From: Shadowmar@cup.portal.com (Paul Joseph Furio)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Digital Storm, Chapter 9
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 92 19:53:43 PDT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

					Digital Storm
					by Paul J. Furio

		Chapter 9 - Neither Rain, Nor Wind, Nor Dead or Night...

	Jan and I sat in my apartment.  She was cross-legged, on the
throw rug.  I was at the console, checking software.  I never got
nerves when a deal was about to go down.  This run seemed different
though.  Sure, I had been in the matrix since I was old enough to
receive my implant, and I had done a few internal entries in my time,
but for the first time in my life, I felt something was wrong about
this run.
	"Calm down," Jan told me.  Her eyes were shut, and her hands
rested on her knees, palms up, meditating.  If there was a chip for
ESP, I swear she had it.  "It's just another run.  You know the
WunderKompf have never fucked up.  Everything will be under control. 
I just wish I knew who we were up against."
	I was glad we didn't know.  There was always the possibility of
information leakage if you knew too much.  Other cowboy's stories
could also disturb your concentration.  It was better not to know. 
Then, when you were there, you went in and did your job and it didn't
matter who it was.  Besides, one company was the same as any other,
and it made everything so much simpler.
	There was a knock at the door.  Jan's eyes opened.  I stood from
the console, checking the time on the monitor.  9:00 AM.  Sharp.  Mao
never let me down.  He was one competent bastard.
	I approached the door and released the locks.  The door slid open
to reveal a lone box, dull dark grey, sitting in the middle of the
hallway.  Mao and Mao's security.  I had to love it.
	Jan stood and came to the door.  "Do you need a hand?"
	"Yeah.  Sure, whatever."  We lifted the box, carefully, and
carried it into the room.  The door silently slid shut behind us.  THe
box was lowered to the floor, again, carefully.  Jan and I stood up,
staring first at the box, then at each other.  The corner of my mouth
curled into a smile.
	I had been through a lot, and seen a lot of things.  But until I
met Mao, I never saw anything like what sat before me now.  It was
Mao's delivery system, but whether he invented it, or had it shipped
in from somewhere, I didn't know.  The box was square, a foot and a
half on a side.  It was perfectly seamless, except for a tiny slot on
the top.  Every surface was smooth and unreflective, every edge was
sharp and defined.  The box was a work of art unto itself.  A deadly
work of art, but art nonetheless.
	Mao explained it to me the first time I bought through him.  The
box was constructed of a wonderful metallic compound whose chemical
properties allowed it to perform a variety of functions.  With a small
charge and microprocessor controlled instructions, the box could alter
it's shape and function almost instantaneously.
	I walked to my terminal and slid open a wall panel.  The card
that Mao had given me the day before sat politely upon the hidden
shelf.  I picked it up, closed the panel, and returned to the box. 
The card was to be inserted into the slot on the top.  If it was the
right card, the box would neatly open to reveal it's contents.  If the
wrong card were used, or it the box were dropped, damaged or dented in
some way, the outer surface of the box would instantly turn into a
bumpy fragment grenade while the inner compound would become a high
explosive.  The resulting blast could kill over an incredible radius. 
It also had the added benefit of destroying the contents of the box, a
nice safety feature for Mao.
	I always feared this moment.  If ,despite his incredible
organizational skills, Mao had given me the wrong card, I would wind
up on the ceiling to be scraped off by a squad of local Vice boys. 
Jan was new to all this, and I didn't want to alarm her.  I put on my
biggest smile.  "Okay, here we go."
	Jan stood up and I stopped.  "I'll go inside.  Call me if you
don't blow up."  She walked into the bathroom and closed the door. 
ESP chips were real, I swear it.
	I lowered the card into the slot, holding my breath.  A faint
whirring emerged from within.  The box shivered for a second, and then
the card was pulled entirely within.  After a second, the box began to
peel back, opening like a cybernetic flower, it's petals spreading for
the morning sun.  The metal wrinkled open, a lizard of the new age
shedding it's skin.
	Upon the curling mass of composite biometal lay a sleek black
cyberspace deck, black curves that would make any eurojet manufacturer
jealous.  It was adorned by two concave grey fingertip buttons, and a
series of cyberspace cabling jacks.  Wrapped around the deck were a
set of optical fibers, matched to the deck in color and quality.  A
sigh of relief escaped my lips.
	As I picked up the wire wrapped present, the metal began to fold
again.  Now it's edges began to bend inward, rounding themselves.  The
inner surfaces melted together and the outer edges became ridged.  The
card must have been made of the same material as the box, as there was
no evidence of it in the mass that was undergoing metamorphosis in my
living room.  It finally solidified in a final shape and rolled over
to my feet.  A hand grenade.  How cute.  Mao really wasn't one to
waste a good thing, I suppose.
	The grenade was placed on a shelf by the terminal.  I liked to
keep security within arms reach.  Jan returned after I informed her of
my continued existence in this world.
	"That's too bad," she teased.  I smiled at her and returned to my
seat at the terminal.  Instead of sitting on the floor, though, she
gracefully seated herself on my lap.  "What did Santa give you?" she
asked.
	I unwrapped the cords from the deck, revealing the manufacturer's
nameplate.  The serial number had been burned away of course, but the
Sony logo was clear and unmarked.  Whatever model this was, I had
never seen it before.  If Mao thought it was the right thing for the
job, though, I trusted him.
	"Looks nice.  Plug it in."  She lifted one wire to the wall power
outlet while I inserted the other end into the deck.  Her fingers
glanced back to brush the two buttons on the decks surface.  Neither
of us was jacked in.  We wanted to check out the external functions
first.
	The first button lit up with a soft red glow.  The button was
translucent, and a LED beneath indicated that the juice was flowing. 
The second button revealed the keyboard.  Six tiny cylinders rose from
the surface of the deck, their curves formerly flush with the
streamlined Sony.  No bigger than pushpins, they too began to glow. 
Holographic projectors.  The keyboard was projected a millimeter above
the surface of the deck.  A simulated screen appeared just behind the
keyboard, extending up into the third dimension.  Even though the
light in the room was bright, the deck compensated, making the
construct sharp and defined.
	Holographic projectors of this quality were expensive and hard to
come by.  A cyberspace deck with one built in must have cost a
fortune.  I had a feeling that I would have a hard time paying back
this favor.
	"It seems Santa got you quite a gift.  You must be a good boy."
	"Yeah," I answered.  "I guess so."
	"Are you a good boy, Nightmare?"  Jan stood, turning off the deck
as she did so.  The keyboard and screen flickered out, and the
holo-nodes receded back into the device.
	She grabbed my hands and pulled me to my feet.  I looked her
straight in her eyes, sweet eyes filled with warmth.  "How good are
you?"
	She led me into the bedroom to find out.

Copyright  1992  Paul J. Furio
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More to come, at regular intervals, I should hope...

Shadowmar@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo