Paul Di Filippo & Bruce Sterling - The Scabs Progress.pdf - Paul diFillipo - margozap

The Scab's Progress

by Paul Di Filippo and Bruce Sterling

The federal bio-containment center was a diatom the size of the Disney Matterhorn.

It perched on fractal struts in a particularly charmless district of Nevada, where the

waterless white sands swarmed with toxic vermin.

The entomopter scissored its dragonfly wings, conveying Ribo Zombie above the

desert wastes. This was always the best part of the program: the part where Ribo

Zombie lovingly checked out all his cool new gear before launching into action. As a

top-ranking scab from the otaku-pirate underground, Ribo Zombie owned reactive

gloves with slashproof ligaments and sandwiched Kevlar- polysaccharide . He owned

a mother-of-pearl crash helmet, hung with daring insouciance on the scaled wall of

the 'mopter's cockpit. And those Nevada desert boots!—like something built by

Tolkien orcs with day-jobs at Nike.

Accompanying the infamous RZ was his legendary and much-merchandised familiar ,

Skratchy Kat. Every scab owned a familiar: they were the totem animals of the

gene-pirate scene. The custom dated back to the birth of the scab subculture, when

tree-spiking Earth Firsters and obsessive dog breeders had jointly discovered the

benefits of outlaw genetic engineering.

With a flash of emerald eyes the supercat rose from the armored lap of the daring

scab. Skratchy Kat had some much cooler name in the Japanese collectors' market.

He'd been designed in Tokyo, and was a deft Pocket-Monster commingling of eight

spliced species of felines and viverines, with the look, the collector cachet, and

(judging by his stuffed-toy version) plenty of the smell of a civet cat. Ribo Zombie,

despite frequent on-screen cameos by busty-babe groupies, had never enjoyed any

steady feminine relationship. What true love there was in his life flowed between

man and cat.

Clickable product-placement hot-tags were displayed on the 'mopter screens as Ribo

Zombie's aircraft winged in for the kill. The ads sold magnums of cheap, post-

Greenhouse Reykjavík Champagne. Ringside tix to a Celebrity Deathmatch

(splatter-shields extra). Entomopter rentals in Vegas, with a rapid, low-cost divorce

optional.

Then, wham! Inertia hit the settling aircraft, gypsum-sand flew like pulverized

wallboard, and the entomopter's chitinous canopy accordioned open. Ribo Zombie

vaulted to the glistening sands, clutching his cat to his armored bosom. He set the

beast free with a brief, comradely exchange of meows, then sealed his facemask,

pulled a monster pistol, and plucked a retro-chic pineapple grenade from his

bandolier.

A pair of crystalline robot snakes fell to concussive explosions. Alluring vibrators

disoriented the numerous toxic scorpions in the vicinity. Three snarling jackalopes

fell to a well-aimed hail of dumdums. Meanwhile the dauntless cat, whose hide

beneath fluffy fur was as tough as industrial Teflon, had found a way through the

first hedge-barrier of barrel cacti.

The pair entered a maze of cholla. The famously vicious Southwestern cholla cactus,

whose sausage-link segments bore thorns the size of fishhooks, had been rumored

from time immemorial to leap free and stab travelers from sheer spite. A soupçon of

Venus flytrap genes had turned this Pecos Pete tall-tale vaporware into grisly

functionality. Ribo Zombie had to opt for brute force: the steely wand of a back-

mounted flamethrower leapt into his wiry combat-gloves. Ignited in a pupil-searing

blast, the flaming mutant cholla whipped and flopped like epileptic spaghetti. Then

RZ and the faithful Skratchy were clambering up the limestone leg of the Federal

cache.

Anyone who had gotten this far could be justly exposed to the worst and most

glamorous gizmos ever cooked up by the Softwar Department's Counter-

Bioterrorism Corps.

The ducts of the diatom structure yawned open and deployed a lethal arsenal of

spore-grenade launchers, strangling vegetable bolas, and whole glittering clouds of

hotwired fleas and mosquitos. Any scab worth his yeast knew that those insect

vectors were stuffed to bursting with swift and ghastly illnesses, pneumonic plague

and necrotizing fasciitis among the friendlier ones.

"This must be the part where the cat saves him," said Tupper McClanahan, all cozy

in her throw rug on her end of the couch.

Startled out of his absorption, yet patiently indulgent, Fearon McClanahan froze the

screen with a tapped command to the petcocks on the feedlines. "What was that,

darling? I thought you were reading."

"I was." Smiling, Tupper held up a vintage Swamp Thing comic that had cost fully

ten percent of one month's trust-fund check. "But I always enjoy the parts of this

show that feature the cat. Remember when we clicked on those high-protein kitty

treats, during last week's cat sequence? Weeble loved those things."

Fearon looked down from the ergonomic couch to the spotless bulk of his snoring

pig, Weeble. Weeble had outgrown the size and weight described in his

documentation, but he made a fine hassock.

"Weeble loves anything we feed him. His omnivorous nature is part of his factory

specs, remember? I told you we'd save a ton on garbage bills."

"Sweetie, I never complain about Weeble. Weeble is your familiar, so Weeble is fine.

I've only observed that it might be a good idea if we got a bigger place."

Fearon disliked being interrupted while viewing his favorite outlaw stealth download.

He positively squirmed whenever Tupper sneakily angled around the subject of a

new place with more room. More room meant a nursery. And a nursery meant a

child. Fearon swerved to a change of topic.

