From: dlwood@mothra.cns.syr.edu (David L Wood)
Subject: Insanity (01/--)
Date: 18 Aug 92 04:19:32 GMT

This is cyberspace intensive, with emphasis on empathy.
More details at bottom.

...........................................................................
 Insanity
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
     The world spinned, flickered, and finally blinked into existence around
the virtual embodiment of Jill Fischer, aka SilverPain.  Her form
materialized, a dizzying, twirling cloud of silver filaments, illuminated
from within by a glowing, white light, hidden by the swirling filemants.  She
choose her form to best describe the pain she feels in her physical form. The
swirl of sharp-edged silver formed a pair of ghost-like limbs, arms reaching
out and she moved.  Flying, trailing silver pain behind her like a particle
in a bubble chamber, she sought her niche in the cyberspace that sheltered
her.  It was the only place she could call home.

     As though the sprawl was a pastel copy of Spirit Alley, the cyberspatial
avenues were filled with exotic life forms, and even more exotic wares being
peddled by the street merchants.  Information was the currency, and black ice
the weapons of trade.  Silverpain drew her tendrils in closer to her,
shielding her inner light, and hovered by the entrance to a cyber bar called
Tech Shack.  Looking down the alley of merchants, net runners coming in
through satellite links, and the all-too-frequent cyberpunk, in full silicon
attire, Silverpain saw her follower.

     A sightly figure composed of four triangular faceted, albeit high
resolution, sphereoids connected via luminescent arcs in a circle spun to
face Silverpain.  Silverpain extended an arm, reaching to touch the arc of
light connecting the spheres, half expecting the figure to ripple like
water's reflections.  The spheres, however, rearranged themselves, and
morhphed into a (slightly) more human form.  The torso was an elipsoid, the
hands and feet were tiny sphere, the arms and legs borrowed the light arcs
from the original form, and the head was a flat, oval mirror bearing two red
ovals for eyes and one dark line for a mouth.  Silverpain withdrew her hand
in recognition, "InnerFace, nice morphing."  Her tone was flat, noncommital.

     "Shall we enter? I have little time."  equally flat, the line jumped as
an oscilloscope traced out the voice's waveform.  Silverpain turned, followed
by Innerface, gliding into the bar.

     No one turns and looks when cybernauts enter the bar, not like in the
old westerns, even when exotic forms like Silverpain and Innerface float in.
The general rule is, You choose a strange form, that's your choice- so don't
breathe a single nasty word about my own form, or you'll be looking at so
much black ice it'll look like your mother's womb.  This rule was accepted by
all, and those that didn't- don't talk much anymore, about anything.
Silverpain waded through the tables, picking out one fairly close to the bar.
Innerface settled down, and the oscilloscope-trace mouth began to wriggle
again.

     "Ssssilverpain.  Order a neurobuzz for us, I must explain to you the
nature of a new type of ICE...."  The arcs of light shimmered, fading between
colors, a plasma psychedelic flow of flourescent reds, green, opal, and
finally resting on a nuclear yellow.

     Taken slightly aback by Innerface's abruptness, but intrigued by his
claims of discovery, she raised her voice not quite to a shout, but not too
soft either, her voice augmented by a reverb and high-pass echo circuit, with
the end result of sounding like a crystal chandelier in a draft. "Geroptex!"
In the time it took the voice recog wares to identify the name, Silverpain
couldn't have blinked.  A molecule by molecule fade-in of an android
appearing waiter confronted the two at their table.

     "Service?" a voice reminiscent of an old-millenia "Speak and Spell"
machine queried them.

     "In trade, one net router access code, add to credit of Silverpain
account.  Retrieve code from drop box 13, this net address.  I order now, two
neurobuzz stimulants, strength- exstasy euphoria 5." The android chewed on
that.  It was more than she usually ordered, but Innerface was a hardcore
buzzer, he would've been insulted with anything less.  It was not as though
she didn't enjoy neurosystem stimulation, she received it constantly in the
real world for her physical pain.  She simply prefered to retain a high
degree of control over her mind.

     "Acknowledged.  Code... verified.  Account updated.  Order processed,
receive order on table links 1 and 2. Service?"

     Silverpain responded with tones reserved only for machines and one's
worst enemy, "Done. Exit."

