A Future We'd Like to See 1.55 - Bloodlines, Act I By Stefan "Twoflower" Gagne (Copyright 1994) "How can it not know what it is?" - Deckard, _Blade Runner_ It could possibly be ironic the way members of the criminal element pray on the fast food industry. In the same way that these noble chefs prepare food items at great speed for reasonable amounts of money, the criminals mug these chefs and take that reasonable amount of money away. It's a wonder the industry can stay afloat. However, I myself am not pray to these people. A McSpackle's hat and padded apron are not the symbols of an easy target, but the markings of an honorable worker and a proud warrior (Wae Spat, Passage 45). The three following behind me had the markings of the criminal element on them... dishonorable thoughts in their hearts, thin pockets, sharp objects. I had been deliberately trailing them as they trailed me down the street, looking for a reasonable combat area... one with a lot of open space and hard objects. Finding a nearby five- credit-an-hour parking lot, I took a sharp turn and walked inside. The criminals see this as a prime opportunity, since there was only one gate in and out of the lot. I wasn't planning to leave without my money, though. "Hey, missie!" one of them called out behind me, supposedly announcing his presence to the world for the first time. I paused, and turned around, pretending to be surprised. "Yes, may I help you?" I asked. "You bet you can. See, us three here are in need of some things." "Perhaps I will be able to help you then. What do you need?" "For starters, your credit chip and valuables," the lead punk said, waiving his sharp object a few inches away from my face. "For instance, how about that necklace?" I touched my crystal spatula necklace, a family heirloom. "Sorry, I need this myself." "I don't care. I want it," he said, stopping the waving and keeping the knife rigid. First error. I whipped out my spatulas from my belt holsters and dove down below the dangerous object, planting one spatula under his crotch and the other below his upraised arm. Much to his surprise, I twisted around, lightly tossing him into a nearby land rover's driver seat, through a closed window. I re-aligned my spatulas, and turned to face the other two hooligans. "Anything else you want?" "Your life, bitch!" one of them snarled, pulling a simple handheld blaster and firing. I easily deflected the bolt away with the mirrored side of my spatula, where it harmlessly melted the tire of a parked car. Whipping around once, I impacted both flats on the side of the gunman's head, knocking him to the ground. "And you want?" I asked the third. "Err... the time?" he asked, tapping his watch. "Seven thirty four," I replied. "Good. Umm. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to run away now." "If you could please stay for a moment," I requested, holstering the spatulas after making sure he didn't have a weapon drawn other than his own fear and personal timepiece. "I require assistance as well." "Lady, I don't have much on me--" I held up my map. "Can you show me where the Tatewaki Wae Spat Dojo is?" "Wae Spat? That thing the ex-Stomach Contents guy made up? Is that what you used? Wow. I gotta learn that." "It takes many years of practice, both as a fighter and a chef. Now, do you know the location of the dojo?" "According to this map, it's three blocks that way, then turn right. Can't miss it." "Thank you. Now, your credit chip please?" The man blinked, but quickly handed it over. "Don't take too much, please, I haven't had dinner yet tonight..." I interfaced my chip with his, and transferred about a hundred credits to him. I handed his chip back, and started for the parking lot gate. "That is for the medical bills for your friends," I said. "Inform them that Sarah Ann Tatewaki suggests further training if they wish to succeed in this lifestyle." * I took my time walking there. I had waited approximately one year working my way over to C'atel from the Anarchy Zones, and I was patient enough to wait another few minutes. After that, I would see my father again. My earliest memories were of him, training on a mountainside dojo on Earth. The sun would set and the townspeople below would head home, but I would still be active, training in the Wae Spat (The Recent Art of Fighting) with my father, Jim Bob Tatewaki. My father was truly a wise man, taking an ordinarily kitchen implement and developing the most graceful of martial arts around it. I studied hard under him, learning both the technique and the