From: Vogue a la Mode
Subject: Nagasaki Gorgon
Date: 2 Jul 92 00:00:02 GMT


   Omi Tachiko.
   A little girl, discovered in an puddle of industrial sewage.  Left to
die on the border of Tokyo.  She had been a passanger on a train. A fast
train from Nagasaki to the capital.  A train which flew upon a cushion
of magnetism and electricity.
   She remembered the pilots voice.
   "Tokyo."
   That's all he had said.  How odd, she thought, that he shouldn't say
more.  They weren't really in Tokyo yet.  She looked out the window at
the endless swamp of industry.  The rusty water and the burning sky.
Far, far away, were lights.  Towering lights.  Diamonds and rubies and
all manner of precious stones.
   That was Tokyo.  This was not Tokyo.
   She looked up at her mother.
   "Mom?  We aren't in Tokyo yet, are we?"
   Her mother didn't answer.  The pretty woman had started to speak, but
in place of a gentle voice there came a deafening, shattering roar.  The
pretty woman was gone.  Flames had taken her place.  The train was gone.
The ground was gone.  Tachiko flew.
   Her chest hurt.
   She stopped flying.
   Her back hurt.  She felt wet.  She couldn't see.  She was sinking.
   The water was very thick.  Maybe it wasn't water.  She couldn't move.
Strugling to stay above the surface made her back hurt more.  Hurt
terribly.  How strange it felt, trying to move her arm.  Her left arm.
Moving her right arm pierced her with agony and terror and dread.
Moving her left arm caused no pain.
   So easily, it seemed to move.
   Tachiko relaxed.  If everything hurt except her left arm, then she
would move only that.  She could feel the strange liquid beneath her
chin.  Against the back of her head.  Surrounding her body.  Burning
her.  But not badly.  It tickled.  Almost.  She paddled with her left
arm.
   That didn't hurt.
   Time passed.  Tachiko bobbed in the liquid.  She didn't think of it
as water anymore.  She could barely think at all, and something inside
her knew that was best.  She just moved her arm.  The one that didn't
hurt.
   And then something grabbed her.  Something that felt like hands.
Very strong and hard hands.  There was a strange sound.  Tachiko
couldn't hear very well.  But she heard something.  Voices.  Strange
voices.  She couldn't understand.
   They were speaking English.
   Pain.  She screamed.

