Robert Silverberg - 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

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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!"

"Out-of-towner, eh?"

"Sacramento. How'd you know?"

"Too quick on the floor. Locals all know better. This place has the fastest mirrors in the west. They'll

blow you away if you're not careful. You can't just go out there and grab for the big one - you've got to

phase yourself in slowly. You sure you're going to be okay?"

"I think so."

He was the tall man from the bar, the athletic, professorial one. She supposed he had caught her before

she had actually fallen, since she felt no bruises.

His hand rested easily now against her right elbow as he lightly steered her toward a table along the wall.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Judy."

"I'm Van."

"Hello, Van."

"How about a brandy? Steady you up a little more."

"I don't drink."

"Never?"

"Vixen does the drinking," she said.

"Ah. The old story. She gets the bubbles, you get her hangovers. I have one like that too, only with him

it's human food. He absolutely doesn't give a damn what lobster in hot and sour sauce does to my

digestive system. I hope you pay her back the way she deserves."

Cleo smiled and said nothing.

He was watching her closely. Was he interested, or just being polite to someone who was obviously out

of her depth in a strange milieu? Interested, she decided. He seemed to have accepted that Vixen stuff at

face value.

Be careful now, Cleo warned herself. Trying to pile on convincing-sounding details when you don't

really know what you're talking about is a sure way to give yourself away sooner or later.

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