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CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.

Chapter Two
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
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Short Stories
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.
CHAPTER 1 Switch and gRazer (continued) Dano, lost in his sounds, out there and zoning on the music, absentmindedly kicked a Kofola can. Black Sabbath followed Einsturzende as he rounded the corner, the one across from the BillaHypermarket. Layers of graffiti on stained concrete framed the faded adverts in the windows. He noticed the ClosedCircuit TV tracking him to “Paranoid” blasting in his ear pods. Kool. Reality soundtrack. Invisible drones and CCTV pods transmitting millions of images a second to algorithms crunching petabytes inside LibertyCorp computers. Non-stop surveillance. Facial recognition. Gait analysis. Security is freedom. Got nothing to hide, got nothing to fear, so the adverts said. Mind your own business, and the red lights don’t go on. What was deviant was classified but changed all the time anyway. Flash deviant and the nanoDrones were all over you in seconds. Yeah, paranoia was Real. Another block and he was in the edgeZone. He avoided the shantytown, too dangerous, and instead took a shortcut through a bleak and windswept soccer field. Dormant crabgrass and dandelions struggled in the toxic mud. Cold gusts stirred up litter and crappy plastic shopping bags and whisked dust about Dano’s long brown mop. He passed forlorn bleachers, decayed and corroded, and headed for the faded Orangina advert on the fence at the far end. When he got there, he pulled aside the ragged plastiply board, squeezed through the rusted wire-mesh fence and crossed the railroad tracks. Dano was still zoned, still cruising to his sounds, when suddenly, a disheveled man stumbled out of a two-bit Rolex holo glowing faintly in front of the EZ Money PawnKing and almost plowed into him. Without thinking, Dano made a quick sidestep and avoided the collision. The man stopped and swayed precariously as he assessed Dano. “You shouldn’t be out here, you know.” He shoved an index finger into Dano’s chest. “Word is,” alchohol-fueled breath whispered, “today’s a bad day to be out. Come on,” he pulled Dano’s jacket toward the ghostly martini glass promoting the dive bar halfway down the block. “I’ll buy you a drink. I just got some fold.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Paper money was supposedly extinct and illegal, but it was currency amongst fortyPercenters in places like Redcent. “I still had a good watch, you know.” He waved at the kitschy Rolex holo and shoved the bills into Dano’s face. “This’ll keep me going another week, at least.” “Listen, thanks man, but it’s too early for me,” replied Dano. If it weren’t for his appointment with Tommy Gunn he might have accepted. That was what freeGrazing was all about. “But take care, man.” Dano patted the wino on the shoulder and walked on with his easy rhythmic gait. He was in Redcent, a combatZone, crime-infested and offGrid, populated by the trash society had spit out. Redcent had once been an industrial district. But that was then. Now it was a rathole of dive bars, hardCore clubs, decaying cars, and abandoned buildings occupied by squatters. Got a connection? Got fold? You got a deal. Useless crap, illegal shit, didn’t matter: pirated name-brands, printed guns, shabu, zingers, serial numbers, hot-rodded software, Chinese killaChips, buyer beware. People would sell their sister. Or daughter, if the price were right. But Dano wasn’t into any of that. He was looking for deMode, you know, things, archaic things that were hard to get. Tommy Gunn had scored some rare amplifier tubes. Kool. Maybe that old Marshall would finally work. Unfortunately it wasn’t until he got to Zip’s Chow’nStuff, his usual place, that Dano noticed. Where the hell is everyone? It suddenly hit him that he hadn’t seen a soul since the wino. He tried the door to Chow’nStuff. Why the fuck is it locked? Above him the Nescafé holoVert steamed, the cup filled, emptied, steamed, and filled again. The lights inside were out, but he peered in and noticed some of the regulars in the shadows. What the hell is going on? Franta, a cigarette hanging over his sandpaper chin, came to the door and frantically waved like a madman. What? Shit! Dano saw the reflection on the glass door. He spun around. This isn’t fucking Real! This is crazy deepFreak! Right there in front of him seethed a swarm of insect-sized nanoDrones. Adrenaline kicked in and his amped-up heart beat with the bass in his earpods. Had he slipped into a deathZKunt SIM run by some asshole Switch? But when had the slip happened? When he zoned out? This had to be SIM. His soundtrack kicked into “Die! Die! Die!” Way juice if he was doing SIM, way not otherwise. “Freeze, citizen!” What the—? The barked command crashed in on him. SIM or Real? Input overload. Fuck it, I’m loosing juice! There’s no one there! Then Dano noticed the oddly undulating refracting air, like a mirage