Postsingular (21 page)

“What if I hop back through your punk-ass grill?” says Sonic. “And get myself the fuck outta here?”

“Calm down,” says Luty, applying lip balm. “Don't use language. That's a great expression, isn't it? You remind me of my high-school friend Carlos Tucay. We were gonna make a company called Lu-Tuc Space Tech. But Carlos died. I've made a wonderful virtual model of him for Virtual Earth. Stay with me, Sonic. I'll pay you well.”

“But I don't want nants to eat Earth,” says Sonic.

“Oh, why do people always say that,” says Luty. “Reality is software. What does it matter what system it's running on? The big win if we do the port is that we get to clean things up. Dogs out, Carlos in.”

“No,” says Sonic.

“Look, I don't want to come on like an insane villain,” says Luty. “But I do know about your family. It's abstractly possible that, in my desperation, I might do something to them. I'm getting a little weird here, cooped up in this lab waiting for Vearth 2.0 and the resurrected Carlos.” Luty pops up a display of Sonic's fieldworker parents and his eleven brothers and sisters, innocent and humble as laborers in a Diego Rivera mural. There's a grinning Death icon hovering over their heads, snickering and waggling his scythe. The effect is far from comical.

“Oh
man
…” says Sonic. “Get me more coffee.”

The second scene shows Dick Too Dibbs touring the lab on November 6, two days after the election. Seen informally, Too Dibbs comes across as even brighter and more strong willed than in his jokey ads. His narrow eyes are clear and observant. His gaze darts methodically around the equipment-filled room, taking an inventory: the teleport grill, the simulation screens, the cabinets and fixtures, the Ark of the Nants, and Sonic busy programming a golem-shaped shoon.

“I'm planning to assist you in completing the project your cousin began,” Luty tells Too Dibbs. “He saw the nants as bringing about—perhaps an odd way to put it—the New Jerusalem of a fully American Virtual Earth. Your cousin felt that Vearth was a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.”

“I don't hold with that particular line of religiosity,” says Too Dibbs. “And you've heard me say I don't aim to end up in the death chamber like my cousin Dick.”

“Oh, that was a glitch,” says Luty. “My old nants were hacked by a rogue employee. Ond Lutter. I respect Ond, but we don't see eye to eye. We're in a bit of an arms race with each other.” Luty tugs nervously at his limp ponytail. “Ond's orphids are an interesting challenge. Just recently I've developed some irreversible nants that look pretty tough. But I want to be sure they're truly orphid-proof before I release them. And this is where you come in.” Luty mimes a salute. “It must be done, Mr. President. Battle stations!”

“I'm not president yet.”

“It's thanks to me that you're gonna get there,” says Luty. “I saturated the orphidnet with ads, and when that wasn't enough, I corrupted the vote-tally programs.”

Dick Too Dibbs stares coldly at Luty, who's wearing a light goatee of plastic ants, even for this meeting with the president-elect. “Those ants must be eating your brain, Jeff. I won my election fair and square. It wasn't even close. People like the cut of my jib.”

Luty peers at Dick Too Dibbs as if he's never really seen him before. “Why a jib? What does that even mean? Listen to me. I can make the media remember whatever I want them to remember. Facts are revisable. History is hackable. I can unelect you. You're a temporary variable.”

A long pause. “What's the damned point of your Virtual Earth anyway?” asks Too Dibbs finally. “I never understood that. What's wrong with the Earth we have? My people were farmers, Jeff. You ever walked a freshly plowed field?”

Luty sphincters his wet lips and shakes his head, tense and anal. “Virtual Earth will be germ-free. Digital and odorless. No more dogs spreading filth. Wouldn't you love that?”

“I don't know,” says Too Dibbs softly. “I just don't know.”

“Well,
I
know and I'm telling you,” says Luty, his voice cracking. “First you pardon me. Get my face off the post office walls. And then you require each citizen to install an orphidnet security patch. It must be done. ExaExa will provide the patch, it's based on our proprietary ShareCrop wikiware, but never mind the bitty details. The final output is that we get lasting, wiretap-style access to each person's mind. That way I can forestall any wise-guy attempts to trash my new nants.”

