>From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid.1
Date: 10 Dec 90 04:33:32 GMT

This is my (startled gasp) first posting of any fiction to the Net.  I would
like an honest opinion from anyone who cares giving one.  Thanks.

--------

When on the street there is only one rule: Survival.  This has always
been and will continue to be long past my life.  Even Adam and Eve were forced
to learn how to survive.  All of our ancestors did likewise.  It is the curse
of being alive.

The humans, the most feared of the animals, have given each of their
kind a name.  The predator, the parasite, the productive, and the dead.

-

"And don'cha come back!"

A form nearly flew from the lit doorway, stumbling down the steps and onto the
sidewalk.  It lost ballance and crumpled into a ball.

"If I sees your ugly face here again, it'll hafta look pretty hard for a new
chasis."

The ball unraveled itself and pulled to its full height.  "If I come back it'll
be with the Animal Control Commitee, you dog!" it snapped the retort, then
turned and hurried down the street.

The shape was a young man, too young to be taken seriously in the rough bars
along the south side of the city.  He hid in a series of shirts, jackets, coats
and pants, each peice of clothing overlaping the last.  He tried to hide his
face in an old, cloth scarf, but it kept slipping around his neck.

He was not particularly handsome, but his face had no scars, nor did his arms
or chest.  In the worlds of stuffed shirts and moneywalkers this might have
been expected but, no, in the dark people had less of a view about him.  They
saw it as a sign of weakness and treated him in kind.  But they did not know
that to walk straight through the waves of druggies and wired skulls took the
strength of a true warrior.

He opened his clenched fist and looked down at the white octagon for a moment
before he swallowed it.  He stepped a little quicker and lighter.  If anyone
noticed, they didn't care.

--------

[While I'm at it, this particular Kid isn't copyrighted.  Not yet.  For people
who find this interesting, anyone who wants to "join" is welcome, but I'm
writing this as a story for practice.  So far.]



From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid (2)
Date: 18 Dec 90 00:43:19 GMT

Again, this is a continuation of "My First Fiction."  (Much like a Sony "My
First Cyberdeck.")

I am always eager to hear comments, suggestions, and creative critisisms.
--------

Life is not a boundary between existance and death, but what is put into it,
for even if a man dies, if he does so honerably, he will live further in
spirit.

But mankind may appear uninterested in quality or honor.  This is not so.  The
coward may put quality into these feats and the destroyer may honor his
opponent and will have life after they die.

This is what people define "infamous."

-

A tug at his stomach, the Kid stopped his retreat.  The bouncer would not
follow him this far out into the Streets.  The Kid, himself, should not have
even remained out for too long this time of night.

As an answer to this thought, a door near him opened and three people stepped
out.  Two men and a woman glared at him with a carbon-copy tough-as-nails look.
The Kid glanced a moment at them, long enough to recognize the subtle wiring
under the skin and slight marks of surgery around the eyes.

They walked past, leaving the Kid to stare at the bar front as thoughts passed
vividly though his head.

This is a Shadow Bar, he deduced.  Most people within wired with some form or
another, much of it illegal.  The bar hid amidst the other bars in the slums
like a thief in the shadows.  The Kid cringed at the simile, but it was
correct.

He looked at his hands.  "Clean," he hissed to himself.  "Meat."

Two steps, unhesitant, and he was inside.  Meat he may have been, and
outlandishly out of place, but he left his fear behind long ago when he started
his Path.  The half-metal wireheads, no mater how fast they were, would simply
have to cope.

The Kid was surprised at the bar.  It was no more clean than the ones around,
though a little larger.  It even sported a stage where a woman, dressed like
any trid star wannabe, sung some song the Kid had never heard of before.  'Like
making love to sound,' he remembered a club singer telling him once.  No more
than making love to information or making love to power.  Everyone had their
desire.  Everyone.

He looked away from the swaying singer and all the backs of heads and over to
his right.  An old man, almost twice as ugly as his plastic arm, stood there
tending bar, glancing up from time to time to watch the singer.

She wasn't scheduled, the Kid decided as he walked up to the bar, which meant
the old man was pretty loose about most things.

