Cyberpunk

of some kind of liberal ideal was apparently worth more to him than his child’s life and safety.
    They could take Bella away from me .
    Walking into that bar with her had been like shooting his cuff to display an antique gold Rolex. Madness! He could try to tell them Bel was a perfectly ordinary little girl, produced by traditional methods and complete with organically grown blemishes (she had a crowded mouth, and a tendency to stand over on her inherited weak ankles). You wouldn’t get people out here to believe it, when they saw her next to their own scrawny, undersized, scabby-faced kids. To believe Bella was ordinary they’d have to accept that Johnny wasn’t weirdly privileged, Johnny was normal . . . They’d have to see how far they’d fallen.
    You wouldn’t want to wish that on them.
    Two hundred miles from NYC. There was no protection, no law, no appeal. From the moment that tow truck appeared he had been in trouble. He would be criminally crazy not to cut his losses and get out—even if he were alone. But he hated to give up. He was on the track of a story, and he knew he was in the right place. If God didn’t know why the fuck he was here; if God was convinced by the spurious dazzle of irradiated gemstones— somebody must know better. That somebody would come to Johnny. He didn’t have to do anything but wait.
    He linked his hands behind his head, and thought about sex. He recalled Bella’s experiment in the school hall. She was her father’s child all right. She’d made that vital connection so naturally—doubt and danger and a mellow hint of violence . . . whoo, up we go. It wasn’t likely that Johnny was heading for a real amorous adventure. Things weren’t so different in that area, inside the city or out. But the sex stuff could come in useful, just because it was in short supply. It was a greed that could cover for anything.
    There was a knock on the door.
    “Come in.”
    The desk clerk shut the door and sat down on the edge of the bed.
    “Hi, Johnny.”
    She seemed older than he was, but she was probably a teenager. She had stringy dark blonde hair cut in a bob. Blue eyes, a wiry unkempt body in a faded overall, an out-of-doors suntan that was ruining her skin. She smiled with her eyes and touched his pant leg, as if she were testing if it was still damp.
    She glanced upward. “It’s okay, Donny’s minding the store. He never checks the screens, and this one don’t work anyhow. I put you in here on purpose.”
    A heavy, warning wink told him he wasn’t meant to be reassured. Donny, aka Gustave, was undoubtedly glued to the most promising peephole in town.
    “Well, stranger, can we do business?” She took her hand from his leg and touched herself, both palms smoothing the slick worn fabric over her breasts. “I don’t want money. I want a ride. I don’t belong to anyone, you’ve no need to worry.”
    She was in a big hurry, but that was reasonable enough. Johnny would be gone tomorrow.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Cambridge.”
    “That’s the name of a city.”
    “I know. My momma liked the sound. You ever been there? The English one? I like to think it’s the original I’m called for.”
    “No, I can’t say I have.” Johnny watched her, not moving a muscle. “I can’t get you into the city, you know that. I suspect you’re an agent provocateur, ma’am.”
    “Hey, no way. I’m not going to get you into trouble. I just want a ride down the road, a change of scene. And I can get you out of the trouble you happen to be in.”
    She winked her steamroller wink again. “Get rid of those ants in your pants, city boy?” She squeezed his thigh, and giggled. Her eyes, which the camera couldn’t see, were deadly serious.
    “If a girl wants to get on, she has to be ready to act fast. That’s the shape of things to come, don’t you think? You can’t act like the old technology, sit there waiting for the current. You gotta be able to change yourself , to fit what’s coming at you.”
    Johnny was wrestling with his conscience. This could so easily be a trap. He would accept the clerk’s offer (what city slicker would refuse a loose woman?). The vigilantes would burst in. There would be some kind of ersatz legal procedure, God probably presiding. The boondocks were hot on sexual restraint. Notwithstanding her behavior downstairs it would be Johnny’s fault. The stranger caught in the act of fornication—maybe statutory rape—would be declared unfit to be in