Slow River

My hands were tight on the board, going purply white at the joints. We were going to wait until the end of the first advertisement; probably thirty seconds. At that point there was less chance of the security snoop noticing—they weren’t paid to guard the advert signal. We had no idea what the commercials might be, but Spanner had watched dozens of the most likely candidates, and written interrupt programs for them. If it was something we didn’t recognize, though, she would have to do it by hand.

“Twenty seconds. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen…”

My board was amber all the way.

“We’re synchronized.” We would ride silently for a few seconds.

Still amber. “All clear.”

“Four seconds. Three. Two. One.”

The screen cut to a brilliant green. “This is-” and Spanner swore. The screen suddenly dulled to brown and red: the ruined floor of what had once been rain forest.

“What’s happening, what’s happening?

“Minimercial,” Spanner said briefly. “They’ll take the whole commercial spot.”

We had less than three minutes to decide what to do. “Board’s amber.”

“And the signal’s very sweet,” Spanner said. “I’m going to do it.” Her voice was sharp, decisive. “I’ll cut in when it’s done. Steal program time.”

“You know this commercial.”

“No, but a windup’s a windup.”

She was right. You could always tell the last few seconds of an ad. “Do it,” I said.

It was dangerous, much more dangerous than we had planned. Viewers never timed adverts, but after years of always getting the same number of seconds their bodies would be tuned to it. Inside, they would think, Hey, there are a lot of ads today… And maybe one of those viewers would be the security snoop. Maybe he or she would be fast, would flip the trace before we cut.

“Here’s the windup.”

“All clear.” No going back now. If the drugs had affected Spanner in the slightest, if she made one millisecond’s mistake, the cut would be obvious. Adrenaline tightened the muscles around my eyes; my breathing got shallow.

She was perfect. The white lettering faded out and then in to the bright red and yellow that was the first frame close-up of Tom’s tie.

I looked at the board. “Ten-percent red. Twenty.” The security program had started to trace our signal. It wouldn’t find us until the whole board lit.

“Come on, you babies, come on,” Spanner muttered. I wondered what the account program was telling her.

“Twenty-five percent. Fifty!” The sudden flicker of red across the board made my heart leap sideways. “Seventy!”

“Taking us off.” My board went blank. She started stripping down the screen, unhooking the box.

I found I was kneeling on the floor, stowing things in the backpack without knowing how I got there.

“Nearly twelve seconds,” she was saying.

“Cut the account,” I said.

“Money’s still coming in-”

“Cut it!” I didn’t care how much or how little we had. We needed to cut and run. A nanosecond could make a difference to a security program.

She touched a key, pulled a lead free. “All closed down.”

And then we were standing outside in the rain, pulling the door closed, leaning against the wall, laughing. The rain ran in my ears, my mouth, down my neck, but I didn’t care. We should be running, but I didn’t care. Adrenaline exhilaration could do that. I laughed and laughed: we were free, safe. I had forgotten how sweet it felt to operate outside the law, how good, how big it made me feel…

Reluctantly, I pushed myself away from the wall. “We have to hurry.”

“They didn’t trace us.” But she was already sobering, looking from left to right. Information technology and its finer points did not matter much to the crocodile brain. It wanted some physical distance. We hurried.

I started to feel safe when we were about a quarter of a mile away. I slowed, stopped, started stripping off the plasthene protection. Spanner followed suit. “How much did we make?”

She grinned. “Guess.”

“A lot.” I started to fizz again. A lot of money. For a few minutes’ work. “Tell me.”

“A hundred and four, maybe a hundred and five thousand.”

I laughed out loud, incredulous.

“Shut your mouth,” Spanner said, “you might drown in this rain.”

I was suddenly glad of the rain, glad to be getting wet. It was real. All that money. I felt dizzy. It made a mockery of what I earned at Hedon Road.

The Polar Bear was quiet, only half a dozen people in the place. Spanner had ordered us whiskey. I rolled the glass around in my hands, content to sniff at the fumes. Spanner was on her third drink in thirty minutes. She probably should not be drinking at all with the painkillers she was on. Now that the adrenaline high was fading, I was too tired to care.

“So, what will you do with your share?”