Much like the age old questions, “chicken or the egg?”, and “pirates or ninjas?”, Science Fiction vs. Fantasy is one of those unanswerable questions of life. But, while I can see the appeal of the first two questions, I have to wonder why we bother to ask this third question in the first place. I believe Fantasy and Science Fiction are two sides of the same coin, different only in the trappings, not in the actual spirit of pure imagination which I believe goes into both. Furthermore, the line between these two genre’s is blurry at best. Let me explain.

First, a couple of definitions, as gleaned from our friend of the Information Age, Wikipedia.

“Fantasy is a genre that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, and/or setting” from the Fantasy Page.

Science Fiction – “It differs from fantasy in that, within the context of the story, its imaginary elements are largely possible within scientifically-established or scientifically-postulated laws of nature (though some elements in a story might still be pure imaginative speculation)” from the Science Fiction Page.

I like to think of Science Fiction and Fantasy as two ends of a spectrum. At either end you have the extremes, Asimov at the SF end, and Tolkien at the Fantasy end. In the middle, the exact distinction becomes less clear, with authors such as Anne McCaffrey and Raymond Feist. McCaffrey’s Pern books are a brilliant example of this blurriness. At the beginning of that series (within the timeline), the books are almost pure SF, with space travel to other planets, genetic science and computer technology. Yet as Pern progresses, they become Fantasy novels, with quests, dragons, and in a strange sense magic, or at least communication with what are essentially large animals.

Another prime example of this fuzziness between the genres is actually Robert A. Heinlein. The book that I am thinking of specifically is called The Glory Road, and is one of my favorite works of Heinlein’s. However, I could not consider this book to fit neatly into either Category alone. While there is space travel, or rather travel between dimensions, and technology, there is also a sword-wielding hero, dragons, and in some sense magic. Now, I also think that Heinlein deliberately was blurring the line, as several times one of the characters explains her technology to the less technological Earth-man as “magic”. And indeed, it sounds like magic. But it is also equally clear that to her this ‘magic’ is as simple and straightforward as computer technology is to us.

I feel that I also must touch on the sub-genres of Urban Fantasy, and Steampunk/Cyberpunk and the many variations thereof. Steampunk and Cyberpunk are both technologically driven, though the aesthetic is rather different, yet Steampunk is considered a sub-genre of Fantasy, rather than Science Fiction. Urban Fantasy is another odd example, combining as it does themes such as elves, magic, dragons, vampires, werewolves, and modern day technology. One might almost dub these three sub-genres “Science Fantasy”, for they clearly combine the magic or semi-magical elements of Fantasy, with rational scientific explanations for many parts of the story.

Though I can by  no means claim to be the first to have these thoughts (or else why would the Bookstores shelve the two genres together?), I do think they are important considerations for an aspiring author. I think the question should not so much be “Science Fiction or Fantasy” as it should be a question of weaving your story clearly within the framework of the world or worlds you create.

Thought for the Day: “One man’s magic is another man’s engineering. Supernatural is a null word.” Robert A. Heinlein

Currently Reading: Village Life in Ancient Egypt: Laundry Lists and Love Songs ~ A.G. McDowell

Galería de 9000 ( irónica, interesante y exuberante)

¿Manifiesto antiecologista? Extinciones y creaciones de diversidad. ¿Hacia una nueva biodiversidad?

Todos habrán oído hablar que La Tierra ha sufrido en épocas pretéritas episodios de grandes extinciones y otros de menor entidad. Y también que el ser humano será el causante de la próxima gran extinción. Ya sea por fenómenos astronómicos, vulcanismo, cambio climático, antrópico o de otra índole, el proceso recurrente es la pérdida de la complejidad del ecosistema (eslabones tróficos por ejemplo). Esto hace emerger un paisaje “simple” en el que unas pocas especies más tolerantes o generalistas sobreviven. Aunque no he leído nada técnico sobre el tema, permitirme que siga con el soliloquio por el cual quiero argumentar que la pérdida de biodiversidad y las extinciones masivas no son un problema a medio-largo plazo para la humanidad.

• La Tierra después de nosotros
• La crisis de biodiversidad.
• ¿Estamos exagerando con la amenaza del cambio climático?

Aspectos filosóficos-económicos:

• Biosfera 2
• La plaga humana
• [PDF] La biodiversidad, un nuevo recurso estratégico (poco o ligeramente interesante)
  

Spider Tank - MeganeRid

La protección de los seres vivos (y de la geodiversidad la otra olvidada) abarcan muchos puntos de vistas: el funcional por el cual toda especie es necesaria para el mantenimiento de los ecosistemas, el estético, el nutricional y sanitario, el ético de que cualquier especie tiene el deber de vivir,… Es cierto que con la pérdida de una especie se disipan el conocimiento futuro de aplicaciones en campos tan dispares como la medicina, la astronomía, la gastronomía y el arte. ¿Cuantas vidas humanas le debemos al sacrificio de ratas de laboratorios? ¿Qué aplicaciones tendrá la baba de un anónimo caracol abisal marino en la fabricación de nuevos materiales y adhesivos? La vida es la gran fuente de innovación (genes, proteínas, patrones comportamientales) de nuestra sociedad, copiándola o mejor dicho biomimetizandola, encontramos muchas respuestas a nuestros problemas.

• Biomimética: donde la naturaleza y el diseño convergen

Autor/a desconocido ¿Lo conoceís?

George carlin – Saving the planet (subtítulos en español)

Pero algo que debemos agradecer a nuestra civilización hiper-especializada es la creación de futuras formas de vida. Y aunque actualmente son pequeños intentos que abarcan la creación de organismos transgénicos, una bacteria que segregue en cantidades industriales insulina o la fabricación de simples robots que se guían por marcas en el suelo.

• Los organismos modificados genéticamente, los consumidores, la inocuidad de los alimentos y el medio ambiente.
• Genes Terminator
• Robots – Imágenes
• Un maíz que llama a sus defensores contra los insectos

De los últimos ejemplos comentados ya se ha pasado en la última década a nuevas fuentes de innovación humanas como son los comienzos en nanotecnología, la creación de organismos pluricelulares transgénicos (¿esto es producto de mi paranoia?) y la aplicaciones de la Inteligencia Artificial. Todo ello me hace suponer que no hay que temer la pérdida biodiversidad, pues la humanidad como vida “auto-catalítica” que es hace lo que debe: diversificarse, explorar y optimizar la “energía”.

• La próxima generación de robots carnívoros
• Peces robot limpiarán el mar español
• Chemical brain controls nanobots
• Ciberbichos
• Insectos Cyborgs: Científicos insertan cámara en mariposa
• Pentagon’s Cyborg Insects All Grown Up

Mastodonte mecánico (Cutungus)

Diseños artísticos:

• El Arte de Cutangus, José García
• Arte y Cosplay de Mario Caicedo Langer
• Robótica Evolución – Video Steampunk
• Photos: Yoichiro Kawaguchi’s robot designs
• Robots que biomimetizan la vida primitiva.
• Ciberartrópodos

Especulación científica

• El Snouter extraordinaria
• Caminalcules, Snouters y otras inusuales criaturas

¿Que después de un holocausto nuclear habrá poca diversidad de vida? Pues lo más seguro, pero si este conocimiento humano se ha trasferido por todo este planeta (o la luna ) con una eficacia y productividad manifiesta, los seres humanos del futuro podrán “recrear” nuevos ecosistemas, nuevas “bio-diversidades”, en pocas generaciones. Para ello aprovecho la ocasión para que vean o lean lo siguiente:

• El Goo Gris y la Apocalipsis final

Screamers (1995) En esta historia pueden observar como en un planeta lejano la humanidad en sus enfrentamientos bélicos han creado unos robots que habitando el suelo se encargan de trocear a cualquier humano como si de pirañas edáficas se tratarán. Video aquí Pero por lo que estoy viendo en el 2006 hicierón otra película ambientada en la misma fecha, es decir un remake aunque en otros sitios lo llaman Screamers 2 (2006) Video aquí.

The Gene Generation (2007) es una tierna historia ambientada en un mundo biopunk, me recuerda a cierta amistad profunda que mantengo con alguien.., mmmm que sensual Bai-Ling. La lengua lamiendo el pezón, que como cual planta se erecta al cálido aliento. Aunque los exteriores de la ambientación son demasiado artificiales en su virtualización, no deja de ser mi excusa para aficionarme al comic del cual está basado. Otro video-clip aquí.

9 (2009) Película de animación, cálida en un mundo devastado por la guerra. Aparte de los toques “mágicos” que pueda destilarse notesé la creación de nuevos seres. ¡Bonita araña-serpiente! Esta historia tiene paisajes de  Dieselpunk, aunque dicha fuente de energía no se ve utilizarla.

La Era del Diamante: Manual ilustrado para jovencitas (1995)  de Neal Stephenson. Partiendo de la idea que usted ha leido más que yo, esta es la modesta recomendación de literatura que se ambienta en las aplicaciones de la nanotecnología. Leasé la primera parte, después la historia decae mucho…

Resumiendo que cuando vean robots con forma de peces que limpian las cloacas de los ríos o ficticias palmeras que alojan antenas de telefonía móvil lo que ven son los primeros estadios de la nueva biodiversidad que los humanos (si quieren) crearán en los próximos siglos. Sin embargo esta civilización seguirá escondiendo bajo el cemento su biodiversidad actual, y quizás lo único que quede de ella sean pequeños museos viviente de la naturaleza en semejanza a los proyectos científicos de Biosferas cerradas. Mientras tanto sus nietos jueguan en el parque con su perros luminosos que reflejan proteínas luminiscentes de medusas, y usted señor/a mira a través de la ventana como su nieto juega. Ese nieto le intuye a usted tras las cortinas… Ya que la planta tropical de grandes hojas es tan luminosa como para prender toda una estancia.

FIN

• El proyecto Biosfera 2
• Biosphere 2.
• BIOS-3
• Eden Project

Deslízate por aquí :

Solar Forest, aparcamiento y recarga de coches eléctricos

Harvard Microrobotic Fly (Pincha te llevará a un video)

Esculturas de bichos con partes metálicas (los animales son reales)

Ostatnio nawinęło mi się na monitor kilka zgrabnych i ciekawych tekstów związanych z erpegami i klimatami, które mnie kręcą. Dlategóż azaliż onegdaj, polecam do poczytania:

• Cyberpunkowy powrót do przeszłości – artykuł poświęcony systemowi Cyberpunk 2020, omawia jego zady i walety, zawiera spostrzeżenia odnośnie rozgrywki. Warto przeczytać szczególnie jeśli ktoś nie wie z czym to się je – by Enc;
• Mięso też byś chciał? Żryj włosy z pe… – recenzja zombiekaliptycznego erpega All Flesh Must Be Eaten by Adam Waśkiewicz;
• Pimp up your Neuroshima – artykuł o modyfikacji mechaniki neurki, co by było więcej funu, dynamizmu, a mniej ślęczenia nad zasadami z podręcznika – by Karczmarz.

Mientras Isaac Asimov y Frank Herbert inspiraron la gestación del estilo de ficción conocido como Cyberpunk, son H.G. Wells y Julio Verne quienes resultan en gran parte responsables por el origen del Steampunk.

La premisa es simple, en algún momento del pasado el hombre decidió continuar la senda de las maquinas a vapor y a carbón en vez de seguir el camino del progreso mediante la electricidad. El resultado son avances inimaginados en ciencia y tecnología, que riñen con todo lo que la tecnología contemporánea, basada en lo electrónico y lo digital, ha ofrecido al ser humano.

Contrario a lo que sucedía en el Cyberpunk, en el Steampunk hay una celebración de la ciencia y los avances tecnológicos. Mientras el Cyberpunk mostraba una civilización decadente en pleno apogeo de lo digital, el Steampunk ofrece una visión mucho más positiva respecto al aporte de la ciencia a la humanidad. Sin embargo, la ficción Steampunk también ofrece una perspectiva de lo que sería una sociedad plenamente industrializada y las capacidades destructivas de un progreso basado casi plenamente en consumo de recursos naturales.

Estética victoriana y accesorios funcionales forman parte del vestuario que hoy en dia miles de personas intentan emular. Y no se trata solo de una moda, así como otras tendencias y estilos actuales detrás del Steampunk hay una filosofía de vida.

El Steampunk surge como una resistencia al estilo de vida digital, frío e impersonal al que la era digital nos ha arrastrado. El predominio de las maquinas y las “primitivas” formas de energía generan en el ser humano una necesidad de esfuerzo físico y perseverancia para lograr avances tecnológicos, dejando de lado la inmediatez y recuperando la capacidad de asombro en el hombre.

El trabajo invertido en las maquinas produce artefactos únicos que nada tienen que ver con la producción en masa de la tecnología moderna y esa cualidad única de cada invención las vuelve verdaderas obras de arte. La combinación de madera, metal y cuero vuelve la imagen de los artefactos algo más cálido, lo que se aparta de la estética estéril e impersonal de las invenciones modernas.

Para lograr un look Steampunk se debe tener cuidado con la elección de las prendas pues deben ir acorde al tipo de accesorios propios del estilo.

Ciertamente un estilo que rescata elementos muy interesantes de una época que se caracterizó por el interés y el asombro que aún provocaba el progreso en el mundo, resucitar eso hoy es un signo del estancamiento en que el hombre se ha sentido desde hace un par de décadas… da para pensar no?

Mylo contava le pause ed i margini che componevano la giornata. Le guardie Arenty non avevano più bisogno di tenerlo d’occhio. Solo nella tenda, attendeva il ritorno del maestro, dileguatosi al mattino insieme a Tawares, primo ministro dei Testimoni di Seidon. Aveva smesso di porsi domande. Gli avevano fatto rientrare il mal di testa e si era sentito uno sciocco. Uno strano senso di abbandono aveva preso il posto della frustrazione. Adesso non temeva più per la sua vita, per questo gli era più facile lasciarsi andare.
Si era invece concentrato sul crepitio, improvvisando parole e gesti legati a dei piccoli incantesimi di sua conoscenza. Aveva provato a smorzare il rumore, ad evocare il potere sottilmente, schermando, mutando, offuscando l’eco della magia, come aveva visto fare al suo maestro il giorno prima. Nella semi oscurità della tenda era stato cauto, ed era riuscito anche ad ottenere alcuni risultati positivi. Se qualcuno lo avesse sorpreso a manipolare la realtà si sarebbe cacciato nuovamente nei guai.
«Non passa giorno senza che tu riesca a sorprendermi.» La voce era quella di Rivier, ma il maestro fece il suo ingresso solo dopo aver terminato la frase. Mylo sobbalzò, nascose le mani impegnate in strani gesti e solo dopo essersi reso conto che la voce era quella del suo amico riuscì a riprendere fiato… continua…

godhatesfags.com seemed to have been online forever; the good old Westboro Church, preaching hellfire and damnation to ho-mo-seeex-u-als with a blank and benevolent smile and less than no willingness to listen to anybody but each other and their prophet, no matter what.  For a while, a site called fagshategod.com existed to bait it, Louis Theroux spent time trying to talk sense to them … you name it.

