From: rowanf@crc.ricoh.com (Rowan Fairgrove)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Danger Rm Run
Date: 11 Jan 93 17:43:47 GMT
Reply-To: rowanf@crc.ricoh.com (Rowan Fairgrove)
Organization: RICOH California Research Center

Here is Part Four of Tinker's adventure:

 As Tinker reached the turnoff for the ring road around the Sprawl, she 
reassessed her plans.  Back at MegaChukan Center when she had gotten the 
assignment, she had mapped out a course for herself through the enclaves of the 
Japanese Tzecks and across into the territory of the Brazilian Tzecks.  She had 
some friends in Nuovo Brasilia and hoped to be allowed to use some of their back 
trails once she got down into the sprawl proper.  It was always politic to go 
through the proper channels and get the passage veves before trying to go through 
the territory of another group.  Therefore she was heading toward the southern 
end of Lake Washington.  The feel of the run was very worrisome, however, and 
she turned the hog north toward her own home district of New Dalriada where 
many of her Celtic Nationalists had come in 2008 after the tactical nuclear 
explosion in Glasgow when the IRA and some of the proponents of Scottish 
independence were trying to make a bomb to use on the Sassanach.  It felt 
important to talk to her grandmother and leave some items for her daughter 
Fionvola in case she lost it on this one.  A little judicious use of the Clan 
computers would also prove useful.  She had access there that she could get 
nowhere else.

Tinker was beginning to get below the altitude where the private guards of the 
'zecks kept the roads fairly clear. She would have to be careful of dropouts who 
might have left the Sprawl in search of pickings in the no-man's land between the 
well patrolled enclaves and the policers of the City.  She had run this gauntlet 
many times before and wasn't particularly worried.  The kind of dropout who 
chose this over the relatively easier pickings of the City was usually strung out 
and unable to complete against the other low lifes.  They would have little chance 
indeed against a trained courier.

As though conjured by her thoughts, a ragged trio of dropouts leapt onto the road 
in front of her bike.  One botched the jump and sat howling about a broken ankle.  
Tinker had the impulse to roll her eyes at their ineptitude, but even idiots can kill.  
Her pessimism was born out as the two remaining opponents began to deploy a 
net.  These were much more prepared than the usual DOs.  However, she was too 
close for them to have a chance to get the net fully open and she had an almost 
preternatural feel for the bikeUs capabilities.  She did a wheelie turn and jumped 
the bike at the right side DO while neatly catching the left side opponent in the 
throat with a crossbow dart.  The heavy metal of the bike bowled over the right 
side DO and she gunned it. Today was not the day for delays.  Her urgency to get 
to New Dalriada was growing.

*************

Gypsy (Tinker)

Rowan Fairgrove

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Current Book:Carmina Gadelica
Current Music:  Pomegranate - Dance of the Seasons
Current Movie: 'Oss 'oss, wee 'oss
Current Holiday:  Twelfth Night
Current Drink: Mumm's Extra Dry