Postsingular

"Ugh," said Thuy.

"Ugh?" echoed Andrew Topping, looking a

"Your hand," said Thuy. "Damp, invasive, an empty simulacrum of masculinity." Jayjay laughed. Good old Thuy.

Maintaining his smile, Topping asked them to sit down. Sonic, Jayjay and Kittie ended up in a row on the couch on the left. Thuy sat in the big walking-chair, the chair Craigor had delivered here. It had knees and hips both; it squatted down to a comfortable level for Thuy. Topping stood with his arms crossed, leaning back against his massive paneled desk, staring at them.

The limp plastic view screen on the wall behind the desk displayed two views of ocean waves crashing against a rocky point to send up periodic spumes of spray. The left view looked like a realtime natural image; the right view was an ultracomputed simulation, never quite managing to match the view on the left, with pesky triangles and squares popping up in the ocean foam.

The main thing about the room was the metal grill covering the right wall. Jayjay used the room's orphidnet resources to peer deeper. Finer and finer grills lay behind this grill, perhaps as many as a hundred layers of them. Unfamiliar machinery buzzed in the darkness beyond the grills.

"So, all right, I know that Nektar Lundquist told you to come here and foul up our operation," Topping was saying. "But maybe you don't know that I set you up to come here. The President Bernardo image who sent you to the SUV this morning? He was a spoof I put out there."

"So I was right," said Jayjay to the Posse. "And Topping is Faction X."

"Excuse me?" said Topping.

"One of my beezies hypothesized your scenario," said Jayjay. "But we came in here anyway. We were curious about you. And a little interested in quitting the Big Pig. And, yes, we're here to tell you to stop overloading the orphidnet with malware and spam. For God's sake, Topping, why are you helping Dick Too Dibbs? Don't you have any rational self-interest? With Too Dibbs in power, the world might end!"

"You'd probably like Dick Too Dibbs more than you realize," said Topping. "He doesn't support the nants at all. He's by no means an ideal representative for my employer's interests. But at least my employer has the man's ear. He's hoping to make his case so as to guide events in an optimal way. But it's by no means a sure thing."

"You're talking about Jeff Luty, right?" said Jayjay.

"I'd let Mr. Luty do his own talking," said Topping. "Should the occasion arise. Should he in fact be alive. Natural Mind's primary funding is from Jeff Luty's former company ExaExa, yes. The quantum-mirror varnish that protects our unfortunate clients-unobtainable from any other source. Public knowledge." He held out his hands for silence. "Let's get to the point. In the course of monitoring our motley advertising force, I get a good overview of the orphidnet. And you four have come to my attention. Two in particular have skill sets that could be useful to my employer. This young man; this young woman." He leveled his index finger at Sonic and then at Thuy. "I'm prepared to hire all four of you-just to have them."

For a moment Jayjay felt jealous. What about all his new physics ideas? Stop it, Jayjay. Get over yourself. An ugly, heavy scene is coming up. Watch Topping. Get your beezies to figure out the scenario. And don't forget that grill in the wall.

Sonic shook his head. "I'm not go

"Your skills are about Doodly Bug," Topping interrupted. "It's more than a game. It's a laboratory for exploring brane theory, multiversal quantum mechanics, and the art of Calabi-Yau manifold construction. Your work stands out, Sonic. And Thuy's metanovel-"

Suddenly Jayjay got the big picture. "Luty wants to get to the Hibrane!" he cried out. "He wants to bring back Ond Lutter to help him! He wants to neutralize the orphids and feed Earth to some new nants!"

Topping regarded Jayjay levelly. "I couldn't discuss that even if I wanted to. My wikiware has me under nondisclosure filtering. You'll be the same, once you accept your ExaExa consulting contract. That's another good reason for me to sign all four of you."

"What contract?" asked Kittie. "I mean, how much are you offering us? And what would we have to do?"

"Forget it," repeated Sonic. "We don't need ExaExa and their bullshit mind control. We've got Nektar's garage to live in, and we've got those Founders royalties happening for us too."

"Hear me out," said Topping testily. He outlined the terms of the offer. So as to block any possible disclosure of sensitive information, consultants had to install ExaExa's custom Share-Crop wikiware onto their scalp-orphids with full personal access permissions. The consultants' wikiware would feed them business-related data, and of course the wikiware would monitor the consultants' business-related thoughts and filter their instant messages. No physical office presence was required, and the pay would be just this side of bodacious.

"Bullshit," said Sonic. "Bullshit bullshit bullshit."

Jayjay looked at the two women.

"Would there be any work at all for Jayjay and me?" said Kittie, forcing a wry smile. Like Jayjay, she was disappointed not to be a main attraction. "Maybe we should take the contracts and use our money to open a Losers Club, Jayjay. But I don't know that Thuy would-"

"It's out of the question," said Thuy. "Azaroth warned me about you, Topping. You actually think I'd let you put spying wikiware bosses in my head? My creativity would go out the window. I'd have nothing to live for."

"So no, then," said Kittie, playing the leader. "Offer unanimously refused."

"Aha," said Topping, his eyes lighting up. "Aha, aha, aha." He feinted at Sonic at the far left end of the couch, then whirled to bodily scoop up Thuy and carry her to the grilled wall. The hum behind the grating rose in pitch. A stiff breeze began drawing across the room.

Thuy wailed, trying to twist away. The others ran to her aid. Kittie was the first one to reach Topping; fruitlessly she tore at his arms. He seemed on the point of hurling Thuy against the grill-why?

Thuy moaned in fear; Jayjay saw red. He dove for Topping's waist, knocking the big man to the floor. As he fell, Topping managed to shove Thuy forward. Her head disintegrated into tiny cubes which were broken into yet-smaller blocks by the i

Kittie had gone hysterical; she filled the room with harsh, rhythmic screams. Not knowing what else to do, Jayjay tugged at Thuy's legs. He half expected to see a hideous severed neck atop her shoulders but, lo, as Thuy's body pulled free, her head grew back, reassembling itself layer by layer, her component particles swarming out of the grill.

"Gun!" screamed Sonic. "His gun!" Topping had risen to a crouch, even though Sonic still clung to his back. Topping was pulling his pistol from his shoulder holster. Jayjay flung himself at the man, heavily knocking Topping and Sonic against the grill.

The equipment roared; the two men disintegrated completely-and were vacuumed through the compound gratings like dust. All gone. Peering through the local orphidnet, Jayjay saw only that same machinery back there-no ground-up bodies, no drops of blood. Sonic and Topping had been atomized by bizarre physical forces and transported to who knew where. As for Thuy: her head had gone there and come back.