Munmun Read online

  Every awfull thing I dream, the dreamers help me, their fear takes over and multiplies it, I dream a groaning forest and they fill it with the wild witchy dead, clawing out of the ground and air.

  “The Divine President And See Ee Oh has had enough of your sins and selfishnesses,” I tell every dreamer, “does it not say right there in the freaking superbible that eagerness for munmuns leads you away from the righteous path, well guesswhat, sinners, honesttogod spacealiens are spraying the planet with pestysides now.”

  The pestyside fog is a sevenfoot sea, poor dreamers are leaping and surfacing like dollfins, trying to get a breath, hard to leap when your legs are lockedup or rubbery though, meanwhile upabove the beaky spacevultures swoop lower and lower, belching screams.

  “You didn’t listen when the Lord King God warned you that munmuns will pierce your heart with griefs,” I boom, “now you’re roasting like a pelican in a hot bright bad littleroom, it has a trapdoor so you can leave anytime, but the door only takes you to somewhere worse, how’s that for a freaking dilemma, rage is making the Lord King God do some pretty messedup stuff rightnow.”

  The broiling dreamers can’t help themselves, they throw the trapdoor open, fall down into the exactsame room but worse, hotter, smaller, roast harder, die faster, freak out and jump through the next trapdoor, it’s even worse, even hotter, maybe filled with boiling muds, et set set setera, textbook gutterbuilding technique.

  Pretty soon some people became harder to reach, some zones of Lossy Indica became more quiet, faraway, blanketwrapped.

  Surenough, in Lifeanddeathworld the bigs and riches began to take solodream.

  Ads for solodream were everywhere apparently, the Dream Division made stylish beautifull vids explaining that religious maniacs have taken over Dreamworld, it’s such a shame but what can you do, the enlightened intelligent dreamer is taking solodream these days so as not to be terrorized by godfull lunatics.

  In neighborhoods of bigs and middles, solodream was flying off the shelves, munmuns poured into the accounts of Solodream Sleepmeds and Faceboy Industries.

  In Dreamworld I began to attack these cloudy districts, the houses where the dreamers tried to turn themselves to ghosts.

  Focus on the lonely disappearers, grab hold before they vanish. Rip away the soloblankets from around them, pull them back to the fiery ponds and fangy rains.

  In Lifeanddeathworld dreamers complained to their farmassists, hey buddy what the heck, my solodream’s not working some nights, isn’t it supposed to be neverfail, foolproof, whatgives.

  But Dream Division paid the farmassists to shrug and say, these religious terrorists are just superstrong, but dontworry, our scientists are working roundtheclock on stronger drugs to keep people out of your dreams, meantime can I hook you up with a higher dose.

  So they dosed themselves harder and in Dreamworld the blankets around the rich got heavier, the ghosts got lighter and quieter.

  And I just clenched my teeth, worked stronger, faster, pulled the threads, yanked the ropes, melted walls, grabbed and stuffed these struggling riches back into hell, as many as I could before morning, I pushed back against time and slowed it down,

  every morning I woke up and was not even human for a while, my brain was just an errorscreen, my eyes said DID NOT LOAD.

  Night after night, week after week.

  Months slipped by, melted into a year.

  I began to notice that the solodream was changing people, all this time spent alone in lonesome dreamboxes.

  The lonely solodreamers began to dream robot companions for themselves in there, people who look like you and me but aren’t, are nothing but dreamfluff.

  I peeked into the boxes of the richest solodreamers, saw them surrounded by robot weirdos, fake parents, fake kids, fake friends acting super nice and dumb. Constantly complimenting the solodreamers, laughing way too hard at their jokes and nodding way too intrested in their stories, allofasudden can’t take it anymore and rip off their sexy clothes and give the solodreamers a bangdream with porny robot bodies.

  The solodreamers were already forgetting what real dreamers are like, ignoring that stuff they can’t control is happening in other people’s heads.

  It gave me new ways of making hellscapes, just fill Dreamworld with robots, everyone begins to forget that everyone else is real, everyone begins acting like a selfish lunatic.