philosophy of Wae Spat. "Someday," he would say, "You will be heir to Wae Spat, the true master, after I am long gone." It was quite a promise, sealed by the crystal spatula necklace I wore; the same necklace father wore. He gave it to me shortly after he vanished. The events between my last session at the dojo and when I woke up in my hotel room at Port Hades are somewhat fuzzy, if not entirely nonexistent. I do not mind, however, and do not care; I know who I am and what my goal in life is. I heard that during this period of my life, father was touring with some musical group named Stomach Contents, which I approve of. Father always enjoyed recorded music of any kind, and so do I, although I lack any talent at playing it. I can cook, I can fight, but I can't play music. I suppose he must have retired from music, because one day while working at the Emerald Saloon's kitchen in Port Hades I heard of this dojo. It was an extension of the Wae Spat school, a branch out in C'atel, rainiest of cities and Jim Bob's home after he trained me. According to the customer who told me about it, an ex-Stomach Contents member ran it. For the first time in years, I'd be able to see my father. I am not sure exactly how many years, but it certainly has been too many. * The dojo was truly a modern one, far beyond the simple wooden structure that was my old home. My old dojo was entirely made of wood, a rarity in these modern times, with a sliding paper door that faced the sunset and a faint smell of cooking oil wafting in from the kitchen. This was a ground floor studio of brick, not wood. There was a large streetview window, frosted with the letters TATEWAKI WAE SPAT DOJO in four different languages, not unlike my home door of paper. I had quickly learned that one never saw the sun in C'atel, so no comparisons could be drawn there. The door was keypad activated and unlocked, so I tapped the OPEN pad and walked through the sliding metal frame. Inside was a waiting room, not unlike a travel agent's office, complete with pamphlets and magazines. "Hey there," a boy behind the counter said, waving to me. The man hardly looked like a practitioner of Wae Spat, unless the common dress style had changed radically. No apron and way too much tie-dyed clothing. "Like, welcome. You here for tonight's lesson?" "I would like to meet the dojo owner," I said. "He's a bit busy at the moment. Hey, want a Wheat Treatie? I've got plenty more," the said, waving the dog-eared box at me. "No thank you, mister...?" "Wazoo Singleman." "Mr. Singleman." "Wazoo to you, dudette. Now, what's your name?" "Sarah Ann Tatewaki," I said, bowing. "Tatewaki?" he asked, pausing in his munching. "Whoa. Related to Jim Bob?" "Of course," I said. "May I talk to him?" "Depends on your religion. Look, I'll go get Joey and he'll talk with you. Wait right here, 'kay?" he requested, and vanished into the back room with a blur of tie-dye. What did the man mean, religion? It was a puzzle. The family name did get a hint of recognition, but not the kind that would be given to the current master's daughter. I had started to meditate on this when I was interrupted. Now THIS was more like it. He wore a simple white exercise outfit, complete with apron and markings of Wae Spat down his side. The man moved with confidence, the kind of confidence only a dojo owner could have. That and he entered from the EMPLOYEES ONLY door. "Dad!" I yelled, running forward to hug him. He yelped at the hug, as I happily crushed him. Finally, I had found my long lost father. "Dad?" he wheezed, finally pushing me away. I quickly examined him again. He didn't look very much like father. The hair was black, not brown, and he was oriental, not caucasian. Not father. "Dad?" he repeated. "Wazoo, what's her name again?" "Sarah Tatewaki," Wazoo said, appearing from behind the man. "Sarah ANN," I corrected. "May I see my father, please?" The man paused. "Have a seat," he said, motioning to the chairs. I did so, and so did the other two, taking chairs from across the room. "Now," he said. "First, let me introduce myself. I'm Joey, dojo owner and current master of Wae Spat, and this is my assistant and ex-band bud Wazoo." "Heyaz," Wazoo waved, producing his Wheat Treatie box seemingly from thin air. "Anyway, ummm... this is hard to explain..." Joey continued. "Why isn't Jim Bob the current master? Did you defeat him in combat?" I asked. "Whoa! No. Pause. He's dead, but it was entirely by natural causes--" "DEAD?!" I asked, pulling out both spatulas and charging across the room to