QUEEN OF THIEVES

ASPEN SPOTTED THE MARK and sent Little Gil scrambling through the crowd of suits and smartcars to fetch Rachel. From her perch in the rafters of the abandoned warehouse, Rachel listened to the boy, her good eye bright, her bad eye in the ruined side of her face as dead as a fish gone belly up, then she called Max over.

“Watch the family,” Rachel said. “There’s slavers about.” As if hiding them from sight, Max maneuvered his bulk before the younger children —cherub-faced Roy Boyd, Rough Neck, Julie, Cinnamon and the others. Max was slow, but he was as old as Rachel, stubble already dotting his chin and his voice turning to gravel. “Maybe we’ll eat this week,” Rachel said and let Little Gil lead her away.

They raced the alleys past Rush Street and Fifth, dodging rollie pollies and feral dogs until they found Aspen perched on the cement wall in Heart Plaza. Aspen grinned and sucked a fruit ice, pointing a grimy finger into the noonday crowd.

Rachel searched the crowd of suits until she focused on the gray-haired man and his elegant lady lounging by the fountain. “Why him?” she asked.

Aspen shrugged her shoulders. “Trailed him from the highbank. Saw him pat his pockets all the time. Big big bulge there.”

“Need a dodge?” Little Gil asked.

Rachel shook her head. Too dangerous in broad daylight to risk the little boy. She checked for rollie pollies or robot cars, but saw only suits and a rainbow arcing through the fountain spray. Rachel sized up the situation, blocking out anything irrelevant to her goal, then scrambled toward the mark. People, when they noticed the girl at all, made way for her as if stepping around dog shit. Mostly, they tried to avoid looking at her ruined face (left side of her face like melted wax, eye hanging low on the cheek, the stuff of nightmare vids.) Rachel ignored the stares; for most of her life, Rachel had been stared at and avoided. None of that mattered anymore. The kids needed money. These people had the money. Nothing else in life mattered.

Rachel eased behind the gray-haired man, slipped on her pathetic look and tugged at the man’s arm. He flinched at the touch and turned. His eyes narrowed and his mouth formed an O.

“Please, sir,” Rachel said. “You dropped this.” She opened her hand to display a tiny data chip resting on her palm. Instinctively, the man’s hand moved to his left suit pocket.

“Why, I don’t know,” he said.

The woman looked down at Rachel, her initial shock yielding into pity. The man reached into his pocket and extracted a handful of data chips. “I don’t know,” he said. “I thought I only had five.”

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “I saw it fall right there by your pants leg. Maybe I made a mistake. I’ll keep it.”

She turned to leave, felt the pressure of a hand on her shoulder. She had him. She turned to make sure she owned the woman. “You’re very pretty,” she said.

The woman smiled. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Rachel.”

“It’s a lovely name,” she said.

“At least my name’s lovely,” Rachel said.

Heartbreak flared on the woman’s face.

“Let me see that chip,” the man said, replacing his own chips in his pocket.

Rachel handed him the chip, turning to his side as she did so, her thin hand, as light as cotton candy, slipped into his pocket and retrieved a chip.

“No, no, I don’t think this is mine,” the man said handing it back to Rachel. “But thank you very much, young lady.”

Rachel smiled up at the man, then froze. The rollie pollie appeared behind them in flak jacket and mirrored shades. Play innocent? If only she could see the cop’s eyes. His hand slid down his side where a holster should be. Instinct took over and Rachel fled.

She made it three yards, trying to put suits between her and the rollie pollie. She never heard the stunner. Her legs buckled, her back arched, electric fire singed her nerves. Rachel collapsed and writhed like a marionette jerked about by a mad puppeteer, then lay still, consciousness fleeing down a bright white tunnel.

AWARENESS RETURNED with a dull throb in Rachel’s head and an ache in her knees. She opened her eyes to see a bug with way too many legs scurry across the concrete floor. For a moment, the bug looked as if it might head for her face, then thought better of it and dashed into a hole in the wall. The smell of urine infected the air and someone had vomited in a corner, days ago from the look of the dried mess. Rachel slowly uncurled from a fetal position to sit up and massage the ache from her knees. A security camera on the ceiling hissed on its mount, tracking her moves. She watched it, wondering if she could maneuver behind it and pop it from its mount. Government-issue electronics fetched a good price on the streets.

