|
|
 |
|
|
|
register |
bbs |
search |
rss |
faq |
about
|
|
|
meet up |
add to del.icio.us |
digg it
|
|
|
|
Scenes from a Street Corner [STORY]
22-JUL-90 14:39 Writer: Zero Pyramid
SCENES`FROM`A`STREETCORNER
Drenched in the warm glow of the artifitial light of a
hologram, a lean figure wrapped in a magenta trench coat,
electric blue hair slicked back to a pony tail trailing
down his back and tied off with a black bow reached into
his coat pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. There
was little cover from the rain but enough to allow the
blister stick to bring the cigarette to life. Beads of
water were forming his shiny leather boots, some trailing
down beyond the silver buckle to the pointed toe and
finally to the puddle beneath.
Thin, dark blue lips parted slowly, releasing a thick
cloud of milky white smoke. The hologram above, a steaming
cup of coffee centered in front of a palm tree, reflected
in the glassy surface of the smoke before the wind spread
its form into nothing.
The internal clock displayed in the bottom left hand
corner of his left eye showed that it was already nine
minutes past eleven p.m..
The rain hadn't let up once in the past three hours and
it didn't look as if it were going to die down anytime
soon, but the night, in all its cold melancholy, still held
a strong enough hold on its children to draw them out even
into this lachrymose evening.
She could see him now, auto-focus zooming in on him with
infrared to cut through the fog-like mist of rain. He was
waiting outside Jah's Coffee Mahn, rain dripping off his
waxy white skin and small black rectangular mirror shades.
His lips stretched to form the slightest smile as he
brought the cigarette to them, inhaling deeply. She had
emerged from the shaddows not thirty feet ahead of him,
crossing the street in her aproach. The puddles beneath her
feet were mirrors reflecting her slender form. Her sleek
black leather jacket did little to contceal her pressing
bosom, its fullness covered only by black plastic cups,
inlaid with silver spikes. Smoke trailed out his mouth,
white tendrils entwining in the air before dissipating, his
smile broadening as her feline form sauntered up to him.
The rain had plastered her florescent red hair to her
head, streaks of water ran down her white skin like beads
of milk. He let the cigarette fall from his fingers as she
draped her slim arms around his neck, her smile mirroring
his own. THeir lips touched, mouths opened, welcoming
eachother's taste and warmth. He drew her tounge into his
mouth as thery embraced, loosing themselves to the passion
of their kiss.
When at last the pulled away, only to rejoin as her
small hand crept into his own, they turned and walked along
the narrow sidewalk, beneath the beckoning glow of
holograms, filtering in and out among others of their kind
as the rain continued to fall all around them.
**********
Primitive digital noise cascaded through Phantasmagoria.
The wharehouse-dance club was filled with kaleidoscoping
neon holograms and lasers. Addrinaline high youths writhed
in sweat drenched, mind torn frenzies. The multitude of
lasers bounced off the chromed bodies as each caught in
their own trance moved to the hypnotic beat.
A tall, slender figure made his way through the crowded
dance floor, edging twords the bar on the other side of the
room. He wore a dark magenta trench coat that seemed to
absorb the myriad lights that hit it. His head was shaved
on the sides and back, revealing chromed carbon sockets
from ear to pointed ear. Neon blue hair spilled down from
the top of his head, ratting out in all directions, falling
down over bleached white skin.
Stepping in front of him, a young female snaked up next
to his body, her arms slipping around his waist. She looked
up at him with glazed eyes, smiling.
Mortis looked down, the ice blue pupils of his silver
eyes expanded slowly, microprocessors monitering the
mutagin levels in the girl's bloodstream. She registered
large amounts of a hypnotic the Japanese called Cloud
Dancer. Her drooping eyelids did little to conceal the
enormous pupils.
"You danssssssssssssssssssssssssse, mmmmmmmmm?? Her lips
glistned with saliva as she made an effort to talk. Mortis
smiled, bringing out a pack of long cigarettes. He brought
one to his blue lips, then offered the swaying youth one.
