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The Misfits Issue 1
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------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to the first issue of The Misfits.
The Misfits: Predat0r - The Duke - Evil - Sinister X
Release Information:
Title : The Misfits
Issue : 001
Date : 04 July 1992
Time : 15:30:00
Topics : Cyberpunk Stories
Format : IBM Ascii Text
Size : 1255 Lines 60687 Bytes
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introductions
The Misfits were formed as a direct result of boredom. Yes we were tired
of reading the same old stuff from the same old group. Those into text files
know that this group is known for writing about this and that group writes
about that. Not many groups have diversity in their format. We are not
knocking anyones group, we just want to bring something new and different to
the people. We don't want to have to conform to some format and talk about it
until it becomes dead and the group dies from lack of information. The theme
of each Misfit release will be the same but each release will be different
from the last. Then again maybe we will have a smorgasbord of stimulating
reading with no connection whatsoever.. basically just enjoy! We will also
take any type of article, story or newsbit you might want to submit.
Predat0r
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A large shadow fell over the table. A very large shadow.
"Is that depleted uranium in your pocket, or are you just hot to see
me?"
"Am I to assume from that question that you got the imaging working on
the rad detectors?" the suit asked icily. She was all sharp corners
and biz.
"Here it is," Brick said, tossing her the datacube. "Only a few
degrees resolution, but that's all you can expect from a serendipitous
capability like this." He seated himself opposite the prim, tiny
lady.
Her hands trembled slightly as she caught the cube. She raised it
towards her, eyes aglow with need, and then caught herself. She
suddenly lowered the cube to the table and pushed it away. "I will
audit the code shortly, but I have something else for you first.
Payment and a new Request For Proposal." She was expressionless
again.
She handed a credstick to Brick. "This is a payment for the new
capability, and the contractual bonus for your directed ablation
modification. The upgrade achieved 93% market penetration among
current owners."
"No surprise," Brick said, "your customers are the types of paranoids
who will buy every protection they can get. Is the depleted uranium
part of the RFP, or was that just a test?"
"That is correct," she said, drawing an ammo clip out of her pocket.
"This is the next product to be introduced by the portable armaments
sector of our offensive capabilities division. Hypervelocity
armor-piercers. Fin-stabilized, discarding sabot. Mach 7 from a
reinforced 250 mm-long barrel. The anti-armor capability it provides
in a sidearm is comparable to that of the Alliance Systems Super-Viper
Aerial Assault Weapon."
"Great, now you can take out a heavy-tank with a Sunday night
special." Brick slipped one of the 'bullets' out of the clip and
examined it.
"I would prefer tungsten myself," he said, "especially after everybody
gets my upgrade. Refractory and no gamma signature. When you're in a
gunship, even the 500 round magazine the assviper carries doesn't have
much affect on your detectibility, but a handweapon has different
requirements."
"Marketing has determined that d.u. is the optimum projectile
composition for introduction at this time. This is due to the cachet
factor, in combination with its pyrophoric properties and the
opportunity for further product cycles."
Brick smiled at that. "I assume that last point is the real reason.
When do you turn these beasties loose on the unsuspecting world."
"These FSDSHAP rounds will be announced next week. The advertising
campaign will ensure 98% name recognition among our defensive systems
clients within ten days. We anticipate that the optimal market window
for the introduction of countermeasures will be four to six weeks
later."
"I assume you want a solution that is ineffective against tungsten."
"That requirement is merely implied by the RFP." She handed him a
datacube. "We anticipate that similar RFPs in future product cycles
will alter that requirement, consistent with our parent company's
symbiotic development process."
"Have you got the sims and specs for these shells?"
"They are included in the RFP." She indicated the cube.
"I'll have a quote for you tomorrow. It will be high."
"That has been anticipated."
"Did you want to look at the imaging code?"
"I shall do a preliminary audit now," she said. The slight tremble to
her hands was back.
"Go for it," Brick said.
She slotted the cube at her occipital and drained it. She folded her
hands on the table and maintained her posture as she closed her eyes.
Five minutes later she collapsed back in her chair. She slid out of
her coat to air her sweat-drenched blouse. Her fingers had a little
trouble loosing her hair and spreading it out to dry. She futily tried
to wipe the sheen off her face with a small silk handkerchief, then
accepted the sorbwipe Brick offered. "Damn that's good. That's good.
Twelve years and I still can't believe it. You'll always be the best,
dear. Damn. The algorithms. Oh my god."
"I love to watch you read it," Brick said. "You are a rare and
wonderful person, a true connoisseur. There aren't very many people
who appreciate such things any more."
"Oh, that's better than Knuth. I did some last night. You're better."
"Tut, tut," Brick chastised gently, "ladies don't speak comparisons."
"You're better. I've done them all. You're the best. I've done
everything by all the old masters. I took the bright spots from every
punk in Hungary. When Gates was thawed I had him direct. I spend all
my time cracking the tightest code from the hottest wizes, and nobody
compares to you. Every time I get something from you, it's like the
first time you showed me the FFT."
"Settle down."
"This is one of the best things you've ever done. I thought your sonic
holo system was great but this is better. It's even better than your
eight-line four-color proof."
"You're just saying that because you want to get into head with me."
He knew it was a mistake as soon as he said it, and cursed himself.
"I want to, but you're still the best. Why can't we?" Desperation in
her eyes.
"You know very well why."
"We can have med teams standing by, we can do it in the operating
theater..."
"Grace..."
"They can even open up my skull ahead of time so they can get in fast,
just in case."
"You know it's not going to happen, there's too much risk."
"I'll take that risk."
"I won't. The last time I did it, I swore that it would never happen
again. I can still feel her."
"Open loop, you won't be able to feel me then."
"I'll know when it happens, and that will be the same."
She was silent.
"This is as close as we're ever going to come." Brick held up the
datacube. "I'm sorry, that's just the way it is."
There was silence for a minute. Two minutes. "I guess I'll have to
settle for that then." She stood sadly and picked up her coat. She
straightened suddenly.
"I hate you."
She walked out the door. All sharp corners and biz.
----------------------------------------------
Copyright 1991 by David Palmer
Characters may be used with prior permission.
