The Starguild Presents:
            A Story of Bubblegum Crisis...
                           
                           
               Bublegum Rush: Book One
                           
                  --+ Chapter 1 +--
                           
                           
          BGC Created By: Toshimichi Suzuki
                           
  Some Terms Drawn From Every Cyberpunk Writer Alive
                           
               Story By: Berk' Watkins
                           
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Warning, there are some sexually-tense scenes in this story, if
you can't handle that sort of thing either deal with it or leave. 
Don't come whining to me with your complaints about it.
[Note to reviewers: I might or might not make that end part a
lemon scene, the story can live both with and without it...]
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

                    P R E L U D E

     The one word, the one tone of sad questioning that, when
spoken by a child, can break your heart...  "Mommy?" a little boy
asked, shoving weakly at his mother's unresponsive shoulder. 
"Mommy.. wake up..." he said worriedly.
     Mommy's eyes were open...
     A tall Japanese man with a long ponytail rushed in,
gathering the little boy up in his arms.
     "Unka' Ryu, Mommy won't wake up..." the little boy said, a
touch of real panic touching his voice.  Tears began to well up in
his steel-gray eyes.
     Ryu Takada smiled and ruffled his nephew's hair.  "Don't
worry, Mommy's just really tired," he lied.  "She'll be fine in
the morning..." he reassured, feeling his heart break at telling
such a lie.  {How can you tell a three-year-old Mommy and Daddy
aren't coming back?} he wondered.  The iron signet-ring on his
left ring-finger felt like a mountain as he carried the little boy
out of the room.  "Your Mommy wants me to look after you for a few
days.  Okay, Kai?" he asked in completely fake cheer.
     Kai Stuart beamed broadly.  "Okay, Unka Ryu..." he giggled,
"I love staying over with you an' Auntie Yuri.." he chirped,
burying his face in his uncle's shoulder.  "Will Kou share his
toys with me again?" he asked.
     Ryu's broken heart shattered into a million pieces.  "Of
course, Kai..." he whispered, it took everything he had to keep
from bursting into tears.

              E N D  O F  P R E L U D E

Twenty Years Later...

     Kai Stuart looked at the signet-ring on his left ring-finger
with the sort of detached interest some CDC scientists reserved
for looking at cultures of Ebola.  Steel-gray to match his eyes,
and a black, roaring tiger set into the face of the ring.
     People had told him his entire life, 'You don't *look* half
Japanese...'
     How he hated that line...
     Brown hair, shoulder-length and pulled back into a ponytail. 
Eyes the color of brushed steel.  Skin as pale as anyone's from
the heart of London.  The only thing that hinted at his mother's
heritage was the ever-so-sleight up-turn of his eyes.  It was very
subtle, giving him a sort of 'fae' image.
     He thought back to the night that had pulled him into his
family's Shadow World and sighed.  He couldn't blame his uncle for
what he had done, turning him into a weapon in Hou Bang's arsenal. 
He was Hou Bang's Angel of Vengeance, where traditional mobster
tactics no longer worked properly, he stepped in.  He used his
skills to destroy lives on the deepest level, their very computer
records.  He could easily break someone by reducing them to a non-
person, or ruin them by bringing ugly little secrets to light.  He
pulled an interface cable out of a drawer, plugged one end of it
into a terminal in the armrest of his chair and the other into
another terminal at the base of his skull.  He punched the 'Go'
key on a keypad in the arm of his chair and entered the realm
where he was a god.

Genaros Station, HEO

     "Are you ready to tell me who helped you try to escape?" the
new Director of Operations on Genaros asked.
     The red-haired Boomer woman glared at her, her eyes gleaming
red in the half-light.  "Fuck you and die!" she snarled, fangs
bared.
     "In your dreams, bitch!" the Director replied, slapping her
hard with the back of his gloved, left hand.  Electricity arced
off his glove on contact, doing all sorts of ugly things to her
internal systems.  The Director grinned and turned on his heel. 
"I guess we'll just have to take you apart and see what's in those
chips that pass for your brain," he purred.  "Too bad that'll mean
a total reprogramming afterwards..."
     The BU-33S paled.
     "Enjoy 'life' while you have it.. 'Meg,'" he taunted as the
door to the room closed behind him.
     Meg hung her head and wept bitterly.

