Separate Causes

I

I begin walking. The sidewalk is hard under my boots. Chromers flash by in a tight knot. Metal has replaced their limbs, their skin. They're nuts. The hum of their electric bikes fades over a rise in the road. A chatter of gunfire down the street. The scene slowly forms before me, jerky from my footsteps. Some gangers had 'bushed the Chromers. Three of the five are flat. One's trying to get up from under his bike. A ganger steps on the Chrome's throat and blows his skull open. The other starts to run, but isn't faster than lead. I duck into an alley. I've got my own life to lead.

I pass a storefront done in six centi bulletproof glass. Inside, TV's flash and moan silently to those outside. I watch one with the news. Under the prettyboy anchor a scrolling strip announces: "Bodycount 537! Season high! Jackpot at $4000!" I remember seeing that in a book, a long time ago. Remember hoping it wasn't going to come true. A store guard comes up, clanking guns, and ask me if I'm gonna buy anything. I see St. Mary's flash on the screen, and know it's time to go.

I'm broke. Not much call for lit teachers, and I've spent money fast. Sandra left a week ago. Said I was too much of a mooch. I told her I was working on a PhD in Bumology. The joke fell flat. She went home to her sister's, in LA. They were killed in the street by a cyberpsycho three days ago. That's when I realized.

Cops fly past, back the way I came. They're busy today. Real busy. They run the city now from their armored jeeps. Usually they mount machine guns, occasionally grenade launchers or rockets. City Hall didn't stand a chance.

Come across a jeep with the windows shot in, burning. Gangers again. There's a couple scattered round the jeep, hosed before the guy in the turret bought it. Probably a bunch hiding in the tenements, waiting. The cops don't stop around here unless they can't get out. Neither does anybody else. I guess I should support the gangers, but I know they're not fighting for freedom. They're fighting for fun.

Central's only a couple of blocks, now. It's a brick, one of the few buildings not hosed by bazookas or rockets. Course, who'd wanna hose where you're gonna get patched up?

I slip between two tenements and check the rounds in the UZI I got with the last of my cash. Subsonics - not silent, but quiet enough for me. I hope the gangers don't notice. They don't like people fucking around on their turf.

I walk through the front door of Central. The elevators are across the lobby. A nurse sits behind a desk and asks if she can help me. "Yes," I say, "where's Maternity? My wife called, I was out of town, and she said she'd be here..."

The nurse opens a rosterbook. "Maternity's third floor. If you tell me your wife's name, sir, I can give you the room number." I look at the roster and read some woman's upside-down name. The nurse tells me the number and wishes me well. I'm glad I don't have to kill her. Yet.

The elevators ding on the third floor. Nurses at their station confirm the room assignment of Mrs. Adkins in 316. I thank them and walk down the corridor, past 316, and around two corners to the viewing area. Thirty, maybe forty innocent eyes stare back at me through the glass. Some are in pain, dying of diseases their mothers gave them. Some are in withdrawal without ever getting high. Many are healthy, but they haven't left Central yet. They aren't poisoned.

A nurse is coming down the corridor. I pull my UZI and shoot a three-round into her chest. The babies stare at me. Another three-round shatters the glass. Full auto shatters them.

I leave. Race back down the corridor, waste the cameras, waste the nurses. Duck down a side passage, get in the staff 'vator. Take it to the second floor. Bust into a room. Old geezer hooked up to life support, probably in a coma. Ignore him and head out the window, down the fire escape. Hit the street, start walking, calm. I think Central was cleaner than St. Mary's. I'm getting the hang of it. I'm a block away; three jeeps scream past. They're busy today. Real busy.

That was the last one in town. I duck into alleys, find a corp stupid enough to be driving in this part of town. Take the car and wallet, dump his corpse in the river.

I'm on the interstate. I think about what I've done. Hundreds of souls uncontaminated. Innocent. Sent back to the nirvana they came from. I move on to the next city. No one deserves this world.

