Growing Hope - Installment 1
“Friends, colleagues, brothers-in-arms, listeners, fans, blah blah blahs, etc. It’s 3:30 in the morning. What are you doing still up and presumably paying attention to me? Unless my voice is coming at your through the walls from your asshat neighbor, blaring in the background while you’re balls deep in some tramp from the club, you’ve got some explaining to do.
“And, if you’re that neighbor who’s forcing his own obviously superior taste on the sex-crazed, culture-starved masses… good for you. And turn that shit up!”
Telson and I were those asshat neighbors. In an asshat neighborhood. Drinking cheap beer and chunking the empty cans at each other's heads in boredom. Currently, the only thing interesting happening in town was on the radio, beaming at us through the twists and turns of the internet, or what passed for the internet these days. Its name was Kenchi. A, presumably, human provocateur that set up shop a couple months ago on Island 2 in the south Pacific region of the more-than-just-slightly-free-world.
He was a gas.
Now, I say presumably because all we could run on were theories of who/what it/he/she was. Whoever was behind the voice, whether they be programmer or just a person speaking into a voice modulation microphone that changed their voice randomly between male and female, they were ex-American like us.
“Yo, Dorse,” that's my name, as Telson just pointed out, “turn the radio up.” He chunked a beer can at my head, which I dodged deftly. I was glad I did. From the sound of it hitting the pile behind me, it was nearly full.
“Goddamn it, man,” I yelled over my shoulder as I pushed the button to increase the volume, “that one was almost full. Lay off the shit if you're going to fucking waste it!”
“Kay, kay, kay, sorry,” he quickly rattled off as he kicked his feet up on a swiftly degrading milk cart we'd brought home from work. The fibers of the material had already begun to discentigrate since they'd left the confines of their supportive network of nanobots. Welcome to Amerika, as we call it. Believe me, the K in that doesn't stand for America being an emulation of the human spirit, ala Egyptian mysticism. More like the exact opposite.
Telson cleared his throat, popped another beer open. “This,” he waved the beer around the room, encompassing it all, “is getting mighty lame. I mean, horribly past due for a clean up, or change of locations.”
“Change of locations,” I agreed.
“Change of locations, then. This place is gettign past due for a change of locations. I dare say, it's filthy,” he finished, taking a swig. After all these, beer is still legal but marijuana's only “decriminalized”. You think they would have learned after the rights of 2010 that we should just be stoned, not drunk and rowdy. “I vote,” he continued on after choking down the alcohol laced water, “we move somewhere else. Maybe a little more upscale?” Telson cocked a knowing eyebrow at me and flashed that same grin he used on all the little alt chicks in the bar.
“Oh,” I paused and finished my beer, “I concur. Wholeheartedly. Good sir?”
He got a good laugh on that, it shaking his spiked to and fro. Still, it went back to its perfect place, “Yes. Good sir, it is. But where should we go?”
I gave a noncommital, let me think “hmmmm” as I reached for a beer out of the cooler. “Somewhere closer to downtown? I'd like to get out of the train depot, personally. Too much trash around here.”
“I'd still be moving with you.”
“Shit.”
“Down town? We can probably swing that. But I'm not paying rent, and I don't wanna be eye-deed every time I walk in through the front door or some shit. You know some of the girls I sleep with. Oh, and no bio scans either,” he tapped his head for emphasis.
“Good point, good point,” I agreed, scratching my goatee with my right hand, swigging my beer with the other. “You know, we could move to one of the Islands,” I offered, “just, you know, throwing it out there.”
“Shit,” Telson threw his head back, his hand on his forehead. He got this look every time I brought up the Island, and Island. “Dude, you know we can't afford it, let alone get out there if we could. That's for rich people who have private armies to fight through boarder security or-”
“con artist malcontents who hate where they live and can do hydroponic work like it's going out of style?” I interjected. Yeah, we're farmers. Not very glamorous, I know.
“Or con artist malcontents who blibbity blah, blibbity blah, what you said,” he came back with, “but we're not con artists. We're half-assed medicine dealers who make some money on the side. We're not even good at it. Well, you're good at it, when you're actually making a deal. But, damn it, you give too much of the shit away.”
