Read Online Frek and the Elixir by Rudy Rucker - Free Book Online

legs, lively ponytails, and hazel eyes like saucers. Two of Judy’s Goob Doll friends were with her: Tawni and LingLing. When they moved, pixie dust showered off them, red yellow blue. They were in the Goob Doll House, a place of cheerful colored trapezoid walls and sketchy cartoon furniture.
    â€œFrek Huggins,” echoed LingLing. She was the brainy one of the Goob Dolls; she wore those old seeing-things on her face. Glasses. “Are you being nice to him, Ida?”
    â€œYes,” said Ida. “We think maybe the peeker uvvy broke him.”
    â€œWhat’s broken gets fixed,” said Tawni, nodding her head. She wore her hair in a high, round bun that bounced as she moved.
    Frek shook his head no.
    â€œHe doesn’t want to be fixed,” said Ida. “He wants to be well. How can he get better?”
    â€œI’ll look it up for you, Ida,” said Goob Doll Judy. She gestured at a stylized shelf of books behind her and one of the books hopped to the floor and became a cheerful little facilitator toon with a white mustache and a bald head.
    â€œPeeker exposure of more zan five minutes iss known to cause trauma to the hippocampus, parietal lobe, and structures of the corpus callosum,” said the facilitator toon in a thick European accent, pacing back and forth as he talked. “Treatment? Vhy not ze Three R’s! Ja, ja!” He did a quick, elbow-waggling dance-step with Tawni, then raised his finger for attention.
    â€œThree R’s iss the physical rrremoval, rrrecycling, and rrreplacement of damaged cortical structures,” continued the toon. “Vatch!” He drew an imaginary line around the hairless cap of his head. The top of his skull swung open like it was on a hinge. His brain popped out, dropped into a jar of liquid, dissolved, regrew itself, and hopped back into his head. The toon’s skull flipped closed with a little clanking sound. The facilitator rolled his eyes and wriggled with delight.
    And then he shoved his face forward, filling up half the wall. “Time iss of the essence!” he warned. “Ja, some healing of peeker damage may occur spontaneously after the cerebral insult. But, should lesions remain at six days, the Three R’s is strongly, strongly rrrecommended, lest morbidity set in. Never fear, Three R’s is a vell-tested procedure vith an exceedingly high zuccess rate!” He flipped his skull top open and closed one more time. The hinge on the lid squeaked, and when it flopped shut it made that little clank. The toon did a final pirouette and turned back into a book. The tome thudded to the Goob Doll House floor, sent out a puff of dust, rebounded into the air, and slid back into the flat wall-pattern that represented a bookshelf.
    Frek gathered his courage and finally tried to speak. For a full minute he couldn’t get his tongue to respond. But then finally it did. “How many days?” he asked Ida. His voice slid up on the last word.
    â€œYou can talk!” exclaimed Ida.
    â€œHow many days since I got sick?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Ida. “Are you well now?”
    â€œI have to be,” said Frek. “I have to.” He got out of bed and walked to his closet to get some clothes, but when he got to the closet he’d forgotten what he was looking for. “Kac,” he muttered. He knew he had to be well or they’d kill his brain—he wasn’t going to forget that—but what did he need from his closet? He looked up and down until he saw rumpled pants and shirts on the floor and remembered.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” asked Ida.
    Frek started to tell her about his short-term memory problem, then stopped himself. The house tree and the watchbird would overhear and tell the counselors, and they’d use it as an excuse for the Three R’s. Gov was probably looking for a reason to do something else to him. Frek had the feeling that Gov and the counselors