Subject: (NEW! NON-SPAM!) Terminally Jaded, section 1.2 [BGC]
From: HaHaX@aol.com
Date: 2/8/1996, 11:39 AM
To: fanfic@andrew.cais.com

And here's section 2. If you haven't read section 1.1 then do it, it'll make
things a lot clearer. C&C by private e-mail to hahax@aol.com please; this
account isn't subscribed to this list. Enjoy the spam-free flavr...
                              -----start-----
        | Terminally Jaded (working title), Section 1.2alpha     |
        | Bad pulp fanfic by HaHaX. Flames etc. to hahax@aol.com |
        |--------------------------------------------------------|

[Eyecatch sequence (Yah I know BGC is an OAV, no adverts & no eyecatches.
Who gives?): Rhymes With Venom rocks out onstage with rave-esque lightshow.
Cut to head shot of lead singer marcia with a lowercase "m" as she twirls
the mic stand in a 360, and just as it returns to vertical, freezeframe
with BGC logo in lower right corner. Fade to:]

	Sylia watches Linna pull Nene into the crowd with amusement. Looks
like Linna's found her man of the week, she thinks as she watches Linna
cheer enthusiastically at the guitarist.
	Then her attention turns to the band onstage. "Rhymes With Venom,"
she mutters to herself, too low to be heard by anyone over the phenomenal
noise. They're from America, so the English rhyme works. Why would a
small indie band name themselves after GENOM?
	Maybe she's being paranoid. Or maybe Priss has a better idea.
	"Priss, why did you name your band Priss and the Replicants?"
	Priss looks up at her. She's not eager to talk about it, since her
band broke up a few months ago. But she answers anyway--hell, with some
rotten Sprawl band playing onstage at *her club*, she figures the night
can't get any worse.
	Canny readers know she's figuring wrong.
	"Old science fiction movie," she answers. "Just a random name that
sounded interesting. Why?"
	"Nothing important. I was just wondering where bands come up with
their names," Sylia says, then falls silent.
	So the band is rocking out. Couple hundred people in the crowd.
Everything's cool. Of course, this is the perfect time for a coupla buma
to blow through the front door and start crapping up the place. And they
do. Concert's blown. Bob the nondescript drummer is now Bob the nonliving
drummer and there's blood all over the fucking stage, wow.
	Next thing we know we're thinking, if Priss hadn't figured "this
night can't get worse anyway", everything woulda been okay. Cool music,
cool crowd, and Termina would've ended up in bed with Linna. Jeez, can't
Priss leave the figuring to Sylia?
	Of course this doesn't occur to our heroes, neither Rhymes With
Venom nor the four women.
	marcia with a lowercase "m" dives into the crowd, hoping to take
cover there. Of course the crowd thinks Bob's nondescript grey matter is a
stage effect, some wacky new Sprawl thing, so they just take her
crowdsurfing. The Hot Legs crowd manages to place their hands in only a
few of her orifices before she tumbles to the ground, and books for
backstage.
	Bassist Fiona and guitarist Termina take a more direct route,
shielding their heads with the instruments--not that it would have
protected them--and diving offstage, right and left respectively. A
spatter of energy blasts fucks up the back wall of the stage, melting the
shards of broken beer bottles ingrained therein.
	The two buma shed their skin. Now, the crowd's pretty stupid, but
they know buma special fx are way over budget for an indie band from the
Sprawl, so they book for the exits. The buma more or less ignore the
fleeing masses, except for one guy who's so extremely drunk that he
mistakes a buma for a urinal. He gets his fly open before he dies in an
excruciating manner that need not be described.
	Linna, Nene, Priss, and Sylia (in alphabetical order) are among
those who do not mistake the buma for a urinal. They successfully escape
into a dark side alley, and they are about to do the sensible thing (go
home and get a good night's sleep) when:
	"Wait! We can't just leave them there!"
	It's Linna.
	"No one's paying us to save those three," says Priss, who'd
normally be anxious to kick buma ass but tonight's not the night. She
grabs Linna's hand and starts to drag her along.
	"It's not about money," says Linna, annoyed. She knows Priss
thinks she's shallow sometimes. Well, most of the time.
	"Well that's a new thing for you. C'mon, hurry, lucky for us
Sylia drove here, she's got a van out near the street."
	"New thing? What's that supposed to mean?" Linna says.
	Sylia addresses Linna as she pulls the lock control out of her
purse and hits UNLOCK for all the van's doors. "Priss is right. Let the
ADP handle it this time."
	Linna gets worked up, a little, and then it subsides. There's no
use arguing with Sylia. Oh well, she thinks wistfully. He was cute while
he lasted.

