Oh, great. I knew this was bound to happen.
Fascinating.
Don't give me that Mr. Spock stuff.
You guys! Do you want us to come in, or are you coming out?
I don't think she's singing you any love songs, Q-Ball.
I really wish that girl would learn to just mellow out.
You wouldn't like her that way.
Let's try to find a way out of here.
We've got 10 hours on this world.
They'll be out in a minute.
You know, he says,
"Don't worry because the densi-mometer thing,
"whatever, makes the slide perfectly safe. "
Well, I'm gonna tell you something, Colin.
One of these days, we're gonna slide into a solid object.
I'm very new to this science,
but from what Quinn has taught me,
the electronic matter is only stable in an atmosphere of some kind.
If it generates within solid mass,
we'd be crushed to death long before we complete the slide.
Do me a favor.
Don't try to comfort me.
There he is!
I see him!
Come on, man, he's getting away!
Move, move!
Move! Come on!
Get him!
Hey!
So, Rick,
on your way to see someone inside?
Got a way in you'd like to share with us?
Only seen one of these once before.
Giga-encrypted entry key.
I'm not gonna ask you where you found it or what you had to trade.
Just make it work.
Not smart.
Not smart for a smart boy.
Miles.
Now,
which tool shall we use?
We can't just let them cut that guy.
You're right.
Who the hell are you?
The Marines.
At least she is.
No people. Must be some kind of model home high-rise.
With no way in or out?
I don't believe it. We've been here two minutes!
Get out here and help us!
Get the hell outta here!
Uh-oh. What?
Let's go!
Come on! Hurry up!
Let's go! Move!
Perfect. Looks like they're getting away.
It's a good thing we're on the other side of this glass.
You!
Online or offline?
Are those our only choices?
What if you found a portal to a parallel universe?
What if you could slide into a thousand different worlds
where it's the same year and you're the same person,
but everything else is different?
And what if you can't find your way home?
Looking pretty naked there, offie.
No pad, no screen, no ret-write.
So, just how'd you get in here?
You tell me that.
Be happy to, if we could catch a word that we know.
I promise you, officer, we had no idea that we were trespassing.
Trespassing?
There you are.
Rick?
Yes, I'm Rick.
And?
Rembrandt.
These friends of yours, Miss Capshaw?
Of course. What did you think?
Well, I thought they were like...
Offliners?
No, they just tubed over from Magenta.
They're not wearing rigs because they wanted to take mine for a spin.
But they said that...
Just checking to see if you were on your toes.
And you were.
Kind of on ours, too, there, for a minute.
What do you say we try on those rigs?
Okay.
Great work. Come on.
It's so good to see you.
Likewise.
Listen, I don't mean to be a third wheel here, uh...
Joanne. Joanne.
It's okay. If you're a friend of Rick's,
I'm sure you're going to be a friend of mine, too.
Well, you know Rick here is a great guy.
Excuse me.
Ret me.
Think this Rick is a duplicate of you?
No, I don't think she's ever seen him.
Remmy's been visiting, and he's always wanted to see the Ivory.
Oh.
Yeah, that's why we tubed it over here from Magenta.
Still pretty amazing to me how all of that works.
Well, it's just tubes and towers.
Magenta to Ivory to Mauve to Cobalt.
Access tubes link towers together.
Listen, do any of those lead to the outside?
I mean, onto the streets?
The street?
Why would they do that?
"Outside is no side. "
At least, that's what everyone says.
Location, please.
Home location.
F2F, at last.
You said you'd be coming naked and netless.
So romantic.
But I never dreamed you meant it.
If I hadn't rezzed up, that guard would have...
But you did, uh...
Yeah.
I did.
I, uh...
I could wait out in the car.
If we had a car.
Not much farther. We're almost in.
Almost in? Where?
Look, pal... The name is Rick.
You saved my life.
That puts us on a first-name basis.
Okay, Rick, I might not be a rocket scientist,
but I know we're going this way, the building's back there,
and we've got to get back to our friends.
Yes, yes. So you said.
Funny.
You guys don't look like offliners.
Come to think of it, they didn't look like onliners.
Onliners?
I don't mean to be judgmental here,
but have you guys been in twin comas or something?
Look, why don't you just tell us what's going on?
You've got these squeaky clean buildings
that seem utterly sealed, except to each other,
and out here it's Junk Pile World.
You really don't know, do you?
Uh, we're from Canada.
"Have and have-nots, and never the twain shall meet. "
They call us offliners, they're onliners.
