aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #3

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 3
"The Crossing"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

Chalandra took a sharp, deep breath, deliberately remaining calm
as the leader of the group of vampboys who had surrounded herself and
Percy McFae attacked. For a mortal, he was quick, she noted. Most
likely, his reflexes were augmented with kinetic boosters, or a drug
to alter temporal perception.
She grabbed him by the throat and slammed him down to the
unyielding pavement. A second vampboy, younger looking than the
leader, swung a glistening blade towards her momentarily unguarded
back. She dropped below his swing and shot her leg out, impacting his
knee and forcing it back, his foot unable to slide back in the
position it was in. The clattering of the blade on the asphalt came
simultaneously with his screams.
McFae, she saw, was not standing idly. He parried the slashing
claws of one attacker with his briefcase, then delivered a powerful
blow to the chin with his elbow. Another vampboy, this one older,
with a blond streak slicing through his spiky black hair, grabbed
McFae from behind and tried to bite his neck. Somehow, McFae shrugged
off his grasp and slammed his open palm, hard, into the boy's stomach.
Blood trickled from the spot where he had struck, and Chalandra
thought she saw something cold and metallic in his grasp.
The last two vampboys hesitated, watching their comrades fall.
Chalandra looked at one with vengeance gleaming in her eye. The boy's
eyes widened, and he fled. The other one helped up the one with the
broken leg, carrying him despite his protests.
She turned to McFae, finding that his attackers had similarly
fled. He straightened his collar and picked up his briefcase. It
occurred to Chalandra that, even while fighting, McFae's expression
never changed from its practiced blandness.
"Hardly safe to walk at night, is it?" he asked, pausing to look
down at the leader of the attackers, who was staring back up, still
disoriented from the impact, too numb to feel fear. "Let's go. Our
plane is waiting. We're lucky no one saw this."
"Wait," Chalandra instructed. She grabbed the vampboy by the
collar and hefted him up. Her other arm reached around him and slid
through his short, black hair on the back of his neck, grabbing a hold
and pulling his head back. He tried to scream, but her fangs were
already in him, opening up a blood vessel in the neck. The teeth dug
deep, and she tilted her jaw, using the teeth like crowbars to open
the wound, to draw the hot, living blood out.
McFae waited patiently.
She withdrew her fangs, and the stretched holes rebounded,
closing off some of the flow from the vessel. The vampboy dropped to
the pavement, eyes shut tightly, his body still trembling with the
rapture that had filled him.
"Let's go," Chalandra said, curtly, to McFae. They walked
towards the main terminal of SFX, leaving the boy where he lay.

