Greetings all,

This is just a little something I came up with for one of my summer
classes...Thought I'd run it through the 'ol grinder before exposing it
to my classmates...;)

Also thought that I'd put my money (Or my kilobytes, as it were) where
my mouth was an produce something original...

It's all copyright 1999.

C&C is welcome, though I already know some of it...
Flames, as always, will be filed in the round folder...

***

Zeroing In On the Edges of Midnight
By
Joshua Trujillo

And she danced.

Kanmi Odorikonoshi spun and twirled on the stage. The men 
around her drooled and begged for her affections. They desperately 
hit the little credit buttons in front of them to get her attention. Her 
body obeyed as it was programmed to do, but her mind was her 
own.

This way and that she twisted, her limbs sparkling lovingly in the 
wane light of the stage. Kanmi turned her hands up and pirouetted 
slightly, letting her blonde hair fall suggestively across her 
shoulder. She smiled coyly as the little credit pens fell on their 
buttons once more.

As she danced, more of her kimono fell away. It revealed the 
length of her thigh, the lightness of her the skin at her neck. It was 
the perfection of it that her customers wanted. The youth that these 
old perverts strived to attain in themselves.

And she danced.

Her smile never faltered even as a pen was thrown at her from the 
back of the room. She caught it in one fluid motion and made a 
suggestive play with the end of the pen. She let a brief laugh 
escape in the irony of it. The credit button on her palette sucked 
credits even faster that she could. With a slight grin and a twirl of 
her leg, she deftly tossed the empty pen back from where it had 
come.

And she danced.

Kanmi's mind wandered, as it was wont to happen when she was 
bored on the job. She knew the motions and that coy little smile 
that all the men wanted. Those never left her. Her attention, 
however, was prone to take a hiatus in the meantime. She thought 
of home. Not the sterile apartment she was forced to live in by the 
corporation, but her real home. When she was real.

She thought of the small ranch in the country that her parents had 
owned. How the alfalfa used to smell in the summer. How the trees 
would green through the spring and carry their foliage through the 
summer, changing to the golden twilight of fall. Even the winters 
held a fascination, with its crisp cleanness and the change to the 
New Year.

She had loved that farm. One problem. She wasn't a farmer. Her 
parents had sent her off to be educated so she wouldn't have to be a 
farmer, as they had known the road that it led nowadays. Kanmi, 
like most petulant children, went against their wishes. She secretly 
rebelled, taking agriculture and business classes. She filled her 
skull with all that she thought she'd need. And she'd been making a 
tidy profit...until the accident.

And she danced.

There was a young businessman sitting near the front row. It 
seemed to be something of an initiation of the younger set to see 
Kanmi for the first time. She'd play along. It always got more 
credits out of them if she did. Kanmi paused at this part of her 
dance as the stage lowered to handier levels. She seated herself 
nearest the young man and beckoned him over to her.

His friends and the elder mentors urged him on and he approached 
Kanmi, cautiously. As if she would bite him, or from the blush that 
was rising in his face, something equally embarrassing. Kanmi's 
kimono had been steadily becoming more and more loose on her 
perfect frame and was now little more than teasing curtain on the 
window front mannequin. She handed one end of the sash that still 
held her kimono together to the young man.

As he held on, she twirled and danced seductively around him, 
letting the broad purple sash twirl itself about him. In an ending 
flourish, Kanmi slid backwards onto the stage and danced her 
dance for the young man.

And she danced.

The accident had taken her life. Well, the life she knew. This 
smiling young man reminded Kanmi so much of her poor husband. 
Her poor, sweet, beautiful husband who had taken his own life in 
grief. Unfortunately, they both still owed much and had therefore 
been "saved" by the corporation.

He was now a central processor for one of the corporation's 
subsidiaries, maybe even the one for which this young man 
worked. Kanmi finished her private dance and continued towards 
the crowd at large.

Kanmi would someday have a choice. Die or continue with life in 
a lower grade body. She didn't like the prospects of either, but even 
a lower grade of Hell at least permitted her freedom. Perhaps she'd 
even keep this body and ply her new trade on the luxury ships that 
cruised the starways.

Runs to the summer estates that lined most of the inner moons of 
Saturn. To the mining colonies of Jupiter, or even the long distance 
jaunts to the Magellanics. Only the superrich rode those stars. One 
run out there could probably pay for the body. Two or three and 
she'd be set forever.

And she danced.

Yes. Her dreams were her own and no one was taking them from 
her. Her old dreams were gone, just as her old life was gone. These 
would be the new dreams. Her new dreams. That was the 
brightness ahead of her. Those were the shining moments that held 
her aloft while she was awake. And the dreams the glided through 
her when she was asleep. Yes...dreams.

And she danced.

Kanmi sighed inwardly. Her dreams were still far off. She realized 
this, but they kept her going anyway. And some day, she would 
arise like the phoenix from the dying flames of the parent. Until 
then, however, there was nothing for her to do.

But to dance.


Joshua "Gargoyle" Trujillo
"Stone Cold Protector of the Righteous"
"Owner of The Anime Bar and Grille - The Best Ribs in the Multiverse"

Come on down!
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