Your loving guest son,

CENSORED

Dear Ho*t Moth**,

As you might've guessed by the delay between messages, we've been rerouted.

We're in transit to CEN*****, where we'll get the best of care. They discovered that all surviving members of our pod are suffering from degenerative neurofibrillary protein tangles similar to those found in sufferers of that extinct disease known as Alz********. CENSORED is a kind of sanitarium, where an Al-human team waits to cure us.

They say the average stay at CENSORED is *** months, but could stretch to **** years. Jumping genes! You could be in another symb-bonding by then! Anyway, I can't look that far ahead, as our prognosis is very ****.

Let me repeat that, in case these flares are interfering: we stand a **** chance, not a **** one.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to take any incoming 'voxes from you for a while, or even send any. Not that I'd be able to really appreciate them too good anyhow. My brain seems a little

dull right now. But they promise us that full metamedium contact will be restored as soon as it's appropriate.

But don't worry. You can always contact Brussels for updates.

Just ask for your boy,

CENSORED!

Coney's master was a Virtuality Poet. And he was one of the best. Only Planxty or Bingo Bantam could approach the depth and brilliance of his compositions, and rarely at that. So his master would always tell Coney, especially when he was under the influence of a trope such as Egoboo or Meglo, which left him prone to recite aloud his own reviews, complete with melodramatic flourishes of the crepey folds of velvet skin that hung like batwings from his underarms.

“Hopcroft's latest cortex-vortex is a cell-stunner! Visit to the Mushroom Planet opens with Tenniel's hookah-smoking Caterpillar greeting the percipient with a blast of aromatic smoke. When the cinnamon cloud clears, the perk finds herself on the Mushroom Planet of the title. Fungi lifeforms in startling variety exfoliate and enfold the mind-traveler, who can navigate the construx with more than the standard ten degrees of freedom, thanks to Hopcroft's truly creative use of CoCenSys's Infini-Tree Fabware. The poet's signature use of lush textures and his smorgasbord-gorgeous false-color palette all contribute to a synapse-shattering experience-especially if you're simultaneously running a

coprocessor such as CellSmartz, as this lucky perk was! With this 'strux, Hopcroft delivers on all his past promises and establishes himself as the poet of his cohort."

Throwing the flimsy across the room (to be quickly retrieved by a Braun DoorMaus), Coney's master would spread his batlike membranes wide and exclaim, "'The poet of his cohort!' Did you hear that, Coney?"

"Yes, Peej Hopcroft, I heard."

"It's all gush, of course. But true gush. I am the most accomplished poet of my clade. There's no disputing it, is there, Coney?"

"No indeed. It is just as Peej Reviewer said."

Most likely then-especially if the tropes were wearing off-Coney's master would, at this point in the ritual, collapse into a convenient organiform chair (somehow he was never so distraught as to land on the floor), drape his head with his fleshfolds, and begin to weep.

"But what good does it do me, Coney? This crass society does not respect poets, nor does it honor them with rewards material or spiritual. It never has, and it never will. I am an acquired taste, and then only among a few. The mass of my fellow citizens are Philistines, plain and simple. Siouxsie Sexcrime is their idea of poetry! How can such a sensitive soul as mine endure it, Coney? Ah, but my life is hard, Coney-harder than a stupid transgenic like you could ever imagine. I can barely scrape together enough ecus to pay my Digireal fees. And my art cannot be rushed! This is why I am forced much too often to play the lusty gigaload gigolo!"

Coney knew enough not to interrupt at this point. He would wait with the patience of his kind for the tearful poet to finish his performance.

"Yes," Coney's master would inevitably begin his peroration, "I, the RAM-baud of my cohort, must make ends meet by crawling for pay into the Sack with lascivious starfuckers, eager to boast to their witless friends that they have enjoyed teledildonics with another ii-do tarento whose art they cannot even begin to appreciate!"

At this juncture Coney would venture a comment he hoped would bolster his master's self-esteem and spare himself a collar-jolt.

"Peej Hopcroft only does what he must, to further his art."

If he had by now downed a trope such as Zesta, Coney's master would sigh extravagantly and agree. (Otherwise, the dreaded neuronic zap might be forthcoming, along with the admonition "not to overstep your splicey self with comments about things you couldn't possibly comprehend.")

Tonight– a mild June evening stochastically certified to be rainfree-much to Coney's relief, his stock phrase served its intended purpose. The familiar scene which he had just endured for the nth time played itself out happily for him.

"Yes, little Daewoo Dumbunni, we all do what we must, don't we? Even peddle our arse for the sake of our ars."

Coney had no idea what this last statement meant, but was only too happy to nod his sympathy.

Rising to his feet, Coney's master now said, "And that's why I need you to do your part to make this latest sordid

virtual assignation a success, dear Coney. I have here a new trope called O max-O. It was given to me by one of my fans, a sensitive young plug who works at Xomagraf. It's not available to the hoi polloi yet. He promises me that it will make this digitryst so thrilling for my client that she'll gladly double my Fee. I'm counting on you to deliver it to her within the hour. Her name is Frances Foxx, and this is her address."

Coney's master handed him a crawlypatch and a silicrobe calling card. The card flashed an address in the far west end of the city.

Laboriously tracing a mental map, Coney sought to comprehend his assignment. Finally he spoke.

"This place is quite far. May I take the train?"

"Don't be silly. The train costs eft. The whole point of tonight's dreadful exercise is to earn ecus, not spend them. And besides, the maglev isn't safe for splices, not since those horrid razorboys, the Transgenocides, started haunting the tubes. No, you'll have to walk. You're a speedy little splice, or so the factory claimed. Surely you can cover the distance before Peej Foxx and I are scheduled to crawl into the Sack together."

"But it is night out there."

"So?"

"To make the best time, I will have to cross the Soft Sector. In the dark."

At the thought of such a passage, Coney horripilated.

His master seemed to experience no such somatic dread.

"You force me to repeat myself. so? No one there will pay any attention to you. You're small and insignificant."

"This is the problem."

Coney's master waved the splice's concerns away. "You're exaggerating the difficulties just to extract some concession or luxury from me. Very well, at the completion of your little chore, you may experience one of my sonnets. Perhaps you could dimly appreciate Dance of the Cold Moons."

"Thank you, Peej Hopcroft. Something like extra rations would be very nice. But I would give up everything just not to go. Perhaps you could-"