     Kai felt the song of the infinite reaches of the Interface
vibrating in his skull as entered another world.  He put thoughts
of the outside world aside and took on the guise of a normal user. 
He set his icon for a red T-shirt, canvas sneakers, jeans and a
denim jacket, typical enough clothing to hide the Tiger Corp's
tamed cracker.
     He eyed the Codegate in front of him and nodded in
appreciation.  His Random Victim Du'Jour had fairly tough
security.  The whole system looked like an eight-pointed star
within a circle from above. {SDPC?} he thought, {Yeah..  That's
their Icon..}
     "LEAVE THIS AREA IMMEDIATELY, THIS IS A RESTRICTED AREA," a
large Guardian Program demanded as it rounded the corner of it's
patrol area.  The bruiser looked like a cross between a Doberman
dog and a Doberman Boomer.
     Kai immediately apologized and 'left.'  As soon as he was
out of sight, he activated a Stealth routine and returned.  He
slipped a foreign line of code into the 'wall' of SDPC's main
system and waited for it to do its work.  The virus would take a
fair bit of time to work properly.  It was worth sacrificing speed
for power and stealth sometimes...  The program finished its work
in a matter of minutes, allowing him to slip into the mainframe
through a hole in the defenses that existed only for him.
     He drifted along for a few minutes, until he noted some sort
of activity going on in one corner of the system.  Genaros was
calling in SDPC's bully-boy AI for something... {Why the Devil
would they be calling in that bruiser?} he wondered.  {You use
something that nasty on a cracker you have in person and want to
have sift through his noodle...}  He frowned and disguised himself
as a Friendly Sysadmin, if they were going to try and dry-clean a
fellow cracker's mind, he was going to have *something* to say
about it...
     He followed the AI, who'd taken on the form of an
Inquisition-era torturer/executioner, or perhaps it was an S&M
outfit..

     Meg was laid face-first on the examination table, a network
of cables plugged into various terminals in her artificial brain.
     "I'd say this was going to be painless.." the Director said,
pouting.  "But I'd be lying..." he finished with a nasty grin.
     Meg couldn't do much of anything, they'd locked her off from
her motor control...  She could just lie there, seeing and hearing
everything as they got ready to turn her soul inside-out.  She
could tell from the tone in the Director's voice that he was
clearly getting some sort of sick thrill out of it.  If she
could've sighed, she would have.. in a matter of moments it
wouldn't matter anymore.  'Meg' would be gone...

     Kai ducked past the AI and took a look around the
examination room through a security camera.  {A Boomer..  BU-33S
I'd bet...}  He pondered that for a moment.  {I wonder what she
did to earn this treatment?  Bite a little to hard on something
she wasn't supposed to?"}
     "Goodbye world.." a woman's voice sighed in the background,
echoing off the 'walls' around the cracker. "I'd say it's been
fun, but I'd be lying..." she muttered ruefully.
     {Stop the presses...} Kai thought, {We have brain
activity...}  He checked on the status of the AI...  He had a few
more moments..
     In the real world, Kai's hand loaded several ROM chips into
a port in the left armrest of his 'throne.'  He followed that up
with the flip of a switch next to the 'Go' button on the right
armrest.  A computer, a rather powerful one, next to his 'company
terminal' came to life.  A message arrived on his cousin's pager,
warning him that he was going to go 'hot' to retrieve some
potentially valuable information...
     Back in the Interface, Kai's Icon took on the image of a man
draped in long, flowing robes.  All in black, his face concealed
in the shadows of his hood.  The AI arrived and abruptly found
itself playing Pong, as the ball.  Kai's eyes flared as he went to
Work, taking on the false identity of the AI.

