Down And Dirty

The android was cautious. He lowered the trash bags silently to the pavement and floated silently a few feet above the surface. Rotating his body to the horizontal, he peered out into the alleyway.

The heavy breathing was coming from Travnicek. He had a woman up against the wall, lunging into her with his trousers down around his ankles.

The woman wore an elaborate custom mask over her lower face: a joker. The upper half of her face was not disfigured, but it wasn't pretty, either. She was not young. She wore a tube top and a glittery silver jacket and a red miniskirt. Her plastic boots were white. The trilling sound came from behind the mask. Short-time in an alley was probably costing Travnicek about fifteen dollars.

Travnicek muttered something in Czech. The woman's face was impassive. She regarded the alley wall with dreamy eyes. The musical sound she was making was something she probably did all the time, a sound unco

He left the garbage in the airshaft. The trilling sound pursued him like a flight of birds.

Someone had stuck a red, white, and blue poster on the plastic hood over the pay phone: BARNETT FOR PRESIDENT. The android didn't know who Barnett was. His plastic fingertips jabbed the coin slot on the pay phone. There was a click, then a ringing signal. The android had long ago discovered an affinity with communications equipment.

"Hello."

"Alice? This is Modular Man." A slight pause. "Not fu

"This really is Modular Man. I'm back."

"Modular Man blew up!"

"My creator built me over again. I've got almost all the memories of the original." The android's eyes sca

"Oh, god."

There was another long pause. The android noticed that the pedestrians on the street seemed to be giving one another a lot of space. One of them wore a gauze mask over his mouth and nose. Cars were few.

"Can I see you?" he asked.

"You were important for me, you know."

"I'm glad, Alice." The android sensed impending disappointment in his demotion to the past tense.

"I mean, every man I'd ever been involved with was so demanding. Wanting this, wanting that. I never had any time to find out what Alice wanted. And then I meet this guy who's willing to give me all the space I need, who didn't want anything from me because he can't want anything, because he's a machine, you know, and because he can get me seated at the good tables at Aces High and because we can fly and dance with the moon…" There was a brief silence. "You were really important to me, Mod Man. But I can't see you. I'm married now."

A palpable sense of loss drifted like scuttering snow across the android's macroatomic switches. "I'm happy for you, Alice." A National Guard jeep cruised past, with four Guardsmen in combat gear. Modular Man, who had established good relations with the Guard during the Swarm attack, gave them a wave. The jeep slowed, its passengers looking at him without changing expression. Then they speeded up and moved on.

"I thought you were dead. You know?"

"I understand." He sensed an irresolution in her. "Can I call you later?"

"Only at work." Her voice was fast. "If you call me at home, Ralph might start asking questions. He knows about a lot of my past, but he might find an affair with a machine a little weird. I mean, I know it was okay, and you know, but I imagine it's a little strange explaining it to people."

"I understand."

"He's toierant of alternate lifestyles, but I'm not sure how tolerant he'd be of me having one. Particularly one he'd never heard of or thought about."

"I'll call you, Alice."

"Good-bye."

She thought I didn't want anything for myself, the android thought as he hung up the phone. Somehow that made him sadder than anything.

His finger jabbed the coin slot again and dialed a California number. The phone rang twice before a recording a

He dialed a New Haven number. "Hi, Kate," he said. "Oh." He heard someone inhaling a cigarette. When the voice came back, it was cheerful. " I always thought someone would put you back together."

Relief poured into him. "Someone did. For good this time, I hope."

A low chuckle. "It's hard to keep a good man down." The android thought about that for a moment. "Maybe I can see you," he said.

"I'm not coming to Manhattan. The bridges are closed anyway."

"Bridges closed?"

"Bridges closed. Martial law. Panic in the streets. You have been out of touch, haven't you?"

Modular Man looked up and down the street again. "I guess so."

"There's a wild card outbreak, mostly in lower Manhattan. Hundreds of people have drawn the Black Queen. It's a mutant form. Supposedly it's spread by a carrier named Croyd Crenson."

"The Sleeper? I've heard the name."

Kate sucked on the cigarette again. "They've closed the bridges and tu

Which explained the Guard on the streets again. "Things had seemed a little slow," Modular Man said. "But nobody told me."

"Amazing."

"I guess if you're dead,-hollowly-"you don't get to watch the news." He thought about this for a moment, then tried to cheer himself up. "I could visit you. I can fly. Roadblocks can't stop me.

"You might-" She cleared her throat. "You might be a carrier, Mod Man." She tried to laugh. "Becoming a joker would really wreck my burgeoning academic career."

"I can't be a carrier. I'm a machine."

"Oh." A surprised pause. "Sometimes I forget."

"Shall I come?"

"Um…" That cigarette sound again. "I'd better not. Not till after comps."

"Comps?"

"Three days locked in a very small and cramped hell with the dullest of the Roman poets, which come to think of it is really saying something. I'm studying like mad. I really can't afford a social life till after I get my degree."

"Oh. I'll call you then, okay?"

"I'll be looking forward.".`Bye.

Modular Man hung up the phone. Other phone numbers rolled through his mind; but the first three had been sufficiently discouraging that he didn't really want to try again.

He looked up the near-vacant street. He could go to Aces High and maybe meet somebody, he thought.

Aces High. Where he'd died.

A coldness touched his mind at the thought. Quite suddenly he didn't want to go to Aces High at all.

Then he decided he needed to know.

Radar dish spi

The android landed on the observation deck and stepped into the bar. Hiram Worchester, standing alone in the middle of the room, swung around suddenly, holding up a fist… His eyes were dark holes in his doughy face. He looked at Modular Man for a long moment as if he didn't recognize him, then swallowed hard, lowered his hand, and almost visibly drew a smile onto his face.

"I thought you'd be rebuilt," he said.

The android smiled. "Takes a licking," he said. "Keeps on ticking."

"That's very good to hear." Hiram gave a grating chuckle that sounded as if it were coming from the tin horn of a gramophone. "Still, it's not every day a regular customer comes back from the dead. Your drinks and your next meal, Modular Man, are on Aces High."

Aside from Hiram the place was nearly deserted: only Wall Walker and two others were present.

"Thank you, Hiram." The android stepped to the bar and put his foot on the rail. The gesture felt familiar, warmly pleasant and homelike. He smiled at the bartender, whom he hadn't seen before, and said, "Zombie." Behind him, Hiram made a choking sound. He turned back to the fat man.