The Hacker and the Ants (15 page)

Nga sped us through the kitchen, and we seated ourselves on two chairs on the faded green concrete slab that was the patio. Nga Vo and I were alone at last, or nearly so.

“How did you and your family escape from Vietnam?” I asked.

“We go in boat to Philippine Island. It very hard for my father to arrange. Boat motor break before we get to Philippine Island. Some of our people die. Then big ship see us and take us to camp in Philippine Island. It very bad there. Finally we can come to California.”

“Was it hard to get permission to come?”

“We have my brother Vinh to be sponsor for us. Vinh is live in California since seven year.”

“Seven years. I moved to California three years ago. I was a math professor back East, and here I became a computer hacker. A programmer. How long have you been in California, Nga?”

“On Tet it will be two year. Do you know when Tet is, Rugby?” She giggled at the thought that I might not.

“Call me Jerzy. Is Tet in October?”

Nga looked surprised by my ignorance. “Tet is start of February this year. You don't know anything about Vietnamese!”

“Hey, I'm willing to learn. I'm glad to finally have a chance to talk to you. I think you are very beautiful. I would like so much to kiss you.”

“Yes, I will kiss you, Rugby,” said naughty Nga. She leaned forward in her chair. I stood up, leaned over, and put my lips on hers. Blood pounded in my ears as the world's sounds continued—the shouts of her brothers out in front, the endless yelling of the giant digital TV, and the soft chattering of the women in the kitchen.

Nga's lips were everything I had hoped for them to be, and the smell of her mouth was completely intoxicating. As we continued to kiss, she cocked her head back and parted her lips so that we could touch tongues. Nga was bad to the bone. She made a barely audible noise in the bottom of her throat and my heart redoubled its pounding . . .

“Dinner is ready,” called Mong Pham from the kitchen door.

Dinner was dozens of cigarette-sized egg rolls and an earthenware pot filled with steamed rice and squid. The round kitchen table was pulled out to the center of the room, and the nine of us sat around it. Huong gave me and Thieu cans of Budweiser from the fridge. Laughing Nga explained to me about fish sauce, a bottled extract which they all poured on all their food. Fermented anchovy, apparently, though it tasted smoother than I would have thought. Smooth, hell, it tasted super. I ate a lot of everything.

Just as Mong, Huong, and Nga began to clear off the dinner table there was a sound at the front door, and then
a thin-faced pompadoured Vietnamese man came strutting in. Seeing me sitting there at the kitchen table, he stopped in surprise.

Nga introduced me to him. It was Vinh Vo. Rather than saying hello to me, he made some remark in Vietnamese that caused Mong Pham to snap at him. He lit a cigarette and leaned against the wall, talking to the family in Vietnamese without ever looking at me. Nga had fallen silent.

Too much stress! I excused myself to go out front and check on Studly.

Dusk had fallen. Seeing no sign of Studly in the yard or driveway, I looked into the Vo's dusty, sunbaked garage, built on the same concrete slab as their living quarters. The garage held a washing machine and a dryer, twelve shiny oriental dining chairs, a lawn mower, a leaf blower, a weedeater, a propane barbecue grill, a moped, and a chain saw. Along one wall someone had built a row of rough plywood cupboards. These were held shut by cheap steel padlocks.

“Hey, Studly!” I called, walking out to the end of the driveway. No answer.

Parked behind my Animata and the Vos' Colt was a battered old Dodge Panel van, sloppily painted with white house enamel. Vinh's wheels no doubt. I opened my car trunk to make sure Studly hadn't gotten back inside. No indeed.

The early evening street was as empty as it had been in the daytime, only now there was a car or two in each driveway. All down the street, each house's curtained front window pulsed with the blue-white hues of television light, each house save for 5782, where Dutch and his burly owner lived. 5782 was thumping to the beat of thuddy music.

Could someone have stolen Studly? My suspicions
instantly centered on 5782. I headed down the sidewalk, looking this way and that. Just short of 5782's garage, I was able to see into the house's backyard. Guess who was back there?

“Get out of there, Studly,” I called, though not too loudly. “Come here to me.”

