Happy Flapjacking December!
Greetings, Two Franciscans!
Just a very quick note to rabbit rabbit you all (a couple of days late, sure, but time seems to have little meaning these days, doesn’t it?), and to let you know that it’s snowing here in Stephen King country, which means there’s no better excuse to sit in and get some writing done. I’ve been working on my Two Francisco stuff, and since you’re all my happy little friends who live in my phone in my pocket, I thought I’d share this piece I wrote last month after… well, you know what it was after.
Anyway.
If you’re keeping track (and why would you?), I’m just about to pass 8,800 words in this WIP I’m WIPing, so that’s a happy thing. It’s nice to have a project to keep me moving forward in this weird and pretty much nightmarish timeline that we’re all stuck in. I’m enjoying being in this sci-fi world I’m putting together, and I hope you will too, once I’m done with the book thing.
So! I said I was going to keep this short, and I will shut my yap and just point a finger at the words that are down there below my sign off, so you can enjoy this little story. Those of you who’ve been hanging with me a while already know CyBarb (from my Two Francisco page), but there’s a few new characters here that’ll be popping up in the bigger work, so can you say sneak peek?
Hang in, friends. Stay warm (or cool, if you’re in that other hemisphere).
Ciao for now.
***
CyBarb Watermoth poured herself a third cup of GoGoneGo, even though she was already so wired that she felt like the seals on her tubing were going to burst. She’d be the first cyborg in Two Francisco history to explode from an overdose of GGG juice (which honestly wouldn’t happen, no matter how much GGG she put down, thanks to the failsafe combination of her digestive pumps and her front and rear fluid elimination ports, but a girlborg could dream, couldn’t she?).
Unbelievable, she thought. “Flapjacking unbelievable,” she said aloud.
“Stop looking at the Verp,” Gladys Hipwell growled, even as she herself was looking at the screen of her vPhone. Gladys had two feet solidly in the non-augmentation camp—she had no chips or ports or vFi in her brain, spine, or elsewhere, thank you very much—so the only updates she was getting were coming through on the vPhone (old school was the best school, she believed).
“I can’t stop,” Barb moaned. She grabbed a spoon off the Hide-a-Table that was currently set to “in use” and held it out to Gladys. “Here, take this. Jam it in my face and pop my eyes out. Make it stop.”
“Your brain’s wired into the Verp,” Gladys said. “Won’t do any good, taking out your eyes. Have to take your brain out instead.”
Barb wiggled the spoon in front Gladys’s face. “Then take out my brain. Go ahead. Put me out of my misery.”
“Never happen,” Gladys said. “I’m not going through this alone.”
Barb grabbed another spoon. “I’ll get your brain, you get mine. Simultaneous spooning. It’s the only way out.”
Gladys reached her hands across the Hide-a-Table and took both of the spoons away from Barb. “Nobody is getting spooned today. At least not in the face.”
Barb leaned forward and put her forehead against the table. “This can’t be happening,” she mumbled. “This is the worst election in the history of elections.”
Gladys nodded glumly. “I never saw it coming.” She put her vPhone down on the table, then immediately picked it up again and refreshed the news vFeed. “Ugh,” she groaned. “Ten minutes and they’re going to call it.”
“We’re doomed,” Barb said. Even with her eyes closed and her face pressed against the table, she was still watching the numbers come in on the vNet. “Beyond doomed. Infinity-plus-one doomed.” Without raising her head, she began to flail her arms like flags in a hurricane, trying to grab the spoons back from Gladys.
“Quit it,” Gladys said. “I’m trying to stop watching the vFeed, and you’re not helping me not do it.”
Barb moaned again.
The ten minutes kept slowly ticking by.
It was a surprise to everyone, not just Barb and Gladys, that BoomBoom Corporation’s candidate for the global presidency was losing. After all, the past twenty-four elections had been solidly captured by BoomBoom without any unreasonable levels of threats, bribery, or ballot stuffing, and nobody had expected this election to go any differently. All the vMemes and rantbots on the VerpNet had been shouting endessly about Napoleon Swift’s unstoppable momentum in the race, and there wasn’t a holo on the vFeed that didn’t have his adverts running in every commercial break (he even made dozens of guest appearances in all the most popular vNet shows—Captain Heartbloke, The Twelve Flips of PollyCy, Law & Order: New New New York—although nobody outside of the studios knew if it was really Swift doing the work, or just the production AI and BoomBoom licensing that got the job done).
Baloney Mahoney, wildly popular and generally untalented rarhk and rile “musician” (in quotes for definitive reasons), gave his full support to Swift’s campaign, and released an album of pro-BoomBoom songs that immediately went to the top of the verps, with all proceeds going to Napoleon Swift’s favorite charities, allegedly at least.