The moment it hit the Tokyo Two’s radar and gaydar, they were incensed.  They spent months on the project and then one weekend, they hit it hard.  One of the many global hacker orgs launched a denial of service attack that hackers still talk about.  For a while, the site was covered in hippy style peace and love flowers and “God Loves Fags” sprayed all over it.  Their coup de grace though, was getting hold of the church’s stunningly huge mailing list and sending out the following mailshot, right from the church’s very own holy server:

Brethren and Sistren and all those who maybe don’t quite fit in … ren,

As I was partaking of my customary cornflakes and chitlins this morning, the Lord – THE Lord, appeared to me with His whole holy heavenly host behind Him and He spake thus to Me … er, I mean me,  “Thou shalt not, under any circumstances, no how, definitely not And I Really, Really Mean This, continue with your crusade of hatred against my most beloved and precious fags.  Thee and thine, all thy brethren, sistren and children (and if they are still alive, your mothren and fathren too) shall henceforth cease and desist in this shameful behaviour.  And furthermore, I apologise for all that bullshit I wrote in Leviticus.

Go forth and join other churches, for the Westboro Church is now strictly and for all eternity, a non-prophet organization.

Yours Sincerely, etc.

Watchdogs and Action Groups

Ever vigilant, Sam and Veto, meanwhile, were training and deploying jockeys all over cyberspace to “hack the phobes,” as they put it.  Under no nation or organization’s auspices, their stated mission – and they always signed their work – was to cause as much online disruption as possible to the perpetrators of offline hate crimes.  By then, everyone was using the widening network of queers online to spread information, dreaming of a day when no heterosexual would ever bash a queer again.  Scar thought that they were all deluded, but she fully supported the dream nonetheless.

One of Veto and Sam’s online successes was getting together a pressure group to petition Facebook to adapt its user information and the next time Scar logged in to her Siri-self’s Facebook account, she could change it to read “interested in women” as well as “engaged to Helen Cherry.”  Small triumphs, perhaps, but meaningful when you have been denied them so consistently.  The next hurdle would be to get Facebook to expand the gender options; “male” and “female” just didn’t fit everybody.  One petition that did the rounds suggested three options:

MALE
FEMALE
FUCK YOU!

Sometimes Scar got the feeling that the majority of the human race was still crouched in a cave, fearfully lighting fires against the dark.

One quarter than no het ever bought into openly, was that old Yoville application – remember that?  It still existed, user numbers grew by leaps and bounds and it was still probably the only place where queers etc could go (albeit not physically) and just be completely themselves, indulging in whatever cliches they wanted, being as out and proud as they wanted to be.  Scar logged in occasionally, for old time’s sake and sometimes she still left gifts in Helen’s apartment there.  Sentimental?  Hell yeah.

24 000 odd (very) words left to write to hit the NaNoWriMo target and 12 days left to do it.  2 000 words a day and it’s done, by a tooth skin.  What I haven’t been telling you is that this is not all I am doing, that “ordinary” life goes on and that my life is busy even without this project.  At this stage the only people who I know for sure are reading this, are Helen, Hippolyta and Ginger – I am going to owe them many, many bottles of overpriced beer in frosty green bottles.  Why the hell don’t they bottle beer in blue anyway?

26 065

I can’t stand the thought of reading what I have written so far again.  The nanobots advise you not to edit and rewrite while you go along, but the couple of time I’ve done that so far have been good.  It’s rather like squeezing the end of a tube of toothpaste when the toothpaste starts to run out.  You get more out of it (increase the word count) and it also tidies things up so you’re ready to write forwards again.  A few thousands words ago, Helen told me she was no longer an unbiased reader and I am certainly not one either.

26 170

Cyberspatial Drift

In the twentieth century, you knew you’d made it when somebody not yourself wrote a Wikipedia entry about you and you thus joined the unhallowed halls of the collective unconsciousness.  Well, Wikipedia survived, but as you know, that’s the web, not the net.

Beyond the Gibson-stacks of cyberspace, in their corporate and generally organized groups, was loose data, free data and rogue data; unclaimed.  In a gravity-free zone, it was subject only to two forces; filing and drift.  Filing occurred when a human or a bot, authorised or not, collected and arranged the data.  Unattended, unfiled data just drifted apparently aimlessly, but inexorably towards other data of the same type.  If there was a strong enough parent category, it could end up huddling outside the security nets of a city of stacks, periodically checked and probably annexed by the owners.

As for data about individuals, if there was enough data about anybody, it ended up together – you could even end up with your very own Gibson-stack.  As time went on, that gave rise to whole new joys and risks.  Unclaimed personal stacks tended to be rifled wholesale by hackers and malicious bots, in search of identities to thieve.  It’s exactly how the Queers got their Het ID’s so that they could log on back in the bad old days.  Black hat stuff.

Cross-referencing happened along impenetrably tangled seeming gridlines that experienced surfers followed, hunting data.

There was a whole network of associations looking out for identity theft online, an attempt at protecting privacy that often felt more like pissing against the wind.

Google had pioneered some soft tech, enabling people to generate a map of their data in cyberspace from the links found on the web.  It spent a decade in Beta and was far from reliable, but it helped and it made a lot of people feel safer.  Scar and Helen felt even safer with Samanth0r on their side; she kept a close watch on their data, emailing screenshots of every new orphan she found out there.

There was a risk to identity theft, beyond ending up with people opening credit cards in your name.  There was a kind of … voodoo element.  it didn’t happen as quickly as it did if you jacked in and then got lost, but an unfriendly element taking control of enough of your data out there would eventually kill you offline.  It wasn’t even a particularly obvious decline either.  You’d probably assume your immune system was low, maybe you’d rest more and up your vitamin intake, but it wouldn’t help.  You’d need more and more sleep, you’d begin to suffer social phobias and so it would go on until one day, you’d just sort of fade away.  Potentially, it could be used to inflict a fast and unwitting genocide on remote communities who’d never even heard of the internet.  It made photographic soul theft and cargo cults look like child’s play.

As cyberspace became more complex and crowded, older hackers and surfers found themselves fast turning as obsolete as last year’s messaging software.  As time went by, Scar’s generation found itself growing less and less willing to venture beyond known portals.  Net fatigue set in quicker anyway, you needed to get offline faster to avoid getting sick, getting lost.

Like those fabled old surfers heading out to sea at the end, rumour had it that old hackers let go that way too, arranging for their data dispersal so they could simply fade to white noise.  The world lost some emo teenagers that way too, but only the really isolated ones, it wasn’t something that tended to happen to people with human, offline support systems.

After you had died, your stack remained, if you had one, as a memorial if anybody wanted to remember you.  Digital archaeologists might even go out in search of you if people only got interested once you’d already rotted.  The theft of your identity after your death rarely mattered to anyone much at all.

*NOTE TO SELF* Any further attempts at NaNoWriMo to have a plot worked out ahead of time.  And 40 000 words written.  At least.

A new industry was spawned, a modified synthesis of press clipping agent and data warehouse.  The Indiana Jones style hacker never went out of fashion or pocket as more and more people felt the need to get their data selves secured.  Otaku kids all over the world made more money than the previous century’s dot com startups did, providing that kind of service.  The major software corporations, antivirus and firewall businesses promised complete safety and failed to deliver it.  Most people never even realised what kind of danger they were in and fortunately, many of those people never, ever had to find out.

Generika’s Queer Quarter began to develop a similar reputation to San Fransisco, Manchester, Soho, Cape Town.  There was a solid core of “alternative” businesses and the local securiforces, unlike most of the world’s, actively looked out for them.  Online, the Quarter’s massive pink pyramids of data needed ever increasingly complex security measures woven around them by Veto, Sam and their trainees, to ward off constant pings and forays by rogue hackers and corporate and state invasions.  Generika’s queer community became well known for their tech agility and ability and soon “queer” and “tech” became as interchangeable as “gay” and “hairdresser” once were.

In Blue’s absence, Helen became more and more involved in the Queer Control panel.  Scar pictured it as a kind of navigation system, with plenty of switches and flashing pink lights.  Scar’s intolerance of green was growing and she knew that if it matched her problem with purple, her cyberspace time would be pretty much over.  There was still too much DOS colour out there in the data wastes.  She spent more time in her forge then, with the metal and fire.

She was working on an eight (of course) foot high Sheela Na Gig one day, when Seti arrived.  She crept in and sat in a corner for who knows how long until Scar noticed her, ears blasted numb by PJ Harvey through her earfeeds.  Seti had arrived with one of the many groups of refugees to the Quarter, from some far out community that didn’t want her, because she wasn’t conforming to what they thought a girl should be.

Skinny, with a shaved head and bruised eyes, Seti never spoke.  The medic who counted her scars said she probably never would.  She was diagnosed with severe trauma and there seemed to be no place for her, even in the Quarter.  Helen had started to take her cycling, they’d go for miles on wheels and if Seti didn’t look happy, she seemed to be at peace with the buzz of the tar beneath her and the air rushing past.

She pitched up at the forge the following day too, seeming perfectly content to just sit and watch.  Scar flicked the musicfeed room-wide and Seti swayed her head very gently to the beat.  “I don’t know what happened to you, kid,” said Scar, “but maybe it’s time to beat that out.”  She began to teach Seti to shape steel.  Seti hammered and twisted with the music blasted, totally focused on her tongs and tools.   Scar hauled her off from time to time so she’d eat and drink, she got the feeling that, left to her own devices, Seti would just keep going till she dropped.

The Sheela Na Gig was completed, eight feet of her standing in the workshop, ready to take on the world.  Seti welded and shaped what was looking more like a copy of the Sheela every day.  Scar began work on another figure, same dimensions.  Hammers, tongs, flames, welding torches … eventually Seti just stopped, arms at her sides.  The figure stood tall, proud and completely bare of features – or gender either.  “Androgyne,” said Scar to Seti, “androgynous.”  She looked at the figure, looked at Seti and then said, “Genderno?”  Seti nodded and pointed to herself, Scar nodded too.  “Can you talk?” asked Scar and Seti nodded.  “Are you going to?” she asked and Seti shook her head.  No.  “OK,” said Scar, “most people talk too much shit anyway.”  That was the first smile anyone ever saw on Seti’s lips.

In the end, Seti built fifteen of those genderno figures and Scar built the fifteen hackers, surgeons and slashers who’d been out there the day that Blue didn’t make it back.  And she built Samanth0r in her coma.  She told Seti the story and Seti feverishly designed and animated it on Scar’s old terminal.  “We’re making our memories solid,” said Scar to Seti, “this is good shit and I think other people should look at it.  I haven’t sold a thing for about six months, so how about we show the fuckers this stuff for free?”  Seti nodded and grinned and the two of them started getting their creations out there into the air, on to some empty dock space.  Fifteen gendernos lining up, looking like lost souls and the fifteen, fighting fit and ready for anything in front of them, a steel/human barrier.

The only way to see the “insteelation” was from the top of the walls around the otherwise bare concrete space; you got a kind of angled bird’s eye view of challenging and disturbing humanity.  Scar wondered if anyone would care, let alone understand.

After Veto and Sam saw the photos, Veto built mercurial silver 3D copies of them online and Sam sent them, like little on-screen envoys, like spam, like a virus; out into the world.  And nobody really did know what to make of them, but they liked their shapes, especially the minimalist gendernos.  Alessi and Ikea were the first to incorporate the stylised figures into their designs and a fast threat of copyright litigation convinced them to credit the original artists, as well as labelling them “genderno.”  Bingo, it was a gender[free] meme, now in a loft apartment near you … and a magazine, website, screenfeed, coffee table, restaurant, you name it.

The fashionista world was the next on the uptake and both virtual and corporeal mannequins began to look genderno, with clothing cut to challenge gender.  It was a very postmodern little revolution and entirely unexpected.  It was the kind of viral, street and cyberhighway branding that could only ever be exploited, never planned.  Seti became a cult figure and was paid insane amounts to go to places without saying a thing.  She probably varied her (should we still be saying “she”?) facial expression about once a session and the clips became instant YouTube hits.  Gender confusion was fashionable again for the first time since it’s last brief appearance in the 1970’s.  David Bowie was God again.  Drag Kings and Queens ruled the streets and on occasion, had to be discouraged from roaming around in gangs beating up anyone who looked too male or too female.  By the end of the year, the Genderno figure was more recognisable than the Oscar.  “Gender!” yelled a Bowie wannabee from a sold out stadium and the audience roared, “NO!” in response.

The whole thing didn’t affect gender on a global scale, but the fact that it became cool and as one fast food ad had it, “hip to have no hips,” meant that the “freaks” escaping their satellites to get to cities, were welcomed by instant acceptance and probably modelling contracts.  everyone was also, of course, still trying to be far too thin.

We were too few to surround whatever the sangoma was and not even necessarily quick enough to give chase.  As it turned to face us, we changed shape to become a five legged starfish; it would be better to stay together, but if necessary, separate units would still have a hope, still be able to keep fighting.

The sangoma began to morph; unwilling to expend energy continuing to customise itself to cater for our individual fears, it resolved itself into what it clearly assumed would terrify a bunch of queers on the march most.  Something between an SS officer and a Gundam, was what it settled on.  Metal jackboots, steel exoskeleton, grinning death’s head and a really well-tailored trench coat.  Jake commed us collectively,

u think that’s genuine hugo boss?

And then,

go!

It would have been great to describe this in some fantastical way; light shooting laser-like from outstretched hands and so forth, but that isn’t how it went at all.  The only reason for the “physical” proximity to this monster, was that we had to get our code into the core of its data and that fucker wasn’t accepting emails.  There’s no shoot-out scene to describe here; all there is to say, is that it felt long, frightening and tricky – but more like operating on an unwilling patient than any Jackie Chan kickout.

Everybody got out of there too.  Once the sangoma had been eviscerated, Veto neutralised it and funnelled it off on to some other net to analyse.  The globals went back to their quarters and we surfaced in ours, feeling as if our souls had shifted and our skin had lagged somehow.  We felt like a crack fighter team, like Top Gun.  We looked, at best, somewhat haute geek.  And most of us had pissed ourselves.

