From: gdg019@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Ridley McIntyre)
Subject: STORY: MONKEYTRICK [revised] (6/6)
Keywords: Rat 2.6
Organization: Fifth Column, Coventry, UK
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 09:01:38 GMT

                  	MONKEYTRICK - by Ridley McIntyre

			6. Thursday 12th.

The misty skies over the London Outzone have turned red in the hot spring
afternoon. Solar satellites and workstations form spiny constellations that
twinkle above. Sarah turns her attention back to the busy streets as they roll
through the sparse traffic in a wodden cycle-rickshaw.

 "Who is this Kayjay, anyway?" she asks Motorhead, wary of hitting any raw
nerves in his already tender mind.

 "She was a Sodha roughrider that the Boy had a shine on. She was the daughter
of a Sony shaker, but she was a young rich rebel. She ran away from home when
she was 11 and ended up in the Outzone where she got attacked by some New 
Churchers and raped. She would have been killed if the Boy hadn't stepped in. 
Her father rewarded him with access to the Sony flat in the Camden Secure Zone 
and him and Kayjay became best friends. That's where the Boy was born, with 
her father's Sony cyberdeck, so the legend goes." He watches her as she looks 
out at the streets of the Outzone; feels her taking in the life here. "Anyway, 
Kayjay and him were an item for a while, and then one day she tells him she
can't love him anymore. No reason, just says 'I don't love you, Dex'. So he 
left for Texas. The rest is in the file, I expect. Two months ago, Kayjay got 
caught in Kistna territory; she had a deal there or something. They gave her a 
trial by ordeal for being with Sodha. Hot rodded her. That's why she's in 
hospital. Getting new limbs."

 "Hot rodded?"

 Motorhead sighs. "It's Kistna law. To prove your innocence, you have to carry
a piece of red-hot iron ten metres and drop it in a vat of water. If your hands
show no blisters after three days, God has smiled on you."

 "And if the blisters are still there?"

 "They cut your arms and legs off and leave you die."

 The conversation stops there. The cycle-rickshaw turns quietly onto the
Paddington to Islington New Road and the nine-year-old boy at the front pedals
steadily towards Pancras, the brown spires of the Smallpox Hospital can just
be seen disappearing into the red mist at the road's horizon. To each side, the
crumbling towers form a canyon of granite grey, an effect which makes Sarah
sink a little in her seat.

                                ***

The reception office is a wide transparent plastic fish tank filled with tiny 
sikh women sat behind Fednet terminals typing in administration details. They 
all ignore Motorhead and Sarah as they enter the cavernous foyer. There is one 
open window in the fish tank. Sarah tries it.

 "Is it possible to see a girl called Kayjay? She was admitted here two months
ago."

 Motorhead steps in when he sees the confused look on the sikh woman's tiny
face. "Uh, her full name is Kashenjunga Praphubhai. We're friends of hers,"
he tells her in Punjabi.

 The woman flicks lightning fast fingers across the terminal's touchpad, thin
blue light dances over her face. Then the screen changes to bright white and
Sarah guesses that a videostat of the girl must be on the record. The
receptionist tries to find the English words to convey what is written in
Punjabi on the screen.

 "She is gone today," the woman says proudly.

 Motorhead's face drops. "What do you mean, gone?"

 "She is discharged today, you see? Gone home. She's better now. Metal arms
and legs. Better."

 The screen changes back to blue and the woman reels her hands back as if she's
touched a wrong button, though her hands were by her face when it happened.
Punjabi characters scrawl themselves across the screen faster than her typing
could ever write; repeating themselves over and over. She turns the screen
around to face Motorhead and Sarah, who look inquisitively at her.

 "It says turn screen round," the woman says.

 The screen blanks into dark blue again. The words this time come up in English.

 DON'T ASK HOW NO TIME KAYJAY HAS GONE SO GET MOVING YOU HAVE TO GET HERE 
BEFORE IT ALL TURNS TO SHIT BOY

 Motorhead spends a second taking it in, then nods to the receptionist in
thanks just as Sarah grabs his arm and drags him out of the hospital.

                                ***

Shelley has set the holoroom for a snow-covered winter's noon on Capitol Hill.
He closes the door behind him and steps up to the bench by the black steel
railings that surround the grounds of the New American Museum, a modicum of
green astroturf leading up to the white building.

