Flux by Orson Scott Card Page A

hard.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t kill him?”
    â€œKill him? We had to get the money back first, didn’t we, so we needed him alive till morning, and then you came in, and your little story changed our minds, it really did, you made us feel all sloppy and sorry for that poor old pimp.”
    For a few seconds there I actually believed that it was going to be all right. But then I knew from the way they looked, from the way they acted, I knew the same way I know about passwords.
    They brought in Dogwalker and handed me a book. Dogwalker was very quiet and stiff and he didn’t look like he recognized me at all. I didn’t even have to look at the book to know what it was. They scooped out his brain and replaced it with glass, like me only way over the line, way way over, there was nothing of Dogwalker left inside his head, just glass pipe and goo. The book was a User’s Manual, with all the instructions about how to program him and control him.
    I looked at him and he was Dogwalker, the same face, the same hair, everything. Then he moved or talked and he was dead, he was somebody else living in Dogwalker’s body. And I says to them, “Why? Why didn’t you just kill him, if you were going to do this?”
    â€œThis one was too big,” says the guy. “Everybody in G-boro knew what happened, everybody in the whole country, everybody in the world. Even if it was a mistake, we couldn’t let it go. No hard feelings, Goo Boy. He is alive. And so are you. And you both stay that way, as long as you follow a few simple rules. Since he’s over the line, he has to have an owner, and you’re it. You can use him however you want—rent out data storage, pimp him as a jig or a jaw—but he stays with you always. Every day, he’s on the street here in G-boro, so we can bring people here and show them what happens to boys who make mistakes. You can even keep your cut from the job, so you don’t have to scramble at all if you don’t want to. That’s how much we like you, Goo Boy. But if he leaves this town or doesn’t come out, even one single solitary day, you’ll be very sorry for the last six hours of your life. Do you understand?”
    I understood. I took him with me. I bought this place, these clothes, and that’s how it’s been ever since. That’s why we go out on the street every day. I read the whole manual, and I figure there’s maybe ten percent of Dogwalker left inside. The part that’s Dogwalker can’t ever get to the surface, can’t even talk or move or anything like that, can’t ever remember or even consciously think. But maybe he can still wander around inside what used to be his head, maybe he can sample the data stored in all that goo. Maybe someday he’ll even run across this story and he’ll know what happened to him, and he’ll know that I tried to save him.
    In the meantime this is my last will and testament. See, I have us doing all kinds of research on Orgasmic Crime, so that someday I’ll know enough to reach inside the system and unplug it. Unplug it all, and make those bastards lose everything, the way they took everything away from Dogwalker. Trouble is, some places there ain’t no way to look without leaving tracks. Goo is as goo do, I always say. I’ll find out I’m not as good as I think I am when somebody comes along and puts a hot steel putz in my face. Knock my brains out when it comes. But there’s this, lying in a few hundred places in the system. Three days after I don’t lay down my code in a certain program in a certain place, this story pops into view. The fact you’re reading this means I’m dead.
    Or it means I paid them back, and so I quit suppressing this because I don’t care anymore. So maybe this is my swan song, and maybe this is my victory song. You’ll never know, will you, mate?
    But you’ll wonder. I like that. You