Emotional Display Unit is our top secret sanitarium, where we send those of our operatives who are completely burnt out from adding to the sum total of human unhappiness, you see. You don't know about it because your not meant to, it's bad for morale. Anyhow, most of the intake comes from The Vaults, because as we all know prolonged exposure to the Misery In The Vaults and its associated toxins will cause psychosis. The client group of The Unit (he carefully pronounced the capital letters) are sent there to better express their pent-up emotions, something they can't possibly do outside of a padded cell. Your investigation has to begin there, even though your sources will be out to lunch to say the least, because they will have been better placed to find any leaks." They thought about this for a short time, during which Dave turned his most psychotic expression on the pair. "Er... Alright then. Whatever." said Ivana. "Yeah.. er.. let's go!" muttered Jim. "Um.. could you tell us where it is?" Dave gave them a laminated address card, titled: EMOTIONAL DISPLAY UNIT 22, FORGET-ME-AVENUE, THE HAYTE, END CITY. and two gold "Dine-Out Club" credit cards, already made out in their names. "OK!" said Jim, greedily pocketing his card, "Let's go!" "Don't forget to call me." shouted Dave as they left. **** "What the fuck was that about?" demanded Jim as soon as they had left the office. "Search me, I only work here." "It doesn't make any sense at all. Why not just send a couple of technicians to the Vaults, if he thinks the security is being breached, why all this messing around?" "Does it matter? Look, we've been given a company credit card for crap’s sake, we've made it, next stop executive washrooms, a new Porsche and lines of coke all round. So stop whining, let's do the job like the man said then get absolutely arsehole-ley paralitically drunk. Works for me." "Hmm." This isn’t a good way to do business, thought Jim. What is this Emotional Display Unit, what's it about, what's it's project? Suppose I'll never know, he mused. Ours is, after all, but to do... And die. Glumly he followed the his fellow glamourous agent into the lift. *** The sign read: END CITY EMOTIONAL DISPLAY
UNIT "Never a truer word said" grinned Ivana, and snorted a huge hit of speed out of a pocket vial before passing it to Jim, who turned it down. She rummaged in her suit pocket for a hipflask and passed that over, after taking a large gulp, and he grudgingly accepted. What's going on? he thought. Me golden idol is tarnished- Ivana Carter was supposed to be a super efficient, drug free teetotaller, the model of the perfect Grinder. What the hell had happened? Whatever it was, she looked to him like she was ready for a spell in 'The Unit' herself. Glumly he passed the bottle back and they marched in, Jim flipped his ID out and showed it to the person behind the desk. Then did a double take- there was no one there. A button marked RING ME sat there and he pressed it. A bell rang. No answer was forthcoming so they proceeded into the Emotional Display Unit. People wandered around the building gibbering, ranting and raving. On a desk an E.D.U. sat wired up to one of the nuts, flaring with images of violence and torture, a horrific scream coming out of it's tinny speaker before it snapped off. The nut unplugged himself and turned to Jim and Ivana. "Hello, how can I help you?" he said. "Er..." Having seen the output of this man's brain he didn't care to talk to him. Ivana took over. "We're here on behalf of the Institute. We need to talk to all your patients who have worked on the Vaults; we belive they may be able to help us with our enquiries." Ivana's cold, professional manner did it's stuff. The flunky turned from one agent to another, wondering just how he could obey them without having to unlock the Vault-Phobic cases. "I, er, um, we can't er... it's hard for you to see them." "can't we just put them on an E.D.U.?" asked Jim helpfully. "Oh, no, none of our patients can use those. It overloads the circuitry, they get into a feedback loop and literally explode- the E.D.U.'s, not the patients. That's the whole point of the Unit, as we call this place here: it's a different kind of Display Unit, one that won't crack up if a client really wants to let rip." "Well, I suppose we'll have to interview them ourselves." "Not possible. they'd kill any reps from the Institute with their bare hands." "That bad, huh?" "Well, yeah, you see once someone's come here from the Institute there's no way out, they can't just be rehabilitated into normal society, it's too dangerous. No, once