From: JDTackett@gnn.com (James Tackett)
Subject: Lurker comes clean
Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 00:54:10
He was crouched near the door, barely even breathing, waiting
for just the right moment. A rather burly gutterpunk shoved open
the entrance to the Chat, and he took this oppurtunity to lunge
through the open doorway. He hoped no one saw the blur of movement
he created, as he ran into the side alley.
He stripped off the mimetic jumpsuit, reached into the
nearest dumpster, and retrieved his knapsack. He removed his
ultrasuede duster, his mirrorshades, and his Nambu needler, and
tossed the chameleon suit, along with the knapsack, back into the
dumpster.
Returning to the Chat, he was welcomed with mostly looks of
utter boredom, some anger, and a little bit of "man, not another
one..."
"What can I get you?" asked the bartender.
"A Tequila Sunrise and a pack of cigarettes," he replied,
digging into his pockets for some cash, coming up with a few grimy
bills.
He accepted the drink, lit up a Chinese fiberglass stick, and
surveyed the crowd. Discontment. He felt a little sorry for them.
Finishing his drink, he pocketed the glass and pulled out a
grimy stack of hardcopy.
"Hey buddy," he said to the bartender, "Whats your name?"
"Ratz," he replied coldly.
"Well, 'Ratz', here, pass this around. See what your regulars
think about it..."
====================================
SUBMITTED FOR YOUR APPROVAL:
Casual Loser
Part One of ???
====================================
She bounded around the corner just as a few hundred armor
piercing rounds smacked into the brick behind her.
Fuck, this guy was good. She didn't even see him coming back
in the warehouse. Well, he'd soon learn who was the biggest badass
in *this* part of the metroplex. She looked up above her and saw a
fire escape. Thank god Booger hadn't gotten around to changing the
gameboard yet. She shoved her machinepistol into the waistband of
her pants and jumped up, grasping the bottom of the grate with her
right hand. She pivoted, and vaulted up onto the second-story
platform.
Not two seconds later he came running around the corner. He
had slung the mini-gun over his shoulder, and was now carrying an
assault shotgun. Ha! He obviously didn't know that the program for
buckshot scatter was still a little buggy.
She leaped off the platform, but he saw it coming. No one is
supposed to see it coming. Why do you think she had spent all that
money on reflex accelerators and adrenal boosters?
The last thing she saw before she was dumped was her chest
exploding in a stormcloud of blood.
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!" she yelled, jumping out of the
G-chair. The plug was ripped from her skull jack as she ran across
the room to the other chair.
He was calmly removing his dataline, and didn't see her next
move. She slapped him across the face with the back of her hand as
she began yelling at him:
"You stupid motherfucking sonofabitch if I *ever* see you
here again I'll rip your goddamn balls off and give 'em back to you
as earrings!..."
"Whoa, whoa, now just come down here..."
"Calm down? Calm down!" she screamed back.
"Yeah, I mean, It's only a game..."
She took a look at him, scanning up and down: chromed boots,
jeans, a T-shirt and a flannel. A weekend warior. A techie computer
game freak. She was beat by a friggin' pussy-ass corporate wanna-be
techie slimeball!
"Only a game, huh? Well, if you hadn'ta had all that fancy
firepower, you wouldn't have even have had a chance..."
"Well, I seem to remember that it was me who came down outta
that ceiling and nearly fragged you five minutes into the
simulation. And besides, my shotgun didn't even work like it was
supposed to."
"Yeah, well, no shit. If you were a regular, you would know
that Booger is having some problems with his buckshot program."
"Booger?"
This guy was hopeless. She stomped thru the ten foot square
doorway seperating the arcade from the rest of Sensorium. Already,
she could see that the news was traveling quickly throughout the
club: "Hey, someone beat Iris!"
She pushed her way thru the crowd to the bar, where Lenny
looked her over and said "rough night, huh?"
"You have no fucking idea, man. Give me a double scotch."
She turned around on her stool to survey tonights crowd.
Pretty thin by Sensorium standards, but then again it was a
weeknight. Some local band was finishing up a half hour set of
grinding industrial rock, but gauging the enthusiasm of the crowd
she could tell she hadn't missed much. Less than a third of them
were dancing, and only about half of them were actually getting
into it.
The forty meters between her and the stage were littered with
sweating bodies; along the sides of the club were a few dozen small
four person tables, with the entrance on the left side. Rows of
pillars seperated the tables from the floor.
She turned back to the bar to find her drink waiting. There
was no need to shout to be heard. There was an assembly of noise
dampeners set into the floor five feet behind her.
"So, Lenny, have you heard anything from Carlos?"
Lenny shook his head and went to serve another customer. She
sighed and took half her drink at once. Slamming the glass down,
she looked at the patterns of light reflecting all around her from
the bands stageshow. A ray of violet was shining over her left
shoulder and reflecting in the mirrors hung behind the bar, a beam
of magenta was encircling her torso, and a laser was being
refracted thru her whiskey.
Before she'd even hit the floor, the torso of the man who had
been sitting next to her was ripped open, as was the thigh of the
woman to his right. She was up and running thru the crowd before
she really knew what was going on.
"Carlos, answer the door you fucking prick!"
"Hold on, hold on," came a voice from the doors tinny
speaker. A few seconds later it swung inward and the leering face
of Carlos appeared in its wake.
"What's --" he managed to get out before she ran past him.
"Shut the door," commanded Iris, panting and out of breath.
He obeyed, locking the door before turning around and asking what
was wrong.
"Somebody just tried to kill me."
"Yeah, so?" He shot back.
"No, no, it happened at the Sensorium. This didn't have
anything to do with a run. I'm on soemone's shitlist."
"Oh, you mean someone besides me? I'm not surprised."
"Fuck you. I need your help, man."
"Alright, alright. You figure it's Matsushita?"
"Who else could it be."
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. Okay, first things first, were
you followed."
"No way. I switched subway cars a half-dozen times."
"Good. There's nothing we could do right now, so listen. You
can crash here tonight, but tomorrow we have to go somewhere else."
"Yeah, sure," she replied. "Thanks, Carlos."
He answered, "Don't worry about it."
Carlos and she had come from the same neighborhood. They grew
up together, made their first few runs together. But eventually,
they went their seperate ways. They still saw each other
occasionally, but it was rarely under recreational circumstances.
His apartment was a nice one. Two story, two bedroom, full
kitchen. He had his workshop set up in the living room: a
workbench, a couple of cyberdecks, stacks of software cards.
Exactly like it was the last time she was here.
She was in trouble the last time she came here, two months
ago. but that was different. Nobody was trying to kill her then.
But then, that time she hadn't been dealing with Japs. She could
never could understand those guys. The suits at Matsushita
evidently weren't any different than the rest of them
She thought death was an extreme punishment just for botching
a job.
==============================
END PART ONE
==============================
"Tell me what they think of it, Ratz."
And with that, he tossed the dirty bills on the counter and
walked out of the Chatsubo.
When Ratz picked up the New Yen, there was a card underneath
them. It had printed on it just one word.
LURKER
===========================================================
There you have it. I have stepped out of the shadows.
===========================================================
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It's all fun and games 'til someone puts an eye out...
after that it's just fun.
"I was born with a memory, I was built for a task,
I can Phreak, I can fly but I can't live for the past..."
Under Midnight, "Way Up Here"
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
From: JDTackett@gnn.com (James Tackett)
Subject: Casual Loser - Part Two
Date: Thu, 02 Nov 1995 05:47:36
=============================================
[part one is "Lurker comes clean"]
=============================================
=============================================
CASUAL LOSER
PART TWO
=============================================
Coffee.
And the over jolly sound of a chip-voice announcing the time
as being 8 AM. She pried her eyes open and sat up. Carlos was in
the kitchen, preparing something for breakfast; there was a fresh
pot of coffee, also.
She loved the smell of coffee.
She swiveled her legs over the side of the couch [the second
bedroom, unfortunately, had no bed in it] and stood up, arching
her back as she did so.
Hearing the sound of cracking joints, Carlos turned around.
"Hey, I was wondering when you'd wake up. I wasn't going to
let you sleep much longer."
She groggily replied, "And why is that?"
"Well, I plan on leaving here by 9:30 at the latest. We're
supposed to be at Toru's by about 10:15."
She bent over to scoop up her pants. Sliding them on, she
realized what he had just said.
"Toru's? That guy is a total nutcase! How is he going to help
us?"
"Hey, he's not that bad. And besides, he's one of the best
fixers in town."
Walking to the kitchen, she answered, "It's not his ability
to do his job I'm worried about. It's his hobby."
Toru Takahashi was, in fact, a good fixer. He was also a good
tech. The only problem was, he liked to experiment around and make
whatever kind of wierd and utterly useless gadget he could think
of. Sometimes they blew up.
She sat down at the small folding table just as Carlos set
down a steaming cup of coffee. She poured a a halfdozen packets of
sweetener into it by the time he set down a plate of pancakes in
the middle of the table.
"You've got to be kidding me," she said.
This is the place? she thought. It was a delapidated
warehouse on the edges of the Slums. From across the street, she
could just make out the sound of grinding metal.
At the entrance they were checked out by two huge guards,
their physiques practically screaming grafted muscle. Once inside,
they were greeted, surprisingly, by a rather posh waiting room. Two
synthleather couches, a coffee/softdrink machine, plush carpet,
gold-plated lamps and a few paintings hanging on the wall. They
both sat down on the couch on the right. The sounds of Toru's
"work" were quite louder now, and she wondered just what he was
working on.
The sounds abruptly stopped, and about a minute later a voice
said "Mr. Takahashi will now see you." They walked over to the door
opposite the one they had entered through, and Carlos opened it.
Inside was a rather large office. An oak desk with a terminal on
it, two padded chairs in front of that, and another couch against
the left wall. Toru was not there yet, but there was the outline of
a door in the far wall. Before they'd even sat down, the outline
swung outward and in strolled Toru Takahashi.
He stood about five and a half feet tall, dressed in an all
black three-piece suit.
"Please, sit down. How may I help you?" he asked, taking his
place behind the desk. His chair was a bit high, and so he ended up
being as tall as they were once seated.
"Well, we were wondering if you could dig up some
information," answered Iris. Takahashi had pulled a pack of
cigarettes out of a drawer and offered her one.
"No thanks," she replied, but Carlos accepted.
"Info, eh?" he said, lighting his Chesterfield. "I'm sure we
can arrange something. What do you need to know?"
"Well, I was wondering who had accepted a contract on me, and
who had put out that contract. A specific name."
He blew out a series of smoke rings. "This first part should
be no problem. The second part, however, is a bit trickier."
"I knew you were gonna say that. How much money we looking
at?"
He contemplated his cigarette for a moment. "2000 yen," he
replied.
"Okay," she replied. "Credit okay?"
"Sure. But the extra fee for that will be 100 yen." The
transaction would have to go through several banks and institutions
to make it harder to trace. Not a difficult task, but an annoyance.
"Fine," she said, handing over her card. It was one of her
many fakes; real account, fake name.
He ran the card through a slot on the side of his terminal
before handing it back to her.
"Hey, Toru, what are you working on back there?" asked
Carlos, gesturing toward the back of the office.
"Well, as you can see from my clothes, I'm not working on
anything at the moment. But I am overseeing a project. For another
client," replied Toru, cutting off any further questions on the
subject.
"Thanks. When can we expect the info?" asked Iris.
"Oh, by tonight, surely."
Carlos led her to a bar he said he liked.
She could see why. It was an obvious techie hang. A bunch of
spaced out guys talking nonsense. There were even a few tables
where groups of them were either dissecting or putting together
machines, she couldn't tell. They took a table in the corner, and
Carlos went to the bar to get the drinks. Iris watched him,
thinking about what he must think of her. She never was that smart,
at least when it came to technical things. She seemed to only care
about him when she was in trouble. But he still helped her.
Thinking that Carlos was the closest thing she had to a
brother, she noticed him wince in pain and grab his side. He took
two more steps and collapsed on the ground.
