From: Blitz <blitz@crow.cybercom.com>
Subject: A Bit About BioWorks, pt 2
Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 22:02:02 -0400

One thing most people don't understand: I didn't get my head FIXED.  
FIXING it would involve getting a cloned brain implanted and the 
information from the old one downloaded.  Very costly, especially with 
the sensory and data processing mods I had, and the actual cloning was 
something usually only done by high rollers, not razorgirls like me.  I 
didn't have the money, but that's not the reason why.  I could've had the 
money if I wanted to.  The fact was, I would've lost memories, and I 
wanted to keep what I had left.  So I opted to have the biomonitor and AI 
repaired instead.

That's what's really funny about it.  The AI had been suppressing the 
memories that were giving me the most trouble, which amounted to a large 
part of my adult life and some of my childhood.  After the reboot, the 
barriers were down.  For the first time in a long time, I had an 
unrestricted view of my mind.

I didn't like what I saw.  

My condition was stabilized, but once again, it was deteriorating.  Maybe 
I'd have to get that new brain after all.  They claimed 5% data 
corruption, if that.  Having served in the military for over 9 years (40, 
if you count freeze time), I was a firm believe in Murphy's Law.  That 5% 
would be something I couldn't live without.  I knew it.

They'd been trying to interrogate me for days.  It was a large 
corporation, and they had the money to hire the best to work on me.  The 
best interrogators out there were military.  Ironically enough, I'd been 
trained to resist interrogation by the same people.  They weren't going 
to get anything out of me anytime soon, and they knew it.  Instead, they 
left me alone for long periods of time.  It gave me an opportunity to 
remember.  That was probably the most effective technique they could've 
used on me.  Like I said, they were the best, and a lot of people had 
files on me.

"Tell me about the run in Newark, Jetta," said the interrogator.  I 
didn't know his name, but he seemed like a Bob to me.  He didn't like the 
name, and I used it whenever I could.

"I'm sure BioWorks has plenty of files on it, Bob," I answered.  I kept 
my head low.  No sense in looking at him; even cybernetic eyes could give 
something away, and no matter how small, they'd see it.  I had a nice 
view of my shirt, sticky and red where blood had soaked the front.  My 
thighs were spattered slightly less.  Bare concrete beneath my feet.  I 
didn't need to look around to know where they all were.  I'd had plenty 
of time to study my surrounding already.  They were very predictable, 
this group.  It wouldn't be long before the corporation brought in 
someone new.

"I'd like to hear the other side of it.  Who were the two men with you?" 
he asked.  He paced around in front of me.  If I gave him a bad answer 
this time, I'd take a shot in the head for it.  Very predictable.  It 
wouldn't have been bad, just getting roughed up a bit, but my hands were 
cuffed behind me.  I hated getting hit when I couldn't hit back, whether 
I actually wanted to or not.  They were predictable, but they knew a lot 
about me.

"Who said there were two?" I asked innocently, tensing for the blow.  It 
hurt.  I watched a few fresh drops land on the floor between my feet.  At 
least my shirt wouldn't get any dirtier.  He'd struck pretty hard that 
time.  He was getting angry.  I was wearing him out.

"There were two others.  Who were they?"

What would he have said if I told him one, a DefenseTech ninja, was dead, 
and the other, a merc, was the man who set me up for their ambush?  To be 
honest, that was one piece of information I really didn't give a shit 
about them knowing.  In fact, they probably already knew it.  If I gave 
them that, though, even a false answer, they'd have SOMETHING, and they'd 
want more.  Time was on my side, at least for now.

"Hell if I know.  And why are you so certain there were two?  What makes 
you think I wasn't alone?  I'm a little hurt, Bob.  I thought you'd have 
more faith in my abilities."  It was hard to form words; my lower lip was 
swollen on one side.  My tongue hurt like hell where I'd accidently cut 
it on my teeth.  One downside to implanted teeth: when you bite the 
inside of your mouth, you really feel it.

Something hit me in the back of the head, making my view of the floor 
explode into static for a moment.  That was no fist.  He was using a 
truncheon now.  When he got out a club, he was REALLY pissed off.  I had 
him now.

"We know there were two.  Who are they?"

"Hell, the one guy was banging your mom, I'd think you'd know your own 
dad, Bob..."

No strike.  Too childish.  He chuckled.

"Names."

"Neil and Bob."

