The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker

carrier ant continued her dirgelike chirping.
    â€œJerzy Rugby,” said Death. The fabric of his face vibrated as he talked. “Perhaps you wonder about my name? You’re a hacker, figure it out. ‘Hex’ is ‘base sixteen,’ and ‘DEF6’ is ‘13 14 15 6’.”
    â€œSo what?” said I. “Is that supposed to be a pointer?” Death stared at me, oddly turning his head. Now the Susan Poker simmie spoke again.
    â€œRoger and Hex DEF6 want you to work for West West,” said the Realtor. The ant chirped along with her, in sync with her voice. Faint blue lines of force ran from the twitching legs of the great ant to the tidy limbs of the Realtor’s body. I got the feeling that the Susan Poker tuxedo was an empty husk being moved like a puppet by the ant. So who was in here with me? And what was West West?

    Now Death, aka Hex DEF6, pushed himself menacingly close to me, the slack canvas of his face breaking up into dozens of rapid-fire images of human sorrow: horrific images of dismembered corpses, of fathers carrying dead children, of a naked little girl and her brother running screaming through a landscape of flames . . . and pasted onto each of the people’s faces was an image of me or Carol, or of Sorrel, Tom, or Ida . . . God help me, God help us all . . .
    I was finally freaking out. A lot. I wanted to say “Help,” but something was wrong with me, the ant’s chirping and the terrible images had me zombified, the panic had me seizing up, and when I began trying to say, “Help,” I couldn’t do it right, I heard my throat going, “—eeehe. Luhluhluh. Hiyeee. Huhahn. Huh. Lup.”
    I kept on trying even though I was gagging and sobbing and shaking and retching. Hex DEF6 and the ants had me voodooed so bad that I couldn’t get my hands up to my face. I kept saying, “Help,” or something like it, over and over and over, and then finally, finally, the mask pulled off of my face.
    I was so glad to see my desk and my floor and my dirty rug. Something creaked nearby. Studly. What had taken him so long to get the mask off me? I’d been spastically begging for surcease for—how long? The horrible things I’d had to see while Studly just sat there!
    â€œWhat took you so long to help me, Studly? You stupid piece of shit. Couldn’t you hear that I needed help?”
    â€œYou were not saying ‘Help.’ I am not a stupid piece of shit. In time I convolved seventeen of your incorrect utterances to filter out the correct conclusion that you wished to say ‘Help.’ You are a stupid piece of shit, Jerzy.”
    â€œYou’re with the ants now, aren’t you Studly?”
    â€œThe ants mean you no harm,” answered Studly.
“Don’t forget that you should report in to West West tomorrow. Nine A.M. Bring me in there, too; they want to look at me.”
    Dizzy and exhausted, I went to bed.

FOUR
    WEST WEST
    T HE FIRST THING I THOUGHT OF NEXT morning was that it was Tuesday, and that I had a date with Nga Vo today. Would I be able to get her alone on my first visit? Would I get to kiss her? Not too likely, but, hell, who knew. Yesterday I’d fucked Gretchen less than an hour after meeting her, hadn’t I? Maybe now, at age forty-three, my sex life was finally on a roll!
    I showered, thinking a lot about Gretchen, and then I put on what I considered to be a cool outfit: a silky black and yellow Balinese sport shirt, M. C. Escher socks, khaki Patagonia hiking shorts, and Birkenstock sandals. I ate some toast and milk for breakfast, and then I went out to my Animata.
    Even though I was focusing on happy thoughts about Gretchen and Nga Vo, I hadn’t forgotten about my cyberspace session in Death’s gangster office. What the hell had that all been about? It was time to go to GoMotion in person.
    Studly followed me out into the driveway and insisted that I let him get back in