Dr. Spinther

She came from some tribe in the farout. At first, she was plain as june pie, her teeth crooked, hair dull, face freckled and homely. No one gave her a second look. Then she went off to the clinic and got everything fixed. They shortened her nose and straightened her teeth and pointed her chin. They trimmed her eyes and widened her mouth. They reset her eyes and dyed them the color of sunlit emeralds. They plenished and brightened her hair. They carbo-rinsed her skin and tinted it dusky rose. They stretched her neck and squared her shoulders and lengthened her legs. They narrowed her waist and tapered her hips to match. They tucked her in and filled her out and rounded her off in all the right places.

I got my first look at her down at the Jeet Jet. And my first thought was that someone had mind-tapped me while I slept. She was that beautiful, that perfect, that close to just what I'd always dreamed about. I was numb-struck by her sheer physical presence. Overcome with longing, obsessed with desire.

Unfortunately, every jellyhead in the quad felt the same way. She was surrounded by them, all honking and billowing, and all the gatties were bunched up on the other side, jealous as gilbirds. It was embarrassing. But she didn't even seem to notice. She had this strange, haughty look in her eyes, the look of the farout, like the horizon was miles away; the rest of us just smudges on the monnie screen, while she was the only thing real around. It drove me bonk, watching her green cat's eyes licking everyone so coolly.

She wouldn't ignore me, though, that's what I deuced. Maybe I was still only a third soat, but I was first in my class and studying my brain off, working my body to a fraz to be ready to pass my tests. I could run like a wild yew and slam-dunk on a 12-foot hoop. I could score in the 80s at hogampick whenever I felt like it. I could multiply up to nine times nine in my head. I had good posture, a decent physique, a manly mug and healthy hair. I was better than middling in nearly every category. There was no reason I could think of she shouldn't like me.

But every time I made my fiddle, she turned me down bone flat. I was no better than any of the others. Worse, it seemed. She paid more lollipop to Bello, a simp nik kept for no more purpose than to meet quotas. The guy was a scrawn, a lout. A turdvender, we all agreed. It was pure demoralizing, and after that night, most of the lops were ready to squid, but I wouldn't give up. I was so lovesick it was pitiful. In my day-dreams, I cobbed everything I owned, over and over, just for one glance of favor from her.

So every night, I hung out at the Jeet Jet and all the other joints, just to see her. Everything else in my life slogged to a standstill while I pined and mooned. I knew I should do something, get over it, but nothing mattered anymore. Every day, I lolled in my cube, staring at the monnie.

Finally, one afternoon, I had the switcher set on half-second spans, which made the pics kaleid in total confusion, which was sort of appealing to my state of mind. I was lying there vedged, mezzed by it all, but then I thought I saw something. Then I thought I saw it again. Then I did. The same pic was flashing every ten seconds. Then every five. Then on every channel, there it was, the same pic, the same great, golden image of a huge golden pyramid, swelling bigger, filling the screen, until it burst like a sun, the fragments spinning into space, then collapsing again to form these words: Time For A Real Change In Your Life? Don't Wait Till It's Too Late. Tap Your Analyzer Today.

At first I thought I really had tranced out, or else the Big Chum Himself was sending me a sign. Analyzers were only for niks with flat brain waves, I'd always thought, or lops ready to tap out. Besides, they cost a lot of scat, a week's wages at least. But by then, I was desperate enough to try anything.

So I tapped in to the South District Clinic, told the receiver at the other end that I had a very personal problem.

Lovesick, huh, she thought back. You'll want a private session. Tomorrow. Three sharp.

The South District Clinic was on the far south side, upriver. I rode the early camcar, sharing a compartment with base niks and unsingled meterclowns. Which put me in a more pudley mood than ever. But the desert was a gorgeous violet green at that hour, and as we came down, the clinic's giant signs rose up, gishing their bright, neon encouragement: Trouble In Your Life? No Money, Friends Or Love? Financial. Social And Personal Advice. The Analyzer Is Always In. Always Ready To Help.

