"Didn't your parents have medical insurance? How come you ended up with that –"
"Why did I end up with a bargain basement prosthetic? My parents were more upset about me disobeying them and building the bike than they were about me losing a limb. When the police knocked on the door and asked them if they knew where I had been that evening, it was just too embarrassing for them. How dare I bring such disgrace on them?
"That's what got me into the MinoTech college; they had me committed themselves. The cheap Korean arm was part of the 'lesson in real life' too: if I graduated with distinction, my stepfather promised he'd buy me a decent arm. If I could 'learn to behave like a normal human being' then I could have a prosthetic that made me look like a normal human being.
"Pretty sick, huh?" He was looking at me now. What could I say? "If this is the price of freedom, I'll pay it," he said. "Better to look like a cheap machine than think like one." He tried on a smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. He stood up and stretched, looking out of the side window. "What's the plan?"
"This old railway line will take us almost to the college campus, and we'll be undercover most of the way," I said.
"Do you think the Strider'll be in any fit state to give your little demonstration in the parking lot?" Nathan asked.
"Oh, we're not giving the demonstration in the car park," I said
Nathan shot me a puzzled glance.
"A couple of the other guys are waiting to give us a hand to set up the demonstration," I said.
Nathan laughed and told me I was crazy when I explained what I had in mind.
"You get up to this sort of thing most nights?" He asked.
"No. Mostly I just drop robots from great heights."
We headed back towards the college. And trouble.
Chapter Three
There was no way the police should have been able to find us: I'd planned my route carefully, spending the whole of the previous day poring over maps and print-outs, making sure I'd be piloting the stolen Strider through deserted freight yards and through the shadows behind warehouses I knew weren't monitored by security cameras. We were a big machine moving quickly, but maintenance robots were a common sight along the railway lines after dark when the freight services weren't running: nobody would have given us a second glance. We should have been able to make a clean getaway. But the cops were at the college before dawn. How they got on to us so quickly was a mystery. At first.
We'd hoped that no one would find the Strider until breakfast. It had taken us three-and-a-half hours to dismantle it, carry the pieces into the college dining hall, and reassemble them. Then we'd gone off to bed, intending to rise and shine with everyone else and watch their reactions when they went in for breakfast. I'd planned to give a little demonstration of the machine's ballet skills while the other kids and staff tucked into their porridge. Alas, it was not to be.
A tannoy from the Principal at 4am ordered everyone to assemble in the dining hall in their pajamas. I pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers – partly because I don't sleep in pee-jays, and partly because I thought I might have to do a runner if they'd managed to discover who was responsible for the refectory's new ornament.
They had: Nathan and the other members of our gang were already standing on the platform behind the teacher's table: I didn't wait to be collared, I went straight up and joined them. I spotted the PacMan talking to the Principal and a couple of uniform cops. That solved the little mystery of how they'd gotten on to us so fast.
The Principal strode up to the platform, glaring at those of us who had brought shame upon his college. He was doubly teed off, rumour had it, because when the police officers had woken him, they'd discovered him in bed with one of the First Year girls. He was some failed Upper Management who had been 'retired' and pushed into lecturing, last refuge of the incompetent, and was a mean, bitter individual, with yellow teeth and a face like an old leather jockstrap. He gave a lecture to the assembled students and staff about the reputation of the school being tarnished by a bunch of selfish, mindless hooligans, and then singled me out as the ring-leader. He had to do it twice, because I wasn't listening first time.
"I want you, Houston, to get that machine out of here within the next five minutes and turn it over to the police officers outside," he said.
"I'm afraid that won't be possible – " I began.
"I do not intend to discuss the matter: get that machine out into the car park now!"
Five minutes wasn't long enough to dismantle the robot into small enough pieces to carry out through the door. I climbed up into the Strider's cockpit and fired up its control software. I dialled up a music database and accessed the main theme from War of the Worlds and played it (loud!) through the machine's external speakers. I saw Nathan across the room give me a thumbs up, then he headed for the exit while all eyes were on me. I used one of the Strider's pneumatic arms to demolish the back wall of the dining hall, and piloted my martian war machine out through the clouds of dust and smoke into the student car park.
