On The Surface Tension Read online

  On the

  Surface Tension

  by

  Dietrich Biemiller

  Copyright © 2019 by Dietrich Biemiller

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 0-9975915-4-5

  Biemiller LLC

  PO Box 425

  Lake Stevens, WA 98258

  www.biemiller.net

  Dedicated to The Late Bloomers,

  The Overlooked,

  The Overworked,

  and The Undervalued

  —Prologue—

  The flying yacht Golden Wolf was a SkyGalleon Model 42, top of the line, tastefully appointed and worth every penny of the $300 million that Ron Golden had paid for it. He would have been disappointed to know that, as they were cruising through the Cascade Range, it was about to be steered into the side of a mountain at 400 miles per hour.

  Ron was unaware of this. So were fellow passengers Tracey Springs, the LaGrue twins, and Jack Strong. They sat around a table before a large glass window, motionless, frozen mid-word. The crew of thirty also had no knowledge of the danger. This was because the entire craft, the air it was flying through, the mountains, and the universe beyond was frozen in time. The Mods had hit the pause button and the world had stopped. A Steward carrying a tray of water glasses was stopped, mid step, the water from the pitcher he was pouring transfixed midway to the glass. A fly that had managed to stow away was suspended mid evasive action from an attacking swat from the purser in the corridor to the head. The Chef, in the galley, was petrified in the act of pulling a tray of seared scallops stuffed with fig, walnut and Gorgonzola out of the oven, the smoke stilled mid-swirl. The pilot’s hand rested a foot above the control stick, still curled as if it was gripping it.

  There was no sound, but for two breaths, belonging to an unusual looking man and woman at the bridge of the yacht. They alone were awake, aware, and present in the stillness. They stood slightly askew from the deck, like they were manifesting into the space imperfectly but well enough. The thin bald man in a well-tailored gray suit and tie pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose and gripped the flight control stick after moving the pilot’s hand, looking ahead of the craft for an appropriate surface to steer the ship into.

  The somewhat overweight woman in the blue dress with her hair sticking out of a contrived hairdo in weird directions placed her hand on his arm.

  “Wait,” she said simply.

  We discussed this already, Duma,” he said, but removed his hand from the stick nonetheless.

  “I know, Barman, but I am changing my mind now that we are actually here.”

  “What has changed?” he argued. “The situation is the same. This entire story has gone completely off the rails into lunacy. One day we had a guy eating his breakfast cereal and then he’s the richest guy in the world. He’s off to Neverland fighting the immortal devil sponge surrounded by zombies, pirates, ninjas, aliens, gunfights, laser beams, A-bombs and talking octopusses. This is something straight out of the Hell universe line, not the way it is supposed to go in the mundane line.”

  “Octopi,” Duma said, “Yes, but it isn’t their fault. It is all due to the ripples from the decision that Eiffelia made.”

  “You know our job. We are Moderators. We observe, we keep the story going. We keep the grand bargain, and that sometimes means doing edits with a light hand.”

  She barked a laugh. “Flying into a rock wall is hardly light handed. I get it that it solves the local problem of stretching the ground rules to the breaking point, but it does nothing to solve the Eiffelia problem. Let’s let them play it through. If they succeed, it’s back to normal with a good story enjoyed. If it keeps going on this trajectory…”

  He made a sour face. “I still think right now is the time to do the stepping in. I don’t think they will resolve the Eiffelia problem without even more bleed over from the Hell universe line. You give them enough rope and they will still hang themselves.”

  Duma raised an eyebrow. “So we are at an impasse? Then there is only one solution.”

  “Gah,” Barman spat. “This looks bad on us if we have to involve an Admin. They solve the present problem but it complicates our ongoing progress. We have worked together a long time since having to call one in to resolve a conflict. What was it, the Sumerian spiritual expansion with Enmebaragesi the Lugal of Kish problem?”

  “You forgot that business with Constantine and the battle of the Milvian Bridge,” Duma corrected.

  “Oh. Right. Forgot that one. Anyway, I would prefer to resolve this without higher intervention.”

  Duma shrugged, and wandered from the bridge to the main saloon where the passengers were seated. Barman followed, curious. She regarded them in turn.

  “She has just gotten under way with her Trident career, it would be a shame to crash her into a mountain,” she said.

  “Ah, but without the Eiffelia business there would have been no need to make such drastic changes to the fabric of the story,” Barman countered, raising his finger. “No Trident, no silly Pangborn Genes, no underwater tribes of refugees, no galactic level war.”

  “That might be true, but there is some inherent flexibility in the surface tension of the universe that has not yet been ruptured. No thanks to those little scamps,” she said, pointing at the LaGrues. “In spite of them, I think we can allow the other passengers of this craft to try to regain that normalcy without - you know, crashing them into a mountain.”

  At that moment a small point of light appeared in the saloon, shining brightly.

  “You called an Admin?” Barman accused with exasperation.

  “Not me,” Duma protested.

  “I came on my own, hearing the conflict,” said a disembodied voice. “How to manifest? This looks like a ship, so I’ll be a Captain.”

  A woman appeared, dressed in an elaborate navy blue uniform with a feathered captain’s hat, jeweled buttons, gold fringed epaulets, and a brass and leather spyglass held in place on her face by eyeglass frames.

  Barman and Duma exchanged glances. “She’s worse at playing human than we are,” Duma whispered.

  “What, this is wrong?” the woman said, as the spyglass-glasses fell by their own weight from her face.

  “Welcome, Administrator Anpu, to the Golden Wolf. Duma and I were just discussing our ongoing monitoring of this world line, there is no need for you to intervene. Unless of course you feel that you do. Which you must, since you are here. Obviously.”

  Duma rolled her eyes.

  “Let’s see, let me catch up,” said Anpu. “Correct me if I go astray. Bifurcated main universe lines, one freeform and one hardcore. Current main subjects are humans, which are bipedal mammals who habitate the lines called ‘Hell’ and ‘Earth’ respectively, and reproduce by…” she fluttered her hands all over her torso until they rested on the crotch.

  “Oh dear. How odd. Anyway, current conflict involves one of the denizens of the freeform universe line who has illegally infiltrated the hardcore mode while retaining an artifact that allows her immense power in relation to the hardcore characters. And you have stretched the normal hardcore mode by infusing normal characters with abnormal training and experiences in order to restore the order.”

  “Yes, that is pretty much the story in a nutshell,” said Duma.

  Admin Anpu pursed her lips and nodded. “Who is that one?” she asked, pointing at Ron.

  “That is Ron Golden,” said Barman. “He
is the one who was written in to have a special gene that keeps universe lines open, which was important to the escapee Eiffelia who manifested as a relatively immortal species of sponge. Once she got into the war with those guys,” he said, gesturing to the LaGrue twins.

  “Do they know it was him yet?” asked Anpu.

  “Not yet,” answered Duma. “He hasn’t stolen the rift generator yet and started duplicating himself to start the war. That happens soon.”

  “And who is that?” asked Admin Anpu, indicating Jack.

  “That is Jack Strong,” said Barman, “just another guy who happened to have the gene. He got roped in to the story by getting recruited by a super-elite team of government Space Command and FBI and CIA and Trident guys who ran a secret underground base reverse engineering a starship that crashed from the war and opened a rift into an alternate universe line and discovered flying pickles and pirate tribes living underwater and blew up part of the sponge by using an atomic weapon to trigger an underwater mud volcano …and, uh…yeah,” he petered out as Anpu gave him a withering glance.

  “How did you two allow things to get so ridiculous in a common hardcore universe line?”

  “Well, there was some bleed over,” explained Duma.

  “I see,” said Anpu crisply. “And this woman, I presume, is the one who is being trained to actually accomplish this restoration of the two lines?”

  “Indeed,” said Duma. “That is Tracey Springs, and she is being developed to be one of a group who act as our agents from within the universe line, since our direct actions are disruptive. This group is called ‘the Trident,’ and include Adrian Smithson, Maurice Drew, and Andrew Morrow.”

  “Oh, I remember Andrew Morrow,” said Anpu, perking up. “I’ve watched him since he was an insect. I suppose this universe has its good points. I shall consider this before I decide whether to erase it or not.”

  Barman and Duma regarded each other with alarm.

  “Erase it?” Barman asked, a tremor in his voice. “I thought the decision was whether to let things proceed or crash the craft into the rocks.”

  “The problem is more fundamental, my dear Moderator,” said Anpu. “You know how many universes are stacked in the Library of Souls. Here they would liken them to a vast library, stacks as far as the eye can see. All created by the developer, administered by us, moderated by you Mods. This…” he gestured around him, “is but one of them. They don’t all work out. Once a world goes off the rails we must give consideration to pulling the plug.”

  “That would be rather drastic,” said Duma.

  “Are you worried more about this world or of your reputation and development as a Moderator who has been unsuccessful?” Anpu asked.

  Duma resisted the temptation of arguing, and considered the question honestly.

  “That had not occurred to me, and while it may be an underlying personal concern, the prospect of losing an entire interconnected series of universes and all the attendant lives connected to them is enormous in comparison.”

  “No lives would be lost,” observed Barman. “They would all proceed with other stories in other universes.

  “Yes, but the investments!” countered Duma.

  “Investments in what?” Barman countered. “Certainly not time, since the real universe runs beyond the space and times of these library book universes.”

  “It is the investments of their stories, of course,” said Anpu. And of course if the stories have degraded beyond a certain point of quality, it is our responsibility to turn off that particular movie or tv show or video game. But I do observe that there is a waiting list for entry into this universe line, and this hardcore mode version in particular. Strangely enough.” She exhaled deeply, bobbing her head about.

  “Very well,” she continued. “Let’s let this play out. I reserve the right to revisit this decision if things don’t resolve quickly.”

  “So we don’t crash the ship,” Barman said, somewhat disappointed. “Can I at least move the stick a bit and leave the Pilot’s hand in the air? The resultant lurch towards the mountain might serve as a wake-up call to the players.”

  “Very well,” said Anpu. “I will see them all eventually, one sooner than later.”

