Well, I got TWO, count 'em TWO, responses in less than an hour.
Wow. @.@
So, here's another small teaser from "In Dangerous Ground" for you
to enjoy.
Ed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>From eabecerr@henge1.henge.com Sat Jul 5 13:40:58 1997
Date: Thu, 3 Jul 1997 16:39:09 -0600 (MDT)
From: Edward Becerra <eabecerr@henge1.henge.com>
To: Kergma <kergma@humbug.org.au>, Nightelf <nwl9354@tam2000.tamu.edu>,
Thomas R Jefferys <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>,
Bert Van Vliet <skyknght@sentex.net>, Pearson Mui <pmui@jurai.net>,
Thomas R Jefferys <wyrm@mail.utexas.edu>,
Hitomi Ichinohei <hitomi@one.autobahn.mb.ca>,
Aaron/Kendra <astolz@direct.ca>, Josh Holmstrom <asmodean@infinex.com>,
Darren Steffler <twister@tendo-dojo.ranma.net>,
Barry Cadwgan <bcadwgan@fl.net.au>, John Collins <johnc@sv.net.au>,
rik@cfanet.com, tim.oleary@pei.sympatico.ca, mike@thekeep.com,
jhedge@compuserve.com
Subject: Rewritten scene. hope you like it.
Hi, folks. Some of you know, and some don't, that my mother
recently found out that I'd given up writing in order to take care of her.
Funny.. a woman who can hardly get out of bed, whose's lost nearly
40 pounds due to the terminal cancer aflicting her, and she still manages
to terrify me. She found out from someone on the list (i don't know who)
that I'd given up writing, and she let me know _exactly_ what she thought
of my decision. She may be dying, but she's a Marine to the very end. A
credit to the Corp.
After metaphorically kicking my ass, she sent me back to trying to
write for at least one hour a day. Part of the scene below is the result
of that.
Another part of it is the result of long (and in some cases quite
_loud_) discussions with Kergma and Bert Van Vliet. On the phone, in
Bert's case, and on KawaiiMUCK with Kergma. They'd each seen the first
draft of this, and raised certain philosophical points that they thought I
needed to address.
(And _yes_, Kergma, I admit freely to being a meddler. <grin>)
So, the original scene grew from about 7 kbytes to 14 kbytes,
roughly. Any ideas, disagreements, and yes, even flames are welcome as
they give me much needed ideas at a time when my writing has become rather
difficult, for obvious reasons. <irony_on> My mom is dying, and I can't
concentrate on my writing.. wow what a surprise. <irony_off>
Anyway, I hope you'll all comment, correct, advise, and anything
else you can think of.
Fortune bless you all.
Ed.
"Dreamers may die, but the dream is eternal..."
Ryouga was right. It is dark out there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He gently tapped at the door to Sylia's office. "Sylia, may I speak with
you in private? There is something I'd like to discuss with you."
"Come in."
He took a seat across from her desk. "I saw the recordings that the
newsies shot the other day."
Sylia looked at him steadily. "You have something to say?"
"Sylia.. you're going to lose the war with Genom. Even with the advantage
that Twister's cave gives you, and the ability to teleport to and from it,
you're still going to lose. You're probably one of the greatest minds on
this planet but, to quote someone else, 'Genom's combination of technical
competence combined with an ant-like persistence and lavish resources' is
going to bury you sooner or later. They may not have access to minds _quite_
as bright as yours, but you have limits. They don't. In short, they can
afford to throw money and people at a problem to make it go away. You
can't." He sighed. "Those upgraded C class boomers that are coming out with
the new year's models are easily the equal of a K-12 Armored Trooper, and
they're slowly but surely aproaching the capabilities of your first
generation suits." He paused for a long moment.
"I'd like to redress that imbalance. I want to _try_ to make you Genom's
equal."
She gave him a sharp glance. "And how do you intend to do that?"
Ed slowly reached into a pocket. "You already have a small corporate
holding, but you can't keep siphoning money from it indefinitely." He laid a
small disk on the desktop, and stacked two more atop it. "Here, I hope, is a
partial answer."
Sylia looked down at the disks and touched them with a finger. "What are
they?"
"Research, Sylia. The accumulated research of thousands of earths,
millions of realities." He gently tapped the disks himself. "I had Minerva
determine _exactly_ what the laws of physics in _this_ reality would and
wouldn't permit. Then I had her go through all her databanks, on-line,
off-line, and dead storage, looking for technology that would work with the
laws of nature in this universe. Then I had her screen it for your use.
You're looking at just the start of what she's gathered together."
He looked at her steadily. "If you're not proud, Sylia, then this _might_
be the edge you need. I'm _not_ going to tell you how you should build your
suits, nor am I going to attempt to dictate your design philosophy. What I
am going to do is offer you this information, to be used as you see fit."
Sylia glanced at the disks, and looked back up at him. "There is more."