FSDSHAP rounds will not be generally available to the public until
after the countermeasure Brick develops are available.
They will cost far too much to carry around as your standard
loads, unless you know that you're going against something
that will require them. The company in question doesn't really
want to sell any, they just want to sell Brick's upgrade. (Allowing
people wearing their armor to be killed would be bad for the rep,
even if they do sell the projectiles that do it.)
--
David Palmer
palmer@gap.cco.caltech.edu
...rutgers!cit-vax!gap.cco.caltech.edu!palmer
"Operator, get me the number for 911" --Homer Simpson
The Unnamed Storyline continues to skulk around in my head, but the next
part or so aren't finished. However...
--------
Rita slipped off from the Wormhole early that night, feeling unusually
tired, her senses wrapped in a mild gauze of fatigue toxins. And all the
raging thoughts that swirled around her like confused bumblebees in the dark
interior of the Grinder club just gave her a headache.
Routine trip home, ghouls glistening eyes sliding in recessed sockets to
follow her movements. Their minds were fetid little bits of failed schemes and
plans that slammed them into the lowest Sprawl social level. She almost felt
sorry for some of them, but it was more like a wish that she *could* feel
sorry.
Once home, a small but nice apartment in one of the few security apartment
buildings in the Sprawl, exhaustion began batting at her in a playful manner,
leading her to the bed with a night-jump on, in case of a mission call from
the Mechanics center. She didn't expect one, though, since Bonnie was still
out in Mexico and techincally, Rita was supposed to be "supervising". Of
course the rules were sometimes lax about *where* she supervised from...
Fading into a less comprehensive thought mode, Rita ticked off to sleep,
her mental images fitifully breaking apart into their components and letting
her sub-conscious into the foreground.
She dreamed about Bonnie.
The oil fields of Mexico stretch wide and empty. During the Attrocities,
millions of barrels of black, heavy oil had been spilled onto the sands,
thirstily absorbed by the dry desert. Once white, soft yellow became tinged
black and gray. Nothing grew from the abandoned fields, the wells rusting and
corroding away alone. Sand glued with the rich crude re-enacted a process of
fossilization older than man. Jagged skeletons of brackish silicon eventually
outlined where the wells had once been.
Then the fires came.
Bonnie was silent as the tribe led her out of the stuffy, dank abodes into
the forge of the day. The pain in her body felt wrinkled and wire-wrapped.
Elcetic scars danced across her abused flesh. Held between two whipish boys,
she kept her head hung low, waiting for them to take her life away.
"Knowledge," the Father Of Death said, the gravel in his throat rattling.
He looked at Bonnie, squinting against the brilliant sunlight. "You know us
now, child. We are the children of Lucifer, we reign in his light." Bonnie's
head remained low, but she could see in her mind the man's wrinkled, brown
skin, like badly cured leather. The dull glint of steel along his fingers, on
his face. His rheumy red eyes with bitter hatred embedded in them.
"Blood... We have built great arcanic structures of our blood, our enemies
blood, the blood of the desert." A faint cry whispered across their bodies as
the wind rushed by. "And they have made us strong, in the name of Belial."
Bonnie shivered, the kind of shiver that she knew meant she would soon
lose
control. She would go hysterical. She would try to escape. They would kill her
and boil her into soup for their bastard children.
"Water. Can you imagine water, child?" He sounded truely curious.
A dry, moistless word escaped from her scarred lips. "... yes..."
The Father Of Death shifted his weight. "God tried drowning us in water,
once. Like we were rats instead of men, people in his own image." There was a
growing hostility in his rough-hewn voice. "But we are *made* of water. It
pumps through our bodies, it saturates our brains. And Leviathan lives deep
inside the oceans of our selves."
Bonnie was trembling, but weakly. She realized she didn't even have the
energy to collapse into ranting, raving hysterics. Only to stand here, gently
supported by two naked youths.
"Fire." It was said with almost awe, or worship. And with pride. "Fire
burns away, leaving nothing but ash. The all consuming one that heats the
universe. Our Father, Satan."
After that, they were silent as they led her through the forge. To the
fields of fire.
Waking suddenly, trembling, sweating, feeling queasy in her stomach like
she might throw up, Rita was disoriented by the cool, simple darkness of her
little bedroom. Soft colored lights glowed where the clock rested on her
dresser. It had been hours since she fell asleep. She thought.
Rita wasn't quite sure what had woken her up. Something flickered through
her memories, something about sand. But it was just tissue-paper, flitting by
in a little dust-devil. She had a sense of depression, of something that she
should be worried and upset about.
But she couldn't remember *what*.
--------
(C) 1991 by Drifter... (author) - All rights reserved
|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|
| Drifter... Homo Postmortemus |
| ObLyric: He always said that men don't cry, but burns and bruises seldom |
| lie. Dad learned Grandpa's lesson well, spitting image of a man in hell. |
| ObQuote: "The advocate will refrain from making her opponent dissapear." |
| Internet: snarler%oak.decnet@pine.circa.ufl or 7%arms.uucp@ufl.edu |
|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
What has gone before:
Dartboard is being "psychologically examined" by Dr. Shapiro,
in the middle of a golf course. Snipers, helicopter gunships,
and mine fields ring the area. Why? Because Langley is afraid
Dartboard is still an "Undirected Psionic Hazard" and they intend
to kill him off if he is still psionically dangerous. While
Shapiro plays Senator McCarthy attempting to anger Dartboard,
Dartboard keeps his wits and begins to turn the tables.
"Let's consider your behavior when you took the anti-psi syrup. Did you
or did you not arm your tactical nuclear weapons and proceed to
a privately owned site?"
"Yes, I did."
"Did you consider that you were endangering perhaps thousands of civilians?"
"I am authorized to endanger civilians if necessary."
"Do you consider the risk worthwhile?"
"Yes. I might add that Colonel Timothy and the NSC concurred."
"But weren't six nuclear weapons excessive? Wouldn't one have been more
than enough?"
"Undecideable. However, if by carrying six warheads I can avoid using any
warheads, then six warheads are the right number to carry. There is a
psychological warfare issue here."
"But wouldn't conventional weapons, or even tailored gas have been
adequate?"
