[ Story0]
The front door of the Chatsubo swung open to admit another
newcomer. Before the door closed, the cold wind brought in a smell of
rot and pollution. The woman leaned against against the door,
trying to close it quickly. She was young. Kind of pretty, but not
pretty like a media star. Not short, but not tall either. A face with
sharp predatory features. Her eyes were golden in color, with vertical
slits for pupils. Cat's eyes. A sharp, small delicate nose. Adding to
her feline appearance, she wore cat's ears raised boldly through long
heavy blonde hair. She was dressed in black pants, grey blouse,
heavy boots, and a long frock jacket with golden braid on the front,
somewhat worn at the elbows.
"Tea, hot and fast," she said. Then turning to the rest of
the crowd, she began to speak. "A lot of fancy street samurai here
tonight. Lots of chrome. Guns, knifes, and glitter. Subtle, real
subtle. Cops be on ya in a moment. Whatcha doing? Whereyagoing?
You're mistaking the glitter for the message, guys." She leaned back
against the bar, elbows behind her.
"There are several major points in Cyberpunk. One is, the
future is already here. And you ain't gonna like it. Another major
point. Technology is going to change so fast and in so many ways,
no one is going to be able to deal with it."
She turned back to the bar and sipped from the cup. Speaking
into the cup, she continued, "There are others, which we can discuss
in great detail. In shorter posts. But the main point is that without
examining some of these ideas, what you're writing is just puffery.
Vanity writing."
Another sip. "I'm just a character in a Role Playing Game.
Not particularly interesting, outside of these ears and eyes. But
what should be interesting is the reaction of 'normal people' to my
appearance. Not that far-fetched, when you consider where cosmetic
surgery might go to in a few years." She pulled at one of her ears.
"Of course, you 'chromed' types might consider some of the
problems you would have if you ACTUALLY had to make a living. Or
consider recent work on 'hunter-seeker' weapons that the DOD is
working on; weapons that seek out and destroy their target. Where
ya gonna hide? Each day's paper contains scads of cyberpunk material
to examine, consider, write about. After all, the future arrived a
week ago."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ Story 1]
The young woman with the cat ears and cat eyes turned to look
at the other people in the bar. Mug of tea in hand, she began to speak
quickly and quietly. "Some of you have come in here, boasting of your
last run; how smooth, how cool, how slick you were. You come in here,
preening yourself, strutting up and down, real proud of yourselves. Well,
I've been there too, people, and I never found anything slick about a job."
"I mentioned the Army's hunter-seeker project the last time. Some
of the mega-corps have their hunter-seeker robots working. I know. I've been
hunted by one. Oh, so you street samurai have been up against the best,
right? Well, your opponents have always been human. Someone who gets tired,
someone who has to piss, someone who makes mistakes. The hunter-seeker
never gets tired, never makes mistakes, never gives up. And I was its
target."
She turned back to the bar and dropped the mug with a thud onto
the counter top. Brushing her hair out of face, she faced the crowd of
people who were listening to her. "Story? OK, if you have the time. First
of all, I'm a helicopter pilot, not a fighter. I fly you guys to the job
and then fly the surviors back. No, it wouldn't do any good to tell you
which island and which mega-corp," she answered. "They'll all deny that
anything like this happened." Her strange cat eyes brightened and she began.
About six months ago, I was asked to fly ten mercenaries
to a small island off the coast of Seattle. There are many of these
islands, covered with heavy growth, each with the ruins of someone's
old pleasure palace. I found the landing site at an abandoned runway
on the island, and set the helicopter down. As I stepped from the
cockpit, I noticed that there were another twenty or so mercenaries
already there, as well as a suit from one of the major corporations.
He was standing before a large metal insect, adjusting something
inside it. As I approached, the suit took his tools out of the access
opening and snapped it shut.
Well, the suit waited until the final mercenary had arrived
and then began to speak. 'Welcome to the first test of our new
security system. You have been chosen to test the system the best
way we could come up with.'
'What does it do?,' someone asked.
'The security system tracks down humans and kills
them. Anything human on this island, it will try to kill. It
needs just to be tested. And you get to test it'
'How do we test it?,' asked one of the mercs.
'Just kill it. Just kill it,' answered the suit, patting the
insect on the top. The suit then walked to a waiting chopper and
lifted off.
'Piece of cake,' said another merc, pulling out a .45.
The moment the suit was out of sight, the metal insect
stirred. It was constructed of two black hemispherical domes, placed
back to back, with a slit between them. Out of the slit, two mani-
pulating arms, a laser sight and a pair of chain guns protruded. The
whole thing rested on four thin legs like a spider. It was rocking back
and forward slowly. I backed away, unsure of what would happen next.
The mercs pulled out their guns and assault cannons, preparing to
blast the thing. There was a BEEP, a black blur and the insect was
gone.
'Shiiit,' groaned one of the mercs.
'Anyone see which way it went? No? So we hunt it down and
kill it. Jones, Smith, Warren, you each grab a coupla guys and start
looking. I'll monitor from here. Whatcha waiting for? Go!'
They split up into several teams, each armed with a pair of
assault cannons, a hand-carried chain gun, and several other
support members. Each team would quarter the island and kill anything
even remotely resembling that insect.
'Good luck, fellas,' I said as I began to edge towards the
helicopter.
'Stop! Here, take this,' the mercenary leader shouted,
handing me a heavy radio/communications pack. 'Go with Warren there.
He's one man short.' His heavy hand rested on my shoulder.
'Eeerp... Uick...'
We entered the woods. Each step I took pushed against mud,
branches, fungus and rot. The sky disappeared behind mists and trees.
The radio was heavy, so I lagged behind. After several hundred feet,
I was exhausted, mud covered me up to my thighs and mud coated my
clothes; I had fallen flat on my face. The others had disappeared
around a leafy curve when I heard the VRRRTTTTT of the chain gun. I
dropped into the mud and rolled under a neighboring bush. Looking up,
I could see the path in front of me, but little else.
The shooting continued for a moment, then stopped. Silence.
The woods were absolutely still. I strained my ears. Nothing.
There was a short rustle of the leaves ahead of me, and then
I could see the mercs moving backwards along the path. Two of them
were badly injured; I could see blood staining their shirts. They
were frightened; you could see it in the way they held their guns,
the way they spoke in short harsh whispers, the way they looked
with nervous darting glances. I stayed very still, holding my breath.
If they saw me, they'd shoot first and check out who I was later.
A black blur and the insect sat amidst them, crushing the merc with
the chain gun. The merc was just raw meat and white bones; his blood
splattered the insect bright red. I threw my head into the ground.
The mercenaries never fired a shot. All I could hear was the
tearing cloth sound of the insect's chain gun. On my back, the radio
exploded into shards of plastic and metal. The leaves around me were
shredded into green confetti. I pressed myself as deeply into the
mud as I could. Another blur, and there was silence again. I looked
up. Around me, the cloud of the chain gun's smoke still hung in the
air. I discarded the remains of the radio and crept forward. On the
path blood covered the mud. Gobbets of flesh coated with fabric
mixed with small pieces of metal; the only remnant of the heavy
armament that the mercs had brought. I threw up on the side of the
path.
I ran as quickly as I could, just ran. After a while, totally
exhausted, I tripped and collapsed into a fern thicket. The woods
were cold, clammy and quiet. Every so often, I could hear the sound of
a chain gun, or the boom of an assault cannon, or the snap of smaller
firearms.
An hour or two later, I could not hear anything at all. The
woods were now completely quiet. The sun was now going down, making
the woods even colder. Wet and coated in mud, I shivered. I got up
and oriented myself by the sun. The airstrip was on the west side of
the island; I needed to travel in the direction of the setting sun.
Thirty minutes later, I could see the helicopter across the
airstrip from me. I was still under cover; something bothered me
about the scene before me. I waited and listened. Yes, silhouetted
against the setting sun, the deadly insect slowly rocked back and
forward. I considered running for the helicopter. No. It was just too
fast. I would be dead within moments of stepping out from under cover.
I pulled deeper into the bushes and thought carefully.
I began by pulling off all my clothes. Then submerging my
body in the nearest mudhole, I completed covering myself in mud. I
dropped to all fours and began to move to the helicopter, repeating
'Miaow. Miaow. Miaow'. I heard the blur of the insect, and felt it
nearby, studying me with its sensors. Slowly, slowly, I approached
the helicopter. I could not look at the insect; I knew that was the
path to panic. Pad, pad, 'Miaow' pad, pad, 'Miaow'.
At the side of the helicopter, I froze. The insect studied
me a moment longer, then moved back on guard over the corpses
of the command post. I repeated Miaow a few times more while slowly
climbing into the cockpit. After a few minutes, I could think enough
to close the cockpit hatch, fire up the helicopter, and fly home.
She ended her story and turned to the bartender. "Another cup of
tea please." The audience thought about what she told them and then asked
why could she have escaped when everyone else had got themselves killed. She
smiled and tugged at her ears. "First time I ever impersonated a cat. Heh heh
heh. Look, it was a robot, right?" The audience nodded. "It had strict orders.
Kill everything human on the island, right? And a human walks upright, wears
clothes and lots of metal, and speaks, right?" The audience was restless. "But
it's so simple. I just did not look like anything human. So the robot did not
consider me a target." A-hahs from the audience.
"That trick won't work again, I'm afraid. I'm sure that mega-corp
found my clothes on the island. And just about everyone has heard about the
woman pilot who landed at SEA-TAC without any clothes on." She blushed. "You
samurai might consider that before being asked to test another one of those
security systems." The young woman turned back to her tea.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ And now, the response by Carl Rigney]
From: cdr@brahms.amd.com (Carl Rigney)
Organization: Advanced Matrix Devices, Inc; Sunnyvale, CA
The Pilot with cat eyes and cat ears is finishing a story:
"At the side of the helicopter, I froze. The insect studied me
a moment longer, then moved back on guard over the corpses of
the command post. I repeated Miaow a few times more while
slowly climbing into the cockpit. After a few minutes, I could
think enough to close the cockpit hatch, fire up the
helicopter, and fly home."
She ends her story and turns to the bartender. "Another cup of
tea please." There's a pause as she sips her tea and then a
raspy disbelieving voice from a corner asks, "But how could you
have escaped when everyone else got killed?" She smiles and
tugs at an ear. "But it's so simple. I just did not look like
anything human. So the robot did not consider me a target."
A-hahs from the audience. The young woman turns back to her
tea.
The door explodes into a thousand fragments and everybody ducks for
cover. Outlined in the smoky entranceway is a Paulinian Nightmare,
a dull black sphere a meter across suspended 2 meters above the ground
by 8 multiply-jointed crystalline legs, rainbows dancing around their
orbital fibers as it moves into the bar with fluid precision. Emerging
from the sphere are two rotary flechette cannons, bobbing and weaving
in time to the steps, capable of filling the entire room with
hypervelocity needles in the blink of an eye. Stretching out above the
sphere are long stalks ending in silvery spheres glowing dully in the
deep infrared. Behind those are four longer, thinner stalks and from
their tips sprout thousands of pale silken threads a few centimeters
long, waving gently in the breeze from the doorway. Sensors for
motion, heat, shadow, scent... fear.
The Hunter Killer drone rotates so that a cannon faces the cat-woman,
who has spilled her tea. The stalks bend towards her, swaying gently
from side to side, almost hypnotically. The sounds from the city outside
spill through the shattered doorway but inside the bar there is no sound
but a soft hum, almost too high-pitched for human ears. The chaingun spins
up, adding its distinctive whir. And then spins down.
In a voice as human as anyone's in the room, with no trace of the mechanical
about it, the drone whispers "Woof. Woof Woof." And then backs out step
for step the way it came in, until it is framed in the doorway. "Tag!
You're It!"
And it vanishes from sight in a mind-numbing burst of speed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
>The Hunter Killer drone rotates so that a cannon faces the cat-woman,
>who has spilled her tea. The stalks bend toward her, swaying gently from
>side to side, almost hypnotically...
>
The woman with the cat ears falls off the barstool, crashing to
the dirty floor. She regains her feet, backing away from the mechanical
horror, spilling her tea on herself, her boots, the ground. Her ears
stand straight up, her pupils narrowed to thin vertical slits. Now she
is against the stained filthy wall of the Chatsubo. Her jacket is dusted
grey as she slides along the wall into the corner. She turns her face into
the corner, opening her hand and letting the teacup shatter.
> ..The chain gun spins up, adding its distinctive whir. And then spins down.
>
>In a voice as human as anyone's in the room, with no trace of the mechanical
>about it, the drone whispers "Woof. Woof Woof." And then backs out step
>for step the way it came in, until it is framed in the doorway. "Tag!
>You're It!"
>
>And it vanishes from sight in a mind-numbing burst speed.
"Nooooooooooo......" The woman with the cat eyes presses against
the cold cracked concrete corner of the Chatsubo. Her eyes are screwed tight,
her forearms covering her head, her face rigid with terror. As the moments
pass, she slowly slides down the wall, slumping into a sobbing heap. Her
tears come with great rasping breaths, her entire body shaking. At her feet,
the shattered shards of the teacup lie in a muddy puddle of black tea and dust.
Silence, broken only by sobs and hiccups.
Li steps from behind the wreckage of a table, and kneels next
to the woman lying, partly propped against the corner. Li reaches down
and takes the woman's head in her arms, brushing away the soft blonde hair
from the woman's eyes. The woman is repeating over and over, "Nai ya...
Nai ya... Nai ya", in a soft child-like voice. Li studys the woman's
face, with its angular features, thin-lipped mouth and slightly tilted eyes.
There is dirt from the Chatsubo wall on her forehead and cheeks. The eyes
are open, fixed, glassy, staring into unknown distance. Tears roll off her
high cheeks to the dirty floor. She is still crying with ragged moans.
"Young, so young," Li murmurs. She lightly slaps the woman's
cheeks. The woman closes her mouth, takes a deep breath though narrow
nostrils, hiccups, and focuses her eyes.
"Are you OK? What is your name?" Li asks gently.
"Nekoko" the woman with the cat eyes hiccups.
"And you think this drone had something to do with your story?"
"Maybe... I couldn't see a company logo..."
"There was a ARES logo at the top of the sphere," says the razor boy
wanna-be, "Red, about 10 cm high."
"Yeah, its the same company," Nekoko sniffs.
"How do you think they found you?" asked Li, wiping away Nekoko's
tears.
"I don't know. Unless... Unless..." Nekoko tries.
"Boy, you must have lost one of your nine lives there," grins the
razorboy wanna-be. Both Li and Nekoko turn to glare at him. Nekoko gets
up, knocking away Li's arm and steps toward the razor boy. Suddenly she
turns to Li.
"Those bastards. Those BASTARDS. THOSE BASTARDS!!!"
"W-W-What?..." stutters Li, standing up.
"I think I know what happened. That hunter-seeker on the island had
a video uplink. Someone watched the whole thing. My little trick. How stupid
I've been. I was so smug, thinking I outsmarted the hunter-seeker. Can you
see the scene? I on fours, creeping up to my helicopter. Some mega-corp suit,
watching it on video; 'Come here, look what this dumb broad is doing' And I
survive only because I make a good show for some bastards..." Nekoko begins
to cry again.
"So today...," starts Li.
"That was their way of telling me that the joke is on me", moans Nekoko.
She looks at her feet, then quickly reaches down to pick up a shiny little
square. Holding it up against the dim lights of the bar, she studies it
carefully. "I think I know what this is. A vid-chip with my little act on it.
The drone must have spat it at me when it was threatening me." She drops it
onto the floor and grinds it to dust with the heel of her boot. "I betcha
that every guy working on the project has one of these." Nekoko rubs her
eyes with the back of her hand, leaving them red and swollen. "I guess the
vid-chips are used to train the hunter-killer to recognize the target. "
"Oh, I see," says Li, "The hunter-killer builds a map of the
target with the images on the vid-chip using a type of binary network."
Nekoko nods her head and sniffs, "Once they have the target loaded,
they program the drone to start searching. An hour, a day, a week later, bamm!"
"It didn't look like the hunter-seeker you described in your
story," says Li.
"I... I think we saw a much more improved model. The hunter-seeker
on the island didn't speak, had only a chain gun, and lacked the stalk
mounted sensors. I think this model was even faster..." Nekoko looks at
the ruins of the door. She slowly walks over to the bar and drops herself
onto one of the remaining barstools.
"Maybe you street samurai don't realize what has happened tonight,"
Nekoko starts, "but if ARES get those things into production, you're dead
meat." She looks down at her black pants, soiled now. "I'd better go and
wash up." She looks at Li. "Thank you." Nekoko slides off the barstool
and disappears through the shattered doorway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
The story so far:
A woman, looking somewhat like a cat with pointed ears and
cat's eye pupils is telling a story about an encounter with
a robot Hunter-Seeker drone. She flew mercenaries to a small
island, where they were to test a Hunter-Killer drone. She
explains that the drone was programmed to kill all humans on
the island. She escaped by removing her clothes and pretending
to be a large cat, sneaking to her helicopter and freedom.
Unfortunately, the whole thing was recorded...
At the end of the story, the front door of the Chatsubo was blown
in by a newer, improved Hunter-Killer drone. The Hunter-Killer
advances on the cat-woman, spins up its twin rotating fletchette
cannons and tells her "Woof Woof Woof. Tag. You're it!" The drone
then disappears through the shattered door. The cat-woman, whose
name is Nekoko, realizes that her little trick was recorded and
used to train the improved Hunter-Killer drone. A razor boy wannabe
recalls that the drone was marked with the ARES logo. Nekoko then
warns the street samurai that this new drone might be used against
them.
Nekoko blew into the Chatsubo, dressed in a single-piece motorcycle
leathers, carrying a Heckler & Koch HK227 submachine gun slung across her chest
and a 9 mm pistol in a midthigh holster. She paused only briefly to watch
the carpenters fitting a new door to the front entrance. As she watched them
struggling to pull the frame into alignment, she unslung the H & K and rested
it on the floor. Then Nekoko reached up to her neck, pulled the leather's
zipper down to her waist, and pulled her arms out of the sleeves of the
leathers. Under the leathers, she wore a sleeveless T shirt. She knotted
the sleeves around her waist and picked up the H & K again.
The Chatsubo wasn't too crowded, other than a tight grouping of street
samurai and toughs at a single table. The vidscreen flickered over the bar,
showing the last night's carnage and body count.
The announcer on the vidscreen continued, "and in other news,
several Shadowrunners were killed during a raid on ARES' dockside warehouse
area. ARES refused comment, other than to say that the new security system
recently installed at the warehouse worked admirably. Unfortunately, ARES
would be unable to release the bodies to the County Coroner as there was
not enough left of the bodies to autopsy. More news after this message from
our sponsor, 'BUXOM BABES'..."
The vidscreen brightened, showing snapshots of young nubile women.
"BUXOM BABES is hot. This month's issue is hot, sexy, erotic! The latest
genetically-enhanced women. And once again, this is our special issue with
those funny sex videos you send in. We have a new winner this month, sent
in by those fun folks at ARES Advanced Research ( Seattle), featuring ..."
Nekoko reached up, snapped off vidscreen's blaring and turned around.
She raked her fingers through her long blonde hair, perked up her ears and
smiled at the ugly bartender. "Haaii, Ratz, I see you finally are going to
get that door replaced."
Ratz looked up from the glasses he was rinsing and glared at her.
"Hey, don't bring those guns in here. Watcha think this is, a Wild West
saloon?"
Nekoko approached the bar and smiled sweetly at the embittered old
bartender. She leaned across the scarred surface and flipped a small ID
card at him. Ratz gave it a quick glance and looked at her as if to say,
'so what'.
"Says on this card, I'm a registered and bonded DataCourier. Means
I can carry any type of armament, anywhere I want to. See?" Nekoko swept
up the card and slipped it into an inside pocket. She flipped the H&K
and placed it on the bar top. "Hey Ratz, can I borrow your phonescreen? I
think ARES might have placed a tap on mine."
Ratz scowled, pointed at the phonescreen at the end of the bar
and said, "No long distance calls without a credit stick, OK?"
"Hai, Ratz"
As Nekoko moved towards the phone, she passed the razor boy wannabe.
He put out a hand and stopped her. A nasty expression on his face, he
asked, "Have you seen this month's ish of BUXOM BABES? The streetboys over
there got it. You might be interested in it. It's a real wiz!"
"Uh... No, why?"
He just smirked and backed away.
"Chotto matte...." she called after him.
She turned and strode to the small circle of street toughs around
the table. As she stepped into the circle, someone said, "Hey, look who's
here. Hey Garry, reset that and play it for the lady..."
Nekoko looked down at the table top, where a vidplayer, a flat color
screen, about 40 cm by 40 cm, was resting between bottles, drug vials and
other trash. The vidplayer had a small membrane keyboard and a pair of slots
for vidchips. Garry pulled a BUXOM BABES vidchip carrier out of his pocket
and slotted it into the vidplayer. The screen of the vidplayer darkened,
then started showing the BUXOM BABES logo.
"Garry, don't screw around."
Garry's fingers tapped on the keyboard of the vidplayer, bringing up
the Table of Contents menu, then choosing the funny sex video section. He
waited for the menu to flash on the screen and choose the first entry. Bright
garish colors filled the screen, which then focused into the image of a man
and a microphone.
"All right...," shouted the announcer on the screen. "The winning
entry in this month's funniest sex video. Sent in by our friends at ARES
Advanced Research Division, Seattle.."
Nekoko had a bad feeling about this.
"... recorded on their private island resort. OK, you hentai, for
your enjoyment..."
The screen flashed again, and Nekoko saw again the airstrip
where she had landed the mercenaries. There was the helicopter, there
was the scrub brush in which she had hidden.
"Watch what's in the bushes. We'll switch to infra-red...."
The screen changed colors, black sky and dull red plants. Nekoko
could see a figure, white hot, hiding in the brush.
"...We'll zoom in here, watch what this babe does next..."
Nekoko watched the screen blur, then fix on the white-hot figure.
She watched herself removing her guns and other metal, taking off her clothes,
and then slide into a mud puddle. The figure, a dull yellow rather than
white-hot, looked up and started on all fours for the helicopter. Nekoko
start to feel a warm anger.
"OK, folks, back to visible light. Isn't it a scream!"
Coated in mud, knees bent, on all fours, the figure scuttled across
the field of view. Nekoko watched herself try to look feline, not human.
The figure was taut, smooth muscles moving quickly under skin, mottled in
greys and browns. Nekoko's anger grew hot.
"We'll send our camera in for a closer view..."
Nekoko seized the vidplayer, pulling it out of the reach of the
street toughs. She stepped back and threw it against the Chatsubo's concrete
wall. The case of vidplayer cracked and the screen crumpled but the audio
continued, "Miaow, Miaow.."
"Enough!" screamed Nekoko, pulling her heavy pistol from her
mid-thigh holster. She grabbed the pistol with both hands, brought it out
to eye level, and emptied the pistol into the vidplayer. The vidplayer
jumped once and then exploded into a cloud of plastic.
For the third time that week, the patrons of the Chatsubo dived
for cover with a crash of tables and shattering of glasses. The roar of the
pistol echoed and reechoed within the filthy walls of the Chatsubo. Ratz
started for the scatter gun under the bar, but stopped himself when he
saw that Nekoko was just standing there, pistol at firing position. The only
sound was the cold metal ringing of the 9 millimeter shells rolling on the
floor.
Echos of the pistol reverberated in Nekoko's mind. She stood there
for a moment, the smell of cordite in her nostrils. The street toughs began
to stir. She quickly reached into a pocket and pulled out another clip of
ammo. She tossed the empty clip on the floor and inserted the new clip.
Nekoko turned and aimed the gun at the street toughs.
"Uh, madam, no problem here, OK," started Garry.
"Nekoko," warned Ratz, reaching below the bar.
She flicked on the safety, flipped the pistol up, and replaced it
in the holster. Then, she reached down on the ground, picked up the empty
clip and put it in another pocket. Nekoko kicked one of the empty shells
against the wall and said, "Sorry Ratz. I'd better make that call and go,
huh?"
Ratz watched her, one hand still under the bar.
Nekoko went over to the phonescreen, watching the bar patrons moving
to stay out of her way. She flicked on the power, watching the blue LED
indicate that the system was ready. Her fingers danced across the keyboard,
bringing up the icon of the Yonhon-Hana corporation in California. She felt
a light hand on her shoulder; she looked up to Li's steel-blue eyes
reflecting the soft grey pixels of the phonescreen. Li's fingerless
gloves gently squeezed Nekoko's shoulder. A few more keystrokes, and the
icon of the corporation was replaced with the image of a man, late forties,
balding, with large glasses that made him look like a panda. The borders of
the image flashed, showing Nekoko that his phone was ringing. The image
melted, and started to move. Nekoko quickly tapped a command and the image
expanded to the full size of the screen.
"Konnichi wa, Sensei-sama," Nekoko said and then bowed.
"Ojosan, I am very disappointed in you," the image said.
"Nanda?"
"I have seen your performance," the image spoke, holding up a
copy of the BUXOM BABES vidchip carrier. "I have heard that this is how you
escaped a Hunter-Killer drone?"
"Hai, Sensei-sama," Nekoko spoke in a small voice.
"This is not the 'Bushi' way. You should have died honorably,
fighting. I trust you will do the right thing. I assume the woman in blue
is your 'kaishaku'? Have someone send me word when it is done; I will send
someone for the ashes." The image shrank and winked out.
"Sensei-sama..." began Nekoko.
"Ojosan?" asked Li.
"He calls, no, called me that in class. It means 'honourable
daughter', just like I call him 'Sensei-sama', Lord Teacher." Nekoko spoke
as if far away. She turned away from the soft grey glow of the phonescreen
and began to move from the bar. "He is... no, was my teacher."
As if in after-thought, Li powered off the phonescreen. She
stepped in front of Nekoko. She grabbed Nekoko by the shoulder, stopped her
in front of Ratz. "Are you all right?"
Nekoko looked at Li with dead eyes. "I... I don't know."
Ratz looked up from the draft Kirin he was drawing and asked, "What
did he mean by doing the right thing? Who or what is a 'kaishaku'?"
"He thinks I should commit 'seppuku'," Nekoko answered dully. Her
ears were flat, dispirited.
"And what is a 'kaishaku'?"
Nekoko gave no sign of hearing the question. She walked slowly toward
the hallway at the end of the barroom.
Li spoke quickly, "When a 'bushi', a warrior, commits 'seppuku',
the bushi drives a long knife like this," pointing at the combat knife
strapped to her lower leg, "into his or her guts. The 'kaishaku', you
see, is there to strike off the bushi's head if the dying takes too long. The
'kaishaku' helps the bushi to death."
Ratz, who had seen worse on the street, shuddered.
Li turned towards the bar and noticed Nekoko's HK227 still on the
countertop. "Wait..."
Nekoko had disappeared in the hallway leading to the bathrooms.
Li grabbed the H & K off the countertop and rushed towards
the hallway. She stepped into the narrow, dimly lit fetid hallway, her eyes
looking for the direction that Nekoko had taken. She saw the lights on in
the women's bathroom, pushed the creaking door open, and stopped.
The room was small, stank, and contained a single toilet stall,
painted a peeling lime green, a sink, coated in rust and slime, and a small
table, on which used bottles were piled.
"Nekoko?" Li asked.
"Go away."
Li pushed at the door of the toilet stall, but found it locked.
