Paul Di Filippo - Ribofunk

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RIBOFUNK

by PAUL DI FILIPPO (1996)

[VERSION 1.1 (Mar 03 04). If you find and correct errors in the text, please

update the version number by 0.1 and redistribute.]

Table of Contents

ONE NIGHT IN TELEVISION CITY [Universe 1, edited by Robert Silverberg and

Karen Haber, Doubleday Foundation 1990]

LITTLE WORKER [The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1989]

COCKFIGHT [Journal Wired, Spring 1990]

BIG EATER [Interzone, June 1995]

THE BOOT [The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1990]

BLANKIE [previously unpublished]

THE BAD SPLICE [previously unpublished]

MCGREGOR [Universe 3, edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber, Bantam

Spectra 1994]

BRAIN WARS [New Worlds 2, edited by David S. Garnett, London: Gollancz

1992]

STREETLIFE [New Worlds 3, edited by David S. Garnett, London: Gollancz

1993]

AFTERSCHOOL SPECIAL [Amazing, June 1993]

UP THE LAZY RIVER [Science Fiction Age, September 1993]

DISTRIBUTED MIND [Interzone, April 1995]

ONE NIGHT IN TELEVISION CITY

First published in Universe 1, edited by Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber,

Doubleday Foundation 1990.

I'm frictionless, molar, so don't point those flashlights at me. I ain't

going nowhere, you can see that clear as hubble. Just like superwire, I got no

resistance, so why doncha all just gimme some slack?

What'd you say, molar? Your lifter's got a noisy fan -- it's interferring

with your signal. How'd I get up here? That's an easy one. I just climbed. But

I got a better one for you.

Now that I ain't no Dudley Dendrite anymore, how the fuck am I gonna get

down?

Just a few short hours ago it was six o'clock on a Saturday night like

any other, and I was sitting in a metamilk bar called the Slak Shak, feeling

sorry for myself for a number of good and sufficient reasons. I was down so

low there wasn't an angstrom's worth of difference between me and a microbe.

You see, I had no sleeve, I had no set, I had no eft. Chances were I wasn't

gonna get any of 'em anytime soon, either. The prospect was enough to make me

wanna float away on whatever latest toxic corewipe the Shak was offering.

I asked the table for the barlist. It was all the usual bugjuice and

horsesweat, except for a new item called Needlestrength-Nine. I ordered a

dose, and it came in a cup of cold frothy milk sprinkled with cinnamon. I

downed it all in two gulps, the whole nasty mess of transporter proteins and

neurotropins, a stew of long-chain molecules that were some konky biobrujo's

idea of blister-packed heaven.

All it did was make me feel like I had a cavity behind my eyes filled

with shuttle-fuel. My personal sitspecs still looked as lousy as a rat's

shaved ass.

That's the trouble with the tropes and strobers you can buy in the

metamilk bars: they're all kid's stuff, G-rated holobytes. If you want a real

slick kick, some black meds, then you got to belong to a set, preferably one

with a smash watson boasting a clean labkit. A Fermenta, or Wellcome, or Cetus

rig, say. Even an Ortho'll do.

But as I said, I had no set, nor any prospect of being invited into one.

Not that I'd leap at an invite to just any old one, you latch. Some of the

sets were too toxic for me.

So there I sat with a skull full of liquid oxygen, feeling just like the

Challenger before liftoff, more bummed than before I had zero-balanced my eft

on the useless drink. I was licking the cinammon off the rim of the glass when

who should slope in but my one buddy, Casio.

Casio was a little younger 'n me, about fifteen. He was skinny and white

and had more acne than a worker in a dioxin factory. He coulda had skin as

clear as anyone else's, but he was always forgetting to use his epicream. He

wore a few strands of grafted fiberoptics in his brown hair, an imipolex vest

that bubbled constantly like some kinda slime mold, a pair of parchment pants,

and a dozen jelly bracelets on his left forearm.

"Hey, Dez," said Casio, rapping knuckles with me, "how's it climbing?"

Casio didn't have no set neither, but it didn't seem to bother him like

it bothered me. He was always up, always smiling and happy. Maybe it had to do

with his music, which was his whole life. It seemed to give him something he

could always fall back on. I had never seen him really down. Sometimes it made

me wanna choke the shit outa him.

