From: JENKINS@agvax2.ag.ohio-state.edu (Kent Jenkins)
Subject: Joy and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (more)
Organization: Ohio State Cyberpsycho Rehab Clinic
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 01:09:36 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

Joy and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
[Part 26]
...

Wasp turned off the phone and sneered at the far wall.

"What was said?" Vit asked.

"Guy named 'Ghost'.  Shit, I should have known.  See, Ghost's this
eccentric shit who owns all of the town that Rednix doesn't, which
ends up to be a hell of a lot.  Mafia even look up to this guy.
Ghost and Rednix have had this war going on for as long as I can
remember, 'cept the times where they trade with each other.  I've
got some receipts for some pretty sick shit from one to another.

"So I figure Ghost caught wind that Rednix is dead and wants me
snuffed, and you for being with me."

Vit shook his head.  "What does this have to do with Faust?"

"Huh?  I don't know.  Nothing, I suppose."

"The killing men were at her apartment.  And at the bar."

Wasp leapt up and began pacing.  "Shit!  And outside her apartment
almost a week before that!  And the huge apartment and the
snipers...."  Wasp let his mind process the enormity of the
situation before he stopped pacing.  "What does he want from her?"

"What did your Rednix want from her?"

The answer remained unanswered.  Wasp could only think along one
line.  "Curse this gangreen crap and to hell with Rednix and Ghost
both.  We've got to rescue her."
:::

J.J. Faust was concerned.  Her date with Patrick went well for the
most part.  He was kind, intelligent, gentlemanly ... yet she felt ill
for the entire evening.  A pencil-thin line of tension clenched about
her throat and it wasn't until later that she remembered that a
pendant once hung there, a pendant that drove her crazy.  When she did
remember, waves of guilt and doubt grabbed her.  Guilt for throwing
away the one thing that had made her a free woman, she had tossed it
into the bay as though it had done nothing for her --

/Stop it/, she told herself.  She couldn't think and craved for the
Liquid Apathy she left at her flat, even though it had stopped working
for her days ago.  The evening ended at ten when she simply could not
stand any more of the pain or self-abuse.  She smiled to Patrick who
was a gentleman and took her home without question.

Sitting huddled on her couch, praying the Liquid Apathy would work as
she inhaled the drug, she couldn't help but be concerned.  Her body
was confused, trying to remind her of a pain that ended almost a year
ago.  She rubbed her neck as the drug failed to work yet again.  Her
skin was warm, but hot where she once wore the pendant.  She applied
a coolpack and the heat became bearable at last.

Then the lights went out, emergency floodlights kicking on and casting
a surrealistic mood over the room, shadows stretching over everything.

"I don't need this!" yelled J.J. to any higher power who cared to
listen.  Her complaint was answered by a hurried knock at the door
and, as she got up to answer it, the return of the lights and all her
electronics.  Everything made quiet noises as it reset itself.

As J.J. turned on the door's small viewscreen her heart sped.  The man
was very young and blond, watching around nervously with his hands in
the pockets of a baggy coat.  Paranoia gripped her; who knew what was
under that coat.

"Wh-who are you?" she spoke to the viewscreen.

"John," was the reply.  "John Viresse from upstairs in 3C."  The young
man did not look rich but J.J. never met any of her upstairs
neighbors.

"What do you want?"

"My foodsynth is out.  I was wondering if I could borrow some ketsup." 
The reply was glib, and appeared true.  Maybe he was a sports star,
J.J. rationalized.  The face looked familiar, but she did not trust
the familiarity.

Still, she opened the door and greeted the man with a crooked smile. 
"Hi," she said.

He looked at her with glassy eyes, transfixed for a moment with a look
of awe.  Then he shook his head.  "Sorry.  Ketsup, right?"

She laughed nervously and nodded as he passed her and walked inside.

"I have to admit," he said as he surveyed the room, regret in his
voice, "I don't live upstairs.  My name is Wasp. I have to talk to
you, J.J."

Fright overtook her fraying nerves and she turned around to run, but a
large and dark man stood in her doorway, letting himself in and
closing the door.  He looked very German, and her mind finally came up
with a connection.  The German and the young blond man.  Then men who
wanted to kill her.

"J.J.," said John Viresse, or Wasp, or whatever, grabbing J.J.'s doe-
frightened gaze.  There seemed to be red and green shapes in his eyes,
but she was too scared to care.  "Please sit down.  We're not here to
hurt you, but we need to have a talk."
...

This J.J. Faust woman was no killer.  The entire European underground
would be in great turmoil if this was discovered, months of deep
reasearch and rumors mocked by this pitiful revelation.  Vit discovered
it and knew that everything the boy American said was right, that
someone wanted her and had her.  Her apartment was a cage set up by those
who wished much from her.  Vit could not fathom what this frightened
woman could hold for anyone but it was obvious that there was something.

"What ... what do you want to talk about?" asked Faust.  She had her
arms wrapped around herself protectively as she kept looking from one
of the intruders to the other.

The blonde American sat. "You're in trouble.  You have been since Major
Rednix set eyes on you."

"Who?"  This Faust knew manners and sat with her guest.  Odd in an
American.

"Rednix.  I think you called him Father Jim.  You met him at ... at a
very fancy party last June."

Something hidden passed in that sentance and J.J. turned an ashen
white, turning her gaze away from Wasp.  Vit thought quickly and
suspected that the party was set up by Rednix to gain what Faust had
and the woman refused, killing the Major.  Vit found himself
surprised, deep in his own thoughts.  If she did kill Rednix then she
was the one he wanted, no hired killer but a jewelry designer.

J.J.'s safety became suddenly important to Vit.  What she had was
enough that someone had lied, hiring killers to hunt a fellow hired
killer.  Wasp, now working in place of Rednix, wanted her alive.  A
great power of this large City wanted her not only alive, but in its
control.

Faust appeared completely unaware any of this was happening, again
transfixed on Wasp, still ashen-faced with her jaw slightly hung down.

"Your boss," Wasp explained, "works for a man named Ghost, a perverse
man who has been known to pay for freshly-dead bodies and large
amounts of drugs.  He controls more underground in New York than the
mob.  He wants you J.J.  I've been trying to get ahold of you for
weeks to warn you."

As the blonde boy went silent, the air hissed with anticipation. 
"Me?" Faust finally replied.  Wasp nodded.  Faust asked, "Wh-why?"

"I don't know.  It's something you have, maybe something you are. 
Ghost is into the strange.  Rednix never knew how his mind worked and
Rednix was just too quick for Ghost.  They hated each other."

Faust's voice was airy and weak.  "And ... and now Rednix is dead,
isn't he?"

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.
...

[Copyright (c) 1992 by Kent Jenkins - Special effects done by ILM.]

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