From: Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Subject: Rio del angeles
Date: 17 Nov 1994 05:49:13 GMT

Well, I couldn't stop with just one... Man... becoming an addict
to writing since I found a place to put it... who knew.. /!-`

Down by river. Down by the bay. Deep in the city. Far far away. 

The city has a river now. Rio del Angles. River of the Angles. It
starts among the culverts & creeks of upper middle class suburbia. The
foothills. It progresses through a seires of gates and checks.
through dams, lockes and all manner of obstruction. The gangs say the
river begins at Red Honda. the Honda is a shadowed expanse of brush and
scrub, where nothing grows save that which can tolerate the shadow of
intercoastal I-22. Some years back, on an overpass far above, a
red honda civic ran a guard rail and impaled itself along with it's driver
on a steel grid cordoning off upstream from downstream. It's called
red not for the car, but for the color the water adapted as it washed
past the next day. Below rh, the river moves through large cement and
concrete spillways. All that concrete. All that cement. It's a magnet for
kids. Especially in the more urbanized areas, where the river's banks
are verticle walls which stretch 50 feet to the city surface. It's
quiet durring the day. Dead quiet. Nothing lives on river in the light
of the hot californian sun. The combination of heat, smog and low lying
areas makes it a death trap. Only at night, when the winds scream down
from the hills, lifting the smog, lifting the tarps, bringing life to the
river. Down there by West 35th & Demarco Pkwy, down in a concrete
canyon. Jeon slid down a length of steel rebar, his gloves glistening from
repeating this trip many nights before. Entire empires were erected as the
last rays of the sun faded and vanished again as the sun crept over
the horizon hours later. Loud afri-latino rythmes washed down the
chasm from the direction of 34th street. 'A different kind of river ' he
thought. 'A river of sound. A river of money.' And in many ways he was
correct. Money started out in the hands of the `burbs from which the river
sprung. It filtered down through the social classes in all manner of
transaction. All manner of deal. Ahead of him, he could see headlights shining
against the wall of a curve in the river. No one moved fast in the river.
The lights swung to meet Jeon in the eyes then softened. Criks. A
paradoy of the 'Crypts' which had run the north side of town back before the
turn of the century. Starting to hum now. Sounds coming down from both
ahead and behind. A party had started off to the west and a steady
procession of lowriders adorned in chrome & smoked glass was moving in the
general direction of city central. He walked faster. A hot wind stirred
the debris in the river, leaves, newspaper forming moving walls
headed down stream in clouds of silt and dust which were left by the annual
flooding. The party was close. He could feel it as the cement beneath his
foot vibed and pitched in harmony with the larged I beams pounded into
the ground, hooked to amps and set to send out a steady beat. One
that some could hear and all could feel. Pushing through the crowd on the
outskirts of the gathering, stumbling underneath a semi-truck turned stage.
He soon beame lost in the crowd. Absorbed into the mass-euphoric state of
river parties. - - Later. Hours later, he felt the breeze again. Cool and
cleansing. 'Odd' he thought, the wind seldom came from any place where it could be
cold. We wind grew. Then he caught the rider on this cool wind in the
early predawn. It was a time back in his childhood. He did not wait to
conciously make the connection. He ran. He ran into the night.
Away from the lights, the sound. He knew. Another must have known. She ran
next to him. Side by side in this deadly game of survival. He caught hold
of a rusty length of chainlink fence spilled down into the chasm by
vandals decades earlier. He threw himself against it, oblivious to the
sting of concrete. Climbing. Reaching. The girls was not far behind. He
hoped she would make it but did not turn to look. As he heaved himself over
the retaining barriers atop the rivers verticle banks and felt the
sickly sweet warm engulf him as the gases from upstream which had been
pouring in throughout the night, ignited. A white fireball rode down the
river like satan himself come calling on the city itself. The heat
subsided a few minutes later as he pulled himself to his feet. Out of
breath, He peered down the fencing glowing red hot. She hadn't made it &
once again, the river had it's angles.


...any feedback or whatever, report requests would be fine...


From Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Model Rockets
Date: 18 Nov 1994 07:27:01 GMT

This is the second item in the 'Rio del Angeles' run... Njoi!
/!-`


Model Rockets

The smooth chrome of the airstream trailer distended and bulged as the
pressure door pushed outward and slid to the side on silent tracks. John
shaded his eyes from the noonday sun as he gazed across the horizon. The
jagged beige haze far off in the distance were the SanPadres mountains,
which were the only things punctuating the milky blue sky save for an
antenna rig 100 meters to the south & the windsock beside it. Sliding a
pair of dust goggles down from his bandana, he slung a pair of binoculars
over his shoulder and walked out across the vast expanse of dustflat
before him. -

At a certain point when increasing the thrust and decreasing the wight of
an aircraft, having a lifting surface, a wing, becomes unnecessary. This
usually occurs somewhere beyond mach 1 with machines employing liquid
oxygen fuels.

The junk yards & garages of south eastern california hadn't seen business
in decades. Occasionally a trucker would require a repair, but such
events became less frequent as more and more switched over to Co-Ops with
repairs contracted out in franchise to the lowest bidder. Still the water
was not entirely gone and a generation of grease monkeys continued to
haunt the highways of Chauposo County. It was among these men that John
had first heard about the rockets. 