"Not so good, molar. Life looks emptier'n the belly of a Taiwanese baby

with the z-virus craps."

Casio pulled up a seat. "Ain't things working out with Chuckie?"

I groaned. Why I had ever fantasized aloud to Casio about Chuckie and me,

I couldn't now say. I musta really been in microgravity that day. "Just forget

about Charlotte and me, will you do me that large fave? There's nothing

between us, nothing, you latch?"

Casio looked puzzled. "Nothing? Whadda ya mean? The way you talked, I

thought she was your best sleeve."

"No, you got it all wrong, molar, we was both wasted, remember?..."

Casio's vest extruded a long wavy stalk that bulged into a ball at its

tip before being resorbed. "Gee, Dez, I wish I had known all this before. I

been talking you two up as a hot item all around TeeVeeCee."

My heart swelled up big as the bicep on a metasteroid freak and whooshed

up into my throat. "No, molar, say it ain't so...."

"Gee, Dez, I'm sorry...."

I was in deep gurry now all right. I could see it clear as M31 in the

hubblescope. Fish entrails up to the nose.

Chuckie was Turbo's sleeve. Turbo was headman of the Body Artists. The

Body Artists were the prime set in Television City. I was as the dirt between

their perpetually bare toes.

I pushed back my seat. The Slak Shak was too hot now. Everbody knew I

floated there.

"Casio, I feel like a walk. Wanna come?"

"Yeah, sure."

T Street -- the big north-south boulevard wide as old Park Ave that was

Television City's main crawl (it ran from 59th all the way to 72nd) -- was

packed with citizens and greenies, morphs and gullas, all looking for the

heart of Saturday night, just like the old song by that growly chigger has it.

The sparkle and glitter was all turned up to eleven, but TeeVeeCee looked

kinda old to me that night, underneath its amber-red-green-blue neo-neon

maquillage. The whole mini city on the banks of the Hudson was thirty years

old now, after all, and though that was nothing compared to the rest of Nuevo

York, it was starting to get on. I tried to imagine being nearly twice as old

as I was now and figured I'd be kinda creaky myself by then.

All the scrawls laid down by the sets on any and every blank surface

didn't help the city's looks any either. Fast as the cleanup crews sprayed the

paint-eating bugs on the graffiti, the sets nozzled more. These were just a

few that Casio and I passed:

PUT A CRICK IN YOUR DICK. STROBE YOUR LOBES. BOOT IT OR SHOOT IT. HOLLOW?

SWALLOW. FOLLOW. SIN, ASP! SAID THE SYNAPSE. MATCH IT, BATCH IT, LATCH IT.

BEAT THE BARRIER! SNAP THE GAP! AXE YOUR AXONS. KEEP YOUR RECEPTORS FILLED.

"Where we going, Dez?" asked Casio, snapping off one of his

jelly-bracelets for me to munch on.

"Oh, noplace special," I said around a mouthful of sweat-metabolizing

symbiote that tasted like strawberries. "We'll just wander around a bit and

see what we can see."

All the time I was wondering if I even dared to go home to my scat, if

I'd find Turbo and his set waiting there for me, with a word or two to say

about me talking so big about his sleeve.

Well, we soon came upon a guy with his car pulled over to the curb with

the hood up. He was poking at the ceramic fuel-cell with a screwdriver, like

he hoped to fix it that way.

"That's a hundred-thirty-two horsepower Malaysian model, ain't it?" asked

Casio.

"Yeah," the guy said morosely.

"I heard they're all worth bugshit."

The guy got mad then and started waving the screwdriver at us. "Get the

hell out of here, you nosey punks!"

Casio slid a gold jelly-bracelet off his arm, tossed it at the guy, and

said, "Run!"

We ran.

Around a corner, we stopped, panting.

"What was it?" I said.

"Nothing too nasty. Just rotten eggs and superstik."

We fell down laughing.

When we were walking again, we tried following a couple of gullas. We

could tell by their government-issue suits that they were fresh out of one of

the floating miclocean relocation camps, and we were hoping to diddle them for

some eft. But they talked so funny that we didn't even know how to seam them.

"We go jeepney now up favela way?"

"No, mon, first me wan' some ramen."

"How fix?"

"We loop."

"And be zeks? Don' vex me, dumgulla. You talkin' like a manga now, mon."

After that we tailed a fattie for a while. We couldn't make up our minds

if it was a male or female or what. It was dressed in enough billowing silk to

outfit a parachute club and walked with an asexual waddle. It went into the

fancy helmsley at 65th, to meet its client no doubt.

"I hate those fatties," said Casio. "Why would anyone want to weigh more

than what's healthy, if they don't have to?"

"Why would anyone keep his stupid zits if he didn't have to?"

Casio looked hurt. "That's different, Dez. You know I just forget my

cream. It's not like I wanna."

I felt bad for hurtin' Casio then. Here he was, my only proxy, keeping me

company while I tried to straighten out in my head how I was gonna get trump

with Turbo and his set, and I had to go and insult him.

I put an arm around his shoulders. "Sorry, molar. Listen, just wipe it

like I never said it, and let's have us a good time. You got any eft?"

"A little..."

"Well, let's spend it! The fluid eft gathers no taxes, es verdad? Should

we hit Club GaAs?"

Casio brightened. "Yeah! The Nerveless are playing tonight. Maybe

Ginko'll let me sit in."

"Sounds trump. Let's go."

Overhead the wetworkers -- both private and government dirty-harrys --

cruised by on their lifters, the jetfans blowing hot on our necks, even from

their high altitude. Standing in the center of their flying cages, gloved

mitts gripping their joystix, with their owleyes on, they roved TeeVeeCee,

alert for signs of rumble, bumble, or stumble, whereupon they would swoop down

and chill the heat with tingly shockers or even flashlights, should the

sitspecs dictate.

Club GaAs occupied a fraction of the million square feet of empty

building that had once housed one of the old television networks that had

given TeeVeeCee its name. Ever since the free networks had been absorbed into

the metamedium, the building had gone begging for tenants. Technically

speaking, it was still tenantless, since Club GaAs was squatting there

illegally.

At the door we paid the cover to a surly anabolic hulkster and went

inside.

Club GaAs had imipolex walls that writhed just like Casio's vest, dancing

in random biomorphic ripples and tendrils. On the stage the Nerveless were

just setting up, it being still early, only around eight. I had only met Ginko

once, but I recognized him from his green skin and leafy hair. Casio went

onstage to talk to him, and I sat down at a table near one wall and ordered a

cheer-beer.

Casio rejoined me. "Ginko says I can handle the megabops."

The cheer-beer had me relaxing so I had almost forgotten my problems.

"That's trump, proxy. Listen, have a cheer-beer -- it's your eft."

Casio sat and we talked a while about the good old days, when we were

still kids in highschool, taking our daily rations of mnemotropins like good

little drudges.

"You remember at graduation, when somebody spiked the refreshments with

funky monkey?"

"Yeah. I never seen so many adults acting like apes before or since. Miz

Spencer up on the girders--!"

"Boy, we were so young then."

"I was even younger than you, Dez. I was eleven and you were already

twelve, remember?"

"Yeah, but them days are wiped now, Casio. We're adults ourselves now,

with big adult probs." All my troubles flooded back to me like ocean waves on

the Big-One-revised California shoreline as I said this konky bit of wisdom.

Casio was sympathetic, I could fax that much, but he didn't have the

answers to my probs any more than I did. So he just stood and said, "Well,

Dez, I got to go play now." He took a few steps away from the table and then

was snapped back to his seat like he had a rubber band strung to his ass.

"Hold on a millie," I said. "The wall has fused with your vest." I took

out my little utility flashlight and lasered the wall pseudopod that had mated

with Casio's clothing.

"Thanks, proxy," he said, and then was off.

I sat there nursing the dregs of my cheer-beer while the Nerveless tuned

up. When the rickracks were spinning fast and the megabops were humming and

everyone had their percussion suits on, they jumped into an original comp,

"Efferent Ellie."

Forty-five minutes later, after two more cheer-beers thoughtfully

provided by the management to the grateful friend of the band, I was really on

the downlink with Casio and the Nerveless. I felt their music surging through

me like some sonic trope. Tapping my foot, wangle-dangling my head like some

myelin-stripped spaz, I was so totally downloading that I didn't even see

Turbo and his set slope on into Club GaAs and surround me.

When the current song ended and I looked up, there they all were: Turbo

and his main sleeve, Chuckie, who had her arm around his waist; Jeeter, Hake,

Pablo, Mona, Val, Ziggy, Pepper, Gates, Zane, and a bunch of others I didn't

know.

"Hah-hah-hah-how's it climbing, molars?" I said.

They were all as quiet and stone-faced as the holo of a cheap Turing

Level One AI with its mimesis-circuits out of whack. As for me, I could do

nothing but stare.

The Body Artists were all naked save for spandex thongs, he's and she's

alike, the better to insure proper extero- and interoceptor input. Their skins

were maculated with a blotchy tan giraffe pattern. The definition of every

muscle on their trim bods was like Gray's Anatomy come to life.

Now, to me, there were no two ways about it: the Body Artists were simply

the most trump set in TeeVeeCee. The swiftest; nastiest, downloadingest pack

of lobe-strobers ever to walk a wire or scale a pole. Who else were you gonna

compare 'em to? The Vectors? A bunch of wussies dreaming their days away in

mathspace. (I didn't buy their propaganda about being able to disappear along

the fourth dimension either.) The Hardz 'n' Wetz? Nothing but crazy meat

grinders, the negative image of their rivals, the Eunuchs. The Less Than

Zeroes? I don't call pissing your pants satori, like they do. The

Thumbsuckers? Who wants to be a baby forever? The Boardmen? I can't see

cutting yourself up and headbanging just to prove you feel no pain. The

Annies? A horde of walking skeletons. The Naked Apes? After seeing our whole

faculty under the influence of funky-monkey that day, I had never latched onto

that trip. The Young Jungs? Who wants to spend his whole life diving into the

racemind?

No, the only ones who might just give the Body Artists a run for their

eft were the Adonises or the Sapphos, but they had some obvious kinks that

blocked my receptors.

So you'll understand how I could feel -- even as the center of their

threatening stares -- a kind of thrill at being in the presence of the

assembled Body Artists. If only they had come to ask me to join them, instead

of, as was so apparent, being here with the clear intention of wanting to cut

my nuts off--

The Nerveless started another song. Casio was too busy to see what was

happening with me. Not that he coulda done much anyhow. Turbo sat liquidly

down across from me, pulling Chuckie down onto his lap.

"So, Dez," he said, cool as superwire, "I hear you are Chuckie's secret

mojoman now."

"No, no way, Turbo, the parity bits got switched on that message all

right. There ain't not truth to it, no sir, no way."

"Oh, I see, molar," said Turbo, deliberately twisting things around

tighter'n a double-helix. "My sleeve Chuckie ain't trump enough for a molar

who's as needlestrength as you."

I raised my eyes and caught Chuckie sizing me up with high indifference.

Her looks made me feel like I was trying to swallow an avocado pit.

Charlotte Thach was a supertrump Cambodian-Hawaiian chica whose folks had

emigrated to TeeVeeCee when the Japs kicked everyone outa the ex-state in the

process of forming the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperative. Her eyes were green

as diskdrive lights, her sweet little tits had nipples the color of strong

tea.

After she was done sizing me up, she held out one beautiful hand as if to

admire her nails or something. Then, without moving a single muscle that I

could see, she audibly popped each joint in her fingers in sequence. I could

hear it clear above the music.

I gulped down that slimy pit and spoke. "No, Turbo, she's trump enough

for anyone."

Turbo leaned closer across Chuckie. "Ah, but that's the prob, molar,

Chuckie don't do it with just anyone. In fact, none of the Artists do. Why, if

you were to try to ride her, she'd likely snap your cock off. It's Body to

Body only, you latch?"

"Yeah, sure, I latch."

Turbo straightened up. "Now, the question is, what we gonna do with

someone whose head got so big he thought he could tell everyone he was bumpin'

pubes with a Body Artist?"

"No disinfo, Turbo, I didn't mean nothin' by it."

