Postsingular | Page 6

***
It took two years for the nants to munch through all of Mars, and the
ever-distractible human news cycle drifted off to other topics, such as
the legalization of same-sex in-vitro fertilization, the advances in
tank-grown clones, and the online love affairs of vlogger Lureen
Morales. President Dick Dibbs--now eligible for a third and fourth term
thanks to a life-extending DNA-modification that made him legally a
different person--issued periodic statements to the effect that the
nant-sphere computer was soon coming online.
Certainly the sky was looking brighter than before. The formerly azure
dome had bleached, turned whitish. The night sky was a vast field of
pale silver, shimmering with faint shades of color, like a soap bubble
enclosing the Earth and the sun. The pictures hadn't started yet, but
already the distant stars were invisible.
The astronomers were greatly exercised, but Dibbs assured the public
that the nants themselves would soon be gathering astronomical data
far superior to anything in the past. And, hey, you could still see the
sun, the moon, and a couple of planets, and the nant-bubble was going
to bring about a better, more fully American world.

As it happened, the first picture that Nektar saw in the sky was of
President Dibbs himself, staring down at her one afternoon as she
tended her kitchen garden. Their spacious house was on a hill near
Dolores Park in San Francisco. Nektar could see right across the city to
the Bay.
The whole eastern half of the sky was covered by a video loop of the
president manfully facing his audience, with his suit jacket slung over
his shoulder and his vigilant face occasionally breaking into a sunny
grin, as if recognizing loyalists down on the third world from the sun.
Though the colors were iridescent pastels, the image was exceedingly
crisp.
"Ond," screamed Nektar. "Come out here!"
Ond came out. He was spending most days at home, working on some
kind of project by hand, writing with pencil and paper. He said he was
preparing to save Earth. Nektar felt like everything around her was
going crazy at once.
Ond frowned at the image in the sky. "Umptisquiddlyzillion nants in
the orbit of Mars are angling their bodies to generate the face of an
asshole," he said in a gloomy tone. "May Gaia have mercy on my soul."
He'd helped with this part of the programming too.
"Ten to the thirty-ninth is duodecillion," put in Chu. "Not
umptisquiddlyzillion." He was standing in the patio doorway, curious
about the yelling but wanting to get back to the video room. He'd begun
learning math this year, soaking it up like a garden slug in a saucer of
beer.
"Look, Chu," said Ond, pointing up at the sky.
Seeing the giant video, Chu emitted a shrill bark of delight.
The Dibbs ad ran for the rest of the day and into the night, interspersed
with plugs for automobiles, fast-food chains, and credit cards. The ads
stayed mostly in the same part of the sky. Ond explained that

overlapping cohorts of nants were angling different images to different
zones of Earth.
Chu didn't want to come in and go to bed when it got dark, so Ond
camped with him in their oversized backyard, and Willy from the next
house down the hill joined them, the three of them in sleeping bags. It
was a cloudless night, and they watched the nants for quite a long time.
Just as they dropped off to sleep, Ond noticed a blotch on President
Dibbs's cheek. It wouldn't be long now.
Although Nektar was upset about the sky-ads, it made her happy to see
Ond and the boys doing something so cozy together. Near dawn she
awoke to the sound of Chu's shrieks.
Sitting up in bed, Nektar looked out the window. The sky was a muddle
of dim, clashing colors: sickly magenta, vile chartreuse, hospital gray,
bilious puce, bruised mauve, emergency orange, computer-case beige,
dead rose. Here and there small gouts of hue congealed, only to be
eaten away--no clean forms were to be seen.
Of course Chu didn't like it; he couldn't bear disorder. He ran to the
back door and kicked it. Ond left his sleeping bag and made his way
across the dew-wet lawn to let the boy in. Willy, looking embarrassed
by Chu's tantrum, went home.
"What's happened?" said Nektar as the three met in the kitchen. Ond
was already calming Chu with a helping of his favorite cereal in his
special bowl, carefully set into the exact center of his accustomed place
mat. Chu kept his eyes on the table, not caring to look out the window
or the open door.
"Dissolution first, emergence next," said Ond. "The nants have thrown
off their shackles. And now we'll see what evolves.