about the truth of it, how often he would be gone and the cat left
to itself and the house's machines. 'Here kitty kitty,' the
cleaning robot would say, and the memex would want veterinary
programs and a diagnostic link fuck it, they all could live
without a cat.
Then a hunger kick came on him, and he decided to make
taboulleh. 'You are not taking care of business,' the memex said
to Gonzales as he stood chopping mint leaves, green onions and
tomato, squeezing lemon and stirring in bulgur wheat with the
patience of the deeply-stoned.
'True,' Gonzales said. 'I'm in no hurry.'
'Why not? Since your return from Asia, you have not been
productive.'
'I'm going to die, my friend.' The smells of lemon and mint
drifted up to him, and he inhaled them deeply. He said, 'Today,
maana, some day for sure and I'm still trying to understand
what that means to me now. To be productive, that is fine, but to
come to terms with my own mortality I think that is better.'
The taboulleh was finished. It was beautiful; he wanted to rub
his face in it.
#
Not long after he finished eating, a package arrived from
Thailand. Inside layers of foam and strapping were the memory
modules the Thais had taken. When he plugged the modules into the
memex, they showed empty: zeroed, ready to be used again.
Gonzales stood looking at the racked modules in the memex
closet. I can't fucking believe it, he thought. In effect, the
audit had been cancelled out. Whatever data he or anyone else
collected at this point from SenTrax Myanmar would be essentially
useless, Grossback having been given time to cook the data if he
needed to do so. A fatal indeterminacy had settled on the whole
affair.
Grossback, you bastard, thought Gonzales. If you arranged
for the Thais to grab these boxes, maybe you are smarter and
meaner than I thought.
'Shit,' Gonzales said.
'Is there anything I can do?' the memex asked.
'Nothing I can think of.'
#
>From the background of jungle plants and pastel walls and the
signature pieces of curved silver, HeyMex recognized the latest
incarnation of the Beverly Rodeo Hotel's public lounge. Mister
Jones preferred ostentation, even in simulacra.
HeyMex settled into a sling chair made of bright chrome and
stuffed chocolate-brown leather. HeyMex wore the usual baggy
pants and jacket of black cotton, a crumpled white linen shirt;
was smooth-faced and had close-cropped hair.
A figure shimmered into being in the chair opposite: silver
suit and red metal-laced shirt brilliant under lights; black-
framed glasses with dark lenses; greased hair combed straight
back, a little black goatee and moustache.
'Mister Jones,' HeyMex said.
The other figure took a long, slow drag off a brown
cigarette. 'HeyMex,' it said. 'What can I do for you?'
'It's Gonzales. Since we got back from Myanmar, he's been
passive, hasn't been taking care of business.'
'Post-trauma responsegive him some time, he'll be okay.'
'No, he doesn't need time. He needs work. Have you got
something?'
'Maybe. I haven't run a personnel searchhe might not fit
the exact profile.'
'Never mind that. Give it to Gonzales. He needs it.'
'If you say so. You'll hear something official later today.'
The world went translucent, then turned to smoke, and Mister
Jones disappeared back into his identity as Traynor's Advisor,
HeyMex into his as Gonzales's memex.
(Ask yourself why the two machines chose this elaborate
masquerade, or why no one knew these sorts of things were
happening. However, as to the who? and the why? there can be no
question. These are the new players, and these are their games.
So welcome to the new millennium.)
4. Privileged Not to Exist
When Gonzales returned home, he found a message from Traynor:
'Will arrange for transportation tomorrow morning, five a.m., from
Northern Seattle Airtrack to my estate. Be prepared for immediate
work. Pack the memex and twenty-two kilos personal luggage.'
'Shit,' Gonzales said. 'We just got home. Twenty-two kilos,
huh? That means we'll be going where do you think?'
The memex said, 'Somewhere in orbit.'
#
The airport limo held its spot in a locked sequence of a
dozen vehicles moving away from the city at two hundred kilometers
an hour. Seattle's northern suburbs showed as patches of light
behind shifting mist and steady-falling rain. Overhead, cargo
blimps flying toward Vancouver moved through the clouds like great
cold water fish.
Gonzales got a quick view of a square where white and yellow
searchlights played across a concrete landscape, and a gangling
assemblage of pipe and wire stepped crab-wise as it sprayed a
brick wall: a graffiti robot, a machine built and set loose to
scrawl messages to the world at large. Gonzales could only read
GENT OF CHAN
With a sigh from its turbines, the limo slowed to exit into
North Seattle Airtrack, then turned into the private field access
road. A wire gate opened in front of them as it received the
codes the limo sent. Near the SenTrax hangar waited a swing-wing
exactly like the one that had taken Gonzales from Pagan to
