Dr. Identity Read Free

decipher it. He burbled again. I still didn’t understand. He swallowed half of his oversized mouthful and explained, “I said—bananas are my favorite fruit. Because of the potassium.”
    I nodded and smiled politely. “Potassium,” I echoed. I didn’t like my officemate. Then again, I didn’t hate him. That’s more or less how I felt about all human beings. “Are you teaching this afternoon?”
    He swallowed more of the banana. “I’m supposed to be. I’m holding office hours instead. Nobody’ll bug me that way. I haven’t had a student-thing visit me on its own time in years. What about you?”
    “Yeah. Advanced Neuromanticism. But I really don’t feel like teaching. I’ll probably send my ’gänger instead.”
    “Haven’t you already used it once this week?”
    “Yeah. But I’m just not fit to deal with my student-things’ hoo-hah today. I’m hung over or something. Screw it. I’m sending my ’gänger.”
    Dostoevsky shrugged. He swallowed the remainder of his banana and belched.
    I got out of my chair and opened the closet standing next to my desk. Inside were two androids hanging there like window-store dummies. One was a replica of Dostoevsky, the other of me. Dostoevsky enjoyed taking his android home, dressing it up like a go-go boy and sodomizing it; consequently he named it after his boyhood lover, Petunia Littlespank. I lacked the penchant for that kind of activity and named mine after the thing that plaquedemia had stolen from me: Dr. Identity. Tall and broad-shouldered with sharp, birdlike features, the android wore a Saussurian suit that changed shape, color and texture depending upon its proximity to other en masse fashion statements. Right now it was a neon green zoot suit like mine. Dr. Identity’s eyes were florescent white and it had a scar on its forehead, the aftermath of having a wen removed by a discount street surgeon. Except for these latter two abnormalities, I was the spitting image of my ’gänger.
    According to the department’s faculty and student-thing handbook, assistant professors like me were allowed to use their ’gängers for only one class session per week, unlike full professors, who could use them for up to seventy-five percent of their classes. Today was the first time I would violate that stipulation. Most likely nobody would suspect the offense, and if they did, it wouldn’t merit more than an invective. And I was no stranger to invectives.
    I reached around Dr. Identity’s head and switched it on. Sound of a fuse shorting out…Then its incandescent eyes opened, and its stiff limbs came to life.
    “Hello,” it said.
    “Whatever,” I said.
    “Say hi to Petunia for me!” Dostoevsky chirped.
    Dr. Identity stepped out of the closet and dusted itself off. “What day is it?”
    “Thursday.”
    “Jesus Christ.”
    “Save it. Here.” I handed it the half-finished lesson plan I had drawn up. “Start out with a short lecture on literary representations of contemporary cyborg bodies, using Dick and Gibson as historical reference points. Then discuss the science fiction genre’s employment of Keatsian tropes and what they connote in terms of postcapitalist reality. Make sure to mention texts in which Keats appears as a cybernetic organism. After that you can do what you want. Tell jokes. Pick your ass. Just don’t let anybody leave.”
    Dr. Identity sighed. “Okay. But for the record, I disapprove.”
    “Duly noted.”
    “People don’t like you around here as it is. Especially Hemingway.”
    “People don’t like anybody around here. And Hemingway’s a jackass.”
    Dostoevsky removed an orange from his drawer. As he had told me many times before, it was his second favorite fruit—because of the vitamin C. He peeled the orange with the same calculated fastidiousness as the banana.
    It was at this point that our resident lobster decided to make an appearance. A few days had passed since we last saw her, although we frequently heard her squeaking