From: JENKINS@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Joy and the Art of Motorcycle Mainteance
Summary: Part 27
Keywords: Joy, Ellis, Dreams
Organization: Ohio State Cyberpsycho Rehab Clinic
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 04:17:20 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

Well, folks, this is the second to the last "Joy and the Art ...".  I almost
loathe to end this Joy story, but no story can go on forever.  Not life, not
Earth, and definately not a troubled woman named J.J. Faust.

I'd especially like comentary from this one, though, as there are some things
in here which, while not exactly true-to-form for a Cyberpunk-style story, are
different and thoughtful.  What else is Cyberpunk but viewing human nature in
the face of inhumanity?  We come closer to know and understand what it means to
be Alien, so we are that much closer to understanding ourselves.

Replies are wanted.  And on with the show.

===

Joy and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
[Part 27]
...

Wasp nodded gravely.  "You need to get out of here, J.J.  Get away
from New York, away from Ghost.  This apartment is a trap and you've
been played a pawn.  Rednix was after your pendant, J.J., but he was
also after /you/."

"And Ghost ...."

There was a scruffing noise in the hallway, a quiet muttering of
voices echoing off the concrete to the door.  Vit heard maybe three of
them.

"Yes!" Wasp said urgently, still watching J.J. with dire intent.  It
then became far too clear to Vit that Wasp, too, wanted something from
J.J.

"I ... I promised to look for a boy's father.  He's missing."

Wasp grinned, sitting back.  "What's the man's name?  I can find him
in a week."

"We have company," Vit interrupted, pulling out his gun.  "Outside. 
Three.  It's an ambush."  He stepped to one side of the doorway and
looked at Wasp who was holding his shoulder and shaking his head. 
"Give me the large gun, then."

Wasp tossed the heavy gun, it must have been at least fourty-nine
caliber, and settled back to again hold his shoulder.  J.J. was
handing him a scrap of paper with the door fell inward.

Gunfire scattered through the apartment, above everyone's heads.  The
last Vit saw of J.J. and Wasp was the young American pulling her
behind the couch.

He faced the doorway with the gun outstretched and saw not three but
four men there.  Three were carrying machineguns, the fourth in a suit
and tie.  He fired at the first one he could see, the spattering of
blood blurred by the jarring kick of the weapon.

The other two gunmen advanced, swiping at him with the weapon butts
and scoring hits to drive him back.  He shot one in the leg and was
hit soundly on the side of the head.  His world blurred and he fell.

In the confused, fuzzed pattern of sight and sound, automatic gunfire
was accompanied by the sound of breaking glass, almost pleasant to
Vit.  Voices called out all around him and eventually, the German
passed out.

:::

The apartment was silent and Ellis MacGannan watched a blond executive
escort Faust from the room.  Vitrov had dropped from sight and not
returned.  She was pretty sure he wasn't dead but the thought was
always there.  Theirs was a dangerous profession.

"Of all the completely wretched things to do."  Ellis pulled out the
pins and twisted sections of her Ares MT-20.  "No-good German bastard. 
You better be alive when I get there, blinkin' kraut."  Her rifle
folded easily into a carryable case.  "You owe me twenty rounds."

There was a young man in the apartment with Vit, though Ellis doubted
he lived.  The exec shot him close in the chest after dealing an
efficient blow to Faust from behind. It wasn't quite game, but the
exec carried an unconscious Faust, his loot, easily from the room.

Ellis thought it odd that Vit was working with someone, let alone
someone so young.  "Maybe you've gone soft on us after all," she
murmured to herself.  "O'course, letting bounty live isn't much your
game either.  What are you up to, Vitrov?"  Assuming, of course, he
was still alive.

She adjusted her goggles, increasing the magnification slightly.  The
young man was still bleeding.  No telling where the exec took Faust.
She didn't like waiting like this and knew that, before long, the
police would be along to have a look-see.

Ellis growled at herself.  "You owe me, Vit.  No chance in lettin' it
go unpaied, this time."  She knew she was going to regret saving him
and his friend.  "But hell," she told herself, "dues are dues."
...

