Rampant Pheromonix

by Tom Lichtenberg

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 1984 by Tom Lichtenberg

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Another Moon 
S.B. Quait was dreaming of another moon. This time the sky was helium, the color not a color grey, and in the craters, creatures of the dust. They looked like rocks, but Sissy felt their liquid molten spread like rampant phermonix on the sprawl. It was a seamless flow, and the rising emanations shimmered in the earthlit sky. She was crawling on a ridge, iceberg peaks above, and some below, and the sweep projections glowed and filtered through the gas. Another moon, she thought. Every time, another moon. 

Still Last Night 
At four fourteen she was awake and sleepy. The sun was almost up, and the comet dust was winking throught the blinds. She did not get up to watch the lights and clouds, but stayed in bed pretending it was still last night, and not another working day. I haven't had my quota yet, she thought, they owe me seventeen, at least. She laughed and said aloud okay, all right, and pulled herself from out beneath her husband's slumbering weight. She got no further than the dresser when she had a sudden thought, and just as quickly it was gone. I guess it wasn't important, Sissy told herself, but she felt as if she'd missed some curious opportunity. 

Grease and Tar 
Jonathan Carrot was a nomo lam the time before. Smelled like grease and tar. He was nothing underneath, a mass of poorly tuned reaction strings; some forbidden child with roofer's post-op breath. All along she wanted clues to gnaw on. He would have found out anyway.

 Still On Hold 
She wandered to the bathroom in her robe, and paused to stare out of the window for a moment. There the comic sprawl of cross- eyed streets, the foolish clump of banks that stuck straight up into the sky, and cars already gliding through the thoroughfares. The comet dust had vanished with the rising sun, but the traffic lights ran on. Sissy yawned, then squatted on the seat to pee. The toilets would all flush at noon, and not till then. She'd gotten used to that. She sprayed her arms and face with Kleen-U-R, and sneezed the chrome dioxidin away. Awful shit, she muttered, as she muttered every other day. She checked the mirror to see her hair was still on hold. That's good, she thought, I don't feel up to it today. 

The Newest Frequency 
(A muted pitch was whispering on the newest frequency) You probably don't deserve this kind of life, no dreams come true, no dreams. Coulda dun betta, if it wasn't for Zymetrix, for the feeble, yeah, the feeble rules, the foreign names, the wuns above. Ssshh, not now, nobody knows. I'll make the thirty-eight. Stupid asshole, what's he doin? Every stupid day. Get lost. 

The 1 from 7B 
Sissy lingered at the sink awhile - tuesday next, she thought. That is a wait. Come on, it's time to go. She found her jumper fresh out in the shaft and pulled it on. The kitchen clock at twenty-six (I'm late), the parrot wasn't on. Out and away. She blinked, and out and away she went, through the hollow door, and down the steamy corridor. Some other one was also in the hall - the one from seven bee. Hello, the woman said. Hello, said Sissy Quait. And that was that. The chute, the plank, the street. 

A Normal Hum 
Quiet in the car - a normal hum - and typical conventional, the ride to work. Sissy and her eyes on straight ahead ignored the other passersby, and saw a string of colored lights, some red, some blue, some in between, as smooth as wax on dust, she thought. She remembered how the air was green before, and you could swirl the currents with your hand. It was a quick commute. The crane took up the car and Sissy turned away. She slid along the side till on the right she turned, and followed other suits into the bank that housed the line on which she stood. She was on the giving end. 

The Names 
Patty and Mary and Joe and Steve Ricardo, Menahem and Bill Annie and Peuter, Vyce and Karin Amy and Bob and Harry and Jill Johnny and Dee, Kathy and Lee Linda and David and Peter and Sue Janet and Liz, Popper and Mick Ellis and Seward and Gloria and John Albert and Paul, Carol and Nick Jenny and Ollie and Alice and Tom. 

The Giving End 
Here in the shadow she nodded and bobbed. They came and they went, she gave and she gave. It really wasn't all that bad, she knew. She could be in receiving, or, even worse, at process. She was Altar Number Five, and had no end of supplicants. It was all the same for hours and hours, talking by slips of white and of green, every motion redundant, yet nothing was a waste, and the springs beneath her feet were steady, in rise, in fall. The atmosphere was solemn, graceful, dignified. No one would complain. No one was annoyed. And no one said a word out loud. That's why Sissy liked her job. It was the best she'd ever had. "Personal" Thirty four floors of Fourth Fidelity - not the biggest bank in town - with a thousand operatives on every floor, and the supplicants arrived in steady streams from all adjacent living realms. Sissy had only been there for eleven years, and yet already earned as much as Altar Number Six - she was honored. She esteemed their confidence in her. The wuns above were generous, and S B Quait was loyal. She conducted all of her transactions there, "personal" as well as professional. 

This Is Not A Place 
This is not a place, it is all places, with no end and no beginning. The ultimate of latest ultimatums. No one bothers me. See? Hush. We're all alike outside - inside, the neural zone, alone. Peace is in the heart. Look at that, the swirl, the rise and fall, the patterns gently glide across the floor, along the ceiling, every line resolved in one concurrent movement, slowly swimming, streaming, and the regular rotation of the halls, the up and down, the interface with all receding tangents till it comes around again, and it will come around again, this peace, and in this heart, alone. 

Middle Time 
Eight-oh-nine, it was almost middle time,and Sissy was reviewing all the tasks that lay ahead. I must procure on level twelve, dispense on twenty-three. I have those items to be processed on the ninth, and then ingest at minus four. After that, a visit to the Altar Ninety Five and preparing for tomorrow. All was well in hand. Sissy was methodical and set. 

Familiarity IS Contempt 
I don't know anybody here - they're only faces, shapes! After all this time! I don't know anybody anywhere at all! Of course, who wants to know? It's rude, and anyway, it isn't safe. Why am I even thinking this? I must be sick. I've never had such thoughts before. Fifty million people. Which ones do you want to know? I have my home, my job, associates. All is well. Don't think about it anymore. 

14 Asynchronic Rescheduling 
Sissy now on minus four, proceeding to ingest with all the others on their middle time today. The food was vitally nutritious, ample, and precise. She took it standing up, beside the outlet to the centerpiece above. She was struck again by sudden thoughts, and just as quickly they were gone, again, but this time she had caught a piece. It was on a newer frequency, quite high, and in a muffled tone, but she had heard the word, not once, but twice - "rheological". 

Rheological. 
She didn't know that word. But underneath the monotone she felt the most peculiar sense of something very wrong, just like this morning, Sissy thought. Things are not the same. Something set the currents swirling in a vortex, all around, and sinking in the center. But then she thought, it's just the asynchronic rescheduling, I'm always slightly off the pace on this the third shift of the month. 

Science Passes the Buck 
No, not odorless, not colorless, but a smell we could never smell before, a color we could never see. It was also sound, and yet we couldn't hear, just out of range, just barely out of range, and that's what baffled and disturbed us for so long. It was almost there, not quite, and yet it seemed to vanish when we blinked, and reappear, but in our dreams, when we were fast asleep. Had we had a clue, perhaps, to gnaw on earlier, it's possible that we, but no, we wouldn't have believed, we wouldn't have imagined, and we would have laughed it off. 

Unfamiliar 
Sissy at her post, to finish off the shift, but she couldn't shake the feeling. It was there. I'm wrong, I know, she thought, but she didn't know what she was wrong about. It's just that program bug, she thought, from long ago, apprentice days, when things were unfamiliar, strange, before I had accepted everything. The odd was new and different then, but ever since the weird was old and common, plain. Much better this way. She had been a very slow learner as a child. Some vestiges remained. Leave it alone, she thought. The first and best advice. Her mother said, you are what you are, and so is everybody else. Ingenious At nine-sixteen, the giver at Altar Number Four stood up, collected her equipment, shuttered her door and left. Sissy nodded goodbye to her, when the woman had done so first. People came to work, and people left. Supplicants arrived, conducted their affairs, and went away. It might have been possible for someone to have figured out the infinite patterns of the schedule, but it wasn't anybody's business. Shifts were complex for a reason, for an excellent one. This city, too, like cities everywhere, had problems. One was the chronic water shortage. Another was the waste collection system. These one simply had to live with. But the major problem was the massive population. It was because of the fifty million people all crammed into forty nine square miles that the asynchronic rescheduling was vital. It was an ingenious solution, devised so long ago that no one could remember any time before. It kept the city busy all the time, but it was never crowded anywhere. Traffic was always thick but smooth. Lighting was dim but comfortable, and the cosmic rays were kept confined at day, so that everyone could sleep at any time. 

Paced Accordingly 
Sissy had been losing a minute for more than two and a half weeks by then. Soon the shift would flip, and she would gain, but then she'd jump ahead a half a day, and then wind down, wind up, jump back four hours, wind up, wind back, skip ahead another six and down and up again. She would not have mapped it out for more than one month in advance - it was too complex. But she didn't worry about it. The system took her needs into account; her husband's chron, her entertainment needs, associates and gloms. She would always have the right time when she needed it. And her private life was paced accordingly. 

Calm Paradise 
The line jogged up, and supplicants presented her with slips of white. These she slid into the slot, and reimbursed them with some slips of green. Nodding pacibly, they bounded off into another line. Everyone both gave and then received the same alottment all the time. No one would ever need more. They couldn't have possibly redeemed it. The amount of green ( four days' supply) was enough to cover all expense, no matter what the citizen used them for. This was the law, and a very good one, Sissy thought. The faces filed past, the hands put up, withdrew, the swirling circles on the ceiling choreographed the building as it slowly turned, rotating all the clouds and sky, the lines all bobbing up and down, around, the springs beneath her feet, the calm parade, and nodding, everybody nodding all the time, assured, content, and no one interfered. 

Assured 
Last night's movie sharer came about, with white for green, she nodded, Sissy nodded back. It had been an excellent film, they'd both agreed, about a man and woman who had wandered off to sea and learned to swim with sharks. The dance was lovely and the sea was beautiful, but most of all the music was enthralling, graceful, periodic, smooth. The movie sharer went away. See her again or not, she was a friend now, an associate. Every seventh day one made new friends. On the third day in between, one shared experience with an already made associate. Social contact was assured. 

The Dear Necessity 
And so is everybody else. This job gave her room to breath and time to think. She thought about the banks. The transition was complete, they'd said the other day, on the information band. They called it Project Liberty. Everyone in Marginal was now employed in one or another of the city's fourteen banks. Not that every job was equal. There was still the dirty work of killing bugs, selective probes, reautomative timing, inspective mangineering, other technical affairs which kept their workers more absorbed in tasks at hand and didn't leave them free to wander in their minds. But Project All-Rotation hadn't started yet, and when it did, then even those assigned would have their space and time, and everyone would share in all the drudgery. Sissy wasn't sure if she wanted to do that too. She was willing and prepared, but she also hoped her status as an Altar Five would elevate her from the dear necessity. No telling, though, she told herself. The wuns above will know what's best for everyone. The Wuns Above The wuns above were not an arbitrary crew. You are what you are. Anyone might be one of them. At times. Depending on the chron. She had been one, for a week, five years before. At least she thought she had. It was hard to tell. Some codes were difficult to crack, and when you're merely feeding stochs into the overall deep end, you simply don't have all the clues. You don't know if you're feeding random bits or else decision makings. It gets sorted out in time. A trillion factors, more, all run and blend together. Other factors sift and weed, eventually the project is prepared, announced, and acted on. The wuns above is simply the collective will, mashed and crunched and bitten by the byte. 