She then hopped up, put her hands on the top of the toilet stall door, pushed
herself up and dropped inside the narrow toilet stall. Where Nekoko was sitting
on the toilet, knees drawn up, hands around her legs, staring into space.
"Kinda tight in here, even for thinking," began Li.
Nekoko put up her head and gazed at this woman in blue eyes, blue
jacket, blue leathers. Her gaze was dull, lifeless.
"You forgot your submachinegun. You're gonna need it if you're going
after the people who did this to you." Li unslung the HK227 and handed
it to Nekoko. Nekoko reached out for it, cradled it for a moment and then put
it down. "Fancy shooting there, a vidplayer at 5 paces. It never had a chance."
"I couldn't watch it anymore. I had to shut it up."
"So that's what it is, huh? You're ashamed of what you did to stay
alive, right?"
"Sensei was right, it was shameful, not worthy of a bushi."
"There is no shame in doing something to stay alive. Your teacher
is a fool. Had you stood up as a warrior, it would have killed you without
a thought."
"But the Hunter-Killer can't think," Nekoko pointed out peevishly.
"That's part of my point. There is no honour in getting yourself
killed by a machine. But more than that, there is no honour in getting
yourself killed period, no matter what your teacher says."
"But... but"
"Nekoko, what's most important is survival. It's the surviors who
continue, not dead heroes."
Nekoko looked at Li dully, thinking. Her ears were flicking
up and down slowly in bewilderment. "So. so..." she began.
"Besides, if you commit 'seppuku', the guys who did this to you
will still be laughing at you. There is no honour this way..."
Nekoko narrowed her eyes. "You might be right. You must be right."
"Here, Nekoko, clean your pistol. You must clean your pistol after
every use. Didn't you learn that at least?" Li pulled a small
gun-cleaning kit out of her jacket and offered it to Nekoko. Nekoko twisted
herself in the effort to get the pistol out of its holster in the narrow
toilet stall. Breaking the pistol down, she began to polish off the burned
power.
"So, Nekoko, what are we going to do?" Li started.
"Information, right?" Nekoko said slowly.
Li nodded.
"Before anything else, information," Nekoko continued. She pulled
the ammo clip out of the pistol and slipped the polishing cloth inside.
"Who are we dealing with, what are their resources, what can we bring up
against them?" She flipped the pistol over and slid a bore cleaner into the
barrel. "We might be over our heads..."
"ARES is pretty big, true," agreed Li.
"We only want the guys in, what was it? Ah yes, the Advanced
Research Division."
"Still a tough bunch of guys," Li said. "Say, Nekoko, how
about getting out of here? I can't stand the smell any longer."
Nekoko finished up polishing the pistol and closed up the gun
cleaning kit. "Just open the door behind you, and we'll go."
Li squeezed herself around and wiggled at the toilet stall
latch. "Uh, Nekoko, it's stuck."
"Shit! Let me see," said Nekoko, pushing herself past Li.
"You're right. Let's see, when you hopped over the door, you must have
bent the latch. Shall we yell for help?"
"Nekoko, no! Those guys out there don't think we can wipe our
own butts, let alone start a campaign against a mega-corp." She laughed.
Li looked around for a moment. "If we use the stock of the HK227,
we could probably pry the door open." She pushed herself over to the HK227,
pulled it up and pried at the door. A loud crack and the walls of the toilet
stall collapsed. Laughing, the two women stepped out of the ruins and left the
bathroom.
As they walked into the Chatsubo barroom, Li waved OK at Ratz.
The women tipped a table over, clearing it of bottles and debris and sat down.
Li pulled a sheet of paper from somewhere and dropped it on the table
top. "First things first. Information. You said you're a DataCourier. Could
you get some jobs delivering at ARES?"
"Probably," Nekoko replied.
"About your appearance. With those ears and eyes, you're easy
to remember. Can you do something about it?"
"No, Li. That's something I can't change anymore than you
could clip off your nose. I'll just be careful. Look, I've been made
out to be a fool. They won't suspect me. Who suspects a fool?"
Li made some notes on the paper and circled a few items.
"Can you visit the people at BUXOM BABES?" I think that should be your
first stop. I'll make some discrete inquiries; I've got some contacts I
can use."
"Sure, I'll visit BUXOM BABES," Nekoko smiled. Her ears stood up.
"No shooting, Nekoko. If they even suspect something is up,
that Hunter-Killer drone will be back, and this time, it'll be for real."
Nekoko stopped smiling suddenly. "I'll be careful," she said
slowly, her ears drooping.
"Meet you here later. Let me know what you find," Li said
as she got up and headed for the doorway.
Nekoko rotated the paper and studied the scribblings. Folding it
carefully, she put it into a pocket, zipped up her motorcycle suit,
slung her H & K over her chest and stepped past the carpenters. As she
passed the guys trying to get the frame straightened, she stopped and
said, "When you get that done, you need to go work in the ladies bathroom.
The toilet stall latch is sticking." Laughing, she disappeared down the
street.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Nekoko stood on the sidewalk before the offices of BUXOM BABES. A
four story, grey concrete building, poorly constructed, scarred with gang
graffiti, streaked with rust, stained by the rain. The sidewalk was crowded;
she could barely keep her place in the moving masses. The air was filled with
the smells of the street vendors, selling krill, ramen, sushi, soup. Sellers
offered talismans, drugs, vidchips, discarded technology, information.
Each vendor had their mat or stand from which they alternatively shouted,
implored or cursed. No one seemed bothered by Nekoko's cat ears or cat eyes;
there were stranger people on the street. Her long skirt layered over a
bodysuit and waistpouch contrasted with the shabby wornout clothes of the
passing crowd. They pushed and shoved her, making her dance to keep on her
feet.
Nekoko took a deep breath and pushed her way through the crowd to
the side of the building. She slipped between a soba stall and a fortune-
teller to the alley behind, stepping over the stacks of rotting paper that
blocked the entrance. Rusted dumpsters overflowing with garbage, piles of
broken drug vials and puddles of dirty water smelling of urine filled the
alley. Nekoko studied the backwall of the BUXOM BABES building, noting the
large windows on the top floor and the fire escape. She returned to the noisy
street, walked to the front entrance, pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Nekoko walked across the dingy lobby and rode a creaking, wheezing
elevator to the top floor, where she was greeted by a door marked 'Editor in
Chief'. She pushed it open and entered a large cluttered office. At the desk,
a elderly pot-bellied man sat looking at a vidplayer. Dagit Basel, the editor,
had a gentle face; small white mustache, round bulbous nose, soft grey eyes
looking through thick black reading glasses. He was almost bald, with white
wild tufts of hair over each ear. Nekoko saw him as someone's grandfather.
Intent on his reading, he did not look up as Nekoko entered. Behind him,
windows gave a view of Seattle's dock area. A quiet roar came from the streets
below.
A vidscreen on the office was showing scenes from the waterfront.
In the foreground, the announcer spoke into a microphone. "...ARES gave
no reason for the closure of the East Dock, other than to say it was for
security reasons. Informed observers reported that ARES was undertaking
a marine salvage project in the area. When asked to confirm this, ARES
spokesmen warned the media about fruitless speculation..."
As Basel gave no signs of noticing her, Nekoko cleared her throat.
"If you have come for the vidchip," Basel growled, "it is not for
sale, as I told your people this morning. All submissions become property of
the magazine, as it says in our bannerhead. Oh!" Basel looked up at her.
"I thought you were my 12:00 appointment."
"I am your DataCourier. I brought you this." Nekoko reached into
her pouch and pulled out the packet of vidchips. She dropped the packet
onto the cluttered desk.
Basel adjusted his glasses. "Thank you." As he reached to sign the
receipt, he took a closer look at the DataCourier. "You! You were in the
funny sex video!"
"Not willingly."
"We always wondered if you had survived. Your trick was so funny, it
would have been a shame if it didn't work. Are you mad at us for publishing it?"
Nekoko thought for a moment. "No, not any more..."
"Still, it was a good trick. We could only use that part of the
vidchip in our magazine. The rest was simply too bloody."
Nekoko's ears stood straight up. "You saw the rest of the vidchip?"
"Yes, I scanned through it. It wasn't good for anything. Scenes of
soldiers getting slaughtered. Doesn't sell real well."
"How was the vidchip identified?" Nekoko asked.
"I remember the title 'Muenchen Turbinen und Roboten Werke', a date,
and the words 'Project: Model 60'".
"Do you know where the vidchip came from?"
"My assistant editor found it on the doorstep the other morning.
ARES Advanced Research markings on the vidchip carrier, but nothing else.
We often get submissions that way. We asked at ARES for the Advanced
Research Divison, but never got a response until today."
"Why do you think you got the vidchip?" Nekoko asked.
Basel turned off the vidplayer. "We often get vidchips with strange
things on them. I thought someone might have been showing off. They, the
anonymous submitters, often do that."
"I know that the vidchip is not for sale, Basel-san," Nekoko asked
very slowly, "but could you arrange for me to see it?"
"No problem..."
Nekoko started to say something, but was interrupted by tapping on
the door. Basel turned to his desk and checked his desk vidscreen. "Sorry,
it's my 12:00 appointment with the ARES Advanced Research Division people.
Do you mind waiting outside for a moment?"
"Those are the people asking for the vidchip back, aren't they?"
Basel nodded.
"If you don't mind, I'd rather not meet them. Could I wait in your
washroom back there?"
"No problem. Shouldn't take long."
Nekoko moved over to the washroom, closed the door, sat on the
toilet and sighed. Below her feet, on either sides, and on the ceiling,
there were mirror tiles. She looked into an infinite number of cat-eared,
cat-eyed, blonde-haired women. She amused herself by making faces at her
reflections.
From the direction of the office came the murmur of a discussion,
ending in the sound of a muffled shot. Nekoko crept to the washroom door, knelt
down, and listened at the door. She could hear the voices of a man and the
electronic voice of a comlink.
"Red-1 here. Primary target terminated," said the man.
"Kommodore here. Have you found the vidchip?" asked the electronic
voice.
"We've got all Basel's vidchips. It'll be in there somewhere."
"Have you found the secondary target?" Kommodore asked.
"No. We know she's here."
"Good. Find her copy of the vidchip. Then terminate."
"Understood, Kommodore."
"Is the building being cleared? Don't want any unnecessary deaths."
"Yes, Kommodore. Red-2 is telling people to leave quietly, there
might be a killer in the building."
"The girl with cat's ears? Good idea."
"Yeah. She'll take the blame for Basel's death. And the explosion."
"Good. Are the explosives ready?" The electronic voice asked.
"Yes, you may detonate on my command."
"Understood. Will detonate on your command. Endtrans."
"Endtrans," said Red-1.
Before Nekoko could react, there was a loud crash. The washroom door
fell in, the lock and hinges splintering from the wooden frame. Nekoko
sprawled across the floor. She turned to stare up into a small black hole,
mounted at the end of a automatic pistol. Behind the pistol stood a tall
gaunt man with frizzy blonde hair, light blue eyes, aquiline nose and soft
smiling mouth. With his tan and good natured features, he looked like a
gym teacher on sabbatical. He wore a blue business suit, carefully tailored,
a pair of leather gloves, and a gym bag over one shoulder. He smiled gently at
Nekoko. Only in the eyes could Nekoko see the soldier in him.
"Hi girl. Thought you might be in there. Come up here. I won't hurt
you," he laughed.
He fingered the small comlink mounted on his shoulder. "Red-1 here.
I've located the second target."
"Red-2 here. Good. The building is almost cleared."
"Kommodore says he is ready to detonate the explosives."
"Just a minute Red-1, got one more office to check."
"Endtrans, Red-2."
"Yeah, yeah. Endtrans."
"So, girl, come with me." He grabbed Nekoko by the hand, pulled her
to her feet and waved her into the office with the pistol. "Here, give me
that pouch. Never know what a girl's got in her handbag." Nekoko sullenly
slipped off the waistpouch and handed it to the mercenary. He laughed, dropped
the gym bag and slipped the waistpouch over his shoulder.
Nekoko looked around the office. Basel lay in a pool of blood behind
his desk. The desk was covered in vidchips and datapaks. The mercenary waved
her into the center of the room, took a step back, lowered his gun and smiled
at her.
"Well, you are a pretty little thing..."
Nekoko watched his face. He was smiling, but his smile never reached
his eyes. When he knew she didn't have the vidchip, he would kill her.
"It'll be a shame, girl, but I have my orders..."
Nekoko knew he would kill her. She studied his eyes.
"Where's the vidchip the drone gave you?"
"I crushed it," Nekoko answered. She curled her hands slightly,
leaned slightly forward, balanced herself.
"Maybe you did..." He laughed.
Nekoko took several short little breaths, then exhaled slowly. The
mercenary looked down to search her waistpouch. "Gee, nothing but junk.
The things some girls carry..." Nekoko's eyes narrowed.
Nekoko stepped forward and launched a sweeping sideways kick to the
merc's head. The merc's head snapped hard. He fell, his head hitting the desk.
He rolled over slowly, reaching for his pistol. Nekoko struck again with the
palm of her hand against his chin, breaking his neck. The mercenary's body
slumped. She stood up, shaking, dazed. There was not much blood, just a
thread from the corpse's nose. A cut on the side of his head. The side of her
foot tingled, her hand was sore. It was the first time she had to kill.
Nekoko limped over to the wall, gathered the vidchips and datapacks
from the desk and poured them into the gym bag. She turned to the mercenary's
body, looking for her waistpouch. The strap of the waistpouch was lying under
his torso so Nekoko steeled herself to roll the body over. When the body
flopped over, several items dropped out of the merc's pockets onto the floor.
Nekoko swept the items into the gym bag, trying not to look at the dead merc's
eyes. As she grabbed her waistpouch, she heard the footsteps of the other
mercenary. Nekoko rushed across the floor to the window, opened it, and
stepped out onto the fire escape.
Gym bag and waistpouch in hand, she began down the fire escape. As
her head dropped below the window sill, she could hear the doors of the
office open. She hurried, hearing the cry of the mercenary above her. Faster,
faster, she jumped down the steps of the fire escape. There was a bang, a
whistle, and Nekoko realized that he was shooting at her. At the ladder,
she dropped the gym bag to the ground below, and stepped onto the ladder's
rungs. A flash of white light lit up the alley; everything in monochromes,
walls, dumpsters, garbage. Thunder rolled. The ladder shook, her hands opened,
and Nekoko fell, landing in a dirty puddle of water. She looked up to see the
top floor engulfed in flames. She rolled over, pulled the gymbag and waistpouch
together and ran. Behind her, the walls of the building slowly fell in on
themselves.
Late afternoon at the Chatsubo. Nekoko stared into the glass of Kirin
that Ratz had poured for her. The beer was flat, the taste sour. She traced
the scars of the tabletop with the tips of her fingers, wondered how she had
survived. Had the mercenary not considered her harmless, had he not hit his
head against the desk, she would have died with the others in the explosion.
Ratz had taken one look at her, her tangled hair, her filthy skirt and called
Li.
The vidscreen behind her continued to blare. " ...body of Claus
Lagervelt, a vice president of ARES Corporation, was pulled from the water
near the ARES Corporation's marine salvage area. ARES has refused to comment.
Recovery of the body was made more difficult by the extreme ARES security
in the area. Identification of the body was difficult as Lagervelt's face was
severly mutilated by the micro-fletchettes that killed him."
"Closer to home," the vidscreen continued, "the offices of BUXOM
BABES was destoryed in a mysterious explosion around noon. Authorities have
identified about five dead, with several others still missing. Amoung the
dead is Dagit Basel, popular editor of the magazine. Police are seeking the
Cat Woman made famous in this month's issue of BUXOM BABES."
Li and Running Wolf arrived an half an hour later. Nekoko watched Li
stride through the crowds in the Chatsubo, a cobalt blue samurai. Nekoko was
in awe of Li's bujitsu, her smooth skill at the cold business of death. She
had heard of Li's dance with the drone. She compared it with her own awkward
attempts to discover the truth behind the drones.
Nekoko weakly waved to Li. "Konnichi wa, Li-sama..."
Li turned off the vidscreen and looked at Nekoko. "I thought you
could be discreet. The editor dead, the BUXOM BABES office blown all over
the block," Li started.
"It's not my fault"
"Well, Nekoko, the media is telling everyone that the Cat Woman
who was featured in this month's BUXOM BABES killed the editor and blew up
the building. You were seen leaving the building."
"It's not my fault," said Nekoko. "They tried to kill me."
She stood up. "First, they made me into a fool. Then they made me into a
killer." She thumped her hand on the table. Glasses wobbled and fell over.
"All I want to know is," she screamed. "Who the HELL are these guys?" She
swept her hand across the table, tossing bottles, glasses, ashtrays over
the surrounding crowd. "Oops! Gomen nasai..."
Li pushed down on Nekoko's shoulders, making her sit again.
"What really did happen?" Running Wolf asked.
Nekoko told the crowd around the table her story. She told of Basel's
death, of the killing of the mercenary, of the explosion.
Li looked at Nekoko and asked, "So, Nekoko, what did you get?"
Wordlessly, Nekoko poured a cascade of vidchips, datapaks and
ROM packs onto the table.
"Rad wiz!" said the razor boy wanna be, "All the BUXOM BABES pictures
on vidchips."
Li and Nekoko glared at him.
Nekoko stirred the pile with her fingers. "I think that someone in
the drone project is worried about the direction of the project. He or she
sent these vidchips to Basel and me as a warning. Whoever sent out the
vidchips couldn't have forseen that Basel would see the vidchip as a
submission to the funny sex videos. Or that I would crush mine." Nekoko flicked
her ears. "There is something on that vidchip that we are supposed to see.
We need to see that vidchip."
"Nekoko, there must be 500 unlabeled vidchips here," remarked Li.
"Hey, I'll screen them for you," smirked the razor boy.
Nekoko rose to slap the boy. Li grabbed her arm and forced
her back into her seat. "No, Nekoko, he's right. We're going to have to
screen all the vidchips. In the meantime, it might be good for you to go to
MTRW and ask around. Get out of Seattle for a while."
"Something else is strange about your story," mused Running Wolf,
who had been listening carefully.
"What?" asked Nekoko.
"Kommodore didn't want anyone to survive this mission. He set off
the explosions early." Running Wolf said. "Hey what's that?"
Nekoko picked up the card from the pile of chips. "A cash voucher."
"Rad," whispered the razor boy.
"Take the cash, get a flight, get out of here. We'll follow up
on the stuff you found today. Don't worry. Enjoy yourself," Li said.
Nekoko pocketed the card. She got up and gathered her things.
"Nekoko?" said Li.
"Yes, Li-sama?"
"Be discreet. Don't blow up the place."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Nekoko took the last set of stairs at a run, panting, stumbling.
At the top of the stairs, she saw that the train had just closed its doors.
She ran. "Matte kudasai! Matte. Matte Shimatta! MATTE!" As she arrived at
the last car, the train began to humm and slowly pull away from the station
platform. Nekoko ran alongside the car, pounding on the doors to the
stare of the passengers inside. "Matte, Matteee...." The
train sped up and left Nekoko stumbling in disbelief. She stopped and
watched the train round the curve and disappear southwards. "Kuso!"
She began. Then, she cursed loudly, outrageously, screaming, swearing.
After a few moments of tumult, she was interrupted by a quiet comment
in Japanese from behind her.
"Sugoi...."
"Ara....." Nekoko turned to see an elderly Japanese gentleman standing
behind her. He was small, wizened, bald with only a few wisps of hair.
His dark eyes sparkled from their deep sockets, his mouth curved in a smile.
He may have been old, but he stood ramrod straight with a quiet dignity.
The old gentleman was dressed in an almost black suit, carefully fitted,
very correct. He carried a long umbrella, tightly coiled in one hand and
an oxblood leather briefcase in the other. He continued in his quiet Japanese,
"I had to come up and see. Miyamoto, I said to myself, someone is cursing
like a dockworker. I have not heard cursing like that since I left the Osaka
dockyards forty-two years ago."
"I am very sorry for my rudeness.." She blushed. Her Japanese was
high-pitched, like a child.
"No, no, no," the gentleman smiled. "But I would like to know where
you learned to curse like that. It was a masterful business."
"My father was a teacher of Japanese in California. He taught his
only daughter all he had learned."
"Your father instructed you well."
"Thank you." She told him her name. "But I am called 'Nekoko'"
The old gentleman bowed slightly. "My name is Miyamoto Yoshiro, but
I am called 'Ojiisan' by my grandchildren." He smiled. "Choojo, is 'Nekoko',
a street name? Are you a street samurai?"
Nekoko started to say something, but stopped herself. She thought for
a moment. After a while, she said, "No, I am a helicopter pilot. Nekoko is
my callsign on the comlink."
Miyamoto looked at Nekoko's cat's ears, her slightly tipped cat's eyes
and answered, "'Cat-child' is appropriate, maybe, but I will call you Choojo,
eldest daughter. Come, keep an old man company. We have forty minutes before
the next train. I will tell you of myself and you can tell Grandfather why
missing a train is the cause of such magnificent cursing."
Nekoko looked up from the old gentleman's face to see an empty
platform, swept by a chilling wind. A wall of clouds lay to the north, dark,
cold, threatening rain. She shivered. Miyamoto took her by the arm and led her
into the waiting room. After setting her at a table, he left her for a moment
and soon returned with two cups of tea in styroform cups.
"What these people do to tea is criminal. But it is warm." He said.
"Thank you." She took the cup in both hands, and sipped slowly.
"Miyamoto-san," she began.
"Please call me Ojiisan like my grandchildren."
"Ojiisan, where did you come from?"
"Originally? I worked with Doctor Akechi in Osaka. After retiring,
I moved with my wife, Meiko, to New Gifu, in California. It was part of the
agreement we made with the zaibatsu's, that we would have a place to retire.
You know, Choojo, there are two million people in New Gifu? They built it and
the other cities for retirees. The zaibatsu did not see that people would
come to make New Gifu and the other cities into real Japanese cities."
"Honto?" Nekoko asked.
"Really, Choojo. We came to retire, others came to sell us things,
others came to build, repair, and finally live. Now, you can look around and
cannot tell that you are not in Japan. My wife, Meiko, says that it does not
feel like home, but she doesn't see that we could never live as well in
Japan. There would be no room for her teahouse in Japan. And I can get a
tee-off time without a long wait." He smiled and dropped the empty cup
in the trash.
Behind him, through the windows of the waiting room, Nekoko could see
the clouds gathering, covering and uncovering the sun. The wind picked up.
To the north, the black wall of clouds advanced. The waiting room was warm.
Nekoko started to get sleepy.
"Besides, the old woman is being foolish." Miyamoto continued. "All
of our children are here in America. Tetsuya is a lawyer in New York. Akemi
is married and lives near the Napa Valley and Nabiki, the youngest, is about
to start college. That is why I was in Seattle. I visited the Dean of
Admissions of the University of Washington. Luckily, he spoke Japanese. All
civilized people should. I convinced him that Nabiki should be admitted this
winter. She is very much like you. You must meet her."
Nekoko drained her cup. Outside, the clouds covered the sun. The
light turned dreary and grey. She looked up at the clock in the waiting
room. Miyamoto caught the direction of her gaze and said, "Yes, the train
will be here. We should go now." They stepped out of the warm waiting room
into a bitter biting wind. From the distance, they heard the bleat of the
train's horn. "It's pretty bad out here, isn't it?" Miyamoto remarked. Nekoko
nodded. The train approached and hissed to a stop before them. As the doors
opened, Miyamoto and Nekoko stepped on board. They moved down the car's
corridor and found an empty compartment. When they had settled down, Miyamoto
leaned forward and smiled at Nekoko. " Now, Choojo, tell me what was the
reason for your cursing." With a small lurch, the train began to move.
She started to tell her story. She began with the charter flight to
the island, and finished with the head she had been given. She told of the
man in leathers, and his final question. "He asked me what I would do, when
I found out out who was behind all of this. I had no answer I could have given
him." She spoke of the accusations, the questions, the guilt, her doubt.
Miyamoto did not speak; he just nodded at times, his eyes deep in
thought. When she had stopped, she looked up at him, through her eyelashes.
"You have told me a dark tale, true, and I will have more to
say on it later. No. Not now." He thought for a moment. "Choojo. When you
get home, take a rucksack..."
Nekoko looked up at him, puzzled.
"Fill the rucksack with those items you need, if you had to leave
suddenly. Warm clothes. A knife, matches, such stuff, and keep it near you."
"Wh-Why?" Nekoko started.
"You now have a powerful enemy. You must prepare yourself. You may
have to leave your home suddenly."
"ARES?"
"Perhaps. It is hard to tell." He turned to look out the train window
at the gathering gloom. "You do not need to worry about the police."
"But. But the press said..."
"Choojo, the press says many things. They must say that the police
are looking for you. But the police have too many other problems. A murder
and an explosion is a small item in their day to day problems. Bounty hunters,
now..."
"Bounty hunters?"
"The police will wait for a bounty hunter to do their work. It is
easier for them." Miyamoto leaned back in his seat. "However, someone has to
put up the reward money first. You are safe until then."
"When am I in danger?" Nekoko asked.
"The street will tell you. Listen to your street samurai friends.
They will let you know if someone has placed a price on your head."
Nekoko shivered.
"But, come, tell me of other things, tell Ojiisan of your father, who
taught his eldest daughter to curse so well."
Nekoko turned to the window, watching the houses and factories pass
in a blur. After a moment, she began to speak. "I was born in Sakumento,
the only child of my father and mother. When the Japanese empire took
economic control of the region, my father took Japanese citizenship,
changing our name. He had been a pilot, so I learned from him
what it is to fly." She turned back to Miyamoto. "When I was nine, my
mother went into the hospital to have another child. She never returned."
Nekoko dropped her eyes and sat quietly for a moment. "I entered boarding
school that year. Later, I applied at Yonhon-Hana as a pilot trainee."
"Yonhon-Hana? That explains something that puzzled me. Go on."
"The only openings were in the ESWAT division, the Extra Special
Weapons and Tactics division. After they accepted me, I underwent the surgery
that marked us as Yonhon-Hana samurai." She pointed to her eyes and tugged on
an ear.
Miyamoto interrupted her. "Yes, I have heard this before. Go on."
"Yonhon-Hana trains you for a while, equips you with the equipment
you might need and sends you to a Sprawl city, to learn to survive. They
think that those who learn the streets will be better ESWAT samurai." She
sighed. "Before I left for Seattle, I visited my father. He had not seen me
after my surgery. He disowned me... He turned his back on me and left...
I still do not know why." A tear ran down Nekoko's cheek. "I write, but I
have never heard from him. I don't know if he reads my letters..." Miyamoto
reached into an inside pocket, pulled out a soft hankerchief and wiped her face.
Outside the train, the gloom deepened. Lights appeared and rushed past. A
station, bright lights, grey and empty, a moment in the compartment window,
and then gone.
"Yes, I see.", Miyamoto started. "Choojo, you have been raised well.
However, I cannot see the samurai in you."
Nekoko looked up at him. Her ears stood up. "What?"
"No, you were not meant to be a samurai. A pilot, yes, but
not a pilot carrying soldiers to die in some small unimportant action."
Nekoko flicked her ears in bewilderment. "But. But..."
"Choojo, the way of life you have seen, the streets, the people,
the Chatsubo may be doomed. They are like the masterless ronin at the beginning
of the Tokugawa period. Today, things are unsettled. There is chaos, unrest,
troubled times. Some companies thrive on unrest and trouble. Yonhon-Hana is one
of them. Others do not. The mega-corps are like the 'daimyo' of old. They
may decide that chaos and trouble costs them. They will try to reorganize
society. Like Lord Tokugawa of old. Then, your Chatsubo, your Lady Li, and
all the others will be no more. Not right away. Maybe ten years, maybe more.
