Dr. Identity Read online

  Over the next year, he found (and lost) work as a stapler slammer, an underapprentice to a magician, an assistant palm reader, an assistant moth wrangler, an assistant to an assistant eyebrow plucker, a window shade, a pied piper, and a turtleneck dickey model, among others. For a while he was even subcontracted by a ’gänger to surrogate the human high school teacher that the ’gänger was supposed to be surrogating.

  All the jobs ended the same way: Achtung 66.799’s imagination took advantage of his better judgment.

  “I have so many ideas,” he told Dale one night as they sat in his 1/3-bedroom cubapt on either side of a Bunsen burner drinking glasses of Rippentrop’s Foggy Foggy Dew. “I don’t know what to do with myself. The world can’t keep up with me.”

  “You also don’t have a graduate degree,” Dale noted. “A man can’t do anything without a graduate degree these days. If you misbehave, they kill you in some cities without one, or at least feed you to a rainforest. Happened to a friend of mine in Synthesizer City. Eddie Horkheimer was his name. Papanazi said the Law caught him philosophizing in public without a Ph.D. They catapulted him over the city walls and a fucking three-headed dinosaur mutilated and devoured him before he even hit the ground. Papanazi caught the whole thing. No shit. I think I might even have a clip of it lying around here somewhere.” He began to dig through the piles of debris that littered his cubapt.

  Achtung 66.799 took a swig of Foggy Foggy Dew. The drink billowed into his mouth. “I once knew a guy named Eddie who shaved the hair off of his body and it grew back the wrong way. The hair grew backwards, I mean, inside of his body. Except for his face and scalp. I remember his chest and back was so bushy he looked like a porcupine or something. It was the first time he’d shaved his whole body. Maybe the hairs did it out of revenge. They felt betrayed and weren’t expecting to be offed. Maybe he had some kind of subcutaneous condition. Whatever the reason, eventually the little bastards got so long they strangled and suffocated all of his muscles and internal organs. Once he realized what was going on, he tried to have them surgically removed, but they were too long and there were too many of them. Eddie’s autopsy showed that before he died he was really just a scarecrow, stuffed from neck to ankle in wet black hay. Talk about ingrown hairs.”

  Dale looked at him. “Is that true?”

  “Does it matter?” Achtung 66.799 hit his bottle until it was empty. “The point is I don’t want to end up like a goddamn scarecrow.”

  “What’s a scarecrow got to do with your situation?”

  Achtung 66.799 thought about the question. “I don’t know what it has to do with me. It’s just that getting killed by your hair is lousy. That’s all. And I feel lousy. I always feel lousy.”

  “Maybe you need a new hobby.” Dale returned to his search for the clip of Eddie Horkheimer’s execution.

  “I don’t need a new hobby. I need a lobotomy. I’m sick of thinking about things. All day long, all I do is think about things. My brain’s like a Tasmanian devil in overdrive. And I’m too impulsive. Something pops into my head and I act on it without thinking it through first. I can’t hold down a job, no matter what it is. I don’t have any money, not matter how much I try to save. I never get laid. I’m lonely. I’m ugly. Nobody loves me. I have no prospects or talent. What I’m trying to say is I’m no good. I’m nothing. Oddly enough I’m not suicidal. Still, my life is a stand up routine. What am I gonna do? I can’t afford to be out of work for another hour.”

  Dale hated throwing pity parties. They made him uncomfortable to the point of hysteria. So he pretended that his friend wasn’t there. He glanced around his cubapt with a confused expression, as if he might have heard somebody say something but wasn’t sure.

  “Dale?” said Achtung 66.799.

  Dale opened up a window and stuck out his head. “Who said that? How do you know my name? Answer me!”

  Before leaving, Achtung 66.799 filled up a test tube with Sea Monkey powder, added the appropriate chemicals, watched the creatures sprout into existence, and fried them over the Bunsen burner.