What It Is 
(Something in the air) a muted pitch. He was an ugly man, and yet, she wants him anyway. There's just no telling (no telling), telling. Eyes like soggy coal. A dance machine in hock. Surrounding all the layers of the sound a tandemite, a foreign, foreign, what it is, you know, the last scene on the left, corrected straight away, I wonder who she is. There it goes around again, and this time how it goes. In here it's only me. In here it is all mine, alone. 

Static/Interference 
Sissy heard a thought. This time she knew it wasn't hers. But how can that be possible? Another's thought? It said "There is static/interference going on". It must have been my thought, she thought. Ah, no matter what it was, it's true, she realized. I felt it earlier on minus four. What could it mean? Three times, it's very strange. Static/interference. She looked around and saw a sea of faces calmly bobbing up and down. If it was someone else's thought, she thought, I can't tell whose it was. It might have come from anyone. But that's ridiculous. Thoughts belong to those who have them, in their heads. And feelings too. But what about the ice that coated him, the supplicant at pace. Why am I so cold? 

No Ice 
No doubt. He was caked in ice from head to toe, glittering, gleaming, solid frozen man. It hung upon him like the rain in captured time. Sissy felt a wind (there was no wind), a whistling, frigid wind right through her fingers when she touched his slip of white. The man had nodded well. She had nodded back. Nothing was unusual, and there was no ice. I must be sick, she thought again, this man is normal, all the way. No ice. No cold at all. He pulled the green into his vest, nodded, went away. The chill went with him. Sissy saw a hazy blue around him as he bobbed. No one seemed to notice. I must be sick, she thought. 

Science is Stumped 
All our studies indicate that the virus is contagious. Unfortunately we cannot delineate a carrier from receptacles. The solution may lie in genetic alteration, but there is no basis for even an assumption yet. The truth is, Science is stumped. We are observing phenomena heretofor quite thoroughly unknown, unprecedented, riddlish. Everyone has been examined and inspected. Everyone is seen to be susceptible, even likely to acquire this disease. Those of us who haven't yet succumbed are at a loss to account for any of the experiences the sufferers report. They seem mad to us. We don't know what they're talkiing about. We do not have a clue. 

Invisible Stampede 
It's like a flood, it's like a vacuum ventilation shaft, it sweeps you up - no, not precise, it doesn't move you but it sweeps all sorts of things your way - I'm sorry, doc, I can't explain. I don't know what it is. And I'm not any good at this. I wish that I could tell you more. It's like standing in the middle of an invisible stampede. 

Nothing in the Way 
Jonathan Carrot parked his car, removed himself, and strode along the side. It was done. Another day and going home. He was at process since the dawn before, working out the bugs. Now it was comestibles, pleasure, sleep ahead, and nothing in the way. He lived in the eleventh quadrant cee, room eight oh nine oh four all by himself. No spouse. No child. No bird. Just a six by nine, a screen, a view, a mat. And just the way he liked it. Carrot was a simple man. He had exactly what he wanted, and nothing more. 

The Widest Man 
Ten twenty nine, the man at Altar Number Eight prepared himself and left. He was probably the widest man employed at Fourth Fidelity. He'd been the number eight for more than twenty years. Sissy had never movie shared with him, or, as far as she knew, with his wife or child. She knew absolutely nothing about the man. And that's why she felt a certain fondness for him. Eleven years of side by side, and never once that they communicated anything to each other, not even in the weariness of the seventh hour, or at the first of day. This is what makes the world work, she thought. It wouldn't be possible any other way. You are what you are, and so is everybody else. 

A Partial History 
Marginal was constructed in the Seventeenth by the Paramount of Indication Drives. Settlement was rapid and transcribed. Each citizen is connected to the log (by parameters, of couse), and all of them together form the wuns above. Before its founding date, the site of Marginal was a marshy swamp, inhabited only by froglike things and snakes, flying insects, rodents, vegetation, trees and mud. Colonation was a part of the Outland Reclamation Project, under jurisdiction of the Terminal City Plan. Migration was conscripted on a ten year clause, and ever since then residence has been voluntary and participatory functionally. There aren't many laws. Everything is legal, except: The parenting of more than one child (applicable equally to female and male), and forsaking employment as assigned. The major social problem is olfactory, but residents accept, and don't complain. 

60406 
Eleven thirty eight - Sissy was off. Without so much as a nod to anyone she was off the ramp and off the springs, down the shute and back out on the side, sliding towards the crane. It wasn't even noon, and she was off. She enjoyed this shift. She had no idea when it would come around for her again. Her first idea was to visit the site of her Aegis, but that could wait, she decided, for another time. Paul would still be home. They'd have some time before his shift began. So she found her car, climbed in, and hummed back home, to quadrant seven el, room six of four oh six. It was a three room flat, slightly larger than the norm, with views in two directions at a time. The floors were blue and green - the rest of the apartment was arrayed in gentle browns and reds and beiges. She came through the halls, past residents arriving and departing, nodded, finally home. And just before she went inside she heard a thought (and it was not her own) that said, "will you look at that? Her jumper's got a snag!". 

A Snag 
Paul was up and feeding in the kitchen. He said hello. The parrot said hello. Sissy greeted both of them and smiled. She bent over, kissed her husband on the cheek, then turned away and looked into the mirror. Sure enough, her jumper had a snag. Sissy fixed it, then sat down. Paul got up and brought her a warm caffeine. They gazed at each other fondly for awhile. Nothing needed to be said. Her day was fine. His day was fine. No worries and no problems, just like usual. He was not suspecting anything was different. She looked for his awareness, didn't see it, and finally said, "something strange is happening. I don't know if it's only me. No, four times in one, it can't be only me." He waited for her to go on. No need to ask a question. If someone wanted to say something, she would. 

33 
Proximity is the next best thing to being there "I'm hearing things", she said, "and I'm seeing things and I'm feelings things - it isn't right." Paul had the parrot on the range. It was pacing back and forth. The kitchen clock at twelve oh nine. "Just now when I came in I heard a thought. It wasn't mine. It must have been that man from Seven A. He was the only one nearby. Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe proximity has nothing at all to do with it. It could've been, but no. I heard the thought - her jumper has a snag - and sure enough, it did." "I noticed it", said Paul. "But it wasn't you", she frowned, "it was before I came in through the door. And earlier today, I felt a wind when there wasn't any wind, and cold - cold inside the bank! It isn't right", she said, " something's wrong and I don't know what it is." White and Blue "I dreamed about the cold" said Paul, " I was in the sea and the water was very cold. I swam and saw a bird fly overhead. It was calling out a name. It circled up above, and called. Around and around it flew. And the sky was very deep. I thought it might be something nice to share, if you want to see it from me." "Yes", she said, " that would be nice.' They both got up and went into the major room. They sat down on the floor, linked hands, and watched the wall. He saw himself, and she saw someone else, in the water (yes, it's very cold) and the bird was white and calling out a name. I want a cloud, she thought, and then she saw a cloud. Paul wasn't altering his version of the scene at all. Sissy added sound to hers, and rise and fall of waves against a distant shore, and had her vision splash a bit, the white on foam, the bird, the cloud, all white and blue and cold. "Yes, it's nice", she said, and as they screened it out they turned into each other's arms and rocked and held on tight. 

A Foolish Child 
Paul left for work at two fifteen, and Sissy headed for the Aegis. This was just outside the western safe, her favorite watching point. From the wall she gazed across the sand, and barely made out Terminal beaming in the distance. That was her mother's home. Sissy hadn't seen her in eleven years. She knew her mother was long since dead, but still she thought of her alive in Terminal. It was a fantasy. No harm in that. And Sissy as a little girl, reading the screen, scanning across for clues. They were rare enough. A hint of patterns in the words, the glowing of the backdrop. She had believed that everything was different than it seemed. I was a foolish child, she thought, always imagining things. And maybe I still am. 

Clues 
Sissy cried, with someone else's tears. "Forgive me" voices said, " I don't want to interfere. It's not my fault. I'm sorry. I just can't seem to stop." Sissy looked around and saw, not far away, two girls up on the wall. They leapt off and ran away, and then the voices stopped. Her afternoon was ruined. Something was very wrong. Her privacy was spoiled. This had never happened before. Always at the Aegis, one could be alone, no matter who or how many other people might be there. I heard them, Sissy thought, I heard their minds. Too many times, too many times today. Clues were everywhere. She sensed them and she knew it was a chance. She was waiting, all her life, for something to unravel. It was her special skill. But now she felt confused. She had no idea what it was, or why. 

Moons Do Not Appear 
She felt the Aegis was demolished for the day. Along with the sand and dust blown in from Terminal beyond, there were other things being carried by the wind, which was cool and warm by turns, as if the thermal underpinning of the clouds gave way and every now and then a moon appeared to reign, but that was an illusion. Moons do not appear. And Sissy left the wall and snugged into her car, a hum, connected by parameters, tapped into the central source, the will was on and smooth she beamed along the streets and headed home. 

The Secret of the Peace 
But even in the shell the air was static, vibrant, crackling. She thought she saw a blaze of mini lights peaking here and there, some blue, some red, some in between, even when she blinked. It wasn't like a normal ride, and even random thoughts - not hers - flicked in and out. A person's car is sacred ground, she thought. No one shares a car. Nothing is allowed to enter but its legal counterpart, and this has been the law for years and years. Towering high above the rooftops of even the oldest home, the piles of neatly stacked, inviolate cars. And the layers of roads were filled with traffic constantly both day and night, but never any tie-ups, never any jams. Asynchronic rescheduling is the secret of the peace. 

Former Desert, Former Swamp 
Sissy was home, and nothing in the place could reassure her mounting sense of tension. It wasn't quiet and it wasn't dark. The entire building seemed to come alive with motion, sound and light, and even though these things were only at the threshhold of awareness, Sissy's nerves were sensitive, attuned to interference, and she felt that she would never rest again. Going mad, she thought, ten million people thought. There's something very wrong, a hundred million people thought, including Sissy Quait. Am I the only one? they asked themselves in city after city,all up and down the stretch of former desert, former swamp. 

Pheromonix 
Paul had left the parrot on. The big blue bird had left his perch, and hopped across the window frame. His little head was bobbing up and down, as he pressed his beak against the glass, scratching, squeaking, squealing. "Clues" he shrieked, and "Clues" he shrieked again. "What clues?" Sissy asked, irritated by its piercing voice. "Pheromonix" the parrot said, and repeated "pheromonix". "What the hell is that?" Sissy asked, but the bird would only say the same two words, and finally Sissy turned him off. She went over to the console board, and tapped in with parameters. She asked for definitions, please. The screen displayed - no term, no word, derivative. She asked for derivations, please. From Pheromone, the screen displayed, a hormonal substance secreted by an individual and stimulating a behavioral response from another individual." Hormones, Sissy thought. A clue. It was something to gnaw on, but it didn't seem like much. 

