Authors: Bruce Bethke
the SatLink, I did sort of give him what he was asking for, after a
fashion. I mean, the admissions program looks real promising, even
though it wasn’t actually working in time to screen the summer boys. By
now I’ve gotten real good at kicking whatever rackmount is convenient
and saying, “Dammit, Gary, it’s all this antique junk we’re using. If
you’d let me buy some modern hardware...” I’ve got
great
deniability.
Still, you’d think that sooner or later the guy’d put two and two
together and come up with something approximating four, wouldn’t
you?
Maybe not. Maybe I’ve slipped below his threat assessment
threshold. We make eye contact; Gary smiles down at me, and I return a
small, dignified nod. Then he looks out at the assembly, smiles fierce
and proud, and yelps, “Ten-hut!”
Idiot. We
are
at attention.
He whips off a wild, arm-swinging salute. We return it in crisp
unison. He smiles again, orders us at ease. I quick slip a hand behind the
lad next to me, bracing him up for a few seconds until he gets his color
back and his feet steady. “Thanks,” the lad whispers. I flash him a
true/true smile.
Gary clears his throat, and pulls a fistful of notecards out of his
pocket. “Today we reach the end of another academic year,” he begins,
in a voice too strident. “For the Academy, this has been a year of
dynamic change and restructuring. For many of you, this has been a year
of important personal growth and improvement as well.” I lock in on the
notecards; it looks like there’s a lot of them. I start to zone out again.
A year of improvement? Only if your internal lexicon defines
personal growth as “a form of cancer.” For me, personal, this year has
been a lot like drinking shots of battery acid.
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Not that it’s been without humor. For example, there was the month
the academy was infested with paleopunks. That’s what we cadets called
‘em, anyway: twenty paunchy, middle-aged guys in mohawks and raggy
leather who spent their days hunting each other with splatguns. Had all
the subtle penetration skills of your average 5-ton truck; I could have
taken the lot of them out with a half-dozen Grade Twos. Watching the
leather boys in action was a real scream.
But that was about it for laughs, though. Mostly the year was a big
bummer, with primary cause being the staff’s rapid adjustment to the
new order. Math professor Schmidt was the only one who actually
resigned. Even Feinberg changed his tune after he got a big raise and a
promotion to dean. Most of us Grade Fives got pretty damn disgusted,
and in November, when the Koreans lobbed a few Silkworms at
Hiroshima and the Nipponese started contracting for Peace Enforcement
again, about half my class dropped out to enlist. (Too bad Clausewitz
isn’t alive today. He’d have coined a new dictum, just for the
Nipponists:
War is only business conducted by other means
.)
The cadets who quit were more than replaced by a flood of eager
young Nazis with shaky transcripts and middle-aged paramils who
brought their own guns, though, and the last I saw of Payne, he was
running a bunch of grownup clowns in Mohler-style camouflage through
the new Fully Automatic Weapons seminar. (Funny, but even Jewbaiters
like to fondle Uzis). I popped by the range one day to ask him a
question and wound up watching them a few minutes, feeling sicker by
the round. Lots of wild firing from the hip. Spent brass spraying
everywhere. I guess the theory is if you waste enough bullets you don’t
need to actually
aim
, but I felt a small tremor in the earth from the
Colonel doing somersaults in his grave.
Yup, definitely a new order in place. As my attention wanders across
the faces on the reviewing stand—across the weasels, the bootlickers,
the addled old fools—I make eye contact with Deke Luger, and for one
last time we glare at each other with naked hatred.
Yeah, Dougie Boy,
I
telepath,
after six years I still hate
your
slimey guts, too.
Most of us
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surviving Grade Fives despise Generalissimo Gary, but a few real
twonks have flourished, and Douglas Kemuel Luger is undisputably top
twonk. I flash him a smile that’s really a bared-fangs challenge, and
beam off another telepath:
If I’d known back in ComSurEx that you were
going to end up class valedectorian, I
would
have cut your throat.
His receptors must be down. Luger gives me a little disgusted snort,
then turns and locks eyes on Gary.
“—break with tradition,” Gary is saying. I snap back from the zone
and go into full alert mode. “Before the usual valedictory address,” Gary
continues, “I would like to take this opportunity to recognize a
graduating cadet whose unique gifts have made the academy a better
place for all concerned. Cadet Captain Michael A. Harris, front and
center!”
Huh? This isn’t in the script. I start to flash into a nervous smile,
then shut it off. Looking confident going in is half of any battle. Derzky,
calm, I break ranks and mount the stairs to the reviewing stand. Already,
I’m mapping out fantasy tactical. If Gary’s got something weird cooking
I just give him a
shakoken
palm-heel strike to the nose, draw my blade,
and take the old wheeze hostage. Then... Then...
