19: Offer Cap

"We had an awesome trip,” bragged Durkle. “We fell into some living water at the bottom of the pit. Then Jim and I fought our way to the bottom level of the underworld and escaped into the Dark Gulf—it’s this cosmic sea of that fills the whole bottom half of Flimsy.” “We saw the Earthmost Jiva’s nest,” I added. “And a much bigger jiva in the Dark Gulf.” I didn’t mention anything about Val.

“You two were way down under Flimsy,” said Ginnie, trying to put together the pieces. “So how’d you end up gliding down from the sky?”

“We were riding this totally savage current of the living water,” said Durkle. “It runs from the Dark Gulf and all across the heavens—all the way to the goddess of Flimsy. She’s in a glowing waterfall that drizzles from the sky at Flimsy’s core.”

“I don’t like when people talk about gods and goddesses,” said Ginnie. “It means they’re about to rip me off. Let’s stick to the facts.” Durkle gave her a sly, longing look. “Do I get a kiss for facts? Here’s one—jivas are bulbous tubers that leech onto everything in sight.”

My jiva, Mijjy, didn’t like this kind of talk, and I’m sure Ginnie’s jiva didn’t enjoy it either. Meanwhile, Durkle had puckered up his mouth and was leaning close to Ginnie.

She gave the wriggling boy a perfunctory peck. “I’m a puff of kessence wrapped around some jiva-folded scraps of space,” she said. “Big frikkin’ deal.”

“A Flimsy kind of girl,” said Durkle, smacking his lips. “If only you’d lose your jiva.”

“Then what?” said Ginnie in a flat tone.

“Do you know about flim sex?” said Durkle. “Conjugation? Maybe you’re not right for me, Ginnie, but I’d like to tangle my crotch feelers with Swoozie, that’s for sure. Flam’s so lucky. Even though he’s an idiot. Where did those two go anyway?”

“They ran off with our cruiser couch,” answered Ginnie. “Flam said he’d won the couch fair and square.”

“Well, that’s true,” I said. “Remember? Durkle here made a bet. Mr. Incoming Pit Master. But I can always make another couch.”

“Garbage couch,” teeped my jiva just then. “Hop Duke castle. Earthmost Jiva command.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Ginnie irritably. She’d picked up the jiva’s teep as well.

“It means the Earthmost Jiva is impatient,” I said. “As usual. Look, Mijjy, your boss said tomorrow would be fine. Right now, I’m weak and hungry. I lost a lot of my kessence down there.”

“I’m hungry too,” said Durkle, casting around for food. “Oh, look, here’s another patch of pigpops.”

We cooked them up and I ate until I was back to my previous size. And now I was tired. “Let’s make up some beds,” I suggested to Ginnie.

“My jiva and I already made us a bed,” she said, gesturing towards a pale rectangle on the ground. “I figure we don’t need a tent. It’ll be fun to sleep under that wild light show in the sky. But, yeah, let’s make a separate bunk for the kid. Not too close to ours. He’s a horn-dog, talking about conjugation. Who even wants to know?”

So I made Durkle a bed that was a hundred feet away from us—and then Ginnie and I got between our sheets together, just like last night. Pinheaded male that I am, I insisted on trying to make love.

“Did you see Header’s ghost down there?” Ginnie asked, pushing me away. “I’m scared he might bother me again.”

“I didn’t see him, no,” I said. “There’s more ghosts in Flimsy than you can imagine. And a lot of them get eaten by the others—or swept off to some glowing light at the core.”

“How about your wife?” persisted Ginnie, teeping deeper into my mind. “You saw her, didn’t you? Val.”

“I did see Val, yes,” I admitted. “There’s, like, some kind of synchronicity that brings married couples together here.”

“I’m worried Header might bother me again.”

“I seriously doubt that we’ll ever see him again. It’s not like you two were really a loving couple or anything.”

“No,” admitted Ginnie. “But tell me more about Val.”

“Val’s mad at me. I think maybe now she’s headed for that light at the core.”

“Don’t you want to go after her?”

“Kind of. Yeah. I mean, Val has a right to be upset. And she is the love of my life—and shit like that. But it’s a moot point. My jiva won’t let me to anything but go to the Duke’s castle tomorrow. So, uh, we might as well fuck.”

“How romantic. How suave.” She paused a moment. “Oh, why not. It’s not like anything matters. I’m dead.”

Ginnie’s limbs were chill as marble, and so were mine. Once I accepted this, her touch felt fine. In short order I had an erection. I was fondling the slit between her legs, and I was beginning to feel a slight ooze of kessence. The equipment worked, but—

“What’s wrong with your dick?” Ginnie asked, feeling along the length of my penis.

