Cure for Sanity - Chapter Two
Cure for Sanity - Chapter Two - Steve From Tampa
"Why did we send him to 1970?" Prail lamented to Janique.
Their plan was backfiring, badly. Pex was running amuck on Earth One, and fucking up the program. He had fallen in with a bad crowd, writers and hipsters. He knew too much, and was unstoppable.
Janique held her tongue. She was enjoying the spectacle of turnabout. She loved Prail, but the little brat needed to be taught a few harsh lessons about humanity. Secretly, she thought Pex was doing a great job. She checked on Chris, who had become completely unhinged at being separated from her.
He was still clueless, wandering the halls of Ultimate Hustle.
"Penultimate Hustle," Prail corrected her.
###
Pex finished his unhappy meal and vacated the restaurant wordlessly, disturbed by what he perceived as a snubbing by his bratty sister. He needed to clear his head. His coordinates never changed, only the scenery and comfort levels. It was such a dreary planet, he was no longer sure he wanted to participate in the takeover.
As much as Prail infuritated him, he wish she would drop the sister act. He was growing aware of one thing the void lacked, hot Earthling sex acts. Pex was growing curious enough to try it out for himself. The trouble was, every move was thwarted by Prail, and possibly her new partner.
Whoever she was, he was finding her extremely difficult to read. His vacation was more like yet another tour of Hell.
###
Prail had unwraveled a new, niggling detail that deeply concerned her. As far as she knew, she and Janique had sent Pex to Earth one point oh. The real, original Earth. Where, then, was he getting his power?
They had agreed he was a danger to the sim life Prail had devised to preserve the more important residents of Earth Two when Praxis was ordered destroyed by President Gorlax. Although he was her junior by five years, both fully expected him to be at least as good of a hacker and coder as Prail herself was.
But he possessed the same powers on Earth, if not greater. This was extremely troubling, as it raised new, uncomfortable questions that she couldn't answer. If he somehow hipped Chris to the game, they were sunk.
"Well, that was a mean trick, Prail," Janique said.
"It wasn't a trick," Prail said. "It was a test."
"Okay, then. Did he pass or fail?"
"I'm not sure. Passed, I guess."
"He always does," Janique said.
###
After having no luck finding a better place to sleep, Pex returned to the hobo dormitory he currently called home. The sneaky part wasn't just in sending him to 1970, he thought, but England. America, he knew, had much better looking women. For the most part.
There's always McDonald's, he thought.
The next day, the continued his fruitless folly of a job search. He cleaned up well, but doors slammed in his face at every juncture.
Why bother, he wondered.
###
The next morning, he hit the streets early. Despite Pex's delight in toying with Prail, he knew he had a job to do. Several, in fact. He wandered the business district around the park until he spotted what he was after. He entered the Radio Shack and was immediately accosted by a sales person who was obviously working on commission.
"Hi! Welcome to Radio Shack! I'm Steve! How can I help you today?"
Pex thought the exclamation points would never end. But he was relieved it wasn't Prail.
"Leave me alone and stay out of my way." Pex paused. "On second thought, do you have a shopping basket or a box I can use?"
"I have plastic bags," Steve said, doing his best to render assistance.
"That'll work. You're not from ye olde London Towne, are you, Steve?"
"No, sir. Tampa, Florida, in fact."
"Where's that?"
"Are you serious? The United States."
"Never heard of it."
Steve's jaw fell open.
"Just kidding," Pex said. "That's the future death metal capital of the world."
"Death metal? What's that?"
"Erm, it's like Black Sabbath played at seventy-eight RPMs, with Cookie Monster on vocals."
"Sounds fun," Steve said, trying to remain upbeat.
"It's not."
"Oh, well. I'll keep my ears open."
"You'll be waiting a while. It hasn't been invented yet."
"I see," Steve said. He really didn't. "I'm into dance music. I deejay on the weekends in Manchester. There's this new music I think is going to be big. It's called disco."
"Disco? What year is this?"
"Funny."
Pex didn't smile or give any indication of amusement.
"1975," Steve said, still doing his best to he helpful.
"Seventy-five? Bugger me, I thought it was seventy."
"Really?" Steve asked, still convinced Pex as having him on. His inquiry went unanswered.
"Plastic bags?" Pex said.
"Oh! Right, right. Here you are, sir," Steve said, handing over a fistful.
"Thanks, Steve. You're a decent bloke."
Pex went to the shelved electronic components and began with a soldering iron, solder and breadboards. These he brought to the counter, and then he returned to the racks. He quickly scanned the available transistors, resistors, diodes and other rather archaic items that he needed, filling two more shopping bags, which he also brought to the counter.
Then he found a crystal radio kit and walkie-talkies. He wasn't sure about the walkie-talkies, and there wasn't enough info on the package, so he removed one from the box they were in and took it apart with a screwdriver.
