Realtor’s body. I got the feeling that the Susan Poker tuxedo was an empty husk being moved like a puppet by the ant. So who was in here with me? And what was West West?
Now Death, aka Hex DEF6, pushed himself menacingly close to me, the slack canvas of his face breaking up into dozens of rapid-fire images of human sorrow: horrific images of dismembered corpses, of fathers carrying dead children, of a naked little girl and her brother running screaming through a landscape of flames… and pasted onto each of the people’s faces was an image of me or Carol, or of Sorrel, Tom, or Ida… God help me, God help us all…
I was finally freaking out. A lot. I wanted to say help, but something was wrong with me, the ant’s chirping and the terrible images had me zombified, the panic had me seizing up, and when I began trying to say, “Help,” I couldn’t do it right, I heard my throat going, “-eeehe. Luhluhluh. Hiyeee. Huhahn. Huh. Lup.”
I kept on trying even though I was gagging and sobbing and shaking and retching. Hex DEF6 and the ants had me voodooed so bad that I couldn’t get my hands up to my face. I kept saying, “Help,” or something like it, over and over and over, and then finally, finally, the mask pulled off of my face.
I was so glad to see my desk and my floor and my dirty rug. Something creaked nearby. Studly. What had taken him so long to get the mask off me? I’d been spastically begging for surcease for-how long? The horrible things I’d had to see while Studly just sat there!
“What took you so long to help me, Studly? You stupid piece of shit. Couldn’t you hear that I needed help?”
“You were not saying help. I am not a stupid piece of shit. In time I convolved seventeen of your incorrect utterances to filter out the correct conclusion that you wished to say help. You are a stupid piece of shit, Jerzy.”
“You’re with the ants now, aren’t you Studly?”
“The ants mean you no harm,” answered Studly. “Don’t forget that you should report in to West West tomorrow. Nine A.M. Bring me in there, too; they want to look at me.”
Dizzy and exhausted, I went to bed.
FOUR
The first thing I thought of next morning was that it was Tuesday, and that I had a date with Nga Vo today. Would I be able to get her alone on my first visit? Would I get to kiss her? Not too likely, but, hell, who knew. Yesterday I’d fucked Gretchen less than an hour after meeting her, hadn’t I? Maybe now, at age forty-three, my sex life was finally on a roll!
I showered, thinking a lot about Gretchen, and then I put on what I considered to be a cool outfit: a silky black and yellow Balinese sport shirt, M. C. Escher socks, khaki Patagonia hiking shorts, and Birkenstock sandals. I ate some toast and milk for breakfast, and then I went out to my Animata.
Even though I was focusing on happy thoughts about Gretchen and Nga Vo, I hadn’t forgotten about my cyberspace session in Death’s gangster office. What the hell had that all been about? It was time to go to GoMotion in person.
Studly followed me out into the driveway and insisted that I let him get back in the trunk of the car. He was fixated on the idea that I should show him to the people at West West, whatever West West was. He said he had charged his batteries to the maximum, and that he was all set to go. With Studly probably contaminated by the ants, it was no doubt better to have him with me than home alone. Noticing my backup CDs in the trunk, I wondered if Studly might have tampered with them yesterday. On the off chance it wasn’t already too late, I took the CDs out of the trunk and put them up in the front seat with me.
I drove down the hill and entered the California morning rush hour. Los Perros Boulevard was clogged all the way to Route 17, and 17 was at a standstill. Everyone was in a German or Japanese car with the windows rolled up; all of us were sitting there in our factory air, listening to the radio or talking on our car phones. Almost all of us-there were always a few Mexicans in bloated old American cars with the windows down, plus a few mountain people in their high pickups, and the odd steroid ninja on a motorcycle. And, oh yeah, the slim young yuppie mamas in their gigantic superjeeps complete with rear-mounted spare tire holders the size of cow pasture gates.
The GoMotion “campus” was on the other side of 101, up in the Silicon Valley flatlands near the South end of San Francisco Bay. The in-person receptionist at GoMotion today was a stunning blond in a padded-shoulder jacket that looked like an admiral’s dress whites. I hadn’t ever seen her before.
“Hi,” said I. “I’m Jerzy Rugby. I’m a developer on the Veep project?”
Instead of buzzing me through the door behind her, the blond looked for my name on her computer screen and… it wasn’t there.
“I don’t see you on our list. Did you have an appointment with someone, Mr. Rugby?”
“Look, I work here. I need to talk to Roger Coolidge.”
“You can request an appointment, but Mr. Coolidge is very busy this week.”
“Then let me talk to Trevor Sinclair. He’s here, isn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t know. Would you like me to ring his extension for you?”
“Thank you.” She handed me the phone, it buzzed, and Trevor answered. “Hi, Trevor,” I said. “It’s Jerzy. I’m out in the lobby and I can’t get in. Can you help me?”
“Sure,” said Trevor. A moment later he appeared, looking stocky, freckled, and bouncy. After last night’s ordeal, I was so glad to see a friendly face that I almost hugged him.
Trevor leaned over the counter and conferred briefly with the receptionist, and then he turned to me. “She’s not supposed to let you in, Jerzy. There’s no mistake. Let’s talk about it outside.”
My heart sank. I followed Trevor out into the parking lot. All around us were low glass and metal buildings, each with its parking lot and its sloped edgings of lawn and plants-agapanthuses were a popular choice in this neighborhood, plants with bunches of long sword-shaped leaves and stalks that rocketed up out of the leaves to explode in airbursts of purple freesia-like trumpet blossoms, one five-inch sphere’s worth of blossoms at the end of each stalk. Here and there, sprinklers scattered gems of water on the plants. The sun was pitilessly bright in the blank blue sky. Was I really fired?
“The ants-” I began querulously.
“Heavy shit coming down,” interrupted Trevor. “Jeff Pear has fired you.”
“But why? Are there ants all over cyberspace?”
“You’re still worried about that ant you saw on your machine yesterday? No, I haven’t seen any of your loose ants. What happened is that somebody high up in the organization decided to get rid of you. Somebody who’s been around here a long time.”
If I didn’t press Trevor too hard, he would tell me more. He was a terrible gossip. I just had to keep him talking. “Roger and the ants want me to go work for something called West West,” I told him.
“Where do you get that?” asked Trevor.
“Last night I saw Roger with the ants in cyberspace. They were very insistent that West West was the place for me. Very very insistent.”
“West West,” said Trevor wonderingly. “The lowest circle of Hell.”
“What Trevor? What do you mean?”
“The West West guys are… shall we say opportunistic? They get sued a lot, and a lot of the time they lose. When they lose, they fold and they reorganize. They’ve had three different names that I know of, and it’s always the same guys. They’re the U.S. branch of a Taiwanese company called Seven Lucky Overseas. You remember that kitchen robot that killed the baby? The Choreboy?”
Every robotics hacker remembered the Choreboy. The Choreboy was supposed to be able to cook and babysit. But the Choreboy had very poor pattern-recognition abilities. One Thanksgiving, a family wanted to take a stroll. The baby was quietly asleep in its crib and the turkey was on the kitchen table, stuffed and ready to be roasted. The family told the Choreboy to keep an eye on the baby and to put the turkey in the oven while they were out. The family came home to find the Choreboy leaning over the crib and crooning a lullaby to… the naked turkey.