"Shut up, I got to think."

While he was thinking, Turbo made all the muscles in his torso move

around like snakes under his skin.

After letting me sweat toxins for a while, Turbo said, "I suppose it

would satisfy the set's honor if we were to bring you up to the top of the

George Washington Bridge and toss you off--"

"Oh, holy radwaste, Turbo, my molar, my proxy, I really don't think

that's necessary--"

Turbo held up his hand. "But the ecoharrys might arrest us for dumping

shit in the river!"

All the Body Artists had a good laugh at that. I tried to join in, but

all that came out was a sound like "ekk-ekk-ekk."

"On the other hand," said Turbo, rotating his upraised hand and forearm

around a full two-seventy degrees, "if you were to become a Body Artist, then

we could let it be known that you were under consideration all along, even

when you were making your konky boasts."

"Oh, Turbo, yeah, yeah, you don't know how much--"

Turbo shot to his feet then, launching Chuckie into a series of

spontaneous cartwheels all the way across the club.

"Jeeter, Hake! You're in charge of escorting the pledge. Everyone! Back

to nets!"

We blew out of Club GaAs like atmosphere out of a split-open o'neill. My

head was spinning around like a Polish space station. I was running with the

Body Artists! It was something I could hardly believe. Even though I had no

hint of where they were taking me; even though they might be setting me up for

something that would wipe me out flatter than my eft-balance -- I felt totally

frictionless. The whole city looked like a place out of a fantasy or stiffener

holo to me, Middle Earth or Debbie Does Mars. The air was cool as an AI's

paraneurons on my bare arms.

We headed west, toward the riverside park. After a while I started to lag

behind the rest. Without a word, Jeeter and Hake picked me up under my arms

and continued running with me.

We entered among the trees and continued down empty paths, under dirty

sodium lights. I could smell the Hudson off to my right. A dirty-harry buzzed

by overhead but didn't stop to bother us.

Under a busted light we halted in darkness. Nobody was breathing heavy

but me, and I had been carried the last half mile. Hake and Jeeter placed me

down on my own feet.

Someone bent down and tugged open a metal hatch with a snapped hasp set

into the walk. The Body Artists descended one by one. Nervous as a kid taking

his first trope, I went down too, sandwiched between Hake and Jeeter.

Television City occupied a hundred acres of land which had originally

sloped down to the Hudson. The eastern half of TeeVeeCee was built on solid

ground; the western half stood on a huge platform elevated above the Conrail

maglev trains.

Fifteen rungs down, I was staring up at the underside of TeeVeeCee by the

light of a few caged safety bulbs, a rusty constellation of rivets in a flaky

steel sky.

The ladder terminated at an I-beam wide as my palm. I stepped gingerly

off, but still held onto the ladder. I looked down.

A hundred feet below, a lit-up train shot silently by at a

hundred-and-eighty mph.

I started back up the ladder.

"Where to, molar?" asked Hake above me.

"Uh, straight ahead, I guess."

I stepped back onto the girder, took two wobbly Thumbsucker steps, then

carefully lowered myself until I could wrap my arms and legs around the beam.

Hake and Jeeter unpeeled me. Since they had to go single file, they

trotted along carrying me like a trussed pig. I kept my eyes closed and

prayed.

I felt them stop. Then they were swinging me like a sack. At the extreme

of one swing, they let me go.

Hurtling through the musty air, I wondered how long it would take me to

hit the ground or a passing train and what it would feel like. I wouldn'ta

minded so much being a Boardman just then.

It was only a few feet to the net. When I hit, it shot me up a bit. I

oscillated a few times until my recoil was absorbed. Only then did I open my

eyes.

The Body Artists were standing or lounging around on the woven mesh of

graphite cables with perfect balance. Turbo had this radwaste-eating grin on

his handsome face.

"Welcome to the nets, Mister Pledge. You didn't do so bad. I seen molars

who fainted and fell off the ladder when they first come out below. Maybe

you'll make it through tonight after all. C'mon now, follow us."

The Body Artists set off along the nets. Somehow they managed to

coordinate and compensate for all the dozens of different impulses traveling

along the mesh so that they knew just how to step and not lose their balance.