An observant Steve saw what he was doing and said, "Hey, you can't do that."
Pex saw what he needed to know, and put it back together.
"Too late, I already did," he said. "I'm buying it, anyway."
This satisfied Steve, who went back to minding the otherwise empty store. There was only one item that Pex lacked, but it was crucial. He scanned the aisles until he found a rather expensive fish finder.
He brought it and seven Texas Instrument calculators to the counter.
"Are there any more of these thingies?" Pex asked.
""Let me check," Steve said, walking to the stock room.
Pex considered his design again, and gathered more breadboards and components while he waited/ Eventually, Steve returned with a second fish finder.
"Here you are, sir," he said.
"I'm sorry if I was unclear. I need four more of them."
Steve looked in his syes and saw dollar signs dancing there. He practically tripped over his own feet in a rush to go get them. Pax gathered the wire and batteries he'd need.
Steve came back with an armload and rang up the purchase.
"A thousand pounds forty six, and eighty-two pence" he said.
"Very well. Draw up a bill for Dr. Jones of the university physics department, and he'll be in this evening to pay you."
"What?" Steve said.
Pex gave him a small mental push.
"It's okay. He's good for the money," he said reassuringly.
Steve set about filling out the receipt.
"Okay, thanks for shopping Radio Shack," he said, handing over the numerous bags of electronics. "What's the experiment?"
"What? Oh," Pex said. "They want to grow fish for fish sandwiches with the cheese already inside."
"Wow," a dazed Steve said. "Modern science, eh?"
"Will wonders never cease?" Pex agreed, and walked out of the store, never to return.
When the till was tallied at the end of the day, and the fictional Dr. Jones never showed up, Steve was summarily fired.
###
Pex began cobbling together an elegant monstrosity with the items he had hustled, working on a sheet of plywood he'd laid across his bed at the shelter. His first task was reducing the footprint of the existing components, and improving their efficiency. He hummed tunelessly as he worked, occasionally huffing whiffs of solder smoke.
Lead, he thought. What a joke.
After two days of continuous work, he had the basic building blocks of what he needed. It was ugly, but it worked. Or, it seemed to, at least. He wouldn't know for sure until he finished it and started broadcasting. As he was finalizing the assembly, Prince William the Wino took an interest in what he was doing.
"What's all this, then?" he asked Pex.
"A portable radio."
"Kinda big, innit?" Willie astutely observed.
"It's got a big sound," Pex told him, which seemed to more or less satisfy his curiosity.
"Where's the speaker?"
The prince was obviously one of the smarter of the derelicts he roomed with.
"Only dogs can hear it."
Prince Willie cocked his head sideways and pondered this, but, hearing nothing, he lost interest and wandered off to find the loose change he needed to get his daily fix of port. His regal drinking preferences were how he had earned his nickname.
A few hours later, Pex had the power installed and fit the rest of the cube together. He was ready to test it. He only hoped Prail would be able to use the data he was conveying. He wrapped the entire conglomeration in duct tape and attached it to the quarter-inch rope he used for a belt.
Finally, he walked to a Radio Shack, a different one, this time, and tuned to the bottom of the FM band. Thankfully, the clerk didn't bother him, other than nervously watching him and occasionally glancing at the phone, ready to call the police on a shoplifter, if need be.
Pex listened to the rapid static of the noise his device was emitting and decoded it in his head.
"Janique...26.4, 12, 64.5, Janique..."
Somewhere in California, a Mr. and Mrs. Patton got an idea for their second daughter's name.
Pex got a forty-foot tape measure off of the shelf and began checking the room dimensions. He had the height and width of the room when the cleck said, "Get out, bloody kook!"
He ignored him and began to measure the length of the room. He got a second tape measure and butted the two ends together. Satisfied, he turned and walked out when the clerk picked up the phone, leaving the tape measure on the floor.
It was off by an inch in all three dimensions. Oh, well, he thought. No one will ever notice. He computed the loss of volume caused by his error, and it was considerable in terms of mass. Maybe he'd tell Prail to add the inch back on her end. If he was in a good mood.
Satisfied with the design, he zipped ahead in the timeline by twenty years and embedded the design in a microprocessor that he knew would be in world-wide use a few years hence, incrementing the 'Janique' ID by one with each produced.
All at once, Prail was hit with more data than she could easily manage.
"What the fuck, Pex?" he had heard in he head when he mentally returned to '75.
He ignored her until she said, "Please?"
"Timecode it as it comes in," was his only hint.
"Ah," she said.
It still took her a full Praxiallien week to develop the routines needed to comfortably process, massage and store the data. But when she was done, she was receiving in real-time the dimensions of every structure and piece of topography on the planet.