   Tachiko opened her eyes.
   She pressed them shut quickly again.  Once more, she pulled back her
lids.  Slowly.  Cautiously.  They were still there.  The strange shapes.
They weren't real.  They were almost real, but she new they weren't
real.  She had seen something like this before.  Somewhere near her
home.  Someplace fun.  She had been playing a game.
   A game. An almost-reality.
   No.  That wasn't it.
   A virtual-reality.
   How did she get here?
   The strange liquid?  Where was that.
   The pain?  Where was that?
   Her mother.
   "Mother!  Mother!"
   Tachiko burst out of bed.  Only it wasn't a bed.  It was an almost-
bed.  And she didn't like it.  She didn't like the almost-walls or the
almost-table or anything else in this almost-world.
She wanted her mother.
   "Mother!"
   Was it an almost-voice, or her voice?  Was she an almost-person?
Tachiko was frightened.  Had she died?  Is this what it's like when you
die?  You go to an almost-place?
   Tachiko couldn't open the door.  She pounded on it.
   "Mother!"
   The door refused to budge.  Eventually, Tachiko sank down to the
floor.  She hadn't started to cry.  Not yet.  But she could not hold
back much longer.  Somewhere inside her, a sob trembled.  Then another.
Air came only difficultly into her lungs.  She had to pull it.  More
sobs.  Frightened and alone, the little girl curled up by the almost-
door and cried almost-tears.
   They felt very real to her.
   The door opened.
   Immediately, Tachiko stopped crying.  She was a very proud little
girl.  She pulled her lip under her teeth and looked up.  A woman stood
there.  Not very pretty.  But not ugly.  A foreign woman, with dark
brown hair and white skin.  An American, perhaps.  Tachiko hadn't seen
many foreigners.
   She remembered the English voices.
   "What have you done with my mother?"
   The woman didn't answer.  She smiled.  An honest smile.  Not a cruel
smile.  Tachiko eyed her warily.  You couldn't trust foreigners.  They
were all very clever.
   "Well?"
   The woman knelt down on the floor beside Tachiko.  She reached out
her arms and pulled Tachiko into them.  Lifting the little girl up, the
woman headed back to the bed.  The almost-bed.  Slowly, she set Tachiko
down.  Not really wanting to.
   "My Mother?"
   Tachiko's voice was much softer this time.
   The woman said something.  Not to Tachiko.  It was in English.  Of
course, thought Tachiko.  She had been speaking Japanese.  But wasn't
she in Japan?  Shouldn't this foreigner know how to speak her language.
A face appeared.  A beautiful face.  That of a Japanese woman.  Tachiko
had never seen such a beautiful face.  The foreign woman spoke to this
mysterious face.  More beautiful than any model she had seen.
   Tachiko had never been a pretty girl.  And she so wanted to be.
   The beautiful Japanese woman spoke to Tachiko.
   "I am sorry, dear child, but Rebecca cannot speak Japanese."
   "What has happened to my mother?"
    Without speaking to the Rebecca, the beautiful face responded.
   "We do not know your name.  So we cannot know what happened to your
   Mother.  Do you remember your name?"
   What a silly question.
   "Of course.  Omi Tachiko.  Of Nagasaki."
   "Hello, Tachiko.  My name is Reia.  I am happy to meet you."
   "Well, now that you know my name, can you tell me what has happened?"
   "The information is coming.  But, TachikoI"
   "Yes?"
   "Do you remember anything before you woke up, Tachiko?"
   The train.  The fire.  The strange liquid.  The pain.  She
remembered.  She did not want to remember, but who would?  They memories
were there, and she accepted them.
   "My Mother is dead."
   Reia's beautiful face said nothing.  Just became more beautiful.
Soft and hazy.  A film of water misted over the surface of Reia's eyes.
   "The information is coming, Tachiko.  Do you know how long it has
been?  Since we found you in Yokohama harbor?"
   Yokohama harbor?  She wasn't in Yokohama, she was in Tokyo.  Almost.
   "A day?"
   There was an uncomfortable pause.
   "No, Tachiko.  You have been in a coma for one and a half years.
   This woman, Rebecca, has been your doctor.  She has been taking care of
you.  We are all so very glad that you have recovered.  But many things
have changed, Tachiko.  You are not the same as you were, and it may be
painful for you.  Can you be strong?"
   Tachiko puffed with pride.
   She had always been strong.  Strong and proud.  She had accomplished
many things.  She didn't have any boyfriends, but that is because she
was not pretty.  She had won many awards.  Academic and sporting.  She
had beaten everyone - even the boys - in the southern kendo
championships.
   She had been on a train from Nagasaki to Tokyo to appear before the
Son of Heaven.  Many people thought she would win.  There were many
stories about how strange it would be that such a poor girl, from a
southern city, would win the Tokyo championship.
   Then there was an accident.
   "My Mother?"
   Her voice was very faint.
   Reia's eyes locked onto Tachiko.  The little girl could not look
away.  Hypnotic.  Beautiful.  Fierce.  Proud.
   "Omi Mariko."
   "Yes, that's her name."
   "Died, August 17, 2027.  Tokyo, Japan.  Rail disaster."
   Tachiko knew her Mother was dead.  She knew it when the strange
liquid that tickled lapped against her lips and she bit down refusing to
let it in. And the pain in her chest and back almost broke her resolve
not to cry.  And her arm kept paddling, never becoming tired.  Her
famous left arm.  The arm that always one.  That crushed through any
block and brought the wooden sword down upon her oponent's head.
   The arm that kept her afloat.
   All the way to Yokohama harbor?
   Tachiko knew that she would not be in pain, that she would not be
floating in a strange sea, if her Mother were not dead.
The little girl bowed her head.



   Nagasaki Gorgon had not given a performance in four years.
   Four years is enough time for an underground performer to be
forgotten, at least in the Los Angeles of 2063.  Nagasaki Gorgon did not
mind being forgotten.  Nagasaki Gorgon, herself, would never forget.
   What had triggered the memories this time?
   The boy on the bar.

From: mcmelmon@taligent.com (Matthew C. Melmon)
Subject: Nagasaki Gorgon
Date: 10 Jul 92 23:02:02 GMT


Tachiko sat with her knees pulled in close to her chest.

She stared into the space at the foot of her almost-bed.  Rebecca was
there.  Manipulating some almost-controls.  Tachiko had spent the last
two years of her life in this digital world.  Waiting for Rebecca to
finish her body.  Waiting to walk under the real sky and talk to real
people, not electric ghosts.

Her body would not be pretty.

"If I can't be beautiful, make me horrible.  Beautifully horrible."

That's what she asked of Rebecca.

Tachiko remembered the old Jewish woman's eyes after that request.
Tachiko knew those were the eyes of a genius.  A mind that knew what no
other mind could know.  A mind that understood a frightened little girl.
A mind that understood how metal and flesh and rock could live as one.
Rebecca nodded and the work began.

It would take two years.

The hologram switched on.  Tachiko gasped.

A monster.

It stood on legs that almost looked human.  Not robotic
contstructions.  Not sticks of steel and noby joints.  They were great
barrels of twisted sinew.  There was flesh in them.  There were also
polymers and steel and basaltic ceramics and cloned muscle and bone.
Tachiko's muscle. Grown in a vat, each cell attatching to a nanite
generator as it formed the sinew web.  So, too, the bone.  Along with
calcium were ceramics and soft binding metals with small generators -
nuclear generators - in the marrow.  Each limb was a power plant
weighing almost fifty-five kilos.

The muscle and bone throughout her body followed the same design.

Except for the left arm.

That looked different.

That looked like the arms on people in the street.  A robotic mass of
steel.  But it was not just steel.  It was Merumon Kuroi.  A black
steel, similar in base to the basaltic ceramics of her bones.  A steel
that wouldn't melt.  That wouldn't rust.

A hard steel that wouldn't shatter.

The arm differed in more than color.  It was huge.  Massive.  Tachiko
thought of the ancient armors of Japan.  That's what it looked like.
Rebecca had designed it well.  With flourishes of gold and enamel.
Rebecca gave a signal.

Blades poped from the fist.  Tachiko had seen such blades in films
and on the news.  Grossly lethal and more grossly illegal.  Her blades
were two and a half feet long. Also of Merumon Kuroi.

The famous left arm of Omi Tachiko lived again.

The face.

Her face, but certainly not her old face.  It was half steel.  Kuroi,
like the arm.  The left side of her face.  The left arm.  The left side
of her body had been ravaged most by the explosion.  Where fire and
glass an rare earths had taken their toll, her face was now a mask of
smooth, glossy metal.  Like the mask of a Noh actor.

An oni.

A demon.  A demon with no eyes.

Instead, a glowing green plate of curved glass.  A visor.  A bridge
across her face, moving from the molded steel on the left to the painted
flesh on the right.

A glowing tatoe.  An imprint of a micro-chip.
Crowning her head, a tangled mass of glowing fiberoptic hair.  Green,
like the visor.  It exploded out.  It swirled around.  It tumbled down
to her waist.

This was her new body.

"I'm not Tachiko anymore."

Rebecca looked sad for a moment.

"No... I was thinking of the ancient myth.  Of Medusa."

"Yes."

The cute little almost-girl sat up very straight, her face a mask of
seriousness, as cold as the steel faceplate.

"Omi Tachiko, no more... Nagasaki Gorgon has taken her place."



The dark beer had not dried.  Nagasaki could see her reflection.  She
thought, for a moment, of turning to stone.  The Booster's crumpled
cyberarm oozed some noxious liquids.  Nagasaki had been kind.  She only
took the arm at the joint.  She left the upper arm and the flesh of the
body intact.  He could get it repaired.

If he could find a Doc with a stockpile.

The scuffle lasted less than a second.  It had spilled her beer.  She
ordered another one, even though they were trying to poison her.  Some
manner of drug intended to knock her unconcious.

There was a high demand for cybernetics, now.

Now that people knew they killed your system in ten years and they
were no longer available.  Not to the public.

Rebecca had known.

She knew the millions of deaths were coming.

Nagasaki had not died.  Mordred Heath had not died.  Prometheus Mage
had not died.  These were biorgs.  These had bodies either conditioned
for or naturally inclined to being merged with steel.

There were very few biorgs.

The rest of the masses were doomed.

So the corporations scaled back.  Not out of any particular sense to
saving humanity, though it would be unfairly cynical to characterize
them as completely lacking ethics.  The retail operations were
voluntarily cut.  But a black market persisted for some time, until
that, too, was cut.  They were less willing to go along with that.
Prometheus convinced them.

Nagasaki Gorgon had been one of his tools.

She was a willing tool.  The third biorg designed - second only to
Prometheus himself. And to Mordred Heath, the man who pulled her from
Yokohama harbor.  The man that knew immediately the little girl with
half a body was still alive, swiming in that poison sea.  The man who
called off one of the most daring extractions ever planned to bring her
back to Los Angeles - to the waiting table of Rebeca Gurion-al-Fatima.
The Joint Chiefs had been furious.

Prometheus had been furious. Far worse.

But once Rebecca confirmed Mordred's hunch, things changed.  Fast.  The
little girld was priceless.  A natural biorg.  One part per hundred and
thirteen million population.  Prometheus - acting Secretary for Life of
the United Armed forces of North America - gave the word.

She became a monster.

A monster loaded with widgets that brought water to the mouths of
humanity's dregs.  To those who knew a metal arm would kill them in ten
years, but who didn't plan on living that long anyway.  To these, there
was noplace to turn but cannibalism.  Take from those who have, such
that you may have.

That's all they knew.

And these people had money.  The Drug Wizards had money, and they
needed protection.  So, the Boosters had money.  And the Boosters were
always looking for new hardware.

It was a web, and Nagasaki was in it.

She looked down at her reflection and smiled.

True to her name, many who had seen that twisted, terrible smile had
turned to stone.  The stood, frozen with paralysis, and Nagasaki
devoured them.

She did not know fear.

And their poisons wouldn't work.

A man seated himself across from her.  Nagasaki did not look up.

"Nagasaki Gorgon?" he asked.