Cyberpunk

took up the chant. “Smash it!” Shikibu adjusted his lenses.
    “You think I won’t?” Tree pulled out the disk and threw the sleeve off the balcony. “This is a piece of junk, Mr. Boy.” She laughed and then shattered the album against the wall. She held on to a shard. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
    I heard Janet whisper. “What’s going on?”
    “I think they’re having an argument.”
    “You want me to be your little dream cush.” Tree tucked the piece of broken plastic into the pocket of my baggies. “The stiff from nowhere who knows nobody and does nothing without Mr. Boy. So you try to scare me off. You tell me you’re so rich, you can afford to hate yourself. Stay home, you say, it’s too dangerous, we’re all crazy. Well, if you’re so sure this is poison, how come you’ve still got your wiseguy and your cash cards? Are you going to move out of your mom, leave town, stop getting stunted? You’re not giving it up, Mr. Boy, so why should I?”
    Shikibu turned his camera eyes on me. No one spoke.
    “You’re right,” I said. “She’s right.” I could not save anyone until I saved myself. I felt the wildness lifting me to it. I leapt onto the balcony wall and shouted for everyone to hear. “Shut up and listen, everybody! You’re all invited to my place, okay?”
    There was one last thing to smash.
    “Stop this, Peter.” The greeter no longer thought I was cute. “What’re you doing?” She trembled as if the kids spilling into her were an infection.
    “I thought you’d like to meet my friends,” I said. A few had stayed behind with Happy, who had decided to sulk after I hijacked her guests. The rest had followed me home in a caravan so I could warn off the sentry robots. It was already a hall-of-fame bash. “Treemonisha Joplin, this is my mom. Sort of.”
    “Hi,” Tree held out her hand uncertainly.
    The greeter was no longer the human doormat. “Get them out of me.” She was too jumpy to be polite. “Right now!”
    Someone turned up a boombox. Skitter music filled the room like a siren. Tree said something I could not hear. When I put a hand to my ear, she leaned close and said, “Don’t be so mean, Mr. Boy. I think she’s really frightened.”
    I grinned and nodded. “I’ll tell Cook to make us some snacks.”
    Bubba and Mike carried boxes filled with the last of the swag and set them on the coffee table. Kids fanned out, running their hands along her wrinkled blood-hot walls, bouncing on the furniture. Stennie waved at me as he led a bunch upstairs for a tour. A leftover cat had gotten loose and was hissing and scratching underfoot. Some twisted kids had already stripped and were rolling in the floor hair, getting ready to have sex.
    “Get dressed, you.” The greeter kicked at them as she coiled her umbilical to keep it from being trampled. She retreated to her wall plug. “You’re hurting me.” Although her voice rose to a scream, only half a dozen kids heard her. She went limp and sagged to the floor.
    The whole room seemed to throb, as if to some great heartbeat, and the lights went out. It took a while for someone to kill the sound on the boombox. “What’s wrong?” Voices called out. “Mr. Boy? Lights.”
    Both doorbones swung open, and I saw a bughead silhouetted against the twilit sky. Shikibu in his microcams. “Party’s over,” Mom said over her speaker system. There was nervous laughter. “Leave before I call the cops. Peter, go to your room right now. I want to speak to you.”
    As the stampede began, I found Tree’s hand. “Wait for me?” I pulled her close. “I’ll only be a minute.”
    “What are you going to do?” She sounded frightened. It felt good to be taken so seriously.
    “I’m moving out, chucking all this. I’m going to be a working stiff.” I chuckled. “Think your dad would give me a job?”
    “Look out, dumbscut! Hey, hey. Don’t push!”
    Tree dragged me out of the way. “You’re crazy.”
    “I know. That’s why I have to get out of Mom.”
    “Listen,” she said, “you’ve never been poor, you have no idea . . . Only a rich kid would think it’s easy being a stiff. Just go up, apologize, tell her it won’t happen again. Then change things later on, if you want. Believe me, life will be a lot simpler if you hang on to the money.”
    “I can’t. Will you wait?”
    “You want me to tell you it’s okay to be stupid, is that it? Well, I’ve been poor, Mr. Boy, and still am, and I don’t