From: JENKINS@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Joy: The High Cost of Living
Date: 2 Mar 93 07:51:15 GMT

<< Yes, I realize this title is a shameless rip-off from the comic book      >>
<< series, 'Death: The High Cost of Living.'  This is intentional.  In fact, >>
<< this fits better than I, at first, realized.  Please read on and see...   >>
<< >>

JOY: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
  [Part Three in the J.J. Faust Chronicles]
    <Part One - Awakening>

+ + +

File: Hospital.1 - Jan. 3, 2011
>
>J.J. Faust is Dead.
>
>She died at the hands of an occult group lead by the man she was
>trying to hold a normal relationship with.  But isn't that always the
>case, you think you met a fine, upstanding young man and he ends up
>being the leader of a ring of sicko occultists trying to get their
>hands on your steriotypical sci-fi drama's 'Power'.
>
>I sware I was dead for a few minutes there, at least that's what the
>Doc told me.  I been hospitalized for lots but I ain't never been
>dead before.  Took a bullet to the gut, she said.  Lost a lot of
>blood, she said.  Been hooked up to machinery for weeks.
>
>Oh yeah.  The Headscrew told me to say who I am on this first bit.
>I'm Wasp.  OK, so they call me John Viresse on the charts but who
>cares?  Wasp's what they called me in the gang, Wasp's what Rednix
>called me, Wasp's my name.
>
>So J.J. Faust is dead.  What'd they say it?  Dead as a Cadillac?  And
>the Headscrew says I've got to get over this and that I've become too
>bloodtied to this woman.
>
>I just been following her because the Major asked me to, and then
>when I found out Ghost was involved and Rednix died I just had to
>find out what this Faust woman had or knew or, hell, what she /was/.
>
>But I already told Headscrew all this.
>
>So she's dead.  So was I.  But I never found out what the Major
>wanted her for.  Why her?

+ + +

Dark.
	Cold.  Cold hate.

The hate keeps the cold away.  Hate keeps cold Warm.

So many times there was hatred.
				 Betrayal.
					    Lonliness.
Still again.	  again.
	      And

Movement.  Cold movement, not warm.
			      Warm is belonging.  And motion.
And light and noise and happy and
			acceptancenotbetrayaliscoldhatenotwarm!

Cold hate.  Cold warmpth is hate in the movement.  Cold warmpth is...
is... /knowing/... is... /feeling!/
			  Feeling hate to the betrayer.

Warmer cold warmpth is the /knowing/ of the betrayer and its
weaknesses.  The betrayer will
			       /feel/ cold
					   and dark
						    and alone.

+ + +
Copyright (c) 1993 by Kent Jenkins
Feel free to e-mail about joining in or critique.


---
Kent Jenkins	|	I love the world			|  This space
("Thenomain")	|	And if I have to sue for custody,	|  intentionally
		|	I will sue for custody.  -TMBG		|  left blank


From: JENKINS@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Joy: The High Cost of Living
Date: 2 Mar 93 07:56:10 GMT

<< In the meantime, the author is having a drink in the Chatsubo.  A Pepsi. >>
<< Hold the straw.  Even though Coke might control the Asian Theatre, that  >>
<< doesn't stop Ratz from getting cola products under-the-counter.  That    >>
<< Ratz is a good man.  The author never could stand the Coke Plus line.    >>
<< >>

JOY: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
  [Part Three in the J.J. Faust Chronicles]
    <Part Two - Dream>

+ + +

A bird walks a thin branch and calls out his tormenting, horrid song.
The bird is the color of midnight on a night angry with storms,
sometimes some light flashes across the oily feathers, his eyes
balefully watching others retreat in fear.  He calls again, the big
blackbird singing his Lament for Change.

The sound is heard throughout the forest and beyond, where the sound
echoes off the ground the grass browns and thins.  Where it curves
about the rocks, they shudder and settle into any nook they can.  The
very sky, hearing the crow's singing, pales and hides behind sullen
clouds.

The animals worry as the song continues for few of them have the power
the crow has for Change, those who do eagerly accept the changing.
Too long have the animals of the forests and the mountains accepted
their fate as something they could not control.

Some, such as the ferrets, dance to the song in glee and merriment.
They understand the tune and enjoy the excitement all about them to
the fullest extent.  Others, like the robins, cower in fear in their
nests and in hiding holes.

Some had been so long away from the lands that they couldn't hear the
singing at all.

A dove hears her brother's spiteful song and joins him on the branch.
She fears little about her brother, knowing him more than almost any
of the other animals, but understands his anger and keeps away from
his wrath.

The dove hopes to calm the crow and sings, "Why do you call the Song
of Change?"  The blackbird stops, so interrupted, and turns
threateningly on his sister.  She does not move.

"It sounds good to my sore ears," comes the reply, so horrid the
screeches that it sounds like its own song.

The dove blinks, confused.  "What troubles your ears that you cannot
outfly it?  What blinds your eyes that you cannot simply turn your
head away?"

"The squakings of Man," the crow caws so quietly the dove must step
closer.  "They are stupid and think they are better than that which
created them.  They have forgotten their place and the Change is
needed to show them."  And he continues his singing.

The dove is shocked all her feathers ruffling.  "You cannot do that!"
she warbles in alarm.  "Man is as we are!  You cannot unmake them!
Cannot cannot cannot!"

The crow stops at a deafening squack and drives his beak into his
sister's chest, silencing her protests.  There is only the noise of
the blood dripping on winter-dry leaves.

"I will not undo them," he tells the dove.  "I will bring back what
they have forgotten and remind them.  This Change will be for all that
Man has squalled over."

The crow removes his beak and begins to sing the final notes....

+ + +
Copyright (c) 1993 by Kent Jenkins


---
Kent Jenkins	|	I love the world			|  This space
("Thenomain")	|	And if I have to sue for custody,	|  intentionally
		|	I will sue for custody.  -TMBG		|  left blank


From: JENKINS@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: JOY: The High Cost of Living
Date: 17 Mar 93 06:57:32 GMT

[Author's Note: My appologies to anyone who's previously asked for the back  ]
[stories that have lead up to this point.  It's an Evolution that goes from  ]
[my original idea (set deep in the Cyberpunk Age) to the current one         ]
[(leading up to what is known as the Cyberpunk World).  I will entertain any ]
[future requests for back copies.  (There are 29 parts.)  Honest, this time! ]

+ + +

JOY: THE HIGH COST OF LIVING
  [Part Three in the J.J. Faust Chronicles]
    <Part Three - Nightmare>

+ + +

It was a woman in a thin and armless rocking chair.  She was smiling
in a way that she looked as frail and old as the chair itself, cracks
from years of wear and stress just under the most recent coat of
finish.  Telltale lines also marked the woman in the chair, the
appearance that lines from the chair sometimes ran onto the woman's
skin with only a change in tone, from a stained brown to a tanned
leather.

The woman's eyes brimmed over with life and a smile crossed her lips.
The moving contours of her face over-emphesized the action to an
almost comedic effect, but she stopped with just so much of a smile,
becoming still again like a wooden puppet.  Her arm rose and she
motioned to near, a kind action but again appearing as though some
invisible strings prompted the action.

"Come here my Joy.  My dearest pride and joy."  The life in the
woman's eyes came through in her resonating voice, the voice of every
kind mother or grandmother who ever lived.  Her hand, though leathery
and cool, was firm and guiding.

"Let me tell you a story, my Joy.  About all the mystical places where
faeries dance all day.  Where the unicorns hear the cries of little
girls, and so do the things that live in the dark shadows of the
swamp."  It was enough to keep the youth in any mind transfixed,
staring at those intent eyes and the dramatic expressions of her face.

The woman's grip tightened.  "Even the faeries have their nightmare
lands.  Where unseen things reach out with tendrils."  Grandma's other
hand was cold and clamy against the arm.  Her voice hardened,
deepened, crackled through the air.  "Where ghouls and goblins dance
around bonfires.  Where they cook and /eat/ little girls!"

The eyes lost their light and became pits of blackness, faint patterns
of red and white showed through where the eyes had once been.

Grandma smiled a smile filled with jagged teeth, her grip tightening
with nails digging deep into flesh.

+ + +

J.J. Faust bolted upright, screaming as something began to crawl under
her skin, into her arm.  Something else crawled across her forehead.
She screamed again.

They were all over her now, insects dropping from the blinding light
above her and crawling up the legs of the bed.  Thousands of them,
enough to haze the light, enough to try to press her back down again.
/Get her under!/ they shouted in unison, a warped screaming from them
all.

She tried to thrash them away, only angering one to bite deeply into
her arm, its tongue flicking around at her muscles beneath the skin.
She heard their chittenous click-clack talk as she continued to scream.
They wanted her, to take her over like everything else before her.
They weight heavily on her arms, bunching up in hundreds to get her
down and defenseless.

/Hush,/ they told her in a soothing chorus of hisses.  /Hush now,
everything's going to be alright./  But J.J. could hear the panic in
the background, the leaders of the insect invasion.  They were loosing
her and redoubled their efforts.

No!  No, they couldn't have her!  Another insect stuck it's long
sticker into her leg.  No!  The world blurred and dimmed as they
overtook her.  No, they wouldn't take her.  Never again.

+ + +

Wasp
Appending Entry
File: Hospital.1 - Feb. 2
>
>With a busted spleen or whatever the hell was almost splattered to
>Jersey, typing in these gutrot hospital beds is painful.  No more
>tranq-derms for me, doc.  I'm writning.  Headscrew's orders.
>
>Vit just came in for a warm German hello and to show off his bruises.
>Figures.  We used to do that in the Warzone just to keep the kids
>sure that they were still part of the pack.
>
>He brought in some Gee-Bee lady named 'MacGannan.'  Cute enough for a
>merc, but she was much more interested in Vit.  Again, figures.  The
>most wounded never had time for the girls on the street.  Maybe mercs
>are different but it isn't looking like it.
>
>Anyway, it seems she saved my and his butts from being Occult Spirit
>Chow.  I thanked her.  She smiled.  I got an ally.
>
>Vit's purpouse (that German always has some purpose, it seems) was to
>tell me he can't find what they did with J.J.  I almost busted my
>spleen again.  If the same guys got J.J. who we just killed ourselves
>saving her from, I'm going into coronary arrest just to get this over
>with.
>
>He and MacGannan have been watching the surgery arenas or whatever
>and ICU wards.  Some lady flipped in the middle of surgery and they
>were trying to give that a look.
>
>My gut and arms are killing so you'll have to disect my brain later,
>Headscrew.

+ + +

Copyright (c) 1993 by Kent Jenkins
Feel free to e-mail about joining in or critique or requesting back issues

---
Kent Jenkins	|	I love the world			|  This space
("Thenomain")	|	And if I have to sue for custody,	|  intentionally
		|	I will sue for custody.  -TMBG		|  left blank