I am posting this for a friend who is not on the list but wanted it posted.
  If you would like to tell him comments, his e-maul address is
mpowers@widowmaker.com.


The alleyway was damp, choked, dim, even in the daytime.  Not much of a
place, but it was all he had.  Ever since getting kicked out of the Tower,
he’d drifted down, through the hotels, the TV studios, the flophouses, the
newspaper offices, the “Snooz-Kyoobz”, the ‘net spam.  Now he was here, and
it didn’t look like he’d get another chance to tell his stories about the
Tower.  He’d thought it would be so easy. . . just a little leaked dirt, a
little stolen material, and he’d vault the corporate ladder. . . 
	Trash at the back of the alley stirred.  Nothing to worry about, probably
just a rat.  Or maybe a Boomer, sent to waste him.  Hah.  Like the Tower’d
bother. . . he’d learned his lesson. . . nothing he could do. . . 
	Cardboard boxes and bits of unidentifiable garbage shifted, slid, rose.
An indistinct figure rose from the pile.  In the dim light, he couldn’t
make out its features, but its outline was. . . female?
	“Hey, whatcha doin’ here, huh?  Gonna catchyer death, hangin’ roun’ alley
like this.  Ya loss’ or sommin?”
	The figure--the woman--turned her face towards him.  She made no other
movement.  Her head rotated with the precise ease of a mechanical lathe,
and the impression of a machine became even stronger when her head seemed
to lock into place, looking at him.
	Then one of the woman’s eyes began to glow red.  In the light, he could
see that the other eye was nothing more than a mechanical lens.
	“Hey, whaz goin’ on?  Who—who are you?  What do you want?”  Icy fear
burned away the fog of alcohol and apathy that had surrounded him.  “Did
the Tower send you?  What are you?  You’re not a Boomer. . . WHAT ARE YOU?”
	The woman took one step forward.  Another.  Another.  Her expression did
not change from its inhuman calm, as she raised one arm towards him.
	He moaned in fear.  She was going to kill him!  He had to do something. .
. fight back. . . His hand scrabbled behind him, came up with the length of
pipe he’d found earlier.  He swung it with all his strength, aiming as best
he could for the woman’s head.  He heard a flat CLONK, and turned to run.
	The last thing he saw was the woman’s hand protruding from his chest,
metal fingers flexing, covered in thick red blood.


VOODOO: BlackMagic M66 vs. Knights Sabers

	“Wake up.”
	“God, my head!”  “Yeah, that Night Train’s a mean wine.”  “You shut up!”
	“Wake up, all of you.”
	Sylia flicked on the lights of Silky Doll’s stockroom.  The place was in a
state of chaos; it would take Mackie an hour. . . no, she’d better do it
herself.  Last time Mackie’d tried to clean up back here, he’d needed a
cold shower after the first ten minutes.  But this was the last time
there’d be any parties back here.
	Priss sat up on the couch she’d collapsed on last night.  “Man, that was a
good one.  There any of those chicken wings left?”  As usual, Priss had
managed to drink everybody under the table, then gone back for more.  It
really wasn’t good for her, but she kept doing it anyway; Sylia supposed it
was some sort of image thing.  It was tough sometimes, having such an
adventure junkie running around with the kind of hardware the Knights
Sabers used. . . but that’s what the insurance was for.  
	A pile of lingerie heaved, and Nene emerged.  The short redhead had gotten
into the Karaoke machine last night, but Linna had come up with an
excellent method of dealing with the results.  Sylia didn’t say anything to
Nene, but just handed her a bottle of painkiller pills.  Three without
water. . .  “There must be more than a few bottles in that bed of yours,
Nene.”
	Glower.  “That’s the last time I fall for one of Linna’s stunts!
Honestly, I don’t know why I agreed to that silly ‘one shot per missed
note, I’m judge’ rule!”  Nene stalked off to the bathroom.
	Linna, leaning against a wall, snickered at Nene’s predicament.  “You have
to admit, though, you were getting better near the end. . . ”  Linna hopped
upright and began doing stretching exercises.  “You guys should really try
some of this stuff.  It’s a new technique I learned the other day from a
dynamite guy called Ken. . . ”
	 “And I’m sure that’s all you guys worked on, right?” Priss snorted.
“None of that “oh, my leg, I’ve got a cramp, could you maybe massage it out
for me. . . ”  Linna glared at Priss, who looked at the ceiling as
innocently as she could manage.
	Priss turned to Sylia.  “You don’t look much the worse for wear.  Guess
Little Miss Enhanced-Cerebrum doesn’t get drunk or hungover. . . ”
	Sylia gasped.  “Priss, I can’t believe you just said that.”
	“Sorry.”  Priss scowled.  “Looks like I’m just in a nasty mood this
morning, huh?”
	“It’s three PM.  We have a briefing in one hour in the upstairs room, so
be ready.”  Sylia turned on her heel and stalked out, slamming the door
behind her.  Through the door, she heard a muffled “What’s her problem?”
“Come on, Priss, you know she doesn’t like to talk about it.”  “Hey, if you
got it, flaunt it!”  “Your motto?”  “You know it!”
	The bad part of it was, Priss’ taunts wouldn’t have registered if Sylia
hadn’t been hungover herself. . . 

