King of the Worlds. M. Thomas Gammarino
he’d never seen one on an omni. Omni messages didn’t “fail.” As long as someone was alive, any of their previous addresses would direct you to their current one. And if a person had died, you’d be notified of that too. Even if you opted to have your address unlisted, there’d still be some acknowledgment of your existence. Weird. He asked Omni some questions. The name alone wasn’t much help—there were thousands of Mei-Ling Chens throughout the galaxy—but when he mentioned that this was the Mei-Ling Chen who had cuts on her wrists and who had once written a fan letter to Dylan Greenyears, the omni returned 0 results. He had never seen Omni come up empty-handed on anything before. Normally it would at least redirect you somewhere, but this time there was no trail to speak of. This person, this Mei-Ling Chen who cut her wrists and wrote fan mail, simply did not exist as far as Omni, or his omni at least, was concerned. Omni was greater than the sum of all human knowledge. It made no sense whatsoever that he himself might be aware of a person’s existence while it was not.
For a few minutes, Dylan contemplated the problem and fidgeted with the omni. Eventually, though, for want of any alternative, he gave up, went back in the box, and pulled out another letter.
Dear Mr. Greenyears,
I’m writing on a dare from my friend Melissa. We both think you’re super hot and amazingly talented. We even started a Dylan Greenyears fan club at our high school, and we’d be really honored, and would probably faint, if you’d come to talk to us sometime. Maybe next time you’re in the Baltimore area? We can’t pay you money, but we could all bake cookies or something and show you around.
I can’t believe I’m writing to you!
Ashley Eisenberg
Now that was a little more typical, the sort of ego candy he’d been in the market for. He composed his reply:
Hi Ashley. My name is Dylan Greenyears. You may remember that I was a fairly well known actor in the middle-nineties? Well, I was just looking through some old mail and I came across a letter you wrote me. This may seem odd coming so late, but I wonder if you’d like to get together sometime? I’m living rather far away these days, but I’d be happy to come to wherever you are if you’d like to meet up sometime. Are you still in the Baltimore area? Alternately we could meet at some midpoint. Just let me know what’s easiest. No pressure at all, of course.
Sincerely,
Dylan Greenyears
He stayed awake another two hours, reading through some more of his old fan mail and waiting for a reply that did not come. Mei-Ling’s letter had served him like a cold shower, but his libido had warmed again and before retiring he took out his hardware and stroked it with his hand, remembering Fantasia, until in short order an absurd backlog of star stuff dripped down his fingers. He was reminded of Cinnabons. God, he hadn’t had one of those in years.
What a pathetic fool he was! Clearly he should not have sent that reply. Even if Ashley Eisenberg did get back to him, he decided, he would ignore it. A biologist would tell you that sperm comes from the testes. It was pretty clear to Dylan, however, that it originates in the brain, where it goes about filling your convolutions and making a fog of your thinking. Only when he was void like this could he think clear thoughts, and under ordinary circumstances the fog prevented him from believing even this. It was like when he’d tell Erin her PMS was making her into a bitch. She’d insist the PMS had nothing to do with it, until a day or two later when it was gone and she was her gentle, caring, clear-thinking self again. Then she’d own up to what a hostage she’d been.
He went to the bathroom sink to clean himself up, and then to his bedroom to kiss his great-with-child wife on the forehead and wish her a good night. She purred. He went to sleep with that rare appreciation for one’s blessings that is the upshot of guilt.
When he awoke in the morning, Erin was gone—in the kitchen probably, feeding the kids. He got himself up and went to the bathroom. To his surprise, he found Erin seated on the toilet, her face wan and agonized.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I can’t pee,” she said.
“Why not?”
“I think it’s time.”
“What, baby time?”
She nodded and winced.
“Holy Higgs!”15
15_____________
Given the ascendancy of physics over the past several decades, it was only natural that scientific language should begin to colonize colloquial speech. Even devoutly religious Anglophones could be heard saying “Holy Higgs!” at least as often as “Dear God!” “Sweet Jesus!” “Christ Almighty!” and the like. In fact, they generally preferred it because, though it referred to the all-important, mass-endowing “God particle”—discovered in a child’s home atom-smashing kit in Boise, Idaho in 1987—it did not, strictly speaking, require them to take the Lord’s name in vain.
He called in to the department chair and told her the news. He said it didn’t matter who subbed for him because he/she could just let the kids work on their Shakespeare scenes. Then he began the laborious project of getting the kids ready to go. Once they were buckled into the levicar, he supported Erin on his arm to the passenger seat and manifested the door behind her. Then they were off to the New Taiwan Medical Center Earthling Annex. They decided that Dylan would drop Erin at the ER and then take the kids to daycare and hover right back.
He dropped her off and watched her waddle through the foglet doors, and then hovered along the roundabout and back over the street. He was just in time for rush-hour traffic, but the daycare center wasn’t far away and he was back at the hospital in twenty minutes flat. He let the car self-park and hustled inside. As he rode the elevator on the way up to maternity, he checked his omni to find out what room Erin was in, and was surprised to find a new message waiting for him.
How awesome! Of course I remember you! And yes! Triple yes! I would love to get together. I wonder when would be a good time for you? I am still in the Baltimore area. It’s tough for me to get away. Maybe you can meet me at the Inner Harbor sometime for lunch?
Looking forward to hearing from you,
Ashley
How deeply unsettling to have his spheres cross like this, not to mention being reminded of what a fool he was, how in matters of the heart/balls he was really not much wiser than the adolescents he pontificated to on a daily basis.
He ignored the message, which, some part of him must have realized, was not the same as deleting it.
Erin, his omni informed him, was in room 342, just around the corner from the elevator bank. He found it easily enough and knocked on the door. A native nurse (you could tell natives by their double-jointed elbows and knees16) swiped it away. Over her left shoulder, he could see Erin lying in bed. Inexplicably, she appeared to be holding a baby.
16_____________
The discovery that complex life was so similar throughout the galaxy had served as a real buzzkill for those Terrans given to a sense of cosmic exhilaration. Yes, there were now hundreds of new cultures to discover, and no doubt each had its fascinating quirks and eccentricities, but there were no bug-eyed monsters or Wellsian juggernauts, no parasites or dream beasts, angels or telepaths. Tentacles remained a water thing. Eating, drinking, breathing and sleeping were practiced by hominids everywhere. Bicameral eyes appeared to be universal, as were mouths, anuses, and dimorphic sex. No civilization had yet been found that did not rely to a large degree on spoken language. In fact, most of these newly discovered life forms were more than 99.4 percent identical to Earth humans at the genetic level. Virtually no one had expected this, and there was a whole new cottage industry devoted to finding out how indeed it had happened. Some scientists adopted a determinist view, arguing in essence that the real surprise would have been if things had turned out otherwise—if, for instance, there were natural life forms out there on Earth-like