From: hgb@catalina.edu (Hubert Bartels)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo
Subject: Nekoko's Misadventures, #18
Date: 21 Aug 92 16:36:08 GMT
Organization: Optical Sciences Center


	Back episodes of Nekoko's story can be retrieved from the
	alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo archives at catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
	[128.196.206.60], files /pub/chatsubo/nekoko.* Or, write to me
	and give a good return address...

	The story up to now:

	After crashing the stolen helicopter used in the raid on ARES' 
	research labs, Nekoko was picked up by fishermen working the
	Puget Sound. She traded most of her valuables for a ride back
	to Seattle. The fishing boat dropped her off in a container
	yard somewhere on the docks. It was late at night and dark,
	it was raining....
		
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	The morning light stretched across the dusty floor of the 
shipping container, a faint pale bar that barely illuminated the
walls. It slid across a discarded fisherman's coat, piles of
styrofoam peanuts, ragged cardboard scraps and tiny shards of
plastic. The light ended at the far end of the container, reflecting
off the shiny surface of a survival blanket.
	The blanket stirred.
	Nekoko turned her head away from the light, towards the dirty
wall of the container. Her hand reached down and tried to pull the
blanket over her head. Her cat ears twitched in annoyance. Finally
she raised her head and glared at the intruding light.
	"..taku mo..." she swore to herself. She reached up and scratched
her hair; it felt stiff and crusty from the effects of last night's rain.
The skin on her face and hands felt greasy and slightly painful. Another
effect of the chemicals in last night's downpour. 
	The fisherman's coat still lay on the wooden floor; a small
stain of water still surrounded it. Nekoko looked at it for a moment.
Her only other possessions were her tattered flight suit, a few survival
items, useful if one found oneself in a pristine wilderness, and a
reflective blanket. Her telecom lay in pieces under the far wall.
	"Now what?" she asked herself. "I can't go to the Mechanic's
safe house - they took my safepass last night. The Chatsubo is too
risky...."
	Nekoko's musings were interrupted by the growing yammer of a
engine outside. She stood up. The engine sound grew louder and then
stopped. Nekoko could now hear voices. Men's voices. 
	Curious, she padded across the container and leaned against
the container door. If she leaned outwards a little, Nekoko could see
the alley that she had run up the night before. The voices came
closer.
	"...shows there's at least twenty empties in row 7 and row 9."
The first speaker was an older man, wearing the uniform and hard hat of
a dockworker. He gestured in Nekoko's direction and turned to the other
man.
	"If you can have them cleaned and loaded by 1700 today, the
'Hane Maru' should make her schedule," the second man said. He was a
Japanese businessman, dressed in a suit and carrying a Pedeay. Nekoko
turned her head and cocked her cat ears.
	The Japanese businessman made a few notes on the screen of
his Pedeay while the dockworker waved a sign to someone Nekoko could
not see.
	The engine started up again, very close to Nekoko's container.
Nekoko quickly looked left and right; she could not see the truck or
whatever it was.
	A harsh loud clanging noise echoed throughout Nekoko's container.
Then the floor tilted and the debris started to slide towards her. Both
container doors fell open. Nekoko scrambled for a handhold, dropping
to the floor. A raft of stryofoam, cardboard pieces and boxes hit her
in the face. Kicking and shouting, she was swept out of the container by 
a tide of trash.
	She landed on her butt ten feet below the container. The rain
of trash cascaded around her ears and onto her head for a few seconds
longer. The fisherman's coat flopped to the ground beside her. She
shook her head and looked up.
	Her container was suspended in midair over her head by a giant
walking crane. The crane looked like a iron spider, six walking legs and
two legs modified for carrying shipping containers. It was powered by
a dirty diesel engine mounted below a small three man platform. The
loadspider had tilted her container and was gently shaking it to clear
the remainder of the trash out. The diesel belched black smoke.
	"Who the hell are you?"
	Nekoko turned her head. The two men were staring at her. The
