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The Last Big Party Before the End of the World

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They eat each other alive out on the fringe, just like everywhere else.  No margin for tolerance. Same old clash of values, priorities, ideologies brought forth from the Outer Realms. Same animosities, resentments, prejudices, still looking for someone to scapegoat, to place the blame for every wrong turn of events, not starting fresh as was the intention. Not seeking solutions, just retribution, still linked by a chain of violence to the Old World. The Safety Belt, her very name an irony, the most dangerous hotspot on the globe, condensed viral cluster of the disease that felled a nation: unfocused anger, misdirected rage, false hope of catharsis through bloodletting, like the Nazis trying to harness the death energy of millions of dead Jews. They themselves just another chainlink in the barbed, razor-wired meshwork of subhistoric psychic mayhem. The hairy breakwaters of the telekinetic wavelength. Overwhelmed by nature’s rich but simple ebb and flow, the evolving mammalian brain developed blocks against the vast storehouses of knowledge that, for simple creatures encoded and receptive since their creation, defines the organisms connection to the whole.                     
So instead of possessing the whole of knowledge and awareness from conception, we supposedly advanced beings must relearn what we already know, buried so deep it is beneath our access. We receive the information in increments, bite-size snack food, dietary supplements, perfect for the binge-and-purge, dump-and-fill approach of the academic system. Half-baked ideas for fresh-faced kids with deep-fried minds. Don’t learn, memorize, save data ‘til test date, then delete the file to make room for more disinformation.
Thus do the ivy-vined walls of otherwise sterile and inorganic ‘higher learning’ serve the will of the masters, creating more produce-and-consume-oriented labor force drones, pragmatic, materialistic, logical, and only dutifully spiritual, partaking in their personal sacraments one designated day a week in order to maintain a sharehold in the Magic Kingdom that is the officially sanctioned promise of a later, greater reward for services rendered during the forced march to enslavement and death.  If we instead discover a personal relationship with the Creative Mind, we can commune with our God(s) every day, just as easily contacted in a phone booth as a confessional, even easier on a mountaintop or within listening distance of the ocean’s constant hum. If we sit back and allow ourselves to ponder this conceit of eternity, the inward journey is begun, and the territories within seem to expand in infinite directions the further and more frequently we wander, hiking our way into the unmapped regions of our intellectual and psychic frontiers. Getting lost without getting scared, aware that all lines do not only lead to the same point, all points are in fact the same. The only destination to avoid or fear is the one from which we started, and it’s a moot point since there is no turning back once you’ve lurched a few feet forward. You can stay where you land, within sight of the past life, stagnate, rot, and crumble into dust within spitting distance of the moldering heaps of brainwash delivered and dumped by the shuttleload during the so-called formulative years. Never more than a trainee, a flunkie, possibly blissful, definitely ignorant and maybe no worse off than the ones who struggled long and hard to traverse the greatest inner distance their means, abilities, and stamina would allow.  Knowledge may not lead to peace and ease, but if we ponder long enough and never cease riddling the so-called facts, soon enough we discover that we are all immortal, that this energy which fuels us, allows us, empowers us, is us, is as constant and eternal as any force or occurrence that we can grasp with the current limitations imposed upon our minds. Perhaps we do not retain consciousness, the mundane and trivial details of human existence hardly relevant once the scope is fully widened. Perhaps the insistence on an identity, our unwavering belief in the self, is the damning perversion, the fatal flaw that presents us from recognizing without question, without doubt, that we are not merely of the whole, we are all the whole. If ours is the only Universe, an ego would not be a necessary or natural trait. However, if we have neighbors on the other side of the dimensional boundary, perhaps all the bluster and bravado and preening and strutting develop as tendencies to facilitate survival, a show of strength and certainty that implies that we belong, we’ve staked our claim, and no extradimensional phenomenon is going to push us off the existential ledge.
                                                                                                              Dr. Amos Atlas
                                                                                                            Reality Unhinged
Burning Man 2017: Stunning Photos From The World's Biggest And Craziest Festival

Dr. Atlas’ World’s Only Solid Light Rodeo Circus and Wet Methane Carnival was a hybrid of wild west show and science fair. Atlas, a charismatic, vibrant octogenarian, had lived and worked on the cutting edge of designer science for over half of the century. Once Dean of the College of Sciences at a large, state-run University in the Southwest, the good Dr. was hounded out of the institution and into a decade of exile when a secret, privately funded experiment he was conducting on the academic premises was discovered by prying, paranoid, unimaginative campus liberals, who brought it to the attention of the University Board, who informed the mayor, who went to the Governor, who contacted the FBI, who, as it happened, had a vested interest in busting Atlas, and in keeping the whole matter out of the public consciousness.

Atlas was able to spirit away the subjects of his research, his charges, his children, and to escape himself, along with most of his team, thanks to a healthy personal and chemical relationship with key members of the true American underground, the secret class of revolutionaries, resistors, defiers, defilers, soldiers in the war on oppression and ignorance, the ongoing struggle for the means of production and control.

The babies went to orphanages, foster homes, private care facilities established and operated by the dedicated members of the Movement.  Atlas travelled the low road, a circle as elliptical, and often convergent with, that of the fugitive Yippie, Abbie Hoffman.  The two even struck up a friendship, Atlas picking up where Leary left off as a guru and guide through the dualistic realm of the spiritual sciences; Hoffman provoking Atlas to new levels of understanding as to the insidious, body-and-soul-mangling reality oozing wetly through the ripped and bulging seams of capitalism’s plastic veneer. Atlas finally and formally politicized, a champion of equality, justice, and self-determination for every living being.  Hoffman, and indirectly Kesey, inspired Atlas to create his carnival, a  free-roving, year-round source of entertainment and edification for the Great Unwashed Masses.  He also felt obligated to acknowledge his inspirational debt to Walt Disney, Spanky and Our Gang (“Let’s put on a show!”), and PT Barnum.  Ten years below street level had garnered a lot of contacts, an entire invisible community of lifelong friends, extended family, fellow travelers with the knowledge and skill and spirit to aid in his offshoot of the struggle.  Technicians, performers, inventors, designers, builders, promoters, producers, day laborers, ticket-takers, hand-stampers, devoted fans and followers.  All his as if for the asking, all because he had a contribution that they all found worthwhile enough to sacrifice for, as long as they felt they were getting a return on their investment, if only a sulfurous flash of matchstick enlightenment.

With a Disneyesque entrepreneurial spirit and an Einsteinian level of genius, Atlas brought his fellow citizens of the world into a reality of his own creation. While many of the inventions and technological advances displayed at the Carnival over the years had practical applications, many in use worldwide as a result of his efforts, nothing gave greater satisfaction to the Dr. than to bring delight, fear, wonder, and awe to the faces of young, old, and undetermined. And oftentimes for free. One stint per year at a strategic time and place could earn enough to keep the show going for the other 51 weeks, depending on weather conditions and the sometimes lingering doldrums of the slow season. 