  She vanished.

  “I wonder which one,” said Duma.

  —1—

  “You promised a meeting to go over this whole ‘alternate universe’ thing you have been going on about with Jack Strong,” Tracey demanded. “It has been six months since you started acting weird. You have been avoiding me. So when will it be?”

  Ron drummed his fingers on the mahogany table and looked out the window of the flying yacht at the terrain of Western Washington slowly rolling by two thousand feet below. His eyes followed a broken line of concrete that had once been a highway. He saw what looked like an automobile crawled along it.

  “Hey wait, is that a car? I thought they had done away with those things now that we have flying cars and flying yachts and things.”

  “This is why I worry about your sanity, Ron,” said Tracey. “Of course the Poor can’t afford actual cars that fly. They just keep rebuilding the old-time gas engine wheeled cars to get around.”

  “Yes,” agreed one of the LaGrues seated on the left across from Ron and Jack Strong at the table. “It is amazing that those who haven’t the work ethic necessary to hold a job and who sponge off society to provide basic food and shelter can still have the wherewithal to find parts for those ancient jalopies and the knowledge to keep them running.”

  “It’s disgusting,” spat the other LaGrue on the right. “I can’t imagine how smelly they must be with unrefined gas. I guess they can’t tell how stinky it must be over their unwashed bodies and clothes. But I can’t imagine why they feel the need to go anywhere to begin with. They get everything provided to them by the Owners and Workers. And they keep breeding like rats. Something must be done.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind,” answered the left LaGrue.

  Ron and Strong exchanged glances.

  “I guess there is still a lot we don’t know about this brave new world,” Ron said.

  “Enough of that,” protested Tracey. When will you finally tell us about this bizarre story you have been hinting at for the past few months so we can pick it apart and bring you back to reality?”

  “Right now,” Ron said with a brief smile. “We have some time before we get to the assembly factory.”

  “Hoo boy. Here we go,” said Strong, sitting beside him.

  “I still think you are behind this,” accused Tracey, stabbing her manicured finger at Strong. “And the LaGrue twins are with me on this, not you two.”

  The twins exchanged a helpless and noncommittal glance across the table.

  “Well I can’t convince you against your own experience of your life history,” said Ron. “All I can do is lay out the sequence of events, then let reason guide you.”

  A white-coated waiter brought drinks and hors d’oeuvres.

  “Thank you,” said Ron.

  “That is one clue supporting your story,” Tracey admitted. “You never used to thank the help. You were kind of an asshole before this change.”

  Ron raised his eyebrows. “Well there you go. Exhibit One: no longer an ass.”

  “Well, not as big an ass.”

  “I’ll take that,” Ron said. “Anyway, so before the events preceding our recent adventures, I was an out-of-work game programmer and you worked at the Seattle Aquarium. We lived in a rental in North Seattle. You had a daughter named Chris who was a student at the University of Washington and a son named Jeremy who had just shipped out to boot camp for the Marines.”

  “You are already in the weeds on this, Ron, because if I had kids I would have had them in this universe too.”

  “Not necessarily. Obviously. Maybe things worked out differently with your ex, Dory. So anyway, right after the time when Pop died, I got this visit at the house from some government agent guys who said some face-painted clown
s were going to try to kill me.” He paused, waiting for the inevitable incredulous reaction from Tracey. She merely stared at him deadpan.

  “Go on,” she said flatly.

  “So the assassin types drove by and the government guys saw them and then took us to a secret underground base under the Denver Airport where they discovered I have the rare Pangborn gene. You have a recessive. My gene allows me to keep different universe lines open. Jack has the gene too, by the way. Your gene allows you to do some kind of special things with dreaming or something—I’m still not clear on that yet. They had a crashed spaceship down there through a rift to the other universe, from some kind of galactic scale war that was going on against…well we never really found out against who. And there were flying pickles down there too. But anyway, we convinced the government types to let us go home.”

  Tracey took a sip of her drink then placed it on the table with exaggerated precision.

  “So then of course the face-painted guys attacked. Turns out the leader of that gang, Cornish Bob, was one of my ancestors! He wanted us to join him, believe it or not. He and his little buddies were nasty, though. We got away, more by luck than anything, and decided to go back to the underground base to hide. They asked us to join up with a team made up of Special Agent Clay, a pretty doctor named Valentina Pavlov, and different versions of Smithson and LaGrue. We went with them to investigate a different rift to another universe that might have been in Bodie. And it was.”

  “Don’t tell me we went from one made-up universe into another one.”

  “Well yes, in fact we did! In this one we had sea dwellers called ‘Tribals’ and we started to end up with them, but we got split up and captured by Eiffelia the Devil Sponge.”

  Tracey held up her hand to halt him. “Wait a minute. So in the first universe we had no Sea Tribes? But we did in the new one?”

  “That’s right!” said Ron, warming up, glad she had focused on that instead of the reference to the satanic sponge. “Which is the weird thing, because you were someone else in the new universe, a Pirate Queen. But you had died there, so you didn’t run into yourself like LaGrue did.”