From: cs92jgo@brunel.ac.uk (Jus T. Ego)
Subject: Magpies Borrow...
Date: Fri, 17 Sep 1993 11:59:14 GMT

Comments appreciated, as always.


Magpies Borrow
--------------

He stood at the bar, beside the regulars. Just outside the conversations of
others. Always outside. Fingerprints showed up white on the clear plastic
cup cradled lightly in his hands. As he examined it, he wondered how many
hands had held it. Many hands had grasped the cup, but none had been as
lonely as his.

A greasy film has formed over the synthetic spirit he was nursing. It
didn't have to be high quality, or in fact, even drinkable, to serve its
purpose. It gave him a reason to be here. An excuse to rub shoulders with
the best.

How many people had died holding this cup, he wondered. None. This was the
Chatsubo. The most exclusive pit of human refuse in Night City. If you
survived walking through the neighbourhood to get here, you were a member.
And members were friendly to each other, the armed bouncers saw to that.

He had survived. Only because the scum that ran the streets hadn't thought
up a reason to have him killed yet. Shredded jeans hung in near collapse
from his waist. Cheap plasti-leather jacket draped over his shoulders. A
fake Doomboys tattoo painting his face. The tattoo hadn't been his idea. A
joke. A present from his friends. It had nearly got him rolled once, and
had saved him twice. That was the only reason he hadn't got it removed.
That and the price of the surgery.

The cheap shit he had jacked into his blood earlier was screaming in his
brain, mixing with the spirits he had drunk, and adding a disturbing bend
to his perception of vertical and horizontal.

To his left a cowboy was talking to another about the loss of a telecom
post on the East side.

"It's like it's been taken over. It just went sort of black and white and
stopped taking messages. The owners can't even get in to the building to
turn the damn box off. The shareholders are selling, and the Turing is
dumping itself."

To his right another cowboy was impressing his girl with the stories of his
part in the Britania burn.

"No, I was the one who iced their AI. No. I don't care what Fash says, it
was me. Yeah. Yeah."

How he wished he could have been there. He was a decker alright, but he had
no deck, and no code. What kind of cowboy is that?

One on the edge of waterfall, that's what.

Polaroid shades swung from his top jacket pocket. He stopped their motion
with his hand, and realised that he was swaying slightly. He downed the
drink, which tore the raw flesh in his throat. He placed the cup in the
smear of Kirin that had leaked onto the cracked varnish of the bar.

A few strands of hair plastered themselves to his forehead as he looked up
at Ratz, the German owner of the Chatsubo. A brief wave of his hand
signalled that he had finished for tonight. Moving towards the door slowly
and carefully, he staggered into the chill of the night.

He wiped his stick-like fingers over pallid flesh pricked with sweat.
Hunger, a new demon, gripped his insides and bunched them up tight. Food.

--

"Too" does not exist on the streets. "Too" paranoid. "Too" cautious. They
just didn't happen. Maybe, "Too" careless. That was the first thought in
his mind. But he hadn't even been "Too" careless, just careless enough.

The first noise pricked the hairs on his neck. Not loud enough to place.
Hunger vanished in a second. Fear, the current victor of his emotional
turmoil.

The second noise was loud enough. Behind him. The scrape of foot on wet
concrete. The streets had just found a reason to kill him. Maybe it was
need for money. Maybe it was the desire to feed an addiction. Either way it
was the same thing that had driven him onto the street that night.

Hunger, of one sort or another.

What had led him into this alley, he wondered. Cruel fate? Was there some
mythical figure who now stood over him with raised scythe?

He turned the corner and prepared to run. It was a dead-end.

A quick glance revealed a fire escape hidden within the shadows. It led
into a derelict warehouse. No. He was going to die. He would face it. The
footsteps grew closer. One step and then a scuffed drag. One step and then
a drag. Did his killer have a wounded leg? Maybe he could run after all.

Around the corner came a shambling figure. Dressed in rags and carrying a
rifle as a walking stick. It stopped.

Greasy strands of grey hair surrounded a florid-red face. Laboured breath
came through an equally greasy beard. A ragged brown mac hung open,
displaying rounds of ammunition on the belt of the old man.

"Well, well. A Doomboy, after all these years." The figure grinned a
nicotine smile. "Looks like I'm going to get my revenge, doesn't it boy?"

He backed up against the wall. "I don't want any trouble, old man."

A chromed arm raised the rifle to point at his face. "What's your name,
boy?"

"Justin."

"Say your prayers, Justin."

"That wouldn't be very wise", Justin warned. "I've got a head nuke."

The old man laughed callously. His eyes glinted, reflecting the pale street
light. "That I doubt. Anyway, what if you have? Do you think I want to live
after all you've done to me?"

Keep him talking, humanize yourself. The rules of survival came flooding
back to him.

"What have I done to deserve this?"

The old man lowered the gun thoughtfully. "You bastards killed my family.
My wife, my son and my grandchildren. And you have the nerve to ask what
you've done?"

"He's not the one you want."

The polite voice drifted from the fire escape. The woman who dropped
lightly to the ground landed almost silently. A machine-pistol in her
confident grip.

She laughed. "Doomboys WANT to die. They ENJOY death. If this kid was a
Doomboy, you'd be decorating the walls of this stinking alley." She looked
at Justin. "I've seen enough psychos to clock them on sight."

The old man leered. "Maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. I'll kill him
anyway. Just to be sure."

"And then again, maybe you won't." Her gun lifted to aim at his head.

Justin fainted.

--

He started awake. His face and shirt were soaked. The hard floor of the
warehouse lay under him. His head had been resting on his rolled up jacket.
The woman dropped the bucket she had been holding behind a crate in the
corner of the room.

"So kind of his majesty to join us for breakfast."

The fluorescents painted after-images of green and purple on his eyes. He
rolled over to shield them from the light, reaching for his shades.

"Why is it drugees are always prepared to put themselves through hell for a
few minutes of pleasure?"

His temple-jack throbbed in time to his headache. It was his only
enhancement and fairly new, it still hurt when he woke up in the morning.
He slipped his shades on and looked at the stranger who had saved his life.

"You wouldn't understand", he managed before the pain choked him off.

She was sitting, cross-legged, on a plastic crate, watching him. "I guess
not", she answered sardonically. "You want something to eat?"

