>From: x9999bna@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU (Drifter...)
Subject: Mechanically Assisted Take-off
Date: 28 Apr 91 04:32:04 GMT


    Yes siree bob, here it is... The *second* part in the Unnamed Storyline.
What took so long? Well... I'm lazy. No wait, I had to combat the forces of
evil! Yeah...
    Things should go a bit faster after this. I might decide to forego detail
work and spell checking and other such rot for future posts, doing the work
afterwards.
Any feedback is welcome, postive or negative. Please Email comments to me at
7%arms.uucp@ufl.edu or x9999bna%oak.decnet@pine.circa.ufl.edu
  If you are interested in joining this storyline... Well, we'll just have to
see, as I already have a lot of stuff planned out. Anyone wants a cameo
though, it shouldn't be much of a problem...


---------------------------------- Cut Here ----------------------------------

                            The Unnamed Storyline:
                        Mechanically Assisted Take-off
                      ==================================


"Fear be unknown, childish pleas,
 What walks the dark beside you?
 Panic as your heart seizes,
 Innoculated are you!"
        --"MindKiller" by Fear Innoculation

    Six smooth planes of dirty off-white formed a static cube, illuminated
with the grayish tinge of bare florescent tubes. Someone had been trying to
tune out the static by slapping up posters, stickers, assorted bits of
cultural refuse. Holographs vied for the eye's attention against neonic flats
and stills. Faded posters proclaimed the biggest MegaHit sim-stims from
decades past. A collection of lost stars and distant media horizons. The
static was more pronounced for its poorly applied mask of color.
    This was the converted lab that now served as the operations and control
center for the organizations mech testing site.
    An Iranian woman with tightly cropped hair and eyes like dark diamonds
watched passively as Rico surveyed the operations center. She was seated on a
plastic stool at a lab bench, which had been co-opted as a cyber operations
console. She wore the unfaded pants of a desert uniform and a black rayon
sweater.
    "You have no outside cybernetic connections, yes?" Rico asked the mature
operations commander. She was standing beside and just behind his bulk, a few
steps past the entrance of the lab.
    "That's right. All the systems are local area only. No connections to
cyberspace at all, not even for leisure time."
    Rico nodded his approval. "This is good."
    Bathfellow made no response as she examined the new complication to her
command, limited though her authority was. He had been quiet during the short
meal in their stark cafeteria, chewing his vat-meat (rare) efficiently and
with little noise. When they viewed the message from the Great Destroyer, Rico
stood attentively, as if he expected the portly man with the curly goatee to
be watching them from the low-grade hologram projection. Rodriguez was a
strange man. If he was indeed even a man.
    Claire Bathfellow had had enough lovers in her time to meet the male, the
female, and the one-turned-other in bed. In the military segments of the
particular corps she had worked for, sex was a relaxant as well as a bond for
the soldiers; gender had been irrelevant. But this Rodriguez had the vetran
commander mildly confused. She assumed he was male, but there were few
masculine characteristics to his appearance. The slight, sagging bulges under
his uniform could be breasts or the fatty deposits of an overweight male. Or
synthetic. The voice was too neutral, even with mild its accent, to be a
reliable indicator.
    And it was all too easy to change superficial characteristics anyways.
There were pretenders on both side of the fence, even ones that straddled it.
But Rico wasn't androgynous. He was blurred.
    "Where is the central computer system?" Rico asked detachedly as he moved
slowly through the labs length, inspecting jumbles of equipment.
    "Down under," the Iranian woman said.
    "Australia?" Rico puzzled. A battered, half-assembled version of the
machine he had encountered on the surface leaned crazily against one short
ceramic bench. Cables ran out of its cracked open shell and snaked across the
grungy tile floor.
    "Down under. Under the lab." The woman seemed exasperated at Rico's
ignorance of the phrase. "All the cyber systems are at the deepest level of
this place. Protection from the radiation and EM disturbances."
    "But what about tectonic activity, eh?" Rico said, rounding a bench heaped
with chemistry refuse. What looked like a small sea sponge reclined in a
beaker of fizzing pinkish fluid. Several test tubes spun in a centrifuge,
their contents an unidentifiable blur. Acrid scents tinted the air.
    "Not much plan against that," the Iranian said. She shrugged. "Got
everything backed up on optical, pilot takes them away every two days."
    "Yes. She mentioned that." He picked up a wetware chip from a carefully
sorted pile of the the multi-colored slivers. A number of them had the flaky
edges and slight discoloration of personal, private manufacture.
    Bathfellow fidgeted slightly. "Mr. Rodriguez..."
    "I prefer Rico. I do not like titles," Rico interrupted, turning the chip
over in his large hands as he peered at it.
    Bathfellow grimaced slightly. "Rico... My people were in the midst of
preliminary testing on new designs before you arrived. But there were some
sort of problems?" The last sentence was directed as a question at the Iranian.
    "Yes. Bleeder tank failed. The design came from some indy. Mechanic."
    "What does this 'bleeder tank' do?" Rico asked, suddenly standing by the
cyber bench, looking down at the disconcerted tea-skinned woman on her stool.
    "Um... It's kind of hard to explain. Basically, it's supposed to cycle
fluids and, um,  extract the impurities, suck off heat... It's a container so
it's called the bleeder tank." She shrugged, her uniform shifting quietly with
the movement.
    "I see." Rico said. His face was blank, as if not paying attention.
"Commander," he said, still looking at the Iranian, "when will this part be
fixed, and when can I expect a demonstration of the current working model?"
    "I--I'll see about getting in touch with the independent agent, Mr...
Rico." Bathfellow pushed down the annoyance at having to meet demands from
someone like this. It was disloyal to the cause and organization.
    "Very good. Yes." Rico nodded absently. Bathfellow grew aware of the
background noise of the lab as the talking stopped and she waited for Rico to
do or say something. He just looked at the Iranian, who seemed to be getting a
bit frightened. Like an octopus uncoiling, Rico pulled back and addressed the
woman directly. "Your name?"
    "Um... I go by Shawl." Rico frowned slightly and whatever fears inside the
young tech were pulled forth. "I have to protect my, my family," She said
defensively, rapidly. "I can't--"
    "Shawl is too plain for you," Rico interrupted her. "You are more
attractive than a mere shawl." And he smiled gently.
    Claire Bathfellow's eyebrows tried to migrate to the back of her neck.

