>From: li@polari.UUCP (Phyllis Rostykus)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Silicon Dreams (was Re: Interface)
Date: 11 Nov 90 18:23:20 GMT


    The wind howls, desolate and despairing, through the comforting 
darkness of the night, through the soothing white noise of the rain 
as it hits and spatters across concrete and glass.  It howls, 
ripping with it's invisible and futile fingers at wire and steel.  
But the giant idols of men's technology sway and bow before the 
ferocity of the wind.

    It is almost as if the wind had opened the door to the Chatsubo, 
as a gust, with wind-ripped flutters of trash, bursts in through the 
open door.  But a firm, sure hand closes the door in the face of the 
wind.  And a woman stands, across the threshold, in the darkness of 
the room.  Lights from the table, from the bar, pick out the gold at 
her ears, the sheen of blue leather all along her body, and the blue 
steel of her eyes.

    She moves through light evening crowd like a dancer, all liquid 
grace.  Each movement complete, in of of itself.  Each step minutely 
testing the ground it treads on, each sway of the hip, of the arm in 
perfect concert with the center of her balance.  As intricate and 
inevitable as a minuet danced across the floor.

    She goes to the bar, as always, noting the incongruity of the 
barkeeper's ancient, pink plastic arm, against the pale flesh of his 
real arm, and the constructs moving all around him.  "Hi, Ratz."

    "Ah, friend Li, and how is the razor dancer, today?"

    Her smile is small, but reaches her eyes, and gleams like 
ancient steel slipped from a leather sheath. "All right, Ratz.  I 
think things are going pretty well, right now."

    "What will you have?"

    "A quad, middle-level saki, please."

    "Green Dragon?"

    She smiles, again, "Entirely appropriate, Ratz, as always.  Oh," 
she says as he turns to get her order, "I need that with one saki 
cup and one teacup with a matching pattern."

    Ratz stops, somewhat nonplussed at the request, but, a half a 
minute later, a graceful, steaming decanter of saki with a matching 
saki cup and a tea cup of the same pattern all rest on a small, 
lacquered tray.

    "Thanks, I appreciate the extra effort." she says, and pulls out 
a roll of cash, peels off seven one thousand yen notes, and says, 
"Keep the change."  She hesitates, "Oh, yes, here," she hands him 
another four notes, "when Michael.. The guy in the brown leather 
jacket over there?  If he asks you for a drink, this is to pay for 
it."

    "Thank you, dancer.  As always, it is a pleasure doing business 
with you."  Ratz seems well pleased as he goes on with his work, his 
pink plastic arm flashing under the bar lights as he runs his cloth 
along the bar.

    She moves on, balancing the tray in one hand, simply because it 
never occurs to her to tie up both hands with one task.  At one 
point she stops by a stranger in a brown leather jacket.

    "Thank you." she says, "The examples were appropriate and 
useful, for, I think, they said, better than anything I could SAY, 
what I meant.  Tell Ratz your next drink is on me."

    She moves on, to a strange booth that spills light into the 
walkway.  And, as she reaches it, she finds that there is no table, 
no seats on the booth, instead, the light comes from a passageway 
that looks like it is under construction.  She ducks into the 
passageway, and flows up it, tray neatly balanced to the front.

   And, at the top, she finds a dragon in an easy chair.
   
   She pauses, for a long moment.  And then, a low stand appears 
before the Dragon.  In one motion she goes from standing to 
kneeling, and gently places the tray on the stand.  Silently, she 
pours two saki's, and then, taking the teacup in both hands, she 
reaches up to the dragon, giving him his share of her drink.  Her 
steel blue eyes meet his.

   "Thank you." she says, and, suddenly, there is a blush on her 
pale, stern face, and she almost whispers, "Thank you, very much for 
your praise, it has meant a lot to me.  As has the praise of all the 
others caught by my dreaming."