Heels clicked on linoleum. Rachel had landed in the tombs before and knew the drill. She slapped on her pathetic mask complete with a tear and a stifled sob. The cell door clanked open to reveal a uniform with a face as pockmarked as the concrete floor. He regarded Rachel for a moment, then spit.

“Let’s go, kid,” he said.

The uniform pushed her through a corridor as stark and white as a fainting spell. “Knock off the act,” the uniform said. “No one believes you.”

Rachel sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “What’s going to happen to me?” she whined. “I want to go home!”

“Shut up,” the uniform said.

Rachel resisted an urge to bite his leg. A stunner flapped in its holster at his side, within reach and as tempting as the mark in the plaza. She wanted the weapon, not because Rachel had any thoughts of escape, but simply because it was available. Rachel was a thief, the best in the city, and good enough to keep the other kids in food and clothes, the young ones even looking up to her as if she was some vid star. Sometimes it seemed as if years ago the idea of stealing entered her mind then got stuck there, repeating itself endlessly until it crowded out all other thoughts, in effect stealing her own brain. So she eyed the stunner, even began to lift her hand toward it, but caught herself in time.

They passed a group of rollie pollies slipping on their flak jackets and heading for a tour of duty, followed another corridor and entered a bare white interrogation room. Rachel flinched; she had prepared a routine for a cop, but instead found the gray-haired mark and his woman. The uniform kicked the door shut and leaned against the wall.

“Behave yourself,” he said and pushed Rachel toward the couple.

“Come here,” the woman said. “No one is going to hurt you.”

Rachel approached slowly, keeping her eyes on her boots. When she stood before the couple, the woman took Rachel’s chin in her hand and tilted her head back so she could see the girl’s face. The woman had the plastic look of someone who had been through many rejuvenation treatments. The man looked more natural, jowls beginning to sag his face, sad eyes lost in deep sockets.

“Whatever were you going to do with my credit chips?” the man asked.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “I was hungry,” she said between sniffles. “Maybe I could sell it or something.”

The uniform laughed. “Don’t let the little shit fool you. She’s probably part of a ring. The smart ones can hack your account before you even know a chip is missing.”

Rachel tucked her chin into her collarbone, began to bury her face in the woman’s skirt, but hesitated for effect. “Go right ahead,” the woman said and hugged Rachel close to her.

The man knelt beside her and said, “What happened to your face?”

Her voice muffled by the skirt, Rachel said, “Always been that way.”

“Your parents can’t afford skin replacement?” he asked.

Rachel said nothing, at first for effect, but as she inhaled the woman’s mingled perfume and sweat, something caught in her throat. At her silence, the woman sighed and stroked Rachel’s hair. “Do you live on the street?” she asked. Rachel nodded her head.

The man said, “Officer, my wife and I do not wish to press charges.”

The uniform spat. “It’s your funeral. The courts will just let her lose again, anyways.”

Rachel pulled away from the woman, amazed at her good fortune, and forced a grin onto her tear-streaked face.

The woman said, “Would you like to come home with us? For a little while at least? We may be able to find a place for you.”

Real fear sent Rachel several paces away from them. They didn’t look like slavers, but you never could tell. When she found Little Gil in an alley, the boy had just escaped from two years as a sex toy.

“We won’t hurt you, honestly,” the woman said.

The man said, “It’s not your fault — what you’ve become. Maybe it’s time my family gave something back to the world.”

Which made as much sense as a burp to Rachel, but her instincts seldom failed her and she guessed the couple were sincere.

“Thank you,” she said. Life really was a kick in the butt.

MR. AND MRS. ARMSTRONG lived in one of the new developments on Carriage Hill. The house greeted them as they entered and Mozart piped through ceiling speakers. Rachel swore the walls were beige when she entered, but within seconds they transformed into a cheerful yellow.

