If [tribe] =

By Gary Ballard

Leader of the Los Angeles street gang Los Magos is assassinated by the rival El Diablos. As members of the Five Families, war between the two gangs could ignite the whole city, prompting a response from the Chronosoft Law Enforcement Division (CLED) that could destroy all the Families. Artemis Bridge, the amoral fixer with the quick wit vows to stay out of the war despite his friendship with ex-footballer turned gangland revolutionary Stonewall, new leader of Los Magos. Bridge is reluctantly pulled into the middle of the worst civil unrest since the 2027 Riots, where he discovers the war is more than a little tribal bloodletting between rivals. This fast-paced, action-packed cyberpunk thriller is the third in the critically acclaimed Bridge Chronicles series, sequel to Under the Amoral Bridge and The Know Circuit.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gary Ballard
• Release date: Jun 12, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458040213

Gary Ballard

I began writing things down at the age of eleven, and I haven't stopped since. I have written far too many things that have gone unpublished, from very terrible horror novels in my teens, to comics during my time at Belhaven College until finally settling on cyberpunk science fiction after graduation. My first novel (Under the Amoral Bridge) is part of a larger series called The Bridge Chronicles. The second novel in the series, The Know Circuit has just been released. The Bridge Chronicles in turn is one slice of cohesive universe that began as a pen-and-paper roleplaying game.I currently live with my beautiful wife and three very insane dogs in Mississippi, where I continue to write my novels and blog on my personal blog at http://gameangst.blogspot.com.

Book preview

if [tribe] =

by

Gary A. Ballard

A Cyberpunk Novel

Copyright © 2011 by Gary A. Ballard

All Rights Reserved

Smashwords Edition 1.0 - 2011

Cover photography and design by

Gary A. Ballard

Author Photography by

Gary A. Ballard

Copyright © 2011 Gary A. Ballard

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Introduction

When life imitates art, the natural reaction is to chuckle, shrug one’s shoulders and move on. When life begins to imitate my own art, I get this weird amalgamation of shit-scared, apoplectic and wearily depressed. The setting for the novel you are about to read (and for the two previous novels I hope you’ve already read) is one that I often agonize over. Can readers really take it seriously? After all, I write about a future America where corporations are allowed to buy the rights to collect local and state taxes, run police and fire departments, and administer all the local social services we take for granted. It seems absolutely ridiculous on its face, or at least it did in 1994 when I came up with the idea. Not only would it be fiscally unrealistic, surely such a concept would be antithetical to the very idea of the constitutional republic that America is supposed to be. On the flip side, why would the free market adherents, the bastard children of Ayn Rand want to bother with local government, when one of their central tenets is that government is the problem, not the solution?

And yet, life manages to imitate my art, or at the very least, provide a credible scenario for such a travesty to occur. I’m speaking of a law that passed through the Michigan Legislature before making its insidious way to the Governor’s desk to be signed into law in March 2011. House Bill 4214 is meant to provide a mechanism for towns in financial distress to be guided out of said distress by the appointment of an emergency manager. Sounds like a well-intentioned bill, right? Many cities across the nation are one bad quarter from financial distress, and some in Michigan could already be considered economic disaster areas.

However, this law takes that concept and gives it an unhealthy dose of steroids. I don’t mean that it makes it stronger so much as it makes the law insanely strong and prone to fits of destructive homicidal rage. This emergency manager can be anyone. He is not elected. He is given such powers as the ability to null and void all contracts signed by the city. That includes the ability to nullify any collective bargaining agreements with public sector unions. This un-elected emergency manager can dissolve the town’s entire elected government.

Let that sink in. A guy you didn’t vote for can shitcan the mayor and the city council you voted into office. You can’t complain about it, because who are you going to complain to – the emergency manager who dissolved your government in the first place? This manger can set himself up as ruler of a mini-fiefdom in the land of Gov. Snyder’s kingdom.

As bad as all that is, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to take that law and apply it on a broader scale. With the recent Citizens United Supreme Court decision, corporations, already considered people by legal definition, were given the right to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advertising, cementing the rights of corporations to the form of free speech – speech, in this case, being conflated with money. What’s to stop Gov. Snyder from deciding that a corporate person is the best person for the job of emergency manager in your town? That’s right, your town could become an early version of a Local Governance License, and suddenly you’re living in the world I created.

