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

She pushed him away a bit more sharply than seemed necessary. “Just GO. Let’s not stand here talking all night till the Gimmie comes.” She gave Bubba a final pat on the cheek. “You’re a fine boy. Whatever happens, I’m proud to be your mother.”

Bubba took a few steps, stopped, and looked back at Cobb and Cisco.

“Will you two be all right?”

Cobb made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Don’t worry about us, squirt. We race-traitors are a rough bunch. As soon as Cis and I get the hayloft cleaned out, we’ll steal a car and split. No prob. Beat it. Free Cousin Willy if you get a chance.”

It was full dark now, with not much traffic on the streets. Bubba found Fifth Street and started walking downtown. The shoes took some getting used to, especially with the ice. Bubba could see into lots of houses, all lit up and with families having dinner. His stomach rumbled for food. He passed some half-empty bar-and-grills, but they didn’t look right. Up ahead, just to the left of the sunset’s faint gray ghost, the sky was bright with big-city lights. Bubba put his head down and walked faster.

Finally he came to a big cross-street with lots of cars. He was very cold, especially his eyes and nose. A harsh wind blew grit up and down the dirty sidewalks. Nobody except Bubba was walking. But right here, at the corner of Fifth and Broadway, there was a big lit-up store with men standing inside. Bubba found the door and went in to get warm.

One of the men came over to Bubba. His waist was wide, and he had a red face. He looked a little like Cobb, but not much.

“Hi there,” said the man, sticking out his hand. “I’m Cuss Buckenham. Can I hep you in any way?”

Bubba knew how to shake hands. “I’m Buford Anderson,” he said, doing it. “It’s cold and windy and dark out there.” Cisco had taught him to talk about the weather whenever he was unsure.

“You need your daddy to get you a car,” said Cuss Buckenham. There were several shiny new cars inside the store with them. Bubba deduced that this man sold cars.

“My daddy drove a Doozy,” said Bubba. Mamma had told him about Manchile’s Doozy several times. “But he’s dead. Do you sell Doozies, Mr. Buckenham?”

Cuss Buckenham threw back his head and laughed in a stagy, friendly way. “Do ah sell Doozies? Does a frog eat flies?”

“I don’t know,” said Bubba, fumbling in his pockets. “But I can buy a car right now with my card, can’t I? I’m twenty-one and my uncle gave me lots of money.”

The car dealer stopped laughing and took Bubba’s card. He looked up at Bubba, looked back at the card, and looked up again. “I got a fine new Doozy right over here, Buford.” Buckenham pointed to a deeply lustrous gold sports car in the corner.

“Thanks, Mr. Buckenham. And call me Bubba.”

“Sure thing, Bubba, but you gotta call me Cuss. That there Doozy’s one of the last 2031s in stock, loaded, and I can let you have it at a gooood price. Go on over and take a look, while I just run this card and see what kind of authorization we can git.”

Bubba opened the car door and got inside. Right away, he Knew how to drive. It was like remembering something he’d forgotten about. The car looked good. The speedometer went up to 200 mph. The seats were real leather and the dash was faced in wood.

After a few minutes, Cuss Buckenham came over and squatted beside the car to look in at Bubba. “Your credit’s copacetic, Mr. Anderson. How do you like her?”

“I’ll take it.”

Fifteen minutes later, the papers were all signed and the Doozy had been rolled out into the store’s lot. Buckenham waved good-bye, and Bubba turned right on Broadway.

Fourth Street, Third Street, Second Street, try a left. Main Street, Chestnut Street, Muhammad Ali Boulevard. Big old building on the corner there, take a right. Big sign: La Mirage Health Club. Three-deck garage just beside it, pull in. Lock it and pocket. Done.

Bubba walked up the steps of La Mirage. It was Saturday night, and the place was jumping. There were knots of well-groomed men and women inside, black and white, old and young, some dressed for evening and some in sports togs. The doorman took an impression of Bubba’s card, and the young meatbop was in.

“May I take your coat, sir?”

A lithe, long-haired girl smiled at Bubba from a large rectangular hole in the wall. There were lots of coats hanging behind her.

“Yes,” said Bubba. “Thank you.”

He shrugged his way out of his coat and handed it to her. She turned, hung the coat up, turned back and smiled. “Nice tie, sir.” She had perfect features and full pouty lips. The sinuous arch of her long back and neck made her seem alert, perky, predatory, and poised.

“Thank you. My name’s Bubba. What’s yours?”

“Kari. Are you new in town?”

“Yes.” Bubba took a deep breath and leaned forward. “You’re beautiful and I’d like to go to bed with you.”

“You bet,” said Kari. “And so would my boyfriend.” She laughed easily, letting him off  the hook. “The lounge and dining area’s down the hall to the left, sir, and the gym’s upstairs. Good luck!”

Bubba smiled foolishly, then headed down the high-ceilinged, marble-floored, oak-paneled hall. Maybe he’d skimped too much on the middle part: talk to her for a while. Or maybe a chick like Kari was, quite simply, out of his league. At least for now. Hell, he was still just thirteen.

He entered the La Mirage lounge. His brain systems scanned his Know for an analog of what he saw. “Exploratorium,” “Science Fair,” and “Disky Museum of Robotics” came to mind. Scattered all about the lounge were people looking at or listening to little machines, little things like viewers and earphones and, in a few cases, whole-head helmets.

“Welcome, sir,” said a young man in a tuxedo. “Are you new here?”

“Yes. I’m hungry.”

“Very good, sir, there’ll be a waiting time of twenty minutes. Party of one?”

Bubba observed that there were a few unattached women in the lounge. “Party of two,” said Bubba. “Do you need my card?”

“Just your name, sir.”

“Buford Cisco Anderson.”

“Very good. While you’re waiting, feel free to enjoy the healthful stim of our various software devices. Are you familiar with them all?”

“No.”

“Well, you might start with a twist-box. Twist-boxes do a simple feedback-directed cutup and CA cleanup on visual inputs. They’re from Einstein and quite amusing, though not everyone’s seen them yet. Next I might suggest that you experience a cephscope tape. This week’s special tape is by our local media star Willy Taze. Even if you’re from out of town, you must have been following the meatbop conspiracy hearings? Willy was working on this tape when they arrested him at his parents’ house. The first part of it’s supposed to be his impression of Manchile’s assassination. La Mirage’s profit on Willy’s tape showings will be contributed to the Taze Legal Defense Fund.”

Bubba did his best to look noncommittal, and the young man continued.

“Last of all, should you and your companion be up for a numero trois, we have a Mindscape Axis Inverter—a truly enlightening experience for the wealthy connoisseur of healthy highs.” The tuxedoed young man gave a prim smile and turned his attention to the next customer.

Bubba found a soft chair and plopped down. The well-lit dining room spread out from the other side of the dim lounge. There were people at all the tables, some of them tucking into big steak and seafood dinners. Bubba’s stomach rumbled again. Disconsolately he glanced around the lounge. A dark-skinned woman was watching him from a couch nearby.

She was looking through a kind of lorgnette that she had held up to her face. A twist-box. He smiled and waved at her. Her full and finely chiseled lips smiled back from beneath the twist-box. He got up and walked over.

“Hi, I’m Bubba Anderson.” He tried his most winning tone. The woman tilted her head back to look at him, still using the twist-box. “I’m alone,” said Bubba, still smiling. “Would you like to have dinner with me? I’d like to talk to you for a while.”

She set down the twist-box and looked him in the eye. Her eyes were large, with unreadable pupils set into smooth white whites. Finally she favored him with another smile. “Kimmie,” she said, holding up her hand, palm down.

Bubba bent over and brushed his lips across Kimmie’s fingers. “Charmed, I’m sure. May I look through your twist-box?”

“Certainly.”

He sat down next to her on the couch and took the proffered twist-box.

A slim titaniplast cable connected it to a staple in the floor. He held it up to his eyes and looked at Kimmie.

Her face took on the appearance of a visage in an animated cartoon. A congeries of fluxdots drifted out of her hair and down over her eyes, silvering them, adding meat to the cheeks and still more heft to the lips. He looked down her throbby neck and at the breast mounds swelling out of her strapless pink silk dress. He could hear his heart going _kathump kathump. _Kimmie’s dress disappeared, and Bubba’s glance skied down the slope of her smooth belly to the wiry black mysteries of her crotch. He stared and Knew. She was fertile. His penis stiffened.

“Now, really, Bubba,” said Kimmie, plucking the twist-box from his grasp. “You barely know what couth IS, do you, dear? You a country cousin?”

She talked like Geegee. “I’m new in town,” he said, uncertainly. “It’s very cold out tonight, did you notice? Cold and windy.”

“Well, I suppose it’ll get colder before it gets hot. And you’re asking me to dinner?”

“Yes.”

“I accept. But we’ll split the check, and there’s no strings. I fancy I could buy and sell you, Bubba child.”

“Thank you, Kimmie. Have you looked at the new Willy Taze cephscope show? It’s supposed to be about Manchile?”

She countered with a question. “What do you think of Manchile, Bubba? Do you think they were right to kill him?”

“I didn’t see him. But what he says makes sense, doesn’t it? Why shouldn’t humans and boppers begin to merge?”

Kimmie smiled drily. “How do we know the robots won’t screw our genes up so bad that the race dies off? Maybe that’s what they want. I’m all for the Thang’s enlightened egalitarianism, but I do have my doubts about a man who knocks up ten women in a week. Manchile’s nine-day boys.”

She gave Bubba an odd look. Did she know him for a meatbop? Was she some kind of Gimmie agent? His stomach rumbled again. To cover up his confusion he picked up one of the cephscope headsets and put it on. It was a simple band with metal pads that rested on his temples. As soon as Bubba slipped it on, the tape started.

Bubba felt a series of odd tingles all over his body, as if the cephscope were checking out his neurowiring. There were some random sounds and washes of color, and then suddenly the room around him tore into bits. He was staring at a man’s handsome face, and the man was talking in a thick Southern accent.

“In all the different kinds of folks I’ve met, I’ve seen one