Date: Fri, 9 Dec 1994 08:54:05 -0500 (EST)
From: kendelhardt jason david <kendejd9@wfu.edu>
To: Soeren Dammand Iversen <xero@kom.auc.dk>
Subject: Re: STORY: Cyberpsycho 8
This is a long message, with CP 1-6. You can find some archive stuff from
a.c.c at catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu. They have all the old logs and
some story compiliations. Never did learn how to run http or www, so
can't help you there. Later
Copyright 1994 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 1
The Beginning
"Imagine, you're on a dangerous beat, gangers everywhere, tracers lighting up
the night. Your partner's down, MaxTac is caught up in traffic, you're not
going to make it to see that first year pin. Suddenly, out of the blue, steps
this -thing-. It's 2 meters tall, heavily armored, packing the biggest guns on
the street. It's immune to gunfire, tear gas dosen't stop it, it moves faster
than your patrol car. The thing's about to rule the battlefield. But wait,
it's on -your- side! It's got NCPD on it's chest and its after the perps! They
don't stand a chance 'cause the creature misses nothing, it's afraid of
nothing, and it can be hurt by -nothing-. Get ready to take back the streets,
boys, because HERE COMES THE ENFORCER!!! "
-Militech presentation to Night City Police Department
"Shit, the damn things are faster than speeding bullets, more powerful than
mag-trains, can leap tall buildings in a single bound, only thing they can't
do is fly...yet. Man, the Enforcer is GOD!"
-a cop's first impression of the Enforcer
Epson Mall, Night City. 21:34 21 Oct
A thousand shops hawked their wares. Along the gleaming storefronts, behind
the holographic displays, past clusters of gabbering shoppers, everything was
for sale. One place sold neo-weave synthsilk, the next sold real silk, just
beyond that was a place selling hand-spun silk. Computer parts, brick-a-brack,
drugs, sex, rock-and-roll. It was all here. 30 square kilometers of
capitalistic euphoria. Almost a nation unto itself, Epson Mall stomped the
feeble attempts of the 20th century to create a supermall. Epson was -the-
supermall. Employees never left, their children would be the next batch of
minimum wager earners while their parents moved up in the corporate ladder.
Schools were founded, hotels built, amusement parks, swimming pools, VR
chambers, simstim multi-plexes, even a small airport. 10 levels of flea market
hysteria crammed into a dome 500 meters high.
Not that Julie could give a crap about any of that. She was here to shop. She
had daddy's gold card and a 2000 eb limit. Her best friends (at least for this
week) Krissy and Maggie were with her, along with a few other groupies from
school. She had just spotted the -cutest- guy in the Gap store, and he had
looked that "look" at her. LIfe couldn't get any better than it was right now.
The clique of girls were standing around the Baskin-Robbins dispenser, sucking
away at adiphose-lactose free ice cream. Bags were dumped at their feet, every
girl had at least 500 eb to blow and there were only a few hours left until
they had to leave.
"So, where do you want to go next?" Krissy asked. Julie was the unanimous
leader of the group, being the richest and loudest, so the question was
directed at her.
"I dunno, that guy at Gap was pretty cute. I might want to talk to him. I'm
tired of shopping." Believe it or not, but there was a limit to how much
clothing and music she could buy in one day. Besides, the bags were getting
heavy and daddy hated it when she bought more than she could carry. Not that
it mattered, the ever-present (but invisible) bodyguards would see to it that
she had enough arms to port her load.
"No way, tired of shopping! Never, no way. I could -die- before I got tired of
shopping!" That was Susan, one of the wallflowers who had tagged along. Julie
shot her a look that said: Shut up, you worthless imp. I'm not talking to you.
Maggie had an idea. "Why don't we go to the arcade. There's always some guys
there, we could make a music video!" A chorus of yeah's and ok's followed. VR
videos were fun to make, especially since every girl loved the same groups and
all thought that they could sing.
"No, I don't feel like it." Instantly the mood changed, everyone disagreeing
once it became clear what Julie wanted.
"Come on, it'll be fun. We could sing Chloroform's new one." Maggie broke off
into a few lines from the latest electronic rock tune. "We could get it one
some of those Video shirts and wear it to school tomorrow. It would be sooo
cool!" Julie shook her head. Maggie got a hurt look on her teenage face and
stomped off to the waste can to dump her ice cream. She was about to start
crying when she saw it.
Enforcer #14 was nearly 2.2 meters tall, towering over the organic beings
around it. It had electric black armor, so shiny that it looked like chrome.
The rugged industrial look favored in the first Enforcer models had given away
to a smooth polished style, like a nude Mr. Olympia. The ceramic exoskeleton
was seamless and totally free of dust or dirt, thanks to the electrostatic
field. Had a Greek sculptor teamed up with H.R. Giger, they might have created
the metallic humanoid form. The only things disrupting the muscular outline
were the head mounted antenna array, the thin light disks on the shoulders,
the NCPD logo and the ID number 14 stensiled in white on various sides, and
the featureless face. A visor covered the eyes, but there was no mouth or
nose, just a mirror surface with a hint of chin. The overall image of the
Enforcer is staggering, and it was quite imposing on Maggie's young mind. She
gaped for a second, staring at the metal beast standing just 10 meters from
her.
"Ohhhh." A low moan escaped from her lips. She had never, ever, seen something
so exotic. She had heard of Enforcers before, even seen them on the tv, but
she had never seen one in real life. The effect of a giant adonis, weighing in
at over a quarter tonne, can be staggering.
"Hey, Julie, come look at this!" She ran back to her friends, the music video
idea forgotten. She waved her hand back around the corner hiding the Enforcer.
"What is it, Maggie? Can't you see that we are trying to think?"
"Oh, God, you have -got- to see this. It's incredible!" Maggie grabbed Julie's
hand and started dragging her towards the corner.
Julie tore her hand away. "Hold up, Maggie! What is your prob? Is Johnny
Silverhand back there or something? Stop dragging me!"
"No, no. Trust me, you have got to see this." The teenager switched to Krissy
and forced the other girl around the corner. Krissy's squeal of delight
pricked Julie's curiosity enough for her to walk around the corner to see for
herself.
It hadn't moved, not even to turn it's head. The metal man just stood there,
impassively observing nothing. It might have been a statue if it wasn't in
front of Tiffany's, a store the girls had just been in, so they knew that the
thing must have just moved there. People were milling around it, some staring,
no one getting within a meter of it. Small children, naturally attracted to
strange and dangerous things, had to be contained by mothers and babysitters.
The cluster of girls peeking out from around the corner might have been
beneath its interest, as insignificant as an old man, capable of no harm or
crime. Security bots catagorized people in threat groups, old men and young
girls were in the "small threat" group. They were processed and ignored.
Except that Enforcer 14 was different. He was fundamentally different from his
previous brothers in several ways. The superficial design was one, he had a
more aesthetically pleasing, if not more intimidating, form. He had a
different mission as well. Rather than be a heavy hitter for the cops, a
cyber-soldier to take the lead intended for the organics, 14 was programmed to
be a controller, to regulate the security of entire buildings and complexes.
He was currently patched into the security net of the mall, monitering
thousands of cameras and hundreds of people. It was a new concept, so he was
doing his trial runs here, at Epson mall, where things were easily controlled.
Unfortunately for the customers, Militech had let a flawed product escape into
the outside world. Enforcer 14 wasn't just a robot, strictly adhereing to his
programming, if that was the case, perhaps the damage wouldn't have been as
great. But Enforcer 14 was a cyborg. Entombed within his chest were slices of
human brain, carefully regulated, but able to function normally and direct the
mechanical body surrounding it. Screwed up computers can be predicted and
stopped, screwed up humans were inventive and so much more deadly.
"Look at it, it's so big, and black." Krissy was whispering, but 14 could hear
every word. "It's spooky."
"Is not." Julie responded to her awe and fear with bravado. "It's just some
guy in a fancy suit. I bet the guy is asleep. Some cop he is." She had read
very little about Enforcers, reading was not her strong area of expertise.
"That's not a man, Julie. It's a cyborg, it just has parts of a *brain*. It's
really a -robot-." Susan was a little more widely read.
"Bullshit." She got a giggle from the girls by using the profanity. "I bet
it's just some geek. Probably has nothing better to do than stand around,
scaring kids." Julie said. "Not that he is scaring us." She added hastily.
Maggie remembered her earlier shame at Julie's hands. "I bet you won't go up
and touch it," she challenged. She was going to get Julie good. "Go on Julie,
since you're so tough. Touch it."
Julie saw the trap a mile away. She was still caught in it however, and she
could see the other girls looking at her expectantly. "Sure, I'll touch it. I
bet -you- won't." It was a lame comeback, but all she could think of.
"Go on, you first." Maggie wasn't about to let Julie off the hook that easily.
She'd touch it if Julie did first. The mall wasn't going to let anything
dangerous stand around anyway. They had played games with cops before, they
were guys just like every boy at school.
Enforcer 14 was about finished with his security scan when a most unpleasant
sensation swept over him. The cranial tissue buried deep within the reinforced
chest started to fire nerve impulses randomly, sending incomphrehensable
messages to the interpreter computer. The borg remained motionless as the
brain inside writhed in agony. Pins and needles lanced the brain, fire washed
over it. The human soul screamed, but nothing got beyond the machine
interface. As little Julie approached, boldly striding down the walkway, the
borg lost control of its human mind. The brain, once housed in a human cop
named Charles Sunn, went haywire as neurons exhausted themselves and synapses
ceased to function. 14 went into a coma. The malfunction had begun.
That lasted all of a microsecond before the brain came back on line, leaving
only an electronic blip of the siezure on a monitoring computer. The
personality of the borg however, was not so easily restored. A subtle change
had occured, a result of the Militech flaw. Enforcer 14 began to interpret his
orders slightly differently.
Julie was just about to feel the black exoskeleton when the borg's head
snapped around and glared down at her. She gasped and clutched back her hand
as tiny red eyes peered at her from behind the visor. She blinked, and the
eyes were gone, leaving nothing but a reflection of her own face across his.
"What do you want?" The voice startled her, it sounded so lifelike. Definitely
a male voice, not an unattractive one, deep and commanding.
"I..., nothing. I just wanted to touch you," she purred. She knew how to play
a man, had ever since she hit puberty. "What's it like, under all that metal?"
She still thought it was a suit.
14 didn't know how to respond. His new consiousness was struggling to accept
the input, trying to formulate an answer to a question he had never had to
answer before. "It feels normal. I am not in pain."
What? Julie wondered what that meant. She would be damned if she would get
into a suit that -hurt-. "Really? That's nice." She reached out her hand
again, caressing the smooth armor. It was cold, but above room temperature. It
left an oily feeling on her hand, but no physical residue. The smudge marks
from her ice cream stained hand disappeared as she watched. "Do you want to
come out? Come out and play?" One of her favorite games was teasing the men
around her. She looked good, even though she was only 15, because she had the
proper "vitamins". Cops were the biggest suckers of them all.
"Come on, big boy, get out of that cold suit. I want to show you something."
She let him have a peek down her blouse by pretending to reach down and
scratch her knee. Since he was almost half a meter taller than her, it was not
hard.
The brain was in agony. Familiar sensations were denied him, his body was
unresponsive. A pretty girl should make you feel a certain way, but he
couldn't. It was if a iceblock had been frozen around his groin, he knew that
he should feel something, anything, but he -didn't-. The girl started tracing
her fingers across his stomach, sending tiny electrical impulses to his brain.
The borg body didn't respond to emotional impulses, it didn't raise its body
temperature, increase heart rate, elevate breathing, shake in fear, tremor in
excitement, arouse in passion. It was dead, the machine couldn't satisfy the
flesh. The brain wanted to be alive, it craved sensation, anything different
than the homogenous placidity it had been in forever.
When the machine didn't do anything when she flashed it, Julie gave up.
Whatever geek was inside, he didn't know what to say to a lady. Guy probably
just lost his load, the stupid pig. She said so.
Maggie was about to head on over to fullfill her end of the dare when the borg
grabbed Julie. Maggie screamed, drawing attention from everyone around her.
Her friends started screaming as well when the borg lifted Julie up by her
arm.
BodyGuard Inc. was the corp responsible for Julie's wellbeing. When the 3
protectors saw the girl talking to the borg, they cautiously edged nearer.
When it picked her up violently, they drew weapons and charged.
Julie started to leave when the brute grabbed her, squeezed down with it's
hand, and wrenched her up, nearly tearing her shoulder out of socket. She
stared dumbly at the borg as it produced a large handgun and pointed it at her
head.
Enforcer 14 went crazy. His brain was so desperate for sensation that he
grabbed the girl to keep her from leaving. Her insult was technically a minor
crime, so small it rarely even gardnered attention, most cops didn't even know
it was illegal to insult them. 14 had a perfect memory however, he knew every
crime that ever happened. By insulting him, Julie allowed the organic brain
the rational to explain its actions. The software agreed, and actions were
presented to the borg for suitable reprisals. 14 chose his own punishment. He
drew his pistol to scare her a little, maybe trip something in his head, so he
could feel. The cold weight of the borg body, armored and isolated, was
driving him insane.
14's micro-radar picked up the weapons being pulled from their shielded
holsters immediately. His computer continuously scanned around him, filtering
out reflections not identifiable as weapons, zooming in on those that were. He
went on alert. His pistol, already pointing at Julie's face, electronically
switched off safe. 14 was turning to locate the weapons when the pistol fired,
reacting to a subconsious command from the crazed brain. The borg, full of
frustration, decided to destroy that which confused it. Charles Sunn didn't
even have to make it happen, the interface could interpret his desires from
the depths of his brian and send the proper commands to the mechanical body.
Poor Julie had only enough time to look down the barrel of the weapon before
her face collapsed under the weight of a .44 slug. She didn't even realize she
was dead, darkness claimed her instantly.
The security team started shooting when Julie's head went gaseous. Smartgun
fire control ensured that every round hit, but the puny bullets didn't even
chip the elctro-black plate. The borg tossed Julie's body aside and returned
fire.
One bodyguard was hit in the chest with a .44. His thin armor t-shirt didn't
stop the round, but his subdermal mesh did. He went down anyway. The others
scattered and screamed for backup. The call went out, the police were on their
way. The metal giant bolted like lightning towards a stairwell, escaping the
bloody carnage it had created. It's only desire now was safety. It felt no
remorse, no regret for what it thought was right. Charles Sunn/Enforcer 14
became a new type of borg, with a much different modivation that what Militech
originally intended. Enforcer 14 was cyberpsychotic.
Cyberpsycho 2
An Enforcer cyborg has gone cyberpsycho and is currently
running loose in a megamall. The police have been notified.
"This is Geraldine Mattox, reporting live from the Imperial Suites hotel, down
in the Free Fire Zone. I've been taken hostage along with 5 members of my crew
and the entire residency of this hotel by an obviously deranged lunatic who
needs to be killed on the spot." [SMACK] "Dumb bitch, I'm gonna kill you for
that. Listen up you maggots out there in TV land, I'm gonna waste this entire
building of twisted sickos unles my demands are met. I want 50 tons of
marshmellows, 20 tankers of molten caramel, and 2 flatbeds of graham crackers,
and..., and a whole lota other stuff RIGHT now, or these taxpayers are gonna
DIE!!"
- Current newsfeed from Network News 54
Free Fire Zone, Night City 21:15 21 Oct
Stabbing searchlights penetrated the thick murk surrounding the decrepid
Imperial Suites hotel. Oily smoke boiled out from the ground floors of the 35
story steel and glass structure. Sirens rent the air, gunfire tore apart the
night, the steady roar of AVs and the muffled howl of aerochoppers blanketed
the streets. Dozens of mettalic beasts clustered around the base of the
building, jamming the alleys and filling the road with the stench of
hydrocarbon fumes. Cordite bit the nose, tracers stung the eyes.
The situation was bad, and getting progressively worse. 4 cops were down
already, their bodies being worked over by the medics in the trauma vans.
Piles of wounded, cop and civilian, lined the streets, awaiting their chance
to receive miracle aid. It was getting dangerous to walk around without body
armor, shrapnel and flying slugs peppered the air. Even breathing was
difficult, smoke and gas robbed the stale atmosphere of O2.
Up on some 20ish floor, a psycho held 40 people hostage, wiring the entire
building with C-6 and home-brewed TNT. He had enough firepower to supply the
82nd Airborne and was using it with appaling skill. Already every vehicle was
chipped and pocked from gunfire, some even damaged from grenades and Molotov
bombs. Every police attempt at rescue ended up with another floor being lit up
with explosions and 4 hostages given the boot out of a window. Smears of 12
hostages painted the sidewalk on the north side.
Snipers were useless, the terrorist never exposed himself long enough to get
off a shot, or he fired from barracaded windows down on the swarming men
below. Assault teams were blown out of stairwells or off roofs, aircraft were
hit with heavy weapons fire, rappelers were swinging ducks. A news team
reporting on the failure of the police was just icing on the cake. Not all was
lost however, there was someone doing something productive.
"Charlie, get me some Java." The request came from a rather short individual,
barely 170 cm, with a reddish brown flattop and lots of acne scars pitting his
cheeks. He held out his hand for the coffee mug while staring intently at the
myriad of computer screens lining the walls of the Militech Mobile Command
Center trailer. When he got his drink, he glupped it down in one swallow, then
held out his mug for more.
"What do you think, boss? Do we got a chance at getting in there or not?" THis
came from a rather tall hispanic man, clearly either fresh from the Academy or
a transfer from some distant unit, because he dared to interupt the MAN when
he was having Java. When he got no answer, he thought about asking the
question again, but a few warning looks from the half dozen other faces in the
cramped trailer changed his mind.
There was an uncomfortable pause. "What we have, Chavez, is a chance at
getting a lot of good men and women killed. Our good friend Mr. Sarmon has
obviously thought out this one, or got a chip from someone who has. His setup
is straight out of the Terrorist Handbook on single man hostage crisises." The
surrounding faces absorbed this information for later regurgitation when it
was their turn in the hot seat. THey all regarded whatever the boss said as
gospel, and original scripture at that.
"Give me the phone." It was promptly handed over by a woman whose sole
responsibility was to brew Java and hand over phones. She was trained in
criminal psychology at Rice, but here she was low woman on the totem pole.
The boss picked up the slim handset. "CP, get me the Chief, tie in the MaxTac
commander as well." He slugged his second cup of coffee. "Yes, Chief, this is
Ravine. You there Captain Garman? Good. Here's what I've been able to come up
with. We have an experienced demolitions man on the 24th floor, armed to the
teeth and wired to blow. He has 44 people... oh sorry, 40 people, hostage,
including a Network News 54 crew, which he apparently brought with him. THeir
van was recovered 3 blocks away, with the 6th crewmember inside. No, he was
dead, probably as an example to the others. Yes, the crew is reporting, I've
been watching the broadcasts on TV. My suggestions are these: 1. We give the
poor psycho his ransom. He can't claim it without giving the snipers a shot.
2. We leave and send in the Army, 'cause they have the ACPAs. 3. We level the
building and screw the hostages, only a couple of them are taxpayers anyway.
Yes sir, I understand the ramifications of demolishing the building with the
hostages still inside, but its only a news crew and a bunch of squatters.
We'll pay some compensation to News 54 for the loss of their crew and
equipment, but there should be no other complaints than that. This is the Free
Fire Zone after all." The boss cocked his head and listened for a while. Then
he hung up, his audience with his superiors over.
Outside, the fighting continues as the terrorist poured magazine after
magazine into the defending police. They responded by tearing up every open
window and trying to collapse the 24th floor with sheer force of fire. An
occasional flicker of fire would reach out from a neighboring building as the
locals joined in on the festivities. It was not always clear just who was the
target, the cops or the psychotic. The entire week's supply of ammo was being
used up right here.
Back in the control van, one of the signal operators gave a yell. "Boss, come
here, I've got something." Everyone rushed over to the operator's screen,
except for the boss.
"Damnit, Sean, put it up on one of the big screens. I'm not going to read it
over your shoulder." Sean was an ex-bloodball player, his reinforced
infrastructure made him the biggest man in the van, his shoulders were almost
a meter wide. Everyone else realized that Sean blocked the screen, so they
waited for it to come up on a main monitor.
"Ok, ok." Sean punched a few buttons and spliced in one of the large viewers.
A radio frequency graph came up, overlayed with a sonic vibration schematic.
Squiggles of color ran amok over the graph, tracing radio peaks cooresponding
to megahertz bands being broadcasted on. There were about 50 peaks, covering
the short bandwidth remaining for radio transmissions, most of which had been
converted for use with cellular communications rather than normal speech. No
one listened to public radio anymore, and it was a sloppy and unsecure way of
transmitting data. The net and satellite laser beams had replaced most of it.
The boss looked at the display for a second. Over that was the amplitude of
sound and the Hz they were being produced at, scaled up to match the ultra-
high frequencies of the radio waves.
"All right, Sean. It's very pretty, but what the hell does it mean?"
"Yeah, ok. Remember when we got ahold of the Cyberfile on this guy, with all
of his implants and the cyberdoc's reports? Yeah, well I noticed that he had
gotten his audio from a certain Doc named Simon Montgomery, the guy working
out of Hide street. Ok, so this Doc is famous for his super low/ultra high
frequency band audio cyberwares, a set of which Joe Sarmon, our looney bomber,
bought a few weeks ago. I checked the registration files and the ears were
able to pick up radio frequencys as well as sonic waves, giving Sarmon a
built-in radio to go with his BatEars." He was starting to ramble, an urgent
hand motion from the boss sped him up. "So anyway, I figured that his audio
might be messed up, 'cause Montgomery isn't the best on keeping his ware tuned
correctly. So I started sweping the air for any radio waves that might be
bouncing off our terrorist's head and matching that with the sonic vibrations
picked up from our snooper bug on the 24th floor. I overlayed them, and this
is what I got." He touched his screen, and an arrow appeared on the main
display, paired up with his finger.
He moved his finger on the screen, sliding the arrow to a radio peak that was
lined up with a sonic one. It was about the only peak so aligned. "All right.
This radio peak here is the 97 MHz line, an industrial radio station. THis
audio peak is what that radio station sounds like if it was being played on a
radio. Because they match, I figure that this radio station is being
broadcasted and played somewhere on the 24th floor, so someone could hear it.
Follow me? Good. Now, these sonic waves are coming off of Sarmon's head, cause
that's were the directional mike is pointed. These other audio peaks are
background noise being bounced off his head at the bug. If I thought this out
right, that radio station is somehow playing inside Sarmon's cyberears,
because Montgomery screwed up when he built the ware. THats not a big deal
right, just a radio station playing in your head, happen's all the time. But
listen to what this radio station is broadcasting." He got a big grin on his
face, then switched his cyberaudio to the trailer's PA system.
ATTENTION EMPLOYEES, THE SHIPMENT OF 35 TONNES OF SUGAR, 12 BARRELS OF
MOLASSES, AND THE TRAINLOAD OF CHOCOLATE ARE LATE. THEY WILL BE IN ON TIME, OR
ELSE THIS COMPANY WILL SUFFER -GREAT- LOSSES. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN. AS FOR
THE SHIPMENT OF CARAMEL, MARSHMELLOWS, AND GRAHAM CRACKERS, THEY HAVE BEEN
ACCOUNTED FOR.
I SAY AGAIN.
ATTENTION EMPLOYEE'S, THE SHIP...
Sean stoped the transmission. "THat's what that poor guy has been hearing in
his head for the past few weeks. MHz 97 is how a candy company reports to its
individual factories throughout the city. Sarmon thinks HE has to get that
stuff!"
Everyone looked a little dumdfounded, then the boss started to laugh. As his
low chuckling caught on, everyone started to find it funny. Pretty soon the
entire command center was laughing uproariously at the idiotic reason behind
that night's massacre.
The outside door opened and a Sergeant poked his head in. "Lt. Ravine, the
terrorist has changed his demands to sugar, chocolate, and..." His jaw dropped
when he realized the entire crew was laughing. How could they find anything
about tonight funny, he wondered, is beyond me.
Quickly the laughter subsided. Ravine spun around in his chair to look at the
Sergeant. "What was it you said?" he asked. Then he heard it on the news
report.
"I changed my mind. If I don't get a shitload of sugar, some mo... mo...
molassas, and chocolate, these people are DEAD, dead I tell you." Then the
psycho ran back to one of his shielded windows to open up on the cops. Miss
Mattox came back on camera, a large bruise on her forehead. "You heard it
ladies and gentlemen, the looney has changed his mind. Now for a quick
commercial."
Ravine got back on the phone. "Chief, I've found the source of the
cyberpsychosis. Sarmon has some defective cyberware that's broadcasting a
radio station inside his head. Give me a minute to sort it out. No Chief, no
need to demolish the bulding now, I think we can save the hostages. Better get
your money back from News 54." He turned to look at Sean.
"Patch me into that radio station. I want Sarmon to hear me instead of that
candy crap."
"Already done, boss, I figured you would want to do that." Sean handed over a
headset.
"Good man, Sean, I might erase that black mark for you." He took the headset
and slipped it on. "Alright, this thing ready to go?" Sean held up 3 fingers.
He started dropping them one at a time. 3...2...1, he pointed at Ravine and
hit a switch.
"SARMON, JUMP OUT OF THE WINDOW, RIGHT NOW!!!!!" Ravine screamed into the
mike, straight into Sarmon's head. He tossed off the headset and ran outside.
The van crew followed, anxious to get a look.
At the edge of vision, almost blocked by the smoke and fire, a patch of
darkness leaped out of a shattered window sill. Instantly microradars locked
on to the falling mass, guns started tracking. It took Sarmon almost 5 seconds
to reach the ground, a few pieces of scrap metal and a fine mist was all that
was left. Next week's ammo budget was spent that night as well.
****
"Good job Ravine," the Chief said as he came over, "I knew you would come
through. Another star for your folder. Keep this up and you might make Captain
yet." The Chief pounded Ravine on the back and headed over to console the
tramatized reporter soon to be leaving the building. Always a good time to be
on TV.
