Hieroglyph (75 page)

“What all's ripe today?” asked Skungy, swinging his tail to bat tiny turds off my counter.

“We have our local specialty,” I said, pointing to a greasy crust of what they called Derby pizza. The cheese on these things was made from the bourbon-scented milk from merry mares. “Jolly pizza,” I told the rat. “Nummy num.”

Amusing himself with some some quantum wetware-brained routine of being world-weary, Skungy flopped onto his belly and dragged himself across the counter, moving like a parched traveler in a desert. When he came to the edge, he leaped off it, doing a midair flip, and hitting the floor running. Moments later he was back on the counter with his prize, his tail writhing as he devoured a pizza scrap the size of his body. The merrymilk seemed to be relaxing him. A little pool of urine spread beneath his feet, dampening his fur.

“So anyway, no hard feelings about Jane,” said Carlo with a vague wave of his hand. “At that party—I'm sure I was trying to help. You don't do me justice. My point is that you need to change your presentation. The upgrade package you bring to the table. Otherwise—”

“Don't you go bird-dogging Jane!” I cried, suddenly imagining I saw the old hustle in his eyes.

“Au contraire,” drawled Carlo. “I myself would like to see you and Jane back together.”

“Why?”

“Jane Roller is rich. I like having her in my circle of friends. And I care about you, qrude. I'm sad to see you going under. But keep in mind that Gaven Graber's feelings about Jane may be more conflicted.”

“In other words I'm screwed.”

“Zad, the reason you're having problems is that you're logging way too much time in your dreamchair. Webzombia, qrude. Each era gets its own madness. Melancholia, neurasthenia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder—webzombia. Let me ask you this, Zad: When you sleep, do you dream you're on the web? Key, key danger sign.”

I didn't like being called out on my use of my special chair. Webzombia? I'd never heard the word. Clearly a bullshit concept. I liked my busy, convivial hours on the web. Now and then I sold some nurbs or some art that way, or even cajoled a virtual customer into physically visiting my shop. The web was where I lived these days, and I didn't want people trying to root me out.

“You're the zombie, not me,” I snapped. “You and those fountain of youth treatments you're getting all of a sudden. You look like you're fucking eighteen.”

Carlo cocked his head, giving me a silent, sympathetic smile. And now Skungy glanced up from his pizza—as if finding me pathetic as well. A nurb was sorry for me?

“I should shove that filthy quantum wetware rat down your throat!” I yelled at Carlo, fully losing it.

“Our rat's seeming filth is a marketing move,” said Carlo calmly. He enjoyed seeing me crack. He'd scored a point in our never-ending game. “When people see a scuzzy rat they think New York City. And that's a plus.”

“Skungy sounds more like he's from Kentucky.”

“Well, that has to do with how we programmed him. We had to take a shortcut. But later on we hope to have our qwet rats sounding totally NYC. Manhattan is so luxor just now. The theme park thing.”

“Luxor,” I echoed, catching my breath. “Yeah. I'd like to go to Manhattan again myself. It's been two years. I've been watching the retrofits from my chair. The honking nurb cars, the flydinos gliding among the classic skyscrapers—yeah. An old-school city of the future. When I watch, it's like I'm there.”

“I bet it is. You sitting in your dreamchair.” The pitying look again.

Something within me gave way. “Okay, yes, I admit it! I'm sick of my life. I'm going nowhere. I need a change.”

“He felt a wistful yen for a life that was real,” intoned Carlo. “And the answer was—a Skungy! A quantum wetware rat even smarter than his friends!”

“Smarter than you and Reba Ranchtree,” I muttered. “That's for true.”

“Why are we even arguing, Zad? It's all coming together. Win-win. Did I mention that we're calling our company Slygro? Louisville's moving up the food chain. Enough with the bourbon and the tobacco and the horses and the Roller nurb chow. With Gaven in town, Louisville can productize some radical nurbs. A whole line of Slygro qwet rats. Spies, messengers, thieves—”

“What about Skungy being a biter?” I interrupted.

Carlo looked down at his finger. “I am a little worried about that,” he admitted. “Gaven's not totally sure about what this quantum wetware shit can do. But never mind, we're working all that out.”

I got into waving my denurbalizer stick at little Skungy. “Nobody wants a nurb that bites,” I scolded him. “And if the biter is smart, that makes it worse.”

“I'm not a biter,” piped the rat, his mouth full of Derby pizza. “Not ordinarily. Your pal smacked me on the head. He was asking for it. Once we grow out a nice big pack of qwet rats, we'll get respect.”