The Secret-Sharing Room 
There's only one place I can go, she thought (As thousands had the same thought at that time), the secret-sharing room. It was no more than a closet. Four walls, a floor, a ceiling, two by two by six. Nothing was inside. Everybody had one. Sissy rarely used her SS room, she had no need for it. Usually she could be all alone and private everywhere, just as she could be with others and be social anywhere at any time. But I haven't really been alone today, she thought, and it isn't healthy. She went in and closed it up. She knelt and bowed her head. I don't feel well, she told the walls. I'm worried. I'm afraid. She only heard the echoes of her words. 

Just A Closet 
It wasn't right. The SS room was just as noisy, just as bright, filled with static and the jumping air just like the Aegis, like the car, the living room. She wasn't sharing anything, and it wasn't unburdening her at all. This is just a closet, Sissy thought, and she almost told it that. And it seemed incomprehensible that this room was ever more than that. Yet in the past, whenever she had needed it, the secret-sharing chamber had been somehow effective, in a mysterious and impossible way. But not today. 

One More Car 
It was four oh eight - she had six minutes left of her allotted active time. Sissy broke the law, for the first time in her life, and she didn't even realize what she was doing. It didn't occur to her. What would happen if everybody broke the law - just once, but all at once - the result would be unthinkable, a chaos of the most extreme. But Sissy couldn't even think of that. All she knew was, I must find relief! And when her schedule had expired, she was in her car and on the road, in double violation. If she had been thinking normally she might have thought, well, one more car won't cause a jam, and so it didn't, then. The trip was quick and smooth, but still the air was filled with interfering agents (what else could you call them?) and the level of noise and static was increasing steadily. Dr. Tom "You can't be here" they told her at the health department of the bank. 'You're past your time, you must go home at once." "I can't" she said,"Please, please let me speak to Dr. Tom." She insisted, and the console finally let her through, because it could afford no slight delay, and she was already making other people wait too long. She explained her symptoms, while the doctor listened patiently. Finally, when she was done, he said, "I know." " You know?" she cried out gratefully. "What is it then? Am I going mad?" " I don't know what it is", he said, "But everyone today has come in with the same disorder. It's really very strange. It would seem to be a new disease." "What can I do?" she asked, ' What can make it go away?" "I can only recommend a good night's sleep", he said, " A very long, deep sleep. Maybe that will help." "I doubt that I can do that" Sissy said, "with all the static and the noise, the lights, the shivers, all the weird sensations..." "You must try" the doctor said, " and give us time. We'll find a proper antidote, I'm sure. Meanwhile, please, go home. Your time is long since up today, and you don't want to interfere with all the others' day." Sissy felt ashamed. "You're right", she said, "I'm being inconsiderate. I'll go home." "Good", said Dr. Tom, " and try not to worry yourself too much. You're not the only one." 

Fossils of the Culture 
Long ago, our progenitors had other means to soothe their tensioned nerves. They needed many means, for they hadn't yet adapted to the world they'd fashioned from their minds. And so they had their rituals, their violent activities, outbursts, tantrums, wars. They had their doctors of the soul, therapists and gurus, priests and drugs. They had their ideologies, utopias, heavens, peace-on-earths. They had their numbing passive ecstasy escapes, video and film, music, stories, lies. They had their sublimation means, hobbies, crafts and habits. Most of all they had each other's ears, into which they poured their personal frustrations, worries, cares and woes. By now, all of these methods are unknown, impossible, forgotten. Yet fossils of the culture still exist deep down within, in the remnants of our "pre- adapted" layer of the brain, the so-called neo-cortex. Our progenitors were silly creatures, rushing all about, untimed and selfish, uncoordinated, greedy, confused, chaotic, and disturbed. They had no asynchronics, so everybody ran all around at once. Mass congestion in the day, streets deserted in the night. Ridiculous, unspeakable, absurd. And they had no collective will, and hence no wuns above, no will power, no participation. Their systems were a joke, controlled by ones against the others, flipping back and forth. We remember them as frantic, futile beings, believing in their lies, and never knowing what was really meant by common good. The so-called individual was king in their ideas, and yet the individual was a slave to the teeming, static mass. They longed for death, and crowned it with the notions of eternal peace and rest. They clamored for an end, and praised the ones who brought it on. We do not do or think or feel the way they did. Our brains are more evolved, much more. We are an adapted race. Everything is good. 

Static All Around 
All the way home, Sissy was rattled by static, swollen with heat, and shivered by the waves of changing moods that swept right through her, one right after another. Grief to pain to joy to casual indifference, ecstasy and sorrow, calm and agitation. She could barely keep her will tapped in, and the car kept nearly stalling out in the middle of the thoroughfare. She had no thoughts - none that were her own, but her mind was filled with notions from outside, from other people's minds: go straight, up there, I want to, middle-time, I think I'm sick, it's all the same,blue dress, I meant to, here we are: and all the time the colored mini lights, now including yellow, green and brown, and a roar of crackling static all around. She fell out of the car, and stumbled up the chute. She ran into her home and slammed the door. She tripped and rushing to the bathroom jumped upon the bed and grabbed her only animal to her chest. 

The Bear 
The tiny panda bear was warm and smiled, as Sissy wept and rolled around. A panda bear is always there. Sissy'd had it since she was a little girl and her mother took her to the bank and said, " now, you be very careful. You can only have one animal, and you must always keep it. It is a difficult decision, so take your time. If you don't see one you like, we'll come again another time." But Sissy didn't have a choice (she felt), for she loved the panda right away and ever since without a lapse. Now she turned it on, and the bear began to nibble on her nose and lick her face. Sissy laughed and cried. The bear was gruimbling in its long familiar baritone, and Sissy stayed with it for twenty seven minutes. 

Drown Out Tech 
And suddenly she knew exactly what to do. She got up and brought the panda with her to the living room. She carefully arranged the pillows on the floor, and then lay down. She turned the drownout on, at its normal level, at which it would eradicate all awareness of herself. But it wasn't enough this time. There were still a million voices in her head, a thousand moods, sweeping through her heart and static, noise and lights still filled the air. She turned the drownout up, and turned it up again. She had to turn it all the way, to levels of warning danger, and she had to ingore the blinking light. She closed her eyes, and the drownout roared like a billion waves crashing on the beach at once, like a galaxy exploding in her brain, like the speed of sound not shattered but demolished, and it carried her away, beyond the room, beyond the moons, beyond the universe, and finally to that place beyond existence, at the end of time. She fell asleep. 

Just A Little More 
Jonathan Carrot had a bold idea. If everyone, he thought, would only do a little more, than everything would all get done. Just a tiny little extra bit, that's all. He smiled. My genius is the simple, he decided once again, the obvious that everybody overlooks. All it takes is a fresh, clean mind, uncontaminated by desire, pure and simple, clear. He'd had these ideas before. And he didn't write them down. He thought that writing couldn't be effective. He was fascinated by the power of the mind, and so, whenever he had a bold idea, he kept thinking it, over and over again. He thought it hard. He felt that he was sending out a signal, and if he could muster up the strength, it could permeate all the waves, and carry into every corner of the globe. Let's love each other, Jonathan thought, just a little more. He'd beamed that one for seven days without a pause, and when he stopped and looked around, he thought that it had probably done some good. Everyone seemed happier. But in those days, everyone was happy anyway, so it was hard to tell for sure. Now he had a new idea, and resolved to set to work on it at once. 

Experience 
Albert Pension was nothing but precise. On the outside, he was the widest man in Marginal, a seventy-two year old drone, who lumped along with everybody else, keeping to his schedule, performing his duties perfunctally, intruding into no one's personal and private space, driving at the limit, sharing with his asynchronic partners, inhabiting an apartment compatible with his bulk; in short, a true and well-adapted citizen in all respects. But on the inside he was something more than ordinary, because he had Experience. He was born in an almost pre-adapted colony of Paramount, an urban zone beneath the cliffs called Seminal, not far from Outermost. There was no collective will in operation there, and there were no wuns above, only the last private tutelage, with elected lords, and public opinion moldering. He was still a boy when all that came abruptly to an end, but he remembered vividly how strange it was, and for many years he puzzled on the incompatabilities. 

Privacy 
His parents were administrators of the State bureaucracy, rendered useless by the onset of the parameter linkage and the wave particulation. As 'remnants of corruption', they were not allowed to join the intrastructure, as Albert was, when he came of age. They were moved to Outermost, and Albert was remanded to collective care, where he lived in utter privacy until his linkage date. Privacy, but only in a formal sense, for it was in the C C home that he was introduced - surreptitiously, no doubt - to several foms of chemicals that would make him know the whole idea of privacy was absurd, merely a convenient fiction, although it served its function well. 

The Strictly Personal 
In fact, the myth was indispensible, and Albert realized this truth, and honored it, as he honored chrons and sharing institutions. Every social system needs adaptive technica, custom fitted to necessity, and subscribed by all participants. These must be conscious from the start, but over time the people tend to lose awareness of their institutions' primal rationale, and follow form from habit, rather than consensus. This was the situation now, and had been so in cities like Terminal and Marginal for many years. It was only the fluke of his birth in time and place that made him open to the causes and foundations of the system. He felt he was outsider from the first, but he was therefore even more a citizen than most. The legal structure made it possible for him to continue his connection with the chemicals he valued, because no limits could be placed on privacy activity - the law forbade collective interference with the strictly personal. 

Microscopic Sensibility 
He'd had one spouse, one child, but that was nearly fifty years ago, and he hadn't seen either one for twenty-nine. In those years he had devoted himself to the study and perfection of a natural philosophy peculiar to his era. He was not a man of great emotion. He was, he thought, a mental scientist, remote, impersonal, clinical and objective. He was not interested in people singly, but only in the aggregate. He felt he understood his world with perfect clarity, and he loved it. Its culture was a model of complicated irreducibility, the simplest complexity, with time enough and room enough for everything, and yet without much time, without much room, and tens of millions of asynchronic needs. Precision was his microscopic sensibility, and he spent his passive time devoted to the sense-enhancing substances he fashioned from his stores. He was prepared to die at any time, but there were other things that he could not foresee. 

Science Doesn't Know 
We tried a little of the old skin-scan, Dr. Tom reported, but with negative results. No graft. Then we thought, maybe it's a virus, but we ran it through, and no such element appeared. It's certainly behaving like a virus, we decided, so maybe it's an antipode. There was no pattern to the cases. Already more than ninety-thousand registered complaints, and only forty of the eighty-six shifts reporting in today. There has never been anything this widespread. Symptoms are identical. Patients mention visual, audial, physical, emotional, mental and tactile hallucinations, with some reporting those of taste and smell as well. And yet, there seems to be no chemical imbalance, no genetic alterations, no fever, cold or any other proximate affliction. Patients are in perfect health. We simply do not know what's going on. 

