by Rudy Rucker
"It's empty," Cobb said. "This isn't really a Mr. Frostee truck anymore. It's mine."
The attendant absorbed this fact in silence, looking Cobb's skinny rat faced body up and down. "You baah it?"
"I sure did," Cobb said. "Over in Cocoa. Fella closed his franchise down. I aim to fix this truck up and use it for my meat business."
The attendant topped up the tank. He was tanned, with white squint-wrinkles around his eyes. He shot Cobb a sharp glance.
"You don't look lahk no butcher to me. You look lahk a grease-monkey in a stolen truck." He punctuated this with a sudden, toothy smile. "But ah could be wrong. You need anything besides the hydrogen?"
The guy was suspicious, but seemed willing to be bought off. Cobb decided to stay. "Actually ... I'd like to get this truck painted. It's a burden having to explain to everyone that it's really mine."
"Ah reckon so," the sandy-haired man said, smiling broadly. "If you pull her round back, Ah maaht could he'p you solve your problems. Ah'll paint it and forgit it. Cost you a thousand dollahs."
That was much too high for two hours' work. The guy obviously thought the truck was stolen.
"O.K.," Cobb said, meeting the other man's prying eyes. "But don't try to double-cross me."
The attendant displayed his many crooked teeth in another smile. "What color y'all want?"
"Paint it black," Cobb said, relishing the old phrase. "But first let's get that goddamn cone off the top."
He got back in the truck, pulled off the asphalt, and drove through rutted weeds to the junky lot behind the Hy-Gas station. The attendant, on foot, led the way.
"Perhaps he is not honest," Mr. Frostee said inside Cobb's head, sounding a bit worried.
"Of course he isn't," Cobb answered. "What we have to look out for is him calling the cops anyway, or trying to blackmail us for more money."
"I think you should kill him and eat his brain," Mr. Frostee said quickly.
"That's not the answer to every problem in interpersonal relations," Cobb said, hopping out. He was learning to talk to Mr. Frostee subvocally, without actually opening his mouth.
The attendant had brought a screwdriver and a couple of Lock-Tite wrenches. He and Cobb got the cone off, after ten or fifteen minutes' work. The emptily smiling swirl-topped face landed in the weeds next to half of a rusted-out motorcycle. The two men's bodies worked well together, and a certain sympathy developed between them.
The attendant introduced himself as Jody Doakes. Cobb, hoping to confuse his trail, said his name was Berdoo. They went around front to get the paint and the spray-gun compressor. Cobb solved the problem of when to pay, by tearing a thousand-dollar-bill in half and giving Jody one piece.
"You'll get the other half when I pull out of here," Cobb said. "And no earlier."
"Ah see yore point," Jody said, with a knowing chuckle.
First they had to wash the truck off. Then they taped newspaper over the tires, lights and windows. They sprayed everything else black. The paint dried fast in the hot air. They were able to start the second coat as soon as they finished the first.
The job took all morning. Now and then that three-legged dog would start barking, and Jody would go out to serve a customer. Mr. Frostee's refrigeration unit kept running, drawing its energy from the hydride tank. Jody asked once why the refrigerator had to be on if there wasn't any more ice-cream. Cobb told him that if he wanted the other half of the thousand-dollar-bill he could keep his questions to himself.
They finished the second coat a few minutes after the noon siren blew on the Purcell fire-house.
"Y'all want a baaht to eat?" Jody asked. "Ah got the makins for sandwiches insahd." He hooked his thumb at the garage.
"Sure," Cobb said, ignoring the fact that he'd just have to clean the chewed-up bread and lunchmeat out of his food unit later on. Eating was fun. "I could use a couple of beers, too."
"Come shot!" Jody said, meaning something like you bet. "Come shot on the beer, Berdoo."
They had a friendly lunch. More strongly than ever, Cobb felt able to enter into other people's thoughts. Again the thought of starting a cult crossed his mind.
The food and beer felt good in his mouth. Over Mr. Frostee's protests, Cobb cut in the DRUNKENNESS subroutine and gave himself a hit for each beer. They split a six-pack. Jody allowed as how, for an extra two hundred bucks, he'd be willing to let Cobb have some fresh license plates and registration papers he happened to have.
