From: sanelson@milton.u.washington.edu (S. A. Nelson)
Subject: die Zerfallstrasse
Date: 7 Sep 92 04:16:05 GMT


	here is the 1st installment of our story. it is our first submission
to the chatsubo. tell us what you think.


	die Zerfallstrasse,			
	eine sonderbare Abenteuer von Johnny Tomorrow


	Johnny walked into the Cafe Borgia, running his hand through his wet,
pitchy-black hair. Outside the rain continued to pound the asphalt like a
million tiny H-bombs, each drop becoming a cloud of mist and then settling
down like fluid fallout to run into the gutter, shining vilely under the neon
signs of the Neumannstrasse. Even in the restaurant, the walls sweated along
with the patrons to create a distinctlty aquatic breakfast ambience.
	It's like a goddam fishbowl in here, Johnny thought as he made his
way to the counter. The place was filled with the nightclub crowd, some
having onelast drink before going home, others eating and stimming up for
work after a  night of dancing or standing around trying to get close enough
to the People to be seen by the vid-cameras, to see themselves on "Iniquity"
the next day. He sat down, setting his big sack down next to him. After
ordering, he looked around. At every table was a group of cheerful-looking
young people, stuffing their  witless faces with radiatorre or marinated
vat-grown vegetables. He hated them. Furthermore, he was damn hungry. It
wasn't so long ago that he ate at places like this, and better, every single
night. Now he was stuck with garlic bread and cappucino at the counter. He
lit a 60/40 and scowled. How long until the heat was off? He wasn't up to
much when he was caught. He'd done alot bigger hack-jobs than that one. But
he knew that breaking into Propco wasn't the _real_ reason they wanted his
ass.
	The waitress slid his 'feine and bread over to him and asked a
hurried "Anything else?" Johnny shook his head at her. She was the typical
Borgia waitron, with a pink braid running down to her waist and chrome
contact lenses. She turned on her stiletto heel and stalked back into the
kitchen. He slurped the foam on top of his drink and reflected further on
his misfortune. He might never work again, and for what? Stealing plans
for an antique flying machine from some two-bit manufacturer of propeller
engines was not what he would like to think of as his last job. Of course,
now he was beginning to suspect what the nature of this flying machine
might be, and it made him nervous to think that he was in posession of the
information.
        He sighed and looked at the clock, chewing his garlic bread. It
was nearly 05:00 and he wanted to go to sleep, so he finished eating, paid
and left. The street was relatively quiet and when Johnny looked up he
could see the sky lightening behind the Glazial-United building, a halo
around an old tombstone. A few hunched, gray people were making their way
to work, mostly to Glazial, pulling their collars up to fend off both rain
and unwelcome attention. Johnny walked quickly south to the alley that led
from the Neumannstrasse to the Tarskistrasse, where he lived. The alley
was a nasty place to walk, but this route would allow him to avoid the
Chatsubo, where he didn't want to be seen. Johnny fingered the knife in
his pocket. "No trouble," he muttered. "Please." The last thing he wanted
was a scene, even in this place, so rarely visited by the law.
        Stepping over a shiny puddle of something he didn't recognise (and
didn't want to) he started down the alley. To his right was a burnt-out
neon sign that read, enigmatically enough, POSTURE, with an arrow pointing
up a set of stairs. Sometime he was going to have to find out what that
was, but for now he just wanted to get to the Tarskistrasse as quickly as
possible. His feet splashed on the wet pavement, but thankfully that was
the only sound as he passed the back doors of the sleazy little pawn shops
and the renderers out back of the Glazial cafeteria.
         He soon found himself stepping off the short step at the end of
the alley and into his own block, but as he looked back, he saw a figure
leaning out of the cafeteria's door and heard the click of a camera. Then
the figure slipped back inside.
        Johnny ran down the Tarskistrasse toward a pair of dark green
doors leading into the ground floor of an old 20th century building.
