Wildcard (33 page)

“Interesting. Did that happen to you,
Seeker?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. I doubt we will succeed today in
light of that. I need you to try something as we attempt the
transfer. As the other’s memories come into your mind, attach the
other’s name to them. Karl, call Seeker’s memories Seeker. And you,
Seeker, call Karl’s memories Karl. Describe the experience to me as
it occurs. Keep your eyes closed and hold still. Do you
understand?”

“Yes.”

“I think so.”

“5…4…3…2…1…Go.”

Lights swam around again. Seeker, he
supposed, came towards him, or him towards Seeker. It was similar
to the picture. Be the picture, he told himself. Nausea - don’t
vomit. There was a patchwork of something, a memory quilt.
“Seeker.” There was no one there. Many faces, expressions, happy,
sad, afraid, memories arose. The mass crashed onto Karl, blurred
his reality. He cried out, held his eyes closed. People do not
switch bodies. It can’t be done.

“What is happening?”

“I think I see Seeker, only it’s like … I
can’t describe it.”

“Seeker, what is your experience?”

“I see something, possibly Karl. He is
coming towards me. Right at me. It’s unnerving. Very. I don’t want
it behind me. I am afraid of that, feeling cut off from my
body.”

“What does it look like?”

“Like Karl said, hard to describe. Like a
mass of faces and ideas and thoughts vaguely human shaped, but
somehow like the picture of Karl.”

“Yeah,” said Karl. “It’s creepy as
hell.”

“You are seeing each other’s probability
states. There is far more information there than either of you
could possibly process. You are seeing each other’s entire lives,
in a sense. Try to pass each other, slowly.”

The Seeker blur came at him, tried to move
around. Each time they tried to pass, they were facing each other
again. They described it to the Doctor.

“Turn sideways and slip past.”

They tried but wound up facing each other
again.

“I fear you must pass through each other.
Can you do so?”

“I’ll try,” Karl said.

“I can,” said Seeker.

They moved toward each other, touched,
slowly began to penetrate. Then

Karl was outside the box, vomiting
again.

Later, Seeker lay on his bunk in :3:labs. He
called the Doctor.

“Doctor?”

“Yes, Seeker?” He sounded tired. Or annoyed
at being bothered by Seeker.

“I have some ideas.”

“Go ahead.”

Seeker sat up, instructed his body to pace
in his room as he explained. He examined his physical and mental
responses. He was excited, or pretty certain he was. So was the
Doctor, after a few minutes.

“We combine hypnosis, auto-meditation, and
acupuncture. We tell Karl the transfer actually worked next
time.”

“How do we explain the robot and his old
body?”

“We don’t. Keep the robot out of sight.
Don’t let him look in a mirror. The hypnosis will prevent him
examining too closely.”

“I am afraid the hypnosis will interfere
with the actual transfer.”

“No, it won’t. It’s a post-hypnotic
suggestion. It’s easy to make him believe he crossed because he
expects it eventually, anyway.”

“Why would we need him to go back into the
box later so that we can do the real transfer?”

“Oh, simple. Fine-tuning. Re-enactment for
the next person to gather data. Just make something up.”

They spoke at length. Seeker finally
convinced the Doctor it would work.

“Karl?”

“Seeker! How are you? Sorry I can’t cross
over.”

“Untrue. You can. It will require some
cunning, however. Don’t worry.” Seeker consciously used the
contraction. He hoped he would use them more naturally as a human.
“I spoke to the Doctor, Karl. I have a plan.”

“The Doctor gives me the creeps.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Is he listening?”

“Probably, but he doesn’t care. He knows. I
think he likes it that way. He may even consciously do it.”

“Eeuugh,” Karl said.

“Anyway, here is my idea. I have done quite
a bit of seeking, as per my name.”

“Makes sense.”

“I want to use what I have learned to help
you make the leap. Meditation, trance state, maybe hypnosis. We
would combine them and use acupuncture for calming.”

“No drugs?”

“Too risky,” the Doctor said. “We need you
to come through in some sort of baseline state, although such a
state does not exist, really. But it is best if you are not hungry,
not full, not tired, not buzzingly awake, not afraid, or sexually
aroused. We need as neutral a state as possible. The neutrality
carries the other possibilities, you might say.”

