Free Ribofunk by Paul di Filippo Page B

mammals, and they’ll be here long after we kill ourselves off! I’m proud to be a Roach! And as soon as I get some more money, I’m gonna get a full carapace! Neurocrine and Berlex are in a price war, and shells’re getting cheap as prostaglandins! Weevil has one, and it’s beautiful!”
    Mom wailed. “Ai-yi-yi! Damballah, Erzulie, and Jesus save me from this disrespectful girl!”
    All of a sudden, my legs felt like puddin’. I had heard this whole argument a hundred times before. Their life was on replay, mine was on delay. How long was I going to be trapped while these two yapped? Didn’t they see I had my own probs that made my head throb? I was trying to make something of myself after a bad start, but these two fighting were ripping out my heart.
    I sat down all dreary-weary in a chair, and my eyes fell on a fishbowl tabletopped near there. In it swam four flaking trilobites. The sight of the watery wigglers reminded me of my job, and I shot to my feet.
    “Listen, you’re not going to solve anything by yelling at each other. That’s no way to act for a daughter and mother. Ma, you and Charmaine both need to get your fingers off the hot buttons. What’s done is done and should be forgotten.” I had a sudden inspiration. “I’m going to take Charmaine to work with me. We can talk about things and see what we see. I’ll bring her back tonight, and we’ll all have a meal together.”
    Mom smiled. “You were always such a good boy, Corby. I knew I could count on you to talk some sense into la cucaracha here.”
    Charmaine stiffened. “Ma, I’m warning you—”
    I grabbed Charmaine by the elbow, brushing one of her new abdominal legs, which jerked reflexively. I hustled her out the door.
    “I’ll make your favorite, Corby,” Mom called out down the hall. “Grilled mammoth steaks!”
    We were on the train heading crosstown before Charmaine would talk to me.
    “Mammoth steaks!” she huffed. “I’m lucky if she nukes me a lupinovine chop!”
    I felt myself relax a little, the annoying rhymes retreating into some unprobed lobe. At least Charmaine wasn’t going to stick to her sullen silence. Maybe there was a chance to straighten things out.
    “You’ve got to let up on Ma, Charm. You know she’s not exactly the domestic type. And life’s been hard for her since Dad died. You shouldn’t block her receptors about her gambling, for instance. It’s really the one pleasure she’s got these days.”
    Charmaine stiffened, and her new abdominal additions began to wave like the legs of a stepped-on roach. It seemed she didn’t quite have full control of them yet.
    “What about me? Ain’t I nothing to give her some pleasure? Why can’t she take some interest in me and my life, huh? She’s always praising you to the skies. But me—all I get is her gleet and pus.”
    “Charm, there’s no need to nasty. Look, Ma likes me better because somehow, I think, I remind her of Dad. And she’s proud of me because I got out of the projex. Not that this job is anything much, believe me. As for why she keeps catalyzing your leukotrines, it’s—”
    “I know, I know, it’s the Roaches. Well, I got news for you and Ma. I am not a larva any more, I’m an adult. And my mind is made up. The Roaches are the best thing that ever happened to me. Once a Roach, always a Roach. And pretty soon, I’m gonna be a Roach all the way! And it won’t be any too soon. Because big things are gonna happen any day now, and the Roaches—”
    Charmaine stopped herself.
    “What? What kind of sneaky-freaky things are the Roaches up to?”
    Folding all eight of her arms—two baseline and six add-ons—across her body, Charmaine clammed up, and nothing I said would get her to reveal anything further.
    When the train pulled into our stop, we got in line to get off and found ourselves behind a Visible Man. The fright-sight of all his working viscera through his transparent gut-bucket made me want to hurl my cereal.
    What a mayday