     "The AI is in full contact and requests permission to
begin..." a technician reported.
     "Proceed," the Director confirmed.

     Meg's world went blinding white, and then jet black.

     The Director was very surprised when the Boomer's neural
circuits fried.  "WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!" he bellowed,
grabbing the technician by the front of his lab-coat.
     "The AI reports that there was an improper connection,
communication was never established!"  The techie got free and put
out the fire where Meg's head had once been.  "She, whatever
information she had on Kaufmann, SDPC, GENOM, the DD and
everything else is *gone* Sir..."
     The Director *growled* and pounded his fist into the
computer terminal repeatedly, mashing the keyboard throughly.

     "That guy needs to relax a bit more.." Kai remarked,
watching as the Director kept pounding on the terminal.  He turned
to glance at the AI and grinned.  "Chrome-head go down the
hooole..." he said in a sing-song voice.  The AI that had been so
intent on running rough-shod through Meg's skull received a free-
of-charge lobotomy from Hou Bang Medical.  "And 'Mr. Congeniality'
in there will get blamed.  'Garbage in, garbage out' after all,"
he said idly.
     He turned to look at the Persona hovering next to him.  "You
can open your eyes now..  I've handled the situation..."  The
woman shrieked and tried to hide, convinced that she was seeing
the AI.  "D`OH!  I forgot about the disguise.." he said
sheepishly, ditching the leather and whips for his earlier,
plainclothes.  "As vaunted as SDPC is, they need to work on their
security..." he appraised.  "Please permit me to introduce myself. 
I am a cracker."
     "C-Cracker?" she asked.
     "I play god in other people's computers for fun and
profit..." he explained.  "I crack their protection codes wide
open, thus I'm a cracker..."
     He shifted out of the SDPC portion of the Interface and
settled down in a Virtual Bar, carrying the Boomer along for the
ride.  "Sorry about the scenery change, but I had the feeling you
didn't want to hang around..."
     "What's going on?" she asked, throughly confused.
     "I fixed it so that the Powers That Be think that you're
brain's a puddle of used biochips and burnt tofu," he said with a
grin, leaning back into the cushioning on his side of the booth. 
"You are currently in a computer next to my Interface Terminal,
while your old home's being cleaned up off the floor of that
examination room floor with a shammy."
     She turned a rather unpleasant shade of green.
     "Heyheyhey.." he defended, trying to stay in control of the
situation.  "I'll get you a new body, I promise!"  He blinked
several times and took a deep breath.  "Better a new body than a
new brain, right?" he asked.
     The Boomer nodded, and then got worried.  "Why'd you do
that?" she asked.
     "What?"
     "Save me..." she clarified.
     The cracker shrugged.  "A bit of a Launcelot Complex..  A
bit of mercenary logic..." he explained.  "I work for a group of
people.. no.. I'm a *part* of a group with no love for GENOM and
it's pals.  We're in the process of digging up enough dirt to bury
GENOM as deeply as we possibly can."
     "And how do *I* fit in?"
     Kai leaned forward.  "Simple, you must know something
special that earned you a visit from SDPC's Very Favorite
Leatherboy...  They normally don't use anti-personnel systems on a
Boomer Persona, unless they want *everything* in *one* place."
     He looked carefully at the woman without seeming to do so. 
She'd obviously never used the Interface before because she was
wearing her state of mind on the surface.  He seemed to be
ordering a virtual drink from a virtual waitress while he was
actually watching her every move.  Every good cracker in the
modern world had three minds, the one everyone thought they knew,
the one that doing something sneaky and the third that was running
the whole show half-a-world away.
     "I'll make *sure* you get a body.. you have my Oath of Honor
on that.." he swore.  He spoke so carefully the capitalization
itself was audible.  "And I swear by my Personal Honor that you
will *not* be harmed in any way.  I'm pretty familiar with
computers, and I can see a Living Persona when I see one."
     The Boomer nodded.  "Just so you know.." she said softly,
"My name's Meg..."
     "Kai..." the cracker offered, reaching across the table to
shake her hand.  "Kai Stuart..."

The Next Morning...

     Kai woke up with the sort of pounding headache he expected
the victim of a falling piano might feel.  He glanced over at his
nearest Private Terminal and frowned, the clock was stopped... 
The sound of giggling from the Terminal's speakers told him
exactly what had happened. "Meg, did you mess up my clock?" he
asked in a tired voice.
     "You didn't wake up when it went off, so I turned it off..."
the Boomer defended.  "I did it a bit *too* well though..."
     Kai sighed and fumbled for his bathrobe.  "Try not to trash
too much, alright?" he asked tiredly.  He staggered off to the
bathroom to begin his daily routine.
     He wa sin the middle of a shower when the questions started. 
"What're these porno pictures doing on this computer, Kai?  You
have *that* little of a life?"
     "If you look carefully, you'll note those are incriminating
pictures of Director Flint at GENOM.  Bet you didn't know he had a
taste for little boys, did you?" he replied.  "That's an aspect of
the 'profit' part of my job..."
     "I thought you got a kick out of wrecking people's lives,
Kai..."
     "I get a kick out of giving computers, Sysadmins and
software the time of their lives.  I was put on Earth to be the
bane of every ICE programmer and Sysadmin to ever suck the air."
     Meg went quiet at that.
     "And Meg.. please turn off the camera, I'd like to get out
of the shower now..."
     "Question 1: Why are you acting so bashful?  It's nothing I
haven't seen before..  Question 2: Why do you have a computer in
your bathroom?"
     The cracker sighed and beat his forehead lightly against the
tiled wall of the shower stall.  "I'm modest..  It's my job to be
ready to slash apart a mainframe's security at a moment's notice."
     "But on the can?"
     "Meg..." he said softly, "it's my job..."
     The Boomer chuckled, and the active light on the Terminal
winked off.
     Kai dried off, got dressed and got ready to go to work.  He
was fixing his breakfast when Meg decided it was time to start
talking again.
     "This is an awfully big apartment..."
     "Cracking pays very well," Kai answered around a slice of
toast.  He took a sip of coffee and called up a newspaper on the
Terminal set into the island in the middle of the kitchen.  He
read over the headlines while perched on a barstool.
     "I miss food," Meg pouted.  "I *really* miss food..."
     "I'll handle that today, Meg."  Kai tossed his dishes into
the dish washer and headed for the door.  "You're quite lucky that
your overall body design was fairly common..."
     "Hmm?" asked Meg from the Terminal set into the wall by the
front door.
     "Apparently busty red-heads are popular," he explained with
a grin.  He pulled on his jacket and stepped out the door.
     "You.. You..  MAN!" the Boomer shouted.
     "Last time I checked, yes.." he remarked, sticking his head
back in the door.  He chuckled and closed the door behind him.

     Meg sighed and settled down to wait, Kai would transfer her
back to his 'office' computer system soon.  As fun as being a
Ghost in the Machine had been the night before, it was beginning
to get old, very fast.  She had to admit, Kai ran a very tight
ship..  His knowledge of computer security was reflected in the
layout of his system.  Only one part of his network of computers
was actually connected to the outside, the one in his kitchen. 
Even then, that node was only open for specific data requests..
     Fifteen minutes after he reached his office he'd call home
and leave a message on his answering machine, a specific tone that
would cause the kitchen computer to connect to *his* office
Terminal.  She heard the answering machine chime and waited for
the slightly unnerving sensation of being pulled elsewhere...
     "Welcome back, Meg," Kai said from his 'Throne.'  He
steepled his fingers and rested is elbows on the armrests of the
executive-deskchair-turned Interface-Cracking-Terminal.  "You can
follow me around if you want, I'm going to go find you a body and
see how many people in the organization I gave heart-attacks last
night."  He stood up and walked out the door.
     Meg used security cameras to keep tabs on him.

