Post by missionhill on Feb 15, 2013 16:22:49 GMT -5
Everyone was doing it. The KH, Mars, Bravestar even the Streets.
My dad was helping my sister and I do it. Even though we were both too young. But Dad was an old school mainliner.
Once Irena, my sister, figured out how to get the collectors to stop harassing us (because we were virgins. literally, like in a sex way) My dad got to us to slowly learn how to mainline.
Yea, any of the southern clans could tell you from the Fens east to the Finnian Docks. Sex-virgins were the best income. I was 12 and Irena was 19. We couldn't always rely on Dad's old cronies, especially after our mom died.
Irena had a green thumb. But really she had a green thumb, a green mind and an uncanny ability to grow anything out of dirt. If that meant creds, than creds were green for all she cared. For her the price of things were dirt-colored. Mud colored. Root colored.
She paid no attention to hybrid GM food. She appealed to vanity. And that's how we got to stay sex-virgins and start to become hackers.
---
When Irena grew beets, we ate a hella lotta beets. Forget about indoor plumbing. Even the wealthiest Yakuza couldn't get enough cred together for a proper crapper. But we had good land. Sure our house was built on concrete fill and 300 year old Coke bottles. But it didn't matter anymore. We ate beets. I helped her mix beet juice into the drippings of veggie grease. We perfumed it slightly with lemon verbena and rose water.
We got the beet colored lip smear - cheek smear - sex smear - into the hands of the LV bosses' womens. Both their wives and their mistresses. We made it cheap and we sold it cheap. Creds and materials. If they wanted face smear or back smear to hide their implants. We traded for rust - when the ladies didn't know what that was we wore thick green gloves and tech gear from the Yakuza wives, just lab plastic to save rust getting into our eyes.
While the rich ladies oohed over the cosmetics we made for them Irena went to the boss-houses leaf-gutters. the rust was here. Sure we lived in a dome. Everyone knew that. The dome was permeable ... like lungs my Dad said. Like a fine filtering cloth, Irena said. While Irena collected rust for back-smear I went for the fireplaces looked for the old bones and collected the bone charcoal we would later roll with the tiniest smear and sell back to them. The rich ladies used the kohl for their eyes. In late summer we sold them tincture of belladonna. Something mom had learned from grandma.. and now Irena knew it. Belladonna is a short flower - a delphinium variety. When the rich ladies dropped some in their eyes, their pupils dilated, and it turned their men on. So we didn't trade on that for anything but credder and protection. We sold it to the Yakuza concubines, the streets courtesans and the LV wives, maybe they were mistresses. I wasn't really paying attention. My job was just get stuff from the fireplace.
---
Of course it didn't take long for me to finish my salvage work. If there were no pets in the house, I went looking for books. Usually pets outnumbered books. So I was happy. I really liked cats but they were mostly feral, down at the docks, eating rats. I heard from Irena the cats had to hunt in packs to bring one wharf rat down. The warhunds had an easier life. My guess, is because they really couldn't live very well without humans or maybe some ass-tech GMO'd the dogs to latch onto humans all the more. I don't know and I don't care. Becoming friends with every last warhund wasn't just for fun, as Irena said, it was a safety protocol.
---
So that's what I remember, you know? I mean, like, sure everyone was doing it. Not what Irena and I were doing. That was just a days work so we could learn how to do it. Irena wasn't very curious to do it. She liked her garden enough. But I gotta tell you, one sister, one Dad, and a bunch a books I already read more than twice, I was ready for something new.
Also at 9, on the hill, girls can't go to real school anymore. But I lucked out, I guess. Girls were allowed to be homeschooled as long as we had a curriculum fitting to young ladies. Cottage Industries was Irena's major. And so was mine. But there's a lot more truth than that.
---
Everybody was doing it. Everyone was in a rush too. No singularity had been found yet. You know, AI, that thinks for itself.
Mars corp - I kinda liked them and had nightmares about them after I found a burnt up shadownet card my dad jerry-rigged. He read it to me: "Cyber-Knights must never be trusted but they must always be in ones' employ. A Cyber-Knight is not human and easily the best double-agent."- Trese Archive.
I liked that I was human. The only person in my family to ever get an implant was my mom. And she died getting one and sent my dad crashing into his vudka. It took a lot of the wicked stuff from Irena's garden to get him on an even keel again. Once she gave him too much wicked and he was paralysed all morning and yellow from the whites of his eyes to his toe-nails. But he was ok in a few hours. He didn't mind although I still give Irena hell about it.
---
I want to find the singularity... or like Alice in that old book, maybe its already found me. Mars corp believed only a real human could find it. That had to be true. What everyone knew it was that "golden ticket" -- "it was Powerball" for real!
So 13 years too early than recommended by the NBZ - Dad started me as a mainliner, He was my teddy bear. I was lucky. The only other truth I haven't told you yet... and don't let it get out... cuz no matter what my Dad's connects or no matter what beauty smear my sister farms... no one but me can know...I have eidetic memory.