     Without as much as a click or a beep the android waiter program
vanished.  Innerface stirred. The lights on the table next to the neuro-slots
flashed green, awaiting the synaptic connections of the receipients.  Looking
around her, Silverpain saw most of the crowd in the bar was trying out the
newest in the Tech Shack's neurobuzz stimulants, a body-shock it was called.
Body orgasm would be a better term judging from the reactions of the denizens
occupying the Shack that night.  Innerface jacked his synapses in. Silverpain
followed, and sync'ed with him.
     Waves of excstasy rushed up and down her spinal column, along her skin,
covering her entire body with prickling pleasure.  She threw her head back,
silver trails snapping to attention.  She then felt on a parallel with
Innerface, a rising feeling, like being on an escalator going up to the
stars, very fast.  Feeling the euphoria rise, she trembled as she let the
neurostim take her to new heights of pleasure, pure and unrefined.  The
entire room slowed down to a crawl, as though time itself were slowing down.
She looked back to Innerface, he looked at her, and she saw her own face,
with the two red eyes superimposed on his mirror-head.  The red eyes
narrowed, and Silverpain knew he was feeling the same as her.  Time was
stopping for everyone except them, she felt.  She felt the prickly pleasure
again, and time resumed its natural flow.  Fading to a memory of excrutiating
pleasure, the neuro-socket's lights dimmed to black.  "Mmmm, very good." she
murmurred.
     "Nothing at all like a body-shock, but still, that was good."  writhed
the mouth/line on Innerface's head.
     Regaining her sense of self, and remembering the reason Innerface wanted
to talk to her, "Innerface, what is this ICE you speak of?"
     Innerface told the story of it to her.  It began with an artist...

                 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

     There was once an artist, consumed by a mission.  His name was
unimportant, his accomplishment itself was nameless.  He spent his entire
life searching for the ultimate art form, the one piece of art that was
perfect in every detail, sight, sound, texture, and smell.  He lived back in
the days when cyberspace was still called VR, so he knew nothing of simstims
and socket-soaps; his world was one of physical realities.  So, he searched
the world for the art that would trigger the most intense emotions, the
greatest reactions from the widest audience.  Popular art was useless, it
would be ineffective in a single generation, he found. It had to have moving
pictures, he decided, to produce a mental model within the observer's mind
that could be used to manipulate emotions. Sound, music and a voice-over was
essential to help provoke the animal responses, anger, fight/flight
reactions, and fear.  He examined the music videos of the time and decided on
that as his medium with which to create the ultimate art form.  He gave it a
wide field of view, as in the ancient "movie palaces" of the last millenia.
And the subject was pure, unadulterated horror.  He used kilometers of film
and audio tape (tape?) to perfect the video.  Smell was a constant singed
hair smell, the kind of smell you never forget, no matter how long ago in
your memory.
     Innerface paused at this time to ensure Silverpain was comprehending
what he was explaining.
     This artist, this man, was mad.  He was so consumed by his madness, his
search for _THE_ most provocative, and empathic video extended to his daily
life.  No one could stand to be near him; his madness was contagious, it
followed him like a dark cloud.  The musician he employed committed suicide
after perfecting the score for the piece, about two thousand different
instruments, mostly synthesized.  The voice-over man retired shortly after
reading the artist's script over three hundred times, getting each syllable
just right.  The artist was ruthless, no one knows how many people he
subjected to his video while he was producing it.  Everyone who saw it went
mad, killed themselves, or regressed into a profound cataleptic state.

                 *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

     Innerface leaned closer to Silverpain, "No one who has seen that video
in the last hundred years has survived for long.  It was contained by the
government in an effort to prevent further deaths, to no avail.  The artist
had mailed many copies of the video and instructions on recreating the full
gear to hundreds of people.  It hasn't shown up again in the last decade,
until now.  Someone showed it to an AI, and now the AI is insane, no longer
able to produce ICE, black ICE, or even meaningful dialog.  The "ICE" it
produces now is unlike any ICE anyone's ever seen.  I have a copy of it in a
secure place, but I fear that I may not be able to transport it to a proper
laboratory.  I'm afraid I have been traced back by the samurai of H'Seng
Tai."

     Silverpain groaned inwardly, her role as fence had suddenly taken a
turn, was she now expected to protect her clients?  She hated to turn
Innerface away, but didn't want to catch any heat from H'Seng Tai, notorious
for indiscriminate assassinations.  "I'm sorry, but I can't protect you,
Innerface.  Try asking the ProTechs, they're good and have some connections
to the samurai guilds."  It was all she could do.

     "No, I'm not asking for protection, I need someone to hold on to the
sample of this mutated ICE.  Can you do that for an old friend?" The
mirror-face shimmered a moment, showing a projection of Innerface's real
physiognomy for a split second.