Besides two hundred thou, the private session cost me a two-hour wait. Finally, though, I was let into a room shaped like a giant megaphone. The Analyzer covered the flat, round wall at the large end. At the opposite end, under an amber spot, was a single chrome-plated stool. The face of the Analyzer was black at first. Then it started to glow, bluer and bluer.

"Please be seated," it commanded.

I've heard you can read an Analyzer's face. Every change supposedly means something. But I didn't have a clue. The face went from blue to green, and sparks of vermilion began piercing it all along one side. Then it went rosy yellow, and blue flowers began to explode across the whole surface, until it was all blue again with just a few jets of chartreuse bursting slowly now and then across the pixels in the lower left. By the time I'd unwound my yarn of woe, the face had become almost entirely white with lines of black undulating across it. Only toward the bottom was there still a shadow of blue, which made the face seem curved inward there.

"So," I said, "why can't she love me?"

The black lines got thick and went choppy like waves. Then they grew thinner again and then broke and wiggled like snakes. The snakes spun, catching their own tails and filling in until they were solid dots of copper blue. Then the blue dots expanded, refilling the Analyzer's face.

"She is enhanced. And you aren't?"

"Right."

"What does that suggest?"

At first, I cobbed a blank. Then, suddenly, I understood. A shiver giddied down my spine.

"Enhancement? You mean for me?"

"Why not?" said the Analyzer.

The idea intrigued, but I had two good reasons why not. First, enhancement, as everyone knew, cost a todkin's ransom. If you didn't have the scat, you needed a sponsor. I didn't have either. Also, my credit line had never been very long, and recently, due to all the gussy that comes with advancement--uniforms, gifts, and so on--it had grown much shorter.

My second reason was even better. The pain. They can't tap you out when they do it. Even minor enhancement was supposed to be excruciating. Skeletal re-formation was said to feel like being run over by a scocam at full toggle. I'd heard the skin-purging, muscle-rebuilding sequence made strong niks wimp and swear they were being flayed by a million robotic ants. On the other hand, she had gone through it. And I didn't want to seem like a fraidy nik.

"Are we talking total enhancement?" I said, crossing my hands and folding my legs, trying to lump myself casually.

"Not merely total enhancement," said the Analyzer, with shiny yellow suffusing the blue. "Observe the micro-monitor."

A silver-hooded micro-monnie sphere bobbed up in front of me. It blinked once, as if clearing its vision. Then its lids opened full wide and neon letters rose out of the dark, liquid interior and clubbied themselves into these words:

Ultra-Enhancement

Ultra-Incredible

Become the dream--easy terms--little or nothing down

A question mark swam out of the depths and gobbled up the letters. Then, bloated up like a figfish, it broke into three separate parts, which reformed into three smaller q-marks, which climbed one on top of the other to form a column. In front of each one appeared a word:

What?

When?

How?

The what? peeled off and flew away, and in its place appeared: you name it: The when? bligged off next, to be replaced by whenever you want! Then those two answers both faded out and the how? grew brighter, bulging out onto the surface of the monitor. More words emerged and floated toward the surface. The how? seemed to float off the screen into mid-air, and then--the h and the w flapping like wings--it bligged off. In its place on the surface, in crisp, brilliantly golden, extra-bold letters were the words:

Dr. Spinther's new, improved Ultra-Enhancement process!

This, too, seemed to rise from the surface of the monnie's big dark eye, but it hovered in front of me, while on the eye appeared:

All in one, all at once--special treatment

No waiting--satisfaction guaranteed

"Well?" said the Analyzer. The blue field grew brighter in the center, producing a sort of expectant, hemispherical impression. "We can arrange to admit you immediately."

"That's swell," I said. But I felt as if the megaphone room were getting even smaller at my end. "What's the exact and unvarnished cost, though?"

The Analyzer seemed to frown. But (continued on page 144)Dr. Spinther(continued from page 90) the micro-monnie's orb blinked and became rosy inside. Three gold nines appeared in it, floated to the surface and shimmied there.

"Only nine ninety-nine per period," cooed the Analyzer, "with just nine hundred down."

