"FWLS47" - читать интересную книгу автора (A Future We'd Like to See)

A Future We'd Like To See 1.47 - Better Safe Than Sorry
AUTHOR'S NOTE - Not the original title. I found one that fit MUCH!
better after posting it. Old title == Into the Game,
which actually makes no sense at all...
By Twoflower (Copyright 1994)

Nobody shoots the bartender, you see. Hackers come and go,
wares dealers, the zillions of little industries which go on the
grey side of the law, but the bartender stays PUT. Shootouts
erupt, things get broken, maybe the entire building gets reduced
to flaming rubble... but one person lives on JUST so the story
can be retold, and that one person is the bartender.

Don't get me wrong; my skills haven't gone down the crapper
just because I'm polishing glasses instead of cutting ice. I've
still got that nasty side effect of working the cutting circuit,
Street Smarts. Street Smarts are a pain sometimes... diving for
cover when someone drops a book... the suspicion you cast on
everyone and everything... the tendency to look for alternative
exits upon entering a room. Street Smarts keep you alive when
you're young, but when you're old, they're a pain in the ass.

The one plus side is that they let you measure up people.
That's a trait that's handy no matter how old you are. The girl
that walked into the bar screamed out NEWBIE to every degree.

Let's start with the hair. Hackers, even the few female
ones, never spend much time on personal appearance. In
cyberspace, it's just not important. This chick had the every-
hair-in-place look you can only get by spending considerable
amounts of time in front of a mirror with a comb. I couldn't
tell if the red was a dye job or not, however.

Then there's the clothing. Oooh, scary scary, she's got a
form-fitting black bulletproof vest on. Nobody uses bullets
anymore, sweetie, unless they wanna be especially mean. Combat
boots and camo pants bottom off the ensemble, as well as a camo
jacket.

Lastly, the facial expression. Clearly, copied from any
'tough guy' film you could find. The sneer, the shifty eyes, the
furrowed brow.

So, in conclusion : newbie. Possibly a rich daddy's little
girl trying to rebel. She'd be fine. See, punks don't cut you
for how little you know... they'd rather steer clear of newbies,
on the whole, either because they're annoying or that the mere
presence of one could screw up your carefully laid out plans.

There was a shifting of seats... very calm, very subtle,