From: paranoid@atl.mindspring.com (Kelly O. Wallace)
Subject: Scarecrow (Intro)
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 08:33:27 GMT

	Dripping and sniffling, the slight and hunched figure entered the
Chatsubo and awkwardly made his way over to a seat at the bar.
Muttering to himself, he began to empty the pockets of his overcoat
onto the shiny surface, sorting through his belongings intently.
	Locating a tightly-rolled bundle of multicolored currency, the
newcomer lifts his chin to the bartender, "All I've got are francs.
D'you take French paper here?" Ratz squints his eyes, as if that were
enough to check the legitimacy of the currency (or, for that matter,
the client), and nods silently. "Fine, then, I'll have a... hmm...",
he squints as he tries to make out the names on the beer taps and
pauses for a second to peer around towards the door, "Well, better
just make it a Shirley Temple. Extra umbrella, if y'would." A blue
50-franc note appears on the counter as the wad of bills is re-wrapped
and shoved, along with most of the other detritus on the countertop,
back into the man's overcoat pockets.
	The newcomer isn't much to look at, probably even if he were dry and
less unkempt. He obviously hasn't shaved today, and his hair looks
like it'd be a mess without the chaos wrought by the weather outside.
Tall and thin (the word 'emaciated' springs to mind), his too-large
clothes either hang on him or are plastered to him by the rain. At
least the clothing, if it were dry, would be fashionable - the
overcoat looks like an Armani (or an expensive copy of one), and
although wrinkled the rest of his outfit seems like it came from the
same store. He almost exudes an air of fatigue.
	Ratz arrives with the parasoled drink and scoops up the blue currency.
"Anything else?"
	The newcomer patted his front down, "Hmm... well, d'you sell
cigarettes here? Any American brands?" Ratz nodded and pointed to the
cigarette girl making the rounds in the Chatsubo. The newcomer ahhed
and nodded, finding a crumpled red and white pack in his coat pocket
and extracting the last of his own supply.
	Glancing around the bar with the cigarette dangling from his lips, he
fished around on the bar for his lighter, "Get many... ahh... players
in here?"
	Ratz grunted as something approximating a grin crossed his face, "Lots
of posers and 'artistes'. All of them want to be players, but most of
them are just gonna wind up losers."
	The newcomer took a drag on his cigarette, slowly exhaling as a smile
crept onto his own features, "That's that way it's got to be, my
friend." He paused, "At least, in any game that matters." He extended
his hand across the bar towards Ratz, who tensed momentarily, "I go
by... or rather went by, 'Topeka', so you must be Ratz."
	Ratz glanced at the offered hand but didn't shake, "Yeah. So?"
	Topeka withdrew his hand and smiled, "Didya ever notice how no one's
ever expected to _walk_ to an airport anymore? Is that a conspiracy or
what?"


-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*|The hospital, with its forty-four beds, soon cared
   Kelly O. Wallace     |for perhaps 3000 wounded and, from a model field
paranoid@mindspring.com |installation, it became an apocalyptic charnel house
                        |in whose dark recesses the wounded would lie in the
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*|muck and stench of their own blood and excrement.


Article 5980 of alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo:
From: kendall@suburbia.net (Kendall Lister)
Subject: Re: Scarecrow (Intro)
Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 20:44:55 +1100
Organization: 'Verse & Prose' - dedicated to free e-publishing.
Lines: 18

In article <4epttn$h13@brickbat.mindspring.com>,
paranoid@atl.mindspring.com wrote:

>        The newcomer isn't much to look at...

'You can say that again.' muses the young girl stepping carefully through
the gloom of the chat. Stepping up next to the scrawny, sodden excuse for
a person, she leans her back up against the bar. At her diminuitive height
this is not as causual a gesture as she might have intended it to be.
Propping her elbows onto the bar behind her, she reaches up to brush back
a strand of sandy hair from her face, after first pulling the overlength
sleeve of her mottled grey woollen skivvy. As soon as her hand comes down
from her face the sleeve falls back over her hand. Sticking her thumb out
seems to be the only way to keep it back.

"So, Topeka, what brings you to the chat?" A distinctly european accent is
evident. She spies the cigarette in the man's hand with apparent glee, and
gestures to it with her right hand. "Got any more?"