Bugs (7 page)

Honks puffed thoughtfully at the unlit pipe. It was a meerschaum, carved with a dragon.

‘Next sign is, he can’t delegate. Has to do everything himself. Nobody else can do it; he has to do it. Locks himself in his office all day. Pretty soon he’s way the hell out in left field on his own, only he thinks he’s still in the game. You notice that when he starts talking about a big breakthrough.
Soon as I hear the words “big breakthrough”, I know the guy is gonna end up wrapped in wet sheets.’

‘But Sturge talks about a big breakthrough all the time.’

‘With Sturge it’s different. See, Sturge is a twenty-four-carat asshole. He don’t mean anything by anything; he’s just hand-waving. Sturge has no idea what’s going on here; he just signs the cheque and beats his gums.’

Honks looked at his pipe, then emptied the tobacco back in the lacquered box. His long-nailed fingers toyed with the cloth-covered buttons of his tunic. ‘You probably think we’re all nuts around here. But just watch Mel. Wait till you hear him talking about his big breakthrough,
the Robot M.’

‘I meant to ask you. This robot project –’

‘Is going in circles. That’s what happens when you get a lunatic in charge; he leads the group in circles. You’ll see.’

‘But it’s a real project, right?’

‘Right. Money makes it real. There’s a big fat wad of DoD money about to fall on us – that makes it real. The Army wants metal men real bad.’

‘What should I be doing?’

‘You might want to look over some of our modules, get a feel for what’s happening. Here, take a handful of printout.’

Honks hoisted a ten-pound stack of wide accordion-folded paper and handed it to Fred. The top page read:

splurf(*nebng) += nebng; /* Decision rechecking */

{

Iwan;

mnang;

frypsth;

}

if (glorm)

{

doit;

splurf;

gamnog(&dorb,&jode);

if (snang == trykv) splurf;

}

else

snangk;

gamnoga = gamnoge;

Fred carried the heavy bundle, and a heavy heart, back to his cubicle. There were over 300 pages, each covered with meaningless poetry. He could not even be sure this was a human language, and not the latest edicts of insect-headed creatures from Aldebaran. Be fair, he told himself. In principle, at least, this stuff could be understood.

That evening, Fred searched bookstores for a key. Most of the books were as opaque as that which they explained.

… obtainable from the two’s complement of the binary representation of the hexadecimal component of the low byte of the offset address of the first argument, excluded (XORed) with the binary representation of the two’s complement of the high byte of the segment address of the second …

The register pair ES:DX the first two bytes the segment address the subprogram the environment string the segment address the register pair ES:BX the parameter block the file to be loaded utilizing the control load facilitating information the path name and filename an ASCIIZ string the register pair DS:DX the subprogram the program the function facilitates loads into memory and optionally executes utilizes points to contains identify by resides in is pointed to by contains identifies allows execution after loading of is loaded to is specified by reside in.

He finally located two readable computer books, and bought them immediately:
The Dumb Child’s Computer Dictionary
and
Talk Good Software
.

As he tried to sleep, frightening insect-head codes floated before his eyes … splurf, snangk, gamnoga …

Leaving the plane in New York, he and Susan both thought of hell. Wasn’t there a New York neighbourhood called Hell’s Kitchen? No doubt this was Hell’s Entrance Hall, the welcoming trapdoor. They tried to jolly one another along with things like this as they waited, nervous, sweating, for their baggage.

And waited.

Someone on the plane had warned them that there was a strike of Customs officers, and the baggage-handlers were out in sympathy; the full planeload of passengers stood waiting by a roundabout where one purple suitcase revolved alone for an hour. The airport was full of male and female officials in uniforms. Though the uniforms varied, all of these hard-faced people wore revolvers, and some carried truncheons. One such official searched their bags thoroughly. He pounced on a can of talcum in Susan’s luggage, prised it open and tasted it. When he had replaced it, spilling powder on Susan’s clothing, he murmured something.

