Cyberpunk by Bruce Bethke Read Free Book Online Page B

escaped from their
    partition, crawled into my Battle of Peshawar folder. The Indian 3rd
    Armoured tangled with them just outside of Amritsar—which was great,
    took a lot of pressure off my eastern front—but the last thing I
    remembered, I’d just parked my T-72 in front of Martin’s Micros and
    was getting out to feed the parking meter when I got jumped by a
    Vijayanta main battle tank with eight legs and spinnerets. Now I was all
    trussed up in giant cobwebs and lying on a shelf in the Spider King’s
    larder...
    Okay Mikey, no problem. We’ve gotten out of this trap before. Just
    need to focus, is all . I allocated another mo for resting up, then rubbed
    my magic ring twice, took a few quick breaths and—
    Mmph! Good, I felt the webbing give a little on my left side.
    Another try before the spell fades? Right; one, two—
    Urgh! My left hand broke free. Slow, clumsy, I dragged it up to my
    face and starting brushing at the sticky silk and gunk that covered my
    eyes.
    Bad news. There weren’t any cobwebs. There wasn’t anything in my
    face at all, ‘side from blankets and my own hair. Which meant the whole
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    bit about the giant spider attack was all just a dream.
    And the part about erasing Dad was the reality.
    Okay Mikey, too late to try for an undo. May as well boot up and see
    where we saved the game last night . I got my eyes open—first the right
    one, then the left one, then both at the same time—and took a look out
    the window. At gray skies. Clouds hanging low and threatening rain. A
    couple depressed little sparrows, feathers all puffed up and necks pulled
    short, clinging tight to the dwarf maple branches like the borderline
    drizzle had them too bummed to fly.
    Bleah.
    Rolling over, I got a solid locate on my feet, finished kicking them
    free from the blankets, migrated them down to the floor. Sitting up, I
    started with the rubbing eyes and I-could-swallow-an-ostrich-egg-whole
    yawns.
    By and by, my brain came back online and I looked across the room.
    MoJo was alive, bright, awake. The Gyoja Gerbil was standing there onscreen,
    stupid little rat-toothed smile on his face, next to a shimmering,
    vibrating, silent yellow gong. Oh, that’s right, I’d forgotten, I’d turned
    the sound down last night, right about the time I’d thrown my last eight
    Backfire bombers against the Indian infantry. That cluster bomb sound
    effect did tend to get noisy. One last yawn, and then I got out of bed and
    shuffled over to my desk.
    Parts of the boot script keyed off the keyboard interrupt. I spun the
    volume up, laid hands upon MoJo, and the Gyoja Gerbil broke out of his
    wait loop. “Good morning, Mikhail Harris,” he said as he bowed deep.
    “Now checking CityNet mail for you.” He closed his eyes, like he was
    concentrating. There were definite times when I wished the Miko-Gyoja
    260/0/ /ex used a plain dumb ticking-timebomb icon, like normal
    hardware.
    The gerbil frowned, and froze. A flashing red-border dialog box
    popped open: Warning! Possible buffer contamination!
    Idiot machine. Of course there’s buffer contamination. There’s
    always buffer contamination. This is CityNet, for chrissakes; the day I
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    ©1982, 1998 Bruce Bethke
    don’t have a virus in the flytrap is the day I start to worry, ‘cause it
    means I’ve caught something that knows how to bypass a flytrap.
    I tapped the flush button. The gerbil bowed again, then spoke. “I
    have found these messages waiting for you, Honorable Harris-san.” He
    opened a window between his hands, like he was pulling open a scroll.
    I scanned down the list. Hmm. Junk mail. More junk mail. Uh oh, a
    message from CityNet Admin about—scratch that, just some real
    official-looking junkmail. Today’s fashion forecast: Gritty 2nd Classer
    Realism in the morning changing to candy-coated Nineties Nostalgia by
    late afternoon. A couple notes from the Battle of Peshawar SIG; these I
    piped to a