The bay‘s riffles were faintly lit by the San Francisco lights, the reflections roughened by the endless rain. The soft plastic scow flexed with the water‘s gentle chop. Double-jointed mounds of Craigor‘s art projects stood heaped beside his little workshop at the boat‘s stern. Amidships, the glowing windows of a long cabin illuminated fishing nets and a big glass tank of cuttlefish. In the bow, a group of Jil‘s shoons chattered among themselves and called soft greetings.
―How—‖ began Thuy, but now one of the cabin doors opened and here came Jil Zonder.
Although the night was dark, Thuy could see Jil clearly via the orphidnet: perfect bob of dark hair, straight nose and great cheekbones, almond eyes and crisply cut mouth. Thuy had always admired Jil, and even now she wanted to like her.
―You made it, Thuy!‖ exclaimed Jil. Seen up close, her face was tired and worn. The
sudocoke was dragging her down. ―I watched Jayjay watching your reading,‖ said Jil. ―I caught the part about Topping‘s office having that grill connection to the ExaExa labs.‖ She rubbed at her temples distractedly. ―Um, if you can swear you saw Luty there, I know this cop who can get a
search warrant. Bim Brown, the San Francisco Chief of Police— he‘s a Founders fan. He‘s ready to launch a surprise raid on Exa-Exa tomorrow—last chance before Inauguration Day.‖
―Aren‘t you giving away the surprise, talking about it out loud?‖ said Thuy.
―I hardly know what I‘m saying anymore,‖ said Jil, suddenly on the point of tears. ―Nobody
cares about me anymore. I don‘t matter.‖
―Do you mind that I‘m here?‖ said Thuy uncertainly. She felt naïve and plain and stupidly
perky before this suffering older woman.
―Oh, forget about my stupid fling with Jayjay,‖ said Jil in a flat, rapid tone. She sniffled and rubbed her nose. ―Dead ashes for him, just a snack. He‘s such a beautiful boy. Maybe I thought I‘d win Craigor back that way. As if. I hope you didn‘t watch us on Founders, Thuy?‖
―No, no,‖ said Thuy. ―Of course not.‖
―Good,‖ said Jil, scratching her scalp. ―The kids saw us almost right away, and then it was
horrible and we had to stop having sex. Momotaro slugged Jayjay in the crotch. Bixie had a
screaming fit. And usually she‘s so calm. Girls are wonderful when they‘re eleven. Remember being that age, Thuy? It‘s right before sex drags you down. I‘ve never been so unhappy in my life.‖
―But that was all two months ago, Jil,‖ put in Jayjay, trying to lighten the mood. ―And you
and I are still friends, right? I wish you and Craigor could settle back down. And of course it‘s for the best if you and I keep things platonic. I feel like I abused your hospitality.‖
Jil shrugged and sniffled, her expression unutterably bleak.
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―By the way, Thuy,‖ jabbered Jayjay, ―in case you‘re wondering why I‘m still on the Merz
Boat, it‘s because of Azaroth, that Hibraner friend of yours? He always turns up here. He steals cuttlefish and sends them to the Hibrane to eat. Azaroth has been helping me get good at physics. Not that he‘s a scientist. But he remembers stuff for me. And Craigor‘s okay with me being here. He likes that I‘m helping him teleport.‖
Thuy felt an irrational pang of jealousy to learn that Azaroth was working with Jayjay as well as with her.
― Pop, ‖ said a deep voice right behind Thuy, startling her. It was Craigor, materializing out of nowhere, wearing a cuttlefish-stenciled poncho like Jayjay‘s.
―How do you guys do that?‖ asked Thuy, wiping the rain from her eyes.
―I invented a new family of quantum mechanical interpolators,‖ said Jayjay. ―I package them
as little agents. You saw one just now, it looked like a caterpillar. Nobody gets hold of my
interpolation agents unless I give them a onetime link. I‘m beginning to build buzz for teleportation, and maybe later, I‘ll be taking my service public. The vibby thing is, whatever you‘re carrying gets teleported right along with you.‖
―You used the Big Pig?‖ said Thuy, disappointed. A sudden gust of wind sent salt spray
flying across the deck, totally drenching her.
