From: dsg12@merhaba.cc.columbia.edu (David Samuel Goodwin)
Subject: Kids These Days
Date: 14 Feb 1994 00:11:38 GMT

Well, here it is: my first story posting.

Probably incorrectly, I feel it needs a touch of explanation.
First of all, it is not serious.  Not even a little bit.
Second, it takes place entirely in a bar which is not Chatsubo.  No
  apologies for this;  nobody wants these characters in Chatsubo.

Having said this, here it is.

                                                 DSG       -|||-


			Kids These Days
				by David S. Goodwin


	"Hey, how bout we all head down to the Gentleman 'Poser' for some
laughs,"  Clay-brain shouted in my ear as I banked the hover around a
corner, just missing a fax booth on the sidewalk.  When I didn't answer,
he rapped me on the shoulder a few time.  "Dazer, I SAID, how bout-"
	"I HEARD you, already!"  I shouted back, stepping on the
thrust-peddle and trying to pass the ambulance I'd been stuck behind for
three blocks.  "That place is a drag.  Lets DO something, instead.  Find
someplace to jack in and have some fun."
	"Bzzzt-zz-tzzbzz-zzt!! ZZbt!"  Zippo the Wonderhack kicked the
back of my seat.
	"See,"  Clay-brain screamed in my ear again, "Zippo wants to go
too!  C'mon, it'll be a riot."
	"OK, OK, we'll go, just get out of my face already!"  I shoved
Clay-brain into the back seat with my free hand.  I finally managed to
cut off the ambulance, which went careening onto the curb.
	"'Sides," Clay-brain said in a quieter voice, "I gotta pee."

	The doorman didn't want to let us in, even when Zippo showed him
his deck.  "Beat it,"  he said, standing in front of the door and
crossing his arms.  "This is a bar, not a day-care center."  I was a
little offended that he didn't go for his weapon.  He didn't even pretend.
	"C'mon," I said, trying not to whine.  "We'll, like, buy drinks
and stuff.  We're pro's!  This is our kind of scene!"  I held up Max,
which looks enough like a deck to fool a non-hacker.  Rolling his eyes,
the bouncer stood aside and we paraded in.  Clay-brain reached up and
stuck a half-cred chip in the guy's pocket.  "Don't spend it all in one
place," he giggled.
	Waldo followed us in, not saying anything.  He usually doesn't.

	The place was pretty dead.  The music was slow, and the crowd was
a bunch of old guys sitting in smokey booths bragging about the runs
they'd made in the old days, like a billion years ago.  Zippo the
Wonderhack and I climbed up onto the barstools and started digging into
the pretzels, and Clay-brain headed off to the can.  Waldo just started
looking really intently at the menu.  Eventually the bartender came over,
and tried to pretend he hadn't been staring at us the whole time.  I
ordered a beer, just to see is he'd give it to me, and Zippo ordered two
six-packs of soda.  Well, I ordered for him, but he drank 'em.  Waldo
didn't look up from the menu, so the bartender ignored him.  Eventually
Clay-brain came back, and ordered some more pretzels.
	
