CRITICAL MAN

© 2001 Channel49_________                                        

1. Elements of Critical Mass

Rain. Silvery streams of it wetting the window on both sides. Rain didn't usually fall against the western side of the building. The wood was starting to rot above the glass and the water found it porous. He started to wipe at the small puddle on the sill but as suddenly as the rain started, it stopped.

*

To see Layla again he had joined the group and agreed to participate in the communion ceremony. The place was small, formerly an actor's studio. A narrow loft with ancient linoleum floors. He sat cross legged with the others and hoped Layla would sit nearby.

She arrived late, just as the lights were dimmed. Cardboard shuttered the remaining daylight from the room. Only a purple candle for the bunch of them. There was talk about consciousness surviving death. Artistic. Crazy. Most of the males seemed monosyllabic. The black man said nothing. He merely watched with a mild grin. The women chatted with more pretense. Someone liked his haircut. (Not Layla).

He was selected as the subject. Alarm. He remembered the rain for no reason. He couldn't think of a good excuse. Layla was pleased for him. She reached across the small circle and touched his arm. He must have impressed the group-leader to be selected so soon.

Pater, the leader, prepared the hypodermic. The candle reflected from his spectacles. Layla sat close to Pater.

"Remember, Bill, as you rise through your levels not to hold onto your own construct of reality…" Pater said.

"For sure, dude," another added.

He was rolling up his sleeve, hoping an interruption would occur. The smell of grain alcohol. He never liked that smell. The sting.

"Relax," Pater intoned as he made him lie on his back among them, his arms folded on his chest. Video projections exploded on the ceiling. He was glad his bladder was empty. Forming a tight ring around him they chanted and rolled their arms upward. "Let us see what others cannot… Open up the mysteries to us…" A roller coaster ride…

*

When it was over, he was congratulated. A few others wanted to compare their experiences. "I saw the beginning of the cosmos; it was really cool," A guy told him. He had bad teeth. Bill nodded.

"Did you feel time? --Like from the beginning. It was the freakiest part for me." Bill nodded again, looking past the young woman with the red braid who had asked. Layla was discussing something earnestly with Pater. Her hand was touching his arm.

*

Outside. He prepared to leave alone. He looked up the steps once. "So what do you think? You see God?" the black man asked lounging near the doorway. There was humor in his voice.

Bill decided to give it up. Even thoughts of Layla. "I didn't see much of anything," he admitted. "The room got dizzy."

They both laughed.

"I think my shot was some glucose and water; that's all," the black man said.

"So why do you keep coming back?" Bill asked.

The man shrugged. Bill looked at him closely. The haircut. Maybe he was a cop.

"You?" the black man asked.

"Illusions," Bill said and looked above to see Layla's back through the window as Pater removed the cardboard. They were still in a deep discussion. For some reason Bill thought the building may have once been a pharmacy when they had such places.

*

Back in the efficiency, he dried up the water. The puddle had run to the floor. Maybe it had rained again. He went online. His account was down to a few hundred credits. He checked the work listings. First for web-work, maybe some programming in Omega+. There were over 1500 candidates ahead of him. He checked for construction and then de-construction. He envisioned a cloud of plaster dust. His right arm kept moving forward in a swinging arc and hitting the enter key. Again and again. Yet he was holding onto his fingers with his left hand.

He stood and backed away from the table. He saw himself at the terminal. He walked toward the bathroom, still holding his hands. He sat on the toilet lid and rested his head on the sink. He remembered a lecture from school. There had been a crude illustration on the board: A man with a shovel digging toward a huge nuclear device. "Time is relative. If you are traveling at the speed of light, time will slow down in relation to someone traveling much slower. What if this guy digging this nuke detonates it? Huh class? If it explodes and sends him toward his death at the speed of light will he, from the vantage point of time moving slowly, see himself still digging? Will he spend eternity in this loop of digging at the bomb, detonating it and digging at the bomb?"

Bill didn't know.

*

Laying on his cot, he called the number for the group. A female computer voice interrupted his call: "Please press 1 to complete this new period of billing for 30 additional credits, otherwise your outgoing calls are restricted to 911." He closed the phone and re-attached it to his belt. He considered the terminal.