"Gee, Lt., why did yah make him jump out of the window?" Chavez wanted to
know.
"Why, Chavez, why? I did it because the world's dangerous enough without a
bunch of cybered up lunatics running around." With that, Ravine headed over to
his car, parked a block away to avoid gunfire.
"Man, he sure has a thing against metalheads. Wonder what he thinks about my
chip socket?" Chavez mused to Sean at the trailer doors.
Sean had been around a bit longer. "Wise up, Chavez. The boss has a bone to
grind against cyberpsychos 'cause he -was- psycho, back when he was on C-SWAT.
Took him a year of therapy and the removal of all of his cybernetics to get
sane again. He's the best cyberpsychiatrist we got 'cause he's -been- there.
I'd do a little background reading before you come around again, Chavez. The
boss doesn't like to dwell on the past." Sean headed back into the van.
Chavez stood outside for a while, thinking about how he might not enjoy being
on the Cyberpsycho Negotiation Team as much as he had originally thought. Then
he decided to try and get on TV.
Just as Ravine was about to get into his car, a call came through on his
beeper. "Paging Lieutenant Jason Ravine. Your presence is required at the
Epson Mall complex. There had been an incident of cyberpsychosis reported. I
say again. Paging Lieutenant Jason Rav..." He cut off the pager. 2 in one
night, he thought, and I figured I was going to get off early.
Cyberpsycho 3
A cyberpsychiatrist has been called in to assist.
"All Points Bulletin, All Points Bulletin. All units in the Alpha-Omega sector
are to immediately proceed to the Epson Mall complex, grid coordinates
EB347278. There is a renegade Enforcer Full-Conversion Borg at large within
the mall. He is to be considered armed and exceedingly dangerous. Casualties
have already occured, so the target is to be treated with extreme prejudice. I
say again... All Points Bulletin, All Points Bulletin..."
-Police alert released over Night City
North Side of Night City, 21:45 21 Oct
Through the streets, a howling prowled. You could hear it almost 4 blocks
away, and when you did, you went inside fast. It started as a faint moan, but
when it got closer, and the ground shook and the windows rattled, you knew it
was them. Then, regardless of the legality of whatever it was you were doing,
you packed it up and went inside, out of their sight.
*Ultimate Slayer #5* was tonight's selection, the death metal blaring out of
the 3000 eb PA system in the BMW 350. Bass shook everything within 30 meters,
sheer decible volume kept everyone else back another 40 meters. Anyone who
didn't stay back cause of the music stayed back cause of the M2HB .50 caliber
projecting out in front of the car. That is if car was the proper term for a
battle armored mini station wagon sporting enough horsepower to tow a train.
Determined punkers who got close enough could see the NCPD 45 ID number on the
sides of the wagon, one actually managed to electro-etch a blood-red 13 over
the 45, forever marking the police cruiser as one thing to NEVER fuck with.
"Hey, Jay! Turn down the music! We got something coming in over the InfoNet!"
Ty was screaming right into the driver's ears. The music was almost as loud
inside as out, so the occupants had gotten into the habit of wearing earplugs.
Ty yelled twice more before the driver reacted. The burly black man reached
over and hit one of several dozen knobs on the dashboard. The volume dropped
somewhat, to the point where the air itself wasn't shaking. "What you say?!"
"I said, we have a call on the radio!" Ty still had to yell, to get past the
earplugs, but at least he was getting through. "Listen up!" He cranked up the
internal mike, broadcasting what his earphones were picking up. The APB played
twice before he cut it back off. "We got a call!"
"Yeah, no shit. Punch in those grid numbers, I have no clue how to get there
from here." With the advent of internal navigators and computer maps, everyone
suddenly forgot directions and their memory for such things vanished almost
overnight. Sergeant Jay Tsarkhan (don't ask how that name came about) usually
just drove, and refered to the navigator if he ever had to go anywhere.
Patrol Officer Ty Gorman carefully entered the 6 digit coordinate. After he
had accidentally screwed up the numbers a few times and had gotten the pair in
hot water for missing crimes, he learned to be real careful.
A holographic map overlay popped up on the windshield, detailing their
current position and where they had to go. This generation of software didn't
guide around Free Fire Zones, nor did it take into consideration the unrest
quotient of particular gangs for that day, like the new versions, but it did
monitor traffic. A highlighted string of roads pointed them in the right
direction.
Devil-13, as the cruiser was called by the gangers, hit a right and made
tracks for Epson Mall. With the music warning off any obstacles, they made
good time. Having a rep for being the most violent and agressive cops in Night
City can be a good thing sometimes.
*****
5 AVs and almost 15 helos were circling the mall when they arrived. The
underground parking garage was cramped with security cars, patrol cruisers, C3
vans, corp transports, and street-rag bounty hunter lethal-mobiles. The steady
outflux of panicked shoppers and corpie sloths made getting into the garage
(which was the size of a small city by itself) a chore. Jay cut the noise when
bullets started clanging off his car. Some people just had no taste in music.
Ty was busy locking down the .50 cal when they ground into a spot near the
MaxTac semi. The plated vehicle scraped the finish off some chummer's glittery
Mercedes, but did no damage to their beast. "You just hit some guy's car,"
said Ty.
"And your point is?" responded Jay. It was that carelessness of private (and
public) property that had gotten the duo their rep in the first place.
"Nothing, just thought you might want to know."
"Well, I don't."
"Ok, chill out man."
"Shut up. Get that damn cannon locked down so we can get out there and frag
something." Jay snapped.
"Blow me. I'm gonna frag you if you don't shut that foul pit of a mouth!"
"Outside punkfucker! I'm gonna ram my gun so far up your ass your gonna lose
nothing but teeth!" Jay started getting worked up.
Ty shouted back, drawing his pistol. "Cut the shit, dickweed! Let's go at it
here and fuckin' NOW!" His pale face blossomed red, the tendons in his neck
stood out like high tension cables.
Jay looked at him for a second, both of them breathing hard. "Ready to go?" he
asked.
Ty sat back, and reholstered his hand cannon. "Yeah, let's go." The pair
popped the sliding doors forward and clambored out. Their ritual adrenaline
rush completed, they were ready for battle.
As the two were slipping in the armor alloy plates to their flexi-armor, the
Lieutenant in charge came strolling over. "Well, well, well. If it isn't the
dynamic duo. If I had known you two were coming, I wouldn't have bothered to
call for MaxTac." The Lt. was a tall spindly character, lost in his riot armor
and commo gear. His unbuckled helment sat over his head like a steam hood,
making his face seem even more thin and drawn.
"Good evening to you, sir." Jay added enough sarcasm to make his point, but
not enough for the Lt. to have a legitament complaint. It was that kind of
shit that got the otherwise tolerable pair in the bad with their superiours.
Ty just nodded, busy with strapping on the LCE that held his ammo and commo
gear. He was clipping 3 40 round 12 guage ammo boxes on when Jay gave him a
look.
"What? We're going after an Enforcer! That thing'll take every round we got
and not even flinch. I'm not gonna die from lack of ammo. This shit is APDS, I
got some from the MaxTac boys yesterday." He patted the plastic boxes clipped
to his waist.
"It's not that, poser. It's that GUN. Where the hell did you get -that-?" He
motioned towards the double barreled weapon leaning against the side of the
crusier. He had never seen one of those before.
"Oh, the Hurricane? I traded my Arasaka auto 12 for it. Some beat cop though
it fired too fast and he kept blowing holes in things. So I said 'maybe we
oughta trade, cause mine dosen't fire that fast after it got banged off a
truck one time.', so he said 'cool, let's do it.' We went down to the armorer
and switched. Guy says it has one hell of a recoil, so you have to use a sling
to brace it." Ty was rambling, as he was prone to do when he got nervous.
"Ok, I get the picture." The black man picked it up. "Jesus, this thing is
heavy! You sure you can hump all that ammo inside?" Jay didn't want Ty to pass
out cause he was moving too much weight.
"Nah, as soon as we start shooting, it'll go real fast."
"You have fired this thing before, right?" Oh, God, please say yes. Jay had no
intention of going into battle with a young kid with a bullet hose.
"Sure, Jay. Come on, I don't play with things like that. You know me, man." He
hoped his lie was not too obvious.
"Yeah, whatever. Just make sure you keep that thing pointed at the bad guys."
He handed the brute over. Jay checked his own heavy weapon, an A-80 soviet
assault rifle. It chambered 7.62mm, which made it the bane of just about every
punk they had come across. He praised again the wisdom of allowing Free Fire
Zone beat cops to provide their own firepower if they wanted to. 4 35rd
magazines went into his own LCE ammo pouches. His pistol, a Constitution Arms
MAP (multiple ammunition pistol) revolver was loaded with a combo of Hyper-
Penetration and explosive rounds, with 1 taser round for take down purposes.
He took out the taser round, substituting it with a HP. Borgs didn't get
bothered by tasers; they didn't get bothered by anything. Jay thought about
his family for a minute, and prayed that he would not meet the psychotic
mechanoid upstairs. He didn't think he could kill it.
Ty had just finished the functions check on his shotgun when the call came for
the OP ORD. Seeing that Jay was lost in his thoughts, Ty headed over to
receive the operations order. It was nothing special, a quick listing of who
had been killed so far, who had which areas to patrol, the commo frequencies
for the MaxTac boys, and what to do if you see the borg (which was 'call it in
and lay low'). Ty took about 3 notes on his wrist comp, then began looking
around at his fellow cops.
There were almost 50 of them, an entire sector worth. The other precincts
would have to cover for them in their home beats, cause a fourth of Precint 23
was here. The other cops all had their armor on, dusty black, with a few
personalized slogans here and there. The cops were grim and determined, each
man and woman realizing that they were about to go up against something
specifically designed to kill heavily armed and armored humans. It was bad
enough to know that the Enforcer used to be on your side, but when you
realized that it's sole purpose in life was to take on the bad guys too tough
for normal cops, you got a sinking feeling in your stomach.
After the Chief, covered in smoke and soot for some reason, got finished with
his briefing, he turned it over to another man, this one a short redhaired
guy. Ty took one look at the soulless eyes and the scarred cheeks and decided
that this was one guy worth listening to.
"Good evening. My name is Lt. Jason Ravine, I am the negotiator for this
case." A few groans and complaints followed this announcement. Every
"negotiator" that Ty had ever worked with had wanted the cyberpsycho to be
captured alive for rehab. No one -ever- liked trying to catch a borg alive.
"I am not here to negotiate with the borg in a traditional sense. As you are
all aware, this is an Enforcer borg, Model II. It is designed for security
control and command, not just hack and slash." He grinned. "That means that it
is wired into every net and computer in this entire mall. It can see and hear
everything going on. It will be able to moniter everything, and I will stress
it, EVERYTHING that we do. It can listen in on every radio transmission, every
verbal command, see every hand and arm signal. We are at an incredible
disadvantage here." Faces got longer and longer as he spoke. Ravine was not
smiling now. "But there is an upside. We have the complete schematics of the
borg, Militech is sending over its own Borg recovery team, bounty hunters have
flocked here to collect the reward one of the victim's relatives has put out,
and the mall's own fast reaction team is going to cooperate with us. That
means that we will have a total of 200 people hunting this thing, more when
the Guard shows up. We are not treating this thing lightly. Due to the
location and status of Epson Mall as a protected site, fully paid in it's
dues, as well as the employees inclusion in the Police Protection Union, we
are pulling out all the stops to destroy, and I mean destroy, the Enforcer. I
will not attempt to communicate with it once it has been located, I will not
attempt to reason with it, nor talk it down. As of this moment, Enforcer 14
has been disowned by Militech and is an illegal full conversion borg. It will
be destroyed. That is all." Ravine turned smartly and walked off.
Damn, though Ty, pity that poor borg. It was about to get fried. He didn't
realize how overly optimistic he was at that point.
*****
Ravine was on the 5th floor with his team. There he could patch into all of
the net connected with Epson mall, was well as the security cameras. He had a
full staff for this one, as well as Epson's own control team. They had
assigned sectors for the police and the security squads, tried to organize the
bounty hunters, but ended up letting them take a radio and freelance the mall.
All he could do now was wait.
"How's the evacuation going?" he wondered.
One of the Espon people said, "Lousy. We had almost 3 million people in here,
not to mention the 50 thousand employees. Thank God that tonight was slow,
what with the Nomad riots and everything keeping people in the city. THis
place could have been a slaughter house if it was full. We aren't even trying
to get everyone out, just isolate the couple of sectors where the borg is.
Hell, down at the other side, they are still shopping, the word hasn't reached
them yet."
"You have got to be kidding. You mean to tell me that you have only cleared a
couple of square kilometers? Don't you know what this borg could do to all
those people? It's a fucking weapon, man, all it knows is how to kill." Jason
was about to give up on civilians ever thinking intelligently.
"Maybe you don't understand the economics involved. If we were to shut down
this entire facility, all -30- square km of it, we would loose -billions- of
eb. I have never seen more than 10% of this place closed at any one time. Even
when the fire of '18 hit, we closed one section, stopped the fire, while the
rest of the place was still in business. Epson has to sell, 24 hours a day,
365 days a year, for it to remain profitable. A single day of missed profits
and this place would die!" The corp rep smacked his fist into his palm.
"Wonder what a quarter million consumer deaths would do to your 'profits'."
Ravine muttered under his breath. Sean gave him a guarded look, the operator's
amped hearing catching the statement.
The tension in the room had risen during the exchange, the police siding with
Ravine and the corpies with their boss. "All right, just as long as you move
them if the borg heads their way, I guess we'll have to make do." Ravine made
peace. There was a release of pent up breath, then everyone got back to work.
Sean was trying to isolate the Enforcer's broadcast signal, which in a more
open environment would broadcast it's location to the police. He was having
problems scanning out the interference from all the radio and cellular clutter
that inhabited the mall. The signal was in the middle of a bunch of cellular
frequencies, making it especially hard to pick out.
"You know, I'm beginning to wonder if the broadcaster is even operational. I
mean, sure there is a lot of static, but even then I should be able to get
something. Surely Militech wouldn't be so stupid as to use an ID freq that was
clouded by the neighboring Hz's, would they?"
"Trust me, Sean, Corps can make more mistakes and stupid decisions than you
would believe." That comment earned Ravine some dour looks from the corps.
"I've seen products go online that were so obviously flawed that it seems
impossible that anyone could ever miss the mistakes. You'd be suprised at how
corps think, the bottom line is all that matters."
"Excuse me Lieutenant, but I don't quite agree." The corp rep from earlier
spoke back up. "If you have never been in on the internal workings of a
product, then you would know that there is a lot more to it than that. The
people responsible for making things don't always have their own input, or the
design gets altered by someone else. You are so biased against corps, I'm
amazed that you could work in one."
Ravine stood up, a few cm shorter than the rep, but a lot more intimidating.
"Listen to me, bub, I have an axe to grind, sure, but I also have damn good
reasons for that axe. Until you know those reasons, I'd suggest that you keep
your mouth shut, else I might be tempted to take you on a little borg hunt."
He poked the rep in the chest.
"Fuck you! I don't have to take that kind of shit from some schizo cop! I -do-
know about you, Ravine, I've read your file. Why do you think we picked you to
be our negotiator? I know your background, so I know that you won't pussy foot
around with the damn borg. I want that metal beast -killed-, that is your only
concern. Not what to do about the shoppers, or the employees, or the handling
of the clean up. Your only job is to find that damned cyborg and destroy it!"
The rep stalked off, leaving Ravine to deal with the angry corp technicians.
"Great," he muttered, "another sterling example of police-corporate teamwork.
Ok, everyone, the show's over." He called out. "Let's get back to work and
find that Enforcer."
Deep within the bowels of Epson, Enforcer 14 crouched over a power outlet. He
was slowly recharging his batteries, not taking enough to be tracked by. The
borg had monitered the interaction between the cop and the businessman with
interest. Now that he knew who was in charge of tracking him, he could plan
his escape. 14 knew they were after him, but he had a suprise in store for the
cops. The Enforcer would be hunting -them-.
Cyberpsycho 4
The hunt begins.
"The exciting hunt for the renegade cyborg has begun at Epson Mall. Dozens of
police officers, security personnel, and concerned citizens have gathered at
the East side of the 30 square kilometer shopping complex to find the beast.
It went cyberpsycho at about 21:30 tonight, killing 2 young girls, 3 security
guards, and wounding at least 10 other shoppers. This tragedy, forunately
caught on CD, will be replayed following this announcement. Wait, here's one
of the hunters now. Sir, how do you plan on capturing the robot?'
'Well, Miss Mattox, I's plans on blowin that metal motherf<beep>ck to hell and
back. This here's my pride and joy, a 12.5mm popgun my pa gave to me.'
'Well, Officer, that is a real impressive weapon. Let's get another opinion.
Excuse me sir? How do you plan on capturing the cyborg?'
'Outa my way, bitch, or I'll grease you along with that frack'n borg."
-News 54 special report
Epson Mall, Night City 22:00
The upper floors were dimly lit, some genius' idea of a way to give the cops
an edge. Like the Enforcer didn't have Thermoscope or anything. Ty sprinted up
the stopped escalator, stopped at the top, and swept the hallway with his
Hurricane. Jay came up at a more leisurely pace, shaking his head. "Ty, you
keep running like that and you will pass out before we get 50 meters. Stop
running in full armor and start drinking water." Whenever they went on a raid,
Ty attacked like Rambo and had to be reigned in.
"Sure, Jay, whatever you say." Ty aggressively manhandled the shotgun around,
trying to cover every square cm of the floor. His helmet gave him LowLite
vision, as well as a target reticle for his autoshotgun. Whenever Jay spoke,
the low band radio, barely strong enough to cover 5 meters, whispered in his
ear. The young cop sucked on the drinking tube running down to the 2 liter
canteen on his LCE.
Level 7 was mostly clothing and women's items, lots of jewelry and cosmetics,
as well as some bodysculpt and fleshdoc parlors. No one moved, all of the
customers had scrammed, and the few employees that were left huddled behind
their armored display windows, nervously clutching firearms. Ty caught motion
down the hall, nearly opened up with a rain of APDS 12 guage shells, then
noticed that the figure was a tall woman in a trenchcoat, carrying a cruel
looking large bore rifle. One of the bounty hunters. The woman spotted the
cops, her vision probably several orders of magnitude better than the helmet-
enhanced view Ty was getting, and waved.
"Damn bounty hunters. I'm gonna hit one of them by accident sooner or later."
Ty grumbled.
Jay caught it over the radio and responded. "Better not. Hunters might not
like each other, but they go after anyone screwing with one of their own. Even
a cop. Even you." He prodded Ty in the back to get him moving.
On the HUD projecting over the inside of the helmet, Jay could see an overhead
layout of the floor. The computer had no security breaks in any of the stores,
so they could concentrate on the little nooks and crannys that could hide a 2
meter war machine.
The pair spread out, 10 meters between them, and marched down the corrider.
They checked each store front, marking which ones still had people inside.
There were 5 other search teams on this level, but with almost 2 square
kilometers to check, they were not in sight.
Ty carefully peeked around a corner, using the remote camera probe on his
helmet to check. The thin extension arm elongated out past the corner, a
microscopic fiber optic camera relayed an image of the next hallway. Far down
the hall, shadows danced. Ty checked with his floor plans, sure enough, Team 4
was supposed to be down there. Nothing else showed up in the hallway, so Ty
went around.
300 meters down the murky hall, there was some motion. Ty used the laser sight
on his shotgun to flash a short code at one of the figures. If they were cops,
he'd get a response code. If they weren't, he'd get something else. 3 short
flashes and a single long one bounced off his visor. Ty let out his breath and
lowered the shotgun, they were cops. He called to Jay.
Just then something burst out of a store, darting across the hallway. It moved
too fast to see clearly, so Ty took no chances. As the thing leaped a shut-
down fountain, the dark lit up in fire as Ty triggered off single shots at the
thing. The shotgun booms shattered the stillness. The other pair of cops
ducked low and started shooting, adding their own destruction. A miniature
fireworks display flashed through the air. The thing was only 100 meters from
Ty, so with the hyper-velocity sabot slugs and computer aiming, he wasn't
about to miss.
2 thin spikes of dense tungsten/carbite shredded composite armor, shattered
electronics, and punctured coolant lines. The other cops riddled the body with
AP slugs, smashing it's superstructure. The thing slammed into the ground,
never surviving the leap over the fountain. A cloud of sparks flew everywhere.
"Shit, what the hell was -that-?" One of the other cops was yelling, the two
buddy rushed up to the smoking ruin. Ty started dashing towards it, keeping
his weapon pointed at it as best he could. The radio net came alive with
questions and shouts, people hearing the gunfire. Jay rushed to cover Ty's
back, the rookie cop running off on his own, like usual.
"We hit something! We killed it." Ty skidded to a halt in front of a ruptured
hulk. It was some sort of robot, looked like a BopFighter, a toy kids used to
shoot at. It spun around in circles, jumped up and down, made itself hard to
hit. Kids got a plastic-slug gun to shoot it with. "Damn," he said, just as
the rest of the cops arrived. "We killed a toy." He fiddled with it for a
minute, until he found a pricetag. 300eb. It was a toy all right. Ty made a
quick report to the Chief, cancelling the MaxTac team that was about to storm
the level.
He looked up. Several other cops were there, as well as some bounty hunters
attracted by the noise. They all got disgusted looks on their faces and
started to leave. Jay gave him a hand up. "What made it come out of the store
like that?" the black man wondered.
Ty shrugged. "Malfunction probably. Looks like the door shut behind it." The
two looked at the store it came out of. The blacked out liquid neon sign read:
-FemWare-. That was -not- a toy store.
It took a few seconds before realization sunk in. The borg had to be -inside-
the store. "Oh, shit." they both mumbled to each other. Jay waved for the
other cops to come back. One of them started to use the radio but Jay motioned
for him to keep quiet. The 4 cops approached slowly, aiming their weapons at
the storefront. Jay went to voice-audio. He whispered into each man's helmet,
so the borg couldn't pick up any radio waves.
2 cops got down behind the fountain, the only available cover. They both had
shotguns, loaded with AP slugs, so they were support. Jay took the other 2 and
had them cover the door. When he and Ty and charged the store, Jay wanted
maximum fire pouring into the darkness beyond. He looked over at Ty. The kid
wa grinning and twisting his hand around the pistol grip on the Hurricane. Ty
caught the look and switched his shotgun to AUTO. He was ready.
The support team got low behind the fountain, only their weapons and helmets
exposed. The other 2 cops, the ones that helped gun down the BopFighter, aimed
at the door. "Ready?" asked Jay. Ty's only answer was a short stream of fire
at the electric lock on the clothing store door. The AP slugs punched a large
series of holes in the reinforced plastic, rendering the lock useless. Ty
slammed his shoulder into the door, the riot armor absorbing all the impact.
The door fell open as Ty continued rushing in. Jay as right on Ty's back, as
they cleared the doorway, Jay drove the two into the ground. Jay had his rifle
aready to fire, but no targets showed themselves. The 2 cops watching the door
followed in right behind them, spreading out into the clothing store.
All the clothes were neatly hung on racks, enclosed in plastiglas. The store
was shut up tight, there was little room to hide in. Jay rolled off of Ty and
ducked behind a counter. Ty could see a service door at the rear of the store,
it was slightly open. He pointed several times at the door, until the other
cops caught the signal. They all advanced upon it. The shadows inside the
store were much deeper, but the image intensifyers kept up their good work.
The 4 cops darted back and forth behind plastiglas boxes until they were close
to the back. The service door was only open a few cm, but it was enough to
allow a gun barrel or a cybernetic eye to see them all. The tension was
maddening.
Jay had almost forgotten about the 2 cops left outside went an enormous
shockwave ripped through the store. The service door blew outward, fragmenting
into deadly plastic shrapnel. The plastiglas-covered clothes racks dissolved
into shredded fabric and lethal glass slivers as the shockwave expanded,
blasting the cops back. Ty felt a searing pain across his back as he rolled
into the fetal position letting the explosion roll over him. He was the
closest, but his armor and helmet saved him from any damage from the
concussion. The ripping pain along his back was chunks of the door penetrating
his armor. His 2 liter canteen stopped a fragment that would have severed his
spine.
Jay was far enough away to avoid the worst of the shrapnel, he was just blown
over by the air wave. The explosion wasn't particularly big, but it was
magnified by the small room. The other 2 cops were pushed into a wall, but
suffered only light cuts and scrapes. Thre wasn't much smoke, just a lot of
vaporized plastic and insulation. Jay darted forward to investigate the
explosion. The back wall was a gaping hole, revealing a smoking office and
shredded boxes of inventory. A huge dent in the side of a refridgerator showed
where the explosive was. Shaped charge, Jay realized.
Screams over the radio net and gunfire from outside brought the 3 able cops
running to the store entrance. Ty was still down, moaning in pain as he
reached for a doper patch.
Outside, the 2 cops had risen up when they heard the explosion, only to be cut
down by aimed shots from behind. The first cop took a round to the back of the
neck, right below the helmet. He died instantly. The other managed to get hit
on the shoulder blade. He was able to turn and get one scream off before a .44
slug starred his faceplate. The doomed officer squeezed off a single round as
a second round broke through the helmet faceplate and cratered his face. The
cop fell back, splashing into the fountain, his face and jaw a ruin.
Jay staggered out of the clothing store to see a metallic monstrosity gunning
down his fellow policemen. He howled, then raised up his A-80. The glittering
technoknight fell under his iron sights just as the officer toppled into the
fountain. The cyborg ducked with lightning speed, but Jay tracked him with
tracer fire. The advanced recoil compensator on the barrel of the soviet
assault rifle allowed him to walk the fire down. Jay sneered as 7.62mm rounds
started hitting. The 2 other cops fell in beside him, opening up with their
rifles.
