From: wohnsman@mac.cc.macalstr.edu
Subject: Orgin
Date: 3 Jan 94 20:17:07 -0600

	This is the orgin of a character currently in the Chatsubo and
about to dive into "Something for Nothing".  I figured that a background
is a good thing to give a character, nice as mysterious figures are.
Thoughts?
----------------------------------------------
	/head on fire...no...ice...iced up needles/
/prodding very soul/god/why not just fill my veins with
cement/dump me in an ocean.../a little peace then.../
"AARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!"

	Sasha awakened fully, in agony.  Her mouth felt and
tasted like she'd been taking a full shot of bad,but strong
whiskey every half minute for the last four hours. /Stupid,/
she thought /that would've killed me./
	The pain was all around her. She tried to sit up, to
escape it, but as she did, it suddenly felt as though a thousand
pound weight had been neatly deposited on her chest. Somewhere in
her conciousness, her adolescent mind reacted to the pressure.
/Great.  I finally start to fill out into a real figure then someone
had to throw several tons of bricks on me./
	Having nothing else to do, she opened her eyes, only to
immediately regret doing so.  At least it reassured her that a
building hadn't collapsed on top of her, even if it did feel like it.
/No,/ she thought, /not a building...Just the knife./
	Knife.  The streetslang in her neighborhood of old Chicago for
getting cybered up when you weren't looking for it.
	One quick glance at the room around her had been enough for her
to ID the vision augments she'd been given.  She sighed.  Before her
mother had disappeared, she'd always been proud of Sasha's bright green
eyes.  Sasha doubted that whoever had paid for her metalling had not
gone out of their way to stick to the original color.  Probably a boring
brown or blue.   /Once I get used to it, I'll probably love the upgrades
though.  Micro and Macro, telescope,ir, and techsight.  All the work
she did with her father's gadgets and her keeping up with cybertech would
pay off if she could put the additions to good use. Unfortunately, some-
one had apparently decided what that use would be, or she wouldn't be here,/
she thought.
	The sound of the chamber's slide door being manuvered brought
her out of her mental reverie.  /Must have enhanced my hearing, too./
Footsteps came up close to her. Suddenly, the pain that had reverberated
throughout her body came to a crashing halt.  She sighed in relief.
	"Don't open your eyes again, girl," a gruff voice said.
	"In a little pain this morning, aren't you," the man said as he
helped her to a sitting position.
	She slid down the bed side until she was standing.  At 5'5,"
she was sure she was well below eyelevel with the man.  He was obviously
strong, and his arms had been long, one metal cool to the touch. "No, I
always scream at the top of my lungs first thing in the morning.  Better
than a complete breakfast for starting the day off right," she said with
a sarcastic grin.
	"I see the anesthesia's worn off" he said as he gripped her right
arm tightly and pulled her towards the door.  "The cyberjockey wants to
see how you turned out.  Come on."
	"Hey, cool out.  I can walk.   Can you,"she asked as he hurried
her forward.  He slowed down a little before opening another door and
pushing her forward into a seat.
	A slow southern drawl carried across the room.  "Easy with the
merchandise, Skinner.  Don't want to screw up the newbies, now, do we?"
The man who had brought her to the room grunted before exiting. She heard the
door slide shut behind him.
	The southerner was beside her quickly, his fingers travelling over
the body he'd reformed the day before, pushing and prodding at various
points.  Sasha realized with a start that she was feeling nothing in her
left arm.  In shock, she opened her eyes again.  It was still an unfamiliar
sensation, but what she saw enabled her to keep them open this time.
	"NO!," she cried as she scrambled away from the man.  She stared
down at the intricate metal skin, noting the enhancements in one quick
glance.  Tech kit, sensors, even a gun, and she had the feeling that
although she'd avoided weapons in the past, she'd know how to use this
one. "Butcher," she screamed kicking out at him.
	He gathered her squirming mass in his arms and deposited her back on
the chair.  Pushing a button, leg and arm restraints shot out of the
upholstery and she was trapped once more.
	"I thought I did a rather nice job, actually, and I was paid quite
well.  I think the client will be quite satisfied," he said as he patted
his face with a handkerchief.   She looked at him then.  He was average.
5'11", sandy hair, thin, beady eyes, obviously enhanced.  She steeled
her expression, made it as icey as she could.  He laughed.
