Hylozoic Read online

  It was Sonic who woke her, wandering in from outside to blunder around the kitchen. He was rummaging for coffee, with his little Edgar shoon dogging his steps. Somewhere in the distance, harsh-voiced birds squawked.

  “We’re not moved in yet!” Thuy called to Sonic from her bed. “Nothing here for you. Go scavenge outside, bum.” She felt strange—it was as if the subliminal hum of the atoms in her body had changed pitch.

  “Tried that already,” said Sonic. “The animals ate the leftovers, so I came inside for a hands-on food search. What a night. I shouldn’t have slept so close to the stream. I feel like an old man. Look at our boy Jayjay. On the nod. Receiving truth. At one with the—”

  “Oh, shut up,” snapped Thuy, pulling on her T-shirt and tights. “You’re a creep to have gotten him so high.” She marched into the living room. “It was supposed to be our big romantic honeymoon night and now—oh God, look at that stain—I think he came in his pants while he was tripping. Prince Charming.”

  “I didn’t get him high, Thuy. He did it himself. You’ve been around the block a few times, chica. You know how it works.”

  “You encouraged him, Sonic. You’re—what do they call it?—an enabler. A lower companion.”

  “I’m a humble working stiff without a Founders paycheck,” said Sonic. “An unpaid extra in the theater of life. Meanwhile I gotta lead my squid ’n’ whale tour in half an hour. I can’t believe you don’t have coffee.”

  “Teek some in,” suggested Thuy. “And fetch me a double latte while you’re at it. It’s the least you can do. Skeevy, slushed pighead that you are.” Despite her strong words, she felt limp, as if her life were a tired script she was walking through.

  Sonic walked to the door and stared out at the misty clearing. “Fogged in,” he said. “I can barely see the trees. Jayjay and I got really high on Gaia. After you walked him in here, we made a kind of tower. It was vibby. Oh, and there was a talking pitchfork. He knocked down our tower and then I didn’t see Jayjay anymore.” Sonic paused, scanning through his eighth-dimensional memory bank. “That was about it,” he said. “After that I was just asleep. I don’t know what Jayjay got into.” He sighed and rubbed his face. “Okay, yeah, I’ll teek some coffee.”

  With a light rustle, three cups appeared on the kitchen counter: a double latte and two large black coffees, plus a container of cream. A moment later, three foil-wrapped breakfast burritos plopped down beside the drinks.

  “Straight from Taquería Aztlán,” said Sonic. “Enough for Jayjay, too. Dig in, Thuy.”

  “Not hungry,” she said, taking a sip of her latte. She was wondering about something she’d overheard yesterday, remotely teeping into the conversation in the back yard at Ond’s before they moved the house. “When you watch us have sex,” she asked Sonic, “are you hot for me—or for Jayjay?”

  “I like you two together,” said Sonic with a shrug. “It’s like you’re my parents, only not disgusting. But if you really mind, I’ll—”

  “Oh, no problem,” said Thuy, gazing up at the BigBox ad near the ceiling. “There’s so many watchers anyway.”

  “That crotch stain is pretty rude,” said Sonic, studying his friend.

  Thuy shook her head sadly. Everything seemed dull and gray. “You mentioned a pitchfork,” she said. “Last night when I woke up, I saw a forked branch leaning against my bedroom window. And now it’s gone.”

  “Yeah, it was a two-tined pitchfork like the peasants wave at Dracula’s castle,” said Sonic, remembering. “I glimpsed the pitchfork behind your house this morning too, as a matter of fact. He balances and hops on his handle like it’s a leg. He’s flexible. He was talking out loud to Jayjay by the stream right before our trip; he vibrates his prongs. He’s got this hillbilly accent. He came along on our big trip.”

  “A stick?” said Thuy, nonplussed.

  “More than a stick,” said Sonic. “I bet he’s an alien from another world. Wow. Why don’t I feel more excited? Need more coffee. The pitchfork’s name is Groovy.”

  “This is big news,” said Thuy in an equally flat tone. “What’s wrong with us today? Empty and numb.”

  “Oh, and did Jayjay tell you about the flying manta rays he thought he saw yesterday afternoon? Or, wait, I wasn’t supposed to tell you about that.”