Enforcer 14's mind reacted with blinding speed. His trap executed, the borg
saw no need to engage 3 armored humans. He kicked off to the left, leaving the
gunfire behind him. One computer-controlled hand guided the Armalite .44 as it
emptied it's clip at the cops, while the human mind concentrated on finding a
place to run to. He knew there were others nearby, humans with faster reflexes
and more firepower, so 14 had to go back into hiding. A grenade popped into
his free hand just as the pistol locked open, it's magazine dry. The borg
dived into a stairwell as he tossed the grenade.
Jay cursed as the borg vanished from his sights. How did it move so fucking
-fast-? he wondered. His rifle clicked empty as the machine danced away,
firing behind itself. The cop to Jay's left took a hit to the leg, but the
pistol slug didn't penetrate the alloy plate. The 2 cops ran dry as a small
black ball flew at them.
"Duck!!" screamed Jay, pushing the cops down. He kicked back into the store as
the grenade detonated after a single bounce. A brilliant flash, trailed
instantly by a thunderous BOOM, shook the hallway, spinning dust and gunsmoke
in the air. Flash-Bangs were almost useless on armored personnel, but it had
gotten the men to duck. By the time the cops raised their heads, the borg was
gone.
*****
"Stay still, damnit. Listen, if you don't hold still so I can pull out this
plastic sliver, I'll have your parnter sit on you. Ok?" The doc was not happy
with her squirming patient.
"Arrgghh! Jesus, Doc! Can't you use some sort of painkiller or something? It
feels like you are trying to rip out my ribs!" Ty was face down on the floor,
the doc kneeling on his back. She had the door fragment in a 2 handed thong
and was trying to pull it out. It was hack medicine, but it worked. Jay walked
over.
"Let me do it, Doc." The large man grabbed the handles from her, then rested
his boot on Ty's butt.
"What the hell are you doing? Stop it Jay! I'm not kid... AHHHHH!" He screamed
as the cop yanked the plastic wedge out of his back, pulling strands of flesh
that had been fused to the platic with it. The doc quickly slapped a glob of
synth-flesh on, the nanite laden organic goo immediately began to repair Ty's
back, using the carbon chains and amino acids in the synth-flesh as raw
material. Fortunately the wound wasn't large, so Ty would be healed in under a
day. He would be able to walk within minutes.
Two of the cops were not so lucky. One was dead, his neck destroyed, but the
other was alive, although he lost his jaw and would have no face for several
days. His shoulder was also damaged, it would take a week before the machines
could piece together his shoulder blade. No one knew of the damage done to the
borg, supposing there was any.
Ravine sat and watched the wounded. He was useless in the C3 room, they had no
information from the borg, and the computers were wrong about things. Both
stores the borg had entered were listed as secure on the computer. The toy
robot came from another store that was listed as secure, the explosive from
another. The Enforcer was wired into the entire mall, it could tell the
computer whatever it wanted, misleading the police. Cameras were unreliable,
the motion sensors giving off false alarms, security robots now untrustworthy.
Epson mall was enemy territory until NetWatch could shut it down.
Ravine took a long drag on a cigarette, one of the synthetic ones that had
chemical nicotine and no side-effects; yeah, right. He let the smoke trickle
down his throat until an aide came to get him. The Militech people were here.
10 dark suited people were standing down by the loading dock. They were
pulling equipment out of a large van, piling it up on a dolly. Several long
cases, just the right size for a missle weapon, as well as heavy EMP grenades,
electrical beam cannons, and anti-armor rifles were being stacked up on the
cart. Militech didn't screw around when it came to a borg hunt.
Ravine followed the aide. As he approached, he checked for familiar faces.
Nope, Militech had done it's homework. They hadn't sent anyone he knew, no one
he would recognize. Just as well, he supposed, he did not want to get into a
confrontation with a cyberdoc now anyway.
"Ahh, Jason Ravine." One of the Militech people, a slick looking corpie,
stepped forward and held out his hand. Ravine shook it, determined to get
along with these people. The skin temperature's too regular, he thought, there
is no sweat. The man's a borg, maybe just a cyberhand, maybe the whole
package. Ravine briefly wished for the advanced optics he had once had, then
he could read the man's soul if he wanted. No, the price was too high, the
metal wasn't worth it. "How's it look up there?" the man asked.
"Just like it does on your monitors..., bad." Ravine knew that they had
watched everything that had happened up till now. He was not in the mood for
small talk. The man realized that, so he smiled briefly, then directed his
team to set up.
Ravine watched the techs assemble equipment, solos assemble weapons, and the
netrunners just sit there. They were obviously in the net, scoping out the
battlefield. A couple of cops walked by, checking out the action. They made a
few rude noises, then moved on. Corps weren't well respected in cop country,
even though cops were technically in a corp. Ravine walked over to the head
gunner, a brutish woman loaded with steroid muscle and internal steel. Reminds
me of me, Ravine thought. The solo had Gibson MetalGear armor, sacrificing
mobility for near invincible protection. She undoubtedly had subdermal armor
was well, and her skin looked tougher than an alligators. She was strapping on
a recoil harness, probably so she could mount a 20mm cannon. "Come on, I'll
let you talk to the survivors of the last attack. Maybe you'll survive in the
next one."
"And what makes you think we won't?" Her voice was suprisingly soft, an
implanted relic of her pre-cyber life no doubt. She waved her hand at the
assortment of high tech weaponry and equipment. "Militech built the damned
thing, they know how to stop it. I've done this before, it's a piece of cake."
She shook the harness for emphasis, a believer in superiority through
firepower.
"Yeah, so did I, once. The Enforcer Mark II's are different though, this guy
is not acting like the usual psycho. He isn't playing dumb and mean, he's
smart and cruel. I can't wait to find out what tripped this one, I really
can't."
"Well, when we drag it's smoking hulk back down, you can dissect it all you
want. If it's advice you want to give, talk to the boss." She tossed her thumb
over her bulging shoulder. "I don't listen to advice, I just pull triggers."
Ravine just looked at her for a second, then slowly shook his head as the
woman resumed her task. Amazing they make it through their first firefight,
Ravine mused, real soldiers would have never made it past battle one with that
attitude. He glanced over at the techies, running calibrations on their fancy
electronics. Might as well try to pound some sense into them, he thought,
techies have to have at least a -little- intelligence.
Cyberpsycho 5
"All right, you Body Lotto (tm) players out there. There has been a new
development tonight. It seems that the Epson Mall cyberpsycho is gonna be
allowed to participate in tonight's count. He's already racked up an
impressive 10 kills, 2 of those being offical Night City Policemen. That gives
him a total of 12 points to the tally. I'm gonna got out on a limb here, but
I'll guess that he hasn't even started yet <ha ha>, so if you want to up your
guess as to the number of dead for 21 October, you have a mere hour and 25
minutes to do so. Remember, the jackpot is 20,000 euro and a free years worth
of ammo and maintenance from Dirty Harry's Gun Express. Buy yor tickets
NOOOOWWW!!"
-Cable 5 announcement
"You know, maybe I'll just skip shopping for the day."
-Unknown Beaver
Epson Mall, Night City 22:35 21 Oct
Ravine watched the Militech crew prepping their weapons and equipment. He
wandered over to one of the electronic techs, fiddling with some boxy
equipment. "What's all that stuff do?" he asked innocently. The tech gave him
one of those looks that read: Ahh, shit, newbie questions.
"And you are....?" The tech wasn't about to reveal the functions of Militech's
advanced detection gear to just any old joe. When Ravine showed the him his
holographic Police badge, complete with rotating bust and highlighted
classification levels, it changed his tune. This is the guy Militech screwed
up, he remembered, the guy we're supposed to treat like unstable
nitroglycerin.
"Ok, if you really want to know. This is a remote sentry controller, it runs a
group of flying camera pods. We run it from the command center and it gives
the team some extra eyes." He picked up a small ball from a padded case. "This
is what one looks like. It has advanced anti-grav lifters and built-in AI."
Ravine gave him a real dour look. "Ok, ok, it uses a retractable rotor
assembly and extendable tail. Sorry, just a little tech humor." The cop didn't
look real amused. "So anyway, the unit runs about 5 of the little buggers,
giving the assault team a 360 degree surveillance camera system. Make good
scouts as well."
Ravine looked over at some other equipment. "What does all that do?"
The tech followed Ravine's gaze. "Uhhh, that's the containment unit." He
pulled a small tarp over the large silver thermos bottle. "That's in case we
manage to incapacitate the body but can save the mind."
"You mean that Militech wants to -save- the mind? That's insane, the damn
thing is cyberpsycho!" He took a step towards the techie.
"Hey, what the hell is going on here?" A small brunette woman stalked over,
interface cords trailing from her temple. The girl, barely 155 cm tall, came
right up to Ravine and started jabbing her fingers into his chest. "Who the
hell are you? I want to see some ID!"
Ravine backed away slightly, a wry grin on his face. There was a time when -no
one- would ever do that to him, when he was cybered enough to scare
boostergangs. Times change, for the better. Jason pulled out his ID again. The
woman grabbed it from his hand and examined it closely. After a few seconds of
inspection, she grudgingly handed it back. "Ok, I s'pose you can be here.
Dosen't give you the right to push around our people. Militech pays 5% of your
budget you know."
"Yeah, I know. But -that- dosen't allow Militech to preserve a cyberpsycho.
That containment unit means that Militech plans on keeping the brain alive.
When Militech relinquished ownership of the borg, they lost that right. That
borg is going to -die-!"
"Bullshit. You know that is crap! Every brain can be rehabed, or at least
given a chance. Jesus, -you- of all people should be grateful we don't
indiscrimnately kill psychos!" She got her finger back in his chest.
"Yeah, but I didn't go around killing cops!!" That was the final line with
Ravine. When you started killing the Law, it was time for you to do -down-.
"No, you just wasted street trash and your -family-!" As soon as she said it,
the 'runner wished she could take it back. She had gotten the briefing on Lt.
Ravine, about his cyberpsychosis and how it happened, as well as the strong
warning to not bring it up.
Jason got real cold. His hands curled into fists tight enough to dent steel
and a hot wash of blood rose into his face. Memories, buried under a year of
therapy, struggled to reach the surface. All of his episodes with the shrink
and the events previous were a dark shadow on his brain, he consiously avoided
them. Now they fought to get free, to unleash the psychosis on him again. Even
without the 'ware, the brain still longed to go feral.
He just glared at the girl for a few seconds, then muttered, "The borg is
going to die," with out much enthusiasm. Then he turned and stalked off,
barely able to see straight.
"Ohh, man. Clair, did you -have- to do that? Militech was the corp that
implanted all the bad cyberware that tipped him over. If you piss him off, we
might -never- get that borg." The tech was still sitting down, protectively
shielding the brain storage unit.
Clair looked over at the tech. "I don't know, he just got me going. What was
he doing anyway, why was he yelling at you?" The tech told her. "Oh. You
didn't have to tell him what the freezer was for. You could have just made
something up. He dosen't have any more enhancements, he couldn't tell if you
were lying." A lifetime of dealing with modified people had made Clair very
aware of how cybernetics could boost humans up to a new level. She couldn't
have much 'ware herself, she had a low tolerance to the metal and couldn't
afford the nanotech to correct her genetics. The interface plugs and a neural
boost was all she could carry, but she knew what it did to other people.
"Yeah, but I didn't think of it at the time, ok? It just sorta popped out.
Man, I hope he isn't going to blow us off, I really need to tinker with that
borg." The tech wiped his brow, then went back to work.
Clair returned to the van, where the other decker, an enhanced brute named
Kray, was lost in the net. Kray was the combat decker, he would be going in
with the troops. Clair, settled back down, controlled her breathing, then
plugged back into the net.
The surrounding solos were oblivious to the arguement that went on around
them. They were lost in the grip of gunchips detailing the procedures required
to operate their weapons. With the advent of smartchips and computer control
firing, it was impossible for the average solo to mentally keep up with the
necessary skills to calibrate the computers and maintain the weapons. Gunchips
allowed each soldier to have the skills of an armorer and a programmer.
Rage, the head solo and the leader of the assault team, lovingly checked her
20mm cannon. She handloaded the 20mm shells, each long bullet reminding her of
a particularly cruel dildo, tall and sharp pointed, into the 5 round magazine.
She entered the data regarding the recoil and flight path of the teflon coated
slugs into the harness' computer, allowing it to properly control recoil and
aim the weapon. She would have liked to have explosive shells, making a single
shot lethal to the borg, but the mall owners prohibited it. Even so, she
slipped a single explosive round into a cargo pouch on her BDU's, just in
case.
Her troops were almost done, they had finished most of the equipment on the
ride over. She had a Techronica Pulse Rifle (actually a Militech clone, but it
was exactly the same as the original), an EMP grenade launcher, several large
bore rifles, a light anti-armor missle system, and a Cyborg Assault low
velocity slug-thrower under her control, as well as the scout probes and the
decker. With all the loose bounty hunters and cops in the mall, it would only
be a matter of time before the borg was cornered, then it would die. Even it's
clever traps and ambushes would be futile.
Rage finished with the 20mm, clipped 2 more 5 round magazines to her harness,
and covered herself with grenades. She had a Polymer one-shot for backup, just
in case. Her troops were similarly equiped with extra firepower. Each one was
cybered enough to almost be a match for the borg itself, Militech's personel
C-Squad was unmatched in the city.
*****
The Militech assasins were ready to move out. They locked and loaded the
myriad of weapons they were packing, filling the cargo elevator with the sweet
sound of sliding metal. Designed to lift nearly 2000kg, the elevator strained
to lift just 7 people. 7 very heavily armed and armored people, each weighing
in at nearly 250 kilos.
Ravine watched them from the command center, the probes sending in various
angles of the elevator. Several probes were already flitting about, searching
for the borg. All the levels from 1-5 had been exhaustingly searched, all air
vents, stairwells, laundry chutes, and outside walls were guarded. If the borg
was still in this section of the mall, and Ravine prayed that it was, then
they were bound to find it sooner or later. Militech left one of their
deckers, the woman of all people, as well as their tech and the corporate rep
in the control center to coordinate their team. Cops and security people, now
massing in at 300, scoured the upper floors. They travelled in groups of 6
now, ever since the ambushes earlier in the evening left 2 cops dead and a
bunch wounded. The borg had killed a group of bounty hunters that had tracked
it to it's lair, an old laundromat. 2 of them were dead, the rest critically
wounded. The most recent death came from a falling ceiling that the borg had
rigged, driving a squad of security men off a balcony. The Enforcer was mean
and nasty, it used a bag of tricks drawn from an entire library of guerrilla
tactics.
Sean was working with the Militech mechanic, whose name was Hal. They were
trying to use the probes as a way of amplifying the borg's signal. The
netrunner was deep in the net, following along with her partner. The runners
were clearing the cameras and double checking the computer, making sure the
borg wasn't tampering with the mainframe and feeding them incorrect
information. Ravine decided to talk to the corp rep.
"Figure out what made the Enforcer go psycho yet?" he asked.
The corpie took a deep breath, then started talking. "As near as we can
determine, going on the information broadcast before the Enforcer shut down
voluntary transmissions, it looks like an equipment malfunction. We were
reading off a lot of chemical imbalances in the hormone regulator. It's
possible that the flow of chemicals to the brain was upset, causing the
Enforcer to go into a rage. If that is the case, then it is simply a matter of
trimming the ratio of horomones. I suspect that is all it is, just a jammed
drug injector."
"Hmmm, that would explain the initial lapse, but what about the attacks? They
seem too planned to be carried out by a junkie going through withdrawal."
Ravine had studied full conversion borg technology for years, he was fully up
to speed with most forms of cyberpsychosis. Everything from 'ware induced
infections to screwy implants to sensory deprivation or overload.
"Yes, that is a problem. Perhaps the Enforcer still retains it's full
intelligence, despite the brain disturbance. It is possible that the brain is
undergoing a "mood-swing" that is causing the mad killing, sooner or later it
might correct itself."
"No can do. That thing has already killed 2 cops. Even then, the families of
those 2 girls it killed are paying blood money to get it destroyed. We'd have
a riot on our hands if we ever took it back alive."
"Understood. I am interested in the cause of the psychosis, but it is nothing
that we can't determine from an autopsy report."
"Autopsy? Then why do you have a chiller unit outside? Plan on keeping the
brain a little less dead than the machine?" Ravine knew it was fruitless to
keep hounding it, but he wanted to know Militech's true intentions with the
borg.
"That is just an option we wanted to keep open. It hurts nothing to have a
refridgeration unit available, even if there is no real need for it." The rep
had a smooth answer for everything.
Ravine let out a little groan of desperation. Militech was as secretive as a
government conspiracy and as subtle as a strategic nuke. What was maddening
was that even if Militech tried to take the brain, there was really nothing
Jason could do about it.
He was about to ask a few more questions when Sean suddenly shouted out.
Everyone crowded over to the display screens projecting the probe data. The
assault team was on level 9, just below the top floor, sweeping a long hallway
cluttered with discarded equipment and machinery from millions of employees.
It was the perfect place for an ambush. As the tech moved the probes around,
Sean kept the cameras scanning behind objects and under overhangs. Everything
from rusted cars to disemboweled mainframes were lying along the walls, giving
millions of hiding places. The assault team was going in -real- slow.
Ravine called up 3 units to check the opposite end. The hallway had enough
junk in it to stop any crossfires, as long as there was a hundred meters or so
of intervening junk between the groups. He didn't want the Militech people to
flush out the borg and have it run out the far hallway. The cops, as lightly
armed as they were, weren't about to go into the junkyard. They set up at the
far end of the hall and prepared to spray lead at anything moving.
Rage took point. The hallway was 20 meters wide and nearly half a klick long,
some vestigial space that got turned into a trash pit. The smell was
loathsome, so all of her team either had nose filters or regulated their
olfactory implants. Thankfully the ventilation kept enough air moving in that
it wasn't necessary to use the O2 tanks or draw on internal reserves. As the
team moved forward, scanning for IR, motion, ultrasonics, or ozone, the
probes, little silent helicopters, checked 50 meters ahead of them. Thor
wanted to drop EMP grenades every 20 meters ahead of them, just to be sure,
but Rage overrulled him with the logic that the surrounding metal would
degrade the pulse too much, or deflect it in unexpected directions and damage
something valuable. Thor was fully shielded and scoffed at EMP pulses, but
some of the other team members weren't as protected.
They were halfway through the metallic maze when the attack came. One of the
probes spotted a man-shaped shadow. Kray took local control with his deck and
guided the probe around, searching for the source of the shadow. He was
patching the probe feed to the other solos when it suddenly went dead. Hal
moved more over to the spot as Sean and Kray took over. They swept the area,
looking for the downed probe. Clair jumped the net, zooming along the closest
net line, hoping to find the borg connected somewhere. Since it wasn't using
the cybermodem to talk to the security net, it had to be physically plugged in
somewhere. She had no luck.
Sean found the lost probe, smashed into a crumpled tube. Thor was about to
launch an EMP over. A large crash attracted the probes as a line of machinery
toppled over, something moving behind them. Probes flitted around, trying to
spot the movement. Rage sent up her rocketeer and grenadier to high ground so
they could see, while she and the pulse gunner went in directly. The riflemen
were delegated to rear and flank security. Kray kept moving, using the probe
as his eyes.
Another probe went dead, an electrical circuit bridged when the tips of the
rotors brushed against some hanging wires. The sparks flew, lighting up the
dark corridor. In the flash of IR, Thor saw a glitterying shadow loom up in
front of him. He pulled the trigger of his grenade launcher and watched the
round strike the shadow in the chest. The round bounced off, not yet armed. He
tried to scream as titanium fingers punched into his neck and shredded every
tube and blood vessel. Thor sank down into a moldy vinyl seat, drowning in his
own blood and suffocating from lack of O2 to the brain. The missle-armed solo
heard the grenade fire, so he kicked in his speedware and went ballistic. The
solo leaped off the refridgerator he was perched on, spinning in space to get
a bead on the faint IR sig in front of him. A brilliant glare splattered on
the borg, Thor's blood. The solo let out a short kiai as he blasted the borg
with a micromissle. The fat dart leaped out of its casing, locking on to the
cooling blood running off of the borg. It dived into it's chest, the warhead
not yet armed. The kinetic impact was enough to drive the borg back, and the
exploding rocket fuel lit up it's chest, vaporizing gore and searing the
ceramic plate.
Rage turned as a bright flash lit up the tunnel. She turned from her pursuit
of the thing the probes were tracking to see what caused the flash. She only
got a glimpse of dull red and white-hot air before a scream of mortal pain
flooded her audio. Gimp, the rocketeer, was hurled into the far wall, cruel
twists of rusty metal softening his landing. The solo's pain editor blanketed
the agony, and the solo tried to aim his rocket launcher despite the invading
lances of steel. He made a bright IR target, half a dozen AP rounds collapsed
his head.
Rage sighted in on the rifle fire, it came from a metal hollow in an old
refigerator. She locked on with her smartgun target reticle and sent 2 20mm
slugs tearing through the giant cooler, exploding metal and steaming fragments
lit it up. She saw a deadly shadow leap out, trailing glowing steam.
"There it is!!" She screamed, and ran to get the drop on it. Her pulse gunner
opened up, an invisible beam ionized the air, leaving sparkling dust. The beam
arced across the beast and a second later the reek of ozone flooded the hall.
It fell behind a torn dishwasher, out of sight. Rage didn't know if the pulse
rifle would fry the entire borg or not, so she tossed 2 grenades behind the
hulk for good measure. The rest of her team circled around it, crawling for
cover and vantage points. A probe zoomed over the target, but saw nothing.
Numerous paths under the junk could hide an escape route.
The thing tumbling over the junk up ahead turned out to be another drone
robot. When it was positively id'ed, the remainder of the probes began
searching for the borg. The assault team kept a tight perimeter, the 4
remaining solos straining to catch sight or sound of the Enforcer. Kray guided
a probe, while Sean and Hal each took one. They were down to three, the probes
were getting valuable.
For nearly 20 seconds everything was quiet. Rage slowly moved her people
around the junk heaps. She thought about calling for assistance, but by the
time it got here, it would be over.
Then it happened. From underneath a beat up desk, tracers flew out, touching
the closest solo. The AP rounds didn't make it through the MetalGear, but the
solo was too slow to avoid the grenade that followed. He tried to dive out of
the way, but he was too loaded to move quickly. The HE ball exploded a meter
from him.
Another heat flash and the attack was on again. This time the solos were
pointing in the middle, and were better able to locate the borg. As it tossed
the desk up, explosive rounds shredded it, then seeked for the borg. The black
monstrosity leaped back, snapping off projecting spines of metal and covering
itself with junk. As gunfire converged on it, the debris field it wove around
itself disintegrated. The borg took a hit on the leg, hydralics and myomer
muscle shredded.
Enforcer 14 grabbed a sawed off shotgun it took from a bounty hunter. The
double barreled 10 gauge was loaded with DS penetrators, the only thing able
to hurt the borg. They were also the only thing able to cut through MetalGear.
The encroaching solo got a both rounds in the head, the Enforcer's superior
targetting computer easily hitting at such close ranges. The solo was killed
immediately, losing a couple square cm of skull in front, not much more out
back, but all the brain in between was turned to jelly.
The Enforcer was hurt, it's armor was only so thick. The other 2 solos were
nearby, the borg could hear their breathing, as well as all the noise the
heavily loaded humans were making, despite their noise-reduction technology.
He went low again, dragging his leg and nerve-shot arm.
Kray kept the last remaining probe on the borg. The other 2 were killed in the
crossfire, Sean and Hal unable to take them out quickly enough. He dove the
mini-coptor as close to the borg as possible. He cut the sound-dampening
speakers, hoping the increased noise would cover the solo's approach.
Enforcer 14 lost his tracking when the probe started making noise. He decided
to let it live, sparing ammo. His location was unimportant once he reached his
lair. There he had surprises waiting. The borg slithered through the metal
like a snake, his unfeeling metal skin rasping over the tortured machinery.
Rage and her last remaining trooper, the pulse gunner, crept up behind the
borg. She knew what Kray was doing, but didn't approve the risking of their
last probe. She had sent out the call for help, maybe the cops could reach her
before the borg killed them all. This was unlike any borg-hunt she had ever
been on. Cyberpsychos -always- acted without much rational thought, or they
were so damaged from previous encounters that they were easy prey. THis one
was different, it was like trying to hunt down an entire guerilla army at
once, the thing was everywhere.
She and the gunner emerged from the forest of steel to see the borg slip into
another metal cave. She screwed stealth and ripped up the cave with the last 3
20mms in her magazine. The hefty rounds collapsed the cave, hopefully trapping
the borg inside. She reloaded as the pulse gunner started zapping the pile,
hoping for another lucky hit. Another 5 round clip went into the rubble,
smashing anything larger than a dinner plate.
Kray's probe took a few seconds to examine the pile of shattered machinery. It
the borg was in there, it was seriously wounded. 7 20mm slugs had made a ruin
of the pile, collapsing it and punching holes in everything. Shrapnel was as
big a contributer as anything else. He rose up as several grenades blasted the
pile to pieces.
Rage searched the rubble. There was no sign of the borg. She began to get a
sinking feeling in her cybernetic stomach when the last probe died. The crack
of the bullet's sonic boom hit a millisecond later, causing the solo to dive
under cover, dragging the heavy harness after her. She was down to a single 5
round magazine and her explosive round. The pulse gunner was behind her
somewhere, reloading. The crack of the sniper shot echoed around some, eluding
location. The probe fell noisily, shattering some glass. They were blind. Rage
decided to stay real quiet.
The pulse gunner was about to bolt when he snapped a thin cord running between
2 piles of machines. A shiny spear made from an old bumper cut through his
guts, propelled by a simple compressed air cannon. The platic/steel alloy
punched through the dusty MetalGear with a little difficulty, blunting the tip
and tearing an even larger hole in his intestines. The spear didn't make it
out the back, it was stopped by the rear armor. The gunner gagged, then
slumped over.
