Freddie Fat Boy wasn't scared, even though he had a fat man's sweat running down the inside of his arms. He could crash anything, even the brain-box of death if he wanted to. Freddie could shove his nails in and drink the lightning of the electron stream without even taking a breath. Worried, maybe. But scared? Never.
He heard the cry banging on the virtual door of his inner ear. The voice came from a place it just shouldn't be. You didn't get voices in Cyberia--not normally--but he heard it anyway. He was sure it had said 'Help.' He knew it had come from inside. All he could hear outside was the whirring bank of air-conditioners keeping him and his equipment cool. It didn't pay to get hot when he was trawling. Sweat tended to mix with the juice and fog the clarity of his signal.
Freddie's spider was out, scuttling the nodes. The slick salt-sweet juice smeared on his lids and fingertips felt good. He was augmented behind his lids and at his fingers. Some called it wet-wiring. Wet-wired was a good term for it, because wet wired was exactly what he was. The juice acted as a chemical transmitter, transferring the messages to signals that filtered through his brain and stimulated his optic nerves. He had studied the chemistry of it once, but now, he couldn't care less. He was too busy watching his virtual beast running through the landscape, nuzzling at the morsels to bring home to Daddy.
Information brokering was good. Freddie had the sort of mind that allowed him to classify and sort, and if necessary, discard snippets of information gathered from disparate places to build coherence. Some people had talent, and understanding the links and networks that held things together was his. He didn't need cosmetics to shape him into something stunning and attractive. He had a beautiful mind, and he did a good trade with it as a freelancer--as good as you could get running solo.
Now, suddenly, he had heard a voice in a place where there just shouldn't be one; a voice in the ether warranted investigation. It was just a little too unsettling.
Freddie wrenched at the cables and pulled the sucktrodes from his eyelids and fingertips. He grabbed one of the crumpled balls of tissue from the metal desk in front of him and wiped his lids, then proceeded to lick his fingers clean. He liked the taste of the juice, especially when it was mixed with the flavour of Danish. He liked to eat when he was working.
He swivelled his chair around so he was facing away from his workstation and spoke to Jayella. She looked up at him from under half-closed lids, her freckled pale face framed by the deep orange coils of her dreads.
"Shit, Jayella, I think we've got a problem."
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