a patient is cured- which is very rare- we can't risk a relapse so we employ them as staff." He did a little bow. "Er.... How do you know they've been 'cured'?" asked Jim. "Because the E.D.U.'s don't explode on them anymore, you fucking arsehole!!" screamed the warder, his face red. "I was just undergoing a test just now, making sure I was FIT for the JOB!!" Just as suddenly as he'd flared up, the man calmed down. "We run tests on the patients every month- when the EDU's don't blow up, we know they're OK." "I guess you get through a lot of equipment." "And personell-" added McCarthy. "No, we do the testing by remote, the E.D.U.'s are kept in a bombproof shelter, because that's exactly what the things become when they go off. They are connected in turn to seismographs, which we use to determine how close the patients are to sanity. If the EDU's still in one piece after five minutes, they've made a full recovery." "Five minutes is a long time." said Ivana. *** "OK, testing patient #257 Roderick, room sealed, output on screen, let's roll!" The warder was having a great time. On half of a twenty-inch colour television in front of them was the image of an inmate, on the other half you could see the screen of an E.D.U. The screens couldn't be connected electronically, so a video camera was rigged up a safe distance away and focussed on the Display. So far they'd had little luck, most of the EDU's had exploded in a fraction of a second. The warder set the switch of the EDU-remote control controller to ON. Robot arms activated the machine, and images unrolled in front of them. At first it seemed great: They were getting somewhere at last. The entrance to the vaults. Creaking, dripping sounds. Impending doom sounds. They weren't looking at the patient so they couldn't see the veins bulging out on his forehead and the blood leaking out of his eyes as he hammoeraged internally, until it was too late. The warder glanced at the poor bastard's half of the screen, and screamed "Emergency overload! Shutdown! SHUTDOWN!!!!" Too late. The inmate’s entire head exploded. There was no time to be horrified, because 25 microseconds later the E.D.U. on the other half of the screen went up, and then the screen itsself blew out into the warder's face in a shower of sparks and razor sharp glass. The two agents managed to duck in time, but the warder's face was instantly puree'd by the explosion of the TV monitor. There was a wet thump as his body hit the ground. He was dead. "Oh... shit." chorussed Jim and Ivana. The long silence was broken by the trilling of Jim's 'phone. The irritating "Theme tune to Raiders Of The Lost Ark" burbled away as he fumbled with the device. "Hello.?" "HI JIM! DAVE BREAK HERE!!!!" "Errrr.." "HOW's it GOING!!!!!!" "Ummm... errr.. we've got a problem." McCarthy proceeded to explain about the explosion and tragic death of the warder. "There's a connection to The Vaults, though." "RIGHT! That sounds bad! Real bad. I want you to perform B.R.A. Autopsies on the victims." "That's not possible, the guy's fuckin' head exploded!" said McCarthy, irritably. "Well run one on the warder, anyway; pick his brains. Look, just do it!!!!" The boss rang off. "Did you hear that?" "Yeah. Got a hacksaw?" *** The Brain Recuperative Autopsy is a disgusting process, whereby the brain is cut out of a freshly dead corpse, dropped in a vat of superconductive solution, and scanned with EDU-like equipment as electrical currents are passed through the solution and brain. This revives all of the brain's centres at once, making a Brain Dump to computer memory possible. Of course, the owner of the brain is also, very breifly "revived" at this time, but they only suffer excrutiating agony for the duration of the autopsy's "live" phase (around five minutes). After the brain has been dumped into computer memory the autopsy can begin in earnest, the information can be interrogated just as effectively as the original brain could- in fact it is possible to activate the Dump in such a way that it behaves exactly like the owner of the brain- always allowing for a spot of synaptic deterioration and body-image distortion, of course. The intrepid duo hacksawed out the warder's grey matter and dropped it into the vat, then wired up datafeeds and inserted electrical probes. By the time they had finished setting it up the puke bucket was full. "OK, we're clear to begin." Miles absently cleaned vomit off his shirt with a Wet-wipe. "Activation.... now!" Ivana pulled the switch and electricity coursed through the dead man's brain. The computer hummed for a few seconds then