As I climbed the worn steps of familiar old Building Nine (referred to croak jokingly by its residents as the Golden Horn), the slow shadow of a laser entrained dirigible passed over me, and I sadly recalled Mom's long-unsatisfied moonbeam-dream of visiting the Grand Canyon in person. It seemed like everyday strife-life just had a way of mind-grinding a person right down. Look how much eft and trouble I had gone through just to land this cysting lite-servo job, and how events like today's kept conspiring to put me in danger of losing it.

If only, I thought as I rode the smelly elevator upwards (the car was liberally bespotted with the glandular signatures of rival tribes and zokus), if only I could do something really uptaking to show everyone what I was capable of. Maybe then I could get some real security in my life…

Little did I know then the fate-date the near future had in store for me.

On the forty-fourth floor I came to the family door. I could hear Mom and Charmaine yelling right through the macromolecule walls, so I didn't bother knocking but just palmed the sweat-vetter gene-screener and stepped right in.

A burst of overdue deja vu hit me. Nothing had changed in the year 'since I had moved on, and that meant nothing had changed since time began. My childhood Build-a-Cell kit still sat on a shelf. The aging Philips virtuality rig still sported spots of dumbpaint from an attempt at redecoration three years ago. The forever-dying orchidenia plant still clung to life.

Mom had her back to me, blocking sight of Charmaine. When Mom turned and stepped aside, I could see what had made her roughride and chide so snide.

Charmaine had added feelers to go along with her old familiar antennae. And a row of itchy, twitchy buglegs running down each side of her torso. Her clothing had been grommetted to accomodate the new members.

"Oh, no, Charm," I said. "I thought you had given up on the Roaches?… "

My sister had a perez-pretty face, despite the wispy, feathery, living proteoglycan antenna-rods projecting out a good meter from her forehead, iridescent black. But now, messed up with grief, anger, fear, and tears, her face looked really bug-ugly.

"I'll never give up on the Roaches! I was just waiting to add more mods until I got enough eft!"

Mom burst in. "Tell your brother how you got two thousand NU-dollars! Go ahead, tell him!"

Charmaine straightened up defiantly. "Just like you, Ma. I won it at the cats."

Mom glared at me for support. "You heard her. She stole her own mother's stake for the track-my one little luxury-and bet it all on one race. She, jeune fille estupida, who couldn't tell a cheetah from an ocelot!"

"I won, didn't I? And I paid you back double."

"But look how you spent the rest! Mutilating your beautiful body like that!"

"It's my thorax, and I'll do what I want with it! Besides, you're one to talk! You ain't hardly no Miss Baseline Betty yourself!"

I realized that there was something different about Mom that hadn't registered in the confusion till now. She had

had her chocolate complexion spotted-dotted like one of the racing cats She loved. And translucent feline whiskers bristled around her kisser.

"Pah! My little vanity is like my memere's old-fashioned eyeshadow compared to your craziness. And besides, the belle gato is a mammal like us. But roaches-".

That was the match to Charmaine's fuse.

"Go ahead!" she exploded. "Say it! Roaches are bugs! Well, you're not insulting me by saying that. Bugs are glorious! They're not our inferiors, they're our superiors! Bugs were here long before mammals, and they'll be here long after we kill ourselves off! I'm proud to be a Roach! And as soon as I get some more money, I'm gonna get a full carapace! Neurocrine and Berlex are in a price war, and shells're getting cheap as prostaglandins! Weevil has one, and it's beautiful!"

Mom wailed. "Ai-yi-yi! Damballah, Erzulie, and Jesus save me from this disrespectful girl!"

All of a sudden, my legs felt like puddin'. I had heard this whole argument a hundred times before. Their life was on replay, mine was on delay. How long was I going to be trapped while these two yapped? Didn't they see I had my own probs that made my head throb? I was trying to make something of myself after a bad start, but these two fighting were ripping out my heart.

I sat down all dreary-weary in a chair, and my eyes fell on a fishbowl tabletopped near there. In it swam four flaking trilobites. The sight of the watery wigglers reminded me of my job, and I shot to my feet.

"Listen, you're not going to solve anything by yelling at each other. That's no way to act for a daughter and mother. Ma, you and Charmaine both need to get your fingers off the hot buttons. What's done is done and should be forgotten." I had a sudden inspiration. "I'm going to take Charmaine to work with me. We can talk about things and see what we see. I'll bring her back tonight, and we'll all have a meal together."

Mom smiled. "You were always such a good boy, Corby. I knew I could count on you to talk some sense into la cucaracha here."

Charmaine stiffened. "Ma, I'm warning you-"

I grabbed Charmaine by the elbow, brushing one of her new abdominal legs, which jerked reflexively. I hustled her out the door.

"I'll make your favorite, Corby," Mom called out down the hall. "Grilled mammoth steaks!"

We were on the train heading crosstown before Charmaine would talk to me.

"Mammoth steaks!" she huffed. "I'm lucky if she nukes me a lupinovine chop!"

I felt myself relax a little, the annoying rhymes retreating into some unprobed lobe. At least Charmaine wasn't going to stick to her sullen silence. Maybe there was a chance to straighten things out.

"You've got to let up on Ma, Charm. You know she's not exactly the domestic type. And life's been hard for her since Dad died. You shouldn't block her receptors about her gambling, for instance. It's really the one pleasure she's got these days."

Charmaine stiffened, and her new abdominal additions began to wave like the legs of a stepped-on roach. It seemed she didn't quite have full control of them yet.

"What about Me? Ain't I nothing to give her some pleasure? Why can't she take some interest in me and my life, huh? She's always praising you to the skies. But me-all I get is her gleet and pus."

"Charm, there's no need to nasty. Look, Ma likes me better because somehow, I think, I remind her of Dad. And she's proud of me because I got out of the projex. Not that this job is anything much, believe me. As for why she keeps catalyzing your leukotrines, it's-"

"I know, I know, it's the Roaches. Well, I got news for you and Ma. I am not a larv a a ny more, I'm an adult. And my mind is made up. The Roaches are the best thing that ever happened to me. Once a Roach, always a Roach. And pretty soon, I'm gonna be a Roach all the way! And it won't be any too soon. Because big things are gonna happen any day now, and the Roaches-"

Charmaine stopped herself.

"What? What kind of sneaky-freaky things are the Roaches up to?"

Folding all eight of her arms-two baseline and six add-ons-across her body, Charmaine clammed up, and nothing I said would get her to reveal anything further.

When the train pulled into our stop, we got in line to get off and found ourselves behind a Visible Man. The fright-sight of all his working viscera through his transparent gut-bucket made me want to hurl my cereal.

What a mayday payday this was turning out to be!

Aboveground, we stood for a zepto on the tree-green lakeshore. A tart breeze flustered our hair. Sunlight played on the clean waters of Lake Mitch. Not far from the transit stop loomed the headquarters of the Eater Corps, a subdivision of the GLB Authority. Toward this, Charm and I made our way down paulownia shady pedpaths.