>From: snarler@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU (Drifter...)
Subject: REPOST: Pestilance
Date: 10 Jul 91 08:12:28 GMT


  The following is a repost of my first posting to the alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
newsgroup, a number of months ago. More reposts will be following immediately,
and then hopefully a few new articles in the Unnamed Storyline.
  Any comments, criticisms, compliments, etc. are welcome. Please keep
responses to E-Mail. This is a cross-posted article, respect the other news-
groups.

--------



 wander wander w
Endless stream a
of Consciousne n
rts sseldnE ss d
?he ...rednaw re

Oh, here al
           READY.

    Short figure with black, greasy hear, laying in flat waves on the head and
shoulders. Pale, mottled skin over a angular, swollen form. No shoulders to
speak of, a thick chest over a bloated stomach. Carefully arranged slacks of
synthetic fabric, dyed with cheap chemicals into an even shade of blue, like
the color of a glaciers heart. Shirtless, just an unclosed jacket of lined,
pale leather.
    Murky brown eyes glaze about.

Biz tonight. Biz
               zy. Loud.
Stay clEAn. Don't worry, be clEAn--

    It's a busy night at the Chatsubo. Wintertime forces even some of the
toughest from the streets. A winter of nature, and another winter of human
making.
    With a whiffing noise, the figure moves into the Chatsubo, in almost a
stupor. Patrons ignore him. Wannabes, street samauri scope out the new arrival,
dismiss him as not even a player, never mind a minor. As he shuffles into the
bar, almost everyone he passes unconciously recoils slightly from possible
accidental contact.
    No one likes to touch filth.

New faces and old places. How long?
No one no one noone  n o o n e
                     no o n en
                     eno.o nno
                     ne.n o oo
                     o.o n e n
                     .
                   .
                 .
                 .... Rats, no Ratz!
"Hey Ratz."

    A few, very few, recognize the person. They shudder and make a point of
leaving their tables, moving as far as they possibly can from the scruffy,
greasy bum. Several of the waitresses look at their customers in baffled
annoyance.
    Ratz looks up from a bar customer, someone ordering hot chocolate. Noticing
the potential new source of income, he moves slowly down the bar with his
carefully balanced bulk. He recognizes the customer.
    "Hey Ratz." A faint rasp of speech buried in a voice of noise, the bum is
loud, but only the closest can hear what is said.
    "Shit," Ratz says flatly. "Haven't died yet, Pestilance?"

Ratz is decayed, got bad teethies. No arm. Not as clEAn as me.
"Haven't died yet, Pestilance?"
Died? I'm clEAn. I can't die.
I'm Pestilance. That's who I do. I remember now, thanks

    "Ratsssszz, still alive. Kind of disorganized, y'know? Time ran out and,
uh... y'know? Uh, you got any OJ?"
    Ratz sighs quickly. He looks at Pestilance for a moment, considering.
    Pestilance sips the bright, tangy juice carefully. He licks out the glass
once he's drained it. Ratz will destroy the glass when this particular customer
is done with it.
    A pink and healthy tongue swabs the curved inner surface of the glass.

Wonderful bright clear OJ. Vitamins and niacin and potasium and vibrations--
Makes my head clearer. Being clEAn means being fucked out a lot, kind of fuzzy,
like the OJ pulp feel in your mouth.
Juice gives something for the clEAn to work with, I get smoother and work
better.

    Ratz makes sure none of the waitresses get close to Pestilance. He is
sweating, with only the small distance of the bar seperating him from this
strange person. But he can't make the bum leave. Not without touching him, and
that is something even old and decaying Ratz can't bring himself to do.
    "Thanks Ratz," Pestilance says. "I um needed that. I'm uh... better now."
    "You leaving, my unwelcome guest?"
    "No. Not later."
    "If not later, than how about now?"
    "Sorry Ratz. Sorry man, gotta work. Need some money man."
    Ratz studies the pale and disgusting looking man. Ten years ago, he came in
and killed twenty-three people.
    None of them died until a week after he had left the Chatsubo.
    "Far most corner table. Do not talk to my girls or Lonny's."
    "Ok man."
    "If you don't get work by tomorrow, I want you out of my place."
    "Ok man. Thanks Ratz."
    Pestilance begins to walk to the table far in back. Ratz signals and a way
is made clear, a buffer between Pestilance and the customers. Those that had
moved to the distant end of the room curse quietly and move again, several of
them out the door.
    The Chat vetrans start cycling out the old story and it spreads around a
bit. Neos don't believe the shit, it's just the vets spinning their mouths
again, man.

