way to learn how to
alienate poeple
“Preliminary subroutines are coming up positive.”
“Group seven variables?”
“Fine.”
The technician, absorbed, rubbed the sweat on his brow onto his shirt cuffs. “That’s the manifold stability, then. Group six?”
Yvonne watched the co-technician push himself on his wheeled chair to another terminal.
“All coming up niner-niner.”
“Okay group six relays.” With this the co-technician produced a key from the lanyard around his neck, and inserted it into a recessed area in the group six terminal console. Having done this, he looked over at the technician. The technician then revealed a key which he used in much the same way.
“The time is four-fifteen, group six relays are,” the two operators looked at each other. “Go, go, go.” As they turned their keys, the chamber of the Sealed Patron, which until now Yvonne had completely forgotten, flushed through with what sounded like fierce pressured air. When she turned around, the chamber was no longer glowing its peaceful neon blue. Emitting an anxious luminous orange light, Yvonne got the feeling the Patron was getting ready for something. It was like staring into a lava lamp that had just been turned on - the plasmoidic substrate in which the Patron resided was being charged with something, warming the beautiful maiden up.
“Fifteen seconds until we transfer to tertiary carrier groups,” the action was back in front of the consoles. “You got those new protocols loaded in memory?”
The co-technician failed to respond for a moment, “yep.”
“Alright go.”
A switch was thrown, and suddenly the mainframe sprung alive. Switches, lights and terminal displays behaved autonomously, performing fearsome mechanical Mexican-waves from left to right across the room. The two operators appeared to only pay attention to a small display unit next to the co-technician. After some moments text flooded its screen, and then it began, with great violence, to flash green and black.
“Well done - are groups six and seven still in memory?”
“No that’s been done.”
“How are we going for subspace DX?”
“Still waiting on a ping - no wait, we’re good.”
“Whose retainer?”
“Empress of,” the co-technician scrolled through some text on a terminal monitor, hammering the same key quickly. “China.”
The technician took a sip of something from a green bottle. “We’re good for group five I think - is she up yet?”
“Yeah she’s up - mind you, we’ve been a bit rude, keeping her out of the loop for so long.”
Yvonne turned to look at the Patron. She floated peacefully orange, silent.
“It was those tertiary group protocols - she’d understand.”
“So we’ll go local?”
“Yeah go live locally.”
The co-technician reached for a phone receiver to his left. “Hello? Yeah this is Legs. We’re going live so I’d suggest moving to emulated terminals just in case she plays with anyone’s stuff. Yeah, emulated. Ask… um… ask Sloan, she’d know. Yeah. No worries.” When he hung up the phone and looked at his watch for some time.
“That should do it.”
“Okay going live,” a reach was made, a switch thrown. The technician adjusted the volume on a small speaker on his terminal. “Afternoon, Mary!”
Good afternoon.
“We’re going for a special energy exchange and we’ve got the Empress of China on the line,” the technician nattered jovially. “We were wondering if you’ve be happy to oblige.”
For a while there was nothing but static. Then:
I see.
Yvonne continued to study the Patron in her tank. No movement, apart from those caused by the fluid-conditioning.
“You probably want to know what’s going on.”
Another pause:
Yes.
..
“The whole thing is a circus act designed to start up a machine with an enormous amount of what you might callcosmic limiting static friction,” the technician said, taking a swig from a khaki-coloured bottle.
1956 —
salamic tendency!
moustachioed justice,
in the form of a snake,
coiled around Nagy’s neck.
turgid fragrance,
i spy your olfactoric fraud.
.
you siren! you resident
of the eighth-circle!
.
your release from refrigeration
was a grave mistake.
“Laurie, you’re an old man now.”
“Y’know, you talk an awful lot of crap,” Laurie said, doing the thing where he looked sideways, out over the street, talking at the same time while he inhaled on his cigarette. When he finished doing this he’d cock an eye back at his interlocutor to add some sort of sting.
“I’m hurt that you’d say that to me.”
“You’re not hurt.”
“How can you say that?”
“If you got a phone call from some job application right now, one that would maybe, say, double your pay for half the work, or whatever,” he leaned in slightly, “you’d be talking shit on that phone thick and fast.”
“If the equivalent thing happened to you, you’d do the same.”
Laurie took some interest in his fried tomatoes before rejoining, “no, no I wouldn’t.”
“Like hell you wouldn’t! If you were offered a one way ticket to freedom, you’d take it!”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
“What are you talking about, then? What are we talking about?”
get aromatic,
get systematic.
get ceramic,
… wash the floor.
.
find your motivation,
employ business circumlocution.
agitate!
find yourself prostrate!
.
sell your soul!!!
mildred’s lounge!
pear-man answers the unreturned call:
all the interactions bear the cross,
the constructive car,
its unrepentant concrete valves.
.
and the name-badges,
the canning factory, field effect transistors,
its constituent components, can be seen.
”- or, perhaps the general lack thereof?
.
“i got twenny bucks ferya”
no! No! none of that in the land of zeal;
this is how the thirteen commands with fire::
there is no general agreement, coordinated!
.
the man o’ cultivated produce:::he wasteth nothing,
no time,
no words,
no mince,
he employs the visceral codec,
streaming back the difference of two.
.
but the contradiction -
it is unresolved in the same manner
as the secret letters circulated by mao:
the atomic phonecall
“would hardly matter to the universe as a whole”.
.
but the zealous thirteen exacts the following:
the super-effective dialectical synthesis.
there is what, four thousand stat damage dealt?
every facet of life becomes transformed.
the hidden thirteen
The their steel eyes glinted in the moonlight. When the nearby insects died down periodically, for a few seconds, you could hear the devices whirring softly, clicking and re-adjusting themselves.
“Have some respect.”
“What?”
“Have some damn respect, pustule.”
“You’re an abomination.”
“You can save that for the damn doctors.”
“You’ll switch over in a couple of hours, what’s the difference?”
“We’ll be back,” it seemed Shrendig was awake. “We’ll swap back in a few days.”
Harkoff said nothing. The light rolled over the pock-marked surface of the gun, illuminating the hammer strokes on its casing.
“You’ll be back too someday,” she said, grabbing her pack. From inside she produced the syringe, and she primed it with chemicals.
“I’d say we’re all pretty lucky, bucko, so have some respect.”
“If it’s luck, what’s the good in it?”
“Where does all of this come from? When has that ever mattered?” Shrendig shifted in the sand as she bound the tourniquet around her arm. ”They could just as easily take it away.”
“Why not give it to them?”
“Doesn’t work like that.”
“Doesn’t seem like it works both ways, then.”
“Seems more like you’ve finally figu — it’s night time. Can’t say I was expecting that.” She began to pack it all away.
everyone’s a wannabe
history lead-lights,
faces and time,
thirteen quick, and
experiential retailing
gruen-brain, milk-shake pain
MY HOUSE:
OUT OF THE ORDINARY
THAT’S RIGHT:
DON’T WANNA HURT NOBODY
interminable spectre:
rise! rise!
with the furious jealousy.
the desert spectre,
plaque of justice.
born ruffians,
the swift deliverers:
stick warriors, insatiable walkers, sorcerers of evaporation.