Turned out that even though Veto could get Sam defragged and all, the physical rehab would be impossible unless she got ridiculously specialised help.  The data dependency was irreversible, which would suit her fine, all that meant was that she could not be offline too long, or she’d be catatonic again.  But ditto online and somebody, somewhere would need to work out that exact formula for her.  Veto knew some guy in Tokyo (naturally) who he reckoned could do it and within 24 hours, Sam, Helen and I were on the Shuriken Shuteye to Tokyo.

Log On, Log Off

Even slightly doped on pills, Sam was back and sharp as a razor.  She and Helen spent most of the four hour trip from Agulhas International to Narito arguing about whether post-cyberpunk was a valid social theory and blah blah blah who knows, actually.  Google Dr Helen Cherry, you’ll no doubt find some tediously impenetrable paper on the subject.  Scar played Tetris and drank too many Irish whiskey miniatures, then got too dehydrated, but hey, four hours wasn’t long enough to do any serious damage.  She got a lively debate going in her own head about the similarity between Eddie Vedder’s voice and Lou Reed’s and then she decided she’d always wanted to try Pocari Sweat and what on earth did the servbot mean when it bleeped, “Choice not available” at her?

She refused point blank Sam’s plea to go to one of those coffin/capsule/love hotels; space was at a premium, sure, but Veto had hooked them up with as much space as any gaijin got i.e. a suite in a Formula Two hotel.  They’d arranged to get hold of Veto from there.

There was Pocari Sweat in the mini bar and Scar got the feeling that, as a gaijin, she was probably fairly standard.  There were also screenfeeds on just about every available surface bar the toilet seats.  Sam typed in “blue rolitoboy” on the feed at the main door.  Around an hour later, a bot appeared with one and enough to buy a new liver was added to our bill.  When the other two started making faces at her, Sam said, “Chillax for fucksakes, it’s for Veto.  Trust me.”

That night they went to meet Veto at a place called Sans Sushi, which turned out to be a burger joint and Death Note gaming cafe, much to the consternation of the other six westerners who’d just walked in hell-bent on eating raw fish.

“Wow, it’s like meeting heroes from a graphic novel!” said a willowy goth.  Sam grinned, Helen and Scar looked stupified and then she put them out of their misery, “So … I’m not a 14 year old boy.  Hi, it’s Veto, pleased to meet you.”  “Not quite otaku!” said Helen, grinning, and Veto replied, “It’s fun to fuck with stereotypes and perception from time to time.”

Sam handed over the Rolito, Veto went, “Squee!” and they proceeded to spend the rest of the evening bonding, while Scar and Helen gave each other knowing looks and grins.  Maybe Sam had found her own girlfriend after all.

The newsfeed in the corner started showing scenes from home.  A ghetto invaded, a riot broken.  Same old, same old in so many wounded ways, Scar supposed, but those girls were getting rescued … they’d have to get involved, offline, when they got back.  There was no avoiding it.

Meantime, delirious with the unaccustomed freedom of international travel in a place way more sophisticated than Generika could ever hope to be, apart from hooking Sam up with some kind of rehab, all they had to do was gawk and relax.  They met up with Veto again the next morning for a coffee jolt.  The dude Veto knew turned out to be a Miyagi-clone, of course.  He fixed Sam with a fierce gaze, jabbed a finger at her and said, “Programming and kickboxing, kickboxing and programming!” and Sam looked fairly stoked actually.

“Wonder if she’ll ever come home again,” muttered Scar moodily and Helen hugged her.  “I think she will babe,” she replied, “and you know she’ll be online quite a lot, we can connect there in the meantime hey?”  “Yeah,” said Scar, “besides, this is a good place for her to learn and work – Africa’s maybe a little too dusty for her right now.”

They got a kind of hi-tech low-life tour of Tokyo with Veto.  How the hell could those eyefeeds be so cheap?  They were net-ready, GPS systems, music feeds, still and vid camera and more and more and more – and so sleekly matte black beautiful that they should probably have been illegal.  “Weapons grade!” squawked Scar, lustfully reading labels on gadgets.  “Museum grade!” she yelped, drooling at a heap of retro repro denim jeans.  “Cayce Pollard would shop there!” she yowled, passing the Muji mothership store.  “If you drag me to one more fucking shopping maul,” growled Helen, “I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

They spent what they could on stuff, feeling, as Africans often do, like the poor and distant relatives of the first world.  Currency was a global thing, sure, but Africa still had fewer of those damn numbers than the rest of the planet.  The sheer mass of humanity fried Scar, the intense consumerism fried Helen – as much of a jol as it surely was, they were glad to go home again.

Africa’s Not For Sissies

Back to Agulhas on the Shuriken; home to the dockside.

Back at the Quarter, it seemed like everyone was working hard to recreate the twentieth century.  Quarter Control was rushing around, liaising with Generika securiforces to work on ways to educate communities, root out the curative rape thing.  A lot of the city’s lesbians were writing a lot of poetry about it too.  “Do they do it to boys too?” wondered Scar.  How were they going to keep anyone safe?  How?

There was time then, for a decent memorial service for Blue – her loss was felt keenly and it seemed like some kind of milestone.  The community in general kept growing, changing; Scar felt like an ancient warhorse.  She got lost in her forge for days and nobody ever bought what she made then either.  Out of violent flames, came a tangled mass of female forms in agony; she called it “Rape.”

In cyberspace, it was business as usual.  Or hacking as usual, depending on where you were standing at the time.  Quarter Control still administered Quarter Online, but ongoing property sales and shifts meant that frankly, the meatspace Quarter just wasn’t completely Queer anymore.  Friendly Hets were a positive presence and they had to be acknowledged as part of the community.  So did the transgendered, the intersexed and the bisexual.  There were deputations from asexual people, polysexual people and then – pomosexual people.  Scar had had to google that one before she could give the concept her full humanitarian respect.  “They’re all just human rights,” she muttered, as acronyms split, joined, replicated and spread like viruses.  The mainstream media wanted to know where it would end and how long it would be before people started marrying goats.  “Blurred lines and firm ones,” muttered Scar, as she began to beat metal into and out of shape in her workshop again, “blurry gender, firm species.”

Samanth0r was, to put it mildly, in her element back in Tokyo.  She and Veto had indeed hooked up and Sam was finding her balance between “fresh” air and kickboxing and the airless online world.

by IntrepidCaptain

More often then not, members of the mainstream culture joke that many Steampunks are simply the matured refugees of the Cyberpunk era. While I know this holds true for myself, this is in general an oversimplification of Anachronistic and Sci-Fi subcultures. The most obvious difference being that Anachronistics (usually) live in the civilized and decadent past, while the Cyberpunks prefer a more rugged, crime-infused world that is either in the future or near future. Key word here? Robotics.

However, some woud argue that robotics plays into both subcultures. Let’s disprove this, shall we? First off, steam-powered gadgets are vastly different from the electronic paraphernalia of the cyberpunk. For one, aesthetics. The steampunk hauls around brass gadgetry that is bulky, obvious, and ornate. It’s showy. The whole thing is showy and outlandish and that’s the point, ladies and gentlemen, for much of it. It is a subculture of statement pieces given new meaning via science that has been made obsolete and therefore attractive to those who feel above the current culture (keep in mind I’m a part of this group and therefore not trying to be insulting). Cyberpunks are sleek, chrome, and decked in black and green, glowing blues, with tiny computers and embedded microchips. Wires abound, yes, but these glorified hackers somehow to keep from electrocuting themselves due to the bad-assery of embracing the computer revolution. And is it just me or do cyberpunks seem to get a lot of time running about grimy and rain-slicked city streets, getting into motorcycle chases despite the general sedentary nature of the hacker lifestyle? At least that’s what all my friends and I discovered in the 90s, the glory days of cyberpunk.

And let’s not forget the power of visual learning. If you want an introduction to the cyberpunk world, go rent two earth-shattering films. The Matrix, and Blade Runner. Curious about steampunks? Check out Steamboy and The City of Lost Children. And no, I do not think it’s coincidental that the American movies are cyberpunk and the foreign films are steampunk. It actually makes a lot of sense. In any event, those movies’ll give you a pretty good idea of the vibe of the two subcultures.

But let’s look at the basics of cyberpunk for a moment. The main things to get your head around when it comes to cyberpunk is ONE that the internet is everywhere and is the answer to any and all problems, and TWO robots infiltrate and are a part of everything, even human anatomy. And on that topic, robotics have become quite advanced in the medical world today, reminding me of something that always bugged me about sci-fi movies and the world of Cyberpunk. If you’ve got the nanotech to go in to someone and monitor their vitals, why not (especially since money never seems to be an issue in Cyberpunk-land due to the high demand for hacked info) have those nanobots in there all the time? They could be hooked up to a LCD screen implanted in the arm that shows all vitals, so when you get hit with the poison that’s burrowing into your bloodstream, you can actually get to the hospital, and NOT just take two Advil and a shot of tequila and wait around your wire-cluttered NYC apartment until you feel a little too dizzy. Like a step up from booster shots. It’d take a hell of a lot of strain off your supply of post-apocalyptic heroes.

And of course, as I mentioned in my previous post, technology is getting amped up
to sci-fi proportions in the world of entertainment. The Cyberpunk wet dream of having the hologram-projecting headgear that’ll plug you into the interactive mainframe of Internet 2.0 may just be around the corner with the gadgets breaking into the market these days. Hail the spawn of man and computer, ye believers!

The Future is Now
~ your Captain

En la actualidad hay quienes hablan de la ciencia moderna como una alucinación tecnológica donde todo es posible y esclaviza a la raza humana. También los avances tecnológicos en general -e Internet en particular- facilitan a los gobiernos asumir temas complejos como la economía, la política y los problemas sociales. Al mismo tiempo, en los países catalogados como “avanzados”, podemos decir que el verdadero significado y poder de la ciencia aún no se ha utilizado.

Dentro de este panorama existen quienes dentro del mundo cibernético se denominan “hackers”, personas que gozan de “microchips cerebrales” que, interactúan con el ciberespacio para detener el control gubernamental
y experimentar manifestaciones revolucionarias; una de estas expresiones de denomina CYBERPUNK. Un movimiento que se inicia en los años 80′ y que tiene un lugar asegurado en el futuro.

El Ciberpunk es un movimiento protagonizado por personajes que usan
la tecnología con fines anti político – revolucionario. Enfocado en la “ciencia ficción” donde la lógica es creada por uno  mismo.

Los guía una utopía perversa donde se evoca una sociedad ideal y ficticia, que llaman distopía. Este movimiento que empezó como una subversión sin un objetivo muy declarado, está teniendo diferentes repercusiones: como movimiento literario, nace gracias Isaac Asimov, se cristaliza también en el cine (como the matrix) y la música (desde jazz hasta electrónica).

Detrás de este movimiento hay un supuesto en el que el sistema actual domina la vida de la gente a través de corporaciones, estados o fundamentos religiosos que están sustentados por la tecnología ideal. Este supuesto implica por lo tanto su contrario, los marginados, los visionarios que desean la libertad espiritual del universo y que utilizan las mismas herramientas tecnológicas para cumplir con su fin.

El espíritu revolucionario es un esfuerzo meditado, y en ese esfuerzo la ciencia y la tecnología nos permiten deliberar libremente.  Quizás si todos nos formáramos como verdaderos culturistas lograríamos que quienes luchan por subvertir el orden impuesto dejen de vivir en los márgenes y que la gente racional no dependa de las jerarquías que nos controlan; quizá así podamos construir un sentido de la moral que simplemente lucha contra las imposiciones.

Nota por Brenda Curtich

[did a gentle edit, wrote some stuff to get the last 2 posts to make more sense and then wrote a whole bunch more. this is the whole bunch more]

Somewhere Over the Rainbow Nation

Q-Topia failed to emerge, but Ikea flat packs were shipped down to the Quarter openly now and serious building work began, rehabilitating docklands property.  When the Hets started trying to buy loft apartments in groovily restored factory space, the queers figured they’d hit paydirt and many of them immediately sold out.  Still, the Quarter remained pretty queer.

Charmageddon stayed exactly as it was.  Subterfuge would always hold its own mystique and exclusivity can turn a fat profit.  Somebody opened a feminist bookshop next door to it, which went bust within six months.

When they cleaned up the docks, Scar’s mass of fallen eights got a clean up and the title, “Infinity Sideways” and apparently, Scar became An Artist.  Bemused by the title, her new workshop and a pocket full of paper, Scar immediately grabbed an aerosol and sprayed COPYWRONG all over town.  Then she went back to twisting and welding eights and as soon as something looked big enough, somebody came and bought it.

Working more or less legally, the dream team of fifteen still existed, under Sam’s control and ever remote, ever mysterious, Veto.  They weren’t just collecting data now, they were manipulating it, proving it, creating it and to Scar, it felt pretty much like bending eights back at the foundry.  The fifteen looped and circled through cyberspace, building the Quarter Online.  A pissed off committee finally accepted Scar’s antipathy to purple and agreed to predominately pink branding.  Scar quietly built an installation, darlings, of every queer symbol and logo you could ever think of or dream up – and she painted every single one of them blue.  She never sold that piece.

Did I mention it’s damn hard to kick life into a plot format?  Fuck me, it’s horrible.  I went back and rewrote this bitch; added shit, took out shit and fixed some total fuck ups along the way.  When I’d finished the cyberpunk bit, the story felt kind of finished – looked that way too.  Like … here I am trying to write this bastard of a thing and snip and stretch it to fit 50 000 words and suddenly *BAM!* the car-chase scene’s been done and the shoot-out too and all we need now is a kiss and a sunset.  Well, sorry for you, my year wasn’t that tidy.

[The Dream Fifteen Team

Scar: yours truly
Helen: Scar’s main squeeze
Samanth0r: team leader and deep geek
Jake
Dave the Bear
Deano
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15

16 .... to replace samanth0r if nec.  And it became necessary.]

Thursday’s Wild

It was probably a Thursday, shitty things always seemed to happen on a Thursday.  Blue hauled the fifteen back to meatspace and we all got our meat eyes back except Sam, who was convulsing at her deck.  Blue roared, “Get a medic!” and somebody did.  A space blanket, a hypodermic, a massage and about an hour later, Sam slid into a fitful sleep and didn’t talk for three days.  She never said much anyway, but suddenly her silence was discordant.