                *               *               *               *

    Northern Sprawl nights are near indistinguishable from Northern Sprawl
days. Rays from the drifting sun and harsh aluminum beams from an antique arc
lamp merge. Shadows of smoke-stained domes and rotting cloud formations and
yellowish, waxy moonlight... It tends to run together.
    The platinum blonde hair, fuzzy and short, drifts across the murky
streetway, a pale star in the unnoticed night. Its owner is average sized and
built, nothing outstanding. Her moves are graceful, not sleek. She's not a
fighter; her few scars bare testament to combat skill used infrequently.
    Her path seems to wander, but a Sprawl street veteran, a wired one, just
might notice her uncanny ability to avoid areas occupied by Silkies, ghouls,
and other hostiles.
    Eventually, she arrives at the Chatsubo.

    "Hail Ratz," the blonde says quietly. "Seen Bella?"
    "Hail Rita. Hasn't been here recently," Ratz replies absently as he pours
a drink for a freckle-faced prostitute, who takes it to his John. Turning,
Ratz gives a glimpse of his brown and damp dental work. "Lonely?"
    The woman called Rita snorts. "No. We got a newbie and she's going out to
Mexico to fix something I worked up. Some peasant can't handle the 'quipment."
She shrugs. "Woulda been nice to have Bella meet her. Bonnie isn't a psi."
    "Ah," Ratz says.
    "Yeah... well..." Rita nods at Ratz then and glides past him into the
Chat, looking for the newbie. Brown, curly hair, not much chin. Looked like
she had kept her baby fat. Rita's protege, ha ha ha.
    "Hey Bon," Rita says and slips into a chair at the chromium table. Bonnie
smiles a small bit. She's smart and she's been trained by the Mechanic
company, but she's new, just off probation. So she's pretty nervous.
    Not cut out for dangerous missions, that's Rita's opinion.
    "Just the basics," Rita says, taking out a notebook from inside her
jacket. "Then I'll buy you a drink. One last night out with the girls, eh?"
Bonnie's smile is more relaxed now, reacting to Rita's casualness. Rita likes
her.
    She taps the compact machine with her unadorned fingertips. "Notebook's
got all the specs for this thing, they call it a bleeder tank for some
gruesome reason, as well as my original plans." Bonnie picks it up, flips it
on.
    "Who commissioned you for this?" she asks quietly.
    "Don't know the guy" (a greasy and fat techie, furtive, handing her an
unmarked cred chip, specs, and sweat) "or the name of the company. If it is
one. It's either a gang of designer drug runners, or some black clinic." She
shrugs. "Not that I care."
    Bonnie looks worried, fingers move meanginglessly against the notebook
controls. "Well you're not the one going out there," she says, voice squeaking
just slightly.
    "Hey, don't worry." Rita smiles at Bonnie, then pats her hand. "I was out
there too, remember? No problem, just go to a little Mexican town, fix the
problem, leave the notebook for the idiots, and you're back home." She leans
back and signals Nekoko, who flicks her ears in acknowledgement. The catty
young lady passes their table and hits Ratz with her orders. The Chat is
hopping.
    "Jeez..." Bonnie says breathily, looking closely at the notebook display.
"This filters ammonia, CO2, potassium..."
    A bored "So?" from Rita. Nekoko slides past their table again. "Hey..."
    "Just a second," Nekoko says over he shoulder, dispensing drinks from tray
to customer as she walks the maze of tables.
    Bonnie frowns a bit. "Ambient liquid temperature 91.3 degrees Fahrenheit...
Shit Rita, this half looks like the design for a tissue support system!"
    "Yeah?" A slight flash of interest.
    Bonnie's brow crinkles up. "Yeah, but it's supposed to keep it pretty
cool, I think. No wait..." She skims through the notebook for a moment. Rita
watches her. "I dunno. It's only one part of a system, right?"
    "From what I gathered, yes." Rita turns away from Bonnie as Nekoko finally
arrives, and takes the order for two Colorado Motherfuckers, then weaves
between the tables back to Ratz and the bar.
    Bonnie puts the notebook down. "Weird. I wonder what the hell this is
for."
    Rita shakes her head. "Don't. Just fix it, we don't want any nervous
people thinking Mechanics are taking up espionage or investigation."
    "Didn't you notice this, though?"
    A shrug. "Probably, and I probably forgot about it." Nods at Bonnie. "Like
you will."
    Two glasses of off-white fluid are brought to them, and Bonnie discovers
the punch of vodka and tequila mixed with milk and coke. Nekoko makes a face
at Rita's obvious enjoyment of the drink, then glances over at one particular
table of the Chatsubo. She frowns, and goes to get a glass of water from Ratz.