- He felt it before he saw it. An inaudible buzz piercing the soles of
his boots. A glimpse of metal lost in the dusty sky. John pulled his
binoculars out of their case and examined the sky. The dust trail to the
south was turning red as it turned and headed in his direction. Replacing
the binoculars in their case and checking the airtight seals around it's
lid. He pulled a painters mask about his face, adjusted his goggles and
faced the oncoming trail. 

Ebb couldn't see his hands. Nor his legs. Nor any part of his body save
the nose on his face. He knew the controls on the rocket by touch alone
and what he couldn't discern through his fingers or through the rattle
and vibration of his vehicle, a headsup display brought him in realtime.
Banking now, making the turn, 3g's. His course in reference to a GPS
beacon placed atop the trailer glowed in blood red LCD above his right 
eye. He wouldn't see John. At this speed, sight changed. You no longer
saw objects, you saw the flow of the dustflats, the sudden spike as the
flats grew into hills, the hills into mountains. And after the mountains,
the bright ball of fire as you become a 1/4 of an inch thick steel, flesh
and fire pancake stuck to a rock face. Ebb smiled, thinking back to when
he first heard that expression. Over a corona in a sheetmetal barn
waiting for a dust storm to die down. On that day, there had been 2 other
teams out on the flats. A pair of brothers from the Dakotas and two
australians who had come clipping along at about 120 mph in their semi,
with the dust storm hot on their ass.  

His body rattled as he pulled the rocket into a narrow turn, taking care
not to put it 'on the side' as he called it. Static crackled over the
link, broken by three distinct tones. Johns voice boomed in his headset
'Looks like another bitch kicking up from south of the border. WE-Sat
puts the winds at 75 and rising, I clock it at about 20 mins out, time to
head home. Out' 'Roger. Fire up the truck, I want to push through to
S.L.A. by morning.Out' Ebb pushed the throttle almost to redline taking
the vehicle to the far end of the flats before beginning its landing. He
took care to avoid the dust trail his engine had been carving all over
the flats, since fine grit, impacting at twice the speed of sound has the
same effect as a carbide tipped drill on a RAMjet. He listened for the
click as the engine throttled down and prepared himself for the jerk on
the stick as the airbrakes unfolded. 


John pulled the massive Mac-Freightliner-2000xrl around and lowered the
loading ramp on the tail end of the flatbed. He had already broken down
and slung the antenna and windsock beneath the loadbed and was in the
process of moving the Airsteam trailer up onto the forward part of the
Bed, directly behind the cab, when he got notice of the approaching
storm. The wind was beginning to gather and he pulled out a pair of worn
leather gloves in preparation for loading the rocket. 

The vehicle was almost in sight when he touched down. It was called
touching down, but he was still 2 feet off the ground, moving at well
over 110 mph. He was a good 20 miles from the truck according to the
radar display. He heard the click from switches beneath the fingers of
his right hand, lost somewhere in a web of cables, ducts, onboard circuits 
and servos. The whine of the landing gear , which did nothing
save keep the rocket upright when on the ground, calmed his nerves. The
lights on the truck flared on giving him a visible beacon to steer
towards as he throttled back on his speed, and gave the machine full
flap, slowing from 90...80...70...55...40...

The rocket was a religious thing to watch when it landed. Like some sort
of old testament angle coming from the far ends of the earth. In reality,
it was a salvaged engine from a Mig-28 with a canopy from a Tomcat stuck
to the underside. It's wings looked like the composites of flaps from all
manner of aircraft, creating a metal version of a flying squirrel. Only
this squirrel had a tail from a LearJet and near mach3.2. 'Kickass Flying
Squirrel' John thought. He turned around opposite the rocket and looked
at the sunset, blood red with the approaching dust storm. The canopy
below the whining engine whirred and parted, lowering Ebb in his G-webbing 
onto the ground, where he unclipped himself and waited for the
vehicle to retract it's nylon buckled tentacles and to close the 
plexiglas mouth. Ebb sat down on the edge of loading ramp and began to
shrug out of his flight gear. 'vas rockin, jah?' John said in mock
imitation of a german duo they had met earlier that week. They both burst
into laughter. 'Little stiff on the turns still, gotta fix that to run
the river and come out 3-dimentional' 'It's probably the fuelmix
circuitry. It auto-compensates for the turn by dumping some NO3 into the
afterburners to cool down the reaction. We can do a dryrun sometime
before we hit I-22 to make sure all the bugs are worked out.' John
replied and added 'Well, better get 'er under wraps before sunset.' Ebb
pulled a large beige tarp from beneath the bed of the trailer running it
upwind of the truck while John took out the a servo control unit and
plugged it into the rockets onboard computers. The entire flying machine
began to twitch and jitter as it sank down from the normal height of it's
landing gear (7 feet) to a more manageable 2 feet and proceeded to
'drive' it up over the loading ramp onto the truckbed. Not too dissimilar
from a radio controlled car. John then proceeded to imitate a low-rider
carhop and began raising and lowering the 15 ton aircraft in a rocking
manner. 'Wiseass!' Ebb chorted from upwind 'Come help me with the tarps.'

Some 20 minutes later, the truck was roaring across the dustflats in the
direction of UI-7 at just over 90 mph. The rocket resembling a wingless
wasp in it's beige tarps and retaining straps. The distinction between
day and night had been lost as the dust storm enveloped the rig, bound
for South LA.

