Read Online Spacetime Donuts by Rudy Rucker - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rudy Rucker
Tags: Science-Fiction
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about broke his cock with his first mighty thrust through her and into his mattress. His last thought was one of anger with himself for not yet having called Alice to patch things up.
The next morning he showered, dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. "What's the menu today, Waxy?"
"Green. How do you want it?"
"With a glass of beer." Waxy filled a bowl with lumpy green paste from the wall-tap, and drew a glass of beer at the bar. Green was Vernor's favorite color Dreamfood. They called it Dreamfood because all the Dreamers ate it. It came free for anyone in Dreamtown. A different color-coded flavor for every meal. Green tasted like scrambled eggs with bits of toast and bacon. If you were going to eat it, you didn't ask what it was .
"What ever happened to Mick last night?" Vernor asked between mouthfuls.
Waxy jerked his head towards the closest booth. "He took a hit of Three-way and went in there to ride it out."
Vernor finished his breakfast and went over to the booth. Three-way was a particularly vicious combination of a stimulant, a depressant, and a hallucinogen—all highly synthetic. But Vernor was not prepared for the sight which greeted him when he opened the door of Turner's booth.
Mick's torso was bloated to twice it's normal size, his arms and legs were twisted at hideous, unnatural angles, and half of his head seemed to have withered. He looked like a painting by Francis Bacon.
Vernor watched with mounting horror as the torso began to quiver, jelly-like, and the ruined head turned slowly toward him, the normal half slowly shrinking to match the other half. Unbelievably the apple-like head spoke, "You look really fucked, Vernor." Of course! It was the VFG.
Vernor exhaled. "Please turn that thing off, Mick." A click and Turner zipped back to his usual shape.
"Never felt a thing," he remarked. "I just felt normal. It was everything else looked funny." Relativity . . . halve your size or double the size of everything except you . . . same difference. The Virtual Field was safe because it distorted space without inducing any curvature of the time axis. No time curvature meant no forces—just a nice safe rescaling of the size scales.
Once again, the fascination of weird science was drawing Vernor in. Turner breakfasted on a handful of leapers and they set off for the Eastside. The City was some thirty miles in diameter, but there was a rapid underground transportation system of moving sidewalks in the walktubes.
They took the stairs down to the Eastbound tube. There was a thirty yard river of people flowing past, borne along by the small spinning rollers which made up the surface of the moving sidewalk. The people near the edges were moving no faster than a walk, so that it was possible to step on and off the moving sidewalk without difficulty. As you moved towards the center of the tube, however, the speed of the rollers gradually increased until you were doing about fifty miles per hour. Each roller was quite small, about an inch wide and a quarter inch in diameter, so the ride was smooth.
Kurtowski's laboratory was in the basement of a plastics factory, not far from the walktube exit which Mick and Vernor used. After Mick had pounded on the door and hollered for awhile, the door opened.
The Professor greeted them warmly. "You have good news?" he smiled. Mick shrank Vernor's head and then let it snap back to normal. "As I thought," Kurtowski observed. "A singularity-free diffeomorphism never hurt anyone." He turned to Vernor, "And you, pinhead, who are you?"
"Vernor Maxwell."
"Ah, ja, poor Andy talked about you once. You have studied my early work I think?"
Vernor nodded. "Mick was showing me that VFG. I sort of had a good idea for something to do with it." He felt nervous about telling his "good ideas" to so great a thinker.
"Let me show you around the lab, and then we'll talk."
Apparently the basement was no longer used by the automated factory above them. It was a huge room, with
The next morning he showered, dressed, and went downstairs for breakfast. "What's the menu today, Waxy?"
"Green. How do you want it?"
"With a glass of beer." Waxy filled a bowl with lumpy green paste from the wall-tap, and drew a glass of beer at the bar. Green was Vernor's favorite color Dreamfood. They called it Dreamfood because all the Dreamers ate it. It came free for anyone in Dreamtown. A different color-coded flavor for every meal. Green tasted like scrambled eggs with bits of toast and bacon. If you were going to eat it, you didn't ask what it was .
"What ever happened to Mick last night?" Vernor asked between mouthfuls.
Waxy jerked his head towards the closest booth. "He took a hit of Three-way and went in there to ride it out."
Vernor finished his breakfast and went over to the booth. Three-way was a particularly vicious combination of a stimulant, a depressant, and a hallucinogen—all highly synthetic. But Vernor was not prepared for the sight which greeted him when he opened the door of Turner's booth.
Mick's torso was bloated to twice it's normal size, his arms and legs were twisted at hideous, unnatural angles, and half of his head seemed to have withered. He looked like a painting by Francis Bacon.
Vernor watched with mounting horror as the torso began to quiver, jelly-like, and the ruined head turned slowly toward him, the normal half slowly shrinking to match the other half. Unbelievably the apple-like head spoke, "You look really fucked, Vernor." Of course! It was the VFG.
Vernor exhaled. "Please turn that thing off, Mick." A click and Turner zipped back to his usual shape.
"Never felt a thing," he remarked. "I just felt normal. It was everything else looked funny." Relativity . . . halve your size or double the size of everything except you . . . same difference. The Virtual Field was safe because it distorted space without inducing any curvature of the time axis. No time curvature meant no forces—just a nice safe rescaling of the size scales.
Once again, the fascination of weird science was drawing Vernor in. Turner breakfasted on a handful of leapers and they set off for the Eastside. The City was some thirty miles in diameter, but there was a rapid underground transportation system of moving sidewalks in the walktubes.
They took the stairs down to the Eastbound tube. There was a thirty yard river of people flowing past, borne along by the small spinning rollers which made up the surface of the moving sidewalk. The people near the edges were moving no faster than a walk, so that it was possible to step on and off the moving sidewalk without difficulty. As you moved towards the center of the tube, however, the speed of the rollers gradually increased until you were doing about fifty miles per hour. Each roller was quite small, about an inch wide and a quarter inch in diameter, so the ride was smooth.
Kurtowski's laboratory was in the basement of a plastics factory, not far from the walktube exit which Mick and Vernor used. After Mick had pounded on the door and hollered for awhile, the door opened.
The Professor greeted them warmly. "You have good news?" he smiled. Mick shrank Vernor's head and then let it snap back to normal. "As I thought," Kurtowski observed. "A singularity-free diffeomorphism never hurt anyone." He turned to Vernor, "And you, pinhead, who are you?"
"Vernor Maxwell."
"Ah, ja, poor Andy talked about you once. You have studied my early work I think?"
Vernor nodded. "Mick was showing me that VFG. I sort of had a good idea for something to do with it." He felt nervous about telling his "good ideas" to so great a thinker.
"Let me show you around the lab, and then we'll talk."
Apparently the basement was no longer used by the automated factory above them. It was a huge room, with
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