"You have upheld the honor of the tribe, lad. You may call yourself one of us now."

Sweaty and with shaky muscles, but very proud, Sweepea raced back to the wickiup he shared with his uncle, intent on telling him about the hunt and his role in it.

He found Uncle Thomas sleeping, even though it was only mid-day. More and more the old philosopher retreated into dreams. Sweepea did not wake him.

That evening the nightly meal was followed by fevered dancing and singing. Uncle Thomas awoke to participate as watcher. Something about the bonfire and revelry under a starry sky out on a grassy plain seemed to stir a deep nostalgia in him.

"Sweepea, my boy, Ive seen and done much in my life. More than I ever thought to experience when I was young and unknowing. But sometimes now I wonder if I wasnt happiest when most ignorant."

"But Uncle, you cant believe that, can you? All your life youve sought for knowledge and answers to big questions. And youve taught me to do the same."

Thomas sighed deeply. "True. But what I was compelled to do-by my own nature and by circumstances-did not necessarily lead me to happiness. I pray that you do not experience the same disappointments I did."

"Ive let you down then, Uncle?"

Thomas sat upright from where he lay against a saddle, the blankets that covered him against the chill dropping down to pool in his lap.

"Never! You have been exemplary, all that I could have hoped. I just want you to fulfill your destiny without someday wondering if you should have chosen a different course, and becoming full of regrets."

Sweepea patted his uncles shoulder gently, with great affection. "No fear of that, Uncle. Wont the Categorical Imperative guard me against such a fate?"

Thomas subsided, murmuring, "I hope so, I only hope so ..."

His uncle fell asleep then, and Sweepea snugged the blankets more tightly around him, before setting off to look for sex.

That nights partner proved to be an unexpected individual: Creekborns own daughter, Ahleucha, with whom he had never yet mated. She approached Sweepea with seduction plain in her every move, her tongue stropping her attractive brindled muzzle. They took a blanket and moved away from the crowd. She kneeled before him, and Sweepea took her wildly from behind. Their quick orgasms elicited involuntary howls from them that segued into paeans to the rising moon. Later, Sweepea would wonder if this mating had been dictated by the chief, as a kind of tribute to the new braves initiation by slaughter.

A week passed, and the anniversary of Sweepeas decanting arrived. His youth in Scyphozoa City seemed an eternity ago. Even the anguish of Saffrons sacrifice in the caldera had begun to fade. Sweepea wondered if the rest of his life, however long, would continue to be such a series of disjunct climacterics.

In their wickiup, Sweepea and Thomas shared a ceremonial cake made of omnigrain, and a drink of water. Then his uncle spoke.

"You have attained your majority, my son. And with this should come a further extension of your talents. You should be able to assume any form you want now voluntarily, without the trigger of copulation, utilizing the library of somatypes included within you. Your identity is completely variable now, at will."

"Thats wonderful, uncle. But is it really so much different than what Ive been doing?"

"No. And that leads me to another aspect of your skills. Any intercourse you partake of in the future will result in the acquisition of your partners memories."

Sweepea sat stunned for a moment before replying. "But-but how? That seems impossible."

"Its not. An organ within you has now come online for the first time. It generates cerebrotropic silicrobes that can map neural templates. These nanites travel with your exudations into your partner, map the others connections, then return to you epidermally in the course of an average bout of sex. Once returned, they overlay blank areas of your own neural pathways with the stolen memories. Your brain is very plastic, and much larger than average, with plenty of extra storage space. Now, not only can you masquerade superficially as another, but also mentally as well. Your survival to carry forward the splice legacy is thereby enhanced immensely."

"I dont know what to say. It seems like too great a prowess to manage-"

"No, no, you will do fine. But Sweepea, you have to test this skill. And Id like you to have me as your first mind partner. Im close to death, I know, and it may be selfish, but Id like to live on in some form. Philosophy, Ive come to realize, is only a cold bulwark against extinction."

"Uncle, youll always live in my heart! But if you want this, then Ill do it as well."

Sweepea leaned over to kiss his uncle. He could feel the familiar metamorphic tide began to sweep over him, primed to render him a female clone of his uncle. But before the change could truly begin, his uncles words halted him.

"Not the same. Do not become the same as me. Become something different. Would you become-a human female?"

"Let me try ...."

Sweepea concentrated, and the transition came with surprising ease. She regarded her baseline human form with awe, running her hands over her breasts and hips.