+++

Moonlight glistened on the ocean water, so far below them.
Chalandra watched the glow, not drinking from the glass of red wine
she toyed with in her hands. Above, a thin red haze drifted,
preventing the moon from casting its full brilliance.
"I did bring a sac of blood, in case you felt peckish on the way
over," McFae said, quietly. "It was hardly necessary to feed on the
poor boy."
Chalandra blinked, and turned to McFae, who was seated next to
her. The night flight to Tokyo was sparsely populated, and it was
clear that McFae felt they could talk.
"I didn't open his artery," she said. "If I had intended to feed
on him, I would have."
"Which would have killed him," McFae answered. "And given us a
body to answer for when we reached Tokyo. As it is, most will simply
believe he was attacked by a fellow, in a dispute over leadership or
some such."
"It was no accident that we were attacked," she told him.
He turned. "Please explain."
"His blood carried no traces of recent chemical ingestion,"
Chalandra answered. "No hallucinogens, no preceptory boosters, no
brainjack...not even alcohol."
"Your point?"
"He wasn't a vampboy, and I'll bet his companions weren't,
either. They were clean as a whistle, and that's something vampboys
never are, unless they're dead. If then."
McFae considered her words. "Then it was a deliberate attack."
"No one saw the attack because no one was supposed to," Chalandra
said. "Care to guess who is probably behind it? First two guesses
don't count."
"Don't have to guess," McFae said. "It has Fekesh written all
over it."
"Which means he knows about me," Chalandra said.
"He is a very talented man," McFae responded. "Cunning, and
resourceful. The Yakuza want his blood. So does Red Sky. So long as
he has the Bloodchip, we'll have to deal with him. If we can find
him."
Chalandra turned to look out the window again, at the ocean far
below. Percy watched her as she looked, his eyes unreadable.
"How were you able to tell so much about his blood?" he asked,
finally. "And why did you risk the chance that his blood might be
chemically enhanced?"
She was silent, staring at the water.
"Ms. Harkness...?"
"I had a teacher," she said, in a quiet voice. "He turned
everything I understood about being a vampire upside down. He taught
me about magic. Not the kind where you wave your hands and mutter
fantastic words, but body magic. The complete awareness of the most
minute details."
"Is he in Tokyo?" McFae inquired, matching her low tone.
"He's the reason I ran away."
The hum of the aircraft was the only sound for several minutes.
"He told me something about the water, once," Chalandra said.
"Which is...?"
"It used to be a boundary, which our kind could only cross with
the greatest of effort," Chalandra went on. "I know. I used to have
nightmares about it. Over the centuries, however, its effects have
virtually disappeared. He told me that the reasons for this were
twofold. The first was that the boundary had force because the
mortals willed it so, through fear, and a desire for order. Their
minds constructed their reality, and ours, as well. Natural magic,
blindly at work.
"Now, though, the boundaries are paper thin, and porous. Many
have already crumbled. The old magic is being transformed, reshaped."
"In cyberspace, there are no boundaries," McFae said. "The
computer chip has eroded the power of the old governments, and the
boundaries of nations. The rule of law is being replaced by the rule
of the chip."
Chalandra was about to speak, when she cast her eyes up, at a
curious shape, distant, barely visible in the haze. She gasped, when
she realized what it was.
"The Red Fortress..." she whispered.
"Oh, that," McFae said. "Should have warned you. Temekhan
ordered its path shifted to this range of latitude, as he'll be in
Tokyo for the next few days."
Chalandra stared out the window, at the distant shape. It was
black, and she could make out very little detail. But she, and most
everyone else, knew what it was.
It's official designation was Red Sky Headquarters, the
constantly airborne vessel that served as the center for Red Sky. It
was the size of a small mountain, and circled the Earth daily, its
path allowing for rapid transport and coordination of the worldwide
interests of Red Sky. There was nothing else like it in the air, and
the sight of it was enough to make Chalandra shiver.
No pictures of it were ever circulated, and Red Sky's influence
was strong enough to keep most mention of it out of the popular press.
It was frequently referred to as 'the Red Fortress,' because of its
foreboding look, and the mystery that was associated with it. Outside
of Red Sky, no one had seen what lay inside.
Chalandra looked down at the water, forcing her eyes to look away
from it.
"You were saying..."
"What...?" Chalandra asked.
"The second reason," McFae prompted.
"Ah," Chalandra said, looking down at the water. "He told me
that the mortals, by poisoning their water with pollutants, by
destroying the life within, had changed its essence. I never quite
understood that part."
"Change the water, and that which applies to it must change as
well," McFae said. "Change the item something is applied to, and the
application must itself be altered." He paused. "You would do well
to remember that."
The hum of the plane quietly seeped into Chalandra's ears, as the
Red Fortress slipped behind a thick red haze and was lost from sight.