	“. . . and with the reclamation efforts on the south piers, there’ll be
the possibility of Boomer activity.  Most likely, considering that GENOM
bid lowest again.”
	Priss grimaced.  “What?  After that last PR flap?  The city council’s
gotta be nuts!”
	“Hey, you know they’re just Tower puppets,”  Nene shot back.  “Hey, I
wouldn’t be surprised to find that they’re some sort of Boomers themselves!”
	Sylia coldly interjected, “Conspiracy theories have no place here; we can
only base our actions on what we know.  And from this latest relevation, we
know that the standard BU-38D is a fully combat-capable model.”
	A low whistle from Priss.  “So the bastards have been spreading these
things throughout the city?   I wonder how many people know that they’re
walking right next to GENOM death machines every day. . . ”
	“Good title for a song, maybe?”
	“Linna, I’m not going to let you in the band, so don’t try.”
	“All right, all right.  Hmph.”
	Sylia continued, “Regardless, I think that something odd’s been going on.
According to Nene, the AD police are getting reports of killings in the
slums. . . almost Boomer-like MO’s.  The latest was of the man who told me
about the combat capabilities of the 38D.  Nene, I want you and Linna to
canvass the district.  Find out if there are any rouge Boomers in the area,
and report back to me if there are.  I don’t expect we’ll see anything, but
don’t engage if you do. . . I want evidence of what’s going on this time.”
	“Right.”  “On it.”  The brunette and the redhead got up to leave.
	“Be careful.  You know how nasty those Boomers can be.”
	Linna laughed.  “When was the last time I had trouble with only one?”
	The door closed behind them.  Priss stood.  “Sylia, you’ve been shooting
looks at me since we got here.  What’s going on?”
	Sylia crossed and uncrossed her arms.  Priss wondered what was happening;
Sylia was never nervous.  Sylia cleared her throat, and began to speak.
“Priss, I didn’t want to say this in front of the others—“
	Priss’s eyes opened wide.  That sounded bad. . . 
	“—but there was an eyewitness to one of the killings.  He didn’t report to
the AD Police, but he said that what did it wasn’t a Boomer.  It seemed
more to be some sort of female-shaped humanoid figure.  I doubt it was you.
 But you’ve always been the more. . . hot-headed. . . of us.  And I just
wanted to say. . . that if there’s anything you need to. . . talk about,
then. . . ”
	Priss walked towards Sylia’s chair.  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this,”
she growled.  She slammed her fists down onto the table; Sylia winced at
the cracking sound.  “You always—ALWAYS—should remember that my first and
only enemy in life is the Tower.  I NEVER will harm another human while I
have the choice.”
	Sylia calmly met Priss’s furious eyes.  “I know that.  But I’m saying
that. . . ”
	Priss turned and stalked to the door.  For a moment, she considered
kicking it off the hinges, but that would only alert the others that
something was wrong. . . and nobody wanted that.  She turned again and
said, in a voice of cold menace, “I swore to remain a member of this group
until we defeated GENOM.  But I refuse to stay with people who think I’m a
psychopathic killer.  I’m going to forget this conversation, and if I ever
hear it brought up again I will leave.”
	She pulled the door open and stomped out.  Linna’s call of “Hey, Priss!
Can you. . . ” was met by a vicious growl, the snarl of a wounded tiger.
Sylia sat alone as the door swung closed, wondering if Priss’s reaction was
true.  After all, in most of the criminal insanity cases she’d read about,
the killer was more believable than most honest people.  And more deadly
than a platoon of soldiers.  Could Priss really be hallucinating that
innocent people were disguised Boomers?  Sylia was unsettled to realize
that deep down, she not only suspected but believed that the answer was yes.