  Depression. His body hung limply from his jetpack on the flight home. He couldn’t remember feeling worse. Maybe he was suicidal after all. Killing himself would certainly solve his problems. He would be doing the jampacked world a favor, ridding it of an excess body. Plus he would ease his parents’ consciences; in the wake of his death, they no longer had to worry about him being an irretrievable failure. All he had to do was unbuckle his jetpack and he would plummet into the trellis of flyways beneath him where an engine or propeller or wingblade would rip him to shreds. It would be quick, easy. And morally commendable. He owed it to the world to kill himself. By not killing himself, he was doing the world a disservice as he contributed absolutely nothing to civilization and the betterment of humanity. He had no excuse for not committing suicide. The very thought of allowing himself to live repulsed him…

  He came to a sharp halt. An alaristrian had been riding his ass and smashed into him. His jetpack stalled and he swore at Achtung 66.799 as he sunk like an anchor, trying to get the engine started again. Achtung 66.799 whispered a halfhearted apology and quickly ducked off the flyway. Hovering in the air, he stared doggedly at the advertisement on the vidbuilding across the street.

  HONOR! VALOR! FATALITY!

  ARE YOU IN THE MOOD FOR BEING SECOND TO NONE?

  NO BETTER FRIEND, NO WORSE ENEMY

  SEMPER FEE-FIE-FOE-FUM…

  I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN EVERYMAN

  BECOME THE ARM OF DECISION

  BECOME HELL IN A HANDCAMERA

  JOIN TODAY!

  Beneath the script was the gigantic image of a smiling head distinguished by an anvil chin, a Picadilly bouffant hairdo, and two surgically altered animé eyes. Achtung 66.799 slipped into a trance. He had seen similar advertisements before. Tens of thousands of them on tens of thousands of occasions. But only now, as he stood on the doorstep of self-annihilation, did it command his attention. All his life, the idea of becoming “second to none” had been inconceivable. Not only was it generally considered to be the absolute lowest, most despicable form of employment (despite the fact that its workerbees were ubiquitous), his father had always threatened to disown him if he joined, claiming that the life of a serial killer or plaquedemic would be a more respectable fate. That didn’t matter now. Better to be alive and working than dead and useless. Not in his father’s eyes, but he never really liked his father anyway. And in the end he was far too afraid of death to kill himself.

  In less than an hour, Achtung 66.799 stood in a line that ran halfway across Bliptown, enjoying his soon-to-be-flushed-down-the-toilet identity and reflecting on the vagaries of his short career as a dysfunctional postcapitalist…

  Achtung 66.799’s experience wasn’t unique. His perpetual failure as a functional postcapitalist was in fact the definition of contemporary normalcy. The yellow brick road he skipped down had been stained with multitudes of muddy footprints centuries before he came along. And they all led to the same place.

  The legion. The proud.

  The Papanazi.

  As in the former military, anybody could join. Years ago it had been required by Law to serve in the Papanazi at some point between the ages of 20-28 for at least three years. Nowadays service was optional. Nonetheless thousands flocked to the profession daily. No education was required—graduate, postgraduate or otherwise. One only needed a semi-serviceable brain and a downright fascist willingness to covet imagery at the expense of pride, morality, ideology, and life.

  The industry was dangerously popular. Papanazi soldiers outnumbered other non-Papanazi people two and a half to one. Each stood to make a million, but 99.999 percent were tier 26 neobourgeois proles in terms of income. This perturbed and pathologized more than a few Papanazi, but not as much as what was known as The Terminal Stipulation, which dictated that Papanaziism was the only profession in which workers could not surrogate themselves with androids. While they were difficult to monitor in light of the P
apanazi’s vast numbers, offenders faced the maximum degree of the Law’s absurd wrath.

  Prior to walking into the Department of Mediatization, Achtung 66.799 had owned a different name. It was wiped from his memory. Every now and then the name’s ghost came back to haunt him, but even the most inept sideshow exorcists had little trouble getting rid of it. For the most part Achtung 66.799’s makeshift, massified identity was perfectly stable. Stable or unstable, though, anybody could shoot a celebrity.