Carlo glared at Skungy. “Keep it up with the loose-cannon bullshit, and you'll be the very last qwet rat that Slygro ever makes. Gaven and I need to see some willingness to please. Right now, Skungy. Start kissing my butt.”

“That's a metaphor?” said Skungy, laying a fresh turd on my counter. Incongruously he began rocking his pelvis and singing, his little voice raspy and sweet. “I want to liiiive,” twanged the rat, for all the world like a Grand Ole Opry performer. “I want to raise up a famileeee!”

A faint odor of qwet rat had permeated the store by now. And Skungy's plangent melody caught the attention of the other nurbs—the bin of floor lickers, the web-cruising chairs, the wristwatch squidskins, the buoyant magic pumpkins, and even the stack of flat, leathery house seeds—all of them were nodding and twitching in sympathy—and Gaven's gnat swarm was folding upon itself like ghostly dough.

The scene reminded me of those primordial black-and-white cartoons where all the objects on a farm start jiving to a tune. Even I was falling under the music's spell. Skungy had an ability to get all of us into his channel. Was this part of the quantum wetware thing? The rat seemed taller than before, his fur lustrous and beautifully groomed, his motions eloquent and filled with worldly-wise tenderness and wit.

Relishing his power over us, Skungy rasped a final chorus, then took a deep bow with his paws outstretched. An appreciative murmur passed around the room. We loved him.

Well, maybe not Carlo. “That part about raising a family?” Carlo said, his voice cold. “That's out of the question, Skungy. You're sterile. Like all the other nurbs.”

“Man, that's harsh!” said Skungy, feigning exaggerated surprise.

“Think about it,” I put in, thinking I needed to comfort the rat. “If you nurbs were to start hatching out litters, what would retailers like me even sell? How would producers like Slygro pay their development expenses?”

“Oh, Skungy knows damn well he's sterile,” said Carlo. “He's just jerking your chain.”

“I'm gonna make babies,” said Skungy. “I'm not a simple tool like those other nurbs you got. They're soft machines. Me, I've got free will and I'm sneaky, see?”

Carlo sighed and peeled the Voodoo healer leech off his finger. The wound was gone, with skin grown back into place. “I keep telling Gaven he should reprogram the Skungy personality,” said Carlo, studying his finger. “But he won't. He's so impatient about impressing us local yokels. In a rush to buy our respect.”

“Buying is fine with me. I'm close to tapped out.”

“Oh, did I mention your bonus?” Carlo dug into his jacket and hauled out a serious wad of hundred-dollar bills. “To help you with any transitional issues. While you're distributing and patching the rats.”

An odd thought struck me. “You think Gaven could make a quantum wetware patch for me? If I had an aftermarket personality upgrade—”

“Love makes the world go square,” said Carlo with a simpering smile. “That's from an old Broadway musical. Square like fuddydud?”

“Broadway musical, qrude?”

“I'm seeing a woman who likes musicals. Kind of a geek. Went to Stanford in California? She's the head wetware engineer at Slygro. Rikki Shimano. Slygro's a tiny company, you understand. We're working out of a barn on Gaven's horse farm. I met Rikki the first day that I signed on as the marketeer. That night Rikki and I were in bed. Seems like just my type. Reckless, self-confident, completely innocent. Me, I'm all jaded and courtly. We're talking volcanic geek-girl sex. I might have some video I could—”

The gnats appeared upset—to the extent that tweaked insects can show emotion.

“What now?” said Carlo, noticing the swarm's chaotic tremors. “You're jealous, Gaven? Them that asks, gits. Learn from the rockabilly qrudes. Stop being a code monkey.”

“I'm in a dry spell myself.” I sighed. “I need a blinding light. A big aha. Before I wither and drop like an autumn leaf.”

“Everyone's getting so sad and serious!” said Carlo, shaking his head. “Just because we're thirty? We'll be giving you ten qwet rats on Monday, Zad. Keep Skungy for your helper. I'm sensing a mutual resonance between you two.”

I looked down at the qwet rat. As if overwhelmed by the Derby pizza and his performance routine, he was lying limp on my sales counter. Asleep? He didn't look so nasty to me anymore. He looked like he belonged. He wouldn't bite me. I wasn't a jerk like Carlo.

“Deal,” I said. “I'll keep Skungy. But I'm warning you that business isn't good. I know you're giving me that incentive fee, but it'll only cover the hassle of housing your qwet rats for—let's say a month. If they're not selling by the end of October, I get more money or Gaven takes them back.”