Rage turned as she heard the sound. She glimpsed a dark figure leaping over
the body of her last solo and opened fire. 5 20mm rounds tore holes in the
ceiling, missing narrowly each time. It was so fast and it didn't move like a
normal person, it didn't worry about knee stress or ankle damage, so it could
leap out in odd directions or angles. The target computer couldn't compensate,
the CPU was programmed against standard movement patterns, so it missed. Rage
screamed, then fled behind some cover. She tore off the computer, dashing it
to the ground. The machines had failed her. Tears started to form in her eyes,
she had never been so close to death. Rage slipped the last round out of her
pocket, the explosive one. Her hands trembling, she slid it into the chamber.
Without the computer, the 20mm was a giant cannon, heavy to move and a bitch
to aim. It would take a lot of luck to get a hit, or a lot of skill. Rage
didn't believe in luck, but she had a lot of skill.
A clattering sound behind her. Rage twisted around, slinging the weapon ahead
of her. It sang on its harness, whistling as it spun through the air. As she
turned around, a black shape appeared on the pile behind her. Her IR vision
got a glimpse of glowing eyes and an evil sneer. Without thinking, she snapped
up the cannon and fired, almost at point blank range.
The explosive round, not hindered by arming distances, blew the shape
backwards, blasting it into a million pieces. A hot wall of air pushed back on
Rage, shrapnel rang off her armor and tore into her cheeks. The borg
collapsed, its head rolling down to her. She looked at it. It was an old
bowling ball, 2 bloody spots for eyes and a line of cooling blood for a mouth.
Decoy.
Rage tried to turn, tried to pull out her one-shot to stop the inevitable. She
felt the cold grip of the borg as it closed it's hand on her neck, squeezing
with incredible strength. Rage's spine snapped as she fell, her neck twisted
at an impossible angle. Her last sight was of the borg, alien and exotic, a
biomechanical nightmare, crushing her head under it's foot.
*****
Ravine watched in silence as the cops carried out the bodies. Damn, he
thought, borg 17; police 0.
Cyberpsycho 6
"No idea what happened, Sir. My team was the best there is, they should have
had no problem with the cyborg. Yes Sir, understood, Sir. The police officials
still suspect nothing, aside from the unusual lethality of the borg. Yes Sir,
they bought the story about the chemical imbalance, a little truth mixed in
with lies. No Sir, the technician and the netrunner are not briefed in full.
Only Rage and Kray had full access to the project and they are currently, ah,
"under the weather". Yes Sir, I understand the gravity of the situation if the
police examine the brain. I will try harder, Sir. Clear, Sir, I will handle
the problem myself. Simon out."
-scrambled communique between Militech rep and HQ.
"He waded through us, like we weren't even there!! Oh, GOD, I can't stand it!
That thing ain't human, it ain't no borg, it's the fucking Devil himself!!"
-Survivor of the most recent cyberpsycho attack
"Kuso!" -another survivor, loosely translates as [SHIT!}
Epson Mall, Night City 23:27 21 Oct
Another bundle of bodybags was sent out, full of cooling meat. Every Trauma
Team and meatwagon in the North side were at the mall, struggling to get first
dibs on the fresh bodies and the salvage money. Police troopers, protecting
their own dead, used their specialized barricade-buster motorized rams to
smash their way through the prowling body snatchers, delivering their bodies
to the safety of the precinct. The civilian corpses, stacked carelessly out of
the way, were easy targets for the vultures.
"We need to get this place established as a Martial Zone!" screamed Lt. Jason
Ravine to the Chief of Precinct 23. The howl of choppers and screeching AV's
made talking outside a near impossibility. The two cops were watching the last
of the Trauma Team vans make off with body booty, chased by 2 local salvage
companies. "There is no way we can keep control here!" A Martial Zone would
allow the police, in conjunction with the Guard, to seal off the area and
clean out the lurking bounty hunters and corps. The last batch of killings was
a bunch of Japanese samurai and NC gangers who thought they could take the
borg down in hand-to-hand combat. They had to have been seriously stoned to
try that. Needless to say, none of them escaped unharmed. The borg was up to
27 killed, 45 wounded. It was becoming embarrassing.
"You're right, Ravine!" the Chief yelled back. "I'll get on the horn with the
mayor, see if he can get a few corps to back us. Then we'll try for the Zone!"
Ravine only heard the first part, an AV zoomed low overhead, but he nodded
anyway. Damn, he thought, used to be able to filter out shit like that. Then
he remembered what that had cost him and he welcomed the noise. The Chief took
off for his car, so Ravine ducked back inside the mall.
Inside was only slightly better. Cries from the wounded, painkiller in short
supply until the police could arrange a purchase from Epson mall, filled the
large loading garage. He headed over to the Militech van, now a lot emptier
after their team's near annihilation at the hands of the Enforcer. The woman
decker, Clair, was sitting silently on the bumper, singing to herself. She had
an interface cord strung to her temple, so Ravine assumed she was 'running. No
sign of the tech nor the slick corpie.
"Who ya lookin' for?" Clair asked. Jason was a little startled, he thought she
was in the net. The woman looked like she had been crying, or using drugs.
"Huh? Oh, no one really." Ravine flustered about, looking for words to say.
How do you greet someone who watched her friends (or at least associates) get
wasted by a renegade cyborg? "How you doing?" Lame, lame. Ravine groaned
inwardly. After his not so silver first impression with the 'runner, he had
hoped they could be a little more friendly. He needed Militech, as much as it
pained him to think about it, but the corp was the only place in town with the
firepower to take out the borg.
"How do you think?" She sounded dead, not angry. "Had to try and keep my
spirits up, you know?" It was drugs then that gave her red eyes. She smiled, a
little line of drool worked its way down her lip. "Simon is in the van,
talking to the big fish. Don't know where Hal is, maybe he got himself
killed!" She started giggling, then suddenly konked out. Ravine caught her
before she hit the concrete.
"Good save!" Simon called out from the van. The corpie, still pressed into his
1000 eb suit, smiled one of those totally false, utterly convincing grins.
"Any more word on the Enforcer?" Like he didn't know everything Ravine knew.
"Not really. We've managed to confine him to the 10th floor, but that is the
maintenance and climate control level, it's all big machinery and lots of
crawlspaces. None of the cops will go up there. We're sending up MaxTac in a
few minutes." Ravine set the decker on the ground and rolled her over to her
stomach. That way if she puked, she wouldn't add to Militech's body count.
"I'll be straight with you, Ravine. I know that you hate Militech for the
malfunctioning cyberware they implanted you with, and I know what it made you
do. I sympathize with the anguish you must feel every night when you go home
to an empty conapt. But I also know that you are the best, the absolute
-best-, at this type of work." Ravine gave the Suit a dark look. He had had
enough old memories dredged up by tonight's killings. Jason turned to leave.
"Wait!" Simon called to him. Wisely the corpie didn't try to grab him. "Hear
me out. I know how to kill this thing, if you help. You were in the Australian
wars, you spent time in SouthAm, you are a fighter, not some protector of the
peace! I need that kind of help here. I'm going in after the borg, to take it
out myself. Are you with me?"
Ravine turned around, disbelief on his face. "Are you insane!? That thing has
killed 30 people! It's taken out teams of trained killers, with all the latest
'ware. Hell, your own damn hit team was the best chance we had and it ate them
-alive-!" Ravine was making a habit of blowing up at people. He really needed
to take his medicine. The rage was back, an evil force with talons sunk deep
into his mind. He grabbed the Suit, shaking the man.
Next thing Ravine knew, he was staring at the muzzle of a hand bazooka. His
eyes didn't even have to cross to look down the barrel. Simon, despite being a
corp lapdog, was -fast-. Ravine took a deep breath and regained control. "I
can't do that anymore. You -know- that. I'm just flesh, I'm a brain, not the
brawn. I gave that up to get my sanity back."
"Yes, I know. I have a cure for what you feel, a way to get your old speed
back." He held up a small vial, opaque grey. "This is something Militech uses
for it's own troops, alas, not today. This is called Timewarp, it will make
you fast enough to get that first shot." Then the corpie holstered the pistol
in a shoulder rig, it was amazing Jason didn't see the brute before. He opened
a cigarette case. Inside were 10 long rounds, needle tipped. Ravine recognized
the caliber, .454 Casull, what he fired. "These are depleted uranium sabot
slugs. Wait..., they're not overtly radioactive right now, at least not
compared to the background radiation we so enjoy everyday. You know what DU
does to what it hits? Know what it'll do to the Enforcer? Yes, one or two hits
from these and the borg will die, it's internal casing pierced and the DU
eating its's way to the brain. I have 2 clips of these myself, for the
Malorian. -This- is our edge! We can outgun him, outthink him. Between us, the
borg will not stand a chance!"
Ravine thought about it. Simon did run a good line of bullshit. He briefly
wondered if the Suit was using a Forked Tongue on him, subliminally
influencing his thoughts. No matter. Ravine saw the opportunity to redeem
himself of the demons that had plagued him for almost 2 years. He nodded
agreement.
"All right! Let's cancel that MaxTac raid and get going!" Simon bubbled with
enthusiasm.
"Hold it! First off, I'm in charge. Secondly, we will do this secretly, so
that damn machine can't listen in on everything we do. We're going to do this
my way. I don't know what your wars taught you, but Special Forces taught me
how to do this, and how to do it right."
*****
Sean and Hal were hunched over the dim computer screen, the holo-display and
crystal imaging de-activated to reduce power consumption. They used a keyboard
to avoid the net and a revealing icon. Even the computer was running low,
cooled by a fan rather than the liquid coolant. "What have you got?" the ex-
bloodbowl player asked the corp tech.
"Don't know. Simon keeps his files really well locked, he uses a rather nasty
encryption algorithm. If I hadn't had to repair the thing last week, I
wouldn't have been able to get even this far. Using such primitive equipment
seems silly."
"Trust me, it works. I've used a low power channel to get into many a system.
Met my girlfriend that way, I hacked her computer to get her e-mail address,
then I edited her icon so that I could find her anywhere on the net. She
almost left me when she found out." Sean chuckled at the memories.
Hal shook his head, using a minimally powered computer to imitate a innocent
power surge was the wierdest thing he had ever heard. "I barely have enough
power to send the commands, even though the van is only 40 meters away." They
were crouched in the back of Sean's Hundai. "I still think it would be better
to go in full power and cut through, at least then I could use my progs. Here
I have -nothing-. Reminds me of Unix when I was a kid."
"Don't remind me. I used to have a 786 Interstar. Even with 128 meg of ram,
that thing was -slow-! But remember, everything nowadays is so high-powered,
so fast and quick, ICE is calibrated to ignore the low-powered stuff. Hell, a
power surge today is stronger than a 32K modem knocking on your door back
then. ICE can't check everything. We're safe. Besides, with the low power
drain, no one will be able to trace us."
"Ah, Christ!" Hal swore. Sean looked over alarmed, expecting the worst. "We
almost lost it. Some fuck just logged on the net, almost drowned us out in
static... I'm back. Let me try the back door prog I installed to service the
computer..." the tech faded away, lost in concentration as he worked the
encryption prog.
Sean looked around the car, making sure no one was approaching. Raiding the
files of one of Militech's head operatives was risky business, especially for
the tech next to him. Fortunately Hal had as little respect for corps as Sean
did, so he didn't mind running a hack against his boss. Sean knew there was
something fishy about the Enforcer, something Militech wasn't coming out and
saying. Nothing, -nothing-, could go through that many solos and cops. The
borg was a vampire, killed by nothing and taking everyone's blood. Sean saw
the female decker from Militech stumble around, lost in the grip of whatever
drug she was on. Oh well, let her grieve in her own way. He figured she was
the one who logged in, her deck helping to drown out Hal's quiet probe.
"Damn, we're in!! I knew it, the slick fuck never bothered to check to see
what I did to his computer. As long as it worked, he didn't care!" Sean leaned
over to squint at the screen. "Ok, we got files on this, files on that. What
are we looking for?"
"Try anything dealing with cyborg, or Enforcer. Maybe today's date. Shit,
didn't think about what he would call anything."
Hal punched away for several seconds, reading the file names. He had to ask
how to scan for names, it had been so long. Then he hit jackpot.
"Bingo. We got Enforcer14.project, Enforcer.FCB, Enforcer.amok, and
Plan.to.kill.Enforcer. Damn, that last one sounds good. We also got 3 files
under today's date, and 2 more for tomorrow. Want to check his e-mail?" Sean
shook the negative. "Ok, how do we get the files? It'll take forever to do
this with our connection, we'd probably get a million errors due to line
noise."
"All right, how about printing the stuff out inside the van? You got a fax?"
"Better than that, we have a laser turbo right in the van. Go make sure no
one's inside." Sean left the car, trotted over to the van and peeked inside.
No one home. He gave a thumbs up to Hal. Seconds later, denim-weave started
pouring out of the printer, about a page every second or so. Most of it was
schematics and stuff, lots of drawings.
"What 'cha doin'?" The voice right behind him almost cost Sean his life. His
heart lurched, not a minor thing in a 130 kilo body. The cop turned around.
Clair, the decker, stood in front of him, wobbling on her feet. She had a real
spaced look on her face, like she had been sniffling to much petro.
"Nothing, go back to sleep."
"Uh uh. I think you're up to sometin', I want to know what it is!" She started
getting louder, might attract attention.
Sean felt bad about hitting her, but he went for the quick knockout, stopping
the blood flow to the brain by briefly pinching her artery. He did that by
tapping her on the temple (the one without the socket), leaving a rather livid
bruise. "Sorry, darling. I'll make it up to you." Despite her drugged
appearance, she was a fairly attractive woman, if a bit short. Hell, if anyone
saw the blow, they'd think it was for her own good.
He laid her on the bed of the van. He was scooping up the papers when Hal came
dashing into the back. "Shit, did you have to -hit- her?"
"What was I supposed to do? She's high as a spacer. Forget her, she'll live.
Lets get this stuff upstairs before your boss gets back."
They quicky stuffed the hundred or so pages into a folder. Hal wiped the
printers RAM, so no trace would be left of their theft. Nothing he could do
about Clair. He hoped she would think she did it to herself when she awoke.
"Come on," Sean urged from the back of the van, "let's go." The pair jumped
out the back, shut the doors, then returned to their little base they had set
up on the 5th floor. They had to be back before the next attack came.
******************************************************************************
Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
******************************************************************************
From kendejd9@wfu.edu (kendelhardt jason david)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: STORY: Cyberpsycho 7
Date: 1 Dec 1994 18:05:07 GMT
It's been a while, but I should be able to get a few good chapters in
before X-mas break, then depending on my workload, I should do a lot of
writing. Chat's been getting crowded the past couple of weeks, looks like a
lot of authors are getting busy. Glad to see Tuesday Mourning in the
REader's Poll, maybe next year I'll take a few more categories. Anyway,
Heretic tossed in some idea's with this latest chapter, so if anyone else
has ideas, toss 'em my way. The Cyberpsycho isn't dead quite yet. Later
Copyright 1994 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 7
"I see IT!!!! It's coming up the 10th level stairwe...."
"Shit, it just took out Johnson. I'll get it from behi...."
"Damn, there goes Stoney. We'll hit it with the autog..."
"Uhhh, guys? Anyone home? I think I'll just mosey on down to the 9th flo..."
-Heard over the Police TacNet
Epson Mall, Night City 00:12 22 Oct
The command center was a mess, people were scrambling all over to locate the
borg, to stop the killing. 12 more people were down, dead or severely
battered, all in critical condition. That made over 30 dead and 55 wounded.
The board of advisors was sure not going to be pleased about this. The Chief
of Police was in an unpleasant mood, more people would loose their jobs over
this debacle than during the entire Mob War of 2010. They weren't just being
fired either. Body bags were piling up, hospitals were filling up, and budgets
were running out. The Chief knew he had only a few more hours to remain Chief,
and if he wanted his job, he had to have results. The police were made to
clean up after the corps, he wasn't doing his job.
"Where the hell is Ravine?!" he shouted out. "I want my damn
cyberpsychologist! Where is he!" Some lackey came over, looking scared.
"Uhmm, Lt. Ravine is going up to the 10th floor, Sir, he's going to go after
the cyborg, with that Militech suit, Sir" That said, the lackey darted off,
tring to escape the wrath that was to follow.
"WHAT!!!" The Chief's face flared red and his heart implant kicked in overtime
to lower his blood pressure. "You, Sergeant! Get me Ravine on his comm, NOW!!"
He jabbed his finger at a female commo tech who made the mistake of looking at
the boss. She stammered out a "Yes, Sir" and started scanning her reference
chip for the appropriate frequency. She quickly patched in a line to Ravine's
portable comm unit, which started beeping.
3 floors up, Ravine's beeper went off. "Shit, that'll be the Chief. Think I
should answer?" he asked his companion, the Militech rep.
"No, we're about ready to go. Surprise him with the head of an Enforcer Mark
II." They both grinned at each other, then charged their weapons. "Let's kick
ass." hissed Simon.
A muffled voice came through the beeper, stashed under Ravine's discarded
coat. "Damnit, Ravine. I know you can fuckin' hear me, so you had better
listen up! That borg just took out 4 more cops and it's on the 10th floor,
running loose. If you go up there, you'll die! I'm sending MaxTac up there
now, and if they see you, I'll have them hit you with so much juice that
you'll shake for weeks!! Now get your dirty HUMAN ass back down here in
Command, where it belongs! You are not a soldier anymore, Ravine, you can't
tango with the big boys! Let the cybers take care of it! Are you listening!!?"
Simon chuckled softly at the ranting of the Chief. Ravine, cursing at the
hacker able to remote control his phone, dug it out of his jacket. He pressed
on the thermo-sensitive talk switch.
"I hear you, Chief. Look..." A few seconds of curses drowned him out. "Look,
Chief, I'm the only cop here with the skills necessary to kill the borg. You
know it." That wasn't true, the bounty hunters and MaxTac boys were just as
good as he was. Better than you, a vioce said in his mind, they still had
cyberware. Ravine squinted his eyes, driving the voice out. He wasn't metal
anymore, but it was the brains that counted, not the 'ware. At least he hoped
so. Metal had gotten nowhere against the borg. It had ripped through an entire
Militech C-Squad, leaving scrap for the junkmen. "Just think, Chief. If it
kills me, then you don't have to worry about all my black marks, you'll have a
clean precinct again."
"I don't want a -clean- precinct!", came the reply. "I want a precinct that
can actually -do- something! You're the man behind the Cyberpsycho Team,
everyone knows it! We -need- you, damnit!"
"Sorry, Chief. If I make it, then you can talk about how cool I am, if I
don't, then maybe I wasn't good enough." Ravine was making idle talk,
recording his last words in case he failed. If he was going to die in a blaze
of glory, why not leave some choice words behind? The media would love it.
"Gotta go, Chief, I got a date with a psycho. Ravine out." He popped out the
back of the commo unit, then flicked out 2 BB-sized batteries. "All right, now
we can get going."
"Date with a psycho, huh?" Simon mimiked Jason's eulogy. "Movie-of-the-week
maybe? Have no fear, between the 2 of us, that borg is deader than an AIDS II
fag during flu season." He zipped up his Ghostsuit, drapped the IR-masking
hood over his head, and activated the chameleon crystals. Simon blurred
slightly, then faded away. "You like?"
Ravine stared at the spot where the corpie had just been. There was a faint
diffraction of light, a ghostly halo in the image of a man, but that was all.
If he hadn't known where Simon was, Ravine would have never seen him. "Fuck,
that is some -cool- shit." Jason quickly sealed his suit, the thin fabric
collecting his body heat. He slipped on the hood and fitted the goggles over
his face. Then he looked down at his arms and legs. Still there. Not easy to
see, but it was just ordinary camoflage, not invisibility. "Hey, how do you
activate this thing?"
"Do can do. The Ghostsuit needs an interface plug to function properly, to
anticipate your moves. You ain't go no plugs, man. A Ghostsuit would have a
time lag, it'll make you out of synch with the environment, it would be worse
than a regular sneaksuit. I got you a Mirage Gear suit. It's been optimized
for urban camoflage, and will cut your IR emissions. Best I can do, sorry."
"Well, in that case, you go first then." Damn, he thought, who's gonna be the
target in -this- group? He waved Simon towards the elevator to the 10th.
The pair walked into the elevator. It was a small service lifter, hopefully
overlooked by the borg. Just to be sure, Simon pried open the overhead hatch
and climbed onto the roof of the car. He pulled Ravine up after him. The
elevator shaft ended at the top of the 10th floor, leaving no room to stand on
top of the elevator when it was at the 10th level. The 50 meter hydralic lift
was underneath the elevator, so there were no cables or engines above it. "Oh
well, there goes plan 1." They had intended to ride the top of the elevator to
the 10th floor, then drop in and walk out once it had opened. That would have
given them time to see if the borg was waiting or not, or if it had
boobytrapped the elevator. "Let's try plan 2."
"What's that?" asked Ravine.
"We climb." was the answer. No need to even tip off the borg that someone was
coming up. If they could climb up and open the door manually, they could avoid
detection altogether. Ravine shrugged, then grabbed ahold of the recessed
grips in the wall. It took 2 minutes to scale the 7 meters to the 10th floor.
Ravine was gripping his gun the whole way. Simon came up behind him, his
pistol stuck in his pants.
"Ok, here's the door. Want to call for someone to open it up?"
"You took the batteries out of your phone."
"Ahh, shit. We got to do it the hard way." Ravine climbed up a little higher,
so both he and Simon could be even with the elevator door on the left side of
the ladder. "Pull on three?"
Simon grunted his agreement. Ravine stashed his revolver in his thigh holster.
They both held on with one hand and reached out with the other. With the
advent of computer-control, manual overrides and access panels fell into
disfavor. The only way they were going to get that door open without a
netrunner was to haul it open with brute strength.
Ravine's fingers dug into the seam between doors, near the top. Simon, his
head pressed against Ravine's lower back, gripped the door at the middle.
"3..2..1..PULL!"
There was a brief moment when the door refused to budge, then it slammed open
with a faint whoosing sound. The outside was dark, emergency lights the only
thing holding back the blackness. Simon curled his leg out around the edge of
the door, then peered over the side. He scanned for a moment with low-lite and
IR, but came up empty. He slid out his hand cannon and crawled all of the way
onto the 10th floor. They were in a back hallway somewhere, dull tile floors
and synthetic brick walls ran away on both sides. Ravine flopped around the
corner as soon as Simon cleared the doorway. The elevator doors slid silently
shut behind them. In the half-light, Simon was totaly invisible when he was up
against the wall, only a glimmer of IR escaped the suit. Ravine was equally IR
faint, but he was a midnight shadow, still able to be seen against a backdrop.
The pair was on complete noise discipline, no sounds at all. They had even
forgone the electronic noise-dampeners to eliminate any electronic hum. Only
IR goggles and Simon's internal cyberware (however much that was) was active.
Simon had a penlight he flashed at Ravine. With the Ghostsuit operating,
Ravine couldn't accurately see any hand signals, so the light was necessary.
Ravine stuck out a thumb, inhaled deeply from the respirator, and drew his
pistol.
*****
10 minutes later, the pair stopped for a rest. They had swept 5 hallways,
looking and listening for any sign of the borg. Only a few torn bodies marked
it's passing. The IR absorbtion fiber was starting to overheat, and both men
were dehydrated. They ducked into a bathroom, one at a time, to cool off and
relieve themselves. Simon was in the restroom when Jason caught a faint
flicker from a nearby Radio Shack. He engaged his low-lite's highest
magnification and scanned the storefront. He could barely make out the
interior, but it looked as if some piece of power equipment, maybe a welder,
was being used. He dropped the low-lite back down to conserve the batteries,
then aimed his pistol at the store. The borg had to be in there, repairing the
damage it had suffered. Intel had guesstimated that the borg had lost its left
arm to a pulse beam, had its legs damaged by 20mm fire, lost some vision to a
laser burst, and had serious frontal weakening of its chest armor by multiple
gunshot marks. The thing had to be hurt, so now it was repairing itself.
Jason waited until Simon crept out of the dark lavatory. He motioned toward
the Radio Shack and indicated Simon to turn up the low-lite imaging. Simon did
so, and stared at the store front for several minutes. There was a wide window
display, definitely armorplexi, as well as a double door, also made of plexi.
If the borg was locked up in there, there was no way the two hunters were
going to get in without being noticed. And with a killer cyborg, being noticed
was all it took to get killed.
They crept back into the bathroom, out of sight. There they could talk. "I say
we buzz for the big boys, let them blast a hole through the store and fill it
with lead." Ravine suddenly felt a keen awareness of how vulnerable they were.
"Good plan. Problem is that when we call, the borg will hear it. It probably
already knows -we- are up here, somewhere, so when he picks up the movement of
the MaxTac team he'll know he's been spotted. Then he'll come for -us-."
"Ok, smart guy, you think we ought to go in ourselves?"
"Hell no. I like living as much as you. I say we set up a little welcoming
party for Mr. Enforcer when he comes out. Check this puppy out!" The Militech
rep pulled out an oval object from a pocket. With his suit off, Ravine could
see all of his movements by the light of Simon's little penlight. He set the
metal ball, about the size of his fist, on the ground. It started flashing,
faster and faster. Simon picked it back up before the pulses got too fast.
"What's that?"
"Proximity mine. Made to be dropped from aircraft or off of vehicles. It
automatically activates when it is on stable ground. Sure, it's a little
hokey, and not much good on the battlefield, but it will show that borg a
thing or two. I say we slide a few of these outside the door to that
electronics place and get it to come out."
"How many you got?" Ravine began to think of Simon as a living bag of tricks.
First the DU sabot rounds, then the sneaksuits, now the mines. What else did
he have?
"Three of them. Here's one." He handed over one of the metal orbs. Ravine
looked at it briefly. It was rather heavy, but not as weighty as an old style
grenade would have been. The thing just sat there, not flashing or anything.
He shrugged, then slipped it into a pocket. He wondered if it would arm if he
stood real still. Probably not, 'cause Simon wasn't blown to bits yet.
