James Kelly - Rewired - The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology

“Just tell the stupid thing to shut up for awhile, then.”

“We can’t do that. We’re not even sure where the mook is, physically. Or how it’s been encoding those sarcastic comments into the videofeed. The Senator had a lot of friends in the telecom industry back in the old days. There are a lot of ways and places to hide a piece of distributed software.”

“So that’s all?” Lyle said. “That’s it, that’s your big secret? Why didn’t you just come to me and ask me for the box? You didn’t have to dress up in combat gear and kick my door in. That’s a pretty good story, I’d have probably just given you the thing.”

“I couldn’t do that, Mr. Schweik.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” Pete said, “her people are important government functionaries, and you’re a loser techie wacko who lives in a slum.”

“I was told this is a very dangerous area,” Kitty muttered.

“It’s not dangerous,” Mabel told her.

“No?”

“No. They’re all too broke to be dangerous. This is just a kind of social breathing space. The whole urban infrastructure’s dreadfully overplanned here in Chattanooga. There’s been too much money here too long. There’s been no room for spontaneity. It was choking the life out of the city. That’s why everyone was secretly overjoyed when the rioters set fire to these three floors.”

Mabel shrugged. “The insurance took care of the damage. First the looters came in. Then there were a few hideouts for kids and crooks and illegal aliens. Then the permanent squats got set up. Then the artists’ studios, and the semilegal workshops and redlight places. Then the quaint little coffeehouses, then the bakeries. Pretty soon the offices of professionals will be filtering in, and they’ll restore the water and the wiring. Once that happens, the real-estate prices will kick in big-time, and the whole zone will transmute right back into gentryville. It happens all the time.”

Mabel waved her arm at the door. “If you knew anything about modern urban geography, you’d see this kind of, uh, spontaneous urban renewal happening all over the place. As long as you’ve got naive young people with plenty of energy who can be suckered into living inside rotten, hazardous dumps for nothing, in exchange for imagining that they’re free from oversight, then it all works out just great in the long run.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, zones like this turn out to be extremely handy for all concerned. For some brief span of time, a few people can think mildly unusual thoughts and behave in mildly unusual ways. All kinds of weird little vermin show up, and if they make any money then they go legal, and if they don’t then they drop dead in a place really quiet where it’s all their own fault. Nothing dangerous about it.” Mabel laughed, then sobered. “Lyle, let this poor dumb cracker out of the bag.”

“She’s naked under there.”

“Okay,” she said impatiently, “cut a slit in the bag and throw some clothes in it. Get going, Lyle.”

Lyle threw in some biking pants and a sweatshirt.

“What about my gear?” Kitty demanded, wriggling her way into the clothes by feel.

“I tell you what,” said Mabel thoughtfully. “Pete here will give your gear back to you in a week or so, after his friends have photographed all the circuitry. You’ll just have to let him keep all those knickknacks for a while, as his reward for our not immediately telling everybody who you are and what you’re doing here.”

“Great idea,” Pete announced, “terrific, pragmatic solution!” He began feverishly snatching up gadgets and stuffing them into his shoulderbag. “See, Lyle? One phone-call to good ol’ Spider Pete, and your problem is history, zude! Me and Mabel-the-Fed have crisis negotiation skills that are second to none! Another potentially lethal confrontation resolved without any bloodshed or loss of life.” Pete zipped the bag shut. “That’s about it, right, everybody? Problem over! Write if you get work, Lyle buddy. Hang by your thumbs.” Pete leapt out the door and bounded off at top speed on the springy soles of his reactive boots.

“Thanks a lot for placing my equipment into the hands of sociopathic criminals,” Kitty said. She reached out of the slit in the bag, grabbed a multitool off the corner of the workbench, and began swiftly slashing her way free.

“This will help the sluggish, corrupt, and underpaid Chattanooga police to take life a little more seriously,” Mabel said, her pale eyes gleaming. “Besides, it’s profoundly undemocratic to restrict specialized technical knowledge to the coercive hands of secret military elites.”

Kitty thoughtfully thumbed the edge of the multitool’s ceramic blade and stood up to her full height, her eyes slitted. “I’m ashamed to work for the same government as you.”

Mabel smiled serenely. “Darling, your tradition of deep dark government paranoia is far behind the times! This is the postmodern era! We’re now in the grip of a government with severe schizoid multiple-personality disorder.”

“You’re truly vile. I despise you more than I can say.” Kitty jerked her thumb at Lyle. “Even this nut-case eunuch anarchist kid looks pretty good, compared to you. At least he’s self-sufficient and market-driven.”

“I thought he looked good the moment I met him,” Mabel replied sunnily. “He’s cute, he’s got great muscle tone, and he doesn’t make passes. Plus he can fix small appliances and he’s got a spare apartment. I think you ought to move in with him, sweetheart.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think I could manage life here in the zone like you do, is that it? You think you have some kind of copyright on living outside the law?”

“No, I just mean you’d better stay indoors with your boyfriend here until that paint falls off your face. You look like a poisoned raccoon.” Mabel turned on her heel. “Try to get a life, and stay out of my way.” She leapt outside, unlocked her bicycle, and methodically pedaled off.

Kitty wiped her lips and spat out the door. “Christ, that baton packs a wallop.” She snorted. “Don’t you ever ventilate this place, kid? Those paint fumes are gonna kill you before you’re thirty.”

“I don’t have time to clean or ventilate it. I’m real busy.”

“Okay, then I’ll clean it. I’ll ventilate it. I gotta stay here awhile, understand? Maybe quite awhile.”

Lyle blinked. “How long, exactly?”

Kitty stared at him. “You’re not taking me seriously, are you? I don’t much like it when people don’t take me seriously.”

“No, no,” Lyle assured her hastily. “You’re very serious.”

“You ever heard of a small-business grant, kid? How about venture capital, did you ever hear of that? Ever heard of federal research-and-development subsidies, Mr. Schweik?” Kitty looked at him sharply, weighing her words. “Yeah, I thought maybe you’d heard of that one, Mr. Techie Wacko. Federal R and D backing is the kind of thing that only happens to other people, right? But Lyle, when you make good friends with a senator, you become ‘other people.’ Get my drift, pal?”

“I guess I do,” Lyle said slowly.

“We’ll have ourselves some nice talks about that subject, Lyle. You wouldn’t mind that, would you?”

“No. I don’t mind it now that you’re talking.”

“There’s some stuff going on down here in the zone that I didn’t understand at first, but it’s important.” Kitty paused, then rubbed dried dye from her hair in a cascade of green dandruff. “How much did you pay those Spider gangsters to string up this place for you?”

“It was kind of a barter situation,” Lyle told her.

“Think they’d do it again if I paid ’em real cash? Yeah? I thought so.” She nodded thoughtfully. “They look like a heavy outfit, the City Spiders. I gotta pry ’em loose from that leftist gorgon before she finishes indoctrinating them in socialist revolution.” Kitty wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “This is the Senator’s own constituency! It was stupid of us to duck an ideological battle, just because this is a worthless area inhabited by reckless sociopaths who don’t vote. Hell, that’s exactly why it’s important. This could be a vital territory in the culture war. I’m gonna call the office right away, start making arrangements. There’s no way we’re gonna leave this place in the hands of the self-styled Queen of Peace and Justice over there.”