let out a jolly little chime as an alert box came onto the screen that read "DOWNLOAD COMPLETE." Jim clicked OK and they began to interrogate the brain dump. A chat box appeared. The letters alternated between capitals and lower case as if to indicate the organic nature of their originator. wHERE AM i? "You're in a brain dump." a WHAT? "You know, a computer interface, a Think Tank. You're a Copy, a neural recording, a Duplicate, a.." oH. "Tell him we need to know..." hOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO A 'YUMAN BEING YOU bastardS??!?!?! "You're not a human being." typed Jim. "You're just a duplicate of the brain of a dead human being. The original Warder had a life, this life was ended by an exploding TV set, we needed more information from him, so what we did was we sawed off the top of his head, took his brain out, and made a copy of it's connections. You experience life as if you were that person, but you're not, you're just some information about him. You have no more sentience than a Post-it note." "Don't hold back." commented Ivana. YEaH YOU BASTArD. WElL If YOU WANT ANY MORE INfO FROM ME YOU’Re GoIN TO HAVE TO APoLOGISE. SOD YOU MATE. Ha HA "How could he hear that?" asked Jim, puzzled. Ivana held up a microphone. "So you can hear me?" said Jim. yEs. "So you can hear me say 'Ivana'?" 'CoURsE. "And you can hear me say: 'What's the Command'?" YuSs. "So you can hear me say, 'Ivana, what's the command for extremely painful torture'?" yOU bAstARD! YoU WouLDN't dARE!! "Just try me." fUCK YoU! "Ivana, what's the command for 'Extremely painful torture'?" "You have to go into the Environment Dialogue." "What's that?" "Press F2." "Right." "Select 'Environment' from the drop-down menu." "Yeah." "There should be an option button marked 'Extremely painful torture'. Press it." "Oooh, that's convenient." Jim clicked the mouse and a horrific wail emerged from the speakers. Escaping back to the chat box, he found it's output window filled with letters, like this: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Jim exchanged a look with Ivana and prodded a key. "Do you want some more, then?" NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONON AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE "You don't want some more?" PLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSSEEEEEE "You want it to stop, then?" YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYE "OK." Ignoring the frantically scrolling screen, he went back to the Environment Options screen and disabled the 'Extremely painful torture' option. Gradually the screams died. Jim went back to the chat box and found it filled with vile expletives. He cleared his throat and it stopped. "So what happened?" WhaT dO yOU mEaN whaT 'AppENED? yOU SaW IT!! "Yeah, but… did you know the patient at all?" YeaH I kNeW the pATIENt, 'e wAs oLD RaMSAY "What happened to him?" He WaS iN The VaULTS one night.. and he saw someone. "There was a break in?" YeAH "Did he say who broke in?" The warder went on to describe Dave Break in excrutiating detail. "What the fuck?" SorrY? said the Warder. "I can get a graphic of that, you know." interjected Ivana. "Sure, you just… wow, though, I mean- corruption and decay, within the Institute itsself. My God, I-" "Yeah, whatever." said Ivana as she rattled keys and clicked her way through the system. "Here y'go." A graphics window opened and they watched -one with barely containable excitement, one with mounting boredom- as the program rendered a perfect image of Dave Break. "Christ!" "No, Our Boss." "Well, it looks like he's fucked, anyway. What do we do now, confront him?" "And get killed? No way." "Then we have to go to his superior officer." "And that would be…" Jim paused. In all his life he'd never met anyone superior to his superior; this wasn't ignorance on his part, but deliberate policy of the Institute to prevent just such whistleblowing and general going over the heads of the boss. "Shit! There’s nothing we can do." Ivana’s phone rang. "Hello? Yes. Yes, we’re both here. At once, sir." She turned to Jim. "That was Break. He wants us in his office immediately." **** At the entrance to the bosses office they checked their laser pistols in silence, then knocked. "Come!" said Breaks cheerful voice, and they walked in. "Dave Break, we are arresting you for messing around in the Vaults." said Jim, and pointed his gun at his boss. "Now wait a minute." "You’re the one