―The winter wet T-shirt look,‖ said Craigor, theatrically goggling at Thuy‘s soggy sweater
and her sagging striped tights. He was also peering under her clothes through the orphidnet; she could sense the hitcounts. Thuy looked to Jil for help.
―Don‘t worry about Jayjay, Thuy,‖ said Jil, ignoring her husband. ―Jayjay‘s down to one Pig
session every two weeks. It takes him that long to process all the stuff that Azaroth helps him remember. He‘s gotten so smart. I‘m proud of him. Come into the cabin and dry off. You‘re going to catch a cold and start sniffling like me.‖
―That golem shoon‘s on his way,‖ said Craigor, asserting his presence. ―And he‘s bringing
backup. See them, kiqs? Look in the orphidnet: the golem, a crocodile, a pelican, and a pterodactyl.‖
He messaged the links.
Thuy zoomed in on the ragged, ineluctable forms. The stubby golem shoon was a mile off,
sculling toward the Merz Boat. He‘d puffed up his body with air so as to float on the surface, and he was using his arms and legs like oars. Further away, but moving faster, was a submerged plastic crocodile beating a long, tapering tail. A pair of sinister flying shoons were just leaving the ExaExa labs in San Francisco, one resembling a pale green pelican, the other a leathery reddish pterodactyl.
―Maybe your boat should swim down to the South Bay?‖ Thuy said to Craigor.
―No use,‖ said Craigor. ―It‘s like when a Frankenstein monster is chasing you in a dream: he
moves slow, but he never stops, and eventually you have to rest, and that‘s when he catches up.‖
Reflexively clowning, Craigor lurched stiff-legged toward the stern, rocking from side to side, intoning, ―Me kill bad shoons. Jayjay help.‖
―I‘m staying with Thuy,‖ said Jayjay, not budging from her side.
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Craigor‘s voice returned to normal. ―If we‘re not ready for those attack shoons, kiq, there‘s
gonna be no romance possibilities for you nohow. Not with Thuy and not with my wife.‖
―Don‘t always bring that up,‖ said Jayjay testily. ―You should be nicer to Jil.‖
―Fuck you. You gonna help or not?‖
―All right, ‖ said Jayjay. ―Give us a freakin‘ minute.‖ He hugged Thuy again, and this time she let him kiss her.
―You feel so good,‖ Thuy messaged privately. ―Why didn‘t you call?‖
―I missed you a lot,‖ messaged back Jayjay. ―But I didn‘t want to bug you till I‘d done
something to make you proud. And now I‘ve invented my own teleportation technique. It‘s much
hipper than the Armory-to-ExaExa kludge that Luty set up with those gratings. Prav Plato says I should publish my work as a physics paper, but I‘m thinking I should keep the details secret and get rich by selling onetime access links.‖
―Rich would be nice,‖ messaged Thuy. ―That way you can get a good place to live. And then
maybe we—‖ But she didn‘t dare formulate her wish, not with Jil and Craigor around.
―Move it, Thuy,‖ said Jil, bossily tapping her on the shoulder. ―Dry clothes and hot tea.‖
Even though Jil was frowning, her voice was creepily calm. ―Jayjay has to help Craigor. After all, it‘s thanks to you that those attack shoons are coming here.‖
―I‘d better get ready,‖ agreed Jayjay.
So Thuy let Jil lead her into the long cabin, cozy and lit by solar-charged bud-lamps. Jil put some water on the stove while Thuy took a seat at a round piezoplastic table growing from the deck.
Visible in the orphidnet were ad icons for Stank deodorant and BigBox furniture, which meant this was a top-level episode of the Founders show. Thuy was hoping for a cozy chat with Jil, but the other woman seemed preoccupied.
―Why don‘t I file my report with Bim Brown right now?‖ suggested Thuy finally.
―Uh, good idea. Here‘s Bim‘s link. While you do that, I‘ll check on the kids.‖ The living
quarters were arranged in three blocks: first the common area with a bathroom, then the kids‘ two small bedrooms facing each other across a hall, and beyond that the parents‘ large bedroom. Thuy wondered where she and Jayjay were supposed to sleep.
The instant Thuy clicked the link Jil had given her, she had Bim Brown on a private message
line, the chief sitting amid a din of background noise in a cop-station office with file cabinets, chairs, award plaques, a gun rack, and old-school display screens showing arrays of faces and annotated maps. Chief Brown looked very plausible, but Thuy felt suspicious. Why had the link worked so
fast? Temporarily leaving the worries for her scenario-spinning beezies to analyze, she pressed on.