My organ was taking on a strange form. Little feelers were branching out from the tip, like tentacles on a sea anemone. And the shaft was discouragingly flexible. Meanwhile the aethereal flow from Ginnie’s crotch had increased, forming a low, glowing mound with its own set of anemone feelers.

Bizarre as this was, we were both quite excited. Sex is, after all, largely in the mind. We engaged our alien genitals. Rather than lying on top of Ginnie, I stayed on my side facing her. The branches of my penis entwined with the tendrils of her vulva. The surfaces smoothed over, and now we shared a pulsing, slightly gnarled tube which connected our crotches.

We bucked our hips, feeling exquisite tingles of sensation. The orgasm, when it arrived, was a powerful bright flow, deliciously oozing up my kessence spinal cord to flower within my zickzack skull.

“Oh yeah,” said Ginnie as we lay there afterwards, calming down. Our crotches were slowly disentangling themselves.

“Conjugation,” I said. “Like paramecia do. Durkle was right.”

“I was worried we’d just be good friends,” said Ginnie. “That’s always the worst, isn’t it?” She laughed comfortably. “Not that I’m looking for a heavy relationship with a flaky mailman whose body’s in a coma in a basement back in Cruz.”

“In real life, I’d never make it with a girl as hip as you,” I said. “I’m thrilled.”

“I appreciate that,” said Ginnie. “It feeds the dark gulf of my self-esteem.” She yawned. “Funny that ghosts get tired, too.”

“It might be okay here,” I said. “And we can stick together for awhile. I’ll help you.”

Ginnie nestled up against me. I held her till she dropped off.

Not ready to sleep myself, I lay on my back, staring up at the pale, flowing sky, thinking about Val. This stuff with Ginnie was just a diversion, and we both knew that. Not that my friendship with Ginnie was something I’d want to explain to Val. Whew. Val had really gotten worked up about Weena. But there, of course, she had a point. Basically it was Weena’s fault that Val was dead.

I thought of a time when Val and I had been over at our friend Pete’s house, and he’d been playing Pixies and Nirvana songs on the piano and we were all singing along, especially Val. She’d been standing in front of me, swaying to the music and occasionally turning, still singing, to grin at me, full of juice and life. Could I ever get us back there? Back to the old life? What was waiting at the center of Flimsy?

A scrabbling noise interrupted my thoughts. I sat up and stared into the darkness, sending Mijjy’s tendrils out towards where I’d heard sound. But we couldn’t pinpoint the source. Really I had no idea what kinds of creatures I should be worrying about here in this strange land.

I sat up for awhile longer, listening into the night. Overhead the glowing sky flowed on. It was hard to believe I was actually here, in the land of the dead. How had it all happened? I reviewed the sequence of events in my mind.

Weena sent a special sharp STM tip my way and I popped an electron—whatever that really meant. Something nasty came through and infected Val—probably it had been a jiva egg. Weena got hold of my thin-walled electron and sent through a border snail from Flimsy. And then she guided me to the magic door in basement of the Whipped Vic, and she came through. A yuel bud popped out of Header’s nose. Weena fed me sprinkles and I had my brain attack. Weena moved in with me, and showed me the jiva that lived inside her.

And then...the yuel came for us, and we went to that crazy party at the Whipped Vic. We killed the yuel with the help of some new-hatched jivas. Ginnie and I swallowed jivas of our own, and they buffed us up. Weena murdered Header with an axe. We found another yuel in Header’s skull and we killed that one too. Weena talked me into leaving my body and traveling to Flimsy. Ginnie came too. And over here in Flimsy, I was supposed to deliver something for a Duke. But on the way to getting my orders, I’d made a trip through the lowest level of Flimsy and I’d found Val. And now Val had fled across Flimsy’s living water sky.

My true mission was clear. I had to protect the Earth from whatever it was that Weena and her friends were planning to do. And I wanted to bring home Val—assuming this were possible. And assuming that Val wanted to come. I’d been taking that last one for granted. But maybe I was wrong. My backup strategy, if I couldn’t get Val, would be to find a flesh-and-blood woman to live with. After I did cosmic battle to save the Earth, that is.

This scene was batshit. But, in a way, I was loving it. I yawned, feeling the fatigue. There were no more sounds from across the plain. I stretched out beside Ginnie and fell asleep.

In the morning, Durkle woke me with a nudge of his foot. I heard a babble of voices nearby. Sitting up and looking around, I saw something like a pale purple parasol projecting from the ground a short way off. It swayed gently on a stalk that was about the thickness of a man’s leg.