Aw, piss on it. I’ll improvise.
Gary’s beaming at me as I snap to and salute next to him. (
Nagare
,
I’m thinking,
let the action flow
. Salute flows to
kitenken
hand-edge
strike flows to
shikanken
punch with my left fist...)
Gary returns the salute, then leans across the podium so his words
go into the microphone. “Cadet Harris,” he says, “on behalf of the
students and staff of the Von Schlager Military Academy, I would like to
present you with this small token of our appreciation.” He straightens up
and hands me a book; I cop a glance at the cover.
Combat Theology
,
allegedly by Commandant Gary Von Schlager.
I know this book. I helped Gary plagiarize it.
“Open it,” he prompts. (
Uh oh
, I think,
he found my “improvements”
and now he’s gonna take revenge in front of...
) Hesitant, I open the
book, to find a short, sappy dedication and an autograph. That’s it. Geez,
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he wasn’t kidding when he said the token was small.
“Thank you sir,” I say, demure, and shake his hand.
The assembly applauds. Gary steps away from the microphone and
leans in close to me, crossing my reaction perimeter. (
This is it!
I think.
Nagare! Nagare!
) “I hate to keep rehashing a dead horse—”
(Oh, so
that’s
what last night’s dinner was!)
“—but are you sure you don’t want to stay on as staff?”
I retaliate with a countergrin. “I haven’t been home in six years, sir.”
Gary nods. “I understand. Still, promise me you’ll think it over this
summer, okay?”
“Yessir. I certainly will.” We exchange salutes, and I wheel and
head for the stairs. I’ll think about it, all right; on a cold, cold,
cold
day
in Hell.
But then, just for a moment and completely in spite of myself, I
pause at the top of the stairs and turn thoughtful anyway. Looking out at
all those eager young faces, looking one last time around the quad: A
lot’s changed, these last six years. New faces, new buildings, new
attitudes.
New ghosts.
This kid Harris has changed, too. He’s older now: tough as blue
steel, chill and calm as a deep stream. He lives in a bigger world now,
and if you didn’t know better, you’d swear he was a deep-dyed
militaroid.
That’s what you’d think. But you’d be forgetting that there are two
constants in the universe: I’m still Mikey Harris. And Olders
still
don’t
know jack squat about computers.
I snap out of it, and start down the stairs. There’s one last job I’ve
got to do.
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END OF FILE: FF
The beauty of a well-designed network—like, for example, the one
that permeates every bunkhouse, classroom, and office in this
Academy—is that the physical devices don’t have to be anywhere near
each other. As long as they can talk to each other once in a while, the
hardware can be
anywhere
. Say, inside a dummy box-beam in the rafters
of bunkhouse “D.” Or behind a sheet of drywall on the second floor of
the science lab. Or even, say, inside a hollow concrete cinder block, in
the foundation of the new wing of the Admin Building.
I glance over my shoulder to make sure my office door is closed.
Then I rest my fingers lightly on my terminal keyboard —hesitate, for
just a mo—and key in one word: ARMED.
Throughout the system, little bits of mole code begin burying
themselves. Incriminating files get erased. Audit logs disappear. I lean
back in my chair, relax, watch the show.
There’s a knock at the door. I blank the screen, swivel around.
“Enter.”
It’s Payne. “Well Harris, I guess this is it.” He hangs there in the
doorway, looking a little sheepish. I stand up, chop off a perfect salute.
“Goodbye, Mr. Payne.”
He returns the salute, and offers me a handshake. “Goodbye,
Mister
Harris.” The handshake is firm, strong; the respect is real. “We’re going
to miss you around here.”
I smile, demure. “Don’t worry.” I lay a hand on the console
terminal, pat it lovingly. “You’ve got my baby. In a way, as long as this
system is still running, I’m still around.”
In a very
literal
way.
Of course I left myself a back door. Hey, a
cyberpunk
designed this
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system. There’s a custom circuit board buried deep in the inmost guts of
the SatLink: slathered in black epoxy so no one can tell what it does;
welded
in place, so you’d have to junk the entire SatLink system to get
rid of it.
Yes, Gary, I can link into the Academy network and wipe you out
any day of the week. From any network node in the entire goddam
world
.
But that’s just the contigency plan. The real plan is a lot more subtle,
a lot more refined. Almost bulletproof: even if Gary hires a bootlicking
weasel to replace me—and hey, he
will
, he’s Gary—even if he finds
another cyberpunk, there’s not a thing he can do. I didn’t just hack
around with code objects and exec scripts; I got into the operating
system primitives. Right down to the BIOS and PROMs, this baby is
mine
. And my baby can defend itself.
Bare-metal programming. You’d have been proud of me, Mr.
Lewellyn.