Disclaimer and credits will be found after the end of the
chapter.
DRUNKARD'S WALK II: ROBOT'S RULES OF ORDER
by Robert M. Schroeck
0. Prologue: The Mind's I
"A clown is a warrior who fights gloom." -- Red Skelton
I am a killer and a clown. I am a hero and a fool.
I dream.
I dream of music.
Words and notes flow around me, through me, supporting me and
running over my skin in a cool stream. For the first time since
I was a child, I just *hear* the music, nothing more, and I revel
in it. Mom loved music, and she passed that love on to me. Dad
was crazy about old movies and shared them with me; the
soundtracks have echoed in my head for decades.
Being able to hear the music, and nothing else, is a joy I
thought I'd given up long ago.
Snippets of lyrics flutter about my ears -- a piece of jazz here,
a bit of do-wop there. The psychedelic organ of 60's rock drifts
past my head, lazily pursued by a synthesized riff from 80's
technopop. Voices blend and separate, a chorus that is
constantly melding and shattering as a hundred, a thousand
different songs all beg for my attention. I choose each one in
its turn, listen and love it, before moving to the next. I have
eternity; why waste it in haste?
I never thought I'd *just* listen ever again.
1. Here We Are in MegaTokyo, With All The Clams We Can Eat
"The sign that something's wrong with you is when you sit quietly
at home wishing you were out having lots of adventure."
-- Thornton Wilder
MegaTokyo, Japan. June 28, 2036. 8:17 PM Local Time.
"Oooooooh! CRAP!"
Nene Romanova scowled at the glowing monitor in front of her, and
blew a lock of her red hair out of her eyes. Although her anger
and frustration burned intensely, she still couldn't bring
herself to use harsher language.
She stared balefully at the editor window; the jaunty, circus-
like combination of the breakpoints' red bands against the editor
window's white background seemed to mock her inability to debug
the routine. "Why won't this darned thing work?" she shouted at
the ceiling as she gestured expressively. "How am I going to
crack GENOM's intranet if I can't get one little routine to work
right? Aaugh!" she cried, throwing her hands up.
There was a knock at the door of her apartment.
Nene froze, hands above her head, her eyes widening in momentary
panic. Then she chuckled and dropped her arms. *Nope. GENOM's
security division is good, but they're not *that* good,* she
smiled to herself. Picking her way carefully through the
detritus of her hacking run -- crushed Jolt bottles, empty bakery
boxes and crumpled fast food wrappers littered the floor -- she
made her way to the apartment door. With one hand on the knob,
she put her eye up against the peephole lens, then all but
squealed in surprise.
Throwing open the door, she launched herself at her visitor and
caught her up in an energetic hug. "Lisa!"
Lisa Vanette returned the hug, then disengaged herself and
stepped back. "You're looking good, Nene."
Nene flushed, suddenly painfully conscious of the worn and
stained T-shirt and shorts she was wearing and their probable
odor. She suppressed a wince and gave Lisa a quick look. "So
are you!" In the three years since they'd first met, Lisa had
grown up quite a bit, but her fashion sense hadn't changed: her
trademark beret still topped off a nicely-coordinated outfit with
a vaguely Eurofashion feel to it. *And of course, her camera is
surgically attached to her, still,* mused Nene with an inward
smile. "Come on in!" she said aloud, ushering Lisa through the
door.
Lisa stepped into the tide of wrappers and looked around, an
amused expression on her face. "Been hacking 'round the clock
again, Nene?" she asked as she removed her shoes.
Nene frantically began to gather up the wastepaper and shove it
into the recycle bin. "Um, yeah," she mumbled. "You know how I
get," she added and flashed an embarrassed grin at her guest.
Lisa laughed as she plopped down on the couch. "Relax, Nene, you
know I don't care whether the place is spotless or knee-deep.
I'm here to see you, not the floor!" In spite of herself Nene
chuckled as she forced the last handful of burger wrappers into
the overstuffed bin.
"You know, you really shouldn't eat so much junk food," Lisa went
on. "You won't be able to fit into your duty uniform."
"Oh, not you, too," Nene mock-pouted as she dropped into a
comfortable sprawl on the other end of the couch from Lisa. "I
already get enough of that from Priss and Linna!"