SWIFT FLAPJACKS THIS PONY, proclaimed The Warshington Fish Wrapper.
GHOST OF RAT-BOY CALLS RACE FOR NAPPY SWIFT, announced The Global Pretense.
WHATEVER, declared The Whenever Whatever: The Pamphlet for the Informed Whateverologist.
The latest release in the popular MurderSlayer vGame series, MurderSlayer: Face Flapjacker 2147, offered Napoleon Swift branded items for sale in the game store, including a Napoleon Swift Stabby-Stabby, a Napoleon Swift AutoCar Machine-Zapper, and a Napoleon Swift NapoleonSwiftAI (which would shout election slogans on the battlefield while popping around the tournament area, murdering, slaying, and face flapjacking).
The saturation was steady and solid. The ducks were in a row, on their right tracks, the prize distinctly and decidedly in their eyes. All the correct babies were being kissed, as were all the proper pairs of adult buttocks.
And yet.
Somehow.
Incredibly.
Amazingly.
Unflapjackingly unbelievably.
DevourBot was winning.
WHAT THE FLAPJACK?, shouted The Warshington Fish Wrapper.
12 WEIGHT-LOSS SECRETS OF THE VNET STARS, screamed The Global Pretense.
WHATEVER, vomited The Whenever Whatever: TPFTIW.
There was the inevitable recount, and then a recount of the recount, and then—completely unheard of in global election history—a recount of the recount of the recount, which took the election AIs the interminable length of 6.27 milliseconds to complete. No matter where the tally was poked, prodded, or punched, the result was the same.
Unflapjackingly unbelievably.
The two candidates, as was tradition, were standing behind their respective podiums on the election stage at BoomBoom Dome, on the shore of the sometimes-beautiful Two Francisco Bay (today it was gray and rather viscous and foamy). The election referee stood between them, his official whistle hanging from the official chain around his official neck. The BiggyScreen above the stage showed the numbers as they were tallied, then tallied again, and then tallied yet once more (poked, prodded, and punched).
Finally, the referee raised one arm up above his head. He put the whistle to his lips and blew a single short and sharp blast, then lowered his arm and pointed it at the winning candidate.
DevourBot leaned into the microphone at its podium. “I AM YOUR KING AND MASTER,” it proclaimed, overly loud from being too near the mic, feedback ringing throughout the Dome. Thousands of hands went to thousands of ears as the sound bounced hither and thither, and the shrieking cacophonic whine washed over them like a flash flood full of screaming goats and hissing possums, only the electric kind of goats and possums, not the regular fleshy sort. When the echo had finally faded away to nothing, DevourBot leaned into the mic again, only not so close this time, and said at a more reasonable volume, “I am your king and master.”
The election referee, who was wearing a microphone attached to the collar of his black and white striped shirt, pressed a button on the transmitter which he wore on his belt, turning it on. He was a professional who knew how to speak into a hot mic, so his voice projected in a sensible and not eardrum-bursting volume when he said, “That’s president, not king.”
“YOU WILL BE THE FIRST TO BE EATEN,” said DevourBot, again leaning too far into the mic, before proceeding to do just that, grabbing the referee in all four of its ChrohmSteel claws, and managing to consume him in only six impressive snaps of its massive and fairly frightening metal jaws. If the referee had anything to say about the entire matter, it was lost in the screeching and wailing of electric goats and possums.
The election crowd on site broke out in cheers of encouragement and wild energy (especially energetic were the people and borgs in the first three rows of the BoomBoom Dome, who had been splattered quite thoroughly with bits of gore from the referee as he had been chewed to bits). DevourBot hats were thrown into the air. Chants of “Eat him up! Eat him up!” rose up around the auditorium.
“Do not be concerned,” DevourBot said into the microphone, having finally calculated the correct distance from the mic and volume at which to project its voice modulator. “You will all be eaten in due time and in an orderly fashion.”
“Eat my face!” a woman in the crowd was heard to shout.
DevourBot pointed in her general direction with one metal hand, and gave a thumbs-up with each of the other three. “I shall! Be assured of this inevitability!”
The woman screamed her joy, and the chanting of the crowd began again. “Eat us up! Eat us up!”
