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Networks - By Alex Hardison

Fiction: Networks - By Alex Hardison

The crowded shopfronts and neon smear of billboards looked just as they had a block away, but behind them everything was different. We'd entered enemy territory, and Buckingham was not a Network which treated opposing agents kindly. It was everywhere, overseeing every business transaction and drug deal, taking its cut from every exchange and advertisement. Its eyes were as eternally vigilant as only those of a machine intelligence can be.

At my side was Rumble, each of us with a pot of glue and a long rolled sheet of paper. This was his first job, and he was eager. I'd already had to tell him to slow down once, to draw less attention to us. Behind us came Gill, tiny and hunched with his hands stuffed into his pockets. He didn't want to be here, and to be honest I didn't want him there either, but he'd been assigned. He might come good after a few jobs, and he might get himself and a whole mess of others killed. Only time would tell.

Suddenly Rumble knocked shoulders with someone, and before I could react he was exchanging insults with a pack of Asian toughs. Triads most likely, not the sort that we usually come across and definitely nobody that we should be starting trouble with. The last that I'd heard was that most of their factions were allied with Catfish, a Network that we'd established a shaky truce with several months back. This was the last thing we needed. I pulled him back, flashing a message instructing him to stand down. There was a momentary standoff, an exchange of postures and glares, but eventually they turned away, slinging Cantonese insults back at us. We watched them go, then turned and went on our way.

A few minutes down the road, his biometrics told me that he hadn't relaxed. Any more drama from him could be a real liability. "So, ah, how did you come to be part of Claymore anyway?"

He shrugged. "I got wired, and figured that I didn't just want to be in any old Network, you know? Wanted to choose. My old man ran with Claymore, said they did good by him, so I switched on in one of their zones. Here I am."

I nodded, glancing back and forth as we crossed the road towards the alleyway. He'd gone live in Leyton, so there'd been no struggle to incorporate his rig at all. "But why an agent? You could just lose a few processor cycles like everyone else, enjoy Claymore's protection and get on with life. Why be out on a cold night like this?"

"Don't want to be like everyone else, pissing about with whatever the Network lets you have. I want the good stuff. The bandwidth, the memory. I want the speed, man."

cyberpunk

I heard the hunger in his voice. I knew it well. Kids like him didn't have a lot of choices in the world, and going active in a Network often seemed like the quickest route out of their lives. "You want the big leagues, huh? Maybe even a little server space? Put out some content?"

He pulled back at that, and I thought maybe I'd hit a nerve. I turned to Gill, flashing him a friendly smile, trying to draw the weird little guy out a little. "How about you? What brings you out into the big bad night?"

He shrugged, eyes still on his feet. "Need money, you know? Rest of the family goldfarms, but we can't make the bandwidth. Sent me out to get it."

I snorted. I didn't get any spark off him. I doubted very much that he would come to much within the Network, and I'm rarely wrong about these things. He reached up to brush his hair out of his eyes with long, delicate fingers. Artist's hands. I snorted again. I wanted to probe him more, make sure that my initial assumptions were correct, but we were there and question time was over. It didn't matter, really. Either way, people like him had their uses.

We glanced back and forth as we hurried across the street towards the alleyway that was our goal, then slipped quietly into it. Gill was left at the entrance, trying to appear nonchalant and looking out for opposing agents. Rumble and I pushed past garbage cans and rotted heaps of refuse, the sky above still bright with billboards. Our destination was not the simple metal door that we stopped at, bugs circling a single muddy bulb, but the security camera facing it. It had been identified by Claymore as having a magic combination: a direct link into Buckingham, and no physical security.

We moved fast, hefting our pots of glue and unrolling the papers, turning our eyes superstitiously away from the runes emblazoned on them. I flicked off my active apps, fearful that they should be infected, and I felt Rumble do the same. I caught a glimpse of the rune as I smeared glue across it, a complex knot of black shapes that would unravel into dynamic and aggressive attackware when read by a machine intelligence. Our rigs were protected, theoretically, but the camera opposite wasn't. We worked fast, slopping glue onto ourselves, then dropped the gear and ran. We grabbed Gill and headed towards the shopping district, splitting up as soon as we hit the crowd. Rumble slapped me on the back and vanished, Gill slunk away without a word.