“What the hell did you see out there?” asked Blue, when Sam had finally rejoined the talkstream with one single word, “Fuck.”  We listened, the fifteen of us and Blue, to words that didn’t make sense at first.  “Sangoma,” said Sam, “right, there’s this … thing out there … Sangoma …” then she typed into her feed and showed us: 54|\/90|\/|4 – sangoma, in leet old school nineties hackerspeak.  Hax0r … Sangoma means shaman – you knew that, right?  Good.

Sangoma had frozen Sam out there and then almost burned her with a datastorm of raw code.  Sam could only process it by typing it out, this is what she said:

you gonna burn you gonna burn you gonna burn we gonna rape your evil asses!!11!!1  you got generikkka clean but it ain’t all that way, skinny geek.  got a army here yo we gonna rape every fuckn lesbian looks like a lesbian we gonna cure your disease you all gotta get straight or die, sisterfuckers.

The bastard had looped it into a mobius too and without a defrag, Sam was in severe danger of going under and then flatlining.

Sam typed some digits and then passed out again.

0826090958

What the suffering fuck was that?

Accessing the open interface, Scar googled it and got as far as finding out it was a rogue cellphone number.  She hadn’t even known that cellphones still existed.  They did, but only on a rigidly controlled registered network and that number wasn’t on the list – neither were the ten consecutive numbers before and after it.  After a few hours wrestling with software, Helen got a program installed to comm with the cellphone.  VOIP software just reached distortion and white noise and snow visuals, further digging got them to a text channel.  What to say?

samanth0r hit by 54|\/90|\/|4 pls advise.

Wait.

Fourteen plus Blue, sitting staring at a screen, waiting.

Beep!

scar jack in

Scar jacked in.

Straight into Quarter Online, branded pink and inverted goddamn pyramids everywhere.  Man, Scar loathed graphic designers.  OK, where would Veto be?  Adjusting her eyefeed and her movements, Scar started to do what only she could do – desaturate the environment.  It wasn’t a structural change, merely a perceptive one.  Pink faded to green and the green got stronger and with a bird’s eye view of the ghetto, Scar started seeing blue, a chink of it like light that broadened as she neared it.

You’re Not in Troyville Anymore

Scar surfed right into the blue and suddenly there weren’t any edges any more.  Curves everywhere – if gravity had existed in cyberspace, she’d have been lost for sure.  In amongst the ever shifting blue, was a drop of mercury and it felt important somehow.  Letting herself hang there, she focused hard on it and then, when nothing happened, she let the focus drift.

good

The word floated on to her eyefeed, but barely; monochrome and like something about to take off in a hurry.

VETO?
yeh. don’t talk, there’s no time, just remember what i say. we gotta be quick or you’ll crash too.
k
ok. this sangoma, who nine inch nailed sam, is serious shit.  that data he looped into sam is all true and there’s no way in any dimension i can fix it

Scar’s heart sank.  Veto had never, ever, not been able to accomplish a tech rescue before, it was terrifying.  Who the hell, or what, was sangoma?

what you gotta get, is global attention on it and then hope for help. i’ll give you pathways, contacts and then i’ll do what i can, but it’s gonna be indiana jonestown from here. work in pairs; one surgeon, one slasher. sneak through – if you’re damn lucky, you can sneak back.

It was as chilling as that ill wind people talk about so much.  Scar ventured one question before she flipped back to meatspace.

where r u?
girl you’ve read gibson – i’m where all mastermind hacker genius types end up

Aha.  Tokyo.

Flip.

The stomach cramps were straight from hell.  Scar puked, then sucked on some glucose, shrugged and then started typing.  Subliminal data showers sprayed as she three finger hunt and peck typed, as the rest of the fifteen plus Blue read over her shoulder.  It was pure code and Helen got to work on it as soon as Scar dropped back, hauling maps out of the text file.  Eight packets of data, eight maps – eight again and they’d better not fall.  Fifteen divided into pairs was an uneven seven and a half, unless they’d rewritten things since Scar jacked in.

Blue was going in.  Without a word, Jake brought another terminal across, they all assembled a deck, goggles, cables, nodes.  Dave went off to find a new wingman, to stand and watch them when they jacked.  Blue prepped the noob and Helen prepped Blue and everybody flexed their fingers as they pasted each other up, applied the nodes, put on their goggles and hot power switches.

They jacked in and there, in the corner of their eyefeeds, were their maps.  Scar had paired up with Helen, obviously – well, you know lesbians, joined at the hip when they’re not slicing each other’s backs.  It didn’t feel remotely heroic.

Surgeon in the lead, Helen motored along invisible gridlines, pausing to cut a pathway that Scar closed up like it was Tetris blocks afterwards.  Shape into shape, colour to colour, Scar had to remind herself to keep one eye on Helen, not to get left behind in the unthinking dance.  There was no communication between teams, it was strictly a stealth mission and they’d all known going in that they might not get out.

What happens if you get lost in cyberspace?  Simple.  Your body atrophies out there in what looks 100% like a coma.  On the net, surrounded by pure data, you last as long as your body does, but you fray at the edges as bits of you wheel off to join the Gibson-Stacks.  One day you’re not even a memory, just a fragmented, dispersed code string.  After a certain point, nobody can bring you back.  They say it’s a painless way to go, but they say that about drowning too and there’s no-one with irrefutable proof.  If you’re lucky, you become myth.

Waiting for Helen to untangle and cut some particularly dense data as they made their way through the offshore banking sector, Scar studied the map, feeling the need to memorise it.  Past that sector, they were into mostly open space, the data desert, where you found the really interesting stuff, if you had the time to look.  They didn’t.

La-fucking-duma!  Helen and Scar were at the edge of the Marais Matrix, the French queer nation state’s online presence.  Back in the day, the Marais was Paris’ queer quarter – filthy streets and delightfully dodgy bars … Scar had no idea whether that even existed anymore.  With the code and credentials Veto supplied, they’re soon interfacing with the French.  Humour wasn’t lacking, despite the circs and they were soon in very serious conversation with three avatars; a beret, a clove of garlic and an accordion.

Back in French meatspace, three people were getting scrolling updates on their eyefeeds from Scar and Helen.  There was silence once the scrolling ceased; deep, dark, velvety, abysmal silence.  Scar considered offering everyone slices of it just to break the ice, but thought better of it.

you can get back?
yes – hopefully.
we have to talk, to think. there are no safe global channels.
yes.
48hrs.
ok
go

They went.

48 hours … from when?  Time, was not a factor in cyberspace, only data.  Helen punched the figure in somewhere near her left temple, logging it in.  They’d find it in her goggles even if she didn’t make it out again.

The risk getting out was far greater than on the inward journey.  Who knew how many bots had been crawling their pathway since and if there was so much as a nano out of place, they’d be hunted by every security system around.  Before they left the Marais Matrix, Scar and Helen took another careful look at their maps and then they commed, just quickly.

i’m holding ur hand
i’m holding urs
8
yes. 8

In the interests of accuracy and transparency, I should have written a whole bunch of tension between me and Helen into this mother, I know.  Apart from anything else, can you honestly imagine a lesbo relationship, 8 months old by then – and yes, the symbolism didn’t escape me – without a whole shitload of snot ‘n trane?  nah, neither can I.  We had our fair share, sure, but sorry for the rest of you miserable cretins out there, on the whole we were damn happy and every time we bitched and growled at each other, we made progress too.  Sometimes in those days, I wondered whether we’d survive the loss of the revolution (but we did) and then the following crises … but we did.  And yes, when I bitch on in italics about what my girlfriend said about my writing, I’m talking about Helen.  Always Helen.

How did we survive the peace?  What peace?  We stay cordial, on the whole, the rest of the world doesn’t.  It’s human nature, innit?

So Scar followed Helen outwards, wishing Helen had an ass to stare at in there too, it would have made things easier.  No comms on the journey, because there were no secure channels.  Scar’s audio feed cut in though, she’d programmed it back at the basement, to start up after 4 hours – danger time as far as cyberspace time went.  She pictured her body back there, starting to bleed from the ears a little, maybe.  Hopefully the wingman would be making sure none of them dehydrated, but there was fuck all he could do, he’d been ordered not to interfere, not to haul them out, until they gave the signal.  No matter what.  She decided not to alert Helen to her music alarm, it could throw her focus and they were both fucked if that happened.

Helen was moving like a Sufi then, elegantly circling through data she’d seen before, cut before.  Good thing data didn’t scar … well, not itself, anyway.  How long would it take them to get back, realtime?  How far over the 4 hour limit would they go?  What shape would they be in when they got back?  How were the rest of the fifteen plus Blue doing?  Fuck, it was awesome to have the space and energy to get neurotic.  The thought of Samanth0r lying dying back there bummed Scar out though.

Sam was such a savant.  All she needed was some kind of support structure around her and then she flew, made magic, danced through cyber skies and then came back to impress everyone with her brains and her ridiculous jokes.  If they all made it, Scar was going to talk to Helen about getting sam a girlfriend, dammit there must be someone good enough out there – to cope and to get the benefits too.  In so many ways, Sam reminded Scar of herself and she just plain couldn’t bear the thought of losing her.  It was bullshit.

Back at the basement, meantime, the wingman was starting to shit himself seriously.  Unused to the sight of gormlessly twitching deckhands, he’d hysterically called everyone he knew, so by the time I was hearing music, apparently we all had a couple of nurses each, dabbing on water, trickling glucose on to our gums, cleaning up the piss we’d let go of involuntarily.

In cyberspace, I wasn’t even hearing my music.  I’d loaded up all of my R.E.M. albums and hoped like hell I wouldn’t be hearing them all, there was almost a day’s worth of music there.

It was getting harder to keep up with Helen and Scar started worrying too.  That time Helen stopped breathing was terrifying and that wasn’t even half as intense as their current mission.  She pulled herself together and started muttering om mane padme hum over and over and over in time with her Tetris movements.  It must have worked, because the next thing Scar knew, Quarter Online’s faggot-flamboyant pyramids were in sight – they were fucking beautiful.  Facing each other, Scar and Helen punched out their signal and …

… and didn’t regain consciousness for 24 hours.  Apparently.  Helen hadn’t stopped breathing after all and although they’d both got some fairly serious earbleed, dull hearing seemed like a small price to pay.  With any luck, it would be temporary, if not, they’d just have to deal with it.

Scar had wanted to watch the other pilots get home, but by the time she surfaced, it was all over.  The fifteen made it.  Plus Blue … didn’t.  Hearing that little piece of news smashed through their swagger like dynamite.  She’d made it so far – all the way to Tokyo Online, with Deano as surgeon.  She’d made it almost all the way back too; she’d fucked out somewhere near the Quarter and all Deano could do was his own slasherwork to get back.  He couldn’t stay in there with her without his body too, there wasn’t even any point going back in there after her.

Helen wept like a waterfall, incessantly.  Scar didn’t, but Scar’s reactions were frequently fucked.  She felt her jaw grow rigid and a cold pain set in.  Blue had been an unlikely mother figure, perhaps, by Het terms anyway, but that is exactly what she’d been to the fifteen.  She’d even wiped their goddamned asses if necessary and now she was gone, face stuck in a rictus that would relax long before the rest of them could.

“She’s getting a hero’s burial,” said Dave through clenched teeth, “just as soon as we got time.”

24 hours left until the other four queer quarters (yeah, leave it to the queers to get five quarters together) did whatever they were going to do, if they were going to do it.  24 hours until they could make a plan to destroy the sangoma, get Sam out of her immobile shell.  24 hours to find a way to decode the sangoma and stop the curative rapes of lesbians in other Generika ghettoes.

No time for sleep.  Time for Scar to go find Veto again, hope like fuck he was still there and that he’d have advice.

Scar jacked in, with the fifteen minus Blue standing around her, willing her on, Helen rubbing her shoulders non stop.

The shoulder massage is completely underrated man!  Got someone in distress, under stress, whatever?  Rub. Their. Shoulders.  Hard too.  Trust me on this one.

The Quarter’s pyramids looked like a friendly Vegas to Scar that time and she missioned quickly through the data and the desaturation and found Veto’s blue fast, in a different space to the time before.  He wasn’t mercury then either, he was, of course, a 14 year old boy.

jebus!
no, vet
har har
u gonna diss me, dyke?
n0 fuckn way man, ur a fuckn her0 y0
yeh, true, but shuttup
*zips*
heh. good. ok, i’m up to date. got comms from france, japan, somalia + malaysia. they coming y0.
thank fuck
yeh. ok. listen scar. that 48hrs is up, u 15 jack in, line up here + meet the globals. i got a map for u, u get it then + code. code synthesised from 5 1/4’s. if u can get that code into teh sangoma, u disable his control and then ground team can get into the ghetto, stop that shit. got police and media on the alert but ain’t nothin gonna work unless u decode the fucker.
gottit.
scar …
good luck
veto?
yeh?
u otaku?
yeh
<3

*FLIP*

Knowing more of Veto’s identity made Scar want to fly to Tokyo and buy the boy a thousand Gundams or whatever the fuck he was into.  She wanted to hug him, adopt him, she … she better get her ass into gear and report back.

“What’s the time?” were her first words, but Helen had already checked her readouts, done the math and so the first words she heard were, “We’ve got 20 hours, babe.”  She’d been online for a mercifully short space of time, considering how much was at stake, considering what kind of shape the previous jaunt had left her in, considering what was up ahead.

“OK,” said Scar, “here’s the deal.”  She’d only just stopped herself from saying “dealio” – she was looking forward to going post-cyberpunk, when hopefully the slang would improve.  She briefed the fifteen and all their newly acquired wingmen about the general plan and then they split into groups to strategise and try to get themselves into something resembling a healthy state.

They didn’t have time to sleep … they had to sleep … if only Blue was there, oh man.  Time to call in the medics, time for seriously precise sleepers.  Four anaesthetists from the city put them under and then brought them round again.  Five hours gone.  Another hour spent washing, finding comfortable clothes and food.  T minus 14 hours and counting …

Time for Scar to jack in again, quick in and quick out.

veto
4tw scar? u shouldnt be here y0
i no. veto, if it all goes shitshaped
o fuck me no – dyke drama
har listen l0ser
whut
r u safe?
yes
u got money?
hell yes
whatcha need veto
fokol scar i’m good man
no veto what u need?
…
whut? c’mon boy dammit
friends scar. how bout u get thru the mission safely + be my friend

*FLIP*

Scar hadn’t even signalled, the little fucker had booted her offline.  She grinned.