	The red-white-and-blue hardsuit spun from doorway to doorway as Nene swept
the street.  Her active sensors laid a wash of conflicting images across
her visor, resulting from a thermal, motion-sensor, and sonic scan of the
entire area surrounding her.  This was what she liked best about her
“secret life”. . . not only having the ultra-tech, but knowing how to use
it and work with it.  She knew that she was the only one who could operate
the EW hardsuit.  In a pinch, Sylia maybe could. . . Linna probably not. .
. and Priss wouldn’t know how to start the damn thing.  Of course, Nene
wasn’t much good at a stand-up battle; then again, she didn’t break bones
every mission.  Priss almost seems to enjoy it, Nene mused. 
	All the while, she was scanning the street, the puddles, the buildings,
the piles of rotting trash.  Nothing abnormal. . . nothing moving, for the
most part, this deep in the old city.  “Linna, stop for a second,”  she
called, “I want to do a seismic scan.”
	“Check.”  Linna’s green-and-orange hardsuit plunged towards the ground,
trailing wisps of plasma like fabric streamers.  She braked at the last
second, rolling sideways and into a doorway, her form perfect.
	“Good one, Linna!”  “Thanks.  Hurry with that scan, it’s creepy out here.”
	Nene agreed.  She plunged the seismic rod into the ground, thinking about
how much the alleyway seemed like the one from Death Killers vs. The Dark
Knight III, and how scary the movie was, and how the killer had snuck up
behind that poor girl and. . . 
	The seismic scan finished, the artificial intelligence obediently threw up
a three-dimensional graph of the surrounding five blocks.  Several movement
sources were pintpointed; two were nothing more than masses of rats (ugh!),
three were humans walking, and one was. . . different.  Much larger, for
one thing.
	“Linna, I think we’ve got something.  Bearing oh-seven-four, range forty
meters.  A lot heavier than a human.  I think we’ve got our boy.”
	“Let’s go have a look. . . You stay back, I’ll twist his tail a bit.”
Linna sounded confident.
	Nene didn’t like that.  “Sylia said not to do anything, I really don’t
think. . . ”
	Linna chortled.  “Hey, she can tear it up all she wants later. . . all I
wanna do is a quick flyby.”
	Fire puffed from the back of Linna’s hardsuit, and she shot up into the
air.  Nene ran towards the seismic signature’s location, her suit’s servos
boosting her running speed.  Thirty seconds passed. . . forty.  
	“GOD!  OH MY GOD!  AAAAA(oomph)”
	“LINNA!”
	Nene skidded around a corner and saw Linna staggering back from a shadowed
figure, her suit’s chest marred by a sizeable dent.
	Linna stumbled backwards, falling into Nene’s arms.  “Linna, are you
alright?  Please say you’re alright!”
	Linna gasped.  “Yeah. . . jus’ gotta. . . catch my. . . ”  She stirred and
stood.  “didn’t expect that. . . knocked my wind out. . . Okay, you
biomechanical bastard. . . you’re goin’ DOWN. . . ”
	Her thrusters flared, pushing her towards the slim figure.  Linna’s
opponent dropped into a guard stance, its long cloak billowing out behind
it.  Its right eye glowed red, and in the light Nene could see its face.  
	“Linna, don’t!  It’s not a Boomer!”  Even as she spoke, she was trying to
get into the thing’s head. . . any way she could. . . her viewscreen flared
white with overload.  She snapped up her outer visor and saw a red line
spear out of the figure’s left eye and flare across Linna’s hardsuit.
Linna twisted and rolled, trying to break the deadly beam’s contact.
“Help, it’s hot!  Owowowow!”
	Nene swung her right arm up and sprayed the figure with her own lasers.
In the flaring light, she saw the figure clearly.  What she saw horrified
her.  The enemy. . . the woman. . . vanished suddenly, straight up into the
darkness.  Nene, shivering with reaction, turned towards the collapsed
Linna.  Her suit had lines of ugly char all across its surface, but Linna’s
wild dodging efforts had saved her from any penetrations.
	“Sylia’s going to want to know about this.”

