From: gardabr@unix1 (Gard Eggesbo Abrahamsen)
Subject: I don't know (a girl)
Summary: I know a girl 
Keywords: love, hate and cyberpunk 
Organization: University of Trondheim, Norway
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 11:18:52 GMT

Before you read: C&C wanted!


                          I don't know (a girl)
                       by Gard Eggesboe Abrahamsen


   This  is  the story about three people being four people in  the  same 
house.  But they are only four.  It is the story about the cows that  ran 
away  from home and never came back because they found out that the  cars 
were  cheaper.  This  is  the story that isn't  dedicated  to  anyone  in 
particular, but just another female whose name is Lene Kristin Tjervg.


   She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen in his  life.  It 
was most logical that he felt quite sexually attracted to her.  Mike  got 
up from the chair and walked slowly towards her as she was powdering  her 
nose.  Just as he was going to grab her,  she stepped aside,  leaving him 
hugging  his toothbrush.  She looked angrily at him as if he'd  tried  to 
rape  her,  before  she  continued to  simultaneously  ignoring  him  and 
powdering her nose.
   "Tammy!" he uttered. "Why do you treat me like that?"
   "Talking to ourselves again, are we?"
   Mike  turned round to meet the one who had spoken with such a  scaring 
unfeminine  voice.  It was Rik who had just entered the room.  "For  your 
information,  I was talking to Tamara." He turned back to Tamara, and was 
quite  flabbergasted to see that she had managed to escape without  using 
the only exit of the room. "...er...Well..."
   Rik  gave  a look of understanding to Mike,  but deep in  his  darkest 
mind, he had a strange feeling about Mike's special ability to loose grip 
of the real world.
   "Listen,  Mike."  he tried to tell Mike.  "Why don't you talk  to  the 
office guys about it.  They might find one for you that looks exactly  as 
you like your Tamara." He stopped to see how Mike was taking it. Mike was 
still  calm.  "They'll understand.  Being locked up in an old  house  for 
months  without seeing any females just because the big guys want  a  new 
toy is haunting us all. But you have to let them know before you get your 
illusions."
   Rik  turned  around and pushed a slow moving figure called  Neil  back 
through the door before he had the chance to enter the room, and Mike was 
once again alone in the room.  Feeling the aggression come on,  he lifted 
his hand and tightened his fist as if he was going to hit the mirror.
   "Don't do that," he heard a female voice say behind him.  He tightened 
his fists a bit more and smashed the mirror,  cutting his hand seriously. 
Blood spilled all over the bath room floor. All he could do was scream as 
he tried to stop the bleeding, twisting in the pain.
   The noise had attracted Rik's attention.  The nosty head of his peeked 
into the bath room.  "Oh my God!" he shouted as he studied Mike's wounded 
hand. "How the heck did you manage that?"
   "I  smashed the mirror," Mike answered with a faint sound of  pain  in 
his voice.
   "But the mirror isn't broken..."
   Mike turned back to the mirror and saw Rik's point.  But his hand  was 
bleeding like hell. Quickly he bandaged it before the world blackened and 
disappeared in front of him.

