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to be a pain in the ass, Adrian?” Doc snapped.
    â€œI just don’t like rules, anybody’s rules.”
    â€œWe can argue about anything else, and I’m sure we will, but not about this. If you don’t get it, Adrian, I’m sorry. The end. You can go home right now.”
    Doc grabbed a phone, dialed directory assistance, and said, “Amtrak, please.”
    â€œWait a minute,” Judd said. “Let me talk to him.”
    â€œPlease do.”
    Judd put his arm around Adrian’s shoulders and drew him off into a corner.
    â€œWhat’s your problem?” Judd asked quietly.
    â€œI can’t stand rules.”
    â€œWe’re only going to have one. A hacker should understand that if you talk, you get caught and they take your toys away. Down in Florida you had one old PC. Here, you have a huge fucking mainframe and anything else you want. You don’t want to lose that, do you?”
    Adrian folded his arms across his chest and fumed.
    â€œThis isn’t school,” Judd said. “I know what kind of a guy you are, Adrian. You’re the kid nobody likes, the kid people make fun of because you’re so fucking smart. You use your intelligence as a weapon and tear into them, don’t you. You laugh at their mistakes in school and they hate you and you hate them. Am I right? I can see it in your eyes. You screw around with the trains because it gives you a sense of power, and every time you do it and don’t get caught, you feel even more powerful. But listen to this, you little shit. Doc found you, and that means sooner or later you would’ve been caught, and if you caused a train wreck, you’d be sent to the slammer, like me. Doc saved your ass from getting into real trouble, and you owe him. We all do. All of us have gone through what you’ve experienced. Bo, Carolyn, Ronnie, and me, too, we’re all smart, and we’ve all been laughed at and teased and we’ve all thought of revenge. Revenge put me in prison. Doc wants us to do something important, and if you can’t handle that, if you can’t put away your bullshit and nerdy little thoughts of revenge and getting even, well, forget it. Are you too selfish to understand that? Are you just a little asshole? We don’t have time to fuck around here. Get with the program now, or go back to Orlando.”
    A little wheel turned over in Adrian’s mind, and he understood he was being treated like an adult for the first time. Or the last time.
    â€œNo talking, no bragging,” he said. “I get it.”
    â€œI don’t want to have to babysit you. Now, are you in or out?”
    â€œI don’t want to go back to Florida.”
    â€œDoc!”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œHe’s gonna be okay.”
    *   *   *
    They all came from places deep in the American soul, the black middle class, the barrio, Chinatown, the dispossessed working class, and had used their brains to enter the world of technology. Each had taken an unorthodox route to cybernetics and computers, and Doc had chosen them because he knew mavericks often had the keenest, most creative minds.
    Ronnie Fong was the daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong who’d rejected her because she’d rejected the restrictions of their traditions. At the same time she clung to her culture. In New York she shopped and ate in Chinatown and delighted in speaking Cantonese with the fishmonger. In her heart she believed a million dollars would go a long way toward a reconciliation with her family in San Francisco.
    Carolyn Harvey had been ostracized by her family because she was flamboyantly gay. Technology was her release from a world of prejudice and fear, and she’d created an identity based on defiance. Coming to New York was an act of liberation. There, in the crush of people of every possible description, she didn’t have to explain or defend herself. She could just be, and she turned her