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ISSN 1062-6697
Volume I
Issue VII
EXTRA SPECIAL CYBERPUNK ISSUE
...because April *is* the cruellest month...
~~~````''''~~~
CORE is published monthly by Rita Rouvalis (rita@eff.org) and is
archived on ftp.eff.org in the /journals directory. Subscrip-
tions and submissions should be sent to core-journal@eff.org.
CORE is also archived on CompuServe in the EFFSIG Forum in Lib 5
Zines from the Net.
You are encouraged to reproduce CORE *in its entirety only* any-
where in Cyberspace. Please contact individual authors for
permission to reproduce articles seperately.
~~~````''''~~~
___________________________________________________________________________
Charlene Brusso cbrusso@cs.ulowell.edu
GROUND ZERO ARCADE
Ground Zero? Ask anyone in this sprawling junkyard the Boston
corporate types call 'Oldtown,' they'll tell you. Oldtowners know me,
they know my work. Look for the blossoming mushroom cloud in the front
window, the nuclear chrysanthemum with continuous replay. Once a prong
hears the name, sees that sign, he usually doesn't forget. I count on it.
Sometimes I sit in the front by the token changers just to listen to
the comments from the new prongs, the virgins, their wrists still sore
from getting their interface sockets installed. They come here in a fever
to prong into the games, link nerves into a sensory generator and
surrender to an alternate reality. It's new tech to them, but I've seen
it all before. My sockets are military blackware; I just tell everyone
they're custom jobs.
The Arcade draws more corporate types every day. I can always tell
a corp, no matter how hard they try to dress down. They have this rigidity;
they're edgy, stiff. Their voices are brittle and they laugh too much.
No Oldtowner laughs like a corp; they learn early not to to give things away.
But prongs are still prongs, and they all stare at my hologram the first
time they come in. I have to admit it's impressive. Just look at it --
the golden fireball billows out into a bloated red balloon, shrouded
in roiling dust. And see those daggers of lightening snap like shorts in an
overloaded circuit as the shock front rolls out from the bloody red-brown
stem. Then it jerks and blinks and starts all over again, like a
jack-in-the-box.
It's just a toy, no more than two cubic meters in volume. Just a
toy, a dream, a whimsey from Crazy Janey's freaky imagination.
Most of my clientele can't appreciate the realism, the dept and detail
in the image. I remember well enough what it should sound like, but I
didn't make an audio track for it. I'll probably never add one; I'm retired,
after all, at the wizened age of twenty-seven, and this place is plenty
wild enough without it.
Why did Janey do it? Everyone thinks they know, and no one asks me. Corps
are good with assumptions, and Oldtowners don't pry. It's Janey's hologram,
freeb. Cantcha see the red neon above the door? Ground Zero Arcarde: it's
a joke, just a piece of the game. Now you know.
Only I know different. But it IS good for business. And the prongs are
here tonight in full force. Some kind of corporate holiday, I heard:
CEO's birthday or something. Doesn't matter. What's important is the
sound of those tokens dropping into my games, the snarled MIDI synthesis
of gunfire and exploding warships twined into the veil of cigarette smoke.
Only dead things are quiet, and tonight the arcade is noisy and I'm happy.
Well, happy enough.
I watch the players a lot. The best ones are cool. Nothing moves but
their eyes, and their fingers on the console. Click, they cable wristplugs
into the game, and now it's a fight to the death. They're not flashy, these
prongs, but they don't fall. Not many corps play like that. Too noisy.
No instinct. The high scores are from the quiet ones, the loners, and those
scores are hard to beat.
Most of the high scores here carry my initials. But I don't play often. No
personal stake in it, no threat. The game has to be worth winning to
be worth playing.
Besides, it gets in the way of the paying customers.
Orange fire reflects from the silver t-shirts of four sweet young things
in copycat Vichenzi originals. They're so fresh they could have stepped
out of a ContiCo Cosmetics ad: gypsy black hair worn short and curly,
shiny teeth bright white as a magnesium flare, and faces planed to a
uniform smooth fleshpink. Two males, a female, and one who could pass for
either, probably some corporate secretarial pool. They've been feeding
tokens into that multi-player 'Harem-Scarem' for over an hour. The
androgyne is the coolest, but all four are sweating and panting; Harem's
interface is pretty realistic.
