Cyberpunk.  A setting in which technology has evolved so quickly
that it causes a deep social shock, that it rocks the very foundation of
day-to-day life.

	We're often exposed to it.  Movies like it; audiences like it
even more.  It's what's hip, what's cool, what's selling tickets.  We
play its games, watch its shows, play with its toys.  We even take part
in it in roleplaying games, becoming those who go against it, with it, or
defend it with their very lives.  It's a part of many of us, and isn't
likely to let go anytime soon.  Not that we want it to.

	But mainly, it's fiction.  That is what makes it so attractive;
it isn't real.  A child in it can kill fifty people with a weapon so
advanced it only has one button and is worth enough to feed a continent
forever.  But it's not real; it never happened, never will -- it's a part
of our imagination, and nothing more.  I can become a monster and do what
my twisted mind so long has been aching to do, and not feel the least bit
disappointed when I finally meet my end.  In fact, I feel positively,
fantastically fulfilled.  And rejuvenated; hell, I can always start over
and do it all over again, and come back home and take a cup of coffee and
watch some television and go to sleep and wake up the next day.  Nothing
happened; we just imagined it.  And that makes it alright.

	But it's happening.  It's happening despite us, despite what some
are doing to stop it.  It's already become a part of us, now it wants the
whole fucking pie.

	Kids in ghettos already have guns.  They grow up, have more kids
and more guns and can always get more, who knows how.  Governments and
police and average joes try as they can to do what they can, but they
can't.  They're outnumbered, outgunned.  Solution?  Bigger guns.  More
powerful guns.  The great equalizers.  Then they trickle down into the
streets and we need even bigger guns.  Repeat.  But we don't have that
much money to invest in bigger guns when we're busy rebuilding what the
bullets are destroying and making it look like we're steamrolling a new
parking lot and everything's sunshine and happy faces.  Who has that much
money to toss around?

	Big brother corporate america.  Some multinationals already make
more than many countries put together, so they're the obvious choice.
They'll help us out of this mess and make everything better, and make a
profit at the end.  They want a bigger cut, so what, we're happy anyway.
Hell, we'll hand them the knife and tell them to choose, as long as it's
not our problem anymore.  Done.

	Meanwhile, the rest of the world lives on.  Ten year-olds with
pagers and teens with cellular phones and their own 'people' to take care
of loose ends.  Two blocks away, ten year-olds with sticks and teens with
their first real autoloader.  Two blocks away, ten year-olds with sucking
chest wounds and teens with their own tombstones.  Two blocks away.  Two
blocks away.  Sound familiar?

	I'm not saying it's happened before, although it could have.  I'm
not saying it's happening, although I think it is.  I'm not saying it's
going to happen, although it will.  It's not a game, it's not a toy, it's
not a part of our imagination that we can play in.  It's a part of us.
It's our future.  It's what's waiting for us behind the door if we don't
wake up soon enough to choose another way.  Me, I don't care if I'm right
or not, or if what I'm saying has been said fifty times already and
everyone would rather I just shut up and gack myself and be done with it.
I don't care because if I'm not right, I'll be happy.  If I am right,
I'll likely be dead while it's happening.  Either way, no biggie on my
end.

	There go my two cents and my fifteen minutes.  They're yours; you
can always sell them for the best new thing that the big boys upgraded
from last week and have trashed for you to pick up.  Soon you'll be a big
boy too.

	Dexter was right on the money.  The kids aren't alright.

	They think they are.


					Alexandre van Chestein
						December 29th, 1999
							havoc@zone.ca