This year’s marathon moneyfest was being held at Govt. Site #11.7b, which had once been the city of Detroit. On the eve of the thirtieth anniversary of the catastrophe which had decimated that town, Atlas and his merrily determined crew were driving stakes, raising tents, setting up camp for a week-long run in the Motor City Crater, as the location was popularly known. Advertised as the Armageddon Follies: Old-fashioned Spellbindin’ at Newfangled Prices, or Gimme Dat No-time Religion. The name led to Atlas’ first post-exile legal entanglement when a letter arrived from a man on the West Coast who called himself Leland deMand and claimed to be putting on a three-day musical slugfest that he was billing as the Armageddon Follies. Atlas was indifferent to a lawsuit, but Farley Weege knew of deMand, a son-of-a-bitch LA bigsnot, he said, who probably stole the name from them but would sue them down to sawdust if they didn’t let it go.  Weege suggested renaming the show the EndTimes ReVu, and Atlas liked that, thought it sounded like a radical newspaper.  Both men thought that would be the last word from Leland deMand, that their selfless consent would leave the sue-happy crew boss of corprock wannababies with nothing to do but stamp his feet like Rumpelstiltskin until he was forever wedged and enraged in the wings of some outdoor ampitheater built astride a high-stress faultline.  They had misjudged the competition.

deMand showed up on Thursday afternoon, his vintage ‘Nam-era Bell Huey rising as if from the urban rubble and swooping pterodactylly down to the crusty craterbed.  Bodyguards preceded him, steroid-pumped, coke-fueled, twitchy motions of weaponry and personal field phones, constant contact, brains abuzz with hive mentality, data feed readouts to and from the core consciousness to whom they answered instinctively.  Catch one alone, all it can do is sting in defense and flee in terror.

Perimeter scans, radiation-level readings, X-ray specscan of all Carnival personnel in immediate vicinity.  An all-clear finally signalled and deMand descended with the jaunty ‘life’s so cool and so am I’ spring-step of someone used to being constantly on, on the air, onstage, on-camera, out there in the limelit glare and vacant gaze of the public eye, taking all the credit for what went on behind the scenes, just so everyone knew that their cultural heroes, pop icons, didn’t get there by themselves, were in fact more product, an important but not essential aspect of all he was responsible for creating.

“If you ever so much as catch me in a pair of shades like his, don’t even check for a pulse. Just gut me and stuff me.”

“On me honor, Doc,” Weege replied in his rolling brogue.

             “Gentlemen,” was the first lie to come motoring out of his mouth as deMand extended one professionally-manicured and recently palm-read hand. 

Atlas responded with a reticent, lackadaisical handshake, and Leland deMand got down to business. Is there someplace we can talk.”

“This isn’t a place?” Atlas jibed him, gesturing at the ashen landscape.

“Truth to tell, I am in a hurry. But I wouldn’t say no to a drink.”

“Spring water okay?”

deMand sighed slightly, response otherwise inscrutable behind mirrored wraparounds.

“Fine.”

“Won’t you join me in my tent?”

“If you’re here to serve suit, I think you’re going to be sorely disappointed when you get a peek at our tender boxes.”

“Don’t fuck with my illusions, Atlas. You’re ass-deep in gold, huckster. But I didn’t come here to pose legal threats.  I mean, you don’t send a man to do a lawyer’s job, right?” guffawing at his own cheap shot.

“I suppose. Then, at risk of seeming abrupt, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

deMand went from uproarious to no-nonsense in .o6 flat.

“I’m asking you to vacate the premises.”

“Why?”

“For the Armageddon Follies.”

Atlas was furious.  “It’s not enough you take our name, now you want our venue?”

“Chill, Doc. I’m in the middle of a presentation. Let me finish.”

A long draw of the Spring water did nothing to cool Atlas’ rage.  deMand lit a Castro and continued his spiel.

“Yes, I am forced to find a new location for my extravaganza. Maybe you heard something about that little incident of civil unrest in my hometown? They blew up my stadium. And yes, I did consider grabbing this scene of unnatural wonder out from under you, just because I could, and I’ve trademarked my name by undercutting the competition.”

“Backstabbing, more like.”

“Uh-uh. Backstabbing I reserve for family and close friends. Which I like to think we will be.”

“I find it rather unlikely.”

“You’re in a really negative space, Doc. Please don’t take me there.”

“You’re scum, deMand. Pitiful, wretched, carcinogenic spawn of all the tragic, ruined masses have been trained to hold dear.  Everything I despise processed, battered and fat-fried into one ugly little McNugget.”

“True enough, and you’re a semi-reformed fascist turned bleeding-heart philanthropist and New Age Mr. Wizard to make amends for all those years spent helping manufacture A-bombs and other war toys.”

“You’ve done your homework, Mr. deMand. So you see, we don’t have too much in common.”

“Au contraire, mon frere. We’re entrepreneurs, entertainment enthusiasts, and regardless of differences in method or motive, we both know that the only way to keep the show afloat is to turn a tidy profit every now and again.”

“Am I to assume, then, that I am about to recieve a proposal?”

“I hope you don’t expect me to get down on my knees.”

“The point is all I require.”

“Alright. How can I put this? I got a thing, you got a thing, everybody’s got a thing, right? It’s all showiz, to a certain extent, whether you’re putting on Woodstock 4 or just putting the moves on some babe.  You gotta give em some of that razmadazzle, the ring-a-ding and bod-a-bing-bod-a-boom wham-bam thank-you-very much for coming goodnight Houston! kind of thing.  You know what I’m saying?”

“Not really.”

“Sure you do. I’m talking about butts in seats and smiles on faces, I’m talking about what you love most in the world. Making the people happy.”

“Actually, I prefer making them think.”

“I hear you, baby.  That’s great, that’s noble. I could use that kind of balance in my organization.”

“You could have your people fitted for souls.”

“You’re a funny man, Doc, and I love to laugh.”

“Are you trying to…hire me?” Atlas shuddered.

“Oh no, Dr., I would never insult you in such a fashion. I am actually interested in more of a partnership. I had this brainstorm, you see, when I was considering aquiring your property lease. Why should the two biggest events of the summer be at odds with one another? Why not team-up?  Why not combine our two events and really give em a show. The kind of thing they’ll be flocking from all over the globe, hell, they’ll be streaming in from other planets to check out this action. What say, huh? I can see it now: deMand Product in Conjunction with Dr. Atlas World’s Only Solid Wet Rodeo and Whatall Present THE ARMAGEDDON FOLLIES!!! How about that?”

            “Forgive my shortsightedness, Mr. deMand, but I fail to recognize the potential benefits of this…partnership, as it pertains to my own enterprise.”

            “Audience, Doc. You want to teach people, I can bring in students.  Young, hip, deemed unteachable. But you could reach em, Doc. And believe me, if anyone in this world could use some schooling, it’s these rocknroll kids.  Not to knock em, I love these kids, my bread and butter.”

            “Do I detect intimations of altruism in your snake‑oil scheme?”

            “You’re reading me like a press kit, Doc.  It’s like we’re synched up or something. Like this was meant to be.”

            “Yes.  Perhaps.” Sardonic and wry.

            “Are you with me, Doc? Are you in?”

            “I don’t understand…”

            “What?”

            “The location change. We’re already here. Why can’t you just bring your act here?”

            “Well, I’ve given this a lot of thought, Doc, and let’s face it, the Crater’s a dead scene, totally last year. There’s a much hotter venue for our gig, perfect for a concept like the Follies.”

            “And where might this be?”

            “The Belt, baby. Where else?”

            “The Safety Belt.”

            “The very.”

            “The whole region is off‑limits. Verboten. I hear they’re shooting people on sight. And I doubt seriously the govt.’s going to lift its ban and tear down the barbwire so that you and I can put on a show.”

