The Cyberhawk Stories
Tale #1: The Tale of the PiperChapter 01: The Piper's StoryThe city was in the midst of a heat wave. Even now at the edge of night it was close to ninety degrees. It was for that reason that the man's green and grey cloak seemed especially odd to the people he passed.
He didn't stop to say hello to anyone. He had work to do and he would not permit himself to be distracted from the task at hand.
Lisa Manning was his target. The daughter of Network 66's Ned Grossberg. The child had been the culmination of an affair that the man had been in while still chairman of Network 23. It had been a quiet affair that very few knew about. The news had been popular gossip amongst Laura Manning's crowd, but it hadn't gone much further than that.
Laura had only put the name Ned on the birth certificate. It was perfectly acceptable these days of Blanks who used only their first names. So even the doctors were unaware of the child's true parentage.
The man wasn't a Blank. But in these situations he prefered not to use his real name. He wasn't afraid of getting caught. Kidnapping in the past had always been mostly successful for him.
Only once had he been forced to kill his victim.
The boy, about seven, had been the nephew of a Zik Zak board member. The Japanese man had threatened to send his brother after him. It was a threat the man had ignored. Until the man had shown up and dealt him a nasty cut on the face. He was still scarred today, the cicatrix running down his left cheek. He had almost lost his eye! The Japanese man had then demanded the return of the boy, handing him a small business card as he did so.
Wide-eyed, he had gone into the house to retrieve the child. The boy kicked and screamed at him as he untied him. As he child went on, his anger and frustration at the thought of not getting paid for his efforts reached its plateau. In a fit of rage, he twisted the boy's neck, killing him instantly.
Realizing that this would surely result in his own death if he presented the child to the man now, he slipped out the back door of the house and ran off, not knowing then what he would do next.
The Japanese man had found the child. He knew this because of the coverage he listened to on television.
Determined not to get caught, he decided to give himself a pseudonym rather than just become a Blank. As he had lured his victims with hypnotism, he had first thought of Hypno Then he decided the name sounded too much like Hippo and decided against it. Other names came to him, each sounding dumber than the next. Mr. Somnus, Trance Man. Finally he remembered a story his mother had told him as a child. A vicious smile played on his face.
The PIper.
It had gone well since then. The Piper had left a wake of fear amongst the richer people of the city. Usually his demand was credits, the money of the wealthy. Other times he would demand that they confess to a particularly embarrassing "sin" on global television.
But now things were different. There was talk amongst the city of a new person. A person known only as Cyberhawk who traveled the roads on a motorcycle that some said had been made by the gods themselves. Nobody knew who Cyberhawk really was, just as nobody knew the Piper's true identity.
All the Piper knew was that Cyberhawk would be a thorn in his side. The Batman to his Joker. And like the fabled villain of years passed, the Piper had decided that he would be the more painful thorn.
