From: michel_v@cpx.prograph.com. (michel_v)
Subject: Story -- Razors in the Forest, Part I
Date: 13 Jul 1994 15:20:15 -0300

Hi there... I am resasonably new at this.  Tell me what you think...

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The K-6a Militech Intruder was rolling hard.  550 knots air-speed,
terrain-following radar set to 1m resolution and in full active jam
mode.  In the cockpit, the weapons officer categorised every threat
radar they had within 200 miles;  beside him the pilot stared fixedly
at the computer-generated composite image of the terrain around him,
racing past the retina of his mind's eye.
	"10 miles back...  no indication of detection," the weapons officer
said.
  "Roger...  Ok, Ringo, we're coming down to 150 feet...  give our
passenger the stand-by.  Time over target is 1 minute and 12 seconds...
 Coming right to final course 215.2.  Keep defense supression systems
on manual.  When the passenger leaves, we pop up to 5 miles and go mach
2 on the way out.  One minute to TOT." the pilot said from his
cybernetic haze.
	"Ok, Jerry...  clock is ticking to TOT," the WO responded.  He
switched comm circuits.  "Knight.  We're 50 seconds to Broadsword.
Make sure your harness is tight or your lover will hate you for the
rest of your life..  TOT: 45 seconds.  'Feet-Dry' in 30 seconds.  The
bad guys don't know we're inbound yet...  Activate your Oxygen.  Check
weapons.  Downlink tactical map.  Good luck.  See you at the Chatsubo.
Hang on..."
   "FEET-DRY!" the Jerry triumphed as they blew past the coastline,
glowing in night-time phosphence.  "Open the back-door," he instructed.
   "Door opened," Ringo confirmed.  A 2x3 pannel snapped open on the
Intruder's back.
		"ON TARGET!"
	  "Passenger AWAY," Ringo confirmed, thumbing a press button.  There
was a shock as the passenger ejector-seat blazed away from the
aircraft.  The pilot immediately opened the throttles wide on all three
engines and went pure vertical.  His speed quadrupled in seconds and
his aircraft vanished from the local radar grid as suddenly as it had
appeared.

	Terrance Knight, better known in NightCIty media circles and Street
life as RazorTalk, slowly drifted to the jungle-covered earth over
which he had be thrown.  As his heart-rate slowly sank back down
towards the levels associated with panic, he turned his camera on.  The
test pattern played across his retinal view-finder, and then a
color-balance.  He looked around, towards the ground.  Even with being
able to see into the infrared, the jungle below looked absent of anyone
bearing a grudge against his enterance.  In fact, he suspected, is was
absent of anyone save himself.  Which suited him just fine.
	He landed hard, this only having been his third jump.  He didn't do
any damage to himself, unlike his second jump.  Limping around in a
covert CenAm Warzone hadn't been terribly amusing.  Thrilling, yes.
Amusing, no.
  He buried his chute...  it would bio-degrade within 48 hours of
exposure to a typical tropical soil.  He checked his gear,  adjusted
his hair, retouched his make-up, and went on-air.
  "Hi there, Sports-Fans!  Live and re-Plugged once more, its your ace
truth-seeker,  RazorTalk.  I've just hit the beach of some pristine
piece of paradise in the Polynesian Islands.  I'll give you travel
details later; after all, we don't want the bad guys to know where it
is I am yet.
   "Here's the scoop.  Right now, a soon-to-be exposed corporation is
using YOUR daughters for conversion to exotic sex-toys for the rich and
trendy of the Asian sphere.  That's right, all those missing persons
from assorted University dorms, all right here on this lovely island
getaway.  All drugged up, just waiting to be put under the knife for
one of those 'Play-Bunny' or 'Miss Kitty' exotic body-sculpts.  After
that, a bit of personality adjustment through brain-dance to get an
appropriately slutty trollop, and then its of to Chiban pleasure
parlours the Sphere-over.
		"But-hey!  Don't take my word.  I'll show you."  He switched off the
camera, and pressed TRANSMIT.  It data-bursted the clip over the Net to
his news distributer.  In 24 hours, it'd be on the street.  He fully
intended to be in Chiba by then.
		He started walking in the direction he needed to go, guided by  a
compass/ navigator chip running with its output fed to his Times Square
Marquee.  As he walked, he did some mental math...  the flight in with
the Delta-Jocks had cost him 25keb;  it was another 35keb a missle
used, but they hadn't fired so that didn't affect him.  Those nomads
were making a tidy living with that game.  He wondered where they had
gotten the plane.  He had thrown about 20keb into chasing the angles on
this story;  netrunners, solos, fixers.  That left him about 15keb
left...  then he'd have blown his entire life-savings on this one
story.  But he owed Dezyir the chance to find out what happened to her
daughter.
		Point Broadsword, as Jerry and RIngo had referred to it, was 2 miles
inland.  Both of the brothers had seen CenAm, and told him he could
expect about 1 mile per hour in the jungle, kitted.  That meant he was
two hours from the centre-island lake and associated facility which was
his destination.  He was in good shape, and the air here had more
oxygen in it than he was used to, so he was able to move well.  He was
more accustomed to concrete streets and mall-tiles under his feet,
though.
	The island was roughly shaped like a line of cocaine,  about 9 miles
wide and 41 miles long.  It rose upwards from the sea to a central
plateau sort-of thing.  The whole island was covered in trees and
bush...  a broad belt of white pacifc sand framed the whole thing.
RazorTalk was completely out of his element... he was a creature of the
City.  The DMZ was his home, the CBZ his play-ground and the down-town
his life.

