The Ware Tetralogy

by Rudy Rucker

  His mind felt clear as a bell, clear as a goddamn bell. Suddenly he remembered the other robot. Cobb went in through the porch and down the short hall to his bedroom. The bopper-built body that had looked like Sta-Hi was still lying there. Its features had gone slack and sagging. Cobb leaned over the body, listening. Not a sound. This one was turned off.

  Why? “The real Sta-Hi is coming back,” the truck-driver had said. So they wanted to get this one out of circulation before it was exposed as a robot. It had been standing in for Sta-Hi, working with Mooney at the spaceport. The plan had been for the robot to smuggle a whole lot more robot-remotes through customs and out of the warehouses. It had mentioned this to Cobb one day while they were fishing. Why so many robots?

  Tokens of gratitude, each and every one? No way. What did the boppers want?

  He heard the screen-door slap then. It was Annie. She’d done something to her hair and face. Seeing him, she shone like a sunflower.

  “It’s almost six, Cobb. I thought maybe we should walk over to the Gray Area now and have some supper there first?” He could feel her fragile happiness as clearly as if it were his own. He walked over and kissed her.

  “You look beautiful.” She had on a loose Hawaiian-print dress.

  “But you, Cobb, you should change your clothes!”

  “Right.”

  She followed him into his bedroom and helped him find the white-duck pants and the black sport-shirt she’d gotten ready for tonight.

  “What about him?” Annie asked, whispering and pointing at the inert figure on Cobb’s bed.

  “Let him sleep. Maybe he’ll pull through.” The truck would come get him while they were out. Good riddance.

  He could see through her eyes as he dressed. His new body wasn’t quite as fat as the old one, and the clothes fit, for once, without stretching.

  “I was afraid you’d be drunk,” Annie said hesitantly.

  “I could use a quick one,” Cobb said. His new sensitivity to other people’s thoughts and feelings was almost too much to take. “Wait a second.”

  Presumably the DRUNKENNESS subroutine was still activated. Cobb went into the kitchen, pressed his finger to his right nostril, and inhaled deeply. A warm feeling of relaxation hit him in the pit of the stomach and the backs of the knees, spreading out from there. It felt like a double shot of bourbon.

  “That’s better,” Cobb murmured. He opened and closed the kitchen cupboard to sound as if he’d had a bottle out. Another quick snort, and then Annie came in. Cobb felt good.

  “Let’s go, baby. We’ll paint the town red.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “They’re collecting human brain-tapes,” Sta-Hi said as his father parked the car. “And sometimes they take apart the person’s body, too, to seed their organ tanks. They’ve got a couple hundred brains on tap now. And at least three of those people have been replaced by robot doubles. There’s Cobb, and one of the Little Kidders, and a stewardess. And there’s still that robot who looks like me. Your surrogate son.”

  Mooney turned off the ignition and stared out across the shopping-center’s empty parking lot. An unpleasant thought struck him.

  “How do I know you’re real now, Stanny? How do I know you’re not another machine like the one that had me fooled all week?”

  The answering laugh was soft and bitter. “You don’t. I don’t. Maybe the diggers switched me over while I was sleeping.” Sta-Hi savored the worry on his father’s face. My son the cyborg. Then he relented.

  “You don’t have to worry, Dad. The diggers wouldn’t really do that. It’s just the big boppers that are into it. The diggers only work there, making the tunnels. They’re on our side, really. They’ve started a full-scale revolution on the Moon. Who knows, in a month there may be no big boppers left at all.”

  A dog ran across the parking lot. keeping an eye on their car. They could hear loud rock music from two blocks away. The pheezers were having some kind of party at the Gray Area bar tonight. In the distance the surf beat. A cooling night breeze flickered in and out of the car windows.

  “Well, Stanny . . . ”

  “Call me Sta-Hi, Dad. Which reminds me. You holding?”

  Mooney rummaged in his glove compartment. There should be a pack of reefer in there somewhere . . . he’d confiscated it from one of his men who’d been smoking on duty . . . there it was.

  “Here, Sta-Hi. Make yourself at home.”