"How can you expect Skratchy Kat to get Ribo Zombie out of this fix? Do you have

any idea what those flying bolas do to human flesh?"

"The cat gets him out of trouble every time. Kids love that cat."

"Look, honey: kids are not the target demographic. This show isn't studio-

greenlighted or even indie-syndicated, okay? You know as well as I do that this is

outlaw media. Totally underground guerrilla infotainment, virally distributed. There

are laws on the books—unenforced, sure, but still extant—that make it illegal for us

even to watch this thing. After all, Ribo Zombie is a biological terrorist who's

robbing a Federal stash!"

"If it's not a kid's show, why is that cute little cartoon in the corner of the screen?"

"That's his grafitti icon! The sign of his street-wise authenticity."

Tupper gazed at him with limpid spousal pity. "Then who edits all his raw footage

and adds the special effects?"

"Oh, well, that's just the Vegas Mafia. The Mafia keeps up with modern times: no

more Rat Pack crooners and gangsta rappers! Nowadays they cut licensing deals

with freeware culture heroes like Ribo Zombie, lone wolf recombinants bent on

bringing hot goo to the masses."

Tupper waved her comic as a visual aid. "I still bet the cat's gonna save him.

Because none of that makes any difference to the archetypical narrative dynamics."

Fearon sighed. He opened a new window on his gelatinous screen and accessed

certain data. "Okay, look. You know what runs security on Federal Biosequestration

Sites like that one? Military-grade, laminated, mouse brains. You know how smart

that stuff is? A couple of cubic inches of murine brain has more processing power

than every computer ever deployed in the twentieth century. Plus, mouse brain is

unhackable. Computer viruses, no problem. Electromagnetic pulse doesn't affect it.

No power source to disrupt, since neurons run on blood sugar. That stuff is

indestructible."

Tupper shrugged. "Just turn your show back on."

Skratchy was poised at a vulnerable crack in the diatom's roof. The cat began

copiously to pee.

When the trickling urine reached the olfactory sensors wired to the mouse brains,

the controlling network went berserk. Ancient murine anti-predator instincts

swamped the cybernetic instructions, triggering terrified flight responses. Mis-aimed

spore bomblets thudded harmlessly to the soil, whizzing bolas wreaked havoc

through the innocent vegetation below, and vent ports spewed contaminated steam

and liquid nitrogen.

Cursing the zany but dangerous fusillade, Ribo Zombie set to work with a back-

mounted hydraulic can opener.

Glum and silent, Fearon gripped his jaw. His hooded eyes glazed over as Ribo

Zombie crept through surreal diorama of waist-high wells, HVAC systems and

plumbing. Every flick of Ribo Zombie's hand torch revealed a glimpse of some new

and unspeakable mutant wonder, half concealed in ambient support fluids: yellow

gruel, jade-colored hair gel, blue oatmeal, ruby maple syrup.…

"Oh, honey," said Tupper at last, "don't take it so hard."

"You were right," Fearon grumbled. His voice rose. "Is that what you want me to

say? You were right! You're always right!"

"It's just my skill with semiotic touchstones, which I've derived from years of

reading graphic novels. But look, dear, here's the part you always love, when he

finally lays his hands on the wetware . Honey, look at him stealing that weird

cantaloupe with the big throbbing arteries on it. Now he'll go back to his clottage

and clump , just like he does every episode, and sooner or later something really

uptaking and neoteric will show up on your favorite auction site."

"Like I couldn't brew up stuff twice as potent myself."

"Of course you could, dear. Especially now, since we can afford the best equipment.

With my inheritance kicking in, we can devote your dad's legacy to your hobby. All

that stock your dad left can go straight to your hardware fetish, while my money

allows us to ditch this creepy old condo and buy a new modern house. Duckback

roof, slowglass windows, olivine patio—"Tupper sighed deeply and dramatically.

"Real quality, Fearon."

· · · · ·

Predictably, Malvern Brakhage showed up at their doorstep in the company of

disaster.

"Rogue mitosis, Fearon my man. They've shut down Mixogen and called out the

HazMat Squad."

"You're kidding? Mixogen? I thought they followed code."

"Hell no! The outbreak's all over downtown. Just thought I'd drop by for a newsy

look at your high-bandwidth feed."

Fearon gazed with no small disdain on his bullet-headed fellow scab. Malvern had

the thin fixed grin of a live medical student in a room full of cadavers. He wore his

customary black leather lab coat and baggy cargo pants, their buttoned pockets

bulging with Ziploc baggies of semi-legal jello .

"It's Malvern!" he yelled at the kitchen, where Tupper was leafing through

catalogues.

"How about some nutriceuticals ?" said Malvern. "Our mental edges require

immediate sharpening." Malvern pulled his slumbering weasel, Spike, from a lab

coat pocket and set it on his shoulder. The weasel—biotechnically speaking, Spike

was mostly an ermine—immediately became the nicest-looking thing about the

man. Spike's lustrous fur gave Malvern the dashing air of a Renaissance prince, if

you recalled that Renaissance princes were mostly unprincipled bush-league tyrants

who would poison anyone within reach.

Malvern ambled hungrily into the kitchen.

"How have you been, Malvern?" said Tupper brightly.

"I'm great, babe." Malvern pulled a clamp-topped German beer bottle from his

jacket. "You up for a nice warm brewski?"

"Don't drink that," Fearon warned his wife.

Paul Di Filippo & Bruce Sterling - The Scabs Progress.pdf

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