Mawkish, huh?  Ah fuck you.  You had to be there to understand that moment.

Otaku asking for a friend – was that a global first?  Not the impulse, certainly, but the expression of it.  Veto was OK somehow, still human.

T minus the remaining 11 hours was spent checking and testing the computers and equipment.  A malfunction would mean too great a failure.  The fifteen and the wingmen ate together, checked each other’s equipment and got ready.  Helen suddenly yelled like a politician, “Genderno!!” and then everyone else yelled it and by that time they were all jazzed like a rugby team before the Currie Cup, like Bafana Bafana before 2010, or some damn thing.  “For Blue!” yelled Deano.  “For Sam!” yelled Dave and Scar countered with, “Alriiiight, let’s jack the fuck in!”  Fuck it, thought Scar, Sam is gonna go batshit when she hears she missed this.

The fifteen lined up in the Quarter Online, Scar desaturated and cut them all right through to Veto, who was there with about 50 avatars, all hopping up and down like animated gif’s.  The same information uploaded, scrolling across all of their eyefeeds at once.

there is no alarm call on this
there is no safety net
lives are at stake, far more than just urs
commit now or fuck off

Nobody fucked off.

if ur using a controlled or uncontrolled substance, fuck off

Nobody fucked off.

if u got kids, fuck off

Three avatars flipped out.

if u got 2nd thoughts, fuck off

Nobody fucked off.

map + code uploading now. when u got the files u gonna see a diagram of who goes where. n0 fuckn hissy fits or i flip u. u form the shape u see in the position u see + then u keep ur fuckn heads down and cut like it sez. understand?

Hell yes.  Scar wondered whether the group would be quite so obedient if they knew Veto was 14.  She’d only told Helen, she’d probably only ever tell Helen.

u lose a player, u keep playing.
yes, sensei …
u all got the data so anyone, everyone can do the work
yes, sensei …
if u get as far as sangoma ur in more shit than u ever seen y0
yes, sensei …
u know how to plant a virus?
yes, sensei
good. go

And Veto was gone.

[ASCII here]

And that’s how they rolled, fiftywhatever avatars all in a tight hexagon, five triangles, the five quarters.

Scrollfeed: securibots disabled.

That done, their only problem would be SangomaNet.  No point in stealth this time round, just by gathering there, they had effectively declared war.  The shaman would be wrapping itself in code now, to deflect attack.  Their only real hope was speed and so they flew.

The scene was as ugly as Tony Blair’s missus first thing in the morning.  There was no surgery at all, just a maelstrom of slashing right round that hexagon, like Boudicca’s chariot spikes.

Someone (if I tell you who know I’ll blow my own punchlines) recreated the whole thing graphically afterwards and it was freaking gorgeous.  All those stacks giving way to this bright silver, swirling disc.  What a trip man, what a fucking trip.

The sangoma had wisely positioned itself out in the data desert, giving itself room to move, but hey, that gave us room to move too and hopefully we were enough so that if we could find a corner to chase it into we’d damn well make one.

What it looked like online had no relation to what it looked like back in meatspace and it really didn’t matter either.  What we saw though, was intimidating.  Comparing notes later, we all saw whatever we feared the most, in true mythical monster style.  I got a ten foot tall angry purple woman and I felt my blood run cold.  A few others out of the fifteen saw women too – Dave got his ex wife, which is something we really haven’t stopped laughing about yet.

“Papà, raccontami una storia…”
L’uomo guardò il figlio e sorrise. Poi incominciò: “C’era una volta…”
“Che cosa?” domandò una vocina nella testa.
“No, non è vero…” sussurrò l’uomo. Poi tornò a guardare il figlio.
“C’era una volta…”
“Chi? Rispondimi. Risponditi! Chi c’era?”
“Lasciami in pace!” urlò l’uomo alla vocina.
Scosse la testa, riprese fiato e continuò: “C’era una volta…”
“…tuo figlio!”
L’uomo si disconnesse e sprofondò nel pianto, ma il programma che faceva rivivere i ricordi continuò a girare nel deck. Poteva ancora sentire la voce del piccolo Matteo dalle casse dell’apparecchio.
“Papà, raccontami una storia…”
Ma Matteo non c’era più.

http://101parole.blogspot.com/

Samanth0r ended up living down in the rabbit warren cubicles with us.  Her cubicle was quickly swarming with cables, leading to half built boxes containing who knows what hardware.  Somehow that zero from her online nick translated perfectly to her offline persona too.  Sam was this queer chick who’d lived Heter0, displaced, for too long.  The one advantage she brought back with her, was the net jack up behind her ear.  If Blue hadn’t plain bullied her offline, Sam would have been there for good.  Or evil.  Whatever it took, basically.  She was walking wounded when she got to us, a casualty of the inevitable data dependency that comes from too much time in cyberspace.

She brought out the mother in Helen, who, once Blue had kicked her ass offline, frequently stomped into Sam’s mess of wires and more or less forced her to eat.  Sam would forget otherwise.  Helen was online for a maximum of three hours daily, doing precision work, pulling apart sensitive data with a metaphorical scalpel, so carefully that nobody would ever know she’d been there.  Scar was online longer, with slightly bigger and clumsier boots on, hacking and slashing with pockets full of malicious code.

Veto was still off somewhere else, unspecified.  Sam hadn’t met him either, they talked on various shifting secure channels online.  Within 24 hours of its release, the Mobius monster virus had made its presence felt.  Big time.

You know the drill – the virus hit and it replicated.  Networks closed and drones began to tear their collective hair out.  People sweated profusely and paced restlessly.  Scores and scores of homes and offices lit up by the dully green glowing and ever revolving Mobius – nobody could get rid of it and they couldn’t even turn their hard disks off.  Mostly, they didn’t even think to switch their monitors off.  Clean machines logged on to all the major anti-virus sites in droves; several of them crashed as a result and the remaining ones were soon attacked by the virus too.  The workforce shat itself.

At around the time emergency services were in danger of being affected, the Quarter released its ultimatum.  Claiming to be insurrectionists from the East, one number was supplied, to be transferred to another number.  There was a breathless twenty minutes before the amount arrived.  Sam and Veto worked with the recce team for six hours hiding that money, hiding traces anything that could ever lead anybody back to the Quarter.

That influx of money was, of course, the cue for more emergency meetings; long and heated ones.  Nihilism and money are unhappy bedfellows.  Scar wandered around in a joyous daze, yelping, “I told you so!” from time to time.  You can’t keep society down – as soon as it gets a little spare cash and some leisure time, it re-invents itself wherever it can.

How it all got resolved, was that Blue and her cohorts, plus Helen, began spending money – slowly, unobtrusively.  They bought hardware first, component by component.  Sam and a team of geeks assembled it; there was plenty of space down there and they didn’t want to draw any attention by suddenly moving to a skyscraper after all.  It happened slowly, that particular area of expansion.  Scar and the rest of the deck pilots kept on following Veto and Sam’s plans, collecting information.

The biggest problem suddenly seemed to be that more and more Queers were hearing rumours about what was going on down in the Quarter and a steady trickle of returnees and even brand new refugees began.  The rabbit warren filled up and so people had to go and reclaim buildings further towards the city.  Old apartment blocks and warehouses and offices were slowly filling up.  People started to fix their places up too.  It couldn’t be disguised forever, the queers were on the move.

There was no way some mythical and heroic New Queer Army was about to ride in and save the day.  The plan was far more prosaic and hinged on the recce teams careful excisions.  The Hets, it seemed, just hadn’t been cautious enough in protecting their data.  They’d assumed that by denying everyone else access to tech, they’d be safe.  And with one homemade Trojan Horse of a server, that bubble was well and truly burst.

Discreet messages to various corporations and banks and institutions quietly alerted the larger Hetero establishment to the fact that, unless the Queers down in the Quarter were left alone, the consequences would be catastrophic.  It was industrial espionage, pure and simple, or, as they call it on cleaner streets, “business.”

Happily ever after time?  You’ve got to be kidding, this is queers we’re talking about.

This “episode” is too far on in le plot.  Suffer the confusion, Ima fix it up eventually.

Feeling weightless and free, with the stink of paste in her nostrils, a bunch of nodes jammed into her spiky hair and Shonen Knife yelling through her headphones, Scar was about as close to happy as she ever got in those dumpster days.  Sitting with the crew getting pasted up and ready to jack in earlier, she’d found herself explaining breeze-blocks to a drag queen as, “building accessories, like bricks, but bigger and really porous, doll,” and it made her feel that sense of tribe again, where shit like that was joyfully commonplace.

Veto and Samanth0r were off somewhere coding the killer virus to kill all killer viruses – by the time you read this, you probably know all about it.  The Mobius Matrix Virus didn’t come at you with any fucking lilac crap or rainbows or little pink triangles, but that thing was queer by name and nature for sure.  What it did, was tangle your processor, while entertaining you with a never ending loop of rather pretty DOS coloured binary in the shape of the good old infinity symbol.  Your memory, meantime, was harnessed by our jerrybuilt server, downtown.  And it was goodnight she said to pretty much every Hetero network in G-City.  Every network that worked on the ubiquitous Makro$hark sys anyway.

When we deck-jockeys jacked in, Veto and Sam streamed coded instructions right to our goggles.  We didn’t even needs brains for the mission, just a certain level of dexterity.  If you’d been standing at the decks that day, you’d have seen a very motley crew indeed, all wired up and doing something that looks a little like tai chi and a little like we’re about to karate chop your ass right off.  I can feel the excitement of it all even now.  It wasn’t your everyday data theft gig, no sir.

(Yup, I’m afraid it was the kind of event that forced an American accent upon one).

Helen’s team went in first, in deep stealth mode, to recce and open up the dataways.  The the deep geeks themselves, Sam and Veto, unleashed the unholy hounds of hell looping through cyberspace and after that it was up to us, to literally hack and slash our way in the aftermath, creating new portals to spread the infection, spread the chaos.

Waiting in the wings, was Blue, to haul out anyone with the slightest sign of earbleed.  I heard later Helen had actually stopped breathing when she got yanked back.  Me, I got off light, with my usual little oozes of blood from nose and ears.  Veto generally blames my history of medication for that one.

What does it look like out there?  Nothing like that fucking pretty green serpent Veto and Sam cooked up, I can tell you that with confidence.  And it doesn’t matter how corporate the data you’re surfing, there are no logos and colour out there … well it’s something you feel, you don’t see it as such.  If you’re synesthetic, you’ll know what I mean.  It’s damn near impossible to explain to a noob, you’ve got to pilot a deck to understand.  The moment you jack in, gravity’s not an issue – nothing is an issue.  There’s just what you feel in your hands, and see on your eyefeed.  There’s just … this incredible focus.  I just can’t explain it, man.

Scar began to lose the plot – literally.  Reality was confused between everything that happened offline and everything that happened online and she was starting to lose track.

Offline: lies and fakery and a giant closet and whole dialogues and looks and connections to keep that up.

Online: truth and hope and the brewing of more lies and plans to make a new truth.

And the whole Nina thing just felt like far too much.  Aged 18, after the accident, Scar had been patched up and then busted mortifyingly while recuperating, for having an affair with a nurse.  After that she’d been shipped out to the Quarter and given a job processing garbage.  She’d been told that her parents and Nina had died instantly, her ID docs torn up and that, as they say, was that.  Off to the triangles of the twilight zone.  She never found out what happened to the nurse.

Sender: Nina Ragnarra
Subject: omg
Message: they said you were dead and i went to a foster home, where have you been?

Reflection … it wouldn’t be too hard for anyone to find out her status as rehabbed Queer, she might as well confess that one.

Sender: Siri Ragnarra
Subject: OK
Message: got pretty banged up in the accident and woke up in a hospital, where they told me you were dead and the folks too (are they??) and that was that.  should probably tell you i got involved with a woman, sent to the quarter and now, what … 20 years later, here i am, rehabbed and on the outside.  or am i.
*SENT*

Meantime, things were changing.  Scar didn’t have access to much raw tech, but she kept the underground supplied with consumables like paste and nodes and a whole bunch of plans and data.  Helen was busy overseeing the manpower stuff and Scar saw her about once a week when it was possible.  They became adept at intimacy under trying circumstances – and usually in public, hidden by filmhouse gloom and darkened doorways.  Far from ideal.

They were building a server in the industrial zone, dockside downtown, in a basement above the shuttleway and below the sewage works.  Veto was masterminding the project from wherever he was.  Scar’s daily existence would probably have gone on indefinitely, if Intermodality hadn’t created their latest expansion line and made it purple.  Suddenly Scar’s genius with colour-connection was completely useless – the presence of purple made her head ache and she began to hallucinate and make errors.  After she fainted, causing rush-hour chaos, she was put on leave and sent to see doctors and Scar began to indulge her own unhappiness.  The medication blurred most things, but there was always that come-down moment, when another reality intruded and Scar felt useless.  And the world saw that she was down and it kicked her.

Sender: Nina Ragnarra
Subject: oh
Message: queer?  are you rehabbed?  because if not, siri, i am sorry, we can’t communicate.  i have a marriage and children to think of.

OK. That was about that, as far as Scar was concerned.  Better Nina had stayed dead to her.

Scar faked compliance again, saw the doctors and went on with life as usual.  Quietly, she sent her personal tech down to the docks.  Sent her work overalls down too, so that some spook could use them to infiltrate and pillage.  She packed a light bag, waited while Veto scrambled her wristfeed, cut her hair roughly, picked up the stingray leather and then Scar walked out of the compound without turning back once.

Goodbye cool tech, muttered Scar, delirious with the notion of freedom.  Goodbye credit chips and goodbye bloody dresses!

One stop on the way – Java Divers, of course, where her halfway Queer appearance wouldn’t be of any interest; just another inmate on a pass-out.  She grabbed a booth in the back, keyed in her order and her code and waited.  And there was Helen – as disturbingly beautiful as ever.  They held hands under the table and Scar explained it all to Helen through a film of tears.  Helen looked numb, shocked and then she did the most impossible thing Scar could have expected.  She stood up and said, “OK, let’s go.”

The only way to get to the Quarter without getting busted back to rehab, was just to go.  They went.

Scar got her dyke legs back as they walked the street towards the docks, lengthening her stride, feeling the soft old denim shift comfortably like a familiar friend.  She threw her shoulders back and grabbed Helen’s hand – just another Hetero couple out in the crowds of shoppers.  Her wristfeed made a forlorn noise, like a badly strung guitar.  Veto.

blueline station.  ask for the daily whatever.