They rode the wavefronts of each other's motions like some kinda aerial

surfers.

Me? I managed to crawl along, mostly on all fours.

We reached a platform scabbed onto one of the immense pillars that upheld

the city. There the Body Artists had their lab, for batching their black meds.

I hadn't known that Ziggy was the Artists' watson. But once I saw him

moving among the chromo-cookers and amino-linkers like a fish in soup, if you

know what I mean, it was clear as hubble that he was the biobrujo responsible

for stoking the Artists' neural fires.

While Ziggy worked I had to watch Turbo and Chuckie making out. I knew

they were doing it just to blow grit through my scramjets, so I tried not to

let it bother me. Even when Chuckie -- Well, never mind exactly what she did,

except to say I never realized it was humanly possible to get into that

position.

Ziggy finally came over with a cup full of uncut bugjuice.

"Latch onto this, my molar," he said with crickly craftsmanly pride, "and

you'll know a little more about what it means to call yourself a B-Artist."

I knew I didn't want to taste the undiluted juice, so I chugged it as

fast as I could. Even the aftertaste nearly made me retch.

Half an hour later, I could feel the change.

I stood up and walked out onto the net. Turbo and the others started

yanking it up and down.

I didn't lose my balance. Even when I went to one foot. Then I did a

handstand.

"Okay, molar," said Turbo sarcastically, "don't think you're so trump.

All we gave you is heightened 'ception, extero, intero, and proprio. Plus a

little myofibril booster and something to damp your fatigue poisons. And it's

all as temporary as a whore's kisses. So, let's get down to it."

Turbo set off back along the nets, and I followed.

"No one else?" I asked.

"No, Dez, just us two good proxies."

We retraced out way to the surface. Walking along the I-beam under my own

power, I felt like king of the world.

Once again we raced through the streets of Television City. This time I

easily kept pace with Turbo. But maybe, I thought, he was letting me, trying

to lull me into a false sense of security. I made up my mind to go a little

slower in all this -- if I could.

At last we stood at the southern border of T-City. Before us reared the

tallest building in all of old Nuevo York, what used to be old man Trump's

very HQ, before he was elected president and got sliced and diced like he did.

One hundred and fifty stories worth of glass and ferrocrete, full of setbacks,

crenellations, and ledges.

"Now we're going for a little climb," Turbo said.

"You got to be yanking my rods, molar. It's too smooth."

"Nope, it's not. That's the good thing about these old postmodern

buildings. They got the flash and filigree that make for decent handholds."

Then he shimmied up a drainpipe that led to the second floor faster than

I could follow.

But follow I did, my molars, believe me. I kicked off my shoes and zipped

right after him. No disinfo, I was scared, but I was also mad and ecstatic and

floating in my own microgravity.

The first fifty stories were frictionless. I kept up with Turbo, matching

him hold for hold. When he smiled, I even smiled back.

Little did I know that he was teasing me.

A third of the way up we stopped to rest on a wide ledge. I didn't look

down, since I knew that even with my new perfect balance the sight of where I

was would be sure to put grit in my jets.

We peered in through the lighted window behind us and saw a cleaning

robot busy vacuuming the rugs. We banged on the glass, but couldn't get it to

notice us. Then we started up again.

At the halfway mark Turbo started showing off. While I was slowing down,

he seemed to have more energy than ever. In the time I took to ascend one

story, he squirreled all around me, making faces, and busting my chops.

"You're gonna fall now, Dez. I got you up here right where I want you.

You ain't never gonna get to lay a finger on Chuckie, you latch? When you hit,

there ain't gonna be anything left of you bigger'n a molecule."

And suchlike. I succeeded in ignoring it until he said, "Gee, that

Ziggy's getting kinda forgetful lately. Ain't been taking his mnemos. I wonder

if he remembered to make sure your dose had the right duration? Be a shame if

you maxxed out right now."

"You wouldn't do that--" I said and instinctively looked over my shoulder

to confront Turbo.

He was beneath me, hanging by his toes from a ledge, head directed at the

ground.

I saw the ground.

Television City was all spread out, looking like a

one-to-one-hundred-scale model in some holo studio somewhere.

