Beyond Singularity, page 20
"Ung," I said, shivering with fright, guts turning to jelly and hackles rising—exactly the wrong reaction and deeply embarrassing, but there's a reason I work behind a locked door most of the time. "Gimme five."
"How kawaii!" Al burst apart into half a dozen beachballsized balloons and bounced out onto the landing. "See you downstairs!"
I just stood there, muscles twitching in an adrenaline induced haze, as I wrestled to get my artificially induced anger under control. It took almost a minute, during which time I forced myself to listen as a series of loud thumping noises came from the hall downstairs, and I heard the sound of voices, indistinct, through the open doors: my fiancee's low and calm, and Al as enthusiastic and full of laughter as a puppy in a mid-belly rub. Al had left an afterscent behind, one that gave me dizzying flashbacks to teenage sexual experimentation—my first sex change, Al's first tongue job—and left me weak at the knees in an aftershock of memories. It's funny how after the fire's burned down all you can remember are the ashes of conflict, the arguments that drove you apart, until your ex shows up and reminds you what you' ve lost. Although knowing Al it might just as well be a joke as accidental.
Presently I went downstairs, to find the door open and a couple of huge crates sitting in the front yard—too big to come through the door without telling the house to grow a service entrance. I followed the voices to the living room, where my fiancée was curled up on our kidney-shaped sofa, opposite Al, who had somehow draped herself across the valuable antique tube TV and was reminiscing about nothing in particular at length. Her main incarnation looked alarmingly substantial, nothing like the soap-bubbles except for a slightly pearlescent luster to her skin. "You're so lucky with Cyd! So to speak. He's such a stable, consistent, unassuming primal male pre-post-! I won't say I envy you but you really need to make more of your big day together, I promise you, you won't regret it. I remember when we spoofed out from under our teachers one day and we blew a month's allowance at the distraction center and he said, Al, if I ever get—"
"Hello there," I said, nodding to Al, civil enough now my autonomic nervous system wasn't convinced I was under attack. "Do you metabolize? If so, can I offer you anything? Coffee, perhaps? What have you been up to all this time?" I barely registered my fiancée's fixed, glassy-eyed stare, which was glued to Al's left nipple ring like a target designator, or the way she was twitching her left index finger as if it was balanced on the hi-hat of a sidearm
controller. These were normally bad signs, but right then, I was still reeling from the shocking smell of Al's skin. I know it was all part of her self-rep, but how could I possibly have forgotten it?
"Cyd!" She was off the television and across the room like the spirit of electricity, and grabbed me in a very physical bear hug. The nipple ring was hard, and even though her body wasn't made of CHON anymore she felt startlingly real. She grinned at me with insane joy. "Whee! Three hundred and twenty-seven million eight hundred and ninety-six thousand one hundred and four, five, six, seconds, and you still feel good to grab!" Over her shoulder, "You're a very lucky person to be marrying him, you know. Have you made up your mind what you are doing about the catering? Did you like my suggestion for the after-banquet orgy? What about the switch fetish session? You are going to be so good together!"
My affianced had a strained smile that I recognized as the mirror image of my own bared-teeth snarl when someone interrupted my work. As usual, her face was reflecting my own mood, and I stared at her tits until I had the rhythm of her breath down, and then matched it with my own, slowing down, bringing her down to the calm that I was forcing on myself. "Hey, Al," I said, patting her shoulder awkwardly.
"Oh, I'm doing it again, aren't I? Hang on, let me underclock a little." She closed her eyes and slowly touched her index finger to her nose. "Muuuuuch better," she said. "Sony, I'm not really fit for human company these days. I've been running at very high clockspeed. Order makes order, you know—I'm going to wind up faster than entropy winds down and overtake thermodynamics if I can. I'm about a week away from entangling enough particles in Alpha Centauri to instantiate there, then I'm going to eat the star and, whee, look out chaos!"
"Ambitious," my betrothed said. I liked her absence of ambition, usually—so refreshing amid the grandiose schemes of the fucking post-s. "You're certainly very kindto have done so much thinking about our wedding, but we were planning to keep it all simple, you know. Just friends and family, a little dancing. Rather retro, but ..." She trailed off, with a meaningful glance at me.