“I'm not starting on this,” I snapped, “people need the shit, and I give it to the ones who can't afford it. All right? It's not coming out of your side of the profits anyway.” Ok. We... I'm a bleeding heart farmer who sells black market pharmaceuticals. Just slightly more glamorous than a farmer, in my opinion. “Besides,” I added, “we've got to have enough space to set up the hydro.” I'd rather be a rockstar or some shit. But those died out a looong time ago. I finished my beer and kicked my feet up on the same milk crate as Telson. It noticeably settled more under my added weight.
Telson sat silent for a while. I wasn't sure if he was thinking or just sulking. It's hard to tell, especially when he's been drinking. I turned up the radio a little more, just to drown out the silence of urban life: industrial machinery hums, a gun fight somewhere in nowhere land, and the cop sirens.
“You see here,” Kenchi was in the middle of some diatribe we hadn't been payign attention to, “Ameri-KA has plenty of people, kids still really, who understand the ins and outs of tech. They've been raised with it, brought up to run it, and have gotten sick of it and moved onto other things. We need these kids out HERE, in the Freelands, the Islands. Think of what we could be doing to decimate the infrastructure there? We're stealng brain,” Kenchi switched into his/her feminine voice now, “power, forced brain drain I love to call it. Talk about turning the tables on the rapist, eh? So all you sultry vixens, you holders of knowledge, you children of the Great Satan, the Old West, the Dead West, COME TO ME. Come to the Freelands, the Islands, where you're not ruled by Google and Microsoft and Monsanto. Come to us, feel the love. You feel it? Oh, that's right, you're still balls deep in some genetically engineered whore from the memetically designed bar you just left.”
Telson straightened up a little, chugged down the rest of his beer. He looked at me, dead on, straight in the eyes, one twitching slightly. “Let's do it. Let's go. I'm sick of running through eighteen proxy servers to get something decent on the radio. I'm sick of stealing a new milk crate. I'm sick of having to watch people suffer because they can't afford the retrovirals, anti-cancer, and asthma meds we've been growing here. Fuck Ameri-ka. Fuck it. Let's go.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“I'm too drunk right now.”
And we both broke down laughing.
Cross posted from Frequency23
“And, if you’re that neighbor who’s forcing his own obviously superior taste on the sex-crazed, culture-starved masses… good for you. And turn that shit up!”
Telson and I were those asshat neighbors. In an asshat neighborhood. Drinking cheap beer and chunking the empty cans at each other's heads in boredom. Currently, the only thing interesting happening in town was on the radio, beaming at us through the twists and turns of the internet, or what passed for the internet these days. Its name was Kenchi. A, presumably, human provocateur that set up shop a couple months ago on Island 2 in the south Pacific region of the more-than-just-slightly-free-world.
He was a gas.
Now, I say presumably because all we could run on were theories of who/what it/he/she was. Whoever was behind the voice, whether they be programmer or just a person speaking into a voice modulation microphone that changed their voice randomly between male and female, they were ex-American like us.
“Yo, Dorse,” that's my name, as Telson just pointed out, “turn the radio up.” He chunked a beer can at my head, which I dodged deftly. I was glad I did. From the sound of it hitting the pile behind me, it was nearly full.
“Goddamn it, man,” I yelled over my shoulder as I pushed the button to increase the volume, “that one was almost full. Lay off the shit if you're going to fucking waste it!”
“Kay, kay, kay, sorry,” he quickly rattled off as he kicked his feet up on a swiftly degrading milk cart we'd brought home from work. The fibers of the material had already begun to discentigrate since they'd left the confines of their supportive network of nanobots. Welcome to Amerika, as we call it. Believe me, the K in that doesn't stand for America being an emulation of the human spirit, ala Egyptian mysticism. More like the exact opposite.
Telson cleared his throat, popped another beer open. “This,” he waved the beer around the room, encompassing it all, “is getting mighty lame. I mean, horribly past due for a clean up, or change of locations.”
“Change of locations,” I agreed.