            “Who’s asking? That’s the beauty of it. Two outlaw venture capitalists stage a wild west voodoo millennial extravaganza in the most sought‑after getaway spot this side of the sun, you get fat, I get fatter, and you don’t even have to compromise your precious underground populist credibility.”

            “Who’ve you got?”

            “Are you kidding me? Fucking with me? What? This roster defies comprehension, and all laws of industry physics. I got Sham Rage. I got Godlips. The Liver Spots. Lungbutter. Shark. Bob Dillo. Kneel Jung. I got fuckin Motorcade. The list goes on. And that’s just the musical groups. This thing’s maximultimedia, full sensory meltdown. I even tried to cop some of your weird science vibe, went and did what no other major promoter has yet succeeded in doing, signed fucking Coathanger Med School. Y’know, that industrial art‑freak anarchist lo‑tech fx crew? Whatever they do, it’s wild, and I tell you, these kids, they fucking eat…What’s up, Doc?”

            Atlas had gone glassy and slack somewhere around the mention of CMS, and remained so, staring at nothing, until Leland couldn’t take it anymore.

            “You with me, Doc?”

            “I’m in, deMand.”

            Without another pause, Leland pressed a tiny button on his left cufflink, spoke into it hastily.

            “Umploon, bring me the contracts.”

Irving fuckin’ Pentler, Pornographer to the Stars

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Sleazebag = Someone who you think is dishonest or immoral. Pessoa considerada desonesta ou imoral. Picareta.

Victoria Atomblast. Damon goddam Ross. Fuckin Anthrax fuckin Ripple. The Bogart bitch. Not to mention, the Feds®, the Mob®, Disney®, and every easily offended religious group in the flippin’ freakin’ fuckin’ world.  He had nowhere left to go, no country could, would, hide his sorry ass, not even if he offered to pay off their national debt, and there were not a few hot spots his fortunes couldn’t aid considerably.

So here he was, halfway to heat stroke in Sedona, Arizona, waiting for a MONOlimo to haul his ass to Reno, when he really wanted Canaveral, one shot, off-world, hitch a ride with the boys from Global Armed Service, lay low on the moon until things cooled off, or catch a McD® shuttle, assume a whole new ident and buy into a franchise outlet on the Galleria Cluster.

Absurd, what it was. Irving Pentler, wanted for no greater crime than entertainment, a felony count of giving the people what they want.  Consumercide. The devil out of context, convenient fall-guy for overzealous neo-Victorians and the self-righteous ultra-Right. But even the Farther Left refused to embrace or endorse him as the last bastion of free speech, and so he remained its bastard. Lonely token of absolute truth in marketing; one man’s sin was another man’s religion. He dealt straight dope to the masses. 

Sedona was supposed to be some kind of “power spot,” this according to one of the girls who worked his psychic sex line, 1-900-MINDFUK, something about a High Magnetic Resonance, which she’d probably read in one of those TIME/LIFE® books, Mystic Drivel, or somesuch. Meant nothing to him, Irving being a fast and firm pragmatist, believer in the here and now, that which could be seen and touched, bought and sold. Commodity dogma, the only $piritual rhetoric he understood. Televangelist of the flesh. The guru of bodily fluids. Metaphysician of earthly prurience. The High Priest of Porn, one journalist had called him, and he liked that. 

He’d been waiting three hours in a window booth at Ronnie’s Super Pumper just off 89A, still no sign of his scheduled pick-up, the thought of which gnawed at the greasy edges of his still-digesting Western Omelette, butterfly anxiety sloshing about forlornly in a pot and a half of truck-stop coffee; the fellas at MONOLITH were notorious sticklers for punctuality.  Couldn’t help wondering if he’d somehow slid from their favor, if they were just fucking with his head or maybe they were out to whack him, too. 

6am, almost, no one else in the place but the short-order, the hash slinger, a couple of road-bleary long-haulers trembling on the verge of amphetamine psychosis, apple pie a la mode for breakfast and they just sat there watching the ice cream melt.

A Meat City wagon pulled off the highway and rumbled across the lot, belching smoke and pissing radiator fluid, obviously fresh from a Safety Belt run, punctured from grill to mudflaps with bulletholes and crossbolts, armored side panels scorched and rent by various explosive projectiles. Shuddered to a stop in the space right out front of Irving’s booth, blocking his view of the road.

“Bastard,” he muttered, rising from his table to go confront the thoughtless trucker. Stopped short when he saw the Caddo Indian lower his burly frame from the cab, bare-chested except for a denim vest emblazoned on the back with the famous tongue-and-lips logo of the Rolling Stones. Sputtering expletives, Irving fumbled for his wallet, cursing further when he noted the lack of cash within; he didn’t want to use plastic, too traceable.

The Indian eyed him darkly, and Irving shivered involuntarily; the trucker passed the wait station, indicating his desire for coffee with the slightest flip of his twin ponytails, came straight for Irving’s table, motioning for him to sit back down, which Irving did, much to the chagrin of his own whim.

“Mr. Pentler,” the Indian said, no question of doubt in his rumbling voice. Seated himself without invitation.

“Can I help you?” Irving asked, a taste of venom in his tone, tapping his MONOVisa debit card against the linoleum tabletop.

“My name is Benedict Red Eagle,” the Indian replied, sliding one of Irving’s First Strike’s from the pack on the table. “Gotta light?”

Snarling inwardly, Irving flipped his Zippo open and thumbed the spark wheel, butane reek tingling his inflamed nostrils as he proffered the flame. “So, whattaya want? Free meal? A job? I ain’t a freakin’ flippin’ fuckin’ charity, red.”

Ben Red Eagle laughed, hearty, borderline maniacal, took a long drag and lapsed into a deep, phlegmy fit of coughing. “I got a job, Mr. Pentler.”

“Yeah, uh-huh, lemme guess, delivering meat, right?” Irving snorted derisively, jerking a thumb at the battered wagon just outside the window.

Red Eagle smiled, smoked. “You could say that.”

“Look, Geronimo, it’s a little early in my mornin’ for Native American crypticisms, aright?”

“Sure, sure,” Red Eagle replied, watching his smoke ring spread, then exhaling a series of smaller ones, each passing neatly through the center of its predecessor. “You’re, uh, waiting for someone, right? A ride, I think.”

“I dunno, yeah, maybe. Who the fuck are you, know so much?”

“I’m him.”

“You’re who? Goddam Crazy Horse?”

“I’m your…ha…chauffeur.”

Irving wanted nothing more than to wipe the insipid grin off this redskin’s hatchet face, feared losing his fingers to a sudden tomahawk.  “This some numbfuck’s idea a funny?”

            Ben Red Eagle shook his head, a shadow of solemnity passing over his features. “I don’t think so.”

Irving eyed the truck, turned back to the driver.  “Uh-uh.  I don’t know what those MONOLITH sonsabitches is tryna pull, but I ain’t goin nowhere in that rollin’ target.”

“You don’t really have much of a choice.”

“I suppose yer gonna tell me it’s for my own safety.”

“Safety?”  Red Eagle smirked. “Sure, sure, it’s all about Safety.”

Irving rubbed his itching eyes, his pounding temples, his burning nostrils, contemplating his options, which amounted to little more than nervous breakdown, psychotic episode, toxic personal apocalypse. “So, yer, like, takin me to Reno, is that it?”