I don't even like the game much, but somehow it's fitting that I look up
from it just as he enters the arcade. Mirrorshades, collar-length
silver-blond hair clipped short on the sides, brown leather jacket. Long
legs in black denims, fringed black boots. Nothing so unusual there: the
description matches half my clientele, the Oldtowner half.
No, it's not how he looks, it's how he moves. Smooth, long strides, hands
tucked in his jacket pockets. He's no Oldtowner I've seen before, but he
looks more dangerous than your average corp -- more aware, and comfortable
with it. Like he knows exactly what he wants, and how he's going to get it.
Pure attitude, this boy. Impressive.
His mirrorshades scan the arcade chaos in narrow arcs: his hidden eyes
must be swinging wide, taking in the sights with as professional an eye
as me or my partner Trixie ever used. Reflected holograms sweep across the
chromed surface of his glasses in garish acid-etched rainbows. He's taken
his left hand out of his pocket now. His right is closed in a fist behind
the distressed leather.
A hit, in my place? Not a smart idea. This boy must be from out of town.
But I like his form. I'll give him a warning. If he's ept, he'll take his
business elsewhere. The only games allowed here are mine.
I nod to Trixie where she's leaning against the smoked plexy phone kiosk by
the front door. She shakes her head, dreadlocks wound with green and blue
yarn bouncing against her chocolate brown cheeks. I scratch the right side
of my jaw, pull my right earlobe. She slides upright and strolls after the
blond. I've never seen a panther but I'm sure she moves like one, lean,
muscular and coiled to spring. He moves the same way, watching the room
with that casual alertness. It's a hit, all right. I wonder who?
Trixie's got a smile growing on her elegant face. I hope this boy is smart.
He's too pretty to kill. My one soft spot, that eye for art. Lucky for him.
I walk toward the side wall, angling away to flank him. My slim Messier
9mm is exactly where it's supposed to be, under my right sleeve and ready.
All I have to do is crook my thumb and I'm holding the best short-range
defense money and contacts can buy.
I pass Sage, doing his regular Wednesday night calesthenics at the controls
of 'Raid on Antares.' He smiles, a quick gleam of aluminized eyeteeth, and
nods before returning his full attention to the swooping starships. The LCD
score panel reads almost 5,000,000. He could even beat my record tonight.
The thunder of a synthetic explosion rattles under my feet as a beam of
yellowgold plasma shatters a target. Sage's score jumps by 20,000. Yeah,
maybe he'll do it.
My boy has stopped by the 'DragonMaster' table, silver hair falling over
his forehead. I can see his face-on now, lithe reptilian figures distorted
in his mirrorshades as he glances at the gameboard. The reflection drifts
as he raises his gaze. His mouth thins briefly, then he smiles. At me.
Cocky bastard. I push my hair out of my eyes and smile back, and he takes
his hand out of his pocket. He's holding something matte black and
snub-nosed. It's pointed at me.
Fast, I drop behind the Antares box, cock my thumb. The Messier slides
into my palm. You'd better be wearing some Kevlar under that leather,
Blondie.
I fire, he fires. The Messier's action is smooth, no recoil. All around me
people are getting intimate with the floor. Sage, down flat at the opposite
end of the console, scowls at me. Above us his interrupted game blinks as
the timer counts down. This is bad for business.
The blond dodges; I can see him cleanly in the mylar-mirrored ceiling panels.
He cuts left. I crouch-run-drive to the 'High Polaris' imager and catch sight
of Trixie's dreadlock yarns as she drifts along the wall. The black
lightshield around the Polaris display shatters with a crack. Shards of
broken plastic rain down and I duck, hands protecting my head. His next
bullet riccochetes, singing off metal, and takes out a ceiling panel overhead.
Cursing, I duck under the game in a fog of crumbling acoustic tile.
I hear the pneumatic alarm of Trixie's needlegun. More breaking plastic and
a thick grunt. Reflected in a flimsy shiver of hanging mylar, Blondie
slumps onto the 'Dark Continuum' console, slides to the floor. His gun
falls from his hand.
"Got him." Trixie's satisfaction is clear enough above the background
chatter of the game.
I stand, brushing debris off my good black silk tunic. The cosmetic
quadruplets are gone in a hectic wash of reflected neon. The others I
marked for corps are leaving, too, faces white and shaken. Go back to your
nice safe suburbs. Take a tab of bluedream to feel better, a few sleepies
to finish the night. Then tomorrow you can tell how you came THIS CLOSE to
getting blown away in Oldtown. You'll stay away for a few days, maybe a
week, but you'll be back. You're sure it can't happen to you.