"You miss the point. Am-243 warheads show up very distinctively on
any sort of radiological instrument- sensing Americium in those quantities
strongly implies presence of a tactical nuclear warhead. Neither
conventional weapons nor chemical weapons propagate as distinctive a
signature as the Am-243 radiation. Consider the radiation spectra as
a warning coloration that I was armed."
"Colonel Mendoza, this is getting nowhere. Let me try another method."
Shapiro snaps open her briefcase, and pulls a .45 service automatic and
a thin scrapbook. She slides the scrapbook across the card table to
Dartboard.
"Please open the book, Colonel, and describe to me in detail what you see
on each page."
Dartboard opens the unmarked olive-drab scrapbook, and notes the format-
a single large photograph, under thin plastic, on each right-hand page,
while the left-hand pages are blank.
"Nazi extermination camp- Treblinka, I believe. Probably taken within
a few hours of liberation. Two unclothed, severely emaciated young adult
male subjects shown. Time and subjects unidentified."
"Soviet gulag prisoner cell. No subjects visible. Date and time
unknown."
"South vietnamese 'tiger cage' torture cell. Time around noon.
Subject is a young female oriental, about twelve. Date probably
late 1969 or early 1970. Cell has been freshly limed"
Dartboard turns page after page of atrocity, giving a cold and precise
description of each scene of brutality. He arrives at the last page.
"Nicteau prisoner torture site, Guatemalian jungle. Taken August 17,
2041, probably sometime in mid-morning, probably by Major David Cosworth
or troops under his command. Subject is then-Captain John Mendoza, suffering
from multiple septic puncture wounds to all bodily surfaces, eyes, and
genitalia from Nicteau torturers, as well as starvation and severe
dehydration."
"Is that all?"
"Captain Mendoza survived the incident." Dartboard stares at Shapiro,
right in the eyes, and cracks the slightest smile. Shapiro shakes
off the stare, notices the smile, and recoils.
"But that's YOU tied to the wall! It's YOU with the darts in your
eyeballs and the running sores! Don't you FEEL anything? Aren't you
even HUMAN? "
"Business is business." Dartboard turns with a start to stare into
space directly behind Shapiro. He shouts "Hello, GENERAL".
Shapiro snaps to attention- eyes ahead, back ramrod-straight. Dartboard
remains seated.
"Sit down, Corporal Shapiro of Special Talents and Psionics. You've
been, as they say, 'made'."
Shapiro turns around, sees no general approaching. She stares
at Dartboard. "How did you know?" Shapiro begins to stammer.
"You're not a psychiatrist- first, the questions you asked were right out
of the psychological interrogation manual, not standard psych questions,
even for a 'rough interrogation'."
"You've memorized the book?"
"I wrote that book."
Shapiro slumps into the chair.
"Second, you allowed yourself to become rattled. No Intellegence-trained
officer would allow that- they're trained against it. Psi group is
trained to attempt rapport with their subjects- which gave away that
you were attached to S.T. and P."
"Third, you fell for the 'Hello, General' routine. This implies you are
definitely enlisted, probably no higher than corporal, definitely not
commissioned officer- which all MDs and PhD's in the service are."
"Fourth, consider the mission- if I were still active as an undirected
and uncontrolled psionic hazard, you would be dead, and soon thereafter
so would I; at least that's the plan. Therefore, you are almost certainly
a volunteer, someone with a low but nonzero psionic potential, someone
expendable, Your mission was to try to get me to kill you. Fortunately,
you failed."
Shapiro stares at the card table. "So what do I do now, Colonel?
Report that I blew it, that you saw through me?"
"Yes. First of all, it's the truth. Second, I think that Colonel
Timothy was expecting something like this to happen- and he would be
curious to know what _did_ happen if he doesn't get a report saying
what he expects."
"Colonel, you were almost wrong on one point. I'm defending my thesis
in thirteen days, then I _will_ be a PhD, with an automatic promotion to
warrant officer, and a gauranteed shot at commissioned officer candidate
school."
"Congratulations! Can I come to your thesis defense and ask questions?"
"No! God, no! You'd shred me!"
"Trust me, I'm well behaved in civilized situations."
"You must have forgotten what academia is like, Colonel. It may be a lot
of things, but it sure isn't civilized."
-----
Sorry for the delay in this update to Dartboard- but little things like
work situation and a downright broken love-life intruded.
Please don't use Dartboard, Sabenski, Shapiro, Timothy, etc. without my
permission.
-----
My nomination for "Best Recent Alt.Cyberpunk.Chatsubo Posting" - the
last installment of Nekoko crashing the helicopter into Puget sound!
Having some familiarity with such beasts, I can only say BRAVO! You
have done your homework well! I could almost smell the bearings
cooking and the sprag clutch screaming! And it's a GOOD READ, TOO!
-Bill
Copyright 1991 William S. Yerazunis (aka Crah the Merciless)
All rights reserved, no responsibility taken.
"Turpentine, acetone, benzine..."
...
Joy and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
...
Wasp looked at his watch. God, it was hard to imagine that he owned something
so... expensive. He stared at the dull silver luster for a time, imagining
that it was all a dream. He completely forgot to check what time it was.
The car's voice spoke in soothing tones. "We are cleared for liftoff, Mister
Rednix." The turbines hummed steadily under the chassis. Wasp pressed gently
on the throttle... and flew.
The navigation screen advised him of the course to take, the height to fly at,
and even once warned him of possible collision with a small flock of sparrows.
If anything was sucked into the turbine intake, he would fall some five hundred
meters to his death. The watch, he thought with a laugh, would probably be
fine.
He landed, carefully, on the top of a low parking garage. He was seven stories
above the ground and feet from the closest building. The experience of flight
left him giddy, but glad it was over.
His contact was standing there next to a long, sleek sportscar which looked
like a Porshe to Wasp, but so did most sports cars to him. Porsches were
almost everywhere the rich were.
"A fad," he muttered to himself.
Another man was with his contact. Tall and thick, he had to be hired muscle.
Typical, but understandable considering the unusual request for the meeting.
Wasp stepped out of the car and stood straight. Some six meters separated him
and his contact.
"Nice night, isn't it?" Wasp called out.
The man frowned. "Yes," he said. Wasp thought he sounded disappointed. "It
is a shame about Major Rednix." Simply a statement, that.
Wasp nodded, trying to look solemn. "It is. He was... a man of our times." A
line he once heard in a movie.
"And trying times they are, that we have to meet in secret. Rednix did explain
to you our agreement?"
A question. Wasp froze. The meet was called by the contact, Wasp was playing
blind. A dangerous game, like poker with armed players. "An Uzi beats four
aces," he muttered.
"Somewhat," Wasp then said aloud. "There are secrets that even I did not
know." Many, he failed to add. Most. Wasp was bluffing a flush, and didn't
want to boast four aces. He couldn't afford it since he came unarmed.
"What do you know?"
"Enough."
There was a pause. Wasp felt his own fear in that pause.
"Then..." the contact said, painfully drawing out the sentence, "we need...
fresh kill. Tonight."
The words stuck in Wasp's mind. 'Fresh kill.' Flashes of women with bloody
dresses and torn throats edged into his thoughts. Or did the man mean animal?
Wasp had to remind himself to breath as the rest of his mind tried not to go
into shock.
"That..." Wasp stuttered as he thought, "might prove... difficult. The night
is pretty late for something proper." He couldn't believe he was suggesting
what he was.
"We understand your situation, but our own situation draws us to this need. We
will pay full, though you are inexperienced, because of the time limit we have
placed upon you."
Wasp eyed the bodyguard carefully for a moment, guessing his armament. "Bet
he has a submachine or better," he muttered.
"I'm afraid that's out of the question," he called out to them. "I am
inexperienced and it would be rather foolish if I took on such an expedition
without more time."
The contact seemed to clench his teeth. "Then make the time."
"I'd love to, but I can't. Have to run." Wasp slipped into the car at the
same moment his contact raised a hand. He didn't know whether it was to signal
Wasp or the contact's bodyguard. He didn't wait to find out.
The contact didn't drop his hand. There was no gunfire. Wasp left quickly and
quietly with the bad, bad feeling he would be hearing from that man again.
...
"Fresh kill," Wasp muttered as he typed the words into the small computer. The
computer was once Father Jim's, like almost everything Wasp was surrounded with
recently. The car, the computer, the watch, the business. All thanks to a
mysterious woman named J.J. Faust.
J.J. was an enigma to Wasp. A woman who was clearly psychotic and yet
completely content with herself, a trait of sanity. Wasp knew insanity from
his years on the streets and underground, dealing with people who lived the
edge between the two.
J.J. killed Father Jim. She killed one of New York's underground contacts.
She killed Wasp's boss. And she went back to her life like nothing had
happened, working a nine-to-five job at a well-to-do jewelry store. Just like
that. Not even Wasp's old girlfriends were that over the edge.
She killed five other people, besides, but they meant nothing to him. All
horrible throat injuries, all rich women, but he never stopped to think about
them. First she killed Father Jim.
Wasp closed the directory he devoted to her and went back to the main
directory.
Password:_
Father Jim's information, all his tricks and all his blacklisting was under
that password. And all his little secrets.
The words "fresh kill" kept coming to mind.
...
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CyberStory: Judy
"Coder's special, please," the man said.
The waitress looked up, "What's a coder's special?"
"You're new here, aren't you?"
"Yes, this is my first day. I'm Judy," she replied, a bit nervously.
It was cumulative stress built up over the past three hours, rather
than sudden fear. Her current patron looked a lot less homicidal than
most of the clientele she had been serving, without incident so far.
It said a lot about the Chatsubo that the man she considered a
sub-median threat was 223 cm tall and was wearing seventy kilos of
reactive body armor.
"I could tell. I'm Brick," he smiled. "A coder's special is a large
pepperoni pizza and couple of liters of Jolt Classic."
She brought him the order.
"Oh, could I get the Jolt in a drinking container?" Brick asked
politely, "it's for washing down the pizza."
She emptied the IV bag into a bottle, re-evaluating her opinion of his
sanity.
"May I ask you a question, Mr. Brick?" she asked.
"Just Brick," he said, "and sure, go ahead. As long as you don't pick
the wrong people or the wrong questions, there's no harm in asking."
"Am I safe working here? I mean all these people look dangerous."
"You don't really have to worry about the dangerous looking ones.
That's all flash, and they're more likely to do themselves in--either
by losing control of their toys or by annoying the wrong people. The
really lethal people don't show much more than attitude, and they don't
do much collateral damage when they strike."
"Collateral damage?" Judy asked. The answer wasn't very comforting.
"Taking out innocent bystanders. It's just professional courtesy to
use finite range weapons and be aware of your backgrounds. Still, it's
best to keep your head down and get behind something when things heat
up, just in case."
Brick pointed his arm at the pizza. There was a brief ruby flash, and
a grease fire started to spread across the surface. Nobody looked up
except Judy, who followed the black cloud of smoke to the ceiling.
"Don't worry," Brick reassured her, "the smoke detectors are disabled.
They kept going off from propellant smoke and laser burns. Ratz got
tired of having to get rid of the bodies before the firemen came each
time."
Brick drew a Victorinox-Ginzu combat dagger from its sheath and
attacked the pizza. The serrated CVD-diamond edge penetrated the crust
and drove through the aluminum pan and into the table. He let go of
the trademarked red handle and pulled the pizza apart with a faint
servo whine in his armor. The cheese eventually peeled from the Teflon
VII coating on the blade.
"Excellent, my compliments to the chef," he said after tasting it. He
noticed that Judy looked a little pale, almost Caucasian. "Is
something wrong?"
"Tell me, what happened to the girl I'm replacing?"
"Nekoko? Probably out getting shot at. The people who Ratz hires
don't seem to last very long." Brick took a long drink of Jolt Classic
and suppressed a shudder. "But then again, who does?
"Oh, by the way, here comes the type of person I was talking about."
He indicated a nondescript gray man coming towards the table. "His
name's Viadd, communications expert. Looks harmless enough, but he can
talk people to death."
Judy gave a nervous little laugh. "You mean he really is harmless?"
"No," Brick said slowly, "I mean he can talk people to death.
Reference Iago; Context Shakespeare for the general idea."
Viadd sat down across from Brick, "Milk+ choco, please" he told Judy.
Judy left, sidling away nervously, and almost stepped into a weapons
demonstration.
"Is she new?"
"First day here, Ratz really needs to do something about his personnel
situation. In a week she'll probably have seniority."
"Yeah, I keep telling him, you can't keep decent employees nowadays
unless you've got good medical and dental coverage."
"Here she comes with your drink. She seems a bit nervous--first day
jitters and all--so try not to say anything to scare her."
Judy set the mug in front of Viadd and kept on walking out the door.
Ratz behind the bar just shrugged philosophically.
"Pretty brave though, going out on the streets without an escort.
Foolish too, it's just not safe."
Viadd nodded and sipped his drink.
"How did the goniometer hack go?" Brick asked.
"Pretty well, I think," Viadd replied, and tossed a credstick on the
table.
Brick did not touch it. "I'll tell you what," he said, "I'll rebate
the second half of the payment if you tell me how you used it."
"It's on account, so your offer doesn't touch me. Are you curious, or
do you just want to sell it the same way?"
"Curious, mostly," Brick said.
"I'll tell you for nothing, but only if you keep it secret for a
two-year moratorium."
Brick considered briefly. "O.K., I can live with that." He picked up
the credstick and sat back to listen to Viadd.
"The target," Viadd began, "was the senior V.P. of a certain Japanese
firm. Call him Hideo. My client is the second V.P. of the company.
The president, 'Takashi', is getting along in years and my client feels
an urgent need to change the order of succession.
"Takashi does not think that a new president will be needed for some
years, and is, understandably, a bit paranoid about people trying to
hasten the process.
Viadd took another drink and smiled as the theobromides hit.
"I took the obvious route and started engineering a coup on behalf of
my target. Rather baldly planned, and he apparently didn't cover his
tracks very well. Memo numbers out of sequence, calls misrouted, that
sort of thing. The takeover apparatus was eventually thoroughly
penetrated by Takashi's moles."
"Unfortunately, Takashi admired Hideo's apparent initiative, although
he was appalled by his crudeness, and merely eliminated everything
I had set up.
"My target got a lecture on the importance of subtlety, and was told
that his ambition, whatever it did to the executive structure, must
never jeopardize the stature of the company itself. Hideo managed to
cover his mystification with a few nervous 'hai's and retained his
position.
"Naturally, such a situation was not what I had contracted with my
client to achieve. My next step was somewhat simpler, though, thanks
to you.
"I floated a few rumors that Takashi was not long for power, and that
Hideo would soon be running the company. The president dismissed these
as the distant echoes of the aborted coup, at least for a while. The
persistence of the rumors, however, did make him a little nervous.
"The firm was just about to seal an important contract to supply some
cutting-edge tech to an American firm. Negotiations had been rocky
from the start, and the deal was just barely hanging together. About
the only reason they were still in contact was because the American
company's president, 'Fred', was so cultured and civilized, it was
almost possible to forget he was gaijan.
"Fred had worked very hard at that. He had been intensively trained by
geisha and members of a cadet branch of The Emperor's family. Most of
his staff were conservative Japanese. He had had cosmetic surgery to
make himself look older. And guess what else?"
"He had a goniometer in his spine to calibrate his bow angles," Brick
guessed.
"Exactly. That's why I got that backdoor code from you."
"So, how did you run it?"
"Takashi and Hideo flew in from Tokyo to sign the contract. The
American met them as they came out of the jet and greeted them with
formal bows.
"Takashi stood stunned for a few seconds, then turned around and
marched himself and his V.P. back into the plane and they flew back to
Japan. Only the president reached Tokyo though. My client was very
happy."
Viadd drained his mug.
"I had hacked Fred's goniometer so that his bow to the president was
three degrees too shallow, and his bow to the vice-president was five
degrees too deep. The implication that Hideo was of higher status than
Takashi was just too blatant an insult to allow, especially coming from
someone who was cultured enough to know what he was saying."
Viadd looked around for a waitress and, finding none, signalled to Ratz
to bring him another choco.
"The American will probably never figure out what happened. The
Japanese president would never tell him. I won't tell him, and you
won't either."
"If it doesn't break client privilege, what was the American company?"
Brick asked.
Viadd waited as Ratz had brought him another mug, glared at Brick, and
left.
"No reason I can't tell you, still under moratorium. ARES has
been giving us all trouble recently, so I choose their Caedemus
division as second bird. It was the most suitable candidate, but it's
still good biz to exact a load toll for karma burden."
"In that case, you may be interested in this. It came down from a
mediasat about an hour ago." He tossed a pad to Viadd.
"Property records track it through a set of dummies to belong to
Caedemus," Brick said as Viadd watched the flames engulf the property.
"Elite forces, tech and mage, penetration/extraction strike, by my
analysis. The showy part is just to take out the security forces."
"Hmm, I didn't expect Takashi would go this far to respond to the
insult. Maybe Hideo gave Caedemus some pre-production prototyping
samples and the president wanted them back. Who knows?
"Anyway, it's just another example of the power of a subtle approach."
-------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1991 David Palmer.
Brick, Viadd and Judy Copyright 1990-1991 David Palmer
Action figures and body armor sold separately. Fusion powerpacks not included.
Brick and Viadd may be used with prior approval.
Judy made it safely home by authorial fiat. Unable to find another job
as a waitress, she was forced to work as an actress. She later won the
Academy Award for her portrayal of Othellia.
Copyright JM Shields & HG Bartels 1991 All Rights Reserved
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A soft intake of breath. "Shimatta..."
Nekoko looked around the worn, dusty, and threadbare interior of
the ARES Wvyern. The instrument panels had had its corners rubbed smooth.
The co-pilot's seat showed signs of heavy wear. The warning decals overhead
had faded and discolored. As the helicopter flew, panels gave off creaking
and groaning noises, the cockpit door rattled against its frame, the turbines
whined overhead. Everything about the ARES Wyvern gave witness to long, hard
years of uncaring use.
Nekoko dropped her head and scanned the instruments again. Half the
indicators pointed into the yellow. The hydraulic pressure continued to drop
slowly. The main generator was misbehaving; the amps indicator rose and fell
in short bursts. The clock ticked off the seconds since she dropped off the
others at the ARES site.
And the weather was turning against her again. Great grey clouds
swept up from the south, at times hiding the land below her. The wind picked
up and blew steadily from the south. Now and then, Nekoko would fly
through another rain shower.
From the east, the early morning light filled the sky with a pale
color. To the west, the sky was still a midnight blue. Below Nekoko's
helicopter, the early light painted the forest in dark greens, grey
highlights, and long shadows.
Medicine Hawk's signal flashed on the heads-up display. Time to
go back into hell again. Nekoko made a slow, sweeping turn and oriented
herself to fly in from the south with the wind. She scrubbed off altitude
- it would be better to come in low and fast.
At treetop level, the helicopter seemed to fly even faster than
she could react. Nekoko jerked the control stick from side to side. Left,
then right, the dark green forest rushed past. Birds would wheel up beside
her, startled by the helicopter's sudden appearance. Then there would be a
little clearing in the woods and Nekoko could catch her breath again. The
helicopter would flash through the clearing and immediately have to dance
around treetops again. To her right, the morning sun turned clouds red and
yellow; she could see a glimmer of light through the cloudcover.
Ahead, a thick dark column of smoke marked the site of the ARES
research lab. It blew to the north, away from her approach. Nekoko began
to search below her for a pick up site.
As she got closer, she began to slow the helicopter. The Wyvern
cleared the outside fence, bright with arc lights and steel. Now, below her
was an open space, short grass and small trees. As Nekoko watched, small
figures appeared in the open space. The early morning light gave them long
strange shadows on the grass. The figures were running from one of the
buildings. At times, one of them would turn and fire at the people coming
from the buildings. Another one of the figures seemed to be carrying
something over its shoulder. Nekoko began to drop down on top of them.
As the Wyvern got closer, the figures looked up through the
downwash of the helicopter rotors. One of them lifted a gun up at the
helicopter; another figure pushed it away. Behind them, the people coming
out of the buildings stopped and seemed to be cheering.
Now Nekoko's helicopter was within a few feet of the ground. One
of the figures began to run, hunched over, towards her. Nekoko pushed
the helicopter closer to the others. The turbines screamed their displeasure
at hovering.
Nekoko turned the helicopter so that the Wyvern's armor lay between
her friends and the ARES people. As she glanced over at the lab buildings,
she notice that the ARES staff had stopped cheering; some of them seemed
to aiming their guns at her, others began to run towards the helicopter.
The Wyvern thumped onto the ground. A bang from behind her told Nekoko that
someone had opened the cabin door. Now the other figures approached; Medicine
Hawk, with the limp, ragdoll shape of Li over his shoulder, Ylse, pale and
shaken, Running Wolf, grim-faced, turning back to empty his submachine gun
at the running ARES security guards. They looked tired and drawn. Something
had scared them badly. Another bang told Nekoko that the cabin door was
closed again. The cabin intercom buzzed.
Nekoko looked up at the sound of hail on the sides of the cockpit. It
took a moment to realize that the sound was slugs bouncing off the Wyvern's
armor. That shook her. One of the windows facing the ARES people suddenly
cracked. She yelled a warning, pulled full torque on the collective, and
began to take off. As they rose in the air, almost all the indicators flipped
into the red zones. More gunfire, more hail on the armor. Another window
cracked. The helicopter shook unevenly; Nekoko guessed that one of ARES's
heavier shells had struck the Wyvern's armor.
She reached down, flipped up the safety cover, and pressed the
fire button on the twin Vulcans. The computer buzzed and said, 'Sorry. All
20 mm magazines are empty. Please reload.' But from the front of the Wyvern
came the rumble of the two barrels spinning up to speed.
Nekoko pedal turned the helicopter so that the muzzles of the
Vulcans would face the oncoming ARES guards. Now the cockpit faced north, at
the guns of the security guards. Nekoko pushed the cyclic control forward.
The Wvyern picked up speed and rushed across the ground.
Nekoko laughed. As the ARES people saw the rotating barrels, they
dropped their guns and dived for cover. She swept past them, lifted the
helicopter over their lab building and disappeared into the smoke.
Deep black smoke seeped inside the cockpit through the vent ducts
and the cracks in the windows. But it kept them hidden from the ARES guards.
Nekoko pushed the helicopter as fast as the turbines would allow for as
long as she could. When she could no longer stand the tension, when she
guessed the helicopter might start coming apart in the next moment, she
slowed up. Some of the indicators began to fall into the yellow or green
zones again.
A noise from behind her startled her; Nekoko had already forgotten
that the others were on board again. Medicine Hawk appeared in the
cockpit doorway, smelling of cordite, smoke, blood, and sweat. Nekoko
watched him set himself in the co-pilot's seat.
"Medicine Hawk. Li-sama ga, daijoubu ka?" Nekoko saw his confusion,
then repeated herself in English. "Is Li going to be alright?"
"Probably. We won't know until we get her seen to. At the safe
house." He leaned back, sighed, and was silent.
"Better strap yourself in. It's not over yet."
Medicine Hawk reached below the seat and buckled himself in. Then
he turned towards Nekoko. "Better tell the others in back as well."
"Hai." Nekoko nodded, then picked up the cabin intercom. "Oi! We're
still not safe, so you better buckle up. And make sure that Li is tied
up as well. This might be a rough ride." As she spoke, the helicopter
gave another series of shakes. She turned back to Medicine Hawk. "Was it
bad? I mean, back there?"
Medicine Hawk did not speak. Nekoko decided not to say anymore. The
helicopter was still flying north. The comlinks were quiet - apparently,
Leadfoot had done his job well. Outside of the shaking, the helicopter seemed
to be flying well. Nekoko checked all the instruments, then turned back
to Medicine Hawk. "Where do I go now? Where is the safe house?"
Medicine Hawk turned his chrome glasses onto Nekoko. They were
dirty, begrimed and scratched. "I'll direct you. Fly north for another
twenty minutes, then turn towards the east. From there, I'll direct you."
He turned his head away again; his breathing slowed. Nekoko relaxed. The ARES
Wyvern was still flying. None of the dials showed any problems for the moment.
For the first time that morning, she felt she might survive this trip.
************************
Twenty minutes after Belladonna briefed her crew the alarm bells rang.
Bella ran to the com room. When she arrived, breathless, MecLan and Vint
were studying a 2 meter square display screen showing the overall layout of
the estate and safehouse. It was mounted on a wall - smaller screens with
views of various sections surrounded main screen. They both looked up when
Bella entered the room.
"A chopper has penetrated the first security shell," MecLan informed
her.
"Is it them?" Bella glared painfully up at a speaker, "Gregor, we get
the picture - turn that thing off - I can hardly hear myself think!" The
alarm suddenly stopped in mid scream. "Thanks."
"You are welcome, Bella."
Bella ignored the deep reply. "Have you got an ID on it?"
"No code yet. It looks like an ARES chopper," Vint touched a few
panels, "It'll be in visual soon. The flight paths a bit erratic - looks
like it's in trouble."
"Shit!" Bella slammed her palm into the wall, "Peace, I hope it's
them. How long until the second security shell?"
"Ah, twelve seconds - eleven - ten - nine - eight - seven..."
***********************************
Nekoko felt a hand on her arm.
"Gotta call in now."
Nekoko looked over her shoulder. Running Wolf was reaching for the
radio with a small signalling device. She watched him tap in a frequency
then open the channel and key the signalling device at the microphone. He
smiled at her. The radio beeped back at Running Wolf's device.
"Gotta let the Mechanics know we're friends," he said to Nekoko's
puzzled look. "We should be in visual in a minute. I'll get Li ready for
the landing." He disappeared aft behind Nekoko's seat.
***********************************
" - wait a second, I'm getting a code." Seconds ticked. "It's
them - proper code for the safehouse and their ID tag."
Bella breathed out slowly, "Good. What's their status?"
"Chopper is definitely damaged," MecLan scanned a readout on a
smaller display screen.
"How bad? Weapons?" Bella moved to his side and glanced at the
readout.
"There's some weapons damage but this is mostly internal stuff." He
shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe they lifted one that was due for repairs.
From the scan this looks like relatively old damage."
"Shit! Why the hell couldn't they have stolen one that worked?"
"ETA for the chopper is five minutes, Bella," Vint interrupted.
"Call Kenner, tell her to meet me at the topside elevators with her
med kits in three minutes. Also get Bachtav..." her voice died off. Bella
cleared her throat, "Meclan, could you..."
He nodded - a hard sad smile crossed his lips. "Let's go."
***************************
Nekoko studied the grey walls of clouds in front of her. Only the
headup display in front of her made sense of the formless world outside the
cockpit windows. On the display, a readout in a corner counted down the
seconds to the destination. Behind Nekoko, Running Wolf and Ylse seemed
to be talking; it was hard to make out the words over the throbbing of
the rotors and the whine of the turbines.
Medicine Hawk seemed to be asleep. Nekoko reached over and gave
him a gentle shove to wake him. They had almost arrived.
Nekoko came out of a cloud bank and there it sat, a brick monster on
a wide open lawn, sunning itself in the morning sunlight. The safe house was
one of the Victorian monsters that were popular around the turn of the
previous century, all towers and tall ceilings, nocks and corners. A long
driveway bordered by stately old willows led up to the front entrance. Medicine
Hawk made a downwards stabbing motion with his hand, as if to say, land here.
******************************
The elevators doors opened into a backroom - clean and barren. Bella,
Kenner, and MecLan hauled the emergency stretcher and kits out into the
main hallway to the front door. They waited just inside the house until
they saw the chopper approach. The chopper swung and hesitated - Bella was
certain it was about to fall apart.
************************
Nekoko lifted the nose of the Wyvern, slowed up and flared to a
landing within thirty paces of the house. Then she dropped the helicopter
to the ground. It was a bit of a drop; there was cursing from behind the
cabin door. She kept the turbines running; she did not know if she would
be able to restart them again. From the house came three people; Bella and
two others Nekoko did not recognize. They were carrying a stretcher.
Medicine Hawk stood up, rubbed his eyes under his chrome sunglasses,
and began to leave. As he stepped through the doorway, he asked, "Are you
coming too? You're welcome to stay here."
Nekoko looked at the forbidding mass of the house nearby. "Ah. I'd
better see to the Wyvern first. I'll come back with the motorcycle later."
"Good idea."
"I'll just drop it at one of the grass airfields on the other side
of Puget Sound. That'll draw off the pursuit."
"Good idea."
"So then..."
"Take care, Cat-girl." He disappeared through the doorway into the
cabin aft.
************************
"Where is she? How bad?" Bella shouted to Running Wolf as he stepped
onto the ground.
He pressed his mouth to her ear, "In back on a makeshift stretcher.
Had to shoot her - not much blood lost! Stuck a handful of tranks on her -
don't know how long they'll last! It is as though she were crazy!"
Bella turned to Kenner and explained the situation with a series of
quick hand signals. Kenner nodded and climbed into the back of the
chopper. Bella followed her.
Inside the cabin, Bella turned back to help with Li. She lay there as
if dead - her sallow skin blending into the dull grey beneath her. She
looked very much like a child until a frown creased her face. Kenner had
pulled the trank patches from her skin - there'd be a few second delay
before the direct feed she'd wrapped around Li's wrist could begin. Li's
eyes fluttered open - Bella caught a glimpse of glassy metal before they
closed once more.
Kenner handed Bella a curved piece of plastic. She fitted it around
Li's neck and shoulders - bending it to rest snug against her. She took a
metal canister from the medkit and pointed the nozzle into a small opening
on top. It hissed for a few seconds then stopped - Bella snapped the
canister from its nozzle and tossed it back into the kit. She tapped the
plastic a few times, bending low over it and straining to hear an echo.
Satisfied she nodded to Kenner. Kenner finished buckling the straps that
held the hard plastic sheet she'd slid under Li's body. A few seconds
later both mechanics were out of the chopper and sliding Li out behind
them. MecLan had the stretcher up and ready for her. Running Wolf and
Medicine Man each grasped an end - lifting her up and onto the bed of the
stretcher. MecLan and the other woman, Ylse, each grabbed a free end and
with Kenner running along side with the instruments they headed for the
house.