I froze. I heard one of my fingernails crack right in half.

"Whatsamatter, Dez? You lost it yet, or what?"

It was the konky tone of Turbo's voice that unfroze me. I wasn't gonna

fall and hear his toxic laugh all the long stories down.

"Race you the rest of the way," I said.

He changed a little then. "No need, proxy, just take it one hold at a

time."

So I did.

For seventy-five more stories.

The top of the building boasted a spire surrounded on four sides by a

little railed off platform whose total area was 'bout as big as a bathroom

carpet.

I climbed unsteadily over the railing and sat down, dangling my legs over

the side. I could already feel the changes inside me, so I wasn't surprised

when Turbo said, "It's worn off for real now, Dez. I wouldn't try going down

the way we came up, if I was you. Anyway, the harrys should be here soon. The

stretch for something like this is only a year with good behavior. Look us up

when you get out."

Then he went down, headfirst, waggling his butt at me.

So, like I asked you before.

Now that I ain't no Dudley Dendrite anymore, how the fuck am I gonna get

down?

LITTLE WORKER

First published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, December 1989.

Little Worker came awake instantly. Lying curled on the

red-and-black-figured carpet before Mister Michael's bedroom door, she

stretched her limbs beneath her plain beige sleeveless shift, then stood on

bare feet. Mister Michael, she could sense, was still asleep. Mister Michael

deserved to sleep, for Mister Michael worked hard. Little Worker worked hard

too, but she never slept late in the mornings, for there was too much to be

done. (If Mister Michael stayed put in his office today, Little Worker would

nap at his feet.) But in the mornings, Little Worker always awoke before

Mister Michael. She always would. It was her way.

Little Worker appeared unwontedly reluctant to leave her nightly station.

Something, this morning, did not smell right. She sniffed the air intently,

nostrils twitching. The troublesome odor was nothing she could identify. It

was new. This was not necessarily bad, but might be. The new smell emanated

from behind Mister Michael's door. It was not a dangerous smell, so Little

Worker could not bring herself to knock or otherwise disturb Mister Michael.

He would be up and about soon enough, for Mister Michael had a busy schedule.

Perhaps then the source of the new smell would be revealed. Perhaps not. In

either case, Mister Michael would instruct her about anything she needed to

know.

Little Worker tucked strands of her moderate-length, stiff brown hair

behind her ears. She brushed the wrinkles out of her shift. They disappeared

swiftly from the dull utilitarian fabric. She curried the short fur on her

face and licked beneath her arms. Her morning grooming completed, she set out

for the kitchen.

First Little Worker had to go down a long hall. The long hall had a

veined marble floor, down the center of which ran the red and black carpet

with its oriental design. The long hall had large mullioned windows in its

stone walls. Some of these windows had panes of stained glass. Through the

eastern windows came bright winter sunlight. When it passed through the

colored panes, it made lozenges of various hues on the carpet. Little Worker

admired these dapples, for they reminded her of dabs of jelly on toast. Little

Worker liked jelly on toast. She would have some this morning. She usually had

some every morning, except when she took an egg to add glossiness to her coat.

Little Worker, with the aid of the food-center, could cook whatever she wanted

for herself. This was one of her privileges. Mister Michael himself had said,

when first she came to live here, "Little Worker, you may order the

food-center to prepare whatever you want for yourself." This had made her

proud. In the Training School, she had had to eat whatever the trainers set

out for her. But Mister Michael trusted her.

The next door down the long hall from Mister Michael's belonged to the

bedroom of Mister Michael's wife. Little Worker lifted her nose as she came

abreast of the door, intent on passing without stopping. However, noises from

beyond the door made her stop. The noises were thrashings and moanings and

grunts. Little Worker suspected what the noises were, but curiosity impelled

her to look anyway.

The handle of the door was shaped like a thick curled gold leaf. Above

the handle was a security keypad. Below was an old-fashioned keyhole. Little

Worker put one big hazel eye to the hole.

It was as Little Worker had suspected. Mister Michael's naked wife was

draped bellydown over a green plush hassock, being covered by her latest

andromorph, a scion of the Bull line. Little Worker could smell mixed male and

female sweat and a sexual musk.

