Update hackers_fanfic.txt

hackers_fanfic.txt

@@ -49,7 +49,7 @@ He lowers his sunglasses to look you up and down properly, falters and licks his
 "Cereal." You pull his focus back to your face. This isn't getting you anywhere. "You wanna get out of here?"
 He pulls himself together with a sheepish grin. "Babe, that is a righteous idea. Let's go."
 
-The thing is, you've had a crush on Cereal since last year, when you first transferred to the gang's school and started idolising them from a distance. His hands – fast-moving with those constant manic gestures – they distract you sometimes. In class, you've caught yourself daydreaming about braiding his hair. And other, more X-rated, daydreams about that long tongue he's always flashing when he whoops and screams and pulls those ridiculous faces that you can't help but find weirdly adorable and also sort of hot.
+The thing is, you've had a crush on Cereal since last year, when you first transferred to the gang's school and started idolising them from a distance. His hands  fast-moving with those constant manic gestures  they distract you sometimes. In class, you've caught yourself daydreaming about braiding his hair. And other, more X-rated, daydreams about that long tongue he's always flashing when he whoops and screams and pulls those ridiculous faces that you can't help but find weirdly adorable and also sort of hot.
 
 And now he's leading you by hand up the stairs, half-dragging you to the next floor up, chattering excitedly the entire time. It's Nikon's place, Cereal explains, as he shows you in, but he's been crashing there the past couple of weeks. Plus Nikon'll be DJing for hours yet. The bass from the party below you thuds up through your feet.
 "So, um," Cereal concludes, flopping down on his futon bed and gesturing for you to follow. "We've got the place to ourselves."
@@ -97,7 +97,7 @@ He groans and puts a pillow over his head. "I forgot about school."
 "See you around, Cereal."
 "See you Monday, babe. Hack the planet!" He shouts it behind you as you go, one fist victory-pumping the air and voice muffled by the pillow still over his face.
 