that’s going to be waiting... In jail. For ever." "You’re making a big mistake. If I could just..." "Shut up." "At least tell me what the evidence is." Ivana unlocked her breifcase and took out a small video monitor/player. She played back the tape of their converastion with the dead Warder. "And when did this supposedly happen?" "29th of October." "I can prove I
wasn’t there." "I’ll bet you can." sneered Ivana. "No, really. I have footage of myself, torturing a poor person at one of the new Restart interviews." "Yeah?" "Access the security records. It’ll be there." "Cover him, Ivana." said Jim, and moved towards a computer keyboard. "With pleasure." Ivana pressed the snout of her gun to their bosses head as Jim punched up Break’s personalised security records. This contained a video of everything he’d done on the day in question. "Oh, crap." "What is it?" "It’s true. Look." As she turned her head Dave lurched towards her and disarmed her. In the ensuing mellee they shot him, twice, but the shots had no effect. As he took their guns away Ivana and Jim both remembered about the laserproof vests that upper-tier employees had to wear on the job. They, of course, had been issued with no such protection. Eventually they were being held up at gunpoint by their boss. "OK, so shoot us." said Ivana. "No, no, please don’t shoot us!" grovelled Jim. "I’m not going to shoot you. You’re my most promising agents. Look, I’m going to have to raise your security level so I can tell you this." He took their ID cards, fed them into a machine and punched keys. "Yeah, yeah." Ivana was unconvinced. "No, really. It’s like this. Everyone in this office has a complement, a ‘good’ side. This person exists, somewhere out there in the physical universe. That’s who was messing around in the Vaults, and he was obviously sent there to try to frame me, by forces unknown to us at this time." "And what would they be?" asked Ivana. "Don’t wind him up for god’s sake." whined Jim. "He’s pissed off enough as it is." "I’m not pissed off." said Break. "Just... confused. Who the hell would want to..." Just then the door opened and three white suited individuals walked in, brandishing laser pistols. They were the exact duplicates of Dave, Ivana and Jim. "We would." said the Jim-duplicate. "See what I mean?" asked Break. "Who the hell are they?" said Jim in a cracked voice. "They’re obviously our Complements, you asshole." said Break. "Complements?" Ivana said. "As I said, everyone in the Institute has a physical and psychic complement, a person identical to them but opposite morally. If you ever meet this person-" "Ignore him and I’ll tell you the real story." Break’s Complement said. Dave continued his speech. "They’ll try to- ‘fuse’ with you." He shuddered. "It’s a horrible way to die." "Listen to me!" said the other Dave. "Yes, we seek fusion with you. But only to create a... new person, a more rational, better, nicer you that-" "Can’t we kill them?" asked the Complement of Ivana. "I mean they’re so rotten that-" "No." Jim’s Complement interjected. "It is impossible. If you try then you yourself will be destroyed utterly." "Shut up you twat!" shouted the Break Complement, but it was too late. The real Jim, Ivana and Dave jumped them. The Complements threw their guns away, obviously frightened of getting killed, and the whole thing degenerated into a fistfight-cum-wrestling match, until slowly, through repeated physical contact, they began to achieve fusion with their counterparts. At first nobody noticed when there were five, rather than six people rolling around on the floor, then Ivana was Fused, and finally Dave Break. Three figures got up and dusted themselves off. "Thank god we won!" said Ivana. Jim looked down at himself and saw that he was wearing an utterly nondescript costume. Who am I? he thought. Aloud, Jim asked, "Yeah, but which we?" "It doesn’t matter, does it?" asked Break. "There’s still an Institute, isn’t there?" "An Institute of what?" said Ivana cooly. "Shit!" exclaimed Jim. "She’s right. We could have been shifted clean into a totally different universe!" Dave ran to his workstation and punched buttons, his panicked eyes frantically scanning the screen. "I’m just getting garbage!" he shouted, then pressed PLAY on the tapedeck, which still had the ‘someone’s having it off with your wife’ tape in it. A cut-up melange of sexual groans spliced together with a dictated letter filled the room: "Aoh- Dear Mr. -Yeah, tha- representativ- Oh, oh!, oh wow- last year’s g- Aaaaah! sales figures-" "Shut it off." said Ivana, "I need to think." Break stopped the tape. "I should know who I am, right?" she said, to no one in particular. "Yeah." said Dave. "So I should remember something..." she shook her