Path: news.cac.psu.edu!news.math.psu.edu!chi-news.cic.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!qns3.qns.com!s211-93.qns.com!gene
From: [email protected] (Eugene Mosburg)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: psycho (psukhe)
Date: 1 Nov 1995 11:50:28 GMT
Organization: In Finem Dilexit
Lines: 93
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
NNTP-Posting-Host: s211-93
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2]

From Sweet Poly ...

: In article <[email protected]>,
: Lisa Walton wrote:
: >In article <[email protected]>,
: >Sweet Poly wrote:

: >Meanwhile Sym, the caretaker of her dreams, gamboles endlessly under a
: >starless sky, reveling in the clarity, in the cold, and the silence.

: Lisa finds the package as soon as she returns; kicking it halfway across
: the floor before she sees it. The black tissue paper with the purple
: ribbon comes away to reveal:

: a second set of keys for the Rancho. They're matte black, and very ornate
: -- leering skulls with rubies for eyes. There are over half a
: dozen, in various sizes, and they are strung together with a blood red
: satin ribbon, that Lisa can tie them to her belt with, or use to hang them
: from around her neck.

: Rent this month should be given to Lisa. @:)

"Ed, this is great!" sez Gene, "a workable arrangement at last."

"Ya think so?" Ed asks.

"Well, yeah ... see, Lisa dusted our crops at pool and cards, but now she's
the *duen~a* of the property, got the house keys, watching out for maintenance
and phone bills .... "

"So?"

"So back in 1978 I had a landlady *just like her*! This is instant reply,
if you add that running buddy of hers."

"What if we can't pay the rent?" Ed wonders

"Dude, we've been sleeping up the road for a month now. Rent's hard to
collect on public land. But property responsibilities are such a
headache -- put together a nice endorphin analog DreamScape mix for her,
for those migraine days that landladies never escape."

"Yeah, and a special zap! for Zeitgeyser, too. He looks like he could
use a bit of low-impact Dream Music."

Lisa and Zeitgeyser discover two small packages that evening during a stroll
down the road. The polycarbon rods of the roadside hammock, sight of so many
happy scams, have shattered to breakfast cereal-sized nuggets under the
impact of Gene and Ed's hasty exodus for their command center in the heart
of the Van Allen Radiation Belts. A rushed transit through n-dimensional
space-time makes the explosive decompression of a conventional space
vehicle seem like a kid's firecracker, but its Ground Zero is so small that
the destruction may be contained by the simple expedient of the disposable
magnetic bottles Gene and Ed keep handy for such migrations.

Lisa opens the accompanying envelope ....

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Dear Lisa, Sourcerer, Zeitgeyser,

EXCUSE RAPID DEPARTURE . PREPARATIONS FOR MASSIVE SHIFT
IN EVENT HORIZON NOW IMPERATIVE . EXPECTING FIRST MUTATION WAVE TO
HIT THIS SATURDAY, OKLAHOMA CITY, LITTLE FLOWER PARISH, EARLY
AFTERNOON .

LISA ACCEPT PLEASE THIS BARTER IN LIEU OF HARD CASH WHICH JUST ISN'T
ON OUR DANCE CARD THIS MONTH .

ZEIT ... ENJOY .

EUGENE MOSBURG, ORDINIS CARMELITARUM DISCALCEATORUM
ED THE FRIENDLY CHERUBIM

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Lisa contemplates the possible effects of dream-time painkillers, as Zeit
reads the accompanying documentation. DreamWare is hardcoded to the
gentlest of resets in the event of bad vibes and neuropsychic trauma,
so there's never the least danger -- but the benefits can be optimized
by attention to all the available parameters and options.

Sym happens along and devours the polycarbon fragments with pleasure.
Better than crackerjack for a creature such as himself, and great
roughage too!


--
+ "The plastic ones are no good," the
Eugene Mosburg OCD + seated deputy said. "They look like
[email protected] + they're ... well, fake. Somehow fake."
https://www.qns.com/~mosburg +
+ *A Scanner Darkly*


[Next appendix] | [Return to index for Appendix A6] | [Return to index for Appendix A]