by D L Young
“Pork skins!” Tommy cried. He pointed and tugged at Maddox’s sleeve. “Can we get some?”
“No.” Maddox pulled his arm away.
“Come on,” the kid pleaded. “I’m starving.”
“Get some yourself, then. We’ll meet you back outside.”
The kid didn’t say anything for a few steps. “Kinda light on funds at the moment, bruh,” he finally conceded.
Maddox stopped, turned to the kid. “You’re a dolie, aren’t you?”
The kid fidgeted. “Yeah.”
“So use your credits.”
“Ain’t got no more.” The kid looked down sheepishly.
“You ran through your credits already?”
“Sort of.”
“But it’s only the fifth day of the month.”
Maddox recalled the trace he’d run on the kid. Porn and holo games. In just four days the kid had already burned through his entire month’s credit dole on porn and games. Not that it would amount to very much, but Jesus.
“All right,” Maddox said, “you keep your mouth shut up there and we’ll get some on the way out.”
“With dipping sauce, too?”
“Don’t push it, kid.”
8 - Gear Man
The only working elevator in Paradise was a cage of rusted steel, cordoned off like a nightclub entrance. A pair of shotgun-wielding men the size of sumo wrestlers stood guard. They seemed to know Lozano, or at least they’d been expecting him. One of them ran a scanning wand over the four while the other looked on indifferently. They refused to let Beatrice onto the lift until she surrendered her twin pistols and what turned out to be a surprisingly diverse cache of blades. For a few tense moments, Maddox worried she wasn’t going to give them up as she stared down the sumos and Lozano babbled assurances that everything was fine, fine, fine. Her things would be returned when they came back down, the hustler promised. Finally, grudgingly, she turned over her weapons and they entered the elevator.
The cramped car ascended. “I ain’t never seen a ’Nette,” Tommy blurted out, the street demonstration still apparently in the front of his mind.
“’Nettes?” Lozano scoffed. “That’s all bullshit. Don’t believe that nonsense, boy. They just make that stuff up. They want you think AIs are going to get into your head.”
The kid didn’t look convinced. “You ever see one?” he asked Beatrice. The cage jerkily climbed upward, clanking and humming.
Beatrice shook her head. The kid then turned to Maddox. “You ever see one, boss? Ever see a ’Nette in real life?”
Yes, he had, and he didn’t like talking about it. “Urban legend, kid,” he said. “Like monster alligators in the sewers.”
Tommy furrowed his brow. “Well, maybe ’Nettes are fake, but I heard those alligators are really down there.”
A minute later, they exited the lift and Lozano led them down a darkened hallway. Maddox ran through the list of gear he’d been assembling in his head all morning. The must-haves he couldn’t do without, the nice-to-haves that would make things easier, and the wish list of things he didn’t really need but it never hurt to ask for anyway.
The gear man’s apartment was guarded by a spike-haired armed guard at the door. He let them in straightaway, apparently alerted by the elevator crew on the ground floor. Inside, the tiny space smelled of stale sweat and curry. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, cluttered with jumbles of wares. Cheap folding tables displayed sloppy piles of inventory. Decks in various states of assembly. Trodebands dangling over the edges of tabletops, everything from first-generation Dakotas to the newest Tani-Nakashimas, shiny and transparent and still shrink-wrapped. Holo projectors, food fabbers, countless pairs of specs.
Appearing in a doorway, Hatano himself was small and old and hunchbacked. He had a sparse combover of white hair covering but not hiding a diffusion of dark age spots on the dome of his head. He shuffled slowly between the maze of tables, his gnarled arthritic hands clutching a small notepad and a pen. He wore a kimono with the cartoon rooster from Katayama beer printed all over it, a promotional garment made of a material that looked more like paper than cloth.
The man bowed to his visitors and spoke in a soft voice. “Ohaiyo gozaimasu.”
Lozano returned the bow. “Good morning, Hatano-san.”
“I hope you didn’t get mixed up in this protest business.” The man waved vaguely toward a window.
“We had to walk a bit,” Lozano answered, “but who couldn’t use the exercise, eh?” He playfully slapped his belly.
