Silverberg, Robert - Multiples

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MULTIPLES

By Robert Silverberg

There were mirrors everywhere, making the place a crazy house of dizzying refraction: mirrors on

the ceiling, mirrors on the walls, mirrors in the angles where the walls met, the ceiling and the

floor, even little eddies of mirror dust periodically blown on gusts of air through the room so

that all the bizarre distortions, fracturings, and dislocations of image that were bouncing around

the place would from time to time coalesce in a shimmering haze of chaos right before your eyes.

Colored globes spun round and round overhead, creating patterns of ricocheting light. It was

exactly the way Cleo had expected a multiples club to look.

She had walked up and down the whole Fillmore Street strip, from Union to Chestnut and back again,

for half an hour, peering at this club and that before finding the courage to go inside one that

called itself Skits. Though she had been planning this night for

months, she found herself paralyzed by fear at the last minute: afraid they would spot her as a

fraud the moment she walked in, afraid they would drive her out with jeers and curses and cold,

mocking laughter. But now that she was within, she felt fine-calm, confident, ready for the time

of her life.

There were more women than men in the club, something like a seven-to-three ratio. Hardly anyone

seemed to be talking to anyone else. Most stood alone in the middle of the floor, staring into the

mirrors as though in trance.

Their eyes were slits, their jaws were slack, their shoulders slumped forward, their arms dangled.

Now and then, as some combination of reflections sluiced across their consciousnesses with

particular impact, they would go taut and jerk and wince as if they had been struck. Their faces

would flush, their lips would pull back, their eyes would roll, they would mutter and whisper to

themselves; then after a moment they would slip back into stillness.

Cleo knew what they were doing. They were switching and doubling. Maybe some of the adepts were

tripling.

Her heart rate picked up. Her throat was very dry. What was the routine here? she wondered. Did

you just walk right out onto the floor and plug into the light patterns, or were you supposed to

go to the bar first for a shot or a snort?

She looked toward the bar. A dozen or so customers were sitting there, mostly men, a couple of

them openly studying her, giving her that new-girl-intown stare. Cleo returned their gaze evenly,

coolly, blankly. Standard-looking men, reasonably attractive, thirtyish or early fortyish,

business suits, conventional hairstyles: young lawyers, executives, maybe stockbrokers -

successful sorts out for a night's fun, the kind of men you might run into anywhere. Look at that

one-tall, athletic, curly hair, glasses. Faint, ironic smile, easy, inquiring eyes. Almost

professional. And yet, and yet-behind that smooth, intelligent forehead, what strangenesses must

teem and boil! How many hidden souls must lurk and jostle! Scary. Tempting.

Irresistible.

Cleo resisted. Take it slow, take it slow. Instead of going to the bar, she moved out serenely

among the switchers on the floor, found an open space, centered herself, looked toward the mirrors

on the far side of the room. Legs apart, feet planted flat, shoulders forward. A turning globe

splashed waves of red and violet light, splintered a thousand times over into her upturned face.

Go. Go. Go. Go. You are Cleo. You are Judy. You are Vixen. You are Lisa. Go. Go. Go. Go. Cascades

of iridescence sweeping over the rim of her soul, battering at the walls of her identity. Come,

enter, drown me, split me, switch me. You are Cleo and Judy. You are Vixen and Lisa. You are Cleo

and Judy and Vixen and Lisa. Go. Go. Go.

Her head was spinning. Her eyes were blurring. The room gyrated around her.

Was this it? Was she splitting? Was she switching? Maybe so. Maybe the capacity was there in

everyone, even her, and all that it would take was the lights, the mirrors, the right ambience,

the will.

I am many. I am multiple. I am Cleo switching to

Vixen. I am Judy, and I am -

No. I am Cleo.

I am Cleo.

I am very dizzy, and I am getting sick, and I am Cleo and only Cleo, as I have always been. I am

Cleo and only Cleo, and I am going to fall down.

"Easy," he said. "You okay?"

"Steadying up, I think. Whew!"

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Silverberg, Robert - Multiples

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