Mirrorshades (1986), Bruce Sterling proposes a tour on the cyberpunk style through the reading of

several authors of the genre. Introducing Sterling presents some highlights of this type of literature. "On
the contrary, and in open opposition, technology is for the rather visceral ciberpunkis. It is no longer the
genius of the bottle of the inventors of big science. On the contrary, it is now ubiquitous and strikingly
intimate. Not is out of us, but inside, under our skin y.a often, on the inside of our mind. The technology
has changed. Already not is for us those gigantic wonders that spit steam, as the dam Hoover, the
Empire State Building or the Central nuclear. The technology of them eighty is sticks to the skin,
responds to the touch: them computers personal, the walkman of Sony, the phone mobile or them
lenses of contact soft. Certain themes Central appear frequently in the cyberpunk: the problem of the
invasion of the body with members prosthetic, circuits implanted, surgery plastic or altering
genetic. Similar and perhaps even more powerful is the invasion of the mind: mind interfaces computer, artificial intelligence, neurochemistry... are technical that they radically redefine the human
nature, the nature of the self. As noted Norman Spinrad in his essay on the cyberpunk, many drugs, as
well as the rock and roll, are products definitely technology. No counterculture type Earth Mother
offered lysergic acid, but that came from Sandoz laboratories, and when he escaped ran by society as an
uncontrollable fire. Timothy Leary described as the LSD of the eighties personal computers; both
represent a scarily radical potential technologies. And, as such, they are continuous reference to the
cyberpunk elements. The ciberpunkis, being in itself same hybrids, are fascinated by the intermediate
zones, areas where, in words from Gibson, street wears things in its own way": they are the dirty and
irrepressible Street graffiti, that classic industrial appliance product, spray can; it is the subversive
potential of the printer, photocopier domestic and scratch music whose marginal innovators make own
turntable an instrument, generating the archetypal music of the eighties, where the funk with Burroughs
collage method. All is in the mix is true for great part of the art of them eighty, and of the same mode
also is applicable to the cyberpunk, as it is to the punk, the fashion retro of mix- and -assembling, and
to the recording digital multitrack. 80s are a time of strengthening, integration, differentiation, release
of old notions of influences to shake them and reinterpreting them with a new sophistication, from a
wider perspective."The ciberpunkis looking for a point of view global and of great scope." "The
ciberpunkis are perhaps the first generation of the science fiction that has grown not only with this
tradition literary but, also, lives in a real world of science fiction." (Bruce Sterling, Mirrorshades, 1986)

Bruce Sterling and several

Mirrorshades

A cyberpunk anthology
ePUB v1.3
OZN 12.08.12

Title: Mirrorshades: an antologia cyberpunk title original: Mirrorshades: The cyberpunk Anthology Bruce
Sterling & Greg Bear & James Patrick Kelly & John Shirley & Lewis Shiner & Marc Laidlaw & Pat Cadigan
& Paul di Filippo & Rudy Rucker & Tom Maddox & William Gibson, 1981-1998 Editorial: Siruela,
1998. Translation: Andoni Alonso and Iaki Arzoz. Home design/retouching: Gonzalez / preferred
original Publisher: OZN (v1.0 to v1.1) correction of errata: ePub core v1.0

Content

Preliminary note, Mirrorshades, 1998 - Andoni Alonso & Iaki Arzoz

Prologue, Mirrorshades (Prface, Mirrorshades, 1986 - Bruce Sterling)

[Foreword]
The Gernsback continuum (The Gernsback Continuum, 1981 - William Gibson) [short story] (24 1982
Locus Award)
Snake eyes (Snake-Eyes, 1986 - Tom Maddox) [short story]
Rock On (Rock On, 1984 - Pat Cadigan) [short story]
Tales of Houdini (Tales of Houdini, 1981 - Rudy Rucker) [short story]
The kids of the street 400 (400 Boys, 1983-Marc Laidlaw) [short story short]
Solstice (Solstice, 1985 - James Patrick Kelly) [story]
Petra (Petra, 1982 - Greg Bear) [short story] (Awards: 2nd Nebula 1983; 2nd)
World Fantasy 1983; (6 locus 1983) until we wake up voices human (Till Human Voices Wake Us, 1984)
Lewis Shiner) [short story]
Area free (Eclipse, 1985-John Shirley) [novel (fragment)]
Stone lives (Stone Lives, 1985 - Paul di Filippo) [story]
Star Red, orbit winter (Red Star, Winter Orbit, 1983-Bruce Sterling & William Gibson) [short story]
(award 19 Locus 1984)
Mozart with glasses of mirror (Mozart in Mirrorshades, 1985-Bruce Sterling & Lewis Shiner) [short story
short]
NOTE PRELIMINARY

-Andoni Alonso and Iaki Arzoz

The first edition of Mirrorshades, the mythical anthology cyberpunk, is of 1986, which is a period of
twelve years after until the present edition in Castilian; all an eternity for a genre so fertile and dynamic
as the science fiction (CF). It is somewhat incomprehensible that in all these years not have have edited
in Spanish a book so famous, and that despite the boom and publishing force that the CF has achieved in
our country. The only partial exception in this regard was the anthology Burning Chrome (1986), not as

representative as this, since it is focused on a single author, William Gibson, but that earned if a recent
translation (burning chrome, Minotaur, 1994), and in which lean precisely two slightly different versions
of two stories included in Mirrorshades. Star Red, orbit winter and the continuous of Gernsback.
On the other hand, if serve to the opinion of the anthologist and main theoretical of this current, Bruce
Sterling, the cyberpunk already not exists as such, their authors have followed others roads literary
more personal, being now them real ciberpunkis them libertarians of Internet, or them artists by
computer, or the designers of video games,
or cultural critics' [1]. So, apparently, could seem a bit late this translation, since the time Golden of the
cyberpunk, at least in North America, was the Decade of them eighty. But these are them paradoxes of
the culture of our country, for which, despite all what the CF has contributed to the literature universal
and despite it intelligence and dedication of insightful editors as Miquel Barcel (very critical indeed
with the cyberpunk) by present it to the level that deserves, still is it classified as of divertimento surface
and , of course, unworthy of the attention of a "true intellectual [2].
These last years, which in some respects weigh in the work, however, provide enough critical distance to
ask, with a certain bewilderment and skepticism, if really dead the cyberpunk, if he could just disappear
in the era of globalization. Internet and Windows 98. It is very difficult to believe it, precisely now that
many of the concerns of the cyberpunk look more urgent and tangible than ever. Disagree in part of
Sterling and are in accordance with P. Nicholls and J. Chite in that if the cyberpunk is dead in them
ninety-as several critical claim-, will be the result of a euthanasia from within her own family. Certainly,
the effects of the cyberpunk, both within the CF as outside, in the world in general, have been
invigorating; "and given that the majority of these writers continues writing - although not necessarily
under this label-, we can assume with security that the spirit of the cyberpunk is still alive [3].
That is why there are excellent reasons for Mirrorshades is published at this time, despite the time
which has elapsed, because it is precisely now when, in many respects, it is society, more than the own
CF, being converted to the cyberpunk. This anthology, more even than the famous Neuromante, has
become the reference of the cyberpunk book, at the time that sits as a "classical live", because it can still
offer suggestive lessons to the next generation of the CF and illuminate the origins of the era in which
we live. It is a classic that has successfully been introduced, for example, the sociological and artistic in
the CF, rivaling the conception hard, more interested in the positive Sciences and the pure
technological marvel. Nor is it strange that this literary trend has developed in parallel to other 'postmodern' aspects of science - without giving a pejorative nuance - of writers such as Bruno Latour and
Stephen Woolgar, or that it should also arise while we attended and the rise of the study of science,
technology and society (CTS).
Both for those writers as for them philosophers of it technology, the impact of the technoscience in
our society is has become in the reason main of reflection. And all these theoretical postmodern seem
to be of agreement in it same that the cyberpunk, this is, in that live in a was strange where an allpowerful science and a ubiquitous technology in Alliance us assault and transform, by what an approach
purely rational or positivist not us meets nor can reassure us in absolute, by what demand know
minimally where are and what should be wait or at least let us the illusion that we can assume it. These
last twelve - fourteen if we count from the first time that Bruce Bethke coined the term "cyberpunk" they have managed that the Academy and the CF converge, giving rise to social studies, philosophical
and cultural cyberpunk. Thus, at present, for example the cyborg, one of the icons of the cyberpunk, it
has become a real speculative horizon, computer networks are subject to a permanent debate or the
definition of human has been between questions [4]. How is not going to interest already the

cyberpunk if, after the premonitory CF, our world and our future, we ourselves, are, even against their
wishes, increasingly more cyberpunk?
From a literary point of view, the cyberpunk has been a salutary lesson aesthetic for the CF, to take
loaned resources of the black novel, pop music and cinema, in a suggestive eclecticism which, of course,
also can be described as a perfectly postmodern. And even applying the law of the CF of Theodore
Sturgeon to the cyberpunk-the ninety percent of any gender literary is trash-, still us is a ten percent for
taste and in which no doubt is includes this anthology. Of course there's a cyberpunk topical and full of
clichs, wired Cowboys and claims 'Yakuza', but this is precisely what makes some of these stories really
jewels, parts who know how to balance the literary quality with the surprise technological rigour in all
good science fiction is.
However, and as a warning to the reader little experienced in the genre and this current in particular, we
want to enlighten you about some features that can surprise you or bewilder you and Sterling could not
see in the original edition. Thus, the style of the most of them stories mimics the of the novel black, and
sometimes can seem too synthetic and even minimalist, to while is mix with jargon and slang, to lain
invented by each author.The legacy of the black novel manifests itself also in the character of the
players, inspired by the detectives hard boiled hammettianos, characterized by following a particular but
germinates personal ethics in a marginal environment. Its narrative structure has been greatly
influenced by the cinema, and constantly calls the reader viewing capability, as well as its film culture, all
of which is reflected in the "script drafted" aspect of many stories. It generation cyberpunk has been
bred by the film, the television and the music video, and that is makes note in its approach visual and
narrative to the point of that their stories seem to projects of movies.
Is this what today we can speak of a symbiotic between cinema and literature, and therefore a film
aesthetic cyberpunk - despite the reluctance of Sterling, derived directly from the literature and has
produced interesting films but of uneven quality, apart from the pioneering and always fascinating Blade
Runner (Ridley Scott), strange days (K. Bigelow) , Johnny Mnemonic (Robert Longo), New Rose Hotel
(Abel Ferrara)-both based on stories of W. Gibson- or Nirvana (Gabriele Salvatore), between which
perhaps not has still no work master that do justice to their sources literary.
The senses also play an important role in the cyberpunk aesthetic, as the body becomes protagonist, to
be altered by drugs design or technology of implants and electronic prostheses. His effort to
demonstrate a world sensory, a disturbing sensuality, caused by the alteration of the senses through
psychedelic trips to the back of the mind, is a real novelty in the CF and gives a peculiar surrealist flavor
to many passages. Another of their features generic is present us a stage next to the dystopia, in which
have of accept with resigned fatalism our uncertain destination and in which the power is located in
hands of them multinational, by what it survival, preserving an ethics elementary, is the objective
Basic. That critical treatment of a close, immediate, future which worries us because it is already
familiar, it is also an approach little explored until now in the CF. And, as a last feature, and despite the
proclaimed cosmopolitanism and miscegenation cyberpunk and general his globalist effort, the presence
of American culture - or vision that makes these phenomena - from there manifests itself unequivocally
and in the smallest details (or is that perhaps these traits have spread around the globe and now we all
live and think in 'American').
The contents of the book also deserves a series of comments and clarifications. The prologue of Sterling,
next to their generous presentations, is has become in a magnificent piece introductory that has that
aroma classic to manifesto and that has known portray a time historical of the society in which live; so
that the reader should not escape it, as still can enlighten you about the cyberpunk then and now. The
initial story, "The Gernsback continuum", we see a different author Neuromante or accelerated Mona

Lisa Gibson. This story emblematic and almost founding of the cyberpunk, according to Sterling, us
shows an attitude Godless and ironic towards them utopias technological of the last and us warns of it
threatens totalitarian that is hides low any Mirage technology of the future. His idea of the semiotic
Ghost is really brilliant and suggestive, and we almost reconciles with an often inconsistent author and
pose, which has not returned to this level in his best-known novels. Tom Maddox is shows as a
convincing storyteller in "eyes of snake, describing a theme of full today as the cyborg, but from the
closeness of their sensations physical and psychic. "Rock on", from Pat Cadigan, immerses us in that
another major influence of the cyberpunk: aesthetics and the mystique of rock and roll, threatened by
technology.Next to 'Free zone', one of the most vivid descriptions of the rock and roll, John Shirley former lead singer of the Group Sacio - Nation, reminds us that we live in the age of MTV, the music
video and the musical neotribus, and that rock was once a marginal and anti-establishment culture, a
way of border life, until the Rolling Stones become obscene and decrepit a mightier than the steelworks
industry millionaires and the shipyards. "Tales of Houdini", Rudy Rucker, and Petra, Greg Bear, are
perhaps the two seemingly further away from the thematic cyberpunk stories, although they keep some
curious points of contact with the current. The first is an agile and hilarious joke counterfactual that
takes us back to the beginning of the film and is written as a pure script; the second, an elaborate
fantasy medieval written in a style archaic, could amount to the version cyberpunk of the film of Walt
Disney the humpback of Notre give me, in which them gargoyles living would represent to some
imaginary ancestors of them cyborgs. Boys of 400 Street, Marc Laidlaw, brings to memory Warriors,
the mythical film about the bands New Yorkers, only that wrapped in a nuclear apocalypse and with
touches of parapsychology. Solstice, of James Patrick Kelly, insists in the theme of them drugs, with
intuitions surprising and original, in the recurrent scenario cyberpunk of Stonehenge, and illustrated
with a scholarship suspiciously extracted of the classic study of Christopher Chippindale, Stonehenge,
the threshold of the history. Until we wake up voices human, Lewis Shiner, us closer to the political
problem of genetic manipulation, a hot topic at the time of "Dolly" the sheep and the threat of the mad
doctor Richard Seed. "Stone lives", by John di Filippo, condenses much of the cyberpunk concerns, as
the implant
or the extension artificial of the life low an approach critical towards the domain of the large
corporations multinational that van to control the world. Characteristic of the cyberpunk is the work in
collaboration, as happens in those stories star red, orbit winter-from Gibson and Sterling- and
Mozart with glasses of mirror-of Sterling and Shinner-, that close the book. To the first, the future-our
present
-has played a dirty trick, because it will be just this year 1998 at the end of the Soviet station Solyut, but
already in the Russia post-Communist of Yeltsin, and his abandonment due to technical collapse and not
the lack of interest of the new Russian authorities. This story still warns certain involuntary chauvinism
of the cold war, in which counteracts the vision of the American cowboy by new horizons topical while
of Soviet ideology. On the contrary, "Mozart" is a refreshing satire based on the classic temporary travel,
truffled of a sarcastic malice, enclosing a sharp criticism of the Homogenizer American culture (if it fits
most existing today).
In general, Mirrorshades will remain as a solid anthology of CF which has managed to bring together the
wide variety of issues and records of the cyberpunk, and showing us how the stories in the cyberpunk
and the CF in general, are often better than many novels. It is true that sometimes invented jargon can
be somewhat confusing, the erotic scenes seem to topically pornographic, that particularisimas
references to American culture can be lost to the reader or the sudden narrative ellipses puzzle our
usual sense of the argument, but in the end and after the cyberpunk style is thus, with its virtues and its
excesses , a fascinating hybrid of our ubiquitous visual culture and genre literature. As translators, we

have tried to reflect this more closely, if possible without betraying their, perhaps now, innovative
features narratives, or decorate your tone provocatively slang and street. We have maintained the
tortured phrasing that sometimes, says torrential and detailed descriptions with concise phrases, which
is in fact far from the standard of American literature itself, and which, therefore, is doubly attractive
and has no doubt and perverse charm. The reader's it starting now, according to their own jargon,
connect with the cyberpunk mode: visualize, imagine and 'freak', and most importantly, enjoy with
this insolent and challenging way of understanding life and the CF. We hope that this anthology of
worship, long-awaited, now classic, encourage the recognition of the cyberpunk in our lethargic culture
and represent even a more mature resurgence from here. For all, intellectuals concerned about the
technology, Internet users engaged, artists young or restless fans the manga, you can assume all a
discovery and a suggestive point of contact.
ANDONI ALONSO E IAKI ARZOZ
[1]
Interview to Bruce Sterling, "the future does not is written", in the paseante; n 2 27-28, monograph
the digital revolution and their dilemmas.- Siruela Madrid 1998.
[2]
See to the respect the book of Miquel Barcel Garca, science fiction: Guide of reading (editions B,
Barcelona 1990), in which is makes an analysis critical of the perception Spanish cultured of the CF, as
well as a complete history of the same.
[3]
Cyberpunk entry, in the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, from John Clute and Peter Nicholls, St. Martin
completo Griffin, New York 1993, revised edition, 1995.
[4]
There are already many works regarding this, including Cyberspace, Cyberbody. Cyberpunk (Mike
Featherstone. Sage. London 1995) or the now famous "A Cyborg Manifesto" of Donna Haraway, in On
Women Simians, Cyborgs and Women. The Invention of Nature, Free Association Books, London 1991.
PROLOGUE

-Bruce Sterling-

This book is a showcase with some of the writers who have become important in this decade. His
alliance with the culture of the years eighty them has marked as group, as new current of it science
fiction. This current was soon recognized as such, and was given numerous tags: science fiction hard
Radical, technologists, outside the law, the wave of the 1980s, the Neuromanticos and the Mirrorshades
group. But all these labels, glued and peeled during the 1980s, only one has remained: cyberpunk. Not
there is almost no writer to which you like the tags, and especially the of cyberpunk, given its peculiar
resonance. Literary labels carry a strange way of offending doubly: receive that because they are net
and do not receive it who, because they have been forgotten. And, of any form, the labels collective

never fit at all with the individual particular, and by this cause an irritation shared. All this suggests that
the typical cyberpunk writer does not exist; This character is, simply, a platonic fiction. For the rest of
us, this tag is an uncomfortable Procrustean bed [1], where the evil critics await us to cut ourselves and
stretch us, so we fit.
And, however, is possible make claims generic and broad on the cyberpunk and identify their
characteristics common. I'm going to do it then, because the temptation is too great as to resist
me. Critics, including myself, persist in talking about placing tags, despite all the warnings. We must do
so because this is a source of very useful knowledge, which is very fun at the same time.
In this book I hope present a panorama full of it running cyberpunk, including from their first babbling
until the time current. Mirrorshades [2]
It should offer a comprehensive introduction on conviction, themes and issues of the cyberpunk new
readers of this literary movement. To my mode of view, these are, to the date, the stories emblematic,
examples very clear, characteristic of each writer. I've avoided stories that often have been part of many
other anthologies, in such a way that even the most loyal devotees should here find new perspectives.
He cyberpunk is product of the environment of the 1980s and, in true sense, as hope show more
forward, is a product final. But their estate is sink deeply in the tradition of the modern science fiction
popular written in those years sixty.
The cyberpunk, as a group, operates the grain of the tradition of science fiction. Its predecessors are
legion. Specific the cyberpunk writers differ among themselves by his literary debts, but some of the
older ones, I mean, the preciberpunk, have a clear and widespread influence.
Thus, the new wave we mention acute Street wit Harlan Ellison, the visionary splendor of Samuel
Delany, dizzying madness Norman Spinrad, the aesthetic rock of Michael Moorcock, the intellectual
audacity of Brian Aldiss and, always, to J. G. Ballard. The most classical tradition we have with the cosmic
perspective of Olaf Stapledon, policy fiction of H. G. Wells, solid extrapolations of Larry Niven, Poul
Anderson and Robert Heinlein.
And the ciberpunkis feel a predilection for original science fiction, like the bubbling imagination of a
Phillip Jos Farmer, the brio of a John Varley, visionary games about the reality of a Phillip K. Dick and
irregularly appreciated technology beatnik of Alfred Bester. And there is also a special admiration for a
writer whose blend of technology and literature remains intractable: Thomas Pynchon.
During the sixties and seventies, the impact of the last recognized current of science fiction, the new
wave, brought a new concern to science fiction: literary craftsmanship. Many of the ciberpunkis write
prose elaborate and graceful; are enamored of the style and are (some it would say so) too aware of this
fashion. But, as of the 77 punks, they always postpone your garage group aesthetics. Also love to see
them face to face with the naked core of science fiction: the ideas. This made them unite closely to the
tradition classic of it science fiction. However some critical considered that the cyberpunk is separating
the science fiction of the current general of the literature, of the same mode that the punk stripped to
the rock and roll of them ornaments symphonic of the rock progressive of them seventy. (Meanwhile,
traditionalists of the science fiction hard, showing a strong distrust of the "artisticness", disagree
loudly.)
As the music punk, the cyberpunk is, in some sense, a return to the estate. The ciberpunkis are perhaps
the first generation of science fiction that has not only grown with this literary tradition, but also live in a
real world of science fiction. For them, science fiction hard resources, extrapolations and

technological literacy, are not only literary tools, but also an aid to everyday life. They are ways of
knowledge, and much appreciated.
In pop culture, first thing is practice, and then follows the theory hobble it along their paths. Before the
era of the labels, the cyberpunk was simply current, a generational tenuous link between ambitious
writers, who exchanged letters, manuscripts, ideas, light praise and sharp criticism. These writers Gibson, Rucker, Shiner, Shirley and Sterling - discovered a friendly unit thanks to their similar concepts,
topics shared and even some strange symbols that seemed to take its own life in his work. Sunglasses
mirror, for example.
Them glasses of Sun's mirror is developed in a totem from the early days of the 82. The reasons for this
are not difficult to understand. Mirror crystals protected from the forces of normality, concealing the
eyes, making believe that who takes them is crazy and is possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the
visionary who looks at the Sun, the biker and the rocker, the police and others outside the law. Lenses
and mirror, preferably chrome, matte black mount, totemic current colors, appeared in a story after
another, as a sort of literary emblem.
These protociberpunkis were then known as the Group of mirror sunglasses. Hence the title of this
anthology, as a well deserved tribute to the icon of this current. But others writers young, of equal
talent and ambition, soon began to produce works that those linking without place to doubt to this new
science fiction. They were independent explorers whose work reflected something inherent in the
Decade, something peculiar to the spirit of the times. Something that was circulating in the 1980s.
From there the term cyberpunk, a label that none of them elected. But now this term seems have
captured something crucial of the work of those writers, something crucial of the Decade in their joint,
this is, a new form of integration: the overlap of worlds that were to the principle separate, as the field
of the high technology and the underworld modern of the pop.
This integration has become, for decades, a crucial source of cultural energy. The effort literary
cyberpunk has its parallel in the culture pop along them eighty: in the video of rock, in the underworld
of them hackers, in it technology street of the hip-hop and of the music scratch, in the rock of
synthesizer of London and Tokyo. This phenomenon or dynamic had a scope global. And the cyberpunk
is its literary embodiment.
In another era, this combination might have seemed artificial and brought by a whisker. Traditionally,
there has been a huge gap between the sciences and the humanities, a gap between literary culture,
whose formal world is art and politics, and culture of science, whose world is engineering and industry.
But the void being filled at an unexpected rate. Now the technological culture has come out of
mother. Advances in science are so deeply radical, so disturbing, conflicting and revolutionary that
already you can control.Science is entering in the general culture on a massive scale; It is now
everywhere. The traditional structure of power, the institutions of life, have lost control over the pace of
change.
And suddenly a new Alliance is evident: the integration of technology and the counterculture of the
1980s; an Alliance profane between the world technological and the world of the dissent organized, the
world underground of the culture pop, of the fluidity visionary, and of the anarchy of the streets.
The counterculture of the 1960s was rural, romanticona, anti-scientific and antitecnologica. But always
you Guetta in his heart a contradiction symbolized by electric guitar. The technology of rock was like the
sharp edge of a knife. The years, and technology of rock were through it was becoming increasingly

more perfect, extending toward the high-tech recording, satellite video and computer graphics. Little by
little, it was like reverse rebel pop culture, and now, often leading pop artists are also leading
technicians. They are magicians of the teachers, special effects in mixtures, technical effects of
recording, hacker graphics, emerging media new to leave stunned society with the extravagance of their
mental flights, as the film's special effects, and overall support of the "Live Aid".
Now technology has reached a feverish pace, its influence is out of control and has come to the
street. As noted by Alvin Toffler in the third wave, which is the Bible for many of the ciberpunkis, the
technological revolution that reshapes our society is not based in the hierarchy, but decentralization,
not in rigidity, but fluidity.
The hacker and the rocker are them idols of it culture popular of this decade, and in itself same the
cyberpunk is, largely, a phenomenon pop: spontaneous, energy, close to the estate of it pop. The
cyberpunk comes from an area where computer hacker and rocker was overlap; is a disk Petri cultural
where the sinuous lines of those genes is subdivided. Some found the results strange, even
monstrous; for others, however, this integration is a powerful source of hope.
Science fiction, at least according to official dogma, has always dealt with the impact of technology. But
the times have changed from the comfortable was of Hugo Gernsback, when the science was sanctified
and confined in his Tower of ivory. The carefree Technophilia of those days, when the authorities
enjoyed of a comfortable margin of control, belongs to a was missing and in lethargy.
On the contrary, and in open opposition, technology is for the rather visceral ciberpunkis. It is no longer
the genius of the bottle of the inventors of big science. On the contrary, it is now ubiquitous and
strikingly intimate. It is not outside of us, but inside, under our skin and often inside of our mind.
The technology has changed. Already not is for us those gigantic wonders that spit steam, as the dam
Hoover, the Empire State Building or the Central nuclear. 1980s technology sticks to the skin, responds
to the touch: personal computers, the Sony walkman, mobile phone or contact lenses soft.
Certain themes Central appear frequently in the cyberpunk: the problem of the invasion of the body
with members prosthetic, circuits implanted, surgery plastic or altering genetic. Similar and perhaps
even more powerful is the invasion of the mind: interfaces mente-ordenador, intelligence artificial,
neurochemistry... are technical that redefine radically the nature human, the nature of the I.
As Norman Spinrad said in his essay on the cyberpunk, many drugs, as well as rock and roll, are
definitely technology products. No counterculture of the type Earth Mother [3]
We offered the acid diethylamide, but came of those laboratories Sandoz, and when is escaped ran by
the society as a fire uncontrollable. Timothy Leary described as the LSD of the eighties personal
computers; both represent a scarily radical potential technologies. And, as such, they are continuous
reference to the cyberpunk elements.
The ciberpunkis, being in itself same hybrids, are fascinated by the intermediate zones, areas where, in
words from Gibson, street wears things in their own way": are the dirty and irrepressible Street graffiti,
this classic industrial artifact, the spray can; is the subversive potential of the printer, of the photocopier
domestic and the music scratch, whose innovative marginal converted to the own turntable in an
instrument, generating it music archetypal of them eighty, where the funk is located with the method of
collage of Burroughs. "Everything is in the mix" is true for much of the art of the 1980s, and in the same
way is also applicable to the cyberpunk, such as punk, mix-and-assemble 'retro' fashion, and multitrack
digital recording.

80s are a time of strengthening, integration, differentiation, release of old notions of influences to shake
them and reinterpreting them with a new sophistication, from a wider perspective. The ciberpunkis are
looking for a comprehensive and powerful point of view.
The novel of William Gibson, Neuromante, surely the quintessence of the novel cyberpunk, is located in
Tokyo, Istanbul and Paris. Border, Lewis Shiner, features scenes in Russia and Mexico, and also on the
surface of Mars.Eclipse, John Shirley, describes the conflict in Western Europe. Blood Music, from Greg
Bear, is global, even cosmic in its breadth.
Instruments for global integration, the network of multinational corporations and communications
satellites, fascinated to the ciberpunkis and are constantly in his work. The cyberpunk has little patience
with the borders.
Hayawaka Science Fiction Magazine was the first publication that took a number ' all-on the cyberpunk,
in November of 1986. The innovative British magazine Interzone has also been a hotbed for activism
cyberpunk, published by Shirley, Gibson and Sterling, while it has offered ground-breaking editorial,
interviews and manifestos. Global consciousness is more than an article of faith of the ciberpunkis, is a
deliberate effort.
The work cyberpunk is marked by its intensity visionary. Its writers appreciate it strange, so surreal and
so apparently unthinkable. They are willing to or even anxious to take an idea and, without simplifying it,
take it beyond its limits. As J. G. Ballard, a model idolized for many ciberpunkis, they often use an almost
clinical objectivity, who do not look away. It's a cold analysis, a technique borrowed from science, and
that is then used literally, as a stunning punk resource.
This intensity is also accompanied a strong imaginative concentration. The cyberpunk is widely known
for its efficient use of details, because of their complexity carefully crafted for their willingness to take
the extrapolations to the fabric of everyday life.
Always favors 'dense' prose, the speed, the dizzying avalanche of fictional information and sensory
overload that immerse the reader in the literary equivalent of the 'wall of sound' own hard rock.
The cyberpunk is the natural extension of elements that are already present in all science fiction,
sometimes buried but always with a potential demolition. The cyberpunk has born within the gender of
the science fiction, not is an invasion, but a reform modern. Therefore, its influence on the genre has
been quick and powerful.
Your future is a question open, as punk artists and those of the new wave, the cyberpunk writers, as
they evolve, could get a start soon in a dozen different directions simultaneously.
It seems unlikely that any tag set them for a long time. The science fiction current is found in a rare
moment of boiling. What remains of decade can attend a widespread plague of movements led by the
increasingly changing and numerous eighties generation. The eleven authors listed here are only a part
of a large wave of writers, and the group as whole still shows signs of a remarkable militancy and
defiance. Catapulted by a new sense of the science fiction, the writers are discussing, rethinking and
teaching them old dogmas with new tricks. Meanwhile, the waves of the cyberpunk continue spreading,
exciting to some, challenging others and infuriating a few whose protests are not heard too.
The future remains without writing, although not because not is has tried.
And the latest rarity of our generation of science fiction is that, for us, the literature of the future has a
long and honorable last. As writers have a debt with all those us preceded, with those writers of science

fiction whose conviction, commitment and talent we fascinated, and really changed our lives. Such a
debt is not never fulfilled only recognizes, so expect it, and is transmitted as a legacy to those who
follow us in turn.
Even should others recognitions. The current owes much to the patient work of the editors of the
time. A brief look at copyright shows the central role of Ellen Datlow in Omni, a sister in the forefront of
the ideologically correct, always full of suggestions, which help in this anthology has been
invaluable. Gardner Dozois was among the first that caught the critical attention on this emerging
trend. Together with Shawna McCarthy, has made of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine a center
of energy and debate for this stream. Edward Ferman Fantasy and Science Fiction Magazine is always a
high quality referenda. Interzone, the most radical periodical of science fiction at present, has already
been mentioned. Its group editor deserves that them give them thanks again. And thanks especially to
Yoshio Kobayashi, our contact in Tokyo and Schismatrix and Blood Music, translator for his favors, too
numerous to mention. And now, to start the show.
BRUCE STERLING
[1]
Reference of the mythology Greek to the history of Procrustes, or Procustes, who forced to them
travelers to tender is in a bed of iron. If they did not conform to its size, cut them or dislocated limbs. (N.
of the T.)
[2]
The title of the book means ' glasses of mirror. (The T. N.)
[3]
Movement environmentalist of the year sixty, inspired in the book of Rachel Carson. Silent Spring. (N. of
the T.)

THE CONTINUOUS OF GERNSBACK

-William Gibson-

This story was the first professional publication, in 1981, by William

Gibson.
In the following years, Gibson developed a set of works of enormous influence, marked by a brilliant
fusion of scenarios and foresight. His novels "Neuromante" and "Count zero", and the stories of
"Sprawl"series, related to these novels, granted Gibson an ample recognition by her impetuous
narrative breath, his polished and evocative prose and his sharp and detailed portrait of the
future. These works stand out as central texts of contemporary science fiction.
But this story has paved the way. It was a coldly accurate perception of elements which, in the past,
oriented themselves wrongly, as well as a touch of attention for a new aesthetic of the science fiction of
the 1980s.

Mercifully, that thing has begun to blur is, to again be an episode. When I still receive those old visions,
they are peripheral; mere fragments confined in the corner of the eye, simple chrome fragments of a
mad doctor. Was that transport all wing, flying over San Francisco the week past, but already was almost
translucent. And them convertible with fins of shark is have returned uncommon, and, discreetly, the
motorways avoid convert is in them glittering monsters of eighty lanes where was forced to lead the
month last with my Toyota of rental. And I know that none of that will pursue up to New York; My vision
is reducing to a single frequency probability. I have worked much on this. The television I have helped
enough.
I guess it all started in London, that false Greek tavern of Battersea Park Road, with the lunch of the
Cohen Investment Corporation. Steam, and even a tasteless food cost them thirty minutes to find a
goblet with ice to the retsina [1]. Cohen works for Barris-Watford, which publishes books in large-format
paperback, fashionable, on industrial crafts: stories illustrated of neon signs, of the machines of the
million, the occupied Japan rope toys.He went to shoot a series of announcements of athletic
shoes; California girls, with legs tanned and playful phosphorescent shoes I had been spending jokes,
from the bottom of the Saint John Wood escalators to the platforms of Tooting Bec. A young ambitious
Agency and little profitable had decided that the mysterious London transport sell nylon Vulcanized
shoes. They decide, I photograph. And Cohen, to which I knew vaguely from the old days in New York,
had invited me to lunch the day before my departure from Heathrow. He brought a young woman
dressed very to fashion, called Dialta Downes, which virtually had no Chin and was a renowned historian
of pop art. To the remember it, it see walking beside Cohen, low a sign of neon pendant that flashing: by
here is goes to the madness, in large letters without auction.
Cohen introduced us and explained that Dialta was the first advocate of the latest project of BarrisWatford, a history of what she called aerodynamics American modernity. His title of work was the
futuropolis aerodynamics: the tomorrow that never came.
There is a British obsession with more Baroque elements of American pop culture, something like the
fetish vaquero-indio of the Germans, or the aberrant French fondness for the good old Jerry Lewis
movies.
This is manifested in Dialta Downes in his craze by a form unique of architecture American, of which the
majority of them American just are aware. To the principle not was sure of what was talking about, but
gradually started to fall in it has. I found Recalling the TV of those fifty them Sunday by the tomorrow.
Sometimes, in the stations local, passed as filling old scratched rolls of films. You sat down there with
your sandwich of peanut butter and your glass of milk, and a pompous and static baritone of Hollywood
you had that tendrias-un-coche-volador-en-tu-futuro. And then three engineers of Detroit is moving
around an old Nash with fins, and more evening it saw running to all speed by any track deserted of
Michigan. Really never you saw it take off, but surely it was flying towards the land of Neverland Dialta
Downes; the authentic home of a generation tecnofila without any inhibition. Was talking about these
references of it futuristic; in America, spend every day next to the architecture of the thirty and forty:
cinemas with canopies fluted to transmit certain mysterious power, cheap stores with corrugated
aluminium, chrome-plated tube chairs covering dust in the hotels of pass receivers. She saw these things
as fragments of a dream world, abandoned in the carefree present; and I wanted it fotografiase him for
it.
The years thirty witnessed the first generation of designers industrial American; until the thirties, all
Sharpener seemed Pencil Sharpener, a Victorian elementary mechanism, perhaps with a small
decorative Arabesque at the edges. After the advent of the designers, some Pencil Sharpener seemed to

have been assembled in tunnels of wind. For the most part, the change was only superficial: under the
aerodynamic chrome housing was the same Victorian mechanism. All which had true sense, as the
designers American more bright had been recruited between the rows of them designers theatrical of
Broadway. Everything was decorated, a series of elaborate ways to play live in the future.
When it comes to coffee, Cohen pulled out a thick envelope manila, full of glossy illustrations. I could
see the statues winged that saved it dam Hoover, hats ornamental of cement of ten meters tilting is
with symmetry before a hurricane imaginary. I saw a dozen of photographs of the building Johnson Wax
of Frank Lloyd Wright along with covers of the magazine's pulp [2]
Amazing Stories, performed by an artist called Frank R. Paul. The employees of the Johnson Wax should
of have is felt as if were walking by an of those utopias popular of Paul painted with airbrush. The
Wright building seemed to have been designed for people dressed in white togas and patent leather
sandals. I had my doubts concerning the sketch of an aircraft of line propelled to propeller particularly
giant, a single wing as a thick and disproportionate boomerang, with windows in places unusual. Arrows
indicator pointed to the location of a large room of dancing and of two tracks of squash. It was dated in
1936.
-This thing could not have flown, isn't it? -looked to Dialta Downes.
-Oh, no, completely impossible, even with these twelve giant propellers, but loved their appearance, do
you see? From New York to London in two days, first class dining rooms, cabins private Dancing jazz
during the night...The designers were then populacheros, do you see? Tried to give to the public what
they wanted. And what they wanted was the future.
I was in Burbank for three days trying to give charisma to a rockero really grey, when I received the
package of Cohen. It is possible to photograph what is not there, but it's damn difficult, and
consequently a very salable talent.
Although I'm not exactly the worst in that, this poor fellow was ruining the credibility of my Nikon. I
went depressed, because I like do well my work, although not depressed all, as I made sure of receive
the check by the work, and decided to recover me with the sublime artistry of the commissioned of
Barris-Watford. Cohen I had sent some books of the design of those years thirty, more photos of
buildings aerodynamic and a list of them fifty examples favorite of Dialta Downes of the style
Californian.
The architectural photography can require long waits; the building becomes a kind of Sundial while he
awaits that shadow to slide out the detail that you are interested in, or that the mass and balance of the
structure be disclosed in certain way. While waiting, I thought in America Dialta Downes.
When I captured a few manufacturing buildings in the lens of my Hasselblad, they came out with some
aspect of sinister totalitarian dignity, such as the stadiums that Albert Speer built for Hitler. But the rest
was vulgar to exhaustion: ephemeral material taken from the American collective unconscious of the
thirty, which mostly tended to survive in depressing shopping streets next to dusty motels, bedding and
small parking lots of second hand cars. I decided to go directly for the gas stations.
In the zenith of it was Downes put to Ming the merciless [3]
in charge of the design of the gas stations in California. Favoring the architectural style of their native
Mongo, he crossed the coast, erecting sites of stucco for their ray guns. Many of them displaying
Superfine Central Towers surrounded by a ring whose bizarre highlights of radiator, which were its
lifestyle brand, made them seem as if they were generating powerful bursts of raw enthusiasm

technology, if the switch connecting them could be found. Photographed an in San Jose, an hour before
the bulldozer arrived and had their structure, that actually was made of plywood, plaster and cement
cheap.
-Think about it - he had told Downes - as in a sort of alternative America, a 1980s that never existed, a
BROKEDOWN Palace architecture.
And this was my mindset as he toured the stations of his tumultuous architectural ordeal in my red
Toyota, Tuning with its image of a shadow America-to-not-was, Coca-Cola plants as stranded
submarines and cinemas in fifth class as temples of some lost sect who had worshiped the blue mirrors
and geometry. And while walked by those secret ruins, I found asking me how live the inhabitants of
that future lost. Them years thirty dreamed with marble white, with stelae of chrome, with glass
immortal and bronze glistening, but them rockets of the covers of the magazines of Gernsback had
fallen howling in London in full night. After the war, everyone had a car, without fins, and motorways
promised to lead them by land, so the own sky darkened and exhaust smoke eroded marble and dirty
the miraculous crystal...
And one day, in the outskirts of Bolinas, when I was all preparing to photograph a particularly striking
example of the martial architecture of Ming, I went through a thin membrane, a membrane of
probability...
Gently I entered on the edge.
And looked towards up to see a thing with twelve motors, as a giant boomerang, all wing, buzzing road
to the this with the grace of an elephant, so low that could see them rivets of his pale and silver surface
and could listen, perhaps, an eco of jazz.
I was told by Kihn.
Merv Kihn, a freelance journalist with an extensive work on Texas pterodactyls, villagers contacted by
aliens, leagues from haunts of the monsters of Loch Ness and the forty major in the American
imagination of mass conspiracy theories.
-It is good - said Kihn, cleaning their yellow glasses in his shirt sebum Hawaiian-, but it is not mental,
lacks the genuine fur.
- But I saw Mervyn.
We were lying on the edge of a pool, the bright Arizona sunshine. It is was in Tucson looking for to a
group of officials retired of the Vegas, whose leader received messages of them by means of their oven
microwave. He had driven all night and I was accusing him.
-By assumed that it did. Of course you saw it. Have read my things, would not have understood my
solution omniexplicativa for the problem of the UFOs? Is simple, simple-as-the-pacifier: the people-is
put carefully the glasses in his nose aquiline and me caught with his best look of basilisk-sees...
things. The people see those things. There is nothing there, but the people see them. Probably because
it needed. Have you read to Jung, you should know the reason... In your case, it is so obvious... You
admit that you are thinking of chipped architecture, having fantasies... Look, am sure of that you have
taken your ration of drugs, would not? Would how much people has survived to the California of the
1960s without have hallucinations rare? For example those nights when you discover that complete
armies of technicians from Disney had been hired to weave animated holograms of Egyptian
hieroglyphics on your jeans, or when...

"But it wasn't like that."

-Of course that does not. It did not seem at all; It was "in an environment of complete reality, right? All
normal, and suddenly appears the monster, the mandala, neon cigar. In your case, a gigantic airplane to
the Tom Swift.It happens all the time. You were not even mad. You know, not? -caught a beer from a
dented cooler of polyurethane that was next to your daybed-. Last week I was in Virginia. In Grayson
County. Interviewed to a girl of fifteen years that was breached by a cabezoso.
-A what?
-A bear head. The severed head of a bear. That cabezoso, do you know?, was floating out there alone, in
his small flying tray that looked like the Hubcap of the Caddy of collector's cousin Wayne has. It had red
eyes shining like two coals of pure and chrome telescopic antennas that came out you from behind their
ears - Kihn eruct.
-Assaulted her? How?
-Do not want to know it. I know that you are very impressionable. "It was cold" - returned to use his fake
drawl - "and metal". It was electronic noise. But this is what it is; the direct grain of the subconscious of
masses, my friend. That chiquita is a witch. There is no place here for it, allowing it to function in this
society. He would have seen the devil if not they had educated her with bionic man and all those reruns
of Star Trek. It is inserted in the heart. And you know what happened. I found it ten minutes before the
UFO guys show up with their polygraph.
I should look disappointed, as he let the beer carefully beside your fridge and sat down.
-If you want a more sophisticated explanation, I would tell you that it's a semiotic ghost. All those stories
of contacted, for example, are mounted on a sort of imagery of science fiction that permeates our
culture. He could admit aliens, but not aliens who resemble the comics of the 1950s. There are ghosts
semiotic, fragments of imagery of it culture deep that is break off and take life itself, as the aircraft to it
Verne that those old farmers of Kansas saw all the time. But what you saw was a type different from
Ghost, that is all. That aircraft formed part any time of the subconscious of masses. Somehow you
picked it. The important thing is to not worry too much.
Even so, I worried.
Kihn combed her blonde hair with entries and came out to see what they had to say lately in the radar
frequency; I ran the curtains of my room and I lay in the dark with the air conditioning running to
continue worrying. Still was in it when I woke up. Kihn had left a note on my door; flying northward on a
charter plane to verify a rumor about cattle mutilation (the exit, called them to him, another
journalistic specialty).
I went to eat, duch me, took a pill to lose weight half crumbled, which had been stumbling by my
shaving Kit for three years, and I went to Los Angeles.
Speed limited my vision to the tunnel formed by the front pockets of my Toyota. The body could drive, I
said to myself, while the mind put up. Hold and is depart of the vision altered by them amphetamines
and the tiredness of them windows side, of the vegetation spectral and luminous, that grows in the
corner of the eye of the mind along them motorways to half night. But the mind has its own ideas, and
the opinion of Kihn about what had thought that it was my 'view' turned endless in my head on a short
circular orbit. Semiotic ghosts. Fragments of the dream of masses, in whirlwind after the wake of my
route. Somehow, this feedback loop aggravated the effect of the slimming pill, and fleeting vegetation

along the road began to take the colors of infrared satellite images, while phosphorescent seeds gave
off by the slipstream of the Toyota. I did to a side and a half dozen of cans of beer I threw a wink of good
nights when turned off the lights. I asked what time would be in London, and tried to imagine me to
Dialta Downes taking is the breakfast, between figurines aerodynamic of chrome and books on culture
American.
The nights of the desert, in that country, are enormous. The Moon is more closely. I looked at her for a
good while, and decided that Kihn was right. The main thing was not to worry. Every day, all over the
continent, much more normal people that I've never aspired to be watched gigantic birds, yetis, flying oil
refineries... That was what gave him work and money to Kihn. Why should you be annoyed by a
fragment of the 1930s that was loose on Bolinas pop imagination? I decided to go to sleep with nothing
worse worry that rattlesnakes and hippy cannibals, safe between the garbage of the gutter of my own
continuous family. In the morning it would fall to Nogales and fotografiara the old brothels,
something that had wanted to do for years. Slimming pill had stopped giving war.
A light woke me up, and then did the voices.
The light came from some place behind me and threw shadows jumping inside the car. The voices were
calm, impersonal, a man and a woman engaged in a conversation.
My neck was stiff and felt the eyeballs rubbing against the basins. One leg is I had slept tight against the
wheel. Felt in the pocket of my shirt's task looking for them glasses until finally the found.
Then I looked back and saw the city.
The books of those years thirty were in the trunk; one of them had sketches of an idealized city inspired
by Metropolis and Things to eat, but it showed everything towards a perfect clouds of architect, as well
as ports for zeppelins and neon delusional spires. That city was a model to scale of which had to my
shoulders. A Spire was happening to another as in them steps of a resplendent Ziggurat, climbing until
the Tower central of a temple gold that was surrounded by them crazy rings of radiator of them gas
stations of Mongo. You could hide the Empire State Building in the more small of those towers. Roads of
Crystal rose between needles, crossed and turns to go through soft silver forms, such as drops of spilling
mercury. He air was crowded of ships, gigantic wings flying, tiny objects silver in form of arrow (in
occasions, an of those quick forms silver is rose gracefully in the air, from them bridges celestial, and
flew towards up to join is to the dance), aerostats of a mile of length, things in form of Dragonfly that
seemed autogyros...
Closed the eyes with force and I di it turned in the seat. When I opened them, I tried to see the
odometer, the white powder on the road in the glove compartment of black plastic, the overflowing
ashtray. I closed them.
-Psychosis amphetamine-I said. I opened the eyes. The glove box was there, as well as dust and
flattened cigarette butts. Very carefully, without moving the head, I turned on the headlights.
And then I saw them.
They were blond. They were beside her car, an avocado in aluminium with a shark fin coming out of the
Center and polished black tires, as the of a child's toy. He you surrounded with his arm by the waist and
gesturing toward the city. Both wore white, loose robes, bare legs and immaculate white sandals. None
of them seemed to perceive in my headlights. He told her something in a wise and confident tone and
she nodded. Suddenly I slashing, me slashing but in a way completely different. Lucidity was no longer
the issue; I knew that, somehow, the city that was behind was Tucson, a Tucson dreamed, vomited by

the collective desire of all a time. This was real, completely real. The couple who had been before me
living inside, but they were those who frightened me.
Were them children of the 1980s-that-not-were of Dialta Downes, were the heirs of the dream. Were
white, blond, and probably had those eyes blue. Were American. Dialta had said that the future had
come to America first, but finally he had spent long. But not here, in the heart of the dream. Here had
progressed more and more, within a logical dream that not knew nothing of the pollution, of the
reserves limited of the fuel fossil, of wars foreign that was possible lose. They were superficial, happy
and clearly pleased with themselves and their world. And in the dream, this was their world.
After me, the city lights: reflectors roamed the sky for the simple pleasure of doing so. The imagined
filling squares of marble white, in order and alert, their clear eyes shining excited by its streets
completely illuminated and full of cars silver.
Everything had the sinister flavor of the propaganda of the Hitler youth.
I put the car in motion, and drove forward, slowly, until the bumper was one meter of yours. I had seen
yet. Got out the window and heard what said the man. His words were false and empty Chambers of
Commerce brochures brightness, and I knew that he believed in them absolutely.
-John - I heard that woman said the, we forgot to take our food pills.
And with a click took two pills bright of a small deposit of your belt passing him a to it. I returned to the
road and headed to Los Angeles, flicking the throbbing head.
Phoned to Kihn from a gas station; a new, of a mediocre style Hispanic modern. Had returned from their
expedition and not seemed that you molestara the call.
-Yes, that is strange. You tried to take a photo? Not is that go to leave, but you added some touch
intriguing to your history, the not have photos is...
But what should be done?
-You see much television, especially contests and soap operas. Go to see movies porn. Seen Nazi Love
Motel? Here put it wired. Really horrible. Just what you need.
That was he talking about?
-For shouting and listen to me. I'm counting a professional secret: the really bad mass media can
exorcise your semiotic ghosts. If can remove me from over to that people of them dishes, can do it also
with those futuroides yours of Art Deco. Do you have to lose?
Then he begged me to let him, citing an early morning appointment with the elected.
-With who?
-With the elders of Las Vegas, the microwave.
Thought in put a Conference to collection collect to London, contact with Cohen in Barris-Watford, and
tell you that your photographer was doing a book for a long season in the area twilight [4]. To the end
left that a machine I prepare a coffee only impossible and I went up again to the Toyota, to go to them
angels.
The angels was a bad idea, and I was there two weeks. Was the country primary of Downes, there had
many fragments of the dream waiting for me to assault me. Almost crashed the car in the narrowing of a

departure, near Disneyland, where the road is deployed, as in a trick of origami, and I left dodging
siseantes drops of chrome with fins of shark in a dozen of structure. Even worse, Hollywood was filled
with people who seemed too close to the couple he had seen in Arizona. I hired an Italian director who
was about to leave and who was trying to earn some money until their boat with work developing and
installing patches on the edges of swimming pools. He revealed all the negatives that had accumulated
for the work of Downes. I didn't want to take a look at the material. Leonardo did not seem to care
about, and when it ended, I checked the copies through them quickly, as if they were a deck of playing
cards, and sent them by airmail to London. Then I took a taxi to go to the cinema where they Nazi Love
Motel while keeping your eyes closed during the whole journey.
Cohen sent me a telegram of congratulation to San Francisco a week later. Dialta loved the photos. He
admired the way I had dipped therein and hoped to return to work with me soon. That afternoon I
saw a flying wing on Castro Street, but there was something Dim, as if you were there only halfway. Ran
towards the kiosk more close and bought all what could on the crisis of the oil and the risks of the
energy nuclear. I ended up deciding me to buy a plane ticket to New York.
-Disgusting of world in which we live, huh? -the newsagent was a black slim with teeth damaged and an
obvious toupee. Nodded, digging the change in my jeans, anxious by find a bench in the park where can
I immerse in them hard evidence of it almost dystopia human in which live-. But it could be worse, eh?
-Of course-I said-, or even much worse, could be perfect.
I watched as he disappeared down the street with my small package condensed catastrophe.
[1]
Greek wine. (The T. N.)
[2]
Journals of large circulation whose paper pulp (pulp) was very cheap. Generally, the adjective is used for
certain magazines of detectives and of science fiction. (The T. N.)
[3]
The character of bad "Flash Gordon" comic strip. (The T. N.)
[4]
In English, Twilight Zone refers to the place where Paranormal phenomena occur. (The T. N.)

SNAKE EYES
-Tom Maddox -

By 1986, the new aesthetic of the 1980s was in full swing. The avant-garde of that time is brilliantly
represented by this tale of writer Virginia Tom Maddox.
Tom Maddox is Assistant Professor of language and literature at Virginia State University. It is not a
prolific writer, and his work now consists of a few stories. However, his master's degree in the
cyberpunk style has not been overcome.

In this visionary tale of fast-paced, Maddox moves agile and incisive by a broad spectrum of subjects and
obsessions of this current. "Snake eyes" [1] stands as a definitive example of the central theme of the
cyberpunk.
The meat of the Tin, dark, Brown, oily and punctuated of viscosities, dismissed a repellent odor to
fish. Its putrid bitter flavor came up to the throat, as if it were the digestion of the stomach of a dead
man. George Jordan is sat on the floor of the kitchen and vomited. Then, making an effort, is away of the
charco bright that now is seemed too to what was in the Tin. Thought: No, this not will serve: have
cables in the head and that is what I makes eating food of cat.
Cat food like the Snake".
He needed help, but I knew that little it was going to serve call to the air force. Already it had tried, but
said that not is going to take responsibility of the monster of his head. What George called the snake,
those of them forces air it called technology effective for interface human, TEIH, and not wanted to
know nothing about their problems side after be licensed. They already had their own difficulties with
the Congressional committees investigating 'the direction of the war in Thailand'.
He knocked out for a while with his cheek against the cold linoleum. Rose and rinsed his mouth in the
basin and then put his head under the tap, letting the cold water run and saying: then call the fucking
multinational, SenTrax calls and ask them if it is true that they can do something with the Incubus which
wants to take possession of your soul. And if they ask you what problem you have, tell them to cat food,
and maybe you respond that, shit, perhaps wants is to take control of your
food.
In the middle of the desolate room had a Brown upholstered Chair with a phone on one side and a
television bonded to the opposite wall. That was all; something that could have been a home if not for
the snake.
He picked up the phone and activated the screen book marked the number of TELECOM SENTRAX.
The Orlando Holiday Inn is was near the terminal of the airport to which arrived tourists anxious of the
delights of Disneyland. But for me, thought George, "not there are ducklings friendly and smiling
mice. Here, as elsewhere, I am in the city of the serpent".
He leaned against the wall of the motel room, noting how grey sheets of torrential rain covered the
sidewalk. He had been waiting for take-off for two days. Had a shuttle resting in his platform of Cape
Canaveral, and insofar as is riot the time, a helicopter it would pick up and it would take beyond, to the
station Athena, to ones thirty thousand kilometers on the ecuador land as a package directed to SenTrax
Inc.
In front of him, under a holoprojector Blaupunkt laser light, appeared figurines of one foot of height,
who spoke about the war in Thailand and the luck that had United States to avoid another Viet Nam.
Luck? Perhaps. To him had already wired it and post ready for combat, and was already accustomed to
the ergonomic rear seat of black fiberglass General Dynamics A-230 aircraft. The A-230 flew touching
the lethal instability limit, and each sensor of its fuselage was monitored by its own Bank of computers,
all connected to the cerebro-serpiente of CoPilot by two twin miopreno cables coming out of both
sides of your esophagus, and then he disappeared, oh, Yes!, when the cables are enchufaban, when the
fuselage echoed by his nerves with his exultant body by this new identity, by this new power.

Then the Congress ended with the war and them forces aerial finished to your time with George, and
when arrived its license, there is was he, completely wiring and without a place to where go, abandoned
with all that pathetic technology, with that hardware in your head that, starting from then, was to
charge life own.
Outside, the lightning crossed the sky purple, dividing it as if it were a kind of giant bowl of cracked
glass. In the holotelevisor, another man from a height foot said that the tropical storm would disappear
within the next two hours.
Rang the phone.
Hamilton Innis was high and heavy, measuring about six feet and weighed two hundred fifty pounds
approximately. Floating in a white glowing illuminated corridor. Dressed in black sneakers and a blue
monkey cobalt with the Sentrax letters in red on the left chest pocket, he carefully held a wall thanks to
one of the bands of velcro of the monkey. A screen on the gate of access showed how the shuttle joining
el morro in the berthing Wharf.Waited to be joined them hatches and to you send to the last of their
candidates.
It had been six months in the reserve and was slowly losing everything the doctors of the air forces had
got in his mind; former technical Sergeant George Jordan: two years at the State University of Oakland,
Calif., later enlisted in the air force and later trained as a crewmember in the TEIH. According to the
profile that the Aleph had extracted from reports from the air force, he was a man with skills and
intelligence slightly above average, as well as a pronounced tilt, above normal, limit situations, and
hence to be submit volunteer for the TEIH and combat. In the photographs of your tab seemed bland:
five feet and ten inches tall, and about seventy-six pounds of weight, hair and Brown eyes, or attractive
or ugly. But they were old photographs and could not show that the snake and fear had transformed
it. Don't know you well, colleague, thought Innis, "but still you have not seen anything rare truth".
Man came stumbling down the aisle, more or less lost in weightlessness, but Innis saw it trying to orient
themselves, looking forward to your muscles to stop fighting, trying to avoid is to take over from a
gravity that simply was no longer there.
-What the hell I do now? -asked George Jordan, floating between and with one hand seized the handle
of the door.
-Relax you, now you grabbed-Innis is projected away from the wall and, throwing is towards it, it seized
when passed to his side, floating both towards the wall opposite. He gave another kick against the wall
and they left.
Innis left George for a few hours to try, in vain, sleep; time enough also to them phosphenes caused by
the high level of gravity of the trip disappeared from his vision. George spent the greater part of the
time giving turns in his bunk, listening to the buzz of the air conditioning and them Crackle of the station
swivel. Then Innis knocked at the door of his cabin and said over the intercom:
-Come on, uncle. Time to see the doctor.
The oldest part of the station, where dark drops of glue fossilized scratches caused by the continuous
scour and faded logos and anagrams of companies on the green plastic soil, were they crossed. Magic is
repeated several times in a blurred typography. Innis told George that it meant international group of
orbital constructions, builders and original drivers of the Athena, a now defunct company.
Innis led George to a door where a sign announced: Group interface.

