The Ware Tetralogy - Rudy Rucker (popular ebook readers .TXT) 📗

While they’d been eating, the band had set up in the hall behind the Gray Area, and now enough pheezers had arrived for them to start playing. Annie took Cobb’s hand and led him into the dance-hall. She had helped decorate it herself.

Overhead they had a big, slowly spinning ball covered with a mosaic of tiny square mirrors. From each corner of the room a colored spotlight shone on the ball, and the reflected flecks of light spun endlessly around the room, changing colors as they moved from wall to wall. There had been a mirror-ball exactly like this at Annie’s Senior Prom in 1970, lo these fifty years gone.

“Do you like it, Cobb?”

It made Cobb a little dizzy. This subroutine DRUNKENNESS wasn’t quite like the real thing. He held his finger to the left side of his nose and took two quick breaths through his right nostril, coming down a couple of notches, enough to enjoy himself again.

The lights were perfect, really, it made you feel like you were on a boat drifting down some sun-flecked creek, trout hovering just beneath the surface, and all the time in the world…

“It’s beautiful, Annie. Just like being young again. Shall we?”

They stepped onto the half-empty dance-floor, turning slowly to the music. It was an old George Harrison song about God and Love. The musicians were pheezers who cared about the music. They did it justice.

“Do you love me, Cobb?”

The question caught him off  guard. He hadn’t loved anyone for years. He’d been too busy waiting to die. Love? He’d given it up when he left Verena alone in their apartment on Eastern Parkway in Louisville. But now…

“Why do you ask, Annie?”

“I’ve been living with you for a week.” Her arms around his waist drew him closer. Her thighs. “And we still haven’t made love. Is it that you’re… ”

“I’m not sure I remember how,” Cobb said, not wanting to go into details. He wondered if there was an ERECTION subprogram in his library. Have to check on that later, have to find out what else was in there, too. He kissed Annie’s cheek. “I’ll do some research.”

When the dance ended they sat down with Farker and his wife. The two were having a spat, you could tell from the claw-like way Cynthia was holding her fingers. and from the confusion in Farker’s eyes. They were glad to have Cobb and Annie interrupt them.

“What do you think of all this?” Cobb asked, using the hearty cheer-up-you-idiot tone he always used with Farker.

“Very nice,” Cynthia Farker answered. “But there’s no streamers.’’

Emboldened by Cobb’s presence, Farker waved over a waiter and ordered a pitcher of beer. Normally Cynthia wouldn’t let him drink, not that he wanted to, normally, but this was, after all, the…

“Golden Prom,” Annie said. “That’s what we called it, since it’s been about fifty years since a lot of us had our high-school Senior Prom. Do you remember yours, Cynthia?”

Cynthia lit a mentholated and lightly THC-ed cigarette. “Do I _remember? _Our class didn’t have a prom. Instead some of the hot-heads on the student council voted to use the funds for a fall bus-trip.”

“Where did you go?” Cobb asked.

Cynthia laughed shrilly. “To _Wash_ington! To march on the _Pent_agon!. But it was worth it. That’s where Farker and I met, isn’t it, dear.”

Farker bobbed his light-bulb head in thought for a moment. “That’s right. I was watching the Fugs chanting Out Demon Out on a flat-bed truck in the parking lot, and you stepped… ”

“I didn’t step on your foot, Farker. I footsied you. You looked like such an im_por_tant person with your tape recorder, and I was just dying to talk to you.”

“You sure did,” Farker said, grinning and shaking his head. “And you haven’t stopped since.”

The beer arrived then and they clinked glasses. Holding his glass up, Cobb closed his right nostril and took a snort. Sitting down, the dizziness was bearable. But, listening to his friends talk, he had a feeling of shame at no longer being human.

“How’s your son?” he asked Cynthia, just to be saying something. Chuck, the Farkers’ only child, was a United Cults minister up in Philadelphia. Cynthia loved to talk about him.

“He’s getting more nooky than you ever saw!” Cynthia gave a thin cackle. “And the girls give him money, too. He teaches them astral pro_jec_tion.”

“Some racket, huh?” Farker said, shaking his head. “If I were still young… ”

“Not you,” Annie said. “You’re not psychic enough. But Cobb,” she paused to smile at her escort, “Cobb could lead a cult any day.”

“Well,” Cobb said thoughtfully, “I have been feeling sort of psychic ever since…” He caught himself and skipped forward. “That is, I’ve been getting this feeling that the mind really is independent of your body. Even without your body, your mind could still exist as a sort of mathematical possibility. And telepathy is only… ”

“That’s just what our son Chuck says,” Cynthia interrupted. “You must be getting senile, Cobb!”

They all laughed then, and started talking about other things: food and health and gossip. But, in the back of his mind, Cobb began thinking seriously about cults and religion.

The whole experience of changing bodies felt miraculous. Had he proved that the soul is real… or that it isn’t? And there were his strange new flashes of empathy to explain. Was it that, having switched bodies once, he was no longer so matter-bound as before… or was it just the result of having mechanically sharp senses? What was he… guru or golem?

“You’re cute,” Annie said, and pulled him back onto the dance-floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Little Kidders put the robot that had looked like Sta-Hi in the back of the truck. Berdoo squeezed into the cab between Rainbow and Haf-N-Haf. No point taking a chance of her getting felt up.