And the drones..."
"Li-sama?"
"Yes, even Li-sama. She has no patron, no mega-corp to help her."
"The drones?" Nekoko asked.
"I think I know what the drones are..." Miyamoto mused. "I think they
are supposed to be the new samurai of the mega-corps. They do not feel, they
cannot be corrupted. And they can be trusted."
Nekoko shuddered.
"Your future is not in Seattle, Choojo. Seattle is a Sprawl city.
There are many Sprawl cities, but the future is not in them. Seattle is dying.
Slowly. That's why you have your Chatsubos, your street samurai, your violence,
your death."
Nekoko turned away, looking into her reflection in the darkened
compartment window. Houses rushed by, each lit with the flickering blue
of vidscreens. Large rain drops started to splat against the window. They
rode in silence, listening to the rumble of the train. Miyamoto pointed to the
houses passing by.
"They will not care if your friends disappear. They are cattle,
herdbeasts. It may sound fascist to say that, but they are. Because they
did it to themselves. No one enslaved them to the vidscreens, to cheap
entertainment and cheap alcohol, they did it to themselves. You read, right?"
Nekoko nodded.
"Most of those out there," pointing to the rows of houses, "are
illiterate. And it does not bother them. Their parents and grandparents did
not read. Choojo, most all the students at the University of Washington are
from Japan, California and other countries. The cattle out there, they don't
care. They will just as happy with the drones as with the police they have
now. They might not even notice the change. If it does not interfere with the
evening's sports schedule."
"Ojiisan, what did you mean, that being in Yonhon-Hana explained
something that puzzled you?"
"I wondered why the killer drone spared you on the island."
"I had thought it was my trick at first..." Nekoko said.
"No, it was not your trick. Nor your body. ARES, if it was ARES, knew
that with your eyes and ears, you could have been a Yonhon-Hana samurai. They
could not kill you without endangering themselves in a war with another
mega-corp. Your ears and eyes saved you, Choojo."
"But someone sent a team of mercenaries after me, Ojiisan."
"True. I am guessing now. ARES has not heard from your mega-corp.
Yonhon-Hana would have protested if you were a regular samurai. So, now ARES
assumes you are just another girl with cat's eyes and ears. There are many
out there..."
Large dark raindrops beaded up on the compartment window. The lights of
the city were veiled behind sheets of water. An empty station flashed by, cold
fluorescent blubs, puddles, lit signs, and then darkness again.
"Ojiisan, what should I do..." She asked. She turned and looked out
the compartment window at her reflection again.
They sat in silence for several minutes.
"No, not now. Later..., Choojo ," Miyamoto started. He was
interrupted by the announcement of Nekoko's stop. "Your stop will come in
moments. I do not think we have enough time to talk tonight. Choojo, you
must come visit us." He reached into an inside pocket. Nekoko was awake enough
to start searching in her waistpouch for a clean meishi. When Miyamoto pulled
his business card out, she was able to respond with her own, somewhat
bedraggled business card. She took his card and looked at it. Her eyes widened
and she looked up.
"Come to New Gifu. Doctor Akechi and I will be able to answer some of
your questions. We will discuss the drones with him." He smiled. "Next Thursday
at three? Nabiki will be there. You will like her. Good. I assume you have a
kimono? Bring it. Meiko likes to be formal for company."
She got up slowly, moved to the door of the compartment, turned and
said, "Ja-mata ne."
"Saynoora."
Nekoko descended from the train, stepped into a cold rain. Behind her,
the train started, hummed, and rolled into the dark, a row of brightly lit
rectangles. She glimpsed Miyamoto's face in a window, smiling. Then
she ran for shelter and home.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Nekoko lay in her futon, staring at the ceiling. She was tired, the
day had been long and disturbing. The killing at BUXOM BABES, the escape
from the mercenaries, the trip home, the head in the box, the talk with
Miyamoto Yoshiro. Her body was tired, her mind wide awake. She fingered the
strap of the rucksack next to her. As soon she had arrived at the apartment,
she had taken the rucksack out of the closet and loaded it with clothes,
supplies, and anything she might need if she had to leave home suddenly.
The H&K 227 was broken down and slipped amoung her clothes in the pack. Thinking
of Miyamoto's invitation, Nekoko had taken her kimono out of the closet,
wrapped it carefully, and added it to the things to pack. A pair of tabi, a
obi and a pair of sandals had finished the packing.
She raised her head from the pillow and looked around. The apartment
was silent except for the ticking of the kitchen clock. Outside, the rain
continued. Nekoko's apartment was large for Seattle, a living room in which
she spread her futon at night, a small kitchen, seperated from the living room
by short curtains, and finally, a bathroom. The apartment was cheap. It was
under the final flight path to SEA-TAC. Nekoko usually was woken by the
sound of the morning flight from Osaka. The apartment was almost empty of
furniture; a chair, a low table, and a pair of bookcases filled with tattered
manga was all.
Her motorcycle stood near the door. Even in the highly patroled
neighborhood near the airport, theft was always a danger. Nekoko had been
lucky to find a ground level apartment with an outside door. She stared at
the Yamaha. In several days, she would be leaving her home, possibly
never to return. Nekoko turned over and laid her head on the pillow. Her
hand reached underneath and felt the weight of her pistol, close at hand.
The room filled with the fragrance of perfume. Nekoko sat up. It was
a scent she remembered well. While she was in training, she had purchased a
small expensive bottle of the same perfume on a trip to San Francisco. Her
Sensei made her pour it out. 'Pour it out, the scent will give you away.'
She had cried afterwards, but Sensei's words still stayed with her; she never
worn perfume since.
Nekoko pulled the rucksack into the futon with her, molded the
blankets over the form, rolled away from the mattress, and crawled into the
kitchen. Her pistol was in her hand.
The lock on the door clicked softly. Someone pushed the door open
slowly.
Nekoko stood up, leaned against the kitchen wall, her back towards
the living room, her pistol in both hands upright, safety off. She heard quiet
footsteps towards the futon.
There were two spitting sounds. Nekoko held her breath. Footsteps
running toward the door. The door being slammed shut.
Nekoko leaned around the kitchen wall. Silence. The kitchen clock
ticked. Underlying the smell of perfume, there was the smell of gunpowder.
A slow step around the wall, the gun at ready. Nothing.
She flicked the safety on, put down the gun and checked the futon.
There were two holes in the blanket, in the futon mattress, and two holes
in the rucksack. Quickly untieing the rucksack, Nekoko found the bullets
had holed a sweater, three shirts, and were resting in her campgear. She
swore softly. Tomorrow, she would cash the voucher, clean out her account
at Dai-Mittsu International, and ride her motorcycle to California.
After relocking the door, Nekoko tried again to get some sleep. She
considered the chances small that the killer would come back. After all,
wasn't she already dead?
The jet came in, screaming, turbines at full power. Nekoko could
hear the engines through the pillow she had pulled over her head. She sat
up, threw the pillow at the wall and swore loudly. The words could not be
heard over the sound of the 6:30 AM flight from Osaka.
After washing up, completing the packing, and breakfast, she put
her motorcycle leathers on, and picked up her helmet. She carefully slipped
the helmet on, fitting her cat ears into the holes in the padding. With a final
look around, she wheeled the motorcycle out on the street.
Last night's rain had stopped, but the street was still covered with
water. The clouds overhead were low, heavy, giving everything a grey washed
out look.
Nekoko strapped the rucksack to the passenger pillion, mounted the
Yamaha, and rode into Seattle. On a quiet suburban street, she pulled into
the local Dai-Mittsu branch. Nekoko pulled off her helmet, walked into the
bank and sat down at the automatic teller. Tapping the attention key, she
fed the cash voucher into the deposit slot. The teller machine hummed for
a moment, then spewed 175 nuyen into the cash tray.
"What!" She typed quickly on the keyboard. The teller machine displayed
the title 'Cash voucher - Coffee reimbursement'.
"Damn it, a petty cash voucher. Ok, lets see what we have in my
account. Should be enough for a ticket to Europe." Nekoko muttered to herself.
She cleared the screen, started to type in a withdrawl. She stopped
suddenly and stared at the display. 'Account temporarily unavailable - Contact
Local Police for information.'
"Shimatta!"
"Can we be of service?" asked a voice over her shoulder. Nekoko cleared
the screen and turned her head. She saw a bank guard, hefty and armed, smiling
at her.
"Gomen," she smiled. "A check I didn't cover. Sorry." She hoped the
guard would go away. "I'll transfer something to cover it later."
"We can help you with your budgeting, Dai-Mittsu is holding classes
in household finance on Mondays. We can show you how to avoid overdrafts."
"Yes, yes, yes," Nekoko stuttered. She swept the 175 nuyen into her
pouch and almost ran outside.
"Now what?" Nekoko asked herself. She started back to the apartment.
She was approaching the turn into her street when she was passed by a police
panzer, doing twice her speed. She slowed down. The ground effects vehicle,
sirens running, lights flashing, turned into her street and slid to a stop
in front of her apartment. Nekoko continued to slow as the panzer disgorged
a crack SWAT team. As she continued past her street, the crack SWAT team had
already blown her apartment's door in. Nekoko quickly twisted the throttle,
and disappeared.
Her motorcycle's lights reflected from the puddles in the alley
behind the Chatsubo. She rode carefully now, her pistol tucked on the fuel
tank. Nekoko stopped at each narrowing of the alley, her eyes looking for
the chances of an ambush. Once, she had yelled at children rooting in a
dumpster, stopping her motorcycle and aiming the pistol at them. They moved
away from the garbage, their dirt-caked faces twisted in anger. She knew that
no one in the alleys of Seattle was harmless, that even these children might
pull her down, kill her and sell her corpse to the body-clinics.
She stopped the motorcycle again. An overhead bridge did not feel
right. Rusted, decrepit, it provided enough cover for an attack. She pulled
the pistol from the fuel tank, sighted on a corroded girder and fired. The
explosion was muted in the fetid air, the bullet bounced around the bridge.
She heard the sound of running footsteps above her, then silence. She rode
on.
Nekoko stopped again. A corpse blocked the alley. It had been there
a while, too long for the body clinics. She ran a quick glance around her,
checking for hidden killers. As she walked her motorcycle over the corpse's
arm, the stench made her gag.
The backside of the Chatsubo was a little cleaner, better lit. The
dumpster alongside the backdoor only smelled putrid. She stepped off her
motorcycle and banged on the back door.
"Hoi, Ratz, open up. It's Nekoko." She yelled. She hoped that her
call would not call the killers of the alley to her.
"Hey, Ratz, come on." She could not hear anything inside. Behind her,
something stirred in the heaps of rags and trash.
"Ratzzzzzzz....."
There were eyes now. She could see them reflecting the overhead light.
She pulled the H&K 227 out of the rucksack on the motorcycle and started to
thread the stock onto the rear of the submachinegun.
"Damn it, Ratz, where are you?"
More eyes now. She clipped the magazine onto the bottom of the H&K 227.
In the mist and darkness, Nekoko could not tell if the eyes were human or not.
"Ratz, you sorry SOB, I need you..." She used the stock of the H&K 227
to bang on the door. Rustling now, and the sound of feet sliding across the
wet concrete. She put her back against the door, held the H&K 227 at ready,
and flicked on the laser sight. A thin red line sprung down the misty alley.
"Ratzzzzzzzz"
A sudden shout and the eyes started to approach. Nekoko pointed the
muzzle over the eyes and pulled the trigger. The H&K 227 spat yellow fire over
the alley, the sound crashing around and around. Cartridges rained around her
feet. She stopped, tipped the muzzle up and watched the eyes disappear into the
blackness.
A voice from behind her, a rattling at the backdoor. "Hey, what do
you think you are doing?"
"Ratz, open up, it's Nekoko."
"Nekoko, what the hell are you doing, firing that thing?"
"Ratz, open up, there's something out here."
The door finally opened. Nekoko looked over her shoulder to see the
familiar ugly face of the bartender. "What's that? Oh, the children. Come
in then. Leave them alone," he said.
"Ah....." Nekoko looked back into the alley to see the eyes reflected
in the light again. "Better bring my motorcycle in too."
"Yep, they'd strip and sell it in a minute. Never have to pay someone
to take my garbage. They'll clean it out as soon as I dump it." Ratz chuckled.
Once inside, he turned to Nekoko. "So, what are you doing out there?"
Nekoko leaned against the discolored wall and told him of the attack
on her, the police at her apartment, and the sequestering of her account. "So,
Ratz, I'm broke, I'm hunted by the police, and have no place to stay."
Ratz turned away from her. Shouts for more beer were coming down the
narrow hallway. "Damn it, busy all the time now."
"Ratz, I could work for you. I could be a barmaid. It would only be
for a few days. I have someone to help me after Thursday. All I ask is a
place to stay, away from what is... outside." She clasped her hands, and
gave a small trembling smile.
"Well..." Ratz was doubtful.
"Please? I'll work hard. I have no other place to go..."
More calls for beer from down the hall. Ratz stepped back towards the
bar, then stopped. "Alright, for a few days. You'll be sleeping in the
stockroom, washing up in the bathroom. Get yourself settled in, then come on
down and I'll tell you what to do." He rushed back to his bar.
Nekoko thought of the bathroom and shuddered. Then she felt the
warmth of the H&K 227, and remembered the eyes outside, behind the heavy metal
door. She climbed the stairs to the stockroom.
Moving around a few cases of Suntory, she made a flat space for a
bed. Several unrolled layers of bubble wrap made a mattress and her extra
clothes a blanket. She pulled off the motorcycle leathers, put on a pair
of jeans and one of the shirts with a bullet hole in it. Her expensive
armored jacket almost covered the hole. She descended the stairs and went
down the hall to the bar. Ratz waved her over and gave her an apron, a
serving tray and a few extra nuyen for change. All Nekoko had to do was
take orders and deliver the wet stuff. "Simple enough, right?" he asked.
She nodded. "What about tips?"
"Tips? You think you're gonna get tips in here?" Ratz started to laugh
uncontrollably. Gasping for air, he leaned against the bar for support.
Finally, he pushed her into the crowd and returned behind the bar. "Tips.
What a concept..."
Hours passed. The crowd shrunk. Nekoko thought they were more
quiet than usual. She expected more come-ons, more butt-pinching but these
crowd had other things on their mind. They drank heavily and talked of combat,
death and changing times. Nekoko only had one hardcase, a young boy with
cyber-eyes, augmented reflexes, red leather, shaved head. He would have been
faster, had he not been drinking. "Hey Kitty. Meow." Nekoko tried to ignore
him. "Here Kitty, here kitty." She walked past him. He stood up. "Are you
ready for a Real Tomcat?" Nekoko kneed him in the groin and poleaxed him with
the edge of the serving tray. He slid towards the floor, face down. Nekoko
did not expect a tip afterwards.
At the end of the evening, Nekoko could barely stand. She staggered
upstairs and flung herself, face first, on her makeshift mattress. Ratz
followed her up the stairs and smiled. "Ya done good, Nekoko. We start at
9:00. There's cleaning up, glass washing and sweeping to do. See you then."
He turned, switched off the light and went down the stairs. Nekoko groaned.
She turned over and stared into the darkness. A few more days. Outside, there
was a scream, suddenly cut off. Nekoko shuddered and burrowed herself deeper
into the makeshift bed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Nekoko made her her third trip to the bar in five minutes. The
Chatsubo was crowded, more crowded than usual. The noise of the crowd was
muted, faint. She turned away from the bar with a loaded serving tray and
walked towards the next table. The crowd noise faded away. She could see
people drinking, talking, argueing, in silence. She stopped at the table,
reached for the first bottle, and the people at the table faded away. She
looked up and the bar was deserted. Smoke curled from cigarette ashtrays,
bubbles rose in beer, but the bar was empty. She dropped the tray. There was
no noise when the glass hit the floor. She turned and stared at the front door.
The front door blew in. Nekoko watched a dark form shape itself in
the smoky shattered doorway. With jerky abrupt motions, the blood-red horror
stepped through the wreckage of the door. Nekoko froze in place. Balancing
on six thin legs was a large metal skull. From the empty eyesockets, dark
red lights glowed. Another pair of legs carried chain guns. The skull rotated
to face her, then spun up its chain guns. Nekoko saw flashes and smoke from
the guns. The bullets tore across her chest, opening her body, cutting her to
pieces.
"Waaaaaaaaaa." Nekoko woke from her nightmare. She breathed deeply,
quickly, reminding herself she was still alive. She sat up. The stockroom
was quiet, only the sound of the rats in the walls. She put a hand to her
breasts, feeling the rise and fall of her chest. Blood pounded in her head.
She lay down again, rolled over and studied the cases of gin in front of her.
Nekoko came down the stairs early, dressed in her bodysuit, her skirt
with the intertwined four flowers pattern and slip-on shoes. Ratz and a woman
were standing at the bar, going over the inventory sheets. The woman was in her
late forties, hard, muscular, with hard eyes. She was neatly dressed in white
jacket, white jeans, gray boots. As she spoke, Nekoko watched the woman's
fingers stab at the inventory sheets, her voice low and determined. The woman
turned to look at Nekoko. "Who's this?"
Ratz waved Nekoko into the room. "Nekoko, this is Darla Sung. Darla
does the cooking and helps me with the bar on weekends. Darla, this is Nekoko.
Nekoko is helping us in exchange for a room upstairs."
"Ohayo gozaimasu," Nekoko said.
Darla's eyes narrowed. "You know how to wash dishes? There's a pile
in the sink. Dish towels under the sink. Hop to it, girl."
Nekoko slipped under the curtains and stepped into a old but clean
kitchen. Sighing at the size of the pile of dishes, she slipped the first
plate into the hot soapy water.
"Done?" Darla asked as she entered the kitchen several hours later.
Nekoko sighed again and pointed to the stacks of clean kitchen ware. "Good.
You can go to the bar and help Ratz set up for opening. I'll need you later
to wash up again." Nekoko's ears drooped. "Hop to it, girl."
In the bar, Ratz handed her a broom and told her to sweep up. As
Nekoko piled the broken glass, scraps of paper and other trash into a bucket,
several women and a single man entered the bar. Ratz waved hello and continued
to wash glasses. The women scattered around the bar and began to preen
themselves, touching up makeup, adjusting low cut dresses, combing hair. In
the corner, leaning on the broom, Nekoko stared.
The man and Ratz were talking in low tones near the bar. Finally, Ratz
called Nekoko over and asked her to come closer.
"Nekoko, this is Lonny Zone."
"Hi" Nekoko said as she walked across the bar. The other women giggled.
Lonny waved her over, a slow and lazy motion. He showed signs of hypnotic
addiction on his long and placid face. Zone's eyes were glazed, showing almost
no white, his pupils large and dilated. He spoke slowly, as if in a dream.
"Hey girl... You in the biz...? You working... here."
Nekoko was puzzled. "What?"
"This... this is my bar... Ratz gets... a percentage."
Nekoko turned to Ratz. "I don't understand. Biz? Dealing?"
"Zone, she's not that way. You needn't bother yourself." Ratz said.
Lonny pulled a thin glass ampule from his jacket. "Wanna hit? You...
can stare at your big toe for... ten hours. And never... get bored." He broke
off the neck of the ampule and sniffed the contents.
"No, no, no..." Nekoko shook her head.
"Nekoko, Lonny has been telling me there might be trouble tonight.
There's something going on out there. He doesn't know what it is. But people
are scared." Ratz said. "Listen, Nekoko, go down to Madame Fontaine's, and
get several boxes of plastic bullets. Get... oh, a hundred rounds, loaded in
clips for your H & K."
"But I already have ammunition for the H & K." Nekoko protested.
"Yeah, those steel-clads'll go right through the wall. Get the
plastics. Here." Ratz dropped 100 nuyen into Nekoko's hand. "Take a few hours
off. Take oh, take Denise with you," pointing out a girl sitting at a far
table. "She knows where Fontaine's is."
Nekoko looked up at a young girl, short, voluptuous, blonde, with
a broad good-natured face. Denise, dressed in a tight sleeveless T-shirt,
tattered cutoff jeans, and tall shiny vinyl boots was staring into a vidplayer.
From the vidplayer came the babel of a laugh track.
"Hey, Denise, take this razorgirl wannabe and show her where Fontaine's
is, OK?" Ratz shouted.
Denise nodded. She put down the vidplayer and walked over to the bar.
"Hi, you ready to go?"
Nekoko nodded and headed for the door.
They pushed their way through the crowds, getting stepped on, pinched,
and shoved. Nekoko and Denise sidestepped the mats and stalls of the street
vendors, walked around the street samurai, stepped over the drunks in the way.
A demented man lay in the gutter, stretched out on his back, shouting at some
unseen personal demon. Denise averted her eyes and walked past. Nekoko hurried
up and asked, "Why doesn't someone do something?"
"It's no good. If he can't hide somewhere by night, the ghouls'll get
him."
"Ghouls?" Nekoko asked.
Denise turned her good-natured face to Nekoko. In her eyes, tears
glittered. "Where've ya been? Dontcha know? In the Sprawl, anyone who can't
protect themselves gets taken by the ghouls. They'll kill ya to sell your body
to the body clinics." She walked faster. Nekoko almost ran to keep up with her.
Nekoko told Denise about the eyes in the alley. "But I didn't know
they were called ghouls."
"Ghouls, yeah. That's why I'm with Lonny. If'n ya can't protect
yourself, ya gotta find someone. Or you die." Denise wiped her face with the
back of her hand. "You a razor girl?"
"No, I'm... no, I was a helicopter pilot. Now I'm just a barmaid."
"Ain't gonna live long with that attitude. I've seen them come and
go." Denise stepped around a soba stall. Nekoko stumbled into the stall and
backed away to the curses of the stall's owner. When Nekoko had caught up
with Denise, they stood at the street corner, waiting for the light to change.
"Attitude? What does attitude have to do with living?" Nekoko asked.
"It's everythin'. Look at yourself. You have to push people out of
the way, right? With the right outfit, the right attitude, they'll step out
of your way. They'll stay away."
"No way." Nekoko snorted. The light changed and they started across
the street. "Attitude and outfit have nothing to do with it."
"I betcha. Lemme pick somethin' out at Madame Fontaine's. You watch.
I'll show you. They'll jump into the street to get out of your way."
"Denise, you're on. Loser buys lunch." Nekoko said. They continued
down the sidewalk, passing a woman sprawled in a doorway, filthy, clutching a
empty bottle of liquor. A few coins were scattered at the woman's feet.
"Another walking corpse," Denise said sadly.
As they stopped in front of an old decrepit warehouse, Nekoko asked,
"By the way, Denise, how old are you?"
"Don't know. Someone said I was sixteen, so I guess I'm sixteen.
Madam Fontaine's," she said, pointing to the door.
Nekoko said nothing, opened the door to the warehouse and entered.
Broad alleys inside the warehouse led to a small office near the
center. On all sides, boxes of tools, parts, clothing, machinery, and junk
were stacked to the ceiling. Many had thick coatings of dust, other boxes
had decayed, spilling their contents onto the floor. Denise knocked at the
door of the office.
"Hey, Madame Fontaine, it's Denise. Gotta customer here."
"Bon jour," came a voice from inside the office. "Entree, mes amie."
Nekoko and Denise walked through the office door. Inside, a very fat
woman sat, fanning herself with a piece of plastic, watching the vidscreen
on the wall. A desk and a large mirror completed the furnishings. Madame
Fontaine looked at Nekoko, then at Denise, then at the vidscreen again.
"Madame Fontiane, we need a few clothes, and..." Denise started.
"A hundred rounds of plastic bullets for an H & K. 9 mm in clips
of 20." Nekoko finished.
"Go and look around," Madame Fontaine said. "When you come back,
I'll have the ammo. Got some upfront money?" She never looked away from the
vidscreen.
"Give her the money that Ratz gave ya. You can trust her." Denise
said softly. Nekoko dropped the 100 nuyen on the small desk next to the
vidscreen. The two women stepped back outside.
"Ok, first, we'll need some unitards. They're over here." Denise
ran down a dark alley. Nekoko looked around, then followed.
An hour later, the two women sorted through their finds. A golden
unitard. A dark gray rigid armor vest, with hard shoulder epaulets, a
pair of fingerless gloves with spiked backs. Two dark gray ammo belts. A
pair of gray hard boots, knee high with knife sheaths, with attached knives.
Nekoko looked at the small pile. "I can't wear that! The cops
would be on me in a moment. It's all threats..."
"Uhm, forgot the long coat. There's a long grey coat that should
fit all this. You want to keep it open to just suggest what's underneath."
"Besides, that unitard is... sorta revealing."
"Here, use this." Denise pulled a fat cloth belt out of the pile.
Matching in color with the unitard, the belt had an smiling sun embroidered
on its front and two lengths of cloth mounted front and back. "Goes with the
outfit. A little modesty, yeah. It's like a highly slit dress, right."
"I don't know, Denise..."
"While you change, I'll go get the ammo. Let's see what Madame
Fontaine has to say."
Nekoko slipped into the unitard, buckled the belt around her stomach,
putting the cloth front and back. She put on the armor vest, wondering at the
weight. The boots, the ammo belt and gloves completed her dressing. She
gathered her old clothes and stepped into the office. As she entered, she
caught sight of herself in the mirror. Nekoko jumped back, then studied her
reflection. With her cat ears, her cat eyes, the new outfit gave her her a
deadly aspect. Denise turned and slipped a long grey coat over Nekoko's back.
"How's that. You look pretty good. Watch what happens on the street."
Denise giggled. "Besides, you can hide your H & K in your coat now."
Nekoko turned back to the mirror. She tried a pose, then another pose.
She smiled, then turned to Madame Fontaine, who had been watching Nekoko, "How
much for the outfit? I don't have much."
Madame Fontaine thought for a moment, then said, "Ah, you like the
outfit? You look like it was designed for you. I'll make you a good price. 100
nuyen."
Denise laughed. "No way, too much. Nekoko, give her 50 nuyen."
"75 nuyen, and that's it. It'll break my heart." Madam Fontiane said.
"Denise..." Nekoko started.
"60 nuyen. I know how long it's been here..." Denise said.
"Ah, the young people today. Very well." Madame Fontaine sighed.
Nekoko paid Madame Fontaine out of her meager savings, gathered the
clips of ammo and filled the pockets of the long grey coat. As she turned to
go, her foot kicked a small box out onto the floor. The box turned over,
spilling several brightly bound manga onto the floor.
"What's this? Where did you get these?" Nekoko asked as she knelt
to examine the contents of the box. Denise looked over Nekoko's shoulder,
puzzled.
"Oh, those. Someone sold them to me. No market for the stuff. Small
black and white drawings with chicken scratches markings. Why would anyone make
something like that?" Madame Fontiane was turning back to the vidscreen.
"I'll give you 2 nuyen for the box." Nekoko shouted.
"Done."
Nekoko dropped the 2 nuyen coins on the desk, gathered the manga off
the floor and left the office. She piled her old clothes on top of the box,
picked it up, and walked to the warehouse door. Denise hurried after her.
"Nekoko, why do you want those things?"
"I'll show you later."
Denise stopped at the warehouse door. "Stop, Nekoko. There is one more
thing I need to tell you before you go out there. True, you look like one
tough razorgirl. You've got the armor, the gloves, the boots. But the attitude.
