Postsingular, Rudy Rucker [e book reading free txt] 📗

Would you like some juice?” said Jil, turning toward Jayjay with a pitcher in her hand. “It’s mango.”

In person, Jil’s face had more nuances and complexities than the orphidnet meshes revealed. One orphid per square millimeter of skin wasn’t nearly enough to capture the lively high-res play of a woman’s eyes and mouth. Particularly Jil’s.

“Wonderful,” said Jayjay, taking the plastic pitcher from her, or meaning to, but somehow he and Jil bobbled the handoff, and the pitcher fell, bouncing out a floppy yellow-orange tongue that puddled sticky on the floor.

“Oops!” called Craigor from the kitchen table. Kittie, Thuy, and Sonic had already sat down as well, Thuy holding a cantaloupe and Sonic bearing cups and Nektar’s big pot of tea.

“The shoons will mop that,” Jil reassured Jayjay. Her dark eyebrows were arch-formed, always giving her an optimistic, playful appearance despite any inner pain. “The shoons can open up pores and make themselves into sponges. They clean up after my kids all the time. And my husband.” She gave a sharp whistle; Happy Shoon and a doughboy trotted over to roll in the juice, chirruping as their bodies dampened and swelled. Jil gave Jayjay a really nice smile. She had faint freckles across the bridge of her perfect nose.

Usually Jayjay was tentative with women, but, faced with the alluring Jil, he found the courage to go for it. “When I first saw you on the orphidnet and heard your name, I thought you were this beautiful girl Jilena who was a year ahead of me in high school,” he said softly. “I worshipped Jilena from afar.”

“I was done with high school a looong time before you,” said Jil, looking Jayjay up and down. “Flatterer.” Jayjay felt the orphids on his body registering major hitcounts—he was live on Founders. And maybe Jil was checking out his physique too. He tingled at the thought.

“I’d love to talk to you about the Hibrane,” said Jayjay, his pulse pounding in his ears. “I hear you’ve been there. I’m a budding physicist. We should get together alone sometime.” He glanced over at the others, wondering if they were noticing him flirting with Jil. It would be good for Thuy to realize that Jayjay had other options.

But Thuy was busy cutting up the cantaloupe and offering Kittie a slice, and Kittie was enthralled with Nektar, and Nektar was chattering at Craigor as if to keep him from looking at Jil. For his part, Sonic was drinking tea as fast as he could. The guy could never get enough caffeine.

“You’re a homeless kiqqie,” exclaimed Jil, sounding a little disappointed. Dammit, she’d already done an instant check via the orphidnet. “And you’re addicted to the Big Pig?”

“The Pig helps me get ideas,” said Jayjay. “I wouldn’t say that I have a problem. Anyway, I’m cutting down really soon.”

“Oh, I know all about that,” said Jil.

“I watch you on Founders,” said Jayjay. “You’ve gotten a bad deal lately. I really admire that you’ve hung onto your sobriety. You could show me the way. Mold me, Jil, train me to be like you. Clear-eyed. Hi-res. A coiled spring. I want to please you.”

He could hardly believe he was saying these things. His mouth

was way ahead of his brain.

“Boing,” said Jil. “That’s enough for now.”

“Hey,” said Craigor, jumping to his feet. Jayjay was expecting to get bawled out for hitting on the guy’s wife, but, no, Craigor was into his own ego trip.

“Check this out,” said Craigor, producing four short metal rods with wads of piezoplastic on their ends. He turned his chair over and stuck his rods to the ends of the chair legs—so that now the chair had piezoplastic knees and feet. When Craigor turned the chair upright, it waltzed around the kitchen, faster and faster, culminating with a tap dance and a bow. Craigor made as if to sit down and, with comical eagerness, the tall chair scuttled into position to catch him.

“That’s a walking-chair,” said Jayjay, hoping to steal Craigor’s thunder. “You sold a double-jointed version to the manager at the Natural Mind recovery center in the Armory.”

“How’d you happen to notice that?” asked Craigor, seeming genuinely curious about the specific chain of logic Jayjay had followed. Everything was visible on the orphidnet, and many people had their beezie agents mining for things that were specifically relevant to their lives, the notion of “relevant” being fairly inclusive, due to people’s beezie-assisted abilities think a few steps further than before.

