From: friedman@news.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark  Friedman, Crimson)
Subject: 21st Century Schizoid Man [part 05/21]
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 05:36:43 GMT

	Freddy woke up to dull pain: he ached all over, especially in
his ribs.  He opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room.  He
was in one of the back rooms of the Rhino, lying on a matress on the
floor.  He staggered to his feet...and fell back onto the matress.
"Cryminee, I wish I could walk today."  He stood again, leaning on the
wall, and made his way to the bathroom in the adjoining room.

	What he saw in the mirror more than surprised him.  It shocked
him.  "Dirk" stared back at him.  "Cryminee..."  He brought a hand up to
his face, and so did the reflection.  His visage used to be dark and
slightly rounded, with a mop of wavy black hair on his head.  Now he
had a longer, angular face and blonde, almost white hair.  He was also
a bit taller and definitely more muscular.  "Awwww..."

	|	|	|	|	|	|	|	|

	He was sick for about five minutes when he heard Larry behind
him.  "Hey, Freddy..."

	Freddy turned around, "Yeah?", and immediately got a boot in
the chest.  It was more of a push than anything, but there was enough
force behind it to throw him across the bathroom and into the tub.
He yelled, "What the fuck you do that for?"

	The ork frowned, "Cuz you *ain't* 'Freddy': you're 'Dirk'.
Get it right, or you're dead..."  He turned around and walked out
of the bathroom.

	"Shit..." was all Freddy could muster.

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

	"Man this kid is tall."  His point of view was noticeably
elevated from what he was used to.

	"Yeah, and it'll make ya clumsy fer a few days."  Larry and
Freddy were sparring in one of the larger upstairs rooms of the Rhino.

	"He's got perfect vision,"  Freddy almost complimented.  He
side-kicked at the ork's ribs, who blocked it easily.  "But his
voice is even shittier than mine was..."

	"Wrong.  He *had* perfect vision.  'Member, Dirk's gone now.
We killed him, make no mistake.  If you ain't got not brain, you ain't
no more.  Dirk's past tense..."  He did a leg-sweep that took Freddy
down.

	"FUCK!"  He was incredibly frustrated.  He felt like a newborn
horse looked, wobbly and all.  Except a horse could be running before
the end of the day, and he felt nowhere that close.

	"You get used to it.  But come 'ere.  Wanna show ya
sompthin'."  Larry walked over to a padlocked door and opened it.
Freddy clambered to his feet and followed.

	In the room he spotted the most peculiar sight: his own body,
lying across the room hooked up to a large box.  He walked over to it.
"Shit, I was more of a wreck than Dirk was..."  He walked back out of
the room, a little spooked and perhaps slightly nauseous again.

	"Dirk was in better shape.  But you ain't got yer old
cyber-stuff now.  'S'a trade-off."  He closed and locked the door
again.

	Freddy didn't mind not having the datajack and headware
memory, but he'd miss the synth-jack a lot.  But he'd have the
opportunity to get his new clone and have the bio-mods done again
once T-Bob and the Crushers were taught a lesson...

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

	"Jeez-Loise, we got a screamin' case of the Violets, Chief!"
Billy Bob Jones' face oggled at his console.

	Fuchi Security-Chief Tim Cumminsky walked over to the panicky
youngster's station.  Well, they were *all* young in his book.  "Yeah,
you got one flamin' X-Mas tree thar..."  He plugged into the unit's
hitcher jack.  "Let's have a look-see..."  He toggled the "active"
switch.

	|	|	|	|	|	|	|	|

	"Ho-leee-shit!" Cumminsky's dragon construct uttered.  He and
Jones' colobus construct watched as a group of badgers burrowed out of
the "ground" in their local node.

	Jones replied.  "Yeah, that's what I said.  He's not taking
action towards us, like he's ignoring us.  But he's digging through
security files like there's no tomorrow..."

	The dragon waved its claws in the air and another construct
appeared.  The Nippon-Kid figure spoke, "Yo, whussup?" and the spied
the badgers.  "Sheesh, that's...KC from over at Maas-Neotek a while
back!  We've been after his ass for causing that Yarrow disaster..."

