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string tied beneath its chin, popped out of the carpet. "Call for Missus
Durgov!" it cried. It held an orange portable phone, its antenna extended, in
one hand. "Damned pop-ups!"
"We're quarks now!"
As soon as Ingrid had the phone, she tried to kick the quark. It stuck out its
tongue, wiggled its ears, and disappeared. Ingrid, looking furious, spat into
the phone, "You again! I told you ... No! ... No!
You can't! ... I'll tell the phone not to accept your calls. I'll ...
What do you mean, I can't? Of course I can!"
Her hand shaking, she held the phone before her face and scowled.
Michael thought she was wishing it were an old fashioned phone that could be
slammed into a cradle. But portable phones cannot be treated in that way.
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Almost delicately, she used one forefinger to touch the button that terminated
the call. Then she pushed the antenna into its socket and hurled the phone at
the wall. She did not seem very satisfied as she
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stared at the dent in the plaster. The phone seemed unharmed in the moment
before it faded away. "Who was it?" asked Michael. "No one." She dropped what
was left of her cigarette on the carpet and stepped on it.
When she lifted her foot, it was gone. The distinctive ring of a phone once
more echoed through the apartment. She froze, clamped her mouth in a rigid
line, and said, "How many phones have I got?"
"Seven," said a pale green quark from the window sill. The bill of its white
gimmee cap said "Inventory" in orange letters. "Though you turned one off."
Then it added helpfully, "This is the purple one."
She sighed as the bellboy quark once more appeared, singing out, "Call for
..." This time the kick connected, and "No!"
Ingrid screamed into the mouthpiece. Then she was holding the phone toward
Michael. "For you," she said. "A man."
When he put it to his ear, he heard a voice that seemed almost familiar:
"Did you know your meat is dead?" Before he could answer, the voice began to
giggle. He stared at the phone in his hand. It was quivering.
"I'm dead?"
"What?"
"My meat."
"Let's see." Ingrid looked thoughtful for a moment, and a piece of wall became
a screen displaying a bit of newsprint. "See? A burglar."
Michael shook his head. "No. It can't have been a burglar, not really.
That voice ... He wanted me. Not my money."
"But why?"
"He didn't say. And that's a damned short obit."
Ingrid grinned at his last, disgruntled words, almost laughing, but then the
bellboy popped into existence beside Michael, snatched the phone from his
hand, cried "Call waiting!", passed it to her, and ducked away from her foot.
She said nothing at all before she dropped the phone on the floor and stepped
on it. Michael was quiet. The news of his death was no surprise. He hadn't
expected to live much longer anyway. That it was murder was a shock. He had
thought he had left all his enemies years behind him. In addition, he was
wondering about Ingrid and her reaction to all those other phone calls. Had
she had a lover--or lovers-before his arrival in the virtual world? Had they
had a date for last night or today? Was the caller outraged, jealous, mad? And
if what he had heard didn't really sound like any of those possibilities, what
else could it be?
When he looked once more at the street outside, the dogwalker was gone.
So was the miniature derelict who had accosted her. The Heaven-Sent were still
in place. Three of the caf's tables were now occupied. Someone was entering
the newsstand. Ingrid took his now-empty mug from his hand.
"Want to take a walk?"
"Do they have papers over there?"
"Of course they do." # "Psst!"
One of Michael's guilty pleasures had always been the newspaper comics page.
That was why he had never cared for the New York Times, no matter how good its
news was. That was also why he had been delighted to find
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that the Virtual City Times had six whole pages of comics, every one he had
ever seen, including some he had never seen in English, and a few that he had
never seen at all. Were they local products?
"Psst!"
He looked up from the page. Ingrid was no longer in the chair opposite him.
Something tugged on his pants. He lowered the paper and looked down. The
bellboy quark stood beside his leg, looking over its shoulder toward the
kitchen where noises suggested that Ingrid had decided it was time to do
something about lunch. It was holding a pale green phone this time. "Sir!" it
said. "It's really for you, you know. Take it!"
Perplexed--who could be calling him? Rose?--Michael accepted the phone and
held it to his ear. The bellboy disappeared even before he said, "Hello?"
"Michael!"
"Lisa?"
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