“See,” Mrs. Armstrong said. “House is glad you’ve come to stay with us.”

Rachel gaped at the grand stairway, the hutch filled with crystal glimpsed in the dining room, enough furniture to sleep twice as many kids as lived in the warehouse. The house seemed to go on forever, square rooms and circular rooms and skylights and even a greenhouse that smelled of lilacs and wet earth.

The Armstrongs introduced Rachel to their son Bobby. Bobby was home from Dartmouth on spring break. To Rachel, he looked like one of those golden men in underwear ads. Bobby stared blankly at Rachel, then grinned and said, “How’s it going, shitface?”

Before the Armstrongs could recover from their shock, Rachel said, “Fine, cocksucker.”

“Rachel!” Mrs. Armstrong cried.

Bobby Armstrong threw his head back and laughed. “This is going to be great,” he said.

“There is some language we use and some we don’t,” Mrs. Armstrong said. Distaste soured her face, then vanished in a sad smile. “What you must have lived through. Poor little girl.”

Bobby said, “You want to give it a bath?”

His mother shot him a curdled-milk look.

Bobby knelt beside Rachel and examined her face. When his fingers brushed her skin they stoked a deep warmth in her belly as if he strummed music on her skin. She tried to look him in the eye, but focused on his belt buckle. “Street kid, right?” he asked. Rachel nodded.

“Ever been to a VR alley?” he asked. “Ever play Sim Psycho?” At first Rachel thought he was making fun of her, but when she looked into his face she saw only curiosity. She shook her head. “I’ll take you next time I go with the guys. Would you like that?”

“Yes, please,” Rachel said. Bobby stood and grinned and as he walked away, Rachel gaped at the curve of his butt beneath his jeans and felt heat enflame her ruined face.

That night, the house bathed Rachel in warm water and bubbles and added a skin conditioner. Mrs. Armstrong gave her a nightgown decorated with happy turtles, left over from her daughter Claire. Claire was attending CalTech, Mrs. Armstrong explained, finishing her post-doc work in oceanography. Bobby excelled in math and even though he was only a freshman he already knew his field was economic modeling, something to do with artificial intelligence and stocks, which was all beyond her. “They’re wonderful kids,” she sighed.

By three in the morning, Rachel carted a pillow case full of silverware, palm terminals, credit chips and assorted gold knick-knacks through the house. She paused in the hallway by the Armstrong’s bedroom, listened, then eased the door open. Rabbit soft she crept to the dresser and opened a jewelry box and quietly sucked in her breath. She had never touched actual diamonds. Bracelets and pendants and earrings were arranged on velvet as if resting in a jeweler’s display case. Rachel helped herself, slipped from the bedroom and headed downstairs, With a hand on the door, she hesitated, trying to figure out the alarm system.

“Can I help?” the house asked.

“Go to sleep,” Rachel hissed, then said, “Turn off the alarm.”

“I’m sorry. That command cannot be overwritten.”

Rachel ignored the metallic voice and crept to the living room window. A full moon plated the neighborhood in silver. It was all so quiet, so still, far different from the insane background hum of sirens and traffic in the city. She thought she heard an owl, but couldn’t be sure. Headlights suddenly knifed through the dark, sending Rachel a step back into the shadows. Two smart cars hummed up the driveway, even before the engines cut, she heard the laughter. Bobby Armstrong staggered from a sleek black car, tottered for a moment, then made way for a girl with golden hair. Two other boys leaped from the second car, laughing, using a beer can for a football. Oblivious to their friends, Bobby and the girl embraced, leaned against the car until he supported her weight and she scissored her legs around his waist. In the moonlight they looked like enchanted lovers from a fairy tale.

Rachel smirked as she watched; these happy dolts would last all of one day on the streets. Her smirk died, smothered in a sudden, immense longing, the memory of Bobby Armstrong’s fingers on her face igniting within her like heat lightning. There were what — five or six years between them? The thought made no difference to Rachel; she wanted him the way she wanted the jewelry. She watched his hands stroke the girl’s thighs, her own hands finding their way between her legs.

