Installment for 12 May 2003

"Bastard," Nelle told him.
Captain Coyote took up the microphone with his left paw and snapped the digits on his right.
"And a one and a two and a three and a four - Volarie, oh-oh-oh-oh. Volarie, oh-oh-oh-oh."
His all girl orchestra played clarinets behind him.
"Volarie, oh-oh-oh-oh. Volarie, oh-oh-oh-oh."
"I'll get you for - ow."
The icepick stuck through Nelle's forehead wiggled of its own accord.
"Thank you, thank you very much," Captain Coyote said, holding his paw out to the audience. "And a round of applause for my all girl orchestra!"
Six showgirls in pink one-pieces with furry brown coyote ears. They all blew kisses to the audience.
"And now for my favorite part of the show," Captain Coyote said, stepping down off the stage. "A little chance to meet and greet some of the great people who come from all over this great land. How do you do? Who are you nice folks and where are you from?"
"We're the Pruitts and we're from Des Moines, Iowa."
"Isn't that swell? Looks like Mr. Pruitt has already lost his shirt! Come see me if you lose yours." The coyote nuzzled Mrs. Pruitt's ankles.
"And who is this pretty girl with the icepicks in her head? I bet the management is regretting that all you can eat buffet right about now."
"Get down there on the ground, Coyote. I - ow - want to piss - ow - all over you."
"That's going to be kind of hard, don't you think - seeing as you can't exert any will without pain. And who is this kind gentleman? The one in the mask."
"I'm the Baron. And I am disappointed in this one. With bulk like that, you'd think she'd be slower."
"Not him," Nelle screamed. Pain opened up new places in her brain. "You're not you. This is a dream."
"No," Captain Coyote said. "Murasaki is running one of his maintenance checks. He's trying to tamp down the brain chems - trying to keep you alive."
"Sweet of him," the Baron said.
"Baron," Nelle said carefully. "Blow up all the hotels you want. I . . . will . . . get . . . you."
"You might," the Baron said. "I didn't think Uso could be killed, but you got him. Still, since I own .1953125 per cent of the world, I like my odds of getting you - and Murasaki - instead."
"Tell me why," Nelle demanded, feeling the pain build up around icepick in her forehead. "Why do you want the Floating Spirit? You have the original code, don't you? You don't believe in the mysticism, do you? Why?"
"You don't expect me to just answer you, do you?"
"I think she does," Captain Coyote said.
"You don't know what that is, do you?" the Baron asked, pointing at Captain Coyote.
"But you do?" Nelle asked through the pain.
"It's nothing to do with me," the Baron said. He stood up.
On the other side of him, a black blur attacked the Pruitts, beating both viciously.
Over their screams, the Baron said, "I have the code. Murasaki has most of it. You could fill in the blanks for him. It's COBOL. You could have written the whole thing yourself. The Floating Spirit has been out there, now, for decades, wrapped in its encapsulation. Whatever it's been, whatever happened to it - it will never happen again. And you can't tell me you don't see the value of an AI that can live native on the Grid. There are 511 grid nodes I don't own. I intend to change that. This other thing has nothing to do with me," he said to Captain Coyote. "Good day."
The black blur kept beating the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Pruitt. The bloody pulps turned barely recognizable as corpses.
"And your name was Nelle," Captain Coyote suggested, holding the microphone down to her lips. "How are you enjoying your fabulous vacation?"
"Is he gone?"
"He is gone, gone, gone."
"How could you betray me?" she demanded.
"Well, let's see," the coyote said into the microphone. "I don't work for you. We're not the same species. What else? There isn't any connection between us or promise between us. Well, that makes betrayal a little hard since I don't owe you anything."
"Tell me who he is," Nelle demanded, closing her eyes hard, pushing through the pain.
"No," Captain Coyote answered. "No. No. He doesn't have anything to do with me. Believe it or not, some people besides poor little Nelle have problems."
"When I find out who you really are - "
Captain Coyote shrugged and swung the microphone on its wire. "I guess."
"All right," Nelle told him. "Tell me why I'm in so much pain. Is it using different interfaces all the time? Is it her?"
"What do you know about artillery? The shockwave from an artillery round affects the firing crew so deeply that they are recommended to fire no more than three rounds a day. You've been in cyberspace 22 times in the last three weeks, including a sensory overload. The stress chemicals build up. They can affect your wetware on a long term basis. It's not her."
"Why is my skin oily all the time?"
"That's her. Sometimes she taps into your adrenal glands. The collar can only compensate so fast."
"And that makes my skin oily?" Nelle asked.
"Sweaty fear. You can do all the regular cowboy stuff - lots of water, orgasms, physical exercise. Unless you stop jacking in this often, the migraines and the night terrors will worsen."
"What about the skin? On top of the hives, I'm starting to break out."
"You don't want to hear it."
"No, I don't. I won't give that - "
"Anyway, I don't know where the Floating Spirit is. Not my thing. There is something I can tell you, though. If you want."
"What is your thing, Captain Coyote?" she asked. "Are you the Floating Spirit? Or one of its little buddies, out there in the cybether?"
"When the Floating Spirit occupies a Grid address, it leaves code."
"We know. Murasaki knows. You can't do a search. Only the Grid Inventory can search at the byte level."
"Yes, yes," Captain Coyote answered, swinging the microphone again. "And the Grid Inventory cannot see the Floating Spirit. This trace that the Floating Spirit leaves behind - it has its destination point. So, if you knew where to look - "
Nelle screamed.

