From: JDTackett@gnn.com (James Tackett)
Subject: Lurker comes clean
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 00:54:10

        He was crouched near the door, barely even breathing, waiting 
for just the right moment. A rather burly gutterpunk shoved open 
the entrance to the Chat, and he took this oppurtunity to lunge 
through the open doorway. He hoped no one saw the blur of movement 
he created, as he ran into the side alley.
        He stripped off the mimetic jumpsuit, reached into the 
nearest dumpster, and retrieved his knapsack. He removed his 
ultrasuede duster, his mirrorshades, and his Nambu needler, and 
tossed the chameleon suit, along with the knapsack, back into the 
dumpster.
        Returning to the Chat, he was welcomed with mostly looks of 
utter boredom, some anger, and a little bit of "man, not another 
one..."
        "What can I get you?" asked the bartender.
        "A Tequila Sunrise and a pack of cigarettes," he replied, 
digging into his pockets for some cash, coming up with a few grimy 
bills.
        He accepted the drink, lit up a Chinese fiberglass stick, and 
surveyed the crowd. Discontment. He felt a little sorry for them.
        Finishing his drink, he pocketed the glass and pulled out a 
grimy stack of hardcopy.
        "Hey buddy," he said to the bartender, "Whats your name?"
        "Ratz," he replied coldly.
        "Well, 'Ratz', here, pass this around. See what your regulars 
think about it..."

====================================
        SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL:
        Casual Loser
        Part One of ???
====================================

        She bounded around the corner just as a few hundred armor 
piercing rounds smacked into the brick behind her. 
        Fuck, this guy was good. She didn't even see him coming back 
in the warehouse. Well, he'd soon learn who was the biggest badass 
in *this* part of the metroplex. She looked up above her and saw a 
fire escape. Thank god Booger hadn't gotten around to changing the 
gameboard yet. She shoved her machinepistol into the waistband of 
her pants and jumped up, grasping the bottom of the grate with her 
right hand. She pivoted, and vaulted up onto the second-story 
platform.
        Not two seconds later he came running around the corner. He 
had slung the mini-gun over his shoulder, and was now carrying an 
assault shotgun. Ha! He obviously didn't know that the program for 
buckshot scatter was still a little buggy. 
        She leaped off the platform, but he saw it coming. No one is 
supposed to see it coming. Why do you think she had spent all that 
money on reflex accelerators and adrenal boosters?
        The last thing she saw before she was dumped was her chest 
exploding in a stormcloud of blood.