The Strider was soon surrounded by police cruisers, and as the dust settled, a nondescript car pulled up close by: it was trying so hard to be inconspicuous that it practically screamed Unmarked Police Car! Two detectives climbed out and struck macho poses beside the car: they looked like the poster for a cheesy cop movie. One of them took a couple of steps towards me as I climbed down the metal steps under the Strider. His dark hair was greased back. He had a small moustache which didn't suit his face: it twitched as his top lip curled into what he imagined was an effective sneer. I could imagine him practising it in front of the mirror. He was looking very, very smug, and was about to tell me that I'd been stupid if I'd thought I could outwit him and his highly trained fellow officers. I despised him on sight.
"Steven Houston," he said, nodding his head in a knowing way. He was doing his best to look down his nose at me, but I was a couple of inches taller and he had to tilt his head back.
"By a weird coincidence, that's my name too," I said, choosing to misunderstand him.
The detective's smile disappeared as he found himself suddenly in danger of losing control of the situation. "I want you to put your hands in the air and move towards the car," he said.
"Yes, sir, Mr. Houston," I said.
"My name's not – "
Behind us, the Strider moved, turning to face the detective.
"What's it doing?" he asked, trying not to appear alarmed. His hand strayed towards his shoulder holster.
"I'm sorry, I must have left the engine running," I said. "I'll go up and switch it off."
"Don't move," the detective said. "I'll do it."
"Dex," he called over his shoulder. "Cover him while I shut that thing down."
His partner nodded once. The detective moved towards the Strider, attempting to appear confident in his ability to handle the situation. He disappeared up the little metal ladder into the belly of the yellow beast.
Behind me, I heard the Strider move again.
"You sure you know what you're doing, Detective Houston?" I called over my shoulder.
"Yes, I'm sure. And I'm not – " He gave a very un-macho little eek then, as the Strider took a step forward.
"You all right?" Dex shouted up towards the Strider's cockpit.
"Of course." He sounded less sure of himself now.
The Strider lurched forward, taking another step towards the unmarked police car. And another.
I raised my hands, and moved out of the Strider's path.
The Strider bore down on Detective Dex and their car.
"Kominsky? What the heck are you playing at?" There was a slight note of panic in Dex's voice now. "This is not funny, man." The Strider was almost upon him, and Dex's instinct for self-preservation overcame his desire to maintain a cool, macho image. He ran to where I was standing.
The Strider tore the roof off the unmarked police car with the first swipe of its arm.
"How do you stop this thing?" Detec
tive Kominsky wailed from the cockpit.
The Strider continued to rip the car apart. The sounds of tortured metal, and Kominsky's weak pleas for help, continued for several minutes. Finally, when the car was a shredded mess on four flat tyres, the Strider stepped back and was still.
"For God's sake, don't touch any more controls," I shouted up at the Strider.
A loud klaxon went off inside the machine and a bright red light began flashing in the cockpit to accompany the wailing.
"I think he just activated the self-destruct!" I said. I was enjoying this immensely.
"Get out of there, Kominsky!" Dex shouted. "Move it!"
Kominsky was already heading for the exit hatch. For a moment it looked like he might make it, but just as he got his foot on the first rung of the ladder, the fire extinguisher went off, smothering the cockpit with foam. Kominsky took another step down the metal ladder and slipped on the foam which was spilling out of the Strider's hatch. He slithered down the steps and landed butt-first on the ground. He was covered in blobs of foam, and sat unaware that the bubble-bath monster from hell oozed down the steps behind him.
