The Hacker and the Ants (14 page)

The sound was scary, but also fun to listen to, in a sick kind of way. It was as good as the thrash I might hear on like “Ted Bed's Skunk Bunk on the Rhythm Wave of the West, Radio KFJC, 89.7 on your FM dial, broadcasting from Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, California,” a personal favorite. Ted Bed always sounded like he'd been up all night flying on candyflip in a cyberclub.

Most kids couldn't afford their own cyberdecks, but there were plenty of clubs with wall-sized Abbott wafer screens on three out of the four walls. Users in the club wore stereo-shutter flicker glasses. Cheap and dirty video technology would capture their dancing images and put them up into the big cube of shared cyberspace above the dance floor, and the deck would mix the dancers with daemons, simmies, and active tool icons: virtual buttons, dials, and sliders the dancers could use to change the synthetic musical sounds. Flying on a and e:
everyone inside the same rave deck, everyone inside the controls. It would be interesting if the ants showed up in those clubs.
The Attack of the Giant Ants!
It's
Them!

The ants, the ants, the ants. I had a feeling that it was thanks to the ants I'd been fired from GoMotion. Thanks to the ants I'd seen the Death simmie, that thing that called itself Hex DEF6. Thanks to the ants, Hex DEF6 had gotten the opportunity to threaten to have me and my children tortured and killed. As I reached toward the map to turn it off, the ant image rocked her head and let her pixels turn into a plat—a lot-by-lot map—of Nga's street. I turned the map off anyway. I had arrived.

The houses were tidy one-story slab-foundation ranch-style homes, each painted a different pastel color, and each with rosebushes blooming in its front yard. All the houses in sight were architecturally identical, and all were equally well kept up—all save for one gray, run-down, whipped-to-shit number down at the corner. The whipped-to-shit clone had two Toyota minitrucks in the driveway: one good truck and one whipped-to-shit truck with no wheels.

The Vos' house, on the other hand, was pale pink with white and yellow roses and the Vos' car was a beige Dodge Colt. The golden foothills rose up behind the Vo home like stage scenery, warmly lit by the late afternoon sun. Nga greeted me on the small front stoop, her sly adorable face dimpling with smiles. We stepped into the living room, where Nga's parents, aunt, and grandmother sat on two couches.

The room had wall-to-wall carpeting, and the windows were covered with flowered drapes. There was a mat by the front door; I understood that I should remove my shoes. I crouched to get my sandals off, facing a big red and gold calendar from Lion Supermarkets which hung over an assemblage of electronic equipment: a CD
jukebox, a big screen DTV, a gameplayer, and an S-cube deck. On the top of the machines were two white nylon doilies with vases of plastic flowers. There was a Vietnamese religious shrine on the other side of the room. The shrine was a red-painted wooden table holding up narrow corniced shelves, the whole thing a couple of feet wide. On the table were joss sticks, a bowl of fruit, some red tubes holding candle-emulating light bulbs, and a picture of a god. There were other, more mysterious items in wrappings on the shelves.

With much laughing and many interruptions from her mother, Nga introduced me all around. The family consisted of Nga's parents Thieu Vo and Huong Vo, Huong's sister Mong Pham, Huong and Mong's old mother Loan Vu, Mong's son Khanh Pham, who was home but not presently visible, and Nga's two little brothers The and Tho, who were still at school. Nga had an older brother named Vinh as well, “but he not here very often.”

Old Loan Vu had white hair, and said nothing. Her eyes were very slanted. Nga's parents and aunt were slender with broad faces and prominent cheekbones. All of them were interminably smoking cheap cigarettes.

Now Nga's mother Huong led me on a tour of the house. The bedrooms were quite bare, with all the bedding stripped off the large beds save for the flowered bottom sheets. Like the front room, each bedroom had flowered drapes and a red and gold Lion Supermarkets calendar.

In the spotless kitchen, we found Khanh Pham, the one who'd handed me Nga's address at the croissant shop. He was sitting at the round kitchen table reading a motorcycle magazine. He had a big Adam's apple and long, shiny black hair. Seeing us come in, he twitched his head in an abrupt tic-like gesture that served to flip his hair out of his eyes. This nervous motion reminded me of my son Tom.