Got a table of my own. Ratz you son of a bitch.
           It isn't my fault.
I walk clEAnly through the people to the table.
                                                Sit down.
       Wait for someone to ask me the question.
Wish I had some good clothes...

    A wannabe, some razorboy, slinks darkly up to the bar. Ratz ignores him,
picking up the used glass with an old rag.
    "Who's the meat?" the razorboy hisses. His mouth is full of new teeth, an
amature surgery job that has left his fuzzy jaw to swollen to move more than
slightly. Ratz looks bemusedly at the wannabe and doesn't say anything.
    "You serving filth now? Huh?"
    Ratz carefully wraps the rag around the glass. He leaves the wannabe to
place the rag into the incinerator. He returns in a few minutes, the impatient
razorboy just about to walk over to Pestilance's table.
    "You are too young," Ratz says, not looking at the boy but at Pestilance in
his far, isolated corner. "You weren't even in the Spawl back then. You were a
child with no dream."
    "Fuck you man," the boy hissed with annoyance.
    "That Pestilance, he is clean. Not dirtless clean, but clean inside. He was
a microbiologist Mozart. He made himself immune to everything, even his own
little friends."
    The razorboy wannabe looks at the table now, the urge to go over to the
table quickly leaving him with Ratz's slow, neutral words.
    "He was a corporate treasure. Maas wanted to marry him. A little company,
Fradin Labs, they got him. Gave him his own lab and almost as much equipment
as he asked for. He made all kinds of things." Ratz looks down at his smudged
pink plastic arm. "Then they go belly up, Fradin. The Mozart had burned out on
his own creations. He got something into himself, it made him bad." Ratz's
robotic arm whirrs as he picks up a small shot glass. He pours a shot of
something pale amber, the bottle clinking as he replaces it.
    "What happened?" the razorboy hisses, reaching for the glass.
    An arm, a flesh one, stops the boy. "He lost himself. Or maybe his little
friends, they lose him, eh?" Ratz smiles, his teeth gleaming brownly at the
boy. The arm pulls away.
    "Bad shit. You shouldn't let him in here," the razorboy says. He holds the
shot glass carefully, watching Pestilance, who sits and fidgets slightly,
staring at Lonny's girls. The boy turns back to Ratz as he speaks.
    "No." Ratz frowns, shrugs. "He is dangerous. He carries many nasty little
bugs in him, only he knows how to control them."
    "Bullshit. He's punched out." Sips the liquid, coughs slightly. Ratz
does not smile.
    "That one, he is strange. Difficult. But not insane. When he was in here
last time, some of my customers, they did not like his looks. They made him
leave." Ratz starts polishing the bar with his regular cleaning rag, the old
Russian arm whirring vaguely. Several minutes pass.
    "So?" the boy says impatiently.
    "They all died," Ratz says after a moment, still polishing. "Unexpected,
unexplainable, sudden illness. Only them, no one else." He looks up at the
distant table, squinting slightly. "That's when they started calling him
Pestilance."

I sit, waiting. Place seems bizzy bizzy bizzy, something going down.
(Maybe it means work.)
Sometimes I wish I wasn't clEAn, so I didn't have to be so lonely.
I watch the pretty girls and make myself stay still. Warm bodies. Exciting.
(No one for Pestilance.)

I wait for someone to ask the question.


//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//
"Pestilance" character is copyright (C) 1991 by Drifter
                                                (CARL@robot.nuceng.ufl.edu)
Please ask or at least warn before using character in any significant story
lines. Cameos are fine.


 -------------======>>>>>>>>>>>>*** Drifter ***<<<<<<<<<<<<======-------------
"Well ser."  Benjamin licked his lips.  "First off, there's the fact that you
 aren't wearing any clothes."  Robert nodded.  "Good, go for the direct.  I'll
 even posit,  for now,  that the simplest,  most parsimonious explanation for
 my nudity is that I've gone bonkers.  I reserve the right to offer an
 alternative theory,  though."              --The Uplift War by David Brin