―I know where Jeff Luty is,‖ Thuy told Chief Brown. ―I saw him in the ExaExa labs.‖
―That‘s a big break for us,‖ he answered, his deep voice reassuring. ―Don‘t go away. I‘ll open up a notarized encryption channel so you can record your account. Here it is.‖
A sort of funnel appeared, and Thuy recounted her sighting of Luty. To speed things up, she
pasted in some material directly from ―Losing My Head,‖ which happened to include an image of
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Luty with his lank ponytail. There was no reason that legal evidence couldn‘t take the form of a poetic rant.
“Excelente,” said Brown when she was done. ―We‘ll try and bag Luty tomorrow morning.
With any luck, he uses deadly force to resist arrest, my officers reply in kind, and Too Dibbs doesn‘t get the chance to pardon him. Case frikkin‘ closed.‖
―You‘re telling me this?‖ said Thuy, surprised.
―What it is. Luty tried to kill every single person on Earth with those nants. I‘d call that
genocide. And I‘m hearing he‘s pumped to do it again.‖
―Can I come and watch the raid?‖
―I‘ll be wanting the whole Merz Boat posse in on this. You kiqs have special friends, special powers. We might need it all. Be outside the ExaExa labs by eight a.m. latest.‖
Bim Brown broke the connection and Thuy was alone in the Merz Boat‘s common room. She
used the orphidnet to peer into the dark bedrooms, looking for Jil. Bixie and Momotaro were asleep in their rooms, and Jil herself was sitting on the bed alone in the master bedroom, her head down over her lap. Crying—or doing sudocoke?
Feeling guilty for prying, Thuy switched to watching Craigor and Jayjay, who were readying
a combine device made of a four-foot lump of piezoplastic atop three ten-meter lengths of black pipe.
The lump was beige, with a hatched surface that made it look vaguely like an internal organ. Arms protruded from its middle, with hands grasping a black metal cane. The lump had eyes and a toothy mouth at its top end, which was crowned by a black top hat bearing white lettering: ―Mr. Peanut.‖
One of Craigor‘s gaga Dada jokes. Art for art‘s sake. You had to hand it to the guy, obnoxious though he was. Meanwhile, the attack shoons were fifteen minutes away.
Jil bounced out from the bedrooms, carrying a towel, jeans, and a sweater. Her eyes were
bright and watchful. Thuy changed into the dry clothes, almost expecting Jil to put a sexual move on her, so charged was the atmosphere. But Jil just made two cups of tea and seated herself at the round table across from Thuy.
―You think the men can handle the attackers?‖ said Thuy, wanting to talk.
―I bet they can,‖ said Jil. She reached into her pants pocket and set a little silver box on the table beside her teacup. ―You want a hit?‖
―You‘re, um, using again?‖ said Thuy. ―Not to judge you, of course. I used to watch
Founders, so I know your backstory. You were in recovery, weren‘t you?‖
―Until last week,‖ said Jil, using a silver straw to blast two snorts from her stash box. ―But Craigor‘s still cheating on me. It‘s like all of a sudden he‘s scared his life is slipping away and he has to score all these different women. I wish I could just accept having an open marriage. But I can‘t.
And now he‘s seeing Lureen Morales. And even that would be okay if only Jayjay—‖ Jil had been
talking faster and faster, but now her voice trailed off. She stared off into space, riding her rush.
The way she‘d said Jayjay‘s name set off alarm bells in Thuy‘s head. ―You‘re still in love
with him?‖ blurted Thuy. ―Even after breaking up?‖
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―Ratings spike,‖ said Jil, her mouth curving into a stoned smirk. Her eyes were dancing. She
snapped shut her silver box and shoved it back in her pants. ―Feel the hitcounts? Time to promote your metanovel. Is it Wheenk? I didn‘t say that Jayjay and I broke up, Thuy. I said we stopped having sex. Jayjay‘s very hot. He makes me feel young. Is that so bad?‖
Temporarily at a loss, Thuy checked their images in the orphidnet—like a TV soap actor
glancing over at the monitor. She noticed points of light inside Jil‘s head. Devices in Jil‘s brain? Or was that a sudocoke thing?