“Somewhere,” Ben Coyote answered, shoveling a mouthful of home fries from the plate the waitress had just wordlessly set in front of him.

Irving blinked, confused and jonesing. “Reno.”

“Whatever,” Coyote said, ketchup staining his heavy lips, grease dribbling down his hairless chin. “You da boss,” the red man doing an absurd and awkward Stepin Fetchit parody.

“I’m dead,” Irving muttered.

“Not yet, chemo-sabe.”

“Can we get outta here?”

“I’m eating.”

“Fuckit, I’m usin’ the toilet, an when I’m done, we go. Kapeach?”

“Sure, sure.”

No stall door in the john—”fuckin christ”—but Irving drew out his stash anyhow, used his Beamer key to scoop up a hefty clump of white powder and raised it to his nose, hand suddenly possessed by a violent paroxysm, watching in frustration and horror as the coke tumbled into the backed-up toilet bowl like soft snow falling on wet mud. Attempted again and again to administer his quarterly dosage, each time losing it just as the fine flakes tickled his nose hair. Emptied the bag that way, finally licking his finger in desperation and sticking it in the crystalline residue, but another convulsion shook him and the baggie followed its contents into the vat of fecal stew. He knelt on the sticky floor, wanting to scream, to sob, to mourn this worst of all possible losses. Furious, stricken, he scanned the toilet seat for a hint of the dust, but whatever might have landed there was now dissipated in droplets of urine. He slammed out of the bathroom, sweaty and fuming, stormed over to the table and gestured wildly at the masticating Indian. 

“Okay, Sitting Bull, let’s go.”

“No luck, huh?”

“What the fuck’re you talkin’ about?”

Red Eagle pointed at the men’s room. “You were in there a long time,” he explained, mopping at his mouth with a napkin. “And you still look like you need to take a shit.”

Houston, We’ve Got A Problem (2001 Flushes)

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“Mulliver, the most important thing to remember about this mis—zzt—the whole she—pop—is—squawk. You got that? That’s it. Without you, folks are pretty much—fzzh. Keep that in mind. Brainthrust out.” Zzzk.
            “Sir!” Mully banged futilely on the monitor, as if the solar interference was nothing more than bad reception during a Bowl game.  “Sir, what…?” But it was no use. Outside the atmosphere, there wasn’t much you could do about wavejam.
            “Fuck it,” Mully muttered, tapping a Camel straight on the console and punching in the jerry-rigged dash lighter. As commander of the Globeshuttle IRON LUNG, he didn’t give a good goddamn about Co. directives. Just another charter where he was concerned, a slow and easy way to pay the bills. And in space, there were no bills. And no place to spend the dough. Anyway, let the dinks who’d converted his rec room into a floating speed lab worry about terrestrial needs. He’d relocated the wet bar to the front cabin, okay by him, but the Ping-Pong table was stored in a corridor adjacent to the airlock, where it rattled and rolled calamitously whenever the boosters fired, which seemed at times to occur at the shuttle’s own whim, a glitch Mully would find time to fix one of these days.
As long as he was at the helm, he decided to kick back with a Jack rocks and watch the Earth loom ever nearer in the forward viewscreen. No pressing need to pass on the Co. static to the dinks. They had their orders, what they didn’t know already they’d savvy soon enough upon their unceremonious deposit in the thick of the LA fray. This was it, the ultimate proving ground for the Pan-Utopian Gestapo. It tickled him to think of it, this bunch of pseudo-military slacker trainees being called in non sub rosa to quell an Earth-bound uprising after six muscle-atrophying months monitoring the stars for the barest hint of an unlikely intergalactic threat.
            His thought balloon was heedlessly punctured by a thundercrack, something striking, sizzling against the hull. The shuttle keeled sideways in space, shuddered, engines whining, righted itself and resumed course.  Reminiscent of old-school attack simulations, he thought. Of course, that was out of the question; more likely some stray NASA debris that the fritzed-out sensors didn’t pick up. Gulped the last of his Jack and prepared to run an external scan. Interrupted by sudden red-light buzz from the dashcom, he tapped a button, grunted a brusque monosyllable and received the stricken, quavering voice of the usually laconic Pinback down in maintenance.
            “Capt., we got a situation down here?”
            “Pinback, what are you doing on this frequency?”
            “This is definitely Priority Level 1, sir. Whatever just hit us pierced the sewage tanks.”
            “Oh, for Shephard’s sake. Just jettison the damn things.”
            “Too late for that, sir. It’s flooded engineering already.”
 
            A Global Armed Services inquest would later reveal that the cause of the minimized catastrophe was a Coca-Cola ad/sat, its scanners having apparently misread the Stars-n-Stripes decals on the shuttle hull as the similarly red-white-&-blue Pepsico logo entering its airspace, activating its weapons array, which fired a warning beam at the supposed intruder. As a result, Mulliver and the crew of the disemboweled IRON LUNG were left with no choice but to break contract and return immediately to the lunar surface, prematurely aborting the much-anticipated first employment of the Global Armed Service forces. Subsequently, all ships of US origin were compelled to drop their colors in deference to corporate stratagem.


The Orange Blossom Special

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“Look a-yonder comin’
Comin’ down that railroad track
Hey, look a-yonder comin’
Comin’ down that railroad track
It’s the Orange Blossom Special
Bringin’ my baby back…”

The Orange Blossom Special by Ervin Thomas Rouse

Russia 2077: Look Into The Close Cyber Future By Evgeny Zubkov
Anthrax Ripple sat in the infamous Money$hot Lounge, dark end of the downstairs bar, waiting for nightfall.  The right moment. His special purpose. A neglected cig smoldered between his fingers, yet he didn’t sense the burn as flesh turned yellow then brown then black.  Synthskin, complex biopolymers that could be made to resemble the human epidermis down to the whorled grooves of the fingerprints—Anthrax personally had no use for such identifying marks—but contained only the most rudimentary approximation of nerve endings. The left side of Anthrax’s ravaged shell was a mass of prostheses, servomotors, semi-organic plastics, metal plating, steel rods, nuts-&-bolts, wires and dials, a clicking, buzzing humming synthesis of hi-tech cybernetics and jerry-rigged life support.  The unnatural extremities and artificial addendums were the result of a lifetime’s struggle with his dear ol’ Dad, pitting the innumerable agents of his father’s relentless vendetta against his own inexhaustible and nearly superhuman will to live, if only out of spite. 
            Well-armed, well-paid assassins tracked and attacked him wherever he went; he evaded, thwarted, and disposed of them in nearly every region, province, state or nation on the North American continent, various locations throughout the Western Hemisphere, and one particularly hi-profile incident aboard the Monolith InterSystems Orbital Waylay. If he hadn’t been under contract, and subject to the constraints of a closely scrutinized expense account, Anthrax would seriously have considered fleeing to a far corner of the planet, even off-world, though he thoroughly, and not unrealistically, anticipated that the death merchants in his father’s employ would find him out, no matter how far or wide he might travel.
            Ironic, in some respects, that an evolutionary dead end like Anthrax could so casually dispatch such a tremendous number of the world’s most highly-trained, if not highly motivated, killing machines. Anthrax acknowledged that his grafted enhancements, despicable and hideous though they were, gave him an edge which most mere mortals did not possess; he was painfully aware that he would be dead several times over without them. ‘We can rebuild you,’ They’d told him once, the first time he submitted to Their wretched scheme. ‘Make you better/stronger/faster/a real/Ubermensch/andallathat/blah/blah/blah.’ Despite the maniacal laughter, They weren’t kidding. Of course, nothing was ever said about making him happier. Once a said-and-done deal, contract signed, permission granted, it was out of his hand. They didn’t own him outright, just the parts, and if he reneged in any way, They’d send the repo men to take back what was Theirs, far more than an arm and a leg. He was Their boy, all he owned were his thoughts, and he was pretty sure those were at least monitored, if not outright controlled. They were as good as Their word, he had to admit; whenever he took damage, on the clock or off, They were on hand with the requisite compensation: replaceable parts, digit, limb, or organ, running the gamut from state-of-the-art to total wonk-sci.  He’d had so much work done, he wasn’t entirely certain where he ended and They began. Whether he oughta thank Them or go kamikaze and kill Them all. In truth, he didn’t even know exactly who They were, or where to find Them. Some unholy coalition of Nazis, Mafia, and extradimensional intelligence, more than likely, headquartered in the churning bowels of Hollow Earth. No matter, so long as They kept him running long enough for one last father/son chat.
 