  Sta-Hi pulled a face at the crumpled pack of cheap roach-weed, but lit up nonetheless. His first hit of anything since back at the Disky Hilton with that Misty girl. It had been a rough week hiding out in the pink-houses and then getting smuggled back to earth as a shipment of spare innards. Rough. He smoked down the first jay and lit another. The music outside focused into note-for-note clarity.

  “I bet old Anderson’s at that party,” Mooney said, rolling up his window. Damned if he was going to sit here while his son smoked a whole pack of dope. “Let’s go check out his house, Sta-Hi.”

  “OK.” The dope was hitting Sta-Hi hard . . . he’d lost his tolerance. His legs were twitching and his teeth were chattering. A dark stain of death-fear spread across his mind. Carefully, he put the pack of reefers in his pocket. Must be good stuff after all.

  Father and son walked across the parking lot, behind the stores and onto the beach. The moon, past full, angled its silvery light down onto the water. Crabs scuttled across their path and nipped into hidey-holes. It had been a long time since the two of them had walked together. Mooney had to hold himself back from putting an arm across his son’s shoulders.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” he said finally. “That robot copy of you . . . it always said yes. It was nice, but it wasn’t you.”

  Sta-Hi flashed a quick smile, then patted his father on the back. “Thanks. I’m glad you’re glad.”

  “Why . . . ” Mooney’s voice cracked and he started again. “Why can’t you settle down now, Stanny? I could help you find a job. Don’t you want to get married and . . . ”

  “And end up like you and Ma? No thanks.” Too harsh. He tried again. “Sure I’d like to have a job, to do something important. But I don’t know anything. I can’t even learn how to play the guitar good. I’m only . . . ” Sta-Hi spread his hands and laughed helplessly, “I’m only good at waving . . . at being cool. It’s the only thing I’ve learned how to do in twenty-four years. What else can I do?”

  “You . . . ” Mooney fell silent, thinking. “Maybe you could make something out of this adventure you’ve had. Write a story or something. Hell, Stanny, you’re meant to be a creative person. I don’t want to see you end up wearing a badge like me. I could have been an illustrator, but I never made my move. You have to take that first step. No one can do it for you.”

  “I know that, too. But whenever I start something it’s like I’m . . . a nobody who doesn’t know anything. Mr. Nobody from Nowhere. And I can’t process that. If I’m not going to win out anyway, I’d rather just . . . ”

  “You’ve got a good brain,” Mooney told his son for what must have been the thousandth time. “You tested 92nd percentile on the MAGs and then you . . . ”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Sta-Hi said, suddenly impatient. “Let’s talk about something else. Like what are we going to do at Cobb’s house anyway?” They had walked a couple of kilometers. The cottages couldn’t be much further.

  “You’re sure they built robots to look like you and like Anderson?” Mooney asked.

  “Right. But I don’t know if the robots still look like us or not. They use this stuff called flickercladding for the skin, and it’s full of little wires so if you pass different currents through it, the stuff looks different.”

  “But you figure Anderson’s in one of these robots now?”

  “Come shot! For sure. I saw a nursie taking him apart. It . . . ” Sta-Hi broke off, laughing hard. Suddenly, with a reefer in him, the image of Cobb lying down in that giant toothed vagina . . . it was too funny for words. It was so good to be
stoned again.

  “But why lure you and him all the way up to the Moon just to tape your brain-patterns?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they respect Cobb too much to kidnap him and eat his brain like anyone else. Or maybe they don’t have any really good brain-dissecting machinery down here. And me . . . they just wanted to get me out of sight any way that . . . ”

  “Ssshhhh. We’re there.”

  Thirty meters to their right was Cobb Anderson’s cottage, silhouetted against the moon-bright sky. The light was bright enough to show the Mooneys clearly, should anyone . . . anything . . . be looking. They doubled back to where a stand of palms reached down to near the water’s edge and crept up to the cottages, staying in shadow.

  The cottages were dark and deserted. It seemed like all the pheezers were out partying this Friday night. Mooney and Sta-Hi sidled along the cottage walls until they came to Cobb’s. Mooney held them there, listening for a long two minutes. There was only the regular crash and hiss of the sea.

