Metrophage | Page 5

man
lining up Jacqueline Kennedy in the sights of a fiberglass reproduction
of a Mannlicher-Carcano rifle. It was Smokefinger, the pickpocket, fat
and nervous, jacked into the Date With Destiny game by a length of
pencil-thin cable extending from the game console to a 24-prong
mini-plug implanted at the base of his skull. Most of the players in the
room were jacked into various games by similar plugs. Jonny's stomach
fluttered at the sight. Elective surgery, he had decided years before, did
not extend to having little platinum bullets permanently jammed into
his skull, thank you. He could watch the World Link on a monitor and
as for the games, they seemed real enough without skull-plugs.
Smokefinger tracked the ghostly hologram of the presidential limousine
as crimson numbers flickered in the metallic-blue Dallas sky, reading
out his score. Jonny leaned close to pickpocket's ear and said, "How's it
going, Smoke?" Smokefinger ignored him and continued to move the
toy rifle with steady, insect-like concentration. Hey Smoke," said Jonny,
waving his fingers before Smokefinger's eyes just as the fat man pulled
the trigger.
"No score. Shit," mumbled the pickpocket, still ignoring Jonny. He had
aced the chauffeur.
This wasn't going to be any fun at all, Jonny decided. He pushed the
release button on the plug at the back of Smokefinger's head. The wire
dropped and a spring-loaded coil drew it back inside the game console.
"What the hell--" yelled Smokefinger, grabbing for his neck. He looked
at Jonny dumbly as his eyes slowly re-focused. In a moment, he said,
"Hey Jonny, que pasa?"
"Not much," Jonny said. "I can't believe you're still playing this game.
Haven't you killed everybody in Dallas by now?"

Smokefinger shrugged. "I pop 'em, but they keep coming back." Sweat
pooled on the pickpocket's glasses where the rims touched his cheeks.
Jonny smiled and looked around the room hoping there was anyone
else from whom he might get information. However, in the pastel glare
of meteor showers and laser fire, none of the faces looked familiar.
"You seen Easy Money around?" he asked Smokefinger. "I've got to
talk to him."
"Right, talk. You and everybody else." Smokefinger looked back at the
empty hologram chamber and cursed. "I almost broke my own record,
you know," he said. He looked at Jonny accusingly. "No, I ain't seen
Easy. Random's tending bar tonight. Maybe you should go talk to him.
To tell you the truth, you're distracting me." Smokefinger never took
his finger from the trigger of the fiberglass rifle. Jonny pulled some yen
coins from his pocket and fed them into the machine.
"Thanks for all your help, killer," he said. But Smokefinger did not hear
him; he was already jacking in. Jonny left Smokefinger, wishing he
could find peace as easily as that, and pushed his way into the bar.
Jonny always found it a little disconcerting that the main room never
seemed to change. He imagined it frozen in time, like a scratched
record, repeating the same snatch of lyric over and over again. The
usual weekend crowd of small-time smugglers, B actors and bored
prostitutes stared from the blue veil of smoke around the bar. The same
tired porn played on the big screen for the benefit of those unfortunates
not equipped with skull-plugs. Even the band, Taking Tiger Mountain
were blasting the same old riffs, stopping half-way through their own
Guernica Rising" when the crowd shouted them down. They switched
to a desultory Brown Sugar," a song that was out-of-date long before
anybody in the club had been born. Dancers undulated under the
strobes and sub-sonic mood enhancers as projectors threw holograms of
lunar atrocities onto their hot bodies.
In fact, the only real difference Jonny could see in the place was the
darkness in the HoloWhores bundling booths.

Jonny pushed his way through the tightly packed crowd and tried the
door to Easy's control room. It was locked, and the bar far too full to
force the door. He would have to wait. Feeling relief, and guilt at that
relief, Jonny made his way to the bar for a drink and some questions.
Random, the bartender, was drying glasses behind a bar constructed of
old automobile dashboards. Tall and thin, his skin creased like dead
leaves, Random offered Jonny the same half-smile he offered
everybody. Jonny ordered an Asahi dark and gin; he put a twenty on
the bar. Random set down the beer and slid the bill into his pocket in
one smooth motion.
The bartender inclined his head toward the dance floor.
"Necrophiliacs," he said above the roar of the band. "They can't stand
new music. Like it's deadly to them or something. Bunch of assholes."
Random shrugged. Then he looked away, like a blind man, eyes
unfocused. "They just nuked Kansas City.