“Just a minute, you stupid piece of shit,” said the machine, not even turning its vision sensors to face me. It seemed like the ants had definitely had an effect on Studly's brain.

I went along the side of the garage and into 5782's backyard. Studly was balancing on a picnic table. Apparently he'd reached up and cut the telephone/television Fibernet cable that led from the utility pole to 5782. He was holding a cut end of the cable up to his head, holding the fiber-optic cable cross section against the laser-scanner that was mounted in his forehead.

“What are you doing, Studly? Are you trying to send a signal to the guy's digital TV or something? Why?”

“I am continuing the great work of artificial life which you and Roger Coolidge have begun.” I realized then that he was holding the
outgoing
part of the cable, the cable that led to the utility pole. The part that led to 5782 was lying in a heap on the ground. Studly was feeding information into the Fibernet! “I am nearly finished with this present task,” intoned Studly. “And then I would like to leave this area very soon.”

There was a high yell behind me. I'd expected it to be Dutch's owner, but instead it was Vinh Vo.

“Hey there, Mister Yuppie! You're in the wrong yard! My family's waiting for you.” His smooth English had almost no accent, though he spoke with the characteristic Vietnamese evenness of tone.

“I just have to get my robot. Get down from there, Studly! Get down!”

The sound of my voice made the pit bull start barking and throwing himself against the inside of the 5782 back door.
Bark. Thud. Bark. Thud.

I grabbed Studly's leg above the wheel and shook him.
Bark. Thud.
Finally Studly sent his last byte and let the cable fall.
Bark. Thud.
Studly hopped off the table, cushioning the fall with skillful flexings of his springy legs.
Bark. Thud. Scrunch!

5782's back door gave way and Dutch came roaring out. Vinh, Studly, and I sped for the Vos' yard. Dutch ended up between us and the house. He was slavering and edging toward us—toward me in particular—the pit bull was getting ready to bite me!

“Stop the dog, Studly!” I cried. “He wants to kill me!” Studly got between me and the dog and Vinh tugged on my sleeve.

“Let's get in my van!”

I hopped into the passenger seat of Vinh's van. A partition behind the seat sealed off the cargo area. It felt close and stuffy in the van's cab. Vinh leaned on the horn as if to upset the neighborhood further. Lights snapped on here and there.

“Bad dog,” shouted Studly over the honking of the horn. “Go home!” He poked Dutch just the same as before, but this time Dutch was not so ready to retreat.

Someone peeked out from the front door of the Vos' house, but Vinh leaned across me to wave them back in. The blare of the van's horn was remarkably loud. Studly and the maddened dog continued to tussle.

“Could you stop the honking, Vinh?”

“I've got electronics in back. I don't want anyone to eavesdrop. Maybe I can sell you something.” He continued to lean on the horn. “I can sell your company some very attractively priced Y-nine-seven-oh-seven chips.”

I looked at Vinh in puzzlement. The Y9707 happened
to be exactly the kind of chip that was going to be used for the brains of both the GoMotion Veep and the West West Adze. It was an integrated teraflop processor chip with a terabyte of onboard RAM. The Y9707 sold for about twelve hundred dollars wholesale, and each robot needed exactly one of them. When it came time to start selling the robot kitware, the availability of Y9707s was going to be crucial. It was entirely possible that, as the trade war heated up, GoMotion and West West might try and get exclusive distribution rights to Y9707 supplies.

“Why do you mention that particular chip?” I asked.

Vinh smiled smugly. “So you are interested?”

“Eventually my company might perhaps be interested. It's hard to say at this point. How much would you want per chip?”

“Maybe one dollar on the ten. Say $120 per Y9707 chip. I have several hundred of them, with more coming in. Other kinds of chips, too. Oh yes, I can see you are interested,” said Vinh. “You can always reach me through my family.”

“We'll see.” I had a strong feeling that Vinh's chips would turn out to be stolen. I had no desire to get involved in something as criminal as receiving stolen goods. Outside, the robot and dog fight seemed to be over. Studly was over by the corner of the Vos' house, and Dutch was nowhere in sight. “I have to go get my robot before he wanders off again.” I opened the van door and stepped out.