Reluctantly he rose and approached the small table with hesitation. Using his left hand he tapped out the group's code: Mithraeum7. Looking at the new mail form he wondered what to write. The sun seemed to be shining as the afternoon aged. Slowly he typed with one finger: 'How long will the drug last? I'm seeing things.' He sent the message.

*

"Are you certified?" the foreman asked, shouting above the din. His jowls, bagging with flesh, had pock marks on them. The building, now a cavernous hole, was walled up from the city by enormous tents lit by floodlights. An army of workers hauled debris the machines had knocked loose. The near-darkness between the lights was foggy with dust.

"Yeah." Bill tried to hand him his computer card.

"Don't give me that shit here. Do you think I'm wired? You think I got a terminal strapped to my fucking ass? Give it to the office. Pick up your hard hat, gloves and mask, we pay thirty credits a day."

"Thirty? How about your weekly rate?"

"Weekly? None of you bums last a week," the foreman laughed.

*

The work was hard. His breathing through the mask was in his ears. He carried debris from a hill to the mechanical haulers. Every few minutes whistles sounded and the workers left the hill as a slew of garbage came raining down, erecting the pile higher again. He and a hundred others were substituting for a piece of equipment that was broken. "Hey, down below! Watch out!"

Bill looked up as thousands of stars descended upon him. They were meteors. Huge asteroids flinging loose from space and hurling past him as he floated suspended above the planet in his spacesuit.

"Hey asshole, you gonna stand there all fucking day, because something missed you by a meter!" The foreman shouted pointing at a block of stone near his feet. Bill looked up and saw a machine handler four floors above him wave, "Sorry!" The handler shouted. The machines were like dinosaurs. The foreman took the debris from his arms. "I'm cashing you out at fifteen credits. Beat it. Weekly rate, my ass…"

*

It was night. On the train he tried staring into oblivion. It seemed like the workers from the deconstruction project were peopling the car. Things with masks. He looked up again in panic. A handful of humans like himself, also staring toward oblivion. He caught his reflection in the window. He was startled.

*

There was a reply from Mithraeum7 on the terminal: 'The agent used leaves the body in 17 minutes. If you think you are having hallucinations, please see a practitioner. Current hallucinations are not related to the communion. If you mention the communion to anyone outside of the group you will have violated your oath. This email cannot be saved.'

"Right," he said quietly and using a utility program tried to save the screen shot of the email. 'FATAL ERROR.' He laughed softly. "The story of my life."

From the window he could see the moon, many times its normal size, as if the satellite was hurtling toward him. He blinked, it was gone.

"All right… --so this email is bullshit. The drug is in my system. It'll eventually go away, right? Don't hold on to my construct of reality. I'm not crazy --I'm just talking to myself. --Go to bed."

*

A pain sprung from his temple, yet consciousness waned. He measured the pain and imagined a hot, white spot like that of a light-bulb's filament. His head floated back into the pillow, his eyes saw sleep and he left the world for awhile.

The pain grew into a light and light blossomed into a new day. He sat at a table and listened to a voice. No, waited to listen to a voice that he knew was there. A breeze moved through the field. He turned and watched the wave of the grass in the wind. The voice began speaking. He knew this voice and yet he did not. He didn't bother to turn to it, there would be nothing to see.

"Bill, I see you are up to your old tricks again,"

"Yes," Bill answered, his eyes closed as he enjoyed the pleasantness of the day.

"Who is this young woman, Layla? And for her you've changed your life; on a whim, almost a dare?"

Bill shrugged.

"You don't even know her, and she has only the barest idea of you. Yet, look at the consequences… Your life is so episodic, like a faulty dream. It makes no sense."

Bill smiled.

"You'll find none of that here, on this side. Time might have different properties, but here you can't attempt to muddle through. --Stumbling and fumbling, trying everything and enjoying nothing in the hope --hope of a fool-- that maybe, just maybe," the voice rising in urgency descended into mockery, "I'll get laid or, 'duh' fall in love, or 'like' somethin cool, man …'"

Bill laughed.

"You have no avenue to do anything but to merely survive. Is that what you're all about, Bill?"

"I don't know," Bill answered.