“Incentive fee,” echoed Carlo, savoring the tasty phrase. “Let me tell you this. If you don't bungle the qwet rat test run, Gaven might let you do trial marketing for more new nurbs. Even better, he might let you market this special treatment he'd like to start selling people. He has a whole bunch of loofy things to spring. Lucky little Louisville. Gaven says we'll be, like, the epicenter of the qwet wave.”

“Let me ask you this,” I said, uneasy with any grandiose plans. “Do you remember my first roadspider? Zix? Untested nurbs can get into these dark and surreal fail-modes. Tragically inept. Endangering lives. People know this. A barn-brewed uncertified trial-market nurb is a very tough sell.”

“Your art shop sells to the fringe,” said Carlo. “The eccentrics, the loofy debs, the qrudes among the horsey set. You'll be selling them forbidden fruit. But they feel safe getting it from you. You're a society artist. One of them. Your shop is in the eleganto old-town district, down here on Main Street, surrounded by redbrick buildings and the up-to-the-minute Gaven Graber high-rise housetrees by the river. I can hear the tintinnabulation of the ice cubes in the merrymilk highballs on those balconies. You're at the core, qrude. Totally luxor.” Carlo's eyes were liquid, sincere. He had a way of getting deeply into whatever line he was feeding you.

“I'm living in the back of a store,” I said flatly. “And the best thing that's happened to me today is that I'm feeling this weirdly organic bond of sympathy with a weird nurb rat.”

Despite my doubts, I really was getting a strong gut feeling that Skungy would be of great value to me. A rapport was forming between us two. At this point I realized that Skungy wasn't actually asleep.

“He's using a cosmic mind state to merge his quantum waves with yours,” explained Carlo, giving me a perspicacious look. “A qwet rat does that with his new owner. They're kind of telepathic. You're feeling his glow, qrude.”

I myself was no mind reader, but with the qwet rat focusing on me, I imagined I could feel his little breaths, the rapid patter of his tiny heart. I even glimpsed the dancing triangles of his ratty thoughts. Cat noses, rat vulvas, corners of cheese.

“I do wave on this rat,” I murmured.

“Here's his special food,” said Carlo, handing me a sack of golden-brown cubes—addictive Roller nurb chow for Skungy. The chow smelled like tobacco—which was indeed one of its ingredients. As long as I controlled Skungy's chow, I was at the center of his life.

Carlo was ready to move on to other topics. “So—with Jane temporarily out of the picture, what are you doing for sex? Fucking sex nurbs?” Carlo swiveled his head, keenly scanning my store. “You still stock them, don't you? Slit spheres, magic staffs, like that?”

“No, you moron. Sex nurbs are over. The Live Art shop is about quality and grace. And when I get antsy, I go out behind the shop and work on my new car. Sublimating randiness into craft. Thereby enhancing my he-man charm.”

“Car?” said Carlo blankly.

“I've got an antique show car,” I said. “It's the same model as the black convertible where JFK got shot a hundred years ago. That president? Wife wore a pillbox hat? My car's a Lincoln Continental stretch limo from a bankrupt car museum out on Shelbyville Road. Sizzler Jones bought out the place—you remember him from school? Sizzler's a land developer now. I traded him one of my living-slime-mold installations for this particular vehicle. I let him have
Cold Day in Hell: Why You Believe in God
.”

“Always with that same title, Zad?”

“My brand. It still works a little bit. Sometimes. Rack up a fat sale by Louisville's beloved rebel qrude artist, Zad Plant!”

“You said it was a trade to Sizzler Jones,” corrected Carlo. “Not a sale.”

“It's the same,” I said impatiently. “Anyway, Sizzler Jones is razing the museum and planting a grove of Gaven Graber housetrees. There's rolling fields and a lake, see, and Sizzler put a few thoroughbreds in the pasture. Nurb merry mares, actually, but whatev.”

“Look, I gotta get going,” said Carlo, losing interest.

“Let me finish! You're gonna do business with me, we gotta chat, right? Whittle and spit and talk about cars! Like our grandfathers used to do.” I was oddly excited, and talking fast, running my hand across the damp fur of the sleeping rat all the while. Petting him. Picking up traces of his dreams. Strange about this rat. I kept on talking. “My Lincoln Continental even has a working internal combustion engine. Not that I have gas, but the engine is there under the hood—Detroit pig iron. Heavy metal.”