  There was a new celebrity in town. Two of them, and they had become megastars in record fasttime. Achtung 66.799 was filled with hope when he heard the news. Feelings of hope also welled up in Achtung 66.800, Achtung 204.111, Achtung 4.003, Achtung 56.309, Achtung 3,983.145, Achtung 51.582, Achtung 366.472, Achtung 77.340, Achtung 77.341, Achtung 77.342, Achtung 7,342.342, Achtung 1.001, Achtung 344.822, Achtung 8,196.342, Achtung 99.999, Achtung 999.999, Achtung 9,999.999, Achtung 99,999.999…

  07

  LITTLEOLDLADYVILLE, PART 2 – 1ST PERSON ('BLAH)

  “I want my old name back.” I flicked a ladybug off the sleeve of my golf shirt. “No reason to call myself ——— anymore. No reason to call myself doctor or professor anymore, for that matter.”

  Dr. Identity stood on his tip-toes and removed a fetus from the shelf. The fetus was floating in a smart Güntergrass bottle of formaldehyde. “What about Blah Blah Blah?”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s funny.” Dr. Identity examined the apparently female fetus, concentrating on the shriveled umbilical cord that spiraled from its navel like a rotten pigtail. The android’s pupils dilated as they zoomed in and out. “I don’t believe I even know what your real name is. Not that it really matters to me. Names are mere signs. They have nothing to do with the bodies they signify and are forcibly connected to.”

  “What are you, Ferdinand de Saussure? I don’t need a lesson in structuralism. I need a lesson in how to achieve agency from a crazy fucking ’gänger.”

  Dr. Identity said, “This piece is fantastic. A vintage fetus. They don’t make them like this anymore. What’s it doing in the speculative weapons department?”

  The fetus opened its eyes and mouthed the words HELP ME. I said, “What the hell is formaldehyde anyway? I have no idea. I wonder if you can drink it and live.”

  Dr. Identity placed the fetus back on the shelf and removed a shockstick nunchaku. “I can. I can drink hot lava.” It sized up the weapon, palming and gauging its weight. “I recall one occasion when a student-thing thought he might play a joke on me by offering me a drink from a thermos full of hot lava he smuggled into class. He passed the substance off as a hip brand of coffee. Sipperella 007 if memory serves. I suppose he thought my jaw would melt.” It leisurely began to fling the nunchaku through the loopholes of its body. “The lava actually tasted all right. I guzzled the whole thermos. Then I burped in the student-thing’s face and singed off his unibrow.”

  I looked awry at Dr. Identity. “Anyway, I’m going back to my original name.”

  “Good for you. Good for you.” The nunchaku accelerated. “What’s your name again?”

  I opened my mouth to respond…and realized I had no response. I had forgotten my original name.

  Dr. Identity smirked. “I see.”

  I was infuriated. And vaguely nauseous. I had only given the name up a year and a half ago. How could I have already forgotten it? “I’m sure I have it written down somewhere,” I said helplessly. I felt like smashing something.

  The nunchaku moved so quickly I couldn’t see them. Nor could I see my ’gänger’s arms. “Don’t worry about it. You’ll remember your name. Right now there’s more pressing matters at hand, yes? Weapons and disguises. And a bit of food, of course. Weapons first, though, weapons first.” Abruptly it stopped wielding the nunchaku and returned them to the shelf. “Too heavy. And I honestly prefer swords. They’re more to the point, if you’ll excuse the wordplay. We’ll need guns, too. Lots of guns.”

  “How do you plan to carry all of this goddamn artillery?” My ailing memory harrowed me. Frantic, I pawed through its murky depths, searching for my identity…

  Dr. Identity shook its head and pointed at its crotch. “We’ve got enough space between us in here to carry a small army—literally. The pockets in these pants are de la Footwa’s Black Holes. Didn’t you know? It’s my understanding that Beesuppies are delivered into existence readymade with de la Footwa’s sewn in their dress pants. They’ve got a lot to hide, after all. You might want to check your pockets. On the way over here I found a few questionable objects in mine.”

  De la Footwa’s Black Holes. I’d heard of them. But I’d never really believed in them, if for nothing else than they were far too expensive to afford on a plaquedemic’s salary, no matter how distinguished you were in the Biz. According to their inventor, Jean-Claude Baudelaire Hillary Wapakoneta de la Footwa, they were inspired by an old cartoon show called Henri Hackensack starring a German “curt jester” of the same name who had a bad habit of arbitrarily pulling entire alternate realities out of his navel. The pockets molecularized all material objects you put inside of them, and when you took the objects out, the pockets molarized them back to their original form. Some versions even had room for psychic storage in the event that a wearer experienced an overload of schizophrenic personalities, a common experience in Bliptown. In fact, I discovered a discarded personality when I reached into one of the pockets. I gripped it by the mane and pulled it out. It looked like Benito Mussolini with its big head and commanding overlip, only after the Italian tyrant had been executed: one side of its face was melted off and there were gaping bullet holes in its chest. The personality shouted something in Schizospeak and ran off. Other items I removed from my pockets included a leatherbound steering wheel, a tennis racket, a set of golf clubs, a briefcase (full of Saltines and miniature packages of peanut butter), a file drawer (full of dirty vidzines), and the corpses of two dogs, one a bloodhound, the other a teacup Yorkshire terrier. All of this baggage was filthy, stained in blood and dirt, and slick with ectoplasm. I tossed the items on the floor one by one.

  A trashcan standing at attention on the ledge of a catwalk four stories above us caught sight of the mess. It dove off of its perch, jetted down to Dr. Identity and me, devoured and digested the contents of the Beesuppie’s pockets in one great vaporizing inhale, scolded me for being a litterbug, informed us that it had been watching our movements, warned us that we only had a few minutes left before being found guilty of not buying anything, and finally disappeared into a trap door that suddenly opened beneath it.

  I looked at Dr. Identity.

  “Don’t give me that look. I didn’t do anything to deserve that look.”

  I raised my voice. “You didn’t do anything? Are you kidding me?”

  “Yes. Let’s get to work.” Cool and businesslike, it started taking weapons off the shelves and shoving them into its pockets. Its movements fell somewhere between realtime and fasttime. Whenever a weapon vanished into the obscurity of the android’s pockets, it fizzled out in a puff of holographic sparks. “Not much time to waste,” it added without pausing. “I sense a shitstorm about to break.”

  Traffic in the aisle was nominal. Just a few grandmothers snailing here and there interrupted by the occasional wolfpack of teenagers. Nobody minded anything but themselves and their shopperly duties. But that didn’t matter. The Babettas were what we had to worry about. And the Bug-Eyed Monsters. Despite the speed with which it played thief, Dr. Identity was in all likelihood already being clocked by some extension of Littleoldladyville’s surveillance system. It was only a matter of seconds before the proverbial dogs were set on us.

  I tried to map out how things would go down. I had a little fighting experience and knew how to swing a blade—like most boys, I spent virtually all of my early adolescent spare time scikungfi swordfighting in the Schizoverse. I could handle a gun, too. Shortly after I was born, my mother-thing developed an addiction to firearms, a con
dition provoked by one of her boyfriends. He was a door-to-door plasma gun salesman. She took me to a shooting gallery before I was old enough to speak, and as far back as my memory carried me, our cubapt looked more like an arsenal than a place to live. I hadn’t so much as picked up a gun since my mother-thing died eight years ago. Even if I had, I wouldn’t be able to fend off the collective wrath of whatever mindless contraptions were sicced on me. Not with any type of weaponry. Not even with Dr. Identity, who had proved itself to be an effective (albeit psychotic) war machine. In other words, I fully expected to die within the next few minutes. Who was I kidding? I was as adept with a sword and a gun as I was negotiating the feelings and complaints of ornery student-things. I wondered how Skyler Buhbye, the protagonist of Technofetahshit Salad, a neurorealistic novel I taught last semester, would have felt in my shoes. I wondered how I felt for that matter: at that particular moment I couldn’t determine whether I was frightened beyond recognition, hopelessly apathetic, or helplessly euphoric.

  A line from a Hardy Boys novel came to me: The boys leapt into the red convertible like handfuls of loose change…

  I walked down the aisle and removed a plague sword from the shelf. It was light, thin, the color of TV static. Impossibly sharp. I could almost feel it slicing through my gaze as I looked it over.

  I thrust the sword into my pocket. A plume of cold sparks tickled the skin of my hand.

  I collected more weapons, trying to catch Dr. Identity. I loaded up on guns, ammunition, swords, entropics. I was especially attracted to coagulators. In many of the science fiction texts I taught, coagulators were fearsome biological weapons. They inflicted damage to living body tissue, rearranging and scrambling one’s musculature, nervous system, and internal organs in hideous ways.