Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

“Go wait for me by McDonald’s, Wendy. I’ll be back with a car in half an hour.”

The Yellow Cab terminal was only five blocks off. Malley, the dispatcher, was sitting in a glass booth at the garage entrance, same as ever. Looking past him, Sta-Hi saw that Number Eleven, his old cab, was idle tonight.

“Hey, Malley, you lame son of death, stop jerking off and gimme my keys.” Best defense is a good offense.

Malley glared, nothing moving but his tiny eyes. “Bullshit, Mooney. You can’t just quit and walk back on the job any time you like. You’re too stoned to drive anyway. Giddaddahere.’’

“Come on, Pappy dear-smear, I need the dust, you must? I’m eating sand out there. Put me on and I’ll kick you ten percent.”

“Twenty,” Malley said, holding up the keys. “And if you fuck up again you’re out for good. I don’t live to keep you in dope.”

Sta-Hi took the keys. “You can die to keep me in dope for all I care. Live or die, just keep me high.”

After ten days off, it felt nice to be back in Lucky Eleven. They must not have found a new driver for it, since the cab still had all of Sta-Hi’s personal touches. There was the fake come-spot on the roof over his head, the skull with the red-lite eyes in the back window, the plastic fur rug on the floor . . . and even the tape-deck was still there. How could he have walked off the job and forgotten his tape-deck!

He had the cab wired for sound, so he could record his monologues, or interview the passengers. The cab started up right away, and then he was out on the street, thinking about his tape-recorder. It made a big impression on chicks, made them think he was an agent. Funny word: agent .

A gent. Age entity. Ageing tea. Aegean Sea. A.G.C. Now what did that A.G.C. stand for?

If he hadn’t seen Wendy standing in front of McDonald’s just then, Sta-Hi probably would have forgotten all about her. Being back in the cab had zapped him into a conditioned reflex of head-tripping and driving the strip. But there was Wendy, bright and blonde in her tight cut-off s. Foxy fish.

He pulled over and she got in back.

“Number Eleven,” Malley was saying, “there’s a call at Km. 13.”

“I just got a fare, Malley. Two gentlemen want to go to Cocoa.”

“That’ll be an out of zone charge,” Malley responded. “Check in when you get back. That was twenty percent.”

“Over dover.” He turned the squawker off .

“How did you get the cab?” Wendy asked, wide-eyed. “Did you hurt the driver?”

“Not at all,” Sta-Hi said, pointing to the dark stain over his head. “See the come-spot?”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’m a cab-driver. This is my cab. If I like it at Marineland I’ll give Personetics the cab and stay there. Otherwise I’ll go back to work, and I’ll just have to pay that fare to Cocoa myself. Come up in front and sit next to me.”

She climbed over the seat. They split a jay, driving slow with the windows down. It was nice to be driving again. It felt like the car was on rails, a toy train tootling through the palmy night.

The old Marineland had closed down back in 2007, after a hurricane had caved in half the building. Now everyone who wanted to see the ritual degradation of dolphins had to go to Sea World instead. The building, in the middle of nowhere on Coastal Route 1A, came up on Sta-Hi unexpectedly.

“Pull around to the ocean side,” Wendy said. “So no one sees.”

“Yes ma’am. That’ll be two fucks and a blow-job.”

“Please, Sta-Hi, be serious. Not just anyone can become a member of Personetics. You have to have the right attitude.”

“I’ll try to keep it limp, baby.”

There was a little parking lot in back. Sta-Hi pulled in next to a nice-looking red sedan. Off at the edge of the lot was a beat-up black truck. The wind was high, and the surf was loud. They got out and walked along a concrete wall to where a rusty door hung open. There were no lights inside.

“Mel,” Wendy called at the top of her lungs. “I’m back already. I brought someone with another car for you.”

There was the sound of footsteps, and a lithe figure hurried out of the building. He was the same height as Sta-Hi, and with the same rangy build. But his head . . . his big, round head seemed a size too big for the body. He made you think of a balloon tied to the end of a rope.

“Mel Nast,” he said, sticking out his hand. He had a deep, sincere-sounding voice, with a trace of an East European accent. “I’m bleased to meet you. Vhat’s your name?”

“I’m nobody,” Sta-Hi said. “I’m Mr. Nobody from Nowhere.”

“Don’t listen to him, Mel. He told me his name is Sta-Hi. He says he’s a bopper-lover from way back.”

Spoken in Wendy’s earnest treble the self description sounded pathetic, imbecilic. But Mel Nast looked sympathetic.

“The point is not just to love, Sta-Hi. It is to live. If only you can vake up in time. Blease come in.”

Mel Nast’s round head turned like a rotating planet, and his slender body followed along. The three of them walked down a damp corridor, through two doors and into a bright, windowless space.

It was a square hall, with big rectangular holes in the walls. One of the old tank-rooms. The aquarium glass had been smashed out and removed, and each of the tanks was now a sort of nook or roomlet. They followed Nast across the square floor and stopped before one of the ex-tanks. “STURGEON,” a cracked label on the wall read, “ Acipenser Sturio .”

There were two easy chairs in there, a shelf of books, and a desk covered with papers. “My study,” the slim man with the big head explained. “Could you blease leave us now, Vhendy? I have plans to make with . . . Mister Hi.” He flashed Sta-Hi a sudden smile. Had he winked?

“That’s fine with me,” Wendy said. “I’m all tired out. And here’s tonight’s take.” She handed over the five-hundred-dollar bill and walked across the room. Apparently she had a bed in one of the tanks. Sta-Hi followed Nast into his study-tank. They sat down, and looked at each other in silence for a minute.

“How do you like my face?” Nast asked finally. The round face was dominated by a fleshy nose, from which two wrinkles ran down, suspending the somewhat sensual mouth in a rounded sling of folds. The lips parted, revealing square, uniform teeth. “Should I change it?”

“It depends on what you want to do,” Sta-Hi said uncertainly.

“What do you want to do?” came the answer. “What do you want from the boppers?”

Another hard question. Most superficially, Sta-Hi wanted to acquire another Happy Cloak and use it to get famous. But on another level, hardly conscious, he wanted revenge, revenge for his father’s death, revenge for what the nursie had done to Cobb Anderson.

He hated the boppers. But he loved them. The diggers . . . the diggers had helped him. Wearing the Happy Cloak and raiding the factory had been fantastic. Perhaps what he really wanted was to go back to Disky and help in the civil war, loving and hating at the same time.

Something strange happened to Mel Nast’s face while Sta-Hi considered his answer. The fatty puffed-out skin tightened, the cheeks drew in, and a white beard blossomed around the mouth. Suddenly he was looking at . . .

“Cobb?” Sta-Hi asked. “Is it you?” He started to smile and then stopped. “You killed my father! You . . . “

“I had to, Sta-Hi. You heard him. He said he was going to have me dismantled!”

“So? It wouldn’t have killed you. You blew up your body along with his, and now you’re still here and he’s gone forever!” The grief came welling up at last, and Sta-Hi’s voice quavered. “He wasn’t such a bad guy. And he could paint spaceships better than anyone I ever . . . “