A pile of hard things slid off the table onto his chest and stomach. They were textbooks. He remembered staring blankly at many of the pages during his earlier sojourn at education. Rubbing beer and marijuana out of his eyes and barely comprehending a sea of words he could care less about.

"You'll have time for study and then some brisk exercise to re-concentrate the thinking. They'll be a calculus test before dawn. Enjoy," the voice said.

Bill laughed. "Sure. One and one is two…" he joked.

"Maybe you'll need some exercise now," the voice threatened.

The day stopped. He crouched along a moor. His feet were wet. A portion of moon painted dim shadows in the night. He listened. He heard the sounds of the men, and the dogs. Terror. He ran. He fell, picked himself up and ran again. In his mind pages and pages of equations flew at him. He sucked for breath and felt the fear in his lungs mixing with the echoes of those pursuing him. Shouts and curses in another language. Behind him were dozens of enemies with black steel helmets emblazoned with lightening rods. Ahead, nothing but exhaustion, capture, torture and execution. His mind assaulted itself with taunting values of mathematical models; a mental obsession that threatened to destroy any remaining sanity.

He was spotted. He ran harder, expecting his heart to explode from panic and exertion. The voice split his mind, "And what is the variance…"

Bill erupted into a sitting position on his bed. He was soaked in perspiration. His breath came in giant gulps as if he had run his last mile in five minutes. He fell into a crouch and leaned his head against the wall wailing for air. His legs, dissolved into weakness and he fell to the floor. "What is going on!" He screamed.

*

The emergency room in the middle of the night. He sat lamely on a gurney tucked inside a cubby-hole. Filed under inconsequential.

A young female resident arrived and noted things on her clipboard. "So what are you on; --the overdose?" She was very tired. Her eyes were dark and rimmed with lack of sleep. Her hair drawn behind her was becoming unkempt and stray at the edges.

"Don't know… not an over-dose, just a dose…" Bill said.

"You don't know what you were taking? Just found something on the floor and said, 'Oh I think I'll stick this in my arm, maybe it's vinegar, maybe rat-piss; see what it does to me?'"

Bill laughed.

She looked at her clipboard, he looked at her name-tag: Regina Invalv MD.

"Are you hallucinating right now?" she asked.

"No…"

A middle-aged male nurse entered the cubical. "Another drug case, doc? Barbara needs a break…"

"Uh huh, " Doc Regina replied.

The male nurse rubbed the short, thinning, gray hair on his scalp. He yawned and stretched. There was something likeable about him. "You'll be all right!" He said good-naturedly to Bill. "I've had so much stuff crammed in here, there ain't room for anything more," he said pointing to his own head. His fingers looked more like those of a construction worker than a nurse.

Bill nodded, "I awoke from a terrifying dream soaking wet, unable to stop panting. It felt like I had run three miles…"

"Night sweats," Doc Regina said. She was getting bored with him.

"Well, I'm off," the male nurse said, "Eighteen hours a day is all I can do… you're short out there," he told the resident while pointing behind him to the ER.

"Uh huh, g'night," she said to the nurse. "We have people strapped to gurneys screaming, you know," she said to Bill. "We just brought somebody upstairs to X-ray. Maybe you should just go home and try to relax. If you don't know what you took, and it isn't affecting you now, well…" she spread her arms as to say it's over.

*

As he walked home the light bothered him. As did visions. People on the street occasionally turned into apes or bison and then back again. He stopped at a convenience store and bought a cheap pair of sunglasses. It helped slightly.

Back in his apartment he couldn't sleep and sat at his terminal. He began trying to design something but the machine wasn't fast enough to create the 3 dimensional models he wanted. He saved the work to his web account, ate a yogurt and left again.

A brisk walk to the library caused him to step back several times, once when a Tyrannosaurs Rex looked up from behind a newspaper, and another when a woman with dreadlocks nearly snared him with a serpentine embrace. He caught his breath as he located a free machine along the library counter and after downloading his rudimentary attempts from home, he began improving them.

"Bill, I've been looking for you…"

A pale alien's face pausing in its eternal scream of horror relented becoming Layla.

"Hmmm?" He put his sunglasses back on.

"Pater is concerned. He wanted to remind you of your oath…" she said. "What are you doing there?" she inquired of his work, growing interested.