I drive and wait for the lead to finally rip through my body and set me free.

II

Club's lit in neon and UV; whites, reds, and yellows shining, the fires of hell. Walk up to the bar. Order a Long Island iced tea from the bartender. Streettrash with a job, doesn't know the drink. Order milk plus. Don't need it, just order it.

Look over the crowd. Neo-hippies; look like they shop the same place as the doorman. Leathers black below white faces and raven hair arranged in sharp spikes. A brief thought: several pairs of leathers fornicating, moving slowly closer to a normal pinned against the wall until their hair is piercing his skin.

Targeting scope moves restlessly over norms huddled in groups for protection, frat t-shirts branding them loudly. Dorphers in the pit, smashing each other, so high they can't feel it. Boosters in the corner, almost as metal as me. Switch to IR. Two got dermal plate. S'okay, I'm prepped.

Gina sidles up, black leather bikini under black leather cloak. Her eyes are holograms; they show a depth that isn't there. Presses her breasts against the metal arm, asks if I want her again. Doesn't connect me with what I am. Doesn't read the faxes or watch the news. Been only two bars so far, anyway.

She's insistent, doesn't realize that I'm purified. That I can see. That she disgusts me. Ignore her; she gives up and hits on a Booster. Fine by me.

Look over the club again. A dance of facades, masks pretending to be human, to care about the one they're taking home tonight, though their drugged minds can't remember their mate's name. Masks restrain them, keeps them in simple roles.

I'm the only one who can see. The only one who can free them, make them all the same. MAC-10 clicks against my belt as I draw it from my trench.

III

It's worked before.

She was pretty. Six foot. Blonde. Pouty lips. Cybereyes and silver legs. I had to kill her.

I'm standing in my workroom, by my table. It was an operating table once. Scattered around it is the metal. Hands, arms, legs, feet, eyes, ears. I could sell it, but I won't. There's easily a couple million in cyberware here. I won't touch it. Only to remove it. Only to remove.

My smock is bloody. Bloodier than it ever was when I was a ripper. Then I was healing, or I thought I was. The television in the next room chatters about a cyberpsycho ripping up a city block. I'll get the clippings in tomorrow's newsfax, put them up on the wall with the others.

I return to my coffee in the kitchen. The anchor won't let the psycho story die without the footage. It flashes across the screen in gory detail, live. Cyberpsycho. A man with too much metal on him. The shock of waking up in the morning, realizing that most of your body is a machine. Drives you bonkers. A rocket launcher comes out of his steel thigh and flatlines a bystander. Tear and nerve gas billow around him. He must have filters.

Flashback. A club. Brilliant lights, flashy people. Crackling edges from the speed. Dancing with a hooker. Loud bass, shouted whispers.

People are on edge. The Baby Killer's in town. Popular joke: "Girl, you're such a babe the Baby Killer's gonna getcha!" People aren't sure how much of a joke it is.

Door opens. Lin Johnson walks into the bar. Big guy, green trench coat. Looks around. I put his cybereyes in a week ago. The sockets are still bruised.

He walks to the center of the dance floor. He looks kinda funny. I grab my hooker and head for the bar as he pulls out a gun and starts hosing the place. Psycho, all right. My hooker gets one in the chest, flats right there. I know Lin's got plates under his skin. I stop thinking about my .45 and start thinking about the door.

This older guy, bout forty, on the other side of the place pulls a gun, looks an UZI, antique as hell, and starts shooting at Lin. Gun's quiet, but no silencer. Lin's dermals stop the lead - good craftsmanship. Lin hoses back. The other guy doesn't have dermals; splatters against the wall. I'm out the door.

I figure the optics sent him over.

I go home, dig up my files, start hunting names and addresses. Start cutting cyberware, dissolving bodies. They usually don't survive the cutting.

After my files run out, I freelance, cruising clubs and alleys. Boosters don't know who I am, but they hate me. I got AP's and thumpers. Can't find Lin. The psycho squad can't find Lin, though he wastes six more clubs. Mobs can't find Lin, most of the time, and when they do, they don't come back.