   He  turned  over and stretched his arm over to the other side  of  the 
bed.  There was something nice,  warm and cuddly there. Slowly but surely 
his attraction to fleshy pleasures pulled him over to the side of the bed 
to which his arm had been sent to scout.
   A  sensational  feeling radiated through his body as he  inserted  his 
arisen  sausage look-a-like sexual organ into a correctly sized  hole  in 
the  cuddly  thing  he had crept over to,  only to be  shattered  with  a 
violent  explosion  as the cuddly thing was punctured by a  sharp  thing. 
Mike  fell down on the now quite flattened cuddly thing that wasn't  very 
cuddly  anymore.  Mumbling  something about the low standards  of  todays 
inflatable  females,  he dressed and left the room,  heading for the  lab 
where  he was supposed to work.  The quicker the three of them had  their 
toy finished, the quicker they'd get out of there.
   The lab was the biggest room in the house,  but still, it was the room 
with the smallest walking space. This was because almost the entire floor 
was  covered  by  the huge machine that the  three  scientists  had  been 
working  on for months.  In one end of the machine,  there was  something 
that looked like the electric chair,  and in it,  a monkey was not having 
the pleasure of eating pizzas.  However, it was fastened to the chair and 
looked  a  bit sad,  as if it had realized that it now was  about  to  be 
executed  for a brutal murder it hadn't done.  And it would  be  executed 
without a legal trial.
   "Ready?" Rik shouted to Neil, who was at the other end of the machine, 
controlling some switches.
   "Ready?" Neil wondered and started reading the labels of the  buttons. 
There were two of them. Start and stop.
   "Ready?" Rik tried again.
   "Oh!  Ready! Yeah, sure. Of course." Neil slowly moved his finger to a 
position where he easily could push the start button.
   Rik checked the monkey once more before he raised his hand and  showed 
Neil his thumb. He waited a bit before he started waving to Neil. Then he 
started jumping up and down.  "Rik you fuckin' asshole! Start the fuckin' 
thing!"  he  screamed.  Neil  seemed to choke something  in  his  throat, 
quickly  moved his finger away from the button,  hit his head,  lost  his 
balance and fell onto the button,  starting the unidentifiable scientific 
machine of allmightyness or whatever.
   A  twisted expression of terminal pain struck the monkey's face as  it 
tried to get out of the chair.  It seemed as if he was literally  boiling 
inside,  and his eyes started melting,  flowing down onto the floor. Then 
it sat there calmer and cooler than it had ever been sitting before.
   Neil bent down in front of the monkey and looked into its face. "Is it 
dead?" he asked.
   Mike  grabbed  a  scientific calculator from one of  his  pockets  and 
started pushing some buttons.  "According to my calculations," he  began, 
still making lots of clicking noises by hitting different keys.  After  a 
while, he stopped. "Yes, it's dead."
   "Good," Rik commented.  "Now,  could someone please clean its eyes off 
the  floor?  I  don't like dead ...  things that are looking at  me  like 
that."
   Mike yawned as he went back to his room.  He slowly undressed, studied 
his thing between his legs for a moment, playing with the though of using 
it  to  something  more than pee pee before he  slowly  crept  under  the 
blanket which was covering most of his bed.
   He  lay  there for a moment,  staring at the ceiling.  One  could  not 
really tell what was happening inside his top floor accessory, but it was 
probably damaged and quite uninteresting anyway.  In short terms,  he was 
the mad scientist that had started it all, by offering the army a machine 
that  could read somebody's mind and translate it to an NTSC standard  TV 
picture to broadcast all over the US.  Most people called it madness  and 
an intrusion of man's private life.  Mike called it business. Even though 
the  army would use it for military purposes,  Mike had  calculated  that 
with  such a machine,  he would be able to create 365 big success  movies 
every year.  And without the costs it takes normal film companies to make 
special effects. These would come for free.
   Green.  The  ceiling was green.  He had had the ceiling painted  green 
because he liked it green.  Just the colour was attractive to him. And it 
reminded him of the fact that there was more in life than life.
   Slowly, he closed his eyes and turned over. He felt the sweet smell of 
perfume  pour itself into his nose as he gently sniffed the  odours  that 
were connected to the body in front of him.
   It suddenly hit him.
   He  quickly  opened his eyes and got quite startled to find  a  female 
lying in the bed with him.  Was it a dream come true,  or was it a  taped 
recording  of last weeks Late Night Show on Filmnet?  At least it  was  a 
quality brand video tape.
   "Tamara?" he whispered gently, trying not to make her go away.
   "Yes, Mike!" she whispered back.
   "Tamara!"
   "Yes!"
   "Tamara!"  his  voice started getting a little excited  and  a  minute 
sense  of  hysteria  and  desperation could be  interpreted  from  it  by 
professional psycho analysts.
   "I love you, Mike!"
   "Tamara!"
   "Yes, Mike!"
   "Tamara!"
   "Yes!"
   "You're not very good programmed, are you?"
   "I love you, Mike!"
   "Fuck you!"
   "Yes, Mike!"
   "Cycle three, phrase two."
   "Yes!"
   "Open your mouth and say ah!"
   "I love you, Mike!"
   "Shut up!"
   "Yes, Mike!"
   "For my sake, drop dead."
   "Wake up, Mike."
   There  was something odd about how she had said  that.  At  first,  he 
couldn't put his finger on exactly what it was,  but after thinking for a 
while  (doesn't that hurt?),  he realized that Tamara had just spoken  to 
him with the voice of a male.  And not just any male. It was the voice of 
Rik.
   "Mike, wake up."
   Mike opened his eyes, discovering that he actually was strapped to the 
same  chair as the monkey had been killed in.  Desperation  attacked  his 
emotions  and made his muscles tighten in a stupid attempt to get out  of 
the iron grip the chair had on him.
   Tamara  was laughing in front of him.  Her voice had the most  perfect 
vibrato he had ever heard.  She jumped up and down,  sang about gold  and 
headed for the control table.
   "Don't,"  he cried as he felt a sharp pin penetrate his head and  mess 
around in his brain. He started twisting in his chair, trying to think of 
something  else than the pain.  The room became just a blur in  front  of 
him,  swinging  from left to right and back again,  in a hypnotic  manner 
before it faded away in the darkness of the street.
   The street was empty,  with the exception of a red car.  The smell  of 
warm blood struck his nose.  He moved silently towards it.  Only a  faint 
image of two people having some fun together could be sensed.
   A car roared in behind him,  making him turn around. It was red. A big 
red car, looking just the same as the one he was standing next to, and it 
was hurling straight towards him.
   Terrifying laughter sounded through the air,  making his bones shiver. 
Everything was black,  only laughter. An enormous laughter that could eat 
him raw as an appetiser. He wanted to puke.
   All  in a sudden,  big white lights flashed in front of  him.  It  was 
impossible to see anything,  he could only hear an electronic voice  from 
somewhere in his head.
   "Welcome  to  Nightmares  Electric,  the company that  gives  you  the 
nightmares    of    your    life.     The    exit    code    for     this 
progra.....fds.fdskagf.zkkkkkkkkk" The voice died into nothingness, and a 
bolt of electricity ran through his body. He was stuck.
   "Rik," he yelled. "Get me outta here!"
   Rik appeared in front of him,  drooling,  yearning for blood. He had a 
vicious  look in his eyes.  He knew what he wanted,  how to get  it,  and 
where.  The knife was already in his right fist.  It was just to take all 
the  slices he wanted to,  and the victim was standing right in front  of 
him.
   Mike couldn't move.  He was chained to a lamp post. No keys. No way to 
get free.  And a barbaric creature that used to be his friend was  waving 
with a knife only an inch in front of him.
   The  knife cut deeply into his stomach.  Blood poured out through  the 
wound and into Rik's mouth. He giggled. He was having a great time.
   A  sharp  string  tightened around Mike's throat,  and  he  heard  the 
Tamara's evil laughter behind him.  The string cut deeper and deeper, cut 
the veins and the pipes. He felt sick as the head snapped off. The ground 
hurled towards him but disappeared as in the impact.
   Everything was dark.  There was a thick smell that reminded him of the 
lavatory  after Neil had been there.  He grabbed a match from his  pocket 
and lit it. The sewer was easy recognizable. Just as easy recognizable as 
the chain round his neck and the rising water level.
   "Exit," he tried to say calmly.
   "Sorry, inaccurate code," a metallic voice told him.
   "Quit," he tried again.
   "Sorry, inaccurate code."
   "Just get me the fuck outta here," he yelled.