   "But there is something that I must tell you.  That other bar has 
a Charter, and that Charter is to help Real people with Real 
problems.  It is not a place to bring or build Virtual reality for 
the sake of Virtual reality.  That is why I came here.  The confines 
of that Place are necessary for its function, necessary for its 
peace, for its ability to heal.  But," her voice is soft, "I chaffed 
at those confines, those limitations to my imagination.  So I came 
here to alt.cyberpunk."

   "You see, everything there is Safe, Secure.  What I wanted was 
Danger.  What I wanted was steel and chrome dreams, dark dreams of 
cynicism and the cool, absolutes of cyberspace."

   She sips her hot saki. And she savors the heat, the harsh 
sharpness of the scent of the liquor, and the rush of it into her 
blood.

   "When I came here, I was hoping to find those who had read and 
breathed more life into cyberpunk.  Those who had taken the images, 
the dark dreaming and built more of it for their own pleasure, for 
their own expression.  

    "I had hoped to find a bar full of cyberdeck jockeys just drunk 
enough to tell of the intricacies, the glistening challenges of 
their last jobs, but not drunk enough to disclose names or 
companies.  I hoped to find street samuri boasting of their latest 
exploits, complaining of almost botched jobs, or mourning the loss 
of companions.  I had wanted to dance, the bloodless shadow of 
combat, with others like me.

    "I wanted, most of all, to share in the dreaming, to loose the 
powers of imagination in my head and have no concern at my violence 
actually hurting anyone else.  I needed to express this side of 
myself, of my imagination.  And I had hoped to find others, like me, 
here.

    "What I found was..." she shrugs, "no matter, that.  But I 
think, perhaps, that I've hit a chord, here, perhaps struck some 
vein of that dark dreaming that I wanted.  And you, and others like 
you are starting to build, here.  And that is a start.  If you want 
warmth and safety, then, by all means, go to alt.callahans, but if 
what you need is steel and blood, cold concrete and glass, and the 
meeting, the mating of silicon and flesh, then I'd say, stay here, 
friend, stay here."

    Her eyes are unsettlingly intense, "For all Dreams can grow."

-- 
>From the "other"	| Phyllis Li Rostykus  	phyllis@eld.amc.com
account of	| 			uw-beaver!sumax!polari!li  
"Looking out on empty streets, all that she can see, are the dreams made solid,
 are the dreams made real." - Peter Gabriel "Mercy Street"


>From: km4j+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kip G. Moore)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Date: 12 Nov 90 22:30:46 GMT

 
    It is a quiet evening in the Chatsubo.  The sputtering neon of the
world outside is strobing across the ageless, worn plastiform tables,
animating long forgotten shadows that strut past the angular recesses of
the bar.  The few patrons that inhabit the bar at this time feel oddly
comfortable, a sensation that does not come often to inhabitants of this
virtual reality.  A slicing autumn wind cheerfully spins at the windows,
kicking up the refuse outside, breathing into it a fleeting new life,
then ambitiously moves on to stir the remainder of technology's
forgotten servants.

     In the silence following the unexpected gust, a young man arrives
at the bar.  It is as if the gust is a precursor, sweeping all of the
distracting elements away, creating a nearly idealistic setting for his
arrival.  He pauses in front of the bar in awe, staring at the faded
pictoglyphs inscribed upon the window that proclaim this establishment's
moniker.  Shaking his head in wonder, he enters the bar.

     The door opens comfortably beneath his push.  The tall newcomer is
dressed in a pair of baggy pants and a long trenchcoat.  Long, thin
brown hair nearly hides his face, but he sweeps it out of the way with a
practiced  flick of the wrist.  The exotically beautiful blue woman
sitting at a table in the middle of the narrow room sends him a look of
professional curiosity, then returns to her introspection and her
steaming drink.  The incongruous sight of a dragon and a knight sitting
next to each other brings a nervous smile to the face of the young man
as he crosses the floor to the bar and sits down.

     "Black Russian, " says the breathless newcomer to the bartender.

     The bartender smiles, not unkindly, and produces a squat crystal
glass that he fills with a murky brown liquid.  "Welcome to the
Chatsubo.  My name's Ratz.  Over there's Liralen, and sitting next to
you is the White Knight and the Dragon.  In order to exist here, it
helps to have a name."