	Most of the guys in the bar were ignoring us.  Clay-brain and me
listened to the two guys next to us at the bar, and commented loudly to
eachother.  These guys were must have bought their clothes at the same
outlet store:  they both had dirty t-shirts, army jackets, didn't shave,
and wore sunglasses in the dark.
	"Anyway, I was pretty sure the trace hadn't spotted me,  so I
zoomed in.  I was using my Katana 25X, boosted up to about 231% speed,
with some of the meanest software on the market -"
	"Yeah," Clay-brain whispered loudly, "pretty mean machine.  Kind
of like a boosted 'Speak-N-Spell'."
	The guy gave him a dirty look and went on.  "So, there was this
node, and by now I was pretty sure it was a Global Finances transit
node.  Tough, but I thought I could handle it."
	My turn.  "You know, I broke into one of those once," I said to
Clay-brain.  "...with a Game-Boy!"
	The old hacker finished his story: "Anyway, I ran the money
through about twelve different laundering services, which took most of
it, but in the end I had enough in a numbered Taiwanese account to set
me for life."
	"Ya know," Clay-brain said, "I overthrew France last week."
	The hacker finally spun around on his stool and gave us a mean
professional stare (through his sunglasses).  He looked down at
Clay-brain, evidently taking in the day-glow baseball cap, the crew cut,
the brand-new plastic sneakers, and Matt Matrix (Pirate of the Net!)
T-shirt.  "Are you trying to pretend you're a hacker?"  he finally asked.
	"Yep," said Clay-brain, grinning that grin that even makes ME
want to hit him.  "We all are.  We're the Data Decimators!"
	I kicked him.  "No we aren't.  We're the HellHackers."
	"Zzzzbt!  Zzt-zzt-bzzzxx!" Zippo shouted, but we ignored him.
	"You're a hacker?  A net-runner?  Lemme see your deck."  The
other hacker was chuckling.
	Clay-brain grinned, and tapped his forehead.  "Jeez, how lame ARE
you guys!  Decks are, like, OUT of it.  I got my deck right here,
implanted.  Bio-neurotechnix, and all that.  State of the art, and about
twelve times as fast as that Katana you were talk'n about."
	The hacker scoffed.  "That's a good one, kid.  Very funny.  You
don't even have a socket."
	Clay-brain grinned even wider.  "Don't need one.  Remote control,
links in with the cellular net.  Here, what's your name?"
	The hacker stared at him.  "Mace," he said slowly.
	"Great.  I'm Clay-brain."  He closed his eyes a second.  Suddenly
the phone behind the bar rang.  The bartender picked it up, listened for
a moment, then handed it slowly to Mace.  Mace stared at him, then said
"Put it on the speaker."  He looked back at Clay-brain, who sat silently.
	The speaker crackled to life, and we all heard Clay-brain's voice:
	"Mace, this is Clay-brain.  We have to talk."
	Mace reached over and hit the HANG_UP switch, and Clay-brain
opened his eyes.  "See?"  he said.  "That was pretty lame - just to make
it interesting, I routed the call through Beijing, and billed it to your
bar tab."
	The two hackers stared at him for a moment.  Mace shook his head
slowly, and groaned.  "I can't believe it.  Super-tech Cub Scouts."
Clay-brain snickered.  The other hacker stared at me, and said, "Wait,
you've got a deck.  What model is that?"
	"Oh, this?  You mean Max."  I put the black case on the bar and
hit the ON switch.  "This isn't a deck - this is an AI.  Max, say hello."
	"I am pleased to meet you, Mace,"  said Max in his English-butler
voice.  "I am aware of your reputation on the net, and I can deduce from
this that your companion is Duke Binary.  Your real identity, of course,
is actually -"
	"OK, OK, shut up already!"  Mace stared at the box, then looked
at me.  "Where the Hell did you get that thing?  What kind of technology
can put an AI in a briefcase?"
	"Actually," I told him, "I built him.  I sent away for this kit,
and they had instructions for building an Artificial Intelligence with
hacking capabilities.  It makes hacking kind of a drag, cause Max can cut
through almost anything.  I'm thinking of rewiring him, but I'm not sure
into what."
	"I'm sorry, Dazer, I can't let you do that..."  I shut Max off.
Mace and Duke Binary looked at each other with a kind of stupid look on
their faces.

	"Bzzt! ZZzzZ-TzzxxBzz!"  Zippo shouted.  We tried to ignore him,
but he threw some pretzels at us.  Mace looked at him.
	"What's his problem, anyway?" he asked.
	"Oh," I shrugged, "he's had his mental processes jacked up to
about ten times normal speed, so he wouldn't have to keep buying really
fast decks.  It's pretty dumb;  we can't understand anything he says,
cause he talks too fast."
	"I can understand him," Clay-brain said.  "I use my implant to
slow down his speech."
	"He's got his brain speeded up by TEN?"  asked Duke Binary awe.
	"Yup.  He had to have his reflexes slowed down by five, tho',
'cause he kept on hurting himself.  Plus, he's gonna go senile in five
years."
	"Bzxt-ZZZzzzt, zz-zzt-Bxxzzt,"  Zippo said contentedly, and
drained another soda.
	
