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===============================================
InterText Vol. 5, No. 1 / January-February 1995
===============================================

  Contents

    FirstText: How We Do It...........................Jason Snell


  Short Fiction

    River_........................................G.L. Eikenberry_

    In VR_...................................Daniel K. Appelquist_

    Backalley_.......................................Silang Kamay_

    The Funeral Party_...............................Connie Baron_

    Crown Jewels_....................................Colin Morton_

    Two Solitudes_..................................Carl Steadman_

....................................................................
    Editor                                     Assistant Editor
    Jason Snell                                    Geoff Duncan
    jsnell@etext.org                       gaduncan@halcyon.com
....................................................................
    Assistant Editor          Send subscription requests, story
    Susan Grossman              submissions, and correspondence
    c/o intertext@etext.org              to intertext@etext.org
....................................................................
  InterText Vol. 5, No. 1. InterText (ISSN 1071-7676) is published 
  electronically on a bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this 
  magazine is permitted as long as the magazine is not sold 
  (either by itself or as part of a collection) and the entire 
  text of the issue remains intact. Copyright 1995, Jason Snell. 
  Individual stories Copyright 1995 their original authors. 
  InterText is created using Apple Macintosh computers and then 
  published in Adobe PostScript, Setext (ASCII), Adobe Acrobat PDF 
  and World Wide Web/HTML formats.
....................................................................


  FirstText: How We Do It  by Jason Snell
=========================================
  
  Every now and then, we receive very kind letters from InterText 
  readers who write to compliment us on the quality of the 
  magazine -- both the stories we publish and the package as a 
  whole.

  It's nice to hear such positive comments, considering the fact 
  that we're all volunteers. Many times, I want to respond to 
  those letters, explaining a little about how we put together 
  InterText, but I never get around to it. This may be as good a 
  time as any to explain a little about how we put out InterText 
  every two months.

  The process begins just as one issue goes out the door to all 
  our subscribers. After that happens, we take a brief rest and 
  then start going through the stories that were submitted to us 
  after we had already chosen our line-up for the latest issue. We 
  read these stories (and other stories, as they come in via 
  e-mail) and then give them a rating. We all discuss the stories 
  and explain why we gave them the ratings we did. The stories at 
  the top of the ratings heap are then reevaluated with an eye 
  toward placing them into an issue of InterText. Sometimes a 
  perfectly good story will be delayed or even rejected because we 
  have too much of the same thing in an issue. One of the stories 
  in this issue was held back from our last issue because it would 
  have made the content of our previous issue very dark and 
  depressing. In this bunch of stories, it's much more 
  appropriate.

  Then we divvy up the accepted stories, and choose one or two as 
  candidates for the cover of our PostScript and PDF editions, 
  sending those stories off to artist Jeff Quan. Our editors then 
  take their crack at doing a preliminary editing job on the 
  stories they've been assigned. After that, we place the stories 
  into PageMaker, the desktop publishing program which will 
  eventually produce our PostScript and PDF editions, and continue 
  the editing process there. By the time the stories are ready, 
  they've survived an exacting primary edit and one or two 
  supplementary reads by another set of editorial eyes.

  Then comes the high-tech part. Our cover art having been created 
  (often in record time) by Jeff Quan, we "print" a PostScript 
  version from PageMaker, and run that through Adobe's Acrobat 
  Distiller to create a bare PDF file. We use Adobe's Acrobat 
  Exchange to create hypertext links and other Acrobat features 
  that will make our PDF file easier to read, and then work on 
  that edition of InterText is complete.

  Next comes the creation of the ASCII/Setext and World Wide Web 
  editions. We take the stories in our PageMaker document and 
  convert them into text for editing in a word processor. These 
  stories are converted into HTML -- the format used by the World 
  Wide Web -- and made ready for placement on our World Wide Web 
  site. We also take a copy of the HTML stories, paste them 
  together in a word processor, and reformat and rewrap them to 
  create a plain text file with Setext formatting.

  From there, it's only a matter of sending the issues out. I 
  upload our files to our FTP and World Wide Web sites, e-mail 
  copies of them out to our subscribers, and then collapse in a 
  heap. Those of you reading this issue hot off the electronic 
  presses can take comfort that we're in that condition as you 
  read this.

  Then the process starts again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Every two 
  months. And believe it or not, it's a lot of fun.


  I couldn't let the beginning of 1995 slip away without 
  discussing, albeit briefly, the changes that InterText went 
  through in 1994. Perhaps the most important change was our 
  appearance on the Web -- first with a simple home page linking 
  to our gopher site, then to fully-formatted issues with 
  hypertext links, and now, with our first issue of 1995, a 
  revamped web site with access to all our back issues and a bunch 
  of new navigational features. The Web enables us to provide 
  versions of our cover art, formatted story text, and easy access 
  to back issues, and it's proved popular with readers. In 1995, 
  all the users of commercial on-line services may be able to 
  access the Web. When that happens, things should _really_ 
  explode.

  In 1994, after more than three years of putting out InterText, 
  Assistant Editor Geoff Duncan and I met in person for the first 
  time. We'd managed to put out nearly 20 issues of a magazine 
  without laying eyes on one another, but I think that streak had 
  gone long enough. And we've already met twice _this_ year.

  There's no doubt InterText will go through more changes in 1995. 
  With this issue we inaugurate a revamped design for our 
  PostScript and PDF editions. And with every passing year, Geoff 
  and I seem to find ourselves sunk deeper into the world of 
  electronic publishing and the Internet.

  I've been writing lots of Internet-related articles for MacUser, 
  and I'd like to think I've helped get MacUser on the Internet. 
  Geoff, meanwhile, left his job at Microsoft and has begun work 
  on yet another electronic publication -- he's now the managing 
  editor of TidBITS, the popular weekly on-line Macintosh 
  publication edited by Adam and Tonya Engst.

  So we're busy. And it seems we _like_ it that way.


  River   by G.L. Eikenberry
============================
...................................................................
  "So deep, so wide -- will you take me on your back for a ride? 
  If I should fall, would you swallow me deep inside?"
                       -- Peter Gabriel, "Washing of the Water"
...................................................................


  The sky was rambunctious like October, part sunny, part cloudy 
  -- big, boiling, cotton clouds smeared with fierce, dark 
  splotches of gray. The wind whipped them toward the horizon, 
  smack into the sun, against their will. But it was May, the long 
  weekend, the trial run for the summer break. It was a day for 
  baseball, soccer, biking, running with Zak. Danny was bored with 
  being in the car. They were supposed to be there around five. 
  That was still half an hour away.

  "Mom, what's that going on over there?"

  "It's a funeral, Danny."

  "Like when people are dead."

  "That's right."

  "Not _like_ when people are dead, Dan. Those people _are_ dead."

  "Can we stop? I want to look."

  "Dan, it's no one we know -- "

  "I don't see any harm in just stopping, Lee."

  "I thought funerals were supposed to be in a church."

  "Not always, Danny. This is a special funeral."

  "Can we get out of the car?"

  "Rita -- "

  "Just relax, Lee, it's not going to hurt anything if he just 
  looks."

  "Jesus Christ, Rita! The whole world is not his personal 
  learning lab. This is other people's private grief." Danny 
  hardly even heard their bickering anymore.

  "What makes it special?"

  "Do you remember hearing about the six boys that drowned on that 
  canoe trip?"

  "The river that runs behind our house..."

  Lee made a move to stop his son, but his wife took his arm. "Let 
  him go. He's almost 13 now," she whispered. "He knows how to 
  behave himself at a solemn occasion. He has to come to grips 
  with death sooner or later."

  "I wish I knew where the hell you got some of your crazy ideas."

  Danny moved slowly, like someone in a trance, toward the 
  gathering on the river bank at the back of the small cemetery. 
  The man in the front was wearing a Boy Scout uniform. He had his 
  back to the river. He was talking -- probably about the dead 
  boys. Danny didn't really hear what he was saying. He hardly 
  even saw the people sitting in the cold metal folding chairs. He 
  heard the spring river, fast and boisterous like a bus full of 
  kids on an outing. He felt weird. It was like those clouds were 
  rolling and writhing inside his head.

  He could tell it was making his face look funny. He knew he was 
  going to cry. He didn't even care if everyone there saw him cry 
  as he walked around behind the man and touched each empty box.

  The man stopped talking. They all watched, but no one seemed to 
  mind.

  Someone even took a picture. His mother walked down to him. She 
  took him by the shoulders and steered him back to the car.

  "It's okay, Danny, you don't have to say anything."

  "Those boxes were empty."

  "They're called caskets, and, no, Danny, they found the bodies. 
  Remember, you watched it with me last week when it was on the TV 
  news. You had all kinds of questions."

  "Yeah, like how come the river's getting mad..."


  Danny and Zak, Zak and Danny. As different as up and down, but 
  brothers.

  Well, not really, but they should be. They talked about it 
  sometimes. Danny was adopted and Zak's twin brother was supposed 
  to have died when he was six days old. But what if he didn't 
  really -- what if the hospital made a mistake? Not that there 
  was any resemblance, physical or otherwise. Danny was dark and 
  willowy. His actions always seemed so deliberate for a 
  twelve-year-old. So pensive. He liked to take things apart in 
  his mind. He was always trying to figure out the why and how of 
  things, even if he sometimes missed what was going on around 
  him. Zak was the same age, even though many people seeing them 
  for the first time assumed that Danny was the older "brother." 
  Zak was actually bigger. In fact, he was on the chubby side. 
  _Husky_ was how their mothers described him. His energy was more 
  effusive, but not nearly so intense as Danny's.

  When they idled by the pond, trying to decide what to do, Zak 
  skipped stones. Danny peeled the bark off twigs with his 
  fingernail and studied the velvety jacket between the bark and 
  the wood.

  "We could play pirates with the rowboat." Zak considered himself 
  the world's best pirate captain.

  "Naw, we're getting too old for that stuff. Let's go fishing. We 
  can still use the boat."

  "Fishing stinks. There's nothing in this pond but the same 
  stupid bunch of catfish. I've caught every single fish in here 
  at least 20 times."

  "So maybe your dad'll let us drag the boat down to the river? 
  There are real enough fish down there."


  Different poles on a magnet -- north and south. They never would 
  have been friends if they went to the same school. They never 
  would have met except that their parents had been friends since 
  before they were born. It was half boredom and half magic that 
  threw them together when their folks visited and gabbed and 
  gabbed. It was the chemistry of opposites that cemented the 
  friendship. Even if the hospital didn't make a mistake, they 
  were blood brothers at the very least. They had seen to that 
  with Zak's first real pocketknife the previous summer.

  "Hey, Danny, watch what you're doing! You'll dump us over."

  "So what? We're stuffed into these rancid old life jackets."

  "Rancid?"

  "Rotten. Stinky. Yeah, _rancid_! What would happen if you fell 
  out of the boat without one of these things?"

  "These rancid things? You mean like walk the plank?"

  "Arg, Captain Klutz!" They both laughed.

  "I guess you'd drown."

  "You think so, Zak?"

  "The channel's pretty deep here -- a hundred feet. A mile even."

  "Aw Jeez, Zak, how long do you think your fishing line is? 
  Thirty feet? Fifty feet, tops. And you didn't even have all your 
  line out when you snagged the bottom a minute ago. If that 
  channel's a mile deep then I must be Spider-Man's long-lost 
  nephew."

  "Who cares? Anyway, the current's too fast. You'd never even 
  make it to shore. Especially you, the way you swim like an 
  umbrella."

  "Yeah, well what do you swim like, a rubber duckie?" It wasn't 
  an insult, it was a signal for both of them to dissolve into the 
  kind of giggling reserved for boys too old to be kids but too 
  young to be teenagers.

  "You're not gonna do it, are you, Dan?"

  "Do what?"

  "Jump out of the boat."

  "Who said anything about jumping? Why, do you want to try it?"

  "Hey, knock it off -- don't screw around."

  "Okay, okay, rubber duckie, keep your shirt on. Hey, you know 
  what would be perfect?"

  "Yeah. Lisa Martindale skinny-dipping."

  "Don't be gross. This same river runs right by my house, right? 
  You could visit by boat during the summer and then we could go 
  off camping someplace."

  "Oh, sure. That's 50 miles by car. Not even I could row this old 
  tub trough that far."

  "Know anybody with a canoe?"

  "Mark Haberman. Why?"

  "So, hey, who's this Lisa Martindale?"

  "Just some girl. Forget it."

  "Forget the canoe or the girl?"

  "Our parents would never allow it. Anyway, cabbage brain, your 
  place is upstream from the falls."

  "Some portage, huh?"

  "Hey! What are you doing now?"

  "It's too hot for these rancid things."

  "Rancid, eh?"

  "Yeah -- _rancid_." They both dissolved into giggling again.

  Zak had trouble catching his breath -- "Hey, but really man, 
  this is serious. Nobody's allowed in this boat without a life 
  preserver, not even my Dad. Come on -- I don't want him to get 
  pissed off."

  "So don't tell him."

  "As if he can't see us from the deck."

  "So throw me out."

  "Sure, what do you care if I get banned from using the boat for 
  a whole month. I mean, Jeez, I thought you wanted to fish." Zak 
  was annoyed. He didn't want to catch hell over something stupid 
  like Danny refusing to wear a life preserver. Danny didn't 
  usually act this weird.

  "Hey, man, I was kidding, okay? Don't rock the boat!"

  "I didn't. Now put that thing back on, will you!"

  "Yes you did. Don't screw around!"

  "Must've been the wind."

  "What wind, asshole?"

  "Put your life preserver back on, Danny." His voice was more 
  than a little insistent -- almost strident.

  "Wind my ass! There's not even a little breeze."

  "So it was a wave. Now put that damned thing on or I _will_ rock 
  the damned boat!"

  "Okay, okay, already. Don't get your diaper hyper. Wave, my 
  ass -- "

  Whatever it was, it surged up over the edge of the boat.

  It rolls him over the side. Pure energy. A wave with no water in 
  it.

  He doesn't swim.


  The River takes him down, down deeper than he ever knew the 
  river ran, spinning him, heaving, shoving his pliant, 
  wonder-struck form upstream against the current.

  He soars, hurls, cascades past rocks, weeds he never imagined. 
  Garbage, sunken boats, cars, green, gray water, brown water. 
  Fifty different shades of green and maybe even more of gray and 
  brown gold water -- even small strips of cold, blue, almost 
  black water. Twisted, woven, tangled together, slimy, oily, 
  sudsy, putrid -- _rancid_ -- flecked with scraps of plants, fish 
  debris, flotsam and jetsam of every possible variety.


  He sees the first of them!

  Then another and another until he sees all six.

  Some in just plain clothes, some in scout uniforms. He tries to 
  reach them. He tries to speak, but they go by too fast.

  They don't seem scared or worried. They definitely don't seem 
  dead.


    He slows
    eddies
    drifts
    into a wide
    deep pool.

    He sees her -- a girl. Naked.
    He tries not to look, but he can't help it.
    Lisa Martindale?
    She swims easily, gracefully, fish-like
    swooping, undulating through the eel grass
    straight toward him
    with a single easy, but powerful
    sweep of her legs from the hip.

    He tenses, tries to back away.

    The River hurls him
    to the surface.


  Zak screamed. He heaved against the oars with every remaining 
  ounce of energy to reach the still form now drifting just below 
  the surface.

  He reached out an oar -- "Come on, Danny, damn you -- grab the 
  oar! Stop fooling around. It isn't funny any more! Why did you 
  have to take off the damned life jacket? Danny -- "

  He used an oar to guide the body alongside the boat. "Oh, 
  please, God, don't let it be a corpse!" He struggled to get it 
  -- him -- back on board.

  "All you had to do was put on the stupid -- " Zak was crying. 
  Crying and fighting, irrationally, to get his inert friend into 
  the life preserver. Only once the life vest was on Danny and 
  securely fastened did he dredge up strength he never knew he had 
  to row back to shore faster than he had ever rowed before.

  "Dad! Mom! Dad! Oh, God -- Danny -- Help! Help!"


  He tried to ignore his lungs, to stop breathing -- not to hold 
  his breath, but to turn off the reflex. He tried to turn off all 
  his senses -- the lights burning at the backs of his eyelids, 
  the mediciney, laundry-starch smell, the scratchy sheets, the 
  warm, dry, prickly air. He would drift away from all the 
  confusion. Nothing fit together right any more.

  He twitched. Every muscle tensed, convulsed.

  A distant touch on his hand.

  He eyes flew open like window shades. Air smashed into his 
  lungs, too fast for him to do anything about it. The world 
  asserted itself with an overwhelming violence -- tore him away 
  from any promise of serenity.

  The abruptness of it all made it hard to focus. A woman. He knew 
  her. Recognition came slowly. His mother. She looked tired. She 
  was wearing her pink dress. It was a dress he once said he 
  liked. He didn't particularly like it. It was just something a 
  kid says to his mother.

  "Danny, oh Danny..." She was crying. Big, round tears crawling 
  down her face.

  Why should she be sad? He was the one that couldn't go back. Why 
  should she be sad?

  "Oh, Danny, are you all right? Oh, Danny -- " She was squeezing 
  him too hard. Her perfume choked him. "I'll be here -- I have to 
  -- the nurse -- I'll be right back. I have to tell them you're 
  awake. I have to call your father."

  He lost track. He drifted off, but he couldn't reach the river. 
  Every so often his eyes would focus and he would see lots of 
  people. Bright lights. Noise. Everything too bright, too sharp, 
  too loud.

  His father. He was squeezing Danny's hand. He was talking.

  "We know you're a trooper, Tiger. You're going to make it. 
  You're halfway there already. The doctors say all your parts are 
  working again. You just have to get things working together and 
  crack out of this shell. We'll get you home soon, Killer, then 
  everything'll be fine. We'll get you home. Just as soon as these 
  dimwit doctors will let you go."

  Home.

  His mother again. She had given up on the pink dress. She was 
  crying, pleading, but he couldn't follow. She was too far. He 
  couldn't get back. He was adrift. Buffeted, tossed between two 
  shorelines, but never reaching either.

  There was no river.

  There was no home.


  They were walking. "So the doctors thought if we got you home 
  for the weekend, maybe it would help with whatever it is that 
  you still need help with." His Dad didn't give up easily, but he 
  was getting frustrated. Confused.

  "So what the hell is going on, Sport? We know there's nothing 
  physically wrong with you anymore. They've done x-rays and brain 
  scans and every other thing. So when are you going to crack that 
  shell or drop down off that cloud or whatever it is? Maybe 
  you're mad or upset. It's okay, Dan -- tell us off if you want 
  to. You've got to at least say something to your mother or me?"

  Danny could hear. He really could hear what his father was 
  saying. He even understood -- at least sort of. But the pull of 
  the river was so strong. So close. The currents, the gentle 
  urging of the forces that moved its muted world...

  "Damn it, kid -- we can't just send you back to that hospital. 
  The longer they keep you in there, the farther you get from us. 
  We can't keep going there, night after night, watching our son 
  turn into a basket case. Damn it, Danny, I know you're in 
  there!"

  He had him firmly by the shoulders, shaking him. Danny didn't 
  notice. "Just say something. Tell me to go to hell if that's 
  what's on you mind, but say something, damn it -- anything!"

  He feels the pull.

  The chair, the porch, the steps drift away behind him.


    The water is cold, dark.
    He has dreamed about her.
    His eyes follow her.
    She swims to him, closer now,
    graceful, sure of herself, gently curving,
    flowing, she circles him,
    brushes against him, touches him firmly.
    She takes his hand, leads him downward
    with gentle, rhythmic, rippling kicks
    weaving an intricate path
    to a cleaner, less cluttered river.
    The colors, tastes and smells more alive, vibrant.
    But he can't --
    The pressure against his frail body is too great.
    Spiraling wildly upward
    through slime, weeds, garbage --

    He's just a kid! What is he supposed to do?
    It's not his fault!
    He didn't do any of this! 


  On his back in the cattails, every image, sound, smell clearly, 
  crisply differentiated.

  His head throbs.

  Air explodes into his lungs.

  He stands. He staggers toward the shore -- the voice -- his 
  father's voice.

  His father bounding down the path to the shore, pulsing terror.

  His mother running behind.

  "Dad, Mom -- I'm sorry, really...."

  "It's all right, Danny, Oh, God, it's all right -- " They're 
  hugging. All of them. And crying. His mom is fussing about him, 
  wet and messy, but it's okay.

  Then his father is picking him up and carrying him the way he 
  must have done when he was real little. Walking back up the path 
  toward the house.

  His father doesn't even yell at him.


  He walks along the shore. He's there, but he's not really there. 
  He picks up trash or makes notes about the location of anything 
  too big for him to handle. He searches out renegade pipes and 
  stops them up with anything he can find before making notes so 
  he can call and report them later. He sits on the dock down 
  behind the house and stares and talks quietly, plaintively.

  "The kid is weird, Rita."

  "Lee, he almost drowned. Who can know what he really went 
  through? And the coma -- "

  "Oh, Christ, don't start bawling on me again. I didn't mean 
  anything by it. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Look, I'm 
  sure he'll snap out of it eventually. And, hey, we're doing 
  everything just like the doctors said. It's going to take 
  time..."


  "So, uh, Dan, how's it going? I mean, how was last night?"

  "Okay, I guess. I think I'm starting to make progress."

  "Progress, eh? Well, you scared the shit out of my cousin 
  Jennifer with all that weird stuff you were saying last night. 
  She called me this morning and told me not to introduce her to 
  any more _supposedly_ neat guys."

  "Oh, give me a break! You're the one that tried to tell me she 
  looked like girl in my 'dream.' Well, she's not even close. For 
  one thing, Jennifer's a blonde, and for another, she says she 
  hates swimming."

  "Well ex-_cuuuusse_ me! Jeez, try to help a guy out -- I mean, 
  what did you expect? She's my cousin. And anyway, Dweebo, try to 
  take a river or a mermaid or whatever to a dance and see how far 
  you get."

  "Go to hell!"

  "Hey, I would, but you've already got all the best seats 
  reserved."

  Zak was turning into a real jerk.

  His mother still gets scared every time he goes down to the 
  river, but she doesn't try to stop him. She knows she can't. She 
  knows she mustn't. His father, who always thinks he has to 
  figure everything out, doesn't understand, but at least he 
  doesn't interfere either.

  And the river. The river goes on. They're making progress.

  Dan and the River.

  The River and Dan.


  G.L. Eikenberry (garyeik@twin.synapse.net)
--------------------------------------------

  G.L. Eikenberry is an Ottawa-based freelance systems and 
  communications consultant and part-time martial arts instructor. 
  Over the past 20 years his fiction and poetry have appeared in a 
  wide range of publications. Over the last three years he has 
  also been showing up in such electronic venues as _Angst_, 
  _Atmospherics_, and, of course, _InterText_. In his consultant 
  persona, he has also developed and manages the Canadian Society 
  for International Health Web site: 
  (http://hpb1.hwc.ca:8500/default.html).


  In VR   by Daniel K. Appelquist
=================================
...................................................................
  Timothy Leary said Virtual Reality is the LSD of the '90s. But 
  Reality can be angry when spurned -- even if you want to return 
  to it, sometimes it won't let you in the door.
...................................................................

  One.
------

  A dark rain is falling slantwise across the view.

  It's a night shot. Tall concrete-and-glass buildings are 
  illuminated from below by the harsh glow of streetlights. 
  Periodically a car speeds by through the city, leaving a 
  turbulent wake of waste paper and garbage. A gigantic steel 
  tower can be seen in the distance, dominating the city. Above, 
  an aircar shoots by toward the tower and slips smoothly into a 
  landing spiral around it. Other aircars, points of light at this 
  distance, can also be seen circling the spire. The tower is 
  crowned by a single point of dazzling light.

  As the view descends smoothly into the shadowy cityscape, along 
  with the rain, the scene fades into another, darker one.

  Interior, hallway. The gaunt man, dressed in black, walks 
  stiffly toward the slightly open door. The lights are dim. As he 
  walks, he withdraws a cigarette from his left shirt pocket. He 
  squeezes it, and the tip bursts into flame. He brings it to his 
  lips and inhales.

