Death Ray Butterfly

Chapter Ten

Turned out the big number one expert I was looking for was the one and only Arab "Cricket" Jones. I'd already been curious about him because of Jimmy Kruzel's nonstop whining about his gambling luck, but I had no idea who he really was. I didn't know he was actually even famous. He was some kind of physicist-novelist-pop-culture-pundit-hero, had published all sorts of books and given all kinds of speeches, and was even renowned for naming his son Enrico Fermi Planck Einstein Newton K. Jones.

He lived in a top floor penthouse apartment in Fulsom Towers downtown. I met him there, flanked by his supermodel wife and aforementioned infant son. Jones was an ordinary looking sort; not too tall, not too light, sporting a crewcut and thick tortoise-shell rimmed glasses. He was very polite, ushered me in, offered me a brandy, and sat me down in a thickly carpeted library with a picture window overlooking the harbor. He sat himself behind an obsidian slab of a desk, and with his head propped up by his elbows, seemed to be studying me carefully. I was inspecting him as well. He seemed inordinately confident, like someone who had everything all figured out, and yet was not so above it all to be bored or condescending. The look in his eyes was one of genuine interest and curiosity.

“I've heard of you, of course”, he said. “Certain acquaintances of mine have even threatened me with your name.”

“Kruzel?” I offered, and he nodded.

“Among others”, he agreed. “Some you may have already heard of, others of whom you most certainly will.”

“I'm not here for you”, I reassured him.

“You have questions?”, he suggested.

“Nanoptics?”

“Nothing to worry about”, he said dismissively, leaning back and waving his hands in the air.

“Child's play”, he continued. “It's like people selling oregano for weed. Only the ignorant would pay and it's completely harmless to boot. There won't be any inadvertent collapses of this galaxy, I can assure you, or any other galaxy for that matter. Subatomic particles are everywhere. You might say they ARE every thing. If there were to be some kind of shortage, now, that might make it interesting. As with blood, or livers, or fashionable leg bones.”

“Leg bones?”

“Or cheek bones, if you prefer. Some people will always want to upgrade their appearance. This is a trend that knows no limit. If it became necessary, they would swap their own DNA if possible. Perhaps it will be, someday”, he mused.

Jones resumed his elbows-down posture at the desk, after brushing aside some papers and seeming to appreciate his reflection in the shiny black surface. I posed another simple question, this time about Root Turagu. Jones looked up with a broad grin across his face.

“One of my faves”, he said. “A man after my own heart. I should like to be the first to sell someone their very own personality.”

“I don't follow”, I told him.

“Snake oil”, he said. “The one thing your nanoptics and Turagu have in common. Or at least, it seems so, on the surface. Yes, it is so. No need to concern yourself. None at all. People will succumb, as they always do, to the shrewd and the crafty and the brilliant. Turagu is two of those. I myself am all three.”

It seemed that our interview was over, as he stood, and guided me toward the door. I couldn't leave without one more question, however.

“You once sent me something”, I began.

“Yes, yes, a gift”, he replied. “You will be making use of it someday, I promise. I will let you know exactly when. Until that time, however, you'd best be keeping it in a safe place, out of the hands of children, or any other creature for that matter.”

That certainly cleared things up! I left, with the definite impression that I'd been most carefully lied to, and that it wouldn't be the last time.