[Flash cut to Termina, running through darkened hallways backstage,
guitar tucked under his arm football-style. Particle cannon near-misses
spang off the walls around him. BGM: "Bright Yellow Gun", Throwing Muses]

	Fuck, Termina thinks, how did GENOM find out? Sure, they know
everything, but they can't possibly know *everything*. He doesn't have
much time to ponder this Zen statement, because he's figured out that
the buma don't give a damn about Fiona or marcia. They just want to send
him, and him alone, to meet his drummer.
	So Termina's running like hell. He busts out of a doorway and into
an alleyway where four very surprised-looking and, he notes, attractive
young women are piling into an plain-looking grey van.
	"Get out of here! It's coming after me!" he yells, just before he
tries to follow his own suggestion.
	Three of the women curse at him. The black-haired one grabs his
hand and tosses him into a van. Everyone piles in and the door is slammed
shut behind him. Termina lands face-down in a box of brassieres as the
van peels out with screeching tires.
	Termina wants to peek out the back window of the van, see if the
buma's chasing him--if this is the case, then it's probably best to jump
out of the van and spare the lives of these four women--but when he tries
to get up, a brown-haired woman with big red (red?! he thinks) eyes shoves
him down and says "stay put, we don't want you to be seen." So again he
lands nose-first in a pile of brassieres. The van lurches sickeningly and
a cascade of lingerie boxes marked "Silky Doll" falls onto him.
	"You don't have to be so rough--ouch!" Termina says as she shoves
him down again.
	"I said, stay down. How stupid are you?"
	"I assume that's a rhetorical question," Termina says without
raising his head, but his voice is partly muffled by a padded B cup.
	"What? Never mind, just shut up," the brown-haired woman says.
"Linna, what's it doing?"
	The black-haired woman who was looking out the back window of the
van answers. "Nothing. There are so many cars driving away so fast from
Hot Legs that it doesn't know which one to follow, or shoot. It looks
like the AD Police are on their way. We'll be safe in a few blocks."

[BGM fade out.]

	A couple of minutes later Termina asks, "Can I get up now?"
	He hears the one called Linna laugh and say, "Yeah, it's safe."
	Someone flicks on the overhead light. He sits up and looks at his
two companions. "Planning a bridal shower?" he asks, pulling a pair of
panties off his head and holding them up demonstratively before tossing
them away. This is an awful lot of lingerie to just have lying around.
	"Our friend owns a lingerie shop," says Linna, grinning. Priss
elbows her--this is a breach of security.
	"Ah, that would explain it." He removes a bra which has tangled
itself around his ankle. "By the way, thanks for the pickup. You probably
saved my life."
	"Probably?" says Priss. She's getting to like this guy less and
less. "You realize that was a buma, yes?"
	"Yeah," says Termina, unimpressed. He looks at his guitar, which
he dropped on the floor when he jumped into the van. "Shit. My tuning pegs
are all bent."
	"That's all you can say? We save your scrawny American wuss-rock
neck, possibly getting ourselves in trouble with GENOM, and all you can
say is 'shit, my tuning pegs?'" Priss is pissed. She's looking for a
target upon which to vent her anger, a psychologist might say.
	"Priss, calm down," Linna says warily. She knows that look.
	Termina looks at Priss in surprise. "Man, some bub got up on the
wrong side of the mattress this morning. I said thanks. What do you want
from me, indentured service? C'mon. If you played guitar at all then you'd
know that a guitar is more just than an instrument, it's--"
	"I do play guitar! Fucking lot better than you do! And who are you
calling 'bub', you rude, ungrateful Sprawl bastard?" Before Linna can stop
her, Priss jumps at Termina angrily. She's going to slam some sense into
this punk's skull.
	Priss charges. Termina slips sideways and gives her a pat on the
back for good effort, which has the coincidental effect of sending her
charging right into the side wall of the van. Of course Termina's hoping
this will cool her off, which is utterly foolish, but he doesn't know this:
he thinks she'll behave like a normal person. Fat chance.
	Linna yells and jumps at Priss to restrain her, but Priss breaks
free and attacks Termina again with a punch. Termina blocks, then ducks
under the followup hook. Linna grabs Priss again and yells, "Stop it!
Priss! What are you doing?"
	"Priss? What the hell kind of name is that?" Termina asks as he
slips sideways, away from her roundhouse kick. This is getting out of
control. "Do you have a sister named Buffy?"
	This, of course, serves to inflame Priss even more.
	The fight continues in a similar vein until an authoritative
voice calls out sharply: "Priss! Linna, what's going on?"
	All action stops. Termina suddenly realizes that the van has
stopped moving and the rear doors are open. The speaker is the oldest
woman, the one who grabbed his hand and dragged him to the van. Standing
next to her is a younger-looking red-haired woman.
	Termina collects his wits quickly. "Uh, Prissy and I were just
getting to know each other, you know, friendly-like."
	This is the last straw, so Priss slugs him fast.
	Termina falls.