Murasaki laid a damp cloth over her forehead and eyes.
"I wish I could do more," he said.
"Only my regular programmer interface from now on," Nelle told him.
"Traceable."
"I know. The Floating Spirit. It can't destroy the copy of itself that it leaves behind."
"Yes," Murasaki said. "Of course, we have no access to a search al-"
"It contains the new location, new Grid address."
"It might," Murasaki said. "I would think not, though."
"It does. A little birdy told me. Can you find out about somebody named Pruitt? Possibly a married couple?"
"I suppose."
"Possibly deceased."
"Did you have contact while - "
"I'm going to need a few minutes alone."
"Of course."
Murasaki folded his laptop and walked to the other end of the cargo container. Nelle didn't hear him pulling the improvised curtain across the space at the end where he kept his futon, but he always did.
Nelle took a couple more painkillers and reached down to fondle her crotch. Different brain organs screamed at being misused as input devices and conventionalization engines, but every bit of her wetware knew what this was about. Right there with hunger and thirst and warm.
Nelle wondered if she could feel it in the spine.
In the darkness.
In the silence.
Did she miss taste?
And she wanted to jack in and use a porno program, but that would only mess up her chems more. She'd think of something - her high school boy friend giving her flowers. He never gave her flowers. Vid stars. Old porno sessions. Something.
The prick should have given her flowers. Would that have killed the little creep?
"Des Moines," she cried out. "They were from Des Moines."
She rolled over onto her stomach and pulled her legs up under her. Her breathing turned shallow and -
She lay still for a few breaths, pain held a little away.
"Nelle?" Murasaki called from the other end of the container.
"Yes, Mister Purple?"
"You need to see this."
Nelle ran her fingers though her hair, wiped the oily sweat from her brow. Her night shirt was damp and crumpled up in front.
She took the screen from Murasaki.
"It's them," she said.
"They never found the killer," Murasaki said. "It happened thirteen years ago."
Nelle looked at the autopsy pictures, the violence of it -
"Okay," she said. "Okay. There's something else going on here besides the Baron. We need to get to a Grid node and splice in directly. We need a copy of the inventory."
"The Floating Spirit does not - "
"The original inventory, in native format. We'll compare it to the regular inventory, look for discrepancies." She handed him back his laptop and lay back on the couch, eyes closed. "I'm going to use the exercise bike for a while. How long before you can have us at a Grid node?"
"Two weeks," he said.
She nodded.
"I should be more or less human again by then."

The Floating Spirit © 2003 Tim D. Sherer

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