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

chest. “You say cancel and make it sound so easy, but that’s realman oink, you wave? It’ll hurt, Whitey, if I do it at all. I’m scared. Don’t leave today. Don’t go up to Bei and ISDN.”

“Hey, dig it, nobody else is gonna pay me. You go see Charles; he’ll fix you up. Do it right away. I’ll catch you there at noon. If you want, you can wait till then to abort. Just try and stay cool, Darla. I ain’t pointing no finger, but you got yourself into this. Wu-wei.” As he talked, Whitey walked across the room and cut off the zapper.

Darla watched him from the bed, her eyes flashing bitterness and fear. “I’m not going to Freck alone, hissy pig. Freck’s too spaced. When he hears I’m pregnant, he’ll try some xoxy pervo realman trip for sure. I’m going to wait right here. You go do your ISDN number and meet me back here. Noon, like you said.”

“Wavy.” Whitey gave Darla a last, worried glance. “And don’t let anyone but me in till then, baby. I mean… ” He glanced meaningly at the ceiling. They’d debugged the place last week, but you never knew. “Here.” He took his needler out and tossed it to her. “Just in case. I’ll be back as soon as I can, and noon at the latest.” A last wave of the hand, and then he stepped out into the corridor. The zapper flicked back on.

Darla lay there for a while, trying to go back to sleep. Nothing doing. She got up, drank some water, and puked again. Christ. Pregnant. A baby in her stomach, a little jellybean embryo in there, and who knew where it came from. Probably it was Whitey’s. Poor baby. That Ken meatie had been here to zombie-box them, not knock her up, probably, right? Her hands were really shaking. The abortion would hurt a lot, that was for xoxxox sure. And maybe she wanted the baby. What time was it? She cut the vizzy to a newshow with a clock at the bottom: 8:47.

 Announcer talking about the mudder Gimmie trying to get to all the nine-day boys Manchile had fathered before Mark Piggot shot him. Couple of them still on the loose, hiding out with their mothers. Picture of one of the missing mothers, Cisco Lewis, thin and young. Kilp coming down heavy all over. Could be the boppers were trying a special nine-month model on Darla and had wanted to put a rat in her brain to make sure she went to term. She picked up the needler and checked that it was full-charged. Flicked off the safety and fired a test shot at the floor. Chips of rock, lava. If anyone tried to get in here…

“Hello?” The voice was right outside the zapper curtain. “Whitey Mydol? Anybody here?”

Darla stood stock-still, not daring to breathe.

“Whitey? It’s Stahn Mooney, man, I need to score some merge. Yukawa’s closed down. Open up, man, I’m getting skinsnakes.” Darla tried to hold the needler level at the door. Her hands were shaking five or ten cycles a second. “HEY WHITEY!” yelled the voice, strident and lame.

Long, long silence, then muttering, and then a skritch-scratching at the lock. Suddenly the curtain flicked off. Darla screamed and jabbed the needler button. The shot was wide. The guy leaped forward and caught her in a bear hug. He was strong and skinny and old. He got the needler off her, stepped back, cut the zapper back on, and gave Darla a long, horny look. She was naked under her loose T-shirt. He was wearing a red imipolex jumpsuit with a lot of zippers.

“Who are you?” the guy asked. “Whitey’s girlfriend?”

Darla sat down on the bed and slid her hand under the mattress to touch the knife. “Come here,” she said, her voice shaking. “Come sit next to me.”

The intruder’s mouth spread in a long, sly smile. “And find out what you got hid under the mattress? No thanks. Power down. I’m just here to score some merge. Stahn Mooney’s the name. What’s yours?”

“Duh-Darla.” Her teeth were chattering. “We’re out of merge, too. You got any quaak? How’d you get the door open?”

“I’m a detective. Mooney Search. I mean that’s what I was doing last month. Yukawa hired me to look for Della Taze, and Whitey was tailing me for Bei Ng.”

“Yeah,” said Darla, untensing a little. “I remember. You flared Whitey’s shoulder. Hold on while I get dressed.” She found some silk shorts and pulled them on, trying not to bend over. “Stop staring, dook, this is my life, wave?” He just stood there by the zapper, grinning away. Darla gave him a tough frown and shook her finger at him. “Don’t try and put a move on me, hisspop, or Whitey’ll do you dirt. You’re already on his list.”

“I bet it’s a long one.”

“What is?”

“Whitey’s list. He’s not the most ingratiating young man I’ve ever met. Not quite Rotary Club material.”

“He’s nice to me.”

Darla decided to change shirts. Most guys sweetened right up once they’d gotten a glimpse of her huge lowgee boobs. She pulled the T-shirt up over her head and put on a plas blouse with a big pouch in front. Mooney watched the process alertly.

“You’re beautiful, Darla. Whitey’s a lucky man. Do you turn tricks?”

He was going to break in and stand here and insult her, right? “Not for skinny lamo slushed rent-a-pigs. Like I told you, dook, there’s no merge. Dig it. Good-bye.”

“Uh… I got some merge to sell, if you’re out.” He drew out a silver flask and handed it to her. “It’s primo, straight from Yukawa. I tried it last month.”

