Paul Di Filippo - WikiWorld

Across an entire nation, every household lost its domestic cyber-servants.

“Let’s see how they like washing their own stinking windows and emptying their own cat-litter!” I said. “They’ll probably come begging for relief within the hour.”

FooDog had pulled up another roster, this one of products the Venezuelans sold us. “I don’t know, nephew. I think we might take a few hits first. I’m guessing—”

Even as FooDog spoke, we learned that every hospital in the UWA had just seen its t-ray imagers go down.

“Who the hell knew that the Venezuelans had a lock on selling us terahertz scanners?” I said.

FooDog’s face wore a look of chagrin. “Well, actually—”

“Okay, we’ve got to ramp up. Turn off all their wind turbines.”

All across Venezuela, atmospheric powerplants fell still and silent.

The response from the Southerners was not long in coming. Thirty percent of the UWA’s automobiles—the Venezuelan market share—ground to a halt.

FooDog sounded a little nervous when next he spoke. “Several adjacent countries derived electricity from the Venezuelan grid, and now they’re demanding we restore the wind turbines. They threaten to join in the trade war if we don’t comply.”

I felt nervous too. But I was damned if I’d relent yet. “Screw them! It’s time for the big guns. Bring down their planes.”

Made-in-the-UWA airliners around the globe running under the Venezuelan flag managed controlled descents to the nearest airports.

That’s when the Venezuelans decided to shut down the half of our oil-refining capacity that they had built for us. True, oil didn’t play the role it once did in the last century, but that blow still hurt.

Then the Brazilians spimed their autos off, and the nation lost another 40 percent of its personal transport capabilities.

Over the next eight hours, the trade war raged, cascading across several allied countries. (Canada staunchly stood by the UWA, I was happy to report, incensed at the disruption of deliveries from the Athabasca Oil Sands to our defunct refineries. But the only weapon they could turn against the Southerners was a fleet of Zamboni machines at Latin American ice rinks.) Back and forth the sniping went, like two knights hacking each other’s limbs off in some antique Monty Python farce.

With each blow, disruptions spread farther, wider and deeper across all the countries involved.

The ubik was aflame with citizen complaints and challenges, as well as a wave of emergency counter-measures to meet the dismantling of the infrastructure and deactivation of consumer goods and appliances and vehicles. The politco-wikis were convulsing, trying to depose me and the Phantom Blots. But FooDog managed to hold them at bay, as Cherry rummaged through the tiniest line items in our export list, looking for ways to strike back.

By the time the Venezuelans took our squirm futons offline, and we shut down all their sex toys, the trade war had devolved into a dangerous farce.

I was exhausted, physically and mentally. The weight of what Cherry, FooDog and I had done rested on my shoulders like a lead cape. Finally I had to ask myself if what I had engineered was worth it.

I stepped out on the deck to get some fresh air and clear my head. Cherry followed. The sun was sinking with fantastically colourful effects, and gentle waves were lapping at Sandybump’s beach. You’d never know that several large economies were going down the toilet at that very moment.

I hugged Cherry and she hugged me back. “Well, babe, I did my best. But it looks like our revenge is moot.”

“Oh, Russ, that’s okay. I never wanted—”

The assault came in fast and low. Four armoured and be-weaponed guys riding ILVs. Each Individual Lifting Vehicle resembled a skirt-wearing grasshopper. Before either Cherry or I could react, the chuffing ILVs were hovering autonomously at the edge of our deck, and the assailants had jumped off and were approaching us with weapons drawn.

With cool menace one guy said, “Okay, don’t put up a fight and you won’t get hurt.”

I did the only thing I could think of. I yelled for help.

“FooDog! Save us!”

And he did.

SCURF mediates between your senses and the ubik. Normally the SCURF-wearer is in control of course. But when someone breaks down your security and overrides your inputs, there’s no predicting what he can feed you.

FooDog sent satellite closeups of recent solar flares to the vision of our would-be-kidnappers, and the latest sludge-metal hit, amped up to eleven, to their ears.

All four went down screaming.

Cherry erased any remnants of resistance with a flurry of kicks and punches, no doubt learned from her bar-brawling brother Dolphin.

When we had finished tying up our commando friends, and FooDog had shut off the assault on their senses, I said, “Okay, nothing’s worth risking any of us getting hurt. I’m going to surrender now.”

Just as I was getting ready to call somebody in Venezuela, Che Guevara returned. He looked morose.

“All right, you bastard, you win! Let’s talk.”

I smiled as big as I could. “Tell me first, what was the final straw? It was the sex toys, wasn’t it?”

He wouldn’t answer, but I knew I was right.

So that’s the story of how I ran the country for three days. One day of political honeymoon, one day of trade war, and one day to clean up as best we could, before stepping down.

As FooDog predicted, there were minimal personal repercussions from our teasling of the political system. Loopholes were closed, consensus values re-affirmed, and a steady hand held the tiller of the ship of state once again.

We never did learn who sent the commandos against us. I think they were jointly hired by nativist factions in league with the Venezuelans. Both the UWA and the South Americans wanted the war over with fast. But since our assailants never went on trial after their surgery to give them new eyes and eardrums, the secret never came out.

Cherry and I got enough simoleans out of the settlement with the Venezuelans to insure that we’d never have to work for the rest of our lives. But she still goes out with the Oyster Pirates from time to time, and I still can’t resist the call of mongo.

We still live on Sandybump, but the house is bigger now, thanks to a new wing for the kids.

As for FooDog—well, I guess he did have ulterior motives in helping us. We don’t see him much anymore in the flesh, since he relocated to his ideal safe haven.

Running that ganja plantation on the Moon as his personal fiefdom takes pretty much all his time.

My thanks to all the editors whose support made the original publication of these stories possible; and to Brett and Sandra for giving them a second home.

Paul Di Filippo sold his first story in 1977. In the subsequent thirty-five years, he’s had nearly that number of books published. He hopes the next thirty-five years are as generous. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island, with his partner of many years, Deborah Newton; a calico cat named Penny Century; and a chocolate-coloured cocker spaniel named, with jaw-dropping unoriginality, Brownie.

“Providence” first appeared in The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three (February 2009, Solaris Books).

“Argus Blinked” first appeared in Nature, Vol. 449 (October 2007).

“Life in the Anthropocene” first appeared in The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF (May 2010, Robinson Publishing).

“Bombs Away!” first appeared in Nature, Vol. 460 (August 2009).