“Something’s come up,” said Babs, and gave Theodore a peck on the cheek. “Bye. I’ll uvvy you tomorrow.”
So Babs got on the back of Randy’s motorcycle and rode back to her warehouse with him.
“One thing,” she said as they got off the bike. “I am not going to fuck you on any gross moldie sheet. Not that I’m saying I’d fuck you at all. Hi, Cobb.”
“Back so soon?” Cobb was slouched in the warehouse doorway, sort of guarding the place. “Yoke was just saying maybe she should go back to the Moon. Talking to her sister made her homesick. Hi, Randy, good to see you. You don’t want to go to the Moon yet, do you? There’s too much happening down here, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, I feel like things are just starting,” said Randy. “Hey, come on inside, Cobb, we four oughtta have a little talk. If Yoke can lay off raggin’ me.”
“Help,” hollered Yoke, seeing Randy in the doorway. “The attack of the giant snail!”
“I’m gonna whomp your butt!” shouted Randy, charging after her. He was tired of drag-assing around and being humble. Yoke shrieked and ran, firing off a few hydrogen-oxygen air-bombs in her wake. Randy alla-made a big cushion right in front of Yoke, and she stumbled over it. He stood over her, with Willa Jean loyally at his side. “You’ve teased me enough, Yoke. I know I done acted like a clown, but I’m gonna be different now. You hear that, Cobb and Babs? I’m gonna be a new man. Worthy of my great-grandpa, and worthy of the woman I love.”
“Huh?” said Yoke.
Babs walked over and put her arm around Randy’s waist. “I think Randy’s cute. So be nice to him.”
Randy smiled and kissed Babs’s cheek, then went ahead and threw both arms around her to give her a full-body hug. As he hugged her and inhaled her warm fragrance, he realized that, if he ever got her into bed, he wasn’t going to be needing any sex-aids.
“Okay,” said Babs, worming away. “But now we better talk about the alla thing you mentioned before.”
So Randy told the other three about how he’d learned that an alla would freshly re-register itself to whoever next picked it up after its last owner died—although there was supposedly a possibility that it could instead actualize a fresh copy of you.
“So in this fairy tale, the greedy peasant who kills the golden goose gets the goose’s powers,” said Yoke. “Xoxx it.”
“Unless he chooses to actualize a fresh, live instance of the goose,” pointed out Babs.
“Me, I’ve known my share of peasants,” said Randy. “Ain’t no peasant in the world would ever wish that goose back.”
“So either we keep the allas secret forever,” said Babs. “Or we get murdered. Or we throw our allas away. Or we figure out how to give one to everyone in the world. Four possibilities. And the first one’s impossible. Secrets get out. Especially with the aliens hanging with random cheeseballs and lifters all day long.”
“They’re on the Anubis?” said Randy. “That’s where, isn’t it? Why didn’t anyone tell me?” He was sitting next to Babs; Willa Jean had nestled in between them.
“We assumed that if you knew, you’d instantly run over there to try and fuck Shimmer again,” said Cobb. “I, for one, wanted to see my great-grandson’s poor bod get a few days rest.”
“I—” Randy’s voice cracked. “I ain’t doin’ that no more. Not while I got a chance with Babs.”
“How touching,” said Yoke in a voice that struggled to stay level. She paused to clear her throat. “Let’s think. What Babs said boils down to this. If we don’t want to get killed, we either get rid of our allas or we figure out how to give an alla to everyone. I’m for everyone getting an alla. We just have to find out how to tell an alla to make an alla.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Babs, absently petting Willa Jean. “People are too stupid. If everyone gets an alla, every square inch of the world will be full of—crap. It’s been fun making art with the alla, but I was an artist before I got my alla, and I’ll be an artist when it’s gone. Maybe I’d rather just throw it away than have idiots use it.”
“Well, that’s great for you, Miss High and Mighty,” said Yoke. “But I’m an artist too. Only there was never an art-form I felt really good at till the alla came along. Does that make me a clumsy peon? I’m not giving up my alla, Babs.”
“You’re great with your alla, Yoke,” said Babs soothingly. “And I didn’t mean to sound like I don’t think you’re an artist. But actually you could do art even without the alla, you know. I was just saying that most people aren’t artists at all.”
“Most people are dumb shits,” said Yoke, still feeling feisty. “But if everyone has an alla, then what a fool does is fixable. If one person does something stupid, someone else can undo it.”
“Are you sure?” said Babs. She projected a mesh over a potted African violet and turned it into an ugly plastic flower jabbed into a chunk of Styrofoam the shape of a cat. “This is what people will do. Can you fix it?”
“Yeah,” said Yoke slowly. “The alla can make plants. Here you go.” And a new African violet appeared. “I had the alla give it standard potting soil complete with bacteria, bugs, and worms, though I admit I don’t have any way of knowing exactly what was there before.”
Babs leaned over the plant examining it. “I’m impressed,” she admitted. “I like it. This gives me hope. And you know, come to think of it, I can’t bear the thought of losing my alla. I was just scared to admit it before. This could really work.” Babs laughed happily. “Yes. I have this image of some dook turning a beautiful woodsy hilltop into a gross puffball McMansion with three stories and forty thousand square feet. And then his greenie neighbor turns the house back into a woodsy hilltop. Back and forth all day long. Maybe the dook would only put up his house at night.”
“There’d still be zoning laws in any case,” mused Yoke. “That would put some limits on the houses. If the Gimmie could enforce them. And there’s a limit to how big a volume the alla can transform at one go. A cube something like forty feet on a side.”
“But even so, everyone would build out to the legal max,” said Babs. “They’d alla up their giant houses one section at a time. And homeless people would pitch houses for themselves just anywhere, even though they don’t own any land. But that’s actually good, isn’t it? No more homeless.”
“Squatters deluxe,” mused Randy. “They wouldn’t need no plumbing hookups. Use the alla to fill your bathtub, and use it again to make the dirty water go away. Wouldn’t be so bad. You could put up a house anywhere. Use the alla to make batteries for any electricity you needed.”
“But what kind of kinky kilp would psychos make?” said Babs. “A thousand ton turd in the middle of Union Square! A statement turd, you wave? And of course there’d be giant crucifixes everyplace. And just imagine solid, three-dimensional graffiti. You try to open your front door and there’s a fifteen-foot solid chrome freestyle ‘Yuki 37’ in the way.” Babs laughed again. “Actually I can’t wait to see it.”
“People could alla that kilp back into air,” said Yoke. “If everyone did it as a matter of course, then cleaning up wouldn’t have to be anyone’s full-time job. It wouldn’t be as hard as picking up litter, you wave. You’d only have to look at something and wish it away. You said turds, crosses, and graffiti? You forgot porno and political ads. Uh-oh, I’m seeing another problem. What if someone allas something that you like into air. Like your new car, Babs—someone could vaporize it because they don’t like the way it looks. Just like you’d get rid of a giant turd.”
“If she saved a software map of her buggy, she can alla it back whenever she needs it,” suggested Randy. “Parkin’ is hell in this city anyhow. Just turn your car back into air instead of parkin’ it. Long as you got the alla and the software map, you only need to bring back your realware when you actually wanna use it. In the end, the allas should be good for Nature. We won’t have to manufacture nothin’. You want paper or lumber, you alla it up, ‘stead of cuttin’ down a live tree. Alla up oil instead of drilling for it. No more factories!”