  And a second year spooled of my sololife, mostly too exhausted to feel alone, it got hard to remember what it’s like to have friends to talk to, obviously the business grads of Dream Division were not my friends, infact I refused to pretend they even exist.

  My body got taller, harder, meaner, guess I have a man’s body now, a man’s scarredup face too, no friend to see it though.

  Markfive died onenight, carcrash, drugs.

  Markfive you genius dummy, this wasn’t how it was supposed to go for you.

  I couldn’t go to the funeral because I couldn’t leave my room, maybe nothing outside the room was real.

  Prayer was heartbroken and then quickly plunged into a bitter corporate feud, Mark attempted a hostiletakeover to get his company back from the girl who his son made halfowner, maybe that wasn’t legal or something, pirate lawyers fired cannons at my sister’s ship.

  Lily tried to help fend him off, Mark you dumb jerk how can you perform a hostiletakeover of a private corpo, also can we just grieve for like two seconds you freaking monster. But Mark pretended grieving is exactly what this is about, grief made him need Markfive’s company. Maybe he wasn’t even pretending, maybe a business is a replacement son to him.

  Prayer triumphed, Usher tried to tell me all about it in Dreamworld, Warner you should be super proud of your fivestar general sis. Here’s what she did, went on offense and threatened twenty countersuits with the Solodream warchest, got into patentfarming and took aim at Mark’s corebusiness, et set set setera.

  Prettyquick I had to tell Usher to stop, Usher I know you love my sis but please chill, nothing is more boring than a story about business.

  In Dreamworld I kept eyes out for an operahouse.

  Found it nowandthen and let it live, didn’t turn it to smoke or mud.

  Never stepped inside though, never took a moment to hear the music, see the face.

  Stayed faraway and disguised, best if Kitty thinks I’m dead, moveon sweet Kitty, forget I lived, just build your happy islands in these hells.

  Usher approached me in Dreamworld onenight, I took a break from trampling an endless rotting maze with tusky peenpigs and spoke to him inside the moon.

  “Happy birthday,” said my gray friend.

  “Hey, thanks for remembering,” I told him. “I had no idea.”

  “I like to keep track,” he said.

  “How’s the Sitadell,” I asked.

  “It’s fine,” he said. “I’m ready to leave though.”

  He said it pretty calm and flat, it was kind of hilarious, you had to be there I guess, anyway I laughed for a while.

  Then he told me he has a birthday present for me.

  Oh yeah Usher, what’s that.

  It’s a secret little company actually, snuck it into the paperwork of the Faceboys And Solodream Corporate Partnership, a little shellcorpo called Consolidated Warning.

  Shellcorpo huh, what does that even mean.

  It’s supposed to be a way to dodge tax, the details aren’t super important. What you need to know is, twentyeight percent of all solodream revanew lands in Consolidated Warning, been collecting there for a while now.

  Usher never showed huge emotions, always pretty chill, but a beamy grin was twisting over that calm face.

  “That’s a birthday present though, I mean how,” I asked him, feeling stupid.

  “I found a way of incorporating you,” he said.

  “What does that mean,” I said.

  “You’re Consolidated Warning,” he beamed.

  “Yeah but what does that mean though,” I said.

  “The Consolidat
ed Warning account is your munflow account,” Usher told me. “Legally you can only incorporate at eighteen, but the muns have been collecting there since this whole thing started, so now that it’s your birthday, that account has merged with your munflow, you have some munmuns in there allofasudden.”

  I did some breathing in the moon, let myself relax, probably outside the hellscapes were lightening up.

  “How did the faceboys allow this insane thing to happen,” I asked.

  “Only their lawyer knows about it,” he explained, eyes really sparking now with happy revenge.

  “Does Solodream know,” I asked.

  “Just your sis,” he said.

  “So, how many munmuns do I have,” I asked him.

  “About ninetymillion,” he said.

  My mind got very calm, very clear, a glass of perfect water.

  “We win,” he told me, “finally, we win.”

  Usher you sweet goofball, that’s not possible, no one ever wins.

