From : pizor@lclark.edu
Subject: Little Red Riding Hood Revisited
Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 20:59:10 GMT

Okay, this is how this one got started:

I was sitting at dinner with my friends Joe, Elana, Tracy, Brian, Elana's
roommate Michelle and her boyfriend.  At one point, Michelle brought up
the fact that she had to rewrite Little Red Riding Hood in the 21st
century for a class, and immediately all the males at the table began
visualizing a sick and twisted cyberpunk melodrama version of the classic
tale.  Michelle was repulsed, but I couldn't get the idea out of my head.
So, in a fit of insomnia, I sat down and typed this up.

After showing it to several friends, I was encouraged to post it to
alt.cyberpunk.  I did so, expecting to get flamed by all the serious
cyberpunk fans for its clicheness, and instead got two or three posative
comments, one of which suggested I post it here.  So here goes:

              LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD IN THE 21ST CENTURY
                a cyberpunk faeiry tale by Rich Pizor

The rain always falls in Portland.

Always had, from what Little Red had been told.  Granted, now the
continual downpour was man-made and acidic, but once it had been
natural.

Red sighed as she looked around her.  Not much of Portland was
natural anymore.  Giant buildings, unholy fusions of steel and
concrete, stretched up at dizzying speeds to the sky, as if somehow
being taller than the other buildings would bring more power to the
corporations housed within.  Vehicles of all variety zipped by at
dangerous speeds, and the throughways were clogged with thousands
of people, cyborgs and robots all rushing about on their daily quests.

Red huddled under a small awning that provided only minimal
protection from the ever-present dampness.  Her clothes were
tattered, her hair unwashed and greasy, her fingernails caked with
dirt and grime, but her ever-present cyberdeck was so clean it fairly
glistened -- or was that simply the water reflecting off it's shiny
chrome?  No matter; that deck was what kept her fed, kept her warm
and (relatively) dry, kept her alive.

As if on cue, the message light started blinking.

Red placed her fingertips on the deck's interface plates, and her eyes
rolled up into the back of her head as she entered cyberspace.

                                    *****

CyberRed stood surveying the landscape about her.  She wasn't in a
commonly-used Portland data junction; most citizens of her
socioeconomic class wouldn't even have access to it, but she'd done
some favors for a few highly-placed corporate types and this was
their way of saying thanks.

The various node doors stood leapt up off the gridlike surface of the
Net like the corp buildings of the Portland streets, but smaller and
less densely packed in.  The flat, featureless landscape of the Net
itself stretched on infinitely in all directions, with only the
occasional node door to disturb the plane.

"Hello, Red," called Jobe's disembodied voice.

CyberRed grinned back at it.  "Hey, Jobe," she called as
disinterestedly as her modulated digital voice would allow.  "What's
the job?"

"Courier," said Jobe.  A data packet materialized on the ground
before her, visualizing as a wicker basket with a thick leather strap
holding it closed.  "A contact at AmeriCorp wants it delivered ASAP,
and you're the best courier we've got.  Pays 75 grand."

"Indeed," Red intoned.  "Why so much for a milk run?"

"Apparently, someone at Warnerdyne doesn't want AmeriCorp getting
their hands on that little goodie.  They've turned some new ice loose
in the Net.  Something called the Warnerdyne On-Line deFractor, or
the WOLF.  Supposedly it has all sorts of enhancements to make it
the most dangerous program out there."

Red snorted -- a curious phenomenon in cyberspace.  "If it's ice, it can
be broken," she said indignantly.  "The reason Netrunners can earn a
living is because we can think, something no program can do."

Jobe chuckled.  "Fine, babe.  The data path to AmeriCorp has been
downloaded to your deck; your contact's name is Grandma.  Good
luck."

                                     *****

Move.  Keep moving.  Must find.  Must destroy.  Must stop.

Courier.  Status: unknown.

Data Packet.  Status: undetectable.

Analysis: Best course of action = beat the courier to AmeriCorp.

