From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: Encounter #2
Date: Sat, 14 Aug 1993 15:38:13 GMT

Character List:
---------------
Cognos: 	A big pug-ugly cyber-enhanced male with a serious
		AI problem.

Synthetic and	Cognos's synthetic (non-organic) and
Organic:	natural (organic) brain.

Kirsten: 	Daughter of a mystery man told to "hide" and then
		left her to fend for herself.

Flamboyant:	Newbie cyber-enhanced male still getting used to
		being part mecha and part human.

Silicon Street Avengers:	Street thugs.
Silicon:			Leader of the Avengers

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>From the end of: "Flamboyant: Daytime Nightmare II"
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Not taking her eyes from the display, the doctor said

	"I'm busy. Take a message or ask them to wait."

That madman had gotten into this doc-shop, and his AIs were suspended. He
was as good as dead meat. Nervously Flamboyant began re-activating his AIs
when the doctor gave him a sharp look.

	"Do NOT reactivate your AIs until I have completed my scan."

Flamboyant was about to give her a response when suddenly there was a loud
crash, the door flew open, and the same ugly mass of humanity that had put
him in this chair stood there with rage in his eyes.

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Begin: "Encounter #2"
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Flamboyant froze where he was sitting. The man obviously was upset about
something, but there was no telling what it was. Maybe if he just sat
there and said nothing.....

				*	*	*


After getting by the stupid receptionist-droid at the front window, as well
as destroying the window and security doorway, Cognos made his way down the
hallway. When he though he heard someone in a room, he booted the door open,
only to find it was empty. Hurrying down the hallway he found another room with
someone speaking in it and booted it open. Inside the room was an obvious
medical type with a startled patient sitting in a standard diagnostics chair.

As the medic turned to face them, he carefully entered the room with his
precious cargo, and held it up to her.

	"Dis kid's dyin', and if you don't save her, you're gonna
	 die too."

The doctor looked at him, her lips pursed in annoyance, and said

	"I don't respond well to threats mister, especially in my
 	 own medical center."

as she looked inside the jacket. Inside was a bloodied mass that had
once been a very young girl. Pointing out the door and down the hall,
she said

	"Bring her down this way."

			*	*	*

After the madman and doctor had left the room, Flamboyant heaved a sigh of
relief. He wasn't the madman's main target. But then he got curious -- why
would that man be so concerned about a little kid like that? And why come
here? It was a puzzling situation to say the least.

But whever the answers were, the man certainly wasn't someone to be trifled
with, and besides he still needed to get patched up and his systems working
properly again. Flamboyant decided to wait for the doctor to get back
and not stick his nose in where it could get chopped off.

			*	*	*

Cognos followed the doc down the hall into another, larger room. In the
middle of the room was what looked like a hospital bed with a number of
instruments attached to it. Pointing to the bed, the doc said

	"Put the child here."

Cognos gently placed the kid on the bed, and uncovered her bleeding, broken
body. As he watched the doc quickly examined the kid. Picking up a nearby
scanner she passed it over the kid's body, examined a nearby display screen,
and frowned.

Looking at Cognos she asked,

	"I'm going to need a release in order to treat this child.
	 Are you her legal guardian?"

Cognos paused for a moment, then said

	"I found dis kid in a factory. She ran away from me and fell
 	 into a hole where she got the way she is now. Bein' thje good
	 guy I am I picked her up and brought her here.

 	 So 'no,' I ain't this kid's 'legal guardian.'"

The doc listened intently until Cognos said he wasn't the guardian, then
said
	"Well, I can't do anything for this child until I have a
	 release saying I can treat her."

as she reached for a nearby holophone.

	"The state will have to take the child into protective custody so
 	 I can treat her."

Cognos rushed over and slammed his hand on the holophone.

	"There ain't gonna be no releases. You treat the kid, and when
	 you're done we be outta here."

Dr. Carnes looked back at Cognos.

	"I don't know who you think you are mister, but without any release
 	 I don't treat this kid. Now get your hand off the phone so I can
 	 make my call."

Cognos, looked at the doc, then slowly let the holophone go. Glaring once
at Cognos, Dr. Carnes was reaching over to dial the number when Cognos
grabbed her wrist in a grip strong enough to make her gasp. Slowly he
increased the pressure until he figured the bones were about to snap, then
looked her full in the face.

	"From what I knows 'bout you high-priced doc's is you can't
	 work w' out your natural meat hands. Somet'n 'bout there not
	 being arty hands sensitive 'nough to get the job done. Is I
	 right?"

Dr. Carnes, gasping in pain and agony, could barely nod in agreement.

	"Now, dis here kid needs to be fixed up, and she don't need
	 no release to do it. Ain't that right?"

Dr. Carnes was almost crying from the pressure of Cognos's grip, but she
managed to nod her head in agreement. With that Cognos released her which
caused a yelp of pain as the sudden blood flow increased the pain in her
bruised muscles.

Giving him a look of thorough disgust as she rubbed her sore wrist, Dr.
Carnes said

	"You will pay _dearly_ for this mister."

Cognos looked back, his expression emotionless, and said

	"Dat kid dies, and you pay with your life. I make no guarentees
	 what I'll do if she bites it."

	"Well understand this mister, you want this kid to live, you
	 go sit in that corner and shut your mouth." said a completly
	 annoyed Dr. Carnes. "This child is going to need some very
 	 delicate work to put her back together, and what you just did
	 to my wrist hasn't helped anything. So sit down, shut up, and
  	 leave me alone."

With one last stern look at Dr. Carnes, Cognos found a seat, crossed his
arms, and watched as the doctor went about her work.

