Realware

Honey had used him and ditched him, and then the same thing had happened again --only this time with a moldie named Parvati. Randy lived with Parvati while he was working for an imipolex fab in Bangalore, India. In the end it came out that Parvati really and truly only wanted him for the imipolex he could give her. There'd been a bad last scene involving poisoning and knife-play; Randy ended up in possession of one of Parvati's buttocks, which had become none other than Willa Jean.

Randy didn't tell anyone that particular story because it was too ludicrous, like so much of his sorry-ass life. From the inside, of course, his life didn't feel fu

And then there'd been the second thing. Tuesday night, before he had any kind of chance to reestablish his credibility, Babs had left for a date--a date!--and in the night he had his godawful recurring nightmare about the snail that followed him everywhere, the snail that would always catch up no matter how fast or how far he ran.

Sitting alone on the bluff, Randy writhed in agony, remembering the raw terror of waking up in the night with everything not okay, with the nightmare snail big and real and truly after him, dragging its realware shell through the sad real world, the snail talking like his poor dead mother, its voice loud and clear so that Yoke and Cobb could hear it, could hear all about how the snail wanted to sit on his face so nasty. "Ah'm real hot to crawl on you, Randy Karl." He was no motherfucker, he didn't deserve this kilp, but try and explain it to Babs after she heard all about it from that little loonie twist Yoke; Yoke laughing her ass off about it every time she brought it up, twenty times so far if it was one.

And this morning Yoke had told that slick Theodore about the snail. Since they were keeping the allas secret, Yoke had to talk all around everything to avoid spilling the beans. She'd made it sound like he had hand-built the monster while he was lifted or sleepwalking or something.

So who was Babs go

He thought of a better thing to do, reckless enough to slake his death-wish without being sheer suicide. He found the alla-catalog image of his motorcycle, located an image of a full-size glider plane, and mentally attached the titanium-braced imipolex wings of the glider to the bike. He studied the image, adjusted the bends of the wing, and said "Actualize." The alla projected a bright-line wire mesh near the edge of the bluff, then filled it in with Randy's newly designed fly-bike.

The ocean wind beat at the twenty-foot wings, threatening to push the motorcycle-glider over on one side. Randy bulked up some dirt mound supports for the wings and added a rocket-pod to the rear of the bike. And then he took another look at the ocean. The restless waves were gray and cold, utterly heedless of human comfort. It would xoxx to full in. Fuck death! He didn't have to die; he could change! It wasn't too late yet. There had to be a way. Randy decided to launch the fly-bike in an unma

So as to properly weight the trial vehicle, Randy alla-made a ma

motorcycle-rocket-glider. Yaaar. Give it green glass eyes and a shit-eating grin. Randy fired up the rocket to launch the combine off the cliff. One of the wings twisted; the bike spun into the cliff and tumbled out of control. Meanwhile the rocket was blasting and--splash--the bike punched into the water at easily forty miles per. The crouched wooden rider floated facedown, the waves beating the figure against the rocks.

"That's the old me," laughed Randy, relieved not to be down there. "This boy's startin' up a new leaf." He still had a chance with Babs. He'd stay away from camote, stop fucking moldies, and quit doing deals with sleazebags like Aarbie Kidd. Yaaar. Better straight than dead.

The wrecked motorcycle-glider looked bad down in the ocean, so Randy sent his alla control-mesh down there to surround it. It was stuzzy how you could just wish the mesh out to wherever you wanted it to be.

Once Randy had the mesh around the smashed motorcycle, he had to tweak the mesh, as the smashed-up machine wasn't shaped the same anymore. The alla hookup was intense enough that Randy had a direct sensory feeling for the contents of the mesh; there were some rocks in there, a couple of little fish, lot of mussels --would have been a shame to wipe out all those things. He tightened the mesh in on the busted fly-bike and turned the machinery into water. But he left his wooden man to keep bumbling about in the rocks and surf. The bad Randy. "One more taahm," muttered Randy, and made a new motorcycle with wings. This time, though, he gave it some wing-flexing controls hooked into the handlebars, plus a better rider, one more likely to steer the test vehicle in a helpful way. He actualized an imipolex figure and equipped it with camera-eyes, an uvvy, a rudimentary niobium wire nervous system, and a control patch like he'd given Willa Jean. Like a ventriloquist throwing his voice, Randy put his awareness out into the imipolex rider, looking through its eyes and twitching its limbs and fingers. The more of this he did, the less he felt like dying. Vooden-vooden, screeched the fly-bike's electric engine, and kkkroooooow went the rocket. Out into the air the jury-rigged machine flew. Fully into the virtual personality of his stand-in, Randy felt himself to be riding it. He twitched the wings, adjusted the rocket, gained some altitude, but then -- damn! -- a gust of wind crimped down a wing and he was flying straight back at the cliff. Frantically he manipulated the wings and -- yes!--he was turning, he was going to make it, but--double damn -- there was one jutting rock that was just going to catch the tip of his right wing--quick, alla-blast it out of the way! Randy got the uvvy on the plastic rider to send his alla a direct signal that--boom -- turned a protruding knee of rock into thin air but--uh-oh! -- turning so much rock into air made a shock wave that threw the fly-bike further off balance. The bike rocketed downward. So as to make the cleanup simpler this time, Randy snapped an alla mesh out there and turned the machine and its plastic rider into air just before they crashed into the rocky shore. He was seeing out through the eyes of the rider right up to the instant when it dissolved, which was a very strange feeling. Somehow the experience made him think of that poor moldie Monique whom he'd kidnapped and sent off to her death last fall. "I'm sorry, Lord," said Randy out loud, not that he'd ever been a praying man. "Please forgive me." And that was the moment when Randy felt that change was really going to be possible.