"A new circuit…Pater?" Bill shook his head. "He did it to me, you know…"

"Bill, Pater is concerned. He's reported it… higher," she told him. "There are so many of the groups now…"

Bill nodded, "Pater should be concerned."

"Bill, you mustn't say anything about us…" she warned touching his arm.

"I won't. I haven't…"

They looked at each other. He through the sunglasses. She was still exciting to him. But he had a power now. A power men can have over women, when they want nothing.

"Tell Pater, I might return the favor," Bill told her.

She nodded. There was a pause. "He didn't mean…"

"It was purposeful, I'm sure," Bill said, and returned to work on his project.

She nodded and spoke again without having his full attention. "This situation is dangerous, Bill," she said looking at his arm. Then she stepped away. She paused and looked at him again.

He glanced at her, "I haven't said anything about the group," Bill said, "This is between Pater and me…"

"No it isn't. Not anymore," she said with conviction. She studied him for a brief moment then turned and left.

He worked for several hours, beads of perspiration had formed on his forehead. Wiping at them he noticed the time. The clock against the far wall had many hands moving rapidly as if it were measuring many times. Then it gave him the relative moment of the physical place he was standing in. Slipping a mini-drive the size of a quarter from his pocket into the keyboard he saved his work to it and then produced a second one for a backup. He knew it would rain soon and decided to return to his apartment for a coat.

The passersby on the street were troublesome, as it was difficult to discern who they were. He avoided a lizard-man.

"So many monsters on the sidewalk these days," an older woman complained to him.

"Yes, there are," Bill admitted.

"I'm afraid to cross the street. I could get stepped on, some of them are so tall!" She exclaimed her voice rising in pitch.

"Yes they are," Bill admitted as a giraffe jaywalked the intersection. "Here," Bill said giving the woman his arm as he crossed with her to the other side of the street."

"Oh thank you so much, you're such a nice young man," the woman said graciously.

At the far curb she let go of Bill's arm and looked around, "I have to go back now, to the other side," she told him.

"--Of the street? Why?" Bill asked.

"I'm just supposed to that's all." She smiled and wandered into the intersection with the last flow of pedestrians before the light changed.

*

He stood in the small vestibule locking the door to his office for the night. He was startled to see a man wearing a raincoat and sunglasses at the top of the stoop. He couldn't know that to the stranger he appeared momentarily as a Neanderthal.

"Jason Hauley?" Bill inquired.

"Uh huh, you a process server? Haven't seen one in years. I thought the system went email."

"I came here to make you a billionaire," Bill said.

"Right. Why don't you make me a woman, so I don't have to beat off in the shower. That would be something."

He tried to step past Bill but seemed arrested by a sense of determination on the latter's part. "Hey, I'm tired, give me a rest. Call my secretary in the morning, maybe she can fit you in by June."

Under the cover of the awning Bill produced one of the mini-drives. Jason squinted at it. He removed his glasses and looked at it closer. "Have you managed to get a terabyte on one of those?"

"It's the design that's stored on it."

"Uh huh… not interested. There are other patent attorneys in the city. Too many! See one of my competitors, please!"

"You can't walk away from this," Bill said.

"Watch me, see I'm walking," Jason said taking cartoon-sized exaggerated steps. "Unless you have an eVoucher; --a certified eVoucher for 100,000 credits."

"You get 41 per cent," Bill said.

"Oh one of those," Jason laughed. "Not interested. Don't handle stuff on spec any more."

"If you turn me down you will one day sit in your clothes and wish you had died gracefully. Relative failure is one thing; I've embraced it all of my life, but throwing away an opportunity like this would destroy your sense of well-being. Take my word for it," Bill said with conviction.

"All right what is it?" Jason asked.

"A computing system the size of my hand."

"It's been done before. I've got guys wandering around with web servers in their underwear. One dude from India had 20 of them running out of his filling."

"The processing power would be greater than a city of so-called super computers," Bill said.

"How so?" Jason asked.

"Have you heard of quibits and petabyte systems?" Bill asked.

"No."

"This works by utilizing an atomic state… --more than that really." Bill looked away for a moment searching for the words he needed. "The particles travel into other dimensions with different gravitational constants. Mass velocities there are more suitable for this kind of processing power."