	"I'm Doctor Steve Kooling.  You're to stay with me and learn
whatever you can over the next year.  The tests indicate that that will
be a lot.  Then I turn you over to him," he said.
	"Who," Sasha asked.
	"No matter.  Just one of the faceless power mongers that pay the
poor and the rich's salaries alike."
	"You're a cyberjockey, right," she asked, using her human hand to
push a strand of coal black hair away from her face.  She looked at the
metal one, disgusted.
	"Actually, I prefer the term medical technology expert, thank you.
I know that 'cyberjockey' is the street term, but we're really more than
that, you know.  And I wouldn't be derogatory if I were you.  You'll be
one yourself.  And so much more," he said leaning over her.  She turned
her face away.
	"Well if you're such an "expert," couldn't you even manage a fake
skin,Kooling," she asked cynically.
	He laughed.  "I didn't want to.  You're part machine now.  The
sooner you start to realize that, the better.  Besides, you'll appreciate
it later.  It's armored as well or better than most ronins, soloes, or
corporate goons.  The tech inside is too valuable to not protect," he
answered.
	"But the rest of me is disposable?  Is that it," she added.
	He shrugged, uncomfortable with the truth of that statement.
	"Meat.  That's all we are, after all," she answered for him,
"Just more nutrients for the corporate machine." She closed her eyes
against the strain of the new sight.
	"Well are you going to teach me or not, Kooling?  I want out of
here yesterday, and if you think you're going to keep me here an entire
year, you're out of your f#$*ing gourd.  You've got two months.  Move it,"
she said.
	He removed the restraints and smiled when she didn't try to escape.
"Okay, then.  Let's do it," he said as he pulled out a pile of various
cyber parts.  "Let's start with the arms, since that the one that got your
attention."
	"Oh, by the way.  I like your new eyes better.  Green wasn't your
color.  You're not the type to envy anybody.  You'd take what you want and
beat the consequences.  This is much better," he said as he pulled out
a handful of implant options.
	"Huh? Gimme a mirror, Kooling," she demanded.
	She peered at the reflection, once more reeling at the aftershocks
of her new vision.  She'd have to ask him how to adjust it later.  She
could see grey, though, steel grey.
	And she smiled.
--------------------------------------------
That's part one, anyway.  More later.
wohnsman@macalstr.edu

Part 2: Orgin
	Sorry if any names are different.  The problems of improvisations.
sigh.  If any of the new folks have names already of use here, it's an honest
mistake in that I just didn't know better. Thoughts welcome (and encouraged,
even.  Thinking is good for the body.  That whole life thing, again).
On losing, growing, finding, and pain.

	The triage area that they'd set up for the incoming extraction
team was finished just on time.  A crash from the halls outside told the
meds, docs, and various other folk scattered about that it was probably worse
than they'd anticipated.  When the doors crashed open and a mountain of flesh
and machine walked in carrying a woman's body, Sasha nearly turned away.  She'd
seen it all in the ops she'd assisted in the last two months of working
here with Doc Hadley, or Steve as he insisted she call him.  Still, when the
wounds were fresh, she always cringed.
	"Get a damn jockey over here," the first man roared, his voice
gaining volume with each syllable.  As he said it, the rest of the team
shambled in, pushing the scientist they'd been paid to bring back in front
of them.  The short cybergeneticist fell to his knees as the soloes released
him.  Hadley stepped forward and gestured for one of his orderlies to get
the man under anesthesia.
	"Op room three,"the doctor said, "Sasha, I'm doing the make over
and metal.  Take care of the meat."
	"What?  Doc...Steve, I can't...You're asking me to be a surgeon
on two months training," she said, speaking quietly so she wouldn't be
heard.
	"You know all I do, and you'd trust me to do it wouldn't you," he
said as he dipped his hands in the sterizilation field.  "Do it."
	Sasha watched him walk out of the room, shouting orders as he moved.
A young technician got the injured woman out of the giant's arms and wheeled
into an op room. /Young/ she thought, /I'm seventeen and about to do surgery
and I'm calling a techie a good three years older than me young/.  Shaking
herself out of her self doubt, she pushed her hands, both flesh and metal,
into the rays of the sterilization box. The gentle tingle that worked across
them reassured her.  She'd assisted on enough ops to know it now.  If Steve
thought she could do it...