"What can I do for ya?" the old man asked in a raspy voice, heavily accented
something foreign.

"Do you serve food?" the Kid asked, removing a broad-rimmed hat and ruffling up
his hair.  He knew that those sitting near him would know in an instant that he
was meat.  He intended as much.

"Yeah."  The old man's voice was astonished by something.  "What you want?"

The Kid shrugged.  "Anything.  Whatever is best, real if you have it."

The man chuckled.  The Kid tried to guess his age.  Fifty?  Sixty?  "Nothing
real here, kid.  I bet you'd like the pasta.  Nine bucks."

The Kid breathed in deeply, a haze of smoke and stray drugs filled his lungs.
He knew all the rest at the bar were watching him carefully for a mistake, any
mistake.  The Kid decided it was time to make one.

"Okay."  He gave a few bills over to the old man and smiled.  A plate of
synthetic noodles could not have cost nine bucks.  "Does that include the
beer?"

Those seated at the bar would, by now, have him pegged as some streetgoer who
walked into the wrong bar for something to eat.  The Kid didn't care what they
thought.  Anyone sitting at the bar is desperate for work or trying to get
attention.  The Kid just wanted something to eat, so if they left him alone all
the better.

The old man, he surmised as three bills in change was placed in front of him,
was smarter than he let on.  Perhaps he knew that the Kid knew what kind of bar
he was in.  The Kid hoped he did.

A plate of steaming something resembling noodles and sauce was placed before
him next to a drink that almost tasted like beer.  The Kid just ate, looking
over from time to time to the stage.  The singer had melted back to wherever
she came from, leaving a pair of holograms to play to the background music.

Unsure why, the Kid hoped his Path lead him out of this bar to somewhere
warmer.  But he soon pushed the thought out of his head and ate.




From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid.3
Date: 29 Dec 90 07:20:00 GMT

What follows is a continuation of this "story" which I am writing.  Already
another person has directly entered which goes to show that I do not shun the
idea, though it has created a moral dilemma in the case of the Kid.  Poor
slotting fool, eh?

Once again, any comments, critisim, or suggestions are welcome.

--------

The Music of the Soul is an art.  It is Harmony with that which is around you,
with yourself, and with the Music itself as all living things.  Everything that
gives is alive, and all of it is a part of the Music.

----

"Ratz, gimme a White Russian."

The Kid looked over his shoulder at the form of the woman who was standing
next to him.  The singer.  Her eyes were perfectly blank, not even a sign of
white iris that was sometimes fashionable.  Full sensory orbs, the Kid guessed.
Expensive cyberware, where did a singer get them?

She was dressed in white leather, almost from head to toe.  Her hands moved
smoothly, almost perfectly as she dropped the paper money and picked up the
drink.  Smoothflecks, the Kid analyzed.  Not new but also expensive.  The Kid,
under those few moments, had a new respect for the woman who could likely take
him out without anyone noticing.

"Ratz," she said in a teasing voice, looking at the Kid, "you didn't cheat this
poor boy, did you?"  The Kid thought he heard stress in the deep singer's
voice.  Was he gaining disfavor for being new in the shadow bar?  Or was it his
uncybered presence?  He silently swore at himself for making such an obvious
display.

The bartender, Ratz, pointed at the three bills at the Kid's elbow with his
clear cyberarm.  Damn, the Kid thought, two points against me.  He suspected it
would be another five minutes before he was eventually killed.

"Ya think I'm that stupid?" Ratz told her in his odd accent.

"Good, Ratz."  She looked over at him, patting him affectionately on the cheek.
"I didn't like to think that you'd cheat anyone."

The white eyes met those of the Kid's again.  "My handle is White Crystal.
I've finally managed to forget my name."  The words were said in the most
perfectly sane voice and the white eyes were all attention.  "Are you here to
forget yours?"

The Kid shook his head.  "I know my name, or part of it."  He paused a moment
reflecting on how much he could not tell her and how much she could figure out
on her own.  For the moment Crystal seemed simply curious with his presence,
like an animal studying a stranger. "I don't forget things like that, not when
they're too important."