The beer can ricocheted off the car hood. Laughing, Bobby and the girl parted. Rachel dropped behind a couch as Bobby sauntered into the house. From across the room she could smell the beer and hemp. She watched him mount the stairs, heard the cars drive off, laughter trailing behind like exhaust. As she hid, Rachel began to rethink her plan. Actually she had no plan, just the never-ending urge to steal. But slowly, a new thought crept into her mind, a vague plan. Maybe this was too good to blow with a quick strike. If she stayed a while and played good girl, who knew what real riches she might find? She sat on the proverbial gold mine, enough to keep the kids in high style, maybe enough to break the grind of hunting money and food, for a while at least.

Or maybe she just wanted to stay for Bobby. Loathing welled up within her and ambushed her mind. Dumb bitch. Only the family mattered. Besides, who could want her with a face from a nightmare?

Still, the plan made sense. With a struggle, Rachel replaced most of her loot, except for a shiny diamond pendant thing. She found a phone and dialed Aspen’s current stolen cell phone number. The girl appeared bleary-eyed in the viewer, then gaped. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

“Better than ever, my missy missy.” Rachel said. She explained her situation and her plan. “Give me a few days and we’ll clean this place out.”

Aspen looked unconvinced. “Maybe we can get by for a few days without you,” she said.

“You be boss lady,” Rachel said. “How’s Little Gil?”

“Miserable,” Aspen said. “He’s so afraid the rollie pollies will hack your brain.”

“Tell him not to worry,” Rachel said. “Tell him Rachel’s bringing him milk and honey. Hug him for me. And tell Max to stand guard. Never know what slime is roaming the streets.”

Aspen’s face went grim. “Max is feeling mighty low right now. You told him to protect us and — know it now, I guess. Roy Boyd snuck out. He ain’t come back.”

Rachel’s gut turned hollow. How old was Roy Boyd — nine maybe with blond locks and cherub face. Good pickings for slavers, the kind of boy they could sell real easy to grimy rich guys.

“Everybody’s real nervous,” Aspen said. “They’re afraid of what will happen if you don’t come back. Where’s the eats coming from. Where’s….”

“You tell them about the plan,” Rachel snapped. “You tell them to stay put. I never let any of you down before. Right? You tell them to remember that.”

“Yessem mam,” Aspen said. “Don’t get hurt.”

“Sleep tight, missy missy,” Rachel said. She cut the connection and crept upstairs to her bed beneath a canopy of silk, but sleep eluded her. She remembered playing five card stud with Roy Boyd and his grin exploding across his face like fireworks. Come home, Roy Boyd, please. But she did not expect to see the boy again. Too many others had strayed and been swallowed up by the streets. Rachel rarely thought about the future; surviving the present took all her heart. But the past wrote itself into her brain like lessons carved into granite. Good-bye, Roy Boyd.

IN THE MORNING, Rachel ate scrambled eggs and waffles and scones. Mrs. Armstrong watched her, smiling all the while as if she had just told the most wonderful story. The dining nook overlooked a small patio and a path leading to a stream and a pine forest beyond. Cardinals pecked at seeds stuck in a honey cone and squirrels played tag in the redbuds. Rachel watched a monarch flutter among the roses and remembered the time she was so hungry she ate a butterfly. That was long ago, before she learned her trade, when some nights the kids battled feral dogs in the alleys over scraps of garbage.

After breakfast, Mr. Armstrong took Rachel by the hand and led her to a gazebo overlooking the stream. Bobby appeared at the side of the house and drove away in a two-seater. Rachel wondered what he would look like in his underwear, remembered how his hands stroked the girl’s thighs.

“He’s a good kid,” Mr. Armstrong said, catching her gaze at his son. “Both our children are. They have good futures. We made sure of that.” Mr. Armstrong sighed and leaned back on his bench. Rachel swung on a swing chair and dangled her new shoes above the red wood. “I don’t envy them the world they have to live in,” Mr. Armstrong said. “It’s crazy, just crazy. Unless you can afford the best modifications for your kids they have no chance to compete. Claire’s a pure gene mod, but by the time Bobby reached high school we had to augment him with a coprocessor. Where will it end?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them and studied Rachel. “That’s why you’re in the state you’re in,” he said. “If you have the money, your kids thrive. If you don’t…. “He held his hands out, palms up as if displaying the answer. “What’s your first memory?” he asked.