There  was an orange flash,  some beeps,  his eyelids turned green for  a 
second before they faded into a greyish colour.  A blue blur appeared  in 
front  of  him,  grew to cover his entire view and faded  into  something 
white. He quickly removed the tubes that were attached to his forehead.
   The  room was small.  Just a little black box with a green  light  and 
some  numerical  displays were put in a corner of the room.  The  bed  on 
which he was lying filled most of the available space.  It looked  cheap. 
Just as cheap as the note attached to his toe.
   "Mike Etheridge, 37891"
   He tasted on it.  He couldn't find any logical idea of what the number 
could  be,  other than a serial number.  He couldn't remember why he  was 
there, but at least he remembered his name.
   The door opened.  A female stood there,  looked straight into the  air 
without focusing. "Hi," she said calmly, before closing the door. She had 
a most cuddly body, but her stare was cold and spiteful.
   Mike lifted his hand, as if to touch her. She took a step back without 
a word. A sense of tension filled the air. It could almost be touched, as 
electric impulses that would try to push him back,  but he got up on  his 
feet,  grabbed her, gave her a big kiss. There was something divine about 
it. So soft and warm, but still with a trace of anger and spite. Good and 
evil was fighting each other between the lips,  and evil was winning.  An 
electric charge pushed Mike back to the bed.
   They looked intensely at him before she left through the door she  had 
come through.  There was a click, announcing that Mike would be unable to 
leave  the room through that door.  And unfortunately,  it was  the  only 
door.
   Sunlight fell down on his eyes.  He looked out of the window. It was a 
long  way  down.  He had had near death  experiences  before,  he  wasn't 
afraid  of that.  But he would like to have a better reason to  die  than 
non-existence.
   He opened the window.  If it was just another nightmare, he would wake 
up as he hit the street, and if not, he would die quite instantaneous. He 
would have nothing to loose other than the female he had just kissed. The 
thought  played with his mind.  Now he had the chance to kiss  death.  He 
jumped.
   As he hurled towards the ground,  images flashed in front of his eyes. 
Images  of a happy life,  kids he would be the father of,  his  wife.  He 
studied  his  wife.  Her face was sad.  She was weeping.  The  kids  were 
weeping.  They all had hate in their eyes. The wife had lost her husband. 
The kids would not be born. And he was still hurling towards the ground.
   "Forgive me," he cried. "Forgive me,"
   The  impact was hard to take.  It felt as if the  body  exploded.  His 
bones were shattered,  the head split open and the brain flowed out.  The 
body ached so much,  he had to open his eyes,  but couldn't.  He couldn't 
move, just feel the pain. The entire world was pain.
   As he opened his eyes, he sensed the wetness of his bed. Wet of sweat. 
It had just been a bad dream. He grabbed his inflatable Tamara and hugged 
her. "At least you won't leave me,"
   He got up on his feet, dressed and went to the lab. It was empty. With 
a  quick  touches,  he  snapped  a  few switches  and  sat  down  in  the 
experimental chair. The straps automatically fastened him, and a rotating 
pin started moving towards his forehead.  It hurt a bit as the pin forced 
open a hole, but after that, there was nothing...
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo