Руди Рюкер - Master Of Space And Time

"You fly well, Nancy."

She closed her eyes and let me kiss her. The kiss felt just like it always had.

"Are you still my same Joe?" said Nancy after a while.

"I'm still the same. I'm still the same inside."

"Then let's go back. Let's go back to our new house and try to be happy together."

I'd like to be able to say that we had a steamy night of all-girl sex, but it didn't work out that way. I ended up sleeping on the couch. When it came right down to it, Nancy couldn't face the thought of me sleeping with her. Ever again.

The morning TV news was bad, too. Harry Gerber had been arrested and charged with criminal negligence in the deaths of seventeen people who had died of shock when the slugs got them in New Brunswick. His laboratory was under heavy police guard, and Sondra Tupperware had been arrested as an accessory. Joseph Fletcher was still being sought, but charges against Nancy Lydon Fletcher had been dropped. All the mutant food plants had disappeared, and their depredations had been undone. Some scientists speculated that perhaps the fritter trees had been a kind of mass hallucination brought on by the Gary-brains.

Someone was pounding on our door again. Nancy was still asleep. I went to look through the peephole. Newsmen, with video cameras.

"Go away," I fluted. "I don't want to see anyone."

"Please, Mrs. Fletcher," shouted back the reporters. "Just a few questions."

I went to the phone and called Security. After a while the noise at our door died down. Nancy was up now, and I made us breakfast.

"Sooner or later, one of them's going to talk," I said over the eggs.

"Who?"

"Sondra and Harry. Sooner or later they'll tell the police that I've turned into a woman. And then I'll get arrested, too."

"Arrested for what?"

"It was on the news. Seventeen people died from having the spine-riders on them, and they're charging Harry with criminal negligence. Sondra and I are supposed to be accessories. And I bet Professor Baumgard is going to charge me with armed robbery."

"You'd better call Don Stuart. The lawyer I hired yesterday."

"Oh, lawyers… There must be a better way to fix all this. Don Stuart isn't going to give me back my sausage, is he?"

"Well, with plastic surgery —"

"I want my real body back. This just won't do. I want to have more children with you, Nancy. And I want poor Harry out of jail."

"What about Sondra?"

"Oh, she'll get out. The first time they put her in an exercise yard, she'll fly away. If they handcuff her to a guard, she'll just take the guard with her. You don't have to worry about Sondra, Nancy. It's just Harry and me that are getting screwed."

"Not literally, I hope." Nancy smiled and ruffled my spiky hair. As long as we weren't in the bedroom she felt able to act affectionate.

We took our coffee out on the terrace and stared down into the chunked canyons of Manhattan. This was really a neat place to live. If only…

"Why don't you use the blunzer again?" asked Nancy suddenly.

"Didn't I tell you about the red and blue gluons?"

"Yes, but you said there were yellow gluons, too. If you find some yellow gluons, then the blunzer should work one last time, shouldn't it?"

"It's a thought. But I don't think anyone has yellow gluons. They're even rarer than the blue ones. If I could only talk to Harry —"

"Well, you can. Find out where he's locked up and go visit him. No one'll recognize you."

"They don't let just anyone off the street come visit killers, Nancy. I'd have to be a relative."

"So get a fake ID. Say you're his sister. Does he have a sister?"

"Yes! I've heard him talk about her. Sister Susie. She lives in Detroit."

"Good. That means she's not likely to be here yet."

"Right. But where do we get a fake ID?"

"You're the criminal, Joe, not me."

"All I can think of is Eddie Match." Eddie was an old friend of ours who lived way uptown. He made a generally honest living as a photographer, but he did know a lot of criminals. I'd heard him talk about forging IDs. "Let's take a cab uptown to see Eddie."

"Okay. Wait here while I get dressed."

"Can't I watch?"

"No."

She went in the bedroom and closed the door. I really hoped we'd find those yellow gluons today. It had been uncool to use a gun on Baumgard. This time I'd use money. I found a big purse in the hall closet and stuffed it with a little over two million dollars' worth of thousand-dollar bills.

Nancy was still dressing. I decided to phone up Alwin Bitter to see how little Serena was doing. His wife answered the phone.

"Hello, Mrs. Bitter?"

"Yes."

"This is…" In sudden panic, I realized I didn't know how to finish the sentence. "How's Serena?" I blurted.

"Serena is fine. Who am I speaking to, please?"

I hung up.

I had on my Joe Fletcher clothes from last night. I looked in the hall mirror and wondered whether to put on makeup. Just because Nancy was so uptight didn't mean I couldn't get a little fun out of my new body. My hair was a real mess.

"Hey, Nancy," I called.

"Hold your horses, I'm not ready yet," she shouted through the closed bedroom door.

"I'll be downstairs in the beauty salon."

I left before she could protest. I'd spent my whole life waiting for women to finish dressing; now it was my turn to get back.

The hairdresser was chic and in his twenties. He cluck-clucked over the way I'd butchered my hair.

"Whatever possessed you, dear?"

"I–I thought someone would like me better with short hair. Can you fix it up?"

"Of course, dear. He'll love the new you."

"She. Not too much off the sides and make it spiky on top."

They did my hair and nails, and then they fixed my face. I told the makeup girl I wanted to look like I was from Detroit. She got the picture. When they were done, I looked even better than I had yesterday. Except for the clothes. I wondered if I should go back upstairs and…

"Come on, Joe," said Nancy, stomping into the beauty salon. "I've been waiting and waiting for you."

We hit the street and caught a cab. Nancy didn't want to get our Corvette out of the hotel garage. On the way uptown we stopped to buy me a tailored tweed suit in earth tones. I was starting to look kind of butch. But from Detroit, strictly from Detroit.

23. Way Uptown

"Open up, Eddie." I could see his eye staring out the peephole in his steel-covered door. "It's Joe and Nancy Fletcher."

"You're not Joe Fletcher." His voice was slow and amused. He was kind of a wirehead. "If I let you in, will you —"

"Here," said Nancy, pushing me aside. "You recognize me, don't you, Eddie?"

"Who's your girlfriend? Does she like men?"

"Open the goddamn door, Eddie!" I could hear someone coming up the stairs after us. This was a terrible place to be standing around with two million bucks in my purse.

Eddie let us in just as the footsteps reached our landing. Instead of a mugger, it was a neighbor, a young professional like Ed. I wondered where all the weirdos I'd seen outside lived. What a crowd!

Wireheads, she-males, black'n'whites, oz-drippers, and God's own number of gunjy mues.

Eddie ushered us down his long hall and into the living room. His two big dogs were barking.

"Tasp?" he offered, holding up a little machine the size of a flashlight. It was a remote stim-unit: if you beamed it at the base of your skull you'd get colors and a pleasure flush. Usually I didn't indulge, but right now I really needed a lift. Nancy had been cold-shouldering me ever since the beauty parlor. She'd waited in the cab — fuming — while I'd visited the dress shop. I guess it was all kind of freaking her out. She's just a person too, I reminded myself as I raised the tasp to my head. A person who wants to be happy.