“Change of locations, then. This place is gettign past due for a change of locations. I dare say, it's filthy,” he finished, taking a swig. After all these, beer is still legal but marijuana's only “decriminalized”. You think they would have learned after the rights of 2010 that we should just be stoned, not drunk and rowdy. “I vote,” he continued on after choking down the alcohol laced water, “we move somewhere else. Maybe a little more upscale?” Telson cocked a knowing eyebrow at me and flashed that same grin he used on all the little alt chicks in the bar.
“Oh,” I paused and finished my beer, “I concur. Wholeheartedly. Good sir?”
He got a good laugh on that, it shaking his spiked to and fro. Still, it went back to its perfect place, “Yes. Good sir, it is. But where should we go?”
I gave a noncommital, let me think “hmmmm” as I reached for a beer out of the cooler. “Somewhere closer to downtown? I'd like to get out of the train depot, personally. Too much trash around here.”
“I'd still be moving with you.”
“Shit.”
“Down town? We can probably swing that. But I'm not paying rent, and I don't wanna be eye-deed every time I walk in through the front door or some shit. You know some of the girls I sleep with. Oh, and no bio scans either,” he tapped his head for emphasis.
“Good point, good point,” I agreed, scratching my goatee with my right hand, swigging my beer with the other. “You know, we could move to one of the Islands,” I offered, “just, you know, throwing it out there.”
“Shit,” Telson threw his head back, his hand on his forehead. He got this look every time I brought up the Island, and Island. “Dude, you know we can't afford it, let alone get out there if we could. That's for rich people who have private armies to fight through boarder security or-”
“con artist malcontents who hate where they live and can do hydroponic work like it's going out of style?” I interjected. Yeah, we're farmers. Not very glamorous, I know.
“Or con artist malcontents who blibbity blah, blibbity blah, what you said,” he came back with, “but we're not con artists. We're half-assed medicine dealers who make some money on the side. We're not even good at it. Well, you're good at it, when you're actually making a deal. But, damn it, you give too much of the shit away.”
“I'm not starting on this,” I snapped, “people need the shit, and I give it to the ones who can't afford it. All right? It's not coming out of your side of the profits anyway.” Ok. We... I'm a bleeding heart farmer who sells black market pharmaceuticals. Just slightly more glamorous than a farmer, in my opinion. “Besides,” I added, “we've got to have enough space to set up the hydro.” I'd rather be a rockstar or some shit. But those died out a looong time ago. I finished my beer and kicked my feet up on the same milk crate as Telson. It noticeably settled more under my added weight.
Telson sat silent for a while. I wasn't sure if he was thinking or just sulking. It's hard to tell, especially when he's been drinking. I turned up the radio a little more, just to drown out the silence of urban life: industrial machinery hums, a gun fight somewhere in nowhere land, and the cop sirens.
“You see here,” Kenchi was in the middle of some diatribe we hadn't been payign attention to, “Ameri-KA has plenty of people, kids still really, who understand the ins and outs of tech. They've been raised with it, brought up to run it, and have gotten sick of it and moved onto other things. We need these kids out HERE, in the Freelands, the Islands. Think of what we could be doing to decimate the infrastructure there? We're stealng brain,” Kenchi switched into his/her feminine voice now, “power, forced brain drain I love to call it. Talk about turning the tables on the rapist, eh? So all you sultry vixens, you holders of knowledge, you children of the Great Satan, the Old West, the Dead West, COME TO ME. Come to the Freelands, the Islands, where you're not ruled by Google and Microsoft and Monsanto. Come to us, feel the love. You feel it? Oh, that's right, you're still balls deep in some genetically engineered whore from the memetically designed bar you just left.”
Telson straightened up a little, chugged down the rest of his beer. He looked at me, dead on, straight in the eyes, one twitching slightly. “Let's do it. Let's go. I'm sick of running through eighteen proxy servers to get something decent on the radio. I'm sick of stealing a new milk crate. I'm sick of having to watch people suffer because they can't afford the retrovirals, anti-cancer, and asthma meds we've been growing here. Fuck Ameri-ka. Fuck it. Let's go.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?”
“I'm too drunk right now.”
And we both broke down laughing.
Cross posted from Frequency23
posted by Craig G at 7:41 AM
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