The soldiers looked at each other, then Simon vanished. Ravine watched as the
penlight turned itself off and the bathroom was shrouded in darkness. The
emergency light being the first thing they knocked out when they entered the
bathroom. By feel, Ravine opened the bathroom door a hair. His goggles
amplified the light in the hallway, revealing nothing. He bear-crawled out,
awkwardly cradling his pistol in his right hand. Behind him the door was held
cracked for a moment, until Ravine was under cover and not fired upon. Then
Simon came out, hugging the wall to allow his chameleon suit to operate at
maximum effectivness.
The light was still visible in the store, a spectral flickering. Jason pulled
the mine out of his hip pocket and held it in a trembling hand. He never liked
explosives, especially ones that armed themselves. From a corner oblique to
the Radio Shack, a dark shape glided across the floor to hit softly against
the far wall, underneath the display window. As soon as it stopped moving, the
red light started flashing. Another one followed it, so Ravine followed suit
and slid his at the door. He heard it tink against the base of the plexi, and
stop a quarter meter from the door. 5 seconds later, after reaching a feverish
pace, the red LEDs went out, one after the other. The hallway was dark again,
and silently deadly. Ravine had no idea what sort of burst radius the mines
had, or how close motion had to be to set them off.
He decided to play it safe so he snuggled down into a flowerbed, scooping out
a shallow foxhole for himself to lay in. The plants were covered by several
overhanging mini-willows, so his position was very concealed. When he finished
several minutes later, he noticed that the lights inside the Radio Shack had
gone out.
Where was the borg? Had it heard the mines hitting the wall? If Ravine could
hear them, it was undoubtable that the borg had as well. It must have finished
whatever it had been doing and checked the window. The camera system was
offline, thanks to the cops, so the borg had to use it's own eyes. Was it
looking at him right now, drawing a bead between his eyes? God, the tension
was nerve-wracking. Usually, in Australia, Jason had been the one to do the
stalking, rooting out the rebels that nuked Sydney. It was ironic that he was
the one being stalked now, at the mercy of a mechanical slayer. Come on, he
prayed, just open the door. He had no idea where Simon was, but he was
probably thinking the same thing. No way the borg could shoot through plexi,
at least not with the first shot. Unless it was building a cannon. Shit, now
Jason had all new things to worry about.
The cop peered through the flowers, his IR showing nothing. He doubted that
any heat at all could get through the plexi, so he switched to the hi-res
image intensifer. Nothing there either. Then he checked down the hallway, and
his blood froze to ice.
2 doorways down from the Radio Shack, a head peered back at him. It was
impossibly high, over 2 meters up the doorframe. A bald, metallic skull housed
the penetrating eyes, now blinded and scored by dozens of bullets. With the
low-lite, Jason could see the twisted arm, the shattered shoulder, victims of
countless failed attacks that slowly took their toll. The Enforcer slowly
crept around the doorway, scanning the hall.
Enforcer 14 was on the defensive. He had lost both primary power systems, he
was drawing on rapidly draining batteries. Half of his optic sensors were
wiped, seared into electronic garbage by a high-intensity laser. His left arm
had only limited mobility, even after repeated re-boots and rewiring. The
central casing was cracked, leaking stasis fluid and hydralic oil. Even his
legs were damaged, although they had been repaired, if only temporarily.
Enforcer 14 didn't want another confrontation with the endless stream of
organics, they never seemed to go away and only attacked. The brain of Charles
Sunn was deep into depression, the supply of horomones had altered again,
instilling a sense of hopelessness and futility. The borg had completely given
up trying to set traps or ambushes, he just wanted a few hours to fix himself
up so he could make an escape.
Nothing was in the hallway. The hot organics, easily detectable on IR, were
nowhere to be seen. Only a few pieces of debris were lying in the hallway. The
air wasn't even warm, a sure sign that no biologicals had been in the area. 14
made a last check of the small objects lying on the ground. He flowed along
the wall until he got close enough for his damaged optics to make out the
things. -Mines-! The computer part of Sunn's brain instantly recognized the
proximity grenades, and deduced how they had gotten there. Humans, and close
by! Enforcer 14 was spinning to check more of the hallway when he saw a puff
of red blossom in a corner, then the stinging slap of a thin spike penetrating
his abdomen. It -burned-! The sabot dart easily sliced through the layers of
ceramic/titanium armor, the depleted uranium started reacting with the metals,
evolving even more heat. It was a statement of quality for Militech that the
sabot round didn't penetrate out the back of the Enforcer, it was too tough.
Instead the uranium burned inside the borg, melting circuitry and boiling off
fluid.
Ravine started up when the crack of the gunshot, almost drowned out by the
roar of the gunshot and the squeal from the borg, drove him into action. He
rose up out of the flowerbed, raining dirt, and sighted in on the borg. It
looked at him for an eternal moment, and Jason almost felt sorry for the
thing. Then his trigger finger took over and a thin wedge of DU lanced into
the borg's upper chest. Ravine was so close that the discarded sabot casings
hit the borg as well, doing no damage of course. He barked out a quick cry of
success, then sighted in for another shot. He never got it.
Enforcer 14 took the second hit in stride. His combat computer had taken over,
flooding the brain with rage horomones. His good right arm wiped out the
stubby .50 cal slug thrower he had lifted off of a bounty hunter. The bullpup
carbine spit out a single slug. Ravine took it in his right side. It punched
through his sneaksuit like it didn't exist, was slowed slightly by the dense
kevlar behind that, and ended up slamming a hole in his ribcage. Hydroshok
made sure his lung collapsed and he lost a kidney.
Simon fired again, his cyberarm struggling to compensate for the enormous 14mm
recoil. His second shot, guided in by smartgun targeting, hit the borg under
the armpit, smashing through delicate circuit boards and turning computers
into silicon dust. The borg turned to run, barreling down the hallway on it's
stiff legs. Simon lept after it, a rainbow figure as the Ghostsuit struggled
to maintain the chameleon effect. The corpie hit his stride just as he
realized why he should have been more cautious in picking his route.
The mines.
The first explosion tossed him back, so the ripple effect of the other 2 mines
didn't do more than hit him with a few inconsequential shockwaves. The
Ghostsuit was blown off, as was the corporate armored pinstripe suit he was
wearing under it. The rep hit the flowerbed where Ravine was looking stupidly
at the blood welling out of his side.
"Jesus, Ravine. He got you good!" That was all he paused to say before taking
off again after the fleeing borg. Simon was feeling good, no mere mine was
going to stop -him-.
In the flowerbed, Ravine felt his life slipping away. His only chance was if a
trauma team happened to blast their way into the hallway with a stasis tube.
Then he felt something digging into his hip. Irrationally irritated by this
tiny pain, he dug out a small grey vial from the pocket. The Timewarp drug.
Ravine grinned maniacally, then stabbed the head of the vial into his exposed
arm. The vial automatically injected it's payload via air hypo. For a few
seconds nothing happened, it was still a fog of pain. Then clarity hit. His
heartbeat speeded up, not a good thing, but the rush of O2 to his brain, not
to mention the Timewarp itself, snapped him out of his haze. Thinking quickly,
Ravine bundled up a fragment of Simon's Ghostsuit that landed on him and
jammed it into the wound. The blast of pain made him lose consiousness for a
fast second, but it stopped the blood loss. It least the loss on the outside.
Somewhere inside him was a huge chunk of deformed metal and it had ruined all
his internal tubing. Amazingly enough, the round had been a glancing hit, it
had been stopped enough by the armor layers and his ribs so he could still
walk (at least the Timewarp thought so). His breathing was weak due to the
loss of the lung, but Ravine struggled on.
Simon followed the borg, taking the ocasional pot-shot if he thought he had a
decent chance. He had enough ammo to destroy a dozen borgs. It looked like his
smartgun was messed up though, 'cause he kept hitting off to one side. It
wasn't until he almost ran off a balcony that he realized it was his -eyes-
that were goofy, the cyberoptics misaligned in the blast.
He stumbled on however, gaining on the slower borg. They were heading for the
roof. Simon opened up his internal radio broadcaster and summoned the troops.
Enforcer 14 logged back onto the net and opened a roof access door. He was
almost instantly besieged by several NetWatch 'runners, so he left before they
could get through his built-in ICE. The door was open however, and a final
trap had been laid. He took the stairs up 5 at a time. Simon reached the
stairs just at the Enforcer left them. The corpie dashed up, leading with his
gun.
Ravine followed several minutes later, trailing a thin line of blood from his
soaked clothing. He had started to cough up blood, and the drug was wearing
off. He saw the doorway up to the roof and made for it. His vision gave out
just as he bumped into the bottom set of stairs. All he could see was red, all
he could hear was his pulse, fading away. He felt something in the doorway, a
sticky wall blocking his path. It felt like warm taffy, not fluid enough to
melt, but not hard enough to aviod getting all over your fingers.
"That you, Ravine?" came a raspy voice close-by. It sounded hollow, like it
was spoken through a rusty pipe.
"Yeah," he gasped weakly, "that you, Simon?"
"Yup. He got me. I triggered the intruder alarm when I came up the stairs.
The...the bastard had it set to blow after he passed. Sneaky fuck." Simon
didn't sound good, his speech was getting garbled somehow.
"What he do to you? You sound like shit." Jason didn't sound so good himself,
he was bubbling up blood.
"Damn...damn fuck tore my legs off. He waited until I was sealed in, then he
whipped out those frackin' wolvers and tore me up. Didn't even have the
dignity to shoot me, just...just tore me up."
"He -tore- your -legs- off? How the hell are you still alive? He just shot me
and I'm about to die over here!" Before Ravine got a response he heard sounds
of movement below him, voices and creaking armor. The cavalry. Hands gripped
him, pulling him off the stairwell. A hiss from an air hypo and all the pain
went away. A soothing numbness, not unlike his years as a borg, stole his
body. Plasma was pumped in him, restoring Jason's sight just before he
succumbed to the drugs.
"Jesus H. Christ! What the hell is -that-!" he heard one of the cops say. "Get
him out, whatever he is. Where's the solvent?" The cop moved back so
tangleglue solvent could dissolve the taffy-like substance. Jason's last sight
was of Simon, entombed in the clear gel, his synthetic muscles and electronic
nerves trailing away from his amputated legs. White fluid dripped from the
long slashes across the corpie's chest, exposing the titanium chassis
underneath. The synthskin was ripped from the face, revealing the myomer
joints and porcelian teeth. Simon was a borg. Then Jason dropped into a chasm
of darkness.
--
******************************************************************************
Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
******************************************************************************
From kendejd9@wfu.edu (kendelhardt jason david)
Subject: STORY: Cyberpsycho 8
Date: 7 Dec 1994 18:37:09 GMT
This is kind of a transition episode, it ties up some loose ends and
moves the plot along (finally). Enjoy. Later.
Copyright 1994 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 8
"Delta Four Five, this is Hotel Three Six, Flash message. Over."
"Hotel Three Six, this is Delta Four Five, proceed. Over."
"Delta, I have the perp on the roof in section Gamma seven, heading on a
bearing of 354 degrees magnetic. There's a lot of expensive stuff down there,
do I have permission to fire? Over."
[Explosions and minigun roars are heard from the roof]
"Hotel, what was that? Over."
"Uhh, Delta, looks like you can scratch that perp. Some hunter Alpha Victor
Four just dropped six 90 mike-mike rockets right down it's throat. It's real
messy up here, Delta, we need a fire unit and an engineering crew. Looks like
the roof is starting to collapse. That borg is history. Over"
"Hotel, flag down that AV-4, shoot it down if you have to. That guy just
collected the bounty, the PR department wants to get started right away. Then
we got to arrest the guy for illegal firepower. Out."
-Aviation TacNet, frequency 45.67
Crisis Medical, Night City 08:00 22 Oct
Hospitals were the same everywhere; cramped, crowded, loud, and smelly. No
matter what the budget or the staff, location or crime rate, medcenters were
without exception the worst places to be. Especially if you were hooked up to
a blood circulator and a brain wave stimulator, undergoing major surgery.
Sean gazed through the thick plasglass into the operating room. Two nurses
were inside, monitoring the autodoc as it ran it's program, inserting an
artificial kidney and synthetic lung tissue. There wasn't a doctor to be seen,
just a few technician/nurses that really only watched the machines and
provided some occasional moral support. Lt. Jason Ravine had been in intensive
care for the past 6 hours, as paramedics and computers tried to save his life.
After dragging the bloody body from Epson Mall and loading it into an
Ambunaught, the battle had been mostly won. Synth blood and O2 rich solutions
had been injected directly into the bloostream, as well as repair nanosurgeons
and a couple of good old artery clamps.
Now was the time for recovery, when the damaged things were fixed or replaced.
Sean watched as the autodoc extracted its tentacle arms from Ravine and
started laser-welding flesh back together. A continuous mist of anti-bacterial
foam concealed the gory details, but Sean had already seen enough to rob him
of his appetite. A few more hours now, and Ravine would be awake and able to
think clearly.
"How's he doing?" asked Hal, the Militech mechanic that accompaned Sean to the
hospital.
"Fine. He won't be liking life when he finds out what they did to him, but I
doubt he'll complain much. Just hearing about the borg should cheer him up for
a week." Sean left the window and sat down in one of the un-ergonomical
hospital chairs that seemed to be designed make visitors as uncomfortable as
possible, perhaps to make them leave faster. He tilted his head back against
the wall and opaqued his optics. After 30 straight hours of operation and the
stresses of 3 cyberpsycho incidences, he was about to pass out. "Get some
sleep, Hal. We gotta be ready when the Lt. wakes up. He'll want a full
report." He heard Hal thump into a seat next to his. Minutes later, despite
the noise of squealing babies, moaning victims, and irate patients, the two
were sound asleep.
*****
"Ok, Sean. I want to know everything that happened, down to the little details
about the borg." Ravine was awake and feeling good, he was able to take a
breath without any pain and his ribs were solid as ever. Just a few bruises
and pulled muscles were left to testify to the shooting. "Where do we got it
stored?"
"Uhmm, boss, maybe you ought to just left me go at it from when you passed
out. It might be a little easier that way." The computer operator walked over
to a wall video screen. He popped in a video needle. A recorded news
broadcast, downloaded with the morning news, flashed to life. Sean skipped
every other frame until he got to the good part.
"This is a satellite image from a low orbiting NewsSat. It's really clear,
'cause there was no rain last night and the roof was pretty cold." A blue
backdrop, representing the roof, with a few shades of dark green or light blue
showing heat ducts or solar collectors, came up. At first the image was fairly
distant, showing a few square km of rooftop. Then it zoomed in on a small
section, designated G7 in a small box in the top right corner of the screen. A
red/white AV crossed beneath the camera, temporarily bleaching the image of
color. As it passed, a flash of yellow popped up in the left side of the
image. The camera centered on it and zoomed in again, until Ravine could make
out a running human figure, but one that was too cold to be human, unless he
was dressed in IR gear. The figure ran underneath a rain water distiller, icy
black, then leaped a row of fading solar cell arrays. It twisted sharply at a
large greenhouse just in time to avoid a blistering line of crimson tracers
that chewed gaping holes in the greenhouse. A faint wash of heat just off
screen showed the location of the likely attacker as it spun around to make a
gun run on the borg. The borg vanished into a large box-like structure, maybe
an air conditioner or something. Unable to let the target get away, the
attacker decided to go for overkill. Ravine let out a small cheer as six
brilliant lances of white hot fire speared the building housing the borg.
Milliseconds later, just long enough for the rockets to dig several
centimeters into ferrocrete and metal, a cascade of explosions billowed out,
raising stark shadows along the roof and forming a white blot in the IR image.
"Jesus, who authorized -that-!" Ravine had never seen such a display of
firepower used on a corporate building like that, especially when it was still
occupied. Fire was everywhere on the roof, something in that structure must
have been flammable, or the rockets were incindiary, probably both. It would
be quite a while before anyone was able to sift that wreckage. "Damn, the borg
get thrown clear?"
"No, it's still in there. The roof collapsed , as you can see it doing now,"
Indeed, the structure fell inward, making a pit in the roof. "We put the fire
out after about 2 hours. The structure was a hot air circulator, it used
alcohol to evaporate and cool the air, that's why there was so much fire at
first. The borg picked a good place to die. No way anyone's gonna be able to
revive it now, might not even be able to dissect the thing, it'll be so
melted. Couldn't have picked a better spot myself. Oh yeah, the rockets were
fired by some bountyman, guy got the reward, but had to use all of it to stay
out of jail for possesion of the rockets. Guess he figure'd the boost to his
rep would make up for it. Epson sure isn't complaining, they've already
reopened the entire mall, they're cleaning up the blood stains as we speak."
"Corps wouldn't dream of missing a chance like this. That section of the mall
will be the most productive it's ever been, for about a week, then some other
place will attract the vultures. What was the final bodycount?" Ravine was
almost afraid to ask.
"Pretty bad. The borg killed like, 32 people, and wounded fifty-some. 12 of
those dead were NCPD, and 24 of the wounded. Some of them ain't gonna pull
through. Add that to the guys that got hit in the Combat Zone and the candy-
killer we dealt with before the Enforcer, and last night went up as the worst
one in history. Even the friggin' Mob Wars didn't kill that many cops. It's
gonna be a bitch to get recruits for the next couple of years or so."
"No, it won't. As long as there are job shortages and power hungry people,
there will always be cops. Besides, after seeing the firepower we unleashed on
that building, and the inevitable PR coup we'll rake in from the clean up,
we'll have gangers signing up left and right. Might be a good idea actually,
then set 'em loose in the FF Zone, let them fight their little wars and call
it riot control." He chuckled.
Sean thought that was a rather drool view of police, but he wasn't going to
argue. "Anyway, boss, we have something else to show you." Sean motioned for
Hal, who had remained in the corner the entire briefing, to come forward.
"Remember Simon, the Militech suit?"
"Hell yes! I remember now! The Enforcer had cut him up or something. I was
tripping on some drug at the time, got Simon and the borg mixed up, thought
they were machines or something. Did he make it?" Ravine dimly recalled the
last few seconds before he passed out, he had been hallucinating badly, a
Militech combat drug running wild in his brain.
Sean coughed into his hand. "You weren't dreaming, Lt. The guy -was- a borg,
just made to look human. We got a good look at what was left when the Militech
boys showed up to collect their team. They arrived just before you got shot,
loaded up the 2 'runners and the bodies of the C-SWAT team, then headed
upstairs after you. We had a camera record what they dragged out of the
tangleglue, it wasn't very pretty. Seems Simon is a Gemini full-conversion, or
some Militech replicant of one, made to mimic a human. That explains why he
thought he could take on the Enforcer. Guess he thought you could as well."
It made a twisted kind of sense to Ravine. Only a borg had a good chance
against another borg, unless milspec hardware was used. Given the dubious
feasibility of unleasing a Dragoon team in Epson mall or stomping around in
ACPA, Simon was the next best thing. "Did he live?"
"Don't know. By the time he was pulled out of the stickygel he was locked up,
down on minimal power. He lost a lot of nutrient fluid, maybe had his brain
casing cracked. Gemini's aren't as armored as Enforcers, they can "bleed" to
death just like we can. If he lived, you can bet that he'll get a new body and
come calling. Hal here is going to be AWOL from Militech for a few days, until
the ripples die down." Then Simon got serious. "We have another problem, Lt.
We raided Simon's files when you were gone. We got the specs on that Enforcer,
the stuff Militech didn't release to us. It's bad, real bad." Sean's voice
dropped low, a subconsious fear of being overheard.
Ravine sat up a little straighter in his bed. He figured there had to be
something wrong if a corp tech was willing to go renegade for it. "Give it to
me."
Hal walked over to the suspended bed. He spread open a denim no-crease sheet
about the size of a road map on Ravine's lap. It was a set of computer
printouts that had been transposed on the denim fiber. Ravine scanned the
paper, seeing that it was a detailed schematic of a fiber-optic nervous wiring
system. It showed all the muscle junctions and the spinal links, as well as
the direct neural brain sites. It took Ravine a few seconds to absorb the
cluttered wiring patterns, then he zeroed in on what was important about the
diagram.
In the upper left corner, a legend was written:
ENFORCER MARK II; MODEL 14; v2.23
Brain Schematic for Subject: Charles Sunn
He read it again to be sure. Charles Sunn? It couldn't be!
"Is this for real? That borg had the brain of Charles Sunn!?" he demanded of
Sean.
"Yeah, it's the truth. We did some background checking to be sure. We got it
all on hardcopy."
"That's impossible! We buried Charlie ourselves! I was the one that locked his
damn coffin in the masoleum. He was -buried-!!" Ravine tossed the paper off
his bed, the dense denim flopping against the wall. The sickening memories of
a hunt gone bad richoceted in his brain.
Sean saw the anquish go through his boss. He had barely known Charlie, that
was when he was new to the cyberpsychosis team. One day, while on a routine
cyberpsycho hunt, the ganger attacked them directly, bypassing the surrounding
cops and assaulting the cyberops van. It had taken every gun in the van to
kill the wacko, but he had already mauled Sunn, an old MaxTac squaddie and a
war buddy of Ravine's. The grizzled veteran was entombed a day later in the
police cemetary beneath Precinct 1. It looked like Charlie wasn't quite dead
when the Trauma Team AV carried him away. How his brain wound up in a Militech
cyborg he didn't want to know.
Tears crept out from under Ravine's lids. Charlie had been a staunch friend in
Australia, his platoon sergeant in fact. When Jason transferred to NCPD's C-
SWAT (now MaxTac) team, good ole' Charlie followed. He stuck around for the
year of therapy after Jason's bout with psychosis, and served as the MaxTac
liason with Ravine's cyberpsychiatric team. Then he died, and Ravine buried
him. Buried a part of his heart as well. "Militech did this, didn't they?" The
question was directed towards Hal, who was trying to merge with the wall.
"Y..Y..Yes, most likely. Militech is a big corp, they don't always play by the
rules." Hal swallowed. "Taking a body, snatching people off the streets,
that's something I would have expected from Arasaka, but I wouldn't put it
past Militech. They would have had to have a -good- reason though, it just
doesn't make sense." He pulled out some more printouts. "There are 30 Enforcer
borgs in operation, a couple stealth borgs, and a bunch of industrial and
HazOp full conversions. No way could Militech grab bodies for all of them,
even world wide. Makes no sense, they could -pay- for bodies."
"That's what they -did-. I bet some TT pogue heard about a black market brain
dealer, did a bone slice, and sold off some grey matter. The -name- though.
They had to have done a genetic trace, and they -knew- his fucking name! That
makes Militech guilty of a Priority One crime, trafficking illegal bodyparts.
I'm gonna find the corpie who did this, and the scum that sold the brain, and
do a little trafficking of my own!" Rage laid hold of Ravine's soul, it
wouldn't let go until some justice had been done.
*****
Ty was in a pissed off mood. First he had been wounded by the borg, a booby-
trap of all things, then he missed the big endgame. He was of the mind that if
he had had a crack at the borg, just one chance, he would be wearing Enforcer-
soled boots right now. Instead he was back in the hospital, along with all the
other hurt people. He was lucky though, the guy under him, a bounty hunter,
died an hour ago, leaving Ty with a little peace. If only the other 6 guys in
the room would keel over, he would be able to get some sleep.
"Surprise, partner!" Ty turned over to see Jay's grimey black face next to
his.
"Sarge! Man, am I glad to see you! Cut me out of these damn bonds so I can get
out of here! They tied me down when I bitch-slapped a nurse for trying to grab
my dick, can you believe it! If she wasn't so ugly I wouldn't have minded, but
damned if I'm gonna let some old skank touch the tool." Then he laughed. "Had
to hold my piss until they gave me another bedpan though! Come on, let's
blow."
Jay flicked out his lockblade. The ceramic blade sliced through the polymer
cord like a chainsaw through styrofoam. He hauled his partner out of the top
bunk with ease, Jay being a 'roid freak and Ty being a skinny white boy. Well,
fairly skinny anyway.
Standing unsteadily on his feet, the young cop hobbled over to a wardrobe in
the corner. He pulled out an off-white jumpsuit, left there from a previous
patient. His boots were inside, was well as some personal effects. He shucked
the thin gown and put on the jumper sans underwear.
His partner kept an eye on the door, incase someone came in and started making
noise. The other patients were all doped up, they were in much worse condition
than Ty. "Why you in here with all these other dudes? You aren't -that- hurt."
"Ahhh, some medic fucked up my chip, got me confused with some other guy. They
never bothered to move me around when they found out." He zipped up his boots.
"All right, I'm done, let's go." The duo stalked out of the room, one wearing
a burnt and stained uniform, the other a greasy jumper 2 sizes too large.
"Where we going anyway. The bar?"
"No, moron. You just got hit with shrapnel. I'm taking you home."
"I ain't got no home, you know that."
"No shit. I'm dumping you off at the precinct. You live there half the time
anyway. I just couldn't bear to have a partner of mine getting a few days of
relaxation at taxpayer's expense, that's all."
"Oh jeez, and I thought you really cared."
"What ever gave you that idea, choomba?"
*****
A couple of hours sleep is an amazing thing, Ty thought. Does wonders for your
sense of well-being. He cut off the shower, his weekly water chit almost
filled. Been spending too many nights at the bunkhouse, he thought. As he was
walking out of the shower, toweling himself off and thinking about moving in
on the cute rookie staying in the female barracks, he heard some voices
outside the bathrooms.
"Ok Sean, get going in trying to track down the Fixer who dealt the brain.
Hal, you work Militech's side, find out who headed up the Enforcer project, or
who ever was responsible for keeping the brain when they knew it was a cop's.
Lets get moving!"
Ty poked his head out of the bathroom. He saw the short red-haired guy from
the Epson Mall Op Order talking to some tech types. He quickly pieced together
the conversation.
"Hey, Lt." The red-haired guy turned his head. "Need some backup? I got a log
to burn with that Enforcer, know a lot of guys that think the same way."