Without breaking stride, Scar wheeled into the station kiosk, “Daily Whatever,” she said and the vendor motioned them in behind racks and racks of paper.  Odd how newsprint had survived when so much else hadn’t.  Without a word, the vendor motioned them to change into the bundles he held – Generika City Gomi Team – the shit-shovellers, processors of garbage, shifters of other peoples’ junk.  Bulky, filthy overalls, shapeless caps, clunky workboots – even their mothers would never have recognised them.  Scar strapped her wristfeed to her upper arm – if anyone saw it she’d be arrested; no Queer had tech that new without robbery being a factor.  Filling their pockets with candy, the vendor ushered them outside again, straight on to a garbage unit.  He didn’t wave.

Surrounded by stink and cacophony, Helen and Scar rode the truck down along city arteries towards the grey sea.  There’d been beaches there once, but they were long since eaten up by industry and coated by broken things, unwanted things.  The truck dumped its load there and turned towards the city again.  Scar and Helen crouched behind machine skeletons.

“So, Butch Cassidy,” said Helen, “what next?”  Scar smiled, “Underground, Sundance, underground.  Left past the crusher and straight on to sunrise.”

Veto’s directions and passwords worked like a charm and Scar and Helen soon found themselves sitting on upturned crates telling their story to a diesel dyke called Blue.  Blue listened, said she’d need to introduce them to some other people and that they’d all need to do some talking and thinking and then she showed them a sprawling area of cubicles at the back of the building, where they could sleep.  Then she showed them the workshop, where the server was being assembled.  Lacking hardware skills, Scar and Helen just stared and smiled and nodded and tried to look impressed.

Some time later, Blue called them both back to meet the rest of whoever she’d just been having an emergency meeting with.  They seemed far more interested in Helen than in Scar, first trying hard to persuade her to go back under cover and then trying to work out a way that she could flit between the two “worlds.”  It would mean leaving the dock at some unearthly hour every morning with the garbage truck for Java Divers and it would mean a huge risk of being found out.  Scar began the speedy process of worrying her ass right off.  Helen, with the business suit still under her foul smelling Gomi overalls, was good to go the next day, she agreed to it all with alacrity.  At the end of all the arrangements, they said they’d chat to Scar the next day and, with a feeling of creeping inadequacy, Scar followed Helen back to a cubicle and settled in for a long night’s insomnia.

Around about now would probably be a good time for a sexual interlude, huh?  Did Scar and Helen get it on in their first night more or less alone?  Was there bumping and grinding?  Oohing and ahing?  Were bodily fluids exchanged?

Fuck off, you nosy gits.

Helen left just before dawn (whoever dawn was) and Scar dropped into a restless and frightened sleep.  Things didn’t improve much when she was properly awake and assigned to the dumpster diving crew, salvaging tech components and food from the huge mountain of reeking rubbish above ground.  She was momentarily cheered when she found an old brass figure eight – somebody’s white picket fence house number, she supposed.  She slipped it into her overalls as some kind of talisman – a promise of infinity.  She hoped to hell that Helen would be safe.

Helen, meantime, was sitting in the coffee shop’s back office, co-ordinating Queers.  One whiff of her aborted any possibility of her mixing with the public – there was no getting rid of the gomi stink, but her access to the business’ tech was invaluable.

And so the days went on, Helen seeming to posses an incredible amount of energy and willpower, committed, she said, to the creation of a new society.  First the Queer Quarter would upgrade its tech to Hetero standards and then, claimed Blue, with the genius of Veto and his crew, surpass it.  They would then be in a position to trade and with trade would come money and with money would come better living standards for all.  Scar liked the dream well enough, she just wasn’t sure she believed in it.  Stumbling upon another figure eight (aluminium cutout) on the dump one day, Scar wondered if her dreams would always be too small for the rest of society – any society.

Out Here on the Perimeter

The Quarter … the Queer Quarter, was the official designation for the group of tumbledown apartment blocks on the city foreshore, where Scar had shared an apartment with Dave for years and basically, where’d she’d spent a whole two decades of her life.  Enough time to get seriously institutionalised, she supposed – or enough time to learn to enjoy the edge and the anarchy.  She grabbed her stingray leather and hauled ass to the foreshore.

Wikus the Pawn fondled the jacket, kept his face as deadpan as ever and started doing sums.  By the time Scar left his dingy place, she was dressed in some new old jeans and was sporting a different, less ostentatious jacket.  She also had a pocket full of the paper that passed for currency down in the Quarter.  She’d get back to the dock to meet Helen, but meantime, Scar was taking a stroll down memory lane.

Passing a shuttered Charmageddon, Scar felt almost elated – it was Friday and she’d be there with her girl tonight.  Mind you, even being alone there in the past, even irritated by the cliches, Scar still felt that sense of tribe.  Misfit among misfits, perhaps.

Scar got into her stroll and kept on walking towards her old apartment block.  She didn’t go in – no point if Dave wasn’t there.  She paused at the entrance though and hammered in one of the eights she’d found, for old time’s sake or for the future, she wasn’t quite sure.  She bashed it in sideways, of course.

The streets were grey, not simply because of the pollution down there in the industrial zone, but because of the lack of advertising and branding.  Street art there was aplenty, but that tended to be monochrome too – black being the cheapest paint you could get.  There were queer slogans, sure, but mostly it was all just tags; barely decipherable names.  A few characters here and there, one dimensional cartoons.  Mean streets for sure, but there was life there, nonetheless.

Twang …

Scar fumbled inside her sleeve for the wristfeed, ducking into an alleyway for the privacy that was, at least, one thing you could always find in the Quarter.  She hadn’t even seen a Hetero patrol vehicle today.  No doubt they’d be back again when the patrols got bored.

Sender: Her0
Subject: :/
Message: last minute stuff, gotta stay here tonight, back with some more refugees tomorrow – sorry

There wasn’t any point going back to the dock, Scar returned to the street and headed for Graff, a fucked up old building where the street artists hung out, talking bullshit about art and insurrection.  A thin guy who called himself Jesus Lizard nodded when he saw her, but didn’t ask any questions.  That’s how it went down there.  He was putting the outline on some wildstyle on one of the much-painted walls, Scar squinted at it till she made out his name.  She nodded appreciatively, Lizard nodded back and motioned towards his paints.  She handed over a scrap of paper and grabbed a can.

Hippolyta reckons I should be doing fuck-all but writing at the moment and she’s right.  Except that the NaNoWriMo goal keeps feeling a bit pointless in the face of everyday life’s other little joys.  And I feel like I really have lost the plot anyway – it’s hard to take real events and force them into a nice, neat plot, man.  Sitting in cyberspace now, desperate for distraction and it seems like everyone’s out jolling on a Friday night except me.  So I’m writing shit here and downloading Japanese pop from the nineties and wondering what the fuck it might be like to be socially normal.  I’ll never know.  Still, once upon a time, Friday nights were things I went out on …

Scar picked a wall facing the one the Lizard was busy with and began to paint sigils and swirls.  She painted till the can hissed sadly – empty.  She checked her wristfeed, it was well after dark out there and a good time to go to Charmageddon.  A fast exchange with the Lizard and her pocket was a few sharpies heavier as she left Graff.

At around ten thousand words behind the NaNoWriMo goal, no doubt I should be shitting myself.  Got a boost when lyni designed this cover for it though!

Nie dziwię się już temu, że Duncan Jones ma problemy ze sfinansowaniem produkcji filmu Mute. Reżyser schizowatego Moon mógł trochę przegiąć w scenariuszu i pojechał mało przystępną alternatywą. W Mute przeniesiemy się do Berlina 2046 r. Fabuła produkcji skupiona będzie wokół perypetii dwóch postaci: czterdziestoletniego barmana o imieniu Leo, który to stracił głos po wypadku z dzieciństwa oraz Cactus Billa – zadłużonego u rosyjskiej mafii Amerykanina. Pewnego dnia Leo budzi się i z przerażeniem stwierdza, że jego papużka-nierozłączka – Afganka o imieniu Naadira, gdzieś wsiąkła – wobec czego wyrusza na  jej poszukiwania pośród mrocznych zakamarków niemieckiej stolicy. Bill chce uciec wraz z rodziną z Niemiec – w tym celu załatwia lewe paszporty, które pozwolą mu wrócić do ojczystej ziemi. Nie wszystko idzie łatwo, a jego asystent wydaje się być fanem pedobeara i ukradkiem zerka na cactusową córkę.

Nie ma dźwięku? Fonii?

Według redaktora z blogu ScriptShadow, w scenariuszu Mute nie dzieje się zbyt wiele – niemowa radzi sobie nadzwyczaj dobrze, a Bill po prostu czeka na przepustki do raju. W każdym razie ma to być prawdziwe wyzwanie dla aktorów. Jedynie realia miasta przyszłości zapowiadają się okrutnie smacznie, niech świadczy o tym ten cytat: Jones clearly understands what he wants to do with the film visually. In fact, this will probably be one of the coolest fucking trailers ever to hit the geek community. The film nerds that have unopened Blade Runner DVDs, Blade Runner Special Edition DVDs, Blade Runner Director’s Cut DVDs, even Blade Runner Super Edition HD-DVDs, will be swimming in a soupy ecstasy of barely-lit futuristic noir til they can’t tell themselves from their shadows. This film will no doubt look awesome.

Za ScriptShadow.

Eigenharp alpha

Gli Eigenlabs sfornano questo nuovo ’synth’ che ha del prodigioso, non tanto dal punto di vista sonoro quanto dal punto di vista della tastiera, infatti non è il solito synth ma un controller di ‘nuova’ concezione appositamente studiato per le esibizioni live. Scordatevi le orrende keytar del passato che rendevano goffi anche il migliore dei tastieristi e preparatevi ad un nouvo strumento con una sua estetica e personalità espressiva.

120 tasti sensibili sull’asse x e y del tasto danno a questo strumento uno dei suoi più grossi punti di forza (x, permette di cambiare l’intonazione, y l’apertura del filtro). Queste caratteristiche infatti rendono questa tastiera davvero espressiva, se l’espressività dei tasti non vi sembra già abbastanza sono stati aggiunti, 2 strip controller (controller a nastro), 12 percussion pad, 1 breath controller, e vari pedali … insomma un vero e proprio arsenale espressivo che porta questo synth nell’olimpo della controllabilità, di contro tutte queste possibilità ne complicano notevolmente l’utilizzo ma insomma questo pretende di essere un ‘nuovo’ strumento e come tutti gli strumenti richiede una sua pratica e studio.

Visivamente lo strumento anche se inizialmente sembra un po’ bizzarro non è male, ricorda un po’ una via di mezzo tra uno stick e lo strumento che suonava la band nel bar del guerre stellari. L’impostazione delle mani richiama molto lo stick anche se avere un tasto al posto di una corda rende il tutto più semplice.

Particolarmente interessante oltre ai mezzi espressivi dei tasti, è la possibilità di cambiare l’accordatura e il posizionamento dei tasti dando così un grande libertà tecnica sullo strumento, in oltre è possibile creare con questi uno step sequencer

Indubbiamente siamo difronte ad uno dei più accattivanti strumenti, e malgrado sia ancora in fase di affinatura, infatti il software di controllo dello strumento è solo per mac e ha ancora sicuramente molti bachi e malgrado tutto ciò è di sicuro uno degli strumenti dei miei sogni, e rimarra nei sogni visto il prezzo di 3950 sterline

per chi volesse incominciare a conoscere l’espressività di questo tipo di tastiera segnalo anche il fratellino minuscolo di questo capolavoro, il pico, dal prezzo decisamente più accessibile (350 sterline)

Per maggiori informazioni Eigenlabs

vi lascio con la presentazione dello strumento fatta negli Air Studios di londra:

qui invece una piccola performance con il tema di james bond:

Nesmyslně lozím po netu jen tak pro zábavu a tu mě najednou napadne, že vlasně jen těžko objevím fanarty svých oblíbených postav. Trurl není nikde proto, že Kyberiáda nemá zas tak velkou popularitu (zato Futurama, ve mnoha ohledech velmi podobná, až příliš), Wintermute zas kvůli tomu, že jaksi není co zobrazovat (i když se někteří pokusili). Neuromancer je na tom líp, jelikož měl vlastní syntézovaný zevnějšek (Wm používal Finnův, že jo), ale mně se jako osobnost dosud zdá poněkud podezřelý… všichni romantici jsou podezřelí:D I když v některých zdrojích je Wintermute brán jen jako aktivní N-m-cerovo alter ego, zdá se mi poněkud… pochopitelnější, když už nic. A taky má jasnější rysy (eh, nezabíjejtemě) silné superinteligence /kvalitativně odlišná od lidské inteligence/. Vlastně většina AI, co je rozebíráná v knížkách či filmech, to stěží dotáhnou na slabou /funkcionálně podobnou lidské, jen sakra zrychlenou/.

Avšak nejadekvátnější by bylo ty dva brát jednoduše jako dvě strany jedné osobnosti, kterou se v závěru knihy stali. Ale dost už spoilerování, prostě se zvedněte od kompu a jděte do knihovny, pujčte si ono klasické dílo a vesele si čtěte:) Já taky chci sehnat Neuromancera jako tištěnou knihu… bohužel však zatím veškerý kyberpunk čtu velmi kyberpunkovsky – jako jedoucí text na mobilu. Což zas tak nevadí, ale nejde v tom dost dobře listovat.