face this liar. Joey panicked and ducked. "Listen, miss, whoever you are, you've got to calm down here. Do you want the full story or not?" I asked. I mentally kicked myself for attempting an attack from within a dojo's social area, and straightened out, holstering my spatulas. "Goood," Joey said, pulling himself back into his seat. "I thought it was common knowledge by now, anyway. See, Jim Bob caught a strain of the Yttian Flu while we were touring with Stomach Contents out near the Anarchy Zones... nasty strain, the one that can kill a non-Ytt in six hours. Anyway, he died there. The band broke up, since a replacement was out of the question... and since he did seem to love his fighting art thingy, I thought I'd carry it on in his honor, sort of. See?" "'Fighting art thingy'?" I asked. "Exactly. Now, you say your last name is Tatewaki, right? Are you his cousin or something?" "I'm his DAUGHTER," I said. "Last in the line of Wae Spat masters. Until now, it seems." "How could he have a little 'un?" Wazoo asked Joey. "I mean, the guy was on tour all the time, and you did grow up with him, right?" "Exactly," Joey said. "How old are you, miss?" "Seventeen," I said. "Okay. He died two years ago, so you were fifteen when that happened... and since he was on tour with us for sixteen years..." "No, no, no," I said. "He was on Earth, with me. We lived in a mountainside dojo overlooking a village, and he'd teach me Wae Spat each day. We could eat hamburgers and watch the sun go down. It was like that until my tenth birthday." "What happened then?" "Well... father disappeared. I went off. I got a job at Port Hades five years later." "What'd you do in those five years?" "This is all trivial," I said, waving away the barrage of questions. "I am here now, and I AM his daughter. He promised me to be the next master, the next teacher of Wae Spat, not you." "You can't be his daughter if that's the case," Joey said. "Jim Bob was on tour for the last sixteen years, not on Earth, certainly not in... what village was it?" "The name is not important." "I think the chick's lying," Zeebo commented aloud, munching a few more crackers. One of my spatulas neatly embedded itself in the wall next to his ear. "I do not lie," I warned him. I turned to Joey, angrier than I have ever been in my seventeen years. "If either of us is an imposter, it is YOU, sir. How DARE you dishonor the memory of the Tatewaki family by lying you way into the slot of Wae Spat master?!" "Miss, I ain't been snowing you. I don't know who you think you are, but it's impossible for you to be his daughter. Even if you were, I can't exactly turn the dojo over to you. The paperwork would be hell and then I'd be out of the only job I've had in two years." "If you will not give it up voluntarily to the only real Tatewaki here," I declared, "Then I challenge you as a dojo yaburi!" Joey paused. "What's that mean again?" he asked Zeebo, who just shrugged, a little shaken up by four inches of steel stuck next to his head. "It means, if you lose, I get your dojo sign, so I can go establish the only TRUE Tatewaki school of Wae Spat," I said. "How're you planning on taking a frosted window?" Joey asked. "It'll shatter." I reached out and broke his neck. Or tried to. I was just too angry, being told my father was dead, being called a liar, being treated like a common criminal here to do injustice at this false dojo. Anger blocks reaction, and Joey slipped away from me well before I had reached him. Joey pulled a large spatula from behind his back, the two- handed model. It was another of the many kinds of spatulas available in Wae Spat, but I preferred the double-bladed spatulas to the clunky two handed ones. I pulled my second spatula out of the wall and span it into position. "I think I'll go do inventory," Wazoo informed us, and ran for the back room faster than mortal man was meant to move. "I don't want to kick your ass, ma'am, but it doesn't look like you're giving me much of a choice," Joey said, overweight spatula wavering in his hands. "I don't know who you really are or why you're so insistent on getting my window, but if it's a fight you want, I've got a few minutes before my next class. Let's get it over with. Not here, though. Follow me." Joey skipped backwards, keeping his spatula balanced as he knocked the dojo door open, bouncing lightly on the padded mat behind him. I followed, keeping a defensive posture in case the fool tried to attack while he was entering a more proper fighting arena. Have to center myself. Concentrate on the