alley, and after crisscrossing a maze of connecting passageways, he’s back at his apartment complex. She can’t see him, but he can’t see her either, and this, in many ways, is more unnerving. Carefully sneaking toward Rush’s, sidling against the building’s façade, True keeps a wary eye. He slips up to Rush’s apartment.
“Look, Ailey,” Rush says after True’s inside, “I’ve been on the phone all morning with New York and Reiner. I’ve been ordered to Japan to help with the quake coverage.”
True looks around the expansive one-room apartment, taking in the brash tint, the mammoth entertainment system particular to bachelor life. He grimaces at the TV posters of Rush hawking shampoo, aftershave, a worldwide chain of plastic surgery salons. Commercials that are memorable because they’re so forgettable. True turns down Rush’s offers of vitamin shakes, protein drinks, the carbo-replacement fluid system, free-radical enhancement beverage technology, and mineral water. Then says, “Congratulations. I know that’s what you wanted.”
“Yeah, well, I have to tell you. Reiner doesn’t sound happy I’m getting in the closing credits. She told me she’d rather you came.”
“Oh?”
“But I told her your meatware’s defecto.”
“What’d she say?”
“What could she say? Orders are orders, although she’s got some kind of clout with the Board. I mean, they did free up enough bucks in her budget so she could hire that hacker.”
“An elegant solution. Whatever computer systems haven’t crashed there are vulnerable. Others that have been rebooted will be fair game. A good hacker could navigate through these systems, help her to set up one mammoth database from stuff you couldn’t touch a week ago.”
“Ailey, you’re deftly in the upside of yo-yo mode. That’s what she said, exacto. I’d never heard of him, but he’s a real bagbiter. Cut in on Reiner’s and my conversation. Reiner didn’t even tell him to. Said he could tress whenever he wanted. Attitude problem, but Reiner says he’s one of the best. His name is 16ea3e.”
“Or just Peace. It’s cyberspeak. P is the sixteenth letter of the alphabet, C is the third, so 16ea3e is Peace.”
But 16ea3e was only his moniker, the hackers’ lexicon of cool. His real name, True discovered in the days he warped through mirror worlds, was Odessa Flashfire, yet this too seems more moniker than real name. Once, while jacked into the infonet retrieving data on a candidate running for political office, True was smoked by Odessa, who locked him inside the candidate’s speeches, imprisoned him inside an electronic force field of halcyon promises—a balanced budget, better schools, more prisons, lower taxes, a return to family values. It seemed it lasted years; probably just minutes. But Odessa was only sending the message that he was the world’s hippest cyberjockey. True felt he could have tracked him if he’d been spliced with more genes of vengeance.
Rush says, “Tomorrow, two WWTV reps are coming to this DMZ.”
“Two?”
“You’re reassigned. To New York.”
True’s lips fade. “I’m flatlined?”
“That’s up to the Board in New York. All I know is it’s not working out here. Let’s face it: It’s been total bogosity, Ailey.”
True’s in another place, another time.
“I told you if you got in trouble, you’d get zapped.”
“You held my stories last night.”
“Bong Bong told me he’d turn me into particularly piss-poor protoplasm. Your stories reflect badly on his country.”
“A true patriot. He actually said ‘particularly piss-poor protoplasm?’”
“That was the gist. You want to talk to him? He’s liquid nitrogen, Ailey, an ice man in broken syntax. What could I do?”
“He denies the Luzonian government is ripping off refugees? He denies foreign aid food is glowing with radioactive isotopes?” True scarcely believes the naiveté of his own defense.
“He claims there are positive aspects
“Look, Ailey,” Rush says after True’s inside, “I’ve been on the phone all morning with New York and Reiner. I’ve been ordered to Japan to help with the quake coverage.”
True looks around the expansive one-room apartment, taking in the brash tint, the mammoth entertainment system particular to bachelor life. He grimaces at the TV posters of Rush hawking shampoo, aftershave, a worldwide chain of plastic surgery salons. Commercials that are memorable because they’re so forgettable. True turns down Rush’s offers of vitamin shakes, protein drinks, the carbo-replacement fluid system, free-radical enhancement beverage technology, and mineral water. Then says, “Congratulations. I know that’s what you wanted.”
“Yeah, well, I have to tell you. Reiner doesn’t sound happy I’m getting in the closing credits. She told me she’d rather you came.”
“Oh?”
“But I told her your meatware’s defecto.”
“What’d she say?”
“What could she say? Orders are orders, although she’s got some kind of clout with the Board. I mean, they did free up enough bucks in her budget so she could hire that hacker.”
“An elegant solution. Whatever computer systems haven’t crashed there are vulnerable. Others that have been rebooted will be fair game. A good hacker could navigate through these systems, help her to set up one mammoth database from stuff you couldn’t touch a week ago.”
“Ailey, you’re deftly in the upside of yo-yo mode. That’s what she said, exacto. I’d never heard of him, but he’s a real bagbiter. Cut in on Reiner’s and my conversation. Reiner didn’t even tell him to. Said he could tress whenever he wanted. Attitude problem, but Reiner says he’s one of the best. His name is 16ea3e.”
“Or just Peace. It’s cyberspeak. P is the sixteenth letter of the alphabet, C is the third, so 16ea3e is Peace.”
But 16ea3e was only his moniker, the hackers’ lexicon of cool. His real name, True discovered in the days he warped through mirror worlds, was Odessa Flashfire, yet this too seems more moniker than real name. Once, while jacked into the infonet retrieving data on a candidate running for political office, True was smoked by Odessa, who locked him inside the candidate’s speeches, imprisoned him inside an electronic force field of halcyon promises—a balanced budget, better schools, more prisons, lower taxes, a return to family values. It seemed it lasted years; probably just minutes. But Odessa was only sending the message that he was the world’s hippest cyberjockey. True felt he could have tracked him if he’d been spliced with more genes of vengeance.
Rush says, “Tomorrow, two WWTV reps are coming to this DMZ.”
“Two?”
“You’re reassigned. To New York.”
True’s lips fade. “I’m flatlined?”
“That’s up to the Board in New York. All I know is it’s not working out here. Let’s face it: It’s been total bogosity, Ailey.”
True’s in another place, another time.
“I told you if you got in trouble, you’d get zapped.”
“You held my stories last night.”
“Bong Bong told me he’d turn me into particularly piss-poor protoplasm. Your stories reflect badly on his country.”
“A true patriot. He actually said ‘particularly piss-poor protoplasm?’”
“That was the gist. You want to talk to him? He’s liquid nitrogen, Ailey, an ice man in broken syntax. What could I do?”
“He denies the Luzonian government is ripping off refugees? He denies foreign aid food is glowing with radioactive isotopes?” True scarcely believes the naiveté of his own defense.
“He claims there are positive aspects
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