Everyone In Silico | Page 3

Simone," said Alex, his eyes watching Simone's rapturous face as much as the little dog. Nicky noted the emotions washing over his face and thought, not for the first time, that some couples might as well have childless stamped on their foreheads.
The dog was gnawing on her finger, and Simone was delighted by this. "Oh, Alex, look. It thinks my finger is a bone."
"Heh heh," Alex responded, looking at Nicky with an assessing eye. At this, Nicky held out her hand for the dog, and Simone reluctantly returned it. "So warm..."
"Where'd you get it?" Alex said, trying to sound conversational, taking a sip of his coffee.
"I made her," Nicky said.
"With what?" Alex said dubiously.
"You know those do-it-yourself kits?" Nicky said.
Simone nodded. "I had one of those when I was a kid. Mine didn't work..."
"They never did," Alex said. "They always turned out wrong... messes."
"Yeah," Nicky agreed. "She was my fourth try. I bonsaied her. It took the better part of a year. Even then, it was kind of a fluke. That's her name, actually - Fluky."
"Fluky, oh, that's cute," Simone murmured. She looked at Alex.
Nicky let the dog chew on her finger, trying not to lose her nerve. She thought about JK's bulging grocery bags and forced herself to smile. "Yeah... I've seen a bonsaied tiger go for ten thousand, and it wasn't nearly as unique. It just looked like a cat."
"Ten thousand dollars, huh?" Alex said, almost to himself. He glanced at Simone. "I couldn't see paying more than five..."
Nicky frowned outwardly, while a joyous melody of cash registers ca-ching!-ed in her head.
By the time she got back to her place, the sun was dropping behind the mountains. In the dim light, she could still make out that her front door had been flashed - Can You Afford Not To Upgrade? Go For Self! - but Nicky ignored the giant block letters and let herself in. She had to swipe her watch twice before it snicked open. Cheap piece of shit.
She went into the kitchen and put away her groceries, stuffing the empty bags into a space between the counter and the wall, and remembered she had muted her watch when she went into Starbucks. She checked her messages. One was from her mom, inducing the familiar twinge of mom-guilt. The rest was spam that her filters didn't catch, one of them advertising the next generation of spam filters.
She stopped for a second and debated whether or not she should call her mom back now. She decided she didn't want it hanging over her head when she was in the lab and knew that the longer she waited the greater the chance her mom would go snooping around. She'd know she was home. She'd know Nicky got the message. She kept meaning to disable her mom's ability to track her watch's position, but she knew that would mean a shitstorm of drama. If she needed to be untraceable, she could always take it off and leave it at home, as high school a manoeuvre as that was.
She stood in her kitchen, paralyzed by indecision. She looked at the groceries, unappealing since she had eaten almost a whole packet of Sandwich Fixin's on the way home. She watched a fly loop around and land on her garbage lid. She checked it - three-quarters full. Well, if it's attracting flies I better get rid of it…
She tied it up and lifted it out of the can, watching for a second to see if there were any drippings. As she left her house she realized that the depot closed in 15 minutes, so she picked up her pace, walking the plank to the sidewalk and step-swinging the bag. The setting sun stretched her shadow out, making her look like a lurching zombie coming out to feed.
She admired a grand old house done up in canary yellow. It was similar to her own - at least a hundred years old, a walkway stretching out to the sidewalk to compensate for the fact that it was built on a slope. Nicky loved the style; it made her feel like she was living aboard a pirate ship. Too bad the False Creek flood hadn't happened here, Nicky thought sacrilegiously, I'm sure these things are seaworthy.
She got to the depot and went right up to the scale and plopped the bag down on the belt. It came to $8.343, so she held her watch up to the payplate 'til it dinged and the belt started up.
"Mmm, thanks!" The voice echoed in the empty depot as the stained belt moved the bag towards its black maw. She headed for the door, happy to leave the stinky and somehow creepy place. The recorded voice sounded hungrier than it had when there were even a few people lined up