Psychoshop

"'Risked'? You act as if he's afraid of me."

"He is."

"Let me point out that he's smarter, stronger, older, wiser—all that cloned quadratic crap—and probably has a lot more sheer animal cunning than me. Maybe he's even crazier."

"He has no simple way of knowing what goes on inside you. You might even be his equal and be keeping it well-hidden. You may be a special observer, studying his growth and development—or something much darker. That is why he brought you into his affairs as he never has another—to watch you for some clue as to what your agenda might be."

"And you are helping him?"

"Of course."

"Learn anything you'd care to share?"

"No. You baffle me completely. You seem to be just what you held yourself out to be—a journalist with expensive tastes who gets himself assignments to match, a man with a strong curiosity, easy-going, well-educated, and with a grotesque sense of humor. Only we know there has to be more to it than that, if for no other reason than that there are eight of you."

"This place attracts weirdness, Glory. Maybe I'm part of some harmless synchronicity that reverberates down the years. It provides a fatal attraction for curious guys who look like me— Hey, you weren't in love with any of them, were you?"

She laughed.

"Many skins ago, who can say?"

"Lots of virginities back, eh? I find the thought of being the recurrent satisfier of your emotional needs rather distasteful. Smacks too much of the assembly line. Says too much about both of us."

"Ssss. It's very romantic. Eternal return stuff."

"—And the other guys didn't learn any better concerning the Hellhole either. Says a lot about my supposed superior intelligence."

"Says nothing. We don't know."

"Just call me Alf the Eighth."

Again that sibilant laughter. Her hand continued to knead my right shoulder.

"Only one Alf."

"Oh?"

"You are all the same person."

"I don't understand."

"After several visitors were swinging in the Hellhole it occurred to Adam to compare tissue samples."

"And?"

"They are all genetically identical. Clones, Alf."

"And me?"

"We were able to type you, too. It is the same."

"You mean I'm a clone?"

"Ssss. I do not know. You may be the original and the rest your reconnaissance team. Perhaps they each learned enough from each occasion and you were somehow monitoring it all. Now, finally, you may be ready to move in person."

"That's preposterous! Move? In what fashion? Against what? For what?"

"How am I to know? There are so many possibilities. This place is unique. It represents power, knowledge, wish fulfillment. There is no way to tell what you might be after."

I shook my head.

"Ridiculous!"

She moved nearer, slithered against me.

"Then let it stay a mystery," she said, twining about me in an interesting fashion. "Perhaps a ninth one will show up one day and explain everything. In the meantime, let us consider the ways of the flesh." I felt her tongue upon my cheek and its argument was persuasive. Soon we were twined together in a love-knot I knew I could never undo unassisted, which of course was half the fun.

It was only later, near sleep, that I realized they had kept my thinking and feeling equipment under full siege the entire time I had been with them. I let my thoughts begin to flow, but the tides of fatigue were stronger…

When I woke later I was alone.

I made my way down the stairs and passed to the front of the foyer. The Switch in the niche was still thrown, but I moved to the door, wondering the while. If opening it were absolutely hazardous to the health under null-time conditions, I presumed that throwing the Switch would have locked the door.

So I opened the door.

Beyond the recessed area of the entranceway hung a dense, white fog. I stepped outside, staring. Was it real fog or was it a thing the mind did when confronted with some fundamental physical paradox?

I took a step forward, feeling nothing inclement despite my nudity.

"Glory?" I called, my voice seeming oddly muffled. "You out here, snaky lady?"

There came no reply, and I took another step, as it seemed for a moment that something low and dark was flowing by.

"Come on," I said. "Let's get back inside."

I moved to take yet another step and I felt my ankle seized. Stumbling back, I noticed that the thin, pale hand which had taken hold of me had emerged from a bundle of rags by the front door.

"No!" came a harsh voice from that same level. "You must not the underlying fullness set foot upon."

"I'm just looking for my girlfriend—Glory. I thought she might have come this way."

"None have departed here since you brought the place to this condition."

"You can let go my ankle now."

"I'm not so sure but that, disbelieving me, you might walk ahead."

"What would happen if I did?"

"'Tis not a street for you to step out onto." With that, another hand emerged from the bundle, this one holding a bottle. Then a hair-covered head and face I had not recognized as such were raised from the floor. A few final drops were poured from the bottle into the sphincter-like mouth which dilated open. There followed a small belch, then the arm was drawn back and the bottle cast forward. "Shade your eyes!" the mouth writhed, barely in time.

It was soundless and incredibly brilliant, x-raying me, it seemed, with its intensity.

"What the hell!"

"Photon smear," he replied. "We let there be light."

"I saw something black, low, flowing by," I said, through clenched teeth.

"Only old Ouroboros making his rounds."

"That's just mythology."

"Man is a metaphor-making mammal, and that is the secret of his success."

I blinked against blindness, waiting for it to pass. Then, "Who are you?" I inquired.

"Urtch."

For all its apparent frailty, his hand still held my ankle like a manacle.

"You can release me now. You've made your point. You seem to know a lot for an old drunk."

"Street smarts," he replied, letting go, "and if you're acknowledgin' you owe me one, I'll take you up on it."

"What do you want?" I asked, leaning against the jamb.

"Go back inside and find me a fresh bottle of wine."

"Hell, you can come on in and drink it there," I told him. "Be a lot more comfort—"

"No, this is my street, and I'm happy on it."

"Sure," I told him. "Just a minute."

I turned up a straw-basketed bottle of Ruffino Chianti through a fading violet haze, uncorked it, and took it to him.

"Will Chianti do, Urtch?"

"Just fine." He extended an arm upward and accepted it. "What's your name, boy?"

"Alf"

He took a drink and sighed.

"Better go find your lady, Alf."

"Yes. Yes, I should," and I closed the door and turned away.

I crossed to the Hellhole, and with some misgivings I opened it and entered.

Passing a mundane workbench, I made my way down and back, and it seemed that I cast more shadows than usual. I went a good distance, but I did not see her until I came to the region of the seven Alfs. She was off to its right, arms moving as if she operated a piece of invisible equipment in the darkness.

"Glory, why'd you come back? What are you doing?"

There followed a solid clunk, as of the closing of a cabinet. I continued to move toward her.

She turned slowly toward me.

"You threw me off schedule," she said. "I woke and remembered some maintenance I'd neglected."

I swept past her, reaching into the area where she had been working. My hand encountered only air.

"Where is it?" I asked. "This equipment?"

"We keep it all folded on shelves in other spaces. I draw what I need to a work station, return it when I'm done."