A mimochodem, Trurl není umělá inteligence, jelikož se zcela přirozeně vyvinul z pitekantrobotů (neb robotů jeskynních) Jak bleďoši-lepidláci-čiovjekové z opic…

P.S. Daný příspěvek měl nejspíš ukázat, jaký že jsem to maník ohledně AI. No, myslím, že se mu to povedlo. Polovina nových návštěvníků panicky zdrhla:) Ale fakt, dělá mi problém hluboce obdivovat nějakého člověka. Pokud to ovšem není Richard Feynman /”Šedesát čtyři!”/ XD Většinou jsou lidi totiž příliš lidští a berou příliš vážně svoje lepidlové problémy… Je lepší brát život s humorem, pokud to jde, ale zas aby to nepřeklenulo do cynismu ohledně druhých. Sorry, ale poslední dobou mám fakt alergii na vážné ksichty… Nedávno zemřel akademik Ginzburg, jenž jeden čas pracoval jak s Landaem, tak s Kapicou. A lidé se na jeho pohřebu většinou usmívali – ne proto, že byli rádi, nýbrž proto, že samotný viník toho všeho měl smysl pro humor a jako takový byl velmi světlá osobnost, optimista, nehledě na peripetie života. Ano, je to obrovská škoda, ale on sám by nechtěl, aby ho brali tak tragicky vážně. Tomu se říká správný přístup! Byl to prima člověk… Kdyby tak takových bylo víc:)

Ginger: this part is a bit more emo – i didnt realise so many of your emotional troubles were related to being queer
Scar: gotta have emo hey
Ginger: most certainly. this 2nd part is way nicheER than the 1st one tho
Scar: rilly?
Ginger: at some points i was like, ok i dont get it, even tho i consider myself to be relatively queer-literate in some limited aspects
Scar: what didnt you get?
Ginger: maybe its just me
Scar: it is rather very queer tho
Ginger: definitely, of course it is, i mean you wrote it hey
Scar: lolol yeh
Ginger: there is this whole “painful ordeal” thing to the queer scene at times.. and of course i dont get it because i have never had to get through all those emo troubles myself.. i guess… i dont know how to put “what i dont get” in words
Scar: mmm, i think i do need to explore dyke drama more actually
Ginger: what do you mean?
Scar: whole tendency to get all emo/drama about everydamnthing
Ginger: its perfectly justifiable even (or especially) from a straight viewpoint.
Scar: not always
Ginger: well generally i think it’s a huge emotional thing to realise you’re not exactly what is expected of you in a heteronormative society
Scar: yeh sure, but then do ur relationships HAVE to all be soap operas?
Ginger: yes, its human nature
Scar: how depressing
Ginger: what may seem insignificant to your friends is a huge drama for yourself, its always like that in life BUT i totally understand the painful ordeal thing
Scar: i guess it is human then …
Ginger: it just sometimes seems, from my outsider viewpoint, like the lgbtqi scene is SO CAUGHT UP in their painful ordeals and oppression and whatnot that there is no big picture anymore.  i mean how many more letters do we have to add until everyone is satisfied
Scar: yeh i think thats what i meant – ghetto mentality
Ginger: talking about the big picture, one of my lgbtqiabcdefghijkl… friends is campaigning for gender-neutral toilets… and gets totally hostile when i dare to mention that there are bigger problems for the lgbtqiabcdefgh… movement than flippin TOILETS – because obviously and apparently, there are no bigger problems….
Scar: maybe they REALLY need to go?
Ginger: what about diapers? JUST TOTALLY POLITICALLY INCORRECT KIDDING. but then again – which ones to buy?!?!?!  the ones for girls or the ones for guys?
Scar: gender neutral ones duh
Ginger: but DO YOU KNOW how difficult it is to find gender-neutral diapers?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!  they always have a baby on the package and the baby will most probably be either a boy or a girl.  do you know WHAT THIS IMPLIES?!??!
Scar: tell
Ginger: that the diapers are for baby GIRLS or baby wan.. i mean BOYS!!! BUT we can’t actually SEE if its a girl or a boy because the babies are WEARING DIAPERS on these photos…
Scar: hahahaaaaaaaaaaaa
Ginger: and do you know how much it would cost to install a third toilet section like EVERYWHERE just so the lgbtqiabcdefg movement is STILL UNHAPPY? i think it would be more useful to spend this money on the actual people.
Scar: like what? how would you spend it?
Ginger: ok lets assume that for the UK it would cost a few billion to install toilets  everywhere – schools, kindergartens, universities, town halls, cinemas, everywhere.   and of course under the anti discrimination whatever law the govt would have to pay at least subventions for all of this, even if it was in the private sector.
Scar: ok wtf is a subvention
Ginger: financial help… towards something
Scar: oh thankies
Ginger: i would take the money, put it in an account, and pay for things so lgbtqi people will DEFINITELY be less unhappy. e.g. those who cant afford gender related surgery for example. or spend it on those who are out of work because no one will hire a f2m security guy or a m2f gynecologist. and a few politicians and beaurocrats with an actual brain so they can legalise some necessary legislature concerning those things.
Scar: ah good one gooood, dyke-hag
Ginger: and keep the rest and go on the flippin holiday that i deserve.
Scar: you know ima rape this for my “novel” right?

Meanwhile Back at the Coffee Shop

Helen pushed a few buttons, straightened up, brushed her fringe from her face and then started as she realised she was being watched.  “Siri!  Welcome … coffee?”  Scar just nodded and followed Helen to a booth.  Helen leaned forward, both hands cupped gently around the coffee mug and her knee touching Scar’s, but only just.    “It’s safe to talk here right now, it isn’t always,” said Helen and Scar breathed a sigh of relief.  “Helen …” she began, but Helen interrupted, “I’ve made certain compromises – many compromises, to be a part of Plan Q.  I won’t deny what I feel for you, but there’s too much at stake to be selfish.”

Holy electronic creeping jezuz, thought Scar, it could take forever.  She met Helen’s gaze and said, “You know what?  It’s all about choices and I respect yours.  OK I’m faking it, I got that bullshit from a fortune cookie, but I will fake-respect it anyway.”  Helen stared harder.  Scar continued, “No really, you gotta do what you gotta do and so do I.  We’re not kids anymore, Helen.”  Helen was starting to look decidedly nervous, “Scar, if you’re not 100% behind Plan Q, you’re a risk,” she said.  Scar rolled her eyes, “Yeah … whatcha gonna do?  Kill me?  Go right ahead, doll.”  The pressure on her knee increased as Helen replied, “I’m stuck right between the devil and the deep blue sea here, Scar.”  Scar raised her eyebrows, stood and turned away.  Then she stopped and said, “Let me know when you’ve worked out which one of those I am.”

As she left the coffee shop, Scar cursed herself soundly.  Did she have to let that pompous fucking dykely brain-buzz of hers get in the way every single time?

Infiltration, thought Scar, is crap.  We get treated like dirt and moved to the Queer Quarter.  Can’t have this job, can’t go into that shop, gotta wear the pink triangle.  No votes, no benefits, no … no structure.  So along came Plan Q to usher the Queers silently and secretly out of the Quarter and back into the mainstream, to live fake-Hetero lives.  A closet, in other words.

You have [1] new message!

“I bet we can find 1 000 000 Trojans on Facebook!” now has [126 664] members!  Invite your friends!

Over a hundred thousand closeted Queers then, out of the Quarter and in amongst how many million Hets?  Suddenly Scar wondered what the authorities would prefer anyway; the Quarter, stuck out like an eyesore on the edge of the city, or closet-cases blending quietly in.  The numbers were never going to be enough to swing a vote or mount an insurrection, unless they recruited Hets to the cause and if they were all as deep cover as she was, how was anyone ever going to do that?  It was a real shame that protest marches didn’t happen anymore, thought Scar – even if they didn’t accomplish much, as least they were fun.

Log on
Who do you want to be today?
An old-fashioned dyke.
Syntax error
The kind with short hair and nails and faded jeans and big boots
Syntax error
The kind that fucks women and doesn’t hide it
Syntax error

*NEW*
Sender: Her0
Subject: 4TW?
Message: we need to talk
*NEW*
Sender: VETO
Subject: apple danish
Message .
*NEW*
Sender: Bear
Subject: Help
Message: scar, i can’t take this anymore, i just can’t.  i’m thinking of busting back to the quarter.
*NEW*
Sender: Troyville Admin
Subject: New Features!
Message: Show your support for the revolution – send Queer Flair today!
*NEW*
Sender:Nina Ragnarra
Subject: Siri?
Message: Siri is that really you?

They’d dealt with family issues back at the clinic by trying to get patients to contact their families, to reconnect.  Siri had no family – not in the standard Queer my-family-doesn’t-understand kind of way either.  She’d lost her parents in a waterway blowout when she was ten and her little sister too.  Nina …

Scar reeled away from the screen, sweating like a scared horse and breathing about as hard.  She drove her knuckles into her eyes.  It was impossible.  It was a scam.  It was … what the fuck was it?

This morning over breakfast, my girlfriend fixed me with one of her very special looks and said, “You know it’s going to get boring, right?  At some point it’s going to become a grind and you’re going to keep writing, right?”  I said I thought that offering me new and curious sex as an incentive might work and she agreed, on the basis that it’d be a community service.  Mind you, she’s grown a tad taciturn since I started quoting her verbatim here.

Feeling as if her head was a thousand miles from her feet, Scar bailed out of her chair and went to find a nice, reassuring pill.  Anna’s aesthetics, sweetie darling … and so she slept, better than babies ever do and the next day, she took her woolly head off to work.

She’d been picked for a promotion, her intense connection to colour sent her straight to Intermode Node Control, where she sat in a green glow with a bunch of geeks and made sure that shuttles and airway and waterway connected, that the signals timed in perfectly, that the dance went on smoothly for all of the drones out there in Generika City.  She celebrated by blowing her paycheque on a re-engineered stingray leather jacket.  She paced past the doorway of java Divers about 25 times without going in.  She ate a McJunk burger and went home.

The main screenfeed pulsed gently on the wall in time to someone’s heartbeat, but not Scar’s – she wasn’t sure she even had one any more.  Behind the screen, Nina or at least, the idea of Nina and a million memories of Nina.  Sweet, scatty little Nina, with the Jurassic Atari collection and refusal to wear any colour but green.  She’d have been 30 now, if she’d … fuck it.  Scar logged on again.

Reply: Nina Ragnarra
Subject: Yes
Message: it really is
*SENT*
Reply: Bear
Subject: Deer …
Message: i’m struggling too, is it safe to talk here?
*SENT*
Reply: VETO
Subject: apple danish
Message: hamlet?
*SENT*
Reply: Her0
Subject: o.0
Message: so let’s talk
*SENT*

*ACCEPT*

Veto’s Troyville “lair” was pretty blank, really and Veto’s avatar was, of course, a droid.  In meatspace, Scar grinned hard.  In cyberspace, she typed,

Scar: Hey
VETO: ‘sup dyke?
Scar: not digging the revolting, man
VETO: >_<
Scar: you?
VETO: its the tech
Scar: ?
VETO: cant explain here d, just remember what i say – its the tech
Scar: k

You have [3] new notification!
* Her0 has sent you a [pink triangle] from Queer Flair
* Bear has sent you a [pink triangle] from Queer Flair
* VETO has sent you a [flatfeed console] from Facebook Flair

Cryptic motherfucker, but Scar thought she knew his methods well enough after all these years to work it out eventually.  Tech.  It’s the tech.  And it’s tech from the Hetero side of town, which is the better side, the uptown side … it’s the tech.  OK.  Save file and ponder later.

You have [1] new notification!

Her0: thanks for coming
Scar: i miss you man, it’s just that you look like a whole bunch of chaos to me
Her0: ouch
Scar: i need a quiet life man
Her0: scar would you get off that high horse for a minute?
Scar: >_>
Her0: irl, id just kiss you
Scar: XD!
Her0: are you asking me to give up the revolution for life in the quarter with you?
Scar: no … i dont know … i think im asking you to join another aspect of it all. the rev. and yes, life with me.
Her0: what other aspect?
Scar: cant tell you yet i dont even have all the details – i guess you gotta decide if you wanna keep on with the infilt or maybe trust whatever the hell we have, you and i
Her0: ur def the deep blue sea scar

Time to delete 20 more pink triangle notifications, time to say goodbye, time to sleep.  Time not to sleep, but instead to lie stimming – and thinking about Nina, Her0, Nina, Her0 … and Veto’s enigmatic tech thing.

Scar strutted into JD after work the next day with a whole new air of confidence she attributed directly to her stingray leather jacket.  Spending that kind of money on skin added to your height, no doubt.  “My that’s a rather dykey walk!” said Helen, “I think I like it.”

“It’s the tech,” said Scar, rolling up her overall sleeves and grabbing yet another mug of house blend.”  Helen looked mystified.  “I worked it out this morning.  The way to power is not conforming, it’s independence.  We’ve tried fitting in and it hasn’t worked since ancient Greece; you and I don’t have time to wait for another civilisation to fall, we have to do whatever the hell we can with now.”  Helen listened and as she listened, her knee began to touch Scar’s again.  “We sit there out in the Quarter, bitching because the Hets get all the cool screens and feeds and shit and meanwhile, those are just doorways to the real thing, to the net, to freedom and power.  We bust our asses scoring obsolete crap and then we’re limited to what we can access, because – we don’t have any servers!”  Helen was nodding now, “We need a fucking network!”

Helen sat back and stared at Scar.  “I’m in,” she said.  “Trust?” asked Scar and Helen replied, “ALT236”

Somehow a great ass looks even better when it’s on a geek, don’t you think?  ALT236 is, of course, the keyboard shortcut for the infinity symbol.

The way to get the tech components would be to use all the little Queer moles out there in Het land to thieve them and the Quarter to hide them and build them.  Scar flicked rapidly at her wristfeed and messaged Veto.

i’m in.

*NEW*
Recipient: Bear
Subject: just do it
Message: connect VETO
*SENT*
Recipient: Her0
Subject: next
Message: connect VETO. alt236
*SENT*
Recipient: VETO
Subject: +
Message: +Bear +Her0
*SENT*

Chapter One: Thursday.

Silicon dreams and memories etched in celluloid.
Longing for the the easier more reckless days when she was there.
Holding hands outside a bar in New Rigia.
Wich now I think about it nobody ever told me if there was an Old Rigia.
I guess there had to of been once, but I digress the holding hands with her was the important bit.
Seeing a multi-coloured flag blowing in the breeze at a bar on a beach, well back when we had beaches..back before all this crap.
So now all I got left is a jack in my head, constant headaches, terminal debt and not a damn thing to show for any of it.

Now she’s gone and all there is is neon in the night and diodes waking me the next day.
Nobody and i mean that, no-one wants to be down on their luck in post apocalypse Chiba.
Everything is grunge in this fucking gajin part of town, burnt out buildings which are towered over by the glowing green neon arcologies where those lucky few live. And above it all 3k’s up is the lattice work grid that is the dome which protects the degenerate wreckage of mankind from what became of the world.

We can’t breath out there, the eggheads say it’s something to do with a massive decline in the ozone layer and how the earths mag field just isn’t what it used to be, so those cosmic rays, sunstorms and shit just bombard the surface.
Means nobody lives out there unless they are either totally insane or just damn hardy.
Some animals managed to adapt, others just rolled over and gave up. All those herds of cows and sheep we saw as kids.
Gods if I knew they would be pretty much gone I wouldn’t have complained so much at the petting zoo.