‘Sorry?’ she said. ‘I didn’t catch that.’

‘I said, welcome to Amurrica, folks.’

The man’s accent was so thickly New York that the word ‘folks’ sounded faintly obscene. Folks? Fred wondered if the regional barriers of the American language were breaking down. New Yorkers were supposed to call everyone ‘mac’ and ‘lady’. Everyone knew the only people who should be allowed to say ‘folks’ were cowpokes sipping coffee by their smoking camp-fires. Howdy, folks. Pull up a brandin’ am and set a spell. Latigo and Durango are jist a-roundin’ up some strays, then we’ll mosey own into town …

No time for moseying own, however, for now everything was speeding up: moving as if to big-city music, they followed the crowd outdoors into kiln heat. Susan – in the New York spirit already – began to mutter curses as they looked for a cab. The air was suffocating, and oddly irritating to the throat.

A short man wearing a vivid red and pink golf cap was waving his hairy arms at them. He wore a short-sleeved shirt, probably to show off the thickly pelted arms, which really were remarkable. ‘Cab, right dis way. You got bags,’ he said. He unlocked the boot of a battered yellow cab and lifted the lid with a flourish of arm hair. Fred started to hand over the bags, but the man made no move to take them. ‘In dere,’ he said, pointing. ‘Let’s move it, Jack.’

Susan did not suffer in total silence.

‘Just tell me what we are doing in this bloody place,’ she whispered, as they got into the battered cab. ‘Look at these bloody signs.’

Fred read the hostile notices:

VINCE GOLIARDI THANKS YOU FOR NOT SMOKING
NEW YORK
•
IT OR LEAVE IT
NO CHECKS OR PLASTIC
TAKE YOUR GARBAGE WITH YOU
LEAVE THIS CAB THE WAY YOU’D LIKE TO FIND IT
IF YOU DON’T TELL ME HOW TO GET THERE, I WON’T TELL YOU
WHERE TO GO

‘You’ll feel better when we get settled.’

‘What?’ The taxi-driver craned around to join the conversation. ‘Oh, I thought you was talkin’ to me.’ The cab jerked into motion, and immediately swung into a traffic jam. The jam continued all the way into Manhattan, where the streets were full of bomb craters; they jolted and jerked their way into the city. Fred noticed that the driver chewed gum to protect his teeth from jolting.

‘English, huh?’

‘Yes.’

‘My wife is crazy about the English, you know? She always watches “Masterpiece Theater”. She says the English are real civilized; she keeps tellin’ me how civilized the English are. I always say, yeah, too bad their country’s fallin’ apart, ha, ha! No offence.’ He turned around to look at them, letting the cab steer itself. It jolted along, the wheel whipsawing as it hit more craters.

Fred felt obliged to respond quickly. ‘No, not at all,’ smiling. Susan clutched his arm.

‘I mean, a country run by a queen …’ The driver reeled out a litany of real and imaginary reasons for hating the English, now and then protesting that he had nothing against them. Then he would turn to see how they were taking it. At
every traffic light, the driver adjusted his vivid hat, flexing the chimpanzee arms.

They jolted past a corner where a group of police cars had drawn up, their blue and red lights flashing. Policemen in short sleeves stood by with drawn guns, near an iron railing and stairs going downwards.

‘My God,’ said Susan. ‘What are those police doing at that toilet?’

‘Toilet?’ The driver laughed. ‘That’s the subway, lady. Of course a lot of people use it for a toilet.’

‘Guns.’ She shuddered.

‘That’s what it takes, lady.’

Fred felt she was being unfair. Guns were hardly an oddity in London any more. Many of the Metropolitan Police were walking around armed, though of course no one knew which ones since they had the decency to keep their weapons concealed. But here in a violent city – naked weapons – naked city – further thoughts were banged out of him by violent jolting. The cab rang as it passed over more deep holes.,

‘Yeah, the smartest thing this country ever did was revolting. Gettin’ rid of all the kings and queens and English crap. Dumpin’ the tea overboard.’ He turned round. ‘You offended?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Would you mind keeping your eyes on the road?’ Susan said weakly.

