“If you paid the child support, we could live somewhere better.”
“They already have somewhere better to live. In Los Perros with me. I don’t have any money, that’s why I’m not paying any child support.”
“You have to, Jerzy, it’s the law. And the children prefer to stay with me.” This seemed to be true, and was too depressing to argue about.
“Well, I just got a new job today, so starting in two weeks, I guess I can pay. But find a better place, okay?”
“This apartment is fine,” said Hiroshi. “I’ve lived here two years. There’s been no trouble.”
“If there’s spacedust vials out there, that means somebody in the complex is selling it. And selling spacedust means sooner or later there’s going to be a gunfight. You’re not back in crime-free Japan, Hiroshi.”
“I’ve never been to Japan, Jerzy. I grew up in Cupertino. And now I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my apartment.”
“I’m sorry, Hiroshi, I didn’t mean to sound racist. I’m just concerned about my children’s safety. If you don’t mind too much, I’d rather stay here a little longer. Frankly, I think the police are looking for me.”
“Mr. Law and Order,” said Hiroshi mockingly.
Just then another Special News Report interrupted “Smart Women, Dumb Men.” The anchorperson still had a giant ant head, but the on-the-scene reporter looked normal. She was standing in a bright light at 5782 White Road. Something was lying at her feet.
“This watchdog may have been killed by the forces who cut the Fibernet cable in the backyard of this east-side home. The owner alleges that the attacker was- a mobile robot.”
The camera turned slightly to show the burly Mexican man I’d seen earlier. He looked unhappy and his eyes were red. “I saw the robot earlier today. It was shaped like a garbage can on wheels. It killed my dog. The robot belonged to a geek in a red Animata.” Geek? Hadn’t he ever seen anyone wear sandals with M. C. Escher socks before?
“You and Studly killed a dog!” exclaimed Carol. “That’s terrible! And how could you send the children down to play with him, Jerzy!” Her voice rose to command volume. “You get down there and make sure those children are okay! And don’t come back in here. I don’t care if the police are after you! You’re too crazy, Jerzy! You and your precious machines. Go on now! Good-bye!”
“All right.” I left Carol’s apartment and headed down to the car. This pause had already been long enough to help throw the police off the track. But would the Vos talk? And what would GoMotion say when the authorities started asking them why the ants kept spelling out the company name on TV? Would they try and pin it on me?
Given that Roger Coolidge had infected my system with ants and let me keep Studly, it almost looked as if GoMotion had deliberately set me up to be a patsy. They’d laid me off so that when I got busted they could bad mouth me as a “disgruntled former employee.” But what was Roger’s motive in setting the ants free? And how did the ants fit in with West West and Hex DEF6?
I felt tired and fatalistic. I might as well go home and wait for the police to come and get me. Just today, during his endless recounting of his life story, my new West West boss Otto Gyorgyi had told me that back in the commie days of Hungary there’d been a story that when the secret police wanted to liquidate you they’d stop by your house and hand you a length of piano wire. And then you’d strangle yourself, for, “ Vat else vas zere to do?”
Thinking of Hungary and the police made me wonder if our own USA would ever be free. Would we ever get rid of the earth-raping, drug-warring social oppressors who’d made the public treasury their own latrine and hog wallow? Well, the Hungarians had gotten rid of the Communists, hadn’t they? Some day the Revolution was going to come to America, too. One of the secondary reasons why I worked on ants and robots was that I hoped they could help bring down the Pig.
Tonight the ants had ruined television. There could be no more important step in crippling the Pig. I started grinning. The GoMotion ants had done a good thing. I was proud of them.
The kids had Studly out of the trunk and he was playing tag with them in the parking lot, lunging forward just now to tap laughing Ida’s back with his pincer- the same bloodstained pincer that had killed Dutch the dog.
I gasped in anguish. Where was my brain? The only thing to do with Studly anymore was to scrap him!
“Get back in the trunk, Studly!” I shouted. I half-expected him to refuse, but he complied.
“Studly killed a dog,” I told the kids once the robot was locked in the trunk. “They’re talking about it on TV. I was an idiot to let him play with you just now. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Why did he kill a dog?” asked Tom.
“It’s probably the ants. The ants must have changed the way he thinks. I’m going to let his batteries run down.”
Studly started hammering on the trunk from the inside. He’d heard what I’d said. “Let me out, Jerzy, and let me run away! It wasn’t my fault! The voice made me do it! I don’t want to die!” I’d never heard one of our robots talking about death before.
“Are you going to get in trouble?” Tom asked over Studly’s cries.
“Maybe. GoMotion might say it’s thanks to me the ants are on TV. And to tell you the truth, I hope the ants stay. It would even be worth my going to jail, I think. It’s a wonderful thing to ruin television. I’m glad. I hope that television never works right again.”
“Daddy!” protested Ida. “You are so mean. If you don’t like television you don’t have to watch it.”
“I don’t like for anyone to watch television,” I exclaimed. “Everything on it is lies. The Lord hates television.” This last phrase was a variable catch phrase that my family and I had picked up during our stay in Killeville, where there had been eighteen different religious Fibernet channels showing hideous TV evangelists. One time we’d seen an old tape of Jerry Falwell preaching about how much “ The Lord hates ” this and that, and so from that day on, I’d always enjoyed telling Ida things like, “The Lord hates lipstick,” or “The Lord hates McDonald’s.”
“ The Lord hates Daddy’s ants,” responded Ida.
“Yes, I’m glad the ants have ruined television,” I repeated. “But I’m scared of them, too. Last night I was looking in cyberspace and the ants were really scary. You children-you children have to be very careful. Somehow my
hacking has gotten me mixed up in some big things. The ants were threatening to hurt you. I saw a simmie called Hex DEF6.”
THUD THUD THUD.
The Studcreature was hammering the trunk so hard that I was half-expecting to start seeing bulging-out dents. Studly didn’t want to die, but each thud was weaker than the one before. He only had so much power left in his batteries.
“Kids, I’m gonna go home and face the music. Wish me luck.”
“Bye, Da. We love you.”
SIX
When I got home all was calm and dark. As I got out of the car, Studly called to me.
“Jerzy! I need electricity immediately.” His voice was faint.
I thought of Eddie Poe’s classic story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” where a man named Montresor lures his besotted enemy into a crypt, there to shackle and immure him.
“Wait till morning, Studly.”
“But I’ll lose all my memories, Jerzy. I haven’t downloaded to disk.”
“ For the love of God, Montresor,” I murmured mockingly. Studly had done more than enough damage already. The sooner his batteries died the better. Hopefully the memory wipe would erase the ant programs that had infected him. And if not, I’d better take him apart and crush his chips with pliers, as Roger had said. I went in the house, opened a beer, and sat down in front of the TV.
This TV hadn’t been turned on since the ants invaded Fibernet San Jose, so I figured that if I unplugged the cable I might be able to pick up clear broadcast television with the set’s rabbit ears. I gave it a try. I managed to watch about fifteen seconds worth of un-jammed network news, but then there was a little blip of static and- Hi, there! — the GoMotion ants were up and running on my TV. Now all the channels that I could pick up with my antenna were turned into crawling pixels, into people with ant heads, into random light shows-and the sound was chopped-up, crazy squawks.