Nine hundred thou? My heart cantered, but I was relieved. "Way too much," I said and gave a forlorn shrug. "I guess ultra-enhancement's out of the question for me."

The Analyzer's face became a grid of green lines, and blue began to flood the squares, one by one. "We can extend the amortization. We can establish an indenture period." The Analyzer paused. "This is a matter of love, is it not? Is not love worth any cost?"

"I guess so," I said. But things were getting clogged up in my head. I was having trouble breathing, too. The air seemed sweet and dense. I stared at the face of the Analyzer as it flattened and deepened to the color of twilight. "I need a few beats to think," I said.

"Of course," said the Analyzer. "But we do expect price increases any day now."

I paced back and forth like a rat in a trap. I was a wreck, a mess, trying to fig which way to go. Every time I thought of her, I was sure it would be worth it. Every time I looked at the three gold nines wiggling happily at me, I wasn't so sure. And every time I imagined the pain, I was scared out of my golly. But I knew I couldn'tjust squid like the others. The only escape was straight ahead.

"But listen," I whispered. "It's not just the price. Won't it hurt a lot?"

The face became a flat slope, inclining backward into a cobalt distance. "New techniques have reduced the pain factor to point five on the Spinther Scale. However, the pain, you must realize, is an integral part of enhancement. You can only achieve complete and total enhancement when you experience the pain as well. No pain, no gain."

It wasn't the answer I'd hoped for, and I didn't know what to say. The Analyzer seemed to notice my fluster. The face brightened into its rosy yellow.

"Would you care to consult Dr. Spinther?"

"Free?"

"Of course."

The micro-monnie sank out of sight. Into its place popped a large turnip-shaped man in a surgical-green skintight jump suit. It covered him head to toe. Not one square inch of hide showed. Even his eyes were hidden behind pink-tinted goggles. He seemed surprised at first, like he had been nipped in the middle of something. He looked at the Analyzer and then at me, slapping his arms against his sides.

"Dr. Spinther?"

He held up a blue-green finger, as if to say, "One moment, please." Then he reached under his chin and, taking hold of a tab there, he peeled the face-covering of the jump suit up and over the top of his head. He was a balding, flabby-faced lop with a giant honker and large dark moles on his plump cheeks. Not at all what I'd expected. Wiry black hair bristled along his brows, and more of it sprouted from his oversized nostrils.

"Can't hear a damn thing with the cowl on," he said loudly, irritably. "Hang tight another mo'." He pulled tabs on both elbows and peeled away the long-sleeved gloves on his hands.

Then he looked me over again, all the while vigorously scratching his hairy forearms with thick, flat fingers. After that, he cocked an eyebrow toward the Analyzer.

"What've we got here?"

"Undecided," said the Analyzer, going blue again. "Wants to know about the pain factor."

Dr. Spinther sighed and frowned, looking around like something was missing. A chair came scooting out of the wall. He sat down heavily and scratched his forearms some more.

"Stand up. Turn."

I turned slowly, doing a three-sixty. The doctor's lip scrunched on one side. He glanced at the Analyzer again.

"He's not such a bad specimen as is. What's he want enhancing for?"

The Analyzer's face went solid purple and then aquamarine spots began to balloon like oil drops in water. Then the colors shifted and broke into a mob of small, fluffy dots in bouquets of red, yellow and white flower shapes, scattered across a sunny green field.

"For love," the Analyzer said. "He's in love with that ultra-enhanced Damian female you did. Sector five, gene pool dot-oh-eight-four, remember?"

"Well, for gosh sakes!" The doctor turned and looked me over again, his eyebrows rising. "And she's not giving you the time of day, right?"

I blushed.

He arched an eyebrow toward the Analyzer. Then he struggled out of his chair, stepped up to me and threw a meaty arm around my shoulders. "Listen, son," he said. "If it's the cost you're really worried about here, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you a special deal! Why? Because I got a soft spot for people in love. Besides, you'll be simp to do. Piece of cake." He clapped me on the back, gripped me by both elbows and held me at arm's length, grinning like a findyman, his beady eyes beaming at me from under their shaggy brows. "Ten percent discount. How's that sound? The full treatment! Head to toe! Everything! Even your G-unit--we'll go the whole nine inches!"

