Realware

"What?" said Jane, giving Phil a gratuitous poke in the ribs as she joined them.

"Show Tre the ring."

"Way eldritch," said Tre as soon as he saw it. "Knotted in the fourth dimension. Like a calling card. Like it wants us to know."

"It?" said Phil.

"The thing that came through the wowo. It couldn't have been the wowo itself that ate poor Kurt--a wowo's just a hollow of a self-everting Klein bottle geometrized in this tasty gnarly way that Kurt dreamed up. The wowo must have attracted something." Tre gave a kind of shudder and hugged himself, looking around. "It could be inches away from us right now. Watching." He handed the ring back to Jane. "I wouldn't keep this near me if I were you."

"You take it, Phil," said Jane, handing it off like a hot potato. "Bury it with Da's ashes. If we need it again we can always dig it up."

"Like the goldfish," said Phil, referring to a dead goldfish that he and Jane had buried one winter, only to dig it up every few days to look at the progress of its decay.

"It doesn't feel right not to have all of Da to bury," said Jane. "Willow said the ashes are just part of his hand. Maybe the rest of him is in the fourth dimension."

Phil put the knotted ring in his pocket next to the box. Some of his father's stories about the fourth dimension were coming back to him. A four-dimensional monster would be able to touch the ring in his pocket without coming through the fabric. Even if he were to put the ring inside the box, a four-dimensional creature could still reach it, just like you can touch the middle of a sheet of paper without coming through the paper's edge. If the four-dimensional creature could see everything, what good would it do to bury the ring?

"There was a weird dimensional thing about Darla too," Yoke was telling Jane.

"She disappeared on Christmas Eve. My dick of a father had left her alone, he was out with a girlfriend or something. Poor Darla. All Whitey could find of her was this little gory patch of blood. And then Whitey starts saying he's going to grow her back. He has a fairly recent S-cube of her personality, and he's go

'Your father is growing a new copy of your mother?" asked Kevvie.

"Clear," said Yoke. "The new Darla's go

"I've never heard of anyone doing that before," said Kevvie.

"Oh yeah they have," said Yoke. "You've heard of Stahn Mooney. Used to be a Senator? His wife Wendy is made of a meat body with a moldie Happy Cloak that drives the body. Wendy's 'Cloak is really just a moldie that doesn't have any of the original Wendy's personality at all. But we'll have Darla's personality in her 'Cloak to start with." Suddenly the confidence drained out of Yoke's voice.

"I hope it works. I miss her."

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Willow, wandering up to the group. She had a glass of white wine in her hand and her voice was shrill. "Help yourself to the refreshments before they're all gone. The Bass parents made a very nice buffet. And this wine is from Doctor Peck's own vineyard. It was Kurt's favorite. Eat, drink, and be merry." She looked far from merry.

"It was a nice ceremony, Willow," said Tre carefully.

"You have a lot of nerve showing up here," said Willow. "Considering that your shitty wowo killed him."

"Tre thinks it wasn't really the wowo itself," put in Phil. "He thinks it was a creature from the fourth dimension that the wowo attracted."

"Big difference," said Willow.

"Maybe you could grow a new husband," suggested Kevvie. "Like Yoke's father is doing."

"I assume Yoke is this little chippie here? How many people did you bring along, Tre? I mean besides the moldie. Do you think this a fucking hairfarmer beach party?"

"I'm sorry, Willow," said Tre. "We'll go now."

"Good!" Willow burst into tears and Jane held her, letting Willow's metallic blonde head rest on her shoulder.

Cobb appeared in the driveway just then. Tre and Terri murmured a quick good-bye and went to meet him. And then, before Phil could really say a proper good-bye to her, Yoke was gone too.

"Ooops," said Kevvie, rolling her eyes and gri

Phil thought about Yoke all the time for the next few days-- whenever he wasn't worrying about the wowos or thinking about his father. He'd hoped that with the old man dead, there'd be nobody nagging him to make something of himself. But the memory tapes were playing on. Thinking about Yoke was much better. Phil thought about Yoke so much that when she turned up at the LoLo restaurant on Thursday, sitting at a table right near the kitchen, he almost wasn't surprised. Just, "Whew, here it is."

"Is this the guy?" Naranjo was saying, Naranjo the waiter who'd called Phil out of the kitchen. "Is this the hombre you lookin' for?"

Yoke was all smiles, sitting at a table with two guys and a woman. Phil recognized two of them: Saint and Babs Mooney, regulars in the San Francisco art scene. "Hi, Phil!" called Yoke. "I was hoping I'd find you here. Can you come out with us later?"

"He gotta stay and scrub a lotta potatoes," said Naranjo. "He's just an assistant chef. He go

"Don't listen to him," said Phil. "It's great to see you, Yoke. Hi, Saint. Hi, Babs. I'll be through at eleven-thirty. It's ten now, so take your time eating and I can leave with you. With any luck, you'll be tonight's last customers. Things are really slow." A big storm had come in off the Pacific this afternoon and it was raining like people were up on the roofs with hoses. You could hear the splashing of the water through the glass of the windows. "You haven't ordered yet, have you?"

"How's the squid?" asked the fourth member of the dining party, a tenor-voiced fellow with shoulder-length red-blond hair that was very straight and fine. "Do you serve it with tentacles?"

"Sure," said Phil, taking an immediate dislike to the man, probably because he was sitting next to Yoke. "We've even got ink. But I'd recommend our deep-sea oarfish today. Brought in by a moldie this afternoon, he caught it himself. You can't catch an oarfish with ordinary techniques; it swims too deep. It has a nice firm flesh from living at such a high pressure. If you like, Yoke, I'll make it in a special sauce with sherry, cream, and chanterelles. Some saffron basmati rice and asparagus on the side. A few black cherries in the sauce for the sweetness and the color. And a Belgian endive salad with fresh-roasted red bell peppers and a mustard vinaigrette."

"Ooh," said Yoke. "That sounds delish. I've read those fancy food words, but I've never eaten them."

"Should we all have the same thing?" said Saint. "Babs? Onar?" Babs nodded, but the handsome, long-haired Onar insisted that he be served squid. "Stir-fry it in canola oil," he instructed. "All tentacles. And don't let them get rubbery."

"Gnarly, sir," said Phil.