From: gdg019@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Ridley McIntyre)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: STORY: BOY [revised] (2 of 4)
Keywords: Rat 1.2
Date: 24 Jan 93 15:29:50 GMT
Organization: Fifth Column, Coventry, UK


                  	BOY - by Ridley McIntyre

				2. Ether

Just as Dex had taught the Dagger and Man Friday, so a girl called Kayjay
introduced him to the Grid on a cold London night in a Sony-owned flat in the
Camden Secure Zone. He was twelve years old and Kayjay was a small, thin-
boned, pretty little Bangladeshi girl with nothing better to do than follow
the latest fads.

 She had spent most of the day playing with her father's electronic toys. His
Sony computer... black and sleek and totally unlike the low-tech kit-boxes
that Dex had seen in the Pancras dustzone. His wallscreen colour TV that was
constantly tuned into Disney 7 (The Children's Channel), showing the latest
adventures of baby-faced anthropomorphic soldiers in space jungles, fighting
the evil insectoids with their nuclear battlesuits, and Dex and Kayjay acted
them out in the living room, firing remote control units at each other (Dex
was always Mark and Kayjay was always Sukhi), and Kayjay won. When they raided
the wardrobe for fancy costumes, Kayjay came across the thin non-descript box
that she had seen her father use. It was densely heavy and as big as a 
Provisions Ministry daily ration box.

 He remembers her words now as she tried to explain the concepts to this bright,
but uneducated, boy, lying on the thick carpet floor of her bedroom. She tapped
the ridge on her black leather swivel chair.

 "See this chair?" she said. Twelve year old Dexter Eastman nodded softly.
"This chair doesn't really exist. It's just an amassment of atomic particles.
But the way the light reflects from them, and the way our eyes see that light,
leads our brains to come to the conclusion that this pack of particles is a
chair. Without a way of translating the fact to us, it doesn't really exist.
Without sight it has no colour. Without touch it has no texture. Without taste
it's not organic. Without sound it doesn't squeak when you turn it. Without
smell it isn't leather. A person without senses has no world. It just doesn't
exist, there's no way of translating it to them."

 Kayjay moved around the room like some eccentric Disney 9 (Education Channel)
science instructor and ended up grinning, pointing to her red telephone.

 "Ever listened to the sound a modem makes when you send it down a phone line?"
She made a weird screeching sound and an equally apalling face and Dex gave a
little giggle.

 "Data. Raw data. A computer talking to another computer. Not to us, because it
doesn't speak our language, but that's by-the-by. The fact is that data has a
sound. And if it has a sound, it has a smell. And a taste, and a texture and
you must be able to see it. It exists. Only normally, there's no way to
translate it to us."

 She edged over to Boy and kissed him softly, ran thin brown fingers through
his spiky black hair. "Somedays I go there... to this other world. Father
calls it the Grid. I call it ether. Like ethereal, I suppose. But it's more 
like a checkboard than anything else. You want to go? I'll get Father to bring 
home another set of trodes. After that, we'll do it together..."

				***

The processor is an empty blue cathedral. Code emobodies him as the virus
runs it's course. There is a soft dent in the defense shell and Texnet's
watchdog program lays in wait. Boy knows this, though, and avoids the obvious
weakness in favour of the silent meltdown.

 Another key is tapped and a silver thread streams from the melting roof where
the Boy has lived all this time, down towards the bounty. The defenses have 
been breached, the virus has become part of the defense program, shaping 
itself to the contours and the Boy knows his trojan software can work well 
enough without him, that he can switch off any time and let a demon do the 
work for him. But it seems too easy, and something must be wrong.

 He stays with it, observing... watching the trojan open and close files
with lightning speed, knowing it's true target, but running a trick that it
really is a routine file check. As soon as it finds the file, the thread snaps
back, and the Boy sends a program to cover it's tracks. It doesn't matter. The
breaching virus is old and faulty, and has caused a cancer in the defense
shell that the watchdog can't fail to notice. Boy waits just long enough for
the thread to return before he tries to rescue the virus which has gone wild.
Eventually, before he can tear the trodes from his forehead, he feels the
crushing smash of the TexNet trace program as it finds his home shell. His
senses are dazed, rocked back and forth and he is pulled like spaghetti as he
sees the trace's toothy smile.