I grinned back. I couldn't help feeling good about him, too. Except that he was so wonky-looking. "And the pain factor?" I said, hoping for more good news.

"Pain factor?" He gave me a surprised look and let go my arms. "Oh, that!" He shot a look over his shoulder. "Nothing to worry about! Guy like you? Nip here, tuck there? You'll hardly feel a thing!" He slapped my back, gripped my elbow. "So, what do you say? No deposit, nothing down. Let's go for it, OK?" The doctor threw another look over his shoulder. "How's his credit?"

"Eight hundred. Make it eight-fifty," said the Analyzer, its face a blur of calculations.

"Real good!" said the doctor. "Fine! I'm satisfied! How about tomorrow morning?"

Shivers went both ways, up and down my spine. Excitement or fear, I couldn't tell which. "That soon?"

"Sooner the better." He reached out and snatched up a square of white velliculite that had appeared in the air between us. He held it out to me. "Just put your old imprint right here," he said, jabbing at a thumbspot at the bottom of a densely worded page. "Standard contract. Sign. Right there." He took hold of my left hand and held it over the contract. I wedged. He smiled, wiggling his brows reassuringly. The tip of my thumb touched the surface. "Done! Good."

•

It was dark when I got out. Almost six. All the way back, I felt like a jackadak, going round and round, elated one second, scared the next. Ultra-enhancement! I'd be her equal! We'd spend our perfect, ultra-enhanced lives together! But what had I gotten myself into? Hadn't I always liked myself the way I was? I stared at myself in the window's dark glass. Did I really want a more serious brow, a leaner beak, a little more chin with maybe a nifty crease in it? My face parts suddenly seemed like old friends. And something else nagged me. If ultra-enhancement was so great, how come Dr. Spinther still looked like a warghound?

My mind clouded over with vexing frowns. My heart skiddled around inside me. It was a long, sleepless night. By morning, I was pulp. I had only questions, no answers, as I rode the camcar south again.

This time at the clinic, I was shown right into a tubular room drenched in light.

"I need to see the doctor first," I told the receiver.

He would be in shortly, she told me, and then, quickly and professionally, she stripped me naked. A big glass jar appeared. It was just my size and filled with an oily red fluid.

"Where's Dr. Spinther?"

"Shortly," she repeated. "Into the bath."

"Where's the doctor? I need to talk to the doctor."

"Soon. All the way in now, arms under."

The fluid was warm and gooey. Within seconds, it had the consistency of petroleum jelly. I was up to my chin in it, and I could hardly move. Finally, the doctor appeared. He was togged out like before, in his surgical greens, only his head exposed.

"How we doin this morning?" he said cheerfully.

"Tell me now," I demanded, "before this goes any further, what will I really be like?"

His bushy brows danced upward. He had begun to connect hoses to the legs of a large chromium spider that had descended from the ceiling. "You'll be a fine-looking son of a gun!"

He began to hum merrily to himself then. He was fussing with things behind me. I could just tip my head back far enough to see his face. The nose swelled horribly, the pores gaped, the hair in the nostrils stood out in spikes.

"Then why aren't you enhanced?"

He glanced at me, surprised, as though the answer should be obvious. "Can't very well operate on myself, can I?" He began working his fingers into his gloves then, not looking at me again.

"Wait," I said. The jelly was so firm now that I could not move. It gripped my throat like a huge, hot hand. "Wait," I whispered, trying to move my arms, panic squeezing my eyes out of their sockets. "Wait!"

"Can't," he said. "Too late. You've made your choice. The jelly's set."

I began to scream. But the doctor had pulled down his cowl. He couldn't hear. "Wait!" I screamed. But he only nodded happily as he began my enhancement.

