My step-daughter Wynter, who is regrettably prejudiced against robots and those who love us, comes floating through the door in a metaphorical cloud of glitter instead of her customary figurative cloud of gloom. She enters the kitchen, rises up on the toes of her black spike-heeled boots, wraps her leather-braceleted arms around my neck, and places a kiss on my cheek, leaving behind a smear of black lipstick on my artificial skin and a whiff of white make-up in my artificial nose. "Hi Kirby," she says, voice all bubbles and light, when normally she would never deign to utter my personal designation. "Is Moms around? Haven't talked to her in a million." I know right away that Wynter has been infected.

The diner stood off the highway outside a small town optimistically called Hope. Hope was being stuck in the middle of the Northwest and wishing you were someplace, anyplace else. And Hope was also the name on the tag pinned to the dead woman in waitress uniforms that was currently lying against the wall inside the _Barbie-Q Roadhouse_. I had to stop myself from worrying at the connection: looking for patterns when sometimes there are none at all. I wasn't worried about Hope (the waitress, not the town). I didn't get called down here for a murder: shit, murder is an honest-to-God American pastime. Just look at the statistics. No, I got called in because of the Marilyn. The Marilyn was also dead. All in all, there were five dead people in the Barbie-Q: two waitresses; a balding man who - from his bag full of cheaply-printed catalogues - was some sort of a general salesman; the diner's manageress; and Marilyn. They had been shot by a machine gun, probably an Uzi. Marilyn's head left a red smear against the glass of the booth she sat in. She was there alone. What the hell was a Marilyn doing out here?

I am called Dog the Digger. I am not mighty, neither am I fearsome. Should you require bravos, there are muscle-boys aplenty among the rat-bars of any lowtown on this raddled world. If it is a wizard you want, follow the powder-trails of crushed silicon and wolf's blood to their dark and winking lairs. Scholars can be found in their libraries, taikonauts in their launch bunkers and ship foundries, priests amid the tallow-gleaming depths of their bone-ribbed cathedrals. What I do is dig. For bodies, for treasure, for the rust-pocked hulks of history, for the sheer pleasure of moving what cannot be moved and finding what rots beneath. You may hire me for an afternoon or a month or the entire turning of the year. It makes me no mind whatsoever. As for you, I know what you want. You want a story.

I duck through the door behind her. The place is jammed with customers. "You have any money? I didn't think to ask Miss Jennifer for any." TK answers, "don't worry, just tell me what you want." "Large with extra sugar and cream." TK grins and focuses her attention on the line of people stretching from the entrance down to the counter. They all sidestep and she walks unimpeded front of the pack. "One large black, and one large with extra sugar and cream." The barrista, a girl of about 18, repeats the order in a flat monotone. "And these are on the house. Everyone gets free coffee for the next two hours." "Free for everyone," the clerk answers then puts our order together. TK snickers and hands the coffee over.

"I have done over fifteen hundred dives," I said, and let that sink in. The number was astronomical for a guy my age, even for a professional. "I have done free diving down to eighty meters. I have worked as a commercial diver and in commercial salvage." They were listening and nodding, concentrating on me while recording the conversation. "Then you, of all people, should have known better," said the little guy. "I did know better!" They were acting like the shark was the victim, not me. "How many people in the whole fucking galaxy could have come up alive, huh? How many would have had the technology and experience and conditioning?" "If you want our congratulations, you got 'em," said Odenny. "But we're more interested in what you were doing."

"They're uploads, Jennifer." When I first met Mel, I thought the sleepy voice was sexy. "How can they move in with us when they're not anywhere?" "They bought a puppet to live in," I say. "Life-sized, nuskin, real speak - top of the line. It's supposed to be my Christmas present. Bring the family back together for the holidays and live unhappily ever after." "A puppet." A puzzlement glyph pops up at the bottom of my screen. "As in one puppet?" "It's a timeshare - you know. They live it serially. Ten hours of him, fourteen of her." "Not fifty-fifty?" "He's giving her the difference so he can take extra time off for his bass tournament in June."

This is one of my favorite stories