“Calabi-Yau flea-grenades,” said Sonic. “I made them in the Doodly Bug weapon shop. I’m smarter than the beezies, see!” He wore a proud little smile on his face. “Squark-gaugino supersymmetry,” added Sonic, getting back into his Doodly Bug wars. “Compactify dimension seven. Destroy starboard glueball pellet three o’clock high: ftoom!”

Fighting off malware was a continual activity, but usually the beezies would automatically give the patches to your filter dogs. Why had the beetles been so tough to kill? And why were Nektar’s beetles in this particular car? Jayjay set some beezies to searching through possible causes for the unfolding scenario. Inside the house old Dot and Red were dressed again; the rain was letting up.

“Lureen Morales is an idiot,” Thuy said to Kittie, dipping backward into the conversation the way she liked to do. “She’s got a pushed-in Pomeranian face. I’m much more attractive than her. Don’t be a brainwashed starfucker, Kittie. You sound like a frat boy. You should be listening to Tawny Krush instead.”

Jayjay grinned to hear Thuy harsh on Kittie.

“You’re channeling Tawny?” said Kittie, taken aback.

“She’s rehearsing a heavy-metal symphony with the Kazakhstan guitar corps,” said Thuy loftily, her high pigtails swaying. “I’m going to sample it for my metanovel. That’s what I’m all about. Postsingular literature.” She stuck out her tongue at Kittie and waggled it. “Am I ‘hot’ yet?”

“Come here, b. an gái,” said Kittie, fumbling at Thuy’s miniskirt. “Heath’s going waay down on Lureen.”

Jayjay returned his attention to Prav Plato’s rap, not wanting to witness Kittie pawing his lost love. Sonic remained obsessively focused on his game. A moment of silence, and then old Red stumped out of the house and pulled open the car door. The two women drew apart.

“Wassup, Red,” said Jayjay.

To switch from Prof Prav’s fraught, exquisite communication to Red’s rudimentary vocalizations was, for Jayjay, like dropping out of a beautiful sunset-clouded sky into a crude, flat cartoon. For the first second or two, the old man’s words seemed like the yipping of a dog. Jayjay felt guilty about the involuntary comparison. Red wasn’t all that different from Papa, dead three years now from a gang fight in the penitentiary.

“Log into the Department of Motor Vehicles with me and I’ll give you the title,” repeated the old man, holding out the car keys.

“I want to own the car,” put in Kittie. “Me! I’ll retrofit it and trick it out.”

Red craned his neck, peering avidly at the women in the backseat.

“Your orphids are blushing, Thuy,” said Kittie. “Red’s peeping you. Dig it, realman, we’re watching you right back, you and your breeder in the house. I’m seeing hella many coats in your hall closet. Can I have the leopard-patterned Burberry knockoff with the dog-fur collar?”