Okay, these two parts together should answer about 95% of the questions
concerning the important character backgrounds.  Enjoy...and if you have
*more* questions, let me know!

----------

				*******
			     Blue Lightning
				*******
				Volume I

			(c)1995 By Damon Casale

	The year is 2008.  Overcrowding, a totalitarian government, and
vicious, constantly infighting intelligence agencies plague the world.
It's not a nice place to live.

	I had a plan.  There was a way out, away from all of the worst
humanity has to offer.  It was only a matter of time...


* A Little Magic

	I tapped the barrier lightly.  It gave a little.  Not glass, and it
had a bit of a metallic sheen.  Beyond, I could see a few other cells
across the corridor.
	Steve wasn't in good shape.  Pale, knuckles white. clutching the
floor.  "Will you be okay?"
	He coughed, clearing his throat.  "No.  Sorry, I just can't control
that", he rasped.

	"I know how you feel.  For now, let's get some sleep."
	"We'll need it."

**********

	The park was a little crowded this particular evening.
	"Sorry to wake everybody up, but Damon's in trouble.  I think the
aliens from that ship orbiting the planet have him and Steve."
	Ben shrugged.  "So what are we s'posed to do about it?"
	"I came up with an idea for a 'telepathic' implant."
	John quirked an eyebrow at that.
	"Whoever is wearing one can just *think* what he wants to say, and
someone else wearing one will 'hear' him."

	"Neat, but how will that help?  I don't think we're gonna convince
one of the aliens to wear one", Jeff said.
	"You'd have to hot-wire the alien's brain, too.  Difficult."  John
stonefaced it as usual.

	"That wasn't what it was for in the first place.  That native was
going to get one, along with Damon.  Originally, we could have found out
what was going on straight from her."
	Jeremy paused.  "I don't know what he has in mind for that now.
But on the other hand, we still have the translator.  If I can get one to
him, he'll be able to understand these aliens."

	"And?"  Eric gazed at him expectantly.
	"I'm guessing he hopes it'll work out from there."
	"If it doesn't?  Where's that leave us?"

	"It had better work, and soon.  I doubt they know what Damon and
Steve eat."
	"Sounds...like it could be a problem."

	"I need volunteers.  We've got to finish his translator and the two
'telepathy' burets in two days."
	"You kidding?"  Jeff shook his head.  "Why two days, anyway?"

	"That's about as long as they can hold out without food or water."
He faced Ben.  "Ben, how're you with electronics?"
	He shrugged.  "Okay, I guess."
	"Fine.  I'll give you a crash course in microelectronics in a
minute."  He turned to Eric.  "Eric, you're pretty good at programming,
right?"
	"You could say that."
	"You're doing the AI for Damon's 'telepathy' buret, then."
	"A buret?"

	"Goes around the back of your neck."  John drew an imaginary line.
"Geordi in reverse."
	"Eyes in the back of your head.  Cool."

	"Anyone else?"
	"I'm working on copying what's her face's brainwave patterns from
the translator over to the buret.""
	"Great, John.  Jeff?"
	"I can cook da food."
	He chuckled.  "Thanks.  Ben and Eric?"


	Jeremy motioned Ben onto the workbench, putting a tiny circuitboard
into what looked like a microfiche viewer.
	"This should be fairly easy.  I've got the parts list right here,
and the circuit diagram."  He pointed at a nearby wall.  "The parts are in
the bins.  Be careful with them.  Just put them in the manipulator here,
and solder them in with the trackball."
	"Looks simple enough."

	He turned to leave the electronics lab, and Eric followed.  "All
right then.  Now it's your turn."


	Eric sat down in front of the mainframe screen.
	"I need an AI routine that will translate Damon's brainwaves into
the grinding language.  You can get the brainwave data from John, and the
info on the grinding language from Jeff."
	"I can do that.  What about you?"
	"I'll be working on the buret itself."

	"Good luck."

**********

	Black waved a foreleg at Weya.  "Well now are you?  Worried was I."

	She looked down at the floor, forlorn.  They had generously
provided her with another translator, but she wasn't in the mood for
conversation.
	"Wrong, is there?  Have been sad for two days you."  Black shifted
nervously.  "Strange this is.  Have been two recent, disturbing events."

	Weya looked up a little.