...feedback...repost reqests... whatever.. you know where it
goes...

From Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Night Shift
Date: 19 Nov 1994 11:41:32 GMT

Well, after a long day, a good nap and a proof read, the third piece in
the Rio del angeles line. Njoi!.  /!-`


Night Shift

Officer Fernando Vasquez pulled the flashlight from his belt, shining the
beam into the pushers face. The kid had his head shaved into three finger
wide strips of braided, bleached hair. He was 'lobospanico' and had just
been arrested in connection with a carjacking / deal gone bad somewhere
in uptown. Vasquez sighed. 'Why did they always run for the river? Maybe
because it was the only place they still owned in this city.' He turned
from the pusher, back to the 3 other youths kneeling handcuffed. Their
faces were caught in the headlights of a cruiser and their hair pulsed in
the breeze from an airunit still circling. A chorus of questions first in
spanish and then repeated in english floated over the whine of the
helicopter as it turned and made off in search of more interesting
business. Vasquez walked back over the scrubgrass, sliding into the
cruiser's shotgun seat. DeCono stirred, swatting at a mosquito. 'Lemme
guess, they don'know nothin `bout no carjacking, `ause they're just lowly
little drug pushing scum out walking home from a fiesta?' he offered,
eyes still closed. 'Not only that, but one of 'em's making a big fuss
about how tight his cuffs are and says he's gonna file suit against the
city.' Vasquez grinned. 'We're in the wrong business, we should have been
lawyers.' DeCono grinned with added sarcasm 'Well gosh darn it, if only I
didn't have morals, ethics, or a backbone.' The pair laughed as the car's
engine revved to life and they pulled back into the night on the backroads of Palos Verdes.

A spray of grass and dirt came out of the wheel well as the car jolted
across the median. KiD-Kay pulled at the wheel, trying to prevent the car
from slowing. 'Faster! Gotta go faster!' He gunned the engine, waiting
for the car to finish it's skid across bright green sod and then
accelerated. The smooth leather interior of the car was sprayed with
blood. A few drops clung to the dashsplay, but the kid paid little
attention as he ground the shift into 6th and swerved into the far
lefthand lane approaching 90. 

Static. Voices. Then one voice. '10-24 westbound. Last seen moving onto
Freeway at 3rd & Bristol Court. Subject described as latino youth, male.
Suspect is driving a stolen 1999 BMW 735i. Coded... two... foxtrot...
able... sigma... tango... four... utah... Suspect is armed. Apprehend
with extreme prejudice.' A tactical unit on anti-gang maneuvers was the
first to engage the suspect. Officer O'Kine brought the stylishly black
humvee alongside the vehicle, now moving at just over 110mph. The blue &
white strobe mounted atop the hummer caught the city in strange poses
with shadows reflecting and evading the light. O'Kine radioed back to
dispatch that the sedan, now designated by the 'tag' of 'Able Baker 19',
was accelerating and he was no longer able to maintain pursuit. 
The Kid's breathing slowed as he watched the black grill of the cop fade
into the night as he pulled away. 'Friggin nigger mobile couldn't touch
him. Couldn't take him now or never.' A thin bead of saliva rolled from
his lips as his thoughts returned to driving.

The next contact was by a SWLAFD helicopter coming in low out of the
mountains over the ribbons of freeway. They said that 5% of California
was now paved. The pilot was beginning to believe it as he radioed in the
direction, speed and approximate location of the tag before continuing
out on to the airport.

Vasquez jockied the laptop in his lap trying to unlatch the shotgun and
pull up a map of the suspects route at the same time. '...so if we take
the Mony Eastbound to 73rd, we can nail his ass just before the bridge?'
DeCono asked. 'Just barely...' Vasquez jabbed his finger on the ldc
display to indicate the intersection. 'turn here!' and as his partner
responded he took the cellular phone and called in 'Have hurricane7 in
the vicinity of 73rd and Rivergate. Adam9 en route.' Fitting the laptop
back into it's dock with the onboard computer between the front seats,
Vasquez took up the shotgun, unloaded the NLW-Round and replaced them
with the bright orange shells of police issue OO.

Twenty minutes later found the officers gathered around the the crumpled
front end of the BMW, now firmly wrapped about a concrete post. 'The
suspect' Vasquez thought 'a latino, had most likely come up from Mexico a
few days earlier strung out on sniffing spraypaint, as evident from the
silver residue on his nose and cheeks. Decided he needed some spending
money and stole a car, killing the owner in the process.' Vasquez began
filling in other parts of his report in his mind, anticipating the
paperwork behind this arrest. Walking from the wrenched open door of the
sedan into the crystal white light from hurricane7 he turned again to
watch as the suspect was cuffed and placed in back of a black and white
LAPD hummer. He turned toward DeCono who was perched in the nook of the
door and the cruiser talking on the radio. He waved to Vasquez. Time
seemed to grow still, as a shout on the radio carried from the cruisers
speaker to Vasquez. Hemade out the words '...Get the hell out of th...'
before being engulfed by the concussion wave from the explosion. Rolling
to the ground. Dimly aware of the orange fireball where DeCono has been.
Now running. He stumbled, hurling himself into the underbrush. There was
a grinding sound as he saw the humvee scrambling in reverse away from the
dirt road which led to back from the river's edge. Another explosion.
This time preceded by a line of white from somewhere on the opposite edge
of the river. Shots came from the humvee. Red tracer fire arcing across
the vacant lot into the river canyon as the vehicle bounced off the
cruiser. Both vehicles were lost in a shower of sparks. Regaining their
purchase on the ground, the vehicle swung a turn and skidded back onto
the broken asphalt road. The driver gunned the engine and tore away,
heading in the direction of the freeway. Small arms fire sounded in the
distance. Vasquez was silent. He lay perfectly still, waiting for some
sound. Several minutes later he noticed that the helicopter's light was
no longer playing over the ground and that the gentle breeze from the
rotorwash had vanished. Getting into a crouch on one knee, He looked up
from the bushes where he lay concealed. The fire burned lower now, most
of the gasoline having been burned off. A few of the bushes nearby
smoldered having caught fire from the initial explosion.

