by Kei with extractions from alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo

 With  all  this  talk  of "Wibble" and alternative Pratchett humour and
hangouts, I started to feel left out.  My intersts have changed slightly
over  the  years  but  retaining a strong link to modern science fiction
particular  in the area of cyberpunk.  Any how, between work and email I
started  perusing this thing called USENET which my boss decided to give
me access to from work.
 After   enjoying  a  good  chat  and  clearing  up  some  questions  in
alt.fan.bladerunner I soon discovered that the Amiga newsgroups were not
up  to  much  with everyone having to ask why an Amiga is good enough to
own  and  how  it rates against the Mac.  About to give up I figured I'd
check  out the cyberpunk newsgroups not expecting anything more than the
usually newbie and lamer questions asking "How do I.." questions.
 Alt.cyberpunk.tech   proved  mildly  interesting  with  information  on
modifying   hardware   to   defraud   and  new  technology  in  general.
Alt.cyberpunk.movement proved boring as did alt.cyberspace.
 What's  this  I  notice..   alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo ?  It's nothing like
I've come across before.  Users jump in and out of this newsgroup but do
not  leave  stupid  questions in boring monotone but rather chat amongst
the patrons of the virtual bar in a gibsonian style world on the edge of
suburbia  where information specialists, hackers and cyberpunk fans hang
out.  This seemed interesting also in the way the postings were written.
If  you  read  between the lines you can find the questions, answers and
flames  flowing  beneath  the  surface  of an amazing expanding piece of
cyberpunk literature composed by the average cyberspace citizen.  A jump
to  the  newsgroups WWW URL shows me links to past postings now composed
into  stories  that  have  been published in magazines around the globe.
This  is where the cyberpunk authors cut their teeth by practicing their
art  on others.  I think I'll hang out here for a while.  Maybe I'll see
you there?


Below  is  a  transcript  of  a  few posts that were posted on the day I
checked  out this newsgroup.  You'll also find the newsgroups URL listed
here.  Enjoy.

                                  -+-

>He  was  in  a bar.  Somewhat noisy, and he wasn't really used to them.
The  bartender  was  gesticulating  in  front  of  him.  "What'll it be?
You've  been  sitting  here  for  a bit now." Jacket looked at the glass
behind  the  bar,  using  the  reflection  to  survey the newcomer...  A
newcomer that has some history though.  The confidence of his

stride  betrays  a knowledge of the bar.  Another denizen to be wary of,
and Jacket was just starting to feel comfortable here.  "It's gonna be a
long  night...   I  can  tell."  murmurs  Jacket, with a hint of a smile
flickering across his face.


>Caleb  glances  warily  to his left at the guy Ratz is shaking his fist
at,  wonders if this guy is kinked enough to feel it if he hits him with
a  little  millimeter, see what's up under that coat.  No visible jacks,
eye's  look normal, but he can't just *stare* at him.  Well, he can, but
that's  usually  a  good  way  to court third eye syndrome.  He absently
touches a recent exit wound through his shirtfront.  Last time he'd used
milli...   Bad  luck,  man.  Bad luck was walking with him in this time.
Checks  the  door for about the hundredth time.  Bent suit's not fucking
coming,  already  an  hour  late, which means he gets to keep the damned
case and what a fucking monkeys paw *that* things been...

Now  that  he's  listening,  turns  out Ratz isn't waving his fist, he's
trying  to  get  a  drink  order.  Trying to get anything from this guy,
who's looks like maybe he doesn't need any more, he looks pretty spaced.
Jeez,  if  Ratz  is  actually soliciting orders from these zoners things
must be sparse indeed.  He amps up his audio and begins to make sense of
what  this guy's saying to his glass of...  whatever.  Seems our boy's a
Chat expat, but missed some of the fun a few years back.  Bad Luck might
be  his  gig,  too,  from  the look on his face.  Place is a practically
fleabag  sex joint now, though suggesting that to Ratz would mean having
to scan your whiskey awful hard from that point forward.

Caleb decides to try and change his luck, and maybe this guy next to him
as  well.   He  does  the  cheap  pen  trick, the black wedge seeming to
materialize  in his gloved hand, but hell, this guys not looking at him,
he's  still  romancing  his...   what *is* that shit that guys drinking?
Fishes  around in his duster until he comes up with an old cred beareres
card,  long  since used up but usefull occasionally for other things (it
is amazing the locks that people *still* use, he thinks).  He scrawls an
address  on  the  wafer  of  microcircuitry (the pen's AI checks out the
writing  surface  and  chooses  thermal)  -  it  could  write equally as
smoothly  on  a  Zaibatsu's  austere rice paper letterhead or a troopers
ceramic armour, and had on both.

