Free Complete Stories by Rudy Rucker

things to look at glued to the walls. Antiques. A car-wheel, a 2-D TV set, a formica table-top…and animals, lots of stuffed animals.
    Around 2130 they’d realized that nothing but the cockroaches and us was going to hack it. Pollution had cut the gene pools that far and a domino effect was setting in. Suddenly everyone wanted a stuffed animal to remind them of our glorious heritage. The whole last generation of animals ended up on mantelpieces and barroom walls.
    “You know,” I said, staring longingly at a glass-eyed chicken, “A hundred years ago this place was an Italian restaurant called Stacky’s. I used to spend a lot of time here back then. The menu they had! Jesus. Have you ever even seen meat, baby?”
    She smiled and shook her head. “You’re just scripting.” She didn’t believe any of it, which was just as well. The statute of limitations had run out, but still …
    “Where’s your crib?” she was asking. “I could peel you.” Her tongue was purple against the yellow lip-wax.
    I didn’t answer for a few minutes. I was remembering how it had been here a hundred years ago…the night I’d first met Charlie.
    I was just getting by, back then, living off computer fraud. I’d invented a do-gooder thing, the Office of Interpersonal Therapeutics, and I’d gotten the computer to believe me when I charged all my bills to the OIT. It took a couple of hours a day punching in fake case-histories, requisitions, employee data…but at least it wasn’t honest work.
    It was easy…so easy I sometimes suspected the Feds had a special slot on the payroll for computer con-men. I figured I fell somewhere between wino and social worker.
    Most evenings I’d get into Stacky’s early and they’d just bring me one of everything on the menu. Then I’d have a couple more rounds of whatever seemed best.
    The night I met Charlie I was just sitting there looking at the beautiful golden skin of a roast chicken. Suddenly my table flipped over and the dishes went flying. Lying on the floor in front of me was the fattest…hell, he was obese.
    “You do that often?” I asked.
    He was slowly getting up with the aid of his exoskeleton, and didn’t seem to hear me. It was hard, really, to even tell where his head was. There was just metal tubes and little motors and yards of bouncing cloth. But then a precise little voice answered, “More than once a year, less than once a month.” An arm and then a head appeared. “You’re Eddie Myers,” the fat man stated. “And I’m Charles Laxman.”
    He had fifty keys on me easy. You could tell from the way he had a deep crease circling his wrist. I only had those at my ankles. The servos at Charlie’s shoulder and elbow whirred, and the alloy tubes strapped to his right arm swiveled and hinged so as to move his right hand towards me. My servos followed suit and we shook.
    In a sense all really fat men look alike. But there are differences if you know how to look for them. I could tell that Charles Laxman was rich, educated and a little flaky. He was the kind of guy who might drool when he’s thinking hard…but he’s likely to be thinking about something incredible. I liked him already for being fatter than me, and it was clear from his clothes that he was rich.
    “So what’s on your mind, Charlie?” I asked, punching two drink orders into the bar board. As usual I charged it to the OIT.
    “Eddie,” he said, nodding towards the bar board, “You’re a fat, small-time criminal. Am I correct?”
    I was a little insulted. Was he drunk? “You out slumming?”
    But he didn’t seem to hear me. “Money, Eddie. Money,” he said, smiling and puddling forward on the table. His eyes were blank.
    “Money …” I said, encouragingly.
    He held up five fingers. “Megadollars, Eddie. Fifty million in gold.” And then I knew what he was talking about as if I’d read his mind. He wanted me to help him break the Bin.
    I figured he was crazy, but talk is just talk. And he looked