"There's a reason for that, Nene!" Lisa waggled her finger at
the redhead, and Nene burst into giggles.
When the fit of giggling left her, Nene smiled at her guest. "So
what brings you back to MegaTokyo, Lisa? Visiting your uncle
again?"
Smiling, Lisa shook her head. "Nope, I'm back for good!"
Nene's eyes widened. "You didn't graduate already, did you?"
Frantically, she began counting off fingers. "Freshman, '32-'33,
Sophomore, '33-'34, Junior, '34-'35, Senior..." She looked up,
"You did! Congratulations!"
Lisa flashed a grin. "Thanks! It was hard work, but I made it."
"And you're moving to MegaTokyo?"
"Already have, actually. I've got a job as a reporter at the
16 Tokyo Day Times, and I've moved into my own place in Ota."
She made a face.
"Mou...." Nene was crestfallen. "You're *kilometers* away! How
will we get together?" Lisa rolled her eyes in exasperation as
Nene continued. "Hey, Priss's trailer is in Ota, near the bay.
Are you going to be close to her?"
She shook her head. "No... I'm a few kilometers inland. It's a
dinky little one-room in one of the federal housing projects, but
it's mine."
Nene lunged across the small living area to give Lisa another
enthusiastic hug. "I'm so happy for you! We've got to go out to
celebrate!"
"And you know just the ice cream shop, right?" Lisa chuckled.
"Sounds like a plan. But before we go out..."
"What?" Nene's eyebrows rose.
Lisa motioned Nene to come closer, leaned forward and whispered
conspiratorially. "I want to know what's new with the Knight
Sabers."
Nene jerked back. "I - I don't know what you're talking about.
Why would I know anything more than is in the papers?"
Lisa rolled her eyes. "Oh, come *on*, Nene. I know, and you
know that I know. I've kept your secret -- and theirs -- for
three years now."
Nene stood and stepping around an empty bucket of chocolate
ripple ice cream, made her way to the apartment's one large
window. She looked out on the other buildings. Starlight
glittered off the solar panels that topped each one, and warm
yellow squares of light dotted their sides. A frown skittered
across Nene's face as she looked out at the lit windows of the
other buildings, and wondered how many secrets might be seen
through them, if one only knew when to look. "Lisa," she finally
said without turning around, "Up to now, it's been like a game,
do you know what I mean? There's this big secret something we
don't talk about, but we both know each other knows. As long as
we don't talk about it, life is, well, normal. I'm a computer
operator for the AD Police, and you're a college student...
sorry, a graduate. We're friends. We have been for a long time.
But if we decide to talk about this, it will change everything
about our friendship. I'm not sure I want that."
Lisa got up from her seat on the couch and stood next to Nene at
the window. She put her hand on Nene's shoulder. "I think I
know what you mean. But we don't have to let it affect the way
we relate."
"Maybe. I'm not sure, though." Nene sighed, and turned to look
at her friend, searching Lisa's eyes for something -- she wasn't
sure what. "Just tell me one thing. Why?"
"Why?" Lisa's brow wrinkled. "Because I want to know. I'm a
reporter, Nene, insane curiosity is in my blood. Or don't you
remember me hanging by my teeth off a half-finished building a
few years ago?" She grinned again, a blaze of white in her
deeply tanned face. "I'm tired of hearing the biased accounts in
the papers, and wanted to get it direct from the source." She
paused. "And because I thought, maybe a friend might like a
sympathetic ear who wasn't too close to the action to tell her
adventures to."
Nene snorted. "Adventures aren't what they're cracked up to be."
"At the time they happen, yeah." Lisa shrugged. "I got into one
with you, remember? I was scared to death. But afterwards, it
was *so* fun to talk about. 'No shit, there I was', and all
that." She smiled at the older woman. "I wouldn't have missed
it for the world." For a long moment, Lisa stared out the
window. Then she looked back at Nene. "I was hoping I could
live yours vicariously," she said sadly. "The thing is, Nene,
what I want is another adventure of my own, and I'm afraid I'll
never have one again."
