"Y'know, Dad," I said, casual. "I been thinking, there really isn't a whole lot more I can learn at school. I mean, the teachers are all truly lame, y'know?"

No response.

I took a quiet deep breath, screwed myself up to output the next line, toggled to blurt mode. "So I was thinking, why don't I take the next couple days off? Sort of give my brain a rest, y'know?"

Incredible. No words. No gasps. I was sure that statement would've gotten me some whitened knuckles, minimum, but he didn't so much as rustle the faxsheet. I was still looking amazed at him, trying to think of something else that'd top that line, when his smartcab rolled up out front and started bleating.

The faxsheet collapsed in on itself and leaped onto the table. Dad41 jumped up like his chair was on fire, snarfed one more slurp of his caffix, grabbed his briefcase. "Oops. Gotta go, sweetheart." Mom and Dad traded quick dry kisses as he darted out the door.

"See you tonight, honey," Mom said.

"See you tonight, honey," I echoed, sarcastic to the max.

No response. For just a mo I started to wonder if maybe I was dead, a ghost-involuntary, my right hand started spidering over to check my left wrist for pulse-then I decided no, that was stupid, paranoid, and ridiculous. Mom and Dad were just trying to be too derzky to notice me, was all.

Which chained into a true smile. With Dad gone, this was going to be so easy. Whatever else Mom had going for her, she was total incapable of keeping derzky. I allocated a minute to studying her, mapping out just the exact perfect approach path to blow her cool wide open.

Before I could say anything, she checked her watch again, clucked her tongue, stood up. "Well, well, look at the time." Scooping up the cups and plates, she stacked them in the sink, wiped her hands on the towel, and was out the door. I heard her umbrella sproing open and the screen door bang shut.

Well I'll be glitched. She'd gotten away. And they truly had shut up and left me alone.

I was still working out the permutations on this when the porch door creaked open a few inches and four heavy little feet came shuffling into the kitchen. "Arf," said m.u.f.fy. "Arf arf." It waddled over to Mom's empty chair, sat up on its hindquarters, raised its front paws to beg. "Arf.

Arf arf."

It was a tricky shot-short, high and arcing-but I beaned the little sucker with a wax apple from the fruit bowl. "Arf arf arf," it said, excited. The red vinyl tongue rolled out of its smiling, dry mouth. Its little vestigial tail started thumping a mile a minute on the floor.

Idiot machine. No brains at all, just patterned responses. Couldn't even tell the difference between a loving pat on the head and a major42 klonk from a ...

Sudden, I knew what I was going to do with this ugly, cloudy day.

Breakfast was a couple microwave pizza m.u.f.fins and a pouch of GrapeOla Cola. Then I put my back into it, started rearranging the kitchen furniture. Together, me and m.u.f.fy had endless-well, minutes anyway-of fun. I'd move a chair, and start calling. "Here, m.u.f.fy.

Heeere, m.u.f.fy!"

"Arf. Arf arf." Waddle waddle waddle waddle KLONK! It'd back up two steps, shake its head, turn 90 degrees and resume waddling.

I'd move the chair. KLONK!

This lasted maybe an hour, m.u.f.fy trying to learn the floor map and me changing it with every collision, until at last m.u.f.fy's poor little RAM chips were just so garbaged with conflicting data that it wouldn't move. Instead, it backed itself into a corner, drooped its ears and stubby little tail, and started up with this real obnoxious sawtooth whine.

Okay, I'd had enough fun in the kitchen. I moved all the furniture back to where it was when I started, stepped into the dining room, started to call again. "Here, m.u.f.fy. Heeere, m.u.f.fy!"

The thing's ears perked up. Its head tilted up and started moving side to side, like it could truly see something with those round, gla.s.sy, blind eyes. (Actual, the head movement was part of its sound-locating routine, more like a radar, really.) "Heeeere, m.u.f.fy!" I moved a magazine rack into the doorway.

m.u.f.fy beelined for the porch, backed itself onto the p.r.o.ngs of its battery charger, and shut down.

Hmm. Maybe it was smarter than I thought.

With the doggoid out of action, I committed some serious brains to the problem of what I wanted to do next. The answer came on me cold and sudden: Dad's computer.

