Dogfight (short story)

"Dogfight"
Author	Michael Swanwick William Gibson
Language	English
Genre(s)	Cyberpunk
Published in	Omni
Publication date	July 1985
Preceded by	"The Winter Market"

"Dogfight" is a short story written by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson, and first published in Omni in July 1985.

Plot

A lonely ex-shoplifter who suffers from a neural block preventing him from returning to his hometown of Washington, D.C., finds a female friend, whose parents have set a neural block on her to protect her virginity – a sort of a mental chastity belt. He becomes enthralled by a new video game – Fokkers & Spads – where he engages in dogfights as a World War I fighter pilot and, with help from his female friend (a gifted hacker of both hardware and software) becomes one of the best fighters. To beat the very best fighter, though, he betrays and hurts his newfound friend only to find himself alone again after his victory over the crippled war-veteran Tiny.

External links

• Spads and Fokkers, an augmented reality game inspired by the story