Q: Is this just the first wave of a new generation of computer viruses?
A: If the GoMotion ants are able to permanently establish themselves in cyberspace, they could undergo a process like evolution and become ever more destructive and harder to kill. This would be analogous to the way in which each winter’s flu viruses are immune to the vaccines of the year before. Conceivably the cyberspace-based ants could periodically reinfect television. The most pessimistic prediction is that DTV-busting viruses are here to stay, and that digital television is a thing of the past.
While I was reading, the food and beer had come, and I’d been consuming them. Now I was done eating, and I’d paid the waitress off. I wasn’t sure what to do next.
“Jerzy!”
I looked up. It was Gretchen Bell, standing over me and smiling. She was wearing a short pleated plaid skirt with a pale yellow sweater. She looked languidly lively. “I was just talking about you! Everyone in my office has been asking me what you’re like!”
Tommy the bartender heard Gretchen saying my name, and now he hailed me, too. “Jerzy Rugby! The man who killed television!” A hubbub of voices ensued.
“Can I come over to your house, Gretchen?” I asked quickly.
“My apartment? I thought you said you were going to take me to the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco.” She laughed softly, keeping me hanging. “Well, let’s see. I have to go to Safeway, and I have to pick up some dry-cleaning. But after that, okay.” She gave me a good smile. She had the hots for me as much as I did for her. And now I was famous. “Do you know where I live?”
Someone tapped my shoulder, the same man who’d said I should be castrated. I kept my back to him and leaned toward Gretchen.
“I’m going to need a ride out of here. Like right now?”
“All right.”
“Are you some kind of goddamn terrorist?” demanded the castration advocate.
“I’m a software engineer,” I said as I turned. “What happened was an industrial accident.” I stepped around him and called a good-bye to the bartender. “Gotta go, Tommy! Sorry I can’t discuss the case!” There were plenty of other people who wanted to talk to me, but a minute later we were driving off in Gretchen’s car, a sputtering ten-year-old yellow Porsche.
“I bought this from an old boyfriend for two thousand dollars,” Gretchen told me. “Not bad, hey?”
“You must have a lot of boyfriends,” I essayed. I still knew almost nothing about Gretchen. “What kind of office do you work in?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m a mortgage insurance broker and I work part-time at Welsh amp; Tayke. With Susan Poker?”
“Susan Poker! She’s my worst enemy! She’s the one who turned me in! Did you talk to her about me?”
“Sure, Jerzy. I tell all my friends the exact intimate sensual details about every relationship I ever have.” Gretchen tossed her bell of long straight hair and glanced over to smile at me. “ Not. Well, okay, yesterday I may have told Susan that you and I were intimate. She was fascinated. I think she has a thing for you.”
“Did you tell her about the ants in my computer?”
“What is this, a quiz show?” Gretchen swung into the Safeway parking lot. “Do you have any money yet?”
“Here.” I handed her a twenty. “I’ll wait in the car.”
“Do you like anything special for breakfast?” The assumption behind the question made my heart beat faster.
“Low-fat milk. English muffins. Maybe get some wine or beer for tonight.”
“Can I have two more twenties?” Her blue eyes gazed at me calmly.
“Jesus, Gretchen.” I handed her the bills.
She started across the lot, tall and willowy, with her skirt swaying beautifully, and then she turned and walked partway back to me. “What about condoms?” she called.
The boldness of the question made my throat contract with lust, and my voice came out thin and reedy. “I don’t have any with me.”
“Well you better get some at the Walgreen’s over there.”
“Yes.” It was hard to imagine that this was the same Safeway parking lot where I had so often shopped with Carol. Walking across the lot, I half-expected Carol to pop up and ask me what I was doing.
As soon as Gretchen and I were done with our shopping, we went to her apartment and fucked. It was just as good as it had been on Monday; it was so good it made me change the way I think.
During my twenty-three years with Carol, I’d always thought-in some deep, unreasoning way-that there was something unique about Carol herself that made sex possible. I’d always acted on the assumption that Carol was the one physiologically compatible organism with whom the being Jerzy Rugby could successfully mate.
Yet now, with Gretchen, I realized-way down in my soul-that it was indeed possible to have sex with people besides Carol. Monday I’d been too surprised for it to sink in. But, yes, sex with Gretchen was just as great as with Carol. For the first time since Carol had left me, I realized that perhaps I could continue life without her. I still missed Carol’s personality-the tender music of her voice (when she was in a good mood), and the rich play of her conversation (when she was speaking to me)-but now I realized that I did not need to miss Carol’s body. How liberating; how sad.
Gretchen and I fell asleep in each other’s arms. Sometime in the middle of the night the phone rang. Gretchen picked it up.
“Hi. Umm-hmmm. Scrumptious. No, no. For sure! Bye.”
Gretchen set down the phone and embraced me. We kissed and went back to sleep.
In the morning I got up and took a piss. Regally nude, I wandered into the kitchen for some food. I hadn’t even thought yet to start worrying about my legal troubles. Just then someone tapped softly on the door. I harkened, and the tap came again, tinny on the hollow metal of the apartment door.
“Jerzy, can you get it?” croaked sleepy Gretchen If from the bedroom.
“Who is it?” I asked, hurrying back in there to pull on my khaki shorts.
If “Oh, it’s one of my friends. A woman.” Gretchen snuggled her head deep into her pillow and closed her eyes. ”You talk to her. I’ll get up in a second.“
The soft tap-tapping had a bland implacability that set my nerves on edge. I found my glasses right away, but it was taking me forever to find my watch and wallet. Tappity-tap. The tapping was rushing me, the tapping was telling me what to do, the tapping was making me feel like a stupid doomed animal that tries to flee an oncoming locomotive by running straight down the track.
“I don’t want to answer the door,” I hissed to Gretchen as I pulled on my argyles and buckled my sandals. “And how can you be sure it’s your friend? Who knows I’m here? Who called you on the phone last night?”
“Go answer the door.”
So like an idiot I did. And guess what? It was Susan Poker.
“Mr. Rugby,” said she, smiling in a new, more personal, though still not very friendly, way. Her sharp curious eyes roved rapidly over me. “We meet again!”
“Oh God. I don’t believe this. Susan Poker.” I looked past her to see who she’d brought in tow-but for now nobody was visible. She made as if to walk into the apartment but I held the door half-closed so as to block her way.
Rage was flaring up in me; I had to struggle to stay calm. Don’t use curse words, Jerzy. Don’t be violent. One wrong move and Susan Poker would have the cops, on me like stink on shit. I put my head through some major changes and choked out a civil sentence.
“What is your business here?”
“As a matter of fact, Mr. Rugby, I was hoping to discuss real estate with you.” She was wearing a green silk suit with a yellow scoopneck blouse. Her shoes matched her suit. I was shirtless. “Gretchen,” called Susan Poker, using her voice to reach past me. “Tell your gentleman friend it’s safe to let me in!”