* * *
At that moment, over a mile away, in a garbage-strewn alleyway
near the base of the Tokyo Tower, a speck of rainbow-colored
light suddenly appeared in midair. Almost as soon as it had
become visible, it expanded into a ring surrounding a flat black
disk, nearly ten feet across, floating a less than a yard above
the grimy pavement. A moment later, a human figure dressed in
gray was dumped unceremoniously out of the disk, and it vanished.
In a laboratory deep within GENOM Tower, a team of researchers
clustered in confounded amazement around a bank of sensor
readouts, ignoring their half-completed experiment. Without
taking his eyes off the display, one reached for a telephone.
Atop Ladys633, Sylia Stingray found herself leaping from her
armchair to stand staring tensely out of the great glass windows
of her penthouse home.
At AD Police headquarters, an officer named Bochinski felt a
brief, vague sense of unease and turmoil. After a moment's
puzzlement he shrugged it off.
And in Nene Romanova's apartment, Lisa Vanette felt a delicious
chill run up her spine.
* * *
I woke up.
I don't know why it is, but it seems to be a constant that I
become unconscious while moving from universe to universe. I
arrived in Velgarth dead to the world, too. I'm just lucky I
haven't landed anywhere dangerous -- yet.
That is, if you consider a dank alleyway littered with garbage in
the middle of the night not dangerous.
It's not always a safe assumption to make.
I was in my uniform and helmet, and thank the Havens, I was still
carrying my backpack. I had a fair collection of everyday
clothing in it. Everyday for the Collegium, that is; the sight
of neon signs in both English and Japanese at the end of the
alley suggested that the pseudoMedieval garb in the backpack
would get me more attention than I wanted at the moment.
However, my uniform might not. With the familiar rip of velcro, I
tugged my emblem off the front of my jacket, swapping it for the
Harley-Davidson patch I keep in my inside chest pocket for just
such occasions. Then I made sure that my helmet's external
speakers were turned off, and retracted the headlamps. It's not
like I have a real secret identity at home, but not being
immediately identifiable as a Warrior does have its advantages.
Looking up, I realized that I knew, sort of, where I was.
Looming over me was the Eiffel-like form of the Tokyo Tower. I
was certainly in Japan. But was I back in my own universe, or
some parallel? Given that the Tower looked pretty worse for
wear, I suspected the latter. Beta Team's various time-travel
exploits seemed to indicate our Tokyo Tower remains relatively
pristine throughout its entire life, and this one looked like
it had gone through a fairly severe earthquake.
*So.* I thought as I picked my way towards the end of the alley.
*Working assumption is that I'm in a different universe again.
This time it's some kind of parallel or alternate; I think that
means I'm getting closer. Velgarth certainly didn't look
anything like Earth except for the people and the horses. And
the not-horses.* I grimaced, remembering some of the shit
Sylvath the Horseface had given me when I'd first arrived there.
Ah well, that was old news now.
I popped out of my reverie when I realized that I was slowly
being surrounded. I didn't see them at first so much as sense
them -- that vague "I'm going to be attacked" feeling that almost
everyone in the Warriors eventually develops and which the U.N.
metabiologists think is some kind of low-grade ESP. I don't know
what it is, and I don't care, but it let me know that a small
pack of street scum were checking me out. I stopped, maybe 20
feet short of the end of the alley.
Apparently either I fit their victim profile or they were
spoiling for a fight, because three of them stepped out to block
the exit, and another two slipped out of the shadows behind me to
cut off any possibility of my retreat. I felt others lurking in
the half-boarded doors and windows on either side of me.
I did a slow turn in place and did a tactical evaluation of the
situation. Three before, two behind. Three on the left, four on
the right. Even mix of Japanese and non. A rainbow's worth of
hair colors. Leather jackets, torn denims. Knives and pipes.
Some minor bionics, which was a surprise -- a limb here, an eye
there. I assumed that they were boosted somewhat, but they
didn't look like they had the budget for really high powered
stuff, unless the local economy were really odd. I would have
grinned to myself if it wouldn't have given me away. Despite the
bionics, they were just twelve crunchies.
Against me.
Heh.
"Whatcha got in the bag, man?" one of the three at the alley
entrance slurred in rather slovenly and informal Japanese.