I was too old to try to date the same-age cousin of a boy like this. My coming here had been a terrible mistake. But now that I'd strayed so far, why not soldier on?

Nga looked me full in the eyes, holding her perfect mouth just so, that knowing mouth with the irregular border on the left edge of its lipsticked upper lip. What a thing it would be to kiss Nga's mouth. I would kiss her for a long time. We would be parked in my car or, even better, sitting in my home. Nga would sigh and put her tiny little hands on my ...

Soldier on, old top, soldier on.

“Do you have a motorcycle?” I asked Khanh Pham.

“I have small motorbike, but my cousin Vinh will get me better one soon.” He spread open the magazine's pages and pointed to a picture of a black Kawasaki. “This kind.”

“That's great!” I said, though Huong and Nga looked nervous at the sound of Vinh's name.

Now The and Tho got home from elementary school and came running into the kitchen to see what was up. They spoke perfect California English and they had burr-cut hair. They wore black shorts and white T -shirts. The was one or two inches taller than Tho. Nga introduced us, and then the two little brothers went out in the backyard to play kickball.

Khanh Pham followed us back into the living room. I sat down in an armchair which reclined abruptly back in the style of a La-Z-Boy. Nga covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. I lurched upright and perched on the edge of the chair.

“What your work?” asked Huong Vo.

“I am a computer programmer,” said I, knowing she would like this answer. “I work for a big company called West West. We are designing personal robots.”

“So. Personal robot. Very nice.” Huong held her
politely composed face just so. She was nearly as beautiful as Nga.

“What can robot do?” asked Khanh.

“Well, it can clean, and bring things, and work in the garden.”

“I don't think we need,” said Nga's mother, shaking her head and laughing. “Children can do.”

“Well, yes. But if someone doesn't have children or a helper, then they might want our robots. And of course there are special functions that our robots can perform.”

Thieu Vo interrupted at this point to get a summary of our conversation from his wife. She filled him in with quick, nasal phonemes. They had some rapid back and forth, and then father Thieu burst out with a comment that sent the rest of the family, even the grandmother, into peals of ambiguous Asian laughter.

“He want to know,” translated Khanh, “if your robot can fight dog.”

“I suppose he could. He's agile and durable. He might hurt the dog.”

“We have neighbor with dog very bad,” said Nga's mother. “He make dirt in our yard and he bark. We scare he bite our The and Tho. Our neighbor don't listen. He don't speak English or Vietnamese.” Meaning that he was Latino.

“His dog pit bull,” put in Nga Vo. “It name Dutch. I wonder can we see your robot fight him.”

“Well . . . okay.” This was my chance to really get in good with the Vos. “As a matter of fact I have my robot in the trunk of my car. Should I get him? His name is Studly.”

“So. Stud Lee.”

The Vo family followed me outside to see Studly get out of the trunk of my car. Bass-heavy music drifted down the street from the whipped-to-shit house—the bad
dog's home, of course. I popped the trunk.

“Okay, Studly, time to get out!”

“This is not West West,” observed Studly, once he was out on the sidewalk. “What do you want me to do here, Jerzy?”

“Studly, this is the Vo family. Bow to them.”

Studly raised up on his legs and motored backward and forward to sweep his body through a deep smooth bow. “I am pleased to meet the Vo family.”

The Vos laughed meaninglessly.

“Studly, this here is the Vos' property.” I pointed to the house and yard. “I want you to defend the Vos' property from a pit bull dog named Dutch.”

“Where is a pit bull dog named Dutch, Jerzy?”

“He always in front room in gray house at 5782,” said Nga Vo. “Nobody know when he come out.”

“I can make Dutch come out,” yelled small Tho in his T-shirt. Whooping shrilly, Tho ran up onto the stoop of 5782 and jumped up and down until there was some sign from within. Tho turned on his heels and tore back toward us. The door of the run-down gray house flew open and a heavy, low-set dog came charging out, barking furiously.

The Vos and I hurried back up on their front stoop to give Studly a clear battlefield. “Git him, Studly,” I repeatedly called, hoarsening my voice. “Git him! Git the dog!”

The Vos cheered along: “Stud Lee! Stud Lee! Stud Lee!”