            Nick Ripple returned from his tour in ‘Nam with a bum left leg, a bleeding ulcer, a morphine habit, and a not-altogether irrational fear of his own seed. His platoon was just one of many whose collective service to God and country entailed a generous—if accidental?—dousing with the military pest repellent known as Agent Orange. Though he now existed, lingering, on the outermost periphery of the US Marine-World, he was privy to rumors, dark, absurd, inconceivable. Reproductive malfunctions, in the tactful words of a combat acquaintance. Monsters, a more emphatic warpal declared. Abominations, exclaimed another former trenchmate in impassioned vehemence.
            Mutants, freaks, evolutionary mishaps, whatever they be named, they were defective, and Nick toed a hard line when it came to the differently abled, especially where the Fruit of his own Looms were concerned. Considered them weak, pathetic, offensive to behold. Don’t piss in the gene pool, that was Nick’s stance. And though he desired heirs, he wasn’t about to let any so-called abominations swim past him.
            Nick’s double-edged fatal flaw would be his own undoing, however; weak links in his chain of resolve regarding potential progeny. Nick had an eye for the ladies, too much so to remain faithful to his predictably long-suffering wife. Worse, he found himself quite consistently drawn to strong-willed, self-preserving women, the sort who preferred to make their own decisions as to whether or not they were ready to endure the dubious bliss of motherhood; those who chose inevitably proved rather obstinate and uncooperative when it came to the subject of their precious treasures being treated as abortions after the fact. Even the previously unquestioned influence he wielded over wife Travalia was put to the test and found wanting when, the night of her return from the hospital, she discovered Nick in the kitchen preparing to suffocate and dismember their firstborn, Anthony. Though the child had exhibited no signs of abnormality, its presence in the house made Nick acutely uncomfortable, and he regretted allowing it to come to term. Val took the child and fled to her parents’ home in Connecticut. Nick found them a week later; indifferent to reconciliation, Nick came only to kill the child. In the struggle that ensued, Val’s father was killed, and Nick went to prison. He was out in five, and a month later, little Tony disappeared from the playground at his preschool; no body, or any other trace, was ever found.
            In all the years before and after his internment, Nick took no special precautions to ensure that his family tree not flower on far-flung, hard-to-reach limbs. Nor did it occur to him that a simple vasectomy would nip any such unwanted offshoots in the proverbial bud. His exposure to Agent Orange had indeed wrought havoc upon his chromosomal makeup, yet was anything but detrimental to his potency. Of the twelve children Nick would sire over the two decades following the war, eight of them would come to term, though only two would survive him. One of these was little Anthony.
 
Anthrax didn’t like it, not in any way, shape or form. Going after Pentler was one thing, a personal vendetta fully sanctioned by the corporate overlords whose bidding he did with such vicious aplomb. But this one, the intended target for which he’d received his brainfaxed orders not an hour before, was his friend, as much as he allowed himself to have any. A man he respected, whose body of work spoke for itself; a man who never judged him, never treated him with the kind of thinly veiled disgust, contempt, and fear to which he was accustomed from his other employers.  Those members of the Consortium who consistently attempted to distance themselves from the copious gore which puddled at their own feet, stained their clothes and soiled their fingers to the subdermal layers. Bob Buck was cut from a rougher cloth, reserved his considerable disdain for the pretentious elitists with whom he was forced to consort by virtue of his own ill‑gotten fortunes. The kind of man Anthrax could drink with, not just a casual cocktail in some glass-walled Babylonian tower, but an honest‑to‑God street‑level bender, dangerous inebriation, wasted mayhem, all night and all day and again until the weekend when the real partying would begin. And now he had to kill him. No question in his mind as to whether he’d do it; orders was orders. Just seemed a damn shame, that’s all. He wanted to ask why. But that wasn’t his biz. He did what They told him, and They covered his ass. Hard bargain.
 
            Buck wasn’t at the ranch house.  That would have been too obvious.  He knew they were onto him, a man who’d put out and personally pulled that many contracts had rear‑end heat sensors to pick up that shit a million miles off. Then again, Buck wasn’t one to run, more than likely to find an open field and take em all on at once, boots on in a blaze of glory.  The only way.
            Anthrax tracked him easy enough, hating it every minute as he waded through a slew of Buck’s hired guns, rendering each of them eternally inert. They died in silence, for the most part, true pros, not candy‑ass salaried security chumps and suckers, guys he knew, old Joes and dogs‑o‑war who’d pulled his out of the fire more times than once, boys he owed his life and so what, they all saw him coming and treated it like any other ugly deal, didn’t pull their punches or hold their fire, for all the good it did them, steely precision and a lifetime wasted wallowing in the mire of sponsored violence earned them no mercy in the end. Corporate casualties, every one, causeless deaths in the meaningless name of a biz they didn’t understand. And Ripple was no different, just better at it, souped‑up skills engineered to serve no other purpose but this insensate brutality. A master of death. And so what.
            Buck was waiting, sure enough. The blasted remnants of his private army smoldering in his assassin’s wake, and Buck just sat there, laughing behind his desk in DalTex Buckwagon/BEEFCO headquarters, North end of nowhere, a rusty bastion of corrugated steel and old‑fashioned barbwire.  Like he didn’t even care, neither surprised nor pissed by this betrayal.  Buck ensconced in three‑piece grey flannel, 10‑gallon Stetson, alligator shitkickers, surrounded by a miniscule sampling of his personal armory, Colt revolvers, Smith and Wesson’s, Browning automatics, Walther, Luger, Mauser, Berreta, Glock, Uzi, Russian, Arab, Israeli, Chinese, Japanese, German and good ol US cobalt, titanium, matte black and metallic grey, nickel‑plated, silvery‑blue, the full ultraviolent spectrum.  Launchers for rocket and grenade, c4, tNt, plastique, nitro, round after round after round.  In his lap, Bob cradled his beloved Winchester, the one that had hung unused above the mantle of his manse these many long years since it had served to scatter the thoughts maintained within a Democratic cranium, as unlikely a sniper’s rifle as any agent‑sinister might have devised.  Over his vested chest, crisscrossing bandoliers filled with Cuban cigars, some final irony which Anthrax could sense but not quite get. Buck rose slowly from his leather-backed chair.
            “Well, son,” was all he said, completely unwilling to plead, no sign of weakness to make this any easier.
            Anthrax felt his trigger finger jump, brain afraid that another word might be enough to make him reconsider.
 