“It’s an offer cap,” said Durkle. “Did I tell you about them? A mobile plant—see those snaky roots at its base? They can walk, a little bit. It must have teeped us here. Like I told you, they live in the swamp, a few miles off. Isn’t the offer cap cool? I’ve heard you can get anything you want from them—if you’re quick enough. Watch how I outsmart it.”

All sorts of desirable objects were dancing beneath the offer cap’s pinky-mauve umbrella. Evidently the offer cap could read my mind, for as I stared, it produced some items that I would have liked right about now: a cup of tea, fried eggs on rye, a map of Flimsy, a bag of pot with rolling papers, and a slice of cantaloupe.

Apparently this odd, alien plant had perfected a type of direct matter control. The objects on offer seemed quite solid, albeit made of kessence. Rocking from side to side, they marched in a giddy parade around and around the plant’s flexible stalk.

It seemed obvious to me that I shouldn’t try grabbing for the goodies, but Durkle either had a plan—or, more likely, he was even more naive than I’d thought. He began circling the offer cap, irregularly reversing his path and curiously flexing his rubbery limbs—as if he meant to bewilder the thing.

Alertly monitoring Durkle’s movements, the plant’s cap made continual slight adjustments in its position. And, as Durkle drew closer, the items on offer changed again. I noticed that the underside of the cap was spongy and damp, as on a toadstool. The thing’s roots gripped the soil, as if preparing for a burst of speed.

Durkle seemed heedless of the risk—his eyes were fixed upon a dust-riding board identical to Flam’s, a tasseled orange racing cap, a little chessboard, a short sword, and a pink glob that was forming itself into the shape of—a naked woman, but with rounded off arms and legs and a smooth bulb for a head.

“Stop right there, Durkle!” cried Ginnie, sitting up beside me.

“I know I can beat this stupid mushroom,” said Durkle, glancing back at her. “You want me to get you something too, Ginnie? Offer her something, cap! I dare you.”

Sensitive to our group’s dynamics, the cap added two more offers to its jolly little parade around its base: a steaming mug of coffee and a very fashionable pair of sunglasses in wide tortoise-shell frames.

“Watch me now,” said Durkle, crouching lower.

His erratic skipping motions had brought him near me. Fearing for the boy’s life, I ran forward and seized him around the waist.

“Geeky loser!” he yelled, struggling against me, his limbs flailing like long feelers. “I’m gonna win. You’re jealous that I’m so young and fast! Ginnie wants me, not you!”

Maybe I was a little older than Durkle, but I had a jiva inside me. Durkle wasn’t going to break my grip. But he did manage to knock us off balance. The two of us fell practically into the shadow of the offer cap’s umbrella—a very bad place to be.

Fast as a whip, the thing had its roots around our wrists and ankles. And now an evil-smelling mist began wafting down from its floppy cap. Most of the offers had disappeared, now that the plant was getting down its real business. Its central stalk tilted, maneuvering the mauve umbrella so that it might soon flop down upon us. I felt drowsy, and the spray was stinging my skin. As well as being a soporific, the mist was a digestive fluid.

Suddenly the purple umbrella shuddered—and slumped to one side. Ginnie had used her jiva tendrils to cut the stalk! The offer cap let out a telepathic scream that filled my mind with red and yellow jaggies. Ginnie was circling around, her tendrils lashing at the carnivorous plant.

Durkle had managed to free one of his wrists, and he’d snaked out a hand to catch hold of that short sword the plant had made as bait—this desirable item had remained on offer to the very end. It was indeed a real and solid blade. The boy slashed at the plant’s roots, freeing our hands and ankles.

And then he crawled a few feet away from the plant and tugged me after him. Slowly the cap’s frenzied alarm waves within my head died down—and the mist cleared away. I could think again. Belatedly joining the battle, Mijjy set the remains of the offer cap on fire.

“Got any more good deals for us?” I asked Durkle.

“This is an epic sword,” protested the boy. The weapon was perhaps two feet long, with an embossed grip and an elegant handguard. “Those plant-things craft their kessence one particle at a time. This thing is flawless.” Durkle sighted down the blade at me. “I rule.”

“It’s like nanotech telekinesis,” I mused.

“You boys and your toys,” said Ginnie. “Let’s check out the Duke’s castle.”

Rather than starting up with a fresh cruiser couch, Ginnie and I decided that the three of us should teleport to a spot near the castle. This time Mijjy was able to help me figure it out.

Mijjy wove a basket of tendrils around me, and stretched more tendrils towards our target, a field near the Duke’s castle. I could see via the tendrils, as if via cameras. I picked a comfortable-looking spot, and Mijjy prepared a second nest of tendrils there. Supposedly I’d land in it. In a certain sense Mijjy and I were sewing together two little balls of space. Ginnie and her jiva were making similar preparations.

