Re: The Glorious Championship! [S3G5] [Round 4: GBN2
01-22-2013, 08:38 AM
Originally posted on MSPA by Agent1022.
See the glowing web of lights flowing, streaking, spinning through the cosmic, virtual void; particles and antiparticles form from the quantum foam and in a neverending folk dance - perhaps the Morris - partners are swept from one another and brought into happy new arrangements, to be herded into little meson gates, to form pictures, words, prophylactic speech and political jargon. Talk shows and game shows and talent shows and the show must go on, and so it does; see the web cluster in corners and in the center stage, since the world must all see me, the star! Everyone wants to be a motherfucking DJ, but who sees the man with the music when the girl is on the pole? Hedonism? Fuck yes, hedonism.
See this cluster! Glowing bright white, a perpetual supernova spewing a spiderweb of fibers across the universes, broadcasting forever and ever. See the delightful programs spewing from the Grand Battle Network 2: Not Affiliated With The Network, not affiliated with the Network, of course, which is a much more serious black-and-ochre set underneath the brightly-advertised strong strings of information, commercials, infomercials, (commation? Don’t be silly, advertisements don’t contain any data. Bitless, but not biteless. Those things will eat your life and your credit if you let them).
See the sprawling megaplex everywhere and nowhere! See the crawling workers, building the megaliths of information technology on meager lifts and raises, both in wages and in life - move on, move on, they’re not important. They’ll never be important. Instead see the inside of the complex, so complex, that maintenance has never seen management. See the offices where the 4-Fs ply their no valued vocation, to create the greatest resource of all - entertainment!
“Production studio.”
“Yeah, we’ve got some kind of...magnetic anomaly all up in our systems? It’s messing with our feed.”
“You shielded?”
“Well, n-no, we haven’t-”
“Not my problem, then.” *click*
-=-=-=-
The robotic gameshow host looked disheveled. Everyone in the studio looked disheveled.
“Question...1,307...which piston-engined aircraft, manufactured by the Grumman Aerospace Corporation, achieved the fastest time-to-climb record in history until the advent of jet-engined aeroplanes?”
Nancy Little rubbed red-rimmed eyes, elbows rested on the narrow strip of podium surface not occupied by typewriter. “Haven’t we been at this a while?” She stifled a yawn. “I’m no bearcat, I won’t be snappin’ atcha, but-”
Six’s proclamation of <font color="#00FF00">“BEARCAT. CORRECT.” was interrupted by a sudden furious clacking from the podium. And furious was definitely the right word.
CUT. OH FUCKING FORSAKEN DEITIES OF THIS FUCKING BROADCAST NETWORK. CUT. CHECK, PLEASE. WE’RE DONE. The typewriter’s typebars blurred as they tapped out unending vitriol. <span style="font-family: courier">YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING GOES TO FUCKING SHIT. ALL THE TIME. THINGS USED TO WORK FOR ME, YOU KNOW. I WAS A BIG PLAYER ON CAMPUS. I HAD SAY. EVEN AFTER I GOT PUT IN THIS FUCKING THING, I GOT AROUND. I WENT ALL OVER THE FUCKING UNIVERSES AND I DID WHAT I FUCKING WANTED. IT WAS THE LIFE OF A FUCKING PISSANT, BUT
The angry keys hesitated for a second. A heat haze wafted around the paper, browning the letters slightly. Then with a slow click, the CAPS LOCK key disengaged, and the typebars finished the message with melancholy strokes.
things used to happen the way I wanted them to.</font></span>
And then AMP burst through the studio doors, magnetic flurries etching static into every screen and burning noise into what was once digital meaning. A few monitors detached themselves and joined the cloud computer's computational throng, even as anguished screams filled the studio - some cut off abruptly by flying screens. Technicians frantically gathered up tapes and hard drives, fruitlessly shielding them with their bodies as they ran from the great white spot of interference. Hard to say who did more damage.
“THIS IS A BROADCAST AREA. WE ARE CURRENTLY ON AIR. YOU ARE," Six’s sawblade whined, whirling in time with the magnetic maelstrom churning before the stage, "INTERRUPTING THE PROGRAM.”
Interface had a lot to say about common politeness, not bursting into places, especially apologizing to that nice deadly-looking robot that looks like it can cut right through our core, all that rot. Protocols opted to run, in bits and parts, an program that would convey the expression of mute, silent horror. Database blanked out her databanks theatrically for a moment, but quickly reactivated them when she recognized something through an ancillary camera.
“Etiyr? Etiyr!” The cloud of metal surged right through the spinning sawblade, almost tearing it off in the process, not to mention badly clouding the Gamehost’s lens. “It’s me! AMP! Remember me?”
<font color="#FFFFFF">And then Etiyr jammed. Jammed. He hadn’t ever jammed once since he’d been a typewriter - but there was always a first, especially one appropriate to the amount of drink-spewing shock and hatred he was feeling now. A few typebar hammerings produced an especially heavy
F
on the paper before they popped back into the typewheel with a final ‘clunk’.
Says it all, really.</font>
-=-=-=-
It was a break. The GBN2® broadcast ‘24-7’: a misleading term, of course, without a planet to rotate upon, but easier and more compact than ‘constantly’. Bits, and broadcasting bits were an expensive commodity and an even more expensive business - so the less information you could actually convey the better. Which meant, of course, like most other broadcast networks out there the GBN2® consisted of talking heads, speculative news, game shows and meaningless violence, the latter two most fortuitously summed up in a single program. All filmed, recorded, edited and sent on its merry way in a never-ending story, beaming out into the multiverse...24-7.
Kracht wasn’t on the beaming waves at the moment, however. That was one of the perks of being the host, which in turn came from having been on his squillionth time around. He sat at a desk that was a miniature copy of the one on the set of Causal News (‘We Report Things After They Happen’), in an office configured to resemble the palatial pan-dimensional accommodations depicted on A Day in the Life of the Ovoid. His crystalline head lay buried in his mineral hands.
He’d failed. Every so often on his time around he’d land in a cameo round. And every time there were newcomers. The battles were still happening.