Vasquez felt for his piece in the holster at his side, unbuckling it and
removing the safety. It was going to be a long night. And if he was
lucky, it wouldn't be his last. 

...whatever goes you know where...to me...

From Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Rio Del Angles : Trip
Date: 21 Nov 1994 07:59:59 GMT

Trip

Ebb set one of the styrofoam trays on the asphalt and balanced the other
precariously on his hand as he climbed of the behemoth. Handing John his
takeout, He returned for his own & the drinks. Popping the lid, Ebb
devoured his eggroll, teriyaki chicken and Mongolian beef at light speed.
'That walk take alot out of ya?' John grinned at him. He was referring to
the half mile of hot black asphalt between the mall entrance where they
had gotten the food and where the rig was currently parked. Ebb swiveled
in his seat and stepped into the bunk compartment. At his feet, a steel
trapdoor led down to a compact machinists shop, and above, a minimal
ladder led up into a half-height plexiglass bubble atop of the cab.
Grabbing the ladder in both hands, Ebb swung himself up into a crouch and
gazed back across 'the parkinglot from hell or sourthern california, take
your pick' he thought. A good two stories off of asphalt which literally
"would cook an egg." 'Time to move out, if your still intent on running
it this weekend.' he hollered down the ladder. John's response too the
form of a loud whine from the dynamos as they began to flood the starter
with a static charge. Then the muffled thump as the gas turbines beneath
the floor sprang to life. A 58 speed ceramic shift meshed smoothly in
it's vacuum box with the transaxle and the truck began to move. 

At an altitude of 21,047 kilometers above the earths surface, the 'State
of California Traffic Sat 12' registered a new beacon on the
inter-coastal expressway. Decoding the signal and relaying that
information to various 'smart-cops' placed along the roadbed took a
fraction of a second. Slightly longer for the satellites uplink to
receive & calculate data on current direction, speed and traffic density. 

John put the rig into GearSet 12 and passed the slip of thermal-fax paper
back to Ebb, who noted in large oblique type SPEED ASSIGNMENT : CLASS A
PRIORITY. 'Gods must be feeling generous' Ebb remarked, running his thumb
across the State of South California Seal. 'Gods nothing, this is
SoCalDMV.' John laughed at his own joke, glancing down at the readout
which was listing their ETA at about 9.3 hours. 'Used to be' he thought
'You could drive halfway across the state in that amount of time.' Course
that was before the state of California purchased 1/8th of Mexico.

John awoke to the bleeting of his alarm, which pulsed in red
alphanumerics from the nook of his bunk. He squinted at, trying to
register the time. He wasn't due to take the wheel for another 2 hours.
'Shit' he thought. Pulling on a pair of faded black combat pants, he made
his way up into the front of the cab. '#17 is running a little too hot,
go take a look at it, and lemme know if we need to stop.' Ebb spoke,
looking up from the alien green lane markers, streaming by in the
approaching darkness. John grunted and vaulted back into the Bunk
compartment, pulling open the trapdoor and swinging down into the narrow
machinist shop. Contorting himself, he crawled the length of the service
tunnel into a plexiglass cage hung amid the thundering wheels of the
rig's cab. Flicking a small switch somewhere above him, spotlights
illuminated the wheelwells, axles and other mechanisms working to keep
the truck moving at 120 mph. A glint of reflected light told him that the
#17 tire was leaking O2 and would need to be changed. 'Double Shit' he
muttered, worming his way back into the machining room and up into the
front of the cab.

Ebb played at the keyboard as John took the wheel. In reality, it
mattered little who was actually driving, as the onboard computer did
most of the steering corrections. The driver was essentially a central
chip in the whole logic process, deciding what measures to take, where to
go, and how fast to go there. Ebb began with a search of service-stations
in the area which could handle a Class 8 rig such as theirs, and then
began to compare factors such as distance from road, AAA ratings and
estimated repair times. Rates were homogenized by trucking unions such
that you paid about the same everywhere, thus ensuring an equal amount of
business to each station in the co-op. Dammit. Out in the midwest, where
the unions had dissolved and independent stations still existed, they
would just have you slow your rig down to 40 mph on a 100 mile stretch of
roadway, bring in a surplus military lifting blimp and pull you off the
road, run a service truck out underneath, and do the entire thing such
that you lost only 1/5th of the time you would actually stopping. Whole
thing ran about $1500 a shot, but time is money and it would have been
sorely appreciated by Ebb at this time. He sighed, their best bet was to
hit a QuakerStatePro and hope for a light work load. He punched the
command sequence into the onboard computer which began the process of
cooling off and slowing down parts involved in this service call while in
the cab above, Ebb silently cursed their luck watching the roadside
gradually slow as the truck anticipated it's departure from the
expressway.