Onliners. Offline... Like in computers?
They have those in Canada?
All right.
"Never the twain shall meet," huh?
So who you bringing roses to?
Listen, you want in, I'll get you in, okay?
What is all of this stuff?
Digidise.
We can order anything we want.
How do you pay for all this?
Digicash.
Mom and Dad work digijobs.
Temporal lobe link. REM stuff.
Yeah.
What is this nasty-looking thing?
Neural implanter for direct uplink.
Med staff just delivered it.
I'm 18 next week.
That's when most folks get cabled.
Only I thought maybe we should meet before...
You get cabled.
Yeah.
Because I guess after,
you won't get around much anymore?
Your friend here doesn't seem to be up to speed
on much of anything.
Oh, yeah, well, he's, uh...
I'm from Canada.
Canadian.
This is it.
A sewer? No, I don't think so.
We're not going in. It's my safe place.
Kludged it together myself.
Most ingenious.
When onliners are through with them,
they put them through the shredder.
It's a definite no-no to have one.
An offliner patches in, even if he's just lurking,
they come smash your keyboard, break your fingers.
At least, that's what I've heard.
Makes sense to keep it in a sewer.
See, I got another problem.
My mom is kind of down on technology.
All right, Rick, you said you were gonna get us back into the Towers.
So can we get a move on, please?
Internal wireless modem.
I post a note to a certain friend in the Towers...
She'll be wondering what happened to me, anyway.
We see if she heard about your cronies.
No, we gotta get back there physically.
Not a chance.
But cyberline's just a click away.
Believe me, that's all you got.
All right, who's your friend on the inside?
I want to know who you're telling about us.
Her name is Joanne.
She's incredibly... Everything.
Sweet, smart.
I mean, there's nothing she doesn't know.
We've been getting pretty friendly.
At least online.
You mean, you've never actually met her face to face?
No. Today was going to be the day, but...
But you ran into the Bowery Boys.
We call them Scavengers.
Yeah, that'll do.
Maybe it was for the best.
You wouldn't feel that way if that guy got to work on you with a knife.
I mean, she doesn't know I'm an offliner.
I don't know what I was thinking.
That some roses would make it okay?
One look at me, and she'd have seen
all I am is just a ginchy little sewer nerd.
You don't look that ginchy to me.
So, come on. Can we make that call?
All right.
I'm a node on the LAN, part of a WAN on the Web,
but I can log on to any station.
I just eyeball a virtual display of icons,
look to select, blink to click.
It's easy. Any questions, I just ask my Knowbot.
Take a look at the hits.
Nice.
You have mail.
Scan now, read later.
Look, you getting any of this?
Enough.
The main thing is that she seems to think that
I'm some guy she's carrying on a net romance with.
Yeah, I picked up on that.
But how do we use it to try to find Colin and Maggie?
Joanne, I might be able to send Rembrandt off with some friends,
but I'd need to log on.
Do you have a spare keyboard?
A keyboard?
Yeah, when I was, like, three.
I may still have one in the closet.
I can check.
You have urgent nowmail.
I'm in.
If that's Rick Montana, then who are you?
Oh, uh...
I was gonna get to that.
You see...
Wait a minute. What happened?
They hung up.
What?
You know what I love more than running into old friends?
Making new ones.
Well, it's not an entry key.
But still...
Fetch a good price on the dark market.
That, and anything else you can put together.
Here.
What's this for?
I always pay for services rendered.
And I just bought you.
Well, you haven't bought us.
No.
But someone will.
Some of those onliners
like their reality more than virtual.
Of course, I'll have to try you out for myself first.
Just so I can set a fair price.
As for you...
I have piranhas at home.
You'll make good brain food for them.
Right. We are outta here.
Better log off.
Save the battery, boss.
I like the sound of that.
But it lacks sincerity.
Hmm.
Incorrect log-off.
Naughty, naughty.
Get this thing off of me!
Come on!
Get after them!
Get them! After them!
You tricked me.
You let me believe that you were my Rick.
I had to. I had to find a way to get up here.
To get to my friends.
Can you reconnect?
I don't know.
With any luck, I should be able to trace the uplink route.
You know, it really would help if you could tell me a little more about this.
Why should I help you?
I don't even know who you are, Quinn Mallory.
I can't believe I was even fooled for a second.
You have none of Rick's...
His sensitivity
or his intellect.
Rick is a genius.
Hey, on a good day, this guy is a genius.
Now, would you give him a chance?