What had he done wrong? What was he going to do wrong? The mineral’s mind was a glittering turmoil of frustration, aimed towards a future that seemed farther away every day. But would he like it when it came? Would it be as painful as the gnawing hopelessness in his chest that leapt and gouged him whenever he saw someone he hadn’t seen before?
The rock that became a man stepped out into the glitzy halls again, locking his office door behind him. He needed a drink.
-=-=-=-
“My goodness!” Nancy took another sip of neon pink. “Now we’re really putting on the Ritz with some ‘a this bootleg giggle water, aren’t we now?”
<font color="#C90A0A">The bartender’s vials jingled as he filled a glass from one of myriad taps. “Really now, liquor’s hardly illegal nowadays.” He blinked as he pulled a vial from its strap and emptied it into the fizzing brew. “I don’t drink myself, but I see why people want to.” Carefully, Zimmer picked up the concoction and passed it down the bar. “There is so much we don’t know; what’s a little more to forget?”
You don’t drink. Well, I can’t. I’m thinking you don’t know a whole lot either, and among those things is some fucking tact. The paper slid out of the roller petulant, unforgiving, and ended up soggy as it slowly became part of the bar. <span style="font-family: courier">Ugh. Or how to clean, for that matter.</span>
The shoulder pads on the lieutenant’s leather coat came up in a short shrug as he read the words. “I try to learn. This is where a lot of it happens.” He pointed at a black streak on the bar, a scorch or skid mark nearly invisible against the dark purple. “And that’s what happens when you accidentally start a thermite reaction. Don’t ask how. And that reminds me...” Carefully, he plucked a tin cup from the hovering morass of shrapnel floating above a bar stool and looked, interested, at its contents.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant...” AMP’s core glowed red as it always did, only now it had a tinge of embarrassment in it. “It just sort of happened...D-database says it’s because of ferromagnetism - oops!” With a sound just like rain, the iron filings in the cup disengaged themselves from their receptacle and floated, forming intricate patterns, in AMP’s magnetic whorls and eddies.
“Beautiful.” Zimmer looked into the swirling grey-red flecks. “Glory to His works, sing praises to His wonders-”
NO. FUCK NO. You’re one of those. Etiyr rolled back a couple spaces and bolded the last word, each strike of the typebars an imaginary blow to the holy man’s head. Unfortunately, they remained figmentary fantasies.
“Interesting, little typewriter. One of those?”
If the typewriter could hiss, spit venom, spew smoke or ooze oil, it would have. But alas, Etiyr lacked vocal cords, poison sacs and smoke bombs, or even the liter of lubricant it would have been needed to make it all worthwhile. So all the venom he put into his words, as per usual. Priests. Monks, divine alchemists. Holy men. The bell rang and the carriage slid back with a force that knocked Nancy’s drink over (cleanly into another pristine, empty glass that had been set down there just before, quite by chance. The falling one didn’t shatter, either.) <span style="font-family: courier">Holier-than-thou men, more like. Man of fucking God, aren’t you? Like to jump up there into the heavens on your happy prayer trips and tell Him to bend over?</span>
Nancy tried to twist her mind into the general area the typewriter had wandered - no, ran headlong towards and dived - into, and wished she hadn’t. “Etiyr! Your language!”
I am using language, Mrs Grundy!
“You take that back right now, you horrid little thing!”
A moment of silence in the bar. Kracht took the opportunity to slip in unnoticed, while all eyes were on the woman, the barkeep, the typewriter and the...floating shrapnel...thing. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself.
He noted with a deep, useless sigh that he hadn’t seen any of those contestants before either.
Seamlessly, the typebars switched gears; the change was from angry paper-pounding to a soft, apologetic and not quite sincere impressionism. CLACK to click. Of course. I was out of line. I shouldn’t have called you an excessively priggish and tight-laced lady of the 1920s, nor thought about going on to expand on your plain Jane looks in exhausting detail. Can you ever forgive me?
“...”
And here I thought sarcasm hadn’t been invented until the 1950s. The typebars eased back a little, reeling back the paper. <span style="font-family: courier">@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ there, all obliterated. Taken back. How about now?</span>
Carefully, Nancy Little hopped off the barstool, glare burning on the typewriter’s keys - daring another letter to appear on the page. “Well, I shan’t be taking you.”
No, wait! CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
“Good-bye now.” With barely a ruffle, the secretary was gone.</font>
CCCCCCCCCCCoh fuck it all. Etiyr sulked for a full half-second before bringing his not inconsiderable hatred to another target. <span style="font-family: courier">No. Not fuck it. Holy man. This is YOUR fucking fault. All you believers are the same; you can’t fucking shut up about how great your God is, how beauteous, how fucking far you can see up his left nostril when you talk up your own ass, but you. You’re twice as bad as any of them, ascribing science as fucking miracles - what kind of savage are you? No wait, don’t answer that. And another thing...</span>
“Oh hello, Kracht,” Zimmer talked over the angry dinging, “we don’t normally see you this time of day. Usually you show up on Kaja’s shift...?”
“Well, you know. I needed a change of scenery.” The mineral settled onto the recently-vacated barstool.
Almost immediately, a cloud of shrapnel descended to glowing green head-height. “I’m sorry, Interface says I shouldn’t be rude - but...how do you drink?
He laughed. He shouldn’t have, seeing the cloud contract in shame, but it escaped him anyway - a little crystalline chuckle. “I’m not here to drink. I take solace in stories, not ethanol.” Sitting back, he looked into the red core amidst the floating metal. “Why don’t you tell me one?”
Databases started to look through the databanks, she really did. But when AMP launched into his own story - well, let’s just say she wasn’t surprised. Neither were Interface nor Protocols, who would have buried their faces in their hands had they either feature.
“Well, one day, I woke up! And there was so much happening! And then I found some eyes,” he wiggled the myriad cameras on his person, “and other things, and then there were these scientists who told me I was from space!”
<font color="#80BF00">“Oh?” Kracht leaned forward. “Well, that’s interesting. I’m from space too.”
