Read Online The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker - Free Book Online

Again she did that thing with her tongue.
    â€œWould you like to come up to my house and look around?”
    â€œSure,” said Gretchen. “Why not.”

    She talked some more with Kay, tying up loose ends, and then she walked slowly with me to my car and got in. Close up, she had tired eyes.
    â€œDo you want anything?” I asked Gretchen.
    She looked languidly greedy. “How about some fine wine? And two packs of Kents.”
    The two crazy liquor store clerks were behind the counter, the thin giggling bearded one and the bowling pin—shaped one with the mustache. One of the nice things about California was how many workaday jobs were held by freaks. I got a bottle of good chardonnay and the Kents. It came to thirteen dollars and change. And then I was back in the car with Gretchen. This beautiful new woman was sitting in the bucket seat of my Animata, looking at her makeup in the mirror on the visor, fixing her face with the calm seriousness of a grown woman, her actual soft butt on the real leather of my car.
    â€œI’m stoked,” said I. “I’m ready to party.”
    Gretchen smiled. “I’m eager to see your house.” Again I studied her eyes. They were blue and . . . blank?
    â€œI can show you my computer.”
    â€œYippee,” said Gretchen softly, and lit a cigarette. “I failed math in high school.”
    â€œAre you from around here?”
    â€œNo, I’m from the Southland. Buena Park?”
    â€œThat’s near LA?”
    â€œNot far from Disneyland. That used to be my summer job.”
    â€œYou worked in Disneyland ? Wow. Talk about a real Californian. What did you do?”
    â€œMy last summer there I got to be Alice in Wonderland. In the parades?”
    â€œGod, Gretchen, that’s heavy. Did the men ever hit on you?”

    â€œThe single Dads. You had to look out for them. If they got too insistent, I’d look at Baloo Bear a special way, and he’d talk to them.”
    â€œI’m a single Dad, Gretchen.” I laid my hand on her leg above the knee. She regarded me calmly, not moving my hand away.
    A few minutes later I was back in my driveway. It was quarter past one. Though my oldest daughter Sorrel was off at college, son Tom and daughter Ida were still students at Los Perros High. They usually stopped by around three-thirty to regroup before heading across town to Carol’s. That gave Gretchen and me two clear hours.
    â€œNice big place,” said Gretchen. “Do you own it?”
    â€œI rent.” A wrong answer. I was tracking Gretchen’s interest level as closely as an over-leveraged speculator watching a stock price. I hurried to get the door open. Gretchen ambled in slowly.
    â€œWhere’s the powder room?”
    â€œRight over there. I’ll open the wine.”
    I went down to the kitchen and poured two glasses of wine. Glasses which Carol had bought in Mexico two years ago. I tore my thoughts away from that. Don’t stop to think, Jerzy, just do!
    Gretchen was pacing around the living room, looking unexpectedly dynamic. “I love your things, Jerzy. All those seashells. Want to show me around the rest of the place?”
    â€œSure, Gretchen, I’d love to.” Graciously she took her wineglass, clinked it with mine, and gave a simpering, slightly naughty giggle. Who said middle-aged people couldn’t still have fun? I led her off on the house tour.
    Our big old two-level house had a linoleum kitchen and dining area downstairs. At one end of the upstairs was a low-ceilinged living room with redwood paneling.
A long hall ran along the front of the house from the living room to the other end of the house. The kids’ three bedrooms were off the long hall, and at the end of the hall was my (and formerly Carol’s) bedroom, a nice space that boasted a sun porch and a working fireplace, no less.
    â€œWhat are those gloves and goggles,” Gretchen asked me when