The question took Rachel by surprise. She thought about it, finally conjured up an image of Mr. Clancy. “I don’t think he was my father,” she said. “I think he was what they call a foster parent.” “Was he nice?” Mr. Armstrong asked.

“He touched me here,” she answered, dropping her hand to her crotch. “He smelled bad.”

Mr. Armstrong looked as if he had been kicked. “What happened?”

Rachel shrugged her shoulders. “These kids were boosting vids from a loading dock. I saw them and saw rollie pollies coming and I warned them and ran with them. Guess I’ve been with them since then.”

Mr. Armstrong shook his head in disbelief. “You kids live on your own? How do you survive?”

Rachel shrugged her shoulders, not sure how truthful she should be. She settled on, “The older kids bring us food and money.”

With a sad nod of his head, Mr. Armstrong said, “I see. It’s just so damned unfair. It’s not your fault your parents were poor. And the thing of it is, there’s no chance for any of you to catch up. How can you compete with a kid engineered to an IQ of 175? It’s getting worse every day. You’re damned here on Earth.”

Rachel nodded sagely but had no idea what the man was talking about.

“Well for you, at any rate, that will change a bit. My wife and I have talked this over. We are very well connected. We want to fix your face.”

Rachel was sure she had misunderstood him. Fix her? How?

“Well, say something,” the man said and grinned.

Rachel turned away from him, felt her cheeks flush, suddenly unwilling to have anyone see her damaged face. Later, she went to her bedroom and her body, as if taking on a life of its own, took her to the mirror. A gargoyle stared back at her. She had lied to the Armstrongs, although she couldn’t say why. Clancy had ruined her face, burned it with acid when she tried to fight him off. She examined the scars, touched them, stretched the skin to see what it might look like if the Armstrongs fixed her. Rachel had no memory of a normal face. After a while, her scars became an asset — nobody wanted her, people treated her like a plague carrier and left her alone, pretended she didn’t exist. Which was how she learned her trade and survived. Her very ugliness made her invisible.

Rachel pictured herself pretty like Aspen. She pictured a boy like Bobby Armstrong looking at her and seeing her and liking what he saw and taking her in his arms, reaching for her thighs.

A sudden chill shuddered its way through Rachel. She hugged herself and turned from the mirror. She could not let herself want a life like that. She had her kids to think about. Nothing else mattered.

But still…?

THE OLD NEED sent Rachel on the prowl that night. She fought the impulse to take everything and run, decorate herself with diamonds and stuff her pockets with the cash money she knew must be secreted somewhere in the house. No, have patience, remember the plan. But she had to take something. She found an antique fountain pen in a roll-top desk. Greasy Jack the fence was always going on about how people paid big money for worthless old junk if you called it an antique. Rachel grabbed the pen and headed upstairs.

Outside Bobby Armstrong’s door, Rachel hesitated. The closed door beckoned like the entrance to a cave hiding treasure. Rachel had no idea if Bobby was home, but trusted her stealth. Besides, maybe she’d get a glimpse of the boy in his underwear, even naked. With a mischievous grin, Rachel eased open the door.

The bed across the room was empty. She tiptoed in, froze when she glimpsed a cold blue light in an alcove to her right. She looked, her heart thumped against her ribs.

Bobby sprawled in a recliner, his face turned garish in the light of a palm terminal in his hand, shining upward and casting demonic shadows. His eyes were wide open, looked straight at Rachel, but saw nothing in the room. His jaw hung slack and drool flecked his chin. A thin lead stretched from the back of his head to the terminal.