[Fast fade to black as he goes unconscious. Fade in on blonde bassist
Fiona and marcia with a lowercase "m", crouching behind the corner of a
narrow side street at night. Fiona peeks around the corner.]

	"See anything?" marcia asks.
	"No," says Fiona. "Looks clear."
	They stride out and are about to make for cover just as a big black
car pulls up. It's American, which means that it's Yakuza--no
self-respecting law-abiding Japanese use big gas-guzzling American cars.
	Yakuza aren't big into intimidation. They don't have to be. They
just step out of the car with their hands in their jackets, like they're
reaching for shoulder holsters, and say to the pair, "Get in the car."
	Fiona and marcia aren't stupid. They get in.
	"I bet you thought we were reaching for guns," says one of the
Yakuza as the car is pulling away. He pulls out a candy bar from inside
his jacket. "Ha ha! Saw it in an American movie once."
	Fiona and marcia know this is a joke. He still has a gun in there.
	"You are American, aren't you? I love American movies," says the
Yakuza man. "Especially with Charlie Sheen. Do you know Charlie Sheen?"
	The two women make faces at each other. Great. It's bad enough
that they're being kidnapped. What's worse is they have to sit with a
Yakuza comedy movie buff while it's happening. Just what they need...
a Yukkuza.

                                    *

	Termina wakes in the night. Sweat beads down his brow.
	This is not his bed, he realizes dimly. His hotel's bed is way
shittier than this: his mattress should be caved in, and the pillow ought
to be compressed to a flat, no-softness pancake. Also there ought to be an
annoying buzzing/whirring sound coming from the hotel air conditioner, and
the muffled sound of bad television seeping through flimsy walls.
	No, this bed is nice: smart temperfoam (adjusts to the occupant's
body contours & temperature) and a fluffy pillow that feels like it uses
real feathers, of all things. There's no air conditioner noise. Come to
think of it, it's pretty hot here in general...
	...hold on. Where is here?
	Termina sits bolt upright. The room is a dark blue-green grey,
the only illumination a clock on the bedside stand indicating the time,
03:12. The decor is spartan: a bed, desk, table, and dresser, all classy,
minimalist, and modern. Nothing on the walls. Maybe it's a guest room.
	Last thing he remembers is something hard and fast hitting the
side of his head. My guitar, he thinks. He's relieved when he sees it
leaning against the wall, a little battered but still intact.
	He climbs out of bed--he's still wearing his street clothes.
Whichever of those women has decided to put him up for the night (he can
only assume one of them has, since he's not lying in a gutter or garbage
dumpster) didn't take anything that's his, except--
	He checks his pockets. No wallet.
	Furrows his brow, grabs his guitar, makes for the door. It's not
locked--his host is very trusting, it seems. He cracks the door open,
peeks into the hallway, then opens it wider and slips through. He's at
the end of a hallway. On either side of his door are two other doors,
and the other end of the hallway appears to lead into an open space from
which comes a dim, exceedingly faint orange light.
	He decides to investigate the light. He walks, as quietly as he
can while carrying his guitar, and comes to the end. It's a living room.
	The apartment is gaijin-style; no sliding paper panels, just a
room with a big window out into the city. The dim orange light he saw
from the hallway is from the sodium streetlamps outside, shining through
the open windows onto the translucent curtains. A gentle summer breeze is
coming in through the curtains. The whole effect is eerie; the translucent
white curtains diffuse the orange light into a dim glow that permeates
the room like a black-orange fluid.
	The room has a couple of couches and a rug, in a style that
matches the room he woke in. It takes Termina a few seconds, in the
dimness, to realize that a still shape on one of the couches is not an
odd-shaped pillow, but a woman in silk pajamas. She has short dark hair.
	"Awake already?" he hears a voice say. It takes him another few
seconds to connect the voice to the woman, because she's still facing the
curtains and hasn't moved a muscle.
	"Yes."
	"Your name is Termina Li."
	"Yes. You got it from my wallet, right?"
	"Yes. And your band's name is 'Rhymes With Venom'. In the
original English of your Sprawl, Venom rhymes with GENOM. Today a pair of
GENOM buma broke in on your concert and tried to kill you."
	"Sher," Termina says.
	"I find it difficult to believe this is a coincidence."
	"So do I."
	"Li-san, this is a serious matter. Three of my friends risked
their lives today to save your life. I would appreciate it if you would
not play games with me." Still motionless.
	"What good will it do you? Where GENOM is concerned, you are safer
when you know less. In fact, don't tell me your name--I'm going now."
	"Li-san, please sit down." She motions to a couch.