"Thank you, Pexerhead," he heard her say.
[image error]
"Why did we send him to 1970?" Prail lamented to Janique.
Their plan was backfiring, badly. Pex was running amuck on Earth One, and fucking up the program. He had fallen in with a bad crowd, writers and hipsters. He knew too much, and was unstoppable.
Janique held her tongue. She was enjoying the spectacle of turnabout. She loved Prail, but the little brat needed to be taught a few harsh lessons about humanity. Secretly, she thought Pex was doing a great job. She checked on Chris, who had become completely unhinged at being separated from her.
He was still clueless, wandering the halls of Ultimate Hustle.
"Penultimate Hustle," Prail corrected her.
###
Pex finished his unhappy meal and vacated the restaurant wordlessly, disturbed by what he perceived as a snubbing by his bratty sister. He needed to clear his head. His coordinates never changed, only the scenery and comfort levels. It was such a dreary planet, he was no longer sure he wanted to participate in the takeover.
As much as Prail infuritated him, he wish she would drop the sister act. He was growing aware of one thing the void lacked, hot Earthling sex acts. Pex was growing curious enough to try it out for himself. The trouble was, every move was thwarted by Prail, and possibly her new partner.
Whoever she was, he was finding her extremely difficult to read. His vacation was more like yet another tour of Hell.
###
Prail had unwraveled a new, niggling detail that deeply concerned her. As far as she knew, she and Janique had sent Pex to Earth one point oh. The real, original Earth. Where, then, was he getting his power?
They had agreed he was a danger to the sim life Prail had devised to preserve the more important residents of Earth Two when Praxis was ordered destroyed by President Gorlax. Although he was her junior by five years, both fully expected him to be at least as good of a hacker and coder as Prail herself was.
But he possessed the same powers on Earth, if not greater. This was extremely troubling, as it raised new, uncomfortable questions that she couldn't answer. If he somehow hipped Chris to the game, they were sunk.
"Well, that was a mean trick, Prail," Janique said.
"It wasn't a trick," Prail said. "It was a test."
"Okay, then. Did he pass or fail?"
"I'm not sure. Passed, I guess."
"He always does," Janique said.
###
After having no luck finding a better place to sleep, Pex returned to the hobo dormitory he currently called home. The sneaky part wasn't just in sending him to 1970, he thought, but England. America, he knew, had much better looking women. For the most part.
There's always McDonald's, he thought.
The next day, the continued his fruitless folly of a job search. He cleaned up well, but doors slammed in his face at every juncture.
Why bother, he wondered.
###
The next morning, he hit the streets early. Despite Pex's delight in toying with Prail, he knew he had a job to do. Several, in fact. He wandered the business district around the park until he spotted what he was after. He entered the Radio Shack and was immediately accosted by a sales person who was obviously working on commission.
"Hi! Welcome to Radio Shack! I'm Steve! How can I help you today?"
Pex thought the exclamation points would never end. But he was relieved it wasn't Prail.
"Leave me alone and stay out of my way." Pex paused. "On second thought, do you have a shopping basket or a box I can use?"
"I have plastic bags," Steve said, doing his best to render assistance.
"That'll work. You're not from ye olde London Towne, are you, Steve?"
"No, sir. Tampa, Florida, in fact."
"Where's that?"
"Are you serious? The United States."
"Never heard of it."
Steve's jaw fell open.
"Just kidding," Pex said. "That's the future death metal capital of the world."
"Death metal? What's that?"
"Erm, it's like Black Sabbath played at seventy-eight RPMs, with Cookie Monster on vocals."
"Sounds fun," Steve said, trying to remain upbeat.
"It's not."
"Oh, well. I'll keep my ears open."
"You'll be waiting a while. It hasn't been invented yet."
"I see," Steve said. He really didn't. "I'm into dance music. I deejay on the weekends in Manchester. There's this new music I think is going to be big. It's called disco."
"Disco? What year is this?"
"Funny."
Pex didn't smile or give any indication of amusement.
"1975," Steve said, still doing his best to he helpful.
"Seventy-five? Bugger me, I thought it was seventy."
"Really?" Steve asked, still convinced Pex as having him on. His inquiry went unanswered.
"Plastic bags?" Pex said.
"Oh! Right, right. Here you are, sir," Steve said, handing over a fistful.
"Thanks, Steve. You're a decent bloke."
Pex went to the shelved electronic components and began with a soldering iron, solder and breadboards. These he brought to the counter, and then he returned to the racks. He quickly scanned the available transistors, resistors, diodes and other rather archaic items that he needed, filling two more shopping bags, which he also brought to the counter.
Then he found a crystal radio kit and walkie-talkies. He wasn't sure about the walkie-talkies, and there wasn't enough info on the package, so he removed one from the box they were in and took it apart with a screwdriver.
