the other of us disappears, caught in some freakish storm or
catastrophe? Until one self or the other or both are dissipated
in time?'
(Something prompted her, then, counselled her, asking in an
unspoken voice, Do you think rationally about such an election
adding and subtracting the credits and debits and settling upon
that which is most to your advantage? Or do you use some organ of
choice beneath the purview of consciousness and the articulate
self? Saying, Remember, mind is a make-shift thrown together out
of life's twitching reflexes, and over it consciousness darts to-
and-fro, unfailingly over-estimating its own capabilities and
reach; thinking itself proper arbiter or judge. Choose as you
will: what will be, will be.)
And she said, 'Yes, I can stay with you.'
There was one more question: Jerry asked, 'Why would you do
this?'
All her life's moments funneled into this one. Her voice
light, final inflection upward, the older, sighted woman said:
'Oh, for love.'
'Well, then'
#
Gonzales stood next to her on the endless plain, HeyMex next
to him, then Lizzie. The Aleph-figure and Jerry hovered above
them, and a voice came from the suspended figures: 'Diana, wake
for a few moments. Tell everyone to come here who can, and we
will do certain things.'
Before she could ask for clarification or question the
voice's intent, she heard herself say these words, then saw
Toshi's face in front of her and heard him ask, 'What things?'
Sitting up on her couch, she said, 'Save a life, build a world,
redeem an extraordinary self.'
'Indeed,' Toshi said.
She lay back down and was once again among the unreal worlds.
They gathered on the endless plain, coming in quickly, one-
by-one: first one twin, then another, then Stumdog, the Deader
(her white hair streaked with red, crying, 'Blood party'), Jaani
23, the Judge (huge and hairless, looming over them all), the
Laughing Doctor, J. Jerry Jones, Sweet Betsy, Ambulance Driver, T-
Tootsie all of the collective who could be spared.
The Aleph-figure and Jerry still hovered, with light storms
bending and breaking around them in crazy patterns of reflection,
refraction, diffraction; phosphorescing and luminescing, dancing
an omniluminal photon jig.
All were there who would be there, so it began.
#
Patterns more complicated and colorful than any Gonzales had
ever seen filled all creation. Rosette and seahorse and seething
cloud, nebulosities on the brink of determinate form, cardioid
traceries of the heart the patterns wrapped around him until he
became a fractal tapestry, alive, every element in constant
motion. He put his hands together, and they disappeared into one
another, then something urged him to keep pushing, and he did so
until he entirely disappeared
And felt the stuff of Jerry's past and present mingling in
him, seemingly at random, from the store of memory and capacity:
throwing a particular ball under a particular blue sky, yes, and
catching it, but also ball-throwing and catching themselves, the
solid presence of muscular exertion coupled to the almost-occult
discriminations required to make an accurate throw or a difficult
catch
As it later became known, each of them received portions of
the vast fluent chaos that manifested 'Jerry,' dealt to them by
Aleph according to principles even it could not articulate. What
it was to be 'Jerry' mingled among them, and they among it and the
vast medium that supported them all, Aleph, in a promiscuous
rendering of self-to-self. Female was suffused with male, male
with female, both with the ungendered being of Aleph and HeyMex.
They were all changed, then, something deep in the core of each
made drunk in this vast frenzy or bacchanal of Spirit.
With each dispersal of Jerry's self among its human helpers,
Aleph recovered its own. In a process of steadily accelerating
momentum, the city's parts and states began to flow through it,
restoring self to self, until Aleph acknowledged itself (I am that
I am), looked back again over Halo, and in a triumphant
manifestation of the Aleph-voice, began to speak what only it
could hear, the words of the sentence that defined it unfolding in
every dimension of its being.
#
Still sitting watch over Diana, still meditating on his koan,
Toshi felt something rise like electricity through his spine, and
all the contradictions of in fact dissolved in satori. 'Hai!'
Toshi called, laughing as he was enlightened.
22. Out of the Egg
Gonzales's egg split, and he saw from the corner of his eye
that Lizzie's was coming apart at the same time. Standing between
the eggs, Charley said, 'Congratulations.' He turned to Eric, who
waited at a console across the room, and said, 'Let's do it.' He,
Eric, and a pair of sams began to disconnect Lizzie.
Toshi appeared briefly, coming from behind the screen where
Diana lay, then returning.
Oddly, Gonzales felt better than he ever had coming up from
the eggmentally clearer, emotionally stronger. He couldn't see
Lizzie, could hear only whispers as she was moved onto a gurney
and wheeled away.
'Is Lizzie all right?' Gonzales asked as soon as the tubes
were out of his throat and nose. 'And what about Diana?'
'They're both fine,' Eric said, his high-pitched voice