“Really? Maybe you know - do you know what I’m for?”
“Ah, I’m sorry...”
“AMP. No, that’s okay! Anyway there was this fat genie all of a sudden! Oop, sorry. Interface said that wasn’t polite. But there was a genie, and he was all ‘LEEEET’S GET THIS BATTLE STARTEEEEEEEDDDD’ and then we were all in a restaurant! I think there were pancakes. Oh. Interface says I should ask your name.”
The mineral looked on in amusement. “Kracht.”
“Okay Kracht! So then after there was a rainforest, absolutely spitting with trees! It - didn’t actually spit trees. Actually, it might have. But then I realized my purpose! My purpose was,” Pause, for dramatic effect - “Lumberjacking! That’s not right. L-lumber - being a lumberjack. But it didn’t work out since Protocols told me that was stupid. Also I couldn’t grow a beard. I tried!”
He stopped for a moment as Kracht attempted to unbend himself.</font>
“No, no, go on...ahaha-” Halfway through a laugh, with an abruptness that left an aural afterimage in the muggy barroom air, he stopped as well. The reason being two unpleasantly hammy hands, one on each green shoulder, each belonging to an equally hammy bodyguard in suits so badly-fitting that they could only have been designed to be badly-fitting on another set of bodyguards altogether.
The Personage they guarded, however, was dressed well. Perfectly, in fact. Not a thread out of place. Dust motes would rather burst into flames than land on the black fabric of that jacket. “Mister Kracht, sir?” its clipped and manicured voice intoned, “You have a meeting with the Board.”
AMP looked at the trio leading his audience away, at the still-furiously clacking typewriter on the bar, back at the departing motley crew and came to a decision.
-=-=-=-
<font color="#FFFFFF">And as an unholy sort of personage myself I don’t deny the existence of supernatural occurrences but there’s fucking science and then there’s fucking things that aren’t science - what the fuck? Where are we - oh shit, you’ve got me.
“I think Kracht’s in trouble, Etiyr!”
Who? Wait. No. I don’t need to know. And the worst fucking thing that could happen to me right now would be for you to answer me. It’d be so bad, so utterly fucking horrible if you did that, that everything we ever did after that would be just tainted with the incredible horrendousness you’re about to let go oh no no no no NO NO</font>
“-well, he’s this really interesting guy! And he said he liked to hear stories so I started telling him about how I started existing and...”[/COLOR]
NO SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP Sheet after sheet of paper rolled from the typewriter’s platen, leaving a trail of invective behind the two.
-=-=-=-
“I’m afraid, Mister Kracht, that the Grand Battle Network 2: Not Affiliated With The Network is in regulatory non-compliance with the standards set by the Ellsworth Conglomerate, majority shareholder.”
The suit, whose name was Suit, twiddled a knob on the communications console in front of him. On cue, the face of Lionel Ellsworth filled the big screen before Kracht’s desk, replacing that of the Network Board Summary Representative. Underneath Ellsworth’s highly photogenic profile appeared ‘Lionel Ellsworth: Legitimate Businessman, Notable Holdings: Ellsworth Conglomerate, MediaPolitics LLC, Vendofacture UnLtd. & Associates, Trust & Price Awl Manufacturers, Securiofter Personal Professional Guardforce Limited, Member of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors.’
“Megasenator - Megasenator! Listen, for the sake of our own self-respect as an organization, sir, we cannot allow Envoy to use this ‘tap-dance’ routine - are we on? Sorry. One second, gentlemen, ladies.” He turned the camera towards him, panning briefly over a littered obsidian table and the argument behind him. “Kracht - Kracht. Listen to me for a second.”
“Mr. Ellsworth, sir.”
“Now, we at the Conglomerate made you a host, and that means more than just presenting - you know all that, it’s in your contract. But cutting to the chase, it means we’ve got a problem. Especially regarding quarterly returns-”
“Ellsworth!”
“For crying out loud.” His face froze and retreated into a thumbnail on the display.
“Mister Wimblestaten? Mister Wimblestaten would like to continue.” Another twiddle, and Wimblestaten's iconically aristocrastic cheeks poked into the camera. Subtitle: ‘Jonathon Wimblestaten, CFO: MediaPolitics LLC, GBN2: Not Affiliated With The Network Board Chairman, Member of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors, Wimblestaten Estate Hereditary Benefactor, Head Director: Castaline.com.bot Sociological Relation Analyses Incorporated, Notable Holdings: OPI Investment, Cline Transport Industries, Thingamabob Manufacturing, Anti-Trust Investigation Committee Trust and others.’ That inconspicuous last term held more weight than all the others - every so often, the corner of a phone or clipboard would project into camera view, followed by the shipping magnate cursing and pushing it away. Jonathon Wimblestaten was a busy man.
“What we’re trying to say, Kracht, is that the GBN2: Not Affliated With The Network gave you certain responsibilities when we made you host - Damn. Not now, Maddie - Most of them are regulatory principles brought down from the GBN2: Not Affiliated - all right, you know what I mean, I don’t have to say it every time - well, I do, yes, Suit, I do under the Who-gives-a-fuck Media Convention of Whenever-the-hell-that-was, but I am talking! I am talking to Kracht here - Bloody Christ -” He detached a slim screen from the phone poking into the screen, scrawled on it with a stylus, and tossed it back - “Most of these responsibilities are laid out in your contract and the regulatory principles of the GBN2 - Suit, I don’t give a flying fuck, all right? - and its parent advisory MediaPolitics LLC. Maddie, can you answer that and tell them I’m in a bloody meeting?”
Kracht took advantage of the temporary lull. “Mr. Wimblestaten? I hate to interrupt, but if we are to discuss contract matters, might I assume that discretion is of value?”
Wimblestaten, muttering curses into a tablet, waved a hand exasperatedly and gave the tiniest of nods.
“Then may I suggest-”
“Suit, bring in the guards. No sense in letting word get out that the host met with the Board with bodyguards looking menacing outside the door.”