As I moved through the crowds, suddenly alone and trying to lose myself even more, I thought about my world. About the Networks. I'd heard stories from the old days, how old families built the botnets that became the Networks to steal processing power from others, how that power ended up being stolen from them. It must have been strange, really, to have had an actual person in charge, someone who could only know as much as a person and make all those dumb people mistakes. Strange, but kind of nice.

Rumble was a good kid. Too eager by half, but he'd learn, if he didn't get killed first. Gill, on the other hand, was not meant to be with us. There was a time when I'd think about the lives that people like him should have had, the lives that they might have had without the Network. Sometimes I even wondered about myself. Now I try my best to ensure that the playing pieces that pass through my hands resemble people as little as possible.

I put my head back and ran my fingers through my hair, shaking off such thoughts. People were crowding past me, real people with real lives. I mingled among them, trying to appear innocuous, trying to keep the grin off my face as the billboards around us flickered and fell into static and the chaos began.

Alex Hardison is an Australian writer recently returned from living in London.
Having completed Honours in Politics and read more hard SF and cyberpunk than is good for a young man, he now travels the world, getting in adventures and turning out the occasional short story.

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So the very unknown Belgian PM Herman van Rompuy, has been elected as EU President- taking up a position that could be instrumental in the future of the region and global international relations in general.

Only a day later, on the opposite and non-EU side of Europe, Russian and Ukrainian officials met, with Putin announcing that he would be easing gas supply terms to a neighbour that is crucial for Russia's European pipelines. 

Is it too cynical to think this isn't it a coincidence? 

Is it unreasonable to think that as Putin spins a tighter trade web with Former Soviet Republics that this could be his attempt to stand tall and unthreatened by a stronger EU?

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 Re: Commoditisation of aboriginal art

dear jack do you know anything about the history of Aboriginal 'art'??? Your speculation seems based on complete ignorance of the fact that Aboriginal art was invented for white buyers - the Aborigines themselves having survived 40,000 years without needing to give their lore and laws, myths and legends and rules for survival in a hostile climate any permanent form. It was only our attempts to assimilate them into our 'society' that drove the link to canvas - though the money we paid for their art was a nice bonus, and shouldn't be ignored as a continuing motive for painting. cheers - jeremy

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 Re: Farmers and ETS

Thank you for your commentary about farmers in a world of changing climate. Here in the Pacific NW we are not as aware of it as some other places. Our Transition Town group hosted author William Catton last night, who wrote a prophetic book called "Overshoot" back in 1980. During the discussion, a local fish biologist pointed out that of all industries, farmers are the only ones constantly limited by nature. The rest of the world ( with a few exceptions like fishermen or foresters) really do not seem to make their living in a world of limited by forces beyond their control--- or so they imagine. There is a fundamental sanity in these other ways of life that our culture is unwilling to hear. It runs away from the voice of limitation. I think farmers have a lot to teach the world. We always thought there was something wholesome about farming and I think this is exactly it; a lack of hubris. How many slaps in the face will it take before people come to their senses? - Anna Willis

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 Re: Turning Chinese

Obama is just a puppet of the Corporate elites.He has not recinded the Patriot Act,Bushes' presidential orders nor habius corpus.Presently ,we have corporate facism. - Ross

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 Re: Why Won't God Heal Amputees?

it seems that your whole point and discussion is aimed at christianity. what you state is pretty thought provoking and maybe true but one thing that i have to say is that maybe the whole religion thing has just been corrupted by people and that maybe god does exist.... nomatter all the scientific bull that you and other people can come up with, there are still things that you and scientist just cant explain. ie youe exsistance and the fact that you as a human have suchbrain capacity to do what you do today, and why there is such an order in nature "ofcoures humans always fuck up the order" everything on earth is one complex puzzle that works and you and everyone found it working. not only earth but even beyond to space and shit. now you can say that all this came from a bang and what ever but even if you believe that, what created the platform for that bang and why this place and stuff. just too many things dont add up to just say there is no god. and i think most of these motherfuckers miss the point of this religious shit anyway. because god is not a religion but a spiritual bond. dont be fooled by sensationalism and think that god does not exist cos he does. at least for me. the only problem with this now is that humans have sensationalised everything to make thier shit the best and in part have missed the whole point of god. every human bieng needs something to hold on to. even you and weather it is the image of god that people have painted or not is irrelevent. there is something that you believe in.. you might not go to church and get on your knees but its just part of human nature to associate yourself with something. it could be a superstition or eating chocolate coated roaches whatever you like fact is some things are just bigger than our rational. hope to get a responce from you - esco

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Re: Safran sure to offend, but who cares?

