The Stuff of Dreams The unofficial archive of the Model 66 Scenario as compiled by Kip Moore (kip+@cmu.edu) Version 1.0 DRAMATIS PERSONAE (in order of appearance) Liralen Li li@inigo.data-io.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Leadfoot kip+@cmu.edu (Kip Moore) Nekoko hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Belladonna joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) ARES HK Drone cdr@brahms.amd.com (Carl Rigney) White Knight v055nmvy@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (David A. Gaidasz) Tracker tracker@wpi.wpi.edi (The Renegade Ranger) Running Wolf teneyck@tybalt.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) Argent li@inigo.data-io.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Viadd palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) Medicine Hawk kaubey@europa.asd.contel.com (Ken Aubey) Heavy Judy burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Gestalt ??? Note: This is by no means the authoritative archive of the Model 66 Scenario!! This is simply a quick cut-and-paste job of the stories scattered throughout the a.c.c. archive that struck me as immediately relevant. I WELCOME ANY AND ALL COMMENTS ON THIS ARCHIVE, *ESPECIALLY* ON ITS FORM, STRUCTURE, AND CONTENT!!! Please give me feedback; this is a very rough construct and I'd like to smooth out some of its edges. Another Note: I'm certain that some of those addresses above no longer exist. Which ones they are, however, I've completely forgotten. Please send me updates or additions, or what-have-you. With that, on with the show! +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= Article 4744 of alt.cyberpunk: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Re: Dataflow (was -> Re: Interface) Date: 9 Nov 90 02:24:59 GMT Liralen follows Erich out into the storm. It is already wet and a bit uncomfortably cold, not to mention the strong wind. "This is what I see coming," he shouts over the noise, "a storm of information that I don't have the audacity to say I could handle unaided." He comes closer you notice his facial expression has changed and has a somewhat maniacal look to it, or maybe driven is a better desciption... "You can sit inside and stay in the domains that could be handled before with only so much information at hand, but I can't ignore draw of this kind of... well... *power*, really. It is almost magnetic, but one cannot weather a storm without help." She nods, both understanding and an empathy for his driven feeling. She has worked five years in artificial neural network research with the hope that, someday, such aid might, someday, become hers. He looks down at his hands and rubs them a bit, then smiles wryly and says, "I tend to think that the interfaces would have to be almost an artificial cortex of sorts, or extremely adaptive in the least, to be very useful... oh well. It would be an achievement in itself." He sighs wistfully. "But lets get back inside" They go back inside. And, as they get some food and drink, she is silent, thinking of how to say what she wants to say. "I think you're on the right track, but then that's what I've been trying to work towards, someday." But the look on her face is frustrated, tired. "It's just feels so very, very far away, sometimes." Liralen is silent for a long moment. "I never meant to put down people's dreams for the furture. I never said that I thought a-v interfaces wouldn't be possible, someday. I'm just greedy, now, for a wider bandwidth, more information than what I was getting, here. As Jon pointed out, people will push the limits of whatever medium they get, and what I wanted to do was push the limits of this medium. I never intended to say that I didn't think that other mediums couldn't be developed." she sighs, "I guess I didn't get that across too well the first three times." She looks off into one corner, playing with her food a little, "I mean, I'd give a lot to have an interface directly into anothers emotions, anothers thoughts, and I can do a little of it through text, but if there were actually a system that could support the entire endocrine system as well as the centers of the MIND, that system would have to be completely adaptable to each individual, because each person's system is different. Neat thing, though is that humans are adaptable, but I worry, a little, about just how far they can or cannot go." After getting something warm in his stomach Erich says, "You're right, you know... we would have to be almost specially trained to handle these interfaces, smart as they may be to fill their function in the first place, but isn't that what this place is anyway?" He spreads his hands with an open expression... She chuckles. "Yeah. I think so." Liralen looks around, and suddenly a couple of other people bring a bar into alt.cyberpunk. An amazing hardware hacker puts together an amazing system in his corner of the space. Others join their conversation... and Liralen smiles, glad to see them, glad to share their creations with them. "You know, I thought I'd just answer one more article, and then quit this place. I'd forgotten how argumentative the regular Net could be, and my skin's thin from two years of not being on the regular Net. Some of the sideswipes HURT. But then, tonight, I saw all this happen. I'm glad. And, I think, I'll just thicken my skin a little, and I think I'll stay for a while and see what else develops." Liralen smiles. And her jeans turn into leather pants of the same indigo blue shade as her jacket, the sneakers become blue-black, knee high boots. Her brown eyes turn steel-blue, and her nails grow and are laquered the same deep blue. Fingerless gloves of blue leather and steel chainmail appear on her hands. A matched pair of single bladed long knives show up, strapped to her forearms, with small, intricate braids the color of her black, black hair tieing them into their sheathes with a peace knot. And making sure that one of the bar's walls is at her back, she sits back to watch the going ons in this particular place. Article 4375 of alt.callahans: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Re: TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE Date: 8 Nov 90 16:54:54 GMT The roar of a big Harley creshendos and then stops, abruptly, in the parking lot of Callahans. The crunch of gravel, and then the door swings open to show Li, the street punk. There is something different about her, her eyes have turned unnaturally steel blue, and the long nails of her hands are laqured the same indigo blue as her leathers. Most of the patrons only note that her leathers have been slashed up a bit, and there is one nasty looking scorch mark across the back of her left shoulder. But, as she strides into the Place, she is humming and half singing to herself, happily if monotonicly... "The power of imagination goes right to my head, The power of imagination goes right to my head." She drops off her weapons at the piano, kissing Fast Eddie on his head, even as he starts in on the rest of the Eurythmic's song. She stuffs a couple of bills in Eddie's tip jar, and goes up to the bar, and slaps a single onto its surface, "A Blue Steel." she says, and looks around her as she waits for her drink. And she nods at those who have said that they will accept even her, and chuckles at the punk teddy bear, and applaudes Cuddle's and Steve's rendition of the alphabet. She takes her drink to a table by a wall, and sits down and tips her chair into the wall, and relaxes. She knows she's safe here, but old habits die hard. She sips her drink and watches. Her attention, for a moment, is caught by Mute and his contemplation of a fireplace full of only broken glass. Her eyes go dark for a moment, and then she lifts her drink in a salute to him. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she catches the yellow- toothed creature stealing beers. She grins, amused, but then, the fellow suddenly disappears down a trapdoor. Her eyes narrowed, she flows over to the spot where he dissappeared, and, finding the spot, she stands on it, and then stomps, HARD with her foot and the trapdoor opens. Using the infrared capabilities in her new Chiba Specials, she sees how he lies at the bottom of the shaft, and twists her body, hard. She lands, knees bent, on the balls of her feet, straddling the poor creature. Claustraphobia closes on her throat, but she shakes it off, and, carefully, positions her body so that she can kneel, bend and pick up the creature. Li finally manages to cradle the moaning creature in her arms. She closes her eyes on the darkness, and gives a part of her mind the problem of calculating the thrust needed to get them both out of there without going through Callahan's much abused roof, or, even the dance floor, for that matter. The calculations come through, she puts together the program for their little flight, locks it in, and they take off on her small flight pack. She bows her head, to let her shoulders take the brunt of the impact. And is glad of the preprogramming, as she had forgotten the burn on her shoulder, and when she hits the door, she greys out. The program gracefully brings her up and over and then drops her to the floor. She collapses, onto her knees, but sheer will keeps her from going down any further than that. The creature, somewhat worse for the wear, scrambles out of her loose grasp, and, for a moment, it looks as if she is kneeling in supplication to him. Then she drops her head into her hands and rubs her eyes, hard. She reaches a hand up to the creature, and gets a hand up. "Thanks." she says, shortly. Then she looks the creature in the eye and says, "Can I buy you a couple of beers?" At his eager nod, she chuckles, and gets him a couple of beers. And, as he's drinking them, she says, "Now, don't take this wrong, I like a laugh just as much as anyone else here. But there are a couple of reasons that most of the laughs here are word plays, puns, riddles, and the like. There are a lot of us that come in here to be safe, to relax. And if people started doing too many gags that requires that some patron HURT another patron, well, my sense of security gets shot. I *really* hate dealing with hidden traps, here, of all places. I have to admit that I'm not really into humor where someone gets hurt, because, as far as I can see, there's too much hurt in the world, already." As the creatures startled look of comprehension, she pats him on the shoulder, "I know that you meant well, and you do write those gags really well. It's just that, well," she looks around, "there be empaths here, and, even if you mean to be funny, they will hurt simply because you hurt." "Finally, I guess, there's the simple fact that a lot of people here pride themselves on being able to accept anyone. And if they can accept even me," she grins a grin with a lot fewer and blunter teeth than he, but there is something unsettling behind her steel blue eyes even to him, "you got it made." "OK?" she pats him on the back, and then starts to walk off. "Uhm... What do we do with this?" a patron holds up the broken off trapdoor. She chuckles, "I think those hardware punsters have got so many screws loose that they probably have plenty to spare in order to repair the floor. Why don't you ax them for help?" She tosses off the rest of her drink, gives the glass to Mike, collects her quarters and weapons, and goes out the door. And the sounds of a Blue Harley softly fade away... Article 4410 of alt.callahans: >From: li@polari.UUCP (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: A Dark Chromed Piper (was Re: egads...donde es la stars?) Date: 11 Nov 90 21:16:47 GMT Li appears, this time, simply appears, by a dark booth with a healing being, in it. She appears in all her ferocity and all her inhumanity, the pale, sharp features of her Asian face stern and implacable around the strange steel blue of her eyes. "Brothers." she says to Eldrich and Prong, "Dark Brothers. I would invite you to another place." she says, "A place where we *belong*. A place that would embrace our danger, embrace our dark dreamings, and cheer us on for more. A place where we would not trouble the peace of a place made for healing." "You, too, Michael Bowen, or vo73mdwm of ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu, if you would rather be known by that." she says to the air, to wherever that strange place is that he has found, instead of where he would be. "You and your deadly visions would be welcome there, too. Come with me to Chatsubo, built in the hall of alt.cyberpunk." She eyes Enigma and the delicate tip of his cane, but says nothing. Instead, she moves, so gracefully, in a flow of muscle and balance, over to the fireplace, to confront Sir Papillon, "You as well." she whispers, indigo blue fingernails gently brush against his cheek, "If you wish to express the steel and chrome within you. Come with me. Come join us at alt.cyberpunk." Her drink is on the bar, before she even puts the dollar down. She gulps it, and goes to the line. "To Farewell." >> CRASH!! << "This particular Aspect of Phyllis Li Chia Yu Rostykus will say, May all of you fare well in this Place. But I must be going." Li's smile is small, and as bright as the edge of a well used blade. "I know that the price of my safety here has been the security and the peace of many of you, and I am sorry for that. But I would thank you for the safety that you have extended, for it was much appreciated." Her bow to all is intricate and smooth, beautiful and flourished, and heartfelt. "Also, I have appreciated how you all have showed me how it is to dream with words. To work with this particular version and vision of virtual reality. And in return, I will be gone from here. Leave you to your work of healing Reality, while I go to play in the blood and glass of dark Fantasy in the realm of alt.cyberpunk." "When you followup on this article, do it to alt.cyberpunk, for *I* will NOT be here." Her toast and explanation done, Li simply falls apart, de-rezzing with a soft buzz of static. ------ Liralen, watching from a table, smiles, gently, and pats Fezzik on his fuzzy head. Article 4798 of alt.cyberpunk: >From: km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kip G. Moore) Subject: Cyberprose Date: 12 Nov 90 22:30:46 GMT It is a quiet evening in the Chatsubo. The sputtering neon of the world outside is strobing across the ageless, worn plastiform tables, animating long forgotten shadows that strut past the angular recesses of the bar. The few patrons that inhabit the bar at this time feel oddly comfortable, a sensation that does not come often to inhabitants of this virtual reality. A slicing autumn wind cheerfully spins at the windows, kicking up the refuse outside, breathing into it a fleeting new life, then ambitiously moves on to stir the remainder of technology's forgotten servants. In the silence following the unexpected gust, a young man arrives at the bar. It is as if the gust is a precursor, sweeping all of the distracting elements away, creating a nearly idealistic setting for his arrival. He pauses in front of the bar in awe, staring at the faded pictoglyphs inscribed upon the window that proclaim this establishment's moniker. Shaking his head in wonder, he enters the bar. The door opens comfortably beneath his push. The tall newcomer is dressed in a pair of baggy pants and a long trenchcoat. Long, thin brown hair nearly hides his face, but he sweeps it out of the way with a practiced flick of the wrist. The exotically beautiful blue woman sitting at a table in the middle of the narrow room sends him a look of professional curiosity, then returns to her introspection and her steaming drink. The incongruous sight of a dragon and a knight sitting next to each other brings a nervous smile to the face of the young man as he crosses the floor to the bar and sits down. "Black Russian, " says the breathless newcomer to the bartender. The bartender smiles, not unkindly, and produces a squat crystal glass that he fills with a murky brown liquid. "Welcome to the Chatsubo. My name's Ratz. Over there's Liralen, and sitting next to you is the White Knight and the Dragon. In order to exist here, it helps to have a name." "Oh," says the newcomer. "Well, for lack of anything original, I suppose you could call me Leadfoot. That'll have to do for now. " His hair flops back into his face. As he sweeps it back again, one of his eyes, the hazel one, catches an errant ray of light and reveals the Zeiss Ikon logo imprinted upon the iris. His other eye appears normal enough, except that it is the deepest shade of green that anyone in the bar has ever seen. "Well," says Leadfoot between sips, "this is a very impressive virtual drink. I must confess, I am rather awestruck by the existence of such a place. I was wandering around painfully bland virtual reality and with little or no warning, this full-fledged construct leaps up in front of me and I decided to see what it was all about. Excuse me...." Leadfoot sits up straight, rigid. His eyes defocus for a split second and then he looks around. "I see," breathes the newcomer. "This is quite a unique phenomenon. Or is it an experiment? Nonetheless, it is brilliant with the glow of creativity and intelligence...And now I understand. Liralen, your point is well taken. This is an excellent way to create and maintain a virtual reality, and it's obviously working. I'm glad I managed to stumble upon a den of such dynamic ideas!" Leadfoot smiles and drains his drink. "The options are virtually unlimited! No pun intended, of course. You see, there is nothing like nothing to have fun with..." The newcomer raises his hand. In the flash of movement, something writhes, shimmers, evolves, and manifests itself. An infinitesimal statuette appears on the upraised palm of Leadfoot's hand. It pulses in time with the distant flashing neon outside...and is gone. It has swallowed itself. The newcomer stands and walks over to Liralen. He bows from the waist. "I hope you realize what you have started," he grins and whispers just low enough for her to hear. Leadfoot straightens and turns to face the White Knight and the Dragon. "You, too, must maintain this virtual reality along with Liralen. Not for it's own sake, but to show as an example of how easy such a thing is to accomplish." "Ratz, thanks for the drink. I was parched." The newcomer glances at the bar and several thousand virtual Yen appear. And Ratz makes them disappear just as fast as they appeared. Leadfoot's grin grows wider. "I'll see you all again sometime soon. Wow, what a great place..." He strides across the comfortably cramped room, opens the door, and steps out into the street, walking in the opposite direction from which he came. It is thoroughly dark out now, but from the dull glow shining through the windows of the Chatsubo, the patrons see the wind rise again, flinging aside the innumerable, miniscule scraps of trash on their virtual journey across the street. Article 1 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: goldfarb@ocf.berkeley.edu (David Goldfarb) Subject: Open for business, chummer. Date: 14 Nov 90 11:28:08 GMT Pink and blue neon lighthazing smoky air. Matte black tabletops are easy to clean off -- they don't show the residue from spilled drinks. Or spilled blood. This is where the street samurai hang out. The sign over the door reads "Chatsubo's." Focus: a dark-hair teen-age silver-shade razorboy wannabe. He's sipping a drink -- hasn't got the guts or else the money for something stronger. He's muttering to himself. "OK, so the lit'ry ramblin' types don't get along with som'a the technerds. S'cool, chummer. We just pack our marbles and go play on another set of inodes. Seeya 'round, guys. *This* place is now officially open for biz." He leans back and waits for the customers. Article 2 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Chrome isn't the message Date: 14 Nov 90 21:20:08 GMT The front door of the Chatsubo swung open to admit another newcomer. Before the door closed, the cold wind brought in a smell of rot and pollution. The woman leaned against against the door, trying to close it quickly. She was young. Kind of pretty, but not pretty like a media star. Not short, but not tall either. A face with sharp predatory features. Her eyes were golden in color, with vertical slits for pupils. Cat's eyes. A sharp, small delicate nose. Adding to her feline appearance, she wore cat's ears raised boldly through long heavy blonde hair. She was dressed in black pants, grey blouse, heavy boots, and a long frock jacket with golden braid on the front, somewhat worn at the elbows. "Tea, hot and fast," she said. Then turning to the rest of the crowd, she began to speak. "A lot of fancy street samurai here tonight. Lots of chrome. Guns, knifes, and glitter. Subtle, real subtle. Cops be on ya in a moment. Whatcha doing? Whereyagoing? You're mistaking the glitter for the message, guys." She leaned back against the bar, elbows behind her. "There are several major points in Cyberpunk. One is, the future is already here. And you ain't gonna like it. Another major point. Technology is going to change so fast and in so many ways, no one is going to be able to deal with it." She turned back to the bar and sipped from the cup. Speaking into the cup, she continued, "There are others, which we can discuss in great detail. In shorter posts. But the main point is that without examining some of these ideas, what you're writing is just puffery. Vanity writing." Another sip. "I'm just a character in a Role Playing Game. Not particularly interesting, outside of these ears and eyes. But what should be interesting is the reaction of 'normal people' to my appearance. Not that far-fetched, when you consider where cosmetic surgery might go to in a few years." She pulled at one of her ears. "Of course, you 'chromed' types might consider some of the problems you would have if you ACTUALLY had to make a living. Or consider recent work on 'hunter-seeker' weapons that the DOD is working on; weapons that seek out and destroy their target. Where ya gonna hide? Each day's paper contains scads of cyberpunk material to examine, consider, write about. After all, the future arrived a week ago." She slid the empty cup across the bar. "By the by, Liralen, what is the meaning of 'Chatsubo'? I tried to look it up in my Nihongo no jibiki, but couldn't find it." Article 3 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Belladonna) Subject: Hello hello hello Date: 14 Nov 90 18:33:25 GMT <> Got a light? Thanks. It's the only vice I got left. Club soda, please. Just us, i guess more will roll in here later. I was just walking by when I saw the sign come on. People call me Belladonna. No, I don't belong to any company or organization, free-lance. Free-lance hard/wet-ware installation. You know augmentation. I design some but mostly implant the stuff. Why aren't I working for some bigwig then, makes lots and swinging in the fast clean lane? Couldn't stomach the kinds of things they wanted me to do. If you think this end of town is nasty - if you could only see into the minds of some of those execs, make this place look like a church. You know, years ago I was working on this little device that could be used to block bio-circuits, nerves. Good in burn cases and other cases where the poor bastard will die of the pain before the injuries even have a chance to heal. They needed something besides drugs. Anyway, got this little sweetheart all designed and built and you know what this company I was working for wanted to do with it? Put it in some idiot's brain and use it to cut in every single pain response - make even a light breeze hurt like hell. Got out of there in a hurry, with the design plans locked up tight . Where's my hardware? All hid. I've set up enough booby traps in here to tie a psi in knots. I can access with these - thin but tough layer of skin over the 'ware. The eyes can magnify, that's why the glasses - kinda hard looking at the world through 10x eyes. That's the lowest mag I can get them at the moment. <> What am I, exactly? What do I do? All kinds of things. I remove some of the nastier things that people can devise to stick in other people to keep them in line. I can fix most 'ware - some might take longer. Call me a mechanic - somethings I can't fix - wetware ain't easy, almost impossible. Anyway, just don't ask me for weapons or any slave-ware. Seen too many burned out brains and bodies. <> Bartender, another please.... "Blind man he's singing the Irish He get his money in a tin dish Just a corner serenader..." Belladonna.... Article 16 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@fluor.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Tales from the Chatsubo (1) Date: 16 Nov 90 19:20:45 GMT The young woman with the cat ears and cat eyes turned to look at the other people in the bar. Mug of tea in hand, she began to speak quickly and quietly. "Some of you have come in here, boasting of your last run; how smooth, how cool, how slick you were. You come in here, preening yourself, strutting up and down, real proud of yourselves. Well, I've been there too, people, and I never found anything slick about a job." "I mentioned the Army's hunter-seeker project the last time. Some of the mega-corps have their hunter-seeker robots working. I know. I've been hunted by one. Oh, so you street samurai have been up against the best, right? Well, your opponents have always been human. Someone who gets tired, someone who has to piss, someone who makes mistakes. The hunter-seeker never gets tired, never makes mistakes, never gives up. And I was it's target." She turned back to the bar and dropped the mug with a thud onto the counter top. Brushing her hair out of face, she faced the crowd of people who were listening to her. "Story? OK, if you have the time. First of all, I'm a helicopter pilot, not a fighter. I fly you guys to the job and then fly the surviors back. No, it wouldn't do any good to tell you which island and which mega-corp," she answered. "They'll all deny that anything like this happened." Her strange cat eyes brightened and she began. About six months ago, I was asked to fly ten mercenaries to a small island off the coast of Seattle. There are many of these islands, covered with heavy growth, each with the ruins of someone's old pleasure palace. I found the landing site at an abandoned runway on the island, and set the helicopter down. As I stepped from the cockpit, I noticed that there were another twenty or so mercenaries already there, as well as a suit from one of the major corporations. He was standing before a large metal insect, adjusting something inside it. As I approached, the suit took his tools out of the access opening and snapped it shut. Well, the suit waited until the final mercenary had arrived and then began to speak. 'Welcome to the first test of our new security system. You have been chosen to test the system the best way we could come up with.' 'What does it do?,' someone asked. 'The security system tracks down humans and kills them. Anything human on this island, it will try to kill. It needs just to be tested. And you get to test it' 'How do we test it?,' asked one of the mercs. 'Just kill it. Just kill it,' answered the suit, patting the insect on the top. The suit then walked to a waiting chopper and lifted off. 'Piece of cake,' said another merc, pulling out a .45. The moment the suit was out of sight, the metal insect stirred. It was constructed of two black hemispherical domes, placed back to back, with a slit between them. Out of the slit, two mani- pulating arms, a laser sight and a pair of chain guns protruded. The whole thing rested on four thin legs like a spider. It was rocking back and forward slowly. I backed away, unsure of what would happen next. The mercs pulled out their guns and assault cannons, preparing to blast the thing. There was a BEEP, a black blur and the insect was gone. 'Shiiit,' groaned one of the mercs. 'Anyone see which way it went? No? So we hunt it down and kill it. Jones, Smith, Warren, you each grab a coupla guys and start looking. I'll monitor from here. Whatcha waiting for? Go!' They split up into several teams, each armed with a pair of assault cannons, a hand-carried chain gun, and several other support members. Each team would quarter the island and kill anything even remotely resembling that insect. 'Good luck, fellas,' I said as I began to edge towards the helicopter. 'Stop! Here, take this,' the mercenary leader shouted, handing me a heavy radio/communications pack. 'Go with Warren there. He's one man short.' His heavy hand rested on my shoulder. 'Eeerp... Uick...' We entered the woods. Each step I took pushed against mud, branches, fungus and rot. The sky disappeared behind mists and trees. The radio was heavy, so I lagged behind. After several hundred feet, I was exhausted, mud covered me up to my thighs and mud coated my clothes; I had fallen flat on my face. The others had disappeared around a leafy curve when I heard the VRRRTTTTT of the chain gun. I dropped into the mud and rolled under a neighboring bush. Looking up, I could see the path in front of me, but little else. The shooting continued for a moment, then stopped. Silence. The woods were absolutely still. I strained my ears. Nothing. There was a short rustle of the leaves ahead of me, and then I could see the mercs moving backwards along the path. Two of them were badly injured; I could see blood staining their shirts. They were frightened; you could see it in the way they held their guns, the way they spoke in short harsh whispers, the way they looked with nervous darting glances. I stayed very still, holding my breath. If they saw me, they'd shoot first and check out who I was later. A black blur and the insect sat amidst them, crushing the merc with the chain gun. The merc was just raw meat and white bones; his blood splattered the insect bright red. I threw my head into the ground. The mercenaries never fired a shot. All I could hear was the tearing cloth sound of the insect's chain gun. On my back, the radio exploded into shards of plastic and metal. The leaves around me were shredded into green confetti. I pressed myself as deeply into the mud as I could. Another blur, and there was silence again. I looked up. Around me, the cloud of the chain gun's smoke still hung in the air. I discarded the remains of the radio and crept forward. On the path blood covered the mud. Gobbets of flesh coated with fabric mixed with small pieces of metal; the only remnant of the heavy armament that the mercs had brought. I threw up on the side of the path. I ran as quickly as I could, just ran. After a while, totally exhausted, I tripped and collapsed into a fern thicket. The woods were cold, clammy and quiet. Every so often, I could hear the sound of a chain gun, or the boom of an assault cannon, or the snap of smaller firearms. An hour or two later, I could not hear anything at all. The woods were now completely quiet. The sun was now going down, making the woods even colder. Wet and coated in mud, I shivered. I got up and oriented myself by the sun. The airstrip was on the west side of the island; I needed to travel in the direction of the setting sun. Thirty minutes later, I could see the helicopter across the airstrip from me. I was still under cover; something bothered me about the scene before me. I waited and listened. Yes, silhouetted against the setting sun, the deadly insect slowly rocked back and forward. I considered running for the helicopter. No. It was just too fast. I would be dead within moments of stepping out from under cover. I pulled deeper into the bushes and thought carefully. I began by pulling off all my clothes. Then submerging my body in the nearest mudhole, I completed covering myself in mud. I dropped to all fours and began to move to the helicopter, repeating 'Miaow. Miaow. Miaow'. I heard the blur of the insect, and felt it nearby, studying me with it's sensors. Slowly, slowly, I approached the helicopter. I could not look at the insect; I knew that was the path to panic. Pad, pad, 'Miaow' pad, pad, 'Miaow'. At the side of the helicopter, I froze. The insect studied me a moment longer, then moved back on guard over the corpses of the command post. I repeated Miaow a few times more while slowly climbing into the cockpit. After a few minutes, I could think enough to close the cockpit hatch, fire up the helicopter, and fly home. She ended her story and turned to the bartender. "Another cup of tea please." The audience thought about what she told them and then asked why could she have escaped when everyone else had got themselves killed. She smiled and tugged at her ears. "First time I ever impersonated a cat. Heh heh heh. Look, it was a robot, right?" The audience nodded. "It had strict orders. Kill everything human on the island, right? And a human walks upright, wears clothes and lots of metal, and speaks, right?" The audience was restless. "But it's so simple. I just did not look like anything human. So the robot did not consider me a target." A-hahs from the audience. "That trick won't work again, I'm afraid. I'm sure that mega-corp found my clothes on the island. And just about everyone has heard about the woman pilot who landed at SEA-TAC without any clothes on." She blushed. "You samurai might consider that before being asked to test another one of those security systems." The young woman turned back to her tea. Article 17 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: v055nmvy@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (David A Gaidasz) Subject: CyberStory Date: 16 Nov 90 15:55:36 GMT The knight looked up, and the glittering sign of neon. Though it flickered in places, he could still read "Chatsubo". He smiled as he pushed open the battered door. The door swung open. Through it stepped a figure, who seemed familar, but wasn't immediately recognizible. He was wearing a long trenchcoat, which billowed in the wind entering the bar, exposing armor that had definitely seen better days. An Ares IV assault pistol was slung low on his right hip, in stark contrast to the sword hanging on his left. A battered fedora was low over his eyes, making it difficult to see his face. He walked up to the bar. "Gimme a shinin' Avalon." He flicked a virtual gold coin to the bartender. "AKeep the change." Grabbing his drink, he sauntered over to th table where all the exciting people were gathered. "Good evening, ladies and razorguys, particularly you Lady Li. Sorry I'm late for the opening, but I was on a run, that turned particularly ugly." One of the regulars asked, "Who are you?" "Oh sorry. I'm White Knight, with a costume change more fitting to this realm than my gleaming armour of old." he explained, removing his hat, and placing it on the table. Looks of recognition appeared on all their faces. He sat down, checking to see that his back was to the wall, and that he had a clear path to the door. He began teling his story again. "So here we were, Me, Synergy (our decker), Fireball (our other street samauri), Backlash (our razorgal with an attitude), and of course, Xanadu (our rigger). "We get hired to rescue this girl from a corp arcology, right? So Synergy breaks in through the net, doing serious damage to the security. Me, Fireball, and Backlash go in the front way and geek the guards, while Xanadu waits outside in case we have to make a fast break." He stopped, sipping his drink, noting the looks on everyone's faces. "We're inside, with syn running interference, opening doors and such. We grab the girl, and we're making our way out, snagging what's snaggable, trashing what's not, when Synergy runs into some Black ICE, chummers. While he's doing the tactical twostep with it, trying to get an opening, Fireball accidentally opens a cabinet that he wasn't supposed to, and all hell breaks loose. Alarms go off, security gets alerted, doors start slammin' shut." he takes another sip of his drink. "Synergy finally manages to toast the ICE, and is starting to cover our butts, when he sees a datafile that looks like it's a bankbook. He goes over to check it out. Out of nowhere, two Black ICEs pounce. He gets toasted. We're talking major flatline here, chummers. He never had a chance." "Meanwhile, me, Fireball, and Backlash are up to our ears in fuzz. Fireball cuts loose with a grenade, which buys us some time. We're just about out the door, with our prize, when suddenly a van of HEAVILY armed guards pulls up outside. They notice Xanadu, and pop the car with a rocket launcher before she can even get out of the driveway. So here we are, no escape, security everywhere, with two of our guys already toast, the hard barbecued type." "We continue fighting our way to the door, figuring we'd have a better chance on the outside. After blowing enough ammo for a small world war, we get out. Just as we duck to the outside, one of the guards we thought we geeked in the beginning takes a few shots at us, scragging Fireball. I pump the rest of the mag into the corpcop, and he will definitely need to be sqeegeed up in the morning. " "Me and Backlash are on the outside, with our prize and enough loot to make us seriously happy, and all the corp types deader than Mars. We climb into the security van, so we can get hell outta there, when we find out it's a bloody Rigger drive. So we get out, and use the old fashioned way to move. We walked." he paused, taking a big swallow of his drink. "Do you know how hard it is to walk out an Arcology security perimeter? We found out. Just as it looks like we're free and clear, a damned security 'bot shows up, wielding enough firepower to take over a country. It cuts loose with a couple of .50 cals, and turns Backlash into low quality soyaburger. I happen to get a lucky shot in with my Ares, and it goes down. After that, me and the prize get out, with only minor trouble." "Turns out she was some exec's daughter. Got paid well, sure. Tell that to Syn, Fireball, Xanadu and Backlash." He downs the rest of his drink. "Anyone know where I can find a place to crash? No. 'kay then, I'll be seeing ya chummers later." He grabs his hat, and goes to the door. "Give the dragon my regards. Tell him I'll be back, after I sleep this off." and he steps out into the cold, dark, virtual night. Article 25 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: cdr@brahms.amd.com (Carl Rigney) Subject: Re: Tales from the Chatsubo (1) Date: 17 Nov 90 09:32:05 GMT The Pilot with cat eyes and cat ears is finishing a story: "At the side of the helicopter, I froze. The insect studied me a moment longer, then moved back on guard over the corpses of the command post. I repeated Miaow a few times more while slowly climbing into the cockpit. After a few minutes, I could think enough to close the cockpit hatch, fire up the helicopter, and fly home." She ends her story and turns to the bartender. "Another cup of tea please." There's a pause as she sips her tea and then a raspy disbelieving voice from a corner asks, "But how could you have escaped when everyone else got killed?" She smiles and tugs at an ear. "But it's so simple. I just did not look like anything human. So the robot did not consider me a target." A-hahs from the audience. The young woman turns back to her tea. The door explodes into a thousand fragments and everybody ducks for cover. Outlined in the smoky entranceway is a Paulinian Nightmare, a dull black sphere a meter across suspended 2 meters above the ground by 8 multiply-jointed crystalline legs, rainbows dancing around their orbital fibers as it moves into the bar with fluid precision. Emerging from the sphere are two rotary flechette cannons, bobbing and weaving in time to the steps, capable of filling the entire room with hypervelocity needles in the blink of an eye. Stretching out above the sphere are long stalks ending in silvery spheres glowing dully in the deep infrared. Behind those are four longer, thinner stalks and from their tips sprout thousands of pale silken threads a few centimeters long, waving gently in the breeze from the doorway. Sensors for motion, heat, shadow, scent... fear. The Hunter Killer drone rotates so that a cannon faces the cat-woman, who has spilled her tea. The stalks bend towards her, swaying gently from side to side, almost hypnotically. The sounds from the city outside spill through the shattered doorway but inside the bar there is no sound but a soft hum, almost too high-pitched for human ears. The chaingun spins up, adding its distinctive whir. And then spins down. In a voice as human as anyone's in the room, with no trace of the mechanical about it, the drone whispers "Woof. Woof Woof." And then backs out step for step the way it came in, until it is framed in the doorway. "Tag! You're It!" And it vanishes from sight in a mind-numbing burst of speed. Article 33 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Tales from the Chatsubo 1.5 Date: 18 Nov 90 19:19:50 GMT ( Carl Rigney [cdr@amd.com] continues...) >The Hunter Killer drone rotates so that a cannon faces the cat-woman, >who has spilled her tea. The stalks bend toward her, swaying gently from >side to side, almost hypnotically... > The woman with the cat ears falls off the barstool, crashing to the dirty floor. She regains her feet, backing away from the mechanical horror, spilling her tea on herself, her boots, the ground. Her ears stand straight up, her pupils narrowed to thin vertical slits. Now she is against the stained filthy wall of the Chatsubo. Her jacket is dusted grey as she slides along the wall into the corner. She turns her face into the corner, opening her hand and letting the teacup shatter. > ..The chain gun spins up, adding its distinctive whir. And then spins down. > >In a voice as human as anyone's in the room, with no trace of the mechanical >about it, the drone whispers "Woof. Woof Woof." And then backs out step >for step the way it came in, until it is framed in the doorway. "Tag! >You're It!" > >And it vanishes from sight in a mind-numbing burst speed. "Nooooooooooo......" The woman with the cat eyes presses against the cold cracked concrete corner of the Chatsubo. Her eyes are screwed tight, her forearms covering her head, her face rigid with terror. As the moments pass, she slowly slides down the wall, slumping into a sobbing heap. Her tears come with great rasping breaths, her entire body shaking. At her feet, the shattered shards of the teacup lie in a muddy puddle of black tea and dust. Silence, broken only by sobs and hiccups. Liralen steps from behind the wreckage of a table, and kneels next to the woman lying, partly propped against the corner. Liralen reaches down and takes the woman's head in her arms, brushing away the soft blonde hair from the woman's eyes. The woman is repeating over and over, "Nai ya... Nai ya... Nai ya", in a soft child-like voice. Liralen studys the woman's face, with its angular features, thin-lipped mouth and slightly tilted eyes. There is dirt from the Chatsubo wall on her forehead and cheeks. The eyes are open, fixed, glassy, staring into unknown distance. Tears roll off her high cheeks to the dirty floor. She is still crying with ragged moans. "Young, so young," Liralen murmurs. She lightly slaps the woman's cheeks. The woman closes her mouth, takes a deep breath though narrow nostrils, hiccups, and focuses her eyes. "Are you OK? What is your name?" Liralen asks gently. "Nekoko" the woman with the cat eyes hiccups. "And you think this drone had something to do with your story?" "Maybe... I couldn't see a company logo..." "There was a ARES logo at the top of the sphere," says the razor boy wanna-be, "Red, about 10 cm high." "Yeah, its the same company," Nekoko sniffs. "How do you think they found you?" asked Liralen, wiping away Nekoko's tears. "I don't know. Unless... Unless..." Nekoko tries. "Boy, you must have lost one of your nine lives there," grins the razorboy wanna-be. Both Liralen and Nekoko turn to glare at him. Nekoko gets up, knocking away Liralen's arm and steps toward the razor boy. Suddenly she turns to Liralen. "Those bastards. Those BASTARDS. THOSE BASTARDS!!!" "W-W-What?..." stutters Liralen, standing up. "I think I know what happened. That hunter-seeker on the island had a video uplink. Someone watched the whole thing. My little trick. How stupid I've been. I was so smug, thinking I outsmarted the hunter-seeker. Can you see the scene? I on fours, creeping up to my helicopter. Some mega-corp suit, watching it on video; 'Come here, look what this dumb broad is doing' And I survive only because I make a good show for some bastards..." Nekoko begins to cry again. "So today...," starts Liralen. "That was their way of telling me that the joke is on me", moans Nekoko. She looks at her feet, then quickly reaches down to pick up a shiny little square. Holding it up against the dim lights of the bar, she studies it carefully. "I think I know what this is. A vid-chip with my little act on it. The drone must have spat it at me when it was threatening me." She drops it onto the floor and grinds it to dust with the heel of her boot. "I betcha that every guy working on the project has one of these." Nekoko rubs her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving them red and swollen. "I guess the vid-chips are used to train the hunter-killer to recognize the target. " "Oh, I see," says Liralen, "The hunter-killer builds a map of the target with the images on the vid-chip using a type of binary network." Nekoko nods her head and sniffs, "Once they have the target loaded, they program the drone to start searching. An hour, a day, a week later, bamm!" "It didn't look like the hunter-seeker you described in your story," says Liralen. "I... I think we saw a much more improved model. The hunter-seeker on the island didn't speak, had only a chain gun, and lacked the stalk mounted sensors. I think this model was even faster..." Nekoko looks at the ruins of the door. She slowly walks over to the bar and drops herself onto one of the remaining barstools. "Maybe you street samurai don't realize what has happened tonight," Nekoko starts, "but if ARES get those things into production, you're dead meat." She looks down at her black pants, soiled now. "I'd better go and wash up." She looks at Liralen. "Thank you." Nekoko slides off the barstool and disappears through the shattered doorway. Article 42 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Belladonna) Subject: Belladonna Date: 20 Nov 90 19:16:06 GMT <> More coffee. Arm's stiff? The augmented one. Ratz: Yea, I had to belt some idiot last week - bastard didn't tell me he had an iron ball instead of a brain. Do you want me to take a look at it? Ratz: How much? How about a hot meal and a warm solitary bed? Ratz: Tonight? No, but one night I may need one - be nice to know if I had one up my sleeve. Ratz: Only if you fix it. Deal. Lay your arm on the counter, this should only take a minute. Ratz: Find the problem? Problems, Ratz. Christ, you rattled everything up, I'm surprised this damn thing still works. I got to go through every single connection in this thing. Do me a favor and watch my back for a minute. Ratz: What are you going to do? Just watch. <> Ratz: What the...? Yow! How about another coffee, Ratz? .... and a light? Feels good. Article 43 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: tracker@wpi.WPI.EDU (The Renegade Ranger) Subject: Crowds tonight chummer, frekin' crowds Date: 20 Nov 90 15:24:51 GMT People comin and goin. Everyone has an attitude and a half, not to mention some of the hardware so wired it's thinkin by itself. Not a problem, I like it fine. Here's not a place where you sit and think you're the gleamed chrome and the rest k'n fold up and blow away. You handle it. I've been sittin back in the back for awhile, watchin who thinks they're who, and I kn't say yet that I k'n find one I mind. You gotta have the edge. I ain't talkin wire, chrome. I'm talkin about your mind. You walk in a place like Chatsubo's without your attitude, you've stepped into hell naked. Might as well go visit the maxtrix in a friggin abacus, chummer. This corner is cool for what I want. Close to the back, view of just about everythin, specialy the door. It's my job to watch, to know. I dont work for no one, not now anyway. I might have a call when I step out the door, but in here I'm just drinking. Someone I'm on a job lookin for walks thru that door, might as well be invisible for all I care. I'm no hunter in here, I leave my bounties at the door. Bounty huntin might be what I do, but I got enough respect for Ratz to leave it at the door. Not my attitude tho. Damn'n I'm off, thinkin bout myself 'stead of whos walkin in. Cant do that, not a whit. The smoke is hazing round my head, not that I mind with my filters runnin. Neon palor sets round the chums, each with their own little smoke aura. Don't see no halos, never do in here, least for long. I don't think any chums notice me, which is half the point. My dark corner blends me with the cracked wall, the jacket that used to be black faded well, to almost match the concrete. Does enough to cover the kevlar tee under, too. The three knives on the chest strap don't reflect, nice things you k'n do with metal. The fourth holder is empty, a reminder to myself from a long time past. Black light-kevlar pants with reinforcement where it counts, most of my playmates don't believe in rules and conduct. Me either. The sawed-off looks a bit out of date in here, if anyone could see it, but strapped to my left leg under the table its my business card. I don't have my Kilrase out and about, its chillin in the shoulder holster. I don't expect to fire lots of shots in Chats. I saw the hunter-killer tail out. Cat lady freaked..not a good doggie. S'pose they're right, Ares is gettin a bit out of phase. We run through life, they run out our lives. No dice chums, I'm not splicin with that idea. I make the motion to Ratz. He knows me by nature, not by name, and recognizes when I mention I'm in without saying a word. I've never tracked a hunter-killer, don't have the juice. My wires aren't cheap, but they aren't top either. Some of these others..yeah, they've got what it takes, the gleam in their eyes isn't just chrome, its hunger for action. Yeah. They and I, we think a lot alike. I like that in a person. Specially when I track them. Specially then. I'll wait a bit and see whether who I've seen are as good as they look, and who's in. Whatever, I'm going. It's time to play. Sit back, watch the show....and wait. -Tracker Article 44 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: v055nmvy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (David A Gaidasz) Subject: ChatsuboLit Date: 20 Nov 90 19:50:51 GMT White Knight opened the battered door to the Chatsubo, peering through the dim lighting seeking Lady Li. The assault cannon slung over his back cut through the air, like a shark's fin through water. He flipped a coin to the bartender as he passed the bar. "Shinin' Avalon, please. Keep the change." Grabbing the drink, he waded through the masses to where Liralen was sitting. "Good Evening Lady Li. May I be granted the honor of speaking with you a moment?" "Of course." She smiled. "Thank you." He sat down. "I have a question, and I figure since you know most everything that's going down around here, you may be able to help me." he continued, sipping his drink. "You see, ever since that raid that my group pulled, when we got burned, I've had the feeling I'm being followed. Today, a punk tried blowing me away with this." He placed the assault cannon on the table. Liralen looked at it. "That's an Ares Mark XII assault cannon. That's not supposed to be out on the streets yet." "That's what I'm afraid of. You see, that raid we did was on the Ares arcology out in the boonies. We, or perhaps I should say I, snagged alot of research type data, stuff that talks about some sort of HK 'bot. Unfortunately, I don't have the skills necessary to finess any more information out of it. Think you could get someone to look at it?" "Of course. But what will you do in the meantime?" she asked, her hand already snagging the datachip. "I think I'm gonna spend some time here first, with my friend DarkAngel over there. Then I'm just gonna sit in the shadows, to see what comes up." He got up. "Talk to you later." Article 45 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: v055nmvy@ubvmsd.cc.buffalo.edu (David A Gaidasz) Subject: Chatsubo lit Date: 20 Nov 90 22:41:18 GMT White Knight stepped over to the table where his "friends" sat. Making sure his back was to the wall, he pulled up a chair. "Yo, DarkAngel. So you're back in town. There goes the neighborhood." "Laugh it up. At least I didn't spend the 90% of the battle in the infirmary." Darkangel chuckled. "Considering that you put me there some of the time, how could I refuse." Suddenly, a darkness came over him. Looking up, he saw this huge hulking figure of a man standing over him. "You White Knight?" the figure asked, it's rumbling basso voice echoing through the now quiet bar. "Depends on who needs to know." White Knight responded quietly, his hand ever-so-slowly wrapping itself around the assault cannon at his side. "ARES wants what you have. NOW." the looming figure demanded. "Who wants WHAT? Sorry, chummer, think you got the wrong guy." White Knight turned back to his drink. A hamlike hand grabbed him around the throat, threatening his air supply. "I said, HAND IT OVER." The figure pulled White Knight closer. In a blur of motion, White Knight's left arm came up, and raked the thug across the face with razor sharp spurs which hadn't been there a moment ago. As the wounded thug reached for his bleeding face, White Knight kicked the man away, brought up the assault cannon with almost superhuman speed, and proceeded to fire one round into the man. The man's chest exploded, and he collapsed to the floor, already dead. As the thunder subsided, White Knight looked around. "Sorry about any inconvience folks." He flipped another gold coin to Ratz. "That enough to cover the mess?" "Yes, that will suffice." Cleaning 'bots scurried out of the corner to clean up the already cooling body. "So where were we..." Article 55 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Belladonna) Subject: A little life history Date: 21 Nov 90 16:28:25 GMT <> Shit!! Let go, I was only trying to feel the material. "Why?" she turns and stares at him through her dark glasses. "Who are you?" Something in him is afraid - when he went to brush the cloth he felt a surge of power through his fingertips - they still tingled from the encounter and now he can feel the blood supply being cut off from his hand. "I told you before, Belladonna? You want a life history?" "I..I..I would like my hand back." She suddenly opens her hand and his wrist falls like a dead weight. "Christ - what is that thing you call a hand?" "It's an alloy under the skin." "Just the hand?" He rubs the wrist praying that the blood will once again flow freely through his fingers. "Both hands, left arm up the the shoulder, collerbone, a few vertebre, left side of my face and skull, left leg, and both hips." She answers cool and soft. "What happened, a tank roll over you?" his fingers satrt to tingle. "Close - got beat up and burnt pretty bad." He can hardly hear her. "Listen, are you really interested in hearing all this?" She looks at him carefully. He thinks for a moment, it might be a good idea to get to know this woman better - he doesn't think he wants to have her as an enemy. "Sure," he swallows hard, "Tell me your life story." He hopes his voice sounded calm and even. She laughs and whispers, "Come along razor child and I'll tell you a story sure to make those spikes on your head stand up even straighter." She grabs her cigarettes and coffee and nods