>From: snarler@MAPLE.CIRCA.UFL.EDU (Drifter...)
Subject: REPOST: Whirlwind's Voice
Date: 10 Jul 91 09:06:50 GMT


    "Hey," Drifter says, looking at his watch, "it's now officially my
birthday." He looks around the Chatsubo. Ratz is re-stocking his NearBeer.
Nekoko is taking an order from someone with the flaking skin of an Alligator
gene transplant. Bella is watching a tiny flat-screen intensely, from which
issues the, faint tinny strains of the "MacGyver" theme song. An old man in a
corner booth is jabbering in a monotone to himself about homosexuals, orgasms,
and someone named Saltgirl. Someone named Phyllis Rostykus is somehow
unreachable and it's irritating him.
    "Well... In celebration of being twenty-three and still having nothing to
show for being born, except maybe a really twisted potential for destruction,
here's a SimStim featuring one of my fav Cyberpunk bands." He snaps his
fingers and Chatsubo becomes a giant SimStim deck.

--------

    Drift into the club and you find yourself packed in with a hundred other
people, all sweating in the smokey, dingy room. The Wormhole.
    Push and shove your way to the front (watch that knife! *chink* Cheap
organic steel breaks on your kevlar embedded leathers) until you can see the
raised stage platform. It's surrounded by a ring of spikes to discourage stage
diving. There are rusty stains on the spikes. You observe the band.
    Doe on drums, thin and gangly. A few random beats proves she has the
strength to make the skins work though. Her dirty blonde hair is already
sticking slightly to her face from sweat, sweat sliding down her chest between
her tiny breasts. She's wearing yellow shorts.
    Buck on the subsonic is triangular. Broad shoulders, thinner waist, stick
legs. Probably an improperly balanced steroid operation. His arms are long,
long, able to stroke the subsonic's neck from base to tip. Hollow black
plastic glistens slightly as he tunes the subsonic, enhanced ear twitched for
sounds that you can't even feel, nevermind hear. His chest is thick and hairy
but his legs are almost femine in their shape. Baggy, short trousers made of
canvas.
    Another buck on the lead 'tar. An Omnicron special. Does bass, 6-strings,
harpsichord, piano... anything with a string and a sound. It's pretty battered
though and may not be as multi-functional as it once was. The owner places a
cig in the clip holder at the end of the neck, shakes his bald head and peers
at his hands while he plays gently at the orbit-grown crystal strings. Without
the amp on, only a faint chiming is audible. This one has his "RoboPope" shirt
on but he's wearing orange Speedos. Culture clash.
    As the musicians fiddle and adjust, someone clambers on stage from the
audience. A muscle grafted bouncer picks him up to toss out, but then the guy
with the Omnicron shouts something and the bouncer obediantly lets his hostage
go. The singer for Fear Innoculation spits something at the bouncer and then
trips as he tries to reach the microphone set.
    "Fucked up again, man," the buck with the subsonic says with disdain.
"Drop the 'meth at least, Charlie."
    "Fuck. I can. You. Sing. Juvey. Anyways..." Charlie's left pupil is
contracted nearly shut, the other dilated wide open. His hair, brown and gray,
hangs in strands past his shoulders. Tats spiral down from the shoulders,
under scars, over a splotchy birthmark on one arm. "FUCK AUTHORITY" is
emblazoned on his hairless white chest in black and blue. Unfortunately,
Charlie managed to put on his girlfriend's spandex skirt when he fell out of
bed, so the effect is ruined.
    He sways and then swings around suddenly at the audience. Grabs the mike
set-up. Pastes the cheap aluminum-backed mike to his throat, wraps the antenna
loosely around one ear. The soundboard wakes up and flicks on the amps.
Charlie grumbles and the sound is amplified dozens of times to assault the
audience. They grumble back. You wonder who'll die tonight.
    "Dizzy people... Why are we HERE?!" Charlie shouts, holding up his hands.
The beginning of a feedback squeal is cut out automatically by the amp
processors. The band watches attentively, ready for anything.
    The audience mutters.
    "WHY ARE WE HERE?!"
    The audience pauses and then replies, a sea of larynxes, "TO INNOCULATE
FEAR!" Some raggedly follow with "I dunno..." but they are not noticed.
    "Fuck it up," Charlie says matter-of-factly, and the Omnicron bass roars.
Distorted and rusty. Then the six-string lead sound comes in, a counter-
balance of squeaks and shrieks. The mighty, rusty engine awakens.
    Gypsy slams her drums with mercury-filled impact sticks. Her beat
overblows the guitar by a mile. Machine gun rattle taking the audience apart.
She closes her eyes and won't open them again till the song is over. She's
sweating more. Probably why she's so thin.
    The subsonic is silent, as always. Juvey slides his fingers down the
strings and the audience's collective spine shrivels. He smirks and waits for
his part.
    The engine has gained speed,  running on two cylinders now. A third kicks
in as the Omnicron engages a rythm guitar. Baldy's cig weaves a trail of gray
as he begins to bounce with the rhthym.
     Charlie screams and the fourth cylinder grinds against its sheath.

        "Whirlwind, the layer of the mind,
         Voice from the past life."

    The words are spit out with no emotion, but a sense of anticipation drips
off each syllable. Charlie's eyes exchange dialation.

        "Roaring, mysteries in the light,
         Who took my last life?"

    Gypsy's lips are mouthing the lyrics as her arms fly across the taut drum
skins. Her hair is plastered to her skull, skin turning slightly pale.

        "Whirling, the need for the answer,
         Use this second life."