-It's late by the time you get home, but you don't want to wait. You boot up the disc from Burn and find a set of encrypted files. You crack the cipher in no time, follow the cryptic instructions, and – buried deep in an online labyrinth of digital dead ends and trick code – locate a text file with a phone number. By now, the hour is obscene, but you dial anyway. It barely rings once before Burn's voice cuts in.
+It's late by the time you get home, but you don't want to wait. You boot up the disc from Burn and find a set of encrypted files. You crack the cipher in no time, follow the cryptic instructions, and   buried deep in an online labyrinth of digital dead ends and trick code  locate a text file with a phone number. By now, the hour is obscene, but you dial anyway. It barely rings once before Burn's voice cuts in.
 "Good work," she purrs. "I knew you could do it."
 "So am I in?"
 "Not yet." She huffs a laugh, and you can't help but imagine her in bed, Dade next to her, half-asleep but still listening. "Get some rest," she tells you."You'll need it. I'll beep you tomorrow with your next task."
@@ -183,7 +183,7 @@ When you duck through the curtain, you find a room set for some kind of cabaret.
 "Phreak?" you call. "You here?"
 "Finally." His voice comes from somewhat out of sight. "Get in here, will you?"
 You find him backstage at a make-up station bordered by glowing bulbs. He seems to be the only one there, but it's chaos anyway: he's got his laptop set up on the corner of the dressing table, and that's the source of the music, which is louder now. Around his computer the countertop is an explosion of cosmetics, colour and glitter.
-Phreak greets you by kissing you on both cheeks and stealing your drink. He's wearing a robe – leopardprint, because of course - with what seems to be next to nothing underneath. His face is more beautiful than ever; his elfin cheekbones dusted with glimmering highlighter and his smoky kohl-ringed eyes extra bright. He's wearing fake eyelashes, but so far only on one eye.
+Phreak greets you by kissing you on both cheeks and stealing your drink. He's wearing a robe   leopardprint, because of course - with what seems to be next to nothing underneath. His face is more beautiful than ever; his elfin cheekbones dusted with glimmering highlighter and his smoky kohl-ringed eyes extra bright. He's wearing fake eyelashes, but so far only on one eye.
 "Phreak. Babe." You remember from Joey how much he hates dude. "What's going on? How come you look like the madame in a 1920s brothel?"
 "First of all, I look slick as hell. Or I would if I could get this other one glued on properly. Damn it." He downs half of your cocktail, puts it down among the mess, then starts rummaging through the carnage, presumably searching for eyelash glue or something to fix this predicament. "Second, I'm performing soon. So, mi cielito, we gotta make our tango fast if I'm gonna be ready for showtime."
 You blink, and shake your head, dazzled and not following. "Sorry, I got distracted by how pretty you are. Tell me once more what's happening?"
@@ -285,7 +285,7 @@ You pick out a lingerie set. It's see-through and slick, a soft neon mesh that'd
 There are places he could get changed, if he wanted privacy, but he strips out of his shirt where he stands. You watch his fingers move over the buttons, thinking of the times you've seen them rampaging across his keyboard, think about Kate's smutty commentary being murmured in your ear: thank fuck he doesn't screw like he types. When his hands move to his belt you wrench your gaze away, glance over to the corner he nodded to when he mentioned your assignment.
 His laptop's set up on a coffee table, animated fireworks exploding in slow motion on its screen.
 Snickering again to yourself at your memory of his fevered typing style, you're gentle when you reach for the keyboard, nudging the screen into life and examining the display more closely. And when you recognise the interface, you grin. You're inside the portal for that TV network Crash and Burn fought over that time, before they even knew each other's handles. Is this like... kinky foreplay for them? They have their erotically charged battle over the airwaves and then unleash all the energy they've built up in the bedroom? Weird, you decide. But also hot. And definitely within your capabilities. The passing thought about what Dade and Kate's foreplay involves has the capacity for distraction, but you file the X-rated mental images away for later and get down to work. You've only made it past the first layer of encryption before a movement makes you look up. And then it may as well be that crashing GAME OVER graphic from that dumb game they both love. Because Crash is standing before you in the lingerie set and the sight scrambles your brain into shutdown.
-It's obviously made for someone more curvy than him – you get a sudden flashback to Phreak with his corsetted hourglass shape – so he has absolutely no right to look as good as he does. But even though the mesh hugs muscles rather than softness, he's still a total vision: gorgeous and filthy, right down to the smug dirty grin and the fabric straining at the crotch.
+It's obviously made for someone more curvy than him   you get a sudden flashback to Phreak with his corsetted hourglass shape so he has absolutely no right to look as good as he does. But even though the mesh hugs muscles rather than softness, he's still a total vision: gorgeous and filthy, right down to the smug dirty grin and the fabric straining at the crotch.
 "That's very distracting," you tell him.
 "That's the idea. Sometimes we do our thing in... strange circumstances. We need to know you can focus."
 
@@ -416,65 +416,65 @@ I'd like to thank my friend AyalaAtreides for beta reading this, as well as help
 (See the end of the work for more notes.)
 
 Work Text:
-The first time Ramon Sanchez, a.k.a. Fantom Phreak, set eyes on Dade Murphy, he’d just thought the newbie was passingly good-looking, but not much else. Then he’d guessed Burchill’s password and done a pretty damn good hack in school.
+The first time Ramon Sanchez, a.k.a. Fantom Phreak, set eyes on Dade Murphy, hed just thought the newbie was passingly good-looking, but not much else. Then hed guessed Burchills password and done a pretty damn good hack in school.
 
 Now that, he decided, merited a closer look.
 