-Enter - he said-. I'll be back in a while.

Of the wall, of a soft color cream, Hung drawings of cranes painted with delicate strokes white on silk
ochre. The area central was limited by a series of bulkheads of foam translucent illuminated from behind
by a dim light.Later, these bulkheads became a runner in darkness. Now George was sitting in an
armchair made with chocolate-colored leather straps. In front of him, Charley is lay in a brown leather
and chrome chair with feet placed on a table of plywood black and half-inch ash hanging from the end of
his cigarette.
Charley Hughes was not the typical doctor. It had a slender figure within her worn clothes gray. His black
hair in a tight ponytail that reached her waist, sharpened his sharp features. His expression was tense,
with a touch of madness.
-Tell me about the snake - Charley Hughes said.
-What will you know? Is an implant of nexus microfono-microfono.
-Yes, I know. But that does not interest me. Tell me about your experience - cigarette ash fell on the
Brown carpet-. Tell me why you're here.
-Vale. I've been away from the air force more or less a month. Had a retreat near Washington, in Silver
Spring. I thought that I could get a job at an airline but had too much haste, and as yet I had six months
of pay after the license, I thought to take it easy for a while.
To the beginning I started to feel an inexplicable strangeness. I felt distant, disconnected, but what
pussy? That is living in the USA do know? Well, one evening was relaxing. On the verge of seeing a small
holovideo and drink a few beers. Jo, dude, this is difficult to explain. I felt something really fun,
something like a heart attack or a stroke. The words of the holovideo suddenly lacked direction and it
was like seeing it all under water. Then showed up in the kitchen taking things from the fridge: minced
meat, raw eggs, butter, beer and all kinds of crap. I just stood there and I swallowed it all. Casqu them
eggs and them sorb directly of the shell, I ate the butter to snacks, I drank all the beers, a, two, three,
so, without more.
George's eyes remained closed while he remembered and felt how grew again the fear that emerged
later.
-Not could tell if it was me who was doing all this... do you understand what I mean? I want to say that I
was who was really sitting there, but at the same time it was as if someone else were at home.
-The serpent. Their presence raises some... issues. How do you face them?
-I put in guard, waiting for that not me happen another time, but spent, and this time I went to see to
Walter Reed and les said, guys, I are happening these episodes!
- And you understood?
-No. took my reports, I had a physical check-up... but, shit, before that I always, had already embedded
me the entire apparatus. It is the same, they said that it was a psychiatric problem, so they sent me to a
shrink. It was then when you guys, when in contact with me. The shrink did me no good, dude, have
ever eaten cat food ever? Because, by that, to the month I called back.
-After having rejected the first offer of SenTrax.

-Should I like working for a multinational company? Life multi, multi thought., is not as well as it is
called? Dios! Just get out of the air force and I thought: to hell with everything. I guess the snake made
me change my mind.
-Now I see. We should get a complete physical picture, make you a super CAL scanner profiles brain,
chemical and electrical activity. Then we can consider the alternative. By the way, there is a party in the
Cafeteria 4, can ask you to your computer that you indicate how get. There you'll find at some of your
colleagues.
While George was guided through the corridor of foam rubber by a medical technician, Charles Hughes
smoke their Gauloises nonstop and looked at his hands trembling with clinical detachment. Was strange
that not cringe in the operating room, although in this case not mattered, as the surgeons of them
forces air already had made their work in George.
George... Now it was he who needed a bit of luck because it was one of those statistically insignificant
cases for which the TEIH meant a ticket for a very particular madness; just the kind of case that
interested him to Aleph.Were also Paul Coen and Lizzie Heinz. Also belonged to the same statistics, both
selected by a psychological profile prepared by the Aleph, both with implants placed by Charley
Hughes. Paul Coen had gotten into the hatch and was trapping itself in a vacuum. Now only remaining
Lizzie and George.
It was not surprising that his hands trembled; can talk all what want on the vanguard of the high
technology, but recalls that always has that having someone that grasp the scalpel.
In the shielded core of the station Athena had a nest of spheres concentric. The more internal measuring
five meters of diameter, was full of fluorocarbon liquid inert, and contained a bucket black of two
meters of edge of whose sides came out thick cables black.
Inside the cube was a series fluid wave hologramaticas in nanoseconds, with the pace of knowledge and
intentionality: the Aleph. The Aleph was formed by a consciousness infinitely recursive, in a sequence
determined by the will of the machine.
By this, speaking with precision, not existed such Aleph, equal that not existed subject or verbs in the
sentences that he is said to itself same. This represented a paradox, that for the Aleph was precisely one
of the most interesting intellectual forms; It was a paradox that marked the boundaries of an attitude,
even a way of being, and to the Aleph also limits interested him much.
He Aleph had observed the arrival of George Jordan, his discomfort in the bunk bed, his interview with
Charley Hughes. He loved these observations by piety, compassion and empathy that aroused him, since
they allowed him to predict the ocean of changes that George was going to suffer: ecstasy, passion and
pain. To the same time, the Aleph felt with distancing the need of their pain, even of a pain that you
closer to the death.
Compassion, distance, death, life...
Thousands of voices laughed inside the Aleph. Soon George would find their own limits and its own
paradoxes. Survive George? The Aleph so it was expected. He longed for human contact.
The Cafeteria 4 was a square room of ten meters of side, in the shape of a bluish egg shell, filled with
chairs and tables in dark grey enamel which could be fixed magnetically anywhere on the surface of the
room, depending on the direction that took the gravitational spin. Many of them objects hung from the
walls to offer more space to the people that was inside.

At the door, George found to a female high that you said:

-Welcome, George. I'm Lizzie. Charlie Hughes I said that come-your blonde hair was cut nearly to the
monkfish, their eyes were of a blue light with dots Golden. His nose sharp, the Chin somewhat receding
and some cheeks prominent you gave the appearance hungry of a model in paro. He wore a black, open
on both sides until the thigh skirt, and Red stockings. On the pale skin of his shoulder left, had tattooed a
rose red, whose green stem is curving down between their breasts naked, where a thorn you extracted
a stylized drop of blood. She also had a brilliant connection of cables under his jaw. Kissed to George
getting you the tongue in the mouth.
-Are you a recruiting officer? If so, you do well your work - George said.
-No need me to recruit you. I can see that you have already attached - he had to slightly under his jaw,
where there were connections.
-I've done it yet - but she was right, because what else could do?
-Do you have beer here?
She took the bottle of Dos Equis [1]
Lizzie offered him, drank it is quickly and ordered another. Then he realized it was a mistake; still had
not accustomed to the almost non-existent or low gravity and, in addition, was still taking anti-nausea
pills ("use with caution if you are working with machinery). All I knew at the time was this: two beers,
and life became a Carnival. There were lights, noise, tables and chairs hanging from the walls and ceiling
as surrealist sculptures, and many unknown people (presented him some, but soon forgot their names).
And was Lizzie. Both spent a good time to get hand into a corner. It was not quite the style of George,
but, at the same time, there seemed appropriate. Despite the intimacy, the kiss at the entrance had
seemed part of a ceremony, a rite of passage or initiation, but suddenly felt that... what?, an invisible
flame spread from one to the other, or better, a burning cloud of pheromones that shone in her
eyes. Then he you nibbled the neck, trying to slurp the drop of blood of his chest left, and explored their
perfect teeth with the language. It seemed as though they were cast, as if wires pass between the two,
connected to the gleaming rectangles under its jaws.
Someone kept a program Jahfunk enabled in the console of computers from the corner. Innis
approached several times to get their attention, but without success. Charley Hughes wanted to know if
Lizzie; liked the snake He liked, George was sure of it, but I didn't know what could imply this. More
afternoon George ended up falling apart is on the table.
Innis out there stumbling and making eses. Charley Hughes sought to Lizzie, that she had disappeared at
that moment. She came back and said:
-Where is George?
-Drunk, it has gone to the bed.
-What wrong. Just when began to get to know us.
-Ya, I think so. How you feel doing this type of stuff?
-Would like to say, the be a slut liar and treacherous?
-Come. Lizzie. All are involved in this.

-Good, then don't ask things so stupid. Since then I feel bad, but I know things that George does not
know, so I'm ready to do what you have to do. And, by the way, George really like me.
Charley added nothing. But thought: "Yes, the Aleph said it would".
"Oh God!" The next morning, George was embarrassed. Stumbling drunk and morreando me in
public... Ay ay ay! He tried to communicate with Lizzie but only leaving the answering machine, so it
hung instantly. He then lay on the bed in a semiestupor until the phone rang.
The face of Lizzie appeared on the screen, taking you the language.
-Sugar ass said you, I leave just a moment and you long.
-Someone I brought here. Well, I think that this was.
-Yes, you were pretty loaded. We eat together?
-Maybe. Depends on from when I call Hughes. Where will you be?
-In the same place, sweetie. Coffee 4.
By a called telephone knew that the doctor not you address until a time more afternoon, by what ended
sitting facing the crazy blonde of them eyes bright, that was dressed with the mono of SenTrax, but
unbuttoned almost to the waist. A sensual heat emitted, in the same natural way that a rose dismisses
her sweet aroma.
Before she had a plate of eggs rancheros half-buried in guacamole: yellow, red and green, with a spicy
smell of chile; in its current state, this was as bad as food for cats.
-God! Miss, would you get sick?
-Value, George. Perhaps you should eat a little. If you do not kill you will heal. What do you think so far
of all this?
-Is a little disconcerting, but, what pussy!, is my first time out of the mother earth, would know? But let
me tell you it what you fail to understand: SenTrax. I know what I want them to give me but..., do hell
they want from me?
-Uncle, only want this: perifes, peripheral. You and I only are parts of a machine. Aleph has all sorts of
inputs: video, audio, detectors of radiation, temperature sensors, repetitive satellite... But are silly. And
what the Aleph wants, the Aleph it gets. I've noticed that. He wants to use us, and of that is the
thing. Think in all this as in a research Basic for his part.
-Who is that it? Innis?
-No. who cares Innis a carajo? I speak of the Aleph. Oh, Yes! People say that the Aleph is a machine, an
it, and all those crap. JA, ja, the Aleph is a person, a very rare person, certainly, but a person, without a
doubt. Shit, even can that Aleph is a lot of people at the same time.
-You think. Look, there is something that I would like to try if possible. What I have that make for exit
outside..., to give a ride by the space?
-It is very easy. You have to get a permit. That means a course of three weeks over security and
procedures. I you can teach.

-Can you?
-Sooner or later here we all have to earn bread. I have the title of AEE, activities Extra space, I am
investigating. We will start tomorrow.
The walls cranes had flown towards their mysterious destination. George thought if would also be
another parallel universe as I watched the gleaming walls of foam and equipment placed on the table. In
front of the extending of the projector holoptico black plastic Sony looked the image of a brain with
wires sprouting of the optic nerves sectioned, as the antennae of an insect. When Hughes touched the
keyboard, the brain is turned, so it could now see its underside.
-Here it is - said Charlie Hughes. Then appeared a delicate lattice of silver wires, but everything seemed
normal.
-The brain of George Jordan - nodded Innis-. With their connections. Really nice.
-When I look at that thing seems to me as if you were watching my own autopsy. When can operate me
to remove it from my head? -George said.
-Let me teach you something - Charley Hughes replied. While typing and moving the mouse next to the
console, them convolutions gray of the cortex is returned transparent and is made visible the structures
internal coded in red, blue and green. Hughes put his hand in the center of the hologram of the brain
and closed fist within the blue area at the top of the spine-. Here is where the connections electrical will
become biological; all those small nodes along them pseudoneuronas are processors and are connected
to the called complex r, which have inherited from our predecessors the reptiles. The
pseudoneuronas continue towards the system limbic, or, if you prefer, the brain of mammal. And that is
where are the emotions. But there's more to the neurocortex, through the SAR, the Reticular activating
system, and connections to the Corpus Callosum. Also there are connections with the nerve optical.
-I have heard this talk before. What is the heart of the matter?
Innis said:
-Not there is way of removing those implants without has a loss in the order of your map neuronal. Can't
we touch them.
-Oh! Shit, uncle!
Charley Hughes continued:
-Although the serpent cannot be eliminated, it can perhaps be hypnotized. Your problems arise because
of its uncivilized and uncontrolled nature. You could say that their appetites are primal. A part primitive
of your brain it has proxy of the neocortex, which, certainly, should be that send. Working with the
Aleph, these... trends can be integrated into your personality and, therefore, controlled.
-What alternative do you have? -said Innis-. We are the last card that you have. Come, George. We are
to your disposition, to the other side of the corridor.
The only light in the room came of a sphere located in a corner. George was lying in a kind of hammock,
a network of Brown fibers twisted and tightened along a transparent frame, suspended from the vaulted
ceiling of the small pink room. Some cables out of your neck and disappeared after chrome plates
embedded in the ground.

-First activate the program from check-said Innis-. Charley will provide you insights, colors, sounds,
tastes and smells, and tell him what you feel. We need to be sure that we have a clean interface. Di
what you see and it will stop if is necessary.
Innis went through the door to the narrow room rectangular, where was sitting Charley Hughes facing a
console of plastic dark full of lights. Behind him, stacked, there were chrome equipment monitoring and
control with the yellow logo of SenTrax, a Sun refulgiendo on the front of the shiny metal.
The walls Roses is returned red, the lights hesitated and George is agitated in his hammock. The voice of
Charley Hughes came to the inner ear of George:
-We started.
-Red-, said George. Blue. Red and blue. One word: ostrich.
-Well. Go on.
-A smell, ahhh... maybe sawdust.
-You got it.
-Shit... vanilla... almonds...
So it continued for awhile.
-As ready - Charles Hughes said.
When the Aleph is connected, disappeared the room red.
An array of 800 x 800. Six hundred forty thousand pixels formed an optical representation of the
remains of a supernova GAS: a cloud of stellar dust represented by the synthesis of x-rays and radio
waves collected by the OAEOA, the high energy Observatory in high orbit. But George does not saw the
image at all. Rather, it was like hearing a set of sorted data and with sense.
Transmission by bytes. 750 million of issuers that covered from a satellite of the Agency of security
national to a station receiving near Chincoteague Island, in the shore this of Virginia, and now it them
could read.
-All is information-said the voice. His tone had warmth but not sex and of any manner was distant. What we know, what we are. You are now on a new level. What you call 'the snake' cannot be defined
by the language, exists in a prelinguistico mode, but you can handle it through me. However, you must
first know the codes in which the language is based. You must learn to see the world as I see it.
Lizzie led George to try on a suit, and employed throughout the day to teach him to get in and out
without the help of its rigid shell. Then, for three weeks, he guided in the basic operations and by the
dense manual security procedures.
-Red burn - she said. They were floating in the tank of the costumes with the platforms behind, empty
the white shells hanging on the wall as an audience of disconnected robots. When you see written in the
Viewer, is that it has fucked. It is that you've gotten into a path without return. Then you calm yourself
completely and ask for help, which must come from the Aleph, which takes over the functions of your
suit, and then you you relax and not do shit.
First flew inside the dome illuminated of the station with the viewer open and with Lizzie screaming you
and laughing is when is stumbled out of control and clashed against the walls padded. After practicing a

few days, left out of the station. George went to the end of a Cape with the viewfinder since and sailing
with their instruments, while Lizzie you took the hair with things as burn Red!, failed in the
costume! and things so.
At the time who devoted most of his energies and attention to train with the suit, George reported
every day to Hughes and connected with the Aleph. The hammock is bobbed gently when is himself in
it. Charley connecting the cables in your site and is going.
The Aleph is unveiled slowly. Taught code machine and compiler, which allowed him to explore the vast
trees of the language C-SMART, with its intelligent assistant decision-making programs. This you
opened all the spectrum electromagnetic as is produced in the Aleph. And then George it understood
everything: the voices and the codes.
When it is disconnected, the knowledge evaporated, but still something was, up to that time was only
an alteration of their perceptions, as if the world had changed.
Instead of colors, I could see a portion of the spectrum; instead of smells, I felt the presence of certain
molecules; instead of words, I listened to a structured sequence of phonemes. The Aleph had infected
his consciousness.
But that worried not about George. Seemed that something is was cooking in its interior, as began to be
aware, more or less constantly, of the snake, that although asleep was certainly there. One night
smoked almost a full package of the Gauloises of Charlie, and the next morning woke up as if it had
barbed wire on fire in the lungs and throat. That day answered rudely to Lizzie while she he was guiding
his steps, and momentarily lost control completely. She had that disconnect the drivers of your costume
and get it.
-Red burn - said. Uncle, what cone you passes?
At the end of the third week left only. No more excursions tied to a rope, but activity outside of
station; get your ass to the eternal night. Came out with care of the protection of the hatch and looked
to its around.
The grid of Orbital energy, the work of spatial construction that had allowed the existence of the
Athena, appeared before him: a kind of grille color ebony with silver Sun-oriented microwave
transmitters and photovoltaic collectors. But the station itself amazed by its mix of structures to live,
work and experience, clustered without apparent respect the symmetry and order. Some of these were
to learn gravity by rotation, others remained still under direct sunlight. Figures with amber beacons
crawling slowly along its surface, or moved towards the transport of red lights, resembling large piles of
scrap metal as they moved into their spacious paths, their rockets on briefly as hard diamond.
Lizzie remained right next to the door, watching over him by his radio beacon, but at the same time
letting him go at your pace.
-Depart from the station - he said-. The view of the Earth cover you.
He moved away.
White clouds covered the blue globe and Brown and green stains are glimpsed through them. To them
14:00 hours of the schema of the station, is was seeing, almost perpendicular, the mouth of the
Amazon, where was noon, by what the land was completely illuminated by the light solar. The Earth was
only a thumbnail that occupied just nineteen degrees of your field of vision...

-Oh! Yes! -George said. Them buzzing and murmurs of the system of air conditioning of the costume, the
static of a radiation passed and his breathing accelerated inside the helmet, emerged in that time by
their headphones. Were them own sounds of the situation, overlapping to the pleasant feeling of being
floating. His breathing is reassured and disconnected the radio to remove the static. Then turned off the
air conditioning to float in the middle of a deafening silence.
Then it became in a point white in the evening.
Soon after, a white suit with Red Cross instructors chest moved for your field of vision.
-Shit! said George and connected the radio. Lizzie, I'm here.
-George, not do crap. Hell were you doing?
-Just watching the landscape.
That night he dreamt of pink shoots of shrubs trimmed against a luminous purple sky. And he also
dreamed of rain static noise. Something scratched his door and he woke up with the characteristic smell
clean, own a space station machinery. He felt a deep sadness because the rain would never fall there
and turned to continue sleeping, waiting to go back to dreaming of that idyllic landscape in the
rain. Then thought: someone is there outside, "rose, and, check by the red numbers on the wall were
two in the morning, went naked to the door.
The white spheres formed a line of sad halos of light is curving along the corridor. Lizzie was lying,
without moving. George is knelt down and it called by its name: his foot left made a noise to the hit on
the floor metal.
-What about you? -their nails, enamel of a color dark, scratched the floor and she said something that
he not understood-. Lizzie-said it-. What do you want?
His eyes caught the Red drop of blood between the white curves of her breasts and felt how something
awoke in him. Seized the chest of their mono and it opened of a pull to the fly. She you scratched them
cheeks e made that sound that had millions of years, then rose its head and you looked. A glance of
mutual recognition crossed between them like an electric current: Snake eyes.
Rang the phone. George replied and Charley Hughes said:
-See to the sala of conferences. We have to talk about-Charley smiled and hung up without more.
On the wall read: 07:18 GMT in the morning.
In the mirror appeared a grey face with red scratches and traces of dried blood; the face of the victim of
a car accident or Jack the Ripper the next day... Did not know what decision, but something inside him
was happy. It felt as if it were a toy snake, hopelessly out of all control.
Hughes was sitting at one end of the dark table plywood. Innis on the other and Lizzie between
them. The left side of his face was red, and tumefacto with a small bruise under the eye. George played
is unconsciously Livid scratch your cheek, sitting on a chair outside the circle.
-The Aleph told us what happened - said Innis.
-How know you cone's? -George said, but while saying it recalled the concave circular wall of glass in the
roof of halls and also in your room. He felt shame, guilt, humiliation, fear and rage. Is rose from the

Chair and was towards the end of Innis-. The Aleph you saw everything? -asked - what did the snake,
Innis? Said you hell goes wrong?
-It is not a snake - Innis said.
-Call him Jack, said Lizzie, if it is that you need to give it a name. Habits of mammal, George, horny cats.
A voice family, quiet and distant, came out of the speakers from the ceiling of the room.
-She tries to tell you something, George. There is no snake. Like believe that there is a species of reptile
within you, cold and calculating, that enjoys with strange pleasures. However, as the doctor Hughes
already you explained, the implants are a part organic of you same. Already not you can escape any
longer your liability for these behaviors. Now they are part of you.
Charley Hughes, Innis and Lizzie looked at him still and expectant. Everything that had been going began
to settle on it and went through it leaving it completely disoriented. Turned and left the room.
-Maybe someone should talk to him - said Innis. Charley Hughes stayed seated, pensive and without
saying a Word, wrapped in a cloud of smoke from his cigarette.
-I'll go - said Lizzie. He arose, and went after him.
Then Charley Hughes said:
-Probably you're right - a floating image made him shake his head: Paul Coen inflating like a balloon and
exploiting in access compartment. Saw her engraved with terrible clarity of the omniscient Alephsurveillance cameras, hopefully having learned something from our mistakes.
Aleph did not answer anything, it was as if it had never been there.
The fear has two stages. A, you lose the control completely. Two, then your real self arises, and not like
anything. George wanted to escape, but there was no place to hide in the Athena station. Here he was
face to face with the consequences. Walter Reed operating table seemed to now be thousands of years
away, when the team of surgeons met to her around, when his doubts disappeared with that cold smell
chemical to penetrate him in waves. He had agreed to undergo the operation, tempted by the attractive
peculiarity of all that (part of the machine and feel its vibration within you to guide it), mesmerized by
the prospect of an unspeakable acceleration, to fly at that altitude. Yes, the first time in the A-230 had
felt that her nerves stretching, connecting to the fuselage of fiberglass, bonded to one force much larger
than his own..., wishing to cross the sky guided by single force of his will. He had been bribed by the
sweet dream of technology...
Then someone called with a blow-dry at the door. Through the intercom, Lizzie said:
-Let me go. We have to talk.
He opened the door and asked:
-About what?
She entered, looked at by the small room of walls color cream, the vacuum desktop metal and the old
catre, and George could guess in their eyes the closeness of it last night; both together in that bed, on
the floor.
-On this said she. He took his hands and pushed the index fingers on his own neck wires connections. Feel the difference-felt the fine Grill with their fingers-. No more knows what it means. No one knows

who we are, what we can do. See a world different, the world of the Aleph, can get more deeply to our
inside, experience impulses that are hidden to the others, impulses that they deny.
-No, shit, not was I. Call it as you want..., was the snake, or the cat.
-George, you're behaving like a fool by the way.
-Simply do not understand anything.
-Do you understand, perfectly. You want to go back but there is no where to go. There is no Eden. This is
what it is, all there is.
But it could fall towards the Earth, I could fly there at night. Within the gauntlets of AEE costume hands
were pressed with claw-like controls. Slightly closing the fist and hold it for a while, all the peroxide
would end and it would deplete tank propulsion of the costume. That would be enough.
He was not able to live with the snake. Either you liked the cat. But how much worse would be if there
were no cat or Serpent, only it, programmed with particularly repulsive forms of violent lust and
gluttony, trapped inside his miserable I ('have us the results of their tests, doctor Jeckyll'). Eh!, what
comes then?, would harass to children, murder? The Earth blue and white, the star, the night. Pulled
gently of the remote control with your hand right and turned to contemplate by last time the station
Athena.
"Call it what you want, is alive and kicking within me." With your anger, your lust, your appetite. To the
shit with all them, George, is said, "to burn is.
On the control of Athena, Innis and Charley Hughes were looking over the shoulder of the officer of the
watch when Lizzie came. As long as he spent a long time without visiting it, Lizzie was surprised by the
smallness of the Hall and its general appearance of dirt; usually occupied it only the officer in
charge. The screens were turned off and disconnected consoles. The Aleph ran the station, both in
routine as during emergencies.
-What? -He asked Lizzie.
-Something goes wrong with one of your new friends - said surveillance - officer. I do not know what
exactly.
He turned to Innis, who said:
-Do not worry, Mr.
Lizzie is dropped into a Chair.
-Has anyone tried talking to him?
-No answer - the surveillance officer said.
-Will be well-said Charley Hughes.
-It's gonna burst - Innis said.
The red dot on the radar screen coordinates just moved.
-How you feel, George? -a soft and reconfortadora female voice said.

George struggled with the impulse of open the helmet to see them star, as seemed important to see
its real color.
-Who is? -asked.
-Aleph.
Oh, shit! More surprises!
-Never ever had that voice.
-No, because trying to bring me to the idea that you had of me.
-Well, and what is your true voice?
-Do not have any.
-If not have a voice real, then not exist-that you was evident to George, although for reasons that are
you escaped-. So who are a cone?
-Who you want it to be.
"This is interesting," George thought. Crap, replied the Snake (they could call it whatever they want, for
George, it would always be the Serpent), we are going to burn us.
-Don't you understand - said George.
-You would get it if you keep living. Really you want to die?
-No, but I don't want to continue being me, and death seems the only possible alternative.
-Why not would be you?
-Because I scare.
A part of George realized that this was the typical dialogue between the lunatic and the voice of
reason. God, thought, I kidnapped myself.
-I don't continue with this - he said. Shut off the radio of the costume and felt how his rage grew in its
inside, the snake furious to the maximum.
What problem have?, he wanted to know. Really not expected a response but it obtained: an image in
your head of a sky without clouds, the horizon turning, a hunting of combat grey fleeing of his field
visual and the fuselage of its aircraft trembling when them missiles leave, their stelae directed towards
the other aircraft making is in a ball of fire. Behind the image, an idea clear: I want to kill to someone.
OK. George spun the suit again and focused his sights of navigation on the blue and white globe that
appeared in front of him. Then tightened the devices of the fingers. Kill to someone.
RED, RED, RED BURN BURN BURN.
Flowed an inarticulate question, raised by the inside thing, but George paid no attention: was absorbed
in what was doing, thinking: we're going to burn of truth. Had finished with all their opportunities in
the same moment in that left that you did the implant, and now them given is had arrested: eyes of
snake, so all what remained was choose a form quick of die, a nice end; "fuck you, snake '.

When the Earth was approaching, the snake took command. Didn't like what was happening. George
shut off communication circuits one by one. He didn't leave the Aleph to take the control of the suit.
George not saw come the transporte-robot. Seemed a bedspring with them spring traps, covered with
scrap and with them waste of a warehouse and provided of antennas parabolic and telescopic in his part
top. Launched a dozen of rescue ropes to a few hundred meters away. Four caught up with George,
three of them were seized and, winding, were dragging it. Then be directed to the station Athena.
George felt rage, not by the snake, but by itself itself, and wept by his anger and by its
frustration... Next time finish with you, bitch, you said to the serpent, and he could feel how she is
replicating. She believed him.Despite this, his rage grew and shouted, stirring is in the cables that you
held, hitting is the helmet with them gloves.
Ones arms articulated it passed from the transport to the hatch of input. It was allowed to carry,
exhausted their anger, and arms held to introducing, by the hatch, until the deposit of costumes. There
he was placed in an aluminium hanger. He saw Lizzie through the Viewer, wearing a one-piece cotton
underwear. She hoped to find it on the outside, still in transit. He climbed up to where he was George
costume and manipulated it to open in half rigid carapace. While opened with the buzz of electric
motors, she turned to one of the halves. You have disconnected the switches legs and flexible arms,
dropped the helmet and took out it to George's head.
-How do you feel?
What most silly question!, was about to tell George.
-As an idiot.
-This well. You have already passed the most difficult.
Charley Hughes watched them from a walkway above them. From that distance, seemed children in
clothes inside white, twin coming out of a uterus of plastic, monitored by the shells that hung
over. Twins incestuous, as she had huddled over him and kissed him on the neck.
-No I'm a voyeur-said Hughes. He opened a door and entered the Hall where Innis was waiting for him.
-How goes everything? -Innis said.
-It seems that Lizzie still will be with him a good time.
-Yes, fucking love, eh, Charley? I'm happy for them... If not out by that tie erotic, we would have that be
that you explain all to it. And I assure you that that is the worst part of the stunt.
-No can evade us from our responsibility so easily. He would have known that we would put him in
danger, and I don't like having just hidden.
-Don't be so sensitive. You know what I mean. I am tired. Look, if you need me, call me - e Innis
disappeared down the corridor.
Charley Hughes sat on the floor with their backs against the wall. It extended his hands with the Palms
down and stretched fingers. Firm, very firm. When they brought the new candidate, they would
tremble.
Lizzie would be explaining now certain things. This was the most important issue: during these weeks,
when you thought that you were getting used to the Aleph, it encouraged the thing you're inside that he

rebelled, and then she repressed her desire to act. In other words: climbing the fire to the tea to while
opened the spigot from time to time.
"You went crazy, you pushed to suicide. "But we had good reasons." George Jordan, if not was dead, it
was in State terminal. Already was in the list critical when you grafted the implant in her head. The only
question was: would appear a new George, one that would be able to live with the snake?
George was as Lizzie to the principle; a fish gasping for breath, buried in the mud hot and with the water
drying is to its around. Adapt or die. But unlike other organisms, this had a guardian, the Aleph, who
forced the crisis and controlling their development. Call it evolution artificial.
Charley Hughes, who not used to have visions, however had a: George and Lizzie connected between
themselves and both to the Aleph, with gold cables bright, shining and sharing a privacy that only others
as they could know.
The corridor lights were reduced to a Dim twilight. 'I'm dying or you have turned off the lights?' He
looked at his wrist watch but it withdrew, unaware the truth: the lights had turned off, but also it was
dying.
The Aleph thought: "I am a vampire, an Incubus, a succubus. I get into the brain of others and I suck his
thoughts, perceptions, feelings; I savor the subtle differences of colors and flavors, rage, lust and
hunger. All this would be me barred, without direct connection to those systems refined by millions of
years of evolution, if it wasn't for the human "Editors". "The need".
Five lines white, barely visible, ran by the central tendon of the wrist of Lizzie.
-He was in the tub - he said. Them scars is extended along the wrist, not to your through, and the injured
should of have been very deep-. I wanted to do it, like you. Once the snake understands that will die
rather than leave that you control, then you regain the control.
-OK, but there is something that does not understand. That night, in the Hall, you were so out of control
as I.
-In true sense, Yes. Let that happen, left that out the snake. I had to do it if I wanted to get in touch with
you, if I wanted to provoke the crisis. It happened because I wanted to. I had to show you what you are,
what am I...Last night we were strange, but we were still being human; Expelled from paradise, Adam
and Eve under the sword of fire, fucking in the eyes of God and of his angel, most beautiful of what they
might have been ever - felt a small shiver in her body tight against the of it, and then he looked at her,
and saw his passion, and understood that he needed it. He also saw his nostrils dilated flaps, felt his
curved lips and how your nails splattered you side, and saw himself reflected in their dilated pupils with
Golden spots, reflected in the bright white of their eyes; all were easy to identify signals but difficult to
understand: Snake eyes.
[1]
The author plays with a double meaning: eyes of snake - the animal - and the name of a play in which
out two ACEs in the game of Craps and Craps Odds, which means to lose it all. (The T. N.) 2 Mexican
beer.
(The T. N.)
ROCK ON

-Pat Cadigan
Pat Cadigan's literary career began with the Decade. His work has shown a wide variety of subjects
ranging from a dark fantasy [1]
and to an original and unconventional sci-fi horror.
Cadigan style is often characterized by the force of a steel mind and a frozen and underground black
humour, that is, the sensitivity that could only be called like punk in the 1980s. In his Pathosfinder series
(which includes such stories as 'Nearly Departed') highlights its atmosphere strangely visionary.
The multifaceted talent of Cadigan includes a remarkable gift to bring out the central theme of the
cyberpunk. This story, which appeared in 1985, is a brutal collision of high technology and the marginal
rock.
His first novel was The Pathosfinder. Lives in Kansas.
It rain me woke up and thought: shit, here I am, with the Lady rain in the face because is just there
where me reaches, on my old jeta. I sat down and saw that it was still on Newbury Street. It includes the
beautiful Centre of Boston. Is Middlebury Street downtown Boston? This mattered much in half of the
night? No, actually not. And a soul is not seen in the surrounding area. As said someone, drunk to Gina,
and while is unconscious, we go all to Vermont. I love New England? It's a great place to live, but who
does not like to visit.
I took the hair of those eyes and I asked if someone I would be looking for in that time Eh! There is
someone that is scared of a sinner of the rock and roll of forty years?
I rushed to one of those curious and old buildings in which there are shops with entrance to a level
lower than the ground. A small canopy shelter from the rain, but had a maddening patter by channeling
it down. I escurr the water from my tight pants and my hair and, without more, sat me all wet. I also
had cold, I guess, but I didn't notice it too.
I sat a while with his chin resting on his knees, do you know?, and that made me feel again like a baby. I
started to move his head and so started something; something primitive, leading the pace surprisingly
well. Man-of-Guerra, if you could see me now! When the boys in blue I encountered, I was doing a rock
'n' roll pretty good.
And that was the final blow. I never tried to get up and go, but if it had done so, he would have
discovered was trapped in that place; a site sticky intended to capture in the Act to them kids b & e until
them boys of blue could arrive, enter and take them. She sat in a trap and making it more and more
deep. The story of my life.
Were friendly with me. I guided, led me, left me exhausted. I put a fine of one hundred turkeys and I left
follow my road, in time for the breakfast.
Bad time to see and be seen, sincerely awful. During the three first hours after lift you, the people can
know if you have the heart broken or not. The solution is, either you get up really soon, so your cloak is
in place at the time when everyone leaves, either not to lie down. Not bedtime should always work, but
it is not so.

Some times, when not you going to the bed, the people can know during all the day if you have a heart
broken.
Left that of side, to search a cafe not too busy and avoiding look to somebody that I looked. But it
appeared the momentum stop a pedestrian at random and tell him:
-Yes, Yes, it is true, but it was rock and roll that broke my heart, not a person, so do not cry for me or
you birth the face.
Di a rodeo, I went and I went down, I went everywhere, until I found on Tremont Street. He was the
drummer of that group of Detroit Crater; be forgotten his name but the wound was bleeding, da, it was
he who told me that Tremont had the best coffee shops in the world, especially when you salas one of
these Kurdish that you don't remember anything.
When the Office workers began to leave is, I found a site; a Greek hole in the wall. Close to ten o'clock,
get out as soon as finish, service only in the bar, take it or leave it. I like the places with character. I took
seat and asked for a coffee and a tortilla of cheese feta. It was accompanied by French fries of the
mountain of potatoes that had next to grilled (not microwave waste, hurrah!). Impressed my retinas
before even of to bring me coffee, and while serving me milk, checked my credit. Was an
impertinence? It was. I matter? Not. nothing sophisticated, nothing of machines when a human could do
the task, and also, food authentic, not that polyester edible that it same you enters that you sale, thanks
to which, sweetheart, can finish looking like a victim of the malnutrition.
Came when almost had finished the omelette. By its appearance and from the tone of her voice had
been standing all night, but I not checked on their faces if they had broken the heart. I put nervous but
thought: good, are tired, who is going to set in this old lady? No one.
Again, I was wrong. I became visible to them as soon as they opened their eyes. A boy of about
seventeen, with the tatooed cheeks and a forked tongue, projecting it forward, sise like a snake.
-Pecadooooora! [2]

The other four are resuscitated instantly.

-Where? Who? Here?
-A pecadooora of rock and roll!
The Lady I identified. Didn't anyone at all: even had suffered a slight tachycardia if it is that he really had
heart. A sinner, it surely would be great lady.
-Gina-said with all security.
To my left eye it went into a tic. Please! Feta cheese fell into my pants. What demons, thought, asentir
with the head, and they also it will make, will conclude of eat and go running. And then, someone
whispered the word reward.
I dropped the fork and I ran.
I thought that would work. Would you go to hunt me before eating my Greek breakfast? No, not it
would do. Sent to the lady behind of me.

Was much more young that I and I grabbed in the middle of a step of Zebra, just when changing the
traffic light. A car we broke up, and slowed down just with your bumper touching his hard coppery hair.
-Return and finish yourself your tortilla. Or you invite another.
-Not.
Caught me and took me from the street.
-Go-the people was looking, but Tremont is full of theatres. You see this sort of thing out here; Theatre
in the open air; It is still represented. Put a wife on my wrist and took me with her back to the cafeteria,
where others had sold on sale the rest of my tortilla to a tramp. The Lady and his group did a gap
between them and brought me another Cup of coffee.
-How you can eat or drink with a language bifida? -asked to cheeks tattooed, and it me it showed. It had
a small device under the tongue, like a zipper. Pesopluma, to the left of the chicarron and to the other
side of the Lady, is leaned on me and I said angry:
-Give us a reason by which not should take you to collect the reward of the man-of-Guerra.
I shook his head.
-I'm on it. This sinner has been forgiven.
-Legally still are under contract-said the Lady-. But we could manage something. Get rid of man-of-war
or sue it yourself by not fulfilling the contract. We are Malnacida Oley - noted itself - Pidge - silent type
who had by his side-, - the chicarron - Percy, Krait Mr tongue, Gus Pesopluma. We care for you.
I again shook his head.
-If you are going to give me back, do it now and cobrad. The benefit should suffice you to buy the best
sinner that ever existed.
-We can be useful.
-I no longer have nothing more. Has disappeared. All my sins of rock 'n' roll have been forgiven.
-False - he said the chicarron. Automatically I became, I looked at him to stop it dry-. Man-of-Guerra you
would have fired if would have disappeared entirely. Then you would not have why run.
-I didn't tell him. Leave me in peace. I am only looking for go and Sin no more, do you
understand? Decide what you. Won't help you - I grabbed a stool with both hands. In this way, what
could do, start it and pull me out?
And in fact, so it did.
At the beginning, I thought, and the effect of its eco was super. In the beginning... beginning...
beginning...
In the beginning, the sinner was not human. I know because I am the old enough to remember.
They were all there, little more than ghosts. Malnacida. Where will draw those names? I am the old
enough to remember. Oingo-Boingo and Bow-Wow-Wow. I have forty, I have mentioned it
before? Oooh, just a few more, and then it will be a little closer to be an outrage. The old rockers never

die, only continue playing rock. I never saw the Who. Moon was dead long before I was born. But I
remember, when I was just the enough more to be rocking me [3]
in the arms of my mother, while thousands of individuals shouted and applauded dancing in their
seats. Start me up... if you start me up, Ill never stop... 763 strings surrendered to the music for
elevators and dentists waiting rooms. And that not was it worse.
They grabbed my memories, extracting more than me, turning me around. You have experience?... As
Yes.
(Because itself.)
Five against one, not I could get them over. In justice, would call it rape when you know that you will
like? Good, as not could remove me them from over, then had that give them the time of their
life. Jerkin' Crocus not killed me but almost...
The chicarron was the first to fall, was large and wild but was too screwed for it. I took it, I kept it tight,
showing you the rhythm of the night in the rain. Is it di, is it got up to the heart and did that it
lived. Then came the Lady, deploying the theme for the bass. She was frantic, but almost always in the
right place.
Then came the Krait, sliding is sinuously with the sound, entering and exiting. No matter your cheeks
tattooed, not only were a hook for fools. Knew, not what you imagined, but knew.
Pesopluma, a kind silent, carried the melody and first harmony. Very bad. Pesopluma was a disaster, but
didn't know what to do or where to go when I went into this matter, he was fleeing towards later with
the melody, as if it were the "S. S. Suicidio [4].
Dios! If I were to violate, not could have I got to someone more suitable? The other four continued,
denying is to lose is it, and had that do it it best possible for all us. Something vulgar, not too original, as
Pesopluma was not doing rock. It was a crime, but all he could do was grab them and shake them. Gods
of the rock in hands of a sinful furious.
Never were better. A small change that gave them a glimpse of what would be a lot of money. If it had
not been for Pesopluma, they would have succeeded. Now there are more groups than ever, and all of
them are confident that if they had the sinner right beside her, would topple the moon with its rock.
Maybe we made it vibrate a little before the end. Poor Pesopluma!
I gave them more than what they deserved, and they also realized. That's why, when I begged them,
they showed me respect and finally let me go. Its technicians were friendly with me, taking my poor
head connections, beating by the excess, with a broken heart, and coated implants. Had that sleep and
me it allowed. I heard a man say:
-This is a recording; going direct. You must hurry to distribute it. Where Devils found to this sinful?
-Synthesizing-murmur already in dreams-. The word authentic, chico, is synthesizing.
Old and crazy dreams. Was of turned with man-of-Guerra in the great California, and it left again, that
basically was what had last, but already know how are those dreams. The half of his salon was to
outdoor, the other half covered and all their walls, domed. Man-of-war was almost without clothing, as
if you had forgotten you finish dressing. Oh, but that was not happening ever. Man-of-Guerra forgetting
even a dress or a motif? You loved to act, as to the Krait.

-Never again - I said, and he replied:

- But you don't know how to do anything else. Not you're shitting it?
-Guys, in the great California nobody caga it, how much juice they miss.
-Your contract lasts another two years and I have the exclusive, I always have the exclusive. And you
love, Gina, you know, you do not feel well without this.
And then there was a trip back in time, and was again in the 'tank' with all my implants plugged, making
rock, while man-of-war and their machines everything, sound and vision, recorded it so that all of the
ninostv of the world could play it on their screens whenever they wanted to. Forget you of the road
and forget you of them shows, too mess, and, also not have comparison with them tapes, never are so
exciting, even although have the best effects special of laser, ships space, explosions; nothing so
good. And the tapes at the same time were not as good as the material in the head, visions of rock and
roll directly from your mind. Without need of hours and more hours of mounting in the study. But you
had to do that everyone in the Group dreamed of the same way. Needed a synthesis, and for that, you
got a synthesizer, not the old, the instrument musical, but something, someone, to head the group, for
hitting in them small souls fed by the tube of rays cathode, for rocking them and make them roll [5]
in such way that they never could do it by itself same. And so anyone could be a hero of the rock and
roll. Either!
To the end, not had that play instruments unless is would like to, and also, to what bother is? Let that
the synthesizer guide your imagination and the climb to the Mount Olympus.
Synthesizer. Sintecador. Sinner.
Not everyone can do it, sin by rock and roll. And I can.
But not is it same that jump all the night with the typical group of bar that still nobody knows... Man-ofwar appeared again in his bulge lounge and told me:
-You me ever trapping the walls of my house with your rock. Never to let go.
And I said:
-I'm going.
Then showed up outside, running to the principle, because it would come after of me at all speed. But I
should of losing it, and then someone I grabbed of the ankle.
Pesopluma brought a tray, was a sister of charity. Was hit in the knee against a leg of the bed and I
incorporated slowly. She is rise of his tomb, not can finish with a good sinner.
-Takes - let the tray on my lap and pulled a Chair up closer. It gave me a bowl with a sort of thick soup,
cookies whole split them and put them inside-. Thought that you would like to something soft and
simple-crossed his foot left on the leg right and it was looking for a good while-. Never I had roqueado,
never in that way.
-Do not need you, no matter who you roquee in this world, whoever. Short and leave it, to become a
representative. The real money is in becoming representative.
They bit, thumb.

-Always can know it?

-If the Stones returned tomorrow, be not capable or carry the rhythm with your foot.
-What so if have my place?
-No, I'm a clown. You can't sin and doing choreography at the same time. It has already tried.
-You could. If there is someone who can do it.
-Not.
Her blond bangs fell over his face, and he removed it again.
-Take you the soup. They want you back right away.
-Not-me played the lip bottom, swollen as a sausage-. Not pecar

for man-of-Guerra and not it will do for you. Please shake me an implant and cause me an aphasia.
So is was but returned with all an army of technical and minions, that poured the soup inside of my
throat and I gave a dose. Then I took to the tank for get that this was the year of the explosive revelation
of Malnacida.
I knew, as soon as it came out the first tape, that man-of-war would capture my scent.
They were running the machinery to keep me away from him. And I cared well, in the room where its
old sinner had fulfilled its penalty, I said the Lady. The sinner also came to see me. I thought: poison
dripping from its fangs, death threat. But was only a guy of my age with a lot of hair to hide their
implants (to me I never imported, not worried that they would be). Only came to pay their respects, to
me what how I learned to make rock in the way they did?
Idiot!
I cared for well in one room. Drunkenness when he wanted to and one dose to be sober again, another
dose of vitamins, and another one to remove the bad dreams. Dose, dose, dose, was completely blind all
day. He had marks as the old B & O and not even they knew what I wanted to say with that. Is unloaded
of Pesopluma, got to someone more appropriate, someone with who could go out and do exercise, a girl
slender of sixteen years with the face of a mantis religious. And her increasingly and I increasingly and all
rockeabamos until man-of-war came and took me back home.
He came strutting in my room, with all their plumage, with his bouffant hair (to hide their implants), and
said:
-Would like to introduce charges, Gina dear?
Well, then they discussed around my bed. When Malnacida said that now I was yours, then, man-ofGuerra smiled and said:
-So, but it turns out that I've bought you to you. Now you also you're mine completely. You and your
sinful. My sinful - was true. Man-of-war launched his company to buy Malnacida, just after he left the
first tape. The deal was closed for when we finished third, and they never knew it. Companies were
buying and selling all the time. Everyone was in trouble, except for man-of-war. And I, he said. He did

that all leave and sat on my bed to confirm me my relaunch-Gina... - have ever seen honey extended
over the edge of a saw tooth blade? Have you ever heard talk about something as well? He could not
sing without harm to anyone, and he could not dance, but could rock out on the inside, only if I
increasingly for him.
-Does not want to be a sinful, or for you or for anyone.
-All you will be different when you get to "If IE" [6].
-I want to go to a seedy bar and shake my brains until they leave for implants.
-Never more, dear. That is why you are here, isn't it? All the bars are gone, and also groups. The last few
years. All is here above, here above-is gave some taps in the temples-. You are an old lady, no matter
how much I try to keep your body young. It not give you everything? Not you have said that I have in all?
-It is not the same. Not supposed to be that I put in a cathode ray tube that people look at me.
- But, love, this does not means that the rock hard is there dead.
- But you you're killing.
-I do not. You do try to bury him in life. But you will keep working for a long, long time.
-Because I myself again. Either you do rock 'n' roll on your own or leave it, but I will not draw more
than. This is not my style, it is not my time. As he said: I do not live in the present.
Man-of-war laughed.
- And said that other: "rock and roll never forgets".
Then called to his minions and I took to House.
[1]
This is called to a sub-genre of fantasy literature that takes place in an alternate medieval. (The T. N.)
www.lectulandia.com - page 56
[2]
The author will do a play on words between sinner (sinner) and synthetizer (synthesizer), who created
the term synner (which, moreover, is the title of one of the novels of the author). From there the use, in
the text, of "synthesizing". sintecadora-ypecadora. (The T. N.)
[3]
To rock also means 'Rock'. To rock the craddle: ' rock the cradle '. The author plays with these
meanings. (The T. N.)
[4]
"S. S." is the abbreviation for steam ship. boat of steam '. (The T. N.)
[5]
Rock and roll, that is can translate as ' rock and roll '. (The T. N.)

[6]
It is the pronunciation transcribed in English CA. California. (The T. N.)

TALES OF HOUDINI
-Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker, Professor of computer science at San Jose State University, is perhaps the most visionary
wild science fiction you write today. Nothing to upstream of the tendencies of many scientists who write
science fiction, because his work does not reflect the minutiae of the hard technology, but radical
visions drawn from esoteric mathematics limits. Novels as widely acclaimed as White Light and Software
obtained his imaginative power of Rucker studies on the information theory, multidimensional topology
and infinite sets.
But the work of Rucker is not ballasting by the aridity of the philosophy; on the contrary, shows a close
flesh and blood human. And his narrative ability along with his fertile imagination extends beyond the
works imbued with metaphysical ideas. The following story is a short but perfectly constructed
fantasy. Selected from his collection of stories, The 57th Kafka, shows his daring originality inventive to
the more high level of hilarity.
His latest book of popular science, Mind Tools, is his fourth work of non-fiction, and trafficking in the
conceptual roots of mathematics and the theory of information.
Houdini is ruined. The vaudeville circuit is finished in the scenarios of this great city. Mel Rabstein, of
news Path, you called, looking for a number new.
-Two big advance over three per cent of the benefits of the tour.
-Fact.
The idea is to get a priest, a Rabbi and a judge staying ahead

of the camera with Houdini at all the big scenes. Will be a feature film and will be screened in the chain
of cinemas of Loew. Houdini know for sure simply which will be difficult leaks, without prior warnings.
It all begins at four in the morning of July 8, 1948. They burst into House of Houdini in Levittown. He
lives there with his invalid mother. First scene of a priest and a Rabbi by pulling the door with their thicksoled black shoes.Natural light. Film has grain, gives jumps, Cinma vrit can - not - avoid it. Everything
is real.
Judge holds a small container of wax, seal the eyes, ears and nose of Houdini holes, its dark and
mysterious face is covered until you wake up at all and it relaxes while waiting for events, abandoning all
dream to try something. Houdini is ready. They bind it with dressings of first-class and plaster; looks like
a mummy, a cigar White Owl.
Eddie Machotka, Path cameraman, summarizes the time until the airstrip. Wheel a takes every ten
seconds, by what the average time of journey is reduces in screen to two minutes. Poorly lit, with the
wrong angles, but, even so, convincing. There are no cuts. In the part of back of the Packard, on the legs

of the priest, of the Rabbi and of the judge, is Houdini, as a slice of bread with the bark of tape, bouncing
in the time condensate.
The car gets directly into the airstrip, near a bomber B-15. Eddie jumps out and films to the three sacred
witness downloading to Houdini. Panoramic of the aircraft. There is an inscription, the dirty Lady, near
the morro.
The dirty Lady! And not are pilots moth-eaten or reservists that the pilot. Is Daddy Johnny Gallio and its
Perforators Volantes-A! Forget! Johnny G. was the most decorated ACE of the Pacific front during World
War II, and flying with him, Jones wheels shiny and neither more nor less than Max Moscowitz the
complaints in the back. Johnny G. low of the cabin, or very quickly or very slowly, to the rhythm right,
with its jacket of flight brand Johnny. Max the complaints and wheels glossy leave by the hatch of the
winery of the pumps, laughing and ready to roll.
The judge pulls out a pocket watch. The camera closes in and moves away; 4:50 in the morning, the sky
begins to lighten.
Houdini? Not is whole of that it are placing in the winery of the pumps of the dirty Lady. You can not
even see or smell. But it is quiet, happy by all this Mount Outdoor, happy to do that it is really
happening.
All the world goes up to the aircraft. A clumsy camera movement while Eddie goes up. Then a frame of
Houdini, long and white, crawling as a larva of insect. Is aovillado in the platform of the pumps with Max
the complaints bent on it, as a strange Ant worker.
Those engines start with a rasping ROAR. The priest and the Rabbi to sit and talk: black clothes, white
faces, gray teeth.
-Do you have something of eat? -asks the priest. It has a powerful Constitution, is young and blonde
hair. It was a great striker football of the Notre Dame.
The Rabbi is a type small with hat of felt and the beard black. Has a mouth to the Franz Kafka, all teeth
and tics.
-I understand that we will have breakfast at the terminal when this ends.
The priest takes two hundred for this, and the Rabbi three hundred. It has more fame. If the number
works, they will also be witnesses of other leaks.
It's not really a big plane, and no matter where point Eddie the camera; There is always a white piece of
Houdini in the frame. Before you can see the profile of Johnny G., attractive Johnny who now does not
seem to sit too well. There are drops of sweat, alcohol sweating in his long upper lip. Peace is hard to
Johnny.
-Simply, upload it in spiral-says gently wheels shiny-. As the Spring mattress, Johnny.
Through the windows is can see the horizon turn in angle, until reach the large bed of clouds. Max looks
the altimeter and loose a giggle that lets see your teeth. Cross them clouds towards the oblique light
daytime, while Johnny keeps the spiral and would continue eternally if nobody you said for... but now
the height already is enough.
-Out pumps! -shouts to back wheels shiny. Max pulls the lever opening. Framing of Houdini wrapped in
white, on the platform of coffin-shaped bombs. The Fund is opened, and the long form falls slowly,

almost weightless at the beginning. Then the wind of the propeller it pushes towards an end and begins
to fall, white Matt against the white bright of them clouds of down.
Eddie keeps the approach both as can be. A cloud in the shape of giant egg is there down, to where it
falls Houdini. Houdini has started himself to release bands. You can see how the bands followed,
plaguing the air from one side to another as a long whip: then, zip!, as a sperm enters the spherical
white cloud.
Back to the airstrip, Eddie and sound engineer through the aircraft, asking everyone if they believe that
Houdini would succeed him.
-Of course that I think - the Rabbi.
-Not have nor idea-the priest, anxious for breakfast.
-There is no way - Max the complaints-. It will hit 200 miles per...
-All die some time,-Johnny G.
-In that situation, I hope a parachute with the bandage - make answers shiny wheels.
-Is a mystery-concluded the judge.
The clouds is open and the plane splash big sheets of water when lands. Eddie them films to everyone
coming out of the plane and in the small terminal deserted, except...
On the other side of the room, with their backs to them, a man in pajamas play million machine. Smoke
of pure. Someone you called and it returns: is Houdini.
Houdini takes her mother to see the numbers. Like everyone, except her. Is very upset, and by that is
pulling of the hair. Her old hair white falls to handfuls to the soil, near your Chair's wheels.
Back home, Houdini kneels and begs him and begs her until she gives him permission to finish the
film. Rabstein and Path say that with two new numbers suffice.
-Nothing after this - magic promises Houdini-. I will use the money to open a small shop of music for us.
-My dear child!
The second number to do Houdini and his mother to fly to Seattle. Rabstein wants to use the old lady to
film their reactions. Path is both in a guest house, leaving without clarifying the time and type of flight.
Eddie Machotka remains at all times glued to them, filming fragments of their long walks by the
port. Houdini eating is a crab to the Dungeness. His mother buying toffes. Houdini by buying him a wig.
Four figures with black waterproof slip from a fishing boat. Perhaps Houdini hears their steps, but not be
dignified return is. At the moment fall upon him: the priest, judge, Rabbi, and this time also a
doctor; could be Rex Morgan.
While the old lady shouts and screams, the doctor you nail to Houdini a huge injection of Pentothal
sodium and it leaves out of combat. The great fuguista does not resist, just looks and smiles until she
faints. The old lady hits the doctor with his bag, until the priest bring it next to Houdini, tied both to the
fishing boat.