	The Dragon bobbed its head.  "That's what I figured.  Half a
BILLION new ones?  Shit, I can't even *think* that much money."

	"So whadda we do!?!?"  Jones was exasperated.

	The cartoon shrugged.  "Hell, trace then blackout.  Whatever
he wants he wants bad enough to breach *our* security."  He shook his
head in disbelief.  "Send some street agents to ground-zero.  It's
clean-up time."  The figure disappeared.

	Cumminsky laughed.  "Jonesey, you'll probably get a big raise
for this one.  Plus an A-1 rep to boot.  Go ahead, slot that ICE..."

	/	/	/	/	/	/	/	/

	Street Agent Garrett was the one to break down the door, and
thus the first to smell the odor: it reeked of burnt circuitry, broken
flourescent bulbs, with a tinge of barbecued meat.  He called back out
the door, "Techies beat us to the punch.  It's over."

	The rest of the group came in, wrinkling their noses at the
lingering smell.  What they saw wasn't any more plesant: a man with
his head burnt to a crisp still sitting at a workstation.

	"Another deck-head bites the dust," one mused.  "Pretty total
too.  Must've been a massive wilson to get fried that bad..."  He
tapped at the interfaces on the skull: the metal and most of the skull
had remained intact, but the skin and hair had melted totally away.
"What's this one?"

	Garrett knew, "MIDI trio array: it's a synth-link."

	Another took the still smoking deck from the body's lap.  "And
boy is this one P-O-S.  Deck by Fisher-Price?  Whatta maroon..."

	Garrett took out his cellphone and punched a few digits.
"Ground-Zero to The Ranch: target nullified.  Send forensic crew to
the address of Frederick Marx, a-k-a Klone Crimson.  You'll find the
loc in no time."

	"Affirmative, Gee-Zee.  Immediate assessment of damage?"

	"Severe.  Nothing like the smell of fried man..."

	*	*	*	*	*	*	*	*

	Freddy and Larry watched the Fuchi-goob patrol enter the
building from a Big Rhino "Emergency Chow Van" (labeled "dial
1-800-ORK-FOOD").  "Looks like they took it." Freddy mumbled.

	"Yup." Larry mumbled back, and pulled away from the curb.

	"Man, I'm glad we were able to slip their surveillance team."

	"I'm glad we did it the way we did!"  Larry put on a
gap-toothed grin: they had paid Freddy's downstairs neighbor to strip
and masturbate in front of her bedroom window.  Freddy had known she
was an exhibitionist for a few years.  In fact, he always considered
himself lucky to be in a building facing one with mirrored windows.

	"Man oh man, can Molly ever put on a show.  Hope those goobs
didn't steam up their binoculars *too* bad..."

	\	\	\	\	\	\	\	\

	Dr. See was incredibly freaked when Freddy's files were called
up on his shift at GTM.  He almost panicked and confessed the entire
story to the police that escorted the ambulance in.  But a millon
newyen trumps an "almost" any day of the week...

	Standard procedure was to immediately call up the clone from
the cold-storage facility and insert the latest memory recording.
However, Freddy's clone would not be ready for about 6 months.  In
this case, a memory check and backup would be made instead.

	The doctor took Freddy's memory cube and inserted it into the
Mnemo-Matic.  He punched up the check sequence on the control panel.
What he saw made his jaw drop.

	On the screen was a Fuchi Security test pattern...

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Comprehensive scripting and color commentary here is Copyright by Mark
Friedman 1991, all rights reserved.  Basic story plot  and Matrix help
was by Jerry Weiler, but he won't mind: I'm giving him all the profits
from the venture. Let's  see,  what's 100% of  $0.00?  :-) Also, basic
Shadowrun backdrops are in extensive use, so them FASA dudes might get
a small cut as well...

Any questions, comments, requests, criticisms, and Chapman Sticks will
be accepted and appreciated at the address in the sig.

					- Mark "Crimson" Friedman

Mark "Klone Crimson" Friedman is friedman@cis.ohio-state.edu .................
"There is nothing former   "Beat poets,    "If you put a hungry ferret in your
 about King Crimson."       not children."  trousers, he'll run around..."
 - Robert Fripp, 5/11/90    - anonymous     - Nigel Tufnel (Spinal Tap)