First rule of the crisis situation -- don't move too soon. I
very carefully did not change my position or posture. "Just
clothes, nothing valuable."
He grinned, a broad and unfriendly grin that was meant to say,
"I'm top of the food chain here." He and his companions took a
lazy couple steps closer to me. "You know, you're on Outriders
turf, 'friend'. You cross our ground, you pay a toll."
I shook my head. "I don't have anything you'd want."
"I think we'll just look and see anyway. Boys?"
They rushed me.
Forty-five seconds later, I strolled out of the alleyway onto a
Tokyo street, whistling, with my backpack casually slung over my
shoulder. Glancing up at the street sign, I noted the corner,
then turned right and made my way down the street. If this were
anything like the Tokyo I was familiar with, I was in Minato-ku
and I should reach the Ginza before too long.
As I walked, I was a little preoccupied with sorting out my
priorities. I had eaten just before the worldjump, so I wasn't
hungry. I needed shelter, but before that, I needed cash.
Fortunately, I had some gems and jewelry I'd acquired for that
very purpose before leaving Velgarth. So then, priority one was
a pawnshop or jeweler. Priority two was an inexpensive but
acceptable hotel. Then, all I had to do was wait until tomorrow,
when I could try again with the song that sent me here, and move
on. In the mean time, a few newspapers and magazines and maybe a
World Almanac or equivalent would both entertain me and give a
sense of this world, which would be vital for the travelogue my
fellow team members would demand of me when I got home.
At the first major intersection I crossed, I spotted a public
telephone and stopped to use it. "Hello, yes," I said in stilted
but polite, almost effeminate, Japanese, using a voice I'd
cribbed from the Jerky Boys. "I think there's been some kind of
gang fight. Yes, Shiba Koen near the Tokyo Tower. I saw at
least a dozen of them, all lying on the ground in an alley. No,
I didn't see what happened. No, I didn't see any blood either,
but they all looked pretty badly beaten up. My name? Quincy
Black. I'm a tourist, just in from the States. What? Oh,
certainly, I'll hold." As soon as the Muzak came on I hung up
and resumed my measuredly casual pace.
A few minutes later, as sirens wailed in the distance, I spotted
the three golden balls of a pawnshop down the block and across
the street. Nice to know some things were interuniversal. As I
got closer, I saw an old family-owned jewelry store squatting
next to it. Even better, it was open. I made sure my tuneplug
was firmly inserted in my ear. Then, nodding to myself, I dodged
around the near-stalled traffic and stepped into the next phase
of my far-too-complicated life.
* * *
It was after midnight when Nene and Lisa parted company at the
door of Lisa's apartment. "You really *don't* want to come in
right now -- it's all boxes and mess and nowhere to sit but my
futon," Lisa had said, and they'd hugged goodbye.
Nothing further had been said about Lisa's request, which was all
the better with Nene. She was troubled both by the request, and
by her own reaction to it. She'd found herself *wanting*
desperately to confide in the girl, and that frightened her.
Several times over their ice cream, Nene'd barely caught herself
just as she'd been about to launch into an anecdote about
something that had happened "on the job" with one of the other
Sabers.
She needed to talk to someone about this -- and not Lisa.
Thus it was that half an hour after parting ways with Lisa in
Ota, Nene arrived at the Ladys633 building. As she made her way
into the sub-basement that housed some of the Sabers' support
facilities, she felt no small amount of trepidation. While after
all these years she was certain Sylia would not enforce the Last
Rule, Nene still found herself fidgeting nervously over the
prospect of informing her of Lisa's request.
Nene had first gone to Sylia's penthouse, but to her surprise
found her out despite the late hour. Already anxious over the
matter at hand, she'd almost used it as an excuse to
procrastinate; it would have been so easy to put it off until
tomorrow, or the day after that, or... but no. Nene had steeled
herself; this had to be addressed tonight. On a hunch, she tried
the hidden level of the building, in the hopes that Sylia was
putting in a late night on Saber business.
Now, making her way through the darkened corridors and rooms of
the sub-basement, Nene found herself growing increasingly
twitchy. What should have been familiar odors of machine oil,
solder, nanobath and other tools of Stingray technology instead
seemed alien to her in her nervousness. Stray echoes and shadows
nearly panicked her into bolting before she pulled herself
together and scolded herself for being silly.
After a harrowing five minutes' search, Nene finally found Sylia
bent over a drafting table in the design shop. A sheaf of CAD
printouts were spread over the tabletop, held flat against their
curl by assorted drafting tools and what appeared to be the head
of a Bu-55B boomer. A single fluorescent lamp on an articulated
arm and a 55-cm computer monitor illuminated the table, an oasis
of light in the otherwise darkened room.
As Nene entered, she called out brightly, "Hi, Sylia. What are
you doing working down here so late?"
Sylia looked up. Brushing back a lock of her raven-black hair,
she twitched her lips in a slight smile. "Good evening, Nene,"
she said. "I... was having trouble sleeping, and decided to make
the best of it. What brings *you* out so late?"
Nene found herself staring at the boomer head as she stepped to
the table and Sylia's side. "Where'd that come from?" she asked,
her curiosity overriding her concerns in spite of herself. "I
don't remember us taking any souvenirs recently."
Sylia stood up, chuckling. "It's not a souvenir, Nene. It's
something I've come up with from one of Mackie's ideas. Here."
With disturbing ease, she scooped up the boomer head with one
hand and held it out.
Nene reached for it with both hands, expecting it to be heavy,
but was surprised when it turned out to have almost no weight at
all. Surprised, she turned it over to discover it was hollow --
in fact, it was no more than a thin plastic shell. Comprehension
dawned, and a conspiratorial grin spread across her face. "This
isn't..." she began.
Sylia nodded. "A preliminary maquette for a boomer disguise that
can be worn over a hardsuit."
"Wow..." She raised her eyebrows as she studied it. "Well,
fair's fair -- they did it to us once, so why can't we do it
right back?"
One corner of Sylia's lips quirked upwards in a brief half-smile.
"It does have a certain appealing symmetry, doesn't it?"
Nene turned the boomer mask over and around, running her hands
both inside and out. Despite its thinness, the plastic felt
sturdy; its surface was slick and unyielding. "Say, we don't
have an infiltration job that you haven't told us about, do we?"
she asked suddenly, narrowing her eyes at her sometime employer.
Sylia chuckled softly. "No, not yet. But Mackie pointed out
that there may soon come a time when we'll need to be unnoticed --
or at least unidentifiable -- when penetrating a target. The
final version will have explosive fasteners so the wearer can
shed it easily if needed."
"Huh. Interesting." Nene laid the mask back down on the
drafting table. "How is Mackie? I haven't gotten an email from
him in weeks."
Sylia ran her fingers through her short hair. "He's in the
middle of exams again. I was surprised when we spoke; he seems
to be thriving under the stress."
"Sounds like Germany and university life are good for him." Nene
grinned. "Now if we can just get him to stop being a perv, he
might actually become a real human being."
Sylia barked a short laugh, and picked up a stylus from the
drafting table. She looked at it for a moment, then laid it back
down with an audible click. "So what brings you over tonight,
Nene? It's rather late for a social call."
Nene nodded. "I needed to talk to you, Sylia. Lisa Vanette's
back in MegaTokyo, this time for good. And... and she's asking
me about the Knight Sabers."
An expressionless veil seemed to settle over Sylia's features,
rendering her face no more human than that of the boomer mask on
the table before her. "And what have you told her?"
Nene shrank back at the chill tone that had entered Sylia's
voice. "Nothing, yet. I didn't even acknowledge that there was
anything I *could* talk to her about." Nene crossed her fingers
as she uttered that little white lie, and stepped closer to
Sylia, re-entering the pool of bright light around the drafting
table. "Sylia, she's not prying or investigating, she's asking.
She's not a threat." *Sylia wouldn't do anything to hurt Lisa,
would she?* Nene thought. *She didn't last time, and Lisa was
much more likely to betray us then.*
"We'll see," said Sylia as she turned back to her work. "We'll
see."
* * *
I'd left Velgarth around mid-morning, and arrived in the city I'd
found out was called MegaTokyo somewhere around 8 or 9 PM. It
wasn't surprising that I would be a bit jetlagged -- my internal
clock was off by almost 12 hours. So I found myself up and awake
for many more hours.
Let me back up. I sold some jewelry to the old fellow who ran
the store I'd found. I had fun with the haggling, and it seemed
like he did as well. My Japanese wasn't a problem, although as
was to be expected there were idioms and slang that were
unfamiliar. Some of that might have been because it was a
different universe, but I'll bet that most of it was simply the
forty-year span between my native here-and-now and this one.
I'll have to remember to check in forty years, after I get home.
Anyway... I spent an enjoyable half an hour dickering with
Ichikawa-san and came out of it minus a couple gems, but plus an
electronic credit chit for what I figured out later must have
been about a month's wages for an average sarariman.
I figured, I'm leaving this universe in the morning, I've got
money I won't be able to use when I get home, why not spend it
and stay in style? So I ensconced myself in a luxury hotel
suite in a part of town I learned was called "Tinsel City". It
was a damn sight better than a coffin hotel, and despite my
earlier intention to find affordable accommodations, it suited me
just fine. I did have a little trouble with the hotel staff --
imagine the service a black man in biker leathers and without
luggage might get at the front desk of the Waldorf-Astoria, and
you'll begin to get the idea -- but the combination of the credit
chit plus my perfect, almost obsequious Nihongo won them over, at
least a little.
As I was saying, biologically, it was still around early
afternoon for me. I had to wait until my internal clock hit
midnight before I could try the song again, so I booked the room
for two days. And even though I could make the next attempt in
less than 12 hours, I wanted to get some sleep first. This way I
wouldn't be disturbed until I was ready.
After securing the room, I went shopping. Fortunately, I easily
found several all-night newsstands and bookstores, and my happy
little credit chit got smaller and smaller...
Going to and from the hotel, I got my first good look at the city
as well. Definitely different from homeline -- the artificial
mountain imposing its conical silhouette over the entire city
made *that* manifestly clear. It was a far more multicultural
city than the Tokyo of my experience, too -- easily half gaijin,
which the racial purity fanatics of the Japan from my here-and-
now would never have allowed. Two other things I noticed: it
was mostly new construction, and there were bots everywhere.
Considering the state of the Tokyo Tower, it was an easy call
(and confirmed by my reading) that there had indeed been an
earthquake not too long ago. That explained the recent vintage
of most buildings. The bots, though, were a curious anomaly.
They were universally humanoid. Traditionally, that's the most
difficult (and least efficient) bot chassis, and not really
practical until you have decent, portable AI. (Or, as an
acquaintance of mine would be quick to point out, until you have
sufficiently advanced neurosurgery techniques and life support
technology.) These bots defied that axiom. The ones I saw were
little more than grunt servants, barely enough AI to handle voice
recognition and menial tasks, and there were *no* utility-design
bots anywhere, even for police or military use. It was humanoid
or nothing. Very odd.
Two hours later I returned to my suite with an armful of
newspapers and books. Sprawled out on a sumptuous couch, I
studied local history. It didn't take me long to spot the
divergence point. The Metahuman Explosion of 1929 never happened
here. As a result, their politics had been a bit more placid
(although they did have a WWII almost identical to ours), and
their scientific progress was considerably retarded compared to
where we were. They'd only made the leap to practical mass-
production of autonomous robots about ten years before the local
date, and sure enough, there'd *never* been any non-humanoid bots
-- it was almost a paradigm here that autonomy meant humanoid.
Weird.
The Cone, as I'd started to think of it, turned out to be the
headquarters of GENOM, the primary manufacturer of bots. And
just about everything else, too -- they were a *huge*, almost
schizophrenically diversified, multinational. A real zaibatsu.
Back home, the U.N. would've dismantled them years ago. Here,
GENOM and the U.N. were in bed together.
I got a bad feeling from GENOM. It had that "far too slick for
its own good" air that usually cloaked someone who was up to
something. It didn't help that something like 80% of the
manufactured goods within easy reach of me had a GENOM trademark
or service mark on them.