 Boy sits at the corner of the bench wearing a black pilot's jacket and baggy
red jeans. His face slightly different to the videostat Shelley remembers from
Sarah's screen, and his hair is patchy and longer, but effectively the Boy is
as he was before he died, with his hands spread along the arm and back of the
bench and his right foot tucked in by his buttocks on the seat. Dex is dead 
forever now. Only the Boy remains. Shelley sits down next to him.

 "Thought about my offer yet?" the shaker asks.

 "Thought?" Boy laughs. "I said give me a couple of hours to think about it,
so you call me back a hundred and fifteen minutes, and thirty-eight point seven
one two six seven seconds later and ask me if I've thought about it? I have
specific time allocations, you know. I'm not a technojack, if I say I'll take
two hours, I'll take two hours. Jesus, you must be desperate."

 "Well, have you?" Shelley puckers his lips in frustration.

 Boy looks at a hypothetical watch. "Now I have, yes. You can kiss my arse."
He raises his eyebrows a touch.

 Shelley looks away toward the view of Washington. Far away to the south he
can just make out a section of green land that lies beyond the walls of the
Plex. "Fine. Then I'll call in some Fednet boys and have you shut down."

 Boy shakes his head, the smirk still on his face. "Sorry, matey, but I've
rigged myself for replication. If you shut me down here, I'll pop up in two
other cores. And if I'm shut down there I replicate again, to an exponential.
Eventually the only way I could die will be when the whole of the Grid crashes
because it can't handle all my processes. I made it a principal a long time
ago never to work for smart-arse companies. Now I'm dead, I figure I've all the
more reason to stick to my principles, seeing as they're about all I've got."

 Shelley doesn't hide his annoyance. His lips are pursed tighter than ever. He
stands and walks a few steps across the sidewalk. "You seem to have me in a
potential blackmail position, Mister Eastman. What do you want from me?"

 When Boy gives him the answer, Shelley just laughs in disbelief.

                                ***

The lift stops rather suddenly. When the door slides open, Motorhead and Sarah 
instinctively edge to the sides of the lift, expecting the stutter of heavy 
rifle fire. But there's only the low hum of the neon strip lights that lead to
his office. The corridor's empty. No security guards here. No Shelley. No 
autocannons she'd suspected lurking in the corner.

 Nothing.

 They make their way along the edges of the corridor. Shelley's office at the 
far end of the corridor is a closed door.

 When they reach it, just about to hit the switch, it opens. The two drop
nervously, sensing the danger.

 In front of Shelley's desk, a motion-controlled device sets off about five
pounds of plastic explosive. Windows disintegrate and spray out into the
evening air. Flames lick the backs of Sarah's legs.

 They stand and survey the scene. There are a few pieces of Shelley left
by the remains of the desk, but most of him has been blown out the window.
Motorhead catches the smell of charred flesh and retches in the corner. Sarah
kicks part of what could have been a leg under the debris. 

                                ***

The holoroom is set for Paris, the base of La Tour Eiffel. Sarah steps up to
Boy's apparition and folds her arms.

 "Okay, you've got your revenge. Now what did you have to do with it?"

 Boy puts on a mockingly innocent face and shrugs. "I just told him that the
best way out of his situation was suicide. He didn't have the guts to do it
himself, so he waited for you to arrive instead."

 Sarah unfolds her arms and gasps. "There's so much more behind this that you
haven't told us, isn't there?"

 Boy nods.

 "Fancy parting with some of this information?"

 "Nope. I told you what you needed to know to get the job done. I mean you
stopped him, right? No one knows what happened. Metropol were distracted at
the time The world's a safer place. Just like the cartoons."

 "Vijayanta are still after me, though, aren't they?" She shrugs, not knowing
what to do next.

 "Go back to the Outzone. It's more exciting than Milton Keynes." He laughs. 
"Anywhere's more exciting than Milton Keynes."

 With her eyes low, she nods and takes the suggestion into her head. "Okay,
I'll put with Mo for a bit."

 "Good." Boy turns away, walking north.

 "Where are you going?" she calls after him.

 He wheels around to face her a final time. His eyes are alive with loss. "I'm
a Digital Intelligence now. And I've been collared - The management want to
see me." His arms stretch out to each side. He laughs hard and spins himself
dizzy, heading north until he disappears into the wall.

 Sarah turns and laughs as she walks out of the room. Behind her in a hologram
Paris, rain begins to fall.

FIN

(c) COPYRIGHT 1993 BY RIDLEY MCINTYRE

Any comments or suggestions or criticisms are gratefully welcomed. Thanks
for taking the time to read this... Rid.
-- 
 ____ @     |  | 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" |
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo