The secretary was slower than usual.  Clive cursed himself.  Forgetting to recharge an Excell28 was unforgivable.  Clive stopped grinding his teeth, relaxed his hands and waited for his secretary to catch up.  You only needed to remember what life was like without Braun Excell units.  The old days when you typed on a manual, slotting paper, instead of silicon, pressing fingers to real keys was not something to relish. 

            “Damn,” Clive said, balled his fist and cussed, “Break!”  The steamy sewer vents filled the periphery.  The odor of fresh urine snapping him to attention.  He leaned against the soot-covered brick of an alley sandwiched between the Clean 100, a black market clothing mart and an adjacent building.  Rob Bain ran the Clean 100.  Bain put you into sneakers and pantsuit but specialized in heavy arms-the type you knew him or you didn’t.  Clive didn’t.

            Clive surveyed the sit.  His gut sunk with crash nausea.  He stood two-thirds of the way from the alley entrance.  It was getting dark, East Broadway, lower east side.  He hadn’t blacked out-only his damn secretary sucked up too much juice.  Didn’t funnel enough to the navigator unit.  Clive fumed for another minute-Movement!  He saw movement from the head of the alley.  His fingers wrapped around the molded neopropaline grip of the Q5 as he stepped back into the shadow of the walls. 

            Clive rested his head against the bricks.  He swiped soot and sweat from his brow with his left hand, the Braun Excell28 strapped to his left thigh.  That alone would be worth a mugging-he shuddered. This area of the City, known as the Clink, was a mix of drug traffickers and tenements.  Plus a few blocks of prisons.

            “Prisoner,” Clive muttered under his breath.  He exhaled.  They frequently escaped from the launches that chugged in a continuous stream, between the mainland holding cells and the floating penitentiaries in the harbor.  Eunice always bitched and moaned about the number of criminals within swimming distance of the doorstep.  That was a laugh; they had lived in Westchester,  but Clive’s step father was a public relations spokesperson for the City government.  So everything had to jive with the official word and Clive got to hear Eunice bitch ’till the cows came home every goddamn day.

            Clive flinched, he was daydreaming.  An expensive habit in the Clink.  Shadow movement groped towards him from the alley entrance.  Clive thought about jacking back into the secretary.  Going in with full blown priority over-ride and all.  Then maybe, just maybe he’d have enough wherewithal to get the damn thing to access some type of infrared or local COMSAT, pinpoint his coordinates and let him know what was slowly slinking its way towards him through the darkness.  If there was enough juice left it could even notify some police precinct. 

            Clive shook his head and started to speak.  As a government employee he was not in the habit of having the appropriate word at the tip, so he bit his tongue.  He tasted salty blood and swallowed, hoping nausea would pass.

            Clive designed government entertainment systems.  What was he doing out here, he asked himself, readying the Q5 for a shot in the dark.  His one claim to fame was the perfection of the RealTime Cuff.  The cuff allowed the user to interface with the virtual environment of choice through direct interface with the digital nervous system. Cuffing it made using secretary possible.

            Clive was certain down to his nylon socks that he wasn’t made in any way shape or form.  There was no method he could come up with standing, panting in a dark alley in the heart of the Clink, on a weekend, no method-the juice!  His knees went weak jelly.  Damn, damn…He should have charged the fuckin’ unit before going tangit.  Clive tried to keep his shit together.  It wasn’t easy knowing he’d been watched.  Somebody knew he’d been poking around.  Even in the overpopulated nodes of the local Web the Net Guards-that was it, damn Guardians! 

            Had to be the Guardians.  Probably some nerd techy pushing overtime for kicks.  Maybe.  Just found the weaker signal.  That goddamn diversion signal was supposed to water his actions down to a routine QuickFunds transfer-from a remote station and at the very least have a run of solid backups for the occupied QuickFunds line.  Not too difficult.

            Recharge the unit.  Recharge the unit.  The thought rattled around for a few seconds more then he saw the silver glint of polished steel.  Hell, he thought, if it were a prisoner he’d of smelled him comin’ on.  Should have thought it through.  He banged his head against the sooty brick.  He had no time to think.  He must be right.  The unit took so fuckin’ long because of the power drag, but it was entirely possible that a Guardian may have locked onto the signal.  Clive was about to bang his head with the butt of the gun when the non-descript grey uniform slid into view, the dull silver badge and chest augmentation told the story.  This wasn’t even a regular.  It was Guardian all the way.  Clive didn’t even know they had agents down here.  The Clink’s not what you’d call an electronic village. 

            The Guardian soldier held a large black weapon like a holiday ham.  He looked totally badassed, wearing face armor-probably knew enough to write the life.  Clive crouched into the shadows assessing the soldier.  He knew little, very little about soldiers.  What he did know is that if they knew he was poking around GAMESAT, even with his normal operating clearance, they’d question his motives; but here was this mysterious signal coming from the Clink-not good.  He’d wager a shoot first, ask questions later scenario.  He exhaled and slowly squeezed the trigger.

            The pin-point laser secured the soldier’s throat, the kevlar bullet pierced the facial armor.  What followed suit, according to the “dude” who sold him the shots was that, “like thousands of neuron-specific nanobots seek out and neutralize the synapses.  Brain-fry!  Bar-B-Q style!”  The dude had laughed at the very thought.  It was probably Clean 100.  Nasty piece of work, Clive thought.  Pick a guy off in the foot-brain dead.

            The Q5 went off a second time when Clive dropped it in shock.  The gun’s modest report snapped Clive to attention.  He was still crouched and shaking.  His whole pantsuit was drenched in sweat.  He picked up the Q5 and crept on all fours over to the soldier. 

            The soldier’s face was distorted, puffy-nerve loss.  Roid pects and arms, definitely.  Clive looked down the alley.  No others-yet.  A solo was probably not standard operating procedure.  It’s possible the secretary diverted enough attention to nearby nodes.  Something to cause the Guardians to split up.  That, coupled with the unknown nature of what they’d intercepted.  For all they knew the secretary unit might have been malfunctioning.  Clive smiled at that thought.  Might have pegged Clive Stone, a good hard-working City Joe to have been mugged.  Hell, the little Excell28 knew exactly what it was doing, over-riding the navigator-Clean 100.  “Ha!” Clive laughed, clearing his throat nervously.  His eyes flicking from the body to the alley entrance.  Soldiers probably figured the unit to have been fenced through Clean 100.  Not unusual in the Clink.

            Through commending himself, Clive pulled the soldier’s carcass into the shadows and unclipped the Guardian’s Excell unit, fingers popping energy cell and loose chips.  A flash of Yen fell out of a side pouch followed by the solid clink of a heavy chip.  The sonofabitch had a fat roll of Yen along with a gold credit chip-payday.

            Clive popped the battery storage hold on the back of his Excell28 and pulled the old cell out, pocketed it and inserted the soldier’s cell.  He’d have to run a manual over-ride, by-passing the unit’s protocol as a fix had been ascertained; turning on the general system might emit enough of  an electronic finger print-more soldiers-Clive cringed at the thought.  He tabbed through the unit’s circuitry housing, found the Navigator chip and slotted it behind his right ear. 

            “Navigator,” Clive whispered.

            “Yes Clive.  It has been a while hasn’t it?” responded the secretary.

            Clive started to speak then thought, “Never mind the HAL shit, just guide me out of this fucking hole.”

            “HAL?  I do not know the reference.  Perhaps if you will be so kind as to link me up with my general protocol system, I may be able to cross reference.”

            “Cross reference nothing.  I have to fix the general so do your job and navigate!” Clive thought, his brow tightly knit in concern.

            It had taken Clive over two years to program his secretary with the interface skills necessary to understand inflection in thought.  Normal Excell units were programmed to respond to carefully selected voice and/or cuff commands.  In the interest of time Clive worked his unit up to basic pre-programmed thought commands.  This proved quicker than cuffing-it but one was always stuck within the pre-programmed parameters.  Obtaining all this and getting the communication system to distinguish inflections such as urgent, from necessity amounted to a meta language of sorts.

            A light feeling overcame Clive, followed by acute nausea which meant the secretary was doing its job and guiding his ass out of there.

            “Area scan, now,” Clive ordered, calming himself down.  Trying to stay on top of the situation, rise above fear.  There’s those in the Clink can smell fear.  The nausea pulled at his stomach, he felt the interface.  “Results?”  Clive asked aloud.

            “The immediate thirty meter square holds three officers of the Net-”

            “Guardians!”  Clive hissed and said, “Go on.”

            “Two occupy an alley similar to this one across East Broadway.”

            Impatient to move Clive asked, “The third.  Where’s the third?”

            “The third Guardian occupies the space in the alley just south of your present location.”

            “Goal analysis.  Avoidance by foot.  Speed of essence,” Clive ordered in the short clipped commands meant to route straight to the Braun’s CPU.

            The secretary shot back with the clarity of a fresh cell, “Left out alley.  North two streets.  Left at second street.”