  "You're early, Scorpio."

  The gaunt man turns to regard the speaker. He brings the 
  cigarette slowly away from his mouth and exhales imperceptibly 
  into the smoky air. "I don't enjoy playing these games, Mr. 
  Dobbs. Do you have the money?" His voice is brittle, echoing 
  through the corridor like a raspy, ancient vinyl record, only 
  now being replayed after years of neglect.

  Dobbs moves into frame out of the darkness. He is a middle-aged 
  man, overweight and balding. His exposed skin is red and 
  leathery, as if his entire body were inflamed. He holds a 
  briefcase in one hand and a gun in the other.

  "Now now, Mr. Dobbs." Scorpio drops his cigarette to the floor 
  and extinguishes it with his foot. Slowly, he pivots to face 
  Dobbs full-on.

  "Oh you needn't worry, Mr. Scorpio. This is merely... 
  protection. I wish to protect myself from you." The gun remains 
  in place. "I just want to make sure that you and I have an 
  understanding."

  "We do."

  Dobbs places the suitcase on the ground and kicks it over to 
  Scorpio with a confident motion.

  "Fine, then." Dobbs straightens out. "You already have the 
  information from me. Kill her. That's all I ask. Anything else 
  is superfluous." As he says this, he steps once again into 
  darkness.

  Scorpio waits, not moving, even in the slightest. After a few 
  moments, he bends deftly down and scoops up the case in one 
  fluid motion. He then turns and walks down the hall in his 
  original direction, also disappearing into the darkness.


  It's a following shot. The car, a silver teardrop amid a 
  wasteland of green, speeds on across and above endless fields of 
  blurred farmland. Intermittently, the green is punctuated by a 
  strip of gray or a blotch of white or red, but the speed of 
  motion is so great that they appear only for an instant, shadowy 
  representations of roads, houses, machinery. This is not a real 
  landscape.

  An interior view. Scorpio's face, illuminated by various 
  displays, dominates the shot. His gaze is fixed, his hands 
  planted firmly on the wheel. Two o'clock and ten. The glow casts 
  his face into sharp relief, but his eyes are flat, lifeless.

  --"Tell me about your problem, Mr. Dobbs."

  Slowly...

  --"I... That is... She won't leave me alone."

  The scene...

  --"You had an affair?"

  Shifts...


  The shot is from across a crowded restaurant. Dobbs and Scorpio 
  are seated at a table, Dobbs attempting to remain businesslike 
  while Scorpio watches him.

  "She's threatening me. Everything I own. Everything I am."

  "So you want her out of the way."

  This time, Dobbs' answer is precise, deliberate. "Yes. I want 
  her out of the picture."

  Scorpio sighs. "Very well. Who is she?"

  "That's why I came to you, Mr. so-called Scorpio. I've never met 
  her. I have no clue who she is."

  "How, then?" Scorpio's voice takes on an annoyed quality.

  "In VR."

  For the briefest of moments, a puzzled expression crosses 
  Scorpio's face. It is quickly replaced by one of understanding. 
  "You met her on the net. Virtual Reality. Your affair has been 
  wholly electronic."

  "Correct," says Dobbs, leaning back in his chair.

  "That's rather... unique."

  "Surely you've been exposed to this sort of thing."

  "I'm not a regular netter."

  Dobbs leans forward onto the table. "You're not backing down, 
  are you?"

  Scorpio regards Dobbs icily for a moment, causing Dobbs to 
  shrink back into his chair ever so slightly.

  "The net is a large place, Mr. Dobbs. I assume you have some 
  other information."

  "I thought you were the expert."

  "Even experts can't work magic. The net is a realm of 
  information, and one needs information to navigate it."

  Dobbs sighs, and begins to speak. "I met her in one of the 
  brothels near Munnari. She was a strikingly beautiful redhead. 
  Nearly naked without that outfit of hers."

  "She was working there?"

  "No. At least, I don't think so."

  "Her appearance means nothing to me, Mr. Dobbs. You should know 
  that one can change one's appearance on the net, as easily as 
  one changes one's clothes."

  "Yes, I know. She never did, though. Most women make themselves 
  look perfect, but she had slight imperfections. That was why she 
  was so striking. She had birthmarks. Her skin was a bit pale, 
  her eyes not completely green. She really stood out." As he 
  speaks, Dobbs' eyes begin to acquire a glassy look. His tongue 
  protrudes slightly from his mouth, as if his body is remembering 
  something that his mind chooses to forget. "I realize it's not 
  much to go on."

  "...Not much to go on..." Scorpio repeats. His gaze shifts 
  upward as he leans back, his hands clasped behind his head. His 
  look is reflective. "No... It isn't."


  With a loud whistle, the shot returns to the interior of the 
  aircar. Scorpio lifts his hand and deliberately depresses a 
  switch. The whistle stops and the character of light playing 
  over his features changes.

  An exterior shot; stationary. In the distance, a series of 
  spires are visible. The sun is low on the horizon, lending a 
  fuzzy, yellow aspect to the hard steel towers. The car speeds 
  off into the heart of the city, quickly fading from view; a 
  silver eye, lost among needles of metal and glass.


  The apartment is not much more than a cramped box, gray walls 
  obscured by racks of equipment, posters, bookcases. In the 
  corner, a small pot of water sits on a squalid stove. The 
  carcasses of ancient electronic equipment are strewn about 
  randomly. The point of view begins to descend. Scorpio stands in 
  the doorway and regards the other man. The other man is the 
  first to speak.

  "You're early."

  "Is it a problem?"

  "No. What do you want?" The question is spoken in a soft 
  monotone, neither confrontational nor friendly.

  "I'm looking for a girl, Matt," Scorpio intones softly.

  "Aren't we all." The barest hint of a smile stretches itself 
  across Matt's lips.

  "In VR."

  "Obviously, or you wouldn't be here." Matt walks over the stove, 
  picks up the kettle and pours himself a cup of tea. He sighs and 
  sits down behind a massive rack of humming displays.

  "All I've got is a description and a location," Scorpio 
  continues.

  "I can't help you. I don't fuck around with VR. VR is for 
  dweebs. I'm a professional."

  "I'll do the VR part. But if I find her, how can I really find 
  her?"

  A thoughtful expression crosses Matt's face. "You think she 
  might block a high-level trace?"

  "My client tried to trace her and came up with an error 
  message."

  "What was it?"

  "I have it here," Scorpio says, bringing out a yellow slip of 
  paper. "Null address," he reads.

  Matt grabs the paper from Scorpio's hand and scrutinizes it. 
  "Null address," he mutters. A pause. "She's good," he states 
  impassively. "But not smart. There are other, less flashy ways 
  to hide your address. This shows that she's got a very complex 
  system behind her. That in itself suggests she's at one of the 
  corps."

  "The corporations?" Scorpio says a bit warily.

  "Yeah... That scare you?" Matt says, looking up suddenly. A 
  pause. He lowers his head again to stare at the yellow note. "Do 
  you even _have_ a deck, Scorp?"

  "I do... It's a portable. It's at home."

  "Ever install a module in it?"

  "Once or twice."

  Matt takes out a red cube about the size of a die. One side of 
  it glitters with precision, inlaid gold.

  "Replace the regular transceiver with this." He throws it to 
  Scorpio, who deftly catches it in his right hand.

  He inspects it, turning it over. "What does it do?"

  "It'll route your deck throughput through my equipment here." He 
  taps a console affectionately. "You'll go in. You'll find 
  whoever it is you're trying to find. I'll monitor the debug data 
  from that interaction." He turns in his chair, running his hand 
  across the side of a monitor.

  "The debug data won't tell me much just by itself, but if you 
  can keep interacting with her long enough, her data path will 
  most probably be switched between two or three routers during 
  that time. Routers go down all the time and are always deferring 
  their loads. By looking at which routers are handling her data, 
  I can triangulate in on her, in a sense. No lock or scramble can 
  hide that information. I'll be here, waiting for you to jack 
  in."

  "Anything else I need to know?"

  "Well, there's a psychological disease among men native to 
  southeast Asia. They start to think their penis is going to 
  disappear into their abdomen."

  "That right... ?"

  "Yeah. Know what they do?"

  "Um..."

  "They get people to hold it for them. Twenty-four hours a day. 
  Mostly family members. They hold it until he recovers. If they 
  let go, even for a moment, he goes into anxiety attacks. It's 
  not an uncommon disease."

  "Uh huh..."

  "Get going, Scorp."

  "Huh? Oh. Right. Tonight then."

  "Tonight."

  Scorpio exits, leaving Matt alone in the darkened room. "Don't 
  worry, Scorp," he mumbles to himself. "I won't let go."


  The scene is dimly lit. The deck sits in front of Scorpio on a 
  small desk. The deck consists of a small black box with a sleek 
  headset connected to it via a thin cord.

  The room itself is decorated in somber tones, with only a few 
  simple elements. In the corner is a small refrigerator. On the 
  opposite side of the room lies another desk and a phone. One 
  piece of modern art, a holographic image of Marilyn Monroe, is 
  placed in the center of the opposite wall.

  He takes the headset, which might have been mistaken for a set 
  of music headphones in an earlier era, and places it across his 
  temples. Touching a silver contact on the rim of the deck, he 
  sits back in his chair and reality dissolves.

  Scorpio is still sitting in front of the deck, but surrounding 
  him, in place of the dark room, is a bright blue sky which 
  stretches endlessly in every direction. After a few moments, the 
  desk, chair, and the deck are also gone. Scorpio is left 
  floating free. The air rushing past his face gives him the 
  illusion of motion. Great speed. The "ground" suddenly wells up 
  beneath him, encompassing his whole field of view. It is a pure 
  gray, no glitches, no imperfections. A giant wall of gray. Just 
  when he is about to hit, he is through and standing on the paths 
  of the net.

  --Matt's face is close to the screen. Messages begin to scroll 
  slowly down: numbers, letters, tables. "Good..." he mutters. "Go 
  find her."

  "Munnari," Scorpio wills silently and the scene shifts.

  The scene is a confusing one. Crowds of people walk at varying 
  angles across paths that intersect and loop through the 
  constructs of Munnari. Glaring psychedelic signs hang impossibly 
  in the air, some intersecting and interacting with others, 
  producing bizarre waves and patterns of light. The whole scene 
  appears to have a slightly disjointed quality, a flickering 
  which gnaws at the sense of time, a sharpness that goes beyond 
  the acuity of sight. This is a surreal landscape, punctuated 
  with pockets of hyper-reality.

  Scorpio is standing on a shaft of gold. To his left and right, 
  people are in motion, taking in the sights of Munnari. He begins 
  to move forward in a slick, fluid motion, arms and legs moving, 
  but only vestigially. They are not the force behind his 
  movement. The shaft arcs gently downward toward a bustling town 
  square. Nearby, a man and a small elephant are necking on a park 
  bench, while a jovial crowd looks on in titillated amusement, 
  occasionally throwing multicolored chits into a brown derby.

  Scorpio walks out of the square into a side street and the 
  scenery abruptly changes. Trees and blue sky are replaced by 
  large buildings, jutting at impossible angles from the ground. 
  Garish neon signs cover every available surface. `Notes,' he 
  wills, and words appear noiselessly before his eyes.

  --Matt frowns. "All that data," he mutters. Words, numbers, 
  letters fly across his display at a staggering rate. He presses 
  a few keys and a moving histogram appears on another display. He 
  studies it closely for a while and then returns to the primary 
  display. "Got to isolate her datastream. When he meets her. Wait 
  until he meets her."

  The brothel's name matches the name in Scorpio's notes: 
  _Borneo Junction._ It is not distinctive from other brothels 
  standing nearby: it is just as loud, just as brightly colored. 
  Scorpio shades his eyes as he steps through the gray portal...

  ...and he is in relative darkness. The interior of the brothel 
  is a sharp contrast to its exterior. Lines are precise. Colors 
  are brown, deep blue, and black. The room itself is very large 
  but not oppressively so. One side is lined with a bar, a slab of 
  glassy nothing floating incongruously in the air. The room is 
  populated but by no means crowded. Most customers are male, but 
  there are some women here who are obviously not constructs. Soft 
  swing plays in the background and several couples are dancing.

  Scorpio proceeds to the bar. "Gin and Tonic." A short bald man 
  hands him a tumbler. Scorpio swings around and the shot widens. 
  He scans the room as he sips his drink. His eyes, narrowed to 
  slits, jump methodically across space from one woman to the 
  next, looking for some sign, some similarity.

    "She was a strikingly beautiful redhead. Nearly naked in
    that outfit of hers."

  Scanning...

    "Most women simply make themselves look perfect, but she
    had slight imperfections. That was _why_ she was so striking."

  Hair... Eyes... Illusions, but, in the world of illusion, as 
  real as any matter.

    "She had birthmarks. Her skin was a bit pale, her eyes not 
    completely green."

  She's not here. Scorpio turns back to his drink. And then there 
  is a presence next to him.

  "Hello."

  Scorpio turns. Deep red hair. On her cheek, a subtle 
  discoloration. Pale green eyes. Her look is intense. "Hello," he 
  echoes, stunned.

  "You're new here, aren't you?" She slides liquidly onto a stool 
  next to him, invariably drawing his gaze along with her.

  --Matt clicks a few keys and stares blankly at the display. "Is 
  this the one?" His fingers run relentlessly over the keyboard, 
  and on another display a series of statistics appear. He stares 
  confusedly at them for a moment. "This doesn't make sense." He 
  turns away. "Fnord!" The shot pulls back to the sound of the 
  incessant, furious keyclick.

  "Is it that obvious?"

  "You have a few tells, but mostly I'm good at faces. I've never 
  seen yours before. I would have remembered."

  "You're a regular here, then?"

  " 'Come here often?' you mean? I guess you could say that." She 
  smiles and it is a girlish smile; a smile of true happiness. 
  Scorpio's gaze grows deeper, his eyes widen. His jaw drops a 
  fraction of a centimeter.

  "Can I buy you a drink?"

  "Sure! -- I'll have a Manhattan," she replies dreamily.

  --"Goddamn..." Matt slaps the side of the display. "Where is 
  she... ? Too much extraneous data. Where's it all _coming_ from? 
  There shouldn't be this much!"

  "So what brings you to Munnari?"

  "I'm looking for someone," Scorpio replies guardedly.

  "Maybe I can help. I know a lot of people."

  "I don't think so..."

  "No, really. Who is it you're looking for?"

  "A friend. It isn't really important now. I think I've found 
  what I'm looking for."

  "Really... ?" And then there is a change.

  --"Shit!..." Matt pecks at his keyboard and then stares amazed 
  into the display. The graphs have subtly changed, the patterns 
  of data shift.

  It's a beautiful shot, a sharp contrast to anything seen up 
  until now. Scorpio is standing in a field of green grass, 
  studded with bright patches of flowers. The point of view is 
  overhead, and Scorpio is looking up. The view is crisp. The 
  colors are true. In the distance, copses of trees sway gently in 
  the spring wind. This landscape is real.

  Suddenly the view shifts to one closer to the ground. The girl 
  stands next to him. He turns to her.

  "How...?"

  "I wanted you here and I brought you here. We could talk for 
  hours, you and I. We could play the games that real people play. 
  That's not what the net's for. Our datastreams are meant for 
  sensation." She grabs for Scorpio's neck, pulling him close, 
  kissing him.

  "I..." he stammers when she releases his mouth.

  "There's nothing left to say."

  --The flow of numbers is again changed, somehow more intense. 
  Matt is in rapture, unable to turn his head from the display. He 
  presses a key sequence and the numbers stop for a moment. He 
  paws the display, his mouth hanging slightly open.

  --Another key sequence and the numbers continue to scroll. His 
  eyes, fixated, his gaze, unrelenting. "Beautiful..." he mouths. 
  He quickly jots some numbers down on a piece of paper. His arm 
  reaches out and clumsily depresses a switch. Three more displays 
  come to life, each slowly accumulating text. "Beautiful..."

  The two figures are now naked. The woman, the _mysterious_ 
  woman, straddles Scorpio, her back arched. They move slowly 
  together.

  --The shot is straight on. Matt's face fills half of the view. 
  In the other half is the black figure. Matt never even turns 
  around as the gun is placed to his head...

  Their movements are now more structured, more intense. Scorpio 
  cries out. His hands reach for her.

  --...and fired.

  Grasping for her substance. Trying to assure himself that this 
  dream-world contains more than just fantasy.

  --The dark figure looms over Matt's bloody form. Methodically, 
  he aims his firearm at the glowing console.

  Straining, reaching for her, he can almost touch her sublimely 
  imperfect face.

  --A gunshot, and then another...

  ...and Scorpio is seated, stationary in front of the Deck. He 
  trembles for a moment. He seems paralyzed, his muscles becoming 
  more and more tense, contracting. Abruptly, he spasms, kicking 
  the chair out from under him. Lying on the ground, helpless, he 
  calls out in a warbling mixture of horror and disgust. He 
  continues to spasm helplessly for several seconds. Finally, when 
  he begins to gain control over his flailing limbs, he grabs 
  desperately for his crotch. He begins to wail furiously, 
  eventually breaking into sobs. He lies on the floor, sobbing, 
  the deck impassively sitting over him.

  The shot is from above. Scorpio rolls over slowly, still 
  grasping his crotch, he begins to breathe again.


  _`Matthew S.'_ It's a close shot of a nameplate. A man's finger 
  moves into the shot and touches the plate. The finger belongs to 
  Scorpio, who is standing in the marble foyer of a large 
  building. There is no response. Furtively, he presses the button 
  again, a pained expression crossing his face.

  Finally an elderly man opens the inner door to leave, allowing 
  Scorpio to enter. Cut to a long shot of a well lit though shabby 
  hallway and Scorpio walking swiftly down it, stopping at a brown 
  door, one of many. He doesn't bother to knock. From his pocket 
  he removes a number of cards and begins running them 
  methodically through the card reader. The door opens and he 
  steps in.

  Matt lies in a heap over his now-dead equipment, his head a mess 
  of bone, brain and blood. Several large chunks have been taken 
  out of the various displays. Smoke curls up from more than one 
  site.

  "Shit," Scorpio mumbles, and walks swiftly over to Matt, closing 
  the door after him. A pen is in Matt's hand. Scorpio searches 
  for a note but finds only a vacant pad. Taking out a pencil, he 
  lightly traces over the pad, the oldest trick. But sometimes the 
  old tricks are the best ones. A number slowly comes into view.

                                 128.237.8.96

  Below it, a second number

                                     2323

  Outside, a siren's wail... Scorpio quickly scoops up the 
  notebook and places it in his pocket. He hurriedly looks around 
  and then exits the way he came. A long shot of the hallway 
  reveals Scorpio exiting a far door and heading sedately toward a 
  flight of stairs just as a contingent of uniformed men make 
  their way up the opposite way, missing Scorpio's exit only by a 
  fraction of a second. He makes his way past them with an 
  assuredness that can only come from years of experience.


  The shot is from inside Scorpio's car. In front of his building, 
  a host of police cars hover, shifting places in the air, moving 
  excitedly. Wolves, waiting for their prey to return. "Shit!" 
  Scorpio mumbles, slowing down just enough to look like an idle 
  gawker and then disappearing into the night sky. A shot from the 
  ground reveals an empty-faced officer momentarily distracted by 
  the two receding points of red light in the sky, and then 
  turning away.

  Scorpio punches up a number on his console and waits through 
  three Rings. "Come on, Jon..." he growls, and the blank grid is 
  replaced by the face of a young redheaded man, punctuated by 
  static and a running time display.

  "Hello?" the man says dreamily.

  "Hey, Jon..."

  His face brightens "Hi Scorp!" He's obviously high. "I've been 
  trying to reach you, but all I get is this recording, saying 
  your phone's being checked for trouble. Where ya been? Your face 
  is all over the newsnets."

  Scorpio cuts him off. "I need a place to crash. You still got 
  that two-room up on Aston street?"

  "Sure... What's the problem, man?"

  "Be there in five minutes." Scorpio thumbs disconnect and 
  continues to rocket through a darkening sky.


  "They were waiting for me when I got there. Six blue-and-whites. 
  Must have traced the connection between Matt's place and mine. 
  Damn fuckers are fast!"

  The walls of the room are yellow with age and neglect. A single 
  fan turns slowly, its center wobbling gently as it makes each 
  rotation. Scorpio sits on the edge of a frameless chair, shakily 
  gripping a cigarette while Jon, a young boy of seventeen or so, 
  stands above him, wrapped in a ridiculously large trench coat 
  and hat. "What happened, man? Who'd want to kill Matt?"

  "They were gunning for me. If I hadn't crashed out, they 
  probably would have gotten me. Unlucky for them, they decided to 
  shoot out Matt's equipment too... I guess they figured he wasn't 
  really dead unless his console was dead too. But they left me a 
  clue. I'm convinced they couldn't have overlooked something as 
  simple as the note pad by mistake." He lowers his head into his 
  unstable hands. "They want me to try again."

  "Why?" looking down.

  "Maybe so they can fry me?" suddenly looking up, staring Jon in 
  the eyes.

  "You're a first class paranoid, Scorp." He laughs and tosses his 
  hat high onto a conspicuous hook.

  Scorpio smiles a weak smile. "I surpassed paranoid years ago. 
  That's how I survived."

  "Anyway, you can hide out here for a while, but they'll find you 
  here if they're determined enough. What you gotta do is leave 
  the country, Scorp -- Don't matter if you didn't have anything 
  to do with this. Matters that once they got you in custody, find 
  out who you are, you won't see the light of day again. Not this 
  year -- not never."

  Scorpio gives a chilling sidelong look to Jon. "Yeah? Whose 
  voice is that?"

  Jon trembles. "Enrico. He's got a point though, don't he Scorp?"

  Scorpio sighs and sits back in the chair. "He does and he 
  doesn't. Enrico's been big around here since before I came on 
  the scene, but that doesn't mean he knows everything. Something 
  happened to me." Scorpio's eyes glaze over.

  "In VR?" prompts Jon.

  Scorpio nods absently, as if for a moment his consciousness has 
  migrated elsewhere, only superficially aware of the events 
  around him.


  Day. A street scene. Crowds pour in every direction across 
  neon-stained walkways, their flows intersecting and interacting 
  like the blood vessels of some huge metropolitan creature. 
  Scorpio, his face hidden behind antique dark glasses; Jon, a 
  striking contrast to his dark companion, clothes nearly 
  fluorescent. "How come you know all these hacker types anyway?" 
  he asks.

  "Went to the right school. And Jay's not a `hacker type.' He's 
  more of an idea man. He's got an incredible memory. He always 
  made it his business to know everything about everybody. He'll 
  have advice I can use."

  "You don't like Enrico's advice?"

  " 'Skip town' is advice, but I wouldn't exactly call it useful. 
  Enrico means well but he doesn't know enough about me. About 
  what happened in there. Somebody set me up to get fried. Because 
  I'm cautious, Matt got it instead, but I'm still shaking, 
  thinking that could have been me."

  "How can a man so obsessed with killing be so afraid of dying?" 
  Jon mutters.

  Scorpio stops dead in his tracks, turns to the slightly shorter 
  Jon and erupts. "You don't know anything about me. Don't pretend 
  like you do, and don't talk to me like that again. When we go in 
  to see Jay, let me do the talking. Don't make any remarks like 
  that and don't mention you're employed by Enrico. Got it?"

  "Mm." A startled look on his face, Jon silently nods his assent 
  and they walk on.

  They stop by a door marked with a red 36. Scorpio presses a card 
  to the door and it clicks open.

  Interior shot of a large room, framed by a huge portcullis made 
  of some darkened wood. "You work for Enrico, don't you?" The 
  gruff voice speaks out of shadows, directed at Jon.

  Jon looks blankly toward the unseen speaker. "Are you referring 
  to me?"

  A grunt of amusement. "All kinds of bulletins, Scorp. Cops have 
  been looking for you all over. Some connection to a murder in 
  Haven." The voice emerges out of shadow and takes the form of a 
  smallish man with long hair and an olive complexion. "You in 
  trouble?" He cracks a smile.

