Kat Praszek woke up. It was all too easy to do that to her these days. She slept very softly. Today she was awoken early by a local gang stripping a car. She awoke but she didn't stop it. She was only hopeing that it was one of the gangs that she had a connection with and that she would get a cut. Being a hacker in New York was a lucrative profession as everyone with enough money to have a permanent place of residence was hooked in to Virtual Reality for all their recreation hours. Even the people that lived in the slum apartments in Kat's neighborhood. Kat didn't blame them for not spending time outdoors. Not with what New York was like now.
Her connection with the local gangs was that she could bust any of their members out of incarceration, because they,the government, now even did incarseration in a virtual world; and, if given a computer and a usable terminal, she could use her alias, Klaw, to get anything that she needed, codes, numbers, etc. from any other hacker around the globe. She was respected and feared. Not bad for your smaller than average 16 year old.
Kat, as she was now awake, pulled on a pair of black jeans, a black spegetti strap shirt and a sheer blouse decorated with hippie daisies. She had just done her load of laundry for the week and these were her favorite clothes. She stretched and headed to her 'office'. She had her own computer and working internet terminal and she spent most of her days sitting at the little japanese style table on a cushion and making new connections online. Lately she had been chatting with one certain hacker who seemed to have all of the tricks that she lusted to aquire. This phreak called himself Rain.
Of course, Kat had no proof that this phreak was anything but a narc working for the police, but it was rather pleasent talking to him and so she hurried to her office and hoped that he was online at this time. She opened the blocked off doorway and had to crawl to get inside. She did as she must and was soon in her little peice of pardise. She adored this room which she decorated in a Japanese style motif. Everything was themed except for the computer on the table. That was made of scrap parts scrounged form an old Virtual Reality set-up.
She sat at her computer and set up a rudamentary chat board. She typed in a single word and waited. **Rain?** The phreak that she had been trying to contact responded quickly.
**Good Morning, Klaw. You are at work early this morning.**
She returned the emoticon.**Couldn't sleep. You are on early yourself.**
** I never leave my computer.**
**I can understand that.**
**How is New York treating you?**
**Same as always. Barely scraping by. How are things where you live?**
**Fairly different. You'll see soon enough.**
Kat stared at the screen. She didn't quite like what was typed there. She responded anyway. **What do you mean by that?**
Another line in the room appeared. **I'm sorry.**
Kat felt something almost like an officer's billy club hit the back of her neck. She went out.



Kat Praszek woke up. She vaugely remembered everything that had happened and was tempted to believe that the previous wakeing and it's events had been a dream. She didn't even have to open her eyes to know that the hopes had been false ones. She was lying on a bed. She had only had that kind of comfort twice in her life. Both times she had broken into an unused apartment.
She opened her eyes slowly and saw a pleasent looking young man staring back at her. He looked to be in his mid twenties, although it was often difficult to tell the age by appearence. He had yellow hair and eyes so dark blue that they appeared almost violet. "Where am I?" she croaked as she sat up.
"Now?"the young man asked amused, "Now you are currently sitting in a virtual reality rig in a lab on the outskirts of New York."
Kat shook her head trying to puzzle out what he was saying. "But I'm here."
The young man grinned. "Welcome to virtual reality." The hospital room setting disappeared. Kat and the young man were standing in what appeared to be an endless blue expanse of space. Kat spun around stareing.
"Who are you?"
"Me? I am a nonentity. Simply data used to control those in the grips of virtual reality. I have form only when it suits me."
Kat looked puzzled. "Okay...what do I call you though?"
"You know my name already."
"I do?"
"I, am an aquaintence of yours, Klaw."
"Rain?"
"Good guess. That is correct. I am the hacker referred to as Rain."
"Wait. I've been talking to a computer program for the past month?"
"Yes."
"Okay...why am I here?"
"I was suffering from boredom. I wished for a companion and the phreak, Klaw, seemed suitable. I had no idea that you were female."
"That doesn't explain it. How did I get here?"
"A few of my...aides brought you in."
"Scientists? Why would they care one way or another if you were unhappy, if you can even concieve emotion?"
"They like to keep me contented, as I could kill every person hooked into V.R pretty much at will."
"How can you do that? You are data, nothing more, no matter what form you take."
A knife appeared in his hand and before she could react in anyway, he sliced into her arm. Kat grabbed the bleeding wound and screamed.
"Did that hurt?" Rain asked amused.
"Fuck! You sliced me bastard!"
"The knife isn't real mon cherie. It is just a data image. Yet your brain provides the nerves with the feeling it expects. The feeling that cold steel is entering your flesh. Imagine if I had stabbed you through the heart, or perhaps shot you? You would die because your brain belives that what it is seeing is real."