After undressing herself and her uncle, Sweepea moved gently to rouse Thomas, producing a mild erection. Swinging herself atop him, she began to rock both of them to a climax.

"Petrina," whispered Thomas. "Sweet Petrina, youve returned-"

Sweepeas orgasm was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Not only did her body explode with delight, but her mind novad into a second sun. She collapsed onto Thomass broad grizzled chest.

When she recovered, Thomas Equinas was dead, his strong old heart at last gone to ghost But alive inside her. Not as an active realtime consciousness, but as everything he had done till moments before his death.

Sweepea resumed his male Cynocephalic shape. He dressed and stepped outside the wickiup.

Claws instantly raked across his back as a hurtling figure leaped at him, and he slammed to the ground. Scrabbling away, blood pouring down to soak his loincloth, Sweepea regained his feet and turned to face the Manticore. A ring of Cynocephali warriors, alerted by the noise and armed with spears, was assembling around the two combatants. Sweepea motioned for them to hold off any charge. He did not want any more friends dying on his behalf.

The creatures human face snarled. "Two times you have evaded your death. But not this time. Even if your companions strike, they will not stop me before I kill you."

"Just tell me why," asked Sweepea. "Youre a splice yourself. Dont you know my mission? To preserve our legacy?"

"Fool! Why would I want to preserve anything about myself. I hate every fiber of my own monstrous being!"

With that, the Manticore launched himself at Sweepea.

But the killer quickly found himself tussling with his exact doppelganger.

Somewhat evenly matched at first, the two chimerae wrestled across the encampment, smashing tents, rolling into and out of cookfires, spooking Centaurs. Through Sweepeas turbulent mind resonated two maxims, now at odds: "My life must be a model."

"Honor all life."

How could he now kill one of those he was meant to protect? But how could he let the assailant of all he held dear win?

The original Manticore was bigger than Sweepea. Eventually this superiority swayed the balance of the battle. Sweepea lay pinned beneath the four paws of the Manticore. The killer arched his scorpion tail and prepared to drive it into his victim.

As the venomous barb descended, Sweepea changed shape, reverting to his Anubis form.

The tip of the Manticores deadly tail passed through the space where Sweepeas flank had been and continued on into the monsters own gut.

Loosing a guttural shriek, the Manticore somersaulted in pain, landing on his back to kick and expire in anguish, his human face purpling.

Sweepea got wearily to his feet. Ahleucha and others rushed to comfort him. Sweepea accepted their aid gratefully, although he already knew hed be leaving them soon.

How Thomas Equinas had hated to run. Sweepea remembered every nuance of his uncles distaste.

But although he would go far, Sweepea would never run again.

Although this small postmodern fairytale derives its title from a Sonic Youth album, its ambiance has little to do with that groups wild-eyed experimental music. Instead, I tried to achieve a kind of Tom-Dischian sardonic romanticism, and think I succeeded pretty nicely.

Damien Broderick was kind enough to purchase the story for the newish Aussie zine Cosmos, where he serves as fiction editor. I liked the fact that it was the sole piece of fiction in that issue, amidst a host of well-done pop-science articles. I never got to appear in Omni, in a similar setting, so this felt like a second chance to reach an audience attracted more by technology than dreams.

DAYDREAM NATION.

Alone again, damn it.

Cirri Beausoleil carried a twist-tied plastic bag filled with random, trivial possessions Ken had left behind down the corridor to the fifth-floor garbage chute. A pair of smelly gym socks; several Chinese take-out cartons filled with remnants of that noxious sweet-and-sour chicken he adored; a key-fob USB device big as a dime containing terabytes of possibly-important-but-screw-him files. And assorted other grimly quotidian reminders of another affair that had ended before it had really even begun.

Unlatching the stained, scratched metal door, Cirri launched the emotional ballast downward into dark basement oblivion, and instantly felt a little better.

She and Ken had been basically incompatible. Matters were as simple as that. She wasnt a bad person, and neither was Ken. (It cost Cirri a twinge to affirm this latter statement, but she immediately felt big-hearted for doing so.) They were just two different types who had grown to grate on each others nerves in daily proximity.

Of course, she had been blinded to Kens annoying features and habits for the longest time by his original seductive iDreams presentation. God, how strongly that parasensorial burst had hit her, some six months ago! She recalled those moments as if she were undergoing them again right now.

