Bruce Sterling - Islands in the Net

The Yung Soo Chim Islamic Bank was a modest little place, 1990s vintage, a mirror-glass office carton, sixty sto- ries high.

There was a line of people outside it a block long. Agent

Thirty-six cruised by silently, languidly dodging the automatic taxis. "Wait a minute," Laura muttered into empty air. "I know these people."

She'd seen them all before. In the Grenada airport, just after the attack. The vibe was uncanny. The same people- only instead of Yanks and Europeans and South Americans, these were Japanese, Koreans, Southeast Asians. The same mix though-seedy-looking techies, and hustlers with vacant money-eyes, and nasty-looking bullshit artists in wrinkled tropical suits. That same jittery, verminous look of people native to the woodwork and very unhappy outside of it .. .

Yeah. It was like the world had sloughed off a layer of crime in a bathtub, and this city block was its sink trap, full of suds and hair.

Flotsam, floating garbage, to be racked up and tidied away.

Suddenly she imagined the quiet and itchy-looking line of people all lined up and shot. The image gave her a rush of ugly joy. She felt bad. Losing control here. Bad vibrations .

"Stop," she said. She jumped out of the rickshaw and dodged across the street. She walked deliberately toward the front of the line: a pair of nervous Japanese techs. "Konnichi- wa!" The two men looked at her sullenly. She smiled.

"Denwa wa doko ni arimasu ka?"

"If we had a telephone we'd be using it right now," said the taller Japanese. "And you can knock it off with the high-school nihongo; I'm from Los Angeles."

"Really?" Laura said. "I'm from Texas."

"Texas-" His eyes widened. "Jesus, Harvey, look. It's her. What's-her-face."

"Webster," Harvey said. "Barbara Webster. What the fuck happened to you, girlie? You look like a drowned fuck- ing rat. " He looked over the rickshaw and laughed. "Did you ride here on that little fucking bike?"

"How do I cut through this crap and get to the Net?" she said.

"Why should we tell you?" Los Angeles smirked. "You crucified us in Parliament. You oughta break your goddamn legs. "

"I'm not the Bank's enemy," Laura said. "I'm an integrationist. I thought I made that clear in my testimony."

"Bullshit," Harvey said. "You telling me there's room in your little Rizome for guys who do musketeer chips? Fuck it! Are you as straight as you act? Or were you turned, in

Grenada? Me, I figure you're turned! 'Cause I don't see how any mama-papa bourgeois democrat is gonna fuck with the

P.I.P. out of principle."

Thirty-six had now successfully crossed the street, towing his folded rickshaw. "You could being more polite to madam,"

he suggested.

Los Angeles examined the kid. "Don't tell me you're hanging with these little fuckers...." Suddenly he shrieked and grabbed at his thigh. "Goddamn it! There it is again!

Something fucking bit me, man!"

Thirty-six laughed at him. Los Angeles's face clouded instantly. He aimed a shove at the kid. Thirty-six twisted aside easily. With a muted clack, Thirty-six yanked one of the rickshaw's lacquered bracing bars from its sockets. He gripped it and smiled, and his shoebutton eyes gleamed like two dollops of axle grease.

Los Angeles stepped backward out of the line and ad- dressed the crowd. "Something stung me!" he screamed.

"Like a fucking wasp! And if it was this kid, like I think it was, somebody here ought to break his fucking back! And goddamn it, I've been standing out here all night! How come fucking big shots like this chick here get to go right in and, hey! This is that Webster bitch, everybody! Lauren Webster!

Pay attention, goddamn it!"

The crowd ignored him, with the inhuman patience of urbanites ignoring a drunk. Thirty-six quietly juggled his bamboo club.

A Tamil came limping up the pavement. He wore a dhoti, the ethnic skirt of a south Indian. He had a bandage on his bare, dark shin and an ornate walking cane. He gave Harvey a sharp poke with the cane's rubber tip. "Calming your friend down, la!" he advised. "Behaving like civilized fellows!"

"Fuck you, crip!" Harvey offered indifferently.

An automatic taxi pulled up to the curb and flung open its door.

A mad dog leapt out.

It was a big ugly mongrel that looked half Doberman, half hyena. Its hide was wet and slick, with something thick and oily, like vomit or blood. It erupted from the taxi with a frenzied snarl and tore into the crowd as if fired from a cannon.

It bowled into them, raging. Three men fell screaming. The crowd billowed away in terror.

Laura heard the dog's jaws snap like castanets. It tore a chunk from a fat man's forearm, then leapt up with an obscene, desperate wriggle and dashed toward the front of the bank. Great choking barks and shrieks, like some language of the damned. Flesh and shoes slapped damp pavement, the jostle and rush of panic-

The dog leapt six feet into the air, like a hooked marlin.

Its fur smoldered. A wedge of flame split it along the spine, bursting its body open.

Flame poured out of it.

It exploded wetly. A grotesque air-burst of steam and stink, spattering the crowd. It flopped to the pavement, dead in- stantly, a bag of burning flesh. Threads of impossible heat glimmered in it .. .

Laura was running.

The Tamil had her by the wrist. The crowd was running, everywhere, nowhere, into the streets where taxis screeched to sudden halts with robot honks of protest... "In here,"

the Tamil said helpfully, jumping into a cab.

It was silent inside the cab, air-conditioned. It took a right at the first curb and left the bank behind. The Tamil released her wrist, leaned back, smiled at her.

"Thanks," Laura said, rubbing her arm. "Thanks a lot, sir."

"No problem, la," the Tamil said. "The cab waiting for me." He paused, then tapped his cast with the cane. "My leg, you see."

Laura took a deep breath, shuddered. Half a block passed as she got a grip on herself. The Tamil looked her over, his eyes bright. He'd moved very fast for an injured man-he'd almost sprained her wrist, dragging her. "If you hadn't stopped me, I'd still be running," she told him gratefully. "You're very brave."

"So are you," he said.

"Not me, no way," she said. She was trembling.

The Tamil seemed to think it was funny. He nudged his chin with the head of his cane. A languid, dandyish gesture.

"Madam, you were fighting in the street with two big data pirates."

"Oh," she said, surprised. "That. That's nothing." She paused, embarrassed. "Thanks for taking my part, though."

" `An integrationist,' " the Tamil quoted. He was mimick- ing her. He looked down deliberately. "Oh, look-the nasty voodoo spoilt your nice coat."

There was a foul splattered blob on Laura's raincoat sleeve.

Red, glistening. She gasped in revulsion and tried to shrug her way out of it. Her arms were caught behind her... .

"Here," the Tamil said, smiling, as if to help. He held something under her nose. She heard a snap.

A wave of giddy heat touched her face. Then, without warning, she passed out.

A sudden sharp reek dug into Laura's head. Ammonia. Her eyes watered. "Lights..." she croaked.

The overheads dimmed to murky amber. She felt old, sick, like hours had marched through her on hangover feet. She was half-buried in something-she struggled, sudden claus- trophobic rush ...

She was lying in a beanbag chair. Like something her grandmother might have owned. The room around her was bluish with the grainy light of televisions.

"You back to the land of the living, Blondie."

Laura shook her head hard. Her nose and throat felt scorched.

"I'm..." She sneezed, painfully. "Goddamn it!" She got her elbows into the shifting pellets of the beanbag and levered herself up.