Sage has picked up his game in time. He locks into it smoothly, hands
spidered across the controls. His bluegrey eyes dart after the synthesized
images. He smiles and blows away another enemy ship with a gold thunderflash.
Trixie's kneeling by the body, her long fingernails touching his throat.
Silver nails like blades hover over his carotid.
"OK?" I lean down, hair falling over my shoulders, and pick up his gun.
"Looks good, Boss." She catches his jaw to turn his face to the side.
"Real clean, if I do say so myself." A steel sliver glints under his ear;
she extracts it with her fingernails, leaving a bead of blood on his neck.
"Office?"
"Yeah." I nod. "I'll be up in a minute."
I assess the damage I'll have to fix tomorrow. The games natter to
themselves, playing their demo screens with autistic single-mindedness.
Only the prongs like Sage are still here, equally immune to distraction.
Nobody knew Blondie, nobody wants to know him. Life goes on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In my office Trixie's dumped the body on the unsprung couch under the
window that overlooks the arcade. The blinds are closed and the desklamp
beams at full. Light falls across his face with stark drama, a 2D still in
retro-cinematic monochrome. Without the mirrorshades he looks familiar --
something in the shape of his eyes, his mouth. Then I notice the
clover-shaped emerald in his left earlobe.
"You know him, Janey?" Trixie finishes duct-taping his wrists and sits back
on her bootheels.
"Maybe." I hope not. "How many needles did he get?"
"Just four; he'll be out half an hour, a little longer."
I slide my hip over the edge of the desk and sit. I can feel Trixie
watching me watch him. Wondering. "Go back down, Trix, I'll call if I
need you."
"Sure," she says. She's used to humoring me. She opens the door and the
bright roar of the arcade rolls in. Prickling quiet swirls down as the door
swings shut.
I sit there with one hand in a tight fist pressed against my mouth. Light
picks out highlights in the emerald in his ear. He has to be related to
Lucky, with those looks. Lucky's hair was darker, redder, but the face is
similar. Five years now, since Lucky died. I guess my grace period has
expired. They've found me.
Trixie's done a good job with the duct-tape; he won't be getting out of
here before I'm done with him. I step into my executive washroom, a closet
fitted with a rust- stained sink and a john with a cracked tanklid. I look
in the mirror and tell myself it's okay. I'm no paler than usual. But I
have to grip the edge of the sink to make my hands stop trembling.
I splash cold water on my face. The chlorine smell is strong tonight;
purifier must need a new filter. Then I settle back behind my desk. Lucky
had a brother, didn't he? A kid brother, yeah, cute blond, name of Ryan.
Why'd it take me so long to recognize him? I'm off, that's why. Losing the
edge. Getting soft, Balzac would say; getting old.
Almost getting dead.
Ryan lays like a figure carved on one of those old stone coffins. Fine gold
lashes fringe his quiet eyelids. A facet on his earring winks with the
slow rhythm of his breathing. I could make this real easy. I could just
kill him now. Never let him open those eyes again. Goddamn right, it's
what he wanted to do to me. I should just do it.
No. Not yet.
~~~~~~~~~
I always thought you were a bit of a fool, Lucky. Not stupid, more like
a jester or a team mascot. Even now I could fill a hard disk with all the
times you nearly pushed Colonel Balzac over the limit.
I thought you were just wired that way, born to tread the edge. Like you
needed the adrenalin to live. I see people a lot like that in Oldtown --
in Oldtowns all over the world. People half-crazy from drugs and heavy
pasts, old crimes committed, old loves lost. Real romantic, the streetpoets
try to tell you. It's easy to believe that shit when you're young. Easy to
do a lot of things, then, things that are hard to get out of, later. Like
working for Balzac.
It was after the Beirut job, where we lost Keed and Nim to a sniper and
a bad detonator. We were in London, sitting in the murk of Gordon's
pub, drinking bitters. Balzac had upgraded the battlecomputer again, and
the new sockets made my wrists ache. I pressed the cool glass against
them to numb the pain, but it didn't work; nothing worked.
"I'm sick of it, Lucky," I said. "I want out."
"Baby, you need a vacation." You took my hand and traced a design on
my palm with your forefinger. Smiled. "No Balzac, no simulations.
Throw some clothes in a bag and we'll go, just you and me."
I needed the time off. And I wanted you. So we went.