Without it, you'll always be a wannabe. You gotta walk like you are death
itself. You gotta act like you know what's happening, but ya don't care. You
must never flinch, 'cause if they see you flinch, they'll blow you away. You
got that? Oh, and you betta give me your old clothes and that box."
Nekoko turned and gave her the pile of clothes and the box of manga.
"Ready?" Denise asked.
Nekoko nodded and the two women stepped back onto the street.
As Nekoko strode along, she noticed that Denise had fallen behind,
walking behind her by two strides. She stopped suddenly, and turned to Denise.
"Why are you back there?"
"No, Nekoko, don't look back here. Street samurai have nothing to
do with whores. Keep going. Go!" Denise sounded nervous.
Nekoko turned back and continued. She noticed that people started to
watch her, then move slowly out of her way. It gave her a warm feeling. She
walked alittle faster, the flaps of the grey coat flying behind her, revealing
the unitard, the boots with the knives, the ammo belts, the belt with the
smiling sun. The crowds parted as if by magic, people taking a step or a jump
to get out of her way. Nekoko smiled at first, then laughed. Around her, the
people stopped and waited to see what the crazy street samurai in the cat ears
and long grey coat would do.
Entering the bar, Nekoko waited a moment for Denise to follow, then
turned to see what Ratz's reaction would be. Ratz stared at her slowly for a
moment, then smiled. "I approve. That outfit'll help if we have problems."
Darla stepped out of the kitchen, scowled and vanished. Nekoko laughed.
"Ah, Nekoko, that was fun. Did you see that fat man jump?" Denise
was behind her, laughing. "You owe me lunch, right?"
"Hey, Darla, can you bring us lunch? I'm buying." Nekoko shouted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Nekoko leaned back in her chair and placed the hashi across the empty
plate. That had been a good bento, with the gyoza just right. She looked up
at Denise, who was still struggling with the long soba noodles. The box with
the manga sat at Nekoko's side. She reached over and sorted through the box's
contents.
"'Ranma 1/2', by Rumiko Takahashi, several volumes. 'Dominion' by
Masamune Shirow, 'Outlanders' by Joji Manabe. Sutekii!"
Denise looked up from her plate and dropped her fork. "What's those?"
"I had to leave my manga, my comics, behind when the police raided my
apartment. Now I'll have something to read at night."
"Read? Is that what you do with those?"
"Hai, I've been reading them since I was a young girl at school. Want
to see?" Nekoko pulled one of the 'Ranma 1/2' out of the box and pushed it
across the table.
Denise reached out and pulled the thin volume closer. She turned it up,
around, upside-down. "Where's the on switch?"
Nekoko started. Her eyes got real large, her ears stood up. "On-switch?
There's no on-switch. It's not a vidplayer." She took the 'Ranma 1/2' back and
flipped it to the front. "You open it here, and start here, read to the left,
down these columns of text. Then you go to the next box. Simple?"
"Uh... what's these markings?" Denise put her finger on one of the
pages.
"Let's see now," Nekoko mused. "You read it like this. That's 'ka',
then 'wa' then a pair of 'i's. So that word is 'kawaii', cute. Next column,
that's 'ko', child, like part of my name. The symbol that looks like a little
man, with a tic in the upper right corner, that's 'inu '. So, 'child-dog' or
puppy. The final character just means this is being exclaimed, like a shout."
"What's it saying, then..."
"So, it reads 'Cute puppies!'." Nekoko answered.
"Too much work. I'll stick to my vidplayer. It just tells me 'Cute
puppies!' instead of making me do all the work." Denise said.
"But, it's important to know how to read..."
"I'm sixteen, and I ain't met no one who can read, other than you and
perhaps, Mr. Ratz. I don't need to know. I got me a life." Denise turned away
and pulled out her vidplayer. The vidplayer began its cacophony of cheap
laughter.
Ratz had been listening to the talk between Nekoko and Denise. "Nekoko,
there is nothing you can say," Ratz began, "I can do figures and do some
reading, but not much. There's probably 5 out of 100 people out there who can
read, and less who want to. There's no need anymore. The computers just tell
you if you need something looked up."
"But Ratz, what if what you are looking for isn't in the computer?"
"It must not be very important then." Ratz laughed.
Nekoko said nothing. She wondered who decided what was important and
what wasn't. She gathered her manga into the box, picked up the plates and
started for the kitchen. As she passed the bar, the telecom started ringing.
Nekoko struggled with her load, finally dropped it on the bar, and answered
the call. She spoke shortly with Viadd, pulled a data cartridge from
underneath the bar and slotted it for downloading. When Viadd rang off, she
dropped the data cartridge on the bar, marked with a note, 'For Tracker or
Argent'. Then she started again for the kitchen.
Nekoko ducked under the curtains seperating the kitchen from the bar.
Steam rose from rice cookers, blue flames flickered under pots, grease sizzled
on the hot plate. Darla stood at a wooden table in the center of the kitchen,
busy with a long knife. Darla turned from the vegetables she had been cutting
and pointed the knife at Nekoko.
"So now you're a real razorgirl." Darla began. "Did you enjoy watching
the people step out of your way? Was it fun? Freaking the mundanes?"
"Eh..." Nekoko started. She walked closer to the wooden table.
"It was fun, wasn't it. But you were lucky. Girl, you might have the
look, with that outfit of yours, the cat ears, the cat eyes, but never forget,
you're just a cat in wolf's clothing."
"Uh?"
Darla put the knife on the wooden table top. She stepped over to the
stove and stirred the bubbling pot. "You aren't really a street samurai,
are you?"
"No, I'm a pilot, a helicopter pilot with some fighting skills..."
Nekoko answered. She unzipped the velcro on her spiked gloves, pulled them off
and dropped them on the chair next to the wooden table.
"But those skills aren't enough to make it on the street. So, girl,
be careful. Be careful. Don't get talked into any shadowruns."
Nekoko slipped off the long coat and draped it over the chair's back.
"I plan to be out of the Sprawl on Thursday. I don't think anything can happen
until then." She stretched under the armor vest and scratched her left ear.
Darla returned to the table. "This morning, I thought you might be
one of Lonny's shanks. Then I saw your skirt. That's the Yonhon-Hana crest,
the four intertwined flowers, in your pattern, isn't it."
Nekoko nodded.
"With those cat ears and cat eyes, you must be one of Yonhon-Hana's
ronin girls, out on training."
Nekoko nodded again. "Hai..."
Darla picked up a pot of peeled sweet potatoes and put it on the table.
"OK, ronin girl in training, practice cutting up these sweet potatoes"
Nekoko took the knife from Darla, placed the first potato in front
of her and started chopping. Darla thought for a moment.
"Speaking of shadowruns, I wanted to warn you about Denise."
Chop. Chop. Chop. Nekoko looked up. "Uh?"
"I don't know what her game is, but watch out for her."
Chop. Chop. "How does she know so much about street samurai?" Chop.
"Her older brother was a street tough. Got hired for a bit of nasty
biz. She adored him, so she followed him secretly. The deal went bad."
Chop. Chop. "So?" Nekoko asked. Chop. Chop.
"The others in the biz ran. Left him wounded badly. Denise saw it.
Ran to get help. Returned to find her brother dead. Ghouls had removed heart,
lungs and pancreas. He was too big to move. Else they'd taken the body."
Chop. Chop. "OWWW!" Nekoko shouted. "Cut myself." She put her finger
in her mouth.
"Denise swore revenge on the other shadowrunners. She wants someone to
kill those who left her brother behind. You keep this in mind, ronin girl."
Nekoko, finger in her mouth, nodded.
Darla took the knife from Nekoko and continued to slice. Nekoko stepped
away and turned to sit down in the chair.
"Ow!"
"Now what?"
"I just tried to sit on my spiked gloves," answered Nekoko, rubbing her
butt. She picked up the gloves and put them into the pockets of the coat. "I'd
better go help Ratz before I kill myself in here." She picked up the coat.
As Nekoko passed under the curtains, she heard Darla's voice. "Don't
forget, ronin girl, a cat in wolf's clothing..."
That night, the crowd was made of equal parts. Street samurai, varied
in looks, dress, attitude. Corporate samurai, swaggering, loose jackets with
company logos, alike in their arrogance. And finally, the sararimen, neat and
tidy in their black suits, small company pins, wishing they had gone home
instead. Nekoko was still dressed in armor vest, unitards, and long coat, the
coat tightly buttoned. At Ratz's insistence, the H & K nestled against her
back, poking her in the neck every time she straightened out. Nekoko thought
it awkward, but she watched Ratz stay close to the scattergun under the bar.
Another round of Sapporo beer to the table at the back. Nekoko caught
hints of conversation, suggestions that the corporate soldiers were worried
about their future.
"...So I says, 'Tadaka-san, when can I have my next reflex upgrade?' And
he says, 'maybe you should wait.' Wait? It's not his butt out here on the
streets, protecting Fukara property..."
Nekoko reached for the empties. Another samurai with the dragon logo
of Dai-Ryuu spoke. "Same here. We're cutting back as well. No replacements,
no trainees, no additional expenditures. Anyone know what's going down?"
As Nekoko turned away, another muttered. "Probably, they'll go out
to the streets and subcontract security work. Damn street rats..."
Nekoko was returning to the bar with the empties when she caught
sight of Denise. Denise was talking to a tall gaunt street tough, tattered
leather jacket, twin spiked mohawks and small pig eyes. They sat in a booth
near the front, deep in conversation. Nekoko thought for a moment that the
street tough's eyes were following her around the room.
From the booths in back, a call for a round of Kirin draft and a
whiskey sour. Beers in hand, Nekoko passed a woman, tall and orange-red haired,
with a air of authority about her; she wondered if the woman might be cop.
More calls for beer. Nekoko hurried the Kirin bottles to the booth.
"...Anyone get closer to that ARES site down in Portland? I heard that
a team just wandering by got picked up by corporate guys. Getting damn hard to
do anything in this town..."
Nekoko placed the Kirin bottles in front of the short street samurai
with the shaved head, rusty nail earrings and glossy black leathers. The
samurai looked up at her, then continued. "I mean, whose team has gotten
squat out of the corp's in the last few weeks. The corp's are wired down
tighter than a woman's heart. Oh, excuse me, honey..." He looked up at Nekoko
again. "Hey, honey, why you dressed up like that. I like my waitresses more...
accessible..."
Nekoko looked down at the samurai. He was peeling the horse-dragon
logo off the Kirin bottle. His neighbors watched the corporate samurai on the
other side of the bar. "Ratz expects trouble. I'm packing armor. Let's
keep this our secret" She gave him a wink, turned and stalked away.
"So, anyway, I guess the corp's are giving all our jobs to the
corp's own troops..." The street samurai continued.
When Nekoko got back to the bar, Ratz put a hand on hers. "How's it
going, Nekoko?"
"Tense, but unless someone does something stupid, we should get
through the night. I think."
"Maybe..."
"I wonder if Li's kidnapping has something to do with tonight's
unrest."
"Probably. That's why those street fighters are more nervous than
usual. Don't do anything to set these people off. Please." Ratz lifted his
hand. Nekoko put another six bottles of beer and a vodka on her tray. Another
round for the table near the front.
Half-way there, the street tough talking to Denise stood up, a quick
and smooth motion. "Wait," he shouted. Nekoko half-turned to look at him.
"Eh.."
"You wiped out our shadowrun team. You and those bastards from Keikaku,
you double-crossed us. Now you die."
"WHAT?" Nekoko faced him now. Her ears stood up. Her eyes wide.
With a fast blur, he had his gun out, at firing position. Nekoko could
see the black hole of the Beretta 9mm line up with the glint of gold in his
right eye, the gold of a Zeiss-Ikon cyber-eye. She dropped the tray with a
crash, bottles shattering, beer spilling around her feet.
"Well, how does it feel, corporate scum? Denise's brother dead, Rico
blinded, Mandall losing an arm. Did you get paid extra?"
Nekoko saw his speed when he pulled out the gun. She could not
reach her submachinegun, now poking at her back. She would not be able to
dodge his shot. She looked at him. Denise sat behind him, a crazy smile on
her face. The crowd in the Chatsubo was silent, watching the two of them.
"Or was just part of the job? Denise told me how her brother died. That
you set up the double-cross. Do you get paid extra for geeking a street rat?"
Nekoko's ears twitched. She wanted to ask, Denise, what have you
done?
"Say sayoonara, baby..."
A roar, and Nekoko was punched in the chest, hard. Her eyes closed,
she saw red haze, stars. Another roar, another tremendous punch to the chest,
followed quickly by a rolling of thunder. Nekoko forced her teary eyes open,
fought for breath. The street tough was gone, a bloody mass of bright blood,
pink bones, dark red tissue. Nekoko dropped to her knees, dizzy. She coughed.
Two slugs dropped onto the floor; she barely heard them. The air was filled
with the smell of propellant. She looked up to see smoke rising from about
twenty-five guns. The corporate and street samurai glared at each other; some
of the guns were being raised again into firing position.
As if from a far distance, she heard Ratz yelling, 'No guns! No guns!'
She giggled to herself and dropped her head again. Fat lot of good that would
do now. She lifted one hand. It was bloody, cut from the shattered glass.
Somewhere above her, Denise was laughing. Nekoko wiped her face, smearing the
blood across her eyes, nose, mouth. Someone slapped Denise, Nekoko heard the
noise, then Denise's giggling. There was sudden rush for the door, sararimen
deciding they've seen enough adventure, wanna be's wanting to be elsewhere,
corporate samurai not wanting to be involved.
"One dead, three to go. One dead, three to go." Denise hiccuped.
Nekoko looked up at Denise's mad face and looked away. Behind Denise, Darla
stood in the kitchen doorway, a assault rifle ready. Around Nekoko, guns were
being returned to holsters, tension eased. The woman in orange-red hair was at
the street tough's corpse, probing it with a pen or pointed instrument. She
turned and looked at Nekoko carefully. Nekoko put her hand to her breasts,
feeling the two holes in the coat, the small dents in her armor. The area was
sore now, a dull throb. It would probably hurt more later.
"Nekoko?" asked someone.
She giggled. She could not keep her clothes free of bullet holes.
Strange. With some effort, she stood up. Still giddy, she collapsed in the
nearest chair. Denise leaned over her from somewhere. "Thank you, oh thank
you. Can you do it again? Can you? There's a guy over on Madison and 9th..."
Someone dragged Denise away.
"Here, this might help." Darla gave Nekoko a glass of brandy. The
sharp, aromatic fluid made her cough, starting more painful twinges from her
breasts. "Lucky that Denise made you buy that armor today." Nekoko narrowed
her eyes, flattened her ears, and glared at Darla. "Come along. I think you
should go to bed." Darla took Nekoko by the arm, and took her upstairs.
Darla eased off the long coat, the dented armor vest, the belt and one
boot, and rolled Nekoko into her makeshift bed. Nekoko turned over and looked
up at Darla. "Why did everyone shoot him? I mean, they could have just not
bothered to do anything..."
Darla finished pulling off the other boot. "Everyone was nervous.
Most of those guys downstairs have enhanced reflexes. And the reflex to
someone shooting is to shoot. Remember that too, my cat in wolf's clothing."
Darla patted Nekoko on the head, and left. Nekoko could hear Darla's footsteps
descending the old stairway.
A few minutes later, Nekoko again heard footsteps on the stairway.
Darla returned with a pot of warm water, several strips of clean cloth, a
towel, and some cotton puffs. Nekoko sat up, leaning her back against a case
of Korean gin. "Here, let's clean you up some." After washing Nekoko's face
with the wet towel, Darla took Nekoko's hand, and dipped it into the water,
staining the water pink. Then she took the cotton swabs and started to clean
out the cuts.
"He was so... fast..." Nekoko began.
"Enhanced reflexes, just like I told you." Darla applied some
antibiotics to the palm of Nekoko's hand. "You need them to survive a fight
against another street fighter. You were lucky he decided to use a peashooter."
Darla wound a strip of cloth around Nekoko's hand. "Had he used APDS ammo or a
bigger pistol, we'd be dumping your body out back for the scavengers."
"How can I..."
"Think. Use your head. I was a corporate samurai for Kansy-Waffen for
ten years. Quit the corp to start cooking. Safer. Never got enhanced reflexes.
Survived by using my head. You can too." Darla gathered her stuff.
Nekoko was silent for a moment, thinking.
"Denise, what happened to her?"
"She broke free from the guy holding her, and ran out of the Chatsubo,
waving a ARES Predator, screaming something about 9th and Madison..."
"What!?" Nekoko almost shouted.
"We wondered where she had gotten the pistol..."
Nekoko jumped up out of her makeshift bed. She knelt next to her
rucksack, pulling clothes and other junk out. "Shimatta!" She cursed.
"What's the matter," Darla began.
Nekoko turned her head to Darla. "Denise got my pistol. She's crazy.
She's out at night, unprotected, to kill some guy at 9th and Madison..."
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Nekoko ran down the sidewalk, long coat flapping. She held the H & K
in front of her, the strap over her shoulders, trying to keep the gun steady.
Her chest was still sore, her hand stiff in its bandages. Only a few people
saw her run, shadowrunners out on a job, drunks too stoned to seek cover,
druggies too gone to notice. She felt the weight of the vest armor, the
movement of her shoulder epaulets. She heard the slap slap slap of her boots
on the pavement. She took short even breaths.
The night was warm. Clouds over her kept the city heat in, reflected
the city lights.
Darla had tried to keep her in the Chatsubo, had tried to warn her
of the stupidity of following Denise into the Sprawl night. Nekoko had
refused to listen, pulling her armor on again. Several clips of 9mm ammo
in her long coat and she had run down the stairs, taking several steps at time.
Nekoko ran past several patrons in the bar and out the Chatsubo door. Ratz
had opened his mouth, but she was gone before he could say anything.
Nekoko ran. The street descended down another one of Seattle's hills.
The slope lent her more speed. She ran past decrepit buildings, boarded up
stores, burned out apartments. Sometimes, as she passed a doorway, she saw
eyes staring out at her. Occasionally, she would pass a burning trash barrel
with several derelicts surrounding it, armed with clubs and boards. They
would scatter, afraid of anyone running in the Sprawl.
The sidewalk climbed another hill. Nekoko slowed to a walk, ascending.
She could hear her regular deep breathing, and the distant wail of a police
siren. The clouds muffled the regular roar of the city. The street was
dark, lit only at irregular intervals by dim flickering street lamps. At the
top of the low hill, Nekoko stopped and listened.
She flicked a ear. Faintly, she could hear screaming. She ran down
the hill, her gun thumping against her breastplate. At the bottom of the
hill, a bent street sign read '9th Street'. Nekoko looked up and down the
street, nothing. More faint screams, sobbing, cries for help. Nekoko circled
the intersection, looking.
At her feet, a manhole cover had been removed. Wet footprints told
her something had recently returned to the sewers. A faint glow showed
below her. Wrinkling her nose at the smell, Nekoko descended the manhole
ladder. At the bottom of the ladder, the light was stronger to the left.
There was a faint murmur of voices, hushed and urgent. Nekoko slipped the
H & K's shoulder strap off and flipped off the safety.
She looked at her feet. She was standing in a few inches of fetid,
stinking water. Above her, the concrete walls curved, grey, slimy, with
rust stains running down to the water. The water itself, oily, turbid, was
partially covered in a pale foam, in which shoals of styrofoam chunks floated.
The air was heavy with smell of urine, oil, and the sweet-sour stink of
rotting meat.
Nekoko slowly walked to the light and sound of the voices, submachinegun
at ready. The sound of the voices was interrupted by a sudden, short scream,
then silence. Nekoko raised the muzzle of her H & K.
As she approached the voices, the water at her feet got deeper. She
sloshed through the filthy runoff, her feet cold and clammy. The water got
deeper, half-way up her calves, flowing sluggishly past her. Nekoko used the
stock of her submachine gun to push aside the bloated corpse of a rat. Now
she could make out what the voices were saying.
"Quick, Marko, get me the cutters. Jon, where's the harvest boxes."
Nekoko rounded a corner, and stepped up out of the water into a larger
room, lit by several battery-powered lights. She was temporarily blinded.
When she put a hand over her eyes, Nekoko saw several ragged men look up
from Denise's body. She tightened her grip on the H & K.
"Cripes, there's someone out there.."
"Shit.."
They scattered. Someone pulled out a pistol and shot wildly. Nekoko
quickly jumped back to the corner of the sewer, back down into the turbid
cold water. She reached around the corner with her H & K and pulled the
trigger. Crashes of sound echoed from the water. Flashes from the muzzle lit
up the narrow sewer. Nekoko stopped shooting. More shots from the room. Two
or three bullets whistled past her, spanking the far wall of the sewer.
"Hey girl, go away. she's dead already," a voice spoke.
"Baka! Baka yarou! " Nekoko shouted. "Leave her alone..."
"There's nothing you can do. Go away and let us finish."
"Go away yourself," Nekoko sobbed. "She was my friend..."
Another voice, deeper answered. "She was no friend. I know who you
are, cat-girl. She betrayed you. I saw the whole affair in the Chatsubo. Let
us harvest our organs."
"Bitch! The longer we wait, the less we get for the organs." came the
first voice.
Nekoko reached around with her gun and fired again. More crashing
thunder echoed from the walls. More flashes.
"Why?" Nekoko shouted.
"The money, cat-girl." The deeper voice answered.
"We're not all as rich as you are, Little Miss Cat. Go back to where
you came from; leave us alone." The first voice echoed from the sewer walls.
"Where do you think transplant organs come from, cat-girl? Those
living saving drugs. The body parts in the street clinics? Mega-corps pay for
fresh body parts. But only if they're fresh." Deep voice said. The voice was
silent for a moment. "Forget this girl. No one's gonna miss her." Deep voice
continued. "She's a nobody."
Nekoko leaned against the cold concrete wall. "I don't think you're
even human..." She started to move around the corner. Another wave of bullets
from the ghouls stopped her. Then she heard the pistol click. Empty. She
leaned away from the corner, swapped out the empty ammo clip, loaded a fresh
clip, and climbed up into the room.
"Game's over." Nekoko said, walking into the light. She aimed the H & K
into the dark corners of the room.
"You took my pistol off the girl. I'd like my ARES Predator back,"
she shouted when she reached the center of the room. The pistol came sailing
out of the dark corner. Nekoko put up a hand, caught it, and tucked it into
her coat. She looked down at Denise's corpse. Denise's neck was broken, her
head lay at an odd angle. Some of Denise's clothes had been removed, readying
her body for cutting. Denise's body looked small, innocent, abandoned. Nekoko
looked down through tears. A pair of white plastic boxes stood next to her,
their LED's flashing. Thin tendrils of cold liquid nitrogen vapor coiled from
the corners of the boxes.
"Saynoora, Denise...." Nekoko said sadly.
She stepped back, closed her eyes, and pulled the trigger on the
H & K. She walked a hail of bullets up along Denise, destroying her body. From
the dark corners came wails of anguish. A pair of shots exploded the white
boxes. Nekoko rested the warm H & K against her shoulder, smiled for a second,
and walked back to the sewer. Behind her, as she walked away, she heard only,
"Bitch....."
Nekoko could not remember the walk back to the Chatsubo. She stumbled
through the door, collapsed in a nearby chair. Ratz was stacking chairs on
tables. The only other person in the bar was Blackjack. A musician, thin,
clean-shaven face, brown eyes, dark wavy hair, he was sitting at the back
leaning over a grey keyboard, quietly playing a song with a bluesy feeling.
Nekoko looked down at her unitards and boots, stinking of the sewers. Ratz
came over and looked down on her.
"Did you find her? Darla said you went to look for her."
Nekoko nodded. "She's dead. The ghouls got to her first," she said
flatly.
"Ah, perhaps it's for the best. She was mad at the end, you know..."
Nekoko just nodded. She turned to look in the mirror behind the bar.
She looked the same. Golden cat eyes, cat ears, heavy blonde hair. And yet,
she was not the same woman she had been several days ago.
She got up and walked to the back of the bar. Ratz continued to stack
chairs. When she got near Blackjack, he stopped playing and looked at her.
Nekoko sat down in a chair, pulled up a leg, cupped her hands on her knee and
put her chin on her hands.
"Don't stop. Play. Play something sad." She flicked her ears once.
Blackjack played the blues. Nekoko sat, her mind far away.
After a few songs, Blackjack stopped. "Do you want to talk?" he asked.
Nekoko lifted her head from her knee. "You know, a few days ago, I was
a charter helicopter pilot, making my own way, paying my bills. Nothing big,
but I was getting by. Now, I've just mutilated a corpse to keep it out of the
hands of ghouls. I was shot this evening and the guy who tried to kill me
is out back, waiting to be scavenged. My apartment was cleaned out by the
cops. I'm broke. ARES wants me dead. The cops want me dead. Yonhon-Hana just
doesn't want me. A woman I thought a friend used me. What is happening? Why is
this city so crazy?" Nekoko flicked her ears again. "Please play some more."
Blackjack closed his eyes, leaned over his keyboard and played. Nekoko
returned her head to her knee. She continued. "When I was learning to fly,
everything was so clean, so technical, so precise. It was fun."
Nekoko's ears drooped.
Blackjack stopped again. He leaned back in his chair. "Woman, you're
a soldier in a strange war. A war in which the fighters often cannot see who
the enemy is, or who is a friend. Right now, you're on the front lines, in the
trenches. And the trenches are always the worst place to be." He refused to
say more, returning to the music.
Nekoko nodded. She sat quietly. Finally she got up, thanked Blackjack
and started for her bed in the stockroom. Ratz began to say something, but
stopped after looking into Nekoko's face. She clumped up the stairs and fell,
fully clothed, into bed.
Morning came with the sound of Ratz pounding on the stockroom door.
"Nekoko, get up. I need to get in there." Nekoko stretched. She was stiff,
kinked, and uncomfortable from sleeping in her clothes.
"Chotto matte, " Nekoko said. "Wait a moment." She stood up, reached
into the pile of clothes next to the rucksack, pulled out a shirt, her last
clean skirt and some other stuff. "OK, I'm up."
Ratz walked quickly through the room, picked up a case of Jack Daniels
and descended the stairs. Nekoko followed him down the stairs and turned into
the kitchen. Darla turned from the pot on the stove.
"What happened to you? You look awful. Here, take this," giving
Nekoko a plastic bucket, "go into the kitchen's washroom, and wash up. After
you've changed, use the bucket to wash those clothes; they smell terrible."
Nekoko came out of the kitchen's washroom, refreshed and clean. Her
dirty clothes, now washed, were drying in the washroom. She wore her 'Laura
Palmer died for your sins' T-shirt, a skirt and slip-ons. Darla nodded in
approval and pointed Nekoko at the huge pile of dirty dishes. She stepped
over to the sink and began. As the pile of clean dishes grew, Nekoko thought
about last night. Running out of the Chatsubo, full armor, submachinegun
and no backup. Descending into a sewer, a possible trap. Stepping up into
the room with the ghouls. Nekoko carefully put the dry plate back onto the
countertop; she was starting to shake. She must have been mad, as mad as
Denise was, to run into the Sprawl's night.
"Nekoko." Ratz called from out in the bar.
Nekoko turned around.
"Could you come out here?"
Nekoko dried her hands on the dish towel and slipped out of the
kitchen. Ratz was talking to a slender man, black-haired, polite, dressed
in smooth black glossy leathers. He looked to be somewhat older than most
of the Chatsubo's regular, his age showing in soft lines at his eyes and
at the corner's of his mouth. As Nekoko came out of the kitchen, he turned
and smiled.
"Nekoko, this is Argent. He's had some medical experience, more
than Darla's. I think he should check what Darla did last night." Ratz said.
"Eh..." Nekoko started. She reached out her bandaged hand.
"Better let me look at that..." Argent said. He had a soft clear
voice. "Battlefield dressings are only to get the patient to a hospital.
Come over in the light. Sit down."
Argent put a strong hand on Nekoko's shoulder and urged her into
a chair. He sat down across from her, took her hand, and with a gentle
touch, began to untie Darla's bandage.
"Heard you chased after Denise last night. Any luck?" Argent asked.
"No. Ghouls got there first..."
Argent unwound the dirty cloth. "Anything you could do?"
"No. Nothing. Except... Make sure they could not profit by the crime."
The final cloth was pulled off her hand. Argent reached into his
jacket and pulled out a thin soft packet. He unfolded it, revealing a set
of instruments, salves, ampules, and other medical supplies. After studying
Nekoko's hand for a moment, Argent opened another tube, and smeared its
contents unto a wide syn-skin bandage.
"So you..." He prompted.
"I emptied my clip into Denise's body. It was the only thing I
could think of. I didn't want them to cut her up like that."
Argent started suddenly. He squeezed the tube extra-hard. Salve
squirted out, covered his hand, the new bandage, the knees of his leathers.
With a soft curse, Argent began to wipe up the excess salve. Nekoko, her
thoughts elsewhere, didn't notice.
"Why do they do it? Why Denise? What for?" Nekoko asked. "I asked
them that. They just told me to get lost."
Argent finished cleaning off his leathers. "Body parts. There is
always a market for body parts. Clinics, hospitals, research labs,
mega-corps. At first, they relied on donors. But there were never enough.
Then they paid rewards to next-of-kin. Now, they don't ask too much of the
people bringing in the bodies or the harvest boxes." He pulled Nekoko's
hand onto his lap. "This might sting a bit." Argent slapped the syn-skin
bandage onto Nekoko's palm, smoothing it out with his fingers.
"IIItaaaiiii" Nekoko said through gritted teeth. Her ears lay
flat against her head for a moment. Her eyes watered.
"Yeah, it does hurt for a moment. It'll go away." Argent assured her.
"As for Denise, she was foolish or mad enough to run into her death. You
do, repeat, do not run around after dark without a strong backup team. Now,
let's see your chest."
Nekoko pulled her T-shirt away from her skin. Argent looked at the
bruising for a moment, then reached back into the thin packet. "This'll
help the reduce the swelling." He gave her another tube of ointment. "I'll
let you apply it." He smiled gently. "Keep that hand dry for a few days.
No dishwashing, hear?"
Nekoko nodded. "How much?" She asked.
Argent looked up from repacking his thin packet. "Oh, nothing. You
just owe me a favor one of these days."
"Arigato, Argent, arigato gozaimasu..."
Argent opened his jacket and put the packet into an inside pocket.
He stood up and glanced at Ratz, who was rinsing glasses at the bar.
"Argent?" Nekoko asked.
"Yes?" He turned to look at her.
"Somehow, I still feel guilty about Denise. If only I had know earlier.
If I had run faster. If I been there to kill those bastards first..."
For a moment, Argent put a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Nekoko closed her eyes and sighed.
He ducked to fit under the Chatsubo door, folding his antenna
over his back to avoid losing them on the door jamb. He had to duck; he
stood about 3 meters tall, humanoid, a cyborg in metallic blue armor, three
lenses for eyes, metal claws for hands, split metal hooves for feet. Heavy,
massive, huge. As he moved slowly through the crowd in the bar, conversations
stuttered to a halt, beer bottles returned to the table, eyes turned and
stared. His 'head' was two rounded plates of ceramic armor, seperated by a
gap in which lenses glittered. His head bristled with sensors and antenna. He
turned his sensors onto Ratz and spoke, a deep brittle voice, generated
somewhere in his chest.
"A table, a sturdy chair and a cold one."
Ratz walked around the bar, and pointed the cyborg to a table near
the back. "I'll get you a beer barrel to sit on. What do you weigh, anyway?"
"About 341 kg. That's about 750 pounds."
Ratz shook his head in amazement. He rolled out a barrel from the
backroom and set it up next to the table. "My girl will be out in a moment.
I'll send her over with your beer." Ratz turned back to the bar.
After a short while, the patrons in the bar started to ignore the
cyborg. They returned to their drinking, their boasting, their idle threats
against the street, the mega-corps, and each other. They did not forget him.
Every so often, someone would look at the massive cyborg, then quickly look
away. The cyborg put his arms on the table, making the table creak under the
weight.
"Nekoko," shouted Ratz. "Front."
Nekoko rushed out of the kitchen, tossing a wet towel behind her.
Skirts and a shirt with a bullet hole, soft boots and a ribbon tying her
blonde hair into a low long ponytail. Nekoko stopped at the bar. Ratz pressed
a bottle of Budweiser in her hands and pointed her at the cyborg's table.
She walked over to the table, popped the bottle on the table, put her hands
behind her back and stared.
Nekoko saw that the cyborg's skin was smooth plates of ceramic armor,
joined together with interlocking shapes like those in the bones of the skull.
His joints were flat machined sockets, sliding over overlapping shapes. Small
vents on his back blew warm air past her hair. She stared at the small openings
for recessed guns, the lifting hooks mounted at his shoulders, the mounts on
his arms for heavy armament. The German Imperial Eagle was stenciled on either
side of his shoulders. The cyborg turned his 'head' and noticed her steady
flat look.
"Got a problem, katze-fraulein?" He said, looking at her carefully.
Nekoko's cat ears twitched once.
"Never seen a combat-cyborg before, richtig?" He snapped the top off
the beer bottle with a twist of his claws. "Got a straw on you?"
"Eh..." Nekoko said. She reached into her apron and dropped a straw
onto the table. The cyborg extended a pair of fine feelers from his left
claw, picked up the straw and inserted it into the bottle. He lifted the
bottle with the straw to her, said, "Prost," and sipped beer from the
straw, using a small opening underneath his three lenses.
"Can't you drink beer from the bottle?" Nekoko finally asked.
The cyborg put the bottle on the table. "No. No lips. Can't smile.
Can't drink beer from a bottle. Can't kiss the girls." He turned the three
lenses on Nekoko. "I'm supposed to be human. Was once. Now I'm this. This
machine. A combat-cyborg." He reached out a massive claw, tipped with thick
shiny steel fingers. "Name's Gunther Eichsfeld. German Imperial Marines."
Nekoko steeled herself to take the cold metallic fingers. Her hand
disappeared completely within the Marine's claw. She settled for putting
her hand around one of the three fingers. They shook.
"Namen wa Nekoko desu. Hajimemashite." She said. Then she quickly
pulled back her hand, trying to warm it again by enfolding it within her
other hand. "How did you become a cyborg?" She asked. "If I may ask?" She
quickly added.
"Simple enough. Joined up to see the world. They needed cyborgs,
so I become a cyborg in Hannover. They put my brain into this armor, and I
was ready to take on anything. It was a good feeling. I could take out any
vehicle. Carry a 105mm tank gun as a personal firearm. Beat up any man alive."
Gunther picked up the bottle with the straw in it, sipped it.
"I hadn't done much in life yet. No girlfriends. No outside interests. Just
wanted to be a soldier." He tossed the empty bottle against the back wall. The
bottle screamed across the room like a missle, shattered against the back wall
with a loud explosion. The crowd in the bar ducked, waiting for the gunfire.
"Enschuldigung. Sorry. I still keep forgetting my strength. Another
bottle and keep them coming."
Nekoko jumped and sped back to the bar. After talking to Ratz, she
loaded the tray and carried back a six bottles of Kirin.
"You know I can not get drunk? All the alcohol is routed to my water
extractor? Used to refill and cool my fuel cells," the cyborg rumbled.
Nekoko was puzzled. "Then why the beer?"
"I can fool myself into thinking I can get drunk." He snapped off the
top of the next bottle. "Besides, my body uses the carbohydrates."
Nekoko could only nod. She was puzzled.
Gunther shifted his massive weight. "Besides, no one would want to
be near a 340 kilogram cyborg if he was really drunk."
Nekoko thought he might be joking, but the expression on the lenses
was fixed, rigid. She started to become uncomfortable talking to the cyborg;
the body language was missing, wrong or missing. She edged away, but Gunther
noticed her restlessness.
"Scared now, aren't you? Like talking to the living dead, richtig?"
He rumbled. "I have gotten used to it, kitty-cat. Twelve years campaigning. The
Euro-Wars. Riots. Massacres. I have seen it all. One scared little girl is
not going to bother me." He squeezed the bottle lightly. It shattered, covering
the table top with glass shards. "I may not look human, but you aren't
completely human yourself." He pulled another bottle from the table and snapped
off the top. "I am just the final result of cyberware, kitty-cat. You may yet
follow me this way, if you want to be a real soldier."
Nekoko shook her head. "IIe. No." Her ears flattened.
"Did not think so. Too high a price, richtig?" He sipped at his beer.
Nekoko looked up at the cyborg's sensor array. "Price?"
"The price is what you pay to be better than the others. To be
different. It might be just money. Or your friends and family. Or your body.
Or who you are. It depends. It depends on what you want to be. And how badly."
Nekoko looked at the table top, covered with the shattered glass
shards.
"So, becoming a cyborg is too high a price for you? Even though you
can see the advantages? And yet, you have those eyes, those ears. Don't people
ever give you problems? Are your eyes and ears worth the price, kitty-cat?"
His antenna stood up, leaning toward her. "Why did you do it? To be different
from the others..."
"I am a ronin from Yohan-Hana..." Nekoko began.
"I know about Yohan-Hana," Gunther interrupted. "I know that some,
mind you, some of their people change their appearance. Not all. Not required."
"It marks us as being from Yohan-Hana." Nekoko insisted.
"True. But that is a benefit, not a reason. Let me guess. Do not say
anything. You just wanted to be different. Yourself. A woman unlike the others
in her school. Not like the others in her training program. I know, kitty-cat.
I wanted to be better, tougher than the others. I was willing to pay the
price. How many in your class changed their appearance? How many wanted to be
different, to be unique?"
"Eh..." Nekoko stuttered.
"Richtig. I thought so." He laughed again, a deep rumbling from the
base of his armor.
Nekoko looked away, her ears flicking backward and forward.
"But you are willing to pay the price for wearing cat ears and cat
eyes. Even though there are no advantages, outside of being different? That is
a strange logic."
Gunther reached across the table for the next bottle. "What about the
cyberware in a street samurai? The enhanced reflexes, built-in cyber-spurs,
the forearm pistols. Each an advantage. Each worth paying the price. I can see
you are not interested? Why?"
"I think that each cyberware implant makes you a little less human..."
Nekoko said petulantly.
"I see. So I'm not human at all. I see..." Gunther paused for a
moment.
Nekoko blushed. "Oops. Sumimasen. Sorry."
"I see. But I am a better soldier than the street samurai. My cyborg
body allows me to take 10 Gs without blacking out. Breath vacuum. Carry a
phase-laser and the power supply for days. Nein, kitty cat. Cyborgs are the
real soldiers. Have been for twenty years."
Nekoko shook her head. "But you're not as fast as street samurai..."
Gunther laughed, a unsettling rumbling from his chest. "Wrong.
Faster. And we don't tire, as long as there is energy from the fuel cells."
"So, why haven't we heard more about cyborgs?" Nekoko asked.
Gunther used both sets of claws and crushed the empty bottle to sand.
He opened his claws to let the sand trickle out. "There are not enough of us
anyway. You saw the price we pay. Not too many want to pay the price. I did."
Nekoko looked across the room, at the crowd of street samurai,
wannabes, sararimen, at the smoke rising from cigarettes, joints, and pipes.
She caught glimpses, a short street tough in red demin, black hair, chrome
eyes, a razorgirl, heavy, almost fat, Kelvar breastplate and baggy jeans. A
tall gaunt man, black metal covering his arms, shaved head and tattoes. And
more, strange denizens of a shadowy world.
Nekoko pointed to a one-armed woman, her hair spiked, dirty blouse,
black leather pants and glinting knives. "I think you are wrong, Gunther.
These are the soldiers of the today. As you said, there are not enough
cyborgs. The price of being a cyborg is too high, to ever play much of a role
in the world. Only a few governments can afford the time and people to make a
cyborg. And I think, perhaps, the governments don't matter much anymore..."
Gunther made a uncomfortable noise. Then he reached for the last bottle.
"True. And enough rats can pull down even the most mighty man. Good point."
"Nekoko." Ratz shouted.
Nekoko looked up. "What?"
"Stop flirting with the customers," Ratz shouted. "There's people
waiting."
"Oops. Sumimasen. Sorry." Nekoko winced. She turned and hurried back
to the bar. Ratz turned and handed Nekoko another tray of bottles of Asahi Lager
and glasses of Nikka Whiskey.
"Keep moving, girl." Ratz growled. "Biz is good tonight. There are
dry throats out there."
Nekoko balanced the tray with a little difficulty. As she walked to a
back table, she passed the cyborg, still sitting at his table, staring at a
bottle in his claws. At the back table, she put down two bottles of beer, took
some nuyen and made change.
"I wonder what's he doing in Seattle," Nekoko mused.
She balanced the tray and walked to the next table. She thought about
Gunther's comments on the price of being unique. Yes, she had been one
blonde child in a sea of look-alike blondes as a young child, a result of
genetic manipulation for beautiful children. The teachers had joked that
without the nametags, they would not be able to tell the children apart.
"Here," she said, as she passed a glass of whisky to a man in mottled
green leather.
At primary school, she was just another child, another girl in the
school's uniform, the typical blue and white sailor suit. Conformity was
prized, with those unfortunate enough to be different being teased and
bullied. She had been lucky enough to avoid 'ijime', the systematic and
relentless acts of cruelty that schoolmates used against those not fitting in.
"That'll be three nuyen, please."
The man in the mottled green put a five nuyen note on her tray and
waited for his change.
Nekoko gritted her teeth and began searching, slowly, through her
apron pockets for smaller change.
Boarding school was the same, uniforms, conformity, and pressure to
succeed. Grey concrete walls, ill-heated classrooms, teachers too busy with
education to care.
"Hey, aren't you going to leave a napkin?" The man in mottled green
asked.
Nekoko whipped out a paper napkin and dropped it in the man's lap.
She waited until he reached down to pick it up. She pulled down her left
lower eyelid with her finger and stuck out her tongue at him, a rude face she
learned in school.
"Kono yarou" she muttered under her breath. He was still reaching for
the napkin under the table.
Yohan-Hana was a year of military training, barracks, physical
hardship. Nekoko was happy to be learning, happy to be learning to fly. But
she had begun to resist against attempts to mold her into a corporate mold. It
started after she returned from the surgery. The cat ears and eyes made her
unique in her class, something she never had been before. Her resistance began
with small things at first, quietly asking questions. Nekoko thought that this
is why she might have been assigned to Seattle, not one of the prize locations
like San Francisco, Osaka, Sendai, Nagasaki, or Chiba.
"Anything else?" she asked sweetly as the man in mottled green sat up
again.
He shook his head no.
As Nekoko turned her back on the man in mottled green, she felt the
pressure of his hand running across her butt. "Chikan..." She thought. "A
pervert as well..."
"Ano hito..." Nekoko muttered to Ratz as she returned to the bar for
refills.
"What?" Ratz said.
"That man..." Nekoko continued, loading her tray with the bottles and
shot glasses already on the bar. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the
cyborg was still sitting at his table. She turned to look at the cyborg. Ratz
followed her glance. Then he reached down and pulled out another set of beer
bottles.
"Better bring the cyborg some more. He's keeping the bar quiet tonight."
Nekoko took the bottles on her tray. "I wonder why he's in Seattle."
"Whatever you do, Nekoko, don't ask him."
"Wonder if he's looking for work. Can't be that much work for
soldiers today."
"Nekoko." Ratz warned. "Just bring him the beer, OK?"
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
Outside the Chatsubo, Nekoko leaned against a 'Priss and the
Replicants' concert poster, the cleanest part of the wall. She was waiting
for her anger to settle down. The bar had become too crowded, too hot, too
stuffy. A cold wind blew from the north, pulling at her long hair, making her
cat ears flutter. It wasn't a clean wind, but it was cleaner than the murk
inside the bar. The wind tugged at her skirt, rippling waves of light cloth.
Nekoko shivered once in the cold breeze. She had rushed out of the Chatsubo
without a coat or jacket. The neon lighting of the Chatsubo sign over her head
colored the street alternatively blue, red and white.
There had been three of them at that table, an older street tough and
two of his followers or companions, drunk, laughing at dirty jokes, raucous.
Nekoko had been bringing them refills all night, taking the empties, as they
had asked when they first arrived. With each trip to the table, the toughs
made increasingly indecent remarks and suggestions to her, snickering as she
tried to ignore them.
The night was cold and clear. Nekoko could see the stars above her,
hard, crisp, tiny pin-points of light. Her breath was little clouds of steam,
blown away by the bitter wind. Behind her, the wall slowly sucked warmth
from her back.
She had put the tray on the table, had put out the new bottles of beer,
and had picked up the first empty when the leader of the street toughs grabbed
her wrist. He murmured a disgusting come-on and tightened his grip. Nekoko
snapped her wrist out from between his thumb and fingers, then stepped back.
He stood up, reached for her again. One of his companions tried to
stop the leader, tried to talk to him, tried to make him sit down again.
Nekoko slapped away his hand and took another step back. Her ears flattened,
he burped, her eyes narrowed, his eyes lit up. He smiled. Ratz looked up from
the bar.
Nekoko took another step back, the empty bottle still in her hand.
He was much bigger now that he was standing, probably 250 pounds. She warned
him. He replied with an obscene curse and reached out towards her again. She
raised her hand, ready to parry another grab. Out of the corner of her eye,
Nekoko could see Ratz lean over and reach for his scattergun under the bar.
She shifted her weight, put her left foot behind her, balanced herself. Nekoko
studied the street tough carefully; where he put his weight, what would he do
next, how could she drop him.
Ratz shouted, waved the scattergun. The street tough stood for a
moment, glaring at Nekoko, then at Ratz. His followers shouted at him, pulled
at his sleeves, made him sit down. The leader belched and reached for the next
bottle. Nekoko turned and run for the Chatsubo front door.
The night was silent, with the only sounds the wind and the far away
muted roar of the city. The neon sign over her head, softly buzzed blue, red,
white. Nekoko looked down at her hands, still clutching the empty bottle of
Asahi Lager. Her hands were twisting the bottle, pulling at the label. She
was still mad. Had the street tough not sat down, she would have tried to
kill him. Her anger surprised her. She wondered if the anger was a result of
the frustration she felt in living in this hell hole of a city.
Nekoko heard footsteps approaching the bar. The footsteps stopped.
"Spare a few nuyen for a cup of 'cha?"
Nekoko looked up, then to her right where a man waited. She could not
judge his age, but he looked about forty, long black hair, unshaven, but a
tenuous smile on his face. He had a hawk-like nose, and deep lines around his
eyes and his forehead. He carried with him, an air of experience and wonder; a
man who had traveled and learned. His clothes, although clean, were threadbare,
faded, and patched. He carried a bedroll over one shoulder and a guitar on top
of the bedroll.
"A guitar?" Nekoko asked. She pricked up her ears. "Do you play?"
"In olden days, I'd be a bard or a storyteller. Now, I just travel. And,
yes, I play. Not many want to listen. They'd rather listen to keyboards and
fancy AI-based players. But I get by on my stories." He smiled, a warm and
generous grin, now that someone was interested.
"OK, bard, I'll trade you a cup of tea and ramen for a song or
an account of your travels." Nekoko put the empty bottle of beer in her apron.
"What's your name?"
"Ulysses. Because like him, I've traveled."
"Come inside. My name's Nekoko. I work here."
Nekoko pushed open the door of the Chatsubo and let him lead her
into the hot murky smoky bar. They passed quickly through the crowd, without
comment, and turned into the kitchen. Nekoko hooked a chair with a foot, pulled
it out and said, "Sit down. I'll pour a cup of tea and fill a bowl with ramen."
Ulysses dropped the bedroll under the chair and carefully placed the
guitar on the table.
Nekoko returned from the stove, placed the bowl of ramen on the table,
and set out a pair of cups for tea.
"This will do fine, it will..." Ulysses started. "What do you want?
Travels, stories or songs?"
"Travels. I have never been anywhere but Sakumento, San Francisco, and
this miserable stinking place. But finish your meal first." She poured out the
tea from an hot teapot.
Nekoko wiped her hands on the dish towel and sat down across from the
bard, watching him finish the bowl of ramen. He ate slowly, carefully, savoring
each spoonful. When he was done, he put down the spoon used to drain the last
of the soup, looked up, and smiled. "And now, an account of my travels."
Nekoko scooted her chair closer to the table.
Ulysses told briefly of his birthplace, the reasons he left it, and
why he had never returned. He told of the cities he had visited, how they
were crumbling, and the countryside, how it was sliding into darkness. "You can
go from here to the East Sprawl, and the biggest town has 4000 people. At
night, they lock up their homes, put out the lights and wait for daylight.
I have been told we are slipping into another Dark Ages."
Ulysses spoke of the strange people he had seen, people trying to
reconstruct medieval times, theocracies ruled by fascist leaders, communes,
back-to-nature freaks, anarchistic villages, and failed utopias. Some welcomed
him for his stories and songs of the outside world, others had chased him
away, scared of corrupting influences.
He told of the strange rites and rituals he had seen. Strange churches
had sprung up in the new wilderness, churches worshipping nature spirits, and
strange saints like Saint Elvis, who they said, rose from his grave in Memphis
and is still alive today.
"In the deserts that used to be Arizona and New Mexico, mega-corps
run their own towns, arcologies. The old cities are being salvaged for their
precious metals. Like Rome and Greece was..."
Nekoko sat at the table, her chin nestled in her palms, elbows on the
tabletop, listening with comment or question.
As he spoke, his eyes lit up with the joy of telling. He waved his
hands, raised and lowered his voice, sang snatches of overheard songs.
He told of his life with the wanderers in the desert, those nomads
that wander from ruin to ruin, poking through the remains for anything worth
salvaging. The East Sprawl, the single city that stretches from Atlanta to
Boston, sucking the people out of the hills of Kentucky, the valleys of Ohio,
the forests of New England, collect them in vast aging project buildings.
"We're gathering in walled cities again, bigger perhaps, but we're crowding
together to avoid what's outside there."
Nekoko poured another cup of tea. "You ever been to New Gifu or
any of the Japanese, Dutch or German arcologies? I'm supposed to be in New
Gifu in a few days."
"Been in New Gifu? No, but I've heard about those places. They won't
let anyone in who's not human enough. No cyberware, no implants, no guns, and
limits on surgically altered looks. You are probably all right..." He added to
Nekoko's nervous look. "New Gifu? Kinda strange place. Real tight security.
Looks nice, but I just wandered by..."
Darla stepped through the kitchen curtains. She stopped short as she
saw Ulysses sitting at the table. Nekoko and Ulysses looked up.
"Darla?" Nekoko started.
"Good evening madam, I'm Nekoko's storyteller." Ulysses smiled.
"Ulysses, you old faker!" Darla laughed. "Lemme guess. You gave her
the old cup of 'cha for a story routine, right?"
"Guilty as charged." Ulysses got up from the chair and stepped over
to give Darla a long hug. "Got into Seattle a day ago, and thought I'd
touch base with an old friend."
Nekoko looked back and forth. "You know each other?"
"Ulysses was my squad leader at Kansy-Waffen. Quit about the same time
I did. Wanted to see the country, right?" Darla gave Ulysses another hug.
Ulysses looked over Darla's head and winked at Nekoko. "Yeah."
"Nekoko, why don't you go give Ratz a hand. Ulysses and I have old
times to cover. Boring stuff. You won't be interested."
"Where's Darla?" Ratz asked of Nekoko as she entered the barroom.
"Busy. An old friend dropped in to visit."
"So then, Nekoko, you'll have to help me take out the garbage."
Nekoko cocked her head, pricked her ears. "Eh?"
"Go get the H & K, full clip, plastic bullets, set it on automatic,
and meet me at the back door."
Nekoko stared at Ratz. "Doshite?"
"Don't ask me why. Just do it." Ratz shouted. A few patrons turned
to look at the two of them.
Nekoko came down the narrow stairway, with her body armor buckled
over her shirt, pistol tucked into her skirt's waistband, carrying the
H & K 227 submachinegun and an extra clip. Ratz was standing at the bottom
of the stairway, next to several battered drums of garbage. Nekoko stopped
and put her fingers over her nose.
"Mo Iyaaa, Ratz. That stinks..."
Ratz turned to the back door. He began opening the locks and latches.
Nekoko stared, she had not remembered all these locks when she had arrived
a few nights ago. He stopped before opening the door, and turned to Nekoko.
"Nekoko, when I open this door, step outside slowly, and check if the
alley is empty. Shot only if someone starts to come too close. First, over
their head, then only if they don't stop, at them."
Nekoko nodded, and raised the muzzle of the submachine gun.
Ratz pulled open the last latch, yanked the door open and stepped
behind the heavy steel.
Nekoko looked out into the shadowy alley, its depths hidden by mist
rising from the alley surface. Nobody. She stepped outside, swept the
surroundings with the H & K. Quiet. Nothing here but the rusted hulk of the
dumpster next to the stained back wall of the Chatsubo. Another step and she
leaned over the top of the dumpster, finger pressed lightly against the
trigger. Nothing.
"Clear, Ratz." She shouted.
Ratz wheeled the first drum to the dumpster. As he tipped the
contents of the drum into the dumpster, the sound echoed up and down the alley.
Nekoko swung the muzzle of the H & K back and forth. Suddenly, she felt if
she and Ratz were being watched. Eyes opened somewhere out in the mist. Ratz
dropped the empty drum on the Chatsubo back door step.
"Ratz..." Nekoko kept repeating. "They're out there..."
"Nekoko," Ratz smiled. "They're always out there."
Nekoko nodded. The feeling of being watched was stronger now.
Ratz rolled out the next drum. Nekoko cocked her head, her ears
straight up, trying to locate the watchers. Ratz picked up the drum and poured
the contents into the dumpster. Now Nekoko noticed something stirring out
there in the shadows, dimly seen silhouettes in the mists.
Ratz dropped the drum next the other empty. "They'll be here in a
few moments, to scavenge the dumpster." He stepped inside the Chatsubo for the
next garbage drum.
Nekoko heard voices now. They sounded like dead leaves in the wind,
dry skittering whispers. Ratz reappeared with another full drum of garbage.
With a grunt, Ratz lifted the drum up to the dumpster.
"Hayaku, hayaku, hayaku..." Nekoko kept repeating. "Hurry, hurry."
"Last one, Nekoko," he said as he returned inside.
Nekoko could not see anything out in the mist. She heard the patter
of steps, a quick rush of sound, then silence, then another rush. More voices
echoed in the alley.
"Looks like this is going to be easier then I thought..." Ratz
muttered as he brought out the final garbage drum. "Usually, Darla is
shooting at them by now." He tipped the final drum into the dumpster, turned
and started to take the empties back into the Chatsubo.
