From: timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (Tim Kuehn)
Subject: "Siren Song"
Date: Thu, 2 Sep 1993 17:00:47 GMT

Character List:
---------------
Cognos: 	A big pug-ugly cyber-enhanced male with a serious
		AI problem.

Synthetic and	Cognos's synthetic (non-organic) and
Organic:	natural (organic) brain.

Kirsten: 	Daughter of a mystery man told to "hide" and then
		left her to fend for herself.

Flamboyant:	Newbie cyber-enhanced male still getting used to
		being part mecha and part human.

Silicon Street Avengers:	Street thugs.
Silicon:			Leader of the Avengers

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>From the end of: "Encounter #2"
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Flamboyant was head to head with the same madman who had so easily put him
down the night before, and the man wasn't happy at all.

	"Who are you? What you doin' here spyin' on the doc?" asked
	the madman. "Spit it out before I rip your head off!"

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Begin: "Siren Song."
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Complete, mind-numbing panic instantly filled Flamboyant's mind as he looked
in the eyes of the thoroughly enraged monster of a man. Pressure sensors
indicated he was going to be wearing a pair of pulped arms in a minute of
this monster kept up increasing his grip. Desperately he flailed about for
something -- anything -- to say that would get him out of this monster's
grasped when another voice interjected:

	"This man is a patient I was treating when you so rudely barged
	in this morning."

The monster looked down the hall at the lab-coated Dr. Carnes, and
visibly relaxed a little.  Then, looking back at Flamboyant he said

	"Then what you be doin' lookin' in on the doc?"

Flamboyant paused for a moment to determine what to safely say to this
man.

	"I came here to get my cyber systems re-balanced," started
	Flamboyant, "and since I find all this cyberware implantation
	work quite fascinating, and I've never found any records of
	such a young person undergo a full cybernetic implantation
	process before, I just had to stay and watch."

	"And I doubt you will ever see this again either," continued
	Dr. Carnes.  "What just happened in there could cause me to
	loose my license to practice medicine."

The man looked over at Carnes and said

	"Just long as she get better from this and we go quietly, there
	be no problem for doc from me."

as he dumped Flamboyant without a thought. Flamboyant rubbed his arms
after he got up. While he was doing this some of his AIs reported various
failure modes, causing Flamboyant to grimace in disgust.

	"Problems?" asked Dr. Carnes.

	"Yeah," said Flamboyant. "The AIs are going off-line by
	themselves now."

	"I told you not to re-activate your AIs before I completed that
	scan," said Dr. Carnes pertly. "If you get back in the diagnostics
	room I'll see what I can do about getting you back together."

			*	*	*

Cognos was in a bit of a quandry. He wanted to make sure he could keep
an eye on the kid, and he couldn't very easily go too far from her
without his out-of-control AI causing him more difficulties.  Something
else was bothering him -- a vague feeling he had seen this terror-stricken
mouse of a man the doc was working on someplace else before. But where?

The man was already headed down the hall to the room the doctor had
indicated, and where Cognos had first found them. Since it was closer
to the room where the kid was recovering, Cognos followed along, keeping
a close eye on the two of them to make sure they didn't try any funny
stuff.
			*	*	*

Darkness. All was seemingly pitch black to Kirsten's eyes as she tried to
look around. Then, off in the distance a pinpoint of light formed, which
quickly got closer and brighter. At first Kirsten felt afraid and tried
to cringe away from the approaching stranger -- but there wasn't any place
for her to hide in. No rooms, no corners, no shape, no substance, nothing
but a black, terror-filled void.
 a
Softly the light grew, filling the void with a whiteness that was both
reassuring and comforting. There still wasn't anything physical to orient
herself by, all was a soft, comforting whiteness. Kirsten was looking
around, trying to figure out what to make of all that she was seeing,
wondering how she got there, where that ugly man who had scared her so
badly had gone, when she was startled by a voice.

	<<Hello, child.>>

Kirsten looked around quickly. Where had that voice come from? Who had
said that?

	<<I am here, child,>> said the voice. <<I am within you
	now. Can you feel my presence?>>

Kirsten paused briefly, then said

	<<I want my daddy.>>

	<<I am sorry, I do not know where your daddy is,>> said the
	voice. <<Could you tell me more about yourself?>>

This time there was no hesitation. All that she'd been through had
been too much stress on the poor child and she cried for the one
source of reassurance she had had all the years of her brief life.

	<<I WANT MY DADDY! I WANT MY DADDY! I WANT MY DADDY!
	  I WANT MY DADDY! I WANT MY DADDY! Waaaahhhh!>>

The voice was silent.

Turning to run, Kirsten fled the sound of the voice as fast as she could,
but as she ran the sound of the voice pursued her wherever she went.

	<<Can you tell me more about yourself?>>

Kirsten continued to run frantically from the ever-present sound, when
she looked down and saw herself. Or, at least, it seemed like her body.
The skin and texture of her body was familiar, but there were also
various snakes and other hideous looking creaters digging into her skin,
or waving their heads through holes in her body. Screaming in abject terror
she began violently tearing at the monsters, trying to rid herself of the
terrors that were assaulting her.

			*	*	*

In the room marked "Surgery", an instrument indicator blinked bright
yellow on the front panel of an instrument as parts of Kirsten's body
began to twitch. As the twitches became more violent, the indicator
turned red and a warning annuciator began to sound.

Down the hall Dr. Carnes looked up from the patient she was working on,
heard the warning annuciator, and said

	"Damn."

Looking at Flamboyant, she said

	"You stay there this time, and don't get up!"

	"Yes doctor," said Flamboyant sheepishly.

Dr. Carnes hurried out of the room and sprinted down to the surgery. When
she got there the sight she was greeted by was the one thing she had hoped
she'd never see twice in her life.

			*	*	*

Cognos heard the annuciator go off and was about to grab the doc and
drag her down to surgery when she barged past him and ran full speed
down to where the kid was, with him on her heels, when suddenly hell
incarnate came calling.

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Comments, even one-liners, to timk@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca are always welcome!