The Kid wiped a hand on his pants, adding some of the sauce to the collection
of dark stains, then offered it to the woman.  He took a sharp breath as he
realized what he did, but it was now too late to pull back.  He only hoped that
she was not as insane as she was acting out to be.

"People call me the Kid when they want to.  I think it's because of my
nievity."  He knew that Crystal would not buy that for a moment, but some
around him might and would hopefully leave him alone.

Gravely, she took his hand in hers, her blank eyes looked straight into his,
making him a little more nervous.  The grip of her small hand exactly matched
the strength of his.  He mentally confirmed the Smoothflex.

The Kid broke off a moment to take another bite of food.  "I liked the song.
It has savvy and streets."  He glanced over at her.  "Then again, I expect you
know that, don't you?"

She laughed.  "I'm glad you liked the song.  But it has nothing of savvy, but a
little of the streets.  It's a dream, Kid, all a dream, and nothing more than
that.  On the streets, as anywhere, there are some with honor, fewer who would
die for it, and even fewer yet who look to simply go for it all with no thought
to the cost."  Crystal looked away from him, "Then again, I expect you know
that, don't you?"

He smiled, looking up at White Crystal's expression.  It was sorrowful,
reflexive, and a little pained.  She was right but did not want to be.

"Have you heard of the Flex, Kid?"  The deep voice was soft, dreaming.  Her
white eyes stared off into the haze of the bar.  "The Musashi Flex?  A game, a
most deadly and beautiful game for those who would go for it all for nothing
more than their honor.  Not one in a hundred Players lives to be 30.  It is
near suicide for skill.  Only half of the dead are killed in the game itself,
the rest die as they try to recover or in training.  It is a game where the
winner is the one who walks away.  Skill whose only price is the feeding of
itself, in an age where there are those who are idle enough, rich enough to
pursue perfection for its own sake."

She looked back at him, her face hardened with concentration.  The Kid imagined
that had she eyes they would be pearcing at him.  "The Flex is a dream, Kid.
The dream of a drunken woman who likes to play at being a vidstar."

The Kid had no time to react before Crystal tossed her glass into the air.
There was a hiss and a crack, then nothing.  The glass jittered mid-air then
tumbled back down, almost flowing.  Flecks of glass settled on the bar with a
quiet chiming.

The Kid turned to ask what she did but found, instead, her walking away.

The first whistle of astonishment turned his attention to the bar.  On the
counter next to him was a flower of glass, its seven identical petals of
crystal edges flashing under the light of the bar.

He ignored everything about him as his eyes dragged to something else.  A
hundred dollar bill, lied between him and the razor edged flower.

--------
The Kid is Copyright (c) 1990-91 by Kent Jenkins.  Use of his persona,
thoughts, or actions is okay by me as long as you don't make more money than I
from doing so.  :)


From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid.4
Date: 2 Jan 91 21:11:13 GMT

Here is, continued, the story of "The Kid."  Comments, suggestions, and
critisisms are welcome.  They may seem short at a burst, but I like them that
way.

--------

Money is not an evil any more than rocks or words are evil; it is simply a tool
that may be used to communicate or to harm or to heal, though the money has no
Life of its own.

Having no Life creates it as a crutch for many humans, substituting it for what
is truely needed -- Joy or Health or Revenge.  Then it becomes not evil but
harmful to the person whom posesses it, acting upon them the opposite of what
they wished to gain.

Both rich and poor can stay from this failing.  Of the four humans, these are
the Productive.

-

"Pocket it."  The voice hit the Kid like a rough punch.  "Yer beginning to
attract attention, kid."

The Kid looked up at Ratz, an old and grizzled face with piercing eyes.  His
mind told him, finally, "Russian."  His hand deftly took four bills from the
counter and put them in an inner pocket sown into his coat.  Three single print
bills and one marked "100."

I didn't do a thing, he thought as he turned about on the stool.  The crowd was
large, he idly wondered how many people suspected this was a shadow bar,
dancing to the music of a keyboard cruncher and a two-hologram band.  He could
not find any sign of White Crystal.

"She's gone, Kid," Ratz said in passing.  The Kid turned around and picked up
his broad-brimmed hat from the bar.  "No," he replied, half muttering, "not
gone.  Simply not here."