As the foam engulfed Kominsky, Dex started laughing. He'd been trying not to. Uniformed cops got out of their cars and moved in for a closer look at the unfortunate detective. I felt a downdraft as the air patrol moved in too, spotlighting Kominsky and catching him on video for the rest of the police station to enjoy too, I hoped. Keystone's finest were all too preoccupied with their fallen comrade to pay me any attention. I edged towards the road where Nathan was waiting in a little electric city car: I'm pretty sure it was the principal's car he'd stolen. By the time the plods had realised what was going on, I was over the wall and climbing into the getaway car. They all ran to their vehicles – all except Dex and Kominsky, of course – and then discovered that I'd 'accidentally' positioned the Strider so that it was blocking the exit from the student car park. They shouted at Kominsky to move it, but he seemed less than keen to oblige.
Nathan and I left the principal's car in a tow-away zone in town and went off in search of an early breakfast.
"You sure this is what you want?" I asked. The program was darkware, custom written illegal software – the logo on my screen was a skull and crossbones. iDeath. Or suicide in our case. It was going to make us disappear.
I'd bought half-a-dozen no-name credit rods from a back street vendor, losing almost fifty-percent on the deal, then dropped my personal credit rod where someone would soon discover it. My PIN was scrawled on the key-tab attached to it, just like the banks tell you not to. The police would be watching my credit transactions, hoping to follow me that way; now they'd be following someone else. Time for Stevie Houston to disappear. Completely. I was offering Nathan the same choice, but wanted to be sure he realised what was involved. There's no coming back from identity death.
The program had come from someone I occasionally bought from at The Tin Man's Head. The Tin Man's Head is a bar in the outskirts. It's a popular misconception that computer-jockeys shun social interaction, relying instead on electronic communications systems and virtual environments for their 'meetings'. Not so. For a majority of these people, having somewhere to meet to show off your latest fashion accessories or hardware (not that the two were mutually exclusive) and have a few drinks was vital. It was a physical place to go and find people you'd only ever 'met' online. Every town has such a bar.
The police raided the Tin Man's Head once, claiming they were looking for pirated software: immediately after, the whole of the city's police force was hamstrung when their mainframes all went down. Every time they thought they'd disinfected everything possible, they'd fire the machines back up and the same grinning evil clown would be filling their screens, cackling like a maniac. Eventually they called in a couple of Tin Man regulars to sort it out, which they did.
No one ever came out and said the virus originated among the Tin Man crowd, but the police have never messed with them again. The bar has a certain reputation. It's a great place to go, so long as you know enough jargon and don't look like a mundane. I'm known there because of my robot stunts, and accepted, even though I'm a user rather than a real programmer. When I need something custom that I can't write myself, I buy from the guys at the Tin Man's Head: you can guarantee that it's good quality, virus and bug free, and they have a reputation for striving for elegance in their code, in a way that the mega corporations wouldn't even recognise as a good thing. In the Tin Man's Head you can also get the kinds of software that can't be bought in retail outlets. And they'll create a program without asking awkward questions. For a price.
When I'd asked him for iDeath, Sammy had raised his goggles and stared at me. It was the first time I'd seen him without the goggles. He squinted, a little short-sighted, I guess.
"Who'd you murder, anyone I know?"
"No, I just got into a little trouble, and I need to disappear for a while," I said.
"What kind of trouble?"
"Cops want to grab me by the nuts and squeeze."
"The cops." Sammy seemed relieved that was the full extent of my problems: if it had been one of the companies or local gangs after me, he'd probably have suggested something more effective than iDeath. He unlocked a desk drawer and picked out a memory card. "You know that once you loose this thing, there's no way to stop it? And there's no way to reverse the process." He held it up, giving me one last chance to back out. The program was simple enough to use: you gave it a name – your own or someone else's – and it would cruise up and down information highways destroying all data connected with that name, however minor the reference. The program would replicate itself periodically, and within hours of my activating it, no one connected to the web would have anything that referred to Stevie Houston. The destruction it caused wasn't disruptive, it wasn't a crude virus; it performed invisible mending, so that no one ever noticed that data relating to the name was missing. The program had originally been written by a group of outlaws who objected to the amount of information companies were keeping about them. It had been continuously updated and refined over the past thirty or forty years.
