"What are you trying to do, make me late?"

"Yes," she said.

"Come on out to the car, Fish Lady, and take me to the airport. We'll take care of unfinished business when I get back."

"You are no fun," she said.

"Yeah, well."

"Our best times were always during the day," she said.

He remembered now that it was true. When he worked at home he also slept a weird schedule, different from hers, with a lot of all- nighters at the computer, either programming or writing on his dissertation. Then he'd get up in the morning, go to class or go out riding, and when he got home and showered there she'd be, waiting for him as he came naked into the bedroom.

That was how this new one got conceived, only that day she hadn't even been waiting fo r him, she'd been sitting on the edge of the bed, talking on the phone. It took only a moment of hearing her say "Mm-hm" and "Of course" and "You poor thing" for Step to realize that she was talking to Sister Boompjes, who was always good for an hour of misery. Not serious misery, not anything that anyone could do anything about; she just needed to make sure that someone knew she was alive, and since her arthritis and her lack of mail and the nasty neighbor children were the only events in her life, that was what she talked about. As DeAnne had said more than once before, for Sister Boompjes's rosary of woes to have a therapeutic effect, someone had to be on the other end of the phone, but it didn't take her full attention.

So while DeAnne was murmuring encouragement to Sister Boompjes, Step methodically removed her clothing. DeAnne's only protest was to roll her eyes-she appreciates the distraction, Step concluded, and so he went ahead. DeAnne never ceased in her sweet reassurances to this lonely sister, even as her husband eased her back on the bed and gave her a slow, thorough workout. DeAnne was usually a little noisy when things went well for her, but she managed to get all the way through without making a sound except for breathing very, very heavily, and of course she had covered the mouthpiece of the phone to conceal that from dear Sister Boompjes, so that the woman got the audience she wanted while DeAnne got laid.

The only real consequence was that DeAnne, having been on the phone, had not prepared herself with contraceptive foam, and sure enough, within a week she was nauseated and two weeks later she didn't have her clockwork period. Tie joke between them was that every time they had unprotected sex they got a pregnancy, and once again it held true. This would be either baby number four or miscarriage number three, all because he got randy while DeAnne was on the phone. They thought of naming the child after Sister Boompjes if it was a girl, but then they decided that no American child named Wilhelmina could live a normal life.

Daytime was their best time for sex, that was true. That had never occurred to either of them when they decided he needed to take a job, that having him gone every day would really foul up their sex life.

Out in the car, Robbie was busy trying to make Betsy's life miserable, which wasn't hard because she could be brought to furious tears with a funny look. Only when they were on 421 heading west to the airport did he remember. "I left Name of the Rose back in the office," he said.

"What's that?"

"A book. I was going to read it at nights during the convention. While the others are all out getting drunk at parties."

"Don't you have anything else to read?"

"I'll buy a magazine."

"No, we have time," said DeAnne. "Your luggage is all carryon, isn't it?"

It was. She pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot and then swung back out onto 421 heading east, and in a few minutes turned right on Palladium and there he was at Eight Bits Inc. at two o'clock on a day when he was supposed to catch a two-thirty flight. Oh, well, he thought, this is as close as a Mormon can get to living on the edge.

The Name of the Rose wasn't in his office. Where had he last been reading it?

He burst into the pit, practically flying, saying, "Hi, can you believe I'm so stupid I'm probably going to miss my flight for a book?" And there it was on the counter. He picked it up, turned to leave-and realized that they were all looking at him strange ly. "What, my pants aren't zipped?" he asked.

Then he noticed that three of the screens showed views that were obviously from Hacker Snack.

"Is that what I think it is?" he asked.

"It was sort of a secret project," said one of the guys. "Kind of a surprise."

"Yeah," said Step. "I'm surprised."

They said nothing, and Step said "Bye," and then he was out the door, down the corridor, out the front door to where DeAnne was waiting in the car.

"What took so long?" she said. "I don't know if we can make it in fifteen minutes."

"Speed," he said.

"That's your talent," she said.

"Guess what I'm going to do in San Francisco," said Step.

"What?"

"Quit this damn job."

"What?"

"And when I get home I'm going to find me a lawyer and I'm going to sue their asses off."

DeAnne looked horrified. "Step, I know the kids are going to learn language like that but I'd rather they didn't learn it from you."

"Aren't you the teensiest bit curious as to why I'm going to sue their elbows off?"

"Thank you. And yes, I'm more than a little curious, yes."

"Because those sons-of-bitches have been adapting Hacker Snack for the 64 behind my back."

She winced.

"Pardon me. Not sons-of-bitches, kids, bastards."

She looked angry. "Give it a rest, Step."

"They never asked permission, they never offered to buy it, there's no contract, no agreement to a royalty, and they never once breathed a single word, and I thought these guys were my friends."

"That's no reason to take it out on me and the kids, Step."

"I'm not taking it out on you!"

"You're yelling and you're using language that I don't want to have to explain to the children."

Step leaned over and looked at the kids in the back seat. "I'm not mad at you kids. Some people at work have been doing something really sneaky and bad to me and so I'm angry at them. And as for the words I used, those are words that you shouldn't ever use except when somebody you trusted has stabbed you in the back, and on those occasions you have my permission to use those words but not in front of your mother."

"Thanks so much," said DeAnne.

"Like I'm sure they'll remember this conversation ten years from now."

"Somebody stabbed you?"

"It's a figure of speech, Robbie," said DeAnne. "Nobody stabbed your father. Though I might, in another minute."

"I'm sorry," said Step. "I was out of line. But I'm so ..." He hunted for the word.

"Mad."

"Mad." It wasn't the word he had wanted, but then the word he wanted probably didn't exist.

"So you're going to quit."

"Absolutely. I'm going to sue them for so much money I end up owning the company and then I'll fire them."

"Just a suggestion, Step," she said.

"Yes."

"Don't quit in San Francisco. They might cancel your ticket and we don't have enough on the Visa to let you charge a return fare."

"Yes, well," he said. "I suppose I'll wait till I get home."

"And maybe it was all a misunderstanding, did you think of that? Maybe somebody didn't realize that you had signed an agreement that excluded Hacker Snack. Maybe Mr. Keene didn't know that they were working on this."

"Maybe pigs have wings."

"Flying pigs!" cried Robbie. Flying pigs were a standing joke in the family-DeAnne even had two ceramic flying pigs and one stuffed one, which she kept on a shelf beside the mirror in the bathroom. "Watch out below!" The idea of flying pigs defecating on pedestrians had been Step's contribution to the family's flying-pig lore, and of course that was the part that Robbie loved best.