	So it does move, Termina thinks sardonically.
	"I will not permit you to leave until I hear an explanation, and I
suspect it will take a while."
	"You intend to stop me? What do you know about GENOM? What concern
is it of yours? Listen, I have to go." Termina hefts his guitar and makes
for what looks like the nearest exit.
	"The doors are locked and will only open at my command."
	Termina smirks. "Doors? Who said anything about doors?" He's
already halfway to the big, wide-open windows. He manages to get his hand
on the windowsill before the woman reaches him.
	Suddenly Termina is on his stomach with his arms pinned behind him
and the guitar has clattered to the floor.
	"I don't know how you intended to jump from the top of a twenty
story building, but I presume you had a plan. Now, Li-san, please, are you
willing to explain or must I keep you pinned to the floor while I call
the police and tell them that I have a would-be burglar trapped in my
apartment? I remind you that the police in this area are rather, shall
we say, sympathetic to GENOM's desires."
	Termina grunts. "All right. You win."
	"That's better." She lets go of his arms and stands up.
	He rolls over and holds out his hand, as if asking for Sylia to
help him up. When she narrows her eyes at him, he retracts the hand with
a sheepish smile--she's not going to fall for that throw--and brings
himself to his feet. She's smart--that impresses him.
	He sits down on the nearest couch.
	"Please--over there," she says, pointing to a couch that is
further from the window.
	"Oh, don't worry," Termina grins at her, his widest grin. "I
won't jump out the window. That was just a wild idea. I really didn't
have a plan. I figured I'd deal with the landing part when I got to it."
	"I...see, Li-san." She doesn't smile, but he thinks he sees her
eyes lighten up a little, maybe with amusement? She sits cross-legged on
a couch a few feet away, facing him.
	"Oh, and call me Termina."
	"If you wish. I am Dr. Stingray, or Sylia if you prefer. Now,
would you like to explain why two buma would be sent to kill a rock band?"
	Termina's surprised that the woman's giving him her name. But then
again, it might not be her real name. Stingray's a pretty silly name,
thinks Termina Li.
	"Are you sure you want to know? In spite of the dangers?" Termina
looks at her--her steady gaze doesn't waver. Self-assured, he thinks--and
this also impresses him. He inhales deeply. "Okay. I don't know why you
want to know. I don't know what the hell good it could do you. Hell, for
all I know, you work for them--but if you do, I'm dead and you already
have everything you want from me. So here goes.
	"Before I was in Rhymes With Venom, I worked for Netscape. Before
that, I was a graduate student." He pauses, gives her a significant look.
"Fifteen times."
	She furrows her brow. "Fifteen years of graduate school?"
	"No. Fifteen graduate degrees. My fields of study included
Computer Science, Philosophy, Biochemistry, Evolutionary Biology, French
Literature, Artificial Intelligence, Music Theory, Cybernetics, and more.
You name it, I probably went through graduate hell in it. I would have
done more, except I got tired of it."
	"But you're still young."
	"Yes. Five graduate degrees a year. Starting when I was eighteen."
	"I didn't know that was possible."
	"For most people it isn't. My Stanford-Binet IQ is 354."
	Sylia gives him a doubtful look.
	"354?" she questions. "And you play guitar in a rock band?"
	"You don't have to believe me if you don't want to, but I am
telling the truth. It'll all be clear when I'm finished.
	"When I finished my ninth masters degree and my sixth Ph.D., I
left to work at Netscape. All the best minds in America go into software.
It's the most profitable domestic industry. With Japan's GENOM dominating
manufacturing and service industries, what else is there to do?"
	Sylia nods in understanding.
	"While I was at Netscape, I--" he pauses. "Have you ever read
Richard Dawkins?" When he sees no sign of recognition in her face, he
continues. "No, you wouldn't have. He's obscure nowadays, although in
evolutionary biology he's famous. He posited the existence of memes,
packets of cultural information that spread through language, in the
same way that biological and computer viruses spread through DNA and
computer code. Cultural viruses, you see; they infect human beings' minds
and change the way they think."
	"You're saying that people have ideas, and ideas spread. This is
obvious, and academic. Why does it matter?" Sylia's tone is skeptical.
She's wondering if he's just a nut; but then, GENOM generally doesn't send
buma to kill ordinary nuts.
	"Bear with me. Until recently this was, as you say, academic.
It was a science without a technology. Some past leaders intuitively
learned to take advantage of the cultural virus: Stalin in the primitive
age of radio; Reverend Moon and Republicans in the later era of broadcast
television. This was called propaganda. However, luckily for the human