feedback and the like to chandler@alaska.net

From Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: RDA - Musta had friends
Date: 23 Nov 1994 00:49:08 GMT

...fifth in the series...Njoi! /!-`

Vasquez breathed deep, trying to remember a yoga calming exercise he saw
on the Tv a few nights ago. 'DeCono' he thought. 'Shit.' Who the hell
blows away the fucking cops? This wasn't the right side of town for a
jamaican koke posse, and the only other people who carried that kind of
firepower usually were being sought by internation anti-terrorist task
forces or network television reporters. His brow cleared momentarily and
then moved on to more pressing matters, such as staying alive, and
getting back to a well lit street. They'd send someone back for him.
Hell, they'd send the goddamn marine corp in this neighborhood. Hard to
imagine people lived around here, he thought, looking across the vacant
expanse of dirt & brush in the direction of a few concrete buildings some
miles off to the south. A slight breeze rustled the bushes and moved on
down into the river canyon. Beyond that, the red of the city. Vasquez
squinted at the lights off in the distance trying to get some bearing on
which way to proceed, suddenly white. He blinked, trying to clear the
light from his eyes as if it were some sort of substance or film. His
vision adjusted and he realized he was pinned in a helicopters spotlight.
A voice boomed down through the rotorwash 'Officer Vasquez. We're here to
get you out, Sir.' He stood up, shielding his light from his eyes with
his hand, smiled and picked his way out into a clearing as the helicopter
descended toward him. The aircraft has no markings, flat black, and bore
no insignia save a red tail beacon flashing in the dust kicked up by the
rotors. He smiled as the wheels touched the earth and the whine from the
engine dropped an octave. Walking towards the craft, his eyes could see
now. Picking out shapes. Men. Two of them. His eyes widened. One of them
had a rif...The first slug slammed into his right shoulder knocking him
into the ground. Scrambling now. Into the bushes. The Helicopters engine
powered up and it lifted off, swinging in his direction. 'river' RUN!
Vasquez broke into a sprint. 'One place where they wouldn't come.' He
could see the edge now, no longer feeling himself running. Simply the
sensation of the ground sliding by underneath, smoothly like liquid.
Then, the rush of wind as he jumped and the sensation of being hit with a
sledgehammer as another round struck home just above his left kidney.
Falling now. The canyon floor rushing up to meet him. 

The sound of rotors was fading now. The helicopter was moving on. Vasquez
groaned, shifting himself in the narrow spillway recessed into the cement
wall. 'Who the hell is trying to kill me?' he thought. 'Whoever they
were, and whatever they wanted, they'll send someone to come get it real
soon, that or just wait for my corpse to turn up in the district morgue.
Why kill, when you could let the city do the job for you?' Vasquez
reached behind to his belt buckle, pulling open a black metal clasp and
removing his belt. He painfully twisted to reach the releases for his
Fibre vest, now 2 ounces heavier than when he strapped it on at the
beginning of his shift this evening.

It was good stuff he's bought from the pakistani. Expensive too. Ever
since the DEA had engineered a predatory virus to eliminate weed. These
days, it was grown in airtight visquine cubes, hung in some deserted
warehouse, hooked up to a full sensory array. The lush green foliage
surrounded by surgical white plastic. By the time it was ready to
harvest, the meter by meter cubes were bulging from the waterfat plant.
Jeon took another hit and passed the roach some guy with the old grateful
dead symbol tattooed into his shaved skull. Another member of the party
cursed and muttered something about needing to get back to work and
wandered off. The remaining members continued through one of the
sub-branches from the main river gradually losing members to various
turns, intersections and haunts along the concrete passage. Jeon found
himself heading up towards 70th, with a hot stack of twenties he'd
boosted from some hustler a couple miles back. His mind turned back,
trying to picture the scene. Then snapped back into its current setting.
A defense mechanism against guilt or remorse. He wasn't sure which. He
took a last drag on the roach and tossed it into puddle, which promptly
caught fire. 'Man' he thought 'bad shit getting tossed down here these
days.' recalling seeing a group of men in blue biohazard suits pushing
day-glo yellow barrels down an embankment. He wondered who they worked
or, and what they got paid. Work, now there was something he'd like to
have. A job. 

Vasquez could hear the soft footsteps approaching for a 1/4 of a mile,
amplified by the dense concrete walls on all sides. He let his eyes
adjust to the darkness, drew his piece and waited. The shadow became
visible against the charcoal grey of the river's walls just as he applied
pressure to the trigger.

Jeon heard the click off to his left. He tried to run, but ended up
skidding into a tangled mess of scrap metal hidden by the night. A bright
spark next to his right boot. He froze. 'Oh shit Oh shit Oh shit' his
mind jumped back to the guy he had knocked over. 'Musta had friends,
musta had friends!'

Vasquez limped slightly as he approached the shadowed figure, holding the
Glock was causing a deep burn in his shoulder muscle where he had been
hit a few hours earlier. 'Alright you little fuck, put your hands ontop
of your head, lace your fingers.' he commanded. 'Kneel and lie face
down.' Vasquez stepped closer, reaching to the plastic zip-strips at his
waist and removing one. 

