Cyberweb

by Lisa Mason

  Pr. Spinner picks her way over to the corner and peers. She sees, on the organic disk, the representation of a coiled snake. And the words, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

  “That’s an identity tag. I’ve seen it before!” Carly says. “The signature of Kay Carlisle. She was involved with the freedom and privacy movement.”

  An awful excitement courses through Pr. Spinner’s circuits. Her alarm begins to sound again. “These are the specs to Carlisle’s feedback hookup?”

  Carly nods.

  “By bot, Carly Quester, that means we’re in a TeleSystems warehouse. If their monitors catch us here, we’re on termination row.”

  “Damn,” Carly mutters. “And we don’t know the path to this place. The Arachne spun it, disengaged it.”

  ”Maybe the Arachne archived the path,” Spinner says. “You’ll have to find out. Later, yes?”

  “Yeah.” Carly’s presence in link scans the organic disk, begins supercopying the glyphs, the identity tag, the alphanumerics. But after a moment, her telelink pulses in the upper left corner. The crab claws snap and click feebly. “Easy does it,” she mutters. “Damn it, Spin, I’ve reached the limits of my memory.” She sighs. “I can’t download any more. At least we have proof for Cognatus that we found something. Something important.”

  “Indeed!” Spinner whispers harshly. “I haven’t got enough memory, either.” Her whisper echoes too loudly into the upper regions of the warehouse. The dull glow of dormant security guards begins lazily to shine. “You’re going to show this to Cognatus? By bot, we don’t know what Cognatus’s agenda is. Indeed, maybe the sengine would wish to steal this, too. Maybe . . . ”

  “Yeah, we don’t know,” Carly says flatly. “And we didn’t find an archetype, either. We still don’t know how the hell we’re going to find one at all, so shut up!” Her presence in link whirls. “Listen,” she says, “we’re on the edge, good old Spin. This isn’t just for Cognatus. This is for you and me. For us. I’ve got evidence.”

  “Evidence, very good,” Spinner says calmly, though she’s furious with Carly for being so obtuse. “Then how about compressing those specs? Just for us, huh?”

  “Right,” Carly agrees sourly, running a compression over the data she’s downloaded.

  “And how about installing some encryption over the rest of the gizmo, if we can’t take the whole thing with us this time? We could search-and-trace off the encryption if it turns out the Arachne didn’t archive the path, right?”

  Carly’s cube whirls. “Right again.” Her presence in link throbs with concentration. But instead of her cube installing encryption glyphs, a tiny spiderling balloons from the ceiling, drops down on the gizmo. Swiftly weaves a little web around the Carlisle specs, attaching strands of glowing silk to the perimeters of the warehouse.

  “Yes!” Spinner cries. “That’s perfect.”

  Now the security guards rouse themselves in earnest, waking with sleepy yawns and blinking red eyespots.

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “We’re gone, good old Spin,” Carly says.

  They zoom to the front of the warehouse, find the crack in the brick wall. Slip out before the security guards begin to howl.

  9

  Strange Dances

  Ouija watches the genny woman and her canned companion stab themselves with wires from the demon chair he’d help free from its wooden cage. Watches them feed their souls to the spirits of the Unseen. Watches the genny woman’s eyes roll back in her head as Ginger’s eyes had rolled back when she died. Watches her body twitch and shudder. Watches the canned companion—the genny woman spoke to the thing as if it is a person, though it looks awfully machinelike to Ouija—go quiet, dark, and empty when the spirit which it—she, of the name Pr. Spinner—carries within herself flees as surely as the genny woman’s soul.

  Terrible to behold. Where do they go? Despite his revulsion, Ouija admits to a prickle of curiosity. Where is the Unseen? Curiosity and perhaps his hunter’s pride are challenged. If a slim young genny woman braves the Unseen, surely he can look upon Its awful face, too. Not that he desires this.

  But, if he chose to, he could. Why not? The genny woman said many-many times she is not a servant to the spirits. She rebels against the spirits. And he believes this. If she can journey to the Unseen, speak with the spirits, and return unharmed, how difficult can that journey be?

  Of course, the genny woman is shaped by powerful magic, he reminds himself.