“I would call what the Doctor is describing
‘awareness’. Seeing your mind as it moves without getting involved
in the movement. Without believing in the fear, or the
disorientation. I can do it not because I am a Mans, but because I
have practiced it so much. You have the personality, Karl. That’s
why you are here. You were created for this, I think. Many others
think so, too. You were created to do this more than I was,
actually. Do you want to try it?”

They put Karl in front of a TV with a
spinning pattern and had him count backwards. He fell into a
hypnotic state easily.

“Very suggestible,” said Seeker.

The Doctor guided robot put a few needles
into his body.

The Doctor sent a man in. Seeker thought it
much better to have an actual human giving the suggestions. He only
had one. “When you open your eyes in the q-box, you will be in
Mansworld.” They kept it simple because it was much more likely to
work that way. They only turned the box on for a few seconds.

When Karl stepped out, the technician said,
“Welcome to Mansworld.”

“Can I see the Doctor?”

“Later. Eat first. Sleep. Then we have a
follow-up session.”

“Follow-up?”

“We need it to complete the transfer.
Otherwise, there would be problems. Don’t worry, it’s simple. 2
hours from now.”

Seeker noticed that Karl was 10 minutes
early for the follow-up, a good sign.

“Now, Karl. We have to do the same thing we
did this morning. Do you remember?”

“Yeah, pretty much. We got in the box, and
then we … uh…swapped. Right?”

“Close. You have some gaps, so it is
important that we do this correctly. First, I will talk you into a
relaxed, open state. Sit down in the box. Now, go into your body.
Feel yourself breathing. Feel your chair. Relax. Doctor?”

“The brain waves have dropped. Good
work.”

“OK. We turn it on, and we have to pass
through each other just like this morning. Ready?”

“Sure. Did it before.”

No you didn’t,
Seeker thought. “Exactly,” he said. “Just flow
into and through me.”

The Doctor said “5…4…3…2…1…Go.”

Seeker was disoriented again. He was used to
it, more, this time. He saw the Karl-possibility thing.

“Don’t look at each other,” Seeker said.
“That was one of the problems before. Just know the other is there.
Karl, I want you to see yourself as a spear flying through the air,
right at me. I will be a wind letting you pass through. Do it. See
it.”

Seeker felt the Karl-thing fly at him, very
fast. He almost panicked, jumped back and opened his real eyes. He
summoned his will-power and kept it still. He dispersed his
possibility form, opened it, and let Karl through. He let Karl take
his body. NO! he panicked. He fought it down, ‘Yes,’ he thought.
‘Take his. Be human. Move forward, not back. Touch the new.’

Karl was passing through, his possibility
stream elongated by the technique. Seeker tried to hold Karl’s
memories out of his mind, but could not. He saw LuvRay, heard
himself talking to RJ Sublime. Remembered the friends of Karl’s
youth, mostly adults met on the streets. “Martha. I miss you,
Martha.” He wanted to pull back, to remain Seeker. ‘Let this pass
through,’ he thought. ‘Don’t let your body go. Let it go. Hold.
Steady. Relaxed. Images pass through. Just memories. Only thoughts.
Touch and let go. Disown.’

He was vomiting in the box. Happily vomiting
on a rubber man’s feet.

“Karl? How are you, my friend?”

“He isn’t here,” said the Doctor. “This box
is empty.”

Karl looked to his left, saw he was outside
in a meadow. It was a sunny, beautiful day. He could feel it on his
skin, but it was plasticky, like a description of feeling without
the real thing. He thought he could smell the flowers, but they
didn’t smell right. More like a smell with the word “flowers”
attached. He didn’t know how his legs had moved from sitting in the
null-space box, to sitting cross-legged and flat on the grass. He
looked up, across the meadow, and saw… he did a double take… a
Jester doing what a Jester should be doing. He was juggling and
working his mouth in concentration.

Karl walked over and nodded, but the Jester
paid no attention. “Um, hi.”

The Jester dropped three of his six pins,
and managed to clutch the others to his chest. “Hey, you startled
me.”

“Sorry, I thought you saw me.”

“I was concentrating.” He shook one of the
pins in Karl’s face. “Concentration, my friend, is how you improve
your skills.”