+++

She had forgotten how immense the city really was.
San Francisco, for all its technosprawl, had always felt open to
Chalandra. The steep hills and the wide sweep of the bay spoke of
open space, room to breathe, despite the millions all around. Unlike
Tokyo, it did not overpower the senses.
From where she stood, just outside the terminal doors, she could
see the immense towers of the Shodani Group, looming over the old
corporate buildings from the previous century like an avenging angel.
Other buildings ranged around it, radiating from the center, the whole
of it blazing with neon light, summer heat, and endless sound.
Already, she could feel the familiar pulse, like she had never
left, never taken her teeth from the neck of the city. The scent of
raw fish from a nearby vendor carried with it whispers of order and
chaos, of life and death, and the balance that held it together.
Balance was key, here. In Tokyo, one either learned to balance,
or left. If one could do neither, one would die. She remembered the
day she had lost her balance, how she had fallen from the tightrope
she had walked. She left Tokyo that day, knowing she would have to
return.
"Ah, there, our car," McFae said, pointing out a dark tinted
limousine on the curb. It was the only vehicle in view - most in the
city could not afford one. Not that there was any real need for one,
in this city.
Their plane had gotten to Tokyo ahead of schedule. Chalandra
estimated that they had one and a half hours to meet with Temekhan
before sunrise. The city streaked by her window, but Chalandra
ignored it. She could feel it around her, closing like a velvet
glove. The sights were secondary.
McFae did not say a single word during the trip, but he, too,
seemed to undergo a subtle change. He seemed a fraction less tense,
as though his work was nearly done.
The limousine stopped in front of a large building, which seemed
small, as the Shodani's building loomed almost directly over it. The
words, 'Red Sky', in English, lit up the sign, hundreds of stories
above. Guards saluted when they saw McFae, and immediately stepped
aside to allow him and Chalandra through. Within moments, they were
in an elevator, riding upwards.
"Mr. Temekhan may not have a lot of time for questions this
evening," McFae said. "He may wish for you to return tomorrow
evening." Chalandra shrugged, and considered the cigars tucked inside
her jacket, silently.
The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. Chalandra stepped
out, followed by McFae, and looked about in wonder. Vegetation
abounded in the room, as suspended grow lights hummed. The air was
thick and wet, and she turned her head, looking at the flowers that
grew from the vegetation.
Every single one was electric blue.
"Greetings, Ms. Harkness," a deep, gravelly voice sounded.
Chalandra looked at the man who emerged from behind a row of blue
flowers. He was tall - nearly seven foot, and carried himself with an
air of quiet, dignified strength. His wide green eyes pierced her,
sending small chills down her neck. There was something primal about
him, that no amount of refinement could quite disguise. She could see
it in his smile - the smile of a born predator, stalking prey. She
knew the look well - it was her own.
He stood before her now, appraising her, silently. McFae stepped
a few feet away, seeming to melt into the background.
"I am Vedrik Temekhan," he said, bowing. "I bid you welcome."

(to be continued...)
--
Copyright (c) 1993-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
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Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #2

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 2
"The Deal"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