truth. I am Sarah Ann Tatewaki, Wae Spat master. I am here to liberate the family name from someone who has wrongly taken it. I know the forms by heart, memorized, and can perform them like a well oiled machine. So start performing already. Think each move through as it happens. Opponent is using a single spatula, large model, no hands free. Spatula is currently perpendicular to the floor. Move 43, the sliding throw : glide in, wait for swing, duck under and throw. Move executed; Joey attempts to pound me with a swing, but I'm under him and flipping him into the air before he can react. The man lands on his feet, surprised but still very active. More forms... the spinning pizza blade, the fake and slap. He counters, but not very well. He launches some attacks designed for the single spatula, such as the burger flip, but I skip backwards before the spatula can contact the bottoms of my slipper-shoes. I duck one swing and jump the other, clasping the large spatula flat with my own and pulling it over his head. Joey goes down backwards, but manages to hang on and pull free. I launch a flurry attack, but he's rolling away and diving behind me. The world turns upside down as the entire flat of his spatula contacts on my back, sending me sliding across the mat. Quickly soothe down the painful muscles with the flat of one spatula... the other seems to have skidded away. Mistake one, never lose your weapon. With an aching back and half the weapons I had, I charge. Joey easily deflects me, impacting the handle against my shoulder. Grasping at my shoulder in pain, I go down sideways, impacting my other arm into my OWN spatula as it hits the floor at the wrong angle. Pain... cut by my own weapon, from my arm across my chest. Get on your feet, get ready for another attack... but something's wrong. Thoughts shift closer to the present than before; Joey was gaping at my wounds. "Jeezus!" he exclaimed, lowering his defenses. I tried to attack, but the pain was too great; my entire torso ached in waves of agony. "Fight me!" I ordered, waving my spatula around in my only good arm. "But... you're..." he said, pointing to my chest. I looked down, and noticed that I had slashed open my own apron and shirt, revealing my breasts to him. "You HENTAI!" I yelled at him, whacking him in the arm with my spatula. He bounced away, grasping at his forearm. "No, no! You're oozing wires and fluid and sparks and shit!" he said, pointing. I check again, only seeing some flesh wounds. "I don't see any wires, pervert," I said. "Fight!" "I would, but... OH MY GOD! WHAT'S THAT?!" he screamed, pointing behind me. I realized only as I was falling unconscious that I had fallen for the actual oldest trick in the book (Wae Spat form #1, the sucker punch). * "JOEY NO BAKA!" I yelled out, regaining consciousness and slicing at the air with my hand. No spatula. No dojo, in fact. I looked up, and found the dojo gone and an auto shop in its place. The cheater had apparently moved me here after knocking me cold. Why is unknown. "Hey, you're up!" a weasly-looking little high school student said, looking up from his copy of TECHWEEK. "Good thing. I was worried for a minute or two that the OS wouldn't reboot. Never know with these things, screws up on you if it's a specialized system." "Where is that foul creature, the one called Joey?" I asked. "In the waiting room. Lemme go get him," the kid said, closing his magazine and walking off. I took a moment to assess my injuries. None. None? Chest slashes don't heal themselves that fast; I was worried that I would require emergency care. However, my apron was mended, as well as the shirt, and a quick peek down there indicated no wounds. Not even a scar. My bad arm flexed as easily as the other one, without aching or sore muscles. How long had I been out? Perhaps several months? If so, I had better get a tetanus shot, considering the overall sanitation of this garage. Joey peeked in front a nearby doorframe. "Is it safe in here?" he asked. "If I had my spatulas, you wouldn't be around long enough to ask that," I sneered. "Someone's grumpy this morning... hate to say it, but what I'm going to tell you isn't going to help matters any." "Save it, hentai." "It wasn't that, whatever hentai means!" Joey exclaimed. "You were gashed open. Had circuit boards and wires and hydro tubes and stuff. Kid, you're not a human being, you're an AI android." "If you think this weak story is going to discourage me from dojo yaburi, then--" "He's telling the truth," the kid said. "Really. He hauled you in here