‘Tellin’ me how to drive?’

‘No, we just –’

‘I’m a New York cabbie, lady. I don’t need drivin’ lessons from the English. Land of fruits.’

‘I just –’

‘Christ sake, the English don’t even drive on the right side of the road, ha, ha. No offence.’ He turned again.

‘No, not at all,’ Fred said, smiling. He felt Susan clutching his arm, and he avoided her white wretched face.

Finally they were allowed to stagger out into the heat and
pay with a large traveller’s cheque. There didn’t seem to be any change. The driver threw their bags on the sidewalk.

So this was the famous Greenwich Village – a shoe shop, a croissant bar, and a large dingy drugstore with a barred window. There seemed to be altogether too many men lounging around, watching Fred and Susan.

‘Let’s get inside.’ Fred searched his pocket for Allan’s key.

‘God, that awful man. “No offence.” Trying to be as fucking offensive as he knew how. I thought he’d smash the bloody cab, just to spite us.’ She looked at him. ‘And you encouraged him.’

‘Only trying to shut him up. The way he kept turning round. Probably the cab knew the way, heh, heh. By the pattern of holes in the street.’

Susan rubbed her spine. ‘Do you think he hit them deliberately?’

‘You’ll feel better when we get inside and relax.’

But even as he sorted out the key he became aware of a presence at his elbow. A short brown man spoke to him in a high wheedling voice: ‘You god any change?’

Is this the start of a mugging? Fred found the key, opened the door, and hurried Susan and the bags inside. He did not breathe until he had shut out the short brown man.

There were several more keys to use before they got into Allan’s apartment. The apartment door had been smashed and splintered in the past, probably more than once; it was now pieced together with strap iron, and fitted with an array of locks and chains.

Fred turned on the window air-conditioner. A long brown cockroach fell out of it and scuttled across the floor.

‘Not much of a flat,’ Susan said, looking around. ‘The bedroom is a cupboard. No proper kitchen at all.’ She indicated the corner of the living-room designated as a miniature kitchen. There was a strange combination sink/fridge, a tiny stove, and miniature cupboard-shelves. Susan noticed a few darting brown shadows by the sink.

‘Disgusting! I thought Allan would keep his flat cleaner than this.’

‘Don’t you read anything? Everybody in New York has cockroaches. It’s a normal way of life here.’

‘Not for me, it isn’t.’

Oh, why wouldn’t she try to fit in? he asked himself, opening a cupboard door. As if by way of demonstrating the normality of it all, two pale brown insects fell out. He noticed that every item of food was tied up in a plastic bag.

‘Oh, God.’ Susan was looking ill. ‘You said everything would be all right when we got here.’

‘It will, it will. You’re just … we’re just tired. You have a shower and then I will.’

He phoned Jonah Bramble, his agent. Jonah sounded oddly tired, tired as never before. It was hard to associate this thin exhausted voice with the big, beefy, bearded man Fred had met in London. New York miasma?

‘So, you’re here.’ He kept sighing.

‘Yes. I thought maybe we could set up something with a publisher, or a meeting or something.’

‘What? Oh, yes, sure.’ There was a long silence. ‘Anyway, I must take you two to dinner.’ Jonah sighed. ‘Tomorrow night OK?’

‘Fine.’

A cockroach scuttled out from under the phone and dropped behind the table into darkness.

‘Is anything wrong, Jonah? Are you all right?’

Long silence. ‘No, nothing wrong …’

‘Hello?’

After a moment, Jonah’s voice faded back up: ‘… tired is all. Italian or Chinese?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Food. Italian or Chinese?’

‘Italian. Susan hates Chinese food.’

After hanging up, he watched her unpack her bath things and drag herself into the bathroom. He was about to turn on the television when: