Free Jim and the Flims by Rudy Rucker

running down the block. Glancing back, I saw a cop car and an animal rescue van pulling up at my house. The yuel followed us, easily loping along.
    â€œThe baboon shape is the one preferred by the yuels,” said Weena. “Although sometimes a number of them fuse together to make a shape like an elephant. I don’t fully understand yuels.”
    â€œThat baboon has sharp teeth.”
    â€œRemember that I have my jiva. I will assuredly inflict damage if the yuel engages us.”
    We cut down a side street, turned left, turned right, doubled back, and raced down an alley, Droog at our side. But now, just like on the other days when I’d tried to find the green Vic, I didn’t know what came next. I leaned against the trunk of a palm tree, catching my breath. Tenuous strands of fog drifted past.
    â€œI wasn’t really paying attention when I found the way to the green Vic that day,” I confessed.“I was just playing around. The path kind of popped into my head. And now it’s hard to concentrate with that thing—”I craned to see down the street to see if the yuel was still following.
    â€œNever fear,” said Weena. She was bulky from all the clothes she’d pulled on—a pair of orange pencil-leg jeans protruded from beneath a pair of skirts. “I well know that the path struck you as a sudden inspiration. That’s because I put it into your head. I reached out to you from the other side.” She pulled a glassine envelope of sparkling powder from the pocket of a little red jeans jacket she was wearing, and dipped into it with the moistened tip of her finger. “Allow me to inspire you again.”
    â€œAre those things moving?” I asked, peering closer. “The sprinkles are alive?”
    â€œOh yes,” said Weena.“Life is the essence of their virtue. I’m eating some to engage my higher powers. I have a robust supply. Ordinarily, a sprinkle hops straight over to Flimsy. But these sprinkles are well-fattened. They have enough psychic inertia to linger here on Earth for a time. Prime yourself with some of them, Jim.”
    â€œNo way. You nearly killed me with sprinkles last week.”
    â€œI still maintain that they saved your life,” said Weena. She licked the twitching little gems off her finger and let out a sigh of pleasure. “I enjoy how the sprinkles talk in my head. Do try some! We’ll wander the streets, babbling at random. It’s no longer possible for me to see the clear path, now that I’m reincarnated in your mundane world. I’ve lost my teep contact with the border snail—the creature in the basement of what those punks call the Whipped Vic. She’s the one who generates the spacewarp camouflage, you know. They like to hide, the border snails, so that the flims and the living humans don’t take advantage, using the snails as tunnels between the worlds.”
    I had trouble making sense of this. “The Whipped Vic is hiding from us?”
    â€œYou could say that. But I’ll surely notice if we’re getting near. Perhaps the route still lurks in your deeper mind. Perhaps Snaily hasn’t changed it all that much.”
    â€œThere’s millions of routes through these blocks,” I complained. “More. Do the math.”
    â€œAh yes, he fancies himself a scientist, too.” Weena let out a peal of mocking laughter. “Small man, big dreams, tiny job.”
    The glowing baboon appeared at the end of the block, trotting towards us on all fours, his bulb-tipped tail waving high in the air. I started running again, leading Weena in intricate loops, and eventually we arrived at Yucca Street.
    But, shit, it wasn’t the special Yucca Street. That stupid old vacant lot gaped where the green Vic should have been. Just an empty lot with ratty eucalyptus trees. I stood there, stymied. Droog sat by our feet, waiting to see what came next. The yuel kept his distance,