Strips and Stories: from Suspect Caught, Stunning Confession Given

The Story

[...]

During the entirety of the moment this story begins, Silvia had the deal of the sixty-two cards employed in the game. Naturally there were no moments before that moment, though the four players had biographical memory gossamer down to and including innocence. This knows more about what is going to happen than about what has already happened. All this knows is that Silvia dealt six cards to each player, with five apiece from a deck of fifty-two cards, and one apiece from a deck of ten.

"I" didn't know what the cards were before "I" picked them up, secretively, with "my" right hand guarding the faces of the slender cards from the view of the character on "my" right. By turning up the cards, the closest card to "me" became the furthest card from "me". "I" slid "my" left index finger to the left to reveal the special card. It was the Red Queen. "I" had forgotten the entirety of the special power of the Red Queen, and "I" naturally could not ask without revealing that "I" held the Red Queen. "I" knew the Red Queen increased the number of dice used in the battle, but by how much? "I" recognized that "my" knowledge would affect all futurity to some degree.

Then the phone rang and since I was alone I had to answer it. (Sylvia was somewhere way up on the fifty-ninth floor saying hello to her mother, just in from Holland, and Georgio was at lunch or at the brothel.) I answered the phone‑I already said that‑and it was a woman in Dubuque, a subscriber, in good standing. I will not tell you her name because I'd get in trouble for that. Suffice it to say: Dubuque, Michigan, or Utah, or wherever. I was as polite as I could be. Oh, you did what yesterday? And it was a bad idea? So when would you like to go back to? Checking for conflicts. Okay, I'm sending you back to yesterday morning at 10AM. Looks like you often like going back to yesterdays at 10AM. Nothing, nothing, just an observation. It's all your business, it's none of mine, that's right.

And there the call ended. I suppose I shouldn't have pried, but sometimes you notice patterns and it gets you wondering. Have you ever employed our service? Ah, of course. A rush job. We get a lot of those. Customers are often are so satisfied they stay on. Then all your mistakes turn into dreams. The major ones. Because there is a cost per minute.

"I" decided to wing it. There was the Red Queen, after all, ready to go. Whatever the number of extra dice she'd cause me to play, "I" couldn't lose out if "I" remembered to play aggressively in the third hand. "I" didn't smile. This knows the cards the other players held. This doesn't know anything about what came before, though it could figure out some conclusions based on postures, stakes, what everyone was drinking and so on. Plus this could take each atom in the room and move it backwards along its present trajectory, like a billiard ball, to get to the initial state‑all the way back to the Big Bang. But this is not going to do that because it would waste your time and "mine."

George said, "Is everyone ready? Is everyone happy? Can we go? I'm getting anxious because I have such a good hand and I don't want to wait another minute. I hear no objections. Then we are going to start. I bet ... a quarter. Okay. Okay, okay. So, here comes my card. And there it is. There's what you've got to think about. A seven."

Sylvia and Georgio came into the office at the same time. Sylvia had a hand-wringing lost look, and Georgio had a bright sneer. She knew what he had been doing and what he was about to do. She stood there as Georgio sat down and entered his account number into his computer. Sylvia said, to me, "My mother refuses to pay for not having stepped out in front of that bus."

"I know how she feels. Never, for this Frankenstein stuff."

Georgio meanwhile (I could see) had entered into his own account and set himself back ninety minutes. He hit the Enter key and immediately had his virginity returned. Do you know what he looks like? He's bald and head-shaved, with glasses, age about twenty-eight, and dressed tidily though not ostentatiously. I often wonder what it's like to be him. I often wonder if he's suffered some irreversible damage to his molecular structure.

Sylvia said, "She doesn't care about the price of the rehabilitation. She thinks it was destiny." Do you know what Sylvia looks like? She wears small glasses, has straight reddish hair, and likes skirts down to her ankles. Maybe you already know this.

I said, "Some characteristics can't be changed." (I nodded to Georgio for Sylvia's benefit. Sylvia nodded back.)

We were soon back to work. Most of the requests were simple. Some we answered after some collegial consultation. One of them‑some guy who missed out on some red-haired girl fifty years before‑we had to kick upstairs. The authorization of the expense involved was simply too much for our pay level.

Georgio suggested we should go do a bit of drinking after work. Sylvia and I agreed.