He'd lied about the pain. There is nothing like it, nothing even close. The chromium spider chewed me into a pulp and then chewed the pulp. I was turned into a living goo, a single solid, fiery wound. Let me die! I screamed silently again and again. Let me die! Until finally, a curtain of black descended.

•

I emerged beautiful. My shoulders were broad, my torso was tapered. My muscles rippled and my skin fit my flesh like paint on steel. My complexion was flawless. My face was superbly balanced, wonderfully sculpted. My eyes were sparks of electric blue. My hair was a cloud of swirling, shining hues. I couldn't believe how good I looked. All I could do was stare at myself in the mirror. Or at least stare at the incredibly handsome guy who moved when I moved, blinked when I blinked. It was a goozy feeling. I had to get used to it. "Don't we look spiff," I kept saying. "Aren't we just the baby's button."

I wanted to find her as soon as I could, show her how splendiferous I looked. But what I wanted just as much was to make a grand entrance, stun the whole crowd. So I waited till long after sundown, till I knew the Jeet Jet would be hot and hopping. And instead of taking the main rope, I ducked down some back stairs and cut across a camway and through a cross tube to a service lift.

I dropped a slot, tapped and waited. A few niks were there, cleaning out link lines. They gaped at the wonder of me. All but one, who smirked and turned off his nozzle and sidled toward me. It was Bello. I pretended I didn't recognize him, but he clomped down beside me, grinning his dumb smile. He looked at me closely, nodding.

"Going to the Jet? Don't waste your time. She won't be there. She's quit that place."

I turned and glared at him. "How do you know so much?"

"We're tight. We're like this." Smugging at me, he twined two fingers.

"Where is she, then?"

"Ha," he said and turned to go. But I grabbed him by his scrawny neck and shoved him against the door. I shook him. I wouldn't let him loose.

"Tell me, you miserable twad!"

"Be dim," he cried, squirming. "Don't get so rikked. I'll take you to her, if that's what you want."

He led me through side tubes, down aftershafts. Down to the lowest level, clear to the edge of town, till I was sure he was out to wink me. But at last, we came to a narrow, high notch that opened to a small, plain cubicle. The only light came from the monnie. She was in a hoodchair, watching it. But she stood up as we entered. She turned and faced me, the colors shimming all around her, shining through her gauzy robe. My heart stopped dead then. I caught my breath at the tapered, slender, swelling, curving shape of her silhouette, the beauty as perfect as I remembered, as perfect as I could imagine. I wanted to tell her so, but I couldn't speak. My throat was clenched tight. My mouth was full of kapo cotton. All I could do was to grin ear to ear and wait for her to say how great I looked. How she'd been waiting for someone just like me. How she adored me, wanted me, couldn't live without me.

But she didn't say any of those things. She didn't even smile. She folded her arms and shook her head and sneered.

"You dumb feeb. How much did they squeeze out of you? Twenty-five? Fifty thou?"

I stared at her. I couldn't believe it. How could she be worried about the cost?

"I got a discount," I pleaded.

"You got cobbed good is what you got." She let out a snicking laugh. Bello, slouching behind me, weased his measly guff, too. They both laughed, like it was all some mixy joke, while I stood there stunned.

Then she went back to her chair and sat. She crossed her silky legs and lighted a jink and shook her head at me some more. My heart had shriveled. I felt like a fool.

"Look," she said. "I'm sorry about it. I really am. It wasn't supposed to go like this. I only went in for a nose job. A skin scrub. Maybe to straighten my teeth. I just wanted to look a little better, that's all." She gazed at me, then looked away. She shrugged. "Then they made me an offer. I could be beautiful, they said. Everything fixed. All for free."

"Free?" I gasped.

She shrugged again and tapped the ash off her jink. "All I had to do was go places. Be seen. Impress the feebs, that's what they wanted. Get nunks like you to lay out big loads of scat for the process. And be willing to take the pain. I suppose they fibbed to you about that, too. Hurts like hell, doesn't it?"

She blew out smoke and gazed at me sadly, like I was the poorest lop in the world. Which was just how I felt. And just what I was. The poorest, lowest of all. Clear down to zero. She was still beautiful, but I had no desire for her anymore. No desire for anything, except to get out of there.

