Wikiworld Read Free Page A

let go.
    Up on the deck, Foolty was supervising a few machines working atop the roof. Spotting me, he called out, “Hey, nephew! Just tying in the rainwater-collection system to the desalinization plant.”
    “Swell. FooDog, I’d like you to meet”
    “No, don’t tell me the name of this sweet niece. Let me find out on my own.”
    Cherry snorted. “Good luck! Far as the ubik knows, I’m not even part of this brane. And that’s how I like it.”
    FooDog’s eyes went unfocused and he began to make strangled yips like a mutt barking in its sleep. After about ninety seconds of this, during which time Cherry and I admired a rising quarter moon, FooDog emerged from his trawl of the ubik.
    “Cherimoya Espiritu,” he said. “Born 2015. Father’s name João, mother’s name Graca. Younger brother nicknamed the Dolphin. Member of the Oyster Pirates.”
    Cherry’s face registered mixed irritation, admiration and fright. “How – how’d you find all that out?”
    FooDog winked broadly. “Magic.”
    “No, c’mon, tell me!”
    “All right, all right. The first part was easy. I cheated. I teasled into Russ’s friends list. He added you as soon as you met, and that’s how I got your name and occupation. My SCURF isn’t off-the-shelf. It picked up molecules of your breath, did an instant signature on four hundred organic compounds, and found probable family matches with your parents, whose genomes are on file. And your brother’s got a record with the Boston Badgers for a ruckus at a bar in Fall River.”
    Now I felt offended. “You teasled into my friends list? You got big ones, FooDog.”
    “Well, thanks! That’s how I got where I am today. And besides, I discovered my name there too, so I figured it was okay.”
    I couldn’t find it in myself to be angry with this genial ubik-trickster. Cherry seemed willing to extend him the same leniency.
    “No need to worry about anyone else learning this stuff. While I was in there, I beefed up all your security, nephew.”
    “Well – thanks, I guess.”
    “No thanks necessary.” FooDog turned back to the bots on the roof. “Hey, Blue Droid! You call that a watertight seam!”
    Cherry and I went through the sliding glass door that led off the deck and inside.
    I made an inspection of my new home for the first time with Cherry in tow. The place was perfect: roomy yet cozy, easy to maintain, lots of comforts.
    The wikis had even provided some rudimentary furniture, including a couple of inflatable adaptive chairs. We positioned them in front of a window that commanded a view of the ocean and Moon. I went to a small humming fridge and found it full of beer. I took two bottles back to the seats.
    Cherry and I talked until the Moon escaped our view. I opaqued all the glass in the house. We merged the MEMS skins of the chairs, fashioning them into a single bed. Then we had sex and fell asleep.
    In the morning, Cherry said, “Yeah, I think I could get used to living here real fast.”
    Mucho Mongo
    My Dad was a garbageman.
    Okay, so not really. He didn’t wear overalls or hang from the back of a truck or heft dripping sacks of coffee grounds and banana peels. Dad’s job was strictly white-collar. His fingers were more often found on a keyboard than a trash compactor. He was in charge of the Barnstable Transfer Station, a seventy-acre “disposium” where recyclables were lifted from the waste-stream, and whatever couldn’t be commercially repurposed was neatly and sterilely buried. But I like to tell people he was a garbageman just to get their instant, unschooled reactions. If they turn up their noses, chances are they won’t make it onto my friends list.
    I remember Dad taking me to work once in a while on Saturdays. He proudly showed off the dump’s little store, stocked with the prize items his workers had rescued.
    “Look at this, Russ. A first edition Jack London. Tales of the Fish Patrol. Can you believe it?”
    I was five years old, and had just gotten my