The paper ended with a speculation by Hackle on the possible future of such a system. ‘One can imagine a time when this new kind of knowledge will be put to use in the real world. For instance, we could mate everything we know about mathematics, with everything we know about flag-waving. The babydata would be the mathematics of flag-waving. A new science! But why stop our imaginings so soon? Let us mate this new baby with everything known about ice cream. The result? The mathematics of waving flags made out of ice cream. Everything known about driving a car? Excellent! The mathematics of driving flags made out of vanilla-cars. Astronomy? Dominoes? No problem. Flag- driving of numbered vanilla-bones on the moon.
‘We must imagine a world filled with these highly specialized disciplines. Most will be completely useless and will soon be extinct. Others will be all-powerful. They will mate in turn. I no longer know whether to be excited or terrified at this prospect.’
Daisy, the same. She turned to the contents page of the mag. Was there anything else by Hackle? No. But his name caught her eye nonetheless. There he was, in the credits column. Assistant editor, Maximus Hackle. There was one reason why they kept printing his stuff. And who was the editor? Paul Malthorpe. Well. So Max and his enemy had kept in touch, worked together even. Strange, he’d never mentioned that. But Daisy knew Hackle’s way of teaching by now. Let the pupil find the clues. She looked further down the column. Susan Prentice: art director. George Horn: cartoonist. They certainly stuck together. In a list of special consultants she found this name: James Love. Her father… Daisy fell asleep with this page open on her chest.
Play to love
Two other things to be seen that night: firstly, Joe Crocus making Benny carry a portable computer and a fishing net up to the roof of Hackle’s house. There Joe set up the machine. He slotted in a certain disk and waited for the pattern to emerge. Jazir’s Chef’s Special Recipe. Benny was waiting nearby, with the net, as the blurbflies came in to land.
Secondly, Jazir laying awake on his bed, the window open. His chest was bare above the sheet, and a sluggish blurb nestled there, wings folded. Jazir stroked it lovingly, squeezing a trickle of grease from its duct. He called the blurb Masala, as in Chicken Tikka Masala. Best recipe. He rubbed the loving juice into his chest. Miss Sayer watched over this scene. Whispering computer advice…
‘Wing up. Please quickly. Come find.’
Play to win
Game 44
Lucky young Bone Day. Dotty old Pipchester! Game 44. Throw those bones, you burger-gutted dribbleheads. Make honeyspot to the pimplevision. Gamble fast, live long, make cash. Change the orifice. Let loose the digits! Tumbling and falling, cascading mist of bonejuice, genetic flash. Sing those swarms, broadcast your tongueflies, alive with blurbverts. Sex your gamble, long your life, cash your bones. Play to win! Play to win! And all over the city that numberday evening, moments from boneflight, how happy were the hordes! Jabbering their dancing eyes on windows and walls and floorboards and thighs and meat pies and trouser flies and psychedelic, hippy throw-cushions.
Watching the dots. Pulsating, blooming, coming on strong. Losing the day job, winning the prize. The world turning on a rainbow of pips…
It’s domino time! Feverish domino time!
Dom, dom, dom, dom, domino time!—Blurbflies
Tommy tumbled, and the players steeled their bones, honed their breath, bought some last-minute prayers, took a collective burger, sang their hosannas. Sacrificed some wingless dream to the pagan gods of flight.
Fuck to win! Fuck to win!
As the blurbflies went out of control, blocking out the streetlights, making a cloud of logos. It was rutting season for the living verts, and all over the city the male blurbs were riding on the backs of females. Biting their necks, hoping for babyverts. The city, the pulsating city, alive with the rain and the colours and the stench of nymphomation. Mathemedia.
Here we go, numberfucked…
Down to Hackle’s house and the domino-breakers. DJ Dopejack working a computer, Jazir another. Linked by networks. Daisy Love and Sweet Benny Fenton, sofa-bound, just watching. Daisy to Jazir, Benny to Joe. Old Joe Crocus making his rounds; pent-up, nerve-ridden, sharp-edged with need.
‘This is magic equipment, Joe,’ said Dopejack.
‘Just capture it.’
A direct feed from the television to the two computers. ADTV. On the paired-up screens Cookie Luck began her dance of chance. The theme song playing out, a buzz of words:
Love the numbers, dream the squeeze.
Cookie Luck, don’t be such a tease.
Bring me prizes, I beg you, please!
All of them, hanging tight upon the teledance, nervous hands stroking at nervous bones. Play to win! Play to win!