Nekoko thought she saw a shadow move. There. It moved again. Another
shadow moved. Over there. She flicked on the laser sight. More shapes in the
mist, coming, approaching.
Ratz stepped outside for the last two empties. He looked down the
alley. He grabbed the empty drums. "Give them a short burst over their heads,
then follow me." He ran for the back door of the Chatsubo, dragging the empty
drums.
Nekoko fired the short burst, a roar, a blinding series of flashes in
the dark alley, then followed the bartender inside.
Ratz leaned against the heavy back door, pushing it shut. Nekoko
shot the latches home, pulled the locks closed.
From outside, they could hear savage shouts, screams, thuds as the
scavengers rushed the dumpster.
"Who. Or what. Who are they?" Nekoko asked, listening to the fury
outside.
"As I told you earlier, children..." Ratz replied. "Those children
abandoned by their parents, kids too young to join gangs, others who have
been cast out by their gangs. I'd guess they're about 7 through 17. Those
who survive to seventeen usually get recruited by gangs or become street
samurai. Sometimes, the mega-corps look amoung the children for new soldiers.
Most children don't make it to seventeen. It's real tough out there, living
from dumpsters and garbage."
Nekoko shuddered. Ratz turned and walked down the narrow hallway.
She followed and slipped under the curtains leading into the kitchen. Darla
looked up from her talk with Ulysses.
"Garbage?" Darla asked, seeing Nekoko's body armor and the H & K 227.
Nekoko nodded.
"Ratz fill you in on the children?"
Nekoko nodded again.
"He mention that he leaves extra food rations in the garbage?" Darla
smiled. "Stuff that just 'happens' to get thrown out?"
Nekoko stared at Darla and Ulysses. "No, he didn't"
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center VOICE:(602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "To a WWWA trouble consultant, recklessness is
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 a way of life" Kei, Dirty Pair's Great Adventure
It had started to rain again, big fat rain drops landing against the
window facing the street. The street was dark, cold, empty, wet. The lights
of the Chatsubo reflected in the slick surface of the sidewalk.
Inside, Ratz had turned up the heat so the barroom was hot, humid
and stuffy. Nekoko, wearing a cotton blouse, a long skirt, and a barmaid's
apron, was sweating most of the time. Then someone would enter the Chatsubo
and she would freeze in the cold wet blast from the front door.
The usual crowd on a week night. A few street toughs, strutting and
flashing their prowess, the quiet sararimen who wanted a little excitement
to break their boring life in the corporate arcologies, and the occasional
street samurai, chrome and cybernetics, sitting with their backs against
the walls, waiting for those big runs.
Blackjack sat at a table near his sound equipment. Nekoko was worried
about him. Lately, Blackjack spent less time playing music and more time
sitting quietly at his table. Drinking. Nekoko brought him the expensive
Dos Equis he requested and took away the empties. Each time she would wait
quietly, standing before his table. Each time, she thought he would speak,
tell her what troubled him, what caused him to lose himself in alcohol. She
was fond of Blackjack. He had listened to her when she needed a friendly ear.
Tonight, she stood in front of him again. He looked up.
"Should I bring you another?" she asked softly.
He shook his head, no.
When Blackjack had been playing, Nekoko had been bringing him glasses
of water to replenish the fluids he lost while he played. There was another
glass of water on her tray now. She took that glass, put it on the table,
picked up the two empties and put them on the tray. As she walked away, Nekoko
had the feeling he was watching her walk away. The same as every night.
The table at the end was occupied by several engineers and product
designers. They had covered the table with papers, sketches, laptop computers,
part catalogs and pencils. Net cables ran across the floor and plugged into
the bar's telecom unit. Everytime Nekoko refreshed their drinks, they would
draw blank sheets of paper over their work and glare at her. It was an unusual
place to work, Nekoko thought, but they were unlikely to be disturbed. The
bar was too noisy for bugging, too crowded for violence, and too unusual a
location for someone to plan to spy on them. And the beer was cold and close
at hand. Perhaps that is why they were arguing about costs, specs, and product
lines at a table in the Chatsubo rather than in a hotel room.
The other patrons in the bar ignored them. Each person passing
the table was studied carefully by the muscle that the engineers brought.
He was over 6 feet tall, heavy, perhaps 300 pounds, wearing a loose armor
jacket that failed to hide his bulk. Nekoko noticed that the engineers'
guard was armed as well, a pair of pistols at each hip, a heavy machinegun
worn under the jacket, its muzzle peeking out from underneath the tail
of his coat.
Nekoko was returning from the women's bathroom when she ran into
one of the engineers. He stopped, waited for her to pass him in the
narrow hallway, and smiled.
Nekoko's curiosity got the better of her. "What are you working on?"
She smiled, cocked her ears. "It must be important."
The engineer blushed and said nothing. He passed her and closed the
door to the men's bathroom.
"Nekoko," Ratz warned. "Don't go sticking your nose into those
engineers' business. They're setting up a new company and want to be left
alone. That's why they asked Hazard to stay nearby. Don't be bothering them."
Nekoko emptied the dirty glasses into the bar sink and placed them
on the countertop. "I know. But still..."
"Nekoko."
She took the loaded tray and walked over to the engineer's table.
"Here. And you had the Asahi, right?" She passed out the bottles and
glasses. As she handed the bottle to the short man to her left, she looked
down onto the table. Several blank pads covered the sketches and design
specs. The laptop in front of the short man to her left displayed a
spreadsheet in which all the cell labels were coded. Papers roughed out the
costs of manufacture, broken down by costs of parts, but failed to give
any information about the new product being argued about all night. "Sapporo?"
Nekoko decided to take a chance. As she took the last bottle off
her tray, she let the bottle slip and fall onto the table. The bottle
bounced once, rolled to the center and started leaking its beer onto the
papers.
"Ara!" Nekoko cried, reaching for the bottle.
"Damn it!" Several engineers jumped up, tried to grab the bottle.
Papers slid and scattered as the engineers tried to keep their work dry.
Hazard, the guard, vaguely realized that something had gone wrong. He
stood up and glared at Nekoko.
Nekoko was taking peeks at each rough sketch as someone picked it up
and wiped the beer off it. As each piece of the puzzle came to light, she
became more and more disgusted. Hazard and one of the engineers finally
noticed what was happening and pushed Nekoko away from the table.
"We'll get our own beer now, thank you," they spat.
Nekoko turned on her heel and walked off.
Ratz had watched the whole affair from behind the bar. When Nekoko
returned to the bar for another tray, his plastic arm dropped on Nekoko's
shoulder, stopping her. Nekoko looked up into his ugly face.
"So, what was that all about?"
"All that," Nekoko answered scornfully, "to make a newer mechanical
love doll."
"So, is that all?"
"You'd think they were developing something useful. Or important.
Something that really needed security to keep from the competition."
"And what's important, cat-girl? Who are you to decide what is
important?" Ratz said with a sneer in his voice.
"Mechanical love dolls aren't." Nekoko answered.
Ratz lifted his plastic arm from Nekoko's shoulder. She turned and
rubbed the spot where it had rested. Ratz turned back to the bar and started
setting up another round.
"Cat-girl, there are enough people out there who want love dolls.
Something that resembles a girl or a boy enough that they will pay those
engineers to give them that something. That makes it important to those guys.
And to hell with what some cat-girl in a bar thinks. Understand?"
"But that isn't love." Nekoko protested. "It's making love to a
machine."
Ratz turned quickly and stepped in front of Nekoko. He leaned down
and spoke in short harsh breaths. "It does not matter. To the buyers. It is
close enough. Good enough."
He straightened up again, then continued. "After all, in a world
with simsense, virtual reality, and designer drugs, what is reality anyway? If
those guys are any good at all, you won't be able to tell those dolls from
real people anyway. Short of a full Turing Test."
Nekoko flicked an ear. "It's still not real."
Ratz reached out and tweaked her ear. "Look who's talking, kitty."
He lifted a loaded tray and placed it in front of her. "It's real enough.
That's what's important. The rest doesn't matter," he growled.
Nekoko took the tray and walked into the crowd. Ratz was wrong, she
thought. But she could not explain why.
Blackjack sat silently at his table, his glass of water untouched.
Outside, the rain continued beating against the Chatsubo's front
window. Another cold wet night in the Seattle Sprawl.
Hubert Bartels INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center (602)-621-2032
University of Arizona "Yappari, kawaiku nee." Ranma, talking about Akane.
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721 "Ranma no baka." Akane, talking about Ranma.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Ken Aubrey (aubrey@gimli.asd.contel.com) and Ross TenEyck
(No.Net.Access.Now.) for parts of this story. I've used some as is, some
I've rewritten. I hope it makes a good story. Nekoko is my own character;
the others belong to other people who should deserve credit. (Phyllis,
take a bow. Osewasama...)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
<story 13>
Nekoko weaved breathlessly, in and out of the tables, trying to keep
up with the orders. She checked on Argent in his booth when she could; he
was drinking alone, staring at the bottles on his table. She was worried.
Li had been taken several days ago. Last night Wolf had gone to take a look;
he hadn't been seen since.
She went back to the bar, rattled off a series of orders. Ratz set
them up for her with professional speed, and then added another bottle. "For
Argent," he growled.
"But Argent didn't..." Nekoko began.
"Shaddup. If I say Argent wants a drink, Argent wants a drink. Move
yer butt, girl, you got customers waiting."
Sighing, Nekoko gathered the drinks onto her tray. When she picked
up the bottle, she felt a slip of paper against its side. She blinked, but
caught Ratz's warning glance in time. She delivered the drinks, saving
Argent's for last. She set the bottle down on the table in front of him,
startling him out of his introspection; he looked up at her. "Ratz said
you'd want this," she said, somewhat at a loss. Argent merely smiled,
and thanked her; picking up the bottle and sipping from it. But the tension
eased, slightly, from his face. Nekoko hurried back to the bar.
Argent went over to the bar, dropped the empty bottle, laid down a
bill, and turned to Nekoko. "Got a minute? You said you owed me..."
Nekoko ran fingers through her hair, took a deep breath, and looked
around the barroom. She really needed to get away for a minute. "Ah,
probably, I think so."
"Come with me." He turned to leave.
Nekoko grabbed her long coat from the coatstand at the front of the
bar, pulling it over jeans and a sleeveless T shirt. Then she rushed to
follow Argent out the door.
Together, they walked down darkened streets, Nekoko hurrying slightly
to keep up with Argent's long strides, her coat flapping against her calves.
Eventually, she asked, "Where are we going?" Argent glanced down at
her. "I don't know, really. We're just taking a walk." Seeing her confusion,
he chuckled. "The note was from Wolf. He told me to take a walk in this part
of town, and he'd find me. Which means that he's alive and laying low. Which
means he's drawn some heat, which, knowing Wolf, is entirely too believable.
Dammit, Wolf," Argent sighed, "you said you were only going to look."
"I was," said a deep, soft voice behind them, "but opportunity knocked,
and I couldn't resist." Nekoko spun around with a small gasp, and there was
Wolf, walking silently a pace behind them. "Hello, Argent. Nekoko," he
added. "Nice outfit. Keep walking."
They resumed walking, and Wolf told his story. "He didn't know a lot.
They were working out of a small base somewhere, not the main ARES building.
He didn't know where it was, but he did know how long it took from there to
here in a chopper. They've taken her there, but he doesn't know why. That
was about all he knew; and about then, we suddenly got some surprise guests.
Anyway, I then spent a good while dodging the heat... I couldn't get in touch
with you last night; I spent most of the day and that night laying low."
Argent rubbed his chin slowly and turned to Nekoko. "I've got some
ideas, but I don't think that the street is the place to discuss them. I want
you to come to my place tomorrow night. Can you make it?"
Nekoko looked from Wolf's shadowed face to Argent's serious one.
"Tomorrow? Hai, I still owe you a favor. What should I bring?"
"Yourself, a sidearm, and your flying skills. I guess that's all."
"Right. When?"
"Late afternoon. Now if you'd wait a sec..." Wolf and Argent
stepped aside and discussed a few more details. Then Wolf said goodbye, in
his deep, quiet voice, and walked away down the street. He passed under the
shadow between a pair of streetlights and... vanished.
Nekoko's cat ears flicked straight up. "How? How..."
"Come, we'd better get you back to the Chatsubo. I've got some work
to do before tomorrow." Argent put his arm around Nekoko's shoulder and
guided her back to the bar.
Nekoko's flight suit, pistol and extra change of clothes made a small
bundle on the back of her motorcycle. She gave Ratz a wave and rode off. He
had given a stern look when she asked for the day off but didn't say anything.
Darla wasn't around; Nekoko was worried Darla might say something about
getting involved in something that could kill her. "After all," Nekoko
thought to herself, "what could go wrong? I fly someone's helicopter to
that lab, we pick up Li, and I'll be out of town next Thursday. No problem."
By the time she reached Lake Washington, the engine was warm. She
started to pick up speed, sweeping around the traffic and passing the slower
commuters. Argent's house was a large estate on the outskirts of the city;
the ride out was a good excuse to have fun.
"Gomen Kudasai..."
Nekoko stood in the hallway of a huge house, a huge house that stood
in its own woods far away from the noise of the city. It had the look of a
bachelor's place; untidy and berumpled. From the den came the sounds of two
men arguing in a friendly fashion. Behind her, to the west, the sun was
setting in a sea of dark red clouds. To her left, a stairway led to the
second floor.
Nekoko looked up at the sound of soft footsteps. She saw a woman
standing on the third step up, a tall, slim, elegant woman dressed in a
dark green skirt and jacket, her blond hair tied in a single braid down
her back. Her grey eyes studied Nekoko for a moment. Then she spoke, a
clear musical voice.
"I don't know you. Are you known to Argent?"
Nekoko dropped her eyes; she had been staring. She suddenly became
aware of her shabby motorcycle leathers and her scratched up helmet. "I'm
Nekoko. Argent asked me to come tonight."
"Ah, he did, he did then. And Nekoko, girl with the ears of a cat,
the eyes of a cat, what can you do?"
Nekoko's thoughts swung widely as she hunted for a answer. She was
aware of the woman's amused smile and laughing eyes; she wanted to impress
this elegant woman in someway but could not think of anything.
"Are you Nekoko?" A gruff voice came from the room to her left. She
turned away from the woman on the stairs to see a short, massive Tribesman,
his eyes hidden behind mirrorshades, coming out to stand in front of her.
He carried a can of NearBeer in one hand and something that Nekoko identified
as pizza only in that it had the right shape and the Tribesman was eating it.
"Hai" Nekoko said in a small voice. She stared at the thing he was
eating, wondering just how someone could stomach that.
"I'm called Medicine Hawk. That's Ylse, " waving the beercan at the
woman on the stairs.
Ylse smiled, a distant remote smile, and drifted back up the stairs.
"Come on in to the den and meet the others Argent's pulled in." He
turned away and walked down the hallway to the room at the end.
Nekoko watched his broad back disappear. There was something about
the Tribesman that called himself Medicine Hawk that Nekoko didn't like. He
seemed to be one of Them. A hardcase. A professional. A stone killer, a
sociopath. Nekoko giggled nervously to herself. The mirrorshades were the
giveaway. They probably never take 'em off, not even in the dark, not even
in bed. That's because if you could see their eyes, you'd know just how
fraggin' crazy they really were. Were they all that crazy? Nekoko picked
up her little bundle of clothes and followed down the hallway.
In the den, Argent was presiding over a imprompt meeting of an
army. Nekoko was astonished at the piles of equipment piled against the
walls and on top of the furniture. Running Wolf and Leadfoot were pointing
fingers at a topo map, their voices low and hot. Argent looked up from the
argument and waved Nekoko over.
"Glad you could make it. Have any problems?"
Nekoko shook her head.
"Good. Ylse will show you your rooms, later. We've just about
finished planning everything. There's only a few details still left to
hammer out..." He was interrupted by Running Wolf slamming his fist on
the table in making a point. "As I was saying, there's only a few details
still left. But you needn't wait for us. I've got your role all mapped
out. If you want to. You can still back out if you want."
Nekoko looked in Argent's eyes. "It's a matter of giri. An
obligation to Li, you see. I. I can't back out. And besides, I owe you
a favor, right?"
Argent smiled. "That's right. OK, I'll come up later and fill you
in. Oh, and by the way, did you bring your pistol?"
Nekoko patted her bundle. "In here."
Argent's face grew serious. "Wear it. Get used to it. This might
get nasty. Yet." He turned away to arbitrate some point in the argument
between Leadfoot and Running Wolf.
Nekoko unfolded her bundle and pulled the ARES Predator and holster
from between her skirt and blouse. Then she strapped it on. Argent was
still busy with the discussion, so she decided to look for Ylse and get
pointed to her room.
She walked down the hallway and to the dining room. The big cherry
table was covered with empty pizza boxes, empty beer cans, and military
equipment. Cartridges and ammo belts were scattered across the table; a
Matsushita M89 assault rifle was hanging from a chair. At the other end
of the table, Medicine Hawk was standing, using a piece of abrasive cloth
to clean the contacts on the earpieces of his glasses. A little gold stud
was visible on his skull, behind the right ear, where the shades had been
plugged into his central nervous system.
The short Tribesman turned, squinted at Nekoko, and whispered
conspiratorially, "Don't tell anybody. I can't see shit without these."
He held up the steel and chrome sunglasses. "Variable magnification and
light amps."
Nekoko looked from the silver shades to Medicine Hawk's eyes. There
was a lot of sadness in those large brown eyes, a lot of concern, but also
a lot of kindness and humor. Deep laugh lines crinkled at the corners as he
smiled at her.
He put the strip of chrome back onto his face. With a gruff grunt,
Medicine Hawk pointed to the ARES Predator holstered at her hip. "Not
acceptable. Almost criminally stupid."
"Uh?" Nekoko tried to make sense of his sudden change in manner.
"Lower the butt of that weapon about another two and a half
centimeters and strap it down tighter. It'll cut a tenth of a second off
your draw. Stupid to give any advantage away."
Nekoko's ears flickered in confusion. Medicine Hawk pulled a 30
centimeter long piece of nightblack steel off the table and sheathed it
inside his right boot. Then, without another word, he stepped out of the
room.
Upstairs, Nekoko found Ylse lounging in one of the bedrooms,
watching the sun descend through the layers of red-tinted clouds. The
room was lit in golden shades of light; it made Ylse look even more
exotic and alien. Nekoko knocked at the door frame. "Shitsurei Shimasu..."
"Come in Nekoko." She spoke with turning her head. "Another
end of a day. Beautiful, isn't it?"
Nekoko's feet brought her to the foot of Ylse's couch. "Ah. ah,
Argent said you could show me where I'm to spend the night."
Light laughter, like the sound of rain on glass. Ylse looked
away from the sunset. "Yes, I will. It shall be done. Come." She stood
up, a single smooth motion and glided past Nekoko to the door. "Follow."
Nekoko followed Ylse's light steps to a room at the back of the
house.
"A little remote, perhaps..." Ylse sang, "but perfectly useful for
a good night's rest. Do call if you are in need of anything..." With these
words, Ylse disappeared down the hall. Nekoko dropped her bundle. Argent
had some strange people helping him...
Nekoko plummeled her pillow, punched a dent in it and dropped it
on the bed. How long was it since she had slept in a real bed? Or even a
futon? She was tired. First, there was dinner. Or rather, Ylse and Nekoko
hunted through the pantry for something to eat while the men reheated
more of the pizza. Ylse cooked for the two of them, a strange meal that
seemed both refined and yet simple.
Nekoko wondered where Ylse came from.
Afterwards, Argent had taken Nekoko into the library and covered
her role in the operation. Nekoko had spent a hour with him, asking
questions and making comments. It seemed a little loosely planned to Nekoko,
often relying on finding something in place or expecting everything to
work out. And yet, she couldn't think of anything better. She left Argent
in the library, adding her comments on flying, to go to bed.
And now, she was in a comfortable bed, lying face up, staring at
the ceiling. What was the tie that brought all these people together? How
had Li met people like the mercenary Medicine Hawk or the strange woman,
Ylse...
Then, exhausted by her thoughts, she fell asleep.
The lights flared in her room. Nekoko sat up suddenly, rubbing
at her eyes. Blinded by the brightness, her hand groped around, trying to
get at her pistol.
"Peace, girl of the cat ears..." Ylse's voice came through Nekoko's
temporary blindness. And yet, there was a strain in her voice, something
that made the voice real, almost human. "We..."
Ylse stood in the doorway. She seemed shaken.
Nekoko's ears stood up. She lifted her feet over the side of the
bed and stood up.
Ylse's eyes were flat and lifeless, a stark contrast to the way
they looked earlier that day. Her face was a stone mask.
Nekoko, clad only in panties and a T shirt, shivered. "What...
What happened..." She crouched down and reached under her feet for her
bundle with her change of clothes.
"She came during the night."
Nekoko stopped feeling under the bed for her bundle.
"Argent's dead!" Ylse finally blurted out. "Li's sword did it."
Quickly, Nekoko reached for her motorcycle leathers. "What? No,
no way!" She looked from Ylse's strange eyes to her tattered leathers.
"But that means..." She dropped the leathers in astonishment. "Masaka!"
"Impossible. Impos.." She stood up.
Ylse turned and fled, bumping into things in the hallway as she
ran.
Nekoko's bundle was behind the nightstand. Nekoko yanked her
skirt from the bundle and quickly pulled it on. Socks, then her only
pair of shoes, and Nekoko followed Ylse to the front of the house.
The front of the house was lit by the headlights of a black
van. Nekoko arrived just as they were lifting Argent into the van. Slowly,
one of the two attendants closed the back doors and then they gathered
around Running Wolf. Nekoko looked around the front lawn. Medicine Hawk
had come out with one of his Matsushita M89's. The assault rifle's muzzle
hung down; there was no one he could take revenge on. His other hand carried
a long katana. A thin thread of blood still stained the blade; Nekoko
caught a glimpse of the white leather hilt as Medicine Hawk turned it back
and forth. It really was Li's. Medicine Hawk seemed to be entranced by the
blade. Ylse stood nearby, partially hidden by the shadows. Nekoko could
not read her thoughts. Leadfoot walked past her, slowly, headed for the
house.
The light from the open door threw Nekoko's long shadow all the way
to the van. She felt lost, her thoughts blown away by the evening's events.
Nekoko jumped aside as a Matsushita magazine bounced past her on the
driveway. Around her, there was a new tension on everyone's face, an anger
that wasn't there before.
She turned around to watch the ambulance disappear into the night.
The people Nekoko had come to rely upon and looked up to, were dazed, lost,
and shocked by the night's surprises. Argent. Stabbed through the heart with
his lover's katana, he looked old and pale when they carried him out to the
waiting ambulance. Running Wolf. Stunned, grim, he was looking down at Li's
sword, turning it over and over in his hands. Ylse. Her face was unreadable in
the darkness. Li. Lost, she was wandering the darkness, a programmed killer
for the people who took her. Leadfoot. Confused, quiet, he watched Medicine
Hawk sign with his hands and walk away. Medicine Hawk. 'Hawk was working
himself into a murderous rage.
"...no fuckin' prisoners," he said as he hurled the
Matsushita magazine past Nekoko. Then he pulled another magazine from
his pocket, a magazine marked with a narrow red stripe. A magazine carrying
rounds with explosive tips. After inserting the magazine into his carbine, he
stormed off into the house, muttering and swearing under his breath.
Leadfoot moved his hands and asked about the Tribal sign language
that Medicine Hawk had used.
Nekoko listened as Running Wolf explained that 'Hawk and Li had
sworn oaths to each other, oaths that tied them together, promised that
each would be willing to die for the other. "Very heavy stuff. I didn't
know they were that close," he added.
The lights of the house shone across the expanse of the driveway
where they were standing. Long shadows stretched from their feet out
into the night. Nekoko shivered once, as much from the cold as from the
thoughts of what might take place. She walked away from Running Wolf and
Leadfoot.
The front door was open, a long shaft of light into the outdoors.
Nekoko passed through the ornate doorway and pulled the door closed. Inside,
she went in search of Medicine Hawk. There was only empty pizza boxes, chairs
and overstuffed sofas in the living room. The kitchen was quiet, cold, littered
with empty NearBeer cans. She found him sitting at the dining room table,
loading explosive cartridges into magazines.
Nekoko watched him for a moment. Medicine Hawk would set a box
of explosive cartridges on the table, pull a Matsushita clip out of the
duffel bag beside him, and empty the smaller rounds on the dining room
table. There were already several hundred smaller rounds, covering the
table top, littering the floor. Medicine Hawk would then load the clip
with ammunition from the box of explosive cartridges, jamming each round
into the clip with a small humph of expelled breath. He worked quickly,
almost silently.
When he noticed he was being watched, he looked up suddenly. Nekoko
caught her breath; she had never seen such empty lifeless expression before.
Medicine Hawk stared at Nekoko in silence. She almost took a step
back, almost left the room and fled.
But she made her stand. "Now what?"
Medicine Hawk dismissed her and returned to loading the Matsushita
clip.
"And afterwards? What then?" Nekoko made herself ask him. There was
still time to leave the room, get on her motorcycle and ride for Seattle.
Medicine Hawk finished the clip and added it to the large stack
of clips on the table. "Afterwards?" he said. He looked up at Nekoko again.
"Afterwards is irrelevant. We're going to hit them sumbitches hard, roll over
them, and make them pay for what they've done. If I see the sun come up, I
will talk with you about afterwards." He spoke in a monotone, devoid of life
or anger.
Nekoko felt her own anger steal over her, a hot red warmth that
flushed her face, made her ears flatten. She narrowed her eyes. "Who is
going to pay, Medicine Hawk? For what?" She stepped closer to him and
leaned across the table. "If you just want to kill, then I don't want
any part of it. I didn't come along to run a vendetta against ARES, I
came to find Li."
"Fine," Medicine Hawk snorted. "Then go. You'd never have made
it in the Legion with cowardly attitude like the one you've got."
Nekoko shook off the insult and raised her voice. "Oh really? Not
that I'm a soldier, but I always thought the military was based on service,
not revenge..."
"Woman!" Medicine Hawk shouted. He jumped to his feet and slammed
his hands on the table top. "You. Are. Pushing. It. Go. Go and leave me alone."
Nekoko stopped. She had never noticed it before, but when
Medicine Hawk drew himself to his full height, she still towered over him.
He looked like a small cute angry teddy bear with mirrorshades. Struck by this
strange thought, she suddenly laughed.
The sound of the laughter struck Medicine Hawk like a blow. He
stood there stunned, wavering for a second before falling back into his
chair.
Nekoko stopped laughing and stood up straight. "No, I came to find
Li. To help her friends to find her. But not to help her friends massacre
people who just happen to be in the wrong place. I'll fly you in, fly you
out, even kill if it is really needed. But don't ask me to help you in a
massacre."
Medicine Hawk stared at her, silent, and grim.
"Besides, why be obvious?" Nekoko said. "Isn't taking Li from them
revenge enough? Doing it quietly, so that they don't know what happened to
their 'project'?" She picked up one of the discarded rounds and rolled it
back and forth on the table. She looked down at the round, silent for a
moment, thinking.
Then she looked up at Medicine Hawk, her cat eyes reflecting in his
mirrorshades. "You were a soldier once. Why should the 'grunts' in the field
pay for the mistakes of their officers? "
Medicine Hawk gave no sign of having heard. He turned back to the
stack of Matsushita clips on the table and began to load them into the
duffel bag.
Nekoko watched silently.