“Thanks for the tip. Um… I guess I’m a bit
lost. Where am I? I thought I’d be in Mansworld, with the
Doctor.”

“Who are you?” the Jester asked in a
cheerful tone.

“My name is Karl.”

“Ah, the Savant. Hey,” the Jester shifted
his eyes nervously, “want to see a card trick?”

“Why not? I don’t seem to be in a
hurry.”

The Jester looked relieved, as if afraid
Karl would refuse to watch the trick.

“Are we in Mansworld?” Karl asked.

“What the dickens is Mansworld? There’s no
Mansworld around here.” He didn’t seem interested in the answer,
though. He rummaged in his clothes, pulling out bouquets of plastic
flowers, doves, rabbits that went hopping away, giant saws, wands,
dice, every cheap magic prop imaginable.

“Wear this.” He handed Karl a clip on
plastic flower.

“What’s your name?” Karl put the flower
on.

“I am the Gatekeeper.”

“That’s not a name.”

“Well, it will have to do,” he said in a
huff. “Sorry. Ooh, here they are.” The Jester produced a pack of
giant Tarot cards. He rifled them up, into the air. They flew,
overlapping, and disappeared a meter above his head.

“Nice trick.”

The Jester clenched his face into a wad,
under the bouncy, pointed bell hat. He crossed his arms, looked at
Karl, and said, “It’s not finished yet,” in a petulant tone. He
reached back with his left hand, elbow straight, hand twisted
backwards until the palm was up. He was glancing back, trying to
make it look as if he was not looking at his hand. He chewed at his
out-hanging tongue, concentrating. The cards rifled down out of
nowhere into his palm. He only dropped one. Karl was impressed.

“Doo-doo,” said the Jester. “I can’t seem to
get that trick right.”

He put the cards into an inner pocket of his
costume, holding it open to show off the many pockets he had in
there and making superior eye motions. He tried to look as if he
didn’t care at all. Or he was being funny. He sighed.

“Go that way.” He pointed.

Karl saw an old man fly fishing and walked
toward him. A sense of total peace, like coming home grew with each
step. Like the old man was going to turn and Karl would see a
father he never knew.
He looked up at Karl as he
approached.

“Hey,” Karl said.

The old man paused, seemed to search his
mind.

“Hello.” A country gentleman, the old man
had good manners. Karl thought of RJ, channeled him in that strange
accidental way, like having a conversation in the kitchen. RJ loved
good manners, they mattered, and were worth the time. Not that RJ
always had them, but being from the South, he respected them. The
old man had a well-to-do southern hospitality about him, but a
Yankee accent. He seemed capable of transcending the small, false
morality of the world. Of finding, somehow, a better way which was
still simple.

“Who are you? Have we met?”

“I’m the old man.”

“You don’t have a name? Are you
Wildcard?”

“I may be an aspect of Wildcard, I suppose.
This whole place is an inner aspect, I guess, kind of a…
stabilizing face. ‘The center guards against the wound’s madness.
Here is where I rest.’” He brightened. “Have you heard of wildsong?
Not everybody has.”

“Yes, but the wound? What is the wound?”

“I don’t particularly know, to tell you the
truth. But it seems to cause Wildcard …well…fear.”

“Is it part of him?”

“Listen, son, this is a bit hurried for my
taste. It feels improper. Let’s be civilized. Would you like to
meet my wife? She’s making dinner right now. Please, be our
guest.”

“Gosh, yeah. Thanks.” He hungered to, in
fact. It was safe, peaceful, a new feeling. Karl relaxed into
trusting the old man. “Actually, I’d love to.”

Karl crossed to his side of the stream. The
old man packed his tackle box and pole and they set back on a small
path through the woods. He had made the path by his frequent trips
to the river.

“Wildcard wants to love. The center is that
simple. That’s what we do, me and Hazel. Do you understand?”

“I think so. How long have you been
here?”

“Oh, a long time. Very long. How long have
you been in wildspace?”

“I just got here.” Karl told him about the
transfer as they walked. He noticed that the funny dizziness from
transferring had almost gone away. They didn’t speak too much; the
old man had a way of making it enjoyable and relaxed to not talk.
Karl felt more uncomfortable talking, as if he were using it to
hide himself. He enjoyed the day. The old man whistled, fishing
pole on his shoulder.