"Oh, fuck, you're nuts!" Jason exclaimed sounding disappointed.

"Yes I am," Bill declared taking off his shades and stepping forward allowing the street lights to illuminate his sleepless eyes. "But this is still real."

"How many dimensions are there?" Jason asked derisively.

"How many points are there on a spiral? Then think of that spiral as a solid. Perhaps infinite, I don't know…"

"So what do you think you have there?" Jason asked.

"An array of these could re-assemble physical forces. Unlimited energy. Weapons of mass destruction. Time travel."

"Time travel?" Jason asked.

"I think," Bill began, "it's not so much going into a past, but creating one. Perhaps when matter is ported into another dimension it creates that dimension, which was only a door to begin with."

"This is making me dizzy. My last successful patent was for a new kind of baby toy… And you have no credits. I mean at least 15 - 20,000?"

"No."

"I want 50 per cent," Jason demanded.

"Forty-nine," Bill replied.

"Okay. Let me see the thing."

"Make an agreement," Bill said.

"Right here on the street? On paper?" Jason replied incredulously.

"Or in your office."

"All right," Jason shrugged, and fumbled for the right key to unlock the door. "It still sounds fishy to me… But if you're right. --If you're right…"

"Unfortunately, I am right."

"Well, don't talk to anybody about this," Jason warned in a hushed voice. "People would kill for this," he whispered.

*

He didn't remember falling asleep. Only taking off the sunglasses as he sat at the table. Then all that was relevant was the voice.

"I am most impressed with you, William. So impressed that I'm addressing you more formally," the voice said with a slightly patronizing attitude. "Not about the computer design, but assisting the demented older woman in her street-crossing adventures. A nice touch."

"Thank you."

"Have you decided if you yourself are demented?" the voice asked.

"I think it's the drug Pater administered. To get me out of the picture with Layla."

"You pride yourself as being a credible rival. Maybe he wanted to mine your fertile brain?" the voice suggested.

"Hmmm…" Bill considered the proposition but didn't believe it.

"Let's say that you pull this one-out-a-hundred-thousand chance out of your proverbial ass and do become a trillionaire. What next? A hundred mansions around the globe? Five hundred sports cars? Oodles of women? --Or just Layla?"

"I'll form a foundation," Bill said.

"To have your head fixed?" the voice taunted.

"To espouse the principals of human dignity. Maybe I'll buy the building I live in and renovate it."

"Nothing more for yourself other than an apartment with new windows and fixtures?"

Bill became serious. "I drove a car once. I don't think I can drive now. Seeing rhinos where there aren't any constitutes a hazard."

"Good point. And you haven't much hope with women because of the same. You're afraid you'll see what you shouldn't. Hard to enjoy intimacy that way," the voice said.

"Uh huh…"

"Bill… No need to be formal all the time. Do you understand the Nature of Evil?" the voice asked.

Bill shrugged.

"I'm not taking about the Devil or any such nonsense, or slimy creatures from outer space. I'm taking about real evil in our world. Do you know what men can do to one another for the sake of power or for their base enjoyment?"

"Maybe," Bill answered.

"Maybe not. This patent you intend on getting… --Or actually a series of patents, if this Jason has any sense at all. --There are men, and women too, who would sell their grandmothers into slavery to possess such a thing."

Bill said nothing.

"I think it's time for some history lessons," the voice said.

Bill experienced a sense of rush as if many forces were pressed against his chest. He felt light yet could not see it. Then warmth. He seemed to be sitting on a small hill of sandy soil. He felt his face and removed a Velcro blindfold which he put into the pocket of his raincoat. The air was warm and pleasant. From behind he heard horses and men. The language was guttural-sounding yet he seemed to understand it. Orders were shouted.

A phalanx of men carrying spears and shields trooped over the hill and surrounded him. As their bronze and leather helmets bore some similarity Bill assumed they were members of an ancient army. A chariot halted fifty meters away. The shouted orders were coming from there. The men were weary and struggling for breath. Their tongues were thick with thirst. They possessed a stench that made him move his head for a cleaner breath.

"Who are you?" the captain shouted from the chariot.

"I am Bill," he answered.

"What is Beel? Where does Beel come from?"