It was early summer in Sydney. We rented a house on the beach, miles from
anyone and anything. A beautiful house, full of skylights and pale wood and
plants. The bedroom had sliding glass doors that opened onto a wooden
deck, with stairs treading down from the deck to the sand.
Every morning you got up to run on the beach. Sometimes I went with you,
but usually I swam or windsurfed. The water was warm and buoyant; when I
got tired I could just float and watch you.
The peace was strange. As though time and space had refolded and this world
wasn't really mine. It couldn't last; I knew it couldn't, it was too fine.
The last morning I woke before dawn. You were close beside me, your arm
on my wrist and your long legs tangled with mine. The sun was coming up.
I could see the pale line widening on the horizon between night and the
water's edge. The white sand glowed pink and healthy. You smelled like a
garden from the Arabian nights, all musk and dark spice, and your hand was
warm on my stomach.
I pulled away carefully, so you wouldn't wake. And I went to the sliding
glass doors that looked out over the ocean, laid my palms, my forehead
against the silky cool glass.
I tried to memorize every instant of that sunrise: the colors, the invisible
heat; to measure its progress by the arc of my shadow sweeping over you
like a sundial gnomon. But it was too quick. I couldn't record all the
imput my senses received.
My eyes stung and I blinked. You slept on your side, reaching into the
empty space where I had lain, your sunbrowned arm like mahogany against
the pale sheets. The perfection was instantaneous, impossible to save:
you, asleep and inviting; the sun, newborn in fire and water and gold.
To hell with it, I said. To hell with time, and entropy, and dissipation.
I never could just give up. A touch, a tentative hand on your shoulder,
and your blue eyes opened, and the doubts were seared away. Even now the
memory still burns. Spiders spinning in the same corner, that's what we
were. Tangled in each other's webs, as long as it was convenient for the
both of us. At the end of the day we sat on the deck drinking Australian
Chardonnay -- I remember the koala on the label. You held the
bottle up to the fading orange-red light, squinting.
"Empty," you said. "I'll get us another." And you kissed me and went inside.
When you came back, you had a gun.
"Sorry, babe," you told me. "Balzac's orders."
I put down my empty glass and stood slowly. I looked at the gun. Then
I looked at you.
"You bastard."
"Janey, don't make this difficult." Your blue eyes were so sincere I had
to laugh.
"I sure as hell don't want it to be easy!"
You shrugged. That's when I kicked you. High, in the jaw; Mantis Springs
and Strikes. I was barefoot; the joint in my big toe cracked. Your head
snapped up, the gun flipped away. You tumbled backwards into the glass
doors, arms thrown wide. Then panes snapped and pieces flew everywhere,
shards red with your blood and the dying sun. Glass ground under your back,
and you slid to a stop at the foot of the bed, leaving a red streak on the
polished wood floor. Your head was on your shoulder, crooked- necked, like
a broken training dummy. Glass lay around you like scattered diamonds.
I was right, Lucky. You weren't stupid, but you were a fool.
~~~~~~~~~~
"Problems, Boss?" Trixie eyes me when I come back downstairs, her hand
straying near the slim holster under her left arm.
"Not at all, Trix. Looks like business has tapered off for the night."
She nods. "Grave quiet, except for Sage over there."
I can hear the fanfare as Antares clears its RAM and brings up the fiftieth
frame. Only fifty? Then he hasn't beaten me yet.
The fingers of his left hand blur, explosions ring in the air. He leans
forward, right index finger poised. I can see the frame in my mind, the
battlecruiser with her screening swarm of drones. The trick is to wait
until the drones shift to avoid the mothership's main canon. When it happens,
you fire right down her laser turret, before she can fire at you --
"Shit!" Sage curses, and scarlet light washes over his face and hands. He
pounds the machine with his fists, interface cables slapping the darkblue
plastic. "Goddammit! Goddamn fucking machine!"
I grin at Trixie. "I guess my record's safe."
The machine plays out the last bars of its theme and goes into demo mode.
Sage yanks the cables out of his wrist sockets, leaving them dangling from
the locked console like a disconnected life support.
"Hey, Sage, better luck next time, man."
He mutters, waving my words away, and stalks out. I tell Trixie I'll
close up.
"What about him?" She points to the ceiling with her thumb.
"I'll take care of it; don't worry."
She looks at me with her head tilted to the left, her right eyebrow raised.
"Sure." Then she straightens, dreadlocks swaying, and slaps me on the
shoulder. "You take care, Janey. Be lucky."