race, meme manipulation has not become as precise as genetic engineering
or computer programming.
	"In the late 20th century, advertising agencies became foundries
of the first, very primitive 'designed' cultural viruses. But the
technology of cultural virology is still primitive."
	Termina pauses, looks at the softly fluttering curtains.
	"You can change that, I presume," says Sylia.
	She really is smart, he thinks.
	"Netscape was looking for a more efficient user interface, the
most efficient user interface. Other people at the company were looking
at technological solutions: wetware hookups, that sort of thing. I
suggested we take a different route; we spread an intimate knowledge of
the Netscape software interface through the 'net. A cultural virus. Of
course this was just an excuse for me to go and study what I wanted to
study, which was how ideas transmit themselves through a global community.
But they let me do what I wanted. Netscape is a smart company, so they
fund a lot of esoteric basic research.
	"One night I was working late, and I started on a tear, writing
down my ideas nonstop for hours on end. When I finally finished what I was
working on, I found that I had come to an understanding of how to write a
cultural virus. I looked at my computer's calendar and realized that I'd
been working for a week, pausing only to eat, go to the bathroom and take
quick naps. I also realized that my work would not be used ethically by
anyone. Not Netscape, not governments, not academia. No one."
	"So you fled East, to the Sprawl, where it's impossible to track
someone who knows how to disappear. Changed your name. Took on a new
career that no one would suspect of being dangerous," Sylia says.
	"Yes, but not before I did low-level unconditional formats on
all my discs and microwaved beyond recognition any CD-ROMS that I'd
pressed in the process. The secret lives only in my head."
	"And now you're here," Sylvia mused. "Interesting. GENOM has
somehow found out what you did, and they want it. But since you won't give
it to them, they figure that no one else must have it, so they kill you."
	"Not exactly," Termina says.
	"What do you mean?"
	Termina looks at her, then smiles wickedly. "There she goes, just
a walkin' down the street," he sings softly.
	Sylia looks at him, now clearly convinced that he's nuts. Until
she says: "Well, now that you've got that song stuck in my head, perhaps
you'd like to explain what you mean in a way that I can under--"
	She falls silent, regarding him intently. She is shocked. This
impresses her: it's few people that can really surprise her.
	"Dr. Stingray--Sylia, if that's really your name--can you recall
the chorus melody to the third song that Rhymes With Genom played in our
set last night?"
	Sylia thinks for a moment, then it pops into her head, with
knifelike clarity. "Ah wan na pres ad out..." she intones. Her memory of
it is perfect--better than it would normally be, even taking into account
her near-photographic memory.
	Termina smiles, sits back. "Congratulations. You have been
infected with my cultural virus."
	"I assume," she says coldly, since the idea of being infected
with a cultural virus does not appeal to her, "that this is somewhat
different in nature from any other song that would get stuck in my head?"
	"Right. The lyrics to any individual song are much like
the lyrics of a band called R.E.M.--perhaps you're familiar with them?
Late 20th century rock?" He sees her nod vaguely. "The words are seldom
enunciated, and often the verses approach nonsense. However, after
prolonged exposure to a set of songs, the syllables begin to aggregate
themselves into highly suggestive forms. If you listen to our album a
dozen times, you will soon find yourself mumbling lyrics that you didn't
even know--and which are quite possibly different from what we wrote.
	"However, the total effect of these lyrics is very specific,
and very intentional. First, they cause you to pass them on--this is the
replicator function of the cultural virus. Second, they implant certain
messages into the deep structures of your brain, on a subconscious level."
	"And what might these messages be?" Sylia asks suspiciously.
	"You need not fear. Unless you really do work for GENOM."
	"What does that mean?"
	"The messages in my songs are subversive, anti-corporate rants.
A GENOM employee who listens to my music will soon be singing insanely
wrong lyrics to all the GENOM corporate anthems at morning pledgetime.
The infected person will also begin to be suspicious of power. I have
created the subversion meme."
	"Mind control," says Sylia calmly, but with gravity. She's
figured all of this out before he finished explaining.
	The curtains flutter silently in the dim night breeze.

possibly may be continued...(if there's some response. i'm new at this
fanfic thing and also insecure. flames etc. to hahax@aol.com)

Big-time thanks to Jeanne Hedge (jhedge@waterw.com) for her very
excellent help. Check her tongue-in-cheek work at wjwthy@ranma.net.