―What?‖ snapped Jil, defiantly glaring at her.
―Um, tell me about Jayjay‘s teleporting,‖ essayed Thuy.
Jil cocked her head, her mouth half open, processing the input. ―Jayjay discovered it thanks
to that Hibraner Azaroth,‖ she said finally. ―Azaroth figured out a way to use the orphidnet for remembering complicated things. Azaroth gets into close orphidnet contact with Jayjay when he‘s on the Pig, and he saves off orphidnet images of Jayjay‘s mental states for him. The beezies like Jayjay, they give him all the space he needs in the orphidnet. Azaroth says he wants to help bring Ond and Chu back from the Hibrane. Ond loves me, you know.‖
―Oh everyone loves Jil,‖ said Thuy sarcastically. ―And I know all about Azaroth. He‘s my
Hibrane friend, too.‖
―Mainly he steals cuttlefish from the wholesalers,‖ said Jil, slowing down again. ―I don‘t
fully trust him.‖
―Azaroth told me that he asked you about Chu‘s Knot, Jil, and you wouldn‘t help. You went
to the Hibrane, didn‘t you? You touched the Knot.‖
―I did. But I don‘t remember much. I was really upset. I wasn‘t thinking straight. I was
thinking—what‘s the opposite? Crooked? Bent? Ripped?‖ Jil sniffled and rubbed her nose. ―It sucks that I‘m using again. I‘m throwing my life away. Last week this dealer offered me such a good price that I caved. I needed some relief. And now I don‘t know if I have another recovery in me. It was so frikkin‘ hard for me to quit the first time, Thuy. You‘ve got no idea. But Craigor doesn‘t really love me, and I sure as hell don‘t love him. And if I can‘t have Jayjay—I‘m all alone.‖
―You can get better again, Jil. Think about your children. Go back to your support group. Get
help.‖
Jil sighed and shook her head. ―I‘m ashamed of being a relapser. And you know what?
Maybe I‘m not ready to be sober again. Life is too raw. It drives me crazy to have Jayjay here all the time: this delicious snack I can‘t eat. And, yes, little Thuy, I feel like shit about my kids. I wish I was dead. I want another hit of sudocoke.‖ Jil fumbled in her pocket.
―Oh, Jil, don‘t. Sleep it off, and when you‘re yourself again, call up your old sponsor. She‘ll help you.‖
―Oh, what do you know? I‘m on a run, Thuy; I‘m not gonna be sleeping at all.‖ Jil set the
stash box on the table with a click. The orphidnet showed a sinister glitter in the sudocoke.
―I‘m going outside,‖ said Thuy. ―You got a raincoat I can use?‖
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―Over there,‖ said Jil with an abrupt jerk of her hand toward a rack with several of those
cuttlefish-stenciled ponchos. She took another quick hit of sudocoke, and the bitter energy surged into her. ―A fresh costume for Hipster Goody Girl,‖ said Jil as Thuy slipped on a poncho. She raised her voice to a mocking soprano lisp. ―Ooo, does this make my ego look too big?‖
It was definitely time to step outside. The rain had subsided to a drifting mist. A dozen
iridescent piezoplastic crows were wandering about the deck, shaking out their wings and clacking their beaks. Mr. Peanut was standing on his tripod of legs in the not-so-deep water, scanning the bay and brandishing his cane like a fencer‘s foil. Jayjay and Craigor were excitedly fiddling with piezoplastic bands stretched among the joints and pistons of a small steel backhoe, which had a Happy Shoon perched in its driver‘s seat, his fingers grown into spindly tendrils which twined around the machinery to touch each of the stretchy bands. The bands were taking the place of the beat old machine‘s unfueled gasoline engine.
―Jil is—‖ began Thuy.
―We know,‖ said Jayjay. ―It‘s been like this all week. I feel bad about it. Like it‘s partly my fault. But I don‘t know what to do.‖
―What about you, Craigor?‖ said Thuy. ―Don‘t you care?‖
Craigor looked Thuy over again. ―It‘s gonna be me in my coffin when I die, little girl. This is my only run. No way I can paddle back upstream, back to what Jil and I had before.‖
―You could try,‖ urged Thuy. ―Love her, Craigor. Save her. And what about your children?‖
―My parents stayed together for the sake of the kids,‖ said Craigor, tall, stiff, unhappy. ―It was hell for all of us. Why am I even telling you this? Words suck. You are what you do. If Jil wants to save herself, that‘s her call.‖ Seeing something in the bay, Craigor whooped with a warrior‘s fierce exultation. ―Yeah, baby! Here he comes!‖
The puffed-up golem was in view to the stern, approaching fast, his arms and legs beating a
fierce rhythm. The pelican and the pterodactyl were circling overhead, and in the orphidnet Thuy could see the crocodile coming up on the Merz Boat from below.
Craigor‘s plastic crows took wing and mobbed the pair of airborne shoons, doing their best to
distract them without being snapped up by the great beaks. Moments later three of the crows were gone. They were overmatched.
Moving with awkward agility, Mr. Peanut lurched into position and intercepted the golem,
who didn‘t seem to recognize the peanut as a threat. Easy as pie, Mr. Peanut shish-kebabbed the golem with his cane. The golem struggled and burbled; Mr. Peanut bit off his head, then his chest, then his legs. Fueled by the piezoplastic, the top-hatted goober doubled his body size. Triumphantly he slashed his cane at the waves.
Before Thuy, Jayjay, and Craigor could cheer Mr. Peanut‘s success, the Merz Boat shuddered amidships. The crocodile shoon had reared out of the water to tear loose a chunk of the low gunnel.
Icy water sloshed across the deck as the thick plastic reptile heaved himself aboard. Twanging and shuddering, the backhoe stretched its jaws toward the croc. The croc snapped at the metal shovel, managing to sever one of its power belts.
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For now the green pelican simply hovered, watching the events unfold. But the pterodactyl
dove at Thuy as if meaning to carry her off. She flattened herself on the deck; the pterodactyl missed her. The backhoe spun fruitlessly in a tight circle, its Happy Shoon driver frantically adjusting the belts in an effort to regain control. The red pterodactyl did a loop-the-loop and dove again, keeping Thuy in place.
And now the crocodile came slithering across the deck toward her, his toothy jaws ajar. Thuy
began screaming for help, but not quite from the bottom of her heart. At some level, she felt
detached—as if she were perusing a lifebox metanovel. Damsel in distress! Who‘ll save me?
Craigor was over by the long cabin, poised to defend his family. But Jayjay—Jayjay was
there for Thuy. He sprang forward with a machete in his grip and thrust it toward the red pterodactyl, forcing the monster to cease its diving and hover on high. Thuy sprang to her feet and backed away from the croc—only to find herself cornered against the wall of the boat‘s workshop.
The crocodile flexed his haunches and widened his jaws, preparing to pounce. All veils of
playfulness dropped. Thuy was facing empty, eternal death. She screamed with everything she had.
Jayjay charged past the backhoe and slashed into the croc‘s back. The hissing shoon turned to snap at him, giving the backhoe an opening to clamp onto the croc‘s tail. And now Thuy‘s hero waded in and hacked the monster to bits. A flock of shoons converged on the gobbets of piezoplastic, gobbling them up.
―Look out!‖ shouted Craigor. Thirteen-year-old Momotaro was standing in the door of the
long cabin beside his slightly younger sister, Bixie, with Jil frozen-faced behind them, her brain fogged with glowing dots. Craigor and Momotaro were pointing at the hovering red pterodactyl, who was oddly bending his body in half.
Thuy and Jayjay found shelter against the backhoe, in case the shoon dived, but this time he
pulled a new stunt: he shat a flaming pellet of piezoplastic onto the deck; the lump sputtered and sizzled like napalm. The boat itself might have caught fire if it hadn‘t been for the puddled water from the broken gunnel. Snapping out of her trance, Jil directed her shoons to suck up water and to spit it onto the flames.
The pterodactyl feathered his wings and hunched his body again as if to drop a flame-egg
upon the exposed roof of the long cabin. Craigor roared defiance, leaping onto the cabin‘s roof and tossing three of his crow shoons into the air. And now finally the green pelican did something. Quick as a sewing ma-chine‘s needle, his beak dispatched the crows: one-two-three.
Thuy was dizzied by all the sensations, especially as she was trying to mold them into
metanovel material in realtime. As part of the work she‘d switched on a music track: operatic rock and roll. The pterodactyl and the pelican were visual echoes of the menacing bird-headed subbie she‘d seen in the non-space between Topping‘s office and the ExaExa labs.
