Cyberpunk (10 page)

Nothing. Dead air; just another prank call. I was doing the windup to

slamdunk the phone back in its cradle when something caught my ear. It

didn’t sound right, for a blank line. I listened closer: sounded like heavy

breathing.

I raised my voice. “Hello? Who is this?”

No, not heavy breathing.
Sobbing
.

“Who are you? Why do you keep calling?”

A sniffle, a plaintive little whimper.

The bit flipped in my head. “Mom?”

Click.
Then dial tone.

Had to be Mom.
Had
to be. I quick punched in her work number, but

the Fuji-DynaRand phone system intercepted my call and routed it off to

voicemail Twilight Zone.

Oh well, I’d figure this out when she came home. I went back into

my room, plopped into my chair, and got back to work.

#

I was just finishing up with the download when Mom’s tram came

rumbling up out front. I snapped the lightfiber apart, stashed the Starfire

in my closet, hurried downstairs to meet her at the door. She just pushed

right past me; wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t look at me. I tried to follow

her, but she plowed straight into her bedroom and slammed the door. I

watched for a while, wondering whether I should barge in, stand out in

the hall and try to talk through the door, or what. Then I flagged there

was no light coming through the crack under the door.

Weird city. She was sitting in her room, in the dark, crying. Which

was not something I had a whole lot of experience dealing with.

Dad came home around five, and Mom finally came out of her

room. Supper was another utter silent deal, both of them passing dishes

around me like I wasn’t there and absolute refusing to make eye contact

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with me. They let me have a plate, though, which was a promising sign.

But after supper Mom and Dad retreated into the den, shut the door,

started talking. I eared up to the door, but all I caught was the occasional

sob from Mom and a basic low angry rumble from Dad.

Fine. The big ignore was getting
real
old. I went upstairs, slammed

the door of my room, booted MoJo. Soon’s I hit CityNet I flagged that

Rayno had been online—at last!—and left me a remark on when and

where to find him. Along about eight, I finally got him online and in

chat mode, and he told me Georgie was getting trashed and very

probable heading for permanent downtime. So, just to restore some cool,

I started telling him all about how I’d erased my old man—

He interrupted, cut me off. Said he was real extreme busy at the

moment, but we should get together offline to talk about it later. We

traded a few ideas on times, locations; finally settled on 22:00 at

Buddy’s. Then he terminated the chat, and I logged out of CityNet and

checked my realtime interface.

Omigod, it was after nine already. I had bare time enough to drag a

comb through my hair, get my cuffs rolled up just right, jump into my

sneakers and wrap up in my blitz yellow MaxPockets windbreaker.

Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed the Starfire out of the closet and

slipped it into the inside groin pocket of my jumpsuit.

Hey, I was a
member
, now. Maybe my parents wouldn’t buy me

scruff leather, and maybe my hair would never be halfways as good as

Rayno’s, but I could pack some
power
.

Mom was in the kitchen, kleenexing the runny mascara from her

puffy red eyes, when I came bouncing down the stairs. “Mikey! Where

are you going?”

“Gotta zip, Mom. Gotta meet some friends.” I hurdled Muffy and

went linear for the door.

“But honey, it’s so
late
.” She darted a glance into the dining room,

like she wasn’t sure if she should call for Dad.

“No sweat, Mom. I’ll be back before curfew.” I kicked the screen

door open and charged outside. The night was dark and muggy and

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©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke

breathless.

Mom followed out onto the steps. “Mikey, come back! There’s

something—” I took off running down the street.

I lucked out. A tram was just pulling up to the corner when I got

there. I jumped on, zipped my pass through the magreader, found a nice

seat by the window. When we rolled back past the house Mom and Dad

were out on the front lawn, whipping up into what looked to be a real

good argument. I gave them a smile and a little half-wave. Dad came

running out into the the street, shaking his fist and shouting something at

me, but I couldn’t hear ‘cause the window was sealed. So I just smiled at

him.

I
love
airconditioning.

#

The tram rolled up to the corner near Buddy’s; the door opened with

a little
pssht
. I stepped out, cool and slow, and started to walk casual up

the street. It was a beautiful night for a walk: warm, muggy, not a breath

of wind. No stars I could see over the streetlights and neon; no moon,

just a diffuse red glow reflecting off the low clouds over the city, broken

by a few laser-green cloud projos. No Fuji-DynaRand platform beacon

shining down on me like the All-Seeing Eye of God.

Off on the horizon, heat lightning played hidden and silent in the

folds of distant thunderheads.

The sidewalk wasn’t empty, of course. The usuals were there: a clot

of blue-mohawked McPunks, talking tough and staring squinty over

their shoulders at the squad of Asphalt Surfers halfway down the block.