 
..feedback and the like to chandler@alaska.net

From Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: RDA - ...cried with someone he loved.
Date: 24 Nov 1994 09:29:14 GMT

seventh in the series...

Cried with someone he loved.

John jumped up, hitting his head against the top of the cab. 'Shit' he
thought as he reached for the dirty harry slung behind the drivers seat
'The alarm!' He activated the floods and scrambled through the door onto
the top of the cab. Moving over the slippery plastic bubble onto the
windscreen he looked down across the bed of the truck to where part of
the tarp had been pulled off the rocket. The gleam of metal winked bright
in the pre-dawn glow. 'Aw Fuck!' he muttered as he slid down the metal
ladder onto the bed of the truck, in the distance he could here whoops
and shouts as the vandals headed for better pickings. He tucked the piece
under his arm, and walked over to inspect the damage. Nothing too
serious, just were going after some of the electronics, didn't get
anything. He smiled, cept a fuel cell. 'Get a nasty surprise when you
boys try to pop that one open, maybe the acid scars would teach you a
lesson about ripping off someone's stuff' he thought. Awake. Dawn was
coming soon, nothing much to do. He pulled a camp stove out from one of
the tool racks, lit up the butane flame and emptied a packet of instant
cocoa into a cup before setting to replace the fuel cell.

Ebb awoke around noon to the rumble of the rockets engine. Scratching at
his hair, he pulled a baggy work suit on and flopped out of the truck
onto the dusty riverbed. He recalled the landmarks he had used to find
this place, the turns from the expressway into one of the myriad of
smaller commuter streets, finally onto a backroad and now here, at the
ass end of the river. Squinting in the bright light, he lumbered around
to where the rocket sat beside the rig. A growth of cables, pipes,
hookups and trodes hung from the rocket, draped back into a series of
black electronics cases ontop of the bed. John was plugged in with a
greasy mechanics HMD displaying stereoscopic CAD images of the rockets
systems. He moved his hands as if caressing some invisible woman. Ebb
grunted and groggily walked into the airstream trailer, still just behind
the cab for a shower. 

It was just before sunset as the pair walked out away from the truck. A
dusty haze rose up from the ground as a stiff breeze began to blow. Soot,
grease, oil and jetfuel covering almost every surface of their clothes.
John hefted a 2 meter metal tube on his shoulder and an orange plastic
case under his arm, while Ebb unrolled a length of thick black cable
leading back to the truck. John unfolded the integral tripod on the tube
and removed caps on both ends. Ebb toyed with a GPS/LORAN working on
getting a fix on which way was magnetic north and what their co-ordinates
were, satisfied with the response, he pulled a ribbon of cables from the
unit and removed a steel cucumber from it's styrofoam bed, interfacing
the projectile with the GPS/LORAN and then entering more data on a
numeric keypad. Checking it once more, he handed it to John, who placed
it next to the two others beside him. He flipped down his nightvison
goggles and peered into the twilight ahead, the familiar angles of the
mouth of the river emphasized by bright red outlines drawn by the
circuitry atop his head. He moved slightly, correcting his aim and then
pushed a small red button on the underside of the tube. Gently sliding
one of the cucumbers into the rear of the tube, he listened for the
delicate click as it's fins expanded and it was locked in place. He slid
the other two rounds into a skeletal work of gears, springs and steel
frame on the side of the tube, making sure each round was vertically
aligned before he backed away. Ebb checked and rechecked the console,
making sure that the feed was 'hot' and that everything was as it should
be, thinking what a bitch it would be to have to do this again. Satisfied
one last time, he gave John a thumbs up and turned back to his console.
John glanced at a sidescan radar view, making sure there was nothing
coming down this section of the river, and then jamming his hand down on
the button. Off in the distance, the tube emitted three thunder cracks
and the job was on. John turned to a direct video image, with each of the
projectile feeds at the top of the screen, and a composite image grafted
onto the bottom. Ebb watched as laser range finders, altimeters, air
speed indicators and instruments too numerous to name registered on the
console. After an elapsed flight time of 5 minutes and 38 seconds, the
last of the three rounds had reached the foothills to the north leaving
only momentary flashes as the machinery incinerated itself. 

John pulled on his work gloves and began to break down the tube,
unplugging its power inputs and wiping the residual magnetic field left
after firing the railgun. Ebb meanwhile was pulling the flight data
cartridges from the equipment and slid each into a plastic dust sleeve
before toting them back into the trailer atop the rig's bed. 'You want to
warm up the Deck, while I go find some fresh grub?' John offered. Ebb
nodded and smiled. 'and something expensive, in case we need to
celebrate.' John grinned, pulling on a backpack and unhooking the
mountain bike from back of the cab.