Then he stood up, slung the duffel bag over his shoulder, picked up
the Matsushita carbine and walked out of the room.
"Wait. Wait, 'Hawk."
Nekoko heard his footsteps in the hallway, moving towards the front
door. "Now what?" she said to herself.
She stood in silence as she heard Medicine Hawk leave.
Running Wolf and Leadfoot looked up at Nekoko's approach. She was
running, tears in her eyes. "Did you see 'Hawk?" she asked as she stumbled
up to them. "He's gone. He's carrying that carbine and a bag of ammo..."
"Check the cars, Leadfoot. I'll go around the front of the house,"
Running Wolf ordered. "Nekoko, you go around the back." Then he took off
running into the night. Leadfoot stood a moment before slowly walking towards
the vehicles.
Nekoko wiped the tears out of her eyes, took a deep breath and
ran towards the back of the house, calling, "Hawk. Hawk..."
Something, a movement or a flash of light, caught her eye. Nekoko
plunged into the brush and trees behind the house, following it.
Away from the house, the night got very dark. Nekoko ran down a narrow
path, stumbling into bushes, and tripping over grass clumps. Around her, she
could only see the rough shapes of the trees against a deep purple sky. When
she stopped to free her skirt from the thorns, she could hear someone crashing
through the brush ahead of her.
Then she ran again, slipping in the wet grass, fighting the underbrush
that snagged her skirt again, and turning away from the thorny branches that
scratched her face.
The night crashed in a explosion. Nekoko slipped in surprise and
slid to the ground. A moment of silence, ominous in comparision, and then
the explosion was repeated. And again. And again, until the sound echoed
and reechoed from the hills and trees around Nekoko. She slowly stood up
and turned her cat ears, trying to locate the source of the rolling thunder.
Ahead of her, on the path was a repeating yellow flash, like tail
lights on a busy freeway. They came from Nekoko's left and rushed past to
her right. It took Nekoko a moment to realize the the lights were tracer
rounds from someone's weapon.
All this time, the sound continued to deafen her. She clamped her
hands to her ears and walked towards the source of the sound.
The thunder stopped suddenly. Nekoko dropped her hands and ran
forward.
When Nekoko burst into the small clearing, she saw Medicine Hawk
kneeling, pulling a clip from his carbine. A fire at the end of the clearing
lit the clearing, colored Medicine Hawk in reds, and reflected from his
mirrorshades. The dufflebag was at his feet. The air was thick with the smell
of explosive, smoke and cordite.
Medicine Hawk looked up as Nekoko approached. The carbine was held
loosely, aimed in her direction.
"Please... 'Hawk," Nekoko said slowly, spreading out her hands. She
did not know how she sounded; she was still half-deaf from the sound of the
gunfire. "I just want to talk."
Behind her, a flicker of movement caught her eye. Running Wolf
had arrived. Nekoko stepped closer to Medicine Hawk. "Are you all right?"
Medicine Hawk slotted the full clip in the Matsushita and turned to
the small building at the end of the clearing. Next to the building, flames
licked at a small vehicle. He reached up, adjusted the light amplifers in his
mirrorshades, and pointed the Matsushita at the wall of the building. Nekoko
slapped her hands over her ears as Medicine Hawk squeezed the trigger.
The tracers sprang out of the carbine's muzzle, flashed across the
clearing and punched holes in the wall of the building. The building groaned,
leaned and slowly collapsed into a pile of splintered timbers. Medicine Hawk
continued firing until the clip was empty. Flames sprang up in the wreckage
of the small building.
The silence in the clearing was broken only by the snap of flames from
the small vehicle and the explosions of chemicals inside the ruins. 'Hawk
stared at the destruction he had created.
"Stop, Medicine Hawk," Nekoko cried. "What are you doing?"
Behind her, Running Wolf stepped closer.
Medicine Hawk put down the carbine and turned to the two. He had
a tired, worn look on his face.
Running Wolf smiled. "I hope Argent forgives you for what you did to
his shed." He waved to the carnage at the end of the clearing. The shed was
competely engulfed in flames. The vehicle was a charred black skeleton, lit
from inside by a reddish glow.
Medicine Hawk stared at Running Wolf. Around Medicine Hawk's feet,
several empty ammo clips littered the ground. Smoke rose slowly from the
muzzle of the carbine.
"Are you all right?" Nekoko repeated.
Medicine Hawk nodded tiredly. "Needed to do this first. Work out my
anger." He stood up and handed the carbine to Nekoko. His hand reached up and
took the mirrorchrome shades from his eyes. He looked as old and pale under
the red-greyish beard as Argent did when the ambulance took him away.
Nekoko took the carbine by the barrel and almost dropped it as she
realized that the barrel was hot. Running Wolf leaned over and took the
Matsushita from her. Then Running Wolf stepped past Nekoko and grabbed
Medicine Hawk by the shoulder. The two of them turned and wordlessly walked
away.
"Is he going to be all right?" Nekoko called after them.
"I think so." Running Wolf answered.
Nekoko, sprawled on a chair, looked around the living room. Medicine
Hawk was slumped in one of the overstuffed sofas, his eyes closed, resting.
Leadfoot sat in another chair, a blank look on his face as if events had
overwhelmed him. Running Wolf came out of the kitchen, followed by Ylse. He
pressed a can of NearBeer into Medicine Hawk's hand, sat on his haunches next
to him, and started talking in a low quiet voice. Medicine Hawk opened his
eyes.
Her skirt was ruined, caked with mud, its hem ripped out by the
underbrush, its threads frayed by thorns. Her face was scratched by low
branches; Nekoko could feel it itch. She looked down at her bare feet and
wiggled her toes. She had tossed her shoes somewhere in the room; they were
soaking wet from the mud. And her socks were hopeless. If this keeps up,
Nekoko thought sadly, I'll look so ragged, people will be giving me nuyen on
the street, mistaking me for a beggarwoman.
Running Wolf continued to talk to Medicine Hawk. Ylse stood at his
side, nodding every so often. Medicine Hawk's face was alive; he was listening
to Running Wolf with a fierce intensity.
Nekoko wondered if she might be able to borrow something from Ylse.
Outside of her motorcycle leathers and an extra shirt, she no longer had
anything fit to wear. Ylse was somewhat taller than Nekoko, but maybe she had
something that could be made to fit.
Medicine Hawk sat up suddenly, turned to Running Wolf. "Tomorrow
night then!" He turned to the rest of the room. "Then we'll pay them S.O.B.'s
back." He stood up, walked over to Nekoko's chair, and smiled.
Nekoko looked up.
"You made your point. There'll won't be a massacre."
Nekoko smiled back.
The rain ended as it had started, a quick rush of drops spotting the
ground. The wind smelled of pine, of growing things and old forest. Outside
of the round light cone of the security light, a black night lay in every
direction. A slow stream of drops ran along the eaves of the guardhouse to
drip into the darkness. Blake turned away from the door of the guardhouse
and shouldered his Ingram submachine gun.
"My turn to walk the rounds, Yung. Heat up some soykaff, would you?"
The other man nodded and reached for the small gas stove. He stopped
as a light appeared far down the road leading up to the guarded gateway. Blake
followed his partner's stare, pulled the Ingram off his shoulder and flicked
off the safety. The light seemed to waver left, right, left, right in small
arcs. Yung reached into his holster for his pistol.
As the distant light approached, the two men saw that it was a
motorcycle's headlights. The motorcycle was being pushed by a young woman
dressed in muddy and torn leathers. As she pushed, the motorcycle would fall
away from her, then lean towards her. She wore her helmet, hiding her face
from the two guards.
Once the woman and the motorcycle had reached the center of the cone
of light, Blake called out and waved his Ingram.
"Finally...," the woman replied. "Civilization."
"Who are you? Identify yourself," Yung said.
The woman gave no sign of having heard. She continued to push the
motorcycle closer to the two men. "I've been pushing this slotting thing
for miles. I got dumped on a slick patch down a ways and can't get it started
again."
Blake noticed that the woman was slim, athletic, almost boyish. It
must have been quite a crash; her motorcycle leathers showed scratches down
her chest and along her legs.
"Maybe you could help me. It's my boyfriend's bike."
She began to take off her helmet, loosing her chin strap and pulling
the shell over long blonde hair. Yung turned and smiled at his partner.
Blake guessed she was a dancer or an artist. Some of them went for
that 'furry' look, the cat eyes and cat ears. Yung's smile disappeared.
"Must have been quite a crash," Blake said. He put down the Ingram
and stepped closer to the woman. She was twitching her ears, running fingers
along her hair, straightening it out from the confines of the helmet. "Can we
help you?" Blake asked.
The motorcycle was pretty beat up. Scratches and dents ran along the
front fairing, up to the seat. On the left side, both of the turn indicators
dangled from worn wiring. One headlight was smashed, darkened. Blake smiled.
No one would risk an accident just to get inside this ARES facility. "We have
a first-aid kit inside the guardhouse. Do you need attention?"
The woman smiled. A shy, sweet smile. "Oh yes, I've got these...
bruises all along here. She waved a hand to her front. "Here, I'll show you."
She dropped the helmet on the bike and reached up to her neck. Slowly,
she began to pull the zipper down towards her navel. "I'm kinda embarrassed.
I didn't have anything clean to put on underneath my leathers..." As the zipper
revealed her soft pink skin, the curve of her breasts, the two men leaned over
for a closer look. The zipper descended slower and slower. The two men
breathed slower and slower.
Suddenly, an odd distraced expression rushed across Blake's face. He
rolled up his eyes and sank to the ground. Yung stared at him for a second
before his eyes closed and he too fell over. Nekoko looked up at the grinning
faces of Medicine Hawk and Running Wolf, almost hidden in their camo suits.
Ylse followed them at a distance, silent and ghostly as always.
"Took your time getting here, didn't you?" she said, quickly zipping
up the front of her leathers.
Medicine Hawk grinned from behind his mirrorchrome shades. "Almost
missed the whole show."
Nekoko whirled on Running Wolf. "And just for the record, whose idea
was it in the first place?"
Wisely, Running Wolf decided to keep quiet.
"Well, I don't remember any loud objections from you when we came up
with it." Medicine Hawk walked to the guard house and opened the gate.
"All right, so I didn't have any better ideas at the time..." Nekoko
called after him. She set the motorcycle on its sidestand and helped Running
Wolf drag the bodies into the guardhouse. "Still... It wouldn't have worked
if there were women guarding this place tonight."
The site was another one of ARES's maintenance facilities, buried deep
in the woods. Nekoko and Running Wolf had noticed it when they were scouting
for Li's location, had made a note for future reference. The site contained
several helicopters, repair works and a landing strip for ARES transport
planes. Unlike most ARES sites, it was lightly guarded.
In the guardhouse, Nekoko looked down on the two bodies of the guards.
"They'll be all right, won't they. I'd hate to think that my little charade
killed them."
Running Wolf started to follow Medicine Hawk. "They were just knocked
out with a powerful tranq needle. They'll be up in about ten hours, but they'll
have a hell of a headache afterwards."
"Wait. Let me bring my bike along."
Now the four walked across the wet grass of the ARES airfield. Around
them stood helicopters and VTOL planes, streaked with rain. The shapes of the
aircraft loomed out of the darkness, their cockpits glittering in the light
that Medicine Hawk shone.
"This one, this one." Nekoko pointed excitedly to a large chopper.
"It's a ARES Wyvern. Wonder what it's doing here. You never see them far
from ARES heavy security sites." She leaned the bike on its sidestand and
ran to the helicopter.
The helicopter that Nekoko was referring to was ugly in a field of
ugly helicopters. A almost square mass resting on four outrigger legs,
humpbacked, with a coxial rotor overhead, it looked like a spindly brick
with wings. At one end, a pair of huge rotating cannons poked out of a
gymbal mount.
"It's a flying tank. Built around a pair of 57mm Vulcan cannons."
Nekoko prattled, "It'll outshoot anything in the air and almost everything
on the ground as well."
Running Wolf waved Nekoko to silence. "Can you fly it? Can it
carry Li back if she's on a stretcher?"
Nekoko was already popping inspection hatches and checking inside.
"Sure. Room for sixteen inside. Looks like it's ready to fly." She turned
around and slapped the last hatchway shut.
Medicine Hawk inserted a knife edge into the cockpit door and
sprung the lock.
"She's all yours," he said, opening the door.
"Just a moment, guys. I need to change. The cat woman pulled a
pair of black pants, a black shirt, a bra and panties out of the bag mounted
on the Yamaha's airbox. "I'll be right back."
She disappeared behind another helicopter. The two men saw her bare
feet appear under the fuselage as she stepped out of the leathers and into the
pants.
Running Wolf turned to the Wyvern behind him. "I guess this is
proof of that old saying, 'If you can put in a big enough engine, you can
make a brick fly.'"
Medicine Hawk nodded.
"Shame we couldn't use Nekoko's chopper. But I didn't want to mess
with the ARES people watching it," Running Wolf said.
"Running Wolf. Stop. Think. Think of Nekoko's bike," Medicine
Hawk said, looking at it. "Can you imagine what her helicopter is going to be
like..." He shook his head slowly.
Nekoko returned and stuffed the leathers in the bag on the motorcycle.
Running Wolf and Medicine Hawk started to climb into the cabin.
"Wait, 'Hawk. My bike." Nekoko said.
Medicine Hawk turned to look back at the Yamaha outside. When Nekoko
had shown up with it earlier, he had assumed she had already crashed on her
way over. Nekoko had explained that since she had rebuilt it out of used parts,
it always looked half-demolished.
"Why don't you leave that piece of rolling trash behind."
"'Hawk!" Nekoko protested.
It was bad enough that the bike was assembled out of leftover pieces,
Nekoko had added to the seedy appearance with some custom modifications. They
enhanced that wrecked look that the bike always carried. Since the mod's
did not always work as she planned, Nekoko's leathers slowly became scarred
and ragged. Neither the men nor Ysle had thought much of Nekoko's ride.
"OK, we'll lift it into the cargo bay." Medicine Hawk said grudgingly.
"And toss it when we're in the air, right?," Running Wolf whispered to
Medicine Hawk, smiling.
"Quiet, Wolf."
Nekoko walked around the helicopter removing the tiedowns from the
rotors and pulling the wheel chocks from the outrigger legs. Then while Running
Wolf and Medicine Hawk loaded Nekoko's motorcycle into the cargo bay, she
climbed into the pilot's seat, buckled in and began her flight checklist.
Behind her, Nekoko heard the two men adjust their seats. "We should
be airborne in about a minute," she said into her intercom.
"Good."
The turbines warmed up quickly, filling the cabin with their whine.
Then Nekoko engaged the rotors. Outside, the grass flattened in the downwash.
"Hi-Hooo" Nekoko shouted as she pulled up on the collective. The
Wyvern lurched into the air, awkward and ungainly.
As Nekoko fought with the controls and the communications computer,
she felt a hand on her shoulder.
"How's it going?" Medicine Hawk asked.
"Just a moment, 'Hawk. There's a Air Traffic Controller on the Com
wondering how we managed to wander into his area without a filed flight plan.
I'm telling him that we're a ARES maintenance flight, that they're the ones
who lost my flight plans and it's their problem, not mine." She returned
to speaking into the Com, a strange pidgin of numbers, initials and
identification codes. Medicine Hawk noted with amusement that Nekoko had
begun swearing in Japanese and that every third word seemed to be 'Baka',
stupid. Finally she sat up and closed the Com channel with a finger tap.
"OK, they think we are who we say we are. It'll take about three, maybe four
hours before they complete checking their computer records and find out I
made up everything. Then they'll send out everything they have, looking for
us."
She turned her head to look at Medicine Hawk. "We might not even have
that much time available. Look at this." Nekoko locked the flight controls
and reached out to type at a diagnostic computer. The display read out the
current status of the twin turbines behind them. "Engine 1 is running hot,
and engine 2 is at best, putting out 80% power. There's a slow hydraulic
leak and the oil pressure is slowly dropping. That's why this chopper was at
that site. Heavy maintenance work. I guess that we have about three hours max
before the engines shut down. Permanently."
Medicine Hawk stared at the display. "Um... I think we can do this
in three hours. But I'll go back and tell Running Wolf and Ysle. Anything
else?"
Nekoko freed the flight controls. "Yeah, the Vulcan's magazines are
empty. We're unarmed."
Medicine Hawk tapped the Matsushita at his shoulder. "We're not
completely unarmed. Call me when we approach Li's site." He turned and
disappeared into the cabin behind the cockpit.
Another shower streaked the windshield of the Wyvern with raindrops.
Nekoko shifted the cyclic in small circles, trying to keep the helicopter on
course in the rain and wind. Below her, the ground was a rolling landscape of
black trees and grey hills. Above and behind her, the number 2 engine began
making odd noises; a sign that it was being stressed too hard. Nekoko throttled
back the engine to 70% thrust and slowed the helicopter.
Scattered lights appeared below; the occasional house, car lights
reflecting off a rain slick street, a lighted intersection. The loud throb
of the rotors overhead was tiring. Twenty minutes and the flight was only
half over. Running Wolf and 'Hawk was silent, adjusting their weapons,
checking their equipment.
The helicopter crossed a line of street lights. Nekoko rolled the
helicopter and began to follow the road. Below her, the cars left long
red and yellow streaks on the road surface.
Running Wolf shouldered his way into the cockpit and looked over
Nekoko's head. "How much longer?"
"Fifteen minutes. Maybe a little more."
"When you see the lights of the lab, drop in fast, do a dustoff
near the pad, go away for about ten minutes and wait for us near the
helipad. Got that?"
"Yeah."
"If we aren't out in ten minutes, scram. ARES has us and there's
nothing you can do. Drop the helicopter in the woods, get on your rolling
wreck and go."
"Yeah."
The helicopter had long left the lighted highway behind. Nekoko
peered through the darkness for the lights of the helipad. Again, the
landscape below the helicopter was trees and grass. Behind her, the two
men and Ylse were silent, lost in thoughts. Nekoko's thoughts were of Li,
lost down there somewhere, trapped in a nightmare, wandering, souless...
A console display flickered, showing the course to the ARES helipad.
Another screen reported that the site's radar had queried the Wyvern's
transponder. And that the transponder had successfully ID'd the helicopter
as an ARES helicopter.
"'Wolf. Ysle, 'Hawk... Better get ready. We've almost on top of the
site," she called back to the cabin on the intercom.
The helicopter rushed up a small rise. As the ground fell away on
the other side, Nekoko could see the ARES site in front of her. Smoke seemed
to be rising from one of the buildings. Men ran towards the burning building.
The noise of the rotors and the turbines grew louder as someone opened
the cabin door. Nekoko pushed the helicopter closer to the ground, hovering
slowly to give the team a chance to judge the ground. Engine 2 shrieked;
hovering was harder on the turbines then flying. A yell, a slap on the
bulkhead and the team was gone. Nekoko jerked up on the stick, rolled the
helicopter on its side and pushed the chopper into the concealing trees.
Leaves, trunks and branches rushed past. Both turbines protested this
treatment, turning indicator lights yellow and red.
On the other side of the small rise, she grabbed some more altitude,
slowed down and began choosing a course that would return her to the site
in ten minutes.
Nothing to do but fly. And wait.
Copyright JM Shields & HG Bartels 1991 All Rights Reserved
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A soft intake of breath. "Shimatta..."
Nekoko looked around the worn, dusty, and threadbare interior of
the ARES Wvyern. The instrument panels had had its corners rubbed smooth.
The co-pilot's seat showed signs of heavy wear. The warning decals overhead
had faded and discolored. As the helicopter flew, panels gave off creaking
and groaning noises, the cockpit door rattled against its frame, the turbines
whined overhead. Everything about the ARES Wyvern gave witness to long, hard
years of uncaring use.
Nekoko dropped her head and scanned the instruments again. Half the
indicators pointed into the yellow. The hydraulic pressure continued to drop
slowly. The main generator was misbehaving; the amps indicator rose and fell
in short bursts. The clock ticked off the seconds since she dropped off the
others at the ARES site.
And the weather was turning against her again. Great grey clouds
swept up from the south, at times hiding the land below her. The wind picked
up and blew steadily from the south. Now and then, Nekoko would fly
through another rain shower.
From the east, the early morning light filled the sky with a pale
color. To the west, the sky was still a midnight blue. Below Nekoko's
helicopter, the early light painted the forest in dark greens, grey
highlights, and long shadows.
Medicine Hawk's signal flashed on the heads-up display. Time to
go back into hell again. Nekoko made a slow, sweeping turn and oriented
herself to fly in from the south with the wind. She scrubbed off altitude
- it would be better to come in low and fast.
At treetop level, the helicopter seemed to fly even faster than
she could react. Nekoko jerked the control stick from side to side. Left,
then right, the dark green forest rushed past. Birds would wheel up beside
her, startled by the helicopter's sudden appearance. Then there would be a
little clearing in the woods and Nekoko could catch her breath again. The
helicopter would flash through the clearing and immediately have to dance
around treetops again. To her right, the morning sun turned clouds red and
yellow; she could see a glimmer of light through the cloudcover.
Ahead, a thick dark column of smoke marked the site of the ARES
research lab. It blew to the north, away from her approach. Nekoko began
to search below her for a pick up site.
As she got closer, she began to slow the helicopter. The Wyvern
cleared the outside fence, bright with arc lights and steel. Now, below her
was an open space, short grass and small trees. As Nekoko watched, small
figures appeared in the open space. The early morning light gave them long
strange shadows on the grass. The figures were running from one of the
buildings. At times, one of them would turn and fire at the people coming
from the buildings. Another one of the figures seemed to be carrying
something over its shoulder. Nekoko began to drop down on top of them.
As the Wyvern got closer, the figures looked up through the
downwash of the helicopter rotors. One of them lifted a gun up at the
helicopter; another figure pushed it away. Behind them, the people coming
out of the buildings stopped and seemed to be cheering.
Now Nekoko's helicopter was within a few feet of the ground. One
of the figures began to run, hunched over, towards her. Nekoko pushed
the helicopter closer to the others. The turbines screamed their displeasure
at hovering.
Nekoko turned the helicopter so that the Wyvern's armor lay between
her friends and the ARES people. As she glanced over at the lab buildings,
she notice that the ARES staff had stopped cheering; some of them seemed
to aiming their guns at her, others began to run towards the helicopter.
The Wyvern thumped onto the ground. A bang from behind her told Nekoko that
someone had opened the cabin door. Now the other figures approached; Medicine
Hawk, with the limp, ragdoll shape of Li over his shoulder, Ylse, pale and
shaken, Running Wolf, grim-faced, turning back to empty his submachine gun
at the running ARES security guards. They looked tired and drawn. Something
had scared them badly. Another bang told Nekoko that the cabin door was
closed again. The cabin intercom buzzed.
Nekoko looked up at the sound of hail on the sides of the cockpit. It
took a moment to realize that the sound was slugs bouncing off the Wyvern's
armor. That shook her. One of the windows facing the ARES people suddenly
cracked. She yelled a warning, pulled full torque on the collective, and
began to take off. As they rose in the air, almost all the indicators flipped
into the red zones. More gunfire, more hail on the armor. Another window
cracked. The helicopter shook unevenly; Nekoko guessed that one of ARES's
heavier shells had struck the Wyvern's armor.
She reached down, flipped up the safety cover, and pressed the
fire button on the twin Vulcans. The computer buzzed and said, 'Sorry. All
20 mm magazines are empty. Please reload.' But from the front of the Wyvern
came the rumble of the two barrels spinning up to speed.
Nekoko pedal turned the helicopter so that the muzzles of the
Vulcans would face the oncoming ARES guards. Now the cockpit faced north, at
the guns of the security guards. Nekoko pushed the cyclic control forward.
The Wvyern picked up speed and rushed across the ground.
Nekoko laughed. As the ARES people saw the rotating barrels, they
dropped their guns and dived for cover. She swept past them, lifted the
helicopter over their lab building and disappeared into the smoke.
Deep black smoke seeped inside the cockpit through the vent ducts
and the cracks in the windows. But it kept them hidden from the ARES guards.
Nekoko pushed the helicopter as fast as the turbines would allow for as
long as she could. When she could no longer stand the tension, when she
guessed the helicopter might start coming apart in the next moment, she
slowed up. Some of the indicators began to fall into the yellow or green
zones again.
A noise from behind her startled her; Nekoko had already forgotten
that the others were on board again. Medicine Hawk appeared in the
cockpit doorway, smelling of cordite, smoke, blood, and sweat. Nekoko
watched him set himself in the co-pilot's seat.
"Medicine Hawk. Li-sama ga, daijoubu ka?" Nekoko saw his confusion,
then repeated herself in English. "Is Li going to be alright?"
"Probably. We won't know until we get her seen to. At the safe
house." He leaned back, sighed, and was silent.
"Better strap yourself in. It's not over yet."
Medicine Hawk reached below the seat and buckled himself in. Then
he turned towards Nekoko. "Better tell the others in back as well."
"Hai." Nekoko nodded, then picked up the cabin intercom. "Oi! We're
still not safe, so you better buckle up. And make sure that Li is tied
up as well. This might be a rough ride." As she spoke, the helicopter
gave another series of shakes. She turned back to Medicine Hawk. "Was it
bad? I mean, back there?"
Medicine Hawk did not speak. Nekoko decided not to say anymore. The
helicopter was still flying north. The comlinks were quiet - apparently,
Leadfoot had done his job well. Outside of the shaking, the helicopter seemed
to be flying well. Nekoko checked all the instruments, then turned back
to Medicine Hawk. "Where do I go now? Where is the safe house?"
Medicine Hawk turned his chrome glasses onto Nekoko. They were
dirty, begrimed and scratched. "I'll direct you. Fly north for another
twenty minutes, then turn towards the east. From there, I'll direct you."
He turned his head away again; his breathing slowed. Nekoko relaxed. The ARES
Wyvern was still flying. None of the dials showed any problems for the moment.
For the first time that morning, she felt she might survive this trip.
************************
Twenty minutes after Belladonna briefed her crew the alarm bells rang.
Bella ran to the com room. When she arrived, breathless, MecLan and Vint
were studying a 2 meter square display screen showing the overall layout of
the estate and safehouse. It was mounted on a wall - smaller screens with
views of various sections surrounded main screen. They both looked up when
Bella entered the room.
"A chopper has penetrated the first security shell," MecLan informed
her.
"Is it them?" Bella glared painfully up at a speaker, "Gregor, we get
the picture - turn that thing off - I can hardly hear myself think!" The
alarm suddenly stopped in mid scream. "Thanks."
"You are welcome, Bella."
Bella ignored the deep reply. "Have you got an ID on it?"
"No code yet. It looks like an ARES chopper," Vint touched a few
panels, "It'll be in visual soon. The flight paths a bit erratic - looks
like it's in trouble."
"Shit!" Bella slammed her palm into the wall, "Peace, I hope it's
them. How long until the second security shell?"
"Ah, twelve seconds - eleven - ten - nine - eight - seven..."
***********************************
Nekoko felt a hand on her arm.
"Gotta call in now."
Nekoko looked over her shoulder. Running Wolf was reaching for the
radio with a small signalling device. She watched him tap in a frequency
then open the channel and key the signalling device at the microphone. He
smiled at her. The radio beeped back at Running Wolf's device.
"Gotta let the Mechanics know we're friends," he said to Nekoko's
puzzled look. "We should be in visual in a minute. I'll get Li ready for
the landing." He disappeared aft behind Nekoko's seat.