dockworker had an angry red face; he looked like he was personally
insulted by having a girl drop out of one of his containers. The
businessman put his Pedeay stylus into a pocket.
	"Goddamit, what the hell do you think..."
	Nekoko started to get to her feet. The dockworker had big meaty
fists which he shook at her. She gathered herself and sprung into the air,
running. The dockworker, caught by surprise, stood a moment and then
lumbered after her.
	As Nekoko rounded the corner, she caught a glimpse of the business
man. He was signalling to the loadspider. The plume of diesel smoke
increased, as the spider started to step over the rows of containers.
	Nekoko ran.
	The shipping containers blurred as she ran. The footing was
treacherous, uneven packed earth and puddles of toxic water; Nekoko
had to keep an eye on her feet and where they stepped. From behind
her, she could hear the angry shouts of the dockworker and the whine
and thump of the loadspider. She turned and ran down a narrow alley
between containers. At the end she stopped and carefully looked out.
No one. She slid against a Marson container and caught her breath. It
seemed that she had been spending a lot of time lately running.If this
kept up, she could probably try out for field and track.
	"Sugu koko! Nekojin ya! Neko musume ya."
	Nekoko looked up as the loadspider reared up in front of her.
The businessman had mounted the loadspider and was standing on the riding
platform. Now he was shouting out her location to the dockworker.
	"Bakana yarou!" Nekoko replied in Japanese as she ran underneath
the loadspider and into the maze of containers on the other side. The
businessman was now yelling in English, "Over here, the cat-girl!" As
she tried to get out of sight of the loadspider, she could hear the
swearing of the dockworker as he caught up with the loadspider.
	Her luck was holding for the moment. The containers here had
not been neatly stacked. By carefully working her way deeper into the
maze, she might be able to stay hidden from the loadspider's rider.
Again, she leaned against a container and caught her breath. Her luck
would not hold out, not if the dockworker decided to call in his buddies.
There was something here that she wasn't supposed to have seen; that was
the only reason she could think of for all the fuss about a transient 
sleeping in a container. The fact that she hadn't seen anything would
not help her now. She had to escape the yard and do it quickly.
	Somewhere to the left of her, the loadspider whined and thudded.
Nekoko stretched her head out and looked into the alleyway. There were
stacks of containers in every direction. The loadspider seemed
to be two or three rows to the left of her; if she stayed closer to the
left side of the alleyway, she might not be seen.
	Nekoko popped out of her hiding place and sprinted for the end
of the alleyway. Her cat ears were tilted back, listening for the sounds
of pursuit. The end of the alleyway came all too quickly; Nekoko had to
grab a stanchion on a container to keep from sliding into the crossroads.
A gulp of breath, a quick check of the corners of the crossroads, another
sprint.
	As she approached next corner, something sparked a warning
in her. She started to slow, but the ground was too slippery. A misstep 
and she fell and slid into the intersection. 
	Nekoko groaned softly and pushed herself off the wet ground.
She was on her hands and knees when she noticed something. The sound
of country/western music, just loud enough to warn her. She slowly
turned her head.
	A loadspider stood to the left of her. From the riding platform
came the refrain to a Hank Williams song. Another dockworker was leaned
across the railing, staring away from her, looking back across the sea
of containers.
	Nekoko's breath stopped. She could almost reach out and touch
the loadspider's piston-like legs. She quietly pulled her legs underneath
herself.
	The dockworker stared into the morning smog and mist. The comlink
whispered the progress of the hunt, the radio began a Patsy Cline song.
	Nekoko eased herself to her feet. As she looked for another
way out, she noticed a heavy pin lying in the mud.
	The sad sounds of the Patsy Cline song continued.
	She slowly reached out and picked up the pin. Then she turned to
the loadspider's leg beside her. A set of rungs led up the leg to the
riding platform. Nekoko swung her head around, checking one last time
before putting the pin in her belt and placing a foot on the first rung.
	It was a fair climb; some 50 feet. Nekoko took each rung slowly,
trying to stay as quiet as possible. As she approached the riding platform
from the rear, she stopped at the last rung and pulled out the pin.
A slow quiet breath. Then Nekoko leaped over the edge of the riding platform
and thrust the pin into the dockworker's lower back.
	"Don't move," she whispered, "or I'll blow your guts all over
the ground." It sounded pretty good to her, even if the delivery was a
bit shaky.
	"What. What. What do you want?" The dockworker stammered. The
C/W station hummed a Garth Brooks melody.
	"Can you make this thing walk?"
	"Sure. Just don't do anything."
	"Walk it to the fence, OK? Don't look back." Nekoko whispered
harshly. She looked for a gun on the dockworker, something that would
be more menacing than a rusty pin. Nothing. However, the dockworker
was a big burly redhead, a man that could pick her up and drop her in
a moment if he saw how she was armed. 
	He leaned over to the side of the riding platform and spoke to
a small speaker. "Lenny, it's me. Bob."
	Nekoko remembered that the loadspiders had simple dogbrains
which could understand simple instructions. They had just enough intelligence
to do the work, if it was explained simply to them.
	"Lenny. Be a good boy and walk to Row 37. OK??" The diesel engine
yammered to life, covering them with sooty carbon. The riding platform
gently shook. The tall load spider started moving legs. 
	"Don't turn around." Nekoko shouted over the sound of the engine,
poking him with the pin again. "Can you make him step over the fence?"
	"Jeese, watch what you're doing, lady." The dockworker straightened
up and shook his head. "No, Lenny's not allowed outside of the yard."
	Nekoko bit her lower lip. She had thought to use the loadspider
to simply step over the fence and allow her to escape. She looked away
from the dockworker's back to check on the others. Two of the loadspiders
were stationary. However, the third was walking in their direction. Nekoko
suddenly noticed that the comlink had been silent for the last few seconds.
Ahead, the edge of the yard could be seen; a tall fence seperated the 
container yard from a unkempt assortment of old warehouses and streets.
The other loadspider was slowly gaining on them. Nekoko could hear shouting
from the alleyways below.
	She turned back to the dockworker. "Ask Lenny to put his left
rear leg next to the fence."
	He leaned towards the speaker and spoke a few words. Nekoko moved
the pin so that he could not see it and prodded him with it again.
	The loadspider stopped at the fence. Nekoko waited until the load
spider had positioned its leg and then jumped away from the dockworker.
She dived for the rungs on the leg, as the rusty pin fell to the floor of
the riding platform.
	"You bitch!" The dockworker turned with a snarl as he saw the pin
roll towards him.
	Nekoko slid down the leg ladder, burning her hands. Overhead, the
dockworker was speaking to Lenny. 
	The leg started to move; she jumped off the ladder onto the top
of the fence. The loadspider's leg rose up and then started to swing
at her; Nekoko jumped for the other side of the fence.
	The landing knocked the breath out of her. She lay there for a 
second, then rolled over. The loadspider's leg was wavering in the air,
as if caught between conflicting commands. The dockworker was screaming
at the poor dogbrain, trying to get it to ignore its original programming.
Nekoko rolled onto her side and pushed her upper body off the ground. There
was a puff of mud nearby; the dockworker had thrown Nekoko's pin at her
in his rage.
	The loadspider's leg retreated behind the fence. The dockworker
was jabbering at his comlink, giving away Nekoko's position. She decided
not to wait to see who else would show up; she sprinted for the other
side of the street, in among the old warehouses and factories. As she
rounded the corner, there were several loud crack and chips sprang from
the walls around her. Nekoko took one look behind her; the other
loadspider stood at the fence line. Standing on the riding platform,
several men aimed rifles in her direction.  Then she put a couple of
buildings between her and the container yard.

			(TSUZUKU....)
--
Hubert Bartels          INTERNET: hgb@catalina.opt-sci.arizona.edu
Optical Sciences Center (602)-621-2032
University of Arizona   "Uchi-ra wa Buaku-do no Annapuna to Yunipuma ya!" 
Tucson, AZ, USA 85721   "Senshatai Yaburetari!!" Annapuma & Unipuma, Dominion