"I" put down an eight. Charlie put down a ten. Silvia dropped a queen. George put down another seven for two sevens. "I" put down an eight for two eights. Charlie dropped a two, and Silvia put down a ten. "I" bet a quarter and everyone saw "me". Since "I" was the last bet, it was Charlie's choice as to the dice rolls, but before the dice got rolling it had to be seen if anyone wanted to play a special card. Silvia said, "Yes," and put down the Black Blake. George said, "No." "I" said, "No." Charlie took up the two die and the ten die. Rolled: A two and a six for total eight. Silvia took up the queen die and the ten die. Revealed: A jack and a nine, plus Black Blake, came to twenty-two. Silvia scooped up the two dollars and looked satisfied.

This talked about the room "we" were in. It was George's kitchen, and kitchen table, and refrigerator with beer and pizza within, and a toaster and a microwave oven and a stove with a kettle on it. This told that the wallpaper was peeling and that if it had not have been peeling it would have been an entirely different game with different participants or no game at all depending on the natures of the previous occupants.

George had to speechify before dealing, of course. (He got to deal twice as a result of Rule 17.) He said, "Lord, we are gathered here to play our game. The game goes in one direction only," and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, "I" thought about being some place else. "I" didn't quite know where. Perhaps "I" thought about being in a large room with records playing on a record player. Perhaps "I" was seeing myself in a parallel universe, as if such a thing could ever exist.

So the three of us went out to do a bit of drinking after we'd finished up our low labours at the DuraNext Corp. The bar was a place called Walliss's, on a basement level with a credit union over it. Walliss's was older than the credit union. Walliss's had décor that hadn't changed since 1970 or so. That evening, a party of nine was making a helluva noise. At one point I went to the bar to get us more booze and one of the party-of-nine‑attractive, nicely-dressed, affable‑was beside me and she said, "Hello."

I said, "Hello."

She said, "I've seen you on the streetcar."

"Oh yeah?"

"You work around here?"

"Yeah, up the street."

"I'm Mandy."

"Hello, Mandy." I told her my name.

"Wow, that's an unusual name! How's it spelled?"

I spelled it for her.

"Wow!" Next, she asked me, "So who do you work for?"

"DuraNext."

"Wow! That's the place that does the time-travel thing. That impossible time-travel thing."

Smart, or merely smart-ass? "It's not impossible at all."

"Then explain to me how it works. I took physics."

I shook my head. "I can't. It's all trade-secret, and under patent."

"Okay, fine then. What do you do about the grandfather paradox?"

"We solved it."

"Simple as that. You solved it. You solved going back in time."

"We call it going backwards in time. There's a subtle sifference. I mean difference."

She nodded. "I knew what you meant, you should know."

I smiled, then said, "Mandy, Mandy, Mandy."

"Mm?"

"You're with those guys over there?"

"Once I get my wine, yes."

"Do you have to stick with them? or can you ditch them?"

"They're my colleagues."

"Oh well, if you're married to them...."

She shook, then she said, "Let's see what's what."

George said, "We're going to be playing ... the mental form." He held an invisible deck and dealt out invisible cards to "us". "We" held the invisible cards in front of "our" faces. "I" was the first to bet. "I" said, "Bet a quarter." They saw "my" bet, and "I" put an invisible card down and said, "A ten."

Charlie put down an invisible card. He sadly declared, "A lousy six." Silvia quickly dropped an invisible eight. And George, lucky George, put down an invisible ace.

Betting got hot, and soon there was eight dollars on the table.

Next invisible turn-up revealed a six for "me", a nine for Charlie, a jack for Silvia, and an ace‑a second ace‑for lucky George. That was when "we" realized that George had driven up the wagers utilizing his skilled psych-out powers.

George then bet some more. Silvia dropped out, feeling foolish.

So then it was up to "me" to play or not to play a special card. "I" was sweating something fierce. Was it the right time? There was a lot of money on the table. "I' shook my head, tried not to gloat, and dropped the card. The (invisible) Lustmord card, in all its glory, "I" lay down, and scooped up the loot. George threw down his invisible hand, stood up, and went to the fridge for another beer. Silvia said, "All in all, a pretty exciting hand."

This talked about how much money (in the form of chips) was on the table. Neat stacks, close to players, made of clay, red and white and blue, having been played and destined to be played in the future, lay near each player unambiguously placed. This talked about the cards in the two decks, and about how things were happening completely elsewhere‑perhaps in other universes.

Mandy took me to her apartment. All the way there, about half the time, she was pressing herself into me. Sylvia and Georgio were understanding about my early departure; it certainly wasn't the first time. Not by a long shot.

"Here, throw your coat anywhere," she said when we were at last alone. So I threw it all the way across the room. She laughed at that.

A leather couch. Posters from MOMA on the wall. A desk with lots of stuff on it. A big television. Always the big television.

"Would you like a drink?" she asked.