	He was a half-hour from his target when he became a target.  He was
lucky...  he caught his opponent with his pants down.  Taking a leak,
in fact.  He snapped his camera  on, leveled his machette and said
"Finish up and be quiet... or I Freddy you like I was Manson."  The
other man nodded, and hastily finished his business.  Razor took the
intervening time to study  the other man...  Tall, solid and tanned.
Dressed in drab-olive with MAXXANNE corporate flashes.  A flak-vest and
Steyer AUG-020 SMG leaned up against a tree.  The soldier's eyes
flicked to it.
  "Don't.  It'll hurt," said Razor.  The man nodded.  "What's your
name?  Be truthful... the folks back home in TV-Land want to know,"
Razor asked, smoothly.  He might be able to get something useful out of
this fellow.
	"DEATH!" the solider shouted...  he was a blur;  boosted.  Rippers
flicked out of fingers and across Razor's kevlar.  Razor swung the
machette, a hard vertical swat aimed at his opponent's extended arm.
There was a resounding "WHANG" as ceramic met metal; the whole arm was
cyber.  The soldier's meat hand slammed into Razor's face hard,
knocking him flat.  Razor rolled away from the soldier as his opponent
tried to pounce on him, like a cat for the kill.
	The solider lept up and at him; five years of Akido re-directed him
face first into a tree.  Teeth crunched in an ugly corus.  His opponent
shook his head in surprise..  Razor knew he wouldn't be that careless
again.  They closed, trading jabs and blocks.  The soldier
crescent-kicked Razor in the face, knocking him down.  Teeth crunched
in an ugly corus.
	"That's pay-back, motherfuck!" the corper cursed.	As Razor landed
hard, his opponent scooped up the machette from where it had fallen.
Damn boosted reflexes, Razor thought.  The soldier coiled to leap;
Razor snapped his arm out, extending his wrist and open hand.
	"* * * CONNECT@SMARTGUN -- READY...." scrolled across his vison as his
derringer snapped into his hand from the spring-holster on his wrist...
 Cross-hairs appeared on his opponents forehead as he leapt.  The
bottom 5.56 barrel emptied its contents at 5800 feet/second into the
corper's skull, killing him mid-air.  Razor rolled away in time to
prevent being impaled.
  The last echoes of the gun-shot faded into the tropical night and
Razor shut his camera off.  He threw-up, the adrenaline giving him the
shakes.  He calmed himself, and turned the camera back on.  He took the
man's wallet out of his pocket.  "Dear Mr. and Mrs. Petifound,  your
ace truth-seeker,  RazorTalk regrets to inform you that your son died
at 1:02am on July 13th 2020 in the line of corporate duty.  My deepest
regrets.  TK."  He picked up the AUG-020 and the machette.  RazorTalk
turned of the camera, pressed TRANSMIT and started walking.
	Be the jungle green or grey, people died in them.  Some things never
change.

EOF Pt 1 ---