“I’ll try.”
I went to see Stu at his office in downtown San Jose. He had a spiffed-up one-room office in the old Bank of America building. Instead of a secretary, he had a smart computer with good voice-recognition and speech- generation software. He could dictate documents to it, and it was able to answer the phone. He called his computer Miss Prentice.
Standing outside Stu’s door in the empty BofA building hallway, I could hear him talking with Miss Prentice. “Take your penis out and masturbate yourself,” Miss Prentice was saying.
“I’m busy right now,” whined Stu. “I don’t want to. I don’t have the energy.”
“Do you refuse to obey your mistress?” growled Miss Prentice. “I will not tolerate such behavior. You have dared to have an erection in the presence of your mistress, and now you must masturbate it away!”
“I don’t have an erection yet, Miss Prentice,” said Stu. “Can you show me some dirty pictures?”
I knocked quickly on the office door before the sordid scene could progress any farther. Miss Prentice’s voice rose an octave. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Jerzy Rugby.”
“Mr. Koblenz will see you now.” The door swung open.
Stu was sitting at his desk with his hands in his lap. He was holding an orange Nerfball. He was wearing a thin wrinkled suit and a tie.
“How’s it going?” said Stu, taking aim and shooting the Nerfball at a basketball hoop he’d glued to the wall. There was a Scotch-taped paper chute so that if Stu made a basket the ball would roll back to him. The ball went in. “I made another one, Miss Prentice,” said Stu, catching the ball from the trough. “What does that make my average for today?”
“You’re making eighty-seven percent of them, Mr. Koblenz,” said the computer. “Congratulations.” Unlike my robots, Miss Prentice didn’t look at all alive. Miss Prentice was nothing but a big computer box with a video screen, a printer, a microphone, and a speaker. I glanced quickly at the screen-it showed an insipid spreadsheet, probably fake.
I sat down. “Stu, I’m worried about the West West and GoMotion robot software that I helped develop. I don’t think it’s safe. I think the GoMotion ants might be able to infect the robots. Can you send letters to West West and GoMotion in my name saying that? A snail-mail letter and a fax to each of them? If the robots malfunction, I don’t want even more blame to be laid on me.” Snail-mail was the hacker word for ordinary, nonelectronic mail.
Stu thought for a minute, then shook his head. “How did you come up with such a terrible idea? You don’t want to send letters like that. If the robots were to malfunction, those letters would be viewed as proof that you’d known you’d sabotaged the code. A confession. So I won’t send them, no.” Stu regarded me distantly. “It would only make you the more convictable.”
“What do you mean convictable? Aren’t we going to win this trial? Aren’t you ready? You’re sitting here jacking off and playing Nerfball! What are you going to do for me in court tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow and Friday the judge selects and instructs a jury. Friday afternoon the D.A. and I make our opening statements. Monday we start with the witnesses. Sure I’m ready. But I don’t think we’ll win. You’re in big trouble, Jerzy. In fact, you’re screwed.”
“How so?” My voice was tight and small. “I wasn’t in control of Studly! None of the charges is true!”
“I guess you haven’t seen the new National Enquirer.” Stu tossed me a copy of the tabloid newspaper. The front page was a big picture of Studly with the headline: JERZY TOLD HIS ROBOT TO KILL MY DOG!
Exclusive Interview!
Studly had his pincer up in the air and they’d drawn a sizzling laser ray coming out of his head. Boxed in along the side of the page were small pictures of me, Jose Ruiz, the bloody corpse of Dutch the dog, and a TV screen full of ants. I looked insanely evil.
“Jose is going to be the prosecution’s star witness,” said Stu, fondling his Nerfball. “According to this article, he saw and heard you telling Studly to infect the Fibernet and to kill his dog. The West West cryps tell me that’s exactly what he’s going to testify to in court.” Stu shot the ball at the basket and missed. “I missed one, Miss Prentice. Can you get that, Jerzy?”
“Eighty-four percent,” said Miss Prentice.
I picked the ball up off the floor and handed it to Stu. “But look, Stu, we knew all along that Ruiz was going to be the prosecution’s best witness. And now that you know exactly what Ruiz is going to say, that’s an advantage, isn’t it? Think of questions to trip him up! Go out and measure the distance from Ruiz’s window to his picnic table and prove that he couldn’t have actually heard me-or do something else like that! Why are you just sitting here?”
“My main problem is that West West isn’t going to pay me any more.”
“Oh. You heard?”
“Yeah, Otto Gyorgyi called me yesterday. We’re cutting you loose.”
“And my bail’s only going to be good until…”
“Until noon on Tuesday.” Stu shot and made another basket, then got to his feet. “I just sank another one, Miss Prentice. Now watch the office for a few minutes, you slutty bitch. Mr. Rugby and I are going to take a walk.” Miss Prentice kept her silence. She’d even up things with Stu later.
Stu led me out into the hall, down the elevator, and out into the street. “I want to make a suggestion to you in strictest confidence, Jerzy. I’m doing this because I happen to think you’re a good guy.”
“What?”
“I don’t like to come out and say it. This is such a weird case. It’s like a house full of termites. Every source we’ve checked has shown signs of other cryps. I’d lay five to three that right now somebody in one of these cars or buildings is tracking us with a parabolic mike.” Stu steered us around a corner to stand by a big, noisy fountain in front of the San Jose Fairmont.
“So what are you telling me to do?” I demanded.
Stu put a handkerchief near his face as if to blow his nose, and leaned toward me to whisper: “Run, Jerzy. Jump bail and go underground. Flee the country. Ecuador and Switzerland are good for nonextradition these days. I didn’t say this.” With a flourish Stu snapped his handkerchief back into his suit pocket.
“So, Jerzy,” he raised his voice and shook my hand good-bye. “I’ll see you at the Hall of Justice bright and early tomorrow. Eight-thirty. It’s on West Hedding between San Pedro and Guadelupe. Our case is with Judge Carrig in courtroom 33 on the fifth floor. And don’t forget my advice: make sure to park your car in the parking lot instead of at a meter. They’re awfully fast to give tickets there.”
“But…”
“Don’t worry about a thing.” He smiled grimly and walked away.
Stu was telling me to run-but I didn’t have any money. I looked in my wallet confusedly. I had twenty dollars, no credit cards, and nothing in the bank. But with the severance pay included, my Friday deposit from West West would be for thirteen thousand dollars. I could jump bail over the weekend. I noticed a scrap of paper in my wallet. Vinh Vo’s phone number. Why not talk to him about getting fake ID? I walked on into the Fairmont and called the number from a pay phone.
“Pho Train noodle shop.” It was a woman’s voice with a lot of noise in the background.
“I’m looking for Vinh Vo,” I said.
“Who you?”
“Is Vinh Vo there?”
“You come see.”
“Where are you?”
“Pho Train on Tenth Street near Taylor.”
“Thank you.”
I walked through the campus of San Jose State University to get to Tenth Street. The campus quad was green and lush, with palm trees and a fountain and some elegant old brick buildings. Students milled ant-like near the glass and concrete library. I walked past the Aztec-styled student center, past the small dorms, and out into the mixed Mexican and Southeast Asian neighborhood that lay along Tenth Street.
A grill called Supertaqueria was on one side of the street, and on the other side was a defunct gas station, a Cambodian grocery, and Pho Train, a small restaurant with big glass windows and plastic picnic tables. Pho is the