"Why not?" I said as I went up to her and put my hands on her shoulders and stroked her collarbones with my thumbs, looking deep into her blue eyes.

She put her hands on my hips and purred, "Why not indeed?"

This led to that and that led to this and this went there and that went here and then we slept. It all happened again, briefly, at seven AM and then I dashed home to change and was back at DuraNext by nine-thirty.

It was "my" turn to deal. It was getting near eleven, so "I" said, "It's time to play 'Slow Death.'"

Silvia said, "I never played that before. Sounds scary."

"I" said, "It is. We could play a sample hand if you wanted."

George said, "Maybe we should. See, it changes the dynamics considerably."

"I" nodded. "Okay." "I" dealt out the cards, four plus two special cards apiece, plus one card in the middle.

Play proceeded. Cards were played out one by one. Then, with each of "us" holding one card, the game was over, and George had lost.

Silvia asked, "So what happens next?"

Charlie said, "George is eliminated. He can play no more."

"So, what does he do?"

"He goes upstairs into the bathroom, fills the tub with body-temperature water, gets in, and slits his wrists."

"Oh. I get it. Slow Death. What happens to his chips?"

"They go in the middle of the table and they're collected by the next winner."

Silvia nodded. She had taken it all in. She said, "Okay, let's play this game. It sounds exciting."

Georgio was in the office, already taking a call. Right behind me came in Charles and I said to him, "Oh, hey, you're back. How was ... where were you again?"

Charles, who was taller than me and slimmer than me and better-looking than me, said, "New York."

"Right, right. For that ... Pergionne exhibition."

He nodded like he'd just heard the chimes at midnight in 1598. "It was truly extraordinary."

Georgio, obviously on hold, said to me, "I'm taking him to the brothel later. Wanna come?"

I smiled and answered, "That would be nice. I think I got enough left in me."

"Oh, right, that Ruby or whatever."

"Mandy."

"Mandy, right."

And to make the quartet complete in came Sylvia. She said, "Hey, Charles, good to see you."

"Hi, Syl."

Georgio, still on hold, said, "Hey, you wanna come to the brothel with us later?"

Sylvia said, "Of course."

We got down to business for the next three hours. The requests for returns, along with the sad regret in the voices, rolled on in. We sent people back one day, three days, a week, a year. We'd been trained to take their emotions seriously, even though we were totally cynical about the whole thing. In fact, once in a while someone would ask if I'd ever time-shifted myself, and I'd have to lie and say yes. Because, as we'd been told, customers wouldn't trust the process otherwise. Now Georgio, as I've said, was completely up front about it. "Almost every day," he'd tell them. "Aren't you afraid of the side effects? the cellular degeneration?" they'd ask. He'd say, "I haven't noticed a thing so far. You know there's a matter of genetic disposition to it, right?"

So it got to be 11:30‑have I mentioned it was a Friday?‑and so we put the GONE FOR LUNCH sign on the door and walked to the brothel.

This knows the order of the uppermost twenty cards of the deck. The uppermost twenty cards of the deck were as such:

Q 2 E 6 Q 4 9 K J 6 E 4 7 4 K 5 9 2 2

and this says you should be able to figure out who had what hands. But in case you can't, the hands were as such:

Charles Q Q J 3 5

Silvia 2 4 6 7 9

George E 9 E 4 2

"Me" 6 K 4 K 2

So "we" played the game. Around and around. As you can see from the above arrays, Silvia was the big loser.

She said, "Damn! So, let's get this clear. Now I have to go upstairs, find the bathtub‑"

Charles said, "It's directly above us."

"‑and fill it up‑"

"Tepid water's best."

"Okay. Okay! Them's the breaks. I know how it works." She pushed her chips into the middle of the table. "Well, I gotta say, it was really cool playing with you guys."

We all waved with friendliness because we felt the same way too.

She said, "Okay then. Goodbye forever!"

"Goodbye forever!"

The four of us went into the brothel, which was decorated in a mid-century modern mode. Two long curvy orange couches were on either side of the parlour, and we sat down on them. Sylvia sat down beside me, which I took to have some meaning. I said, "Does this mean you want to play with me and one of the girls?"

She smiled and said, "We haven't done it for a while. So why not?"

We picked the one called Heather. Heather was just a little thing, with short blonde hair and a button nose. We bid adieux to our co-workers and followed her up to her room.

In the room‑fuzzy wallpaper and a shaggy rug‑she said, "So you're like a couple?"

Sylvia said, "Just co-workers. Friendly co-workers."

She smiled. "Very friendly co-workers."

I didn't know quite how to respond so I put my hands on her shoulders and said, "You got that almost right."

