“Here,” he commanded Cerrun to take a beer who was still fidling with a lastorch and the biochip.
“This’ll work, just wait and see.”
“... and if it doesn’t at least they’ll trace it to my place?”
“Fingers crossed,” Cerrun laughed.
“What shall I open? Pre-load the room or you want to test it in a game?”
“Load the room but connect to TGN, I just want to check a few parameters before going out. No point doing all this messing around just to play games, even on the net games they don’t check biochips as strictly as they could. No point,” Cerrun said, his point made sense. Qev felt he had to agree with the sentiment but was cautious about loading up the TGN from his home connection.
“Computer has loaded the room, you’ll need to reach over behind you and grab my spare visor, or did you bring one?” Qev said.
“I brought one, thanks,” Cerrun replied, he swigged a gulp of beer and placed the visor over his head.
“Loading in,” Qev said.
“You boys better behave in there,” Sellicia shouted through from the other room.
The room was empty. The walls a shade of white against the usual grey floor. The light hatch was closed and a single incandescent bulb beamed from the ceiling.
“Watch this,” Cerrun jumped, and then again.
“I’m watching you jump?” Qev replied.
“Higher than normal, I’ve boosted my jumping while inside the TGN.”
“So you can jump over a building then?”
“That would draw unwanted attention... like the shuttle running guy did.”
“So what’s the point then?” Qev prodded.
“To test, refine, and improve our functionality. It is self-empowering.”
“Sure...” Qevon wasn’t wholly interested, “let’s fly, I said to Melec and Krognar I’d meet them this afternoon.”
“Ha, Melec. I wonder why we bother.”
“You know why, he isn’t so bad. He’s followed us into the thick of it many times, and you know as well as I that he can code with the best,” Qevon said.
“Just pass me the coordinates,” Cerrun commanded.
Qev physically passed a datachip into Cerrun’s palm before swigging his beer. Just as he wiped his lips Cerrun’s pixelated self had vanished. Qev’s eyes moved to the location button on his HUD, his fingers tapped on the nearby console and soon his profile slipped into the datastream and sped across the TGN to the target destination.
“How’d you do that?” Qev asked in amazement.
“What?”
“There’s two of you,”
Cerrun looked over his shoulder and saw a copy of himself doing the same. Qev was surprised by Cerrun’s reaction, neither were expecting it.
“Also, how did you get here so quickly?” Qev asked.
“Tricks of the trade,” Cerrun smirked, “I already had a half-search on the location before you handed me the datachip. The coordinates merely removed the other possibilities.”
“How did you figure out how to do that? You’ve far too much spare time.” Qev replied, he turned to survey the local area. The two of them stood just out of the awning of a large tower, this neighbourhood was one of the quieter areas in the sector and was often a favourite hangout. Wherever they went staying low key was the plan. Their location jump had taken them to a narrow passageway that connected two towers. Cerrun’s two-body accident had remained unseen.
The underbelly of the forest of towers was somewhere that Qevon had avoided since the accident he had as a child. His father’s words still rang in his ears.
A message beeped on Qevon’s HUD ‘almost there’, it was Melec. Qev looked around to tell Cerrun but he had disappeared, Qev wrinkled his brow. He moved to the end of the passageway and looked around. The streets buzzed with a light patter of traffic but Cerrun was gone.
“Your problem is simple, you’re not in charge and you never will be,” Melec appeared, his voice always preceded him.
“Nah, I’ll handle it. She’ll come to see what she’s missing.” Krognar looked deep in conversation with Melec.
“It doesn’t work like that, your problem is that you’re stuck in a dream. You fantasize about what you want to happen. You believe it but it will never be real. Never.”
Krognar looked towards the ground, his shoulders drooped with inconsolable acceptance, “but... surely-”
“No. Never. Women want to be ignored. They may not understand it but it is instinctive, thousands of years of evolution takes precedence over reason and rationality. It was true before we discovered electricity and it’s true now,” Melec’s lecture stung Krognar’s confidence.
“I see I’ve missed a fascinating conversation,” Qevon felt like yawning but let his words show his apathy.
“Melec doesn’t get it, he doesn’t know the situation like I do,” Krognar defended himself.
“He has no chance.”
