The Starguild Presents:
            A Story of Bubblegum Crisis...
                           
                           
               Bubblegum Rush: Book One
                           
                  --+ Chapter 1 +--
                           
                           
          BGC Created By: Toshimichi Suzuki
                           
  Some Terms Drawn From Every Cyberpunk Writer Alive
                           
               Story By: Berk' Watkins
                           
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

                    P R E L U D E

     The one word, the one tone of sad questioning that, when
said by a child, can break your heart...  "Mommy?" a little boy
asked, weakly shoving 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, a 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 upturn 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, people's very
computer records.  He could easily break someone by reducing them
to a nonperson, or ruin them by bringing ugly little secrets to
light.  He pulled an interface cable out of a drawer and walked
over to the 'throne' in the middle of the databank room that was
his domain.   He sat and plugged one end of it into a terminal in
the armrest of the 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 glowing
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 its
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 completed its task
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
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 too 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 was 
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.
     "Continue," 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 are *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 singsong voice.  The AI that had been so
intent on running roughshod 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 your
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 quite 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..."

Los Angeles, California

     Kai opened his eyes and glanced over to the wall of the Data
Control Room.  "I'm going to transfer you over to the computer
system in my home, alright?"
     "Like I have a choice in the matter?" Meg replied.
     Kai transferred her and unplugged himself from the 'throne.' 
He packed up a few things into a well-worn backpack and left the
Chang Complex for his home in what had once been the suburbs.  He
was beginning to feel the strain of the hard-core cracking he'd
been doing all day and knew he was going to show up late for work
the next morning.

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 was in 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 redheads 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 his 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 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 my
Terminal downstairs, Soulkiller only works on sentient 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 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 toward 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 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
muttered 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-
unnoticed backpack and rummaged around for a Terminal to plug
into.  "Haul out a datajack too," he told the scientist as he
finally tracked down what he deeded, "it'll make this whole
exercise a lot easier..."
     "Why?" the techie asked as he pulled out a sealed container
from a refrigerator.
     "I used a variant of Soulkiller that my teacher invented.."
he explained, plugging into the vidphone line.  "I'll need an
interface jack to reverse the process easily.."  He sent several
commands to his Terminal, making it contact the Terminal in the
data control room.  {You ready?} he asked.
     {*Yes*,} came the boomer's emphatic reply.
     Kai chuckled and waited for the techie to finish installing
the jack at the base of the body's skull.  {Why in such a rush?}
he asked.
     {Food, sleep, bathing and masturbation...} Meg replied in
all candor.
     Kai let out a choked sound and tried very hard not to
swallow his own tongue in pure shock. {MEG!!!}
     The boomer laughed. {I think there's a virgin in my
presence, and I don't mean the pimply geek bolting that datajack
into what will soon be my neck.}
     Kai started going through some of his old mental exercises
to achieve calm control under pressure.  There were times he
wished he'd paid better attention to his teacher when he was still
apprenticed...

     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 real
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 behind 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 that matched 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 by 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 were
coming 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 nowhere 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, she felt the back of her own neck carefully and found
the similar plug that had been installed there.
     When he was asleep, she could look closely at his face,
without 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 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 so that her thigh rested against his
crotch.  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.
     Indeed.. she *did* know what she was doing...
     If it weren't for the fact that he owned stock in the
building, his neighbors would have had him evicted for disturbing
the peace and quiet of the area.  As for Meg and Kai, they were
just glad it was the weekend.