A Smattering
(Just a little more) But anyway, I said, and Sally once forgot, I had a leopard, green almost blue, the waves, besides it's cold (If everyone would only) to the end. Altar Ego He was therefore not especially alarmed when he succumbed to rampant pheromonix. There was something familiar about it. He was reminded of the party meetings he'd attended with his parents, when he was still a child. The chaos, everybody shouting out at once, the noise, and people pounding on the tables, clamoring for the floor. And the flood of sensations was also not too strange, for in his time he had been opened up to maximum awareness more than once. In fact, at first he thought it was a flashback. But then he knew it wasn't, because he saw that underneath the bustle was a certain asynchronic pattern. Function follows form, he thought, and he observed that others were afflicted, not just himself. He'd been among these people far too long not to know their customary tendencies, their "typical conventional" as it was known. The woman (Sue) at Altar Nine, for instance. She was a rapid, rigid handler, the fastest most methodical in the line. Hence her Altar status. The wuns above had wisely placed her in the spot the most conducive to her metabolic rate. He noticed how she faltered once or twice. That was symptomatic, at the least, but when she rose and left a half a minute ahead of time, he knew that there was something wrong. 

Collecting Evidence 
Sissy Quait, at Altar Five, was clearly under stress. This one was cool, complacent, casual, but now she looked around, abruptly, every other minute. He could tell she'd caught a sense and tried to track the source. A hopeless effort, but she couldn't know. After work, Albert drove straight home and let his extra senses out. He pondered in the dark, and tried to sort the various incoming stimuli into groups and types of groups. He tried to find a system, crack the code. He was being bombarded too,but he didn't try to drown it out, and he didn't panic. Instead, he opened up, collecting evidence. At last, he thought, a problem made for me. 

Missing Input Runs 
Albert tuned to frequency eleven hundred four. One way to find out what is going on, he knew, is to hear what 'they' say is going on, then figure it out from there. The information station was a nonstop processing department - whatever was on the collective will's agenda was beamed straight through without contingency, in whatever state the collective assortment was providing at the time. Usually it was a raw half-formed schemata of a skeleton of data. Most citizens never bothered tuning in, but Albert was a student of the power. He found decision making generally predictable, and in a given stage of clues could usually extrapolate the ultimate conclusion. It was formally a joke for him. The wuns above had solved most problems long ago, and by now were mainly occupied interring kinds of asynchronic disrupt. Today was an exception. Errors were abounding, and even Albert was astonished. They've got the wrong in-bounds, he said, staring at the screen. This isn't autolene! They need a berth, instead they've got a plank on metagraph! And he notice where the factor lay - some missing input runs. Somebody, somewhere, no, many in many places, aren't connecting up, the parameters are out of contact net. If the selectable parameters don't fit, he realized, the collective will draws short. Nonparticipation leads to failures up and down the line. That's why it's compulsory. This is serious, he thought. What do they think they're doing? 

9 Blood of Blood 
Peuter was on wuns above that day, and yet he wasn't on. He was off the line. His parameter lay dormant, disconnected at the source, as he sought relief in off-time movie sharing. With his partner, Annie, he imagined something else. Sitting in the dark, the renegade participant was holding tightly to her hand, and beaming every neuron at the wall to make a monoview appear. He was trembling, sweating, as he sought escape from overloaded input. On the wall he saw the fins of many sharks, an orange bird was cruising overhead, screaming 'blood of blood', the water rushed away, leaving bloated sharks all floundering on the sand, their skins were caked in red, and auto parts were strewn along the beach. Annie shuddered, moaned, and kicked away the step. Through the room a wind, a frozen blast, and Peuter let his hand slip off, the vision faded, vanished, and he fell and kicked and cried. Audibles from the Past On another frequency, Seward beamed his monotone. He was said to be susceptible to currents from progenitor static waves, controlling, redirecting audibles from the past. He chanted ceaselessly, a steady drone, whenever he was on his passive time. Albert discovered nothing new in this, just the same old Seward song, and he'd never been a fan, nor a believer. It was dreck. First Alert On a higher freqeuncy, Albert found a First Alert. Apparently the wuns above had noticed their discrepancy and launched an early warning, the lowest on the scale. In effect it was an apology, and such occurred each time the waste disposal overflowed, a result of calculations gone awry. The collective will was subject to recurring power drains, and this alert was automatic, normal. It ran 'please retain a profile, this is first alert. sharing on a minimum appliances on off. conservation temporary only. thank you for your input' and then it ran again, and repeated its message until the drain was trickled off, and normal power levels were resumed. Albert felt a little guilty with his appliance on, but he doubted this was typical contingency It wasn't merely a power drain. There was some disruption going on, and he had to find out what. He altered frequencies and scanned the index board. Elements were missing with a regularity that could not be concealed. On every band there was a gap in putout, parameters off line, and he was determined to investigate. 

Contraband 
Sue was from a contraband, though she'd done her best to disavow her origins. It wouldn't be right to let inheritance destroy her excellent career. She'd been on the fast track ever since she was a child. What good is history, she thought, if you cannot leap beyond it and eradicate its tendencies. The last contraband bad been adapted only a generation earlier, and the mark was left upon her. Mother, father, uncles, aunts, rebellious to the end, sticking to their pre-adapted notions, had had to be rerouted, quarantined, for the common good. And even as a girl of six she had approved. She was all for common sense, against disintegration and dissent. Input was enough - it was all that anybody could legitimately claim. Contraband means wild and dangerous, outside the law. A few would have the input in a contraband, the others would be left out, which meant that war was constant, and ignorance held sway. In any case, she hadn't liked the desert, had despised the heat, the hunger and disease. If it wasn't for the P.I.D., she surely would have died before her chance to come of age. So she was grateful to the city, and loyal to the system. Her tribe was fossil - dead. She forsook their garb, their habits, language, even their 'morality'. It was unadapted, and it had to fade away. 

The Seeds 
Still, she was a contraband, and she was infested. She didn't know that she was carrying the seeds of chaos and disease. If she'd known, she might have killed herself, and when she was afflicted, she retired to her home,thinking, it was simply some delirium, which would surely pass away. 

Harry's History 
Okay, class, now who can tell us all about the Indication Drives? Harry? Go ahead. "Well, sir, the Indication Drives were undertaken by the Paramount in ther interests of the common good. It was said the wuns above declined in ever turn, but the local hauls were overruled by the Agents of Necessity" Can you tell us more precisely, Harry, about the A of N? "Yes, sir. The Agents of Necessity were a special agency, now under dormant mode. They calculated ramified contingencies and filed reports directly to the Paramount Control. The Agents recommended thorough overhaul of outside renegades, to deter potential threats to peace and order in the generations yet to come. This was deemed Necessity, not only for the citizens, but also for the children of the contrabands. We couldn't let them starve, and we couldn't let them simply kill each other off, though many feel that may have been appropriate, even just. The bands were not a threat to Paramount, but only to each other and themselves. While the wuns above of every local realm was disinclined, the central wuns decided to initiate the Indication Drives. These proved entirely successful in adapting all beyond and pre-adapted tribes." Entirely successful, Harry? "Yes, sir, entirely." 

Everyone is Guilty, No One Is To Blame
Disallowing alien interference, Albert thought, it must be biological. Yes, it is in the nature of an illness, of an epidemic. Therefore, no one can be held responsible. An alarming possibility, for if this is contagious, like a virus, then everyone is guilty, yet no one is to blame. But what kind of illness could it be? One that hits the senses - that is obvious - but what exactly does it do? Does it merely open up the doors, or is it simply smashing down the walls? In other words, can the doors be closed again, by ordinary means, or must a brand new wall be built, and is that possible? Or, and this is most alarming, is a novel adaptation due, and if so, how can it be achieved? Every puzzle, Albert thought, contains its clues. I must leave the theoretical aside for now, and just observe. 

A New Reality 
Outside, Marginal was alive. The millions went their way and did their jobs. They slept and walked, rested and moved, worked and entertained. But as the light was dimming for the onset of the night, more and more were stricken with a sudden aberration. Most went home drowned it out, but those whose shifts had only just begun awoke into a new reality, a reality that hurt, that made their minds and bodies strangers, a reality they did not like at all. 

Chaotica 
Everything is molecules, all particles in motion, charged and charging, acting and reacting. There is no pattern, no control, except the law of infinite reciprocation. Color is a matter of degrees, sound a matter of bent. Alternate perception is achievable by means of chemical enhancement. The foundation of our lives is the typical conventional, a consensus fiction. This is but the ground. Everyone can figure in their own way as they choose. Socially, our only interest is essentials, to keep the basics smooth and functional. Each privacy is separate, shared at intervals, but kept impersonal. This is how we live. But what happens when consensus disappears and instead each person has his own? Chaotica, until another consensus is decided on, or is imposed on everyone. 

Communicate 
Jonathan Carrot had another bold idea. If only everybody would communicate, he thought, share a little more, than everyone would understand each other better, and the world would then be full of love. I like this one, he thought, it's nice. I think I'll broadcast this one for awhile. 

Out of Place 
Bill's was a tidy world. His apartment (60407A) was a paragon of neatness. Not a speck of dust was out of place. Bill's private law was order and respect. In his life this translated as an incessant noticing of everything that was out of place, his mind a matter of recurring this-goes-there's and that-goes-here's. Fine for him, but those receiving these anonymous suggestions would not have thanked him for them. They had enough to worry about without this occasional ringing in their ears that a hair was out of place, or a jumper had a wrinkle or a snag. He was a perfect nuisance on the air. 

Another Angle 
Albert reviewed the facts. Every broadcast has a source, and every source is modulated by its range and power boost. It must be possible to sort them out and rate - some systematic process. But the incoming data was too dense. It could not be sorted, and it was all coming in from much too close, from every street in every part of Marginal. He soon realized that this effort would be wasted, and the task would be impossible. Another approach, he told himself, I need another angle. 

Stops and Starts 
Surprise and fear were mingled with anger and resentment at the banks, as every moment dozens more succumbed to the unusual disease. For them there was no solace in the world anymore. They were surrounded and besieged by invisible intruders, and their discomfort was surmounted with the knowledge that they too were invaders, and were adding to the problem. A mix of shame and rage as people interrupted everyone's transactions, supplicant and donor alike were burdened by the added sense receptions. The lines lurched slowly forward, stops and starts replaced the certain flow, and people searched for answers in themselves. 

Worst of All 
Worst of all, people began, for the first time in their lives, to actively intrude on other people's thoughts. They cast the blame at everyone, the person next to them in line, the other drivers on the road, and shouted at them 'leave me alone!', 'shut up!', and 'go away!', and they all reacted to each other with shock and disbelief. No one would have ever thought themselves capable of such rank and base intrusion. But what were they to do? Each one sought relief in his and her own way, and had to learn by time and by experience that their efforts were entirely futile, and only made things worse. Each reaction caused a chain of panic, which was spreading rapidly throughout the city Marginal. "I can't stand it anymore!', 'It's driving me insane!' - millions suddenly exposed to millions' other selves, and no way to control the input except to shout out louder, ever louder, ever loud. 