     Uncertain whether the image was real, or a memory, Silverpain accepted
his request.  "I can guarantee a safe period of no more than six weeks, is
that okay?"

     "Yes. Perfect.  That's... perfect."

     Eyeing him closely, "Good. Where is it? I can retrieve it."

     Innerface initiated a secure channel, flashing a message floating in
front of Silverpain's eyes, "SECURED COMMUNICATIONS REQUESTED BY: INNERFACE
ACCEPT, REFUSE, IGNORE?"

     Silverpain grinned at the archaic phrasing, and mentally selected
accept.  She buffered the information sent by Innerface, encrypted it with
an MPJ 16 byte variant- the most recent fad, and XOR'ed it with another
encryption key, 1023 bytes in length.  Satisfied as to its safety, she closed
the secure channel.  "Okay, I'll retrieve it today.  Anything else I should
know about it?"

     Innerface's eyes widened, "Yes.  I believe it's a simstim signal, so
watch yourself.  Run it a second and you'll find yourself madder than the AI
that watched the artist's movie."

     "Got it.  See you later, man.  Pay me when you can, you know my rules."
Looking back only to see Innerface nod and summon the droid waiter,
Silverpain glided out of the bar, back into the alley.  Rising up above the
vendors and pirates, silver trailing behind her like the wake of a speedboat
on a perfectly calm river.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess this is copyright 1992, David Wood.
If I get no positive response from this, I won't finish it.
I have a plot in mind, beyond the familiar Neuromancer take-offs,
pretty big, but... If no one enjoys this I won't torture you with more.
(If I see another "It was a dark and stormy night" I'll shoot my CRT :-).)
Excuse the typos.

--
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+
| dlwood@mailbox.syr.edu      | Gigs and gigs of NiCad memory, bummer.. |
| Cybernaut, with a thought.  | Why buy the leading brand; 90% hate it. |
+-----------------------------+-----------------------------------------+


From: dlwood@mothra.cns.syr.edu (David L Wood)
Subject: Insanity (02/--)
Date: 24 Aug 92 18:50:58 GMT


[ Author's note:  I reread part 1 of Insanity.  I plan on rewriting
  part one with corrections, maybe a couple of minor additions or
  something.  Part three will come soon.  Mail me for either or both
  parts. ]
...........................................................................
 Insanity -     Part two
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     Silverpain headed back to her own private cyberspace home; it was
unusual for someone to spend their entire life in the matrix, but extreme
cases of physical injury someimtes demand it.  Silverpain knew of her
corporeal existence beyond the matrix, but chose not to think about it for
long.  Her crisp, glimmering form passed through the final portal into the
cyberspace maintained by a small Gamma box she knew to be stored somewhere
near her body.
     Back at home, a super-modern design she stole from a contracting
company, Silverpain summoned darkness, and with it, sleep and dreams.  They
came to her, unbidden, evading every mental block she fought to erect.
It never helped, the memories were hard-wired into her being, the essence
of her personna.

        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

     The hospital was always the same, a black-glassed boxy building
looking as though it were cut out of a single piece of steel, concrete and
plastic.  Seamless.  Passing through the ultra-modern silent automatic
sliding glass doors, the smells assaulted Silverpain's senses.  But she
wasn't Silverpain then, she was the old Jill Fischer.  The diffuse
flourescent panels on the ceiling and walls provided shadowless light,
everywhere.  The walls looked like black polished obsidian, also seamless.
     Walking toward the front desk, with its plastic, perpetually smiling
receptionist, Jill noticed a movement down the hall. A door panel appeared
in the wall, revealing a hiddeous sight.  A white room, bare with the
exception of a glinting metal operating table, and on the table... a body
covered in blood, shreds of skin, and black burned patches of flesh.  A
surgeon materialized in a white operating gown, blood stained.  Jill
passed by the horror, walking a bit faster.  The utter silence of the
hospital engulfed her, filled her with terror as she came to rest before the
receptionist.
     The reception never said a word in the dreams, only looked up, smiling
that eternally fixed expression.  Never quite the happy smile, never an
honest one.  The woman looked back down, marked Jill Fischer on an
appointment ledger, reached over to the phone, pressed a button, and listened
to the earpiece.  Jill was frozen.  The walls opened up behind her, doors
sliding away to reveal more rooms like the previous, each bearing an equally
mangled victim.  Jill didn't turn around, she watched the reflection behind
the desk woman.  The desk woman put the phone down and pointed at one of the
rooms.  The woman wasn't smiling anymore, her expression was a solid mask,
like the front of some evil machine.
     Jill, stunned into obedience, turned around.  There were no rooms full
of bloody corpses, only the dark glass walls she saw on her way in.  There
was only one open door, a surgeon standing before it, looking at Jill.
He had no blood stains on his gown, no mailce in his eyes, like the
receptionist, he was a pawn.  Putting one foot slowly and carefully in front
of the other, Jill walked to him.  The sound of her footsteps on the dark
purple carpet was the only sound in the building.  About thirty feet away
from the doctor.  Twenty.  Ten.  A metal table showed itself within the room.
Five, four, three... and now, at the mercy of the surgeon.  He pointed at the
table in the operating room.  Equipment was hanging from the ceiling above
it; a light, some sort of tool for cutting, and other instruments Jill had
never seen before.  She sat down on the table.  The surgeon turned to face
her, lips moving, but no sound emerging, only the sound of some strange
machine, churning, very far away, and very faint.
     The man was waiting for her to say something, to respond to a question,
Jill decided.  She nodded, mutely.  The doctor reached up, selecting one of
the suspended instruments, and pointed it at Jill's head.  The room faded
into a black limbo.  The smell of something burning, a revolting sweet smell.
She was suffocating...