-It wasn’t long before he was enthralled with Dade, or “Crash Override” as he dubbed himself. It was like he’d lived algorithms and networks and coding! His hacking was so choice; it was almost like watching a samurai do sword movements, the way Dade so effortlessly blew past even some pretty tough network security. Ramon would swear Dade could run his eyes down a page of pure fucking hexadecimal and figure it out in his mind, mentally assembling the code, opcode at a time, until he’d built up the entire structure in his head and captured the – what was that word Burn had used once? The gestalt of the program. The “completeness” of it, as it were.
+It wasn't long before he was enthralled with Dade, or “Crash Override” as he dubbed himself. It was like he'd lived algorithms and networks and coding! His hacking was so choice; it was almost like watching a samurai do sword movements, the way Dade so effortlessly blew past even some pretty tough network security. Ramon would swear Dade could run his eyes down a page of pure fucking hexadecimal and figure it out in his mind, mentally assembling the code, opcode at a time, until hed built up the entire structure in his head and captured the what was that word Burn had used once? The gestalt of the program. The “completeness” of it, as it were.
 
-But there was a problem: Dade was so obviously smitten with Burn, and Burn, try as she might, couldn’t not find a way to put up with him. She didn’t tease guys she didn’t like – she just straight-up verbally slaughtered them.
+But there was a problem: Dade was so obviously smitten with Burn, and Burn, try as she might, couldn't not find a way to put up with him. She didn't tease guys she didn't like  she just straight-up verbally slaughtered them.
 
 So… Dade was forbidden. Period.
 
-But he’d always tried to be careful to keep his eyes to himself when he could; he straddled the line between openness and closeted with his loud leopard print outfits, but was always able to pass it off as being Hispanic. People believe fucking anything if you just chalk it up to your “exotic” ethnicity, thought Ramon sardonically. So much for a world that follows the beauty of the baud and doesn’t give a shit what you look like.
+But hed always tried to be careful to keep his eyes to himself when he could; he straddled the line between openness and closeted with his loud leopard print outfits, but was always able to pass it off as being Hispanic. People believe fucking anything if you just chalk it up to your “exotic” ethnicity, thought Ramon sardonically. So much for a world that follows the beauty of the baud and doesnt give a shit what you look like.
 
-And then one day it was just him and Cereal, hanging out at Cyberdelia after another round of judging the score in the tense Burn vs Crash hacking battles. As usual, he was sucking back a Coke while Cereal kept trying (and failing) to be discreet about stealing Ramon’s fries.
+And then one day it was just him and Cereal, hanging out at Cyberdelia after another round of judging the score in the tense Burn vs Crash hacking battles. As usual, he was sucking back a Coke while Cereal kept trying (and failing) to be discreet about stealing Ramons fries.
 
-He set his cup down and groaned. “Man, it’s gettin’ harder to figure out how to keep them exactly tied so they’ll resolve their unresolved fuckin’ sexual tension. You can cut that shit with a knife.”
+He set his cup down and groaned. “Man, its gettin harder to figure out how to keep them exactly tied so theyll resolve their unresolved fuckin sexual tension. You can cut that shit with a knife.”
 
-Cereal just stopped and stared at him levelly for a bit. Then he slowly munched on a French fry and mused aloud, his voice just barely heard over the background babbling, “You like him, don’t you? Crash – Dade, I mean.”
+Cereal just stopped and stared at him levelly for a bit. Then he slowly munched on a French fry and mused aloud, his voice just barely heard over the background babbling, “You like him, dont you? Crash Dade, I mean.”
 
-A sharp pang hit Ramon’s stomach, and he retorted, “Well, yeah, dude’s elite. Knows his shit like he’s got it all freakin’ memorized. I mean, ask him to quote page forty-five of the Dragon Book and he could probably spit it out without even breaking a sweat.”
+A sharp pang hit Ramons stomach, and he retorted, “Well, yeah, dudes elite. Knows his shit like hes got it all freakin memorized. I mean, ask him to quote page forty-five of the Dragon Book and he could probably spit it out without even breaking a sweat.”
 
-Cereal shook his head. “Nah, man. It’s deeper than that. You like like him, don’tcha?”
+Cereal shook his head. “Nah, man. Its deeper than that. You like like him, dontcha?”
 