Bill struggled for a translation for the word 'future' but finding nothing better than 'days-to-come' settled for: "A place far away."

They found his raincoat and shoes amazing enough to be both wary and envious of him and, with spears pointed, forced him to march with them. Bill hummed a mantra beneath his breath. "Please let me wake up…"

*

The palace was constructed of large stone blocks. The corridors leading to a central chamber were very small, dark and made many turns. People could enter in single-file only. Perhaps to reduce the volume of potential assassins.

The central chamber was not much larger than a good sized living room. It was lit by torches and crowded with soldiers, administrators and advisors. The king, a wiry little man with an unpleasant face, peeking out from behind an oiled beard, sat on a rather uncomfortable-looking chair on a small podium. He, however, was the only one with a chair. His eyes were angry and his motions haughty. He waved at various groups to either retreat or advance to his presence. He conferred briefly, in whispers, with the captain of the detachment who brought Bill to this audience and then dismissed him.

An advisor standing near the king addressed Bill. "The punishment for spying is: You will be flayed alive very slowly. Or if you give us information that is useful we can let you live. We will, of course, deprive you of your tongue, your testicles and your eyes…"

The king interrupted with a grunt and the administrator corrected himself. "If the information you give us is very good we will you leave you your right eye. We remove the tongue last."

"Let me wake up," Bill moaned. The king nodded his head and soldiers stepped forward. "I am not a spy…" Bill announced.

The king shrugged and his advisor clarified. "The penalty for trespassing is death unless you have brought his majesty a present of many ounces of gold. But we will twist your flesh anyway just to make sure you have nothing interesting to say."

"I do have a present for his majesty, from the gods!" Bill passed his hand over his wristwatch and the indiglo dial lit up as a small machine voice announced the time in English and Arabic.

The group was astounded, though the King produced the least emotional outbreak.

A man broke through the people behind Bill and seized his arm to look more closely at his watch. Bill assumed from the man's cloak and cap that perhaps he was a member of their clergy. "From which god did this come?" he demanded.

"From Timex," Bill answered.

"Time-eks?" the priest asked, letting go of Bill's arm.

Bill removed the watch and slowly approached the podium holding the supposed gift before him.

"Your name is Beel?" inquired the King's advisor and spokesman standing next to the podium.

"Yes," Bill answered stepping forward slowly.

"Baal! This is our god the Lord Baal!" The Priest exclaimed from behind him and fell to his face, "Oh, forgive me for touching you, your divine grace!" The priest shouted. Everyone in the room fell to their faces on the floor. The clattering of spears and shields hitting the stone made Bill recoil. Only the King remained seated, yet there was fear in his dark, foreboding eyes.

Bill looked around, still holding the watch. Not a face dared to watch him save the King who seemed frozen to his throne. "Yes, that's me…"Bill said.

He was within reach of the King. He saw in the man's expression nothing but animosity. A man whose passions were self-indulgent loathing. A dictator of an armed mob. A man of limited philosophical consciousness and no moral conscience. Still holding the watch, Bill whispered to the monarch, "How many travelers have you maimed and murdered for fair or foul?"

The King was reluctant to answer.

"How many, King?"

"I have served you, honored you," the King replied as if he was providing a legal argument.

"You should not harm the innocent stranger," Bill said.

"Fuck the stranger," the King growled.

Bill could see that the man had prepared for his reign to end at the hands of one like himself. Bill dropped the watch into the King's lap where it lit up and spoke again. Then he grasped the greasy neck of the flinching little monarch and proceeded to strangle him.

"Good move, Lord William!" The voice announced. A pain flooded behind his eyes, blinding him. The Velcro blindfold returned to shield him from the light he could not see. Feeling a nearly overwhelming sense of physical stress and emotional revulsion, he was being returned to a different state in his apartment. His exhaustion was so immense he could not remain seated and fell from his chair to the floor.

*

It was hard for Bill to hear Jason on his phone while sitting over coffee at 'The Java Home.' "The software part was easier. I applied for copyright. But patent applications take work," the attorney told him.

"Uh huh…"

"This one is not simple like a working model of a new back-scratching machine, you know," Jason added.

"Uh huh… What…"

"It's not like I understand it. I mean I have an engineering degree --but this," he laughed, "is a bit beyond my comprehension. There seems to be nothing quite like it," Jason said.