***********************************
" - wait a second, I'm getting a code." Seconds ticked. "It's
them - proper code for the safehouse and their ID tag."
Bella breathed out slowly, "Good. What's their status?"
"Chopper is definitely damaged," MecLan scanned a readout on a
smaller display screen.
"How bad? Weapons?" Bella moved to his side and glanced at the
readout.
"There's some weapons damage but this is mostly internal stuff." He
shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe they lifted one that was due for repairs.
From the scan this looks like relatively old damage."
"Shit! Why the hell couldn't they have stolen one that worked?"
"ETA for the chopper is five minutes, Bella," Vint interrupted.
"Call Kenner, tell her to meet me at the topside elevators with her
med kits in three minutes. Also get Bachtav..." her voice died off. Bella
cleared her throat, "Meclan, could you..."
He nodded - a hard sad smile crossed his lips. "Let's go."
***************************
Nekoko studied the grey walls of clouds in front of her. Only the
headup display in front of her made sense of the formless world outside the
cockpit windows. On the display, a readout in a corner counted down the
seconds to the destination. Behind Nekoko, Running Wolf and Ylse seemed
to be talking; it was hard to make out the words over the throbbing of
the rotors and the whine of the turbines.
Medicine Hawk seemed to be asleep. Nekoko reached over and gave
him a gentle shove to wake him. They had almost arrived.
Nekoko came out of a cloud bank and there it sat, a brick monster on
a wide open lawn, sunning itself in the morning sunlight. The safe house was
one of the Victorian monsters that were popular around the turn of the
previous century, all towers and tall ceilings, nocks and corners. A long
driveway bordered by stately old willows led up to the front entrance. Medicine
Hawk made a downwards stabbing motion with his hand, as if to say, land here.
******************************
The elevators doors opened into a backroom - clean and barren. Bella,
Kenner, and MecLan hauled the emergency stretcher and kits out into the
main hallway to the front door. They waited just inside the house until
they saw the chopper approach. The chopper swung and hesitated - Bella was
certain it was about to fall apart.
************************
Nekoko lifted the nose of the Wyvern, slowed up and flared to a
landing within thirty paces of the house. Then she dropped the helicopter
to the ground. It was a bit of a drop; there was cursing from behind the
cabin door. She kept the turbines running; she did not know if she would
be able to restart them again. From the house came three people; Bella and
two others Nekoko did not recognize. They were carrying a stretcher.
Medicine Hawk stood up, rubbed his eyes under his chrome sunglasses,
and began to leave. As he stepped through the doorway, he asked, "Are you
coming too? You're welcome to stay here."
Nekoko looked at the forbidding mass of the house nearby. "Ah. I'd
better see to the Wyvern first. I'll come back with the motorcycle later."
"Good idea."
"I'll just drop it at one of the grass airfields on the other side
of Puget Sound. That'll draw off the pursuit."
"Good idea."
"So then..."
"Take care, Cat-girl." He disappeared through the doorway into the
cabin aft.
************************
"Where is she? How bad?" Bella shouted to Running Wolf as he stepped
onto the ground.
He pressed his mouth to her ear, "In back on a makeshift stretcher.
Had to shoot her - not much blood lost! Stuck a handful of tranks on her -
don't know how long they'll last! It is as though she were crazy!"
Bella turned to Kenner and explained the situation with a series of
quick hand signals. Kenner nodded and climbed into the back of the
chopper. Bella followed her.
Inside the cabin, Bella turned back to help with Li. She lay there as
if dead - her sallow skin blending into the dull grey beneath her. She
looked very much like a child until a frown creased her face. Kenner had
pulled the trank patches from her skin - there'd be a few second delay
before the direct feed she'd wrapped around Li's wrist could begin. Li's
eyes fluttered open - Bella caught a glimpse of glassy metal before they
closed once more.
Kenner handed Bella a curved piece of plastic. She fitted it around
Li's neck and shoulders - bending it to rest snug against her. She took a
metal canister from the medkit and pointed the nozzle into a small opening
on top. It hissed for a few seconds then stopped - Bella snapped the
canister from its nozzle and tossed it back into the kit. She tapped the
plastic a few times, bending low over it and straining to hear an echo.
Satisfied she nodded to Kenner. Kenner finished buckling the straps that
held the hard plastic sheet she'd slid under Li's body. A few seconds
later both mechanics were out of the chopper and sliding Li out behind
them. MecLan had the stretcher up and ready for her. Running Wolf and
Medicine Man each grasped an end - lifting her up and onto the bed of the
stretcher. MecLan and the other woman, Ylse, each grabbed a free end and
with Kenner running along side with the instruments they headed for the
house.
Bella watched them disappear under the eaves of the mansion before
walking forward to the pilot's door. As she walked, she noted how the
Wyvern's armor had been gouged and scarred by the fire from the ARES forces.
At the pilot's door, she tapped twice to get Nekoko's attention. No response.
Bella made a fist and really began pounding on the cockpit door.
*********************
While Nekoko was running another quick check of the instrumentation,
she heard a pounding on the cockpit door. Nekoko leaned over and pushed it
partially open. Now the throbbing of the rotors was much louder, the downwash
blew into the cockpit and stirred the dust. Standing outside, hunched over
in protection from the noise of the rotors stood Bella. As the door opened,
Bella raised her eyes to look at Nekoko. Nekoko blinked. Bella had her
Mechanic's armor on, a dusty black blue. A black stripe ran over her cheekbones
and across her nose. It gave the woman a odd tribal look.
"Can you shut this piece of shit down for a couple of minutes?"
Bella screamed at Nekoko.
Nekoko shook her head. "No. I don't think it'll start again. Got to
keep moving. Can't leave it here..."
"Whatcha got in mind?" Bella shouted over the whine of the turbines.
"Fly it to the other side of the Sound. Hide it on someone's meadow.
Use my motorcycle to get away."
"And then?"
"Not sure. Probably come back here..."
Bella reached into her toolbag and pulled out what looked like a wide
silver wristband. With her other hand, she reached up into the cockpit and
pulled on one of Nekoko's arms. She clamped the wristband on Nekoko's wrist
and flicked a panel. "Look into this opening!"
Nekoko's cat eyes narrowed with suspicion and her cat ears flickered back.
"It's a homing device! I want to key it to your retina print! Do it!"
Bella scowled impatiently as Nekoko put the opening up to her eye. "Good!
It'll direct you back here and will broadcast the proper codes once you start
hitting the security shields! Don't take it off under any circumstances -
no matter what! Ok?"
Nekoko nodded slowly. "Ryokai!"
"Great! Be careful."
Bella slammed the cockpit door shut. Nekoko watched her scuttle
from underneath the circle of the rotors and run towards the house. The
impact of slamming the door shifted the life raft mounted on the cockpit door,
making it fold over onto her foot. Nekoko put down a hand and stuffed it back
into the holder. The helicopter was falling apart as she sat. She hoped it
would hold together just a few moments longer.
**************************
"Stay alive, Nekoko, stay alive," Bella whispered to herself. The whine
of the turbines rose to a shriek as Nekoko brought up the power. Dirty black
smoke blurred the air behind the turbines' exhaust. The rotor's throbbing
got louder, sharper. The Wyvern's running lights came on, flashing red and
white. Bella wiped her eyes; the propwash from the rotors had made them water.
She put her hands over her ears and watched as the helicopter rose into the
air and climbed into the clouds. Then, with a final look at the cloud in
which Nekoko had disappeared, Bella turned and walked into the house.
***************************
It had been a slow, careful liftoff this time. Nekoko knew that a wrecked
helicopter would definitely draw unwanted attention to this neighborhood.
Above her, the clouds thickened. She grabbed altitude until she was
bumping into the bottom of the clouds, then she turned west towards the
ocean. Behind her, the sun disappeared behind a thick cold layer of clouds.
Five minutes later, the main generator faded away. Half of the
indicators dropped onto their pegs, useless. "Kuso!" Nekoko swore as
she started the auxilary generator. The main computers rebooted, the
systems returned to life. Just a little further, just a little further,
Nekoko prayed.
The clouds thickened, and now she was flying through the stuff.
Her computers showed her flying west by southwest, still on her planned
course. Hydraulic pressure was now minimal; Nekoko could feel the stick
becoming sluggish in its response.
The Air Traffic Control chose this moment to come online again.
"Attention, unidentified flight. Your flight plans have not been found
on any ARES systems. Your transponder codes match that of a aircraft
reported stolen from ARES today. Land immediately for accurate identification."
Nekoko swore again. Only another three minutes and she could leave
this flying wreck.
"Unidentified flight. Your silence has been noted and logged as
a violation of UCAS airspace. An interception has been ordered. If you
do not respond to our demands, we will use force." The message was
then repeated in Japanese. As the message was being repeated in Russian,
Nekoko powered off the radio. A quick check of the defense systems
showed that the radar could not see anything within a few miles of her.
Then the left turbine blew up. Nekoko was thrown against the
side of her seat as the helicopter shook. The life raft bounced out
onto the cockpit floor. Her ears rang with the sound. The indicators
in front of her jumped around, then froze. The lights went dark as the
auxilary generator failed.
The sticks were useless. The hydraulic pressure was completely
gone. The rotors slowed. Nekoko's stomach lurched as the helicopter
began to drop.
Around her, the clouds were grey and shapeless. She knew she
was falling, but her eyes told her that she was hanging in space. Her
butt felt real heavy, heavy, as if some great weight was being put on it.
Her stomach seemed to want to drop through her hips. But above her,
the rotors were spinning again.
Auto-rotation, Nekoko thought. She had been high enough for the
blades to autorotate. Then she might not die after all. But she was still
falling fast. A stray seagull dropped in front of her cockpit window,
keeping pace with her as the helicopter dropped.
The clouds parted, disappeared. Below her, the sea stretched. Small
waves and white foam. Still falling fast, too fast...
The helicopter struck the water, front end first. A wave spread
out from the wreck, to be lost in myriad other waves. Then there
was silence. Smaller waves crashed against the body of the Wyvern, each
time, striking it higher and higher. Bubbles and froth, oil and debris
washed away from the wreck. A few seagulls dove at the debris, seeing if
anything was edible.
Now, another small crash, and the helicopter leaned over. Water
spilled over, poured inside. More bubbles, more oil. The seagulls called out.
The cockpit disappeared beneath the waves. Waves swept over the
starred windows, the turbine intakes, the rotor blades, and then, finally,
the tail structure. A moment later, only an oil patch in water, calmer then
the surrounding waters, marked the site of the crash. The seagulls rose
and circled around again.
And then there was only waves, wind and the sound of the seagulls.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A tiny figure ran down the racks of shipping containers, a child
in a world of oversized building blocks. The area was empty; the only sound
the roar of rain drumming on the aluminum tops of acres of containers. The
grey rain beat on the girl's hair, ran down her back and into her coat. She
slipped in a puddle, threw a hand against a pipe to keep from falling, and
ran on. Her coat, an old fisherman's jacket, oily and threadworn, was soaked
through with water. The rain was already dirty; it smelled of fish and oil,
smoke and tar, it stained the docks as it fell.
Her breath came faster, her feet slowed down. She turned her face
up into the filthy rain, scanning the rows of containers as she ran.
The rain pooled at her feet, slimy puddles that reflected iridescent
colors in the glare of the arclights overhead. Her boots touched down in
the water, splashed, and lifted out. She ran, checking the doors of each
container, ignoring the ache in her side, her wet feet, her icy cold shirt.
Each step took her further from the wharf where she had been dropped off, each
step took deeper into the storage area of Seattle's docks.
She stopped, sliding a bit on the greasy asphalt. There! She wiped
the rain out of her eyes and studied the shipping container carefully. She
wiped her eyes again. Yes, it was unlocked. A quick look up and down the long
alley. She was alone.
As she walked to the container, she stepped through the light of an
overhead arclight. The light revealed a girl, maybe a woman, standing 1.7
meters tall, slender and pale. She wore what looked like the remains of a
flight suit underneath the jacket. The jacket was long on her, reaching
almost to her knees. She had long blonde hair, now matted and tangled. Her
flattened hair revealed two cat ears, long cat ears that were now were folded
down in distaste.
She turned in the light, checking the empty alley, her cat ears
standing and turning, listening for any other sound than the constant beating
of rain. Her eyes were cat eyes, green with vertical slits, in a face that
was pretty, if not a little sharp featured. She blinked in the rain, then
turned back to the container.
The handle had no lock, but it still took a bit of effort to lift
out of its notch and turn. The door opened slowly, reluctantly, and the
cat girl had to pull hard to make enough of an opening to get inside.
It was noisy inside. The rain's hammering on the roof echoed
off the empty walls. But at least it was dry. The cat girl slipped through
the opening.
The container was almost empty. A sea of loose styrofoam covered the
floor, mixed with bits and pieces of thin cardboard pieces. Several large
cardboard containers, some flattened, some partially standing, stood against
the aluminum walls. The floor was hardwood, showing the years of hard use
with nail holes and gouges. Inside, the air was musty and damp, the smell
of old paper.
The cat girl scrambled at the heavy door, trying to close it. Her
wet fingers slipped on the cold metal, loosing their grip on the slick
sides. She finally gave it up as useless.
She suddenly shivered. Standing, she realized how cold it was.
Beneath her boots, a small puddle grew from the water dripping off her coat.
She stepped towards the back of the container and started to dig through the
piles of discarded packing materials. There was a great length of packing
paper, coarse and absorbent, a roll of bubble plastic, any number of single
sided corrugated paper and more and more styrofoam. Gritting her teeth,
the cat girl took off her coat and laid it on the floor. She really needed
a fire. But the risk was just too great. And everything here would burn up
in about fifteen minutes. She would just have to dry out the best she could
and hope for the best. Besides, she could check her resources and see
what she had been to carry away from the wreck.
Matches. A compass. This and that. A small knife. Fishing hooks.
Little things that would have been helpful in a wilderness. Luckily, one
of those reflective blankets. The cat girl unfolded it and wrapped it around
herself. And making a bulge in the old jacket, her portable telcom wrapped
inside a waterproof bag. She unsealed the bag and opened the telcom. The
batteries seemed to be good. Weak, but maybe, just maybe...
She keyed in a code.
The speaker buzzed. The little battery light flickered.
"Blackjack..." The cat girl breathed.
The speaker buzzed.
"Please..."
It was the only number she had been able to recall. The musician at
the Chatsubo, who had listened to her, had played for her, had given her a
telcom number and told her to call if she ever needed a hand.
"Please...."
The tiny speaker clicked with the sound of someone picking up the
other end. The cat girl gave a small sigh of relief as she heard Blackjack's
voice.
"Hi.... It's Nekoko." Nekoko waited for Blackjack to shift mental gears
and then whispered, "I'm in trouble, big trouble." She caught her breath and
started again, more slowly and clearly. "It's ARES again. We ran a operation
to pull a friend out of one of their research labs. I flew the helicopter
for the drop off and pickup. The others did a bangup job on the lab and I
got them away."
She hesitated a moment as the voice on the other end asked a question.
"Hai, she's safe. But I needed to hide the helicopter from ARES. And I thought
the best place would be on the other side of Puget Sound. The damned thing
blew up halfway over, dropping me in the water.
"It was cold, so cold. The crash blew the cockpit door off. I
unsnapped my buckles and dived after the door. As I got out of the cockpit,
the helicopter sank." Another question came from the tiny speaker. "Oh, the
door? It had the liferaft attached to it. So, anyway, I got on the raft. And
there was nothing around me but mist and water. Lots of water. And seagulls.
Until this boat came up to pick me out of the liferaft. Fishermen, they said.
Real scummy types. I had to give them all my stuff to get a ride. All my
money, the sidearm, watch, that type of stuff. They even pulled the liferaft
on board. Luckily, they left me my telcom. So they wrapped me in a warm
blanket, gave me a cup of something they called soykaf and showed me to a
cabin. Then they closed the door and left me alone. They did tell me that
they would be putting into Seattle around dusk.
"The fishermen dropped me off an hour ago. Down by one of Seattle's
docks. Then it started to rain..." Nekoko leaned closer to her telcom.
"Blackjack, I think I need help to go hide for a while. It was ARES's
helicopter I trashed. They're probably still mad about that incident on
the island. I don't know. Don't tell anyone I survived. Maybe they'll
think I'm dead."
Nekoko paused while Blackjack spoke to her. She found it hard to
listen to him; the signal was weak and fuzzy. Were the batteries giving
out? She spoke out quickly. "I think my telcom is going out. Blackjack, I'm
down by the docks. In a container. Somewhere. Can you help me?"
Nekoko listened for the answer. The signal was still weaker. The
speaker was scratchy and underclear. "Please, I'm cold and lost and ..."
The battery light dimmed quickly and went black. The speaker was silent.
She stared at it for a moment. Speechless. So near to a friendly
voice and now this. With a snarl, she jumped up and threw the telcom
against the back wall. It shattered bright shiny plastic bits across the
styrofoam. Nekoko stood a second and then reached down for the reflective
blanket. With tears in her eyes, she slowly gathered enough packing materials
for a cushion and rolled herself inside. She didn't think she could
sleep, but there was no other place to go. Not anymore. Not tonight.
The morning light stretched across the dusty floor of the
shipping container, a faint pale bar that barely illuminated the
walls. It slid across a discarded fisherman's coat, piles of
styrofoam peanuts, ragged cardboard scraps and tiny shards of
plastic. The light ended at the far end of the container, reflecting
off the shiny surface of a survival blanket.
The blanket stirred.
Nekoko turned her head away from the light, towards the dirty
wall of the container. Her hand reached down and tried to pull the
blanket over her head. Her cat ears twitched in annoyance. Finally
she raised her head and glared at the intruding light.
"..taku mo..." she swore to herself. She reached up and scratched
her hair; it felt stiff and crusty from the effects of last night's rain.
The skin on her face and hands felt greasy and slightly painful. Another
effect of the chemicals in last night's downpour.
The fisherman's coat still lay on the wooden floor; a small
stain of water still surrounded it. Nekoko looked at it for a moment.
Her only other possessions were her tattered flight suit, a few survival
items, useful if one found oneself in a pristine wilderness, and a
reflective blanket. Her telecom lay in pieces under the far wall.
"Now what?" she asked herself. "I can't go to the Mechanic's
safe house - they took my safepass last night. The Chatsubo is too
risky...."
Nekoko's musings were interrupted by the growing yammer of a
engine outside. She stood up. The engine sound grew louder and then
stopped. Nekoko could now hear voices. Men's voices.
Curious, she padded across the container and leaned against
the container door. If she leaned outwards a little, Nekoko could see
the alley that she had run up the night before. The voices came
closer.
"...shows there's at least twenty empties in row 7 and row 9."
The first speaker was an older man, wearing the uniform and hard hat of
a dockworker. He gestured in Nekoko's direction and turned to the other
man.
"If you can have them cleaned and loaded by 1700 today, the
'Hane Maru' should make her schedule," the second man said. He was a
Japanese businessman, dressed in a suit and carrying a Pedeay. Nekoko
turned her head and cocked her cat ears.
The Japanese businessman made a few notes on the screen of
his Pedeay while the dockworker waved a sign to someone Nekoko could
not see.
The engine started up again, very close to Nekoko's container.
Nekoko quickly looked left and right; she could not see the truck or
whatever it was.
A harsh loud clanging noise echoed throughout Nekoko's container.
Then the floor tilted and the debris started to slide towards her. Both
container doors fell open. Nekoko scrambled for a handhold, dropping
to the floor. A raft of stryofoam, cardboard pieces and boxes hit her
in the face. Kicking and shouting, she was swept out of the container by
a tide of trash.
She landed on her butt ten feet below the container. The rain
of trash cascaded around her ears and onto her head for a few seconds
longer. The fisherman's coat flopped to the ground beside her. She
shook her head and looked up.
Her container was suspended in midair over her head by a giant
walking crane. The crane looked like a iron spider, six walking legs and
two legs modified for carrying shipping containers. It was powered by
a dirty diesel engine mounted below a small three man platform. The
loadspider had tilted her container and was gently shaking it to clear
the remainder of the trash out. The diesel belched black smoke.
"Who the hell are you?"
Nekoko turned her head. The two men were staring at her. The
dockworker had an angry red face; he looked like he was personally
insulted by having a girl drop out of one of his containers. The
businessman put his Pedeay stylus into a pocket.
"Goddamit, what the hell do you think..."
Nekoko started to get to her feet. The dockworker had big meaty
fists which he shook at her. She gathered herself and sprung into the air,
running. The dockworker, caught by surprise, stood a moment and then
lumbered after her.
As Nekoko rounded the corner, she caught a glimpse of the business
man. He was signalling to the loadspider. The plume of diesel smoke
increased, as the spider started to step over the rows of containers.
Nekoko ran.
The shipping containers blurred as she ran. The footing was
treacherous, uneven packed earth and puddles of toxic water; Nekoko
had to keep an eye on her feet and where they stepped. From behind
her, she could hear the angry shouts of the dockworker and the whine
and thump of the loadspider. She turned and ran down a narrow alley
between containers. At the end she stopped and carefully looked out.
No one. She slid against a Marson container and caught her breath. It
seemed that she had been spending a lot of time lately running.If this
kept up, she could probably try out for field and track.
"Sugu koko! Nekojin ya! Neko musume ya."
Nekoko looked up as the loadspider reared up in front of her.
The businessman had mounted the loadspider and was standing on the riding
platform. Now he was shouting out her location to the dockworker.
"Bakana yarou!" Nekoko replied in Japanese as she ran underneath
the loadspider and into the maze of containers on the other side. The
businessman was now yelling in English, "Over here, the cat-girl!" As
she tried to get out of sight of the loadspider, she could hear the
swearing of the dockworker as he caught up with the loadspider.
Her luck was holding for the moment. The containers here had
not been neatly stacked. By carefully working her way deeper into the
maze, she might be able to stay hidden from the loadspider's rider.
Again, she leaned against a container and caught her breath. Her luck
would not hold out, not if the dockworker decided to call in his buddies.
There was something here that she wasn't supposed to have seen; that was
the only reason she could think of for all the fuss about a transient
sleeping in a container. The fact that she hadn't seen anything would
not help her now. She had to escape the yard and do it quickly.
Somewhere to the left of her, the loadspider whined and thudded.
Nekoko stretched her head out and looked into the alleyway. There were
stacks of containers in every direction. The loadspider seemed
to be two or three rows to the left of her; if she stayed closer to the
left side of the alleyway, she might not be seen.
Nekoko popped out of her hiding place and sprinted for the end
of the alleyway. Her cat ears were tilted back, listening for the sounds
of pursuit. The end of the alleyway came all too quickly; Nekoko had to
grab a stanchion on a container to keep from sliding into the crossroads.
A gulp of breath, a quick check of the corners of the crossroads, another
sprint.
As she approached next corner, something sparked a warning
in her. She started to slow, but the ground was too slippery. A misstep
and she fell and slid into the intersection.
Nekoko groaned softly and pushed herself off the wet ground.
She was on her hands and knees when she noticed something. The sound
of country/western music, just loud enough to warn her. She slowly
turned her head.
A loadspider stood to the left of her. From the riding platform
came the refrain to a Hank Williams song. Another dockworker was leaned
across the railing, staring away from her, looking back across the sea
of containers.
Nekoko's breath stopped. She could almost reach out and touch
the loadspider's piston-like legs. She quietly pulled her legs underneath
herself.
The dockworker stared into the morning smog and mist. The comlink
whispered the progress of the hunt, the radio began a Patsy Cline song.
Nekoko eased herself to her feet. As she looked for another
way out, she noticed a heavy pin lying in the mud.
The sad sounds of the Patsy Cline song continued.
She slowly reached out and picked up the pin. Then she turned to
the loadspider's leg beside her. A set of rungs led up the leg to the
riding platform. Nekoko swung her head around, checking one last time
before putting the pin in her belt and placing a foot on the first rung.
It was a fair climb; some 50 feet. Nekoko took each rung slowly,
trying to stay as quiet as possible. As she approached the riding platform
from the rear, she stopped at the last rung and pulled out the pin.
A slow quiet breath. Then Nekoko leaped over the edge of the riding platform
and thrust the pin into the dockworker's lower back.
"Don't move," she whispered, "or I'll blow your guts all over
the ground." It sounded pretty good to her, even if the delivery was a
bit shaky.
"What. What. What do you want?" The dockworker stammered. The
C/W station hummed a Garth Brooks melody.
"Can you make this thing walk?"
"Sure. Just don't do anything."
"Walk it to the fence, OK? Don't look back." Nekoko whispered
harshly. She looked for a gun on the dockworker, something that would
be more menacing than a rusty pin. Nothing. However, the dockworker
was a big burly redhead, a man that could pick her up and drop her in
a moment if he saw how she was armed.
He leaned over to the side of the riding platform and spoke to
a small speaker. "Lenny, it's me. Bob."
Nekoko remembered that the loadspiders had simple dogbrains
which could understand simple instructions. They had just enough intelligence
to do the work, if it was explained simply to them.
"Lenny. Be a good boy and walk to Row 37. OK??" The diesel engine
yammered to life, covering them with sooty carbon. The riding platform
gently shook. The tall load spider started moving legs.
"Don't turn around." Nekoko shouted over the sound of the engine,
poking him with the pin again. "Can you make him step over the fence?"
"Jeese, watch what you're doing, lady." The dockworker straightened
up and shook his head. "No, Lenny's not allowed outside of the yard."
Nekoko bit her lower lip. She had thought to use the loadspider
to simply step over the fence and allow her to escape. She looked away
from the dockworker's back to check on the others. Two of the loadspiders
were stationary. However, the third was walking in their direction. Nekoko
suddenly noticed that the comlink had been silent for the last few seconds.
Ahead, the edge of the yard could be seen; a tall fence seperated the
container yard from a unkempt assortment of old warehouses and streets.
The other loadspider was slowly gaining on them. Nekoko could hear shouting
from the alleyways below.
She turned back to the dockworker. "Ask Lenny to put his left
rear leg next to the fence."
He leaned towards the speaker and spoke a few words. Nekoko moved
the pin so that he could not see it and prodded him with it again.
The loadspider stopped at the fence. Nekoko waited until the load
spider had positioned its leg and then jumped away from the dockworker.
She dived for the rungs on the leg, as the rusty pin fell to the floor of
the riding platform.
"You bitch!" The dockworker turned with a snarl as he saw the pin
roll towards him.
Nekoko slid down the leg ladder, burning her hands. Overhead, the
dockworker was speaking to Lenny.
The leg started to move; she jumped off the ladder onto the top
of the fence. The loadspider's leg rose up and then started to swing
at her; Nekoko jumped for the other side of the fence.
The landing knocked the breath out of her. She lay there for a
second, then rolled over. The loadspider's leg was wavering in the air,
as if caught between conflicting commands. The dockworker was screaming
at the poor dogbrain, trying to get it to ignore its original programming.
Nekoko rolled onto her side and pushed her upper body off the ground. There
was a puff of mud nearby; the dockworker had thrown Nekoko's pin at her
in his rage.
The loadspider's leg retreated behind the fence. The dockworker
was jabbering at his comlink, giving away Nekoko's position. She decided
not to wait to see who else would show up; she sprinted for the other
side of the street, in among the old warehouses and factories. As she
rounded the corner, there were several loud crack and chips sprang from
the walls around her. Nekoko took one look behind her; the other
loadspider stood at the fence line. Standing on the riding platform,
several men aimed rifles in her direction. Then she put a couple of
buildings between her and the container yard.
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