-Ramon froze. Boys just didn’t do that. Even just hearing his mom tell him she loved him was embarrassing enough; if he ever told another guy he liked him – or hell, loved him? Ramon was positive he’d sink through the fucking floor after that. And everybody’d think he was loco, too.
+Ramon froze. Boys just didnt do that. Even just hearing his mom tell him she loved him was embarrassing enough; if he ever told another guy he liked him or hell, loved him? Ramon was positive hed sink through the fucking floor after that. And everybodyd think he was loco, too.
 
 He took a long pull on the straw in his Coke cup, trying to stall for time.
 
-Cereal shrugged. “Hey, man, it is what it is. World we live in, it’s got enough people hating each other over stupid shit anyway. Like, look at Bosnia.”
+Cereal shrugged. “Hey, man, it is what it is. World we live in, its got enough people hating each other over stupid shit anyway. Like, look at Bosnia.”
 
-Ramon set his cup down and sighed, looking out across the arcade-slash-fast-food-joint. That standing-on-a-cliff feeling he had whenever he’d come close to confessing his sexuality was rising again. And every time previously, he’d always been too chickenshit to take the leap, letting the relief flow over him as he hid the truth once more.
+Ramon set his cup down and sighed, looking out across the arcade-slash-fast-food-joint. That standing-on-a-cliff feeling he had whenever hed come close to confessing his sexuality was rising again. And every time previously, hed always been too chickenshit to take the leap, letting the relief flow over him as he hid the truth once more.
 
-But not this time. His leg started bouncing of its own accord, and he clenched his fist so Cereal wouldn’t see the slight tremor. He bit his lip, then looked back at Cereal.
+But not this time. His leg started bouncing of its own accord, and he clenched his fist so Cereal wouldnt see the slight tremor. He bit his lip, then looked back at Cereal.
 
 Fuck it.
 
-He threw up his hands and said, “Okay, fine! Busted! Queerer than a three-dollar bill, all that shit. Now what?” He let out his breath as though he’d just run a marathon, and screwing up his courage, he looked Cereal steadily in the eye, challenging him – daring him to say anything.
+He threw up his hands and said, “Okay, fine! Busted! Queerer than a three-dollar bill, all that shit. Now what?” He let out his breath as though he'd just run a marathon, and screwing up his courage, he looked Cereal steadily in the eye, challenging him daring him to say anything.
 
 But Cereal just raised an eyebrow and leaned back in his seat. “So now what about Dade?”
 
-“The dude is so incurably damn straight, it makes me just—” He growled. Changing the subject, he said, “How’d you spot it, anyway? I thought I was being so careful.”
+“The dude is so incurably damn straight, it makes me just—” He growled. Changing the subject, he said, “How'd you spot it, anyway? I thought I was being so careful.”
 
 Cereal chuckled. “Because we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”
 
 Ramon leaned back in his chair and raised an eyebrow, marvelling, “Where even the hell do you pick that shit up?”
 
-“Two Corinthians Chapter four, Verse eighteen.” Cereal smirked a tiny bit, then went back to sipping his Coke. Ramon snorted. Only Cereal would quote the damn Bible in order to sound mysterious. “But seriously, dude, you only ever do long-distance calls with girls. If that isn’t a way to sound straight without any of the strings attached having an IRL girlfriend… can’t be too hard to see that.”
+“Two Corinthians Chapter four, Verse eighteen.” Cereal smirked a tiny bit, then went back to sipping his Coke. Ramon snorted. Only Cereal would quote the damn Bible in order to sound mysterious. “But seriously, dude, you only ever do long-distance calls with girls. If that isn't a way to sound straight without any of the strings attached having an IRL girlfriend… can't be too hard to see that.”
 
-But reality set in, and Ramon slumped in his seat with a sigh. “Well, if I can’t have Dade, I can at least help fix it so Burn can get him. Yeah?”
+But reality set in, and Ramon slumped in his seat with a sigh. “Well, if I can't have Dade, I can at least help fix it so Burn can get him. Yeah?”
 