"But that's how we want it," I finished, taking my cue. I moved over to the sofa and sat by my promised and rubbed her tiny little feet, the way she liked. Human-human contact. Who needs any more than this?
She jerked her feet away and sat up. "You two haven't seen each other in so long, why don't I leave you to catch up?" she said, in a tone that let me know that I had better object.
"No, no, no," I said. "No. Work to do, too much work to do. Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines." I was uncomfortably aware of the heat radiating off Al's avatar, a quintillion smart motes clustered together, pliable, fuckable computation, the grinding microfriction of which was keeping her at about three degrees over blood-temp. "So good to see you, Al. What we'll do, we'll look over these plans and suggestions and whatnot, such very good stuff, I'm so sure, and we'll get in touch with you about helping out, right?"
She beamed and wedged herself onto the sofa between us, arms draped over our shoulders. "Of course, of course. You two, oh, I'm so happy for you. Perfect for each other!" She gave my intended a kiss on the cheek, and then gave me one that landed close enough to my earlobe to tickle the little hairs there. The kiss was fragrant, and wet as the first one, and I heard faint, crashing surf. It was only after she'd moved back (having darted her tongue out and squirmed it to the skin under my beard) that I realized she'd been generating it. I crossed my legs and furiously tried to think my erection away.
She bounded out the door and then stood on our lawn, amidst the crates. She gestured at them; "They're a wedding present!" she called, loud enough to rattle the picture window. Our neighbor across the street scowled at her from his attic, where he painted still lives of decaying fruit ten hours a day. "Enjoy!"
"Well, she hasn't changed," my love said, scowling. "You seemed very happy to see her again."
"Yes," I said, awkwardly, jiggling my crossed foot. "Well. I guess I'll try to get her gifts inside before it rains or something, right? Why don't you go back to work?"
"Yes," she said. "I'll go back to work. I'm sure the gifts are lovely. Call me once they're unpacked, all right?"
"Sure," I said, and jiggled my foot.
Iconsidered Ordering the house to carve a service door, but decided at length that peristalsis was the optimal solution—otherwise, I'd still have to find a way to drag the goddamned crates into the house. I shoved all our living room furniture into a corner and went down to the cellar to scoop up the endless meters of the house trunk that we'd fabbed to help us move in but hadn't had a use for since. I spread it out along the lawn, stretching its mouth-membrane overtop of the largest of the three crates, then pulled the other end through the picture window. I retreated to the living room and used a broom handle to tickle the gag-reflex at the near end of the tube and then leapt clear as the tube shudderingly vomited a gush of dúst over the floor. I hit the scrubber-plate with my fist and escaped out the front door before I'd gotten more than a lungful of crud, chased by convection currents that cycled all the room's air toward the filters in the baseboards.
Out on the lawn, the house trunk was slowly digesting the crate, gorging it upwards to the picture-window. Once there was enough slack on the lawn end, I stretched the twitching membrane overtop of the second crate, and then the third. The house trunk's muscular digestion slowed, but continued, inexorably, moving the trunks living-room-ward.
I met the first trunk with a crowbar and set to work on it, surprised as ever at the fabulous working order of my biceps and back muscles. Sedentary life will never get the best of me, not so long as I am master of my own flesh, ordering it to stay limber and strong.
The crate was ready to fall to pieces just as the second box was eructing onto the living room floor. I guided number two to a clear spot, then knocked out the last fasteners on number one and slid the panels aside.
It was a dining room table, handsome and spare, made from black oak, with a fine grain that was brought out by a clear varnish. It had an air of antiquity, but it was light enough to move with one hand. Subsequent boxes disgorged four matching chairs and a sideboard.
I reversed the house trunk and evacuated the crate remnants back onto the lawn, where I decided I'd deal with them later.
I dialed my fiancée's number and waited for her to answer. "I've unpacked," I said. "Come out and see."
A couple of minutes later she poked her head round the door and sniffed. "Smells like trouble," she remarked. "That's a lot of furniture. What does she do, breed the stuff?"
"I don't know." I rubbed the sideboard. "Hey, you. Wake up. Tell me about yourself."