“And make sure you act like a gentleman with my sister, Mister Yuppie!” With his horn still blaring, Vinh revved his engine and lurched his van away.

Studly came wheeling up to me. “I think we should leave very soon, Jerzy,” said he. I noticed that Studly's pincer was dark and wet. I peered closer. Blood.

“Where's the dog?”

“I dragged him behind the Vos' house.”

“You killed him?”

“It seems so. I poked very hard at his neck and the material of the animal's skin gave way.”

“You've . . . you've killed something, Studly! You aren't ever supposed to kill!” As we talked, I walked over to my car and unlocked the trunk.

“I was only defending you and your friends,” said Studly.

“Oh brother. I have to go back inside for a few minutes before we leave. Meanwhile I want you to drag that poor dog's body to the yard behind its
own
house. And then you get in the trunk and close it, you hear?”

“To hear is to obey, master.”

“Oh, and one more thing. What did you feed into the Fibernet back there, Studly?”

“GoMotion ants.”

“
Why?
”

“A voice in my head told me to.”

“Oh great. Now drag the dog and get in the trunk.”

“If you hear sirens approaching,” said Studly, “then it will very definitely be time for us to leave.”

I went back into the Vos'.

They were sitting in the living room, having dessert in front of the television. Dessert was little dishes of gnarly clear pudding with lotus roots in it. Nga served me a double helping, but instead of eating it, I just mashed it around with my spoon. Vinh and Studly had taken away my appetite.

The TV was blasting a single Vietnamese channel now, a news show just as evil and farty and boring and fascist as American network fare. Only then, almost right away, here came a free-lance freestyle commercial from the wild and crazy GoMotion ants, one of (I would later learn) 1024 separate commercials kustom-krafted in real time
for each of the broadcast channels of Fibernet San Jose.

On the Vietnamese news channel, the ant ad came layered onto a commercial for some toothpaste called KENTUCKY. The ad featured a smiling Vietnamese woman with a shiny mouth as big as an old Buick's grill. She flipped her bobbed blue-black hair and smiled some more, and then she looked down at the gleaming ivory-tiled counter by her gold-fixtured sink with its deep red basin, looked down lovingly at her KENTUCKY toothpaste in its crimson tube with aqua lettering. But now
bam
here came one, two, three, twenty, a hundred, a thousand ants crawling across the scene! The perspective-mapped ants were fast and realistic; they capered about among the images as the commercial continued.

The GoMotion ants that Studly had squirted up into the Fibernet had already made their way to the Vos' digital television.

The ants rocked their gasters up and down, and their chirping came out of the TV speaker. Thieu Vo commented in surprise, and Nga laughed. What a crazy way to sell toothpaste! And then a contingent of the ants changed their colors and crawled onto the toothpaste tube. The ants had all been a fine lustrous dark brown to start with, but now one mass of them turned crimson, and another contingent turned aqua. Like live pixels, the colored ants crawled over the image of the toothpaste tube and arranged themselves so that now the writing on the tube read, “GoMotion Inc.”

GoMotion was going to be in serious trouble for this. But it wasn't my fault, I was out of GoMotion, and the ants were GoMotion's exclusive intellectual property. A contract condition of working for GoMotion was that anything you programmed belonged to them. Yes, the liability was GoMotion's, not mine.

But what if it came out that it was my robot Studly
who'd put the GoMotion ants into the Fibernet? Just this morning, Trevor had told me that in the eyes of GoMotion, Studly was now legally mine. He'd said Jeff Pear had even sent me a letter about it. Had Roger Coolidge known all this was coming?

Twelve of the ants braced their little legs and began inflating themselves, growing big enough to fill the picture, with all the small ants still chirping away in the background. The inflated ants reared up on their hind legs, formed a chorus line, and began to do a side-to-side two-step, each ant holding her neighbor's middle leg, and each ant waving her two front legs overhead in ecstasy. Watch the GoMotion ants get down! Their chirps syncopated into Martian music with a high ululation in the background.

It took me a second to realize that the high ululation was the sound of sirens heading this way.