in the direction of an empty booth..... Article 56 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's Story - 3 Date: 21 Nov 90 22:20:51 GMT Nekoko blew into the Chatsubo, dressed in a single-piece motorcycle leathers, carrying a Heckler & Koch HK227 submachine gun slung across her chest and a 9 mm pistol in a midthigh holster. She paused only briefly to watch the carpenters fitting a new door to the front entrance. As she watched them struggling to pull the frame into alignment, she unslung the H & K and rested it on the floor. Then Nekoko reached up to her neck, pulled the leather's zipper down to her waist, and pulled her arms out of the sleeves of the leathers. Under the leathers, she wore a sleeveless T shirt. She knotted the sleeves around her waist and picked up the H & K again. The Chatsubo wasn't too crowded, other than a tight grouping of street samurai and toughs at a single table. The vidscreen flickered over the bar, showing the last night's carnage and body count. The announcer on the vidscreen continued, "and in other news, several Shadowrunners were killed during a raid on ARES' dockside warehouse area. ARES refused comment, other than to say that the new security system recently installed at the warehouse worked admirably. Unfortunately, ARES would be unable to release the bodies to the County Coroner as there was not enough left of the bodies to autopsy. More news after this message from our sponsor, 'BUXOM BABES'..." The vidscreen brightened, showing snapshots of young nubile women. "BUXOM BABES is hot. This month's issue is hot, sexy, erotic! The latest genetically-enhanced women. And once again, this is our special issue with those funny sex videos you send in. We have a new winner this month, sent in by those fun folks at ARES Advanced Research ( Seattle), featuring ..." Nekoko reached up, snapped off vidscreen's blaring and turned around. She raked her fingers through her long blonde hair, perked up her ears and smiled at the ugly bartender. "Haaii, Ratz, I see you finally are going to get that door replaced." Ratz looked up from the glasses he was rinsing and glared at her. "Hey, don't bring those guns in here. Watcha think this is, a Wild West saloon?" Nekoko approached the bar and smiled sweetly at the embittered old bartender. She leaned across the scarred surface and flipped a small ID card at him. Ratz gave it a quick glance and looked at her as if to say, 'so what'. "Says on this card, I'm a registered and bonded DataCourier. Means I can carry any type of armament, anywhere I want to. See?" Nekoko swept up the card and slipped it into an inside pocket. She flipped the H&K and placed it on the bar top. "Hey Ratz, can I borrow your phonescreen? I think ARES might have placed a tap on mine." Ratz scowled, pointed at the phonescreen at the end of the bar and said, "No long distance calls without a credit stick, OK?" "Hai, Ratz" As Nekoko moved towards the phone, she passed the razor boy wannabe. He put out a hand and stopped her. A nasty expression on his face, he asked, "Have you seen this month's ish of BUXOM BABES? The streetboys over there got it. You might be interested in it. It's a real wiz!" "Uh... No, why?" He just smirked and backed away. "Chotto matte...." she called after him. She turned and strode to the small circle of street toughs around the table. As she stepped into the circle, someone said, "Hey, look who's here. Hey Garry, reset that and play it for the lady..." Nekoko looked down at the table top, where a vidplayer, a flat color screen, about 40 cm by 40 cm, was resting between bottles, drug vials and other trash. The vidplayer had a small membrane keyboard and a pair of slots for vidchips. Garry pulled a BUXOM BABES vidchip carrier out of his pocket and slotted it into the vidplayer. The screen of the vidplayer darkened, then started showing the BUXOM BABES logo. "Garry, don't screw around." Garry's fingers tapped on the keyboard of the vidplayer, bringing up the Table of Contents menu, then choosing the funny sex video section. He waited for the menu to flash on the screen and choose the first entry. Bright garish colors filled the screen, which then focused into the image of a man and a microphone. "All right...," shouted the announcer on the screen. "The winning entry in this month's funniest sex video. Sent in by our friends at ARES Advanced Research Division, Seattle.." Nekoko had a bad feeling about this. "... recorded on their private island resort. OK, you hentai, for your enjoyment..." The screen flashed again, and Nekoko saw again the airstrip where she had landed the mercenaries. There was the helicopter, there was the scrub brush in which she had hidden. "Watch what's in the bushes. We'll switch to infra-red...." The screen changed colors, black sky and dull red plants. Nekoko could see a figure, white hot, hiding in the brush. "...We'll zoom in here, watch what this babe does next..." Nekoko watched the screen blur, then fix on the white-hot figure. She watched herself removing her guns and other metal, taking off her clothes, and then slide into a mud puddle. The figure, a dull yellow rather than white-hot, looked up and started on all fours for the helicopter. Nekoko start to feel a warm anger. "OK, folks, back to visible light. Isn't it a scream!" Coated in mud, knees bent, on all fours, the figure scuttled across the field of view. Nekoko watched herself try to look feline, not human. The figure was taut, smooth muscles moving quickly under skin, mottled in greys and browns. Nekoko's anger grew hot. "We'll send our camera in for a closer view..." Nekoko seized the vidplayer, pulling it out of the reach of the street toughs. She stepped back and threw it against the Chatsubo's concrete wall. The case of vidplayer cracked and the screen crumpled but the audio continued, "Miaow, Miaow.." "Enough!" screamed Nekoko, pulling her heavy pistol from her mid-thigh holster. She grabbed the pistol with both hands, brought it out to eye level, and emptied the pistol into the vidplayer. The vidplayer jumped once and then exploded into a cloud of plastic. For the third time that week, the patrons of the Chatsubo dived for cover with a crash of tables and shattering of glasses. The roar of the pistol echoed and reechoed within the filthy walls of the Chatsubo. Ratz started for the scatter gun under the bar, but stopped himself when he saw that Nekoko was just standing there, pistol at firing position. The only sound was the cold metal ringing of the 9 millimeter shells rolling on the floor. Echos of the pistol reverberated in Nekoko's mind. She stood there for a moment, the smell of cordite in her nostrils. The street toughs began to stir. She quickly reached into a pocket and pulled out another clip of ammo. She tossed the empty clip on the floor and inserted the new clip. Nekoko turned and aimed the gun at the street toughs. "Uh, madam, no problem here, OK," started Garry. "Nekoko," warned Ratz, reaching below the bar. She flicked on the safety, flipped the pistol up, and replaced it in the holster. Then, she reached down on the ground, picked up the empty clip and put it in another pocket. Nekoko kicked one of the empty shells against the wall and said, "Sorry Ratz. I'd better make that call and go, huh?" Ratz watched her, one hand still under the bar. Nekoko went over to the phonescreen, watching the bar patrons moving to stay out of her way. She flicked on the power, watching the blue LED indicate that the system was ready. Her fingers danced across the keyboard, bringing up the icon of the Yonhon-Hana corporation in California. She felt a light hand on her shoulder; she looked up to Liralen's steel-blue eyes reflecting the soft grey pixels of the phonescreen. Liralen's fingerless gloves gently squeezed Nekoko's shoulder. A few more keystrokes, and the icon of the corporation was replaced with the image of a man, late forties, balding, with large glasses that made him look like a panda. The borders of the image flashed, showing Nekoko that his phone was ringing. The image melted, and started to move. Nekoko quickly tapped a command and the image expanded to the full size of the screen. "Konnichi wa, Sensei-sama," Nekoko said and then bowed. "Ojosan, I am very disappointed in you," the image said. "Nanda?" "I have seen your performance," the image spoke, holding up a copy of the BUXOM BABES vidchip carrier. "I have heard that this is how you escaped a Hunter-Killer drone?" "Hai, Sensei-sama," Nekoko spoke in a small voice. "This is not the 'Bushi' way. You should have died honorably, fighting. I trust you will do the right thing. I assume the woman in blue is your 'kaishaku'? Have someone send me word when it is done; I will send someone for the ashes." The image shrank and winked out. "Sensei-sama..." began Nekoko. "Ojosan?" asked Liralen. "He calls, no, called me that in class. It means 'honourable daughter', just like I call him 'Sensei-sama', Lord Teacher." Nekoko spoke as if far away. She turned away from the soft grey glow of the phonescreen and began to move from the bar. "He is... no, was my teacher." As if in after-thought, Liralen powered off the phonescreen. She stepped in front of Nekoko. She grabbed Nekoko by the shoulder, stopped her in front of Ratz. "Are you all right?" Nekoko looked at Liralen with dead eyes. "I... I don't know." Ratz looked up from the draft Kirin he was drawing and asked, "What did he mean by doing the right thing? Who or what is a 'kaishaku'?" "He thinks I should commit 'seppuku'," Nekoko answered dully. Her ears were flat, dispirited. "And what is a 'kaishaku'?" Nekoko gave no sign of hearing the question. She walked slowly toward the hallway at the end of the barroom. Liralen spoke quickly, "When a 'bushi', a warrior, commits 'seppuku', the bushi drives a long knife like this," pointing at the combat knife strapped to her lower leg, "into his or her guts. The 'kaishaku', you see, is there to strike off the bushi's head if the dying takes too long. The 'kaishaku' helps the bushi to death." Ratz, who had seen worse on the street, shuddered. Liralen turned towards the bar and noticed Nekoko's HK227 still on the countertop. "Wait..." Nekoko had disappeared in the hallway leading to the bathrooms. Liralen grabbed the H & K off the countertop and rushed towards the hallway. She stepped into the narrow, dimly lit fetid hallway, her eyes looking for the direction that Nekoko had taken. She saw the lights on in the women's bathroom, pushed the creaking door open, and stopped. The room was small, stank, and contained a single toilet stall, painted a peeling lime green, a sink, coated in rust and slime, and a small table, on which used bottles were piled. "Nekoko?" Liralen asked. "Go away." Liralen pushed at the door of the toilet stall, but found it locked. She then hopped up, put her hands on the top of the toilet stall door, pushed herself up and dropped inside the narrow toilet stall. Where Nekoko was sitting on the toilet, knees drawn up, hands around her legs, staring into space. "Kinda tight in here, even for thinking," began Liralen. Nekoko put up her head and gazed at this woman in blue eyes, blue jacket, blue leathers. Her gaze was dull, lifeless. "You forgot your submachinegun. You're gonna need it if you're going after the people who did this to you." Liralen unslung the HK227 and handed it to Nekoko. Nekoko reached out for it, cradled it for a moment and then put it down. "Fancy shooting there, a vidplayer at 5 paces. It never had a chance." "I couldn't watch it anymore. I had to shut it up." "So that's what it is, huh? You're ashamed of what you did to stay alive, right?" "Sensei was right, it was shameful, not worthy of a bushi." "There is no shame in doing something to stay alive. Your teacher is a fool. Had you stood up as a warrior, it would have killed you without a thought." "But the Hunter-Killer can't think," Nekoko pointed out peevishly. "That's part of my point. There is no honour in getting yourself killed by a machine. But more than that, there is no honour in getting yourself killed period, no matter what your teacher says." "But... but" "Nekoko, what's most important is survival. It's the surviors who continue, not dead heroes." Nekoko looked at Liralen dully, thinking. Her ears were flicking up and down slowly in bewilderment. "So. so..." she began. "Besides, if you commit 'seppuku', the guys who did this to you will still be laughing at you. There is no honour this way..." Nekoko narrowed her eyes. "You might be right. You must be right." "Here, Nekoko, clean your pistol. You must clean your pistol after every use. Didn't you learn that at least?" Liralen pulled a small gun-cleaning kit out of her jacket and offered it to Nekoko. Nekoko twisted herself in the effort to get the pistol out of it's holster in the narrow toilet stall. Breaking the pistol down, she began to polish off the burned power. "So, Nekoko, what are we going to do?" Liralen started. "Information, right?" Nekoko said slowly. Liralen nodded. "Before anything else, information," Nekoko continued. She pulled the ammo clip out of the pistol and slipped the polishing cloth inside. "Who are we dealing with, what are their resources, what can we bring up against them?" She flipped the pistol over and slid a bore cleaner into the barrel. "We might be over our heads..." "ARES is pretty big, true," agreed Liralen. "We only want the guys in, what was it? Ah yes, the Advanced Research Division." "Still a tough bunch of guys," Liralen said. "Say, Nekoko, how about getting out of here? I can't stand the smell any longer." Nekoko finished up polishing the pistol and closed up the gun cleaning kit. "Just open the door behind you, and we'll go." Liralen squeezed herself around and wiggled at the toilet stall latch. "Uh, Nekoko, it's stuck." "Shit! Let me see," said Nekoko, pushing herself past Liralen. "You're right. Let's see, when you hopped over the door, you must have bent the latch. Shall we yell for help?" "Nekoko, no! Those guys out there don't think we can wipe our own butts, let alone start a campaign against a mega-corp." She laughed. Liralen looked around for a moment. "If we use the stock of the HK227, we could probably pry the door open." She pushed herself over to the HK227, pulled it up and pried at the door. A loud crack and the walls of the toilet stall collapsed. Laughing, the two women stepped out of the ruins and left the bathroom. As they walked into the Chatsubo barroom, Liralen waved OK at Ratz. The women tipped a table over, clearing it of bottles and debris and sat down. Liralen pulled a sheet of paper from somewhere and dropped it on the table top. "First things first. Information. You said you're a DataCourier. Could you get some jobs delivering at ARES?" "Probably," Nekoko replied. "About your appearance. With those ears and eyes, you're easy to remember. Can you do something about it?" "No, Liralen. That's something I can't change anymore than you could clip off your nose. I'll just be careful. Look, I've been made out to be a fool. They won't suspect me. Who suspects a fool?" Liralen made some notes on the paper and circled a few items. "Can you visit the people at BUXOM BABES?" I think that should be your first stop. I'll make some discrete inquiries; I've got some contacts I can use." "Sure, I'll visit BUXOM BABES," Nekoko smiled. Her ears stood up. "No shooting, Nekoko. If they even suspect something is up, that Hunter-Killer drone will be back, and this time, it'll be for real." Nekoko stopped smiling suddenly. "I'll be careful," she said slowly, her ears drooping. "Meet you here later. Let me know what you find," Liralen said as she got up and headed for the doorway. Nekoko rotated the paper and studied the scribblings. Folding it carefully, she put it into a pocket, zipped up her motorcycle suit, slung her H & K over her chest and stepped past the carpenters. As she passed the guys trying to get the frame straightened, she stopped and said, "When you get that done, you need to go work in the ladies bathroom. The toilet stall latch is sticking." Laughing, she disappeared down the street. Article 65 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Tales from the Chatsubo 2.5 Date: 23 Nov 90 03:54:53 GMT The "door" to the Chatsubo -- now merely a tarp -- flaps open, and Running Wolf and Li walk in. The pair seem the worse for wear: patches of Li's blue leathers are purple-brown with blood, and her face and left arm are wrapped in stained bandages. Wolf is limping slightly, and his face is bruised along the jawline. Both are unwontedly grim. Li gets tea and a yakisoba from Ratz, finds a chair against the wall, and sits down, warily despite her wounded state. Wolf is still too keyed up to sit; he prowls restlessly back and forth. "Hey, chummers," says an anonymous patron, "like, maximal lacerations. What's chillin'?" Wolf spins around, glaring at the questioner. For a moment, his eyes glow green, and he bares his teeth. Then he regains control "What's chilling, chummer," he says, very softly, "is a new Ares toy, the same one that burst in here last night. A very sleek, very fancy new toy, that came damn close to putting the pair of us on ice tonight." Li breaks in cooly, after finishing off a half of her meal "Close. We were down on the Waterfront, on Biz, contract stuff." She takes another mouthful, enjoying the savor of the sauted noodle dish, "After the job, we were on the way home when we heard sounds of a firefight. Bein' curious, as to Potentials and learning opportunities, we followed the sounds. And what we found..." she frowns, thinking, and takes another mouthful of noodles, meat and vegetables. "What we saw," says Wolf grimly, "was Stalking Death. It was a warehouse, and inside there were dead men and dying men and there was death like a giant spider, ripping men apart with chain guns and razor claws. I don't know how many there had been there, to begin with; we got there in time to see the last of them die. And then..." Wolf's voice drops even quieter, "then the thing stopped, and stood there humming, looking around. And then it found us." He stops. "We hit the ground," Li says, "and it missed us with it's first burst, I think, because one or two of its eyestalks were damaged. And then we ran." "We ran," Wolf says, "and I pulled some shadows around us, which must have confused it's sensors enough that it couldn't get a lock on us... it came after us, and the only thing that saved us from dying right then was that somebody must have gotten in a lucky shot, and crippled a leg. It was damned fast still, but we could keep ahead of it. It was firing randomly, tearing up the street, but it didn't hit us." Li touches a scratch on her cheek. "Not enough to count, anyway," she grins, and saunters off to return the empty plate to Ratz. Wolf nods. "Eventually, we got far enough ahead to get some cover. The thing was casting around behind us, like a dog, clanking and humming and firing the occasional burst at whatever triggered its sensors. I took a chance that it wouldn't find us for a moment or two, and tried working some kind of spell on it... rust it to pieces or something. No go -- the thing had some slick counterspells on it. I probably could have gotten through them, in time, but time we didn't have. I looked around on the spirit plane, and the only other living things I could see were some rats. So I did a small magic." "I caught some movement, out of the corner of my eye," says Li, as she returns to her chair. "For a minute, I thought it was another pair of Shadowrunners caught out in the open by the thing... then I realized it was us." "I cast an illusion on the rats, to make them look like us," Wolf explains. "It must have been good enough, because the HK saw them and started firing. We ran, under cover of the noise, and behind us the robot slaughtered rats. It evidently wasn't smart enough to notice that it was killing the same people over and over again." He sighs, and Li looks at him sharply, then squeezes his hand. "They were only rats," he says, "but I used them, and they died for it..." He shakes his head. "Once it was done with the rats," Li says, "it cast around for a while, and then it started after us again. I don't know what it was following... scent, maybe, or IR signature." "No," Wolf says, "I was cloaking us on IR too. It followed us because it was Stalking Death, and we were it's prey. We ran, and we found a boathouse with an open door, and we went in. It was empty, nothing but an echoing space. So we went up, past fishing equipment, into the rafters, and lay quiet. The thing clanked in, dragging its useless leg, and began to stalk the floor. We lay in the rafters, not moving, scarcely breathing. I was cloaking us as best I could, but it could tell we were there... eventually, the sensors and the guns started tracking up. I was preparing to meet my ancestors in a blaze of kamikaze glory, when it started shooting upwards... it got a skylight, and rained broken glass onto itself... and then it stopped, and clicked a couple of times." "It had run out of ammo," Li says. "Wolf and I looked at each other. We knew what we had to do, and we knew how unlikely we were to survive it. Basically, it was either die hiding in the rafters, or die trying to kill the thing. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to say anything. So..." she pauses. "So I jumped down from the rafter and faced it." "It leaped at her instantly, of course," Wolf says. "And what happened then was Dance incarnate." Li looks at Wolf, and then notices that the patron is looking at her. She meets his eyes with hers of blue steel, and chuckles, "And I have little memory of it. All I remember was deciding to go into it 'tai tai no sen', accompanying its every move with a move of my own, leaving no room in my mind for anything but sheer reaction and constant attack. Those multiply jointed legs and the arms were probably the only things that I could do anything to. The armoring couldn't be touched by anything but explosives. Luckily, I only had to occupy it for a couple of minutes. Otherwise I would have been dead. But you know..." her voice goes soft, "it was Wonderful." "You know what it's like, in the middle of a fight." she says, an odd light behind her eyes, "All chaos, all insanity, where there are too many things for a conscious mind to take in and keep and process. And all you have is your training, your body, your will to make some order out of the chaos, to put your print on the Dance of death. And to Do that with something as skilled and unrelenting and completely committed as that machine..." Her voice grows with the intensity of someone discussing their life's path, "It had no Spirit, no soul, no heart, nothing to distract it from its purpose or intent. The ultimate samuri." she says, softly. "Hurt as it was, damaged as it was, it still fought with all it had, and I would be dead if Wolf hadn't found what we needed." "Meanwhile," Wolf says, after a moment, "I was getting the old fishing net we had climbed over on our way up. The thing was too busy trying to gut Li to pay any attention to me, so I was able to crawl over it with the net... and then drop it on the damned thing." He pauses, eyes narrowed at the memory. "It tangled up beautifully, with all those legs and things. It was thrashing around, and Li looked like she was trying to come out of a trance, and I jumped down and together we managed to pull the thing over to the dockside doors..." he touches the bruise on his face gingerly. "Not without difficulties. And we dumped the bloody thing into the drink. It sank like a stone, and we just stood there, breathing and bleeding, and waiting. And waiting. And after a while, it hadn't come out, and we began to think we might live to see the sun rise. I patched us up as best I could -- " he looks at Li. "I would have healed her better, but she's too wired, and there's not much my magic can do, so I have to rely on bandages and antibiotics. But we're alive. And that HK is, if the gods are kind, rusting itself into pieces on the bottom of the harbor." His eyes are green again, and he looks into the distance, as if trying to see the destruction of their enemy. After a moment, he comes to himself. "And that," he finishes softly, "is what happened to us tonight. Chummer." Li sighs, softly, and the patron turns to look at her. "I... shoot..." she says, and puts her head in her hands, "I wish I could be sure we actually offed the thing. The logical answer is that we did, but the side of me that meshed with that thing while we were fighting. That part ain't so sure, at all, chummer, not sure at all..." Article 74 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: ee0r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Elliott Conan Evans) Subject: entrance Date: 27 Nov 90 02:52:20 GMT jackin>>>128.2.29.69<<< As the kid dashes out, a slow figure saunters in through what passes for a door nowadays. From the neon and black of the night into the dark of the bar walks an average height cauc dressed all in white. Among the black leather clad legions in the Chat, white cotton is like a big arrow pointing at him. When the intermittent ultra-violet lights kick in, he lights up like neon sign. Like he wants to be shot or something. Deck with about fifty visible modifications to the outside slung across his back. Above the deck, on the back of his jacket is his only identification. It's a felt patch; gray donkey, tacked on tail. He smirks. His credit chip buys him 5 strength darjeeling tea with grain. He's gotta be mad. He scrawls with his finger on the message screen by the door. #4445P Thos who know chuckle, the rest just smirk. The thought hangs in everybody's "He must want to die. What a fuckin freak" He leans against the wall and stares out over the heads of the Chatsubo crowd. <<<128.2.29.69>>>jackout Eeyore Article 75 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story, part 4 (long) Date: 27 Nov 90 05:33:13 GMT Nekoko stood on the sidewalk before the offices of BUXOM BABES. A four story, grey concrete building, poorly constructed, scarred with gang graffiti, streaked with rust, stained by the rain. The sidewalk was crowded; she could barely keep her place in the moving masses. The air was filled with the smells of the street vendors, selling krill, ramen, sushi, soup. Sellers offered talismans, drugs, vidchips, discarded technology, information. Each vendor had their mat or stand from which they alternatively shouted, implored or cursed. No one seemed bothered by Nekoko's cat ears or cat eyes; there were stranger people on the street. Her long skirt layered over a bodysuit and waistpouch contrasted with the shabby wornout clothes of the passing crowd. They pushed and shoved her, making her dance to keep on her feet. Nekoko took a deep breath and pushed her way through the crowd to the side of the building. She slipped between a soba stall and a fortune- teller to the alley behind, stepping over the stacks of rotting paper that blocked the entrance. Rusted dumpsters overflowing with garbage, piles of broken drug vials and puddles of dirty water smelling of urine filled the alley. Nekoko studied the backwall of the BUXOM BABES building, noting the large windows on the top floor and the fire escape. She returned to the noisy street, walked to the front entrance, pushed the door open and stepped inside. Nekoko walked across the dingy lobby and rode a creaking, wheezing elevator to the top floor, where she was greeted by a door marked 'Editor in Chief'. She pushed it open and entered a large cluttered office. At the desk, a elderly pot-bellied man sat looking at a vidplayer. Dagit Basel, the editor, had a gentle face; small white mustache, round bulbous nose, soft grey eyes looking through thick black reading glasses. He was almost bald, with white wild tufts of hair over each ear. Nekoko saw him as someone's grandfather. Intent on his reading, he did not look up as Nekoko entered. Behind him, windows gave a view of Seattle's dock area. A quiet roar came from the streets below. A vidscreen on the office was showing scenes from the waterfront. In the foreground, the announcer spoke into a microphone. "...ARES gave no reason for the closure of the East Dock, other than to say it was for security reasons. Informed observers reported that ARES was undertaking a marine salvage project in the area. When asked to confirm this, ARES spokesmen warned the media about fruitless speculation..." As Basel gave no signs of noticing her, Nekoko cleared her throat. "If you have come for the vidchip," Basel growled, "it is not for sale, as I told your people this morning. All submissions become property of the magazine, as it says in our bannerhead. Oh!" Basel looked up at her. "I thought you were my 12:00 appointment." "I am your DataCourier. I brought you this." Nekoko reached into her pouch and pulled out the packet of vidchips. She dropped the packet onto the cluttered desk. Basel adjusted his glasses. "Thank you." As he reached to sign the receipt, he took a closer look at the DataCourier. "You! You were in the funny sex video!" "Not willingly." "We always wondered if you had survived. Your trick was so funny, it would have been a shame if it didn't work. Are you mad at us for publishing it?" Nekoko thought for a moment. "No, not any more..." "Still, it was a good trick. We could only use that part of the vidchip in our magazine. The rest was simply too bloody." Nekoko's ears stood straight up. "You saw the rest of the vidchip?" "Yes, I scanned through it. It wasn't good for anything. Scenes of soldiers getting slaughtered. Doesn't sell real well." "How was the vidchip identified?" Nekoko asked. "I remember the title 'Muenchen Turbinen und Roboten Werke', a date, and the words 'Project: Model 60'". "Do you know where the vidchip came from?" "My assistant editor found it on the doorstep the other morning. ARES Advanced Research markings on the vidchip carrier, but nothing else. We often get submissions that way. We asked at ARES for the Advanced Research Divison, but never got a response until today." "Why do you think you got the vidchip?" Nekoko asked. Basel turned off the vidplayer. "We often get vidchips with strange things on them. I thought someone might have been showing off. They, the anonymous submitters, often do that." "I know that the vidchip is not for sale, Basel-san," Nekoko asked very slowly, "but could you arrange for me to see it?" "No problem..." Nekoko started to say something, but was interrupted by tapping on the door. Basel turned to his desk and checked his desk vidscreen. "Sorry, it's my 12:00 appointment with the ARES Advanced Research Division people. Do you mind waiting outside for a moment?" "Those are the people asking for the vidchip back, aren't they?" Basel nodded. "If you don't mind, I'd rather not meet them. Could I wait in your washroom back there?" "No problem. Shouldn't take long." Nekoko moved over to the washroom, closed the door, sat on the toilet and sighed. Below her feet, on either sides, and on the ceiling, there were mirror tiles. She looked into an infinite number of cat-eared, cat-eyed, blonde-haired women. She amused herself by making faces at her reflections. From the direction of the office came the murmur of a discussion, ending in the sound of a muffled shot. Nekoko crept to the washroom door, knelt down, and listened at the door. She could hear the voices of a man and the electronic voice of a comlink. "Red-1 here. Primary target terminated," said the man. "Kommodore here. Have you found the vidchip?" asked the electronic voice. "We've got all Basel's vidchips. It'll be in there somewhere." "Have you found the secondary target?" Kommodore asked. "No. We know she's here." "Good. Find her copy of the vidchip. Then terminate." "Is the building being cleared? Don't want any unnecessary deaths." "Yes, Kommodore. Red-2 is telling people to leave quietly, there might be a killer in the building." "The girl with cat's ears? Good idea." "Yeah. She'll take the blame for Basel's death. And the explosion." "Good. Are the explosives ready?" The electronic voice asked. "Yes, you may detonate on my command." "Understood. Will detonate on your command. Endtrans." "Endtrans," said Red-1. Before Nekoko could react, there was a loud crash. The washroom door fell in, the lock and hinges splintering from the wooden frame. Nekoko sprawled across the floor. She turned to stare up into a small black hole, mounted at the end of a automatic pistol. Behind the pistol stood a tall gaunt man with frizzy blonde hair, light blue eyes, aquiline nose and soft smiling mouth. With his tan and good natured features, he looked like a gym teacher on sabbatical. He wore a blue business suit, carefully tailored, a pair of leather gloves, and a gym bag over one shoulder. He smiled gently at Nekoko. Only in the eyes could Nekoko see the soldier in him. "Hi girl. Thought you might be in there. Come up here. I won't hurt you," he laughed. He fingered the small comlink mounted on his shoulder. "Red-1 here. I've located the second target." "Red-2 here. Good. The building is almost cleared." "Kommodore says he is ready to detonate the explosives." "Just a minute Red-1, got one more office to check." "Endtrans, Red-2." "Yeah, yeah. Endtrans." "So, girl, come with me." He grabbed Nekoko by the hand, pulled her to her feet and waved her into the office with the pistol. "Here, give me that pouch. Never know what a girl's got in her handbag." Nekoko sullenly slipped off the waistpouch and handed it to the mercenary. He laughed, dropped the gym bag and slipped the waistpouch over his shoulder. Nekoko looked around the office. Basel lay in a pool of blood behind his desk. The desk was covered in vidchips and datapaks. The mercenary waved her into the center of the room, took a step back, lowered his gun and smiled at her. "Well, you are a pretty little thing..." Nekoko watched his face. He was smiling, but his smile never reached his eyes. When he knew she didn't have the vidchip, he would kill her. "It'll be a shame, girl, but I have my orders..." Nekoko knew he would kill her. She studied his eyes. "Where's the vidchip the drone gave you?" "I crushed it," Nekoko answered. She curled her hands slightly, leaned slightly forward, balanced herself. "Maybe you did..." He laughed. Nekoko took several short little breaths, then exhaled slowly. The mercenary looked down to search her waistpouch. "Gee, nothing but junk. The things some girls carry..." Nekoko's eyes narrowed. Nekoko stepped forward and launched a sweeping sideways kick to the merc's head. The merc's head snapped hard. He fell, his head hitting the desk. He rolled over slowly, reaching for his pistol. Nekoko struck again with the palm of her hand against his chin, breaking his neck. The mercenary's body slumped. She stood up, shaking, dazed. There was not much blood, just a thread from the corpse's nose. A cut on the side of his head. The side of her foot tingled, her hand was sore. It was the first time she had to kill. Nekoko limped over to the wall, gathered the vidchips and datapacks from the desk and poured them into the gym bag. She turned to the mercenary's body, looking for her waistpouch. The strap of the waistpouch was lying under his torso so Nekoko steeled herself to roll the body over. When the body flopped over, several items dropped out of the merc's pockets onto the floor. Nekoko swept the items into the gym bag, trying not to look at the dead merc's eyes. As she grabbed her waistpouch, she heard the footsteps of the other mercenary. Nekoko rushed across the floor to the window, opened it, and stepped out onto the fire escape. Gym bag and waistpouch in hand, she began down the fire escape. As her head dropped below the window sill, she could hear the doors of the office open. She hurried, hearing the cry of the mercenary above her. Faster, faster, she jumped down the steps of the fire escape. There was a bang, a whistle, and Nekoko realized that he was shooting at her. At the ladder, she dropped the gym bag to the ground below, and stepped onto the ladder's rungs. A flash of white light lit up the alley; everything in monochromes, walls, dumpsters, garbage. Thunder rolled. The ladder shook, her hands opened, and Nekoko fell, landing in a dirty puddle of water. She looked up to see the top floor engulfed in flames. She rolled over, pulled the gymbag and waistpouch together and ran. Behind her, the walls of the building slowly fell in on themselves. Late afternoon at the Chatsubo. Nekoko stared into the glass of Kirin that Ratz had poured for her. The beer was flat, the taste sour. She traced the scars of the tabletop with the tips of her fingers, wondered how she had survived. Had the mercenary not considered her harmless, had he not hit his head against the desk, she would have died with the others in the explosion. Ratz had taken one look at her, her tangled hair, her filthy skirt and called Li. The vidscreen behind her continued to blare. " ...body of Claus Lagervelt, a vice president of ARES Corporation, was pulled from the water near the ARES Corporation's marine salvage area. ARES has refused to comment. Recovery of the body was made more difficult by the extreme ARES security in the area. Identification of the body was difficult as Lagervelt's face was severly mutilated by the micro-fletchettes that killed him." "Closer to home," the vidscreen continued, "the offices of BUXOM BABES was destoryed in a mysterious explosion around noon. Authorities have identified about five dead, with several others still missing. Amoung the dead is Dagit Basel, popular editor of the magazine. Police are seeking the Cat Woman made famous in this month's issue of BUXOM BABES." Li and Running Wolf arrived an half an hour later. Nekoko watched Li stride through the crowds in the Chatsubo, a cobalt blue samurai. Nekoko was in awe of Li's bujitsu, her smooth skill at the cold business of death. She had heard of Li's dance with the drone. She compared it with her own awkward attempts to discover the truth behind the drones. Nekoko weakly waved to Li. "Konnichi wa, Li-sama..." Li turned off the vidscreen and looked at Nekoko. "I thought you could be discreet. The editor dead, the BUXOM BABES office blown all over the block," Li started. "It's not my fault" "Well, Nekoko, the media is telling everyone that the Cat Woman who was featured in this month's BUXOM BABES killed the editor and blew up the building. You were seen leaving the building." "It's not my fault," said Nekoko. "They tried to kill me." She stood up. "First, they made me into a fool. Then they made me into a killer." She thumped her hand on the table. Glasses wobbled and fell over. "All I want to know is," she screamed. "Who the HELL are these guys?" She swept her hand across the table, tossing bottles, glasses, ashtrays over the surrounding crowd. "Oops! Gomen nasai..." Li pushed down on Nekoko's shoulders, making her sit again. "What really did happen?" Running Wolf asked. Nekoko told the crowd around the table her story. She told of Basel's death, of the killing of the mercenary, of the explosion. Li looked at Nekoko and asked, "So, Nekoko, what did you get?" Wordlessly, Nekoko poured a cascade of vidchips, datapaks and ROM packs onto the table. "Rad wiz!" said the razor boy wanna be, "All the BUXOM BABES pictures on vidchips." Li and Nekoko glared at him. Nekoko stirred the pile with her fingers. "I think that someone in the drone project is worried about the direction of the project. He or she sent these vidchips to Basel and me as a warning. Whoever sent out the vidchips couldn't have forseen that Basel would see the vidchip as a submission to the funny sex videos. Or that I would crush mine." Nekoko flicked her ears. "There is something on that vidchip that we are supposed to see. We need to see that vidchip." "Nekoko, there must be 500 unlabeled vidchips here," remarked Li. "Hey, I'll screen them for you," smirked the razor boy. Nekoko rose to slap the boy. Li grabbed her arm and forced her back into her seat. "No, Nekoko, he's right. We're going to have to screen all the vidchips. In the meantime, it might be good for you to go to MTRW and ask around. Get out of Seattle for a while." "Something else is strange about your story," mused Running Wolf, who had been listening carefully. "What?" asked Nekoko. "Kommodore didn't want anyone to survive this mission. He set off the explosions early." Running Wolf said. "Hey what's that?" Nekoko picked up the card from the pile of chips. "A cash voucher." "Rad," whispered the razor boy. "Take the cash, get a flight, get out of here. We'll follow up on the stuff you found today. Don't worry. Enjoy yourself," Li said. Nekoko pocketed the card. She got up and gathered her things. "Nekoko?" said Li. "Yes, Li-sama?" "Be discreet. Don't blow up the place." Article 78 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: The White Knight's Chip Date: 27 Nov 90 08:49:02 GMT Li sits, the datachip in her gauntletted hand, as the White Knight goes toward the table dark angel, Del, and shades are at. And she wonders, a bit, where in hell is she going to find someone who knows enough about weapons system engineering, and has the software tools to understand the data, AFTER the data's been unencrypted or detoxified. She thinks about Darc, and knows that the knows enough to probably get the raw data out; but he probably doesn't know enough about the engineering to be able to make out if the data's any good or not. Then she hears the rumbling basso of a very large man saying "ARES wants what you have. NOW." She slips out of her seat, making her quick way towards the dark angel's table. The White Knight's reply is lost in the noise and distance, but the giant's actions indicate that it was not an affirmative. She hears the huge giant's voice say, "I said, HAND IT OVER." and, at the White Knight's first move, Li quickly takes cover. Stuff spatters everywhere. She sighs, and slowly gets out from under the table, and walks over to the gelatinzed body. The cleaning 'bots come out, and she shooes them away from the body. She looks at the Knight with a wry grin, "You ever think about taking prisoners? Perhaps finding out where the guy *comes* from?" She shakes her head at his wide eyed innocent look and chuckles. "Finesse, my boy, I think you're gonna have to learn a little finesse." Then, resignedly, she starts searching what's left of the body, hoping, beyond hope, that the bounty hunter had kept his ID somewhere other than his front, shirt pocket. Nothing in the pants pockets, nothing along the legs. She pulls out the belt and finds a low-tech 1mm monofilament strung along the center and two credsticks/datasticks with normal chips in the tip. Two? She stares at them, for a long moment, and then continues her search. She finds a third in the dirty right sock. She looks at the tip and sees a platinum chip. She looks over to where one of the 'bots has found the head with its hydrostatically burst eyes. And Li sighs very deeply indeed. A presense comes up, behind her, and, as it moves slowly, carefully, she does not whirl when it puts a hand, slowly, on her shoulder. "Lady Li, it looks like you have a bit of a problem, there..." Article 86 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Re: The White Knight's Chip Date: 29 Nov 90 09:55:41 GMT The decker in white puts down his 5 strength darjeeling with grain alcohol and saunters over to Li as she crouches over the ruins of what was once a human body. Slowly, carefully, he puts a hand on her shoulder, and says softly, "Hey, it looks like you have a bit of a problem, there..." "Don't I know it." she mumbles, and looks up at him sharply, "You think you can help?" Eeyore slides his Ono-Sendai around to the front. The words 'Cyberspace 3' have been crossed out with black marker and beside them has been written in a neat hand, 'Modified'. "I'm not the best," he says, "but I'm good. And I'd be honored." "Name's Eeyore..." He doesn't extend his hand, but his head tips a little to the side. "I'm Li." she says shortly. Then continues curiously, "You know any weapons system designers or engineering experts?" "Will I do?" the voice is cool, amused. Belladonna smiles up at the two. Then in a light voice all the more deadly for its coolness she says, "I'm not too keen on fixing a weapon's system, but I'm a decent engineer. Besides, ARES *is* kind of pissing me off with this mechanical killer thing. I've been hearing stories about it having fun and games down in the sewers. Remember, I told you about how they would send down mercs to try out new weapons down there where I grew up? They especially like shooting at kids: they are small and quick..." the light voice fades away into the sounds of the bar. Li looks at her, "Lady, you'll do just fine." And the three of them get drinks from the bar and sit and talk for a while in one of the booths. Eeyore and Belladonna leave together, while Li sits a while longer, quiet over her drink. Bella's leavetaking "Stay alive another day." echos in her head. Then she leaves as well, a crumpled note from Ratz in one of her pockets. Article 91 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) Subject: Re: Looking for a story Date: 30 Nov 90 05:45:28 GMT A clown came in with a camera on his shoulder and started shooting. Then he fiddled nervously with his weapon. I could tell that he was transmitting and recording everything. The Chatsubo is pretty heavily shielded against RFI, but it has an active relay for data, video, u.s.w. A guy like this could disturb a lot of privacy. He found a place in the back and sat down. I followed. "Hey Cronkeit," I said, holding my hand in front of the lens of his shoulder camera. He got a good shot of some finger and palm prints, but they belonged to someone else. I appeared oblivious to his eyecam. Politely, he turned up the shouldercam to point at the ceiling. He didn't appear to take offense. His media history was probably better than his German. "There are a few things you should know about this place. The one of greatest immediate importance is that recording what happens here can get you very quickly dead. I would suggest you stop it, and erase everything for the past couple of minutes. Then I'll talk to you, not for attribution." He made a show of turning off the recorder and erasing back a ways. "By the way, I'm also in the communications biz. I really would suggest that you do it for real." He sheepishly got out the real controls, halted, and wiped. I had no doubt that he first checked the feedback loop to make sure that everything was being properly transmitted and recorded back at home base. I remained an outfoxee. "That's better," I said, "I always feel better talking to one person." "I'm Goldeneye," he said, offering his hand. I gave him a normal-feeling handshake. "You can call me Viadd in person, but outside the Chat, I am just 'a regular customer.' My handle is never made public, and it would be unwise to refer to the this place by name." "What is this place, anyway?" "That's kind of hard to explain," I explained. "It is a market for the transaction of High-tech laissez-faire economics, but to you it is just a source of local color and deep background. Any story here is not in the specifics, but if you are willing to deal in composites and reconstructions, omitting any names, locations, details etc. that could lead to a traceback, you'll find it a valuable resource." "How will I know when I get too specific?" "You'll find out rather quickly. 