From: gdg019@cch.coventry.ac.uk (Ridley McIntyre)
Subject: STORY: GHOSTDANCER (1)
Followup-To: rec.games.frp.misc
Keywords: Rat 5.1
Organization: Coventry Metropol Tactical Division, UK
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 16:47:17 GMT

[Those of you who have been out in netland for a while might remember
a couple of stories I set in my cyberpunk campaign world (using my own
rules). Well, a few things have changed for the next installment in my Year
Of The Rat series called GHOSTDANCER... As per usual, any comments,
criticisms or flames are greatly appreciated - I enjoy criticism, and
like hearing what other people think. These stories are about half-campaign, 
half-fiction right now, moving further towards fiction. The major changes are 
in the names and one event. In the revised ending to MONKEYTRICK, Shelley, 
the Vijayanta executive in charge of stitching up Dex, actually blows himself 
up instead of being shot by Sarah, and Kayjay's new cybernetic body never 
went to Vijayanta, but just disappeared instead. Also, the Artificial 
Intelligence Iapetus has been renamed Rhea, because it's more suitable, and 
because it's easier to spell 8*). The Ether has now become the Grid, and the 
Federal Government is now the Federal European Government - I never really 
liked the idea of a One-World Government anyway... Hope you enjoy this as 
much as myself and the players do, GHOSTDANCER promises to be the best yet... 
Ridley.]


                GHOSTDANCER - by Ridley McIntyre

       "What would you give for your kid fears?" - Indigo Girls

                        1. Kid Fears.

The Locust powers down to hover just above the street, blasting old papers
and other refuse into the corners of empty doorways and up into the  warm
air.

 A door opens in the side of the craft, vertically breaking the  Metropol
Circled M logo and dragging  half  of  it  across  the  huge  machine.  A
Metropol  cop dressed in a black ballistic-plastic armoured body suit and
wearing a filtered respirator mask leaps out  and  covers  the  debussing
manouevre  with  a swing of his rifle, ready to take out anyone who feels
like killing a  cop  in  the  Outzone.  He's  followed  by  another  cop,
identical  except  in  size and name-tag. And another, and another, until
there are a dozen Metropol Tacticals lining either side  of  the  street,
staying low to protect themselves from the harsh downwind of the Locust's
rotor-blades.

 The leader has an  electronic  map  which  triangulates  their  position
within  the  plan of the Outzone by acting as a transponder for a geo-sat
which relays their movements to them. Marked with a  shining  lurid  blue
"x"  is  a  corner of a building that the cops have been briefed is a pub
called the Blue Cross. The leader quickly determines their direction  and
then motions for the others to move onward up the street.

 Inside  the Blue Cross, the air is thick with condensation. The previous
night brought  heavy  rain   and  the  owner  and  a  few  of  the  Sodha
roughriders  dragged  a  tarpaulin  across the open, unfinished roof, and
now hot sweat drips from the gas-planet  plastic, threatening to melt  on
the steamers in the slam-pit with a vengeance;  but  it  never  has  done
before.

 Sarah  and  Motorhead  sit opposite each other at an iron table near the
back of the pub with a few of the other Sodha roughriders sat by them for
protection. It's too hot to wear her roughrider's impact armour  in  this
place,  so  she's  sweating through a white shirt tied around the midriff
and pair of red cycle shorts  instead.  The  thought  of  the  amount  of
protection  that  she  has to carry around now makes her think of the P42
auto pistol she has tucked into the pocket of a silk jacket she's  draped
over  the  back  of  her chair. Ever since she bought it from a vendor in
Camden Lock, she hasn't let the thing  leave  her  side.  She's  still  a
little  shaky  about using the gun; Motorhead gave her lessons, and she's
accurate enough, but she's unsure about whether or not  she  could  bring
herself to kill anybody, even in a life-or-death situation.

 When  it comes to the crunch, she thinks to herself as she takes another
sip of fizzy cider from a black plastic bottle, will I be able to fire?

 The soundtrack shifts from a heavy guitar thrash to a cool  speed  beat,
like  the  sound  of  a workshop changing from saws to hammers. Motorhead
waves his  hand  in  front  of  Sarah's  faraway  stare  to  attract  her
attention.

 "Fancy a bop?" he asks her.

 She shakes her head and smiles. "Hair's not long enough," she says.

 Motorhead laughs softly to himself and tugs at his neck-length crop that
barely reaches the collar of his t-shirt. "Me neither." They both laugh.

 They watch the steamers in the pit for a while, throwing themselves into
each  other and fighting for space with arms, legs and head. Most of them
are  Sodha  roughriders  that Sarah's seen around the Outzone, rajas that
spend  their  days riding their electric  motorcycles  and  painting wild
designs on their guns and impact armour. Sarah has become like Motorhead;
a special, not quite a roughrider, though she has her own strawberry  red
bike  now, and not quite a leader like Dev Lung. Her and Motorhead occupy
an odd space in the non-structure  of  Sodha,  a  sort  of  middle  class
bourgoisie  within  the  team. Looking at the steamers there she realises
that short hair is just an excuse. He  won't  leave  her  alone  in  this
place, and she won't dance because she simply doesn't belong.

 She  takes  another  sip from the bottle and the taste shocks the tip of
her  tongue  with  eager  bitterness. Screwing her face up, she swallows,
holding the bottle out as if it's a cute hamster  that  just  decided  to
bite her.

 Sarah  puts the bottle back onto the table and looks around. She catches
a glimpse of uniform in the doorway to the pub and  her  eyes  freeze  in
stark realisation.

 "What's up?" Motorhead asks.

 "Metropol  Tacticals,"  is  all she says, and then she's on her feet and
dragging her silk jacket from the back of the chair.  "Is  there  another
way out?"

 The cops in plastic armour fire a stun grenade into the pub which blasts
half the slam-pit off their feet. Sarah and  Motorhead  and  their  Sodha
protection  boys  are  thrown  to the far wall. Shots start flying at the
doorway and Sarah is down on her hands and knees, avoiding the ricochets.

 Two of the roughriders, a young raja with his  black  hair  pulled  back
into  a  round  cap  and  a  blonde haired  black girl with a nosepin and
bright red paintstick in  a  band  across  her  eyes,  open  a  concealed
trapdoor  in the floor just behind the bar and motion Sarah and Motorhead
inside.

 Motorhead gets in first, but Sarah is caught in the  helmetted  gaze  of
one of the Metropol cops. She reaches for her P42 pistol and aims it, but
she can't bring herself to fire. No matter  how  inhuman  he  looks,  she
remembers  that  she  once  relied  on these people to protect her in the
Secure Zone of Milton Keynes.

 Behind her, she can  hear  Motorhead's  voice  yelling  something  about
moving,  but  she  can't.  Time's  frozen. Her legs are frozen. The whole
world is running  one  frame  at  a  time  like  a  tired  child's  paper
flickbook.

 And  behind that mask she can feel the cop smiling as she hesitates. She
knows he's under orders not to shoot her. He's here to capture her, bring
her  back  to  the  world she's only just escaped from. But she's not  in
Milton  Keynes  now.  Not  an applejack anymore. Here in the Outzone, the
power of Metropol doesn't count for shit.

 She feels Motorhead's hands around her waist and she's pulled back  into
the  trapdoor.  Above  her, the black girl and the raja blow the cop away
through a waterfall of frustrated tears.

                                * * *

"Where the fuck are we?" It's the first thing she's said in  nearly  half
an hour.

 "The Jubilee Line," Motorhead replies. "The tube lines got  knocked  out
during  the  Storm War. Never  bothered building them again. Just did the
monorails up in the air, instead. Saw a documentary about it on the telly
once."

 Sarah nods. The Storm War is one of the subjects glossed over in  school
history  lessons,  so  not  much  is known about it. She can remember her
father telling her what he knew; that there was a war in the desert,  and
the  whole world got involved to protect the oilfields. Eventually, there
were few missiles let off and some cities  were  hit. In a gut  reaction,
America  destroyed the whole of the Middle East in two days. The speed of
the event sends a cold shiver down her back.

 Her thoughts taken away, she slips on a  moss -slicked  stone  and  just
catches  Motorhead's  arms  before  nearly  going  under in the knee-deep
water. Some animal the size of a small dog splashes into  the  water  and
she  can  just  make  out its' wake making smooth arrows along the tunnel
ahead of them until it leaves the  range  of  Motorhead's  glowstick  and
dissolves into darkness.

 "What  was  that?"  She  starts  walking again, trying to watch her step
through the green murk of the water.

 Motorhead shrugs. "Nothing you'd have seen in a wildlife show I'll bet."

 Sarah throws him a cold stare. "You're such a comfort, Mo." She can  see
him  faking  innocence  in the weird light of the glowstick and fights an
inner urge to smile. "Just get us out of here, will you?"

 With a gentle grip, he takes  her  applejack  hand  and  leads  her  out
through  the  dark and mysterious world of Baker Street Station back into
the Outzone.

(c) COPYRIGHT 1992 BY RIDLEY MCINTYRE

-- 
 ____ *     |  | Ridley McIntyre  -  gdg019@cck.cov.ac.uk |   EARTH CALLING    |
|         __|  | Ronin Ironpig - On a Flowery Space Trip! |       ANGELA       |
|     |  |  |  | "KAAAANEDAAAAA!!!"  ... "TETSUOOOOOO!!!" |  "For The Coming   |
|     |  |__|  | -    script for last 10 minutes of AKIRA |  Of Angels" - '93  |

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