"That's why we need a patent, right? Or a series of patents," Bill said into the phone, speaking a little louder than he would have liked.

"Series is right. The manufacturing process will involve two or three patents…" Jason replied.

"How long will it take?" Bill asked.

"For an actual patent? --Jeeze… For protection it could… You know, each application takes time and money, plus all the research…" Jason said.

"Half a trillion credits should provide some motivation," Bill chided.

"Then there's all the time I'll spend in court. It will be stolen… or let's say 'copied' and must be defended. These things are only as good as the prima facie evidence or protection via litigation," Jason said.

"Uh huh…"

"It would be nice if I had some semi-genius Ph.D. in Quantum Mechanics AND Processor Engineering to help me understand this thing, if such a creature existed. --But then I wouldn't trust the bastard!" Jason laughed.

"How long?" Bill queried.

"Uh oh, you broke?" Jason asked.

"Almost," Bill answered.

"Uh… Hang in there, partner. Gotta go now, talk at you soon," Jason said and terminated the connection.

Bill returned the phone to his belt and turned half way around in his seat thinking that someone had been listening to him.

"I know you," she said smiling as she set her coffee down at the next mini-table.

There was something familiar about her, but he was dumfounded until he recognized a middle-aged man coming out of the men's room. The man smiled at Bill and tapped the woman's shoulder." See you at work Regina," he said to her.

"I'll be along soon," she replied.

Bill watched the man exit into the street. He wore hospital scrubs under his jacket.

"He's my sister's husband. After twenty years in construction and two in deconstruction he was able to re-train," Regina told him.

Bill nodded, "Good. That was my last job."

"You don't remember me, do you. Maybe it was the drug experience," she prompted.

"No, I do… now I do. You look nicer in the daylight," he offered.

"Before 15 hours of mayhem," she added.

"Yeah…"

"So now you're getting a patent?" she asked. "Sorry to be nosy. I'm a bit surprised; though not very. I wasn't sure if you were an actual junkie or a hypochondriac."

"I guess anyone can apply for a patent," Bill replied. "Even a hypochondriac."

"I don't know how many junkies apply for patents. What's it for?"

"Uh… computers…" Bill said defensively.

"I figured. The neurotic computer geek," she said smiling.

Bill grinned. "Maybe…"

"You don't seem neurotic now," she observed.

"Should have seen me this morning," he joked.

"More bad dreams?" she asked.

He laughed. "If you can call it that. More real than ordinary reality…" His voice trailed off.

"And it's caused by…"she prompted.

He shrugged. "Let me ask you, are there drugs that can change brain chemistry?"

"Of course," she answered.

"That can permanently change the way you think; the way you perceive things?"

She thought, "Well, they've been doing things to rats' brains for sixty years trying to install bio-chemical constructs… What kinds of perceptions?"

"--Nothing for people?" Bill asked.

"There've been rumors. Counter-Intelligence agencies with super serums… It's hard to say what's exaggeration and what's sheer bullshit," she replied. "What differences do you think you're experiencing in your perceptions?" she inquired not sounding too clinically motivated.

He laughed. "I've imagined, for say a moment, that a tall person was a giraffe."

"Doesn't sound that unusual. After pulling a double-shift I have trouble tying my shoes or I've looked for my car keys while I was holding them," she said.

"Uh huh."

She touched her watch and it announced the time, making Bill remember something unpleasant. "Well I have to run. If you're experiencing hallucinations you need to share I'm on today and tomorrow --all day." She smiled.

"I'll remember that." Bill returned her smile and she turned before blushing slightly.

"Good luck with your patent," she said from over her shoulder as she opened the door.

"Thanks," he called after her. His mood became more somber and his thumb bent the lid of the empty coffee cup he held. He wistfully watched her walk down the street as he prepared to leave. He tossed the empty coffee container into the trash and exited the shop.

His heart jumped as he saw a huge, 200 pound rat with insect antennae watching him from a doorway fifty meters away. He stared back and the rat turned into a man with light blond hair. The man moved into the street still watching him and backed away slowly before turning. Bill put his sunglasses on. "It's just not easy; is it?" he said to no one other than himself.

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