“Don't like it,” says Too Dibbs. “Wouldn't sit with my oath of office.”

“You pardon me and you do that security patch,” says Luty, his eyes flashing. “Or your election stinks like dog doo.”

“We'll see,” says Too Dibbs in a noncommittal tone. As he turns, his gaze pauses on Sonic. “Hey there, fella. What's your name?”

“Sonic Sanchez.”

“Call me when you need a new job, Sonic. Your boss is nuts.”

The third scene shows Luty hovering over the voluptuously curved white Ark of the Nants, fingering the elegant red button on its outside.

“So let me see how they're doing,” says Sonic.

Luty rests his thumb on the red button, which briefly glows, scanning his thumbprint. The latches around the ark's lid pop open. The inner surfaces of the container are iridescent with quantum-mirror varnish. Nestled within the Ark of the Nants is a hermetically sealed transparent cube, four inches on a side. The nant farm itself.

“How come the nants don't chew their way through those see-through walls?” asks Sonic.

“The nant farm's walls are nantanium,” says Luty, who's in a cheerful, chatty mood. “The only known substance that nants can't eat. I used the same technology as for the quantum-mirror varnish. But nantanium nixes the nants instead of the entanglement signals. It's all about quantum phase.”

“Titanium?”

“Nant. Anium. It's my own invention.” Watching the nants, Luty combs back his long greasy hair with his fingers and readjusts the rubber band that holds his ponytail. “Pretty great, huh?”

Frantically the nants pullulate, visible by virtue of the structures they erect and demolish in the course of their ceaseless activity, and now their orphidnet positional dots become visible, creating an effect like seething, luminous fog.

“I've got a new nanocode treat for them,” says Luty. He produces a special scanning laser and pulses a long codey flicker into the nant farm. Where before the nants had been constructing windmills and silos, now they're making ferns and snail shells.

“I love seeking the gnarl,” says Luty. “I'm almost resigned to not getting Ond Lutter's input. The Big Pig says she's about nailed the nature simulations. And I'm pretty sure these little guys are orphid-proof now. But I want to be careful. If I lose this match, I could be out of the series.”

The fourth scene is from today, January 18, only a few hours old. Sonic is leaning over the light green pelican, working on it.

“It's getting scary, Jayjay,” he says, talking to his friends through the video. “I've been trying to slow things up, but now Luty's suspicious of me. He's panicking about Dick Too Dibbs's inauguration on Tuesday. I think he's gonna crack open his nant farm tomorrow morning. Monday. Someone needs to come in here and stop him.”

A blip in the visuals. Something moves behind Sonic.

“Oh, shit.”

Sonic composes his face as Luty comes into view.

“What do you think you're doing?” Luty holds a compact pistol in his hand. His voice is high and tight. The plastic ants are marching in Belousov-Zhabotinsky spirals on his cheeks. “Don't think I don't know how to use a gun. I'm more than a dreamer.”

“All I'm doing is getting the fifth attack shoon ready,” says Sonic in a soothing tone. “These shoons are programmed to bring in Thuy Nguyen and Jayjay Jimenez, just like you said. The giant ant, the golem, the crocodile, the pterodactyl, and now the pelican. If the other shoons can't physically overwhelm Thuy and Jayjay, then the pelican will talk to them.”

“I need Thuy especially,” says Luty. “She's almosting Chu's Knot.” Luty rests the barrel of the gun against the back of Sonic's head. “I'd hate to kill you, Sonic. You're
so
much like Carlos Tucay. You wouldn't be planning some gunjy triple cross, would you? Talk to me, dammit. I'm holding a gun.”

“Of course I'm on your side, Jeff.” Sonic's face is pale. “Look, if you thought you saw me doing something weird just now, that's only because I'm loading this last shoon with lies and disinformation. To trick Jayjay and Thuy into trusting me and rushing over here.”

Luty's finger tightens on the trigger.

