Cyberpunk

back.
    “Try a few steps,” he said.
    Although I could move easily in the lightweight joysuit, the motion interpreter made walking in the video armor seem realistically awkward. Comrade had scored the sound effects, too. Metal hinges rasped, chain mail rattled softly, and there was a satisfying clunk whenever my foot hit the floor.
    “Great.” I clenched my fist in approval. I was awake now and in control of my temper. I wanted to make up, but Comrade was not taking the hint. I could never quite figure out whether he was just acting like a machine or whether he really did not care how I treated him.
    “They’re starting.” All the windows in the room lit up with Playroom’s welcome screen. “You want privacy, so I’m leaving. No one will bother you.”
    “Hey, Comrade, you don’t have to go . . .”
    But he had already left the room. Playroom prompted me to identify myself. “Mr. Boy,” I said, “Department of Identification number 203-966-2445. I’m looking for channel seventeen; the password is warhead.”
    A brass band started playing “Hail to the Chief” as the title screen lit the windows:
    The White House
    1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
    Washington, DC, USA
    ® 2096, Playroom Presentations
    REPRODUCTION OR REUSE STRICTLY PROHIBITED and then I was looking at a wraparound view of a VE ballroom. A caption bar opened at the top of the windows and a message scrolled across. This is the famous East Room, the largest room in the main house. It is used for press conferences, public receptions, and entertainments. I lowered my visor and entered the simulation.
    The East Room was decorated in bone white and gold; three chandeliers hung like cut-glass mushrooms above the huge parquet floor. A band played skitter at one end of the room, but no one was dancing yet. The band was Warhead, according to their drum set. I had never heard of them. Someone’s disguise? I turned, and the joysuit changed the view on the windows. Just ahead Satan was chatting with a forklift and a rhinoceros. Beyond, some blue cartoons were teasing Johnny America. There was not much furniture in the room, a couple of benches, an ugly piano, and some life-sized paintings of George and Martha. George looked like he had just been peeled off a cash card. I stared at him too long, and the closed-caption bar informed me that the painting had been painted by Gilbert Stuart and was the only White House object dating from the mansion’s first occupancy in 1800.
    “Hey,” I said to a girl who was on fire. “How do I get rid of the plugging tour guide?”
    “Can’t,” she said. “When Playroom found out we were kids, they turned on all their educational crap and there’s no override. I kind of don’t think they want us back.”
    “Dumbscuts.” I scoped the room for something that might be Stennie. No luck. “I like the way your hair is burning.” Now that it was too late, I was sorry I had to make idle party chat.
    “Thanks.” When she tossed her head, sparks flared and crackled. “My mom helped me program it.”
    “So, I’ve never been to the White House. Is there more than this?”
    “Sure,” she said. “We’re supposed to have pretty much the whole first floor. Unless they shorted us. You wouldn’t be Stone Kinkaid in there, would you?”
    “No, not really.” Even though the voice was disguised, I could tell this was Happy Lurdane. I edged away from her. “I’m going to check the other rooms now. Later.”
    “If you run into Stone, tell him I’m looking for him.”
    I left the East Room and found myself in a long marble passageway with a red carpet. A dog skeleton trotted toward me. Or maybe it was supposed to be a sheep. I waved and went through a door on the other side.
    Everyone in the Red Room was standing on the ceiling; I knew I had found Stennie. Even though what they see is only a simulation, most people lock into the perceptual field of a VE as if it were real. Stand on your head long enough—even if only in your imagination—and you get airsick. It took kilohours of practice to learn to compensate. Upside down was one of Stennie’s trademark ways of showing off.
    The Red Room is an intimate parlor in the American Empire style of 1815–20 . . .
    “Hi,” I said. I hopped over the wainscoting and walked up the silk-covered wall to join the three of them.
    “You’re wearing German armor.” When the boy in blue grinned at me, his cheeks dimpled. He was wearing shorts and white knee socks, a navy