Rudy Rucker - The hacker and the ants

“You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here,” said Carol.

“Look at the ants now!” interrupted Tom. He made room on the couch. “You can sit by me, Daddy.”

I sat down.

The dancing ants had shrunk, and all thousand-plus of them were swarming around like living pixels, drawing the shapes and forms of classic chaotic attractors. It was magnificent.

“Put the TV back on the channel we were watching,” said Carol. “Is this MTV or something?”

“This is the channel we were watching, Ma,” said Tom, and cackled happily. He loved it when grown-ups got confused and were wrong.

“Tom!”

“Can I see the controller for a minute?” asked Hi-roshi. Tom handed it to him and Hiroshi began switching channels. Since the ant programs were already down in the DTV chips of Carol’s digital TV, it seemed like the ants were everywhere. On each channel, the play of telecast images was being overlaid with multicolored ant images, and when Hiroshi pressed the button to show the 32-by-32 grid of all 1024 channels in miniature at once, you could see ants on every channel. The ant programs were playing off what the individual channels were broadcasting, so each channel still looked different.

Hackers call it a bit-blit, the trick that you use to move a mouse cursor across a computer screen without hurting the image that’s underneath. On every channel, the ants were bit-blitting their own images around like crazy. Hiroshi tuned back to the original channel, which was now showing-or trying to show- a Special News Bulletin.

“A new kind of computer virus has infested Fibernet San Jose,” intoned some newsperson’s plummy tones. On his or her shoulders was a giant ant head complete with intricately gnashing mandibles and sickening saliva.

“Our communication engineers report that the problem now seems to be under control,” continued the announcer, as the ant’s antennae wigwagged and wambled. “The source of the infestation is thought to be a broken Fibernet cable on White Road in East San Jose. We will bring you live, on-the-spot coverage from there soon. And now we will attempt to broadcast the conclusion of tonight’s episode of ‘Smart Women, Dumb Men.’” Everyone in the televised newsroom wore an ant’s head.

Back on “Smart Women, Dumb Men,” all of the characters’ skins had been coated with the crawling computer graphics known as “turmites” in punning homage to computer pioneer Alan Turing. A simple turmite is a moving point-sized computation that hops from pixel to pixel, changing some of the pixels’ colors and adjusting its own motions and moods according to the colors it finds; the resulting pattern is like fabulously intricate lace.

Meanwhile the “Smart Women, Dumb Men” sound track was being real time-sampled into aleatory karakoe — meaning that the ants were generating an artful series of pitches and volumes that were being attached to the phonemes of the voices of the smart women and the dumb men. The ants were sampling the studio audience’s laughter as well, turning it into a silly background symphony. Certain harsh or sour notes quavered into visible dustings on the actors’ shuddering skins. The ants were, in other words, making the show watchable only as avantgarde video art.

“This is all because of your ants?” Carol asked. “They’re ruining television? You’re going to get in a lot of trouble, Jerzy.”

“First of all, it’s not my fault they’re loose. It’s Roger Coolidge’s fault.”

“Is he with you?”

“Well, no, it’s just me and Studly. Studly put the ants onto the Fibernet a half hour ago.”

“The mighty Studly!” cried Tom. The children liked Studly. “Where is he?”

“He’s in the trunk of my car.” I stepped to the window to have a look down into the parking lot, just to make sure everything was okay. For now it was. My car was sitting there with its trunk closed and there were no people in sight. A cop car drove past without slowing down.

“Can we go down and look at him?” asked Tom. Though he was glad to see me, it made him nervous to have me visiting here. Putting Hiroshi, Carol, and me into the same room was an obvious recipe for disaster. “Yeah,” chimed in sister Ida, right on Tom’s wavelength. “Let’s go see the Studbot.” They had lots of pet names for the machine.

“Here.” I handed Tom my keys. “I’m going to stay up here just another little bit. And don’t let Studly run away.”

With the kids outside, I said, “Carol, did you know there are empty spacedust vials in your building’s parking lot? I really don’t know about having my children live here.”

“If you paid the child support, we could live somewhere better.”

“They already have somewhere better to live. In Los Perros with me. I don’t have any money, that’s why I’m not paying any child support.”

“You have to, Jerzy, it’s the law. And the children prefer to stay with me.” This seemed to be true, and was too depressing to argue about.

“Well, I just got a new job today, so starting in two weeks, I guess I can pay. But find a better place, okay?”

“This apartment is fine,” said Hiroshi. “I’ve lived here two years. There’s been no trouble.”

“If there’s spacedust vials out there, that means somebody in the complex is selling it. And selling spacedust means sooner or later there’s going to be a gunfight. You’re not back in crime-free Japan, Hiroshi.”

“I’ve never been to Japan, Jerzy. I grew up in Cupertino. And now I’d appreciate it if you’d get out of my apartment.”

“I’m sorry, Hiroshi, I didn’t mean to sound racist. I’m just concerned about my children’s safety. If you don’t mind too much, I’d rather stay here a little longer. Frankly, I think the police are looking for me.”

“Mr. Law and Order,” said Hiroshi mockingly.

Just then another Special News Report interrupted “Smart Women, Dumb Men.” The anchorperson still had a giant ant head, but the on-the-scene reporter looked normal. She was standing in a bright light at 5782 White Road. Something was lying at her feet.

“This watchdog may have been killed by the forces who cut the Fibernet cable in the backyard of this east-side home. The owner alleges that the attacker was- a mobile robot.”

The camera turned slightly to show the burly Mexican man I’d seen earlier. He looked unhappy and his eyes were red. “I saw the robot earlier today. It was shaped like a garbage can on wheels. It killed my dog. The robot belonged to a geek in a red Animata.” Geek? Hadn’t he ever seen anyone wear sandals with M. C. Escher socks before?

“You and Studly killed a dog!” exclaimed Carol. “That’s terrible! And how could you send the children down to play with him, Jerzy!” Her voice rose to command volume. “You get down there and make sure those children are okay! And don’t come back in here. I don’t care if the police are after you! You’re too crazy, Jerzy! You and your precious machines. Go on now! Good-bye!”

“All right.” I left Carol’s apartment and headed down to the car. This pause had already been long enough to help throw the police off the track. But would the Vos talk? And what would GoMotion say when the authorities started asking them why the ants kept spelling out the company name on TV? Would they try and pin it on me?

Given that Roger Coolidge had infected my system with ants and let me keep Studly, it almost looked as if GoMotion had deliberately set me up to be a patsy. They’d laid me off so that when I got busted they could bad mouth me as a “disgruntled former employee.” But what was Roger’s motive in setting the ants free? And how did the ants fit in with West West and Hex DEF6?

I felt tired and fatalistic. I might as well go home and wait for the police to come and get me. Just today, during his endless recounting of his life story, my new West West boss Otto Gyorgyi had told me that back in the commie days of Hungary there’d been a story that when the secret police wanted to liquidate you they’d stop by your house and hand you a length of piano wire. And then you’d strangle yourself, for, “ Vat else vas zere to do?”