     Kai knocked on the door of a middle-management music
executive and waited for a reply.
     "Come in..." a man's voice answered.
     Kai went in.
     Kou Takada sighed and looked at his cousin.  "Jesus H.
Christ, Kai..  What did you do last night?" the bodyguard Hou
Bang's heiress asked.
     "Played a few games with SDPC's mind-raper AI and retrieved
a potentially invaluable source of information on goings on in the
SDPC hierarchy," Kai explained, sitting down in a chair across
from Kou's desk.  "What can a Boomer know that would make SDPC
want to wipe her brain clean and archive all the data for a
through sifting later?" he asked.
     "You said 'her,'" Kou pointed out.
     "A BU-33S..  A fairly mature one too.  We both know the real
reason the BU-33S was outlawed," Kai replied.
     "More human that human.." Kou answered.  "How developed is
she?"
     Kai thought about it for a moment before responding.  "I
used a modified Soulkiller virus to pull her Persona into a my
Terminal downstairs, Soulkiller only works on entient life-forms,
not AIs."  He leaned back.  "And I talked to her..  She reminds me
of a kid in some ways, she wants to know about everything that
comes her way."
     Kou nodded.
     "She wants to move beyond her old boundaries, wether she
knows she has them or not..  I believe that was one of my
teacher's criteria of True Life.." Kai said.  "I'm going to get
her a new body.. and then I'm going to try to find out what she
knows, as carefully as possible."
     "She's been hurt by what she knows before.  It's best to
make sure she tells you freely."
     Kai grinned and stood up.  "Thanks, Cuz..  You're a
gentleman and a scholar."
     Kou coughed slightly.  "I'll try to break this to Mr. Chang
in the lightest manner I possibly can.  'Pardon me, Mr. Chang, but
my cousin down in Cracking and Hacking just sank one of SDPC's pet
AIs down a deep, dark hole so he could rescue a Boomer Persona.'"
     "I doubt the Old Man will pitch much of a fit..  That dirt
on Flint makes up for my zeal." the cracker said confidently.
     "Have fun..." Kou said with a wink.
     Kai's ears burned slightly.  "My intentions are purely
professional!" he defended.  "I deal in data..."
     Kou laughed.  "Watch out, her intentions towards you might
be purely professional too, and we both know what her job was."
     Kai sighed and left the room.  {Why is it he knows right
where to jab me to get a response?} he wondered.  {Because you're
like brothers..} another part of him pointed out.  The cracker
shook his head in amusement and entered the elevator, punching the
button to go a level below where his 'office' was.

     Kai took a deep breath, instantly regretting it.  He was on
the lowest level of the Chang Corp complex in Los Angeles..  It
was also the cold storage room.  It was a *very* cold, cold
storage room.  It was so cold that his lungs felt raw in the cold. 
"Yo Yuki, you in?" he asked.
     An elderly Japanese woman stuck her head out from behind a
stack of crates.  "Kai-chan, goo' morneeg!" she said cheerfully. 
She was dressed like a neo-tech Eskimo, with clothing that was
warm without being cumbersome.
     Kai envyed her...
     "Good morning, Yuki.." he replied.  He smiled at the woman 
who still thought of him as the little boy she'd once babysat.  "I
need to get something out of the boomer corral..." he said.
     "Ah yesu, wha' type?" she asked, pulling out small computer.
     "BU-33S, Type #43," he told the woman, checking a scrap of
paper in his pocket.
     "BU-33S?" she asked an odd expression on her face.
     Kai looked up above him for a moment and shrugged.  "It's a
long, confusing story that involves a me saving someone's life at
the expense of several laws..."
     Yuki nodded and grinned.  "Ai arways noo yu goo' kidu.." she
said, clapping him on the back.  She wandered off to find the
container in question.  A few moments later she came back with a
cylinder on a dolly.  "Sainu heeru preeze.." she said with a smile
and a wink.
     Kai did so and called the elevator.  "Could you loan me a
drudge to help me get this back to my section?" he asked.
     Yuki nodded and bullied one of her great-grandchildren into
getting off their dead ass and helping out.
     "What you need a sex-doll boomer for?" the man asked.
     "Mars needs women, ack ack..." the cracker replied
cryptically.
     "Be that way then.." the man wheeling the container along
replied crossly.
     Kai understood why Yuki preferred other people's
youngsters..  Her great-grandchildren, if this one was a good
example, were all assholes...
     Meg watched as Kai had the container wheeled in.  "That me?"
she asked.
     Kai nodded.  "Hope you don't mind longer hair.. I couldn't
find one *exactly* like your old body."  He frowned slightly. 
"Great, now the 'mad scientist' is missing."
     "He's asleep under that pile of paper on that desk..." meg
offered.
     "Thanks..." Kai replied, walking over and picking up an
unabridged copy of Dr. Katsuhito Stingray's boomer production
notes.  He slammed the tome down on a clear part of the desk as
hard as he could.  The geeky tech under the papers leaped a foot
out of his chair and came crashing down on the floor.  "No
sleeping on the job," Kai muttered.
     "H-hello, Mr. Stuart.." the techie stammered, groping for
his glasses, horn-rimmed of course.
     "You do remember I was coming here today?" he asked.
     "Yessir, sorry sir!"
     Kai gestured to the cylinder.  "Shall we begin?  You handle
the physical systems and I'll prepare the Persona," he advised. 
"The boomer in the cylinder has no Persona program, so I can
install one, correct?"
     The techie nodded.
     Kai retrieved a cable from his ever-present but oft-missed
backpack and rummaged around for a Terminal to plug into.

