Dr. Identity Read online

  Flyways coursed across the skin of the city like varicose veins. Glinting, fire-breathing machinery flowed and surged in every direction. Dr. Identity and I weaved through the traffic, dodging as many construction beams as aircrafts, and slipped into an indiscrete alaristrian lane. There was no speed limit, but most of the alaristrians weren’t going more than 40 mph except for a few teenagers who darted to and fro like gnats.

  We couldn’t go back to my cubapt. The Pigs would be waiting for us and no doubt destroying or pocketing whatever they could get their hooves on. They had probably given my wife-thing a going over by now. If she was still alive, divorce papers were imminent. I needed to get used to loss. In the wake of Dr. Identity’s act of ultraviolence, my life would never be the same again.

  The Law in Bliptown was an automated speed demon. A few seconds after we dove out of the English department, an en masse APB was surely put out on us. Probably we would sail past a vidbuilding in the next minute or two showcasing our colossal wanted-dead-or-alive images.

  To make matters worse, there was the legality of vigilantism to consider. In addition to the surrogates of the Law, Dr. Identity and I could also expect the families of the student-things, professors and ’gängers it killed to hunt us down—with the full support of Bliptown’s governing powers. If we wanted to survive, we needed more weapons than Dr. Identity’s hands and feet.

  And we had no credit. No means of using credit anyway. The moment I spent a penny, the Law would have us.

  Hunger besieged me.

  High anxiety always had that effect. The more I worried, the more I ate—and needed to eat. Deathlike feelings accompanied boiling points. And they weren’t infrequent. A speedy metabolism helped me maintain a slender figure. Right now I felt like challenging the power of that metabolism. I reached up and tugged on Dr. Identity’s suit.

  Dr. Identity glanced down at me. “What!”

  “Sandwich,” I squeaked.

  “What!”

  I arched back my head so the android could see my mouth. “Sand-wich.”

  Dr. Identity frowned. “You know I can’t read lips! What’s the matter with you!”

  I pointed at my stomach. I punched myself in the face.

  “Oh.” Dr. Identity’s pupils splashed against its eyeballs like mosquitoes on a windshield as it calculated what to do…

  It exited the flyway and ascended to the rooftop of a nearby vidbuilding with a shopshack. It dropped me onto my feet. I tripped and fell into an ungainly somersault. Dr. Identity picked me up, dusted me off, and slapped me.

  “What was that for?”

  “Pain helps sometimes.”

  The rooftop’s aesthetic was minimalist-medieval. A few stone tables and chairs near the edges. Tall, hollow suits of armor here and there. The shopshack was a rickety wooden structure that wore its merchandise on the outside. Inside crouched vendors in buzzard suits.

  Not much of a crowd on the rooftop. A handful of cow-pigeons casually devoured whatever pieces of trash they could get their beaks on. Some alaristrians drank coffee, shined mirrorgoggles, cleaned their business suits with oversized lint brushes. Most were ’gängers, which wasn’t atypical in the public sector: corporate subjects surrogated themselves with much more frequency than plaquedemics.

  A small group of ’gängers had gathered around an allotriophagic mime. Every minute or two, the mime spontaneously regurgitated a sequence of random, nonedible objects, took a garish bow, and held his bowler hat out for spare change. Now he disgorged what appeared to be a collection of small mechanical clocks. The timepieces dribbled out of his mouth and formed a pile between his feet. The audience observed the spectacle with a cool disconnectedness, idly checking their watches to see if they were synchronous with the mime’s vomit.

  The canvas of sky overhead was a dull orange color. Sharp, thin clouds peeled across it in neat droves as if drawn there with an Etch-A-Sketch.

  A shelf of prepackaged sandwiches caught my attention.

  “I’m hungry,” I wheezed

  “I know,” Dr. Identity said.

  I licked my lips. “Garlic bologna.”

  Dr. Identity strode to the shopshack. I told it to stop. “Wait. Wait. We can’t pay for anything.”

  It kept going. I let it.

  We were in trouble when we landed on the rooftop. Shortly after we left the rooftop, we were among the Papanazi’s ten most wanted snapshots.

  Dr. Identity began fumbling through a row of sandwiches.

  A claw reached out of the shopshack and grabbed the android by the wrist. Dr. Identity looked at the claw quizzically, then looked up. Two yellow eyes peered out of the shadows.

  “Buy or fly,” said a snakelike voice.

  Dr. Identity tried to shake its hand free of the vendor’s grip. “Get your mitt off of me.”

  “Get your mitt off of my sandwiches.”

  The android’s eyes pulsed. Within reach was a copper vase that contained a bouquet of Baasendorfer samurai swords. The vase sat atop a large antique television set. A syndicated episode of the science fictionalized version of Leave It to Beaver was on. I had seen the episode before. There was no plot or dialogue, only a scikungfi Battle Royal that took place between June Cleaver and Eddie Haskell in the living room. For a moment Dr. Identity seemed to be hypnotized by the show.

  Then its head stiffened, its lips convulsed.

  Moving in fasttime, it pulled a sword out of the vase and sliced off the vendor’s claw. The vendor shrieked. Dr. Identity reached into the shopshack and yanked it out by the neck. Feathers snowed off of its buzzard suit…

  Dr. Identity tossed the vendor into the air and sliced it in half.

  The vendor’s torso landed flat on its back. It panted, squirmed, gesticulated as its innards poured out like baked beans.

  The vendor’s waist and legs pinwheeled out of control and struck a flâneur. He was a refined-looking gentleman wearing a top hat, mirrormonocle and razorcoat with tails. Somehow the legs wrapped around his chest and neck, then a foot kicked him in the head, knocking him cold.

  Dr. Identity made quick work of him.

  The severed head of the flâneur bounced past me like a discarded basketball, its mirrormonocle firmly in place.

  Not until the head bounced off the roof did I process the murders. They both transpired in under ten seconds.

  “Maniac!” I rasped. Somebody screamed.

  Dr. Identity lobbed me a sandwich. “Relax. Eat that before you really freak out. It’s haggis and cheese. Closest thing I could find to garlic bologna. Excuse me for a moment.”

  “No.” The sandwich hit me in the chest and fell on my feet.

  Full of purpose and resolve, Dr. Identity brandished the samurai sword, swung it around its body with ninjalike dexterity, turned and leapt into the shopshack. The structure quaked and splintered. It collapsed when my ’gänger exited through a chimney pipe, somersaulting across the orange sky as if shot out of a cannon.

  Dr. Identity landed squarely on its feet and didn’t falter. In addition to the vendors, it massacred everyone on the rooftop, including the allotriophagic mime. The mime tried to strike back, regurgitating and spitting hatchets at its attacker. But he was far too slow and had poor aim.

  When it was over, the android flung the sword aside and strolled over to me. My face was a blank slate. The haggis sandwich lay at my feet. Dr. Identity picked it up and handed it to me. “I thought you were hungry? Eat this. Take it.”

  I wasn’t hungry anymore. Anxiety gave way to rage. I slapped the sandwich out of its hand. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Kidding?” Dr. Identity said. “There’s nothing funny about this scenario.”

  “Scenario?”

  Dr. Identity smirked. “Think of me as your Id, ’Blah. You can play Ego. How does that sound?”

  I regarded my ’gänger hatefully. “Don’t call me ’Blah. Nobody can call me that anymore.”

  “Pardon me. At any rate, as I already made clear, our actions no longer m
atter.”

  “Our actions?”

  “You know what I mean. Who cares if I imbibe in a little serial killing at this point? We’re both going to die. It’s just a matter of time. Are you all right? Don’t tell me you’re experiencing some kind of moral dilemma. Why would a solipsistic misanthrope like you care about the lives of other organisms?”

  Dr. Identity had never spoken to me with such frankness and hostility. Clearly the trauma of the initial, accidental killing of St. Von Yolk had driven it insane.

  “I…I…”

  Dr. Identity frowned. “What is it?” It glanced over its shoulder.

  Across the street from the vidbuilding beneath us was the Quicksilver Spire. Its mirrored exterior contained the colossal, distorted images of Dr. Identity and me. The footage had been shot by Dostoevsky one afternoon in our office. Both of us stared listlessly into the minicam…

  I ran to the edge of the rooftop. Beneath our images in giant lettering was an announcement:

  PLAQUEDEMICS AT LARGE!!!