Upstairs, Johnny knew, was housed a firm which manufactured "pigeon-care
equipment," presumably water dishes and ergonomically sound perches, for
the ever more ubiquitous "fancy," the pigeon racers. But the ancient sign
above Johnny's front door read "Peter Pan Amusement Center: Billiards,
Video Games, BIG-Screen TV." He fumbled with his keys and then noticed
that the doors were unlocked. His breath caught in his throat, but he
pushed them open.          	
	Inside, all was silent. The place was dark and smelled of cheap,
stale beer and cigarrettes. In the corner, the radio played to itself.
"Today in Brussels, Ministry of Defense spokesman Max Weinberg announced
that the 13th "Grand Oiseau" Tactical Bombing Division was being moved to
the carrier Adenauer in the North Sea Security Zone. He emphasized that
this was merely a precautionary move, designed to deter possible North
American aggression."	
	Stepping carefully around a pile of bottles, he walked into the
kitchen. Someone had really messed things up, but it was difficult to tell
whether  somebody had broken in or it was just the remains of another
party. As soon as he could manage he was going to move out of the Peter
Pan. Those junkies and street-boys are going to be bringing the Man in
here before too long and that'll be it for me, he thought.
	With his bag, Johnny brushed a pile of old TV dinner packages off
the table and into a plastic pail on the floor. He then opened the bag
and pulled out histrophy from work, five rolls of toilet paper. He put
three in the "Men's" bathroom (the other one had been unusable for months)
and, clutching his knife, carried the other two to the utility closet
which was his room. 	
	The padlock on his door hadn't been tampered with, so he opened
the door and dropped the rolls on his mattress. He then returned to the
big room to search around some more.
	"...and in Bordeaux, where President Norbert Norman is vacationing
at his pigeon loft-complex, he gave a brief press-conference. He condemned
the United States for pressuring the U.K. to..." the radio continued.
Johnny picked up an old Jaegermeister bottle and tossed it at the radio.
	"Fascists," he muttered.
	The Peter Pan was completely empty. Furthermore, nothing had been
stolen, that he could see. The punters must have just forgot to lock up,
he thought, relieved but annoyed.
	He heard the front doors open and Mimi Dement's voice.
	"Anybody there?...sounds like they've been and gone, Gary."
	"Good," muttered Gary Genius. He and Mimi had been crashing at the
Peter Pan for about a week. They were allergic to rent but Gary worked at
Centmarkt, so he was always bringing food around.
	"Hey," Johnny called. "Who the hell forgot to lock the door when
they left?"
	"Oh, Johnny, you're back." Mimi looked over at him. Well, we had
to leave the door unlocked for the meds."
	"What?"
	"Well, yesterday Jimmy Germ and Emile brought over a whole keg of
good  Pilsener so we had a party," she explained. "The problem was they
also brought Karl, and he decided to mainline half a rig of vodka."
	"You're shittin' me, right?" Johnny asked.
	"So Gary called the meds and we all took off. We figured where
the meds go the Polizei won't be far behind. I guess they got him,
anyway." She looked around.
	"The Polizei or the meds?" Johnny said, irritated. Mimi always
affected him with a wide spectrum of emotions, ranging from a vague,
undifferentiated desire for her skinny black-tights-and-striped shirt
clad body, to an aversion to her undifferentiated personality.
	"How should I know." replied Mimi, in a flat voice, brushing at
her short black hair in an abstracted way.
	"We were gone." explained Gary, helpfully. He came up behind
Mimi, towering over her. His finger found a hole in his tattered green
T-shirt.
	I must remember, thought Johnny, not to ever have any sort of
medical emergency, such as a stroke, a heart attack, or an OD of
injected vodka, with only these two to help me. Of course, Gary had
called the meds. Had the meds found Karl face down in a puddle of his
own vomit? Not that I give a shit about Karl.
	"Karl." Johnny said.
	"Karl is a royal dickwipe." said Gary.
	"I'm not letting him in here again." said Mimi "I know Emile
feels the same way about him."
	"I'm going to bed." said Johnny.
	"Night" said Gary and Mimi.