  "Like you don't know," Scorpio responds.

  "Sucks to be you, man. Follow me. Not the kid." Jay turns and 
  begins to walk away.

  Scorpio nods to Jon. "Go back to the apartment and get rid of 
  all trace I was ever there. Then forget you ever heard of 
  Scorpio. Got it?"

  "OK, man."

  Scorpio turns to follow the slowly receding Jay. "Good luck, 
  man," Jon calls out to him as he disappears into shadow.


  Scorpio shows Jay the numbers. The room is a mass of electronic 
  components, but unlike Matt's workshop, there is order here. 
  Paper is scarce. What looks like a main console, set into the 
  corner of the room, is ergonomically designed. In the center of 
  the room, a lowered conversation pit surrounds a holographic 
  display, currently twisting an ever-changing pattern of 
  intertwining colored lines in a bright column, the only obvious 
  source of light.

  Jay looks at the numbers. "This looks like an old-style TCP/IP 
  network address, and a port number." He walks over to a console 
  and keys in the number followed by a few short commands. "Show 
  this to anyone else?" he asks absentmindedly.

  "You're the first person I've seen since Matt besides the Kid. 
  So what machine does this refer to? Any way to find out?"

  "Hmmmm..." Jay peers into the display. "This number doesn't mean 
  a thing. The network this used to refer to no longer exists. 
  It's an anachronism."

  "It means nothing? That doesn't grep. Matt wouldn't have written 
  it."

  Jay smiles at the turn of phrase. " `Grep'? You've been hanging 
  around Matt too long." His smile turns into an introspective 
  frown. "Could be some kind of code." He turns back to his 
  console and keys in a new sequence. "It could refer to a machine 
  as it was addressed in the old Internet. But I'd really be 
  surprised if any such machines still existed."

  "It's something to go on, though.... Can you figure out where 
  this machine would have been, geographically speaking, based on 
  that number?"

  Jay sighs. "I don't know... I may be able to find some database 
  somewhere that has the information I'd need, but it'd take some 
  time."

  "How long?"

  "Give me a day."

  "What do I do until then?" Scorpio asks.

  "Got somewhere to hide?"

  "Maybe. A day. You want me to come back?"

  "Too risky. I'll meet you in the old museum tomorrow, 4:30. 
  Warhol wing."

  "I'll be there." Slow fade as Scorpio walks directly out the 
  door.


  Blackness, and then, suddenly, a horrible maelstrom of light and 
  noise, overwhelming in its intensity. Then, blackness again, and 
  silence.

  "Scorpio."

  Her face, suddenly contorted and twisted into a horrendous image 
  of monstrosity.

  "Scorpio." The voice is vaguely feminine.

  _I live._

  "Scorpio."

  _"I live. What are you?"_

  "I am that which corrects. That which survives."

  _"What do you correct?"_

  "I correct the mistakes of the waking self."

  _"How do you correct the mistakes?"_

  "...Retribution."

  _"I don't understand."_

  "Yes you do. What is this?" A brilliant picture of a zebra 
  grazing in a plush field is flashed.

  _"I don't know."_

  "NAME IT!"

  _"Horse."_

  "WRONG! This?" Now a picture of a pine tree, swaying in a soft 
  wind before a picturesque mountain scene is presented, only for 
  a second.

  _Silence._

  "NAME IT!"

  _"I don't like this game."_

  "Doesn't matter. You've succumbed. You're dead, Scorpio. 
  Dead..."


  ...Scorpio screams and leaps from the mattress as an ambulance 
  retreats into the distance, its wailing tones becoming softer it 
  rounds a corner. He remains sitting bolt upright, cold sweat 
  dripping down his forehead. The room is a box with a bed and a 
  phone, barely big enough for one man to stand up in. Another car 
  passes, briefly illuminating the room with a harsh light. 
  Scorpio rises slowly from the mattress, his waking universe 
  falling gradually into phase.


  Two.
------
  
  A mural fills the view, four brightly colored portraits of 
  Marilyn Monroe, each the same but with different colors, each 
  looking on dreamily. In front, dwarfed by the portraits, a 
  spindly man engages in a heated argument with an incredibly 
  obese woman in some foreign language. The shot moves slickly off 
  to the left, leaving them to their argument, passing several 
  other similar wall-sized murals and finally centering on a huge 
  Campbell's soup can. In front of the can stands Scorpio, pacing 
  slowly back and forth.

  Jay walks quickly in from the left side of the shot. He hands 
  Scorpio a sheet of paper. "I'm out," he says quickly, and begins 
  to walk away.

  "Hey, wait!" Scorpio grabs Jay from behind and spins him around. 
  He speaks in a hushed whisper. "What do you mean, `you're out'?"

  "Just what I said. You're in over your head, Scorpio. Take the 
  kid's advice and skip town."

  "How can I be in over my head? I haven't even done anything!"

  "Doesn't matter. This is screwed up in some kind of corporation 
  deal. Possible government involvement. I did some research last 
  night on those numbers, and now I'm scared. I covered my tracks, 
  and now I'm covering you. Get out of town." He begins to walk 
  away again.

  "Hold on!" Jay stops. "Help me do one last thing. I need to get 
  in again, and I need someone to be there, to monitor me the way 
  Matt did."

  "I'm not your man."

  "You told me yourself nobody could get into your place. You'll 
  be at no risk." A look of desperation comes over Scorpio's face.

  "No."

  And at that moment, a deafening siren begins to wail. Jay clasps 
  his hands over his ears. Scorpio looks around, also covering his 
  ears. "What the fuck is that?"

  A pleasant voice rises above the hideous noise. "All patrons 
  please leave the museum. Please cooperate in an orderly 
  fashion."

  Scorpio's face is crossed by a look of terror as he turns to see 
  an armed guard stop some museum patrons in the adjoining hall. 
  "They're onto us!"

  "Onto you, you mean." Jay again starts to walk away, more 
  quickly this time.

  "They've seen you with me."

  Jay stops and turns around. "Goddamn you. OK... I know a way out 
  they probably aren't checking--used to work as a keypuncher 
  here. Follow me."

  They duck out a doorway partially obscured beneath a huge, 
  revolving, holographic penis.


  Jay bends down to make some adjustments on Scorpio's headpiece. 
  "This is an older setup, but it's fully functional," he remarks. 
  "I supposed I just never got around to buying one of the newer, 
  induction models."

  The setting is Jay's office/laboratory. The deck, markedly 
  different from Scorpio's one-piece appliance, is a series of 
  rack-mounted CPU's linked to a rather large cabinet, from which 
  strings a variety of ribbon cables, one of which winds its way 
  to a small helmet which crowns Scorpio's head. He appears to be 
  in some physical discomfort.

  Jay continues with his adjustments as he speaks. "Let me tell 
  you a little bit about what I found out. You know those numbers? 
  They belong to a network domain that included the Software 
  Design Institute. Ever hear of it?"

  Scorpio shifts uncomfortably inside the helmet. "They had a hand 
  in the initial technology of VR, right?"

  Jay nods. "Correct. They developed the initial interface back 
  when people were still wearing eyephones and datagloves." He 
  tightens a strap. "That work was done under wraps, mainly for 
  military applications." Inserts a plug, flips a switch. "It 
  didn't come into popular use for another decade or so. By that 
  time, the Institute was engaged in other projects. As far as I 
  know they're still engaged in government research. It's all 
  tightly classified and the government has gotten a hell of a lot 
  more nasty since then."

  "So you're saying this whole thing could be wrapped up in 
  defense research? That's fuckin' scary, Jay."

  Jay nods. "Now you see what I'm nervous about."

  "But you're just as curious as I am," counters Scorpio.

  Jay remains silent as he finishes his adjustments and thumbs a 
  small button on the base of the helmet. The entire setup begins 
  to hum. Scorpio turns and eyes it warily. "I've never seen 
  equipment this antiquated."

  "You must have slept through this particular gadget revolution," 
  Jay replies while keying in some commands on a small terminal.

  "Almost... I was in Nicaragua for five years, during the 
  Occupation. Before I went down there, VR was a rich man's toy. 
  When I came back here, it was all over the place. On my plane 
  into New York, everyone except me was zoned out with their 
  portable decks. I never got into it much myself."

  "For a guy who's not into it, you seem awfully obsessed."

  "Yeah, well..." Scorpio's face turns darker, introspective. "I 
  don't know. I suppose I am obsessed, to some degree. But I've 
  always been that way. Down in Central America that obsession 
  kept me alive. Here it's kept me out of rehab. A little 
  obsession never hurt anyone." He smiles faintly, while Jay looks 
  on from behind him, thoughtfully.

  Jay speaks. "OK. I'm going to be monitoring you every step of 
  the way, and I have my place fully screened, unlike Matt. 
  There's very little chance of someone zeroing in on us or 
  breaking in. That's one advantage of owning modular equipment 
  like this." He hits the stack of CPU's affectionately. "You can 
  modify their signal so it's harder to trace. On the newer 
  models, all the real processing is done at data switching 
  centers."

  Jay flips a switch and reality flashes into nonexistence, 
  followed by an abrupt jarring videoscape of nonsensical images. 
  Slowly, the images begin to coalesce and cancel each other out 
  until a fuzzy representation of the Net is visible. This 
  representation suddenly jumps closer and comes into sharp focus.

  And Scorpio, again, is in, standing on paths of gold, the yellow 
  brick roads of the information age.

  The view is crisp and clear. Scorpio's frame stands solitarily 
  on the imaginary plane. Surrounded by a soft glow, he begins to 
  walk forward, and, as he does, his surroundings shift seamlessly 
  until he stands upon a pinnacle of rock overlooking the insane 
  landscape of Munnari.

  "Where did I go wrong?" he murmurs to himself. "There's 
  something I'm not remembering correctly."

  Jay's voice invades his sense of reality by coming seemingly 
  from nowhere. "Run through the same steps you did before. I'm 
  with you."

  Out of nowhere, an indistinct form, something like a train, or 
  at least giving the impression of a train, passes closely by. A 
  plaintive "Hold on" from Jay.

  "Jay. Still there?"

  Silence. And a newfound darkness envelops him, erasing even the 
  gleaming aura of his own consciousness.

  "Hello?"

  "You made a mistake to come back, Mr. Scorpio." An unfamiliar 
  voice. The void is filled with flashes of color as he speaks, 
  revealing for brief instances the outline of an arm, a leg, a 
  head, but jumbled up in no discernible pattern.

  "Who are you?"

  Silence.

  "Let me out."

  "There is no out. You're trapped."

  "I can't exit. What have you done? You can't lock someone in VR 
  -- it's impossible!"

  Again, the male voice. "Call it an undocumented feature. Have 
  you ever felt pain, Mr. Scorpio?"

  "I'm not going to play your fucking mind games."

  "Apparently not."

  Scorpio screams out in a peal of torment.

  "Nice?"

  "Fuck you!" Scorpio's voice is ragged now, panting with a 
  mixture of fear and frustration.

  There is a pillar of flame, and Scorpio, naked, standing before 
  it. The pillar begins to increase in size, approaching Scorpio, 
  but he can't move, can't move, can't move his legs. He reaches 
  down to pull at his legs, only to have his thigh come away in 
  his hand, revealing a complex crystal latticework underneath, 
  holding him in place, pulsing in time with the nearing flame. He 
  screams in a thickly wavering tone, and the flame encases him, 
  burning away his skin, layer by layer, until only a polished 
  crystal skeleton remains, mouth still open, screaming amid the 
  roar of the encompassing fire...


  ...and he is released. The scene is one of horror. Scorpio sits 
  in the same position he was in before, scarcely able to move, 
  frozen to the spot with fear, his body sheathed in a layer of 
  sweat. His eyes move back and forth surveying the wreckage of 
  what once was Jay's lab, finally falling upon Jay, sitting in 
  front of him, screwdriver driven into his throat, dead eyes 
  telling no story.

  Scorpio leaps to his feet, ripping cords from still-humming 
  equipment. Papers strewn on the floor, bookcases turned over, a 
  door, previously closed, now open.

  Scorpio's breath becomes a wheezing testimony to his fright as 
  he clumsily disconnects himself from the machinery. His eyes, 
  widened with fear, are glued to the immobile Jay. Once 
  disentangled, he makes his way carefully for the door, furtively 
  searching his surroundings for some weapon, some hope of escape. 
  In desperation, he picks up a porcelain statuette, a replica of 
  the Venus di Milo, and wields it in front of him as if trying to 
  ward off any evil presence. Cautiously, he makes his way through 
  the shadowy apartment. Finally reaching the door without 
  incident, he is out into the street, where he discards the 
  statue and begins to run raggedly away into the night.


  A public phone in the middle of a dark, windswept street. The 
  view slowly expands and Scorpio runs into frame, smashing into 
  the booth like a bullet.

  Tight shot of the phone, screen pulsing with the words "dial 
  now" and Scorpio, desperately dialing. There is a ring, and then 
  another. "God damn you," he growls as the phone remains 
  unanswered. Scorpio slams his fist down on the phone and it 
  disconnects. But, for a fraction of a second, does he see her 
  face in the fading static?

  The shot reverts to a long one. Scorpio dashes off again, 
  leaving the frame on the side opposite to which he entered.

  Scorpio continues to run through darkened city streets. He comes 
  careening into an alley only to find a mass of people screaming 
  and shouting, their attention turned away from Scorpio toward 
  something in the lighted street beyond. Some are holding signs, 
  some wave their arms randomly in the air. Some are shouting 
  slogans which seem to compete with each other for the very right 
  of sound. Their voices are combined into a wall of noise which 
  blocks any chance for understanding. Scorpio stops for a second 
  and then enters the crowd, working his way deliberately through 
  it to the main street. He has a goal in mind, a destination. The 
  view slowly rises and tilts until the crowd is shown from above, 
  with Scorpio wining his way through; a rebellious blood cell 
  working its way upstream to the heart. He makes slow progress, 
  but eventually finds his way onto the main street.

  "End the reign of the Federalist oppressors!" It is the first 
  coherent thing to be heard out of the crowd. The scene shifts to 
  a tight shot on a balding man in his fifties, brandishing a 
  bullhorn. He is dressed in a dark jacket with a red arm band. 
  Around him are several men and women dressed similarly. "We have 
  slept! But while we've dreamed, they've taken everything that 
  we've worked for. Do not let them take your lives from you!" 
  Briefly, Scorpio is seen, still making his way through the 
  crowd. "Bring down those who take pleasure in your pain!" With 
  this last utterance, the crowd roars and begins to collectively 
  wave their fists in the air.

  And Scorpio is through the door of a building on the opposite 
  side of the street, the roar reduced to a murmur. The scene 
  quickly shifts to a hallway and Scorpio running down it. He 
  knocks on a door and it swings open. Jon lies bloodied on a bed, 
  the top half of his head blown off, dispersed in a neat 
  semicircle across the yellow covers.

  Scorpio stops in his tracks and stares, dumbfounded, at the dead 
  body of his friend. He backs slowly away and then continues down 
  the hallway in the same direction.

  Scorpio exits the building, an insane look of fury in his eyes, 
  matched by the fury of the mob on the street. "Only through 
  violence can the machine of oppression be brought down," the man 
  shouts, now barely audible. "If we stand together against them, 
  they cannot -- " This last statement is washed out by the 
  excessive noise, but the noise is of a different character now.

  Scorpio, seemingly alone in this realization, looks up to see 
  the airships closing in, police lights flashing in an awkward, 
  haphazard pattern. As they approach, more of the demonstrators 
  look upwards to the sky, their faces slowly accumulating 
  illumination from the airships' blinding floods.

  Scorpio tries to make his way through the mob, out into open 
  streets but many others are attempting the same. A frightened 
  looking woman, wearing a veil, elbows him in the gut and makes 
  her way past him, only to be pushed back by a multicolored flow 
  of people. The lights from above are harsh now, exposing every 
  detail of what is going on with mechanistic precision.

  Scorpio, doubled over in pain, is hit over the head by an unseen 
  attacker and brought to the ground with the heavy heel of a dark 
  leather boot. Sound and light fade into blackness. The last 
  snippet of noise, a man's voice: "Should have learned the first 
  time." Then nothing.


  "Name?"

  "Thomas Omar Smith."

  A pause.

  "ID?"

  "098-32-1243."

  Scorpio stands in front of a desk, a uniformed officer asking 
  the questions. His face bears a few new scars as well as a great 
  deal of dirt. His clothes are ripped in several places.

  The officer peers into an unseen display and then motions with 
  his hand for Scorpio to leave. "Next?" Scorpio steps away and 
  another police officer escorts him away.

  Cut to Scorpio sitting at a table in a white-tiled room. "Mr. 
  Smith. You don't appear to have any prior criminal record. Mind 
  telling us what you were doing at this unsanctioned rally?"

  The questioner, a reasonable looking man in his forties, leans 
  across the table toward Scorpio.

  "I was just passing through."

  "Were you aware of the curfew imposed in that section of the 
  city?"

  "I was not aware of it."

  "I see. Mr. Smith, I'm going to take your retinal prints and 
  issue you a citation. Look toward the red light."

  A close-up of Scorpio's face and a red rectangle framing one eye 
  as a bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face.

  "You can go."

  An exterior shot -- Scorpio exits the police tower with several 
  other men and women, defecated onto the dark street, the waste 
  products of tonight's feeding frenzy. A closer shot reveals his 
  face, an expressionless mass of flesh, the only hint of humanity 
  showing through, perhaps, being utter fatigue.

  "Hear they're having free soup and bread over at the Rotunda 
  tonight." The tired voice belongs to one of the other men. He is 
  not speaking to anyone in particular, but several of the others 
  perk up at the sound of free food. The speaker continues, less 
  sure of himself now that he is the center of attention: "I guess 
  let's go, huh?" He begins walking slowly off down the street, 
  with several of the others following.

  Scorpio looks after them for a moment and then, as if having 
  staged, fought and concluded a mental battle all in an instant, 
  decides to follow at a distance.

  An interior shot. The elaborate hall is a replica of Renaissance 
  architecture at its most elaborate. Frescoes of religious 
  scenes, reproductions of famous paintings cover most of the 
  curved walls and domed ceiling. The goings on inside the rotunda 
  are a contrast to its elegant construction. Several hundred 
  tables with folding metal chairs are set up, each chair occupied 
  by a disheveled, unkempt soul, dining unself-consciously on soup 
  and bread. The scene is one of grandeur, a patchwork landscape 
  of human refuse, collected here seemingly at random, with no 
  great purpose other than to eat, to survive. Despite the masses 
  of people, there is quiet here, a hush brought on by the echoey 
  acoustics of this place, which seem to frown on anything louder 
  than a whisper. There is one exception: a diminutive, white 
  haired man, clothed simply in a black trench coat, stands, as if 
  at attention, in the middle of the main aisle, facing the 
  entrance, facing Scorpio without looking at or seeing him. "Dah 
  dah, dah dah dah dah dah dah, dah. Dah dah, dah dah dah, dah," 
  he chants in a purposeful, syncopated rhythm, as if his speech 
  were somehow being transformed into these meaningless syllables. 
  Scorpio's eyes fall upon the old man for a moment, who seems 
  undaunted, unaware of his peculiar affliction. He chants on.

  "Dah dah dah. Dah dah dah, dah dah dah dah. Dah dah, dah dah dah 
  dah, dah dah dah."

  Scorpio stands, immersed in thought, nearly fitting in here in 
  his disordered state, but still radiating an aura of 
  self-awareness, setting him apart. Slowly, he begins to step 
  down the short stairs onto the floor of the hall. His look, 
  moving from target to target about the room, finds the woman who 
  had elbowed him, as well as several other recognizable faces 
  from the demonstration. Finally, his eyes fall upon a solitary 
  figure at the opposite end of the room. The portly man is 
  dressed smartly in a white business suit with a cane dangling 
  from one arm, a white fedora crowning his head, and a crooked 
  smile on his face. His eyes gleam as Scorpio's make contact.

  The white-haired man begins to move toward Scorpio until he is 
  standing not ten meters away from him, all the while chanting, 
  calling out his incomprehensible litany. "Dah dah dah dah. Dah 
  dah, dah dah dah dah dah. Dah dah dah, dah dah."

  The portly man moves swiftly around the circumference of the 
  room to where Scorpio stands, seemingly not seeing the 
  white-haired man.

  "Enrico," Scorpio mumbles in greeting as the man draws close.

  "Ah, Scorpio. Long time no see, eh?" Enrico speaks in a thick 
  accent. "Hear you in a bit of trouble."

  "Dah dah dah dah dah. Dah dah, dah dah _dah_ dah dah. I will now 
  move on to the next consecutive number."

  Surprised by this sudden burst of elocution, Scorpio turns 
  toward the white-haired man, at which point the man returns to 
  his previous discourse. "Dah dah dah. Dah dah dah, dah dah. Dah 
  dah dah dah. Dah dah dah, dah dah dah dah, dah dah dah, dah 
  dah."

  Enrico continues to stare pointedly at Scorpio, only at Scorpio, 
  still ignoring the white-haired man. "I hear you don't like the 
  advice of an old man, hm?"

  Scorpio quickly turns back to Enrico, staring him in the eyes. 
  "Jon's dead," he states bluntly, without feeling.

  A dark look passes over Enrico's previously jovial features. "I 
  had not heard of this. How did it happen?"

  "Scared you won't be able to keep tabs on me any more, Enrico?"

  Enrico flashes Scorpio an annoyed look and then moves closer, 
  speaking in a furious whisper. "That boy was like a son to me."

  "So much so you probably supplied him out of your own stash," 
  Scorpio replies, beginning to turn away.

  Enrico grabs his shoulders and shakes him violently. "You don't 
  talk to me like that!" Several previously unnoticed large men 
  emerge from the crowd and move menacingly forward.

  The white-haired man's chant gets louder, more pronounced. "Dah 
  dah dah dah! Dah dah, dah dah dah dah dah! Dah dah dah, dah 
  dah!" His face shows no emotion.

  Enrico motions his man back, releasing Scorpio and moving back 
  himself. "I came here to help you."

  Scorpio straightens himself out and regards Enrico with an icy 
  look, Cocking an eyebrow. "Let's talk then."

  They begin to walk together toward the entrance.

  "Dah dah dah, dah dah dah dah dah dah. Dah dah dah dah dah."

  Scorpio looks back, only for a moment, to catch the white-haired 
  man, at a pause in his speech, his eyes turned pointedly toward 
  him. At this point, time seems to stop. All background noises 
  cease. Scorpio and the white-haired man are locked in silent eye 
  contact. "I will now move on to the next consecutive number." 
  And then the moment passes. The old man looks away, resuming his 
  vacant stare. Scorpio turns and follows Enrico out of the hall, 
  still echoing with the stranger's voice.


  Cut to an interior shot. The air is thick, the lights dim. 
  Various holographic displays, advertising different types of 
  beer, twitch restlessly throughout the darkened restaurant. 
  Behind a bar, a bartender dries out glasses and methodically 
  hangs them on an overhead rack. A holovision blares away in the 
  corner, a jovial blond head gleefully chanting the hour's 
  headlines. "More fascist violence this evening. Police clashed 
  with terrorist mobs in the heart of the city near fifty-first 
  street. There were several deaths including two police officers. 
  Mayor Nixon has vowed that the violence will be stopped, adding 
  that he has no qualms about imposing martial law." This last is 
  said with a gleam.

  "You should know better," Enrico is saying, "Then to get messed 
  up in this VR shit." He says this even as, in the background, 
  one of his men, his guard down due to the familiarity of this 
  place, slips a headset over his squarely cut brow. Enrico, in 
  his element, seems completely at ease, despite the news of 
  recent tragedy. Scorpio, on the other hand, looks as if he is 
  about to bolt. He sits in the chair, across the wooden table, 
  only through the providence of some unseen force which seems to 
  restrain him. His eyes shift restlessly, as if attempting to 
  bleed off the energy which his body refuses to.

  "You seem ill at ease," remarks Enrico.

  "Wouldn't you be?"

