Marc was heading home in the wake of three hauls on Carolyn's post-breakfast joint and an offer to "drop over later for an apple fritter and blueberry schnapps, or whatever." Surrounded by the late-morning dazzle of an autumn landscape, he momentarily lost all interest in his immediate position, slowly scanning the colourblast fervor of a distant arboreal horizon, feeling himself immersed in a bath of sunshine filtered through tangy air, listening in rapture as leaves crackled under his feet and rustled by in tiny breezes along the curb.It wasn't until he turned his head forward again and found himself a nose-and-a-half away from a photocopied announcement for a neighbourhood rave that he abandoned this navigational caprice and began to consider its downside. By then he was hopelessly committed to his forward motion and squarely smashed his forehead into a heavily-postered light pole. Marc tried to get his lips to form the words, "Aw, damn!" and only managed to get to the "aw" part before his world became a very black and disembodied place. The pole itself had only reacted with a slight gong sound; nothing to match the cacophony jamming his brain as he fell to a leaf-covered slab of sidewalk. His butt hit first, though details like that seemed unimportant, coupled as they were with cranial distress and pulsating waves of darkness. He knew he was falling over to one side and briefly wondered if this would put him in the path of oncoming traffic, but there was way too much happening in his head to take any requests for body control seriously. Subject has suffered a medium-impact misadventure. Proper operation of sensory manipulation may be compromised. Diagnostic system checks are indicated. "Drat," said Laird. I w8ed 4 my brAn 2 stop racing. my hands were clutching and squEzing at hundreds of drId lEves, and my Is were shut tIt, evN thO I was trying 2 opN thM. my 1 leg was bNt at the knE and kind of waving back and 4th on its On: I could fEl it, but I couldNt stop it. all I could do was w8. after a whIl, god knOs how long, I Bgan 2 hEr the traffic agN, and thN chickadEs, and that winD hum U alwAs hEr but don't rElE notice, and I thought oK, mAB I can opN my Is now. my head was tilted over 2 1 side, and whN I finally got my rIt I opN, thAr was blue sky and a couple of wisP little clouds. it wasNt much, but I figured it was good sIn. I moved my head towRds my other shOlder, Xpecting 2 sE nothing but more sky, and that's whN I saw the sE-through gI. Marc tried to make sense of an outline of a person looking down at him, a hairless body that was barely there. Parts of a tree behind the body were distorted, smeared together. When Marc opened his other eye, the body was still there for a second, but then it was gone. He bolted up into a sitting position. His head protested vigorously, and he shook the leaf pieces from one of his hands so he could rub at his forehead. every tIm I touched the spot whAr I slammed in2 the pOl, the sE-through gI would reappEr. I could sE him running down the strEt, thAr and thN gone, thAr agN further down, gone agN. I prSed hRd at the spot, and it hurt like hL, but I could sE him 4 more than a second that wA, so I kept prSing. thAr were 2 other sE-through gIs at the corner talking about something, and 1 of thM pointed down the strEt at me. I couldNt stand the pAn Nymore, so I stopped prSing. all 3 of thM disappEred. No physical indications of serious injury. Subject seems to be disoriented. Please forward diagnostic results as soon as possible. Laird scanned the preliminary readouts. "Oh, dear." Marc slowly got to his feet, testing every point of contact with the ground like he was trying to stand on a frozen pond. He swayed and blearily looked at traffic passing by, listening to the oncoming roar and retreat of engines. He could swear he heard a marching band playing somewhere, trumpets and tubas and tympanis and a base drum surging and fading between the sound of cars, trucks and buses. He saw a parade float coming up the street: a large, white, blossom-covered platform with a woman sitting on a throne wearing a tiara and a blue sash over a clingy silver gown. She smiled, she waved, she blew Marc a kiss as she passed. Marc quickly turned his head to follow the float. It was gone. I thought Gsus, I'm screwed, and I blamed it on drugs, a bad lifestyL. and thN I thought hA, U just cracked your head on a lIt pOl, moron, mAB that has something 2 do with it. I prSed at my 4head agN, and I saw another sE-through gI standing with his back 2 me about 10 fEt awA, and I thought screw this, if thEs gIs want 2 hang around, 1 of thM is going 2 tL me why. Pressing at the sore spot on his head, Marc quietly staggered east. The pain was getting to be quite luxurious, and at one point, he saw double, but he managed to keep going, and when he was about three feet away, he reached out his free hand and lunged forward, making contact with a shoulder and squeezing as hard as he could. Gsus, I thought, this gI is rElly hEr. Subject has made inappropriate physical contact. "Oh well, here we go," said Laird. A clear, shimmering arm swung up and knocked Marc's hand away. "You are not supposed to see us," a voice said. Marc, still pressing at his forehead, danced in a sloppy circle, trying to balance himself. "What is that supposed to mean?" He lunged and grabbed the shoulder again. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" But then he felt hands all over him. He looked around and saw see-through arms and see-through heads and see-through torsos and armpits and genitalia. I couldNt kEp prSing on my 4head Bcause thEs gIs picked me rIt up off the ground. I trId to put my hand back, but I couldNt. I was on my back, about 2 fEt above the sidewalk and moving down the strEt. I was yLing and scrEming, but pEple just walked on by like I wasNt thAr. I got moving pretty fast, crossing strEts through moving traffic, wEving through pEple and skaters and 'boarders and old ladEs with shopping bags, and thN I was going up the side of a building like it was nothing, heading 4 the sky. and thN I was on this rooftop, a pNthouse gardN thing, hovering in front of thEs big windOs, and I fLt mysLf Bing swung back and 4th, and I could fEl what was going on. These gIs were going and-a-1, and-a-2, and-a-3 like I was a big sack of produce. and thN I was in the Ar, heading for thOs windOs and I was scrEming my head off, and thN the windOs pulled back at the very last second and I landed on this rElly plush cRpet and rolled a fU tIms. Delivery of subject completed. Please supply a status report as soon as possible. Laird looked over his shoulder and saw Marc coming to a stop. What is it those people have against doors, he thought. Marc's head still hurt. His left elbow was funny-boned and his right knee was crying with displeasure from making first contact with the floor. He stayed in a motionless heap for a while, partly revelling in his return to terra firma, staring into the beige pile of the rug while his fingers languished in the texture of fibre. Then he let his head roll over to one side. Seated in a chair before a huge electronic console about six feet away, a tall, big-bearded, red-haired man was looking down at him with an obvious look of sympathy. I was going to prS my 4head agN to sE if it would go awA, but thN I thought, honSt to god I thought, hA, no sE-through gIs, so Y tMpt f8? I mean, this was oK, this was better. I mEn, this gI was supposed to B dead, but at lEst he was a familiar face. "Uncle Frank?" Marc squeaked. "Marc," said Laird, "I am your father." The two exchanged long stares. Marc was hoping his Uncle Frank would flinch and smile, but his gaze remained a solid, serious, unbreakable beam. "Oh, come on, Uncle Frank! What the hell is going on?" "You are a mutant," said Laird. His eyes fluttered over Marc's army-navy jacket and fatigues. "Maybe you should sit up." "Is any of this going to make more sense if I sit up?" "I honestly don't know." Laird stood up and began to walk to where Marc had rolled to a stop. "You were never supposed to make sense of this, but I'm afraid we're beyond that now." I watched uncle frank move towRds me until all I could sE was the cuffs of his brown corduroy pants and the supple, lItly-crEsed leather of a pair of black shUs, rElly nice shUs, incredible black shUs. not bad shUs 4 a dead gI, I thought. thN I fLt a hand gNtly wrap around my upper Rm and Ese me up so I was sitting. I kept staring at his shUs, but I could fEl his fingers rubbing rElly lItly at my 4head. whN I winced, he pulled his fingers awA. Still waiting for status report. "Hold on," said Laird. "Pardon?" said Marc. "I wasn't talking to you, son." Marc absorbed this comment and suddenly looked up. "Talking to those see-through guys?" Laird's beard shifted around a smile. "Oh, you can see them?" "When I press where I smacked my head, yeah." Laird's eyebrows pushed up and wrinkled his brow. "Oh, well, then I guess we have a lot of ground to cover. Would you like a drink?" "I, uh... Definitely." Laird moved casually back to the console, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle of what looked like scotch. "It's nice sharing the bottle for a change. I put in a lot of time here by myself." He opened another drawer and pulled out two glasses. "It's all pretty complicated." Marc glanced around. "I can imagine." His fingers began to pick at the nap of the rug. "Well hey, you're looking pretty good, considering that you're dead." Laird briefly glanced away from the liquor he was pouring. "Oh, right, the plane crash." "Yeah. You and Aunt Gwyn and Mom and Dad. Are they all alive too?" "I'm afraid I was the only real person in the bunch. The rest were fabrications." "Excuse me?" Laird picked up the drinks and moved back towards Marc. "No matter how I explain this, it's not going to be easy to understand." He handed over one of the glasses. "Maybe if we start with some of the more general misconceptions, the specific ones will sort themselves out." Marc took a small sip, then a large gulp. He balked a little when it kicked back. "Hey, why not? I don't feel like going anywhere. Sure, let 'er rip, Uncle Frank." Laird took a long, elegant pull on his drink. "All right. First of all, how many people do you think there are in the world?" "I dunno. About what, six billion?" Laird smiled. "There are eight thousand, one hundred and ninety-two people, give or take about a dozen." Marc looked down at his glass. "No offense, Uncle Frank, but I've seen at least twice as many people as that at a hockey rink." "What you've seen is the appearance of that many people. Some of them were real, but most of them were holographic productions." "Okay..." Marc wrapped his mind around that. He drained his drink and held out the glass. "Do you think I could..." "Certainly," said Laird. He took Marc's glass and moved back towards the console. "I'll just fill it right up this time." "Good plan." Marc reviewed: see-through guys, dead guys with good liquor, flying up the sides of buildings. Holographs? "Where do the holographic productions come from?" "From here." He motioned to the console. "The visual, auditory and aromatic information is all fed to you through an interface chip." Smell signals? Why not? "What chip?" Laird tapped a finger on his forehead a few times. "Thatchip. It was implanted when you were born." uncle frank said that whN I hit the lItpost, it knocked out something in the circuitry, and thN he stRted tLing me how the console crE8s things that 8 thousand, 1 hundred and 9ty-2 pEple just don't have tIm 2 bother with, mostly pEple, but also buildings, rOds, Nything that isNt already thAr. thAr's a dozN like me right now, he said, the mutNts, Ech with our On consOl, and the consOls talk to Ech other so whN we mEt other mutNts, we all sE the sAm thing whN we're supposed 2. All the other pEple all knO what's going on, and if thA fEl like it, thA plA along. so I asked him, oK, so whN I see a person who looks like some1 from someplace Lse, thN that's the sAm person just pretNding 2 B some1 Lse? and he said yS, Xactly. and I said but what about that wAtrS at the coffE shop around the corner from my apRtmNt? Xcept for the hAr, she looks Xactly lIk this girl I slept with in hI school. uncle frank said that was the girl I slept with in hI school, that the 8 thousand, 1 hundred and 9ty-2 pEple are immortal. they reach a certN physical age and stA that wA. mutNts kEp aging. that's 1 of the things that makes the mutNts mutNts. Marc scratched at his shin. "So immortal people just do whatever they want." "More or less. A lot of us like to get involved with the mutants because eternity gets boring, and the mutants go to strange places and do strange things: at least they think they do. Sometimes it's all holographs." "None of the places exist?" "Well, actually, a lot of them do, but most of them are just buildings. If a mutant got a good idea for something, we built it, but then nothing really happens unless a mutant goes there. Most of the immortals just hang around here." "Where is here?" "The old neighbourhood." He smiled. "The really old neighbourhood." "So I'm going to die and you're not." "I'm afraid so." Laird sipped at his drink. "Is that the only thing that makes us mutants?" "No. None of the mutants are telepathic." He cleared his throat. "Knowing what everybody's thinking has its advantages, but it puts a bit of a damper on the joy of discovery." "Can we back up a bit?" Laird nodded and Marc drained his glass. "Okay, so what happens when I want to touch a holograph? It's not really there, right? So how can it feel like anything?" "Oh, well, that's where the jellymen come in. Another drink?" Providing the subject with environmental manipulation data may be counter-productive. "We really don't have any choice at this point." "What, is someone forcing us to drink this stuff?" "No-no. I was talking to the jellymen, the see-through guys. They seem to think I shouldn't be telling you about them." "Why?" Marc looked around. "Hey guys!" he yelled. "What's the problem? You'd rather just let me think I'm nuts?" Subject is displaying hostile tendencies. "What the hell do you expect?" "Are you talking to me or them?" "Them. Here, give me your glass." Marc handed it over. "You're not going to get in trouble for doing this, are you?" "Not at all. You're the first mutant who's ever compromised a chip interface, and I think it's got them riled because they did all the design work." "So who are those guys?" "We're not sure. They