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From: [email protected] (S.P. Brown)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: St. Poly's Infirmary (Was: Re: What the hell is a Cyberpunk?)
Date: 2 Sep 1995 09:42:02 -0400
Organization: The Pipeline
Lines: 76
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pipe2.nyc.pipeline.com
Eyebrown slumps onto the gurney. He's still holding the joint in his hand,
his lungs in too much agony to add anything else to the mix. "Somebody"
had given it to him, a thin, bony arm reaching from the shadows as he
walked up the porch steps. Carefully he places the joint on the oblong
chrome dish at the end of a thin pipe attached to the gurney. The joint
fits exactly, as if the little dish were made for it. Eyebrown had noticed
that all of Poly's furniture had pipes & oblong dishes attached to them,
now he knows what they're for.
There is a series of small rattles and a whirring noise. Eyebrown looks up
to see a group of first aid daemons beginning to cluster around him. A
Newton is placed in his field of vision. There is a release form displayed
on its screen. A daemon extends a lightpen. Eyebrown grabs the pen and
scrawls something on the Newton's pad.
Suddenly he feels a hundred deft mechanical fingers plucking at his shirt,
coiling about his wrist, inserting into his nostrils, and extending down
his windpipe. He only has time for a startled "Blmpmk!" before the fingers
are withdrawn and the daemons stow themselves back into their cabinets.
Eyebrown takes a deep breath. The itching is gone. He feels great. In
fact, he feels great! He bounds onto the floor, drops flat and begins
doing rapid one-handed push-ups. Damn! he's never felt better in his
life! In fact, he feels so good it's starting to get uncomfortable.
A cabinet opens, a daemon rolls out, and a single metal tentacle whips in
and out of eyebrown's mouth. The daemon returns to its lair.
Eyebrown stands up. He's feeling merely pretty good now. Poly must have
her daemons tuned up a little too high, probably because her previous
patient was .mpa. He picks up the joint, lights it and walks over to the
window. He takes several deep drags and gazes down at the lawn below.
There's something odd down there. He takes another toke and holds it.
A furtive caped figure is slowly dragging what looks like a six-foot lima
bean onto the lawn. The bean seems heavy. Eyebrown takes another drag.
The figure below drops the lima bean in the grass and looks around hastily
to see if anyone is watching. He (for by now Eyebrown has recognized
Sourcerer) fails to notice the toking presence in the infirmary window,
betrayed by a single red coal.
Sourcerer crouches over the lima bean with a chisel and hammer.
Methodically he works his way down the bean, hammering a crack that runs
across the long axis. When he's finished, he steps back, looks around
again, and silently withdraws to the Porch.
The bean, alone on the lawn, begins to rock back and forth. Sourcerer's
crack widens. The bean splits in two and the halves fall apart. A wet,
sticky naked man crawls unsteadily out. He stumbles to the Porch, clambers
onto a railing, and begins wiping the slime from his body with slow
vertical strokes.
Eyebrown takes an especially deep toke. He must remember to compliment
Poly on her horticultural skills. He is feeling quite fine indeed, in
fact, perhaps a wee bit confused, if the truth be known. He thinks he
recognizes the naked and slowly drying man standing on the porch railing.
"Omar? Is that you? You seem so much larger, more confident, more naked
than the last time I saw you."
"Eyebrown? Yeah, it's me. Look!" he hops up and down on the railing
experimentally. "Look at me! Sourcerer *fledged* me!"
"Congratulations, Here." Eyebrown tosses the joint down. Omar reaches
out his hand and . . .
We interrupt this touching scene for a brief commercial message. William
Gibson has just gone online with his very own web page. It's still a
little rough with a lot of links as yet unlinked, and designed by others,
but right now you can read a half dozen reviews he's written of his current
favorite books, plus a lengthy statement on just how come he doesn't have
an email address. Check it out:
https://www.vkool.com/gibson
eyebrown
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