                *               *               *               *

    Banshee scream of the tortured Mexican wind. The jump-copter whined as its
turbo-charger battled the force of unnature. Such gales did not use to exist.
That was before the Mexican State Atrocities.
    Bonnie sat back in her cramped seat, legs pulled up underneath her against
the cracked vinyl. She memorized the specs of the strange device she was
assigned fix. Then she watched the pilot in front of her for a while. Then she
watched outside and tried to pierce the whipping sands to see the ground
below. Like trying to separate the waves from the ocean.
    "Comin' up," the pilot said suddenly, then they dropped and touched down
almost lightly. Bonnie felt the copter drifting to the side slightly before
the legs dug into the soft sand and levered the machine down.
    "Where are we?" she asked the pilot.
    "Don't worry. Someone will be out to get us when the storm lets up a
bit."
    "But where is this?" She was irritable after having spent several hours in
a less-than-first-class jet to get to the city of Hoguera, not far into
Mexico. The jump-copter trip through a desert storm, without any idea of the
final destination, or any explanation why, had whittled away some of the
reassurance Rita had provided.
    "I can't tell you. Corporate security." The pilot shrugged. "Even I don't
know who I'm working for," she lied, a smooth pebble of a lie polished by use.
    "I can't believe these people... Why couldn't they just bring the problem
to me?"
    The pilot was silent. They looked out at the raging, scouring storm
together as the copter gently creaked, rocking slowly from side to side.
    Bonnie fell asleep.

    Wakefulness returned like a hot coal popping. She hadn't been truly
tired, but lulled into deprivation of her consciousness. Bonnie blinked a bit,
clearing her vision. She was inside the copter, by herself. A glance out
through the foggy plastic bubble showed the pilot, helmet in one hand, talking
to someone in a desert uniform.
    "Damn," Bonnie muttered. Her own clothes were hardly suited for a trip to
the southern tip of the Sprawl. She cracked open the door of the copter but
re-considered getting out when the dry heat started to tear the sweat from her
body.
    Big baby, she thought to herself.
    Pushing the door open the rest of the way, Bonnie stepped out of the jump
copter. Brilliant diamond light forced her to shade her eyes. She started
walking to the two figures when one of them, whoever the pilot was talking to,
saw her and shouted.
    "Get back in the copter!!"
    A momentary surprise, a feeling of offense. She opened her mouth and the
sand just to her side rose into something black and multi-legged, bigger than
her. Someone cursed loudly. Bonnie gaped.
    Whatever it was, it moved quickly, scuttling away from her and then
digging into the sand a few meters away.
    "Shit! God damn it to hell!" The man strode angrily towards her, but
stopped before reaching her. He looked angry and worried. The pilot, helmet
still in hand, was watching from afar.
    Bonnie felt the rest of Rita's reassurance swirl away like thin foam down
a river.
==============================================================================

       Copyright (C) 1991 by Drifter... (author) - All rights reserved.
 Fear Innoculation lyrics copyright (C) 1991 by Drifter. Used with permission.

  Distribution for NON-PROFIT purposes permitted. Do not upload this file to
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  All characters are trademarks of the author unless otherwise noted and can
not be used without permission of the author(s).
  This story is fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, alive or dead, or
events is purely coincidental. Some real life elements may appear in
fictionalized form and are not intended to be taken as factual.