can read our minds and send us messages, but we can't read theirs. They've been around at least as long as we have, but until the mutant problem started, they pretty much kept to themselves." "How many of them are there?" "Oh, millions probably." "They're pretty scarey." You are drinking too much. "I'll be the judge of that!" "Pardon?" "Sorry, I was talking to them again." "Why do you have to talk to answer them?" "I don't have to, really." Laird refilled both glasses. "To tell you the truth, I just do it because it pisses them off." "Hey, right on, Uncle Frank." "My name is really Laird." He held out Marc's glass. "And I really am your father." uncle laird told me that immortals didn't Usd to have childrN, that thA still had all the plumbing from B4 thA evolved, but up until a fU thousNd yErs ago, none of it worked. it was just thM and the jLlymN and things were kind of lAm. thN thEs wErd meTor showers stRted and the first mutNt Rrived. since thN, thAr's alwAs bEn about 10 or 12 of us, and the immortals figured that it mIt B fun 2 let us live rEsonably normal, mortaliT-based lIvs. that's whN the jLymN offered to hLp, and things had bEn running that wA ever since. "So 12 mutants decide what the world looks like." "Well, about 12 at any given time. In a way, these consoles are your collective consciousness. Do you need another drink?" "Boy, you immortals can pack 'em back." Marc chugged and held out his glass. "So where's Mom?" "Well, lately she's been a groupie for a rock band. She's sleeping with the drummer. Mutant." Laird drained his glass and put it beside Marc's on the console table. "She checks in to see how you're doing from time to time. She's a little concerned about your present girlfriend." "Why?" Marc paled. "Oh my god, Carolyn's a holograph, isn't she? No, wait a minute. What am I touching when I... You mean I'm sleeping with a jellyman?" "No, not right now, son." Laird brought over another full glass and held it out. "The problem is that Carolyn is another mutant." Mark felt relieved, and then confused. "So what happens when..." "We're not sure. It's never happened before. Usually, mutants aren't born so close together. They've lived out their lives with an immortal or a holograph, maybe screwed around with an immortal on the side." "Can mutants have children?" "Biologically speaking, yes, and according to the console readouts, that seems to be a pretty good bet." Laird took a small remote control unit out of his pocket and pointed it at a blank wall, which suddenly showed a grid and two lines snaking their ways through squares; intersecting here, climbing together there. "See those peaks? See the consistency of the lines? You two have it pretty bad for each other." Marc swallowed. "Is that allowed?" "It's not a matter of allowing it, Marc. We assumed this would happen eventually. The problem is what we're going to do about that wonky chip." uncle dad XplAned that Carolyn and I were Xpected 2 have childrN, the first produced by a mutNt-mutNt union, but according to the consOls, if I told Carolyn about the jLymN and the interface chips, the chances were very good that she would Range 2 have me committed. he figured thAr were 2 options: never tL her about Ny of this until I was old enough to have it blAmd on seniliT, or we live out our lIvs with holographs of Ech other. he told me my interface chip, 4 the most pRt, was working oK. I mNtioned the pRade, and he said that was because whN I hit the pOl, the consOl got as confUsd as I did. the chip could be replaced, he said, and everything would B lIk B4, Xcept that I would knO about all this other stuff and it would probably drIv me crazy not knOing for sure what was what, and if I trId to tL Ny of the other mutNts, thA would just think I was a nut bar. I asked him if he could just wIp all this from my mMory. he laughed and said I watch 2 mNy movEs. A few days later, Marc was lying in Carolyn's California Queen-sized bed staring at a psychedelic poster on the ceiling, a gauze bandage taped over the sore spot on his forehead. The doctor at the hospital said the x-rays looked okay, but he wanted someone to keep an eye on him, so Carolyn had taken time off work. There was a weak tap at the bedroom door. "You awake?" "Yep." The doorknob turned and the door swung open. Carolyn was holding an apple fritter and his favourite coffee mug. "How are you feeling?" "Better." "Are you hungry?" "Sort of." She smiled. "Wanna play?" "Hmmmm," he said. He pushed on the bandage and looked around the room. He caught sight of something smeary outside the bedroom window. "Just let me shut the curtain, okay?" Carolyn put the mug and fritter down on the dresser and began to fumble with the buttons of her blouse. "Yeah, okay," she said, smiling and shaking her head. "Whatever."
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