Channel surfing, Rachel thought. She shuddered and stepped backward. Rachel lived in a world fueled by drugs. No price was too high for the promise of escape. Joy Bang and Delirium and Mex and Supercoke and a new one every week rushed like a river through the streets and more people than she could count got swept up in that torrent, swept to their deaths. Rachel had two rules for her kids — no one squeals and no one goes near drugs. Anyone tempted by the easy money got kicked out on their ass. She made that rule the day the rollie pollies fished Joey Barnes from the river, a wad of bills in one pocket, a syringe in the other. Joe), had been eight years old.

To Rachel, channel surfing was just another drug. She could barely read, wouldn’t know an icon from a coffee cup, but she understood the principle. Kids like Bobby Armstrong, the ones augmented with coprocessors, could have jacks surgically implanted and from there connect directly into the Net. What they did in their reveries, Rachel couldn’t guess. But once jacked in, they were hooked no differently than the Joy Bang addict. And like the addict, if a channel surfer lost their fix, they went mad and screamed and tore their own flesh. Only drug addicts recovered. Channel surfers just withdrew into ruined and empty hulks, forever grieving their lost electronic world.

Rachel turned away from Bobby Armstrong and hurried to her room.

She slept little that night, sitting in her bed beneath the silk canopy, listening to the night sounds — an owl hooting outside, walls settling, pipes creaking. It was so easy to be fooled by the skylights and the clean tablecloths and the Armstrongs’ generosity and Bobby’s good looks and all the while miss the sense of something gone terribly wrong in their lives. In his own way, Bobby ran from his demons just as Rachel’s family ran from the street. The thought, oddly, cheered Rachel. No golden God, Bobby was flawed and perhaps — just perhaps — within her reach.

She imagined herself beautiful and Bobby Armstrong taking her in his arms and giving her presents of his own free will. A yearning for such a life swept through Rachel, a yearning as strong as her need to steal. She could get used to life in a bed like this. With that thought, she finally fell asleep.

The next morning, Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong went out. Rachel took the diamond pendant thing and the antique pen and headed into the pines behind the house. The forest was actually a tiny nature preserve leading to a commons. From there, she cut across the development to the rendezvous point, the tube station on Fredricksburg Avenue. Little Gil saw her first, threw himself into her arms. Rachel swung him around, then hugged Aspen.

“Hey, missy missy.”

“Hey you,” Aspen said.

Little Gil yanked her arm. “Come home,” he pleaded.

“Not now,” she said. “There’s more milk and honey for the taking.”

Aspen cocked her head and frowned. “You sure you knows the score?”

“Did I ever fuck up?”

“Never,” said Aspen.

“No way,” said Little Gil.

Rachel glanced over her shoulder, waited for a suit to pass, then stuffed the pendant and the pen into Aspen’s hand. The girl’s eyes formed discs. “We’ve never never never had this much?

“And there’s more. I’ve got to get back. Take this to Greasy Jack and don’t let him sucker you. But first show this stuff to the family. Make them understand there’s more where this came from. Take care missy missy.”

She pulled away from Little Gil and was about to leave, but instead asked, “Roy Boyd?”

“Gone,” Aspen said.

Rachel forced back a shudder and turned to race toward the development. She heard Little Gil cry out and Aspen call, “They touch you and we’ll kill ‘em. Eat their eyeballs for dinner!”

“No worry, no pain,” Rachel called to them.

When she forded the stream and started up the incline to the house, she spied Bobby sitting on the patio, grinning at her. “Good morning, shitface,” he said.

“Morning, cocksucker,” she said.

“Sit and have a beer with me.”

“Sure,” she said, and accepted a frosted stein. Bobby watched her over the rim of his stein, his gaze flooding her body with warmth. “You were in my room last night,” he said.

Rachel flinched, then willed herself impassive, judged the distance to the drive and escape.

“No point in lying,” he said. “House told me. House watches everything you do.”

She sat motionless, but defeat slumped her soul. No new face, no milk and honey, no Bobby.

Bobby laughed. “My parents don’t know. I programmed House to watch you. My poor parents. They mean well. They wouldn’t snoop on you. Probably think it wouldn’t be good for your self-esteem or something.” He swallowed a gulp and leaned forward. “So I guess we have a little stalemate here. Let’s make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Rachel asked.