  “Don’t tease me, Sonic.”

  “All kinds of aliens are after your husband,” said Sonic, managing a grin.

  “I wonder if I made a mistake marrying him.”

  “Look, I can’t do the whole kitchen-counter relationship discussion this morning. I’m leading a tour for Animal Animats in like three minutes.” Sonic paused, studying Thuy. “Don’t get so bummed out. You have a hangover, is all. Eat something. Jayjay loves you more than anything, okay? It was a vibby housewarming, Thuy. Everyone had a good time. I gotta go. Squid versus whale.”

  Thuy ended up eating her breakfast burrito after all. Alone in the cabin, she began wondering if she could hear the thuds of an alien pitchfork hopping around outside. Was Sonic putting her on?

  She thought of checking with Vrilla. The cabin’s silp confirmed that, yes, she’d seen the hopping pitchfork, too. “And Jayjay shrank way down inside one of my floorboards for a while,” added Vrilla. “Into the subdimensions. And now something else is down there.”

  Meanwhile Jayjay slumbered on. Drinking her coffee, Thuy let her mind wander away from last night’s disturbing events. When reality got too harsh, it was always comforting to think about her current metanovel. The new one would be about life in this new hylozoic world, and she was going to call it Hive Mind. Even in her presently discouraged state, thinking of the work made her smile. A bright spot in life’s frikkin’ vale o’ tears, a small zone where she was fully in control.

  Usually hive minds were presented as totalitarian and dull. But Thuy had decided that was backwards. A brain’s hive of cooperating neurons was a lot more interesting than a trillion independent nerve cells. An ant colony was way vibbier than an ant. And if you thought about the history of art and the history of science—as opposed to the history of governments—you got a sense that the emergent mind of massed human society could be a creative and wonderful thing.

  Maybe the problem with politics was that Earth’s nations weren’t enough like hives. As it stood, democracies were controlled by tiny power elites who used the media to enforce uniform thought. A telepathic human society might instead be based upon each of its members being heard. Flexible, intricate compromises could supplant the blunt instrument of majority rule. . . .

  Thuy lost the thread of what she was thinking about.

  “I feel stupid,” she said out loud, and then tried it again, doing a hick accent. “Ah’m a-feelin’ duuuumb. Might as well go surfin’. Sunny Californee! Cowabuuuunga.” She warbled the long u sound up and down, heartening herself by being silly.

  In preparation for the surf outing, she rummaged around the bedroom, gathering warm clothes. She was planning to leave Jayjay on the floor so he’d wake up alone and wonder where she’d gone.

  But now, damnit, she could only find one of her pigtail fasteners. “Where’s your sister?” she asked the fastener as she wrapped it around a hank of hair on the left side of her head.

  “Don’t know,” teeped the fastener, a loop of elastic with two red balls. It sounded sullen. Even the silps were dumb today.

  Thuy found the other fastener lurking under her bed. It was actually trying to make itself invisible. Too lazy to hold her hair. And when Thuy got on her knees to reach for it, the little object rebounded from her fingernail and scooted deeper into the shadows.

  Thuy slid the bed away from the wall and captured the stupid balky fastener, with the uncooperative bed digging its feet into the floor. What a day. As Thuy stretched the elastic with one hand and gathered a pigtail with the other, the fastener’s balls managed a tiny rolling motion that sent it springing free. With a joyful clatter, the fastener skittered under her bed again.

  “Goddamn you all!”
yelled Thuy, roughly yanking the bed to one side.

  Right about then Jayjay roused himself.

  “Hey. What are you doing?”

  “Don’t you be asking me questions,” said Thuy, fastening her second pigtail. “Addict.”

  “I had such a weird trip,” said Jayjay, sitting up and rubbing his face.

  Ordinarily Thuy would have continued berating him, but today she wasn’t up for it. Mechanically she folded a towel and stuffed it in a carry-sack. “I’m going out on the waves with those kids,” was all she said. “Momotaro, Mabel, Chu, and Bixie.”

  “I’ll tag along,” said Jayjay. “Is that food on the counter for me?”

  “Sonic brought it.”

  “Good old Sonic,” said Jayjay. He got to his feet and poured cream into his coffee. “I lost track of him last night. There was this weird pitchfork named Groovy. I think he physically pushed me into the subdimensions.”

