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FRACTALS
(or: Reagan Assured Gorbachev of Help Against Space
Aliens)
1
Trespassing?
Trespassing
? You arrogant slant-eyed alien
motherfucker, I used to
live
here!
* * *
How long have I wanted to do that? How many years have I
hated them, dreamt that my fists were smashing those faces into
shapes even less human? I can't remember. The anger is
chronic. The anger has always been chronic. And impotent,
until now. The pain in my knuckles throbs like a distant badge
of honour.
It's cold.
The rage is gone, absorbed somehow by the mud and the unlit
piles of lumber and masonry scattered around me. I can barely
focus on my surroundings. The shapes keep changing, hulking
angular monstrosities shifting on all sides. Only the sign at the
front of the lot, the sign he kept pointing at, refuses to move.
I can barely see him in the dark. He's just a few meters away,
but the shadows are so
black
and he doesn't move at all. What if
I killed him? What if I—
There. He moved a bit. It's okay, I didn't kill him, he's not
dead—
Yet. What if he dies here in the mud?
(So what if he does? Lots more where he came from.)
No. I don't mean that. I can't believe I ever did, I mean, what
if I, what if he dies here, what if—
What if he lives, and identifies me?
1
First published in
On Spec
7(1), 1995: 31-41.
2
Nimbus
A couple of steps forward. A couple more. Okay, he was
about
here
when he saw me, and then he moved over
there
and
started shouting—
He couldn't have seen my face. Even when he came closer,
it's so dark he'd only have seen a silhouette, and then he was
right in front of me and—
I can get away. I can get away. Oh Jesus God I can't believe I
did this—
Okay. This is a construction site, after all; my car will only
leave one set of tracks in a muddle of hundreds. And the nearest
house is over a block away, this whole end of the road is unlit.
Lucky me: no witnesses.
The car starts smoothly, without a moment's hesitation. I
descend toward the city.
It was as though I had planned it all, somehow. In a way I feel
as though I've been rehearsing this forever. I have been purged.
It's such a relief not to burn, to unclench my teeth, to feel the
hard knot of tension in my stomach easing away. Somehow, I'm
free. Not happy, perhaps. But I have acted, at last, from the
heart, and in some strange way I'm finally at peace.
(What if he dies up there?)
I'll stop at the next phone booth. Ambulances respond to
anonymous tips, don't they? In the meantime, I've got to be
careful to keep my shoes on the mudmat. Just in case. Joanne
might still be awake when I get home. I'll stop off at a gas
station and rinse everything clean on the way.
* * *
It's a nice window; nice scenery. I've always liked forests,
though I've never seen so many squirrels and deer and birds
crammed into such a small area before. But hey, who am I to
complain about realism, I'm twenty floors over Robson Street
looking out at a
rainforest
so why worry about details? Besides,
Watts
3
it's not a rainforest any more. It's an alpine meadow. She
touches a button on the windowsill and the whole world
changes.
I walk across the room; rocks and heather come into view,
cross the window, fall into eclipse at the other side. I move
closer and the field of view expands. Nose against glass I can
see one hundred and eighty, three-dimensional degrees along all
axes. Just outside, an explosion of flowers stirs in a sudden
breeze.
But now she fingers a switch and the world
stops
, there's no
window at all any more, just a flat grey screen and a fake
window sill.
"That's incredible," I say, distantly amazed.
She can't quite keep the pride out of her voice. "It's a
breakthrough all right. There are other flat monitors around, but
you can see the difference."
"How do you do it? Is this some sort of 3-d videotape or
something?"
Her smile widens. "Not even close. We use fractals."
"Fractals."
"You know, those psychedelic patterns you see on calendars
and computer posters."
Right. Something to do with chaos theory. "But what exactly
are
—"
She laughs. "Actually, I just demonstrate the stuff. We got a
guy at the university to hack the software for us, he'd be able to
tell you the details. If you think your readers would be
interested."
"I'm interested. If I can't get them interested too I'm not much
of a journalist, am I?"
"Well then, let me give you his name," she says. "I'll tell him
to expect you. He should be able to set something up within the
next week or so."
4
Nimbus
She jots a name on the back of her card and hands it to me.
Roy Cheung, it says. I feel a sudden brief constriction in my
throat.
"One last question," I say to her. "Who's going to be able to
afford something like this?"
"Bottom-line models will retail at around thirty thousand," she
tells me. "A lot of businesses want to hang one in their lobbies
and so forth. And we also hope to sell to upper income
individuals."
"If you can find any nowadays."
"You'd be surprised, actually. Since the Hong Kong influx
started there's been a real surge in the number of people who can
afford this sort of product."
You poor dear. You haven't done your market research, have
you? Or you'd know exactly what your wealthy clientele think
of nature. It's abstract art to them. There probably isn't a blade
of grass left in all of Hong Kong. Most of those people wouldn't
know what a tree was if one grew through their penthouse
windows and spat oxygen all over the walls.
No matter. In another few years, neither will we.
* * *
"Emergency Admissions."
"Uh, yes. I was wondering if you've had—if there was an
assault victim admitted over the past day or so."
"I'm sorry sir, you'll have to be more specific. Assault
victim?"
"Yes, um, has someone been admitted suffering head injuries,
an oriental—"
"Why?" The voice acquires a sudden sharp edge. "Do you
know something about an unreported assault?"
"Uh—" Hang up, you idiot! This isn't getting you anywhere!
"Actually, it must have been reported, they were loading him
Watts
5
into an ambulance. He looked pretty bad, I was just wondering
how he was doing."
Yeah. Right. Very credible.
"I see. And where did this happen?"
"North Van. Up around, um, Cumberland I think."
"And I don't suppose you know the name of the victim?"
"Uh no, like I said I just saw them taking him away, I was just
wondering—"
"That's very...kind of you, sir," ahe says. "But we're not
allowed to disclose such information except to family—"
Jesus
Christ
, woman, I just want to find out how he's doing
I'm not interested in stealing national secrets for Chrissake! "I
understand that, but—"
"And in any event, nobody answering your description has
been admitted to this hospital. Cumberland, you said?"
Maybe they're tracing the call. It would make sense, maybe
they've got a standing trace on emergency hospital lines, I bet a
lot of people do what I'm doing, I bet—
"Sir? You said Cumberland?"
I disconnect.
* * *
Joanne stirs as I slip into the darkened bedroom. "Anything
interesting on the news?"
"Not really." No reports of unknown assailants on the north
shore, anyway. That's probably just as well. Wouldn't a dead
body at least warrant mention?
I feel my way to the bed and climb in. "Oh, The Musqueam
Indians are planning this massive demonstration over land
claims. Roadblocks and everything." I mould myself against
Joanne's back.
"They must hate our guts," I say into her nape.
She turns around to face me. "Who? The Musqueam?"
"They must. I would."
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