[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts. Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts. This will continue from from where yesterday (Mo and Co in Denver at Night) left off.]
It had taken some convincing. The other three were skeptical and wanted to keep pushing for Melissa's car. Finally, she had asked them all what their plans were after the car. What were they going to do? Where were they going to go? None of them could go home; that would be staked out. Only Darren with his wedding tackle connectivity had any access to money[1], but not enough for a hotel room even just for himself. At least that was what he claimed. Anyway, it was very likely that 'they' (Tactical Heuristical Electronics, Yo!... still needs work) were staking out Melissa's car. Given a choice between huddling with the transients and turning themselves in, they all headed over to the park.
For Mo, all of her interactions with the homeless community prior to this night had all been two dimensional. On one axis had been the perceived relative wealth differential between herself and the person accosting her. On the other was the vulnerability of her PTN's defenses against the sophistication of their systems' attack. When that second axis was heavily in her favor, Mo had frequently slipped a trojan in and tried to zombie their system for future use. But even then, it was all about the numbers. It had never been about the people.
Now, sitting in the middle of this park that had been assimilated by this rough community, Mo was forced to re-evaluate all of that. For one, she was disconnected. Usually, she would be bombarded by access requests, loc-ads and other pop-ups. Now, the only things cluttering her site were the most basic system status graphics (power availability, connectivity, etc.). It let her see something more of the people behind the usual system assault. Or it would when the sun rose in the morning. For another, Mo was the one in need.
And for her, that was an empathetic electric shock. Mo had never been socially or economically much better off than her imagined idea of the average street person. Yet, she had never been truly homeless. She had always had a place where she could go. Where she belonged. The apartment she had shared with Sandra. That common house at CU that she had cleaned once a week for board. Her Mom's place before that. The Institute. Always a place where she could retreat. Even the cage had been her cage. Now, she and three other people only had any space because no one had growled at them. As soon as they stood up, any claim she or they had to it would go away with them. It made her feel vulnerable. Naked despite the clothes.
Mo curled up tighter on the ground. She pushed herself against the person sleeping behind her. Darren's backbone became a series of cogs grinding against her shoulders. It was not comfortable. Not physically. What the contact did was help her doze off.
[1] There is still paper money and credit cards and checks and all of those old fashioned ways of transferring funds, but most people simply used direct account-to-account transfers. Encryption was up to what was called 2-16 (65,536) bit and used single use public key systems. Not only was this system fast and made it difficult to mug someone, but the exchange rates between the old currencies and the thousands of e-currencies were seamless.