 Cereal nodded slowly and sagely. “Wise, indeed, Obi-Fantom! Now how shall we score the next head to head battle?”
 
-“Let’s go find Nikon and ask. He was gonna hook up with some girl, but even guys with photographic memories can strike out every once in a while.”
+“Lets go find Nikon and ask. He was gonna hook up with some girl, but even guys with photographic memories can strike out every once in a while.”
 
-“Good, ‘cause I need to ask to crash at his place again.”
+“Good, cause I need to ask to crash at his place again.”
 
 Ramon tossed a fry at his friend, snorting. “Dude, you ask like every second week!”
 
 Cereal Killer, a.k.a. Emmanuel Goldstein, just gave Ramon an impish smile in return.
 
-Ramon rolled his eyes and threw his coat on. “You’ve stolen enough of my fries, damn it, so let’s get moving.”
+Ramon rolled his eyes and threw his coat on. “You've stolen enough of my fries, damn it, so let's get moving.”
 
 Cereal just barely managed to pull off a convincing offendedly innocent look before cracking up as he got out of his seat as well; with that, the two men sauntered on out of Cyberdelia as though nothing had changed between them.
 
@@ -505,16 +505,16 @@ Beta: The excellently thoughtful Nit Wicks
 
 Notes from LadyKardasi and Sahviere, the archivists:
 
-For creators: This work was originally archived at Slash Advent Calendar and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2025. We tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact us using the e-mail address on Slash Advent Calendar’s collection profile.
+For creators: This work was originally archived at Slash Advent Calendar and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2025. We tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact us using the e-mail address on Slash Advent Calendars collection profile.
 
-For readers: We are importing this work from an archive with metadata that may not be a good fit with AO3's meta structure, and we are cautious about making decisions on behalf of the creator. We haven’t read the work, and additional warnings may or may not apply. The tags may be inaccurate or incomplete. While the work may be marked as complete, it may not be. Once the creator has claimed the work, they can update these details as they see fit.
+For readers: We are importing this work from an archive with metadata that may not be a good fit with AO3's meta structure, and we are cautious about making decisions on behalf of the creator. We havent read the work, and additional warnings may or may not apply. The tags may be inaccurate or incomplete. While the work may be marked as complete, it may not be. Once the creator has claimed the work, they can update these details as they see fit.
 
 Work Text:
 Like most New York apartments, this one had its own idiosyncrasies: the front door opened directly into a room that was either an unusually wide hallway or a spectacularly narrow living room. The kitchen and bathroom were cramped, and though both tiny bedrooms had the standard issue four square walls, neither had a closet. The heating and cooling system had been creatively cobbled together by several decades' worth of superintendents. On the morning of December 23 rd , the temperatures of the four separate microclimates within the apartment ranged from 76 ° F (Dade's room) to 36 ° F (the bathroom, unfortunately).
 
 Dade sat on his bed, which was wedged under the window at one end of the room. The bright morning sun gleamed off his short-clipped bleach-blond hair, but his dark blue eyes were still bleary from sleep. He wore a red t-shirt that was about two washings away from transparent and about two sizes too small, even for his narrow frame. The neck of the t-shirt was completely stretched out, as was the elastic in his blue boxer shorts. If he stood up, the shorts would probably fall off.
 
-He was fiddling with his homemade portable computer; the camo paint job was really flaking off – time to come up with a new color scheme. Across the room (just out of reach of Dade's bare toes) was a tiny desk, which housed his other computer and a haphazard collection of papers, tapes, and floppy disks. His other other computer lived under the desk, next to a pile of random computer parts that were escaping across the floor. Dade liked computers. So did his friends. Which was a good thing really; due to the extreme length of his legs, Dade's friend who was sitting on the floor was more or less in the pile of computer parts.
+He was fiddling with his homemade portable computer; the camo paint job was really flaking off  time to come up with a new color scheme. Across the room (just out of reach of Dade's bare toes) was a tiny desk, which housed his other computer and a haphazard collection of papers, tapes, and floppy disks. His other other computer lived under the desk, next to a pile of random computer parts that were escaping across the floor. Dade liked computers. So did his friends. Which was a good thing really; due to the extreme length of his legs, Dade's friend who was sitting on the floor was more or less in the pile of computer parts.
 