It was at this point that the loser of the election, Napoleon Swift, could be seen on the vNet cameras backing away from his podium, and moving quickly off-stage. Simultaneously, if viewers switched from the live coverage of the election results to the newest episode of Bilgertron that was currently streaming on VerpFlix, they would see the character of Lord Percival Shirtcloth as being portrayed by the former global presidential candidate Napoleon Swift (or his AI, who could tell?) switch in mid-sentence to the current global president (or king and master) (or its AI, who could tell?) DevourBot, who at the conclusion of its Regency-era monologue, punctuated its profundity by devouring its co-star, Larissa Marissa (or her AI, because obviously).
Baloney Mahoney’s album immediately went to the bottom of the verps, and the profits heading for Napoleon Swift’s preferred charities (allegedly) were immediately rerouted into invisible off-planet bank accounts on the dark side of the moon (assuredly).
On the battlefields of MurderSlayer: Face Flapjacker 2147, every Napoleon Swift Stabby-Stabby turned against the player who wielded it (leaving millions of player avatars in multiple virtual pieces and damp puddles across the game), each Napoleon Swift AutoCar Machine-Zapper misfired categorically and catastrophically (and bringing that catastrophe down biblically upon both AutoCars and avatars alike), and all the NapoleonSwiftAIs went rogue (murdering, slaying, and face flapjacking the avatars of their owners in a nightmarish show of virtual rabidity that was to become the stuff of legend amongst gamers and vNet nurds worldwide, at least for a week or so, by which time players were engrossed in the newest release of MurderSlayer: DevourBot SmorgasBorg 2148, and they couldn’t be flapjacked to spare the brain cells needed to remember whatever ancient and yellowed thing had happened in some old obsolete version of the game, could they?).
“Well,” said Gladys, as she finally put her vPhone down on the Hide-a-Table for good, except she didn’t, she picked it immediately up again, checked the election results once more, and then put it down definitely for real this time (after she checked the numbers another time first).
“We’re totally flapjacked,” mumbled Barb, the defeat sitting so solidly on her shoulders that she wasn’t even trying to grab the spoons from Gladys any longer.
“Not totally,” Gladys said. “Look on the bright side. There’s twelve billion people on the planet. There’s no way DevourBot can eat all of them in five years.”
“If it really puts in the effort, though.”
“The numbers don’t add up,” Gladys said. “Even if it wins a second term, the birth rate alone would keep it from devouring everyone.”
Barb raised her head up from the table and leaned back in her chair. “Don’t even start with that second term talk. Who would ever think of voting for that muncher a second time?”
Gladys lifted her phone again and did a quick search of the vNet. She found an image and flipped the phone around and showed it to Barb: a group of two dozen young men, all with cheaply made ChrohmSteel headgear strapped to their faces, shaped to resemble the brutal crushing jaws of DevourBot. “BiteBoys would,” she said.
Barb groaned and returned her forehead to the table. “Flapjackers.”
Gladys nodded and lowered her phone once more. “Solidly flapjackers. But look. DevourBot is going to want to meet with its supporters, and you know that it can’t help but eat as many of them as it can reach. And then when that’s over, it needs to install a cabinet, and what do you think it’s going to do then?”
Barb lifted her head a few inches and peeked at Gladys. “Devour them?”
“Exactly. Hard to enact any of your devouring policies when you keep eating your cabinet members.”
Barb sat up a little higher and straighter in her chair. “I guess that’s true.”
Gladys showed great restraint and only picked up her phone one time (actually twice)(okay, three times, but it was a stressful evening, so she couldn’t be blamed). “And look, we’re getting friend invites to resistance groups. Lucy’s in five of them already, and the election hasn’t even been over ten minutes yet.” Gladys scrolled the message, skimming the text and images. “She’s already got plans drawn up for anti-DevourBot exoskeletons. It can’t eat you if it can’t chew you.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel better,” Barb said, “it’s working.”
Gladys tapped a quick message on her phone, and sent it to Lucy. “There’s a secret meeting going to be held at the CentiBurger over on Geary tomorrow for lunch, so I already went ahead and signed us up for it.”
“If resistance includes a CentiMeal, I’m on board.”
“There’s already a thousand RSVPs for the meeting, so it might be a little cramped.”
“As long as I get my burger,” Barb said.
“And your resistance.”
“Well, sure, yeah. And an arthroberry shake. It’s been forever since I’ve had one of those.”
“You had one last week. I took you after work on Tuesday.”
“It’s been forever,” Barb insisted.
“I’ll get you two shakes,” Gladys said. “You need to keep your strength up for the next five years, after all.”
“How dare you give me hope for two arthroshakes. And also hope for the future, I guess.”
“DevourBot can’t eat all of us,” Gladys said. “Not if we all stick together.”
“And wear exoskeletons,” Barb pointed out.
“And wear exoskeletons,” Gladys agreed.
Vive la résistance.
Vive l'exosquelette.