The TV shows the psycho's chest blowing from a rocket. It doesn't take long after that.

I'm briefly distracted by a clatter in the workshop. Something falling. I look back to the TV. I spit coffee as the reporter says, in a related story, the psycho squad finally found Lin holed up in an apartment complex.

The building's rubble. Lin's scrap.

I stand up, drop my cup; it shatters onto the floor. I walk into my workshop, bump against my table. He's gone. After two months, he's gone. I clatter against the cyberjunk as I move. I switch to IR and look at myself in the mirror. My right arm, my eyes, are blue lumps of nothingness against the orange stain of my heat.

I get my tools. One last removal. A tiny saw whirs. I decide to do the arm first. I need to see to do that.

Separate Causes ver 2.0

Tiny lights winked on their surface, offices looking down at the street so far below.

My trench coat is flapping, making it even more difficult to read. The green cloth smacks my body as a gang rides past on restored Harleys, the chrome of their bikes reflected on the chrome of their thighs. They swerve in front of me, stopping on the sidewalk.

"Lookie lookie!" one of them says. They're all bodysculpted, their skin tinted orange under small horns and cateyes. Devils. "We got ourselves a bookwormmmmm!" Small arms glinted in holsters.

"I don't want any trouble," I say, and then it happens: the hospital finally goes up in a massive fireball, sending spirals of smoke and fire up to the roof. As I start to run down an alley the top three floors of the hospital slide off, crashing to the street below. I toss the Shakespeare to the side, fumbling for the automatic rifle under my coat. I could hear one of the gangers scream "Co-ol" as I ran.

Race down the alley, dodging rubbish strewn on the street. Turn and squeeze a burst off, and watch a chest explode onto the seat behind the ganger. Spin around a corner.

The laundromat sign flickers in pink neon below the darkening sky as I race in the door, tripping on a basket of clothes. The customer, a balding man wearing a muscle t-shirt over his gut, starts to yell at me before his eyes slowly widen in fright. I look for what frightened him until I remember my gun.

"I'm not gonna hurt anybody," I yell, backing towards the rear entrance as the sound of the bikes rings loud through the walls of the place. I see the bikers scream past the plate window, ripping gunfire shattering it into a million shards, as I duck out and collapse against the closing door.

A column of smoke lazily rises into the sky, blending into the darkness, a column for souls to climb.

And I knew more souls were at peace.

"Mr. Samson, you know it's unsafe to wander outside of the corporate zones," Richards says. I ignore him, slamming a magazine into the 9mm caseless pistol. The holster fits nicely under my sportscoat, and with the proper alterations already made, it didn't look like a gun was even there at all.

"I am perfectly aware of the risk of physical damage to myself. I am also perfectly aware of my medical coverage, which will replace any body part damaged with a cybernetic part."

Richards ran his fingers through his pattern balding hair. "Mr. Samson, you own and run this company. It may not be in writing, but it's true."

I look at my body in the mirror. Silver hair, styled at the most expensive shops. Suit designed and tailored for my build, changed every month to assure a proper fit. A Rolex, still in style among those wanting to flash their money. All designed to cover up the rapidly aging body of a forty year old man well past his prime.

"So? What if I do run this company? It's only a company."

I walk over to my desk and pick up the picture of Ashley, taken only minutes after birth. The only picture of Ashley.

The driver appears in my doorway. "The car is ready, Mr. Samson."

I ignore Richards' pleas as I walk with the driver back to the elevator. As the doors close, I turn to face him.

"You know, Richards, sometimes I don't think it would be so bad to be metal."

The elevator speeds towards the parking garage. It wouldn't be so bad to be metal. At least then the world wouldn't hurt so much.

I remember the picture of Ashley, and my hand reflexively moves toward my gun. This time, bastard, this time.