Course plotted and accepted.

Move.  Keep moving.  Must find.  Must destroy.  Must stop.

                                   *****

Grandma anxiously paced the entrance to the AmeriCorp node.  She
didn't like cyberspace; she didn't like the idea of some street rat
with that data packet; she didn't like all this cloak-and-dagger stuff
that was going on with Warnerdyne.

It wouldn't be such a problem for her if she knew what to expect
from Jobe.  But all he'd said was that he'd send his best courier,
whoever or whatever that may be.  No recognition code.  No
background check.  Nothing.

If this data packet wasn't using the latest encryption scheme
AmeriCorp's lab techs had come up with, Grandma wouldn't even
have allowed the mess to have proceeded this far.

A knock at the node door disturbed her musings.  "Who's there?" she
asked.

"Courier," came a gruff reply.

Grandma paused.  Granted, she didn't know anything about the
courier, and since it was a street rat they were dealing with it could
have any vocal pattern, but some gut-level, human intuition told her
not to open the door.

"Hurry!" the gruff voice called again.  "Have data packet.  WOLF
coming.  Hurry!"

A little nervously, Grandma opened the door.

And screamed.

                                     *****

The WOLF had made quick work of the situation.  First it sent a brief
impulse through Grandma's cyberform to stun the user; in
cyberspace, Grandma fell limp to the floor.  A quick digitization of
the cyberform data and the WOLF was able to make itself into an
almost perfect replica of Grandma.  Finally, it tangled the data up in
a custom encrypt key, so that even if the user came back up and
online, Grandma would be useless to her.

All is ready, the WOLF "thought."  Wait for courier.

Capture courier.

Take data packet.

Kill witnesses.

                                    *****

CyberRed was glad that Jobe had given her a decrypt key to get into
AmeriCorp's node door; as a rule, she didn't like relying on others to
finish a job.  And getting in was quick work.

Somehow, the startled look on Grandma's face didn't look right.

"Are you the courier Jobe sent?" Grandma asked.

Yeah. . ." Red trailed off.  Was it the look on the face that seemed out
of place, or the face itself?

Grandma made a big show of checking in all directions, then closed
the node door.  "Well, give it to me," she said in a very authoritative
voice.

Red backed off a little, her chromatic-red body flashing with the
dim light that seemed to come from everywhere in cyberspace, yet
without any visible source.  "Those are awfully large video capture
units," she said, for the did seem a little large.

"All the better to view the data, my dear," said Grandma.

"And those are unnaturally sized audio data translators," she
continued.

"All the better to receive voice commands," said Grandma.

Suddenly, Red realized what was wrong.  "And those are incredibly
huge data-editors you have," she said, pointing to the WOLF's jaw,
whose "natural weapons" formed digital teeth to big to hide.

"All the better to defract you with," the WOLF said as it morphed
into its natural form.

Quickly Red dived out of the WOLF's way, stuffing the data packet in
an empty directory in her deck as she did so.  The two of them
danced about the small room for a moment, each trying to gauge the
other's strengths.

But while the WOLF was dancing, Red was reading her best defense
program, her Automatic eXternal Morphing Attacker Neutralizer, or
AXMAN, a custom ice pick Jobe had designed for her.  The WOLF
lunged at Red, but the girl quickly sidestepped its attack and
unleashed the AXMAN.

It was over very quickly.

As the WOLF faded away into corrupted data, the encryption routine
holding Grandma captive errored out, releasing her.  "Very
impressive," Grandma said as Red handed her the data packet.  "How
would you like to become AmeriCorp's official courier?"

Red grinned sardonically.  "I guess in this day and age," she said,
"it's as close to 'happily ever after' as we can get."

                                  THE END

Well, what do you think?
--
Rich "Akira" Pizor, pizor@lclark.edu |"All mankind should love each other
Lewis and Clark College              | But when visiting your brother
LC Box 663                           | Take an ax along and hold it fast
Portland, OR 97219                   | Not in theory but in practice