Mad Professor by Rudy Rucker

ready to set off for the great outer world!
    With these thoughts running in his head, he followed Gretchen to the parking-lot, Tonel tagging along. Mr. Karst was mounted in his battered secondhand Ford SUV. Sitting next to him was an unkempt, overweight, luminously white guy smoking a filter cigarette.
    â€œAlbert Chesney!” exclaimed Gretchen.
    â€œHim!” said Jack. The thirty-year-old Albert Chesney was a Day Six Synodite and a convicted computer criminal. He’d just gotten parole; his release had been a topic in the Killeville Daily News for several days. Three years ago, Chesney had brought down the entire Internet for a week with his infamous e-mail, which had combined the nastiest features of spam, hypnotism, a virus, a pyramid scheme, a con-game, a worm, and a denial-of-service attack. At the cost of infecting seven hundred million machines, had netted seven converts to the Day Six Synod.
    â€œDon’t ride with him, Gretchen,” said Jack, suddenly visualizing a defenseless big-eyed fetus within Gretchen’s slightly curved belly. He seemed to recall that Chesney had always been interested in Gretchen. Chesney was single, with no relatives.
    â€œOh, now you’re all protective?” said Gretchen. “Don’tworry. I can handle myself. Welcome back, Albert. Are you fully rehabilitated?”
    â€œI’ve hoed a long, lonely row,” sighed Albert Chesney. His voice was husky; his head was big and crooked like a jack-o’-lantern. “The Pharisees say I’m not allowed to live in a house with computers. What with the Synod having the tabernacle on my farm, I’m exiled to a humble abode on Route 501. Leastways it won’t be but one night. The last battle’s comin’ tomorrow morning, hallelujah and pass it on. Armageddon. Angels and devils fighting for the fate of our world. Drive your chariot onward, Karl. I need a taste of my sweet country roads. And then I’ll prophesy to the fellowship about the Shekinah Glory.”
    â€œYou bet, Albert,” said Mr. Karst. “Don’t he look good, Gretchen?” Mr. Karst liked Chesney because he’d let Day Six use his farmhouse for their tabernacle the whole time he’d been in jail. Swaying and backfiring, the rusty SUV lumbered off.
    â€œDo he say the world ends tomorrow?” asked Tonel.
    â€œDon’t worry,” said Jack. “They always say that. Back in May, Mr. Karst tried to stop Gretchen from buying a prom dress because the last battle was due to come before our graduation.”
    Turning back to the clubhouse, Tonel and Jack encountered muscular Danny Dank, who’d just finished setting up the giant propane-fueled two-whole-hog barbeque wagon that the club used for their galas. Tomorrow was the day of the club’s annual Killeville Barbeque Breakfast Golf Classic, starting near dawn.
    Danny tightened down the cover of the quilted chrome wagon and unwrapped a stick of marijuana gum, the pricey brand called Winnipeg Wheelchair. Grinning and chewing, he gestured for the two caddies to sit down with him on a low wall facing the eighteenth green and the last glow of the sunset.
    â€œListen to this,” said Danny, pulling a folded up newspaperfrom his hip pocket. He hawked some spit on to the ground, then read, more mellifluously than one might have expected. Danny had gone to C. T. Piggott High School the same as Jack and Tonel; he’d been a senior when they’d been freshman. But he’d been expelled before his graduation.
    â€œFalwell County’s most notorious computer criminal is temporarily lodged in the Casa Linda Motel on Highway 501 southeast of Killeville, next to a tattoo parlor and a liquor store that rents adult videos,” read Danny “His neighbors include a few parolees and at least one registered sex offender. His second-floor room in the thirty-four-unit motel overlooks the parking lot of a strip