head. "But it’s vague... insubstantial. The memories seem... clouded together." While Ivana gibbered, Jim wandered off to look through a window, and saw that two of the office blocks next door had been somehow welded together- like a Cubist painting, except that one of them was an clean-lined, modern glass-and-steel construct, and the other was a Gothic monstrosity, all crenellations and turrets with Doric columns and flying buttresses holding up the reinforced concrete, gargoyles and Griffins staring out at the world alongside neon-lit corporate logos and mascots. As he watched, he could see that the different buildings were actually still in the act of fusion, the crenellations flowing fractal-like down the concrete and steel, neon logos twisting and sliding over the columns like bright snakes. He caught a neon-lit clown used to push hamburgers that was near ground level actually in the act of turning into a grotesque totem animal, and from that into a demonic, snarling stone face. He tore his eyes from the sense-buggering sight only to find that the rest of the city appeared to be in the throes of the same process. The expressway was under assault by a legion of vines. The cars trapped in their embrace seemed unable to decide what kind of vehicle to be; the smaller ones kept turning into bicycle rickshaws, the larger trucks and SUV’s transmuted into railway carraiges as the unlucky occupants of same, trapped by the twisting steel and aluminium, began to meld into same, their eyes replaced with primitive pressure dials, their mouths sealed over by the grillework of air conditioners in a horrific biomechanical merging. "Come and have a look at this." he called, and the others gathered around the window. "Jesus Christ!" "Sweet Satan!" The buildings crawled through a dozen different architectural types, from mud huts and primitive temples, through Aztec and Egyptian pyramids, through Romanesque, Gothic, Modern, and some kind of building from the future, all bulbous towers with pedestrian walkways and roads connecting them thousands of feet up, and finally - Finally, the transformation settled down, or at least slowed. No particular style dominated; instead of a comforting uniformity the city had become utterly heterogeneous; on some buildings brightly lit neon signs co-existed with a Romanesque look (reminding Jim of Las Vegas), in others Art Deco skyscrapers grew from Aztec temples and grinning gargoyles peered out from the domes of Arabic minarets. "The entire city. Maybe the world. What the fuck is going on?" muttered Break. "Aliens." said Ivana. "Or creatures from another dimension. An invasion, anyway. Come on, we’d better find some weapons." "It’s quite... nice really." said Jim. He looked down at what had been the expressway; the drivers had been freed from their vehicles and returned to normal, and were now rollerskating between the wrecks. "That’s treasonous talk where I come from!" shouted Ivana, who aimed at Jim and pulled the trigger of her gun. A piece of paper rolled up on a stick emerged from the barrel and unfurled, the word BANG written on it in bright, childish colours. Ivana stared at the weapon in shock and dropped it as if it had turned into a bug. "Of course, the first thing they’d do would be to destroy our weaponry." said Dave. "So we couldn’t retaliate." He stalked back to his computer and tried accessing it. "Wonder if there’s any news on the line." "Doubt it." replied Ivana. "They’d want to sever our communications links as well, so as to cause maximum disruption, and sap our will to resist, and like that." She looked defeated, the loss of- well, everything seemed to have taken something essential from her. "Look." said Jim. "again." He had trouble getting the words out due to the large hole in his chest. He lay spreadeagled on the floor where he had fallen. Ivan went to him and held him up. "Oh, shit, I’m sorry man, I didn’t mean to kill you-" "Well there goes that theory." muttered Break as he looked down at them. "Can’t we do something to help", said Ivana as she held Jim, "like get an ambulance, or put pressure on the wound or something? Yeah, that’s it, put pressure on the wound, that’ll help... at least ‘till the paramedics get here." She placed an open palm on the injury and pressed down. "Well what are you waiting for?" she shouted. "Call someone!" Break picked up the phone, only to find that instead of a dial tone, the song "I’m forever blowing bubbles" was playing over it. He punched various numbers, but to no avail. "Oh, shit, Jim, I’m really sorry. Really I am. Please don’t die on us, we need