three hours ago, and I had to patch that up. Never toyed with one of you things before, got some really righteous tech in you. Can I disassemble you and study sometime? My shop teacher would freak!" I grabbed a nearby screw, and jabbed my finger with it, a trickle of blood and a slight pang of pain shooting through my arm. "Look! Blood. I'm no robot, you fools." "I don't see anything," the kid said. "Just another hole I gotta patch up. You owe me big time for this, Joey, more than patching that shitbox Yttian car of yours." "I think I can get this settled," Joey said, pulling out one of my spatulas. He held it in front of my finger with the gash in it. I examined my finger and the reflection, and wondered why they didn't match. My finger was bleeding and really could use a band aid, but the mirror didn't show that. Just a finger with a slit torn in it, and some kind of green bumpy material beneath. "Wire," he said. "Tension wire for muscle simulation. You've got a program running to keep you from seeing your real innards, but it's not sophisticated enough to prevent mirror image detection or extremely serious wounds, like getting decapitated or something." "But... I'm human. I eat, I sleep, I think, I've got memories..." "Simulations and implants. I've been reading about it," the kid said, waving his magazine around. "Really wild stuff. Never seen one of you things with memory implants, though. Someone must have been a mean little bastard to do that." "What about my father?" I asked. "He gave me this necklace when I was ten. How could I have this if I wasn't his daughter? How could it be that I'm not a Tatewaki? Not a human?" "I think I figured that out," Joey said. "Look, I said, that Yttian Flu got him in six hours. He wouldn't let the band into his hospital room during that period, but he had some weird visitors. We figured it might have been relatives, but if the times match, he was organizing to have you constructed to carry on his martial art even after he died. Must have told them to give you his necklace and exactly how you were supposed to remember it." "Kinda a cool way to have a kid, huh?" the grease monkey grinned. "No labor pains, no waiting, and positive proof that your kids'll outlive you." "You said you can't remember where your home village was, or where you were for that matter over a period of several years. I guess the engineers didn't figure you'd need those experiences, just a textbook knowledge of Wae Spat and some early basis memories," Joey theorized. "All lies," I said. "It's impossible." "Okay, how about this," the grease monkey said, pulling off my arm. I screamed, before realizing that it didn't actually hurt. I just couldn't feel my arm any more, since it was across the room, being waved around by the kid. "Give that back to her," Joey demanded. "Whoo! I've got your arm!" the kid laughed, playing with it. "Humans normally don't appreciate dismemberment, but I guess robots don't really mind." I stumbled over to him, trying to correct my balance. It was surprisingly hard to walk without both of your arms, I learned. "I like it, Joey. Can I keep it? It'd be great to have around the shop to help me." "She, man, not it." "Same difference," he said. "She's just an android, man. Not really your friend's daughter, right?" "Biologically no, but she's still a person, for crying out-" I grabbed my arm while the kid was distracted, and ran for it. "Hey, wait!" Joey called out, as I blindly groped for the door in the darkened garage. "Come back! The kid's just joking, Sarah! Come on, let's go back to the dojo and talk this out." "I'm HUMAN!" I yelled back to him, trying to stick my arm back on. "I'm Sarah Ann Tatewaki, not some joke robot made to look like her. I don't have to listen to this!" I finally found a doorframe, and pushed. The door flew open, slammed with superhuman force, and I ran for the rainy streets. I found a dark alley and dove for it, both arms in front of me. I remembered that one arm wasn't attached. Surely I'd die from blood loss unless I could get to a hospital... but I wasn't bleeding. My arm seemed no worse for wear, actually, and my shoulder didn't hurt. I didn't want to know why, even if I did know why. Only one way to be sure. I turned the arm so I could see right down the joint. Wires. Unconnected connectors. Plugs and sockets. Plus, jutting out of the center was a metal joint, a sick parody of a cartoon soupbone. I just screamed. You couldn't hear it over the thunder of the eternal C'atel rainstorms, but I could hear it all too well.