Rudy Rucker - The hacker and the ants

Rapid, repetitive motions were taking place toward the top of the disk. Peering closer I could see two active robots tending the plastics machines. In addition to the two wheeled legs that they rode on, these robots had four arms each: two pincers, a tentacle, and a humanoid hand. Their body cases were slim and long; with their six limbs they looked a bit like giant mechanical ants. These robots were Dexter and Baby Scooter, and the dead robots were Walt and Perky Pat!

I leaned closer and observed Dexter and Baby Scooter’s frenetic motions. Dexter was casting circuit-filled plastic beads, and Baby Scooter was assembling the beads into- ants! The new robots were manufacturing plastic ants-the new robots had built the plastic ants that had killed Roger!

When each ant was finished, Baby Scooter would set it down on the lab floor, and the ant would scurry off along a meandering ant trail that led to the crack at the base of the closed elevator door. The new ant colony was grouping itself somewhere out of sight.

Just then the phone on Roger’s desk rang. Reflexively, I answered.

“Hello?”

“Allo. Q’est Tonio. Je voudrais Men parler avec Monsieur Coolidge.”

“Tonio!” I cried. “Yes, yes, this is Mr. Schrandt speaking. No, Mr. Coolidge cannot come to the phone.”

“Do he want me to drive him today?”

“Oh, not at all today. He’s in the middle of a very dangerous experiment with his robots.” I mustered my high school French to drum in the point. “ Les robots de Monsieur Coolidge sont tres tres dangereux.”

“So I will telephone tomorrow morning.”

“Bien. Adieu, Tonio.”

I hung up. While I’d been talking I’d noticed another trail of ants; this one led from the elevator shaft to the body of Perky Pat. Plastic ants were crawling about in Perky Pat’s dead innards. Now as I watched, I saw a passel of ants come backing out of Pat’s body, dragging something. It was Perky Pat’s Y9707-EX chip. Working together, the plastic ants had pried out Perky Pat’s processor chip. I stared unbelievingly as a seething stream of plastic ants bore the chip off into the crack at the base of the elevator door.

I stared for awhile at the dead Walt and Perky Pat robots. What had killed them? The ants? No, looking more carefully, I could see that each of them had its head smashed in, as if by a blow from a heavy bar. And yes, sure enough, lying on the floor halfway between the dead parent robots and their children were two thick metal pipes. Clubs. One of Dexter and Baby Scooter’s first sentient acts had been to kill their parents! Now the plastic ants were busying themselves at removing Walt’s Y9707-EX chip.

Things were getting worse faster than I could imagine. So what was I to do? Obviously I should stop the plastic ants. But what would work against them? Their plastic was so hard. It was the cyberspace ants making them act this way. Dexter, Baby Scooter, and the plastic ants were all under the influence of the ants that were holed up in the Antland of Fnoor and in the other two nests Roger had mentioned. Wouldn’t the best thing be to go there and try and kill off those virtual ants first?

My stomach tightened as I remembered my last experience with the cyberspace ants. They’d voodooed and dark-dreamed and stunglassed me into thinking I’d shit in the bed and strangled Gretchen. If they got control of me again, they’d likely as not get me to march down to Roger’s factory and jump into the elevator shaft-me probably thinking all the while that I was going to the kitchen for a snack.

But what about that magic bullet Roger had been talking about? The special instruction that would kill any ant. He’d insisted that I should be able to guess the instruction. But how?

I decided to try to guess the answer before rushing off into cyberspace again. But first I got up and ran around the house-the lights flicking on and off with my passage-and checked that all the doors and windows were locked tight. Back in Roger’s study, I sat down and stared out the window, thinking hard. Roger had said I could guess the magic bullet. Somewhere in the events that had happened to me there must be a clue.

I thought back to the start of my ant adventures. Susan Poker. One reason I hadn’t called Gretchen before leaving the U.S. was that it seemed likely Susan Poker would find out and tell the police. But why would Susan Poker actually do that? To get a reward from whoever was paying her-or maybe just for the joy of making trouble.

And what about Gretchen? I didn’t trust her either anymore. She’d been with a woman named Kay when I’d met her, and Roger’s wife was named Kay. I’d never seen Roger’s wife. Therefore, Gretchen’s friend had been Roger’s wife? Could Roger’s wife have been there to launch agent Gretchen and make sure she picked me up? It certainly would have been a good way for Roger to keep an eye on me after the ant release. But how could Gretchen trick me like that, when I’d loved her. Still loved her, if the ache in my heart meant anything.

I forced my thoughts back to the sequence of events that had happened to me. What, what, what was the magic bullet? As my thoughts raced, there was a sudden crack of thunder right outside. The sky had darkened dramatically; this was the onset of a full-on storm. The rain began coming down in sweeping sheets. Good, I thought, it’ll make it harder for the plastic ants to crawl up here. And there was no doubt in my mind that they would try. Up at the top of the meadow there was a bright forked bolt of lightning followed by sharp thunder so loud that I felt it as a pressure in my nose. And in that moment the answer came to me.

Hex DEF6. Hex DEF6 was a bit pattern that could kill the ants-Hex DEF6 was the magic bullet. Riscky Pharbeque had known it-that’s how he’d been able to move about freely in the Antland of Fnoor. And that’s why Riscky had used Hex DEF6 as his name, and had spray-painted it onto the wall of the Cryp Club library-as a public service. Phreak that he was, Riscky didn’t want any single faction to take over, ever, not even the wild and crazy cyberspace ants. Hex DEF6, yes!

Roger’s cyberspace headset and gloves were well made and wireless; and, thank God, the headset didn’t have cameras for a stunglasses shunt. I pulled on the gloves and gingerly donned the headset.

I found myself in the huge vaulted stone hall of what seemed to be a castle. Before me lay a scattering of ancient chairs and tables and, on the opposite wall, there was a cavernous hearth with a roaring fire. On some of the tables were parchments and books. The great hall’s walls held a number of doorways. Some of the doorways were open stone arches that gave onto dusky stone corridors, and some were closed tight by wooden doors.

Right behind where I stood was the huge entrance portal, as if I’d just come through it. The massive door was adorned with wonderful, flowing Gothic ironwork. It was wedged closed by a heavy wooden beam, and set into it at eye level was a small, covered peephole. I slid the metal cover aside and peeked out; there was nothing outside but the dead blackness of raw cyberspace. I turned and moved slowly across the great hall. Groany-moany MIDI organ music swelled in sync with my motions. High on the walls hung gorgeously patterned tapestries. At the left end of the great hall were two broad stone staircases, one leading up and one leading down. And the wall on my right bore a stained glass window so beautiful that I was scared to do more than glance at it, lest it voodoo me into idleness.

I stepped cautiously into one of the passages. A dim light preceded my motions. I moved a few meters forward and came up against a stone wall. The space felt nasty, dark and airless. Turning my head back and forth, I saw that I’d come to a T-intersection, with passages leading off both to the right and to the left.