  “Vrilla told me,” said Thuy, still unable to feel much surprise. “Anyway, I saw you oozing up from the floor. What were you doing down there?”

  “I was in Subdee,” said Jayjay. “I even saw those flesh-eating cactuses you talked about. But there was a giant beanstalk, too. The pitchfork took me partway up it, and we saw the magic harp that you brought back from the Hibrane. Her name is Lovva.”

  “Hell of a trip,” said Thuy, not liking it. “Great way to spend the first night of your honeymoon. And I hear you saw flying manta rays yesterday, too. Tell me, Jayjay, are you going nuts?”

  Jayjay stared down into his cup, his face stubbornly blank. “The coffee looks wrong.”

  Thuy leaned over to peer into the cup, wanting to stay right on top of Jayjay’s doings. The cream was spreading as an orderly white ellipse. No tendrils, no eddies, no chaos. The bland vibe of the coffee’s silp filled her with unaccountable despair.

  “Everything’s horrible,” she said. “I’m hungover and you’re strung out and it’s gray outside—oh, Jayjay, are we gonna blow our chance to be happy?”

  “I shouldn’t have spaced out on you last night,” admitted Jayjay. “Sometimes I get this stupid idea that I’m missing something. I always think that when I network into Gaia, I’ll get more. I’m sorry I didn’t stay around.”

  “Don’t be sorry for me,” said Thuy. “Be sorry for you.” She made a gesture that included the forest, Vrilla, and herself. “This is where it’s at. This is what you don’t want to miss.”

  “Yes,” said Jayjay, pulling himself together. “I’m here. I’m not crazy. Maybe I imagined the manta rays, but I’m pretty sure the pitchfork was real.” He managed the reckless smile that Thuy loved. “I’m ready to surf with you, phu nhân. Let’s hop!”

  “Okay!” But now Thuy remembered her fight with her mother last night. “Oh gosh, you better go down to Ond’s alone and I’ll meet you there. I have to stop by—”

  “—your house to apologize to Minh,” said Jayjay, completing her thought. “Keep it light. Don’t let the old dragon ruin your day. Tell her we have to catch a particular tide at, like, nine thirty, so you have to be with me in five minutes.”

  “Good idea,” said Thuy. She liked it when Jayjay’s thoughts meshed with hers. Their private little hive.

  Whatever had been wrong with Thuy wore off quickly once she’d left the Yolla Bolly gloom. It was sunny in San Francisco, a beautiful second day of May. The trees bobbed enchantingly in the morning breeze. Her father, Khan, was in the family’s kitchen eating noodle soup with his sister. He smiled when he saw Thuy.

  “Congratulations on the party. A real housewarming.”

  “Thuy?” croaked her mother from the bedroom. Thuy squared her shoulders and marched in there. Now that she’d left misty Yolla Bolly, her emotions were bouncing back.

  Minh’s lips were trembling, preparing for speech. She made a feeble gesture with the hand that wasn’t a paralyzed claw.

  “I’m sorry for being mad at you yesterday, Mom,” said Thuy.

  “Always mad at me,” said Minh. It was annoying how Minh never accepted apologies. Instead she just used them as starting points for further attacks. It crossed Thuy’s mind that she herself had been doing the same thing to Jayjay.

  “Your husband very drunk last night,” put in Minh, following Thuy’s thoughts. “More than drunk. I teep him lying on the ground this morning.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t spy on us.”

  “I worry about you,” said Minh. “I miss my daughter sometimes.”

  “Oh, Mom.” Thuy squeezed her mother’s hand and kissed her cool, smooth cheek. Mom smelled bad. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t her fault.

  “You want to stay for the day?” asked Minh.

  “Oh—I can’t!” said Thuy, standing up and starting to breathe again. “We’re going surfing. And the tide is changing in five minutes.”

  “He told you to say that,” said Minh. “That bad boy.”

  “Mom—” Thuy stopped herself before saying anything else. “Gotta run!”

  She bid her father and aunt good-bye, then hopped to Ond’s. Jil and Ond were in their kitchen having breakfast. Thuy got some coffee from them, and joined Jayjay, who was sitting on the patio. The tree shadows were lively and complex. And the cream in the San Francisco coffee swirled the way it was supposed to.