She smiled, her eyes trying to focus somewhere next to his
own, she was unaware of her mouth hanging open as saliva
built up on her bottom lip, thratining to spill out over
her white shirt.
Catching her reflection in the mirrors that were
Mortis' eyes, the girl driffted off, lost somewhere in the
pulsing music, her senses swirled with Cloud Dancer,
...her senses swirled with Cloud Dancer, spittle hanging in
long thin streams from her trembling lip.
"Smoke." The accent was Northern Sprawl. Elven tech
community. It was more of a command than an inquiry, but
the girl took the laced cigarette regardless. He brought
out a cylindrical metal flecked red tube, the blister stick
produced low levels of radiation induced heat, not entirely
unhealthy, but enough to ignite small combustables within
range, and create large blisters on exposed flesh and some
synthetic plastics. Blueish-gray smoke driffted up from the
cigarettes. The pack was laced with Blue Nine, a
psychoactive agent from California, the natives called it
Grievous Angel. The drug induced acute paranoia and
homicidal psychosis in eighty five percent of experimental
subjects, all of whom were human. In elves it produced a
high state of euphoria and boosted all six senses.
"Mmmmmm... You looking for somebody, cowboy?" Her eyes
now strayed to the 'trode plugs and carbon sockets laced
around Mortis' skull.
Over her shoulder, a short figure in a plaid sports
coat. Pink hair slicked back over small mouse like ears,
sitting at the bar.
"Yes. Excuse me." Pushing the girl asside, Mortis took
three long strides to the bar and sat down. He smiled at
the pink haired man and asked the bartender for a draft
Kirin.
The girl had already forgotten about the elf, and the
cigarette he had given her. She took a long slow drag from
it, blue smoke enveloping her face as it drifted up, her
body caught up in the programmed surge. Her eyes were all
pupil now, though she didn't feel as relaxed as she had a
minute ago. A minute ago, where was she a minute ago? Wait,
where was she now? The industrial static seemed to fade in
and out now.
The Blue Nine in her blood mixed with the Cloud Dancer.
She was getting very nervous, her brain now damaged beyond
repair, ego detereorating slowly. Spare parts for the body
banks by the end of the night, after the locals were
through with the flesh.
The music was loud, hypnotic, it drowned out her screams
as she fell to the floor, clawing at her forhead in an
atempt to rip out her brain and scrub it clean.
"Hello Axxiss. How's my favorite candyman?" MOrtis
smiled and took another drag.
"Same.." Axxiss sighed, looking over to the dance floor.
A body writhed on the floor, electric impulses exciting
every nerve to the point of implosion. "Nice trick love,
poor girl will be a mindless husk in a few hours.." He
drank down something thick and brown, small black tounge
darting out to lick the brown sap from his lips.
Mortis only smiled again, and reaching into his trench
he pulled out a wad of rolled up new+yen, placing it into
Axxiss's outstreached pudgy hand. Axxiss handed him back a
small gray case. Mortis opened it and looked at the three
chip splinters, one jade, one blue and one dark red. He
slipped the red one into a socket behind his ear. His lean
body tensed for a second, then relaxed. Unconciously, his
smile widened slightly, his eyes revealing the room as a
three diminsional grid, implants and riders standing out,
their techwear glowing like the neon dance lights.
"Yes. Good. Thankyou Axxiss." His voice had a slight
synthetic echo to it.
The meaty man grunted a smile and turned to the
bartender, ordered a drink and then found Mortis had
drifted off again. No matter, money in hand he went over to
a joyboy in a plastic yellow suit at the end of the bar.
"Buy you a drink love?" Axxiss grinned, his brown
stained teeth glowed dully from the florescent lighting.
Outside the sidewalks were littered with more bodies.
Street slime oozed in and out of crowds, mods scrambled for
the clubs, couples walked hand in hand, holograms and
lasers lit up the night sky. Mortis buttoned up his trench
and made his way down the sidewalk, his high leather boots
clacking loudly on the cement. The points were steele toed,
and despite the many skulls he'd kicked open with them,
they still kept their glossy shine.