you-" Ivana looked down, expecting to see her hand covered in blood, only to find that there was none. She took it away, and saw that the wound had healed. Jim breathed deeply. "I feel... a hell of a lot better." he said. "What the hell happened?" "I don’t know." said Ivana. "I just don’t... know." **** An hour had passed. Jim and Ivana and Dave Break had made their way to the top of the building, where the Executive Suite was, hoping to find some answers, or at least get a better view of what had happened to the city. Other office workers roamed the building, the pressure of the merging of personalities causing them to act somewhat wierdly; they threw office chairs out of windows, scattered papers everywhere, played Quake Five on the office network, jacked off to computer porn. The effect seemed to grow more pronounced the higher up the building they went. On one floor the windows were being systematically smashed out by virtue of having trolleys full of office equipment rolled through them and off into space. The threesome arrived just in time to see the main computer server for the entire building being defenestrated in this manner, the massive computer smashing through the last of the picture windows and flying, for a short time, before crashing to the ground with a tremendous noise. A ragged cheer went up amongst the former IT staff; money then changed hands and they began to cast around eagerly. They got out before anyone decided to start finding new things to throw out, i.e. them. Fifteen floors later (no way were they getting in a lift) Dave, Ivana and Jim arrived on the top floor. It was deserted. Every one of them had expected someone to be there, fulfilling, or even not fulfilling whatever duties it was that the Directing Managers of the entire Institute did. They walked the corridors, covering the entire floor. Absolutely no-one. Then Jim tripped over a small round object. It was a golf ball, rolling away from his foot. As he looked around he saw that in this part of the top floor the windows had round holes smashed through them, as if... Someone shouted, "FORE!" The voice seemed to be coming from above them. But they were on the top floor...? "Dave! Ivana!" shouted Jim. "I’ve found them! They’re on the ROOF!" **** The three adventurers clambered up the maintenance ladder and onto the roof, where they found the executive directors of the Institute playing golf. They seemed to be trying to putt the balls onto nearby rooftops; squinting into the distance, Jim saw that on the other roofs were other businessmen, some wearing classic golfing outfits, others still clad in their business suits. "Hi there!" said Dave. "How’s the game going?" An executive turned and waved cheerily. "Not bad at all, old man. Of course, the game’s slightly limited in that you can only get a hole in one... Still, we’ve managed to avoid the gravity hazard more than you might expect." "Gravity hazard?" asked Ivana. "You know... this." said the exec, pointing to the chasm below. "Lose about half our balls that way. Bad show." "And the others... on the other roofs... return them to you?" "Well... of course the balls have to go around the entire course before coming back... and the average loss is about 50%... so no, we don’t get many back. Eventually we’re going to run out, unless someone goes to the shops to buy some more... but then it’ll be dark by then anyway." "Right." Ivana rolled her eyes, mouthed the work "Crazy" to the others. Dave was becoming quite interested, the game was bringing out the exec in him. "Let’s have a go then." "Certainly, old chap." The executive handed him a golf club. "Knees bent, deep breath..." the exec took Dave through the rudiments of a golf swing. Then there was a thwack... thonk! as a golf ball landed on the roof, bounced, and hit Dave on the back of the head. Close to the edge of the building, he staggered and nearly fell, saved from the yawning precipice by the quick actions of the executive-cum golf trainer nearby. "Steady on, old chap... bad show, what?" He walked Dave away from the adge and sat him down, then inspected his head. "Nasty bruise that... but there’s no bleeding. You’ll be okay, just take a break for now." Ivana walked up to Dave. "Dave, these people are crazy. Let’s get out of here before they throw us off the edge or something." "No, I’m... I’m O.K." He stood up. "I want to take that shot again." "Don’t you want to come with us... get away?" "No. I’m staying. This... this is great." Ivana turned away in disgust. "He’s concussed." she told Jim. "We’ve got to get him medical attention or he