The video ends.

“Good info,” Chief Brown told Thuy when the transmission was done. “This Sonic fellow, we're lucky he's on the inside. He can help us tomorrow. If he's alive. Nasty ending, huh? We'll find out the truth tomorrow. See you at 8 a.m. Oh, and Thuy, please keep this video material confidential. Don't post it for the public. We wouldn't want to spoil our surprise.” The chief signed off again.

Again Thuy felt a flicker of uncertainty about Bim Brown. Was he for real? Maybe. Her beezies claimed the physical source coordinates of Bim's messages were matching the location of the San Francisco police station. But the guy seemed wrong.

In any case, there was no way in hell that Thuy was going to keep Sonic's crucial video confidential. Using the memory and network skills she'd developed as a metanovelist, she quickly reconstituted the video she'd just seen and posted the result to a secure site hosted by her personal orphids—all this took her less than a second.

“Good old Sonic,” Jayjay was saying, a quaver in his voice. “I'm worried. I hope Luty was just scamming us. And what about that Dick Too Dibbs? The man has a brain! I'd been counting on him to be a total lackey for big biz. It's great knowing he's not gonna help Luty.”

“Are you luring us into a trap?” Craigor asked the pelican sharply. The pelican didn't answer.

“Maybe the whole entire video was a fake,” said Thuy, feeling more and more paranoid. There were too many levels to sort out. She squatted down to stare at the mildly glowing pelican. “Did Luty shoot Sonic or not?”

“I don't have time to talk,” said the pelican in a matter of fact tone. “Because Jil is about to—”

“The kids are in bed,” hollered Jil, popping out of the cabin door. She was totally wired, jerking around like a puppet on strings. Again Thuy noticed the spots of light inside Jil's head. “Don't get so close to that shoon, Thuy. We better kill it.” Moving faster than seemed possible, Jil snatched up Jayjay's machete and ran at the hapless shoon. Before anyone could even think of stopping Jil, she'd lopped off the pelican's head. Jil whistled sharply and her Happy Shoons set to work eating the dead shoon's remains.

“Dammit, Jil,” said Craigor in dismay. “Why did you have to—”

Jil whooped and flung the machete high into the air. It landed point first and stuck quivering in the deck. “Party time! Jil saved the ship!”

The others exchanged glances.

“Sleepy time,” said Craigor with a weary sigh. “Thuy, do you want to bunk in the kitchen with Jayjay? That's where we've been keeping him. The floor bulges up to make beds when you ask.”

“I totally don't want to sleep near those two,” Thuy messaged Jayjay while favoring Craigor with a Mona Lisa smile. Her beezie agents were showing her all kinds of freaky scenarios that might unfold, should she and Jayjay sleep in the long cabin.

“Maybe we'll crash on the couch in your workshop, Craigor,” said Jayjay aloud.

“I'll do better than that,” said Jil, watching them with manic eyes. It was as if some external force were running her from the outside. “I'll make a special guesthouse for the lovebirds.” She jerked her arms, messaging the ship's piezoplastic. The deck beside the long cabin bulged up to make an igloolike hut with portholes, a slanted door, and a sleeping platform inside.

“Thanks, Jil,” said Thuy in a studiously neutral tone.

“Come on, baby,” said Craigor, leading Jil back toward their bedroom. “Calm down.”

Once Jayjay and Thuy were alone together in the crooked igloo, Jayjay tried to kiss Thuy, but she pushed him away. Not only were thousands of
Founders
fans watching them, Craigor and Jil might be tuned in too. And maybe their kids. Not to mention the fact that Thuy was hungry. All she'd had for supper was a bag of popcorn.

“Teleport us to San Francisco,” she told Jayjay. “To my room in Nektar's garage. Kittie's not around. I guess you know that she and I aren't hooking up anymore.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Jayjay. “I've been watching you. But what if that fifth attack shoon comes after us? Sonic mentioned a giant ant.”

“We'll teleport again,” said Thuy. “Even though you still haven't told me how teleportation works.”