~4A~
~5 Years Ago - 1994 - Age 32~
Denied love in the age of ruin
Suicide toxins of my own demise
In cyberspace, you know how much the earth ain't learning
Smoking out the man, inside the child
It's the age of destruction
In a world of corruption
It's the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
The neuromancer and I'm trancing
I'm the neuromancer and I'm trancing
-- From the song "Neuromancer," the album "Cyberpunk" (1993) by Billy Idol
"Will that be all, sir?" the heavyset Chinese lady asked politely from behind her large glasses. High on the wall behind her, the sign read: Phil's Noodle House.
"Yeah," the tall quiet man nodded, his short hair as unkempt as his gray suit jacket.
"That'll be six dollars, eighty-nine cents."
He fumbled into his ill-matching pants pockets, pulled out his cheap wallet, and found a worn and limp ten-dollar bill. The upper-right corner had been torn off such that half the "0" was gone and only the "1" was left intact. He shrugged and handed it to her.
"Three dollars and eleven cents is your change."
"Thanks," he answered, picked up his large hot styrofoam cup and cool can of Sprite, and found a spot at the far corner of the soup shop. Specifically, he chose the shelf bolted against the storefront windows, and the molded plastic stool at the end of the row. Near enough to the office, but far enough so his coworkers couldn't easily find him, he sat here at the shelf table, facing out to the urban street, watching the various people glancing in and passing by. Sitting here, Tom could savor a slice of peace, and relish the flavor of the best Asian noodles in the city.
Today, he chose the barbecue pork soup. Popping off the plastic top, he scooped up a nice hot sporkful, blew at it, and gently sipped the broth, "Mmmm."
That's good... really good...
With only a few more spoonfuls and sips left in his cup, Tom gazed at the taxis and trucks shifting along the street, the bicyclists and pedestrians gliding along the sidewalk, dreading another afternoon at PrizNet Pro, or PNP, dreading it almost as much as he had dreaded another excruciating day at high school, or another agonizing day at his first computer job. With little to hope for, little to live for, he met his 32nd birthday like any other day. And it looked like it would leave him like any other day.
Early this morning, he helped his old landlady carry out her trash. Since he moved into her building a few years ago, she had grown thinner, weaker, and crankier. But she was still his landlady.
"It's about time, sonny," she honked. "I've been watching the news. You're not taking those ecstasy pills, are you?"
"No, Mrs. Jankowski, no pills," he managed a slight smile. "I'm fine. Thanks."
Next, before heading to PNP, he gassed up his beat-up 1984 Toyota Celica, the same dented, rusted, and faded red clunker that used to be his dad's seven or eight years ago. He recalled his embarrassment in having no choice, but he had to accept it from his dad. Lately, it seemed so small and tight. One winter night not too long ago, a night that encrusted all the windows with ice, he began to understand what claustrophobia felt like, trapped in a lonely frame of metal and glass, blind to everything on the outside. Fortunately, the car started, and the windshield crust eventually melted away enough for him to drive home.
Finally, with a full tank of gas, he ended his morning commute in the PNP parking garage, and followed the familiar maze of stairs and elevators and corridors to the office. Another day in a cubicle. Another day at work.
Yeah, back to work... Just a cog in the machine...
He drank the remaining bits of his lukewarm soup.
On the surface, Tom was a self-taught expert in the Visual Basic programming language -- the graphical extension of the BASIC language he taught himself on his first Commodore 64 -- manipulating buttons, dragging menus, dropping scroll bars, developing interfaces. Beneath that, he couldn't say what he was, because he couldn't explain it to himself.
Why me?
Back in his generic cubicle, he stared at his monitor of scattered windows and dialog boxes.
Total emptiness...
"Hey, Tommy!" a distant voice called.
For a split second of wonder, Tom straightened in his chair, thinking it was his old buddy Willie. But he knew it couldn't be. And just as quickly, he deflated.
"Hey, Tommy, there you are." The voice belonged to the ponytailed Levi Stevens, a fellow programmer fresh out of MIT, maybe ten years his junior. "How's the project going?"
"Uh, it's going," he answered dryly. Going but never gone.
"I know what ya mean," the skinny youngster grinned. Suddenly, Levi peeked over the cube partitions, then bent down to Tom's ear and lowered his voice to an unusual whisper. "Hey, me and some of the guys are going to a party tonight. You're an old-timer, but you really know your shit. So we figured, 'Why not?" You interested?"
The older programmer turned and matched his whisper, "A party? What kind of party?"
"Just some of the guys in the department, some chicks. You do like chicks, right?"