The sight disturbed Little Worker. Mister Michael's wife was not the kind

of wife he deserved. Little Worker ceased her spying and continued on toward

the kitchen.

At the end of the long hall was a curving flight of wide marble stairs.

Here the runner ended. The marble was cold beneath Little Worker's feet. She

went down the stairs quickly.

On the ground floor, Little Worker first crossed a broad reception hall

along the walls of which were ranged busts on plinths, potted plants, and

gold-framed paintings. She passed through a huge salon used for formal

affairs, then through Mister Michael's study, with its big walnut desk and

shelves of books and wall-sized plasma screen. Several more chambers

intervened before the kitchen, but finally Little Worker reached that chrome

and tile room.

Most mornings, as now, the large kitchen was empty. On the mornings of

those days when there were to be state dinners, the kitchen was bustling early

with hired chefs, who prepared the more complex dishes the food-center could

not handle. Little Worker disliked such interruptions of her normal schedule.

However, this was not such a morning. The kitchen was empty.

Little Worker advanced to the food-center.

"Food-center, prepare me toast with jelly," she said.

"There is no more bread," replied the food-center.

No more bread. Little Worker was disconcerted. She had had her heart set

on toast and jelly. What could have happened to the supply of bread? Yesterday

there had been plenty.

"What has happened to the bread?" asked Little Worker.

"Last night Mister Michael's wife fed it all to the Bull andromorph. He

ate three loaves. There were only three loaves. Thus there are no more."

Mister Michael's wife had fed all of Little Worker's toast to her Bull.

It was the fault of Mister Michael's wife that there was no toast this morning

for Little Worker.

"The bakery delivery occurs at ten o'clock this morning," offered the

food center helpfully.

"I will be gone with Mister Michael by then. I will not be home at ten

o'clock. I must eat something different." Little Worker paused to reflect. "I

will have hot cereal with a spoon of jelly on it."

"There is no jelly. The Bull ate that also. With peanut butter."

Little Worker tensed her fingers reflexively. Her morning, disturbed

already by the new odor coming from Mister Michael's bedroom, was not getting

better. The change in routine upset her. It felt like a morning when chefs

came. But no chefs were here.

"I will have an egg then," said Little Worker.

"There are eggs," said the food-center.

"There is no jelly for an egg?" hopefully asked Little Worker one last

time.

"There is no jelly even for an egg."

"Then I will have an egg alone."

Little Worker sat at a table with metal legs and white tile top. When her

egg came she ate it, licking the plate to get all the yolk. It would serve to

make her fur glossy. But it did not taste as good as jelly.

When she was done, Little Worker ordered the food-center to prepare and

serve breakfast for Mister Michael and his wife in the south dining room. Then

she walked through halls and storage rooms until she arrived at the south

dining room.

Mister Michael was already there, seated at one end of a long polished

table, reading a newspaper and sipping coffee.

"Good morning, Mister Michael," said Little Worker.

"Morning," said Mister Michael somewhat gruffly.

Little Worker quivered inside. Mister Michael did not seem himself this

morning. He worked too hard, thought Little Worker. He had too much on his

mind. The state demanded too much of him. He should be better to himself.

Little Worker coiled up at Mister Michael's feet beside the table, where

she could watch everything that happened.

Breakfast was served. Mister Michael's wife did not arrive on time.

Mister Michael began to eat anyway. Only when the fine Canadian ham and

scrambled eggs and poached fish were cold did she come through the door.

Mister Michael's wife was dressed for shopping. She wore an ivory jacket

short in front but with long tails that hung to her knees in back, over a pale

blue silk blouse and tulip-hemmed ivory skirt. She wore blue metallic

stockings and creamy high heels. She smelled heavily of expensive perfume,

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RIBOFUNKbyPAULDIFILIPPO(1996)[VERSION1.1(Mar0304).Ifyoufindandcorrecterrorsinthetext,pleaseupdatetheversionnumberby0.1andredistribute.]TableofContentsONENIGHTINTELEVISIONCITY[Universe1,editedbyRobertSilverbergandKarenHaber,DoubledayFoundation1990]LITTLEWORKER[TheMagazineofFantasy&ScienceFiction,Dece...

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