Cyberpunk

yourself, eejay. You wouldn’t be here if we hadn’t been sending out our own signals, well as we could. We knew we couldn’t keep what was going on from Micane much longer. We need some support. After what’s happened tonight, we’ll need it more. But Micane’s on the slide. With help, we can take over . . . I’m real sorry about the cam.”
    She looked at the child. “Is having her some kind of cover? Or do you honest to God look after her? I mean, like a woman?”
    “No,” said Johnny, painfully aware of the truth. “I look after her like a man. It’s a start. I do my best.”
    He held Bella like a shield. Cambridge’s movement toward him went unfinished. She touched Bel, awkwardly patting the little girl’s head.
    “Stay here. Someone will bring your car.”
    When she was gone, Johnny and Bella walked around a little: admiring the stars and bumping into a few trees. She’d soiled herself. This didn’t generally happen any more at night, but he could hardly blame her. He managed to change her, Bella standing, holding onto him with the crotch of her night suit dangling between her knees. He hugged her in a daze of gratitude. “You and me against the world, Bel,” he whispered. He gave her some dried snack fruit, and she asked him when they were going home.
    He hoped the desk clerk’s story was the truth. He didn’t want to blame himself for three murders. But the black man’s dominance must have been threatened for a long time, if his rivals had been able to set up a coralin plant under his nose. Since power couldn’t change hands out here without violence, it wasn’t Johnny’s fault. If it hadn’t been over the plant, it would have been something else.
    He thought of setting off into this savage utter wilderness. But he didn’t have a spare diaper any more, and the prospect of hitchhiking, even in daylight, was not appealing. An hour passed. His global-mobile was in his pocket. He didn’t feel like calling anyone. No more signals . . . The coralin chip in its heart, like the processor in his cam, was practically sterile. But you weren’t supposed to take any chances.
    He thought of the starter that Cam’s cadre had gotten hold of. They were no biochemists, they didn’t build it from scratch. He imagined a brother eejay dead out here, or stripped of his magic and too ashamed ever to come home . . .
    Bella, he found, was happier on his back. He walked her, holding hands over his shoulder, singing nursery rhymes. She didn’t say a thing about guns, or shooting, or bad guys. Which didn’t mean this adventure hadn’t scarred her for life. He writhed to think of the debriefing he’d have to go through with Izzy.
    When he heard the car he hid until he was sure it was his own, and the driver was Cambridge, and there was no one else with her. She handed over a sliver of plastic card—his key. It was good to have that safely back in his hand.
    They stood by the car. Johnny put the sidelights on dim, so he could see her face a little.
    Boondock episodes were always incredibly charged: vows of eternal friendship, exchange of instant pictures that would be kept for a few months—until they lost all meaning. This one had only been more spectacular; the configuration was the same. Johnny told himself his picture was already fading in her purse. But he wanted to give her something real.
    “How’s Donny?”
    She shook her head. Don’t ask.
    “About that ride—”
    She thought he was joking. “Another time,” she said. “You get back and send us some reinforcement. I don’t ask what form it’s going to take, you guys know best. But make it soon, okay?”
    He settled Bella in the backseat, with her beloved plastic tilt-rotor and her herbal bunny pillow. He got into the car, opened the window wide.
    “Cambridge, there’s nothing for you in that town. Don’t go back. Get in, come with us. I can fix everything.”
    He’d thought it out in a split second. He could hack the problems involved: what’s gilded youthfulness for? His mistake was that he’d forgotten, for a moment, who he was supposed to be. In the dim light he saw her eyes narrow.
    “Me? Leave the cadre? Wait a minute. Why shouldn’t I go back?”
    He stared over the dash, “I’m an eejay ma’am. I don’t take sides. I just made the tape that just went on the news.”
    At no point had she told him he mustn’t make live transmission. It had occurred to him (the Wizard of Oz) that she might not know what he was doing.