“You keep your mouth shut and I keep my mouth shut. We both win. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said, still planning her escape.

Bobby leaned back and took a drink, wiped foam from his lips with his tongue.

“Is it better than Joy Bang?” she asked.

He smirked and shook his head. “You are the little bitch, aren’t you? There’s no comparison. None at all.”

“What do you do when you’re hooked up?” She craned her neck to see if she could spot the jack, but his blonde hair hid any trace.

“Listen,” he said. Bobby’s eyes focused on something far beyond Rachel. “It’s like a symphony or something, like all the people on the Net are singing to each other, voices, thousands of voices all singing to each other and they all make up this one great mind. When you’re jacked, you’re part of it. It floats you away and all this — this shit we call life doesn’t matter anymore. You don’t matter because you’re part of it.”

“Sounds like Joy Bang” she said.

Bobby focused on her and smiled. “Maybe it is. But that’s not why we do it. Afterward, you know things.”

She waited for him to continue, but he just went on smiling. “What kind of things?” she asked.

“Things,” he said. “All kinds.” He leaned forward, his eyes large and blazing. “That stupid little voice in your head isn’t your mind at all. It’s just the tiny part you’re aware off. Beneath the surface, that’s where all the really important stuff happens. And when you’re jacked, it’s like tons of information goes straight into your brain where you can’t see it just like everything around us is going straight into our brain right now, only we aren’t aware of the creatures in that forest or the air pressure or the subtle body language passing between us because we’re concentrating on each other. But our minds take it all in. Same way on the Net. Maybe the rush is like Joy Bang but underneath it all, the wealth of the Net is zooming straight into our subconscious.”

Rachel listened and tried to make sense of his monologue. “What kind of things.?” she asked again.

“Like wealth,” he said. “People flounder around picking stocks like it’s some kind of science. But all this financial information goes into your brain and out comes the pattern. You see the pattern and you know what to buy. You meet somebody at a party and then wham! It hits you. Everything about this guy is already in your head — his gene mods, his grades, what he likes in sex, his whole medical history, everything. When you’ve got that, you’ve got power over the guy. Politics! Way before anyone has a clue who’s going to get elected, you know because you’re following all the patterns without even knowing it. Think about it. You know who to give money to, which politician to buy. And you’re first in line at the trough. It’s incredible!”

Rachel glimpsed his meaning, indeed saw the sense beneath his words, even though the details remained fuzzy.

A sly grin puckered Bobby’s mouth. “And I haven’t even told you about the sex. Search out anybody you like and— well, it leaves Joy Bang in the dust.” Bobby finished his beer, slammed the stein onto the patio table, and pushed his chair back. “Got to be going, shitface. You have a real nice day. And don’t forget our deal.”

He slapped her on the back and headed for the house. “Bobby,” she called after him. “Do you think I could be pretty?”

Bobby smiled and for a moment the sun angled across his face and Rachel melted inside. “Yeah, they told me they’re taking you in for surgery,” he said. He cocked his head and studied her and said, “Yeah. I can see it. You will be drop-dead gorgeous.”

She watched him leave in his sports car, feeling stunned and confused and then terrified.

At first she had no idea what demons drove her, but they forced her into the house. Rachel prowled the place, fingers caressing silverware and antiques and the treasure trove in the jewelry box in the Armstrongs’ bedroom. She needed to steal, needed to steal everything. Stealing was best — the old comfortable safe way of earning a living for her kids. If she stopped stealing, she could stay. She would be drop-dead gorgeous. And then who would lead her kids.?

Rachel loaded her pockets with rings and bracelets, raided Bobby’s room and found cash money in his desk. She turned to flee, but hesitated. She tasted salt on her lips and with a start realized tears rolled down her cheeks. Rachel slumped in the recliner and let it mold itself to her thin body, embracing her like a plastic hug. By late afternoon, her sobbing ended and in the resulting calm she saw the solution. She would steal a future for them and herself, only her booty couldn’t be stuffed into her pockets or tied up in a pillow case. It sailed on electric winds in a place she could not touch, but which nonetheless existed and thus could be robbed. It was the same place where she could become one with Bobby.

