Cyberpunk (40 page)

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.