Except for Studly and Dutch, the yards and sidewalks were deserted. Across the street were more pastel houses, and above them you could see the smog of San Jose, and above that the eternal blank blue California sky with the western sun beating down.

Studly was standing high up on his flexed legs, balancing himself with nervous back-and-forth rollings of
his wheels. He had his pincer-manipulator closed tight, and his human-shaped hand was clenched into a fist. The dog all but ignored Studly in his rush toward the Vos' steps, but Studly pushed forward into the dog's path and, quite suddenly, brought his fist down on the dog's head.

Dutch yelped in surprise, then snarled in rage. Studly pressed his advantage and used his pincer to give the dog a sharp poke in his side. “Go away,” said Studly. “Bad dog. Go away.”

The sound of the robot's voice set off an attack reflex in the pit bull, and he sprang at Studly's body. Studly nearly toppled over backward, but he was able to spin his wheels in reverse quickly enough to balance himself.

Dutch took that for a retreat, and now belligerently made his stand, planting his feet and putting his head down low to bark the more aggressively. Quite undaunted, Studly surged forward and aimed another blow of his fist at Dutch's head.

The dog flinched back and Studly kept on coming. He got in a good poke with his pincer-hand, and then Dutch was in full flight. Studly chased him all the way to his house, leaving him sitting on his front stoop pretending he wasn't interested.

“Come back, Studly,” I called.

The Vos were still cheering Studly's victory when the gray house's door opened and a heavyset bearded man stepped out. He wore jeans and a T -shirt, and he had homemade tattoos on his thick arms.

“What the fuck you fuckheads doin'?” he hollered.

I stood on the sidewalk with Studly, me in my shorts, sandals, flashy shirt, and patterned socks.

“Oh, hi there,” I called. “I've just been showing the Vo family my robot. If we're not careful, he might kill your dog. I hope you can keep your dog away from the Vos' yard!”

“You keep your fuckin' robot away from
my
fuckin' yard!”

“Yes, indeed!” I said, grinning away. “Live and let live!”

“Fuckin' geek!” shouted Dutch's owner, but went heavily back into his home, the dog slinking in after.

The Vos discussed all this in Vietnamese for a minute, and then Nga's mother Huong Vo put the question, “How much robot like that cost?”

“Well they're not for sale quite yet. But they are going to be fairly expensive. Maybe fifty thousand dollars at first. Twenty thousand for the software kit and thirty thousand for the parts. And if you don't assemble it yourself, the labor can run another ten or twenty thousand.”

“Who will buy?”

“The companies are trying to figure that out.” To put it mildly. None of us was sure if there would be a market for personal robots at all. For hackers like me, the push to build small autonomous robots was not about financial gain. For us, designing mobile robots was a quasireligious quest, a chance to participate in the Great Work of handing off the torch of life to the world of the machines. But there was no point trying to explain this to someone as practical-minded as Mrs. Vo. I cleared my throat and cut to the chase.

“Uh, say, would it be all right if I took Nga out for dinner and a movie tonight?”

Huong Vo was ready for this one. “We very happy you have dinner
here
,” she smiled with an emphatic nod. Her sister Mong Pham smiled and nodded at me, too. Dinner
here.

“You and Nga sit on patio,” Mong Pham suggested. “Huong and I fix dinner.”

Tho got the kickball from the backyard, and then he and Studly began playing soccer against Khanh and The
in the driveway. To maneuver better, Studly rose up into a crouch, though not so high that Khanh and Tho could kick the ball between his legs.

“Robot very smart,” said Nga admiringly. “Now we sit on patio.”

She led me in through the living room, where father Thieu Vo and grandmother Loan Vu had started watching a maximum-volume Vietnamese TV show. What with 1024 digital channels on Fibernet San Jose, there were over a dozen Vietnamese channels to choose from, and Thieu and Loan were watching four of them at once: one in each quarter of the big screen. They were smoking like chimneys, and the digital TV noise was a weird blend of news, drama, variety show, and home shopping channel. The screen was a big cheap Abbott wafer whose colors were mostly beige and pink. Though Loan ignored me, Thieu smiled and nodded at me and said, “Stud Lee!”