The dusky red pterodactyl squawked his approval for the crow-pecking, but then, when he
was least expecting it, the green pelican darted at him and—yes!—ripped off one of his wings. The pterodactyl plummeted downward, bounced off the side of the Merz Boat, and ended up screeching p.112
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and floundering in the Bay waters. Mr. Peanut strode over and dispatched him with cruel stabs of his cane.
There was a moment of calm. The Merz Boat pushed up a fresh gunnel-lip to repair the gap the crocodile had made. The sloshing bay waters drained out through the scuppers. The pelican
glided to a silent landing on the deck, preened himself, and fixed the humans with a glittering eye.
―Hi Jayjay,‖ he said in a familiar voice. ―Sonic sent me. Lay down that machete, you‘re
making me nervous.‖
Jayjay thought for a minute, consulting his simulation beezies, and then he laid the machete
on the deck behind him and hunkered beside the pelican. ―Talk to me,‖ he said.
―Ready for a private message stream?‖ said the pelican.
―Let Thuy and Craigor hear, too,‖ said Jayjay.
―And us,‖ said Momotaro.
―Not you kids,‖ said Jil. ―You need to get back in bed. It‘s too cold out here.‖ She shuddered.
―Aren‘t you cold?‖
―Aw, Mom.‖
―Come on.‖ Jil and the kids disappeared into the cabin.
―Here we go,‖ said the pelican to Thuy, Jayjay, and Craigor, the three of them squatting
around him. Overhead the clouds were breaking up and the moon was shining through, big and
bright, just past full.
The data flowed in, a mental movie in three scenes. As soon as Thuy realized what she was
seeing, she began forwarding it to Chief Bim Brown.
***
The first scene shows Sonic on the day he was abducted, October 21, two weeks before the
election. Sonic is closed in by the quantum-mirrored walls of the ExaExa labs, sitting at a long white table drinking a big mug of coffee, still in his red T-shirt with his pleated leather coat on the table beside him.
One wall is covered with the teleport grill, the opposite wall holds a door, and the side walls are mounted with four view screens simulating natural phenomena: cracking mud, wind-tossed
branches, a beach fire, and a waterfall.
Set into a niche like an altar beneath the bonfire screen is a smooth-cornered white plastic
box bearing the ExaExa beetle logo and a single red button on its side. The box has intricate latches on its lid.
Jeff Luty is talking to Sonic. He‘s still gangly, but he‘s put on some weight, living alone in his lab. His wavy, unwashed hair is drawn into a ponytail. He wears a bracelet of colored oval stones around his wrist. The stones are incised to look like beetles. His skin is unhealthy, almost gray. He has plastic ants on his chin and cheeks, but his ropy chapped lips show. He licks his upper lip, then compulsively applies some waxy lip balm from a tube.
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―What‘s with the ants, Jeff?‖ says Sonic.
―A visual pun,‖ says Luty, his plain face forming a faint smile. ―I‘m in personal crunch mode
to find a nant design that orphids and code-hackers can‘t trash. I‘m farming a few thousand
evolutionary algorithms. The formic minibots on my face are ant-shaped shoons loaded with sample nant nanocodes. They‘re a fake beard, too.‖
―Like you‘d go outside wearing plastic ants?‖ says Sonic.
―Well, no, not while I‘m indicted for capital charges,‖ says Luty. ―With my picture in all the post offices. That‘s fame, huh? I‘m counting on Dick Too Dibbs to pardon me. He‘d better. My ads are flipping the election.‖
―So what do you want with me?‖
Luty leans forward, licks his lips again, and scrapes a few of the plastic ants off his face and onto Sonic‘s head. ―Try and trash these guys like you did Nektar‘s beetles. I enjoy watching a craftsman at work. Like a flenser peeling blubber off a whale.‖
―I‘m not working for you,‖ says Sonic.
―Contrariwise,‖ says Luty. He goes to a cupboard, draws out a slug of raw piezoplastic, and
slaps it down on the table in front of Sonic. He lets out a playful, infectious chuckle. ―Haven‘t you always wanted to be an ant farm?‖
Before Sonic can shy away, the plastic ants on his head go into high-speed m