I felt a jolt, oddly distant, visions of dim red and blue tringles and
squares dancing in front of me.  I could taste something like feathers in
my mouth.  I wasn't sure if I was completely unconscious or not; I could 
hear distant voices, but nothing clear.  Not until the door slammed.

Again, I was alone.

The memories were Pandora's Boxes in my mind, each one waiting to be 
opened, each one containing some horrible bit of the past I wouldn't be 
able to deal with, but one I'd explore anyway, because it was MY memories 
and I had to know what they were.  All the things I wished I'd never 
done, never seen, were there, waiting to be picked apart, then brooded over.

"Just stop now.  Give me the word and I'll memlock the bad shit," said 
the AI, its voice like a poorly-voicesynthed droid inside my head.  I was 
sitting on the stool again, hanging my head low.  The room had plenty of 
cameras in it, and I didn't want my captors to see me subvocalizing.  My 
hair hid my face.  They thought they'd scrambled the AI with the 
microwaver.  It would've worked on the old one.  The newer one had modern 
circuit protection.

"You're still there?" I mouthed.

"You think I'm fucking going anywhere?"

Another box opened, and I saw myself walking through barren streets, 
buildings crumbled around me, cool and comfortable in my radsuit even 
though the odd patch of ground still glowed with residual heat from the 
nukes.  I'd always hated going through blast zones.  I stepped over and 
around countless charred corpses, some curled into that fetal position so 
common with burning victims, others flashfried before they'd had the 
chance.  My suit was sealed and carried its own air supply, and I could 
still smell the burnt flesh.  It was a smell that never left you, like 
gasoline, ozone, or some high explosives.  One whiff and you'd know it 
anywhere.

I shook it off.  A second box opened.  I was inside a light hovertank, 
the frozen wastes of Tarterus IV blank and white in all directions, small 
hills breaking up the horizon.  Turbines howling in full reverse, my 
sister Lydia shouting and cursing at the controls.  It was funny how the 
recollections worked; I'd jump into the middle of something, experience 
it for a moment, and then slide forwards and backwards at once in an 
intricate data flow no inorganic computer could ever emulate.  I knew 
there was a House Ortho Anvil-class ultraheavy main battle tank bearing 
down at us from the front, an old but formidable juggernaut on treads 
that bristled with sensors, missile arrays and weapon batteries.  It'd 
already tried its lasers on us to minimal effect; the swirling snow 
dissapated them almost immediately.  Its rangefinder was also 
laser-based, the only reason we'd been alive to that point.  Wind howled 
into the cabin through the holes it'd stitched in one armored side with 
its magcannons.  Lydia turned back to face me, cheeks blackened with 
grime, green hair spilling out from beneath a chipped and battered helmet 
with a stylized skull wearing a horned helmet on the front.  She grinned.

"Well, most of the automatics are shot to shit.  Ever manual-loaded one 
of these babies, Jetta?" she chuckled.

I didn't, but I had that day.  I'd only been 17.  Each ferro-nickel sabot 
round had weighed in at 10 kilos for the main 55mm magcannon, 2 kilos 
for each of the secondary 20mm guns.  The story of that battle had scored 
me free drinks at countless bars.  I'd stopped telling it at the same 
time I'd stopped drinking.  That memory had been scary, but not bad...why 
had the AI blocked it?  Or had I simply forgotten it?

Lying beside Jio, one of the princes of House Demikaan, my head nestled 
against one muscular shoulder.  I ignored the rest of it before it came.  
I knew damn well why that one had been blocked.

I shook my head to clear it.  I focused on my feet, the rusty stain 
between them.  If I started flashing back again, I'd be in trouble.  The 
AI helped, but it wasn't foolproof.  It was old news, cutting edge 
fifteen years ago, obsolete now.  The fight with the Scalp had left me 
almost dead from blood loss, and my brain had suffered damage.  They'd 
known how to clone neurons back then, even how to grow whole nerves, but 
they didn't really understand how a brain WORKED.  The AI had been 
state-of-the-art, not even tested on humans yet.  The biomonitor wasn't 
as new, but it hadn't been successfully integrated with the AI unit.  A 
lot of people had profited from that operation, all those years ago.  The 
government had a new heroine for propoganda.  The clinics that pioneered 
it got a free test subject that was a perfect specimen, one that wouldn't 
be missed if things got fucked.  The grunts in the field had a small 
measure of comfort, the knowledge that if they were seriously fucked in 
the line of duty by marauding Scalps, there was hope that they could be 
unfucked.