“Jayjay’s beezies were looking for the origins of Nektar’s beetle infection,” said Thuy. “They came from the Natural Mind building, and you caught them when you delivered the chair, Craigor, and then Nektar caught the beetles from you, that time when you squirted too quick. Lose-lose.”

“Mouthy brat,” said Craigor, not especially embarrassed. He waggled his eyebrows at Thuy. “You need a spanking.” He stuck his teaspoon to the side of his walking-chair with a spare bit of piezoplastic, and sent the chair trotting around the table to whack-whack-whack Thuy’s thigh with the spoon.

“Craigor, you should load up on Jayjay’s antibeetle flea-grenades,” said Nektar. “For all we know, the beetles are eating your brain right now.”

Craigor responded in mime, fluttering his hands by his mouth like munching mandibles.

“Don’t worry, Nektar,” said Jil with a sigh. “We got the antibeetle fleas off the Founders show on our way over. And, yeah, the beetles really were lying dormant in us. That’s weird they used Craigor for a disease vector.”

Craigor’s walking-chair flexed its knees, rhythmically hunching against Thuy, who laughed at the urgent bumping. Kittie reached down to rip off one of the walking-chair’s shins. Miming great pain, the chair limped three-legged back to Craigor, leaning against him with a decrescendo shudder.

“You’re funny,” said Thuy to Craigor, meaning it. “I can put you in my metanovel. Are you directly controlling the chair?”

“I run the character animations though a beezie,” said Craigor. “But the beezie draws on a library of body-language routines that I stored. I act things out; that’s how all the great animators do it. My body knows more than my head. I’m a cuttlefisherman, too.”

“Mr. Disease Vector,” said Kittie, who’d attached the loose rod to her crotch. “Animate this.”

“Oh that’s witty,” said Craigor, looking annoyed. He grabbed the leg back.

Jayjay turned his attention to Jil, who was hunkered down by the sink checking up on her shoons. Even in that awkward position, she looked lithe and graceful. He tossed her a tiny heart-shaped emoticon via the orphidnet; she answered by half-turning her head his way and miming a kiss in profile. He was living the dream—in a reality soap!

“Founders fans may want to scan the Big Pig Posse’s backstory,” Nektar intoned, playing show host. “Jayjay loses Thuy, Thuy takes up with Kittie and next—Thuy and Craigor? Kittie and Nektar? Jayjay and Jil? Sonic and the shoons? Stay tuned. Oh, look, the good ads are coming back.” The orphidnet icons of BigBox and Stank glowed in the corners of the room, also the ExaExa beetle logo.

“Do we get paid too?” asked Kittie.

“I think so,” said Nektar. “The orphidnet figures all that out. I’ll register you as extras. And right up front, I’ll let you guys keep your SUV in my garage for a couple of weeks. And there’s a room over the garage you can live in. It’ll be fun having young people around.”

“Bitchin’,” said Sonic, draining the last of the tea. His eyes were bright and black. “I’m ready to settle in for a Doodly Bug death-run.”

“I want to paint that SUV and retrofit it for solar power,” said Kittie.

“I’ll be working on my metanovel,” said Thuy. “Wheenk.”

“The title’s growing on me,” said Jayjay, smiling at her. “I’m gonna be busy with Prav Plato’s physics seminars.” He put on a goody-goody tone, segueing into the plan they’d privately made upstairs. By now he’d privately messaged Kittie the details, too. “We all have a lot to do—if we don’t waste our energy by plugging into the Big Pig.”

Jil gave Jayjay a quizzical look. She could tell he was acting, but she wasn’t sure why. There were so many levels of unreality here. Jil turned to Nektar. “We’ll be on our way,” said Jil. “I’m gonna borrow your Happy Shoon so I can integrate his body-memories into my breeding stock. Knead him in like sourdough starter.

You’ve trained these shoons well, Nektar.”

“Can I take a shoon too?” asked Sonic.

“Sure,” said Nektar. Sonic stuffed the Jayjay-faced doughboy shoon into the pleated pocket of his leather jacket.

“Bye-bye,” said Jayjay, seizing the chance to touch Jil’s hand. She upped the ante and kissed his cheek. In the orphidnet, Jay-jay saw Jil staring over at her husband to make sure he noticed. Craigor’s smile had gone stiff. Thuy, however, was obliv, or was at least presenting herself that way. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Just because Jayjay liked the Big Pig? Well, hell, if Thuy was going to be such a priss, maybe he should