Postsingular

"Mr. Disease Vector," said Kittie, who'd attached the loose rod to her crotch. "Animate this."

"Oh that's witty," said Craigor, looking a

Jayjay turned his attention to Jil, who was hunkered down by the sink checking up on her shoons. Even in that awkward position, she looked lithe and graceful. He tossed her a tiny heart-shaped emoticon via the orphidnet; she answered by half-turning her head his way and miming a kiss in profile. He was living the dream-in a reality soap!

"Founders fans may want to scan the Big Pig Posse's back-story," Nektar intoned, playing show host. "Jayjay loses Thuy, Thuy takes up with Kittie and next-Thuy and Craigor? Kittie and Nektar? Jayjay and Jil? Sonic and the shoons? Stay tuned. Oh, look, the good ads are coming back." The orphidnet icons of BigBox and Stank glowed in the corners of the room, also the ExaExa beetle logo.

"Do we get paid too?" asked Kittie.

"I think so," said Nektar. "The orphidnet figures all that out. I'll register you as extras. And right up front, I'll let you guys keep your SUV in my garage for a couple of weeks. And there's a room over the garage you can live in. It'll be fun having young people around."

"Bitchin'," said Sonic, draining the last of the tea. His eyes were bright and black. "I'm ready to settle in for a Doodly Bug death-run."

"I want to paint that SUV and retrofit it for solar power," said Kittie.

"I'll be working on my metanovel," said Thuy. "Wheenk. "

"The title's growing on me," said Jayjay, smiling at her. "I'm go

Jil gave Jayjay a quizzical look. She could tell he was acting, but she wasn't sure why. There were so many levels of unreality here. Jil turned to Nektar. "We'll be on our way," said Jil. "I'm go

You've trained these shoons well, Nektar."

"Can I take a shoon too?" asked Sonic.

"Sure," said Nektar. Sonic stuffed the Jayjay-faced doughboy shoon into the pleated pocket of his leather jacket.

"Bye-bye," said Jayjay, seizing the chance to touch Jil's hand. She upped the ante and kissed his cheek. In the orphidnet, Jay-jay saw Jil staring over at her husband to make sure he noticed. Craigor's smile had gone stiff. Thuy, however, was obliv, or was at least presenting herself that way. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Just because Jayjay liked the Big Pig? Well, hell, if Thuy was going to be such a priss, maybe he should take his golden opportunity for a romance with the divine Jil.

"Come stay on the Merz Boat if you need a place to live," Jil told Jayjay in a warm tone. "There's plenty of room. All four of you would fit, actually."

Jayjay knew from Founders that Jil and Craigor's cuttlefishing boat was entirely crafted from computationally rich piezoplastic, which had become a fairly expensive and sought-after material. Although Craigor was still netting oversized Pharaoh cuttlefish from the Bay, much of the couple's income came from selling off bits of the boat's material in the form of Jil's shoons and Craigor's combines.

"Thanks, Jil," said Jayjay, wondering how Craigor would take his incursion. "I might be there sooner than you think. But at least for today we'll be kiqqin' it in Nektar's garage."

Some stairs at the back of the garage led up to the room Nektar had mentioned, white-painted with a peaked ceiling. The front and rear walls held generous windows, one showing a palm tree and Dolores Park, the other looking onto the San Francisco hills with their little stucco houses. The room was furnished with rugs, chairs, a double bed, a fold-out couch, a sink, and a fridge. The tile bathroom was stocked with Stank personal grooming products.

"Fuckin' A," said Sonic, eyeing a framed Nantel award to Nektar's absent husband. "Ond Lutter himself." The box was a couple of inches deep, holding a preserved blue-green beetle as well as a paper with the award inscription.

"Maybe we should do some Big Pig," said Thuy, flopping into an armchair. She didn't actually mean this; she was following their prepla

Jayjay would in fact have liked very much to do some Pig, but he stuck to the script too. "It's time we all got clean," he said.

"Yeah, brother," said Sonic. "Getting down is coming old."

"You're slushed," giggled Thuy, even though she knew Sonic had warped the phrase on purpose. "Yes, yes, it's time to mad the endness. But how? Whither and yon?"

"Maybe Natural Mind could help us," said Kittie, also playing along. "I know we were harshing on them before. But that was just our denial talking."

"Natural Mind it is," said Jayjay earnestly. "I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired." Badda-boom.

"Let's take showers before we go out," said Sonic looking at the dirt shiny on his hands. "Me first."

"Me second," said Kittie.

When Jayjay got his turn in the shower, he had fun freeze-framing the water in his orphidnet view. Orphids were quick; they blanketed the water drops as fast as they formed. Further afield, Jayjay could see Craigor and Jil picking up their kids at school and heading back to their boat. School was still a reality-the orphidnet was no substitute for getting your butt smacked/stroked/sniffed by your fellow mammals in the human pack. With Jil still in her own little family, maybe it wasn't realistic to think he could sleep with her. Maybe he'd been fooling himself about those vibes he'd picked up from her.

Thuy squeezed into the shower as Jayjay was getting out; the brief, sliding touch of her skin made him unreasonably happy. Someday soon he'd win her back. Thuy was the one he really wanted.

The Posse hit the street and hoofed toward the Mission Street Armory, keeping up a line of recovery-hungry chatter as they went, the idea being to make the Natural Minders feel okay about admitting the Posse. Although it was of course possible or even likely that the Natural Minders weren't monitoring the Posse's activities at all. But it seemed wise to make up for having audibly confabbed with Nektar about launching an attack.

The rain had let up and the sun was out. People were shopping at the corner fruit stands, some of them using the orphidnet to peer into the piles and find that perfect, unblemished lime, jalapeСo, or mango. Others were cha

Passing Metotem Metabooks-which was a hangout for the Mission metanovelists-Jayjay saw the owner, Darlene, slumped in an easy chair she'd dragged outside to catch the afternoon sun, which had been a rarity of late. Darlene always had a big smile for Jayjay; sometimes he thought she had a crush on him. Darlene was quite influential on the literary scene; she edited the hip Metotem Metazine. Her store wasn't much, though. Just some comfortable chairs, a coffeepot, and shelves of beat-up paper books.