Chalandra Harkness took a long, slow sip from her mug, regarding
the man who was sitting across from her, at a table in the center of
one of San Francisco's less savory cafes. Percy McFae's face was
light, but not pale, and he returned her gaze with studied patience,
showing no indication that he was concerned about his surroundings.
The nostrils of his small, cherub-like nose twitched slightly, as an
acrid scent drifted from a table nearby.
He was clearly not immortal, she decided. No fangs, no pallor.
No hot, sweet radiance, no sense of the presence of a fellow predator.
Yet, he did not seem mortal, either. There was warmth, but just a
perfunctory sort of warmth. Blood pumped in his veins, but it did not
call to her, did not whisper of the joy and the terror of being alive.
She wondered if she was dreaming, if this was the someone she
feared.
"Bloodchip?" Chalandra asked, setting her mug down. "Let me
guess. Someone's pet tech toy, right?"
"After a manner of speaking," McFae said. "How did you know?"
"You don't give bigass names to your run-of-the-mill chips,"
Chalandra responded. "And when you said 'small' and 'paper-thin', I
guessed that it wasn't a potato chip."
"Ms. Harkness, are you familiar with Red Sky Systems?"
"No more than most of the planet is," she said. "I have one of
their memory banks in my head, and a compstation back at the office.
They're the ones that developed DarkNET, wired the world for
information."
"And if I told you that it's CEO, Vedrik Temekhan, was a
vampire?" McFae prompted, his eyes never leaving hers.
She puffed on her cigar for a few moments. "I'd ask why you're
telling me old news." She blew a smoke ring into his face. He did
not flinch.
"Vedrik was right," McFae said. "You do know things."
"I have sources," Chalandra said.
"Precisely why I have sought you out," McFae told her. "And why
you may be the only one who can find the Bloodchip."
"Like I said, I'm listening."
"Temekhan is the godfather of the cybernetic revolution," McFae
said. "He, and other vampires of like mind, developed the theories,
produced the technologies. It took nearly a century and a half to
build Red Sky. And you know why he succeeded, don't you?"
"Genius minds, forever in their prime," Chalandra answered. "No
death to cut their work short. They could afford to be patient, to
design a development program in terms of decades, rather than quarters
of years. All that time to learn, to refine, to test."
"Yes," McFae went on. "The Bloodchip represents the culmination
of his work. For it goes beyond silicon and neurolink tech, beyond
the net itself."
"The suspense is killing me," Chalandra said, sardonically.
"The chip carries the only fully functional wetcode trigger in
existence."
Chalandra smoked her cigar for a few moments.
"Hate to admit it, but you got me on that," she said.
He smiled, just a little. It was the first sign of emotion she
had seen since he had arrived.
"A wetcode trigger," he said, "is a program designed to trigger
specific genetic responses within an organism, to, in effect, re-
engineer the organism according to the program specifications."
Chalandra lowered her cigar, registering his words.
"You're talking about genetic engineering," she said, quietly.
"I thought that nonsense died out in the last century."
"The 'nonsense' which you refer to was only the play of some
mortals who were experimenting blindly, for purposes that were
oblique, at best," McFae responded. "What I am talking about is
something much more focused, more radical."
He paused, studying her reactions. Chalandra raised her cigar
again, and regarded him coolly.
"The chip does not work on its own," he said. "The organism to
be altered must be prepared to receive and interpret the programmed
instructions, to manipulate RNA and DNA sequences precisely, to induce
the body to produce the exact amounts of the right chemicals for the
exact amount of time needed. We call these alterations 'the Bloodchip
Matrix,' as they will be the means of storage and transmission for the
program."
"The chip doesn't direct the engineering?" she asked.
"In a limited manner," McFae said. "It directs the writing of
the program into the larger computer into which it is implanted - the
mind itself. From there, the mind will obey its new directives, and
will implement whatever changes have been encoded, through the
Matrix."
He paused, waiting to see if she had more questions. Seeing that
she didn't, he went on.
"This chip has been stolen from Red Sky, Ms. Harkness," he said.
"We believe it may be in the possession of a man named Fekesh. Are
you familiar with that name?"
"Vaguely," Chalandra said. "He's supposed to be the boss of one
of Tokyo's crime syndicates."
"The Dying Sun," McFae informed her. "Split off from the Yakuza
ten years ago, and the only splinter group big enough to cause them
problems. Has ties to the Shodani Group, which would be very
interested in taking the lead in genetic tech."
"So you know, or think you know, who's got it, and where it's
going," Chalandra said. "Red Sky isn't short of pocket change. Why
are you calling on me, when you can afford to buy top drawer corporate
eyes?"
"Ain't how it works in Tokyo," McFae answered. "Red Sky has some
weight in the city, like everywhere else. But it's Shodani's city.
Red Sky sends investigators, they'd be stonewalled cold. Or killed
outright.
"But you're different. You've lived in the city before. You've
breathed it's air, tasted it's flesh. And you know people there.
People we can't get close to."
"How do you know that?" Chalandra asked, her eyes narrowing and
focusing on McFae.
"We have our sources," McFae told her, his face still
emotionless.
She paused, lifted her mug, finishing her Sangria Sunset. She
set it down again, and locked his eyes with hers.
"Very well, Mr. McFae," she said, smiling darkly. "You've just
hired yourself a vampire."

+++

The stars were out again, and their tears of blood fell silently
around her. She looked at the stars, seeing them clearly, despite the
blood.
She wondered where the haze of pollution was, where the banishing
glare of light had gone. The stars had been lost to most on Earth for
decades, behind the veil of night. What the sprawling technopolises
themselves did not obscure, the light and heat they generated did.
Chalandra allowed a drop of blood to roll into her mouth. She
could not taste the drop, nor feel its substance. But she could feel
it roll atop the tip of her tongue.
The machinery hummed around her, it's song shaking her, making
her body resonate. She felt the pulse of the machine, it's hypnotic
melody striking a chord in her. Someone was coming.
She had seen those stars before.
There was a flower, growing from the metal floor. It glowed an
electric blue, and drank the blood that fell like rain from the stars
above.
Someone arrived. She awoke.

