The image flickered on the green-washed screen of the old monitor, rolling bars all but obscuring the smiling cartoon fish that had once been blue, the background painted an unhealthy yellow-green by the screen’s limited colors. It was a monitor from the old days, before console warriors carried their rigs on their belts, before the cyberpuppets plugged their brains in and left them like that, before the rise of the megacorporations. The middle-aged man looked at the avatar and smiled. His brother had agreed to be redfish when they were young and buzzing with excitement, fresh from long nights of prank calls and laughing at authority. redfish hadn’t lasted more than a few months. When he hacked the Department of Defense, bluefish became a legend.

((It’s not about me, of course, but a reference to the novel I’m writing on which the avatar is based.))