In silence we took off our clothes and we had a good time for the next half-hour.

Walking back to work, Sylvia said, "There was something strange to that."

I asked, "What did you find strange?"

Charles said, "Let's play something thrilling now. Let's play ... Seven Card Stud!"

"I" pushed away from the table. "Do you really mean it?"

"Yes," said Charles, "I do. And the ante is ... one quarter."

He dealt. Slowly, dramatically, spookily, the cards came down. "I" put "my" hand on "my" five. Hot in the kitchen there it was. Then "I" picked them up and looked at them, revealing them one-by-one. A♠. K♠. "I" breathed a silent sigh of relief. Can "I" actually win this? This was the best hand "I'd" had in a very long time.

George said, "Pass."

"I" said, "raise a quarter."

Charles and George each put in a quarter.

Then came the flop.

A♦. 4♦. 2♥.

"I" figured someone else would raise, so "I" passed. Charles passed. And George RAISED FIFTY.

"I" saw it, and Charles saw it.

Charles wiped sweat from his brow. There were only two more cards to go! "Here comes the penultimate card," he stated.

And there it came.

3♦.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! What was this? A game-changer! What if someone had a five? That would be a straight! What were the chances (to "me") that either‑or both‑Charles and George held a five? "I" quickly did some math. Four cards were threatening. Thirteen ranks. Thus odds better than even that one of them had a five. Threatening!

"I" said, "I pass."

They must have reckoned as "I" had reckoned, for they passed too.

Nearly the end. Charles said, "I can hardly breathe." Then he dropped the last card.

5♥!!!!!!!!!!!

How was that even possible? The game was over! "We" had all won! There was no difference! "My" great hand was useless!

"We" divided up the money. "We" had to leave 50¢ in the middle due to rounding. A faint light red drop suddenly appeared on one of the (already red) chips.

Back at the office, we got back to work. Sylvia didn't tell me what was bothering her. In any case, I had a headache. I didn't know the cause of it. I hadn't been drinking. The assignation had been satisfying. I took some aspirin but that had no effect. I kept on answering the telephone and making deals and selling time shifts. Two customers asked about cellular degeneration. It appeared that there had been an alarmist news report about it the day before. I told them it was just propaganda from the usual modern Luddites. It had all been solved. The Grandfather Paradox had been solved. Quantum physics becomes imperceptible at the macro-atomic level. Everything physical works out at the end. My head was pounding.

Sylvia looked at me and said, "I knew it. Your nose."

I touched my nostrils and my hand came away all bloody. "Wow," I said.

"I think you should get out of here. You should go home."

"I'm fine. I'm fine."

She shook her head. "Not at all. You're disgusting. What you've been doing ... it's disgusting."

"You.... You...."

I went to the washroom and clotted up my nose with a paper towel. I took a couple extras for the journey home.

Sylvia was on the phone with the boss. She used the phrase company property.

I went out into the street. Where was I to go?

"I" looked up at the kitchen ceiling. A growing irregularly-shaped pinkish splotch was spreading up there. "I" said, "I think Silvia left the water running."

George looked up. "Ah geez." He looked at "me". "Can you go check it out?"

"Why me?"

"She's your friend."

"I" shrugged, stood up, and went up the stairs to the bathroom. Sure enough, "I" could hear the water running freely. "I" opened the door and went in. As it turned out, Silvia had kept on her underwear in one last act of modesty. "My" feet got wet as "I" reached for the tap to turn off the water.

The water continued running over the edge of the tub. "I" put my hands on Sylvia's shoulders and shook her to see if she was really dead.

Then "I" tossed some towels on the floor to soak up the bloody water. Everything looked good. "I" had done as much as possible, and then some, maybe.

"I" went down to the kitchen again. Charles said, "That took a long time."

"I" was startled. "That was only about ten minutes."

"Nope. More like an hour."

"I" tried to remember what "I" had done, but something seemed to "me" to be preventing "me" from understanding what had happened to "me" or what "I" had done.

Sylvia and Georgio came into the office at the same time. Sylvia appeared to be elated, and Georgio had a bright sneer. She knew what he had been doing and what he was about to do. She stood there as Georgio sat down and entered his account number into his computer. Sylvia said, to me, "My mother's decided to go back to before she was hit by the bus."

"I guess that's right. But it's not for me. Never, for this Frankenstein stuff."

Sylvia said, "She doesn't care about the price of the time shift. She'll be much better from now on." Do you know what Sylvia looks like? She wears small glasses, has straight reddish hair, and likes skirts down to her ankles. Maybe you already know this.