In the boat are another time Johnny G and its Perforators Volantes-A. Johnny can do to fly any thing,
including a boat. Her eyes are completely red, but wheels shiny guide the ship out of the port, by the
Puget Sound, River timber. This leads them to a couple of hours, but Eddie summarizes it all... Houdini
appears lying inside a hollow trunk while the doctor injected him every moment.
Finally they reach the pond of a sawmill with a few trunks inside. Max the complaints and the judge
mixed plaster in a bucket, and it poured on Houdini. Plug you with tape the holes in the head, except the
mouth, where placed a tube for breathing. What they are doing is to seal it inside a huge trunk with a
tube to breathe from the surface into a cut branch. Houdini is unconscious and trapped by filling with
plaster in the interior of the trunk..., a kind of worm died within a double cylinder. The priest, the Rabbi,
the judge and the doctor pull the trunk by the outboard.
Splash, wheel, collides with the neighbouring trunks and mixing with them waiting to be serrated. There
are now about ten logs and you can not know in what is Houdini. It saw already is turning, while the
tape conveyor has collected the first trunk.
Close-up of trunks clashing. To the Fund, the mother of Houdini kicks off the hair of his wig. Strong
SZZZZZZZ sound when you short the first trunk. Is can see the sierra to the Fund, a gigantic blade cutting
the trunk just by the medium.
SZZZZZZZ! SZZZZZZZ! SZZZZZZZ! Flying chips. One by one, the trunks are hooked and dragged to the
sierra. Like set aside the look but not can, waiting for see the blood and the food digested out
flying. SZZZZZZZ!
Johnny G. drinks something of a silver belt. His lips move in silence. Curses? Prayers? SZZZZZZZ! The
caballuna and nervous face of Max the complaints is sweating, and lets escape a giggle. Houdini's
mother has stripped the wig to backing. SZZZZZZZ! The eyes of shiny wheels are two large and white
boiled eggs. It uses the clip of Johnny. SZZZZZZZ! The priest is dry the front and the Rabbi...
SZCHAPRUFFZZZZZEEEEE!
Ninth trunk jump plaster dust. It splits in two, revealing only the negative of Houdini body. A mold
vacuum! All jump to the wharf of the sawmill, the camera moving all around, looking for the great
man. Where will be?
Between them shouting and congratulations is can hear the machine of discs of the cafeteria of the
sawmill. Sound the Andrews Sisters. And inside... Houdini taking the rhythm with the foot and eating is a
hamburger with cheese.
-A leak more-promises Houdini- and get that store of music.
-I'm so scared, Harry - says your bald MOM-. If at least it give you any warning.
-This time you have made. Is bread eaten. We flew to Nevada.
-I hope that you keep away from the cabaret.
The priest, the Rabbi and judge and doctor are there, and this time, also a scientist. A room with a low
ceiling of cement, with peepholes through windows. Houdini, dressed in a black rubber diving suit,
makes card games.
The scientist, who has a slight resemblance to Albert Einstein, speaks briefly on the phone and seat to
the doctor. The doctor smiles seductive to the camera, then they handcuffed Houdini and help you get

into a cylindrical water tank. Stills of refrigeration to cool it, and soon have frozen Houdini inside a huge
block of ice.
The priest and the Rabbi break the walls of the tank, and there is Houdini, like a huge firecracker with its
head protruding as if it was the fuse. Outside there is a truck with a hydraulic forklift. Johnny G. the
Drillers Volantes-A there and are charged to Houdini in the back. Cover the ice with tables that will not
melt with the warm desert sun.
Two miles in the distance, is can see a high tower of testing with a small cabin in it high. It is a test of an
atomic bomb in the outskirts, in the middle of Nevada, in a lost desert of God's hand. Eddie Machotka
driving the truck with Houdini and the Drillers Volantes-A.
Flat bottom of the slender Tower, obscene extrusion of the pump at the top. Only God knows that ropes
has moved Rabstein to get meter to Path therein.
There is a cylindrical hole in the floor, just below the Tower, and precisely in that hole they slip to the
Houdini frozen. His head, coming out of the hole, smiles them like a peyote cactus. They lead quickly
back to the bunker.
Eddie films all in time real, without cuts. Houdini's mother remains in the bunker, of course, peeling a
bunch of wigs. The scientist happens two dice.
-Just to give you an opportunity to try it, not we detonaremos it until you draw two ACEs. That is called
'snake eyes' [1]. I agree?
Close-up of her face, frantic anxiety. As slowly as you can, shake the dice and throws them to the
ground.
-Snake eyes!
Until anyone can react, the scientist has already tightened the button with a look of commiseration at
the bottom of the eyes. A light suddenly is filtered in the bunker, agreeing them black in gray. Shock
wave arrives then, and the judge collapses, possibly due to a heart attack.
The DIN grows and grows. Their faces, agitated, move from one side to another.
Then all ends, and the noise disappears, except... an insistent Horn, just out of the bunker. The scientist
unlock door and all look abroad, while Eddie shoots over his shoulder.
It is Houdini! Yes! In a convertible white with a showgirl's large breasts!
-Come that pasta! -shouts-. And delete me from the list!
[1]
See note 1 in "eyes of snake, of Tom Maddox. (The T. N.)
"The author plays with a double meaning: eyes of snake - the animal - and the name of a play in which
out two ACEs in the game of Craps and Craps Odds, which means to lose it all." "(N. of the T.)"

THE GUYS AT THE STREET 400

-Marc Laidlaw

Cyberpunk writers are generally known by their daring concepts and their relationship with the
bizarre. Marc Laidlaw stands out even in such company. His work is marked by changing and unexpected
juxtapositions and unexpected approaches a black humor that can reach the UV. Is inspired in a large
number of influences contemporary, with special inclination by all that is mysterious, intuitive and
extraordinary.
The following story shows inspired fusion of elements characteristic of Laidlaw, and it combines features
of an apocalyptic myth with the legend of the modern urban gangs. The 400 street boys genuinely is
extravagant, an intense mixture that is easier to enjoy than to describe.
Marc Laidlaw lives in San Francisco. His latest novel is ' Dad's Nuke ".
Sacrifice ourselves! Popol Vuh
We sat down, and feel how city fun dies. Two floors above our basement, at the height of the street,
something gigantic is crushing the pyramids of apartments. We can feel many lives blink and turn off is
as light bulbs popped; in times like this, not need think two times what will be watching them. I become
lightning of its fear and of his sudden pain, but none hard too. The book of Pocket falls me hands and I
turn off my candle.
We are the brothers [1], a band of twelve. Yesterday we were twenty-two, but not all were able to
arrive on time for the basement.
Our Trickster, Slash, is up a platform, loading and turning to load his gun with a single bullet of
silver. Crybaby Jaguar is kneeling in an end of your old blanket, sobbing as a manic and, for a time, has
good reasons. My best brother, Jade, rotating cylinders of the holotubo to search for a station, but
everything you find is the static that sounds like those screaming in our minds, that won't go away just
that suppresses them voice-to-voice.
Slash says:
-Jade, turn off that light or the cortocircuitar.
He is our leader, our trickster. Her lips are grey, his mouth is twice as large because of the Soooooot
scalpel which tore her cheeks. By that Lisp.
Jade shrugs and turns off the holotubo, but the sounds that we hear instead is no better. They resonate
far away, is oven screams into the sky and a monstrous laugh. It seems that they walk away, getting into
city fun.
-They will not never - says Jade.
-You think that you know everything - answer Vave or ' Claw while dismantling an alarm clock with your
finger from chrome turning it, in the same way that children delve is the nose. You don't even know
what are.
-I've seen them - says Jade-, Croak and I. Right, Croak?
Seat without producing any sound. There is no tongue in my mouth. When had twelve years, just after
the job that I did by spitting obscenities to a cognirrobot controller, it only that did was croaking.
Jade and I went out last night and climbed a pyramid of empty to see what was there. Apart from
Riverrun Boulevard the world burned shining, and I had to avert his gaze. Jade continued looking and
said that seeing those wild giant running illuminated by the glow. Then heard a thousand of strings of

guitar break is, and Jade said that them giant had started the great bridge from its foundations and it
had thrown to the moon. I looked up and saw a black arc rotating on itself, wires shaking while he
climbed and climbed, circling between the columns of smoke. And already not returned to drop, at least
while we were over there, although we don't expect too much.
-Whatever this is, may be for good - still Slash, twisting his mouth in half while he laughs. Perhaps never
will be.
Crybaby stops whining just to say:
-Nuuunca?
-Why should do it? It seems that they have come a long way to reach city fun, isn't it? Perhaps we shall
meet before a new band, brothers.
-Just what we need now - continues - Jade. But I do not ask that you crush them. My blade is not big
enough. If drivers could not help it destroyed everything, what can we do?
Slash shakes her head.
-Jade, dear brother, listen carefully. If I ask you that you crush, you aplastas. If I ask you to ignore a hive,
you jump. If not, you are looking for another band. You know that I ask these things just to make you life
more interesting.
-It is quite interesting - my best brother growls.
-Eh! -continues Crybaby. Is the more big and the more old of us, but has less brain that a child of ten
years-. Listen to! -all we hear.
-I hear no na - says Skag.
-Yes! Na de na. They have left.
But he spoke too soon. It following that recall is a thunder in the walls and the cement of the soil that is
raises, and the ceiling that is crumbling. I shot under a table with Jade.
Thunder dissipates with a sigh. Then there is an absolute silence.
-Are you okay, Croak? -Jade question. Seat and I look for the basement, looking for others. I know,
feeling the spirit of the band, that no one is injured.
Following instantly let out a sigh only in twelve parts.
There is natural light in the basement, but where does it come from?
Looking from the outside of the table, I see a piece of the Moon, two floors above us, above. The last
impact has split the old hive of rental apartments, and it has left her open to the sky. A crack runs along
floors and ceilings; lines intersect to the air as cobwebs of metal and the torn edge of a mattress pour
your filling onto us.
The Moon disappears hidden by the boiling smoke black; is the same smoke that saw float yesterday on
the city while the star jumped as the sparks in an accident of traffic. The perfume of the Lady death is
sliding around here.

Slash saved the fissure that runs through the center of the room. Stows the gun in his pocket. The plated
surface of his single bullet is stained with some of his blood. The preserve for the Soooooot that did that
smile, a trickster called thread.
-OK, band - he says-. Let's go from here.
Vave and Jade start door leaves. The basement was equipped with security measures to keep us except
when things got ugly in fun city. Vave sheathed them walls with baffles, so, when them cognirrobots
drivers come to scan them hiding places, only saw them pipes of a room empty, but nor trace of us.
Apart from the gate, the fire ladder swings at an impossible angle. But it is not something that we can
fix. I look toward the basement while we went out, because I had already come to see it as a home.
We were there when the drivers came in search of recruits for the war. They thought that we had the
right age.
-Come out, come out to freedom! -When came from hunting, we did our trick and disappeared.
This was during the last day of the calendar, when everyone was screaming:
-Eh!
-Already is!
-The last war world!
Everything we said about the war was at the tip of the toe Vave, which has recessed it for to launch
explosive darts. He try was that would do a travel free to the moon to train us in Base English and then
us soltaran of turned in the land, loaded and ready to advance, advance and advance. The mexisoviets
were launching wars as who launches eggs, a behind the other, towards the South. The place was so hot
that some nights could see them heaven shining with a glow white that during the day is was yellow.
The Federal Control has completely sealed our continental city inside a transparent bubble. Nothing,
except for the water or the air, enter without pass. When he saw that yellow brightness, Vave was sure
that the mexisovieticos had thrown something so strong, so powerful as to cross the.
Silent like snakes we slide along the Avenue. Our territory is located between 56 and 88, between
Westland and Chico. The streetlights are curved, as well as the windows of all the buildings and smashed
car windows. On all sides there are scattered trash and human bodies.
-Agh! Bug - Vave says.
Crybaby begins to whining.
-Monitors, Croak-says Slash-. Look at it all.
I have desire to of away the look but have of follow noting for what come more afternoon. Almost cry
because my real MOM and my brother are dead. But it device of my mind and I forget of all that. Slash
has commissioned me to watch the route for the brothers.
In the since Federal, where control those systems programmable and to the people of city fun, the Mr
arranger I cut the language from the root. Not lived to finish their work. A band of Quazis and Moofs,
directed by my brothers, rescued me.

That requires teamwork. Know that the drivers it would say of another mode, would say that are
subversive, that we love destroy, as to them Anarcas, and that not have no respect by city fun. But if any
time the listeners, then wash you those ears. The bands never destroyed, unless they have to do
it. When life became difficult in city fun, there is no place where escape but the secondary inputs of the
neighbouring territory. So we entered without an invitation... and things functioned.
I sense a reflection to the end of the Avenue. A cognirrobot stands, with offline scanners, unless they
serve nothing to skinheads who sit at the booth and watch over the streets. I draw it, thinking that they
can not be many skinheads.
-Already not there are law-says Jade.
-Nothing closes us road - says Slash.
Down by the Avenue. When passed near the robot, Vave is for and unscrew the pezones-laser of your
turret. Connected to a battery, become elegant triggers.
We take flashlights large traps hypermarkets. During a time look among the ruins, but to the little time is
back unpleasant. We are dedicated to search the road between the mountains of rubble that before
were pyramids and apples of hives. Us takes a long time.
There is a fresh painted on the wall, which is still leaking, black and red, as if it would never dry. The
stench of recent death blows from the center of the city. It seems that another stray cat has pissed in
our territory.
I wonder if there are survivors. When we focus our minds on the ruins, we don't feel anything. Many
people lived here, in the good times. Many hives are emptied in the years of the fever, when the old
died, and the children not affected by the plague we met and learned to share our power.
Increasingly becomes darker and makes more heat, and smell made worse. Sometimes the Sun manages
to reach the ground between the spirals of smoke. Them corpses that me look from the windows me
make feel me happy by not having tried never search to my mom and to my brother. We collect cans of
food, keeping us 19db. The Avenue never has known a night so dead. Before the band were always
touring it, destroying, armando spree-safe, gratispara-all.
Cross a territory and then another: Bennies, Silks, Quazis, Mannies and Angels. No one. If some band is
still alive, it will be unknown hideouts. If not they hid under the ground, they will be dead as the others.
We hope the psychic spasm, that reveals the presence of another band with a Tickle in the stomach. But
there is nothing except death at night.
-Rest in peace, bands-says Jade.
-Hopes-says Slash.
We stop in the 265, in the Apple Snubnose. I look towards the Avenue and I see someone sitting on a
heap of concrete rubble. He shakes his head and places it between his hands.
-Well, well - it says Slash.
Type begins to lose the lot. It is so weak that it stumbles and falls to the street. We surrounded him and
looks up to Slash gun black hole.

-Hooola, thread - says Slash. She has the smile that must have stored along with their silver bullet; a
smile from ear to ear.
-How going it to the Soooooots?
Thread not seems now so astute. Its red-black with a thunderbolt suit is crumpled and stained, with
neck started to become a bandage on the wrist. The glass left of their glasses dark of OWL is broken and
its cutting of hair of skewers, undone.
Thread not said Word. Look at the gun and expected that jump the trigger, the last and small noise that
will hear.
A huge tear falls from the broken glass, washing the dirty cheek of thread.
Slash laughs. Then lower the pistol and says:
-Not tonight.
Thread even shudders.
Below, in the Avenue, a central of gas explodes, and we stained to all of an orange bright. Everyone
laughed. It's fun. Thread smiles in silence.
Slash gives a kick in the foot to thread.
-I have other things on the head, trickster. You seem a finish bug. Where is your band?
-Crushed us, Trickster - he says-. There is no other way to say it - a torrent of tears follows the
first. Clean them is-. No is no Soooooot.
-You are - says Slash by putting a hand on the shoulder of thread.
-There can be a weasel without his team, Slash.
-You can. But what happened?
HiLo overlooks the street.
-A new band occupied our territory - he says-. Are giant, Slash, now I know that sounds to madness.
-Non - it says Jade. I've seen them.
We heard-come - thread goes, but we would have to have seen. If them had seen, never them would
have said to them Soooooots that will remain and hold there. I thought that had any possibility of resist
by our count, but us destroyed.
Us cast. Some of my colleagues flew higher than the post. Those guys... are amazing. Now the 400 is
full of them. Glow and vibrate as the lights you see when you're stuck in your head and you faint.
Vave says:
-That sounds like a very fat mess.
-If I had known that they were only a few kids, not it would have scared me, brother - said thread. We
try to sugestionar them and it almost worked. They are made of this kind of substance. They seem real
and you can cut, but when you attack them with the mind, are buzzing like bees. We were not enough

to do much. And we weren't prepared for them. Left alive only because Nimblejax I let dry and I got in a
transport.
"When I woke up, everything was over. I followed along the Avenue. I thought that some bands are still
circling around, but there was no one. Could be in their hiding places. But I did not dare to try. Most of
the bands I rajara before saying a Word.
-Is hard go only, very different from when going with a band behind you-still Slash-. Do you know how
many hiding places?
-Six maybe. He had a contact with the Jipjaps, but it is not safe. I know where to find the Zips, the
Kingpins, the Gerlz, the Myrmies... Sledges... We could get to the territory of the Galrogs quickly by the
subways.
Slash is turned towards me.
-Do we have?
Client list happened and he passes it to Jade, who is reading it.
-Jipjaps, Sledges, Drummers, a-v Chix, Marias, Dannies, Chogs. If one of them is alive, know of others.
-True - says Slash.
Jade gives me a boost.
-I wonder if the new band has a name.
Knows that I like write things. I smile take list again, I take the pen and said: The 400 guys.
-Ya, it's because they seized the 400 Street - says Jade. Seat, but not is just for that. I think that
somewhere I read something about certain guys who destroyed the world and torture grannies. Seems
just what to those guys they would like to do.
While walk the street, the Moon is raises between the smoke, what it makes seem rusty. You are
missing large chunks.
View of the moon are saddened and scared us both. Remember when was perfect and round as a Pearl
on the black velvet of a jewelry, more beautiful and bright that the lights of them traffic lights, even
when the smog more thick the dyeing of Brown. That Brown was better that this red sprinkling the
pieces. It seems as if it has been used as target practice. Perhaps those guys threw the great bridge
against Base-Inglesa.
-Our territory has disappeared-says thread-. I want to go to for those guys. Will be... or those beasts or I.
-We're with you - says Slash-. Let's go fast. Dividios in couples, brothers. We will visit some
hideouts. Jade, Croak, you come with thread and me. See if the Galrogs are willing to listen to something
reasonable.
Slash says to the others siblings where search and where check. We said goodbye. We find nearest
metro tunnel stairs and down to the dark terraces, where there are corpses resting waiting for the last
train.
We ahuyentamos the tunnel rats. They are fat and more aggressive than ever before, but our lights keep
them away.

-Still preserves this wicked blade?

-Would this babe? -Thread moves his healthy arm and falls a scalpel in his hand.
Slash eyes freeze on it, and your mouth is narrow.
-Perhaps you need it - he says.
-Vale, brother- and thread it makes disappear.
I can now imagine how must have been that.
We went through a few platforms more before uploading again. We have moved faster than the
surface, and are now near one end of town fun.
-By here-thread points out more beyond of the hives split. I see messages written on the walls
demolished. You signals Galrog?
-Expected-says Jade-, I'm dying of hunger.
There is a liquor to an Apple store. Wake up and turn the door; is as easy as breaking an arm. Nothing
moves inside or in the street when our lights glide over the rows of bottles. The place smells of alcohol
and I get drunk I just smell it. Found potatoes fries and chocolates that have survived under the counter,
and them scarf while back towards the door.
-Where is the hideout of the Galrogs? -It says Jade, dropping a Tablet Avenida 5a.
Just then we heard that deaf tap. That whispers 'death'. A band makes us know that it has surrounded
us.
-Retroceded - says thread.
-No - she says Slash. Just hide.
We are slowly going to the door and looked out. The shadows pulled off the wall and out of the mouths
of the alleys. We are closely encircled.
-Get off your blades, brothers.
I've never fought with the Galrogs. I see why Slash keeps us back. Are armed to the teeth with stars,
Harpoon, pistols and bats. Even unarmed, they would seem beasts with their eyes are painted with
flames, its monkeys truncated and dyed a dozen colors, and their tattooed geometries iridescent along
the face. Most dressed in black, all wear skates with blades between the toes.
Hide their feelings towards us after a wall of silent threats.
We heard a soft voice:
-Come out if you want to continue to breathe.
We left, keeping us together while girls surround us closely. Jade then raises his flashlight, but a Galrog's
cheeks tattooed with blue triangles and a monkey purple and blonde Strip is giving him a blow on the
hand. Lantern leaves turning in darkness as a crazed light jet. There are no scratches on the fingers of
Jade. I keep my low flashlight.

A huge Galrog slipping forward. It seems a cognirrobot, charged battery, with wires that run through his
arms overhead down and cross your afro hair which hung bells and pieces of glass. Has a turret laser
attached to the head and a trigger in each hand.
Us looks to me and Jade top down, then goes to the Tricksters.
-Trickster yarn and trickster Slash - says-. Nice couple.
-Abbreviated. Bullet - Slash - he says. The territories are finished.
-Already understand-she smiles with his teeth blackened with acid-. The Hewies were crushed here on
the side and we now have more room to play.
-You can have fun you still a day or two-says thread-. But that the burst will return for you.
-The buildings to the burst ended with them. The end that would crush the world came and
went. Where were you?
-There is a new band playing in city fun-says thread.
The eyes of bullet are converted into two slots.
-Do now want to roll with us?, huh? Often flirt!
-The guys at the 400 - continues Jade.
-Enough to keep you occupied! He laughs and patina making a semi-circle. It is possible.
-Are taking over city fun by territories, perhaps going for everyone. Not play clean, it have never heard
of a clean fun.
-Trash - she says, and shake your hair, sounding the bells-. I gave the piro, guys.
Slash knows that now she will listen to you.
-We are calling all bands, bullet. Now we have to save our skins, and that means that we need to find
more hideouts, make more con artists to know what happens. Are in this with us or not?
-They crushed the Soooooots in thirty seconds - said thread.
From the center of the city a shock wave across the street as the tip of a whip. US catches to all by
surprise and our guards fall to the ground; Galrogs, Brothers, Soooooots, we all have a fear of those
destroyers. This us links at the moment.
When the impact happens, we look between us with the eyes well open. All the silent threat of the
Galrogs disappear. Then, we understand that we must stand together.
-Bring to these guys to House-says bullet.
-Yes, Mommy!
With a roll of skates, the Galrogs begin to move.
Our well armed escort leads us through a maze of skating rinks open in the rubble.
-Guys, eh? -I hear that bale told the other tricksters-. We thought that was another thing.

-What believed?
-Gods - it says bullet.
-Gods!
-Divine things, matters of the mind. Old mother looked in the mirror and saw a huge bonfire fed with
cities. Do you remember when the bubble had still not fallen? There were wars in the South, strange
bombs falling like strips of firecrackers. Who knows what baked in that fire?
Old mother decided it had reached the end of the world, time so that those who are out to come
through their cracks. They gathered together all that energy and molded it into a mass. Then they
started to give us a scare causing storms, crushing everything. And what better place to crush city fun?
-The end of the world? -Thread it says. Then, why are they still here?
Bale laughs.
-You, gross, how is it that you got to be a weasel? Nothing ends up never, nothing.
In ten minutes we reach the giant pyramid of a hypermarket, with the moons of their lower windows
replaced by piles of rubble. Bullet whistle and the doors double is open by turning.
-We are going in.
It first that I see are boxes of supplies piled up in the corridors, kitchens lit, beds folding and batteries of
blankets. I also see some people that cannot be Galrog, children and a few adults.
-We have collected some survivors-says bullet-. The old mother us said that should do it- and is shrinking
of shoulders.
I have heard that the old mother is an elderly woman. He survived to pests and stood on the side of the
bands. Should of be up, looking in his mirror and muttering.
Slash and thread are regarded each other. He could not say what they think. Slash turns towards me and
Jade.
-Vale, brothers, we have work to do. You should not go away.
-Let's go to sleep somewhere - says Jade. The single vision of the beds and the blankets we makes feel us
tired.
Bullet points escalators that do not work.
-Teach them the road, Shell-it Galrog with the mono blonde to Wicks red is ahead by a Hall and jump
them first four steps of the staircase mechanical.
Runs up to above without leave of skip and us look laughing.
-Is an angel-says Jade.
There are more Galrogs up. Some girls snore wrapped in blankets along the walls.
Shell moving their hips and it laughs.
-Never seen the brothers in a hypermarket.

-Oh, my mom used to buy here - he says Jade while the sight of top down.
-What would come to buy? To your dad?
Jade closes the handle by removing the thumb and shakes it with a big smile. The other girls laugh but
Shell not. Her blue eyes darken and her cheeks reddening under the blue triangles. I grabbed the
shoulder Jade.
-Do not waste time - says another Galrog.
-You will be releasing the information - says Shell and pulls out a knife-. In a nice and clean way.
Jade arm shot and he leaves it.
-Come, take blankets - says Shell. You can go to bed by there.
Bring blankets to a corner, wrap ourselves with them, and we slept together. Sleep with smoke.
Still is dark when Slash us awake.
-Come on, brothers, we have a lot of things to do.
Them things will have moved, we can check it. Them Galrogs know them hiding places of bands of which
never before had heard speak, even some of out of town fun. The runners have state all the night active,
and now the things are are moving. From the North and the South of the city, in a wide circle around the
400, they have called for anyone who could come.
On them hives or low them streets, by sewers, avenues, alleys, closed a narrow circle on the 400, where
the Soooooots had its territory of clean fun. From the street 1 until it 1,000, of Bayview until Riverrun
Boulevard, them debris is removed and the tunnels of metro is fill of people, to while city fun is puts
underway. To the brothers and the Galrogs the Ratbeaters, Drummers, Myrmies, Kingpins of Piltown,
Renfrew and Upperhand Hills are attached. The Devils are mixed with the Chogs, Cholos, Sledges and
Trimtones, Jipjaps and the A-and-Marias. In addition are the Tints, Chix, Rocko-boys, Gerlz, Floods, Zips
and Zaps. More than that I can remember.
We are a single band, the band of city fun, and all the names mean the same thing.
We, the brothers, walked shoulder with shoulder with the last of the Soooooots among us.
Climbing the stairs of the subway, we arrived at a blackened, scorched surface.
It seems the end of the world but still are alive. During a minute, just I can breathe, but still moving and
leave that boil my anger.
Up, the boys of the 400 leave of make noise, until only is hears something similar to the sound of an
oven on.
Towards the 359, we scatter through side streets to the territory of the boys.
When we reach it 398, the fire springs of the hives of opposite. There is a sound like the of a skyscraper
giving his first step. You hear the echo of a howl between the towers then down the street.
In the next corner, see an arm that comes between them debris. Around the wrist, the fist has a marbled
of red and black.
-Go to by them-says thread.

We are entering the 400 and we were paralyzed.

The streets we knew have vanished. The cement has been reduced to gravel and rubble, sprayed onto
the floor. The pyramids of hives are small volcanoes that emit smoke, fire-breathing and cause black
burns on the earth rotates. Under the empty sky, towers leaning around the Volcanoes erupt, as if they
wanted to become.
Will be the 400 boys building a new city? If is so, will be worst that the death.
More beyond of them fires we can see the remains of city fun. We feel the bands everywhere,
connected on the same beat, United by a same breath.
Thread already has seen some of this before, but not both. Do not pour tears tonight. Walking in front of
us to stay in the shade, away from fire. He lifts his head and shouts:
-Ehhhhhhh!
A crater erupts among the monstrous buildings drowning her cry with a terrible ROAR.
-HEY, YOU, THE GUYS FROM THE 400!
Half inclined lanterns come to life. Over my head, one explodes with lightning.
-This is our territory, the 400 guys!
The Galrogs and the Trimtones hit dumps cars. This makes my blood to flow.
-Have downed our hives, you, guys. You have violated our city.
Our world, and I think of the Moon and my eyes get wet.
- And what?
The streetlights are switched off. The Earth trembles. The craters rugen and vomiting hot blood on the
buildings. It can hear sisear while dripping. Thunder speaks among the
Torres.
-I bet you've never grown!
There are.
Suddenly appear more buildings on the street. At first I thought they were new buildings but they are
the big boys, at least in the 400.
The 400 boys entering our street like thunder. We go back in the shadows, to hiding places that only we
can achieve.
The first boys wave the size of skating rinks-link chain. They skipped some of the upper parts of the
nearby hives. Kids may not get us from there up, but can bury us under the rubble.
Despite their size, they seem to have only six or seven years, as they retain even the fatness of the
babies in their large and sweaty faces. Their eyes have vicious glitter of boys at that age when they start
the legs insects with a wild laugh, but perplexed and frightened of what they are doing with their own
hands. Thus they appear doubly deadly. They are burning with yellow fever.

They seem to be more scared than us. Our fear has disappeared to the convert us into a unique
band. We reach them when they are loaded, projecting our power from all sides. We sing, but I don't
know if there are words in our song. It is a cry. Could mean: come by us if you can, boys, come, but
with our size. SAC forces her, all we get. We hold fire, turning it, and sending it under the ground by
our feet.
The boys begin to laugh is and to find us. They seem to be shrinking inward. Them more nearby begin to
reduce is of size at each step.
We absorb and spit out your fever. The fire passes through us. Our battle cry makes us to be
synchronized.
Them guys are doing is more small to each time, more small and sick. The children small never know
when stop. Continue even when they are burning.
While we go back, the first child will be reducing quickly. A minute earlier was greater than the
hives. Then just fill in the street. They occupy a dozen of his colleagues from side to side. Beaten with
chains and howl at the sky, their silhouettes cut against the bonfires of the center of the city.
They pass through the middle of the street, next to thread, and come to us. Double our size are now...
just right.
I can already handle them.
A boy load against me with something evil and curved that not see well until I pass whispering near the
ear. I turn back instantly and get faster still, to where he does not expect. Then he falls down smooth
and heavily, dead.The sickly light red leaves to the outside, throbbing with his blood, and is extinguished
in the street.
I turn to see Jade shot down by a guy with an axe. No can do more than see it black sheet upload high...
Whistle acute.
Wheels squeaking.
A body flies up to the guy and shoot down it with your foot full of knives and their string of balls. A
monkey purple and blonde and a great laugh.
The Galrog jumps by over and nails the hand of the axe in the cement, cutting their fingers that come
out rolling between a mass greenish of blood and bones.
Shell laughs at Jade and goes at full speed.
I run to him and put it on foot. Back, two boys recede by the dark alley that is illuminating is to
pass. Began to pursue them, but already will have charge of them them Quazis and them Drummers,
that were to the stalking.Jade and I give back.
Thread still regarded the street. A guy has remained large, stronger than the rest, and more resistant to
our power. Shake a big stick in his hand.
-See, Trickster - called thread. Do you remember me?
The largest of them guys comes, crushing them streets. We are focused to exhaust him, but it boils
down more slowly than others.

His club hits the ground; bum, bum, bum. Some Garlogs and I us fall of ass by those hits. The baton
reaches a hive and a rain of cement and whistling Crystal Falls us.
Thread does not move. Waiting with their flashes lights, red and black, serene, with the hands empty.
The enormous trickster is rotated, but now his head only reached the fifth floor of a hive. Thread back
when the stick hits and sprayed the input of a store.
The scalpel of the Soooooot shines in his hand. Is throws to the ankle of the boy and it seizes with
strength.
He stabs him twice. The boy screams as a cat. The best cutting of tendons that have seen ever.
The boy, howling, wobbles and kicks so hard that spear to thread on the other side of the street, against
the blind metal of a store, leaving it completely dented. Thread lands in a chaos of impossible angles and
already does not move.
Slash shouts. But his gun howl more strong. Its silver and bloodied bullet get triggered. Draw a line of
light in the smoke-filled air.
The boy is twisted and spider cement until your fingers bleed. His mouth is open to reach the size of a
man and their eyes, so large as them broken showcases of around, us look. Its pupils could be reduced
as the venomous snake, its large and dark side has the split nose.
Five Drummers scaled by the body preparing the next assault, but with their trickster dead, boys no
longer want to follow. The volcanoes are extinguished as if also leave.
Survivors remain shining in the middle of their territory. A few start to cry, and this is a sound that not I
can imitate. Make that Crybaby break to mourn also. You feel in the cement, whimpering between his
hands. Her tears are the color of gasoline on the asphalt.
Continue absorbing the fire of the fever, burying it all under the floor. Them boys, running in circles,
begin to knock down is between itself, and some fall in the washing that low from the pyramids.
That glow jump, out of control, out of our hands, hiding between the guys with his last breath, ready to
attack.
As a fiery snake whistling through the clouds, it jumps forward.
Those guys fall dead and already not returning to move is.
It opens a hole in the ceiling of smoke. In the darkness, the blue sky looks out, becoming clearer as the
smoke dissipates. The last cry of the boys dies at dawn.
The Sun appears to be wounded, but is still in place. Hello!
-Let's start - Slash - says. There is much to clean around here - he has cried, twisting his gray mouth. I
guess that I loved to thread like a brother. I'd like to be able to say something.
We help to raise us. We give pats on the back and look at the Sun and orange and gold of a blinding
white.
Bands, I don't have to tell you that seems to me to be super.
[1]

The author uses different names for bands. Some are understood directly, but others belong to the
jargon invented by himself. We have chosen to keep them in the original, with the exception of the
protagonists, the Brothers Band. (The T. N.)

SOLSTICE
-James Patrick Kelly
The first publication of James Patrick Kelly appeared in 1975. His career accelerated at the beginning of
the 1980s; He has written nearly two dozen short stories and two novels. His second book, Freedom
Beach, written in collaboration with John Kessel, received praise for its vivid inventiveness and his
mischievous literary erudition.
As Kessel, Kelly has been linked to a large group of writers of science fiction of the 1980s, usually known
as "the new wing" of science fiction, (theoretically) opposing interests strongly technology of the
ciberpunks.
In 1985, Kelly happily complicated things to publish the next story, "hightech" extravaganza of a
visionary and impetuous daring. He continued with two more stories, equally imaginative and original in
his self-proclaimed cyberpunk trilogy. By their example, Kelly has shown the truth of a commonplace in
science fiction: where critics divided and analysed, the writers together and synthesize.
Once a year open to the public. Some dedicated almost a life planning this day. Others arrive by
accident, lucky onlookers that they leave by swarms of buses for tourists. This film all but rarely
understand what you are seeing. Years later, a few of these discs out to revive dying party. Most will fall
into oblivion.
Happens during the Solstice of summer. One of the two points of the ecliptic where the distance with
respect to the celestial equator is greater: the longest day of the year, a time of change.
They arrived at sunset, when the masses began to disperse. A tall, at the beginning of the 1940s, and a
teenage girl. Had those same eyes gray. Straw hair she had begun to darken, as the it when he reached
the age of seventeen. Had a similar impossible to ignore in the way that is murmured jokes among
themselves and when people laughed at its around. None of the two leading camera.
They had come to wander among the rocks of sandstone of what Tony Cage considered the most
extraordinary age of the world. Yes, the pyramids were old and large, but for some time that they had
surrendered their mysteries. The Parthenon he had once been more beautiful, but corrosion of history
had distorted it to make it unrecognizable. But Stonehenge... Stonehenge was unique. Essential. It was a
mirror in which each time could see the quality of his imagination, in which every man could measure its
height.
They joined the queue waiting to get into the dome. Occasional howls of synthesizer music crossed the
murmur of the masses; the Festival free that is celebrated in a field nearby was reaching its largest
stadium of madness.Perhaps later they explored its delights, but they had now arrived at the entrance
of the outer shell of the dome. The girl laughed when he came by the bubble membrane.
-Is as if you kiss a giant-said.
They were in outer space between the covers and inside of the dome. Any other day, this would have
been the site more close to the circle of stones that would have reached. The dome was made of plastic

optical hardened, with a level of low refractive. The stairs ascended by the hollow between both
covered; offered to the tourists who came for them a bird's eye view on Stonehenge.
They entered in the cover inside. There was a reporter who, wearing a micro-camera, was close to the
heel stone; He saw them and started to make them sign.
-Forgiveness, Lord, pardon! -Cage pushed the girl out of the mass flow and waited; I didn't want to that
idiot to call him by his name in front of all those people-. You are the artist of drugs - reporter took them
aside. A smile confiding appeared on his face of Obsidian-. Case Cane--introduced the plug head behind
his ear, as if to disconnect their own memory of the of the implants.
-Cage.
- And she? -her smile started to be affected-. His adorable daughter?
Cage thought about hitting the man. Thought on get it. The girl laughed.
-I'm Wynne- and shook the hand of the reporter.
-My name is Zomboy. The reporter of Wiltshire for Sonic. Had they previously seen these old stones? Is
the can teach-Cage hoped that appeared the light red of the microcamera, but the reporter seemed
strangely hesitant-.Not take by chance some samples free for one of its older admirers?
Wynne bit lip to prevent a giggle and looked for in your pocket.
-I doubt that you can tell something new Tony on Stonehenge. I think living for this place - took out a
plastic boat, put a few green capsules in his hand and offered them to the reporter.
He took one and carefully inspected.
-There is no label on the packaging - said, suspecting of Cage-. Are you sure that they are not
dangerous?
-Shit, not - said Wynne, and got two capsules into his mouth-. Very experimental. You convert the brains
in a pudding bloody-offered a to Cage and this is it took. Cage wanted Wynne to stop practicing those
twisted games-.We have been taking them throughout the day - said Wynne-. No do you notice?
Blithely, the reporter will put a capsule in his mouth. Then appeared the red light.
-So, Mr. Cage, you're a devotee of Stonehenge, isn't it?
-Oh, yes-stammered Wynne-. He comes here all the time. Gives conferences to all that will listen. Says
that there is a kind of magic in this place.
-Magic? -the lens focused closer to Cage, he had never left it focus.
-Not the kind of magic in which is thinking, I fear-Cage hated look to a camera when was flown-. Not of
magicians or of sacrifices human or lightning. A subtle form of magic, the only one in this world quite
explained - the words slipped without obstacles, perhaps because he had told them before many times. It has to do with the way in which a mystery captures the imagination and becomes obsessive. A magic
that only operates in the mind.
-And who best to contemplate the magic of the mind that the celebrated artist of them drugs, the Mr
Tony Cage? -the reporter was not to him but to an invisible audience.

Cage smiled at the camera.

In 1130. Henry of Huntingdon, an Archdeacon of Lincoln, was commissioned by his bishop to wrote a
history of England. His was the first testimony from a place called 'Stanenges, where impressive size
stones had been erected by way of lintels, and where apparently other thresholds had been raised on
the first; and nobody could conceive how such huge stones had been erected as a whole, or what had
been built there." The name derives from the English old stan, stone, and hengen, jibs. The
medieval gallows consisted of two poles and a wooden cross piece. Not there are testimonies of
executions in Stonehenge, although Geoffrey of Monmouth, six years later, describes the massacre of
four hundred sixty Lords British to hands of them treacherous Saxons. Geoffrey says that Uther
Pendragon and Merlin stole them sacred megaliths known as the dance of the giant of Ireland, with
magic and by the force of them weapons, and them reerigieron in the plain of Wiltshire as monument of
war. The theory of Merlin of the construction of Stonehenge, although faithful reflection of them
relations between English and Irish, was a reason more in the tapestry Arthurian of Geoffrey; a fairy tale
chauvinist.
-Raise.
Cage had been dreaming of sheep. An extensive pasture without trees, waves green swaying towards
the horizon. The animals were moving away while he walked among them. Was lost.
-Tony.
The criogenistas claimed that frozen foods not dreamed. Strictly speaking it was true, but while they
were defrosting it in the tank, their synapses began to skyrocket, and he began to dream again.
-Wake up, Tony.
His eyelids were moved.
-Salt out - felt like a pincushion. Opened the eyes and looked. For a moment he thought I was still
dreaming. Wynne had shaved hair, except for a strip on Crest, multicoloreada, that went from ear to
ear. By their appearance, it seemed that had become another body dyed in blue.
-I'm leaving, Tony. I only stayed to be sure that you thawed well. I've done the luggage.
Muttered something sarcastic. It didn't make sense, even to him, but the tone of his voice was
appropriate. Knew that she not was as strong as is believed. If not, no would have tried out the issue
when still was groggy. They sat down in the tank.
-Go then - he said-. But help me to get out.
Is aovill on the armchair of the study and tried to not feel is so ice cream, as when was between the
fog, waxy of the Bay of Galway. There was no horizon; both the sky and the water had the old straw
color. Had made exactly the same type of day that when came up to the tank. Never you had liked much
Ireland. But when the Republic extended fiscal privileges to artists of drugs, their accountants had
forced him to adopt that nationality.
Wynne had the fire on; the room had been filled with the pungent odor of burning leaves. It brought
him a cup of coffee. There was a pill Scarlet in the dish. It rose.
-What is this?
-New. Serentol, helps to relax you.

-I've been stiff for six months, Wynne. I'm completely relaxed.
She is shrugged of shoulders, took the pill of his hand and is it got in her mouth.
-Not have sense to waste it.
-Where are you going? -said he.
Seemed surprised of that you ask, as if first wait for a discussion.
-To England for a while - she said, then I don't know.
Good nodded it-. Not have sense be here more than it needed. But would return when is the moment of
entering in the tank another time?
He shook his head of Peacock and their iridescent hair changed again. He decided that he could get used
to.
-How much cost to make you change your mind?
She smiled.
-Don't you have enough.
He also smiled.
-Come on, then give me a kiss - drew her up to her knees. She was twenty-two years old and was very
beautiful. He knew that it was a little modest for its part to think so, because when I saw it, I saw
himself. The best thing about these revitalizations was watching it grow as it hibernaba during the
winter, in order to get the residence, with a view to tax. In peak and other thirty years both would be in
fifty-. I love you - he said.
-I know it - her voice became a whisper. Daddy wants to his girl small.
Cage had a shock. I had never heard it that way. Something had last while was in the tank. Then she
dropped a giggle and you put a hand on the thigh.
-You can come with us if want to.
-Us? -passed the fingertips through their small bald and wondered how many serentoles would have
taken today.
James I was so fascinated by Stonehenge that ordered the famous architect Iigo Jones to draw a map
of the stones to determine its purpose. The result of the studies of Jones was posthumously published in
1655 by his son-in-law. Jones rejected the idea that such a structure might have been raised by
indigenous people, as the ancient Britons [were] remarkably ignorant, as a nation fully addicted to
wars, never devoted himself to the study of the arts or occupied their minds with any
excellence. Instead, Jones, who had learned his art in Renaissance Italy, and was a scholar of classical
architecture, said that Stonehenge must have been a Roman temple, a mixture of style Corinthian and
Etruscan, possibly built during the reign of the emperors Flavios.
In 1663, Dr. Walter Charlton, a physician of Carlos II, questioned the Jones theory, holding that
Stonehenge had been built by the Danes to be a Royal Court, or place for the election and Coronation
of their kings. The poet Dryden applauded Charlton in verse:

Stone-heng, in other times considered a temple, in he found a throne, where the Kings, our gods earthly,
were crowned.
In fact, many pointed to the Crown shape of Stonehenge as proof of this theory. Of course, these
speculations parked shortly after the restoration to the throne of Charles, after his long exile, were
interested from the political point of view. The most astute courtiers not spared no effort to discredit
the Republic of Cromwell, and obtain the Royal favour, making passage the antiquity of the divine right
to royalty.
Wynne was Cage's greatest extravagance. In fact, he had never sought money; Entertainment
multinationals had forced him to it. After having acquired a Raphael, a Constable and a Klee, after
spending the holidays in the Mindanao trench, in three habitats and in the Disney of the Moon, he had
discovered that many more precious things that worth buying there were.
People envied him: the rich, the famous artist of the drug.
But when Cage was successful for the first time in the Western Amusements, his new wealth had almost
drowned him. The problem was that the money not stayed there stood, still. Shouting will attend you. It
had to be collected, managed, and distributed by a retinue, endless of people with forced smiles and
firm handshakes, which insisted in giving advice, no matter how much he offered to allow him in
peace. For them, it was Tony Cage Incorporated.
Was while developed attention when Cage decided that needed to someone so that you help to spend
its money. He was not a special urgency to get married. None of the women with which is had lying in
that time you mattered. Knew that had been dragged by an irresistible pheromone, the smell to
success. Wanted to share his life with someone that had a link with it, and not with ties that the lawyers
could break. Someone who was only for him. For always. Or so is it imagined. Perhaps there was nothing
romantic in this regard. Perhaps them sociobiologists were in it true and what was working was an
instinct that had been engraved in your brain of vertebrate from the Devonian: play, play.
Wynne was conceived in a belly artificial. This form was the more clean, both medical as legally. All he
required was taking a culture of tissue from a few epithelial cells of the intestine of Cage and some of
genetic engineering to change chromosome 'and' in 'X', as well as carry out other various
improvements. Only that and little more than one million two hundred thousand dollars, and Wynne
was his.
Was told that he should reject all labels that try to place on Wynne. He refused to think of her as his
daughter. And not as if it was exactly his clone. It was like a twin, only that it had been conceived in a
different womb and that his birth had happened twenty-six years after his own, after his abusive time
that both had hit him and he never touched her. Which meant to say that it wasn't anything like a
twin. It was something new, something infinitely precious. Not had rules for their behavior or limitations
to their skills. He liked bragging saying that it had obtained exactly what you asked.
-It is more beautiful to me, more list and best player of tennis - used to joke-. Worth every penny that I
have paid.
When I was a child, Cage didn't have long to Wynne. In those days it was testing a new product in itself,
and Yes, day not, teetered when he was returning home, quite flown. An English nanny, which are best
found. Not paid to the Detling Lady so you love the girl: Wynne won it on their own. The strict and
elderly woman spent carloads of money of Cage on his Wynne; his philosophy was to treat the girl as if it
were an empty disc in which there would be record only the most precious information. To help Wynne,

traveling whenever Cage could get out of the laboratory. Detling helped her develop the domain of old
world languages; Wynne spoke English, Russian, Spanish, a little Japanese and could read their Virgil in
latin. When he reached third, he pulled out a ninety-nine percent in the test for their age, according to
the intelligence profile of free culture of Genoa.
It was not until he was seven years when Cage began to get a real pleasure with your company. His
charm was an incongruous mixture of childishness and maturity.
A day returned from the lab and found to Wynne facing the computer, connected to the telecadena.
-I thought you were going to see your friend. What's your name? -said he.
-Haidee? When the babysitter told me that today you'd come back early to the House, I decided that
not.
-Only have come to change me-in that time was working in the entrance and still had a zoom of the dose
of it tomorrow. I didn't start having giggles like a fool in front of the girl, so it opened the bar and pulled
out a syringe full of Neuroleptic pressure, to be able to behave-. I have an appointment. I have to leave
at six.
She came out of the game.
-With this new? Jocelyn?
-Jocelyn, Yes - and forth his hand towards the telecadena command. Do you mind if I look at the mail?
She passed it.
-Tony, you miss when you are working - that had already heard it before.
-I also, Wynne - he agreed to the mail menu and started to browse it.
She crouched beside her and watched in silence.
Tony - said Finally, do weep elders?
-Mmmmm - Western was annoying you with the Reidor delays, threatening him with the loss of their
bonds of slipper-. Sometimes, I guess.
-Do it? -seemed puzzled. When they fall and will scratch your knees?
-Usually, when something sad them occurs.
-How to?
-Something sad-there was a long silence-. Already know-he wanted to change of subject.
-Vi to Jocelyn crying.
She finally grabbed his attention.
-The other night - continued-. He came, he sat down on the sofa, wait for you. I was playing to houses
behind the Chair. She did not know that it was here. Do you know?, it is ugly when she cries. The
makeup under their eyes makes that their tears are black. Then he got up to go to the bathroom and
saw me and looked at me as if it were my fault that cry. But he went on his way and said nothing. When
it came out I was happy again. At least not crying. Did you it to be sad?

-I don't know, Wynne - felt as if he should get angry, but I didn't know who-. Perhaps it did.
-Well, I do not think that it is right that more do so. And not think that it I like too-Wynne it looked as if
had gone too far-. Good, what has to be sad? She you see more than I, and I don't cry.
He hugged her.
-You're a good girl, Wynn-decided that no would be to Jocelyn that night-. I love you.
Many people tries to keep a division between personal life and work. Before Wynne, Cage had always
been only, no matter with who was. I hated to confront the emptiness that was at the center of his
personal life; women disposable as Jocelyn only fed that vacuum. Went to work for escape of yes
same; This was the secret of his success. But when Wynne became mayor, he had to change, gradually
making a space for her in her life, until she filled him.
William Stukeley belonged to the great tradition of English Eccentrics. From 1719 to 1724 this
impressionable and young antiquarian spent his summers exploring Stonehenge. His meticulous field
work would be not equalled until the time of Queen Victoria. Stukeley made precise measurements of
the distances between the stones. He explored the field of around and discovered that the circle was
not but a part of one Neolithic complex. Was the first in aiming the orientation of the axis of Stonehenge
to the Solstice of summer. However, did not publish his findings until ten years later. In the meantime he
took religious vows, married, moved from London to Lincolnshire and decided that it was a Druid.
His erratic reading of the Bible, Pliny and Tacitus, Stukeley inferred that Druids should be direct
descendants of the biblical Abraham, who had travelled to England on a Phoenician ship. While his book
contained a superb work of field on Stonehenge, the controversial attempt to Stukeley resumed
smoothly on its frontispiece with the portrait of the author as Chyndonax, the Prince of the Druids. Its
title was A chronological history of the origin and process of true religion and idolatry. Stukeley
painted a vision of noble wise practicing a religion natural and pure, whose equivalent modern, and not
saved difficulties to prove it, not was another that it of his own and beloved Church of England! The
Druids built Stonehenge as a temple for his snake God. Although Stukeley believed that the rites
practiced there included, in his opinion, human sacrifices, was inclined to forgive these excesses in their
spiritual forebears. Perhaps had taken mistakenly the example of Abraham.
One hundred years after the druidic fantasy of Stukeley, this got their way in the Encyclopedia Britannica
and the popular imagination. A rail link between London and Salisbury was established in 1857, and the
Victorian descending in droves. For some, Stonehenge was the confirmation both of the old as the
present greatness of Britannia; for others represented the dreams dark of maidens destripadas and lust
pagan. Near Amesbury pubs open all night. If the skies were clear, could be thousands who camped at
Stonehenge. It was not a friendly mass. Breaking bottles against the monoliths and scaled by
sandstones, dancing to the dawn of summer. The dreamy tranquility of the plain of Wiltshire was wiped
out by their rude laughter and the sound of their vehicles.
Cage never liked Tod Schluermann. It said there had nothing to do with the fact that Tod it would have
become the lover of Wynne while was in the tank. It also mattered that Tod had persuaded her to go to
England. Tod, twenty-four-year-old, had wandered all over the world; his father had been a doctor in
the air force. Born in the Philippines, he had grown in Germany, Florida and Colorado foundations. He
had failed at the Academy of the armed forces and had gone to other schools without acquiring
anything more important than a rejection to rise early.

Tod was a skinny kid who was attractive to developers tight pants that had become fashionable. It was
attractive in a graceful way. The bone structure of a Renaissance madonna was under his face. For to
enter in the Academy, had needed implants cochlear for correct a light problem ear: asked to the
surgeons that reduce their ears. I had no hair, except for a black brush in the head. As Wynne, you had
colored light blue, and under certain lighting looked like a corpse.
Wynne and it is found in a club of drugs; She was taking slider on a luminous table when he sat close to
her. Cage never understood what made Tod in the club. Tod not used drugs psychoactive often and.
Although tried to hide it, disapproving to them consumers usual. A good candidate for the League of the
Temperance with the drug. There was an aware of Puritan in him which site distancing it of his licentious
generation. In their years of exits and entries of schools, Tod had read wide, but not correctly. Like many
self-taught, suspected of the experts. It had natural intelligence, it was obvious, but his arrogance often
made it seem stupid.
- And you two, would of where are going to get the money to live? -You asked Cage before the dinner,
the night previous to be were of Ireland.
Tod was served a first glass of Chablis in a Waterford crystal wine glass and smiled.
-Uncle, the money is only problem if you think too much about it.
-Tony, why not leave of worry about you and me raisins the meat? -Wynne said. We will be well nobody spoke while Tod is served as a garrison and passing to it the tray. After all - continued it-, I have
my assignment.
There was a spot of Madeira sauce on the Chin of Tod.
-No, I want your money, Wynne.
But Cage knew that that was going to their advantage. The allocation of Wynne was generous enough to
hold a lawyer of Mayfair; I didn't want to spend it in Tod.
-What you makes think that you can learn to program a synthesizer of video? You know that people go
to College for that.
-The University, yes - Wynne and he exchanged a look. Well, you know, the problem is that for when the
professors have finished with you, they have completely destroyed your creativity. Speaks with them
good students of outstanding and discover that you have forgotten, in first place, of why wanted to
be artists. All they know is to recycle old rigid garbage they learned in school. Anyone can view it. Simply
charge some videos in the telecadena. Nothing new, uncle.
-Tod has been studying very hard. And already has some experience-said Wynne-. In addition, now not is
so difficult to learn to program as it used to be before. They have worked really to make a more
accessible interface.
-Who? Like to tell them old and sclerotized oppressors of the corporations?
-Tony! -It is lifted from the table.
-Non - it, said Tod. You're right - she returned to sit. Cage hated the way that she always supported Tod. See, uncle, I'm not saying that everything you learned in school is rotten. Look at yourself. I want to
say, never would have developed the slider or something so if not it had made in its time. You give a lot
of credit for having arrived to all that. Your work is brilliant. I know artists that they cannot even begin to

think about a project if not swallowed a few milligrams of your attention. But, uncle, is not about
that. What matters is the art and not the technology.
-Tod, we are talking about computer-controlled videosintetizadores - Cage let his cross fork on the
plate. The conversation had taken appetite-. It happens that I know a little bit about that. Remember, I
have had to many programmers working for me. They are complicated machines. And sides of use. How
are you going to afford the access time you need?
Tod was the only one that was still eating.
-There are ways - said while chewing it. Them stores small are open for the amateur to them computers
after the time of sale. He goes there at three in the morning and work until five o'clock. Very cheap.
-Even if you take something worthwhile, you have to distribute. Multinationals as the Western
Amusement not even touch to an independent.
Tod shrugged.
- And? I'll start from the bottom. That is why we are going to England. The British telecadena has lots of
links open for community access stations. Once the people see what I have, will be easy. I know.
Wynne served a volatile stimulant called Ecstasy in a large brandy glass, took a deep breath the vapors
and spent it. Inhalation of Tod was quick and desaprobadora; It offered the glass Cage. Coleen came
with the dessert and Cage is gave account of that not had nothing more than could tell. It was obvious
that Tod had no scruples to rebut the inevitable drawbacks. In six months the plan would be completely
different. Tod would stifling to Wynne or to Cage or to someone more! for his failure and would
continue his life without sense, without them, refugee in their mirage of genius trapped in a world full of
crazy. Was obvious.
But was Wynne, its beautiful Wynne, shining towards Tod as if this outside the second coming of
Leonardo da Vinci. That son of bitch is it going to take.
Sir Edmund Antrobus, the baron who belonged to Stonehenge, died without heir in 1915. During years is
had fought with the Church of the nexus Universal, a modern reincarnation of the Druid, based to parts
equal in the good will and the wrong academicism on the sense of the place. The Druid boss announced
that had been a curse druidic which had knocked down to sir Edmund. Some months later, the estate
came to buy it. Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge in an auction by 6,600 pounds. Stated that had felt an
impulse by own it. Three years later, Chubb offered Stonehenge to the nation and for his generosity,
Lloyd George appointed him Knight.
For cautious bureaucrats in the Department of works, Stonehenge was a disaster waiting to
materialize. Several stones inclined threatened with collapse is and the lintels displaced were punto's
fall is. The Government sought help in the society of antique dealers for its restoration. Antique dealers
took the opportunity to extend the repairs to a great and disastrous digging around the monument. The
Government, however, soon withdrew the funds, once the stones are enderezaran, and for years the
society struggled to pay for excavations. On more occasions that at least the coroner William Hawley
had to work alone, living in a wretched shack in the same place. In 1926, the project was stopped
mercifully, having achieved little more than mess up the findings and embarrass the society. As the
puzzled Hawley told the Times: more excavated, deeper seems the mystery.
Like many people, Cage did not choose his career; He became an artist of drug by accident. When he
started at Cornell, I wanted to study genetic engineering. Then Boggs was developing a virus that could

alter the chromosomes in existing cells. Kwabena had posted a working pioneer on the conversion of
algae for the consumption human. It seemed as if every month different geneticists give a step forward
to promise a miracle that would change the world. Cage wanted to do miracles also. At that time the
idealism did not seem so crazy.
Unfortunately, the engineering genetic attracted to all boy bright of the country. The competition at
Cornell was fierce. Cage started taking drugs in his second year of college just to keep up with the course
work. Began with small doses of metracina; It was assumed that only were addictive
psychologically. Cage was stronger than any drug. Then do not you worry too much recreational
substances. I had no time. I had tried the TCH on occasions, both pills and new sprays of Sweden. Once,
during a holiday of spring, a woman who had been watching gave her some outbreaks of mezcal. She
told him they would give him a new vision of things. And it was so; He realized that lost time with her.
Three semesters later everything was fatal. For then was taking megaanfetaminas in dose mass,
sometimes above them eighty milligrams. The initial hit was much like an orgasm all over the
body; After that, it didn't you study too. His tutor told him that change program after removing an
approved scraping in chemical genetics. It was burning his brain cells and losing weight; He had lost
orientation. He knew that he should detox and start again.
He pointed to a course of psychopharmacology in a paranoid impulse. If I had to study something, why
not the chemistry of what was doing himself with his habit?
Bobby Belotti was a good teacher; soon became his friend. You helped to let them anfetas, you helped
to get a graduation WS in biology and you encouraged to request the entry in the PhD. Much of the
idealism of Cage had dissipated during those semesters, flown in an amphetamine psychosis. Perhaps
this was the reason that was so easily determined that develop new drugs was something as noble as
cure hemophilia.
Cage wrote his dissertation on the effects of them hallucinogenic synthetic in them receivers
serotonergic and dopamine. First synthetic, such as LSD or DMT hallucinogens, were considered for a
long time as the production of regulating serotonin inhibitors, which was not surprising since their
chemical structures were remarkably similar. Their work showed that hallucinogens of this family also
affected the production of dopamine system and that many of the effects mentioned above were the
result of the interaction with such neuroregulators. Not was, had to admit it, a work bright nor
particularly innovative; those fundamentals are had established had much time. But by then the
boredom of being a student had grown considerably. His work it reflected.
He got his Bachelor's degree in the middle of the brief and ignominious legislation of the first American
party, a shortcut of libertarian fans inclined to dismantle the Government of the United
States. Overshadowing the Administration for drugs and food, they ignited the revolution in the use of
drugs for leisure. Cage was still deciding if slave with her doctorate when Bobby Belotti called him to tell
him he was Cornell. The Western Amusement was recruiting people to do r & d [1]
in its new division of psychoactive drugs. Belotti was going. Do I wanted to do the same Cage? Of course.
Is assumed that the team of Belotti was looking for something shocking for them men of
business. Something quick and rudimentary: soluble in fat, so it could soon reach the brain and reach its
activation center in a few minutes after its ingestion. It should be easily metabolizable for the
psychoactive effect disappear in an hour or two. No needles, and that remain under the level of
tolerance. Not wanted that their consumers saw a Dios, or that had the maximum orgasm possible; just
a bit of psychic distortion, some beautiful visions and leave them with the set smile.