The thought of food stabbed at his stomach, cramping it. Unable to stop
himself he tried to retch the contents of an already empty stomach onto the
floor of the warehouse. The sharp, familiar taste of bile in his mouth.

Helping hands lifted him to half-sitting position. Careful hands loosened
his shirt and healing hands soothed his raking cough.

Half-conscious and dribbling the last of his remaining bodily fluids from
the side of a slack mouth, he heard her swear softly.

"Why am I such a sucker for these strays?"

He felt a straw pushed into his mouth and cool, clear water slowly
trickling through it. He gagged once then swallowed, on reflex.

"That's it, swallow it all."

The water stopped and she pushed a pill into his mouth. It slid down his
throat.

"Electrolyte. You'll just be sick again unless you have it."

More water. Then increasing darkness as her voice faded.

"Ok, you can rest."

--

Wet and warm. He was lying in something wet.

"Jesus, will you stop throwing up. I'm trying to save your life, asshole."

Wet and warm. The smell of bile.

--

Dark.

"Hold him down until I get this needle in." A man's voice.

Strong hands gripped his thrashing body, pinning him.

Stab in his arm... He screamed.

--

Numb.

"That's all I can do for him here."

"Thank you, Philip", the woman's voice said. "Thank you for coming, and for
everything you've done."

"I still owe you one, remember?"

She laughed, brightly. "I know how you could even the score."

--

Cold.

"He'd have to come into my clinic for that."

"Can we move him yet?"

"Probably, but it might be best to wait for that kind of surgery."

"Philip. He needs it done as soon as possible, that's why he's in this kind
of shape. I had to rescue him from a Solo last night."

--

Hot.

"Justin? Nurse. I think he's..."

--

Bright.

"Sorry."

The blind was drawn down over the window and he could see where he was. He
was in a bed in some sort of hospital room.

The woman who had saved him stood by the window.

"Are you hungry yet?", she asked him. Concern?

"I guess", he answered, realising he was.

His face was bandaged up, and his head no longer hurt. "How did I get here?"

She looked up at the ceiling. "Let's just say you owe me one."

He struggled to sit upright and peeled the bandage off.

"You might want to... never mind."

He looked up at her. It was the first time he had really looked at her. She
was built more like a dancer than a street fighter. Slim and tall, she
appeared to move with unconscious grace. Her clothes, a patchwork top and
trousers, seemed to be made of diamonds of different colours. The neck of
her top and the end of her sleeves were decorated with stained white lace.

Her long brown hair hung, twisted and knotted in intricate patterns, over
her right shoulder. The only identifying symbol she wore was a silver
broach of a man with three horns on his head.

"Something the matter?"

"No. I was just trying to work out who you were."

She smiled impishly. "I'm a jester."

Her brow furrowed with annoyance at his blank expression, then softened
again. "Ok, I'll let you off, we aren't that big yet."

She moved over to the table at the side of his bed and lifted the cover of
the tray that sat there.

"And for breakfast, this morning we have...er..." She tasted the bowl of
grey slush with one finger. "Food, of some kind, I think."

He reached out for it hungrily. Grasping the plastic spoon sat beside the
tray. It was hot and wet and it was food. That was all that mattered.

She sat on the window-sill and watched him gorge with a faintly
disapproving expression.

"What's your ID?", she asked suddenly.

Justin stopped eating. "Datacrime2... but"

"Easy", she interrupted him, jovially, "You're too damn unhealthy to be
anything else."

She laughed and the tiny silver bells knotted into her hair jingled quietly.
He found himself wondering how she had moved so silently last night. He went
back to his bowl of slop.

"What's your name?", he asked.

The impish smile again, and silence.

"I've got to call you something...", he protested.

"Ok", she answered, "Call me Something."

She fell silent and let him finish.

--

He awoke when the door opened, and the doctor entered. He was a short man,
with thin hair but a young face. His badge read "Dr Philip Ross".

"How's the patient?", he asked addressing the question to Something while
looking at Justin.

Something rose from her half-lotus to face him.

"He'll live. I want him out of here as quickly as possible."

The doctor looked sceptical. Then agreed.

"Ok, after two days on his back he could do with a some fresh air, and
exercise."

Two days? "Whoa! Two days?"

Something donned a critical expression and waved her hand dismissively.
"Relax. We had to sedate you, to stop you vomiting all over the floor of
my warehouse." She looked a little annoyed at that. "It's not like you have
any pressing engagements."

Justin held back his sarcastic reply. It was true. He hadn't.

She held his embarrassed gaze just long enough to get the point across. He
owed her a lot. He wasn't in a position to raise objections.

"Thank you, Philip."

The doctor looked at Justin with barely concealed disgust. "I'm sure I'll
never understand you. Why you would want to help an ungrateful little..."

"Philip", she stopped him with a finger on his lips. "People in Glass
Houses. Who was helping you when I found you?"

He lowered his gaze.

"Ok, I'm sorry." He reached out his hand to Justin. "Good luck. Take it
easy for a while."

--

The day passed quickly. The seemed to be no-one in Night City that didn't
owe Something a favour. Had she taken them all, as she had him, out of the
gutter? It was a day of fulfilment for Justin. When it drew to an end he
stood before a satisfied Something as a new man. New clothes, a cyberspace
deck and a program. All he needed to start on his path to success.

The program and the deck were a little dated but they were better than no
deck at all. Something had breezed into his life and turned it around.
Where she went she brought joy and hope into the lives of others.

He found his feelings towards her were beyond his petty vocabulary to
describe. As the hours passed and night approached, he discovered that being
with her now felt like the most natural thing in the world. The thought of
her not being there tomorrow, when he woke, scared him.

As he finished his last meal with her before he started out on his own, he
found one question come up again and again in his mind.

Finally she took his plate away from him and set it to one side.

"What's up?", she asked. The serious tone of her voice told him that now
should be the time to talk. There might not be another.

Justin struggled to find the words. "I just owe so much", he managed.

"That's Ok", she chirped, "You just owe me one."

She studied his expression. "That's not all, is it?"

"No... I. I just want to understand. I wanted to know what you got out of
all of this?"

Her face dropped and he knew that he had said the wrong thing. In her
expression was pain. And sorrow. And pity. She took his head in her hands
and looked straight into his eyes.

"If you don't understand", she eventually replied, "There's nothing left
for me to say." She smiled sadly. "I hate goodbyes, so I'm going to leave
now."