"Cyd?" said the table, hesitantly. "Is it lunchtime already?" It spoke with Al's voice.
The chairs began to climb out of their crates and shake off the packing fuzz; one by one they gathered around the table and hunkered down. "What do you feel like today?" asked Al-the-table. "How about a light Mediterranean salad, rocket and tomatoes and mozarella with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil? Or maybe my special wasabi and eggplant nod?"
Herself yanked one of the chairs out from the table and sat on it, hard. "I'll have a plate of tacos and salsa," she said, glaring at the sideboard. "And make it snappish."
The table extruded cutlery—dumb, old-fashioned silver, no less—and the sideboard sidled up to her and offered a plate. She took it with poor grace and began to pick at her food. "I don't like the style," she declared. "This old antique shit went out with the history of the month club. Gimme some Nazi kitsch any day of the week."
"Sure!" trilled Al's instantiation, and the table sprouted swastikas.
"I can do without lunch," I said. "I'm not really feeling hungry."
"Oh, for fuck's sake." My fiancée looked disgusted and shoved the plate away. "You like this furniture so much, you do the washing up." She took a deep breath. "Been meaning to talk to you, anyway."
"Anything in particular, love?" I asked.
"Yeah." She stood up abruptly. "It can wait. I was just thinking about a little recreational surgery, is all."
Recreational surgery? "Uh, what kind?" I asked. "We're getting married in just six days, now. Will it take long? You can't do anything substantial like a set of extra arms—you'd need to alter your dress, wouldn't you?"
"Oh, nothing much." She mimed an elaborate yawn. "I'm just thinking it's been too long since I wore the balls in this household."
"Hey, I'm keeping mine!" I said. "Anyway, isn't it traditional for a bride to be female at the altar?"
"Oh yes," she agreed, nodding brightly. "The bride's supposed to be a young female virgin if she's going to wear white! That's me all over." She giggled alarmingly, jumped up onto the tabletop, and spread her legs wide. "Fuck it, come here, Cyd. Right now, on the table. See this? Young? Virgin? You be the judge!"
Afterwards, as we lay in the accommodating depressions Al-table had generated for us, my fiancée trailed a lazy tongue along my throat. "All right, then," she said. "If you want a girl-bride, I'll stay female. It's only a week, after all."
I propped myself up on one elbow. "Thanks, honey," I said, gently cupping one of her breasts. "It's just, you know. This wedding's going to be complicated enough as it is. We don't need more changes at the last minute."
"I know," she said. "Well, back to work." The wríti went well that afternoon. I worked up a really good head of rage and ranted into my phone for three hours, watching the words scroll along the ticker at the bottom of my field of vision. When I was done, I did an hour of yoga, feeling the anger ease out of my muscles as I moved slowly from posture to posture.
I did a fullscreen display of the text, read it back, tweaked a few phrases, and fired it off to my blog. Another week's work finished.
I headed down to the living room. The Al-dinette had neatly arranged itself. "Good column," it said to me. "You've really found a niche."
"How are you powering yourself?" I said.
"You'd be surprised at how little draw an instantiation pulls. Your romp with your girl generated enough kinetic to power me for a month. If I need more, there's always photovoltaic and a little fusion—I don't like to use nuclear, though. Splitting my atoms reducing my computational capacity; enough of that and I'd be too stupid to talk in a couple centuries."
"Jesus," I said. "Well, it was a very ... thoughtful .. . gift, Al, thank you."
"Oh, don't thank me! Just keep recharging me the way you just did and we'll call it even."
"Well then," I said. "Well."
"I've made you uncomfortable. I'm sorry, Cyd. Seems like I'm always weirding you out, huh?"
My chuckle was more bitter than I'd intended. "Goes with the territory, I suppose."
"Don't be coy," the table said with mock sternness, and the chair under my bum wiggled flirtatiously. "You know that you were attracted to the weirdness."
And I had been. On the beach, as she leaned in and sank her teeth gently into the skin below the corner of my jaw, worrying at it with her tongue before grabbing me by the back of my head and kissing me with a ferocity that made
my pulse roar in my ears. I'd only been, what, twelve, and she thirteen, but I was smitten then and there and, I feared, always and forever.