“Mister Wimblestaten, sir - are you sure? We’d have to get some supplementary NDAs and-”
“All right, all right, don’t bother.” Pause. “Just-just send them to the bars or something, all right? Give them the hour off or something. Security systems - you have security?”
The mineral nodded. “State-of-the-art. Cameras, weight sensors, Taser beam, the works.”
“Taser beam? Christ. Hear that, Suit? You shouldn’t even have had them standing there in the first place. One misstep - Boom! - fried guard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get them out of there, and you bugger off too. I think Kracht can handle a communications terminal.”
“Yes sir.”
-=-=-=-
The watchers watched them go.
“Do you think it’s safe now, Etiyr?”
<font color="#FFFFFF">Do I look like. I give. A fuck. You fucking floating magnetic tilt-a-whirl.
“All righty, then! I’m sure you won’t mind if I head down to that door, then! And if it turns out Kracht only likes me and not you, I won’t mind leaving you behind~!” An uncharacteristic tinge of twee, and a not inconsiderable taint of menace, contaminated the happy little core’s voice as he finished.
But Etiyr was of the demonic persuasion, and a demon who can’t tell hidden malice doesn’t last long on the glitzy streets and dark alleys of hell. And I’m equally sure that Kracht is going to take to a useful typewriter such as myself much more than he is going to take to the interfering oaf who’s been trashing his studios all day, hmm? Yet behind the patronizing words Etiyr wondered: could the idiot could be sneakier than his childish antics let on?
“Oooh!” AMP squealed and floated closer to the ceiling. “More eyes!” And a dozen-odd security cameras, hidden and obvious, uprooted themselves from their niches and joined AMP’s sensory throng.
Okay, probably not. But still...
But still, in fact, nothing - nothing that wasn’t par for the course when it came to AMP’s deteriorating brain.</font>
Neither party noticed the tiny camera sliding under the door, held suspended in midair by an entity completely ignoring the weight sensors set in the corridor, and to whom a Taser beam would be taken as complimentary recharging.
-=-=-=-
Nancy pushed past a bunch of bodyguards at the bar. She didn’t know why she hadn’t taken up drinking earlier. Here it was, discounts for employees, hooch just for consumption and no more worries about being caught in a speakeasy, and somehow she’d expected life to be so much more colorful, even when she was on game shows that she constantly won and gave rather unsuccessful educational kid’s programs (her maths lesson had to be called off when she tried to demonstrate that it wasn’t statistically likely to flip a thousand heads in a row). She didn’t know why she came back to this one, either. Perhaps she thought - oh, who was she kidding, of course she thought - that the little Woodstock would still be there.
Had that rude little thing actually brought some life into her life?
Well, it wasn’t there. So she’d decided there were other ways to bring life into her life, and perhaps find some reasons as to why Prohibition was a stupid idea.
She was on her second drink when she noticed the paper trail.
-=-=-=-
“We have a certain statute of standards laid out, Kracht.”
“Yes, Mr. Wimblestaten - but -”
Somewhere, a thread of patience snapped. “But what, Kracht?! We’re busy men! We don’t have time for protestations and bargaining!” Lowering his phone and his voice, he leaned into the camera. “If I listened to the union every time they tried to argue for higher wages, I’d be bankrupt, Kracht, and so would half the people round this table!”
“Johnny-”
“Lionel, no. You know it as well as we do.”
“Johnny, listen-”
“All right, why don’t you try talking to him, majority shareholder?” Wimblestaten’s face vanished from the screen, replaced once again with Lionel Ellsworth’s.
Kracht sighed a crystalline sigh. “Mr. Ellsworth.”
Ellsworth returned the sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Do you understand why we have to start censoring your output, Kracht? Beyond basic decency concerns, I mean.”
“Your,” and here, he would have spat if he could, “ideological concerns?”
“There’s a storm brewing, Kracht. War on the horizon. The Network’s humming, Kracht, you can cut the tension with a knife. We can’t risk spreading panic.”
“This runs contrary to - to everything broadcasting stands for.”
“I know it does, Kracht. But we’ve got to clamp down. We need to watch what we say. Just another layer of review, Kracht. It’s not much.”
“I don’t suppose it makes much difference what I decide.”
“We aren’t asking, Kracht. We at the Ellsworth Conglomerate-”
A crystal fist dented the desk. “Cut that shit out, Lionel.”
“Kracht - for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“It’s worth nothing.”
“It’s worth noting.”
“I can’t enforce this.”
“You don’t have to. We’ll send troops if necessary.”
“You don’t have the authority.”
“Adrian?”
Adrian Marcus (‘Director: Aurelis Arms & Weapons Manufacturing, Marcsman Combat Materiel Shipping, Wartime Preparations Investment Fund, Notable Holdings: Assets in Perpetuity Incorporated, Institute for the Weaponization of Uae Metal, The United Nations Military and Constituent Holdings, Member of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors’) looked up from the other side of the table, and nodded at Ellsworth.
“We do now.”
“Lionel!”
“Don’t make us use them, Kracht. This conversation is over.”
The camera vanished back under the door.
See now the establishment as the hapless sadnesses move on; see the hatred blooming and rivalry consuming any semblance of order in the pristine filth of acting battlers. See Miss Little as she rises to her feet, following invective-lined sheets of neatly typed frustration and rage. See the mineral host bury his head in his hands once more, the rock whose name was durability, and force, worn down and himself forced into the end of liberty. See the strange motes of rebellion growing already in the borrowed heart and mind of its living embodiment, the very thing the corporates wish to kill.
See the clouds on the horizon, storms arising, company resizing, reevaluating our goals, our souls sold to the highest bidder you kidder, psyche! But we were serious; for a pallor now lies across the visage of the broadcasting world you hold so dear, for fear that they may turn and bite us all and consume us! See now their grip tighten on their prize, see the rebels rise...
See the radiating lines from the Grand Battle Network 2: Not Affiliated With The Network stutter and die, one by one. Already, the review process has begun.
Are you not entertained?!