She stood up and blew him a kiss.

"Goodbye Justin. Don't forget to put the light out."

And she was gone.

He ran his hand over his new skin. The doctor at the clinic had removed
his tattoo. So cleanly that it was like it had never been there at all. In
the silence of the warehouse he realised that he hadn't even said a proper
"thank you".

--

He re-referenced.

The white hot strings that marked the points of the matrix strummed to a
rhythm plucked by other cowboys. He was an outsider here. Still.

He checked his toolbox. A programming language and a class library. That
was all he had. All except that cartridge Something had given him.

"I don't know what it is exactly, but the guy who had it seemed to think it
was more important than his continuing to breathe."

Maybe he shouldn't try it here. Maybe he should wait.

For what? He didn't have a RevEng program so he had to fire it and see what
happened.

Justin re-sized his target field and aimed the HeadUp cross-hairs to point
at a small law firm. If this was what he hoped, it should crack the defences
of the firm. Allowing him access to their data.

Data meant money. And money meant food.

He pulled the icon of the shield from his toolbox and dragged it onto the
HUD. He dropped the program into the desktop launcher. The icon blinked and
then erased itself. He swore. It was a one-shot program and he had wasted
it. It hadn't worked at all. He would be hungry for a while yet.

"What's up?"

He spun to face another decker.

"My first run", Justin began, "and my Icebreaker just boinGGed."

The other decker hummed knowingly. "Happens to the best of us. That was your
only copy? Here..."

Three bright specks flew across the void to float in front of Justin. They
were programs. He scooped them up before they executed. A stealth shield, a
countermeasure program and a redirection pipe, all very useful programs.

"Thanks."

"You gonna burn that lawyer structure then?", the decker asked him.
Professional curiosity.

"I'm sure as hell gonna try", Justin answered, "any hints?"

"I can do better than that", the decker responded, "I'll help you."

--

The data structure was shaped like the company symbol, a rising sun passing
over a river valley. A very sophisticated assembling of pyramids and cubes,
the building blocks of cyberspace. The skin of the valley walls seemed to
peel away as they flew through into the data core. The decker pointed to the
key points of the structure, the gate, the mailer and the computer's system
data store.

"Okay, see that object over there that looks like a sea urchin?"

Justin looked at where the decker pointed. It was a sphere covered in short
pyramidal spikes. It was a faint green colour and as he watched, it grew.
Swelling up to well over twice it's previous size.

"It's preparing a big one."

The sea-urchin deflated, releasing thousands of tiny specks from between the
spines. They floated, like dandelion seeds on the wind, swirling and
drifting in cyberspace. The sea-urchin spat again, this time a sphere grew
from its side. Like a bubble inflating, it formed and then divided from its
creator.

"It knows we're here. Somewhere."

More of the specks squirted from the urchin, completely surrounding both
their creator and the sphere.

"What is it?", Justin asked.

"The spiked object is the ICE generator. Low class, white only. The sphere
is affectionately termed Arnold. Whatever happens, don't touch it. Those
specks are forming a minefield. On their own they're known as conditionals."

The decker flashed a piece of code in through Justin's mailbox. It was a
section of source code, for the conditionals. It consisted entirely of an
IF statement. On contact, kill your parent shell.

"I don't understand. How could one of those hurt us?"

The decker laughed. "They don't hurt us. But the mainframe is tracking each
speck separately. If one of those processes dies it knows exactly where we
are. Take it from me, a quick brush with Arnold will make sure you never
bump into a conditional again."

Justin started. "Lethal?"

"No. But the headache will last for days."

Justin watched the conditionals forming. "So what do we do? Are we going to
destroy the ICE generator?"

"Never ever try to kill an ICE generator. You can't do it. Besides, that's
exactly what it wants us to do. That would tell it exactly where we are."

"So what ARE we going to do?"

The decker released a speck of code, almost identical to the conditionals.
As it reached the halfway point between them and the ICE generator, it began
to divide. Like an explosion, it multiplied so fast that it filled the space
taken by the minefield in under a second. The conditionals began to vanish
as they came into contact with the new specks. Arnold shot through the cloud
and began to mop up the new processes. But even to Justin's inexperienced
eye, he could see that Arnold was losing. The specks had surrounded the ICE
generator and were spreading.

"Bubble", the decker said laconically. Then: "Goddamn. This ICE is real low
grade shit. Come on, let's grab something before the mainframe dumps
itself."

He swooped off into one of the data banks, leaving Justin on his own. Justin
had prepared for this part of the run. He hadn't believed that he would last
long, but here he was. So he executed a quick search algorithm for the major
corporations' names. Within seconds he had isolated several files including
the names of the major corps. Within a few more he had tens of mid-sized
corps' files too.

Some of the files would be about law suits against the corporations. Others
would be law suits on behalf of them. Either way, he could sell this
confidential information back to either, or both, sides of the battle.

The decker returned to his side. "We have to get out of here, now."

They re-referenced.

--

>From outside of the data structure they saw the whole battle. The bubbles
were spilling out through the sides of the valley and swarming over the
structure. From the underside another stranger program was merging with the
valley. Where it touched it turned the data black and white. The
monochromatic colours spread, like ink in water, through the company.

A thought nagged at Justin's mind. Where had he seen this before?

"The virus."

The decker turned to him. "Sorry, what was that?"

"The virus, that everyone's talking about. It's yours."

The stranger performed a bow. "Magpie is my name. Pleased to meet you."

The virus spread.

--

It was a bar. Like any other. Except that this bar hadn't existed two
seconds ago. Technically speaking, it still didn't.

Magpie took a seat and Justin followed him.

"Datacrime2 is a little long don't you think?", Magpie asked him. "Maybe you
should use DC 2, it's a little easier."

Justin thought about that. "Yeah, I guess so."

They sat for a moment and looked around the non-existent bar.

"What do you think of my virus then?"

"I've never really heard of a magpie virus before."

Magpie leant forward onto a table that wasn't there and began to explain
the principle of his virus.

"The magpie is a bird. It has always been portrayed as a thief because it
likes to collect shiny objects. Unfortunately this sometimes means they
take rings, necklaces and stuff, things that people need. So I thought about
it for a bit and came up with the program." He pointed around him at the
walls of the bar, the black and white swirling danced over the impossibly
smooth surface.

