The Hacker and the Ants by Rudy Rucker Page B

go work for something called West West,” I told him.
    â€œWhere do you get that?” asked Trevor.
    â€œLast night I saw Roger with the ants in cyberspace. They were very insistent that West West was the place for me. Very very insistent.”
    â€œWest West,” said Trevor wonderingly. “The lowest circle of Hell.”
    â€œWhat Trevor? What do you mean?”
    â€œThe West West guys are . . . shall we say opportunistic ? They get sued a lot, and a lot of the time they lose. When they lose, they fold and they reorganize. They’ve had three different names that I know of, and it’s always the same guys. They’re the U.S. branch of a Taiwanese company called Seven Lucky Overseas. You remember that kitchen robot that killed the baby? The Choreboy?”
    Every robotics hacker remembered the Choreboy. The Choreboy was supposed to be able to cook and baby-sit. But the Choreboy had very poor pattern-recognition abilities. One Thanksgiving, a family wanted to take a stroll. The baby was quietly asleep in its crib and the turkey was on the kitchen table, stuffed and ready to be roasted. The family told the Choreboy to keep an eye on the baby and to put the turkey in the oven while they were out. The family came home to find the Choreboy leaning over the crib and crooning a lullaby to ... the naked turkey . Obviously the machine had flipped a few bits the wrong way, but? With dawning horror, the family ran to fling open the oven door—it was too late. The baby had never
had a chance once the Choreboy had shoved the spike of the meat thermometer into its heart.
    â€œThe Choreboy was a Seven Lucky machine, programmed by West West, or whatever they were calling themselves then,” continued Trevor. “And before the Choreboy—that was either the first or the second time, I can’t remember—these guys lost a fifty-million-dollar lawsuit to GoMotion for doing a byte-for-byte knockoff of the Iron Camel. They hadn’t even bothered to change our programmers’ names in their source code! You should hear Roger Coolidge talking about West West. He hates them.”
    â€œThen why would he want me to work there?”
    â€œAre you sure it was really him you talked to in cyberspace, Jerzy?”
    â€œNo, I’m not. I’m not sure at all. That’s why I want to talk to Roger in person. Where is he?”
    â€œRoger went to Switzerland last night.” We’d turned and started walking back toward GoMotion. Trevor seemed nervous. “Roger’s the one who told Jeff Pear to fire you. And, get this, Jerzy, he had me set your access level to negative 32K on all the networks GoMotion subscribes to. You’re out beyond the pale, guy.”
    Off the Net! It was like losing my driver’s license. “But, but, what did I do? Was there something wrong with my work on the Veep?”
    â€œJerzy, I’ll be totally frank. I don’t know what the hell is happening.” We were standing in front of the GoMotion building. Trevor squinted at me in the bright sun. “All I can say is that if I were in your position, I wouldn’t believe anyone .” He shrugged and turned to go.
    â€œWait, Trevor, wait. What about my computer? And my robot, Studly. GoMotion owns them. Do I have to give my computer back in?” If losing Net privileges was
like losing my driver’s license, losing my cyberdeck would be like losing my ability to walk.
    â€œFunny you should ask. Roger Coolidge made a special point of telling Jeff Pear to let you keep your robot and your computer. Jeff already mailed you a letter about it. Roger said your machines are contaminated. Roger said that if Jerzy Rugby has any sense, he’ll smash up his machines and crush the chips with pliers. He actually said that.”
    â€œFuck that. The cyberspace deck is a fifty-thousand-dollar box. It’s all I’ve got.”
    â€œYou tell ‘em, Jerzy. Look out for number