Bella watched them disappear under the eaves of the mansion before
walking forward to the pilot's door. As she walked, she noted how the
Wyvern's armor had been gouged and scarred by the fire from the ARES forces.
At the pilot's door, she tapped twice to get Nekoko's attention. No response.
Bella made a fist and really began pounding on the cockpit door.
*********************
While Nekoko was running another quick check of the instrumentation,
she heard a pounding on the cockpit door. Nekoko leaned over and pushed it
partially open. Now the throbbing of the rotors was much louder, the downwash
blew into the cockpit and stirred the dust. Standing outside, hunched over
in protection from the noise of the rotors stood Bella. As the door opened,
Bella raised her eyes to look at Nekoko. Nekoko blinked. Bella had her
Mechanic's armor on, a dusty black blue. A black stripe ran over her cheekbones
and across her nose. It gave the woman a odd tribal look.
"Can you shut this piece of shit down for a couple of minutes?"
Bella screamed at Nekoko.
Nekoko shook her head. "No. I don't think it'll start again. Got to
keep moving. Can't leave it here..."
"Whatcha got in mind?" Bella shouted over the whine of the turbines.
"Fly it to the other side of the Sound. Hide it on someone's meadow.
Use my motorcycle to get away."
"And then?"
"Not sure. Probably come back here..."
Bella reached into her toolbag and pulled out what looked like a wide
silver wristband. With her other hand, she reached up into the cockpit and
pulled on one of Nekoko's arms. She clamped the wristband on Nekoko's wrist
and flicked a panel. "Look into this opening!"
Nekoko's cat eyes narrowed with suspicion and her cat ears flickered back.
"It's a homing device! I want to key it to your retina print! Do it!"
Bella scowled impatiently as Nekoko put the opening up to her eye. "Good!
It'll direct you back here and will broadcast the proper codes once you start
hitting the security shields! Don't take it off under any circumstances -
no matter what! Ok?"
Nekoko nodded slowly. "Ryokai!"
"Great! Be careful."
Bella slammed the cockpit door shut. Nekoko watched her scuttle
from underneath the circle of the rotors and run towards the house. The
impact of slamming the door shifted the life raft mounted on the cockpit door,
making it fold over onto her foot. Nekoko put down a hand and stuffed it back
into the holder. The helicopter was falling apart as she sat. She hoped it
would hold together just a few moments longer.
**************************
"Stay alive, Nekoko, stay alive," Bella whispered to herself. The whine
of the turbines rose to a shriek as Nekoko brought up the power. Dirty black
smoke blurred the air behind the turbines' exhaust. The rotor's throbbing
got louder, sharper. The Wyvern's running lights came on, flashing red and
white. Bella wiped her eyes; the propwash from the rotors had made them water.
She put her hands over her ears and watched as the helicopter rose into the
air and climbed into the clouds. Then, with a final look at the cloud in
which Nekoko had disappeared, Bella turned and walked into the house.
***************************
It had been a slow, careful liftoff this time. Nekoko knew that a wrecked
helicopter would definitely draw unwanted attention to this neighborhood.
Above her, the clouds thickened. She grabbed altitude until she was
bumping into the bottom of the clouds, then she turned west towards the
ocean. Behind her, the sun disappeared behind a thick cold layer of clouds.
Five minutes later, the main generator faded away. Half of the
indicators dropped onto their pegs, useless. "Kuso!" Nekoko swore as
she started the auxilary generator. The main computers rebooted, the
systems returned to life. Just a little further, just a little further,
Nekoko prayed.
The clouds thickened, and now she was flying through the stuff.
Her computers showed her flying west by southwest, still on her planned
course. Hydraulic pressure was now minimal; Nekoko could feel the stick
becoming sluggish in its response.
The Air Traffic Control chose this moment to come online again.
"Attention, unidentified flight. Your flight plans have not been found
on any ARES systems. Your transponder codes match that of a aircraft
reported stolen from ARES today. Land immediately for accurate identification."
Nekoko swore again. Only another three minutes and she could leave
this flying wreck.
"Unidentified flight. Your silence has been noted and logged as
a violation of UCAS airspace. An interception has been ordered. If you
do not respond to our demands, we will use force." The message was
then repeated in Japanese. As the message was being repeated in Russian,
Nekoko powered off the radio. A quick check of the defense systems
showed that the radar could not see anything within a few miles of her.
Then the left turbine blew up. Nekoko was thrown against the
side of her seat as the helicopter shook. The life raft bounced out
onto the cockpit floor. Her ears rang with the sound. The indicators
in front of her jumped around, then froze. The lights went dark as the
auxilary generator failed.
The sticks were useless. The hydraulic pressure was completely
gone. The rotors slowed. Nekoko's stomach lurched as the helicopter
began to drop.
Around her, the clouds were grey and shapeless. She knew she
was falling, but her eyes told her that she was hanging in space. Her
butt felt real heavy, heavy, as if some great weight was being put on it.
Her stomach seemed to want to drop through her hips. But above her,
the rotors were spinning again.
Auto-rotation, Nekoko thought. She had been high enough for the
blades to autorotate. Then she might not die after all. But she was still
falling fast. A stray seagull dropped in front of her cockpit window,
keeping pace with her as the helicopter dropped.
The clouds parted, disappeared. Below her, the sea stretched. Small
waves and white foam. Still falling fast, too fast...
The helicopter struck the water, front end first. A wave spread
out from the wreck, to be lost in myriad other waves. Then there
was silence. Smaller waves crashed against the body of the Wyvern, each
time, striking it higher and higher. Bubbles and froth, oil and debris
washed away from the wreck. A few seagulls dove at the debris, seeing if
anything was edible.
Now, another small crash, and the helicopter leaned over. Water
spilled over, poured inside. More bubbles, more oil. The seagulls called out.
The cockpit disappeared beneath the waves. Waves swept over the
starred windows, the turbine intakes, the rotor blades, and then, finally,
the tail structure. A moment later, only an oil patch in water, calmer then
the surrounding waters, marked the site of the crash. The seagulls rose
and circled around again.
And then there was only waves, wind and the sound of the seagulls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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