"I get your point already Why me?"
"From my discussions with you, you appeared very intelligent. That is what I wanted you for, I had no idea that you were female. Or so appealing." He stepped closer to her.
Kat backed up. "That isn't what I mean and you know it. You could have any person already in the V.R network for a companion. Why capture a street punk?"
"The intelligence."
"There are doctors, scientists who hook up to the V.R for recreation."
He laughed. "For recreation? All of New York is identical to your neighborhood. Crappy little tennet apartments with virtual reality hook ups. These 'doctors' rely on V.R for their education. If I BOOTed them from the system they would be idiots."
"People live on V.R?"
"Yes, and they do more than live on it. They THRIVE on it. The governments like it as well because they never have to spend money on repairing anything, or landscaping to make New York look wonderfull. Everyone is connected to V.R and they think it is REALITY." He grinned in sheer amusement and she ran forward and tried to punch him. He was no longer in the space that he had been occupying.
She turned to find him standing behind her still grinning in gentle amusement. He began walking toward her and she tensed in her fighting possition.
"I think I should leave you until you are in a better frame of mind." He dissapated. He was there one minute and then, nothing at all. Kat frowned.
"If this is virtual reality", she mused, "then I can think into being anything that I want..." She clsoed her eyes tightly shut and said the words, "Alley, and my car. I want everything in it the same. NO! I want it to have wheels. And I want it to start." She screwed her eyes even tighter shut then they had been.
Kat opened her eyes to see her alley, and her car. She crawled into it and became overwhelmed by the need to sleep. She couldn't fight the strong fatigue. Nor did she want to.




She awoke some time later in her car. She saw the scabed over scratch on her arm and the key in the ignition of her home and knew exactly where she was. She was never groggy when she awoke from even her soundest slumber. She was always aware. She willed the scene to be gone and instead willed her office. She suddenly wanted her sanctary more than all else.
She called into being the abandoned warehouse, the bamboo table, her cushions, her computer. She also willed a japanese teapot filled with boiling green tea, and two china cups. She poured hers full and turned to the computer. **Rain?** she typed.
Suddenly, in her paradise was the man himself. He looked younger now, closer to her own age, and his yellow hair had been changed to a darker color. His eyes were still the same shade of blue-violet. "You rang?"
She nodded. "Have a seat."
Rain sat somewhat awkwardly down on the cushion. "Tea?", Kat offered.
"Thank you."He muttered as she held a filled glass out to him.
"You look uncomfortable."
"I don't know what to call you. Klaw seems somewhat inapropriate."
"My real name is Katherine. That is not the only reason you are uncomfortable."
"You are perceptive. This place worries me. Everything here is so...fragile."
Kat frowned. "You are not excluding me."
Rain appeared not to hear. "I feel that I would break anything in this room simply by handling it in my normal way."
She sipped down the rest of her tea. "I don't want you to be uncomfortable. You may choose the setting, so long as it's neutral ground. Clear?"
He nodded and the setting around her changed in the blink of an eye. Her setting change was slow and somewhat awkward. His was completed gracefully. Including a change of clothes for each of them. The setting was a fancy resturaunt with diners all around and a violin player standing next to their table. he was dressed in a suit and had her clothed in a red gown. "Neutral." He grinned.
She scowed and set about changeing her clothes. The only thing that she was doing was makeing the dress even more skimpy than it already was. Not an easy task. She gave up when the skirt was above her knees and the dress was translucent showing off her black underwear. "Not funny." She muttered as men turned to stare her way.
"The diners here are real people hooked into the system. Neutral ground, like you said."
"And now they're all stareing at me."
"You are astetically pleasing to veiw."
"I'll take that as a complement. Now, you said everyone was hooked into V.R. That they thought it was reality. What about the street gangs. I wasn't hooked up."
"Back when we started the system, the country was at war. Many people wanted to escape from that. Some refused and moved down into the bowels of the city. You are nineteenth generation offspring of those rebels."
"Why did you call this place neutral ground?"
"Because of the diners. I could not just change things here or I would upset the balance."
"Why is that? They have the same powers don't they."
"No."
"How is that?"
"They think that this is reality. Therefore they follow all of Earths major rules. Gravity, Motion, ect."
"You and I don't have those restrictions?"
"No, we don't."
"Take me back to the blue place then."
He nodded and complied and once again Kat found herself in the wide blue expance. She looked around and imagined her self floating. To her amazement, it worked. She was now hovering about six inches off the ground. She took it a step further and imagined her favorite clothes...and she was wearing them. This V.R existence could have some MAJOR perks.