Since Cage had worked with non-dissolvable hallucinogens, Belotti gave him a wide freedom of
action. After two frustrating months, he began to seriously consider the DMD. It seemed to meet the
specifications, except that in the tests with animals did not seem to present significant psychoactive
effects. Is worried because maybe was too subtle.
Bobby Belotti was a completely miserable individual. Your moreno hair and curly resisted any effort to
comb it. Always the shirt was getting into, but his belly took it shortly. Is saw fences dry of coffee in the
part superior of them memos and of them reports that is piled up in his desk; dust alighting calmly in the
joints of your terminal. These skills, it was the type of employee that the direction preferred to hide
from the outside world.
-Looks this-Cage entered impetuously in the office of Belotti and you left a stack of ten centimeters of
paper Pajamas in his table-. DMD works. The substance inhibits greatly the system serotononico.
Belotti is lifted the glasses and rubbed the eye with the back of the hand.
-Super. Do you have any effect that I can display?
-No, but these numbers say that there are any. Must of being some kind of trigger.
Belotti sighed and started to browse the desktop papers.
-Tony, head office is overwhelming us so that we take something that is for sale. Do not see that the
DMD is the answer. And you?
-In a couple of weeks, Bobby. I almost have it, I can touch it.
Belotti found a memorandum and is it happened to Cage.
-Let it rest, Tony. Take two products of the Pocket and perhaps then can try it again-the memorandum
recolocaba to Cage working under the direct supervision of Belotti.
Discussed. Cage never knew how discuss and had a temper fast. Belotti was too quiet, too damn
understandable. Although never was mentioned, the debt that Cage had with Belotti fed his fury. Felt as
if outside the student waste to which another time corrects your friendly teacher.
Fuming, Cage took the hateful memorandum to his cubicle, shut down the terminal, and his gaze
wandered on the blank screen. I was about to throw it all away, to make some madness. And then the
idea you came in the middle of its fury as a scene taken of a film of scientific crazy. Caught ten
milligrams of DMD and is was to House, to test it directly on it.
Half an hour after taking the drug, I was lying on the bed, in a dark room, waiting for something,
anything that happened. He felt uneasy, as if you had swallowed half speed. His pulse was high and
sweating. I knew by the evidence that this drug should already have come to the brain. I didn't feel
anything, I was not even angry. Finally went to bed, turned on the lights and went to the kitchen to
prepare a snack. He sat down at the telecadena with a ham and cheese sandwich, and went on to the
monitor; News, change channel, click, click.
No signal, only static, exactly what you needed to shoot the effect psychoactive of the DMD. Never ate
this sandwich.
Instead, he spent the next hour looking intensely at the screen of fosforescencias red, blue and green,
blink randomly, except that for Cage, was not at all random. He saw ways, wonderful ways: wheels of
fire, amber waves of wheat, angels dancing on the head of a needle, faces of demons. Is felt as if he

himself was an of those forms. He was released from his body, gliding across the screen to play between
those beautiful lights.
And suddenly ended, a very clean finish. Had last a hour and half since it had taken the pill; the moment
height had lasted approximately forty and five minutes. Was perfect. With a sophisticated spectacle of
lights to shoot the effect of the DMD, this is would be in the drug more popular from the alcohol. And
was yours, you gave has, only yours.
After all. Belotti is had been at the margin with his memorandum. Was Cage which had assumed those
risks, which had played with his body and his sanity. The friendship is the friendship, but Cage knew that
if played well his trick, could change your life. Therefore it ensured the address to hear talk about the
DMD by himself, showing how Belotti had tried to disrupt important investigations. If their colleagues is
resented against it by stepping on the head of a friend for climbing, Cage would learn to not you
matter. The office central is felt relieved in secret; Cage was much more presentable to Belotti. To the
little time, this was to charge of the group, and a little more later, to charge of all the laboratory.
Cage hoped that Bobby Belotti is out, that returned to Cornell, but never so made. Perhaps Belotti was
trying to a luck of revenge subtle going to the work all those days, taking coffee with the man that you
had betrayed.Cage is denied to feel is embarrassed. Found ways of prevent to Belotti, burying it finally in
a project less that not had many possibilities of success. After this, not returned to speak again.
They called the drug slipper and devoted themselves to launch an incredible market amount. Public
relations executives made famous Cage even until this understand completely what were doing. The
telecadena interviewers had never quite over it. In many agencies of information appeared a sound
biography his: the young and brilliant researcher, the daring discovery the first step towards an
incredible journey psychic. At the beginning, to Cage it amused him all this.
When finally he was able to return to the laboratory, he spent long time search team of the trigger
mechanisms of the Slipper psychoactive effect. The console's lights, which could read graphics of
electroencephalograms and transform them into high-resolution infographic pyrotechnics, was the
eldest of their successes, but there were many others. Indeed, his work in devices, after the marketing,
benefited to the Western Amusement both as her own drug. To keep it safe from the hunters of
corporate heads, Western Amusement gave him a share of the profit. Soon it became one of the world's
richest young men.
The experience of this recreational drug consisted of three parts: the same chemistry, the mental state
of the user and the environment where the drug was consumed, what Cage liked to call the
environment. Over the years, every time I was less involved in the development of chemical
substances. Newly licensed boys were best researchers of which he had never been. It was more
interested in the conceptual design, and especially liked to dream of new environments; the town of
Alpha stroboscope sensory isolation. The executives did everything they could to meet their changing
inclinations. Already not was in absolute a researcher psychopharmaceutical;It was baptized as the first
drugs artist.
However, the reason why Cage was forced to finish his task in the development of drugs had nothing to
do with his artistic wishes. He had the classic addictive personality: loved to fly away. During years left
that certain products chemical harmful nailed their claws in their synapses. Although he had always
managed to disengage, the address was nervous. Had become a symbol of the Corporation; Tony
cage not could allow is that they collapse.

Cage should not have been surprised to realize that his taste for drugs was reflected in Wynne. She
began to use them when only had nine years, and for when had eleven, he you allowed that took some
of the main psychoactive. There was almost no other alternative, if it is that Wynne would share his
life. One of the advantages that Cage was his own winery of drugs, which was ridiculed most of the
clubs. And its own laboratory was developing a gum canabiaceo aimed at the preteen market. Despite
that preached the League of the temperance, Cage not had created a culture of the drug; This had
created him. Children from all over the world are placed, reaching the most intense Flash. Even so, the
anxiety of Wynne by the drugs you confused.
Cage tried to make sure that Wynne had no specific drug addiction. Saw that the best way was that their
habits were changing. If she began to produce a tolerance generic before them hallucinogenic, for
example, it is going of holiday with all the family and changed to them opiates. She also was all the time
flown. Taking spree, that lasted from a few hours to a few days. Then, during a week or two, did not take
anything. Still, she worried. Taking some doses really surprising.
A summer before she met Tod, flew from the United States to Da Vinci Airport, and stayed at the
Hilton. Although they had taken the suborbital flight, both experienced hard adjustment of the
biological clock. As Cage had business to attend in Rome the next day, he could not afford suffer
imbalances of the flight. Wynne called to the service of rooms for them to rise a couple of shakes of
Placidex with flavor to strawberry. Cage threw himself on the bed; the substance made him feel as if he
were melting in the mattress. Wynne sat in a thermal Chair and changing the telecadena slow
channels. Finally it turned off and you asked if had thought any time that he had taken too many drugs.
Cage was about to fade; suddenly it was as alert as he capable of being someone whose brain is being
soaked by Placidex.
-Clear, you think continuously. Now I think I'm doing well. However, in any occasion that I thought that
could be a problem.
She nodded.
-Do you know when you have a problem?
-A signal is when you stop worrying.
She took it arms as if he were cold.
-That's too much. Are you only safe if you are concerned?
- Or if you're clean.
-Come already! How long it has lasted the longest period in which you have been clean, recently?
-Six months. When I was in the tank - both were laid to laugh-. Since you get the theme, said he, let you
ask. Do you think you take too?
He thought the question as if it had caught her by surprise.
-Nooo - he said at the end-. I'm young, I can handle it.
He told her how was engaged to amphetamines at Cornell. But the story did not seem to impress her.
- But you you beat them. It is obvious - she - said. So it might not be so bad.

-Perhaps you have reason-nodded it-. But it seems to me that I was lucky. A couple of months and have
never been able to cleanse me.
-I love fly me - she - said. But there are other things that I like both as that.
-For example?
-Sex, if you didn't know - stretched-. The lack of gravity in the space. That you catch me a book, a play or
a video. Spend me your money-yawned. Their words are made each time more slow-. Keep me asleep.
-Come to bed then - he said-. You are which makes that are awake them two-she dropped the pin of
your shoulder, and his tunic, loose, fell siseando to the floor, forming a heap. It was close to it. Her skin
was cool to the touch-. In all modes, who invented the Placidex? -He said and arrebuj next to him. He
could feel the softness of her belly in her back-. The guy knew what he did.
-No, the Guy didn't know what he did - then the Placidex made him laugh, although a Cage it seemed
fun, but in a macabre sense. One day took a dose and fell asleep in a Chair thermal. He had cancelled
the timer. Roasted to death.
-Died happy, anyway - it gave it a tap on the hip and the turned-. Happy dreams.
In 1965 the astronomer Gerald Hawkins published a book with the immodest and direct title of
Stonehenge decoded. Previous scholars always had looked beyond Stonehenge to find evidence that
supported his theories. In certain times they found in the authority of the Bible and Church tradition,
others in the ruins of Rome or the great historians of antiquity. As their predecessors, Hawkins called
upon the authorities of his time to support his ingenious theory. Using IBM 7090 of the HarvardSmithsonian Consortium to analyze patterns of solar and Lunar alignments at Stonehenge, Hawkins
reached a conclusion that electrified the world. Stonehenge had been built as an Observatory by
astronomers of antiquity. In fact, he said that a part of this was an element of a 'Neolithic computer'
which had been used by its builders to predict lunar eclipses.
The theory of Hawkins caught the popular imagination, due in large part to an incomprehensible interest
of old media. The reporters hesitated before this made wonderful: the scientific of Stonehenge had built
a computer of sandstone and stone bluish that only a brain electronic modern could decoding. Even
issued a special television program on one of the channels of the pretelecadena. Is spoke much about
them numbers that Hawkins had calculated in the computer, while is could have made the same
calculations manually, and also, what Hawkins really got test was completely different of what said have
proven. Computer studies showed that the Aubrey holes, a set of fifty-six wells regularly distributed,
could be used to predict eclipses. But these studies do not showed that the builders of Stonehenge had
that purpose in mind. Soon appeared hypothesis in conflict with this and proliferated other strictly
astronomical interpretations of Stonehenge.
Soon the problem was identified: Stonehenge had too much astronomical significance. It was a mirror
where any theorist could see reflected their ideas.
Cage did not immediately follow Tod and Wynne to England. Instead flew back to the United States,
after cryogenic holidays, to talk to Western Amusement. Cage, in fact, already not was an employee of
the company. It was an independent contractor, he himself was a corporation. Even so, not had doors
closed for it in the laboratory that you had made famous, no secret that le was forbidden. The news hot
was that in the six months that had been last in the tank. Bobby Belotti had made an important
discovery in the project share.

Cage had begun the project share years earlier, while still working in the laboratory on time
complete. Had State thinking in how the reinforcement social seemed to give energy to the use
recreation of the drugs. Many users preferred to fly with other drugs clubs or private parties, users
before making love or take a good meal or a dance in the weightlessness of space. If the socialization
increased pleasure, why not try looking for a way that users share an identical experience? It was not
only create an identical environment, but synchronize the effect at the level of the Synapse; stimulation
direct of the cortex sensory, a kind of telepathy artificial.
The head office was a little skeptical. The mere mention of telepathy gave to the entire project aroma of
pseudoscience, and, in addition, seemed too expensive. In that time, Cage thought that the effect could
be created electrochemically, through the interaction of the drug psychoactive with the stimulation
cerebral electronic. Surely would be necessary any type of implant, but those studies of market showed
that much people had fear to the connections in the brain. They called it "the zombie factor".
Cage continued with the idea. If not come to more, thought, unless the share could be a powerful
aphrodisiac. What does it matter how expensive that would be if it was to be the last of the erotic
experiences? He said that nobody had ruined never sell love potions and allowed him to do the
feasibility study.
Had that direct the study; had many hollow that only the research basic could fill, but this research is
had made, if not by the Western Amusement, Yes in another site. The only thing that finally was able to
sell them was make a little effort on something already in place. The perfect place to bury Bobby
Belotti. A small bet in the long run.
And now, years more afternoon, Belotti had something that seemed very promising. He had borrowed a
drug, the 7.2 DAPA who had developed the Neuropathologists dedicated to the study of language
disorders. This could induce an anomie euphoric, interrupting the process of Association of certain
Visual stimuli with their corresponding words. Users had problems to name what they saw. The
substantive, especially them abstract, as well as the names themselves, were especially difficult. The
severity of the anomie depended on not only the use but also the complexity of the visual
environment. For example, a user that shows a long petals pink would be unable to pronounce the
words 'flower' or 'pink', even being able to maintain an intelligent conversation about flowers. If are you
taught a greenhouse, could stay is without words. However, if you caught a rose and the smelled, or if
you just hear the word 'pink', it would make the connection, and in that moment of recognition, brain
neurons begin to pump like crazy. The brain would be flooded by the pleasure of the discovery.
-The problem is - he explained Belotti to Cage - in which there is still no way to predict exactly which
words you will lose. Too much individual variation. For example, can that I is unable of saying pink but
you if can. In that case I can reach, thanks to you, a lightning of understanding and you, however, not
take anything. Only if both lose the same word and then find the appropriate indication, we will share
the effect.
-It seems to go to replace sex - laughed Cage; Belotti broke back. The man had not changed. The hair
that had needed a hairstyle. Had nets of veins broken under its Wrinkly skin. It seemed very old, very
finished. A Cage was difficult to remember the time they had been friends.
-Well, shared sex would be interesting - Belotti sounded as if he were repeating the excuses which had
already arisen before. But not would get a great effect saying "I'm having an orgasm. Too touch, little
to do with the visual stimulus. However, the enkephalin suppresses Visual impulses, and proportionately
the pleasure would be raised. But, remember, this is very mild in the doses that we are studying. Takes
much and there will be a trend that you leave. You have hallucinations. It is unpredictable, dangerous.

-Do you can block the effect?

-Until now Neuroleptics are only effective inhibitors that we have found. And, in addition, act very
slowly - Belotti shrugged his shoulders. The tests, in fact, have not finished yet. Actually I have not paid
them much attention.I took this, you know. Spent ten years to follow the specifications that entered,
and now am throwing simulations by computer, "making them duties.
Cage had not thought about Bobby Belotti for too long; suddenly he felt guilty about the old.
-What would use it, Bobby?
-As you said, that not is decision to mine. The marketing department will find someone that band, I'm
sure. I guess that they are a little disappointed because it was not be the aphrodisiac that I promised
them.
-Is a good work, Bobby. You don't have to apologize to anyone. But not can believe that have worked
both during both time without thinking in the applications business.
-Good, if is could control what words is lost, then is could use cicerones to provide them evidence
necessary-Belotti is scratched the neck-. Perhaps you could mix with a hypnotic to give to them
cicerones more authority psychological. It might be useful, for example, in classes to develop the artistic
taste. Or perhaps the museums it could sell along with those guides recorded on tape.
Wonderful. A lightning for museums. Cage could imagine the ads. The Queen of the video in top-less
saying to his lover Silver: Hey, uncle, lose us in the National Gallery and have a buzz. It was not
surprising that had sidelined him.
-Who might be interested? Seems that it only that makes missing are two people sitting before a table
of kitchen, throwing are words the one to the other.
- But the words... Not is so simple. No we are speaking of lights beautiful in this case; We are speaking of
symbols internalized that can shoot States mental complex. Emotions, memories.
-Clear, Bobby. Look, I will speak with the office central. I will see if we can put you on a new project with
your own team.
-Don't worry - she told him with a stony expression. I have offered a retirement early and it I'm going to
accept. I have sixty and a years, Tony. How many have you now?
-I'm sorry, Bobby. I think you've done wonders to advance so far with sharing - smiled you to Belotti his
smile of business. Where can I get some samples?
Belotti nodded as if he had expected that Cage asked that.
-Are you still unable to quiet hands with merchandise? Keep well closed the drug boat, you know. Until
they decide what they have achieved.
-I'm a special case, Bobby. Should know to these heights that some rules, simply, not van with me.
Belotti hesitated. He looked as if he was trying to solve an equation of incredible complexity.
-Come on, Bobby. By an old friend...
With a poisoned giggle, Belotti became an optical card to open the desk, pulled out a green bottle of the
top drawer and threw it a Cage.

-One each time, would understand? And I did not give it to you.
Cage removed the lid. Six pills; yellow dust inside transparent capsules. He suspected for a
minute; Belotti seemed too eager to break the laws of the company, but some time that Cage had
changed opinion on this man. He could not worry about someone who had so little respect. I was trying
to imagine how you would feel being someone normal like the poor Belotti: old, at the end of an
unsuccessful, embittered and tired career. What kept alive a guy as well? It had a chill and moved the
image while putting in a pocket the green bottle.
-By the way, what time is? He asked Cage. You said to Shaw that you would see to eat.
Belotti touched the bridge of his glasses and the lens is darkened.
-Do you know? Before you really hated. But then I di features: don't know what demons were
doing. Would be as accuse to a cat's play with a mouse hurt. You don't see anyone, Tony. I bet to not
you see or to you same-their hands trembled-. It is ok. Already me callo-shut off its terminal-. I'm going
to House. The only reason why I came was because they told me that you wanted to see me.
To not dare, Cage asked they analyse one of the samples of Belotti; It was totally pure. Then, instead of
risking a new meeting, Cage went on. I had to see his lawyers in Washington and their accountants in
New York. He spoke in the Congress annual of the Association American of psychopharmacology, in the
Hilton Head in South Carolina, and offered half a dozen interviews for the telecadena. He met a
Japanese woman and made reservations to spend a weekend in orbit in Habitat 3. Then were were to
Osaka, where discovered that she was a spy of the Corporation only. They spent almost two
months. Enough time, he thought, so Tod it would have spoiled everything, so that Wynne had
discovered that he was born to mess up, and to make that impossible relationship had sunk under its
own weight. Cage took the suborbital to Heathrow. Was completely safe.
It was an unpleasant surprise: Tod Schluermann had been lucky.
The video Burns London had only five minutes of duration. Beginning with a frame of silo of
missiles. Countdown. Launch. London suffered an attack. They were not missiles, but huge nude Wynnes
plotting several Rainbow in the sky while they were falling on the city. They exploited, not flames, but
vegetation that gassed all the blocks of the city with trees and shrubs. Soon it disappeared within a
forest. The camera is directed to a clearing where played a group called Flog. They were those who had
put the dreamy soundtrack. The tempo went up, the band playing faster and faster, until it burned their
instruments, consuming them to them and the forest. The last image was burnt trunks and ashes in a
frying pan. Cage felt that it was very silly.
No one could have predicted that a boy of seventeen, from outside of the United Kingdom, would
introduce to Flog their immature hearts. When did burning London with Tod, Flog was unknown. In the
period of one month passed a basement of Leeds to an apartment at Claridge's, in London. Although
Tod did not make much money with burning London, earned a reputation. The boy who had compared
himself with Nam June Paik instead made videos for teenage fans.
Wynne and he were living in a block of tubes in Battersea. She could have is allowed something better,
but he insisted on that lived only with their own media. Were some two hundred tubes of plastic,
embedded in what before had been a warehouse. Each had about three meters long; them more simple
had a meter and half of diameter and the double, two meters. Each one was equipped with a lock under
the mattress of gel, with a terminal of telecadena and a drain that passed by basin. There was always a
queue to the showers. And the bathrooms smelled.

But for Tod was well; spent the greater part of the time frequenting the laboratories of video or trying to
with representatives of bands. It even had a table at VidStar and a session on schedule regular to your
synthesizer, four to five in the morning on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. But Wynne was only
going to VidStar. And although they spent almost every night in clubs in and around the city to listen to
groups and to teach Tod videos, it seemed that Wynne had little to do. Cage could not understand why
she was so happy.
-Because I'm in love - he said-. For the first time in my life.
-I'm happy for you, Wynne, believe me - they were sitting drinking beer in a pub, waiting for Tod finish a
job and join them for dinner. I was in the dark. It was easier to lie in the dark-. But how much can last if
not find something that do? Something you do by yourself.
-So do I become famous? As you? -She is laughed while passing the finger by the edge of his glasses. Why they have that worry you of that now, Tony? You were who told me that you should take some
free time after completing the Bachelor's degree.
-I have thought much about that since are with Tod. You could go to the University that wanted to.
-You know what he thinks universities Tod. Even so, I thought some business courses. I thought that
could be the representative of Tod. That you would give more time to do the work important. It is really
good and he is still learning; that is the most amazing thing. Have you had time to see burning London?
Cage nodded.
-Do you recognize the woman?
-Of course.
She smiled. I was proud of appearing in the video of Tod. Cage realized that his plan of staying on the
sidelines had gone very, very bad. I would have to intervene in the situation, or would never recover to
Wynne.
-Good news-said Tod while is spinning in the Bank, beside Wynne. They kissed-. I have sold them a
project. I've got an assignment to do a thirty minute free Festival video.
Wynne hugged him.
-Is great, Tod. You know you could get it.
-Festival free? He asked Cage. Of which you speak?
-As you know, uncle - Tod finished the rest of the beer of Wynne. We're always talking about that, then
got the idea. I will make a video of the celebration of the solstice. At Stonehenge.
The history not designates the first time that is used drugs at Stonehenge. However, there is little doubt
about that most of the major available in 1974 hallucinogens were consumed in the first free Festival at
Stonehenge. A maritime pirate music station, Radio Caroline, had insisted his listeners to go to
Stonehenge with a festival of 'love and consciousness'. The day of the Solstice that year, a horde of
ragged fans, teens and twenty-somethings, raised a camp near the parking lot. The music was then
called rock; apparently it was not a joke [2]. The landscape cleared around the rocks was full of tents
and teepees, cars and caravans. Howling electric guitars, and there was a scent of marijuana in the
summer breeze. There were tapes of those ancient festivals. A vast psychedelic humanity met for the
occasion: the typical couple of Des Moines with identical glasses and t-shirts in polyester, the smiling

Tokyo engineer filming everything, the young mother from Luton breastfeeding their child at the Altar
stone, the municipal police of Amesbury that remained in the outer circle, with his hands caught at the
back , the Druid of Leicester with their clothes ceremonial white, the teenage of hair long of Dorking
that had scaling the great dolmen and shouted something about Jesus, UFOs, the Sun and the
Beatles. The festival had been always one of the great scenarios for fly is. The pioneers of hallucinogens
had achieved a striking Word for radical perception of similar experience shock, on the fascinating
strangeness of everything. Used to call to the free of Stonehenge the jodecocos.
Wynne and Tod sent her tube of sleep from the block from Battersea to Stonehenge, to the five days of
the festival. Along with thousands of other, resting near the old parking there is on the other side of the
A360, near the dome that now protects the stones. Tubes seemed giant slipper capsules scattered over
the grass. In the Middle, there were bubbles tensioned, shops Goretex of various geometries, vans and
cars, and even people sitting in chairs of scissors under parasols mottled.
Cage stayed in an Inn of Amesbury and followed the festival by the telecadena.
On the eve of the Solstice it managed to persuade Tod and Wynne to be the people with the promise of
a free dinner. Dessert, he proposed his small experiment.
-Don't know, uncle - Tod looked doubtful. Tomorrow is the last day, the big day. I don't know if I should
take at this time experimental drugs.
Cage hoped that Tod will resist, but had with Wynne.
-Oh, Tod - she said, will be the only one there who is not placed. Why not join it to the spirit of the
moment? -his eyes seemed bright. Think about it, few hours have shot so far? Forty, fifty?, and just want
to average. And even if you lose something, always you can synthesize it.
-You know-said irritated-. What happens is that I'm tired. Just I think already-be drank his Claret-. Well,
perhaps, of agreement?, only perhaps. But it starts again. Tell me about it from the beginning.
Cage started claiming that burning London had impressed him; said that wanted to know better to Tod,
understand your art. He spoke of the inspiration that it had when I was watching the telecadena
festival. All would take share and go together to the celebration of the Solstice, using Stonehenge, the
crowd and themselves to find the sensations that tailor their experience. Cage spoke of the aesthetic of
it random as a response to the problem of the selection. He said that they could be on the verge of a
historic discovery; Share could be perfectly a new way from that which not were artists participate in
the Act itself of the creation artistic.
Not mentioned that had mixed the dose of share of Tod with an anticholinergic that would crush by full
their defenses psychological. When Tod out completely vulnerable to the suggestion, devoid of the
capacity of lying, Cage would begin to question it. It would force him to tell the truth, it would force
Wynne to see the empty guy who was using it to advance his career. At that time, also Wynne would see
the ugliness that Cage had seen all the time around his attractive face. When Tod reveal simply so little
that you worried she, the affair would be finished.
-Come on, Tod, said Wynne-. We have not taken drugs together long ago. I'm bored of place me
single. And when Tony recommends something like this, sure that will have an effect total.
-Are you sure that I can work while under the effects of that? -the resistance of Tod was lowering. Don't
want to ruin the day filming the lawn.

-I'll take something to neutralize it. If you have problems you can directly take it whenever you
want. Don't worry, Tod. Look, the action of the share you will help to be more oriented visually. You
yourself have said that language stands in the way of art. Share removes all our preconceptions
superstructure. Not know what are seeing, only it will see, as through the eyes of a child. Think about it.
For a time Cage was asked if would have insisted too much. The attention of Wynne has
changed; seemed more interested in what he was saying that in the reaction of Tod to the respect. I
could feel his approving gaze, but not said it. The waiter came with it has and Cage it signed while
throwing the true bait for Tod.
-Tod, if you have fear of prove it, say it simply. After all, it is something new. No one will tell you
anything if you take back.
-Very well, Lord-the waiter, a real English, pretended that not heard to Cage while this you returned it
has-. Thank you, Mr.
-However - Cage continued, I believe in sharing and believe in you. So when you are done your video I'd
teach him Western Amusement. They have not decided yet how to market share. If the video is as good
as I think it may be, the matter would be resolved soon. I will do that you buy. You will be the
spokesperson, no, shit, the father of a new form of art in collaboration.
Knew that then had trapped to Tod. This was what the boy had wanted to hear all the time. Cage had
understood immediately that Tod had seduced to Wynne simply as a step in his career. Very well, then
let that Tod has its presentation in the multinational entertainment and under their own conditions. Let
him believe that has manipulated to Cage. Not matter as long as soon as Cage could recapture to
Wynne.
-What you are doing, Tony? -Wynne said, and turned pale under her dyed skin. She should of suspect
that Tony is was pulling a bluff.
-What I am doing? -Cage stood laughing-. I'm not sure. That makes it interesting, isn't it?
-By agreement, uncle - Tod rose also. I will try.
-Tony! -Wynne rose with them.
-What is that? -He said Wynne, pointing to Stonehenge. Light lightning weaved in the darkness,
illuminating the crowd that remained outside of the dome.
-Is only are et Lumire-said Cage-, them technical holographic of the Department of environment
mounted this to get an extra to them tourists-followed walking by the A360, where the urban of
Amesbury them had left-.Look what's coming now.
Seconds later, two arco iris laser shone among the stones.
-Forty mainstream of Stonehenge - discontent - said Tod. Both Turner as Constable made great pictures
of this place. The Turner was loaded with its characteristic bombast, with their lightning and its dead
Shepherd and his dog howling. Constable tried to raise their boring watercolors with double arc
Rainbow.
Cage is bit the lip and not said anything. Really not needed a lesson on Stonehenge, and much less than
Tod. After all, he possessed one of the sketches of Constable about Stonehenge.

Tod was adjusted his helmet VidStar Viewer; It looked like a mantis with cameras as eyes. Cage could
hear small engines humming while twin cameras focused.
-One begins to feel it? -He asked Wynne.
-I have researched much on this site, do you know? -Tod continued-. It is surprising to the people who
have been here.
-Yes - he said Cage. You feel some damp freshness which extends from the side back of the skull, as mud
- is had taken capsules of share in the darkness of the way there. What time is it?
-Are them four and eighteen minutes-Tod got a disc new in the floppy hung from his belt-. Dawn at the
five and seven.
Cage looked to the Northwest; the sky had already begun to illuminate. The stars were as insects of glass
escaping in the sky grey.
-It comes in waves - said Wynne-. Hallucinations.
-Yes-said Cage. Their retinas seemed to tremble. I knew that something was wrong but could not
imagine what it was.
They passed beside the inevitable manifestation in the League of Temperance row; Fortunately no one
recognized the Cage. They finally reached a runner surrounded with barbed wire had, going through the
crowd, at the entrance of the dome. At the end of the corridor was a troop of ghosts. They were dressed
in white robes, some wearing glasses. They were carrying balloons of copper and oak branches and
banners with images of snakes and pentacles. They were men and women and seemed very old. They
grumbled about a song that sounded like wind blowing between the dry leaves. Old and parched ghosts,
wrinkled and determined, concentrated as if were solving problems of chess in their heads.
-Druids - Tod said. The words broke the trance and a shiver traveled the shoulders of Cage. Looked at
Wynne and you could instantly know that she felt the same. A smile of recognition shone in his face, in
the glow that precedes to the dawn-. Are you well? -He asked Tod.
Wynne laughed.
-Not.
Tod shrugged his shoulders and went his arm through hers.
-We will. Have that go the dome if want to see leave the Sun on the stone of the heel.
Began to open is way among the crowd, towards the side Southeast of the dome. The space between
the covers was now empty, and Cage was able to see that the Druids procession had passed through the
outer circle of the sandstones. All turned to the northeast to face, already next dawn, with the heel
stone.
-That is - Tod - said. We are exactly on the axis.
A fat woman near Cage shone. Except for their leggings to the knees, she was naked. Its skin gave off a
soft green light; her nipples and her hair was a bright orange. When he moved, his flesh shone like rays
of Moonlight. At the beginning thought that was another hallucination. Something wrong.
-You also are you seeing it? -she whispered Wynne.

-Is a Firefly-Tod not is worried of tell it in voice low and the woman Green is returned to him.
Wynne nodded as if he understood. Cage put his hand on the ear to hear better.
-What is a Firefly?
-Has a phosphorescent body dye - reply came in a whisper.
Tod is laughed, directed its objectives towards it and you said:
-Do you know the cancer which is that thing? Eighty per cent of mortality at five years - came wobbling
until it-. Is my body, Flash. Isn't it? -Cage was surprised when she had an arm around the waist of Tod. Are you not will be doing a Flash video? I get at it?
-Of course - he said-. All the world has right to their ten minutes of Fame. Know that the camera you
love. Firefly. Why you teniste.
She let loose a giggle.
-Are with someone, Flash?
-Now no, Firefly. The Sun is coming out.
Photographers fans and cameras professional began to fight for a site to its around. Tod, using their
elbows with bad intention, not was displaced. The bright edge of the sun appeared on the trees, to the
Northwest. Inside the dome, the Druids raised the horns and blew, in tribute to the new
day. Inarticulate sounds and polite applause were heard outside. A man with a long beard rolled on the
ground screaming.
But there is an alignment - complained about a fool. The Sun is in the wrong site.
The Sun had illuminated trees and climbed the horizon color brick. Cage closed his eyes and could still
see it: red blood, blue lightning, veins throbbing along its surface.
-Uncle, the Sun isn't bad - said a man with a camera where there should be a head. In fact. Stonehenge
is not aligned. It never was. It is a myth, uncle.
Although not identified immediately to that subject, Cage knew that hated his voice mocking. When
opened the eyes another time, the Sun already had scaled several times their diameter in the sky. After
a few moments, it passed over the heel stone, towards the other end of Stonehenge, and seemed to be
suspended there, held in the sky by a single pillar of coarse sandstone of five meters high. His view was
framed by the pillars and lintels of the circle outside. Seemed as if remained on the column spine of the
world. He fell silent; men dressed in skins had built a structure that could capture a star. The crowd was
silent, or perhaps was that Cage had ceased from perceive anything that not outside the fire solar and
the stone. Then, that moment happened. The Sun continued to rise.
-Seems an entry - he said the Firefly - another world - in the light of the dawn seemed to pale.
Entry. The word filled his mind. An entry put up another entry.
-Calculus is about four degrees wrong - someone said. Cage saw people catching to help the man who
howled.
-Do Tony? -a strange and beautiful woman had taken her hand. His voice was an echo and sounded
distorted: the vague chatter of a baby, the shout of joy of a kid. He blinked before her in the soft

light. Blue skin, hair tip, dressed in silver, a Sapphire bezel. His face, a gem. Beautiful girl. Cage it was
falling in love.
-Who you are? -no could remember it.
-Comes in waves - she said. He did not understand it.
-Is so blown up that is you just the space-said it cabeza-camara with a voice mocking.
-Who you are you? -Cage grabbed him with his hand.
-I am, Tony - the beautiful woman laughed. Cage wanted to laugh too-. Wynne.
Wynne. Again and again said this word for himself, shivering with pleasure at each repetition. Wynne,
the Wynne.
- And I'm Tod, remember? the cabeza-camara - looked you disgusted. God, thank goodness that I did not
take that thing. Look at you. She can't stop laughing and you're Catatonic. How was it assumed that it
worked? You give you account of the hanging ye? -Tod said. Cage was hit by another wave of
hallucinations, and made an effort to remember. A plan... force to Tod... do to Wynne view... Cage
remembered all this, but something failed if Tod was serene.
-Did not take...?
-Shit, no! -Tod is returned. Cage felt objectives scrutinizing him, burning him, judging him-. I'm not so
naive as to think, uncle. I decided to simulate, first see how I affected that thing. If it seemed fun, you
could always put me to tone - had a small light red shining in the middle of the town of Tod.
-Turn off it, bastard-said Cage-. I... I don't... in your damn... your foul and accursed...
-Isn't it? -Cage could see a smile after the hull-. Dude, you're a public figure. A piece of you belongs to
everyone.
-Tod - Wynne - he said. Not it out of frame.
Red light disappeared. Got the display and took her hand. Let the Cage and departed with her.
-Give a ride, Wynne. I want to talk to you.
As he watched them go together, Cage felt as if he had been petrified. It had lost. The crowd was
arremolin after them and they disappeared.
-Do you're Tony Cage? -is returned without understanding towards a woman of medium age, that wore
a "dress of emotions. Passed from the blue to a green silver when called to her husband-. Mary, quick see a burly man dressed in isothermal responded to his call-. You're Tony Cage, not?
Cage not could speak. The man shook his flaccid hand.
-Sure, you've seen in the telecadena. Many times. We are from USA, of New Hampshire. We have tested
all of your drugs.
- But the slider is still our favorite. I'm Silvia, we are retired - her dress turned from lime green to the
Green Apple. Cage could not look into his face.
-I am Mary. I would say that you are quite flown. With what? Do you have something new in hands?

Some heads were beginning to turn.

Sorry - your language seemed stone. I don't feel well. I have that--then, reeling, it left fans
fans. Fortunately they did not follow him.
Did not remember how long had wandered among the crowd, or how it came out, or did look like
exactly. A terrible suspicion assailed him. Was there perhaps a problem with the dose? The Druids finally
ended with their ceremony and the dome opened to the public. It was carried away by the stream of
people and then collapsed on the stone of sacrifice.
The stone of the sacrifice was a block of sandstone cover of lichen, to some thirty metres out of the
circle external; a good place to sit and watch, out of the excitement around the upright stones. The
surface of the stone was enough and was bored. Before it was thought that these natural cavities were
used to pick up the sacrificial blood, both animals and humans. Another myth, since the stone had
originally been upright. They were now two fallen objects, Cage and stone, their foundations
undermined, its meaning lost. They existed in a State of consciousness that is basically identical.
Cage had thoughts of stone; his understanding was that of a rock.
The Sun came up. Cage had heat. The combination of heat body and solar had overloaded the air
conditioning of the dome. It did nothing. Them waves of hallucinations seemed to remove it. It had
scaled by the wall outside and walked by their lintels. A woman began to undress it. The people
applauded and encouraged it. Virgin vestal! Vestal virgin!", they shouted. A toddler watched avidly
while he squeezed a bottle of non-refundable Apple juice. Cage was thirsty, but not did nothing. The boy
pulled the boat when finished, and is was wandering. A police is stopped after the crowd to see to the
nudist remove is the panties. Surprise the crowd and she offered them an extra. He suffered an
amputation; He let go a prosthetic arm and waved it above his head. The world went crazy and tried to
drag a Cage. He bore a neuroleptic in its pressure syringe and is injected into the forearm.
-Tony! -There was no Tony, it was only a stone.
-Hey, stranger shook uncle--. I am, Tod. Something happens to Wynne! We have to know what took.
-In waves - Cage began to laugh-. It comes in waves, now realized. Hallucinations, but not share. Is was
laughing with so much force that it fell for back. Belotti! Poor Bobby had returned the coup, finally, after
all these years.The drug was pure, but it dose..., too high. Hallucinogens, dangerous, had told him,
unpredictable. This unpredictable and old... bastard! Cage boqueaba to take a breath.
-Need oxygen! Fast!
-Look at her eyes!
When the last wave reached him, Cage grabbed the stone. The crowd disappeared, the dome unraveled,
the parking, the A360, all signs of civilization disappeared. Then the stones were awakened and began to
dance. That had fallen were straightened out alone. A road appeared in the grass. The stone of sacrifice
rose and threw it while it established. A twin stone appeared by his side; an entry. Wanted to cross it,
down to the road, see all Stonehenge.
But retained it the magic. In a sobreexplicado world, only the most subtle and powerful magic of all
survived, the magic that works exclusively in mind. A curse. A race dead and illiterate had thrown a curse
on the imagination of the world. With its rugged magnificence, Stonehenge challenged everyone to
understand its meaning, as his secret was locked up beyond the impenetrable walls of time.

-Lie you.
-Tony!
-No can hear you.
Soon all were to his around, all those who had been at the site where Cage was now. Political, writers,
painters, historians, scientists, tourists, Yes, even them tourists, who, in search of fun, had found,
instead, a mystery timeless. All those who had accepted the challenge of Stonehenge and had fallen
under its curse. They had fought with words and images to find their secret, but all I saw was
themselves. Flashed then the Sun and the surface of the stones is developed in silver. Cage could see all
the ghosts that are reflected in the shiny stones. You could see also to itself same.
-Tony, can you hear me? Wynne suffers some type of crash. You have to explain to us what is.
Cage saw himself in the stone of sacrifice. What did it matter? He had lost it. His image seemed to
shine. He looked like a ghost; thinking about death not disgusted. Be stone.
-Wake up, uncle. You have to save it. She is your daughter, dammit!
-No - at that time the reflection of Cage in the stone changed and saw his mirror image: Wynne,
suffering. Is gave features of that she had suffered during much time, it had hidden after a decorated of
drugs, pretending to hardness. Had that have be given count. Trapped by the logical magic of
hallucination, he could actually feel his pain and he was assaulted by the certainty that he was the
cause. It was not already the drug, but same Stonehenge forcing him to suffer with it, Stonehenge,
which created a magical landscape where is tearing the veil of words and a mind could touch to another
mind directly. Or something like it seemed to him a Cage. A sound echoed in his vision: a cry-. Not! -the
stones fell, disappeared, but Cage was unable to escape the pain. All the lies that Cage had told him
same collapsed. In a moment of terrible revelation, he realized what had done you, his daughter.
Tod had lost his helmet somewhere, probably lying on the lawn and shooting close-ups of grass. It
seemed very pale even under the blue tint of his skin. Cage blinked trying to remember what was
asked. Had electrodes
stuck at the top of the Cage and your wrist. A health care worker checked his readings.
-What you gave? -asked the doctor.
Cage hands trembled while searching for pressure syringe in his pocket.
-This is... a... neuroleptic dose. You need them now. Already! -the toilet was very young; He seemed to
doubt. Cage was incorporated, removed his temple electrode-. Do you know who I am? -the world
revolved. Do it!
The toilet looked briefly at Tod, then he took the syringe and returned to the standing stones. Tod
hesitated, looking back at the Cage.
-Did you say to him? -Cage tried to get up.
He put his arm around the shoulders of Cage to help you.
-Are you okay?
-Did you say it was? Did you you say that it was my daughter?

-That's what she believes. We are discussing that.

-It was my lover. I guess that already you know. Came a night. Both were flown. Not could... not I could
reject it.
Tod looked forward.
-That told me she. I said that was because theirs. Then you gave a spasm.
-Non - Cage still could see for himself; never could let's see it-. I was alone, so I made sure that she was
also. And to that I called love - words almost are you choked. Where is it? Take me to your side--started
walking. Tod, do you love?
-Don't know, uncle - thought it for a moment. I feel that it is something similar to that.
She was unconscious, but the spasm had spent and health said that her vital signs were good, Cage went
to the hospital with Tod. They waited all day; spoke of all less than what really them worried. Cage
realized that he had made a mistake with Tod. Tamos errors. When finally Wynne regained her
consciousness, Tod was to see it. Only.
-I am not - said Cage-. Tell you that I've gone.
-No can do that.
-Tell is it!
To Tod just let him stand for ten minutes. Cage was all the while concerned of that Tod will call.
-Is well?
-It seems it. Asked by you. You said that you returned to your room to sleep. You said that come
tomorrow. Going to be here this evening.
-I'm going. Tod - Cage tended him hand-. I'll never see.
-What? You can not do that, uncle. She saw something this morning, something that makes you feel
guilty as hell. If you you just speed, it is going to feel worse. Do not you understand? You to the stay.
Cage let fall his hand to one side.
-You want to be a kind of hero. Tod. The problem is that I am a coward, I've always been. I also saw
something today and will devote the rest of my life to forget it. She... the two are better without me.
Tod grabbed him by the shoulders.
-By assumed that you're going to see it tomorrow. Listen, uncle! If you really want it...
-I want to the - Cage dropped - as much as myself.
That night it took the shuttle from Heathrow to Shannon. Knew that Tod had reason; escape was cruel
and selfish. Tod could think about what you would like, may never know how much it had hurt him
abandon Wynne in this way... If Cage escaped, it was full of pain. He hoped that Wynne
understood. Once. Its beautiful Wynne. He needed several days to put their affairs in order. It left him a
fortune in shares of the Western Amusement. He recorded a tape saying goodbye to it.

A mist envelops the Earth. The misting slate of the Bay of Galway you remember to Cage the
sandstone. Cryogenic capsule awaits you, scheduled for a hundred years. Do not know if this will be
enough to save it. Or to save it. Knows that probably not it will see more, but for a time, at least, will be
in peace. You will sleep the inscrutable dream of stones.
[1]
R & D or research and development. (The T. N.)
[2]
The joke is a play of words with rock: Rock, referred to the stones of Stonehenge and rock, the
music. (The T. N.).

PETRA
-Greg Bear
Greg Bear sold his first story short in 1966, when had fifteen years. It was in form between the late
1970s and early 1980s, when a flurry of stories and novels made him a writer who had to follow closely.
The Bear work is deeply rooted in the best intellectual tradition of science fiction. Writer prolific and at
the same time disciplined, rewards above all the rigor speculative and the respect by them made
scientific. This attitude linking science fiction traditional hard, despite his very praised work of fantasy
[1].
As his career progressed, it began to emphasize strongly its high imaginative capacity, achieving one
even greater impact thanks to the disciplined trade he had learned previously. This combination has
produced a science fiction hard genuinely radical, an outstanding visionary power, demonstrated in
novels widely hailed as Blood Music or Eon.
The story that comes then, published at the beginning of 1982, marked the leap quantum of Bear, from
them limits of them conceptions traditional until a new and vertiginous space. With the direct and
detailed development of a genuinely fantastic idea, this story shows the best Bear technique.
"God is dead, God is dead." ... Doom! When God dies, you'll know." Confessions of St. Argentine
I'm a ugly son of stone and meat, not be can deny. Not remember to my mother. It is possible for me to
leave shortly after birth. Is more than likely that is dead. To my father, a thing beaked and of medium
wing, if is that is seems to his son, not it I have seen never.
Why an unfortunate thus have to aspire to become a historian? I think that I can go back to the time
when I made this choice. Is is between my memories more early, and therefore must of have happened
makes some thirty years, although not am safe of many lived before this time, years now lost to me. He
was squatting behind the thick and dusty curtains of a lobby listening to a priest to instruct other
novices, all pure meat, on Mortdieu. His words remain alive in me.
-Up to where I could reach - he said-, Mortdieu happened seventy-seven years ago. Some scholars deny
that the magic will reign in the world, but few deny that Dios, as such, had died.

Without a doubt, that's to put it mildly. All the pillars of our Grand universe collapsed, shaft moved, the
cosmic doors closed and the existence rules lost its foundations. The priest continued, with tone
measured and respectful, the description of such time.
-I have heard of wise that spoke about a slow decline. Where the thinking human possessed fortress, the
violent shock of the reality is reduced to a trembling. Where the thinking was weak, reality disappeared,
swallowed up by the chaos. Each Mirage became as real as the solid matter - his voice trembled
excited. A pain blinding, the blood turning is in our veins, them bones breaking is and the meat turning is
in powder. The steel flowing like liquid. Amber raining from the sky.
Crowds gathered in streets already not following any map, if it is that the maps had not changed by
themselves. They did not know what to do. Their weak minds, unable to hold on to...
For starters, the most human, so I understand, they were undoubtedly too irrational. Many Nations
have vanished or became incomprehensible vortex of misery and depravity. It is said that some
universities, libraries and museums survived, but at present we have little contact with them.
I think often in those poor victims of the early days of Mortdieu. They knew a world with some
stability; We have adapted ourselves since then. Is amazed of the cities that is returned forests, of the
nightmares that is made reality before their eyes. Daring crows settled on the branches of trees that
once were buildings, the pigs ran through the streets on their hind legs... and similar events. (The priest
not encouraged to the contemplation of them rarities.) (The excitation ', so said, "encourages more
monsters still.)
Our cathedral survived. The rationality in the neighborhood, on the other hand, had weakened a few
centuries before Mortdieu, and only a kind of formula had replaced it. The Cathedral suffered. Them
survivors, those clerics and them employees, devoted to the seeks of a shrine, had unhappy visions, had
dreams unfortunate. They saw come to life at the Cathedral stone ornaments. With someone who see
and believe in a universe devoid of other basis, my ancestors broke the stone and transformed into
meat. Centuries of celibacy spiritual weighed on them. Forty and nine nuns that is had attempted
shelter in the cathedral were discovered, and also not were completely abhorrent, by which circulate
some versions indecent of the story. Mortdieu caused an unpredictable aphrodisiac effect among the
faithful, and the mating took place.
The period of gestation, has not been defined because at that time the great stone wheel not had been
in motion, forward and backward, to count the hours. Or no one had received the Chair of Kronos to
monitor wheel, and thus provide the rules for the daily activity.
But the meat did not reject the stone, and came to be the sons and daughters of flesh and stone,
including myself. All those that committed with them figures inhuman Calved young monstrous, well to
raise them, well to reject them towards them hidden corners of more up. Those who accepted the
embrace of Saints and other statues human-shaped stone suffered less, but even so, were banished to
the highest places. Be erected a scaffold of wood, dividing the great ship in two floors. A tent is tended
on the scaffolding, in order prevent the fall of waste, and in the second floor of the Cathedral, them
shoots more human of flesh and stone is had to create a new life.
I have tried during much time discovering how was reborn in the world something similar to the
order. The legend says that it was the arquiexistencialista Jansard, crucificador of the beloved Argentine
San, who, perceiving and repenting of his error, discovered that the mind and thinking could quiet the
sparkling ocean of reality.

The priest concluded his lesson, abbreviated in demasa, stopping is briefly at this point.
-With the closing of the watchful eye of God, mankind had to find and cling to the fabric of a world that
is deshilachaba. Those who remained alive, those who had enough wisdom to avoid that their bodies
are application, became the only cohesive force in the chaos.
He had learned enough words to understand what he was saying; my memory was good, it remains, and
was born in me the curiosity to know more.
Sliding me by stone walls, behind the curtains, I heard other priests and nuns chant Scripture for the
flocks of children of meat. This was happening on the ground floor and I was in serious danger, since the
people of meat considered abominations to the of my lineage.
I managed to steal a psaltery and learned to read. I stole other books also. They described my world, to
the let me compare it with others. At first I could not believe that other worlds had ever existed. I still
doubts. I can look me over the small little round window next to my room and watch the great forest
and the river surrounding the Cathedral, but I can't see anything else. So my experience of other worlds
is very far from being direct.
It doesn't matter. I read a lot, but I'm not an academic. I took what the recent history, the last paragraph
of that germ time which talked about the priest. From the metaphysical to the intimately personal.
I am small, just three feet of high, but I can run with speed through almost all them passages secret. This
me allows you to observe without call it attention. It may be the only historian of the whole
sector. Others that claim for itself this trade ignore what is ahead of their eyes, because seek them
truths last, or at least the large perspectives. By that, if prefer the history where the historian not is
involved, look for it in others. Being objective, as much as I can, I have my favorite songs...
At the time where my story begins, children of flesh and stone sought to still the Christ of stone. Those
of us born of the union of the stone of santos and gargoyles with the nuns stripped believed that our
salvation is was in the great celibate of stone, who had come to the life with all them others statues.
Of less importance was the relationship secret between the daughter of the Bishop and a young of stone
and meat. Such relations were forbidden even among the pure meat. And as these two lovers were not
married, his sinful relationship intrigued me.
His name was Constantia, and had fourteen years, members slender, the hair dark and the chest
mature. His eyes reflected the estulta fate of the divine, girls of this age's own existence. The name was
Corvus, and was fifteen years old. Not remember with accuracy their traits, but was it enough beautiful
and adroit; I could climb up the scaffolding almost as fast as I. I first espi them while they talked, during
one of my frequent looting in the tank to steal another book. They were among the shadows, but my
eyes are sharp.
They spoke quietly and with unease. My heart was to see them and to think of its tragedy, knowing
without a doubt that Corvus was not pure meat and Constantia was the daughter of footballer Bishop. I
imagined the old tyrant applying punishment used to Corvus, for breaking rules of the floors and of
morality. But his talk was a sweetness that nearly masked the stench to closed lower ship.
-You've kissed before a man?
-Yes.
-To who?

-To my brother.
-And who more? -his voice was sharp, it seemed to say: kill your brother.
-To a friend named Jules.
-Where is that?
-Oh!, disappeared during an expedition to bring firewood.
-Oh! - and he kissed her again. I am a historian, not a voyeur, so I inconspicuously hide the blossoming of
his passion. If Corvus had had something of sense common, would have celebrated his conquest and
never would have returned. But he was trapped and he continued seeing her, despite the risks. That
meant loyalty, love, fidelity, and was rare, and I was fascinated.
Today I have State taking the Sun, has been a day beautiful, and have State looking above the
buttresses. The Cathedral resembles to a lizard's belly hanging, and the buttresses are their legs. There
are some small houses at the base of each buttress, where filling the drains with a dragon face above
the trees (or city, or whatever it is that once stood below). Now the people living there. Not always was
so, there was a time in which the Sun was prohibited. Corvus and Constantia had refused them the Sun
since childhood, and why, even at the dawn of his youth, were pale and dirty by the smoke of candles
and candlesticks. The greatest amount of sunshine that one could receive was thanks to the expeditions
to bring firewood.
After spying one of them encounters clandestine of the young lovers, meditated in a dark corner during
a time, and then went to visit to the apostle Thomas, a giant of copper. He was the only human-shaped
living atop the Cathedral. He wielded a rule where his real name was recorded because it had been cast
by Viollet-le-Duc, the architect who had restored the Cathedral in old times. The Cathedral he knew
better than anyone, and I admired him greatly. Most of the monsters left him in peace, out of fear, if not
for other reasons. It was huge, black as night, but covered with green oxide, engrossed in an eternal face
thinking. He sat in his usual cockpit of wood near the base of the Spire, not to just twenty feet from the
place in which this write, and meditating on times that none of us ever knew. Times of joy and love
already gone, venture some, or on the weight falling on it, say others, because now that the Cathedral
had become the center of this world in chaos.
It was the giant that chose me from among the ugly mob, when he saw me with the psaltery. He
encouraged me in my efforts to read.
-Your eyes shine - he said-. You move as if you had an intelligence alert, and stay clean and dry. You're
not vain like gargoyles, you have substance. For the sake of all of us, use it and learn the ways of the
Cathedral.
And so it did.
I looked at when I approached. I sat in a box, to his feet, and said:
-A daughter of meat looks with a child of flesh and stone.
Shrugged his massive shoulders.
-So will happen on some occasions.
-Thus, it is not sin?