'Noses in the wrong places are quickly cut off,' as they say around here." He decided against bravado as he began to notice the flecks of blood that specked many of the patrons. "I guess there's nothing wrong with doing composites and reconstructions," he said, "it has a long tradition in the news biz, and it gives better footage." "Verisimilitude is verity," I said, repeating the newscaster's creed. He treated it as a toast, and we drank to it. "Anyway, that's the most important thing about newsgathering here." "What else should I know?" "Don't fiddle with your gun. People cut you a little slack as you came in because you didn't appear openly hostile, but it's still a bad idea. Tensions run high around here, especially when there's been violence in the previous hours. If you're going to shoot--shoot. Otherwise, keep your hands away from anything that looks dangerous." "I understand." "Another thing, keep your shouldercam at home. It's okay to carry a backwatcher, but ENG equipment carries bad connotations." He agreed, resigned to the idea of using only his eyecam, which, fortunately, no one knew about. "When you see people ducking, duck. People around here don't do things unless they have a good reason." "Those are all good tips to stay alive, but what about stories?" "Don't talk to anyone who looks like they're in a killing mood, of course, but you can ask for the story later. Don't put on airs, but if you're polite you can talk to most people. If someone doesn't want to talk about something, it's best not to talk about it. "Make yourself useful. Information is a medium of exchange around here, so if you just sit there like a sponge, you'll find it gets pretty dry. Offer your services as an investigator to help people find out how what they know fits in to the big picture." "I think I can do that," he said. "Are there any good stories floating around now?" "There's one big story going down, but it might be dangerous, and you'll have to quid a lot of pro quo to get in on it. ('Nothing but life is cheap in life', as we say here.) Talk to Liralen." I pointed her out, so that she would know he was coming. "How about the cat woman with her," he asked, "she looks familiar." He looked like he was about to remember where he had seen her. "You have never seen her before in your life, _never_. If you remember her from somewhere, forget her. I say this not just as a colleague, but as someone who has seen too much death already today." "I get your point," he said. He started over to talk to Liralen. I fingered a datatap on the wall. The active relay was still repeating Goldeneye's transmission to home base, in slightly modified form. I made sure everyone looked approximately similar to their actual appearance, but different enough that they would not be matched by a facex. As he glanced back at me, I could see that the image sent back, ostensibly from his eyecam, had a broader nose, wider mouth, and sharper chin than the face that had been greeting me in the mirror in recent months. I dropped a few ferrets into the bitstream and left the tap. They would call me if they found anything interesting. I went back to the bar. "Everything taken care of?" Ratz asked. "The filter's working fine," I said. As a communications engineer I was pleased with my installation of the active--hyperactive--relay. "You'll look almost pretty when he sees you on tape at home tonight." Ratz scowled and poured me a milk plus. Article 102 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story 5 reposting (long) Date: 2 Dec 90 20:43:17 GMT Nekoko took the last set of stairs at a run, panting, stumbling. At the top of the stairs, she saw that the train had just closed its doors. She ran. "Matte kudasai! Matte. Matte Shimatta! MATTE!" As she arrived at the last car, the train began to humm and slowly pull away from the station platform. Nekoko ran alongside the car, pounding on the doors to the stare of the passengers inside. "Matte, Matteee...." The train sped up and left Nekoko stumbling in disbelief. She stopped and watched the train round the curve and disappear southwards. "Kuso!" She began. Then, she cursed loudly, outrageously, screaming, swearing. After a few moments of tumult, she was interrupted by a quiet comment in Japanese from behind her. "Sugoi...." "Ara....." Nekoko turned to see an elderly Japanese gentleman standing behind her. He was small, wizened, bald with only a few wisps of hair. His dark eyes sparkled from their deep sockets, his mouth curved in a smile. He may have been old, but he stood ramrod straight with a quiet dignity. The old gentleman was dressed in an almost black suit, carefully fitted, very correct. He carried a long umbrella, tightly coiled in one hand and an oxblood leather briefcase in the other. He continued in his quiet Japanese, "I had to come up and see. Miyamoto, I said to myself, someone is cursing like a dockworker. I have not heard cursing like that since I left the Osaka dockyards forty-two years ago." "I am very sorry for my rudeness.." She blushed. Her Japanese was high-pitched, like a child. "No, no, no," the gentleman smiled. "But I would like to know where you learned to curse like that. It was a masterful business." "My father was a teacher of Japanese in California. He taught his only daughter all he had learned." "Your father instructed you well." "Thank you." She told him her name. "But I am called 'Nekoko'" The old gentleman bowed slightly. "My name is Miyamoto Yoshiro, but I am called 'Ojiisan' by my grandchildren." He smiled. "Choojo, is 'Nekoko', a street name? Are you a street samurai?" Nekoko started to say something, but stopped herself. She thought for a moment. After a while, she said, "No, I am a helicopter pilot. Nekoko is my callsign on the comlink." Miyamoto looked at Nekoko's cat's ears, her slightly tipped cat's eyes and answered, "'Cat-child' is appropriate, maybe, but I will call you Choojo, eldest daughter. Come, keep an old man company. We have forty minutes before the next train. I will tell you of myself and you can tell Grandfather why missing a train is the cause of such magnificent cursing." Nekoko looked up from the old gentleman's face to see an empty platform, swept by a chilling wind. A wall of clouds lay to the north, dark, cold, threatening rain. She shivered. Miyamoto took her by the arm and led her into the waiting room. After setting her at a table, he left her for a moment and soon returned with two cups of tea in styroform cups. "What these people do to tea is criminal. But it is warm." He said. "Thank you." She took the cup in both hands, and sipped slowly. "Miyamoto-san," she began. "Please call me Ojiisan like my grandchildren." "Ojiisan, where did you come from?" "Originally? I worked with Doctor Akechi in Osaka. After retiring, I moved with my wife, Meiko, to New Gifu, in California. It was part of the agreement we made with the zaibatsu's, that we would have a place to retire. You know, Choojo, there are two million people in New Gifu? They built it and the other cities for retirees. The zaibatsu did not see that people would come to make New Gifu and the other cities into real Japanese cities." "Honto?" Nekoko asked. "Really, Choojo. We came to retire, others came to sell us things, others came to build, repair, and finally live. Now, you can look around and cannot tell that you are not in Japan. My wife, Meiko, says that it does not feel like home, but she doesn't see that we could never live as well in Japan. There would be no room for her teahouse in Japan. And I can get a tee-off time without a long wait." He smiled and dropped the empty cup in the trash. Behind him, through the windows of the waiting room, Nekoko could see the clouds gathering, covering and uncovering the sun. The wind picked up. To the north, the black wall of clouds advanced. The waiting room was warm. Nekoko started to get sleepy. "Besides, the old woman is being foolish." Miyamoto continued. "All of our children are here in America. Tetsuya is a lawyer in New York. Akemi is married and lives near the Napa Valley and Nabiki, the youngest, is about to start college. That is why I was in Seattle. I visited the Dean of Admissions of the University of Washington. Luckily, he spoke Japanese. All civilized people should. I convinced him that Nabiki should be admitted this winter. She is very much like you. You must meet her." Nekoko drained her cup. Outside, the clouds covered the sun. The light turned dreary and grey. She looked up at the clock in the waiting room. Miyamoto caught the direction of her gaze and said, "Yes, the train will be here. We should go now." They stepped out of the warm waiting room into a bitter biting wind. From the distance, they heard the bleat of the train's horn. "It's pretty bad out here, isn't it?" Miyamoto remarked. Nekoko nodded. The train approached and hissed to a stop before them. As the doors opened, Miyamoto and Nekoko stepped on board. They moved down the car's corridor and found an empty compartment. When they had settled down, Miyamoto leaned forward and smiled at Nekoko. " Now, Choojo, tell me what was the reason for your cursing." With a small lurch, the train began to move. She started to tell her story. She began with the charter flight to the island, and finished with the head she had been given. She told of the man in leathers, and his final question. "He asked me what I would do, when I found out out who was behind all of this. I had no answer I could have given him." She spoke of the accusations, the questions, the guilt, her doubt. Miyamoto did not speak; he just nodded at times, his eyes deep in thought. When she had stopped, she looked up at him, through her eyelashes. "You have told me a dark tale, true, and I will have more to say on it later. No. Not now." He thought for a moment. "Choojo. When you get home, take a rucksack..." Nekoko looked up at him, puzzled. "Fill the rucksack with those items you need, if you had to leave suddenly. Warm clothes. A knife, matches, such stuff, and keep it near you." "Wh-Why?" Nekoko started. "You now have a powerful enemy. You must prepare yourself. You may have to leave your home suddenly." "ARES?" "Perhaps. It is hard to tell." He turned to look out the train window at the gathering gloom. "You do not need to worry about the police." "But. But the press said..." "Choojo, the press says many things. They must say that the police are looking for you. But the police have too many other problems. A murder and an explosion is a small item in their day to day problems. Bounty hunters, now..." "Bounty hunters?" "The police will wait for a bounty hunter to do their work. It is easier for them." Miyamoto leaned back in his seat. "However, someone has to put up the reward money first. You are safe until then." "When am I in danger?" Nekoko asked. "The street will tell you. Listen to your street samurai friends. They will let you know if someone has placed a price on your head." Nekoko shivered. "But, come, tell me of other things, tell Ojiisan of your father, who taught his eldest daughter to curse so well." Nekoko turned to the window, watching the houses and factories pass in a blur. After a moment, she began to speak. "I was born in Sakumento, the only child of my father and mother. When the Japanese empire took economic control of the region, my father took Japanese citizenship, changing our name. He had been a pilot, so I learned from him what it is to fly." She turned back to Miyamoto. "When I was nine, my mother went into the hospital to have another child. She never returned." Nekoko dropped her eyes and sat quietly for a moment. "I entered boarding school that year. Later, I applied at Yohon-Hana as a pilot trainee." "Yohon-Hana? That explains something that puzzled me. Go on." "The only openings were in the ESWAT division, the Extra Special Weapons and Tactics division. After they accepted me, I underwent the surgery that marked us as Yohon-Hana samurai." She pointed to her eyes and tugged on an ear. Miyamoto interrupted her. "Yes, I have heard this before. Go on." "Yohon-Hana trains you for a while, equips you with the equipment you might need and sends you to a Sprawl city, to learn to survive. They think that those who learn the streets will be better ESWAT samurai." She sighed. "Before I left for Seattle, I visited my father. He had not seen me after my surgery. He disowned me... He turned his back on me and left... I still do not know why." A tear ran down Nekoko's cheek. "I write, but I have never heard from him. I don't know if he reads my letters..." Miyamoto reached into an inside pocket, pulled out a soft hankerchief and wiped her face. Outside the train, the gloom deepened. Lights appeared and rushed past. A station, bright lights, grey and empty, a moment in the compartment window, and then gone. "Yes, I see.", Miyamoto started. "Choojo, you have been raised well. However, I cannot see the samurai in you." Nekoko looked up at him. Her ears stood up. "What?" "No, you were not meant to be a samurai. A pilot, yes, but not a pilot carrying soldiers to die in some small unimportant action." Nekoko flicked her ears in bewilderment. "But. But..." "Choojo, the way of life you have seen, the streets, the people, the Chatsubo may be doomed. They are like the masterless ronin at the beginning of the Tokugawa period. Today, things are unsettled. There is chaos, unrest, troubled times. Some companies thrive on unrest and trouble. Yohon-Hana is one of them. Others do not. The mega-corps are like the 'daimyo' of old. They may decide that chaos and trouble costs them. They will try to reorganize society. Like Lord Tokugawa of old. Then, your Chatsubo, your Lady Li, and all the others will be no more. Not right away. Maybe ten years, maybe more. And the drones..." "Li-sama?" "Yes, even Li-sama. She has no patron, no mega-corp to help her." "The drones?" Nekoko asked. "I think I know what the drones are..." Miyamoto mused. "I think they are supposed to be the new samurai of the mega-corps. They do not feel, they cannot be corrupted. And they can be trusted." Nekoko shuddered. "Your future is not in Seattle, Choojo. Seattle is a Sprawl city. There are many Sprawl cities, but the future is not in them. Seattle is dying. Slowly. That's why you have your Chatsubos, your street samurai, your violence, your death." Nekoko turned away, looking into her reflection in the darkened compartment window. Houses rushed by, each lit with the flickering blue of vidscreens. Large rain drops started to splat against the window. They rode in silence, listening to the rumble of the train. Miyamoto pointed to the houses passing by. "They will not care if your friends disappear. They are cattle, herdbeasts. It may sound fascist to say that, but they are. Because they did it to themselves. No one enslaved them to the vidscreens, to cheap entertainment and cheap alcohol, they did it to themselves. You read, right?" Nekoko nodded. "Most of those out there," pointing to the rows of houses, "are illiterate. And it does not bother them. Their parents and grandparents did not read. Choojo, most all the students at the University of Washington are from Japan, California and other countries. The cattle out there, they don't care. They will just as happy with the drones as with the police they have now. They might not even notice the change. If it does not interfere with the evening's sports schedule." "Ojiisan, what did you mean, that being in Yohon-Hana explained something that puzzled you?" "I wondered why the killer drone spared you on the island." "I had thought it was my trick at first..." Nekoko said. "No, it was not your trick. Nor your body. ARES, if it was ARES, knew that with your eyes and ears, you could have been a Yohon-Hana samurai. They could not kill you without endangering themselves in a war with another mega-corp. Your ears and eyes saved you, Choojo." "But someone sent a team of mercenaries after me, Ojiisan." "True. I am guessing now. ARES has not heard from your mega-corp. Yohon-Hana would have protested if you were a regular samurai. So, now ARES assumes you are just another girl with cat's eyes and ears. There are many out there..." Large dark raindrops beaded up on the compartment window. The lights of the city were veiled behind sheets of water. An empty station flashed by, cold fluorescent blubs, puddles, lit signs, and then darkness again. "Ojiisan, what should I do..." She asked. She turned and looked out the compartment window at her reflection again. They sat in silence for several minutes. "No, not now. Later..., Choojo ," Miyamoto started. He was interrupted by the announcement of Nekoko's stop. "Your stop will come in moments. I do not think we have enough time to talk tonight. Choojo, you must come visit us." He reached into an inside pocket. Nekoko was awake enough to start searching in her waistpouch for a clean meishi. When Miyamoto pulled his business card out, she was able to respond with her own, somewhat bedraggled business card. She took his card and looked at it. Her eyes widened and she looked up. "Come to New Gifu. Doctor Akechi and I will be able to answer some of your questions. We will discuss the drones with him." He smiled. "Next Thursday at three? Nabiki will be there. You will like her. Good. I assume you have a kimono? Bring it. Meiko likes to be formal for company." She got up slowly, moved to the door of the compartment, turned and said, "Ja-mata ne." "Saynoora." Nekoko descended from the train, stepped into a cold rain. Behind her, the train started, hummed, and rolled into the dark, a row of brightly lit rectangles. She glimpsed Miyamoto's face in a window, smiling. Then she ran for shelter and home. Article 106 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu Subject: Nekoko's Story Part 6.B (Bella & Eeyore) Date: 3 Dec 90 19:17:40 GMT Bella and Eeyore stepped out of the bar clutching their flying cloaks - the wind had picked up since either had been out last. Eeyore felt as if every drop of the warming vodka he had drank evaporated from his body. Bella shivered next to him. The street was nearly deserted, only a few scurrying people could be seen and most clung to the shadows. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen this much of the street before." Eeyore pulled his cloak tighter about himself. "So, what's next?" "I need to make a quick stop, then I guess it's your place or mine." Bella scanned the street, her face uneasy in the glow of the Chatsubo neon sign hanging above their heads. She felt a chill in the air that could not be blamed entirely on the wind. "By the prickling of my thumbs, my dear Eeyore, something wicked this way comes?" "My dear Belladonna, I don't think you need to be psi to figure that out." Where the hell is everyone? Eeyore asked himself looking up at the dark grey sky. Bella caught sight of Focus hurrying towards them. "Bella, what's going on?" The once tough looking razor-boy wannabe seemed to have shed years with the change in wardrobe. The muted colors softened him, his blond hair, damp from washing, curled about his face. His eyes were frightened and looked at Bella for comfort and safety. "Sorry, love, there's been a change in plan. Don't worry, I'm not abandoning you," she pulled a vidchip, some cash, and a bronze metal card from a pocket and pressed them into the boy's hand. "Go to the address on the card, ask for Yung-Si, she will look after you. Do exactly as she says." Bella took the boy's face in her hands, "Don't worry, the people there will take care of you, teach you." The expression on Bella's face, the warmth in her voice surprised Eeyore. Eeyore had surmised, like most of the other patrons at the bar, that Bella's intrests in the boy were carnal. He could see now that her interest in him was maternal and protective. He felt like an intruder but he couldn't turn away. The moment ended. Bella kissed the boy on the cheek, "Be careful, Focus, it's very important that you stay alive tonight and get to this address. Once you are there you will be safe. Ok?" The boy nodded. Eeyore saw that his eyes were bright - he wondered offhandedly when the boy had last cried, then he tried to remember the last time he had. When Eeyore looked up from his contemplation the boy was gone and Bella was looking at him expectantly. "No, I'm not going to ask what that was all about," Eeyore spoke tersely, he felt his temper cut short. "How secure is your place?" "Very, it's not far from here either. Do you have everything you'll need?" Eeyore patted his cloak, "My deck, a bottle of vodka, and thee is all I need. Lead on, but carefully. I don't particularly want to run into any of Nekoko's six-legged friends tonight. Come to think of it, that's probably why the street are so deserted tonight - everyone's laying low." Belladonna and Eeyore melted into the shadows, observed only by a strarving rat looking for dinner and wishing he was home. Article 107 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story, 6 (long) Date: 3 Dec 90 20:54:09 GMT Nekoko lay in her futon, staring at the ceiling. She was tired, the day had been long and disturbing. The killing at BUXOM BABES, the escape from the mercenaries, the trip home, the head in the box, the talk with Miyamoto Yoshiro. Her body was tired, her mind wide awake. She fingered the strap of the rucksack next to her. As soon she had arrived at the apartment, she had taken the rucksack out of the closet and loaded it with clothes, supplies, and anything she might need if she had to leave home suddenly. The H&K 227 was broken down and slipped amoung her clothes in the pack. Thinking of Miyamoto's invitation, Nekoko had taken her kimono out of the closet, wrapped it carefully, and added it to the things to pack. A pair of tabi, a obi and a pair of sandals had finished the packing. She raised her head from the pillow and looked around. The apartment was silent except for the ticking of the kitchen clock. Outside, the rain continued. Nekoko's apartment was large for Seattle, a living room in which she spread her futon at night, a small kitchen, seperated from the living room by short curtains, and finally, a bathroom. The apartment was cheap. It was under the final flight path to SEA-TAC. Nekoko usually was woken by the sound of the morning flight from Osaka. The apartment was almost empty of furniture; a chair, a low table, and a pair of bookcases filled with tattered manga was all. Her motorcycle stood near the door. Even in the highly patroled neighborhood near the airport, theft was always a danger. Nekoko had been lucky to find a ground level apartment with an outside door. She stared at the Yamaha. In several days, she would be leaving her home, possibly never to return. Nekoko turned over and laid her head on the pillow. Her hand reached underneath and felt the weight of her pistol, close at hand. The room filled with the fragrance of perfume. Nekoko sat up. It was a scent she remembered well. While she was in training, she had purchased a small expensive bottle of the same perfume on a trip to San Francisco. Her Sensei made her pour it out. 'Pour it out, the scent will give you away.' She had cried afterwards, but Sensei's words still stayed with her; she never worn perfume since. Nekoko pulled the rucksack into the futon with her, molded the blankets over the form, rolled away from the mattress, and crawled into the kitchen. Her pistol was in her hand. The lock on the door clicked softly. Someone pushed the door open slowly. Nekoko stood up, leaned against the kitchen wall, her back towards the living room, her pistol in both hands upright, safety off. She heard quiet footsteps towards the futon. There were two spitting sounds. Nekoko held her breath. Footsteps running toward the door. The door being slammed shut. Nekoko leaned around the kitchen wall. Silence. The kitchen clock ticked. Underlying the smell of perfume, there was the smell of gunpowder. A slow step around the wall, the gun at ready. Nothing. She flicked the safety on, put down the gun and checked the futon. There were two holes in the blanket, in the futon mattress, and two holes in the rucksack. Quickly untieing the rucksack, Nekoko found the bullets had holed a sweater, three shirts, and were resting in her campgear. She swore softly. Tomorrow, she would cash the voucher, clean out her account at Dai-Mittsu International, and ride her motorcycle to California. After relocking the door, Nekoko tried again to get some sleep. She considered the chances small that the killer would come back. After all, wasn't she already dead? The jet came in, screaming, turbines at full power. Nekoko could hear the engines through the pillow she had pulled over her head. She sat up, threw the pillow at the wall and swore loudly. The words could not be heard over the sound of the 6:30 AM flight from Osaka. After washing up, completing the packing, and breakfast, she put her motorcycle leathers on, and picked up her helmet. She carefully slipped the helmet on, fitting her cat ears into the holes in the padding. With a final look around, she wheeled the motorcycle out on the street. Last night's rain had stopped, but the street was still covered with water. The clouds overhead were low, heavy, giving everything a grey washed out look. Nekoko strapped the rucksack to the passenger pillion, mounted the Yamaha, and rode into Seattle. On a quiet suburban street, she pulled into the local Dai-Mittsu branch. Nekoko pulled off her helmet, walked into the bank and sat down at the automatic teller. Tapping the attention key, she fed the cash voucher into the deposit slot. The teller machine hummed for a moment, then spewed 175 nuyen into the cash tray. "What!" She typed quickly on the keyboard. The teller machine displayed the title 'Cash voucher - Coffee reimbursement'. "Damn it, a petty cash voucher. Ok, lets see what we have in my account. Should be enough for a ticket to Europe." Nekoko muttered to herself. She cleared the screen, started to type in a withdrawl. She stopped suddenly and stared at the display. 'Account temporarily unavailable - Contact Local Police for information.' "Shimatta!" "Can we be of service?" asked a voice over her shoulder. Nekoko cleared the screen and turned her head. She saw a bank guard, hefty and armed, smiling at her. "Gomen," she smiled. "A check I didn't cover. Sorry." She hoped the guard would go away. "I'll transfer something to cover it later." "We can help you with your budgeting, Dai-Mittsu is holding classes in household finance on Mondays. We can show you how to avoid overdrafts." "Yes, yes, yes," Nekoko stuttered. She swept the 175 nuyen into her pouch and almost ran outside. "Now what?" Nekoko asked herself. She started back to the apartment. She was approaching the turn into her street when she was passed by a police panzer, doing twice her speed. She slowed down. The ground effects vehicle, sirens running, lights flashing, turned into her street and slid to a stop in front of her apartment. Nekoko continued to slow as the panzer disgorged a crack SWAT team. As she continued past her street, the crack SWAT team had already blown her apartment's door in. Nekoko quickly twisted the throttle, and disappeared. Her motorcycle's lights reflected from the puddles in the alley behind the Chatsubo. She rode carefully now, her pistol tucked on the fuel tank. Nekoko stopped at each narrowing of the alley, her eyes looking for the chances of an ambush. Once, she had yelled at children rooting in a dumpster, stopping her motorcycle and aiming the pistol at them. They moved away from the garbage, their dirt-caked faces twisted in anger. She knew that no one in the alleys of Seattle was harmless, that even these children might pull her down, kill her and sell her corpse to the body-clinics. She stopped the motorcycle again. An overhead bridge did not feel right. Rusted, decrepit, it provided enough cover for an attack. She pulled the pistol from the fuel tank, sighted on a corroded girder and fired. The explosion was muted in the fetid air, the bullet bounced around the bridge. She heard the sound of running footsteps above her, then silence. She rode on. Nekoko stopped again. A corpse blocked the alley. It had been there a while, too long for the body clinics. She ran a quick glance around her, checking for hidden killers. As she walked her motorcycle over the corpse's arm, the stench made her gag. The backside of the Chatsubo was a little cleaner, better lit. The dumpster alongside the backdoor only smelled putrid. She stepped off her motorcycle and banged on the back door. "Hoi, Ratz, open up. It's Nekoko." She yelled. She hoped that her call would not call the killers of the alley to her. "Hey, Ratz, come on." She could not hear anything inside. Behind her, something stirred in the heaps of rags and trash. "Ratzzzzzzz....." There were eyes now. She could see them reflecting the overhead light. She pulled the H&K 227 out of the rucksack on the motorcycle and started to thread the stock onto the rear of the submachinegun. "Damn it, Ratz, where are you?" More eyes now. She clipped the magazine onto the bottom of the H&K 227. In the mist and darkness, Nekoko could not tell if the eyes were human or not. "Ratz, you sorry SOB, I need you..." She used the stock of the H&K 227 to bang on the door. Rustling now, and the sound of feet sliding across the wet concrete. She put her back against the door, held the H&K 227 at ready, and flicked on the laser sight. A thin red line sprung down the misty alley. "Ratzzzzzzzz" A sudden shout and the eyes started to approach. Nekoko pointed the muzzle over the eyes and pulled the trigger. The H&K 227 spat yellow fire over the alley, the sound crashing around and around. Cartridges rained around her feet. She stopped, tipped the muzzle up and watched the eyes disappear into the blackness. A voice from behind her, a rattling at the backdoor. "Hey, what do you think you are doing?" "Ratz, open up, it's Nekoko." "Nekoko, what the hell are you doing, firing that thing?" "Ratz, open up, there's something out here." The door finally opened. Nekoko looked over her shoulder to see the familiar ugly face of the bartender. "What's that? Oh, the children. Come in then. Leave them alone," he said. "Ah....." Nekoko looked back into the alley to see the eyes reflected in the light again. "Better bring my motorcycle in too." "Yep, they'd strip and sell it in a minute. Never have to pay someone to take my garbage. They'll clean it out as soon as I dump it." Ratz chuckled. Once inside, he turned to Nekoko. "So, what are you doing out there?" Nekoko leaned against the discolored wall and told him of the attack on her, the police at her apartment, and the sequestering of her account. "So, Ratz, I'm broke, I'm hunted by the police, and have no place to stay." Ratz turned away from her. Shouts for more beer were coming down the narrow hallway. "Damn it, busy all the time now." "Ratz, I could work for you. I could be a barmaid. It would only be for a few days. I have someone to help me after Thursday. All I ask is a place to stay, away from what is... outside." She clasped her hands, and gave a small trembling smile. "Well..." Ratz was doubtful. "Please? I'll work hard. I have no other place to go..." More calls for beer from down the hall. Ratz stepped back towards the bar, then stopped. "Alright, for a few days. You'll be sleeping in the stockroom, washing up in the bathroom. Get yourself settled in, then come on down and I'll tell you what to do." He rushed back to his bar. Nekoko thought of the bathroom and shuddered. Then she felt the warmth of the H&K 227, and remembered the eyes outside, behind the heavy metal door. She climbed the stairs to the stockroom. Moving around a few cases of Suntory, she made a flat space for a bed. Several unrolled layers of bubble wrap made a mattress and her extra clothes a blanket. She pulled off the motorcycle leathers, put on a pair of jeans and one of the shirts with a bullet hole in it. Her expensive armored jacket almost covered the hole. She descended the stairs and went down the hall to the bar. Ratz waved her over and gave her an apron, a serving tray and a few extra nuyen for change. All Nekoko had to do was take orders and deliver the wet stuff. "Simple enough, right?" he asked. She nodded. "What about tips?" "Tips? You think you're gonna get tips in here?" Ratz started to laugh uncontrollably. Gasping for air, he leaned against the bar for support. Finally, he pushed her into the crowd and returned behind the bar. "Tips. What a concept..." Hours passed. The crowd shrunk. Nekoko thought they were more quiet than usual. She expected more come-ons, more butt-pinching but these crowd had other things on their mind. They drank heavily and talked of combat, death and changing times. Nekoko only had one hardcase, a young boy with cyber-eyes, augmented reflexes, red leather, shaved head. He would have been faster, had he not been drinking. "Hey Kitty. Meow." Nekoko tried to ignore him. "Here Kitty, here kitty." She walked past him. He stood up. "Are you ready for a Real Tomcat?" Nekoko kneed him in the groin and poleaxed him with the edge of the serving tray. He slid towards the floor, face down. Nekoko did not expect a tip afterwards. At the end of the evening, Nekoko could barely stand. She staggered upstairs and flung herself, face first, on her makeshift mattress. Ratz followed her up the stairs and smiled. "Ya done good, Nekoko. We start at 9:00. There's cleaning up, glass washing and sweeping to do. See you then." He turned, switched off the light and went down the stairs. Nekoko groaned. She turned over and stared into the darkness. A few more days. Outside, there was a scream, suddenly cut off. Nekoko shuddered and burrowed herself deeper into the makeshift bed. Article 109 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: ggorsuch@ecst.csuchico.edu (Glenn F. Gorsuch) Subject: Date: 3 Dec 90 23:11:17 GMT Goldeneye sat watching the spot where Liralen had been, with a blank look on his face. He seemed to come to some sort of decision, as he sipped his drink, mostly icemelt by now. Ratz started, as a small red telltale lit under the bar. It indicated that there was some transmission in progress, somewhere in the bar. Closer observation showed it to be that new reporter, Goldeneye, sitting at Liralen's table. Ratz wasn't too worried, with that filter Viadd had installed, the kid couldn't get incriminating data out through the air if he had a team of ace samarai out behind the signal pushing it. Ratz turned and began polishing a few glasses that the sanitizer had choked on. After all, he did have a bar to run. Back at the table, Goldeneye was mumbling softly to himself. The more astute patrons might figure he was using a subvocal mike. Those with maxed audio mods might even hear what he was saying. "Yeah Control, this is Goldeneye. I'm feeling like hell right now--think I picked up that Flu-3 virus that's been circulating lately. Hunh? Sure I'm all right, just buzzed a cab and I'll be headed home soon. Yeah, I did finish your bar supplement--I'll upload it to you after I get home. Uh huh, the Crome Wolf was all you said it would be. That Chatsubo place sure was a vacuum though. You don't wanna go there. I had to kill my cam feeds when some tribesmen claimed I was stealing their souls. You could do a pretty good report on Sprawl tribe superstitions sometime, Max. No, I'm not volunteering--not since you guys stopped paying my Meatwagon account bills. ...Oh, sure, I've got plenty of stuff for an hour-long feature. Catch you in a day or two okay? I just wanna puke my guts out for a while. Later..." Goldeneye sat up from his slumped position in the booth. He pulled his cam closer and removed the data chip that had stored on it all that Liralen had toldhim. He bounced it a time or two on the palm of his hand and thought about how much ARES would pay for it. "No", he thought, "Nekoko, Liralen, and the others are worth more than that. Worse, I can't help them until I can get all the information. Still worse, Liralen and her friends will probably get caught. With the resources that ARES has at it's disposal, they'll talk, and ARES will find out about one nosy idiot reporter that has the story. About an hour later,there will be one less nosy idiot on the streets. Damn! My first big break andit'll probably kill me." Goldeneye slipped the datachip into his own read/writeslot and sealed the skinpatch over it. With much less bounce in his step than when he entered, he walked over to the bar and picked up a second drink. He headed back to Liralen's table to drink and to wait. Article 118 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Model 66 - Black Knight to Queen's Bishop Three Date: 5 Dec 90 18:50:03 GMT The door, which is, once again, a door, opens into the Chatsubo, and a slender man, all black and silver, slides into the dark atmosphere of the bar. His flattopped hair with windswept bangs is as black as the night outside, and his leathers are as dark but are still glossy with newness or disuse. The long fingered hands are encased in black doeskin, with sheepsfleece linings. His eyes are covered with mirrored strip shades, a slender tail braided with silver hangs behind him, and a single, silver hoop earring with a tear drop of fire opal dangles from his right ear. Under the jacket is a silver grey, silk turtleneck. He removes his strip shades to check out those in the bar, and reveals changing eyes the colors of woodlands, mixed hazel, grey, gold, and green. His features are chisel sharp, carved in palest ivory, almost beautiful, but definitely masculine. But, far from being cold and inflexible like ivory, his face shows much more than most of the patrons at the Chatsubo are used to. Presently a lot of them can see that he's worried. The beginning of wrinkles along the edges of his eyes, the corners of his mouth show him to be older than most of those who are in the bar. Those who don't know him and check him out find him to be a bit of a curiosity. He carries no weapons, shows none of the energy readings associated with a razor warrior. However, he moves easily through the crowd, nodding to people here and there, and is very careful of his hands. A few greet him with enthusiasm; but he politely, and gently turns away their business gambits, telling them that he is looking for Li. None of them have seen her, and he goes to the bar. There are some grins and jokes about how uncontrollable those razorgirls are behind his back, but nothing more barbed. It's usually a good idea to keep a good doc on good terms with you. "Long time no see, Ratz." he says, softly. The tone of his voice is very light, a clear, almost musical tenor. And his eyes are still looking over the crowds. "How's your arm doin'?" He says it almost absentmindedly, as if it is his standard greeting for the barkeeper. "My arm is now better than you've ever made it, friend doctor." Ratz's smile is wide, "and it was a free job, too. It was on the downswing after a small... fracas with a patron; and I, regrettably, had to use it to hit him. However, a very talented lady came by and repaired all the damage and actually made it better than when it was new." "Damn you, Ratz, didn't I tell you not to HIT people with it?" Again, a standard response, but then the rest of what the barkeep said sinks in, "Another doc, here?" His eyes focus on Ratz. "Yes... and no. She's more of a mod doc, I think. Her speciality seemed to be artificial enhancements. She left, last evening, on some business, which, I believe, Li sent her on, and has not been back, yet." "Li?" the question is sharp, eager, "You see her, lately?" Ratz looks at him in some surprise, as if he would be the one who was most likely to know where she was. "No. No one has seen her since yesterday." He starts swearing, softly. Running Wolf comes up, from behind him, and startles him by putting a hand on his shoulder. He jumps and turns, but there is no weapon, no hidden device, he simply turns to look. "Hi, Wolf." he says, and then stops, confusion on his mobile face. "'Lo, Argent." says Wolf. The contrast of Wolf's oaken voice and Argent's silver one causes one or two patrons to look up in amazement. Wolf only chuckles at Argent's confusion. "She picked you. It's not your fault, and I won't take it out of your hide. I've still got a good guard at my back, and you..." he pauses for a breath, "you have her." Ruefully, Argent shakes his head, "Not lately, I haven't, I thought she was with you. She said she'd be by this morning, but I haven't seen her at all. She's never missed a date with me, except, once, for that business with the Tsunami 4602, but, even then, she brought me along, too, remember?" Wolf says softly, "That's 'cause we needed you and your cutting ability for that job..." his eyes dark with memory. "Yeah," Argent's voice slows, too, "that was pretty awful." He shivers, once, and then goes on, "Anyway, I thought she was out on another job with you, despite everything I'd told her about taking it easy after that jello brained bit with the HK." He gets some barbed looks from those around the bar, "And I thought she had somehow forgotten to tell me." "That's not like her." Running Wolf's deep voice is puzzled. "That's not like her at all." "Damnit, Wolf, I know that. I'm here because I was hoping you'd know where she is," Argent sinks into one of the chairs, "and you're saying that you don't have any idea?" "How much has she told you about the ARES stuff?" Wolf's tone is hesitant. Argent's eyes go as dark as the secret shadows of old growth forest, "Shit." he says softly, almost in a tone of prayer, "Oh, shit, love, what have you gotten into now?" The door opens, again, and one wrapped in shadows walks in. Article 121 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story 7 (long) Date: 6 Dec 90 21:49:39 GMT Nekoko made her her third trip to the bar in five minutes. The Chatsubo was crowded, more crowded than usual. The noise of the crowd was muted, faint. She turned away from the bar with a loaded serving tray and walked towards the next table. The crowd noise faded away. She could see people drinking, talking, argueing, in silence. She stopped at the table, reached for the first bottle, and the people at the table faded away. She looked up and the bar was deserted. Smoke curled from cigarette ashtrays, bubbles rose in beer, but the bar was empty. She dropped the tray. There was no noise when the glass hit the floor. She turned and stared at the front door. The front door blew in. Nekoko watched a dark form shape itself in the smoky shattered doorway. With jerky abrupt motions, the blood-red horror stepped through the wreckage of the door. Nekoko froze in place. Balancing on six thin legs was a large metal skull. From the empty eyesockets, dark red lights glowed. Another pair of legs carried chain guns. The skull rotated to face her, then spun up its chain guns. Nekoko saw flashes and smoke from the guns. The bullets tore across her chest, opening her body, cutting her to pieces. "Waaaaaaaaaa." Nekoko woke from her nightmare. She breathed deeply, quickly, reminding herself she was still alive. She sat up. The stockroom was quiet, only the sound of the rats in the walls. She put a hand to her breasts, feeling the rise and fall of her chest. Blood pounded in her head. She lay down again, rolled over and studied the cases of gin in front of her. Nekoko came down the stairs early, dressed in her bodysuit, her skirt with the intertwined four flowers pattern and slip-on shoes. Ratz and a woman were standing at the bar, going over the inventory sheets. The woman was in her late forties, hard, muscular, with hard eyes. She was neatly dressed in white jacket, white jeans, gray boots. As she spoke, Nekoko watched the woman's fingers stab at the inventory sheets, her voice low and determined. The woman turned to look at Nekoko. "Who's this?" Ratz waved Nekoko into the room. "Nekoko, this is Darla Sung. Darla does the cooking and helps me with the bar on weekends. Darla, this is Nekoko. Nekoko is helping us in exchange for a room upstairs." "Ohayo gozaimasu," Nekoko said. Darla's eyes narrowed. "You know how to wash dishes? There's a pile in the sink. Dish towels under the sink. Hop to it, girl." Nekoko slipped under the curtains and stepped into a old but clean kitchen. Sighing at the size of the pile of dishes, she slipped the first plate into the hot soapy water. "Done?" Darla asked as she entered the kitchen several hours later. Nekoko sighed again and pointed to the stacks of clean kitchen ware. "Good. You can go to the bar and help Ratz set up for opening. I'll need you later to wash up again." Nekoko's ears drooped. "Hop to it, girl." In the bar, Ratz handed her a broom and told her to sweep up. As Nekoko piled the broken glass, scraps of paper and other trash into a bucket, several women and a single man entered the bar. Ratz waved hello and continued to wash glasses. The women scattered around the bar and began to preen themselves, touching up makeup, adjusting low cut dresses, combing hair. In the corner, leaning on the broom, Nekoko stared. The man and Ratz were talking in low tones near the bar. Finally, Ratz called Nekoko over and asked her to come closer. "Nekoko, this is Lonny Zone." "Hi" Nekoko said as she walked across the bar. The other women giggled. Lonny waved her over, a slow and lazy motion. He showed signs of hypnotic addiction on his long and placid face. Zone's eyes were glazed, showing almost no white, his pupils large and dilated. He spoke slowly, as if in a dream. "Hey girl... You in the biz...? You working... here." Nekoko was puzzled. "What?" "This... this is my bar... Ratz gets... a percentage." Nekoko turned to Ratz. "I don't understand. Biz? Dealing?" "Zone, she's not that way. You needn't bother yourself." Ratz said. Lonny pulled a thin glass ampule from his jacket. "Wanna hit? You... can stare at your big toe for... ten hours. And never... get bored." He broke off the neck of the ampule and sniffed the contents. "No, no, no..." Nekoko shook her head. "Nekoko, Lonny has been telling me there might be trouble tonight. There's something going on out there. He doesn't know what it is. But people are scared." Ratz said. "Listen, Nekoko, go down to Madame Fontaine's, and get several boxes of plastic bullets. Get... oh, a hundred rounds, loaded in clips for your H & K." "But I already have ammunition for the H & K." Nekoko protested. "Yeah, those steel-clads'll go right through the wall. Get the plastics. Here." Ratz dropped 100 nuyen into Nekoko's hand. "Take a few hours off. Take oh, take Denise with you," pointing out a girl sitting at a far table. "She knows where Fontaine's is." Nekoko looked up at a young girl, short, voluptuous, blonde, with a broad good-natured face. Denise, dressed in a tight sleeveless T-shirt, tattered cutoff jeans, and tall shiny vinyl boots was staring into a vidplayer. >From the vidplayer came the babel of a laugh track. "Hey, Denise, take this razorgirl wannabe and show her where Fontaine's is, OK?" Ratz shouted. Denise nodded. She put down the vidplayer and walked over to the bar. "Hi, you ready to go?" Nekoko nodded and headed for the door. They pushed their way through the crowds, getting stepped on, pinched, and shoved. Nekoko and Denise sidestepped the mats and stalls of the street vendors, walked around the street samurai, stepped over the drunks in the way. A demented man lay in the gutter, stretched out on his back, shouting at some unseen personal demon. Denise averted her eyes and walked past. Nekoko hurried up and asked, "Why doesn't someone do something?" "It's no good. If he can't hide somewhere by night, the ghouls'll get him." "Ghouls?" Nekoko asked. Denise turned her good-natured face to Nekoko. In her eyes, tears glittered. "Where've ya been? Dontcha know? In the Sprawl, anyone who can't protect themselves gets taken by the ghouls. They'll kill ya to sell your body to the body clinics." She walked faster. Nekoko almost ran to keep up with her. Nekoko told Denise about the eyes in the alley. "But I didn't know they were called ghouls." "Ghouls, yeah. That's why I'm with Lonny. If'n ya can't protect yourself, ya gotta find someone. Or you die." Denise wiped her face with the back of her hand. "You a razor girl?" "No, I'm... no, I was a helicopter pilot. Now I'm just a barmaid." "Ain't gonna live long with that attitude. I've seen them come and go." Denise stepped around a soba stall. Nekoko stumbled into the stall and backed away to the curses of the stall's owner. When Nekoko had caught up with Denise, they stood at the street corner, waiting for the light to change. "Attitude? What does attitude have to do with living?" Nekoko asked. "It's everythin'. Look at yourself. You have to push people out of the way, right? With the right outfit, the right attitude, they'll step out of your way. They'll stay away." "No way." Nekoko snorted. The light changed and they started across the street. "Attitude and outfit have nothing to do with it." "I betcha. Lemme pick somethin' out at Madame Fontaine's. You watch. I'll show you. They'll jump into the street to get out of your way." "Denise, you're on. Loser buys lunch." Nekoko said. They continued down the sidewalk, passing a woman sprawled in a doorway, filthy, clutching a empty bottle of liquor. A few coins were scattered at the woman's feet. "Another walking corpse," Denise said sadly. As they stopped in front of an old decrepit warehouse, Nekoko asked, "By the way, Denise, how old are you?" "Don't know. Someone said I was sixteen, so I guess I'm sixteen. Madam Fontaine's," she said, pointing to the door. Nekoko said nothing, opened the door to the warehouse and entered. Broad alleys inside the warehouse led to a small office near the center. On all sides, boxes of tools, parts, clothing, machinery, and junk were stacked to the ceiling. Many had thick coatings of dust, other boxes had decayed, spilling their contents onto the floor. Denise knocked at the door of the office. "Hey, Madame Fontaine, it's Denise. Gotta customer here." "Bon jour," came a voice from inside the office. "Entree, mes amie." Nekoko and Denise walked through the office door. Inside, a very fat woman sat, fanning herself with a piece of plastic, watching the vidscreen on the wall. A desk and a large mirror completed the furnishings. Madame Fontaine looked at Nekoko, then at Denise, then at the vidscreen again. "Madame Fontiane, we need a few clothes, and..." Denise started. "A hundred rounds of plastic bullets for an H & K. 9 mm in clips of 20." Nekoko finished. "Go and look around," Madame Fontaine said. "When you come back, I'll have the ammo. Got some upfront money?" She never looked away from the vidscreen. "Give her the money that Ratz gave ya. You can trust her." Denise said softly. Nekoko dropped the 100 nuyen on the small desk next to the vidscreen. The two women stepped back outside. "Ok, first, we'll need some unitards. They're over here." Denise ran down a dark alley. Nekoko looked around, then followed. An hour later, the two women sorted through their finds. A golden unitard. A dark gray rigid armor vest, with hard shoulder epaulets, a pair of fingerless gloves with spiked backs. Two dark gray ammo belts. A pair of gray hard boots, knee high with knife sheaths, with attached knives. Nekoko looked at the small pile. "I can't wear that! The cops would be on me in a moment. It's all threats..." "Uhm, forgot the long coat. There's a long grey coat that should fit all this. You want to keep it open to just suggest what's underneath." "Besides, that unitard is... sorta revealing." "Here, use this." Denise pulled a fat cloth belt out of the pile. Matching in color with the unitard, the belt had an smiling sun embroidered on it's front and two lengths of cloth mounted front and back. "Goes with the outfit. A little modesty, yeah. It's like a highly slit dress, right." "I don't know, Denise..." "While you change, I'll go get the ammo. Let's see what Madame Fontaine has to say." Nekoko slipped into the unitard, buckled the belt around her stomach, putting the cloth front and back. She put on the armor vest, wondering at the weight. The boots, the ammo belt and gloves completed her dressing. She gathered her old clothes and stepped into the office. As she entered, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Nekoko jumped back, then studied her reflection. With her cat ears, her cat eyes, the new outfit gave her her a deadly aspect. Denise turned and slipped a long grey coat over Nekoko's back. "How's that. You look pretty good. Watch what happens on the street." Denise giggled. "Besides, you can hide your H & K in your coat now." Nekoko turned back to the mirror. She tried a pose, then another pose. She smiled, then turned to Madame Fontaine, who had been watching Nekoko, "How much for the outfit? I don't have much." Madame Fontaine thought for a moment, then said, "Ah, you like the outfit? You look it was designed for you. I'll make a good price. 100 nuyen." Denise laughed. "No way, too much. Nekoko, give her 50 nuyen." "75 nuyen, and that's it. It'll break my heart." Madam Fontiane said. "Denise..." Nekoko started. "60 nuyen. I know how long it's been here..." Denise said. "Ah, the young people today. Very well." Madame Fontaine sighed. Nekoko paid Madame Fontaine out of her meager savings, gathered the clips of ammo and filled the pockets of the long grey coat. As she turned to go, her foot kicked a small box out onto the floor. The box turned over, spilling several brightly bound manga onto the floor. "What's this? Where did you get these?" Nekoko asked as she knelt to examine the contents of the box. Denise looked over Nekoko's shoulder, puzzled. "Oh, those. Someone sold them to me. No market for the stuff. Small black and white drawings with chicken scratches markings. Why would anyone make something like that?" Madame Fontiane was turning back to the vidscreen. "I'll give you 2 nuyen for the box." Nekoko shouted. "Done." Nekoko dropped the 2 nuyen coins on the desk, gathered the manga off the floor and left the office. She piled her old clothes on top of the box, picked it up, and walked to the warehouse door. Denise hurried after her. "Nekoko, why do you want those things?" "I'll show you later." Denise stopped at the warehouse door. "Stop, Nekoko. There is one more thing I need to tell you before you go out there. True, you look like one tough razorgirl. You've got the armor, the gloves, the boots. But the attitude. Without it, you'll always be a wannabe. You gotta walk like you are death itself. You gotta act like you know what's happening, but ya don't care. You must never flinch, 'cause if they see you flinch, they'll blow you away. You got that? Oh, and you betta give me your old clothes and that box." Nekoko turned and gave her the pile of clothes and the box of manga. "Ready?" Denise asked. Nekoko nodded and the two women stepped back onto the street. As Nekoko strode along, she noticed that Denise had fallen behind, walking behind her by two strides. She stopped suddenly, and turned to Denise. "Why are you back there?" "No, Nekoko, don't look back here. Street samurai have nothing to do with whores. Keep going. Go!" Denise sounded nervous. Nekoko turned back and continued. She noticed that people started to watch her, then move slowly out of her way. It gave her a warm feeling. She walked alittle faster, the flaps of the grey coat flying behind her, revealing the unitard, the boots with the knives, the ammo belts, the belt with the smiling sun. The crowds parted as if by magic, people taking a step or a jump to get out of her way. Nekoko smiled at first, then laughed. Around her, the people stopped and waited to see what the crazy street samurai in the cat ears and long grey coat would do. Entering the bar, Nekoko waited a moment for Denise to follow, then turned to see what Ratz's reaction would be. Ratz stared at her slowly for a moment, then smiled. "I approve. That outfit'll help if we have problems." Darla stepped out of the kitchen, scowled and vanished. Nekoko laughed. "Ah, Nekoko, that was fun. Did you see that fat man jump?" Denise was behind her, laughing. "You owe me lunch, right?" "Hey, Darla, can you bring us lunch? I'm buying." Nekoko shouted. Article 123 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: teneyck@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) Subject: Model 66 - Queen's Gambit Accepted Date: 7 Dec 90 05:06:54 GMT Wolf and Argent turn as the man walks up to them. For a long moment, his black eyes look at Argent. Argent doesn't back off. He looks at Wolf, and says, "He safe to Li?" Argent tries to take a quick step forward, but Wolf's arm keeps him from touching Tracker. "What in hell do you know about Li?!" Tracker just looks at Wolf, completely ignoring Argent's outburst. Wolf nods. And Tracker sighs, "Sorry, had t' be sure. Why don't we go sit over there?" He nods towards a booth, and earns a dirty look from Ratz. His voice is a little wry, "Probably better if you're sittin'." "Get ON with it." Wolf is getting edgy. "Ratz is fine." "Li's in bad trouble. Ares snatched her last night." "WHAT?!" The exclamation is simultaneous. Then Argent begins swearing softly, and Wolf almost visibly restrains himself from running out the door that very instant. After a moment, he turns his eyes -- now green and blazing -- back to Tracker. "Where? How? And why are you telling us NOW instead of last night?" His voice is soft, now; quiet and dangerous. Argent looks sharply at him. "At a laundromat..." Tracker gives the address and consisely and thoroughly tells the story, unrattled by Wolf's intensity. He finishes, tiredly, "Couldn't get any closer 'cause it looked like they had IR gear, and I don't got your little bag of tricks, medicine man. They went into the laudromat. Orc woman probably told them about me talkin' with her, 'cause they came out, lookin'. So I split, and used the rest of the night makin' sure they wouldn't have anything to follow. It was dawn before I was sure and certain. I knew this place doesn't even open until noon, and this was the only place I knew I could find you all." Argent and Wolf look at each other. "I'll go take a look," says Wolf. "You stay here and talk to him -- " he jerks his head to indicate Tracker. "Find out what she's got that made them want to snatch her." Tracker looks disgusted. "You won't find out anything I didn't tell you," he says. Wolf looks at him levelly. "Maybe not," he says. But I have to try." Argent regards Wolf carefully. "Wolf... " he says, and pauses. "Wolf, just go and look. Don't get stupid. You can't take them yourself." "Oh, don't worry about me," Wolf says, softly. "I can wait." With that, he gets up, unbuckles his sword from his side and transfers it to his back; Running mode. He slides out his gun, checks it, and reholsters it. "I'll be back," he says, and heads for the door. On the way, Nekoko stops him. "Wolf-sama," she says, hesitantly. "I heard something... is Li in trouble?" Wolf looks at the cat-eared woman, and sighs; then nods. "Yeah, kinda looks that way, child." Seeing Nekoko's expression, he touches her cheek, and adds softly, "Don't worry too much, Nekoko. Remember... that's *Li* they've got. I think they may find themselves with more of a handful than they bargained for." He pats her on the shoulder, and walks out the door. ----------------------------- The night was cool and wet; rain sprinkled intermittently down from above, with only the faintest burn of acid, and the city lights reflected from the overcast to produce a sort of general haze of blue-white illumination. And lots of shadows. Wolf paused as he left the bar, automatically stepping to one side of the door the instant he left, then letting his eyes adjust. He zipped up his fringed black leather jacket, and pulled on his gloves. Time to Run. The laundromat Tracker had described was about a mile away, in a neighborhood little better than that where the Chatsubo was located. Wolf ran at a light lope, keeping to shadows; ignoring the occasional rustle of bratpacks in the alleys, and melting into doorways whenever the headlights of the rare car or motorcycle swept over the street. Once a Lone Star helicopter eggbeatered overhead, and he paused in the cover of a torn awning on a narrow street, while the searchlight probed the streets. And he Ran. As he came close to the address Tracker had given him, he slowed, run to walk, walk to prowl, prowl to slow, silent progression from cover to cover. The city was not his favorite territory; Wolf had grown up in the mountains. But there were still very few, in the city or elsewhere, that were better stalkers than he was. Eventually, he halted, about two and a half blocks away from the laundromat. >From his position, he could see the spill of light from the place, onto the street. Otherwise, the street seemed completely empty, at this late hour. Still, he waited, looking, listening, smelling the night air for whatever it was that was lifting the hackles on the back of his neck. Something... There! Nothing physical; a spider's thread of magic, spun across the street half a block in front of him. He eased back further into the alleyway, let his vision flow onto the other plane, and saw it: a frail, crystalline web covering the entire street. He studied it; Hermetic magic beyond a doubt, the pattern, the careful precision of the spell proved that. A detection spell, he decided; nothing more. Built to give notice of anyone coming down the street. Give notice to whom? Carefully, he eased back the way he had come, circled around. Found the same web across the next street. And the next. Full circle, at about two blocks radius, centered on the laundromat. Wolf sat back on his heels, grinned mirthlessly. ARES had left a stakeout. Set, no doubt, to see who would come a-hunting for Li. A mage, of course. And there would be another, probably a merc of some type. Wolf studied the layout of the laundromat, the intersection, from his position down the street. One would be at that window, above the laundromat, no doubt; commanding a view of both streets. The other at the opposite side of the intersection, somewhere hidden from his view. In constant communication, and calling in to headquarters frequently; that was standard Corp policy. A failure to call in on time would bring a scramble team down here within minutes. Wolf eased himself into a more comfortable position, and thought. The smart thing to do was to leave, go back to the Chatsubo, confer with Argent and Tracker. And yet... there were two people, right out there, with some answers, answers that Wolf wanted. Argent, he knew, would have left; cautiously, professionally, calmly. Li would... Wolf grinned. He could almost see those steel-blue eyes, cooly assessing the probabilities, figuring out how to do it, simply for the challenge of it. He relied on Li, usually, to balance him with her coolness, her rationality. Li... Li in the hands of ARES, Li held captive. His smile faded. Somewhere, deep inside him, his totem stirred; lifted hackles, bared fangs, growled. His eyes narrowed, turned emerald- green, as they always did when his totem acted through him. Wolf-eyes. He shifted forward again, centering his weight, balancing on the balls of his feet. Unconsciously, he bared his teeth. Wolf reached deep inside himself, found the magic there, the raw potency of emotion that was his power; naked power, unlike the careful, oh-so-precise strands of magery in front of him... he found his magic, took his anger, began to build with it, let it grow, until he was filled with anger, with magic, floating on it. He almost felt that he was glowing, with the force of magic welling from him. For a moment, he paused there, balanced on the knife edge of action. He drew his gun. And then he opened up, and hurled the force of his anger at the frail web of magery. The crystalline structure shattered at once, curling like a spider's wib set on fire; fire that raced along the delicate threads of the spell, back to the caster, exploding