In fact, a lot of stories had grown up about me from that, only some of 
them being true.  I like to refer to them collectively as "The Heroic 
Myth of Lance Corporeal Jetta Srin".  A lot of the older vets of the Big 
One still remember the stories.  How I single-handedly took a Scalp 
without weapons.  That one wasn't completely true, or rather, it was a 
half-truth.  I'd had a monoknife that'd snapped on the first strike, and 
I'd finished the dying creature off with my lost pulse rifle.  Also, 
that'd been the fight that'd left me close to death and brain damaged.

Another good one was the story about me saving a whole platoon during the 
rearguard action at the Battle of the Belt.  Again, embellished and not 
entirely true.  I'd ordered them to withdraw and taken a lance back with 
me to cover them.  The only "saving" that'd actually been done was by a 
large marine named Ramirez who'd slagged a squad of Scalps with his 
beamer, and the fact that I'd dragged two people back with me.  The irony 
of that was, one of them was one Hans Weiler, the man who later made the 
Newark run with me and even later sold my ass to BioWorks for an 
undisclosed sum of money.  Irony is the spice of life, and if it wasn't 
always fucking me over, I'd probably enjoy it a bit.

Another bad memory that came unbidden: the techs showing me the scans and 
holos of what my brain looked like.  Professional and cool, detached, 
pointing out the parts they'd had to remove, where they'd shoehorned the 
AI unit in.  Years later, Ratchet showing me similar pics, circling a 
lesion and the scar tissure surrounding the AI with a felt pen.  Each doc 
I asked told me a different story, but they all agreed on several 
things.  I was suffering from post-traumatic syndrome.  My personality 
was fragmenting.  I was jacked up too high, and my neurons were beginning 
to fire erratically, that was why I got the shakes sometimes.  I wasn't 
sleeping right because of the nightmares.  Everything they agreed on I 
already knew about.  

"Jet, turn your otics up.  I think someone's coming."  It was the AI.

"They're not working right."

I raised my head to look, a bit curious.  This wasn't on schedule.  The 
single ferro-concrete door slid open with a whisper of magnetic tracks, 
revealing a trim, middle-aged European man, hair combed neatly and 
conservatively to one side.  He was the kind of guy who'd look right at 
home in a suit, driving a Mercedes.

"I'm sorry, sir, we're not taking visitors right now.  You'll have to 
come back tomorrow," I said.

"First of all: I'm not a regular visitor, and I don't think you'll mind 
talking to me if you hear me out," he said, chuckling.  "Secondly, you're 
in no condition to enforce that policy.  You really look like shit, you 
know that?"

"If only I got paid every time someone told me that," I said, shaking my 
head.  "Who are you?"

"Jerzi will do for now," he said.

"Hell of a name you got there, Jerzi.  What're you here for?"

"It's Polish," he explained.  "I'm here because you have some wealthy 
friends who'd like to see you on the outside again.  Now, if you don't 
mind, I'd like to get moving.  This archology is on the big side, my 
intelligence reports have proved to be less than exact up to this point, 
and these people have a very poor sense of humor."  He tossed a duffel 
bag to me.  My duffel bag.  "Most of your possessions are inside.  Your 
weapons are, I'm not sure if they removed anything else."

"Why should I believe you?" I asked.  He walked around behind me, not 
even sparing a glance at the many cameras on the ceiling.  I heard a 
click, and the manicles snapped open, dropping to the floor.  I watched 
him carefully.

"My employer told me you'd want a name.  Jeremy."  He smiled slightly.  
"I take it you know who Jeremy is.  And besides, do you think I'd give a 
'Blazer weapons if I was going to kill them?  That goes beyond being 
sporting...that's more in the suicidal department."

"Yeah, I only know one Jeremy."  Shit.  Rescued by a crazy fucking neural
network CREATED by the fucking company holding me prisoner.  It was 
crazy, it was unbelievable, but it made a lot of sense.  It made even 
more sense when Kim stepped into the doorway.  I recognized the ninja 
immediately.

"Didn't I kill your ass?" I asked, watching Kim.

"A clone.  Jeremy has plenty of copies of me in cryostorage."  She was 
wearing the same clothes, using the same weapons.  Just too fucking ironic.

But I already mentioned irony, didn't I?  And if it ever does stop 
fucking me over, I'll probably think back on this and laugh my ass off.