Crache
Page 30
“Is L. Mariachi’s IA shared?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“With who?”
“I don’t know. After the virus was eliminated the IA failed to reestablish contact. It never came back online.”
“What happens if it does?”
“It will be synchronized with the other components of its shareware. Its location identified.”
No wonder L. Mariachi doesn’t want to be found, doesn’t want to open himself up to the possibility that Bloody Mary or the past will return to haunt him.
For the first time, it occurs to Fola that perhaps Pheidoh doesn’t want L. Mariachi or his IA to be found either. That it could be dangerous, a risk not worth taking.
Still, she looks for him—and listens. At first out of a sense of duty. Later, out of habit. After a year it becomes second nature, a part of everyday life. Like breathing. If she never finds him, it doesn’t matter. What matters is not giving up. Not on him—not on anyone. In the end, she’s not looking just for him but a missing piece of herself.
“Check this out,” Lisi says one day. The message shows up after Fola has taken a job on Petraea, counseling recent immigrants who are having a hard time adjusting to their new environment. “It’s from a tattune on a recent refugee.”
It’s not really a song. More like a stanza or the lost fragment of something larger. The clip is short and has been downloaded or played so many times the sound quality has started to degrade.
Fola scowls at the tapestree she’s weaving in her hexcell, a leafy filigree of Celtic knots, and then onlines Pheidoh. “Who’s it by?” she says.
“Anonymous.”
“What’s it called?”
The IA strokes its goatee. “There’s no title. No timestamp, either. The only info I can mine is that it first showed up in a netzine called Digit Alice.”
She plays the snippet again. Counts syllables.
When we fine’ly kissed
Your lips were cold—blue lady
I still long for you.
The voice is scratchy, harsh. Not quite human. She’s not certain if the last line says “long for you” or “belong to you.” But she knows where the snippet fits, and the name of the song that it makes whole.
About the Author
MARK BUDZ is the author of Clade, which won a Norton Award and was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award. He lives with his wife in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern California.
ALSO BY MARK BUDZ
Clade
Praise for the author’s previous book,
CLADE
a Philip K. Dick Award finalist:
“Smart, well-written, and highly imaginative, Clade does for cutting-edge biology what NEUROMANCER did for a cyber future. Budz may well have created a new genre: BioPunk.”
—Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times bestselling co-author of Dune: House Corrino
“A remarkable book. Scientific, tense, gritty and thoughtful, Clade pulls you into a bio-engineered tomorrow that may come startlingly true.”
—David Brin, bestselling author of the Uplift series
“An excellent first novel . . . Budz has created an intelligent future that is highly original while evoking the best elements of the dramatic street stories of William Gibson.”
—Denver Post
“Budz writes poetically, with grand descriptive power. His characters are worriedly and necessarily in one kind or another of trouble. You’ll itch and fret for them, moms and brothers and lost kids and all. The very advanced tech surround, though, immerses the reader, and I want another dose.”
—San Diego Union Tribune
“Clade is a very accomplished first novel—indeed, it’s a very accomplished novel full stop. Budz’s characters are well drawn, the Californian setting is vivid, and, without preaching, he makes some strong points about the fragility of our environment . . . a striking debut.”
—Sci Fi Weekly, A-pick
“Budz has imagined a world with sufficient texture and resonance to make it not only a rewarding place to explore, but one worth thinking about, and one worth revisiting.”
—Locus Magazine
“A fast-paced read animated by an engrossing, nervous energy.”
—Booklist
“Clade, a first novel by Mark Budz, demonstrates biotech’s story potentials admirably . . . the book’s heart beats with age-old questions of loyalty and betrayal, Information-Age questions of community and choice, and ageless questions of what makes a family. . . . Sure, Clade has bitchin’ new biotech. Sure, Clade has cool ideas and neat extrapolations and even funky AIs (called IAs, or Information Agents). But Clade also has mothers who love their children, brothers who stand up for each other, decent people trying to do the right thing, and a man and a woman who refuse to let this strange new world change what is most basic and human about them—their love and respect for each other.”
—Strange Horizons
CRACHE
A Bantam Spectra Book / December 2004
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2004 by Mark Budz
Bantam Books, the rooster colophon, and the portrayal of a boxed “s” are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Published simultaneously in Canada
www.bantamdell.com
eISBN: 978-0-553-90080-4
v3.0