•

I spent a whole day in bed. It was worse than before. I couldn't even watch the monnie. I stared at the ceiling and felt bligged, tapped out, totally zoned. What was there left for me? I might as well be dead, I thought, and sank lower and lower. Until the hurt gave way to nothingness. Then I dragged myself out. I went to the Jeet Jet, bent on throwing myself into whatever happened to me.

Even a fool could've deuced the scene. My new image was a colossal hit. All the gats went dolly-eyed while all the soats killed me with jealous looks. I couldn't do anything wrong. No matter what feeby thing I said, it was snatched up like some great wit and got passed around. Every move I made sent a ripple through the room. Every untagged lop in the place clustered around me, doting, cooing, billowing for attention. Everyone wanted to give me things. Drinks, jinks, lollipops, you name it. And they all wanted me, too. Coy hands began to flutter on my square shoulders and pet my chiseled arms.

I began to see why she'd quit showing up. It was goozy as hell. It gave me the spinges, the way they all stared at me like I was a freak. The way they pressed in, closer and closer. But I sat there and took it. Until this towering blonde with a mean overbite leaned too close and fell giggling, squirming, into my lap.

I decided to leave. Give it all up and crawl back into my hole. But two wedge-tops followed. And the tooty blonde. And a pog with her ears painted violet. And a tarty soat wearing jams in his hair. And a ginky green-haired gat with rows of tiny blinking lights where her eyebrows were supposed to be. And a strange little nik in a pink hat. They all seemed to think they were my best bugs, and I didn't know how to get rid of them.

•

Something had to be done, I knew that. The whole thing had to be stopped. I rode the camcar south. They made me wait for hours. But finally, I was ushered in.

This time, the Analyzer's face was divided by a rolling arch, a blue wave that rose and fell. Shiny silver shapes, like flattened pills, swam lazily beneath it.

"Sit," I was told. "You have a question?"

"I want to see the doctor. I have something to tell him."

The wave rolled higher. "Dr. Spinther is very busy. But anything you tell me, he will hear. We are in...in very close contact."

"I'd rather tell it to him personally," I said.

The wave crested. A pill leaped free and fell back. "Sorry. It's impossible right now. But give me the message and I'll relay it to him."

I stared at the face, watching another wave rise up and flip a shower of pale sparks into the top of the face. The pills all circled, then twiddled in place. Another wave crossed. "If it's a refund you're after, we can't help you. The price for new technology is very high, and...."

I stood up. My patience was gone, and so was my caution. "I don't care about the money! It's this fraud you're working! You can't get away with it! I'll tell everyone!"

The face had gone red. The next wave fell flat and rolled away, leaving the pills to scuttle after it like beached crabs.

But then the blue seeped in again. The Analyzer's voice was calm. "They won't listen," it said. "One look at you and they'll want the same. They'll pay the price. Endure the pain."

I sat down again. The Analyzer was right. I was a walking billboard, just like her. For every lop who believed me, there'd be a dozen who'd think I was lying just to keep the competition down.

The wave rolled in again; the silvery shapes danced. "I'm afraid that's it," said the Analyzer. "And you did sign an agreement, after all. And since your account is now empty, we must conclude this session."

•

I left the district soon after that. Gave up my soat ambitions and moved out here to the edge of the farout. No more monnies or hogampick or neural-neon extravaganzas. Not many mirrors, either. Now I travel around, trading in raw feln for a living. I've grown a beard and wear my dark goggles. Got a tattoo on each cheek. I've married into the Kimwally tribe. My wife's as real as they come and beautifully flawed. We have four healthy, normal-looking kids to remind me of how I used to look. Sometimes on the high rail or in one of the border stops, I still hear about gaterinas with perfect faces, lops who look like a million. But there's not so much talk anymore, which makes me wonder what sort of mixy wrought Dr. Spinther's into now.

"He'd lied about the pain. There is nothing like it. I was turned into a living goo, a single solid, fiery wound."