See the glowing web of lights flowing, streaking, spinning through the cosmic, virtual void; particles and antiparticles form from the quantum foam and in a neverending folk dance - perhaps the Morris - partners are swept from one another and brought into happy new arrangements, to be herded into little meson gates, to form pictures, words, prophylactic speech and political jargon. Talk shows and game shows and talent shows and the show must go on, and so it does; see the web cluster in corners and in the center stage, since the world must all see me, the star! Everyone wants to be a motherfucking DJ, but who sees the man with the music when the girl is on the pole? Hedonism? Fuck yes, hedonism.
See this cluster! Glowing bright white, a perpetual supernova spewing a spiderweb of fibers across the universes, broadcasting forever and ever. See the delightful programs spewing from the Grand Battle Network 2: Not Affiliated With The Network, not affiliated with the Network, of course, which is a much more serious black-and-ochre set underneath the brightly-advertised strong strings of information, commercials, infomercials, (commation? Don’t be silly, advertisements don’t contain any data. Bitless, but not biteless. Those things will eat your life and your credit if you let them).
See the sprawling megaplex everywhere and nowhere! See the crawling workers, building the megaliths of information technology on meager lifts and raises, both in wages and in life - move on, move on, they’re not important. They’ll never be important. Instead see the inside of the complex, so complex, that maintenance has never seen management. See the offices where the 4-Fs ply their no valued vocation, to create the greatest resource of all - entertainment!
“Production studio.”
“Yeah, we’ve got some kind of...magnetic anomaly all up in our systems? It’s messing with our feed.”
“You shielded?”
“Well, n-no, we haven’t-”
“Not my problem, then.” *click*
-=-=-=-
The robotic gameshow host looked disheveled. Everyone in the studio looked disheveled.
“Question...1,307...which piston-engined aircraft, manufactured by the Grumman Aerospace Corporation, achieved the fastest time-to-climb record in history until the advent of jet-engined aeroplanes?”
Nancy Little rubbed red-rimmed eyes, elbows rested on the narrow strip of podium surface not occupied by typewriter. “Haven’t we been at this a while?” She stifled a yawn. “I’m no bearcat, I won’t be snappin’ atcha, but-”
Six’s proclamation of <font color="#00FF00">“BEARCAT. CORRECT.” was interrupted by a sudden furious clacking from the podium. And furious was definitely the right word.
CUT. OH FUCKING FORSAKEN DEITIES OF THIS FUCKING BROADCAST NETWORK. CUT. CHECK, PLEASE. WE’RE DONE. The typewriter’s typebars blurred as they tapped out unending vitriol. <span style="font-family: courier">YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING GOES TO FUCKING SHIT. ALL THE TIME. THINGS USED TO WORK FOR ME, YOU KNOW. I WAS A BIG PLAYER ON CAMPUS. I HAD SAY. EVEN AFTER I GOT PUT IN THIS FUCKING THING, I GOT AROUND. I WENT ALL OVER THE FUCKING UNIVERSES AND I DID WHAT I FUCKING WANTED. IT WAS THE LIFE OF A FUCKING PISSANT, BUT
The angry keys hesitated for a second. A heat haze wafted around the paper, browning the letters slightly. Then with a slow click, the CAPS LOCK key disengaged, and the typebars finished the message with melancholy strokes.
things used to happen the way I wanted them to.</font></span>
And then AMP burst through the studio doors, magnetic flurries etching static into every screen and burning noise into what was once digital meaning. A few monitors detached themselves and joined the cloud computer's computational throng, even as anguished screams filled the studio - some cut off abruptly by flying screens. Technicians frantically gathered up tapes and hard drives, fruitlessly shielding them with their bodies as they ran from the great white spot of interference. Hard to say who did more damage.
“THIS IS A BROADCAST AREA. WE ARE CURRENTLY ON AIR. YOU ARE," Six’s sawblade whined, whirling in time with the magnetic maelstrom churning before the stage, "INTERRUPTING THE PROGRAM.”
Interface had a lot to say about common politeness, not bursting into places, especially apologizing to that nice deadly-looking robot that looks like it can cut right through our core, all that rot. Protocols opted to run, in bits and parts, an program that would convey the expression of mute, silent horror. Database blanked out her databanks theatrically for a moment, but quickly reactivated them when she recognized something through an ancillary camera.
“Etiyr? Etiyr!” The cloud of metal surged right through the spinning sawblade, almost tearing it off in the process, not to mention badly clouding the Gamehost’s lens. “It’s me! AMP! Remember me?”
<font color="#FFFFFF">And then Etiyr jammed. Jammed. He hadn’t ever jammed once since he’d been a typewriter - but there was always a first, especially one appropriate to the amount of drink-spewing shock and hatred he was feeling now. A few typebar hammerings produced an especially heavy
F
on the paper before they popped back into the typewheel with a final ‘clunk’.
Says it all, really.</font>
-=-=-=-
It was a break. The GBN2® broadcast ‘24-7’: a misleading term, of course, without a planet to rotate upon, but easier and more compact than ‘constantly’. Bits, and broadcasting bits were an expensive commodity and an even more expensive business - so the less information you could actually convey the better. Which meant, of course, like most other broadcast networks out there the GBN2® consisted of talking heads, speculative news, game shows and meaningless violence, the latter two most fortuitously summed up in a single program. All filmed, recorded, edited and sent on its merry way in a never-ending story, beaming out into the multiverse...24-7.
Kracht wasn’t on the beaming waves at the moment, however. That was one of the perks of being the host, which in turn came from having been on his squillionth time around. He sat at a desk that was a miniature copy of the one on the set of Causal News (‘We Report Things After They Happen’), in an office configured to resemble the palatial pan-dimensional accommodations depicted on A Day in the Life of the Ovoid. His crystalline head lay buried in his mineral hands.
He’d failed. Every so often on his time around he’d land in a cameo round. And every time there were newcomers. The battles were still happening.
What had he done wrong? What was he going to do wrong? The mineral’s mind was a glittering turmoil of frustration, aimed towards a future that seemed farther away every day. But would he like it when it came? Would it be as painful as the gnawing hopelessness in his chest that leapt and gouged him whenever he saw someone he hadn’t seen before?