She looked toward the exit and saw a woman in a plastic
duster scanning the bar, a needlegun in her left hand. Iris ducked
under her table and pulled her own weapon, a Beretta 10mm. She
flipped the table over for cover and popped up over the top, aiming
for the assassin. They found each other at the same time.
Iris shot first.
It had been about a second and a half since Carlos hit the
ground. The assassin was wounded, but she had ran out of the bar.
Iris ran over to Carlos, but it was too late. The flechette had
been filled with nerve toxin.
Everyone else in the bar was just realizing what had happened
when Iris ran out onto the street in pursuit of the killer. A
shower of sparks erupted from the lamppost next to her, & she dived
behind a car. Instantly the window above her, and its brother on
the other side of the car, were blown out. When the barrage
stopped, Iris raised her head and looked thru the car.
The woman was across the street, running toward the subway
station at the end of the block. She was also trying to reload her
needlegun at the same time.
Iris ran after her, shoving people out of the way while
trying to get a clear shot. The assassin turned around, and the
woman in front of Iris dropped to the ground, clutching her chest.
She jumped over the body to see the killer running down the
escalator at the entrance to the station, knocking people against
the railings. Iris did the same, and when she reached the bottom
she had her shot.
The woman was running toward a turnstile as Iris sent three
slugs into her back.
Dashing over to the fallen killer, Iris stood over her and
pointed the Beretta into her face.
"Who hired you?" demanded Iris. She could see that her first
shot, back in the bar, had grazed the razorgirl's right shoulder.
"You're like me. You know this shit happens," replied the
victim, blood trickling from her mouth. The words were very faint.
Iris pressed the gun against the razorgirl's forehead as she
crouched down next to her. In the distance, Iris could hear
footsteps and demanding voices running towards her.
"Was it Yamaguchi? Was it Yamaguchi!" she demanded, putting
pressure on the trigger. The razorgirl smiled.
And then she died.
Iris looked up to see a half-dozen transit cops rushing
towards her, weapons drawn. She was about 10 feet from the ticket
turnstile. She ran and jumped the turnstile just as the ticket
clerk took a bullet.
A tremendous pain erupted in her thigh just as she jumped
onto the nearest train
She fell onto the floor of the train just as it started
moving. The other passengers were backing away from her, some from
the sight of blood, others from the sight of her gun.
One of the cops was running alongside the accelerating train,
shouting.
A hand reached out and grabbed her arm. She looked up to see
a ganger kneeling over her. One of the Mako's, the gang from her
neighborhood.
"Hey, don't I know you? You're that chick who lives in the
apartment down the hall from Ralphie, right? You need some help?"
"Sorry we couldn't take you to your place, but Sloan said
there were these japanese guys hanging around it. Hold still," said
the ganger as he wrapped up her thigh. They had removed the bullet,
cleaned the wound, sprayed it with nu-skin, and were now bandaging
it. The medic was a guy named Jester. There was nothing funny about
him at all.
"Hey, I need to use a phone," she said, wincing as Jester
accidentally poked the wound.
"Sure. Here, use my personal," he replied, reaching into the
pocket of his jacket.
She accepted the small black box, grabbing the plug from the
side and pulling its length of wire from inside the phone. She
plugged the phone into the skulljack behind her ear.
"Number?" asked the phone.
"773-2697," replied Iris. A Black square appeared in the
upper right corner of her field of vision.
The square sprang to full color, displaying a picture of a
leering, crazy-eyed face.
"Yo, this is Booger, what you want?"
"Booger, it's me, Iris. I need your help."
"Hey, Iris, I'll do anything for you, man."
"I need you to help me take out Ken Yamaguchi."
==================================================
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
It's all fun and games 'til someone puts an eye out...
after that it's just fun.
"If I could kill without guit or sin,
there'd soon be a few less record executives"
--Machines of Loving Grace, "Trigger for Happiness"
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
From: JDTackett@gnn.com (Lurker]
Subject: Casual Loser - Part Three
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 00:46:29
===================================
CASUAL LOSER
PART THREE
'BETRAYAL'
===================================
"Whoa, like, I didn't just hear you say Ken Yamaguchi?"
"Yeah," Iris replied, "Ya did."
"Man, word on the street is like, he's vanished or sumthing."
Pause.
She thought for a second about what Booger had just said.
Then she answered:
"...Any idea how or why?
"Well, you didn't hear this from me, but like, I know this
guy who's boinking this Matsushita secretary, and like she said
that he's in big shit for fuckin sumthin' up, or sumthin'."
"You on good terms with the Mako's?"
"Yeah, I am," said Booger. "I fix their 'tech and stuff.
why?"
"Well, then, I'm with them, so you probably know where I
am..."
"I think so, yeah..."
Sighing, Iris responded, "Get down here quick, and bring your
deck and your cart."
The Mako's had taken her to an obsolete "L" station - when
she asked, they said it was like an aboveground subway. Said the
system went out of use 40 years ago. She was now sitting, along
with about two dozen others, on what was the boarding platform.
There were a couple of drumfires, but she wasn't that cold- on the
outside.
All she could think about was Carlos. It was funny, in a way;
she never really knew just how big a part of her life he was until
he got whacked. On her account.
She wrapped her arms tighter around herself within the bulk
of her jacket. Stared at the floor in front of her, with her back
against a tiled column. She hadn't blinked in about a minute.
She remembered her first run; nothing fancy. Just this club
owner, refused to pay for protection from the local Yakuza. Carlos
decked in and deactivated the modest security, whereafter she
waltzed in and napalmed the place. Amateurish, but then that's all
the Yaks had wanted. A couple of neighborhood nothings to do a
simple arson job. They had both been seventeen at the time.
But then they both garnered reputations doing work for local
fixers and hustlers. By the time they made it big-time they had
already gone their seperate ways. Eventually, they wouldn't see
each other for months at a time.
She blinked.
Looked up.
Booger was shaking her by the shoulder, asker her name. He
was clad in his usual Hawaiian shirt and old military fatigue
pants. Holes in the knees, wrapped with electrical tape.
"Hey, I was beginning to think you'd never come," she said,
picking herself up off the ferro-crete. She noticed dried blood on
the toe of her left boot.
"Yeah, you wish. So listen, I got delayed. My buddy got a hot
tip. Yamaguchi went on a business trip to England last month.
Scheduled to return last week, only he never shows at the airport."
Iris chewed on that one for a minute.
"Okay, Booger, in order to help me you're gonna need to know
the whole story."
"Well, that's usually the way it works, as far as I
understand it..."
She struggled up, refusing his outstreched hand, finally
managing an awkward leaning position.
"Problem?" asked Booger.
"Nah, not really, I just got shot is all," replied Iris,
taking her weight off the pillar with a wince. She limped forward a
few steps, brushing past Booger. "Where's your stuff?" she asked,
looking around.
"In the van. So, you were gonna tell me what's goin' on?"
"Sure. But first things first. You got any coffee?"
Sitting in the back of Boogers run-down Mitsubishi mini-van,
slurping lukewarm coffee from a steel thermos, she told her tale.
"Okay," she says, setting her cup down, "about five weeks
ago, I get this call from a corp. Typical deal, real clinical. A
standard extraction/theft job. I'd be working with a team,
including two other razors. Asked if I minded the numbers, so I
told him only if he was talkin' about yen. He laughs and tells me
to be at this office building in an hour.
So here I am, sitting out front of this Matsushita 'scraper,
and he walks up to me. Yamaguchi. Shakes my hand, tells me the
payment will be two hundred thousand yen, half now, half
afterwards. Sounds fine to me, so I accept."
She paused now to refill her cup. Booger shifted his weight
from one leg to the other, sitting indian style in front of her.
"So, anyway, we go to London on this big fuckin' private
plane. Yamaguchi says he's got other business in London to tend to
as well. Me, this razor from up north, a razorgirl I knew from
repuation, and this smart-ass decker.
The extraction was almost too easy. We were on our way out,
the target showing us where this thing we were supposed to steal
was being kept. Only, on the way there, this guard spots us, and
the razorgirl, Aura, overkills; half a mag from her smg.
Unsilenced. So now we have like half the security force on our
tail, we're running down this flight of stairs, and a stray shot
kills the extractee. Hit him just above the ear. We panic and freak
out, 'cuz now we're in deep shit.
So, a few minutes later we're cornered in a parking garage.
Aura's taken a gut shot, the other guy, I can't even remember his
name, Gutter or sumthing, hotwires this car. An armored exec
transport. As we're piling in, we hear the decker on our subdermal
radios, saying that a Elite Guard force is assembling outside with
helicopters and shit. So we gun it, tear thru the donut munchers,
and as we crash out of the garage, a 20mm shell goes thru the
windshield and kills Gutter. The car slams thru the barricade as it
gets eaten up by mini-gun fire. Crashes into a delivery van parked
half a block away.
So, I shot Aura and used her as a human shield. I got to a
car without taking too many hits, killed the driver, and drove off.
Lost the helicopter in a tunnel, where I stopped in the middle and
hijacked a different car."
"Shit," said Booger, sipping his coffee. "No wonder you
looked like shit that week."
"That's not the half of it. When I went to the preassigned
backup debriefing spot, a deli near Piccadilly, Yamaguchi never
showed. Wouldn't respond to my calls. So I found a local doc, had
my wounds taken care of. My back hurt like shit.
The next day, the doc tells me that I have a cracked
vertebrae. He says he can replace it, but there's a chance my
reflex augmentors could be affected. Listed a bunch of medical
hoodoo reasons for why. But of course I had to go through with it.
"Wait, I heard someone beat you at my game. You think that
had anything to do with it?" asked Booger.
"Maybe. Your game software makes a note of the reaction speed
of certain synapses to calculate abilities in the game. The doc in
London told me if there were any side affects, they would occur
randomly. The game must have scanned me at a down point. I did fine
a few hours ago.
"Interesting. So, How did you get back to America?"
"I hooked up with the decker, who knew this guy who worked at
the airport. He snuck us onto a commercial cargo plane. I got back
about four weeks ago."
"Yeah, I remember that. You came to the Sensorium and picked
a fight with the biggest, baddest bitch in there. Your usual
after-a-run ritual. So, you never heard from Yamaguchi?"
"Never," she replied, taking a sip of coffee.
"What was it you were supposed to steal?"
"Ken wouldn't say. Said the extractee would know what to look
for."
"Huh."
Iris paused for a second in thought. "Y'know, that guy worked
in the Matrix R&D department of LSI. Toru might know something
about that. And besides, I'm supposed to get something from him,
anyway."
"Like?"
"Like who killed Carlos."
Booger stopped a moment at this one.
"So it's true?"
"Yeah. I figured you woulda heard by now."
"Oh, I had. Just didn't know if I should believe it."
Outside the van, a couple of Mako's were standing around, and
one of them approached Iris.
"Yo, we just got a call from Toru, the fixer. He says to go
to his place straightaway."
Jester looked up at the mention of Toru. He was standing
about twenty feet away reading a sheet of hardcopy.
"That crazy Japanese piece of shit? what you want with him?"
asked Jester, walking towards the rusted out vehicle.
"I bought some info off him," replied Iris.
"Oh, really."
"Yeah."
"'Cuz I heard he's got some big contract with this renegade
corp. Considering your present situaton, I thought you might like
to know."
The van pulled up outside the warehouse. It was 6:15 PM.
The guards recognized her, and let her in along with Booger.
The door to the office was already open, and Toru was sitting on
his desk, dressedin a grease stained mechanics jumpsuit.
"Iris!" he yelled, jumping of the slab of wood to grab her
outsretched hand. "I was beginning to worry. I found out who hired
the killers."
"And?"
"A renegade suit by the name of Ken Yamaguchi."
"Okay. I could've guessed that much. Who did he hire?"
"Well, here's where it gets tricky. As soon as he posted his
contract, Matsushita put out a contract on you, too. Double the
price. Yamaguchi's was accepted by a second-class hood named Flame.
A hotheaded teenage razorgirl."
"Okay. I think I already greased her."