He took a sip from his water bottle, in the warm summer night. A swarm of
insects had gathered around the crystal glow of a streetlight. John
shackled the bike to a phone booth. Ignoring the slow clumsy shadows in
the alley he pushed through a door adorned in layers of lotto holograms
and corporate stickers, advertising everything from hot coffee to massage
parlors. His mind lingered on the latter. It -had- been a while. Hell,
better to pull this run off and then go whoring in style. He nodded to
the indochinese clerk who promptly turned back to her Re-run of the daily
soaps on the little black and white security display. 'Shopping...' his
mind turning back to a time he had gone shopping with his mother in the
suburbs outside of Detroit. But the image faded and he turned his
attention back to a rack of stimulants, picking a particularly hot shot
of 'Cafination.' 1500 mgs. 'Chriiiiist.' Wanna jump start a dead cow? He
grinned. Grabbing the rest of the food, he dumped it ceremoniously on the
cashier's black rubber checkout belt. As she rung it up, he stared
vacantly at the architecture of the store. It was old, a decade at least,
since everything within the last 10 years had armored glass between you
and the person at the cashregister. The clerk gestured at the display.
19.32. 

Prices weren't so bad. He removed the lock from the bike. Half the stuff
was imported. The other half wasn't even real. He was suddenly aware of
the painful memory of his mother telling him that one afternoon in the
projects. He let the bike clang against the wall as he dug into his
pocket, fishing out a quarter. He cried that night with his mom. He cried
in the black plastic cubicle of the payphone, He cried for things lost,
He cried for things to come. But most important, he cried with someone he
loved.

feedback... maybe I should compile and post all 7 in a single package?

From Chandler <chandler@alaska.net>
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: RDA - 777
Date: 27 Nov 1994 05:14:58 GMT

eighth in the rio del angeles line... Njoi! /!-`

777

Jeon shifted his weight, trying not to sit on his hands, bound together
behind his back. He shivered, part from the cool night air and part from
fear. 'If he was just after the 20's he'd have capped my ass long ago.'
he thought. 'Try to talk to him.' 'So, uh, you umm, like, why you do this
often?' his voice came out wavering and he immediately regretted having
said anything. The man spoke without turning his attention from Jeon's
coat, which he was currently sifting through, taking an inventory of his
belongings. 'Yeah. But usually I get paid for this kinda stuff.' 'SHIT!'
Jeon tensed. 'Some sort of corporate mafia ninja asskicker out to reclaim
his company's property!' his mind screamed as he passed out. 

Vasquez looked back hearing the dull thud. He smiled. The kid fainted.
Not surprising. Cold, Shock, Stress. Alot of people probably would. He
draped draped the coat over the kid's chest and turned turned back to the
small pile of paraphernalia he had removed from the kid. A gerber combat
knife. A half pack of bubble gum. Some weed. Some petty cash, about $60.
And a milk white plastic case divided into compartments. The entire thing
was sealed with day-glow orange 'biomedical' stickers and when he shook
it, he could hear a number of items inside. Pills he thought. He'd have
to ask the kid about it when he woke up. But first, he needed to get the
both of them someplace safe. Breathing lowlevel smog and industrial fumes
wasn't particularly good for your health, but neither was being shot at
by your own police department. He hefted the limp body onto his
shoulders, wincing at the pain and lumbered off into the night, heading
down stream.

7 sat on the white polycarbon bench in the locker room. He undid the
plastic fasteners and webgear, sliding off kevlar20 body armor and a
variety of communications & sensory gear. He handed the wrinkled black
mass to a Cadet who walked it off to a hamper to have it cleaned, the
instruments wiped and checked. 7 let the memories of the mission wash off
in the hot mist from the shower. He dressed in soft white police issue
sweats and took an elevator up to the debriefing room along with several
other members of his squad. The meeting was expedited as much for the men
as for the consultants who preferred not to spend time lingering over
some of the dirtiest work in the department. Getting up from his chair, a
blue slip of paper fell from his portfolio. 

'You sent for me, sir?' 7 stood at full attention as his commander
nodded. 7 began to take a seat, but he shook his head and said 'this'll
only take a sec.' 'That box you got for us back there is going to help us
out alot. You've been a good soldier, one of the best. And right now we
need someone who can help us out in a big way. The entire city is riding
on this one. There's a man you need to meet. He's waiting out front in a
car for you. Talk to him, 7.' His commander turned and looked through the
window across the dry cityscape.

'I've heard alot of good things about you, Charles.' the man said. His
suit was pressed with knifesharp creases. It spoke of wealth. 7 contained
his alarm. 'This man, knew his name.' The limo cruising through downtown
traffic, the suit, the aura surrounding all of this, was nothing,
compared to that single word. So few people knew his name. Those who did
were so valued, that they never left the department, Their minds were
salvaged after death and remained, interfaced with the departments
computers for all of time. Yet this man, who he had never met, who wanted
to talk to him, KNEW his name. He turned his mind back to the current
setting. 'Thank you, sir.' he said as the car entered an underground
parking garage somewhere in the downtown business district.

The halls of the clinic seemed to absorb both sound and light, like some
sort of of urban stealth chamber. Dim spotlights illuminated the way
every few meters, and soundproof walls, carpet and ceiling panels kept
even their footsteps from reflecting back at them. The receptionist
plodded along in front of him, finally stopping and holding open a door.
He stepped through into the brilliant white seen only in the downtown
clinics. A technician pulled a LCD monitor down to eye level, and
instructed him to stare at it cross eyed. The image, a pair of parrots,
seemed to grow closer and closer, until all vision was obscured and he
could only see black void. He slept quietly in a psuedo-seizure as the
technicians wheeled him into the surgery. 