  He crouches on the floor of their hideout, stomach churning with dread. Yet his heart is more firm than it has been days. For he has been charged by Louie Zoo to watch the genny woman. And watch her he has as Lord Day and Lady Night compete for the sky. Till he spotted her with her little flying machine removing her possessions from the YinYang Club. Though Whoosh was silent, showing him no signs or prophesies, still Ouija knew she was leaving that place for good. He knew the look of moving on. She found another lair. But he cannot know where for he cannot follow her once she soars into the air.

  Thus Ouija watched, and when he saw her return with her flying machine, he resolved to hunt her. He had crept around the back of the YinYang Club, crept up the dark stairwell in the secret Way—lightly in tread, firmly in motion, resolutely in strength.

  The stairwell was a very evil place. It smelled as bad as a dirty drain, housed vermin in the scut piles strewn in its corners. At the bottom of the stairwell, Ouija heard the noisy crowd, the music of the club. He crept past, disdaining to look through a curtain. But which doorway led to the genny woman’s lair? He squatted in the foul darkness, batting at bugs. Suddenly up above, he heard her voice, a clear mellow tone with an easy laugh that pleased him.

  He silently ran up the two flights of stairs, surprising her as she turned away from two monstrous canned folk departing in the little room that moved up and down. Surprised her, seized her. She struggled with strength and courage, and the ambush, the feel of her struggle, also pleased him, as a hunter is pleased by prey that does not yield too easily.

  But he had never meant to watch another demon chair seize her soul. He had not asked his question with the intent of witnessing this terrible sight. Yet his remorse begins to vanish as he watches and waits. For she might speak with her great spirit. And if the spirit—and she—answers his question, perhaps the heaviness that hangs over him will lift. Perhaps his tribe will think better of him again.

  Ouija should not indulge himself in the stirring, the yearning he feels toward the genny woman. She is very beautiful, yes. Lupa and Skink had been very beautiful, too. Yet Lupa and Skink are both gone. And the genny woman is beautiful in ways that Lupa and Skink were not. Perhaps his soul tugs toward her because the genny woman reminds him of Ginger, tiny Ginger who may have been his daughter and whose soul was stolen by the bite of a live wire. For the genny woman is as slim as a child, not rounded by womanhood and bearing children.

  Or perhaps his soul tugs toward her the way the sunflowers the tribe grows turn their heavy heads toward the warmth of Lord Day. Because she has been kind to him, and kindness is rare in the Glass Land.

  He turns away from her dead-looking, twitching body in the demon chair. His mouth sours. No, he will not fear the Unseen, nor will he covet it. He stands, looks around the genny woman’s lair, which is tiny indeed. No wonder she has set about leaving.

  He finds a little striped cat trembling on the windowsill. He clucks to the creature, strokes her soft fur. The cat arches her back, blinks yellow-green eyes. Cats too are hunters in the Glass Land, free unwired beings whom the Glass Land tracks and traps as surely as It seeks to track and trap the tribes. And though some tribes consider feline folk competitors for food in the Bins and the booty that can be hunted on the streets, yet others—his tribe is one—hold cats sacred to Lady Night, and thus allies in the Great Hunt.

  Ouija finds a long hooded cloak that the genny woman has flung over a knob behind the door. He belts it over him, draws the hood over his dreadlocks, shadowing his face and th
e fine glyphs tattooed across his brow. The heavy cloth feels scratchy, confining, stifling. Yet he is in an evil place. He must hide from the others. His amulet swings out on its silver chain. He tucks it inside the cloak, pondering the canned woman’s last look. Does the canned woman know that the amulet gives his power and courage?

  His finds a pair of dark glasses, puts those on, too. Many of his tribe who have pale eyes wear dark glasses, when they can find them, for sheltering their tender sight from Lord Day’s sharp glance. Now he can shelter himself from the sharp glances of those below. He takes the key to the genny woman’s lair and goes downstairs to the YinYang Club.

  * * *

  The club is as dark as Lady Night when the moon hides itself. Ouija knows darkness well. The club stinks of knockerblocker, uncooked blue moon, strong alcohol. The air in the club is thick with many-many smokes—bakka, weed, black tar, sweet dust. The very air renders him silly and loose.

  The club is shot through with multicolored wirefires. Ouija knows the wirefires of the Glass Land well enough to know these wirefires wish not to seek him out for evil purposes, to reveal his presence to copbots, or to scare him off from a lockbox Bin. So it’s all right. These wirefires are pretty, even.