He nodded. "Money. You need it, and you need it both aboveground and
below. Physical assaults on Genom can only go so far, unless you want to do
what I tried and destroy them with a full frontal attack, and damn the
casualties." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Do you remember what I said
to you after you gave me that paper with the locations of the beam-sats?"
"As I recall, you said 'it's a damned good thing you're one of the good
guys. If you were sitting in Quincy's office, say, with all the resources of
Genom behind you...'"
"Uh-huh." He raised an eyebrow. "You're good. That was an exact quote, I
think. Anyway, Quincy is just the CEO of Genom and chairman of the board.
Even he has to answer to the shareholders. Although I must admit that the
minority shareholders are likely too frightened of him to stand up to him."
"You're suggesting a financial attack of some sort. I simply do not have
the resources to mount such an.."
"You don't, _yet_. Money for the Sabers directly? That's not a problem. I
can flood the entire island of Japan with gold til it's waist deep, if need
be. That would take care of some of your underground dealings. Clean money
for clean deals? Well.. I may have solved that problem. I'm not certain,
though. I'll need Linna's help."
"Why Linna?"
Ed's face grew somber. "Sylia, like it or not, the ecosphere on this
planet is dying. It's almost dead. If the ecosystem doesn't get some major
assistance, and soon, your quarrel with Genom will become a moot issue.
You'll _all_ be dead." He pulled out a fourth disk. "This is from a world
where biotechnology on a macro scale replaced standard, inorganic
technology. For example.. imagine a mangrove swamp where the mangrove trees
have been not just altered, but _re-designed_ from the DNA up to safely
filter heavy metals and toxic inorganics from the water. Mangroves that then
_store_ those toxins in a form that is easily and safely harvestable, and
can be handled with impunity."
Sylia's eyebrows went up sharply. "That is possible?"
He nodded again. "I can't save this planet single-handedly, no one can..
but if these bio-engineered lifeforms are given to the proper people, this
world can be cleaned up, _and_ Genom can be financially cut down to size."
"And those proper people are?"
Ed winced. "That's why I need _your_ approval and Linna's help."
Sylia put the clues together, and her face went unreadable. "The Hou
Bang."
He avoided her eyes. "The Chang Conglomerate may merely be the front for
a 21st century tong, but they're nowhere near to being as ruthless and as
dangerous as Genom. And Reika owes Linna and the rest of the Sabers a debt
of blood and honor." He chewed on his mustache for a brief moment. "And,
perhaps almost as important, Genom killed Irene. There is no way, in this
life or the next, that Reika is going to let that go unavenged."
The room went very quiet for a moment. Finally, Sylia spoke. "I.. can
empathize with that. And I believe I understand what you are planning. A..
corporate understanding with the Hou Bang."
"Not with the the Hou Bang as a whole. Merely with Reika and, perhaps
almost as important, with Mr. Chang. And here is why. Mackie has been to
college. I think it's high time the boy gets a job. As an inventer on
retainer to the Chang Conglomerate. If you're willing to go along with it, I
have a strong suspicion that Mackie is about to become the next Thomas
Edison."
That made Sylia smile. "A front man, for the technology contained in
these disks."
"Well, some of it, anyway. That portion of it that Minerva carefully
selected as being both likely to make a profit, and difficult for Genom to
pervert into new weaponry. There are a great many more disks actually." His
brow furrowed. "You can't do it, you've spent too much time developing your
facade as a businesswoman who is totally un-interested in Genom. People
would be understandably suspicious if you suddenly blossomed into a famous
scientist. Mackie, though? He can do it. People aren't surprised when the
young do something like that. It's expected of the young and reasonably
bright."
"And the Chang Conglomerate would, of course, pay him royalties for `his'
inventions. Royalties from their profits; profits that would come,
eventually, out of Genom's corporate pockets. Reika would make certain of
that." A faint smile appeared on her face. "I can't say that the idea
doesn't have some appeal. Although I suspect Mackie would get quite the
swelled head from the resulting publicity."
"And through Reika and Mackie, you would have limited access to Chang
Conglomerate corporate assets. Publicly, this would serve to explain away
the money. You could also _invest_ in the Chang holdings, obscuring the
money trail even further, allowing you to move more money from your official
holdings to finance the Sabers. Privately, those assets, carefully used,
along with the technical data I'd like to provide, would allow the Sabers to
reach the cutting edge of _next_ generation technology, and stay there."
"An interesting idea. How did you come up with it?"
Ed blushed fiercely and mumbled something under his breath.
"What was that?"
"... I said I stole it."
She looked at him for a long moment, astonishment written on her face.
"You _stole_ it?" Then she began to laugh softly.
He let out a long, embarrassed sigh. "I was a fan fiction author before
all this happened to me, remember? I stole it. From a fellow author named
Charles `Chaz' Stitman." He looked at the walls, the floor, the ceiling,
anywhere but at Sylia. "You're familiar with the possibilities inherent in
transfictional interface?"
Sylia controlled her laughter, and nodded.
"Well, Chaz wrote a story where his avatar was sucked into a universe
where you and the Sabers existed. But he was dumped, unconscious, right in
Quincy's office. Quincy and Madagan saw him appear right out of thin air."
That got her attention, and her nostrils flared.
"Yeah. They didn't believe his story when he recovered and decided to try
out a little something they'd stolen from that world's Dr. Stingray, using
him as the guinea pig. Something I think you may be familiar with."
"And that is?"
"Two words. Mason. Largo."
Sylia let out a growl that he would have sworn was impossible for such an
elegant woman to make. The sort of growl that makes a person want to check
to see if they still have the same number of limbs that they started the
morning with. "My father's neuro-phages. They turned him into a full
boomer."
He nodded. "In Chaz's case, his mind was moved into a heavily modified
33-S. As a result, he was able to prevent Irene's death, since the
modification made him tougher than anything short of a 55-C in full combat
mode."
"And of course, Irene's rescue predisposed her to feel indebted towards
her rescuer who, I assume, immediately applied to become a Knight Saber?"
Sylia's smile returned as her guest fell out of his chair laughing. "I
see you're familiar with the otaku phenomenon," he gasped between laughs.
"Although he didn't apply _immediately_. It took a whole day before he
asked."
"Indeed. Perhaps I _should_ take you up on your offer, and make a copy of
this fiction archive you've spoken of before," she said. "I suspect that
while some of the stories might prove disturbing, the information they
contain will likely be quite helpful."
Ed frowned at that, as he reclaimed his chair. "True, Sylia - but please
remember, very _few_ of them turn out pleasantly. Most are quite dark. I can
recall quite a few off hand that end with the total defeat of the Sabers, or
their deaths." He winced slightly. "And there were a very few that ended
with the total destruction of the human race at the hands of the boomers."
She looked at him closely. "The Aqua City event?"
"That, and a few others. Not to disparage your father's work, but the
current line of boomer AI's, with the possible exceptions of the 33-S series
and the ADAMA brain your father created, are dangerously unstable. And
Genom's research along those lines is failing miserably. They can make more
lethal boomers with ease. Boomers that are more sane?" He shook his head.
"Only your father could do that."
"Minerva very likely could," she returned.
Ed looked surprised at that. "I suppose she could. But _should_ she?"
"What do you mean by that?"
His brows came together tightly. "Sylia, there are.. were?.. many of the
friends I knew from home who would consider what I've already done in this
world to be interference. And what I've just proposed to you, they'd term
outright _meddling_."
"And your point is?" she asked.
He looked confused, and his speech slowed, as if he were carefully
weighing the value of each word. "Sylia, Darlene said something you never
heard, because she said it privately. I only know about it from reading
Twister's story. I think it applies." He waved a hand at the office around
them. "To paraphrase - This isn't some fantasy universe. This is a real
world with _real_ people and the Boomers are killing them." He shook his
head. "This isn't an anime anymore. I have to help where I can. But how much
help is TOO much help? Where do I stop? When does legitimate help become
dangerous interference?"
Sylia took a moment before responding. "The so-called Prime Directive.
That's what's bothering you." She caught his surprised look and nodded.
"There was a 'Star Trek' in this universe too. I brushed up on the show when
several of the ADPolice reports Nene intercepted concerning the Mystery
Vigilante mentioned that his method of disappearing resembled something out
of the classic television show."
Ed rolled his eyes melodramatically. "A Trekkie in the ADPolice. Who'd
have thought it?"
She quirked an amused eyebrow at him. "Whatever. But in answer to your
obviously confused emotions, I'd like to point out something _you_ just
said. Namely, that this planet is _dying_. If we want to live, heroic
measures must be taken. If the technology you provide and the 'meddling' you
undertake causes disruptions in our society, so be it. As you pointed out,
unless _someone_ offers a better solution, we're all going to be a little
too _dead_ to worry about how our society has been disturbed."
He sat there quietly, as motionless as any marble statue. The totally
self-absorbed expression on his face was familar to Sylia. She'd seen it
often enough in the mirror. "'A rational transaction. One life for
billions.' That's what Zarkov said, years ago. But all he was sacrificing
was his own life." He closed his eyes painfully. "Gods, I hate that choice.
I hate _needing_ to make that choice. Why _me_?" He took a deep breath and
looked at Sylia squarely. "But I can't dodge it, can I?"
She shook her head. "No. But your friends can help you to live with the
consequences of your choices."
He glared at the disks resting on her desk for a long, timeless moment;
his eyes filled with a helpless rage at fate's path. Then he reached over
and gently pushed them in her direction.
"With your permission then, dear lady... Let's do it."