	"Missing were you, and found different, pale creatures we."
	Her head snapped up.  "No..."  (not that Black can understand her)
	
	He seemed mildly surprised, waving his fingers about momentarily.
"Talk you?  Have not done that before."
	Weya gestured frantically at the barrier.  Perhaps...
	"Quite intelligent are you.  Tell this to &(click)(click) I must."

	He approached the barrier, and it shot up through the ceiling of
its own accord.
	Weya shot past him, running down the corridor.  She skidded to a
halt outside one cell, and started banging on the barrier.


	I had been sitting on the floor, but bolted to my feet.  Steve
quickly rolled over from where he had been lying down and stood up.
	"Weya!"
	A familiar grinding noise sounded, muffled, through the barrier.
"Stop!"
	Weya stopped banging, lowering her arms slowly, and hung her head.
	"Weya, what's wrong?"

	Black appeared behind her, and Steve started looking a tad green.
	"Uh oh.  She's got another translator."

	"Doing what were you?"

	I knocked on the barrier, and the two of them looked at me.
	I jerked my thumb upward repeatedly.  Come on, understand...
	I slowly moved my hands up along the barrier.

	Black finally activated the barrier, and I rush forward.  Steve
took a couple of steps backward.
	She slowly returned the hug.
	"Thank *god* you're all right!"
	"Most strange this is."

	"Will bring him you.  Will follow me."
	The barrier closed.  Weya and I separated, and she took me by the
hand.  We walked down the corridor together.

	We enter a stark room through a low doorway.  The gray spider was
waiting.
	"Has happened again.  Has been found another."

	John was escorted into the room, a large suitcase handcuffed to his
wrist.  He started walking towards me, but Gray moves to stop him.
	He shoved Gray out of the way with amazing strength for a 5'2" guy,
and walks over.  Gray skitters across the room, trying to stop.
	"That was fast."
	"I only hope it works.  Two days for development and bug testing
doesn't leave a lot of room for mistakes."

	"So how will you install them?"

	John sat down, opening his suitcase.  Inside was a fantastic array
of medical equipment, standard issue for 2008 medical technicians traveling
in Blue Lightning.
	He took out a rather bulky, semicircular device, looking at it.
"I brought a portable x-ray machine, but the power is limited.  It won't
last more than 30 minutes, tops, without time to recharge."
	"How long will it take to install the translator and the other
thing?"

	He looked at me, quirking an eyebrow.  "For you, just under 20
minutes.  I see our local's got a replacement translator already, so we can
just make it in time."

	I laid down, and John put the x-ray machine over my head.
	"Anesthetic, doctor?"

	A clunk just above the ear with an iron mallet from his box of
tricks, and I went instantly unconscious.  "Serves him right."

	As the spiders looked on, John slowly inserted the wires and
sockets into my skull, and then Weya's, being slightly more gentle with the
'anesthetic' with Weya.

	A couple of slaps to my cheek, and I woke up.  John shook Weya
awake.  "Y'all ready to face the music?  Let's dance."

	I looked at Weya.  "Are you ready?"
	After a moment, she nodded slowly.  John handed me a translator and
buret.
	I snapped them into place, and John put on Weya's.  I smiled.
"Great.  Entering the cybernet, by Dr. John Vestar.  I tell ya doc, I..."
	My expression goes blank for a second, and I looked up at Weya in
wonderment, almost disbelief.  "Weya??..."
	She was looking very carefully at me.  A tear trickled down my
cheek.

	"Weya, I never imagined...no...no, please."
	The pain.  I'd buried it deep, but somehow she found it.
	"Don't make me...remember..."

Memories

	-It's been almost a year now, and I still remember it clearly.-

	An image of Weya, sitting on the cliff with her legs dangling over
the edge, looking quite forlorn.  The sun was fairly low in the sky.
	
	-Life has been very unkind, for it stole from me the one I loved.-


	Youth.  Small, fragile, and beautiful, yet always sad.  Four others
were chasing her, reaching out with stiffly rippling kelpworms.

	-Since my youth, I have been an outcast, despised by the other
children.-

	Not quite fast enough, one kelpworm came within striking distance.
She screamed.


	She cowered before two adult seadwellers.  "Why do you taunt our
children?  You will be punished for this."

	-Even by the adults.-


	Solitude embraced her, and she sought refuge and comfort in it.
The crashing roar grew louder, as she neared the forbidden land.