Sure, he'd let me use it for schoolwork once in a while. He'd even had me install software for him, once or twice. But he was always there to watch over my shoulder, and there was one part.i.tion on his optical drive he'd absolute forbidden me to ever poke around in.43 Which was not unlike putting a Do Not Open Until Xmas tag on it, y'know?

One more look out the front door to make sure Mom and Dad'd truly left for work, then I strolled casual over to the den-looked around quick to be absolute utter positive I was alone in the house-slid the door open and slipped in. Dad's computer was sitting there on the sidetable, silent, inert.

Dumb.

It was a Fuji-DynaRand box, of course; a big, ugly, square industrial kind of thing, 'bout six times as large as it really needed to be. The Ultra Executive PowerMate 5000, or something like that: with a big oldfashioned CRT tube sitting on a swivel stand on the top, a nine-zillion b.u.t.ton keyboard like something out of a jet fighter c.o.c.kpit sprawled out in front, and this great big multi-switch-I don't know, mouse doesn't seem right. Had to be a rat, at least. Maybe a woodchuck. I think Fuji- DynaRand builds these things to government spec. Soviet government spec.

Slow, quiet, like it could hear me, I tiptoed into the den and snuck up on Dad's computer. It was a weird, weird feeling. Like I was alone in church and about to c.r.a.p on the altar or something. I was almost afraid to touch it. A last, quick look behind me-yes, yes, I was alone, dammit-and then I laid a hand on the keyboard.

The spell broke. It was at least somewhat like a real computer, and I was without doubt Mikey Harris, Def Cyberpunk. I dragged over a chair, cracked my knuckles, dove in- To a dry swimming pool. Dad's Ultra Executive PowerMate 5000 really was dead. Nothing happened when I banged in the screen restore command; nothing happened I smooshed down the function keys. I took a quick tour of the faceplate, trying to remember where the status LEDs were, and found the problem in a mo. Dad hadn't just put his computer to sleep; he'd shut it down cold. I groped around the sides of the case until I found the power switch, flipped it.

Nothing happened.44 I traced the power cable back to the surge protector. It claimed to be working, but I hit the breaker reset anyway. The LEDs flickered; in a little plastic voice the surge protector said, "Working." I climbed out from under the table and checked Dad's computer again. It was still dead. But this time I noticed the empty fuse holder sitting in the paperclip cup.

Took me about fifteen minutes to plod down to the bas.e.m.e.nt, dig out a replacement fuse, install it. When I got done and hit the power switch, though, I was rewarded with a real satisfying flicker-flash of LEDs, a pleasant whir of cooling fan, a ratchety noise from the optical drive, and- FDIX ERR: 01FF AA00 0000 DEV NOT MTD.

The h.e.l.l? Dad couldn't have. He wouldn't have. I fumbled with the latch on the drive door 'til I remembered how to spring it. The optical media slot was empty.

Dad had. He'd secured his computer in the most crude, effective way; taken the ma.s.s storage disk right out. And I knew Dad well enough to bet my soul that that laser disk was sitting safe, secure, and totally untouchable in his briefcase. Ninety-nine percent probable I could turn the den upside down and shake it and still never find that disk.

Still, I did the search. I had to. Then, when the missing laser disk proved truly missing, I shut everything off, crawled back under the table, and unscrewed the power fuse. No point in advertising that I'd been messing with Dad's machine-if for no other reason than I didn't want him to know he'd beat me so easy. I took one last careful look around, made sure that everything was back exact where I'd found it. I was just stepping out of the den and easing the door shut when the voicephone in the kitchen started chirping.

Whoever it was, they hung up before I could get to it and answer.45

Chapter 0/ 6.

The rest of the morning ran about the same. I wasted another half hour or so just rattling around downstairs, channel surfing on the TV and trying to find something interesting to do. But there was nothing on the tube worth the effort of watching and the weather outside had changed from cloudy, cool and misty to cloudy, hot and muggy. So I cycled through a few more ideas, all of which went flat almost soon's I thought of them, then punctured another pouch of GrapeOla Cola and trudged back upstairs. The Gyoja Gerbil was sitting there waiting for me there with a whole new batch of CityNet mail.