Sammy had passed me the card and slipped his goggles back into place, ready to immerse himself in the Otherworld. "You want me to make you a new ID?" He asked.
"No. I'm going away for a while."
He turned as if trying to see me through the opaque goggles, then shrugged. "Make sure you give a cross-reference, your National Insurance code or something: you don't want to wipe any other Steven Houstons out of existence too," he said. "Major references will be wiped within fifteen minutes, but it could be seventy-two hours before it has wiped every reference from every corner of the globe."
"Thanks." I pocketed the card.
"Will I be able to contact you?" Sammy asked.
"Leave a message for me on The Tin Man's public bulletin board," I said. "I'm not going far."
"Okay. Whatever you're planning, be careful, all right?"
"Be seeing you, Sammy."
Nathan looked at the skull-face logo and grinned. "Blank me!"
My parents were going to be very surprised when they discovered that they'd never had a son: no birth certificate, no school records, nothing. It would save them the embarrassment of having to disown me following my being expelled from the academy. After they'd recovered from the shock, they'd probably have a party to celebrate the news. Happy unbirthday, son.
In America they call them diners or greasy spoons, we just call them 'caffs'. Nathan and I were sitting in a booth with genuine cracked red vinyl seats and a tabletop of scarred gingham formica. No corporate style-book rules here: the ketchup came in bottles striped with latex-like dribbles; the mugs and plates were chipped, and the sugar came out of glass shakers in a grudging trickle. Eggs swam in the kind of cheap animal fat that gives you heart disease, along with a couple of links of gristle-filled condom, and streaky bacon rashers the consistency of your Y-front waist-band. Traditional English Breakfast – sometimes your bo
dy just cries out for food like this.
The café was in that buffer zone that all cities have, outside the protection of the walls and the security network, but not actually in the badlands, a world halfway between the two extremes, the outskirts. Part crumbling Victorian red brick, part shanty town. Artists and other bohemian drop-outs made their homes in the outskirts. Here was where activities and lifestyles not tolerated within the city proper were allowed to flourish. It was a thriving mish-mash of cultures, gangs and independent commerce. And because it proved that there could be a successful alternative to the corporation, it was strenuously ignored by those within the walls. They didn't oppose it or attempt to destroy it, because that would draw attention to it: they simply did not acknowledge its existence. Which was just fine by the people who lived there.
From the inside, the City of Nottingham looks like a consumerist utopian paradise, a vision of England's re-emergence as a world power. But from the outside, it looked a lot like the walled medieval town it had once been, prepared for siege. The city itself made me uncomfortable. Do you sometimes get that panicky feeling in shopping malls? There's no natural light, the colours are artificially bright, and all the metalwork is too shiny. The old architecture hadn't been blitzed entirely: odd bits of Hine and Fothergill sat like museum pieces in the shadows of the corporate glass phalluses, in an attempt to 'preserve the historical character of the city.' It was Nottingham reimagined as a Disney theme park. It made my skin crawl the way spiders do. I had spent the whole of my life here. Every city, from Chicago to Beijing was the same, why would I travel? Growing up as a corporate kid, I wasn't supposed to see the world outside the walls, even though it was only a (literal) stone's throw away. We were told that outsiders would attack anyone who ventured out, beating them and stealing anything they could carry away. Who'd want to take the risk of venturing outside the safety of the walls? The companies fuelled these scare stories, warning us that if we wanted to stay cosy and safe, we had to remain vigilant, because we were forever in danger of vandalism on the scale of civil war. At the college we were shown what it was like. Away from the cities, the old towns had been allowed to fall into ruin: many of them were ghost towns, being slowly reclaimed by nature. Decaying roads, unsafe water supplies, and frequent power cuts: is this how you want to spend the rest of your lives? If you don't toe the line, this is where you will end up. It was enough to convince some of the kids of the error of their ways.
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