really will fall off next time." Jim looked around at the spectacular view. "No he’s not." he said absently. "If I was a golf player I’d stay here, too." Ivana looked him in the eyes. "You’re as bad as they are." "No I’m not." "You’ve lost the plot." Jim smiled. "Don’t mistake the desire for freedom for insanity. It’s too easy a mistake to make." "You are crazy." "Just because the world has come to it’s senses... just because people have broken out of their prison... you assume they’re all nuts. When in fact... you’re the one that’s crazy." "Whatever." She decided to try a different tack, there was obviously no point trying to demoralize the man, crazy or not he was still her comrade, welded to her by circumstances. "Look, don’t you want to find out what’s happened to the world?" "I already know what’s happened." he replied, gazing out at the mutant city. "Bounceback, is what it’s called." "And what might that be?" He sighed. "The world was so dominated by evil- by the selfish, by greed and meanness and cruelty, that- well, reality’s like an elastic band. In the past there would have been a violent and nasty revolution to correct things, probably followed by another tyranny, but thanks to the proliferation of quantum computing devices like the E.D.U. and the Brain Dump and so forth, somehow..." He paused for breath. "Somehow the alternate universes the quantum devices relied on to work merged together with this one. With the end result being an improvement. Simply because it wasn’t possible for things to get any worse." "I don’t get you. But then like I said, you’re crazy." "I’m no technician, but... I get the impression that... some physical law was being broken. Like with the Misery In The Vaults- all that stuff crammed away, occasionally excaping to freak some poor Vault Guard out, but on the whole and in general accumulating, year after year after year, until eventually it must have reached some kind of... critical mass?" "Uh-huh." "And when it did- they came." "Our Complements?" "Yes. And when they absorbed us- or we absorbed them- the entire matrix of probablities our universe is based on collapsed. All the probablitilies began to exist, at the same time and in the same place." He gestured expansively. "And this is the result." "And how do you know this?" Ivana humoured. He looked her in the eye. "Because, you jerk- I was absorbed by my complement. I share his memories. His knowledge. What’s the matter- don’t you?" And Ivana looked inside herself, and she saw that it was true. "So now what? How are we going to get back to normality?" Jim looked at her pityingly. "Don’t you get it? This is normality. As close as we’re going to get, anyway." "But- but it’s not the real world." "Not the world you remember." He looked out at the other office blocks, pockmarked by damage where they had been hit by flying golf balls or absorbed into another, parralel-universe building. "And no, it’s not perfect. But at least we're alive." "What do you mean- 'At least we're alive'? We were doing fine before - before…" "At least I'm alive, then. Being shot gives you a real perspective on living, you should try it some time. But we would probably have copped it in any case. You know, from, like, pollution, cancer, dodgy hamburgers…" Ivana looked out at the
city, at the golf players, at the sunbathers on the sparkling
terraces of a nearby Aztec pyramid, at a microlight flying
between tower blocks and at the skaters on the expressway, and
something happened. The last part of her former self finished
merging with her Complement, just as had happened with Dave and
Jim beforehand. That was why Dave was now maniacally slamming
golf balls into the abyss, and that was why Jim was talking like
some kind of science-freak psychadelics enthusiast out of the
last century; it was true. **** "Do you, Ivana Carter, in sickness and in health, in poverty or in wealth, till death do you part take this man to be your lawful wedded spouse?" "No, I don’t." The wedding reception stirred. Someone sniffed. A living blancmange- someone’s alien pet- wobbled with emotion. "Do you, James Grimes McCarthy the IIIrd, in sickness and in wealth, in poverty and health, take this woman to be your lawful wedded spouse until death do you part?" He grinned cheekily. "I surely don’t." The pastor smiled. "Then you may snog the unbride." Ivana leapt on Jim and stuck her tongue down his throat. The blacmange and two of the more elderly members of the congregation had to be led outside for heatstroke and dehydration treatment. THE END.
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