I don’t care what political party you follow, I don’t care who you voted for, if you are an American, that should make you rage. At the very least you should be scared shitless by the thought. Do you really want the same people who caused the recession of 2008 to be put in charge of running your town’s finances, of determining which streets get police patrols or fire department service? Do you want criminals like those who drove Enron and Worldcomm into the ground to have that power over your life regardless of your vote? No matter what you think about government’s role in your life, you cannot be comfortable with the thought. Imagine, for a moment, your last phone call to customer service of your cable company. Imagine being so incensed at the incompetence and arrogance displayed by that company in regards to missing your favorite TV shows. Now imagine instead of entertainment, the problem is the piles of trash outside your house that the city government won’t take away, or the house burning down in your neighborhood because your neighbor couldn’t afford the fire service fee. What would you do in this situation? Sue? Great, go ahead and try to find a lawyer willing to take your case against a monolith that has an army of lawyers on retainer and speed dial and writes the expense off as a cost of doing business. While government can be equally infuriating, at least you have some recourse when wronged – you can vote against the administration in the next election. With corporations having become so large, so powerful and so prevalent in our lives, vote with your wallet is not an option. Often, there are few if any competitors to the largest corporations left, having been gobbled up in acquisition after acquisition until these corporate behemoths have such a virtual monopoly as to be untouchable. Think about how many choices you have for health insurance in your state, or for cable TV in your neighborhood. In some places, there are precious few choices.

Government, like any collective, can be wildly inefficient, horribly bureaucratic and impersonal, and it can often seem like it only benefits the people who aren’t you. But do you really want to go back to the company towns of the late 1890’s? Do you want your civil rights taken away from you by people you didn’t even have the opportunity to vote against? Your vote may seem a small thing but it is one of the means to hold your government accountable to your will. That is how you ensure that your government sees to your well being instead of to your exploitation.

Human history is the centuries long-struggle to establish the proper balance between the needs of the individual and the needs of the collective. Tribes formed to protect weaker individuals from stronger. The strongest ruled because they were strongest, but as rival tribes formed, the strength of the tribe became every bit as important as the strength of the individuals leading the tribe. Protecting the tribe and ensuring its prosperity was absolutely necessary to ensure the survival of the tribe. Like a living organism, the tribe’s first responsibility is its own survival, and survival requires expansion. Expansion causes conflict as resources become scarce and rival tribes fight over those limited resources. Leaders who lost sight of their duty to protect the tribe, preferring to enrich themselves over the needs of their people, were eventually replaced by those promising more prosperity, whether they were able to provide that prosperity or not. The people saw to it that their leaders lived up to their responsibility, healing the tribal organism of its sickness.

Corporations are a modern tribe of a sort. Boards and shareholders take the place of chieftains and tribal councils, while employees are the tribe’s bodies and customers are the resources that keep the tribe alive, the elk that are hunted, the land that is farmed, the stream that is fished. Overuse of resources leave the tribe starving, forcing it to move to more prosperous lands, which we call emerging markets. Mistreatment of employees will lead to employees leaving, shrinking the tribe or reducing their efficiency and morale. Their desire to fight for the tribe against rival tribes diminishes, and the tribe grows weaker. Without some sense of responsibility to the tribe and its resources, the chieftains may prosper in the short term, but the tribe will die from the inside. Today’s chieftains, the CEO’s and board members and shareholders all seem to be operating under the hope that their irresponsible behavior is irrelevant because by the time it all crumbles, they’ll have moved on to their posh retirement or their early grave. Someone gets left holding the bag eventually if the needs of the collective aren’t also considered against the needs of the individuals.

Laws like Gov. Snyder’s bill do not serve either of those needs – it puts unfettered power into the hands of unaccountable individuals. Beware the concentration of power into too few hands, especially hands that already wield the power of vast corporate riches.

If not, you may wake up one day to find yourself in a world so bizarre, it could only be made up by the fevered imagination of some crank with a word processor like me.

Previously

Artemis Bridge never did anything to help anyone else but himself. Since his unfortunate involvement with the mayoral race the previous summer, he had seen behind the curtain of the grotesque political pantomime show, a carefully staged drama run by the LGL corporation Chronosoft, Inc. Bridge’s desperate machinations had altered the performance slightly but the end result had been the same. Mayor Sunderland, corporate puppet and part-time virtual pedophile had been defeated. His opponent, Arturo Soto, a corporate puppet of a different sort, had been elected mayor of Los Angeles. Other than personal animosity towards the players, Bridge hadn’t really given a fuck.

Bridge had always been a reactor. He had taken what opportunities had come his way and reacted, turning what profit he could. His aptitude with the GlobalNet - and his loose morals - had created a subsistence life as a hacker with his girlfriend, Angela. When the federal budget crisis of 2026 had led to the explosion of violence of the '27 riots, he had reacted with a change in career, leaving behind the life of a GlobalNet hacker for a life in the flesh. He had become the go-to, know-who guy of the Los Angeles underworld, the amoral fixer with the know circuit, the man who could find whatever illegal or immoral good or service desired. He had made a decent, if somewhat dangerous, living dealing with the shitheels and the criminals and the wannabes of Los Angeles' underbelly while secretly hating them all.