  Sta-Hi followed his father in through the screen door and onto the porch. So this was where old Cobb had lived. Looked pleasant enough. Sta-Hi looked forward to being a pheezer himself someday . . . which only left about forty more years to waste.

  Mooney put on a pair of goggles and flicked on his infra-red snooper light. He’d forgotten to bring it last Friday. He looked the room over. Lipsticked cigarette butts, baby oil, a wet bikini . . . signs of female occupancy.

  That old white-haired babe was still living here. All week she’d been here with, Mooney now realized, Cobb’s robot double. The two of them had been living here together waiting, though she didn’t know it, for Cobb’s mind to show up. Had it?

  Briefly Mooney wondered if the robots could fuck. He could use a bionic cock himself, to keep Bea happy. If that whore hadn’t always been sneaking out to the sex-clubs, Stanny never would have . . .

  “What the fuck are you doing?” Sta-Hi demanded loudly. “Talking to yourself? I can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Hussshhhhh. Put these on. I forgot.” Mooney handed Sta-Hi the second pair of infra-light goggles.

  The room cleared up for Sta-Hi then. The light was so red it looked blue. “Let’s try the bedroom,” he suggested.

  “OK.”

  Mooney led the way again. When he pushed open the bedroom door and shone his snooper light in, he had to bite his tongue to keep from screaming. Stanny was lying there, his features blurred and melted, the nose flopped over to one side and sagging down the check, the folded hands puddled like mittens.

  Sta-Hi let out a low hissing noise and stepped forward, leaning over the inert robot on Cobb’s bed. “Here’s your perfect son, Dad. Be the first one on your block to see your boy come home in a box. The big boppers must have found out I was back. One of us had to go.”

  “But what’s happened to it?” Mooney asked, approaching hesitantly. “It looks half-melted.”

  “It’s a robot-remote. The central processor must have turned it off. There’s a circuit in there for holding the flickercladding in shape, but . . . ”

  There was the sudden crunch of gravel, so close it seemed to be in the room with them. An engine was running, and a heavy door slammed. People were coming!

  There was no time to run out through the house. Feet were already pounding up the front steps. Mooney grabbed his son and pulled him into Anderson’s closet. They listened in silence.

  “Mr. Fwostee thaid he’th in the bedwoom, Buhdoo.”

  “Hey, Rainbow! Git yore skanky ass in here and help me lug this sucker out!”

  “Ah don’t see whah you big strong meyun cain’t do it alone.”

  “I thtarted a hewnia yethterday wifting thomething.”

  “Liftin whut, Hat-N-Haf, yore pecker?”

  The three voices shared a moment of laughter at this sally.

  “The Little Kidders,” Sta-Hi breathed into his father’s ear. Mooney elbowed him sharply for silence. A coat-hanger rattled, oh shit, but the voices were still out in the living-room.

  “This’s a naahce pad, ain’t it, Berdoo?”

  “Y’all want one lahk it, Rainbow honey? Stick with me an yore gonna be fartin through silk.”

  “Thass sweet, Berdoo.”

  “You two wovebirds bwing the body out, and I’ll watch the twuck.” Haf-N-Haf’s heavy footsteps went back down the steps. The truck door slammed again.

  Berdoo and Rainbow walked into the bedroom.

  “Whah . . . isn’t he a saaht? He looks lahk a devilfish!”

  “Don’t you worry yore purty haid. He’ll taahten up onct Mr. Frostee reprograms him.”

  “But wait, hunneh. Don’t he remaahnd yew of the man who’s brain we almost ate that taam? Last week over to Kristleen’s?”

  “This ain’t a man, Rainbow. This here’s a switched-off robot. I don’t know what the hail man you’re talking about, girl.”

  “Ooooh nevvah mahnd. Ah’ll git his laigs an you take tother eyund.”

  “Okey-doke. Watch yer step, the sucker’s heavy.”

  Grunting a little, Berdoo and Rainbow wrestled the body out of Cobb’s house and down the steps. The whole time, the truck’s engine ran.