			*	*	*

Flamboyant found sitting in the diagnostic chair to be pretty boring
after the first half hour. What could be keeping the doctor? He had
things to do, and having that madman around wasn't making him feel any
more secure. Not wanting to wait much longer, and hoping the doctor
hadn't left him in any situation he couldn't safely extricate himself
from, he stood up. When nothing untoward happened, he activated all his
available AIs. When that worked without mishap, he stepped into the hallway.

Down the hall the lights were on in a room marked "Surgery." From the look
of the kid that guy had brought in, Flamboyant wasn't surprised she had
been taken there to be worked on.  Looking at the room, he could only
wonder what was going on inside.  Finally his curiosity got the better of
him, and he sneaked down to take a look.  Inside the room he saw the doctor
working on the child, various pieces of robotic equipment helping out as
she methodically put the kid's broken body back together again. On a tray
near the operating table there was an artificial eye, and a number of other
impliments Flamboyant recognized from his past research as artificial bone,
dermal, and bio implants.

Flamboyant's breath caught in his throat. That kid couldn't be more than
ten years old, much too young to lose so much of her humanity to a mass
of robotic machinery. Looking back on his own experience, even after he
had researched everything about implantation and its effects that he could,
he was still getting used to the idea of being almost as much machine as
human, and integrating it into his identity. To put such a burden on a
child so young....

But it was all quite fascinating, so spellbound Flamboyant watched
as the doctor continued her unhurried, deliberate work. Under her
hands the child's body was slowly cleaned of it's injuries, wounds
bandaged, and body parts broken or injured beyond repair replaced
with artificial implants.

			*	*	*

Dr. Carnes looked down at the child's body on the table. Most of the easy
work had been done -- replacing the various organs and skeletal structure
with synthetic equivalents, but the child was going to be in for a lot of
work in the years to come as she grew to full maturity. Dr. Carnes didn't
envy the doctor who would have to treat this child later on, or the child
herself who was doubtless going to be facing a hellish adolescence.

There was a more serious and immediate question that would have to be
addressed though. Looking over at Cognos, she said

	"I've installed the smallest standard implants where she needs
	 them the most to replace what couldn't be fixed, but she's
	 going to need AI implants to make sure she doesn't overdo how
 	 she uses them or hurt herself accidentally."

Cognos looked at the doctor and said

	"So?"

Undaunted, the doctor continued.

	"The danger of implanting such an AI in a person so young is
	 their identity hasn't fully formed yet, and there could be
	 a substantial psychological impact of having another 'mind'
	 present in her body."

	"She should be able to do without the AIs, but in such cases she
	 would need constant supervision. With the AIs she has a good
	 chance of not hurting herself accidentally, but she'll need a
	 strong mind to make the adjustment."

Cognos didn't even stop to consider the question before answering

	"Do it."

Dr. Carnes gave him a long look, then went to a drawer in the room and
extracted a vial with a bioimplantable nanotech AI. Afer measuring some
of the mercury-colored liquid out into a syringe, she inserted the needle
into the base of the child's skull directly into the brain, injected the
liquid, and prayed. Getting another piece of equipment, she placed a hood
over the child's head, checked the instrument readings to make sure the
implant was being properly setup in the patient's mind. When she had
confirmed that, she heaved a sigh of relief at having completed the first
part of her work.

	"Now we have to wait while the AI matrix acclimates
	 itself to the child's neural centers."

Cognos regarded the doctor calmly.

	"How much time will it take?"

Dr. Carnes paused to think momentarily, then said

	"At least twelve hours, probably longer."

	"Then we wait," said Cognos.

Dr. Carnes gave the man sitting in the corner a look of disbelief.

	"You can not be serious," said Dr. Carnes. "The child is
	 perfectly safe with this equipment monitoring her, and if
	 I'm not out taking care of patients people are going to
	 suspect something. Besides, I'm hungry."

Cognos regarded the doctor warily, then said

	"First we go lock the doors. You want to go do your thing,
	 that can be taken care of. Then we come wait here."

Cognos stood up and was following the doctor when he saw something move
outside the doorway. Roughly pushing the doctor aside he barged through
the door in time to see someone turn and run down the hallway. Breaking
into an immediate sprint he raced after the interloper. When he got close
enough he delivered a massive blow to the man's back, sending the man
off balance and sprawling down the hallway and into a plaster wall where
the hallway turned.

			*	*	*

	<<Not again,>> thought Flamboyant.

Struggling, he was moving to extricate himself from of the wall when
he was bodily pulled out, turned around, and shoved against the hallway
wall.

			*	*	*

For Dr. Carnes it had already been a long day, and the way this man was
acting it was going to be a much longer before it was done. She was already
thinking of what to report to the medical authorities and considering the
legal ramifications of what she had been forced to do. It wasn't going to be
a pleasant set of affairs.

Her reverie was abruptly interrupted when the man shoved her out of the
way and crashed through the doorway out of surgery. Dr. Carnes winced as
the door slammed open -- yet another repair bill -- and the man disappeared
down the hallway at a run. Not knowing what to expect, she hesitantly looked
through the open door down the hall and saw that the man had pinned a patient
she had been working on earlier that day against the wall. A hole in the
hallway wall indicated that it wasn't a friendly meeting either.

			*	*	*

Flamboyant was head to head with the same madman who had so easily put him
down the night before, and the man wasn't happy at all.

	"Who are you? What you doin' here spyin' on the doc?" asked
	the madman. "Spit it out before I rip your head off!"

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Comments -- even one liners just to let me know what you did or did not
like about it -- to timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca.

Thanks!