"I don't know what to say. It wasn't supposed to work out this way-"

"Big Eater must go. Must help the sick ones."

"No, wait! We'll come with you."

I hopped onto an EC jetski. Charmaine dropped down behind me.

"Charm– "

"Forget it! You wanted me along. You're not gonna leave me behind just when things get interesting!"

Big Eater was already gone. I didn't have time to argue.

I gave the ski its codes and powered up the flownodes. We shot off across the water like Neptune and his daughter, outpacing the remaining Eaters.

Once we were beyond the Eater construction, Station Eight appeared, a small isle dotted with some crumbling structures overgrown with vines and weeds from wind-sown seeds.

As we drew nearer, things became clearer. From a few meters offshore, this is what we saw: nutratrees lay on a old launch ramp, while around them stood figures fussing with straps and clamps.

Charmaine recognized them before I did.

"It's– they're Roaches!"

I didn't like the scene and I tried to swerve, but there came a volley of shots and I lost my nerve.

"Beach it! Now!" yelled a gun-toting Roach.

I ran the jetski aground and climbed down.

Charmaine rashly approached the hot-tempered Roach. "Weevil-?"

The Roach eyed us meanly with Orthoptera optics. Resplendent in his winged shell, he had us pinned like bugs with his gun barrel.

"I don't know what you're doing here, Charmaine-how you found us, or whether you're here to help or hinder us-but you can't be allowed to delay our plans. These vars won't stay responsive forever."

"What are you doing to them?" I demanded.

Weevil focused now on my uniform. "A CivServ boy, huh? This must be your brother, Charmaine. It seems we were right not to trust you enough to let you in on the scheme."

"What scheme?"

"These transgenics have been suborned by Krazy Kat himself. A new trope. They're running on a carefully timed set of instructions now. Each one is going to carry an explosive pack up the Chicago River. We're going to breach all the underground utility tunnels beneath the river and flood the whole Loop. All kibernetic maintenance will be brought to a standstill."

"But the poor Eaters… " said Charmaine.

"A few expendables in the cause of freeing their kind."

"No!" I shouted.

Charmaine tried to reason with Weevil. "It's okay to hurt the humans. They deserve it. But can't you spare the splices?"

"Too late. The plan won't tolerate changes. We have to detonate the explosives as soon as they're in place, or risk detection. And that just doesn't give the cows time to escape.

And who really cares? So long as we win. Both of you now-over there, behind that wall."

Under the gun's threat it looked like our sunset. We turned to march off.

And then they came.

A coypu– cow is hardly a dolphin, but they can swim awfully fast and flow like a fountain. Out of the water the remaining loyal Eaters launched themselves up the slippery slope, each one a hundred kilos of wet flesh, that's dope. They bowled over the Roaches like a living wave, coming their human Feeder to save. Knocked the Bugs off their feet, pinning them to the wet grocrete.

I rushed that evil Weevil then, cracking his carapace with a kick and a grin. Gun in hand, I was now topman.

Down to the waterside I sped, looking for one familiar head.

"Cor– by," said Big Eater. "This is what we need pro-tec-tion from?"

"Not any more, Big Guy. More like the other way 'round."

Well, of course it was Krazy Kat himself whom I had talked to in the dark of Captain Ozturk's office. Poor Ozzie-or his corpse anyhow-had been at the interview too. The bad splice had picked me on purpose. You see:

He knew I couldn't handle a glove, Thought I'd be sloppy when push came to shove. Didn't know I took pride in my work– Made that Kat look like a yotta jerk!

Not many humans can claim they've been in a room with the notorious Kat and walked away, and for a while I was the metamedium darling of the hour. It seemed only natural for the EC to reward me with the Khan's job.

And as for Charmaine-well, she was naturally pretty soured on the Roaches, and the Eater Corps was now one Cadet short, and I was head of the Corps-

And you know what kind of town Chicago is.

I was sitting in my office, feeling as bored as the caretaker of a New Mexico solar farm on a cloudy day and wishing for a client. After two months of inactivity, I didn't much care what kind. Any client would do. A socket looking for her runaway plug. A gerry wanting a line to the hottest new semi-illegal, demi-sanctioned golden-age dreamscene. (This year, the hundredth anniversary of Woodstock made that particular nostalgia-ware top of the bops, especially for the original attendees who still survived.) A ten-year-old hoping to silicone slide his way through the legal thicket that blocked the path to full franchise. (The NU Parliament had just lowered the age to twelve, but even that envelope was being pushed by the newest tropes.) Even a grieved and angry spouse itching to get the burst on the mate she suspected of weekly sex-change flings with maffs. I had had them all before, at one time or another, and would no doubt get them all again someday. And when I did, I would take their eft and do what they wanted, no questions asked. Someone with finances as precarious as mine can't afford the same scruples as your average trumps and forbeses. It's an augie-doggie eat augie-doggie world, after all.

But right now it looked like I wouldn't have to worry too much about exercising my ethics. Already noon, and the day was shaping up as dull as a debate between the Green and Conservative candidates for governor of Cuba. In other words, an instant-replay of the past sixty. Outside my self-cleaning windows (one of the nice features of this new building; but I was starting to wonder how much longer I could afford the rent), sunlight glinted off the Charles River. On the far bank bulked the black silicrobe-built bubble the authorities had hastily erected around MIT ten years ago, during the Grey Goo Boo-boo. The hemisphere visible aboveground continued below, forming a completely enclosed sphere. It had gone up in less than twenty-four hours, but it had seemed like as many days. I remember watching, from my front-row seat, along with the rest of the world, as divisions of NU militia, guided by the top cricks and watsons, kept the mocklife tendrils and feelers at bay with water-cannons pumping enzymatic lysing fluid, until the silicrobes could complete the container. No one knew what, if anything, was now going on inside the shell. There hadn't been time to engineer any sensors in. The dome was still patrolled around the clock, by guards in liftcages. It was just another thing you lived with.

I was thinking about popping open a cheer-beer and rastering some thrid-vid (I had become addicted to daytime gameshows, particularly Your Life's on the Line), when I heard footsteps in the hall outside my door. I hastily took my feet down off my desk and tried to project the image that I was busier than a four-armed bartender at happy hour.

The footsteps didn't go past my door, as so many had before. Instead, there came a knock.

I checked the security screen, liked what I saw, and said, "Come in." The door unlatched itself and swung open.

She had on a stylish suit in acidic purple and orange. The jacket had asymmetrical lapels trimmed with blue vat-grown mink; on the larger one was pinned an orchidenia that I could smell from six feet away. Her skirt hung down to her ankles on the left side, but revealed her whole right leg. She wore chrome chopines that added four inches to her height. Her black curly hair was piled high, with a blonde curl dangling down over her forehead. She had canary yellow irises and a small tight mouth. On one cheek she wore a small love cicatrix shaped like the astrological symbol for Venus.