  But he described the win lovingly, indetail, told me what can happen, how I can escape. Warner I ofcourse have power of attorney over Consolidated Warning, so now when the faceboys bring me on a routine trip to the bank to update Faceboy Industries agreements, I can secretly give the bank the order to move muns from your munflow to your scale, let’s say tenmillion, doublescale.

  You don’t need to visit the bank for this either, the bank can scale you up remotely, remote scaling happens if you’re too big to fit in the bank, they do it in extraordinary circumstances. I will give them an exact time for them to just shift the muns and blow you up like a balloon wherever you are, scaling up awake without scalemeds is supposed to be pretty safe, kind of painfull and weird but no risk.

  I’m sure we can trick someone in Dream Division to let you out into the yard, we don’t even have to tell them what it’s for. Make up a story, Warner needs outdoor access for dreampurposes or something, start letting him out for an hour everyday.

  And then one day while you’re out, the scaleup happens, someone will meet you in a bulletproof doublecar, give you your doublerobe, whisk you away to your doublelife.

  He told me all this and I knew what we were going to do.

  “Okay,” I told him. “Here’s what happens next. You take half, and you escape.”

  He shook his gray head.

  “Nope, you don’t have a choice,” I told him. “I’m ordering you, go to the bank, use power of attorney to give yourself half, take fourtyfivemillion and get doublescale yourself, get your own doublecar, drive off to your own doublelife.”

  “Okay and then what about you,” he said.

  “I stay here for now,” I told him.

  He was quiet.

  “Look, if you can control my muns, how about you just invest them, buy some stocks, maybe take over some corpos even,” I said. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready to scale up.”

  He didn’t understand but nodded anyway, my best and only friend, loyal brilliant Usher.

  I left the moon and made more hells.

  LIFEANDDEATHWORLD

  So on his next routine trip to the bank, guarded by hulking Shoulderheads and two other faceboys carefully watching for funnystuff, Usher took a deep breath, wrote a note to the bankers in Latinn.

  “What’s that say,” demanded Shoulderheads.

  “Just some t technic cal lan nguage,” explained Usher.

  But what the note said was, “Dear Banker, Please take me to the underbank for a tenmillion munmun Scale Up, plus move thirtyfivemillion to my munflow, Consolidated Warning is the account that’s paying into mine, note that I have power of attorney over Consolidated Warning, okaygreat.”

  Banker read it, gazed at Usher, gazed at the goons.

  Then nodded and smiled brightly.

  “Perfect, sir, the littlevator is right this way, and congratulations on your dramatic Scale Up,” chirped the banker, lifting Usher by the underarms.

  “Hey hey hey, we go with him everywhere,” yelled Shoulderheads, grabbing the banker.

  “Not for Scale Up, I’m afraid,” apologized the banker as Bank Security rushed in and tased Shoulderheads and his screaming faceboy goons, what are you idiots thinking, you don’t get to manhandle bankers in the bank.

  After Scale Up, doublescale elevenfoot Usher lingered alone in the waitingroom, called a service called Ruthless Mercenary Transport, paid twenthousand for a ride. Pick me up at the middlerich loadingdock please, maybe be prepared for assault as we pull out.

  But it wasn’t much of an assault, Shoulderheads only bounced a few bullets off the tank before Ruthless drones sniped him, what a dumb end of the story for Shoulderheads, slumped bloody in the middlestreet.

  Usher rolled into Sentrow like a warhero, climbed out of the tank in a classic creamy mobster suit and a sweet strawhat to cover his tatty head, Usher you stylish grayfish, do you know how to make an entrance or what.

  He squeezed into a middlevator, took it to the tenthfloor, came hulking a little stumbly down the hall, knocked on the door of the President and See Ee Oh of Solodream.

  “Hi Prayer,” he grinned, managed to say her name perfectly before she wrapped her arms around his ribs, sobbing.

  DREAMWORLD

  Rage and chaos splintered Faceboy Industries, they relied too heavily on one captive brain and now he’s gone, on the way out sabotaged all their contracts also, basically their one remaining asset was prisoned me.

  Oneandahalfscale Puppyneck threatened to stomp me a couple times so I reminded him, dave, what sense does that even make, I’m the reason you’re eightfeet and stylish, you like your life too much of being the tracksuit king of partyclubs, how about you stop making idiot threats and just let me earn you munmuns.

