Cyberpunk (25 page)

“It’s called
objectification
,” Lewellyn said. “It’s a fairly common

technique for building group unity. One of the weird constants of human

behavior is that every group seems to have one natural goat: one

member who’s slower, or dumber, or clumsier, or in some way different

from the rest. So you tighten up the group by encouraging everyone else

to pick on the goat.” He paused, to run a liver-spotted hand through his

thin white hair and adjust his bifocals.

“But I’m
not
slower, or dumber, or...”

Lewellyn waved a hand to cut me off. “No, Mikey, you’re
different
.

Jesus God, son, you’re one of the smartest ones that’s ever come through

here! You can shut off your cyberpunk speech markers whenever you

want to; I’ve heard you do it. You can switch
on
your attitude problem

whenever you want to; I’ve heard
about
you doing it. You could

sleepwalk through your classes and still get straight A’s, if you wanted

to.

“But no, for some reason you want to
work
at being a problem case.

Why, Mikey?”

I shrugged. “Because I hate being here?”

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“So what. You
are
here. You’ve got to bloom where you’re planted,

Mikey. You’ve got to be where you are—my God, I sound like a Rod

McKuen greeting card.” He took off his bifocals, rubbed the bridge of

his nose, and put them back on again.

“Look, we were talking about objectification, right? The problem is

that most people—even fourteen year old boys—feel empathy for the

goat. They don’t enjoy seeing another person humiliated. So if you’re

going to use that technique to build unity, you’ve got to short-circuit

empathy somehow.

“And that’s where the nickname comes in. Give your goat a

demeaning name—strip him of his identity as a human being and turn

him into an
object
—and pretty soon everyone forgets about that pesky

empathy business.” Lewellyn shook his head, and smiled in a sad kind

of way.

“Funny thing is,” he said, more to himself than me, “it doesn’t really

seem to matter what the name is. Piggy, Lardbutt, Jew Boy; I’ve seen

them all work. Kraut, jap, commie, gook, honky, sand nigger...”

“Cyberpunk,” I added.

“Yeah, well—” Lewellyn shook it off. “So where were we, before

we got off on this tangent?” He adjusted his glasses again, picked up the

spiral-bound manual. A clump of pages fell out. “Ah, here we are. The

2K memory range from location $C80/0/ to $CFFF is reserved for driving

subroutines or a 2K PROM on the peripheral...”

He stopped, looked at the guts of his Apple ][ strewn all over the

table. Poked a knobby finger at a dead peripheral card. “Right.” He

frowned, looked at the book again. Gently closing it, he put it down,

came up with a big, sunny, fraudulent smile. “Say, Mikey, what do think

about the idea of starting over with a completely different approach?”

I took my fingers off the Apple’s keyboard, drummed a roll of

frustration on the edge of the case, thumbed the power light a few times.

“I’d say it was bogus,” I decided.

“Now, Mikey—”

“Look, Mr. Lewellyn, I’m real glad you want to take the time to

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teach me about computers. I just don’t understand what 6502 registers

have to do with anything.”

He sighed a little; exasperation, I’d guess. “Self- discipline,” he said

at last. “Yes, of course this thing is an archaic piece of junk.” He reached

over, laid a hand on the frame of the Apple. “Yes, there haven’t been

any new computers built around this processor since the turn of the

century.” He took a deep breath, blew it out, considered his words.

“But Mikey, you’ve been living in the stratosphere! You’re up there

messing around with code objects, and icons, and fifth-generation

structured query languages. You’re an expert at manipulating
symbols
.

“Here; this is programming down to the bare metal. Up ‘til now

you’ve been a technological shaman, calling up your wind and rain

demons without the slightest idea of what they really do. When I’m done

with you, you’ll know how to make
weather
. Believe me, Mikey, some

day you’ll thank me for this.”

Why do olders
always
say that just before they dump on you?

I looked at Lewellyn. I looked at the Apple. I looked at that thick

stack of gibberish manuals.

What the Hell. It sounded like more fun than going back to the

bunkhouse and polishing Roid Rogers’ boots again, anyway. “Okay. So

what’s this new approach you were thinking about?”

Mr. Lewellyn stroked the white stubble on his chin. “First, let’s do

an EXAMINE. What’s in the P register?”

I keyed in the command. “Uh, $B0/ .”

“And that is?”

C’mon, Mikey, think! You should know this one!
“Uh, branch on

carry clear.”

“And the addressing mode?”

“Is absolute.”

#

“Mail call, Cyberpunk!” I stood the mop in a corner and accepted

the envelope. The handwritten address was big and sloppy, with smiley

faces in the cursive loops. My name was spelled “Mickile Haris.”