The Armstrongs came home that night to find Rachel in the den, sobbing, her face buried in a pillow. She ran to them and hugged Mr. Armstrong and cried into his belt. At last, the two adults calmed her hysteria and sat with her on the couch. Mrs. Armstrong stroked Rachel’s hair and said, “What is it, child.?”

“I don’t care about my face,” Rachel blubbered. “I don’t want you to fix it!”

The Armstrongs, puzzled, calmed her again. “Why won’t you let us help you.?” Mr. Armstrong said.

“I listened to what you told me,” Rachel whimpered. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter what I look like. I can’t be like you. I’m just normal. I’ll never be anything!”

“There, there,” Mrs. Armstrong said. She glanced at her husband who did his best to hide his own moist eyes.

“Rachel,” he said. “Listen to me. It’s true there’s nothing that can be done about your genetic makeup. But there are other ways. Augmentations. Remember what I told you about our son.?” Rachel nodded. “The co —co….”

“Coprocessor,” Mr. Armstrong said. “Perhaps a modification like that is possible.”

Rachel looked up at him and wiped the grime from her face. “I just want to be like you,” she said. “I don’t want to go back to the streets.”

Mrs. Armstrong smiled. “That will never happen, child. We can at least save you.”

Rachel hugged the woman and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles.

She waited up late that night until Bobby, smelling of beer and weed, staggered into the house. He flinched when she stepped in front of him, then rearranged his face into a smirk. “Hey, shitface,” he said.

“I’ve been caught before. The only bad thing that will happen to me is getting kicked out of this house. But if you get caught they’ll take away that socket and you won’t have your fix.”

Bobby did his best to grin, but his mouth faltered. “What are you talking about?”

“You know what happens when a channel suffer gets cut off. You want to be a zombie?”

“I ought to break your stupid neck,” he snapped and almost lunged for her.

“New deal,” she said. “Your parents said they’d get me a coprocessor. I keep my mouth shut if you help me get my own jack.”

He gaped at her, suddenly laughed. “Is this a joke?”

Rachel shook her head.

“I won’t be blackmailed by you,” he said.

“Yes you will,” she said.

He considered her demands, finally sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I’m going to bed,” he said.

“And when I’m hooked up,” she said. “You’ll come to me sometimes and make love to me.”

Bobby froze on the steps, kept his back to her, then without a word climbed to his bedroom.

Rachel sat on the couch before her rubbery legs gave out. Terror shuddered its way through her thin body, terror at her plan, fear of some terrible retribution. Mostly she trembled at the thought of what she was about to become, everything she would lose.

Ah, but everything she’d gain!

WHEN SHE WAS ready, Rachel left the Armstrongs’ house, carrying a sack of loot. She took the tube into the city and entered the warehouse. Little Gil spotted her first, swung from his perch in the pipes and ran to her and threw himself into her arms. Max and Cinnamon and Rough Neck followed, and Aspen hugged her best friend as if afraid to let her go and risk losing Rachel again.

“Hey, missy, missy,” Rachel said.

“Hey you,” Aspen said.

The next day, the kids gathered around her in the warehouse and there on a dais made from old pallets, Rachel sat in a high-backed wooden chair, wearing one of Mrs. Armstrong’s diamond necklaces. Little Gil and Aspen decorated her hair with dandelions and lilies. For a moment, Rachel fingered the palm terminal. She still had time to back out.

Instead, she said, “This will take some time. I have to learn how to use it. But soon we will have all the milk and honey anybody could ever want.”

Rachel inserted the lead into the jack at the base of her skull. At first there was nothing. Then, slowly, the voices formed out of random static, thousands of them, a symphony of lives all connected in one massive song. Rachel closed her eyes and let her mind join the song, the music of her future. Like Bobby, she would soon know things, the patterns to lead her kids from the streets. And she would search out Bobby Armstrong and at last they would become one, lovers entwined on an electric bed.

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