Greg Costikyan - Bright Light, Big City

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Bright Light, Big City

by Greg Costikyan

_(Originally published in the February, 1991 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine.)_

IBM was down a point. Not unusual, but I wondered why. Rumor had it that their profits would be up

next quarter. I stared at the Quotron screen and frowned.

Something zipped past on the news line. I caught "terrorists," "New York," and ". . . ton device."

What?

I pulled up Hot News. "AT&T Sues IBM," aha, but where . . .? Dammit. They put newsflashes on the

news line instanter. Sometimes it takes a minute or two to key a story in to Hot News. They didn't have it

up yet. I bashed the keyboard frantically.

Steve came into the office. I looked up from the monitor. "Have you heard?" he said.

"Heard what?"

"Come on," he said. "Mary's got a radio."

So I left the office and went down to Mary's cubicle. Half a dozen people were clustered around -- most

of the department. Mary had a newsradio station on. ". . . demanding one-hundred million dollars, the

freeing of a list of 43 imprisoned terrorists world wide, and a formal apology from the United States

government for last month's Djibouti incident," it said. "Mayor Cardinale has appealed for calm." And it

cut to a scratchy tape of the mayor saying some damnfool thing.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"A nuke . . ." said Mary. She looked a little wan. "They . . ."

"A bunch of wackos claim they've got a hundred kiloton nuke somewhere in Manhattan," said Dave.

I looked around at them. A joke? No. Mary didn't have the imagination for anything this elaborate. And

there was the radio: ". . . twenty-two minutes, we'll give you the world. The top story this afternoon:

nuclear terrorism in New York. In other news . . ."

I looked at the group again. Here they were, hanging on the radio's every word. They must be

shell-shocked.

I picked up the phone. 1-201-659 . . . Damn. Busy signal. I tried again. Again. Again. I got a recording

this time. "We're sorry, but all long-distance lines . . ."

It took ten tries before I got through to Debbie. "Have you heard?" I said.

"Mike?" she said. "What's up?"

"Listen to me," I said. "Terrorists claim to have a nuclear bomb somewhere in New York."

"What?"

Debbie and I have an odd relationship. She's usually the one that calls the shots in the family. I don't

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Greg Costikyan - Bright Light, Big City

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