It was color then dark, a vague kind of dark that misted around the
fringes with uncertainty or life.  A grandmotherly-type in a rocking
chair was surrounded by the mist, leaning forward with strong-willed
intent.  "Remember, Joy, you ..."

The vision changed into a little boy, wide-eyed with terror and awe,
in a forest park long after closing.  He asked, "Are you a ghost?"

A pale-blond executive, in a hazy bar, the mirror behind him showing
secrets older than memory.  "You dance very nicely."  A song.  "Sing
me black and blue, my love."  A demon.  "Beautiful."  A circle of
robed men, the sweet smell of blood.  "Dance for us."  The song,
again.  Still, the smell of blood.  "Oh, sing me black and blue."
A crazed man, escorted by the police.  "It's coming back!  It's almost
here!"

The boy, again.  A simple question.  "Are you an angel?"

The darkness spoke.  "You're in serious trouble."

It was all so familiar, so close to being known and understood.  These
people, these memories were so clear yet just beyond a shroud of
comrehension with no instruction how to join them.

"Julianne Josephine Armand Faust."

Faust!  Yes, Faust.  That was her name.  She grabbed hold of the
reality through the flood of phrases, faces and smells, the disjointed
memories that were all her own.  But something about it wasn't
complete.  It wasn't her /name/, but something that she had always
been called.

There was a nameless old woman sitting back in a chair, smoking
something unsavory in front of a huge glass picture window.  Through
the window there was only a chaos of gray turmoil.  It was ugly, but
the woman had a hint of beauty about her, as if she had once been
strong and wise which had faded away.

"The unicorns and the vampires, are very much the same.  They love
what is innocent and unspoiled.  But in his love, young Joy, the
vampire takes the innocence away.   The unicorn returns it anew."

Once she was Joy, once long ago for her Grandmother, when she was
alive and Germany was becoming whole again.  She was so innocent then,
rejoycing for the world as it made efforts to become whole. 
Grandmother called her Joy.

But like the nameless woman in her memories, she had changed.  She was
no longer the cheerful child who dreamed of unicorns and gemstones. 
She had killed many, all for the sake of a pendant she had.  She
killed to end her own jelousy, hating the necklaces they wore and
fearing they were more beautiful and wanted than her own.

"Don't let your past get the better of you."

Suz.  Susan from ... where was she from?  She was like Grandmother,
though Joy hardly knew Suz.  Suz tried to warn her, to protect her.

"One of us gotta be innocent when the unicorn comes."
		
She had tried to refresh her lost strength with Joy, to warn her.  Suz
had tried to warn Joy!  Joy didn't understand then.

A dam broke and the flood of thoughts returned.

Once again Joy saw the madman, being carried forcefully into an
awaiting police van.  He was screaming, coated in the blood of
something or someone else, "It's coming!  It's almost here!"  His
voice drowned out into steamy music, guitar and drums, a voice even
louder calling out, "Quiet madness, sane as time."  It was all dark,
all chaos, like the gray outside Suz's office window.  But in a
moment, Joy could see the sparks of light.  There was light, there was
more than just gray.  A young child, lost in the maelstrom, asking for
her help.  "Will you save my father?"

The Unicorn and the Vampire.  They were all around her, they had been
calling to her in need.  Her innocence had cost her much, the lives of
many and her own freedom.  The Vampire was not a creature, but an
attitude that destroyed her, a man named Ghost, a pendant that
controlled her personality, a drug, a knife ...

The Unicorn was in those things she loved and made her stronger.  A
child named Gary Kinman, Suz, Grandmother, her dancing ...

But the woman who was once Joy and once J.J. Faust knew that dancing
was a thing of her own, her testament to herself.  She had changed and
became a dancer, not dancing to feed her innocence to a soul-sucking
Vampire or a Unicorn, but to something much more basic.

Joy danced for herself.  Joy danced for the world.  Joy danced for God.
...

[Copyright (c) 1992-3 by Kent Jenkins - The Beginning of the End is Nigh.]


---
Kent Jenkins	|	I don't want the world,
("Thenomain")	|	I just want your half.
		|
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