  Linkers, canned folk, the unlinked, gangstahs recline in the Club’s chairs in various stages of abandon. They shriek, laugh, grumble, moan. Ouija was born and raised on the gray stone walkways of the Glass Land, amid the crowds and all manner of folk. He is not such a stranger. His hood, glasses, and cloak give him an odd appearance, but no odder than the folk seated around him.

  No, what makes this place so evil is the mixing of human beings and canned folk in grotesque postures mimicking the mating dance belonging to humanity and humanity alone. Such strange dances. Ouija’s mouth curls down. A bimbobot struts by his little table in the back, smeary bulbs made of chrome protruding from her/his chest. At the tip of each bulb is a tiny glass nipple that blinks red and purple. Ouija hunkers down, stern and hard-faced, but the bimbobot strolls up to him.

  “Buya drink?” she/he says, chrome jawbone clapping up and down as if s/he is barking or chewing something tough.

  He’s tucked his skinful of screech beneath his armpit. He cares not to drink the brews of this evil place. He digs in the pocket of the genny woman’s cloak, finds a buck. He silently offers the flimsy plastic, hoping the bimbobot will go away in search of easier prey.

  The bimbobot utters a triumphant sound. Snatches the buck. Squeezes a drop of some liquid out of her/his purple nipple into a plastic cup, slides the cup across Ouija’s table. Struts away. Ouija glances at the cup, wondering whether the bimbobot owes him something more than this poor offering. He starts to call out, but he has no wish to speak with the bimbobot further. He gestures, his hand poised in indecision.

  He hears a laugh behind him. Turns and sees the moist black almond-shaped eyes, her sharp silver cheekbones, her supple red lips.

  “Patina!” he exclaims.

  The silver woman sidles up to his table. Kicks back the chair next to him, plants her high-heeled foot upon it. Leans forward, grins.

  “So, digger boy,” she says. “Come to see the show, babe?”

  Her familiar scent overwhelms him. Flowers and the ozone of wirefire. She touches her throat, releasing more scent. Flowers and ozone plus a whiff of sweaty flesh. He feels heat rise up in his face, is glad for the dark glasses.

  Canned folk, he reminds himself. A bot. An ultra. Why does he long to run his hand down her silver flank? He shakes himself. She is no different than a whirlie, a car, or homely Pr. Spinner. Why does he long to possess her? And what does that mean? What is she capable of? What is he?

  Ouija shakes his head. About the Way of this machine he has no teaching. Could he ask Louie Zoo? He thinks not. He pulls the heavy, scratchy cloak closer around him. And with the thought of the sage, Louie Zoo’s admonishment returns to him. Ouija looks at the silver woman with dark suspicion. What is she doing at the YinYang Club at the precise moment as he? The silver woman is not to be trusted. For his own sake. And what about the genny woman’s?

  He shoves the plastic cup away, spilling the vile fluid. Rises to go. The silver woman lays her cold hand on his shoulder. He backs away. Patina has no cyberweb to snare him with this time. He will not be hunted and trapped by the silver woman again. This he vows, clenching his teeth.

  “Aw, come on, stay, digger boy.” She regards him with that woman-smiling look. “I’m dancing tonight, babe.”

  The barker of the YinYang Club hops up onstage and shouts, “And now, live on stage, the fabulous, the lovely, the incredible Sashi! In a special performance with the marvelous Pah-tee-na!”

  Sashi appears in the spotlight. She is not, to Ouija’s eyes, especially beautiful, being coarse yet cultivated in a Glass Land way. Sashi shuffles around the stage awkwardly. She turns away from the audience, showing the fleshy curves of her bare back and buttocks.

  The folk around him cough in a nervous way.

  With a shimmer of another spotlight, Sashi turns around, facing the audience. An enormous gold cat head with blazing amber eyes, bared fangs, huge fanned ears join at the neck of the woman’s body. She is sheathed in a tight gold dress embroidered with turquoise and ruby arabesques. Thick silver bracelets and blue holoid bands encircle her wrists and ankles.

  The folk cheer. A spatter of clapping hands.

  A sweep of sand buffets the stage. Ouija coughs, shielding his eyes. Three red suns rise up in the vaulted ceiling, flare and burn.

