From: sinister@ac.dal.ca
Subject: Crossed Re-post:  MC2013 Streets of Snow and Fire
Date: 13 Dec 92 03:19:41 GMT


This piece was originally posted to alt.romance.chat;  It was recommended
I repost to this group.  So, here it is....

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	20:00:28 // Thu  12-10-1992

		MetroCity 2013--  Streets with snow and fire
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	Jonny Synchronicity walked through the city core in the falling
snow.  It was a strange color, he thought, being white.  He was used to a
much more normal dirty grey tinge.  The DMZ in MetroCity was quiet
tonight...  The downtown was a microsym of the Pre-Flash world, he
reflected.   During the summer, hot and exciting;  during the winter, cold
and quiet. The retina display in his vision showed a sudden
blinking arrow pointing to the bottom-right and the range to the
motion-source; 6.41 metres. He mentally triggered the Mantis-style Kung-fu
skill-wire, became a black-belt, and turned in time to block the
Ganger's knife.  He came out of the block with two sharp blows to
his opponent and then swept the Ganger's legs out from under her.  He
pulled the Fucheeta Arms pistol out and placed the LED cross-hairs in his
sight on her tattooed forehead.
	"Bang, Bang," he said.  Pause. "You'd best get lost before the gun
mimics me."  She ran.  He fired a shot into the wall over her head, on
purpose.  He sighed.  He was gonna have to hire a Solo;  if she'd been
Boosted, he'd've been Dead.  He slipped the cannon into the shoulder-rig
beneath his electric-blue leathered armor-jacket.  Custom fitted, don'cha
know.
	He resumed his walking.  In truth, he didn't have anywhere to go.
He kicked some snow; it was falling fast, a fine grain powder in a shining
crystal white.	Sort of like cocaine.  Was that why they called it snow?
He didn't know.  Maybe, somewhere, outside the City, it always fell like
this.
	An RDT, or Robotic Delivery Truck, roared past, blasting him with a
presure-wave of snow, exhaust and freezing air.  He shivered, but didn't
break his stride.  Not that it mattered, he wasn't going anywhere.  Still,
if you were walking like you had purpose, that was cool.  To be chilled,
you had to have a goal, a place to be and a reason to be.  Or look like it.
	Jonny Synchronicity, Master of the Masquerade of Cool, that was him.
He had the Hardware, the Newtech, the Artillery and the Rep.  He had
StreetPunks in this sector who looked at him and *knew* that *that* was
the Man, Jonny Synchronicity.
	The good thing about cybernetic eyes, Jonny thought, was that they
don't cry.  No matter how hollow you felt inside.

	A while later, he didn't know how long and really he didn't care,
he came to another alley-way.  He looked in, his right eye scaning the
infra-red and the left on image-enhance.  A short way down they alley
(15.23 metres, to be digitally exact, not that it mattered) was a small
fire....  Someone had thier Outfit scattered around it, and was drinking
something that steamed out of a cup.
	She looked up, the twinned 10 gauge centring her gaze on him,
framed at the mouth of the alley.  Her hair was whited, with a shock of
blue down the centre.  Her face was improbably pretty, a light-tatto
glittering on her left check of a compass star, and her eyes brilliant
green.	A very nice 'scupt job, complete with a smile from a videozine.
	He kept his eyes on the shotgun.
	"Are you lookin' to  takin'?" she asked, barring steel canines.
"Vampires" they were called.
	"Looking to strolling," he responded.  He still didn't have her
station id, but she was iced like a Solo;  a professional killer.  The
shotgun wasn't wired for bio-control, he noted.  "Looked like heat, and I
was cold.  Thought my ticket my be worth something.  But the fire's your's,
so I'll walk."  He turned to leave, half to be out of the line of the
un-wavering muzzle, and half for want of anything else to do.
	"Wait," she said suddenly.  "There's thermal for two.  Just keep
your hands away from your holster."  She pointed at his right underarm.
	How the *&%$##@ had she seen that, he wondered.  "Thanks, Choomba,"
he said.  "Choomba" was African for friend.  Or so Streetlore had it.
Everyone recognised it as a peace-word.
	She watched him walk the gap that seperated them, the shotgun never
wavering from him, even though she held it one-armed.	She handed him a
cup of coffee as he shrugged off his back-sack.  He angled it as a stool,
and took the cup.  He sipped at it, its heat firing his mouth and warming
his insides.  They sat for a while, staring at the fire.
	He didn't know how long they sat like that, a few feet apart,
waiting for one of them to try It.  The one false move that would leave
spilt coffee and blood over the nice white snow and the alley walls.  He
didn't know, nor, in fact did he care.  After all, he didn't have anywhere
better to be.  The only time one of them did move was to throw a
petrobrick onto the fire.  She seemed to have quite a few.
	"I'm Vixen," she said after a while, extending her hand.
	"I'm Jonny Synchronicity," he offered, slapping her palm and then clasping he hand
with both of his.
	"Sabrekid, huh?" she observed, based on his shake.
	"Yeah, I'm a Thirdman.  Need a Fix?" he grinned.
	She shook her head.  "Nien, I'm a company girl already.  I'm with
EuroCOMP."
	"And the harbour is drinkable," he scoffed.  "Why would Corper be
hanging in the DMZ in the winter around a fire with sector-2 Thirdman?
Gimme a replay, wouldja?"
	"Bad luck," she said cooly.  "Tune in for a nano-sec, ok?  My other
half decided not to maintain us.  He decided he wanted someone new;  he got
a NetHack to fund-dump my accounts into his and then he tossed me."
	"So why not cancel his show?  The audio on this sounds like he
deserves it."  He made his left hand into a gun with the thumb-hammer
coming down.
	"I can't kill him.  He's got Ultra-life Insurance;  I'm a Solo and
he's a MBA-Corp at EuroCOMP.  I punch his ticket, and they just revive him
and they brainburn me right after the trial," she growled heatedly, her
Vampires glitering in stainless-steel fury.
	"Oh," he said.
	"'Oh'," she agreed.  He poured them both some more coffee, and he
offered her a slap-tab of FeelGood.  She thanked him and took one, and they
both relaxed as the warmth eased through thier systems.

