Postsingular

"He won't clean up his act. He's always getting high off the Big Pig."

"I hear Jayjay's been making some real progress with his physics," said Darlene. "There's rumors he's nailed teleportation, if you can believe that. Him and Jil and Craigor keep disappearing from the Merz Boat and popping up in other places. Poor Jil is losing it; a couple of days ago she used teleportation to score sudocoke. Now that's a drug problem. Maybe Jayjay's Big Pig issues were never as severe as yours, Thuy. It seems like you love him anyway. What if you accepted him the way he is?"

"I wasn't raised to do acceptance," said Thuy, laughing a little. "It's un-Vietnamese. But yeah, maybe I could learn, Darlene. Thanks. Oh, I forgot to tell you, keep an eye on the door. I got a warning that Jeff Luty might send, like, a plastic robot to disrupt our event. An attack shoon?"

"I thought shoons were always cute and giggly," said Darlene, seeming to take Thuy's worries for mere stage fright.

"We'll see," said Thuy, peering out of the office. Most of the seats were taken, and more people were coming in the door. A glance into the orphidnet showed virtual faces hovering, a few hundred of them. Very respectable numbers for a Mission metanovelist.

"Thanks for coming," Thuy told the crowd after Darlene's introduction. "I'm Thuy Nguyen, and I'm going to be showing you a piece called 'Losing My Head.' It's part of my metanovel-in-progress, Wheenk. "

Thuy had learned a bit by watching others present their metanovels. The audience wanted to experience the thing itself. You had to give them a link into the metanovel database and drag them along in your wake.

As Thuy messaged out the access links, someone appeared in the middle of the front row, Jayjay, wearing his green cap and a black poncho with a stencil of a cuttlefish. He hadn't been there a minute ago, and he hadn't come through the door. Teleportation! Jayjay winked and gave Thuy the thumbs-up sign. She had to fight back a big grin. Excited and energized, she dove into the part where her head went through the grating in Topping's wall, accompanying her voice-over with a fugue of images and music.

"We're wrestling in this dough-faced top-man's office and I fall into the wall. You know those dozens of voices jabbering in your brain: fears, scolds, lusts; masters, monsters, slaves? Right away the grating dices my head into bouillon cubes-dzeeent – one voice apiece. Zoom in on them and you can hear the little voices are choruses too-aum aum aum –the grills buzzsaw me more, my cells sing good-bye, I'm subatomic-fweee –as above so below, my fragments live in tide pools by an unknown sea– wheenk –I miss kissing Jayjay in the spring snow of falling flower petals-peck, peck, peck –I'm a lonely crowd of cryptozoa stalked by bird-man subbie sentinels-roar –time tide rolls in and I scuttle from a zillion hidey-holes, my pincers, feelers, eye-stalks merge-click, click –I see a white plastic table under fluorescent fixture flicker, I'm a head sticking from a grill– mumble drone –a man leans over me with plastic ants on his face, he wants the Chu's Knot I not got stocked, doc-eeeewf – dear Jayjay's pulling me back through the grill, dragstripping me from speed of night to zero again-nteeezd –I'm chunking in the grill, slice-diced neck-first and, hey, the lab was ExaExa, and the mad scientist is-"

Thuy was interrupted by the store's big window splintering. A golem shoon stood there: a small, rough-hewn humanoid waving big fists. He bent over and farted horribly, spewing pukeful billows of stink into the crowd. Coughing and retching, all but trampling one another, the crowd pushed out to the rainy street.

"Killer event," said Gerry Gurken to Thuy. "Mind if I sample it for my blog?"

"Let's go," said Jayjay at Thuy's side. "I'll get you out of here."

"I can take care of her," said Kittie, wanting to freeze out Jayjay once again.

The golem shoon had his own ideas. Heedless of whom he knocked down, the stubby creature forced his way through the crowd, grimly intent on Thuy. Was the monster pla

Seized by mortal fear, Thuy dashed into Valencia Street and was nearly run over by an electric car. It skidded past her, whacking her a glancing blow on the butt. Somehow she kept her balance. Thuy's heart was hammering as if it would jump from her chest. By a stroke of good fortune, the out-of-control car plowed into the golem, squashing his head.

Thuy darted into a mural-lined alley across the street, leaning against a painted wall, gasping for breath, her face wet with rain, her sweater and T-shirt begi

"Ru

Under the streetlight by Metotem Metabooks, the rubbery golem was molding himself into his original form, his shadow a black stain upon the puddled pavement. He moved his head in abrupt twitches, sca

"Darlene said I should give you another chance," Thuy told Jayjay, talking fast. "I want to be with you, yes. I hope it's not too late."

"Me too," answered Jayjay. He smiled at her. "This is the same alley where we split up. Synchronicity."

"But how deeply does Jil have her hooks into you? That woman-"

"Woman," echoed Jayjay and embraced Thuy, sheltering her from the rain with the wings of his plastic poncho. "I only slept with Jil because I couldn't have you. Jil's no schemer; she wants to do right. She broke off with me because it was upsetting her kids. But Craigor keeps cheating on her; he's got this midlife crisis thing. And now Jil's using again. I feel sorry for her. But that's nothing like the way I feel about you, Thuy. I've always dreamed of spending my life with you. Nobody else comes close."

Thuy wanted to melt, to cling to her man like a vine, but over his shoulder she saw the golem splashing across Valencia.

"Jayjay-"

"It's okay," said Jayjay squeezing her tighter. "We're outta here. We'll teleport. Go in the orphidnet and look at the Merz Boat. And be looking at this alley with your eyes."

Thuy followed Jayjay's link to the gently rocking deck of the bargelike Merz Boat with its central cabin like an oversized loaf of bread. She had a moment of double vision: water waves flowed across the alley walls. And now Jayjay linked her to a striped, silk-spi

Next Jayjay showed Thuy how to weave her thoughts from scene to scene, binding the alley and the seascape together.

Thuy's mind spread out. She was neither here nor there. All of her particles were in synch with each other, temporarily free of the outside world. She felt very tiny, she was falling-where? With a thump, Thuy and Jayjay landed on the soft deck of-