  He must have agreed, instead of killing me he pulled an Usher move. Caged and blanketed me one morning just after sunrise, packed me into his car, took me to a separate house acrosstown, Puppyneck has fled the faceboys too.

  He wrote a newdeal with Solodream, basically just a ransomletter, Solodream how about you and Prayer give the new business of Puppyneck Dream Security Limited fivemillion muns a year to protect Warner and not accidentally sit on him, would hate for anything to happen to this guy.

  My new lifty room was similar to the old, same gyms, more carpet.

  Air was nicer though, seabreeze, must be near the ocean.

  My munmuns became fruitfull, had munkids. In the outsideworld loyal Usher bought some stocks for me, chunks of some companies.

  Obviously it’s an advantage if you’re crowbarring into the solodreams of corpo owners everynight, listening to them babble lazy dreambabble to their robots, hey what’s that, didyousay Zippy Energetics is discovering a cheap fresh new way to make oilrocks burn even hotter and smokier, Usher I have a hottip for us.

  “Time to figure out how you’re going to escape, right, I can put a privateeye on the case, figure out where you’re living,” Usher asked me every week or two.

  My answer was no, week after week.

  “What’s the number you’re waiting for,” he wanted to know.

  I shrugged, kept making hells and shitscapes.

  For a third year I crafted nightmares and pummeled solodreamers, Puppyneck and I grew a strange friendship, he was the only human I knew forsure existed.

  Everymorning he sat with me, smoked with me, gave me random news.

  Fires got worse, the ocean ate more towns. Beans stopped growing for a while, guess everyone’s got to eat more meat.

  Rockets took some farmy teams to mars, everyone got a disgusting spacedisease. One guy on mars became so annoying that they had to decide, do we kill this guy or pay tenbillion munmuns to send him back to earth, seriously it’s that bad, we can’t deal with this guy anymore. The Yewess put it to a vote, voted to kill, wasn’t even close, what, you think we’re going to spend tenbillion muns to bring a super annoying guy back to our planet. The marshans didn’t kill him though, he promised to try to be more chill, guy was skitso or borderline or something.
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  And somewhere in the city outside my room, I knew Grant was still riding Metros and trapping other littlepoors and putting them in his trainvids, somewhere his psycho daughter Willow was growing up and maybe her angry heart was softening, maybe it was hardening, maybe Bixquick has ripped some poor little to shreds.

  I told Usher finally what I wanted to do.

  “Holycrap,” was all he said.

  In the world outside a fourth year happened.

  Some of Iceland melted, some of Ejipped burned, all of Rushia messed with someone else, all Coreans are freaking out. Famous Randy fell in love but just with a butt.

  The Yewess got a new President, littlest in twenty years, barely even doublescale, they’re thinking about making a second littler Whitehouse for this scrappy Yellow reformer.

  Usher and Prayer got a quiet secret marriage, joined munmuns with my mom, Mom got some surgery and now has zippy bendylegs, she is starting some kind of superchurch and it’s pretty annoying, she’s very happy though and excited to scold you about pretending to be the Lord King God, anyway Warner we promise we’ll have the real wedding as soon as you get out, when do you think that is though, soon, right.

  I don’t know, sis though, notyet.

  Somewhere out in Lossy Indica, Grace lived another year of her life, I thought about her sometimes, sure, probably she’s in law school bynow. Maybe she’s still with Frank, maybe he’s still making her read his endless tolstoys. Somewhere they’re talking, kissing, banging, fighting, or maybe they haven’t seen each other in months. Maybe she’s done with the fakegreen eyes, showing those pretty eyeblacks now, maybe she lost her love for bloodthirsty comics, whoknows, notme.

  In Dreamworld I stayed away from anyone I knew, I wasn’t Warner anymore, just a bloodthirsty angel.

  For a fifth year I lived little and alone in the carpety middleroom, but now there was no need anymore to dream hells.

  The solodreamers were taking solodream every night no matterwhat, completely addicted to loneliness.