  By now Thuy’s emotions were fully up to speed again. That stain on Jayjay’s pants was really bugging her. Her anger budded and bloomed.

  “The reason you’re an addict is that you’re scared of emotions,” she told him, drawing him aside. “Every time you’re about to feel something, you want to run away.”

  “Oh give me a break,” snapped Jayjay. “I worked my butt off yesterday. Moving the house, grilling the food, and putting up with your crazy parents. They’re the reason you’re so uptight.”

  “Oh, now you’re making remarks about my family? My father is a wonderful man.”

  “So move back in with him,” said Jayjay, faking a nonchalant tone. But Thuy could teep the sadness and self-doubt in his mind. Her volatile emotions flip-flopped, and suddenly she threw her arms around him.

  “Oh, Jayjay, I do love you. It’s just talk. I get carried away. We can work things out, can’t we?”

  “I hope so, Thuy. You’re all I want in this world.”

  “Let’s have fun surfing today. I’m glad you came.”

  “You and me,” said Jayjay. “Let’s go online and find some boards and wetsuits.”

  Thuy and Jayjay tuned out of the visual world and into the mindweb. They drifted upward into the virtual sky, seeing the city as a grid of glowing personalities.

  “Hey,” called Thuy to the world at large. “It’s Thuy and Jayjay from Founders. We need to borrow surfboards and wetsuits for today.”

  With everyone and everything linked together, people’s attitudes about possessions had changed. Given that you always knew where your stuff was, you didn’t have to worry about getting it back after lending it. And you didn’t have to lend to just anyone. The mindweb had a rating system in place; and if someone got a rep for trashing things, they were blocked from further borrowing until they made good on whatever damage they’d done.

  Within seconds of Thuy’s request, a few points of light flared up on the colorful map of San Francisco. People were eager to lend to celebs. In a just a few moments a well-off woman had equipped them with some smart boards and psipunk wetsuits that she and her boyfriend had barely used.

  After teeking the goods to Ond’s patio, Thuy and Jayjay undressed and pulled on their suits. In a few minutes they’d be teleporting directly to the Potato Patch break. The piezoplastic suits were like flexible display screens. Thuy’s synched in with her mind flow to show a drifty pattern of hearts and ants.

  “Whoah,” said Momotaro, materializing on the patio, wearing a piezoplastic wetsuit as well. By way of miming his surprise at seeing Thuy and Jayjay, his suit showed an expanding ball of orange and yellow. “You sure you two aren’t too old?”

  “Jayjay’s
eighty,” said Thuy cheerfully. The longer she was away from Yolla Bolly, the more like herself she felt. The live-liness of nature’s computations made all the difference.

  “Personally I’m glad Thuy and Jayjay are coming,” said Bixie, walking out of the house, her suit showing fluffy clouds in a blue sky. “If it was just us four, it’d be—eek—a double date. Speaking of dates, where’s Maaaabel, Momotaro?”

  “Stop saying her name that way or I’ll pound you.” Spiked clubs and atomic cannons flitted across the surface of Momotaro’s suit. Bixie replied with an image of smug pink armor.

  “I’m ready,” announced Chu, emerging from Nektar’s house next door, a tidy white surfboard under his arm. His wetsuit was plain black.

  “Here I am, too,” announced Mabel, alighting on the patio, lithe and lovely in the morning sun. “I was trying to borrow a board and a suit, but nobody trusts me. Just because I’ve never borrowed anything here before.”

  “I’ll get it for you,” said Momotaro, and moments later the gear appeared.

  Mabel changed clothes in the house—even though nobody had true privacy anymore, face-to-face nudity was still an issue. And then they were set. The six teleported to a spot on the seaward edge of the Potato Patch break—about a mile out to sea from the straits of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “Cold!” gasped Jayjay, paddling at Thuy’s side. “I have an ice cream headache in my feet!”

  The four others—the youngsters—had already propelled themselves to where the waves were actually breaking. The smart surfboards could pulse ripples along their bottoms to speed you up. But Thuy and Jayjay were in no rush to meet the waves. The Potato Patch breakers were ragged and intimidating.