A weak smile flashed across the old man’s face, there and gone in an instant. He shook his head. “So much hate for AIs these days. Hard for an old man to understand. When I was a boy, things so different. AIs were miracles of science. Cured so many cancers. Now people think different.” He shook his head ruefully. “They forget all the good AIs do for people.”
Maddox stepped forward when he was introduced. He spat out the list of gear from his head, pausing after each item so the man could jot them down. Nothing customized, Maddox insisted, nothing previously used, not even once. He wanted pristine off-the-shelf tech. He’d configure it himself. The old man nodded without looking up, scribbling on his pad. When Maddox finished, the man read the list back to him like a restaurant server with a large order.
After he’d repeated the last item, Hatano looked up from his notes in apparent confusion.
“Ohaiyo gozaimasu,” the old man said. “What can I do for you today?”
Puzzled, Maddox glanced over at Lozano. The hustler waved his hand dismissively. “You already have it written down there, Hatano-san,” the hustler reminded the gear man. Lozano reached out and tapped the notepad. Hatano checked his written notes and raised his eyebrows.
“Ah, I see,” the gear man said. “Please excuse. I go get some cases.” He bowed, turned, and puttered away.
“He’s got a half-hour memwipe running,” Lozano explained, tapping his temple. “Always turns it on when he has customers.”
Maddox nodded, understanding now. Memory wipes, originally developed by psychiatric AIs, were nanotubes implanted in the frontal cortex that blocked the long-term retention of short-term memories. When you toggled them on, you lived in a permanent present state, incapable of remembering or retaining anything longer than the predefined timer. It wasn’t a commonly used mod as most found the queer feeling of constant forgetfulness deeply unsettling, but for those who could handle it, memwipes offered black marketeers like Hatano a unique solution to client confidentiality. The old man would never remember who had purchased the scrawled list of wares and price tallies on his notepad. If pressed by the police to give up what he’d sold and to whom, he could honestly answer that he no idea. The technology’s downside was the risk of permanent brain damage from long-term use, a known complication and the reason memwipes had been outlawed for decades.
“So if he doesn’t remember good, why don’t we just grab what we want and leave?” Tommy asked.
It didn’t work like that, Lozano explained. When they paid for their gear, the old man would hand them the paper list, which they’d show to the guard outside, who’d then check it against what they were carrying out, making sure it matched up. Then he’d pop the list into his mouth and swallow it, destroying the only record of the transaction. Old Hatano-san made sure the door guard never knew any names, and just to be doubly sure, he rotated them frequently—remembering to do so only through automated reminders—so his door security wouldn’t become familiar with any of his regulars.
The gear man reappeared, poking his head into the doorway he’d just passed through. “You see my list?” he asked Lozano.
“In your hand, Hatano-san,” the hustler answered, pointing.
The old man looked down, surprised to find the notepad there, then shuffled away again to gather the gear.
The things some did for biz, Maddox mused.
***
The forgetful Hatano-san, to Maddox’s genuine surpris
e, came through with the goods. Decks, trodebands, a laundry list of hard-to-find peripherals. The highest-end wares, all off-the-shelf pristine as Maddox had insisted. He never worked with used gear, and he always tweaked the defaults himself, never trusting someone else’s slapdash configs. Something Rooney had taught him. It took more time, but there was no better way to understand your equipment’s capabilities and limitations.
Know your gear, boyo. You gotta know your gear.
Indeed.
Minutes later Maddox, Lozano, and Tommy waited in the hiverise’s lobby for Beatrice to return with the hover. The demonstration was over, and the police had lifted the parking ban. Maddox and Lozano carried conspicuously large metal cases. The kid lugged four canvas bags over his shoulders while he munched on a bowlful of greasy pork skins. As they waited for their ride, Maddox was acutely aware they were unarmed, standing in the lobby of a hiverise, carrying a fortune’s worth of datajacking gear. Not exactly safe, but it was only for a minute or two.
A hover-shaped proximity icon flashed in Maddox’s specs. “She’s here,” he told the others.
They stepped out into daylight as the vehicle settled onto the pavement, engine fans whining. The rear hatch popped open, and as Maddox loaded up the cases and bags, he heard Lozano moan, “You gotta be kidding me.”