--
******************************************************************************
Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
******************************************************************************
From kendejd9@wfu.edu (kendelhardt jason david)
Subject: STORY: Cyberpsycho 9
Date: 26 Dec 1994 03:37:36 GMT
Ahh, been a while. I'm making a nice long distance call to post this, so
I won't be checking my mail much for another 3 weeks or so. Merry X-mas
(or whatever). Here's number 9. Later.
Copyright 1994 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 9
The Net, Night City-Pacifica Zone 13:57 25 Oct
"Militech, Militech, Militech." Sean chanted the mantra quietly to himself as
he drifted in the net. The cop was softly probing the cast-iron castle
construct of the huge megacorp. He glided around the perimeter of the
defenses, mentally recalling the map of the security he had been given. The
construct was in downtown Night City, so it was surrounded by the dozens of
other megacorp buildings. That made for a lot of disused alleyways, cable
breaches, and pedestrian icons to hide in. Corporate Park's net was usually
well guarded by competent sysops and well-programmed Demons, but when you are
a cop, doors are open.
He made several laps around the virtual castle, making sure there weren't any
surprises waiting for him. All the input/output lines were several levels
above him, so all the heavy security was concentrated up there, down below was
dead space. So far so good, he thought. He made tracks back to the coordinates
where he was supposed to meet with his inside man.
14:00. Time to go. Sean hunkered down next to the construct and activated a
special Fisher prog he had worked up for this occasion. Thin spirals of code
twisted out, digging into the thick walls of dense static that shielded the
construct from intruding minds. Come on, baby, he mumbled, make daddy proud.
Seconds later he was rewarded with a red color shift in the Fisher code.
Bingo, he netted the data file. He started reeling it in, transfering data at
the slow rate of a meg a second. It took forever to steal the entire file, all
the time Sean kept waiting for that first hit of ICE against his shields. He
didn't have any backup, not even a Demon to watch his back. It was simpler
that way, but real risky. When the code turned back to its normal white color,
he de-rezzd it and bugged out. He patted the virtual lump in his virtual
pocket, if Hal had done what he said he would do, then the identity of the
brain stealer would be in that file somewhere.
*****
Combat Zone, Night City 14:30 same day
"So, remind me again. Why the hell are we going into the free fire zone? It
keeps slipping my mind." Jay was driving, as usual, so he really had to force
himself to steer into the FFZ. Even wrapped in 20 cm of composite armor and
controlling lots of Mercedes horsepower didn't make the Combat Zone any
safer.
Ty just ignored his partner. He chambered a .50 cal round into the M2HB heavy
machinegun projecting out the front windshield, and folded the 100 round belt
of ammo into a neat pile on his lap. He was ready for trouble.
"Sure Jay," the black man imitated his young partner, "We're going into the
Combat Zone because I feel like proving what a man I am." Jay hit a deep bass
voice, totally unlike the hyper-active Ty. "I really want to drive into
certain danger because I got shot the other day and I need to reaffirm myself
by tempting every gang in the city to take a shot at me. By the way, Jay, do
you want to come?" Then Jay resumed his normal voice. "Hell no, Ty, but since
I am your partner and will have to fill out a mountain of paperwork if you get
killed, I guess I will have to accompany you on your mission. Being your
commanding officer and all, I feel a strange sense of duty to my young and
foolhardy subordinates." They both started laughing at the one-sided
conversation.
"Sure, Sarge," Ty said, "I'll give you a good reason to go in here. Someone
stole that cop's brain from the morgue. If they did it once, they certainly
did it again. I have no intention of trying to find your puny brain when it
gets stolen from your head."
"Hey, you're gonna die before me, punk."
"No, I mean when you're still -alive-!"
"What the hell are you talking about, fool!" Jay didn't have to take that crap
from anyone. "Watch your mouth before I assign you to a desk. How'd you like
to spend all day back at the precinct, doing paperwork?"
Ty got a look of mock horror on his face. "Oh no! Nice safe paperwork! Please
boss, no more, no more!" They had another good laugh. Then they entered the
Zone.
It wasn't a visible line they crossed, it was a fortified barrier made of
ancient car wrecks, demolished walls, welded shopping carts, anything that
would serve to warn people away and stem the flow of crime out of the FFZ.
There were serveral gaps in the wall large enough for the cruiser to get
through, admitting the police into a world long exiled from reality.
At first glance the inhabitants of the Combat Zone were no different looking
than the millions of citizens of Night City. Then you took a closer look and
saw the poverty, the hack ware, the gross deformities caused by bad drugs and
worse breeding. Few vehicles ever penetrated here, the streets were clogged
with refuse and human vermin. Whores displayed their attributes, pushers
stalked the streets, fences dealt in food, clothing, weapons. Malnourished
children scavenged the junk heaps, earning their keep by recycling things that
had been castoff in a more prosporous era. Gangs controlled the streets,
selling "protection" and recruiting from the thousands of rejects living in
the slums.
Jay and Ty couldn't give a shit about these people, about their problems. They
thought they knew the score, believed it was the criminals own fault for
ending up here, abandonded by society. Maybe they were right, maybe someone
did make an consious choice to live in conditions worse than the 1800's
gutters of London. Maybe not.
An armored police cruiser, with a .50 cal cannon projecting out the
windshield, tends to go where it wants to go. The sanguine "13" spraypainted
on the side of the BMW 350 gave them more influence. Everyone knew that car,
knew the cops inside. The inhabitants of the Zone knew they would get no
quarter from the 2 cops inside.
The broad ram on the front of the cruiser helped clear the way in front of
them. Concrete rubble, an occasional car hulk, maybe a pile of rags, a boby or
two, all were swept aside as the car traversed the sea of filth to get to
their destination.
"Ever wonder when it will be when the scum around here finally decide to stop
being wimps and attack us?" Ty asked Jay. The blank faces of the people around
them send tiny chills through his spine. It was like some zombie movie, he was
just waiting for the mad rush to begin.
"They will never do it. Only the gangs got the power to crack this baby, and
that .50 cal says they don't get the chance." Jay comforted himself with that
thought. "Besides, we can have an airborne assault team in here in minutes if
we get in trouble, and those jokers know it."
"Sure." Ty sounded a litle sceptical. Whenever they entered the FFZ, he always
had the same doubts. I know what it's like in here, he thought, can't ever
escape from the pull of this place. "We're looking for a bar. It should be 2
or 3 blocks from here."
"Sure we are going to find him there?" Jay didn't know where Ty got his intel
on the Combat Zone, but it was usually damn good and detailed. He would love
to know Ty's source. Jay suspected Ty had kin in there, family willing to feed
him info. Ty lived in Seattle until a year ago, so he sure didn't live in the
FFZ himself.
"Bingo!" Ty said, after a few more minutes of grinding along the street,
leaving a wide swath of clear road behind them. "There it is, on the right
side. Pull up and I'll go check out the place."
"Want backup?"
"No, you wait in the car. No one gonna take me down, not with you out here to
light them up."
"That's bullshit. Most of the guys around here would kill their own mothers in
front of the police station if they had to. I'll coming in right behind you.
I'll wear the panic button."
Ty took a deep breath. "Ok, but I'm going to have to talk alone, ok? My source
is a little touchy about the police."
"Sure thing, pal."
They both made quick scans of the surrounding area, making sure no one was
planning to take a shot at them when they left the car. Nothing suspicious.
They bailed out together, sliding forward the doors and coming out low. They
didn't draw their pistols, no need to alarm anyone. The doors slammed shut and
the pair were ducking into the bar within seconds.
A cloud of dirty opium and pot wafted over them when the door opened. The reek
of cheap alcohol and cheaper flesh tainted the air more. The lighting was so
low Jay turned on his IR goggles just to see what the place looked like. There
were about 20 or so drinkers, most alone at small tables or at the bar. He
made out 2 moving women, waitresses, or whatever passed for them here, serving
drinks to the customers who were conscious. Ty was moving up to the bar, run
by a guy with an arm much to cold to be organic. Jay moved over to a fairly
clean wall near the door, and waited.
"What's up Ratz. Long time no see." The bartender squinted at the cop standing
in front of him. No cop was a friend of his. He flexed his hydralic arm in a
nervous habit.
"What do you want, friend?" Best play it calm. He had done nothing wrong, and
the cops had tossed the Chatsubo to the gangs long ago, yielding their power
here to the razorboys.
"Don't remember me do you? Here, let me make it easy." Ty reached up and
pulled off his helmet, allowing Ratz to see his full face.
"Ha Ha! Flash! Last I heard you got sent away by the police! Look at you now,
wearing the uniform. What happened?"
"Long story, Ratz. I'll tell it to you when I'm not being shadowed." He jerked
his head back to indicate Jay, glowering from the back wall. "I need some
info. There's some bad deals going down, a lot of nice people are getting
hurt. I need to talk to a bodychopper, one who knows all the others."
Ratz went back to polishing his glasses, a futile chore in this swill of a
bar. "I don't think I can help you, Flash. Things aren't like you remember
them. There's been a few changes in the power structure, new gangs are in
charge."
"Don't give me that! This is Flash you're talking to here, not some shakey
undercover cop! It doesn't matter what I wear, I'm still the guy who took down
Emilio and the others; still the guy who got the water flowing in here during
the purge. You owe me, Ratz, you all do."
"Ya, maybe we do. But you're not a color anymore, you don't have any swing
here. Sure you may be a cop, but unless you want to go through the gangs,
you're high and dry."
"Take a look outside, Ratz. See what's parked in front of your bar." Ty waited
while Ratz quickly checked his outside cameras. He smiled when the Russian's
eyes got big.
"Ze number tirteen! Vhat are you doing in zat car? Zust who are you?" Ratz was
excited, his accent started showing.
"That's right, I'm one of the devil cops you guys hate so much. That's my
partner in the corner. He's got an itchy trigger finger, you never know when
he might waste everyone around him. Not even the gangers in here could stop
him. You got no ground to stand on. All I need is a name and a place. Nothing
much, nothing fancy."
"Damn you. They will know you have been here, they will make the connection
back to me!" He wrote something on a soiled napkin. "Here, take this. You have
killed me, Flash, killed me as if you pulled the trigger yourself."
"Take heart, Ratz," Ty said. "You never know what might happen." He stuffed
the napkin into a cargo pocket and turned for the door. A pair of seedy toughs
blundered into his way.
"Hey, you copper, oink oink! What you think you doing in here, huh? Dis is the
Combat Zone, man, we don't like you jelly beans in here!" One tough, a flabby
slob to poor to buy bioware, breathed a foul wave of stomach bile at him. Ty
reached the end of his patience.
It was over in 2 punches, blood and teeth covering the floor. Never mess with
a cop wearing Hardcore gauntlets, your teeth will lose every time. Jay had his
revolver out, ready to dish out hollowpoints to anyone trying to move. Ty
didn't press his luck. A uniform went a long ways, even here, but he didn't
want to end his life in a firefight in some red light bar.
Back in the BMW, he checked the napkin. It had a name and a place all right,
both of which he knew from a long time back. "Ok, Sarge, we got a new
destination. Do a U-turn and take us to 8th street."
The computer picked up the address from Ty's voice and automatically plotted
the route on the holo map. Jay just had to follow the green arrows. "Mind
telling me what went on in there?" He asked Ty. "It looked like he knew you.
How'd that be, Ty? You've never lived here before have you?" Jay knew what
Ty's service record had about him, it never mentioned any prior visits to
Night City.
"Awww, I knew that guy from Seattle. I used to be a little hell raiser up
there, kept trying to scam drinks off him when I was underage." Ty hoped that
lie would find root. "He needed a little persuading to get vocal, but he came
around. He gave me the name of a chopper, someone who might know who did the
number on Sunn."
Jay didn't really believe Ty, but wasn't about to argue in the Combat Zone.
They drove for a few more minutes until they found the shop they were looking
for. -Ernest Eddie's Medical Clinic- read the window sign.
"Looks like a Ripperdoc shop to me." said Ty. "This place might not be so
receptive to cops." He unlocked the Hurricane shotgun from it's door case. He
chambered a round from the 40 shot magazine. Jay did the same with his A-80
rifle. They both clipped panic buttons to their armor, small radio
transmitters able to call for police reinforcements when activated. "Let's
rock."
The same SOP for leaving the cruiser, except this time they had weapons drawn.
Ty dashed up the short flight of stairs to the entrance. He pressed the open
button, but the door was locked, as he expected. With Jay coming up the
stairs, Ty used his police electronic key to override the lock and open the
door. It slid away just as Jay reached the doorway. The 2 cops dashed inside,
each taking a 90 degree arc covering the entire interior of the clinic. A
dozing guard fumbled for his submachinegun, but a quick chop with the
Hurricane's ceramic barrel dropped him. The 3 or 4 patients waiting in the
small lobby all ducked low, one even went for his large cooler-like briefcase.
Jay covered the distance between them in a heartbeat and smashed his face in
with the small stock of the bullpup A-80. A small pistol went flying through
the air. The other "customers", each with large cooler-like briefcases, stayed
put and made no quick moves. As Ty dealt with the guard, Jay headed over to
the plastiglas enclosed box for the receptionist. She was a petite beauty,
with the flawlessness only surgery could provide and the ebon skin only dyes
could replicate.
"Hi there. Is Eddie in?" He asked. The receptionist started shaking, obviously
new to the job.
"I...I'm not sure. Let me check." She reached for the com.
Jay tapped the glass with his rifle barrel. "Not so fast lady. Why don't you
just open the door and we'll go see Eddie ourselves? We want to surprise him."
The receptionist, her nametag said -Angela-, faltered under Jay's bluff. She
meekly opened the door to the back rooms of the clinic. Another ignorant
person suckered into doubting the effectiveness of their bulletproof glass.
Provided Eddie installed bulletproof glass in the first place and not just
cheap old tempered plexi. Jay smiled at Angela, then headed for the open door.
Ty joined him as he went through. The back rooms were much like every other
clinic the two had ever been at. Clean and neat. And much too quiet. Only 4
doorways led off the main corridor, so they took the rooms one at a time. The
first 2 were generic patient rooms, so apparently Eddie really did see actual
patients, or did at some time. The third one was a lab, but not large enough
to process bodyparts, just enough to synthesize tissue and blood, run a few
tests, and cure most viruses and infections. That left the fourth door.
Jay figured that Angela, programmed doll that she was, had notified Eddie by
now. Either Ernest Eddie had split, and this raid was going to be a bust, or
he was prepared to defend his turf, and the raid was going to end up bloody.
Jay had money on bloody.
"All right, last door. Get ready." All the other doors had been unlocked, but
they were taking no chances with this one. Ty stood to one side with his
shotgun at the ready while Jay tried the door release. It was locked. He
nodded to Ty and used his electronic lockpick. The device scrammed the door
computer and opened the panel. Ty got a glimpse of movement just before a
tight cloud of flechettes peppered the wall next to his head. Ty coolly
blasted the shooter with 00 buckshot, knocking him back into a walk-in
freezer. Another figure made a dash for a solid looking desk. He would have
made it but Jay riddled the plastic furniture with 7.62mm slugs, robbing the
desk of the illusion of cover.
"Freeze, Eddie. This is the police." Ty said belatedly. He kept his shotgun
trained in Eddie's direction as he did an eyeball check of the gunman he shot.
Still alive, but bruised and bloody from the close range gunfire. The shooter
had a vest on, enough to save his life but not to keep him completely
unharmed. A 5 shot flechette revolver lay near his hand, looking more like a
grenade launcher than a pistol.
Jay got the ripperdoc on the ground, belly down. He wove some sticky cuffs
around the doc's wrists, using the thick strands of adhesive goo to bind the
medic up to the elbows. Ty kicked the body of the gunman into the freezer,
stashed the pistol in his cargo pocket, and shut the door to the freezer.
Maybe someone would let the guy out, he hoped not.
The doc was tied to a chair, legs bound as well. Jay sat down across from him
and pulled off his helmet. "Howdy. We just want to ask you a few questions. Be
good and I won't set you outside like that."
Eddie realized that he was in the hands of madmen, cops with no respect for
the law. But then, any cops that dared to enter the FFZ had to be insane
anyway. "Yeah, yeah, what ever you want. I got medical supplies, progs,
equipment. Anything." Eddie was a short man, thin and weasely, not prone to
brave heroics.
This was going to be easier than I thought, Jay said to himself. "Dude, we
don't want any of that stuff. If we were going to rob you, we would have just
killed you, wouldn't we?" Ty walked over behind Eddie, started cocking and
dropping the hammer of his pistol. He kept his helmet on. He didn't want to
get recognized now, with Jay right here.
"What we want," Jay began, "is the names of the guys who brought you
bodyparts, specifically brains, specifically on December 12 of last year. You
got a file on that?" Eddie nodded enthusiastically. Body hawking was something
he had a permit for, he wasn't responsible for where the parts came from, just
where they went.
"Sure. It's in my computer, logged by date. I got a permit for all that you
know, it's all legal."
Ty flipped on the computer, fortunately spared from Jay's withering hail of
fire into the desk. The holographic screen popped up, reflected off a thin
panel of crystal fiber. He fumbled with the unfamiliar setup for a few
seconds, then found the files on the bodyparts. They went back for nearly a
decade. "Been doing this a while now, haven't you Eddie?"
"Yeah, ever since I got out of med school. It's an easy buck."
"How many docs do this in Night City?" Ty asked as he searched for the
specific date that Charles' brain had to have been removed and sold.
"Oh, I don't know. Maybe a dozen, 20 perhaps. Usually the hospitals do it
themselves, so I don't get many that way. Mine are usually..." he paused for a
moment, "uh, spoils of war, I guess you could call it."
Jay got real close to Eddie. Met him eye to eye. "Did it ever occur to you
that some of these people didn't want to give up their organs? Did it ever
occur to you that sometimes these things are stolen?"
So that was what this was about, Eddie thought. The cops are pissed off about
bodychopping. "Hey, I don't ask them where the stuff comes from. Keeping the
dead intact is your job, not mine." He regretted saying it as soon as the
words slipped out of his mouth. Jay got real beet red, a fearsome sight in a
black man. The cop drew back his fist, ready to pound in the little weasel's
nose.
Ty saw what was coming. "Hey, Sergeant! I got something here! This is the guy
who did Sunn!" Jay dropped his fist and settled for knocking Eddie's chair
back into the wall instead. He looked at the file Ty had on the screen. Sure
enough, it had a brain sale for the proper date. There was a routine
blood/tissue check in the corner of the screen and it matched Sunn's.
"Well, Eddie. Why don't you tell us who gave you this particular brain?" Ty
wheeled Eddie over to the monitor. The doc looked at the screen for a second,
deciphering his own codes.
"Oh yeah. This guy sends me lots of stuff. He usually has a good turn in every
week or so. Amazing how he gets it all."
Jay dropped his hand on Eddie's shoulder and gave a strong squeeze. "Yeah
Eddie, real amazing. What's his name?"
"Ummm, it's.., uh, Jackson! Yes, Matt Jackson! I remember from his account. He
banks at First Bank of NC. You should be able to find him there."
Ty got a copy of all the files on one of Eddie's data needles. Lt. Ravine
would be interested in knowing that stuff. He had the connections to get
Jackson's Bio file. "Thanks Eddie. It was a pleasure doing business with you."
He turned to Jay. "Let's blow."
Jay bopped Eddie on the head just for the hell of it, then he followed Ty out.
There was nothing they could legally do to Eddie, and they didn't feel like
facing a court martial for burning down his clinic. The 2 cops had to be
satisfied with the data they had gotten.
Not surprisingly the lobby was deserted when they got there, the receptionist
even. Gunfire tends to do that to places. When they got outside, they were
entreated with the welcome sight of their cruiser, freshly painted in hot
pink. Only the 13 remained it's original color. The rest of the car, except
the paint-slick windows, was a thick hot pink. "Man, I really hate the Zone."
Jay grumbled as they scraped of the paint around the doors. Even the Browning
was pink, the barrel undoubtedly plugged up with road gunk. "We really need to
rearm the explosive strips on the sides. Maybe a few claymores would be
nice."
"Gee, and I thought Devil-13 was immune to this sort of crap. I thought we had
a badass rep and were untouchable." Ty was just as pissed.
"Well, better they paint the car pink then paint us red, if you know what I
mean."
"Hell no, at least I would have a chance to shoot back if they came after us.
Poor car never had a chance. 'Bout time we took out a gang or two and
reestablish our rep. Whaddya say?" Ty was looking for action.
"Sure kid. Wish I had an imagination like yours."
"Ahh, blow it out your ass. Let's just get out of here and find a carwash."
They had more important things to do.
--
******************************************************************************
Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
******************************************************************************
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: STORY: Cyberpsycho 10
Date: 24 Jan 1995 18:23:26 GMT
Man, it has been a while. Now that I am back at school and getting back
on a regular schedule, the episodes should start coming out. This one
floated around on my machine for a while and I thought it best to go on
and post it, although I know it has a very sharp twist at the end that
doesn't get adequately explained. But hey, c-punk stories are like that.
Hopefully I will finish WC3 quickly and get back to the keyboard. BTW, if
anyone missed any other episodes, buzz me for them, send back the entire
post if you want, my server can handle it. I, like many others I am sure,
missed many posts over break, so maybe a general reposting of stuff might
be in order. Anyway, here's number 10. Later
Copyright 1994 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 10
Precinct 23, Night City 26 Oct
Crammed into Lt. Jason Ravine's tiny office, Sean gave the rest
of the team a briefing on what he had learned about the Enforcer.
5 men jammed into a lieutenant's cubicle made it difficult and
cramped, but it was the only place they could be sure of privacy.
"As you can see from the schematics taken from the Militech
computer, the brain is from a former police officer named Charles
Sunn." Sean briefly recapped what they knew so far about the
identity of the cyborg's brain. "Knowing when Charles died
allowed us to pinpoint the exact time that the theft had to have
occurred, so we were able to search records with a specific time
in mind. Hal found the people responsible on Militech's side,
while Sergeant Tsarkhan and Patrol Officer Gorman located the
snatcher responsible for stealing the brain itself." He clicked
to another GIF. "This is the man heading up the Enforcer Mark II
project. His name is John Michaels." A middle aged man, glowing
with health from biodoc treatments, appeared on the projection
wall. "Hal uncovered some memos indicating that this man wanted
"special" brains for the Enforcers. His insistence on quality
organs led to a cost overrun. To cover this, Michaels started
using bodysnatchers to get black market organs at a fraction of
the cost of legal donations. Remember, the Enforcer has a
crippled brain, most of the memory sites of the brain are
removed. Enforcers need quick minded organs, preferably with
combat reflexes already hardwired in. Cops and soldiers are the
optimal donors for these cyborgs. Willing or not."
Ty cut in, unable to stand and listen to anymore. "Hang on man.
You mean that this Militech Suit buys up dead cop's brains cause
it's -cheaper- than paying for legal organs? That's crazy, street
biotech is a fucking fortune!"
"Not exactly, Officer." Sean retorted. "Remember, Militech could
only use healthy, trainable minds. Some sick bastard with cancer
can't sell his brain to Militech, it wouldn't pass the physical.
They needed -healthy- minds, with loss of memory, no able man
would do that. Many soldiers are too damaged by combat drugs
anyway, cops are the closest and easiest source of brain tissue,
if you have an inside man." He flipped to the next computer
image.
"This Trauma Team medic makes a decent living off of snatching.
He knows were all the good bodies are, he has access, and the
knowledge to exploit it. We got his bio from his bank accounts,
he unwisely has the organ buyers drop credit directly into his
main account. This guy is our secondary target, although he is
the one most responsible for the theft of Sunn's brain. It is
very likely that he has done this with other cops, so we want to
take him down first.
"As for John Michaels, he'll be harder to nail because Militech
will protect him. It will take some time before a warrant will be
granted, but Lt. Ravine is working on it. As for Jackson, he's
fair game." Sean dimmed the projection display as Ravine stood up
to address his team.
"All right everyone, you've seen what there is. Upstairs is just
as pissed off about this as we are, but they are more cautious.
They think Michaels was duped into buying Sunn's mind, they think
the TT guy was most responsible. I need Jackson to confess that
Militech knew -exactly- what kind of brain he was selling. If I
can get that, then I have them by the balls. Are we clear?"
4 heads bopped up and down. "Good, Sergeant Tsarkhan, you and
your partner retrieve the medic. In -one- piece this time. Sean
and Hal, get cracking on what made that Enforcer go psycho, it
might give us and edge if we can prove Militech was sloppy with
the design. Get moving." The team scattered.
*****
"See Sarge, told ya that we'd get the bastards. The Lt. isn't all
that bad." Ty was jubilant. He just got an order to go out and
kick ass. Only thing better than this would be Militech, but he
could wait another few days.
"Cool it, Ty. Until I see that Michael guy in prison, I'm a
skeptic. Let's go round up that Jackson fucker."
They headed downstairs to their waiting cruiser. The hot pink
spray was cleaned off, at the cost of a total acid immersion.
Just about every other color was cleaned off as well, except for
the NCPD markings, which were made from blue plastic, not paint.
Even the infamous "13" was cleaned off. A fresh 45 was back on
though, courtesy of the maintenance department. Jay was
squeamishly awaiting the next weeks edition of "Police Times" to
come out. It was bound to have a front page scan of the car, hot
pink for sure.
"Man, the "13"s not back on. We'll have to redo it in some punk's
blood next time." Ty liked the 13, it gave the car it's deadly
rep. "Maybe we can put one on here. Got any paint?"
"No, Ty. We got to earn it again. We'll have another chance. The
13 was just as sign of affection, that's all. We'll get it back.
Let's blow." They clambered into the cruiser. Jay buckled up and
roared out of the garage.
Ty punched in the 6 digit address for the medic. Jay again
double-checked him, not trusting Ty's skinny fingers. "Damnit,
Sarge, I can do this, ok? So I was off a digit or two a few
times? No one got hurt..., not that bad anyway. Not as bad as
that voice recog program. That thing sends us all over the city."
