Cyberabad Days by Ian McDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

Ryan and Salim at the bottom and they were all shouting curry-nigger-lover curry-nigger-lover at me and trying to get me too and then the security came in.
         At the end of it two things were certain: soccer was suspended for one month, and when it did come back, Salim would not be playing, never would be again. Cantonment was not safe for Bharatis.
         He was trapped, a traffic-island castaway. Marooned on an oval of concrete in Varanasi's never-ebbing torrent of traffic by the phatphat driver when he saw Kyle fiddling in his lap with pogs.
         "Ey, you, out here, get out, trying to cheat, damn gora."
         "What, here, but—?"
         Out onto this tiny traffic island twenty centimeters in front of him twenty centimeters behind him on one side a tall man in a white shirt and black pants on the other a fat woman in a purple sari who smelled of dead rose, and the phatphat, the little yellow and black plastic bubble, looked/ sounded like a hornet, throbbed away into the terrifying traffic.
         "You can't do this, my dad's building this country!"
         The man and the woman turned to stare. Stares everywhere, every instant, from the moment he slipped out of the back of the Hi-Lux at the phatphat stand. They had been eager for his money then, Hey, sir, hey, sahb, good clean cab, fast fast, straight there no detours, very safe safest phatphat in Varanasi. How was he to know that the cheap, light cardboard pogs were only money inside the Cantonment? And now here he was on this traffic island no way forwards no way back no way through the constant movement of trucks, buses, cream-colored Marutis, mopeds, phatphats, cycle rickshaws, cows, everything roaring ringing hooting yelling as it tried to find its true way while avoiding everything else. People were walking through that, just stepping out in the belief that the traffic would steer around them; the man in the white shirt, there he went, the woman in the purple sari, Come on, boy, come with me, he couldn't, he daren't, and there she went and now there were people piling up behind him, pushing him pushing pushing pushing him closer to the curb, out into that killing traffic . . .
         Then the phatphat came through the mayhem, klaxon buzzing, weaving a course of grace and chaos, sweeping into the traffic island. The plastic door swiveled up and there, there was Salim.
         "Come on come on."
         Kyle bounded in, the door scissored down, and the driver hooted off into Varanasi's storm of wheels.
         "Good thing I was looking for you," Salim said, tapping the lighthoek coiled behind his ear. "You can find anyone with these. What happened?" Kyle showed him the Cantonment pogs. Salim's eyes went wide. "You really haven't ever been outside, have you?"
         Escaping from Cantonment was easier than anything. Everyone knew they were only looking for people coming in, not going out, so all Kyle had to do was slip into the back of the pickup while the driver bought a mochaccino to go at Tinneman's. He even peeked out from under the tarpaulin as the inner gate closed because he wanted to see what the bomb damage was like. The robots had taken away all the broken masonry and metal spaghetti, but he could see the steel reinforcing rods through the shattered concrete block work and the black scorch marks over the inner wall. It was so interesting and Kyle was staring so hard that he only realized he was out of Cantonment entirely, in the street, the alien street, when he saw the trucks, buses, cream-colored Marutis, mopeds, phatphats, cycle rickshaws, cows close behind the pickup, and felt the city roar surge over him.
         "So, where do you want to go, then?" Salim asked. His face was bright and eager to show Kyle his wonderful wonderful city. This was a Salim Kyle had never seen before: Salim not-in-Cantonment, Salim in-his-own-place, Salim among-his-own-people. This Mansoori seemed alien to Kyle. He was not