Free Cyberpunk by Bruce Bethke

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
    Cyberpunk 1.0 53
    ©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
    trusted