>From: marauder@diku.dk (Stephan Dahl)
Subject: Dragon Ch. VI - Joy & Danger
Date: 28 Feb 91 02:21:13 GMT


	The Dragon stood, stretched and yawned hugely, jaws cracking. As He
stretched his back, blue sparks and arcs danced along his spine. It had been
a bad run, intense tedium interspersed with moments of outraged frustration,
but now it was over.
	"I'll never touch that system again, not in an eternity..." He
grumbled, as he watched the last embers die in a pile of ashes, once a project
file. He wiped the ashes with finality. "Time go out of my mind."

	As He stepped from his room into the Upper Story of the "chatsubo",
He waved for a Tuborg, said hello to a few of the constructs hanging idly about
(still only constructs... the place was remarkably quiet) and went and sat in
an undisturbed corner (they were all undisturbed, so...).
	When His beer arrived, He had decided that the locals weren't quite
lively enough for his taste tonight, so, after the first draught from the
glass, he made a Window.
	Through its frames of crackling lightening, He looked into the Real
Chatsubo, watching the bustling crowd of obviously dangerous people.

	Some time later, He noticed a familiar face in the crowd. Carefully
noting the coordinates, He walked up to the counter, got a bucket of
PushCorns, and, eating one, He went Down one Story.

	Most of the patrons still stared incredulously at Him, as He wound
His way past, and occasionally through, the people between Himself and Lira-
len's table. She, however, didn't bat an eyelash.
	"Hello Dragon! Welcome back!" She started to make room at the tabled,
but the Dragon signified that she shouldn't bother.
	"Thank you... Been missing You, You know..." He smiled disarmingly,
as He sat down on nothing well-defined next to the table. "So what have You
been up to? From what I read, you've become patron saint of lethal cowboys..."
	Liralen smiled enigmatically, "Well, we're all slaves of the Manu-
script, aren't we? How about you? You seem less solid than last we met."
	"Or maybe You have become more Real..." He tried in vain to grab an
unopened can of beer, but He couldn't connect. "Sigh... Things are so much
easier Upstory, where I live... No trouble getting the things you need, as
you don't need anything... No trouble getting the things you want either, as
you just make imagine them... Gets dull though, no intelligent conversation.
That's why I come here. For fun."
	"So you have time on your hands.. er.. claws?"
	"As much as I want," He winked, "I multitask..."
	Liralen leaned forward conspiratorially, smiled, and said "Then I
might have a small project you could help me with..."

	Some time later, poring over some musty, leatherbound and very
heavy-looking books, He realized that He was out of His depth. This galled
Him no end, He was after all made from data to handle data, and this
appeared to be a data problem. Unfortunately, much was missing...
Nonexistant, or physically removed from the network, where He couldn't reach
it.
	He had, however, found a reference to an intercept taking place some
days hence. One of the missing pieces was being transferred, in the
"Chatsubo", no less, and someone was going after it. The Dragon wanted to be
there.

	Undefined time later, the constructs at the Upper Story found the
Dragon shuffling some heavy-looking devices (or representations of devices)
around the bar. There were only constructs, still, so nobody took much
notice, not even the Ratz look-alike behind the counter. That, of course,
may have had something to do with a certain generous donation to the
'Disabled Barkeeps Fundation', just established...
	Shortly before the intercept was to take place, the equipment was in
place. As the Dragon sat down in a corner booth, it all faded away, into
walls and furniture, becoming a part of the local representation. he closed
His eyes, and looked into

> ... a dealer and his bodyguard, looking studiedly casual, waiting for
> action and customers to the heavily illegal pharmaceuticals he carried..

They weren't it. A quick scan of police files showed them to be exclusively
drug-oriented. Very unlikely to suddenly start dealing in illicit data. But
there were others.

> ... He looked like some sort of street doc throwback.  A long scar lead from
> his eye to his neck and he stood lop-sided with the support of a cane.
> Everything else was pretty well covered by straight-collared trenchcoat,
> gloves, and what appeared to be infrared goggles.

An unknown variable. No data on this person were available, which already
made him highly suspect. The Dragon continued to watch carefully, as the
character made contact with a young lady, He already had dismissed as
harmless. The stranger and the girl got rid of the girl's company, an
expensive but otherwise insignificant assassin, recorded ad nauseam on the
net.
	Suddenly, He realized that the transfer had already taken place, and
the stranger, now known as 'Father Jim', was leaving the place. No sign of
the intercept, no way to follow 'Father Jim' outside the bar.
	"Damn!" Perhaps the stranger had known of the intercept, perhaps he
was just cautious, perhaps the intercept had been cancelled. He needed to know.

> J.J. Faust slumped back, defeated, in the empty booth.  It wasn't worth going
> after him.  She looked desperate and at the disadvantage, which made her
> vulnerable...

Perhaps _she_ knew something? Still with His eyes closed, He ate a PushCorn,
and

	flickered into focus in the seat where 'Father Jim' recently sat.
The girl jumped a mile.
	"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," He said, smiling. This didn't
exactly produce the desired effect, as He had lots more teeth than most other
people around. "I'm Dragon. You're J.J. Faust. Pleased to meet you." He
smiled again, causing the girl to move back another 5 inches.
	"Who are you?" she asked, staring wide-eyed at the silvery reptile
that just PoPped into the seat across from her. She started to wonder about
that pill...
	"Well," He said, leaning forward (at which J.J. moved further away)
"I'm from Cyberspace... Ratz has some nice facilities for my kind Upstory,
and a sophisticated interface so that we can visit... Cost a fortune, but
thats not really a problem were I live." He reached out for her hand,
lightening fast, and as she looked down, she saw that the two hands were
superimposed over each other. "You see, I'm just a hologram, a
representation of what I like to look like. This place is special, in that
it's possible to rent time on the projectors and directional loudspeakers.
Lovable technology, and it makes for some pleasantly-spent free time..."
	The girl didn't look recovered, or well-at-ease. "What do you want
from me?"
	"Well, there's the rub. I believe you have some information I would
very much like to have. I need to find this guy 'Father Jim'."

	Before J.J. got further than opening her mouth, a concussion grenade
went off right behind the Dragon, throwing J.J. over the back of her sofa.
The dragon, of course, was completely unaffected, but the projector
equipment wasn't, and He vanished in a shower of glittering points.

	"Shit, I _hate_ losing my connection that way!" He was sitting, head
clutched in claws, in his corner booth back upstory.
	He looked up, and around the bar. "I thought Ratz had devices
against customers blowing up the place... Oh..." In the middle of the Upper
Story, _something_ was taking the place to shreds. The walls were
dissolving, leaving naked cyberspace glowing in, most of the furniture were
gone, the few remaining constructs rapidly leaving. The Ratz look-alike
seemed to be gone.
	The Dragon grimaced, "A cowboy... Now why didn't I think of that?"
He stood, and with a snap of his claws, the something resolved into
leather-and-jeans punk, now using a chainsaw on the bartop. The kid stopped
in surprise, and looked around.
	"Who are you?" He brought up the spinning chainsaw between himself
and the advancing Dragon. "Whadya do?"
	"_My_ territory, _My_ reality rep," the Dragon replied, eyeing the
saw. The kid might be crude, but he carried a big punch. He had never seen
anything represented as a _chainsaw_ yet.
	"Get away from me!" the kid shouted, advancing with the saw held
like a two-handed sword.
	"Two can play that game..." At which, lightening struck straight
between the Dragon and the kid, who looked at the ceiling in astonishment.
"Now, boy, get lost or get hurt..."

	Somewhere, He checked his ingenious spying devices. Most of them had
escaped the kid's onslaught, but then again, they were designed to be hard
to find...

> behind the booth, looking past the frantic crowd at the four or five ninja
> types, who were trying to get past some paranoid and extremely defensive
> bystanders some 30 feet away.

	He just barely avoided a slash with the chainsaw, the blade of which
seemed to have grown to 6 feet's length. The kid grinned, and the dragon
just barely stepped out of range from the backswing.
	"As you wish then. You get hurt." He SnaPped, and suddenly there
were seven Dragons in the room, standing in a circle around the kid, getting
closer.

> where J.J. had come up against a heavy door labeled FIRE EXIT. Of course,
> it was locked, and the ninja types were closing fast.

	He dissolved a couple of the replicas, just before the kid with the
chainsaw did it, continuing to goad him - ever so carefully - towards a wall
near the back. The replicas were needed elsewhere, too, and it wouldn't do
to have him discover just _how_ little of Himself they carried.

> reached out for her, just as Ratz' defensives went back in operation again,
> and took out the top of his skull with an explosive dart. Usually bars were
> only allowed anesthetic needles, but it had been awhile since anybody had
> checked _here_. The other ninjas, who had been watching their irate fellow
> customers, quickly dived for cover and started to spray the installations
> in the ceiling. Behind J.J., the door opened.

	The kid had apparently got wise to the real strength of the
replicas, and was now shredding the next to last one, making towards the
real Dragon behind them. A lightening bolt that almost took his nose off (or
would have almost..., if it had had any power at all) made him stumble two
steps backwards, right into the grill, which rezzed into place just as he
touched the wall. A smell of burnt meat filled the room.

> ..having destroyed all the security devices, the two remaining ninjas ran
> for the door, where their victim had just fled. Its automatics closed it
> just before they got there, the safety bolts sliding into place with an
> audible CHUNK. Outside, sirens were wailing, coming nearer.

	The kid looked like a corpse that had changed its mind halfway
through cremation. He still hadn't let go of the saw, though, but now he was
trying to get out. The walls were rapidly filling in again, though, and the
Ratz copy was returning to operation. Webs of blue lightening filled the
door and the few windows.
	"Who sent you here, boy?" The Dragon indicated the saw, "And where
did you get that program?"
	The kid seemed unable to make more than a faint burbling noise, but
his eyes screamed with pain. Suddenly, without warning, both he and his
fancy weaapon were gone.
	"Hmm.. So he had friends to plug him out... Wonder if I can trace
him?"

	He was still trying to connect an unrecorded call over a
trans-pacific satellite to a site somewhere in China (though that was
probably just a switching relay too), when a hastily-made monitor next to
him beeped an intercepted phonecall.

	"Hello, Kent? Kent? That You?..." Yep, it was J.J., trying to reach
her fixer. His number was in the records too.
	"No, it's me, the Dragon. I think we need to talk..."


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dramatis Personae: Dragon       : Me myself. Getting into the fray...
		   J.J. Faust	: Brought to you, courtesy of
				  jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu
				  (hope it's *action* enough? (!))
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everyone knows that dragons don't exist.  But while this simplistic
formulation may satisfy the layman, it does not suffice for the
scientific mind.  The School of Higher Neantical Nillity is in fact
wholly unconcerned with what does exist.  Indeed, the banality of
existence has been so amply demonstrated, there is no need for us to
discuss it any further here.  The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the
problem analytically, discovered three distinct kinds of dragon: the
mythical, the chimerical, and the purely hypothetical.  They were all,
one might say, nonexistent, but each nonexisted in an entirely
different way ...
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"
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	WordPerfect -	     |standard disclaimer:
	More Filling,	     |  My Opinions are Mine, and only opinions
	Less Satisfying!     |  (Obvious really, isn't it?)
			     |	                       marauder@freja.diku.dk
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