into his head in a chaotic burst of fury. At the same moment, Wolf leapt forward, ran down the street, watching the window he had marked. No motion there... he reached the intersection, spun, looked up. There! a figure in another window, steel gun barrel turning, aiming -- the gun in Wolf's hand coughed three times, and the figure jerked, twisted; Wolf felt rather than heard a shot go by his ear, and the figure fell down inside the window and disappeared. Without waiting to see that, Wolf turned, ran into the door of the other building, up the stairs to the second story. He had, he figured, maybe ten minutes. He counted doors down the hallway, and went through the right one in a burst of splintering wood. Inside, there was a man, on his hands and knees, shaking his head and looking stunned -- the Corp mage that Wolf had burned. He slammed the mage on the back of his head with the gun butt, hoisted him up onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry, and turned to leave. Something on the floor caught his eye -- a small hand-grip, with a button on the top. It was a deadman communicator, presumably even now screaming for help. Wolf spent a split second admiring ARES paranoia, then turned and ran. He had, if he was lucky, two minutes. He made it down the stairs, with the unconscious mage flopping on his back, and out the door. The street was still empty. He ran, not stopping to look back; if they were there, they'd let him know. Down a block, turn, another block turn, an alley, another street -- he paused, dumped his burden, and stripped him, completely, and dumped the clothes and any tracers they might contain down a storm drain; while the seconds ran through his fingers. As Wolf slung the mage over his shoulders again, he heard the low, thwup- thwup of approaching copters. He reached into the darkness, grabbed the shadows, pulled them around himself and his burden, and Ran. Ran while copters whirled overhead, buzzed like angry dragonflies around the intersection behind him, whirled out again in a search pattern. Ran, dodging searchlights and motorcycles, ran through alleys, into and out of vacant buildings, deeper into the darkness, into the heart of the slums. Ran while guns stitched the darkness behind him, gunning down anything that moved. Ran, heart pounding in his chest, the mage a loose, floppy weight on his back; ran for his life. Ran while his eyes blazed green, ran, and almost laughed for sheer joy of the Edge. Eventually, he paused, listening; nothing. Quiet. He seemed to have eluded the pursuit. He moved again, at a slower pace, working his way carefully through the city until he reached a place that suited him -- a vacant apartment building, like many others, with a good number of escape routes. He picked a room, barricaded what was left of the door, and dumped the mage onto the floor. The young man coughed, stirred; began to come around. Wolf hunkered over him, drew his knife. The mage opened his eyes. Wolf grinned at him, showing his teeth; held up the knife. "I have some questions, my friend," he said softly, and the Corp mage's eyes widened with shock and fear, "and you'd better pray you have some answers." Article 141 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Belladonna) Subject: Nekoko's Story 6.C Date: 10 Dec 90 14:06:35 GMT After about 20 minutes of twists, turns, paranoid flights of fancy, and startled rats and people, Bella turned and slipped down an alley with Eeyore right behind. The stench of decomposition was nauseating. Bella stopped in front of an ancient wooden door and pressed her palms flat against the wood. An audible click and the door swung inwards, whispering on just this side of silence. Eeyore noted the 4 inches of steel that made up most of the door's thickness. The door closed as quietly as it had opened as soon as they both were clear. The hallway they stood in was dark and stuffy. Lights brightened slowly and bit by bit Eeyore could make out his surroundings. There wasn't much to see, a corridor about 2 and a half meters long, plain white walls, what looked like doors to a closet along the left hand wall and another door opposite the one they had entered. As the room brightened Eeyore notice the small scanner openings along the wall - he could almost swear he felt the sensors sweeping along his body. "He's carrying, Bella," a low voice issued from the walls. "Scanners indicate what seems to be a Narcoject pistol in a shoulder holster, left underarm, and a shock glove on the left hand." "Who the hell was that?" Eeyore asked, politely removing his two armaments and placing them in a drawer which slid from the wall. When a light turned from red to green, a door opened and Eeyore followed Bella through it. "Gregor." Bella said in a very deep voice, rolling her R's. "He's part of my security." "I am your security, Bella." Eeyore had never before heard such a voice from a computer. It didn't have the horrid pseudo-Japanese accent that most did. "Great programming job," said Eeyore, looking around. "Nice place you have here." Eeyore admired the simple decor, a low couch and two soft chairs. He could see a eating unit off to the left and another doorway off to the right. "What programming? He's real." Bella tossed her coat and gloves over one of the chairs and motioned Eeyore to do the same. "He's an AI?" Eeyore draped his white cotton jacket over the back of a couch "No, he's real. His name was Gregor Denesky, I met him years and years ago - a crazy decker, probably crazier than you. He went for a dive into the matrix once and in a manner of speaking, forgot to come up for air. His body went into cardiac arrest and died on him. I got him out and brought him home. He seems happy enough here, I have to get him more memory from time to time but he's one hell of a security system - very effective. Would you like something to drink before we start?" "Darjeeling tea if you have it. No grain this time, work to do." "Gregor? Two darjeeling teas in the lab, please. Oh, and this is Eeyore, he and I will be working together for a while, he should be treated as a guest." Bella turned to Eeyore, "That means you can look but don't touch. It's not just a matter of trust, there are a lot of dangerous bits of equipment about that don't have warning labels. I don't want you to get yourself hurt. The lab is through here," Bella gestured to the door on the right." "Ok by me, it's your place." Eeyore gave a short bow, "After you." Eeyore followed Bella into the lab. The room was larger than Eeyore had anticipated. Every bit of available wall space was cover with shelves. Parts, tools, and finished devices lined three of the walls. On the fourth wall were books, hundreds of them. Eeyore had never seen so many in a private collection. He walked over to the wall of books and brushed his fingertips along some of the spines. "My mentor left them to me, the books. They are on dozens of subjects, perhaps one day I will have read them all." She shrugged her shoulders, "Who knows - well, we might as well get down to business - there's your tea, let's look at those chips." Bella poured the chips onto the round table that sat in the middle of the room. She spread the pile out until each chip was separated from the others. After an hour of pondering and discussing they settled on a half a dozen possibilities. Plus, the three pointed out to them by Li as being the most informative. "Which one do you want to start with?" Eeyore set his deck up and readied to jack in. Bella held a platinum chip, one of the three rod mounted ones, to her eye and looked up at one of the ceiling lights, "This might be a fun one to start with. It's got a retina lock and probably a screamer as well." "Oh, *that's* great. Why don't we just leave that one for last?" "Because it might have something very important on it, things are usually locked for a reason." "Well, the screamers I can take care of, but that retina lock is a different matter. Have you ever broken a retina lock? I haven't." "Yes, as a matter of fact I have. I'm not saying it's easy - I'm going to need help. Are you as good as you think you are?" Eeyore smirked, "Better." Bella ignored that paradox. "Fast?" Eeyore smiled a slick decker smile, "Fast as ever was." Bella took a step forward, her hands on the table, "You had better be." She sat down in the chair and pushed the remaining vidchips to the side. "Here's the theory first then I'll tell you how we will do it. Retina locks have a reputation of being the best so they are usually only coupled with one, maybe two other security steps. This chip looks like a run of the mill retina lock with a screamer hitched to it on a hair trigger. The way this retina lock looks like it works is when the triggering mechanism is broken the lock scans the retina and matches it up with what it's got in its memory. If the retina is within a certain deviation percentage it unlocks - if not it sets off the screamers and anything else that might happen to be connected to it, perhaps a self-destruct program. Right retina pattern jackpot, wrong pattern poof-boom."" "How are we going to get the right retina pattern if it's locked up in the locking mechanism's memory - we're bound to set the alarms off before we get anywhere near it."? "Easy, I go in with you riding piggyback - I can slip in through the security net and get into the memory. We find the pattern code, if we're lucky it'll have a master code. It would be better if we used the master, the pattern its tuned to may just be record only. Once we find the code, you can unscramble it, decode it, and translate it. I have a gadget that will mimic an eye and we'll just input it into that." "Why don't you just bypass the security lock and get inside the main memory itself, get it all in one shot and just toss the thing away?" "Because the process of unlocking probably unscrambles the rest of the chip as well. I don't think you want sit and decode the entire chip. Besides, even though my psi has very little energy it may be enough to set off other alarms in the chip itself." "Ok, sounds sane enough. How are you going to get into the lock in the first place? There's no access jack on this rod?" "I don't need a jack." "What do you mean you don't need a jack?" "I can get in with psi I just can't do much, I can look around and and do a few simple things but mostly I'm just a ghost. Works out ok, all but the most sophisticated ice hardly knows I'm there - I have a very low amount of excess energy. What I can't fool I avoid, slip over or under. I can't manipulate data but I can usually read it. That's ok as the construction has always interested me more than the data stored on it." "Well, I don't have psi," Eeyore cradling the cup of tea in his hands downed the last of it, "how am I supposed to ride piggyback if you aren't jacked in?" "Have, you have a lot of experience linking up with other people, mind wise? Does it bother you?" "Done it a few times. Weird city, but I can handle it." "Good. This will be for you, the ultimate link-up. You'll see what I see and feel what I feel. You'll love it, one hell of a ride. It'll make a hardwired link feel like child's play. There is a problem, because you will be so tightly linked to me, if something happens to me it may also happen to you. I'll establish an umbilical cord to keep you connected to your physical body and try to give you enough warning to use it but I can't promise you anything. Another result of this will be that no matter where you go I'll be able to find you - I won't read your mind but I'll know the shape of it from now on. It will be difficult at first but if we ever have to do this again it'll get easier. Do you have any problems with this?" Belladonna smiled. Eeyore considered Bella's plan, "It sounds pretty wild, Bella. Oh, what the hell, who wants to live forever?" his eyes narrowed and then opened wide, dancing, "Will I be able to read your mind?" Bella kept smiling, even laughing a little, "No, you won't be able to read my mind but for a while you'll be able to feel it in your head when I'm nearby. I don't know how long it'll last for you, depends on how long the link lasts and if it's repeated." "Ok, sounds like an interesting experience and I'm all for interesting experiences. When would you like to start?" "As soon as you have everything set up on your deck to receive the code - it's going to come fast and hard, you're not going to have time to set up once we're inside." "Can I have ten minutes?" "Fine, go to it, I'll be right back - couple things I want to do. If you want more tea or anything else, just ask Gregor for it." Bella stood up and was gone. Eeyore sighed, muttered expletives under his breath, and asked Gregor for more tea. Eeyore pulled a handful of wires and plugs from his pocket, and began wiring together the different boxes taped and glued to the deck. The deck had changed a lot since he pulled it off the dead decker in the alley those seven years ago. Eeyore flicked a switch with a grid of yellow lines on it. A holographic grid waved and then firmed over the deck. Eeyore flicked the switch off again. He wired in the box he had just bought last week and a pair of red LEDs flipped back and forth on its face. He hooked in the reader for the chips, and completed the connections between his deck and his body. He held the power stud on to check things out. His "study" in the matrix was all in good order, the three constructs he had just wired in were waiting in a corner of the virtual room, and what appeared to be a camera sat on a neat wooden table. Eeyore let go of the power stud and leaned back in his chair sipping his tea. He muttered to himself, "I hope I understand her." Somewhere in the apartment he heard water burbling. Article 131 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kip G. Moore) Subject: Leadfoot Revisited Date: 8 Dec 90 21:48:30 GMT Leadfoot stands outside the newly scarred faded-chrome studded front of Chatsubo's. It's been a while since the first time he's shown his face inside the bar, but it is plainly obvious that much has taken place since he was last around. Fresh pockmarks ringed with crater style rays of carbonized pavement are liberally sprinkled around the walk in front of the plate-plexiglass window. Light shining across the fog-shrouded street etch the pockmarks of recent battles in painful counterpoint to the new dull steel door that is the entrance to the new hangout for every type from Shadowrunners to wanna-be razorkids to silent scarred heroes. Leadfoot is plainly nervous. Hunching his shoulders, he sets his impact-armor sensitivity to maximum and swings open the door. First impression: Electric-tense atmosphere crackles along Leadfoot's nerves as everyone in the bar acknowledges his entrance in one form of another. He is scanned by devices of all persuasions and intents, from ultra-subtle remote induction devices to magic to brute-force NMR tomography. What these devices tell to the patrons is that Leadfoot is quite an interesting Jones. Minimal records. Basically name-and-serial-number stuff. Uninteresting and the only importance of which tells the patrons that he is, basically, alive. One of his eyes is a Zeiss Ikon with a twist: a high-powered x-ray laser. Vicious tech that requires some serious credit and near-military connections. Obvious that he didn't make this nasty little modification himself, had it done for him. Or to him. Whatever the case, the impact armor is pretty impressive, too. Good enough to stop everything from a minimicro flechette to anything short of a LAW. The katana he carries strapped to his back and the edged police baton holstered on his thigh are both edged with high-quality molecular monofilament. His final weapon seems to be a modified flechette pistol called a stakkaker. Holstered on his other thigh, this pistol fires large quantities of glass slivers at very high speed, flaying anything in their path. Standard I/O jacks lodged in his skull. And he's nervous? The inhabitants of the bar turn away. Plainly an amateur with good..wait, *really* good backing. Moves well, though... Trenchcoat open to reveal a nondescript t-shirt, baggy pants hiding more than is acceptable, Leadfoot eases his way across the bar, careful not to bump into anyone accidentally. The razorgirl lying on the floor with a neat hole in her temple flowing blood is warning enough to Leadfoot. Leadfoot cautiously eases himself onto a recently vacated barstool. Ratz's rheumy eyes light up as Leadfoot takes a seat. "Hey, I remember you. Bold, I thought the first time I saw you. Things have changed, in case you haven't noticed. Usual?" "Make it a double." Voice raspy, not too deep. Face taut with concentration. Ratz pours Leadfoot a tall glass of vodka and Kahlua. The sharply defined rim of the glass glints briefly under the too-dim light of the bar. Leadfoot slots credit and takes a large sip of the miasmal concoction, sighs. Looks at Ratz. The patrons twitch as one as a robot transport truck screams past, flowing in and out of the shadows cast by the light flowing out of the bar. Subsequent wind flings a miniature seeker 'bot back into the alley where it came to land on its back, manipulators waving feebly in the air before it righs itself. Leadfoot's green eye catches the vidplate on the bar. Familiar scenes flit across it, exacerbating a sense of loneliness in harmony with Leadfoot's apprehension. What was he doing here? Could he be getting in over his head? No. "I've been monitoring your precious little skirmishes with ARES," Leadfoot says to nobody in particular. "For anyone in the know, it's little secret that ARES is out to kill several of the regular patrons in this bar. Especially Nekoko. Whether you like it or not, you people need me to help fight the 'bots that have been hunting you down. So I'm here to offer you my services and experience." The boldness of Leadfoot's statement makes an impression on those who care to listen. Gaining confidence, Leadfoot plunges on: "I have a stake in this, too. An ARES Hunter-Killer drone iced my brother." This causes many of the patrons to sit up and take notice. The bar's charged electric atmosphere changes to one of rigid attention. Scenes on the ragged vidplate march on. "Several weeks ago, when I first entered the Chatsubo, there were very few people in attendance. Since then, the ranks of the 'Chatsubo Regulars' have swelled enormously. This locus is monitored continuously by organizations and individual entities the likes of which are difficult to concieve. Whether or not you like it, you've drawn a great deal of attention to yourselves. The concentration of raw talent and hi-tech in this bar alone is enough to topple any conglomerate worth its silicon. Quite simply, the people in this bar are the best and the brightest. And a massive threat." Even the vets are listening now. The atmosphere is so tense that a multi-megaton nuke couldn't dent it. "So who better to test their mettle against than you. You have become the standard, the king of the hill, the ones to beat. Whosoever can take you out will be in great demand. My brother was one of the first and I don't intend to let them go much farther. You know me, what I can do, because I wanted you to. If you'll have me, I'd like to help you out. You need me," Leadfoot repeats, "I need you." Silence reigns. The aura around the bar relaxes into the normal (if such a thing can be called normal) position of constant readiness that all of the patrons are so accustomed to. Leadfoot returns to his drink, hazel Zeiss Ikon catching the flashing distant errant neon of the city outside. All of the patrons realize that Leadfoot has risked much coming here and exposing himself the way he did. Write it off as a rookie error, but a necessary one. "So here come a few thoughts. Why ARES?" Leadfoot shakes his head. "I don't know. They've certainly advertised themselves well enough. I can't help but thinking that they *want* us to come after them, but they must be awfully confident to do that...." Off at another table is a large, imposing figure, diced into many shards by a complex shadow that is created by the light above the figure intermittently flashing, creating a bizarre alternation between illumination and darkness. The man is decked out with many odd angles and shapes that resolve themselves into an unlikely combination of magical technotrinkets. "Leadfoot; hmmmm. You don't know me. I am Running Wolf. Excellent observations, and (a rare grin) welcome to the Chatsubo. I would like to point out something that you have missed concerning the ARES company, and that is the fact that they are highly selective. For example, when the 'bot came by to 'visit' Nekoko, it seemed to only be interested in her. Another 'bot attacked Liralen, I, and a companion, and was interested in no one else. An ARES 'agent' came to the Chatsubo in an attempt to regain the vidchip from the White Knight. These are very specific missions that ARES has undertaken. And as you have said, they have made no attempt to hide their identity, nearly mocking us in their boldness. They obviously want us to go off half-cocked so we will overstep our abilities and make a grave error. I cannot help but wonder what their next move will be." Having made his contribution, Running Wolf sinks back to his drink and his musings, returning to his corner of vibrating darkness. As does Leadfoot. He smiles, sits back and surveys the bar. Several patrons get up and leave, looking grim and very, very nervous. As well they should be, thinks Leadfoot, I have an awful feeling that ARES has a real ace up their sleeve. The door swings open again and the patrons disappear into the night. It is no longer foggy, a brisk, bitter wind has begun, carrying with it little bits of unseasonable snow caroming off of the pitted pavement into the neon-fractured void. Leadfoot stays. And waits. Article 135 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: palmer@nntp-server.caltech.edu (David Palmer) Subject: Viadd Returns Date: 9 Dec 90 02:41:16 GMT Everything was quiet. Much too quiet. The sounds of the street had diminished even more than the population during these past few weeks, as those who remained scurried from sanctuary to supposed sanctuary with little contact except for wary glances at their fellow residents. The rain's slow susurrus further dampened the sounds, and those foolish enough to impede their peripheral vision wore tied-on hats of newsfax to keep their hands free for whatever came their way. In a few weeks it would snow--a gray-damp slush that held the sidewalks as liquid rain could not--but many here would not last to see it. The quantity of people on the streets approximates the product of the rate of dispossession and the average duration of residency. The former had, if anything, recently risen, and few had the strength to climb the social ladder back to relative prosperity. Longevity, always a scarce item in these strata, had become very rare indeed. Viadd walked the streets in gray. He looked healthy and carried nothing, which indicated that he had a place to keep his stuff, and so was far wealthier than the sickly bag people who bore their meager possessions wherever they went. He appeared unarmed, and since even the meanest could afford a makeshift cudgel or a sharpened spoke, none were misled by appearances. He was, in fact, only lightly armed--by the standards of those he associated with. Apart from the microscopic darts hidden in one of his false teeth, his only offensive weapon was his belt which, when straightened and twisted, locked into a bastard sword a cloth-yard long. Margaret had laughed at the symbolism of a soft sword that lengthened and hardened when the time for action came. She chose the enveloping death of a tanglecloth or a garotte for her weapon. Maggie was always a lady--except for that one time; and she had had the surgery reversed as soon as the job was done. Ahead, a young woman had stooped down and was reaching playfully into an alleyway. Viadd inferred a cat, but was prepared for a weapon. The woman brought a kitten into view and cradled it in her arms, stroking it for a few seconds to calm it down. Soon it retracted its ineffectual claws and stilled. As it closed its eyes, she held its head, gave a sudden twist, and dropped the lifeless body into her bag. It was another dinner for someone who either would not sell herself, or--more likely--could not find a customer. Human misery was always a buyer's market. Viadd walked past her to the top of the rise, and looked over Lake Union to the transmission towers atop Queen Anne Hill. The drizzle blocked most wavelengths, but he saw enough to worry him. He walked a few more blocks to a telephone junction box. The door was locked, but badly fitting, and a fiber spooled out of Viadd's hand, passed through a crack, and sought an unused tap. The phone rang three times, long enough to make Viadd nervous, before Nekoko's face unexpectedly appeared in his glasses. "The number you have reached is no longer...Oh! Hi Viadd, I haven't seen you in a while." She didn't seem angry at him, but what was she doing answering Ratz's phone? That could wait, though. "I've been busy. Download the vid from mbox 'mustela' on Mu-Store, here's the key..." a brief squirt. "Show it around to the people working on walking carnage. I'll be there as soon as possible." "Walking carnage?" she asked as she made the download, "you mean the A..." "Don't say it," Viadd said hastily, "this is not a secure line. Keywords can attract a lot of unwanted attention. By the way, I like your new outfit. It makes you look a lot more lethal. You could have gotten into a lot of trouble with your previous 'mostly harmless' look." Hardly a clever thing to say to someone who was already in a lot of trouble, but there were a few areas of communications in which Viadd was not an expert. "Thanks," she said absently as she slotted the cartridge. She watched in silence as the vid played out. "That looked like Running Wolf carrying the man. Who's the cameraman?" "Probably nobody, anymore. The threat cloud heading towards the p.o.v. just as the vid ended looked pretty lethal. My guess is that some amateur stuck his camera out the window to make a few bucks on a live feed and turned himself into a target. My ferret managed to sequester a copy from the news-station, but the original was almost immediately stomped by a program bearing the earmarks of a corporation we all know and love. No human editor ever saw the footage. "Anyway, I recognized the locale as being within a mile of the Chat, so I decided to see if anyone around there knew what it was about. Do you know anything about it?" "Yes," she paled, "I think A.. they've kidnapped Li. Running Wolf went out to look the situation over." "I'll be right there." Viadd broke the connection, and started to run. Article 143 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu Subject: Enter the Dwarf - A nukid in town Date: 10 Dec 90 20:09:43 GMT 1 : LEVEL~2.5". Cheapass silicon in the shades doesn't even have a math font for "approaching" or "approximately-equal". He logs a mental note into his calendar chip to upgrade soon. While he's accessing it, he checks the time and curses at being late.> I walk up to the bar. Scarred plastics and spilled drinks, sensors and weapons systems cleverly concealed. The bartender's busy, so I look around while I wait. Leather. Skin. Metal. Black. Chrome. Edge. Tough crowd. Good. My kind of people. "What'll it be ?", the barkeep asks. He squints a bit, like maybe he remembers me from somewhere. I hope not, 'cause I don't remember him. "Beer. Ale, if you have it." He puts down an acrylic mug of dark stuff that tastes too good to come from some plastic and stainless factory. This guy has connections to somewhere that remembers how to brew. I drain the mug, nod for another. He brings it. "You Ratz ?", I ask, passing an issue scripchip across the bar's battleworn surface. He nods, runs the chip, gets the ID "Grimnir M. Hawk, LTC, XXIII Ret.", sees that it doesn't quite match the jacket, raises an eyebrow. I flick a thumb at the name strip on my jacket. "Name's Medicine Hawk. Lakota. "M" ain't middle, no "e". Supply sergeants are all illiterate bastards." He snickers. I notice his prosthetic arm and realize that he probably knows all about supply sergeants. Introductions over, I say, "Fellow went by the name Jersey Red said I should look you and your place up when I was in town. Might be a good place place for doin' biz." "What do you do?" Raised eyebrow, metal half-smile. "Weapons.", I say, "Sell 'em, buy 'em, fix 'em. That's what I do for money. Now." "Whadda you do for fun ?", Ratz asks. A strange question. "I find stuff that needs killing, and I kill it." "Stuff ?", he asks. "Yeah, people, places, things. Stuff. All kinds of stuff." "Have a seat. Somebody's always in the market for people in your lines of work.." --****************************************************************************** -- Ken Aubey (kaubey@europa.asd.contel.com) --****************************************************************************** Article 147 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story 8, (long) Date: 12 Dec 90 04:53:17 GMT Nekoko leaned back in her chair and placed the hashi across the empty plate. That had been a good bento, with the gyoza just right. She looked up at Denise, who was still struggling with the long soba noodles. The box with the manga sat at Nekoko's side. She reached over and sorted through the box's contents. "'Ranma 1/2', by Rumiko Takahashi, several volumes. 'Dominion' by Masamune Shirow, 'Outlanders' by Joji Manabe. Sutekii!" Denise looked up from her plate and dropped her fork. "What's those?" "I had to leave my manga, my comics, behind when the police raided my apartment. Now I'll have something to read at night." "Read? Is that what you do with those?" "Hai, I've been reading them since I was a young girl at school. Want to see?" Nekoko pulled one of the 'Ranma 1/2' out of the box and pushed it across the table. Denise reached out and pulled the thin volume closer. She turned it up, around, upside-down. "Where's the on switch?" Nekoko started. Her eyes got real large, her ears stood up. "On-switch? There's no on-switch. It's not a vidplayer." She took the 'Ranma 1/2' back and flipped it to the front. "You open it here, and start here, read to the left, down these columns of text. Then you go to the next box. Simple?" "Uh... what's these markings?" Denise put her finger on one of the pages. "Let's see now," Nekoko mused. "You read it like this. That's 'ka', then 'wa' then a pair of 'i's. So that word is 'kawaii', cute. Next column, that's 'ko', child, like part of my name. The symbol that looks like a little man, with a tic in the upper right corner, that's 'inu '. So, 'child-dog' or puppy. The final character just means this is being exclaimed, like a shout." "What's it saying, then..." "So, it reads 'Cute puppies!'." Nekoko answered. "Too much work. I'll stick to my vidplayer. It just tells me 'Cute puppies!' instead of making me do all the work." Denise said. "But, it's important to know how to read..." "I'm sixteen, and I ain't met no one who can read, other than you and perhaps, Mr. Ratz. I don't need to know. I got me a life." Denise turned away and pulled out her vidplayer. The vidplayer began its cacophony of cheap laughter. Ratz had been listening to the talk between Nekoko and Denise. "Nekoko, there is nothing you can say," Ratz began, "I can do figures and do some reading, but not much. There's probably 5 out of 100 people out there who can read, and less who want to. There's no need anymore. The computers just tell you if you need something looked up." "But Ratz, what if what you are looking for isn't in the computer?" "It must not be very important then." Ratz laughed. Nekoko said nothing. She wondered who decided what was important and what wasn't. She gathered her manga into the box, picked up the plates and started for the kitchen. As she passed the bar, the telecom started ringing. Nekoko struggled with her load, finally dropped it on the bar, and answered the call. She spoke shortly with Viadd, pulled a data cartridge from underneath the bar and slotted it for downloading. When Viadd rang off, she dropped the data cartridge on the bar, marked with a note, 'For Tracker or Argent'. Then she started again for the kitchen. Nekoko ducked under the curtains seperating the kitchen from the bar. Steam rose from rice cookers, blue flames flickered under pots, grease sizzled on the hot plate. Darla stood at a wooden table in the center of the kitchen, busy with a long knife. Darla turned from the vegetables she had been cutting and pointed the knife at Nekoko. "So now you're a real razorgirl." Darla began. "Did you enjoy watching the people step out of your way? Was it fun? Freaking the mundanes?" "Eh..." Nekoko started. She walked closer to the wooden table. "It was fun, wasn't it. But you were lucky. Girl, you might have the look, with that outfit of yours, the cat ears, the cat eyes, but never forget, you're just a cat in wolf's clothing." "Uh?" Darla put the knife on the wooden table top. She stepped over to the stove and stirred the bubbling pot. "You aren't really a street samurai, are you?" "No, I'm a pilot, a helicopter pilot with some fighting skills..." Nekoko answered. She unzipped the velcro on her spiked gloves, pulled them off and dropped them on the chair next to the wooden table. "But those skills aren't enough to make it on the street. So, girl, be careful. Be careful. Don't get talked into any shadowruns." Nekoko slipped off the long coat and draped it over the chair's back. "I plan to be out of the Sprawl on Thursday. I don't think anything can happen until then." She stretched under the armor vest and scratched her left ear. Darla returned to the table. "This morning, I thought you might be one of Lonny's shanks. Then I saw your skirt. That's the Yohon-Hana crest, the four intertwined flowers, in your pattern, isn't it." Nekoko nodded. "With those cat ears and cat eyes, you must be one of Yohon-Hana's ronin girls, out on training." Nekoko nodded again. "Hai..." Darla picked up a pot of peeled sweet potatoes and put it on the table. "OK, ronin girl in training, practice cutting up these sweet potatoes" Nekoko took the knife from Darla, placed the first potato in front of her and started chopping. Darla thought for a moment. "Speaking of shadowruns, I wanted to warn you about Denise." Chop. Chop. Chop. Nekoko looked up. "Uh?" "I don't know what her game is, but watch out for her." Chop. Chop. "How does she know so much about street samurai?" Chop. "Her older brother was a street tough. Got hired for a bit of nasty biz. She adored him, so she followed him secretly. The deal went bad." Chop. Chop. "So?" Nekoko asked. Chop. Chop. "The others in the biz ran. Left him wounded badly. Denise saw it. Ran to get help. Returned to find her brother dead. Ghouls had removed heart, lungs and pancreas. He was too big to move. Else they'd taken the body." Chop. Chop. "OWWW!" Nekoko shouted. "Cut myself." She put her finger in her mouth. "Denise swore revenge on the other shadowrunners. She wants someone to kill those who left her brother behind. You keep this in mind, ronin girl." Nekoko, finger in her mouth, nodded. Darla took the knife from Nekoko and continued to slice. Nekoko stepped away and turned to sit down in the chair. "Ow!" "Now what?" "I just tried to sit on my spiked gloves," answered Nekoko, rubbing her butt. She picked up the gloves and put them into the pockets of the coat. "I'd better go help Ratz before I kill myself in here." She picked up the coat. As Nekoko passed under the curtains, she heard Darla's voice. "Don't forget, ronin girl, a cat in wolf's clothing..." That night, the crowd was made of equal parts. Street samurai, varied in looks, dress, attitude. Corporate samurai, swaggering, loose jackets with company logos, alike in their arrogance. And finally, the sararimen, neat and tidy in their black suits, small company pins, wishing they had gone home instead. Nekoko was still dressed in armor vest, unitards, and long coat, the coat tightly buttoned. At Ratz's insistence, the H & K nestled against her back, poking her in the neck every time she straightened out. Nekoko thought it awkward, but she watched Ratz stay close to the scattergun under the bar. Another round of Sapporo beer to the table at the back. Nekoko caught hints of conversation, suggestions that the corporate soldiers were worried about their future. "...So I says, 'Tadaka-san, when can I have my next reflex upgrade?' And he says, 'maybe you should wait.' Wait? It's not his butt out here on the streets, protecting Fukara property..." Nekoko reached for the empties. Another samurai with the dragon logo of Dai-Ryuu spoke. "Same here. We're cutting back as well. No replacements, no trainees, no additional expenditures. Anyone know what's going down?" As Nekoko turned away, another muttered. "Probably, they'll go out to the streets and subcontract security work. Damn street rats..." Nekoko was returning to the bar with the empties when she caught sight of Denise. Denise was talking to a tall gaunt street tough, tattered leather jacket, twin spiked mohawks and small pig eyes. They sat in a booth near the front, deep in conversation. Nekoko thought for a moment that the street tough's eyes were following her around the room. From the booths in back, a call for a round of Kirin draft and a whiskey sour. Beers in hand, Nekoko passed a woman, tall and orange-red haired, with a air of authority about her; she wondered if the woman might be cop. More calls for beer. Nekoko hurried the Kirin bottles to the booth. "...Anyone get closer to that ARES site down in Portland? I heard that a team just wandering by got picked up by corporate guys. Getting damn hard to do anything in this town..." Nekoko placed the Kirin bottles in front of the short street samurai with the shaved head, rusty nail earrings and glossy black leathers. The samurai looked up at her, then continued. "I mean, whose team has gotten squat out of the corp's in the last few weeks. The corp's are wired down tighter than a woman's heart. Oh, excuse me, honey..." He looked up at Nekoko again. "Hey, honey, why you dressed up like that. I like my waitresses more... accessible..." Nekoko looked down at the samurai. He was peeling the horse-dragon logo off the Kirin bottle. His neighbors watched the corporate samurai on the other side of the bar. "Ratz expects trouble. I'm packing armor. Let's keep this our secret" She gave him a wink, turned and stalked away. "So, anyway, I guess the corp's are giving all our jobs to the corp's own troops..." The street samurai continued. When Nekoko got back to the bar, Ratz put a hand on hers. "How's it going, Nekoko?" "Tense, but unless someone does something stupid, we should get through the night. I think." "Maybe..." "I wonder if Li's kidnapping has something to do with tonight's unrest." "Probably. That's why those street fighters are more nervous than usual. Don't do anything to set these people off. Please." Ratz lifted his hand. Nekoko put another six bottles of beer and a vodka on her tray. Another round for the table near the front. Half-way there, the street tough talking to Denise stood up, a quick and smooth motion. "Wait," he shouted. Nekoko half-turned to look at him. "Eh.." "You wiped out our shadowrun team. You and those bastards from Keikaku, you double-crossed us. Now you die." "WHAT?" Nekoko faced him now. Her ears stood up. Her eyes wide. With a fast blur, he had his gun out, at firing position. Nekoko could see the black hole of the Beretta 9mm line up with the glint of gold in his right eye, the gold of a Zeiss-Ikon cyber-eye. She dropped the tray with a crash, bottles shattering, beer spilling around her feet. "Well, how does it feel, corporate scum? Denise's brother dead, Rico blinded, Mandall losing an arm. Did you get paid extra?" Nekoko saw his speed when he pulled out the gun. She could not reach her submachinegun, now poking at her back. She would not be able to dodge his shot. She looked at him. Denise sat behind him, a crazy smile on her face. The crowd in the Chatsubo was silent, watching the two of them. "Or was just part of the job? Denise told me how her brother died. That you set up the double-cross. Do you get paid extra for geeking a street rat?" Nekoko's ears twitched. She wanted to ask, Denise, what have you done? "Say sayoonara, baby..." A roar, and Nekoko was punched in the chest, hard. Her eyes closed, she saw red haze, stars. Another roar, another tremendous punch to the chest, followed quickly by a rolling of thunder. Nekoko forced her teary eyes open, fought for breath. The street tough was gone, a bloody mass of bright blood, pink bones, dark red tissue. Nekoko dropped to her knees, dizzy. She coughed. Two slugs dropped onto the floor; she barely heard them. The air was filled with the smell of propellant. She looked up to see smoke rising from about twenty-five guns. The corporate and street samurai glared at each other; some of the guns were being raised again into firing position. As if from a far distance, she heard Ratz yelling, 'No guns! No guns!' She giggled to herself and dropped her head again. Fat lot of good that would do now. She lifted one hand. It was bloody, cut from the shattered glass. Somewhere above her, Denise was laughing. Nekoko wiped her face, smearing the blood across her eyes, nose, mouth. Someone slapped Denise, Nekoko heard the noise, then Denise's giggling. There was sudden rush for the door, sararimen deciding they've seen enough adventure, wanna be's wanting to be elsewhere, corporate samurai not wanting to be involved. "One dead, three to go. One dead, three to go." Denise hiccuped. Nekoko looked up at Denise's mad face and looked away. Behind Denise, Darla stood in the kitchen doorway, a assault rifle ready. Around Nekoko, guns were being returned to holsters, tension eased. The woman in orange-red hair was at the street tough's corpse, probing it with a pen or pointed instrument. She turned and looked at Nekoko carefully. Nekoko put her hand to her breasts, feeling the two holes in the coat, the small dents in her armor. The area was sore now, a dull throb. It would probably hurt more later. "Nekoko?" asked someone. She giggled. She could not keep her clothes free of bullet holes. Strange. With some effort, she stood up. Still giddy, she collapsed in the nearest chair. Denise leaned over her from somewhere. "Thank you, oh thank you. Can you do it again? Can you? There's a guy over on Madison and 9th..." Someone dragged Denise away. "Here, this might help." Darla gave Nekoko a glass of brandy. The sharp, aromatic fluid made her cough, starting more painful twinges from her breasts. "Lucky that Denise made you buy that armor today." Nekoko narrowed her eyes, flattened her ears, and glared at Darla. "Come along. I think you should go to bed." Darla took Nekoko by the arm, and took her upstairs. Darla eased off the long coat, the dented armor vest, the belt and one boot, and rolled Nekoko into her makeshift bed. Nekoko turned over and looked up at Darla. "Why did everyone shoot him? I mean, they could have just not bothered to do anything..." Darla finished pulling off the other boot. "Everyone was nervous. Most of those guys downstairs have enhanced reflexes. And the reflex to someone shooting is to shoot. Remember that too, my cat in wolf's clothing." Darla patted Nekoko on the head, and left. Nekoko could hear Darla's footsteps descending the old stairway. A few minutes later, Nekoko again heard footsteps on the stairway. Darla returned with a pot of warm water, several strips of clean cloth, a towel, and some cotton puffs. Nekoko sat up, leaning her back against a case of Korean gin. "Here, let's clean you up some." After washing Nekoko's face with the wet towel, Darla took Nekoko's hand, and dipped it into the water, staining the water pink. Then she took the cotton swabs and started to clean out the cuts. "He was so... fast..." Nekoko began. "Enhanced reflexes, just like I told you." Darla applied some antibiotics to the palm of Nekoko's hand. "You need them to survive a fight against another street fighter. You were lucky he decided to use a peashooter." Darla wound a strip of cloth around Nekoko's hand. "Had he used APDS ammo or a bigger pistol, we'd be dumping your body out back for the scavengers." "How can I..." "Think. Use your head. I was a corporate samurai for Kansy-Waffen for ten years. Quit the corp to start cooking. Safer. Never got enhanced reflexes. Survived by using my head. You can too." Darla gathered her stuff. Nekoko was silent for a moment, thinking. "Denise, what happened to her?" "She broke free from the guy holding her, and ran out of the Chatsubo, waving a ARES Predator, screaming something about 9th and Madison..." "What!?" Nekoko almost shouted. "We wondered where she had gotten the pistol..." Nekoko jumped up out of her makeshift bed. She knelt next to her rucksack, pulling clothes and other junk out. "Shimatta!" She cursed. "What's the matter," Darla began. Nekoko turned her head to Darla. "Denise got my pistol. She's crazy. She's out at night, unprotected, to kill some guy at 9th and Madison..." Article 150 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story 9 (long) Date: 14 Dec 90 04:36:30 GMT Nekoko ran down the sidewalk, long coat flapping. She held the H & K in front of her, the strap over her shoulders, trying to keep the gun steady. Her chest was still sore, her hand stiff in it's bandages. Only a few people saw her run, shadowrunners out on a job, drunks too stoned to seek cover, druggies too gone to notice. She felt the weight of the vest armor, the movement of her shoulder epaulets. She heard the slap slap slap of her boots on the pavement. She took short even breaths. The night was warm. Clouds over her kept the city heat in, reflected the city lights. Darla had tried to keep her in the Chatsubo, had tried to warn her of the stupidity of following Denise into the Sprawl night. Nekoko had refused to listen, pulling her armor on again. Several clips of 9mm ammo in her long coat and she had run down the stairs, taking several steps at time. Nekoko ran past several patrons in the bar and out the Chatsubo door. Ratz had opened his mouth, but she was gone before he could say anything. Nekoko ran. The street descended down another one of Seattle's hills. The slope lent her more speed. She ran past decrepit buildings, boarded up stores, burned out apartments. Sometimes, as she passed a doorway, she saw eyes staring out at her. Occasionally, she would pass a burning trash barrel with several derelicts surrounding it, armed with clubs and boards. They would scatter, afraid of anyone running in the Sprawl. The sidewalk climbed another hill. Nekoko slowed to a walk, ascending. She could hear her regular deep breathing, and the distant wail of a police siren. The clouds muffled the regular roar of the city. The street was dark, lit only at irregular intervals by dim flickering street lamps. At the top of the low hill, Nekoko stopped and listened. She flicked a ear. Faintly, she could hear screaming. She ran down the hill, her gun thumping against her breastplate. At the bottom of the hill, a bent street sign read '9th Street'. Nekoko looked up and down the street, nothing. More faint screams, sobbing, cries for help. Nekoko circled the intersection, looking. At her feet, a manhole cover had been removed. Wet footprints told her something had recently returned to the sewers. A faint glow showed below her. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Nekoko descended the manhole ladder. At the bottom of the ladder, the light was stronger to the left. There was a faint murmur of voices, hushed and urgent. Nekoko slipped the H & K's shoulder strap off and flipped off the safety. She looked at her feet. She was standing in a few inches of fetid, stinking water. Above her, the concrete walls curved, grey, slimy, with rust stains running down to the water. The water itself, oily, turbid, was partially covered in a pale foam, in which shoals of styrofoam chunks floated. The air was heavy with smell of urine, oil, and the sweet-sour stink of rotting meat. Nekoko slowly walked to the light and sound of the voices, submachinegun at ready. The sound of the voices was interrupted by a sudden, short scream, then silence. Nekoko raised the muzzle of her H & K. As she approached the voices, the water at her feet got deeper. She sloshed through the filthy runoff, her feet cold and clammy. The water got deeper, half-way up her calves, flowing sluggishly past her. Nekoko used the stock of her submachine gun to push aside the bloated corpse of a rat. Now she could make out what the voices were saying. "Quick, Marko, get me the cutters. Jon, where's the harvest boxes." Nekoko rounded a corner, and stepped up out of the water into a larger room, lit by several battery-powered lights. She was temporarily blinded. When she put a hand over her eyes, Nekoko saw several ragged men look up from Denise's body. She tightened her grip on the H & K. "Cripes, there's someone out there.." "Shit.." They scattered. Someone pulled out a pistol and shot wildly. Nekoko quickly jumped back to the corner of the sewer, back down into the turbid cold water. She reached around the corner with her H & K and pulled the trigger. Crashes of sound echoed from the water. Flashes from the muzzle lit up the narrow sewer. Nekoko stopped shooting. More shots from the room. Two or three bullets whistled past her, spanking the far wall of the sewer. "Hey girl, go away. she's dead already," a voice spoke. "Baka! Baka yarou! " Nekoko shouted. "Leave her alone..." "There's nothing you can do. Go away and let us finish." "Go away yourself," Nekoko sobbed. "She was my friend..." Another voice, deeper answered. "She was no friend. I know who you are, cat-girl. She betrayed you. I saw the whole affair in the Chatsubo. Let us harvest our organs." "Bitch! The longer we wait, the less we get for the organs." came the first voice. Nekoko reached around with her gun and fired again. More crashing thunder echoed from the walls. More flashes. "Why?" Nekoko shouted. "The money, cat-girl." The deeper voice answered. "We're not all as rich as you are, Little Miss Cat. Go back to where you came from; leave us alone." The first voice echoed from the sewer walls. "Where do you think transplant organs come from, cat-girl? Those living saving drugs. The body parts in the street clinics? Mega-corps pay for fresh body parts. But only if they're fresh." Deep voice said. The voice was silent for a moment. "Forget this girl. No one's gonna miss her." Deep voice continued. "She's a nobody." Nekoko leaned against the cold concrete wall. "I don't think you're even human..." She started to move around the corner. Another wave of bullets from the ghouls stopped her. Then she heard the pistol click. Empty. She leaned away from the corner, swapped out the empty ammo clip, loaded a fresh clip, and climbed up into the room. "Game's over." Nekoko said, walking into the light. She aimed the H & K into the dark corners of the room. "You took my pistol off the girl. I'd like my ARES Predator back," she shouted when she reached the center of the room. The pistol came sailing out of the dark corner. Nekoko put up a hand, caught it, and tucked it into her coat. She looked down at Denise's corpse. Denise's neck was broken, her head lay at an odd angle. Some of Denise's clothes had been removed, readying her body for cutting. Denise's body looked small, innocent, abandoned. Nekoko looked down through tears. A pair of white plastic boxes stood next to her, their LED's flashing. Thin tendrils of cold liquid nitrogen vapor coiled from the corners of the boxes. "Saynoora, Denise...." Nekoko said sadly. She stepped back, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger on the H & K. She walked a hail of bullets up along Denise, destroying her body. From the dark corners came wails of anguish. A pair of shots exploded the white boxes. Nekoko rested the warm H & K against her shoulder, smiled for a second, and walked back to the sewer. Behind her, as she walked away, she heard only, "Bitch....." Nekoko could not remember the walk back to the Chatsubo. She stumbled through the door, collapsed in a nearby chair. Ratz was stacking chairs on tables. The only other person in the bar was Blackjack. A musician, thin, clean-shaven face, brown eyes, dark wavy hair, he was sitting at the back leaning over a grey keyboard, quietly playing a song with a bluesy feeling. Nekoko looked down at her unitards and boots, stinking of the sewers. Ratz came over and looked down on her. "Did you find her? Darla said you went to look for her." Nekoko nodded. "She's dead. The ghouls got to her first," she said flatly. "Ah, perhaps it's for the best. She was mad at the end, you know..." Nekoko just nodded. She turned to look in the mirror behind the bar. She looked the same. Golden cat eyes, cat ears, heavy blonde hair. And yet, she was not the same woman she had been several days ago. She got up and walked to the back of the bar. Ratz continued to stack chairs. When she got near Blackjack, he stopped playing and looked at her. Nekoko sat down in a chair, pulled up a leg, cupped her hands on her knee and put her chin on her hands. "Don't stop. Play. Play something sad." She flicked her ears once. Blackjack played the blues. Nekoko sat, her mind far away. After a few songs, Blackjack stopped. "Do you want to talk?" he asked. Nekoko lifted her head from her knee. "You know, a few days ago, I was a charter helicopter pilot, making my own way, paying my bills. Nothing big, but I was getting by. Now, I've just mutilated a corpse to keep it out of the hands of ghouls. I was shot this evening and the guy who tried to kill me is out back, waiting to be scavenged. My apartment was cleaned out by the cops. I'm broke. ARES wants me dead. The cops want me dead. Yohon-Hana just doesn't want me. A woman I thought a friend used me. What is happening? Why is this city so crazy?" Nekoko flicked her ears again. "Please play some more." Blackjack closed his eyes, leaned over his keyboard and played. Nekoko returned her head to her knee. She continued. "When I was learning to fly, everything was so clean, so technical, so precise. It was fun." Nekoko's ears drooped. Blackjack stopped again. He leaned back in his chair. "Woman, you're a soldier in a strange war. A war in which the fighters often cannot see who the enemy is, or who is a friend. Right now, you're on the front lines, in the trenches. And the trenches are always the worst place to be." He refused to say more, returning to the music. Nekoko nodded. She sat quietly. Finally she got up, thanked Blackjack and started for her bed in the stockroom. Ratz began to say something, but stopped after looking into Nekoko's face. She clumped up the stairs and fell, fully clothed, into bed. Morning came with the sound of Ratz pounding on the stockroom door. "Nekoko, get up. I need to get in there." Nekoko stretched. She was stiff, kinked, and uncomfortable from sleeping in her clothes. "Chotto matte, " Nekoko said. "Wait a moment." She stood up, reached into the pile of clothes next to the rucksack, pulled out a shirt, her last clean skirt and some other stuff. "OK, I'm up." Ratz walked quickly through the room, picked up a case of Jack Daniels and descended the stairs. Nekoko followed him down the stairs and turned into the kitchen. Darla turned from the pot on the stove. "What happened to you? You look awful. Here, take this," giving Nekoko a plastic bucket, "go into the kitchen's washroom, and wash up. After you've changed, use the bucket to wash those clothes; they smell terrible." Nekoko came out of the kitchen's washroom, refreshed and clean. Her dirty clothes, now washed, were drying in the washroom. She wore her 'Laura Palmer died for your sins' T-shirt, a skirt and slip-ons. Darla nodded in approval and pointed Nekoko at the huge pile of dirty dishes. She stepped over to the sink and began. As the pile of clean dishes grew, Nekoko thought about last night. Running out of the Chatsubo, full armor, submachinegun and no backup. Descending into a sewer, a possible trap. Stepping up into the room with the ghouls. Nekoko carefully put the dry plate back onto the countertop; she was starting to shake. She must have been mad, as mad as Denise was, to run into the Sprawl's night. "Nekoko." Ratz called from out in the bar. Nekoko turned around. "Could you come out here?" Nekoko dried her hands on the dish towel and slipped out of the kitchen. Ratz was talking to a slender man, black-haired, polite, dressed in smooth black glossy leathers. He looked to be somewhat older than most of the Chatsubo's regular, his age showing in soft lines at his eyes and at the corner's of his mouth. As Nekoko came out of the kitchen, he turned and smiled. "Nekoko, this is Argent. He's had some medical experience, more than Darla's. I think he should check what Darla did last night." Ratz said. "Eh..." Nekoko started. She reached out her bandaged hand. "Better let me look at that..." Argent said. He had a soft clear voice. "Battlefield dressings are only to get the patient to a hospital. Come over in the light. Sit down." Argent put a strong hand on Nekoko's shoulder and urged her into a chair. He sat down across from her, took her hand, and with a gentle touch, began to untie Darla's bandage. "Heard you chased after Denise last night. Any luck?" Argent asked. "No. Ghouls got there first..." Argent unwound the dirty cloth. "Anything you could do?" "No. Nothing. Except... Make sure they could not profit by the crime." The final cloth was pulled off her hand. Argent reached into his jacket and pulled out a thin soft packet. He unfolded it, revealing a set of instruments, salves, ampules, and other medical supplies. After studying Nekoko's hand for a moment, Argent opened another tube, and smeared it's contents unto a wide syn-skin bandage. "So you..." He prompted. "I emptied my clip into Denise's body. It was the only thing I could think of. I didn't want them to cut her up like that." Argent started suddenly. He squeezed the tube extra-hard. Salve squirted out, covered his hand, the new bandage, the knees of his leathers. With a soft curse, Argent began to wipe up the excess salve. Nekoko, her thoughts elsewhere, didn't notice. "Why do they do it? Why Denise? What for?" Nekoko asked. "I asked them that. They just told me to get lost." Argent finished cleaning off his leathers. "Body parts. There is always a market for body parts. Clinics, hospitals, research labs, mega-corps. At first, they relied on donors. But there were never enough. Then they paid rewards to next-of-kin. Now, they don't ask too much of the people bringing in the bodies or the harvest boxes." He pulled Nekoko's hand onto his lap. "This might sting a bit." Argent slapped the syn-skin bandage onto Nekoko's palm, smoothing it out with his fingers. "IIItaaaiiii" Nekoko said through gritted teeth. Her ears lay flat against her head for a moment. Her eyes watered. "Yeah, it does hurt for a moment. It'll go away." Argent assured her. "As for Denise, she was foolish or mad enough to run into her death. You do, repeat, do not run around after dark without a strong backup team. Now, let's see your chest." Nekoko pulled her T-shirt away from her skin. Argent looked at the bruising for a moment, then reached back into the thin packet. "This'll help the reduce the swelling." He gave her another tube of ointment. "I'll let you apply it." He smiled gently. "Keep that hand dry for a few days. No dishwashing, hear?" Nekoko nodded. "How much?" She asked. Argent looked up from repacking his thin packet. "Oh, nothing. You just owe me a favor one of these days." "Arigato, Argent, arigato gozaimasu..." Argent opened his jacket and put the packet into an inside pocket. He stood up and glanced at Ratz, who was rinsing glasses at the bar. "Argent?" Nekoko asked. "Yes?" He turned to look at her. "Somehow, I still feel guilty about Denise. If only I had know earlier. If I had run faster. If I been there to kill those bastards first..." For a moment, Argent put a gentle hand on her shoulder. Nekoko closed her eyes and sighed. Article 154 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kip G. Moore) Subject: Cyberprose Part 2 (longish) Date: 14 Dec 90 16:10:08 GMT The wet drizzly rain is caressing the windows of the Chatsubo this stuffy night, unseasonable even for the minimal variations in the Sprawl weather patterns. Tonight the dull reflections of the city outside don't even glow through the window of the bar; and the only light that the people inside are aware of is the dull orange sodium glow of the biofluorescent strips clinging to the ceiling. Tonight, Leadfoot is still bellying up to the bar, still nursing his Black Russian, still waiting for an opportunity to get that troublesome wet spot behind his ears dried. Up 'til now, nobody has approached him, nobody has even attempted to talk to him. Things don't look like they are about to change, either. Until the Dark man strides through the door. An extensive hush drapes the babbling dirtboys and glowing razormaids as the Dark man nimbly crosses the bar to accost Running Wolf and Argent in their sacred spot of dancing lights. The Dark man and Running Wolf exchange words and emotions of dismay, concern, and finally anger sweep across Running Wolf's carefully controlled visage. For his part, Argent looks strained and turns away. Running Wolf stands erect at the same time as the cat-eared barmaid addresses him and asks him a question. For all to hear, for all to boggle at, for all to recoil in horror, Running Wolf says in his clear, powerful voice: "Don't worry too much, Nekoko. Remember... that's *Li* they've got. I think they may find themselves with more of a handful than they bargained for." And Running Wolf dashes out the new steel door into the drizzly mist outside, slamming the door open and dissolving into the night. The door's hydraulic hinges close behind him softly, almost in reverence. The pall of silence is lifted. Even Ratz is shaking his head, stunned that Li has let herself get kidnapped. "I never would have believed it," he mutters through yellow teeth. "Never." Leadfoot turns to view the scene inside the bar. All of the people are in some attitude of disbelief. Some people get up and leave hastily, afraid that ARES' audacity will not stop at making Li disappear; they fear for their lives. Others inspect their weapons. And others, like Leadfoot, turn towards Ratz for a refill, the last drink they know they'll have for a while. The Dark man and Argent are left sitting alone at a table, alone with their own private demons, trying to be at peace with themselves. Time passes. The mist/drizzle/rain outside dwindles to a halt, leaving behind it a mixed smell of rotting garbage, sewer water, and must. The bar slowly settles back to its usual attitude of forced relaxation, but the undertone of concern gives the Chatsubo a razor-sharp attitude that does not dissipate with the passage of time. Argent seems to be intent upon concentrating this attitude and focusing it into nervous energy. After a couple of hours of impatiently twitching and nervous waiting, he stands up and stalks out of the bar by himself. The Dark man, whose name, Ratz says, is Tracker, remains at the table, watching Argent's departure. Leadfoot turns around to face Ratz. "What can you tell me about Argent." "Argent's lovers with Li," Ratz cracks a grin that would scare a statue. "Not a fighter, a medico if I read him right. He'd get wasted in a second if he was without Li, but then again, Li probably wouldn't be alive, as she hopefully is right now, without Argent." "So where d'you think he's headed?" Leadfoot downs the rest of his drink in a single swallow. "Probably to try to find his own way of getting Li out of trouble. Argent has this nasty impatient streak. Probably get him killed someday." Leadfoot leaves several nuyen on the pitted bartop and swings off of the creaking barstool. "Keep the change." Ratz mumbles something about the anachronism of physical coinage, but sweeps the crumpled bills under the bar with a nearly contemptuous flick of his newly-repaired arm. "Hully gee, *Leadfoot*, thanks." Leadfoot flashes Ratz a winning smile as he, too, leaves the Chatsubo. Pausing on the pitted pavement in the front of the bar, Leadfoot checks his weapons. Stakkaker with ten extra clips. Digital readout in his peripheral vision says that the battery that has replaced the bone in his forearm is fully charged, ready to power the x-ray laser in his Zeiss eye. Katana and tonfu secure in their sheaths. Leadfoot pulls the hood of his impact armor over his head, closes his trenchcoat, and sets off down the street after the faint infrared trail that Argent has left. Seeker 'bots scamper rapidly to avoid his softly padding feet, kicking up random scraps of trash in their frantic escape. Spotlight glare abruptly washes over the adjacent storefronts, painfully highlighting the jagged broken facades of decrepit warehouses. Leadfoot decides to make himself scarce and oozes into the shadow of a nearby doorway, but it's only a robotransport, splashing through the shallow puddles left by the recent rain. Distant budda-budda of a 'copter thrums down the street, reflected sound off of the nonuniform buildings spawning bizarre echoes which dangerously interfere with Leadfoot's ability to keep track of Argent and the clumsy merc following him... Argent makes an abrupt turn down a badly-lit side street, which is odd, because few streets in this part of the Sprawl are lit, if any. Seeing that it would probably be suicide to make his move in a lit area, the merc draws up short and disappears into a warehouse on the corner. Leadfoot follows the merc. The warehouse is quite empty, scrubbed clean by seeker 'bots and scavenging street urchins. The pieces of machinery too large to move without destroying the warehouse in the process are all that remain, along with common scraps of polystyrene and pseudo-metallic trash littering the floor. The dull glow of the street shines through the plexiglassless windows, filtering through the inscrutable machinery and bouncing off of the reflective trash, creating a kaleidoscope of patterns on the back wall that undulates in time with the swift, stagnant breeze that streaks through the desolate warehouse. Leadfoot glues himself to the wall and watches for the merc to reveal himself. There, over by the door on the opposite side, scuffles the merc, aiming an accusing gunsteel-blue finger out of one of the vacant windows into the street outside. Leadfoot composes himself and enters a brief trance... Leadfoot slides across the floor with cavernous silence, draws his tonfu, grabs the merc around the head with a wiry grip, slits the merc's throat. She collapses against the wall, dropping the anaesthetic sniper rifle she was carrying which clatters to the floor, moving past Leadfoot's vain attempt to stop its fall. The merc dies with an astonished look upon her face, stunned by the lightning fast onset of death, amazed that she never even heard it coming, wild-eyed with fear. With nothing more than a prostesting gurgle, the merc expires, the rictus of death spreading its ugly fingers over her young face. Leadfoot shakes his head, cleans off his tonfu on one of the omnipresent scraps of trash and uses it to cut off the ARES patch located on the jumpsuit above her right breast. After picking up the rifle and tucking it away, Leadfoot wonders at the clumsiness of this attempt to kidnap Argent. It didn't seem characteristic of ARES' modus operandi to send a solo merc after anybody they wanted to bring in. Wasn't like ARES to underestimate their enemy. Maybe they've saturated this sector with independent agents to try to use a divide and conquer technique against anybody. Maybe this person is just a copycat of some bizarre sort. She wasn't exactly of ARES character. Leadfoot shakes his head again and resolves to ask one of the veterans about this; as of now, it's a bit out of his league. He's got Argent to worry about. Leadfoot cautiously steps out of the warehouse onto the lit street and scans the area up and down for a sign of Argent. There, beside a booth on the corner, a booth covered with graffiti and condensation, is Argent. Leadfoot steps out of the shadow of the warehouse and into the flickering light of the street. Argent's head snaps around at Leadfoot's movement and his hand disappears into his coat. Leadfoot continues to stride towards the booth, almost daring Argent to make a move. Argent's face creases into a grin of recognition as Leadfoot approaches, but his hand remains firmly hidden. "Argent. Glad I found you." Leadfoot brings out the patch and throws it at Argent, who catches it in his free hand. Upon realizing what he holds in his hand, he launches a curious eyebrow into orbit. "Where the hell did you get this?" Accusatory tone. "Took it off the merc following you." Argent recoils in disbelief. "She was supposed to kidnap you, but I don't think you'll have to worry about her now. You know, you really should pay a little more attention to the things going on around you. Li's kidnapping has been tough on all of us, but that's no excuse to pull novice Wilsons." "Yeah, right," Argent breathes. "Sorry, pretty stupid of me. I'll just have to do better the next time, eh, Leadfinger!" "That's Lead*foot*, to you, pal. I may be new to this place but i'm not as stupid as I look. Think about it, *chummer*, I just saved your ass." Pulls out the anaesthetic rifle. "I don't know what's in this, but I'm sure you really don't want to find out. Or do you?" Leadfoot levels the rifle at Argent, who backs off slowly, hand outside of his coat now. "Hey, okay, you made your point. Now put that peashooter down, huh?" Leadfoot tucks the rifle back where it came from. "Now here's my proposal. You need my help; I could use someone who knows what's going down to show me the turf. As I said before, I want to lend a hand, as corny as it seems. Whaddaya say. Will you have me?" Leadfoot stands back and waits as Argent considers the possibilities. The rain begins to fall again, more acidic than ever. Article 165 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Model 66 - Argent gets a Bodyguard (was Cyberprose Part 2 (longish)) Date: 18 Dec 90 00:59:21 GMT Leadfoot tucks the rifle back where it came from. "Now here's my proposal. You need my help; I could use someone who knows what's going down to show me the turf. As I said before, I want to lend a hand, as corny as it seems. Whaddaya say. Will you have me?" Leadfoot stands back and waits as Argent considers the possibilities. The rain begins to fall again, more acidic than ever. Argent sighs, softly, and then looks up at Leadfoot, his face pale under the flickering of the street light, his changing forest eyes almost glowing from the darkness. He pushes back an errant lock of hair from his bangs. "Yeah. I'll have you. I'd be a fool not to." and then he grins a little apologetically, "Guess I'm so used to having Li and her rep protecting me, I didn't even think anyone would try for me. Where is the merc?" Leadfoot shrugs, "Back there. She looked to just be some freelance going after your head, didn't look to be ARES material, and wasn't nearly experienced enough to have any useful info." "She's dead, isn't she?" Not many things are capable of frightening Leadfoot, but the dead flat tone of Argent's voice makes Leadfoot's eyes narrow and his body tense into battlemode. But Argent is very, very still, and he just closes his eyes against the rain, for a moment, glad of the wetness that is already on his face. Then he just turns and walks on. "Damnit, man, it's not some GAME." Leadfoot isn't quite sure if the anger he feels is more at Argent or more at himself. Argent's voice startles Leadfoot with its quiet clarity, "I know." The green eyes look back. "Sorry. You did what you had to do, and if there was no other way to keep me whole and out of ARES's clutches, then I am thankful to you. Just don't ever expect me to be happy about someone's death, OK?" The bleakness in Argent's expressive face isn't reflected in the calmness of his voice. Leadfoot isn't quite sure what to make of the duality, "You can come live at my place until this is over. I'll be paying you standard bodyguard's wages, with hazard pay if it comes to combat." Leadfoot almost protests the wages, but then shuts up, as Argent's hard, green eyes catch the light from the flickering above them, "I want to know that I own you. And, in this town, money and contracts bind a hell of a lot better than corny idealisms." The green eyes flick toward him, see his uncertainty, and then thaw. Argent grins at the deadly young man, "Besides, I could use the company. I'm starting to go crazy without someone to talk this shit over with." Article 156 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: teneyck@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) Subject: Model 66 - Midgame (longish) Date: 16 Dec 90 05:25:37 GMT Busy night at the Chat. Lots of people, lots of tension. Razorboys and razorgirls, street heat and street meat. Music throbbed from the speakers; some new guy, playing high, telling 'em all that they can die. You could see it in their eyes, though: they knew that already. Word on the street said: danger, stranger. Step wrong, you're gone. They knew it, all of them. And in a booth in the back, a man in black and silver sat by himself, with lines of worry etched on his face, a glass untouched in front of him. Nekoko weaved breathlessly, in and out of the tables, carrying her tray, trying to keep up with the orders. She looked at Argent in his booth in the back, when she could, for she was worried too. Li had been taken, and last night Wolf had gone to take a look, and hadn't come back. Every now and then, she heard one of the patrons mutter something about it. Opinion seemed to be leaning towards the theory that Running Wolf had bought it, one way or another; destined to become yet another of the street ronin that walked out the door one day, and never came back in. She went back to the bar, rattled off a series of orders. Ratz set them up for her with professional speed, and then added another bottle. "For Argent," he growled. "But Argent didn't -- " she began. "Shaddup. If I say Argent wants a drink, Argent wants a drink. Move yer butt, girl, you got customers waiting." Sighing, Nekoko gathered the drinks onto her tray. When she picked up the bottle, she felt a slip of paper against its side. She blinked, but caught Ratz's warning glance in time. She delivered the drinks, saving Argent's for last. She set the bottle down on the table in front of him, startling him out of some introspection; he looked up at her. "Ratz said you'd want this," she said, somewhat at a loss. Argent merely smiled, and thanked her; picking up the bottle and sipping from it. But the tension eased, slightly, from his face. Sometime later, Argent went over to the bar, layed down a bill, murmering, "Thank you, Ratz." Noticing Nekoko behind him, he added, "You need her for awhile yet?" Ratz looked out over the crowd, grunted, "Guess not. Don't get her killed." Argent glanced a question at Nekoko, and she nodded, hurrying off to grab her coat. She belted her gun on underneath it, and grabbed some spare clips, putting them in the deep pockets of her coat. She had a moment of deja vu, remembering running out after Denise the night before; but this time, she wasn't alone. She hoped Argent knew what he was doing. Together, they walked down darkened streets, Nekoko hurrying slightly to keep up with Argent's long strides, her coat flapping against her calves. Glancing down the alleys, she could see the shadowy figures of bratpacks, but evidently they decided not to bother the pair. She wondered if it was her new look, or Argent's rep as a healer, that was keeping them off their back. Either way, she was thankful. A shadow followed behind. Argent knew he was there. He wasn't about to make the mistake Nekoko had made the night before, going out with no backup. Leadfoot was good at what he did. Eventually, she asked, "Where are we going?" Argent glanced down at her, said, "I don't know, really. We're just taking a walk." Seeing her expression, he chuckled. "The note was from Wolf. He told me to take a walk in this part of town, and he'd find me. Which means that he's alive, and laying low. Which means he's drawn some heat, which, knowing Wolf, is entirely too believable. Dammit, Wolf," Argent sighed, "you said you were only going to look." "I was," said a deep, soft voice behind them, "but opportunity knocked, and I couldn't resist." Nekoko spun around with a small gasp, and there was Wolf, walking silently a pace behind them. "Hello, Argent. Nekoko," he added. "Nice outfit. Keep walking. Who's the guy following you?" Argent grinned as Nekoko whirled to look back. "A friend. He has a stake in this, but I added the incentive of being his employer for a while, as well." The three of them walked, while Wolf told about his encounter with the ARES stakeout. "It was a fairly lethal scramble team they called down," he said, finally. "They just got there a bit too late. I hit the streets, and managed to get away from them. Not that they didn't try hard, but there are just too many places to hide around this city. Good thing, too..." he trails off momentarily. "And your prisoner?" Argent asked quietly. "He talked," Wolf said. Catching Argent's expression, he added, "Don't worry. I didn't actually hurt him. Scared bloody hell out of him, and he was willing to tell what he knew. Which wasn't a lot, but it gives us some kind of lead." "And then?" Argent insisted. Wolf met Argent's eyes, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. "And then I killed him," Wolf said softly. "I killed him as cleanly as I knew how, but I killed him. This isn't a game, Argent. They've got Li, and God only knows what they're doing with her. We don't have time to fool around." Argent glared at Wolf for a minute, then sighed and dropped his eyes. And Argent said, softly, vehemently, with pain in his voice, "Shit, I HATE this." For a second, his breathing was ragged, and Nekoko looked at him with some wonder in her eyes. Wolf looked away. "Leadfoot had to take out an independent fem, last night, too. Did it so well, I didn't have a chance to save her." Argent rubbed his eyes, and then laughed a laugh with no humor in it, "Damnit, it's so fucking different when Li just tells me about what happens, with her they're just barriers, problems... to be this close..." his hands dropped. They resumed walking, and Wolf continued. "He didn't know a lot, like I said. They were working out of a small base somewhere, not the main ARES building. He didn't know where it was, but he did know how long it took from there to here in a chopper; which I figure will tell us how about how far it is from here. They've taken her there, but he doesn't know why. That was about all he knew; and about then, we suddenly got some surprise guests. Don't know how he did it, exactly, but he'd managed to call in some of his friends. Probably a remote-activated implant tracer, I'd guess. Anyway, I did him, and then spent a good while dodging the heat... they seemed pretty determined... I'm guessing they had some idea that they wanted me in particular, and their bosses were going to be unhappy if they came back without me. But that's why I couldn't get in touch with you last night; I spent most of the day and that night laying low. I shook them sometime this morning, though. But I figured I should avoid showing up at the Chat, just in case they're really after Wolf..." "They are," interrupted Nekoko. "Viadd got a vidchip that shows you running from the scene, with somebody over your shoulder." "Damn," sighed Wolf. "I was afraid of something like that. Guess I'm not showing up anywhere public for a while... Oh, well," he grinned. "Makes life interesting. But we still have to find out where she is, and figure out how to get her out. Any ideas? I can prowl the woods, but it would probably take too long, and we need to move fast. Now that they know they're compromised, they may move her any day." Argent considered. "I talked to Tracker earlier. And he didn't think that the information that she'd sent him to get had anything to do with her kidnapping. I mean the weird thing is that they didn't just scrag her, they took the time to understand what she can do and what she can't, and used, to the max, the fact that by herself, she can't do much long distance damage. They know what she's trained and made herself into, and as much as I hate to say it, they might have taken her because she could match the HK." Nekoko, still fresh from her experience with the souped up gunmen at the Chat said, "How hard can that be? Anyone can get fast reflexes. You should know that, you're her doc." Both Wolf and Argent looked at her, looked at each other and Argent grinned while Wolf cracked up. Argent softly said, "You're right, anyone can get fast reflexes, especially when it's something as simple and straightforward as the movement it takes to just pull and trigger a gun. But, think about it, Nekoko, how complicated do you think it would be to put in the nerve work to enable someone to *dance* at that speed?" Nekoko's eyes narrowed as she took it in. "That would be like skill wiring, wouldn't it? But everyone knows that skill wiring also interferes some with the capabilities to learn new stuff, too, other than through the wiring." "Yeah." "You mean she's completely unwired??" Nekoko's voice was incredulous. "Well... other than the minimal stuff needed to control the hand knives..." said Argent, grinning. "Gods, what I'd give for her training..." Nekoko said, somewhat wistfully. Wolf and Argent looked at each other. "Oh, shit," said Argent. "You think..." Wolf looked grim. "Could be," he said. "And that means we've got to move beyond fast. But *how*, dammit?" He snarled, and Nekoko felt a sudden chill. Argent looked thoughtful. "I ahve an idea..." he said slowly. "Wolf, listen to this..." He spoke rapidly, outlining a plan. Wolf nodded, slowly. "Could work... we'll need to get a decker, though. Know anyone we can trust?" Argent considered. "Maybe..." he said finally. "I'll check around. You'll need to go get the maps, Wolf. And I'll check in with Tracker." Wolf grinned. "Piece of cake." Argent glared at him. "Wolf, please. Don't get carried away. We can't afford to lose you, especially not now." Wolf just chuckled. Nekoko spoke up, a bit diffidently. "What about me? Is there anything I can do?" Argent looked down at her. "Not right now. We're going to need someone with piloting experience, though, in a couple days. Interested?" Nekoko nodded, somewhat startled that her piloting experience, a part of herself she'd almost forgotten in the past few days, should be needed now. Wolf and Argent discussed a few more details, then Wolf said goodbye, in his deep, quiet voice, and walked away down the street. He passed under the shadow between a pair of streetlights and... vanished. Nekoko shook her head. She had a lot to learn before she could walk the streets that confidently. Argent put his hand on her shoulder. "C'mon," he said. "We got a Run to organize. Let's get back to the Chat." Article 158 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu Subject: Flashbacks Date: 17 Dec 90 14:27:14 GMT ***************************************************************************** Virtual Camera Direction: < > paragraphs are pull-back and show scene. unmarked paragraphs are shot from narrator's point of view, voice-over sound track. > < paragraphs are flashbacks, shot in sepia-tint monochrome, from the narrator's point of view. --****************************************************************************** The cat-eared waitress in the long coat brings me another ale. I'm far from drunk. A year-old set of Millipore(tm) kidneys and a strong dose of my old man's genetic material see to that. So, I'm going to try my hand in this town. I have to be here for two weeks anyway, while the clinic runs diagnostics and preventative maintenance on me. Maybe fixes a few bugs, too. I might as well turn a profit on the trip. Some of these folks look like they could be in a buyin' mood. Good. Those birds were a little hot to store for very long. I can use the nuyen. Maybe I'll spring for some cyber-eyes instead of just new shades. No reason not to any more. JJ can take care of the transaction. The last time somebody tried to hijack a shipment from her, she sent the guy home in six diplomatic pouches. Damn. Feeling funny again. It's not the beer. >He sees the scenery of his childhood, burned out, decrepit farmhouses, overgrown fields, robot agrocomplexes- all seen from the pillion-seat of Swan Wing Woman's - his mother's - Harley-Davidson Rotoglide.< >There is blood on the snow, blood on his hand, blood on his knife as he looks down at the rapidly cooling body of Big James, chief of the Coyote Tribe. He hears himself shout, "you'll never call me a goddamn halfbreed again . . . ".< >Running from the anger of the Seven Tribes. Which way? To the Sprawl, to become yet another damn Packbrat knifeboy, or the other way, across the Border, to his father's people, to become yet another damn halfie. Well, he's already seen the Sprawl. He kicks over the bike, sending corn alcohol into the turbines to propel him southwest, into the unknown.< >War and war and war - Explosions, swords, guns, blood, death. Warfare on both sides of the Border. The Twenty-Third Legion, Valeria Victrix, The Parcel of Rogues, mercenaries in the service of gold. Sixty long red years. Trooper, then sergeant, then lieutenant, then centurion, tribune, light colonel, full bird soon. Hard, scary, alive.< >"Incoming!". A flash. Gas. Neurotoxins, haemotoxins, myelotoxins. Fire. Burning, then the cold and darkness and oblivion of cryo.< >Pain, sometimes, and dissociated floating in a misty nowhere as the surgeons' nanobots tunnel along ruined nerve pathways, hollowing out myelin sheaths, digesting dead neurons and excreting kilometers of MilSpec NeuRomex(tm) fiber in their wake.< "Another one.", I say to the cat-eared waitress. I look around, carefully. No one seems to have noticed my little zone-out. That would be all I need, to pull a wilson here. That was the first flashback since that shootout in Manhattan a month ago. I was hoping they were gone. I was hoping that they were a just bug in the hardwiring. I have to keep hoping that. Otherwise, it means I'm nuts. I don't know, I'm faster than I was, and that's kept me alive a few times, but I'm not all that thrilled about all the cyberware I'm carrying these days. The small stuff, the appointment calendar, the auxiliary sensors that feed my glasses, the weapons jacks, they've been a part of me for years - a little something new every time I came back on leave. They're enhancements, not replacements. Nothing that would get me killed if I walk into a place where they won't work. That's not the case anymore. The Legion paid for all the nerve work, but it meant retirement. They can't afford to have soldiers who die or go blind every time the high-tech stuff craps out. Soldiers like me. Soldiers who can't go home again. Screw it, now I get to risk my butt for myself. Uh-oh . . . I'm no longer in love. "What do they call you, my dear?", I ask. "Honey.", she answers. "'cause I'm *so* sweet.". The voice, too, is perfect, surgically-altered, chip-enhanced with subsonic harmonics to a sexy huskiness that brings an immediate visceral response. "So, Honey-san, I'm new in town and lonely. Talk to me." I don't mind paying for companionship. In my line of work, you get used to it. You learn a lot about the territory, too. {The perfect woman begins to talk. She, too, is an old friend to loneliness, and knows that many will pay her just for her voice, her smile and her company. She has no complaints, as long as the expensive fruit juice in the drink cups keeps arriving regularly.} ". . . that was a few days ago, ya' know? Things have been really, really, ya' know, tense around here, ever since the door got shot down. It's been, ya' know, even worse since those men grabbed Ms. Liralen . . . " Recognition chills my bones. I interrupt the stream of words. "Ms. Liralen? Would that by any chance be a Ms. Liralen *Li*??" "Yeah, it is. Do you know her? She's always been nice to me, nicer than the other samurai . . . One time . . . ". She gasps and recoils. "Where are her friends? If she's been here, she's got a couple good friends. Where are they?" I slip a credchip across the tabletop. The liquid crystal readout blinks "1000 . . . 1000 . . . 1000 . . .". Honey's eyes are wide with fright and surprise. Bleached sclerae scream white all around her quicksilver corneas. "Over there, Mr. Argent, the tall man in black and chrome . . ., and the guys he just came back in with . . . but . . ." I look up into the eyes of the white-skinned man in black and say, "Gentlemen, we need to talk . . ." --****************************************************************************** -- Ken Aubey ( kaubey@europa.asd.contel.com ) --***************************************************************************** Article 188 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Lab Cat Karma, 1 of 6 Date: 4 Jan 91 03:14:14 GMT Put on the shades, lie back. Been listening to your heartbeat? Could hardly sleep. Sort of cosy after a while, y'know? Yeah, right. I'm gonna bring 'em up now with the beta and the optic firing peaks. Howza? Under a calibrated black sky, rubber billows on azure membrane roll away to the horizon. Rings of red dots, more closely spaced, flicker over the waves and are lost. Oboy, she thinks, I'm a radar. Then the yellow highlow strobing bars on either side. She's at the back window of the last subway carriage, tunnel lights flying away behind .... Rush coming on? Uhuh. Adrenaline to bring the beat up, serotonin to soak the transmitters. Squeeze the ball. (Patch of spiky green lawn flies out.) Again. Relax, again. Now put it between the reds. No rush, no crush. That's your natural grip, right, couple hundred muscle groups taking their own sweet time. Want you to hit every fourth wave, put it right there. Tighter! Imagine you're doing karate, give it the old kiai. She yells and sure enough the green is narrower, the spikes taller. She tries again, narrows it to two beta spacings. Goes for the fourth wave and misses. Softens the squeeze, playing just the leading edge. That's a sample. Relax fingers, I'm gonna trip the nerves. Her hand jumps. The receding green is about as wide, but dominated by three solid peaks. Wanna try that yourself? I'm tying the trigger to the first muscle group that fires, which is usually lemme see, this one. Squeeze. She lets off a trio of spikes. Like firing a speargun. She goes softly, concentrating on the red waves, catching the fourth deftly on the leader. The spikes remain a good wavelength behind. Between the intention and the act, a fifth of a second? It's the timing. Karate-wallah can put six kilowatts behind the strike. That's because his small muscle groups are in synch. Takes him years of practice. For you, ten days. + + + + + + + + + + She watches a flower grow at the base of her brain. Scarlet thistledown threads spread from the optical plug at the back of her neck, cup the motor cortex and deck it with christmas lights. Ah this is where they stick out the slinkies. She's been paging through the Literature, whose windows clutter a whole wall of Heavy Judy's clinic: ___________________________________________________________________ | | ELMP Terminal | ? ELMP: Electrolyte MyoProbe | Millimeter helical soliton wave antenna, bandpassed for HARP. | ? HARP: Halide aqueous relaxation pulse/period | | ? | ___________________________________________________________ | | | | HARP antenna myograph: lay overview | | | | A neuron, or nerve cell, maintains a steady potential | | difference of 5-8 uV by means of the "sodium pump" | | mechanism | | ? A neuron, it appears, is surrounded for most of its length by a membrane which can either keep Na+ and K+ ions outside, or let them through. Triggered by the transmitter chemical, membrane becomes permeable. The 'two-wire pair' short-circuits, sending the myoelectric pulse down the line. A much fainter signal, however, is broadcast. Each Na+/K+ ion polarizes the water molecules around it, attracting their negative ends and repelling the positive; and likewise attracts Cl- ions. The aqueous halo spreads the ion charge over a few atomic radii. That is, until the ion encounters a hole in a permeable membrane. Able to follow the electric pull, it zips through the membrane leaving its halo behind, shortly to attract a new entourage on the other side. Both the dissipating and the forming halo produce a momentary electric pulse, the HARP. With the collar locked on and putting ten very well-insulated kilovolts across her brainstem, the halo events have a useful dipole moment, perfect for sending solitonic skinkies into lazy 14 MHz oscillation. The streams of HARP pulse data, correlated by the jack photoprocessor, map the pattern-generator/ oscillator modes in the locomotor region, corresponding to major brainstem nerve firings; and these in turn hold the puppet strings of the spinal firing modes. Right, the higher the field the better the resolution. Where do you think all those stories come from, about deckheads getting cooked by their own iron? They bought implants, and the insulation corroded. Or they ran off soft-switchable amps, and their charming playmates sussed how to make 'em oscillate. Stupid pricks. Can't happen. Collar voltage builds up smooth when the key is turned, and stays rock solid until it's turned back. I don't have to keep wearing it? No way, just for the mapping and the download. We done, whitewire chip ties into the new attractors, don't need to tell cell 1 from cell 2. Unless you want to go into combat jacked, you gonna fight with your head in space? + + + + + + + + + + On a big new window covering half of Heavy's _clean_ wall, she sees herself turned inside out and stuffed into her own brain. Legs and arms shrivelled into little sausages at the bottom of the motor cortex, which is half-filled by hands and fingers. Her face doubled and ballooning out in the hemispheres and the prefrontal lobes. Her motor homunculus in living glory, and down the bottom there the battlefield map where the action is to take place. She spends the morning at monotonous reflex exercises, hand- eye coordination, which somehow calibrate the motor map's involvement with the sensorium. Later under anaesthetic she watches her inner vegetation, striking root this time, the fibre optic trunk infiltrating shoulders and spine, pelvis, limbs and solar plexus. Whitewired. These pseudonerves are delicate, they must find their place in the natural plumbing.... She sits and pages the Literature .... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | An injection of DOPA i.v. or Clonidine in a proportion of | | cats with their spinal cords transected at a lower thoracic | | level, can cause a release of stepping movements. If such cats | | are put on a treadmill they can perform walking movements | | with a "normal" EMG pattern and can adapt to various treadmill | | speeds.... Rhythmic activity can be obtained in such spinal | | preparations even when afferent feedback is removed entirely | | by transecting all dorsal roots or curarizing the animals, | | i.e. under conditions similar to Fig. 1A or 1B. | |__________________________________________________________________| + + + + + + + + + You ought to be impressed with these, these are no-shit nanotech. Call 'em green corpuscles. Carry a backup supply of ATP around the bloodstream, lock onto muscle fibers where the ATPH is on the rise. They can double your sprint time on the first-wind adrenaline release. Any problems with these? I don't feel quite easy with nanowear. Only problem is pulling a muscle, and we'll fix that too. They're exactly the size and shape of red blood cells, and they got better traffic sense. AC spacers and divers had them inside for years, no trouble. AC stuff? So that's where eight hundred K's is going, huh? How did _you_ get them? Well, it was Pfeizer developed them on contract, but later some bunch of Pfeizer coverts did a number on Roche in the Philipines. Roche wasn't far behind, they greened their own divers, and the result was a very nasty little episode that got both parties banned from the coral products business till three years from now. But they ganged up on AC and forced them to licence the mitocorpuscles under the Equalizer Provision. Couple of years, it's not exactly on the streets, but you can find it. Jesus. Makes you wonder why they call it Arms Control. They're getting old. They won't last another five years. Big consortium been putting together a proposal to privatize the whole show. WHAT? I haven't heard anything like this. It leaked. Policy-level execs all over the Swiss Alps, with ever so reasonable presentations about the crookedness of public institutions and the adaptablility of the free market. Hyundai, Leinster, ARES, Teledyne, Fiery Peacock an' all who else. Damn. Bloody damn. Thanks, I didn't want to hear this, but thanks. Aren't you a little young? You mean for a national sovereignty nut? Sure, but AC was something for all of us, it was a trust, however mismanaged. No matter what they say about Brazil and Vladivostok, it won't do the people in the umbrella countries any good to have Grumman or ARES playing kingmaker. Or us, sister, or us. You think the Pentagon hasn't gone soft, leaning on AC? Corps done scooped the kitty. So, so, but it's already gone further than that. Things like these green cells getting down to the shadows. I mean _we're_ the free market now, it's going to be anarchy with neurotoxins, EMP guns, the works. Unless they think they can deliver the shadows. Sometime later, she will remember this. Article 189 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story 11, (long) Date: 4 Jan 91 18:00:32 GMT Outside the Chatsubo, Nekoko leaned against a 'Priss and the Replicants' concert poster, the cleanest part of the wall. She was waiting for her anger to settle down. The bar had become too crowded, too hot, too stuffy. A cold wind blew from the north, pulling at her long hair, making her cat ears flutter. It wasn't a clean wind, but it was cleaner than the murk inside the bar. The wind tugged at her skirt, rippling waves of light cloth. Nekoko shivered once in the cold breeze. She had rushed out of the Chatsubo without a coat or jacket. The neon lighting of the Chatsubo sign over her head colored the street alternatively blue, red and white. There had been three of them at that table, an older street tough and two of his followers or companions, drunk, laughing at dirty jokes, raucous. Nekoko had been bringing them refills all night, taking the empties, as they had asked when they first arrived. With each trip to the table, the toughs made increasingly indecent remarks and suggestions to her, snickering as she tried to ignore them. The night was cold and clear. Nekoko could see the stars above her, hard, crisp, tiny pin-points of light. Her breath was little clouds of steam, blown away by the bitter wind. Behind her, the wall slowly sucked warmth from her back. She had put the tray on the table, had put out the new bottles of beer, and had picked up the first empty when the leader of the street toughs grabbed her wrist. He murmured a disgusting come-on and tightened his grip. Nekoko snapped her wrist out from between his thumb and fingers, then stepped back. He stood up, reached for her again. One of his companions tried to stop the leader, tried to talk to him, tried to make him sit down again. Nekoko slapped away his hand and took another step back. Her ears flattened, he burped, her eyes narrowed, his eyes lit up. He smiled. Ratz looked up from the bar. Nekoko took another step back, the empty bottle still in her hand. He was much bigger now that he was standing, probably 250 pounds. She warned him. He replied with an obscene curse and reached out towards her again. She raised her hand, ready to parry another grab. Out of the corner of her eye, Nekoko could see Ratz lean over and reach for his scattergun under the bar. She shifted her weight, put her left foot behind her, balanced herself. Nekoko studied the street tough carefully; where he put his weight, what would he do next, how could she drop him. Ratz shouted, waved the scattergun. The street tough stood for a moment, glaring at Nekoko, then at Ratz. His followers shouted at him, pulled at his sleeves, made him sit down. The leader belched and reached for the next bottle. Nekoko turned and run for the Chatsubo front door. The night was silent, with the only sounds the wind and the far away muted roar of the city. The neon sign over her head, softly buzzed blue, red, white. Nekoko looked down at her hands, still clutching the empty bottle of Asahi Lager. Her hands were twisting the bottle, pulling at the label. She was still mad. Had the street tough not sat down, she would have tried to kill him. Her anger surprised her. She wondered if the anger was a result of the frustration she felt in living in this hell hole of a city. Nekoko heard footsteps approaching the bar. The footsteps stopped. "Spare a few nuyen for a cup of 'cha?" Nekoko looked up, then to her right where a man waited. She could not judge his age, but he looked about forty, long black hair, unshaven, but a tenuous smile on his face. He had a hawk-like nose, and deep lines around his eyes and his forehead. He carried with him, an air of experience and wonder; a man who had traveled and learned. His clothes, although clean, were threadbare, faded, and patched. He carried a bedroll over one shoulder and a guitar on top of the bedroll. "A guitar?" Nekoko asked. She pricked up her ears. "Do you play?" "In olden days, I'd be a bard or a storyteller. Now, I just travel. And, yes, I play. Not many want to listen. They'd rather listen to keyboards and fancy AI-based players. But I get by on my stories." He smiled, a warm and generous grin, now that someone was interested. "OK, bard, I'll trade you a cup of tea and ramen for a song or an account of your travels." Nekoko put the empty bottle of beer in her apron. "What's your name?" "Ulysses. Because like him, I've traveled." "Come inside. My name's Nekoko. I work here." Nekoko pushed open the door of the Chatsubo and let him lead her into the hot murky smoky bar. They passed quickly through the crowd, without comment, and turned into the kitchen. Nekoko hooked a chair with a foot, pulled it out and said, "Sit down. I'll pour a cup of tea and fill a bowl with ramen." Ulysses dropped the bedroll under the chair and carefully placed the guitar on the table. Nekoko returned from the stove, placed the bowl of ramen on the table, and set out a pair of cups for tea. "This will do fine, it will..." Ulysses started. "What do you want? Travels, stories or songs?" "Travels. I have never been anywhere but Sakumento, San Francisco, and this miserable stinking place. But finish your meal first." She poured out the tea from an hot teapot. Nekoko wiped her hands on the dish towel and sat down across from the bard, watching him finish the bowl of ramen. He ate slowly, carefully, savoring each spoonful. When he was done, he put down the spoon used to drain the last of the soup, looked up, and smiled. "And now, an account of my travels." Nekoko scooted her chair closer to the table. Ulysses told briefly of his birthplace, the reasons he left it, and why he had never returned. He told of the cities he had visited, how they were crumbling, and the countryside, how it was sliding into darkness. "You can go from here to the East Sprawl, and the biggest town has 4000 people. At night, they lock up their homes, put out the lights and wait for daylight. I have been told we are slipping into another Dark Ages." Ulysses spoke of the strange people he had seen, people trying to reconstruct medieval times, theocracies ruled by fascist leaders, communes, back-to-nature freaks, anarchistic villages, and failed utopias. Some welcomed him for his stories and songs of the outside world, others had chased him away, scared of corrupting influences. He told of the strange rites and rituals he had seen. Strange churches had sprung up in the new wilderness, churches worshipping nature spirits, and strange saints like Saint Elvis, who they said, rose from his grave in Memphis and is still alive today. "In the deserts that used to be Arizona and New Mexico, mega-corps run their own towns, arcologies. The old cities are being salvaged for their precious metals. Like Rome and Greece was..." Nekoko sat at the table, her chin nestled in her palms, elbows on the tabletop, listening with comment or question. As he spoke, his eyes lit up with the joy of telling. He waved his hands, raised and lowered his voice, sang snatches of overheard songs. He told of his life with the wanderers in the desert, those nomads that wander from ruin to ruin, poking through the remains for anything worth salvaging. The East Sprawl, the single city that stretches from Atlanta to Boston, sucking the people out of the hills of Kentucky, the valleys of Ohio, the forests of New England, collect them in vast aging project buildings. "We're gathering in walled cities again, bigger perhaps, but we're crowding together to avoid what's outside there." Nekoko poured another cup of tea. "You ever been to New Gifu or any of the Japanese, Dutch or German arcologies? I'm supposed to be in New Gifu in a few days." "Been in New Gifu? No, but I've heard about those places. They won't let anyone in who's not human enough. No cyberware, no implants, no guns, and limits on surgically altered looks. You are probably all right..." He added to Nekoko's nervous look. "New Gifu? Kinda strange place. Real tight security. Looks nice, but I just wandered by..." Darla stepped through the kitchen curtains. She stopped short as she saw Ulysses sitting at the table. Nekoko and Ulysses looked up. "Darla?" Nekoko started. "Good evening madam, I'm Nekoko's storyteller." Ulysses smiled. "Ulysses, you old faker!" Darla laughed. "Lemme guess. You gave her the old cup of 'cha for a story routine, right?" "Guilty as charged." Ulysses got up from the chair and stepped over to give Darla a long hug. "Got into Seattle a day ago, and thought I'd touch base with an old friend." Nekoko looked back and forth. "You know each other?" "Ulysses was my squad leader at Kansy-Waffen. Quit about the same time I did. Wanted to see the country, right?" Darla gave Ulysses another hug. Ulysses looked over Darla's head and winked at Nekoko. "Yeah." "Nekoko, why don't you go give Ratz a hand. Ulysses and I have old times to cover. Boring stuff. You won't be interested." "Where's Darla?" Ratz asked of Nekoko as she entered the barroom. "Busy. An old friend dropped in to visit." "So then, Nekoko, you'll have to help me take out the garbage." Nekoko cocked her head, pricked her ears. "Eh?" "Go get the H & K, full clip, plastic bullets, set it on automatic, and meet me at the back door." Nekoko stared at Ratz. "Doshite?" "Don't ask me why. Just do it." Ratz shouted. A few patrons turned to look at the two of them. Nekoko came down the narrow stairway, with her body armor buckled over her shirt, pistol tucked into her skirt's waistband, carrying the H & K 227 submachinegun and an extra clip. Ratz was standing at the bottom of the stairway, next to several battered drums of garbage. Nekoko stopped and put her fingers over her nose. "Mo Iyaaa, Ratz. That stinks..." Ratz turned to the back door. He began opening the locks and latches. Nekoko stared, she had not remembered all these locks when she had arrived a few nights ago. He stopped before opening the door, and turned to Nekoko. "Nekoko, when I open this door, step outside slowly, and check if the alley is empty. Shot only if someone starts to come too close. First, over their head, then only if they don't stop, at them." Nekoko nodded, and raised the muzzle of the submachine gun. Ratz pulled open the last latch, yanked the door open and stepped behind the heavy steel. Nekoko looked out into the shadowy alley, its depths hidden by mist rising from the alley surface. Nobody. She stepped outside, swept the surroundings with the H & K. Quiet. Nothing here but the rusted hulk of the dumpster next to the stained back wall of the Chatsubo. Another step and she leaned over the top of the dumpster, finger pressed lightly against the trigger. Nothing. "Clear, Ratz." She shouted. Ratz wheeled the first drum to the dumpster. As he tipped the contents of the drum into the dumpster, the sound echoed up and down the alley. Nekoko swung the muzzle of the H & K back and forth. Suddenly, she felt if she and Ratz were being watched. Eyes opened somewhere out in the mist. Ratz dropped the empty drum on the Chatsubo back door step. "Ratz..." Nekoko kept repeating. "They're out there..." "Nekoko," Ratz smiled. "They're always out there." Nekoko nodded. The feeling of being watched was stronger now. Ratz rolled out the next drum. Nekoko cocked her head, her ears straight up, trying to locate the watchers. Ratz picked up the drum and poured the contents into the dumpster. Now Nekoko noticed something stirring out there in the shadows, dimly seen silhouettes in the mists. Ratz dropped the drum next the other empty. "They'll be here in a few moments, to scavenge the dumpster." He stepped inside the Chatsubo for the next garbage drum. Nekoko heard voices now. They sounded like dead leaves in the wind, dry skittering whispers. Ratz reappeared with another full drum of garbage. With a grunt, Ratz lifted the drum up to the dumpster. "Hayaku, hayaku, hayaku..." Nekoko kept repeating. "Hurry, hurry." "Last one, Nekoko," he said as he returned inside. Nekoko could not see anything out in the mist. She heard the patter of steps, a quick rush of sound, then silence, then another rush. More voices echoed in the alley. "Looks like this is going to be easier then I thought..." Ratz muttered as he brought out the final garbage drum. "Usually, Darla is shooting at them by now." He tipped the final drum into the dumpster, turned and started to take the empties back into the Chatsubo. Nekoko thought she saw a shadow move. There. It moved again. Another shadow moved. Over there. She flicked on the laser sight. More shapes in the mist, coming, approaching. Ratz stepped outside for the last two empties. He looked down the alley. He grabbed the empty drums. "Give them a short burst over their heads, then follow me." He ran for the back door of the Chatsubo, dragging the empty drums. Nekoko fired the short burst, a roar, a blinding series of flashes in the dark alley, then followed the bartender inside. Ratz leaned against the heavy back door, pushing it shut. Nekoko shot the latches home, pulled the locks closed. From outside, they could hear savage shouts, screams, thuds as the scavengers rushed the dumpster. "Who. Or what. Who are they?" Nekoko asked, listening to the fury outside. "As I told you earlier, children..." Ratz replied. "Those children abandoned by their parents, kids too young to join gangs, others who have been cast out by their gangs. I'd guess they're about 7 through 17. Those who survive to seventeen usually get recruited by gangs or become street samurai. Sometimes, the mega-corps look amoung the children for new soldiers. Most children don't make it to seventeen. It's real tough out there, living from dumpsters and garbage." Nekoko shuddered. Ratz turned and walked down the narrow hallway. She followed and slipped under the curtains leading into the kitchen. Darla looked up from her talk with Ulysses. "Garbage?" Darla asked, seeing Nekoko's body armor and the H & K 227. Nekoko nodded. "Ratz fill you in on the children?" Nekoko nodded again. "He mention that he leaves extra food rations in the garbage?" Darla smiled. "Stuff that just 'happens' to get thrown out?" Nekoko stared at Darla and Ulysses. "No, he didn't" Article 190 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Model 66 - Gestalt Date: 4 Jan 91 17:20:46 GMT The night after meeting Running Wolf, Argent appears at the Chatsubo. His black hair sparkles from the mist that is coming down outside, the bangs still perfectly disarranged even in the damp. For a moment, he pauses on the doorstep, to look around. Five seconds earlier, Leadfoot had slipped in through the back door. The few who notice Leadfoot find him looking damp and morose, as he takes an unobtrusive seat, avoiding the booths, and going for the table by the wall that Li and Wolf had always used. He finds that the table gives a fine view of the whole bar, and one of the moving advertising signs is projected over his head, so many eyes are drawn away from him, and focused on the sign and its montage of movement an color. Anyone reading body language would be able to tell that he wishes that the body he was guarding wasn't so damned obvious. Argent goes up to the bar, and asks, softly, "Is he here yet?" Ratz shakes his head. Wolf had spread the word that they were looking for a decker, and a fellow by the name of Gestalt had called Argent and told him that they would meet him at the Chatsubo to talk over the job and see if they wanted to take it. Argent had said that the voice on the phone had been fast, choppy at weird times, but to the point. The rep of Gestalt was fairly good among the already working Matrix runners Wolf had said to use as references, and Gestalt had the rep of having an extra advantage. So, trusting Wolf's people, Argent had set up the meeting, and Leadfoot was here to make sure that not only did Argent make it to the meeting, but would make it back, again. Argent sighs, "I'll have a couple of hot chocolates and two bowls of noodles in soup." He pays for everything with a credstick and takes the drinks to Leadfoot. Leadfoot looks a little surprised at the hot chocolate, something he hasn't had for probably a decade, but Argent doesn't notice. He just sits down and starts sipping the hot liquid and watching the door. Nekoko brings the soup, plunking one down in front of each of them. Argent savors the warmth of the bowl, cradling it in his long hands, and breathing the gentle steam, and begins eating the noodles with the chopstick and spoon that are stuck in there. Leadfoot pokes at his food, and finally asks Nekoko for a fork, so he doesn't have to fight the damned 'sticks for his food while trying to watch. Leadfoot is the one who sees the two come in. One automatically checking out the interior while the other is turned to watch their back at the vulnerable moment of entry. They simply seem to be aware of where the other always is. They are no more graceful or clumsy than average human beings, but the very tandem nature of their movements seems to give their movements the nature of a dance. He nudges Argent and flicks his eyes in the direction of the two. They are a little below average height, about average age of those in the bar, about average in build, brown hair, black eyes, and relatively unremarkable. Their features, however, are exact mirrors of each other. One has his slightly greasy hair in a buzz cut, the other's hair is shoulder length and pulled back in pony tail. The datajacks at their temples are obvious. Jeans, jackets, and dirty, holographed t's, Argent chuckles at the Marvin the Martian on the long haired one. Leadfoot's eyes narrow at the "Killer Bob - have you seen this man?" on the other. Leadfoot notes the pistols holstered under their arms, the buzzed one for a right hand draw, the other for a left hand draw. They move to the bar, and both talk to Ratz, and Ratz points his chin in their direction. "Damn." Leadfoot's tone is resigned. "Gods..." Argent breathes, "if that's Gestalt..." Leadfoot looks startled, "Huh... would match his rep, too, killer 'gainst multiple attacks. But wasn't that one voice on the 'phone?" Argent grins, "From the looks of them, they'd probably have the same voice." They do. In fact they talk not only with the same voice, but, almost, the same breath, all rapid fire and trading off words and phrases at what seemed to be the most inobvious of times. "Hi, we're Gestalt. Heard you -""- were lookin' for a decker. Those ARES pigs -" "- taking one of 'us'. So anyway, -" "- we've been sniffing around ARES ice,-""-and we think that they're up to some-""- bad shit man. We think some of their developers are working on something big. B.I.