Correction: CityNet junkmail. Still no fallout from CityNet Admin after yesterday's little fun, good; still no sign of life from either Georgie or Rayno, bad. I skimmed the rest of my mail, trashed it all, then reopened the folder I'd packed with messages from the Battle of Peshawar SIG and settled down for some serious reading.

Even that went poor, though. Nothing worthwhile in the SIG mail; no playing hints, no character sets, no software hacks to let me change the game params. Just a whole lot of invites to join network gaming groups and, while I truly love to play Peshawar single-user, I absolute hate to play it group.

Why? Well, it's like this. Battle of Peshawar is a historical roleplaying game, set in central Asia during the Breakup Wars. Only it's really more like about six different games, depending on the role you choose. Like you can play the MIG pilot or the tank commander, and then it's a real neat arcade-style shoot'em up where you go around blasting things into slag until you either run out of fuel, run out of ammo, or run into something that blows you to insignificant bits.

Which, by the way, you always do.46 After arcade-level, the stakes go up. You can play the company or division commander, and start looking more at the map and worrying about things like advance and supply lines. Or you can play the Army Group commander, in which case you have to really trust your division commanders and start thinking about things like interservice coordination and keeping comm with Moscow open. You can even play the big guy in Moscow and sweat over the whole geopolitical business, like for example if your tanks push too far into northern India the Poles might try to retake Byelorussia again, or the ChiComms might come busting out of Sinkiang and flatten Alma-Ata.

And that's the whole problem with playing Peshawar on net. When I play single-user, I can be anybody. The computer plays all the other parts, competent, no surprises, and I am the random factor. If it's going bad, I can go nuclear whenever I feel like quitting. If it's going good, I can keep saving game a mo before total death and keep the stalemate running almost forever.

When I play on net-at least, when I play with any of the good net groups, the ones that keep player stats offline where I can't fix my numbers-little Mikey Harris is just one more minor factor who most times ends up playing a tank platoon. Maybe if I'm real lucky I'll get command of an armored company, but in net Peshawar, at least, it seems the primary job at my level is to get killed carrying out stupid orders from higher up. Once- once, I racked up enough points to make general in the Central Asia Army Group, only to have the klutz running the Turkestani Group open up a hot western front with Iran.

Ten moves later the Iranians had rolled clear up to Gur'yev, taken all the Caspian Sea oil reserves, and cut both the Krasnovodsk and Aral'sk railroads. Leaving my armored companies fifty kilometers outside of Peshawar with full magazines and absolute bone dry fuel tanks. Sometimes I think the whole point of network role-playing Peshawar is to keep the young players from getting enough experience points to steal the good roles from the old clods who run the game.

Not unlike school, at that.47 By noon I'd bounced around CityNet enough to be bored. I'd hit all the bulletin boards I felt like hitting; nothing caught my interest. I'd tried my hand at a new hack-the University Medical Center database. There are four universal pa.s.swords that are the mark of truly sloppy system security: TEST, ADMIN, XYZZY, and the one that cracked me into MedBase, KEN SENT ME. That's when I logged out. Anything that easy to hack obvious wasn't worth the effort to do it. For lunch I went downstairs and zapped a couple krillburgers and some Tater Crispins.

The voicephone rang while I was nuking the foodlike products; this time I caught it on the third chirp, but whoever it was, they hung up soon as I said, "Hi."

Oh, well. Maybe some phonepunk'd figured out a new way to bypa.s.s our prank call interceptor. I shrugged, hit the disconnect b.u.t.ton.

Then decided, as long as I had the phone in my hand, I might as well call Mom and Dad and see if they were talking to me yet. Wiping the tater grease off my fingers and the handset, I carried the cordless over to the table and punched in the direct number for Fuji-DynaRand's call-routing system.

Mom and Dad both work for Fuji-DynaRand, y'see; same building complex, in fact. They ride to work separate 'cause Dad, being a f.u.ku Shacho, gets a private company smartcab, while Mom, being just an Administrative Facilitator (or is it Facilities Administrator?), has to take the company trampool. Least that's the way Mom explains it, and she seems to think it makes sense. The way Mom also explains it, she used to be Dad's Personal Facilitator, but after he divorced his first wife to marry her she had to transfer to a different division. All of which, I guess, has something to do with why Dad keeps insisting that that breathy-voiced "Faun" who intercepts his phone calls is just a sim'd figment of the voicemail system.