Four or five heavy-painted pickup girls, smelling like my Grandma

Jessica’s perfume collection on a bad day, patrolling their ten feet of

sidewalk space and keeping jealous eyes on the competition. A drooler,

wearing a long coat that from the smell doubled as a urinal, sitting in a

dark doorway, caressing a paper-bagged bottle. Two
real
overdressed

and nervous Olders, standing by a smartcab pickup point, looking

around themselves like they’d stumbled into the slums of Calcutta or

something.

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©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke

Fine. They could be nervous. Me, I had a Starfire down in my groin

pocket, cold, heavy, and reassuring. C’mon, you Cool Jerks, you

Rollerbladers, you lame ChemieCrispies!. I’m packing true power now!

You mess wif’ me and I be
annihilatin’
you!

Confident, total derzky, I flipped open the door and strolled into

Buddy’s. Rayno was there already, sitting in our booth, watching the

door.

He was not smiling.

Okay, something had him pissed. So what’s new? I bopped over to

the booth, plunked into my seat, fired off a broad grin. He looked at me

through his eyebrows. Frowned. Looked down, and tried a sip of his

caffix. “What’s on line?” I asked, bright and enthusiastic. He just

scowled at me some more.

“I thought I could depend on you,” he said at last.

I cocked my head, looked at him weird. This was
not
what I was

expecting.

“Mikey,” he said after another sip, “we have a major league

problem. You have put us people in a state of serious risk.”

It was
me
he was pissed at? I bogged a mo, then found my voice.

“Huh? Rewind. Rayno, what are you talking about?”

He looked down, took another sip of his caffix. “You know how

Georgie’s old man cracked OurNet?” he said, soft. “Hung a buffered line

printer on his Honeywell-Bull. Echoed your CityNet online session

direct to paper. Got a byte-for-byte copy of everything we did.

Gatekeeper passwords. Trojan horse addresses. Activity committments.

Everything
.”

I scowled too, and shook my head. “Oh Rayno, that’s—that’s

pathetic. I mean, talk about style, total
lack
of.”

Rayno looked at me, and his eyes were hot skewers. “You miss the

point, Mikey. Who cares about style now? He’s
bagged
us.” He paused,

touched his cup but didn’t drink, then looked at me again. “You

promised me this could never happen. You told me never in a million

years could he crack the secures on OurNet. I believed you, Mikey. I

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©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke

trusted
you.”

Suddenly, my voice was a choked sputter. Rayno was being so

unfair. I mean, how could he expect me to bulletproof us against

something that
dumb
?

Rayno sighed, and gave me a sad smile. “Face it, Mikey, you porked

up bigtime. Your ass is dogfood now. Question is, what are you gonna

do to protect the rest of us?” I was still trying to find an answer for that

when he drained his caffix cup, sat up straight, and toggled to normal

voice. “And now, you can do me a big favor and beat it.” He leaned back

in his seat, looked away, made it clear that the audience was over.

Just like that. I stood up, fighting for words. Rayno thought he could

blow me off that easy? I felt the Starfire bulging in its pocket, and

sudden I started to flush hot and mad. He thought he could just throw me

away? I’d show him! He wouldn’t be nowhere without me! I was
equal
,

now! Spinning around, I clenched my fists and stomped straight out the

door.

They were waiting for me out on the sidewalk. Two older guys with

grim faces and dark business suits; the short, wide one studying a

photograph, the big, man-mountain one keeping up a scan of the street. I

recognized them immediate from a thousand vids: Gestapo. KGB. Brain

Police.

“You Mikhail Arthur Harris?” the short one asked. The mountain

started to move towards me.

“Who wants to know?” I said. The attempted snarl came out a

nervous squeak.

“Are you Mikhail Arthur Harris?” Shorty asked again.

I faked left, broke right, started running. A third one stepped out of

the shadows between two buildings and grabbed me. Man-mountain

lumbered over to help Number 3 hold me while Shorty barked

something into a walkie-talkie.

The big ugly green privatecar with the blackfilm windows came

roaring up in a screech of tires and a cloud of stinky diesel smoke.

Shorty popped the back door open and dove inside; the other two pushed

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©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke

my head down and forced me into the car, while a Number 4 came

jogging up the street from the other direction. Boy, they’d been prepped

for me. I hardly had my face out of the upholstery before they had the

plastic cablecuffs zipped tight and the doors slammed shut.

With another screech of rubber and blast of burning petrol, we were

off and jouncing down the street. Hard left. A hard right, onto the

expressway. The engine opened up with a throaty roar. Somewhere

around the Crosstown ramp I finally fought through the icy terror and

got my voice back. “Who the Hell are you guys? Where you taking me?

I got rights!
”

Shorty, in the jumpseat, turned away from the window and looked at