"Doctor Cravens to ER, code blue. Doctor Cravens to ER, code blue." The PA cuts off with that annoying beep that has been my bane of all the time that I've spent in the hospital. I flip up my cellular phone and dial in the access code as I half walk, half run for the elevator.

"Cravens here. What is it?"

The face of a nurse fills the screen. "Doctor, a Mr. Samson is being airlifted in. He has a full medical option full body convert, and from the prelim reports-"

He was shoved out of the way by a balding man in a wrinkled suit. "This is Richards. I'm Mr. Samson's personal secretary, and he deserves the best care money can buy, and he's bought it. Why isn't he here yet -"

The nurse came back onto the screen. "Apparently Mr. Samson was crushed by falling rubble from the explosion at St. Joe's."

"Life signs?"

"Barely there. They've had flatline twice."

"All right. I'm on my way. Have the equipment ready for full convert, just in case that's necessary."

"Right away, doctor."

I brushed back my hair and hoped I'd get some sleep tonight.

I'm splashed all over the news, of course. It's only appropriate. Who wouldn't make a big deal out of a hospital getting shot up, then having a bomb go off, destroying more than half of it? I watch the tv news do slow motion replays of the explosion, captured by telephoto lenses from vans blocks away.

The blueprints roll up easily in my hands, sliding the blocks of C-4 I was using as paperweights off onto the wood table. Make a mental note to pay off that worker at the courthouse again.

Either that or kill him.

As a related story comes on the news (it appears the hospital falling in grievously injured some rich C.E.O.), I look around the apartment, lined wall to wall with books. Stacks of them are on the ancient tv, and several are vying for space with the rifle on the coffee table. I'm not sure which stacks are higher, the books or dirty dishes. The legacy of an English teacher. Useless profession anymore.

I go to get a beer from the fridge, stopping to examine the clippings taped to the stained ceramic. The articles go back a month. They started calling me the Babykiller right from the start. Front page news in a city where murders are common. The legacy of a killer.

The phone rings. The display on the phone says it's the superintendent of schools. I let the machine get it as I start to read the newsfax.

"Hi. This is Mike and Valerie's apartment. We're not in or we're busy - quit it, Mike! - so leave a message."

A tear is splashed all over the news.

Wake up. A little display in the corner of my vision shows my vital signs. Got cybereyes now. Rerun memories to find out where I am. Get out of the car, the driver standing attentively as I take out the gun. Stand as hospital explodes far above. See the brick. Falling. Falling. Falling. Remember.

Hear the beepbeep of hospital machinery. Look up into a bright light. Try to move. Try again.

A woman walks into the room wearing a doctor's coat. Black hair, angular face. Sharp nose. Not unattractive. The ID tag says "Dr. Cravens."

"Good morning, Mr. Samson."

Try to shake her hand. Realize I can't feel my arms.

"I'm sorry you can't move right now..."

Realize I can't feel my legs.

"...but it's part of the psychological treatments. Some people react very negatively to the operations that have been performed on you."

"What operations?" Voice sounds normal.

"Here. I'll show you." She holds up a mirror, moving it so I can see all of the metallic body shimmer in the light. Look into the metal mask. Try to see any humanity left in it, and fail. The doctor's eyes widen as I laugh.

It'll all be over soon.

I'm there when they let his wife into Samson's room. He's been here a week, and is about to be released. She's quivering against my arm while we walk down the long corridor towards Cyhab. The psychologists have been working on her for almost the entire week. They claim they don't need to work on him that much, that he's made the adjustment well. If liking being more metal than flesh is well-adjusted, then he's the best adjusted person I've ever met.

She's a pretty woman, like a doll. Richards didn't say it, but he implied pretty heavily that was her function in life, to be something for Samson to hold and cherish. Whatever turns you on.

He's my best creation. I had room for expression on him, as opposed to the others, who just wanted a limb that looked as human as possible. He wanted to look metal, so I sculpted him. I hope she likes it.

The door slides open on hydraulic hinges as we approach. The edge of the hospital bed is visible from the hallway. It rises as he gets up. He doesn't clank.