The Kid finished his beer quickly and placed two of the single bills back on
the counter.  A polite way to say thanks, at least, without the problems of
actually saying it.

"Goin' already?" Ratz asked, taking the bills from the table.

"What are you, my father?"  The Kid put his hat on and turned to leave, swaring
he heard the bartender chuckle behind him.  A wise man who is not easily
fooled.

It was starting to snow when he left the bar.  He silently cursed as he thrust
his hands into his pockets.  The night was not going well for him already and
snow was not another inconvenience that he needed.  But he quickly fell into
his routine of ignoring the weather as he began to walk north toward a small
coffin motel that he knew about.  A hundred bucks in his pocket would allow him
to sleep indoors for at least a week.

He could not stop thinking about what happened in the bar, though.  A woman
whom he had never met before gave him a hundred for listening to a story about
ancient fighting techniques and people fooling themselves.  She may have wanted
to impress the locals of the bar with her trick be the Kid did not believe it
for long.  She had meant to impress him.  Oh, he figured that her ego would not
let her get away without impressing as many people as she could.  Many people
who were voluntarally wired liked to show off or kept to themselves.

Why impress him?

The Kid decided he would go and reserve his coffin -- the lines would be
getting long now that the snow began to fall -- and he would walk further north
to watch the storefronts for possible hirings.  A hundred was good, but he
would need more before he could move on to another city.  In the morning he
would work and in the evening he would try to find the shadow bar again if he
could.  He knew his Path had lead him there for a reason and not for anything
as trivial as a hundred bucks.

The snow collected on the brim of his hat as he walked.


From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid.5
Date: 5 Jan 91 04:35:43 GMT

Story of the Kid - Chapter (if you want to call it that) Five
What Has Gone On Before - Mail me if you want Chapters 1-4
"I am my own archive."
--------

We each live by each other's blessing, their help and cooperation and sometimes
their frailty and weakness.  But they should not be taken advantage of for
this would create Death out of Life.  Man as Parasite would attempt this.

Life is ballanced by Life, and to take blessing one must give blessing in
return, even to those many who seek to take advantage.

To these, it is not a failing of Life to deal with any dishonor.

-

The morning was dismal and grey and blurry in the Kid's eyes as flakes of snow
still fell from the sky.  The Kid managed to avoid many piles of sludge on his
way to an electronics store he spotted in the neighborhood.  They claimed to be
an "Official Sony Dealer" but the Kid had inspected the front of the store
well.  Had it been an official dealer, it was forty years ago and before many
of Sony's strict Anti-Tamper laws.

Wearing what was his only set of clothes, the overcoat, boots and broad hat
protecting him from most of the cold, he stopped only long enough to buy a cup
of coffee and down a small octagonal pill that roughed up his throat a little.

The store was filled with old peices of electronics, most of it Sony and some
of it pretending to be but was clearly not.  Trideo units, quad sterio sets,
flat screen vid units, if it had to do with entertainment it was there, most
with the Sony logo pasted on it.

The manager, possibly owner or both, sat in a little booth near the back, no
plastiglass sheilding him from the rest of the store.  Even in the cold winter
weather he wore not much more than a t-shirt and jacket.  He was fat, uncaring
about his decaying state like the world about him, and chewed on a caffstick.

"I want the job."  The Kid was blunt and spoke before the man could ask him
what wanted.  (A dull plaque on the wall behind him revealed the manager's name
as Bernie something.)

"You want it, you gotta earn it, kid."  Bernie, without warning, threw a box at
the Kid, who had to scramble a little to catch it.  "What's yer name?"

"Kid," he replied, looking down at the box and experimentally rattling it.

"Don't give me no street shit, kid.  What's yer name?"

He did not want to tell this man, but he was asked.  Perhaps, he thought, that
does make me a little naive.  "Jeremy."  He experimentally poked a finger in
one of the box's holes.  His hand reactively pulled back as a small jolt of
energy passed through.

"What's the box?"

"It's a simulated reality chip player.  Simstim.  Someone's boosted the gain a
too high, though, and it's loose in its casing."  Someone could get hurt using
it, too, or use it to get a much higher buzz from the chips than was legally
alowed.  A cheap chiphead's playbox.

The Kid watched as Bernie's face went from cynisism to acceptance.  "Three
twenty an hour."

"Ten," the Kid quickly retorted.  He would get Bernie to pay for him.
Hopefully enough to break the business down.

Bernie's face twisted into sheer anger.  "Ten?!"

"I do maglocks, too."

Anger turned to a grin feuled by greed.  "Ten it is."

-

Copyright 1991 by Kent Jenkins - the only reason for this is so no one makes
more money than I do from this.  :)

-


From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid.6
Date: 12 Jan 91 09:23:07 GMT

This is "part six" about the Kid.  I've been trying to keep it low-profile
because, well, life isn't all corperations and cyberware, kids.  Cyberpunk is
about staying alive and going against your own morals and about neat illegal
stuff.

But enough preaching.  As I have a fan club of one (thanks, Phyllis :) I would
really like to hear other people's opinions on this.  Besides the obvious
spelling errors.  (The computer spell-checker things every third word is
misspelled.)  Actually, I'd like to hear whether or not it's a nice change from
"high-powered" stories.  Or should I forget it and make the Kid a corporate
undercover operative?  :) [That's a joke, folks!]

--------

Wrong is not shoulds and should nots.  Wrong is not making death.  Wrong is
dishonor and dismissal in what you believe and what believes in you.

You can kill someone without warning them and still be right.  In fact, this is
the best way to go about killing someone.  But without purpose and without
reason, death, in fact all things, become a lie to yourself.  One which you
shall know and carry throughout your journey on your Path.

For your own health, do not be wrong.

-

Footsteps echoed almost constantly in the small ferroconcrete building, each
hallway filled with apartments.  The carpeting, which once must have matched
the paint on the walls, had worn thin enough in places that the true floor
showed through.

The Kid half sat, half knealed near a door.  Each of the doors in the apartment
complex had a lock of some sort or another on it, the kind and quality
depending on the rent.  Before him was a maglock, requiring a very specific
electronic sequence to open it.  Usually this would be a credstick ID, but this
version looked to be rigged for some sort of card.

It was early in the day, around four in the morning, as the Kid worked at the
maglock.  The man who lived inside, he was told by Bernie, had missed an
important payment on a simstim box and that this was simple reposession on the
item.

Wires, attatched to something in his caryall bag, hung by alligator clips to a
card that the Kid carefully inserted into the lock.  He began to play with the
buttons and dials on the device in his bag, nothing more than a small red light
shining within.

The Kid felt like chaos inside, his stomach tied in knots and adrenaline
flowing too freely though his body.  Twice he had to stop from a case of the
shakes as he thought someone was coming near.  Every time he used the passkey
he reacted this way.  He knew it was wrong, but he needed the money that Bernie
gave him.  Bills, not electric credit, that were mostly useless except where
the Kid was then living.

The passkey gave a silent electric hum and the red light switched to green.
The lock was open.  That, the Kid told himself, was the easy part.

Putting wires and card back into his bag, the Kid quietly stood up and pushed
on the door.  It opened with ease to a dark room within.

The Kid shivered again, and was ready to enter again when a far worse shake
passed through his nerves.  The world, what he could see of it inside the room,
blurred and snow, much like on old trideo units, covered his vision.

He panicked.  He felt his knees buckle.  He pressed his back against the
doorframe as he slid down.  Numb fingers passed through his coat pockets,
throwing everything they didn't recognize out onto the floor.  The Kid only
hoped that he held in his hand what he wanted and pried the bottle open with
two shaking hands.

He couldn't see what how many of the octagonal pills he held, a sheet of
chaotic grays covered his sight, but he drew his hands up to his mouth and
tossed them in.

He bit.  His insides were still working, he sumised through the shock.  A
painfully bitter taste lingered in his mouth as he swallowed, several times,
with all the saliva he could.

A rush of warmth passed though him as he angrily cursed at himself.  The snow
in his vision subsided and feeling came back to his hands and legs.  Stupid
kid!

A man stood over him, scrawny and ugly, and was yelling at him.  "Who the hell
are you?  What, by Ghost, are you doing?"  The unshaven man kicked him once.
"Tell me before I kick your ass to slut's Hell and --"

The Kid flung out a fist, not quite knowing where he was aiming, and scored on
the man's jaw.  He heard a dull thump and figured the second blow from the
doorframe was enough to render the man unconsious.  As full feeling came back
to the Kid, a shock of pain shot through his hand.  It was a lazy blow and
probably cracked a bone or a knuckle.

He gathered the items from his pockets, found the simstim box, and left through
the window.

On his way down the fire escape he dropped the box.  It made his conscious a
little more relieved, but still something inside bothered him.

-

Copyright (c) 1991 by Kent Jenkins - But if you want it I'm sure your lawyer
and my lawyer can come up with something.  :)



From: jenkins@magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Kid.8
Date: 5 Feb 91 22:19:29 GMT

People, as it is usually not believed, are people.  They all honor, they all
cherish, and they all strive.  It is WHAT they honor for which separates them
from one another.  The means justify what ends they come to, as all the ends
are the same: Contentment and acceptance.

People are people.

-

Three days.  Three days of looking and the Kid had yet to locate the shadow
bar.  He would continue looking, though, but as Bernie discovered how well he
was as breaking and entering he had less and less time to search.

At the end of the third night, after four reposessions, the Kid came across an
odd though and braved Bernie to ask.

"Why are there so many past payment?"

Bernie scratched the graying stubble on his fat face.  "Y'know, Jeremy, it's a
kinda funny world out there.  People want things for free, 'specially what
they're not s'posed to have."  He took out a cigarette and lit it.  "I dunno if
it's 'cause they think it's their right or if they just wanna see other illegal
folks out of business while they do what they want, but they do."

"So these illegal boxes are all legally past payment."

"Watch it, kid," Bernie snapped, throwing him an angry look.  "Don't get smart.
I gotta eat too, ya know."  He took a long drag from the cigarette.  The smell
of caffine wafted over to where the Kid stood.  "We all gotta eat.  I don't
know what you're doin' with all that money, but it sure as hell is more than
eating."

The Kid took a seat on top of a large room-trid display box.  "I'll tell you if
you tell me what you're doing in illegal simstim."

Bernie laughed, his lungs rattling from age and smog.  "Y'know, kid, you're
nosy as hell and more egotistical for your own good, but you're okay.  Yeah,
I'll tell ya.  Ex friend of mine used ta do electronics for giggles an' extra
pay.  Smarter than a corp an' came up with the damndest things.  He made a lot
of the improvements on the simstim boxes.

"Then Fuji, thank their everfuckin' arses, snatched him up.  Think he's still
workin' there, or dead, or somethin'.  Don't matter to me."

The Kid nodded.  And Bernie went into selling electronics to give his friend
something real to play with.  Fuji saw the man's tallent and offered him an
arcology home.  And Bernie couldn't just stop.  Not with so many illegal boxes
out there.

The pause of thought was broken by Bernie's voice, a little quieted from the
normal street strength that he used.  "Your turn, Jeremy."  He smoked some
more.

The Kid thought a moment where to start, or whether or not he should tell the
entire truth.  No, he thought, Bernie would throw me out on my ass if I told
him the truth.  He quickly thought of something close.  "I have something very
rare running through my system," he said.  "It was an accident, something to do
with a company my dad used to work for.  He died of it and I found someone on
the streets who knew how to counteract it for a while.  I have no parents and
the company doesn't know what happened to me.  I try to save up to get the
disease removed, but the drugs are too expensive for a kid on the streets."

"No shit," Bernie said.

The Kid relixed.  It felt good to tell someone what had happened, even if it
wasn't the whole truth.  You're getting there, he told himself.  "No," he told
Bernie.  "No shit."

"Heh.  You've had a busy night, kid.  How 'bout I buy you a drink?"

The Kid nodded.  "Right up, chummer.  Cream the scene."  Streettalk.  The Kid
had hardly used it before but now it felt right.

"Buzzahol twice.  Right up," Bernie replied.  He smiled.