            Clive was off like a shot, stepping through the cotton-world of navigator.  Direct interface always burst his equilibrium.  One step in front of the next, each with the secretary guiding unseen.  At least the unit’s filters suppressed the scents and sounds of the Clink.  People always stank in the Clink.  Between the pushers, pimps, and whores, not to mention the nomads.   Hell, sweat and feces, urine and vomit were daily staples of life.  Of course, you cuff-it in the virtual world for four to six hours and you smell just as wonderful.  Clive had a routine down whereby he’d interface with secretary on navigator, walk right up to the shower base, then break from secretary and hop into the shower-clean as a whistle.  Clive checked his pride as a beat cop appeared ahead of him.

            “Navigator!”  

            “Yes Clive.”

            “You said only three objects.  What’s this guy?”  Clive asked.  Looked straight, local precinct.  Clink all the way.  Clive wanted his observations reinforced.  The Q5 was stowed snug in its right thigh sling, a common enough appearance in the Clink. 

            “Details indicate Narcotics personnel.  Rank unknown.  Now about this HAL-”

            “Not now, Navigator not now,” Clive paused at a rickety card table set up with hundreds of incense sticks.  He pointed at four short sticks, careful to keep his back to the Narco as well as south to the Guardians, paid the Rastafarian from the Guardian’s Yen and stuck the sticks in a calf pouch, zipped up and turned left at the corner of the second street going north.

            “Evasive maneuver complete.  Next goal or further original goal?” the navigator inquired.

            Clive didn’t know.  He needed a whole lot more time to think.  Needed space.  Couldn’t go home.  Not now.  Definitely not safe.  There was the chance that this was all a huge coincidence.  That it was all bullshit.  He could set the secretary to the task.  No!

            “Clive, evasive maneuver complete.  Next goal or further original goal?”

The unit’s insistence annoyed Clive.  Fuckn’ piece of silicon.  Never had to really think. 

            “Clive, evasive-”

            “Yeah I know, I know-damn it!  Further original goal,” he cussed and sat down on an apartment stoop, waiting for instructions.  Clive hated the boxed-in feeling.  Sitting around waiting for commands from a machine.  Needing a fresh program.  Program…program-that’s it!  “Navigator.”

            “Yes.  I have the coordinates you requested.  Go straight three blocks West and-”

            “Forget that.  Give me a Kinkos.  Fast!”

            “Four Kinkos in immediate area.  Evasive maneuver in effect?”

            “What?”  The question confused him, worried for the Braun CPU, then he got it and answered, “Yes, avoidance of Guardians critical.”

            The navigator was quiet for a few seconds then said, “Continue three blocks West.  Take right at corner going North.  Go one block North.  Kinkos on corner.”

            Clive was already off at a quick clip.  He hooked a right going north and sure enough the familiar yellow and blue of the Kinkos sign burned like a lighthouse beacon in the surrounding sea of shit.  Clive pulled a blind credit chip, the type could be bought in any deli.  His was AT&T.  Should have enough pep for an hour or two.  Maybe more.

            Clive was breathing heavily, panting as he thumbed the AT&T into the slot under the red light.  The tiny red light dimmed and the green light came.  He pushed his way into Kinkos.

            There were three or four occupied terminals-college students.  Two unoccupied workstations.  He needed something better. A voice asked Clive what he needed.

            Clive jumped.  The voice came from behind him.  He turned to a pimply faced kid wearing the yellow Kinkos uniform stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. 

            Clive spoke, “Need a room.  Got to do some pretty heavy programming.  What do you have?”

            The kid spoke, “Reserved a room?”

            Clive fumed then bit back the tempting sarcasm, “No I’m sorry I haven’t.  Do you have anything I can reserve now?”

            “Yeah over there, number four” the kid pointed across the room of workstations to a wall of doors.  The kid continued, “But it’ll be a hundred up front.  No bullshit, no visitors and nothin’ kinky.”  The kid smiled at the last, sure of his pun.

            Clive nodded and headed to the door assigned him.  He slotted his AT&T chip, the green light came on and the door buzzed.  He pushed his way in and waited for the door to click shut behind him.  He was locked in now; felt relatively safe.  The room had a workstation set up so that his back would be to the door.  Clive was pleased.  He imagined the kid peering through the small window, making certain that nothin’ kinky went down.

            Clive sat, unstrapped the Excell28 and set it on the desk in front of him. “Navigator off,” he said and went about the task of reprogramming his secretary’s general system to minimize the potential for electronic fingerprinting.            

My problem is this,” Clive explained to Lenny,…

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