Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald Read Free Book Online

educational and a lot of people play it and enjoy it and get a lot out of it, but it's not really right. I mean, it's not accurate. It claims it's an evolution simulation, and it is as far as it goes. But if you think about it, really, it's just following rules laid down by someone else. All that code was programmed by someone else; so really, it's evolution inside a bigger framework that's been deliberately designed. But they don't tell you, Kyle, and that's dishonest; it's pretending to be something it's not. And that's why I don't like it—because it isn't honest about the truth, and I know that whatever I say, what you do with Salim is your thing, but I do think you're not to play it here, in the house. And it's good you've got a good friend here—I remember when Kelis was your age, when we were in the Gulf, she had a really good friend, a Canadian girl—but it would be good if you had a few more friends from your own background. Okay? Now, how about Wrestle Smackdown on cable?"
         The referee had gone down with a head-butt to the nuts in the first thirty seconds, so it was only when the decibel count exceeded the mundane Varanasi traffic roar that security heads-upped, guns-downed, and came running. A guard-woman in full color-smear combats and smart-visor locked her arms around Kyle and hauled him out of the steel-cage match into which the under-eleven practice had collapsed.
         "I'll sue you I'll sue the ass off you your children will end up living in a cardboard box, let go of me," Kyle yelled. The security woman hauled.
         It was full fight, boys, girls, supporters, cheerleaders. At the bottom of the dog-pile, Striker Salim and Ozzie Ryan. Security hauled them off each other and returned the snoopy RAV drones that flocked to any unusual action to their standby roosts. Parameds rushed to the scene. There was blood, there were bruisings and grazings, there were torn clothes and black eyes. There were lots and lots of tears but no contusions, no concussions, no breaks.
         Then the Gitmoisation.
         Coach Joe: Okay, so, want to tell me what that was about? Ozzie Ryan: He started it. Striker Salim: Liar! You started it.
         Coach Joe: I don't care who started it; I want to know what all that was about. Ozzie Ryan: He's the liar. His people just lie all the time; they don't have a word for the truth.
         Striker Salim: Ah! Ah! That's such a lie too.
         Ozzie Ryan: See? You can't trust them: he's a spy for them, it's true; before he came here they never got in, since he came there's been things happening almost every day. He's a spy and he's telling them all ways to get in and kill us because he thinks we're all animals and going to hell anyway.
         Coach Joe: Jesus. Kyle—what happened?
         Kyle Rubin: I don't know, I didn't see anything, I just heard this noise, like, and when I looked over they were on the ground tearing lumps out of each other.
         Striker Salim: That is so not true ... I cannot believe you said that. You were there, you heard what he said.
         Kyle Rubin: I didn't hear everything, I just heard, like, shouting . . . Gitmoisation Part Two.
         Kyle's Dad: Coach Joe called me, but I'm not going to bawl you out, I think there's been enough of that already. I'm disappointed, but I'm not going to bawl you out. Just one thing: did Ryan call Salim something?
         Kyle Rubin: (Mumble.)
         Kyle's Dad: Son, did Ryan use a racist term to Salim? Kyle Rubin: (Twisting foot.)
         Kyle's Dad: I thought Salim was your friend. Your best friend. I think if someone had done something to my best friend, doesn't matter who he is, what he is, I'd stand up for him.
         Kyle Rubin: He said Salim was a diaper-head curry-nigger and they were all spies and Salim was just standing there so I went in there and popped him, Ryan, I mean, and he just went for Salim, not me, and then everyone was piling on with