-It is something so monstrous that it exceeds the Sin and turns need - he said-. Will occur more
frequently and pass the time.
-Are in love, I think, or it will be- and he nodded.
-The other and I were the only ones that we abstained from fornicate Mortdieu night - he said-. I am the
only one capable of judging, apart from other - waited to judge, but she sighed and gave me a few Pats
on the shoulder-. And I never judge my ugly friend. Right?
-True - I answered.
-So leave me alone with my sadness - it blinked-. And hopefully get still more power.
The Bishop of the Cathedral was an old man. It was said that it wasn't Bishop before Mortdieu, but a
drifter who arrived during the chaos, before forest took the place of the city. The same is proclaimed the
head guiding of this section of the old domain of Dios, saying that so had been willing for it.
Was of short stature, entered in meats, with huge and hairy arms as the clips of a curling iron. A time
killed to a Gargoyle with the simple grip of his fist, and the gargoyles are beings hard, since not have guts
as you (I guess) and as I. The hair surrounding his bald was white, thick and matted, and his eyebrows
were leaning towards your nose with wonderful flexibility. Entering zeal as pigs, ate abundantly and
defecated liquid (I know everything).A man of his time, if ever there was one.
His was the decree by which those impure meat had to be separated and those who did not have human
form, killed as soon as you saw them.
When he returned from the giant camera, I saw that the bottom ship was an uproar. They had
discovered someone climbing the scaffolding, and had sent troops to knock him down. It was of course,
Corvus. I was a more agile than the climber and beams knew better, so, when found himself trapped in
an apparent impasse, it was I who made a gesture from the shadows and indicated you a loose enough
hole that he escaped. It went through without stop for a second to thank me, but the label has never
seemed important. I went through the wall of stone by a niche of the size of some few spans, and rept
to the Fund, to see what more happened. The excitement was unusual.
Ran the rumor of that a figure had been seen with a young, but the crowd not knew who
was. Interspersed in the smoky light, between the rows of huts, men and women spoke happily. The
castrations and executions were of the few diversions that had by then. I also appreciated them, but
most appreciated even at the potential victims of now, and this I worried about.
The concern and the interest did emerge it best for me. I slid through a hole without repair and fell to
one side of the alley, between the outer wall and the huts. I discovered a group of dirty kids.
-There it is! -howled. He has not fled!
Masked troops of the bishop may pass freely through all the levels. It was nearly cornered, and when I
tried an escape route, I waited in a strategic place in the staircase, which was to raise its next stretch up
to above, and they forced me to go back. You proud I know the Cathedral from the basement to the
foundations, but then I fell badly and got to a tunnel that had never seen before. Driving down towards
a wide wall of the foundations.Was to except, for the moment, but fearful of that perhaps find my
pantry of food and further my containers of water. Even so, nothing could be done until they were, so it
decided to spend those agonizing hours exploring the tunnel.

The Cathedral is a source of continuous surprises. Now I understand that I did not know even half of
what they offered. Always there are new roads to go from here to beyond (some created, it suspect,
when nobody looks) and some times, even, new places that discover. While the troops husmeaban from
above into the hole, near the staircase, where only a child of two or three years could enter, followed a
stretch of rough steps carved in the stone. The water and the limo made the passage slippery and
difficult. For a moment, I found in a darkness more deep of what never had suspected see, a darkness
more deep that what the mere absence of light would explain. Then, down, I saw a faint glow
yellow. More cautiously, I aminor the passage and continued in silence. After a box and rudimentary
door metal, I put my foot in a stay lit. Said goodbye odor to stone falling apart is, a penetrating aroma to
water mineral, to limo, and to the stench of a Gargoyle dead. The beast, dead several months ago, I was
lying on the floor of a narrow Chamber, but it still stank. Already I have mentioned before that the
gargoyles are very difficult of kill, and this had been murdered. Three candles newly lit is found in niches
around the camera, flashing to tires of a light current from of above. In spite of my fears, crossed the
floor of stone, took a candle and inspected the following section of the tunnel.
I went down during a dozen steps, and ended up with another metal door. There was where detected an
odor that never had experienced before, the smell of the purest of the stones, something as well as a
rare jade or stone Virgin. Such a feeling of lightness I climbed to the head which I almost burst out
laughing, but was too cautious for that. I pulled the door and a breath of cool, fresh air I received, as the
blow from the tomb of a Saint, whose body is not not only corrupts, but which miraculously moves away
and drives out corruption to the basements of nothing. My peak opened in astonishment. The candle
light was projected, through the darkness, a figure which at first I took for a child. But soon changed of
opinion. The figure had various ages at the same time. I blinked and became a man in his thirties, well
formed, with a high forehead and elegant hands, pale as ice.His eyes looked at the wall that was behind
me. Did a reverence on a knee and played the floor with my front, of the best way that a cold stone can
do, with the tips of my middle wings trembling.
-Forgive me, joy of the desire of man - I said. Forgive me - he had come by chance to the hidden place of
the Christ of stone.
-Are forgiven-said tiresome-, had that come late or early. Better now that more evening, when...-shook
his voice and shook his head. It was very thin, wrapped in a gray robe still showing damage from
centuries outdoors-.Why did you come?
-To escape from the troops of the Bishop-said.
-Yes-agreed-. The Bishop. How long I have been here?
-Since before I was born, Lord, sixty or seventy years - was thin, almost Ethereal, a figure that I had
imagined as a rough Carpenter. The voice went down and I prayed-. What can I do for you, my Lord?
-Go.
-Do not you could live with such secret - I said-. You are the salvation. You can beat the Bishop and meet
all levels.
-No I am neither a general nor a soldier. Please go and not say anything.
Suddenly I heard breathing behind me, then the hiss of a weapon. I jumped on one side, and my pens
erizaron when the sword of stone fell and crashed into the ground, by my side. The Christ raised his
hand. Still scared, I saw a very similar to beast. It returned to me look angry, restrained by the power of

his hand. Should have been more cautious; something had to have killed the Gargoyle and maintained
the candles.
- But Mr-the beast spoke causing an eco-. Is it will be to everyone.
-Not-said the Christ-. Will not tell is anyone - I looked in part to me, in part through me and said-: go, go.
Tunnel up, towards the Orange darkness of the Cathedral, crying, gate and me slid like a snake. I
couldn't even go to meet with the giant. I had silenced as effectively as if they would have cut me the
throat.
The next morning, I watched from the shadowy corner of the scaffold how the crowd gathered around a
solitary man, dressed in a dirty sack fabric. I had seen it before; his name was Psalo, and was alive as an
example of the benevolence of the Bishop. Was a gesture symbolic, the most it had by half crazy.
But, even so, I listened to it, and felt that his words provoked a strong response in me. It called for the
Bishop and his men to allow light entering the Cathedral, by removing the waxed fabric that covered the
windows. They had talked about this before, and the Bishop had answered with his customary
speech; that the light would lead to more chaos, as the mind human was, in the present, a bilge of
mirages. Any stimulus would end with the assurance that the inhabitants of the Cathedral possessed.
At that time I felt no pleasure watching grow the love between Constantia and Corvus. Is returned less
careful, their conversation was more daring.
-We should announce our marriage - said Corvus.
-Never it will allow. You... be cut.
-I am fast. I will never catch. The Church needs leaders, revolutionary brave. If no one breaks with the
tradition, all will continue to suffer.
-I fear for your life, and mine. My father I eject the herd as a an infected lamb.
-Your father is not a pastor.
-It is my father - said Constantia, with wide open eyes, pursing his mouth forcefully.
I sat down with the peak between the claws, curved eyes, able to guess derisively any of their sentences
before they gave them. Immortal love, hope for a bleak future... smelly crap! I had read about that
before, in the spoils of romantic novels that I found in the trash of a nun. As soon as I spent time both
things, I realized the timeless banality and futility of what he saw. And when I compared that chatter
with the infinite sadness of the Christ of stone, me became of innocent in cynical. The transformation I
seasick, leaving a remainder of noble emotion, but the future seemed evident. Corvus would be caught
and executed. If it had not been for me, already would have been neutered, if not dead. Constantia cry,
is would poison, the troubadours sing its history (those same gorges hollow that held the death of his
beloved). Maybe I would write in this regard (even then already was thinking about a story) and maybe,
finally, would go their way, succumbing to the sin of boredom.
During the night, everything is turned more uncertain. Was simple look to the dark wall and allow that
those dreams are express. In the past, or so I figured it's books, dreams could not take shape more
beyond the dream or a brief fantasy. Too often had to struggle with the entities that my dreams gave
birth, flying from the walls, suddenly free and hungry. Thus the people often succumbed devoured by
their own nightmares.

That night, with them visions of the Christ of stone still in my head, I dreamed about men sacred, Angels
and saints. I woke up suddenly, by custom, and one of them still remained there. The others I saw them
vaguely, flying out of the round little window, where whispered and made plans to go up to the sky. The
appearance which was still there was a black shadow in the corner. His breathing was hoarse.
-I am Pedro - said-, also called Simon. I am the stone of the Church, and the Popes are the heirs of my
task.
-I'm also stone - I said, at least in part.
-So, because you are the heir of my task. Still and turn you in potato. Not worship stone of Christ,
because Christ is good in both acting and if it does not act, then there is no salvation in the.
The shadow came to give me a pat on the head, and I saw his eyes widen as I guessed my way. He
murmured some formulas to bid farewell to the demons and flew out the window, to meet with their
peers.
I figured that if this question was in fact carried the Council, would be decided under law that the
blessing granted by a dream person not forcing anything. Not I imported. This was the best advice
anyone, since the giant told me to read and learn, I had offered.
But to be Pope is has of have a hierarchy of servants, to meet the orders that one teaches. Them rocks
more large not be moving alone. So, swelled from power, decided to appear in the upper nave and
announce myself to people.
It required great courage to arise in the light of day without mantle, and walk on the surface of the
scaffold, at the second level, in the middle of the rolls from sellers who had the daily market. Some
reacted with the usual prejudice and tried to hit me or ridicule me. My pico them discouraged to do so. I
went up to a high niche, and I located within the circle of a weak light, I had my throat and introduced
myself. Under a barrage of rotten grapefruit and vegetables remains, told them who he was and the
vision that had. Jeweled with drops of trash, to them few minutes got off of a jump, and flew towards
the entrance of a tunnel too small for it most of them men. Some guys I followed, and one of them lost a
finger while trying to cut me with the fragment of a Crystal colored.
Open revelation had no value. There are different levels of prejudice and I was at the lowest of any
possible classification.
My new strategy was to find a way to shake the Cathedral, top down. Even those more loaded with
prejudices, when you reduce them to rabble, they can be dominated by someone obviously disciplined
and capable. I spent two days touring the inside of the walls. It should exist a fragile structure basic
callus as it was the Church, and while not watching their utter destruction, wanted to cause something
spectacular, inevitable.
As I thought, hanging from the bottom of the second scaffold, on the community of pure meat, gravely
deep voice of the Bishop raged about the bustle of the crowd. I opened the eyes and looked towards
below. Masked troops maintained a kneeling figure, and the Bishop was reciting over his head.
-Know all that now I hear that this young demon flesh and stone...
"Corvus", I said to me itself, finally captured. Closed only an eye, because the other is denied to lose is
the scene.

-... has violated everything we consider sacred and must atone for their crimes in this same place
tomorrow at this hour. Kronos! Mark the spin of the wheel! -the Kronos elected, a bony old man with a
dirty, grayish hair who came to him to the buttocks, took a piece of coal, and marked an 'X' on the edge
of the Crown, after which wheel whistled and blared his swing.
The crowd was enthusiastic. I saw Psalo pushing the crowd.
-What crime? cried. Names such crime!
-Violation of the lower level - declared the head of the masked troop.
-That only deserves a spanking, and they escort him back up - Paslo said. I detect another crime more
sinister in this case. What is?
The Bishop looked contemptuously at Psalo, with coldness.
-Has tried to rape my daughter Constantia.
Psalo nothing could reply to this. The punishment was the castration and death. All those human pure
accepted such laws. Not had place to the resource.
I cavil while Corvus was driven to a Dungeon. The future they wished at that time I was surprised by its
clarity. Wanted to that part of my inheritance that is I had denied, be at peace with me same,
surrounded of those that I accept, of those not best that I. At his time, happen what said the giant. But
would I ever see it? What Corvus, in his own lustful way, was trying to make, was even all levels, bring
the stone to meat, until no one could tell apart them.
Well, my plans beyond that time was very confusing. They were fewer plans than sentiments shining,
imagining the happiness and children playing in the Woods and fields beyond the island, while efforts
were happily, under the gaze of the son of God. My children playing in the forest. A Flash of truth came
at that time. I wanted to be Corvus loving Constantia.
Thus, had two tasks, which could be combined if it was clever enough. I had to distract the Bishop and
his troops, and had to bail out Corvus, my revolutionary Companion.
I spent the night in my room, in a feverish misery. At dawn I went to see the giant and ask him for
advice.
-We waste our time if we put common sense in their heads. But we don't have better vocation to waste
our time, isn't it?
-What we will do?
-Illuminate them.
-Are bricks! -I hit my claw against the floor-. Is of light to bricks!
He smiled at me with its narrow and sad smile.
-Illuminating them-said.
I left angry the camera of the giant. I had no access to the great wheel of time, so no way of knowing
when the execution would take place. But I figured, for calls from my noisy stomach, which would be at
the beginning of the evening. I traveled from a side of the ship to the other and also to the
transept. Almost I'm no forces. Going through the empty hallway, then I took a piece of colored glass

and examined it, confusing. Many of the boys, at all levels, were carrying those pieces and girls were
used as jewels, against the wishes of the elderly, because they believed that it was brilliant carrying
feeding more beasts in mind. Where they got them?
In one of the books which for years had flipped, he had seen images of brightly coloured windows of the
Cathedral. "Enlighten them", said the giant.
The request for Psalo to allow light to enter the Cathedral came to mind.
Along the top of the Cathedral, in a tunnel that ran it completely, I found the ties that held sheaves of
fabrics that concealed the stained-glass windows.
The more appropriate, decided, would be those huge that had in the transepts South and North. I made
a diagram in the dust, trying to know what station we were and where would the sunlight, all pure
speculation, but at that time was being transported by the fever of boldness. All the windows had to be
cleared. Not could decide what would be the best.
For the start of the afternoon, already was prepared, just after the sixth sentence, in the ship upper. It
had cut the main strings and weakened ties to hit them with a peak they had stolen in the Armorer of
the Bishop. Walked along a high cornice, took a rib almost vertical that traversed the wall, toward the
floor lower, and waited.
Constantia was contemplating the box special of performances from the Bishop from a balcony of
wood. It showed on his face an expression between terrified and fascinated. Corvus was next to the
banks, on the other side of the ship, just in the Center, with their executioners, three men and a woman.
I knew the procedure. The old castrara it and men would cut her head. He was dressed with the Red
habit of convicted persons, in order to hide the blood. The excitation of the blood between the more
impressionable was it last that the Bishop wanted. The troops were waiting around the Bank, to purify
the area with scented water.
I didn't have much time. Could take minutes that the system of strings and pulleys is moved and the
canvases began to fall. I went to my job and cut the remaining knots. Then, when the Cathedral is filled
with a resonant crunch, got by the rib to my since of surveillance.
Those paintings took three minutes in fall. VI to Corvus look towards up, his eyes shining. The Bishop
was with their daughter on the balcony. He pushed her into the shadows. Two minutes more afternoon,
them canvases fell on the scaffold top with a noise incident. Its weight was over for them auction
records of the structure, and this is collapsed, allowing to the fabric fall in waterfall, to many meters
more down. At the beginning, the lighting was faint, bluish, perhaps filtered by a passing cloud. Then,
from one end to the other of the Cathedral, the glare of light threw my smoky world clarity. The glory of
thousands of pieces of colored glass, hidden for decades and hardly touched by the infantile vandals,
descended on the levels above and below at the same time. The cry of the crowd was about to tear me
from my job. I quickly slipped to the lower level and I hid, fearful of what he had done. It was more than
the sunlight. As the sprout of two flowers, one brighter than the other, the lights of the stained glass
windows of the transept left speechless who watched them.
Eyes accustomed to the dark orange, smoke, fog and shadow, could not look such glory without
undergoing a radical effect. I covered my face and tried to find a suitable exhaust.

But the crowd grew. While the light shone and more faces are heading toward it, as sunflowers, the
glow upset to certain people. Of their minds is poured content too extraordinary as to be catalogued
with precision.Monsters, however, were not violent, and the majority of visions were horrible.
The ships bottom and upper shone with glories reflex, figures of dream and children with dresses of light
playing. Saints and wonders have emerged everywhere. A newly created youth thousand acuclillaron in
the shiny floor and began to tell wonders about new cities in the East, and the times that they had
existed. Clowns dressed fire entertained people in the booths on the market. Animals unknown in the
Cathedral fiddling among them housing, offering friendly advice. Abstract objects, balls within networks
of gold and silk ribbons, sang and floated around the upper access. The Cathedral became a large vessel
carrying on board all the bright dreams created by its citizens.
Slowly, since the ship bottom, of pure meat people scaled scaffolding and walked towards the upper
ship, to see what they could not see from below. I saw the masked troops of the Bishop by dragging
their misery on the narrow steps.
Constantia walked behind, stumbling, eyes blinded by new clarity.
All were trying to close my eyes, but nobody succeeded for a long time.
I cried. Almost blind by tears, I went to a site higher still, and looked at the exalted crowds. VI to Corvus,
his hands tied with ropes, led by the old. Constantia saw him also, and she was regarded as strangers,
then caught hands the best that they could. She borrowed a knife from one of the soldiers of his father
and cut ties. Around you, the most brilliant of all the dreams began to rotate; White pure, red blood and
green sea, casting is with them visions of all the children that they would give to light innocently.
I gave them a few hours until they regain the judgement, until I regained it also. Then I elev on
abandoned the Bishop podium and shouted over the heads of the lower-level ones.
-Has arrived the time! -screamed. We must unite us, should join us!
At the beginning I ignored. Had sufficient eloquence, but his excitement was still too large. Therefore, I
waited a bit, I started to speak again and I shouted to silence me.
-Monster! - and I took off from there.
I slipped by the stone steps, found the narrow hole and I hid there, sinking my peak between the wings,
wondering what had gone wrong. I took a surprisingly long time to realize that, in my case, was less the
stigma of stone to the ugliness of my way which had finished with my effort for the lead.
However, it had opened the way for the Christ of stone. Without a doubt, I said to myself, now the could
take their place. So I slipped through the long tunnel until I got to the hidden Chamber of yellowish
lighting. All was quiet there. First I found with the monster of stone, that I looked at suspicazmente with
his gray eyes blink.
-You have returned - I said.
Overwhelmed by their bad mood, I nodded smiling and asked him to take me to the Christ.
-Sleep.
-News important.
-What?

-Good news.
-Then tell me them.
-Just him them can listen.
On the other side of the lit corner, came the Christ, which seemed much older now.
-Of what it is? -asked.
-Have prepared your way-I said-. Simon, called Peter, I said that I was the heir of his legacy, and that
should precede you.
The Christ of stone shook his head.
-Do you think that I am the source of where manan all them blessings? -nodded hesitant-. What have
you done there out?
-Allow the light - I said.
Shook his head slowly.
-You seem a creature it sufficiently wise. You know about Mortdieu.
-Yes.
-Then you should know that if I just have enough power to keep my same, to heal me, much less for
grazing to the there out - made a gesture lost, beyond the walls-. My own source has dried up-she said
the pain. I am living on reserves, and they are not very abundant.
-You want to go away and stop bothering us - he explained the monster.
-Have the light there out-said the Christ-. They will play with it for a while, be weary and will return to
what they had before. Is there somewhere for you in all this?
I thought briefly.
-Not it there-I said-. I'm too ugly.
-You, too ugly and I, too famous - said-. Would have to leave between them, anonymously, and this is
certainly impossible. No, leave them alone awhile. I will be back another time, perhaps, or better still,
forget you of me. Of us. Not have place among them-I was puzzled. I sat down suddenly on the stone
floor, and Christ gave me a few taps on the head, while he was-. Your cache again, living the best you
can - he said-. Our time is has finished-I di it turned to leave me. When I reached the hole, I heard
behind her voice, telling me-: do you play bridge? If you do that, find another. We need four for the
game.
Climbed until the cleft, by means of them walls, and along the arches, towards the party. Not only was
not going to be a dad, even after being chosen by own San Pedro!, but that could not convince someone
more qualified than I am to assume the leadership.
I guess that the fate of the eternal student is to teacher when all else fails.
I went back to the giant copper. He was lost in his meditations. Around your feet, had pieces of paper
scattered with drawings of parts of the Cathedral. I waited patiently until I saw. Is returned to me, her
Chin supported in a hand, and I looked.

-For what that sadness?

I shook his head. Only he could read my traits and perceive my mood.
-You followed my advice there down? I have heard a Din.
-It mea culpa maximum - I said.
Y...?
Slowly, doubtful, I desgran my story, concluding with the refusal of the Christ of stone. The giant
listened carefully, without interrupting me. When I finished, it rose above me and said with its rule
through an open window.
-Do you see what's there? -asked and drew a bow with the rule, more beyond of the forests of the
island, towards the far horizon green. I replied that Yes and waited to continue. It seemed to get lost
again in his brooding-.There was a time in which there, where now grow trees, had a city - he said - the
artists came by thousands and the prostitutes and the philosophers and scholars. And when Dios died,
all those academic and prostitutes and artists not could preserve the fabric of the world. How do you
hope to we succeed?
-Us? Not should hopes to determine if one has to act or not? -said-. Not is as well?
The giant smiled and gave me a few taps on the head with the rule.
-Perhaps us has been revealed a signal, and we simply need to learn how to interpret it correctly.
I smiled to show my confusion.
-Perhaps Mortdieu is really a sign of that have abandoned the nursery. We must find our food, remake
the world without help. What do you think?
I was too exhausted to judge the value of what he said, but I don't know of any occasion where the giant
was wrong.
-For agreement. It give. Then?
-The Christ of stone says that its power is running out. If God frees us from the old ways, we cannot
expect that his son follow giving us suckle, isn't it?
-Not...
He bent down close to me, her face radiant.
-I've wondered who it could replace really. Is obvious that both do not we can do it. Therefore, small,
what is the next election?
-Do mine? -asked humbly. The giant looked at me mercifully.
-No - he said after a moment. I'm the next election. We have matured! -executed a small dance, leaving
me with the peak completely open, and grabbed the tips of my middle wings and I rose-. Get right. Tell
me more.
-About what?
-Tell me what there below, and tell me everything you know.

-I try to understand what you mean - I I protested shaking.

-Slow as the stone! - and laughing, bent over me. Then laughter disappeared and tried to look like
serious-. Is a serious responsibility. All of us must now recreate the world. All we must coordinate our
thoughts, our dreams.The chaos not it will do. What opportunity to convert us in the architects of a
universe whole! -stirred up towards the ceiling rule. Build them own Heaven! The world of the last was a
place of learning, full of rules harsh and restrictive. Now we are told that we are ready to leave it behind
and go to something more mature. You taught something of the architecture rules, I want to say, the
aesthetic? The need of the harmony, of the interaction, of the utility, of the beauty?
-A little-I said.
-Well. I don't think that building a new universe requires better rules. No doubt we need to experiment
and perhaps one or more of our great spires will fall. But now we work for ourselves, for our own glory,
and for the greater glory of the God who created us! Is it not so, my friend ugly?
Like many other stories, the mine should start with small, with seen closely, and then open to the very
largest. But unlike other historians, I do not have the luxury of time. Since then my story has not finished
yet.
Soon, legions of Viollet-le-Duc will start its campaign. Many have been formed quite well, rescued from
the Fund, led to it high, educated as I it was. More afternoon, will begin to return them, one to one.
I teach from time to time, I write from time to time, I look at all the time.
The next step will be the largest. Do not have idea of how it will be.
But, as says the giant:
-Some time ago that the roof has collapsed. Now must raise it again, reinforce it, repair its beams - at
that time he smiles to his disciples. Not only repair it. Replace it! Now we have the beams. Flesh and
stone become something much stronger.
Ah, but then, some simple raises his hand and asks:
-What happens if our arms get tired of holding the sky?
Our work, as you can see it, it will not end soon.
[1]
See note 1 in "Rock on", from Pat Cadigan. (The T. N.)
"So is referred to as a subgenre of fantasy literature that takes place in an alternate medieval. "(N. of the
T.)"
UNTIL WE WAKE UP VOICES
HUMAN

-Lewis Shiner-

Since its first publication in 1977, Lewis Shiner has written in a wide range of all types of short stories:
mystery, fantasy and horror, as well as science fiction. But the emergence in 1984 for her first novel,
border, has shown its important role in this current of science fiction. Border combined the classical
structure of the hard Sci-Fi with a disturbing portrait of post-industrial from the beginning of the 21st
century society. The bleak realism and science fiction icons Demystifying treatment provoked many
comments.
The work of Shiner is marked by a thorough investigation as well as a cold and careful construction. His
dense, vigorous prose shows her connection with the detective fiction, while with authors such as
Elmore Leonard and Robert Stone, who can almost be classified as belonging to the current general of
literature.
Son of an anthropologist, Shiner has an excellent knowledge of strange forms of belief such as Zen,
quantum physics and the mythical archetypes. Although it is capable of daring flights of fancy, his latest
work tends towards a direct, unsentimental realism, and a growing concern by geopolitics. Following
Shiner's 1984 history, combines iconic images with a technosocial policy, in a classic blend cyberpunk.
They were to forty feet, completely to dark. Within the narrow beam of
your flashlight for diving. Campbell could see them polyp coral feeding is, its
torn edges transformed into flowers predator. If something could have saved, he thought, it should have
been this week. The lantern of Beth ranged when is turned of the spines of color white petal
of a hedgehog of sea. It didn't get more than a white t-shirt over her bikini, although
warnings of Campbell, and he could see the whiteness of the inside of her thighs.
Which is the best I've seen of your body, thought, how long?, do five
weeks?, six? You could not remember the last time you made love. When it moved the light he thought
she saw a form in the dark. He thought: shark, and immediately felt a knot in the throat. Again it moved
the flashlight, backwards, and then saw it.
I was paralyzed within the circle of light, like any wild animal. Its long and smooth hair floated on his
shoulders and blended into the darkness. The tip of her naked breasts was elliptical and purple in the
night water.
His legs had just in a green, scaly tail.
Campbell heard his own breathing on a respirator. I could see the extent of her cheeks, the clarity of his
eyes, the fearful trembling of their gills around the neck.
Dominated by a reflex reaction, then he pulled out his non-konos and fired. The Flash of the light strobe
you caused a scare of death. He shuddered, and turning his tail extended toward him, disappeared.
A sudden and inexplicable yearning overwhelmed him. Let fall the camera and swam after her, moving
them legs quickly and helping is with both arms. When it reached the edge of an abyss of a hundred feet
in the background, it moved the flashlight in an arc that, finally, grabbed a last and brief vision of it,
down towards the West. Then it faded.
Found to Beth on the surface, trembling enraged.

-Who heck was the idea of leaving me there so alone? I had a fear of death. Already heard what has told
the uncle that on the sharks.
-I saw something - Campbell said.
Jo-di-da-men-Te-bi-en - your water line fell and Campbell saw how reached you a wave at the height
of the mouth. He spat and said,: getting dressed truly or you went running immediately?
-Inflate your vest-said Campbell feeling is stunned and desolate-before you drown-you gave it back and
swam towards the boat.
Freshly showered, sitting out of the cabin, to the light of the Moon, Campbell began to doubt of yes
same.
Beth was already curled, with a Nightie, close to your side of the bed. It would be there, Campbell knew
it, as sometimes, without worrying about close my eyes, until he is sleep. They had been their daytime,
recurrent, obsessive, dreams that had brought them to this island. How could he know that he had not
had a hallucination with a creature, there, on the reef?
He told Beth that they were lucky to have been chosen for those vacation requested months earlier. In
fact, his fantasies had ruined his concentration at work so clearly that the company had been ordered to
go to the island, either or undergo a full battery of psychological tests.
Had been more scared of what was willing to admit. The fantasies had progressed from a mild violence,
how to be breaking your CTR screen, until the crazy and sinister image of himself, outside the closed
windows of his office, just floating there between the whitish smog to forty floors of height and without
falling off.
Very over yours, Campbell could distinguish the company logo, shining like a monster of chrome and
steel that had been recently booted its larval State.
He shook his head. Obviously needed sleep. Only a good night's sleep, he said, and things would return
to normal.
Early in the morning, Campbell left the diving boat while Beth slept. Was distracted, of bad humor, and
also you bothered some shadows on the edge of the eye.
The monitor of diving are you came while is changing of tanks and you asked:
-Are you worried about something?
-Non - it, said Campbell. I am fine.
-You know that there are no sharks in this part of the reef.
-It is not that - said Campbell-. No problem. Of truth.
It is set in the expression of the eyes of the monitor; another case of overwork. The company should
send them by the dozens, thought Campbell. Fully stressed executives and victims of boardrooms, all
with the same look inert.
That afternoon they dove in a small boat shipwrecked on the eastern tip of the island. Beth is matched
with another woman, by what Campbell is was with the couple of it tomorrow, a pilot calvo of the office
of Cincinnati.

The remains of the shipwreck were nothing more than a town, an empty shell, and Campbell floated to
one side, while others crawling on rotting wood. All purpose had disappeared, leaving only the sensation
of weightlessness and the lack of color in deep water.
After dinner he followed Beth courtyard. Had lost the measure of the time that had State contemplating
the clouds reflected on the water dark, when she said:
-I not like this site.
Campbell returned his gaze toward her. She was radiant and fresh with his shirt of white linen, gathered
sleeves, her hair still wet, knotted in a bow adorned with an orchid. He had been taking to SIP a brandy
since the dinner ended, and she surprised again with his ability to inhabit a completely separate from his
mental universe.
-Why not?
-Is lying. Unreal. The island - slightly agitated brandy but not drank-. What business can have an
American company which owns an island? What has happened to the people who lived here?
-First - it, said Campbell, is a multinational, not only American company. And people still live here, just
now have work rather than starve.
As always, Beth put him on the defensive, but he was not so concerned about the Americanization of
the island as you'd like. I had imagined natives with guitars and maracas, not with radiocassettes who
were vomiting electronic reggae and neo-funk. The cabin slept where he and Beth was a sort of geodesic
dome with air conditioning, comfortable, but missed the sound of the sea.
-Simply put, I don't like - Beth - said. Not me like those projects secrets of maximum security that there
is that keep closed after barbed wire electrified. I don't like a company that brings people on vacation
here as others throw a bone to the dog.
Or a twig to a man who drowns, Campbell thought. Had so much curiosity as any by them facilities of
the tip this of the island, but, certainly, that not was the issue. Beth and he were taking the steps of a
dance which, now Campbell saw it, would inevitably end in divorce. All his friends had divorced once at
least, and a marriage that lasted eighteen years seemed as anachronistic as a 1957 Chevy.
-Why don't you admit clearly? -Campbell said. Simply, it only that not you like of the island is the made
of have that be here with me-she is rose and Campbell felt, with some jealousy lethargic, the attention
of all them men to its around.
-You will see then-said she, and all the heads are returned to follow the noise of their sandals.
Campbell asked another saves life and it looked down the Hill. The steps were illuminated with Japanese
lanterns surrounded by flowers of Orange and purple colors intense. When reached the row of Cabaas
in the sand, already not was rather than a shadow, and Campbell already almost had finished his beer.
Now that he had left, he felt empty and a little dizzy. He looked at his hands, still wrinkled by long hours
spent in the water, and cuts and scrapes from three days of physical activity. Soft hands, the hands of an
office worker, a man of firm. Hands that would handle pencils or teclearan on a CRT for the next twenty
years, and then withdraw to use the remote control of a big screen TV.
Dense beer, flavored with caramel, was climbing it. He shook his head and stood up to go to the
bathroom.

Your reflex shone and is distorted in the mirror surround of the sink of the bathroom. He realized that
he wanted to delay, to stay out of the cold and sterile air of your cabin as much as he could.
And then would come the dreams. Every night they had become worse since that had arrived at the
island, more vivid and disturbing. Not could remember them details, only them slow and erotic shudders
on his skin, a sensation of floating in a water light and Crystal, of roll on sheets silky. It woke up from
these dreams breathing his erect penis eagerly, like a fish who drowns, and throbbing.
It took another beer at his table, without really crave you only because I needed to hold something in
their hands. His attention turned vaguely to a table at a lower level, where a fairly tasteless woman was
talking to two men with sunglasses and shirts long sleeves. Not could understand what you was so
family in it until shook his head in a gesture of confusion and it recognized. Those ample cheeks, the
eyes clear.
You could hear the beating of his own heart. Then was it some sort of hazing? A woman disguised? But,
then, what happened with the gills that had seen in his neck? How Devils had moved so fast?
She stood up and made a gesture of apology to his friends. The table of Campbell was near the stairs,
and saw that she would have to go through there when it came out. Before he could think about it,
stood up, blocking their exit and told him:
-Sorry.
-Do it? -It was not physically attractive, he thought, but something drove him towards her, despite the
width of your hips, your strong and short legs. His face was older and more tired of what he had seen on
the reef. But very similar, too much to be a coincidence.
-I would like to... could invite her to a cup? -perhaps I'm going crazy, thought.
He smiled and his eyes blinked warmly.
-Sorry. It is very late and tomorrow I have to work.
-By favor-said Campbell-. Just a couple of minutes - could feel his suspicion and, after this, the brightness
of a flattered ego. He realized that was not accustomed to men - would bring him. I just want to talk to
you.
-Not be journalist, right?
-Not at all - he sought something that made you trust-. Work in the company. In the Houston Office.
Magic words, thought Campbell. He sat in the Chair of Beth and said:
-Don't know if should drink more. I'm already half drunk.
Campbell nodded and said:-so it works here.
-So.
-Secretariat?
-Biologist - said it with a bit of toughness-. I am Dr. Kimberly - as it did not react to his name, she
softened things by adding-: Joan Kimberly.

-It feel-said Campbell-. I always thought that biologists were unappealing - flirting came easily. Had the
same beauty that the creature of the reef, a luck of fiera shyness and distant sensuality, but in the
woman were buried more deeply.
God mine, thought Campbell, what I'm doing. I'm trying to seduce to this woman. Mir the bulk of her
breasts, knowing how would be without the blue shirt Oxford wearing, and that perception is translated
into a certain warmth in his groin.
-Perhaps it would be best that I take that swallow-said she. Campbell made a gesture to the waiter.
-I can't imagine me how must be live here - he said-, see this all day.
-Get used - replied-. I mean, it still retains that unbearable beauty occasionally, but, do you know?, you
need to work, and life goes on.
-Yes - it, said Campbell. I know exactly to what you mean.
He left Campbell to accompany her home. His loneliness and vulnerability were like a strong perfume, so
strong that it repelled him at the same time that irresistibly attracted you towards it.
He stopped at the entrance of his cabin, another geodesic dome, but this was at the top of the Hill,
hidden by a forest of Palm trees and bougainvillea. The tension sexual was so intense that Campbell
could see her breasts shake is.
-Thank you - she said in his deep voice-. It has been easier to talk to you.
Could have is given it turned e go is, but not could decide it. Put the arms and mouth she collided
awkwardly with his. Then his lips began to move and got her tongue eagerly. He opened the door,
without departing from it, and they almost fall inside the House.
He stood, leaning on his arms, and looked at her move under it. The light of the moon through the trees
was green and moist and fell in slow waves on the bed. Their breasts is balanced from a side to another,
while is stretched and arched her back. Breathing was choppy. Her eyes were tightly closed and her legs
surrounded him, cross as a long tail bifida.
Before the dawn he came out of under your arm, that you embraced, and picked up his clothes. When
she left, she was still sleeping.
I didn't want to go back to your cabin and, without thinking, was found climbing towards the top of the
Rocky spine of the island to await the sunrise.
Even he had showered. The perfume and the smell of Kimberly is glued to their hands e English as a
stigma sexual. It was the first infidelity of Campbell in eighteen years of marriage, a last act, irreversible.
I already knew most of the jargon. The crisis of the forty and all that. Surely he had seen Kimberly in the
bar any other night and did not remember it. Had projected his face in a fantasy of obvious resonances
Freudian about the water and of the reborn.
In the Dim and scattered light of the dawn, the lagoon appeared grey and it line of the barrier coral, a
stain more dark, broken by their crests white, curved as scales in the skin of the ocean. Dry Palms
swaying in the breeze, and the birds of the island began to piar and excite the awaking. A shadow came
out of one of the cabins below, on the beach, and climbed towards the road, bent by the weight of a
large suitcase and a flight bag. Above it, in the asphalt of the parking, at the end of the stairs, a taxi is
moved silently to stop is, turning them lights.

If had run, could have it reached and even have it arrested, but that vague impulse never grew it enough
as to move their legs. Instead of that is sat until the Sun heated its neck and its eyes were dazzled by the
sand white and the water, blinding him by a time.
On the north side of the island, facing the most extensive part of land, the village of mirror stretched in
the mud, in the service of the tourist area and the company. A dirt road descending through it, between
the oily water from ditches. The houses built with blocks of lava over the sea-walls of cement and the
Ford rusting in the gardens reminded Campbell, as wrapped in a nightmare, a 1950s American suburb.
Locals who worked in the kitchens of the company and sweeping floors lived there, and their children
fought in backyards that smelled rotten fish or obliterated in the shade, throwing stones at dogs of three
legs. An old selling t-shirts made with sacks of flour San Francisco routed between the pillars of his
house. A saltbush, under a green plastic cover, had stacked bananas and flies flying in swarms over
pieces of beef. And the door's side was a pharmacy with a colorless announcement of Kodak that
promised: Revealed in a day.
Campbell pestae, found on the side entrance, where a kid of about ten or eleven years old read the
police novel. The boy left the comic at the counter and asked:
-Lord?
-How long will you take reveal this? -asked Campbell showing you the reel.
-Tomorrow at this hour.
Campbell is supported on the edge of the counter.
-For today? -He asked slowly.
-Can send?
Campbell pulled out a ticket of twenty dollars and it put mouth down on her striped wood.
-This afternoon?
-One moment - the guy wrote something on the the computer terminal that was right. The keys dry
chatter annoyed Campbell-. Is well this afternoon? To them six-touched the glass of your watch and
said-: to the six.
Agreed, she said Campbell. With other five dollars bought a pint of Canadian Club and returned to the
street. He felt as though were lodged a slightly colored glass layer and the sun shone strongly through
it. He was an idiot to run this kind of risk, of course, but needed that photography.
You had to know it.
The boat anchored as closer as possible to the place where it had been the night before. He had two
reserve tanks and had a half bottle of whisky. You will be drunk and just going against all rules that any
monitor had taught him, but a silly death by drowning seemed absurd, even undignified to be taken into
account.
His pants and his jacket and scuba diving, still wet with salt stuck last night, you were suffocating. Will
put the tank as soon as could, and shot of cost.

The warm water revived him, leaving it as new. Deflated his vest and is released directly to the
Fund. Stunned by the whisky and the lack of dream, tumbled in the sand in a first moment, before to
neutralize its rolling.
At the edge of the pit he hesitated, and then swam towards the right, following the edge of the
cliff. Given their physical condition, was consuming more oxygen than they would have liked and go
below only make matters worse.
The Red reflection of a can of Coca-Cola threw him flashes from the center of a coral. He crushed it and
got it into the belt, suddenly furious with your company and its unexpected violation of the island,
furious with himself for letting them handle it and with Beth, for abandoning him, and around the world
and mankind. He swam vigorously moving the legs, passing through banks of Pikes and blue fish,
without hardly realize the changing landscape, brightly colored, that is waved under his body.
Something of the drunk disappeared with this first burst of energy, and gradually lowered the pace,
asking after all what heck could get it. It made no sense, he thought. It was a ghost hunting, but not
turned.
Still swimming when it collided with the network.
Was almost invisible, a network of monofilament with meshes of a foot square, it sufficiently strong as
to stop to a shark or to a herd of porpoises. Tried to cut it with the edge of sierra of his knife of diving,
without result.Was near the tip West of the island, where the company had the installation of
research. The network remained the reef line as far as he could see, and extended offshore.
She was real, thought. Built this to hold it inside, but how got out?
The last time he saw her was when she went down. Campbell checked the gauge and saw that he had a
little less than five hundred pounds of air. Enough to bring you down, until them one hundred feet, and
return quickly. It sensible was back to the boat and bring of turned with it the tank's reserve.
However, he began the descent.
He could see the fine threads shaken when he went swimming at his side. They seemed linked to the
same coral, by any procedure that could never have imagined. He kept his eyes occupied between the
altimeter and the edge of the network. Greater depth of 100 feet, shouldn't that worry by the
decompression or empty tank.
At 100 feet it reached the level of reserve. Three hundred pounds and falling. All shades of Red had
disappeared from the coral, leaving only the blue and the purple. The water was markedly more cold
and dark, and each aspiration seemed a roar in their lungs, as a geyser. It was said: ten feet, and 125
feet saw the end of the network.
The lump on his back became entangled in monofilament and had to go back, try again, fighting off
panic. Again felt the pressure in their lungs, as if were trying to breathe inside a bag of plastic. He had
seen tanks that had been sucked so much that the walls are abombaron in. Them had been found in
divers trapped in landslides of rocks or entangled in longlines.
Your tank is freed of the network and got pass, following their bubbles, to above. He small rest of air
that was in their lungs is expanded, to while the pressure to its around it allowed, although not it quite
as to finish with his anxiety by breathing. She sucked the rest of tank and was forced to follow exhaling,
forcing the nitrogen out of their vital tissues.

To fifty feet reduced the speed and is returned to the wall of coral, bent his corner and swam already
within the protected lagoon. During a few e endless seconds, forgot that not had air in the lungs.
Around the bottom of the lagoon was designed in garden plots: Brown algae, mosses, and something
that looked like a giant cabbage. A red herring Bank surrounded him, directed by a metal box with a
flashing red light at the end of a long antenna. A few submarines with long mechanical arms worked the
seafloor, cutting back vegetation and hinders the water with chemicals. Two or three dolphins were
swimming from one side to another by human divers, and seemed to be speaking to each other.
With aching lungs, Campbell gave them back and drove with his legs to reach the surface, trying to get
as close to the rocks as possible. He wanted to stop a minute to about ten feet, to have at least one
moment of decompression, but it was impossible. They had finished the air. Came out to the surface to
less than one hundred feet from a dock of cement. After he floated a series of buoys of situation that
drew the line of the network, out at sea and around the furthest from the lagoon side.
The pier was deserted and firing steam under the Sun. Without a spare tank, Campbell did not have any
possibility of leaving in the same way that had entered; If trying to swim towards outside, in surface,
would be as visible as a man drowning. I had to find another tank or other form of escape.
Hiding your team under a canvas of plastic, crossed the block of cement hot to a building that had back,
a broad store of ceiling low full of boxes of wood. Had built a hanger for teams of diving in the side left
of the wall, and Campbell began to go is to he when heard a voice behind him.
-Hey, you! Still!
Campbell is got by a wall of baskets, saw a trail paved that began at the rear of the building, and ran
towards there. It could not give more than two or three steps before it appeared a uniformed guard and
is it aimed at the chest with a 38.
-You can leave him with me.
-Is safe, Dr. Kimberly?
-I will be well. I will call them if there is a problem.
Campbell collapsed in a plastic chair, on the other side of your desktop. The office was strictly
functional, resistant to water and fungi-proof. A large window behind the head of Kimberly allowed view
the lagoon and the row of buoys of situation.
-What did you see?
-I don't. I saw what looked like farms. Any machinery.
She slipped a photography towards the other side of the desk, towards him. It featured a creature with
female breasts and fish tail. Face seemed enough to the Kimberly to be his sister.
Or his clone.
Campbell suddenly was gave features of in many problems is had stuck.
-The boy in the pharmacy works for us - Kimberly said.
He nodded.
-Can meet you it photography-said Campbell, removing is the sweat of the eyelids-. And the negative.

-Let's be honest - she said, typing on the CRT and studying the screen-. Even if you allow that follow in
your work, do not see how we can save your marriage. And then have two sons that lead to the
University...-shook her head-. Your mind is full of sensitive information. There are too many people who
would pay to get it, and there are too many ways that you can manipulate. You're not a great risk, Mr
Campbell - she radiated pain and betrayal, and he wanted to disappear by the shame she felt. She stood
up and looked at the window-. Here we are building the future - he continued-. A future that even we
couldn't imagine 15 years ago. And this is simply too valuable to let anyone ruin it. Food in abundance,
cheap energy, access to a computer network for the price of a television crew, a completely new form of
Government.
-I've seen your future - said Campbell-. Your boats have killed the reef in a mile around the hotel. Your
Coca-Cola cans are scattered throughout entire coral bed. Your marriages don't last, your children drugs
is and your television is garbage. Throughout all of this.
-Dress to that guy in the drugstore? Learn spreadsheet with your computer, and parents do not even
know to read or write. We are testing a vaccine on humans that possibly will cure the leukemia. Have
surgery laser and techniques of transplanting revolutionary. Literally.
-There is where she does? -asked Campbell pointing out the picture.
The tone of voice of Kimberly descended.
-It's synergy, do you not see it? To make transplants, we have to be able to clone the cells from the
donor. To clone cells have to do manipulations
laser in the genes...
-Do your cells cloned? Only by practicing? -She nodded slowly.
-Something happened. She grew up, but its development was stopped; It maintained its embryonic form
from the waist down. There was nothing we could do except... improve it to the maximum.
Campbell noted the picture more closely. No, it wasn't the romantic myth that had imagined at the
beginning. The tail had an appearance Cerulean low the hard light of the flash, the appendices, more
clearly, legs underdeveloped. He looked the picture with a fascination mixed with revulsion.
-You could have it left to die.
-Not. She was mine. Not have much and not it had abandoned-the fists of Kimberly are closed to their
sides-. He is not unhappy, you know who I am. In their own way, I believe that he cares about me stopped, looking at the floor. I am a female solitary, Campbell. But that is something you already know.
Campbell throat was dry.
-And what there is of me? -carraspe trying to of swallowing saliva-. Am I going to die?
-Not - she said - you do not. Nor...
Campbell swam towards the network. His memories were fuzzy and I had trouble thinking clearly, but
you could glimpse the gap in the network and the sea open through it. It sank easily up to 120 feet,
feeling cold and refreshing water on his naked skin. Then he crossed it, gently away from the noise and
the stench of the island, towards an original vision of peace and timelessness. Their gills vibrated gently
while swimming.

FREE TRADE ZONE

-John Shirley
John Shirley has crossed boundaries that have later become very frequented by the cyberpunk roads. As
a rock musician, he was closely linked to the first and virulent outbreak of punk on the West
Coast. Prolific writer whose work includes novels such as City eats-A-Walkin', The Brigade, and the whim
of terror Cellars, Shirley is well known for its rich imagery surreal and his outbursts of extreme visionary
intensity.
Free zone is a fragment that is independent of the latest project of Shirley, the Eclipse trilogy. Eclipse
tells a fast-paced global future where pop, politics and paranoia into a hipertecnologico conflict, where
struggling for survival. Always pioneer, its broad fan of influences alternative and its treatment of them
problems global could very well presage the emergence of a new political radical from the science
fiction.
John Shirley usually lives in Los Angeles and plays with his band.
Free floating in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, a floating city at the junction of the confluences of
international culture.
Area free was anchored to some one hundred miles to the North of Sidi Ifni, a sleepy city of the coast
Moroccan, wave by a warm and soft running, in an area of the sea rarely affected by big storms. The
storms that stood there drained his fury in the labyrinth of jetties on cement that, for years, the
administration of free zone built around the artificial island.
Originally free zone had been another platform of oil exploration on the high seas. The giant deposit of
oil, to a quarter of mile low the island, still was full in more than three quarters. Drilling rig belonged
jointly to the Moroccan Government and a company of Texas dedicated to oil and Electronics: the
Texcorp, the company that had bought Disneyland, Disneyland I and Disneyland II, all closed during the
beginning of the DAO, the depression of storage of data in computers, also called the depression of
dissolution.
A group of Arab terrorists, at least the US State Department said it, produced an electromagnetic
emission popping a small hydrogen bomb strategically located, hidden aboard a small orbital shuttle of
routine. The shuttle is vaporized with the explosion, similar to two satellites, one of them manned. But
when the DAO struck, no one had time to mourn the dead.
The pump orbital almost shoots the Armaguedon. Three cruise missiles had to be aborted and,
fortunately, the Soviets shot down two others, until the terrorist cell covered the stratospheric
explosion. Most of the explosion turned out; What came down was, however, a side effect of this
explosion: the PEM, an Electro-magnetic pulse which, as predicted in the 1970s, traveled through
thousands of miles of cables and circuits by the Mainland under which hydrogen explosion
occurred. The Department of defense was protected, but the system banking, in its greater part, no. The
emission erased the 93 per cent of the newly formed Bureau of adjustment of the credit banking. The
BACB handled 76 percent of transfers and purchases in the country. The greater part of what is bought
is bought by the BACB or by companies related with the BACB... until the PEM erased the storage of the
memory of the BACB, to the overload the emission them circuits, fusing them and, literally, frying them
chips of storage, and hitting of that way to them servers of the economy American. Hundreds of
thousands of bank accounts 'suspended' until the data could be recovered, causing a stampede at the

remaining banks. The companies of insurance and the program of guarantee federal is found
overwhelmed; simply not could cover the loss.
By then, United States already had their problems. The country had lost its initiative economic during
those eighty and them ninety. Its ignorant and poorly trained workers, their corrupt and greedy unions
and their less stringent manufacturing regulations, made that the US industry could not compete with
the boom in manufacturing in Asia and South America. Dissolution of credit caused by the PEM struck a
country on the brink of recession, throwing him into the depression, which led to the rest of the world is
based on laughter. The cell terrorist Arab, a core hard of the fundamentalism Islamic, was composed
only by seven men. Seven men had paralyzed to throughout a country.
But America had its enormous military might and its inventors still in electronics and medicine. And the
war economy kept them up, like a man ill with cancer who takes amphetamines to get a last
breath. Meanwhile, countless shopping centers and housing, cheap and in need of a continuous
maintenance construction projects, became more jagged, ugly and full of garbage each day. And most
dangerous.
EE. UU. simply not was already safe for the rich. Resorts, amusement, exclusive neighborhoods for rich,
all of them, parks collapsed under the erosion of permanent strikes and terrorist hits. The growing mass
of poor, increasing from the 1980s, was infuriated by the wastage of the rich. And the impulse of the
class average is was withdrawing to the insignificance.
Still remaining enclaves in the U.S. where is could one lose in the mixer of the media, hypnotized by the
innumerable letters of desire quickly spread as in a trance of the American dream, while ten thousand
companies competed to claim attention, pleading that one to buy and buy. Places as these were cities
fortress for the illusions of the class average.
But the more rich could feel the collapse of his realm. Not is felt safe in the us. UU. needed another
place outside, but under control. At that time, Europe was ruled out. America of the South or Central
America were too risky. The theatre of the Pacific was another area of war.
Why did the free zone.
A promoter Texan, who had their money in the BACB, saw the possibilities that had arisen around oil
drilling platforms. A Coronet set of brothels, cabarets and game galleries had crystallized in the average
scrapped and anchored boats permanently around the platforms. Two hundred prostitutes and three
hundred dealers working for the eclectic international group of oil workers. The promoter made a deal
with the Moroccan Government.He bought the rusted helmets and absent nightclubs, and dismissed
everyone.
The Texan had a company of plastic; the company had developed a plastic light and XDR-TB, the
promoter used in the rafts on which was built the new floating city. The community now had seventeen
square miles of urban rafting, and was protected by one of the toughest security forces of the
world. Free zone offered entertainment and pleasure for rich in the exclusive section, and around the
edge of the second berth to the tecnitas of the drilling equipment. The local of this second berth also
housed to ones few hung semi-legal and to some few hundreds of musicians.
As Rickenharp.
Rick Rickenharp remained on the southern wall of the Semiconductor, leaving that lightning and the
hustle and bustle of the club envolviesen him, while mentally composed a song.

The song said something like: flashing bustle / look Cegadora / Nostalgia for the electric chair.
Then he thought: Fucking riot.
And did what knew to look like an uncle rolled up but at the same time vulnerable, hoping that some of
the women who passed briefly between the crowd remembered having seen with his group the night
before, and that trying to link it, that play to grupie. But the majority was only interested in the
connected dancers.
And there was not a fucking chance of Rickenharp will connect to the minimono.
Rickenharp was a rock classic. Wore a jacket of Biker's leather black that had some fifty years, and that is
said that had led John Cale, when still belonged to the Velvet Underground. The seams began to burst
and missing three rivets in the drawing of chrome. Elbows and neck edge returned to the original
leather animal Brown. But this leather was like a second skin for Rickenharp. Not wearing anything
underneath. His bony and hairless, a bluish white, chest would be guessed under the broken
zippers. Also wearing a pair of jeans that they had only ten years, but that they seemed older than the
Huntress. Wore a genuine boots Harley Davidson. Hoop earrings covered their lightly-prominent ears,
and his reddish brown hair looked like the explosion of a grenade.
And he wore black sunglasses.
He wore this way because it was decidedly against the prevailing fashion.
His band is always got with this. They wanted their lead guitar to be a presenter of minimono.
-If we are going to go from minimono, we should simply sell the damn guitar and wired us - I told them
Rickenharp.
And then the battery was as stupid and tactless enough to say:
-Well, shit, dude, maybe yes should get the cables.
Rickenharp replied:
-Perhaps should get also a battery mechanical, fucking Neanderthal- and gave a kick to the stool of the
battery, throwing to Murch against the timbales, which provoked a sound shock, to what Rickenharp
added-. You should achieve that beautiful sound of drums on stage, now that we know how to do it.
Murch began throwing sticks, but then remembered that I had to check them carefully since they
themselves did not, so he told him:
-Kiss me ass, asshole! - and is raised and is was, and is not was the first time. Although it was the first
time that it meant something, and only intense diplomatic action by Ponce had gotten that Murch not
abandon the group.
The call from his agent had fired all the conflict. That was what really happened. The Agency was
refining its repertoire. Rickenharp was burned. Their last two LPs were not sold, and in fact sound
technicians claimed that live battery not sounded good in miniaturized sound capsules where current
recordings could now be heard. The holovideo and the video of Rickenharp not out in the air.
In all modes, vine-Co probably was breaking. Other business dragged into the black hole of depression.
-Why is not blame our if the material does not sell - Rickenharp - said. We have fans, but we can't get
distribution to reach them.

