Hackers (anthology) - "Dogfight"

"Dogfight"

This story was written by Michael Swanwick and William Gibson, and was first published in Omni in 1985. 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.

The story is typical of the cyberpunk genre in that its mood never rises from the melancholy and that the protagonist ends up suffering a kind of Pyrrhic victory, realizing too late that succeeding in his endeavor (i.e. winning the game) has cost him too dearly. As in film noir, the theme of betrayal exists strongly in the tale, as the protagonist sacrifices everything around him to succeed.