The outlandish events in Boulder, Colorado the past November had compelled Bridge to visit the disaster area, ostensibly to save the grandmother of his bodyguard, Aristotle. That had been a flimsy excuse. He never gave a damn about Lalasa Freeman and only cared about Aristotle for the number of times the black giant had saved Bridge's ass. He had really gone to Boulder because of the scientists. The city had been trapped in an energy dome after the secret experiments of a group of university scientists. They had compelled Bridge to seek them out using the unusual powers of the mana engine, an extra-dimensional power source that gave them the ability to forge what Bridge had called magic spells. Seeing the powers they could wield, he had conspired with them to create a cult of sorts, the Order of the Technomancers. As silent partner to the reclusive sorcerers, Bridge morphed from reactionary to active participant in his future. Some vague idea had formed in his mind as he pictured the possibilities that the technomancers' powers could open up, but most importantly, the addition of such powerful allies had given Bridge the ability to act.

The technomancers had created an energy converter that Bridge himself had dubbed a Glowbug, a magical piece of tech that took a small input of electricity and returned that same energy multiplied, like a battery that doubled, tripled, quadrupled its output every second for infinity. The new local energy monopoly, Chronotility Energy and Water, a subsidiary of the Chronosoft LGL, squeezed everyone hard for their energy needs. Prices had almost doubled since the riots, on the pretense that the damage done by the militias to the power infrastructure of LA had strapped the utility with decreased supply and reconstruction expenses. Bridge didn't believe it for an instant, as one of Angela's info thieves had found an extensive study of Chronotility usage patterns and profit centers that proved the utility was manipulating prices by restricting supply. Bridge had held onto that report for future ammunition.

The stockpile of future ammunition was growing quite large. He had hired a technomancer recruit who went by the name of Mu as a bodyguard to supplement Aristotle. Since the death of his grandmother, Aristotle had been horribly unreliable, and Bridge suspected that the big man was drinking quite heavily. It wasn't as if Aristotle had ever been a true bodyguard. Bridge hadn't wanted to pay Aristotle enough to put his life on the line, but the giant had worked quite well most times as a six-foot-five bluff. Bridge had come to rely on the man as a personal assistant and as much of a friend as Bridge would allow. Mu was something different. As the rumors of the technomancer's magical abilities had spread, Mu had become more than a threat deterrent. He was a status symbol. The most well heeled corporate CEO couldn't afford a technomancer bodyguard, but Bridge could. No one had to know that the technomancers refused to work for corporations for fear those companies would steal the mana engine technology.

Bridge found himself using these resources in ways he never could have imagined to save lives.

Chapter 1

March 6, 2029

8:23 p.m.

Standing in an empty warehouse was not the most comfortable feeling for Bridge. Memories of the corpses of business associates in a cavernous, dingy building very similar to the one he was in now suffused his nerves with an itchy anxiety, which was exacerbated by the ill-fitting rented tuxedo. The addition of a crowd of strangers was yet another irritant. The presence of his bodyguard Mu did help, the black-clad technomancer drawing stares of disbelief and whispered wonderment. The kid wasn’t exactly being inconspicuous with his hooded cloak festooned with glowing golden runes.

Stonewall Ricardo, Bridge’s sometime bodyguard, friend, and Mexican ex-footballer, stood next to Bridge, looking just as uncomfortable and out of place in his tuxedo. Though Stonewall had invited Bridge and Angela, this really wasn’t his scene either. Now, why are we here again? Bridge asked.

We’re showing support for a brother, Stonewall replied. The brother was an artist by the name of Marjun Pulido. Pulido also happened to be a member of Stonewall’s latest project, the Los Magos gang of the Five Families. Bridge wasn’t sure what kind of art Pulido trafficked in. The barren warehouse had no fixtures to hang paintings or photos, no stage or visible equipment for a performance piece. There wasn’t even a buffet table or wine bar.

This brother of yours needs to learn how to schmooze the pinkies-up drinking set, Bridge quipped. Can’t a brother even get some piss-weak wine in this place?

Stonewall smiled. "It’s all part of the theme, amigo. Marjun is trying to set a mood here."

If the mood is starvation, then he’s spot on. Stonewall flashed Bridge a knowing grin. Oh goddamnit, it is, isn’t it? It’s just some lazy-ass statement on the emptiness of modern life, ain’t it? You could at least have warned me beforehand, I haven’t eaten since I woke up.

The lights suddenly cut out with an audible snap. Bridge started to panic, visions of armed hit teams rushing into the warehouse to take him out. Relax, Stonewall whispered. Time for the show. A faint glow of light bloomed from the inky blackness in the shape of a hand. Mu had cast a spell illuminating the area around him. Shadowy figures started to cluster unconsciously around the only source of light in the room.