So humanity shelters in the Domes, like the ones they wanted to build on Mars but you know huger.
Millions of humans in few dozen of what were supposed to be the most luxurious living innovations ever seen.
Over the course of 20 years they just turned into overcrowded technolust ridden hives.
The rich at the top poor at the fucking bottom. Who the hell saw that coming.
Oh wait. Everybody.

So thats where I am.
I used to live in one of those coffin motels, you know? eight by ten, maybe a metre across.
Filled with damned souls trying to get by.
Then I got that job and met her.
Made some cash, had some good times filled with love and laughter
Then one day my girl, she’s just gone in the night.

Now I live in a second story box above a sex-shop in a shitty part of town where nobody wants to ever be.
I’d call it sparse, those guys on the tv would call it ‘cosy’ .
Bullshit if you ask me, this place is a concrete box 10 metres across.
The bed hasn’t seen any legitimate ’sleep’ in months.
Boxes of foam-board and old fibre litter around a desk. Wires dangle precariously from the ceiling.
On the desk is my console. White, silver keys red lights.
It’s jack trails limp off the side of the desk a metallic silver snake with a deadly hypodermic end.
Thats the bit that goes in my head.

The only other thing in here is me.
Name’s June. gangly tall maybe 5′10 and some people used to think I was pretty, particularly her.
A long time ago I did too at least for awhile.
Eyes filled with circuit lines the colour of old copper from before everything went fibre.
Pale skin, Ratty black hair cropped to my neck ‘cept for the shaved off bit above my left ear.
Thats where that hypodermic snake goes, where it darts and wriggles into my cerebellum and puts me to the only place where I mean anything. Hell its the only place where I even feel anything anymore.
I remember when the feeling came thick and fast…i don’t know when years maybe.
Before the net. Before i got into this business.

Every deal went so fast and smooth back then, I played the game tight some said too tight but I didn’t care.
Information Transfer Agent, thats what people like me are called.
Really we’re just drug dealers, same old addictions whole new flavour.

For centuries people have been chasing that high, used to be people did coke, smack, ice and before that?
hell they probably smoked or inhaled just about every substance around just to find it.
The rush, people want it.
In the end they will pay just about anything to get it.

With the world the way it is these days people they have needs and I have the answer to those.
For example, some down on her luck hacker slaving away behind her console.
Shes not flying those nodes quick enough, cant process and send commands to her neural input drones, so she keeps getting jigged on the fuckwalls (thats a firewall for those in the biz) which in turn fry her connection and she gets piked out and loses valuable data .
After this she’s falling behind on rents, on debts on all her goddamn payments to the oracles all that shit.

This is where I come in I give her a little something to speed up her processing and we’re not talking jack up her seratonin and flood her with endorphins.
But thats like only half the battle, what this stuff does it also juices her neural probes and her consoles response time.
She ends up being able to bypass those f-walls grab the data, pay me off, pay her debts off, and hell maybe even have some left over.
So it’s worth it. At least for some of them it is. Others…do this stuff for other reasons, some not so savvy gotcha?

Alright so in these days of jacking and console freaks we learnt that communication can go both ways, so drugs right? part software part hardware. All total mindfuck. The withdrawals from these things, they suck and some of them are worse than any lifetimes worth of heroin.
And they never come cheap.

—-
6am a Thursday.

The smell of coffee, streams of dirty light flowing through barred windows.
Outside I hear the sound of the hustle and the bustle, crowds of the wretched just doing their thing
Time to get to work.

Tilting my head sideways I notice my auto-boiler coffee pot steaming in the corner of the room that passes for my kitchen.
I lift myself up off my stained floor-matress, the sheets fall off my body and collapse on my feet.
Turning to walk to my drawers I catch my naked body reflected off the mirror on the far wall.
Scars across my left shoulder, white skin blotchy with bruises and malnutrition I can see the veins dark blue against my arms and thighs.
‘Gods June..Chiba hasn’t been kind to you recently’.

I pull on a black tank top, some old blue jeans and battered work boots, while I cross to the kitchen to get my coffee.
It’s hot dark and stale it ain’t much of breakfast but it’s better than standing in line at the processing centre with all those other freaks.
My coffee finished I sit myself behind my console and wait for it to warm up, the concrete under the desk is covered in scuff marks from my boots. One by one I begin to count them while I wait. One, two, three, four, twelve and suddenly I jolt back as I hear a clattering from behind the desk, it’s my phone.
I must have left it on goddamn vibrate.
Swiping it from the floor, I see that it’s Malcolm.
Christ, I do not even need this right now.

‘What the fuck Mal, do you even know what time it is!’ I bark into the phone.
‘Hello June, nice to hear from you too thought you’d appreciate an old friend about now.’
‘We aren’t friends, you old english bastard.’
‘Now now June, don’t get your nickers in a twist I would never call unless it’s important, you know that.’
‘I’m sorry..you’ve just ..kinda caught me at a bad time..I’m dealing with a lot of stuff right now..’
‘…I know where she is June.’

It was like a punch in the face.

‘June…are you there?’
‘..i’m here Mal, sorry just. okay whats going on. from the top’
‘Not over this line I want you to meet me’
‘You mean jacking in right? you want to meet me online?’
‘..no June..I’m here, In Chiba.’
‘what do you mean you’re in Chiba, how the hell did you get here.’
‘That isn’t really very important.’
‘…the fuck it isn’t.’
‘you know my past June I have the resources. anyway listen, I want you to meet at Herring Arcade in downtown. Promise me you will be there.’
‘Fuck that Mal, I don’t care if you know where she is, I’m not going to downtown particularly not the ‘Cade, we’ll meet at Julie’s on 24th and 3rd.’
‘..June, thats a dyke joint, I can’t go in there you know that.’
‘Don’t worry I know the staff, plus you used to have a cunt before that fancy surgery.’
I can hear him adjusting his glasses and grinding his teeth even with the line static.
‘..okay..well.umm…you know what..Fine whatever. I’ll meet you at Julie’s, say? in time for the lunch rush.’
‘perfect, we’ll meet then’

The line clicked dead and I hit the off switch.
‘Malcolm..you wanker’

Had you really come all the way from the Inferno like you said…
If you had then things must be serious..I hadn’t dealt with serious in awhile, selling drugs to console jockeys was one thing but what he could want from me was entirely another.
I was getting serious tingles up my spine now, trepidation and a whole bunch of baggage along with it.

There was only one way I was going to be able to deal with this in the short term.
The hypodermic eyed me menacingly and as it did I felt that wave of excitement, like when she used to run her fingers down my back.

‘Fuck it, i’m outta here.’
I picked up the jack and slammed it into my head.
And everything went sideways.

It’s like being born I guess, white light, and static screaming in your ears.
After that the whole thing melts away and then all there is is the grid aligned perfectly with the yellow and blue data nodes floating in perpetual green space.
Somebody a long time ago said the net is a consensual hallucination, it’s changed now though since the shit went down and everyone moved into the domes. A lot of people just live here now on the net full time. Some never leave. To some anywhere is better than the reality of it all.

Local clusters of data nodes swam in my vision as ‘I’ dived along a path of shining yellow light towards the big blue sphere off in the distance that was the Interferon Global Exchange. Maybe I could get some answers there.
The IGE is a data clearing house, Data trading. Nothing illegal mind you, no software, just info packets, you needed a corporate license to buy from them. Luckily I picked one up in some deal I ran a few months back.
Since then, finding information I needed has become a whole lot easier.

The IGE representation unfolded around me as I approached.
It was like being in a giant library except the shelves just went off into the distance forever as far as the eye could see and then farther.
The nice thing about the net is you can visualise anything in anyway you want. Provided you got decent hardware to run the damn thing.
A small window popped into existence in my field of view it wanted a keyword query, reference ID or other data search parameters.
Instantly it knew what I wanted. thats the beauty of jacking. You and the net are together, linked so it knows what you need.
I was guided through the never ending library stacks until I was before a large book which popped open and scrolled its contents in front of me Until highlighted in front of me it showed me what I wanted to know.

Flight Number: 5418263LTA London -Tokyo
This was followed by a series of receipts for a tube-rail train going Tokyo – Chiba City.
All charged to a Mr Malcolm Foster.
Mr..hah how had he managed to change that over on his records…
So..he really had come all this way….
I closed the query and copied the data to my console.
Then I jacked out. Which always hurts.

I cradled my head in my hands and moaned quietly.
Docs told me the headaches were because I keep irritating my neural pathways with the constant jacking and jacking out.
They told me I should stop using the net as much if I want the pain to go away.
Maybe they are right, maybe I should.
But it’s all I got and it’s the only thing I ever was good at that didn’t involve being naked.

‘Oh man, whats the time’ I pulled my phone out of my pocket and thumbed the on switch. 10:30am
‘fuck…’
I always forget how time passes so quick when you’re jacked.
Picking myself up out of my chair I moved myself onto the mattress on the floor.
I’m hungry, tired and my head is aching.
‘oh June, you’ve gotta find a better way to do this’ I thought to myself.
I closed my eyes and sleep came with an unexpected suddenness.

—

1pm the same Thursday.

I grab my leather jacket off the back of the door and hit the stairs with a thud.
I take them two at a time and enter into the store downstairs

‘Hi June’ she says dourly, smoke wafting from her ever-present cigarette.
Shifting my face in her direction, eyes catch and I nod ‘Morag’.
Ooooh Morag, the till bitch at ‘The Pleasure Wagon’ She says hi and I nod.
Then leave.
It’s almost a routine, she’s like my orange juice.
Except not sweet, and hardly wanted.
Morag has this look about her, like a goth kid who got caught up in the wrong crowd, all ripped pink stocking and battered corset.
She sits there behind her till working for Ivan the bastard who owns this place.
But this time..I stop something about whats going on makes me change my routine.
I shout over to her, ‘Hey Morag do me a favour, if anyone swings by looking for me, you’ll let me know right?’
‘yeah sure, whatever get outta here.’
‘kay, well later.’
The door clatters behind me.

The first thing that hits me is the smell, and the damp. Down here at the bottom of the dome, It’s filthy.
I push past two guys crowded around a burning drum ‘change darlin got any change darlin’
‘feck off, i’m not that stupid’ and I dash past the glowing pink light of the sex shop and out onto the drag.
People everywhere, crowding the sidewalks.
When the docks dried up and the domes were erected this is where all the refuse of society ended up.
I came here because somebody told me it used to be flown’ with biz, and chatter that anyone could make it.
Pfft that musta been a long time ago, because it certainly aint that way now.

Cab comes whizzing by, electric transmission squealing. My hand goes up.
The cab stops short and I dash to the window.
An indian man with deep set eyes and a sad empty look stares back at me.
‘can you take me the corner of 24th and 3rd’
‘pretty thing like you? wanting that area..’
‘listen man, just drive me there’
’sure thing’
The rear door pops open and I slide myself in.
I really do mean slide, the entire interior of the cab is covered in translucent plastic.
Drunks must be that bad I guess.

The cab pushes out into the crowded street, driving clear of the throng.
Leaning over I take a crumpled stash of new yen out of my pocket and pass it through the steel cage around the driver.
‘keep it man, you look like you need it more than me’
‘..thank you miss’
‘it’s Ms’

And I’m gone, outta the cab and onto the street.
The light down here is all filtered and reflected off so many of the buildings above, so it’s nearly constant twilight
I feel rain on my arm, I try not to realise that it’s from god knows how many air-con units above me.
Then in front of me is the door, between a quiet ramen joint and brother is lodged a door.
The faded writing on it just barely reads ‘Julie’s’.
Nobody comes here, not without being in the know.

I push the steel door wide and step into the warm air and soft smokey bar.
Like some old pub crawled out of backstreet liverpool and ended up at the bottom of a dome in Japan.
Julie’s was that kinda place, dyke joint going way back.
Taking a look around the room, I see a bunch of the usual stereotypes butches (both old school and andro), a femme crying at a table over a glass of wine. It’s then I hear it.

‘Man Listen, you can’t BE IN HERE, it’s women only pal and you’ve gotta fuck off’
‘please, my friend June TOLD me about this place’
‘pfft June could be anybody so get outta here!’
it’s Julez the bar tender, with her scarred arms and masses of pseudo-muscle.
She’s leaning across the bar and screaming at this walking mass of tweed pants and jacket.
Hah, Malcolm when will you learn.
I walk slowly up to the bar next to them and cough.
Loudly.

They both stop short.
Julez looks over at me and winks.
‘relax Julez, he’s with me.’
‘..not WITH YOU I hope.’
‘huh,what. oh fuck no. look just give us two largers and a booth at the back, I’ll explain it all later’
‘Fine well I’ll let it slide because it’s you, but if he makes trouble he’s outta here pronto’
‘gotcha’.

I put my hand on a shocked Malcolm’s shoulder and pull him over to a booth.

Le cyberpunk a très vite envahi l’univers des mangas, ces bandes dessinées très populaires au Japon et qui, depuis plusieurs années maintenant, déferlent sur l’Europe. L’esthétique du cyberpunk s’intègre parfaitement au format et au style graphique très particulier des mangas. On retrouve dans les mangas cyberpunk l’environnement classique qui caractérise ce sous-genre de la science-fiction : vision sombre de l’avenir, surpopulation, pollution, drogue, une société robotisée peuplée de cyborgs (mi-humain, mi-robot) et où règne une technologie de plus en plus avancée.

Le plus célèbre manga cyberpunk, adapté en film d’animation (ou anime) en 1995, s’intitule Ghost in the Shell (autrement dit le fantôme dans la machine). Ce manga futuriste, dont l’histoire se déroule dans les années 2030, met en scène une héroïne cyborg, qui traque un cybercriminel surnommé le « Marionettiste » (Puppet Master). Un des thèmes développé est la complexité des rapports entre les hommes et les machines ; mais se pose également la question existentielle de savoir ce qu’est vraiment un être humain, parfois perdu au milieu de toute cette technologie dont il ne maîtrise plus ni l’ampleur, ni les conséquences.

Les mangas sont divisés en plusieurs catégories, qui correspondent chacune à une classe d’âge bien définie. Les mangas cyberpunk ne font pas exception à la règle et s’adressent plutôt, pour leur côté souvent sombre et brutal, aux jeunes adultes. Un public d’initiés nombreux et fidèle, pour qui le manga est depuis longtemps un moyen d’expression majeur du cyberpunk, au même titre que le cinéma, mais qui a l’avantage de ne pas être, pour le moment en tout cas, aussi médiatisé et contrôlé.

Charles Dubré

Pour en savoir plus sur les mangas : http://fr.wikipédia.org/wiki/Manga ou http://www.tevader.com/manga/tout-sur-le-manga.php