The Ware Tetralogy by Rudy Rucker

Author:Rudy Rucker [Rucker, Rudy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-60701-211-5
Publisher: Prime Books
Published: 2010-10-01T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX

WILLY

March 17, 2031 - July 2052

The day after Willy Taze got off death row, he met Stahn Mooney.

Willy and his rebel friends were bopper lovers; they thought artificial life forms were just as good as people. The rebels busted Willy out of the Louisville jail and smuggled him down to Florida, where he could do some good. Willy made the trip hidden in a truckload of meat, garbed in an imipolex bubble-topper spacesuit for warmth and air. The minute he hit Florida, Willy got on a computer and gosperized the Gimmie’s air defenses with turd bits and foo series so that the a-life invasion could come down. Around dawn an old woman named Annie Cushing drove Willy to a particular beach on Sanibel Island, Florida, Willy still wearing his bubbletopper, the date March 17, 2031, a day that would be forever known as Spore Day.

There was a sound of ion jets, abruptly terminated, and then Stahn and Wendy came coasting down from the sky on big Happy Cloak wings; they were each wearing about a hundred kilograms of chipmold-infected imipolex. In the firmament high above them, quadrillions of chipmold spores formed a barely visible cirrostratus cloud made wavy by the steady nibbling of the subtropical jet stream. The rising sun glinted off the spore cloud, tracing a great halo that would soon circle the heavens worldwide. Spore Day marked the death of Gaia’s boppers and chips, the birth of her moldies and DIMs.

“It’s good to be back,” said Stahn. “Thank you, Willy. Thanks, Annie.” He slung his right wing across Willy’s back. The heavy wing pulled loose from Stahn and stayed on Willy, merging its plastic with Willy’s bubbletopper and sinking thin probes into his neck.

Willy smiled to feel the boiling rush of information. The Happy Cloak spoke to him and transmitted direct messages from Stahn and Wendy. It was like having them whisper in his ears.

“Let’s stride,” murmured Stahn. “I don’t want a lot of goobs to see me here.”

“I’m for it,” answered Willy. “The farther underground I go, the better.” He turned to Annie. “Thanks for helping.”

“God bless you, Willy,” said old Annie. “Your grandfather Cobb would be proud of you. Keep it bouncing.”

And then the smart moldie ’Cloaks formed themselves into dolphin shapes, and Willy, Stahn, and Wendy took off undersea. The clear Gulf waters were shallow out to about a mile, where the bottom dropped off steeply. Huge surgeonfish and groupers sped away from the moldie-encased humans.

“Where we going?” asked Willy.

“I want to swim around to the other side of Florida and get near Cocoa Beach,” said Stahn. “At the right moment, we’ll blast up out of the water like old-time submarine-launched missiles.”

“I’ll blast off?”

“No, man, just me and Wendy. We’re going to fly up to the spaceship Selena that’s landing at the spaceport tomorrow. Of course the Selena’s bopper slave computers are already dead, but this woman Fern Beller is piloting the ship down. Fern is very together. She’s wearing a Happy Cloak and doing the astrogation in her head.

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