The rock that became a man stepped out into the glitzy halls again, locking his office door behind him. He needed a drink.
-=-=-=-
“My goodness!” Nancy took another sip of neon pink. “Now we’re really putting on the Ritz with some ‘a this bootleg giggle water, aren’t we now?”
<font color="#C90A0A">The bartender’s vials jingled as he filled a glass from one of myriad taps. “Really now, liquor’s hardly illegal nowadays.” He blinked as he pulled a vial from its strap and emptied it into the fizzing brew. “I don’t drink myself, but I see why people want to.” Carefully, Zimmer picked up the concoction and passed it down the bar. “There is so much we don’t know; what’s a little more to forget?”
You don’t drink. Well, I can’t. I’m thinking you don’t know a whole lot either, and among those things is some fucking tact. The paper slid out of the roller petulant, unforgiving, and ended up soggy as it slowly became part of the bar. <span style="font-family: courier">Ugh. Or how to clean, for that matter.</span>
The shoulder pads on the lieutenant’s leather coat came up in a short shrug as he read the words. “I try to learn. This is where a lot of it happens.” He pointed at a black streak on the bar, a scorch or skid mark nearly invisible against the dark purple. “And that’s what happens when you accidentally start a thermite reaction. Don’t ask how. And that reminds me...” Carefully, he plucked a tin cup from the hovering morass of shrapnel floating above a bar stool and looked, interested, at its contents.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant...” AMP’s core glowed red as it always did, only now it had a tinge of embarrassment in it. “It just sort of happened...D-database says it’s because of ferromagnetism - oops!” With a sound just like rain, the iron filings in the cup disengaged themselves from their receptacle and floated, forming intricate patterns, in AMP’s magnetic whorls and eddies.
“Beautiful.” Zimmer looked into the swirling grey-red flecks. “Glory to His works, sing praises to His wonders-”
NO. FUCK NO. You’re one of those. Etiyr rolled back a couple spaces and bolded the last word, each strike of the typebars an imaginary blow to the holy man’s head. Unfortunately, they remained figmentary fantasies.
“Interesting, little typewriter. One of those?”
If the typewriter could hiss, spit venom, spew smoke or ooze oil, it would have. But alas, Etiyr lacked vocal cords, poison sacs and smoke bombs, or even the liter of lubricant it would have been needed to make it all worthwhile. So all the venom he put into his words, as per usual. Priests. Monks, divine alchemists. Holy men. The bell rang and the carriage slid back with a force that knocked Nancy’s drink over (cleanly into another pristine, empty glass that had been set down there just before, quite by chance. The falling one didn’t shatter, either.) <span style="font-family: courier">Holier-than-thou men, more like. Man of fucking God, aren’t you? Like to jump up there into the heavens on your happy prayer trips and tell Him to bend over?</span>
Nancy tried to twist her mind into the general area the typewriter had wandered - no, ran headlong towards and dived - into, and wished she hadn’t. “Etiyr! Your language!”
I am using language, Mrs Grundy!
“You take that back right now, you horrid little thing!”
A moment of silence in the bar. Kracht took the opportunity to slip in unnoticed, while all eyes were on the woman, the barkeep, the typewriter and the...floating shrapnel...thing. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to himself.
He noted with a deep, useless sigh that he hadn’t seen any of those contestants before either.
Seamlessly, the typebars switched gears; the change was from angry paper-pounding to a soft, apologetic and not quite sincere impressionism. CLACK to click. Of course. I was out of line. I shouldn’t have called you an excessively priggish and tight-laced lady of the 1920s, nor thought about going on to expand on your plain Jane looks in exhausting detail. Can you ever forgive me?
“...”
And here I thought sarcasm hadn’t been invented until the 1950s. The typebars eased back a little, reeling back the paper. <span style="font-family: courier">@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ there, all obliterated. Taken back. How about now?</span>
Carefully, Nancy Little hopped off the barstool, glare burning on the typewriter’s keys - daring another letter to appear on the page. “Well, I shan’t be taking you.”
No, wait! CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC
“Good-bye now.” With barely a ruffle, the secretary was gone.</font>
CCCCCCCCCCCoh fuck it all. Etiyr sulked for a full half-second before bringing his not inconsiderable hatred to another target. <span style="font-family: courier">No. Not fuck it. Holy man. This is YOUR fucking fault. All you believers are the same; you can’t fucking shut up about how great your God is, how beauteous, how fucking far you can see up his left nostril when you talk up your own ass, but you. You’re twice as bad as any of them, ascribing science as fucking miracles - what kind of savage are you? No wait, don’t answer that. And another thing...</span>
“Oh hello, Kracht,” Zimmer talked over the angry dinging, “we don’t normally see you this time of day. Usually you show up on Kaja’s shift...?”
“Well, you know. I needed a change of scenery.” The mineral settled onto the recently-vacated barstool.
Almost immediately, a cloud of shrapnel descended to glowing green head-height. “I’m sorry, Interface says I shouldn’t be rude - but...how do you drink?
He laughed. He shouldn’t have, seeing the cloud contract in shame, but it escaped him anyway - a little crystalline chuckle. “I’m not here to drink. I take solace in stories, not ethanol.” Sitting back, he looked into the red core amidst the floating metal. “Why don’t you tell me one?”
Databases started to look through the databanks, she really did. But when AMP launched into his own story - well, let’s just say she wasn’t surprised. Neither were Interface nor Protocols, who would have buried their faces in their hands had they either feature.
“Well, one day, I woke up! And there was so much happening! And then I found some eyes,” he wiggled the myriad cameras on his person, “and other things, and then there were these scientists who told me I was from space!”
<font color="#80BF00">“Oh?” Kracht leaned forward. “Well, that’s interesting. I’m from space too.”
“Really? Maybe you know - do you know what I’m for?”
“Ah, I’m sorry...”