Cobb enjoyed their dealings very much. In his old body he had never been able to talk comfortably to garage mechanics. But now, with a random grease- monkey's face on a Sta-Hi-shaped body, Cobb fit in at a filling station as easily as he used to fit in at research labs. Idly he wondered if Mr. Frostee could change the flicker-cladding enough to turn him into a woman. That would be interesting. There was so much to look forward to!
After lunch they changed the license plates. Cobb handed over the missing half of the thousand-dollar-bill, and the extra two hundred dollars. Hoping to keep Jody bought, he suggested that he might be back with more of the same kind of business next month, if things worked out.
"Come shot!" Jody said. "And good luck."
Cobb drove out of Purcell, heading east, past cows and egrets.
"I wish you'd taped his brain," Mr. Frostee nagged. "We can always use a good mechanic."
Cobb had been expecting a remark like this. And the next remark, too.
"How come you're driving East? That's not the right way to Disney World. We've still got to get Berdoo!"
"Mr. Frostee," Cobb said, "I love my new body. And I support your basic plan. It's the logical next step for human evolution. But mass-murder is not the way. There's a better way, a way to get people to volunteer for brain-taping. We'll start a new religious cult!"
There was a pained silence. Finally Mister Frostee spoke. "I feel I should warn you, Cobb. You have free will in the sense that I can't control your thoughts. But the body belongs to both of us. In certain special circumstances I may take ..."
"Please," Cobb said, "hear me out. Am I right in believing that you're the only big bopper now on Earth?"
"That's right."
"And I'm using the only robot-remote you have left?"
"Yes. Hopefully, with Mooney out of the way, security at the spaceport will be relaxed again. We had planned a shipment of some thousand new remotes during the next two years, as well as several more big bopper units. These plans are unfortunately ... in flux. There are some... difficulties on the Moon. But until the situation re-stabilizes, I intend to continue gathering tapes and ..."
"You're trying to tell me there's an all-out civil war starting on the Moon, aren't you?" Cobb exclaimed. "We're on our own, M.F.! If we go back to the spaceport and try..."
"There is no need to go to spaceport for tape transmission. I can radio-beam the tapes directly up to BEX at Ledge."
"A soul transmitter," Cobb said thoughtfully. "That's a good angle. Personetics: The Science of Immortality."
"What do you mean?"
"The religion! We'll get the down-and-out, the runaways, the culties... we'll get them to believe that you're a machine for sending their souls to heaven. It's not really so..."
"But why bother? Why not just proceed as Phil always did. To seize, and cut, and ..."
"Look, M.F., we're in this together. It works both ways. If something happens to this truck I'm dead. I don't think you realize just how strongly humans react to murder and cannibalism. This is no bopper anarchy here, it's more like a police-state. If you and I are going to last out until BEX gets the troops here, we're going to need to lay low and play it careful."
Just thinking about it gave Cobb the creeps. If he couldn't get fuel for the truck, if the cops stopped them, if the refrigeration unit broke ... It was like being a snail with a ten-ton shell! A snowball in hell!
"We need security," Cobb said urgently. "We need a lot of people to take care of us, and we need money to keep the hydride tanks full. If we get
enough money I think we should build a scion, too. A copy of your processor. We could get our followers to buy the components in computer shops. You've got to understand the realities of life on Earth!"
"All right," Mr. Frostee said finally. "I agree. But where are you driving to?"
"Back to the coast," Cobb said. "I know a place north of Daytona Beach where we can hole up. And, say... give me a new face. Something fatherly."
Chapter Twenty-Five
After his father's funeral, Sta-Hi went back to driving a cab in Daytona Beach. Bea, his mother, wanted to put the house up for sale and move north, away from the pheezers. She hated them since Mooney's death... and who could blame her! Her husband had gone to old Cobb Anderson's house on a routine check, and had been blown to smithereens! Just for doing his job! And so on.
There was an investigation into Mooney's death, but the blast hadn't left a hell of a lot to investigate. There was not a scrap of the suspected robot double to be found. And Sta-Hi didn't tell the authorities any more than he had to. He still couldn't decide whose side he was on.