 Though his given name was Emmanuel Goldstein, the friend in question answered happily to “Cereal Killer”. His fashion choices matched his improbable handle. Four light brown chin-length braids were distributed evenly around his head. The two front braids framed his rather wide forehead, and the two in back were unraveling after a night spent on the couch in the living room-slash-hallway. His sleepy blue eyes smiled at nothing in particular.
 
@@ -524,7 +524,7 @@ The Dead Kennedys t-shirt that he'd slept in barely qualified as clothing; the n
 
 Cereal called back, “Yes, I do, Mrs. Murphy. I just like your home a lot better!” He added, “Pretty much anybody's home is better” just loud enough for Dade to hear.
 
-“Okay boys,” Dade's mom came to the bedroom door. “I'm headed out for some last-minute Christmas shopping. I'll be back this afternoon. Try not to do anything that'll cause the Feds to raid the house while I'm gone – I'm fresh out of bail money.”
+“Okay boys,” Dade's mom came to the bedroom door. “I'm headed out for some last-minute Christmas shopping. I'll be back this afternoon. Try not to do anything that'll cause the Feds to raid the house while I'm gone  I'm fresh out of bail money.”
 
 The two boys turned their most angelic faces towards her. She gave them a dirty look, shook her finger at them, and left.
 
@@ -534,7 +534,7 @@ The ringing phone sent Dade scrabbling under the bed. He hunted it down and answ
 
 “Why yes, that was Kate, thanks for asking. She's coming over.”
 
-Dade's girlfriend was the scariest person either of them knew. She was also just about the hottest girl in their entire school. When she had chosen to go out with Dade, he – and all of the rest of their friends – had been amazed. Dade still seemed to be walking around in a haze a lot of the time, and he and Kate had been together for about five months. Cereal figured that Kate's interest in Dade had a lot to do with the fact that he was easy to push around; he was beginning to think that Dade's interest in Kate was at least partly due to her talent for pushing.
+Dade's girlfriend was the scariest person either of them knew. She was also just about the hottest girl in their entire school. When she had chosen to go out with Dade, he and all of the rest of their friends had been amazed. Dade still seemed to be walking around in a haze a lot of the time, and he and Kate had been together for about five months. Cereal figured that Kate's interest in Dade had a lot to do with the fact that he was easy to push around; he was beginning to think that Dade's interest in Kate was at least partly due to her talent for pushing.
 
 “Did you really wear a dress on your first date?”
 
@@ -544,7 +544,7 @@ Dade's girlfriend was the scariest person either of them knew. She was also just
 
 “Well… More of a, um, frock coat, really.”
 
-“A ‘frock coat'?”
+“A frock coat'?”
 
 “Um, a coat with a, uh, kind of a skirt?”
 
@@ -552,7 +552,7 @@ Dade's girlfriend was the scariest person either of them knew. She was also just
 
 Dade was a pretty fashion-forward guy; his clothes didn't convey the happy-go-lucky insanity of Cereal's outfits, but they were not the sort of thing you saw on the street every day. Well, in New York, maybe you'd see something like them a couple times a week, but he managed to communicate his individuality pretty well. The almost-dress Kate had picked out for him for their date had kinda pushed his boundaries, and he figured he'd been pretty lucky to avoid the red patent-pleather lingerie.
 
-Kate had actually worn a dress on the date, too – an unprecedented event. It had been the terms of the bet that Dade had won. Still, since his buddies had confessed to letting Dade win solely so he could get a date with Kate, she'd insisted he hold up his end of the deal as well.
+Kate had actually worn a dress on the date, too  an unprecedented event. It had been the terms of the bet that Dade had won. Still, since his buddies had confessed to letting Dade win solely so he could get a date with Kate, she'd insisted he hold up his end of the deal as well.
 