	A little while later --he still didn't care how long-- she looked
over at him.
	"So" she said quietly, still a bit up from the drug, "I'm a
out-lucked company girl.  You say you're a Thirdman for the Sabrekids?
Howsit you're hanging with me here, and not back at the Tribe's Den?"
	"Its Nowhere.  Same Funk, different Video.  I'm an SK because they
figure its good for them to have a Thirdman handy.  And I know the Rules of
Street, and obey them," he jestured at his clothes, his chromium eyes and
the plugs at his wrists.  "But, it doesn't count for anything in here," he
said, tapping his chest.  "My psyche is about flatlined.  So I was just
walking.  With no particular place to go."
	"When's the party start?" she asked, looking at him with something
in her green eyes he couldn't fathom.
	He tossed another brick on the fire, and pulled his glowtube out of
his pack.  It was starting to get dark, but the snow had stopped.  "Nothing
on for tonight.  Some of us might hit the FireBall tonight, always good
music and solid action there," he answered neutrally.

	They sat a little while longer, maybe ten minutes, when he spoke.
"It's kind of wierd sitting here with a Blank and telling her my pain," he
commented, putting some more coffee on.
	She nodded.  "I was just thinking the same thing.  Most people
don't care.  They see Solo-girl, or hear Corp-girl and that's all they
care.  My output was like that; hell, I don't even know his real name.  All
I've got is his Handle, Storm-King."
	He made a mental note of that name;  anyone with a Handle had
connections to the Street.  The Street was Jonny Synchronicity's arenea
of power and influence.  He wasn't the biggest Thirdman in sector 2,
but he could pull.  Jonny decided that the Fix on Storm-King was going
to be on him, even though he didn't know why.  Jonny just wanted this
actor bad.
	She shivered violently and then tried to grin it off.  Jonny pulled
his thermal blanket out of his pack and moved his seat over by hers.
	"No, thats alright.  I'm ok," she started.
	"Yeah, and the Flash was yesterday.  Look, you provided the fire
and the coffee, I'll provide the blanket," he told her.  She smiled, he
light-tatoo changing from a light blue to a warm red.  He arranged the
blanket around them both, and they sat staring into the fire.  He poured
some coffee for them both, and set a bag of insta-stew boiling.  He doused
the glowlight off, leaving them together in the evening gloom, with the sky
above them glowing neon-argon orange from the city lights and fire dancing
its warmth before them.  She looked at the glowlight and then at him
uncertainly.
	"Too much light. Didn't want to attract any curiousity our way," he
explained.  She nodded.
	"Good idea;  save the cells, too," she said.  A few seconds later,
without looking away from the fire "Y'know, I'm begining to like you."
	He nodded and smiled, gazing into the fire.  "I was just thinking
the same thing."   He waited a minute, fished the bag out of the coffee pot
and doled its contents out evenly between thier two bowls.  He looked at
her and said tenatively "I could use a good Solo backing me.  I want to get
some more serious action going;  the Sabrekids are little league.  I've got
dreams..."  He stopped, looking at her.  Sculpted or not, she was pretty.
	"I could use a good Thirdman to skill-broker me.  I've always
wanted to go Ronin...  Corp-girl is secure, but I like excitement;  I want
something different, something...."
	"New?"
	"Yes!" she said, her light-tatoo vibrant.
	"Are you interested?" they both asked at once, paused and laughed.
	"Yes!" they both replied simultaneously.  They leaned against each
other laughing hard with abandon.  It was an unusual sound in the DMZ of
MetroCity, and it stopped both of them to look at each other.
	"I can't remember the last time I laughed like that," she said,
leaning against him.
	"I can't remember the last time I laughed," he said wryly, enjoying
the feel of her hair against his cheek.  "Do you want to go dancing?" he
asked, hesitantly.
	She sat up straight, away from him, looking into the fire.  Then
she turned, looking at him, the amber of her asian features rich in the
fire's glow.  "Where?  The FireBall, I suppose,"  she asked neutrally.
	"No.  Somewhere else.  I don't want to see the SabreKids, or anyone
else who doesn't care to know me.  I want to be where you want to be."
	Jonny, he thought to himself, you're in an alley in the middle of
the DMZ with a Solo packing enough heavy weapons and skill-wires to kick
your ass all over the sector, and you're getting soft on the video?  He
didn't care.
	Her neutrality faded as he spoke.  "I know a great place," she said
with a smile.  "And when we get there, there'll be someone who cares to
know you."  Her smile was warm, her eyes soft; the blanket was warm, the
glow of the fire soft, and to him it seemed the most natural thing in the
world to kiss her.
	So he did.  After all, he didn't have anywhere better to be.

	Fin.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

	I put the above together in about an hour.  I haven't done
much writing for writing's sake in a long while... about two
years... so I'm a bit rusty in that department.  So, I'd love to
hear what y'all think.
	Thanks lots!

	mr.Sinister