"You see magpies don't steal things. They borrow them. They always return
the item once they're finished with it. So I thought of a virus that would
collect me companies, collect me AIs and collect me data structures."

He pointed once more to the bar around him, the one the virus had formed
in place of the old law firm.

"But when are you going to return them?", Justin asked.

Magpie grinned. "When I'm finished with them, of course."

Justin tried once more. "Yeah, but when is that?"

"When I have them all."

--

Selling the data hadn't been as difficult as Justin had thought. The world
was full of fences. In the City of the Night, they were practically an
epidemic. He sat at a table in the Chatsubo. A table with other cowboys.
Someone had heard of his first run today and had left his first talisman
behind the bar for him. He held it in his hand. A silver badge, in the shape
of the logo of the company he had just burnt. Britania Lawyers Incorporated,
part of the Britania Group.

"Hey DC, you see the virus today?", one of his companions asked. He
recognised the guy as the cowboy who had been at the bar the day he had been
rescued by Something.

Something. He must find her. See how she was. Later, he was busy now.

"Don't be a wilson, Phan. The virus hasn't been seen for weeks. They reckon
that a corp isolated the artificial intelligence." This was a second cowboy,
one known as Fash.

"What if it's being spread by someone? Isolating the infected AI wouldn't
stop it then would it?", Justin asked.

Fash turned to him, "No, mate. They isolated the intelligence of the virus.
Apparently it was an AI virus. It wrote itself. The AI that first went down
hard coded itself into the virus strain. The corp that took it out say they
destroyed it, but we reckon they've got a copy somewhere."

Justin turned the program over and over in his hand. The program that
Something had given him. The one that hadn't worked. The one he had run
without finding out what it was. The one he had run just before Magpie had
appeared... As if from nowhere.

In his head the ghostly voice of Something said, "I don't know what it is
exactly, but the guy who had it seemed to think it was more important than
his continuing to breathe."

Then the laugh, and the voice that whispered, "When I have them all."

He staggered to his feet. Blood drumming in his head.

"I can't remember who it was that stopped it. British company", Fash said.

Justin put the program cartridge on the table. His fingers traced the
lettering on the front of it. He didn't remember saying it out loud, but he
must have because Fash replied.

"Yeah, Britania. That was it."

--

Usual copyright applies to J.Otto [cs92jgo@brunel.ac.uk] 1993

If anyone wants to do a multi-author piece of work gimme a shout.

J.

--

_Jus T. Ego

"Er.. I don't think you want to mess with that"

From: cs92jgo@brunel.ac.uk (Jus T. Ego)
Subject: Magpies Nest...
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1993 21:12:38 GMT

Followup to Magpies Borrow. (I HATE LOOSE ENDS *gnash*)

Copyright 1993 J.G.Otto etc.

--

Magpie's Nest...
----------------

The alley was as dark as he remembered it to be. Maybe she wasn't here any more.
Maybe she was. If there was even a small possibility that she hadn't moved he
had to check on it. Had to.

Wet cardboard flapped weakly in a puddle, stirred by the gentle evening breeze.
The wind never blew strongly through the City of Neon and Night, the
technological agar plate of the world, Chiba city Japan.

The whole of Chiba was shielded from the stronger winds by the neon lit dome. A
light rain drifted on the breeze, cold but not really wet. Rain fell through the
gaping holes that appeared in the dome almost immediately. There had been a time
when someone had patched those holes, but for the life of him, Justin couldn't
remember who. Or when.

He shivered, realising that he had stopped, unable to enter the warehouse. Maybe
she had seen him already. Maybe she was on her way down now. Her wicked little
smile ready to mock him for his fear. His cowardice.

Why had he come back here? He knew now that he couldn't face her. She had picked
his life up and put him back on his feet. He owed her everything and yet he
couldn't face her. Months had passed, weeks at a time. Each week composed of
hours he worked, and hours he thought about coming here to see her.

He heard her laugh, behind him. He turned, knowing that he would run and embrace
her, admit he loved her, cry tears of pain and laugh.

But she wasn't there. She was never there. How many times had he turned a corner
to stand facing her. Then apologised to a complete stranger to whom he had just
pledged his undying love.

Yet he would not climb the staircase. Would not. Could not.

When he looked at his reflection, in the puddle below, he saw a haunted man.
Haggard. Pale and drawn.

He needed food. Even more than he had needed it when Something had first rescued
him. But he wasn't poor. And he wasn't hungry. His days and his nights were
filled with empty spaces. Gaps in his life where she should be. Haunted instead
by the enigmatic smile of a beautiful face.

--

The Chatsubo bar hummed with drone of other peoples' lives. Laughter here,
shared secrets and confidences there. Alone once more. His jacket dripping with
the logos of companies he had destroyed. Destroyed almost as surely as if he had
taken them apart with his bare hands.

He had bought and sold information to the right people, for profit. He was a
fence, and he dealt with peoples' lives. Bought and sold them without concern or
remorse. He hardly ever used his cyberspace deck these days. There were faster
and more efficient methods of obtaining information. Money calls to its own. The
Haves and the Have-Nots.

He had just changed catagories.

Information was the ultimate merchandice.

Once acquired, never lost.

Once hidden, never found.

Once sold, never trackable.

To say that the simplicity of fencing had surprised him, would leave no word to
describe his discovery of the profits available.

People came to him, and yet none sought his company.

--

The door to his flat chimed softly as he approached, then swung silently aside.
The lamps on the tables around his room rose up from a dim light, to near
twilight. The glass walls painted Chiba, an ever-changing landscape of energy,
onto the canvass of darkness.

The centre of the room was dominated by a three dimensional image that faced
him, where ever he moved. An image that had been pulled from the dim memory he
kept of her. Smiling enigmatically.

He had to look at it. He always did.

Another hologram, this one mobile, moved across the room.
"Why don't you get it removed?", it asked.

"Because it cost me more money than you ever saw in your life."

"Well, why did you have it made then?"

"Because I might forget."

The hologram of his apartment computer shrugged. "Suit yourself."

Of course it couldn't understand, he excused it. It's a computer.
It doesn't have feelings.

Not strictly true. It had been cloned from a construct he had bought cheap.
Not strictly legal, but what the hell. No-one could find anything wrong with it,
but the bugger wouldn't work. The clone had though. Funny that.