	The wind whipped Priss’s hair back and forth as she kicked the bike into
fourth gear.  This was normally her favorite part of the ride, ripping down
a deserted highway, going hell-bent-for-leather, and knowing that this
still wasn’t as fast as you could go.  There was so much to think about,
controlling the bike, shifting gears, keeping the engine hanging onto the
red line, that everything else got pushed out.
	But some things still got through.  Sylia’s smug grin as she tossed off
those accusations.  The cold, sick feeling inside when she’d thought Sylia
knew.  Then the hot rage when she realized that not only did Sylia not
know, but she was thinking that Priss was capable of killing another human.
 Never.  Never. . . 
	Flashes off to the left of the highway -- somebody was catching it.
Probably the mystery Boomer, the AD police finally taking a crack at it. . . 

	The APC exploded in a white-yellow blossom, filling the alleyway with
blazing diesel fuel.  “Pull back!  Pull back!” came over Joel’s comlink,
but there wasn’t anywhere to go in the blazing inferno that had appeared
out of nowhere.  The red beam licked out and sliced through George,
drowning his yells in blood.  The woman’s figure stamped down onto the two
halves of the falling body, flattening them against the ground.  Joel
sighted his assault rifle onto the silhouette and opened up, ripping out
his entire magazine.  The woman’s body was covered by the flashes of
explosive bullets, knocking her backwards.  She didn’t fall, instead she
spun into a cartwheel, moving fast, too fast. . . a grenade detonated
against her chest with a white flash and a CRACK, shoving her into a
building wall.  Joel looked left and saw Leon reloading his missile gun.  
	Leon jumped sideways, shouting “Move, damn it!  That won’t take it down!”
Even as he spoke, the red beam sliced into the pavement where he had been
standing, seeking him.  Joel looked upwards, amazed to see the woman flying
through the air.  His reloaded assault rifle twitched upward, but the woman
landed in front of him first.  The last thing he noticed was the intricate
metal details on the woman’s face, and then the wheel kick smashed through
his visor.

	Priss suited up carefully this time, thinking about each step in turn.
First step into the leg pieces, making sure each foot is fully engaged.
Then grab the hip joints and pull up firmly, making sure to keep even force
on both sides. SHISH-SNAP.  Arms go into the arm guards, sliding down and
in until you feel the lock.  CLICK.  Pull up straight, then engage the
system.  The back guard and thruster pack swings up and locks.  CLICK.
Helmet goes down, then back, then twist.  Green lights glow, ready.  Now
she feels it, strongly, the wave coming towards her, like the feeling she
has on the bike, everything swept away by the adrenaline rush.  Priss
stepped to the garage door, looking over the workshop for the last time. .
. she thought/hoped.  Just like every time. . . but there was still the
Tower, and another of its minions to defeat.  “Miles to go before I sleep”,
she muttered to herself, then stepped out into the night.

	The Boomer flew through the night, heading towards the combat scene.  Its
radar switched to track-while-scan, hunting for the intruder on the GENOM
research lab’s grounds.  What the intruder might be, the Boomer did not –
and could not – know.  It only knew that it was not of GENOM, and therefore
an enemy.  Such thoughts were useful in its current role.  
	It slammed to the ground, facing the ruins of a processor plant.  Smoke
streamed upwards from the twisted metal and shattered components, shrouding
the figure of the woman.  Was it one of the Knight Sabers?  The Boomer
couldn’t determine, though the current profile on the Knight Sabers didn’t
include. . . hair?
	The figure twisted, crouched, and shot upward into the night.  The Boomer
remained impassive as its radar sensors calculated the target’s trajectory,
a high-angle curve through the sky.  It engaged its own thrusters, and
blasted towards an intercept point.  Its talons spread, ready to rend and
tear.
	The silvery figure, its exterior spattered with blood and hydraulic fluid,
swept towards him out of the night.  It had dodged!  The Boomer, its
wetware processors shunting madly to counter, spun to the side.  Its jaws
gaped, extending the particle beam projector.  A stream of neutrons blazed
forth, coursing toward the unexpected attacker.  Which wasn’t there
anymore.  It had somehow changed its course in midair, dropping to the
ground.  The particle beam, harmless to its intended target, vaporized a
thirty-foot-square sheet of glass on the side of a building.
	The Boomer crashed to the ground, cracks spreading from its alloy feet.
This target would be harder than Central had anticipated.  The algorithims
in its brain shifted into a rough analogue of excitement.
	