	Round about then Waldo wandered over, and started examining the
beer stains on the counter.  The two hackers watched him suspiciously.
"OK, I'll bite," Mace finally said.  "What's with him?"
	"Oh, that's just Waldo," Clay-brain said.  He reached over and
banged Waldo on the skull, which rang like a bell.  "Hey Waldo, this is
real life!  There's no data in that, it's just beer, ya know?"  Waldo
ignored him.
	"Waldo's not real," I said.  "He's a construct.  He's, like,
always on the net, so when he visits the real world, he remote controls a
robot to do it for him.  I guess the real Waldo's, like, really ugly."
Waldo stopped looking at the puddles on the counter, and turned to examine
Mace in minute detail.
	"He's so dumb,"  Clay-brain complained.  "He keeps forgetting
this is the real world - he thinks it's a high-tech virtual interface, or
something, and tries to extract data from everything."  He laughed.
"Once he tried to 'hack' into a Seven-Eleven;  he thought it was a bank
system or something.  He got away with the cash register and four Slurpees."

	Duke Binary and Mace were starting to get uptight, I could tell.
They thought they were pretty hot stuff, and you can only tease a guy so
far before he'll pulverize you.  Of course, Waldo was pretty
indestructible, but we weren't.  I figured we should leave pretty soon,
but I had to admit I was having fun.  A few other hackers had wandered
over to listen, and were examining Waldo;  Clay-brain was showing off by
charging our drinks and pretzels to Mace's bill.  Zippo the Wonderhack
pulled out HIS deck and broke into the local pizza place ordering
thirty large pies, with everything.  He put them on Mace's bill.
	Mace finally exploded.
	"Alright, you little cyber-twits," he snarled, grabbing a deck
from the floor and setting it on the table.  He switched it on, and
stared hooking up trodes.  "You think all it takes to cut it in
cyberspace is a bunch of fancy equipment, some flashy toys, and a snotty
attitude?" He hooked the last wire into a socket behind his ear, while
the other hackers laughed and slapped him on the back.  "I'll show you
what it takes - it takes experience, it takes an edge, it takes balls!
Jack in, and I'll show you how a pro rides the net!"
	Clay-brain shrugged, and rolled his eyes at me.  Zippo stuck his
tongue out at Mace, and went to the door to bring in the pizza.  "Go for
it," I told Clay-brain.  "But hurry up already, my mom's gonna kill me if
I don't get back soon."  The crowd stepped back as Clay-brain closed his
eyes and jacked in.  I turned to watch Mace, who was still muttering.
	"Little brat, this'll be a joke..." he pull a cable from his
deck, and looked around for a socket to connect to.  He finally found one
on the rim of the counter, and jacked in.
	Bzzzzzt!  The lights dimmed a second, and the deck sparked.  Mace
shuddered, twisted, and fell off of his stool onto the floor, his eyes
rolled into his head.  The crowd went silent, then scrambled to help
him.  Clay-brain opened his eyes, and looked around in confusion.
	"What happened?"  he whispered.  "Did he jack in?  I didn't see
him anywhere."
	I shook my head in disgust.  "No, he didn't jack in. He just
plugged his cyberdeck into a power outlet and fried himself.  What an idiot."
I slid off my stool.  "Lets get out of here."

	We headed out the door while the hackers were still checking
Mace's pulse.  Zippo the Wonderhack grabbed a couple of pizzas.  I looked
around.  "Where's Waldo?  Bring him along, Clay-brain."  The doorman let
us go - not like he wanted us around, or anything.
	We had another parking ticket, so Clay-brain erased it while we
ate the pizzas.  Zippo wanted to drive, so I let him, and we took off at
around mach 2.  Clay-brain grinned that grin.  "That was fun!" he said.
	"No it wasn't," I told him.  "It was totally dull.  Next time
let's stay home and hack, OK?  You still have to fix France, anyway."
	"Bzzztt-xxzzz!" said Zippo, but I ignored him.  As we drove by
the Gentleman 'Poser,' we ran another ambulance off the road.

Copyright 1994 by David S. Goodwin