My dad was helping my sister and I do it. Even though we were both too young. But Dad was an old school mainliner.
Once Irena, my sister, figured out how to get the collectors to stop harassing us (because we were virgins. literally, like in a sex way) My dad got to us to slowly learn how to mainline.
Yea, any of the southern clans could tell you from the Fens east to the Finnian Docks. Sex-virgins were the best income. I was 12 and Irena was 19. We couldn't always rely on Dad's old cronies, especially after our mom died.
Irena had a green thumb. But really she had a green thumb, a green mind and an uncanny ability to grow anything out of dirt. If that meant creds, than creds were green for all she cared. For her the price of things were dirt-colored. Mud colored. Root colored.
She paid no attention to hybrid GM food. She appealed to vanity. And that's how we got to stay sex-virgins and start to become hackers.
---
When Irena grew beets, we ate a hella lotta beets. Forget about indoor plumbing. Even the wealthiest Yakuza couldn't get enough cred together for a proper crapper. But we had good land. Sure our house was built on concrete fill and 300 year old Coke bottles. But it didn't matter anymore. We ate beets. I helped her mix beet juice into the drippings of veggie grease. We perfumed it slightly with lemon verbena and rose water.
We got the beet colored lip smear - cheek smear - sex smear - into the hands of the LV bosses' womens. Both their wives and their mistresses. We made it cheap and we sold it cheap. Creds and materials. If they wanted face smear or back smear to hide their implants. We traded for rust - when the ladies didn't know what that was we wore thick green gloves and tech gear from the Yakuza wives, just lab plastic to save rust getting into our eyes.
While the rich ladies oohed over the cosmetics we made for them Irena went to the boss-houses leaf-gutters. the rust was here. Sure we lived in a dome. Everyone knew that. The dome was permeable ... like lungs my Dad said. Like a fine filtering cloth, Irena said. While Irena collected rust for back-smear I went for the fireplaces looked for the old bones and collected the bone charcoal we would later roll with the tiniest smear and sell back to them. The rich ladies used the kohl for their eyes. In late summer we sold them tincture of belladonna. Something mom had learned from grandma.. and now Irena knew it. Belladonna is a short flower - a delphinium variety. When the rich ladies dropped some in their eyes, their pupils dilated, and it turned their men on. So we didn't trade on that for anything but credder and protection. We sold it to the Yakuza concubines, the streets courtesans and the LV wives, maybe they were mistresses. I wasn't really paying attention. My job was just get stuff from the fireplace.
---
Of course it didn't take long for me to finish my salvage work. If there were no pets in the house, I went looking for books. Usually pets outnumbered books. So I was happy. I really liked cats but they were mostly feral, down at the docks, eating rats. I heard from Irena the cats had to hunt in packs to bring one wharf rat down. The warhunds had an easier life. My guess, is because they really couldn't live very well without humans or maybe some ass-tech GMO'd the dogs to latch onto humans all the more. I don't know and I don't care. Becoming friends with every last warhund wasn't just for fun, as Irena said, it was a safety protocol.
---
So that's what I remember, you know? I mean, like, sure everyone was doing it. Not what Irena and I were doing. That was just a days work so we could learn how to do it. Irena wasn't very curious to do it. She liked her garden enough. But I gotta tell you, one sister, one Dad, and a bunch a books I already read more than twice, I was ready for something new.
Also at 9, on the hill, girls can't go to real school anymore. But I lucked out, I guess. Girls were allowed to be homeschooled as long as we had a curriculum fitting to young ladies. Cottage Industries was Irena's major. And so was mine. But there's a lot more truth than that.
---
Everybody was doing it. Everyone was in a rush too. No singularity had been found yet. You know, AI, that thinks for itself.
Mars corp - I kinda liked them and had nightmares about them after I found a burnt up shadownet card my dad jerry-rigged. He read it to me: "Cyber-Knights must never be trusted but they must always be in ones' employ. A Cyber-Knight is not human and easily the best double-agent."- Trese Archive.
I liked that I was human. The only person in my family to ever get an implant was my mom. And she died getting one and sent my dad crashing into his vudka. It took a lot of the wicked stuff from Irena's garden to get him on an even keel again. Once she gave him too much wicked and he was paralysed all morning and yellow from the whites of his eyes to his toe-nails. But he was ok in a few hours. He didn't mind although I still give Irena hell about it.
---
I want to find the singularity... or like Alice in that old book, maybe its already found me. Mars corp believed only a real human could find it. That had to be true. What everyone knew it was that "golden ticket" -- "it was Powerball" for real!
So 13 years too early than recommended by the NBZ - Dad started me as a mainliner, He was my teddy bear. I was lucky. The only other truth I haven't told you yet... and don't let it get out... cuz no matter what my Dad's connects or no matter what beauty smear my sister farms... no one but me can know...I have eidetic memory.