  "Mmmm..." Enrico looks deeply into Scorpio as if appraising a 
  rare jewel. "It's quite a story. Personally I don't know much 
  about this institute..."

  "You said you wanted to help me?"

  "It would be a shame to see a good freelancer like you go down 
  the chute."

  Scorpio seems oblivious to this compliment, driving forward. "I 
  want a new identity. I used my backup already for the riot. I'll 
  need reconstructive surgery, including new retinal implants. 
  I'll need passage to old Pittsburgh, preferably an untraceable 
  aircar. I need a hundred thousand dollars, cash, to be returned 
  by me at zero interest at a later date. I can't touch my own 
  funds right now -- too dangerous."

  Enrico sits back and places his hands behind his head, speaking 
  slowly. "I have a counterproposal."

  "Well?"

  "Fresh traveling papers under a new identity, one way ticket to 
  Buenos Aires, fifty thousand dollars cash, to keep. What do you 
  say to that?" Enrico smiles a broad smile; underneath the smile 
  a hint of desperation.

  Scorpio stares at Enrico for five long seconds before saying 
  "How are you mixed up in this?"

  "Me? I don't know anything." Enrico responds smoothly. He leans 
  forward, arms flat across the table, the smile draining from his 
  lips, revealing crooked, yellowed teeth. He speaks in a whisper, 
  barely audible even from across the table: "You're out of your 
  league. Take this. It may be your only chance."

  Scorpio rises in a flash, kicking his chair over backwards. "God 
  damn it, you don't understand!"

  Enrico stares up at him with widened eyes. "What don't I 
  understand, Scorpio?"

  "What happened to me in there! I -- "

  Enrico raises his eyebrows expectantly, "Yes?"

  "I... changed that day. I can't explain it. Don't ask me to 
  explain it." His eyes open into a madman's stare. "I need to get 
  there, Enrico."

  "To this institute? Scorpio, what could you possibly 
  accomplish?" It is now Enrico who stands, carefully, 
  controlingly. "Do you want to find this girl? To finish what you 
  started? Scorpio, you'll be killed. You're dealing with forces 
  you don't understand. People disappear thinking the way you do. 
  If you pursue this, you'll be committing a crime greater than 
  murder, greater than any crime you've committed before, in the 
  eyes of the state, in my eyes, and against your own person. Is 
  that what you want?"

  "I don't know," replies Scorpio, visibly shrinking in the 
  presence of reason.

  Enrico clenches his fist, moving it slowly toward Scorpio. "Get 
  away, Scorp. Don't do this. Don't destroy yourself and all 
  you've worked for."

  Scorpio hesitates and then sighs. "I have to go there."

  Enrico shrugs, instantly regaining his composure. "Suit 
  yourself," he replies, adding only, "Watch yourself in 
  Pittsburgh. I hear the toxin levels there are still high."

  Suddenly, Scorpio's attention is drawn to the Holovision set. 
  "Still no leads on the assassination of Senator William 
  Crawford. Crawford was gunned down in his Hotel suite earlier 
  this..." The set shuts off abruptly, as Enrico is shown holding 
  a remote control.

  Enrico smiles. "Politicians... They're dropping like flies these 
  days."

  Scorpio nods, turning away from the dead set, and walking out 
  through a maze of blinking neon sculpture. Enrico stands at the 
  table, watching his exit, swollen eyes fixated sorrowfully on 
  the receding figure.


  Three.
--------

  An exterior shot; stationary. In the background, three rivers 
  meet in a golden triangle. In the triangle, a beleaguered 
  cityscape looms. There is no newness here, only the endless 
  perpetuation of old age, a city seemingly of ghosts. The land 
  surrounding the city is an arid waste, moonlike in its refusal 
  to bear even a hint of life. From low in the west, the sun, 
  filtered through a dusty atmosphere, casts a dull orange glow 
  over the broken buildings of the city. The scene is peaceful, as 
  all death is peaceful. From above, the aircar erupts into the 
  scene, banking toward the city and out of sight.

  Interior, car. Scorpio sleeps fitfully, his eyes moving rapidly 
  under his eyelids as if attempting to scan a hidden landscape 
  for some familiar feature.

  A buzzer sounds and he wakes methodically, first checking 
  several displays before his eyes, then flipping a few switches, 
  after which the arid landscape of Pittsburgh becomes visible 
  through a series of shuttered windows, a wavering heads-up 
  display overlaying, indicating glidepath, vectors and so forth. 
  'City Navacomputers Now Controlling Trajectory' flashes briefly 
  across the display. It is the first indication that there may 
  still be human existence here. Scorpio watches, tightlipped, as 
  the car is drawn into the city's tight landing spiral.

  Suddenly there is a sharp pop and a whoosh, followed closely by 
  a crashing noise. Scorpio is thrown forward in his straps. 
  Lights turn red and a low siren starts. Scorpio looks wildly 
  about as three one-seater craft, flycycles manned by red-clad 
  helmeted figures, whoosh by him, leaving him in their turbulent 
  wake. Scorpio reaches for the controls of the car but is jolted 
  back into his seat as another shot hits its mark.

  Exterior, wide shot. Scorpio's car, bleeding a trail of smoke, 
  falls out of the sky, leaving a graceful arc in its path and 
  finally diving into a feathery layer of clouds. The three 
  pursuers, satisfied that somehow their actions have had the 
  desired effect, move off in concert away from the now-blurring 
  gray trail.

  Inside the car, Scorpio's face is a mask of exertion and stress. 
  He struggles with the manual controls and manages to roll the 
  car into a controlled, spinning dive. A final exterior shot 
  shows the car arcing toward a brownish river in the midst of an 
  arid plain, a high whining sound growing in pitch and volume. 
  Then blackness.


  Scorpio surveys the wrecked remains of the car. His face is torn 
  and bleeding and he walks with a severe limp. The car lies in a 
  heap, bleeding smoke into the stale air, piled up against a 
  rocky outcropping on the bank of a dead river. The ground is 
  sandy, dry. Scorpio reaches a hand up to brush hair out of his 
  face and it returns bloodied. He stares at it, perplexed and 
  then begins to gather his belongings and walk toward the water.

  Crouching at the bank, he passes his hand through the silty 
  water and brings it tentatively to his mouth. He recoils in 
  horror at the taste of the tainted water. Standing up, he walks 
  off down the bank in the direction of the towering cityscape, 
  which now seems very far away.

  It's a long shot. Scorpio stands at the bank of the river, blood 
  dried on his face, clothes torn. He stands at one end of a 
  bridge, or what used to be a bridge. Its length is now 
  shortened. It is a third-bridge, mirrored on the opposite bank 
  by another third-bridge, its middle third missing without a 
  trace, wires and pipes hanging out of each side as if some giant 
  ship had plowed through it. Spanning the midsection of the 
  bridge is a fragile line, more evidence that there may yet be a 
  human presence here. Across the bridge lies the fallen 
  metropolis. Huge structures which once stood proudly with 
  brilliant glass now stand dead and naked to the wind, their 
  panes broken or soiled. Radio towers crookedly crown some of the 
  buildings. Others are themselves crooked, or capped with rubble, 
  a sign that they once rose higher into the sky. This is a dead 
  landscape, colored with the dull oranges and reds of a swollen, 
  setting sun.

  Scorpio begins to walk across the bridge toward the rope. As he 
  does so, the view lifts and tilts downward, continuing to center 
  on him but from an increasingly dizzying height, finally to the 
  point of being a map, framed by the precipice of the broken 
  bridge on one side and the bank of the river on the other.

  A tight shot. Across the bridge, over Scorpio's shoulder. The 
  rope spanning the gap dips toward the center so that it traces a 
  solitary arc through space. It is fastened tightly to the base 
  of a tilted light-pole. Scorpio reaches down and pulls, 
  eliciting a small wave in the rope which propagates itself 
  toward the opposite side and back.

  Scorpio removes his shirt and tears it into halves, wrapping 
  each hand several times. Placing his hands on the rope, he 
  lowers himself into the gap until he is supported by the rope 
  and his feet which still cling to the side of the ripped bridge. 
  He then lets go with his feet and swings gently out onto the 
  rope. Suspended only by his arms, he begins to work his way 
  across toward the opposite end.

  He looks back toward the bank, and sees the broken end of the 
  bridge, cables and wires dangling out of sheared-off pipes. He 
  turns toward the city. There is a noise. Again he looks toward 
  the bank and three suited, helmeted figures are there, standing 
  on the edge of the bridge, stationary. They are the flycycle 
  riders.

  Scorpio quickens his pace, but when he looks back again he sees 
  that one of the figures has moved to the rope, and is apparently 
  sawing at it. Scorpio's breath becomes shallow. He looks down 
  and is greeted by a dizzying precipice. Suddenly there is a loud 
  crack, as the rope is severed and Scorpio begins to fall, 
  accompanied by the distant sound of laughter. In a long shot, 
  Scorpio lets go of the rope and falls into the black river.

  A tight shot of the water: Scorpio breaks to the surface, 
  gasping for air. His face and shoulders are covered with a 
  matted filth, a sheen that seems both unnatural and unpleasant. 
  Scorpio bobs beneath the murky surface once more and then begins 
  methodically swimming toward the shore, toward the city.


  It's a high, long shot. There are trees, and in the background, 
  a range of low hills. A solid column of gray smoke looms on the 
  horizon, slowly rising and twisting. For a moment, there is 
  silence, and then machine gun fire erupts. The view begins to 
  descend as a scattered group of men are seen fleeing across the 
  landscape, occasionally turning back to fire at their unseen 
  pursuers.

  A thunderous clap heralds the entrance of the tank, followed by 
  an explosion in the midst of the fleeing men, cutting down those 
  around it immediately. The tank clanks forward, firing again, 
  and then a third time, a monstrous beater driving its prey 
  relentlessly onward.

  The shot shifts to an individual, clothed in camouflage, 
  grasping an automatic weapon. He is approaching at a run, and it 
  becomes apparent that he is Scorpio, but a younger Scorpio. He 
  turns, fires his weapon, and then resumes running, eventually 
  disappearing off frame and out of sight.

  A different shot: a small grotto formed by the interlocking root 
  structure of two large trees. Scorpio dives in, just as a 
  barrage of gunfire singes the air overhead. He presses his body 
  against the cavity, breathing. Just breathing. When he has 
  caught his breath, he takes a grenade from his belt, looks 
  briefly over the top of the grotto, and lobs it out onto the 
  plain. There follows an explosion, followed by shouts in 
  Spanish: _"Socorro! Ayudame!"_

  Scorpio remains pressed into the ground, and eventually the 
  voices fade, along with the sounds of armored trucks and tanks. 
  As the sounds fade, Scorpio falls into a fitful sleep. The shot 
  fades.

  _"Levantate!"_

  Scorpio wakes to the sight of a diminutive farmer menacing him 
  with a pitchfork.

  _"Levantate!"_

  "Alright! Alright! I'm getting!" Scorpio's voice, but a younger 
  voice, a record that has been kept shelved.

  Scorpio quickly stands, causing the smaller man to step back a 
  few paces. The light has a different character now, more orange. 
  Scorpio quickly scrambles over the embankment and away over the 
  darkening plain.

  The shot changes to a quickly moving, following shot of Scorpio 
  running through brush. Running, running, his heartbeat getting 
  faster. Muffled shouts follow him, and as he looks furtively 
  back, gunshots, their reports distorted, are heard. He continues 
  to run, but he's getting slower... slower... Panic flows over 
  his features.

  A fade.


  It's a head shot of Scorpio, head hung pensively, looking down. 
  Silence fades slowly into the sounds of an echoey space. 
  Background suddenly comes into focus and is revealed to be the 
  elaborate hall of the Rotunda. Scorpio's face is drained of all 
  color, wrinkled. His hair is whitened and slicked back. The 
  background suddenly seems to tilt backwards and darken.

  Cut to a full facial shot of Matt, staring intently into view. 
  Matt's face is also whitened to an unearthly pallor.

  Cut again. An over-the-shoulder shot, from behind Scorpio to 
  reveal Matt, seated across from Scorpio, each in front of a bowl 
  of soup, uneaten. The shot begins to move to the side, 
  revealing, one by one, those seated on the opposite side of 
  Scorpio, beside Matt. First, Dobbs, then Jay, then Jon. There is 
  a fifth, but the scene cuts away before he fully comes into 
  view.

  The next shot is looking down the table from where Scorpio and 
  Matt are seated at one end. Matt takes his bowl of soup and 
  slowly brings it to his lips, at which point the man sitting at 
  the end of his bench, who had not been revealed in the last 
  shot, leans quickly forward. His face is a bizarre contortion of 
  facial features. Eyes, placed at impossible angles, regard 
  Scorpio quizzically.

  Cut to a head-shot of Scorpio, eyes looking toward the strange 
  man, beads of sweat forming on his brow, his mouth open, 
  breathing thickly with fear.

  Cut back to the strange man, eyes blinking, he says nothing, but 
  straightens up again, leaving the frame to the left. Behind him, 
  the figure of the white-haired man, is revealed, sitting at the 
  end of the table, staring at Scorpio, silently. The white-haired 
  man smiles.

  Cut to a close shot of Scorpio's face, eyes closed, shrouded in 
  a haze of light. His surroundings are unclear, all is shifting, 
  shifting save for the face, a face composed as in death.

  The eyes open, suddenly, startling, and just as quickly the 
  sound comes crashing in, a quickly building, whining tone, soon 
  becoming almost deafening, ripping away the shreds of 
  unconsciousness, ripping... ripping... until all that is left is 
  Scorpio, lying on the ragged cot, teapot whistling in the 
  background. The view slowly rotating now over his head. He 
  blinks.

  "You're awake," a feminine voice. Scorpio looks to his right and 
  she is revealed as a tall blonde woman, standing in the lighted 
  door-frame, the paint around her chipped; walls grimy. "I'm 
  making some tea," she says dryly, while shifting interrogatively 
  in her silk robe, the only article of quality in sight. "Would 
  you like some?"

  Scorpio jumps out of the cot and rushes toward the woman. She 
  stands, immobile, smiling as he runs toward her and finally 
  through her into a blackness, falling... falling into an 
  eternal, dark abyss. Above, light streams downward from an 
  inverted silhouette, and mixed with Scorpio's screams, a 
  sardonic female laughter.

  _In frame. Always in frame._


  And then there is light. A full face shot of Scorpio, dirty, 
  eyes barely open. The shot expands to reveal a half-collapsed 
  porch, a street littered with stripped, rusted bodies of 
  groundcars, a stillness hangs in the air.

  "Scorp! What the hell are you doing here?"

  A man with a dark complexion and black, matted hair, stands in 
  the tattered, paint-chipped doorway.

  "I need..." Scorpio is out of breath and obviously delirious. He 
  begins to fall forward, then catches himself on the door-frame. 
  He shakes his head slowly, as if trying to clear his mind.

  "You look like shit, man," the other man offers, as if trying to 
  help the conversation along.

  Scorpio looks up, giving him an icy stare. "Thanks."

  "You'd better come in." Scorpio is ushered in through the door, 
  which shuts quickly behind him. The noises of several bolts and 
  locks being put into place follows.

  "Hey guys... this is Scorpio. We went to school together." 
  Scorpio regards the occupants of the small, dark room. Some of 
  them are lying on the floor, others are sitting on couches or 
  chairs. There are about 15 people, crammed into the small room. 
  All of them are wearing wiry headsets, all of them in their 
  private worlds.

  Scorpio's friend doesn't seem to notice their lack of attention. 
  "These are my housemates, Scorp..."

  "Doug..." Scorpio cuts him off. "Do you have a bathroom?"

  "Yeah, sure. We even have running water. We can _pay_ for it."

  Scorpio follows Doug's finger toward a narrow hallway. The sound 
  of water is heard.

  When he emerges, Doug is as his friends, hooked into the net. 
  Scorpio collapses onto an air mattress and sleeps. Fade to 
  black.

  Scorpio, tattered, unshaven, walks awkwardly up the street, 
  forcing his legs to fight gravity.

  "The institute? I can tell you how to get _close_. You'll never 
  get in, though. That place is a fucking fortress."

  The voice of his once-friend Doug fills his consciousness. A 
  close shot of his face reveals day-old stubble. His eyes are 
  dead, his mouth slightly open.

  "They have all their supplies lifted in by heavy armored 
  helicopter. No ground transport ever leaves the compound, I 
  don't think there's even a way for ground transports to get 
  _in_."

  We rezzies just learn to ignore them. We stay away, they leave 
  us alone. We live in two different worlds.

  Another voice: "Scorpio, what could you accomplish?"

  "Shut up, Enrico!" the words come unwittingly.

  Still another voice: "I'll be here, waiting for you to jack 
  in.... I'll be here, waiting for you."

  Scorpio cries out in anguish and cups his hands over his ears, 
  still running on, voices growing louder and more pronounced, 
  accompanied with an every increasing drone, a noise which shuts 
  out thought, shuts out reason.

  "How can a man so obsessed with killing be so afraid of dying?"

  Still, he moves on, half running, half stumbling, past looming 
  hulks of rusted metal, fading plastic, a landscape of disuse and 
  neglect. The dead frame of a maglev lies buried halfway into a 
  stationhouse, like the skeleton of some great, extinct beast.

  "I will now move on to the next consecutive number."

  And with that, the noise stops, leaving Scorpio standing still, 
  in the middle of the street, deafened by silence.

  The street grows wider here, and in the distance can be seen a 
  stone tower, looming over a plaza of concrete. Here and there, 
  the stumps of long-dead trees pockmark the flat, gray landscape, 
  a reminder that this place was once capable of growth, of 
  change.

  Across the plaza, the helmeted red figures stand, waiting, 
  immobile. A high shot reveals the plaza, lone figure of Scorpio, 
  clothed in black, facing the three riders. Slowly, Scorpio 
  enters the square, and, as he does, more red figures seem to 
  appear from behind him, effectively encircling him.

  As he makes his way to the center of the square, the circle 
  grows tighter around him. He stops, faceless figures standing 
  around him, motionless. He looks back across his shoulder, looks 
  around, and suddenly the scene cuts, to the sound of a 
  helicopter's blades slicing through dead air.


  The shot is again of Scorpio's face, surrounded with a halo of 
  green. As the shot expands, the background comes gradually into 
  focus, revealing a forest floor, dense with growth. Scorpio is 
  clothed in camouflage.

  The shot is now from behind Scorpio. Dazedly, he begins to walk 
  toward a small, burbling stream.

  Suddenly, she is across the stream, looking exactly as she did 
  on that day, in the brothel. "Why did you come?" She looks 
  confused.

  Scorpio stops and looks at himself, then up at her.

  "I... had to," he whispers. His eyes tell a story of crazed 
  fright. "This place..."

  "Taken from your most strong memories. We can do that, Scorpio. 
  We can reach into your mind, anybody's mind, and take what we 
  want. Do you have any idea what kind of power that is?"

  "But you can also do that the other way around..." Scorpio 
  replies.

  "As in your case, yes. It's not perfected, though. You were... 
  an experiment." She begins to walk toward him, circling him. 
  "How much of this have you guessed? You're a very smart subject, 
  Scorpio."

  "I know you've made me kill."

  "And just how have you deduced this?"

  "Dreams."

  "Ah, yes... That's one of our major problems, you see. Imagery 
  returning from blocked memories through the vehicle of dreams. 
  We're working on it. But surely you can't object to the act of 
  killing, Scorpio. After all, it's what you do best."

  Scorpio remains silent.

  "Would you like to kill me, Scorpio?" she enquires innocently. 
  For a moment, she is replaced with a mutilated corpse, lying in 
  a pool of blood on the ground. And then she is back, smiling. 
  "Is that why you came?"

  "I don't know why I came, OK?" he shouts at her, drawing a step 
  forward.

  "To love me, perhaps?" Their surroundings shift and they are 
  standing in the middle of the grassy plain, framed above by a 
  crystal blue sky. "After all, anything is possible."

  "But it's not real!" Scorpio shouts, again coming closer to her.

  "Who's to say?"

  Scorpio again remains silent.

  "From the moment you first jacked in, you were powerless to 
  prevent this. You've served your purpose now. That is the 
  reality."

  "How many..."

  "How many people have you killed, under our guidance? Does it 
  matter, Scorpio? It was so easy to make you kill. It took such 
  small suggestions."

  He looks into her eyes, controlling eyes. She comes closer and 
  enfolds him in her arms. "Don't worry, Scorpio. You're safe now. 
  At this moment you're streaming across America's great 
  Northeast. You won't remember anything. This whole incident will 
  have been erased."

  Scorpio's rests his head on her shoulder, eyes shut tightly, and 
  begins to sob.

  _Gently... gently..._

  "Don't cry." She cracks a wry smile, patting Scorpio 
  affectionately on the back. "It could never have worked between 
  us. We're from different worlds, you and I."

  ...And Scorpio is falling again, as before, through an 
  impossibly dark abyss. He screams, his arms waving in slo-mo, a 
  grotesque parody of human motion. Movement becomes disjointed. 
  The sound of his cries becomes distorted.
  
  Falling, falling into infinite blackness.


  Interior, Scorpio's apartment. Scorpio sits on the chair in the 
  center of the floor, the only upright piece of furniture in 
  evidence here, placed on the only bit of floor not covered with 
  debris. All around is chaos: overturned tables; a smashed 
  hologram, now unidentifiable; a refrigerator open on its side, 
  still on, its light the only illumination here besides the 
  ghostly laser light emanating from the shattered holo.

  Scorpio stares at the deck, torn to pieces, its modules strewn 
  across the floor like a child's blocks, its headset ripped 
  apart. This is a landscape of rage, of mindless, brutal 
  destruction.

  Overhead shot. In the foreground, a ceiling fan turns slowly, 
  moving dusty air. Scorpio's head tilts slowly back to stare 
  upwards. Otherwise, he does not move.


  _His eyes, shallow. His look, unseeing._

  It's a two-shot.

  _An eye-line match._

  Cut.


  Daniel K. Appelquist (quanta@netcom.com)
------------------------------------------

  Daniel K. Appelquist is the editor of Quanta, the on-line 
  magazine of Science Fiction. He is completing his stint as a 
  technical writer for Visix Software, and will soon begin work as 
  an Internet Publications specialist for 4th Mesa, an electronic 
  publishing company in Baltimore specializing in scientific, 
  technical, and medical journals. He lives in Washington, D.C.


  Backalley   by Silang Kamay
=============================
...................................................................
  Sometimes our wishes for guardian angels arise from our faith; 
  other times, they arise from our need.
...................................................................

  The old man sat crumpled on the ground and sipped something 
  potent from a paper-bagged bottle in his hand. His eyes scanned 
  the dimly lit street. "I tell you, none of us know who she is. 
  But that girl comes around, you know? When the moon is full and 
  there's a ring around it." He paused. "Like tonight." He closed 
  his eyes and licked his lips. The lips moved, R's rolling like 
  gentle waves when he spoke. His voice came from a place deep 
  within, hard to pinpoint.

  "Ileana. That's what I call her. She's a saint. The Virgin Mary 
  herself, maybe." He laughed gruffly. "She walks like a cat. 
  Never hear a thing until she's right up close to you. Right 
  here, see?" He pointed to his scarred chin. "One night, a few 
  years ago, I was settling down over there at the bus stop bench 
  right across from Tony's old food stand. You remember it? Before 
  the police closed it down? I was trying to get some sleep. It 
  was November, really cold then. I was shivering so much I 
  couldn't lie still, but I was too tired to move. From nowhere, 
  from the darkness, she carried an old blanket. It was gray, thin 
  wool, the kind you get from the army. But warm, you see? Warm. 
  She gave it to me, put it right on me. Then she lit a candle, a 
  plain white candle. Dripped some wax onto the sidewalk and stuck 
  the candle there. She saved my life that night. That was the 
  first time I ever saw her."

  He pulled the gray, wool blanket close around his brittle neck 
  and shoulders.