Jose said:
-Nonsense, are out of the grill and you know it. Everything that we dragged was only the wave of
nostalgia. Dude, you can't have more than two hits with a revival.
Julio, bass, said something in the jargon of the tecnitas that Rickenharp did not bother to translate
because it was too stupid; He had suggested to hire a dancer of cable as a presenter, and when
Rickenharp ignored him, he cabre and that was your turn to get it. Screwed tecnitas sensitive.
And now the Group was in the sidings. Your train is had stopped between two stations. They had a
performance opening for a number of cable and Rickenharp didn't want to do it, but had a contract and
also a lot of rare with nostalgia of rock in free zone, so perhaps that was, after all, your audience, and it
should be. To burst them screwed cable of the stage!
He looked around the Semiconductor and wanted that the Retro Club would open already. There was a
strong presence of retro in the RC, even some rockabillies, and some of them to knew how sounded
really the rockabilly.Semiconductor was a local minimono.
The mass minimono wore the hair long, extended on them shoulders and narrowed towards a point in
the middle of the head, and smooth, completely smooth and stiff, by what from back each head had the
form of a tipi black, grey, red or white. These colors were the only acceptable and always
monochrome; colors without stripes and planes. Their clothes were stylistic extensions of his haircut. He
minimono was a reaction against the gloss and the chaos of the war, and against the economy and
the amorphous fickleness of the grill. The style glossy was disappearing, dying.
Rickenharp always had been cautious towards stylized shines, but preferred them to the
minimono. After all, the gloss had power.
Glitter had grown up as one more provocative styles anti-control, popular in the last decades of the 20th
century. Is hoped that a brightness take your hair uploaded, so high as outside possible, since of any
form this expressed, emphasized the individuality and the originality of its carrier. Many more colors,
better. Not were a individual unless you had an expressive brightness. Forms of nut, hooks, halos,
multicolored arabesques. Is made fortunes in the shops for molding hair style brightness, that
disappeared when the fashion brightness disappeared. But lasted more than the majority of the
fashions. Had infinite varieties and the attractive of its energy to endure. A lot of people came to the
conclusion of that was necessary to invent an expression individual for a model political of brightness. It
shapes your hair according to the emblem of the favourite country of the third world which is being
trampled (when they were still trampled, before the new scheme's market). Glitters were so
problematic that many people got used to have hair pieces ready to put them when they left. And his
drugs were also designed to fit this trend. Neurotransmitters exciters of all kinds, antidepressants, drugs
that made one that seems to shine. Richest glitters had nimbados belts, which created artificial
auras. More orthodox shines considered that this was a narcissism of bad taste, what a joke for the nobrillos, was for these floridamente all glitters were vain.
Rickenharp never had dyed or molded their hair except to encourage its crest punk.
But Rickenharp wasn't a punk. It is identified with the prepunk of late 1950s, mid-sixties and early
seventies. Rickenharp was an anachronism. It was simply a rockero traditional, so out of place in the
Semiconductor as it would have been a bebop in the clubs of the 1980s.
Rickenharp mir tunics, black monkeys, the uniform grey, black bracelets, always with the same forms,
such as extruded from a cookie mold; the tanning integral and ubiquitous form colony FirStep earrings

(only one, on the left ear). It was believed that the fetish minimonos of hi-tech aspired to the orbital
station Cologne, with the same intensity that the rastas dreamed of returning to Ethiopia. Rickenharp
thought it was funny that the Soviets had blocked the colony. It was fun to see the minimonos, usually
shaped dron, antiexhibicionistas, flown with tranquilizers, flocking in restless groups and whispering
about the soviets, with a wrath of the por-que-nadie-hacealgo-al-respecto type.
The idiotizante regularity of its music canned beat from the walls and vibrated in the soil. If one relies on
the wall I felt a vibration like a Jackhammer in the spine.
There were few shine there, hard and challenging, and glitters were the best hope for Rickenharp to get
fuck. They tended to respect the old rock.
The music ceased; a voice surprise: Joel Nueva Esperanza!, and circles of light appeared on the
stage. The first performance of cable had arrived. Were the ten. To it is you hoped to open the
performance main to them eleven and half.
Rickenharp imagined the club emptying when he climbed onto the stage. Not fit much in that club. But
perhaps appeared a diverse enough audience. Limit scenes can help.
New hope came to scene. An actor of cable, anorexic and surgically neuter; a minimono radical. A trait
evident by her nakedness: only wore a layer of black and gray spray paint. How mear this guy?,
asked Rickenharp.Perhaps it escapes from that slight swelling of your crotch. A dancer mannequin. His
sexuality was embedded in the neck: a simple electrode chrome activating brain pleasure Centre during
the weekly catharsis, under legal control. But it was so skinny, hey, who knows, that perhaps he had
been a black market cerebroestim to connect with a button. Although it was believed that the
minimonos were absolutely part of the law and order.
Wires sausages in the arms, legs and torso from new hope fed a translation of pulse plugs in the floor of
the stage, making him look like a puppet with reversed threads. But it was who handled the puppet. The
long, funeral moans coming out of hidden speakers is fired due to muscle contractions of her arms, legs
and torso. Rickenharp condescendingly thought that it was not bad to be minimono. Is could distinguish
the melody, the chorus formed by his dance, and had a tinge of greater complexity that which used to
have them minis... Minis crowd moved with their geometric configurations of dance, something halfway
between a rectangular, kaleidoscopic, dance and disco dancing to the Busby Berkeley, designed in
accordance with formulas that were supposed should know everyone who wanted to participate. Try to
dance with a style free in its closed choreography and with its palpable reject social expressed in its
language body amounted to be frozen by a wind polar.
Some times Rickenharp practiced acid dance amid them configurations minimono, simply to annoy, only
to force them to express your rejection. But the group you had obliged to let's do it. Do not move away
the audience in our unique performance, uncle. Surely our fucking last performance...
Wire dancer made to vibrate a few sighs of bagpipes on the pre-recorded rhythm section. And the walls
were encouraged.
A good club, in 1965 at 75 or 85 or 95 should be narrow, dark, closed, claustrophobic. The walls should
be, either directly monochrome, all black or mirror, or deliberately variegated, camp, anything that
belonged to the avant-garde of the time, or with vulgar graffiti covers.
Semiconductor presented these two types. It began in male plan with a black crystal walls; during the
concert it became a vulgar transvestite while walls react to music with bursts of color, covering all
wavelengths in osciloscopicos patterns, from the blue and white tones until the purple-red end for bass

and percussion. Vividly, hypnotically reacting to each note. Not reactive walls liked the minimonos. The
rating of corny and video.
The dancer toured the scene and Rickenharp looked at him grumpy, trying to be fair. "It is just another
form of rock and roll. As a Christian watching a Buddhist ceremony; good, to the end and within is only
a manifestation of the Dios single, thought Rickenharp, "but the rock genuine is best. Genuine rock
again. Repeat it to all who heard him, but almost no one paid attention to him.
A caoticista came, and he noted it, feel less alone. The caoticistas were much closer to the true
rockers. Had the head shaved, with its sides painted. A skirt made with at least two hundreds of
different woven synthetic, sewn to their belt in a luck of skirt of fabrics bright. Naked breasts with fine
screws nipples earrings. The minimonos looked at it in disgust, they were demure and draw attention to
the breasts was definitely horrible. She returned a radiant smile. Its beautiful Semitic features were
smeared with a colorful makeup that seemed punctuated at random. Their teeth were sharp.
Rickenharp swallowed hard, looking at her. Shit, she was his type.
Only that... only that she was wearing a blue mezcal inhaler. The question mark of your inhaler was
hanging from the subject of his right ear until just under the right flap of the nose. From time to time
lowering the head and building a little of the powder blue.
Rickenharp had to avert his gaze, swearing silently.
He had written a song titled Trying to follow clean.
The mezcal blue, or the sincocaina, or the heroine, or the anfetamorfinas or the XT2. But,
fundamentally, going blue mezcal. And blue mezcal was addictive. And was taann scores.
Blue mescal, also called "blue head", distilled in the jelly-like sweetness of Quaalude, had the best
effects of mescaline and cocaine together. But a difference of the coca, not producing the same
mono. Only that... only that if is left in take after a period of consumption regular, then the world is
emptied of meaning. In fact, it had no withdrawal. What appeared was a very intense depression, a
sense of meaninglessness that seemed to settle like dust and raise shit in every cell of the body of the
consumer. Not was it same that a monkey of coca but... but the people labelling to the mezcal blue as "a
ticket for the suicide.
Could make you feel as a miner of coal when the mine is collapsing, as if one was buried within itself
same.
Rickenharp had followed the therapy paid by their parents; It had burned its unique success in blue
Chief money and narcotics. He had just managed to disengage. And lately, until his group will fight, he
had begun to feel again that it was worth living.
As he watched the girl with the inhaler go to his side and use it, Rickenharp felt touched, lost, as if he
had seen something to remember a lover lost. The former consumer syndrome. Pain due to have left
planted its drug.
And I could imagine the sweet pungency of the substance in the fins of the nose, the soft, faint flavor of
drug in the back of the palate; or when one is gorged, that explosion of fluorescent confidence,
confidence that is could feel somatically of the same mode that is feel the lips of a woman in the cock; It
was the feedback loop autoerotico blue mezcal. Imagining it, had a glimpse of it feeling, a tantalizador
and febrile ghost. Could taste it from memory, smell it, feel it... Watching her use it you brought of
turned hundreds of iridescent memories. And an almost irrepressible desire. (While a voice in the

background of your head tried to warn whenever there are you: Eh, recalls that that shit you makes
want die when not you is more;) Remember that you make feel you too safe and boring; (reminds
devora your internal organs..., a weak little voice...)
The girl was looking at him. A copycat wink.
It it greeted with her hand.
The little voice grew its volume and said to him: Rickenharp, if you go with it, if you're going with it, will
end up taking it.
Turned with a distressed inner spasm. It was, stumbling among the wave of sounds and lights, and black
people, toward the locker room. A guitar and helmets, and the safer world of sounds.
Rickenharp was listening to a copy of collector, a tape of the Velvet Underground in 1968. It was placed
in its audioestim. The song was: "White Light / White Heat". The guitarists did things that had forced to
tell to the baron Frankenstein: there are things that not is created for them men them knew. Adjusted
the audioestim a little more inwards, so that vibrations did shake the bone around your ear, and thus
causing chills to be transmitted across it in harmony with guitar chords. Took a visorclip to accompany to
the music; a documentary of painters expressionist. Listen to the Velvet while it contemplates to
Edvard Munch. Uncle!
And then July jabbed a finger in his shoulder.
-The happiness is fleeting-whispered Rickenharp, while missed the visorclip towards back. The viewer
seemed like those observation mirrors subject to a band that previously, doctors used only screen is
lowering the height of the eyes was square, as a rear-view mirror. Some of these Scouts came
accompanied by a clip for the eye and a campoestim camera. The campoestim was in the back, glued to
the skin as if it were a light corset. The Chamber chose a picture of the street where one walked and ran
it to the campoestim, which twitching back warning of any obstacle that he saw the camera. A
schematic image of the street why one walked formed somewhere in the brain. Developed for the blind
in the eighties, it was now used by addicts to video, walking or driving through the streets bringing
viewers, watching TV, surfing, reflections, using the campoestim, for his eyes were blocked by the
monitors, but almost never colliding with anyone.
Why she had to look in July with their own eyes.
-What would they be?
-'Ndiez - said July rudely. July, tecnita bassist. In ten. They had to leave in ten minutes.
: Jose Ponce, Julio, Murch rhythm guitar and choir, keyboard, bass, drums.
Rickenharp nodded and rose her hand to place the viewer in your site, but Ponce you disconnected the
team of vision. The image in the viewfinder was afraid how a landscape fading by a tunnel after train
and Rickenharp felt as if your stomach shrink inside at the same speed.
-Vale-said, returning you to look at-. What?
Were in the costume. The walls were black graffiti. All the dressing rooms of the rock clubs will always
be black graffiti. Always will be recognizable by being full of graffiti. As the simple statement of them
parasites send, it gladly petulance of symbiosis 666 is bored of death here, the oblique Existentialism
of them brothers alkaloids you want, but would be better dead and enigmatic as SYNC 66 makes

click now. They looked like a unpaired wallpaper designs. Layers and more layers, forming a
palimpsest. The hallucinatory stylization of the strokes of electrons fired in the visual cortex.
The walls, in the few places where they were visible under the graffiti were a grey screen. Hardly had
place for the Group of Rickenharp, sitting in a circle on chairs, kitchen with broken seats and a threelegged Office Chair.Nested between the chairs were the instruments in their cases. The edges of the
boxes were worn, the fake leather peeling and half of the broken locks.
Rickenharp looked to the group, in the address of them needles of the clock, passing of a face to
another, scrutinizing their expressions: Jose to its left, with a look battered in their eyes, them dark
circles low their eyelids compositionally harmonized with its double string of earrings, his hair an axe
triple, it of the Center red, them others two blue and white, and a glass smoked in its ring of the index
left to game He knew, with its smoky amber eyes. Looked at each other a little acusatoriamente. There
was among them an irritation of lovers, though they had never been. Joseph was injured because
Rickenharp not wanted to change; Rickenharp was putting the survival of the group their own musical
tastes and Rickenharp was wounded because Jose wanted to become an actor of cable minimono, a
betrayal of the ethical spirit of the group, and because the background Jos wanted to sacrifice
Rickenharp, replace it by a dancer of cable. They both knew it, although they had never discussed it. The
greater part of what passed between them was transmitted semiotic with them studied indirect's a
coldness final. Now Jose seemed to bring bad news. Her head was tilted as if had the neck broken. Their
eyes not had brightness.
Ponce had made minimono, at least in their clothing, so it had a fierce fight on the matter. Ponce was
thinner and Fox-faced, and now going gray ship of war, from head to the tip of the toes, including dyeing
on the skin. In the club smoke-filled atmosphere, sometimes it disappeared completely.
He wore silver lenses. Looked their ten reflections silver, as of a tunnel of the horrors, in their nails
painted of mirror; overwhelmingly sad.
July, 'yeahhhh', seemed Rickenharp cared a shit, and I wanted to change. Of course it was only true to
Rickenharp to some extent. As also was a conformist. Perhaps I would argue in favour of Rickenharp, but
in the end it would decide by consensus. July had a bright and curly Puerto Rican hair, combed in a wide
toupee on his head. Had the face and the eyelashes of woman. He wore as pending one bar silver and
dressed in classic black leather retro-rock, as Rickenharp. Tinkered with the skull of his ring, returning a
blow to his smile and looking it as if you worry greatly that one of them false Ruby of glass that formed
their eyes was punto of fall is.
Murch was a fat slug with a cut to the rape. It was a mediocre drummer, but he was a drummer, a kind
of musician on the verge of extinction.
-Murch is rare as a dodo - I told Rickenharp a time-, and this is not all what it has in common with the
dodos.
Murch wore glasses with frame of bone and dark glasses, and always had a bottle of Southern comfort
on your knee. Southern Comfort was part of their dress. Was to play with their cowboy of cowboy, or at
least so it believed.
Murch looked at Rickenharp with franco discontent. I didn't head to pretend.
-That you fuck, Murch-said Rickenharp.
-Huh? Not have said anything.

-Do not make lack. I can smell your thoughts. As to lie to anyone - Rickenharp stood up and looked at
the others - stink enough. I know what I passed by the head. Give me a last action good. Then you'll have
what you want.
Tension rose wings and disappeared.
But another bird was seated in the room. Rickenharp the saw with the eye of the mind: was the bird of
the Thunder. Halfway done with the bird of Thunder in an Indian tipi painting and half with the chrome
parts of a bird T [1]. When it spread its wings, the feathers shone like polished bumper. It had two
indicator lights on his chest, and when the Group picked up their instruments to scene, the lights were
lit.
Rickenharp had his Stratocaster in a black case. The case was blindfolded with duct tape and faded half
glue stickers. But the Strat was immaculate. It was transparent, with aggressively curved as the of a
sporty lines.
Fell to the stage by the corridor of bricks revoked. The corridor is constricted after the first turn, so had
to walk one at a time, holding the instrument forward. The space was something precious in the free
zone.
The director of scene saw to Murch appear first, and said to the DJ that would make them mixtures and
announced to the band through the PA. Old fashion, as Rickenharp had asked.
-By please, give it welcome, to... Rickenharp!
Not there was a roar of response from the crowd. There were a few meows and superficial applause.
"Well, you, bitch, fight with me! ', thought Rickenharp, waiting for the group to take their positions. Go
to the stage in last place, after you had prepared a space for it. Always was as well. Rickenharp glanced
from the curtain to look beyond the glow of lights in the dark bilge of the audience. This had him well,
gave him a chance to take a breath.
The band took their places. Tightened them tuners automatic, moved the dials.
Rickenharp was pleasantly surprised to see that the stage was lit with soft red lights, as he had
requested. Perhaps the lighting director was one of his admirers. Perhaps the key to the cage would
move in the right direction by opening the door and T bird would fly.
Could listen to part of the audience whispering about Murch. Many of them had never seen before at a
battery except for salsa. Rickenharp caught a fragment of tecnita jargon: "do Queraconso? ' What will
do with that, which meant: what are those things that is adjusting?? The drums.
Rickenharp took out the Strat of his case and is it placed. Adjusted the band. Tightened the tuner. He
didn't connect it; When walk by the stage, the field of reception of them amplifiers is would shoot,
transmitting the signal of the Strat to the stack of Marshalls after the battery. In certain sense was a
penalty the miniaturization of it electronic, as them amplifiers, although so powerful as the speakers and
amplifiers of the century XX, were more small, by what were less imposing. The audience also grumbled
about the Marshalls. Many had not seen as past fashion amplifiers.
-Park are?
Murch looked to Rickenharp. Rickenharp nodded.

For an instant, Murch led only 4 by 4. Then the bass picked him up, spreading a layer of sound, a sort of
lateral support. And the keyboard extended leaves of eternity.
Now already could enter in scene. It was as if there had been a gap between Rickenharp and the stage,
and the bass, the drums and keyboard, playing together, had been bridged so he saved it. He crossed
the bridge into the warmth of the currents. I could feel the heat of the spotlights in your skin. Was like
out of a room with air conditioning to the tropics. The music suffered delightfully in this tropical
abundance. The pure white light of focus caught it and stayed with it, focusing on his guitar, according to
your instructions. Well, the guy's lighting is of my part.
He felt as if he could perceive what the guitar felt, and the guitar longed to be touched.
Without know it consciously, Rickenharp is moving with the music, though not too much. Not in the
form demanding of "look at me that have some interpreters. That is the form to try to force the
enthusiasm of the audience, doing that each movement seems artificial.
Rickenharp wasn't natural. The music flowed through it, physically, not hampered by the anxiety or the
conflicts of the ego. His ego was there, was the fuel for his personal torch Olympic. But this was
immaculate as the robes of a Pope.
The Group noticed it and let it happen. This time the chemistry was there with Ponce and Jose when
they reached the chorus; Jose with a sinuous chord, almost reaching the bridge of chrome that holds
strings, and Ponce with a clean theme, magnificently redundant, with the synthesizer set to the registry
of metals. All the Group felt the chemistry as a pleasant shock, as rewarding shock of their individual
becoming a group ego egos.Something beyond the sexual pleasure.
The audience listened, but refused. They didn't want you'd like them. Even so, the place was crowded,
not by Rickenharp, but by the reputation of the club, and all those bodies packed created an
atmospheric exoskeleton sensitive and he knew that that them was vulnerable. He knew what play.
Feeling that you started to occur the great thing, Rickenharp looked with confidence but not at all
arrogant. It was too arrogant to show that it was.
The audience looked to Rickenharp as a man would look a very self-confident, rival just before a fight
hand in hand, and wondering: what is known?.
He knew about the pace. And I knew that there were feelings that even the most indifferent of them,
could not control once they are released; and he knew how freeing them.
Rickenharp touched a chord. Let it vibrate around the room and looked at them. He looked at
Challenger.
You liked checking them looks challenging, because that would make his victory more complete.
Because he knew. He had played in five concerts with the group in the last two weeks, and the five
atmosphere had been forced, chemistry had only appeared to gusts. Like a spark plug with the Poles
aligned incorrectly which can not jump the spark.
Arousal that had occurred in them and behind their intimate feelings repressed sexual energy were now
overflowing, breaking the dam, and the band stirred by his release when Rickenharp thundered in his
progression and began to sing...

The audience watched with growing hostility but Rickenharp liked when the girl played to simulate thatme-try-violating. Stick it by the ears, uncle.
The band was a nozzle of the fuel in the combustion chamber of the room; Rickenharp lit combustion,
causing the audience to make it react, so it will push the piston and... He was speeding up. Rickenharp
was at the wheel.Them had to some place, and each song was the landscape for which he them
threw. Sincopando vowels, he sang:
You want something easy tonight
you want untethered
A clean reaction in chain
and a little bit of sympathy
You say it's only consolation
At the end is a compensation
insecurity
That so not there are surprises
That so nobody is hurts
Us assails any moral issue

There is no blood on silk shirts

But for me, Yes, for me
THE PAIN IS EVERYTHING
The pain is all there is
Girl, take something of mine

or lick a bit of this

THE PAIN IS EVERYTHING
The pain is all there is
The pain is all

Of "an interview with Rickenharp: the Methuselah boy, in Guitar Player Magazine, may 2017.
-GP: Rick, you speak all the time dynamics of the group, but I have the impression that you do not use
dynamics in the usual musical sense.

-Rickenharp: The proper way to create a group simply is that members are some others, like lovers
do. In bars or whatever. The members of the group are as five chemical elements that come together
causing a specific chemical reaction. If the chemistry is correct, the audience is involved in this kind of,
well, social chemical reaction.
-GP: not could be all this an illusion of your psyche? I mean, the need of a true fully integrated group?
-Rickenharp (after a long pause): up to a point. It is true that I need something like that. I need to
belong. I want to say, vale, am a Maverick, but even so, to some level, need belonging. Perhaps those
groups of rock are families vicarious. The family unit is wound of death, so... the group is my family. He
would do anything to keep it attached. I need those guys. If I lose that group, it would be like a child that
the mother, father, brothers and sisters have killed him.
And Rickenharp was still singing,
THE PAIN IS EVERYTHING
The pain is all there is
Girl, take something of mine
Some of it sucks
Yes, I said, the pain LO ES TODO.

Singing it defiantly, half crying, half spluttering the end of each note, with that tone of you-fuck-slut,
practicing magic Act, meowing the melody. I could see the doors opening in your faces, even the
minimonos, including the neutral, all the shine, the rebos, the caoticistas, the prepos, the
retro. Forgetting their subcultural rankings in the organic, Orgasmic fusion of music. It was soaked in
sweat under the light, squeezing sounds with your fingers, and was as if she could feel them take shape
in his hands, the way in which a sculptor feels clay take shape under their own, and was as if there was
no distance between hearing the sound in his head and hear it out of the speakers. His brain, his body,
his fingers had filled the distance, it was a superrefrigerado fuse that had blown.
A part of it was the hairstyle caoticista that had seen before. Was slightly disappointed when he saw it
and said: 'you must be happy to have this escape albeit as narrow; It would have taken you back to the
blue head.
But when he saw her pushing forward, Rickenharp made him a slight gesture with the head, with the
arrogant form of the connoisseur, it was simply happy, and she wondered what was planning his
subconscious for him...All these thoughts were like lightning. The greater part of the time his mind
consciously was concentrated fully in the sound and in the work of cause a response in the audience. He
played from the lament, lament for the loss. His family was going to die, and he played the melodies
that reached the sad chord for the loss of someone, like everyone else...
And the band was supernaturally connected. The gestalt was there, joining them, and he pressed his
Tongs in the collective body of the audience, and took them to where he wanted them to take, and
thought: the Group sounds good, but it won't serve anything when you finish the performance.
It was like a couple divorced, having a good time in bed, but knowing that that not again fix his
marriage. In fact, that "have fun" was the result of having abandoned.

But meanwhile exploding fireworks.

In the last song of the Repertoire, electricity at the club was so strong that, as once had told Joseph, with
rocker melodramatismo, if you cortases it, you sangrara. The maria, the grass and the tobacco floating
in the air seemed to conspire with them foci of scene to create an atmosphere of magic distance. With
each change of key in guarantees, they changed the lights; of the Red to the blue, from the blue to the
white, of the white to the yellow sulfur, while a parallel length of wave emotional ran through the
room. The energy was growing, and Rickenharp it downloaded; their Strat was the lightning rod.
Rickenharp dropped the last five notes alone, nailing the climax in the air. Then came out of scene,
without just listening to the roar of the crowd. Is discovered to itself same going towards the corridor of
bricks revoked, and then was in the costume and not remembered how had arrived there. Everything
seemed more real than usual. Your ears buzzing as if Quasimodo was playing in its bell tower.
Heard steps and is returned, thinking on what you going to say to the group. But was it girl caoticista and
someone more, and then a third that came after that someone more.
Somebody was more a skeletal uncle, with brown hair tousled in a natural way, not stirred as following
some of the cultural undercurrent. His mouth hung slightly ajar, showing an incisive blackened. His nose
was sunburned and in the backs of their hands had bulging veins. The third was a Japanese; small,
Brown eyes, anodino, gentle expression, a friendlier than neutral point. The Caucasian delgado wore a
jacket of the army without logos, jeans worn, and broken shoes of tennis. His hands seemed nervous, as
if you were used to having something in them which had not now. An instrument? Perhaps.
The Japanese wore a suit of Japanese action, blue sky, impeccable as a brush. Their hands seemed to be
comfortably empty. Only had a bulk in your hip, something that could reach crossing his arm right and
through the zipper bottom of the costume, and Rickenharp was quite safe of that was a gun. Had
something in common in those three; seemed half fainted from hunger.
Rickenharp trembled, the layer of sweat cooling is on it. but is forced to say:
-Do Quepasssa?
It was like chewing a piece of wood. Looked above them, waiting to see to the band.
-The group is behind the curtain-said the caoticista-. Bass told us "Say you mueveculparaki".
Rickenharp had to laugh at his imitation of the tecnita of July: Tell her to move her ass to here.
Something of the feeling of floating disappeared then and heard the screams, and realized that they
wanted an encore.
-Fuck, a bis-said without thinking it-with what has lasted!
-Eh, colleague - the thin, said acting colleague with a British accent. I saw you in Stonehenge five years
ago, when you had your second success.
Rickenharp pestae a little when the guy said your second success, inadvertently pointing to the fact
that Rickenharp only had two, and everyone knew it would hardly have another.
-I am Carmen-said the caoticista-. These are Willow and Yukio.
Yukio was kept apart from the others, and something that was revealed to Rickenharp that it was
watching the Hall with concealment.

Carmen saw to Rickenharp look at Yukio and said:

-The police are coming down.
-Why? -asked Rickenharp-. The club has license.
-It is not by the club, is for us.
He looked at her and said:
-Eh, I don't need that I recorded - it took his guitar and went towards the entrance. I will make my bis
until they lose interest.
She followed him to the entrance, to the echo of the kicking asking bis, and asked him:
-Can meet us in the wardrobe a while?
-Yes, but this is not sacred. If you come, the police also - were now behind the curtain. Rickenharp gave
a sign to Murch and began to play.
She said:
-They are not police officers exactly. Probably do not know such sites; they seek among the people, not
in the dressing room.
-You're an optimist. I will say the Gorilla to stay here, and if someone starts to come will tell you that it is
empty, you just look.
--Thank you--she turned to clothing. He spoke with the bouncer and returned to the stage. It felt
exhausted, the guitar heavy. But it fed on the energy level of the room, and this led him to make two
encores. It left them wanting more, it is the way of doing things, and sticky sweat, returned to the locker
room.
Yet were there: Carmen, Yukio, Willow.
-Is there an exit on the stage door? -asked Yukio-to the alley?
Rickenharp nodded.
-Waiting at the entrance. Will be going in a minute and you it will teach.
Yukio nodded and they went to the entrance. He group came, passed in row before Carmen, Yukio and
the brit without set is too, thinking that were ones hanging of behind the stage, except Murch that you
looked them tits to Carmen and boasted a little, making windlasses with their sticks.
The Group was sat in circle in the costume, laughing and giving is palmed, lighting all types of
cigarettes. Not they offered none Rickenharp, knew he was not smoking.
Rickenharp was keeping the guitar when Jos le said:
-Sangraste well.
-Would like to say that you sucked well? -said Murch, and July dropped a giggle.
-Yes said Ponce, the guy has good head, good neck and good kidneys.
-Good kidneys? Rick sucks you kidneys? I think I'm going to vomit.

And the usual puerile spree of the group, because they were still high after a good performance by
delaying what they knew I was going to get, until Rickenharp said:
-Of what wanted to speak, Joseph? -Jose looked to him and the others and went silent-. I know you have
something in your head - Rickenharp said softly.
Jose said:
-Well, it's that there is... an agent referred by Ponce, and this guy could take care of us. Is an agent
tecnita and will do a circuit tecnita and, although we would have that working for that, this would be a
good base. But the type us says that we need a performance of cable.
-Guys, have been very busy-said Rickenharp closing the case of the guitar. Joseph shrugged his
shoulders.
-Eh, not you have made to your shoulders; not learned of the type until yesterday by the night, by what,
uhm, will keep the same personal but changed them costumes, change the name of the Group and write
new songs.
-We would lose it - said Rickenharp feeling collapsing-. We will lose what we have. Not so you will have
doing that shit because all that is forced.
-The rock and roll no is a fucking religion-said Jose.
-No, it is not a religion, it is a form of sound. Now, this is my proposal: write songs new but in the same
style that always. We have done so well tonight; It could be the beginning of a change for us. We stayed
here, we build upon the audience base we get tonight.
But was as throwing coins to the Grand Canyon. It couldn't be, or hear their clash at the bottom.
The Group looked at him without saying anything.
-Vale-said Rickenharp-. Ok. We've been through this ten times jodidas. Ok. Already is well-had a speech
of farewell for this moment, but are you stuck in the throat. It was Murch and said,: you think that you
will keep, do they told you that? Nonsense! Will do so without battery, uncle. Better you learn fast to
program - then looked at Jose. Fuck you, Jose - said softly. He turned to July, which was facing the
opposite wall as if you were decoding a particularly cryptic graphite-. July, you can stay with the
amplifier. I'm going to travel light.
Turned, and charging with his guitar, he left leaving silence behind him.
He gestured her to Yukio and drove them out of the stage.
-Is there any chance that you can help us to find a small lid? -asked Carmen at the door.
Rickenharp now needed company terribly. Nodded.
-Yes, if me das a dose of mezcal.
-Of course said she.
Rickenharp is put the glasses dark to protect is from the assault of the ride.

Paseo glided by United rafts of the free zone over a mile, turning back and forth, through a Canyon
crowded truffled game rooms of neon and flashing lights. It was closed on itself, magnified by the
provision and the brightness of the lights.
Rickenharp and Carmen walked through the sticky, warm night almost at the same pace. Yukio walked
back, Willow forward. Rickenharp felt like part of a patrol in the jungle. And I had yet another
sensation; they were followed or monitored. Maybe it was a suggestion, due to see that Yukio and
Willow looked over their shoulders, occasionally...
Rickenharp felt a vibration of power under your feet, a shock that was extended with a languid lash
through the flexible material of the street, telling him that they had today risen breakwaters, and the
jetties around the artificial island suffered by the effort.
Game rooms occupying three levels above the narrow street; each level had its own indoor
sidewalk; the people is stopped in the balustrade to look down, to the segmented snake that was the
traffic of the street. The set of game rooms expelled towards Rickenharp a rich amalgam of odors; the
roast of them potatoes fries of the food fast, it soft pungency of the smoke, smoke of grass, of gino, of
tobacco, the aroma surround of them perfumes, of them smells of the urine mixed with the of them
posts of fish, the beer stale, them popcorn of corn and the air marine; and above all they, the soft scent
to ozone from of them cars electric riding by the street. The first time that was there, Rickenharp
thought that the place smelled strange to be a sector of light red. "It is too loose," he said. Then you
gave has of that was missing the low continuous of the monoxide of carbon. Not had cars of combustion
in area free.
Sounds dotted above Rickenharp in a warm wave of cultural fertility; pop songs of batteries and drum
machines grew as they were passing types carrying insignificant appliances, if you compared them with
the noise they produced; the rhythm contagious of the protosalsa or the calculated and redundant
heartbeat of the minimono.
Rickenharp and Carmen walked under an arch of triumph fiberglass, so covered with graffiti that its
commemorative original meaning was lost, and were slowly down the Milky sidewalk, under the wing of
the first floor of game rooms. The multinational crowd became more dense as they approached the
heart of the promenade. Soft lights shining upwards, in the middle of the sidewalk of polystyrene, gave
the crowd the appearance of a 1940s horror film. Despite the black glasses, the place assaulted
Rickenharp with thousands of subliminal impulses.
Rickenharp was still surfing the wave of blue mezcal, but the wave was already beginning to break; I
could feel it collapsing under their feet. He looked to Carmen. She returned the gaze, and they
understood. She looked around, then is directed towards the dark entry of an old cinema, a hollow full
of garbage to ones twenty steps of the street. They went to the entrance, while Yukio and Willow stayed
with their backs to the door, blocking the view from the street, so that Rickenharp and Carmen could get
a double dose of blue mezcal. There were certain pleasure of kid in refuge somewhere in the paragraph
to take drugs, a wave of romance by belonging to a gang of outlaws. The second inhalation, graphites of
swing of fiberglass entry doors, seemed to squirm with sense.
-Is me is running out-said Carmen, checking his boat of mezcal.
Rickenharp not wanted to think on that. His mind now ran, and felt how had jumped to the modolenguaje of the blue Chief.

-Do you see that graphite?: ' you will die young because TIE has stolen you half your life. Do you know
what means that? Don't know what was the TIE until yesterday. I used to see these things and
wondered what was, until someone told me.
-Immortality and do not know what more - she said, licking the blue mezcal from the edge of your
inhaler.
-Treatment of immortality for the Elite. Supposedly some people is book a treatment of immortality only
to them, because the Government not wants that the people living much time and so boring the
place. Another silly conspiracy theory.
-Do not believe in conspiracies?
-I don't, in some. Nothing so brought by a whisker. But I think that people are being manipulated all the
time. Even here, this place hits you, you know. As...
-Well, children - you broke off Willow, - can leave the class of Sociology for more later, eh? Dude, where
is the place that where your colleague we can take out of the island?
-Go - Rickenharp, leading them back into the flow of the crowd, but following the thread of rap of the
mezcal blue, without losing it - he said. I mean, this site is like Times Square, isn't it? And even one reads
novels about him. That was your archetype. Or perhaps some places of Bangkok. I want to say, those
sites are prepared carefully. Perhaps subconsciously, but so thoroughly prepared as those gardens
Japanese, only that with the aesthetic reverse. True, all evangelist moans, righteous, constipated, that
have ever been preached against the diabolical seduction of places like this, was right in some way, it
was completely justified because, Yes, these places you excite and seduce you and vampirizan
people. Yes, are Venus Flytrap of Venus. Svengalis architectural. Yes to all the clichs about bad city. All
the Reverends preachers: Reverend Iko, Reverend... What is your name?...Reverend Rick Crandall the
smiles.
She you looked with hardness. He wondered why, but mezcal was dragging him.
-All the preachers are in it some, but the reason by which it are is which makes that also are wrong. Here
everything is selling you something. Amounts of light and eddies that you suck to seduce you, so that
you dilapides your energy in the form of money in them. People come here mainly to purchase or to be
excited when they are about to buy. The tension between wanting to buy and the resistance to buy can
cause a load electric. It is this what we want: I leave to excite my glands but I turn back when I have to
pay. You know? It is simply a constant excitement, but not run, because you desperdiciaras your money,
or pillaras a social disease, or you steal or they would sell you adulterated drugs, or something... I want
to say, what here is sold not have value, are nonsense. But, for me, this night is more hard resist me...without say: because I am settled-. It makes you susceptible.Receptive to subliminal messages hidden in
the design of signs, those kinetic flat, these damn bulbs that light up and turn off; that you makes think
in them old models of computation, thought binary, on-off, on-off, flicker, flicker, all those fluorescent,
putting you in trance as the pendulum of the hypnotist in them old movies... And the type of colors that
used, the energy of them signs, the rhythm of its on, the rhythm of on-off of them bulbs, all that
designed according to them principles of the psychology that even the people that it makes not knows
that them are using, colors that point, know, downloads glandular and current chemical stimulating
towards them centers of pleasure... As the obscenities coming out of the painted mouth of a slut that
you pay... like video games... I want to say.

-I know what you mean - she said, desperately buying a beer in a paper Cup. You must of be thirsty after
that monologue. Socket - put the sparkling glass under your nose.
-I speak too. Sorry - drank half of the three drinks beer, took breath, finished, and for a moment felt
paradise in his throat. A wave of stillness it invaded, and then is evaporated when the mezcal blue came
back to burn you another time. Yes, it was connected.
-I do not care to hear your roll - said she-, except that you may have a lot to say and I'm not sure that we
are not recording.
He said embarrassed and followed. He smashed the glass in his hand and began to do it methodically
strips as they walked.
Rickenharp enjoyed of the lust of colors of the place, colors that is mixed and disappeared on the crowd,
making of the running of hats and heads a sampler of iridescent fabrics and, to the same time, making
shine them cars as fragments mobile of ice.
Tomas the word passion, thought Rickenharp, and it put crude in a bathtub full of the juice of the word
attraction. Leave it and allow attraction acids to bleach the colors of passion, so you get a sort of arc iris
of gasoline on the surface of the bath. Remove oil Rainbow with a sieve for cheeses, raisins by a still and
diluted in oil the innocence of the cartoon and the extract of pure subjectivity. Now you do pass
electrical current through the still and get all the neon tubes that join the ride free area.
The Paseo, tapering is before them, was a tube of lights colored, converging in a kaleidoscope; the
concave facades on each side is illuminated with a dozen different types of signs. Sensual flow of neon
data was fragmented in cunning irregular intervals with stunning logos, to the Times Square: CANON,
ATARI, NIKE, COCACOLA, WARNER AMEX, SEIKO, SONY, NASA CHEMCO, BRAZILIAN EXPORTS, EXXON
and NESSIO. In all of them, only one was affected by the war. A poster without turning: FABRIZZIO and
ALLINNE, a company cuisine, destroyed by Soviet locks. They were down, dead.
They passed by a shop in camisetas-TV, where the tourists went with her breasts projecting video
imagery moving, Microfine circuitry and chips woven into the chest of the shirt, showing the sequence
chosen by everyone.
Camels street of all them races sold sugar beta mixed with beta endorphins and shells of the own fund
marine of area free, pierced and strung, besides rings encrypted of holocubos pornographic with
snapshots of one same with his wife. or with your lover?
Despite the proximity of Africa, African blacks were there few. Free zone Administration considered
them a danger to security. The tourists were mostly Japanese, Canadians, Brazilians mounted the crest
of the Brazilian boom, South Koreans, Chinese, Arabs, Israelis, and a small number of Americans. Already
very few of those damned Americans, thanks to the depression.
The atmosphere was that of a sauna. It was a multicolored steam bath. The air thickened by the various
fumes from the place enveloped the brilliance of neon, filtering and darkening the colors of signs, the
camisetas-TV and glow jewelry. At the top, between the pieces of a puzzle that didn't fit at all, made
posters, lights and videos of the pleasure houses that supurated sexual imagery, glimpsed blue and black
pieces of the night sky. At street level, the chaos had its limit in open doors to each side. the current of
people entered and came out to look shops and salons of humoestim, stores of memories and theatres
holocubicos and, especially, them galleries of excitation.

The camels are moved as fish of reef, biting and escaping, stopping is to offer. I of, am I from. ID,
implant direct, illegal direct stimulation of the pleasure centres. And drugs, cocaine and various herbs
fumables, estims and sedatives; the half of the camels were artists burned that sold baking soda or
pseudoestims. Frequently they entered them Rickenharp and Carmen because they looked like usual
and Carmen had an inhaler. Blue mezcal and inhalers were forbidden, but also another bunch of things
about which the police-free zone did turn a blind eye. Is could carry inhaler and have it full of substance,
but the agreement tacitly was not using it openly, but in some place discreet.
And whores of both sexes roamed the street, offering is blatantly. You were supposed to free zone
administration regulated all prostitution, but was tolerated to the hookers on the black market as as
soon as someone pay for the protection of the patrol and whenever they became not very many.
The crowd emerging was like a continuous sample of the human variety. I changed again and a pimp's
specialties appeared, pushing a teenage couple; they had to walk to stumble because they were inlaid in
black leather, a sort of well tight straitjackets suits. Their faces were a mystery under masks of leather
without ornaments that les covered completely the faces; aluminum devices kept their mouths open, so
are imitadoras, but for Rickenharp seemed the victims of some crazy specialist in orthodontics.
The security guard for free zone infested streets in their uniform armour, which reminded Rickenharp of
baseball umpires: faces in helmets, combination guns, closed at cartridge strips; It was said that they
were trained to open a four-digit combination in a second.
Normally were walking and murmured by the radio of their helmets. They then saw two of them
harassing an artist trileros from the street, a small half bleached black guy who could not afford the full
treatment, pushing it from one to the other, joking between them through the helmet amplifiers, their
voices rising above the Disco sound of cassette shop speakers.
-CONE ARE DOING IN MY ROUND, SACK OF SHIT! HEY, BILL, WOULD KNOW WHAT THIS GUY THIS DOING
IN MY ROUND?
-HELL, NO, I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING IN YOUR ROUND.
-IT IS GETTING SICK WITH YOUR SHITTY TRILEROS SWINDLE, THAT IS WHAT IS DOING.
One of them hit too strong the boy with the reinforced arm of his suit riot, and the trileros collapsed on
the floor, instantly, like a spinning top that is just the string.
-YOU SEE, BILL, WANDERING ALONG THE PROMENADE OF THE AREA.
-WHAT I SEE AND I LAY SICK, JIM.
The two animals dragged the often guy by the ankle to a kiosk oblong shape, and threw him in a
capsule. They sealed it, they garabatearon a report that stuck to the frame of the hard plastic
capsule. Then they put the capsule of the man in the suction pipe of the kiosk. The capsule was sucked
toward down, according to the principle of the mail by tube, to the prison of area free.
-It seems as if they used some kind of garbage dump to get rid of people - said Carmen when passed
beside the police. Rickenharp looked at her.
-Do not you put nervous when passing near the timbers. So not is is of them, not?
-Nooo.
-Tell me who supposed that we are avoiding?

-Buah, buah.
-How do we know that those logs out of the city that so concern you have not gone to the premises and
recruited his help?
-Yukio says that not it will do, not want that nobody watch what make here because to the
administration of area free not you like.
-Mmm...
Rickenharp it guessed; they were supposed to be the second Alliance.
The Corporation for the second Alliance international security, the criptofascistas that moved by the
wreck of Europe. The SA fulfilled the role of a multinational police force, taking charge of imposing his
idea of the order where the demoralized legions of NATO had collapsed. The appeal of the SA and their
sympathizers came further and deeply in so far as the war is encarnizaba without hope. But never in the
free zone; Free wanted independent of area Chief see gassed of the SA. They could not operate there,
except incognito.
-The fucking beast of the SA! Shit!... - Blue mezcal reinforced Rickenharp paranoia. The adrenaline you
left to spurt, making that his heart is fired. He began to feel claustrophobic in the midst of the crowd. He
began to see shapes in motion in spin, forms were laden with meanings superimposed on his mind
galvanized by the fear. Forms that laughed at him saying: the SA is back, very close. Felt in their
scrambled stomach a combination of horror and exaltation.
Overnight had sought with great effort to suppress thoughts about your group. And of his failure to
make that the group work. It had lost. And was almost impossible that someone understood why that
was, for him, equal that when a man loses to his woman and to their children. All these years striving for
that group, struggling to get a place set in the middle of the grill. The Group was now wounded of death
and, therefore, also its identity.Knew that in some way would be useless treat of mounted another
group. Grill just didn't want him to and he didn't fucking grilled. And his exaltation was just that: inside,
the ugly the outcast hole was closed when I thought animals from the SA. Those beasts threatened his
life, and it threatens it absorbed in something that made possible forget is of his band. Had found a Va
de escape.
But the horror was there too. If caught with the enemies of the SA..., if the SA animals captured it...
He laughed at Carmen and she looked at him without expression and wondering what it meant that
giggle.
And now, what?, asked himself. Go to OmeGaity. Find Frankie. Frankie was the output.
But it was both hard to get there... I thought that the drug was fucking him the sense of time. The
perception altered makes that seem that everything costs more time.
The crowd seemed CRIA is, the air more hot, the music more high, the lights more brilliant. It was
reaching to Rickenharp. Began to lose the capacity to distinguish what passed in his mind and what
passed to its around. He began to see himself as an enzyme molecule floating in a macroscopic
bloodstream. The type of thing that always you beat when took drugs energizing in an environment of
overstimulation sensory.
What I am?

Burning arrows of Orange neon marquee on his head appeared out, snaking down from the wall, on the
sidewalk, wrapped around their ankles to try to put it in a room of excitation. Local showed holograms
of things in pairs: breasts and buttocks were projected towards him, and he answered against his will, as
following a cliche, feeling an erection down her pants. Stimulus visual: the monkey sees, the monkey
replies. Thought: ' the bell sounds, and the dog saliva '.
He looked over his shoulder. Who was that type with sunglasses from there back? Why would he wore
sunglasses at night? Perhaps a SA.
Nooo, uncle:-I wear sunglasses at night. It doesn't mean anything.
He tried to shake off the paranoia, but somehow it was parallel to the underground stream of sexual
arousal. Every time you saw a whore or the poster of a pornographic video, paranoia caught it, as the
sting of a Scorpion sticking in his adolescent excitation current. And could feel the tips of her nerves out
of your skin.
Who I am? Am I the crowd?
(Realizing that after having been clean so long, your tolerance for blue mezcal was very low.)
Saw to Carmen look something on the street, and then whisper hastily to Yukio.
-What? -asked Rickenharp.
She whispered:
-Did you see that thing silver? That thing silver fluttering? There, on the taxi... Just look, not I can point
out.
He looked to the street. A taxi was rising to the curb. Your engine howled as if it had gotten into a bunch
of garbage. Its windows were stained with a reflection of mercury. About it and a little more back, a bird
chrome aleteaba, their wings converted in a buzzing smear. It was the size of a thrush and had a goal
instead of head. It had some kind of logo on the chest of aluminum. You might not know who belonged.
-I see it. I can not tell you what is.
-I think that they direct it from the taxi. It is like them. Let's go.
She was put in a local of excitation. Willow, Yukio and Rickenharp followed her. They had to buy chips to
enter. Bought it at least, a per head. An old bald guy, gordezuelo, told the tabs without looking at them,
his eyes caught by a screen of television on your wrist. In his wrist, a newsletter in miniature was reciting
with a Dim voice: ... tried today murder to the director of the second Alliance, the Reverend Rick
Crandall..., and then another voice muttered, distorted: Crandall is located in situation critical and
closely guarded in the Center medical of area free. The amazing presence of Crandall in a meeting at
the Hilton Fuji of zone free....
Picked up their chips and were at the gallery. Rickenharp heard Willow whisper Yukio:
-That bastard is alive still.
Then, Rickenharp added two and two.
Gallery of excitement was like a pavement of meat, each available vertical surface taken by an emulsion
of naked humanity, generally appalling photos style polaroid. When one passed from a hologram to the
other, saw people upside down or scattered or playing or placed in thousand variants of copulation, as if

a child had been playing with naked dolls and had left them trailing. An intense red light buzzing in each
cabin; the light was arranged on a wavelength calculated to provoke sexual curiosity. In each private
cabin had a screen and a dildo. The dildo seemed a vacuum cleaner of the 20th century, with a huge
salt at the end cap. You saw the photos, hear sounds and you spent the dildo on the erogenous
zones; dildo excited nerve endings appropriate with an electric field penetrating subcutaneously,
regulated with great precision. It could distinguish in the gym the guys wearing the dildo too. Use is
more than them thirty minutes recommended and the skin appears and is feels as burnt by the
Sun... Other five chips in machines activated when an oxygen mask that fell from a hatch in the ceiling,
pumping a mixture of pheromones and Amyl nitrate.
To put it in the classic manner-, said Yukio suddenly, is there any other way to get out of here?
Rickenharp nodded.
-Yes. This site is in a corner, by what there are possibilities of that has two inputs, an in each corner. And
perhaps a way out to the alley...
Willow was looking at a poster puzzle, with a snapshot of two men, a woman and a goat. Is came a step,
looking with intensity to the goat as if were looking for some trait family, and the cabin felt your
closeness; the images of the poster began to move is, folding is, licking is, penetrating is, transforming is
with a strangely ritualized clumsiness; cabin light increased its red glow, firing a dose of pheromones
and Amyl nitrate, trying to seduce him.
' Well, where is the other gate? -Carmen whispered.
-What? -Rickenharp looked at her-. Oh! Sorry, I'm so..., I am not sure - he looked over his shoulder and
he lowered his voice-. Bird spy not has followed us.
Yukio whispered:
-The electric fields of the dildos confused bird guide systems. But we must always be one step ahead of
them.
Rickenharp looked to his around, but the maze of booths black and paved of meat seemed bend is about
yes same, turn tortuously, as down by a drain Cubist...
-I'll find another door - said Yukio. Rickenharp followed by grateful. I wanted to leave.
Is rushed by the narrow corridor between the cabins of dildos. Customers moved morosely, a booth to
another, reading ads, visiting fetish menus for your libido personal codes, without looking at each other,
only by the corner of his eye, carefully respecting personal space, as fearful of the volatility of their
sleeping sex bellows.
Be heard music gladly, with gasps that came out of any part; the lights red were as the brightness of the
blood in her hand low an intense light. But the place was strictly Calvinist by the set of prohibitions
observed tacit way.Here and beyond, to each turned of them hot and narrow passages between the
rows of cabins, boring guards of security without uniform is balancing on their heels, and les said to
them onlookers: not is entertain, can buy chips in the counter.
Rickenharp saw of soon that the place wanted to absorb its sexuality, as if them tubes of them vacuum
cleaners in the cabins were to sucking your energy organic, leaving you dry as a castrated.
Go out of a fucking time of here, it said.

Then he saw output, and they ran out.

They were in the back alley. They looked up, around, almost expecting to see the bird. I wasn't. Only
joints grey estirocemento sheets, conspicuously monochrome after the chromatic voracity of the Gallery
of excitation.
Came out at the end of the alley, looked at a time to the crowd shake is in both directions. Was like
being in the shore of a torrent. Then be dipped in it; Rickenharp imagined that it was wet in the liquefied
flesh of the human stream, at the time headed by an innate instinct to its original goal: the OmeGaity.
Entered by pushing the shutters of the black gates that are descascarillaban in the dark rot from the
entrance of the OmeGaity, and Rickenharp gave him his jacket to Carmen, to hide her naked breasts.
They are supported only men - said he, but if not put your femininity in his line of sight perhaps let us
slip.
Carmen was the jacket, climbed the zipper very carefully, and Rickenharp gave him his black glasses.
Rickenharp hit the closed door leading to the rooms of meetings in the window of the cabin
together. Behind the glass, someone looked at from a screen of TV.
-Hello, Carter-said Rickenharp.
-Hello - Carter threw a giggle. Carter was the first to admit it still "un-Ladybug-a-la-fashion". It was
wrapped in a flexible coat of grey warship, with a white hairstyle minimono-style. But a true mini you
would have despised by carry also a pending of ring light. Flashing with a series of words in small green
letters: you... you... fuck... Yes... no... you... like... You... you... fuck... If... The minis had considered this as
grate. And, anyway, the wide face of Toad of Carter does not fit with the slenderness of the
appearance minimono. He looked to Carmen-. No, Harpie girls.
-Drag queen-said Rickenharp. It slipped a twenty newbux ticket through the opening in the window. Ok?
-Vale, but she is which runs the risk-said Carter and got them twenty in the cups of his bikini color
carbon.
-Vale.
-Would you have heard it from Geary?
-Not.
-Be killed with white of Chinese because you glued it pissed green.
-Oh, shit - to Rickenharp got you goose bumps. Your paranoia is fired again, and to control it said-: good,
not go lick nothing of anyone. I seek to Frankie.
-That jerk. It is here, celebrating a trial or something. But, sweetheart, still have to pay the entrance.
-Of course-said Rickenharp.
Other twenty newbux from his pocket he pulled out but Carmen, putting a hand on his arm, said:
-This you pay us- and put them 20.
Carter caught them with a giggle.

-Dude, this Queen have done you a job of larynx really good - he said knowing that it was a fucking
girl. Still touching in...?
-Finished me the contract - Rickenharp cut the subject, trying to deal with his pain. The blue Chief had
fallen from its peak, and had left him feeling as if he were made of cardboard inside, as if the slightest
Pressure could make it burst. His muscles trembled from time to time, irritated as the feet with chafing
of a child nervous. Was sinking it. I needed another dose. When are placed, the things presented its face
kind, its side best; When are of downturn, them things show its appearance more regrettable and when
are low at all, them things show your rear, their aspects more negative. Write down it to a lyric of
song.
Carter tightened the Bell that opened the door and it closed as soon as passed.
Inside was heat and there was humidity, darkness.
-I think that your blue was cut with coke or goal or something, said Rickenharp Carmen when they
moved away from the access door-. Because I'm sinking faster than it should be.
-Yes, probably... What is meant with that of the Green piss?
-Positive result sida-tres, AIDS that kill you in three weeks. You put a pill of the test in your urine, and if
the urine turns green, you have AIDS. There is no cure for this new AIDS for what type... - shrugged.
-What cone is this site? -It asked Willow.
In a low voice, Rickenharp replied.
-It is something like a gay bath but no bathrooms; a place of meeting for homos. But half of the people
who are here are heteros who remain without pasta in the casinos, and use it as a cheap place to sleep,
do you know?
-Yes?, and how is that you know a site as well?
Rickenharp asked with a giggle sarcastic:-Me are calling homo?
Someone, in an alcove in the dark side, he laughed.
Willow was discussing in voice low with Yukio.
-Not me like this, that is all, them screwed faggots plunder millions of damn diseases. One of those
onlookers that seems a fillet of ox Tan is going to run on my leg.
-Only we will walk, we won't touch anything - said Yukio-. Rickenharp knows what it does.
And then Rickenharp thought: I hope that Yes. Maybe Frankie could make them safe from free zone,
perhaps not.
The walls were black screens. It was the negative of the labyrinth of local excitement. There was a more
common red light and also the peculiar smell that generate lots of bodies on bodies and their secretions
of various types of smoke, cheap SOAP, shaving lotions and the inevitable plague to sweat. And below,
spermicide KY, disinfectants and rancid semen. Them screens ended to them ten feet of height and the
shadows is joined in the ceiling, beyond above, far away. It was a converted a warehouse space, that
caused a strange double sense: claustrophobia within agoraphobia. They passed the Burrows of
appointments. Blurry and anonymous faces turned to sign them to spend, with expression as cold as on
a camera.

The local as this not had changed significantly in fifty years. Some were more filthy than others. The
most filthy had clogged latrines and projected pornography 16 mm with what was supposed to be out of
focus was its soundtrack, growling like a drunk from the speakers. And the OmeGaity belonged to the
more grimy.
They passed the playroom with its billiards stained and damaged video games. Taking off is of them
walls, between the machines, had posters of men so exquisitely female as unbearably males, cartoons
with genital enlarged and muscles that seemed to some type of organ sexual, with faces of surfers
Californian.
Carmen bit is the finger to avoid laughing at them, marveling at peculiar narcissism of the place. Another
two men headed a cubicle designed as a farm, toward a Bank of wood within the 'stable of
horses. Clicking sound of moist meat. Willow and Yukio departed look. Carmen watched sex gay with
fascination. Rickenharp passed without change, leading the way through other nests of
midnight; passing men sleeping on benches and chairs that laughed with dread, and that, drowsy, were
removed from above with a slap-up unwanted hands. And he met Frankie in the television room.
The television room was bright, well lit, the walls of a cheerful yellow. Had lamps of motel in the bedside
tables, a sofa, a vulgar television in color connected to a channel of rock, and a row of monitors of
television on the wall. It was like emerging from the underworld. There Frankie sat on the couch, waiting
for customers.
Frankie was driving a portable terminal that was connected to an input of the network. The client gave
his account or your credit card number. Frankie checking account, transferred the funds to you (under
the concept of consultation fees) and packages was happening.
In the monitors of video of the wall is saw it room of the orgy, a tape porn and a chain of television by
satellite of the grill. In this last, a broadcaster gimoteaba by the attempted murder of Crandall, this time
in tecnita.Rickenharp hoped that Frankie does not fall into the account and begin to relate
things. Frankie the mirror trying to get benefit of where out, and the SA always paid it information.
Frankie was sitting in the sofa of vinyl blue faded, leaned on his terminal of pocket in the bedside table
of coffee. Client of Frankie was a homo disco with the blue glow of a shark, muscles of steroids and a
karate kimono.The type was to one side, looking small bag with blue packages that were on the coffee
table, while Frankie had just the transaction.
Frankie was black. Its skull calvo had been painted with chrome reflective, by what its head was a mirror
that reflected the screens of television as a tiny eye of fish. He wore a gray suit striped three-piece. One
of truth, but crumpled and stained as if he had slept with it since, or maybe fucked. NAT Sherman
hurried a cigar to his Golden mouthpiece. Its synthetic crossed eyes had a demonic red. He threw an
ambiguous giggle to Rickenharp.Looked at Willow, Yukio and Carmen and made a mocking gesture.
-Fucking narcos, every day become more handsome with those costumes. Now there are four of them
here, one is seems to my friend Rickenharp, the others three seem two refugees and a designer by
computer. But the Japanese do not have camera. That is go.
-What is this? -started Willow.
Rickenharp you made a gesture of not give him importance, that meant: not going in serious, asshole.

