Message #316705

[Flipz]

-==IC: Amarus Zagrene==-
Amarus sighed as he left the psychiatrist's office.  Well, that's another hundred grand wasted.  Third time this month.   A limousine waited for him at the end of the covered awning, but he waved the driver off.  "I'm going to head down to the Department of Games branch, it's close enough to walk.  See you in twenty minutes."  The driver nodded and plugged his hand implants into the dashboard, starting the vehicle and driving it off.  The sun beat down upon Zagrene's brow, but he ignored it the best he could.  No way was he rolling up his long sleeves or his pants--he could break out in implants at any time, and keeping his body covered was an easy way to pretend they weren't there.

As he crossed a street, a group of passing teenagers pushed by, laughing and joking around.  All made a deliberate effort to shove Zagrene as hard as they could--he ignored them, glad that no cybernetics had appeared on his face today.  He glanced at the park beside him, and saw children launching disks and balls of harmless holographic light at each other, unwittingly imitating a centuries-old movie about a man trapped inside a cyberspace grid.  Trapped...yes, that's a good word for it.  But Flynn just had to beat up a computer program to escape.  For me...there is none.  Lost in thought, he didn't notice the wire-bearded man skulking behind the tree ahead of him until it was too late.

"Excuse me," the man said suddenly, stepping into Zagrene's path, "but are you backed up?  When you are permanently deactivated, will your eternal hard drive be uploaded to the Grid of Nirvana, or will your personality files be found wanting by the Great Processing Unit, routed to the intergalactic bit-bucket, and permanently deleted?  I'm Nate Al, Cleric of the Gates, and I'd like to upgrade your life."

Irritated and yet somehow amused, Zagrene took stock of the man as he continued to chatter away.  The visible patch of the man's chest, replaced by a clear plastoid material, revealed an intricate mix of natural and cybernetic components, most of which appeared to have been patched and repaired over and over again.  Of course, the man's clothing drew attention away from this; a patchwork of red, green, blue, and orange flaglike-squares, surrounded by iridescent blue bubbles, the absurdity of the cleric's tunic was matched only by that of his jacket, a sickening translucent aquatic blue styled somewhat like a formal suit jacket--it looked like the tailor had woven it from top to bottom, but had forgotten to stop, leaving the garment to drag at least a foot along the ground.  Rows of white LEDs along the seams completed the garish horror.  Zagrene tuned back in to the man's sermon: "...and all you have to say to guarantee this is, 'My name is,' then say your name, and then proclaim, 'and I'm a PC.'  Whaddaya say?"

Zagrene coldly sidestepped the lunatic preacher, and continued on his way, ignoring the man's calls for him to come back.  To his consternation, another man--this one clearly a Wozniak priest--was headed his way.  Zagrene broke into a run, and managed to get out of sight of the park, when he rand into an attractive woman close to his age.  "Oh, I'm sorry, the cultists are out in the park again, and I--"

"That's OK," the woman said in a heavily synthesized voice.  "I am undamaged.  Are you intact, sir?"

"Zagrene.  Call me Zagrene."

"From now on, I will call you Zagrene.  OK?"

Zagrene looked the woman up and down again, this time with a more critical eye.  She was wearing plainclothes, and if she was what he thought she was...  He took a small ring from his pocket and slipped it on, then pressed a button on the lower left of the holographic display pad that appeared in front of his hand.  "Hello, Los Angeles Police Department?  There's a jailbroken Siri model at Reseda and Oxnard."  The woman took off running.  "Headed east," he added, before closing the line.  His good deed done, Zagrene continued south, hoping to reach the Department before anything else could annoy him.