“And you, Durkle?” I asked. “Do you want me to carry you?”

“I can teleport fine,” insisted Durkle. “I merge into the one mind of Flimsy. Like a yuel does.”

Meanwhile, Mijjy showed me a kind of head-trick whereby I viewed our target location as being the same spot as where we were standing. It was a little like crossing my eyes—but it didn’t involved my eyes. It was more like flipping the two halves of my brain.

“Anticipation relocation dimension, Jim,” Mijjy said.

“Go,” I said.

It worked. Ginnie and I landed in a rolling meadow, thick with dark green grass and star-shaped flowers, everything lit by the Earthmost Jiva. Beyond the field rose—a giant geranium.

“The castle,” said Durkle, who’d just appeared at our side as well.

“A plant?”

“Everything in Flimsy is organically grown kessence,” said Durkle. “Even my sword.” He was besotted with his little prize, country boy that he was.

The geranium was taller than the mightiest redwood tree, with thick bent branches, storms of pink flowers, and parking-lot-sized leaves ten meters thick. The stems and the dusty green leaves had windows and entryways. The plant had a big bulge on the lowest part of the stem, like a gall. Four or five flims were busy on the ground near there, digging in kessence, and squirting on that same silvery fertilizer that Monin had used.

Higher up in the plant, some people were gazing down at us, and others were buzzing from leaf to leaf. The leaves and flowers swayed in the breeze; the brightly garbed nobles jiggled like gnats. A shimmering tracery of tendrils kept the flying courtiers aloft. The tendrils were bumpy pale lines that emanated from the living castle itself.

“I like this,” said Ginnie. “I could live in that castle for awhile. It’s is the best thing I’ve seen in Flimsy.”

“So let’s go ahead and—” I began.

Foomp! Foomp! Foomp! Three large blue baboons appeared, seemingly from thin air, each nearly the size of a person, dropping to the ground in front of us.

“Yuels!” exclaimed Durkle, uneasily raising his sword.

“Let’s bail,” said Ginnie. Still more yuels were teleporting in, thick and fast.

“Let me talk to the yuels for a minute,” I said, wanting to slow down the pace. I was tired of being stampeded from one crisis to the next. “You yourself said the yuels aren’t so bad, Durkle. They gave you your body.”

In a minute the flow of yuels had petered out. Sixty of them were mounded in front of us. They weren’t acting at all aggressive.

“I want to be friends,” I called. “I’m a visitor from Earth.”

“Recruit,” said one yuel. “Inform,” said another. That sounded harmless enough, and at this point the yuels were still just lying there in a heap.

“They’re melting,” remarked Ginnie.

Indeed the yuel’s bodies were beginning to droop and flow. In a minute, their hundred-and-twenty eyes were like raisins in a great mound of blue dough.

“Tell me what’s really going on,” I asked the slowly shifting form.

“Kidnap,” teeped the yuel-mound conversationally. It was kneading itself into the shape of a fat creature with four sturdy legs. “Swap.”

A head the size of car appeared along one end of the blue monster. A trumpet-like trunk grew from the head end, along with a fierce pair of tusks. The yuels were taking on the shape of a good-sized elephant.

“It’s a group yuel,” exclaimed Durkle. “I’ve heard of that. The yuels band together into these big elephants for fighting and for self-defense.”

The eyes migrated to the head and pooled into two great orbs. A crack formed along the sides of the head and opened into a slackly grinning mouth. The trunk raised and—

“Time to hop!” yelled Ginnie.

But our jivas weren’t responding. I could feel Mijjy inside me, waiting and watching. We’d been set up. The jivas wanted this scenario to proceed. Like some surreal street-musician, the elephant rose on his rear legs, put his two front legs together and crooned a song.

“Weep no more, my Ginnie, oh, weep no more, today. We will sing this song for our Yuelsville home, for our Yuelsville home far away.”

I stretched my arms forward, wanting to send out jiva tendrils—but still nothing happened. Deep within me, the recalcitrant Mijjy giggled.

Ginnie took off running, but in moments the blue elephant had dropped to his feet, darted forward, and grabbed her with his trunk. As if in a circus, the yuel elephant lifted Ginnie into the air, and seated her upon one of his thick tusks.

And now with the dainty grace of an opera singer, the elephant pivoted and galumphed across the meadow. As the monster ran, he broke into a herd of individual yuels that disappeared in puffs of light—they were teleporting away.

In the thick of the pack was Ginnie, perched atop a single yuel as if riding bareback. And then, with a final flash, she and her yuel were gone.