"The Matsushita contract was picked up by Blade."
"Blade?" gasped Booger, spraying pieces of the craker he was
eating all over the office.
"Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I bet you anything he was the one
who tried to get me at the Sensorium. He would recognize me easy."
"And why is that?" asked Booger.
"We were on a run together, about a year ago. I saved his
life."
"Really. How good is he?"
"No better than me. Just a hell of a lot sneakier."
"I doubt it," snickered Booger.
"Toru, you know anything about a project LSI would be working
on?"
"Specifically?"
"Something the Marix R&D department would handle. New deck,
or a jack or piece of software maybe?"
"There's a rumor someone's working on a shit-hot new deck. A
security decker using this thing would, supposedly, be able to
catch any system cracker in the world. Rumor has it that it's so
hot, the're co-designing a new skulljack to handle it," replied
Toru.
"Theoretically, would LSI be capable of such a project?"
"No. But they would be capable of stealing the research for
such a project."
"Whoa," said Booger. "Looks like you all got caught up in a
corp turf war."
"Very funny," said Iris.
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
LURKER
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
It's all fun and games 'til someone puts an eye out...
after that it's just fun.
"The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class
badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen
bomb."
-- Neal Stephenson, _Snow Crash_
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
From: JDTackett@gnn.com (Lurker)
Subject: Casual Loser - Part Four
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 01:10:59
============================
CASUAL LOSER
PART FOUR
'TWISTS'
============================
Iris thanked Toru on her way out as Booger got a cup of
coffee in the waiting room.
"Thanks, Toru. I may need your help again soon, though."
He responded, "Sure, no problem. And hey, next time I'll give
you half-off."
She smiled, turned around and began walking away, tugging
Booger away from the creamer on the way out. They strode past the
guards and up to the worn-out Mitsubishi Akita.
"So, like, what do you think?" asked Booger as he started the
ignition.
"Oh, he's definitely involved with Yamaguchi," she responded.
"When I was here with Carlos this morning, he said he was
overseeing a project for another client. Wouldn't talk about it. He
was even wearing a suit."
"Toru? Wearing a suit? I wish I'd seen that."
"So, if he is working with Yamaguchi, why didn't he lie about
it?" asked Booger, bending over the circuit board in his lap.
"Well, it was sort of like his way of sayin' it's only biz.
Like, he don't mean me any ill will, just needs the money. I think
he feels guilty about Carlos."
"'feels guilty'?" answered Booger, bringing a soldering iron
into play. "I mean, he's a fixer. He makes money off people,
they're like, numbers to him."
"Normally, I would agree with you. But he and Carlos, well,
they weren't exactly friends, but they did like each other."
"Damn!" Booger yelled, shoving his thumb in his mouth.
"Problem?"
"Yeah. Goddamn microcircuits."
There were sitting in Booger's workspace, a cluttered mess of
electronic gear and personal knick-knacks above the dance floor of
the Sensorium. The club wasn't open yet, and the only other person
in the building was Lenny, the bartender/proprietor. Booger had the
motherboard of a Sony cyberdeck cradled between his knees, adding a
sub-processor, among other things. Iris was cleaning her Beretta
pistol.
Booger laid the motherboard on the folding table next to him
and hooked it up to a Cray monitor and a generic keyboard he took
off the nearest shelf.
"So anyway, who's this contact of yours?" inquired Iris,
beginning to reassemble her handgun.
"Just this decker I rigged a wiz deck for one time. If you
want a name, forget it. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
Iris smirked. "Oh really?"
The motherboard booted up fine, and Booger began
reconfiguring the OS to take advantage of the new upgrades. After a
few seconds of typing, he turned to answer her.
"Let's just say he's a powerful ally. He gives me info in
exchange for any work he may need. Here, make sure this thing
doesn't self-destruct. I gotta go to the bathroom."
Considering Booger was an obsessive coffee drinker, this was
no surprise. She nodded okay as he walked toward the stairs.
Picking up her now fully assembled weapon, she replaced it into the
holster at the small of her back.
She sat and stared at the monitor and let her thoughts drift.
They eventually landed on Blade.
She'd only worked with the razor once, and at the time, their
skills had been an even match, except for the fact that he was
almost supernaturally quiet. It was pure dumb luck that had allowed
her to notice the sniper before he had, allowing her to act and
save his life. She had scraped off a considerable amount of skin
from his cheek when she had shoved Blade to the ground, though.
He said he owed her one. Apparently he'd forgotten.
She heard the heavy clank of Booger's engineer's boots coming
back up the iron staircase, and as she returned to reality, she
noticed a second set of softer footfalls following the boots. She
drew her weapon and dropped into a crouch.
Booger looked at her in complete surprise as he reached the
top of the stairs. When a second head appeared, she yelled
"Freeze!"
The stranger with the white hair and deep purple leathers
raised his hands to the sky. She noticed two skulljacks and a
cranial datachip reader set into the left side of his head, which
was shaved bald. The right side rooted a mane that flowed to his
elbow.
"Whoa, Iris, like, calm the fuck down, man! And I thought I
drank too much friggin' coffee," exclaimed Booger. "Yo, it's
alright man, put your hands down," he told the other man.
"This the lady you spoke of?" said the stranger.
"Who the fuck are you?" demanded Iris, her gun still trained
on the stranger's chest.
"Iris," responded Booger, "Allow me to introduce you to my
friend and personal datathief, Surge."
At this, Iris dropped her weapon slightly.
"You mean THE Surge? You mean to tell me this guy is the
contact you were talking about?"
Booger laughed. "I told you you wouldn't believe me if I told
you."
"You're right. I don't"
Surged chuckled pretentiously.
Iris stared over the brim of her glass as she swallowed the
last of the whiskey Booger had brought up to the room. She was
looking at the interaction between the techie and the decker who
claimed to be Surge. She still doubted; couldn't believe that a
walking legend would be a friend of Boogers, of all people.
"...so, like I was sayin', I reversed the reaction of the
security system, so when those guards came running through with
their badges on, they got sprayed with the toxin! Man oh man, you
should have seen that one..." finished the decker.