He took a couple of his father's space-ship paintings and rented a room in Daytona. He went back to Yellow Cab and they gave him a job driving the night-shift. Mostly it was a matter of bringing drunks and whores to motels. Seamy. And duller'n shit.
His dope habit crept up on him again. Pretty soon he was smoking, snorting, dropping, spraying and shooting his money as fast as he made it. Late at night, driving up and down the one-dimensional city, Sta-Hi would dream and scheme, forming huge, interlocking plans for the future.
He would make a movie about cab-driving. He would write a book about the boppers. No, man, do it with music!
He would learn how to play the guitar and start a band. Fuck learning! He would get another Happy Cloak and let it play his fingers for him. He needed a Happy Cloak!
He'd threaten the boppers to tell about the Little Kidders and the nursies if they wouldn't come across. With Anderson and his father blown up, no one else knew!
He'd get rich and then go back to Disky and get in on the civil war and they'd make him king. Hadn't he already helped the diggers to off a big bopper? He'd lead them to victory! Moon King Sta-Hi!
But there was no way to reach the boppers. The cops had lost track of Mr. Frostee and those Little Kidders. BEX and Misty-girl never got any closer to Earth than space-station Ledge. And no private phone-calls to Disky were allowed. The thing to do was to make the boppers contact him. How? Get so famous they'd notice him!
Around and around, night after night, tripping and bouncing the length of dreary Daytona. One night a drunk left his wallet in the cab. Two thousand bucks in there. Sta-Hi took the money and quit work. He needed time to think!
He got a crate of Z-gas aerosols... he'd sunken that low... and started hanging around the strip. Eating burgers, selling hits, playing machines, hunting pussy. He tried to make himself conspicuous, hoping something would happen to him. The day his money ran out, it finally did.
He was hanging out at Hideo-Nuts' Boltsadrome, stoned, staring at the floor. His boots looked so perfect. Two dark parabolas in a field of yellow, slight 3-D interest provided by the scurf strewn about. His favorite song was playing. He felt like screaming, like crying out, "I'm here and I'm staying high! I'm Sta-Hi, the king of the brainsurfers!"
The metal speaker overhead was pumping out solid music. He could see the notes if he squinted. He started to giggle, thinking of the tiny note-shaped bumps traveling down the wires like white mice swallowed by a python. God, he had good ideas!
Keeping his smile, in case it came in handy, Sta-Hi looked around the arcade, swaying back and forth, fingering chords on an invisible electric guitar. He couldn't actually play yet, but he had all the moves down... say... look at little blondie over there. He stared at her and slid a riff down the neck of his imaginary guitar. Smiling harder, he beckoned with his head.
Liking his smile, the broad-hipped girl strolled towards him, swaying back and forth like a slowly swimming fish. Beat that tail. She kept her head tilted back to show off the tan-stars on her cheeks.
"Hi 'surfer. God, it's wiggly in here tonight." She shook back her hair and laughed a slow, knowing laugh. "I'm Wendy."
Sta-Hi sizzled off a few more hot chords and then threw his hands in the air. "You're talking to Sta-Hi Mooney, fluffy. I've got the weenie, you've got the bun, put em together and have some gum." His rap had deteriorated badly during the last week of Z-gas.
"Are you in a club?" Wendy asked, still smiling. He wasn't as stuzzy as she had thought from across the room. And, worse, he looked broke.
"Sure ... I mean practically." She wasn't really as pretty as he had thought. A whore? "How about you?"
"Oh I've been hanging out ... parties... burning cars. ..." Wendy wondered if it was worth wasting time on him. She had to make five hundred dollars before going back to the temple.
Sta-Hi saw the doubt in Wendy's face. She was the first girl he'd managed to talk to all day. He was going to have to land this fish, and fast. "Have a whiff on me," he said, fumbling out his aerosol.
"Wiggly," she said, tossing her hair again. He handed her the little can and she inhaled a short burst of the Z-gas. Sta-Hi took it back and blasted off a long, long one. Gongs rang in his ears and he staggered a little, laughing a hyuck-hyuck 'surfer laugh from the back of his throat. Wendy took the can out of his hand and hit up another. They looked pretty to each other again.
"What do you want to play?" Sta-Hi asked, gesturing broadly.
"I'm good in that Pleasure Garden," Wendy answered.