He sat back as an illuminescent trail appeared on the windshield,
outlining their path. Driving was as simple as staying within the
lines, following the green holographic road. They built up to a
respectable 110 kph, everything else on the road moving out of
the way. Autopilots on civilian cars were programmed to yield to
police vehicles. Manual drivers learned that as well, or lost
their car. High impact plastic can't hold out against ceramic
armor, the cruiser won every time.
It took a good 15 minutes to reach the suburban apartment that
the medic lived in. Trauma Team must pay well, Jay thought, even
with his police salary and his wife's teaching commission he
couldn't afford a place like that. Maybe he ought to start body
snatching as well.
"Damn," Ty said, "Maybe I ought to start corpse robbing to get a
place like that."
"Shut up, fool. That shit's illegal. It'll get you killed." But
it does pay well, Jay thought. "Come on. Let's bag this sucker."
"By the way, is the guy even home?" Ty asked. "Shouldn't he be
working or something?"
Jay glared rusty knives at Ty, then checked his bio file. "Shit,
the guy is working! He doesn't get off for another 3 hours. Man,
and I wanted to get home tonight!"
Ty patted his partner on the shoulder. "Gee, the kids go to sleep
without their daddy? What else is new. Your kids don't steal
brains, Sarge, they can wait."
"No, man. My wife is trying that rhythm method for passion, we
were supposed to have sex tonight. Been waiting all week."
Ty got a serious tone in his voice. "Go to her, man. Ain't
nothing more important than sex. I'll bag this fucker for ya." He
started laughing. Poor Sarge was gonna have to wait another week.
Jay hit Ty on the shoulder, hard enough to hurt. "Shut up. If you
had a steady source of pussy you'd be the same way. You just go
out and buy it, I got to -work- for it. She just doesn't give it
out anymore, you got to be all special and shit, make her feel
wanted. She was really looking forward to this." He was going to
catch hell for this back home.
"Well, we have a couple of hours," Ty said. "Let's go get some
Chinese. I'm starving." They drove off.
*****
Two and a half hours later they were back, staking out the
apartment. They were pulled halfway into some schmuck's garage to
conceal the .50 cal hanging out the front of the car. Didn't want
to give Jackson that easy a chance to spot them. The computer
said that the owner of the garage wouldn't get off work for
another 30 minutes, so Jay had a traffic robot ticket the woman's
vehicle to slow her down in case she left early. Computers and
direct link communications were really neat.
Ty had lookout. He was burping from all the spicy food when he
saw a sleek Camero pull into Jackson's garage, leaving skid marks
all over the road. "Very cool," he whispered, "now I don't feel
bad for busting you. You obviously harbor no guilt for what you
do." He turned around to Jay, dozing in the front seat. "He's
back, let's roll."
They gave Jackson enough time get out of his car. Then they
pulled the cruiser out of the neighbor's garage and stopped it
directly in front of Jackson's driveway. No escape for him.
They got out, pistols at the ready. Jackson might get desperate,
so Jay loaded a gel round, designed to flatten and bruise, not
kill, into his revolver. He would have one shot before things got
hollowpointed.
Ty skipped up the stairs to Jackson's room. The apartments were
several decades old, ancient enough to have the open stairwells
and outside facing doors. Security around here must be pretty
strong, Ty thought, to have such exposed doors. He hadn't seen
any though. Then he realized that -he- was security, the police
were supposed to be protecting places like this, not raiding
them. Oh well.
Ty stood by the door to Jackson's apartment while Jay checked out
the elevator leading to the garage. No one inside. Good. They
drew their pistols. Jay waved his electronic key in front of the
door sensor. The police override codes instantly unlocked the
door. Ty violently thrust it open. The door slid silently into
the wall, revealing Jackson and a blond on a giant beanbag
couch/futon thing.
"Freeze! Police!" Ty roared as he dashed into the room. Jay
followed him in and swept the kitchenette for other visitors.
Jackson was underneath the blond and effectively pinned. He
struggled to get his hands out from under her shirt and untangle
his legs. The girl screamed and panicked, blocking Jackson even
more. Ty reached over and hoisted the woman off the medic. Her
shirt ripped and she flopped off the couch, landing on her sure-
to-be-impeccable little ass. She tried to cover herself. Ty
placed one foot on Jackson's chest and set his weight on it.
"What's the matter, Jackson? Never thought you'd see us here? How
long did you think we would play stupid, huh? Well surprise,
surprise, we're on to you."
Jackson looked like he might try something, maybe twist Ty's foot
and flip him. The muzzle of Ty's automatic pressing on his
forehead discouraged that. "Come on, loverboy, you is coming with
us. Say goodby to blondie over there, hope you didn't pay too
much." The girl started pouting at that last remark, and whined
that she couldn't get home. Jay tossed her a cred chip he found
on a counter and told her to call a cab.
Manhandling the medic, who was not much bigger than Ty and
substantially smaller than Jay, the two cops got him out the
door. While Jay dragged him down stairs, Ty put a police code
lock on the door and taped the door frame with florescent yellow
adhesive to seal it. He would come back later and search the
place.
The blond, holding shut her torn blouse, waited until they were
all downstairs before following. She had no intention of ever
getting with another Trauma Team guy again.
At the car Jay popped the holding bin. A small door opened at the
back of the cruiser, revealing a compartment smaller than a
coffin. A thinly padded seat was all the comfort inside, there
was little footroom and no headspace for anyone over a meter
tall. Cruisers didn't have the space to transport criminals, a
modified trunk was the best it could do. "In you go, punk. Just
imagine that you are someone's brain, all boxed up and awaiting
shipment to someone else's head. It'll get you ready for the
interrogation." Jay loved doing that. Ever since Miranda was
revoked, police work had gotten a lot funner.
Ty was gazing longingly at the blond walking away when a finger
tapped his shoulder. He didn't feel it through the combat armor,
so the voice was a total surprise.
"Excuse me, put I believe you have something that belongs to us."
Ty nearly died of shock. He spun around, hand going to his
pistol. 3 men were standing next to him. How they had gotten so
close was a mystery.
"Who the hell are you?"
Jay had just shut Jackson in when he heard the voices. He turned
as well, seeing the three men. None of them were armed, at least
not visibly. Now a days you never could tell, some punk could
bury a .45 in his skull and blast you with a wink.
The middle man, taller and more slender than his brutish
companions, spoke with a quaint air of sophistication. "Now, now.
Plenty of time for pleasantries later. Right now, however, I am
afraid that I am going to have to insist that you release Mr.
Jackson into my custody." He moved his hand under his light
jacket. Ty's right hand twitched, but he kept the impulse under
control.
Middle man pulled out an ID chit, one of the fancy ones with a
revolving bust on one side. He held it out to Jay, who quickly
ran an ident scan on it with the helmet camera. A reply took
nanoseconds.
"Back off, Ty. This guy is a Sib." Hearing that the accoster
worked for the State Bureau of Investigation cooled Ty off a
little.
"Damnit. We caught this punk. I don't care what "jurisdiction"
this falls under, we're taking him in, you can go through our
Chief if you want him. -After- we question him." Ty hated when
government wannabes cut in on his action and tried to steal his
collar.
Jay knew he had to compromise. "That's not a call for you to
make, -Patrol- Officer. I make that judgement. Just so happens
that this time I agree with you. Mr. SBI, you'll have to go
through the channels for this guy." Jay wasn't going to give him
up either.
The Sib just smiled. His 2 thugs stepped forward, blood lust in
their eyes. "You might want to reconsider," he said. "My
associates don't like being turned down. I can be nice about
this, or they can be mean. What's it gonna be?"
Now Jay realized just how important Jackson was and how far
Militech was going to go in order to silence him. He took a deep
breath, then looked up.
"Sorry, Sib. Looks like we're the ones with the right of way
here. At least that AV says so."
Everyone looked up, squinting into the evening haze over the
city. A black blob was dropping rapidly towards them, the faint
howl of engines starting to rise above the sounds of the street.
An AV packs several machineguns, all computer linked and smart-
targeted. Mr. Sib packed down.
"I'll get him one way or another." He yelled, as the AV got close
enough to stir up a wind and flood the street with noise. A hot
wash of air swept over the men. "You better watch out!" He waved
his men back and they stalked off down the sidewalk.
"Whew!" Ty let out his breath. "How the hell did that AV know we
were here?" He used the helmet radio link, normal speech almost
impossible.
"Hit the panic button!" Jay indicated the radio transmitter
attached to his collar. He had hit it when the SBI men had first
arrived. Good thing his instincts were so trustworthy. He patched
into the Tacnet. "Thanks, Alpha Romeo...Five." He said, reading
the number off the bottom of the AV. "We just needed some
intimidation. You saved us the chore of beating up some Sibs."
"Glad to be of assistance, Unit 45. Let me know if you need any
more persuading done. Five, out."
The harrier-style plane rose up, then took off for higher
altitudes. Blissful quiet returned to the suburbs. "Damn," Ty
exclaimed. "I love those guys. They're still wimpy pussies who
wouldn't survive 2 seconds in the FFZ, but they have their
moments. Let's blow."
The 2 cops got back into their cruiser, then took Jackson
downtown. Ravine would have some questions for him. The presence
of the SBI in all this was another level of complications.
Fortunately neither Jay nor Ty had to deal with them, that
privilege was reserved for Lt. Ravine and the brass.
--
******************************************************************************
Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
******************************************************************************
From kendejd9@wfu.edu (kendelhardt jason david)
Subject: STORY: Cyberpsycho 11
Date: Mon Jan 30 19:43:42 MET 1995
Bout time to wrap this one up. I seem to be back on schedule with the
posts, so expect another next week or so. Later
Copyright 1995 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 10
Precinct 23, Interrogation Cell 2 26 Oct
Lt. Jason Ravine paced around the quivering form of Matt Jackson, former
Trauma Team medic and wanna-be stud. A 20 minute drive around in the cramped
confines of an NCPD cruiser without being restrained had severely shaken him
up. In several hours he would be covered in pretty bruises, splotching the
expensive melanin implants he had. His tan was the least of his worries
however. Jackson had no illusions about his fate at the hands of the police.
He had knowingly been scalping stolen bodyparts, many from cops killed in the
line of duty. There had been so many bodies that he had figured that a little
skimming might not have been noticed, but apparently he was wrong.
"Care to spill your guts yet?" Ravine asked mildly. He hadn't said 10 words to
the prisoner in the half hour since Jackson was brought in, he just paced. The
truth gas took a little while to permeate brain tissue and the neural scan
boys had to calibrate their equipment.
Feeling a little tired, and very numb, Jackson shook his head. He had to hold
out for as long as he could, in case those SBI men came back and successfully
got him away from the cops. It was hard though. Talking now would make
everything so -easy-, so simple and quick. Just a few names and dates and the
police would let him go and he'd be a free man again. Jackson clenched his
teeth and forced the persuasive voice away. He -had- to hang on.
"He's resisting." Ravine sub-vocalized into the mike lodged in his throat.
"It's ok," said the neural technician in the other room, watching via microcam
in the ceiling. "Just give the gas more time." Her words were relayed into a
tiny audio bug in Ravine's right ear. Due to his previous bout with
cyberpsychosis, Ravine was forbidden to have implants and 'ware, so he had to
go the old fashioned way and use microphones and receivers. Primitive, but it
kept him sane.
Jason wanted the medic to start talking -now-, because he had heard about the
SBI incident from Sergeant Tsarkhan. Right now his superiors were stalling for
time upstairs. He decided to take the direct approach.
"Listen up, Jackson." He leaned on the transparent plastic table in front of
the prisoner. "I don't know if you realize just what you're in here for, but
you are in -deep- shit. Remember those 2 cops that picked you up?" Jackson
nodded dully. "Well, they are waiting outside as we speak, champing at the bit
to get in here with you alone for a few minutes. They'll do bad things to you,
man, things you won't ever recover from." He bent over the table to stare the
medic right in the eyes. "Am I going to have to send them in here?"
Jackson just looked at the cop for a few seconds, then spoke up with an air of
false confidence. "Yeah, then my lawyer will eat your ass for breakfast. You
can't fuck'n touch me!"
Ravine drew back in a rage. "Your choice man! Sergeant!" he bellowed. "Get in
here!"
The recessed door slid open, revealing 2 men in battered black riot armor.
They both had long batons in their hands and static electricity played on the
knuckles of their shock gloves. "Excuse me, Sir." Jay Tsarkhan said with grave
politeness. "I believe there is a com call for you, perhaps I may be permitted
to guard the prisoner while you answer it?" Such a humble tone coming from the
grim and fearsome black cop sent chills down Jackson's spine. Jesus, he
thought, they were really going to do it! He stammered out a 'Wait!' at
Jason's retreating back as the cop headed for the door.
Ravine turned, the black look still lingering on his face. "What now?"
"I'll tell you, ok? I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" He finally gave
in to the little voices in his head.
"Good," Ravine said as he returned to the table and the door behind him slid
shut.
*****
Ty sat behind several white coated women watching the interrogation. Jay was
still outside the cell door, in case Jackson needed more 'persuasion'. The
women were fiddling with small touch-sensitive strips on a colorful display
pad. One was jacked into the net, but she seemed to spend most of her time
chatting with the other 2 women about her latest boyfriend. Ty tried to see
what it was they were doing to the control pad, but the lights and graphs were
meaningless to him. All he understood was that the techs were sending alpha
wave transmissions to the prisoner, feeding him commands. How they did it was
a mystery. He wanted to ask, but he doubted the women would tell him anything.
They were from NeuralTech, and they toured the 5 precincts in their AO every 5
days. Ty was lucky that they happened to be here today, else he would have had
to track them down and try to squeeze in some interrogation time at another
precinct. Fat chance of that ever happening.
So he just sat there, listening to the endless pratter and watching Ravine
grill the medic. Not much was coming out, at least nothing really new or
shocking. Jackson didn't know why there was a buyer for cop brains, he was
just reacting to an advertisement posted on a BBS. Nothing overtly traceable
to Militech, but Sean could probably dig something up. Someone thought Jackson
was important, or at least knew something that was, because the SBI didn't get
involved in just any old matter. They were heavy hitters and it took a lot of
favors to call them in. Militech had connections like that.
He listened to the interrogation for another 10 minutes before he got thirsty
and went for a coke. He spent the next 15 minutes filling in Jay. Then the
suits came. 2 corp types followed the captain in charge of prisoner release.
Both cops recognized the head SBI man. It was the same white-collar who tried
to threaten Jackson away from them earlier in the day.
"Hey, look who's back! Sergeant, remember this guy? See any low flying AV's on
your way over here, Sib? I hear they can get real mean." Ty was going to get
in the last joke before the Sib booted him off the floor.
Jay gave a low chuckle. The Sib scowled at Ty, but kept his mouth shut. His
partner had a smug look on his face. Both cops knew what was coming.
The SBI man crossed his arms over his chest. "Ha ha. I'm going to get that
pilot grounded for a month. Then I'm going to get you two on traffic duty for
the end of your Tour. And I am going to take MY prisoner away."
The Captain keyed the interrogation room door and it slid open. Ravine gave
them a not-so-startled look, then offhandedly said, "Go ahead. He's all
yours." Jackson looked at the SBI men with relief, he thought he was safe.
Without a word, the Sib took a hold of Jackson's arm and lead him towards the
door. The other State agent gave Ty and Jay a wary look. Ty pulled some thick
handcuffs from his rear pocket along with some tangle thread. "Here, you might
want to bind him with this." He held out the restraints.
The SBI agent with Jackson just sneered again. "No need for those. This man
isn't going to need them. I have him under control." It was true. Jackson was
meek and placid in the man's grip. All the life seemed to have drained out of
him. Ty looked right at Jackson. "Sorry man. I tried." Then they were past
them and heading up the stairs to the garage.
Jay gave Ty a puzzled look. "You're sorry 'cause they didn't cuff him?"
"Yeah," the young cop responded. "I have a bad feeling that Jackson is going
to 'escape'. At least for 2 meters anyway, then he'll get shot in the back of
the head.
"No matter," Ravine said, causing both cops to turn and face him. "I got all I
needed. Thanks, ladies," he said into the air, sure the women would hear it on
the mike. "Let's go brief the others."
*****
The briefing was short and sweet. Matt Jackson had just been responding to a
series of low-key ads placed on certain BBS's around the city. He really knew
very little about who he was supplying the brains to. Ravine had enough on
Jackson to send him to a work farm however, and ensure that the snatcher would
never get close to another dead body again. The prison sentence would depend
on what the SBI wanted with the medic, and if they returned him to local
custody.
Everyone by now had heard about Ty's pet theory of an "attempted escape"
leading to Jackson's execution. Giving the wild nature of Ty's thoughts
however, few believed him. Jay did. He was beginning to suspect that his young
partner knew a lot more about the seedy underworld than he was telling. The
Sergeant fully intended to get Ty totally smashed some night and get the full
story out of him.
"So, Sir, do we have a shot at Militech or not?" asked Ty, anxious to start
extracting his pound of flesh from the megacorp.
Ravine gave a thin lipped smile and opened his jacket's inside pocket. He
withdrew a thin square case, about the size of a cracker. He slid the plastic
chip into a mdCD reader. The pocket sized machine extracted the 2cm wide CD
disk inside and uploaded the information on it to a large monitor on Ravine's
desk.
The document that appeared was a bunch of legalese, but everyone could
understand the subject heading.
SUBJECT: The holder of this warrant (#23-56-48) has full legal authority
over one John Michaels (SIN# 254-677-6434). This warrant extends until
2400 31 October 2021.
"Hot Damn!" Ty cried out. They had done it! The upstairs brass had finally
pulled their thumbs out of their highly paid asses and did something -right-
for a change.
A bunch of grins appeared on the faces of the men around him as well. Ravine
was glad to see his team starting to look positive for a change. The past
couple of days had been trying times, with the renegade cyborg and Militech's
scavenging of police body parts. He let them pat each other on the back for a
few seconds.
"All right everyone! We are not done yet. We have only 4 days until this
warrant expires, so we have got to work fast. The department has also put out
an APB on the man, so he may already know that he is wanted. I have some
people working on tracking his SIN card, in case he tries to leave the city.
Remember, this man has the full weight of Militech behind him. He won't give
up easily nor willingly. I'm going to try and negotiate a deal with Militech,
see if they will turn him over to us. My guess is that they will want this
dealt with as quietly as possible, so they may be sympathetic to us. They will
also try and keep the other Enforcers away as well, in case we decide to do
DNA testing on all of their precious cyborgs. I haven't made up my mind on
that last count. Here's the plan. Sergeant Tsarkhan, you and Officer Gorman
round up some volunteers and go head hunting. Take Michaels down quickly and
with minimum fuss. You do understand the concept of 'minimum fuss' don't you?"
Both cops nodded enthusiastically, tossed out a hand motion vaguely resembling
a salute, then bolted out of the room after Jay grabbed the warrant. Ty was
already prepping his pistol.
"Ok. Sean, you and Hal start on the source of those BBS ads. We'll have a much
better chance at getting Michaels in deep storage if we can prove that he
initiated the purchase of the brains. Hal, your source in Militech will be
kept as tightly lidded as possible. That's why we want more evidence, so we
can keep your involvement to a minimum. We clear?" He received 2 nods.
"Alright then." He checked his watch. "Get started."
*****
"Gonna get me some corpie ass, gonna get me some corpie ass." Ty had made a
little song out of that phrase and it was starting to get on Jay's nerves.
"Cut it out, ok? We got some serious business to attend to." The black
sergeant thumbed the steering wheel mounted radio toggle. "Team Payback, this
is Payback 1. Team Payback, this is Payback 1. Do you copy, over."
"Payback 1, this is Payback 2. I copy, over." 3 more transmissions like that
one came in. Jay had rounded up 4 other cruisers to join in on the search.
Most to the other cops had been in on the Epson mall fiasco, so they readily
agreed to the team name of 'Payback'.
"Team Payback, this is the warrant for the target's arrest." He hit the
TRANSMIT toggle on the other side of the steering wheel. The tiny
microdiameter CD sent out its coded message to the other 4 vehicles, to be
downloaded on crystal. Without the original unalterable mdCD, no one could
actually arrest anyone. All the other cops could do was take Michaels downtown
and sit on him until the original warrant was produced. Crystal was considered
to be insecure because it was nearly impossible to permanently record
something on it. mdCD's however, were cast on glass disks and sealed in high-
temp polymer. Nothing was going to change that disk without melting the entire
thing first. It was a silly process, with several loopholes, but it made the
civilians feel safer, like their rights were being better protected. The
police used it solely for PR reasons.
Once the other cars called in and acknowledged receipt of the warrant, Jay
sent them in 2 car pairs to Michaels' house and his office. Jay hung back from
either location and waited for any sign of the SIN card being used. He had a
sneaky suspicion that Michaels knew about the cops and had already blown town,
or was at least trying to. Whether or not the man was intelligent enough to
realize that his SIN card could be traced was another mater. The police had
carefully cultivated the media's impression that SINs could only be tracked
when used for making buying purchases. In reality, SIN's were monitored and
recorded whenever someone entered a public building, passed the city limits on
the highways, or entered an airplane or cruise liner gateway. Night City knew
exactly who went where. Most of that information was never seen or used, and
criminals had gotten good at using stolen or imaginary SIN cards, but the
tracking system was still quite useful.
Jay and Ty drove around the city between the 2 other police units, ready to
assist either one should they encounter Michaels. Jay doubted that the
Militech researcher would have stayed at work if he knew of the police APB,
but you never could tell with those scientific types, they were pretty
irrational at times. Ty was bored. His initial enthusiasm at having a crack at
Militech dimmed quickly under the endless waiting that he was going to have to
endure until Dr. Michaels was located.
Where would Michaels go? Jay pondered the question. He had very little on the
man, just the routine Militech PR file. It mentioned no other addresses
besides the home in the Sunnydale Planned Community, a 50 acre elite suburb,
with armed guards and sealed streets. Michaels must have made quite a bit of
money at Militech to afford that. The file didn't mention a family, so the guy
had an individual house all to himself. Pretty extravagant, and it meant that
the guy couldn't have much extra credit left for another hideaway. Still a
blank on the SIN card, so he hadn't tried to leave the city. Damn, Jay
thought, where would he go?
He pulled up to an inner city gas station to top off the tanks. He carefully
pulled up to the closest pump. Ty left to get some hot dogs and caffeine while
Jay was stuck with pumping the foul smelling alcohol-based gasoline. He missed
the days of high octane petroleum, where one liter could take you 10
kilometers or more. He was pumping some bamboo distilled fuel now, imported
from Asia, after the Middle East went dry. Couldn't get shit from the gas
though, barely 5 kpl with the cruiser's thirsty engine. Civilian cars, the few
gas powered ones left, made much better mileage.
20 liters and 19.95 credits off the expense account later, they were back in
the saddle and ready to go. Jay gunned the engine, signalling the station
computer that he was ready to go. The computer, deciding that Jay had paid for
all his gas, retracted the tire spikes that had sprung up in front of and
behind the cruiser. Not that spikes could damage the plastic coated ceramic
disks the cruiser used, but the computer was too dumb to realize that.
Ty had the other teams on the horn. No luck at either the workplace or home.
Michaels had left the office early in the morning after pulling an all-
nighter, no one knew why, and disappeared. That was well before anyone decided
to look for the man, so he must have had a different reason for running. The
home had been ransacked however, things smashed and destroyed. The home
computer system assured the police that no one had been inside all day,
despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Dumb machine. Easily
reprogrammed by any hacker worth his interface plugs. Well, Jay thought, 2
dead ends.
Ty cursed, pissed about having Michaels slip away under their noses. If the
man had left early in the morning, then no telling where he had gone. That
would have been before the SIN search. Some places didn't keep good records
after a few hours, the load would have been to high. Michaels could have
easily slipped through the cracks of the airport, or maybe the seaport. He
could be in Europe by now, or out by Hawaii in a submersible. Hell, the guy
could even be in Appalachia, out on the East coast.
Their radio beeped. Ty snarled out an activation command.
"Sergeant Tsarkhan, we have a positive location on that SIN number you
requested."
"What!? Shit, where is it?" Jay leaned forward, speaking directly to the small
speaker on the dashboard.
"It was used to make a single local call. The recipient of the call was using
a cellular phone with a fade feature and they made 5 frequency shifts. We were
unable to identify the recipient due to these complications."
"So? Where the hell was the caller?" Dealing with techs was like drilling
teeth. They always felt the need to explain how they found something, or how
they failed to do something, drowning you in technical terms so you would
think it wasn't their fault.
"Grid Zone EB237150. It's out by the docks." The speaker sounded cheated.
Probably because she couldn't revel in the explanation of how they had
valiantly tracked down the SIN number.
"I got it. EB237150. Thanks a million. Out." Ty was already punching in the
coordinates. Jay was so elated that he didn't even double check. "You copy
that boys?" He called out on the Team Payback frequency.
"You got it, One. We are in route as we speak." Other calls came in. Having
your own scrambled frequency saved tons of time on repetitive identifications.
Jay was glad one of the other cops had thought of it. A glowing green arrow
appeared on the windshield, tracing the route the computer thought would be
most expedient. Jay pushed the throttle to the edge. The cruiser leapt
forward, blowing a warm exhaust of degraded alcohol impurities and carbon
dioxide. "Sepultura Plays the Classics" slammed out of the PA system. Devil 13
was back on the prowl.
--
******************************************************************************
Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
******************************************************************************
From kendejd9@wfu.edu (kendelhardt jason david)
Subject: STORY: Cyberpsycho 12 <last one>
Date: Fri Feb 10 20:53:49 MET 1995
Ahhh, finally finished. This ones almost 30k, so be sure you have the
time to read it. I've tied up a lot of the loose ends from the beginning
of Cyberpsycho, so if you haven't read the first eight or so posts, then
you might wait until tomorrow (or later tonight) when I post the entire
thing (which, at 240k, will most certainly be pkzip'ed). That should
satisfy all you chat fans who haven't been reading for the past 3 months.