  Sirens dopplered towards us through the caterwaul of traffic in the flyways.

  I glared at Dr. Identity. “Come on.”

  We ditched my prehistoric jetpack and stole two new ones. Mine was an AK-Zingblinger. Other than being drenched in blood, it was in tiptop shape. I removed it from a soaking torso and strapped it on.

  Dr. Identity was in the air first, gesturing for me to hurry up.

  I retrieved the haggis and cheese sandwich before obliging him.

  04

  INCOGNITO – FIRST PERSON (IDENTITY)

  Dr. ——— suggested that we disguise ourselves. I agreed. We descended into the mechanical depths of Bliptown. The technetronic strata of strip malls reminded me of a futuristic version of Dante’s Inferno. I always wished I could read Inferno in the original Italian. For whatever reason Dr. ——— refused to download the language into my lexicon.

  We landed in an alleyway outside of a ghost mall.

  Landings weren’t Dr. ———’s forte. He came down and tripped over a Beesuppie (Brett Easton Ellis-Style Urban Professional) who had been taking a nap next to a dumpster. The Beesuppie was scratched and stained. He wore a limited edition Calloway Italian-knit golf shirt and Mondale Duego khaki pants and gray leather armadillo-skinned boat shoes. He bleated when Dr. ——— ran into him. He stumbled to his feet and groggily began to complain about his job and his wife and the taste of his breakfast.

  I made a fist and struck the Beesuppie on top of the head. He crumbled. I removed his clothes and threw him into the dumpster.

  “Here.” I tossed Dr. ——— the clothes.

  I walked to the far side of the alleyway where a gang of other Beesuppies was taking a collective nap. I sized them up. I selected one. I hit him and removed his clothes: short-sleeve Gatsby mercerized shirt and white no-wrinkle Van Rotten dress pants with pink pinstripes and forgettable leather sandals.

  Taking off my Saussurian suit felt good. I was tired of being preyed upon by other people’s fashion statements. The suit struggled in my grasp as I ushered it over to the dumpster and deposited it inside. It jumped out and tried to put itself back on me. I punched and kicked it and returned it to the dumpster. I placed the body of a Beesuppie atop the dumpster’s lid to insure the suit wouldn’t escape again.

  I stood naked and watched Dr. ——— wriggle into the golf shirt and khakis and put on the boat shoes.

  “The shoes are too tight,” he complained. “And my pants are wrinkled. And I hate the color of this shirt.”

  “They’re fine. You look fine. Relax.”

  “I don’t want to relax.” He adjusted and readjusted his shirt collar and waistband. “I need a belt.” He cursed loudly. “My voice hurts.” He cursed softly. “I need a doctor. I’m in agony.”

  “Jesus. Hold on.” I put on the clothes…

  He tried to shoo me away when I reached out for his neck. I told him to grow up. He told me to eat shit. I asked him why he was acting like a child. He said I had no business comparing him to a child as I was a machine and a monster and lacked the ability to conceive of human behavior in its primitive form not to mention its adult form. I told him not to be unfriendly. He told me that unfriendliness begets unfriendliness.

  I clutched his windpipe.

  He barked and gasped and ordered me to unhand him. I waited until my fingertips had secreted enough fluid…

  “You son of a bitch,” Dr. ——— said. He rubbed his neck. “Now it feels worse.”

  “No it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t.”

  A nearby Beesuppie pushed himself to his feet and drowsily began practicing his golf swing. He had on a Gila monster-skinned Crocodile Dundee hat and a buttondown flywing shirt and Damascus driving gloves and an Isle of Skye kilt and bleached white kneehigh socks. He didn’t have on shoes. Dr. ——— and I stared at him. He swung too hard. He got tangled up in his own limbs. He fell back down.

  Dr. ——— said, “Corndog University wasn’t so horrible. The English department wasn’t so horrible. I’m the horrible one. I’m the asshole. If people don’t agree with me, if they don’t think the way I do and place value on the things I do, if they aren’t as good-looking as me—I condemn them. I sentence them to Worthlessness. Without due process.” He started to pace back and forth and quickly achieved an impressive speed for a human. “That’s why I don’t have any friends. That’s why you’re my only friend. My ’gänger. My Id. And what does my goddamn Id do? Fucking kills the whole world.”