     Meg opened her eyes and took a deep breath.  "It's good to
be back.." she remarked.  She noticed no-one was in the room.  She
also noticed that she had no clothes on.
     Kai's muffled voice came from another room.  "Listen up you
hormonal twit.  I might not know a lot about boomers, but she can
bloody tell us if something's wrong.  *We* aren't going back in
there until she's dressed!"
     Meg chuckled.  "He's old-fashioned, but he's sweet.." she
muttered, retrieving Kai's bathrobe from a chair next to the table
she'd woken up on.  She knew right away her hair was going to take
some getting used to.  She'd originally been programmed as a more
masculine-type of 33S, for men that liked women to take a little
control.  This body was clearly meant for a different sort of
Persona.  It almost wanted to sit in a more graceful manner than
she was accustomed to..  She could adjust, she was nothing if not
adaptable.
     "Oh bloody hell..  Limme call my call my cousin Yuri rela
quick up in Accounting..."
     "Why?"
     "I forgot to get her some real clothes..."
     Meg chuckled.  Kai *was* a real sap sometimes...  She
wondered why she was thinking of him like that.  She thought about
the cracker carefully.  From the first time she'd laid eyes on
him, so to speak, he'd been very careful to make sure she felt
comfortable.  He freely admitted he wanted to know what she'd
found out about SDPC, but had promised to ensure her safety.  Had
she met a truly honorable man?  She thought about it..  His body
language out of the Interface told her that he was a sincere man
by nature.  She thought of something suddenly...  Kai cracked for
a reason!  It wasn't his calling, she realized.  Kai viewed his
daily rampages through the World of Information as his duty.  His
mission in life was to ensure that people stay honest...  If he
held honesty so highly it was very unlikely that he could bring
himself to lie!
     She smiled.  She *had* met a truly honest man.
     "C'mon Yuri..  Pick up the damned phone.." the cracker said
on the other side of the door.