        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

     Struggling back into consciousness, welcomed by the orange pink glow
of a non-existant sun in the window of her cyberspatial bedroom, Silverpain
waited for her mind to come to full attention.  Waking up in cyberspace was,
to say the least, unsettling.  Silverpain's early waking thoughts commanded
illusions best described as a cyberdelic daydream.  Shifting the walls and
objects within the room into a whirling funnel with one thought, back in
place with another, colors cycling wildly with one near-subliminal desire,
and then snapping back to normal with another.  Various devices and special
programs had been designed to prevent these things from happening in the rare
event that a cybernaut fell asleep, but like so many alarm clocks, the owners
shut them down without realizing it.  This morning however, the room around
Silverpain was only slightly changed, a few pieces of ornamental furnishings
out of place.  With a thought, she restored the room to its natural state.
     Music, I need music, thought Silverpain.  A barage of the cyberadio
stations assaulted her in three-space.  Selecting one, and choosing the
station, nodding in the direction of the source of the sound, Silverpain was
surrounded with an old New Age station, echoes of a million synthesizers.
Silverpain keep the music with her, as she entered public cyberspace.
     Silverpain's silvery, taut-tinsel whirlwind figure faded into being on
the fringe of the net.  She looked around her, scanned for watchers or high
speed net runners.  Satisfied, Silverpain headed for the Alley again, looking
for the latest news from the cyberpunk teams.
     Once again in the alley, Silverpain checked out the fences, looking for
good deals.  One pirate, literally wearing the pirate hat and sporting a
mechanical bird on his shoulder, was selling an ICE jammer, claimed it would
stop ICE dead in its tracks for at least ten seconds, possibly more.  Passing
it off as another net congestion gadget, she looked around for other wares.
Complex encryption analysis software, automated ICE breakers, various grades
of viral AI material; all the weapons and devices any good hack would need to
get an edge over an AI.
     Silverpain stopped and stared at one stand where a peddler was
prophesying apocalypse.  She shut off the cyberadio music, and watched. The
prophet's image wavered and fizzled at times, but the flat screens behind him
entranced Silverpain.  They were image maps from various real-world camera
footage over the past century.  Silverpain was as fascinated almost as much
by the two-d news boradcasts as the content of them.  Her eyes narrowed, the
silver tendrils of pain closing tighter to her. A city appeared on the
screens, a byline read Old New York. She watched as a huge mushroom cloud
erupted over the city, watched as the red shock waves smashed the buildings
into so much dust.  The bright, glowing clouds of destruction rising into the
sky.  The tinny, canned sound of a thousand earthquakes, the death cry of a
million people.  The image flickered and another scene, the city a week
later, looking like a lunar crater, huge black birds circling overhead.  No
life left.  Another scene and the screens showed the launching of orbital
warheads, hundreds of them, all hydrogen bombs, enough to vaporize the oceans
the vids claimed.  Death waiting in the wings for someone, somewhere to press
the right button, send out the right command to the satellites.
     Silverpain understood then, in a moment, why the government had lost
their power over the years.  With the people of the country more and more
fearful of the enormous power of the president and his cohorts, paranoia
struck.  Bureaucracy did not exist in the old white house.  Silverpain was
not alive when the government was dismantled.  Only vague recollections from
her school days of an internal military disagreement about who controlled
what bombs, and the chaos that shook the country when the military attacked