It is an interesting question to pursue "And, is there a ratio that exists where the amount of people offended compared to those that weren't makes something objectively racist?" I suppose the most right answer to whether something is racist or not can only come about democratically. By asking people if they find it racist. Even then (in this currently impossible world where people who want to vote on everything) who gets to vote? Hopefully I do. How do I cast my vote? At the moment I abstain. - Joshua Genner

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Re: The Pointless Question of "What is Art?"

You're article serves as a blatant example of people's lack of knowledge/interest in the contemporary art scene. Some of the most profound and revealing conversations stem from dicussions of art, politics and religion so why label them taboo subject matter? why not let the idiots add in their artistic two cents, because who knows what could happen? a change of opinion... an education... a flash of interest? Perhaps you and your friends to venture down to the COFA 09 annual exhibit and see some 200 fresh sydney artists emerge onto the art scene, unless it's too boring/inane. - Kara

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Re: The Pointless Question of "What is Art?"

I dare say the question is not pointless but rather is made pointless by overcomplications of academia and peripherals of market and status, in which Sean appears to have gotten bogged down notwithstanding the word limit. One of the things we do know about art for a fact is that we humans appear to have always had it around from the caves (who can forget the fetching bison from Alta Mira!) So the issue is cutting through the baggage of history as old as humanity to get back to the fundamentals. It took me about 35 years of research but does not take 100 words. It is this: "Art is something that is designed to communicate thoughts and feelings and to influence our thoughts and feeling through one or more of our senses."(25 words) Since we have space, a rider: "The particular art form is qualified by the particular senses involved in production and reception of that communication. If Sound then Music, If body then Dance. If we use eyes to perceive colour and shape we call it Visual art." How you work the item in question is the matter of objectivity after all some of us eat fruit raw and others make jam. If you choose to make art an investment go for it, if you choose to make it a status symbol you won't be the first. However, in my book, art is really the best at being art and in the immortal words of one Oscar Wilde, for any other purpose "All art is quite useless" - Valerie (Co-incidental author of "Why Art? The Pocket Art Expert)
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Re: John Safran ready for when skit hits the fan

The only aspect of "multiculturalism" we (or any western society)have accepted, revolves around food: sweet and sour chicken or donner kebab..nothing else is relevent, interesting or in anyway beneficial to us. The Cronulla riots were seen as well overdue by most people abroad, we should be proud of standing up to and rejecting ethnic gangs from our pure shores - "Peter Piper"

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Re: Brassed off about creationism- by Andy Coghlan

This is why we need change in Texas and why I'm running for State Board of Education. - Rebecca Bell-Metereau (www.voterebecca.com)

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Re: The Rape Tunnel

It astonishes and intrigues me this 'shock art' Being a over zealous muscled ex con looking for love, where could one find Richard Whitehursts hole?

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Re: ETS Voted Down: Rudd Proves Himself An Evil Genius

Nice to see such an insightful article, despite the snide comments.. Did you read the Quarterly Essay by Guy Pearse in writing the first 5 paragraphs- not that that's a bad thing really. Nice of you to widen your vision beyond the road ahead and take in some history- but I would add one thing- that as it stands (in the senate, especially with Steve Fielding) we won't have a real, meaningful ETS passed. The bummer is that even with a double dissolution election and the resultant simultaneous sitting of both houses of parliament (which as you point out, the greens/minor parties and labor would benefit from) would still not change the ETS from it's current configuration- not unless the Greens tripled their vote. Silly that it all came down to labor preferences to a little known party led by a little know bloke named Steve Fielding and Family First- not that that should be the reason we're in this predicament... - Shaun Lambert