The chair contrived to give my ass a friendly squeeze. "There, you see—you're just one of those fellas who can't help but be infatuated with the post-human condition."
My betrothed didn't show up for dinner that night. I ate alone at the Al-table, eschewing our kitchenette for the light conversation and companionship of the Al-furnishings. I knocked on the woman's studio door before heading to bed and she hollered a muffled admonishment about virgin brides and her intention to sleep separate until the Day. I swore I heard the dining room table giggle as it digested my dirty dishes.
She was gone when I rose the next morning. Al-table, Al-chair, and I had a companionable breakfast together. Al-table said, as I was drinking my second cup of coffee, "You're certainly taking it very well."
"Taking what?"
"Gender reassignment. Honestly! And after you agreed last night that the wedding was too imminent to contemplate any major replumbing. Poor Cyd, always being tempest tossed by the women in his life."
The coffee burned north from my gut along the back of my throat. I tapped my palm until her phone was ringing in my ear.
"Hello," she said. Her voice was deeper, the mirror of my own.
"God damn it," I shouted without preamble. "You promised!"
"Oh, come on, hysterics never help. It's just for a day or two."
"No it isn't," I said. "You're stopping right now and beginning the reversal. This is completely unfair, you've got no right to be changing things around now."
"Don't you tell me what to do, Cydonia. This is supposed to be a partnership of equals."
"Look," I said, trying some of my deep-breathing juju. "Look. Okay. Fine. If you want to do this, do it. Fine. It's your body. I love you whatever shape it's in."
"Oh, Cyd," she said, and I actually heard her face crumple up preparatory to a good cry. "I'm sorry, I just wanted a change, you know. Just a mood. I would have changed back, but you didn't know that. Don't worry, I'll change back."
Thank you. "Great—I'm sorry if I blew up there. Just wound a little tight is all. I'm always like this the day after I turn in a column."
True to her word, my fiancée returned with the same gonads she'd been wearing the night before. She pointed this out to me in the living room. "You were right. Cyd," she explained contritely, sitting on one of the chairs in the improvised upstairs dining room with her legs splayed to show me what she had. "I'm really sorry it took me so long to figure it out, but you were absolutely completely right. I don't know what I was thinking! A young female virgin is exactly what you're going to get at the altar. See, I went for the complete genital reconstruction? I even have a hymen again." She showed me it—then picked up a medieval-looking piece of steel underwear and locked herself into it with a solid clunk before I figured out what was going on. "See, look what a pretty chastity belt I found!" She looked thoughtful, and for a moment I wondered if she was merely bluffing—but then she stood up, took an experimental step, winced, and smiled at me, and I realized with a sinking heart that she meant to go through with this whatever the cost. "You're going to have a virgin bride. Isn't tradition wonderful?"
"Ah," I said faintly. "I take it that oral sex is out, too?"
"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander," she said. "You get my key at the altar, and not a millisecond before!"
"Oh." I checked my countdown timer: fifty-two hours and sixteen minutes before I could have sex again. Well,
sex with her—Al-table maybe had other ideas. "This isn't quite what I had in mind," I said tiredly.
"Fine. Go fuck yourself—if you can," she said sharply, then turned and hobbled out of the living room, muttering under her breath.
When my fiancée got into one of these moods there was no reasoning with her. Not that I'm very reasonable myself when I get a wild hair up my ass, but this, this passive-aggressive sexual torture, this was really low. In addition to winding me up—for she refused to so much as let me touch her, never mind share a bed or bodily fluids—this was putting her in a foul mood.
`L `t least I could masturbate if I wanted to," I told my couch as I lay in it, staring miserably at the ceiling.
"You could do more than masturbate," the couch replied in sultry tones. "Don't you think you're doing this to yourself?" I'd woken that morning to discover that Al was colonizing every stick of furniture in the house, converting it into computronium to back up the instances in the living room. The floorboards weren't floorboards any more, but warm computational matter that looked like floorboards but captured the kinetic energy of every foot that trod them and converted it straightaway to computation on behalf of my damned dinette set.
