From: gs01bap@panther.Gsu.EDU (B. A. Patty)
Subject: Kage Hu
Date: Sat Apr 29 11:48:36 MET DST 1995

Since nobody seems to have objected, I'll post this.  It is the first
part of a short story.  Since this is Atlanta I'm posting from, it is
Copywrited (lest you are wondering).  BTW, any publishers out there. . .

-Kage Hu-

25 OCT 2047
  He stood in the alley, cold, looking at the stars.  It was only when a
heavy-duty high pressure system rolled in that the sky would be clear
enough to see stars.  The city lights branded the sky a permanent bronze
haze most nights, so that the tracer lights off helicopters seemed to
glow and fade like will-o-the-wisps.
  He was dressed poorly for him, working clothes, black BDUs-the shirt
and coat had the sleeves ripped out for mobility.  His jo stick was
leaning against the wall next to him; nobody had ever harrassed him about
it, but if they did, he had the permits.  He was a liscensed bodyguard.
  The thick thump of techno-ska shook the building he was leaning
against.  He liked the music, though a lot of people thought it was a
real sellout.  The music was attractive to him, though, even if it had
been AIs who'd written it.  The algorythms came from humans, he figured.
  The blue searchlight of a police chopper flared across the street, the
din of the rotors driving away the sound but not the impact of the
T-ska.  He flicked off the chopper when the searchlight turned his way.
Cops didn't mean much anymore.
  As the chopper flew up and off, appeased for the moment in its
curiosity, he noticed the sound of breathing at the mouth of the alley.
Turning inquisitively, he saw Charl standing a respectful distance off.
Not that he would have hurt her, not on purpose, but his reflexes
sometimes got the better of him.  She understood that.
  "You comin' inside, Hu?" she asked, tossing her hair, dyed a deep
purple.  Her hands danced in the air at the sides of her leather jacket,
chains and spikes like she was out of some old movie.
  "Sure, kid," he replied, snatching his shillelagh and moving away from
the wall, back into the abandoned auto-shop that was serving as the
current location for his favorite club, the Vortex.  The location changed
semi-monthly, whenever somebody got wise that their property was being
used as a nightclub/crash house for the local Core community.  From
Hardcore, a grouping of several kinds of old music, the Core was a loose
confederation of old-style punks like Charl, skinheads, rastafarians,
rugged individualists, and anyone else with enough guts and steel to pass
the initiation.  It was a phenomenon that had spread throughout the
'states and across the worse parts of Europe.  Few who weren't of them
were happy about it.
  Kage Hu was an unofficial member; that is to say, welcome enough that
they were always glad to see him, well known enough that most of his
friends were Core, but not so down that he was invited to participate in
the criminal enterprises.  He didn't care.  His business was enough.
  The music was too loud.  Hu liked quiet.  Too bad for him.  Inside the
diplidated shot, punks with spraypaint and portable stereos had turned a
once-profitable place of business into a chaos-zone.  Spraypaint of ten
different colors streaked the walls, the windows, floor and ceilings in
random striations.  The office, up against the wall but on a floor up,
had lost its windows.  Core partiers of all ages and both sexes lounged
out them, talking, their conversations swallowed whole by the music and
the dancers below.
  An auto shop, Hu decided, was an excellent place for the Vortex.  The
pit where cars had once been serviced made a serviceable mosh pit, and it
kept the slamdancers out of the way of people who needed to walk through
the place.  Hu went to the bar, in the very back of the club, all
speakers turned away to provide some small haven from the overwhelming
noise.  As he passed the pits, he tried not to notice Viv's too-bright
red hair thrashing with the dance.
  "My man," said the Core hanging behind the bar.  The man took great
pleasure in being trusted with the beer.  In truth it was no great honor;
the beer was free, after all.  They'd hijacked the shipment last week.
  Hu flashed him a peace sign from the hip.  "Whassup, Wras?"
  "Nada, man, nada.  Wantta beer?"
  Hu shook his head.  "Drinking days are over, man.  You know that."
  "Yeah," Wras remembered.  "Fifteenth through seventeenth, neh?"
  "Every month," Hu agreed.  "Gotta keep the habit under control
somehow.  Give me some coffee."  Wras poured a paper cup full of thick
sludge.  Hu took it and nodded goodbye, turning to go and sit where Charl
had found herself.
  Charl was nineteen.  Hu was in his twenties.  He regarded her ase
something like a kid sister, but not quite as. . .impartially.
  She was talking to some Core punk, a boy Hu knew but didn't trust.
They were discussing something he didn't care about, so he just sat back
and watched the crowd, enjoying the furor.  He submitted wordlessly when
Charl asked if she could trace his scars.  She took one finger and dipped
it in black paint, following the ritual carvings along his upper arms.
Chinese characters.  An anarchist's sign.  The words, "Street Sam" on his
right bicep.  Hell, why not?  He knew what he was-he'd read his Gibson.
  And it was then, as Hu peacefully sipped his coffee, nothing upsetting
his reflexes, those painstakingly altered reflexes, those jungle-cat
reflexes, that the Headhunter came.





From gs01bap@panther.Gsu.EDU (B. A. Patty)
Subject: Kage Hu-2nd
Date: Mon May 01 10:24:02 MET DST 1995

  Headhunters are nasty business.  Created by the Special Investigation
and Law Enforcement Act of the '36 Congress, Headhunters were independent
bounty hunters with shoot-to-kill perogatives.  They existed to hunt and
kill convicted felons, and to bring back their heads to the government as
proof.  They were well paid.  Their profession drew only the worst kind
of people.  Or maybe the best.
  Hu didn't know what the Headhunter was, of course.  All he knew was
that a large man, clearly augmented, had come into the Vortex.  Tall and
broad, form draped in a thick olive-drab trench, black bush-hat pulled
low over his eyes.  The brown leather of a gun rig was visible under his
left arm.  The autopistol inside was matte black and vicious, a Smith and
Wesson by the look of the grip.
  The Headhunter came into the club and stood there.  A full minute
passed, more and more of the Core coming to stare in his direction.  Only
the pit dancers didn't seem to know he was there.  Then, after another
minute, even they did.
  Hu was impressed.  He'd never seen anyone intimidate a room full of
Core before.  When the man's eyes swept over to his corner of the room,
Hu stood and nodded respectfully.  The man's mouth quirked almost into a
smile, and he nodded back.
  Somebody killed the music.  The silence that followed was almost
painful, a club full of people suddenly discovering that their ears had
filled with wax.
  The man's timing was perfect.  At just the right moment, he spoke.
  "I am called Blackheart, Headhunter liscence number B22364."  He paused
to let this sink in.  Hu nodded to himself, well aware of the fact that
Headhunters had a tradition of taking pseudonyms.  Blackheart, he
thought, was not particularly original.
  But nicknames usually weren't.
  The Headhunter resumed speaking, again at just the right instant.  "I
am here looking for a fugitive.  His name is Regenald W. Harris, and he
has been duly convicted of embezzlement by the Fifth District court and a
death warrant issued to me.
  "I am told his. . .wife. . .can be found here."
  Hu doubted that very much, and he could tell the 'hunter did too.  He
was just going to laugh it off and go back to his coffee when he caught
the worried look on Viv's face.  It stiffened his heart.
  Viv was hidden from the 'hunter by the crowd in the pit.  He didn't,
apparently, see her, nor did he witness the effect he had.  But he did
wait, wait, until the tension was just almost, almost, unbearable.  Then
he turned and was gone out the door before anyone could react.
  Hu realized he'd been holding his breath.