7 stepped out into the sidewalk, a team of doormen spread out, clearing a
path for him to his car. The sedan drove out into the suburbs for the
remainder of the night. Finally coming to rest in the garage of a tract
house outside of San Bernadino. Curtains were sealed against the windows
and the interior security & debugging systems were last years model of
those in the CIA & OSI. An pair of aides sat on a couch watching
television. 7 found the basement stacked with black polycarbon cases,
stripped of labels and identification save an integral barcode implanted
in the plastic itself. 

The next night there was no moon. Samantha was up late working on some
baking for her daughters birthday the next morning. 'Couldn't sleep.' she
thought. Licking some cookie dough off her fingers, she turned and looked
out through the kitchen window across the street. Her spatula clattered
to the floor. In the dim light, a figure climbed into a helicopter,
silhouette against a streetlight and then lifted off into the dark clouds
above. Samantha's hands shook as she reached into the cabinet and pullout
a bottle of sherry... only after her 3rd glass did the quaking subside.

The sound was that of the wind rushing past the open door, somewhere
ontop of that, was a low pitched hum, from the noise cancelation gear
onboard the helicopter. 7 was the closest, the state of california had
ever come to a 'Six Million Dollar Man.' And now, amidst chances of rain
and flash flooding, he was flying into the meanest district of the City
of Los Angeles. SouthCentral 12.
From chandler@alaska.net (Chandler)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: RDA - Casbah
Date: 8 Dec 1994 07:05:45 GMT

Yo yo yo! I can post again... so let's pickup where we left off... !Njoi!
/!-`

Casbah

Jeon rubbed the red welts circling his wrists where the zipstrip had
chaffed against his skin. 'So, you popped this heavy mother and snagged
some broad spectrum antibiotics.' '20's!' the kid interjected. Vasquez
nodded, shading the sun from his eyes leaning against the cement retaining
wall where they had stopped. 'So you figured I was out for your scrawny
ass, when I came down out of the pipe back there?' Jeon looked away into
the sky, scuffed his foot in the dirt and muttered '...yeah' Vasquez
laughed. 'You mean to tell me, you thought I was some corborg' He slurred
corp and borg together 'out to take you down?' The kid nodded. 'Shit, no
wonder you pulled a casper. Well comeon, no sense staying around here, lets
go find get something to eat.' 'With what?' the kid sneered. 'no one takes
cash above 50th, and the people who do, would sooner slit your throat than
sell you it.' Vasquez frowned as the kid went on. 'And there's NO fucking
way we're going back into the river in daylight! Maybe your some sort of
Robocop, but I plan on enjoying my life, what little I have left.' Vasquez
smiled at him. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out the kid's knife
and his roll of cash, dropping them at Jeon's feet. 'Asshole!' The kid
mumbled. Vasquez turned and headed off in the direction of one of the
arcologies. The large red coding on the side signified it as Muni-Commerce
& Transit even though the city hadn't sent a man in there in years. 'hey.
HEY!' the kid shouted at his back. 'Aw, Fuck!' he thought, acknowledging
the monotony of the last 3 months. '...Hey Robocop, waitup!' he shouted as
he jogged to catch up beside Vasquez.

The arcology lay as a very low, very wide trapezoid expanding into a
quarter of the horizon. As they approached, it stretched around to come at
them from either side, wrapping them in shadows from the blocks which it
consisted of. LA had 53 such arcologies. 12 of which were still under
municipal jurisdiction. The city had invented black concrete to case the
outer shell. Quarried from the older sections of town, reprocessed, poured
50 ton slabs on the site. This design had a certain affinity for fire, and
this complex, like several others had been gutted by infernos until little
of the original internal design remained. The duo were now on one of the
cracked asphalt roads, which predated the structure ahead. Others walked in
the same direction and Vasquez paid attention to who was around, though his
eyes never broke contact with the entrance up ahead.

'The night never truly left the city, nor the city the night.' Vasquez
thought as he stepped through the door onto the central avenue running out
into the darkness. The path illuminated by hazy neon signs and for the more
affluent merchants, holograms which paced just above the heads of those
shopping. Jeon had brightened up considerably. Feeding off the electricity
in the air created by the eddy currents and tides of a black market
economy.

The avenue crowd thinned slightly as it flowed into one of the hidden
courtyards intermixed within corners, down 'streets.' An archaic jumble of
street signs listed directions and routes. A fine layer of grit covered the
floor, decades of neglect had left any public services out of working
order. Power was run through thick tentacles of extension cord snaking
along the metal framework which cordoned off the booths. The older
establishments were covered by webs of security bars, steel facade, and
layers of postickers. Everything had worn smooth in the flow of commerce,
people and time. "Go find us something to eat, and a jacket or something
for me... and see if you can't hock the '20s for a couple hundred." The kid
muttered a response letting himself become engulfed in the crowds.

Vasquez moved through side streets not of his own accord, but of one much
more primal nature. Turn. Here. He stopped in a relatively deserted stretch
of the side-street in front of a broken down ATM. The CTR was smashed
behind the thick plexiglass security grid. Half aware of his actions, he
reach down, and pushed his hand through the plastic molding of the keypad,
his hand punching a clean, slow hole in the machine. Numbers scrolled
before his eyes. NO! he thought. NOT NOW! The machine whirred to life. A
few sparks hissed from the monitor and the sheath covering the withdrawal
slot receded, depositing in his hand a stack of crisp, decade old, 100
dollar bills.


...feedback and such to chandler@alaska.net