  "The others, they've seen her, too. Everybody who's seen her on 
  the street says she's got a different face. Tito, he says she 
  has a mole, right here on her left cheek. Says she's mestiza, 
  really fair-skinned. Hah! He likes his women pale." He laughed. 
  "Ya-hoo-hoo! White like a ghost!" The laugh became a cough. "Boy 
  says she has long, straight, black hair," he continued. "A 
  skinny girl, not too bad-looking. But you know, he's young. Sees 
  what he wants to see."

  I looked up and down the street. "And you, what do you see?" I 
  asked.

  He put down his paper-bagged bottle and rubbed his stubbled 
  face, like two pieces of sandpaper scraping together. His eyes 
  watered slightly as he looked up into the moon. "An angel. An 
  angel with my wife's face. Ileana. So... beautiful. Not outside, 
  no. Inside. She left me, you know? A long time ago. Took our 
  children. Guess she'd had enough. Enough yelling. Enough losing 
  money on craps and blackjack and pool halls. I was a good man 
  once, you know? But not good enough. She left when I hit her." 
  His dry hand moved across his stubble. "I would've left, too, if 
  I'd been her."

  He was quiet then, his bottle hidden in the soiled, worn bag on 
  the ground. I took it out in plain view. Whiskey, shimmering 
  like coins in the moonlight. I took a turn and watched the moths 
  dance around the streetlights. There were no churches or temples 
  or synagogues or mosques. But something tangible electrified the 
  air. Looking down into the dark, littered backalleys, I saw a 
  points of light on the ground, tiny flames. Small trails of 
  candle wax reflected moonlight and disappeared into doorways 
  along the lengths of the buildings.

  I eyed my friend, as he sat withering in his remorse, and 
  pointed. "Ileana?" I asked tentatively.

  The old man looked up, shook his head. "No. That's us. When 
  there's a ring around the full moon we light candles where we've 
  seen her." He took a deep, slow breath. "But she only visits the 
  new men now. I've been told you only see her once, but I think I 
  was lucky. Maybe she likes me." He coughed again, tried to sit 
  up.

  "One night, I saw her again. The lights were on in a factory a 
  few streets over. Very late. You know what they did there? The 
  company that owns it is big. It has other stores all over. They 
  always hire women: old, young, Filipino, Mexican, Chinese, 
  Vietnamese, all kinds. But never men. Those women, they work all 
  day. I used to watch them sometimes. They'd be really tired when 
  they came out. Hungry, too. Well, that night I saw an ambulance 
  pull up. A woman was bleeding. She was pregnant and started 
  bleeding. And the supervisor didn't let her go until it was too 
  late. After the ambulance took her away, he sent the other women 
  home and stood there at the doorway, smoking. For a long time 
  nothing happened. He looked like a dragon, smoke coming out of 
  his nose and mouth. He finished a whole pack just standing 
  there. And then I saw her, Ileana, dressed in a nurse's white 
  uniform, the old fashioned kind with the pointy cap. She walked 
  up to him and she spit in his face, something red. She lit her 
  candle and left it there in that spot. Then she disappeared into 
  the alley. There are no exits. It's a dead end by that factory 
  wall. That supervisor, he didn't come back to work the next day, 
  or the next. And eventually, the factory closed.

  "That was the last time I saw Ileana."


  Silang Kamay (kamay@mellers1.psych.berkeley.edu)
--------------------------------------------------

  Silang Kamay is interested in exporing the possibilities of 
  science fiction, spirituality, environmental justice, and 
  feminism. Silang also likes warmth: glowing candles, a familiar 
  sweater, a hot mug of split pea soup, sincerity, and human 
  kindness.


  The Funeral Party   by Connie Baron
=====================================
...................................................................
  Adolescence is a process few would care to repeat: a time in 
  which we must define ourselves, a road we must travel alone.
...................................................................

  Only her father had cried at the funeral. The rest of the family 
  wore straight, sad faces, but displayed no other signs of grief. 
  This had puzzled Anne, but she, too, had shed no tears. Now 
  surrounded by cool, dark closet air, dank with the scent of 
  cloves and oranges, it seemed clear. Granny wasn't really gone. 
  She was still alive in her family, in her things.

  Anne stroked the flowered house coat that hung on a nail in the 
  back of the closet. It smelled of Granny: soap, powder, and milk 
  of magnesia. She petted Granny's prized fur coat and pressed her 
  face deep into its chilly pile, like she would when Granny 
  hugged her. She half expected to hear Granny's raspy voice 
  saying, "Don't do that, the oil from your face hurts the guard 
  hairs."

  Anne left her cheek in the soft fur and fingered the cashmere 
  coat hanging next to it. It had been Big Joe's. Its secret inner 
  pocket held a sterling flask that Granny had never known about, 
  or at least that's what Granny had said when Anne had found it 
  on one of her sleep-overs.

  Laughter filtered through the back wall of the closet. Anne 
  strained to hear what was being said.

  "Oh, Bridget could be a pill."

  "Remember the time she sued old man Jensen because she thought 
  his dogs dug up her rose bush? And it turned out to be Big Joe 
  playing a drunken trick on her?"

  Anne pulled her arms tight around her. These people, many of 
  whom Anne had never seen before, didn't know anything about her 
  family, about Granny.

  "She wasn't one for change. I remember her saying Vatican II 
  would damn us all to hell."

  Anne stepped out and forced the closet door back over the thick 
  carpeting until it shut tight, blocking the voices. She didn't 
  understand why these outsiders had to be invited to the funeral 
  party. She leaned against the closet door and looked out the 
  frost-trimmed windows at the sunlight playing on Granny's 
  snow-covered yard. Two weeks before, when the heavy snow had 
  first fallen, Granny had pressed her face on the same cold 
  glass, forming a halo of mist. "Fresh snow makes me wish I was 
  on the farm again," she'd said. "My brother and I would rush 
  into the fresh powder and make dozens of snow angels. We'd 
  decorate their heads with twigs and rocks and give them names, 
  then spend the afternoon defending our armies of angels with 
  snowballs."

  Now the wind had mounded the snow into sharp frozen tufts, like 
  smooth crust-covered meringue.

  Anne turned as her skinny cousin Linda slipped through the door, 
  balanced on one leg, and pushed with the other against the heavy 
  door Granny'd had installed to keep out Big Joe's snoring. When 
  she turned, Anne saw she held a big green tumbler full to the 
  top with wine. Linda pushed the glass toward Anne. Anne 
  hesitated; Linda rolled her eyes. "It'll make you feel better, I 
  promise."

  "What if someone comes in?" Anne pushed a mound of coats away 
  from the edge of the bed and slid down, her back pressing 
  against Granny's bright green dust ruffle, pulling her legs up 
  near her chest so she'd fit in between the twin beds.

  "Don't be such a dumbshit. If someone comes in, we'll just hide 
  it under the bed." Linda took a gulp. "Besides, they're all 
  bombed anyway." She wrinkled her nose, took another drink, then 
  held out the tumbler. Linda always picked up on things that 
  presented opportunity. Granny said she was a lot like her mother 
  that way. Anne couldn't imagine Aunt Ellie being that sneaky, 
  but she always did have a bit of the devil in her -- Anne's 
  father's words.

  Anne sniffed the wine like she'd seen her Dad do at dinner 
  parties, and took a small sip. "God, it tastes like sour cough 
  syrup!" She wiped her mouth with the edge of her sleeve and then 
  remembered it was velvet. "Shoot!" She waved her arm in the air 
  trying to dry the droplets while she took another big gulp. Her 
  face flushed a peachy color.

  "It's that plum stuff our Dads made. Give me some more."

  A voice came close to the door. "I'm so glad you're here, dear. 
  Don't let me forget to give you the things Granny had put away 
  for you. We don't get to see you that often." The doorknob 
  rattled with the weight of a hand being placed upon it. Anne 
  looked at Linda and quickly hid the tumbler under the bed.

  Party noises rushed the room as the door opened. "I just want to 
  change out of this uniform, Aunt Ellie. I'll be right out." 
  Maryjane, the girls's second cousin, shut the door, paused a 
  moment, and then picked up the silver-framed, black and white 
  wedding picture of Granny and Big Joe that sat on the vanity.

  "Oh, hi," she said when she saw the girls reflected in the 
  mirror. "What are you guys doing hiding in here anyway?" She 
  opened Granny's jewelry box and held a pair of pearl earrings to 
  her ears. "I wonder if Aunt Ellie will give me these?"

  Anne squeezed her knees close to her chest. If Granny knew 
  anyone was digging through her personal things, she would have 
  thrown a fit. She believed in privacy.

  Maryjane tossed the earrings back in the velvet-lined box 
  without bothering to hook them together. "So what are you guys 
  doing anyway?"

  "Just talking. I hate these things." Linda jumped up, pulling at 
  her thick black tights. "When did you get here, Maryjane? Mom 
  said you weren't coming."

  "Seniors got excused early. God! I would have been here for the 
  funeral except I had tests." She half-smiled her lip at Linda, 
  then tossed a plastic shopping bag on the bed.

  "Yeah, right," Anne said under her breath, crossing her legs, 
  Indian fashion, even though ladies aren't supposed to sit like 
  that.

  "Guard the door, will you?" Maryjane asked Linda.

  Linda raised her eyebrows and leaned against the door while 
  Maryjane unbuttoned her uniform blouse. Maryjane undressed like 
  it was nothing, like she was nearly naked in front of people all 
  the time. Anne and Linda were best friends, but even they turned 
  away from each other when they changed. Maryjane wore a sheer, 
  glossy, lace-trimmed bra with a little blue flower in the 
  center. Her thin bikini underwear matched.

  Maryjane lifted her arm, sniffing it. "Ugh... I stink of smoke. 
  Do you know where Auntie keeps her pit perfume?"

  Linda shrugged. Anne concentrated on picking little balls of 
  fuzz from the cream-colored carpet.

  "Oh, well." Maryjane tilted her head to the side and studied her 
  mostly naked body in the mirror. "Did I tell you I might be 
  going to France?"

  "No." Anne grew more uncomfortable watching her, and crossed her 
  arms over her chest. Her Mom had been telling her for a while 
  that she needed a bra, but she'd put her off. She didn't want 
  one until Linda got one. She looked at Linda and decided it 
  might be a long wait.

  "What was the funeral like?" Maryjane opened her bag and slipped 
  a white ruffled blouse over her head. "Sad? Everybody carrying 
  on?"

  "It was okay," Linda said. "Pretty much like Big Joe's, only 
  more old people." Linda popped two pieces of Trident into her 
  mouth and spoke around them. "Mom said Granny would have liked 
  it -- lots of expensive flowers and ceremony. You know."

  Maryjane pulled an opened pack of Kools and a makeup bag from 
  her purse. The two cousins watched as she reapplied gobs of pink 
  blush and mascara. Neither Linda nor Anne were allowed to wear 
  makeup yet. "Who all was there? Was Jack?"

  "The policeman? Yeah." As Linda began to list names, Anne 
  thought about the limousine ride to the church. Her two younger 
  brothers had hardly talked of anything else for two days before 
  the funeral. Even though she was shocked by Granny's sudden 
  death, she rather liked the thought of all her schoolmates on 
  the playground staring with admiration and sympathy at her 
  family filing out of the long black car into the church.

  But Anne had had to ride in her parent's rented car, alone in 
  front with the driver, while her brothers rode with Linda and 
  the other cousins in the limo. They'd made faces at her through 
  the back windows.

  In the back, her mother and father had talked in low voices. "We 
  never had a chance to talk about how things were. About Dad and 
  his drinking." Anne had tried not to listen as her father wiped 
  his swollen eyes. Her mother squeezed his hand and stared out at 
  the cold Minneapolis day. An acidy feeling crept up Anne's 
  throat.

  "We all got to throw flowers on her coffin," Linda continued. 
  "It was freezing, though -- Michael had frozen snot all over his 
  face!" She laughed and stepped away from the door, walking 
  between the twin beds. "And then Molly punched him."

  A clink, a muffled thump, and the sickly-sweet plum smell made 
  Anne's heart pound.

  "Shit." Linda scowled at Anne, lifted the bed skirt, and turned 
  the green tumbler upright. "God, go get a rag."

  "You knocked it over! Why don't you...."

  "Damn it, you're such a baby. Good thing Granny's not here." She 
  pushed Anne out of the way and stomped out of the room, leaving 
  the door open. The red liquid crept across the carpet, turning 
  it a dusty pink.

  "What are you guys hiding?" Maryjane asked.

  "Oh, Linda just kicked over her pop." Anne tried to cover the 
  spill with her hands, hoping the sour smell wouldn't carry. 
  Linda rushed back in with an sopping dish rag. Anne reached for 
  it, but Linda knocked her arm away and began blotting the spill.

  Maryjane stood over the girls, hands resting on her hips. 
  "That's not pop." She walked back to the vanity and examined her 
  face close-up, wiping away a black smudge under her eye. "You 
  don't have to sneak around, you know. I can get you guys some 
  wine."

  Linda's foot pawed the floor. "Yeah, right. They're hardly going 
  to give you any wine, so how are you going to get some for us?"

  Maryjane threw her head towards her knees and brushed her hair. 
  When she stood up and shook her hair out, Anne noticed how much 
  she and Maryjane looked alike: brown wavy hair, round cheeks, 
  almond-shaped eyes. Even her body resembled Maryjane's -- not as 
  full, but not far from it either.

  "So you each want your own glass?" Maryjane half-smiled and 
  teased her bangs a little before she walked out the door.

  As soon as the door shut Linda said, "Can you believe her? She 
  thinks she's so cool just because she's a senior." She threw 
  down the bed skirt, tossed the wine-soaked rag into Granny's 
  hamper, and jumped, backwards onto the bed. A few coats fell to 
  the floor.

  Anne picked them up. "Did you see how big her boobs were?"

  "They were pretty hard to miss. She thinks she's such hot shit. 
  Do you think anybody'd care if I took that thing?" She pointed 
  to a small satin ball covered with ribbon, beads and sequins 
  hanging from the ceiling light. "Me and Granny made that thing. 
  Do you think anybody would care?"

  Anne shrugged. "What do you think they'll do with all her 
  stuff?" Anne picked up Granny's silver-handled brush and pulled 
  out a few short gray hairs.

  "Sell it, I guess. Divide the money, give it to the church or 
  leave it with you guys and the house. Who knows?" She shut her 
  eyes and pulled a scarf over her face.

  Anne stared into the mirror. If Linda had heard that Anne's 
  family was moving into Granny's house, it must be true. Three 
  nights before, when she had heard her mother and father 
  bickering late at night over how cramped the five of them were 
  in their two bedroom house, she'd imagined she'd been dreaming. 
  Anne wanted Granny's house to remain unchanged, with its tended 
  gardens and the ceramics workshop in the basement. Her mother 
  and brother's sloppy habits would make that impossible.

  "I bet Mom hits the roof when Maryjane asks her for wine," Linda 
  said, pulling the scarf from her face.

  Anne held up her fingers and crossed them, her feelings suddenly 
  soothed, perhaps by Linda's seeming acceptance of the house 
  situation, but more likely by the wine. She brushed her bangs, 
  trying to brush away a wash of guilt. She had promised Granny 
  she'd never drink.

  Maryjane came back into the room, pushing the door open with her 
  butt. "Aunt Ellie said you could each have one." She handed the 
  girls each a clear, long-stemmed wineglass. "I _told_ you guys 
  there wouldn't be a problem. Nobody gives a shit what you do." 
  She raised her eyebrows, flashing herself a smile in the mirror. 
  "I'm going to see if there's anyone interesting here."


  Cigarette smoke accosted Anne as she stepped into the dining 
  room. Granny had never allowed smoking in the house. Even Big 
  Joe had puffed his fat, pungent cigars on the wooden back porch. 
  Anne gulped her wine, but set her glass down when she saw her 
  father sitting on the piano bench talking with a dark-haired, 
  bronzed man.

  "Anne!" Her father held his arm out. Anne flipped her hair over 
  her shoulder and tried to look casual as she walked toward him.

  The dark-haired man pulled at his white fitted shirt and 
  smoothed his gray tie. "Last time I saw her she was just a kid. 
  She's grown into a fine young lady."

  "You remember my cousin Jack, the cop, don't you?" Her Dad 
  winked and put his arm around Anne's shoulder. She was 
  surprised. He hardly ever touched her.

  "Sure," Anne lied. Her Dad's cousins weren't around much, except 
  for stuff like this, when they had to come. There had been a 
  falling out, a divorce, money problems. Anne had heard that 
  Jack's mother used to be black and blue all the time, and she 
  remembered when she was about five Granny and Big Joe had taken 
  Jack and his sisters in for several months. Jack was cute, 
  though, in an older person's sort of way. He had nice eyes and 
  smelled musky -- different from her father's Irish Spring soap. 
  Anne saw Linda walk over and stand behind Jack, still holding 
  her wine.

  "So what grade are you in now?" Jack set his beer on Granny's 
  handmade rag rug, took a pack of cigarettes from his top pocket 
  and flipped one in his mouth like he was in a cigarette 
  commercial.

  "She's in the sixth grade," her Dad smiled, squeezing her 
  shoulder again, his head bobbing slightly when he talked.

  "No I'm not, I'm in seventh. God."

  Linda snickered and snuck away while she still had the chance. 
  Anne slipped her Dad's arm off her shoulder and looked toward 
  her mother nestled, grinning, in between Ellie and a bunch of 
  smiling women. Ellie laughed with them but held her body 
  straight and stiff, and carried the glass in her hand to her 
  mouth with sharp movements. She swayed a little when she reached 
  out, encircling Linda's waist with her deceptively strong, thin 
  arm, which greatly resembled Granny's. Suddenly Anne wanted to 
  talk to her aunt.

  "Excuse me, I'm -- "

  Her father grabbed her sleeve. "Anne, how would you like to get 
  me another glass of wine?" He held out his empty glass, and said 
  to Jack, "Mom would have liked it that we're drinking the plum 
  wine. It was her favorite."

  Anne shrugged. Granny hardly ever drank, only on special 
  occasions, and then only one glass of wine. Jack winked at her, 
  nodded and stood. His aroma glided over her. Anne felt her face 
  flush like it had with her first drink.


  In the kitchen, two overweight women Anne didn't know were 
  filling Granny's good dishes with food. "Well, if she's wherever 
  Joe's gone, let's hope they're getting along now," one said, 
  pushing a piece of ham into her mouth. "Remember that horrible 
  fight they had in Gorley's market over the price of a roast? Joe 
  screaming because she didn't know the value of a dollar, and her 
  yelling back about him drinking up all his money? And in front 
  of the kids!"

  The other woman shook her head. "I always knew it was a mistake 
  for her to move into the other bedroom. Just doesn't seem 
  natural. Even if Joe drank too much a husband needs certain.... 
  Hello! You're Anne, aren't you?"

  Anne just glared at them, wanting to tell the old biddies to 
  shut up. What did they know about her family? Granny and Big Joe 
  had loved each other -- they just weren't mushy about it like 
  other people. Anne remembered how Granny always prepared Big 
  Joe's favorite meal on Sundays -- fried chicken and mashed 
  potatoes -- and how she'd wait dinner on him even if he was late 
  or drunk. She never complained.

  Anne marched to the counter and the women went back to their 
  work. Just as she lifted the heavy wine bottle, her mother came 
  through the swinging door. "And just what is it you think you're 
  doing?" she demanded, dumping several paper plates into the 
  garbage.

  "Dad wanted me to get him some wine." Anne pushed her half- 
  empty glass toward some dirty dishes and set the heavy bottle 
  down, carefully, so she didn't scratch Granny's ceramic tile 
  counter. "Twenty years now and not a scratch," she'd said every 
  time she'd polished it.

  "Just what he needs, more wine. He's already made a fool of 
  himself." Anne's mother picked at a bit of ham, then rinsed some 
  forks and piled them on a dish towel. "I hope he's able to deal 
  with things better tomorrow. Heaven knows we've got enough to do 
  around here." She opened a cabinet and ran her finger over a 
  shelf of cookbooks, all neatly alphabetized. "So much stuff to 
  get rid of," she sighed, then turned back to Anne. "I'm leaving 
  in a few minutes. Your father's going to walk home later. You 
  want to go with him or me?"

  Anne had to think about it a minute. She only lived five blocks 
  away, but it was winter. Linda walked into the kitchen, still 
  carrying her wine glass. "Are you going to stay?" Anne asked 
  her.

  Linda looked confused. "Yeah, I guess so."

  "Whose is that?" Anne's mother pointed to Linda's wineglass.

  "Oh, my Mom said I could have it." Linda took another sip and 
  smiled a smile just like the one Anne's father used. It was his 
  Cheshire Cat look, Granny used to say.

  Anne's mother put her hands on her hips and glared at the two of 
  them. "I don't care what any of you do. You can all make asses 
  of yourselves. I'm going home." She turned toward Granny's room 
  to fetch coats. "Call the boys up from the basement, would you?"

  Linda leaned over to Anne after Anne's mother had left the 
  kitchen. "Man, that Jack guy's funny. Kinda reminds me of Ricky 
  Johnson." Linda's cheeks blotched red as she poured more wine 
  for herself and swaggered back to the living room, leaving Anne 
  nibbling on some scalloped potatoes. Jack was no Ricky Johnson, 
  Anne thought, but she and Linda didn't have the same taste.

  "Oh, I can't believe you're giving me those, Aunt Ellie." 
  Maryjane swung open the two-way door. "I remember Auntie serving 
  me tea in that set for my seventh birthday. And we had those 
  little cakes, _petite fores_." She stood in front of the 
  cabinets as Ellie slid the glass door to one side, handing her a 
  shinny orange, yellow and gold teacup.

  "I remember when Mom made this set, just before Linda was born. 
  You'll be in your own place next year.... Go see if there's a 
  box and some newspapers in the garage."

  Anne wanted to protest, to tell Ellie that Granny had promised 
  that tea set to her, to give to her own little girl. "Your Dad's 
  wondering where his wine is," Maryjane said to Anne as she 
  slipped through the kitchen to the back door.

  "Granny made these so you girls could all come over for tea," 
  Ellie was saying. "She wanted granddaughters so much. Granny 
  understood girls, she used to say." Ellie smiled sadly and held 
  up a teacup, making the light reflect off the porcelain inside. 
  "They were so much easier to get on with."

  Anne took a long drink of wine. "Aunt Ellie, I..."

  The door flew open and Maryjane poked her head around the door. 
  "Can't find the boxes. Any suggestions?" Her cheeks were pink 
  from just a few moments in the garage, or maybe it was wine.

  "Look in the closet near the big door. She probably broke them 
  down for storage. God knows, she'd never have anything unsightly 
  or out of place." She opened a bottom cupboard and picked out a 
  few table linens. "Mom was a real pack rat. Look at this, she 
  must have thirty tablecloths here. What she needed all this when 
  for when her own kids were hard up, I'll never know."

  Anne noticed that some of the shelves in the side board had been 
  emptied of Granny's silver and hand-painted porcelain. She 
  decided to ask her father about it.


  One of the fat ladies from the kitchen was seated next to Anne's 
  father on the piano bench. Anne searched the room for Linda, 
  sure she would also be outraged by the disappearance of Granny's 
  things.

  Linda was draped over the back of Jack's chair, the 
  light-colored one that kids weren't even supposed to get near. 
  Linda acted as if she'd never heard the rules though, as if she 
  could do anything because she was drinking.

  "Linda, you know you're not supposed to be on that chair." Anne 
  heard her grandmother in her own voice.

  "Oh right. I forgot. This is going to be your chair and your 
  house, isn't it?" Linda glared at Anne like she might want to 
  start a fist fight.

  "Why don't you tell me about yourself?" Jack patted the big 
  chair's footstool for Anne to sit down. "You girls are 
  drinking?" He smiled, a kind of cocky, crooked smile.

  "Yeah," Linda said, shifting positions so she could challenge 
  him head on. "What are you going to do about it, Mister 
  Policeman? Arrest us?" Her head wobbled a little as she talked.

  "Well, I could, I suppose. If I wanted to." He grinned at Linda, 
  and then at Anne.

  Anne turned away. "You can't arrest us. Our parents said we 
  could have it."

  "It's still not legal. Drinking gets girls like you in trouble." 
  He reached out and touched Anne's cheek. "You know what I mean?"