She won't go any further, holding back against my arm, almost trying to squeeze into my body.

He steps into the doorway, a magnificent silhouette. Six and a half feet tall, shining chrome. Smooth joints and casings hide the workings of the cyborg as he smoothly walks forward and takes his wife up into his metal arms.

"Hello, honey. I love you," he says, his voice perfect.

Her face, hidden from him, is streaked with tears.

This time, I take several seconds to look at them first. I'd already placed the C-4, so I allowed myself the luxury of looking deep into their eyes before I killed them.

Several had started crying, as though they recognized me through the plexiglass. Hell, if there's anything at all to reincarnation, some of them might. They might remember my face and the death that came soon afterward. Some were just looking at me, accepting. Or maybe innocent. They would never be stained by the world that took Valerie. Of course, if there is reincarnation, one of them could be Val...

The bullets shatter glass and bodies indiscriminately.

Office is empty. Have to clean the desk. The Board wouldn't hear of it. Said I was more computer than man. Said I didn't deserve to control. Heard a whispered comment, "Should be working in the plant with the other robots." Fools. Don't understand.

Richards won't talk to me. Is convinced I sought to be metal. May be right.

Start to pack the pictures on the desk. Wife. Soon to be ex. Says she can't deal with it. Why does it hurt? Shouldn't hurt. I'm metal. They should understand. Still the same. Just look different. Just look a little different. Some of them have cyberware. Why am I different?

Ashley still looks out from her picture. Ache is the same. Anger is the same. Throw the pictures, throw the box out the window. Watch them spiral down forty stories, surrounded by twinkling glass. He did this to me. I was so close. So close. Took Ashley away from me. Took my body away from me. Took my company, took my wife. Took everything.

Take a gun from the upper left desk drawer. Twin of the crushed one. Feel the grip in my metal hand.

Make sure the building can hear my clanking feet as I storm out of the building.

Art imitates life.

That's why there's a girl disintegrating in the bathtub. I can hear the soft whirring of the ceramic-coated beater as it stirs the phosphoric acid. In several more hours, she'll be little particles that'll be going down the drain.

I've had to clean the drain five times this week.

A television sits on a mound of metal limbs and eyes. Samson's metal face is making as many headlines as that damn Babykiller. Shooting up streets of people, clubs, restaurants.

Art imitates life.

Records are kept on those who have received cyber implants or modifications. All but Samson are listed as "Missing". I know better. Samson's the only one left. And the worst, shooting up all the areas. Fact is, he's hit a couple places close to the hospital...

That's it.

Drag up his life history. There's his child, dead within a day of birth at...County General. Which was hit on the same day as the Babykiller...

I grab the taser I modified and head out the door.

As I leave Central by a fire escape, I think about that cyborg that's been killing everyone over the last month. That's why I'm doing this. I'm one of the good guys.

The timer runs out when I'm a block away. Tentacles of smoke and flame crawl out from Maternity. All the innocent children, spared the pain of living in a world of homicidal maniacs, killing women, killing fiancees, killing children.

Killing each other.

"Say hello to Valerie," I tell the children. At least they didn't understand they were going to be shot.

I turn and look into the steel face of the homicidal cyborg.

"Never mind," I tell the babies, "I'll tell her myself."

Targeting his face. He did this to me.

Never mind. I'll tell her myself.

Query? Ignore.

Finally found you.

Were you looking?

Raise gun.

For Ashley.

Stands there. Targeting. Lock.

For Valerie.

Fire.

It's too late to keep him from killing the guy in the street, but I shove the taser into the back of his head before pressing the button. All the battery's power is drained in a second, shorting the circuitry. The metal man drops on the bloody body of its victim. I take Samson - its - gun and put a few bullets in its head for good measure. It's almost over.

I don't turn on the lights when I get home, even though it's full night. I manage to find my way into the kitchen, to the table piled high with cyberware. He's gone. Almost over. The note sits on top of the television. They'll find it.