+++

The flower was a new touch, Chalandra reflected, as she glided
upstairs, toward her office. She had had the same dream for months,
with no variation. Now, a flower.
When she saw the blue rose in McFae's suit pocket, she nearly
dropped her travel bag.
"I'm sorry, did I surprise you?" McFae asked.
"No," Chalandra said, recovering quickly. "I was expecting you."
"Good," McFae said. "You're ready to go?"
"Lead on, MacDuff."
"McFae."
"Sorry. McFae."
McFae opened the door, and Chalandra stepped out, into the
darkening light. McFae followed, closing the door. Chalandra swiped
a chit through the lock reader, and a light changed from green to red.
"A rather...modest office," McFae said.
"I make a rather modest income," Chalandra said. "Surely, your
sources told you that."
"Of course," McFae said, blandly. Chalandra looked at the faded
Harkness Detective Services logo, suspended above the door,
illuminated by a fluorescent lamp a meter above. It hadn't been the
classiest of places she had lived, but it gave her a place to reflect,
to restore her energy following a tumultuous part of her life. The
occasional case she had taken paid for the few things she needed, and
what could not be paid for she simply took, as necessary.
Now, she was going back. To the tumult she had escaped.
"Ms. Harkness," McFae prompted. Chalandra turned, and saw the
taxi that waited. McFae stood by the rear passenger side door,
waiting for her.
The ride to SFX seemed to go in a blur, to her. The neon hills
and noise of a few million blurred into a discordant kaleidoscope of
perception. Chalandra ignored McFae, who stared straight ahead, not
venturing to make any comments or ask questions. There would be time
for that later.
She had just barely tasted the flesh of the city, in the decades
she had called it her home. She had not partaken of its essence,
lived in its bloodstream, merged with its fabric. She loved it
desperately, but it was not what she craved.
Tokyo. She had tasted Tokyo, and had been consumed by it.
"We've arrived," McFae announced, as the taxi stopped. They
emerged, and McFae ran a credit chit through a slot. The doors closed
automatically, and the taxi drove off, into the neon smoke in the
distance.
"Our flight will take full advantage of the darkness of night, as
it moves eastward, across the Pacific," he said, as they began walking
through the lot, towards the passenger terminal building. "We might
even have time to see Temekhan himself, before dawn there."
"He wants to see me?" Chalandra asked, surprised.
"To answer any questions that I, because of my obligations,
cannot," McFae said.
Chalandra started to respond, then stopped. She cocked her head,
looking around the lot with wariness. McFae stopped, looking at her
curiously.
They heard the first one, before they saw him.
"Alright, girl. You too, buzzhead. You wanna live, do what we
say."
The boy stepped out, from behind one of the Transit busses that
lined the lot. His hair was short, black, and spiked, and his skin
was almost bone white. He had a practiced scowl on his face, through
which Chalandra could see sharpened teeth.
"Vampboys," she said to McFae. McFae nodded, no sign of emotion
on his features. "Six of 'em."
"How young are you, girl?" the vampboy asked, as more of his
fellows emerged, barely visible in the light cast from the passenger
terminal building. "Twenty? Twenty two?"
"Six hundred twelve, boy," Chalandra hissed.
"Yeah," the boy said, laughing a little nervously. He looked at
his fellows, and at her again. "That'll end here, girl. We're going
to take your blood, and tear you apart. Your boyfriend here, too."
He signaled, and the vampboys surged forward.

(to be continued...)
--
Copyright (c) 1993-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #1 (1/1)

CHALANDRA HARKNESS:
THE BLOODCHIP MATRIX
(a tale from altiverse 998SUPERGUY)
Episode 1
"Memory On-Line"
by
Gary W. Olson

+++

The first thing Chalandra Harkness noticed was that she was
bleeding. She couldn't find the cut, but the blood was trickling
down, around her eyes, weighting her eyelashes. There was no pain.
She wondered if someone had suspended a container of blood above her,
and was allowing it to drip down upon her, but when she looked up, all
she could see was the night sky.
There were stars. That was the other odd thing, though she
couldn't place why.
Around her, machinery hummed, a constant sound that penetrated
every cell in her body. She was in something that lived, that
dreamed. Something had consumed her, and was trying to digest her.
Strange that it felt so peaceful.
The blood trickled down her chin, dripping to the floor. She
looked up at the stars again.
"The stars are crying tears of blood," she whispered.
Something was approaching, something that was a part of this
place that had consumed her so completely. There were no doors.
There was only the sky, and the machine.
There was a feeling of pattern in the sky. Chalandra felt the
recognition, knew that she had seen that pattern once before. Seen
those stars before.
Now she understood why it had seemed so strange. The stars in
the sky were a sight long banished to memory. There was no sky
anymore. There were no stars.
The blood seemed to get thicker, yet she refused to wipe it from
her eyes. Someone was coming. Someone she feared. Yet there were no
doors in the ground, and nothing in the sky but the stars.
Someone arrived.