An oriental youth in a black leather jacket elbowed his
way through the crowd, he wore a red lense cyclops
glassesand carried a laser disk case in his left hand. A
button on his lapel showed the holographic image of a
pyramid with a human eye set in top pont.
MOrtis stopped, lighting up another cigarette, his
mirror eyes reflected the light, causing his pale face to
glow milky white. When he looked up the boy was standing in
front of him, holding out the disk.
"You play. You get instructions on disk. You f**k around
your input gets fixed up by ripperdoc. You f**k with me
your input gets fixed up by ripperdoc." The boy glared up
at Mortis, "You understand cowboy?"
The boy had a rider, someone simstimmed into the boy's
conciousness, they had no control over his body but could
see, feel, hear and taste what the boy did. The passenger
was no doubt waiting for Mortis to "f**ck around". Ehko,
his lover, commonly reffered to as input, was human. That
being the only difference between the two. He had been with
her now for three of her years, something he was not going
to let some silly little yakuza step in the way of.
"You understand??" The boy shifted from foot to foot.
Silver eyes locked on the boy's. Blue smoke spilled into
his face from sharp blue lips forming a tight smile.
The data splinter had already calculated the effective
synapse routine in the boy's brain, each electrical impulse
was monitored. It was easy to send out a more powerful
signal, reset the original pulse signal, and scramble the
boy and his rider's brains at the same time.
The boy fell down, unintelligable noise seeped from his
lips in an attempt to form words.
Mortis stepped over the thrashing body and continued
making his way along the sidewalk. The particular phermones
in the boy's body were left in scant traces where he
stepped. Mortis edited out all other molecular bio-scans
and was left with glowing footsteps, the boy's, which he
retraced to a tea shop.
"F**k you!" Ehko spat, her peircing green eyes had
narrowed to slits, every muscel in her tone, gymnist's body
was tense, ready for combat. Though primaraly a rigger, she
was also a street samurai. When her neurointerfacers
weren't plugged into a sleek Harley Scorpion, high on a
turbo boosted rush, Echo would usually be sparring with
Mortis..If the two were not already engaged in their
prefered athletic passtime.
"Watch your mouth bitch." A chrome plated fist enclosed
its steele fingers around Ehko's throat. "Your nature boy
is in no possition to save your sweet butt." The stubble
surrounded mouth smiled. The smell of strong Italian
smelling food, stale and spicey, seemed to issue forth from
behind the chapped lips.
Not if we're thinking about the same bad tempered nature
boy, dog breath. Ehko thought, glaring at the yellowish
brown eyes staring boldly at her heaving chest.
"Contact" Said a coorparate in a blue suit. He was
plugged into a simstem, riding the punk they had sent to
find Mortis.
"Excellent. Well, gentlemen, I think this about wraps up
this half of the ending. Taurin and I will.."
The rider had started convulsing, blood streaked spittle
dripping from his lips. His teeth were grinding together
hard enough to break most of them into pieces. Something
small, glistening blackish red fell onto the table. The tip
of his tounge. Blood was now spilling down his chin.
"Glk...chkk-glk..." His eyes were looking in different
directions, the left one twitching spasmicly. The simstem
deck's artificial brain, small and limited in A.I. had
begun smoking, tiny circuts overheating and melting
together, effectively destroying itself and what was left
of the rider's mind.
"What the hell?!" One of the coorparates stood up,
knocking his drink into the lap of the tuff with the cyber
arm.
"Sh*t. You stupid F**k." The muscle man stood up,
wiping himself off with a napkin.
"Do you want me to call a med-team?" Asked a waiter.
Behind him, the tea shop was starting to clear out.
"No. Thankyou, we have it under contrOO--GAHHK..."