	-Is it any wonder that I preferred the solitude of the open sea and
the continent?-

	She emerged from the water.  Just beyond the beach, a dark,
haunting forest was visible.  Large, black shapes rusted through the trees,
never clearly seen.  Angry eyes leered out at her, waiting for her to come
closer.

	-For all its danger, there was the wonder, the joy of seeing
something new and different.-

	She walked along the shore, leaving the shapes behind.  The forest
began to thin out a little.

	-I never understood my fascination with the land, but I always knew
I could find peace there.-

	The last of the trees fall away, and Weya stood before a vast,
windswept prairie of tall, wild grasses.  In the distance, a mountain range
beckoned.  The air around it was 'rippled', as if by great heat or intense
cold.

	-This land held many mysteries.  I have only seen the barest hint
of what is there, waiting to be discovered.-

	She entered the tall grass.  A small, dark opening lay at her feet.
She crouched down at it, looking inside.

	-Some time ago, I found something that terrified me greatly.-

	She was inside the dark cavern.  In the dim, flickering light from
the opening, many shapes were visible, lying on the floor.  Most of them
looked vaguely humanoid.  A few were unidentifiable, being too crumbled to
make out.  One however, was barely intact enough to be recognizable as the
fossilized remains of one of the spiders.

	-Long, long ago, a terrible catastrophe occurred.  What happened I
will never know.-

	She bent down, touching one of the humanoid figures, curious, yet
still fearful.  Closer inspection revealed it to be the fossilized remains
of a seadweller.

	-This rock is very ancient.  What could have killed them, I wonder?
Why are they all here together?-

	She walked towards the far end of the cavern.  A metallic glint,
but otherwise, it was too dark to see.

	-I had many more questions, but the mystery only deepened,
especially after I found...-

	Weya was facing a large boulder, one side of which has been crushed
by a recent cave in.  Inside, barely visible in the faint light, was a
metallic canister, a jagged crack near its bottom.

	-...this.  I still do not know what it is.  But something about it
frightens me more than I can bear.-

	She turned to face the fossils, and the opening.  Sadness.

	-Why do I always come here?  I have never told the others of its
existence.  What is it that draws me to it so?-


	She stood on the beach again, holding her head high.  Behind her,
the mountains rose up into the sky.  The ocean waves ripple at her feet.


	The grotto, where the world itself showed its truest beauty.  Only
a few seadwellers were present, but all were joyous on this day.  Weya and
Uris, her husband, floated in the center, hands clasped.

	-For one brief moment, was I truly happy.  Uris had always been the
only one who had ever been kind to me.

	They embraced, and the ceremony ended.  Two lives had become one.

	They swam away, and the water around them sparkled, refracting the
light of the sun high overhead.

	-I only wish that moment would have lasted forever.-


	Terror, and loss.  A six-tentacled creature rushed towards the
rocky home of the seadwellers.  The tentacles bore a remarkable resemblance
to the fingers of the spiders.  The tentacles beat the water, pulsating
like a squid's, drawing ever closer.

	-Alas, that was not to be.-

	Four seadwellers swam past the creature, trying to attract its
attention.  It made an angry grab, but they slipped away.

	It followed them, and they swam out to the open sea, towards the
nether depths where the creature normally roamed.

	Rapidly, it closed.  Nearer now, it grabbed again, narrowly
missing.

	-In an instant...-

	Again, a tentacle shot out, this time wrapping itself around the
unlucky seadweller.  A second tentacle, securing its grasp even as the
seadweller squirmed.

	-...my joy turned to sorrow...-

	Uris screamed.  And was silenced, suddenly, by a sickening crunch.

	-...for the Kraken took my beloved from me.-


	Again, she was sitting on the cliff.  The sun was much lower now,
almost touching the horizon.  A drab, grayish black ocean laughed below,
silently mocking.

	-This sorrow is buried deeply in my heart.  Is there happiness in
the world?  I cannot find it.  Is there sadness?  It is ever with me, a
kelpworm stinging my side.-

	Suddenly, she twisted around, looking up at something.  Her concern
was evident.

	-But there was to be a new horror in my life.-

	The spiders' shuttle descended from the sky, heading towards the
further parts of the island.  A low rumble grew louder, and the shuttle
settled to the ground, disappearing beyond the trees.  Weya, in a purely
human gesture of surprise, put her hand to her open mouth.

