Untitled Read Online Free PDF Page A

triggers the unexpected. I can't control it. Nothing can."
      "Our R&D departments will get to work on it, Coyote. That glitch can be solved."
      Coyote laughs more.
      "Please, listen to us. We not only can offer you money but can also make you part of some of the biggest deals in history. Just look at our screens."
      Coyote gets dizzy spinning around trying to look at all five screens at once. Image after image flashes on them: storyboards for Coyote cartoon shows, Coyote dolls, Coyote designer underwear, Coyote theme parks, Coyote condominiums, Coyote shopping malls . . .
      "Stop! Stop!" says Coyote, staggering around as if he were drunk. "What is all this stuff?"
      "Things that could result from your association with us."
      "Wait a minute! The amusement parks, condos, and shopping malls – where are you gonna put all that?"
      "Why, right here. Through you we are going to obtain the rights to all this undeveloped land. There's so much we could do here and lots of raw materials – some even radioactive – and it disturbs us to see all this land going unused and not generating any profits."
    "Get out of here!" says Coyote.
    "But we are willing to let you have a share of the profits!"
      "I've heard all of this before, and it always ends the same way – with me getting taken for more and more of what I've got!"
      "So you refuse to even negotiate with us?"
      "You betcha."
      Robots #2 through 5 make some beeping noises.
      "Yes," Robot #1 says. "We have no choice but to implement plan B."
      "Plan B?" asks Coyote.
      The robots refold themselves into new shapes, then link up into one giant Megarobot.
      "Plan B," says the Megarobot in a booming, amplified voice, "provides for us to take you and your property by force. This is all vital to maintaining our profit margins and saving the world economy. We have no choice."
      "Same old story," says Coyote.
      The Megarobot raises its arms, retracting its hands and firing missiles into the sky. Lasers shoot out of its eyes and barely miss Coyote. Then it vomits napalm all over the place.
      "No!" roars Coyote, as he summons his power of change and conjures up a thunderstorm and tornado that are both several times larger than the Megarobot.
      The storm and tornado converge on the Megarobot, knocking it down, shorting out its circuits with water and lightning, sandblasting through its armor, and, with the help of traces of radioactive elements in the flying dust and mud, causing the Megarobot to fuse into a great robot-shaped rock formation.
      Dissolve to me and the Indian on the Greyhound.
      "So, is that it?" I ask, fascinated, but barely able to stay awake. "The Coyote stories brought up to date. Is Coyote retired now?"
      The Indian laughs. "Hell no. Coyote is alive and well and . . ."
      I fall asleep.
      Dissolve to a dream. I am waiting at a bus stop in the middle of a desert that is drawn in the style of my own Coyote cartoons. Coyote comes up, carrying a big suitcase, sits next to me.
      "You Coyote?" I ask.
    "Yeah," he says.
    "So what happened after you defeated the Megarobot?"
      "Well, I got to thinking about what they, it – whatever – said about mass media and the Internet speeding up the making of myths and gods and realities. I realized that this is my business. Of course, I couldn't do it on their, or anybody else's terms, but it is what I should do, only my way."
      "Y our way?"
      "Yeah, with me doing my usual trickster game of changing things around and letting the unexpected happen, with nobody to try and control it."
      "How are you planning on doing that?"
      "Easy, kid! I'm going to plug into corporations that own the communications and entertainment industries through the World Wide Web! Start my own mythology/god/reality business."
      "Wow! That'll r eally change the world! So where you heading?"
      "Where else? Hollywood."
      Dissolve to me waking up on the bus. The Indian is