Postsingular

"Oh, Jil, don't. Sleep it off, and when you're yourself again, call up your old sponsor. She'll help you."

"Oh, what do you know? I'm on a run, Thuy; I'm not go

"I'm going outside," said Thuy. "You got a raincoat I can use?"

"Over there," said Jil with an abrupt jerk of her hand toward a rack with several of those cuttlefish-stenciled ponchos. She took another quick hit of sudocoke, and the bitter energy surged into her. "A fresh costume for Hipster Goody Girl," said Jil as Thuy slipped on a poncho. She raised her voice to a mocking soprano lisp. "Ooo, does this make my ego look too big?"

It was definitely time to step outside. The rain had subsided to a drifting mist. A dozen iridescent piezoplastic crows were wandering about the deck, shaking out their wings and clacking their beaks. Mr. Peanut was standing on his tripod of legs in the not-so-deep water, sca

"Jil is-" began Thuy.

"We know," said Jayjay. "It's been like this all week. I feel bad about it. Like it's partly my fault. But I don't know what to do."

"What about you, Craigor?" said Thuy. "Don't you care?"

Craigor looked Thuy over again. "It's go

"You could try," urged Thuy. "Love her, Craigor. Save her. And what about your children?"

"My parents stayed together for the sake of the kids," said Craigor, tall, stiff, unhappy. "It was hell for all of us. Why am I even telling you this? Words suck. You are what you do. If Jil wants to save herself, that's her call." Seeing something in the bay, Craigor whooped with a warrior's fierce exultation. "Yeah, baby! Here he comes!"

The puffed-up golem was in view to the stern, approaching fast, his arms and legs beating a fierce rhythm. The pelican and the pterodactyl were circling overhead, and in the orphidnet Thuy could see the crocodile coming up on the Merz Boat from below.

Craigor's plastic crows took wing and mobbed the pair of airborne shoons, doing their best to distract them without being snapped up by the great beaks. Moments later three of the crows were gone. They were overmatched.

Moving with awkward agility, Mr. Peanut lurched into position and intercepted the golem, who didn't seem to recognize the peanut as a threat. Easy as pie, Mr. Peanut shish-kebabbed the golem with his cane. The golem struggled and burbled; Mr. Peanut bit off his head, then his chest, then his legs. Fueled by the piezoplastic, the top-hatted goober doubled his body size. Triumphantly he slashed his cane at the waves.

Before Thuy, Jayjay, and Craigor could cheer Mr. Peanut's success, the Merz Boat shuddered amidships. The crocodile shoon had reared out of the water to tear loose a chunk of the low gu

For now the green pelican simply hovered, watching the events unfold. But the pterodactyl dove at Thuy as if meaning to carry her off. She flattened herself on the deck; the pterodactyl missed her. The backhoe spun fruitlessly in a tight circle, its Happy Shoon driver frantically adjusting the belts in an effort to regain control. The red pterodactyl did a loop-the-loop and dove again, keeping Thuy in place.

And now the crocodile came slithering across the deck toward her, his toothy jaws ajar. Thuy began screaming for help, but not quite from the bottom of her heart. At some level, she felt detached-as if she were perusing a lifebox metanovel. Damsel in distress! Who'll save me?

Craigor was over by the long cabin, poised to defend his family. But Jayjay-Jayjay was there for Thuy. He sprang forward with a machete in his grip and thrust it toward the red pterodactyl, forcing the monster to cease its diving and hover on high. Thuy sprang to her feet and backed away from the croc-only to find herself cornered against the wall of the boat's workshop.

The crocodile flexed his haunches and widened his jaws, preparing to pounce. All veils of playfulness dropped. Thuy was facing empty, eternal death. She screamed with everything she had. Jayjay charged past the backhoe and slashed into the croc's back. The hissing shoon turned to snap at him, giving the backhoe an opening to clamp onto the croc's tail. And now Thuy's hero waded in and hacked the monster to bits. A flock of shoons converged on the gobbets of piezoplastic, gobbling them up.

"Look out!" shouted Craigor. Thirteen-year-old Momotaro was standing in the door of the long cabin beside his slightly younger sister, Bixie, with Jil frozen-faced behind them, her brain fogged with glowing dots. Craigor and Momotaro were pointing at the hovering red pterodactyl, who was oddly bending his body in half.

Thuy and Jayjay found shelter against the backhoe, in case the shoon dived, but this time he pulled a new stunt: he shat a flaming pellet of piezoplastic onto the deck; the lump sputtered and sizzled like napalm. The boat itself might have caught fire if it hadn't been for the puddled water from the broken gu

The pterodactyl feathered his wings and hunched his body again as if to drop a flame-egg upon the exposed roof of the long cabin. Craigor roared defiance, leaping onto the cabin's roof and tossing three of his crow shoons into the air. And now finally the green pelican did something. Quick as a sewing ma-chine's needle, his beak dispatched the crows: one-two-three.

Thuy was dizzied by all the sensations, especially as she was trying to mold them into metanovel material in realtime. As part of the work she'd switched on a music track: operatic rock and roll. The pterodactyl and the pelican were visual echoes of the menacing bird-headed subbie she'd seen in the non-space between Topping's office and the ExaExa labs.

The dusky red pterodactyl squawked his approval for the crow-pecking, but then, when he was least expecting it, the green pelican darted at him and-yes!-ripped off one of his wings. The pterodactyl plummeted downward, bounced off the side of the Merz Boat, and ended up screeching and floundering in the Bay waters. Mr. Peanut strode over and dispatched him with cruel stabs of his cane.

There was a moment of calm. The Merz Boat pushed up a fresh gu

"Hi Jayjay," he said in a familiar voice. "Sonic sent me. Lay down that machete, you're making me nervous."

Jayjay thought for a minute, consulting his simulation beezies, and then he laid the machete on the deck behind him and hunkered beside the pelican. "Talk to me," he said.