In the top corner of the warehouse, another light source grew, a mini-sun outlining a piece of blue sky where the ceiling should be. Skyscrapers so large they blotted out most of the smog-filled sky winked into existence. Bridge looked around furtively, and finally caught sight of the centerpiece of the exhibit.

The scene was a distorted ant’s eye view of a disgusting, trash-filled alleyway. The proportions of everything were distorted. Bridge and the rest of the observers appeared to be no larger than a few inches high. Towering over the whole scene was an unconscious figure, sitting with one outstretched leg; his back leaned up against one side of the alleyway. His arms hung limply at his sides, an air-hypo Bridge recognized as the delivery device for most of the really good designer street drugs hanging from the figure’s limp right hand. Bridge stood next to the giant’s crotch. The man’s attire was threadbare; a worn jacket filled with holes, news faxes providing a bed sheet for this figure on the nod. The bum’s left eye, larger than any of the viewers, twitched unconsciously. Dirt and slime stained the man’s face, his hands, and every bit of his clothing. A scraggly beard so large Bridge could see the fleas working their way in and out of the tree trunk sized hairs plastered the bum’s face.

That’s both disgusting and amazing.

Isn’t it, though? Stonewall whispered.

How the fuck did a starving artist afford such an expensive hologram setup? He’s got to be running at least ten large for the equipment alone.

Stonewall’s irritation was written across his scowling face. It’s always about the paper with you, ain’t it? Bridge shrugged.

You could have asked me, I know a guy who could have gotten it for him cheap.

The equipment wasn’t an issue, Stonewall replied. Bridge knew what that meant. This kind of gear sometimes found its way off the truck, as it were.

The power consumption’s got to be off the charts, though.

Why you think the show’s only half-an-hour? Any more than that and the utility cops shows up.

I could have had Mu hook up a Glowbug.

We won’t be here long enough for it to matter, and we sure as fuck ain’t paying rent on the space. I’m not even sure who owns the joint.

Bridge continued his criticism. Mu could have really spruced this thing up, though. I mean, I’m looking at a scabby bum covered in shit, and he could have gone with the full sensory experience. Smells so strong you can taste them, feeling the heat, everything. I mean, the gear he’s got is good, but well… magic. Bridge secretly liked showing off his pet wizard, though he’d never admit it.

It’s fine, Bridge. I think it makes the point quite succinctly. Stonewall changed the subject quickly. So where’s Aristotle? He’d appreciate this.

Bridge shrugged sadly. Don’t know. He was supposed to be here at eight sharpish, but I’m going to guess he’ll show up late and drunk again, if at all.

Still not taking the grandmother thing well? Bridge shook his head and Stonewall nodded knowingly. His conspiratorial whisper laid it all out there. You gotta give him time on this one, Bridge. Not only did your wizard buddies cause her death, you shacked up with them, turned them into a religion even. You’re lucky he hasn’t killed you himself.

Balfour still isn’t sure those people are all dead, Bridge dissembled. Seeing Stonewall’s scowl, he conceded the point. But you’re right. The fact he even still talks to me is a miracle. Couldn’t your boys at least have hooked us up with some of those little cocktail weenies?

Feeding the viewer would be a bit hypocritical in a piece decrying the starvation of the underclass by the corporate oligarchy. Now go mingle. Stonewall walked away from Bridge and began speaking to a very attractive blonde woman.

Mingle? Fuck, I hate people. What am I doing here?

Bitching like a woman, apparently, said the disembodied voice in his head.

Bridge had asked Angela to come with him to the showing as a date, but she had refused. She made tons of excuses: she was working on some serious upgrades to Ars-Perthinia, there were jobs in the hopper she wanted to finish, and she didn’t have anything good to wear. Bridge knew the truth, though. Months of deep running on the GlobalNet had left her skin morbidly pale, her eyes sunken and dark, and her figure dangerously thin. While the crèche provided the nutritional equivalent of three square meals, it was not an adequate substitute for real food. She couldn’t starve, but she had still lost a noticeable bit of weight, and she had been skinny to begin with. The few hours she spent outside the crèche had just reminded her how much of a toll the marathon sessions on the GlobalNet were taking. Bridge knew that her terrible self-image had taken too much of a beating from casual glimpses in the mirror for her to venture into a situation with a crowd of strangers.

Instead, Bridge had gotten Mu to cast a spell that connected them via a two-way GlobalNet link. What would normally have been little more immersive than a phone call had become a two-way sensory experience. Angela could see, smell, hear and feel everything that Bridge could in the physical world as well as talk directly to him. He would hear the voice in his head and could respond without speaking by thinking about the words. She had become the perfect eavesdropper, and could experience the show viscerally without anyone else’s knowledge. Bridge could experience what she was up to in the GlobalNet as well if he chose, but he decided against it. The sensation of being jacked in would tempt him back to the crèche and he had sworn that off almost two years ago, except