Free SF in The City Anthology by Joshua Wilkinson Page A

Charlisle himself had told this aging woman that he believed in the trinity: drugs, sex and entertainment (he would be the first to admit his lack of experience with the second of these). Of course he felt badly about treating Grace this way. Even if she was a little disturbed, he had to admit that no one in the Gorse, or The City as a whole for that matter, had ever treated him so well. She would probably be excited to hear that he was considering a future as a white hat [15] .
    Unfortunately, somebody else had snatched up the free cookies before the boys got there.
    “Probably a hobo,” Nettles said dejectedly.
    “We could drop by Brell’s and grab some Pagoto Kaimaki [16] ,” Vox suggested.
    “The show starts in fifteen minutes,” Norn said after pulling up a clock inside of his mind. “We’ll get a snack later.”
    “Shouldn’t we focus on making ECUs, rather than spending them anyway?” Probably said quietly.
    Charlisle chuckled with the rest of the boys. His friends hadn’t struggled with money to the same degree he had. Of course his father left him with more debts to pay. Now that he had a prospective job on the horizon, the rush to make all those ECUs before the day ended no longer mattered. Screw Kim! He could move to a nicer apartment with a CA job. If he started saving, he might even get out of the Gorse in less than a decade. Another gang’s hacker could try for the job, but everyone knew Charlisle had the best record in the neighborhood. If anyone could solve the gray box hack, it would be him.
    Arriving at the Culture Center, its flickering holographic sign emitting “Cultur Center,” the youth immediately spotted the most interesting aspect of the show out front – girls. The Dingoneks’ favorite all-girl gang to hang with, the Harpies, stood in line for the show, eating mochi ice cream and whispering to each other as the boys arrived.
    Araña Ragnatela had led the Harpies for the last two years. With a bright orange Mohawk, steely green eyes and an Akdal Ghost always holstered at her side, Araña had caught Norn’s interest before, and the two had shared an on and off relationship ever since. A complete airhead, the Harpie’s hacker, Prep Teixeira, was the most sexually aggressive among their gang. Perhaps that explained the Dingoneks’ lack of interest in her.
    While he never brought it up, Charlisle could tell that Nettles had a crush on the Harpie’s strongest and tallest member, Yagmur Sandoval. Always stark naked, except for a pair of protocell sneakers, Yagmur had cut off both her breasts in an attempt to outdo the Amazons. With a tactical hatchet on hand, this girl threatened to castrate any male who looked at her lustfully. Nettles would die for her.
    The real sight Charlisle couldn’t wait to see was Elegance Pang, the fourth and most beautiful member of the Harpies. With almond colored eyes and dark black hair cut at sharp angles, she exhibited an inherent fierceness like no other gangstress he had ever met. “There’s something Princess Mononoke about her,” he had told Umwelt before. Even her compatriots referred to her as “the feral,” since they found her abandoned in a garbage heap as a child. Charlisle suspected they called her this mostly out of jealousy, since she had the most brains and beauty of the group. Then again, he was also biased.
    After a few brief insults were shared jokingly, the groups finally entered the theater and reclined in its broken down seats, facing the graffiti covered stage. Uploading the performance’s program telepathically, Charlisle saw that they had a ballet set for this time slot, starting with The Kingdom of the Shades from La Bayadère , Act II. He sighed in exasperation. Dancing automatons had cheaper programming and designs than the signing ones, meaning the audience would have to listen to the heavy steps of uncoordinated “ballerinatons” for the next two hours.
    When the plastic theater curtains rose, and the machines