			*		*		*

	He saw a table, a TV screen...riding in a car, an open topped car,
then the man said "You need to fill out" and he was buying a package, or
buying a ticket, and then Mimi was bending over him, and he was reading a
book, or watching TV or walking down the hallway, or falling, falling,
falling, stepping up one step and reaching for the light cord and then
darkness, always the same darkness, and then it all repeated again, in the
same way or in another way entirely, and then the darkness again, always
the same darkness.

			*		*		*

	He woke up on the mattress. He was fully dressed, and covered in
sticky sweat. His head on the dirty grey pillow was lying in a damp patch.
His feet were wedged against the wall. The knife was lying on the floor. A
half bottle of cheap Chianti was next to it. Next to the cheap bottle of
Chianti was a paper sack full of wads of facial tissue, empty pill bottles
and two or three used contraceptives. Next to the paper bag was an
overflowing ashtray. Next to the overflowing ashtray was the opposite wall
of the tiny utility closet. The opposite wall was covered with: 1. a John
Cage retrospective concert poster, 2. a stained poker-playing dogs print,
with scatological word-balloons added in felt pen, 3. a city map and 4. a
calender, two months behind.
	The toilet paper was now on a stack of old newspapers,  Dutch
pornographic magazines and technical books. Very little free space remained
in the room, although a set of wobbly steel shelves filled with more books
loomed on one wall. The bare light bulb in the ceiling cast a cheerful, but
painful, light over all. A dirty, misshapen cotton Easter bunny, the product
of one of Mimi's abortive attempts to break into the lucrative freelance
window display business, hung over the edge of the top steel shelf. It's
featureless insectoid head and black button eyes stared blindly at him.
	Through the door, he heard a faint, muffled sound. The radio was
saying something in Flemish about the week's pigeon futurity race results.
	Maybe I should have kept three rolls for myself, he thought. Those
dumb shits will have used it all up by the time I leave for work. Johnny
had started keeping extra rolls in his room back when Pharaoh Chromium had
moved in. He smiled. Of course, I could give Mimi a roll. She might like
that. It might get me down her pants.
	He straightened his collar. I think, in fact, Johnny continued,
looking at his haggard unshaven face in the tin mirror tacked to the wall,
that she's already a possibility along those lines. After all, can Gary
really be getting it up these days? She's sending little signals, I can
tell.
	Other voices sounded in the outer room. Heavy footsteps. More
voices. German. And then Mimi's voice, saying "He's in there, Herr
Oberst."
	"No fucking toilet paper for you, Mimi" snarled Johnny under his
breath, as the footsteps headed for his door. He stuffed various items in
his pockets, and then pulled a folding ladder out from under a pile of
trash.
	A knock on the door. Again. Then pounding. "Polizei! Offen!"  The
door held.
	Johnny climbed up the ladder and pushed open an attic cover. He
gripped the edges of the hole and pulled himself up.
	Shouted orders. Something hitting the door, causing it to bulge
and splinter.
	Johnny found himself in a blocked-off section of the second floor.
An extremely ancient "Golden Axe II" video game had been stored in the
space. Putting all his strength into a desperate shove, Johnny tipped the
machine into the hole, crashing down into the utility closet below. He
turned and ran toward a bank of boarded up windows on the other side of
the room.	
	He kicked out the rotten plywood in the window, and dirty white
sunlight streamed in. The plywood fell into the street as Johnny squeezed
through the window, out onto the ledge. He squinted in the light, nearly
blinded, and slowly made his way toward the corner of the building. Down
in the street, he could see two Polizei lifters and another car that was
obviously an undercover. There were three uniforms standing by the entrance
to the Peter Pan, but they hadn't noticed him yet.
	Turning the corner, he saw that there was a place where he could
drop onto a delivery van, about twenty feet away. He carefully made his way
toward  the van, wondering who'd gone and flapped his lips at the Polizei.
As he dropped, he heard shouting out in front of the building and knew he'd
better high-tail it.
	He ran down the alley and into the Radjasplatz, named after one of
President Norman's pigeons that was killed in a terrorist bombing. It was
quite crowded and he was afforded very good cover as he ran to the S-Bahn
station. There were uniforms all around but they seemed indifferent to him,
luckily. He climbed a set of iron stairs to the second floor. Here he was
afforded a good view of the whole square. The southern side, adjacent the
station, was dominated by the new Art Museum and Cultural Center, a giant
greenish white cube. Across from this was the North American embassy, which
looked as if it had been badly vandalized recently. Soon, the undercover
drove in from the Tarskistrasse, parking in front of the embassy, and one
of the lifters floated noisily out of the alley.
	Seems like pretty big guns just to get me, he thought, confused.
There's no way this is just about hacking...hell, you'd think they'd be
glad I was breaking into an American company. They're supposed to be the
enemy and everything.  No, this is because of what I got outta Propco.
Johnny groaned. Who knows who might be involved in this? Glazial, that's
for sure, after that guy in the alley, and I guess that's bad enough.
	A train pulled into the station, and Johnny hurried to the
platform, past a huge poster of Norbert Norman, arm outstretched toward a
scene of outer space, filled with rockets and stylized pigeons.
"Europaisch Raumfahrt? ja!" read the caption. The train was nearly empty,
