| From: | ANGLISS@***.PSU.EDU |
|---|---|
| Subject: | The B-Day Party: Before the Excreta hit the Rotating Air |
| Date: | Mon, 11 Apr 1994 23:40:33 -0400 |
fraggin with my terminal here... He's trying to get back at me for the party
I didn't warn him about. It was really "rag on AJ" day at the party, ya know?
Well, after Dad and I got to Harly's place, and the party actually got started,
we had a drek-load of fun. We even had an old friend(or is that fiend?) drop
by after all the "fun" was over. It had been a long time, but I'll get to that
eventually.
Like Slash said, Dad freaked(nice term this one, Slash). Everyone was laughing
at him as he complained about us almost giving him a heart attack. Till Harly
poked him with "Yep, you're getting frail in your old age" and the the
"insult
Dad as badly as you can" competition was begun. Instead of spanking him, we
insulted him instead. And we passed out all the alcohol we had amassed over
the past 3 weeks, and the party commenced.
Not everyone had arrived yet. Streetwolf, Colice, and Patricia(Streetwolf's
Sister, I think) were there to help set up. They were also celebrating one of
thier birthdays, but we found out which one after the fun was over and I had
dived head first into the rum, so my memory of whose it was is just a little
foggy. Spirit and CRUSH had also shown up early, and so had Slash. And while
I was off getting Dad, Sheena, Sabre, Styx, Lucinda, and CoHort all arrived,
most of them bringing in food or more booze(and most of it was drank, too...
Not that most of us could remember how much we had drank, of course, until we
counted the bottles and empty kegs). But everybody else just kinda drifted
in. There were a bunch of trid screens around that Quickling, who was taking
a break from helping a friend of his, showed up virtually on. And he and Harly
were talking for a little while, but it couldn't have been too serious.
Lister and Kichanski arrived together, as did Claw and Circuit Breaker. Night-
fox just kinda appeared at the front door and then came right in. Then Val,
DeDannan, Little Dragon, and Morgan all came. Morgan still looked dead behind
the eyes, but he did try to have a good time. I hope the conversation with
Streetwolf helped, and Val did say that his conversations with Little Dragon
seemed to help him understand that many of his friends had gone through similar
losses.
Then Collussus showed up and was getting rather annoyed as the chem sniffer
wouldn't let him through into the house, and he smiled rather sheepishly as he
had to ask TC to override the security door manually. Then Dark Angel showed
up, followed by Wizard, Masque, and thier several bodyguards. That made it
just about full.
Finally, it was cake time. And oh, what a cake it was. Dad's favorite, Black
Forest Cake, covered in red and black frosting, with one of his arrows stuck in
the center for effect(I remember him saying "So that's where it went..."). And
of course, a candle for every year old he is. Talk about a flaming birthday
cake. Sabre offered Dad use of the house's fire extinguishers to put it out,
and TC asked if he could use a Water Elemental/Spirit for some assistance. To
give you an idea, when we turned out the lights it was almost as bright in the
room as if we had had them on. Collussus even complained about how the cake
was overloading his flare compensation. It was great. If Dad's look could
have killed, Collussus would be have been a smoking pile of spare parts.
Slash even had the audacity to ask Dad how many candles were on the cake(54),
and after about 10 seconds, Dad smiled a crooked smile and said 13. Most of
us who knew about the joke laughed, and then explained it to the others. Dad
was born in a leap year, on Feb. 29, 2000. The old goat. We passed out the
cake, with extra large portions to CRUSH(and we still ran out...), and Dad even
partook of a small bite, for the taste of the cake alone. It was too bad when
it affected his stomach badly and he had to...}long, painful pause{
This is where the music kicked in. A couple of the partiers had quietly
excused themselves and were tuning up several instruments and amps in the back
room. We all migrated to the room, took seats or cleared away furniture for
a makeshift dance floor, and then let Sheena take the stage. But no-one else
had joined her, and she was most upset(or at least she said she was), so she
just happened to literally drag Harly up front with her. That's where Lucinda
smiled at him and handed him his deck synth, and Sheena also took up her synth.
The two of them played a couple of duets before Harly decided it was only fair
to pass around the embarrasment and dragged up Streetwolf, Colice, Valentine,
and DeDannan(who had actually brought his fiddle). Val played the piano,
DeDannan on his fiddle, and Streetwolf and Colice sang. It took them a little
while to get used to each other, but there was quite a bit of talent in the
house at the time, so they began to feed off each other's energy and we began
to feed off thier's, and the dancing began.
Well, we were all dancing when I noticed Dark Angel asking Patricia to dance.
And she said yes, which was a mild surprise. It looked like it was hard for
her to say no, but then it would have been hard for me to say no too...(grin)
And they danced for a little while. As they finished thier dance, he pulled
out a single red rose, and asked Patricia to wait as he talked to the players.
And then an old song(I think it was "Close Your Eyes" by Ozzy and Lita Ford, or
at least that's what I was told. A little before my time) was playing, and
the two of them were dancing nice and slow. Patricia looked a little
embarrased, but then grew serious and questioning as she realized that Dark
Angel was crying softly, trying to hold the tears back and not quite suceeding.
Memories, I am sure. After the dance, he thanked her and then quietly made
the rounds to the other partiers and thanked them for taking him in for a
couple of hours. He stopped at Dad and wished him a be-lated Happy Birthday
as well, and then quietly left as the party continued behind him.
Then, about 10 minutes later, the fun began. Wizard's and Masque's guards
suddenly grew VERY worried and thier looks changed from wariness to the
paranoia of one surrounded by possible enemies. One of them told Harly that
they would have to leave now, and that they were sorry about the early
departure, but that Pheonix Star required Wizard and Masque home. Too bad that
both CoHort and Collussus had intercepted and decrypted the real headware
transmission to the guards that said that Wizard's life was in danger, and that
a run was in progress against him. It's no surprise that they got paranoid,
being surrounded by runners. Well, we all piled out to wish them all a safe
trip back to the airport and then back to the compound where Wizard is working.
After seeing them off, we returned inside, thinking nothing of it, until CoHort
informed us that he had the runners on his surviellance sensors, and that some
of them looked familiar from a run he decided against, for reasons that he
decided not to elaborate on. They only looked like gangers, and they had
already stopped both cars and were trying to get at Wizard...about 2 blocks
away.
Well, I'll stop there for now and when I find the sensory data from CoHort's
RV and drones, I'll upload that too.... Now, where did it go?]<<<<<
-- Diana, Mistress of the Night(23:42:53/04-11-55)