     Sunday was a day of leisure for most people in America, and
the day after Meg and Kai had spent the whole day annoying the
neighbors was no exception.  With a look of calm and contentment
that was on his face of its of volition, Kai, with Meg in tow,
went to a mall near his apartment complex to get her some clothes.
     As was typical of such a couple, Kai ended up carrying a lot
of stuff.  In this case, Kai ended up carrying several bags filled
with pairs of women's slacks and jeans and boots and so on and so
on.  It was rapidly becoming apparent to Kai that Meg was
something of a grown tomboy, no matter what sort of womanly things
she was an expert at...
     Kai derailed that train of thought as soon as it pulled out
of the station, he had no desire to lose his cool in the middle of
a public place.  He was willing to admit, however, that it wasn't
as hard as it used to be to relax.  Maybe he was finally settling
down...
     While he'd been deciding that he was finally cured of his
old tendency to overreact when it came to the opposite sex, Meg
dashed his hopes.  She turned right and walked confidently into
Victoria's Secret.  "She's trying to kill me..." he moaned.  The
condemned man hung his head and trudged after his SO-apparent.
     Meg glanced over her shoulder at Kai and tried to hide a
giggle.  "*Relax,* Kai, it's only underwear.." she reassured.
     Kai simply tried to hide behind the small mountain of bags
he was carrying like some sort of mouse.
     Meg failed to prevent a giggle that time.  She shook her
head and walked over to Kai, parting the bags.  "This will be as
good for you as it is for me," she said quietly.  She put her
hands on either side of his head and kissed him soundly.
     Kai dropped the bags...
     "Consider this therapy, Kai," Meg said, keeping his
attention focused on her, "I'm going to get you to loosen up some
if it's the last thing I do..."  She left the other bags with the
cashier and steered Kai into the store.  "You are far too bashful
for your own good, sometimes, ya know?" she asked him.
     Kai flushed slightly and nodded.
     "Just relax, Kai, nothing in here is going jump out and bite
you," Meg said with a grin.  "Now then, I want you to keep a cool
head about you and come along with me..."  She headed for the
rather mundane section of the store.  "I have a crummy eye for
color and I want to borrow your taste in colors for a while..."
     Kai nodded.
     "What do you think would look good on me?" she asked
carefully, draping an arm over his shoulder.  "i haven't ever been
given a whole lot of choice in the matter, really..." she
confessed quietly.
     Meg had knowingly invoked Kai's honor, she knew she'd be
able to geta straight and calm reaction to anything she asked like
that.  Kai would put everything he had into making sure she looked
nice, it wasn't manipulation really.. just a very effective way of
getting an honest answer without him passing out from sheer
bashfulness.

     Back at his apartment, Kai knew something was going on
behind his back.  His instincts begged him to be ready for
anything..  As usual, he was grossly under-prepared.
     He was in the middle of waiting for the onions for a stir
fry to finish cooking when a pair of female arms slithered from
behind him, wrapped around his chest and squeezed.
     "Now what are you up to know, Kai?" Meg asked from behind
him.
     "Cooking..." the cracker replied.  He calmly opened a bag of
frozen vegetables and threw them into the wok with the onions.
     "After dinner, how would you like to see me show off my new
clothes?" she asked.  She moved her arms up so that her arms were
draped over his shoulders.
     "Just don't start during dinner..  Stir fry cold is *not* a
pretty sight..."
     Meg giggled, nipped at his ear playfully and went off to get
ready.
     A little bit later, Meg watched in awe as Kai calmly ate
stir fry and rice with chopsticks, while she plodded along with a
fork.  "How do you *do* that?" she asked.
     "Practice..." Kai replied after he'd swallowed.  "A lot of
practice..."
     Meg shook her head in amazement and went back to eating.
     After dinner, Meg went to change her clothes.
     Kai waited patiently, reading a collection of old Dilbert
comics that had been published just after the artist had died. 
Some things never changed in business, even the Chang Corporation 
had moments where it behaved in a very similar manner to a Dilbert
strip.
     "Oh, Kai..." Meg purred from the hall.
     Kai turned.
     Meg had pulled her hair back into a ponytail and had put on
one of her new outfits.  Black Doc Martens, brown slacks, and a
blue-green blouse.
     Kai was thankful she'd asked for his input on clothes, her
favorite color was actually red, and that would've looked awful on
her.  As it was, the effect was stunning.
     And she continued on from there...

Monday...

     Meg eyed Kai's preferred method of transportation
cautiously.  "A motorcycle?" she asked.  "I've never been on
one..."
     "Just hold on to me and everything will be *fine,*" he
reassured.  He handed her a helmet and shoved his own onto his
head.  "Besides, it's much cheaper than a car.. and has a *lot*
more style..."  Kai climbed onto the bike and held out a hand to
help Meg climb on behind him.
     "You sure this is a good idea?"
     "Of course it is..  I've had someone else on this bike
before..." he replied as Meg wrapped her arms around his chest
from behind.
     "Oh really?" she purred.
     Kai sighed.  "Yuki's car broke down once.. I drove her in
one morning."
     "I just love getting a rise out of you..  You're so easy to
get a reaction out of..."
     Kai just chuckled and cranked the engine.  He gunned the
engine slightly and roared off for the interstate.

