Postsingular

"I'm not president yet."

"It's thanks to me that you're go

Dick Too Dibbs stares coldly at Luty, who's wearing a light goatee of plastic ants, even for this meeting with the president-elect. "Those ants must be eating your brain, Jeff. I won my election fair and square. It wasn't even close. People like the cut of my jib."

Luty peers at Dick Too Dibbs as if he's never really seen him before. "Why a jib? What does that even mean? Listen to me. I can make the media remember whatever I want them to remember. Facts are revisable. History is hackable. I can unelect you. You're a temporary variable."

A long pause. "What's the damned point of your Virtual Earth anyway?" asks Too Dibbs finally. "I never understood that. What's wrong with the Earth we have? My people were farmers, Jeff. You ever walked a freshly plowed field?"

Luty sphincters his wet lips and shakes his head, tense and anal. "Virtual Earth will be germ-free. Digital and odorless. No more dogs spreading filth. Wouldn't you love that?"

"I don't know," says Too Dibbs softly. "I just don't know."

"Well, I know and I'm telling you," says Luty, his voice cracking. "First you pardon me. Get my face off the post office walls. And then you require each citizen to install an orphidnet security patch. It must be done. ExaExa will provide the patch, it's based on our proprietary ShareCrop wikiware, but never mind the bitty details. The final output is that we get lasting, wiretap-style access to each person's mind. That way I can forestall any wise-guy attempts to trash my new nants."

"Don't like it," says Too Dibbs. "Wouldn't sit with my oath of office."

"You pardon me and you do that security patch," says Luty, his eyes flashing. "Or your election stinks like dog doo."

"We'll see," says Too Dibbs in a noncommittal tone. As he turns, his gaze pauses on Sonic. "Hey there, fella. What's your name?"

"Sonic Sanchez."

"Call me when you need a new job, Sonic. Your boss is nuts."

The third scene shows Luty hovering over the voluptuously curved white Ark of the Nants, fingering the elegant red button on its outside.

"So let me see how they're doing," says Sonic.

Luty rests his thumb on the red button, which briefly glows, sca

"How come the nants don't chew their way through those see-through walls?" asks Sonic.

"The nant farm's walls are nantanium," says Luty, who's in a cheerful, chatty mood. "The only known substance that nants can't eat. I used the same technology as for the quantum-mirror varnish. But nantanium nixes the nants instead of the entanglement signals. It's all about quantum phase."

"Titanium?"

"Nant. Anium. It's my own invention." Watching the nants, Luty combs back his long greasy hair with his fingers and readjusts the rubber band that holds his ponytail. "Pretty great, huh?"

Frantically the nants pullulate, visible by virtue of the structures they erect and demolish in the course of their ceaseless activity, and now their orphidnet positional dots become visible, creating an effect like seething, luminous fog.

"I've got a new nanocode treat for them," says Luty. He produces a special sca

"I love seeking the gnarl," says Luty. "I'm almost resigned to not getting Ond Lutter's input. The Big Pig says she's about nailed the nature simulations. And I'm pretty sure these little guys are orphid-proof now. But I want to be careful. If I lose this match, I could be out of the series."

The fourth scene is from today, January 18, only a few hours old. Sonic is leaning over the light green pelican, working on it.

"It's getting scary, Jayjay," he says, talking to his friends through the video. "I've been trying to slow things up, but now Luty's suspicious of me. He's panicking about Dick Too Dibbs's inauguration on Tuesday. I think he's go

A blip in the visuals. Something moves behind Sonic.

"Oh, shit."

Sonic composes his face as Luty comes into view.

"What do you think you're doing?" Luty holds a compact pistol in his hand. His voice is high and tight. The plastic ants are marching in Belousov-Zhabotinsky spirals on his cheeks. "Don't think I don't know how to use a gun. I'm more than a dreamer."

"All I'm doing is getting the fifth attack shoon ready," says Sonic in a soothing tone. "These shoons are programmed to bring in Thuy Nguyen and Jayjay Jimenez, just like you said. The giant ant, the golem, the crocodile, the pterodactyl, and now the pelican. If the other shoons can't physically overwhelm Thuy and Jayjay, then the pelican will talk to them."

"I need Thuy especially," says Luty. "She's almosting Chu's Knot." Luty rests the barrel of the gun against the back of Sonic's head. "I'd hate to kill you, Sonic. You're so much like Carlos Tucay. You wouldn't be pla

"Of course I'm on your side, Jeff." Sonic's face is pale. "Look, if you thought you saw me doing something weird just now, that's only because I'm loading this last shoon with lies and disinformation. To trick Jayjay and Thuy into trusting me and rushing over here."

Luty's finger tightens on the trigger.

The video ends.

***

"Good info," Chief Brown told Thuy when the transmission was done. "This Sonic fellow, we're lucky he's on the inside. He can help us tomorrow. If he's alive. Nasty ending, huh? We'll find out the truth tomorrow. See you at 8 a.m. Oh, and Thuy, please keep this video material confidential. Don't post it for the public. We wouldn't want to spoil our surprise." The chief signed off again.

Again Thuy felt a flicker of uncertainty about Bim Brown. Was he for real? Maybe. Her beezies claimed the physical source coordinates of Bim's messages were matching the location of the San Francisco police station. But the guy seemed wrong.

In any case, there was no way in hell that Thuy was going to keep Sonic's crucial video confidential. Using the memory and network skills she'd developed as a metanovelist, she quickly reconstituted the video she'd just seen and posted the result to a secure site hosted by her personal orphids-all this took her less than a second.

"Good old Sonic," Jayjay was saying, a quaver in his voice. "I'm worried. I hope Luty was just scamming us. And what about that Dick Too Dibbs? The man has a brain! I'd been counting on him to be a total lackey for big biz. It's great knowing he's not go

"Are you luring us into a trap?" Craigor asked the pelican sharply. The pelican didn't answer.

"Maybe the whole entire video was a fake," said Thuy, feeling more and more paranoid. There were too many levels to sort out. She squatted down to stare at the mildly glowing pelican. "Did Luty shoot Sonic or not?"