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Ghost Rider 2099UG

Issue #12

"Rage In The Machine, Part 1"

Written by Arran Robertson
The 2099 Underground is a project whereby a group of fans are putting together a series of stories continuing from Marvel's fantastic futuristic 2099! Ignoring the ignoble and inaccurate "2099: World of Tomorrow", we're exploring what we feel is the true spirit of 2099 as envisioned by then Editor-in-Chief Joey Cavalieri. Participation is open to all.

Comments about this issue should be sent to the author. Or you can visit our message board and post your thoughts on the issue. Anyone wishing to join the mailing list should do so by signing up at Yahoo! Groups. It's free and easy! Simply type in the keyword "Ghostworks" and you're good to go.



"We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again."

"It was about a chicken. A little chicken. I don't remember its name." ....it was a BPO chicken...lol

He was supposed to have been deleted. He was evil, malicious, perverted. a corrupt file. Bad straight down to the BIOS. He had no heart and no soul. He had never evolved them....

"Hard to clone good help these days," .....ROFLAMO...multi-nics


Ghost Rider 2099UG

Issue #12

"Rage In The Machine, Part 1"

Written by Arran Robertson
The 2099 Underground is a project whereby a group of fans are putting together a series of stories continuing from Marvel's fantastic futuristic 2099! Ignoring the ignoble and inaccurate "2099: World of Tomorrow", we're exploring what we feel is the true spirit of 2099 as envisioned by then Editor-in-Chief Joey Cavalieri. Participation is open to all.

Comments about this issue should be sent to the author. Or you can visit our message board and post your thoughts on the issue. Anyone wishing to join the mailing list should do so by signing up at Yahoo! Groups. It's free and easy! Simply type in the keyword "Ghostworks" and you're good to go.
"We are close to dead. There are faces and bodies like gorged maggots on the dance floor, on the highway, in the city, in the stadium; they are a host of chemical machines who swallow the product of chemical factories, aspirin, preservatives, stimulant, relaxant, and breathe out their chemical wastes into a polluted air. The sense of a long last night over civilization is back again."

Norman Mailer, Cannibals and Christians
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PART I
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"My parents told me a story once," he began. His name was Jimmy. Jimmy Alhazard and up to about six months ago he had lived a pretty average life. "Before they jammed with the chain a little hard one night and entered a tie-dyed, cloud nine nirvana that ended up getting them both hit by a narcoleptic taxi driver, that is." He spoke to no one in particular at this moment in time but simply stared out the window of the high rise apartment that the woman he had known as Kidd Razor had led him to. He had met Razor at what he hoped to have been the end of the adventurous part of his existence. "It was about a chicken. A little chicken. I don't remember its name." In the time before that, Jimmy, who went by the pseudonym Dr. Neon been arrested by Central Security Services, met the enforcer Coda, betrayed the Ghost Rider to his double, and
found himself in an uncomfortable credit position as a direct result of that betrayal. "I think it must have been one of my Dad's kaleidoscope barnyard trips because the chicken could talk." But even when Jimmy thought his troubles were over, in reality they were just beginning. "Anyway, this little chicken kept yelling. He kept saying 'The sky is falling. the sky is falling.'" He paused, turning to the vegetable-like body of Kidd Razor, before continuing. "Who'd have thought the whole thing could actually come true. I mean, without the chicken. Welcome to Transverse City."

Jimmy looked back out over the city where he was born, a city that had just entered a state of total anarchy. Twelve hours have passed since the crackling wall of energy ripped through the sky, isolating Transverse City in a rippling static bubble. In the middle of it all making a jagged tear in the flaming pink horizon sat Oscore, the middle spire of Oscorp Towers. Pitch black, the structure seemed to absorb any light from the surrounding area, making it like a massive shadow.

"The arm gear's connected to the shoulder-gear. The shoulder gear's connected to the." He was supposed to have been deleted. He was evil, malicious, perverted. a corrupt file. Bad straight down to the BIOS. He had no heart and no soul. He had never evolved them. He was L-Cypher, an Artificial Intelligence cast out from his fellow Ghostworks. Cast out because of his views on the plague called humanity. The apes were useless flesh, he had claimed, whose only worth lay in experimentation. Mental and physical dissection. He had joined humanity, become one of the pathetic creatures he disdained so, because that was the only way he could survive. He was here repaying the debt. "You're not singing along?"

"I don't sing, pusbag," his victim replied. Zero Cochrane stared straight ahead with the eyes of a dead man. He was, in fact, dead for he had never been alive. Created as a copy, a lie, by the same Ghostworks that L- Cypher had once been a part of. Then they unleashed him upon humanity. Vengeance, as he was now called, lay in pieces, scattered around the floor of the office that had hours ago belonged to Archemedies Osborn. He was the one who had forced L-Cypher to leave his binary mortality and retreat to the world of flesh.

"That's a shame, but I can understand, what with that monotone grind you call a voice." L-Cypher used a hand-held torch type device to relieve Vengeance of another piece of his body armor. "You're giving me quite a time, Zero. Adamantium isn't exactly the easiest metal to weld through. But fear not, I'll be poking at your vulnerable little brain in no time." The torch lit up again, beginning another peeling of Vengeance's metal hide.

"I'm dying with anticipation."


"Who... what are you?"
Chromeheart looked like he was going to laugh, but instead, stood and turned his back to the immobile Vengeance. "I must apologize. Now, is zero your name or your IQ? I thought, even considering the laggard speed of human synaptic pathways, you would have been able to deduce that. I suppose even silicon can make errors."

"You see Zero, I am you. Or rather, I am what you aren't. Ingenuity. Skill. Ambition. Basic-hygiene.

They couldn't have you thinking for yourself. A human personality, free will, would add a wild card factor. So they dumbed you up so they could control you. You were just a puppet. Everything the AI's deleted from you, they archived, and that, in turn, evolved into me."

"It's a funny world isn't it,"...."Soon it will be my world"

"All I see is a retread with an ego problem."

"We shall see, fool."

Well I thought is was funny...Spicer