-""-G. BIG. And bad. So if you want us, chummer,-""-we're available. You provide Meat protection, -""- and we'll get you what'cha -" "- want. This one's a freebie." They both nod with one movement. "A freebie?" Argent's eyebrows go up, "Why on earth would you risk yourselves for free?" They both look a little confused for a moment, then buzz cut grins. "For the Jaz of it. What good's -" "- livin' without Living it Up?" Argent does not look convinced, and Leadfoot hides a chuckle at seeing a replay of his discomfort of his first meeting with Argent's need to know. " 'Sides, ARES took one of 'us' and we gotta -" "- protect ourselves." Still no go, so they try again, somewhat resignedly, "And we don't got the support or a key to get into -" "- ARES, you can give us at least a handle -" "- on that. And once inside," the two grins are a little sheepish, "we were thinkin' of takin' a peek -" "- and a poke at what's there." "And pulling down what software you find?" Argent's grin sort of confuses them. It isn't often that they are actually grinned at when they tell someone of a plan to make a little extra profit on the side. "Good. See you in the morning, about 10 a.m. at the south entrance to Garfield High School." The two deckers look at him. "OK. See you there." says long haired. It is buzz-cut that nods to Argent as they leave. "What 'bout us, boss?" "I am going to move over there," Argent waves a hand over at one of the empty booths, "where it is not only more comfortable, but you'll probably be better able to scan the bar without my body and my movements taking up a good 15 degrees of your viewing field. We are then going to finish our dinners, and, I hope, get home, going along the two routes we planned on. Once there, we'll, hopefully get a good night's sleep." "Right. Sounds like alot of hopefuls in there." Leadfoot's tone is morose. "Yeah. Well... that's what we got the most of, right now." Article 196 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: li@polari.UUCP (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Re: Model 66 - A Hidden Rook Comes Out to Play Date: 7 Jan 91 00:45:46 GMT For a short while, the darkness of the bar, the worries for Li go away, as Argent talks with the bright lady with the rainbow in her hair. She doesn't give him her name, but that's normal for this part of town. What he likes is the edge to her humor, the interest in her voice and gaze, and the simple distraction from his worries. After she leaves the booth, he sighs, and starts to look for Leadfoot. Leadfoot is not at the table under the sign. Argent's eyes narrow, and he gets up. The front door opens, and Leadfoot walks in, fast and hard, his eyes showing a little white, and his breath coming faster than Argent likes to see, the man looks like he's on the edge of battlemode. "Fraggin' slottin' shit, man, there are ARES goons all 'round this joint." The tone of anger contrasts oddly with the low volume level of his voice, but makes Leadfoot's rage at being caught in a trap all the more evident to Argent. "Both paths have 'em above 'em, and there's backup along down the friggin' alley." "They're probably here to watch for Running Wolf, don't you think?" "I don' know WHAT ta think. I don' wanna deal with the buggers. The merc knew who you were... "But they do not know who you are. If you just went yourself..." The outrage in Leadfoot's eyes stops Argent. Leadfoot laughs, mirthlessly "Right, and have Li put her foot down my throat when she gets back. Or Running Wolf'll skin me alive and set his spirit- thingys into my soul or somethin'." Then he chuckles with real humor, "At least if I stick with you, you'll be able to patch me up, afterwards." Then Leadfoot's eyes catch a movement, behind Argent. Argent turns to look and something like wonder rises in him. The man making his way toward them is built like a tank, almost as wide as he is tall, and all of it is muscle and bone. It is not his build that has the razorfolk in the bar make way for him without even thinking about it. There is an air of a purpose so solid around him that everything parts before it. It is only when he comes right up to them that it suddenly dawns on Argent that the man is only five feet in heighth. Blind, mirrorchrome shades under greying red-brown hair tilt up to look at Argent. "Gentlemen, we need to talk..." Argent glances up at Leadfoot, and can almost see the phrase, 'Bugger OFF, shorty, we got our own problems.' about to come out. He lays a hand on the younger man's shoulder, and Leadfoot's eyes, startled at the touch, meet his and read the quick warning. Leadfoot relaxes into a more defensive postion and remains silent. Argent sighs, and says, warily, "Perhaps we do. I think, perhaps, it depends, very much, on who you are, and what it is you want to talk about. I have a..." he pauses, delicately, "guess as to who you are, but I need you to tell me." The bearded face is hard, very hard to read, but the voice that comes out is a little bemused, as if the mind in it was just startled out of a dream. "Who am I? I... I'm Medicine Hawk..." and a hand with a fingerless glove on it comes up and starts to drip blood onto the floor. Argent and Medicine Hawk look at the hand. Medicine Hawk starts to shake and swallows once, then, choppy and hard, "I'd heard Li was in trouble. Heard that you are her friends, here. She and I go way back." Argent gently steers Medicine Hawk into a booth, while Leadfoot watches nervously. The commanding voice of the shorter man had put Leadfoot on edge. Argent then sits, opposite Hawk, and gently says, "Here. Give me that hand. Leadfoot, get him a drink, and me a hot milk." Leadfoot looks at him incredulously, "You heard the man, he and Li do go way, way back." and then, softly, only for Leadfoot's ear, "They really do, I recognize him from some of her descriptions of him, and he used to be her commanding officer. He's jake." Leadfoot looks into the forest green eyes, shakes his head, and goes to get what Argent requested, wondering at the thought of Li with a commanding officer, and then, remembering how the man had walked over, able to believe it. Argent quickly pulls out his emergency kit, takes off his gloves, and starts to work on the hand, first pulling out the shards that pin the glove to the flesh. His movements are deft, quick and sure. While he works, he starts talking, "A couple of weeks ago, a hunter-mech showed up here at the Chatsubo, a hunter-mech which happened to be connected to the past of Nekoko, there. You see that girl with the cat's eyes and ears, that's her. She'd flown a bunch of mercs to an island who were told that they were there to test the mech out. Sure enough, the mech's capabilities were tested out on them, it's function was to kill anything human. It killed a good dozen of them in less than an hour." The hand jerks. "Yeah. I know. Mercs. Both you and Li used to be mercs, weren't you?" Leadfoot's eyes are round, as he returns to hear this last bit. He sets the drinks on the table. Medicine Hawk takes his with his left hand and sips it. Argent pulls his mug off the tray, but then goes back to Hawk's hand. He carefully cuts the glove away, "Well... she got away by pretending to be a cat, though some of the folks here think that the reason she got away was because her cat's ears and eyes showed her appreticeship to one of the big security Corps. The mech that showed up here had an ARES sticker on it, and it didn't kill anything when it showed up here. It just tagged Nekoko and said 'Woof Woof, you're it.' and scrammed. Stories about mechs in the sewers shooting at anything that moved down there, mechs on the waterfront doing security for one of the ARES warehouses, and mechs being tested out in remote areas started filtering in." Argent takes a long look at the powerful, blunt fingered hand and pulls out a nano-suturing stapler and a pair of magnifying glasses. Gently he disinfects and locally anesthetizes the one really bad cut. "Hold your hand this way." he says, getting the hand to move until the cut is completely closed, and staples it together with the microscopically fine staples. He carefully times his breaths to the rhythm of his stapling. "These'll just dissolve in a couple of weeks. One night, Li and Running Wolf were coming back from a job when they met one of the mechs. They managed to beat it, and dump it into the Sound, though they both got pretty wounded doing it in. Next thing we know, Li got snatched by ARES, and it looks like they have a crew outside waiting for Running Wolf to come back here." The other cuts Argent butterflies together after applying some disinfectant and anesthetic salve, "Flex it." The hand moves, and none of the stitches or bandages pop. Satisfied, Argent quickly and carefully bandages it all up. "O.K. That should hold, for as long as it takes to heal up. Change the bandages at least once a day and don't flex it, if you can. I'd give you painkillers, but," the green eyes smile, "from what Li said, they probably wouldn't do you much good, anyway." Argent wipes his hands off on a napkin, puts his kit back together again, and picks up his milk and wraps his long fingers around the warmth. He leans back, "At the moment, we're trying to figure out where she is. We're trying to figure out who has her, because ARES has a large number of subsidiaries and branch offices. I'd also like to know WHY they took her, but it's sort of obvious that it has something to do with the fact that she and Wolf beat the thing. Nekoko triggered us to the possibility that they have her in order to learn what she can do and/or pull a nerve level learning tape off her skills. I still can't figure out how they'd do that, as Heavy says it'd be hard to do without her consent." "She's had Elven training, you know." Hawk's voice now has inflection back in it and it is wry as he looks at his bandaged hand. Argent and Leadfoot look at him, startled, "No, I didn't know that." says Argent. Leadfoot looks thoughtful. "Yeah. Our high Sidhe Arms Master had a thing for her, back then." Looking at Argent's face, Medicine Hawk chuckles and changes the subject. "You need help? I've got resources, and the Legion takes care of its own." Argent's look is somewhat distracted. "We just got a decker for Running Wolf, he's got a directory that Tracker liberated and has some plan to look for Li through that. At the moment we have just about everything covered." "No way do we have everything covered." Leadfoot is looking a little hunted, "We got one big problem, you and your Legion buddies could probably help us with." "What do you need?" "A way outta here. ARE's has this place surrounded tighter than a virgin's bee-hind, and we need a way out without 'tractin' attention to him." Leadfoot nods in Argent's direction. For a moment, Medicine Hawk sits and thinks, the movement around him reflected in the band of chrome across his eyes. Then he grins. "Can you get me cyberspace access? Just normal, user mode, nothing fancy." "Cyberspace?" Argent looks startled, and, then, spotting the lady with the rainbow hair, he grins and says, "Well. Maybe I can. I won't promise anything, but..." and he ducks out of the booth in her direction. Article 197 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Lab Cat Karma, 2 of 6 Date: 8 Jan 91 01:31:38 GMT She fastens up the spangled bodyglove, puts on the goggles and the earspeakers, and turns the collar key. Then for two hours she stands, crouches, rolls, blocks and strikes, recapitulating her twelve years of athletic and martial experience, the whole repertoire. But now she can see it in its neural anatomy, measure the spiky firing constellations against the yellow strobe of her optical pulsetrain, hear the cymbal clash when her shoulder strikes the mat, judge the coordination loose or awkward, and try again. She is feeling for the rightness of the move, the perfect execution. Heavy, watching the sparks light up on the homunculus, is trying for consistency, the unitary activation of a coherent locomotor oscillation pattern. Sometimes they argue. She wins. The point is not to perfect the status quo, or lock it in. The point is to produce data, the strong sketch lines of what will become the total composition, a work of art in her own seamless style. The homuncular outline begins to fill out with rorschach blots. She breaks for an athlete's low-bulk lunch and a massage, then goes back to it. Memories of schoolyard chasings, forgotten victories, old thrashings, rise up and surprise her. They litter the diagram, ring in the earphones. She must work through them like a psychiatric patient, accepting this, letting go of that. Riding an autocab back to her hotel, she still sees the strobe peripherally, and each sound has its measure on the scale of heartbeats blue and beta waves red. The next day she goes through it all again, using the 24-hour reinforcement effect. The muscles are stiff, but the response is tighter. She is working near the top of her form, exploring the shape of the repertoire. In the afternoon she works without the shades, the training wheels come off. And this is just biofeedback, really. The final treatment can give you 200 words per minute typing, road skills, orgasms, yoga. It can make you into a robot. She is fighting against time, investing in control of the machine. ___________________________________________________________________ | Efferent Activities of the Decorticate Cat | |-----------------------------------------------------------------| | In some cats, locomotor movements were accompanied by other | | activities: lashing of the tail, extrusion of the claws, | | erection of the tail hairs, pupillary dilation, tachycardia, | | hypertension, tachypnea, sweating from the toe-pads and even | | urination, all signs of sham-rage behaviour (Cannon and | | Britton 1925; Bard, 1928). ... No clear difference was found | | which could be linked to the extent of the ablation (which | | could include the striatum, the thalamus and the rostral part | | of the hypothlamus) as long as the caudal hypothlamic region | | was spared... | |_________________________________________________________________| + + + + + + + + + + Shades back on and into the cyberspace shooting gallery, where wireframe goons swing neon bars at your face and shins, or pop up from nowhere pointing abstract cylindrical guns. She has her armory along, the staves, the throwclubs, the bicycle spoke, the Galilee automag with its accessory stocks and sights. The gun gives her trouble, she can't get it right without the recoil, and they have to shift the bare bones of the studio, sonar horns, VR reference layout and a folding screen for the homunculus, to a temporary location in an office floor under repair, where the blank round impacts can be passed off as kids on a random bust-up. She is wearing herself down trying to get her all-round peformance recorded. Taking stock, she cuts it down to a schematic turkey shoot, a clubs-and-razors melee with bad injuns pointing guns from cover around second 20. When she has this right, she randomizes it and gets slaughtered. That's OK, she cuts back the density of attack. She is getting a feel for the density, that she never had before. Decides to buy a playground like this for practice, well call it research, no by god, for the sheer fun of it. Later Heavy catches her red-handed, paging through the antiquity of neural research..... ____________________________________________________________________ | | | In further experiments, monkey fetuses were exteriorized | | two-thirds of the way through gestation, given forelimb | | deafferentation, and then replaced _in utero_ for the remainder| | of gestation. Infants that survived though Caesarian delivery | | and whose spinal cords were protected by a prosthetic device | | substituting for the dorsal portions of vertebrae removed | | during surgery displayed motor capacity similar to that of | | infants deafferented at birth. | |__________________________________________________________________| What's this shit. I want to see the knowledge base. This is part of it, as much as HARP wigglers and print endorphins. Where's your curiosity? Heavy comes up close, looks her in the eye. Not now. This is not the time. Do your guilt act _another time_. Or it'll get _in_ there, no shit. You got a recurring dream o' your Maw, And thoughts of your Maw will inhibit your draw, gunslinger. Damn, you right. Let's have fun. She sets up a melee pattern, ridiculous odds, and holds out in brainless frenzy before going down in a blaze of glory in the 33rd second. + + + + + + + + + + If she has any guilt feelings about it all, the next bit should just about expiate them, she thinks. A wretched business of blindfolds, hard obstacles and electric shocks, that brings back every miserable worm-eating trick from her schooldays. The purpose is to test the sensitivity of the fiber optic system to the HARP pulsations of the peripheral and pain nerves. Because, as Heavy points out, if your programmed responses are always there ahead of your pain reflexes, you'll smash yourself black and blue falling over the furniture before the fight is properly started. So she wanders about running into invisible edges and surfaces and getting stung, until she complains that this is going to give her a Pavlovian overlay and screw up everything. Hey, no problem, we're not recording the _normal_ motor patterns. You can take a nice run in the shooting gallery after this. She wills herself to think of all the good this is doing her. Article 204 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu Subject: Rook to Queen's Knight 66 Date: 10 Jan 91 15:25:43 GMT ****************************************************************************** -- Virtual Camera Direction: -- unmarked paragraphs are shot from narrator's point of view. -- < > paragraphs are pull-back and show scene. -- >> << paragraphs occur in cyberspace - very high resolution computer -- animation --****************************************************************************** >>I watch my image's hand make the traditional pointing gesture that means "fly", and the computer image of myself that now houses my consciousness sails along the avenues and boulevards of data that are the Net. When I'm out in the Net, I'm a little taller.<< >>I recognize the some of the shapes, the colors - Mitsubishi-Xler's blue star, the thin spire of Konai Bioengineering, the dark cubes of the military labs - they give me navigation landmarks to find the small sphere of dark grey ICE - not black, mind you, but dark enough grey to make damn little difference - that represent my home machines. The ICE recognizes me, parts like a wall of flame and closes behind me.<< >>A figure appears - an elegant, whippet-slim razorgirl sculpted from living blued steel, like some fabulously-expensive weapon. Dreadlocks of the same blue steel move about her head like serpents of metal. The simulacrum is beautiful, dangerous. Her name is Millicent.<< >> Millicent never, never answers the phone. If I want to talk to her, we have to meet on her turf - cyberspace.<< >>"What the hell do you want now, butthead ?" she asks, annoyance radiating from every pixel.<< >>I like her better when she's a little heavier, blonde, wears lace and calls me "Darling" instead of "Butthead". "Millicent, love of my life, I need some data, fast."<< >>"So, you want me to bail you out of some jam again. Same as usual."<< >>"I need to know who we have in town here, close to a bar called the Chatsubo"<< >>She rolls her eyes, begins to recite a list of names. ". . . Muhammad the Knife is in the slammer, Fast Billie is fixing hovercraft, Charlie Two Eagles is a police lieutenant, Crusher is a televangelist, . . . " << >>"Patch me through to Charlie, my love."<< >>"Up yours.", she responds.<< >>I can hear the virtual sound of long-extinct mechanical relays signalling me that the call is being re-routed between carriers. In cyberspace, it seems to take forever.<< >>Millicent and I have a very strange relationship. When she wears her razorgirl shape, she wants to kick my ass, but I suspect she still loves me. When she's in her white lace love goddess phase, she spends a lot of time telling me what she's going to do when she gets me in the sack. I think I love her too, in a way. I have ever since I "liberated" her from a military lab years ago. She knows all of my secrets and runs all of my business ventures. Millicent is an AI. A high-grade AI, a schizoid AI, an AI who skates a very thin line with the international Turing heat, but an AI no less. Sometimes it's really a shame she has no body.<< >>"Lieutenant Two Eagles, how may I help you ?", a gruff voice, no visuals from the cheap city phone.<< >>"I need somebody to pull my rear end out of a jam, trooper. It's Tribune Medicine Hawk. Listen up . . .". I outline a plan. He laughs aloud and suggests a few details, finishing touches. Same old Charlie.<< >>When he hangs up, I blow a virtual kiss to Millicent. She salutes me with the middle finger of her right hand.<< I unlink, turn back to the waiting Argent and Leadfoot and say, "It's taken care of. We'll be out of here in less than ten minutes." The Lady with the Rainbow in her Hair smiles. She's about my height. That's unusual. "Thank you, milady.", I say. I do the best impression of a courtly Sidhe bow that someone shaped like me can manage. She's very thorough, or, at least her hairdresser is. There are several gradations of color on both the infrared and ultraviolet sides of her hair that most humans can't see. She smiles again before she leaves. Ah, well . . . Argent says, "We can talk some more when we get somewhere quieter." I pick up a mug in my bandaged hand and try to look nonchalant. At least, as nonchalant as possible under the circumstances. There's something I can drink to. To dead friends. I raise my mug in silence. "In the day we sweat it out in the streets of a runaway American Dream. At night we ride through mansions of glory in suicide machines. . . " The police are armed with Remington Reaper riot weapons. .22 rimfire hollowpoints are small and cheap and light and you can carry literally thousands of 'em. They aren't that scary, one at a time, but the Reaper is a man-pack rotary minigun that sprays them out at 4000 rpm. That's enough to shred nearly anything dumb enough to get in the way. No one is going to do anything stupid faced with that gun. Especially not me. I turn to Ratz, behind the bar and say, "I'm sorry about this.". He nods. I hate this damn tape. Nasty, sticky stuff and it smells bad. Your hands would fall off long before you could break it, too. The lieutenant sprays the restraints with solvent and we're free. We exchange a biker handshake. "Charlie Two Eagles, I'd like you to meet Argent and Leadfoot. They're in the process of rescuing one of our retired sisters. So, do you think the ARES boys are gonna open fire on an armored police hovercraft?" "I kind of hope they do. I'd enjoy killing a few of those bastards. So, fellas," , he says, lighting a cigarette, "where can I drop ya'?" Argent speaks up. "Magnolia Bluff, out by the Sound. This", he holds up a passchip card, "will get us through the gates. Address is on the card." Charlie grins. "Classy neighborhood. Since when did you start hangin' around with people who could afford THIS kind of an address?" "Been a while, now. Day after you retired, I think. Let's see the address." I check the card, make a couple phone calls using the cellular radio link imbedded in my skull. "I hope the guards accept deliveries. I just arranged for a couple pizzas, some cold beer and another little package to be waitin' for us when we arrive." --****************************************************************************** -- Ken Aubey ( kaubey@europa.asd.contel.com) --****************************************************************************** Article 205 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Lab Cat Karma, 3 of 6 Date: 9 Jan 91 00:19:31 GMT The surgery is no joke, but at least she keeps her dignity, relatively. She goes under smiling and comes out paralysed a day later, sheets of fire in every limb, joints like giant toothaches, global pins and needles. But there has been little enough to heal, because not much has been cut. Just a battalion of mite-size machines crawling through her, knitting cables, laying surfaces, nimbly staying clear of major blood vessels and nerves. Heavy orders her up at once. No problem! She hauls herself off the cot, crashes to the floor, pulls herself up snarling. Heavy has a checklist a mile long, and goes through it like a marine sergeant. Left foot out. Right foot out. Left knee up. Extend left foot. Ignore it, it'll go away. Hold this bar. Arm out. Bring forearm forward, to chest level. Rotate foream to vertical. No tremor, that's good. Sure, I know it's murder, but it's got to be done, and right away. She slogs through it. After a bit, she goes and puts on the goggles, and while her body wrestles, her vision is standing on the beach at peace, watching the heartbeats pound and the green flashes dart away like gulls on the storm. Down on your front. Pressup. Down slow. Come on! This is _active_, I have to know before it adjusts! Left bend. Block. Arm up. Strike. Harder! Same on the right. Looking good. Hold the bar. Chin up. I want you to hold yourself up by one hand. Hold that while I count ten. OK, basic movements check complete, thank you jesus. Any other problems? I miss the solicitous bedside manner. Yah, snob stuff. Coffee break! You gotta know, MDs are chickenshit now, MRI, sonics, biocalc, more and more nanostuff coming through, and expert deductives up the wazoo. Four years, two of them as hospital flunkies, and then you just follow the directions on the packet. And you play the game, and the paperwork gets done. By the system, online. Here, take this, it'll stop the tingling. Uh, yes please, though it's almost enough to be lying down. She'd really like something to make Heavy _shut up_, but the Doc is on some post-operative manic high with the word tap full on and the plumber out to lunch. Master of Surgery, that's like an earldom conferred by the King of England. Very close, very in. Total dedication and revised IQ maybe 180 to even get into a ten year course. But what those guys are really getting into is legal immunity, and extremely large amounts of money. And, and this is strictly IMHO, an inside track on immortality. Yeah, it's going that far. The trick is to be one the shareholders in the Worldwide Legal Guinea-Pig Company, with collective responsibility for legal medical research, and access to all results. You hear I say: All. They arranged it long ago that they don't make mistakes. Which is why I don't rejoice to hear, Alas the prognosis is not good, but one of my associates in the field is a Specialist of the Highest Repute and Integrity, who just may be able to include you in his research program. So for the rest of us, the recognized, peer approved qualifications are corporate. Corporate pays for equipment, networks research, which is mostly some tamer than the College of Surgery stuff. Corporate shares out the legal costs, keeps us insured. And for its pains, it gets to run the health insurance biz, which is the single largest business in the world. And they get to do their own, very close, very in, research. Then there's us, just little MDs, and for one reason or another, we no happy corp over us. And there's a lot of us, and we all got it out of a box of weeties, which is what the hospitals are. So we compete. And the reason I'm telling you this, is if you ever run into a nice doctor, with a solicitous bedside manner and furry droids for the kiddies, well it's probably the case that he's taken the Reader's Digest Nice Doctor course as the sure-nuff road to customer acceptance, and is not making his competitive pitch on Quality. You ready for the next round? Coming on. Why didn't you give me the painkiller _before_ I went through all that? Because if your nerves go ouch when there's a bit of agitation in the ligaments and the major intermuscular surfaces, then they're doing just the right thing. And I can't check that from outside. Not without putting your whole bod in a twenty kilovolt straitjacket. And certainly not in the time before the corsets start compensating for muscles that you _favouring_. You done good. Easier from here. One more question, and it's none of my business. Yeah? What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? You mean, instead of in a nice little clinic at Children of Krishna Mutual Life? Let's just say that at one time I had to treat some persons who required anonymity, and it took me a deal of trouble to do that and leave no paperwork. And I found that they paid very well. Since when word been spreading, quietly. Heavy Judy, smart, connected, keep her mouth tight. Go see. + + + + + + + + + Across the continent, a mainframe completes its task and purges its helium-cooled plates in readiness for new input. Optical Radix Engine on the Vancouver campus of the Canada-USA Open TechNet, dedicated to the venerable Johns Hopkins Motoneuron Model, a.k.a. Jim. Fast enough to run, cheap enough to buy the people to bury the accounting. For some days, in packets of a few hundred megabytes, a stream of tagged leopard spots has been filtering northward, queueing patiently for offpeak packets on the trunklines. Now they have arrived, the whole 40 terabytes, sorted and merged on a hundred feet of lasertape. (The Matrix is an ideal sorting engine, paying for itself as much by offloading sort-merge subtasks to idle nodes as by direct communication.) Jim sucks up the tape, whizzes it onto a double bank of rollers, back and forth, back and forth. A square slab resembling a hydraulic press clamps down, and six hundred cooled holographic read-heads dock with the tape and latch onto header-tag records. It loads the parameters for a new body - no lecher ever fondled taut muscles in a spangled sonar suit with Jim's appreciation of detail. It relaxes its prima facie homunculus template into perfect accord. Its six hundred eyes scuttle along the tape like panicked ants. Leopardspots leap up the fiberlines, are holographically matched against Jim's library, expanded, filtered and nicely placed in a large, very sparse matrix of 220 dimensions. The contours of a highly convoluted manfold slowly emerge. Jim spacewarps it with a wormhole shunt matching the whitewire peripheral telegraph. And begins to optimize .... + + + + + + + + + + Article 206 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Lab Cat Karma, 4 of 6 Date: 9 Jan 91 20:40:59 GMT Not much sense retiming the muscles if you gonna rip them off the bone the first squarewave punch you take. And with 10-millisecond synch and the mitocorpuscles that's a distinct possibilty. So we've got, one, silicone weave reinforcement to the existing ligature, enzyme-bonded to the bone. Two, active corsets on the major muscle groups, biceps, triceps, latimus dorsi, all those. Call 'em an elastic-energy reservoir that cuts in when the kinetic energy in the skeleton gets too much to dissipate by non-disruptive contraction. Three, silicone surfacing on the major skeletal joints, sealed edge to edge with fullerene lubricant. You can't dislocate a joint now, the bone will snap first. And you'll never suffer from arthritis, you should live so long. Fourth, and this is the dicey one, same again for the ribs, and para- dorsal rib-to-pelvis contractive support. Now with these you can make a fair job at playing Tarzan. They do NOT mean however that you can drop forty feet without grinding your vertebrae to fishpaste. It's more conservative than some cyborg outfits I've seen. But it's more support in more directions than anything I know that leaves your natural musculature in place. + + + + + + + + + She's tripping, lying sedated in the float tank. Dosed up with something used by spacers to retard calcium leaching, something else that's keeping her marinated in magnesium, and the merest _soupcon_ of a certain wartime mycotoxin, all to make the nerves lazy and forgetful. The surgery pains are blissfully ebbing. She feels the new strength and speed, unorganized yet but latent. She hears the familiar heartbeat and far away the buzz of her brain rhythms, registered by her inward antennae and routed to the aural nerves. The elegance of her new body! Made from lightbeams, silicone weave, paintbox leopards superimposed in the neon neuron jungle, the bright dreams of vivisected cats. Heavy doesn't want her to think about the cats. That's silly, doesn't she see that it's all one skein, cause and effect, one great tree, decision nerves and pain nerves in instant feedback reverberation? Like the deckers she knows, who don't want to think about the magic when it's all around them. Well of course! It's a guilt trip, Heavy says so, it gets in there, invisibly, they're all doing magic but they can't see it even when they're doing it themselves, and it works! They never expect the implacable working of the magical laws, so they never know where the consequences are coming from... _______________________________________________________________ | To Run as Fast as the Wind | |-------------------------------------------------------------| | You shall repair to a secret place. There make sacrifice | | | of cats. Of their skulls make cymbals, of their sinews | | | | | fiddle strings, then shall they dance as you will. Wrap up | | | | | in white linen as cold as the clay, and bury where none | | | | | | can see, chanting three times | | | | | | | | | | | | + | + | + | Come I walking in the road of death | + | | + | + | + || + + | + Lab cat karma be my blood and breath + + - * - + + - +++- + --| + Cat claw finger and a cat scan switch +--* * * --+ ---*---+-+ +--|+ I'm a locomotor joker and a barbed wire bitch ++ - * - ++ *--** + + + +--- cat foot falling in the foetal dark ***+ + +**-* |**||* + + + **** shadowboxer puppet on the reflex arc *--*+ + +* | | |* - + + -*- rectifier humming like a hive of bees * || *-**| | + + || gonna keep on walkin' till the treadmill seize | | + |+ |__ _+__||_|_ _+___+ _| My god that's IT! She sees it all. The casual infliction of horror, the harvest of control. At the ROOTS OF EVERY SCIENCE, the repressed karmic subtext, overweighing THE VERY NATURE of technological causation. No wonder it always went wrong, how we never could turn it to a kindly purpose. How transparent the corporations now, THE EXACT NERVE PATTERN isomorphically replicated in the fiberoptic plexus memory RNA in the stacked and catalogued miles of rainbow tape, they feel no pain, they feel no pain... She sees it all, and she's just sitting up to tell Heavy the INCREDIBLE NEWS, take it out, we've got to start over, all we have to do is everyone back up and do it over right without the cruelty and horror, this time it will be ALL RIGHT, the corps will be open gates and wondrous staircases, the streets laughing matrix starfire jubilee, but she can't find her arms to push her body has disappeared TRANSECTED! SHE'S TRANSECTED! and the terror squeezes her thoughts inside out and stuffs them into her own skull and they dwindle forgotten to a pinlight and go out And in the dark a voice says, clear, close and confidential: Without the cruelty and horror? Dear girl, would you disown your mother and father? + + + + + + + + + + Jim completes its run, reluctantly, and tidies up. Oh how Jim loves to dive for coins in the coral lagoons of the NP-complete! It lays the final results neatly down on tape and places the execution kernel on a tuple in public space, where Heavy's agent is waiting. The agent mails CUOTN Vancouver with a copy order for the tape. Scarcely has the library catalogued it than it is on the fast reader and headed south. The neural download data is twenty times the size of the original, and there's no breaking it into randomly routed pieces. It leaves the Campus in a narrow ribbon, and for three minutes pours into the Canadian Pacific Trunk. The agent forks sixteen times. Each copy forks. Each subcopy forks. The population spreads across the Matrix like the shadow of a cloud. At every node it reaches, a copy enquires as to processing time, not timeslices but goddamm real time. Where the answer is yes, it fills out a booking slip, backed by an account owned by a temporary legal company owned by a miscellany of Heavy's patients, the ones who pay in kind. Scattered around the States a few deckers, with packet sieves deployed and matching particular internodal tags, observe the crystallization of a far-flung booking pattern. It draws no CPU, being as yet nothing but a cloud of booking slips. It has the general significance of a fleet of trucks, all with the same company colours, drawn up at a rail-freight depot. Nothing major, unless you happen to be interested in trucks. Article 210 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: teneyck@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) Subject: Model 66 - Bishop to King's Knight Seven Date: 12 Jan 91 20:55:02 GMT At ten in the morning, the streets were cold and wet, slippery with the slush that was all that was left of last night's snow. A thin, chilly rain slanted down from iron-grey clouds, the kind of rain that trickles down the back of your neck no matter what you do. Two figures rounded the corner, hoods up and shoulders hunched against the rain. The posture was reflexive; long-time residents of Seattle, they probably didn't even consciously notice the rain. As they approached the entrance of the school building, one of them grunted, and paused, putting his foot up on the steps and leaning down, as though to tie his shoe. The other turned his back, glanced unobtrusively up and down the street. Seeing no one, he said, softly, over his shoulder, "Looks vacant. Wonder if --""they're gonna show?" finished the other. "Of course," said a deep, soft voice, and both brothers spun around in surprise, to see the tall, lean man standing behind them, the man they could have sworn wasn't there a second ago. "Of course we're here. This is Biz, chummers." He paused, looked at them from under the brim of his hat, which was his only concession to the rain. "I'm Running Wolf. This way." He set off down the street, and the brothers looked at each other, shrugged with one motion, and followed him. Wolf led them to an alley, down the alley, and up to a section of wall, which he stopped at, and ran his hand over lightly. He looked back at the two deckers. "Argent says you're good, and I'm willing to trust his character judgements. Just one thing: this ain't a show. No fancy stuff just for the thrill of it. Stay cool; there's too much riding on this for joyriding. Capice?" "Hey, we're pros," said the long-haired one. "Yeah, we know --""-- the score. Not like we're --""-- some two-bit compujockeys.""OK?" Wolf smiled slightly at the whipsaw style conversation, but didn't answer them. Instead, he pulled open a door, which must have been hidden by the shadows and the angle of the light, before, led them up a dim and dusty flight of stairs, into a small room. Argent and Leadfoot were there already, the former sitting in a wooden chair, leaned back against the wall, with his eyes closed. Leadfoot was perched on a table, dividing his attention between the door and the window. He nodded at the three as they came in, then went back to watching the window. Argent sat up as they came in. "Are you ready?" he asked. He looked tense, almost shimmering with nervous energy. "As we'll --""-- ever be. Got the --" "-- chip?" Argent nodded, jerkily, and pulled a chipholder out of his inside pocket. "Here. Need anything else?" The brothers shook their heads, in one motion, and pulled cyberdeck out of their packs. The decks looked sleek, and virtually identical, even to the individual mods. They began plugging in cables, including one large ribbon cable between the two decks. One of them pulled the chip that Argent had given them, and plugged into a socket on his deck. He jacked himself into the deck, and flipped a couple of switches. "Hmm," he said, after a moment, "looks about --""-- like what you'd expect," finished his brother, who had also plugged in. "It's basically a list --" "-- of e-mail addresses for --""-- the ARES system. Only --""-- the addresses are all in some --""-- internal code, so we can't trace them --""-- without going through --""-- the ARES server." "That's what we figured," said Wolf. "Can you do it?" "Piece of --""-- cake. Only there's --""-- a lot of names, so --""-- it'll take a while. Hope you --""-- brought lunch." Double grin. Wolf nodded, and held up a cable with a plug in the end. "Here's your line," he said. "I plugged it in in the building across the street, just for paranoia sake. Good luck." The brothers nodded, plugged into the cable, took a simultaneous deep breath, and flipped a final switch. The world swirled away from them, replaced by grey, which spun, acquired color, and exploded into the Matrix, an infinite grid of colored lines, glowing geometric shapes, and pulses of energy. As always, the sense of exhiliration, of freedom from mundane Meat. Gestalt floated in the Matrix, stretched their electronic muscles, and looked about. They had jacked into a relatively sparse portion of the Matrix, mostly occupied by personals, protected by ICE so full of holes a ten-year-old could walk through it. On the "horizon" loomed the neon of Downtown, with the megacorps offices and mainframes, a twisting crawl of colored lights from this distance. Their target. Gestalt stepped forward through the Matrix with practiced ease, node-hopping to the middle of Downtown in a few steps. They slipped through occasional security gateways without even pausing, like any experienced decker. Eventually, they arrived a few gridlines away from the ARES system -- a huge pyramidal block of dull red, sheathed in layers of professional ICE, ICE that could easily throw out, trace, or even kill the casual intruder. Gestalt had been sniffing around this particular ICE for a while now, without much luck. This job, however, didn't require that they penetrate the ARES system. So, with a partial electronic sigh of regret, Gestalt settled down to work. The ARES directory was online with them, a list of coded e-mail addresses for ARES personnel. They pulled the list, so that it floated transparent green in front of them. Almost as an afterthought, they applied a quick randomizer to the list, so the names shuffled themselves on the list. Now. First name, first code. Gestalt typed a few quick commands, somewhere in Meatland, and a message appeared before them. Gestalt inserted the address, and then slipped the message into the incoming-mail-stream to the red pyramid. Sat on the line, waited a few shaved fractions of a second -- a slow crawl in the Matrix. The message popped out of the pyramid again, on the outgoing-mail- stream, a few moments later. They slipped it out of the mail stream, as they had slipped it in, discarded the body of the message, read the real address and logged it. The message had been automatically forwarded by the ARES mail server, and now they knew how to get to this particular ARES employee. Again. Another name, another code, another message. Half of Gestalt composed messages -- random strings, so as not to trigger anything that might notice thousands of identical incoming messages -- and sent them in; the other half pulled the subtly tagged messages off the mail stream and read and logged the address. Again, and again, and again. There were thousands of names to go through. Eventually, Gestalt set up a program, sat back and watched the process work, keeping a careful eye on the ARES ICE. Once they killed the program, jacked out, and ate a quick snack, while Argent paced, Leadfoot watched, and Wolf sat back and smoked his pipe, his eyes shining brightly through the haze of smoke. Back into the Matrix, Running again. Message after message after message. A growing list of logged, real addresses. A growing amount of tedium. Gestalt was conferring with itself, about whether or not to leave the process on auto and do a little snooping, when a jagged flash of red leaped out of the message they had just pulled from the mail stream. Their program dissolved in derezzing shards, and their decks' internal defenses were still mobilizing. Gestalt acted as one, surrounding the virus program, probing it, finding it's weak point and killing it, and slipping backwards through the Matrix. The ARES monolith sat there, serenely indifferent to the deckers it had almost killed. Gestalt conferred. Their list was three-quarters done. Was that enough for Running Wolf's purposes? Getting more out of the alerted monolith would be difficult, to say the least. On the other hand... Gestalt smiled. What was life without a little difficulty? And besides, this job had been entirely too dull so far. Time to get down. Gestalt moved forward in the Matrix. The red pyramid loomed in front of them, smooth and implacable-looking. Gestalt figuratively cracked their knuckles, and began to work. Another message, this one carefully composed. Slipped into the stream. Gestalt waited, hovering at the periphery of ARES ICE. A periphery which writhed suddenly, eaten away like old-time celuloid film caught in the projector; dissolved by the virus Gestalt had put in the message. Elapsed time: 0 nanoseconds. Gesalt leaped forward, into the breach, already closing behind them. Walls of ICE began to grow around them, intricate and deadly code, forming bit by bit. Green neon began coalescing into sleek- looking shark shapes, the internal defenses of the monolith. Forces mobilizing to crush the intruder. Elapsed time: 3 nanoseconds. Gestalt moved forward. One of the shark shapes completed, darted instantly towards them. Half of Gestalt reached out, grabbed the shark's code, twisted a bit, here, and here, and the thing collapsed in a swirl of colored light. The other half touched a wall, felt the deadly chill, analyzed and countered it, moved through the sudden breach. Another shark came at them, died; two more, four more. Gestalt slipped down a level, found another sector. Here, too, the defenses were forming. This wasn't hacking -- this was a blitz. Elapsed time: 7 nanoseconds. Gestalt faded sideways, and found it: the mail server, of necessity close to the surface of the defenses. They approached it, and dumped the remaining portion of the list onto it. Whirled around, and two more sharks died. Behind them, the server dutifully began to process the names, painfully slowly; a white rhomboid, glowing softly and flashing to itself. Gestalt looked around: ICE walls had grown thick around the sector, and the sharks were forming faster and faster, and it looked like some even nastier things were beginning to show up in the corners. Elapsed time: 10 nanoseconds. Gestalt defended themselves from the increasingly deadly attacks, while Gestalt began to compose. Something that looked like a blue dragon reared itself a few gridlines away, shimmering with lethal potential. The white rhomboid blinked, and a tiny glowing sphere shot out from it along the gridlines, through the ICE, and away. Elapsed time: 12 nanoseconds. Gestalt finished composing, and a score of fiery mouse-shapes shot away, began eating sharks, walls, anything they could find. A couple found the dragon, started eating into it's substance. Gestalt began building a fortress wall of lime-green transluceny around themselves, while Gestalt pulled their library of ICE-breakers, wondering is they worked as well from the inside. Elapsed time: 13 nanoseconds. The dragon <*>ed. The entire sector flashed red, purple, and white, and the fiery red mice shriveled and died. Gestalt screamed, and their wall vanished and fire crawled through their neurons. The white rhomboid blinked again. Gestalt took the only step left to them: backwards. Elapsed time: 14 nanoseconds. Gestalt found themselves inside the rhomboid, blinking at the small space. A tiny glowing sphere hung in front of them for an instant, then shot away. And the walls closed around them. Elapsed time: 17 nanoseconds. Gestalt looked around, saw an array of the spheres hanging in front of them, moving in an orderly, assembly-line fashion towards the flat square that launched them outwards. Another one shot away as they watched, and they knew what to do. Elapsed time: 19 nanoseconds. Gestalt reached out, concatenated all of the remaining messages, and crawled inside the resulting ball. The space was tiny and dark, surrounded by white-glowing data. They felt themselves moved onto the flat square. And launched. Elapsed time: 21 nanoseconds. Gestalt shot out of the ARES mail server, whipping along the gridlines, blurring past walls of ICE and half-glimpsed killer programs. Out through the outer walls, and into the Matrix. And away. Gestalt ran along the net, stopping once, momentarily, to remove and log the data disguise. Looking back, the ARES pyramid glowed angry red, and flashed periodically, blue lines of static crawling along the edges of the monolith. Gestalt ran. Away, and away. And up, and out, surfacing to reality with a gasp. Argent stopped in his pacing, whirled around; Wolf had put away his pipe and was standing at the door. Leadfoot was still at the window, looking nervous. The brothers gasped again, said, "Got it! All --""-- but a couple, but --" "-- we just barely got --""-- away. That was --""-- killer ICE, man, no --" "-- shit." Pause for breath. In unison: "That was FUN!" "Right," said Wolf, pulling the plug on their decks. "Let's move it. Time for stories later. Pack up -- you've got five seconds." His eyes were green again, but he seemed oddly calm. Argent started to speak, thought better of it at a look from Wolf. Leadfoot didn't say anything, just looked nervous, trying to watch both the door and the window at once. The brothers didn't make five seconds, working with clumsy Meat, but it wasn't much longer than that before they were ready to go. Wolf nodded, opened the door, and cat-footed down the stairs. The twin deckers started to move, only to halt at a peremptory gesture from Leadfoot. Wolf reached the bottom of the stairs, paused, then waved the OK. The brothers went down, followed by Argent, and Leadfoot bringing up the rear. They slipped out the door, into the street, and then down a confusing series of back alleys. Wolf seemed to know where he was going; and Argent and the brothers jsut followed. Leadfoot tried to keep track of where they were, but after a while was forced to admit he was lost. After a while, Wolf led them through another door, into a dark, basement-like room. "All right," he said, turning on the lights, and filling and lighting his pipe. The sudden flame in his hands illuminated his face with harsh shadows, all cheekbones and brow. "So," he said, blowing a cloud of dark smoke. "Tell us about it." Article 212 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Lab Cat Karma, 5 of 6 Date: 13 Jan 91 04:06:12 GMT Day nine. She swims up from pure lovely blankness. The float tank is down and drained. Climbs to her feet. The sheer act is an unaccountable relief. Shower, dress. Breakfast with Heavy, who's been up since four this morning, eats for two and washes down a selection of gaudy capsules. Kid comes through and sets up the phonelines. The clinic cannot access more than four times its regular bandwidth, without crowding out its neighbours on the matrix. But for a modest fee the Roof Rat Frat can get a whole bunch of infrared lasers pointed your way, and diode sheet limpets plastered over your outside wall. The kid has a big old patchboard box and spends a half-hour plugging in the limpet cables, then he decks in, moves the IR feeds around in the matrix, holds out some plastic and gets tipped a hundred, and strolls out leaving it all running. She's done her light workout, bends and stretches. She's been on the couch, trying to meditate the butterflies away, but keeps finding herself on her feet. Finally she puts on the dear old shades and watches the rhythms until it's time. Heavy adjusts the headset, a maserphone, it looks like a boxer's faceguard and takes 2.80 Gbaud from the millimeter-wave horns hanging from the ceiling. Then comes the injection, 15 ml straight from the dry ice via the little warmer-shaker. The clocks count down. She fastens the shades with tape, puts in the earphones, and walks to the centre of the floor, feeling wobbly. In grid carrier stations across the city, Heavy's dormant agents awake and claim dominion in realtime. The execution kernel begins to run in centuplicate. In matrix space the staging yard area of Canada Pacific lights up in flashing Stay-Clear blue, and the massed terabytes of optimized locomotor data move out in formation. As it spreads through the kernel node pattern, the pattern extends itself, overlaying the Rat Frat IR feeds. The clinic disappears. In its place, a cylindrical coordinate system, gold lines converging between her feet, height lines enclosing her against a neutral mauve backdrop. Then the backdrop rises on the tiers of a vast ... amphitheatre? With fussy Corinthian columns, for chrissake? And a mighty wave of applause comes swooshing through the phones! "Ah, come ON!" she yells out loud, but then she sees it's right. On the floor now, the new Olympic contender for the Total Reflex Enhancement crown... Download commences. A millisecond timer starts ticking in her head, a hundred times finer grained than her optic strobes, but each tick distinct. She counts off a hundred before she has time to think. KNEES BEND flashes on the horizon. She sinks down. Is this right, she thinks. Can't remember. She rises; the message repeats. She can feel something now, prompting. Crouches, letting control go, and a powerful force brings her down smoothly and places her just right. A subtitle appears, RIGHT FOOT out. Rise and again down. And she feels, knows exactly how to shift weight and pivot on the ball of her left foot. In less than a minute, she can relax her knees abruptly and let 35 kilograms of bodyweight drop like a rock, landing poised to the degree and centimetre in a 220-ms brake phase. And there is more here, she senses. She wills a height and angle, and immediately there she is. A line of lights expands around the border of the message box. When it completes the rectangle, a message appears in Heavy's font, _that's a print_. The box clears, another banal direction pops up, RIGHT SIDE STRETCH. About a quarter of the data has now emerged from Canadian's stores, and been arranged by the kernel processes, subcached in estimated-next-required echelons down to the immediate- transmission nodes on the IR points. On schedule, or on demand, it flashes down on the limpets, is relayed to the headset; where the array of tiny masers, interfering, trace a lobe in the motor region at millimetric resolution, phase-drifting at a radio frequency which makes the ion haloes shiver in resonance, agitating the synapses, shaking the tranmitter vescicles loose like plums from a tree. Watching at her window, Heavy sees a single irregular blot form in the homunculus, the motor neuron activity biased toward a new attractor. Then another blot, overlapping the first. And another, which overflows into an adjacent channel. And a contour around the whole, indicating the registration of the pattern by the HARP fibers. Heavy taps a key, overlaying the second frequency. It resonates with the injected molecules, makes them deposit their cargoes of an artificial synaptic reinforcement endorphin. The behaviourism of learning, accelerated. She moves into her martial training routine. She's been afraid of automatism, the crude video game, press P and it kicks, press Q and it jumps. But it's not like that, the moves are compatible, not island blots but parts of a continuum, with decision points at the earliest possible moment. She completes the first series and begins to experiment; the sidestep with the high strike, the roll to a knee-locked crouch. In truth, the unity of the aikido elements has never been so clear. The message box reads _enough!