	One look at the scowling face of the man who'd carried her patient in
told her what would happen if she wasn't capable.  She swallowed the lump in
her throat and went to work.
	"God, what did they do to her," Sasha wondered aloud as she plugged
the cyber body scan into the patient's neural outlet. "The 'runners don't
usually end up meat like this."  She looked at the figures.  Circulatory
system didn't look good, and she could see that the woman's mangled right
leg wouldn't be staying on.
	"Jacques.  Amputate the leg.  Measure up a basic cyber.  I'll do the
addons later," she called to her assistant, a man about ten years her senior.
	Looking at her cyberarm, she switched to surgical vision and switched
on the circulatory modulator to her index finger syringe.  Plunging the
needle into the patient's flesh, she pressed the release on the base of the
pinky.  Then she flipped on the monoscalpel in her thumb.
	Sasha didn't have a problem cutting.  It was like unscrewing the backs
of the wasted computers her dad had given her to mess with as a small child.
And she'd always been able to put those back together.  The last two months
had only strengthened her opinion that man and machine worked in much the
same way.  Open it up, move around a few nuts and bolts, make a few
improvements, and the product's better than new.  Her father would be so
proud when she finally got to see him again.
	"Hmmm...needs a new left ventricle.  This one's shredded."  She turned
and went to the cabinets behind her.  Opening one, she routed through the
small cases, occasionally checking the measurements against the display
on her pinky nail on the mainly flesh hand.  "Got it."
	Returning to the table, Sasha wondered what this patient would think
of being nearly half metal when she awakened.  This woman, Lace as the patient
record in her mind reminded her, hadn't been adverse to cybernetic enhancements
in the past, but nothing near a cybernetic limb.  A few eye options, neural
plugs, and chips, but that was mainly it.  The leg might not be what she
wanted, but it wasn't as if any of them had a choice.  It was either that
or let her hop around on one leg for the rest of her life.  Settling into
her resolve, Sasha began to install the ventricle.
	------
	
	Leather looked up disconsolately.  When he'd carried Lace in, he'd
felt her slipping away, her smiling blue eyes had dimmed with every step he
took.  She was all he'd had to hang on to for so long now...if she was gone...
He shuddered at the thought.  'Some damn kid' he thought, reembering the
surgeon who had Lace's life in her hands, 'that cyberjockey sent a kid to
take care of Lace.' His fist rammed the chair as he pictured what he would do
if she didn't make it through.  He didn't care who was paying his salary or
how much they wanted the docs alive.  They'd pay if his lover died.
----------
	She opened her eyes to see a stranger peering down at her.  A woman.
Dark hair, grey eyes.  The woman's left arm, metal, lifted and she looked
down at it.  "Nice to see you back among the living, Lace.  You had us
a bit scared," the woman said.
	"A little bit of a scare?  And here I thought I was dying," she said
weakly.  The girl, and now that she looked, Lace realized that the person
with her couldn't be more than eighteen, smiled slightly.
	"You almost did.  And your leg didn't decide to come back with you,"
she said in response.  Lace grimaced in response.  "Don't worry to much.
I was able to install a cybermodem, pretty high quality, and a few other
nice options before I was through with it," she continued.
	"You? A jockey," Lace asked incredulously.
	This time she laughed aloud.  "To quote a friend, somewhat, we prefer
medics.  But yeah, I am a jockey, hard as it is to believe.  Just got a few
perks and some good training to get me here a few years early."
	"Well, if you did a good job, I'm glad you are. If not, well, I'll
let Leather handle that eventuality," Lace said.
	"Your boyfriend?  He hasn't left since he brought you in.  Had to
knock him unconcious before we could even do a scan on him!"
	Lace laughed. "Yeah, that's Leather alright," she said smiling.
	The cyberjockey extended her hand. "Sasha Mitchell.  Glad to finally
meet you," she said.
	"Lace Carter, and I'm glad I'm alive to meet you," she answered,
"Now can I go test out my leg?"
----------------
	
	When she finally caught up to Hadley after getting the thumbs up from
Lace, Sasha was exhausted.  She'd installed and repaired at least seven mercs
in the last two days.  Seeing the results on Lace, though, she'd been pleased
at her own performance.  Hadley, on the other hand, looked well rested.