She hadn't known Booger that well. The only close friend she
had was Carlos. But still she was surprised at the current apparent
situation.
"So, how'd that deck work out for ya?" asked Booger, looking
around for the whiskey bottle.
"It's fuckin' shit hot, man. Hasn't let me down yet," replied
Surge.
"It's empty," stated Iris. Booger frowned. Surge chuckled.
"Rats. Hey listen man, like I said, do you think you could
help us out?" asked Booger, twiddling a length of cable in his
hand.
"Sure. But it'll cost ya," replied Surge. "I need some
heavier casing to absorb impact. Another subprocessor. And, I
guess, an upgrade on the CPU."
"No problemo. What do you want to upgrade the machine to?"
"A Nexar 211 chip should just about do it."
The tech frowned. "That could be a problem. It could take
maybe a week for me to get one."
"Alright," replied Surge. "What about the casing and the
sub?"
"No sweat, man. I got, like, sub-p's coming out the ass. I
can build the casing myself in a half-hour."
"Great."
Iris piped up. "I get the feeling you do this kind of work
often."
"Yep. But I don't work with lame-o amateurs," replied Booger.
"You're telling me you do deck work for proffessionals?"
"Not just pro's. For the best," answered Surge.
"Man, I had no clue," said Iris, a grin on her face.
"No one does. That's the whole idea," Surge said.
3 AM. The greenish light being cast-off from the monitor
reflects off two tired, caffiene-stimulated faces.
"Geez. Our friend Toru is packing some serious ICE," says the
male.
"No shit. But Surge seems to be handling it just fine,"
replies the woman.
Over in the corner, sitting indian style on a folding cot,
sits a rather tall, lanky twenty-something man. A datacord connects
the cyberdeck in his lap to the skulljack in his left temple. His
eyes are shut; his face is strained in concentration. His fingers
flit over the keys as a yelp of excitement comes from the man
standing by the monitor, which is joined to the cyberdeck with yet
another datacord.
"He did it, Iris! Too fuckin' cool," yells the male.
"Alright. Hey, pass me the pot, wouldja Booger?" replies the
woman.
She accepts the coffee pot, refills her cup, and sets the pot
down on the floor as she continues to stare at the monitor.
The screen shows a data construct which contains many files,
private files belonging to the owner of this particular database.
These files contain information on the owner's many clients. The
screen cycles through names until it gets to the one the three
people in the loft want.
Ken Yamaguchi.
A chrome hand reaches out to touch this file, and as soon as
contact is made, the square of the file opens, each corner folding
back. It is now twice it's original size.
There is a little background information on this Ken
Yamaguchi displayed, as well as an alias the man is currently going
by: Akira Takashi.
It also reveals mister Yamaguchi's location.
A rather large estate on the Pacific coast of Canada.
The hand grabs the file and pulls it inward, copying it to
the cyberdeck. When the transfer is completed, the hand re-folds
the file, and places it back within the confines of the data
structure.
The next morning, Iris awoke to the sounds of Surge and
Booger hammering each other in a video game. Something to do with
swordfighting, based on the comments they were shouting at each
other. She lifted herself off of her cot and walked over to the
computer the two were sitting in front of.
Onscreen, a green chrome samurai with a glowing katana was
battling a purple chrome knight with a merely shining longsword as
Booger and Surge furiously pounded their joysticks. A magnificent
spinning attack from the knight finished the the fight.
"Yeah!" yelled Surge.
"Shit man, 1 to 3 ain't nothing to brag about," said Booger,
looking pissed despite his lead in wins.
Iris checked her wristwatch. It was 11 AM. Six hours of
sleep.
"So, listen you guys, you wanna get something to eat? I'm
starved," suggested Iris, walking towards the desk her jacket laid
on.
"Yeah, sure. But first we got an idea to run by you," replied
Booger.
"We think we figured out where to find Blade," said Surge.
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
LURKER QUOTE BOX
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
"The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class
badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen
bomb."
-- Neal Stephenson, _Snow Crash_
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
"It's all fun and games 'til someone puts an eye out...
...after that it's just fun."
-- Lurker
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
From: JDTackett@gnn.com (Lurker)
Subject: Casual Loser - Part Five
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 00:23:40
======================================
CASUAL LOSER
PART FIVE
'RECKONING'
======================================
Surge was testing the new sub-processor on his deck as Iris
and Booger went through their mental lists of contacts, trying to
come up with a name that would participate in a plan like theirs.
They weren't enjoying much success.
Surge was turning out to be an extremely valuable ally. He
had managed to get that file on Yamaguchi without tripping a single
alarm, as well as find a discrepency in the financial records of
"Akira Takashi", aka Ken Yamaguchi.
Two seperate hotel rooms had been paid for by this Mr.
Takashi on the same day; one in Hong Kong, the other about 30 miles
from the Sensorium. Quite a magic trick.
"Well, what about Randall?" asked Iris, sitting on the back
of a decrepit office chair.
"Randall? It's a long shot, but he just might be desperate
enough to do it. But, like, do you really want a guy like him?"
responded Booger. Everybody knew Randall. Randall, at one time, had
been one of the best, on his way to the top. Until one day, he
volunteered to be a guinea pig for a new reflex augmentation
system. He wanted the edge so bad, he neglected to tell the docs
about his high metabolism, a fact the 'ware didn't over look.
Randall was the fastest thing anyone had ever seen; he was also the
most unstable.
The change in his perceptions threw him over the edge. He
became extremely disassociated, very cold. Nobody liked to talk to
him.
His reflexes were so pumped, he could barely control them. He
caused trouble on a couple of very important runs, his reputation
went to shit, and he was forced to take shit jobs like club bouncer
and errand boy for local criminals. He currently worked as muscle
in a whorehouse for corporates, his best job in a while.
When people ask why he didn't just get the 'ware removed, the
only story anyone knows is that, during one of the runs he botched,
he took a bullet in the spine. The docs did some radical surgery,
and the 'ware is the only thing keeping his nervous system
together. Either that, or he likes it the way he is.
Iris stood up and tucked her shirt into her jeans.
