Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

“Ssshhhh. We’re there.”

Thirty meters to their right was Cobb Anderson’s cottage, silhouetted against the moon-bright sky. The light was bright enough to show the Mooneys clearly, should anyone . . . anything . . . be looking. They doubled back to where a stand of palms reached down to near the water’s edge and crept up to the cottages, staying in shadow.

The cottages were dark and deserted. It seemed like all the pheezers were out partying this Friday night. Mooney and Sta-Hi sidled along the cottage walls until they came to Cobb’s. Mooney held them there, listening for a long two minutes. There was only the regular crash and hiss of the sea.

Sta-Hi followed his father in through the screen door and onto the porch. So this was where old Cobb had lived. Looked pleasant enough. Sta-Hi looked forward to being a pheezer himself someday . . . which only left about forty more years to waste.

Mooney put on a pair of goggles and flicked on his infra-red snooper light. He’d forgotten to bring it last Friday. He looked the room over. Lipsticked cigarette butts, baby oil, a wet bikini . . . signs of female occupancy.

That old white-haired babe was still living here. All week she’d been here with, Mooney now realized, Cobb’s robot double. The two of them had been living here together waiting, though she didn’t know it, for Cobb’s mind to show up. Had it?

Briefly Mooney wondered if the robots could fuck. He could use a bionic cock himself, to keep Bea happy. If that whore hadn’t always been sneaking out to the sex-clubs, Stanny never would have . . .

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sta-Hi demanded loudly. “Talking to yourself? I can’t see a damn thing.”

“Hussshhhhh. Put these on. I forgot.” Mooney handed Sta-Hi the second pair of infra-light goggles.

The room cleared up for Sta-Hi then. The light was so red it looked blue. “Let’s try the bedroom,” he suggested.

“O.K.”

Mooney led the way again. When he pushed open the bedroom door and shone his snooper light in, he had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming. Stanny was lying there, his features blurred and melted, the nose flopped over to one side and sagging down the check, the folded hands puddled like mittens.

Sta-Hi let out a low hissing noise and stepped forward, leaning over the inert robot on Cobb’s bed. “Here’s your perfect son, Dad. Be the first one on your block to see your boy come home in a box. The big boppers must have found out I was back. One of us had to go.”

“But what’s happened to it?” Mooney asked, approaching hesitantly. “It looks half-melted.”

“It’s a robot-remote. The central processor must have turned it off . There’s a circuit in there for holding the flickercladding in shape, but . . . “

There was the sudden crunch of gravel, so close it seemed to be in the room with them. An engine was running, and a heavy door slammed. People were coming!

There was no time to run out through the house. Feet were already pounding up the front steps. Mooney grabbed his son and pulled him into Anderson’s closet. They listened in silence.

“Mr. Fwostee thaid he’th in the bedwoom, Buhdoo.”

“Hey, Rainbow! Git yore skanky ass in here and help me lug this sucker out!”

“Ah don’t see whah you big strong meyun cain’t do it alone.”

“I thtarted a hewnia yethterday wifting thomething.”

“Liftin whut, Hat-N-Haf, yore pecker?”

The three voices shared a moment of laughter at this sally.

“ The Little Kidders ,” Sta-Hi breathed into his father’s ear. Mooney elbowed him sharply for silence. A coat-hanger rattled, oh shit, but the voices were still out in the living-room.

“This’s a naahce pad, ain’t it, Berdoo?”

“Y’all want one lahk it, Rainbow honey? Stick with me an yore gonna be fartin through silk.”

“Thass sweet, Berdoo.”

“You two wovebirds bwing the body out, and I’ll watch the twuck.” Haf-N-Haf’s heavy footsteps went back down the steps. The truck door slammed again.

Berdoo and Rainbow walked into the bedroom.

“Whah . . . isn’t he a saaht? He looks lahk a devilfish!”

“Don’t you worry yore purty haid. He’ll taahten up onct Mr. Frostee reprograms him.”

“But wait, hunneh. Don’t he remaahnd yew of the man who’s brain we almost ate that taam? Last week over to Kristleen’s?”

“This ain’t a man , Rainbow. This here’s a switched-off robot . I don’t know what the hail man you’re talking about, girl.”

“Ooooh nevvah mahnd. Ah’ll git his laigs an you take tother eyund.”

“Okey-doke. Watch yer step, the sucker’s heavy.”

Grunting a little, Berdoo and Rainbow wrestled the body out of Cobb’s house and down the steps. The whole time, the truck’s engine ran.

Cautiously, Mooney stuck his head out the closet door. The bedroom had a window on either side, and through one window he could make out the dark mass of an ice-cream truck. There was a big plastic cone on top of the cab.

Two dim figures stopped at the side of the truck and laid something heavy on the ground. A third man climbed down out of the cab, and opened a door in the side.

One of them turned on a light then, light which picked out every object in the bedroom. Terrified, Mooney threw himself back into the closet. He made Sta-Hi stay in there with him until they heard the truck drive off .

Cobb chewed down his broiled fish with apparent relish, and managed to enjoy his wine by taking one DRUNKENNESS snort through his left nostril for every two glasses. After dinner he went to the men’s room and emptied out his food unit . . . not because he had to, but just to reassure himself that it was really true.

He was feeling the effect now of a good five or six whiskeys, and the whole situation didn’t seem so horrible and frightening as it initially had. Hell, he had it made. As long as he kept his batteries charged there was no reason he couldn’t live another twenty years . . . scratch that, another century! It was only a question of how long the machine could hold up. And even that didn’t matter . . . the big boppers had him taped and could project him onto as many bodies as he needed.

Cobb stood, swaying a bit, in front of the men’s room mirror. A fine figure of a man . He looked the same as ever, white beard and all, but the eyes . . . He leaned closer, staring into his eyes. Something was a little off there, it was the irises, they were too uniform, not fibrous enough. Big deal. He was immortal! He took another jolt through his left nostril and went out to join Annie.

While they’d been eating, the band had set up in the hall behind the Gray Area, and now enough pheezers had arrived for them to start playing. Annie took Cobb’s hand and led him into the dance-hall. She had helped decorate it herself.

Overhead they had a big, slowly spinning ball covered with a mosaic of tiny square mirrors. From each corner of the room a colored spotlight shone on the ball, and the reflected flecks of light spun endlessly around the room, changing colors as they moved from wall to wall. There had been a mirror-ball exactly like this at Annie’s Senior Prom in 1970, lo these fifty years gone.

“Do you like it, Cobb?”

It made Cobb a little dizzy. This subroutine DRUNKENNESS wasn’t quite like the real thing. He held his finger to the left side of his nose and took two quick breaths through his right nostril, coming down a couple of notches, enough to enjoy himself again.

The lights were perfect, really, it made you feel like you were on a boat drifting down some sun-flecked creek, trout hovering just beneath the surface, and all the time in the world . . .