Tom nodded, "Um, yeah."
"Well, there you go," Levi's voice raised a little, then fell back to its original whisper, "Just meet us at this address at 8." He handed Tom a folded scrap of paper that seemed to be torn from the corner of a larger piece of paper. In blue ink, a message was scribbled: KT party 8PM, 101 N. Dearborn.
Confused, Tom glanced up, "Who's KT?"
"Not who," the youngster shook his head, "what."
"What's KT?"
"Be there at 8 and I'll tell ya." Levi split his face into the cryptic grin of a Cheshire cat, and spun away from the cube, his rubber-band-tied hair swinging like a wagging tail.
Tom was going to be late. Actually, he was already late.
What's wrong with this fucking car?
But a quarter after 8pm, he finally found Dearborn Street. Driving slowly, squinting in the darkness, he searched for the street number 101. And there it was. Not to mention the half dozen cars crowded around it in the driveway and along the curb.
He smiled at his slow wit. Duh. Obvious clue.
With no other choice, he parked his squeaking Celica coupe across the street. In a simple sports jacket, black Alice In Chains T-shirt, and blue jeans, Tom dashed across the asphalt, and took the steps to the front door. It was a generic house, like the others on the street, white siding, low bushes, common stuff.
He rang the doorbell and stared at the branching cracks in the paint. After a few moments, the door opened.
"Tommy!" Levi appeared of course. "Glad you could make it! Got lost?"
"Well," the older colleague began, then turned slightly to his embarrassing mode of transportation.
The youngster peered across the street and nodded, "I see. Mechanical troubles. Well, forget about it. You're here now."
With a can of Miller beer in his hand, Levi held open the door and let Tom step through it. On unfamiliar territory, the tall dark-haired programmer entered as quietly as a cat.
The younger programmer laughed, "Hahaha! This isn't a glass house. My parents' house is your house."
Still, Tom smiled nervously.
"Take it easy, Tommy," Levi warmly slapped his back. "This ain't PNP. Relax. You're with friends here. Come on, everyone's down in the basement."
Following the ponytailed Cheshire cat past the elegantly furnished living room and the unexpectedly spotless kitchen, Tom was struck by his host's level of luxury that easily surpassed his own at the same age.
Once again, Levi held open the door and let his guest step through it. "Watch the first step," he warned ominously.
Tom hesitated, "What?"
The youngster paused for a thoughtful moment, then answered, "Could be a little slippery. That's all. Katie spilled some beer."
~4B~
"Who's Katie?" Tom yelled to his skinny host above the overpowering sound of grunge. They sat on the corner couch nearest the beer keg, while two more couches completed the misshapen arc. At the other end of the low-ceilinged wood-panelled basement, an impressive bank of three computers sat under wall-mounted shelves housing stacks-upon-stacks of 5.25-inch floppies and 3.5-inch diskettes, as well as piles-upon-piles of programming books, high-tech magazines, and computer manuals. A screen-saving marquee scrolled and bounced across each of the three monitors. The first banner read: "The world of the electron." The center read: "The beauty of the baud." And the last read: "My crime is that of curiosity."
Besides his host, Tom recognized five other PNP colleagues and counted three unfamiliar girls. A party of nine, all of whom seemed to be in their early-to-mid twenties. Tom was the tenth and clearly the oldest of the bunch.
It figures. It's always me.
Perched on the arm of the couch, Levi took another gulp of his beer, and pointed to the slim attractive girl leaning against the far column. Chatting with a couple of PNP colleagues, the girl filled her black tank top and blood-red mini-skirt quite nicely. And restraining her long velvet black hair, a plastic headband boasted two horns of bright-red foam.
Tom raised a dark eyebrow. Cute for a devil.
As she turned slightly towards him, he could make out her features more clearly. Ironically, she held that fascinating Asian quality about her that seemed to obscure her age. She could be 16 or 36, and she would still look the same.
Levi yelled back into his guest's ear, "Katie's a programmer at MCT!"
Tom didn't recognize the name. "Where?"
"MCT! MetaCortex! One of PNP's newest competitors!"
"Really?" He glanced back at Katie.
"Yeah! So are her friends!" The ponytailed programmer gestured to the other two girls.
Confusion revisited Tom's thoughts. "I thought you said KT wasn't a who!"
The Cheshire cat returned to Levi's lips. He shook his head, "No! KT isn't Katie! KT is an abbreviation!"
"For what?"
Suddenly, the grunge began to die down, and another track would soon take its place. Despite the disturbing buzz in his ears, Tom fought to comprehend his colleague's words.