fortunately, and as Johnny boarded he looked back at the stairs. No cops
coming up yet. He sat down and sighed.
	Seconds later, the train pulled out and began to accelerate. It
went right through the station in the entertainment district, and Johnny
realized that it must be an out of town route. Oh well, he thought. The
more distance I put between me and them the better.
	He watched the great oil refineries and chemical plants speed by,
plumes of oily smoke pouring out of their blackened stacks, wondering
where this route led. Spurts of flame occasionally shot forth from the top
of one tower, which had a sign reading "FENO" on one side. Johnny saw a
lifter-van land at FENO, dwarfed by the huge stack.
	Past the FENO plant, the city began to thin out and soon the train
was nearing the airport. Johnny decided that he'd get off there and try to
find a route to one of the safer suburbs, perhaps to the Uni. But the train
sped right by the airport, and Johnny wondered where it would stop. The sun
was beginning to go down and he wasn't sure he wanted to end up somewhere
he'd never been, after dark.
	Then the train began to slow and when it eventually came to a halt,
Johnny was already at the doors. They opened with a reluctant hiss, and
Johnny stepped out onto a cracked concrete slab, with a steel-frame roof
overhead. In the fading gray light, he could see the dark outlines of
industrial buildings and chainlink fences. By the flickering orange light
of a sodium-vapor lamp he saw a sign reading "Albert Stirling Memorial
Power Station" in Walloon.  A set of enamelled regulations were posted
below the sign in Walloon, Flemish, Basque, German and French.
	Johnny looked down the tracks. The rails gleamed faintly before
they were swallowed up by the darkness. Far away he saw another bright
flare from the FENO complex. No other trains seemed to be running.
	A dirt road led from the train pad, between chainlink fences to
the dark buildings of the power station. There seemed to be no other way
to go.
	Johnny started walking down the dirt road. After a hundred paces he
found himself in nearly complete darkness. None of the lights on the road
seemed to be lit. The road itself had a great many patches of grass and the
occaisional broken "St Pauli Girl" beer bottle.
	He stumbled along. The night was getting colder and a nasty wind
had sprung up. Johnny imagined he could hear the shadowy machines beyond
the fence creaking and groaning in the wind. A rusty hydralic stamping
mill hulked, vaguely outlined against the dim steel blue of the horizon.
	He had no idea of where he was going, or what he would do when he
got there. The power station, he thought, might have a terminal, or at
least a 'phone. Of course, how would he get them to let him use it? What if
he was arrested as soon as he set foot on the power station grounds?
	Presently the road ended, and Johnny was face to face with a chain
link gate. On the other side of the gate was a dilapidated guard-house. No
one was inside the guard-house, although a small light was on inside. Beyond
stretched a vast empty parking lot, and several huge rusty buildings. A few
lights burned here and there, but for the most part the place seemed
deserted.
	Johnny shook the gate. A chain and lock held it shut. Looking
backwards he could see the train station far down the dirt road, a little
square of orange light in a sea of blackness.
	He started to climb the gate, pulling himself up with his fingers
locked into the steel links. At the top were a few strands of barbed wire.
Carefully he pulled himself onto the top of the fence, under the wire and
then hung over the other side. His feet found the center pole on the gate,
and he jumped down to the asphalt.
	The guardhouse had little of interest, save for soaked copies of
"Ass Eating Jocks" stuffed into a bottom drawer. The pages were practically
welded shut and pulped by time and weather, although Johnny recognised
Pharoah Cromium on one of the covers.
	Under the porn magazines, however, Johnny's fingers closed on
something cold and metallic. Pulling aside the soggy paper, Johnny found
a very old Makarov automatic pistol.
	It was rusty in spots, but it was still loaded. Johnny pulled back
the slide and chambered a round. The ammunition was in much better shape
than the gun, and had apparantly been loaded recently.
	When I get back to the city, Johnny thought, I can get a lot of
money for this thing. If the Polizei see me though, I'd better ditch it -
ten years in the Swedish reeducation centers would be the minimum.
	The 'phone and terminal in the guardhouse had been ripped out.
Johnny started walking towards the big buildings, the Makarov in a jacket
pocket.
	He came to the huge doors in the side of Building One. One of the
doors had fallen off it's tracks and laid on the ground. Inside was a
profound Stygean blackness. Far away, Johnny saw a glimmer of light.
	Johnny stood on the edge of the darkness for a long moment. Why am
I here? he thought. Suddenly, a strange feeling came over him. The silence,
the darkness seemed to stretch away from him to the ends of awareness. He
became concious of himself being here at this moment, and having no real
explanation of why that should be. The fact of his own existance seemed
grotesque, unreal. There is no one else in this power plant, in this city,
in the world, he thought. Nothing here was made or built - it exists, and I
exist. The wind blew at his back.
	He walked into the darkness. Nothing seemed to be in his way, and
the unseen floor was smooth and featureless beneath his feet.
	There was a vast thudding sound somewhere in the distance. High
above him, hundreds of mercury-vapor lamps switched on, flooding the vast
space with light.

more later.

all characters and situations within copyright 1992, S.A. Nelson and
J.S. Sabotta. not to be used without permission.

S.A. Nelson
sanelson@u.washington.edu
(winner of the Amazing Transparent
Man Scholarship)