     Meg looked at Yuri Takada and knew she was looking at
someone who was far more than she seemed.  She was a little
younger than Kai, but there was something she had that Kai lacked. 
There was something powerful lurking begin the accountant's eyes.
     "You can see it?" Yuri asked.
     Meg nodded.
     "You've heard of Reika Chang?" she asked, unzipping a
garment bag and pulling out a business-style, black coat and
skirt.  There were shoes such to go with it already out.
     "Yes..  She's a singer, right?"
     "And more..." Yuri said coldly.  "I'm one of the members of
the security detail that makes sure she will live to live up to
this..."  She held up her left hand to show her the Iron Ring.
     "Kai said something about a group with no love of GENOM..."
Meg asked, probing for answers as she put on the clothing.
     "He, I and many other people in this complex are members of
Hou Bang..." Yuri confessed.  "And you know as well..."
     Meg looked a little confused.  "Why me?"
     "My cousin is headstrong.. and a little foolish at times. 
The only way you will be able to live after telling us what you
know is to become one of us," she sighed.  "My cousin has lived
through Hell, and I don't want to see him hurt by his own
actions..."
     "He did something stupid by saving me?" the boomer asked.
     Yuri shook her head.  "No, but Kai often forgets to think
about the consequences of his actions.  He doesn't realize it
now.. But this evening he'll have slowed down enough to realize
that he's pulled you into the Shadow World that no-one ever enters
willingly."
     Yuri handed Meg something small and cold that was strangely
heavy despite its size.
     "My cousin and brother consider you human.  My cousin
probably created an identity for you while your systems came on-
line..." she sighed.  "All I can say is, welcome to the Family.."
     The woman left the room, and Meg looked at the Iron Ring in
her hand.  A ring the same as the one Kai wore.
     She thought about what Yuri had said...  Kai hadn't thought
of what it might mean to save her?  He hadn't realized she may
very well be killed unless she drank the same bitter drought that
he had?  Hou Bang.. Tiger Corps..  It felt like a crime family,
especially after what Yuri had said.  Could she be able to accept
that kind of life?
     She frowned.
     By human law she violated the law by simply breathing.. and
Kai and his allies had treated her so well.  Yuri and Kou valued
their cousin's opinion greatly, should she trust them as they
trusted Kai?
     Meg put the ring on her finger.
     She had made her decision.

     "Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God..." Kai said in the shower that
evening, the weight of his actions finally catching up with him.
     Meg was in his guest bedroom, since she had no-where else to
go..  His thoughts turned to the woman sleeping across the hall,
and what he'd *really* done to her two nights before.
     He'd pulled her into the same Hell he'd grown up in.
     He turned off the water, dried himself off and dressed for
bed, his movements mechanical and his eyes blank.

     "Mommy?" a little boy asked worriedly, shoving at his
mother's shoulder weakly.
     Her head snapped around and her dead, blood-filled eyes
glared at him.  "Get your hands off me you little bastard.." she
rasped, maggots crawling out from between her broken teeth.
     The little boy screamed like a lost soul as his brain
slammed against the hard wall that was Reality.

     Meg heard the scream and rushed across the hall, convinced
she'd see Kai sprawled out in his bed with a knife in his heart or
something.  She found it was more like he had a knife in his soul. 
There was a creepy, far-off look in his eyes, like he was seeing
something else in a different time and place.
     "i'm all alone..." Kai said in a dangerously small, quiet
voice.  It was like listening to a little child, lost and afraid.
     "You're not alone, Kai.. I'm here..." Meg whispered, letting
him rest his head on her shoulder.  The cracker let two decades of
pent-up anguish go as he broke down and cried quietly.  Meg
wrapped her arms around him and held him close.  Being a BU-33S
had advantages, she was designed to be a very empathic person, and
she could tell that what he needed more than anything was someone
to be there, to support him.
     "sorry..." he rasped, his voice choked.
     "It's alright, Kai.." she whispered.  She thought through
her options and decided to be motherly, carefully squelching some
of the optional lines of behavior she could use.  She was out to
comfort him, not give him an Oedipal Complex.  "There was nothing
anyone could do.."
     "I guess you can't understand why I'm so messed up?"
     "Tell me what's wrong.." she asked him, phrasing her request
carefully.
     "I saw my parents dead..." he said quietly, his chin resting
on the woman's shoulder.  "My uncle raised me..  He used the
excuse that they were sick for a while, and wanted me to.. to stay
with him and his family while they got better."
     "And they never got better..." she said softly.
     "He meant well, but he didn't know how to handle the
situation.  *Who* can handle telling a kid that their parents are
dead?  He was in shock that first night, and he started a lie that
snowballed..  God it hurt when I finally got told the truth..."
     He suddenly got quiet...
     "Kai?"
     "I'm still here.." he replied, "just thinking.."
     "I thought I smelled wood burning..." Meg joked.
     He reached up and hugged her tightly to him.  "Thank you,
Meg.. I needed that.." he said softly.
     "Do you want me to.." she started.
     "Just stay here, Meg..  That's all..." he said distantly.
     They let go of each other and climbed into his bed.  As Meg
got settled, Kai wrapped his arms around her and rested his head
next to her's.
     "Thank you, Meg.." he whispered.
     "Thank *you*, Kai..." she responded.  She wrapped her arms
around him as they both fell asleep.