"Ever heard of the Knights Technoir?"
The older programmer thought he heard something else, "Knights Templar?"
Levi shook his head, "No, the Knights Technoir."
"Oh, Technoir," Tom nodded, "Yeah, I've read about them on a few BBSs. They're a hacker group. They cracked the Mulpha d-base a while back. They exposed the salaries of the entire--" And finally, the full realization slammed into his slow wit like a bulldozer. Holy shit!
Just as suddenly, the volume began to pump, the bass began to blast, and the grunge began to grind once more.
"Holy shit!" Tom shouted over the deafening roar of the speaker system. "Are you telling me you're a hacker?"
Levi nodded amusedly and shouted back into his guest's ear, "By George, I think you've got it!" He tossed his thin arm in a sweeping gesture, "Everyone here is a bonafide hacker! Surprised?"
With his brown eyes wide, the older programmer nodded dumbfoundedly. The lair of the Knights Technoir!
Levi grinned and leaned closer. "Katie is our First Knight. Wanna meet her?"
Tom instantly felt awkward, even more self-conscious than he already was, an old-timer among kids, a straight lace among radicals. Maintaining his fragile composure, he watched as the ponytailed host stuck two fingers in his mouth, and blasted a high-pitched whistle across the room. Everyone looked up, but Levi pointed to Katie, and signalled her to join him. He then pointed to someone by the stereo system, and signalled him to lower it a few notches. Apologizing to her two attentive listeners, the girl in the red skirt and horns found a path over the half-filled cups and cans, around the wooden crates and tables, and finally between the nearest couches. Tom couldn't help but stare at her.
"Like what you see?" she smiled.
Like having a wandering daydream during a long drive, Tom didn't see the red until it flashed right in front of his face. Katie had said something to him. He blinked and stuttered, "Um, no... uh, I mean, yeah..."
Katie laughed without breaking her searching gaze. Easing herself down on one of the crates opposite the couch, she crossed her slim legs and let her slender dark eyes scan him, from his weathered innocence down to his scuffed white sneakers, "So, you're our neophyte tonight. You seem a little old, don't you think?"
He began to fidget in his seat.
"My name's DeVille, Katie DeVille. First Knight." She extended her hand, and in exquisite French, added, "Chevalier Premier."
"Uh, Tom. Tom Anderson." He took her hand gingerly, and shook it awkwardly. "You... you cracked the Mulpha database?"
"Yeah," Katie smiled. "Well, not just me. Everyone." She glanced at the Cheshire cat, "Levi, my left hand of darkness." She gestured beyond the couches to the short-haired platinum blonde in black fishnet stockings, "Melissa, my right hand of shame." She returned her relaxed gaze to the uneasy PNP employee sitting before her. "And most of the others here, they watched us and cheered us on."
"Wow," he mouthed silently.
"The West City chapter coordinated the diversions and defenses. My chapter, the East City chapter, executed the actual penetration, data extraction, and distribution."
"Chapter?" he repeated. "You mean, like a chapter of a fraternity?"
The ponytailed hacker laughed, "No, a chapter in a book! Of course, like a fraternity! With some obvious female exceptions."
"Tom," the attractive she-devil crinkled her brows, "you've never been in a frat, have you?"
The self-taught programmer shook his head. Never been to college either.
She studied his expression thoughtfully and asked delicately, "Ever been to college? Gotten a degree?"
He hesitated in obvious embarrassment, and once again, shook his head, "Just night classes."
Levi almost spilled over the edge of the couch. "Man, you've really been living in a cave!"
"Fuck off, Levi!" Katie's dark eyes blazed then cooled, "I'm even more impressed by a man who can pave his own way, instead of his parents paving it for him."
Tom was too uncomfortable to correct her and tell her the truth. He had lived with his own parents till he was 25, and even then, he considered moving not because there were apartments conveniently closer to both his new computer job and night classes, but because his best friend Willie was kicked out of his older brother's apartment and needed a place to stay. On top of that, he had no money, no time, and no choice but to accept his dad's old Celica for transportation. Fact after embarrassing fact. The painfully embarrassing truth.
Yeah, that's me.
At least, for the moment, he could live with the wondrous illusion, as Katie gazed too deeply into his eyes.
"What if I told you we're hacking into MetaCortex?" the she-devil smiled seductively. "What if I told you I'm going to..." She pointed to him, "let you..." Then she pointed to herself, "watch me do it?"
Once more, the bulldozer smashed his boxed expectations to bits.
End of ~4~