To No Avail 
By eight oh nine p.m., alarm had spread to every corner of the active population. Even those still unaffected (and there were tens of millions still) couldn't help but notice that something very strange was going on. Everyone around them was closing their eyes, blocking their ears, spinning about or staggering around like lunatics, and all to no avail. Many of the stricken simply lay down on the job and writhed, trying deliberately to block it out, while many others, simply overcome, were rendered senseless by the shock. To Paul, it seemed as if the city had been siezed by a common epilepsy. He gazed about his Altar, appalled by what he saw, and yet he felt just fine, perfectly all right. His world was still his own, and nothing was intruding on his life. 

The Parallels 
Albert was accumulating clues at too intense a pace. He tapped into the line, though it was not his time, and fed the data to the Central Source. He'd seen enough and heard enough to lump things roughly into groups and types - you are what you are, he thought, and so is everybody else. This bit of old saying helped him see the limits of the plague. There was fear, suspicion, shame, despair, confusion, anger, curiosity,surprise and shock, and oddly enough, a fair amount of hope. Beyond these limits, variation was so far slight, although he could detect some instances of venom and hilarity at the extremes. Most of all, he realized, reactions were statistical. Some of the measure of hope was his. History, he thought, another clue, for if it was not merely a disease that could be cured by medicine (of which he had no knowledge whatsoever) then perhaps in sociology I might find a cure! And so he set the central source to look out for the parallels. 

Second Stage 
At eight sixteen a second stage alert came over on the air. This was a rare contingency, indeed, occurring once or twice a year at most, with many years gone past without a single one. 'Certain power functions are not in critical alert; activities must be curtailed immediately; all non-giving non-receiving processes must cease until the drain has been inverted; personnel remain at posts; continue to conform to your asynchronic schedule; repeat,this is a second stage alert; temporary only". But many workers in many fields had already stepped aside, unable to perform their duties, with the static interference storming and raging through their minds. 

Science is at a Loss 
We are overwhelmed, Dr. Tom reported, with sufferers of the rampant epidemic. More than seven million have plugged in reporting extrasensory effects. Many are presently incapacitated, using all their strength merely to conform to scheduling. Disobedience is spreading, and is in every case involuntary and hysterical. We have a thousand undergoing specimen regime. All the labs are full. Tech reports confirm the general complaints. We conclude that the short and long term possible effects are extremely uncertain. No fatalities have been as yet reported. Ramifications and bounds are still unknown. We are at a loss to explain. Request emergency priority channeling of tech, divert from every other operation, as far as this is possible. 

A Power Surge 
They've got it wrong, Albert exclaimed. It's not a power drain! It's a power surge! Of course! No wonder they are unprepared. The tech aren't even designed to consider such a thing. How could there ever be more power than the aggregate collective will? This is something for the physicists, not the doctors or the engineers. They can go to seventh stage alert, and still the problem won't be solved. Oh my goodness, Albert realized, this is very serious, very serious indeed. Everything is threatened. We can shut the apparati down, but we can't turn off the people, and since the people are the power source... what could be done to harness all that energy? But for now, he thought, and Albert used his illegitimate derive to overwhelm the frequency, and link directly to the network of the wuns above. 

Negative Alert 
"Recall the second stage" he warned, "reverse the code. We must invent a negative alert. Passive people must be activated in their homes. If we don't increase the core amount of energy in use, the circuits will be overloaded, and the power modifiers will explode!" The network didn't understand, and relayed its confusion. "Listen", Albert patiently explained, " if the energy is confined to sheer necessities, say light and heat, the traffic lights, that's all, then they'll be overloaded any time - you see, we're experiencing a surge and not a drain. So you have to turn the ramps back on, you have to activate the springs, and everybody's job, and the people in their homes must activate their every appliance, every tech, no matter how hard it is. we have to put this extra energy to use. I only mean it as a temporary measure. In the meantime we have to see if we can find a way to siphon off the power, maybe store it, I don't know. Set everyone to work. If we don't, no, no, we must do as I say!" 

The Real Threat 
Albert's message passed, but only because so many parameters to the wuns above were severed, and he became a fleeting, curious majority. Doing as he said, the impending blow out was only narrowly averted. But still the problem mounted, and as more and more succumbed to the rampaging disease, so exponentially the power surged, posing ever greater threats. Albert now devoted all his energy to these. And what he realized was so contrary to his nature, so appalling in its dire necessity, that he recoiled from the thought, and sought some other tendency, but there was none. As he had suspected, technology was not the weakest link. A thousand useless and harmless devices could be rapidly set up to waste the extra energy. The real threat was social. It was a threat to undermine and overwhelm the collective will itself. 

Safety in Confusion 
To her intense surprise, Sue didn't mind the outside interference. It was all somehow familiar. It reminded her of her childhood days, when she would fall asleep, surrounded by the noises of her feuding family. It used to make her smile. And she felt safety in confusion, for she knew that she would be ignored while all the others fought. They would leave her alone, and that was all she wanted. Secretly she hoped they would go on and on forever, and never bother her again. And feeling it come on again, she was almost nostalgic for those days she'd practically forgotten. She didn't think that she, or anyone, was sick. She felt, instead, that the world had been restored, and that the past was seeking vengeance on the future which denied its place. 

No Other Moon 
She was dreaming of another moon, a cold and lifeless moon a universe away, where shiny specks of coral filled the gloomy sky. No water, not a cloud, just an instant of the hyperventilating breath, the squeeze, the puny gasp and then whush go utter it could only be the celophane again invisible. She saw her hand reach out, she felt it touch and every atom melt the other in its path and mesh and come apart once more. A tingling in her fingertips, a sigh of fresh relief, and then the buzzing hum from down beneath her feet. Silver rushes spring and waft away. Sissy on a holotech, examining debris. This time, she thought, its permanent. There will be no other moon. 

Drown Out All The Way 
Paul walked in and nearly dropped unconscious on the floor. The drownout tech was buzzing on beyond his tolerance. He vainly tried to cover up his ears and had to stagger to the wall, then fell upon one level and reached the dial and turned it down. Goodness, he declared, it was up on all the way. It's not supposed to be that high! This has really been a night, he mumbled to himself, recalling all he'd seen, the thousands wandering about as in a daze but eyes ablaze and furious, while he and others unsuccumbed were staring at their fellow citizens as if they were some kind of alien invaders. Even traffic was a mess, like it had never been before. In the process room he'd been alone, and so for hours had the luxury of thinking maybe he had seen it all unreal, it wasn't happening, perhaps, but after killing off his bugs he'd re-emerged and found the scene disintegrating, even worse. And now, another curious thing, the drown out all the way. 

A Carrier 
He found Sissy stirring in the corner, sprawled upon the pillows. She was only waking up, but as he approached she bolted up and madly threw her head. 'Get out!' she screamed, and Paul looked on amazed, "Get out of here. Leave my head alone!" "Sissy", he said, "It's me, I've just come home, what's going on?" 'I don't know", she whimpered, " if I only knew, I could make it stop. They're in me, here, inside of me", and she clasped her head and squeezed as if to crush her skull. "What's in there?" Paul inquired, " I don't know what you mean." "The static" Sissy yelled. She didn't think that he could hear her over the blasting noise. 'The voices,lights, the wind, the waves of hot and cold, the sparks, the thoughts, oh everything!' Paul came near but Sissy waved him off. " Don't touch" she said, " you'll get it too. I am a carrier." " A carrier of what?" he asked, "Sissy, tell me what the hell is going on? It's like a zoo out there, and you..." Sissy stare around, "the drownout. What happened? Did it break?" "I turned it off", he said. 

Science Doesn't Know Anything 
"You what? Why did you turn it off?"She screamed, and lurched over to the wall to turn it on again, but Paul put out his hand and blocked the switch. Sissy, in a rage, bit him on the wrist, but he grabbed her waist and held her, struggling, to his side. She still tried to reach the dial, but he pulled her away, across the room, and sat her down upon the couch. "Sissy!" Paul said, "Listen! Did you see the doctor?" "They don't know anything" she said. He was reluctant to ask her any other questions. That would be interference, and he didn't want to upset her any further. She struggled with him, trying to get up, and he had to hold her down, against both her and his own will. There has to be an explanation, he was thinking. It's all so very strange. 
The Sound of Mind 
"It's like a war" she whispered to herself,"but I don't have a side. It's a war of everything against all other things. Laughter battles tears, illness fighting health, insight struggling againt stupidity, I just don't know" she said, "I can't explain it to myself. Yesterday, everything was normal, quiet, calm. I knew the sound of my own mind. Now I don't even know if I really have a mind. I can't hear it anymore!" 

Gamma Oppa Bee 
"I don't care!" Suddenly she screamed, "so the stupid jumper has a stupid snag! I don't give a damn! It's not my world. I don't want to think these things. I don't want your thoughts. Just go away!"(but this is only, how I hate those little yellow ones, I had a duck, it's purple, man, slow down, if only everybody would, to the way it was before, the glorious, a little more, try sector B, a blond, I saw a vision just the other day, a green, no matter what you say, GET OUT, she died, but how were we to know, FUCK OFF, a surge, a lightning bolt,a gamma oppa bee, ENOUGH, another thing, GO AWAY, you know? and there you are, someday, if only, you should see the sky)"I don't want to see the sky! I don't want to know!"(it really made me, also, she would often, let the left lane pass)"Do what you want, just go away, LEAVE ME ALONE! and Sissy struggling finally managed to break free of him, she dashed across the room and turned it up fill blast. 

Latitude Eleven 
As she fell back to the floor, and writhing, kicking, smothered her head with pillows, Paul ran into the kitchen and slammed the door behind him. He had to put the jammers on his head, and still the drownout dizzied him. He sat down at the table, weary and bewildered, wondering what the hell was happening to his wife. At length he turned the parrot on. It perked up on its perch and cocked its head about. "Okay", Paul said, "You tell me, then." The parrot sqwacked and then repeated "Jonathan, Jonathan. The others". Paul shrugged. "I don't know a Jonathan", he said. " Adjust the cranial cortex" said the bird "a little to the left and on the seventh layer, latitude eleven. Peak the overload. Peak it. Awk! It isn't worth the price. But it's the only way. Or else." and Paul just let it ramble on. Poor thing, he thought, I mean myself. The parrot knows what it's talking about. I don't. 

Transparently 
Sissy was calling for him, screaming out his name. "Paul? I need you! Paul? Are you there? I need you! Paul?" and he came running back into the room and over to her side. He knelt beside her, held her hand, while she shook away her tears and said, "there's only one thing I can do. I have to lose myself. Will you share a dream with me?" "It isn't time" he said, but then he thought, oh screw the time and added "of course I will, of course." She nodded, swallowed hard, and grabbed his hand. "Over there", she gestured to the window, "transparent screen." "Okay" he said, "that's fine with me." Soon the power surged throughout their limbs, and Sissy's vision half-appeared, a thin transparent glow of shapes the night was penetrating through. He saw it was a moon - a horrid, empty place, and yet, a moon that Sissy would invent. Her moon. He joined her there, and as the image held, she quieted, and sank into a state of almost rest, of almost peace, an ordinary state. 