	As Priss skidded around the corner, she saw something amazing. . . A
humanoid figure, long hair streaming out behind it, was dismantling a
Boomer like a piece of chicken.  Kicks and punches flowed together in an
almost poetic fashion, skill and speed accomplishing what strength alone
could not.  Though the woman was strong. . . Priss winced as a
stiff-fingered, stabbing punch tore through the Boomer’s side, followed by
a rush of fluids.  The Booomer staggered backwards, one arm missing, its
tattered armor exposing its internal systems.  Undefeated, it brought its
remaining arm upwards, ready to smash the attacker into the pavement.
Undaunted, the woman leapt upwards, placing her hands on the Boomer’s
shoulders.  She pulled her legs downward, bringing her feet against the
biomechanical’s head with a sickening crunch.  The two figures suddenly
froze, neither moving while the light in the GENOM machine’s eyes slowly
died.  Suddenly, the Boomer collapsed to the pavement, while the woman
nimbly leapt from its back and landed on the street in a crouch.
	“Nice job,” said Priss on her external speakers.  “You think maybe. . . ”
	She never got a chance to finish the thought, as the woman stood and
turned.  In the flickering light of a dying flourescent tube, Priss saw
that what she had thought was a woman was in fact. . . a robot.  
	“My God. . . what are you. . . and what are you trying to do?”
	The woman—the robot--made no reply, merely stood and stared at Priss.  It
didn’t make a single move, just waited for Priss to act.
	“You’re the one who’s been killing those bums in the old city.”
	Nothing.
	“But then you wreck a GENOM installation and take out a Boomer.”
	Nothing.
	“You realize we can’t let you keep doing this.”
	Nothing
	“Dammit, at least say something. . . hell, you’re just a friggin robot,
even worse than a damn Boomer. . . OK, have it your way.”
	Priss ignited the motorcycle’s engine, while bringing her hardsuit’s
weapons off safe.  She kicked the bike into gear and accelerated straight
towards the robot, which still had not reacted.  One quick pass and a few
needle shots, and that would be that.  She swung her arm up towards the
robot. . . 
	. . . and it grabbed her arm.  “I’m going fifty miles an hour?   What kind
of reflexes. . . ” The rest of Priss’s stunned reaction was lost as she was
lifted into the air and spun towards a wall.  Her suit’s AI reacted in time
to keep the force of the crash from being lethal, but it was tooth-jarring
nonetheless.  Even with the armor, Priss was stunned for a second, but only
a second.  The moment she hit the wall, she rolled to the right, just in
time to avoid the kick that powdered concrete.  The riderless bike smashed
into a wall and shattered in  red-black bloom of fire.
	Priss flipped backwards, her servo-enhanced muscles turning her motions
into twenty-foot jumps.  A red beam flashed out of the darkness and traced
a pattern of char across the wall behind her, but Priss’s suit tracked it
to its source.  A targeting carat appeard on her viewscreen, as well as a
pair of crosshairs.  Her suit’s arm moved, almost without her conscious
direction, and the crosshairs merged with the carat.  There was a CRACK as
the magnetically-accelerated needles broke the sound barrier, and the red
beam cut off.  The flourescent tube flared back to life, and Priss saw the
woman standing with one hand to her face.  At least one of the needles had
plunged into the robot’s left eye, smashing the laser’s generator.  
	“Not a fair fight anymore. . . but them’s the breaks!”  Priss muttered.
While susprised that the needle salvo hadn’t taken it out completely, she
relished the prospect of some close combat. . . this ‘bot seemed to be
better than most Boomers.  She turned her reflex booster to maximum and
charged.
	Her first kick was met by a metallic arm, the block striking sparks from
both surfaces.  The robot delivered a powerful punch in response that Priss
barely dodged.  The two traded blows for a few seconds, until the robot
managed to land a kick on Priss’s side.  The Knight Saber flew sideways,
landing in a pile of garbage.  She bounced back up, refusing to let the
pain affect her until after the fight.  The robot had disappeared. . . no!
There it was, running to the back of the alley.  It was fast. . . but not
fast enough.  Priss caught up to it at the alley wall, its path blocked.
It turned to face Priss, and she was surprised to see no flicker of fear
cross its countenance.  Even Boomers looked a little apprehensive in
situations like this. . . though Priss may have just been wishing that.
The robot opened up with a flurry of high kicks; Priss ducked.  She slammed
her fist upwards to the woman’s face, knocking her backwards and out of her
rhythm.  This was what Priss had been waiting for. . . she started to
pummel the robot with little reservation.  Not much technique here, just
beat the damn thing into metal chips. . . this’s been going on long enough.
. . never again. . . not more of those Boomers. . . never!. . . 
	The robot suddenly slipped a hand out, faster than Priss could have
believed, and caught her along the side.  She smashed to the ground with a
CLANG, all the more startling for being unexpected.  The robot leapt high
into the air, so high that Priss almost couldn’t see it. . . then it came
plunging back down, so fast that she almost couldn’t block its hand in
time.  But she managed to raise her arm soon enough that the robot’s fist
only smashed against her forearm, instead of crushing her helmet like an
eggshell.  The two froze, each locked in place by effort.  Priss gritted
her teeth as she pushed against the robot.  Its face was impassive as it
tried to force her arm away.  Priss felt the metal of ther suit begin to
deform under the pressure, and her vision swam as she strained, and she
realized that she wasn’t strong enough this time. . . 
	A man stepped to the top of the alley wall.  Moonlight flashed across his
sunglasses as he jacked a shell into the chamber of the rifle he carried.
He leveled the weapon and fired, the rifle spitting its shell out with a
dull CHUNG.  A white flash burst against the robots chest, knocking it
backwards a few steps. . . and away from Priss.
	She wasted no time in leaping up, placing her right palm against the
stunned robot’s face, and firing.  She slipped a hand around its shoulders
in a bizarre parody of a hug, as she continued to pump hypersonic needles
into its head.  The robot jerked twice, then ceased moving.  Priss stepped
away, and it fell to the ground.  As she stood over it, it looked up at her
with what was left of its face, and raised one arm.  A final attempt to
attack?  Pleading for mercy?  A salute?  Five needles through the chest,
and the arm fell back to the robot’s side.
	Leon stepped forward.  “Good job.  That thing was more trouble than it was
worth.”
	Priss said “You knew about this?  This..this thing that’s been running
around killing people?  And it got me in some trouble, too, not to mention.”
	“Well, I heard that the military’d been looking into some alternatives to
Boomers. . . ” Leon began.  Priss realized that the funny clicking she’d
been hearing had been coming from the robot’s body.  She grabbed Leon and
leapt towards the nearest doorway, just as the remains of the assassin
robot exploded into a cloud of shrapnel.  Priss felt hundreds of tiny
fragments bounce off her armor, but she had managed to save Leon. . .
though she really had no idea why.
	They walked out of the alley together, Leon slinging his Boomer rifle onto
his back.  “So, I hear you Knights Sabers charge quite a fee for little
exhibitions like this.  How much do we owe you this time, babe?”
	“Well, I think that this time. . . we’ll call it a public service.”
	Leon smirked.  “Hey, that’s all right with me. . . though I was talking
about something else.  You seem to be a little less-armored than usual,
chickie. . . ”
	Priss suddenly realize that her left side felt colder then usual.  She
looked down, and gasped as she realized that the robot’s last punch had
torn away her armor, exposing. . . she slammed both her arms across her
chest, wincing at the cold metal.
	“Well, Mr. Voyeur, I’d say that the robot job was free. . . and in fact,
I’d be willing to pay you something on the side to keep this breast
business quiet.
	Leon hopped on his bicycle.  “Hey, I hear that there’s quite a market out
there for stuff like this. . . and considering that I had my mini-cam
online the whole time, I have the entire incident on record.”  He pulled
down his sunglasses slightly, and winked at her.  “And it’s not likely that
you can pay me more than I’ll make off pics of such luscious hooters as
those!”
	He kicked his bike into gear and peeled out, just as Priss made a grab for
him.  She remembered what that exposed and quickly crossed her arms again.
“Damn you, Leon!  I’ll get you for this if it’s the last thing I do!
AAARRRGGGH!”

End


      ***************************************************
                 Nightraven (aka Shawn T. Buck)
            Computer Science Major at Virginia Tech
                                
                         shbuck@vt.edu
                         mousse@vt.edu
                       nightraven@vt.edu
                      shbuck@cslab.vt.edu
                http://csugrad.cs.vt.edu/~shbuck/
                                
        "Shampoo no talk funny in Chinese subbed version"
       ***************************************************