Read Online Hylozoic by Rudy Rucker - Free Book Online Page A

to the house was annoying and depressing for Thuy. Some honeymoon. Once asleep, she dreamed of Jayjay as a zombie, a spider, a radioactive computer chip.
    Just before dawn she woke, her mouth dry, her head pounding from the champagne. She sat upright in the lonely bed, listening. Raccoons clattered in the moonlit clearing, cleaning up the dinner’s debris. The trees sighed; the stream burbled. But there was no sound of Jayjay’s breathing in the living room, and when she teeped out for him, he wasn’t there anymore.
    She got a glass of water from the kitchen sink, surveying the empty room. The air was cool and calm. Jayjay must have gone back out soon after she’d walked him in. God
damn
him. Didn’t he care about her at all? Was their marriage doomed?
    If she wasn’t careful, she was going to cry. To hell with that. She drank her water, peed, and went back to the bedroom. Just before she turned the light out, she noticed something outside her window: a forked branch leaning against the glass as if peeking in at her. Thuy teeped the thing, but got little reaction. Just a stick.
    Suddenly she heard a noise. Running into the living room, she saw something small squirming on the floor. It was growing larger, like dough rising through a crack—oh my God, it was Jayjay! And then he was present again, sprawled on the floor, shirtless, shivering all over, with his eyes squeezed tight shut. He bucked his hips as if dreaming of sex. Thuy poked him, checking that he was real. It was so weird, the way he’d puffed up out of the floor. Had she really seen that? She couldn’t seem to wake him. Never mind. At least he was here. Thuy buried herself under her covers and got a few more hours of sleep.
    It was Sonic who woke her, wandering in from outside to blunder around the kitchen. He was rummaging for coffee, with his little Edgar shoon dogging his steps. Somewhere in the distance, harsh-voiced birds squawked.
    â€œWe’re not moved in yet!” Thuy called to Sonic from her bed. “Nothing here for you. Go scavenge outside, bum.” She felt strange—it was as if the subliminal hum of the atoms in her body had changed pitch.
    â€œTried that already,” said Sonic. “The animals ate the leftovers, so I came inside for a hands-on food search. What a night. I shouldn’t have slept so close to the stream. I feel like an old man. Look at our boy Jayjay. On the nod. Receiving truth. At one with the—”
    â€œOh, shut up,” snapped Thuy, pulling on her T-shirt and tights. “You’re a creep to have gotten him so high.” She marched into the living room. “It was supposed to be our big romantic honeymoon night and now—oh God, look at thatstain—I think he came in his pants while he was tripping. Prince Charming.”
    â€œI didn’t get him high, Thuy. He did it himself. You’ve been around the block a few times,
chica
. You know how it works.”
    â€œYou encouraged him, Sonic. You’re—what do they call it?—an enabler. A lower companion.”
    â€œI’m a humble working stiff without a
Founders
paycheck,” said Sonic. “An unpaid extra in the theater of life. Meanwhile I gotta lead my squid ’n’ whale tour in half an hour. I can’t believe you don’t have coffee.”
    â€œTeek some in,” suggested Thuy. “And fetch me a double latte while you’re at it. It’s the least you can do. Skeevy, slushed pighead that you are.” Despite her strong words, she felt limp, as if her life were a tired script she was walking through.
    Sonic walked to the door and stared out at the misty clearing. “Fogged in,” he said. “I can barely see the trees. Jayjay and I got really high on Gaia. After you walked him in here, we made a kind of tower. It was vibby. Oh, and there was a talking pitchfork. He knocked down our tower and then I didn’t see Jayjay anymore.”