    The subsonic kicks in at the highest pitch, mimicking human speech the
way Leviathan might at the bottom of the deepest trench of the sea. Every
other word is the subsonic, leading the somewhat more human voice of the
hyped-up Charlie.

        One         one
            "life,"     "arrow,"
        Flying            and
               "straight"     "narrow."
        One         one
            "mind,"     "thought,"
        Death       thing      be
              "the"       "to"    "sought!"

    Juvey pants. The chorus is always the hardest on him, with the slippery
plastic of the subsonic's strings trying to sneak out of his grip as he
strangles it into speaking. His skin glistens darkly in the smokey light. Too
much UV and not enough protection.

        "Stormwind, icehawks fight to survive,
         Defend the prize Sheol."

    Charlie stumbles back and forth across the stage, singing. An opera of
infected phonemes and faint wheezes. Gypsy punctuates each sentence with a
quick thundering rattle. Baldy's sweaty, stubbled head reflects the stage
lights as the Omnicron speeds up and your head is hurting.

        "Powers, the race returns to nest,
         Human war on Sheol."

    Do they know what the fuck I'm saying here, Charlie wonders to himself.
He tries to peer at the audience but sweat is in his eyes and he thinks
something is trying to eat his toes.

        "Game Over, end the insanity,
         What happened on Sheol?"

    Juvey slams into the chorus again, this time following Charlie's lead,
which is faster than Juvey thought it would be. He nearly rips the tips of his
fingers off keeping up. The drums start an artillery run.

        "One" life, "one" arrow,
        "Flying" straight "and" narrow.
        "One" mind  "one" thought,
        "Death" the "thing" to "be" sought!

    What's that? Charlie wonders, trying to figure out what is eating his
toes. He looks at his feet and almost misses his next vocal. Omnicron player
sneers and tries to drown Charlie out. Juvey is feeling the strain. Gypsy is
oblivious to all as her skin starts to flush and her breath begins to come
faster. Her hands fly.

        "Searching, space holds the needed truth,
         No more memory."

    Audience squeezes you closer to the stage, the spikes. Amps are warbling
with hundreds of compensations per minute. Your rib cage vibrates in painful
symphony.

        "Finding, the answer is a maze,
         Here ends memory."

    The 'meth is starting to burn out of Charlie's body now. He notices his
skirt for the first time. Ripping it off nearly knocks him over. Now he and
Baldy are in matching Speedos.

        "Piercing, shred the veil of secrets,
         Need the memory."

    Gypsy's head tosses back and forth. Her hands nearly tremble as they
pound at the drums in near-perfect synchronization. The cymbals clash in gold
shatters on their own accord. Even Charlie notices her performance is sharper
and harder than it has been before. He watches her as he takes this chorus on
his own while Juvey tries to get sensation back in his fingers.

        "One life, one arrow,
         flying straight and narrow.
         One mind one thought,
         death the thing to be sought!"

    If Gypsy knows she's being studied, she gives no sign. Sweat is dripping
down her neck over her chest and stomach. Her little brown nipples are erect.
The drums are like a jackhammer on speed. The audience is a boiling pot behind
you that you're afraid to look at.

        "Revenge, debts of past life to pay,
         Arrow seeks its mark."

    Charlie turns back to the audience. It's a sea of bobbing heads and
sweaty, animalistic visages. Someone dives up over the spikes around the
stage, gashing his leg. Dizzy thrashing past the band and he dives back into
the audience that catches him. A young girl tries a similar manuever, but
before imapling herself, Charlie kicks her back to relative safety.

        "Destroy, Powers the mystery,
         Arrow hits its mark,"

    Blood speckles the stage. Charlie can feel the tension building for the
final chorus. Juvey's ready to tackle the simultaneous rendering. Baldy's got
the Omnicron screeching in agony. Gypsy's flushed and gasping, what the hell?
    The engine's running on six cylinder's now. Nothing can stop them.

        "Decease, end this second life now,
         Arrow through its mark."

    Charlie screams the chorus at the top of his lungs, blowing amps and
partially deafening several bodies for life. The subsonic synchs with him and
the audience feels the Fear Innoculation pulsing through their blood.

       "ONE LIFE, ONE ARROW!
        FLYING STRAIGHT AND NARROW!!
        ONE MIND, ONE THOUGHT!!!
        DEATH THE THING TO BE SOOOOUUUGGGHHHHT!!!!"

    Charlie falls to his knees, panting. Juvey's pumping out subsonics that
whip the audience into an unfearful killing machine. Baldy gives them their
message with the flow of twisting steel and ice from his Omnicron.
    Gypsy yells incoherently as she climaxes all over her chair and spasms the
final drum shocks. The audience doesn't notice but Charlie does. Gypsy
collapses over her drum set with a satisfied smile.
    "Five," Charlie mutters, voice buzzing over the tortured amps. "Gotta take
a leak."
    As if on cue, the soundboard ROMs glitch and it dies with a scratching
shriek of feedback.


==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|==|
  Copyright (C) 1991 by Drifter...       - All rights reserved
  Fear Innoculation (TM) by Drifter...   - Use only with permission of author
  "Whirlwind's Voice" inspired by the novel "Voice Of The Whirlwind" by Walter
Jon Williams. Someone wanna write the music?


 -------------======>>>>>>>>>>>>*** Drifter ***<<<<<<<<<<<<======-------------
"Well ser."  Benjamin licked his lips.  "First off, there's the fact that you
 aren't wearing any clothes."  Robert nodded.  "Good, go for the direct.  I'll
 even posit,  for now,  that the simplest,  most parsimonious explanation for
 my nudity is that I've gone bonkers.  I reserve the right to offer an
 alternative theory,  though."              --The Uplift War by David Brin