"Let's give him a try."
============
The Tigerlily was a high-class joint in the red-light section
of the "corporate entertainment district", as it was deemed by the
plex's other denizens. About 10 square miles of shopping malls,
exclusive department stores and theatres in the heart of the
corporate sector.
Iris and Surge didn't want to attract too much attention,
because the cops in this area actually came to work in the morning.
Surge got them a Toyota Samurai, a classy sports sedan popular with
young up-and-coming executives, as well as a corporate wardrobe: A
black, loose-cut suit and raincoat for himself, and a dark grey
suit for Iris. Surge had pulled his length of pure white hair into
a ponytail.
"I hate skirts," Iris complained as they pulled up to the
brothel.
"Like this fuckin' suit's any better," Surge shot back as
they climbed out of the car. He slipped on his octagonal-lensed
mirrorshades as Iris walked around to meet him. She looked over her
shoulder at a towering monolith of steel two blocks away; the hotel
where they supposed Blade was staying.
Together they walked up to the immense double doors of the
Tigerlily, the city's most popular licensed brothel, operating
fully under the law, or so most people believed. Those who knew
better had reason to believe otherwise.
Surge smiled at the two guards watching the entrance. One of
them acknowledged. Iris smirked as they entered the marble-floored
lobby, with its immense roman pillars scattered randomly around the
lobby and thirty-foot ceiling. Kinda fancy for what amounted to a
whorehouse for yuppies, she thought.
Off to the right was a bar, where the customers could relax
and choose which of the Tigerlily's many beautiful employees they
were going to buy for the night. The brothel had accomodations for
any sexual preferance.
In front of them was the check-in desk, where all
transactions and room rentals took place. The Tigerlily had three
floors of custom-furnished apartments. An elegant polished granite
staircase lay 10 feet beyond the desk, leading up to the elevators
and the four-star restaurant.
The runners chose the right, figuring it for the most obvious
place for Randall to be working. Booger had done work for Randall
before the razor had alienated himself, and Iris had been taught
how to use a knife by the former runner. Back in the days when she
and Carlos had worked together, he had taken them under his wing to
teach them what they needed to know about the 'biz.
The bar was a circle about 75 meters across. Tables and
booths were around the entire edge, and the actual bar was a twenty
foot circle in the middle, ringed by dancefloor. An aisle ran from
the center of each wall down to the dancefloor, the entire floor
being
shaped like a bowl. The aisles were sloped, while the tables were
on a stepped, carpeted surface. They began walking towards the
dancefloor, scanning the room for any signs of Randall. Feeling
uncomfortable and out of place, they decided to split up for fear
of attracting attention.
Iris wandered off to the left, skirting the edge of the
darkly lit dancefloor. Strobes and lasers pounded through that
darkness, giving everything a jerky, stop-motion look that was
completely disorienting. She couldn't spot anyone who looked like
Randall near the bar, and decided to walk back up to the edge of
the room, taking the next aisle she got to.
She thought about Blade. The runner had made a few lucrative
runs that had enabled him to fully enter the corporate world. He
lived in England, had a fat bank account and more influence than
most people in this room. He wore expensive suits and dealt with
corps in their own territory. He would feel alright in a place like
this.
She was sure he felt the same way she was feeling when he was
in the Sensorium just two days ago; out of place.
A hand tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around to
find herself standing in front of Randall. He was standing almost
inhumanly still, and an aura of coldness surrounded him. A hint of
recognition seemed to register in his eyes as he said
"I know you're not corp. So what are you doing here?"
She replied, "Randall, it's Iris." she paused a moment. "How
would you like to do a run with me?" she finished. She knew he had
picked her out of the crowd from her stance, the way she walked.
She was like him, a product of the streets.
"Iris?", he said. "Haven't seen you in a while."
"Listen, Randall, I'm in a bit of a bind, and we could use
another--"
Before she could finish, she found herself eating carpet as
Randall lay on top of her. She could hear screaming from several
women nearby. She looked up to see a man sitting at a table five
feet in front of her, half of his head missing.
Randall rolled over and came up in a crouch, a huge pistol in
his hands.
"Run!" he yelled as he fired off several shots. Before she
even got up, he had started running and was now almost on the other
side of the dancefloor. She drew her monofilament switchblade from
her shirt sleeve and ran to the railing at the edge of the aisle,
vaulting over it and landing on the edge of a table. It flipped up
behind her as she slid off of it and crouched behind the ready made
shield.
Sometimes she even surprised herself.
She looked off to her left to see Surge running towards her,
keeping as many corps as he could between himself and whatever was
off to his right. She admired his thinking, for it was exactly her
own: let these fuckin' pigs take the bullets. A woman he shoved out
of his way had her face taken off as she stumbled to the ground.
She looked to her right to see another bouncer bearing down
on her. She jumped up and slit a ring all the way around his neck
before he even had a chance to pull the trigger. His head rolled
off the back of his torso as she leapt toward Surge, landing on a
table on the next step down. The one she had been crouching behind
exploded in a burst of hypervelocity shards. Combat shotgun, she
guessed as she jumped down to the next step. Surge had just reached
the other side of the dancefloor.
The style was Blade's, but not the location. He'd be more
likely to wait until she got out on the street rather than shoot up
a place like this.
A bouncer, trampled by the crowd running towards the
emergency exits, lay before her, his neck twisted at an angle that
a living person couldn't have accomplished. She folded her knife
and replaced it into her sleeve as she grabbed the bouncers gun, a
fucking Colt Mark IX handcannon.
She rolled under the railing in front of her and landed on
the dance floor. Surge ran up to her and crouched down.
"What the fuck!" he yelled, panting.
"Check the bar," she commanded. He ran over and leaned across
the counter, looking underneath it. He spotted something, ran ten
feet to his right and leaned over the counter again.
This time he came up with an H&K smg, a semi-auto civilian
model. He checked the clip as he ran back to Iris.
"Thirty rounds armor-piercing," he said, a sadistic grin
appearing at the corners of his mouth. "Don't worry, I know how to
use one," he responded to the look on her face.