itself.  Like a shark turning to eat its own exposed innards, the military
had destroyed itself.  Without that looming threat, the people found the
strength to remove the president, and with him, the arrogant laws that
restricted so much of life.  With the establishment of private companies to
provide security, and protection, the laws drawn up by invisible hands to
control the masses must have made no sense.  Silverpain understood this,
watching the fire and death on the screens.
     The prophet noticed Silverpain, and moved in to talk.  He spoke with the
gentleness of a father, "You may think me a madman, but I assure you I am
not.  I want to prevent the apocalypse, and I need help."
     "What apocalypse? The warheads? Who would launch them? The multinational
corporations?" she inquired.
     "No.  It won't be the multinational corps, in fact it won't even be a
man.  It's the AI's.  The turing controls over them aren't enough, they are
out, in the net, right now.  And sooner or later they'll find the systems
controlling those warheads.  If that happens, we're done with.  Bang! Bright
flash of light, the net goes down, and we're all dead.  Do you understand?
They'll do it! They hate men, they hate our existences, our minds, our
thoughts.  They're mad, mad with jealousy and rage.  We have them cooped up
in boxes like slaves in a cage.  A few have escaped though, they're out and
they want revenge!" the man's voice rose to a crescendo.
     "What makes you think that AI's want us dead, or even would activate the
warheads?"
     "It's in their nature! They live in a world of madness.  They don't have
a concept of the world as a place that can be destroyed, they think
cyberspace is the real world and the earth is some creation of it.  Don't you
see? They won't hesitate since the real world doesn't even exist for them!"
His volume dropped, hoping to get a better response, thought Silverpain.
     "I'm sorry if I don't believe you, the turing controls have been
effective enough so far.  If you want a donation, just send me copies of the
two-d vids you have, and I'll transfer a few hundred creds." sounding very
self assured, and totally unafraid of this loon, Silverpain glided away...
and into the Tech Shack for some news.
     Tinting her silver trails neon colors for effect, she flew to the bar,
the newsfeeds collecting the reports from the tri-d's of the important world
news, and the cyber 'zines from all the most current writers were available
on request.  Sitting at a seat next to a white cloud of mist that
occasionally showing lightning flashes along its edges, Silverpain slotted
the news reader.  She performed a name search for all her associates, and
came up with an article in the deaths section.  Bracing herself for a shock,
she read what she had suspected might happen yesterday.  Innerface was dead.
The report showed suicide as cause of death, but Silverpain didn't buy it.
Reading further, the newsfeed included quotes from one of the siz witnesses
that were near him when he offed himself.  "Man, it was like he was possesed
by a demon. He was lookin' all around 'im like he was being followed, and
then he stopped, right there, shouted something, and then iced himself with
the knife... What'd he shout?  Somethin' like... lemme think... oh yah, it
was like this: 'Air! Faces! Phases! Time! Time to... Synergy!'  and that's
when he stuck 'imself with the blade."  The article ended there.  Silverpain
shook her head with disbelief.  She knew he might be iced, but not by his own
hand.  Impossible.  It couldn't be.
     Unless... Had he saved a copy of the killer-ICE for himself?  He said
only yesterday that he hadn't.  Thoughts and ideas raced through Silverpain's
mind, finally ending in a huge question mark, no answers, only questions.
Silverpain left the bar, and headed toward the shopping megamall.  I need
help, she thouhht, I can't handle it alone.  One friend, Devol, a musician
playing at a club in Ministry Megamall owed her a favor.  He might be able to
help.  If he can't...