By the time Maddox looked up, the pack of motorbikes had surrounded the hover. The riders were kids, wearing hand-painted helmets and old leather racing gear with silver electrical tape wrapped around the elbows and knees. They revved their motors, and the rider near the driver’s seat reached over and slammed a fist-shaped black metal object onto the hover’s roof. A shock of electricity cracked the air and Maddox smelled ozone. The device killed hover’s engine. Inside, Beatrice struggled with the door’s manual latch, but the kid already had her covered with a rainbow-striped fabbed handgun. It all happened in less than five seconds.
“Stay put, lady,” the one with the gun barked, his boy’s voice muffled by the helmet. Ground cars steered around the scene as if avoiding the minor annoyance of an uncovered manhole. Pedestrians rerouted themselves in similar fashion, crossing the street like they were bypassing a construction site. Maddox looked around for a cop. None, of course.
The punk on the passenger side hopped off his bike and moved to the still-open hatch at the rear of the vehicle. Shouldering Maddox out of his way, he removed his helmet, shaking free a mess of matted black locks. Peering into the storage compartment, the kid whistled at the carrying cases.
“With wrapping that nice, gotta have something good inside.” He turned his grimy face to Maddox. “So, highfloor man, what did we go shopping for today?”
“Your mama!” a voice shouted from behind Maddox.
The biker kid’s face flushed with anger. “Who said that?”
Over on the walkway, Tommy stood, sneering with his arms crossed. “I said your mama, loser.”
Beatrice’s voice blared in Maddox’s specs. “What the hell is going on out there?”
“We’re getting robbed,” Maddox said.
“Christ,” she shot back, “I leave you alone for five minutes, and—”
“This is some bang-up job you’re doing on security,” he interrupted. “Want to tell me again how highly recommended you—” She cut the connection before he could finish.
The kid with the black locks waved urgently at the others, who slid off their seats and ran over. Helmets came off and shouting began, but it didn’t sound like the violent kind.
Left unguarded, Beatrice threw the door open and leapt onto the street. As she reached into her jacket, Maddox waved her off, recognizing what was happening. “No, don’t,” he told her, placing his hand on her forearm. Over on the walkway, the punks were hugging Tommy and laughing it up.
“Tommy fucking Park,” the greasy-faced one cried, grinning. “What are you doing running around with highfloor types?”
“Biz, bruh,” he replied, shoving his hands into his pockets and shrugging, trying to play the pro. “Just biz.”
“Look at the big shot,” a green-mohawked girl teased, shoving him playfully. “Tommy Park, biggity-ass big shot.”
“How long has it been, T?” another asked.
“A while, I guess,” Tommy said.
“A long while. Good to see you, bruh.”
The greasy-faced kid peered over at the hover and bit his lip. “Sorry about that, T. Didn’t know this was your ride.”
“Yeah,” Tommy said, punching the kid lightly on the shoulder. “You broke my ride, bruh. Guess you owe me one, huh?”
Greasy Face popped Tommy playfully on the chest with the back of his hand. “Hell, bruh, we owe you way more than one.”
9 - Sunset Park
An hour later, Beatrice set the last of the cases on the condo’s floor with a grunt. She rubbed the tired muscles in her arms, then made her way to the fridge for a beer. She so needed a beer.
She’d rented the top two floors of the building, a run-down standalone in Sunset Park a few blocks from the seawall. Aside from her party, the address’s only occupants appeared to be a handful of squatters. Her replacement hover—delivered in half an hour thanks to a premium service contract—was parked on the roof, only steps away, up a single flight of stairs. If things got tight, they could be in the hover and out of the City in less than two minutes. The real estate hadn’t come cheap, but money didn’t seem to be an issue on this gig. Hahn-Parker hadn’t blinked when she’d told him the cost.
And that bothered her. In her experience, the richer someone was, the cheaper they were. The wealthy invariably bitched and moaned over every dollar, second-guessing your hotel choice (a three-star is more than adequate for this job), the kind of ammunition you bought (generic bullets kill as well as the branded ones, don’t they?), the cost of datajacking gear (do we really need all that stuff?). Crime was a penny-pinching business, and a bottomless budget with unquestioned spending, while not unheard of, was exceedingly rare. It was just another thing not to like about this job.
