Cyberpunk

over the whole scene like a roll of silk tossed down, as purple as it had looked on the horizon: scented and cold and shocking.
    “What’s your name, boy?”
    “Johnny.”
    “What d’you do?”
    “Uh—I’m an engineer.”
    “Looking for work? We could find you some. You need a wife to go with that kid. We got women too.”
    This banter didn’t mean anything. Johnny had discovered that everywhere you go in the boondocks, people will invite you to stay. It seemed a point of etiquette to regard any chance comer as a potential addition to the community. It wasn’t something to worry about, no more than the equal number of brief acquaintances who invited you to take them home, see their kids through college, advance the capital for them to set up in business. Banter covered the positioning of the truck, the chaining up of Johnny’s car, all under the hammering of the purple rain. Johnny, expressing decent but not effusive gratitude, got into the back with Bella, who woke as the car was being winched onto the flatbed. She didn’t speak or wail but stared all around her mightily. He could tell she’d been dreaming.
    “It’s okay, Bel. The car broke down. These people are giving us a ride into town.”
    “Daddy, why are you wet?”
    “It’s raining.”
    Bella stared with eyes like saucers, and dawning appreciation of this new means of transport, this audience, this adventure. The bikers peered in at her. “Who’s that?” she demanded. “What’s his name?” It was the stocky young one. She could never be brought to believe that there were people in the world whose names her parents did not know. “Archibald,” said Johnny at random. He spent the rest of the trip naming the other men in the same mode, and explaining over and over that the car was suddenly sick and needed a car-doctor: over and over again, while he made desperate mental tape of their route and reviewed worst-case scenarios, and still found a little space in which to want to kill Izzy, just beat her to shit. He knew she wasn’t to blame but she was the other half of his mind, and the fight-or-flight rush had to have some outlet.
    The drive ended at a wired compound, shrouded by tall dark hedges. Inside, there was a wide yard and flat-topped buildings that looked somehow like a school. The rain made the wall of leaves glow blue-black, and glistened on piles of automotive rubbish. Dogs rushed to the gates as the bikers dragged them open, snarling and yelping away from kicks. Bella was scared. Johnny got down with the toddler fastened on his chest like a baby monkey, his pack on his back and jacket bulging. He surrendered his keys with a good grace.
    “Papers?”
    Out here, you had to carry physical documentation. It was a bitch because most of them couldn’t read, and just got mad at you while they were trying to decipher your life’s history. He handed over his folder, hoping the boss, at least, was literate.
    He wished he had the nerve to leave some of his stuff in the car. It would have looked better, he knew. He staggered under his untrusting assumptions, and they led him off to a hall with a scuffed floor of light timber and rows of plastic chairs. The room smelt of kids. He decided that this was the school, in so far as such things still existed. A school, and a junkyard: original combination for some gifted entrepreneur.
    “We’ll take a look, Johnny, just you wait here.”
    One of the bikers—Samuel—watched them through the fireproof glass of the hall doors. Bella was unusually silent—most unusually, because he knew she was riveted with excitement. He looked around, and found that she was sitting, legs jutting over the edge of the scummy plastic seat, with one hand ruminatively delving under her skirt. Her expression was of dignified, speculative pleasure.
    Johnny managed to smother hysterical giggles. “Get your hand out of your pants, Bel. People don’t like to see that. It doesn’t look good.”
    This condemnation—always in a tone of mild and absolute certainty—was the worst her daddy ever issued. Bella understood that concern for the comfort of others and respect for their beliefs was to be her ultimate morality. She removed her hand with a sigh.
    “My nobble went fat. It went by itself.”
    “Yeah, I know. It’s the adrenaline rush. Ignore it, kid.”
    Samuel—stringy and pale, with ropy muscled arms and a ponytail—came to fetch them. They were led into a cavern of a mechanic’s workshop. The foreign