She had been sitting at an outdoor cafe in Union Square at lunchtime, not far from where she worked. (Cirri was employed in New Yorks Toy District as a sales-rep for a line of kawai Japanese designer vinyl toys. Her best-seller was a hedgehog named Hinoro who resembled a fat jagged pin-cushion with adorable neotenic facial features.) She had just come off her year-long, live-in affair with Mark, and was still emotionally vulnerable, she realized now. Perhaps she had donned the bindi that signified her receptivity to iDreams before her heart had fully healed. But she was so lonely after Mark left, and wanted to feel that she was back in the game right away. Her various girlfriends had counseled her to go slow, but she hadnt listened.

But all her doubts about playing the dating game, 2015-style, so soon after her latest breakup had vanished in the hot milliseconds after the tightly collimated and intricately modulated pulse of ultrasound from Kens iDreamsCaster hit her skull.

A wave of thrilling emotions accompanied by a vivid slide-show of imagery caused the environs of Union Square to vanish instantly from Cirris sensorium. Instead, flitting glimpses of a lush tropical beach and a handsome male companion flashed before her, accompanied by impressions of comfort, satiation, adventure, security, love, and erotic beguilement.

Cirri had been in the process of lifting her cup of espresso for a sip. The cup was only inches away from her lips when the iDream hit. But the whole dreamburst came and went in the tiny interval needed by her hand to close the gap between cup and lips.

Although she had been stunned by the artful, alluring tenor of the dreamburst, Cirri was too experienced a player to naively and quickly acknowledge her honest reaction. She imperturbably finished her sip of espresso (although, truthfully, her hand was shaking a bit), set her cup down calmly and slowly, and then, as if manifesting an idle impulse, took out her own iDreamsCaster, a recent Daewoo model with the programmable cosmetic skin.

Was this particular iDream simply a random, typically urban intrusion on her voluntarily permeable privacy sphere, cast by some crude lout looking to impress his buddies? A kind of small mental frottage? Or was it a sincere attempt to win her attention and speak to her soul, as a prelude to a face-to-face encounter?

If she was just being cruelly gamed, then whoever had sent the iDream would not respond to Cirris bluetoothed query. But if the sender was genuinely interested in her- Before Cirri sent her query, however, she looked around her in an inconspicuous fashion.

An iDream had an effective casting range of only ten feet or so. In that space, there were at least half-a-dozen attractive men of roughly Cirris age, and not a single troll. (And oh, yes, at least that many good-looking women. But Cirri didnt think she gave off the L-word vibe, and in fact had never been on the receiving end of an iDream from someone of her own gender in the two years she had been wearing the bindi.) So far so good. Crossing her fingers in her mind, Cirri sent out her omnidirectional bluetooth ID signal, itself limited to the same range as the iDream. Instantly, her National ID signifier would be downloaded into all the iDreamsCasters in the immediate vicinity. Whoever had sent the iDream her way could now access certain basic public facts about her, as well as her photo. The sender would know that the chosen recipient of his dream was willing to meet.

Cirri could have responded by casting her own iDream, of course. But to whom? In a one-on-one situation, where the senders identity was obvious, Cirri preferred to respond this way, in fact. A two-way satisfactory swap of iDreams was the surest confirmation of mutual attraction. But in a situation like this one, Cirri could only hope that the man who had sent her such an appealing iDream would be as receptive to her fantasies as she was to his.

A man was approaching her table now, smiling. Light brown hair, trim build, dressed sportily, dimpled chin-what wasnt to like?

Cirri stood up and extended a hand. They shook.

"Ken Clement," said the man. "I hope you enjoyed that little interlude, Cirri. I had a feeling youd appreciate a few moments away from the city, your job and all."

"I did, Ken. That was just-just perfect. Did you write that dream yourself?"

"Why-yes, I did."

"Maybe youd like to discuss your scripting techniques over dinner tonight"

"Of course."

And so her latest romance had begun.

She should have realized it would end badly at the three-month mark, however, when she discovered that the iDream with which Ken had seduced her had been a cyrano.

Scrolling through the iDreams download website, Cirri had encountered the very same dream, offered as a $29.99 download by a professional oneiric designer named GaimanStud.

Cirris face went hot. She felt cheap and easy. Her heart captured by off-the-shelf dreamware! She debated confronting Ken instantly with her discovery. But in the end, she had kept silent. Surely the reciprocal attraction she and Ken felt for each other was unchanged, even if he hadnt compiled the winning iDream personally. Theirs was hardly the first romance that had begun with a little fib, yet gone on to happy longevity.

The trash-chute door slammed shut, ending Cirris reverie. She turned back down the corridor to her apartment.