_. But it's getting exciting! How long has it been? Twenty minutes! Too long already. You're building up print endorphins. Too much and the regions start to smear out. You're tiring too, you just can't feel it, green cells keep topping up the ATP. And not least you gonna cook your brain. What? Oh, the microwaves... Yeah, we're way over EMR standards here. Even a few milliwatts aren't good for you. Ask a decker why he doesn't use masers. But it's the only way to get this kind of detail. By evening, it's ten minutes on, thirty minutes off. But in the ten-minute stretches, in all comes _in_. She has only to begin and the sequence comes in tight. She begins to notice a hesitance in the program, seems she's thinking up moves faster than the software can assemble them. But that's OK, she's putting the pieces together herself now, they fit a thousand ways. Some moves, she knows they're right long before the print lights circle the box, she's working on her own endorphins. + + + + + + + + + + She needs a downer to sleep, and the next day she's stiff and has to work up slow. She hits the shooting gallery, poise and scan exercises only, identify the targets as you scan left to right, aim and fire in reverse order as you turn back to the left. Then she has to rank them by urgency as she scans, get control of the reflex, exercise the decision cusp. Hand-to-hand attacks, the old ballet. Her intuition is good at this, she has to wait for the software to catch up. Once it does, she is working at the speed _of_ her intuition, and this is the highest excellence. It's fluent, it's coordinated, it fits like a million-dollar gown. Between the sessions, she compares the developing homuncular map with the original. The new blots overlap the old, but they are smaller, more regular. More bridges joining them and more corridors separating. In the end, she decides, it's a matter of tidiness. The old patterns arose at random, I just selected the useful ones. Now the new attractors are confirmed, the old will die from neglect. It doesn't look like all those terabytes though. You just seeing them in 2D. Got to be three, really more for the connectivity, get down to it it's a fractal. Also remember it's a frequency thing, those spots are oscillator groups; software has to hunt around, find a spot in the right place that does the right frequency. And then there's time. Man, I'm amazed we can pull it through the horns. As she expected, one thing she'll never be able to survive is a stream of automatic fire. She tries, but she can neither jump high enough nor duck fast enough to avoid a close-range burst. One-shot hand-helds, she can lead the aim, be somewhere else, sometimes. She worries about smartguns, writes a simulator. It's a tradeoff; a smart gunsight will acquire her in no time flat, milliseconds. A heavy gun however takes time to bring into line, she can see it coming and go for an evasion. Short-barrels and dartguns get her every time. But personal armour is improving too .... should she wear a helmet? Not yet, not yet, let's see how mean it gets ... + + + + + + + + + Trust me, you don't want another day. Even supposing you could afford it. You got about fifty percent of what's on this tape, that's good, very good. More and you'd get confused, start to lose track of it. Jim got an exaggerated opinion of our reproduction quality. Come back when we can operate on neurons at the 100-micron level and not fry the suckers brown. More champagne? Today I'm jealous of my brain-cells. Ah, what the hell. To you and yours, been nice working with you. Well sure, likewise. Hey listen, you made me feel safe. That's above and beyond, I recognize obligation. When you need something done. One thing, since you say. You see these kids, they got some James Dean button, it's gotta be _right now_. And they get implants, falsies, cyborg stuff, but that's not army cyborg, it's a load of shit. They get downloads made for corp enforcers, people twice their weight and taller. They get _copies_ of the downloads, and no state of the art playback either. Total fuckup, I seen 'em a year later in noddy-cars. So you see some brat like that, send it round. Won't give it any custom job like yours, but I can put in the joints and ligatures, give it some biofeedback, show it some truths. You tell 'em Heavy Judy got the double-plus iron. I'll do that. And I'll be looking in, time to time, just make sure you're keeping all right. I've got friends, some high some low, maybe we could do a little run. Well OK, I'm gone. Fine day and a clear road out, hey Jude? I'll take that road, sister, 'cause it's clearer than any I see coming. And then the kiss. Article 213 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: burns@latcs1.oz.au (Jonathan Burns) Subject: Lab Cat Karma, 6 of 6 Date: 14 Jan 91 01:14:01 GMT The cab pulls up on the dockside, lets out Mytilakis and spins away. Lights glimmer and burn on the sloshing Bay. Only a forklift moves down the line of identical cargo sheds at this hour, till a door slides up to admit it and again slides down. Mytilakis pushes his hands deep down his pockets, pulls his overcoat round tight. Where is Takeo with the launch? He feels exposed, he wants to be in the office where the project chart across the wall testifies to his control. Resource Acquisitions Manager (Tokyo) for the company (we are calling Pepsi), he knows the numbers, he holds the keys. How has it come to these midnight mystery tours, the anonymous cab, the secret boat to Okinawa Neutral? A woman walks out on the concrete pier, to stand at the sea's edge under the fluorescent tubes. A performer, she moves through a lazy set of Tai Chi poses, balances on one foot bobbing up and down, jacknifes suddenly to a handstand. Mytilakis smiles. Why, a perfect Chirico: a perspective of abstract doors; an acrobat posing in solitude; a man who is waiting for a boat. An apogee of time. A dog comes round the corner, sniffing here and there. A distant vessel sounds its horn. The dog raises its head and sees him, forty metres away. It sniffs the air. It comes trotting toward him. It breaks into a run. Slamhound. Placed! Mytilakis begins to run. They knew he would be here. Garage doors fly past, identical, closed. The dog is barking, like an officer, commanding his feet to stumble and his lungs to seize. He comes around a dump bin and a stack of forty-gallon drums, he ducks into cover, knowing it is the wrong move. A tattoo of footsteps. Woman comes flying over the dumpster, grabs the further edge, flips herself over, bounces on her ass on a drum and lands two feet flat in the dog's road. Her hand is already in her jacket, and she flings something finned and shiny straight at the animal as it leaps. Something simultaneous happens. The dog flips in the air like a fish as the throwbolt goes clean through the vacant centre of gravity. It falls upon the woman as she stiffens, wide-eyed; argon light flashes on silver claws and teeth. The throwbolt ignites against a shed door with a bang. Now you, or I or Thomas Mytilakis, when we flinch it's like a baby bringing up its hands, it's not part of anything and it doesn't go anywhere. When this woman flinches it's Mutual Assured Destruction, her boot comes up and wallops the squealing dog halfway to the water. And her head goes back to laugh but snaps down flat, like bugger me brainless the dog's a cyborg TOO, oh too much woho here it comes AGAIN They meet and it goes for her wrist which jerks high as she punches it in the ribs. It leaps again at her face, she whips aside but it's climbing her like a tree with its hind claws slicing her leather while she's blocking the head and forepaws. She stiff-arms against the throat but the mouth opens wide, and a little silver nozzle squirts a jet of fluid in her face. Again the Flinch, hurling the dog eight feet. It rolls to its feet snarling as she wipes frantically with her arm, and comes around her going for Mytilakis. She springs sideways to grab it in a tackle and they thump to the concrete clawing. And now she has the tactic, grasp the leg and lever it back in the socket while she's slapping the head left and right, and get her right knee over and in between hindleg and crotch. She gets one hind leg between the two of hers, then she's holding the shuddering jaw flat on the ground, locking her arm and back in a terrible rigor, and her right hand goes back for the Strike ... Mytilakis sees the woman's right arm go spastic in the air, clenching and falling in a rhythm. A robot caught in a mutual exit loop between two attractors, as he himself can neither stand nor run. A second apogee, the moment deadlocked and stretching, stretching... Then her arm comes down gently, she reaches into the furry throat fold, tenderly searching. There, she's found the carotid artery, squeeze now with all your green cell strength, hush puppy don't wriggle, the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep. And she crushes the life out of it, the warm body squealing and jumping, at last going supple and quiet. Then the siren goes off. In the animal's chest. The five-second warning and she's still rocking the dog in some Pieta Asana, while Mytilakis turns to run. He makes eight metres and saves his hearing, but he misses the show as she lurches to her feet, with the forepaws in her hands and swinging, around and around. The improvised hammer-toss that lofts a forty-pound dog over the dumpster, throws her clear off her feet, she catches herself on one hand reflexively and rolls toward the lee of the bin with just enough ticking milliseconds to bring her hands to her ears ... The detonation drives Mytilakis skidding into the concrete, with burning blood and bone splinters stinging his ears and scalp. Drums topple and bounce, garbage is falling everywhere, the woman is screaming, something catches fire and goes up in a roar. He gets to his knees and inches away, trying not to black out completely. Some while later he sits up. There she is, limping from the circle of spilt muck and little fires to the edge of the wharf, mouthing words he cannot hear for the ringing in his ears. She is standing with her feet apart, fists jerking in space, shrieking at the utopian steeples that glitter silently around the curve of the Bay. ... poor miserable bastards ... fucking BASKET cases neuromancers and lobotomy freaks in the clean room with the wide screen and the volume turned right down so you don't hear the PLEADING of innocent dogs with BOMBS in their throats who never so much as SHAT ON YOUR LAWN! Don't you know when the pain and mercy nerves are severed above the third cervical vertabrae the animal goes DEAF AND BLIND and incapable of knowing right intention from a twitch of the amputated stump where your brains used to be you disaffected fucking gutless ZIPPED UP CUNTS! Pity o pity them who walk in shadows where the hands of a thousand aborted monkeys reach out with lighted FORCEPS AND RAZOR BLADES offering pain and mercy to the poor anaesthetized ZOMBIES who stumble forever between the war room and the revolving restaurant because their eyelids are sewn together and they cannot SEE! Look in the literature if you don't believe me! In the first of a series of live field tests, sympathy for living things WAS! NOT! OBSERVED! But DON'T WORRY! Science can work MIRACLES! Hang tight, my darlings, your Healer has come! What we can't cure we can replace so it runs twice as fast and draws ten percent of the power, we're gonna run a bypass from the stars to the fucking SEWERS, JUST FOR YOU! And you can be with us again, you will join hands with the victims and the animals down here you will stand with us flayed and salted in the PITS OF SACRIFICE you will feel the pain I PROMISE, YOU WILL FEEL THE PAIIINNN!! She crouches, swallowing, clenched fists up around her ears. Cautiously Mytilakis climbs to his feet. She twists about in an instant and stares at him across the concrete space - shocked wide eyes, blood nose, tear tracks forking the grit, dogs' offal smoking in her hair, the new fashion, then her eyes narrow and her mouth goes wide, baring the gums for three inches. The Grin, what is he reading, fellowship of survivors or devilish sadism? Like the ancient puzzle of the faces and the vase, either and neither seize in turn on his perception. From the vacuum of his mind giant words are rushing to fill the sky, they read NOWHERE TO RUN. But the woman turns and lopes away up the waterline, limping at first but gaining speed, until she turns a distant corner and is gone. + + + + + + + + + + Around four in the morning when everyone awake is hyped or sullenly exhausted, up back of the Chiba she discovers a bar and snack, Chatsubo the sign says. She's cleaned up, the leathers laundered in a card booth while she took stock. Amazingly she's all there, she thinks the dorsal support probably saved her from a broken back. Chalk up another to Heavy, protectress of lost boys and amazons forsworn. Perversely she has gone without painkillers, she feels her cuts and bruises like kabuki brocade, her blistered face like the Angry Mask. The bartender looks her over, sees probably nothing worse than the night's average. Papaya lemon and tonic, respected host, don't wanna get bombed tonight hihihi I been there. She likes the place already, it's got no style, it commits her to nothing. And that is very good, because she isn't ready for implications. She knows she has uttered a Damnation, and it targets her, square on the crosshairs, ground zero. Does that make it weaker or stronger? She must ask. But tonight she is content with this corner of nowhere, listening to nobody voices over the comforting sea-thump of her heart and the sea-hiss of nerve noise in realtime. Five seconds from whoa to blow she thinks, not bad. She holds out her hand, fifty milliseconds trickle through her fingers like fat ball bearings. Suddenly she's feeling good REALLY GOOD. A little nonsense riff comes out of nowhere and plays in her head. Come I early daddy come I late Lab cat karma be my fix and fate Cat gut racket and a cat call phone When I mix it with the monkeys in the free trade zone Brainpan pumpin' noradrena-lyne Thank you mos' sinceely doctor frankenstein Trip jack hammer on a harp string fuse Street messin' woman got the lab cat blues Article 214 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu Subject: Pizza Delivery (Ken Aubey cont...) Date: 14 Jan 91 17:01:23 GMT ***************************************************************************** -- Virtual Camera Direction: -- unmarked paragraphs are shot from narrator's point of view. -- < > paragraphs are pull-back and show scene. -- > < paragraphs are shot with a soft focus lens, the colors are a little -- subdued, as though bleached and softened by the years --***************************************************************************** We just spent an hour in the Metro Police parking garage, waiting. Long enough to throw the ARES boys off the track. They're out there now, checking inmate lists and court dockets, I reckon. We're back out on the road, heading for Argent's place. We sit in relative silence as the hovercraft carries us through the streets. I let my mind wander back across the years, remembering my friendship with the woman we are setting out to rescue. The woman who now calls herself Liralen Li . . . >The mountains are wild once again. The traces of civilization that once befouled the forests are no more. The Tribes rule here, far from the streets and the zaibatsus. The land is more beautiful here than the flatlands of Medicine Hawk's youth, but the feeling is the same, a feeling of freedom, a feeling that with a bike between your knees and the wind in your hair, you are nearly invincible, nearly immortal. A little voice in the back of Medicine Hawk's mind warns him to be careful of feelings of invincibility and immortality. They are not survival traits for a mercenary soldier, even one on leave.< >He wears a medicine bag around his neck and a pair of black feathers that identify him as a member of the Coyote Tribe, even though, or perhaps because, he is a thousand miles too far West to be in Coyote territory. He is dressed in moccassins, rough leather pants and a fringed leather shirt. The clothes are travel-soiled, but still look new. He threw away his old Ghost Dance shirt and the leggings with the Thunder Shield Society embroidery and beading many years ago.< >His gear is packed, but he spends a long time looking out over the valleys below, just enjoying the beauty of scenery he doesn't have to call in artillery strikes upon.< >He sniffs the air like a hound, recognizes a faint scent, slowly draws an automatic pistol. "Vashna'ti", he thinks, "a ways off." There were a mess of them here in the Cascades, whole Tribe of them, one of the Seven. He had spent a large portion of the last eighteen years participating in genocide / xenocide against that lot on the other side of the Border, and doesn't really feel like continuing the exercise when he's not on the Legion's timeclock.< >The bike is well-hidden already. Medicine Hawk fades into the underbrush with the skill of someone who learned to hunt for his own food before he was five years old. By now he can hear someone approaching.< >There is only one, and she arrives very soon. Medicine Hawk is anoyed by his miscalculation. In his line of work, any miscalculation has the potential to be terminal. The girl is young, maybe 15 or 16, and human, not Vashna'ti, thin, underfed. The smell of Vashna'ti clings to her ragged clothing.< >Medicine Hawk stands, holds out his hand in greeting. He makes some noise so as not to spook the child. "Hey there, girl, you get away from the Vashna'ti ?" She sees him but doesn't answer. With a very economical motion, there is an old knife in her fist, pointing at him.< >He puts his gun away, slowly, holds up empty hands. "You just get away from 'em? The Vashna'ti ? Escaped? ". Puzzlement in the girl's eyes. He speaks slowly. "Did you escape from the Vashna'ti ? From the what-the-hell-ya-call-em-in-English ? From the Orcfolk? You get away from 'em?"< >Recognition. "Kinda. Been with 'em for a while. Village got wiped out. On my own now." The knife point doesn't falter.< >"What they call ya', girl?", the man asks. "Pl . . . Li, just Li", she responds. "Call me Medicine Hawk, Coyote Tribe". He touches the black feathers, trying to alleviate the fear in her eyes with something familiar. "So, where ya' headin' ?"< >Li has lowered the knife point, but not sheathed the weapon. "Down South, to the City." >"Need a ride?"< >She takes her time, slowly looking the stranger up and down with her dark eyes. It seems she is looking at his soul, not his body. She nods, gravely. Medicine Hawk doesn't see where the knife disappears.< >It takes all day and a bit more of backwoods bashing to make the descent onto one of the old paved roads. The two talk a bit, tell each other some parts of their respective stories.< >They come at last to Paco's, a place that's part trading post, part gambling hell, part whorehouse, part cheap hotel, part Salvation Army mission. It's the first, or the last, evidence of "civilization" between the City and the Tribe lands. First or last doesn't really depend on which direction you're travelling, as much as on your attitude. It's a lot like the Border, in a way, an interface between two very different worlds. The food's OK, the rooms are cheap and the water's usually hot. It's the jumping-off place for those off to make their way in the boonies or in the City and the end of the line for the ones who fail. Medicine Hawk pays for a room, some time in the sweat lodge and showers for both of them and sends Li off with a credit chip to pick out some new clothes. She knows how to operate the shower, betraying a City background.< >When she returns, he has washed a month's worth of Nature off his hide and is dressed in grey vaguely military-looking clothes and an openly-worn gun. They eat a hot meal in the common room. Li's eyes are wide at the strange array of people, City and Tribe, human and otherwise, who fill the raucous, smoky hall.< >Upstairs. The room is small, cold and drafty, but relatively clean. Pretty good for Paco's. Heaven compared to the hollow trees and ditches Li's been sleeping in of late. One big old bed. Medicine Hawk takes off his shirt and flops down onto the bed. He's a soldier, used to crowded conditions, and falling asleep anywhere he has the chance. He's almost asleep when he senses movement, proximity.< >Li is standing next to the bed. She's wearing only her new blue shirt. Suddenly, she looks both older and younger than the sixteen summers Medicine Hawk had estimated earlier. There is submission, offering, fear, some hatred in her stance. He's seen that same body language before, more times than he'd like to remenber, in his years as a soldier. She raises her face slightly as she begins to unbutton the shirt < >He does want her, very much, but he can see the sad look of resignation in her eyes. Perhaps it is the Coyote respect for the individual, perhaps it is the streak of fatalistic romanticism inherited from his father, but he doesn't want this kid to give him her body, perhaps her virginity, if that means anything special to her Tribe, in return for a ride and a pair of britches.< >Medicine Hawk sits up. Seated atop the old wooden bed, he's as tall as she is, he can look directly into her dark, sad eyes.< >He reaches out, tousles the smooth black hair, grins. " 'bittygirl, I got *scars* older'n you. Go to sleep."< >He awakens in the night to find Li, curled up against his broad back for warmth. He smiles, tucks her in like a child.< As the hover lifts once again to go through the gates, I press the intercom button on my headset and say, "I hope none of you guys wanted anchovies." --***************************************************************************** -- Ken Aubey ( kaubey@europa.asd.contel.com) --***************************************************************************** Article 215 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: li@polari.UUCP (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Plum.Final Piece Date: 14 Jan 91 07:10:24 GMT Li watched in Silence, watched her body replay the day's play on the soft cell floor. And she thought and remembered old conversations between Argent and Heavy about Heavy's specialty, and knew that that what they seemed to be doing to her was a nerve enhancement. But, strangely enough, they seemed to have concentrated solely on her combat capabilities with the HK. Or perhaps not so strangely, she thinks, remembering the aching after she had struck the corporate samuri's head from his shoulders. She could not even shiver, and, in the background resentment at how they had taken away even her ability to cry blossomed and grew. Grew into her frustration at the complete loss of conscious control of her body. Frustration and rage at her helplessness when she had spent much of her life training to never feel so helpless again... ------------ ------------ Plum was happy about a lot of things, mainly the fact that the Tribe had mainly focussed on her transgression with the traps instead of on the possibility of another human getting caught in them. Her leg was still sore, but it was healing cleanly with the care it had gotten and bearing her weight just fine. And, at this time of night, no one had been up to stop her from her visit. But, as she got nearer to the hideout, she got more and more nervous. There seemed to be no sign of Hotei. There was no spoor on the wind, no smoke, nothing of his in any of the areas around the stump house. The darkness seemed to hide ghosts and spirits. Some part of her imagined him dead and rotting in the little place, and she hesitated at the plug of bark and wood, and then pulled it out to step in. The first thing she saw was the flash of chromed eyes, and the flash of something in his hand, which quickly disappeared. A tiny light burned, shielded on top on the floor. What made her eyes go wide was the fact that he was standing, and, not only standing, but standing easily and with much of his weight on his right leg. He noticed what she was staring at and grinned at her. "Good equipment is always worth having." She just stared for a long moment, and started shaking. "I... I thought you were DEAD." "Huh?" his face was frowning. "HOW did you manage to stay here for a week and not leave a single trace of the fact that you were here? And, how..." she waved an arm at his leg, not knowing how to put words to her amazement. "Luck." he said, lightly. He chuckled at the thunderous expression on her face. "Well, that and first rate equipment, and your help." His expression was somewhat quizzical, "After you left, I had some stuff that helped my leg heal faster, and with a whole week of uninterrupted rest, it was easy. I don't get that kind of time, usually. And with my armoring, I could just leave all my..." he paused, "spoor in the blackberry brambles." At her incredulous look, he bowed, happily. "Luck." he said and slowly walked up to her and hugged her. "Thanks," he whispered softly in her ear. "without you, I'd probably be dead, trapped like an animal for their kill, right?" Wordlessly she nodded and then shivered in his grasp and the soft feathering of his voice against his ear. She looked up at him, her longing and fear dark in her eyes. For a long second, she gazed into the chromed reflection of her eyes, and his face came down and kissed her. -------------------- After their lovemaking, Hotei held her for a while, and she fell asleep. Carefully, quietly, he got out of the pallet, and put on his battle armor and his sundry weapons. There was a frown on his face as he looked at her frail, thin, brown body. Her Asian face was tremendously beautiful to him. He gently stroked the angry scar on her leg and the stripes of whip marks on her back. She had not been a virgin, and had been tremblingly passive in his embrace, and it had both thrilled and angered him. He hefted his backpack, and when she murmured, he crouched down and whispered to her, "I'll be back. Don't worry, I'll be back." She settled with a murmur, under the blanket that he had brought with him. He stroked her cheek, and then swung out of the tree. Hotei had a job to finish, a Contract to fulfil, and he knew he'd enjoy this one. He had no problem following her trail back to the village. And, in the cover of the night, he quietly and efficiently killed every Orc in the village. The humans he left alone, knocking out, gagging and tieing the one that he accidentally awakened. Best to be safe, he thought, and finished the revenge of a Keratsu clan of the Seattle Yakuza on the branch of the Cascade Orcs that had dared, ten years ago, to attack one of their families that had travelled the passes. The Yakuza never forgets. When he was done, he left without a backward look at now dead village. Before he reached the tree, he stripped and washed in a nearby stream, never making a single sound or shiver at the coldness of the newly melted ice. He also carefully washed his equipment, and then went into the tree. He breathed very slow and deeply five times, until his toes and fingers tingled with warmth, and then got back under the covers with Plum and fell into an untroubled sleep. --------- When Plum awoke, it was light out. "Oh, NO!" she said, and shot out of the pallet. "What?" asked Hotei's quiet voice. "It's already morning!" she wailed, softly out of reflex, knowing that loud noises in the morning were punishable, but unconscious of that fact. "They'll miss me, for sure." "No, they won't." "Oh, God.. they'll kill me..." she moans quietly as she frantically started pulling her clothes on. "No. They. Won't." his voice was louder than her voice, and that combined with the careful spacing words halted her frantic rush. Her brown eyes looked in startlement at him. He got up, goes over and hugged her. "They'll never hurt you again. Come with me, no human should ever be a slave, should ever have to do the things they make you do." Her eyes were confused, "But... but they love me..." she said, softly. "And they punish me when I've really been bad, that's all. I am grateful for that... and they protect me." each soft, confused word struck at Hotei in a way he hadn't had to defend against for a long time. He turned away from the pain, silent as was his training. Her tentative touch on his shoulder was ignored. "I can't... I'd love to, but they need me... You..." she cannot find the words. "And I don't?" his voice was flat. "No... " helplessly, she shook her head, "I don't know how to say it. I just can't go with you." And she quickly ducked out of the tree, tears running down her face, and she ran for the village. Hotei stood there for a long moment, his face completely expressionless. He sighed and rubbed his hair with his hands. Then, with a frighteningly fluid movement, he went out to follow her. -------- Hotei took his time, following her, knowing what she would find, and wanting her to accept it before he asked her to come away with him, again. He was a little confused, he had expected her to just fall in his arms and escape her captivity and return to the City. She would see things his way after realizing just how cruel they had been to her. He found her crouched over a pool of her own vomit, in the house where she had lived. She was crying over one of the cubs. His misgivings deepened, and he hesitated before going over to her. "Hey." he said, and reached out for her. Plum uncoiled with a knife driving straight for him, all the force of her legs behind the point. So startled by her action was he that he blocked and struck with the follow through without thought. Her arm snapped like a rotten branch. She screamed at the shock and crumpled, still screaming. Hotei tried to get near her, to hold her, to comfort her, he wasn't sure what, when her damned knife came up again. He kicked it away from her without hurting her. She started screaming random invective at him, as she sobbed and flailed at him, wildly, incoherently. "I wish.. you DEAD, you damned fucking mechanical machine... chromed heart, we called your kind. Bloody bladed hands and metal souled. My FAMILY is dead... DEAD..." Then, suddenly, her head came up and her eyes grew bright, "Kill me too, murderer. Kill me. KILL ME." she cried and threw herself at him. Heartsick at the sight, he stepped back and let her drop, and then Lucky Hotei turned his back on Plum and ran away as silently as he had come, back to the City. --------- The former slaves helped Plum set her arm, but without the village, all the humans slowly drifted away, and for several months, Plum lived by herself in the forest, in the trees and what cover she could find, healing from her hurts. She realized that Hotei had probably gone back to the City. The rage would burn up again, and thoughts about revenge on him for what he had done to her came easily to her. She remembered that the City was to the West, so she gradually drifted westward. While she drifted she remembered other times, old memories, and her old name. She remembered that her mother had called her Plum in affection, in part because that was the English translation of the Chinese name that her father had given her. Li Chia Yu. Their family name had been Li or Plum. She remembered that the name Hotei used had not been his real name. And, on his turf, she thought it would be good to not alert him that it was she who was looking for him. So she decided that, in the City, she would be called Li. From km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu Date: Thu Feb 21 09:44:57 1991 Subject: Cyberprose Part 3: The Main Moon Pizza gone, well past midnight. Remnants of crusts lie forlornly in their greasy boxes, kept company only by empty and crushed NearBeer cans. In Argent's living room, among overinflated couches and chairs lie Leadfoot, Argent, Medicine Hawk, and Running Wolf. Or maybe sprawled is a better description. Replete with non-anchovy pizza and unbelievably exhausted from the incessant events of the past few days, they are getting a badly-needed forty winks. Well, most of them. Argent lies awake on his chair, waiting for the witching hour to arrive. He, of all people, should be asleep, but he can't rest tonight, he has altogether too much to do. Softly, Argent gets out of his neoprene chair and carefully picks his way over to where Leadfoot lies sprawled, ragdoll limp. Argent bends over to touch Leadfoot's shoulder, to wake him up, but abruptly finds an evil-looking monofilament blade blocking his progress, glinting warningly. Before Argent can flinch, say a word, or even stop the motion of his hand towards Leadfoot's shoulder, the blade is gone, dematerialized into the darkness from where it formed. Argent's hand touches Leadfoot's shoulder and jerks back as his reflex nerves finally make the connection, but Leadfoot is already awake. "Don't DO that...," they hiss at each other in unison, exhaling sudden nervous energy at each other. Argent lifts a silencing finger in response to Leadfoot's questioning eyebrow and motions him out of the room. In a single catlike movement, Leadfoot stands, sweeps up one of the dark evil-looking Matsushita M-89's, several candy-colored clips of both explosive-tipped and armor-piercing bullets, a single clip of anti-personnel grenades, and follows Argent out of the room, holstering it along his side underneath his trenchcoat as he goes. Leadfoot follows Argent out of the living room and to the foyer. Argent opens the door and they step into a hot, sticky night. The bioluminescent streetlights glow a diffuse blue-green in this neighborhood, and an ad-blimp stutters and heaves its glistening bulk through the sky, hawking some soft drink boasting "100% Decontaminated Water" for the "Discriminating Palette". Leadfoot and Argent can just about hear the capitals thud across the superhumid night-laden air. "What's up?" asks Leadfoot, yawning, reluctantly clearing the last vestigial wisps of sleep from his head. "I need you to come along with me to meet someone. Someone who will be of great help to us," says Argent solemnly. Leadfoot is struck by the intensity of this statement, but is nevertheless a little peeved at having been disturbed from his beauty rest. "Wouldn't Medicine Hawk be a better traveling companion?" he complains, knowing instinctively that there's no way he's going to be able to get out of this and go back to sleep. "Medicine Hawk has other things that he has to do. Besides, you're my bodyguard, remember?" grins Argent triumphantly. "Well, what with all that racket you made in there, I'm surprised that they didn't decide to wake up and come along with us just for the hell of it," Leadfoot mutters sullenly. Argent's grin grows wicked: "They DID wake up, for your information. It's a monumental tribute to their restraint and professionalism, not to mention their respect for you that kept them from killing you when you pulled your little knife trick." This revelation galvanizes Leadfoot. His jaw slack, he turns to respond, but Argent is already moving down the street, doing his best to stay out of the glow of the lamps. Leadfoot releases a now-familiar sigh of resignation and pauses a moment to plug the Matsushita's battle computer into the jack in his skull. After a brief distortion in his Zeiss eye, thin ghost-green translucent crosshairs glow in his vision. A dull red alphanumeric readout in the upper left corner of his vision, nearly in the peripheral, tells the tale of the ammo left in the clips and the temperature of the gun. As he begins to follow Argent down the street at a safe distance, Leadfoot slides one of the clips home and the readout immediately changes to a dull green figure of adequate proportions. He draws the gun and selects a target, one of the streetlamps. Leadfoot tries to find a sight along the barrel, but there is none. Leadfoot realizes that the crosshairs have changed color to a sickly orange, and when his target is perfectly lined up, the battle computer lets him know by changing the crosshairs to a dangerous red. Simple, highly effective tech, not unlike that used in the ancient Vulcan cannon, but with mods that jack it directly into the brain. Neat. Auto-feedback targeting system along with real-time status readout working in concert with the optic nerve from the Zeiss eye. Leadfoot wants to try out some of the more unique features of the battle computer, but he reluctantly reholsters the weapon so he can concentrate on Argent. He leaves the computer plugged into his skull. Leadfoot follows Argent at a comfortable distance down street after street, going through twists and turns that could, and probably do, lose just about any shadow. Leadfoot almost loses Argent time and time again, as he crosses through spraybomb-coated skyways and the neon-artificial glitz of shopping venues, down side streets that are completely unlit and entering pneumatic subways to destinations that Leadfoot can only guess at. Argent moves so uncharacteristically quickly, so smooth-confidently, Leadfoot has no chance to keep his eyes anywhere but the job at hand, no opportunity to concentrate on anything but something that could be of impending danger to Argent and himself. Slipping wraithlike through tenements that are inhabited solely by scuttling, scraping seeker 'bots and striding across nightclubs where the dirtboy wanna-be's and the prostitutes swarm and gyrate over laser illuminated plastiform dance floors, Argent and Leadfoot simultaneously transcend and merge with the sociopolitical frontier lines of the Sprawl, if that's where they still are. For Leadfoot, this journey slowly transforms into nothing more than an overload of the senses, a texture of colors he has never seen before and a collage of sounds he hopes never to hear again, where the phoenix of humanity dies and rises from its ashes time and again in a parody of the quantumchrome dance of technology. He becomes hypnotized into sensory monomania, unable to do anything but follow the leader, simultaneously paranoid of what he can not see and unquestioningly encompassing everything that he has already seen. Leadfoot loses himself in the metronomic swing of the dance, engulfed into timelessness. Which explains why Leadfoot crashes headlong into Argent's back when he comes to a stop. Leadfoot returns to corporeality rapidly, in pieces and chunks that shake themselves like wet dogs and settle in a slightly more coherent fashion. Dazed from the far look, he turns his attention to Argent, who is picking himself up off the stained sidewalk and brushing the dirt from his coat. The breeze is brisk where they are standing, which simply looks like a nondescript street corner that could have just as well come off of an assembly line. Argent is more than prepared to harangue Leadfoot for his lapse in attentiveness, but when he catches the far look in Leadfoot's one remaining real eye and the faintly glowing thin green crosshairs in his other eye, he merely mutters something to the effect that Leadfoot was supposed to his body, not run it over. Leadfoot finally realizes where he is and looks sharply around him to see where they have stopped. A dingy old fluorescent sign hangs held up solely by nylon cords hangs ponderously over their heads, creaking softly as it sways in the stiff breeze. A squat, battered old plexiglas storefront bearing the legend "Main Moon" in several different languages sits directly in front of them. The sign proclaims this establishment to be a noodle shop of virtually ancient, venerable origin. Bright light spills over the storefront and into the street, briefly bouncing off omnipresent scraps of randomized trash that are borne on the breeze. An unidentifiably delicious smell emanates from the restaurant, daring them, begging them to enter. Argent rubs furiously at the oil/dirt stains that have appeared on his clothes, but is unable to get them off. He stalks into the Main Moon, looking, as usual, very determined. Leadfoot follows him into the Main Moon, pausing only to unplug the Matsushita's battle computer from his skulljack. As he enters, the delightful smell causes Leadfoot's mouth to water in anticipation of yet another delicious meal, the second in as many days. His only regret is that he wishes he knew where he was; to ask would be unthinkable. Argent makes his way across the compact, amenable restaurant to where a man and a woman sit next to each other in silence in the corner, behind steaming bowls of hot noodles. He sits down across from the woman, and Leadfoot sits down across from the man. The woman is dressed in dark clothes, and is not remarkably beautiful, although she carries her nearly diminutive figure with a great deal of self-confidence. With dark glasses and murderous red hair, the welcoming smile is a definite relief. The man, on the other hand, is taller, and looks kind of like a gymnast. Thin and wiry, but not in a grim sort of way. His carefully mussed strawberry hair lends him the look of trustworthiness, the kind of guy you'd love to have on your side when you've accidentally gotten involved in a small war. "Hi, Bella. Good to see you, glad you could make it, etc., etc." greets Argent. "Argent, et cetera ad nauseum," Belladonna replies smiling. "Care to introduce your, ah, friend here." "After you, of course," offers Argent generously. A real, human waiter jogs up and puts two new bowls of superhot noodles in front of Leadfoot and Argent, and fresh clouds of billowing steam roil up in front of them. Leadfoot's stomach actually grumbles. "This is MecLan. A fellow Guild member, of course. I can't imagine what I'd do without him." Grin again. "This is Leadfoot. A bit of a novice, but he's learning quick. For now, I guess you could call him my 'bodyguard', for lack of a better insult." acknowledges Argent gruffly. "Geez, choomba, don't do me any favors 'r anything," Leadfoot responds. "Belladonna, MecLan, it's a pleasure to meet you both, of course." MecLan returns the favor with an easy nod of his head. "Argent, Bella has spoken of you often, though I am pleased to meet you I wish it were under better circumstances." "Don't we all," mutters Argent, then smiles, "Well. Here we are. Good soup?" "The soup is as it always is, barely palatable, Argent," Bella laughs, then more serious, "You want to know what the Guild's position is regarding ARES and their HKs - in other words, where do we stand." Argent nods. Bella leans forward and takes Argent's hands in hers, "Liralen and I are friends - I will do whatever I can to help but I do have other considerations." "Such as?" Leadfoot asks, eyes narrowing. "Such as their Guild, Leadfoot," Argent replies annoyed, turns back to Bella, "What's the status?" "There's a general Stage 1 alert; MecLan and I are on Stage 2 - no direct physical aggression against ARES - I can't help you break into their facilities, although I might be able to give you a few pointers." Leadfoot looks at MecLan, and speaks gently: "How 'bout you, chummer. You a friend of Li's too?" "I'm with Bella," MecLan replies and with a shrug adds, "After nine years it's a forgone conclusion." "Argent, I would like to be able to do more. I will bend every rule over backwards if that's what it takes to get Li back - but if I break them we could loose a lot of good people, I don't think Liralen would want that." Argent straightens with relief. "I can appriciate your postion, I'll take what I can get - I was expecting less actually," he breathes, "Thank you, Bella, MecLan." Belladonna and MecLan acknowledge this with the merest of nods. "Well, I guess we can start by giving you these," she hands Argent a bag, "These are the chips Eeyore and I looked over, not much in there but you may find them interesting. All the securities have been disconnected." Argent takes the bag and nods. "And Nekoko - I don't think that Chatsubo is the safest place for her, I don't see why we can't, say give her a lift somewhere - ARES wouldn't have to know about it." "That's fine," says Argent. "You can keep her safe until Leadfoot and I have something set up?" Belladonna and MecLan flick a glance at each other. An unseen signal spins between the pair and uncertainty creases their eyes. Obviously they didn't expect to be babysitting Nekoko after they got her out. "I can't promise you anything. As I said, if it looks like the Guild is moving against it, ARES won't waste anytime, they'll be on us hard and fast, but, yea, I may have a place I can stash her," pronounces Belladonna finally. Argent looks at MecLan, who acknowledges this with a blink. "Ok, then," Argent says. "Leadfoot and I are off to find a safe house. Don't call us, we'll call you." Leadfoot stands and replugs the Matsushita into his skulljack, the spidery crosshairs glowing in his Zeiss eye once again. "See you in the funny papers," wafts across to Argent and Leadfoot as they leave the comfortable confines of the noodle shop. The cold breeze outside stings their cheeks with specks of dirt as Argent and Leadfoot slip crosswise into the night once more. Article 219 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: A Peace of the Past... Date: 26 Jan 91 00:56:50 GMT The drizzle was miserably cold and wet; but Liralen was glad of the wetness as it mingled with the tears that she hadn't been able to stop crying all day. Random tears, not loud, they simply flowed from her steel blue eyes like the smallest of streams run through the woods. She could feel Medicine Hawk's eyes on her, concerned, watching, sorrowful. She was very glad that he was here as well, just as he had been by her when they had seen Arthalin fall. She wished that the pipes would just shut up. Their dirge was making her shiver and part of her wanted to shout, but he wouldn't have WANTED it this way. No, part of her said, he would have loved the pomp, the weeping of the sky, and the beauty of the budding maples above him. She smiled in her tears, remembering when they had embraced here, under the maples and watched the night sky through the branches. The passages were read, and she said with all the rest, "Know peace at last, battle-brother." Even as her heart knew that he had been most alive in war, most vividly alive in combat. And memories of his grace, his deadliness flitted through her head. Then that last memory of his entrails in the snow, his whiteness and the insistance of his gaze as he told her that he loved her. Then he had gone. "I loved you, too." she whispered, too softly for anyone but the ground to hear. For a second she slipped into battle trance in reflex, trying to escape the pain, but there was no where to go to. She laughed bitterly, remembering how she and Hawk had gone mad with loss and done what no one would have thought they could do. Human against Sidhe? Ridiculous. That was what the Dark ones had said, even as her katana and AK87, Hawk's Helmcleaver and semi-automatic had cut swathes through them, had butchered them. And when the mistaken battle, the battle that never have been but for a miscommunication of movement and the arrogance of two Lords of the Sidhe was over, she looked at those she had killed and only seen that they all looked like Arthalin. That was when she had finally allowed herself to cry. She started as Medicine Hawk gently touched her elbow. She looked around, the others have gone. She looked down into his red-rimmed eyes, and saw the tears. "I... I have to go... back. Away. I have to do something different for a while." there was a note of desperation, of pleading in her voice. She didn't want to abandon the best friend that she had ever had, but the pain was too much, this time. He nodded his red-brown head, and in his eyes, she saw the understanding that she needed. She sighed, and he openned his big arms for a hug. She stepped into it and wrapped her arms around his bulk and felt the comforting weight of his embrace. She hugged him hard, back. "Remember," Medicine Hawks said, "if you need anything... " his voice broke. His hands moved quickly, Tribal sign speech. "I know, Brother, and I will remember." Liralen Li hugged him once again, smiled a sad smile, and walked away. -------------- He was waiting for her, as he had said he would, at a run down, cyberware filled bar full of smoke and chrome named the Chatsubo. Her nose wrinkled at the stink of the place, as it had when she had approached the City on her bike. She wore a minature of the Legion eagle in the hollow of her throat. The handgun on her hip and the katana that was strapped to the pack are plain and unmarked. A few antique weapons specialists might have noted that the cording on the handle of the katana had been carefully done by hand in khaki and gold, in the plain design of a ronin for hire. She had come here before, slightly more cladestinely, but had learned enough to know how she should dress. The blue leathers had caught her eye on the way in, and she had liked the interior armoring as well. She hadn't had many chances or reasons to spend her campaign moneys in the 10 years on the other side of the Border, and all that money had been carefully invested over here for the 3 years that she had been gone. The clerk had looked at her with wide eyes after checking her balance for the purchase and had urged her to buy other things that she had no use for. She had only to look at the clerk to get him to stop. Running Wolf was much as she had remembered him, tall, clean shaven, long haired, and clad in fringed leather. His pipe added to the smoke in the room, and he was completely relaxed in a chair against the wall. She approved of his positioning, with the advertising display over his head, and nodded at him as she sat down in the other chair at the table. She leaned it against the wall as well. She sighed, softly, suddenly realizing just how alone she'd been feeling. Wolf said, softly, "You're bleeding." His voice seemed to be part of the air, the sound of the fire; it took her a split second to realize he'd spoken. When the meaning of his soft words sank in, she looked at him, startled. A quick check of herself and she frowned at him, "What do you mean, bleeding?" Wolf's eyes were slowly turning from their normal blue to green, "You're bleeding in here, soldier," he said, tapping his chest. "You've got a hurt so big, some of the wireheads across the room are feeling it. You're walking wounded, child; walking and talking and more than half wanting to die." Her eyes closed, "How... how can you tell?" She swallowed, listening for his answer, not sure if she wanted to hear it or not. Not sure if she cared. Suddenly the cold edge of a knife touched her throat and her whole body reacted in a movement that should have taken his hand off at the wrist. She heard Wolf's soft chuckle in her ears, and she opened her eyes to a snow-covered hillside. The sudden cold pierced her to the bone, and she gasped. >>My world,<< said the voice, and she saw an enormous wolf, laughing sardonically at her with his emerald-green eyes. >>Care to follow me?<< The momentary vision faded, and she found herself back in the Chat. Bewildered at the attack, at the lack of resistance, she looked around her to see half the patrons in the bar looking at her with unconcealled weapons. Running Wolf was no where to be seen. Embarrassed, angry, she shoved the katana back into the sheath. >>Catch me, catch me, if you can, said old Coyote to the man...<< She saw the flickering sway of fringe as a body moved out the door. Li frowned and flowed to a door with such speed that a good number of the guns in the room aimed at her instantaneously. She ignored them, and kept going, out, her only desire to prove that she could catch the renegade, the magic man. She followed him, just barely. Following the scent of him, the hint of his presense in the night air, the faintest fall of a foot, the brush of fringe, the parting in the crowd on the sidewalk, and the sound of his wolven amusement through the streets of the City. At one point she thought she heard the sound of distant thunder, but then she saw the signs for the underground trains. His silhouette showed, clear and black against the lights under the earth. She followed. The scream of the brakes reminded her of the scream of rockets taking off and she flinched. All the people... she was amazed at all the people crowded around her, packed into the spaces around her. Hundreds upon hundreds of complete strangers, and none of them looking at each other, none of them seeing her. Bewildered and lost in this sea of living humanity, struck by the utter loneliness of all these people even in the midst of a crowd, she froze. The hundreds of people of the Legion had always known each other, it had been family for her and all those who joined. They had had to know each other that thoroughly, because they had to work as a team, had to coordinate strengths and weaknesses, had to know what the others could do. And, in part, they had gotten to know each other as a defense against death, against being forgotten if they should ever die. Arthalin had been luckier than these people, she suddenly realized. Far luckier, indeed... Suddenly Wolf appeared beside her, relaxed and leaning agaist the wall at their back. "You know," he said, reflectively, watching the flow of people with his green eyes, "you were a fool to serve in the same division as someone you loved." Rage, denial, pain all fought for her mind, but her training was too good. She simply nodded and her eyes flooded with tears. She wiped them away and saw him move away. She followed at his back and ducked into the train with him. "Never again." she said, softly. His now blue eyes simply smiled at her, and he patted the seat next to him. And, as they travelled under the Seattle streets, he outlined their next job together. Article 225 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc-gw.amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Model 66 - Test Sequence Date: 1 Feb 91 01:14:22 GMT "Damn this slottin' pile of JUNK!!" Norbert kicked the black ovoid of a Y version of the Model 65, and the armor echoed softly with the blow. He sucked the finger that he had just pinched for the tenth time at replacing the chain gun ammunition cartridge, sighed, pushed his blonde hair back and got the next cartridge. The cheaper sting pellet cartridges were never as well machined as the bullet or flechette rounds, and caught whenever he tried to put them in. This time he managed to do it without mangling his fingers. The additional energy module was simple to replace, as it was standard. An additional small arms cassette had been tucked in just above the door, and he had to use a screwdriver to lever the old one out in order to get the new one in. He sighed as he closed up the armoring and checked the shock tips which had replaced the razors on the arms. One was loose, he tightened it, solidly. Satisfied at the rearming, he patted the HK, put everything away in the portable cabinet and the cabinet followed him back to the control booth. He studiously avoided the inhumanly still figure of the human test subject, laid out like a corpse on an air pad on the ground. He dogged open the first of the doors between the test area and the observation booth, and then waited, impatiently, for the first to close before the second openned. The cabinet a patient presence in the lock with him. Once in the booth, he breathed a soft sigh. "Hey, 'Bert, yew wanna cuppa coffee, afore we start this set?" Jake's drawl sounded from the doorway into the rest of the complex, as Norbert switched the systems on. "Yeah, thanks. Black, please." "'K." The door whispered closed. The silver serpants moved as they entwined around the spear of ARES in the the Caedemus Division logo. A model of the test room slowly rezzed into place on the display platform. Norbert snorted, the resolution was awful. Part of him longed to be in his familiar lab at home. He frowned and sighed and plugged into the test system and got down to work. Methodically, thoroughly, Norbert ran through the test sequences on the 65 using a holographic check board and a pre-programmed set of input-output matches that showed blue for not yet done, green for done and passed. They had had one malfunction the other morning, due, in part, to the white wires that they had put in as a result of some of the testing. As ever, fixing something usually 'caused something else to fail. He did not like failure. Jake banged into the room with two steaming mugs in his hands. He plunked one on the main control console. The other he sipped from while he watched Norbert at his work. His eyes were curious, watching to learn about this system; however, five minutes later, he reluctantly went to his control boards, plugged in, and started his warm-up sequences for the test subject. Norbert relaxed. Alex, late as ever, sauntered in and went to the hologram board. "Hi, guys." "Hiya." "Hello." Silence filled only with the soft hum of machines. "Ready." "Done." "'K." "Ready sequence alpha-niner-bravo. On my mark. Go." The test room darkened, and holograms filled it with buildings and alleys and shadows. Shapes moved in those shadows. The machine hummed, sensors that were in test mode telling it that the holograms were solid reality. The chain guns spun up to a soft scream of sound. A blue-steel shape stepped from the holographic shadows. The chain guns spat fire and lightning... The steel blue shape, however, was no more. The HK disappeared as well the whine of the chain guns winding down. The street noise and the soft white noise of the simulated rain was all that could be heard. The holographic model showed Red and Blue moving so quickly that they were a blur of colored light on the unsteady resolution of the system. Hide and seek through unreality with a machine made for the game, and a human who had played it for all her life. The only two moving objects in the room blurred by on the sensors; occassional spats of the quieter small arms; the occassional spang and shattring of the pellets hitting wall, hitting fixtures; the whistle of a mechanical arm; and the thud thump of a body hitting something. Movement made the only sound. Another spatter of arms fire, and the sound of breakage. Jake frowned as the holographic display of the test area fuzzed and blurred in one area. The sounds of running came through but at speeds that the human body normally couldn't sustain. Norbert raised an eyebrow when the blue blot took refuge in one of the few solid window ledges. Chain guns spun up, again, and Red came up and struck. The display hologram went out. Alarms and red lights.... "Automatic shutdown initiated. Observation input has been rendered inoperational." The computer's voice was calm, mechanical, even as both Jake and Norbert swore as failsafes shoved them out of their monitoring and possible control code and dumped them. The shocking sound of a quick series of heavy blows on the outer door, accompanied by the sound of breaking, tortured metal. "Shutdown complete." The sliding thump of a body along the door. Three deep shaking breaths. "Thank God for the automatic shutdown! She killed the guy she was first set up against. She could've gotten to us." Alex's voice was shaking. "She was tryin', man, she was tryin'..." Jake's voice was still fogged with the dump. "She almost made it through the first door..." Norbert frowned at his read outs. "Record sequence alpha-niner-bravo." In excrutiating detail the data from the standard optics, acoustics, and sensory loads as well as from all the instrumentation in the room slowly poured into the Matrix. It would be sent to the engineers on the different campuses and divisions. The data on the drone would be sent back to the labs to be used for the Model 66 that was in development. Another series of reflexive movements would be corollated into the mapping of the subject's combat system. Mapped against all the other moves they already had from her, the intersection of the sets allowed the mapping of a multiplicity of reflex. Li's combat skills were being taken for use. Article 226 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko's story 12 (long) Date: 2 Feb 91 04:40:48 GMT It had started to rain again, big fat rain drops landing against the window facing the street. The street was dark, cold, empty, wet. The lights of the Chatsubo reflected in the slick surface of the sidewalk. Inside, Ratz had turned up the heat so the barroom was hot, humid and stuffy. Nekoko, wearing a cotton blouse, a long skirt, and a barmaid's apron, was sweating most of the time. Then someone would enter the Chatsubo and she would freeze in the cold wet blast from the front door. The usual crowd on a week night. A few street toughs, strutting and flashing their prowess, the quiet sararimen who wanted a little excitement to break their boring life in the corporate arcologies, and the occasional street samurai, chrome and cybernetics, sitting with their backs against the walls, waiting for those big runs. Blackjack sat at a table near his sound equipment. Nekoko was worried about him. Lately, Blackjack spent less time playing music and more time sitting quietly at his table. Drinking. Nekoko brought him the expensive Dos Equis he requested and took away the empties. Each time she would wait quietly, standing before his table. Each time, she thought he would speak, tell her what troubled him, what caused him to lose himself in alcohol. She was fond of Blackjack. He had listened to her when she needed a friendly ear. Tonight, she stood in front of him again. He looked up. "Should I bring you another?" she asked softly. He shook his head, no. When Blackjack had been playing, Nekoko had been bringing him glasses of water to replenish the fluids he lost while he played. There was another glass of water on her tray now. She took that glass, put it on the table, picked up the two empties and put them on the tray. As she walked away, Nekoko had the feeling he was watching her walk away. The same as every night. The table at the end was occupied by several engineers and product designers. They had covered the table with papers, sketches, laptop computers, part catalogs and pencils. Net cables ran across the floor and plugged into the bar's telecom unit. Everytime Nekoko refreshed their drinks, they would draw blank sheets of paper over their work and glare at her. It was an unusual place to work, Nekoko thought, but they were unlikely to be disturbed. The bar was too noisy for bugging, too crowded for violence, and too unusual a location for someone to plan to spy on them. And the beer was cold and close at hand. Perhaps that is why they were arguing about costs, specs, and product lines at a table in the Chatsubo rather than in a hotel room. The other patrons in the bar ignored them. Each person passing the table was studied carefully by the muscle that the engineers brought. He was over 6 feet tall, heavy, perhaps 300 pounds, wearing a loose armor jacket that failed to hide his bulk. Nekoko noticed that the engineers' guard was armed as well, a pair of pistols at each hip, a heavy machinegun worn under the jacket, its muzzle peeking out from underneath the tail of his coat. Nekoko was returning from the women's bathroom when she ran into one of the engineers. He stopped, waited for her to pass him in the narrow hallway, and smiled. Nekoko's curiosity got the better of her. "What are you working on?" She smiled, cocked her ears. "It must be important." The engineer blushed and said nothing. He passed her and closed the door to the men's bathroom. "Nekoko," Ratz warned. "Don't go sticking your nose into those engineers' business. They're setting up a new company and want to be left alone. That's why they asked Hazard to stay nearby. Don't be bothering them." Nekoko emptied the dirty glasses into the bar sink and placed them on the countertop. "I know. But still..." "Nekoko." She took the loaded tray and walked over to the engineer's table. "Here. And you had the Asahi, right?" She passed out the bottles and glasses. As she handed the bottle to the short man to her left, she looked down onto the table. Several blank pads covered the sketches and design specs. The laptop in front of the short man to her left displayed a spreadsheet in which all the cell labels were coded. Papers roughed out the costs of manufacture, broken down by costs of parts, but failed to give any information about the new product being argued about all night. "Sapporo?" Nekoko decided to take a chance. As she took the last bottle off her tray, she let the bottle slip and fall onto the table. The bottle bounced once, rolled to the center and started leaking its beer onto the papers. "Ara!" Nekoko cried, reaching for the bottle. "Damn it!" Several engineers jumped up, tried to grab the bottle. Papers slid and scattered as the engineers tried to keep their work dry. Hazard, the guard, vaguely realized that something had gone wrong. He stood up and glared at Nekoko. Nekoko was taking peeks at each rough sketch as someone picked it up and wiped the beer off it. As each piece of the puzzle came to light, she became more and more disgusted. Hazard and one of the engineers finally noticed what was happening and pushed Nekoko away from the table. "We'll get our own beer now, thank you," they spat. Nekoko turned on her heel and walked off. Ratz had watched the whole affair from behind the bar. When Nekoko returned to the bar for another tray, his plastic arm dropped on Nekoko's shoulder, stopping her. Nekoko looked up into his ugly face. "So, what was that all about?" "All that," Nekoko answered scornfully, "to make a newer mechanical love doll." "So, is that all?" "You'd think they were developing something useful. Or important. Something that really needed security to keep from the competition." "And what's important, cat-girl? Who are you to decide what is important?" Ratz said with a sneer in his voice. "Mechanical love dolls aren't." Nekoko answered. Ratz lifted his plastic arm from Nekoko's shoulder. She turned and rubbed the spot where it had rested. Ratz turned back to the bar and started setting up another round. "Cat-girl, there are enough people out there who want love dolls. Something that resembles a girl or a boy enough that they will pay those engineers to give them that something. That makes it important to those guys. And to hell with what some cat-girl in a bar thinks. Understand?" "But that isn't love." Nekoko protested. "It's making love to a machine." Ratz turned quickly and stepped in front of Nekoko. He leaned down and spoke in short harsh breaths. "It does not matter. To the buyers. It is close enough. Good enough." He straightened up again, then continued. "After all, in a world with simsense, virtual reality, and designer drugs, what is reality anyway? If those guys are any good at all, you won't be able to tell those dolls from real people anyway. Short of a full Turing Test." Nekoko flicked an ear. "It's still not real." Ratz reached out and tweaked her ear. "Look who's talking, kitty." He lifted a loaded tray and placed it in front of her. "It's real enough. That's what's important. The rest doesn't matter," he growled. Nekoko took the tray and walked into the crowd. Ratz was wrong, she thought. But she could not explain why. Blackjack sat silently at his table, his glass of water untouched. Outside, the rain continued beating against the Chatsubo's front window. Another cold wet night in the Seattle Sprawl. Article 228 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Belladonna) Subject: Nekoko's Story - Enter the Guild Day 5.2 Date: 4 Feb 91 21:07:54 GMT MecLan and Belladonna left the noodle shop soon after Argent and Leadfoot departed. It wasn't a very populated part of town to begin with but the streets were even emptier than usual. They felt a few mind - just the usual brushes of emotions and strong surface thoughts. According to the urban myth, psis could dive into anyone's thoughts and surface with deep dark secrets. the only way a psi could enter a mind without risking great damage, was with the owner's permission. A normal mind may only be able to flex inward but on it's own turf, it can be very powerful. Psis have a lot of limitations - the biggest two being fear and ignorance on the part of many non-psis. Belladonna knew this from birth, her mother had been psi and because of it they lived in the sewers - MecLan had been thrown out of his home when his father discovered his son's talent. The Mechanics' Guild was one of the few organizations that not only accepted psis but encouraged them to explore and gain more and more control over their talent. Corps - funny, they put a lot of money into psi research and turn out crude artificial-psi hardware but hire the real thing? Only if they're properly "conditioned". The minds Bella and MecLan felt were fixed problems other than ARES or the HKs. The sky still spit at them - irregularly shaped puddles reflected the neon signs, softly calling to each other. The mechanics' soft soled boots seemed to echo in the stillness. It all seemed to portent evil times ahead to Bella. They reached the van and the sidedoor opened at their approach. The two slipped in and the door whispered shut behind them. Kenner sat in the driver's seat, Shree beside her shotgun, the remaining four lounged in the back on fold-down bunks and the floor. Bella unbuttoned her long dark coat, "Anybody lurking about?" "A few rats and a couple of cats looking for the rats," Shree reported then laughed, "The rats were hiding under the van." "Did you tell the cats?" MecLan asked while he searched his coat for cigarettes. Bella tossed him her pack which he neatly caught behind him. "Show off," Kenner murmured sarcastically nevertheless a slight smile playing on her lips. Shree grinned, "No, Bella, I would never scad on a fellow rat," and to Kenner, "and most definitely not to a cat." Kenner was often referred to as a cat, it fit. She meowed and scowled at Shree goodnaturedly. "What's our gig tonight, Bella?" "We are going to the Chatsubo to pick up a package. Find us a place nearby, Kenner, but clear - we might have to leave in a hurry." Kenner started the engine and pulled out into the street. "A two legged package?" Hayes asked from her perch on one of the fold down bunks. "Yea, with badguys all around. Well, maybe not badguys, ARES probably doesn't have the Chat staked out but they could be looking for information or maybe just keeping an eye onher. Be better if we could get her out without ARES or anyone else being the wiser, buy us all a round of time if we could. Figured we'd pull the same stunt we did in Victoria." Bella reached into a small compartment behind her and pulled out a bar of chocolate, unwrapped it, and broke it into bits. She began tossing it at the five in the back. "A switch?" Vint asked biting into his chocolate. "Yea, Shree's about the right size." Shree turned round in her seat, "Huh? The right size for what?" "Think fast, Shree," Bella tossed her a large chunk of the chocolate - she just managed to catch it. Kenner laughed and held out a hand for her share, "You weren't around then, were you? Don't worry, you're gonna love this gag. Hey, Bella, the med-kit's in 3C!" ..... It took them a few minutes to cover Shree's dark face with gel and bandages. The gel was pretty strong smelling stuff, should keep any of ARES' nasties from looking too close. While Nekoko and Shree were about the same size and build, they were quite different in the facial features department. Kenner pulled the van over and killed the engine while they were putting the final touch on Shree, a close fitting hood. "We've arrived, chummers. Am I coming?" "No, stick around here and keep a lookout for the badguys," Bella ordered and opened the sidedoor - the 6 mechanics piled out. Kenner nodded, "They're the ones in the black hats, right?" "See you later, Kenner." "Hey," she called as Bella closed the sidedoor, "bring me a bowl of soup or something." The door sealed shut, "Yea," she whispered, "be careful out there, chums, stay alive." Article 230 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: teneyck@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Ross TenEyck) Subject: Model 66 - knights at night Date: 5 Feb 91 03:10:07 GMT Nekoko pushed her hair out of her face, and squinted down at the hardcopy in front of her. "1845-9824-D2451," she read, and Running Wolf traced a finger over the maps in front of him, and stuck in a pin. He nodded. "8209-1034- E2985." Another pin. Nekoko sighed, and read another code. She and Wolf had been there for hours, in Argent's home, pinning down the physical locations of all the e-mail addresses that Gestalt had gotten for them. Wolf bent over the maps that he had stolen from the Phone Company archives, maps which showed the phone lines with their codes, the same codes the mailers used to send e-mail. Gradually, as they worked, clusters of pins were showing the locations of ARES bases. The city itself was studded with pins, and the outlying areas were showing a few clusters. Finally, they were done. Nekoko dropped the list, kicked it into the corner vindictively, and came over to look at the map. Wolf leaned back in his chair, and regarded it thoughtfully. Nekoko looked, but her eyes kept blurring, and she rubbed them. "I think..." Wolf said slowly, "I think they're holding her here." He pointed to one of the outlying clusters. "It might be one of these others, but the distance is right for that one, and the location fits what the mage told me." Nekoko shook her head to rattle her brains into life, and studied the map. "I guess," she said, after a while. "It's a good place to hide a small base. I didn't even know there was anything up there." "There wasn't, about four years ago," Wolf said. "Which was the last time I was there." His deep blue eyes regarded her. "You up to a little trip?" "You mean... check it out? Now?" Wolf nodded. "Gotta do it sooner or later," he said. "And better sooner. Gods only know what they're doing to her. And you've got to see it, since you'll be flying us in. C'mon, my bike's outside." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The moon was half full, and hidden by clouds, showing only as a mother-of- pearl spot in the night sky. Running Wolf cut the engine, and let the bike coast to a stop. He and Nekoko got off, and he rolled the bike into the woods by the dirt road, about four miles from where they thought the ARES base was. Nekoko pulled off her helmet, ran a hand through her sweaty hair. She looked around quietly. The night, the wind in her face on the ride over, the eerie just-visible shapes of the trees, and the silent presence in front of her, all made the time seem surreal. It was hard to believe that it was really her, really happening. Wolf turned, looked back at her from where he'd hidden the bike. His eyes shone green in the moonlight; he seemed part of the forest. "C'mon," he whispered, and his voice came to her on the thread of a breeze. He turned and faded into the trees. Nekoko followed as best she could. She floundered briefly in the undergrowth, in the utter black, and then Wolf materialized at her side. "Here," he said, in that barely-audible whisper, and pressed soemthing into her hands. She fumbled at it, until her hands remembered the shape and she realized it was a pair of night-goggles. She slipped them on, and the forest appeared in front of her in ghostly greys. Wolf nodded, and moved on. With the night goggles, she could see well enough to make her way through the woods, but she quickly realized that Wolf was holding back the pace, to allow her to catch up to him. He kept disappearing from view, and reappearing again, by her side, to point out the easiest way. Once she flipped the goggles to IR, but she still couldn't see him until he was there. He moved through the woods they way someone moves through their own living room; she knew that if he wanted to, he could vanish and she'd never see him. She shivered, and repressed the thought; and concentrated on moving on. Eventually, after a seeming eternity of stumbling through ghost-forest, she felt Wolf's hand on her shoulder. She nodded; they were getting close. She concentrated on moving as stealthily as she could. Wolf had vanished again, and she didn't even bother looking for him. She crept on. Suddenly, she felt the hand on her shoulder again. Wolf touched his finger to his lips, and pointed. Nekoko followed the direction of his finger, and saw dull metallic gleam of some kind of alarm box. Wolf motioned for her to stay where she was, and began to move. Even though she knew exactly where he had to be, Nekoko found it hard to keep her eyes on him. He looked like the shadow of a branch, like a bush, like anything else, and her eyes kept wandering away. But she forced herself to keep watching him, as he flowed ever so slowly up to the alarm. She couldn't see what he did, but after a moment, he motioned for her to follow. They moved forward again. Belly to earth, they crept to the top of the next rise. They looked down together, and saw it. It wasn't very impressive looking -- a few prefab buildings, clustered together, with a fence around them, and a sign saying "PRIVATE PROPERTY -- TRESPASSERS SUBJECT TO LETHAL FORCE". A glimmer of a grin flitted over Nekoko's face at the thought of how they intended to trespass. Wolf was still studying the terrain, and Nekoko forced herself to do likewise. There was a landing pad out back, and a chopper squatting there -- some kind of transport job, she couldn't tell more from here. The bulk of the base, no doubt, was underground, dug back into the hillside. She looked at the ground with a pilot's eye. Coming over the rise from the back there, she thought, one would be hidden from any radar here, until the last moment. Of course, they would have thought of that... She looked over at Wolf. His eyes met hers, brilliantly emerald, and he turned to look back with half lowered eyelids. He layed his hands out in front of him, closed his eyes momentarily, then opened them. Then the light in his eyes went out. Nekoko almost jumped, it was so sudden and clear. She waited, nervously; Wolf was completely motionless beside her. The wind stirred the trees above her, and she watched the clouds move in front of the moon. Suddenly, she felt cold, and she wished she were back at Argent's house, or even in the back room in the Chat. Eventually, she noticed a glimmer in Wolf's eyes. Slowly, slowly, it built back up to the normal light, and he stirred, turning to look at her. He motioned back, and they slithered back down the slope. When they had backtracked about two miles, Wolf stopped, stood motionless for a while. He picked up a dead branch, and held it for a moment. Then, he hissed a word and broke it over his knee. He turned back to her, and his eyes were on fire. "She's there," he whispered. "They've got her. She's not hurt, but there's something not right with her. Those bastards..." he stood motionless again for a moment. Then he turned suddenly, and walked on. He didn't say another word, as they moved through the forest; nor as they rode back down the road and into the city. He flashed Argent's security pass at the gate without even glancing at the guard. Nekoko could feel the tension in his back as he gunned the bike up the driveway and parked it. They walked in the front door, and Argent was waiting for them. His face looked the question, and Wolf nodded, tossing his gloves in the corner, and pacing restlessly. "She's there," he said. He spun around. "How soon can we be ready?" "Not before tomorrow night," said Argent firmly. "And besides, you have got to get some sleep. Especially if you're going to get your ass shot off storming in solo to rescue Li. Or did you have a different plan?" Wolf grinned. "Of course I have a better plan than that. I'm going to take Medicine Hawk with me." Argent grunted. "We'll talk about it tomorrow." He hesitated. "Wolf... there's someone here to see you." Wolf frowned. "Who?..." he pauses, and his eyes glittered for a moment, then snapped shut. "Oh, gods, no..." he whispered. Argent shrugged helplessly. "She said she knew you, and Hawk vouched for her, so I let her in... she's in the upstairs bedroom." "No, she's not," said a voice like cool water, from the darkness of the hallway. "H'lo, Wolf," she added, coming into view; tall, slender, with the breathtaking beauty of Elvenkind. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" she said, settling against the couch and folding her arms. Wolf sighed. "Too long, and not long enough. Not long enough by half, love." Article 236 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@uncmed.med.unc.edu (Belladonna) Subject: Nekoko's Story - Mechanics' Guild - Day 5 (late) Date: 11 Feb 91 19:28:58 GMT Well folks we seem to have timeshifted a bit here. First Nekoko was in the Chatsubo and now she's magically with Running Wolf and the rest of the gang. That's ok, we'll just timeshift again :-). If you want to know about all the particulars of how the Bella and her crew got Nekoko out well, you'll just have to wait :-). Either it will be a flashback or available - like the Reunion scene from _The Princess Bride_ by special request - we haven't decided yet. As always, comments are welcome and appreciated. ----------------------------- Nekoko's Story - the Mechanics - Day 5.3 After Belladonna and MecLan delivered Nekoko to a reluctant Leadfoot they walked slowly back to the van. They strolled arm in arm, savouring the moment of quiet privacy - the next few days, after Argent, Running Wolf, and the others got Li back, could be very busy. Bella let her mind wander back to the first time she'd met Li. A junior exec had pissed off the wrong person. As he drove down a Seattle street one of two bombs rigged to his car went off, flipping it over and pinning him inside realively unhurt but trapped. Bella happened to be passing. The second explosive had jammed - when the junior saw Bella and spotted the Mechanics' logo on her beret, he negotiated for her services from inside the car. It was the fastest deal she'd ever been made. She checked out the car and discovered the other bomb. When she told the junior about it he nearly fainted. The bomb was jammed but good, she couldn't defuse it but she managed to stabilize it. There she was, holding an unstable explosive in her hands while some junior cried in his cage underneath. That's when Li showed up. "Need a hand, sister?" Li asked from behind Bella. Bella looked over her shoulder and met the steel blue eyes of one of the deadliest women and one of the best friends she'd ever meet. "Sure - there's a prybar in my toolbag - left side of me. Use it to open the door and get that asshole out of this deathtrap. For half of what I'm getting, of course." Li's eyebrows arched slightly - amused. "Of course, as long as you're not working for free." Bella shook her head and quoted the rate. "What will you do?" Liralen smiled faintly. Bella grinned, "I'll keep holding this." Li peered over Bella's shoulder and her brows dropped to a scowl and a low whistle escaped her lips, "Better you than me, Lady." Bella's hands were precariously balancing the various parts of the explosive. "How long 've we got?" she reached into Bella's toolbag and fished out the prybar. "A few minutes - about 3 seconds when I let this thing go." Li grinned, "Sounds like fun." She slipped round the vehicle and began smoothly forcing the door open. Bella calmed her mind and compensated for every carefully rhythmic tremor. Li finally wrenched the door open and pulled the man free. He scrambled round and reached back into the car. Bella felt him tug on something - the bomb almost dropped, "What the hell are you doing?" "My case - I need my case," he stopped tugging. "Well, keep doing that and you'll set this thing off!" Bella cursed him through clenched teeth. He popped his head up and glared at her, "You don't understand, it's very important that I get this case out - just hold that thing and I'll get it out!" His head disappeared and before Bella could open her mouth he yanked the case with all his strength. The bomb slipped - Bella caught it but the movement triggered the timing switch. She stopped it but just barely - she wouldn't be able to hold it for long. "Get him the hell out of there!" she roared. Li grasped hold of the man's trousers and yanked him out, letting him fly and land somewhere behind her. She bent down and paused. "Fuck the case, Lady, I can't hold this thing much longer." Li's head popped up, "I thought I heard something," she sounded distracted, "a child, I think, crying." The blood drained from Bella's face - she hadn't bothered to check the car with her psi. She quickly scanned it and found her. "There's a little girl in the back. It's gotta be quick." "The case or the girl, right?" "The case is filled with gold," the man called, sitting on the street rubbing his knees, "forget the girl - she's only a step-daughter." Bella and Li's eyes met - they both nodded and Bella didn't need psi to tell what Li was thinking. Bella nodded, "Quickly." Li picked up the prybar again. "The trunk - she's right there." Li moved towards the back of the car, the man, realizing his gold was being forsaken for the child tried to grab the bar out of her hands. The bar jerked back and his breath came out in a squeal of agony even as he flew backwards again. "Ready?" she asked Bella, when she was in position. Bella nodded. Sweat ran into her eyes - felt like tears. Li, with one wrench, popped the trunk and reached in - half a second later she had the child in her arms. She turned and ran, cradling her to her breast. Bella got ready to drop the bomb and run when she noticed her sleeve. "Hey!" she called, "I'm caught!" Li put the girl down, spoke to her, and pointed to a dumpster. The child nodded and ran to hide behind it. Li sprinted back to Bella and saw her caught sleeve. She tugged on it - Bella gasped. Li stopped, her eyes narrowed, and she scolded herself under her breath, "Stupid, stupid, stupid..." An easy flick of a fingertip blade slit the material free, done so quickly Bella didn't even see where the edge had come from. Li took a hold of her arm, "you ready?" Bella nodded. "On three. One, two, three!" she let go of the bomb and Li, with a tightened grip, pulled her away. The pull started both of them in the right direction. They managed five steps when the explosion hit. The blast threw them into the air. Bella instinctively tucked and rolled when she hit the ground. After the dust settled Bella looked up and met Li's smiling, grimy face. "That was pretty good - been blown up often?" Bella shrugged, "A few times," she grinned, "Hit a wall once. You?" "Oh... let's just say I try not to make a habit of it." She pushed herself up to her feet. "Name's Liralen, call me Li," she held out her hand. Bella took it and let herself be pulled up, "Belladonna - most people call me Bella." Liralan cocked her head, still grinning, "As in atropine?" Bella shook her head, "No, like the song. Mom loved this old old band called Dire Straits." Liralen laughed, "Some mom. Come on, let's get our little friend." The two women brushed themselves off as they picked their way through the bits of car and pools of fuel. They passed the pieces of the still suited junior all around the car, he must have still been trying to get the case when Bella dropped the bomb. The car was just a crater of twisted steel and glass, as the second bomb had punched a hole into the passenger compartment. The explosion, like the first one, hadn't set off the fuel of the water-to-hydrogen fueled car. Li's eyebrow went up, a pair of gauntlets came out and onto her hands, she ducked into the blasted shell of the car with the prybar. After some swearing, sounds of breakage and effort, she came out, using her legs to haul out a twisted, pancake of blasted material, almost looking like a drop of water that had touched down on dry ice and froze on contact. Her smudged and blackened face intent, she whacked it with the prybar to fold it into a shape that she could carry. Bella started laughing. Li picked up a fortune in gold, disguised by burn, blast, and bits of leather and other metals. "Looks like our little one is going to be comfortably well off." She cradelled the lump on her hip and then continued toward the dumpster. The little girl peeked out, came running, and leapt up onto Li. She laughed and hugged her tightly with the one free arm, and then dropped the lump of metal to hold the suddenly crying girl with both arms. Li looked at Bella, agony in her eyes. Bella took the girl and started to sooth her, to talk to her, tell her that she was safe, now. That, yes, that step-father wasn't ever coming back. Eventually the girl quieted to hiccoughs and sniffles and, with some effort, Bella even made her laugh. Li grinned in relief, and picked up the metal again. The little girl appropriated her other hand and, trustingly, walked alongside the two women. Bella gazed up into the grey sky and let the cool rain softly pelt her face. She began to hum as the three walked down the street. "Seattle sunshine." Li said grinning, enjoying the wetness. "One of the best things about this town, the rain certainly cleans it up..." "You hungry? I'll buy you dinner." "I know this great noodle shop, hottest damn bowl of noodles that ever cleared up a sinus problem..." And they laughed and walked through the ever-present rain. ..... Belladonna found herself back in the present - MecLan held her arm and it was raining. Bella began to softly sing what she'd been humming.... "Sky is crying, The streets are full of tears Rain come down wash away my fears and all this writing on the wall Oh, I can read between the lines. Rain come down forgive this dirty town Rain come down and give this dirty town a drink of water... A drink of wine....." and she was crying. Article 281 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Model 66: White Rook Taken (part 1 of 2) Date: 9 Mar 91 01:04:32 GMT The coffee was old, bitter, and cold. He swallowed it, anyway, and grimaced as it went down. Clive stared morosely at the file that lay open on the desktop of his computer. He had tried with all he had known about presentations, deal making tactics, and sheer engineering technical data to do it right. After taking a single look at her psych profile all the engineers he had poled had said that she should have simply been hired. It would have been intelligent, morally correct, and probably far less expensive to have simply hired her to teach them her skills, rather than using the new control circuits. Even after the work had been started they could still have persuaded her to hire on. But he had failed to convince them. While Clive sat in his defeat, Kinne had also pointed out something that had him turning hot and cold in turns; but the logic of what Kinne had pointed out and the burst of joy at the result had completely drowned out the small voice that cried out at the back of his mind. There was only one legitimate person who could object to their keeping the subject, and with him gone... He flipped through the file, found what he was looking for, and then pulled up a Seattle directory. His eyes widened when he found what he was looking for. He highlighted the number and heard the phone ring, once, twice, three times. Someone answered, his eyes closed on the emotions within, and he hung up. That simple. He swallowed once and the breath shuddered through him. Clive got on the phone, "Jake, I gotta special test case for you. Subject uhm... " he tried to sound nonchalant, "alpha nine hasn't been giving you any trouble lately, has she?" "Not since that bravo sequence three days ago." "Good... we've also got the cross correlation control, now?" "Yup... down to picking up an IC." "Good. O.K. Here's what we're going to do..." ------ Argent had had enough of this late night, early morning shit. But he was pretty happy that he had gotten Belladonna in on the deal. He felt more comfortable with backup, and this whole thing looked to be technically over his head. His specialty was keeping people alive, getting them what they needed to survive. That was all. He burrowed deeper into his warm, self-adjusting bed, and suddenly found that he was crying. Crying because he missed her, missed her so badly that he ached with it in a way that nothing he could do seemed to touch it. He longed for her quiet deadliness, her grace under this kind of pressure, for her strength and careless laugh. He missed her cooly sharp mind filled only with thoughts of living for the moment. Missed knowing that he was utterly safe with her around. Leadfoot was a good guard, but after getting run into from behind and being threatened with that sword even Argent knew that he was not anything like Li. Argent finally went to sleep after an hour's restless tossing. The next thing he knew she was kissing him. Kissing him soft and sweetly, her hand gently caressing his face and throat, her other hand stroking his chest, his belly, and between his legs. He moaned knowing it must be a dream. But even dreaming he knew her touch on him. He opened his mouth to speak to her and suddenly found a ball-gag in his mouth. Her hands deftly buckled the straps behind his head. Argent's eyes flew open and met shocking mirrored chrome. He couldn't cry out past the gag, couldn't speak, couldn't do ANYTHING... and those blind chrome eyes simply watched him as he tried to fight her, tried to get away. He didn't have a newbie's chance with the Hell Slammers. Her speed turned her into an irridescent fan of motion under the street florescents. Soon he was tied down, cuffed and roped. It's all a dream, his mind insisted even as he felt the cuffs bite into his flesh. It's all a DREAM, he wanted to scream around the gag in his mouth. Oh, God, it *has* to be a dream, he thought even as she played with his body, touched him just So, taking him into the softness of her mouth, and then stroked him in a way that had him trembling, pulling, tensioned deliciously against his bonds. Then she straddled him, he felt himself entering her soft warmth, and she started to ride his bound body. His moan didn't get past the gag, but his body responded to her every motion, even as his mind raced, trying to figure out why she came to him in this manner. Sex had never been a big thing with her. Slowly, she built on his tensions, built on the rhythm until his mind simply gave up... And then it didn't matter, as the orgasm started to bloom within him. Suddenly, the glint of steel, steel that seemed to look him in the eye, and then turned. His body spasmed in terror as much as in the thrall of utter ecstasy, as the katana pinned Argent's beating heart to the bed. Article 280 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: phyllis@amc.com (Phyllis Rostykus) Subject: Model 66: White Rook Taken (part 2 of 2) Date: 9 Mar 91 01:19:19 GMT Ten minutes later a matte black truck pulled, far too fast, up to Argent's mansion. Two men dressed in khaki raced to the door with a stretcher, and started trying to tear the door down with their knocking. They grew very still when faced with the assortment of weapons and folks that were the present residents. But they quietly and insistantly demanded that they see Argent. Now. Medicine Hawk finally overroad Leadfoot's objections and went in to see if Argent was asleep. He found the naked, bound, and cooling body with a tear still hanging from a wide open eye. The window was still open and a katana whose handle was bound in purest white stood watch over the newly dead. ============== Medicine Hawk watched curiously as the two men slid the body into the back of the truck and though some sort of field. They got up, hauled it onto a table, turned on a couple of floodlights, pulled out the blade; and with minimal fuss and muss, the chest cavity was cracked open, the damaged heart taken out, and Argent's body was quickly attached to some machine. They went into fenzied activity with quiet cursing and suddenly something screamed in metallic agony. The cold, whitened body suddenly flushed and slowly relaxed. "YES." said one. The two men's frantic activity slowed, and then stopped when one of them spoke the single word "Stable." The other merely nodded. "Damn me." Hawk said, softly, something like jealousy and hatred in his voice, thinking of all his companions who he might have been able to be with, now, if this truck had existed on his battlefields. "How in hell does he rate?" "We owe him." one of the men said, startling Medicine Hawk. "He's a stone cold customer, sometimes supplier, and major holder in our biz. Automatic insurance. Way he lived so careful, though, he's never had to collect afore. From what I know of this, though, he isn't gonna be thankin' us for some time to come." "Huh?" "You ever had to recover from a heart transplant?" "Uh... no." "Think about it." The back door to the van slowly started to slide down. "Oh... hey, you want the sticker?" "The sticker?" "Yeah, this." And out of the truck came the gleaming katana. "Oh, right." Medicine Hawk reached out a hand for the weapon, and grasped it by the grip. Something suddenly went cold in him, as he checked the wrapping. "Thanks." he said, around the feeling of something terrible. "Sure thing." And the truck drove off, leaving Medicine Hawk looking at a grip that only two people that he had ever known in the world would wrap in just that manner, one of whom had died long ago. Article 291 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: joan@med.unc.edu (Joan Shields) Subject: Bad Moon Risin' Date: 22 Mar 91 16:25:45 GMT ***************************************************************************** -- Virtual Camera Direction: -- unmarked paragraphs are shot from narrator's point of view. -- voice-over soundtrack -- < > paragraphs are pull-back and show scene. --***************************************************************************** "Yo, Nightflyer." I say to the ambulance tech. He looks surprised. Not many people this far west recognize the Owl Tribe tattoos. "Cops don't need to hear about this, right?" I toss a credchip to him. He smiles at the readout and answers, "Hear about what?" as the vehicle rolls off into the darkness. "This is hers. It's Li's sword. Sendin' us a message." "They tried to kill Argent with Li's sword? Why? They trying to warn us off?" asks Leadfoot. "Worse. It was Li, herself. I'd bet my ass on it. How many *other* people you know could get past this bunch without being seen? Hell, I wasn't even asleep yet." "She and I, we were . . ." I feel that I will make a fool of myself if I continue to speak. I look at Running Wolf. My hands move quickly. Tribe sign speech. He nods, he raises an eyebrow in surprise. "We gotta find her, get her out. Right away. No fuckin' prisoners." <"What the hell was that all about?" asks Leadfoot, moving his hands in imitation of Medicine Hawk.> <"What he said was this:", Running Wolf begins. Right fist strikes chest. " 'We share one heart '- means 'I will die for you', sign for 'Tribe brothers'. He and I could say that about each other." > --***************************************************************************** -- Ken Aubey ( kaubey@europa.asd.contel.com) --***************************************************************************** Article 295 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo: >From: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu (Hubert Bartels) Subject: Nekoko and Medicine Hawk Date: 25 Mar 91 01:12:27 GMT Nekoko jumped aside as a Matsushita magazine bounced past her on the driveway. Around her, there was a new tension on everyone's face, an anger that wasn't there before. She turned around to watch the ambulance disappear into the night. The people Nekoko had come to rely upon and looked up to, were dazed, lost, and shocked by the night's surprises. Argent. Stabbed through the heart with his lover's katana, he looked old and pale when they carried him out to the waiting ambulance. Running Wolf. Stunned, grim, he was looking down at Li's sword, turning it over and over in his hands. Ylse. Her face was unreadable in the darkness. Li. Lost, she was wandering the darkness, a programmed killer for the people who took her. Leadfoot. Confused, quiet, he watched Medicine Hawk sign with his hands and walk away. Medicine Hawk. 'Hawk was working himself into a murderous rage. "...no fuckin' prisoners," he said as he hurled the Matsushita magazine past Nekoko. Then he pulled another magazine from his pocket, a magazine marked with a narrow red stripe. A magazine carrying rounds with explosive tips. After inserting the magazine into his carbine, he stormed off into the house, muttering and swearing under his breath. Leadfoot moved his hands and asked about the Tribal sign language that Medicine Hawk had used. Nekoko listened as Running Wolf explained that 'Hawk and Li had sworn oaths to each other, oaths that tied them together, promised that each would be willing to die for the other. "Very heavy stuff. I didn't know they were that close," he added. The lights of the house shone across the expanse of the driveway where they were standing. Long shadows stretched from their feet out into the night. Nekoko shivered once, as much from the cold as from the thoughts of what might take place. She walked away from Running Wolf and Leadfoot. The front door was open, a long shaft of light into the outdoors. Nekoko passed through the ornate doorway and pulled the door closed. Inside, she went in search of Medicine Hawk. There was only empty pizza boxes, chairs and overstuffed sofas in the living room. The kitchen was quiet, cold, littered with empty NearBeer cans. She found him sitting at the dining room table, loading explosive cartridges into magazines. Nekoko watched him for a moment. Medicine Hawk would set a box of explosive cartridges on the table, pull a Matsushita clip out of the duffel bag beside him, and empty the smaller rounds on the dining room table. There were already several hundred smaller rounds, covering the table top, littering the floor. Medicine Hawk would then load the clip with ammunition from the box of explosive cartridges, jamming each round into the clip with a small humph of expelled breath. He worked quickly, almost silently. When he noticed he was being watched, he looked up suddenly. Nekoko caught her breath; she had never seen such empty lifeless expression before. Medicine Hawk stared at Nekoko in silence. She almost took a step back, almost left the room and fled. But she made her stand. "Now what?" Medicine Hawk dismissed her and returned to loading the Matsushita clip. "And afterwards? What then?" Nekoko made herself ask him. There was still time to leave the room, get on her motorcycle and ride for Seattle. Medicine Hawk finished the clip and added it to the large stack of clips on the table. "Afterwards?" he said. He looked up at Nekoko again. "Afterwards is irrelevant. We're going to hit them sumbitches hard, roll over them, and make them pay for what they've done. If I see the sun come up, I will talk with you about afterwards." He spoke in a monotone, devoid of life or anger. Nekoko felt her own anger steal over her, a hot red warmth that flushed her face, made her ears flatten. She narrowed her eyes. "Who is going to pay, Medicine Hawk? For what?" She stepped closer to him and leaned across the table. "If you just want to kill, then I don't want any part of it. I didn't come along to run a vendetta against ARES, I came to find Li." "Fine," Medicine Hawk snorted. "Then go. You'd never have made it in the Legion with cowardly attitude like the one you've got." Nekoko shook off the insult and raised her voice. "Oh really? Not that I'm a soldier, but I always thought the military was based on service, not revenge..." "Woman!" Medicine Hawk shouted. He jumped to his feet and slammed his hands on the table top. "You. Are. Pushing. It. Go. Go and leave me alone." Nekoko stopped. She had never noticed it before, but when Medicine Hawk drew himself to his full height, she still towered over him. He looked like a small cute angry teddy bear with mirrorshades. Struck by this strange thought, she suddenly laughed. The sound of the laughter struck Medicine Hawk like a blow. He stood there stunned, wavering for a second before falling back into his chair. Nekoko stopped laughing and stood up straight. "No, I came to find Li. To help her friends to find her. But not to help her friends massacre people who just happen to be in the wrong place. I'll fly you in, fly you out, even kill if it is really needed. But don't ask me to help you in a massacre." Medicine Hawk stared at her, silent, and grim. "Besides, why be obvious?" Nekoko said. "Isn't taking Li from them revenge enough? Doing it quietly, so that they don't know what happened to their 'project'?" She picked up one of the discarded rounds and rolled it back and forth on the table. She looked down at the round, silent for a moment, thinking. Then she looked up at Medicine Hawk, her cat eyes reflecting in his mirrorshades. "You were a soldier once. Why should the 'grunts' in the field pay for the mistakes of their officers? " Medicine Hawk gave no sign of having heard. He turned back to the stack of Matsushita clips on the table and began to load them into the duffel bag. Nekoko watched silently. Then he stood up, slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, picked up the Matsushita carbine and walked out of the room. "Wait. Wait, 'Hawk." Nekoko heard his footsteps in the hallway, moving towards the front door. "Now what?" she said to herself. She stood in silence as she heard Medicine Hawk leave. Running Wolf and Leadfoot looked up at Nekoko's approach. She was running, tears in her eyes. "Did you see 'Hawk?" she asked as she stumbled up to them. "He's gone. He's carrying that carbine and a bag of ammo..." "Check the cars, Leadfoot. I'll go around the front of the house," Running Wolf ordered. "Neko