When Scooter recognized the distinctive candy cane strobes on the street-tech’s halo-drive his hopes were elevated.

Buddy, it’s Keefer Smart!

I bought my first biomechanical upgrade from him; just plugged it right into the cervical port and was doing barrel-rolls in no time!

That was…

That’s right, let’s try not to even think about being…

Then, despite his attempt to control his thoughts, Scooter began involuntarily stuttering, “BbBbBbBabaadassss!”

Buddy, this is hopeless.

Don’t lose hope. Keefer Smart is here!

Yeah, he is cool. He’ll help me, I know it.

He began hurrying to the front of the crowd, zipping underneath the others, and managed to be among the lucky three who were singled out for the pre-release event. He was grinning, and barely managed to keep himself from bouncing in his excited state. Keefer Smart was the best street-tech ever. He was a legend, and nobody in The Downs messed with him. He had been a downgraded tech-boy and had survived the alleys, eventually fabricating his own uplink. Smart halo-drives were the best you could get on the street. It was even whispered that Keefer had connections in the HFCs [Human Fabrication Corporations]. It was still a long-shot, and he may well end up totally trashed. But Keefer Smart’s junk worked almost half of the time, which was twice as good as the other street-techs’ junk.

This is badass—I’m at a Keefer Smart pre-release!

The two goons, towering, muscular techs with their halos encased in military grade helmets and their bodies covered in skin-tight body armor, made the other kids form a circle five paces back from Keefer. The three pre-release guests: Scooter, a tall pretty girl; and an older boy, were then permitted to walk up to Keefer and George, his famous, three-foot tall bio-avatar.

George had the body of a kid and the head of a grownup and had a black and red skull-and-cross-bone strobe, and had extra frontal lobe and occipital ports. George always managed pre-release events and was a real jerk. The kids walked up to George.

This is scary. I hope he doesn’t pick me last.

Then, behind Keefer, he saw her there, Bobbie, Keefer’s love-girl, with her pulsating red-heart halo-strobe and long white hair.

George selected the girl first and scanned her retina. He then did the same with the older kid, who had to bend over to have his retina scanned.

Oh shit, you’re last buddy—you’re the experiment!

Scooter started to back away, and then felt the immovable hand of one of the goons on his shoulder, “Where you goin’ kid?”

He wanted to say, “I have to go to sanitary” but all that came out was “Bbbbbbb-bb…badass!”

The uncaring hand then pushed him to George, who didn’t have to rise on his tip-toes to do Scooter’s scan. George whispered in a detached fashion as he scanned Scooter, “While interfacing with Cartels of Titan huh? You Grunge Jockeys are keeping Mister Smart very busy.”

You mean I’m not the only one?

George seemed to understand his thoughts, or perhaps had answered this question before, “It’s a Korean product. That’s the problem. Flirting with a psychotic break is a big thing over there. It’s a shame you did not have a multilingual avatar who could have translated the disclaimer. That’s right kid; that harsh alien voice at the beginning is not the Titan CEO, it’s the designer warning you that you are entering a military simulation and should submit your avatar to Pusan Corp for an upgrade prior to play.”

George stepped back behind Keefer as the famous street-tech fitted a pink heart-strobe halo to the girl’s head. She immediately lit up and seemed in great pleasure. Keefer kissed her and Bobbie stepped forward to welcome the girl into the Smart Family. Just then Scooter noticed that Keefer looked a little like a rat without hair or a tail. Scooter had only been downgraded for two days, and this was the first pre-release he had been to. So he didn’t know exactly what to expect. So far it wasn’t bad.

The assembled kids then began chanting, “Wild ride! Wild ride!” as the older kid stepped up to Keefer to be fitted with what looked like a junior goon halo. The kid was pumping his fists in the air and squinting his eyes, as Keefer shaved the hair that had grown in over his ports. Apparently this kid had been down-graded for years. The kid was acting nervous, tensing and grimacing.

Keefer then looked into the boy’s eyes and smiled, “You ready for the wild-ride kid?”

The kid nodded yes and Keefer plugged in the halo-drive. The halo lit up a deep blue color and the kid moaned in pleasure, cheered with glee, smiled, spread his arms, screamed “Yesss!” into the night sky, and then fell over dead, all four of his ports smoking like overcooked hotdogs.

Oh shit. Let me get out of here.

It was too late. The goon was pushing him forward as the gathered kids chanted, “Long-shot! Long-shot!”

When Keefer looked down into his eyes all Scooter could say was, “BbBbBbBaaadddaaassss!”

Keefer responded coldly, “Look kid, all I can promise is it won’t hurt—and I hope it works, I really do.”

Scooter then began shaking his head ‘No’ and two big goon hands came down on his shoulders as the kids chanted “Long-shot!” in the background. And what was most messed up of all, was that half of them couldn’t speak any better than Scooter, so their rendition of ‘long-shot’ took on a garbled, almost bubbling quality.

Buddy, you are totally screwed!

Keefer looked into his eyes again as he unfolded the sleek looking stainless-steel halo-adapter, “It’s a long-shot kid, the best chance I can give you.”

Scooter closed his eyes and felt tears push out over his cheeks.