+++

Chalandra opened her eyes, and saw only the darkness. A final
tremble of fear swept across her, dying in her toes. She was in her
pressure chamber, of course. It had been a dream.
She pressed a button, and the airtight lid opened, lifting away
as Chalandra slowly sat up. The sun, just past the horizon, suffused
her basement window with a rosy tint. As the tint fainted, she felt
the strength rising within her.
The dream had been coming to her for two weeks now. It was
always the same. The someone never got closer, and she never woke up
before the someone arrived. She could not imagine who it was, as
there was no one, mortal or immortal, whom she feared. Six hundred
years of life and death had given her that much, at least.
Rising, she slipped to the floor and glided silently to the
stairs. Tonight was a night which, on the whole, she would have
preferred staying in, to meditate, or enjoy a relaxing bath. But
meditation and bathing did not pay the rent.
"On-line," Chalandra said, as she reached the top of the stairs.
Dim light-strips lit above her desk, and her Red Sky compstation
flared to life, suffusing the room with the red glow of its opening
screen.
"By your command," the mellow voice of the system prompted.
Chalandra scowled at the voice, and considered changing the prompt.
"System jack," she said instead, settling into her chair.
"Please engage hookup," the computer prompted.
She picked up the free end of the platwire that was coiled
haphazardly next to her compstation proper. The other end was already
jacked into the compstation, and awaited contact with a dataport for
instantaneous information transfer.
Lifting her chin, Chalandra inserted the jack in the side of her
neck, an inch below her right jawbone socket. She wondered if the
designers knew what they were doing, when they developed this system
of direct cybernetic interface. It was as though the machine was a
vampire, drawing data from her mind, instead of the other way around,
as the concept was typically sold.
Given that most cybernetic design of the twenty first century was
attributable to vampires, she had little doubt that they did indeed
know.
Liquid blue rushed over her, as the stream of data from the
DarkNET overrode her physical senses. She watched the icy blue
streams without wonder, as she slid through several security gates.
With a twist of her mind, she could change the forms she saw into
something else, like the lane from her youth, so many centuries ago,
or a flying carpet, soaring above ancient Persia. But Chalandra had
little patience with illusions tonight.
Had she had physical form, there, Chalandra might have snarled,
when she saw that a message was waiting for her. She activated it,
expecting a complicated image to scroll before her eyes, explaining to
her for the nth time that Sweden was an absolutely wonderful place to
visit, with the lowest pollutant to counter-pollutant ratio in
Pan-Europa.
Instead, there was a simple message - letters suspended in the
icy blue panorama she perceived.

Ms. Harkness,

I seek to hire your services. It is most urgent that
you meet me in the Cafe Sangria tonight, at midnight. Will
pay three times your standard recovery fee, half up front.
Table seventeen.

Sincerely,
Percy McFae

The message disappeared. Chalandra considered the proposition.
Three times her standard recovery fee was a hefty chunk of credit.
Either this McFae was desperate, or the find would be dangerous. More
likely, both.
"What the hell," she said silently, to the formless blue. "I
should get a couple drinks out of the deal, even if I do turn it
down." She uploaded the message into the processing buffers in her
neck, which seconds later transmitted the information to the twenty
gigabyte memory bank she had installed in her cerebral cortex. She
accessed the Cafe Sangria's location from the DarkNET's public
database, and jacked out.
Her office rematerialized around her, and she detached the jack
from her neck. With a thought, she indexed through her memory bank,
and filed the uploaded data. She resisted the urge to call up a
memory.
Memory used to be a problem for vampires, in the days before
cybernetic implants and direct mind-to-machine interface with vast
computer networks. Time corroded even the most powerful images,
ground them into the dust. There was only so much that could be
absorbed and kept fresh, only so much that one could select to keep.
The rest had to be forgotten, or written in chronicles. She used to
do that, she remembered. Every day, for two and a half centuries,
following her awakening as a dark immortal at the hands of a rough,
hirsute vampire, she had recorded what had happened to her, where she
had gone, what she had done.
Eventually, she had stopped. Not for any reason that she could
recall. It had just ceased being important. She kept the chronicles
she had written, though, and they had been the first thing she had
transcribed into her new virtual memory after the operation that had
implanted the memory bank. It occupied less than a hundredth of one
percent of the unitís total capacity.
It was only the beginning. Beyond the memory bank, she had her
DarkNET account, which she could access from any public cyberport.
Memory could be infinite, now. The technomagic of the twenty-first
century was merging with the ancient magic of the undead. Blood and
machine in synergy.
"Off-line," Chalandra said, standing. The compstation powered
down, and the light strips quietly faded. She stood, heading
downstairs to dress.