BTW, I have no idea why I've ended up with 3 stories, all with 12 parts.
It certainly isn't planned that way (hell, my stuff isn't planned at
all). Oh yeah, Cyberpsycho 11 is really number 11, even though the title
says CP 10. The part that starts off in the interrogation room is number
11. Bonus points for anyone who can ID the hacker mentioned at the end of
this story. Anyway, it's off to the final frontier. Later.
Copyright 1995 by Jason Kendelhardt, except where RTG got there first.
Cyberpsycho 12
The docks, Night City 20:15 26 Oct
Jay cut the external speakers when they got about 2 kilometers from the
warehouse were the call had been traced. No point in waking up the entire
neighborhood. The other 4 cruisers had fallen in behind them, forming a grim
convoy through the city. Being this far into the poverty stricken sea-side
area of town was a disconcerting thing, even policemen could be targets. Not
as dangerous as the FFZ, but the people here had no hope and could be
surprisingly vicious. The heavy steel ram in front of the lead cruiser was
constantly nudging carts, wagons, and slow moving people out of the way. Dense
humanity hedged in on all sides, flickering neon and sputtering torches giving
the street a nightmarish quality. Ty continually touched the firing studs of
the .50 caliber M2HB slung in front of him for reassurance. The massive cannon
projected through a hole in the windshield. The swivel mount was built into
the hood and the whole assembly was waterproofed with hi-temp plastic. He
carefully kept from visualizing what the heavy slugs would do to any human
caught in their path. And anyone behind that person, and the sucker behind
that person; it took a lot of bodies to stop a .50 cal round.
Everyone was on edge. This close to the man responsible for at least one
surgical desecration of a dead police officer, no one wanted to blow it. The
cops would have one crack at it, then Michaels would go to ground for good.
Tracing SIN numbers only worked once, after that the criminals wised up and
got false ones.
"Ok everyone, we're a kilometer away. I got an AV flyover photo of the area,
it's coming over now." He hit the TRANSMIT toggle on the steering wheel and
sent a hi-res fax of the photo over the Team Payback net. The aerial photo
showed the target building and the streets nearby. It had perfect focus and no
intervening cloud cover thanks to the hi-res cameras and the intense computer
crunch time the shot had undergone. The entire police department was behind
this mission and it showed.
Jay gave the other cops a little time to study the image. At the speed they
were making through this shanty-town section of the city it would be a few
minutes yet. "Ok, men. You've seen the photo. There's very little chance that
we'll be able to get there undetected, so we have to go for fast and
overwhelming. Anyone of these people around us could be a look-out, and most
probably are. Every gang and con man in the district knows about us by now, so
we have to watch out. I doubt that Michaels could afford a lot of protection,
but I'm sure he has some. There is a MaxTac team on the way in a few AV-6's,
so we'll have backup pretty soon." Jay glanced over at his copy of the photo,
checking the grease pencil marking he had put on it. Ty overlaid a blueprint
transparency of the interior of the warehouse over the picture of the
building. A search of the city records had kicked out the original plans for
the structure, and despite the risks of using out-of-date information, Jay
thought it best if he had at least some idea of what the place looked like
inside.
"Ok, here's the plan. Jack, you and Kerby take that back entrance. Sampson,
you stake out the side door and -wait- for us to move first. I don't want you
2 storming in alone. Mike and I will go through the front. Whenever MaxTac
gets here, they'll have to clean up after us, right?" Some short cheers leapt
out of the speaker. Cops loved showing up MaxTac. "Remember, keep the .50 cal
pointed in the right direction and stay low. No telling what is hiding out in
that warehouse. Could just be Michaels, could be a Booster gang in there,
can't say. Whatever it is, we're NCPD and we take no shit from nobody!" More
cheers. Getting psyched up for a raid was the best way to keep casualties
down, at least for the friendly side.
The recon AV-3 that had made the original flyover was back, staying up above
the smog layer. It fed live-time data to Jay as the cruisers approached the
warehouse. They passed a burnt-out ruin on the way and Ty thought he saw
movement, but in the hazy night he couldn't be sure. The crush of people had
died out with the commerce. Nothing was out here except the crazy and the
deranged. Criminals always hid out here, but the city could never get the
authorization to destroy the crumpling buildings.
According to the AV feed, no one was moving out of the target. IR had no heat
spots larger than a rat. So far, so good. It had been over 20 minutes since
the SIN number had been used, plenty of time for a hasty retreat. Jay doubted
it though, Michaels need a refuge until he could escape the city and the docks
were the best place.
The sleek cruisers split up as they hit the street surrounding the squarish
structure, each vehicle hitting their assigned points. Jay slewed his car
around, stopping broadside on the street, with the .50 pointing directly at
the entrance to the warehouse. Dusty glass and a boarded up doorway greeted
Ty's gunsight. There was no sign of movement. Ty engaged the IR scope, but no
heat came from the hulk. "No one home, Sarge."
"What do you see, guys?" Jay asked over the net.
"Nothing here," Sampson whispered. He and his partner, a small Hispanic named
Maria, were both wound up tighter than engine flywheels. The small side door
they were assigned to cover was covered in a plastic sheet. It looked like the
place hadn't been used in a decade.
At the rear loading dock it was the same story. Everything was sealed up,
abandoned. "Shut up like a Catholic girl on prom night in back, Sarge. Want us
to go in?"
"Hang on Kerby. We'll both go in on a 5 minute time hack. Get ready to
start..." Jay was cut off by the AV-3 coming in on the TacNet.
"I got movement on the roof, boys! Looks like a loner with a large tube on his
shoulder. He's heading for the front! Hang on, I'm dropping down."
Ty looked at Jay with a mix of fear and excitement on his face. They had hit
jackpot! Problem was that Michaels was about to play for keeps. Ty squeezed
the machinegun grips and elevated that heavy cannon skyward. "Hey, Tousa!" He
called to the gunner in the cruiser next to him via helmet radio. "Strafe the
roof edge! We got a missile coming!" He jerked down on the twin firing studs
and the car was suddenly filled with the heavy WHOOMP WHOOMP WHOOMP of the
machinegun. Both cops lost their external hearing as their helmets instantly
set up counternoise to negate the deafening roar of the gun. The reek of
cordite washed over both men, carried on a wave of hot air. Shell casings
pinged off the passenger side window and landed in Ty's lap, scorching his leg
armor with tiny pricks of carbon. The edge of the roof began to crumble as
massive lead slugs shattered bricks and tore up the plastic roof shingles.
Dust and clay fragments rained down on the cars below. As Patrol Officer Tousa
got into the act the entire face of the wall, some 2 stories high, started to
disintegrate. Fist sized chunks of metal and brick started dropping on the
cruisers, but were unable to dent the armor plate or the plastiglas
windshield.
The AV dropped low, careful to avoid the red balls of tracer fire arcing up
and over the docks. Most of the rounds fired into the building were passing
straight through and continued on their course, zipping over the docks to land
in the awaiting bay. It could be deadly to be a fisherman right now. The AV-3
continued to track the figure on the roof. As soon as the gunfire started, it
had turned and ran for the other side, away from the eroding roof. The AV
pilot toggled his minigun, laid his optical gunsight on the back of the
fleeing person, and triggered off a short stream of hyper-velocity slugs. The
figure vanished, replaced by blood vapor and bone fragments. The remains of
the body disappeared into a newly formed hole in the roof. "Target is
neutralized," he called out. "You are now clear." He returned to his safe
altitude of 1000 meters above sealevel.
Ty barely heard the call over the thunderous cannon fire, but he stopped when
Jay started hitting him on the arm. He released his fingers, numb from the
vibrations. Jay fumbled for the window control and lowered the windows,
ventilating the foul air inside the car. The outside air wasn't much better,
brown dust swirled inside the cruiser and coated everything with brick blood.
The hood of the vehicle was covered with rock chunks, it looked like a Martian
landscape. "Damn," Ty breathed, "I ain't never done anything like -that-!"
Cops rarely, if ever, used the hood mounted machinegun. It was the ultimate in
intimidation, not meant to be used, but fortunately most cops maintained the
thing. He brushed shell casings off of his lap. There must have been at least
a hundred pieces of brass, not to mention the belt retaining clips, around his
legs. He could only shuffle his feet with difficulty. He swore again. It made
you feel -real- weak when you handled that kind of firepower.
Jay opened up the radio. "Let's go, people! Nothing to lose now!" He jerked up
the door, then hit the hinge lock, allowing the door to swing out rather than
up, so he could use it as a shield. He crouched down on the debris choked
asphalt and reached in back for his A-80 rifle. Ty did the same and exited the
car with a loud rattling sound as several dozen shell casing left with him,
scattering over the road. He pulled out his enormous double barreled auto
shotgun, the Hurricane. He flashed a wicked grin at Jay through the car. Jay
waited until the other 2 cops had exited their vehicle as well. Kerby and Jack
called over as soon as they were ready.
"Give them hell! Go!!" As soon as Jay made the command, he and Ty sprinted for
the short flight of stairs leading to the front entrance. Tousa and Mike kept
them covered. There was no door, just some boards and a stained plastic sheet.
A fast chop with the Hurricane barrels and the doorway was clear. The other 2
cops moved up to cover the gaping darkness beyond.
In back, Jack and his partner dashed for the door. They leaped up onto the
loading dock. When Jack reached the sealed door, he slapped an explosive
charge on the lock. He was way too scared and hyped up to forgo procedure. He
was keeping strictly to the book. The explosive beeped when it adhered. The
cops dove for opposite sides of the door. 5 seconds later the charge went off,
blasting the lock. The force of the explosive was enough to swing the door
open into the loading area. Kerby tossed a flash-bang into the exposed
hallway. No chances.
Veteran Officer Sampson waited for the go ahead from Sergeant Tsarkhan. He and
his partner were locked and loaded, ready to go as soon as Jay gave the word.
Neither cop was watching the rear-view monitor (cruisers didn't have rear
windows), so they were unaware of the form approaching them from behind. SLAM!
The vehicle rocked on it's shocks and a bulge appeared on the roof. Maria and
Sampson both looked up at the dent, missing the hit on their hood. As the car
rocked again, they looked forward, seeing another dent in the hood of the
cruiser. Something flashed in the headlights and the plastic sheet over the
side door shattered as a large object leapt through it. Both cops just stared
at the torn door. "Mierda," cursed Maria. "What the hell was that?"
"I dunno," whispered Sampson, "but I don't want to find out." Whatever could
dent ceramic armor plate had to be -very- big and real heavy. It was inside
the warehouse now. "Uh, Sergeant. We got a problem. Something just ran off our
car and jumped through the door to the warehouse. It's inside now. We'll, uh,
go follow it." Sampson didn't much care for that idea.
Maria wanted nothing more than to empty her machinegun into the darkness of
the doorway. A lucky hit might stop what thing. She couldn't take the chance
however. She crossed herself. Then she grabbed her sawed-off flechette shotgun
and opened the passenger door.
When the grenade went off, Jack followed it in. No one was in the rear office.
The residual heat from the grenade left a glowing red haze in the room,
negating the IR. The cop felt for lights. He found a switch and threw it.
Nothing. Damn, he thought, no power. He should have expected that, but it was
hard to imagine anyplace in a city not having power. He had taken it for
granted. Then he heard Sampson's call.
Kerby came in right behind Jack. "Hear that?" Jack nodded. "We got company.
Hope he's on our side." The cops started a room-by-room search.
Jay and Ty chucked flares down the hallway. They didn't trust their IR to pick
out a sneaksuit, so they resorted to illuminating their way. This part of the
warehouse was mostly small offices. There were no large storage rooms. When
Sampson's warning came out, both cops looked at each other. "What do you thing
it was?" asked Ty.
"Dunno," responded Jay. "Maybe some booster." He patted the receiver of his
rifle. "If he gets in our way, he'll join all the others."
Ty took some strength from the black sergeant's calm. He grinned tightly.
"Sure thing, Sarge. Still have to test out this baby." He shook the shotgun.
He had loaded it with the APDS rounds that he had never had a chance to use at
Epson mall. "Let's go." With the other 2 cops as backup, they probed deeper
into the warehouse.
The outside appearance of the building was a good representation of the
interior. If anything the inside was worse. Years of neglect and wet weather
had decayed the plaster paneling, eroded the plastic fixtures, and eaten away
at the metal superstructure. Scavenging teams had stripped away anything of
value for resale as recycled raw materials. Lots of dust, spider webs, and
hobo nests were all that remained. Using the IR strobes on the helmets and
flares, the cops maneuvered throughout the dark concrete building in near
silence.
After several tense minutes of searching all three teams were near the center
of the building, with Kerby and Jack being the first group that reached the
central flight of stairs leading up to the second floor. "Everything still
fits the blueprints," he whispered into his radio. "Nothing on the ground
floor except offices and dead space."
"Get ready to go up." Jay ordered. If it hadn't been for the gunner on the
roof, he would have thought the place deserted. It was possible that no one
had ever been on the ground floor. Michaels could have flown in and entered
through the roof. "Wait until we..."
A burst of gunfire cut him off. A blizzard of plastic splinters and deadly
metal fragments rained down on Kerby's team as a hail of lead shredded the
walls and floor around them. It was blind fire, not really aimed, but it drove
the cops away from the stairwell. Jay was convinced that there was a gatling
up there, the sheer volume of bullets was amazing. One cop took a round in the
leg. The hard armor shell around her thigh absorbed most of the kinetic energy
but a nasty bruise would arise from the blunt trauma. Whoever was shooting was
using standard ball ammo, ineffective against good armor and indicative of the
fact that Michaels guards, if that's who was shooting at them, were not well
equipped. No one used ball anymore except the budding streetpunks too poor to
afford AP rounds.
Jack pulled his wounded partner to safety. She grimaced at the pain, then
popped a narc tab from her biceps pill dispenser. Soon the pain would fade and
she would be able to fight.
Sampson waited for the gunfire to stop, then lobbed a stun grenade up the
stairwell. As soon as it went off, 3 cops rushed the stairs. Bullet ridden, a
portion of the steps collapsed under Maria, dropping her into an empty space
under the stairs. Both Ty and Sampson made it up before the collapse, each
taking one 180 degree arc oriented on the head of the stairs.
Ty had the right arc. He caught a blob of heat moving obliquely away from him.
Before waiting for any target identification, he opened up. On full auto. The
Hurricane kicked in his hands like a rabid bronco. The shotgun jerked loose so
fast that Ty had no time to brace himself. He toppled back down the stairs,
dropping the weapon. The same pit that claimed Maria got him. He landed on top
of the stunned cop, knocking the wind from her lungs. His target was not as
fortunate. Ty's initial burst was aimed in the correct direction, recoil and
high rate of fire did the rest. The double barreled shotgun had unloaded half
of it's 40 round magazine. 3 shots hit their mark. The fleeing gunman was so
close that the discarding sabot spikes had hardly lost their sheaths when they
ripped through his body and pulverized his lungs and heart. The tumbling sabot
casings, still travelling at near supersonic speeds, only added to the tissue
damage.
Sampson had a clear arc. He twisted around when he heard the RIPPP roar of the
Hurricane. He watched in shocked amazement as Ty fell out of view and the
fleeing ambusher was torn into a brilliant red gore. A figure appeared behind
Sampson, dimmed by a top-grade sneaksuit. While Sampon stared at the fallen
body, the figure raised up a hefty autopistol.,An IR laser dot scaled it's way
up Sampson's armored spine. Before the assassin could fire however, 2
carbonfiber blades materialized in her back. The unnaturally sharp blades
easily cleaved kevlar, bone and cartilage, severing the woman's spine and
ventilating her guts to the harsh outside world. She fell without a sound.
Sampson -did- hear the splash of blood and organs on the floor. His hearing
had been shielded from Ty's gunfire by the audio dampeners in his helmet, so
he was fully aware of the disgusting GUSH the assassin's blood made on the
dirty floor. The bewildered cop made another about-face. All he saw was the
steaming neon red of fresh blood spurting out of a black form on the floor.
The smell hit him a second later. First was Ty's escaping victim, now the
mysterious body only a few meters from him. Despite his years on the force,
the proximity of that much fresh blood wrenched his stomach. Sampson pulled
open the faceplate of his helmet just before he vomited on the top of the
steps.
Jay reached the top seconds later. He had leaped the missing section once he
determined that Ty and Maria were ok. He panned around his IR light, saw the
bodies, then realized why Sampson was puking. Not even the FFZ could
desensitize someone to that kind of close violence. It took a lot of murders
and gunfights to do that. Jay had seen it all, but Sampson had not. The
sergeant gripped Sampson's shoulder. He squeezed hard enough to be felt
through the thick armor. "It's ok, son. Suck it up. We got work to do." He
gave a final squeeze, then stepped out onto the second floor.
Ty boosted Maria up and out of the hole. She was a small woman, barely 50
kilos in riot armor. Ty almost doubled that, so he took the more expedient
route of bashing a doorway out of the fragile plaster walls under the stairs.
Water damage and a little Tae Kwon Do finished the wall. Ty forced himself
through the gap, dragging his Hurricane after him. What an embarrassment, he
thought. I am never gonna live this one down. He followed the other cops up
the stairs. Ichiro, the wounded cop, went right after him.
Jay was carefully scoping out the second floor. He heard very little, but he
refused to believe that there were no more guards. Hell, even Michaels himself
should be able to defend himself. The corpie didn't think he could hide in
this decayed relic forever, did he?
Kerby was examining one of the bodies. "Hey, Sarge. This guy wasn't shot." He
had rolled the body over on it's stomach. "This one was -cut- open. Look, He's
got slashes down his back." Jay stomped over to look.
"You're right. Let's see who it was." He pulled off the clingy heat absorbing
sneaksuit mask. The face underneath was contorted in pain, had stubble for
hair, but was unmistakably female. Kerby swallowed. He had always had a
slippery anxiety over razorchicks. This girl had severe acne, a result of
skinweave rejection. She had a series of interface plugs in her forehead. That
he could have taken. The worst thing was her eyes. She had some low-tech
optics, huge silver bug-eyed things. She had no room for eyebrows, only a hint
of cheekbones. She looked like some grotesque praying mantis. If the light had
been better, Kerby could have seen tiny dodecahedron facets all over the
surface of the optics. Underneath all that was a beautiful mouth, worthy of a
stim-sim star. Jay draped that hood over the booster's head. It was something
out of a B-grade nightmare.
"What the hell cut her? Hey, Sampson, you see what did this girl in?" Kerby
wasn't known for his tact.
The queasy cop looked up from the puddle of kibble between his knees. "No," he
said. Then he spat. "I heard the...the splash. She was already cut when I
looked."
"Shit. Think it was that thing he and Maria saw come in here?"
Ty looked over that them. "Christ. Just what we need, some cybered up hunter
looking to steal a head from us. As if we haven't had enough cyberpsychos for
one week."
A germ of an idea started forming in Jay's head. No, he thought, couldn't be.
The Enforcer died at Epson. No way it was still around. He shrugged off the
notion. "Don't matter what it was. It comes after us, we nail it like any
other gutter rat. Let's blow."
Sampson swished some canteen water in his mouth, spat, then grabbed his rifle.
He and Maria took one corridor, while the others advanced slowly down the
hallways where the bodies were.
Ty heard a muffled scream from off to his left. He instantly twisted in that
direction. Nothing over there but partitioned off working cubicles. He
fingered a shotgun shell sized flare, then tossed it over the half-walls
towards the sound.
The flare burst into light, both IR and a steady yellow. As it flew over the
partitions, Ty caught a glimpse of a shadow moving the wrong way from the
light. That same instant the flare illuminated a dark smear over one wall.
Blood.
Ty didn't even think. He just planted himself steady and opened up. This time
he was prepared, the weapon was slung over one shoulder and his left hand
firmly held the barrel grip. He squeezed off several short bursts at the
darting shadow. Dust and sparks flew up as he shot through a dozen thin walls
to reach the figure. He was shooting from the hip, but his eye-hand
coordination was good enough to tell him that he should be hitting. The shadow
just kept going, smashing through anything in it's path. Jay saw it just as
the flare dropped out of sight. He flashed his IR spot on it, then snapped his
rifle to his shoulder. IR didn't show the thing up well, but he fired anyway.
The thing didn't even flinch, it just dove out of sight. Behind the 2 cops,
Tousa arced a stun grenade at the last place he saw the cops shooting. The
flash-bang went off, knocking over several half-walls. Ty and Jay rushed over
to the spot, Ty drawing his pistol. Problem with automatics was that they ran
out of ammo to damn fast.
Nothing. The circular magnesium stain from the grenade was visible on the
floor, as was a conspicuous area where there was no flash residue. As if
something had been lying on the ground, right next to the grenade. Any normal
man, armor or no, could not have gotten up after being so close to the grenade
detonation.
"Fuck," someone said. That was all anyone could say.
*****
Later, after the MaxTac boys cleaned out the building and the forensics team
IDed the bodies, there were more questions than answers. Michaels was found in
a closet, his head crushed as if by a vise. He had an empty pistol in his
hand, his rigid fingers still locked around the grip. Gel powder residue on
his hands and chest indicated that he had been firing the weapon as he was
being killed. Point blank shots. If the pistol was some cheesy 9 mill, Jay
could pass it off to body armor. But Michaels had a .45, the clip chambered
for magnums. No one, no matter how high on Killer, no matter how doped on
'roids, no matter how thick the subderm armor, could take that kind of
punishment. Even if the rounds didn't penetrate there would be enough blunt
trauma to powder ribs and collapse lungs. Jay didn't want to think about what
it was that killed Michaels.
Even more disturbing was the MPEG taken by the AV of a blurred figure caught
in the act of leaping off of Sampson's car. Unfortunately the shot was of the
entire building, so computer enhancement couldn't resolve enough pixels to
reliably view the figure. The whole thing was dead-black anyway, it had no
detail to highlight it's features. Lt. Ravine took one look at the film clip
and stalked off, a peculiar fear gnawing at his guts. He reached that same
conclusion as Sergeant Tsarkhan, that a cyborg was somehow involved. He
refused to speculate on -which- cyborg.
Sean had uncovered some disturbing information on his final raid on Militech's
data fortress. Seems that Militech had a much better idea what it was that set
off the Enforcer than they had let on. With a warrant for Michaels on disk,
Sean had enough backing to get into the corpie's personal files. Militech
didn't like it, they tried to stage an "accident" to erase the crystal, but
Hal had already downloaded the info. Militech couldn't react fast enough to
prevent themselves from being double-teamed. The megacorp appeared to resign
itself for the inevitable, lawyers and PR snakeoil salesmen were all over the
place, looking for chinks in Militech's rep for their cover-up plaster. Ravine
could easily leak the entire scam, drill so many holes in Militech that all
the money in the world couldn't save them face, but he didn't try. For
starters, he wished to live a long life, Militech would ensure that didn't
happen, or at least his life wouldn't be a happy one. Second, he had his man.
No point in dragging down a corporation that was one of the supporting pillars
of the city, not to mention the country. Finally, he was tired. Stress and
worry had taken it's toll, Jason couldn't go without sleep like he once could,
his body couldn't repair itself like it used to. Starting the beginning of the
new year, Ravine was going to take a year's worth of accumulated leave and get
away.
As for the dirt that Sean and Hal had dug out from underneath Militech's
compost pile, it was black and very smelly. What Michaels did, and would have
continued doing, was one of the worst crimes seen since the Mob wars. Black
market body snatching, a dozen brains and kilometers of nerve tissue bought
cheaply on the side, embezzlement, shoddy programming; corners were cut almost
everywhere. Militech's entire Enforcer Mark II line was going to be recalled
and dismantled, the corruption had rendered them dangerous and a major
liability. Ravine was willing to bet that the shockwaves would roll all the
way to the top. Arasaka and Karhani Industries must be giddy with glee, their
major competitor caught with their pants down. The public would never know of
course, at least not the whole truth, but the important people knew, and that
was what was critical.
It had all boiled down to a slight data error. The Enforcers might have been
successful, at least for some time yet, if a single critical line error hadn't
destabilized the drug injector computer in Enforcer 14's brain. When the flow
of controlling hormones and sterols was upset it set off a chain reaction of
mood swings and neural damage, driving the Enforcer insane and twisting it's
software programming. The cause of this line error? That was the kicker.
Several months ago Militech's Cyborg Autonomics Software division was
transferring the driver software progs over to the factory installing the
hardware computers. Although the convoy of data icons was protected and on a
quasi-secure line, a hacker initiated an attack with a Demon prog on the
convoy. While the nearby Netwatch 'runners responded to the attack and were
embroiled in the swirling electronic battle with the data guards the hacker
penetrated the NCPD archives. Although the hacker was supposedly driven off
before he could steal any info, the convoy suffered damage. The factory didn't
ask for a retransmission due to time constraints and the damaged progs were
unwittingly integrated into the Enforcer borgs. One error was in a critical
piece of code, causing the drug imbalance. Thus began the unraveling of
Michaels delicately woven web of corruption and crime.
Ravine sat down on a overturned garbage bin. He stared at the deep imprints in
Officer Sampson's patrol cruiser. As cops and legal types raced around him and
media dogs sniffed for blood, Jason blankly gazed at the wide dents, each
about a half meter long and several centimeters deep in ceramic plate. It was
easy to imagine a 2 and a half meter humanoid, deep black and metallically
insectiod, running off the cruiser and diving into the building to get revenge
on the man who created it. It sounded like a high-tech Frankenstein, but if
any remnant of humanity had emerged in the cold logic of a computer-controlled
mind, that might have been a driving impulse. It was something Charles Sunn
would have done, if he wasn't buried at Epson mall under meters of concrete
rubble and steel, a cyber-corpse waiting for someone to dig him out. But what
if someone did scrape through the impenetrable stone and found nothing?
Lieutenant Jason Ravine didn't want to consider that possibility.
The End
--
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Jason Kendelhardt Violence is Golden
kendejd9@wfu.edu and I have the Midas Touch
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