I can feel the corner of my mouth curl wryly. "I'll try, honey. You can
be sure of that."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The emerald shamrock glints and Ryan's eyelids flutter. My watch tells me
it's been nearly forty minutes.
"Wake up." I slap him harder than I wanted to, and my hand stings and burns.
Ryan's head rolls with the blow, toward the light, and he opens his eyes.
Blue. Lucky's eyes.
Wide and glassy from the knockout dart, his pupils are slow to react. He
shuts his eyes, grinding the lids down tight. He turns his head left a few
degrees, then right, as though he's testing the link to the rest of his body.
"Checkout time, lover." I take my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and
pry open the biggest blade. Ryan's body goes rigid; he wrenches and twists
his hands against the duct tape bonds. I grab hold of his wrists and
squeeze.
"Hold still." When I raise the knife, the blade flashes, reflecting a
slim ruler of light across his throat, over his face. He squints and blinks.
His eyes are on me, not the blade. He stares, lips parted, his breath
hissing in his throat. Then I slice through the heavy silver-grey tape.
"Your brother was a fool, Ryan." I snap the blade shut. "Don't be like him."
Ryan sits up with a jerk, winces as he strips off the tape. I lean back on
my desk; the steel sockets in my wrists gleam briefly as I fold my arms.
My shadow falls over him. He blinks and licks dry lips. I can see his eyes
moving over my face, searching. But with the light behind me, I know he
won't find anything.
"Are you goin' to kill me or not?" His voice is deep and musical, with the
Irish lift that Lucky taught himself to hide. He shifts on the couch,
rubbing his palms on his thighs. I can smell his fear over the bitter tang
in the back of my throat.
"You're already dead, I don't need to kill you. But Balzac will, if you
tell him you're not."
His hands lay still on his thighs. His eyes narrow, recognizing the truth.
"What d'you want, then?"
"You ever play 'Hide and Seek,' Blue-eyes? It's a game." I smile. "I'm
very good at games."
~~~~~~~~~~
It's chilly outside, brisk, with a gusting wind that smells like rain.
Dark. Not many streetlamps work in Oldtown. The street is quiet, empty of
everything but shadows; lightning never strikes twice in the same place,
they say, and this place has already had its action for the night.
So much for old cliches.
If I were still working for Balzac, this would be too easy. I'd have a
case full of shaped charges with strips of contact adhesive. A transmitter
would let me detonate them from a mile away. Then I wouldn't have to watch.
From three blocks out, I can see the orange-gold glare of the hologram in
the front window. The red neon sign above the door blinks on and off as the
toy nuke flickers and replays. Old three-story brick building -- this will
be easy.
Beside me Ryan turns up the collar of his leather jacket. His face is
ghostly pale, his voice soft and tense.
"You're sure this'll work?"
Humorous question. I laugh. "Just watch." The mushroom cloud in the window
cycles through one more time, the fiftieth since I set the charges. Now --
A white flash backlights the hologram, washing it out and filling the
windows on the first floor. The hollow thump of the main charge shocks out,
rolling by underfoot like a live thing tunneling. The building collapses on
itself, bricks leaning inward, then toppling with a waterfall's steady roar.
Ryan stands open-mouthed with hands over his ears. A silver-white beam
stabs up past the second and third floor windows, up through the open roof,
like a xenon search light, full of dust and mortar particulates. The light
yellows, dims into flickering orange, and I hear faint popping noises.
"The plasma displays are exploding!" I shout to Ryan over the thunder. "That
blue and green in the flames, that's from the gases in the tubes. Pretty
colorful, huh?"
A gout of fire claws its way up into the night, casting shadows like full
sunlight. It spreads, swelling into the familiar capped shape: my
signature. Beautiful.
"Come on!" Ryan grabs my arm. "We've seen it before."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two first class seats on the Tokyo High Altitude Shuttle. Soft koto
The silk-robed flight attendent bows and slides a black enamel
platter onto the glass table between us: rice and raw fish, garnished
with origami cranes. Soft koto jazz, the newest wave, is plinking
obbligato to the toast.
"To new business ventures." Ryan smiles, touching the rim of his
champagne flute to mine. I grin back, showing all my teeth, like a shark.
"To games," I say, and we drink, eyeing each other over the enamel platter
of pale sushimi and green wasabi.
<<<<<~~~~~~~~>>>>>
April 1992