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</HTML>>From: gkl300@coombs.anu.edu.au (Gavin K. Longmuir)
Subject: frank.1
Date: 6 Mar 91 07:06:45 GMT
Well here goes.........
++++
Frank woke up and took a look around, a few minutes later he
tried again but this time with his eyes open. He was laying in a
corner of a large wharehouse, but was unable to see much past the
large crates that were lying between himself and the rest of the building.
This was just as well, for he did not desire to see a what was
left of his team. The smell was terrible, a kinda smell you can only
get from half raw flesh and other vapiourised matherials. He tried to
stand but was only able to brace himself in a half standing - half
falling position against the lead plated wall. Looking over the
wreakage before him, Frank gagged on the remains of his previous meal
before emptying the contents of this stomach on the floor.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!", Frank revised his position. He was in
fact extremely lucky, the fall from the roof of the building to where
he woke up, behind the crates had saved his life. The THING had got
them all, the THING, a Hunter-Killer; had with such explosiveness
killed without any passion apart from a inhuman characteristic
resentment of the intruders of it's domain.
His team was dead, DEAD! Just names and memories now. Well
it's all part of the job. But they had failied! He had survived, Pat
and Oxo had made sure of that by sending out interfearance in the IR
band that the HK was using to zero in on it's targets. Pat and Oxo had
also survived, but they where his own personal constructs, powerful
and loyal friends always.
He was a jockey, a leader, and he was to spearhead the Banks
attack on an ARES privite cyberspace thus he was not really physically
prepared to walk into a high security zone that is what the team was
for. Ten good men and women dead, has good as money could hire, the
razor street people were always the best. He was to be the bridge,
the rest of the Bank would then follow him to get the greatest amount
of data in the smallest time possible. But had they been setup or given away?
<Pat give me an update on what's happened while I was out, and
Oxo inform the Bank of our current status>, Frank said but without
voicing it aloud.
<We only had to go off line for ten minutes before the place
was clear of receiviers>, Oxo communicated back in reply. <The Bank
knows all about it, and is currently informing all it's clients that
are related to ARES to watch themselves. Most of them are just sitting
on the fence anyway when it comes to the bigger corps., but someone
had given it away>.
<A van has just pulled up outside this wall, so we should be
out of here in a second or two>, echoed Pat.
This just wasn't his kind of speciality he belonged back in
New Melbourne, jacked into the net, safely within the ADB's
(Australiasian Data Bank) arc of the huge geostationary space station
come city, 1000 kilometers above the South-eastern Australian spawl.
Not here acting as frount man in a data grab operation.
----
Two day's ago while doing some freelance work away from the
bank he had come across references to a new project that was to prove
of great interest to his employes the Australiasian Data Bank. A new
hush-hush project of ARES.
The Australiasian Data Bank, wasn't just any old data heaven
it traded in only the most sensive and valuable of jacked data. This
would suggest that it was out to make chaos and endanger anyone that
didn't cover there own arse in cyberspace, which was true in a way. It
attacked the bigger corporations in blackmail and just general robbery
(especially if it made big holes in those companies). But the Banks
didn't really have the bite to hurt the biggest of the corps, the
Mega-corps; but had for some time stopped them from growing any larger.
So Frank was sent to the Seattle spawl. Thats what you get
from doing freelance work in this day and age.
++++
This is my first story of this type I've written, so don't tell me
what I already know; the ideas are ok but the expression is shit!
If you want to use Frank, please refer to me first.
Gavin.
--
Gavin Longmuir - General Dog's Body (The Thunderer) and Programmer
Demography Programme, Research School of Social Sciences
Australian National University, Canberra, AUSTRALIA
Voice: +61 6 249 0530 FAX: +61 6 257 1893 InterNet: gkl300@coombs.anu.edu.au
UUCP: {uunet,ubc-vision,ukc,prlb2}!munnari!coombs.anu.edu.au!gkl300
frank.2
The story continues....
----
The van rocketed down the road away from ARES warehouse, and into some
crowded streets to be lost within the masses of other similar looking vehicles.
But this van was really a IRX mark II armoured anti-protest van from the AI
riots back in '32.
The one of the two Samurai that had just rescued Frank, was reading
sets of numbers coming from a deck about possible future ARES interruptions.
The other, a female of East European decent, packed away the laser that was used
to enter the warehouse via the two foot thick walls. She then turned and said
something very unobtrusive to the Driver (an AI) and then reached for her
Med-pack.
"Hi my name is Edna, and that's Pocket at the deck."
Pocket waves a hand towards Frank but doesn't look away from his
monitor programmes and says, "Pick of the Pockets here actually, and it's
really Wild Edna, but I think she must like you a hell of a lot."
"Him! He's the only Pocket!" Wild Edna snapped back.
<Pat! Do these guys check out?>, Frank voiced to one of his personal
constructs. Then speaking aloud, "Thanks both of you for getting me outa there!"
Pat replied within Frank's skull, <Yes right on the wire!>.
"But what in the hell happened then wasn't really what was planned,
now was it?" Frank paused. "Why all the hush hush about where we are going?"
"None really it's just that we are going to a safe house. Well for a
few weeks. So we are going to become the best of friends." Wild Edna answered.
With that Pocket turned around and winked at Frank and continued, "But
jockeying for you is out while this cools over. The ADB think the setup was a
local job."
----
Half an hour later the van slowed as they reached the Safe House.
Pocket jumped straight out of his seat and out the back door of the van in one
motion, as if this was the biggest moment in this life; and it was. SLUP! came
the noise of Pocket's now lifeless body falling back into the van from the
momentum of the explosive bullet shell. There was nothing to be seen from the
outside as it is pitch dark and only light coming from the interal of the van.
Wild Edna screams at the driver to get going, while she starts to
close the van's rear door. SLOP! A second bullet, and a second hit. Edna
staggers but finishes the closing of the door.
It is beneath her to yell in pain, half a lung open to the air, no drug
or doctor can help her in time, it's written in her eyes. She stares at the roof
while clinging to Frank with super-human strength; calling in a rough-hewn voice
the names of her childhood friends and lovers since, and then smiles.
"Call Ceptor! He will help you!", and she finally rests.
<Oxo what's going on? Give me a line with the Bank>.
The construct replies in a clear tone, <The ADB says it can't help and
have sent you out into the cold>.
Time slows... when you're on the run.
----
A hour later, Frank leaves the van with orders to do a tour of the next
six states, making random stops. He then forms a message for Oxo to place in a
database for general access, and then walks into the night.
----
Dexta-times Classified #45DX67HG3
"Ceptor" cripple is non-operational!
"Graunt"
#EOFC
----
The next day, there is lazy haze of smoke drifting from the shell of an
old van burning in a Laneway sixteen kilometers north of an anonymous safe
house.
====
Frank and the ADB are (C)opyrighted to me, and can only be used after asking
me. Well hopefully anyway. ;-)
Pat and Oxo are contructs of ex-employees, both of which have been surgically
inbedded into Franks Skull.
Ceptor is a creation of David Burren (athos) david@bacchus.esa.oz.au
Anonymous chatsubo ftp site available from sorokin.anu.edu.au [130.56.96.12]
--
* Gavin Longmuir - General Dog's Body (The Thunderer) and Programmer
* * Demography Programme, Research School of Social Sciences
* Australian National University, Canberra, AUSTRALIA
Voice: +61 6 249 0530 FAX: +61 6 257 1893 InterNet: gkl300@coombs.anu.edu.au
* UUCP: {uunet,ubc-vision,ukc,prlb2}!munnari!coombs.anu.edu.au!gkl300