Stands  up,  grins  at  the guy on the next stool and slides the card to
that  understood  no mans land that exisits between the patrons of every
bar  in  the  universe.  Take it if you want it, choomba, maybe we could
both use a change of luck.  The card reads

              http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/joel/teabowl/

Then  the doors open and Calebs gone and a few drops of rain smack a few
drunken  sailers  and bitching catemites, and he's gone, baby, gotta fly
and find him some better luck...

*********************************

Jacket  snaps  a  look  at  the  card  from  long range.  Memorising the
address,  Jacket  stores  for future reference.  Change of luck?  Things
just got interesting again...  A loud mouth bursts in screaming "WHAT IS
A  CYBER  PUNK  ANYWAY!!!" A loud burst screams into his mouth.  "Pissed
off, thats what!" The smoking headless body reels back out the door, and
the patrons return to their drinks.

JAck@!


>DogHermit  applies the Braun lighters' white jet of flame to the corner
of  the "Hottest Sluts on the Net!!  Cum Now!!" poster adorning the wall
at  his  booth  and  sighs.   The poster retreats, curling away from the
flame  and finally wriggling, slug like, across the wall towards another
booth,  leaving  a  glistening trail of some adhesive that probably cost
more  to  design  than  DogHermit's netport.  He shakes his head.  "Ever
think  you'd  see  the  day  you  had  to use an EMP weapon on a fuckin'
poster?"

"Y'know Dan, it's been said before, but it wasn't always like this..."

He  smiles  thinly and straightens from his slouch.  "I've been ghosting
this  place  for  years, hadda term for that kind of thing back when the
net  was mostly just images and text - lurking." He waggles his eyebrows
theatrically.   "I  hope  you  got a chance to check out the archives at
http://www.netlink.co.uk/users/joel/teabowl/ and see what things used to
be like.  Though most of that stuff's before my time too."

"Most  all  of  the players here now are before my time, and they mostly
drop  in  to  bitch  about how nobody's posting anymore.  Me, I'm just a
hack,  gotta  day  job and all, but I like to write and I love to tell a
good  story.   I just think this genre's giving up the ghost.  The whole
'cyberpunk'  think,  I  mean..."  Again,  the  minutest  of head shakes.
"Whole body of people waiting around for Gibson to publish..."

"Anyway,  I  write a lot, but I'm not a writer, got this problem with my
silicon  makes  for bad or nonexistent endings.  Have a work in progress
that  was supposed to be a short story but is getting longer by the day,
and  at  any given moment I can't decide whether I fucking hate it or it
does  me  proud.   And  when  I read some Gibson or Banks, Stephenson or
Moran, well, 'don't quit your day job' rings loudly in my ears."

He  lights  up  some  godawful  smelling cigar that he fishes out of his
duster  with  the  Braun,  the butt end of a very modern-looking handgun
viewed  like an afterthought in contrast to the beat-up tiredness of the
man.   "The  thing  is  to  just  POST," he says with renewed intensity.
"Good,  bad,  fuckin'  sucks  - it doesn't matter.  But it's pretty cool
you're even here at all..."

"When you put stuff up here, try and blend it in, make your point or ask
your  question but throw in something to lubricate the insertion, if you
will." Again with the eyebrows.  "So.  What're you reading these days?"

"Yo, Ratz, more whiskey!"


barbara trumpinski wrote:

>kitten,  the  info  specialist extraordinaire, concurs...."the chat has
never  been an especially FRIENDLY place....but there are some good folx
here...we  just  have to get rid of the bloody slugs.  has anyone called
LIMEX?"  (yeah,  the  greenies  will  bitch,  but you can get rid of the
things without poisoning anything else in the area...and they are pretty
nasty)

>DogHermit  swivels  in his check out the person who's dropped in on the
convo  (monologue?),  a  woman by the voice, but he can't quite make her
out  through  the  haze of the smoke from his cigar - At least she's not
asking  him to put it out.  With a small motion of his hand and a single
raised eyebrow he offers her a seat.

"Info  Specialist...  Extraordinaire?" He positively grins.  "That's the
spirit  of  the old Chat incarnate.  I have questions, questions for one
such..."  his  eyes  roll  up  for  a  second,  "...one  such  creature.
University  of  Illinois?   Jamaica  High  School?  aaaaannd...  Eastern
Illinois University."

"Buy you a whiskey?"



>"you  must  be  psychic!   and  i'd  love a whiskey.  who ARE you?????"
kitten who is called barbara by her mother is puzzled...

...or is this yet another SWS (small world syndrome) incident."

kitten accepts the whiskey and offers a hug.


John L. wrote:
 
>WHAT  THE HELL IS A CYBERPUNK ANYWAY?????  THIS CHAT ROOM SEEMS TO SUCK
HOPE YOU AGREE!!!!!!!!

>Sunfire  looks  at  the  new one...  just when you finally get tired of
blasting  the  lamers  from AOL, something lower on the food chain comes
crawling out of the muck.  WebTV?

He dumps the salt box on it and watches as it begins to shrink and twist
on the floor.  Limex for sure...


end