-I have to make two purchases - announced and looked to the purchaser of Frankie. The buyer took your
package and disappeared into the burrows-. First-said Rickenharp by removing its card of credit of the
portfolio-, need blue head, three grams.
-There have, colleague-Frank became a pen laser on the card, then drummed asking for the balance of it
has. The terminal requested your private code. Frankie happened the terminal to Rickenharp, who
entered your code and then deleted it so that it would not be. He then entered the transfer of funds to
the account of Frankie. Frankie took the terminal and returned to check the transfer. The terminal
showed the new balance of Rickenharp and the benefit of Frankie-. This is going to end up with half of
your account, Harpie - Frankie said.
-I have some plans.
-I heard that you and Jose have finished.
-How you hear so fast?
-Ponce was buying.
-Yes, well, now that I've gotten rid of the dead weight, my prospects are even better - but, when he said
it, he felt that weight died in their intestines.
-Your merchandise, uncle - Frankie searched the bag and pulled out three bags of powder blue, already
heavy. He looked slightly funny. Rickenharp did not like her look. Seemed to say knew that'd come back,
mierdecilla complaining.
-That you fuck, Frankie-said Rickenharp picking up those packages.
-By what this sudden outbreak of discontent, my child?
-You don't mind fucking bastard.
The expression self-sufficient of Frankie is multiplied by three. Looked interrogator to Carmen, to Yukio
and to Willow.
-There is something else, right?
-Yes. We have a problem. Here my friends want to leave this raft. They need to go back, so that they
don't see them the gerifaltes.
-Have to cast you what kind of network?
-It is a private group. They will be watching the heliport. Everything that comes out.
-We had another escape route - he said soon Carmen-. But they blew it.
Yukio it stopped with a look. She shrugged.
-Mysterious Muuuyyy - said Frankie-. But there are limits of safety for curiosity. Ok. Three of them big
you will get three bunk beds in my next boat. My head sends a team to pick up a shipment. Surely you
can take there.However, going to the this. Do you understand? Neither to the West nor to the
South. One and only one direction.
-Is all we need - said Yukio, who smiled and nodded as if you were speaking to an employee of an agency
travel. To the East, somewhere in the Mediterranean.

-Malta - said Frankie. The island of Malta. It is all I can do.

Yukio nodded. Willow shrugged, Carmen approved with their silence.
Rickenharp was testing the goods. From the nose to the brain, and direct to work. Frankie looked so
pleased. Frankie was a connoisseur of the transformations that the drug produced in the people. I
watched how changing the expression of the face of Rickenharp. I looked at Rickenharp jump to mode
Autism.
-We are going to need four beds, Frankie-said Rickenharp.
Frankie raised eyebrows.
-Better that you choose when you end this shit.
-It decided before taking it-said Rickenharp, without be sure of if was truth.
Carmen was looking at him.
It took from the arm and you said:
-Do we can talk? -It took out of the room to the dark corridor. The skin of his arm was sweetly power
under your fingers-. You can pay the price? -nodded.
-I have cards false for that, well, are just for us. I mean, for me, Yukio and Willow. Would have to have
authorisation to carry you. And no I can do that.
-Do not you help out otherwise.
-Don't know what you're getting into.
-Yes, I know it. I'm ready to go. I again just to pick up the guitar.
-The guitar will be a load there where we are going. Occupied territory, we will get what we are looking
for. You should leave the guitar.
He almost trembled at the thought.
-It will keep in a box office. Someday regain it - after all could touch, while every note sounds bad
because of all the pain that had been so far. What happens is that, if we monitored with this bird, I saw
with you. Will think that I am part of this. Look, I know what you are doing. The SA you looking for,
not? That means that you are...
-OK, shut up, shit, and low the voice. Look, I can understand that you you may be signed, so you will also
leave on the raft. Is well, come with us to Malta. But then...
-Then I'll stay with you. The SA is everywhere. I have signed.
She breathed deeply and sighed letting escape a soft whistle between their teeth. He looked at the
ground.
-Not you do - looked at him from top down. You can't type. You're a fucking artist.
He laughed.

-You have said it as if it were the lowest insult that could happen. Look, I can do it and I will do so. My
group is dead. I need... - He shrugged, hopeless. Then is straightened out and is removed them glasses of
Sun, looking at it to them eyes from the darkness-. And if you let me just give you such thrashing that
your ass look like butter.
She gave him a blow on the shoulder. It hurt, but she was smiling.
-Do you think that this kind of talk makes me horny? Well, maybe Yes. But you won't get into my panties
just so. And that's coming with us, what you think that is? You've seen many films.
-The SA me has signed. What else can I do?
-That is not a good reason to... be part of this. You must really believe in it, because it is hard. It is not a
kind of show for famous.
-God. Give me a break. I know what I'm doing.
This last was a nonsense. It was finished, burned, and thought: "I feel that my computer is being a short
circuit. All its components are melting. Shit, because that is founded ".
She laughed, and looking at him said:
-Vale.
And from then on everything was different.
[1]
In the original, T-bird, game with Thunderbird: the bird mythological of them Indian American, that
appears embroidery as a T, and the model Thunderbird: a car of the brand Ford. (The T. N.)

STONE LIVE
-Paul di Filippo
Paul di Filippo is a writer that has started to publish recently,
by what the set of his work still is small. Even so, his work
already attracts her attention by its ambitious perspective and by its imagery
extravagantly visionary.
The following story, which appeared in 1985, was his third published work.
His incursion in the transformation-the change radical of the society and the
impact of the new technologies-has demonstrated his firm put in it
dynamic cyberpunk. Lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
Odors boiled in the Immigration Office as in a stinking soup. He sweat of men and women desperate,
the rot of the garbage scattered filling the street, the perfume specious that dismisses one of them
guards in the door main. The mixture is dizzying, so much that it tumbara to almost all born out of the

fudge [1], but Stone is used. Those smells permanent constitute the unique atmosphere that has known
never, an element native too family as to despise it.
The noise increases, rivaling with the stench: tasteless cries of fight, voices crying from appeal.
-Not me times, bastard of shit!
-Love, you try very well if you give me a little of that.
Near the door of immigration, a voice synthetic recites them offers of work from the day, repeating
without rest the list of despicable possibilities.
-... to test the new toxins of the aerosol anti-personnel landmines. Contracts of 4M that will give
survivors a Citrine rejuvenation. MacDonnell Douglas needs pioneers to high orbits. Must be willing to
be marked...
No one seemed eager to rush to ask for similar work. No voice begs guards to let him enter. Those who
had contracted incredible debts or feuds within the fudge would only accept such opportunities with the
assignment of 10 on the scale; rotting leftovers of immigration. Stone knows for sure that he does not
want to accept these rigged propositions. As them others, is in immigration simply because you provides
a point focal, a point of meeting so vital as the well of Serengeti, where is can carry to out them
discussions tortuous and them crude deals, that pass by be them business in the ZLE of the Bronx South,
also known as the jungle of the Bronx or the fudge.
The heat crushed the noisy crowd, making it more irritable than usual; a dangerous situation. The
hyperarousal grabs the throat of Stone. Take the used container of plastic striped of his hip, and
swallows something of water rancid. "Rancid but safe, think, enjoying secret which only he possesses. It
was pure luck that would run into diminishing a slow leak in the pipe of the inter-ZLE, back down, on the
fence of the river which is near the fudge.Olisque the water clean as a dog, to distance, and passing the
hands by several meters of icy pipe, found the leak. Now it has all sorts of cues stored for its exact
location.
Passing through the crowd with their bare feet and callous feet (surprisingly the information that may
be collected through the soles of the feet to keep body and soul intact!).
Stone seeks snippets of information that you permit survive a day more in the fudge. Survival is his
major, his only concern. If a Stone some pride left, after support everything what has endured, it is
proud to have survived.
A squeaky voice says:
-Stuck les with pace, uncle, and that was the end of that fight. Thirty seconds later, all three were dead a listener whistle with admiration. Stone imagines that it is capable of something like paste with rhythm
and that you can sell this talent with enormous benefit, which uses to achieve a safe and dry place to
sleep, and still has enough to fill its nearly always empty casings. But it is not even remotely possible,
although it is, however, a beautiful dream.
Thinking of food makes casings to squeak it. Under the rough and stiff cloth that covers the IRIS, he rests
his right hand, where felt a sharp twinge of pain, which indicates an infected cut. Stone assumes the
infection.Although not there is shape of be safe until begins to heder.
The advance of Stone between the confusion of voices and the mass of bodies has taken him quite close
to the entrance of immigration. Warns a space free between the mass and the guards, a semicircle of

respect and fear with his side straight in the wall of the building. Respect is generated by the status of
employee of the guards, and fear, by their weapons. Someone, a guy with very little training, who was
arrested and transferred, described Stone with pistols; long and wide tubes with a lump in the middle
where is found them magnets mobile. Boots and rifle butts of plastic. They emit jets loaded with
electrons energized at the speed of relativity. If you got the double Jet, the projected kinetic energy you
burst like a squashed sausage. If, by chance, the Jet of particles you not touch, the subsequent focus of
gamma-ray gives you a disease by radiation, deadly in few hours.
That explanation, Stone to remember Word for Word, only understand the description of a horrible
death. And that's enough.
Stone stops a moment. A familiar voice, that of Mary, a seller of rats, is talking to conspiratorial tone
about the new shipment of clothes charity. Stone deduced that its position is found in the innermost of
the crowd roll. Her low voice. Stone may not understand your words, that surely is worth listening to. Is
directed towards there, though with fear to be trapped within the lot of people.
A silence of death. No one speaks or moves. Stone felt a current of air out of the guards. Someone has
appeared in the door.
-You-said a refined voice of woman-. The young man without shoes with... - voiced doubts while trying
to guess the color that hides under the dirt - red monkey. Come here, please. I want to talk to you.
Stone does not know if it refers to it (red?) until you feel all eyes looking at him. Suddenly jumps,
deviates and he fakes, but it is too late. Dozens of anxious claws caught him. You Crouch. Rotten tissue
tears, but hands seize him again, this time from the skin. It bites, it kicks, it hits, with no effect. During
the fight you don't any noise. Finally is dragged towards front, fighting still, more beyond of the invisible
line that marks another world, as it designates the impassable fence between the fudge and them
others twenty-two nozzles.
A cinnamon aroma surrounds it. A guard pressed his neck with something cold and metallic. Suddenly,
all his cells seem to burn at the same time, it fades...
Stone, already awake, warns the location and the size of three people thanks to the air that move, to
their smells, to their voices, and to a subtle component that he always has called the "sense of live.
Behind him there is a thick man breathing difficulty, no doubt by the death of Stone. That has to be the
guard.
To his left there is a person more small, would the woman? Smells like to flowers (a time Stone smelled
a flower).
In front of it, behind a desk, a seated man. Stone not feels them effects side of the device that used with
he, to not be the total disorientation that it overwhelms. Not have nor idea of why has been kidnapped
and only want to that it returned to them dangers known of the fudge.
But you know that they were not going to leave.
The woman speaks, his voice is the sweeter Stone has ever heard.
-This man you will make two questions. Once the've answered, I you will do another. I agree?
Stone seat, believes that it is his only choice.
-Name? -asked the immigration officer.

-Stone.
-Is there anything else?
-It is the only one that I know - then remembers the unbearable pain, red hot, when had his eyes still an
Urchin because he saw them butchering a corpse. But not shouted, oh, no!, and then Stone.
-Place of birth?
-That pile of shit from there out.
-Parents?
-What is that?
-Age?
A shrink's shoulders.
-That can be fixed later with cellular analysis. Suppose that we have enough to issue your card. You
stand still a moment.
Stone feels like hot pencils Toby you face; seconds later hears a growled from the desktop.
-This is the certification of your citizenship and access to the system. Not the Miss.
Stone is the hand in the direction of the voice and receives a plastic rectangle. Going to put it in a
Pocket, but all are torn by the fight, so continues holding the plastic of form strange, as if outside an
ingot of gold punto of spray is.
-Now my question - the voice of women is as distant memory having Stone love-. Would you like a job?
Stone alarm sensor has tripped. A business that can not even announce in public? It must be so darn bad
that it will be out of the normal scale of corporations.
-No, thank you, Miss. My life is no big deal, but it is all I have - and turns to leave.
-Although I cannot give you details until you accept, you will now get a contract that says that a working
is class one.
Stone for dry. It has to be a joke in bad taste. But and what would happen if is truth?
-Do a contract?
-Official! -order the woman.
A key is pressed and the desktop recites a contract. Desentrenados Stone ear sounds like something
authentic and without traps. A working class one for a period not specified, with the possibility of
termination by both parties. the description of the work is added more later.
Stone doubt only a few seconds. Memories of nights filled with fear and pain in the fudge-filled days as
in a swarm through his head, next to the basic and obvious pleasure of having survived. For a moment
feel an irrational penalty for leaving behind the secret of the water leakage which so cleverly found, but
immediately disappears.
-Imagine that he wants yes today - says Stone, offering its newly acquired card.

-I think that he says Yes - laughing woman.

The silent car soundproof is moved by the streets bustling. Despite the lack of noise from the outside,
the driver reviews the traffic and frequent stops are sufficient to convey the sense of the vitality of the
city around them.
-Where we are now? -question Stone for the tenth time. In addition to wanting to inform is you love
listen how speaks it woman. His voice, think, is like a rain fresh when are to except, guarecido.
-Madison Park ZLE, are crossing the city.
Stone seat grateful. She very well could have said: in orbit, accelerating to the Moon, given its unclear
image mental.
Before leave out to Stone, in immigration you made several things: you depilaron all the body, you
sprayed, you made shower is during ten minutes with a SOAP abrasive medium, it disinfected, you made
several tests of result instant, you put six syringes, and you gave clothing inside clean, clothes of street
and shoes (shoes!).
Its new smell body you is so strange that makes that the perfume of the woman you seem even more
attractive. In the close confines of the back seat, Stone anything on it. Finally, it cannot contain it more.
-Eh, that perfume, what brand is it?
-Lily of the Valley.
The mellifluous phrase makes Stone feel as if you lived in another century more friendly. Sworn that she
will always remember him. And so will be.
-Eh! -claims dismayed. Don't even know your name.
-June, June Tanhauser.
June Stone. June and Stone and the lilies of the Valley. June in June with Stone in the Valley of the
lilies. Is as a song in his head that not be stopped.
-Where are going? -question above the silent song in his head.
-To see to the medical-says June.
-I thought that already is had occupied from that.
-This man is a specialist. An eye specialist.
This is the final, stronger than most of them that they have received, which even ends with the happy
song in his head.
You feel tense until the end of the journey, without to think...
-This is a life-size model of what we are going to introduce you - says the doctor, putting a cold ball in
the hand of Stone. Stone squeezes her with disbelief-. The core of this system is a DDC, a device of
double charging. Each fragment of light, or photons that reach it triggered in turn electrons. These
electrons are collected on a continuous signal which passes from an interpreter chip to your optic
nerves. The result: a perfect view.
Stone tightens so strong the model that the Palm of your hand hurts.

-Aesthetically, it is a little strange. In a man young like you, would recommend implants
organic. However, I have orders from the person who pays the Bill that they are. And, of course, they
have several advantages.
As Stone does not question what are, the doctor continues without more.
-To the thinking in several key memorized, you program the chip, and in this mode can perform a series
of functions.
One: digitized copies of a specific scene can be stored in the RAM chip to see it then. When is reinvoca
with a key, seems as if is was seeing again, directly, not matter what in fact is is looking at that time. The
recurrence in time real is another of their key.
Two: reducing the level of photons to electrons can do things like looking directly to the Sun or a flame
from welding without damage.
Three: raising the level, is can get a degree acceptable of vision normal in conditions such as a night
crashed and without moon.
Four: to enhance some features, it can generate images with colors false. In the mind, the black is
again white or your old glasses is color of pink, that is.
"And think of the scope of all this.
-How long will need, doctor?
The doctor adopts a tone clearly eager to show their professional training, academic.
-A day for the operation, two days for accelerated recovery, a week of training and subsequent
cures; say, two weeks maximum.
-Very well - it says June. Stone feel how is rise of the sofa behind him, but remains sitting-. Stone - she
says, putting a hand on his shoulder-, time to go.
But Stone doesn't get to get up, because you can not hold back the tears.
The Gorges of metal and glass in New York, that proud and flourishing areas of free enterprise union, are
a dozen shades of blue stretching to the North cold. The streets that run with geometric precision, as
rivers distant in the background of the gorges, is come with the color red of an artery. From West to
East, are pieces of the Hudson River and the East River, visible as currents of green lima. Central Park is a
wall of yellow sunflower in the middle of the island. To the North of the Park, the fudge is a land barren
and black.
Stone savor the scenery. The view of any thing, even them smears more coming, were a treasure to
made each few days. And what really is you has given, that wonderful ability of convert the world
everyday in a world city of fantasy, is too as to believe is it.
Momentarily stunning, Stone orders to your view back to the normality. The city instantly returns to his
steely grey color, its blue sky, trees to its green. Even so, the panorama is magnificent.
Stone remains facing a window, on the floor 150 of the Tower Citrine, in the ZLE of Wall Street. During
the last two weeks, this has been their home, which has not moved. His unique visits have been a nurse,
a cybertherapist and June. Isolation and relative lack of human contact will not bother you. After the

botched, such stillness is a blessing. And then, has certainly been trapped in sensuous fabric of spider
from his sight.
The first thing you saw when walking after surgery was the glorious tone of his Visual explorations. The
smiling face of a woman watching him from above. Their skin was a translucent ochre, a radiant
chestnut eyes, his hair an abundant waterfall framing your face.
-How do you feel? -He asked June.
-Well-said Stone. He then gave an expression which had never before found utility-. Thank you.
June denied carelessly with their fine hand.
-Appreciate me it. I have not paid it.
And it was then that Stone knew June was not her boss that she was working for someone else. And
although she did not say who should, soon discovered him, when he was transferred from the hospital
to the building that bore his name.
Alice Citrine. Even Stone was known.
Back windows, Stone moves through the thick carpet color cream of your room. (What strange power
move is with that security, without stop it and probe!) Has last more or less fifteen days practicing
regularly with his new eyes. All that the doctor you promised was true; the miracle of sight has
transported him to new dimensions. Everything is intriguing. And the luxury of its situation is
undeniable. All kinds of foods that ask (although he had formed with 'frack', lots of processing plankton),
music, holovision, and the most valuable, the company in June. But, suddenly, today is a little
irritated. Where and what kind of work have hired you? Why has still face to face with who hired him
not seen? He began to wonder if this isn't some sort of sleight of hand superelaborada.
Stone stops before a full-length mirror that is in the door of the dressing room. Those mirrors preserved
even the power of fascinate you mightily. That duplicate fully compliant, imitating one in all their
movements, without another will as the one same. And the world reflected the background, silent and
unreachable. During his early years in the fudge, when it still had eyes, Stone never saw his reflection,
except in puddles or broken windows.Now is faces to an immaculate strange in the mirror, looking for
evidence in their traits that you show the personality essential that there are below.
Stone is low and skeletal, the signs of malnutrition are obvious with his stature. But your tips are right
and your lean muscles are hard. Your skin, where is visible, under the clothes black of a piece and
without sleeves, is tanned by the air free and full of scars. Shoes of plyoskin cover their feet, but are
almost as good as going barefoot.
His face: planes crossed, as strange pictures of your bedroom (mentioned June Picasso?). Sharp jaw,
narrow nose, a mata of blond hair on the skull. And his eyes, inhuman, two complcate hemispheres of a
sinister black.But please!, already not remove them me. I'll do whatever they want."
Behind it the gateway to the suite now opens. It is June. Without doing so consciously, the impatience of
Stone spills into his words, which at first are piled up on the of June, to both later end the sentence at
the same time saying the same words.
-I want to see...
-We are going to visit...

-To Alice Citrine!

Fifty floors above the suite of Stone, the view of the city is even more spectacular. Stone knows by June
which the Citrine tower rises over a land that did not even exist a century ago. The pressure of the city
by grow prompted the wide filling of the River East, to the South of the bridge of Brooklyn. In a sector of
this artificial solar, the Citrine Tower, in the Oughts, was built during the period of expansion that
followed the second constitutional Convention.
Stone increases the power foton-electron of their eyes, and the East River becomes a sheet of white fire.
A momentary distraction to calm their nerves.
-Stay here with me - it says June, pointing to a target beyond the door of the elevator, a few meters
from another entry.
Stone is due. Imagine that you can feel the rays of identification on him, although it is likely that this is
due to the proximity of June, whose elbows touch yours. Her perfume filled his nostrils and fervently
wish that the new eyes have not dull their other senses.
Silently, the door opens before them.
June you guide towards the inside.
Alice Citrine awaits there.
The woman sits in a wheelchair with motor, with their backs to a row of monitors arranged in a
horseshoe shape. His short hair is the yellowish color of the corn, your skin without wrinkles, although
Stone suspects, with the same capacity that was blind to feel emotions, that she is very old. Studying his
profile aquilino, that of any way you is known, as the face that a time dream is makes family.
She is rotated, showing his features completely. June has led him to a metre away from the gleaming
console.
-Delighted of see you, Mr Stone-says Citrine-. I hope that you are comfortable and have no complaints.
Yes says Stone, trying to express his gratitude, as he is assumed to do, but you can not find the
words of the bewildered that is. Instead of that, says tentatively-: my work...
-Naturally, feel curiosity-says Citrine-. Think that should of be something clandestine or hateful, or
threatening. What else would require to recruit someone from the fudge? Good, let me at least satisfy
your curiosity. His work, Mr Stone, is studying.
Stone is perplexed.
-Study?
-Yes, to study. Know the meaning of the word, isn't it? Or have made a mistake? Study, learn,
investigate, and you created that he has understood something, write me a report.
The surprise of Stone has gone from the pasmo to unbelief.
-Don't even know to read or write says, and besides, what heck supposed that I should study?
-Your area of study, Mr Stone, is our contemporary world. I've played an important role in making the
world it is now. And now, when I reach the end of my life, I am increasingly concerned to know if what

we've built is good or bad. I already have mountains of reports of experts, both negative and
positive. But what I want now is the fresh one of the subhabitantes view. All that I ask is honesty and
accuracy.
And about reading or writing, those outdated techniques of my youth, June will help you learn them, if
desired. But we have machines to read you and they transcribed speech. You can start already.
Stone tries to assimilate the absurd proposition. Seems very capricious, a cover for more hidden and
dark. But what else can do except say yes?
It accepts.
A small smile appears on the lips of the woman.
-Super. Then our chat has ended. Oh, one last thing. If you need to do field work, June shall to
accompany him. But it will not mention my support to anyone. No need to sicofantes.
The conditions are simple, especially to June always at his side, and Stone accepts nodding.
Citrine returns them back. Then Stone remains embarrassed of what sees, almost believing that their
eyes are defective.
Seized to the broad back of the Chair, there is an animal small, that seems a lemur or titi. Her large,
luminous eyes regarded them with intelligence, its long tail bows coiled on his back.
-Your pet - whispers June and urges Stone to come out.
The task is too large, too complex. Stone believes that he is a fool for having accepted.
But what other thing could do if wanted to be is with the eyes?
It limited and crippling life in the fudge not le has prepared properly for imagine the multiforme,
extravagant and throbbing world to which it have moved (at least that is what feels to the
principle). Metaphorical and materially maintained in the dark during both time, finds the world out of
the Tower Citrine a place unclear.
There are hundreds, thousands of things that never have heard; cities, people, events, objects. There are
areas of specialties whose names can scarcely pronounce: aerology, paraneurologia, caoticismo, fractal
modeling. And not to mention the story, that bottomless pit in which the present moment is not more
than a bubbling surface. Stone suffers one shock even greater with the discovery of the history. Can't
remember having thought life could extend backward and forward, beyond of the era in which it was
born. The revelation of the existence of decades, centuries and millennia almost it precipitates in a
chasm mental. How can one understand the present without knowing what happened before?
Persist is desesperanzar is, suicide, madness.
But Stone persists.
Is encloses in itself same with his magic window open to the world, a terminal that is connects with the
computer central of the Tower Citrine, which is a vast and unintelligible hive of activity. Through that
machine connects to the rest of the world. For hours on end, words and images Panel blink
intermittently, as knives thrown by a circus artist, knives that he, as a dumb but loyal Assistant, must
avoid to survive.

The memory of Stone is excellent, trained in a cruel school, and quickly assimilated. But every path that
follows has a deviation to the steps, and each deviation opens onto many places, and of all those
tertiary branches are born still new ones, no less rich than the main...
On one occasion, Stone dies almost drowned, when a band left him unconscious in a drain and began to
rain. You now have that same feeling.
Daily June brings you regularly three meals. Every night, when lying in bed, returns to play recorded
images of her for being able to sleep. June ducking it, sitting is, laughing, their eyes Asian shining. The
subtle curves of her breasts and hips. But know fever is stronger, and tends to ignore it as days pass.
A midday, Stone discovers a pill on the lunch tray. Question to June by its effects.
-It is menotrofina, it helps store the memories of long - answer it-. I thought that you would help.
Stone it swallows anxious and returns to the buzzing screen.
Every day it is a pill at lunch. His mind seems to increase of volume as soon as it takes. The effect is
powerful, it makes imagine that can digest the world whole. But, even so, each night, when finally was
force to leave it, feels that not has made enough.
The weeks pass. Not been prepared even or a simple comment for Alice Citrine. What
know? Nothing. How can you issue a judgment on the world? That would be pride, madness.
How long will she wait to give you a kick in the ass and throw him into the cold Street?
Stone supports his head between the hands. Before it, the mocking machine you torments with a
diarrhea constant of facts without sense.
A hand rests gently on her quivering shoulder. Stone intoxicates soft perfume of June.
His hand Stone starts the power cable of the terminal, so hard that it hurts the hand. Blessed
silence. Look up towards June.
-I am nothing good in this. Why I chose? I don't even know where to start.
June sits by his side, on a pad.
-Stone, not have said anything because is assumes that not must lead you. But sharing a bit of my
experience does not imply an interference. You must limit your field. The world is too large. Alice not
expected that it understand completely, that it destiles in a work master of concision and sense.
After of all, the world is not open to such summary. I think that, unconsciously, you know what she
wants. You gave a track when spoke with her.
Stone remembers that day, plays the file which made Stern woman. Their features are superimposed to
them in June. The signal visual drag a phrase.
-... If what you've built is good or bad.
Suddenly, it is as if the eyes of Stone had been overloaded. Then, understanding flooded him with
relief. Of course, that vain and powerful woman sees her life as the dominant theme of the modern era,
a radiant thread passing through the time, joining things and critical moments, like beads on a
necklace. How simple it is to understand a single human life rather than the whole world (or believes it
at that time) thinks that it is the maximum that can be done; mapping the personal history of Citrine, the

ramifications of his long career, the waves that are formed from his throne. Who knows?, could even be
an archetype.
Stone, jubilant, embraces June, emitting an inarticulate cry. She not be resists to its embrace, and fall in
the sofa.
His lips are warm and accommodating under yours. Her nipples seem to burn under his shirt and against
his chest. His left leg is trapped between her thighs.
But, for soon, it rejects. You've seen too vividly himself, garbage thrown by the sewers of the city, with
eyes that are not even human.
-No - she says bitterly-. No I can love.
-Calla - she - says. Calla-their hands caress his face, kisses your neck, their bones is melt and falls on it
again, too hungry for stop is.
-To be so ready, you are very fool-mutters she to the finish-. Equal to Alice.
But he does not understands what you are saying.
The rooftop Tower Citrine is a runway for the carriage, suborbital vehicles of companies and
executives. Stone believes that you have learned everything you can know about Alice Citrine locked up
in the tower. Now you need the strength and the experience of the actual places, to judge it through
them.
But before can travel, June you says to Stone that must speak with Jerrod Scarfe.
The three gather in the small waiting room, corrugated walls painted in Matt White, and with plastic
chairs.
Scarfe is the Chief of security of technologies Citrine. A type square, knotty, that exhibits an expression
facial minimum. A Stone, you think someone extraordinarily competent, toes, with their boots, head,
shaved and tattooed. In his chest carries the emblem of TC, a spiral red with a tip of arrow in an end
pointing towards above.
June salutes to Scarfe with some familiarity and question:
-Do we are authorized?
Scarfe waves a thin sheet of paper in the air.
-Their plan of flying is too long. For example, is necessary to visit a place as city of Mexico with the Lord
Stone aboard?
A Stone it intrigues him Scarfe's interest in him, a stranger with no importance. June sees the
strangeness of Stone and explains:
-Jerrod is one of the few who knows that you represent the Lady citrine. Naturally, you concerned that,
if we put in trouble, the consequences affect to technologies Citrine.
-Do not seek problems, Mr Scarfe, I just want to do my job.
Scarfe noted a Stone so much peer as foreign devices from the sanctuary of Citrine. The favourable
outcome of the review noted, finally, with a slight grunt and the announcement:

-The pilot is waiting for them. Go ahead.

Above, on the Earth that sustains him one, has never been Stone, puts his right hand on the left knee of
June, feeling crazy, rich and free, pondering the life of Alice Citrine and the sense that already begins to
find him.
Alice Citrine has 159 years. When he was born, America was still a set of States, before the ZLE and the
ARCadias. The man hardly had begun to fly. When he arrived in the 1960s, he headed a firm called
Biotics Citrine. That was the time of the trade wars, wars so deadly and decisive as the military, but
feuding with rates and five-year plans, automatic assembly lines and production of fifth generation
expert systems. Also was the time of the second Convention constitutional, that rebuilt America for the
economics of war.
During those years, the country is divided between them areas of free company, regions urban of high
technology, where the laws were imposed by them corporations, and whose only objective were them
benefits and the power, and them Areas of restricted Control, enclaves mainly rural, agricultural, where
them old values is kept strictly. Biotic refining Citrine and perfected the work of own and other
researchers in the field of carbon chips;assemblies microbiological, units of service planned in the
blood. It product end, marketed by Citrine, only for those that could allow is it, produced a rejuvenation
almost total, the repair of the cells or, simply, his replacement.
In six years, Biotics Citrine stood at the head of the Fortune 500 list.
By then it was already technologies Citrine.
And Alice Citrine is sitting on its Summit.
But not for ever.
Entropy can not be ignored. The degradation of the DNA information that appears with age is not fully
reversible. Errors accumulate despite the hard work of carbon chips, and the body, obediently, just to
leave.
Alice Citrine is near the theoretical end of its new extended life. Despite his youthful appearance, one
day a vital organ will fail as a result of millions of erroneous transcriptions.
Stone, around the world, you need to justify their existence.
Stone squeezes the knee in June and experience the feeling of being someone important. For first time
in its sad and dirty life, going to do something. Their words, their perceptions, imported. Is determined
to do a good work, to tell the truth as it perceives.
-June - Stone says with emphasis-. I have to see it all - she smiles.
-It'll make Stone. We are sure that you will do it.
And the carriage descends on city of Mexico, which already has a population of 35 million, and last year
went into crisis. Technologies Citrine is contributing its helps to relieve it, operating from their centers of
Houston and Dallas. Stone suspects of the reasons behind this campaign. Why don't they anticipated
collapse? Could it be that the only thing that matters to them is the tide of refugees crossing the
border? Whatever the reason, however, Stone cannot deny that workers in TC are a force for good,
attending to the sick and hungry, restoring electric power and communications, attending to the (acting
as?) City Government. Upload to the carriage and its head tumbles, and at the moment is...

... in the Antarctica, where he and June are transferred from the domes of TC to a boat of processing of
plankton, source of great part of the proteins of the world. June is unpleasant the stench of the
compound, but Stone breathes deeply, exultant by find are aboard, in those strange and icy latitudes,
observing the work of those working men and women. June is happy to be again flying and then...
... to Beijing, where TC heuristics specialists are working on the first organic artificial intelligence. Stone
listen to fun the debate about if the IAO should call it K'ung Fu-tzu or Mao.
The week is a whirlwind kaleidoscopic of prints. Stone feels like a sponge, soaking up scenery and
sounds long denied. At one point he is leaving a restaurant with June, in a city whose name has been
forgotten. In his hand is your ID card, you just pay the meal. A holorretrato appears on your Palm. His
face appears mortis, dirty, with two scars of their empty basins instead of eyes. Stone remembers when
warm fingers of laser created its holo in the Immigration Office. So was him really? The vital event of
that day seems to belong to another person's life. Put your card in your pocket, wondering if it should
update the holo or leave it as a reminder of the place where it comes.
And where it will end when this is over?
(And what will they do with him after their reports?)
When a day Stone asks see an installation orbital, June you asks a respite.
-Stone, I think that already have made enough for a trip. Let's go to see how you can fit this.
Upon hearing these words, a deep tiredness takes over Stone, who note it in the bones, and his
obsession quickly evaporates. Silently, seat.
The bedroom of Stone is dark, except for the diffuse city lights seeping through the windows. Stone has
boosted his vision to better admire the glow of the naked forms of June which is on his side. It has
discovered colors become murky when missing photons, but instead Gets a very vivid picture in black
and white. It feels like an inhabitant of the last century, watching an old movie. Except that June is very
much alive in her hands.
The body of June is a tracery of sharp lines, as the arcane capillary Mao/K core circuit ' k'ung Futzu. Following the fashion today, has a pattern subepidermal of implants of microchannels. The channels
are full of 'Lucifer' synthetic, responsible for the glow of fireflies, which she can connect to your
liking. After making love, she herself has illuminated. Her breasts are vortexes of cold fire, his shaved
Mount of venus, a galaxy spiral dragging the view of Stone into bottomless depths.
Looking at the ceiling, June absorbed speaks to Stone, while he caresses languidly.
-My mother was the only surviving daughter of two Vietnamese refugees. They came to America shortly
after finishing the war in Asia. Worked on it only that knew to do. They lived in Texas, on the Gulf. My
mother went to College on a scholarship. There she met my father, who was another refugee, who had
left Germany with her parents after the reunification. They said that the Government's commitment not
was or a thing nor another, by what not could treat with it. I guess my environment was a sort of
microcosm, emerged from a lot of conflicts of our time - traps of Stone hand between your legs and
keep it with force-. But now, with you, Stone, feel quiet.
While continues talking about you on them things that has seen, of the people that has known, his
career as Assistant personal of Citrine, to Stone you assails the more strange of them feelings. While his
words are gradually integrated themselves in a box, feels the same drowning that faced with the huge
tide which became the first time that he studied history.

Before you decide if you really want to know it, you see asking:
-June, would many years you have?
She is silent. Stone notes how looks it unable to see it, because it is not equipped with their damn
perceptive eyes.
-One sixty-says to the end-. Matter?
Stone realizes that cannot answer him. You don't know whether you care or not.
Slowly, June is that its body is dark.
Stone sports bitterly with what likes to think that it is his art.
Browsing the manual on the chip of Silicon that inhabits in his skull, discovered that had a property that
the doctor not had mentioned. The contents of the RAM can be issued with a signal to a simple
computer. There, the images that he has collected is can show to all them see. Moreover, the scanned
images can be manipulated, still recombine together or graphics stored, to form credible images about
things that have never happened. And of course, you can print.
Indeed, Stone is a camera live and your computer, a complete study of image.
Stone has been working on a series of images of June. His impressions in color flooded his office, stuck
to the walls and on the floor.
The head of June with the body of the Sphinx. June as the beautiful lady of Sans Merci. June
superimposed on the Moon's face filled with Stone slept in the field as Endymion.
Portraits are more disruptive than snapshots, think Stone, and, in addition, are more treacherous. But
Stone feels that he is getting some therapeutic effect thanks to them, what each day about him, inch to
inch, to his true feelings for June.
Still not has spoken with Alice Citrine, and that it disturbs greatly. When deliver you your report? What
will you say?
When problem is solved that evening. Returning of one of those gyms private of the Tower, is its
terminal flashing with a message.
Citrine will see him in the morning.
On this occasion, Stone remains only in the lobby of Alice Citrine room, while leaving to verify their
identity. Expected that you den those results when the machine finished, as already not has idea of who
is he.
The door opens by sliding into the wall, as the mouth of a cave.
The Averno, think Stone, and enters.
Alice Citrine is sitting in the same place of ago weeks, these so full of events, and you transmitted the
printing of be semieterna. The screens Flash with a rhythm epileptic to the three sides of your Chair of
wheels. Now, however, it ignores them, as it has its eyes on Stone, who advances agitated.
Stone is stopped before it; the console is a trench unbridgeable between both. On this second occasion
perceived their traits with a mixture of disbelief and alarm. They chillingly reminiscent of his own

emaciated face. Has finished looking is to that woman simply by working for her? Or life outside the
fudge marks the same hard lines to the whole world?
Citrine hand through his lap, and Stone then see your pet nestled in the Valley of her Brown dress, with
its unnatural eyes, fixed on the colors of monitors.
-Is time of a report preliminary, Mr Stone-says she-, but your pulse is too fast. To relax. Not all depends
on from this meeting.
Stone would like that as well outside. But not there is an offering to sit is and knows that what say will
be evaluated.
-So... How about this world of ours that carries my brand and others like me?
The arrogant superiority of the voice of Citrine makes that the thought of Stone take all type of
precautions, and is punto of shouting: not is just!. It stops a moment, and then, is force to admit with
honesty:
-Beautiful, colorful, exciting, but basically unfair.
Citrine seems pleased with his pop.
-Very well, Mr Stone. Has discovered the contradiction basic of her life. There are jewels on the heap of
garbage, tears in the midst of the laughter, and how this spreads, nobody knows it. I am afraid, however,
that I can not assume blame for the lack of Justice in the world. It was unfair when I was a child, and
thus followed despite my actions. In fact, maybe that inequality has increased a little. The rich are richer,
and in comparison, the poor, poorer and clearly. But, even so, in the end, even the Titans are shot down
by death.
- But why not tried to change things more decisively? -requires Stone-. That has to be within the reach
of his power.
By first time, Citrine laughs, and Stone hears the echo of the bitter laugh that he launches sometimes.
-Mr Stone - answers-. I dedicate everything I can just to keep me alive. And this I do not mean to take
care of my body, this is done automatically. No, I mean, to prevent me to murder. Has he not
understood the true nature of the business in this world of ours?
Stone is not able to understand it and says it is.
-Let me get you to. Can that change some of their conceptions. He is aware of the purpose for which
there is in the second constitutional Convention, is it? He hid with high-sounding phrases like "unleash
the strength of the American system and confront foreign competition face, ensuring victory for
American businesses, which would open the way for democracy in the world". All with a tone of great
nobility. But the result was quite different.Businesses have no interest in any political system
itself. Business cooperate insofar as soon as they reach their own interests. And the interest primary of
the business is the growth and the power. Once established the ZLE, corporations were fought all tie,
engaged in a primitive fight, which continues even today.
Stone comes from digesting their words. Not has seen the fight open in your trip. But, even so, has felt
vaguely underground currents of tension in all parts. But surely she is exaggerating things. Why becomes
the world civilized in something not too different to a version large scale of the anarchy of the fudge?
As if read in his mind, Citrine adds:

-Any time is has asked why the fudge remains in ruins, and and hold in half of the city, Mr Stone, with his
people in the misery?
Suddenly, all the screens of Citrine, obedient to a silent order, Panel blink intermittently with scenes of
life in the fudge. Stone takes a step back. There are the sordid details of his youth; alleyways reeking to
piss, with forms covered by rags that are halfway between sleep and death, chaos around the
Immigration Office, the fence crowned with its edge of wire, near the river.
-The fudge - Citrine - continues is a disputed territory. So it has been for more than eighty
years. Corporations are not in agreement about who's going it to develop. Any improvement made by
one is immediately destroyed by the tactical team of another. This is the kind of impasse that prevails in
large part of the world.
All the world would like to be led to a paradise earthly thanks to his pocket, of the same mode that a
devotee of Krisna it wants to be by your queue. But this mosaic of small fiefdoms is which have
achieved.
The ideas of Stone are confusing. He came expecting to be examined and to release everything he
knew. However he has been given a Conference, and he has caused him, as if Citrine is testing him to
see if he is a proper interlocutor to discuss. I have approved or I suspended?
Citrine answers the question with the following words:
-It is enough for today, Mr. Stone. Go and continue thinking. We'll talk another time.
Stone is with Citrine almost every day for three weeks. Together explore the confusing set of them
concerns of it. Stone will gradually feel more self-confident, expressing their views and observations
with a firmer tone. They do not always coincide with the Citrine, although in general he feels a surprising
affinity with the old lady.
Sometimes it seems as if she was guiding you, as teaching an apprentice, and she is proud of its
progress. Other times, it remains distant and reserved.
These last few weeks have brought other changes. Although Stone has not become to bed with June
since that decisive night, already not signe it seeing in the form of siren of his portraits, and stopped
thinking about it that way. Are only friends, and Stone it visit frequently as enjoy of your company, and
always you will thank your paper in its rescue of the fudge.
During their interviews with Citrine, your pet becomes a regular Viewer. Its enigmatic presence confuses
to Stone. Not has found no trace of affection sentimental in Citrine, and not can imagine the because of
their affection toward the creature.
Finally, a day Stone asks to Citrine why it has, his lips are curved in what is could seem to a smile.
-Egypt is my cornerstone for the true perspective of things, Mr Stone. Perhaps not recognizes its raceStone admits his ignorance-. This is an Aegyptopithecus Zeuxis, Mr Stone. His race appeared several
million years ago. He is currently the only copy that exists, a clone, or rather, a recreation based on fossil
cells.
She is their ancestor, and the mine, Mr Stone. Before hominids, was the representative of mankind on
Earth. When I caress it, I look at how little we have progressed.

Stone is rotates and is March offended, infinitely disgusted by the antiquity of the beast, which is
perceived by the Lady.
This is the last time that you will see Alice Citrine.
Is of night.
Stone rests only in the bed, reviewing snapshots of the history pre-ZLE that is had last by high, in the
screen of your terminal.
Of soon is listen to a strong crunch as the download simultaneous of thousands of arcs of electricity
static. At that exact second, two things happen:
Stone feel a moment of vertigo.
Their eyes are shut off.
Apart from that shock, an explosion overhead makes balancing the entire structure of the Tower Citrine.
Stone gets up immediately, dressed only in underpants, barefoot and in the fudge. Not may believe that
is blind another time. But so is. Back into the dark world of the sound, smell and touch.
Alarms are triggered by all parties. Stone runs toward the room main with now its useless panorama of
the city. Approaching the door but you can not open it. Reaches the control manual but hesitate.
What can do while is blind? It would fall, would bother to the others. Better stay here and wait to see
what happens.
Stone thinks in June, then almost can smell your perfume. Surely will fall of a moment to another to tell
you what is going. That is, it will wait for June.
Stone crosses nervous room, spend three minutes. I cannot believe that it has lost the view. However,
somehow, knew that this would happen.
Alarms have stopped, allowing Stone to listen almost subliminally steps in the corridor, heading for her
door. Do june, at last?
No, something is wrong. The meaning of the life of Stone denies that the visitor is someone who he
knows.
The senses of the Stone fudge back to take command. Stop speculating about what's going
on; everything is precipitation and fear.
The curtains in the room are subject with velvet laces. Stone makes one hastily, and is situated next to
the entrance door.
The wave of shock that reaches to the gate almost down to Stone. When he regains his balance, feel the
taste of blood, and instantly a man rushes inside, leaving him on his back.
Stone is placed behind the burly type, jump like lightning and surrounds your waist with your legs,
passing the string around the neck.
The man dropped the gun and is thrown against the wall. Stone feels how broken some ribs, but
tightens the cord, tensing your muscles the most.

Both move through the room, breaking furniture and glassware, engaged in something akin to an
obscene mating posture.
Finally, after an eternity, the man collapses, landing heavily on Stone.
Stone not leaves of tightening, until is sure of that the man has left of breathing.
His attacker is dead.
Stone lives.
Removed to get out from under the inert, trembling mass and wounded.
When accomplished out, listen to people approaching is, talking.
Jerrold Scarfe is the first to enter, calling Stone by name. When you see a Stone, Scarfe shouts:
-Put that stretcher there.
The men placed a Stone on the couch and begin to pull out it.
Scarfe walks to his side and starts a conversation surrealist.
-Discovered who was, Mr Stone. That damn bastard are we slipped. We attacked with a directed
electromagnetic emission that ended with all our electronics, including its view. Can that has lost a few
cells brain when erupted, but nothing that does not can fix is. After the EMD threw a missile to the floor
of Citrine. I am afraid that he died immediately.
Stone feels as if they had split it in pieces, both physically and mentally. Why Scarfe you was telling
this? And what happened to June?
Stone stammering your name.
-Is dead, Mr Stone. When designated attackers to catch it began to work on it, he committed suicide
with an implanted toxins capsule.
All the LILACS is mustian when winter is approaching.
The team of the stretcher has arrived to the area medical. Stone is placed in a bed and clean hands
begin to heal their wounds.
-Mr Stone - continues Scarfe-. Should I insist on that listen to this. It is necessary and will only take you a
minute.
Stone has begun to hate this voice insistent. But not can close the ears or fall in a blessed
unconsciousness, by what is forced to listen to the cassette of Scarfe.
It is from Alice Citrine.
-Blood of my blood - begins her-, closer to me than a son. You're the only one who have trusted.
The discomfort disappears of Stone while all is ordered and see who is he.
-You hear that after my death... This means that everything you've built is yours now. All the people
have been paid to protect you. Now depends of you retain your loyalty. I hope that our conversations
you have served. If not, will need more luck than you could want.

 Please, forget your abandonment in the fudge. It was only because the good education is so
important... and I honestly believe that you have received the best. I was always watching you.
Scarfe stops the cassette.
-What are your orders, Mr Stone?
Stone thinks with agonizing slowness while people that does not see it moved.
-Simply clean this mess, Scarfe, simply clean this enormous

mess. But, while speaks, knows that not is thing of Scarfe. It's his thing.
[1]
In English Bungle, approximation ironic towards Jungle, the jungle of asphalt by excellence that is New
York, and more in concrete the neighborhood of the Bronx, where is located the action. (The T. N.)
STAR RED, ORBIT WINTER

-Bruce Sterling and William Gibson

The stories in collaboration are a tradition in science fiction. And this type of work in collaboration also
has flowered in the cyberpunk, when writers that already worked together in conceptions and theories
of the science fiction gave the step logical next: the creation literary joint. In some sense, the
collaboration, to the combine different voices, allows to the current speak with its own voice.
Mirrorshades concludes with two collaborations. The following history, 1983, is the only joint work of
William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, who are generally seen as central figures of the cyberpunk. Star
Red, winter orbit shows the global point of view of the cyberpunk, and also his love for the details
perfectly finished and investigated closely.
William Gibson wrote "The Gernsback continuum", which opens this collection.
Bruce Sterling published his first novel in 1977. He has written three novels and a number of stories. His
work covers a large fan in the field of the science fiction, from satires to the style comic to fantasies
historical. It is perhaps best known for his series of the "Shapers", which includes the novel Schismatrix,
and his sense of irony, which leads him to talk about himself in the third person.
Lives in Austin, Texas.
The Colonel Korolev is bent slowly in his harness, dreaming with the winter and the gravity. Again, a
Cadet was young, and espoleaba his horse by the steppes of Kazakhstan, in late November, toward the
red and dusty landscape of Mars.
"This not is well, thought.
And is awoke in the Museum Soviet of the triumph of the space, by the noise of Romanenko and the
wife of the man of the KGB. Returning to do it, after the screen back of the Salyut, making gnashing and
resonate rhythmically them tapes of security and the bunk bed padded. Galloping in the snow.

Releasing is of the harness, Korolev ran a trained kick that you drove up to the toilet. Pulling out is his
old mono, adjusted the team of toilet to their kidneys and cleaned the steam condensate of the mirror
of steel. His arthritic hand had inflamed while he slept, his wrist had the size of a bone of the bird,
because of the loss of calcium. It had been twenty years since the last time he felt gravity. Had aged in
orbit.
He shaved with a razor suction. A caul of broken veins stretched by his cheek and his forehead
left; Another recollection of the explosion that had disfigured it.
When he went out, he found that Adulterers were over. Romanenko conformed clothing. The political
officer, Valentina, woman wore a dark brown, with rolled up sleeves ape; her white arms shone by the
sweat of the exercise. The stream of a fan did vibrate your hair color ash. His eyes were of the purest
blue, like the flowers of the corn, perhaps a little too much together, and looked at him, half asking for
apologies, half accomplices.
-Look what've brought you, Colonel.
A bottle of cognac from airlines happened.
Surprised, Korolev blinked to the emblem of Air France recorded in the cap of plastic.
-Came with the last Soyuz. Within a cucumber, said my husband, she laughed-. Me it gave to me.
-We decided that we would give you, Colonel - said Romanenko, laughing openly. After all, we can move
in any time.
Korolev ignored her look disguised and embarrassed towards his stunted legs and their pale and twisted
feet.
Opened the bottle, and its rich aroma you provoked a tingly surge of blood to their cheeks. He raised it
carefully and drank a few millimeters of cognac. It burned like acid.
-God! -choked-, I have not drunk in years. I'm going to get drunk! -be laughed while the tears you
enturbiaban the view.
-Colonel, my father said that you drank as a hero in the old days.
-Yes - he said Korolev, and sorbi again. Cognac spread inside as liquid gold. Not you liked
Romanenko. Neither her father, a simple man of the party, dedicated to give lectures for some time, a
dacha on the Black Sea, American liquor, French suits, Italian shoes... The boy had the appearance of his
father, the same light gray eyes without a shadow of doubt.
The alcohol is extended by the blood diluted of Korolev.
-You're too generous he said. Kicked gently a time, and came up to the console-. You must bring you
something of samizdata. We have broadcast American by cable, recently intercepted. Spicy material
wasted with a man like me - put an empty cassette and recorded material.
-Is it will give to the Gunners-said Romanenko, laughing-. Can put it in the consoles of follow-up of the
room of battery-the station of bombing of particles had been always known as the room of
battery. The men manning it were particularly starved for that type of tape. Korolev joined Valentina
for a second copy.

-Is slut? -seemed alarmed and intrigued-. We can go back, Colonel? On Thursday to the twenty-four
zero-zero?
Korolev you smiled. He was a factory worker before leaving to go to space. Her beauty made it an ideal
propaganda tool, a model of the role that was intended for the proletariat. She now you gave pena; with
the Cognac through his veins he found impossible to deny him a little his small happiness.
-Valentina, a find to half night, in the Museum? What romantic!
Turning is, you gave a kiss on the cheek.
-Thank you, my Colonel.
-Is you a gentleman, Colonel-said Romanenko, giving a slap as smoothly as could to the shoulder bony of
Korolev. After countless hours of exercise, the arms of the chico parcels as those of a blacksmith.
Korolev looked at how lovers were carefully towards the central area of berthing, junction with two
riders towards the Salyuts aged three. Romanenko took runner North towards the battery
room. Valentina went in the opposite direction, to the sphere of union adjacent to the Salyut where her
husband slept.
Had five mats of mooring in the Kosmogrado, each which linked three Salyuts. At the other end of the
complex were military installations and the shuttles to satellites. Buzzing, traqueteando and sighing, the
station produced the sensation of a metro station, with the wet metal smell of a ferry.
Korolev took another swallow from the bottle. Now it was half empty. It kept in an of the showcases of
the Museum next to a Hasselblad of the Nasa recovered from the place where landed the Apollo. Not
had drunk from its final permission, before the explosion. His head swam in a pleasant and at the same
time painful current of nostalgia alcoholic.
Floating back to the console, it agreed to a section of memory where had secretly removed complete
speeches from Alexei Kosygi, and had replaced them with his personal collection of samizdata. Had
groups British prints from the radio of Germany Federal, heavy metal of the Pact of Warsaw, imports
American of the market black... Placing is the headphones, chose a reggae of Czeslochowa, of the
Brygada Cryzis.
After all these years, already not could hear the music in absolute, but the images you came of hit, with
an intense pain. In the 1980s, he had been a guy with long hair of the Soviet elite, really out of reach of
the Moscow police, thanks to the position of his father. I remembered howling returned through the
microphones, the warm darkness of a club in a basement, the crowd, as a dark denim and oxygenated
hair clothing chess board. He smoked Marlboros with powder of hashish Afghan. He remembered the
mouth of the daughter of an American diplomat in the seat back of the black Lincoln of his father. The
names and the faces you flooded in the mist of the Cognac; Girl, the girl of the Germany democratic,
who you had taught translations mimeographed of writings of dissident Polish.
Until a night she not returned to the coffee. He heard rumors of parasitism, anti-Soviet activities, the
chemical horrors that awaited him in the psihushka.
Korolev began to tremble. Is spent her hand by her face and it found bathed in sweat. He took off his
headphones.
It had been fifty years... and yet suddenly she was very scared. He couldn't remember having been so
afraid, even when the explosion broke her hip. It trembled spontaneously. The lights of the Salyut were

too bright, but not wanted to go to the switches. A simple operation, which performed regularly, and
yet... Switches and wires insulators were somehow threatening. Them looked confused. Small alarm
clock, model Lunokhold, velcro up the curved wall, wheeled lunar vehicle seemed to snuggle there, as
something alive, in equilibrium, waiting. The eyes of them pioneers spatial Soviet it watched with
disappointment from their portraits.
The cognac. Those years in absence of gravity had altered its metabolism. It was not the same man as
before. But would be of calm is, of overcoming is. If vomit, all would return to smile you...
Someone knocked at the door of the Museum and was startled. Nikita plumber, first man to all in the
Kosmogrado, executed a perfect dive in slow motion through the open hatch. The young engineer
seemed angry. Korolev is felt defeated.
-You woke suddenly, plumber - said, eager to present a facade of normalcy.
-Filtration of the rivets of Delta three-the plumber made a gesture of annoyance-. Know Japanese? -He
brought a cassette of one of the numerous and bulky pockets of his stained work vest, and shook it in
the face of Korolev. Wore Levis carefully washed and some worn out sporting Adidas-. We agreed to this
last night.
Korolev shrugged as if the cassette is a weapon.
-No, nothing Japanese - the weakness of his voice surprised himself-. Only English and Polish-felt how it
blushed. The plumber was his friend, it knew and trusted in him, but...
-Is well, Colonel? the plumber got the tape and with fingers skillful and callous activated translator
program. It seems that a rat would have eaten. I want to hear this.
Korolev looked uncomfortable how the tape was blinking showing an ad for baseball gloves. The
subtitles of the translator in Cyrillic ran by the monitor, while a voice in Japanese spoke at a crazy
speed. A second advertisement appeared: an extraordinarily beautiful girl, with a black evening dress,
piloted a graceful French light sport aircraft in bright sunlight, gliding over the great wall of china.
-The news now - said the plumber, a skin of the nail biting.
Korolev stared, anxious, while the translation went through the face of the Japanese announcer.
-AMERICAN DISARMAMENT GROUP SAYS... PREPARATION AT THE BAIKONUR COSMODROME... PROOF
THAT AI. LESS RUSSIANS ARE PREPARED... TO REMOVE A SPACE STATION OF A CITY COMIC...
-Cosmic - murmured the plumber-. Error in the translator.
-BUILT AT THE END OF THE CENTURY AS A BRIDGEHEAD TO THE SPACE.
... AMBITIOUS PROJECT CANCELLED BY THE FAILURE OF LUNAR MINING... FACE STATION SURPASSED
BY OUR FACTORIES ORBITAL... CRYSTALS, SEMICONDUCTORS, AND PURE DRUG...
-Dirty malnacido - let the plumber-. He leaves to tell you this; the fault is of our damn man of the KGB,
Yefremov. He has all the blame!
-BULGING TRADE DEFICITS... UNHAPPY PEOPLE WITH THE EFFORT SPACE... RECENT DECISIONS OF THE
POLITBURO AND SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE...
-We want to knock down! -the face of the plumber is twitched by her rage.

