Hylozoic by Rudy Rucker Page B

kill them myself, but I don’t have that kind of finely tuned control. In any case, it’s going to be tricky. They’re not ordinary matter, after all.”
    â€œMaybe Jayjay can erase them by undoing what he did to all those atoms,” suggested Thuy. “Like I said before. Computer science.” Not that this was a field she’d ever taken much interest in.
    â€œGo there and see,” urged Gaia. “Meanwhile I’ll be planning my volcanoes, just in case.” Her image mutated into a dense swarm of gnats.
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    Thuy drew back into ordinary consciousness. She was slumped in her chair like any pighead on the nod. Jil gave her an unfriendly glance. Thuy did a remote teep check on Yolla Bolly. Although she could make out their empty cabin, the connection went sparkling and gauzy when she tried to see into the surrounding woods. The only way to size up the aliens was going to be face-to-face.
    â€œI overheard you telling Gaia that we’re going to Yolla Bolly,” said Jayjay. “I’m ready.”
    â€œLook!” said Chu, sounding satisfied. “We have guns.”
    The men had been gathering weapons. A candy-cane striped bazooka lay on the patio beside two futuristic pistols: a smooth, blue raygun and a knotted shape of wires and crystals.
    â€œWe borrowed these from a place called Seven Wiggle Labs!” said Ond enthusiastically. “It’s run by two vibby geeks who used to work with me at ExaExa.”
    â€œI’m a stonker,” teeped the blue raygun with the triangular fins. He had a reedy tenor voice.
    â€œI’ll test it,” yelled Momotaro and snatched up the stonker. With a hyperactive cackle, he fired at a yellow-cushioned chair. A wavery femtoray flowed from the muzzle and the cushions’ color drained away. The chair glazed over with symmetric patterns of frost, let out a plaintive creak, and collapsed into cubes that broke into still smaller cubes that crumbled into dust.
    â€œIt’s supposed to shatter jaggedly,” complained the blue raygun via teep. “I don’t like cubes.”
    â€œJagged or not, that gun might slow down some aliens, huh, Thuy?” said Jayjay.
    Momotaro danced across the yard, teeking stones into the air and disintegrating them in mid-flight. A couple of Jil’s shoons skipped along in his wake.
    â€œAnd look at this vibby bazooka,” said Jayjay. “It’s a gobble gun.” The helical stripes of red and white were continually rotating around the outer surface of the bazooka’s tube, always in the same place, yet appearing to crawl forward—like a barber pole.
    â€œBe sure and hold me out to one side when you shoot me,” advised the device in a solemn fat-man voice.
    Meanwhile Thuy picked up the third weapon, a glittery pistol made of crystals and metal wrap. Its knobby grip was of entwined silver and copper strands. Its barrel was a wire-wrapped line of rhomboidal crystals, ranging in size from dice to ice cubes. It was like an extravagant piece of jewelry, an objet d’art. She could begin to see the allure of exotic weaponry.
    â€œI’m the opposite of the stonker,” the gun teeped in a sweet soprano whisper. “I’m a klusper. I overload atoms with information and they vibrate faster and faster, until the target gets all crispy and bursts into flame.”
    â€œI want to shoot at the aliens!” yelled Momotaro.
    â€œAbsolutely not,” said Jil. With a lashing gesture of her mind, she teeked the stonker from Momotaro’s grasp. It made an audible slap as it landed against her palm. “I think Thuy and Jayjay need to leave now,” she added.
    â€œI’ll take the stonker,” said Chu. “I’m going with them. Nobody wants me around here anyway.”
    â€œDon’t be silly, Chu,” said Ond. “I love you, Nektar loves you, and so does Jil and your new brother and sister.”
    â€œI want to