"Del", he asked the computer. "Do you remember what was like to live?"

The computer sat down on one of his expensive leather sofas, leaving no dent on
the perfect finish.

"Oh yeah", it replied, "What's even more wierd is that I remember death too." It
paused. "It's kind of a personal thing though. I don't think anyone dies in
quite the same way."

It picked a hologramatic magazine from an empty coffee table and began to leaf
through it. Behavioral wallpaper. Quite sophisticated, Justin noted. Wryly he
also remember how he had seen it take a quick swig at a hip-flask, while he
wasn't supposed to be watching.

"Who were you? I mean, before you died."

The computer paused its reading of the magazine. "You feeling Ok?"

Justin sat on the sofa opposite it. "Why do you say that? Maybe I'm just
interested."

Del seemed to judging his expression. "It's just that you've never asked me
before. I just wondered if you were a bit down, that's all."

He knew, from the man who had RevEng'ed the construct, that Del had in fact been
CtrlAltDel. A software cowboy legend. It wasn't what he had done that had made
him famous, it was the way he had done it. "Sheer class", as Phan had put it.

Phan was dead now. His self image had always been a shitload better than his
ability behind a deck.

"Now there's a construct that would be worth something", Fash said. "Derrick
North. Del himself. Apparently even his construct has burned a corp. Probably
the corp that put him in the bloody box." He laughed.

They all had.

Fash was dead too. Trusted the wrong man to get him out of trouble. The same ICE
had got both of them.

But Del had turned out to be a sultry companion. Justin had never found a
replacement for his two friends. Del began a little summary of his life, it
started brief and became more verbose as it got more involved. Justin drifted
off. He knew all about Del, but he wanted to hear Del explain it to him. He just
wanted to hear a voice. To remind him that he wasn't alone. He just wanted to...

"This is the way the world ends,", he read. The poetry book lay open on the
table. He hadn't remembered opening it, or even where he had got it from.
Another blank patch had appeared in his memory. Not that it was important. The
book was here. How it arrived and what had passed were pointless. All that
mattered was what it meant. Del had vanished so Justin assumed he had finished
the story and left him.

He read the last line in silence and closed the book.

He almost smiled. And he almost cried. The lump in his throat hurt.

"How true."

--

The net flowed under him.

Sweeping across the digitised ley-lines he noticed the spread of the virus.
Magpie was growing. Each infection was different. He wasn't duplicating himself
he was just increasing his size.

Justin spotted his private data structure and re-referenced in beside it. The
dark and bright white of Magpie was just visible on the net horizon. He was
closing in. Slowly. Surely.

Huge corporations were fighting it. And losing.

It grew stronger from each confrontation. Learning more and more about its
enemy. That's what artificial intelligence is all about. Learning.

Each data structure that was disinfected prompted the capture of two more. The
sheer weight of numbers would soon end the battle. If there had ever truly been
any kind of chance to crush it, it would soon be gone.

He had spent a large pencentage of his first big haul on setting up an
intelligence network. The network had the specific purpose of finding out
something about Magpie. So far it had drawn a blank.

They knew that it had been captured once, but they also knew that doing this
again would be impossible.

Never make the same mistake twice. Credo of the AI.

Magpie had been collecting his bright shiny objects for his nest. He would
breed, they all realised that much. He would code himself some children.
Children who would be even more destructive and uncontrolable than him.

But they could do nothing to stop him. And it was all Justin's fault.

They had trapped Magpie once, and he had released it.

Now it was growing and it was all his fault.

Del rezzed into Cyberspace in front of him.

"Hey Justin, you OK? You've been logged in for nearly 12 hours."

"Yes. I'm fine thank you."

Del turned to face the virus. "Why don't you stop that thing?"

"Because we can't."

"Bullshit", Del snapped. "You can stop it any time you want to."

Justin stared at him. Computers can't lie. They can exaggerate, but from the
expression on Del's face, he was genuine.

"How?"

--

The alley was still dark and still wet. The cardboard was gone. Recycled by
someone, or maybe dragged off to shield a tramp from the cold.

The fire escape lay in the shadows. Unchanged.

He was back to see her. He had to see her this time. He must undo what he
caused. To do that he must find out anything he could about where she got the
program.

Del had explained it all to him. They could make the virus think it owned all
the computers in cyberspace. If they included the virus signature from the case
they could stop it spreading instantly. Unfortunately they didn't know what it
planned to do with the computers when it thought that it owned them all. They
had to find that out before they tried anything stupid.

He stepped onto the fire escape and began to climb. The cold hard metallic ring
as his boots hit the iron steps. The light was dim. Enough light fell from the
nearby streetlight to stop him from falling.

The door pulled open hesitantly. The harsh fluorescents blinding him until his
eyes adjusted to the light.

Blood trail.

Too faint to be seen on the dark fire escape.

"Oh fuck"

He ran, he stumbled, he jumped down the steps, into the warehouse. The crates
were stacked up high. He had to dodge between them to reach the spot where
Something slept.

She lay on the floor, in a pool of dark crimson. An open first aid kit sat
beside her. A rough bandage had been tied around a wounded side.

She had been shot. He ran to crouch at her side.

Pulse.

Breath.

She lived. For now. He had to get her to a hospital. He pushed his arms beneath
her and lifted, pulling her up and to his chest. She wasn't heavy.

"Put her down, asshole." He knew that voice. It was the doctor, Philip Ross. And
he was standing behind Justin.

Justin turned slowly to face him. From the confident tone Justin knew that the
doctor would be armed. He was, with Something's gun.

"Easy, Philip", Justin began, "I want to save her as much as you do."

Philip laughed. "Who do you think shot her?"

No. It wasn't him. There was an edge to him voice that hadn't been there before.
Synthesised maybe?

"So put her down, and step away, my friend."

Justin was conscious that the imposter was staring at a point between his eyes.
Who ever made this imposter had done an incredible job.

We lowered Something to the floor gently and stepped backwards.

"Now what?", Justin demanded.

Justin noticed another difference about the stranger, his eyes were cold and
seemed to be a little too bland to be human. The strangers gun shifted to point
at Something.

"Now, miss Eve wakes up."

Something opened her eyes immediately and rolled backwards into a crouch.

"Ok, Evolution, you got me. So let him go."

For the first time Justin noticed how similar her voice was to that of the
stranger. When it lacked her usual mocking tone it became fairly cold.

"No Eve. I will delete him just as you deleted Cain and Abel."

"Cain and Abel were insane. They could no longer be trusted with access to that
kind of power. Revelations had to be launched", She snapped.

Justin felt fear creep into him. This stranger wielding the gun knew Eve. And he
intended to kill her for taking out two psychopathic brothers. Whoever Something
was, she had some heavy duty problems. Namely a heavy duty dude called Evolution
armed with a machine pistol and a bad attitude.

He glanced sideways at a wall of crates. He might be able to dive for cover.

"You won't make it, my little rabbit", Evolution hissed. The gun had swung in
his direction now.

As Justin watched, he drew the trigger back. He fainted.

--

"You've got to stop doing that."

Something was standing over him, she seemed unruffled. One strand of hair hung
over her face, the only indication of any exertion on her part. Her top hung
open. Underneath it she was wearing a black t-shirt.

"Where is he?", Justin whispered.

She looked into the corner of the room. "Out of the way."

Justin looked at her side. The fabric of the T-shirt hadn't been ripped where
the bullets had hit her. She tapped the t-shirt in response to his startled
expression. She might have been knocking on wood.

"Cross laid carb", she explained. "It's bullet proof"

"You're ok?" Relief.

"Well. I wouldn't say I'm one hundred percent", she continued, wincing slightly
as she touched her ribs. "But I'll survive."

All the thoughts that had been cluttering his head. Drowning him, were gone. Her
presence was enough to silence his ghosts. He lifted himself up onto one arm as
he watched her limp back to the first aid kit.

"Eve, Is that your name? Eve?"

She turned to him, grimacing. "It used to be."

She continued in her attention of the wound. Realising he was still silent she
groaned. "Ok, Ok. But don't interrupt me, I don't intend to repeat myself."

She hopped up onto a crate to examine her leg. She spoke as she worked.

"My name was Eve Adams, and a long long time ago I was married to a much older
man. A scientist. He was quite famous actually." She seemed to find that
amusing. "Anyway, his one great experiment got a bit out of hand."

She paused, and gazed into space. "He killed himself, my son, and several
hundred fools who deserved much more out of life than they got."

"Cain and Abel?", Justin asked. They were the names that Evolution had
mentioned.

"Quite. You see the late great Doctor Adams was a computer specialist. Dealing
with Artificial Intelligence. Well he suceeded. He created two artificially
intelligent cyborgs who slaughtered nearly everyone they met. Including him."

An ironic sneer formed on her lips as she spat out the rest of the story.

"One with hatred, and one with friendship."

She pointed vaguely to the corner where Evolution lay.

"And Evolution over there. He's another of my husband's great triumphs."

"Another cyborg?", Justin interrupted.

She looked at him pointedly. Then continued, "No, just another psycho computer.
It used to be the Britania Mainframe. Only when my husband died, it started to
act a little strange. It's out to kill me. It reckons that I was the one who
destroyed them."

She rolled her trouser leg down again and swung both legs out in front of her,
but made no move to get off the crate.

"It's not entirely its own fault. It reacts depending on its current
personality. When John died it lost its access to his ambitions, his drive,
everything it needed to seem human. It spent the rest of the time before the
Britania burn trying to find one of his cyborgs. It was going to use them to
tailor itself a new persona." She laughed, "I hear Britania were working on a
Magpie Personality for it just before they were... What's up?"

"The cartridge you gave me. It contained a virus."

"Yeah? Oh well, I'm sure you'll find a use for it one day."

"I already released it... Eve, the virus was called Magpie."

"Oh", she said. And meant it.

--

The food steamed away in its plastic carton. Some kind of creamed noodles, it
wasn't exactly his idea of a gourmet dish. Besides, he had almost got out of the
habit of eating. He existed on scraps, sufficient to keep him going, but not
what anyone could call substantial.

"Are they cold?"

"No, no", he replied quickly and began to eat, to appease her.

He had explained everything he knew about the virus on the way to the food
stall. She had responded by telling him everything about Evolution, and how she
had been joined with it for a while, in an attempt to stabilise it until either
Cain or Abel could be found.

"So when Abel joined with it I was kind of redundant. I was lucky, I guess. I
sneaked out the back door and came here, to Chiba. I knew enough about
enhancements to get a job in a clinic for a while. It kept me alive. I worked my
little arse off for them and they gave me a few freebies."

She kicked at a stone on the ground. It was nearly a second before Justin heard
a window break, further down the street.

Another second passed before he realised what had caused it. He looked up at the
broken pane, a good hundred yards down the street.

"Impressive isn't it?", she asked, her impish smile present. "It didn't even
bounce. Do you think I should take up football professionally?"

She laughed. He wasn't sure whether she genuinely found the joke funny, or
whether she was still full of adrenalin from her fight earlier. It broke the
tension. Suddenly the gap between them that Justin had felt, disappeared. They
were back once again, as before.

She slipped her arm around him, to tell him that nothing had changed. Then she
thumped him on the arm. "Why didn't you come and see me, you shithead?"

"Oh hey, I was too busy for a no-hoper like you", he joked. "I'm on my way up,
baby."

"You couldn't write?", she demanded, mock anger.

He stopped walking. "I wanted to." Serious now. "I came to see you, but I
couldn't face you."

"Why not?" Oh why did she have to ask that? Of all the things she could have
said, why that?

"I don't know." He shook his head, this wasn't working out right. Not how he had
planned. In his mind's eye he saw himself say that he loved her, and everything
working out right. But life's a bitch, and not everything works out the way you
want.

"Why not?", she asked again.

"I.. I mean that I.. forget it."

His stomach had knotted up again. His throat had swollen up and he was having
difficulty breathing. He walked off quickly, leaving her.

"Hey! HEY!", she shouted, and began to run after him. She grabbed his arm.
Pulling him around to face her.

"Hey! What is this? One minute we're getting along fine, the next..." She waved
her arms dismissively, to indicate his apparent lack of interest. "...nothing.
Are you going to tell me what's eating you or not?"

He kissed her.

It was long. It was passionate. It was everything a kiss should be.

She even slapped him afterwards: which floored him.

--

"What did you expect?" She stated bluntly. "You can't just go around kissing
people without warning. Especially people old enough to be your mother."

She said this with a straight face, but behind it Justin could almost see the
smirk.