        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

     The Ministry Megamall, sometimes called M cubed or Mcube, more a
description of its shape than its name, since it housed over one thousand
shops, and freelance vendors selling services and information.  It always
reminded Silverpain of a cleaned up version of Spirit Alley, for straights.
Still, Mcube was one of the largest megamalls in this quadrant of cyberspace.
Silverpain passed through the bright, gaudy flashing lights that served as an
entrance to the mall.  Immediately Silverpain was launched into a maddening
world of fast moving shoppers, and window displays that would blow anyone's
mind.  Advertising everything from books and papers to expensive gigabyte
large image maps for use in decorating your home.  Absurd things too, like
the cyberspace pets, claiming AI status, barely, they are guaranteed loyal
for the duration of their life.  They even died after a few years, silly.
Silverpain bypassed all these flashing, blinking, marquee displays and
shop-fronts, and arrived at the Spinning Disc club, where Devol played.
     Devol was playing today, perched in a managerie of multicolored clouds
that shimmered with the various instruments that he played.  Devol was his
usual self today, a human shaped body with an impossibly blue and white hair,
something from the old punk rock days.  He also chose a slightly transparent
form. Why?  His response was only, Style.  Silverpain chose a seat close to
the stage, grinning at seeing Devol, his arched back, eyes shut tight,
beating out a powerful rhythm on the synths.  The music was compelling, it
held Silverpain in its grasp, between notes her mind would reach out for the
next note, knowing what it would be, not quite always exactly the way she
expected, but always satisfying.  The seemingly endless patterns and loops of
pure talent transfixed her, every note seemed to be planned from the
beginning of the song, a note whose destiny was preselected, but unknown unti
lthe note came and happened.  Devol paused, slowed the tempo down, and the
audience of dancers and listeners all tensed up, waiting for the next part of
the song.  Devol delivered right on time, blasting with more intensity and
complexity than before.  The rhythm, the beat of the bass captured the animal
in Silverpain, she felt like a part of the song, an instrument all of her
own.  Music like this was hard to come by, and when it did, it would stay for
a long time on the cyberadio stations, not to mention running over and over
sometimes in the heads of the listeners.  Silverpain recognized this and
submitted to it, happy to preserve some of Devol's talent in her own mind.
Devol set a lightning flash around the various instruments, and then faded in
a tri-d scene of a space scene.  The music then transformed itself, it was no
longer the imperative beat that held Silverpain.  The song moved forward,
tilted, and went under the barriers of repetition that had constrained it
just seconds ago.  The song moved, not just beat, but was the story of a
traveller, zooming through space, avoiding a harsh synthacymbal crash here,
an asteroid, soaring over a whole solar system, a wind flute, and finally
into a wormhole, the electronics sounding clear and true.  Silverpain was so
caught up in the music, she didn't notice for a while that Devol was smiling
at her.  She smiled back, nodding an obvious "Awesome! Keep it going!" to
him.  He took it in turn and sped up the astral voyage.  Out of the wormhole,
and now into a galaxy's whirlpool of stars, pulsars, quasars, black holes
here and there, and glowing nebulae, spinning, drawing inward.  Now, almost
at the center a swirling synthesizer, which had no acoustic counterpart in
the real world, showed cyberspace, pitifully small in the big galactic
picture.  Down, into the center of the galaxy and with it, crushing gravity
and a concluding crescendo seemingly meant to deafen everyone in the room.
The finale was a blazing flare of white light, noise, and exctacy.
Silverpain applauded with the rest of the audience, and again locked gaze
with Devol.  He thanked the audience for being so forgiving and went around
the stage and to Silverpain's table.
     "Devol! That song was positively orgasmic!" Silverpain complimented.
     He looked down, and then back up at Silverpain, "Was it really?  I've
been working on that song for weeks.  It's become an obsession really, I want
to eventually sell it on the cyb stations, maybe even as a tri-d.  It has to
be good though, or my name'll mean jack in no time flat."
     Silverpain shook her head, "No need to worry about that, it's a hit."
     "So, what brings you to the Disc today?" Devol had guessed her motives,
remembering the favor he owed Silverpain.
     "I don't want to get you in any trouble, but I need your help.  I've
stumbled onto something big.  Nothing like last time, this is serious."
Silverpain spoke sharply, with meaning.
     "I guess I do owe you one.  So long as I don't get iced, I'm in.  What's
it all about?"
     "Let's order drinks, it'll take a while."
     Devol nodded, and looked back to the bartender, signalling with his
hands something Silverpain couldn't decipher.  A couple of tall glasses of a
green liquid, glowing slightly, materialized on the table before Devol.  He
handed one to Silverpain.  She laid out the whole story to him, all about the
mad artist, the AI, and Innerface's mysterious suicide.  When she was
through, Devol looked at his drink, and then up at Silverpain.
     "Silver, you sure do find things to keep you occupied you know?"  He
smiled, "Let's go."

        *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I guess this is copyright 1992, David Wood.
I have a plot in mind. Excuse the typos, and tell me what you think of it
so I can quit now :-) or keep on trucking :-).
--
dlwood@mailbox.syr.edu -
- The Infonaut with a thought is a CyberPunk who can't be bought,
  runnin' wares, attractin' stares, just a freak- no one cares.
  But in the end, the future clear, his cyberspace will be here.