If she is, she's the closest thing to an AI I've ever run into.

Whenever I ask Dad about that he just laughs and says she has no true intelligence-then Mom scowls at him and says she can believe that- but I keep wanting to try a Turing test on Faun all the same. 'Course, if48 she is human, all that'll prove is that she's an airhead.

But anyway, all my calls to Dad's line got the instant route to Faun again, which wasn't much of a surprise knowing Dad can program his phone to lateral off calls from certain numbers. When I couldn't get through to Mom, though, that was kind of an eye-opener. I initiated a hope that maybe they were doing a nice lunch together and decided to bop out to the porch and check up on m.u.f.fy.

I swear, when I lifted its tail to check the charger p.r.o.ng, the thing growled at me.

After lunch, I at last hit on a worthwhile project. Splicing together a working lightpipe from what was left of the Death Cannon fiber, I patched the Starfire direct into MoJo and commenced with the big download. All my pirate commware; all my favorite tricks and treats programs. Most of Peshawar, though I had to scratch the arcade mode 'cause the graphics looked truly terrible on that waferscreen. The Meghan Gianelli freezeframes looked truly terrible, too, all verticalcompressed and bloaty, but I managed to find memory s.p.a.ce for my four favorites anyway.

Around 2:00, I heard a heavy throbbing outside and took a look out my bedroom window. It was just some big ugly green privatecar with blackfilm windows cruising down the street, slow; a diesel, from the sound of it. Which struck me as odd: we don't get many petrol-burners this far off the expresswa- Jesus H. Christ! A big dark car cruising by slow? What the h.e.l.l have I stirred up, the KGB? The IRS? Heart thumping hard, back against the wall, I cautious edged up to the window and peeked out again.

The car was gone, down the block, around the corner. Laughing silent at myself for being such a total paranoid, I went back to the big download.

Around 3:30, the voicephone started chirping again. By this time it'd gone past starting to get and become full adult phase annoying, so I tried to say to h.e.l.l with it and let it ring. But whoever was on the line let it go49 on, and on, and on, until at last I decided to play the chump and go for it one last time. I checked to make sure the process I was running would be okay by itself, trudged out to the hall, picked up the voicephone, and cranked up my best guttural surl. "Yeah?"

Nothing. Dead air; just another prank call. I was doing the windup to slamdunk the phone back in its cradle when something caught my ear. It didn't sound right, for a blank line. I listened closer: sounded like heavy breathing.

I raised my voice. "h.e.l.lo? Who is this?"

No, not heavy breathing. Sobbing.

"Who are you? Why do you keep calling?"

A sniffle, a plaintive little whimper.

The bit flipped in my head. "Mom?"

Click. Then dial tone.

Had to be Mom. Had to be. I quick punched in her work number, but the Fuji-DynaRand phone system intercepted my call and routed it off to voicemail Twilight Zone.

Oh well, I'd figure this out when she came home. I went back into my room, plopped into my chair, and got back to work.

I was just finishing up with the download when Mom's tram came rumbling up out front. I snapped the lightfiber apart, stashed the Starfire in my closet, hurried downstairs to meet her at the door. She just pushed right past me; wouldn't talk to me, wouldn't look at me. I tried to follow her, but she plowed straight into her bedroom and slammed the door. I watched for a while, wondering whether I should barge in, stand out in the hall and try to talk through the door, or what. Then I flagged there was no light coming through the crack under the door.

Weird city. She was sitting in her room, in the dark, crying. Which was not something I had a whole lot of experience dealing with.

Dad came home around five, and Mom finally came out of her room. Supper was another utter silent deal, both of them pa.s.sing dishes around me like I wasn't there and absolute refusing to make eye contact50 with me. They let me have a plate, though, which was a promising sign.

But after supper Mom and Dad retreated into the den, shut the door, started talking. I eared up to the door, but all I caught was the occasional sob from Mom and a basic low angry rumble from Dad.

