From: Mike Scanlon <REVOLUTION@delphi.com>
Subject: christmas in the chatsubo
Date: Sat, 25 DEC 93 12:32:26 EST


        There was something about petty theft.  He'd never been able to put
his finger on it; it was just so...liberating!  There was a certain power in
earning your living by leeching off the huge corporations, knowing that the
losses they suffered were easily absorbed by the masses the executive elite
so easily took advantage of, but also knowing that they could not stop you.
For all their financial might, they were powerless to stop one individual,
taking advantage of the few freedoms the government had not yet taken away.
And stealing a few back.
        And then, of course, there was the chase.
        "Ha ha!  C'mon, bitches!  I thought you were an upgrade."
        Cyebrnetically enhanced limbs sped him across the ancient brick
rooftops, the neon night of the glowing sprawl flowing through his hair.  How
many times had he played the game?  How many times had he won?
        He seemed to dance amid the pol rob's gleaming lasers, enacting a
choreographed performance, as if he knew moments ahead of time where the beams
would strike.
        But he was never one for running.  When he could fight.
        A ledge flew up out of nothingness, and he teetered on the edge of
reality, which came to a distant end on the concrete a thousand stories below.
Gaining his balance, he turned into the blazing lasers of a quickly
approaching pol rob.
        He phased out, and then back, not a moment later, but a moment before.
Conveniently on the other side of the pol rob.  There were two of him now, one
unaware of the other, balancing on a ledge, the other very aware, shaking off
the grogginess of lost time, training his pistol on the flailing robot.
        Watching himself through his own eyes always had a peculiar affect on
him.  There was something so other worldly about it.  How could he see his
previous self now, when he could not see himself a moment before?  Does a tree
falling with no one to hear it make any sound?
        "Do I care?"
        The pol rob blasted his lasers into nothingness, and then turned,
startled to find himself all of a sudden the prey.  Sensors lit up in
mechanical surprise, scrambling to analyze this new threat.
        "Too late."
        Blue laser fire threw metal shards into all corners of the roof,
leaving a quaking husk of a body behind.
        A little Christmas present for the scavengers, he thought to himself.
        "Time to deliver this."  He slid his prize out of an inner jacket
pocket, admiring it in the flickering red of an exit sign.  A Hitachi
holographic projector with a built in modem.  Not to expensive to buy, but
even cheaper to steal.
        He stepped up to the ledge, looking out with awe.  The nightline of
the sprawl spread out into infinity in every direction.  He remembered 80's
Los Angeles, bright lights streaming out to every point on the compass.  A
single tear burned a path down his cheek.
        He threw himself out, over the street, arms outstretched, trying to
engulf the sprawl in all its infinity.  He hung in the air for a second,
feeling that fleeting non-moment of the freedom of flight, willing himself to
become just another jewel shining in the sprawl.  For a nanosecond he was part
of it all.  There was nothing different about him.  There was no pain.
        He arced his body into a beautiful swan dive, preparing to execute a
face plant into the concrete below.  For a moment he almost had the willpower
to do it.
        Then he phased out, willing himself instead to other places, other
whens.


        "If corrupt gave a fuck about a ho, I'd always be broke, I'd never
have no muthafuckin endo to smoke...I gets loced and loony..."
        The pulsating techno had been replaced in the blink of an eye with
the pounding beat of an old 90's rap classic.  Heads turned for an instant,
but just as quickly thoughts were again lost in the joys and griefs of the
rainbow colored derms planted on the lowlifes sitting in the chatsubo's
stools.
        Dust seemed to swirl in the center of the bar, tracing the outlines
of two footprints.  Those who did not have their faces unconsciously drowned
in a glass began to take notice, some drawing their weapons, the red dots of
laser sights skittering over the bar counter.
        Then a pair of black boots melted into the two prints, folowed by a
figure in a pair of baggy low hanging blue jeans, and a huge black sweat
shirt, hood thrown up over most it's head.  A cube of solid technology phased
out of nowhere into his hand, which he quickly flinged into the chatsubo's
ceiling.
        Dissapearing almost before he had appeared, his trailing words shouted
above the roar of angry laser fire, "A Christmas present for the Chatsubo, to
replay any events I might find worthy of retelling here."
        The cube's protrusions embedded themselves above the bar, and the cube
retracted itself into the ceiling.  The techno bounced back, and within
moments the Chatsubo was back to normal.
        Or back to as normal as it ever was.

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You gotta do right by yourself, | There is a right and wrong. But the law
right by what you believe in,   | sure as hell ain't it.
right by the people you love,   | --------------------------------------------
fuck the government, when was   | Opinions and criticisms welcome as always:
the last time they did right    | Revolution:
by me?                          |            Revolution@delphi.com
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