  Patina steps onstage. She poises her silver hands and fingers like guns. Stands on one high-heeled leg, raises the other high, bent at the knee, and touches her foot to the opposite knee. She tightens the pose, tightens and tightens till suddenly she is not the silver woman anymore. She twists her trunk in profile, bends her head low over her chest, points both arms to one side. Under the glare of the red suns, her whole silver body forms a huge handgun. She aims at Sashi.

  The folk boo. Ouija joins them, shouting his displeasure.

  Sashi hisses, shakes a copper sistrum, leaps across the stage. The ultra fires, splitting the cat-woman in half. Sashi yowls, spilling bloody guts.

  The ultra breaks the pose, prances around the stage, triumphant over her kill.

  The folk boo wildly. But some cheer, too.

  The spotlights shimmer again, and Sashi leaps up from the shattered corpse. Sashi stands, a windswept archer bearing a longbow and a sheaf of arrows. Another form leaps up from the gore left behind—a snarling wildcat.

  Blue moons roll across the ceiling. Holoids of monsters caper through the club. Ouija finds himself pounding his fists on the table, cheering with the other folks, “Sashi, Sashi, Sashi!”

  The archer’s bound hair breaks loose, streaming in the tempest. Her gold-stitched gown whips around her ankles. She stares haughtily at the ultra, throws back her purple mantle, pulls and releases the bow string. The wildcat stalks, wailing at the scent of a hunt.

  The ultra catches an arrow in her fist. She runs the arrow tip down her arm. Peels back her silver skin. Ouija flinches, half-expecting to see raw flesh, blood, bone.

  The folk howl.

  Her flayed arm winks with chips, wires, gears. Patina peels back her other arm. Chips, wires, whirligigs, spinning wheels, pistons. Patina peels open her breast, her belly, her thighs.

  Revealing a gleaming machine.

  Suddenly, with his hunter’s instinct, Ouija knows the ultra is a bomb.

  He ducks when the explosion rocks the club. Sashi and her wildcat disintegrate instantly. Blood sprays across the stage. Rags of flesh flap and fly in gory tatters.

  A gigantic blue-skinned woman sways onstage. Sashi’s eight arms flail. Pulsing bands of gold wrap around her brow, wrists, ankles. Stars spray from her navel. She dances forward with a terrible laugh. Veins dangle from her teeth. A necklace of severed heads bounces around her throat. A headdress of serpents rears around her face.

  Sashi points her finger at the ultra. Lig
hting leaps from her fingertip. A thousand clouds mushroom. A deafening roar rises. The stink of sulfur sweeps through the club. The floor buckles.

  Ouija crouches beneath the table, hides his face.

  Suddenly silence. Then the folk begin to clap. Ouija climbs out and stands. The clapping grows louder. Sashi and Patina join hands onstage and bow. The stripper and the ultra bow to each other, grinning.

  Ouija gathers up the cloak, strides to the stairwell. He’s had enough of the YinYang Club for tonight. Maybe forever.

  * * *

  When Ouija lets himself into their lair, the genny woman and her canned companion are rousing themselves from their foray into the Unseen. Spinner yanks the wire from her necktube and backs away from him, rattling and whining. As if she’s never laid eyespots on him before.

  “‘Tis but Ouija,” he grumbles, flinging the key on the countertop.

  “Oh, indeed, and who else is with you, digger?’ her prissy synthy voice whines.

  He shrugs. He cannot take his eyes from the genny woman as she stretches, plucks the wire from her neck. Shakes her head, rubs her eyes and cheeks with her hands. To see a real woman, even one shaped by magic, is a very great relief. The strange dance Patina performed has destroyed any desire he may have felt for her. A killing machine filled with chips and wires? The ultra is monstrous. More repulsive than Spinner, who does not pretend to be something she is not.

  The genny woman’s pale pink skin, her red-gold hair, eyes the color of green glass move him. It is wrong to desire her, but now he cares not. Her human presence is a balm to his troubled soul. He strides to the chair, does not hesitate to touch her. Helps her to her feet.

  “Did you ask your great spirit my question?”

  She sighs. Her eyes look haunted. “Damn it, Ja. I didn’t get the chance.”

  He stamps his foot but cannot bring himself to leave her lair as quickly as he ought.

  “I’ll ask next time I get an audience with Cognatus,” she says, sighing so deeply he forgives her. “I promise. Hey, good old Spin,” she says to the canned woman, “we bungled it. Not a trace of an archetype.”