“AMP. No, that’s okay! Anyway there was this fat genie all of a sudden! Oop, sorry. Interface said that wasn’t polite. But there was a genie, and he was all ‘LEEEET’S GET THIS BATTLE STARTEEEEEEEDDDD’ and then we were all in a restaurant! I think there were pancakes. Oh. Interface says I should ask your name.”
The mineral looked on in amusement. “Kracht.”
“Okay Kracht! So then after there was a rainforest, absolutely spitting with trees! It - didn’t actually spit trees. Actually, it might have. But then I realized my purpose! My purpose was,” Pause, for dramatic effect - “Lumberjacking! That’s not right. L-lumber - being a lumberjack. But it didn’t work out since Protocols told me that was stupid. Also I couldn’t grow a beard. I tried!”
He stopped for a moment as Kracht attempted to unbend himself.</font>
“No, no, go on...ahaha-” Halfway through a laugh, with an abruptness that left an aural afterimage in the muggy barroom air, he stopped as well. The reason being two unpleasantly hammy hands, one on each green shoulder, each belonging to an equally hammy bodyguard in suits so badly-fitting that they could only have been designed to be badly-fitting on another set of bodyguards altogether.
The Personage they guarded, however, was dressed well. Perfectly, in fact. Not a thread out of place. Dust motes would rather burst into flames than land on the black fabric of that jacket. “Mister Kracht, sir?” its clipped and manicured voice intoned, “You have a meeting with the Board.”
AMP looked at the trio leading his audience away, at the still-furiously clacking typewriter on the bar, back at the departing motley crew and came to a decision.
-=-=-=-
<font color="#FFFFFF">And as an unholy sort of personage myself I don’t deny the existence of supernatural occurrences but there’s fucking science and then there’s fucking things that aren’t science - what the fuck? Where are we - oh shit, you’ve got me.
“I think Kracht’s in trouble, Etiyr!”
Who? Wait. No. I don’t need to know. And the worst fucking thing that could happen to me right now would be for you to answer me. It’d be so bad, so utterly fucking horrible if you did that, that everything we ever did after that would be just tainted with the incredible horrendousness you’re about to let go oh no no no no NO NO</font>
“-well, he’s this really interesting guy! And he said he liked to hear stories so I started telling him about how I started existing and...”[/COLOR]
NO SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP Sheet after sheet of paper rolled from the typewriter’s platen, leaving a trail of invective behind the two.
-=-=-=-
“I’m afraid, Mister Kracht, that the Grand Battle Network 2: Not Affiliated With The Network is in regulatory non-compliance with the standards set by the Ellsworth Conglomerate, majority shareholder.”
The suit, whose name was Suit, twiddled a knob on the communications console in front of him. On cue, the face of Lionel Ellsworth filled the big screen before Kracht’s desk, replacing that of the Network Board Summary Representative. Underneath Ellsworth’s highly photogenic profile appeared ‘Lionel Ellsworth: Legitimate Businessman, Notable Holdings: Ellsworth Conglomerate, MediaPolitics LLC, Vendofacture UnLtd. & Associates, Trust & Price Awl Manufacturers, Securiofter Personal Professional Guardforce Limited, Member of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors.’
“Megasenator - Megasenator! Listen, for the sake of our own self-respect as an organization, sir, we cannot allow Envoy to use this ‘tap-dance’ routine - are we on? Sorry. One second, gentlemen, ladies.” He turned the camera towards him, panning briefly over a littered obsidian table and the argument behind him. “Kracht - Kracht. Listen to me for a second.”
“Mr. Ellsworth, sir.”
“Now, we at the Conglomerate made you a host, and that means more than just presenting - you know all that, it’s in your contract. But cutting to the chase, it means we’ve got a problem. Especially regarding quarterly returns-”
“Ellsworth!”
“For crying out loud.” His face froze and retreated into a thumbnail on the display.
“Mister Wimblestaten? Mister Wimblestaten would like to continue.” Another twiddle, and Wimblestaten's iconically aristocrastic cheeks poked into the camera. Subtitle: ‘Jonathon Wimblestaten, CFO: MediaPolitics LLC, GBN2: Not Affiliated With The Network Board Chairman, Member of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors, Wimblestaten Estate Hereditary Benefactor, Head Director: Castaline.com.bot Sociological Relation Analyses Incorporated, Notable Holdings: OPI Investment, Cline Transport Industries, Thingamabob Manufacturing, Anti-Trust Investigation Committee Trust and others.’ That inconspicuous last term held more weight than all the others - every so often, the corner of a phone or clipboard would project into camera view, followed by the shipping magnate cursing and pushing it away. Jonathon Wimblestaten was a busy man.
“What we’re trying to say, Kracht, is that the GBN2: Not Affliated With The Network gave you certain responsibilities when we made you host - Damn. Not now, Maddie - Most of them are regulatory principles brought down from the GBN2: Not Affiliated - all right, you know what I mean, I don’t have to say it every time - well, I do, yes, Suit, I do under the Who-gives-a-fuck Media Convention of Whenever-the-hell-that-was, but I am talking! I am talking to Kracht here - Bloody Christ -” He detached a slim screen from the phone poking into the screen, scrawled on it with a stylus, and tossed it back - “Most of these responsibilities are laid out in your contract and the regulatory principles of the GBN2 - Suit, I don’t give a flying fuck, all right? - and its parent advisory MediaPolitics LLC. Maddie, can you answer that and tell them I’m in a bloody meeting?”
Kracht took advantage of the temporary lull. “Mr. Wimblestaten? I hate to interrupt, but if we are to discuss contract matters, might I assume that discretion is of value?”
Wimblestaten, muttering curses into a tablet, waved a hand exasperatedly and gave the tiniest of nods.
“Then may I suggest-”
“Suit, bring in the guards. No sense in letting word get out that the host met with the Board with bodyguards looking menacing outside the door.”
“Mister Wimblestaten, sir - are you sure? We’d have to get some supplementary NDAs and-”
“All right, all right, don’t bother.” Pause. “Just-just send them to the bars or something, all right? Give them the hour off or something. Security systems - you have security?”