Positive Dynamic Thought 
In a little empty room, the tiny bent man crouched, rocking on his heels, his breath appearing, drifting in the cold, unheated room. His eyes were closed, as he was concentrating with a great intensity, sending out a message to the world. Jonathan Carrot believed in the power of positive dynamic thinking. It had made him happy. It would make all others happy too. And he concentrated on a frequency that no one else was on, just below the level of awareness. He could seep it in, but only if he worked the energy, and really put his astral spirit into it. He knew that it would work. He had no selfish interest. He was only trying to do good, and to help the millions who needed bolstering. Everybody needs a little confidence, he thought, and I am just a tributary of the cosmic flowing stream. Healthy vibes, ideal concatenations. He smiled and rocked and beamed his love into the heart of Marginal. 

A Skip 
At four twenty four she was awake, unable to move or think. It hadn't gone away. Sissy was in agony, and had to take a skip. She hadn't skipped a shift in seven years, but now she couldn't even feel the guilt. She didn't hear her thoughts. The static was so great it drowned her out, and she was lost and drifting in a world of endless interference. She was paralyzed, and couldn't even turn the buzzer off. Paul reached over, saw her filmy eyes - she didn't see him, wasn't seeing anything. For a moment he thought that she was dead - her pulse was slow, but nonetheless a pulse. He sighed. She was hardly breathing, but she wasn't warm or cold. It must be in her mind, he thought, and he drifted back to sleep. 

Negative Six Alert 
"Everybody must report to work" the woman on the information station read, " it is critical that work be done today. We have reached a negative six alert. All operations must be logged, all slots must be in use. Parameters report! Extended connection system in effect. Everybody who is capable , please tune in. We need unlimited participation now. Do not skip. Do not abandon post. All those on passive time, please use appliances and techs, set on maximum endurability. This is an emergency. Repeat. This is a negative six alert..." None-done There was litter in the street (imagine that!), the stench was even worse than typical conventional. People lurched about (the noise, the hideous shrieks and moans). Hairs were out of place. Shoes half-on. The sides were jammed and elbowing was taking place. Bill had to fight his way and everyone he passed had something wrong with them. Facial hair! he noticed (how unseemly). Lipstick smeared (how terribly unpleasant to look at). Smells of body odors, trash, and unclean clothes. Just horrible, he thought. These people ought to be ashamed, coming out like this, undone, half-done, none-done, and going to work in such a state. Unbearable, unthinkable. The wuns above will hear my thoughts on this! 

The Children's Home 
Bawling, crying, fussing, the children's home on level eight oh five was just a mess. Kids were running loose, supervisors unattending, windows smashed and blood, the doctors overwhelmed, the educators startled and afraid. There were not enough adults to handle all this shamble, and the kids, so usually subdued and easily restrained, could not contain themselves. Some fled into the street, and ran out in the road. 

No Relief 
Territory Boulevard was backed up for eleven miles. No one had a clue. Somewhere along the line there'd been a crash or two. The unafflicted waited patiently, but the sick were passing out behind the wheel, or abandoning their cars. Some ran off not knowing where they went or why. There was no relief. 

Every Invention Ever 
Albert was entirely hooked up. He'd plugged in ever nerve into the central source. His mind became machine, and raced with information. He had found the only way that he could operate ignoring all the static was to work incessantly, and with his total being. He was up all night, his nerves so stimulated by the source that sleep was quite another world. He monitored reports, and kept on simulating models to explain, at least to illustrate in graphic terms the nature and the pattern of the plague. He learned, to his surprise, that there was no way to track the outbreak point. He tried every stoch approach that he had ever learned. There was no projection possible. The energy was building on itself, expanding more than quantumly, in a manner he had never even hard of. Not even supernovas build like this, he thought. Not even the creation bang, as far as we can tell. It's from another universe, he thought, but speculation wouldn't help. We must expend the power, and he called up on the screen a list and diagram of every invention ever made by man, and instructed the wuns above to have them built, immediately, every single one, and have them all hooked up and running on the collective will at once. 

Science Has A Clue! 
Dr. Tom discovered something crucial and he shouted, hallelujah to the walls of his underground lab. It's in the cranial cortex, he yelled, and hooked up to the central source. "Seventh layer", he announced, "at latitude eleven. Just a slight adjustment ought to do", and he proceeded to bring in one of his patients, and set about the operation with some hope. 

Return of the Oppressed 
Sue was someone else, someone she'd never known before, and she couldn't help herself. She was all the things she would have been, if the Indication Drives had passed her people by. I've been asleep for almost forty years, she thought, my mind was numb and dead. I was one of them, and I was glad, but now I know that I betrayed myself, I was betrayed and conquered, she declared, but now I am set free. She didn't know how it had happened. She hadn't even dreamed of being this woman she was now. Even though she realized that something was very wrong, she was still elated, and didn't want to study it too deeply. I've never felt this way before, not since I was a child! She didn't even recognize herself when she looked in the mirror. They've changed me into someone else, she thought, but now I'm back. I was educated, trained, molded out of shape, into this typical conventional, but I was never realy like them. I was a contraband. All these years a citizen, an Altar Number One, no less, but forever more a contraband again! 

Go Back! 
She was filled with a sense of duty, obligation, even mission. This has happened for a reason, she decided. I've been liberated from my shell so that I may do my job. What could it be? What else but be myself! And let these people know about their Indication Drives, and what they cost. Paramount will finally pay the price. We never threatened them, and yet they came, adapted us against our will. We were destined to be free, even if it meant to be outcast and sick and hungry. We weren't made for the peace and harmonious happiness of this quiet, complicated world. I was born out in the desert, in the howling winds and sand, and my people went their own way, fierce and proud and free. I want to be alive! I want to hunt, to search, to find my substance for myself. What is all this participation common good - it's just a slavery. We can re-adapt, oh yes, and we can even pre-adapt, go back! 

Wuns Above Direct 
"This is your information station. Please stay tuned. The wuns above are beaming you a signal on all frequencies, stay hold..." "This is the wuns above, with a specialized instruction. We understand your suffering. We feel it as you do. We are working on solutions to the problem, and we feel confident that it will be contained within the next few days. Until the situation is in hand, we require your full cooperation. Even though it's difficult, we ask that every citizen continue to observe their asynchronic schedule. To counteract the power surge, all non- afflicted please hook in on seventy-eight-point-eight, for further specialized instructions. The rest of you, we feel your pain, but still we need your help. Marginal depends on all of us, especially in this unexpected and critical situation." 

A Special Band 
Albert didn't want to do it, but it needed being done. I won't take the reigns again, he told himself, it's evil for the system. But there was work to do, and he had to try and pacify the populace, and get the non-afflicted active on their various assignments. Soon they were reporting in, baffled and amazed, but eager to help as best they could. Albert plugged them in a special band, and told them they were now the wuns above - all seven million of them - and as each one succumbed, they would be disconnected, leaving only the fit to do the vital work. No one questioned his authority, or even suspected he was masquerading as the wuns above. He felt terrible about it, but the means were justified. He cast all doubt aside for then, and busied himself in a thousand projects at once. 

Falling Off 
I can't go on, Sissy thought, and I can't remain asleep all day and night. Paul had left for work at his scheduled time, and she was all alone. I need an answer now, she thought, I don't care what it is. I have to find a way to keep it down, or else I'l lose my mind. I'm already fading fast. I'm falling off, and she was not the only one. Her own thoughts were matched by thousands at the same time, desperate for relief, praying for an end, and willing to try out anything that might ease the pain a little. 

Love and Happiness 
If everyone would only think good thoughts, Jonathan Carrot was beaming through the stratosphere, than everything would be all right. He tried to think of something nice to think. I know, he thought, I'll think of ocean shores. The sweet warm sand, the gently rolling waves, and love, an ocean shore with love. And everyone is happy on the beach, smiling, laughing, laying in the nice warm sun. Love and Happiness... 

Alternatives Galore
We've got to clean up all this mess and act like civilized, adapted human being. We can't go on like this. We need some iron discipline. Do the job and do it right. - Yell and yell, just yell it out. Yell until you can't yell anymore. Just yell. Yell and yell and yell - Forget this sheeplike state. Let's run away. Let's go back to the desert, where we can be free. - Sleep, some gentle sleep,and sleep will wipe away the pain. - I know, let's shut it down. Everyone turn off. That will make it go away. - We have to overcome, uses all our mental power, more power than we've ever used before. Give it all we've got, and more. - Don't let them in. Build yourself a wall. Here's how... - If everyone would only let each other be, try not to interfere, than everything will be all right. Just don't worry anymore, don't panic. Everything will be okay. Relax. - Let's be practical. We need to build these things, or else the power surge will shut this city down. 

The Winds of Cold and Hot 
Too late. The water system overloaded and burned out. Electric power in the sectors eight oh nine through twelve oh six were blown apart. No light. A thousand non-afflicted hookups were cut off, and power failures threatened to spread until the entire city was out. At least downtown is on, Albert thought. If that is lost, than all of us together... but he couldn't think of that. He had to monitor reports. The news was bad. That is, from several areas there wasn't any news at all. Nothing coming through except the static interference and the winds of cold and hot. 

Even If It Cost My Life 
I might have to take some drastic measures, Albert thought, but he was hesitant. If I do that, he thought, than the system is a sham. What kind of participation would it be if only one person was participating in the name of all? It has to be the common will, and yet he knew that will was overloading, failing fast. It cannot be, he thought. Our sacred institutions! But can I let the city die, through no fault of its own? But who am I to interfere? How can I justify this deed? No, I cannot do it, even if it cost my life and everything that I esteem. 

Science Has Hope 
Dr. Tom was pleased with his preliminary findings. The subject reported a definite decrease in the static interference - not eradication, no, but a definite reduction in the volume and the pain. Some side effects were not encouraging, but perhaps there had to be a price, and maybe many, if not all of the sufferers would be willing to pay it. He dispatched his notes, and received instructions to continue with the tests. 

Out of Date 
Albert's instructions were being followed quickly and unanimously. Every kind of useless and unnecessary invention was being constructed and hooked up as fast as possible. The workers were both delighted and confused by the projects which they were assigned to do. Most of these contraptions were entirely new to them, and they had no idea, not only what they were, but even why they were. But they didn't stop to wonder or to question. They had their orders, and it was a crisis situation. Blueprints backed up on the screens, as models were dispatched to carry out the work. Materials were assembled, tools were put together first, all sorts of antiquated tools that were needed to complete the ancient and irrelevant designs, but even the tools used up some power, and every little bit helped. 