	-That was when the spiders came.-


	Several variegated buildings are sprawled up and down a steep hill,
reaching five stories high against one.  Carnegie Mellon.  I went to
college here.

	-I can still remember when we first met.-

	Highlander Cafe, in the serving area, facing the dining rooms.  It
was some mealtime or other, and the place was crowded with students.

	-Seems a bit of a silly way to introduce herself, now that I think
about it.-

	I was wiping the counter next to the sink in the front dining room,
slightly hunched over.

	"Excuse me..."

	-But it was effective.  I didn't realize it was her until a bit
later.-

	"Excuse me..."
	I looked up.  "Yes?  Can I help you?"

	It was Kerin, much younger.  Her hair was tied in the back, then,
and was hanging down.  She was smiling just so.
	I straightened up.
	"Do you have any teabags?"
	"Sure.  Just a sec."

	I opened a cabinet under the counter and pulled out a box of
teabags.
	She frowned slightly.  "Umm...how about herb tea?"
	I looked back at the cabinet.  "We have that too.  Raspberry, Earl
Gray, Lemon, Mint--"
	"I'll have lemon, thank you."  She smiled again.

	I pulled out another box and handed her a teabag.
	"Thanks."
	"Sure."  I put back the box and closed the cabinet.  I looked back,
and she was still standing there.
	"Was there something else?"
	"Oh.  No, thank you."

	She took a teacup and filled it with hot water.  I started wiping
the counter again, just a bit nervous.

	I watched her as she walked away, tray and teacup in hand.

	-Well, at the time, I *was* feeling a bit lonely.  That was the
truth to begin with.-


	Doherty hall, near the entrance.  Students were walking by.

	-I didn't see her again for a couple of days.  I had almost
forgotten, but...-

	"Oh, hi.  You go here, too?"

	She stopped next to the water fountain, noticing me taking a drink.

	"Yes..."
	"But I thought...I mean, I've seen you at Highlander almost every
day this week."
	"Well...I, have rent to afford and bills to pay."
	"Must be difficult."
	"Somewhat."

	She started to walk away, then looked back.  "See you later, then."
	"Bye."

	-It was then that I realized what had happened.-

	Kerin was no longer in sight.  I, however, was still standing
there.

	-This was going to be more difficult than I thought.-


	In front of Warner hall, next to the cut, a long stretch of grass
with nothing but the occasional sidewalk to obscure the view.  I was on my
way home.

	"Hi!"

	She must have been coming *from* home.  We passed on the steps,
next to the street.

	"Again.  See you!"  I waved.

	-We saw a lot of each other after that,  I knew what was going on,
and still, I felt happier than I had been in a while.-

	"Wait a minute."  She stopped.
	"Hmm?"
	"Are you working tonight?"
	"Huh?"  I slipped, barely keeping my balance, landing on the next
step down.  "No..."

	She smiled.  "Great!  How about dinner?"

	I chuckled.  "That's...different."
	"Oh, uhh..."
	I shook my head.  "No no, that's fine!  How about lasagna?"
	"Sounds good.  Where shall we go?"
	"My place."

	She looked a bit confused.  "Are we ordering out?"
	"No, I'm cooking it."

	She smiled again.  "Terrific!  What time?"
	"Six."
	"Fine."

	"Right inside the front of Cyert Hall.  I'll walk you to my
apartment from there.  It's only a few minutes away."

	She waved, and started up the steps again.  "All right, I'll see
you then."

	I walked down the steps leading to the street, with a smile on my
face.

	-Terrific, indeed.  As long as I didn't get carried away.  Of
course, that didn't seem to matter as much anymore.-

	-Over the next few years until I graduated, nothing much happened.
I 'leaked' tidbits, but nothing important.  After all, antigravity and time
travel?  Meanwhile, I never did find out just which agency was keeping an
eye on me.  Except that it wasn't the BATF.  They weren't the subtle type.-

	-After I finally graduated, we still kept in touch.  But I wasn't
to see her again until a year later, when I started Blue Lightning,
Incorporated.-


Damon Casale, dc56+@andrew.cmu.edu

* Maison Ikkoku * Kyoko Otonashi * Video Girl Ai * Amano Ai *
               * Blue Lightning * Kerin Gray *
Blue Lightning forever...Kerin, are you out there?