Realware

"You'd probably like the Anubis," said Phil. "It's just down the block from here. Though if you go aboard you better know how to take care of yourself."

"Oh, I've been around all kinds of moldies," said Randy. "Thanks for the tip. Hey, Babs, I'm go

At Randy's call, a little imipolex chicken appeared from the depths of the warehouse. It walked with a jerky strut, abruptly turning its little head this way and that. It was yellow, with a dark patch on its back.

"My pet chicken," said Randy Karl. "See that purple spot on her back? That's a special leech-DIM that's controlled by my uvvy. Willa Jean's practically like an extra hand for me. Want a worm, chick-chick?" The gri

Willa Jean beat her stubby wings and hopped, trying to get at the worm. The worm was writhing and Willa Jean was cheeping frantically. Finally Randy dropped the worm and the little chicken caught it in midair. Now the chicken squatted on the floor, stretching out her neck so as to swallow her prey the faster.

"Gobble gobble," said Randy. "Want 'nother one, Willa Jean?"

"One more, but that's the last one, Randy," said Babs. She didn't seem as a

Phil looked out Babs's warehouse door, sca

"Poor Phil," said Babs. "You'd be much better for her than Onar."

"Yaaar," agreed Saint. "Onar's a windbag. A sneak. I know him from work. Normally I don't hang with him, but somehow he heard we were going out with Yoke tonight and he begged me to come along."

"Oh well," sighed Phil. " 'Night, guys."

February 20

By the time Phil got back to his place, Kevvie had started throwing up. Derek was nowhere to be seen, but of course Umberto was right there sniffing at the vomit, and Kevvie was cursing at the dog and trying to kick him, which made her lose her footing and fall down really hard. Seeing the toll drugs took on Kevvie made Phil grateful that he didn't have to be doing the same thing. But as always, there was a part of him that wished he could. Being a druggie would be so easy.

"Are you mad at me?" Kevvie asked him.

Over the years, Phil had picked up some tools for coping with addicts. "I can't afford to be mad. It's not your fault, and I can't fix it." He tried hard to believe the words, to put his own serenity first.

It was three a.m. when they were finally settled in, Kevvie all cleaned up and the two of them in bed together. Phil couldn't immediately fall asleep. He kept thinking about his father, wishing for the zillionth time he hadn't called the emotional old man stupid, hadn't reduced him to tears.

The image of the buried wedding ring formed in Phil's mind, and he worked at trying to visualize how the ring could have knotted, trying to think about ana and kata, doing this mental homework as a kind of offering to his dad. Maybe he should dig the ring back up.

He drifted into sleep with the ring still in his mind, and in his dream he began climbing up a mountain, the ring floating in front of him, except now it was a glowing ball, a wowo that' was his father's face, a face with a seam on it like a baseball, the seam continually shifting along itself, warping his father's features in a way that was painful to behold. The baseball split in half and started talking to him, Phil climbing the steep hill all the while.

"Can you forgive me for leaving your mother?" his father's voice was saying. "I can't forgive myself, Phil. Forgive me." The voice seemed to touch Phil all over his face, touch him with sticky little baby hands.

''Oh, Da," Phil answered. "Don't. We're the same flesh. I remember crawling on you when I was little. You smelled like freckles."

"Forgive me."

And then Kevvie was waking Phil up again. She was bright and perky in a brittle kind of way. Chewing gum and drinking a cup of coffee, smiling, modulating her voice.

"I'm sorry to wake you, but it's Willow on the uvvy again," she said. "There's something new about your father. It sounds like the flying saucers came back." Phil put the uvvy on his neck and let the image of Willow form inside his head.

"The fucking tree fell over," said Willow. "The tree where you buried him."

"What?"

"Half an hour ago 1 rode my bike there for my morning exercise, and the tree was flat on its side. Its roots are all pulled out of the ground."

"Did you find any gold in the roots?" asked Phil. Anything seemed possible now.

"Fat chance," said Willow. "I took one look and got out of there. This scares the shit out of me, Phil."

"Yeah," agreed Phil. "I wonder if it uncovered his ashes and the ring."

"That's exactly why I'm calling. I'm worried some busybody might find the ring and I get hassled for burying that little bit of Kurt on public property. I want you to come down here and find the ring before someone else does." As well as showing a model of her face, Willow's uvvy signal showed a real-time view of what she was seeing, which was the kitchen of Phil's father's house. She'd moved back in after the funeral.

"All right, Willow," said Phil. He was pleased and surprised at the readiness of his response. "I'd be glad to." Do the right thing.

"It's the least you can do," said Willow, who'd been expecting a refusal. "After the way you treated Kurt. I called Jane and she thinks it's a good idea too."

"I already said I'm coming, didn't I? I'll get the train this morning. But I have to be back up here by four for work."

"Thank you very much," said Willow, and hung up.

"You can borrow my car if you like," said Kevvie. "I could get the streetcar. I'm just working on Russian Hill today."

"Can we talk about last night, Kevvie?"

"Can't I have fun like normal people? Don't get all judgmental. Just because you're so worried about your precious health. It was Klara's idea anyway. And what were you doing bringing that Yoke girl back here?"

"I wanted to show her where I live. We were over at Babs Mooney's. I thought she'd like to see Calla's DNA and Derek's sculptures. And my blimps."

"I bet."

"I can't put up with just anything, Kevvie. The way you acted last night was really unpleasant. I'm sorry for you, but this isn't a way I want to live. I think -- "

"Shhhh." Kevvie held her finger up to her lips. "Don't say something we'll regret. I've got to go to work now, so if you don't want the car, I'm going to take it. Get away, Umberto! Would you like me to drop you at the train station?"

"Okay."

"And, Phil, when you're down there today, be sure to watch the sky. For the flying saucers. The aliens are little gray people, you know. With slit mouths." Kevvie hunched her shoulders, squinted her eyes and held her mouth fu

It wasn't till he was on the train that Phil remembered he'd pla

In Palo Alto, Phil got a moldie to rickshaw him to his father's house from the train station. Willow said she didn't want to go near the tree again, so Phil borrowed her bike and rode over there by himself.

Some kids were climbing on the fallen tree branches. The tree was cracked and split; a full half of it was gone. There had been two trunks before, and now there was only one. But the roots were all there. There was a big hole where the roots had pulled out of the ground. Phil flopped Willow's bike down on the ground and, just to set his mind at ease, walked across the little crater to get at the fallen tree's roots. He pulled a dozen or so rocks out of the roots' embrace, scratching each of them to see if maybe, just maybe, it was gold. But none of them was.