				***

He tears the jacks from his head and fights for breath. Suddenly nauseated, he 
crawls so fast through the door but vomits across the kitchen floor before he 
can reach the sink. Passing out, he can sense the far off rank smell of 
stagnant water and the cruel touch of a  rough cloth. The stern tones of 
Kitty's voice echoing through his head...

				***

Snakestrike. The pretty, dark-haired girl brings his drink over to him, loosely
covered with a small cloth. She draws him closer to her. Her voice is an urgent
whisper. "Your name's Dex isn't it?"

 Dex nods.

 "Man in that booth behind you was asking for you not two minutes ago. He said
he was an old friend. I told him you weren't here. He said he'd wait. If you're
in trouble, matey, call for another drink. I'll bring the shotgun. Escort him
out for you."

 Dex sits back. She circles the tumbler three times and bangs it on the bar,
turning the drink into wet foam. He lets her take away the cloth before
downing it.

 "What's your name?"

 "Jess," she says.

 "Enough respect to you, Jess." He taps the bar and takes a breath before
pushing himself off the stool and looking for this Mister Dangerous. He spots
him immediately, and knows his name is Turk.

 "What are you doing here, Turk?"

 Turk has his arms spread along the back of the seat, a dumb, superior grin
on his Dixie City fat face. He wears a blue tanker's suit, lieutenant's tapes
on the epaulettes. He even has his own row of medals, including a purple heart
that  he  won a year back when Dex shot him in the shoulder and he called
it in as being wounded in battle.

 "Thought Ah'd find you heah, Eastman," he drawls drunkenly. "Ah was gonna ask
you that question mahself. How the hell can you live in this dump, anyways?
What do the Sammies call it? Shitter-what?"

 "Shitamachi. It's Japanese for downtown. Look, cut the gomi, Turk, just tell
me what you want."

 Turk laughs raucously and chews gum, bobbing his head. "Jeez, Eastman. You
been heah so long, you'se even spoutin' like a Sammie. Bah the way, your
friend Priest is dead. Ah did him mahself. But not before I managed to spill
your deal outta him. So gimme the file you copied and we'll be friends again."

 "We were never friends. What makes you think I've got it with me?"

 Turk leans forward and takes a sip from his beer, then returns to his
reclining position, absent-mindedly tapping his fingers against the ultra-
suede. "Ah told you, Eastman. Ah know the deal. So gimme the data, cos I know
you got it."

 Dex takes on a wounded, irritated look. He runs his hands through his
spiky black hair and then takes out a black silicate cube from his jacket
pocket and tosses it over to him. He's angry as hell now, but he knows he
has to contain it if he wants to stay alive.

 "Sammie for downtown," Turk mutters. "Down is the operative word, Eastman."
He turns his head to the end of the booth, which backs onto the hole above
the dance floor. "CAN'T YOU PLAY SOME NEIL YOUNG OR SOMETHIN'? ALL THIS SAMMIE
NOISE SOUNDS THE SAME AND HALF OF IT AIN'T GOT NO WORDS!" He comes back and
laughs. "You got insurance, Eastman? Ah'd take some out if Ah were you." He
stands and finishes his beer.

 "And don't let those Sammies take you in. Remember Pearl Harbour. Catch you
'round." Turk slips out of the booth and past the cocktail bar, shaking his
head and laughing to himself when Jess throws him a dirty look.

 Dex and Jess exchange a glance. Somehow the look on her face tells him
exactly what to do.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1993 BY RIDLEY MCINTYRE
-- 
 ____ @     |  | Ridley McIntyre  -  gdg019@cck.cov.ac.uk | EARTH      CALLING |
|         __|  | Piglet 8@) -  On a  Flowery Space  Trip! | ANGELA: "Her black |
|     |  |  |  | "NAPOLEON!!!"    -         "AAAAAIIEE!!" | hair flowing  like |
|     |  |__|  |       - a rather visual Tank Police joke | an   acid   river" |
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