  Cautiously, Mooney stuck his head out the closet door. The bedroom had a window on either side, and through one window he could make out the dark mass of an ice-cream truck. There was a big plastic cone on top of the cab.

  Two dim figures stopped at the side of the truck and laid something heavy on the ground. A third man climbed down out of the cab, and opened a door in the side.

  One of them turned on a light then, light which picked out every object in the bedroom. Terrified, Mooney threw himself back into the closet. He made Sta-Hi stay in there with him until they heard the truck drive off.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Cobb chewed down his broiled fish with apparent relish, and managed to enjoy his wine by taking one DRUNKENNESS snort through his left nostril for every two glasses. After dinner he went to the men’s room and emptied out his food unit . . . not because he had to, but just to reassure himself that it was really true.

  He was feeling the effect now of a good five or six whiskeys, and the whole situation didn’t seem so horrible and frightening as it initially had. Hell, he had it made. As long as he kept his batteries charged there was no reason he couldn’t live another twenty years . . . scratch that, another century! It was only a question of how long the machine could hold up. And even that didn’t matter . . . the big boppers had him taped and could project him onto as many bodies as he needed.

  Cobb stood, swaying a bit, in front of the men’s room mirror. A fine figure of a man. He looked the same as ever, white beard and all, but the eyes . . . He leaned closer, staring into his eyes. Something was a little off there, it was the irises, they were too uniform, not fibrous enough. Big deal. He was immortal! He took another jolt through his left nostril and went out to join Annie.

  While they’d been eating, the band had set up in the hall behind the Gray Area, and now enough pheezers had arrived for them to start playing. Annie took Cobb’s hand and led him into the dance-hall. She had helped decorate it herself.

  Overhead they had a big, slowly spinning ball covered with a mosaic of tiny square mirrors. From each corner of the room a colored spotlight shone on the ball, and the reflected flecks of light spun endlessly around the room, changing colors as they moved from wall to wall. There had been a mirror-ball exactly like this at Annie’s Senior Prom in 1970, lo these fifty years gone.

  “Do you like it, Cobb?”

  It made Cobb a little dizzy. This subroutine DRUNKENNESS wasn’t quite like the real thing. He held his finger to the left side of his nose and took two quick breaths through his right nostril, coming down a couple of notches, enough to enjoy himself again.

  The lights were perfect, really, it made you feel like you were on a boat drifting down some sun-flecked creek, trout hovering just beneath the surface, and all the time in the world . . .

  “I
t’s beautiful, Annie. Just like being young again. Shall we?”

  They stepped onto the half-empty dance-floor, turning slowly to the music. It was an old George Harrison song about God and Love. The musicians were pheezers who cared about the music. They did it justice.

  “Do you love me, Cobb?”

  The question caught him off guard. He hadn’t loved anyone for years. He’d been too busy waiting to die. Love? He’d given it up when he left Verena alone in their apartment on Eastern Parkway in Louisville. But now . . .

  “Why do you ask, Annie?”

  “I’ve been living with you for a week.” Her arms around his waist drew him closer. Her thighs. “And we still haven’t made love. Is it that you’re . . . ”

  “I’m not sure I remember how,” Cobb said, not wanting to go into details. He wondered if there was an ERECTION subprogram in his library. Have to check on that later, have to find out what else was in there, too. He kissed Annie’s cheek. “I’ll do some research.”

  When the dance ended they sat down with Farker and his wife. The two were having a spat, you could tell from the claw-like way Cynthia was holding her fingers. and from the confusion in Farker’s eyes. They were glad to have Cobb and Annie interrupt them.

  “What do you think of all this?” Cobb asked, using the hearty cheer-up-you idiot tone he always used with Farker.

  “Very nice,” Cynthia Farker answered. “But there’s no streamers.’’

  Emboldened by Cobb’s presence, Farker waved over a waiter and ordered a pitcher of beer. Normally Cynthia wouldn’t let him drink, not that he wanted to, normally, but this was, after all, the . . .

  “Golden Prom,” Annie said. “That’s what we called it, since it’s been about fifty years since a lot of us had our high-school Senior Prom. Do you remember yours, Cynthia?”