I saw Riscky’s headset lying on the floor. It was still live, with images playing inside it. I wanted to stomp and crush the headset, but I was barefoot. Instead I tapped three-one-four-one (how-I-need-a) on the right temple to turn off the satanic engine.
I lay down on the bed. Gretchen spread the sheet over both of us and spooned herself against my back.
“Was I yelling last night?” I asked.
“If you were, I slept right through it. Pot and good sex puts me totally to sleep.”
“After you went to sleep, I put on my new cyberspace headset and I had-I had a terrible experience. I thought you were dead. I thought I choked you. I thought I had diarrhea in the bed.”
“Were you with the ants?”
“Yes. Only now they look like robots and people. They’re much much much faster than they used to be.”
“Jerzy, why do you fry your brain?” Gretchen sounded mad. “It’s like you don’t begin to realize-” She shook her head. “The ants are shit, Jerzy. The ants suck.”
“Nice talk for a mortgage insurance broker.” Thank God I had this warm real woman with me. “I love you, Gretchen. I’m glad you’re here. I’m so scared about everything.”
“About your trial starting tomorrow?”
“And about the ants. And about this latest burn. I don’t think there was a phreak behind this one. I think the ants did it to me themselves.”
“Did you do something to bother the ants?”
“Well, yes, I went into their nest. The Antland of Fnoor, I call it.”
“So don’t go there again. Don’t go into cyberspace at all.”
“And I’m worried about what the ants might do to the new robots. We copied a GoMotion ant lion into the new robot code, but these cyberspace ants I saw last night-I think they’ve been sitting in the machines at West West and watching me create the code. They were imitating Squidboy and even Perky Pat. If there’s a loophole in my code, the cyberspace ants are going to find it. The new robots might not be safe to use.”
“You should tell GoMotion and West West. Get your lawyer to fax them a letter so that if something new goes wrong you’ll have a defense.”
“That’s a good idea.”
We ate some yogurt and granola from Keith and Queue’s kitchen. Instead of crushing my headset, I put it and the gloves into my car’s trunk. And then I drove Gretchen to her apartment.
“See you again tonight, Jerzy?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll call you.”
“Stay away from the ants!”
“I’ll try.”
I went to see Stu at his office in downtown San Jose. He had a spiffed-up one-room office in the old Bank of America building. Instead of a secretary, he had a smart computer with good voice-recognition and speech-generation software. He could dictate documents to it, and it was able to answer the phone. He called his computer Miss Prentice.
Standing outside Stu’s door in the empty BofA building hallway, I could hear him talking with Miss Prentice. “Take your penis out and masturbate yourself,” Miss Prentice was saying.
“I’m busy right now,” whined Stu. “I don’t want to. I don’t have the energy.”
“Do you refuse to obey your mistress?” growled Miss Prentice. “I will not tolerate such behavior. You have dared to have an erection in the presence of your mistress, and now you must masturbate it away!”
“I don’t have an erection yet, Miss Prentice,” said Stu. “Can you show me some dirty pictures?”
I knocked quickly on the office door before the sordid scene could progress any farther. Miss Prentice’s voice rose an octave. “Who’s there?”
“It’s Jerzy Rugby.”
“Mr. Koblenz will see you now.” The door swung open.
Stu was sitting at his desk with his hands in his lap. He was holding an orange Nerfball. He was wearing a thin wrinkled suit and a tie.
“How’s it going?” said Stu, taking aim and shooting the Nerfball at a basketball hoop he’d glued to the wall. There was a Scotch-taped paper chute so that if Stu made a basket the ball would roll back to him. The ball went in. “I made another one, Miss Prentice,” said Stu, catching the ball from the trough. “What does that make my average for today?”
“You’re making eighty-seven percent of them, Mr. Koblenz,” said the computer. “Congratulations.” Unlike my robots, Miss Prentice didn’t look at all alive. Miss Prentice was nothing but a big computer box with a video screen, a printer, a microphone, and a speaker. I glanced quickly at the screen-it showed an insipid spreadsheet, probably fake.
I sat down. “Stu, I’m worried about the West West and GoMotion robot software that I helped develop. I don’t think it’s safe. I think the GoMotion ants might be able to infect the robots. Can you send letters to West West and GoMotion in my name saying that? A snail-mail letter and a fax to each of them? If the robots malfunction, I don’t want even more blame to be laid on me.” Snail-mail was the hacker word for ordinary, nonelectronic mail.
Stu thought for a minute, then shook his head. “How did you come up with such a terrible idea? You don’t want to send letters like that. If the robots were to malfunction, those letters would be viewed as proof that you’d known you’d sabotaged the code. A confession. So I won’t send them, no.” Stu regarded me distantly. “It would only make you the more convictable.”
“What do you mean convictable? Aren’t we going to win this trial? Aren’t you ready? You’re sitting here jacking off and playing Nerfball! What are you going to do for me in court tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow and Friday the judge selects and instructs a jury. Friday afternoon the D.A. and I make our opening statements. Monday we start with the witnesses. Sure I’m ready. But I don’t think we’ll win. You’re in big trouble, Jerzy. In fact, you’re screwed.”
“How so?” My voice was tight and small. “I wasn’t in control of Studly! None of the charges is true!”
“I guess you haven’t seen the new National Enquirer.” Stu tossed me a copy of the tabloid newspaper. The front page was a big picture of Studly with the headline: JERZY TOLD HIS ROBOT TO KILL MY DOG!
Exclusive Interview!
Studly had his pincer up in the air and they’d drawn a sizzling laser ray coming out of his head. Boxed in along the side of the page were small pictures of me, Jose Ruiz, the bloody corpse of Dutch the dog, and a TV screen full of ants. I looked insanely evil.
“Jose is going to be the prosecution’s star witness,” said Stu, fondling his Nerfball. “According to this article, he saw and heard you telling Studly to infect the Fibernet and to kill his dog. The West West cryps tell me that’s exactly what he’s going to testify to in court.” Stu shot the ball at the basket and missed. “I missed one, Miss Prentice. Can you get that, Jerzy?”
“Eighty-four percent,” said Miss Prentice.
I picked the ball up off the floor and handed it to Stu. “But look, Stu, we knew all along that Ruiz was going to be the prosecution’s best witness. And now that you know exactly what Ruiz is going to say, that’s an advantage, isn’t it? Think of questions to trip him up! Go out and measure the distance from Ruiz’s window to his picnic table and prove that he couldn’t have actually heard me-or do something else like that! Why are you just sitting here?”
“My main problem is that West West isn’t going to pay me any more.”
“Oh. You heard?”
“Yeah, Otto Gyorgyi called me yesterday. We’re cutting you loose.”
“And my bail’s only going to be good until…”
“Until noon on Tuesday.” Stu shot and made another basket, then got to his feet. “I just sank another one, Miss Prentice. Now watch the office for a few minutes, you slutty bitch. Mr. Rugby and I are going to take a walk.” Miss Prentice kept her silence. She’d even up things with Stu later.
Stu led me out into the hall, down the elevator, and out into the street. “I want to make a suggestion to you in strictest confidence, Jerzy. I’m doing this because I happen to think you’re a good guy.”
“What?”
“I don’t like to come out and say it. This is such a weird case. It’s like a house full of termites. Every source we’ve checked has shown signs of other cryps. I’d lay five to three that right now somebody in one of these cars or buildings is tracking us with a parabolic mike.” Stu steered us around a corner to stand by a big, noisy fountain in front of the San Jose Fairmont.