Postsingular

The callow face of Dick Dibbs appeared from time to time during that horrible Last Day, smiling and beckoning like a messiah calling his sheep into the pastures of his heavenly kingdom. Famous people who'd already made the transition appeared in the sky to mime how much fun it was, and how great things were in Virtual Earth.

Near dusk the power in Ond and Nektar's house went out. Ond was on that in a flash. He had a gasoline-powered electrical generator ready in their big detached garage, plus gallons and gallons of fuel. He fired the thing up to keep, above all, his home's air filters and wireless ante

Chu was oddly unconcerned with the apocalypse. He was busy, busy, busy studying Ond's pages of code. He'd become obsessed with the challenge of learning every single block of symbols.

By suppertime, the red, ported zone had begun eating into the Dolores Heights neighborhood where Ond and Nektar lived in the fine big house that the Nantel stock options had paid for. Ond lent their downhill neighbors-Willy's parents– an extra wireless network ante

"02A1B59F, 9812D007, 70FFDEF6," said Chu when Nektar went to tuck him in that night. He had Ond's sheaf of pages with a flashlight under his blanket.

"Give me that," said Nektar, trying to take the pages away from him.

"Daddy!" screamed Chu, a word he'd never used before. "Stop her! I'm not done!"

Ond came in and made Nektar leave the boy alone. "It's good if he learns the code," said Ond, smoothing Chu's chestnut cap of hair. "This way there's a chance that-never mind."

When Nektar and Ond awoke next morning, the house next door was gone.

"Maybe he set up the ante

"All their bushes and plants were eaten, too," said Nektar, standing by the window. "All the neighbors are gone. And the trees. Look out there. It's a wasteland. Oh God, Ond, we're going to die. Poor Gaia."

As far as the eye could see, the pastel chockablock city of San Francisco had been reduced to bare dirt. It looked like the pictures of the town after the 1906 earthquake. And instead of smoke, the air was glittering with hordes of freshly made nants, a seething fog of omnivorous, pullulating death-in-life. Right now the nants were staying away from Ond and Nektar's house on the hill. But the gasoline supplies for the generator wouldn't last forever. And in any case, before long the nants would be undermining the house's foundation.

Chu was in the video room watching a screen showing his friend Willy. Chu had thought to plug the video into an extension cord leading to the generator. Ond's dog-eared pages of code lay discarded on the floor.

"It's radical in here, Chu," Willy was saying. "It feels almost real, but you can tell Vearth is an awesome giant sim. It's like being a toon. I didn't even notice when the nants ported me. I guess I was asleep. Jam on up to Vearth as soon as you can."

"Turn that off!" cried Nektar, darting across the room to unplug the video screen.

"I'm done with Ond's code blocks," said Chu in his flat little voice. "I know them all. Now I want to be a nant toon."

"Don't say that!" said Nektar, her voice choked and hoarse.

"It might be for the best, Nektar," said Ond. "You'll see." He began tearing his closely written sheets into tiny pieces.

"What is wrong with you?" yelled Nektar. "You'd sacrifice your son?"

All through Nant Day, Nektar kept a close eye on Chu. She didn't trust Ond with him anymore. The constant roar of the generator motor was nerve-racking. And then, late in the afternoon, Nektar's worst fear came true. She stepped into the bathroom for just a minute, and when she came out, Chu was ru

The nants converged on Chu. He never cried out. His body puffed up, the skin seeming to seethe. And then he-popped. There was a puff of nant-fog where Chu had been, and that was all.

"Don't you ever talk to me again," Nektar told Ond. "I hate you, hate you, hate you."

She lay down on her bed with her pillow over her head. Soon the nants would come for her, and she'd be in their nasty fake heaven with moronic Dick Dibbs installed as God. The generator roared on and on. Nektar thought about Chu's death over and over and over until her mind blanked out.

At some point she got back up. Ond was sitting just inside the patio door, staring out at the sky. He looked unutterably sad.

"What are you doing?" Nektar asked him.

"Thinking about going to be with Chu," said Ond.

"You're the one who let the nants eat him. Heartless bastard."

"I thought-I thought he'd pass my code on to them. But it's been almost an hour now and nothing is-wait! Did you see that?"

"What," said Nektar drearily. Her son was dead, her husband was crazy, and soulless machines were eating her beloved Gaia.

"The Trojan fleas just hatched!" shouted Ond. "Yes. I saw a glitch. The nants are ru

"Chu's coming back?"

"Yes. Trust me. Wait an hour."

It was the longest hour of Nektar's life. When it was nearly up, Ond's generator ran out of gas, sputtering to a stop.

"So the nants get us now," said Nektar, too wrung out to care.

"I'm telling you, Nektar, all the nants are doing from now on is ru

Down near the bottom of the yard a dense spot formed in the swarm of nants. The patch mashed itself together and became-

"Chu!" shouted Nektar, ru

"Don't squeeze me," said Chu, shrugging his parents away. Same old Chu. "I want to see Willy. Why don't the nants eat me?"

"They did," exulted Ond. "And then they spit you back the same as before. That's why you don't remember. Willy will be back. Willy and his parents and their house and all the other houses and people too, and all the plants, and eventually, even Mars. You did good, Chu. 70FFDEF6, huh?"

For once Chu smiled. "I did good." CHAPTER 3

Orphid Night

Ru

Public fury over Earth's near-demolition was such that President Dibbs and his vice president were impeached, convicted of treason, and executed by lethal injection. But Nantel fared better. Indicted Nantel CEO Jeff Luty dropped out of sight before he could be arrested, and the company entered bankruptcy to duck the lawsuits-reemerging as ExaExa, with a cheerful beetle as its logo and a new corporate motto: "Putting People First-Building Gaia's Mind."