  “Isn’t that what Ids are supposed to do?”

  He ignored me. “I’m going to miss that place. I really am. Dostoevsky—he wasn’t a bad man. A bit eccentric, but who isn’t? I liked Petunia, too, when they weren’t all over each other. We once had an excellent conversation about the short stories of Nikolai Gogol, and that android could make a mean cup of Kool-Aid. I often catch myself thinking about its Kool-Aid. I was just thinking about it a moment ago, in fact. I even liked Lucille. I liked her a little anyway. If nothing else she spruced up the social climate of the office. And Hemingway had his admirable qualities. He once allowed me to take an extra fork without saying a thing about it out of the goodness of his heart. I didn’t care much for the other faculty members with the exception of Dr. Shelley, but that’s just because she had nice tits and well-defined calves. Her face was another matter. The point is, I didn’t like my colleagues, but they didn’t bug me. They let me be for the most part. What more can a bastard like me ask from my fellow assholes? Hell, even my student-things had redeeming qualities. Some of them anyway. At least I didn’t want to kill myself every single time I taught a class. Only fifty percent of the time. Sixty percent at most. Things were adequate enough in that English department. They weren’t unbearable. Things are a lot worse in other departments, at other universities. A lot worse. I know this guy who teaches at Hogwash College. ’Gängers are illegal there! I couldn’t imagine teaching all of my classes by myself. I can’t believe this mess. I can’t believe you. You’ve ruined my life. You’ve ruined everything I’ve worked for. Do you know how much free time I had on my hands? It really wasn’t necessary for me to work more than ten hours a week, including teaching, the most unfortunate drawback of my profession. The rest of the time I could just dick around and read and write to my heart’s content. I spent eight years of my life in graduate school for nothing because of your goddamn antics. Are you proud of yourself you goddamn lunatic?” He stopped pacing and faced me.

  I was silent.

  Dr. ——— unleashed a long-winded pyrotechnic surge of obscenities. It was an admirable surge and exceptionally lyrical and my original invented several alluring neologisms. The persistent spray of spittle on my face was disagreeable. But I waited patiently for him to tire out.

  “Are you finished?”

  Sweat glistened on Dr. ———’s overlip and brow. He caught his breath and said, “Yes. For now at least. But you will admit you’ve been acting like a psychopath. You are a psych
opath. Something’s wrong with your program. You need help. We need help.”

  “We need to be alert,” I insisted. “And nothing is wrong with my program. How many times do I have to tell you? My program is a crystalline manifestation of…”

  My ears sharpened into antennae as my radar picked up the newsflash. It emanated from an old Philco 84B Classic Cathedral radio somewhere inside the ghost mall. The cold black pupils engulfed the warm whites of my eyes. For a moment I went blind.

  Dr. ——— knew the score. He just couldn’t hear it. “What’s the matter? What’re you receiving?”

  “Quiet.”

  My vision slowly faded back in as the whites recolonized the landscape of my eyeballs.

  “Oops.” My ears returned to their normal state.

  “Oops? Oops what? What is it? Oops what?”

  I flexed the muscles in my abdomen. “It looks like I’ve made another little booboo. Yes indeed. Apparently I’ve managed to murder Voss Winkenweirder. According to the Papanazi, I took his life during my most recent killing spree. Of course he was incognito and I had no way of knowing who he was. Do you recall the flâneur I chopped in half? A fine disguise. He must have been wearing a mask, too. Oh well. Even if I had known it was him, I probably would have killed him anyway. Without question I would have killed him. At any rate, the whole world is after us. Dead or alive, we’re worth more than Winkenweirder’s paycheck for his last three films combined.”

  Dr. ——— cleared his throat. “You killed…a movie star?”

  “Apparently so. How about that? Not many humans can say they’ve killed a movie star, especially one of such notoriety. Not bad for a simulacrum.”

  Once again Dr. ——— resorted to verbal pyrotechnics.