When Rick and I are online, we're like two halves of the same soul.
I'm better than I ever could be.
Sounds like true love. Now, will you help us?
You guys are offliners, aren't you?
You don't belong here.
Security.
Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Now, you really don't want to call security, do you?
No.
I'm sorry that my friend and I misled you.
But I promise you, we are not offliners.
Now, your friend Rick knew our names.
The only way he could know that is
if he was with my brother and my friend.
What's your friend's name?
Maggie.
Is she your girlfriend?
No.
But as much as Rick wants to see you,
I'm hoping that that's how much
she wants to get back with me.
Hey, Q-Ball.
A lot of this is pig Latin to me,
but I think this screen is saying you've got a lock.
It's them, all right.
And they are on the move.
Trick now will be to see if I can activate his terminal remotely
and send a message.
What's all that stuff?
Overlay grid. Onliner towers,
offliner territory.
So they're still on the outside.
No, there is no way that my Rick is on the outside.
An onliner would never take his rig on the outside?
Never.
So, you've gotta be reading that map thingy all wrong.
Or...
What?
Nothing. Nothing.
No, stop it.
Don't do that to me. I hate it when people do that.
What are you thinking?
Downstairs, our friends got into a little fight
with some rough-looking people who were picking on someone who could have been your Rick.
No way.
No, there is no way that my Rick is a cracker.
We don't seem to be eluding them. Come on, keep going!
Run exactly where I run.
Not through there!
Come on, guys, we've almost got them!
Let's go!
You make a pretty good urban guerrilla.
What is this place?
Home sweet home.
Come on.
Whoa. Throttle back, Mom.
When the alarms went off,
I thought the barbarians were at the gates.
They were. But we took care of it.
And who exactly is "we"?
This is Maggie and Colin. This is my mom.
Shirley.
Sorry about the hard welcome, but you know how times are.
We're learning.
You have quite a place here.
I always ask myself, "What would June Cleaver do?"
And then I do the opposite.
You remember June Cleaver, son?
No, ma'am. I'm not from this town.
She was on TV back in the Stone Age.
Had a son named Heaver.
Before the Net chewed TV up and spit it out.
Chewed us up, too.
Don't get her started.
Anyone who didn't have the money or inclination
to sit staring at a monitor all their days were just thrown out with the trash.
And the others, thinking they were the privileged class,
were nothing but slaves to a machine.
I wouldn't have one of them in here.
You have urgent nowmail.
What you got under there?
You have urgent nowmail.
New friends? You have urgent nowmail.
You must not be from around here.
We must not.
You have urgent nowmail. Shirley,
we're just trying to get in touch with some friends.
Rick offered his help.
He offered you help?
This computer's not theirs, Mom.
It's mine.
What?
Shirley, no, wait! Please!
I know how you feel, and I'm sorry.
But this message might be very important to us.
Whatever you have against these things,
it's the only way we can get help.
Now, please, just let us get this message,
and we'll be out of your way, okay?
You are connected.
There they are.
Colin and Maggie are all right.
Ask him.
No, I want you to ask him.
Ask him if he's an offliner.
I want him to tell me himself.
At least we all know where we are.
All one happy, electronic fam...
You have to tell her.
Why?
I can just lie to her like always.
She'll believe it, and then we can go on.
What, like this?
You know, your mom goes overboard,
but she's got a point about computers.
They can do pretty amazing things,
but I've never met one that can hold your hand
when you're lonely or rub your neck when you're tired
or look you in the eyes.
Yeah, but if I tell her the truth, she'll never talk to me again.
You have to take that chance.
Guy's got huevos.
I'll kill him.
Yeah, well, to do that, you've got to meet him in person first.
How could he do this to me?
Wait a minute, wait a minute.
Now, I thought you said that you and this Rick were two halves of the same soul.
Yeah, that's when I thought he was an onliner.
Now, I... Now makes no difference.
He's the same guy.
He can't help being offline any more
than you can help being online.
Look, you were anxious to meet the guy.
When you came down and you found us,
you seemed pretty happy when you thought Quinn here was Rick.
Now, why was that?
I thought there might be more to life than this, okay?
And I thought Rick would be a part of that.
Right answer.
Why doesn't she answer back?
She must be thinking it over.
What's taking her so long?
She's gotta get over hating you.
That could take a few minutes.
She's coming out.
And she's with our friends.
Great.
That girl mean that much to you, son?
Yes, ma'am.
If you're going back out there, better take this along.
Any one of you know how to handle it?
She does.
Had a feeling it was you.
Joanne, you're going to be really glad that you did this.
I am?
Yeah, but outside?
Yes, outside.
We'll bring you back. Don't sweat it.
You'll never know about Rick or life unless you try.
Yeah, but outside, it's...
Yes, outside.
And you're gonna need a coat.
A coat?
So how do we get out of here?
Sorry, guys. This is the best I could do.
You gotta be kidding me.
Now, that was definitely a different kind of slide.
I've been thrown out of places before,
but I've never ever thrown myself out.
This is disgusting.
My rig! Where's my rig?
Okay, don't worry, don't worry.
Here it is.
Oh, God.
Thank you.
Okay.
Status? Optimal function.
Thank God.
You know, you don't always have to wear that thing.
We all have to have our blue blankets.
So...
First step is always the hardest.
And you just took it.
Are you sure this is the right place?
Everything looks the same to me.
If Rick's compu-map Magellan is right,
we should be at the exact coordinates.
They're late.
I don't know what I'm doing here.
I mean, what am I expecting?
I told her the truth, and she hates me.
She'll just kill me.
She doesn't know you well enough to kill you.
Look, where I come from, there's a saying.
"First plant a seed, then see what grows. "
Whoa, whoa, whoa!
We surrender.
Remmy! Hey, there, bold and beautiful.
Farm boy.
Kind of nice not to have that glass wall between us, huh?
I don't know, it was kind of nice not hearing you.
Oh, that's no way to greet the lady.
He was really missing you, and that is the truth.
Yeah? Yeah.
I like to hear that.
Oh, introductions.
From the intelligence in your eye, I'm guessing you are Rick.
Quinn. Hey.
Rick, Joanne. Joanne, Rick.
Hi.
All right. That's a start.
How much time do we have?
Four hours.
All right, there's plenty of time for everyone to get to know each other,
but we can't stay on these mean streets, you know.
Scavengers.
Yeah, we should really take this little party over to your place.
No way.
One look at you, and Mom would freak to the next dimension.
So, then, where?
I know just the place.
Well, lads, looks like Rick has met his online love
with a little help from his friends.
We don't want to get left out, do we?
Come on.
Candle lights, root beer, dehydrated cheese soup.
Who could ask for anything more?
Hey, baby, the good life is what you make it.
They seem to be hitting it off.
At least they're talking to each other.
Yeah, well, I'm rooting for them.
Any time two souls can get together, it's one of God's miracles.
A miracle, and good timing.
And hanging through the tough times.
First love.
Sounds like you're thinking about
a certain somebody there, farm boy.
When I was little, there was a picture on the wall of our house.
Mom said it was a star from the New York stage.
Her name was Audrey Hepburn.
I think I might know her.
How about you, Remmy?
Shirley Browder.
She was seven, I was eight.
Took her to the St. James and John's DeMolay Halloween Dance.
She went as Cinderella.
And you went as Prince Charming.
No, that year I went as Ming the Merciless.
Mustache wouldn't stay on.
Sorry, I'm not in my Sunday best.
Well, actually, this is as good as it gets.
Sorry, I'm just not used to having my...
Hey, easy there.
It fizzes up.
I can't believe you never had root beer before.
If it doesn't come from the digilog, we don't have it.
Look, I just want to say I know how hard it is for you to be here.
And I really want to get to know you.
Well, you pretty much already know all there is to know.
Online, we could go for hours.
I mean, it was pretty hard for me to keep up with you.
I don't know how you managed.
Got an IQ of, like, 17,000.
Really?
No.
Not really.
Mostly, I'm just a rebel without a clue.
But I learn pretty fast.
Joanne, all the things you said to me before,
you can say them to me now.
Only that we're right here.
Well, your keyboard is over there,
and if you'd just give me back my eye screen...
Oh! But then you're an OF.
Your irises haven't been scanned and...
Joanne, quit the geek speak.
It's me. I'm not in here.
There wasn't anything we couldn't tell each other.
Listen, you don't have to impress me,
you just have to be here.
With me, in this room, on this stupid ugly bed.
What do you want to know?
I've got all of the facts.
You think 'cause you're online,
you're plugged into the whole world?
There's a difference between facts and really knowing something.
Wake up!
Come on, have an opinion on your own!
Hey!
Take me home.
I hate this world and everything in it!
Okay.
All right, come here.
Here, blow.
You don't really want to go home, do you?
I don't know what I want.
All right, he's definitely a handful.
But, then again, most of them are.