Darla opened the flask and sniffed. It smelled like the real thing. The flask was almost half full. Like $10K’s worth. “Why’d you say you’re buying if you’re selling? What are you really after, Mooney? You just came down here to break in and nose around, didn’t you?”

He pocketed the needler and gave her another of his long smiles. “Actually, Darla, I came down here to meet you.”

Her skin sprang into gooseflesh. Was this guy a meatie after all? Before he could say anything else, she threw a gout of merge into his face. “Here’s your score, bufop.”

It was a huge dose, and he got limp right away. Darla kicked him in the crotch and he hit the floor.

“Quick,” she said, standing over him. “While you can still talk. Tell me who hired you or I’m going to take out all your bones and sit on you. Whitey and me been planning to do that.” She gave his softening head a vicious smack. “Who hired you, Mooney?”

“Emuw,” slobbered Mooney. “A boppuh cawwed Emuw. He want to know if youw pwegnan. He wan you ta gwow an extwuh buhbuh… ” His face went totally slack and he puddled.

“I’m getting an abortion,” Della told the two-eyed Mooney puddle. “I’m gonna go do it like right now.”

Mooney had flowed right out of his dooky jumpsuit. Darla went through its pockets, found her needler and a… wad of bills… $20K, oxo wow! And, oh-oh, a remote mike. He was bopperbugged, which meant they’d just heard what she said about getting an abortion. Darla started shaking again. Hurry, Darla, hurry! She stuffed the merge flask and the money in her shirt’s pouch. She fired six quick needler blasts through the zapper curtain. Then she cut off the curtain and jumped out into the hall.

Empty. The curtain powered back up, and Darla was alone in a fifty-yard corridor. No sound but the slight humming of all the zappers. She took off running down the hall. She kept expecting a meatie to dart out from behind one of the zapper doors. She was in such a hurry that she forgot to look up when she jumped into the shaft that led down to the Markt.

Just as she got hold of the fireman’s pole that ran down the center of the shaft, someone bumped into her from above.

“I’m sorry… ” Darla began, but then something jabbed her spine. She twitched wildly, as if from a seizure, and let go of the pole. A strong hand caught hold of her wrist. The seizure passed. Darla felt her body get back hold of the fireman’s pole. She wanted to turn her head and see who’d stabbed her, but she couldn’t. She landed heavily on the Markt level. She could hear her invisible assailant hurrying back up the ladder, and then her legs led her out into the Markt and off to the right. Away from the Tun.

It’s a zombie box, Darla thought to herself, feeling oddly calm. The boppers knew my wiring from the last time, so they had a special box all fixed to spike right in. I wonder if it shows under my hair?

She walked stiff-hipped past the rows of shops. The robot control of her body made her move differently from normal. Her arms hung straight at her sides, and her knees flexed deeply, powering her along in a rapidly trucking glide. She looked like a real jerk. She could tell because, for once, men didn’t stare at her.

Her bobbing bod angled into the door of a shop called Little Kidder Toys. A crummy, dimlit place she’d never bothered noticing before. Outdated mecco novelties, some cheap balls, and two kids nosing around. A hard-looking middle-aged grit woman behind the counter. Before Darla could see anything else, her robot-run body whirled and peered out the shop door, staring back down the Markt mall to see if anyone was following her. No one, no one, but yes, there, just coming out of the shaft, far and tiny, was Whitey! She jerked back out of sight.

“Kin ah hep yew?” The shopkeeper had saggy boobs and a cracker accent. “Ah’m Rainbow.” Her short, chemically distressed hair was indeed dyed in stripes of color: a central green strip flanked by two purples and two yellows. The roots were red. A true skank. “Yew lookin fo a toooy, hunnih?”

The zombie box had Darla’s speech centers blocked. Instead, she leaned forward, making sure the children couldn’t see, and made four quick gestures with her left hand. Three fingers horizontal—three fingers pointing down—fingers and thumb cupped up—fingers straight up with thumb sticking out to the side. Simple sign language: E-M-U-L.

“Well les check on that, huunnih,” drawled Rainbow casually. “Les check in bayack. Have you two chirrun decahded whut you wawunt yet?”

The two children looked up from their toygrubbing. A young boy and a younger girl. They looked like brother and sister. “I want to get this toy fish,” said the girl in a quacky little voice. She held the fish cradled against her thin chest. “My brother has all the money.”

“But I’m not ready yet,” said the boy stubbornly. “I want a glider, and I haven’t decided which one.”

“Ah don’t lahk you all takin so looong,” said Rainbow coaxingly. “Ah gotta hep this naahce grownup lady naow. Tell you whut, young mayun. You kin have the bes glaahder fo two dollahs off.”

“Yes, but… ”

Rainbow strode forward, plucked a glider off the rack, and pressed it into the boy’s hand. “Gimme fi dollah an git!”

He drew a large handful of change out of his pocket and studied it carefully. “I only have four seventy-five, so… ”

“Thass fahn!” Rainbow took the money off the boy and pushed the two children out the door. “Bah-bah, kiddies, be gooood.” As soon as they were outside she turned on the zapper. The doorway filled with green light.

“Naow,” said