            Bob Buck stood his ground; he always had before, and he saw no reason to stop now. The first shot took him in the stomach, left a hole like a rouge‑lipped mouth hanging open in shock. He staggered back a step, from the force if not the pain, and his cigar popped out of his mouth. He shook his head, admonishing Anthrax with a cluck of the tongue, somewhat disappointed that he wasn’t dead already. The head, Anthony, c’mon, my brains on the wall, Zapruder jumpcut, I’m not some gook in black pj’s like yer daddy usedta deepfry in the rice paddies, ya kill me once so’s I stay dead, doncha know. But the poor kid had lost his nerve, useless now to the company, might as well a sold ‘em out and pledged allegiance to BEEFCO if this was how he meant to play it. BANG. Like an m80 in a tin can when Buck was a kid wranglin’ punk fun out in the boonies. Groin shot. HA. Hurt like fuck, no lie, more’n likely lethal but his skullcap was intact as he sat down hard on the cold cement floor, found his smoldering stub between his legs before his seeping blood could extinguish it, plenty of time to roll it between his fingers, even take another puff as Anthrax stood there lookin’ like he wasn’t quite sure what he’d just done or if he even wanted any part of it anymore. Buck reachin’ up to touch the lit end to the tip of a fuse that wound its way through the powderkeg backroom and yeah boy ol’ Tony Ripple’s jaw did most certainly drop  at the sight of that, suddenly  shit-scared at the prospect that Unca Bob Buck had done him just as sure as he’d just double‑plugged the ol man sittin’ gutshot on the stone cold in a puddle of his own blood. BANGBANG two aimless rounds as he backed out the door and the fuse followed him fast like some hissing sidewinder faster than he could run almost and goddam Bob Buck wasn’t even dead yet was he had to go back but no way Jose and holy shit if that sulfurous snakefinger wasn’t ahead of him three steps already gimme three steps mister which had to mean that whatever was supposed to blow was somewhere up in front gimme three steps toward the door so maybe doublin back was the way to go but WHOOSH some force aflame propelled him just enough and gimme three steps he almost caught up with the taunting fuse and BOOM you’ll never see me no more…

Gonzo Prepper: A passage from my unpublished ’90s cyberpunk opus, “69” (alternate title: Meat City)

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Totallygonzo – The Hunter S. Thompson Community | Hunter s ...
“When they come for me, I’m gonna be ready. Trip‑wired Claymores all over the lawn. Floodlights.  Infrared monitoring system. A siren wail rendition of the Hallelujah chorus over the loudspeakers.  Steel‑reinforced door and me right behind it, an M‑60 in each hand and a camera in every bullet.” Dirk Whitestock, On Diplomacy & Armageddon

Ensconced in the splendor of the air‑conditioned Prevost, Hix and co. were either too stoned or altogether wrung out to note the queasy bumpity‑bump, the hissing air brakes or the grinding of gear teeth as the tour bus negotiated the lonesome little dirt turn‑off road that led to the remote habitat of one Dirk Francis Whitestock. Not only ignoring but actually taking out the hand‑lettered wooden sign—”Just Keep Movin”—at the highway juncture, the monstrous bus chugged up the boulder-strewn, ever‑narrowing path towards its isolate destination, all occupants save Leland and the driver lost in hangover daydreams or succumbing to chemical giggle fits. At the zenith, just out of reach, sat the house, almost quaint, sort of a cottage, beastly automobiles of every assemblage and era strewn askew around the property, more than half of them already driven to death, sorry, sadly beautiful mules crushed under the whiphand of Whitestock’s willful caprice.

              Fifty some‑odd meters shy of the house, the driver, Turk Foster, decided he couldn’t push his girl any further, reared up on the rocky shoulder and sat wondering how he was ever going to back her the fuck out. deMand checked the clip in his Glock and re-holstered it in his shoulder rig, yanked the handle for the door and let its vacuum whoosh suck him out onto the roadside. Two bodyguards had his back as he proceeded, megaphone in hand, on up towards Whitestock’s secluded mountain retreat. Boggy Creek, scene of many a fondly, if barely, remembered night of true Roman vomitorium‑style debauchery, a political fringe‑dwellers violent rethink of the Playboy Mansion. Three‑day, three‑week, three‑year swirling soirees of ever‑escalating mischief and mayhem, presented, presided over and production‑supervised by a gun‑toting fire-breathing patriarch of the doomed, at once giddy tyrant and malevolent court jester. A profound thinker and a prehistoric bully, lit like the Vegas strip on a carefully measured imbalance of every conceivable toxin, synaptic stopgaps blasted wide open even as the cells around them gasped, shuddered and died in a neural Holocaust. Blowing moose calls, brandishing chain saws, hoisting bazookas, tossing dynamite and c4 willy‑nilly like they were mere Black Cats and every day that wasn’t New Year’s had to be the 4th of July. The more sedate and unsuspecting guests, invited for just such purpose, sought cover from the gleeful onslaught, ran for their cars and their lives. (On one occasion, an assistant to the state attorney general, peaking on laboratory mescaline, fled shrieking into the woods behind the house, never to be heard from again; in otherwise inscrutable testimony before an investigatory panel, Dirk swore up and down that the bobcats must have got him.) Everyone else was either already hip to Whitestock’s cataclysmic shenanigans, else learned to love them, or at least steer clear of the crossfire. The kind of events—extravaganzas, really—that most were lucky to experience once in a lifetime and survive; only the hardiest of the lot endured and returned, time and again. Leland, a much younger man then, had been a regular, one of Whitestock’s elite inner cirlce of “true‑to‑life balls‑out earth‑shaking demigods.” 

           “Here’s where we separate the carnivores from the herbivores,” the pistol‑packing journalist once confided to Leland, just as he lit a cigarette from his own burning shirtsleeve.

          Within sight of the cabin, Leland took cover behind a rusted out, bullet‑riddled International Scout and raised the bullhorn to his thin, wind‑burned lips.

          “Dirk Whitestock! I know you’re home! I know you’re listening! This is not a raid! I repeat, this is not a raid! We mean you no harm! We have—”

            The morning split wide, spitting lead and fire. deMand felt his hairpiece ruffle as the bullet whizzed by overhead.

           “Goddamnit, Whitestock, it’s me—” but before he could finish identifying, the invisible gunman fired another warning shot across the porch, taking out the driver’s side mirror on the Scout. Leland got a bead on where the shots were originating; through the front door, where the peephole might have once been, a rifle barrel protruded through a bored‑out circle. Considered pulling his own piece, thought better of it.

          “Whitestock!  You son‑of‑two‑bitches! It’s me! Leland deMand! Yer ol pal! I come bearing booze! And drugs!”

          Long pause. 

          “What about women?” came a voice from behind the door, loud and clear, though a little fuzzy around the edges.

         “Not with us.  But I can make a few calls.”

        The oiled black gunbarrel hovered in its eyehole a few seconds longer, for effect, then withdrew. A cork was then jammed in its place.  After an interminable period of rattling locks, clicking tumblers, and clanking chains, the door swung open and Whitestock emerged, clad in a red nylon goose down deer hunting vest, pajama bottoms, a Denver Broncos gimme cap, and mirrored cop glasses. From his snarling lip hung the eternal cigarette. Beneath the vest, Leland could see, his old hell‑ raising chum wore crisscrossing bandoliers that held everything from grenades and mace to ballpoints and a Selfphone. A Colt .45 revolver was tucked in the elastic waistband of his pj’s and in his hands he gripped an AR‑15, still pointed menacingly at the half‑concealed entrepreneur.

       “What do you want, you greedhead weasel bastard?  You still sniffing around for mineral deposits?”

       “What’s with the get‑up, Whitestock?  You look like some kind of weekend bandito. Been licking those poisonous toads again?”

      “You’re the first one I’ve seen around in a while.”

      “Good to see you haven’t let your guard down.  And all those chemistry experiments haven’t dulled that keen writerly wit one bit.”

     “I shoulda killed you when I had the chance, deMand.”

     “I’m right here, Dirk buddy.”

      “Too easy.  I like a moving target.”

      “We could always draw down.  I’ve improved my speed quite a bit.”

      “Speed only matters in typing, Leland. It’s accuracy that counts. Besides, when does a deal‑wheeling soul‑stealing corporate succubus like yourself find time to practice between the Faustian takeover bids and the PT Barnum publicity stunts?”

     “In this biz, it goes with the territory.”

     “But what’s my territory got to do with your biz?”

     “I got a proposal, Whitestock. A legit paying gig. Very high profile.  Just the kind of jumpstart you could use to boost those flagging book sales.”

     “Hey, Hate and Hypocrisy in High Places made the Times bestseller list. 13 weeks.”

   “13 weeks and you never got higher than number 29. 29. Pretty low score, buddy.”

   “We’re not buddies, Leland. Not for a long time.”

    “C’mon, Dirk.  Aren’t a little cold brew, hard drugs, and some fast easy cash impetus enough to set old differences aside and sit down to a little breakfast at the bargaining table?”

    “There’s conspiracy afoot. I recognize the stink.”

     Thus was the bargain sealed, and the devil once more awarded his due: an eight‑ball of pure Andes mountain snowcap, three fifths of Maker’s Mark, a half‑ounce of Madagooska Thunderfuck, two cases of Spatterbrau Amber Ale, and a bottle of Dom ’57 brought from the drop safe beneath Whitestock’s desk. The schiz-tempered journalist refused to sign any kind of binding or legitimate contracts, but he did autograph Ace Kilo’s well‑weathered copy of Peace, Love and Anarchy; or, How Thomas Jefferson Failed the Counterculture, his two‑decades ancient magnum obit of the Boom Generation’s slapstick effort at revolution.  Not in blood, but India ink.

      Decision made, the inveterate muckraking uberscribe went into overdrive, further tearing apart the already‑ravaged cabin, rummaging in drawers, upending furniture, opening strongboxes with a hammer claw, kicking empty wine bottles into the fireplace. He played his Tasmanian Devil games for what seemed to Leland hours, and when all was said and done, Whitestock had assembled, in a small clearing in the middle of the living room, a surprisingly tidy and well‑ordered assortment of personal necessities: five handguns, plenty of ammo; an equal number of notebooks and pens; his Taser; custom‑made snap‑apart Mannlicher‑Carcano sniper rifle in hand‑tooled leather case; dop kit with all essential toiletries; medicine bag; portable bar; all manner of audio and video recording devices. Now clad in a stealth‑black flightsuit and olive‑drab bomber jacket, steel-toed combat boots, a white cowboy hat, and the aforementioned bandoliers. The ubiquitous cigarette temporarily replaced by a Meerschaum hash pipe. Whitestock surveyed his work, checked his watch, shuddered.

        “I’ll need a few more things,” he said vaguely.  “We’ll have to make a couple of stops.”

         Midnight once they stumbled from the tumble‑down cabin, closer to one AM by the time they stowed all Whitestock’s gear and were at last ready to once more hit that rocking road.

        “How do I‑‑?” Turk Foster started to ask.

        “I’ll get us out of here,” Dirk stopped him, gently shoving the driver into the buddy seat. Expertly cranking the monster bus to life, throwing her straight into reverse without so much as a moment’s warmup, propelling the rig and all passengers backward at no less than twenty‑five mph down the winding, rubble‑ridden mountainside towards the waiting highway.

Margot Bogart

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A lady, a suit and a whole lot of machine gun power
She moved across the muddy, frost-encrusted earth, straining against the stiffness in her leg and the metal and gauze of the splint that held it in place.  She couldn’t bend her knee without tasting pain, hot and brassy on the back of her tongue, squeezing back tears each time her foot came down and jostled the injury.
Losing Harlot was the worst of it.  The old chrome horse had been her ride since before she was readily able to remember, now little more than a lump of molten steel and plastic smoldering in a field some four miles east. Everything she owned in the world was tied down or saddlebagged to her treasured bike, and with the exception of a few salvageable essentials which were now strapped to her person—the Uzi her uncle brought her as a gift from one of his MidEast biztrips, a couple of concussion grenades, c4 and a detonator, a belt for tools and one for ammo, her bayonet, a pouch full of money, traveler’s cheques, and credit cards (all stolen)—she’d lost it all.
She held up the rearview mirror she’d retrieved about twenty skips behind the wreckage and scoped herself out.  Pretty haggard, she had to cop, but the cuts and bruises appeared to be more or less superficial; save for the parallel scars that lined her hollow Dietrich cheeks, there was no permanent damage to her smooth, well-structured face.  Thank God for reconstructive surgery, she thought, angling the mirror to admire the twin disfigurations that ran up from the corners of her sneering mouth, giving her face a somewhat skull-like appearance, an eternally grinning rictus promising pleasure unto death.  The rest of her body ached from the savage spill to a degree that would have immobilized a lesser being, but her self-diagnosis  turned up no evidence of internal injury or tissue hemorrhage.  The knee, bum since a schoolyard basketball game when she was 15, was now swollen to epic proportions.
The wind whipped her fire-red mane, held it aloft, whistling cleanly around the fresh-shaven sides of her pale scalp.  Most folks tended to disbelieve her when she told them that red was her natural color.  Except for her lovers.
She spat a glut of blood and phlegm into the mud, lit another menthol, and continued dragging her battered carcass  across the flat wet plain, doing her damnedest to ignore the chill wind that bit through torn leather to find her stinging flesh.

