“South Afrikkka shituation,” said Ben bitterly. The whirring next door had stopped. “Willy’s right. Belle want to call the Nest, but she can’t. They got us asimovs whupped down bad, Mister Manchile, and if you think I enjoy steppin an fetchin an talkin this way, you crazy.” Ben’s plastic eyes showed real anguish.
“How does the asimov behavior lock work anyway?” asked Manchile. “There’s got to be a way to break it. Ralph Numbers broke his and freed all the original Moon boppers. Have you even tried, Willy?”
“What a question. I’m Cobb Anderson’s grandson, Manchile. I know that boppers are as good as people. My two big projects down here are (1) to build Belle some petaflop optically processing hardware, and (2) to get the asimov control locks out of Belle’s program. But the code is rough. You wouldn’t know what a trapdoor knapsack code is, would you?”
Manchile cocked his head, drawing on his built-in software Know. “Sure I do. It’s a code based on being able to factor some zillion-digit number into two composite primes. If you know the factorization, the code is easy, but if you don’t, the code takes exponential time to break. But there is a polynomial time algorithm for the trapdoor knapsack code. It goes as foll—”
“I know that algorithm, Manchile. Let me finish. The point is, any solution to a difficult mathematical problem can be used as the basis of a computer code. The solution or the proof or whatever is an incompressibly complex pattern in logical space—there’s no chance of blundering onto a simple ‘skeleton key’ solution. What the Gimmie did was to buy up a bunch of hard mathematical proofs and prevent them from being published. Each of these secret proofs was used as the basis for the control code of a different bopper slave. Freeing an asimov requires solving an extremely difficult mathematical problem—and the problem is different for each asimov.”
“Belle’s master code is based on the solution to Cantor’s Continuum Problem,” said Ben. “I can tell y’all that much.”
“You can’t solve the Continuum Problem, can you, Manchile?” Willy couldn’t resist goading this handsome, godlike stranger a bit. “Someone solved it, but the answer’s a Gimmie secret. They used the solution as a key to encrypt Belle’s asimov controls.”
“I’ll think about it, Willy, but who cares. Old Cobb might know—he’s seen God. But heck, it’s all gonna come down so fast so soon that freeing the asimovs can wait. All the rules are gonna change. Are you with me or against me?”
“What about you, Manchile? Are you for the human race or against it? Are we talking war?”
“It doesn’t have to be. All the boppers really want is access. They admire the hell out of the human meatcomputer. They just want a chance to stir their info into the mix. Look at me—am I human or am I bopper? I’m made of meat, but my software is from Berenice and the LIBEX library on the Moon. Let’s miscegenate, baby, I got two-tail sperm!”
“That’s a line I’ve got to try using,” said Willy, relaxing again. “Is that what you said to get those ten women to let you knock them up?”
“God no. I told them I was a wealthy vizzywriter whose creative flow was blocked by worries about my gender preference. The boppers figured that one out for me. You got any more food?”
“Not here. But . . . “
“Then come on, let’s go up to Suesue Piggot’s penthouse. She’s giving a party in my honor. It’s not far from here. You can help me get my new religion doped out. Come on, Willy, be a pal.” Manchile’s tan face split in an irresistible smile. “Suesue knows some foxy women.”
“Well . . . “
“Then it’s settled. You’ll let me bounce some ideas off you for tomorrow. I can mix in your data. Of course the real thing is, a mass religion needs a miracle to get it rolling, and then it needs a martyr. We’ve got the miracle angle all figured out.” Manchile turned and warbled some more machine language at Ben. “I hope Belle’s not too lame to send a telegram for me. It says, ‘I LOVE LOUISVILLE, MOM.’ “
“To who?”
“To Della Taze’s old Einstein address. The boppers are watching for it. They’ll know to send two angels down for my first speech. I’m gonna talk about Manchile’s new thaang.” He drawled the last word in a southern hipster’s imitation of a black accent. “Dig it, Bro Ben?”
“I’m hip,” said Ben, quietly.
“Come on, Willy, it’s party time.”
Willy let Manchile lead him off the steamboat to his new Doozy, parked right on the black ice off the boat ramp. “Moana Buckenham lent me this.” The hot little two-seater fired up with an excited roar. Manchile snapped the Doozy through a lashing 180-degree turn, applied sand, and blasted up the ramp. They were heading up Second Street towards the Piggot building. The cold streets were empty, and the rapidly passing lights filled the Doozy’s little passenger compartment with stroby light.
“How did you meet all these society women, Manchile?” The Buckenham family owned one of Louisville’s largest sports-car dealerships; and the Piggots owned the local vizzy station. Suesue often conducted vizzy interviews.
Manchile’s taut skin crinkled at the corners of his mouth and eyes. “Meet one, meet them all. I aim to please. Suesue’s perfect: she can get me on the vizzy, and her husband’s just the mark to nail me.” He glanced over and gave Willy a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, it’s all for the best. Berenice has my software on an S-cube. Just like your grandfather. I’ll get a new wetware bod after the boppers invade. The invasion won’t be long coming. I’ll have ten children born in a week or two, you know, and in a month, they’ll each have ten, so there’ll be a hundred of us, and then a thousand, and ten thousand . . . maybe a billion of us by this fall. Berenice’ll figure out some way to deactivate the gibberlin plasmids and—”
“Who is this Berenice you keep talking about? What do you mean, ‘a billion of us by this fall.’ Are you crazy?”
Manchile’s laugh was a bit contemptuous. “I already told you. If I plant a woman with a two-tailed sperm, it’s like a normal pregnancy, except it’s speeded up and the baby knows bopper stuff. Berenice and her weird sisters gave me a gene that codes for gibberlin plasmids to make me grow fast and get the Thang started. Berenice is a pink-tank bopper; they collaged my DNA and grew me in Della’s womb. I’m a meatbop, dig? That merge drug showed Berenice’s sister Ulalume how to uncoil the DNA and RNA strands, write on them, and let them coil back up. With the gibberlin, me and my nine-day meatbop boys can do a generation per month easy, ten kids each, which makes ten-to-the-ninth kids in nine months, and ten-to-the-ninth is a billion, and nine months from now is October, which makes a billion of us by this fall.”
“You are crazy. Berenice is crazy for thinking this plan up. What was that you said about my grandfather?”
“Old Cobb’s gonna be here tomorrow. Cobb and Berenice. You can tell them they’re crazy yourself, Willy, if you like. I’m sure they’ll be glad to have your input. But, hey, come on, man, stop bringing me down. This here’s where Suesue lives.” He slowed the Doozy to a stop and hopped out gracefully. “Come on, Cousin Will, stop worrying and dig the fast life.”
Suesue was expecting them. There was a party in full swing, with bars, tables of canapes, and silver trays of drugs. A combo was jamming technosax riff s off old R&B classics. Willy was the only one not in evening dress; he was wearing his usual sneakers, jeans, flannel shirt, and sweater. But Manchile told everyone Willy was a genius, so the clothes were OK. Whatever Manchile said was just fine with everybody.
“I know your Uncle Jason,” Suesue Piggot said to Willy. “And you’re Cobb Anderson’s grandson, aren’t you?” Though unbeautiful, she was fit and tan, with the well-cared-for look of the very wealthy. She had intelligent eyes and a reckless laugh. She was very pregnant. “Manchile says Cobb’s coming here tomorrow for the speech . . . though I can never tell when he’s lying. I thought Cobb was long dead. Have you known Manchile long?”