"Fuck. Alright, look, on three, I go left and you go right,"
said Iris, priming the action on the Colt. It slid forward with a
heavy steel clank. "Three!" she yelled, running around the edge of
the bar.
The scene in front of her was total carnage. Several dead
suits and whores lay in the aisle leading up to the main
exit/entrance, some apparently having killed each other. Off to the
right, near the top of the bowl, was Randall. He was currently
engaged in a hand to hand fight with a guy in a fractal-pattern
longcoat.
Off to the left, another assassin and a group of three
security personnel took potshots at each other as they looked for
cover.
There were about fifty suits still scrambling for an exit.
As a female corp ran past her, Iris blasted her in the
shoulder, severing her left arm. She caught the woman as she spun
around and began to fall, hooking her left arm under the woman's
right. She began running up the aisle, keeping the unconscious corp
between her and the gunfight to her left. The woman's face brushed
up against Iris's, smearing her cheek with blood. She felt two
slugs slam into the woman's back.
She turned to her right and fired off a double-tap, nailing
Randall's assailant between the shoulder blades. He toppled over a
table as Randall winked at her.
Returning her attention to the gunfight, she fired off another
shot at the nearest bouncer, who flipped over a railing and landed
on his ripped open belly.
Reaching the top of the stairs, Iris flung the dead woman
behind her and lunged through the doorway, landing behind the
nearest pillar. She heard footsteps running at her across the
lobby; the guards at the door. She swiveled around and fired twice,
hitting them both in the shins.
She turned back around just as Randall flew out of the bar,
carrying a dazed and bloodied Surge, still pulling the trigger on
his empty gun. Randall pause just long enough to finish off the two
guards on the lobby floor and ask her a question.
"Car?" he said.
"Yeah. A Samurai parked out in front."
He took off, running across the lobby as she struggled to keep
up. As she neared another pillar, a foot snaked out faster than she
could react to, striking her in the wounded thigh.
Before leaving for the Tigerlily, she had taken a painkiller.
It had stood up fine to running. The kick, on the other hand, cut
right through and hit her brain like a bolt of electricity.
She screamed as she spun to the ground, the Colt sliding away
across the smooth marble. Her leg began bleeding again, a trickle
spattering on the cold stone.
She looked up to see a man in expensive leathers, pants, shirt
and all, take a step towards her. A man sporting the latest
fashionable haircut and Oakley mirrorshades.
Blade.
"Well, well, well. I guess you're not that fast after all," he
said, drawing a light calibred automatic from inside his jacket.
"I fucked up at the club. Still, I was impressed at your speed. At
the time."
Through clenched teeth she replied, "Fuck you."
Two men came up behind him, guns smoking and faces red.
"About time. Did you kill all the bouncers?" asked Blade.
"Yes. And not a few customers," replied one of the goons.
"Goo--" Blade got out before both his goons went down, and he
found a razor sharp bowie knife at his throat.
Randall held the knife firmly against Blade's adam's apple,
and a drop of crimson formed along it's edge.
"Do I kill him?" asked Randall.
Iris simply nodded.
The knife snicked back, sliding into it's sheath before the
first streams of blood hit the floor.
============
"Pure fuckin' luck. I doubt he was even there for you,"
remarked Booger. "Spread your legs a little wider."
Iris was laying on her stomach on a desk in Booger's workspace
as the techie worked on her thigh. He had already injected her leg
with a cell reproduction-inducing toxin designed to speed the
healing, but it still hurt like hell. He was now installing a pain
monitoring unit which would keep tabs on the signals being sent out
from the surrounding nerves.
"Oh, based on what you guys have told me, that makes sense,"
replied Randall, who was sitting across the room, smoking a
cigarette. The unconscious Surge lay on a cot next to him.
"Matsushita owns Tigerlily."
The look on Booger's face would've been hard to see exactly
through the plastic that surrounded the ten by ten foot space in
the corner. The small area inside the sheets was kept to medical
standards by air filters in the ceiling.
Iris figured it must have been pretty damn good, though.
Randall just about busted a nut.
"Oh, ha ha, very funny," responded Booger. "You just bring
this up now, and make me look like an idiot trying to figure out
why Blade was there. Ha ha."
He returned to his work. A sharp pain shot up Iris's leg a few
moments later, and she groaned and shifted her weight.
"Sorry about that. Anyway, it's in, but like, don't move
around. You'll just wanna lie there, for, like, about 90 minutes
before you put any wait on your leg," said Booger, beginning to
strip off his rubber gloves. "Oh, wait, I gotta sew up the hole,"
he added.
============
"Okay, so the scenario we've pretty much figured out is this,"
said the now awake, but still spacey, Surge. "Yamaguchi plans an op
to get back the stolen data without Matsushita's permission. When
it goes sour, he pretends like it didn't happen. But when his
bosses find out it was him who planned the fucked up raid, they
start leaning on him. So he decides to kill you to make up for his
mistake."
"But then they fire him," continues Randall, "and he decides
you're not worth really worrying about anymore, and he makes his
first priority getting back at Matsushita."
"Right," Iris replied. "So I wasn't even supposed to be there.
It was just pure coincidence. And as for the hotel, Blade was using
it as a base for operations."
"And," Booger finished, "As far as we know, nobody's accepted
the newly posted contract on Yamaguchi yet."
Iris smiled wickedly. "Yet."
"So, we get the contract, sneak into Canada, and take out
Yamaguchi," said Randall.
"Well, that's oversimplified, but, yeah," replied Surge. "But
we still don't know what Toru was working on for him."
"My guess is a border-running ATV. An easy way for him to move
his goons back and forth between Canada and the plex," said Booger.
"Could be," replied Randall.
"Whatever, we'll be finding out tomorrow night," said Iris.
============
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
"The crowning touch, the one thing that really puts true world-class
badmotherfuckerdom totally out of reach, of course, is the hydrogen
bomb."
-- Neal Stephenson, _Snow Crash_
-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-o=o-
James Tackett ("Lurker"): "It's all fun and games 'til someone
puts an eye out...after that it's just fun."
JDTackett@gnn.com,
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