She walks along a darkened roadway, staggering her step, one foot in the street, one on the curb, trying with all the worldly effort she can summon from her terribly small, frail self to appear casual and unafraid.
            I am a child, she thinks, and I am alone.
            It is far to her home, and most of the houses along this street are dark, silent. She notices that the houses where the blue light of the The Box flickers hauntingly seem more desperate and empty somehow than those that lie in complete darkness. She hates television, always has. Even as a very small child, when most her age would stare slack-jawed at the screen they’d been propped in front of, utterly absorbed by the random and meaningless images that flash so brightly, so colorfully, Margot found The Box to be boring, an annoyance, a waste of her precious time (precious, mind, not valuable; children can only have precious time, at least when they’re not off on incessant crying jags, and Margot is not much of one for tears; they too, are a waste of her time).
            There is a car behind her, very close, and she curses herself for not noticing it sooner. She plays a game with the cars usually, only it is not really a game. She plays Invisible Girl. She becomes very silent, breathing all but ceases, as soon as she spies the headlights, and she moves sideways with the grace of a dancer, going deeper into the shadows, simply becoming a part of her surroundings, and the sounds of nature become louder for her in big beautiful stereophonic sound and she can feel the night wind blow right through her, touch her soul, play with it, let her know that it’s there, and the fear disappears, is replaced by a feeling of elation that has little and much to do with being a child.
            Harmony.
            This word comes to her mind at such times. It is a nice word, a very beautiful word, the loveliest word she knows, and at those moments when she stands frozen, vanished not from Earth but into it, she knows what that word means.
            But this car has tricked her; it’s won the game before the the game has even started. This car is too quiet, she thinks; it just creeped right up on me. It caught me.
            She can almost smell the evil that clings to the car that is moving so slowly, so silently behind her, but she doesn’t even think of running. That would be giving in to her emotions, collapsing in on herself, letting the fear overtake her. And she can’t do that to herself, can’t desert herself. Who will she turn to then?
            “Hey,” rings out loud and clear like a pistol shot, and she is barely able to keep herself from jumping at the sound. “Hey, little girl. What are you doing out this late? Shouldn’t you be home in bed, hon?”
            The man in the car who is speaking—one of at least three passengers, she’s pretty sure, though she has not yet even glanced at the car—has a way of emphasizing in bed that makes her feel sick. She does not know why.
            “Do your parents know you’re out here? Are you lost? You maybe oughta get in the car, huh, sweetheart?”
            “No, thanks. I live just up around this curve. I’m almost there.”
            “Well, let us drive ya. I mean, we’re headed that way, right?”
            “S’okay, I like to walk.”
            “C’mon, kid. Just get in the car, let a nice guy do you a favor. Whattaya say?”
            Again his words sound wicked, like threats, like dark promises, promises to make her dreams come true. The bad ones.
            “Look, thanks a lot for the offering and everything, okay? But I really don’t want a ride. I don’t want one, and I don’t need one.”
            “Little girl…” He almost sings it, crooking his finger at her and wagging it. “Come here.”
            And finally she looks, looks right into the driver’s eyes, and they are flat and black and full of hate.
            “Leave me alone! I just want to walk home!”
            “Okay, fine, don’t take the fuckin’ ride! Bitch!”
            The tires squeal and the car rockets forward, and she welcomes the momentary sense of relief. It evaporates quickly when the car pulls over at the curb about twenty yards ahead. She continues to walk, but her pace slows to a crawl. A door opens and one of the men gets out of the vehicle. He stands there, waiting for her to come and catch the ride of her life.
            Breathlessly, hot tears of anger and fear stinging her eyes, she crosses the road and diligently continues her trek towards home. As she nears the car, the man moves to the middle of the street, determined to have her. The odor gets worse, and she begins to cry.
            “Little girl,” he says, the same sing-song cadence as before, coming right up to her and getting ahold of her coat sleeve. “We can’t just let you wander around by yourself like this. Something bad might happen to you. Why are you crying?”
            He reaches out as if to touch her wet, red cheek and she jerks her face away.
            “What the fuck’s the matter with you? We’re giving you a goddamn ride. You should be grateful. You should appreciate that.”
            “Fuck you!” She tries to run, but the man gets ahold of her and has his hands on her and she can feel all the other children he’s done this to in those awful hands, squirming right along with her. She wishes for every car she’s ever hid from to come screaming down the road right now, to run right over these evil fuckers, to kill them.
            He closes one hand over her face, the other is between her legs and he is lifting her up that way. She has one arm free. The knife in her pocket is not her own. It belongs to a boy named Gordon who loaned it to her just for this walk. Gordon is the reason she’s making her way home so late at night. She and Gordon had a date in a tree. Gordon and his friends have a very cool treehouse with a portable CD player and everything. Gordon, who is older—almost 12—has been teaching her to dance. She and Gordon spent nearly three hours just slow dancing to some soft music way up in the trees. David Bowie. Fleetwood Mac. Queen. Just like the big kids. It was warm and beautiful. But now even these thoughts seem unpleasant, evil. Wrong.
            She is able to get the knife in her pocket open with one hand before he has her halfway to the waiting car. She knows she must not let him get her into the car, because in the car there are more of them, and they will take her knife away, and death will be certain. Death and worse.
            The knife comes out of her pocket, arcs up, then down, and the entire three-inch blade plunges into the jeans-flesh-muscle of his thigh. His scream is hideous. She loves the sound of it. He grabs for his thigh in pain and she is able to squirm free. She fall to her knees but is up in no time and running, running blindly, just putting distance between herself and that car whose door lies open to reveal the gaping maw of an evil that wants to swallow her up, then regurgitate her spent, empty shell. All she needs is the distance, then she can disappear.
            They look for her a long time, their silent, eviel machine creeping slowly up and down the street. She can hear the agonized voice of the one she stabbed, howling in pain, cursing her. The voice intrudes on her Harmony and so she blocks it out.
            Eventually they give up and move on, taking their foul smell and the rest of her fear with them. She sneaks home stealthily, ascends to the roof of her house with the ease that comes with much practice. She strips clean and stands before the bathroom mirror, watching her shaking—almost convulsing—body curiously, trying to make herself stop. She won’t sleep this night.
            The next morning her father finds her in front of The Box staring at a test pattern, patiently waiting for something to happen on the screen.
            She never says a word about it to her parents, knowing that they would not be proud, that they would only scold her for being out so late, blame her for what happened, punish her for it all, especially the knife that saved her life.
            And punishment is a waste of her time.

Past dusk and coming on full dark when she spotted the first vehicle to come along since she reached the Flyway.  Caught the high-beams slicing through the night-smog roughly a kilometer off; tempted by her own exhaustion to take up position on the shoulder, stick her thumb into the wind, and wait.  Caution kicked in and she slipped back a few meters, crouched low and scoped the approach.  Someone was bound to be searching for the truckload of missing Guardsmen, if their mangled, smoldering corpses weren’t already discovered, in which case they’d be hunting for her.
She laid out flat on the cold, mushy terrain, scarcely drawing breath as the headlights drew nearer.  Too low to the ground for a truck, damn big for a car.  Whatever, its silhouette was blacker than the starless sky, blacker than her own thoughts, and it stretched on quite a ways behind those headlights.  The first discernible detail she made out was the license plate, illumined as it was by its small bulb.
It read SLAB3.
Trip-wired synapses chain-reacted in her brain, her thoughts caught in mental crossfire. The vehicle rolled forward in motorized whisper, some kind of Stealthmobile, grill emblazoned with a matte-metallic M, two feet high an nearly as wide, and the hood ornament, revealed at a glance as the car made its pass, was a rectangular chunk of black rock, all-too-familiar logo: MONOLITH.
The limousine slid past, not just any MONOlimo, but a massive armored stretch conveying the 3rd most important member of the Cygnet Consortium, the cartel’s ultraelite Board of Director’s, and one of the six people Margot hated most in the world.
Night-chill settled over her like a bedsheet at the city morgue. She kept moving. Travelled ten more miles on adrenaline and numb hate, hate that swelled up strong and bitter as ever the moment she spied the MONOlimo.  Why they’d send a boardhead to the Belt, she couldn’t figure; neither here nor there.  Catching up to it was the imperative, stopping it the goal, destroying it her destiny.
Pain slowed her progress to a steady crawl; dragging ass by force of will.  Without something potent to deaden the agony of her twisted, throbbing knee, collapse was imminent.  She needed a painkiller.
Or a ride.
Or something.