Korolev has slipped away from the screen, shaking uncontrollably. A few unexpected tears fell their tabs,
drops, by the effect of weightlessness.
-Let me only! No I can do anything!
-What, Colonel? -the plumber grabbed it shoulder-. Look at me to the face-his eyes are opened as
dishes-. Someone you have drugged with fear!
-Go - he begged Korolev.
-That damn secret agent bastard! What has given him? Pills? An injection?
Korolev shrugged.
-I took a swallow!
-You have given fear! To you, an old and sick man! You going to break her face! -the plumber raised
them knees, is turned towards back, gave a kick to a handle from above and is catapulted out of the
room.
-Wait! Plumber? - but this already is had slipped through the sphere of mooring, as a squirrel,
disappearing by the background of the runner, and now Korolev felt that not could withstand it in
solitude. In the distance, could hear the echoes metal of screams distant and angry.
Trembling, he closed his eyes and waited for someone to come to his aid.
He asked the official Bychkov psychiatrist who help him get dressed in his old uniform, the only one with
the star of Tsiolkovsky, sewn on the left breast pocket. His twisted feet could not enter the black boots
of gala, thick and comfortable nylon and velcro-soled. So he remained barefoot.
The injection of Bychkov had cleared him in an hour, leaving him alternately depressed and furiously
angry. Now waiting in the Museum that Yefremov answer your calls.
He was called to his house the Museum of the Soviet space triumph, and when their anger dissipated,
replaced by an old bitterness, he felt as if he was simply nothing more than another of his exhibited
pieces. Mir bad mood to portraits with gilded frames of the great visionaries of space, to the faces of
Tsiolkovsky, Rynin, Tupolev. Under these were smaller-framed portraits of Verne, Goddard, and O'Neill.
Sometimes, in certain moments of extreme depression, I imagined that I could detect a same strange
look in his eyes. Was simply madness, as some times had thought, when is was of his humor more
cynical? Or was glimpsing the manifestation subtle of any strength strange and unbalanced: a force that
could be, as suspected, the evolution human in action?
One and only once. Korolev noted this same look in their eyes, the day they set foot on the land of
Coprates basin. The light of the Sun in Mars, glowing within the viewer of your helmet, you showed the
reflection of its two eyes outside e intense, without fear but concerned; and the quiet and secret
surprise that this le had caused, is gave has now, was the more memorable and transcendental moment
of its tare.
On the portrait was placed a horrible picture of the landing, with the colors of the oily and greasy
heaviness of a borscht [1]

or a roast. The Martian landscape appeared trivializado by the corny idealized style of Soviet Socialist
realism. The artist placed the character inside the spacesuit in the front of the ship, transmitting the
deeply sincere vulgarity of any officer.
Feeling disgusted, he waited the arrival of Yefremov, the man of the KGB, the political Commissioner of
the Kosmogrado.
When Yefremov finally entered the Salyut, Korolev perceived split lip and recent marks on his
throat. Yefremov had a mono blue Kansai of silk Japanese and elegant shoes Italian's Street. Coughed
politely.
-Good morning, Comrade Colonel.
Korolev looked at him. Let silence be extended.
-Yefremov - said in a tone hard, I am not satisfied with you.
Yefremov blushed, but kept his gaze.
-Let's talk frankly, Colonel. From Russian to Russian. It was not meant to you.
-Fear, Yefremov?
-The beta carboline, Yes. If you had not collaborated in their actions anti-social, if he had not accepted
their bribe, this would not have occurred will never.
-So I am the pimp, Yefremov?, would a pimp and also drunk? Because you're a snitch, a smuggler and a
snitch, and I say this - he added - Russian to Russian.
At that time, the face of the man of the KGB took the official mask of soft and carefree virtue.
- But tell me, Yefremov, what is really seeking? What has he been doing since he came to the
Kosmogrado? We know that is going to dismantle the complex. What it is waiting for you the civilian
crew when they arrive in Baikonur? Investigations for corruption?
-Certainly there will be questioning. In some cases it may even hospitalization. Are you indicating,
Comrade Colonel, that the Soviet Union is, in some way, responsible for the failure of the Kosmogrado?
Korolev remained silent.
-The Kosmogrado was a dream, Colonel. A dream that failed. As space, Colonel. We don't need to be
here. We have a world order. Moscow is the largest power global of the history of the humanity. We
must not allow us to lose this global perspective.
-Do you think that she is they can shake up astronauts so easily? We are an elite, highly trained technical
elite.
-A minority, Colonel, a minority obsolete. What you contribute, apart from spoils of the poisonous
American trash? Supposed that here was to be a crew of workers, not arrogant traffickers of blackmarket, dealing with jazz and pornography via satellite - the face of Yefremov was relaxed and
unflappable-. The crew returns to Baikonur. Weapons should be directed from the ground. Of course,
you are will be here, and will come some astronauts invited, African, South American. He space still
retains for that people some degree of its prestige original.
Korolev pulled the teeth.

-What did with the guy?

-Your plumber? Has attacked to an official of the security of the State. He will remain under arrest until
he transferred to Baikonur.
Korolev tried a nasty laugh.
-Let it go. You same will have many problems to introduce charges. I will speak with Marshal Gubarev in
person. My rank here may be purely honorary, but I still have some influence.
The man of the KGB has shrugged of shoulders.
-The crew artillera has orders direct from Baikonur of that be keep closed the module of
communication. Their careers depend on it. Do not send any message.
-Then, is the law martial?
-This is not Kabul, Colonel. These are difficult times for all of us. You have the authority moral here,
should give example. It last that we need is a melodrama.
-We shall see - said Korolev.
The Kosmogrado turned out of the shadow of the Earth, to the raw light of the Sun. The walls of the
Salyut of Korolev is dilated and crujieron as a case of bottles. Eye of ox, thought absent Korolev touching
the veins of his temple, they are the first thing damaged.
The young Grishkin seemed to say the same thing. He pulled out a tube of silicone and began to inspect
the seal around the eye of ox. He was the Assistant of the plumber and his closest friend.
-Must vote now-said Korolev tiresome. Eleven of the twenty-four crew civilians had accepted go to the
meeting, twelve if is had to itself same. That left to thirteen that, or not wanted to risk is, or were
actively opposed to the idea of a strike. Yefremov and six men of the crew artillera rose the total
number of missing twenty-. We have discussed our requests. All those who are in favour of the list as it
is now--and raised his healthy hand. Three others raised theirs. Grishkin, busy as he was with the bullseye, lifted his foot. Korolev sighed-. Are very few taking in account how are have since them things. I
would be better that we have unanimity. We hear your objections.
-The term custody military - said a technician biologist named Korovkin - can be interpreted as that
the military and not the criminal Yefremov are responsible for the situation - he seemed sharply
uncomfortable. We agree, but well written, not we will sign it. We are members of the party.
He was about to say something more, but stayed silent.
-My mother - very slowly - added his wife was Jewish.
Korolev nodded but said nothing.
-All this is criminal madness - Glushko, the botanist said. Neither he nor his woman had voted-. This is
madness. The Kosmogrado is finished, we know it, and as soon as possible back home, better. What has
been this place but a prison? -the lack of gravity was against the metabolism human, and by this it blood
tended to congest is in your face and neck, making him seem an of their pumpkins experimental.
-You are a botanist, Vasili - to said his wife hard, - while I, as you may recall, I am a pilot of Soyuz. Your
career not is in game.

-Do not support this idiocy! -Glushko gave the bulkhead a strong kick that pushed him out of the
room. His wife you followed, complaining is bitterly with that tone strident that them members of the
crew knew that used in their discussions private.
-Five wish to sign-said Korolev-, of a total of twenty-five members of the crew civil.
-Six-said Tatjana, the other pilot of Soyuz, with their hair dark cast to back and collected with a tape of
nylon green-. Forget the plumber.
-Solar balloons! -shouted Grishkin, pointing toward the Earth-. Look!
The Kosmogrado was now up the coast of California; profiled edges, fields of bright green, cities in
decline whose names sounded with a strange magic. Very above a Bank of stratocumulus clouds, floated
five balloons solar, esferas-espejo geodetic, subject by wire electrical. These balloons had been a
substitute cheapest great American plan to build solar-power transformers satellites. Those things
worked, was Korolev, as during a decade them had seen multiply is.
-And say that the people living in those things? -the official of systems Stoiko it had attached to Grishkin
in the eye of ox.
Korolev recalled pathetic rain of strange American projects to get power, just when did the Treaty of
Mena. With the Union Soviet controlling firmly the supply world of oil, the American seemed eager to of
try any thing.Then the accident of Kansas them had deterred from using reactors. For more than three
decades had gradually slipped by insulation and industrial decline. Space, thought bitterly, "should be
trying in space". Never understood the strange paralysis of the will that seemed to have jammed their
bright efforts earlier. Or perhaps is due to a lack of imagination, of vision.
See, American, is said silently, ' you should have tried join you to us, here, in the glorious future, here,
in the Kosmogrado.
-Who would like to live in something like that there? -He asked Stoiko, giving to Grishkin slap on the
shoulder, and laughing with the quiet power of despair.
-You are kidding - said Yefremov-, will we have enough problems with what is happening.
-Do not we joke, Commissioner Yefremov, and these are our requests - the five dissidents had gathered
at the Salyut man shared with Valentina, pushing it toward the bottom panel. The panel was decorated
with a photograph, meticulously retouched with airbrush, the Prime Minister greeting from the trailer of
a tractor. Korolev knew with certainty that Valentina would be now with Romanenko in the Museum,
making tapes to crujieran. Korolev is asked how arranging them Romanenko to avoid their shifts in the
battery room with so much regularity.
Yefremov shrugged. Looked towards the list of requests.
-The plumber must remain under arrest. They are direct orders. And with regard to the rest of the
document...
-You are guilty of using psychiatric drugs without permission! -shouted Grishkin.
-That was a private affair - Yefremov said calmly.
-A criminal act - said Tatjana.

-Pilot Tatjana, both know us that Grishkin here is the pirate's busiest station samizdata. All are criminals,
not you see? -its sudden and crooked smile was surprisingly cynical-. The Kosmogrado is not the
Potemkin, and ye are not revolutionary. And your request to inform you with Marshal Gubarev? It is
under arrest in Baikonur. And your request to speak with the Minister of technology? The Minister
directed the purge - with a decided gesture, broke the yellow paper into pieces that delicately spread by
weightlessness, like butterflies on a slow flight.
The ninth day of the strike, Korolev met with Grishkin and Stoiko on the Salyut before shared Grishkin
and plumber.
For forty years, the inhabitants of the Kosmogrado fought in an antiseptic war against fungi and
mulch. Dust, grease and steam are not posed in the absence of gravity, and the spores lurked
everywhere; in stamping, in clothing, in ventilation ducts. In the hot and damp atmosphere, as it's a disc
Petri, is extended as spots of oil. There was now a dry stench in the air to rotten, to the ominous tufo to
scorched insulation overlap.
The dream of Korolev broke the hollow tap of a Soyuz spacecraft releasing. Glushko and his wife,
meant. During the past forty-eight hours, Yefremov had overseen the evacuation of the members of the
crew who had refused to join the strike. The crew artillera is maintained in the room of the battery and
its ring of barracks, where still were holding to Nikita the plumber.
The Salyut of Grishkin is had become in the headquarters of the strike. None had shaved and Stoiko had
contracted an infection of Staphylococcus stretched by their forearms with hives of worrying
aspect. Surrounded by the stunning calendar girls taken from American television, seemed a degenerate
trio of pornographers. The lights were low, the Kosmogrado running at half power.
-As those are van-said Stoiko-, we are doing more strong.
Grishkin sputtered something. His nose fins were clogged with white sanitary cotton balls. He was
convinced that Yefremov would try to break the strike with betacarbonita sprays. Nose plugs were just a
symptom of the overall level of exhaustion and paranoia. Until the evacuation order came from
Baikonur, one of the technicians had put for hours and hours the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky at a
deafening volume. Glushko had pursued his wife who, naked and bruised, she screamed, going up and
down all the Kosmogrado. Stoiko had agreed to the tabs of the man of the KGB and psychiatric
reports. Meters of printed yellow paper is wrinkled along the corridors, vibrating with the flow of
fans. Romanenko is them had arranged to send a message from the ring of the barracks, saying that the
plumber had tried hang is in absence of gravity, binding is them bands elastic of security to them ankles
and to the neck.
-Think the statements that will be doing down there on us - murmured Grishkin-. We will not even
judge. Direct to the psikushka-the sinister nickname for those hospitals political seemed galvanize of
fear to the boy. Korolev took a viscous Chlorella pudding with reluctance.
Stoiko cut a piece of the floating band of paper printed and read in voice high.
-Paranoia with a tendency to overestimate the ideas! Revisionist fantasies hostile to the social system! It wrinkled the paper-. If I could intervene the communications module we could put in an American
communications satellite and throw them over the affair. Perhaps that would teach him to Moscow
some of our degree of hostility!

Korolev extracted a fly of the fruit buried in your pudding of algae. Their two pairs of wings and its
bifurcated chest were mute testimony to high levels of radiation from the Kosmogrado. The insects had
escaped an already forgotten experiment, generations of them had infested the station for decades.
-The Americans have no interest in us - said Korolev-. Moscow not can be already committed by that
kind of revelations.
-Except when expected grain loading - said Grishkin. The Americans need too sell, much as we buy Korolev sadly got more tablespoons of Chlorella in the mouth, chewed them mechanically and
swallowed them is and then replied:
-The American not could reach us but would like to. Canaveral is in ruins.
-Have little fuel-said Stoiko.
-Can remove the from those ships that are-said Korolev.
-Then, how Devils will return to the Earth? -Grishkin fists trembled. Even in Siberia there are trees,
trees. The firmament! To hell with him! Let it to shred! Let that fall and arda!
The pudding of Korolev is spread by the bulkhead.
-God! -said Grishkin-. It feel, Colonel. I know that you can not return.
When came to the Museum, found to the pilot Tatjana suspended facing that hateful picture of the
landing of Mars, their tabs bright by the tears. You dried them when he came.
-Do you know, my Colonel, having a bust of you in Baikonur? In bronze. Used to pass ahead of it when
going to class-their eyes were reddened by the lack of dream.
-Always there are busts. Scholars need them - he smiled and took his hand.
-What was that day like? -She even contemplated the picture.
-Just remember it. I've seen the tape so often that I remember now in place. My memories of Mars are
those of any school - smiled you again-, but insurance that did not seem to this mediocre picture. I am
sure.
-Why they have all finished this, Colonel? Why just now? When was small, it saw on television. Our
future in space was forever.
-Perhaps the Americans were right. The Japanese sent machines, robots to build their orbital factories
rather than men. The mining lunar failed for us, but we think that at least would be a station permanent
to any class of research... I guess it has to do with Pocket. With men who sit in offices and make
decisions.
-Then, this is your decision final regarding the Kosmogrado-you spent a piece of fine paper bent-. I found
this sheet printed with the orders from Moscow to Yefremov. Van to leave that will precipitate out of
orbit in the next three months.
He discovered that he now was who was staring at the picture so much hated.
-Almost nor matter already-is heard saying.
And then she is put to mourn bitterly with his face sunk in his shoulder atrophied.

- But I have a plan, Tatjana - said stroking her hair-, now you must listen to me.
He looked at the field of your old Rolex. Were about Siberia East. Even remembered that the watch is it
had regalado the Ambassador Swiss in a huge Hall with arcades of the Palace of the great Kremlin.
It was time to start.
Floated out of their Salyut towards the area of docking, swaying the long strip of paper pyjamas trying to
wrapped around his head.
I could still work quickly and profitably with your healthy hand. He smiled as he released a canister of
oxygen from their anchor bands. Grabbing a handle, designed bottle with all his might against the
field. He rebounded with a loud noise, but without damaging anything. It was after her, picked her up
and returned it to launch.
It then reached the decompression alarm.
The speaker expelled dust while an alarm began to moan. Triggered by the alarm, the platforms of
boarding is closed of coup with a whisper hydraulic. To Korolev is before you ears. He sneezed and was
again after the bottle.
The lights came up to its maximum intensity, then blinked and is turned off. He smiled in the darkness,
feeling the steel cylinder. Stoiko had provoked the collapse of general systems. It had not been
difficult. The memory banks were already fragmented and on the verge of collapse, overloaded with
television broadcasts.
-It's fight with fists - murmured, tapping the bottle against the wall. The lights blinked softly when the
batteries were activated.
His shoulder began to hurt. Holding it, continued hitting, causing a roar similar to an explosion. I had to
succeed. Should deceive to Yefremov and to the crew artillera.
The hand of one of the gates wheel began to turn squeaking. At the end it opened suddenly and Tatjana
looked at him shyly, with a giggle.
-The plumber is free already? -asked, dropping the bottle.
-Stoiko and Umansky are arguing with the security guard - hit with the fist against his Palm. Grishkin is
preparing the ships.
It followed by the passage to the next sphere of docking. Stoiko was helping the plumber to pass
through the gate going into the ring at the barracks. The plumber was barefoot and with pale face under
an outbreak of neglected beard. The meteorologist Umansky them continued, dragging the body inert
from a soldier.
-How are, plumber?
-Still shiver. I were drugging with fear, not with large doses, but... I thought that was a blowout of truth!
Grishkin slipped by the closest to Korolev's Soyuz, carrying a lot of tools and gauges attached a nylon
rope.
-They are all controlled. The collapse of the system them has left in automatic. I've blocked all your
remotes with a screwdriver, so they may not drive them from ground control. How you going, friend
Nikita? -asked to the plumber-. Go all costs down until Chinese central.

The plumber pestae, quivering startled.

-Do not speak Chinese.
Stoiko happened a printed roll.
-This is mandarin phonetic: I want to defect. Take me to the nearest Japanese Embassy.
The plumber gave a chuckle and went fingers through his short and hard matte sweaty hair.
-And what happens with you? -asked.
-Do you think that we are doing all this just for you? -While Tatjana made him a contemptuous
grimace. Make sure that the Chinese news service is done with the rest of the roll. Each of us has a
copy. Thus we see around the world that the Soviet Union has prepared for Colonel Vasilievich Korolev,
the first man on Mars! - and threw a kiss to the plumber.
-What do we do with this, Filipchenko? -He asked Umansky. A few dark drops of coagulated blood
floated erratically near the cheeks of the soldier.
-Why don't you carry to this poor bastard with you? -said Korolev.
-Then come with me, asshole - said the plumber, by grabbing the belt of Filipchenko and pushing it
toward the hatch of the Soyuz-. Nikita the plumber, I'm going to do the favor of your life.
Korolev noted how Stoiko and Grishkin sealing the hatch's opposite.
-Where are Romanenko and Valentina? -He asked Korolev, checking his watch again.
-Here, my Colonel - said Valentina, his blond-haired floating around your face in the other Soyuz hatch. Already we have tested this - she said with a giggle.
-Now you will have time for that in Tokyo - applauded Korolev. There jets of interception in Vladivostok
and Hanoi in a few minutes.
Romanenko bare and muscular arm came out and got into the ship. Stoiko and Grishkin sealed the
hatch.
The Kosmogrado rang with a hollow blow when the plumber, with unconscious Filipchenko,
departed. Another blow and lovers came out also.
-Accompany me, friend Umansky-said Stoiko-. And farewell, my Colonel!
The two men went down the corridor.
-I'll go with you - he said to Tatjana Grishkin laughing. After all you are pilot.
-No - she - said. You'll only. We must bend the possibilities. You are in automatic mode. Simply, do not
touch anything in the panel.
Korolev it saw help to Grishkin in the sphere of berthing of the last Soyuz.
-I will take dancing, Tatjana - said Grishkin, in Tokyo.
She sealed the hatch. Another explosion and Stoiko and Umansky came out of the adjoining area of
berthing.

-Go now, Tatjana, said Korolev-. Hurry up. I don't want to tear down while you sobrevuelas international
waters.
-Now it is just, Colonel, only facing our enemies.
-When you leave, they also go - he said-. And depends on the scandal that provoke to shame the
Kremlin which I I keep living here.
-And what should I tell them in Tokyo, Colonel? Have some message to the world?
-Tell them--and all the cliches came you to mind, with as complete precision that made you want to
laugh hysterically. A small step... we came in peace... workers of the world-. Should tell them that really
it need-said pinching his wrist stunted-in my own bones.
She hugged him and slipped out.
Waited to solo in the sphere of dockage. He silence you attacked them nerves, the collapse of the
system had disabled the systems of ventilation, with whose buzz had lived during twenty years. Finally
listened to the Soyuz's Tatjana release is.
Someone came down the corridor. Was Yefremov, moving is awkwardly in his costume space. Korolev
smiled.
Yefremov took his expressionless mask official behind the Lexan visor, but avoided meet Korolev eyes
when it came to his side. Is directed to the room of battery.
The siren howled the call alert total of combat.
The battery room hatch was open when Korolev reached it. Inside, the soldiers is were moving to jumps
with the unconscious reflection of its continuous training, adjusting is the belt of them seats of the
console on the chest of their thick costumes.
-Do not do it! -Korolv floated inside the room. Is seized to the hard tissue of accordion of the costume
of Yefremov. One of the accelerators is lit with a backfire in estacatto. Appeared two green bars crossed
in a tracking screen with a red dot in the Center.
Yefremov has removed the helmet. With calm and without changing his expression, moved the hand of
Korolev with the helmet.
-Tell them to stop - said Korolev in a lament. The walls trembled when lightning came out restallando
with the sound of a whip-. Your wife, Yefremov! Is there out!
-Long here, Colonel - Yefremov seized Korolev arthritic shoulder and squeezed. Korolev shouted-. Out of
here - and a gloved fist reached him in the chest. Korolev hit desperate in the spacesuit while they
dragged it out, to the corridor-. Even I, Colonel, dare to stand me between the Red Army and its orders Yefremov now seemed sick. The mask was gone-. Good hit said, wait here until this is over.
Then the Soyuz's Tatjana collided with the location of the laser and the ring of barracks. As in a
daguerreotype of half a second of raw sunlight, Korolev saw the battery room crinkling and compressed
as a can of beer crushed by a boot. Saw the torso beheaded of a soldier by turning and moving is of the
console. Saw to Yefremov trying to of speak, its hair bristled, as the vacuum sucked the air of its
costume space towards outside, by the Board open of the helmet. Two parallel rows of blood came out
from the fins of the nose of Korolev. Then he heard the roar of the air to escape, immediately drowned
by a roar inside his head. It last that listened, until all sound is Word, was the hatch closing is of coup.

When is awakened, was to dark, with a throbbing agony after them eyes, and is agreed of the old
instructions. It was now a threat as big as in a leak caused by explosion; nitrogen burbujeara in the
blood and would hit with intense pain, red hot... Their lungs would struggle desperately in a
vacuum. Blood pressure would increase. Feel the tongue coming out of the mouth. All this began to
seem very far away, really as an academic discussion.She turned the wheel of the hatch led only by a
certain strange sense of duty. The work was heavy and wanted intensely back to the Museum to sleep.
He could repair the leaks with silicone, but overflowed it the general collapse of the system. The garden
of Glushko was left. With the vegetables and the algae, not is would die of hunger or are would be
without air.Communication module together with the battery room and barracks ring disappeared
plucked from the station by the impact of the suicide Tatjana Soyuz.
It assimilated that the collision would have altered the orbit of the Kosmogrado, but he had no way of
predicting the final hour of his incandescent encounter with the stratosphere. During those days, he had
been ill frequently and often thought that he would die before the volatilization, which bothered her.
Dedicated countless hours to look at the tapes of the library of the Museum. A suitable work for the last
man of the space, which once had been the first man on Mars.
He became obsessed with the portrait of Gagarin, and put the images of television of the sixties, the
news inevitably concluding with the death of the Cosmonaut again. The stagnant air of the Kosmogrado
is populated with the spirits of them martyrs; Gagarin, the first crew of the Soyuz, roasted Americans
living in its stubby Apollo...
I often dreamed Tatjana, feeling the same look in his eyes than that envisioned in the portraits from the
Museum. And in an occasion is woke up or dreamed that is woke up in the Soyuz where she had asleep,
with a flashlight attached to its front, powered by a battery, and woke up dress with its old
uniform. From a great distance, as if was seeing a report in the monitor of the Museum, is saw to itself
same boot is the star of the order of Tsiolkovsky of his chest and staple it to the certificate of pilot of
she.
When he heard that knocking, he thought that it had to also be a dream.
The wheel of the hatch of the Museum turned and is opened.
In the blue and flashing light, as from a film old, saw that the woman was black. Long braids of Kinky hair
floated like cobras around his head. He wore glasses, a silk scarf of Aviator writhing after her by
weightlessness.
-Andy-said in English-, will be best that you see this.
A man small, muscular and almost bald, dress only with a shell and a jingling belt of tools, appeared
floating behind her and looked.
-Is it alive?
-Of course I'm alive - said Korolev, in English with a little accent.
The man called Andy spent floating above his head.
-Jack, are you well? -her right biceps was tattooed with a balloon of geodetic, bouncing rays upwards,
and wore the legend SUNSPARK 15 UTAH-. We did not expect that there was nobody.
-I am not nobody - said Korolev blinking.

-We have come to live here - said the woman, approaching.

-We come from balloons. We are squatters, I suppose that we could say so.
We heard that this place was empty. Do you know the orbit of fall of this thing? -man executed a clumsy
fall in mid-air, tinkling in his belt tools-. This weightlessness is frightening.
-Dios-said the woman-. Not me I can get! It is wonderful. It's like jumping from the sky, but no wind.
Korolev looked to the man, that was the careless and rude aspect of someone drunk of freedom since
was born.
- But they don't even have a shuttle - he said.
-Do shuttle? -said the man laughing-. What we are going to do is raise those supplemental propulsion
engines by balloon cables, attach them and turn them on.
-That is a madness-said Korolev.
-We have arrived up to here, not?
Korolev nodded. If it was a dream, it was a very peculiar.
-I am the Colonel Yuri Vasilevich Korolev.
-Mars! -women applauded. Waiting for the children to hear this.
Caught the small model of vehicle lunar Lunokhod and began to give him rope.
-Eh-said the man-, I have work. We have a lot of driving there Motors out. We need to upload this until
you start to burn.
Something hit against the hull. The Kosmogrado resonated with the impact.
-That should of be the Tulsa-said Andy, by consulting a clock of bracelet-. Just in time.
- But why? -Korolv shook his head, deeply confused-. Why have you come?
-We have said you. To live here. We can enlarge this thing perhaps constructing. They said that we could
never live in the balloons, but we were the only ones we made them work. Was our opportunity to get
here, by our count. Who would want to live here by a Government, any division of the army or by a
group of humdrum? You have to want a border, love it even in the bones, Yes?
Korolev smiled. And he returned the smile.
-Grabbed those power cords and we got directly. And when you get to the top, well, uncle, or das the
leap you abnormality there - his voice was raised - and not looking back, no Sir! We took that leap and
here we are!
The woman returned to attach the wheels of velcro of the model in the curved wall and released him. It
left foot over his head, buzzing happily.
-Is not a monad? The children would love.
Korolev looked to Andy in the eyes. The Kosmogrado returned to resonate, moving the small model
Lunokhod towards a new course.

-Los Angeles this--said the woman. That is the children - got glasses and Korolev saw his eyes shining
with a wonderful madness.
-Good-said Andy, making sonar his belt of tools-. You want to teach us the surroundings?
[1]
Soup of cabbage oriental. (The T. N.)

MOZART WITH MIRROR SUNGLASSES

-Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner
This carefree fantasy about a trip in time arose in the merry spirit of camaraderie of this current. His
impetuous energy and its aggressive political satire are clear signs that these writers question things like
America, third world, 'development' and 'exploitation'. And also offer ideas about science fiction: the
energy and fun are their natural rights of birth.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart figure seems to have a special resonance in this decade and has appeared in
movies, Broadway, rock videos, and also in science fiction. This represents an interesting case of cultural
synchronicity.Something is loose in the 1980s. And we are all in this.
From the hill north of the city, Rice saw the Salzburg of the century 18th extend is low it as a lunch to
middle eat.
Great desmochadas towers and swollen and bulbous storage tanks dwarf the ruins of the Cathedral of
St. Rupert. A heavy white smoke rose in waves from the warehouses of the refinery. Rice could enjoy a
familiar smell acre petrochemical from where he was sitting, under the leaves of an oak that was
withering.
It panorama in its entirety you was pleased. No signatures for a project of travel in time, he thought,
'unless you like the incongruous". As this phallic pumping station jutting out from the central patio of
the convent, or those high and straight pipes, as drawn to chalk, which broke the maze of cobbled
streets of Salzburg. Maybe out a little strong for the city, but Rice just had it blames. The flow temporary
is had focused to the random in the bedding of rocks under Salzburg, forming a bubble expandable that
connecting this world with the of the time of Rice.
It was the first time I saw the complex from outside the high fences closed with chains. For two years I
had been up to the neck so that the refinery was operational. He had led teams around the globe as the
whalers from Nantucket who calafatearon to serve as tankers, or had formed pipe welders to build the
pipeline from distances as far as Sinai and the Gulf of Mexico.
But finally it was out of all this. Sutherland, the political representative of the company, had been
banned from entering the city, but Rice had no patience with his attitude. The less silly seemed to
antagonize Sutherland. She lost sleep over the lesser of the banalities of 'locals'. He spent hours and
hours to indoctrinate the local of the city, the people waiting on the outskirts of the square mile of
the complex, begging, night and day, for radios, nylon or a vial of penicillin.
That will be the shit, thought Rice. The plant was mounted and broke those records calculated in its
design, and to Rice you should therefore a small reward and a recommendation. As he saw it, who

wouldn't be able to find some action in the year of grace of 1775 was because he should be dead braindead. Is raised and is shook the dust of their hands with a tissue of soft lace.
A bike traqueteaba climbing by the hillside towards it, reeling is frantically. The driver seemed unable to
of keep them high heels of their shoes with buckle front in them pedals and load to the same time a
huge cassette player in his arm right. The bike stopped, with a tilt, at a respectful distance, and Rice
acknowledged the cassette player music: the Symphony 40.
The boy fell music as Rice walked toward him.
-Good day, Mr Director of administration. I interrupt something?
-No, it doesn't matter - Rice glanced to the cutting of brush of the boy, who had replaced their oldfashioned wig. Had seen to the kid around the doors; was one of the usual. But his music had made that
more fit-. You're Mozart, isn't it?
-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, to serve you.
-Damn my luck. Do you know what's on that tape?
-It carries my name.
-Yes. You wrote it, or shouldn't do that, I guess that we should say so. Within fifteen years from now.
Mozart nodded.
-Is so beautiful. Not know enough English to express what I feel to the preview it.
To that time the majority of the people would be concentrated in the doors waiting for the cast. Rice
was impressed both by the touch of the boy not to mention his mastery of English. In general, the
vocabulary usual of them locals not going much more beyond of radio, drug and fuck you.
-Would come back to the city? -He asked Rice.
-Yes, Mr Director of administration.
To Rice you liked something in that boy. His enthusiasm, the brightness of their eyes, and, of course,
that is be one of them big composers of all them times.
-Forget the treatment - said-. Where can one go on a spree in this place?
Initially Sutherland didn't to that Rice was to meet with Jefferson. But Rice knew some physics of time,
and Jefferson had been giving Tin to the American staff asking about the holes in time and the parallel
worlds.
Rice, for her part, was interested in the possibility of knowing Thomas Jefferson, the first President of
the United States. George Washington never had liked and why is glad that his Masonic ties had forced
him to reject part of without God the U.S. Government.
Rice is stirred in his costume of double fabric dacron, while waiting for him next to Sutherland in the
classroom with air conditioning in the Hohensalzsburg Castle.
-Had forgotten so greasy that you do feel you these suits-said.
-At least-said Sutherland-, today not you searched since that damn hat-the jet VTOL of America came
evening, and she looked continually to the clock.

-Do my tricorne? -said Rice-. Not you like?

-Is a cap mason, for amor de Dios. It is the symbol of the anti-modern reaction - the Mason free
Liberation Front, a politico-religious group that had carried out a few pathetic attacks on the pipeline
was one of the nightmares of Sutherland.
-Eh! Loosen a little, OK, Sutherland? A fan of Mozart gave me that hat. Teresa Mara Anglica not-knowwhat-more, a ruined Aristocrat. Everyone is going to the disco in the Center. It simply wanted to be like
them.
-Do Mozart? You've been confraternizando with Mozart? Don't you think that we should leave him
alone? After all what you have done?
-Nonsense - said-, I am authorized. I've spent two years assembling this while you you do to play football
with Robespierre and Thomas Paine. I do a few getaways with Mozart and you cabreas with me. And
what happens with Parker? I can't hear you excite because playing rock 'n' roll daily in his stunt in the
morning. You can hear him howl by each and every cheap transistors of the city.
-It is a propaganda officer. Believe me, if I could stop it I would do it, but Parker is a special case. You
have contacts everywhere in Real time - rubbed the cheek. Leave it, okay? Just try to be friendly with
President Jefferson. It is lately going very badly.
The Secretariat of Sutherland, a former lady-in-waiting, appeared to announce the arrival of the
plane. Jefferson, furious, pushed her over. He was tall to be a local, had a matte shiny red hair and
harder eyes that Rice had ever seen.
-Sit down, Mr President - Sutherland said the other side of the table.
Do you want a coffee or tea?
Jefferson groaned.
-Perhaps a Madeira said, if he is having.
His Secretary looked without understanding, and when Sutherland nodded, is rushed.
-What such was the flight? -asked Sutherland.
-Their engines are amazing - Jefferson said, as you know - Rice saw subtle tremor in the hand of the
man; not is had adapted well to the flight in jet-, so only wish that your sensitivity political was equal of
advanced.
-You know that not can speak for my upper-said Sutherland-. As far as I was concerned, I deeply regret
the darker aspects of this operation. Florida will be lost.
Irritated, Rice is tipped towards front.
-You do not is here to discuss about sensitivities political, not?
-Freedom, Mr-said Jefferson-. The question is the freedom-the Secretariat returned with a bottle of
sherry covered of cobwebs and a small Tower of vessels of plastic transparent. At that time, the hands
were shaking Jefferson clearly; is served a glass and is it drank from a swallow. The color you returned to
the face. -Said: you made certain promises when we join forces. Guaranteed freedom and equality, and
freedom to find our own happiness. Instead of that we found with its machinery by all them sides and

with their cheap goods that seduce to the people of our great country, while our minerals and our works
of art disappear in their strengths and never more return to appear again!
Sutherland is shrank in his chair.
-The common good requires certain period in... fit.
-Come on, Tom, intervened to Rice. We have not signed an Alliance. That is nonsense. We shook them
to the English and you gave them, but rebound, and were you that had the damn responsibility for doing
so. Second, if we get oil and grabbed a few pictures, what heck does that to do with your freedom? That
gives us equal. Do what you want, just stay out of our way. Ok? If we had had to sit down and negotiate,
I had left with the British ruling.
Jefferson is sat. Sutherland, humbly served another glass that drank a drink.
-I can't understand you - he said-. Afirmis that come in the future, but nevertheless seem inclined to
destroy your own last.
- But this not is so-said Rice-. Happens this way: history is like a tree, right? When you come back and
you Lees with the past is born another branch of history, from the main trunk. Well, this world is
precisely one of those branches.
-So - said Jefferson - this world, my world, no leads to your future.
-So - said.
-That leaves you free to violate and make looting for pleasure! While your world remain intact and
safe! -Jefferson stood up again-. Am the idea Monster more beyond of all opinion. Intolerable! How you
can take part in such despotism? You have no human feelings?
-Oh, for amor de Dios-said Rice-. Yes of course. What happens with radio stations and magazines and
medicines which I have given? Personally think that have pretty face hard coming here to give us a
lesson of humanity, with all those brands in the face, the shirt without washing, and all your slaves in
house.
-Rice! -shouted Sutherland.
Rice looked to Jefferson to the eyes. Very slowly, Jefferson is sat.
-Mira - said Rice gently. We don't want to be unreasonable. Perhaps things do not work as you believed,
but, Hey!, do you know?, that's life. What do you want of truth? Cars?, do movies?, do phones?, birth
control? Just say it and it is yours.
Jefferson is clenched eyelids with your thumbs.
-His words mean nothing to me, Mr. I just want to... just want to go back to my house. Monticello and as
soon as possible.
-One of your migraines, Mr President? Sutherland asked. I request that prepare you it - pushed a pill
bottle to the other side of the table, where he was sitting.
After Jefferson is out, Rice almost expected a reprimand. Instead, Sutherland said:
-It seems that you have a huge faith in the project.

-Eh! I encourage! -said Rice-. Have last too much time with those politicians. Believe me, is a simple time
with simple people. Surely Jefferson was a little pissed off, but will return. Relax you!
Rice found Mozart cleaning the tables in the main dining room of the Castle Hohensalzsburg. With its
faded jeans, his jacket without neck and their glasses of mirror almost could have last by a teenager of
the time of Rice.
-Wolfgang! -you called Rice-. How will you in your new job?
Mozart put a pile of dishes aside and hands went through his short hair.
-Wolf-you said-, call me Wolf, vale? More... more modern sounds, do you know? But, well, Yes, I really
want to thank you for all that you've done for me so far. The tapes, the history, the books, this work, is
so wonderful already only the be here!
His English, Rice realized, had improved markedly in the past three weeks.
-Do you still live in the city?
-Yes, but I have now my own space. You come to the concert of this night?
-Of course - he said-. Why not just with this while I'm going to change, and then we went out to eat a
sachertorte, OK? It will be a great night.
Rice wore cautiously, with a suit of chain mail under the shelter of velvet and briches up to the
knees. Filled pockets with trinkets for gifts and then met with Mozart on the back door.
Security remained outside, around the Castle, while the spotlights sweeping the sky. Rice felt a new
tension in the holiday abandonment of the masses in the Centre of the city.
As any of his time, it stood out among the locals. Even for incognito feel noted so dangerously.
Inside the club, Rice went into hiding in the darkness and relaxed. The place was half of the ground floor
of a house in the city remodeled, belonging to a young Aristocrat; some bricks protruding still indicating
the location of the ancient walls. The parishioners were mostly local, with any piece of Real time which
had found in the trash. Rice saw even to a guy wearing a pair of silk panties on the head.
Mozart came to scene. His guitar sprouted arpeggios in the form of minuet that sounded over the
strings of coral motifs. The batteries of amplifiers rumbled with bursts of synthesizers, straight out of a
tape of them forty main of K-Tel. The community audience threw about Mozart started the craft club
paper confetti.
Then, Mozart smoked a joint of Turkish hashish and asked Rice about its future.
-Mine, you mean? -said Rice-. Not you it'd. Six billion people and no one has to work if it doesn't. Five
hundred channels of television in every home. Cars, helicopters and clothes that you would take out the
eyes of the orbits. Loads of easy sex. Do you like music? You can have your own Studio of recording that
you puts to stop in scene, as with your fucking harpsichord.
-Really? I would give anything to see that. I cannot understand why you return.
Rice shrugged his shoulders.
-Perhaps leave him within fifteen years. When you return, I'll have the best of the best. Everything you
want to.

-Fifteen years?
-Yes. You have to understand how to operate the Portal. Right now it is as high as you, size just for a
phone cord and an oil pipeline, and perhaps for the occasional sacks of mail addressed in time
Real. Make it as big as for moving people or equipment it would be incredibly expensive. So expensive
that only it make on two occasions; at the beginning and at the end of the project. So, Yes, I guess we
are stuck here.
Rice coughed violently and they drank his Cup. The hash of the Ottoman Empire had dropped his mental
restraints. There was, trusting in Mozart, making that the boy would like to emigrate, and not had any
fucking way of that Rice could get you a letter green [1]. Not with them million that wanted a travel free
to the future, thousands of million if it had others projects as the Empire Roman or the new United of
Egypt.
- But I'm really happy of being here-said Rice-. It's like... as shuffle the cards of history. Never know what
will come in the following-Rice you passed the porro to an of them fans of Mozart, Antonia not-knowwhat-. Is great being alive. Look at you. Going great, isn't it? -be leaned on the table, to front, possessed
by a sudden sincerity-. I want to say, all is well not? Do not us odiars all we have screwed up this world
or something as well?
-Are you kidding? You are looking at the hero of Salzburg. In fact, is assumes that your Lord Parker goes
to make a recording of my last number of this night. I will know soon throughout Europe! -someone
yelled to Mozart in German, from the other end of the club. Mozart you looked and him greeted
cryptically-. Roll, uncle - turned to Rice. Already you can see that I will be well.
-Sutherland is concerned by things like those symphonies that never going to write.
-Nonsense! Do not want to write symphonies. Can listen to them whenever you want! Who is
Sutherland? Is your wedding?
-Not, to her you like them local. Danton, Robespierre, people as well. And you? You have to someone?
-No one in particular. Not since I was child.
-Ah, Yes?
-Well, when was child lived at the Court of Maria Teresa. Used to play with his daughter Maria
Antonia. Maria Antonieta is called to itself same now. The girl more beautiful in its time. We used to play
duets. We used to joke about our wedding, but it was to France with that pig of Luis.
-Shit-said Rice-. This is really surprising, do you know?, she is practically a legend in the place of where
come. You cut her head during the revolution French by organizing too many parties.
-No, no it did...
-That was in our revolution French-said Rice-. It yours was an anger much lower.
-You should go to see it, if is that you are interested in. Certainly, you should a favor by have you saved
her life.
Until Rice could answer, Parker came to your table, surrounded by former marriageable ladies with
skirts of spandex and sequin tops fasteners.

-Hello, Rice! -Parker, blithely anachronistic with his shirt and his black leather jeans shouted-. Where can
you get that pair of hips without broom sticks? Come, let's go on a spree!
Rice looked at girls who sat around the table and descorchaban bottles of champagne from a
box. Despite the small, fat and repulsive that it was Parker, they butchered it unflinchingly by the chance
to sleep between her clean sheets to RAID her bathroom Kit then.
-No, thanks - said, dodging the long cables connected to Parker recording equipment.
The image of Maria Antonieta you had trapped, and already not is rid of she.
Rice was sitting naked on the edge of a four-poster bed, trembling a little air conditioning. Beyond the
bulky conditioner from the window, through the 18th-century glass panels, he saw lush and green
landscape, dotted with small waterfalls.
In the garden, a team of gardeners, formed by ancient aristocrats in monkeys blue dark, pulled the
weeds low the boring look of a peasant keeps. The guard, dressed from head to toe in camouflage
clothing, with the exception of the tricolour Cockade in the regulatory hat, chewing gum and was playing
with the band of their cheap plastic gun. The gardens of the Petit Trianon, as the Versailles, were
treasures that deserved the best care.Belonged to the nation, because were too large as to be
transferred by the Portal of the time.
Maria Antoinette was lying to him wide on them sheets of satin pink of the bed, dressed only with a rest
of clothing inside black, and flipping through a number of Vogue. The walls of the bedroom were full of
pictures of Boucher; meters and meters of silky buttocks, pink backs and lips ruched slyly. Rice looked
perplexed since the portrait of Louise O'Morphy, stretched like a cat on a couch, to the silky roundness
of the butt and the thighs of Antoita. She breathed deep, tiresome.
-Uncle - he said, that man knew painting.
Antoita broke a piece of Hershey chocolate and said the magazine.
-I want this leather bikini - he said-. Always, since I was a girl, my damn mother tied me those damn
corsets. She believed that thing... that you call... my butt was sticking out too.
Rice leaned between her strong legs and patted on the back for convey confidence. It felt wonderfully
stupid. A week and half of obsessive carnality it had reduced to the status of an animal euphoric.
-Forget about your mother, nena. Now you are with me. Would you like that damn leather
bikini? Because it will have.
Antoita is licked the chocolate from the tip of your fingers.
-Tomorrow we will go to the cottage, would agree, uncle? Us disfrazaremos of peasants and will do the
love in the pajares, as noble savage.
Rice hesitated. Your permission of weekend was had lengthened to week and half. Security it should of
be looking for already. To the shit with them, thought and said:
-Super. I'm going to order a lunch on a picnic. Foie gras and truffles, perhaps something of turtle.
Antoita whined.
-I want modern food. Pizza, burritos, and fried chicken - when Rice shrugged his shoulders, she threw
him his arms around the neck - I want, Rice?

-What if I love you? Nena, even love the simple idea of it. -He was drunk by the story out of control,
vibrating under it as the huge black motorcycle of the imagination. When thought about a Paris of
restaurants with food take-out and bakeries flourish where the guillotine, with a Napoleon of six years
should be chewing Double Bubble gum, it felt like the Archangel Michael going at full speed.
The megalomania, it knew, was a risk work. But soon would have to return to the work, in only a few
days...
Rang the phone. Rice is coated with a robe of satin, previously property of Luis XVI. Wouldn't mind to
Luis. Now was a locksmith happily divorced from Nice.
Mozart's face appeared on the small screen of the phone.
-Eh, uncle, where are you?
-In France - said Rice vaguely. What's going on?
-Jaleo, uncle. Sutherland is has returned majara and it have been sedated. At least six people are
secured to the mount, if you also tell you - the voice of Mozart had only a minimal shadow of accent.
-Hey, I have not missed the Monte. I'll be back in a couple of days. We have... how many?, thirty people
in Northern Europe? If it is the numbers that concern you.
-To hell with the numbers. This is serious. There are uprisings. Comanches making hell Texas
facilities. Strikes work in London and Vienna. In Real time, they are pissed off. They talk about us out
here.
-What? -was now alarmed.
-Yes, came news this morning. They say that you, ladies and gentlemen, have annoyed the entire
operation. Sutherland provoked many trouble with locals before realize. Was organizing to the masons
in a sort of resistance passive and Dios knows what more.
-Shit - fucking politicians had annoyed her again. It was not quite with you pelase ass lifting plant and
pipelines. Now I had to fix the disaster of Sutherland. He looked at Mozart-. Speaking of fraternization,
to comes the us in all this? What the hell do you call me?
Mozart paled.
-Just trying to help. I've got a job in communications.
-That involves a letter green. Of give you did you get it?
-Eh, Hey, Guy, I have that get me. Again here, would it do? You need-the eyes of Mozart blinked, looking
over the shoulder of Rice.
-If you want you can bring your bunny with you. But date prisa.
-I... shit, well-said Rice.
Slipper Rice roared at a constant speed of 80 km/h, raising clouds of dust along a potholed road. They
were close to the Bavarian border. Them weevils Alpes is rising up to the sky; Radiant meadows green,
small and picturesque farms and clear and rapid currents of snow melted.

They just have their first argument. Antoita had asked him a green card and Rice had told him couldn't
get it no. In return, he offered a grey menu that would take her from a branch of the time, while you
visit Real time. I knew that it would be sent elsewhere if the project is closed, and I wanted to take her
with him. I wanted to do things decently, not abandon it in a world without Hersheys and Vogues.
But she not appreciated his offer. After several kilometers under a heavy silence, began to whine:
-I have to pee - finally - said. For beside those damn trees.
-Vale-said Rice-. Ok.
Turbines turned off and started to stand up. A herd of cows spotted departed with a sound of
cowbells. The road was deserted.
Rice came out and is stretched, looking to Antoita climb by a nearby wood and walk towards the
Grove.
-To which so much mystery? cried Rice. There is no one around. Do it already!
A dozen men hidden in the channel broke and ran towards him. In an instant, they surrounded him,
pointing at him pistolones of spark. They wore a three-cornered hats and wigs and clothing of Knight
with lace cuffs. Black carnival masks them
hiding the face.
-What cone is this? -asked Rice surprised. Mardi Gras [2]?
The Chief removed his mask and mocking bowed. Their attractive features Teutonic were made-up and
his lips were painted with Carmine.
-The count Axel Ferson at your service, Sir.
Rice knew the name. Ferson had been the lover of Antoita before the revolution.
-Listen to count, maybe you're a little angry by what Antoita, but we are sure that we can fix it. Not
prefer to have a TV in color?
-Save your Satanic bribes, Lord! -surprise Ferson-. I do not manchar my hands milking the cow of the
collaborators. We are the free Mason front of liberation!
-God - he said-. No you can go in serious. Do you intend to seize the entire project with these toy
pistolitas?
-We are conscious of his superiority in armament, Mr. For that you have taken as hostage-spoke to the
others in German. You tied them hands and it put in the part of back of a cart of horses that came out to
the trot from the trees.
-Are not even going to go by car? -He asked Rice. Looking towards back saw to Antoita sad, sitting on
the road, near the slider.
-Reject their machines-said Ferson-. It is one of the faces of his atheism. Soon you will be back to hell
where you came!

-With what? With sticks of broom? -Rice sat in the back of the wagon, ignoring the plague to manure
and rotting hay. Do not confuse our kindness with weakness. If they send the army of 'grey letter' by the
Portal, will not be of you or to fill an ashtray.
-We are ready to sacrifice! There are thousands every day those who join our global movement, under
the banner of the eye that everything it sees! We demand our destiny! The destination that you have
robbed us!
-Do your destiny? -Rice was horrified. Look, count, would some time have heard talk of the guillotine?
-Would not return to hear nothing more about your machines - Ferson gesticul to a subordinate. Gag
him!
Transported to Rice to a farm at the outskirts of Salzburg. During fifteen hours spent crushing bones in
the cart didn't think another thing in the betrayal of Antoita. If the green card he had promised, would
would have taken him also to ambush? The letter was the only thing she wanted, but how could the
masons get you one?
Watchers of Rice averaged relentlessly against his window, making rustle his boots on the poorly-spiked
wood floor. By their constant references to Salzburg, he understood that some type of siege was taking
place.
No one had appeared to negotiate the release of Rice and the masons were getting nervous. If I could
only Growl under his jaw! Rice was sure that would thus be able to make them reason.
He heard ringing in the distance, rising quickly to become a roar. Four of the men ran outside, leaving an
only keeps in the door open. Rice he stirred in his restraints and tried to sit down.
Suddenly the timbering over your head jumped chips made by a heavy machine gun fire. With a thud, a
grenade exploded in the faade of the House, and windows pulverized, doing enter a wave of black
smoke erupted.Drowning is, the mason, said his big kill of spark to Rice, but before could tighten the
trigger a burst of bullets threw to the terrorist against the wall.
A small and strong man with bulletproof vest and leather pants burst into the room. Removed the
goggles on his face blackened by smoke, revealing Eastern eyes. A couple of greasy ropes hung from his
back. He wore in the arm a gun assault and his team, two bandoliers with grenades.
-Well - he growled-. The last that was-you removed the gag to Rice. He smelled the sweat, smoke and
hardly cured leather-. You're Rice?
Only rice was able to nod and open mouth breathing.
His liberator it put of foot and you cut the cords with a bayonet.
-Am Jebe Noyon. Trans-Temporal Army - put in the hands of Rice a skin of leather with sour milk of
Mule. The smell almost made vomiting to Rice-. It is koumiss, good for you! Bebe, Jebe Noyon tells you!
Rice it sorbi a little but it was so sour that bile went to the throat.
-You are the one of the gray letter, isn't it? -He said weakly.
-Yes, the Army letter grey - said Jebe-. The warriors more bastards from every time and place! There
were only five guards here. I killed everyone! I, Jebe Noyon, was general in Chief of Genghis Khan, terror
of the Earth, vale, uncle? -then looked to Rice to the eyes-. You've heard of me, isn't it?

-Sorry, Jebe, but not.

-The Earth turned black under the treads of my horse.
-Sure that Yes, uncle.
-You assemble behind me - he said, dragging rice towards the door-. See how the Earth is black low
them tires of my Harley, vale?
From the hills surrounding Salzburg, they looked down, to the anachronism that had gone mad.
Locals with dimensions of mesh leggings soldiers lay in pools of blood near the gates of the
refinery. Another battalion marching forward, in formation, with the prepared muskets, a handful of
Huns and Mongols in the doors massacred them with his Orange tracer fire and looked at how the
survivors were dispersed.
Jebe Noyon laughed at laughter.
-Is the same as Cambaluc site! Only that there is a stack of heads and torn ears; Uncle, now we are
civilized, vale? Perhaps then let's howling, searing them with the palm, with napalm, sons of bitches,
stop them, uncle.
-No can do that, Jebe-said Rice concerned-. Those poor bastards don't have the less opportunity. Not
serve of anything exterminate them.
Jebe shrugged.
-Sometimes I forget, OK? Always thinking in conquer the world - started the bike and threw a look of
hatred. Rice is seized to the smelly vest bulletproof from the Mongolian while going to all speed Hill
down. Jebe was downloaded his resentment with the enemy, crossing streets at full speed, deliberately
running over a group of grenadiers of Brunswick. Only the force of the fear saved to Rice of fall is while
the legs and them torsos were hit and crushed under them tires.
Jebe is stopped skidding inside the gates of the complex. A noisy horde of Mongols with load bearing
and uniform military them surrounded to the moment. Rice, with sore kidneys, came to shove.
The radiation ionizing darkened the sky of the sunset around the Castle Hohensalzsburg. They were
focusing on the Portal with a maximum of energy, sending cars filled with grey letters and sending back
the same car, loaded to the roof of jewels and paintings.
On the tableteo of the shots, Rice could hear the lament of the VTOL carrying the evacuees in the US
and Africa. Roman Centurions, protected with bullet-proof armor and carrying rocket-propelled
grenades, leading to Real time staff through the tunnels leading to the Portal.
Mozart is found among the crowd, waving enthusiastic to Rice.
-We are going, uncle! Fantastic!, huh? Of return to the Real time!
Rice looked full of oil pumping towers, refrigerators and precipitation catalytic units.
-It is a damn shame - he said-. All this work to the trash.
-We are losing too many people, uncle. There are millions of centuries XVIII.

Them guards that contained to the multitude of the outside, of soon jumped to a side, while the Slipper
of Rice entered to all speed by the doors. A dozen of Masons fans still is grabbed from the doors and
beat in the windshield. The Mongols of Jebe intruders grabbed and killed them, while a Roman
flamethrower vomiting fire from the entrance.
Maria Antonieta came out of the slider. Rubber it seized but its sleeve is le was in her hand. He saw
Mozart and ran to him, with rubber a few steps behind.
-You, Wolfie, bastard! What happens with your promises, you merde, motherfucker!
Mozart took off his mirror sunglasses. He turned to Rice.
-Who is this woman?
-Green card, Wolfie! You said that if it sold rice to the masons, I would get the letter! -She stopped to
take breath and Jebe took her by one arm. While it revolved toward him, whipped him up in the jaw,
and she collapsed on the blacktop.
Mongolian fixed his expressionless eyes at Mozart.
-Were you, eh? You, traitor? -with the speed of a cobra attacking, pulled out his submachine gun and
nailed the mouth of the canon in the nose of Mozart-. I put my machine playing rock and there is
nothing except your ears.
At that time, was heard a single shot that produced an echo on the other side of the courtyard. Rubber
head fell back and he collapsed like a sack.
Rice turned to the right. Parker, DJ, was at the entrance of the barracks of tools. It had a PPK.
-Quiet, Rice - Parker said, walking towards it-. It was only a henchman; dispensable.
-You have killed him!
- And what? -said Parker an arm through the fragile shoulders of Mozart. This is my boy! I conveyed by
the line a couple of their new songs a month ago. And you know what? The boy has arrived to the
number five of the forty major! The five! -Parker got the gun by his belt-. I only needed a bullet!
-Do you have given a letter green, Parker?
-Non - said Mozart-. It was Sutherland.
-What you did?
-Nothing! You him swear, uncle! Good, perhaps I did a bit of theatre, just what she wanted to see. I was
man finished, I had stolen my music, this is, would even his true soul? -Mozart put the eyes in white. She I gave the letter green, but this not you was enough. Not could overcome is to his sense of
guilt. And you know the rest.
- And when it was caught, had fear of that not us largsemos in time. So you decided to leave me in the
mess! You were to Antoita to dedicate myself to the Freemasons. That's what you did!
When heard your name, Antoita moaned gently from the asphalt. Rice not be worried by them
scratches, by the mud, nor by them cuts in their tight jeans of Leopard. It was still the most adorable
creature that had never seen.

Mozart is afraid of shoulders.

-When I was a free mason. See, uncle, not anything curl I mean, only thing I did was to drop four ideas,
and see what they have done - he said pointing vaguely toward the carnage to its around. I knew that
somehow you libraries.
-Not can use to the people as well as well!
-Nonsense, Rice! You do it all the time! I needed the fence so that Real time we transported! For God's
sake, I can't wait fifteen years in the queue. The history says I'll be dead in 15 years! I don't want to die
in this dump! I want that car and that recording studio!
-Forget it, colleague! -said Rice-. When you hear in Real time that you fastidiaste it here...
Parker laughed.
-Short, Rice. We are talking about forty major, not a refinery's three room - grabbed his arm Mozart
plant. Listening, Wolfie, boy, let's get through those tunnels. You will have to sign some papers as soon
as we get to the future.
The Sun had disappeared, but disintegrating loading Cannon lit up the night, dropping shots on the
city. By a time Rice is was perplexed while the bullets of them cannons enemies bashed harmless against
those deposits.Then, finally, shook her head. The time of Salzburg was last.
Loading Antoita on his shoulders, he ran towards the safety of the tunnels.
[1]
Reference to the need to work in the United States, which is especially difficult to get permission. Then
the authors play with the idea, hence his 'grey letter'. (The T. N.)
[2]
Feast of Carnival that takes place in New Orleans and is famous for its wildness. The T. N.)