"Wiggly." Sta-Hi dropped his last five-dollar coin into the slot. The big machine lit up and made a googly welcome-to-my-nightmare noise.
"I'll do the pushpads," Wendy said, taking her place in front of the machine.
That was fine with Sta-Hi. He'd never gotten too good at playing the hyperpins. He took the electron-gun in his hand and pushed the start button.
A little silver ball popped into play. A magnetic field buoyed it up. Sta-Hi aimed the gun at the ball and gave it a kick towards the first target.
He'd shot it the wrong way, though, and it disappeared into a trap ... the mouth in a glowing little Shiva. Wendy gave a snort of annoyance. Wordlessly, Sta-Hi punched the start again.
This time he sent the ball right into the nearest push-pad. Let her handle it. She did ... banking the chrome sphere off two more pads before sending it edgewise down a whole row of pop-ups.
"Stuzzy," Sta-Hi breathed. They were both leaning over the lit-up tank. First you had to take out fifteen targets and then the Specials would light up. Wendy had just gotten five targets at once. The ball was drifting towards a trap, but Sta-Hi managed to shoot it in time. Then Wendy was batting it around with the push-pads again.
She had a long, chiming run. All the specials were lit now. Asserting himself, Sta-Hi flicked the ball a few times with the electron-gun, trying to knock it down one of the money holes. But they had repellers, and he ended up by pushing the ball out.
"Have you ever played this before?" Wendy wanted to know before he launched their last ball.
"I'm sorry. I guess I'm a little phased."
"Don't apologize. We're doing good. But on this next ball could you sort of ... just shoot when I say to?"
"I'll shoot when and where you like, baby." He pressed the start and slid his hand down to pat her ass, knowing she couldn't let go of the controls to slap him away. But she didn't even frown... just bumped her tummy against the machine and whispered, "Shoot."
Sta-Hi shot and they were off. She pushed the pads, murmuring instructions to him all the while. Down, farther, watch the crocs, give it to me, hit the pad, way down... They took out all the targets and all the level-one specials. Then they were working on the higher-level specials. The traps were moving around, snapping at the ball, and Wendy was making impossible saves. Sta-Hi's finger was clenched tight on the trigger.
The machine was letting out wild wheeps and ring
s, and a few people drifted over to watch Sta-Hi and Wendy work out. Faster, tighter angles, shooting constantly...
"Oh God," she whispered, "the Gold Special's on. Nudge it left, Sta-Hi."
He twitched some English onto the ball. It caromed off a pad angled just so, and snugged into the gold socket nestled between two big outs. The machine THHOCCKKKKED. And shut itself off.
Sta-Hi pushed his trigger. Nothing happened. "What..."
"We beat it!" Wendy squeaked. "We took it all the way! Let's go get the pay-off!"
"But I thought there was just ..." Sta-Hi pulled open the drawer in the machine's front. A ticket for five free meals at McDonald's.
"Sure there's that," Wendy said. "But the cashier has to give me five hundred dollars, too. Special Daytona rules."
Sta-Hi followed Wendy to the cashier, and out onto the street. She wore green cut-off over-alls, and sandals with thongs criss-crossing up her legs. He had to hurry to keep up with her. It was like she was trying to lose him.
"Where are you going, Wendy? Slow down! Half that money's mine!" He caught her lightly by her bare brown arm.
"Let go!" She twitched her arm free. "That money isn't yours or mine. It's all for Personetics. Good-bye!" Without even looking at him, she strode on down the sidewalk.
"You whore!" Sta-Hi shouted angrily. "That's it, isn't it! You've got your night's money now and you'll give it to your greaser sex-pistol and catch some sleep!" He ran after her, and grabbed her arm, hard this time. "Give me my two-hundred-fifty bucks!"
Wendy burst into tears. Fake? "I'm not a p-prostitute. It's just f-flirty-fishing. Personetics needs the money for more hardware. To save everyone's soul."
Hardware? Souls? A contact at last.
"You can keep the money," Sta-Hi said, not loosening his grip. "But I want to come back with you. I want to join Personetics."
She looked into his eyes, trying to read his intentions. "Do you really? Do you want to be saved? Personetics isn't just another cult, you know. It's for real."