     "Oh," says the newcomer.  "Well, for lack of anything original, I
suppose you could call me Leadfoot.  That'll have to do for now. "  His
hair flops back into his face.  As he sweeps it back again, one of his
eyes, the hazel one, catches an errant ray of light and reveals the
Zeiss Ikon logo imprinted upon the iris.  His other eye appears normal
enough, except that it is the deepest shade of green that anyone in the
bar has ever seen.

     "Well," says Leadfoot between sips, "this is a very impressive
virtual drink.  I must confess, I am rather awestruck by the existence
of such a place.  I was wandering around painfully bland virtual reality
and with little or no warning, this full-fledged construct leaps up in
front of me and I decided to see what it was all about.  Excuse me...."

     Leadfoot sits up straight, rigid.  His eyes defocus for a split
second and  then he looks around.

     "I see," breathes the newcomer.  "This is quite a unique
phenomenon.  Or is it an experiment?  Nonetheless, it is brilliant with
the glow of creativity and intelligence...And now I understand. 
Liralen, your point is well taken.  This is an excellent way to create
and maintain a virtual reality, and it's obviously working.  I'm glad I
managed to stumble upon a den of such dynamic ideas!"  Leadfoot smiles
and drains his drink.

     "The options are virtually unlimited!  No pun intended, of course. 
You see, there is nothing like nothing to have fun with..."  The
newcomer raises his hand.  In the flash of movement, something writhes,
shimmers, evolves, and manifests itself.  An infinitesimal statuette
appears on the upraised palm of Leadfoot's hand.  It pulses in time with
the distant flashing neon outside...and is gone.  It has swallowed
itself.

     The newcomer stands and walks over to Liralen.  He bows from the
waist.  "I hope you realize what you have started," he grins and
whispers just low enough for her to hear.  Leadfoot straightens and
turns to face the White Knight and the Dragon.  "You, too, must maintain
this virtual reality along with Liralen.  Not for it's own sake, but to
show as an example of how easy such a thing is to accomplish."

     "Ratz, thanks for the drink.  I was parched."  The newcomer glances
at the bar and several thousand virtual Yen appear.  And Ratz makes them
disappear just as fast as they appeared.  Leadfoot's grin grows wider. 
"I'll see you all again sometime soon.  Wow, what a great place..."

     He strides across the comfortably cramped room, opens the door, and
steps out into the street, walking in the opposite direction from which
he came.  It is thoroughly dark out now, but from the dull glow shining
through the windows of the Chatsubo, the patrons see the wind rise
again, flinging aside the innumerable, miniscule scraps of trash on
their virtual journey across the street.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-bananafishbones
"Think of it as evolution in action."


>From: cdr@amd.com (Carl Rigney)
Newsgroups: alt.config,alt.cyberpunk,alt.callahans
Subject: Proposal for alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Date: 13 Nov 90 07:48:04 GMT

NewsFlash!

A few days ago a dark chrome piper led an infiltration of alt.cyberpunk
from alt.callahans, to investigate the possibilities in a virtual
reality of shadows and edges rather than sharing and healing.  Many
people in alt.cyberspace have expressed interest in the experiment, but
others are objecting that they don't want to wade through the
additional traffic to get to the practical articles.  It seems pretty
clear there's a sharp dichotomy in readership, and so I propose to
create a new alt group to funnel the experimental virtual reality away
from the discussions of theoretical cyberspace, thus preventing the
incipient altnet virtual war.

Mail me your objections or approval, and if there seems to be a
consensus I'll issue a newgroup for alt admins to accept or deny as
they think best.

As for the matter of a name, I suggest alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo,
followed in decreasing order of reasonableness by alt.cyberpunk.bar,
alt.cyberpunk.experiment, and alt.cyberpunk.li.has.created.a.monster. :-)

We now return you to the flamefest regarding a.s.p, already in progress.

--
Carl Rigney
cdr@amd.com

"Burroughs found 50's science fiction and used it like a rusty can
opener on society's jugular." -- William Gibson