        "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!" she yelled, jumping out of the 
G-chair. The plug was ripped from her skull jack as she ran across 
the room to the other chair.
        He was calmly removing his dataline, and didn't see her next 
move. She slapped him across the face with the back of her hand as 
she began yelling at him:
        "You stupid motherfucking sonofabitch if I *ever* see you 
here again I'll rip your goddamn balls off and give 'em back to you 
as earrings!..."
        "Whoa, whoa, now just come down here..."
        "Calm down? Calm down!" she screamed back.
        "Yeah, I mean, It's only a game..."
        She took a look at him, scanning up and down: chromed boots, 
jeans, a T-shirt and a flannel. A weekend warior. A techie computer 
game freak. She was beat by a friggin' pussy-ass corporate wanna-be 
techie slimeball!
        "Only a game, huh? Well, if you hadn'ta had all that fancy 
firepower, you wouldn't have even have had a chance..."
        "Well, I seem to remember that it was me who came down outta 
that ceiling and nearly fragged you five  minutes into the 
simulation. And besides, my shotgun didn't even work like it was 
supposed to."
        "Yeah, well, no shit. If you were a regular, you would know 
that Booger is having some problems with his buckshot program."
        "Booger?"
        This guy was hopeless. She stomped thru the ten foot square 
doorway seperating the arcade from the rest of Sensorium. Already, 
she could see that the news was traveling quickly throughout the 
club: "Hey, someone beat Iris!"
        She pushed her way thru the crowd to the bar, where Lenny 
looked her over and said "rough night, huh?"
        "You have no fucking idea, man. Give me a double scotch."
        She turned around on her stool to survey tonights crowd. 
Pretty thin by Sensorium standards, but then again it was a 
weeknight. Some local band was finishing up a half hour set of 
grinding industrial rock, but gauging the enthusiasm of the crowd 
she could tell she hadn't missed much. Less than a third of them 
were dancing, and only about half of them were actually getting 
into it. 
        The forty meters between her and the stage were littered with 
sweating bodies; along the sides of the club were a few dozen small 
four person tables, with the entrance on the left side. Rows of 
pillars seperated the tables from the floor.
        She turned back to the bar to find her drink waiting. There 
was no need to shout to be heard. There was an assembly of noise 
dampeners set into the floor five feet behind her. 
        "So, Lenny, have you heard anything from Carlos?"
        Lenny shook his head and went to serve another customer. She 
sighed and took half her drink at once. Slamming the glass down, 
she looked at the patterns of light reflecting all around her from 
the bands stageshow. A ray of violet was shining over her left 
shoulder and reflecting in the mirrors hung behind the bar, a beam 
of magenta was encircling her torso, and a laser was being 
refracted thru her whiskey. 
        Before she'd even hit the floor, the torso of the man who had 
been sitting next to her was ripped open, as was the thigh of the 
woman to his right. She was up and running thru the crowd before 
she really knew what was going on. 

        "Carlos, answer the door you fucking prick!"
        "Hold on, hold on," came a voice from the doors tinny 
speaker. A few seconds later it swung inward and the leering face 
of Carlos appeared in its wake. 
        "What's --" he managed to get out before she ran past him.
        "Shut the door," commanded Iris, panting and out of breath. 
He obeyed, locking the door before turning around and asking what 
was wrong.
        "Somebody just tried to kill me."
        "Yeah, so?" He shot back.
        "No, no, it happened at the Sensorium. This didn't have 
anything to do with a run. I'm on soemone's shitlist."
        "Oh, you mean someone besides me? I'm not surprised."
        "Fuck you. I need your help, man."
        "Alright, alright. You figure it's Matsushita?"
        "Who else could it be."
        "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Okay, first things first, were 
you followed."
        "No way. I switched subway cars a half-dozen times."
        "Good. There's nothing we could do right now, so listen. You 
can crash here tonight, but tomorrow we have to go somewhere else."
        "Yeah, sure," she replied. "Thanks, Carlos."
        He answered, "Don't worry about it."
        Carlos and she had come from the same neighborhood. They grew 
up together, made their first few runs together. But eventually, 
they went their seperate ways. They still saw each other 
occasionally, but it was rarely under recreational circumstances. 
        His apartment was a nice one. Two story, two bedroom, full 
kitchen. He had his workshop set up in the living room: a 
workbench, a couple of cyberdecks, stacks of software cards. 
Exactly like it was the last time she was here. 
        She was in trouble the last time she came here, two months 
ago. but that was different. Nobody was trying to kill her then. 
But then, that time she hadn't been dealing with Japs. She could 
never could understand those guys. The suits at Matsushita 
evidently weren't any different than the rest of them
        She thought death was an extreme punishment just for botching 
a job.
        
==============================
        END PART ONE
==============================

        "Tell me what they think of it, Ratz."
        And with that, he tossed the dirty bills on the counter and 
walked out of the Chatsubo.
        When Ratz picked up the New Yen, there was a card underneath 
them. It had printed on it just one word.
                                        
                                                LURKER

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        There you have it. I have stepped out of the shadows.
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It's all fun and games 'til someone puts an eye out...
          after that it's just fun.

"I was born with a memory, I was built for a task,
 I can Phreak, I can fly but I can't live for the past..."
                  Under Midnight, "Way Up Here"
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