He's impossible.
And he's incredible.
He wants to know me.
There's no me to know.
Oh, yes, there is.
You just have to be yourself, that's all.
Will it work?
It's really all you've got.
Oh, good, you're all here.
Put that down.
You, I need.
Stay away from her.
Shh.
As for the rest of you,
I think Miles can say it best.
Colin.
Rembrandt. Maggie.
I think we need maid service here.
Where's Rick?
Rick? Oh, my God.
It's okay, he's alive.
How you doing?
How do you think?
They just dropped a room on me.
Joanne!
We've gotta get you to a hospital, buddy. Calm down.
If there's still a hospital around.
No.
Not before we find her.
Okay, we're not gonna argue about this one, champ.
You don't know where they've taken her, do you?
You have no idea. It's okay.
I scrambled her signal. We should be able to track her.
But I smashed her eye scanner.
It doesn't matter because she still has her CPU.
Where's your laptop?
Whoa!
I wouldn't do that unless you're through with your fingers.
Right.
Say it.
Ret me.
Welcome back, Miss Capshaw.
This must be the end of the cyber-rainbow.
I don't mean to be judgmental, but these onliners
seem to think of the outside world
as their personal dumping ground.
They don't think of it at all.
That's the problem.
You want us to go up there?
No offense, but I'm not looking forward to a close encounter
with somebody's discarded lunch.
Don't worry, we should be able to shut the system off. Right about...
Now.
All right, so now we just reverse the suction,
and it'd take us right up to the penthouse, right?
It doesn't quite work that way.
We are at the online, ultra-modern side of this world,
and we are thrown back to hand-over-hand labor?
Don't you just love the irony?
Perfection. All the world at your fingertips.
It's not the world, it's just stuff.
My boys do enjoy the good life
whenever they come across it.
Me,
I like you, pretty Joanne.
And where you can take me.
Into every nook and cranny.
Every fine, sweet place.
We will strip this tower bare and bring it down.
I have gotta get some exercise.
Talk to me.
Climate control scanners are telling me there are
four, five, six people in the flat.
I can get height and weight readings on them.
I think we know they all meet the height requirements.
I'm guessing the big blips are the guys?
Yeah.
That must be Joanne.
And this one, too close to her for comfort, must be Jack.
How about the servos? Can we get control of anything?
Sure.
There are all kinds of automatic functions.
I've got one in mind.
So what are your pet peeves?
You would have to be at the top of the list.
Get this thing off of me!
Get me out of this!
Get it off of me!
Come on, go!
Get this off of me!
Hold it!
Back off.
For God's sake, stop this!
Get this off of me!
Stop this!
For God's sake, stop it!
I thought you liked being plugged in.
"Pull it all down from inside"?
Well, this will put you way inside.
Countermand.
Security.
Intruders.
Penthouse.
Reinforcement's on its way.
I knew you wouldn't stick him.
Yeah?
How?
'Cause I know you.
Like I knew you'd come riding in to the rescue.
Oh!
Love hurts.
It's okay.
Look, you're going to have to be patient with me.
This is all very new and very different.
I understand.
And you know you can get in touch with your parents whenever you want.
We could even go visit them sometime.
Visit?
Or they could come here.
My mom is a great cook.
Well, I don't know if an onliner would ever come offline.
You did.
Yeah, I did.
Anything's possible.
Now, my mom can be a little scary,
but she's really okay.
Mine, too.
Oh, my God, Rick.
I was so worried. Where have you been?
He was riding off on a white charger to save a damsel in distress.
Or a damsel under stress.
Mom,
this is Joanne.
She's an onliner. I mean...
Was an onliner.
I'm very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Montana.
Just call me Shirley.
Come on into the kitchen. I'm just putting on some cornbread.
Thank you for the offer, but we really have to run.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for everything.
Bye.
Bye, guys.
Hope you like home cooking.
I'm sure I will.
This is quite a place you have here.
Yep, I just ask myself, what would June Cleaver do?
And I do the opposite.
June Cleaver?
Ticking down.
You think they'll be able to make a change?
Bring things together?
Let's put it this way.
They ended up better than Romeo and Juliet.
Romeo and Juliet?
Yeah, Shakespeare.
Young lovers, sword fights, poison,
well-meaning monk who screws everything up,
and the young lovers die.
You're right, they did end up better than Romeo and Juliet.
Well, I am very happy that Rick and Joanne ended up together,
and I hope that when we get to the next world, we land together.
Together! Together!