Rudy Rucker - The Ware Tetralogy

“I imagine it’s bugged here, Della, so we should be careful what we say, not that I really give a good goddamn. I guess you know that Judge Lewis Carter is a notorious antibopper pig? Willy’s going to get the death penalty.”

“That’s . . . that’s awful. I’m so sorry. But—”

“I shouldn’t have called you a thrill-seeking little twit, Della. It’s true, of course, or it used to be true, but I shouldn’t have said it. You were a sweet girl when you were younger, and Willy was always very fond of you. Perhaps you’ll change.”

“I know I had a bad period recently, Aunt Ilse. But—”

“Have you seen any of our relatives today?” asked Ilse with odd emphasis. Della realized that she meant Bubba. One glimpse of Bubba on her vizzy, and Ilse had known who he was. She’d always been like that: nosy, sharp-eyed and quick on the uptake.

Della gave a slight nod and stood up. “Do you think I can borrow some of Willy’s cephscope tapes? They might help me feel . . . closer to him.”

“Whatever you need, dear.”

Della went downstairs and looked around Willy’s room, crowded with his toys—though Willy had always called them scientific instruments—his lasers and viewers and sculpture supplies and his cephscope. Twenty or thirty tapes were lined up by the cephscope. Della took four of them, making sure to include the one labeled “January 21, 2031.”

She went back upstairs and chatted with Ilse a bit more. Somehow they got onto old times, and onto Ilse’s memories of Cobb. For the first time it struck Della how really central her whole family was to the bopper/human nexus. For the first time she viewed herself as a part of something larger than herself. Filled with calm and a renewed determination, Della went outside. A man and a woman were waiting. Reporters. Or cops.

“Miz Taze,” shouted the woman, a pushy yup. “What will you do if they execute your cousin?” The man kept a camera pointed at Della’s face. “Do you feel it’s all your fault?” yelled the yup.

“I’m sorry,” said Della, automatically reverting to her old bland passivity before she could catch herself. “I have to go.” Damn, Della , she found herself thinking right away. You can do better than that .

The two reporters followed her out to her car, still looking for a big reaction. “Why do the Tazes like robots better than people?” asked the woman.

Della stared at the woman’s smug bland entitled face. YOU’RE the robot , Della wanted to say, not Berenice, not Cobb, not Manchile, and not Bubba. YOU’RE the robot, bitch . But that kind of talk wouldn’t do just now. She needed to help Willy.

Filled with her newfound sense of family solidarity, Della gathered her wits and spoke right into the camera. “Let me answer that with another question. Why is it so important for some people to think of boppers as mindless machines? Why do zerks laugh at monkeys in a zoo? Why do rich people say that poor people are getting what they deserve? Why don’t you show compassion for your fellow creatures? If you drop your selfishness, you can lose your guilt. And, wave it, once your guilt is gone, you won’t need to hate. Good-bye.”

The cameraman said something nasty about Thangies, but then Della was in her car and on her way downtown to the Belle . She felt better than she’d felt in a long time. She got to the Belle about nine o’clock. The closed-in lower deck was lit and crowded. There was music and dancing and a long dark bar. One brown-skinned bopper stood behind the bar, while his two fellows moved around the room, cleaning up and bringing people fresh drinks. Della sat down at the bar and gave the bartender a significant glance.

He picked up on it and came right over.

“Yazzum?”

“A Drambuie, please. Is your name Ben?”

“Sho is. Ah knows yo name, too.”

“That’s good.” Della had her purse up on the bar, and now she jolted it forward so that the four tapes spilled out onto the bar’s other side. “Oh, how clumsy of me.”

“Ah’ll git ‘em, ma’am.” Ben bent down behind the bar, and then stood up, handing Della back three tapes.

“Thank you, Ben. I’ll be sure to leave you a nice big tip.”

“That’s mighty white of you, Miz Taze.”

He’d napped, masturbated, and smoked all his cigarettes, and now there was nothing to do but sit. He looked at his watch—3:09 in the afternoon. Last time he’d looked it had been 3:07. He watched the second hand for a while and then he threw himself back down on the thinly padded metal cot that was bolted to his cell wall.

“Hey, Taze, man, hey, Taze.” The teenage burglar two cells down. The guy had been raving psychotic all night, and all morning, and now he was feeling lonely. “Hey, Willy Taze the bopper lover!”

Willy didn’t answer; he’d heard everything the guy had to say.

“Hey, Willy, I’m sorry I flocked out, man, I got an unfed head is all. Talk to me, man, tell me about Manchile’s Thang.”

Still Willy kept silent. Tomorrow Judge Carter would condemn him to death. He’d done enough for enough people now. He wondered what death would be like. Cobb III had talked about that a little, on their ride out to Churchill Downs. He’d said it wasn’t as bad as people thought. But Cobb had died old; he’d had the chance to marry and to father a daughter and to leave his boppers behind him. If Cisco Lewis had lived maybe Willy could have married her. He should have pumped her, that one chance he had. He should have done something . He should have finished breaking down Belle’s asimov circuits. After what Cobb had said about the Continuum Problem on their drive to Churchill Downs, Willy felt sure that if he’d just had more time he could have freed Belle. At least he’d coded his ideas about it into his last cephscope tape, not that anyone who saw it was likely to understand. Tomorrow he’d be sentenced to death by electrosheet, and couple of weeks after that, they’d put him in the electrocell with the two metal walls that were a megafarad capacitor, and then the great sheet of electricity would flash across, and then a janitor would come in and sweep Willy’s ashes into a little plastic box to give to Mom and Dad. Willy closed his eyes and tried to remember everything that Cobb had said about heaven.

The teenager was still yelling, and now the winos in the holding tank across the main corridor were starting up, too, yelling back at the teenager. The serial killer in the cell next to Willy started beating his shoe against his bars and screaming, “SHUT UP OR I’LL KILL YOU!”

KKR-THOOOOOMPpppp . . .

The air pressure from the explosion pressed painfully on Willy’s ears. Dead silence then, total dead silence in the cellblock. Scree of metal on concrete. Steady footsteps coming closer.

“WILLAH? You in here Willah boah?” It was . . .

“BEN!” shouted Willy. “I’m right here! Hurry, Ben!”

Seconds later Ben was at Willy’s cell door. Parts of his flickercladding were gone, revealing the gleaming titaniplast body-box beneath. He was carrying a large machine gun and grenades hung from his belt. Now that everyone had stopped yelling, you could hear shouts and gunfire in the Public Safety building’s distant upper realms. Someone had taken out Belle’s asimov circuits and she’d sent the three bartenders to save Willy!

Ben reared back and kicked the cell door lock. It snapped and the door swung open. The cladding from one of Ben’s cheeks was gone, so it was hard to make out his expression, but he looked angry more than anything else. Angry and determined, with maybe a twinkle of being glad to see Willy.