Useful Waste 
Albert was sifting priorities, and running them through the temporary wuns above. He would not seize the reigns again, but though he worried there was no delay, as the non-afflicted worked harder than they had every worked before, and did not reject a single scheme. Fans and mills and engines spun and sputtered, wasting as much power as they could. But this was useful waste. 

Heading Down 
The power failures spread, and by nine sixteen the entire northern sector of the city was cut off from water, power and light. More nonafflicted were removed involuntarily from the central source, and the blackout seemed almost as contagious and as rampant as the power surge. It was past experience, beyond all knowledge ever learned by the scientists of Paramount. Tech could not explain. No formulas emerged. Conditions were disintegrating fast as noon approached. Millions had no food, no means of coming in. Cars abandoned filled the streets and blocked them thoroughly. Those on passive time, except the few who somehow slept, left their homes and headed for the banks. They did not know why. But soon the sides were jammed on one direction - heading down. It was a pilgrimage of fear, of hope,but mostly of confusion and involuntary motion. 

A Desperate Maneuver 
At twelve oh six, they had no choice. The sick weren't capable of work, and the scene inside the banks was utter chaos, madness and disease. Hoping to avert any damage to the techs, the unafflicted wuns above, on Albert's advice, closed the banks and shut down all the offices. Techs remained turned on. Only people were turned out. They left their posts, their places in the lines, and poured into the streets, where they were met by the people from the northern zones. It was a gamble, and a desparate maneuver, but the threat was great. Albert hoped that everyone would suffer patiently, and wait for the wuns above to work it out. But he didn't understand the nature of the illness, and he couldn't know how it would change, when it reached a certain aggregate proportion. It was on the brink, and any moment then, the worst would just begin. 

A Colony of Ants 
From his office window on the seventh floor, Paul watched the thickening stream ooze in. They came from all directions now, some siding from the blacked-out zones, but most now pouring from the various banks themselves. Filling the streets, swarming over the stalled abandoned cars, not hastily, not even with direction. They were being bound together by a common drive - the need to go where light and food and shelter still remained intact. He watched in silence, uncomprehending. This was all so strange. He didn't recognize a single body, and he couldn't even begin to imagine what was going on in them. They've become a colony of ants, he thought. But he couldn't spare the time to sit and wonder now. There was work to do, and he roused himself back into it. 

Trains of Thought 
The level of static/interference had increased tremendously. Albert felt as if he were beneath a crashing wave, as every frequency was overloaded, jammed with increasingly insensible messages. Most of all shrill shrieks and cries of desperation filled the waves, and it was getting more difficult to function every moment. He was racked and torn by all extremes of feeling. There was no longer any way to separate his own mind from the millions out there, lumbering in. All his trains of thought were being derailed. And his sense of urgency was misdirected from his tasks to the utter confusion shared by all. All he knew was that he must do something, and he had to do it now. But he'd forgotten what it was. His only task was for himself, to stop the static/interference before it was too late. He forgot about the nonafflicted, and the temporary wuns above. He almost pulled himself away from his desk, to throw himself upon the floor, as if that would be some help, but another idea came on him just in time. 

Not Enough 
Drownout, Albert thought, I'll drown it out for everyone. I have access to all the techs in town. I can turn them on from here. But.. there were risks. What if I harm the nonafflicted? What if it doesn't work? I'd be losing precious time! I'll have to try it on myself and see what happens before I try it on a larger scale. So he turned his drown out on, and turned it all the way to high. It squalled on the highest frequency, a sharp unnerving pitch (it's going to drive me mad - well, either this, or then the other will) but it was not enough. He harnessed up some other sources, amplified the tech. He jolted back, parameters fell out and Albert's chair slid out from under him. His head cracked on the floor (oh damn it's all a mess), his bulk sprawled out, his legs were upright in the air, he flailed (it isn't going to work), he felt himself being drained of consciousness (No, I can't go on, there's too much work to do, much as I would like to...). He struggled to his feet and threw himself back towards the desk, and pulled the switch. The drownout whistled to a halt. For a moment there was peace, but then the static/interference came roaring back, an Albert knew that he had failed once again. 

The Cure 
If only everyone would just relax, slow down and take it easy. We can make it work for us, if we work together now. Jonathan Carrot's latest inspiration undulated on the lowest tone. It was running slow and quiet beneath the tumult of the roaring interference. He kept up his quiet chant, staring at his vacant walls, with all the astral power at his command. And slowly it was coming through. His voice was building, carrying, absorbing and reflectant. If only we all think the same and feel the same and share the same soft love, the confusion will evaporate and go away. He knew that he was right. He had the answer, the antidote, the cure. 

Collective Power 
Of course, Bill thought, why didn't I think of it before. If everybody thinks the same thought, over and over again, then there will only be one thought; he picked up Jonathan's message, and began to think along in unison. Soon they were joined by others - a swelling undertone arose and carried a growing multitude along. They were thinking, all in harmony, if only we join together now, we can be as one, and being one united, there could be no outside interference. It seemed to be so simple, and so right. The ever- increasing unity was like collective power, rising to meet and overcome the challenge of the multiplicity of voices and sensations. 

Another, Better Way 
Sue was quick to learn and take advantage of the new technique. Of course, she cried,we have to flood the frequencies, and repetition is the surest way to get the message through! But she wasn't interested in Jonathan Carrot's thoughts. She had her own, and she was convinced that hers were more effective and more right than his could ever be. He won't solve anything, she thought, at best he'll have them chanting away, creating the illusion of a cure, but the problem isn't going to go away so easily. It'll still be here, but they will just pretend it's not. That's no way to cope with this reality. It's giving up! It's going mad! It's losing yourself to dreams and wishful thinking. No, it isn't right, and I can't let it get too far. The people have to know there is another, better way. 
Be Your Own 
Sissy heard it from above, on a frequency too high for ambiconversation. She was beaming down one way, from her to them, and never the reverse. She was saying, people, don't give in, it's time to readapt, not go insane! Listen to my answer. If you agree, repeat it after me. The world is changed. There is no going back. We can all go forward now. To a bright new day. A whole new world. A world where everyone is free, and nothing is determined, planned or centrally controlled. Be your own woman. Be your own man. And let everyone be free. Sissy thought it made a lot of sense. Or something in Sissy thought, that is. 

As One 
But both sides made some sense. Following Jonathan, the interference would be absorbed and muted, practically contained. But it wouldn't really solve the problem. It would just be some temporary help. Sue, on the other hand, would institute the disease as normalcy - we'd have to readapt, get used to it, and find new ways to live. But is that even possible? And how long would it take? How many would die in the meantime? Sissy couldn't be the judge. All she knew was that she had to have an answer now. She couldn't go on this way. And so she picked up Jonathan's chant, and joined the million now repeating it. It seemed to ease her tired nerves. She had some anchor she could lean on now. Unity and unison. All together now. Soft love and peace. We can be as one. 

The Enemy 
Don't turn into sheep, Sue beamed, don't let it turn you off and go to sleep. Illusion and delusion never stopped the time. She was angry now, because she thought she wasn't getting through. The forces of the Carrot were steadily gaining strength, and she felt her time was running out. It was now or never, she declared. If you give in now, you will never win. We have to fight! Do you know what causes this disease? It's the system, Paramount. They're doing it on purpose. They're trying to mold you into more obedient slaves. It's just another one of their projects, one of their Drives, only this time they didn't bother to let you in on it beforehand. They aren't satisfied with total synch. They want to steal your privacy, kill your personal life, and you are letting them. You're playing their game. Carrot is their man! He's the agent of the enemy! 

The System 
Suddenly the crowd began to surge. Sue had struck a resonant chord, almost by chance, and now her message carried through. They want to steal my privacy! It made a lot of sense. She might be right. It was an attack. They were being preyed upon. Someone had smashed their barriers and was spoiling their preserve. First they pack us in. Then they rearrange our lives. Now they want to eliminate our last remaining space. They'd forgotten what their lives were like, how good it was, how well it worked. Now they only knew the static/interference and it had to end. They had to resist. The crowd was moving faster now, and Sue was driving them against the banks. Don't let them win!,she cried, Fight back! Get them before they get to you! Paramount is the enemy! The system has to be destroyed! 1 Pushed and Pulled "Don't be crazy" Jonathan urged, "remember who you are. We are a happy people. We just want to live in peace. She is wrong. She is mad. What we need is love, not hate. Hate won't get us anywhere." The crowd began to split. Some were moving towards the banks, and some were turning back. Soon the waves were moving into opposite directions. They were being pushed and pulled, together and apart. 

The Good of All Mankind 
Albert intercepted a Paramount broadcast. They had found out what was going on. Marginal was quarantined. Special forces were in place, aligned around the city. No one would be permitted to leave. Nothing would be allowed to go inside. They said it was a temporary measure only, to contain the epidemic. They said that other measures were being seriously considered. On the one hand, some kind of treatment might be found. On the other hand, extermination had to be considered, for the good of all mankind. They can't mean it, Albert thought, they don't know what they're saying. But again he realized they did. Hadn't they used the same resort against his tribe and all the other contrabands? But this is fifty million people - what is that, when there are billions more, against the good of all mankind? 

Left Out 
In the streets below, he could see them splitting into two, roughly equal camps. One side rushed to stand before the banks, while the other side prepared to battled through those lines. Paul had no idea what was going on. He only knew the scene looked dangerous. He didn't know what they wanted, or what they thought they were doing. The looks on all the faces were determined, angry, scared. He could hear some shouts, but mostly it was silent, and that was eeriest of all. The war was raging on inside their minds, and he was still left out. Am I the only one who's sane, or the only one who's not? But he knew the answer. He and others with him were trying to harness all the power that they, the crazed, were generating with their intense insanity. But his side was losing. Already the east was blowing out, sending more citizens into the streets, and the south would not last long. It isn't working, he thought, we must find another way. 

A Rocket Ship 
Albert made the choice and sent it through to be approved and ratified by the dwindling wuns above. The south and west were both shut off, so that they could concentrate all power in the center. He had a major plan. Everyone was set to working on a rocket ship. They had the plans, and they could generate materials. It didn't have to be a big one, rather, several little ones would do. The ships would have no destination, but the launches would burn up so much power that there was a chance that sending them would keep the downtown going, and that was crucial, for the labs were there, and the scientists were doing everything they could. 

Physical Contact 
Jonathan was using everyone to join together, form a common bond, and pray. They would sing their chant, he said, and keep the forces of evil from carrying out their malevolent plans. No one would be strong enough to break the chains of love. His people all linked hands and sang. They sang so loud that they could only hear each other. The linking of their hands kept out the other voices. Jonathan realized this, and urged his people to stay in physical contact constantly. Sue had overlooked this force, and was merely raging on, pushing her people into stampede formation - everybody for themselves! 

Drown Out Fear 
We must destroy the apparatus of the state, she yelled, out of the streets, and into the banks! Turn the techs off now! Freedom must be won, and to win it we must fight. Don't let the agents of the system keep you down. They want to make you slaves! Her people roared approval and charged. They were voices now, bellowing and shouting, Freedom now, Be Your Own, Down with Paramount, Up With Privacy, Each for All and All for Each, along with general screams, half to drown out Jonathan, the rest to drown out fear. 