The salaryman sat cross-legged on the floor, emptying the contents of another case, busying himself with his new setup. Datajackers always had to have everything arranged in their own particular way. They were odd like that, obsessing over equipment setups for hours. Crazy nesting, she called it. Some jackers were neat freaks who had to have everything stacked and lined up in geometric perfection. More than a few times she’d taken wicked pleasure in screwing with these types, moving a deck an inch or two out of alignment when they went to take a piss. The neat freaks, though, were the exceptions. Most jackers were slobs, their gear strewn about like it had been deposited there by a tornado, their working space a pigsty of discarded shrink wrap and food delivery boxes. She grabbed a can of Kirin from the refrigerator. This Maddox was the neat kind, thank God.
The kid Tommy stood behind her, gazing with longing eyes into the freshly stocked fridge. Still simmering over the incident outside Paradise, she shut it with a thud and frowned at the kid. Tommy thrust his hands into his pants pockets, eyes cast downward. “Sorry about all that back there. I swear, if they woulda seen me before, they wouldn’t have bonked your ride like that.”
She said nothing and took a long drink. The stink of the salaryman’s cigarette hit her. She wrinkled her nose. Disgusting habit. Somewhere out of sight, Lozano the hustler was still wandering the flat, checking out every corner of the space she’d rented like some neurotic cat in a new house. Every minute or so a door would squeak open, followed moments later by another as he moved to a new room.
She drank, eyeballing the kid. “So you used to run with them or what?”
“Anarchy Boyz?” He shook his head. “No. Big brother did, though.”
“Did?”
“Yeah. He was top dog. Head honcho, ya know?”
“Was?”
“Yeah.”
“He get busted or something?”
When the kid’s gaze dropped to the floor, Beatrice wished she could take the question
back. “Rival gang was chasing him through the Lincoln Tunnel one night,” the kid said. “He laid down his bike between two trucks…” His voice trailed off. “Anyway, Anarchy Boyz are solid. Still treat me like family.”
She pointed her beer to a stack of large unopened boxes, the ones she’d hauled up the day before. “Portable ACs over there. We need two in here and one in each bedroom. Make yourself useful and set them up, yeah?”
The kid looked longingly over at the salaryman. “How come he won’t let me help with the jacking gear? How the hell am I gonna learn if he don’t show me nothing?”
“Set up the ACs, kid,” she pressed, wiping at the dampness under her arms. “I’m getting ripe.”
The kid mumbled a complaint, shuffled across the room to the boxes, and began unpacking the air conditioning units.
She drank, shook her head at the kid’s ambition. Everybody wanted to be a hotshot.
Filtered light filled the space, soft and yellow. She waved a hand, testing the gesture controls on the film she’d had installed on all the windows. The film grew slightly less opaque, raising the light level a few lumens. Dust motes floated in long throws of sunlight slanting across the floor. The place was rundown—bare cement floors and empty walls—but at least it was clean. Not as clean as it might have been if she’d had more time—she’d hired a cleaning crew in a rush and they’d done an acceptable but not impeccable job—but she’d worked under worse conditions.
She drank and watched the salaryman, cigarette dangling from his lips, hunched over his wares, totally absorbed. A facetrace she’d run when she’d first seen him showed a history of highfloor privilege. Rich parents, private schools, well-placed connections. The trace looked legit, but like that greasy hustler, she had a hard time buying the salaryman’s backstory. The guy had a vibe to him, and it was a street vibe. He might dress like a corporati and talk like one, but there was something in his eyes and manner, a sharpened awareness she associated with someone raised on the floor of the City’s canyons, where anything might go down at any time and you better be ready for it. She’d never gotten those signals from the born-and-raised rich. In the insulated, pampered world of the highfloor wealthy, dangers and threats were different from the knives and guns and rhino cops down on the streets. Market valuation drops, hostile buyouts, the constant churning soap opera of corporati politics: those were the hazards of the wealthy. Who’s inside the winner’s circle, who’s outside of it, who draws the circle’s boundaries. This salaryman didn’t strike her as someone who came from that world.