Once inside, she went directly to her nightstand. From a small, dusty box similar to a contact-lens case, she took a fresh iDreams bindi, a self-adhesive circlet displaying the iDreams logo: a stylized human head wreathed in fluffy clouds and displaying a Third Eye. This she applied to her forehead an inch or two above the bridge of her nose. Then Cirri docked her long-unused iDreamsCaster for charging, and cabled it to her computer. She uploaded several of her favorite iDreams into the machine while its batteries were being replenished. Only then did she turn her attention to her closet, in search of the perfect outfit.

It was still a Saturday, after all, and shed be damned if shed stay home all weepy and self-pitying, when there was a citys worth of dreams to be shared.

The clubs lighting was so dim that Cirri could hardly distinguish anyones iDreams bindi unless she was practically on top of the person. You couldnt just assume that anyone wearing a paste-on circle on their brow was open to your dreamcast. With the popularity of iDreams, various reactionary bindis had become fashionable. One of the most common showed a head wrapped in chains, while another displayed a head protected by a halo. Zap one of these folks, who almost seemed to court such mistaken encounters as excuses to vent their bile regarding iDreams, and you could find yourself on the wrong end of a civil lawsuit.

So Cirri had almost to climb into the lap of the brawny red-haired guy on the stool next to hers before she could be sure he was a dreamer too. When they had mutely acknowledged their kinship with a smile-the Chechen country-crunk music filling the club was amped up to eleven, and made talking impossible-the guy nodded to Cirri that she should go first. A good sign.

Cirri sent him the most recent iDream she had assembled in DreamShop. Many of its components derived from the standard toolkit, but she had incorporated an emotional track that she had reverse-engineered from her own brain. The sequence revolved around a dance contest which she and her partner won with a flurry of outrageous moves, earning massive audience acclaim.

The guy reacted positively enough, although without any signs of extreme enthusiasm. Then he sent Cirri his iDream.

Cirri had a typically liberal attitude toward sex. She subscribed to Nerve and Fleshbot. She was open to kinky suggestions from her lovers. She never missed an episode of Desperate Soprano Wives.

But the raw libidinous crudeness of the iDream that Big Red sent her shocked her like grabbing a live wire. That part involving the donkey-derived chimera- Cirri had hopped off her barstool before she even realized she had commanded her body to move. She hastened to the opposite end of the club, her face burning.

It took Cirri several hours and a few drinks before she tried exchanging any more dreams.

What she got back for her earnest efforts were dreams that ranged the spectrum from passive and wimpy to macho and domineering, all unimaginative and cliched. Happily, none of them were as loathsome as Big Reds. But that was the best that could be said for the offerings of the various males who cast their dreams Cirris way. Not one of them featured an ounce of real romance.

At least Kens cyrano had been a quality product. Maybe she had been a little too hasty in ending their affair? No, there was no utility in trying to revise the past ...

Dispirited and despairing, Cirri left the club around 1:30 AM.

Trudging through the cobbled streets of the Meat-packing District, heading toward the nearest subway stop, Cirri wondered if courtship by iDreams was much of an improvement on the ancient methods. This supposedly deeper and more telling glimpse into the soul of a potential partner, designed to circumvent glibness and facile flattery, boasted unique new pitfalls.

Cirris train arrived before too long, and she got on the closest car.

About ten people occupied the many available seats, scattered here and there. Cirri dropped wearily into a random one, taking little notice of her fellow riders.

When she finally glanced up from her self-absorption, she encountered the expectant gaze of a fellow dreamer seated just across the aisle.

The guy was a little older than Cirri. Wearing a leather jacket over a ripped tee-shirt, and paint-stained pants, he was a pudgy, unshaven bohemian of some sort, his face more homely than handsome. Hardly Cirris type.

And of course, he just had to be sporting an iDreams bindi. God, she could only imagine what kind of puerile fantasy hed send her way. Probably something involving hobbits ....

Having gotten Cirris attention, the guy waited patiently for her to offer him an iDream. But she looked deliberately away instead. She even considered peeling her bindi off, to legally block any contact. But some last shred of hope forestalled that gesture.

Out of the corner of one eye, Cirri could see that the fellow was not dissuaded. In fact, he took out his phone and snapped her picture! Then he caused his phone to project a glowing hologram display in the air. Cirri recognized the icons of DreamShop. Was the guy going to compose a spontaneous iDream right here?

His flickering fingers signaled that he was.

In short time, the dream was fully compiled. Cirri had never seen anyone craft a dream so fast.