“Thometimeth I wonder what Mr. Fwostee ith up to,” Haf-N-Haf slobbered, pulling out onto the asphalt.

“That makes two of us, boah. But he pays cash.”

“How much you got naow?” Rainbow asked, laying her hand on Berdoo’s thigh. “Yew got enough to take me for a week at Disney World? And first Ah wanna baah me some new clothes and maybe change mah hayur.”

“It looks real purty just lahk tis, Rainbow. Ah allus wanted me a cheap skank with green hair.”

Berdoo and Haf-N-Haf began snickering, and Rainbow fell into a sulk. The truck labored over the Merritt Island Bridge, and then Haf-N-Haf turned right onto Route One. Night-bugs spattered against their windshield, and the hydrogen-fueled engine pocked away.

“Is Kristleen gonna git us a new monkey-man?” Berdoo asked after awhile.

“She’d bettew!” Haf-N-Haf answered, staring out past the headlights. “Filthy Phil ith on her ath about it non-thop.”

Berdoo shook his head. “Ah surely don’t know whaah old Phil is so waald to be eatin brains all the time. It gets a little old, ya know?”

“Did he get Kristleen a new place to liyuv?” Rainbow wanted to know.

“Whah yew know he diyud, hunneh. Ain’t nobody can bring in the troops lahk that Kristleen can.”

“Well, Ah certainly hope that is a fact,” Rainbow said primly. “Yew been promisin and promisin me a brain-feast and all Ah’ve done so far was almost git arreyusted.”

“Ath wong ath Phil’s wunnin the thow we’ll be eating bwains,” Haf-N-Haf assured her.

“Something right funny about ole Phil,” Berdoo observed a bit later. “I ain’t never seen him smoke nor take a drink nor eat any regular food. And when he ain’t givin orders he jest sits and stares.”

They were in Daytona now, concrete and neon flickering past. Haf-N-Haf checked the mirror for cops, and then turned hard right into the Lido Hotel’s underground garage. He parked the truck way in back, and plugged a wire into the wall-socket to keep the refrigeration unit running. A little camera eye poked out of a hole on the top of the truck. Anybody who came near the truck now would be hurting for sure. Mr. Frostee knew how to take care of himself, especially with his extra remote in back.

They took the elevator up to their suite. Filthy Phil was sitting there, shirt off , staring out the window at the moonlit sea. His fat back with its sagging tattoo was facing them. He didn’t bother to turn around.

“Notice to Satan:” Rainbow said, shrilly reading Phil’s back aloud. “Send this Man to Heaven, Cause He’s Done His Time in Hell.” She read it in her dumbest schoolgirl tone. She didn’t like Phil.

Phil still didn’t turn around. Once there had been a human Filthy Phil, a welder who worked too late on BEX up at Ledge one nightshift. BEX had put the brain-tape in charge of his humanoid repair robot… but it hadn’t worked out. The personality had flattened out to that of an affectless killer. But he was still a good mechanic.

When they’d decided to send Mr. Frostee down to start collecting souls, Phil had come with him. Mr. Frostee still used Phil’s brain-tape when he needed repairs. But he didn’t like to put Phil’s personality in charge of the robot unless he had to. So, as a rule, the robot-remote called Filthy Phil had all the warmth and human responsiveness of a pair of vice-grip pliers.

“Y’all leave Phil alone,” Berdoo warned Rainbow. “He’s waitin for the phone to ring, ain’t that right, Phil?”

Phil nodded curtly. The shuttle to BEX was taking off tomorrow, and Phil Frostee had promised to send up a new set of organs. A tape could go up anytime, by radio… but he’d promised a whole person, body and soul, hardware and software. If Kristleen didn’t find someone… He stared out the window, listening to the three human voices behind him, and making his plans.

The phone rang then. Phil sprang across the room and snatched it up.

“Filthy Phil.”

The voice on the other end was high-pitched, tearful. Berdoo looked at Haf-N-Haf nervously. Even through the mirror-shades you could see that Phil was mad. But his voice came out smooth.

“I understand, Kristleen. Yes I understand. OK. Fine.”

More talking from the other end. Slowly a smile spread on Phil’s muscular face. He looked over at Berdoo and winked.

“OK. Kristleen. If he’s asleep why don’t you just come over now and we can pay you off. You got five grand coming. You better come get it now, because we’re going to shift bases tomorrow. Right. That’s right. O.K., baby. And don’t worry, I do understand.”

Phil set the phone down gently, almost tenderly. “Kristleen’s in love. She just blew a college boy and now she’s sitting there watching him sleep. He sleeps like a baby, she says, like an innocent child.” Phil began walking around the room, moving pieces of furniture this way and that.

“Kwithtween’th not going to dewiver and you’re going to pay her off anyway?” Haf-N-Haf asked incredulously.

“That’s what I told her,” Phil said evenly. “But I’m in a tight spot. I’ve got to have a body by tomorrow morning. The tape could go any time, but I’ve got a cargo-slot all signed up and paid for.” He took a small sleep-dart pistol out of a drawer and examined it carefully.

“You ain’t gonna kill Kristleen?” Rainbow cried.

“It’s not really killing,” Phil said, holding the pistol half-raised. “Haven’t you figured that out yet? Berdoo?”

Berdoo felt like he was back in eighth grade, being asked questions he couldn’t begin to understand. “Ah dunno, Phil. It’s yore gang. Yew got