	"Well you had to get some practice," he said when she realized that
while she'd been slaving over mangled bodies he'd been sleeping in his own
bed.  "And besides, that extract was a lot of work to remodel!"
	"Oh, I'm sure, Steve.  Now why did you want to see me," she asked
as she settled into a chair.  She was surprised to hear the door open.
	"To meet me, Ms. Mitchell," a voice behind her answered.
	She swung around to see the source.  A suit, early forties, had
just walked in as cool as a steel winter.
	"Alvin Dailies, this is Sasha Mitchell.  Sasha, this is the man who
so kindly paid for your enhancements," Steve said.
	"YOU'RE the one who brought me in here?  Stole me from my family
and butchered my body," she said, pointing an accusing finger at him.
	"Well, yes," he answered as he brushed a piece of lint from his
shoulder.
	Sasha smoldered.  He'd given her a new life, but he'd also separated
her from her family for two months.  She didn't even think that they knew
where she was.  She stood up and walked over to him.
	"I want to know why.  Why me?  Why not any of the other brats in
my neighborhood?  In this whole city," she asked.
	"Your father owed me.  Their's didn't," he said.
	"He...owed...you?"
	"Well, he didn't want to give you to me, but when I said the debt was
due, he didn't have any money.  He offered his business, but what do I
need with a second rate tech shack," Dailies said looking bored," I told
him I'd take you in payment."
	"And he accepted," she cried.
	"Not exactly, but after I told him that if he didn't I'd have you
both killed, and your younger brother," he said with a smirk," he acquiesced
rather nicely.  They're both perfectly happy in their new home in New York."
	"You son of a bit..."Sasha said as she leapt at him.  Hadley
scrambled to hold her back, but it was Dailies quick reflexes that stopped
her.  A quick sidearm to her head from a cyberarm knocked her to the ground.
	"I WON'T have my employees attacking me, Mitchell," he growled.
	"Employee," she scoffed as she got to her feet,"If you think I'm
working for you than you're stupider than you look in that three piece
shit suit."
	"Hardly the demeanor I'd expect from one of my staff, Hadley.  I
thought you said she was trained," the corporate said, stifling a bored
yawn.
	"She is, Dailies.  I don't blame her for wanting to kill you.  You
didn't tell me how you got her," Steve answered.
	"You work for me, Hadley.  I don't answer to you or any man.  The
girl is mine now.  How she came to be so doesn't matter," he said.
	They were eyeing each other like two wolves about to do battle.
Sasha took advantage of the distraction.
	"How many times have you done this, Dailies...stolen children from
their families to be your high skill slaves," she asked, her back to him.
	"Enough that I rarely have to hire, right Hadley," he answered.
Steve looked down at the floor, ashamed.
	"Well then I guess this is their emancipation," she said, turning
and firing. "I'm not yours,Dailies, I'm not any man's.  She was surprised
that he offered no defense and sank to the ground.  She hadn't aimed to kill,
so she knew the wounds wouldn't be fatal unless they didn't treat him.
	"If you think he's worth it, then save him, Hadley, but make him let
them go," she said as she removed the rest of the bullets from the gun and
gave them to her colleague and former teacher.
	"Sasha...What have you done?  He has real power," Steve said as
he looked at her with newfound respect - and fear, "He'll have you killed!"
	"Only if he or the court's find me.  And that's up to you, isn't it?
Tell me now.  Do I leave or stay, Steve?  If you report, I stay, go to jail,
and let the legal system screw me like it does everyone else.  Otherwise,
go do surgery, and I disappear."
	"Where are you going to go, Sash? He'll find you," he asked.
	"I'm going to find them.  My family.  And I'm going to bring him
down - the clean way next time," she answered.
	Steve shook his head, then turned on the intercom.  "Prep ops 3.
Now."  He turned and dragged Hadley out of the room, looking behind only
once.  "Good luck."
	The doors closed.  Sasha went to the cabinets and grabbed a handful
of manstoppers.  She'd decided in that moment that she couldn't do it, couldn't
kill him.  And if she couldn't kill him, she wouldn't be able to kill anyone.
She looked over the room a last time, then walked out the door and into
exile.
-----------------