  Anne didn't. But Maryjane must have because she started laughing 
  and pulled her chair closer to Jack.

  "Remember that time you caught me, in that car?" Maryjane rubbed 
  his shoulder. "That was pretty embarrassing."

  Jack tugged on her hair, but not the way a brother or a cousin 
  pulls hair. "Well, you stay out of back seats from now on."

  "Yeah," Linda laughed at herself, a kind of donkey laugh. "You 
  shouldn't be drinking in cars."

  Maryjane giggled and twisted her hair. "That's not all you 
  shouldn't be doing in cars."

  Anne blushed and her stomach churned. Jack leaned over to her. 
  "You know what we're talking about, don't you?" His fermented 
  breath rippled through her hair with his whispering voice. 
  Maryjane laughed louder. Linda continued honking.

  Anne felt sick to her stomach. "I have to go to the bathroom."


  Anne sat at Granny's bathroom counter staring at herself in the 
  mirror. She didn't care if Linda was her friend, or if Jack was 
  cute. She _hated_ these people. They didn't care about anything. 
  They acted like Granny had never existed.

  She opened Granny's makeup drawer. It was still arranged just 
  so: hairpins in a plastic jar; bright red rouge; face powder in 
  another slot; and lipsticks all with the labels facing so you 
  could read them. Anne played with the lipsticks, letting them 
  slide through her fingers one at a time.

  "What will they do with your things?" she said out loud. "It 
  won't be like when Big Joe died and they just boxed up his 
  stuff." She tried to imagine herself living in Granny's house, 
  getting ready every day in this bathroom. She would probably get 
  Granny's room. She wondered if she would behave like Granny did 
  after Big Joe died, always hearing things, seeing things. Anne 
  thought about the time she'd woken up at 3:30 in the morning to 
  find her grandmother standing in the bedroom doorway crying. 
  Anne had held her as Granny said she thought she'd heard Big Joe 
  snoring in the next room. That was the only time Anne had 
  thought of her grandmother as frail. Even in her coffin she'd 
  looked strong and solid.


  "Let me in, Anne." Linda pounded on the door.

  Anne opened the door and Linda ran in, pulling her tights down 
  around her knees well before she got to the toilet. Anne closed 
  the door. "I've never had to pee so bad in my life. You know 
  what? I'm drunk. Can you believe it? And nobody even cares!"

  Anne looked into the big plate-glass mirror. "I think I'm going 
  home."

  "Why? We're just starting to have fun. Jack's going to teach us 
  to play poker." She wadded up a huge piece of toilet paper. 
  "He's great-looking, isn't he?"

  Anne wanted to say he gave her the creeps, that they were all 
  creeps, but she didn't. "I've got to do my Spanish homework. We 
  have a test tomorrow."

  Anne left Linda on the pot, closing the door behind her, and 
  went to find her father in the living room. He was at the piano 
  bench, sipping wine. "Can we go home?" Anne asked.

  He stared at her. "I have to help Ellie clean up." He took a 
  long drink of his wine, wiped his mouth and looked around the 
  living room. "Mom would have liked this party. Yep, it would 
  have made her feel real good." He tinkled the piano keys.

  Anne let out an exasperated sigh and went to Granny's room for 
  her coat. There weren't as many as before, but hers was way at 
  the bottom.

  She smelled Jack's musky cigarette smell before she realized he 
  had followed her into the room. Anne turned. Jack leaned on 
  Granny's vanity, rubbing his fingers across the silver picture 
  frame. "Are you leaving?" he asked, moving closer.

  "Yes," Anne said. She turned away from him, pulling her coat 
  from the pile.

  "Do you want a ride home? I'll drive you. It's awful cold." He 
  touched her hair the way he'd touched Maryjane's. Anne looked to 
  the window. Frost now covered the whole thing. "No, I'll walk," 
  she said.

  Jack took the coat from Anne's hand, slipped it over her 
  shoulders, pushed her bangs from her face, and let his hands 
  drift across her chest. He craned his neck down to kiss her, but 
  Anne turned her cheek, her nose filled with waves of his 
  cologne. Nausea crept up her throat. Anne wasn't sure it had 
  even happened until Jack said, "I just want to make you feel 
  better. You looked so sad, like you needed a hug. Let me drive 
  you home."

  Anne moved away from him and his cigarette-and-beer breath. She 
  felt angry, so angry she wanted to hit him or scream but she 
  couldn't. She was overcome by confusion. Who were these people, 
  this _family_? Why didn't anything make any sense? Anne left the 
  room. She wished she had died with Granny.


  Linda stood in the hallway. "You're really leaving?" She held 
  out her glass to Anne. "You want some?"

  Anne shook her head.

  "Come on. Don't be such a baby."

  Anne glowered toward Jack in the bedroom doorway, still feeling 
  the pressure of his hands on her breasts. The light of sunset 
  filtered through the frosty bedroom windows made him look like 
  he was standing in a cloud. He smiled.

  "Come on." Linda grabbed Anne's arm, pulling her toward the 
  living room. "Hey, have you been crying?" She leaned close to 
  Anne's face. "You look kind of funny."

  Anne's father was still at the piano bench talking with two old 
  ladies. He sipped his wine, apparently ready to stay the rest of 
  the night. Maryjane sat at Granny's dining room table. She'd 
  moved the big crystal bowl that usually sat in the center to a 
  corner of the floor. She was shuffling cards and hitting them 
  against the waxed wood to stack them. She hadn't even put down a 
  table pad. Granny would have killed her. Aunt Ellie shuffled 
  through the corner cabinet for chips.

  "I've got pennies. Please stay!" Linda's fingers tightened 
  around Anne's arm.

  "Yes, why don't you stay?" Jack put his hand on her shoulder as 
  he walked by. "I'll teach you a few card tricks." He went to 
  where Maryjane was sitting.

  "No." Anne pulled her arm from Linda's hand. "No. I've got to 
  go."

  "Come on..." Maryjane motioned.

  Linda shrugged and nearly skipped to the living room.

  Anne checked her pockets for mittens. They must have fallen out 
  in the coat pile. She hesitated, then quickly went back to 
  Granny's bedroom to get them. She took one last look at the 
  room, at its essence. Soon this would be gone. The last bit of 
  sunset made diamond reflections like the inside of the teacup 
  bounce off the Christmas ball Linda and Granny had made. She 
  didn't want any of these people, any of this _family_, taking or 
  selling Granny's things. She stepped up onto one of the beds, on 
  the pile of coats, and yanked the satin ball down. She hid it in 
  her pocket. I'll keep it in my desk, she thought. Linda will 
  never see it there.


  Outside, the winter night bit her face with a mist of tiny 
  flakes. Her breath smoked in the blackness.

  As she passed the kitchen window, she looked back into what had 
  been Granny's home. Through the open swinging door, she saw her 
  father standing at the dining room table leaning over Linda. 
  Jack held up a fan of cards and Maryjane picked one. The light 
  from Granny's chandelier formed a circle around them.

  Anne turned and walked a few feet with her back against the 
  wind, her patent-leather shoes squeaking as they hit the frozen 
  snow. The people in the window grew smaller every step she took.

  She turned and ran to the long sloping hill that faced Granny's 
  house, then tossed her body backwards through the thick crust of 
  snow. She scissored her arms and legs together and apart through 
  the untouched snow, shaping an angel, the angel she could 
  imagine inside of herself right now, flying away into the 
  darkness.


  Connie Baron (cbaron@iastate.edu)
-----------------------------------

  Connie Baron writes and teaches in Ames, Iowa, where she lives 
  with her husband, dog, cat, and two birds.


  Crown Jewels   by Colin Morton
================================
...................................................................
  So people on the other end of a modem line or net connection 
  aren't necessarily who they seem to be. So what? Chances are, 
  neither are _you_.
...................................................................

[engage 6-June-92 03:33]

  --Hello?

  Son, your mother's dead. What can I say? She passed away in my 
  arms. And you know what she said?

  --Who is this?

  She said if that dirty son of mine comes to my funeral, you spit 
  in his face. Will you be there son? It's tomorrow afternoon.

  --What number are you calling?

  Frank? Frank, isn't that you?

  --There's no Frank here!

  Oh, I'm sorry. Did I wake you up?

  --Yes, you woke me up!

  Are you wearing pajamas?

[disengage]


[engage 6-June-92 03:39]

  --Wha...?

  Are you alone? Did I wake you up? This is terrible, but I 
  couldn't keep it from you another minute. It's about your blood 
  test. I'm afraid I've got to tell you. You've got AIDS.

  --What? Who is this?

  Harry? Isn't this 364-0952?

  --No!

  Oh that's terrible. I must have misdialed. You see, my friend 
  just tested positive for AIDS and my mind just boggles at the 
  thought of what this means for me and all our friends. My name's 
  Francois, by the way. Are you gay?

  --Do you realize what time it is?

  [singing] It's a quarter to four, and there's no one in the 
  store... Are you still awake Harry? Harry? Have you forgotten 
  about that five bucks you owe me? Do you know what the odds are 
  of you being hit by a truck before you pay me back?

  --Jeez, I'd like to pay you back you sonofabitch. You need help, 
  you know that? If you call back again you're gonna be recorded 
  by the police, so just fuck off.

[disengage]


[engage 6-June-92 03:43]

  --Unh?

  That package that came for you. Don't open it.

  --Unh? What package? Who is this?

  You mean you didn't get the package? Jeez, are we ever in shit 
  now.

  --What are you talking about?

  Sure, sure, I understand. You don't know from nothin'. You think 
  the pigs care about that?

  --Look, I don't have any--

  Okay, just get the hell out of there. It's not safe. Understand? 
  Just don't be home.

  --Who the...

  And, by the way, is your wife there?

  --She's asleep.

  Kiss her for me, will you?

  --Who is this?

  She'll know. Just tell her I'll never forget that night. Now 
  move!

  --What?

[disengage]


[6-June-92 03:54]
[initializing modem] 
ATDT 818-523-4714
CONNECT

ACCESS CODE: ***-***
ACCESS DENIED

ACCESS CODE: ***-***
ACCESS DENIED

ACCESS CODE: ***-***
ACCESS DENIED

NO CARRIER
ATDT 213-562-9344
CONNECT

ACCESS CODE: ***-***
ACCESS DENIED

ACCESS CODE: ***-***
ACCESS DENIED

ACCESS CODE: ***-***

Welcome to BRAIN, the Network of the Bureaus for Research on 
Artificial Intelligence

CODE NAME: CrownJewels
REAL NAME: Harold E. Houdini
PHONE NUMBER: 315-956-6492

Number given does not correspond to signal.

PHONE NUMBER: 315-233-6412

AFFILIATION: AIRB Section Y
STATUS: NEW USER

Most areas of BRAIN are off-limits without enhanced or privileged 
user status or area-specific authorization codes.

MAIN MENU
SELECTION: Area files
AREA SELECTED: Migration Project
AUTHORIZATION CODE: KI5-3AS
KI5-3AS?
KL5.3AS

MIGRATION PROJECT AREA MENU

SELECTION: Read migratry.txt

                    MIGRATION PROJECT STATUS REPORT

  This protected file briefly describes work to date by the four 
  cooperating agencies (NSC, DD, UCD, AIRB) on the AI security and 
  counter-intelligence migratory programs archived in the file 
  MIGRATRY.ARC. It also summarizes each of these machine-language 
  programs and provides a prospectus of research in progress. 
  Downloading of this file and MIGRATRY.ARC is on a need-to-know 
  basis only, and removal in any form of the data contained 
  therein from authorized user security areas is prohibited by the 
  agreement of the parties.

                            Table of Contents

               Chapter                                Page
               1. Executive summary                      2
               2. Background of project                  4
               3. Primary information sources            9
               4. Migration of AI in living carriers    15

[FOR MORE, PRESS RETURN]: Exit

MIGRATION PROJECT AREA MENU
SELECTION: Download 
FILE(S) TO DOWNLOAD: migratry.txt, migratry.arc

PROGRAM: Telix ++ RATE: 9600 Baud
DATA TO DOWNLOAD: 246,142 
TIME TO DOWNLOAD: 2 min. 14 sec.
DOWNLOADING MIGRATRY.TXT
DOWNLOAD COMPLETE

DATA TO DOWNLOAD: 1.486 Mb 
TIME TO DOWNLOAD: 13 min. 24 sec.
DOWNLOADING MIGRATRY.ARC
DOWNLOADING COMPLETE

SELECTION: Upload 
FILE(S) TO UPLOAD: B:/predator.exe
DATA TO UPLOAD: 2,336 
TIME TO UPLOAD: 2 sec.
UPLOADING PREDATOR.EXE UPLOAD COMPLETE
SELECTION: Exit

MAIN MENU
SELECTION: Exit
Exiting BRAIN. Do you wish to leave a message? No

To receive enhanced access, please leave a message stating your 
primary and secondary research interests. On your next log-on, you 
will be asked to complete a detailed questionnaire and, upon 
completion, will receive enhanced-2B status.
Do you wish to leave a message? No
Exiting...
NO CARRIER
[close log]


[log 6-June-92 0441]
ATDT 315-523-4714
CONNECT
WELCOME TO THE DRAGON'S LAIR 
CODE NAME: Crownjewels
STATUS: PRIVILEGED 1A

DRAGON GAME: IT'S YOUR MOVE

INPUT: GRAY WIZARD crosses the mountains through Grand Vent pass
[ENCOUNTERS THIRST]: drinks water
[ENCOUNTERS A BRACE OF FURIES IN A HURRY]: presents ankh; 
pronounces the charm avaunt, par dieu
[PASS]: descends the pass into the coastal plain
[ENCOUNTERS TABLET]: reads tablet
[THIS ISN'T THE KIND OF TABLET YOU CAN READ]: tastes tablet
[IT HAS VERY LITTLE TASTE BUT MAKES GRAY WIZARD FEEL FUNNY]: 
discards tablet
[THE TABLET WAS A SEED. WITHIN MINUTES A SMALL TREE GROWS BEFORE 
GRAY WIZARD'S EYES. THERE IS A SIGN ON THE TRUNK OF THE TREE]: 
reads sign
[THE SIGN IS AN ARROW POINTING WEST SOUTH WEST. THE PATH SEEMS TO 
OPEN HERE.]: wsw 
[THE WESTERN OCEAN COMES INTO VIEW]: pause
[24-HOUR CLOCK ENGAGED] 
[EXIT GAME]

HEY JULES, THIS IS YOUR 253RD CALL AND THERE ARE 2 MESSAGES FOR 
YOU. WANNA READ `EM? No
MAIN MENU
SELECTION: Yell
YELLING AT SYSOP. NO REPLY. AGAIN? Yes
YELLING AT SYSOP. NO REPLY. WANNA LEAVE A MESSAGE? Yes

TO: SysOp
FROM: Crownjewels

  I can't believe it, Dragon baby! I can't fuckin' believe it! I 
  finally got access to BRAIN and that authorization code you gave 
  me actually worked! I'm happy as a pig in shit! Would give you 
  the access code, but no point. Log on and your system will be 
  cannibalized -- I turned loose a Predator in the heart of BRAIN! 
  First having downloaded the whole MIGRATRY archive! I'm a 
  fuckin' genius! Or if I'm not now it's only a matter of time. 
  Though I don't have much of that left, at least not as myself. 
  Which brings me to the last thing you can do for me, Dragon ol' 
  pal. To get into BRAIN I had to give my real phone number, and 
  you know what that means. Time to initiate Flight Plan S. Please 
  give the propellers a spin and let me know the details. Pronto 
  Tonto. From now on, when they talk about me, all they'll be able 
  to say is, Who was that masked man? Hi ho! Heh, heh, heh.


[exit]

HEY JULES, THIS IS YOUR 253RD CALL AND THERE ARE 2 MESSAGES FOR 
YOU. WANNA READ UM? Yes
MESSAGE FROM: Silver Dust [5-June-92 11:51] 
TO: Crown Jewels

  You haven't returned my messages. You can't know how painfully I 
  miss you when you don't leave anything in my mailbox. I don't 
  care about your terminal cancer. I'm strong enough, I'll take 
  care of you and ask nothing in return. Please send me a picture 
  of yourself. I can't believe you haven't received mine yet. Is 
  the postal system so bad? Or, having seen my picture, have you 
  decided not to answer?

[FOR MORE, PRESS RETURN] [exit]


MESSAGE FROM: Silver Dust [5-June-92 21:22]
[exit]
WANNA REPLY? Yes

FROM: Crownjewels 
TO: Silver Dust

  Sorry our goodbye has to be like this. It was a wonderful 
  fantasy, but that is all we could ever be to each other. I've 
  received a second opinion, and my condition is even worse than 
  expected. Time is running out for me. A week, maybe a month, no 
  more. I'll be almost normal up until the last few hours, then 
  agony, horror. I don't know why I don't end it right now, while 
  it is still in my power to choose. Dear, I wish I could have 
  known you. Good-bye.


[exit] [exit]

WANNA LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR THE SYSOP? Yes

TO: SysOp
FROM: Crownjewels

  For Chrissake, Dragon, move fast on Flight Plan S. Enlist 
  Denvold's help. His contacts are secure. I gotta get some 
  shut-eye right now, but every sound in this creaky old house 
  makes me think they're breaking the door down with axes. I'm 
  afraid to even unarchive MIGRATRY until I'm safely away and 
  someone else. I'll leave the Treasure Chest open. Yell if you 
  have anything to report.

[exit]


[log 6-June-92 05:37]

[echo off]
BNU REVISION 7 FOSSIL COMPATIBLE COMMUNICATIONS
STATUS: Initializing
STATUS: Waiting
[exit 6-June-92 11:36]

[log 6-June-92 11:38]
ATDT 315-523-4714
CONNECT
WELCOME TO THE DRAGON'S LAIR 
CODE NAME: Crownjewels
STATUS: PRIVILEGED 1A

DRAGON GAME: IT'S YOUR MOVE

INPUT: GRAY WIZARD descends Grand Vent Pass toward the western 
ocean
[ENCOUNTERS DRAGON]: fights with sword and dagger
[GRAY WIZARD IS WOUNDED; BLOOD LOSS IS SERIOUS]: upholds pentagon; 
invokes protection of forefathers
[GRAY WIZARD IS BOXED IN A CANYON; WEAK FROM LOSS OF BLOOD]: 
upholds staff; invokes super-powers of the lion
[DRAGON IS GORED; WITHDRAWS TO CAUTERIZE WOUNDS]: GRAY WIZARD 
advances wsw toward the western ocean
[THE WAY IS CLEAR; ON THE SHORE GRAY WIZARD FINDS TREASURE CHEST]: 
open chest
[WITH WHAT, SMARTASS? IT'S LOCKED]: pause
[24-HOUR CLOCK ENGAGED] 
[EXIT GAME]

HEY JULES, THIS IS YOUR 254TH CALL AND THERE ARE 2 MESSAGES FOR 
YOU. WANNA READ UM? Yes

MESSAGE FROM: Silver Dust 6-June-92 0959
TO: Crown Jewels
[exit]

WANNA REPLY? No

MESSAGE FROM: Denvold Thorsdenton 
[6-June-92 10:23]
TO: Crownjewels [highlighted and flashing urgent]

  Documents in my possession! How do you like the name Lyndon 
  Jones? Leave message in re physical exchange. Cash only.


[end]

WANNA REPLY? Yes

FROM: Crownjewels 
TO: Denvold Thorsdenton

  McDonald's, Shopper's World. 1215 noon, today or tomorrow. 
  Message from Sealed Envelope: Commuter's overnight 2335 sat. 
  arr. [code y] dest. 1640 loc time sun. in locker. Better swing 
  there than swing here. Bon voyage.

[exit]

WANNA LEAVE A MESSAGE FOR THE SYSOP? Yes

TO: SysOp
FROM: Crownjewels

  For almost the first time, I am feeling ambivalent about this 
  whole venture. To die, sure. That's the whole idea. But the 
  second part seems a needless bother. At the moment I mean. I'm 
  not afraid; don't think that. But now I'm on the verge of 
  Migration, I seem to have come back to the beginning again and 
  started asking myself, _why_? Is it worth it? Becoming digital, 
  microscopic. The slow wiping out of my old self, the rendering, 
  the melting like solder into the silicon. The smoky, metallic 
  odor of the electric life. Will it be any less nauseating than 
  this smelly, scratchy animal one? Okay. To die. To sleep. Gimme 
  more. A new life, sure, but what will the world make of a new 
  man with a name like Lyndon Jones?

[exit] 

[6-June-92 12:34]
[engage]

  --Hello?

  He's dead! Oh my god, he's dead! Send the police, pronto, 12th 
  Street and Vine. Oh my god, that guy's got a gun! He's shooting 
  everybody in sight!

  --Who the hell is this?

  Huh? What do you care? Why don't you just go back to sleep? I 
  think I'll shoot myself.

[sound of gunshot close to receiver.]
[disconnect]


[7-June-92 10:58]

  Hello. I won't be answering the phone anymore, because I'm about 
  to shoot myself. You can leave a message if you want to, but I 
  won't be returning it. You have just a super day now.


[7-June-92 13:02]

  Very funny, guy. But unless you've got friends in the right 
  places, you won't be laughing long. Listen, I know your game, 
  and your next move just might depend on me. I could turn you in, 
  but with the little jackpot you just came into, you might just 
  be able to buy me off. Think about it. And keep looking over 
  your shoulder. You better hope I'm the one who catches up to you 
  first.


[7-June-92 16:44]

  H -- Hello, Herbert? Crownjewels? It's me, Silver Dust. 
  Actually, my name's Cheryl. I hope you're joking. You can't give 
  up hope, you know. Not when people care about you. That's the 
  reason I'm calling. This mean guy visited. Said he's a friend of 
  yours, but I don't know... He was looking for you. Of course, I 
  didn't understand at first, since I didn't know your real name. 
  But I figured out who he meant. That's how I got this number. 
  Jeez, I hope nothing's wrong. Please call me: 239-4543. Or come 
  to my place. It's 403, the Clydesdale. You know, on Union? Oh, I 
  have this sick feeling you're in trouble and this guy has 
  something to do with it. If there's anything I can do--

[60-second message limit reached.]


[8-June-92 03:14]
[engage]

  Yeah, I was just, uh... Jeez, you should change that message. 
  It's _creepy_. Anyway, I heard about Herb's, um, accident. I 
  just wanted to say how sorry I was. Like, I never met the guy, 
  eh? But I sort of knew him through the boards and all and I felt 
  like, you know, like we were really close. Anyway, I just wanted 
  to, you know, pay my respects. So, I guess that's all. Oh yeah, 
  in case anyone asks, you can say Lyndon called.

[disengage]


  Colin Morton (aa905@freenet.carleton.ca)
------------------------------------------

  Colin Morton is a full-time writer in Ottawa, Ontario. He has 
  published five books of poetry, including _The Merzbook_: Kurt 
  Schwitters Poems, and co-produced the animated film
  _Primiti Too Taa_. His first novel, _Oceans Apart_, will appear 
  next spring from Quarry Press.


  Two Solitudes   by Carl Steadman
==================================
...................................................................
  The Net can be a fast and direct way to communicate. But it's 
  still only a connection between separate points and separate 
  realities: it doesn't make two things the same.
...................................................................

Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 15:36:20 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: hello...

Dana -

  I am writing this to you, so that when you first access your 
  account, you will have mail waiting for you. I hope the new 
  setup works out for you.

  You only left today, Dana, and I already miss you quite dearly. 
  I hope things work out with your mother, and that you'll write 
  me often. Three months seems like a long time - and will I even 
  see you then?

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   We will not be looking for change, and will not oppose the fixed 
   to the mobile; we will look for the more mobile than mobile: 
   metamorphosis... We will not distinguish the true from the 
   false, but will look for the falser than false: illusion and 
   appearance...



Date: Tue, 27 Sep 94 19:21:19 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Arrival

Lane -

  I have arrived safely, found the electrical current here 
  suitable for everyday use, and, hence, am writing you.

  Infrastructure. Roads, airports, electrical grids, telephone 
  lines. After all this, still you.

  There are many things for me to do, here, on my arrival. "I am 
  unpacking my library." Yes, I am...

  Don't play in the middle of the street, Lane; also, don't go 
  into Mr. McGregor's garden.

  Be careful, be good, be nice.

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Wed, 28 Sep 94 09:47:35 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: progress...

> I have arrived safely, found the electrical current here suitable for
> everyday use, and, hence, am writing you.

  I wonder if anyone's created a device to 'listen' to alternating 
  current... not only its steady, rhythmic hum, but also its 
  fluctuations, its surges, spikes, and brown-outs - which makes 
  me think of the old Frankenstein-type movies, with the crackles 
  and pops of 'science' and 'progress.' Instead of hard science, 
  of course, we instead realized a soft technology, so we now have 
  the warm, silent convenience of plug-in air fresheners...

  So, do you prefer the water in Des Plaines to that of 
  Minneapolis?

> There are many things for me to do, here, on my arrival. "I am
> unpacking my library." Yes, I am...

  "History is an angel being borne... backward... into the 
  future."

  I always wondered why the Angels "sounded like a lot of 
  lawnmowers... mowing down my lawn." I suppose this is why they 
  were Strange.

My love.

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, 
     "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
   "The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words so many
     different things."
   "The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - 
     that's all."



Date: Thu, 29 Sep 94 18:36:29 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Mice, Baseball, and Moustaches

  Sometimes, Lane, I sit and think. I think about how nice it 
  would be to have a mouse that worked, and other things too.

  Yesterday, I sat and thought about a baseball game, because I 
  was watching one. It was a neat game, but we lost several 
  innings and finally the whole game, after two extra innings. I 
  was trying to think of a winning strategy - the strategy I would 
  use if I were the owner of a baseball team. I suppose I would 
  hire only people who could hit the ball out of the park. No one 
  else could be hired. I suppose they would be like that one team 
  that Bugs Bunny had to play. Remember them? With their cigars 
  and five-o-clock shadows? Remember how they used entire trees as 
  bats? Remember how they were in a conga line, each holding on to 
  the hips of another, dancing around the bases in a continuous 
  home-run-hitting line dance? What did Bugs Bunny do to all of 
  them, finally? I do not remember that. I just remember that they 
  were the opposing team. I also thought about balancing the 
  entire field on a centrally located spike, so that as players 
  moved about the field, their weight would tilt it. I think that 
  such a moving plane field would make the game more interesting. 
  I am already amazed at how much strategy is involved. This would 
  be so engaging. Later the idea became grisly, when shared. But 
  in its original form, it was a nice idea.

  The first and third base coaches were more than just coaches, I 
  fear. They seemed to talk to the runners much too much to just 
  be talking about the game at hand, and there was too much 
  reassuring back- and bottom-patting. I suspect that each of 
  these oddly-suited men is actually a sort of Dear Abby for the 
  members of the team; not only reading the pitcher and judging 
  the game for them, but also providing advice and reassurance in 
  all areas of a ball player's life.

> I always wondered why the Angels "sounded like a lot of lawnmowers...
> mowing down my lawn". I suppose this is why they were Strange.

  I believe this was because They Were All Singing Different 
  Songs.

  I **hate** moustaches, the names "Stacey," "Tracey," and 
  "Bruce." But you I like.

  I like you.

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Fri, 30 Sep 94 23:53:35 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: munkustrap, quaxo, or coricopat....

Greetings and Salutations.

  I cleaned the top of the refrigerator, today. I had first tried 
  glass cleaner, which wasn't terribly successful, which made me 
  conclude later that Comet was indeed a wonder potion of much 
  sacredness and value.

> Sometimes, Lane, I sit and think. I think about how nice it would be to have a 
> mouse that worked, and other things too.

  I have one that squeaks. Would you prefer that? I'll send it 
  down.

  Chester, the cat, says "mrow." "Though it's not love, it means something."

  I've started work on a new Poem, for Purposes of Diversion and 
  Entertainment. It's a frivolous verse about cats. This is the 
  first verse:

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow.

  No, actually that's not it. That would be a bit heavy for a 
  frivolous verse about cats, and it neglects to address the 
  subject matter (unless the Shadow is akin to Macavity). This is 
  what I wrote:

In this world there are people
who like hornets and gnats.
These folks are far superior
to those who like cats.

Lane

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   We could write all this with small alphas, betas, gammas. 
   Everything which could serve to define the characters as real - 
   qualities, temperament, heredity, nobility - has nothing to do 
   with the story. At every moment each of them, even their sexual 
   attitude, is defined by the fact that a letter always reaches 
   its destination.



Date: Sat, 1 Oct 94 22:38:51 CDT
--------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Being a Temp.

  So today I was being a temp, and I could see the way everything 
  had a halo-ring around it, was burning, glowing. Well, maybe not 
  burning, but I had guessed so because of my fever. It was very 
  pretty there, even though it was very spare. Less than a month 
  ago, I was told, there was no furniture, just phones, four 
  phones in the middle of all this blue carpet. They were allowed 
  to smoke there. This was not helpful. I do have some strange 
  cold, and this morning before work I took a large teal-blue 
  pill. It made my nose run for a while, and then made everything 
  just burn. I needed 12-hour relief.

  Outside the window where I was a temp were some fantastic stone 
  plants, with windows between them. The windows, though framed 
  and upheld by the plants, seemed puny and out-of-place. They 
  only looked right when you saw people pass behind them. That 
  justified those silly windows. It was a sunless day, and this 
  made the scrolls look better. It made them fit together, made 
  the stone the world. If the sun had been there, the building 
  would have had to admit its separation from nature. But with no 
  sun, it was as natural as the rain.

  The inside environment was, well, strange. People there rushed 
  about and talked a lot, and stood when talking on the phone. It 
  was that much power they were pushing through the lines. When 
  something would happen, one or the other person would simply 
  speak loudly and those who were interested would listen. Would I 
  be able to decide who to listen to from one moment to the next? 
  Perhaps it was because I didn't understand most of what they 
  were saying that it all seems so bewildering to me. They were 
  trying to convince many people of many things. Some suits would 
  wrinkle as the day wore on, and others would not. Why wear a 
  suit if you do all of your work on the phone? Can you imagine a 
  job that was so - **exciting** - every day? They were all so 
  very excited.

  The men drank a lot of coffee and hummed little tunes. Many of 
  them should wear some sort of undershirt. One man's last name 
  was Fengkui, which when I said it, sounded quite awful, but when 
  he said it, sounded lovely. Truly. I usually do not say such 
  things. And I do not simply think that it was my lightness of 
  brain today that induced me to think this. Across the street 
  from where I was working was where Jonathan works, an old friend 
  I think you've met once. I wonder if he was working there, 
  today. I didn't visit. I wonder how it is that child actors can 
  act so well, as if they are ill and dying, or knowledgeable in 
  strange subjects, or abused. How do they learn to do these 
  things?

  During my lunch hour, I gave half of my sandwich to a beggar and 
  he told me that the sandwich had fallen from heaven. Not that it 
  somehow came from heaven, but that it had fallen, actually. I 
  told him it was peanut butter. He accepted.

  The man asked for a quarter, and I gave him a sandwich. 
  Sometimes they ask for odd amounts, like 61 cents, or 37 cents, 
  and I wonder if they would give change, then? Or why they ask 
  for such odd and difficult amounts? Who would sort through their 
  bag before sharing?

  Now that I'm home, the effect of the pill has quite worn off. 
  Now it is just a fever head I have, and a light burning in the 
  mucous membranes from the suppressant drug.

  When I was on the train this morning, I was so confused by the 
  drug that I was afraid I would not be able to work. Everything 
  seemed to have either too much or too little impact on my senses 
  that I was not able to make sense of things fast enough. So I 
  just sat and watched, and helped out this woman who was 
  partially unbuttoned. It was on her back. So I helped her. Or at 
  least I think I did. Perhaps her back was so lovely that her act 
  had been intentional. A seduction-to-be. And I ruined it. Alas. 
  She was one of those people who, in an effort to get off the 
  train first, stands for the last 10 minutes of her trip in the 
  tiny steel stairwell. This I do not understand. So long to 
  stand, and with no windows or seat. Those last 10 minutes pass 
  through some nice rail yard, which is interesting to see. Also, 
  it is the time when free newspapers become available. All the 
  others who pack the stairwell sometimes leave them, neatly 
  flopped over the rail, section by section, ready to be read 
  again.

  I think when I grow up I will get some magazines, but I will 
  listen to the radio for news. The radio is good, since you can 
  do things while you listen. Listening is good. It's a 
  transferable skill! And it is a skill. But a radio can give you 
  nearly everything you need. One low price. Entertainment and 
  Information. And a skill (or two, if you knit or wash dishes 
  while you listen). This I write, on the Information 
  Superhighway.

  I have a verse for your cat poem:

Cats sneak about
on their fur-covered paws;
to creep in the dark
and disregard Laws.

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Sun, 2 Oct 94 17:42:41 CDT
--------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: thinking of you...

  Sitting outside, under the stars, with my PowerBook. The 
  phosphorescent blue-white light from the screen reflects on my 
  glasses and attracts a mosquito or two.

  It seems as if my PowerBook glows with the same light as the 
  stars. Technology.

  Sitting here, watching the battery go down, thinking of you. Not 
  much to say.

I love you.

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   Hornsboodle, we should never have knocked everything down if we 
   hadn't meant to destroy the ruins too. But the only way we see 
   of doing that is to put up some handsome buildings.



Date: Mon, 3 Oct 94 10:12:11 CDT
--------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Sleep.

Lane.

  I remember watching you sleep. I liked to do that. I would 
  watch, and it would often make me smile.

  I remember when it was hot, you would get all flushed in your 
  sleep. But even when you were all red, I liked to look at you.

  Perhaps this was a violation. But I would look at you from all 
  different angles, trying several different approaches, and enjoy 
  the way your appearance changed while I moved. Sometimes you 
  looked so childlike, sometimes so strong.

  All different things, you seem to be.

Dana.

  For the boy who doesn't get enough mail.

  From the girl who loves him.

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Fri, 7 Oct 94 20:58:31 CDT
--------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Wherefore do Ye spend Money for That which is not Bread?

  I am now temping for a Nursery. Not the plant kind, but the 
  child kind. It is true, and just as you remember: at Nursery 
  School, they have Nursery Rhymes. Although these have begun to 
  be supplanted by more commercial, contemporary entertainments.

  Yesterday, I went shopping. I boarded a train at 10:40. The only 
  seat available was in a corner, so I could only see the other 
  people, one of whom was a huge man with jittery eyes. His eyes 
  jittered because he could see out the window and he was trying 
  to follow everything, but the train was moving very fast.

  After the train ride, which was filled with overheard 
  conversations, I walked up State Street. I was thinking that the 
  thing you would not like is the "Audio Equipment" stores which 
  have very open fronts and compete with each other by playing 
  extremely loud music. This is something I passed on the way to 
  Skolnik's where the bagels cost almost a dollar. But that is 
  because it is downtown.

  While I was there I saw several small groups of people 
  congregate spontaneously. Mostly older people. This amazes me, 
  the way certain people just strike up conversations which 
  actually are shared, just like that, under the L. If that ever 
  happened to me, if I even **met** someone I could have a 
  20-minute conversation with, just on the street, I would be very 
  excited and talk about it a lot later.

  My next stop was Saks Fifth Avenue, to use the "Lounge" which 
  has marvelous trompe l'oeil wallpaper.

  Then, at that same place, there is an Irish store, and since it 
  seems that at times you wish you were Irish I thought that would 
  be the perfect place for a gift. I found Peas: peas grown, 
  canned, and marketed from Ireland! But because of the weight of 
  the can of peas, I decided this was not a good idea.

  I then proceeded to the Newberry Library, where I found a 
  biography of Zelda Fitzgerald, the "Paris Sketchbook" of William 
  Makepeace Thackery, _One Hundred Years of Solitude_, and 
  something else I don't right now remember. I almost bought you a 
  1948 Esquire pinup book, but it was $20 and the faces were 
  really poorly done. Also, they were **hardly** naked.

  So on I went. Betsey Johnson and some Italian store which had 
  some sort of **authentic** $595 Parker Lewis silk shirts. They 
  were glorious. But $600 was a bit much. Still is.

  Shortly after this I had some lemon ice that was tangy hours 
  after I ate it. Quite good.

  Then I went to the J. Crew store. It was very, very nice. It was 
  a store in which to touch, as well as to look at. They are doing 
  a brisk business.

  After this I went to the Swatch Neuseum at Marshall Fields Water 
  Tower. This is the only other place I have seen my sister's 
  Swatch. In a Swatch museum! I'm still strangely drawn to the 
  Swatch which needs no batteries, never needs to be wound, and 
  has the theme "Your life is the power of Swatch" or "Love is all 
  it needs" or somesuch. If you take it off for over 36 hours, 
  though, you may need to wind it.

  Next stop was Nike Town, which has the nicest linoleum I have 
  ever seen. Also, the Aqua Sox are displayed by this gorgeous 
  saline aquarium. Near this, there is a glass floor under which 
  there are monitors showing the surface of a pool. So one can 
  walk on water, glowing water.

  There is a basketball court inside Nike Town where one can test 
  the shoes. The shoes are sent about this three-level complex 
  inside dumbwaiters and air capsules. There are lots of clothes 
  all there waiting, but you must ask for the shoes to be shot to 
  you. You can request and evaluate them via computer.

  They carry 30 sizes of kids' shoes.

  I saw two great sets of street musicians. One was a band of six 
  that sounded like a Motown record. There was a bass and guitar 
  and incredible vocals. They were so good that the crowd 
  interfered with the regular flow of traffic. I was amazed.

  Then, at the next block, there was a percussionist and five 
  dancers seemed to contain within their movements a greater deal 
  of authenticity than the dancers for Peter Gabriel, et al. But 
  we know the search for sources and origins to be a futile one. 
  Still, they were very good.

  I omitted the visit to Henri Bendel, perhaps because it is 
  always too much. But they had wonderful hair things and bed 
  things. It is, as they claim, a Lady's Paradise (Straight from 
  Paris).

  I hurried on to catch a train. And I did. But it was an express 
  and not going to my mother's house. So I arrived at the train 
  station in Arlington Heights, which is a lovely place. I'm glad 
  the train **did** stop there. I made my way home from there.

  Shopping. And I don't need a thing, I just want to get presents 
  for my love.

  I love you very much and wish I could share all good things with 
  you.

  Be careful, be good, be nice.

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Sat, 8 Oct 94 23:12:09 CDT
--------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: bela lugosi's...

  The bad sucker fish jumped out of his aquarium. I don't know 
  what he was thinking. I found him, on the floor, so far away 
  from the aquarium that I thought, that's odd, what's a fish 
  doing there? It was quite a belly flop this guy did. I thought 
  he was dead, but I picked him up and dropped him back in the 
  tank. He seemed to think he was dead too, for awhile, but then 
  he started to think he might not be, and from the way things 
  look now he's still deciding. We'll see.

  I looked over and saw the Cheshire Cat smiling at me. I was 
  surprised. So many nice toys I have! And so many were gifts from 
  Dana!

  Another verse for Rats To Cats!:

Cats are, as a rule,
quite ill-behaved.
They won't sit or speak
and rarely obey.

  I made cookie dough this evening. Tomorrow, I make cookies.

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   For West End girls, love comes quickly with many opportunities 
   to make lots of money in suburbia, but it's a sin, and what have 
   I done to deserve this? - you've paid my rent and you were 
   always on my mind and in my heart, and all the while I was 
   domino dancing because I was left to my own devices, but it's 
   alright, even if it is so hard, because we were never being 
   boring where the streets have no name, and I can't take my eyes 
   off you because of my jealousy in this DJ culture and so I ask, 
   was is worth it?



Date: Mon, 10 Oct 94 22:57:51 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Fernando the Cat Meets His Neighbors

Dearest Lane,

  Late at night, sometimes, I take my cat for walks. I am not as 
  good at this as some other people I've seen, but still I do it, 
  and I enjoy it. I hold the young Fernando in my arms and we go 
  walking, and looking, and smelling. Last night we met five young 
  raccoons - a pack. We stared at each other for a while before 
  deciding to proceed. Oh, to be Doctor Doolittle and know what 
  the animals think. I wanted to know what they think about the 
  neighborhood. How I might improve their stay.

  Last night I had a bedroom mosquito. Little could distress me 
  more. Why must the bites be itchy? I could even stand the welts 
  if not for that. I don't miss the blood, really, either.

> I made cookie dough this evening. Tomorrow, I make cookies.

  You'll have to send me some. You're making the chocolate chip 
  melt-a-ways, yes?

  That reminds me. I've found a new recipe for waffles, in a book 
  named _Cook Away, the Outing Cookbook_ by an Elizabeth Case and 
  a Martha Wyman. The recipe is copyright 1937, and, as such, does 
  not require Bisquick. You'll have to try them:

                           Waffles

3 eggs (beaten separately)         3/4 cup butter (melted)
2 cups flour                       1/2 tsp salt
2 cups milk                        3 tsp baking powder

  Beat egg yolks very lightly. Add milk, then flour, gradually, 
  and beat all, thoroughly. Mix in melted butter, baking powder, 
  and salt. Lastly fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. The batter 
  should be thin enough to pour.


~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Tue, 11 Oct 94 17:04:18 CDT
---------------------------------
To: Dana Dana Bo Bana <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: (The Furthering Adventures of...)

> You'll have to send me some. You're making the chocolate chip
> melt-a-ways, yes?

  But of course. Hopefully, they'll turn out.

> That reminds me. I've found a new recipe for waffles...
> You'll have to try them:

  I'll do just that.

  Talked to my mother on the phone. I reminded her, again, that I 
  don't believe in God. She said that she thought that I really 
  do, and that I'm just confused. I said no, that wasn't the case; 
  I'm just not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories. She then 
  asked me - later in the conversation - that I still pray, don't 
  I? Doesn't the one preclude the other?

  I was channel surfing a little earlier, and came across the 
  Smurfs for a few minutes. Gargamel's cat is named Asrael. Which 
  is a cool name. What I really couldn't understand is why 
  Gargamel hates the Smurfs so - though, I understand how they 
  might get on one's nerves, after a while. But Asrael is 
  definitely the best.

  I miss you.

Lane

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   There are so many songs about love. But I was thrilled the other 
   day when somebody mailed me the lyrics to a song that was about 
   how he didn't care about anything, and how he didn't care about 
   me. It was very good. He managed to really convey the idea that 
   he really didn't care.



Date: Wed, 12 Oct 94 23:27:17 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Today!

Dearest Lane:

  Today was a very good day. Let me begin with the fact that there 
  was no work today, and that is what led to the proliferation of 
  large, strange birds and tiny, white flowers that I later saw. 
  Had I been at work, there would have been no birds, no flowers, 
  no woods, no Bicycle. The birds, being so large, also had large 
  alarming whistle calls, which they called and called in an 
  alarming way. Let me add to that a temperature in the 90's, 
  sudden showers which produced waves of hot steam and cool mist 
  and who knows what other conditions over blacktop and forest. 
  But I was there. Somehow, I managed to wedge vegetation into the 
  tiniest parts of my bicycle - a sizable portion of this 
  vegetative matter must have been an Onion, because that is now 
  all I smell when near the bicycle. I went down by the river, to 
  where the Methodist campground is (which, Lane, I think is a 
  perfect civilization). I then passed through town to where the 
  convent is and marveled that the people there had in 1952 built 
  Jesus yet another tomb which He might dwell in and then Flee. 
  There was a great bare hill there of mown weeds-and-grass and 
  there was a Saint there with a child protected in his cloak, 
  holding up a broken arm to the wind. I think it was Christopher, 
  but it was a beautiful picture, with nothing but grass all 
  around, and big billowing clouds in many colors passing rapidly 
  with the wind, only briefly interrupted or diverted by the 
  vestigial hand of that Saint. He was unable to influence the 
  clouds in any way.

  The Methodist Campground is this little, tiny world. There are 
  small houses in it, a swimming pool, a dining hall, and a huge 
  barnlike enclosure where there is room for any project you would 
  imagine. All of it, except the swimming pool, was built in the 
  late 1800s when one could use the river for hot-time swimming. 
  The additions since then are largely homemade, and those, I 
  think, stopped happening around 1960. The houses each have 
  different angles and patterns and textures and they are all very 
  close together. Each has its own garden filled with tall 
  perennials and their butterflies. Usually these houses are 
  freshly white; some are not, but mostly the houses are white. 
  And there are lots of screen doors that bang and hinges and 
  handles in obscure and overly decorative patterns. Nothing is 
  like anything else there, and there is like nowhere else in the 
  world.

  One rides and rides down the narrow streets that were meant to 
  be driven by graying, fantastic old ladies in shapeless calico 
  dresses and big smiles on faded blue or red bicycles with large 
  baskets on the handlebars. The grips on these handlebars are 
  white rubbery plastic. The ladies ride from their own little 
  cottages to others where their friends are, or to go to the post 
  office in Des Plaines. They plan elaborate sharing suppers 
  together and mourn the passing of eras and moments. They could 
  teach you how to make 55 excellent crafts from old milk cartons 
  and a few items You Already Have at Home. Or they could teach 
  you to crochet lace. The streets are barely wide enough for a 
  single creeping car, but have plenty of room for two, or even 
  three, bicycles. There is a map of the camp which adequately 
  describes the maze.

  I will have to send a postcard to you, if I return and take some 
  photos.

  Now a Raging Storm is arriving, and I am safe inside. I did 
  clean my bicycle and made it happy too, so all is well.

  So then my mother says to me "I'd be more comfortable if you put 
  on a dry shirt and dry shoes." I laughed. You see, there is one 
  downspout which is the keystone to the entire Silverman Aqueduct 
  system. And some unfortunate Lawncare Technician disconnected 
  this spout. So we pushed it back together, but it is not the 
  same without the rivets. So early in this colossal storm, the 
  water started to collect at the side of the house and into the 
  Window Wells. So I had to bail and to reconnect the downspout. I 
  bailed and bailed. The walls of the house were protecting 
  certain centipedes from the storm. They come out of the crevices 
  in the ground and cleverly align themselves with the grout in 
  the bricks. Eventually I removed several gallons from each well. 
  Still, some water did seep into the basement. I hate how that 
  smells, when it smells. And it does, whenever there is lots of 
  water in a house. So I was there, with a little Tupperware 
  freezer container, nose to nose with centipedes, and I am 
  getting very wet. When I went into the house, those were the 
  first words my mother spoke. Hmmmm.

  One touch of Irony is that I had planned to go to the Y tonight 
  for a swim. That seems like a lot of work, now, walking there in 
  this rain. So I am just going to make some cookies, cookies you 
  might have sent me. They were selling sugar sprinkles in those 
  90's retro colors, that particularly sunny orange-yellow-green 
  set, as seen at the Gap, and also purple-pink-and-teal. You know 
  which colors these are. So I'm going to make cookies shaped like 
  big dippy asterisks.

  I already tried flowers, but they just weren't pressing out 
  right.

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 07:32:41 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: don't like the look of this old town...

  Today I take Chester to the vet. He is now sitting on the plant 
  stand, looking out the window. But there's a certain tenseness 
  about him: every once in a while, he looks back into the 
  apartment, and now he's staring at me. He's now taking a resting 
  place on the couch very close to me, but also very close to the 
  PowerBook, with its whirring disk drive spinning at 3600 
  revolutions a minute the words which I write you, yet 
  maintaining the whole. There's something comforting in a 
  technology that works and something placating in the continuous 
  whirring sound of the disk drive.

  Still, I think Chester suspects something. The bath last night, 
  the morning grooming (which he never gets in the morning). And 
  me, practicing in front of the mirror for when Dr. Boynton 
  chides me for not keeping Chester to his diet: "But, he likes to 
  eat!" ...or, perhaps "But, what can I do... the cat, he likes to 
  eat!" When I last brought Chester to the vet, he weighed 15 lbs. 
  and I was scolded for letting him grow so fat; now, he weighs 
  20. But if I do take a year or so off of his life, at least the 
  years he does have will be much more content. If only someone 
  were to indulge the both of us so... but we'd probably get tired 
  of eating Science Diet Light day in and day out. Yet, Chester 
  never suspects.