An observant Steve saw what he was doing and said, "Hey, you can't do that."
Pex saw what he needed to know, and put it back together.
"Too late, I already did," he said. "I'm buying it, anyway."
This satisfied Steve, who went back to minding the otherwise empty store. There was only one item that Pex lacked, but it was crucial. He scanned the aisles until he found a rather expensive fish finder.
He brought it and seven Texas Instrument calculators to the counter.
"Are there any more of these thingies?" Pex asked.
""Let me check," Steve said, walking to the stock room.
Pex considered his design again, and gathered more breadboards and components while he waited/ Eventually, Steve returned with a second fish finder.
"Here you are, sir," he said.
"I'm sorry if I was unclear. I need four more of them."
Steve looked in his syes and saw dollar signs dancing there. He practically tripped over his own feet in a rush to go get them. Pax gathered the wire and batteries he'd need.
Steve came back with an armload and rang up the purchase.
"A thousand pounds forty six, and eighty-two pence" he said.
"Very well. Draw up a bill for Dr. Jones of the university physics department, and he'll be in this evening to pay you."
"What?" Steve said.
Pex gave him a small mental push.
"It's okay. He's good for the money," he said reassuringly.
Steve set about filling out the receipt.
"Okay, thanks for shopping Radio Shack," he said, handing over the numerous bags of electronics. "What's the experiment?"
"What? Oh," Pex said. "They want to grow fish for fish sandwiches with the cheese already inside."
"Wow," a dazed Steve said. "Modern science, eh?"
"Will wonders never cease?" Pex agreed, and walked out of the store, never to return.
When the till was tallied at the end of the day, and the fictional Dr. Jones never showed up, Steve was summarily fired.
###
Pex began cobbling together an elegant monstrosity with the items he had hustled, working on a sheet of plywood he'd laid across his bed at the shelter. His first task was reducing the footprint of the existing components, and improving their efficiency. He hummed tunelessly as he worked, occasionally huffing whiffs of solder smoke.
Lead, he thought. What a joke.
After two days of continuous work, he had the basic building blocks of what he needed. It was ugly, but it worked. Or, it seemed to, at least. He wouldn't know for sure until he finished it and started broadcasting. As he was finalizing the assembly, Prince William the Wino took an interest in what he was doing.
"What's all this, then?" he asked Pex.
"A portable radio."
"Kinda big, innit?" Willie astutely observed.
"It's got a big sound," Pex told him, which seemed to more or less satisfy his curiosity.
"Where's the speaker?"
The prince was obviously one of the smarter of the derelicts he roomed with.
"Only dogs can hear it."
Prince Willie cocked his head sideways and pondered this, but, hearing nothing, he lost interest and wandered off to find the loose change he needed to get his daily fix of port. His regal drinking preferences were how he had earned his nickname.
A few hours later, Pex had the power installed and fit the rest of the cube together. He was ready to test it. He only hoped Prail would be able to use the data he was conveying. He wrapped the entire conglomeration in duct tape and attached it to the quarter-inch rope he used for a belt.
Finally, he walked to a Radio Shack, a different one, this time, and tuned to the bottom of the FM band. Thankfully, the clerk didn't bother him, other than nervously watching him and occasionally glancing at the phone, ready to call the police on a shoplifter, if need be.
Pex listened to the rapid static of the noise his device was emitting and decoded it in his head.
"Janique...26.4, 12, 64.5, Janique..."
Somewhere in California, a Mr. and Mrs. Patton got an idea for their second daughter's name.
Pex got a forty-foot tape measure off of the shelf and began checking the room dimensions. He had the height and width of the room when the cleck said, "Get out, bloody kook!"
He ignored him and began to measure the length of the room. He got a second tape measure and butted the two ends together. Satisfied, he turned and walked out when the clerk picked up the phone, leaving the tape measure on the floor.
It was off by an inch in all three dimensions. Oh, well, he thought. No one will ever notice. He computed the loss of volume caused by his error, and it was considerable in terms of mass. Maybe he'd tell Prail to add the inch back on her end. If he was in a good mood.
Satisfied with the design, he zipped ahead in the timeline by twenty years and embedded the design in a microprocessor that he knew would be in world-wide use a few years hence, incrementing the 'Janique' ID by one with each produced.
All at once, Prail was hit with more data than she could easily manage.
"What the fuck, Pex?" he had heard in he head when he mentally returned to '75.
He ignored her until she said, "Please?"
"Timecode it as it comes in," was his only hint.
"Ah," she said.
It still took her a full Praxiallien week to develop the routines needed to comfortably process, massage and store the data. But when she was done, she was receiving in real-time the dimensions of every structure and piece of topography on the planet.
"Thank you, Pexerhead," he heard her say.
[image error]
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