The mineral nodded. “State-of-the-art. Cameras, weight sensors, Taser beam, the works.”
“Taser beam? Christ. Hear that, Suit? You shouldn’t even have had them standing there in the first place. One misstep - Boom! - fried guard.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now get them out of there, and you bugger off too. I think Kracht can handle a communications terminal.”
“Yes sir.”
-=-=-=-
The watchers watched them go.
“Do you think it’s safe now, Etiyr?”
<font color="#FFFFFF">Do I look like. I give. A fuck. You fucking floating magnetic tilt-a-whirl.
“All righty, then! I’m sure you won’t mind if I head down to that door, then! And if it turns out Kracht only likes me and not you, I won’t mind leaving you behind~!” An uncharacteristic tinge of twee, and a not inconsiderable taint of menace, contaminated the happy little core’s voice as he finished.
But Etiyr was of the demonic persuasion, and a demon who can’t tell hidden malice doesn’t last long on the glitzy streets and dark alleys of hell. And I’m equally sure that Kracht is going to take to a useful typewriter such as myself much more than he is going to take to the interfering oaf who’s been trashing his studios all day, hmm? Yet behind the patronizing words Etiyr wondered: could the idiot could be sneakier than his childish antics let on?
“Oooh!” AMP squealed and floated closer to the ceiling. “More eyes!” And a dozen-odd security cameras, hidden and obvious, uprooted themselves from their niches and joined AMP’s sensory throng.
Okay, probably not. But still...
But still, in fact, nothing - nothing that wasn’t par for the course when it came to AMP’s deteriorating brain.</font>
Neither party noticed the tiny camera sliding under the door, held suspended in midair by an entity completely ignoring the weight sensors set in the corridor, and to whom a Taser beam would be taken as complimentary recharging.
-=-=-=-
Nancy pushed past a bunch of bodyguards at the bar. She didn’t know why she hadn’t taken up drinking earlier. Here it was, discounts for employees, hooch just for consumption and no more worries about being caught in a speakeasy, and somehow she’d expected life to be so much more colorful, even when she was on game shows that she constantly won and gave rather unsuccessful educational kid’s programs (her maths lesson had to be called off when she tried to demonstrate that it wasn’t statistically likely to flip a thousand heads in a row). She didn’t know why she came back to this one, either. Perhaps she thought - oh, who was she kidding, of course she thought - that the little Woodstock would still be there.
Had that rude little thing actually brought some life into her life?
Well, it wasn’t there. So she’d decided there were other ways to bring life into her life, and perhaps find some reasons as to why Prohibition was a stupid idea.
She was on her second drink when she noticed the paper trail.
-=-=-=-
“We have a certain statute of standards laid out, Kracht.”
“Yes, Mr. Wimblestaten - but -”
Somewhere, a thread of patience snapped. “But what, Kracht?! We’re busy men! We don’t have time for protestations and bargaining!” Lowering his phone and his voice, he leaned into the camera. “If I listened to the union every time they tried to argue for higher wages, I’d be bankrupt, Kracht, and so would half the people round this table!”
“Johnny-”
“Lionel, no. You know it as well as we do.”
“Johnny, listen-”
“All right, why don’t you try talking to him, majority shareholder?” Wimblestaten’s face vanished from the screen, replaced once again with Lionel Ellsworth’s.
Kracht sighed a crystalline sigh. “Mr. Ellsworth.”
Ellsworth returned the sigh, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Do you understand why we have to start censoring your output, Kracht? Beyond basic decency concerns, I mean.”
“Your,” and here, he would have spat if he could, “ideological concerns?”
“There’s a storm brewing, Kracht. War on the horizon. The Network’s humming, Kracht, you can cut the tension with a knife. We can’t risk spreading panic.”
“This runs contrary to - to everything broadcasting stands for.”
“I know it does, Kracht. But we’ve got to clamp down. We need to watch what we say. Just another layer of review, Kracht. It’s not much.”
“I don’t suppose it makes much difference what I decide.”
“We aren’t asking, Kracht. We at the Ellsworth Conglomerate-”
A crystal fist dented the desk. “Cut that shit out, Lionel.”
“Kracht - for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“It’s worth nothing.”
“It’s worth noting.”
“I can’t enforce this.”
“You don’t have to. We’ll send troops if necessary.”
“You don’t have the authority.”
“Adrian?”
Adrian Marcus (‘Director: Aurelis Arms & Weapons Manufacturing, Marcsman Combat Materiel Shipping, Wartime Preparations Investment Fund, Notable Holdings: Assets in Perpetuity Incorporated, Institute for the Weaponization of Uae Metal, The United Nations Military and Constituent Holdings, Member of the Council of First Contact Ambassadors’) looked up from the other side of the table, and nodded at Ellsworth.
“We do now.”
“Lionel!”
“Don’t make us use them, Kracht. This conversation is over.”
The camera vanished back under the door.
See now the establishment as the hapless sadnesses move on; see the hatred blooming and rivalry consuming any semblance of order in the pristine filth of acting battlers. See Miss Little as she rises to her feet, following invective-lined sheets of neatly typed frustration and rage. See the mineral host bury his head in his hands once more, the rock whose name was durability, and force, worn down and himself forced into the end of liberty. See the strange motes of rebellion growing already in the borrowed heart and mind of its living embodiment, the very thing the corporates wish to kill.
See the clouds on the horizon, storms arising, company resizing, reevaluating our goals, our souls sold to the highest bidder you kidder, psyche! But we were serious; for a pallor now lies across the visage of the broadcasting world you hold so dear, for fear that they may turn and bite us all and consume us! See now their grip tighten on their prize, see the rebels rise...
See the radiating lines from the Grand Battle Network 2: Not Affiliated With The Network stutter and die, one by one. Already, the review process has begun.
Are you not entertained?!
----
So very British / But then again | People are machines Machines are people | Oh hai there | There's no time
----
Superhero 1920s noir | Multigenre Half-Life | Changing the future | Command line interface
Tu ventire felix? | Clockwork for eternity | Explosions in spacetime