 “So,” Cereal began conversationally as he returned from his brief shower, shivering, “you and Kate are-“ he thrust his hips “-doin' the nasty, right?”
 
@@ -570,7 +570,7 @@ Kate had actually worn a dress on the date, too – an unprecedented event. It h
 
 Dade flopped back on the bed, as Cereal dug a clean and completely shredded t-shirt out of his army-surplus bag. Dade threw his arm over his eyes. “First of all, please refrain from thinking about my girlfriend when you're in the SHOWER! Second of all, it's none of your business.”
 
-“Hey, don't feel left out – I was thinking about both of you while I was in the shower.”
+“Hey, don't feel left out  I was thinking about both of you while I was in the shower.”
 
 Dade pulled a pillow over his face and screamed quietly into it.
 
@@ -596,9 +596,9 @@ Kate smiled slowly. “I didn't know you were playing both sides of the fence.
 
 “Well it's not like I'm gonna go getting fucked with a dildo when there's the real thing available!”
 
-Kate came in to the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She reached over Dade, leaning on her arm. Cereal turned to face her and missed the entrance of a slightly older man with ear-length dreadlocks. He was shorter than either Cereal or Dade – closer to Kate's height, actually - and at about twenty-five, older than any of them. A few of his dreads were bleached gold and he wore a multicolored bike-racing jersey under his overcoat. There were at least two pagers clipped to his belt.
+Kate came in to the room and sat on the edge of the bed. She reached over Dade, leaning on her arm. Cereal turned to face her and missed the entrance of a slightly older man with ear-length dreadlocks. He was shorter than either Cereal or Dade  closer to Kate's height, actually - and at about twenty-five, older than any of them. A few of his dreads were bleached gold and he wore a multicolored bike-racing jersey under his overcoat. There were at least two pagers clipped to his belt.
 
-“If a ‘dildo', as you put it, is so vastly inferior to ‘the real thing', why are you advising Dade to settle for one?” Kate asked Cereal.
+“If a dildo', as you put it, is so vastly inferior to 'the real thing', why are you advising Dade to settle for one?” Kate asked Cereal.
 
 Dade “mmphed” into the pillow again, this time louder and higher-pitched. Kate stroked his exposed stomach.
 
@@ -608,7 +608,7 @@ Dade “mmphed” into the pillow again, this time louder and higher-pitched. Ka
 
 “Nikon!” Cereal exclaimed.
 
-Dade said, “Thank God– maybe we can move on to some other topic of discussion?”
+Dade said, “Thank God maybe we can move on to some other topic of discussion?”
 
 “Oh, no,” Kate broke in. “Emmanuel, here, implied that he's been exploring the potential pleasures of anal stimulation with a fellow member of the weaker sex. My interest is certainly piqued.”
 
@@ -618,7 +618,7 @@ Cereal hemmed and hawed a bit; looked down at Nikon, grinned lopsidedly. Nikon r
 
 “And I'm sure Kate appreciates that, but it's my idiot-child-molesting self on the line, now isn't it? I'm wondering why I ever let your gangly, sorry, pale, narrow ass stay over in the first place.”
 
-“Umm… ‘cuz ya like me?” Cereal bent to rest his temple on Nikon's shoulder, making puppy-dog eyes up into the stern face. Nikon gave Cereal a shove in the ribs, and then they both cracked up laughing. Kate and Dade looked on bemusedly.
+“Umm… cuz ya like me?” Cereal bent to rest his temple on Nikon's shoulder, making puppy-dog eyes up into the stern face. Nikon gave Cereal a shove in the ribs, and then they both cracked up laughing. Kate and Dade looked on bemusedly.
 
 “Really?” Dade said wonderingly, “You guys are sleeping together?”