The Power of Love 
Jonathan Carrot's people stood their ground. They closed their eyes, gripped each other firmly, and they sang. They sang of peace and love and unity. They made a wall of love. We can win them over, Jonathan declared. When they touch our bodies, we will build a field of love so strong that when they touch our love will surge into their hearts, with heat so hot that it will melt away their hate. So we must be strong. We must let them come to us. But we will overcome, I know. The power of love must always be the stronger. 

The First Fatalities 
The first line of attackers crashed into the chains of love, and love was not quite strong enough. Sue's forces roared, Jonathan's fell back, and the first fatalities hit the street, victims of stomping and trampling. Soon the Carrot side was pressed against the walls and doors, while the other side lunged forward, trying to smash on through. It didn't look to good for anyone at all. 

Science Can't Decide 
Dr. Tom could not decide. The surgery worked. After nineteen operations, that was not in doubt. By altering the cranial cortex (seventh layer, latitude eleven) slightly to the left, input of interference was definitively muted. Subjects reported a lowering of the levels to an almost accept ability, and all indications were this tendency was as veracious as the previous static was voracious. So he had good reason to congratulate himself, and yet, he couldn't quite. There was the matter of the cost. It must be weighed against the benefit, he thought, and I have no way of making that decision. I'd submit it to the wuns above, but as of now they have no empathy - they could not decide just as I can't. Only the sufferers could choose, and that was just the problem, that was the problem itself. 

Pull The Plugs 
Sissy lost touch. She was with the forces of love, pressed, with them, against the wall, and holding on as best she could. But then the attackers crashed her line, and pushed her away from her neighbors. Cut loose from physical contact, the spell broke off, she lost the voices of the chant, the serenity of the song, the warmth of touch, the magic left, and she was plunged again into the sea of static/interference. And now the mulitplicity had but one simple thought, and one sole emotion. Sue's mind had sucked the others in, and they were one with her. They only knew of bondage versus liberation, slavery versus freedom, and although Sissy knew that they were horribly wrong, that these things had nothing to do with what was really going on, she was overwhelmed and swept along with them. She was thinking thoughts she'd never think - abolish the banks, smash the schedules, pull the plugs, burn the city, detach the techs, and down with Paramount, long live us, and death to them. 

To the Dark 
It was wrong because, because it was wrong. One person's mad nostalgia was enough to turn the tide this way, if only because there was a tide to turn. In the turmoil of the rampant pheromonix, it only took a twig to loose the flood. Jonathan had tried to be that twig to stop it, but he'd been poorly placed. His message simply didn't tap the force. Sue's did. The millions of Marginal citizens, only yesterday contented, peaceful, calm, had led themselves, out of panic, out of fear, towards a deadly end. But there was no reason now. Sissy, like the rest, had only one idea. She thought if she could only still the source of stimulus, that peace and quiet would return. It didn't matter what source was stilled. As long as there was hope! Hope, that leads all blindness to the dark. 

Turn It Off 
She turned against her own, and with a terrible scream attacked the chains of love. Sue's message roared throughout her mind, and her only feeling was an angry rage. She had to get inside the Fourth Fidelity and turn it off. It was no longer the place where she had worked eleven years, where she had risen to the status of an Altar Number Five. Now it was the fortress of the enemy. She visualized her office, and saw it burn. She wanted to ignite the match. She wanted to feel the soaring flames, to burn the static, purge the interference from her soul. She was kicking at the passive protectors, screaming with all her voice, and when somebody grabbed her, she swung to knock him down. Whoever it was, she hated him, and she wished that he was dead. 

Nowhere Else To Go 
It was Paul. He had seen her from his window, seen her torn away, and seen the change come over her. He'd abandoned his post, come out the broken door. He'd crawled beneath the lines of staggering defenders, and grabbed her. Now he didn't know what to do. She was wild,raging, utterly transformed. She attacked him, scratched and kicked, and it was more than he could do, he thought to drag her back into the bank. But it wasn't any ordinary time, and he found that he had more than ordinary strength; knowing it was wrong and bad, he broke through chains himself, carving a path which these destroyers could follow after him, but he didn't give a damn. He had to get her away from them. He didn't know what he would do inside. It wasn't safe at all. But there was no alternative, there was nowhere else to go. 

No Matter What 
Too late! The rocket wasn't ready, but the power blew out half the banks downtown. The nonafflicted working had to stop. There was no reaching them. Fourth Fidelity was on, but it could blow out any time. Albert nearly cried in desperation. Nothing was going to work. There was nothing he could do. The people were on the verge of breaking in and destroying everything. They were nearly united now in their glorious misguided lunacy. Paramount would surely decide to exterminate them all, once the crowd was utterly out of hand. Even with an antidote, there was no way that anyone could get it to the mob. There wasn't enough power left to use the drown out tech. No, he corrected himself, there was too much power, and the techs could no longer handle it. Albert was on the verge of giving in to the pressing interference urging him to smash and burn and kill. Why not? he thought, and then we can disperse, wander in the deserts and the swamps, get far enough away so we cannot hear anybody's mind. Why not? He almost laughed. Because they'll wipe us out. It will all be over soon for us, in any case, no matter what I try to do. 

Not Anymore 
They're already in the bank, Albert realized. Someone was smashing in his door. He decided not to fight. I'll just sit here, plugged in, and when they blow the tech they'll blow me up as well. He prepared himself to die. The door fell in, and Paul flung Sissy to the floor. "Help" Paul screamed, "she's more than I can handle by myself". "Then let her go" Albert muttered, not even bothering to turn around. "I can't do that, she's dangerous" Paul yelled. "So are they all" Albert groaned, "so are they all. It's all over anyway. Might as well let her go." "I can't" Paul shouted, "She's my wife." "Not anymore" said Albert, "now it's everybody for themselves." "Look" Paul said, struggling to keep her down, " I don't know what's going on, but it's got to stop. There's got to be a way." 

Paramount Will 
"I've tried everything" Albert said, turning to face them, his eyes lit up with rage. "I even took over the state. I put everyone to work, trying to use up the energy. It wasn't enough. I kicked out all the sick so they wouldn't get in the way. I tried to burn it out and drown it out, I even called on Paramount, but they're not going to help. They're going to kill us all so the virus doesn't spread. You see? It's over! There is nothing we can do. If they don't get us, Paramount will." 

Jonathan Lost 
The forces of Jonathan Carrot collapsed, all at once, as if the limit had been reached, and the power of love broke down. The people streamed into the bank and the terrible destruction began. Sue was leading them on - get the techs, down with all machines. We've got to set ourselves free from bondage to contraptions, smash the techs, burn the banks. Jonathan tried to restore his power, but he didn't have it in him. He was succumbing too. It seemed that nothing could withstand the power of collective fury. It didn't make him sad. It made him angry. And his anger only served to fuel the power of the other side. Jonathan was lost. 

Another World 
Sissy was getting stronger all the time,and Paul was weakening. She was on her feet again, flailing with her arms, biting at his shoulder while he crushed her in a hug. Albert was still sitting, staring, giving up. "It's like a crazy dream" Paul yelled, "like some children's nightmare. It's as if we were all somewhere else, where everything was wrong. We want to go back, but there's no way. We don't know where we are." Albert nodded, "Yes", he said, "that's what it's like, as if it was another world." "Like one of those awful moons she always dreams about" Paul said. 

Dangling Parameters 
"What did you say?" Albert bolted up. "The moons" Paul said, "she's always having these crazy dreams." "Dreams!" Albert yelled, "of course! That's it! A total sharing dream! How could I be so stupid? Why didn't I think of it before!" "Because it isn't possible" Paul said, "everybody knows that only two can share a dream." "No, no" Albert yelled, "not at all. I can do it. I know I can. Here, let's put her on!" Albert pulled of all the parameters and rushed to Paul's aid, and just in time, as Sissy was about to break loose. She was no match for Albert, though. He was the widest man in town, and his arms could have wrapped around her twice. She struggled, but in vain. Albert hoisted her over to his seat and strapped her down. Then he and Paul set out to plug her in. They plugged in every nerve, every reflex point, until she was a mass of dangling parameters, hooked straight into the central source. "We've got to hurry" Albert said "before the power goes." 

The Only One 
They turned the drownout on, and quickly knocked her out. One surge, and then she sat insensate in the chair. And she began to dream. She dreamed about a moon, a moon she knew, where she had been before. Paul was holding her arm, and saw the dream. He nodded. Albert pulled in all the power, from every other source. He piped it through on every frequency, at the very highest volume. The dream went out. Albert could see it taking form. Its power was growing, and he knew that soon he would be lost to it. "It's over for me", he said, "I'm going in. You'll have to let go now. You are the only one..." and Albert was gone into the dream. Paul let go, and the dream disappeared for him. He felt so helpless, so useless, and so ignorant, as he watched his wife and Albert sink into another world. 

Creatures of the Dust 
Suddenly, Sue's voice was gone. The people stopped cold, in the middle of their assault. Everything was calmer, quieter. They were somewhere else. They stood and felt themselves being lifted, being moved, into another world. The sky was helium, the color not a color grey, and in the craters, creatures of the dust. They looked like rocks, but you could see their liquid molten spread like rampant pheromonix on the sprawl. Tiny, almost invisible organisms, they were always there. They had always been there. It was a seamless flow, and the rising emanations shimmered in the earhtlit sky, and the sweep projections glowed and filtered through the gas. 

Another Form of Life 
The voice they heard was Albert's voice. It was saying, "this is where we are. We have always been here. It has always been like this. The pheromonix are the creatures of the desert, of the swamp. They are in us now. They were here before us, and after us they will remain. But this is normal now. We have to change. They cannot be destroyed, neither can we be cured of them. This is no disease. This is another form of life." 

Hope 
All he could do was hope. He had plugged them into Sissy's dream, and made them see what they could never see, because it wasn't here. He could only hope that Paramount would wait. He hoped that he could bring them back, from the dream to life again, with a new acceptance, and a different adaptation. We'll need new institutions, Albert thought, new ways of doing things. The world will never be the same for us again, but it's better, at least, I hope it is. But he was lost inside the dream, and only Paul could pull them out again. Until then, it was only just a dream, no more, no less. All he had was hope. 

Thanks To Science and Dr. Tom 
It wasn't Paul, But Dr. Tom. When he emerged, defeated and distraught, from his secluded basement lab, he saw the millions slumbering, and strewn about the buildings and the streets like so many particles of dust. Here was an opportunity, and, all alone, he made his choice. Soon he was filtering his helium solution through the air, altering the seventh layer,eleventh latitude, of everybody's cranial cortex. Many hours later, they slowly began to awaken, to find themselves transformed and readapted. They could make it now. The worst was done. Sissy's dream had saved them all, but, thanks to science and Dr. Tom, they would never be able to share their dreams again, for this was the price that science made them pay for life.