     Meg had to admit, Kai loved an ordered lifestyle in his
workplace.  She looked around his 'office' for the first time and
saw the organization.  Certainly, the room was filled with
computers chirping away as they sorted and protected other
people's dirty laundry for future use..  But the chaotic aspect
that should've been there wasn't.  It was like looking at a
masterfully made clockwork, gears moving in a soft dance to keep
perfect time.
     "There was a reason you wanted to come down here?" he asked.
     "Would you teach me how to use all this?" she asked,
gesturing around the room.
     He got up out of a small chair in front of a smaller, less
powerful computer and gestured to the 'throne' at the center of
the web of computer power.  "Please, be seated..." he said in the
tones of a priest.
     Meg chuckled at his tone, sat down and waited.
     Kai got a pair of cables from a work desk and a smaller,
street-style Terminal.  "I'll use this while you use the
'throne,'" he said softly.  He carefully plugged her into the
chair and then plugged himself into the smaller Terminal.  "You
will be using this Terminal later..  But I want to show you the
Interface from a cracker's point of view in the safest manner
possible," he thought about what he'd said and grinned.  "I've
turned into my teacher..." he remarked.
     "I'm plugged in, so now what do I do?"
     "See that green button marked 'Go'?"
     "Yes..."
     "Push it..."

     "Just relax and come over here to me.." Kai said carefully. 
The roles had reversed, Kai was in his domain, and Meg was out of
her element.
     Meg wandered over to him, half her attention caught by the
sight of the Interface all around them.  Crystalline towers and
mountains of chrome...  Data flowing like water through canals
like a neo-tech Venice.  "It's beautiful.." she whispered.
     "It is beautiful," the cracker admitted, "But it can kill
you if you don't know what you're doing."  He held her by the
shoulders and looked her squarely in the eye.  "I'm going to teach
you basic survival tips, alright?  These are the things you'll
need for as long as you do this sort of thing.  A good protection
program and reflex-action can save you from a mistake, even if
it's better to avoid the mistake in the first place."
     Meg nodded.
     "First rule, save the sight-seeing for later," he began, his
Teaching Voice holding her attention...

     Later that day, Kai was off in the Interface holding people
in places of power to his own ethical code.  Meg, meanwhile, was
hungry.  She got directions from Kai's secretary and headed for
the cafeteria.
     "Meg?" the older woman asked as she headed for the door.
     "Err, yes?"
     The matron smiled.  "Thank you for bringing him back," she
said softly.  "We've been worried about him for a long time now. 
It's nice to see him alive again."
     The boomer got the strangest look on her face and turned a
shade of red that matched her hair.  "I.. err.. uuhh.." she
mumbled.
     "You're a godsend to him, Meg, please look after him," she
said with a soft look on her face.  "I was his bodyguard once,
right after his parents died..." she whispered, "But I doubt he
remembers now.."
     "I *will* keep an eye on him, Mrs.?"
     "Laura.. Laura Carter, please, just call me Laura..." the
woman answered.
     "I think he does remember.." Meg remarked in an absent tone
she'd picked up from Kai.
     "What makes you say that?" the elderly woman replied.
     Meg grinned as she walked out the door.  "A crazy flash of
intuition, Mom..." she explained.
     The secretary thought about that for a moment, and then
checked Meg's employment record.  "Megan Laura Carter.. Mother,
Laura Rene Carter, see additional employment records..." the woman
chuckled and went back to work.  "You really don't forget, do
you.." she muttered.

     Kai eyed the massive Icon looking before him and smiled. 
"Tell me the man isn't compensating for something..." he muttered
under his breath.  The GENOM-Tokyo Icon in the Interface was as
monolithic as the Tower was in real life.  Some crackers had
nicknamed the Tower 'Bloody Fuji' for its reputation of reducing
cyberneticly-Interfaced crackers to something out of an old
Scanner movie.
     It was all so much nonsense.
     Massive systems like GENOM's had a fatal flaw in their
defenses that was a part of their nature.  Security ebbed and
flowed as computers struggled to keep up with the data coming in
and going out.  Quite simply, a cracker had to patiently look for
a pattern and exploit it.  Of course, that was also the trick,
waiting for the pattern to appear.
     Kai had been watching the Icon for an hour, waiting for the
pattern to appear.  He smiled cooly as it all fell into place.  He
rushed forward, readying a program to keep the opening open while
making it look like it had closed.  He dove inside just as the
portal began to close, the portal wavered for a moment and, to his
vision, it remained open.
     He ran a program to disguise himself as a subroutine and
wandered off in search of information.

     Meg was in the middle of a hamburger when Yuri sat down
across from her.
     "I've heard rumors," the accountant said ominously.
     "I've lived them," Meg countered.  "It's fun breaking them
in..." she remarked casually.
     Both women giggled.
     "I'm glad you were there to help him.." Yuri said softly, so
as to not be heard by people around them.
     "What do you mean by that?" the redhead replied, taking a
sip of tea.
     "Whenever he gets headstrong like that.. and then realizes
what he's done...  He flashes back.  The very fact that he's in
today and cheerful means something happened.  Either you were
there to help him let go or.." she looked at Meg with a sly gleam
in her eye, "You screwed like rabbits..."
     Meg instantly wished she hadn't been trying to drink,
because some of her tea tried to come out of her nose.
     "Gotcha.." she said with a wink.  Yuri laughed softly and
got up to get her own meal.  "Have fun..." she said as she
wandered off.

     {What is *with* me?} Meg wondered as she headed back to
Kai's office. {I'm a Sexaroid!  I shouldn't be acting like
*this*...} she thought crossly.  What did she mean by something
being wrong with her?  She felt very close and protective towards
Kai..  That in and of itself wasn't normal for a BU-33S...  What
*was* normal for a 33S, life as a helpless drone?  She hoped not..
     She reached the door when she remembered the look of calm,
comfortable affection in Kai's eyes just before they'd made love. 
What was amazing to her was that *that* was exactly how she felt
about *him*.  A warm, omnipresent affection that seemed to stay
with her...  "What is love anyway?" she remarked to herself as she
turned the doorknob and went inside.  She thought she had a pretty
good idea of what it felt like, and she had no intention of ever
letting it go.
     "Kai said something about wanting to see you a moment ago,"
Laura said from her desk.  "It sounded urgent..."
     "Thanks.."  Meg headed into Kai's inner sanctum.
     She picked up the Terminal and plugged into it, hitting the
'Go' key as soon as she'd sat down next to Kai's 'throne'.

     Meg entered the Interface and returned to the same place she
and Kai had talked right after he'd saved her.  Something told
her, deep inside, that she'd find him there.
     Kai was looking at the data he'd recovered in irritated
amusement.  "Flint's out..." Kai informed Meg as she sat down
across from him.
     "Good riddance to bad rubbish..." Meg pronounced, draping
her arms across his shoulders.
     "I love Japanese politics.." Kai remarked as SDPC's new
chairman slid into place in the records.  "No matter how hard they
protest, the Japanese are really run by their businesses..."
     "Isn't America too?"
     "To a point.. but do American companies frequently use their
own people as Guinea Pigs?"
     "Depends on who you ask..."
     "Who is Ryuunosuke Bauer?" Kai wondered as he started
running a background check.
     "A career yes-man.." Meg replied, looking over at the
result.
     "A puppet..." Kai confirmed.
     "With several million yen in outstanding gambling debts..."
they said at once.  They looked at each other and smiled slyly.
     "Is that our hook?"
     "That.. is the hook, the line and the sinker.." Kai
answered, slightly disappointed in the man.  "Corrupt politics
both in and out of the boardroom, makes for good business..."

Genaros Station, HEO

     It was time for the Director to pay the Piper.
     "You allowed the 33S to escape?" a man asked coldly.
     "Her brain melted down, Sir.." the Director replied.
     How odd that both voices, while decidedly different, were
coming from the same mouth...
     "Then she escaped..." the Other Voice rasped.  He picked up
a gun, held it to the Director's forehead.  "I will not suffer
fools, and who knows *who* she may have told about me on-station!" 
He pulled the trigger.
     The Director's brains made a lovely red, gray and pink
pattern on the white, ceramic wall behind his desk.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My thanks to Sailor Solathei, Speedbump, Mark Latus and the rest
of the horde that's been prodding me to continue work on this
story since its 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.

And SPECIAL THANKS to R. Talsorian Games for creating Cyperpunk
2.0.2.0. and the Mother of All Antipersonnel Programs: Soulkiller.

See you all again in Chapter 2...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++