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I tore open the envelope and read:

#

“Dear Mikey;

“Things have been real quite around here since you went away to

summer computer camp colege and everything. At first I was worried

about you then I ran into your mom in the skyway and she told me how

you wer acsepted for a special colege for brillant kids and you wer doing

reel good and happy with all your new friends and you wer your just too

buzy to right. I’m so jealus, how’d you get to be so smart, ha ha!

“School is such a bore and everything. I keapt getting F’s from

Lewis but he pased me anyway just to get me out of his class I think.

Georgie has turned into like a total straight nerd turd and he wont talk to

me any more or anything, most times if we meet in the hall he pretends

like he doesnt even see me. I dont know what his problem is but if cant

be nice then I just say fuck him. Without you and Georgie though the

cyberpunk stuff just isnt any fun so we dont do it much any more. Ive

been listening to alot more music lately, my favrite band is The Smegs.

Do you get to listen to music much at your colege?

“Well, study halls about over so Ive got to sing off now! Have a

super fantastic time at colege and dont burn your brains out studying and

dont party too much with those sororitty babes, ha ha! C U next

summer!

“XOXOXO

“Lisa

“P.S. Rayno says hi.”

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Chapter 11

During the regular academic year, the Von Schlager Military

Academy was a different place, totally. Sure, the basic environ was the

same: the uniforms, the marching around the quad, the saluting and

discipline and all that stuff. But there were times you might even

mistake it for something like a normal high school. Geometry class, for

example. Three hours a week of plain old class instruction with

Instructor Minelli, who didn’t bark or scream or bounce kids off the wall

or any of that stuff. No proctors; no discussion about guns or troops or

bronze swords; just three hours a week of putzing around with compass

and dividers and getting all full of chalk dust. Sure, it would have been

easier with a computer and some good CAD software, but geometry is

geometry, and if a line outside a plane is parallel to a line of the plane,

the line is parallel to the plane. (In Euclidean space, anyway. I brought

up Einsteinian space and got two hours of KP for being a smartass.)

The Von Schlager regular year curriculum was heavy on the math,

science, history. Okay, so there were some muff courses; no

Multicultural Empowerment Studies or anything like that, but I did get

stuck with Freshman Comp. Even then, though, the slant was different:

“I don’t
care
about creativity,” was Instructor Coleman’s favorite

rant. “I don’t care if you
never
find your unique, self-expressive voice.

You are here to learn to communicate
effectively
, Harris! Some day

men’s lives may depend on your ability to say what you mean and
have

it understood
!” He sighed, heavy, and rubbed his forehead. “Now, let’s

take another look at this paper.

“No, I’m not going to say anything about the way you make nouns

of verbs and vice versa. I’m not up to that headache. But will you kindly

learn to use adverbs? Look here: “I turned slow.” Read my lips, Harris: I

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turned slow
ly
. He ran quick
ly
. Now, how would you rewrite this

sentence?”

I squinted, scratched my chin, came up with a tentative. “The rope

lay tangledly on the ground?”

“ARGH!” Coleman slapped himself hardly on the forehead. “Like

water off a duck’s back! I don’t know why I bother. I just do
not
know

why I bother!”

I didn’t know why he bothered that muchly, either.

#

Some of the classes I got into, in spite of myself. Instructor

Schmidt’s Astronomy course, for starters. Some nights he’d take a

bunch of us out for open sky fieldwork, and tramping through the woods

and across the fields under a starry winter sky is just about the most

beautiful thing in creation. The crisp snow crust breaking away under

your feet; in places little drifts of powder snow so dry with cold they

squeak when you walk on them. The air that burns your lungs and yet

tastes so sweet and pure; the water vapor in your breath freezing into a

rime of frost around the hood of your parka. On full moon nights the

woods were so flooded with light you could practically read, which is

real cool and goes a long way towards making you feel comfortable in

the dark, but on clear, moonless nights—

The stars! My God, it’s full of stars! Sirius, hanging there like a

incredible bright blue sapphire. Ursa Major, turning stately around

Polaris like a great big combination clock and compass. The Milky Way,

all splashed across the sky, more real and vivid than you ever would’ve

believed possible. And Gemini, with friendly Castor and Pollux, and

Procyon right below, so close and so sunlike we might actually go there

some day.

It took me a full month to realize the Fuji-DynaRand platform was

just one tiny pip, fading into the treetops and scatter just above the

horizon. Insignificant. Hardly worth the work of noticing.

I liked that.

Some nights there were aurorae, slow dancing in purple and green

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ribbons around the sky. Once History Instructor Feinstein came out with