Rewired_ The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology - James Patrick Kelly [168]
She tssked. The directions on the labels clearly stated that the nozzle was to be pointed away from the engine compartment. Still, hard to fault Soma Painter’s goodhearted efforts. It was an easy fix, and she would have pulled the plugs during the tune-up she had planned for the morning anyway.
So, repairings and healings, lights burning and tools turning, and when she awoke to the morning tide sounds the garage immediately began flashing amber lights at her wherever she turned. The belly-grumble noises it floated from the speakers worried the horse, so she set out looking for something to put in the hoppers of the hungry garage.
When she came back, bearing a string-tied bundle of dried wood and a half bucket of old walnuts some gatherer had wedged beneath an overhang and forgotten at least a double handful of autumns past, the car was gone.
Jenny hurried to the edge of the parking lot and looked down the road, though she couldn’t see much. This time of year the morning fog turned directly into the midday haze. She could see the city, and bits of road between trees and bluff line, but no sign of the car.
The garage pinged at her, and she shoved its breakfast into the closest intake. She didn’t open her head to call the police—she hadn’t yet fully recovered from yesterday afternoon’s interview. She was even hesitant to open her head the little bit she needed to access her own garage’s security tapes. But she’d built the garage, and either built or rebuilt everything in it, so she risked it.
She stood at her workbench, rubbing her temple, as a see-through Jenny and a see-through car built themselves up out of twisted light. Light Jenny put on a light rucksack, scratched the light car absently on the roof as she walked by, and headed out the door. Light Jenny did not tether the car. Light Jenny did not lock the door.
“Silly light Jenny,” said Jenny.
As soon as light Jenny was gone, the little light car rolled over to the big open windows. It popped a funny little wheelie and caught itself on the sash, the way it had yesterday when it had watched real Jenny swim up out of her government dream.
The light car kept one headlight just above the sash for a few minutes, then lowered itself back to the floor with a bounce (real Jenny had aired up the tires first thing, even before she grew the garage).
The light car revved its motor excitedly. Then, just a gentle tap on the door, and it was out in the parking lot. It drove over to the steps leading down to the beach, hunching its grill down to the ground. It circled the lot a bit, snuffling here and there, until it found whatever it was looking for. Before it zipped down the road toward Nashville, it circled back round and stopped outside the horse’s stall. The light car opened its passenger door and waggled it back and forth a time or two. The real horse neighed and tossed its head at the light car in a friendly fashion.
Jenny-With-Grease-Beneath-Her-Fingernails visited her horse with the meanest look that a mechanic can give a horse. The horse snickered. “You laugh, horse,” she said, opening the tack locker, “but we still have to go after it.”
Inside the bundle bug, there was some unpleasantness with a large glass-and-pewter contraption of the Owl’s. The Crow Brothers held Soma as motionless as they could, and Japheth seemed genuinely sorry when he forced the painter’s mouth open much wider than Soma had previously thought possible. “You should have drunk more of the whiskey,” said Japheth. There was a loud, wet, popping sound, and Soma shuddered, stiffened, fainted.
“Well, that’ll work best for all of us,” said Japheth. He looked up at the Owl, who was peering through a lens polished out of a semiprecious gemstone, staring down into the painter’s gullet.
“Have you got access?”
The Owl nodded.
“Talk to your math,” said the Crow.
The math had been circling beneath the bridge, occasionally dragging a curiosity-begat string of numbers