     Meg awoke the next morning slightly confused.  She was in an
unfamiliar bed with a mattress that was a good bit more firm than
her own.  And someone was draped on one side of her.  She
remembered the previous night and smiled slightly, glancing over
to Kai.  The cracker was still asleep and had a peaceful
expression on his face for the first time in what must have been
years.
     She still wasn't sure what to make of him, he'd been hurt by
his parents' deaths long before, but that didn't account for the
way he acted towards her.  She'd never met someone who genuinely
wanted to be a friend.. every other male she'd ever encountered
wanted her for either the information in her head or her more
physical skills.  Kai claimed that he wanted to know what she
knew.. but there was something else.  Kai treated her like a
person, something no-one else had ever done.
     She looked at him closely.  She could make out the surgical
scars at the base of his skull where he'd had the Interface plug
implanted.  When he was asleep she could look closely at his face,
devoid of the emotions that normally animated it.  She could see
the Oriental features that were there, mostly cheekbones and a
slightly non-Occidental skin-tone.  The real give away was his
hair, it was too fine to be European.  She could tell why he just
grew it out and tied it back out of his way, that was the only
thing he'd ever be able to do with it.
     She smiled slightly and kissed him on the cheek.  "Wake up,
Kai.."
     "Err.. Uh?" he muttered sleepily.  "Meg, what are you doing
here?" he asked.  "Oh yeah..."  He moved to untangle himself from
her.
     Meg stubbornly refused to let go.  "One question first, Kai. 
Then I'll let you go."
     Kai's forehead creased.  "Okay..."
     "You've treated me with an amazing amount of respect and
restraint, ever since I moved in..  Why?"
     Kai thought about that for a few moments.  "Because you
deserve it," he replied.  "You, in my opinion, are as much of a
person as anyone else I know..  You've spent your whole life
dealing with people who only want you for one thing..."
     "You're telling me you haven't even thought of trying to get
laid with me once?" Meg asked.
     "That's a second question..." Kai defended, trying to change
the subject.
     Meg chuckled.  "And you just answered it, Kai.." she purred,
moving one of her legs a little.  She laughed again when the
cracker's face turned as bright a red as her own hair.
     "Err..  Meg?" he asked his voice choked.
     "Just relax, Kai.." she whispered into his ear.  "This is
the sort of thing that I am *very* good at dealing with..."  She
let go of him and pulled her long T-shirt off, over her head.  "I
have this situation throughly under control, Kai Stuart."
     Kai gulped as Meg moved back closer to him.
     "Trust me," she purred, "I know what I'm doing."
     Indeed she did...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My thanks to Jenova, Speedbump, Mark Latus and the rest of the
horde that has prodded me to continue work on this story since
it's inception one BGC-marathon-hazed night a year ago.

My thanks to Suzuki-san for creating a universe such as this to
play around with.

My thanks to Hetfield, Ulrich and the rest for the mood-music that
helped me write several parts of this story.

See you all again in Chapter 2...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
notes for next chapter.. [section will be cut in the final copy]

Cover the fall of Flint, the rise of Bauer and the whole Largo
mess from the POV of a man trying to dig up dirt on GENOM...

Meg begins to learn the Art of Cracking from Kai...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++