+++

When Chalandra stepped into the smoky, neon-scarred cafe, she
felt the preying eyes upon her. It was the pitch black leather
outfit, she knew. It moved with her, silently, contrasting with her
dirtwater blonde hair and the ghostly pallor of her skin. Her eyes
were masked behind black shades, though she had no trouble seeing.
No one would touch her here, she knew. The punked-out vampboys
at the bar stepped aside wordlessly as she glided by, not even daring
to make a lewd comment. They could sense she was the real thing,
something that they, despite their bio-implanted teeth and pallor from
lack of sunlight and too many nameless narcotics, were not.
She found table seventeen, and sat down. Calmly, aware that some
eyes were still on her, she pulled a cigar from her jacket, and lit
it. The eyes slid from her, as though she had given a sign that she
did not seek prey that evening. It wasn't true - she was. But she
knew her prey, and he had not yet arrived.
Chalandra slipped a credit chit into the slot and punched up
number five. A mug rose from a hidden chamber in the center of the
table, filled to the rim with a reddish-amber beverage. The menu had
called it a 'Sangria Sunset'. She sipped it, and decided that 'Sewage
Sunset' would have violated fewer truth-in-advertising laws. A
favorite of the vampboys who hung out in this and a hundred similar
cafes in San Francisco, it was a mix of human blood, tequila, cider,
and, from the taste of it, battery acid.
When Percy McFae arrived, Chalandra spotted him instantly. He
seemed like someone who would have been more at home at an accountancy
convention than a seedy punk hangout in the roughest quarter of the
city. Inwardly, she warned herself not to judge him by sight - for
him even to show here was a strong message that he was more than he
seemed.
He moved without hesitation into the seething throng of bodies
who were coming, going, dancing, drinking, and eating. Some reached
out to stop him, to draw them into their dark web. He slipped away
without hurrying his pace, seeming completely unconcerned. The arms
fell away as he approached Chalandra's table.
"Ms. Harkness," he said, tipping his hat. "You're early."
"I was thirsty," Chalandra responded, letting the smoke from her
cigar drift lazily into his face. He appeared to take no notice.
"You're McFae."
"Yes," he said, taking the seat opposite her.
"Three times my standard finder's fee, eh?" Chalandra asked.
"That's quite a hefty chunk for a little girl like myself. You lose a
city or something?"
"Something much more valuable," McFae said, his voice never
rising above blandness.
"I'm listening."
"What has been lost is the future, Ms. Harkness," McFae
responded. "You must find it for us."
"Tall order," Chalandra said, after taking a long sip of her
drink. "What's this lost future look like?"
"It's quite small," McFae said. "Paper thin and red. It has a
vast treasure locked inside." He leaned forward. "We need you to
locate the Bloodchip."

(to be continued...)
--
Copyright (c) 1993-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926

aSG: Chalandra Harkness: The Bloodchip Matrix #1 (0/1)