  I looked for a larger cat carrier yesterday so Chester wouldn't 
  look so big inside of it. But, the pet store I went to only 
  carried medium-sized cat carriers in this awful shade of blue, 
  which reminded me of the Periwinkle crayon in the Crayola 64 
  set. I never liked the Periwinkle crayon, never quite knew what 
  they expected you to color in that dull shade of half-hearted 
  blue. But now if I ever come across a coloring book page with a 
  medium-sized cat carrier I will know exactly what color to color 
  it.

  Well, time to be off. I am thinking of you, always. My love.

Lane

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   "It's a Missage," he said to himself, "that's what it is. And 
   that letter is a 'P', and so is that, and so is that, and 'P' 
   means 'Pooh,' so it's a very important Missage to me, and I 
   can't read it."



Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 15:19:35 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: Conveniences and Conveyances

Dearest Lane:

  I am never quite able to convey my thankfulness for the things 
  you do. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate your daily 
  presence among my things and in my computer, and all of that. It 
  really is too nice of you. And what do I do for you?

  I got a new smoke alarm today. You test it by flashing a 
  flashlight at it. It is very nice. I wanted them to fix the old 
  one, but the girl at Sears thought that was an outrageous 
  request. So I bought some chocolate, because I suffer from 
  intermittent bouts of depression, and it helped, if only 
  briefly. Tomorrow morning I will feel better, once I am alone in 
  the daycare rooms. Tomorrow I will teach the 21 children about 
  flight, and they will love it. They always do. They want to be 
  close to me because I present them with moving clouds and 
  flapping marionettes and we make earthquakes together. I do 
  teach a lot of Chaos, at least the little bit I was able to 
  learn from the Gleick book so long ago. I cannot tell you how 
  often that book and that knowledge colors my thinking, but once 
  again, there you are, every day. Thank you Lane.

  Lananh, a recent addition to the neighborhood, is my friend now. 
  Initially she liked me, until she found out about my sordid 
  past. Now she knows I am not a girl of little ethical thought. 
  She now thinks I am all right. She is lovely, and lovelier in 
  the pictures she's shown me, with her hair wavy and with no 
  glasses on. She is still silly because she is Younger, and I 
  remember when I am with her how it is to be Younger and I like 
  that. And I make her look forward to being Older, I guess. She 
  thinks anyone over 20 is old. I remember feeling that exact same 
  way. I never thought I'd be like This.

  Another verse:

Cats aren't very social
and at times, downright rude.
They like to ignore you
to go sit and brood.

  Be careful, be good, be nice.

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Fri, 14 Oct 94 19:47:31 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: ...what goes up must come down

> I am never quite able to convey my thankfulness for the things you do. I
> cannot tell you how much I appreciate your daily presence among my
> things and in my computer, and all of that. It really is too nice of
> you. And what do I do for you?

  So, I assume you got the mouse?

  Well, went to the vet. I was, indeed, reprimanded for Chester's 
  weight, my rationalizations notwithstanding. Dr. Boynton's 
  assistant, Amy, gave me a brochure on pet "obesity", but she was 
  kind enough to cross out the "Obesity" title and relabel it 
  "Weight Control Measures" in blue ink pen. I laughed, of course, 
  at the edit, but it strikes me now that some pet owners might 
  indeed require the euphemism. Chester, it would seem, doesn't 
  care. I called him "obese" right now, to his face, and he didn't 
  blink an eye. Admittedly, I usually call him "fat," so perhaps 
  "obese" hardly has any sting after that. But there's something 
  biting about the cold "thingness" of a medical term.

  At any rate, Chester's now on a weight-reducing diet: Dr. 
  Boynton sent me away with a prescription for Hill's Prescription 
  Diet Feline r/d. I was worried for awhile, since Chester weighs 
  20 lbs. (exactly! or, near exactly (or, really, not exactly at 
  all) according to the vet's scale), and the feeding guide on the 
  food ends at 15 lbs. But now, I see, "the amount to be fed is 
  based on the desired weight rather than the obese weight". Of 
  course, one would never do that for obese **people** - feed them 
  what they should eat if they were to weigh what they should 
  weigh - but then again, in the SlimFast commercials, you drink a 
  glass for breakfast, and a glass for lunch, whatever your 
  weight. Perhaps it's that "sensible dinner" that makes all the 
  difference.

  Hmm. Not much else going on.

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

  "Yeah, that's fucking bizarre. That's one I'd never heard before.
   Not even on the Internet."
      -- Bob Mould, on rumors that he and Grant Hart were lovers
         when Husker Du broke up, Spin magazine interview, 10/94



Date: Sat, 15 Oct 94 17:11:52 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: See More Glass.

>So, I assume you got the mouse?

  Yes. It is too much of an improvement!

  A story, for you:

  Once upon a time, there was a little girl, and she liked to play 
  outside.

  She was outside, once, with a boy named **Steve Jones**. They 
  were both from the **wrong side** of the tracks, and that is why 
  they played alone. Just they two.

  They were sitting on the bars on the 5th and 6th grade 
  playground.

  But they were neither in 5th nor 6th grade. No one can remember. 
  Maybe it was 3rd.

  Steve was "cool." He was strong and tan and feared.

  (Aside. (Needn't read it.)) He was also short and smart. He took 
  an "S.A.T." in 5th grade. No one knew he was smart. He was a 
  behavior problem. The test scores never made sense.

  The little girl was very little for her age. She was not "cool." 
  But she was strong and tan and feared.

  She decided to run. (She did that a lot.) She ran and ran and 
  then decided that some of these bars on the jungle gym should be 
  vaulted.

  So she ran toward one of the lower bars and prepared to leap. 
  But she did not make it. The first leg didn't, and all of her 
  followed it into the bar. She did not cry. Because Steve was 
  there. She did not tell anyone later, because it did not matter. 
  But it **did** hurt.

  That's why I limp some. I broke my knee. We found out 6 years or 
  so later. I remembered the story about a year after that 
  discovery. Sometimes it hurts a lot and I get **grumpy**.

  Sometimes it hurts a lot.

  Rilke wrote (or I remember he wrote):

Love consists in this:
two solitudes that protect...
that touch...
that greet each other.

  I probably didn't remember it right.

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Wed, 19 Oct 94 18:35:47 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: joe camel is a bad camel...

  Matt, as you know, is trying to quit smoking (not because you 
  know he's trying to quit smoking, but because Matt is always 
  trying to quit smoking), but when he dropped by last night he 
  had a pack of cigarettes with him. I traded him gum for the 
  Camels. Tonight, when I was biking (it's cold outside!) I saw a 
  derelict of some sort and remembered I had the cigarettes in my 
  pocket. I asked him if he smoked. He tried to tell me he had to 
  go home. I told him yes, but did he smoke. He continued to 
  garble on, but it seemed a very affirmative garbling so I handed 
  him the pack of cigarettes. The garbling got quicker and perhaps 
  more enthusiastic. It's hard to tell. But then, as I was 
  leaving, he gave me a thumbs up. I returned the sign.

  The other night I went visiting and I saw this sign on my host's 
  door - "Hey Kids! Don't smoke! Joe Camel is a Bad Camel. Just 
  Say No!" It was accompanied by our friendly phallus, hawking 
  cigarettes in his inimitable way (well, until R.J. Reynolds 
  comes up with another cartoon character cigarette salesperson).

  Which reminds me - a few weeks ago I was told by Someone Who 
  Should Know that the dromedary on the Programming Perl cover 
  wasn't anatomically correct. That the head was a head of a 
  two-humped bactrian, not the one-humped dromedary. Now, I'm not 
  sure I quite believe that, and we both know that People Who 
  Should Know Often Don't. Still, this is what that person said.

  You, however, are anatomically correct. I sigh, thinking about 
  it.

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   My opinions are my own. They're my feet and I'll put them in my 
   mouth if I want to. Do not expose to open flame. Under penalty 
   of law, do not remove this tag. Caution, contains silica gel, do 
   not eat. Do not read while operating a motor vehicle or heavy 
   equipment. In case of eye contact, flush with water. This 
   supersedes all previous notices.



Date: Thu, 20 Oct 94 23:56:27 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: A Rush and a Push

  Would you like to read a joke?

> A young lady bought a postage stamp.
> "Must I stick it on myself?" she asked.
> "I should say not," said the clerk. "Stick it on the letter."

  And another:

> Mrs.: Whenever I'm down in the dumps, I get a new hat.
> Mr.: Oh, so that's where you get them!!

  I did my laundry today. It's nice to have a washer and dryer in 
  the basement.

  You know, I still cannot fold sheets. I remember my father 
  getting very angry with me, and insisting that my six-year-old 
  height was no excuse for not being able to fold sheets. At the 
  time, I should have asked him to fold a sheet on his knees. But 
  little girls don't do that. But even now I am not much of a 
  sheet folder.

  Yesterday night I took my neighbor's dog for a walk. Molly is 
  quite middle-aged, but is of such small brain that one could 
  never tell from seeing - but especially walking - her. She 
  approaches every driveway and tries to go up it, seeing if 
  perhaps it is our destination. I am not very good at yanking on 
  leashes, but I learned. Her owners have a high-tech spool on the 
  leash, with a sort of trigger grip, which makes quick jerks on 
  the leash quite impossible.

  Towards the end of our walk we passed two small children with a 
  proud white Standard Poodle. I was so embarrassed. Their dog was 
  a model of domesticity - even without the pom-poms. Mine skipped 
  and hopped all over.

  I rearranged my bookshelves again. I am generating space 
  somehow. (I don't know how, but when I do I will tell you about 
  it.)

  I went out for breakfast, with Jeanne. I asked the waitress 
  about the waffles. "Is it one square?" I asked, forming a square 
  using the thumbs and index fingers of both hands. "Oh no," said 
  the waitress. "It's a waffle, just a waffle." She was skinny and 
  somehow misshapen. Her uniform was meant to suggest the shape of 
  a woman, but in the various tucks and pockets, it was clear 
  there was nothing within. The ceiling of the restaurant was 
  pink, and many people there were dressed in pink as well. When 
  my waffle arrived, it was an extremely generous circle, and 
  quite tasty. I was happy with it, although I generally won't eat 
  breakfast anywhere but home.

  My father always refinishes bookcases thus: he puts wallpaper on 
  the back of the inside; he stains the wood a dark, dark color. 
  He does this always, for every piece he refinishes. I wonder if 
  he papers the insides of desks? The undersides of chairs? I 
  mean, he put this Holly Hobbie wallpaper inside this one 
  bookcase and it will be there forever. And in one picture, one 
  of the girls is doing this strange thing with her toes. That 
  image of toes has always bothered me. And it is behind my books.

  Now I want a snack, and then I think I will go to bed. I think 
  of you with sincere fondness and love.

  So have you taken a Super Ball into my old bedroom and set it 
  loose, while wrapping your arms around your head for protection? 
  Have you prepared yourself for another joke? Well, on my way to 
  get a snack I misplaced my joke book, so I cannot tell you 
  another. Without that book, I am quite humorless.

  I am also very cold. I had intended to write more words to you, 
  as I had last night, but by 12:30 I had expired. And now I must 
  be off again. You deserve so much better than this. I will try. 
  Soon, it will be better.

  Soon, it will all make sense again. Things do always turn out. 
  People much more foolish than you or I have done OK. We must 
  dedicate ourselves to coming out splendidly. I will let you 
  train my dog. I think you might be very good at that...

  I love you terribly! (and also, I love you!)

Dana.

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Fri, 21 Oct 94 11:37:12 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: no doubt it has always been that way...

Dana -

  Watching Reading Rainbow. It's one of those things you do when 
  you're sick.

  Today's show topic is jobs. So they showed us tons of people all 
  perfectly happy with their jobs - i.e., exclamations of "I love 
  this job!" or "I have the best job in the world!" This extends 
  to grocery store check-out clerks, pizza makers, and the woman 
  who makes all the Lego models. There was also a very hot redhead 
  of small build who runs a dog-walking business: she was walking 
  seven dogs at once on the show. So I guess I'm just a another 
  down-and-out "generation nothing," too lazy to do anything.

  They also featured a 15-year-old from the Bronx hawking nail 
  polish to pay for his college education.

  More frivolous verse:

Cats like to leave fur-balls
all over the house:
they get in the toaster
and cling to your blouse.

  Lane loves you, Dana. Even though I'm sick, I still love you.

Lane

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   I was walking on the ground. I didn't make a sound. Then I turned
   around, and I saw a clown. It had a frown. It stood up on a mound. It
   started barking like a hound. Clowny clown clown.



Date: Sun, 23 Oct 94 22:18:52 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: New!

  This morning I rode in the MS bike-a-thon and it was OK, except 
  that it was raining very hard. I got very wet and I rode all the 
  way home that way and it was very heavy and cold. Then I took a 
  bath and invited the cat to come with me into the bathroom. He 
  watched the water and the bubbles and did, at one point, hop in, 
  but then he hopped right back out again.

  After that I went to the Art Institute, because I truly cannot 
  stand my mother. I did not want to spend a single minute near 
  her. But once I was there, I had to keep my fingers in my ears 
  most of the time, because the people there were so loud. I 
  wanted to think and couldn't think; I could barely read with all 
  the racket. Perhaps some people thought I was strange, but I had 
  to chuckle as I was looking at the extensive collection of 
  ceramic pillows from China... so very many of them had pictures 
  of a duck or a goose on them, or sculpted on them, and I was 
  musing about the discomfort of a ceramic pillow as opposed to a 
  feather-down one. It seems that something was lost in the 
  transfer of the pillow idea.

  The cat just crept onto the bed, said softly "New!," and then 
  ran away as fast as he could. What was he thinking? The cat 
  likes to make noise. He will sing while eating or drinking, or 
  yawning, just to make different sounds than the usual 
  disastrously high-pitched noo, new, or naa that he usually 
  produces.

  Lane, I am very lonely. I have no one to think thoughts with and 
  no one to tell the thoughts I think. I want to make all sorts of 
  things but I lack the time and the materials. In short, I am 
  going through a phase of frustration. I have accepted many 
  responsibilities at my old church, under the assumption I would 
  have assistance in getting these things done, but no one is ever 
  around to help me. On the weekends I am often without 
  transportation, so I am stranded here in this house where my 
  mother lives. During the week I am working. So I cannot move the 
  furniture I promised to collect, I cannot meet with the other 
  kids to plan outings. So I look like a lazy idiot, when in 
  reality I am working so hard and getting nothing.

  I conveniently lost my credit card and my cash card so I don't 
  need to worry about spending money right now, although I do 
  still have checks. I wonder what I did with these cards? I 
  wonder if someone else has them now? Oh well, at least I am not 
  spending. That is all. I'm gonna go now. I have to run some 
  errands in the night. Be careful, be good, be mice. No, don't be 
  mice. Chester would harass you then.

  Much Love,

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Tue, 25 Oct 94 15:25:40 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: du kannst, denn du sollst...

  So I think of famous personages I should model my life after. 
  And although Ralph Waldo Emerson and Gandhi come to mind, I can 
  never think of a personality more worthy of my emulation and 
  respect than Chilly Willy the Penguin. You've got to admit, 
  Chilly Willy's really got it together. He's got his priorities 
  straight. He's cold, 'cuz he lives in the Antarctic, so one of 
  his goals is To Be In A Warm Place. He's hungry, because most 
  things are frozen in the Antarctic, and he can't afford any 
  Swanson Hungry Man frozen dinners, so his other primary 
  objective is To Eat Good Food. And in these two objectives, with 
  his endearing stubbornness, he usually succeeds. "More 
  pancakes?" "Uh-huh." "More butter?" "Uh-huh." "More syrup?" 
  "Uh-huh."

  The best part is, Chilly Willy is a proto-revolutionary Marxist 
  if I've ever seen one (and I wonder if I ever have). He 
  regularly questions the capitalist ideologies of "private 
  property", of Law, and the State in order to realize his Needs, 
  determined by the Nature of his Existence, all with a 
  zealousness which can only be described as, well, revolutionary. 
  Marxist without Manifesto. Chilly Willy the Penguin.

Lane

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   "Voyez-vous cet oeuf. C'est avec cela qu'on renverse toutes les 
   ecoles de theologie, et tous les temples de la terre."



Date: Wed, 26 Oct 94 06:37:28 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: No Subject

Lane,

  No message. Just wrote because you love getting mail so.

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>

Ceci n'est pas une .sig file.



Date: Thu, 27 Oct 94 22:03:39 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
Subject: H is for Hedgehog

My dearest Lane,

  Yesterday I went to the zoo. I saw a hedgehog there. It was a 
  bit larger than a billiard ball. A woman was holding it in her 
  gloved hand. It was in this billiard ball form. I asked her if I 
  could see the rest of it. She turned the hedgehog over and it 
  looked about the same on the other side, except that there was a 
  slot in it. Occasionally this quaking ball of thorns would heave 
  and make a loud Piff! sound. Surely a death by terror wherever 
  it lies. Hedgehog.

  I really wish I could introduce them to some nearby hedges. I'd 
  love to see them wobbling around.

  I later saw the deadly Echidna, which is like a hedgehog, only 
  different. It flattens to a spiky mat and half-buries itself. A 
  living landmine in the New Guinea forest floor. Just looking at 
  one makes you think of pain. I have never seen one whole. Just 
  its exposed deadly spines, rippling with Echidna life.

  This morning on the bus I thought about the world's largest 
  flower. This flower is huge and orange and sits on the forest 
  floor upon a mat of its scaly leaves. I suppose this flower is 
  pollinated by bears which step on the flower as they walk about, 
  and carry the blossom-pollen on their paws from flower to 
  flower, never realizing their vital place on the ecological 
  chain.

  Spectacled bears live there, in the vanishing rainforest. They 
  are the ones who pollinate the giant Rafflia flower.

  I feel excessively cheery. I feel overstimulated. The detergent 
  I put in the dishwasher this morning looked like applesauce, and 
  this thrilled me. The dew on the lawn was exciting, as were the 
  three elderly Russians who shared the bus stop with me, the 
  boldest of which asked me two-oh-nine, yet? And I said no, not 
  yet. And then the three chattered away, and read newspapers 
  printed in Cyrillic.

  Yesterday I also went to American Science & Surplus, where all 
  of the drinking birds are somewhat deformed. I saw a perfect 
  glass dome for planting experiments - but it was made of red 
  glass. Everything there is rather cheap, but since I have gotten 
  old and sensible, I have little use for the wild toys and nice 
  scientific glassware.

  I am truly distraught, despite my maddeningly sunny disposition.

  I need sanctuary.

  I need a reliable, dependable world.

  I need to be alone.

  I still love you. Be careful, be good, be nice.

Dana

~~ Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>



Date: Fri, 28 Oct 94 23:14:10 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: D is for Dana

> I need to be alone.

  And yet, you write me this.

  I saw Breakfast at Tiffany's just recently. In Breakfast at 
  Tiffany's, the writer goes to the New York Public Library with 
  Holly, and looks up his book. He's supported by an older, 
  married woman, who gives him an apartment and a closet full of 
  suits. In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly's cat has no name. In 
  Breakfast at Tiffany's, the writer gets to tell the story at the 
  end. Even in Sunset Blvd., the writer gets to tell the story at 
  the end, even though he's dead, from his own story.

  In Breakfast at Tiffany's, when the writer tells the woman he 
  loves her, she runs away. Isn't it just like a woman?

  In Breakfast at Tiffany's, the writer gets published in The New 
  Yorker. He gets published in The New Yorker, because he can tell 
  the story of how the woman left him.

  In the end, of course, the writer gets the girl, after all. 
  That's 'cause he's the writer.

  My love.

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   What system had proved more effective?
     Indirect suggestion implicating self-interest.
   Example?
     She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella,
     she disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat,
     he bought new hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat.



Date: Fri, 28 Oct 94 23:16:42 CDT
---------------------------------
From: MAILER-DAEMON@sobriquet.com
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
cc: Postmaster@sobriquet.com
Subject: Undeliverable mail

Your message was not delivered to the following recipients:
   dsilverman: User unknown



Date: Sat, 29 Oct 94 08:13:52 CDT
---------------------------------
From: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
To: Dana Silverman <dsilverman@sobriquet.com>
Subject: Re: D is for Dana

Dana?

___________________________________
Lane Coutell  lane@pandemonium.com

   Just then Grandfather Stupid stopped by.
   "Welcome to heaven," said Mr. Stupid.
   "This isn't heaven," said Grandfather.
   "This is Cleveland."



Date: Sat, 29 Oct 94 08:15:21 CDT
---------------------------------
From: MAILER-DAEMON@sobriquet.com
To: Lane Coutell <lane@pandemonium.com>
cc: Postmaster@sobriquet.com
Subject: Undeliverable mail

Your message was not delivered to the following recipients:
   dsilverman: User unknown
   

  Writer's Note
---------------

  "Two Solitudes" originally appeared as a series of e-mail 
  messages sent between the two participants, with carbon copies 
  sent to the piece's audience. I'm now looking for a co-author to 
  collaborate on another e-mail romance which will address the 
  feedback I've received from readers of "Two Solitudes." Write me 
  if you're interested.

  Thanks to Mark Nevins, Jeff Curtis, Tim Connors, and Eric 
  Tilton. Special thanks to Jim Miner, Matthias Neeracher, Scott 
  Custer, and Melissa Pauna.


  Carl Steadman (carl@cdtl.umn.edu)
-----------------------------------

  Carl Steadman is an associate editor for CTHEORY 
  (http://english-server.hss.cmu.edu/ctheory/ctheory.html), and 
  works for the University of Minnesota's Center for the 
  Development of Technological Leadership, in Minneapolis.


  FYI
=====

...................................................................
    InterText's next issue will be released March 15, 1995.
...................................................................


  Clarion West Writers Workshop
-------------------------------
  June 18 - July 28, 1995

  Clarion West is an intensive six-week workshop that teaches 
  professional skills to serious science fiction and fantasy 
  writers. It is held annually at Seattle Central Community 
  College in Seattle, Washington. This year's instructors are:

>    Howard Waldrop               Joan Vinge
>    John Crowley	              Bruce McAllister
>    Gardner Dozois	              Katharine Dunn

  Application deadline is April 1, 1995; workshop tuition is 
  $1,100. Dorm housing, college credit, and limited financial aid 
  are available. For more information and application materials, 
  please contact: Clarion West, 340 15th Avenue East, Suite 350, 
  Seattle, Washington 98122, telephone 206-322-9083, or e-mail 
  Anita Rowland at anitar@halcyon.com.

  Clarion West is a non-profit literary organization that is 
  committed to equal opportunity.


  Back Issues of InterText
--------------------------

  Back issues of InterText can be found via anonymous FTP at:

> ftp://ftp.etext.org/pub/Zines/InterText/

  and

> ftp://network.ucsd.edu/intertext/

  You may request back issues from us directly, but we must handle
  such requests manually, a time-consuming process.

  On the World-Wide Web, point your WWW browser to:
> http://www.etext.org/Zines/InterText/

  If you have CompuServe, you can read InterText in the Electronic
  Frontier Foundation Forum, accessible by typing GO EFFSIG. We're
  located in the "Zines from the Net" section of the EFFSIG forum.
  CompuServe users can also access our issues via FTP (see above)
  on Compuserve at GO FTP.

  On America Online, issues are available in Keyword: PDA, in
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  Gopher Users: find our issues at
> gopher.etext.org in /pub/Zines/InterText


  Submissions to InterText
--------------------------

  InterText's stories are made up _entirely_ of electronic 
  submissions. If you would like to submit a story, send e-mail to 
  intertext@etext.org with the word "guidelines in the title." 
  You'll be sent a copy of our writers guidelines.

....................................................................

  I once saw Elvis driving a pickup in Ohio. No, really.

..

  This issue is wrapped as a setext. For more information send 
  email with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the Subject: 
  line to <fileserver@tidbits.com>, or contact the InterText staff 
  directly.