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Re: Evil Capitalists

In response to the "100 Words" on Psychotic Capitalism: The statement, "only psychotics fail to distinguish right from wrong," has a semantic problem. What makes a person psychotic is the inability to recognize that, theoretically, actions or behavior can be right and wrong. A psychologically normal person can do this by age 5. But well- intentioned people constantly disagree about which actions are right and wrong in particular situations. This evening my husband and I re- watched "Zeitgeist--- Addendum" on youtube. We had to restrain ourselves from a festival of paranoia, anger and frustration at what appears to be an evil plot to enslave us all, to bleed us like pods in The Matrix. I cannot argue against the idea that Capitalism--- looked at as a planetary movement--- seems heartlessly destructive, yet there is no single person or even group of Illuminati to blame --- we are willing participants in this plot to rule the world, exploit the human race, rape Mother Earth. All of us are not psychotic, rather we are doing what seems right, and we are following norms set by our culture and community. I personally do my best to support those lawmakers who help us define right at wrong at the transpersonal level--- where this kind of crime being committed, with vast and ultimately very personal consequences. Indeed people can be stupider and meaner in groups than singly --- but whatever the right word is for that, it is not psychotic. Our real problem is that we seem incapable of seeing consequences beyond the local and immediate, we are selfish and shortsighted. But the writer is right: stupid, mean, selfish, shortsighted --- these terms trivialize the unfathomable crimes of Capitalists and their sheep-like dupes. - Anna Willis

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Re: Ethics Implicit?

There is one place where ethics is not "implicit everywhere" and that is television and the media generally - the only ethic is win the audience. This is the toxic environment "informing" students. - Terry McGee

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Re: Australia's Swine Flu vaccination plan

The word "pandemic" has absolutely nothing to do with a deadly disease taking over the planet. The definition of "Pandemic" is simply about the SPREAD of a disease. Any disease. It could be a relatively harmless disease like the Swine Flu, to maybe a more harmful type (like normal seasonal influenza). Nothing to do with how bad or how good it is to your health ... just how WIDESPREAD it is. That is the interpretation of "Pandemic". A word that is nothing to be scared about, but just a measure of the SPREAD of any disease (harmful or relatively harmless) around the globe. The original "Spanish Flu" in 1819 killed 50 to 100 million people worldwide. Swine Flu deaths to date? 2,800 or so. Compare this to up to 500,000 deaths worldwide from our ongoing "Seasonal Flu". People need to see things in perspective. Swine Flu is a mild flu. No need for risky & possibly dangerous vaccinations. No need to be scared. In fact NO NEED TO DO ANYTHING. Just stay cool and take whatever vitamins & health supplements that are appropriate. Good luck & stay informed. - Tim
 
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Re: Kabul-shit

A nice puncture of the ADF's mad illusions. Shooting civvies in another land used to be called murder, now we pretend its nation building. It must have struck a chord. General Jim Molan, the butcher of Fallujah, who used white phosphorous & put snipers on hospital rooftops, raves in today's SMH about staying true to the mission. What is it with these guys? Untold deaths in Iraq, bombs still exploding, millions of refugees ... and this guy thinks he's a genius. - Tina G

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Re: Why we shouldn't care about he loneliness of the University Liberal

While you have managed to approach, with a complete lack of understanding and sensitivity, the complaints of the many people who feel alienated by the overtly leftist university agenda, I also think that you have failed to address the concerns of an increasingly disenfranchised leftist populace. The article was concerning the Left Handed bigots, not the personal politics of either of the 4 people mentioned. Their concern was not with, as you pointlessly attacked, their political beliefs, but rather with their freedom to express their beliefs and how they were treated on campus because of them. I write this as a disenfranchised leftist. Apparently, freedom of speech on campus somehow took a backseat to the far left's bigotry, however well intentioned they thought it was originally. I'm not right; I'm not left. But fuck anybody that tries to censure me and revoke my right to freedom of speech, merely for believing in a political party. Anyone that thinks that's OK, well simply look up the definition of fascist. - I Swing My Vote

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