Fine. The big ignore was getting real old. I went upstairs, slammed the door of my room, booted MoJo. Soon's I hit CityNet I flagged that Rayno had been online-at last!-and left me a remark on when and where to find him. Along about eight, I finally got him online and in chat mode, and he told me Georgie was getting trashed and very probable heading for permanent downtime. So, just to restore some cool, I started telling him all about how I'd erased my old man- He interrupted, cut me off. Said he was real extreme busy at the moment, but we should get together offline to talk about it later. We traded a few ideas on times, locations; finally settled on 22:00 at Buddy's. Then he terminated the chat, and I logged out of CityNet and checked my realtime interface.

OmiG.o.d, it was after nine already. I had bare time enough to drag a comb through my hair, get my cuffs rolled up just right, jump into my sneakers and wrap up in my blitz yellow MaxPockets windbreaker.

Almost as an afterthought, I grabbed the Starfire out of the closet and slipped it into the inside groin pocket of my jumpsuit.

Hey, I was a member, now. Maybe my parents wouldn't buy me scruff leather, and maybe my hair would never be halfways as good as Rayno's, but I could pack some power.

Mom was in the kitchen, kleenexing the runny mascara from her puffy red eyes, when I came bouncing down the stairs. "Mikey! Where are you going?"

"Gotta zip, Mom. Gotta meet some friends." I hurdled m.u.f.fy and went linear for the door.

"But honey, it's so late." She darted a glance into the dining room, like she wasn't sure if she should call for Dad.

"No sweat, Mom. I'll be back before curfew." I kicked the screen door open and charged outside. The night was dark and muggy and51 breathless.

Mom followed out onto the steps. "Mikey, come back! There's something-" I took off running down the street.

I lucked out. A tram was just pulling up to the corner when I got there. I jumped on, zipped my pa.s.s through the magreader, found a nice seat by the window. When we rolled back past the house Mom and Dad were out on the front lawn, whipping up into what looked to be a real good argument. I gave them a smile and a little half-wave. Dad came running out into the the street, shaking his fist and shouting something at me, but I couldn't hear 'cause the window was sealed. So I just smiled at him.

I love airconditioning.

The tram rolled up to the corner near Buddy's; the door opened with a little pssht. I stepped out, cool and slow, and started to walk casual up the street. It was a beautiful night for a walk: warm, muggy, not a breath of wind. No stars I could see over the streetlights and neon; no moon, just a diffuse red glow reflecting off the low clouds over the city, broken by a few laser-green cloud projos. No Fuji-DynaRand platform beacon shining down on me like the All-Seeing Eye of G.o.d.

Off on the horizon, heat lightning played hidden and silent in the folds of distant thunderheads.

The sidewalk wasn't empty, of course. The usuals were there: a clot of blue-mohawked McPunks, talking tough and staring squinty over their shoulders at the squad of Asphalt Surfers halfway down the block.

Four or five heavy-painted pickup girls, smelling like my Grandma Jessica's perfume collection on a bad day, patrolling their ten feet of sidewalk s.p.a.ce and keeping jealous eyes on the compet.i.tion. A drooler, wearing a long coat that from the smell doubled as a urinal, sitting in a dark doorway, caressing a paper-bagged bottle. Two real overdressed and nervous Olders, standing by a smartcab pickup point, looking around themselves like they'd stumbled into the slums of Calcutta or something.52 Fine. They could be nervous. Me, I had a Starfire down in my groin pocket, cold, heavy, and rea.s.suring. C'mon, you Cool Jerks, you Rollerbladers, you lame ChemieCrispies!. I'm packing true power now!

You mess wif' me and I be annihilatin' you!

Confident, total derzky, I flipped open the door and strolled into Buddy's. Rayno was there already, sitting in our booth, watching the door.

He was not smiling.

Okay, something had him p.i.s.sed. So what's new? I bopped over to the booth, plunked into my seat, fired off a broad grin. He looked at me through his eyebrows. Frowned. Looked down, and tried a sip of his caffix. "What's on line?" I asked, bright and enthusiastic. He just scowled at me some more.

"I thought I could depend on you," he said at last.

I c.o.c.ked my head, looked at him weird. This was not what I was expecting.