The Shockwave Rider, Hacking and IT E-Book Dump Release
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The Shockwave Rider
John Brunner
Del Rey
ISBN-10: 0345467175
ISBN-13: 978-0345467171
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
People like me who are concerned to portray in fictional terms aspects of that foreign
country, the future, whither we are all willy-nilly being deported, do not make our
guesses in a vacuum. We are frequently — and in this case I am specifically — indebted
to those who are analyzing the limitless possibilities of tomorrow with some more
practical aim in view . . . as for instance the slim yet admirable hope that our children
may inherit a world more influenced by imagination and foresight than our own.
The "scenario" (to employ a fashionable cliche) of The Shockwave Rider derives in
large part from Alvin Toffler's stimulating study _Future Shock_, and in consequence
I'm much obliged to him.
J.K.H.B.
BOOK 1
THE BASIC STRAINING MANUAL
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY
Take 'em an inch and they'll give you a hell.
DATA-RETRIVIAL MODE
The man in the bare steel chair was as naked as the room's white walls. They had
shaved his head and body completely; only his eyelashes remained. Tiny adhesive pads
held sensors in position at a dozen places on his scalp, on his temples close to the
corners of his eyes, at each side of his mouth, on his throat, over his heart and over his
solar plexus and at every major ganglion down to his ankles.
From each sensor a lead, fine as gossamer, ran to the sole object — apart from the
steel chair and two other chairs, both softly padded — that might be said to furnish the
room. That was a data-analysis console about two meters broad by a meter and a half
high, with display screens and signal lights on its slanted top, convenient to one of the
padded chairs.
Additionally, on adjustable rods cantilevered out from the back of the steel chair,
there were microphones and a three-vee camera.
The shaven man was not alone. Also present were three other people: a young
woman in a slick white coverall engaged in checking the location of the sensors; a gaunt
black man wearing a fashionable dark red jerkin suit clipped to the breast of which was a
card bearing his picture and the name Paul T. Freeman; and a heavy-set white man of
about fifty, dressed in dark blue, whose similar card named him as Ralph C. Hartz.
After long contemplation of the scene, Hartz spoke.
"So that's the dodger who went further and faster for longer than any of the others."
"Haflinger's career," Freeman said mildly, "is somewhat impressive. You've picked
up on his record?"
"Naturally. That's why I'm here. It may be an atavistic impulse, but I did feel
inclined to see with my own eyes the man who posted such an amazing score of new
personae. One might almost better ask what he hasn't done than what he has. Utopia
designer, lifestyle counselor, Delphi gambler, computer-sabotage consultant, systems
rationalizer, and God knows what else besides."
"Priest, too," Freeman said. "We're progressing into that area today. But what's
remarkable is not the number of separate occupations he's pursued. It's the contrast
between successive versions of himself."
"Surely you'd expect him to muddle his trail as radically as possible?"
"You miss the point. The fact that he eluded us for so long implies that he's learned
to live with and to some extent control his overload reflexes, using the sort of regular
commercial tranquilizer you or I would take to cushion the shock of moving to a new
house, and in no great quantity, either."
"Hmm . . ." Hartz pondered. "You're right; that is amazing. Are you ready to start
today's run? I don't have too much time to spend here at Tarnover, you know."
Not looking up, the girl in white plastic said, "Yes, sir, he's status go."
She headed for the door. Taking a seat at Freeman's gestured invitation, Hartz said
doubtfully, "Don't you have to give him a shot or something? He looks pretty
thoroughly sedated."
Settling comfortably in his own chair adjacent to the data console, Freeman said,
"No, it's not a question of drugs. It's done with induced current in the motor centers.
One of our specialties, you know. All I have to do is move this switch and he'll recover
consciousness — though not, of course, the power of ambulation. Just enough to let him
answer in adequate detail. By the way, before I turn him on, I should fill in what's
happening. Yesterday I broke off when I tapped into what seemed to be an exceptionally
heavily loaded image, so I'm going to regress him to the appropriate date and key in the
same again, and we'll see what develops."
"What kind of image?"
"A girl of about ten running like hell through the dark."
FOR PURPOSES OF IDENTIFICATION
At present I am being Arthur Edward Lazarus, profession minister, age forty-six,
celibate: founder and proprietor of the Church of Infinite Insight, a converted (and what
better way for a church to start than with a successful conversion?) drive-in movie
theater near Toledo, Ohio, which stood derelict for years not so much because people
gave up going to the movies — they still make them, there's always an audience for
wide-screen porn of the type that gets pirate three-vee satellites sanded out of orbit in
next to no time — as because it's on land disputed between the Billy-kings, a Protestant
tribe, and the Grailers, Catholic. No one cares to have his property tribaled. However,
normally they respect churches, and the territory of the nearest Moslem tribe, the Jihad
Babies, lies ten miles to the west.
My code, of course, begins with 4GH, and has done so for the past six years.
Memo to selves: find out whether there's been any change in the status of a 4GH, and
particularly whether something better has been introduced . . . a complication devoutly
to be fished.
MAHER-SHALAL-HASH-BAZ
She ran, blinded by sorrow, under a sky that boasted a thousand extra stars
moving more swiftly than a minute hand. The air of the June night rasped her throat
with dust, every muscle ached in her legs, her belly, even her arms, but she kept right on
as hard as she could pelt. It was so hot, the tears that leaked from her eyes dried as they
were shed.
Sometimes she went on more or less level roadway, not repaired for years but still
quite sound; sometimes she crossed rough ground, the sites perhaps of factories whose
owners had transferred their operations up to orbit, or of homes which had been tribaled
in some long-ago riot.
In the blackness ahead loomed lights and illuminated signs bordering a highway.
Three of the signs advertised a church and offered free Delphi counseling to registered
members of its congregation.
Wildly glancing around, blinking her eyes to clear perception, she saw a monstrous
multi-colored dome, as though a lampshade made from a puffer-fish were to be blown
up larger than a whale.
Pacing her at a discreet distance, tracking a tracer concealed in the paper frock which
was all she wore except sandals, a man in an electric car fought his yawns and hoped
that on this particular Sunday the pursuit would not be too long or too dull.
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