on a really hot day. Shit! Cloaking! Before he could deal they materialized. Three black-clad LibertyCorp operatives flashedIn and pointed assault rifles straight at his head. “On your knees, NOW!” The voice, shit man, that sound! “Hands behind the head, elbows out!” Authority amplified, vPrint altered, and broadcast directly into his app. It cut right through “Die! Die! Die!” and burst inside his brain. Dano didn’t argue. Trembling, terrified, he did exactly as he was told. “We have a positive drone scan here. 62% on the TPF.” Terrorist Profile Matrix. “Affirmative. ID and TPF logged in. Van ETA thirty-six seconds.” Damn, this was some serious SIM he was in. Kneeling, shaking, Dano, despite himself, despite his best efforts to stay kool, was scared shitless. Rough hands brutally twisted his arms and cuffed his wrists behind his back. Dano grimmaced in pain. Fuck, that hurts! A black LibertyCorp van pulled up. Like an irritated wasp, a nanoDrone buzzed out of the swarm and stung his neck, injecting a potent tranquilizer. The world immediately melted away and Dano drifted off to another nightmare, maybe another SIM, where an insane electoWizard danced on naked neurons slowly oozing out of his brain. * * * “Ow!” Audrey rubbed the back of her neck. “I just got this weird pain.” “Probably stress from all your crazy paranoia. Look, not to change the subject or anything,” Nina cocked her head, “but are you joining us at the Ophidian Thursday night? Anton put you on the list. It’s a SIM feature for the Le Monde Sunday Supplement, you know, French fashion ideas for the holidays or something.” “I don’t know, I have to study. It’s exam time.” “C’mon, you have to! It’s Paris. Besides Anton and his friends are going. That really handsome French architect might be there. I think he likes you.” “Yeah, handsome in SIM. He’s probably some disgusting eighty-year-old perv in Real.” “No way! He’s a friend of Anton’s. Besides, an eighty-year-old perv would select an off-the-shelf classic handsome. Your French admirer has that carved weathered masculine look.” “You don’t think he’s...” Audrey uploaded a selection of hunky avatars from the Avatopia website, and chose “... Rugged Individualist Avatar version 3.2?” The life-like hunk expanded to quarter scale, its cutting-edge high-res features contrasting sharply with the antiquated low-res generated by the eyeVid freeware. “Nah... this avatar’s not, I dunno, individual enough? You know, it has no real character. Besides, your admirer’s not so beefy.” “Okay, how about...” Audrey switched the Avatopia software to custom mode. With a flick of her hand she slimmed the avatar down, raised the cheekbones, and sculpted the jaw. “Uh-uh. See the eyes? They’re, like, dead. Lifeless. His are kind and intelligent. You can’t fake those.” “Not even if I...” Audrey shadowed the eyes and put a little sparkly highlight on the iris. “No! See? Not so easy.” “Well, you can create an algorithm from scans of a real life person and...” “Audrey, that would be really expensive. He couldn’t afford it.” “How do you know? Besides, if you’re so interested, why don’t you make a play for him?” “I would if he was taller.” “Taller? He’s as tall as you. What am I saying? He’s an avatar. You have no idea how tall he really is.” “Yeah, well, men never opt for shorter. Only taller.” “Men? But you might shave a couple of centimeters off your avatar?” “Not really. I don’t want to be a shocking, towering surprise when we actually meet in Real. I want a man who makes me feel petite.” “Petite?” Audrey asked dubiously. “You’re over 1.85 meters tall and you want to feel petite? Good luck with that. Do you realize that you’re ruling out ninety nine point nine nine nine percent of the male population?” “So what if I am? And what are you holding out for?” “I guess someone I can trust.” “Why don’t you think you can trust Anton’s friend? Just because he’s French?” “Well, yeah...” “Come on, you don’t even know him. Why not give him a chance?” “Because he’s got a cleft chin. Okay, his avatar does, like this.” Audrey modeled a cleft onto hunk avatar 3.2’s chin. “And you know what they say, ‘never trust an avatar with a cleft chin.’” “Oh, right. Are you sure it’s not ‘Never trust an avatar with unruly sandy brown hair’?” Nina asked. “Yeah, damned right it is,” Audrey giggled, “that, and a sexy smile.” She curved 3.2’s lips. “Or a perfect body?” “Mmm...” she spun the avatar around, “with a tight little ass.” “So you’re coming?” “I’m not coming just to fevR at a really hot avatar... and if I really wanted to, I could create my own.” “Audrey, you’re sick. That’s not the same thing. C’mon! It would be good for you. You’re getting way too serious.” “Oh, all right. Look, I should get going. I have to dump a SIMfile into Dano’s app.” Audrey’s voice flattened sarcastically when she said the word “app.” “That is, if it fits. gRazers! What time Thursday?” “Eight.” “Okay. Send me the link. Bye.” The dock and the lake and the technicolour landscape slowly dissolved. Audrey opened her eyes and once again found herself on her sofa. She was dressed. Her hair was dry.