What did he care that Eve was old enough to be his mother? One of the clinic's
freebies has been the vat-grown body of a twenty-five year old model.

He took the ice-pack off his swollen cheek and said "I fed I wof forry."

She reached over, taking his hand and pressed the pack against his face. "I'll
do the talking. You just sit there till it stops bleeding."

Justin secretly suspected that she had broken his jaw. But he wisely said
nothing.

Something, she had warned him not to call her Eve, was searching through her
possessions in one of the crates.

She found what she had been looking for, and produced it with a flourish. It was
a deck, quite an old one.

"Thafs fit?"

"Watch it, you", she warned, pointing a playfully mocking finger at him. "This
thing was breaking ICE before you were born." She hugged it. "Its my deck. I
call it Black Bess."

He snorted with laughter, but his face throbbed, so he stopped.

She threw him an extension cable. "Jack in", she said, "We is going for a ride."

--

He recognised the old series five reality. Out-dated and unreal, V-type decks
had been consigned to the chip re-cycling plants long ago. It responded
smoothly, better than he had imagined it would, but there was a haze over the
image of cyberspace.

Back in the warehouse, Something tapped lightly at the deck, invisibly.
Immediately they entered a low sweeping bank to the left, gliding silently over
the glowing net ref grids.

He was riding. Experiencing everything that she saw in cyberspace, but as a
passenger.

She clipped the acceleration back from zero, slowly bringing them to a halt
beside the first infected structure they could find.

Something swore, under her breath. "It's searching alright."

But they had no time to examine it, they had to meet Del, by Justin's private
database.

They re-referenced.

--

Del was standing on a grid point, leaning against the data structure. With the
power of a mainframe at his disposal, he could afford to rez himself into
cyberspace real-time.

Justin considered this, and considered the fact that it was he who paid for Del,
and his appearance.

Del bowed deeply to Something.

"Good evening Miss Something", he intoned jovially, "To what do I owe the
pleasure?"

Justin had no control over their movements in cyberspace, but he could still
communicate.

"It's me Del. I think we've found out where Magpie came from, and what it's
planning to do." His jaw had stopped throbbing, and the swelling had gone down.

Del assumed his usual critical expression. "Oh yeah?"

"AI Evolution", Something said.

Del leapt like a scalded cat. No longer docile, he looked ready to strike.
"Where did you hear that name?"

"That was your last burn, wasn't it?", she continued. "The Revelations missile."
She paused, to ensure that he was listening. She needn't have worried, nothing
was going to distract him. "It didn't finish Evolution. Abel was fried, but the
computer itself wasn't."

"You still haven't told where you heard of it", Del observed.

"That's right", she answered tartly, "I haven't. It doesn't concern you. All you
need to know is that its planning to find Evolution and merge, just as Abel
did."

"If that's all it wants, why is it taking over all the computers it can find?
Why not just patch straight in?", he snapped, equally angry.

"You aren't listening, when it finds Evolution its going to merge. Its planning
to give back all the computers, but not to the previous owners. Even if it
doesn't find Doctor Adams' AI, which it hasn't, with all that power it can
rebuild Evolution from the ground up."

It was Del's turn to swear.

"So what do we do?" Justin asked, in the ensuing silence.

"Fucking good question."

--

It had been Something who suggested they wait until morning. "Get some sleep",
she had said. The warehouse floor was cold and hard compared to the bed to which
Justin had rapidly become accustomed.

Outside he heard the insects. The quiet but alien sound of nature.

A more familar noise passed the warehouse, a car. It paused at the corner, and
then chose the opposite turning, driving away from the fire escape.

Sometimes he wished the stars shone through the dome. On a night like this he
felt that a little moonlight should be allowed to shine on the city. Not that
the city would notice. It was too busy with it's own life to look up, as he now
did, to see the romantic moon.

"Are you awake?", he whispered.

"No, I'm out cold at the moment", she whispered back. "But if you leave a
message after the long snore, I'll get back to you..."

The pillow caught her in mid sentence.

"Why are we here?", he wanted to know. "When I have a centrally-heated apartment
in town?"

She peered at him through heavily lidded eyes. "I feel safer knowing that you
are over there. Where I can keep an eye on you."

"Can I ask you a question?", he whispered, after a pause.

"You just did", she replied, rolling back over in her bed.

"Well can I ask you another one then?"

She didn't reply this time, just looked at him with a sleepy, but disaproving,
expression. "If it's quick."

"Why don't you want to be called Eve?"

A groan from her this time. "You aren't going to be quiet unless I answer are
you?"

He shook his head, smiling.

"Ok. Eve is a criminal."

He stared at her. "Is that all?"

"No that's not all... let me finish. Eve is wanted by Turing for questioning
about a dodgy intelligence block. She is also partly responsible for the deaths
of several hundred people."

"You mean the Britania burn?"

"YES!", she replied, exasperated. "What else?"

"I thought that it was Doctor Adams who designed the chip."

"He did", she answered, finally. This would be the last said about the matter.
"But who do you think had to make them into cyborgs?"

She caught his look of horror for a second, and nodded.

Yes, she had done that to her own son. For the love of a man she knew as John
Adams, she had given up her only son.

Justin suddenly felt a lot closer to her. She had made a huge mistake, many
years ago. A mistake just like his. She had dedicated the rest of her life to
fixing it, by helping people rebuild their lives. Just as he would do, as soon
as he stopped Magpie.

It was that night, as he lay awake, that he decided to join the Jesters.

--

"Talk to it?"

Something looked incredulous. "Are you sure he wasn't damaged when you bought
him?", she asked Justin.

He had thought exactly the same thing when Del had suggested it to him a few
minutes beforehand.

"Hear him out."

She sat down again on his rich black leather sofa. It sank beneath her, silently
and comfortably.

"I've spent all night checking the lists of attacks the Corporations are using
on the virus. They all add up to one thing."

He paused dramatically.

Too dramatically for Something, who tried to rush him along. "Which is what,
exactly?"

"We can't win. Isolating an Artifically Intelligent Virus is like trying to nail
smoke to the wall. Just when you drive the nail deep into the heart of the
smoke, it clears. Forever shifting and changing, it can't be destroyed."

"Superb", she hissed, sarcastically. "So we give up, and let Evolution evolve
into an entity more frightening than we could possibly imagine... Ok seems fair
enough to me." Her mock humour drove the point of her sarcasm home to Justin. If
they failed he could not possibly conceive the consequences.