“Hang in there, it might work out,” Qev said.
“It won’t,” Melec rebuked.
“It might work this time, Melec. He just needs to stay positive.”
“Nope, I’ve known too many women. The rules of the game are the rules of the game. Just take out a hundred and go to the titty bar. Drop a thousand and you might go home lucky,” Melec put an arm round Krognar’s shoulder.
“It doesn’t need to be like that, don’t make it sound so depressing,” Qev said.
“You wouldn’t know man, you had it easy... I don’t mean to say you haven’t had things tough too, but when it comes to this, y’know?” Krognar looked at Qevon with a look of fear.
“Infatuation is what they call that young man,” the group turned their heads to see an old man addressing them. The three friends stood in a moment of silence.
“Old man, it’s none of your business,” Krognar said, “beat it.”
“Listen to your elders, you’ve got a dose of dreamer’s reality. It’s fun, I can tell you young un but it’s only fun for a time. It’s a dangerous affliction to be stuck with.”
“Listen old man, I told you to beat it. This has nothing to do with you,” Krognar was becoming increasingly defensive, Qev feared that he might hit the old man.
“When you chase someone but they don’t know it’s infatuation, but if they reciprocate then we call it love. Two sides of the same coin. Best just to put that coin away and follow your friend’s advice... as dumb as he might look.”
“Cerrun!” Melec shouted.
“What?” Qev said.
“Who?” Krognar asked.
The old man transformed before them. Cerrun laughed.
“Meet our friend Cerrun,” Qev said, he could see the funny side of it.
“How the...” Krog stood amazed.
“He’s full of tricks. Handle with care,” Melec added.
“So what are you doing hanging out with this loser?” Cerrun nodded towards Melec.
“I want to be part of the group, Melec said he’d introduce me to his crew. Y’know he said he’d bring me to meet you guys, he saw me jacking a magtrain and said I should come join,” Krog said.
“Mag jacking is a kids’ trick. Amusing but simple.”
“Yeah man, I respect your skills. You gotta show me how you did that old man trick. I wish I could take my face off and put on a new one, that’d be a cool trick, y’know?”
“That’s a lot of custom coding, and custom hardware. Not something you can learn in a day.” Cerrun advised, his tone was flat. “You see this?”
“Yeah... it’s a credit chip,” Krognar answered.
“Look again,” Cerrun twitched his fingers and produced two more credit chips.
“Whoa... that was slick.”
“That wasn’t a coding trick either, I didn’t alter anything,” Cerrun said. He flicked his wrists and smoothly hid all three coins, “sometimes you don’t need to do anything difficult to achieve the best results. Practise will get you where you need to be.”
“I will learn that
trick, just give me time,” Krog said.
“He’s smart, he’ll do it,” Qev said, “we should let him raid with us.”
“Melec said I could come,” Krog added, “he said we’d probably do something cool, like break into government computers and steal secret information.”
“Melec poses a security risk with that tongue of his. You’d best not repeat everything he says. Our next mission will be a search, just like your previous missions,” Cerrun said in his usual flat tone, Qevon couldn’t determine if he was joking. Melec was remarkably quiet throughout the exchange. Qevon’s eyes wandered, he had no desire to listen or interrupt. His eyes drew upon electronic graffiti upon the tower wall, his HUD zoomed into the location. Enlarge. Decrypt. Nothing, yet. Enlarge again, focus, reduce noise. Qevon was caught up adjusting the settings of his HUD’s visor that his attention dropped from the conversation.
“A search? But anyone can do a search, how is that a mission? It is a basic function on TGN,” Krog protested.
“Everyone can search but not everyone does. Experts are still able to find something that others cannot, despite everyone looking at the same... wall.” Cerrun’s words snapped Qevon’s consciousness back into the conversation. Qev smiled as if though nothing was amiss.
“What will we search for?” Krog asked.
Qevon broke the flow of discussion, “sorry, what are we talking about? I was distracted by the graffiti. Gang tagged but can’t clean up the image well enough to read.”
“We will search for meaning,” Cerrun said looking at Qevon.
“More words games from Cerrun. Always hiding his meaning in semantics,” Melec said.
“I don’t have meaning, which is why I’m searching for it. Perhaps you can trade