I don't like monopolies. Scratch a monopoly and find a
conspiracy. What can I say? The worse metapowered criminals the
Warriors ever encountered hid behind the facade of commerce and
industry. I still go into alternating fits of rage and shivering
over the plots of Gideon Manley. But don't get me started on
that...
Anyway, it was all academic. After a night's sleep, I'll be out
of here and back home, I figured. It's their world -- let them
deal with it.
If only it had been that easy. Twenty hours later, I was
standing in an abandoned building wondering what I would do next.
I'd checked out of the hotel and found a secluded, private
location -- never mind the rats -- where I could open a gate to
my next stop on the way home. Suited up and with my backpack
slung over my shoulder, I started up the song -- "Point of Know
Return" by Kansas -- and waited for the gate to form.
It didn't.
I felt the power flow in response to the song, but nothing
happened.
With growing frustration, I realized that interdimensional travel
was going to be much harder than I had thought. It'd taken me
months of poring through my helmet computer's archives to find
the song that would open a gate out of Velgarth. Stupid me --
I'd thought it would be the only song I'd need.
It appeared that each universe was going to require a different
song.
I was stranded. Again.
Well, it could be worse. I had money, means for getting more,
and it was a high-tech world. Best yet, they had rock'n'roll.
I suddenly felt a little better, and wondered what new and
interesting music they had for me to use.
MegaTokyo, Japan. July 2, 2036. 6:30 PM Local Time.
It didn't take too long to worm myself into MegaTokyo. A little
squeeze and little friendly persuasion, and I was directed to a
gentleman operating in the Ueno neighborhood of Tinsel City who
was able to provide me with the finest in genuine inauthentic
identification. I had it done up with my real name -- why not? --
and then I dropped a jelly bean-sized diamond to have a couple of
his hackers make sure there was a reasonable electronic trail
behind it. I watched over them just to make sure it was done
right.
Two days later I'd acquired a lease on a shithole one-room
apartment in a housing project in the Ota ward and I'd moved my
few possessions in. A day's shopping in a few thrift stores gave
me most everything else I needed. No purpose in getting fancy,
after all. I just needed a place to crash for a few weeks while
I figured out what song I had to play to get me out of this
universe.
I was shouldering my cot-sized bed into place when there was a
knock at my door. Curious, I put down the bed and opened the
door.
"Yes?" I intoned.
"Welcome Wagon!" A small whirlwind stormed into my apartment,
dropping a tub of what looked like ice cream on my table and
chattering a mile a minute. "Hi I just moved in a week ago and I
saw you moving in and I thought I'd bring you a little
housewarming present because no one got me one and I just know
we'll be such *good* neighbors and..." she took a huge breath and
I finally got a good look at her.
She was blonde and ultra-tan, a hair over 150 centimeters tall,
with big blue eyes. She was in a coordinated outfit in olive and
tan, topped off with a beret. In one hand she held what looked
like a digital camera, its strap looped over her wrist. In the
other she held bowls and spoons she'd liberated from the box I'd
left them in.
"Hi, I'm Lisa Vanette. I live across the hall from you." She
smiled with a megawatt of pure white teeth and bowed to me.
"Hi, Lisa," I replied, and bowed back. "I'm Douglas Sangnoir.
My friends call me Doug."
END PART I
------------------------------------
This work of fiction is copyright (C) 1998, Robert M. Schroeck.
Bubblegum Crisis and the characters thereof are copyright and
a trademark of Artmic Inc. and Youmex Inc., and are used
without permission.
Douglas "Looney Toons" Sangnoir is a trademark of Robert M.
Schroeck.
"Gideon Manley" is a trademark of Helen A. Imre and John L.
Freiler, and is used with permission.
"The Warriors" is a jointly-held trademark of The Warriors Group.
Many thanks to my prereaders: Kathleen Avins, Joseph Avins,
Barry Cadwgan, Andrew Carr, Helen Imre and Peggy Schroeck.
Additional prereaders for future chapters welcome.
C&C gratefully accepted.
--
===============================================================================
Robert M. Schroeck || "When in trouble or in doubt,
rms@cnj.digex.net || Run in circles, scream and shout."
http://www.cnj.digex.net/~rms || I have no mouse and I must scream.