Ehko flexed out her shredders and swiped with her arm,
three eight inch alloyed steel razors extended and sliced
through the air, opening up one coorparate's neck from ear
to ear, almost severing his head, and landing in the tuff's
ribcage after cutting through his arm, the heavy cyber end
falling to the ground and twitching in a puddle of oil and
blood.
"Ahhh! Oh Sh*t!" He looked down at his stump, arteries
spraying blood on the waiter and surrounding tables. "You
know how much this f**king thing cost? You stupid bitch!
You're dea.." Ehko delivered a slamming uppercut, the
blades protruding from the back of her hand entered through
the base of the man's jaw, exiting out the top of his
skull. Warm blood dotted her arm and face as a fine red
mist sprayed out from the wounds.
Except for the suits and Ehko, the teashop was empty.
The two remaining coorparates were standing now, one was
leveling off a flichette pistol at Ehko's head, the other
talking into a throat mike. Their backs were to the door so
they didn't notice the tall shadow slip in from outside.
Someone whistled, the coorp holding the gun swung
around, saw a tall, dark robed figure with blue hair and
fired.
Mortis saw the bodies, saw the blood dripping from
Ehko's blades and tried to suppress a smile. She saw him in
her field of vision but wouldn't divert her eyes to give
him away. He whistled to distract them, the first few notes
of Beethoven's Ninth, and then crouched down, recovering
from a forward roll he released three razor edged shurikens
into the air.
At first he thought the elf had disapeared, it was all
so fast, he had turned, sighted him, fired and Mortis had
vanished. That's when the shurikens buried themselves in
his forhead, neck and heart.
The suit with the pistol dropped to his knees, burped up
several large bubbles of blood, and then fell on his face in
a sticky wet splash.
Mortis stood and aproached the coorparate who had
stopped talking in the throat mike and was standing
motionless, his mouth opening and closing in a very
nervous fashion. Producing a pack of cigarettes from his
coat, Mortis offered the man one, lighting his own. A shaky
hand took the cigarette and brought it to trembling lips.
Mortis lit it, then held the blister stick to the man's
earlobe.
"Who are you working for? You're dressed like coorps but
you don't sport any company insignia. Your bio is clean, no
toys except the throat mike implant. Virgin flesh."
The coorparate coughed slightly, inhaling the drug
tinged blue smoke, coating his lungs with what was already
beginning to effectively corode his brain.
"Who do you work for?"
"I'm dead if I tell you.." He managed, stepping back
against the wall.
"You're dead if you don't." Hissed Ehko, positioning her
blades against his throat, hard enough to cause three small
trickles of blood.
Mortis stroked the man's lobe with the blister stick,
then let it comb through his hair. He smiled, looking into
the man's frienzied eyes. The pupils were already growing
larger. His fingers stroked the man'a hair now, softly,
grouping a bunch of thick strands into his fist, "You're
dead anyway..", and pulling the man's head forward with a
hard tug, easily impailing him on Ehko's blads.
"Ghhhhhaakk....." The dead weight of the body caused it
to slip off the blades and slump to the floor. Ehko whiped
her razzors off on a clean tablecloth and then resheathed
them under her skin.
"What the hell is going on?" She asked Mortis, her voice
on the brink of yelling.
"Come on, lets get out of here before the heat shows
up, you know about as much as I do."
"Well I don't know sh*t.."
"Great, let's go.."
They left the tea shop, spilling out into the night,
letting themselves get caught up in the tide of the crowd
and shuffled further on down Glitterstreet.
........the end. this was the first cyberpunk story i ever
wrote... c-u, MousE.
ending. Taurin and I will.."
The rider had started convulsing, blood streaked spittle
dripping from his lips.
|
|
|
To the best of our knowledge, the text on this page may be freely reproduced and distributed.
If you have any questions about this, please check out our Copyright Policy.
totse.com certificate signatures
|
|
|
About | Advertise | Bad Ideas | Community | Contact Us | Copyright Policy | Drugs | Ego | Erotica
FAQ | Fringe | Link to totse.com | Search | Society | Submissions | Technology
|
|
|
|
|
|