Normally, I like to let my work speak for itself, for better or
not-so-better. But this will take some explaining.
In the fall of 1993, I was a busy boy writing for Superguy.
'CalForce' was starting on its path toward the 'Songs of Darkness'
storyline, and I was also working on 'Renegade Anarchists II' for
SfStory. You'd think that would be enough. But I guess it was not.
At the same time, I was subscribed to another e-mail list -- the
vampyres list at guvm. Fiction writing mingled with discussions of
assorted vampirish things -- television shows, movies, fang length,
that sort of thing. For the most part, unlike with Superguy, the
stories did not take place in the same universe, and had little in
common save for the use of vampires. I decided I wanted to write
there -- because, you know, I wasn't yet *constantly* typing.
I'm not sure how I arrived at this story. Its beginning predates
'2035' -- Sabre's Superguy series set in a dark, tech-heavy future and
also featuring Chalandra -- by roughly a month, so it can't have been
that (though I'm certain '2035' influenced me as things progressed).
I think one of my guiding desires was to write something different
than a lot of what I was seeing on the vampyres list at the time. So
I conceived of something I had not seen in fiction up to that point
(not that I could, or can, lay claim to anything resembling a good
survey of what was out there to be seen): a tale of vampires in a
cyberpunkish sci-fi future world. And, because I could, and because I
wanted to write her in a non-Superguy setting for once, I made
Chalandra Harkness my lead character.
This is not the Chalandra Harkness from Superguy, of course.
Except in all the ways that matter. I wrote about six chapters in the
fall of 1993, then put the series on hold -- probably because I'd
actually reached the 'Songs of Darkness' storyline in 'CalForce' at
the time, and I found that even I, super-speedy-writer-boy, had to cut
some things out to focus. I didn't return to it until the spring of
1994, when the requirements of collaboration for the 'Industrial
Revolution' storyline meant I had to slow my main Superguy series of
the time, 'Radian & Shadebeam,' way the hell down. I revised the
first six chapters of this story somewhat, then produced four more. I
had just one more chapter to go, then the story would have been done.
Except I never wrote that last chapter. To this day, I still
don't know why. Maybe I was thinking of further revisions. I know I
was thinking of how to expand it to novel-size (something I'm not
seeking now, else you would not be reading this). I'm not sure if I
was thinking of posting it to Superguy; I'm sure I was hesitant on
this point, as it would have suffered in comparison to '2035' (though
that series had much more going for it than Chalandra, and was in many
respects a very different story).
When my computer crashed in December 1996, it took the story with
it. Most of my stuff I had backed up on disk; for some reason, this
story was not (along with a few 'Road Race from Hell' fragments and a
couple stories for the never-posted 'Punk With a Gun' anthology). I'm
not sure I even realized it was gone for a while, so thoroughly had I
put it out of my mind. Or maybe I just thought I'd have time to
retrieve it from the guvm archives, then forgot about it. But by the
time I realized I wanted to see it again, it was gone, and the
vampyres list was gone from guvm as well.
Forward to 2009. In some fit of nostalgic googling, I started
searching for the story. More generally, I searched for archives of
the vampyres list. I'd looked before, but never found them. This
time, I did, and the list with them -- long since moved to
the-institute.net. While this story was not in the public archive,
the list owner did have it in his offline archives, and I once again
had the story.
As far as the prose is concerned, it is generally at the level I
was at in 1993 and 1994 -- some good turns of phrase, some overly
purple turns of phrase, some kind of 'wtf' turns of phrase, some
overuse of commas, a tendancy toward inexplicably odd character names,
and not enough description overall. Plus my usual (for the time)
misspellings, which (save for formatting) are the only parts I've
edited. I was mildly alarmed to see how many 80's cyberpunk cliches I
managed to jam into it, and some of it gives cause to howl now (20
gigabytes of memory, considered an inconceivably huge amount -- way to
go, predictor-of-the-future me!).
And yet... and yet there was something there, buried in what I
was not yet skilled enough to express. A consideration of what it
might mean for a race of near-immortal beings to see their advantages
be subsumed by technological progress, and what they might do to avoid
losing their superiority. It is, for all its flaws, a vampire science
fiction story (as opposed to a vampire story with a sci-fi background)
with something to say. Were it not, I doubt I would be posting it as
for the Superguy list, the presence of Chalandra or no.
But Chalandra is here; not the Chalandra of Superguy, but not
much changed, either. Other Superguy-derived characters show up in
the course of the story, with more alterations than Chalandra
required. Because of this, I've elected to designate this an
Alternate Superguy tale, set in altiverse 998SUPERGUY (far away from
000SUPERGUY, where Rad, The League, New Exarchs, West Coast Defenders,
Aurora, and most other Superguy tales take place).
I think I can actually finish it this time.
Enough yabbering. On with the story.

(continued in part one...)
--
Copyright (c) 1993-2010 by Gary W. Olson. All Rights Reserved.
--
Gary W. Olson
swede at novitious dot com
Superguy LiveJournal: http://community.livejournal.com/superguy_list/
Superguy DreamWidth: http://superguy.dreamwidth.org/
Superguy Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47273370926