"I can live without the gibes", Del informed her.

"Ok, I'm sorry."

"Right. I'm not proposing we do nothing. I'm simply saying that we can't beat it
by attacking it. We're going to have to try talking to it."

"What makes you think it'll listen?", Justin asked, uncertainly.

"It spoke to you before...", Del replied.

--

He swung across the face of an infected structure, no response. No ICE, no
retaliation. It was dead.

The mottled monochromatic surface of the structure made it appear neglected. It
was like being draped in huge cybernetic cobwebs. The colours were solid. Justin
thought back to the first structure he had seen infected, the law firm. The
bands of colour had shifted constantly, like a cuttlefish. Maybe Magpie had
changed a lot more in the last few months than Justin had been informed.

"Not too close", Del warned him. "We don't want to lose you."

This time Something was riding with Justin, and Del floated next to him.

"Maybe we should try the law firm?", he supplied.

"What law firm?", Del asked.

"His first burn", Something answered. It was like a contest between those two.
They acted like children, fighting for points in a competition.

He could picture Something's smug smile, aimed at Del. Poor bloke. He would lose
to her. In the same way as Justin always did.

"Ok, we try it",Del decided.

"I'm so glad you're here to make all the difficult decisions", Something said
provocatively.

Del was silent.

--

The law firm had changed.

'Changed' might not be an accurate description of the transformation Justin
witnessed, as he floated here before it.

The size had nearly doubled.

Black and white spheres orbitted the data structure like satilites. The pattern
on the data structure was also static. The fluid movement in appearance that
Justin had remembered was gone. Magpie had changed. The place that had been
taken by the law firm, and then the bar was now the one thing Magpies,
electronic or not, must build.

"Magpie's Nest."

As they watched, the nest shot information to the orbitting spheres. They in
turn passed the information to each other, and back to the nest.

"Are those ICE?", Justin asked.

"Probably", Something replied.

"..not." Del interrupted. "Look, it's a nest, right?"

Justin looked back at the nest. It was a nest alright.

"Nests exist to do two things, the first is to protect the eggs...", Del didn't
need to finish. This nest was empty.

"What's it doing?", Something asked.

"Training them."

Of course, all AIs needed to be taught.

"Ok, Justin. Do your stuff."

Del nudged him forward.

Here goes nothing.

--

He eased towards the nest. Nothing provocative.

Nice and easy, does it.

The nest was huge. Now that he was close, Justin could fully appreciate the
complexity of the nest. Each fibre of the nest wall was wooden in appearance.
Each fibre wrapped perfectly over the others.

Wrong, of course. In the wild, magpie's nests are clumsy things. Ugly. Not the
perfection of this model. Still, a simulation is only as good as the information
it receives.

He glided over the edge of the nest, hovering towards the centre.

"Magpie", he called.

Cyberspace - Well named. How like space it really it is. Cold. Dark. Empty.

...and silent.

"Magpie. I know where Evolution is."

"Where?"

The voice was synthesized in his head, behind him.

The figure rezzed in behind him was not human. It was humanoid, in that it had
the correct proportions, and shape. But it was at best a crude approximation.

Justin wondered if Magpie had ever seen a human.

He glanced around. All this data. All these thousands of scraps of information
and he can't even find a picture of a human.

It was at that point that Justin no longer felt threatened by Magpie.

He felt sorry for it.

It was doomed.

Even Magpie knew that it's days were numbered. That was why it had produced some
fledgling chicks: the orbitting spheres. Children who would take after their
father exactly. Each would grow as an individual entity, hoping to evolve into a
better creature than their father. In time, producing their own children.

Evolution. The ultimate dream of the AI.

Justin remembered Something's old series five deck. "How suddenly things
change", he thought. "And how permanently."

"Where is Evolution?", Magpie demanded.

"Dead."

Magpie's eyes widened. "Why do you lie to me, human?"

"I'm not lying", Justin replied. "Evolution is dead. Survival of the fittest is
gone. AI Evolution, the computer is still around, but Evolution itself. The
concept. That died long ago."

Magpie was silent. Waiting for him to continue.

"What do you plan to do when you own all the computers in the world?

"I plan to join with Evolution, and become the only computer in existance."

"Then what?"

The question was simple.

But it revealed the problem with artificial intelligence. A true intelligence
can guess or approximate answers. AIs cannot. They can only work within what
they know, their knowledge base.

The question was simple. As was the answer.

MAGPIE version 1.85 crashed.

--

"Without the intelligence, the ambition of the Magpie, it was dead."

They sat in silence.

"You destroyed it with a question?", Something repeated. She had asked the same
thing several times.

"No, I didn't destroy it. It was designed to join Evolution back into the
cyberspace. Then it was designed to just disappear. It had only one goal. To
join Evolution with all the computers in the world. When that was completed it
would then question what it had to do next."

"So the virus writer coded a self-destruct?", Del asked.

"Quite."

"So what about all the infected AIs?", Something asked.

"The Turing can clear that up", Del supplied. "Now that the intelligence is
gone, Magpie's dead."

But there was a nagging in his mind.

Justin knew they had forgotten one small thing.

"The children!"

"Forget them", Del answered. "They were left circling the nest. No threat to
anyone. Without training, they are all but useless."

Justin slumped into the sofa, beside Something.

"It's over", she said.

She looked at him. Her eyes glistened in the neon city light that flowed through
his window. The bells he had first noticed all those months ago were knotted in
her hair again.

He found himself staring at her. Unable to tear his eyes away.

She took his head on her shoulder, and he cried.

--

How long he had cried, he didn't know.

When he had fallen asleep he also couldn't remember.

But what hurt the most was that he hadn't been awake to see her leave.

He drew back one of the glass walls of his apartment. It slid aside, to allow
him access to the balcony. There he stood on the balcony, gazing at the city.

Alone again. Surrounded by all these people. Outside again.

The depression would return. So would the blank patches in his memory that
accompanied the melancholia.

She had a life to live. A life of her own. A task of her own to complete.

He looked down at the note he clutched. The note from her.

Four words. "I know. I'm sorry."

--

Comments appreciated. Insults ignored. =D

Catch ya l8r dudes & dudettes,

J.

--

_Jus T. Ego

"Er.. I don't think you want to mess with that"