Terminal Two - Ninth Episode: The Elocution Will Not Be Televised
By rokkitnite
- 1205 reads
A bank of flickering black-and-white monitors to Delphine's left told her far more than she wanted to know about the world; she yearned for the day when forty images of flaming ruins cut one by one to snow. By means of a large plastic dial she could tune into any of the live audio feeds and eavesdrop on conversations from all over the city. Underwhelmed by the spectacle of an old lady struggling to tug a reluctant scrape-knuckled goblin into the playroom on the end of a silver chain, she swivelled to face the glowing info-wall and began cranking through frequencies, headphones wailing with torqued static and the hackneyed laments of the damned.
A wide-angle shot from inside the Syphilis Barracks showed environmental suits hanging like sausage skins from the City Peace production line. In jerking procession each halted before a transparent vat that resembled a giant blender, a fat nozzle twist-locking into an aperture at the back of the neck seal. A conspiracy of clear jellyfish tubework pumped in salmon-pink golem-paste, suit spasming like a revelation-struck mystic as its flaccid fingers lengthened and swelled. In little over ten seconds, the nozzle clunked loose, suit transformed to a doughy sack of nascent Peace-matter. The production line then carried it swaying through a corridor of heat panels, where its innards hardened and set like shit in a kiln. At the far end of the production hall, fresh-baked troops were unhooking themselves, snatching a SafeStave from the wall-rack then marching down an exit tunnel, ready to do battle with Maranaloka's surfeit of undesirables.
On another screen the picture jiggled and warped with chronophysical interference as one of several gravity-buffered hovercams maintained a constant ' if semi-scrambled ' watch on the Slow Bomb.
Like the Truce Kewpie, the Slow Bomb was an unfortunate by-product of the Distraction Wars; the work of Military engineers and Maranaloka's finest ChronoMages, it was, as one wag observed post-launch, ahead of its time, and everybody chuckled until he added that it would certainly destroy the entire city and there was nothing, but nothing, they could do to stop it.
Inspired by roadkill, the Slow Bomb design team sought to induce in their targets the same fizzy-headed catatonia that pins a small furry mammal in place until truck wheels splat it to a five foot streak of viscera. By manipulating chronophysics to simulate the time-distorting psychological effects of sudden existential terror, they hoped to paralyse the enemy in a vortex of panicked indecision, allowing ground troops to go in and pick them off like practice dummies. The Slow Bomb's real genius was its reusability ' hollow as a choco bunny, it was designed to clunk harmlessly back into normal time on impact, ready to be picked up and aimed at a fresh target. During flight, a self-perpetuating chronobuffer rendered it impervious to attack or tampering ' hyper-entropic tides gobbled anything that tried to penetrate its swirling time field.
Of course there was an almighty balls-up: upon spying the Slow Bomb's empty casing pre-launch, a fuddle-skulled apprentice (since hurled from the city via trebuchet) mistakenly wired in components meant for an ApocaLypstick Rocket; the weight discrepancy only became apparent when, on take-off, the weapon boomeranged through one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, black nosecone tilting until it pointed back at its creators like the reprimanding forefinger of God. Moments later, its chronomechanism kicked in, sealing megatons of heavily-rouged destruction into the Maranaloka skyline.
Some hasty calculations led Government engineers to conclude that, skewed by extra mass, the Slow Bomb's descent would take fifty years ' whereupon it would level the city.
The Council of Thirteen convened and agreed unanimously that a period of fact-finding and consultation was in order; a decade and a half later, the only tangible thing produced by this exercise was a white paper upon which the disconsolate author had scrawled 'WE'RE FUCKED' before using his braces to hang himself.
Maranaloka citizenry on the other hand remained sanguine about the whole affair. To the design team's surprise, instead of startling people to rubbery-limbed torpor, the Slow Bomb inflicted only fleeting sensations of nauseous dread, then vanished from perception altogether. Further tests indicated that the majority of citizens seemed literally unable to see it, even when gazing at the weapon directly through field glasses. Neural scans of the afflicted revealed whole deadened sections of brain where synaptic activity resembled a game of Pong. In apparent compensation, the pleasure-related neuron cluster known as the nucleus accumbens had swollen in the manner of tree-fungus; test subjects were shown swing-chairs and their brains lit up like pinball machines. The few unfortunates capable of discerning the Slow Bomb's looming threat were dismissed by the public as freaks ' which, statistically speaking, was accurate. City Hall breathed a collective sigh of relief and gave everyone a free bagel toaster.
Dialling through a tumult of sonic nonsense, Delphine caught the name 'Firework' and froze. She wound back till the fuzz bottomed out into dialogue:
'¦ so he says, "Know her? Mate, I'm married to her!'
Silence.
'So who says? Columpton what in Jenkins' name are you talking about?'
'Search me guv ' that's the only bit I remember. It's a joke, innit.'
'Do I sound amused?'
'Hard to tell on this line.'
'Well have a guess.'
'I'm a squirt-cosher, not a cycle-cologist.'
Delphine Twelve began frantically scanning the monitor bank for the corresponding visual.
'Yes¦ How did you pass the Bar Exam, by the way?'
'Three years of desiccated study, guv.'
A blast of snorty derision. 'Ah. So pleased you and humour aren't wholly estranged.'
'I always fancied doing stand-up. I got a natural rapport with crowds.'
'If by "crowds you mean "idiocy then yes, you're practically conjoined.'
'Here, I had a shufti round that Phase Vault. D'you know there's a body in there?'
'I'm not paying you to be idly surprised at life's mundanities. Did you find the box, or has this entire exchange been a cruel exercise in circumlocution?'
'I knew a guy used to go down Lump Street Bathhouse had one of them circumlocutions done when he was born. He said what you never had you don't miss. I mean I'm not a poof or nuffink but you can't help having a-'
'Columpton, my patience is stretched so thin it's practically translucent. Don't think that your catching Klaus Firework makes me hold you in some kind of rarefied awe.' Delphine Twelve spat a gobful of Contempo-Soda into her crotch. 'It merely emphasises the fact that the man is severely brain-damaged and many years past his prime.'
'Yeah, the geezer ain't much to look at. Tell you the truth I'm a bit disappointed. I heard Klaus Firework was made out of bees and could burst your bonce just by saying, "pop.'
'Well, thank whatever interventionist deity watches over cretins that you were misinformed, eh?'
'I got him here now, guv. You want me to put him on?'
'Is he secure?'
'As houses. All trussed up and nowhere to go! Here Firework! The gaffer wants a word!'
A muffled rustling as of ten livid shrews in a haversack. Delphine cursed with incomparable venom and verve as she hurried to thread a reel-to-reel audio tape onto the metal pins. Her forefinger hit record just as the tirade broke loose.
'Jones you ribbon-mawed flibbertigibbet I ought to buy you the longest tie in the world then feed the fat end into a wood-chipper! If Eskimos lived on your dank behind they'd have fifty words for stupid bastard you quasi-sentient crap-slough! You want to know how much hate I've got for you right now? You want to know? I'm spitting tongues of flame here Jones, I'm like a fucking tyre fire and you know what? Watching the charred flesh drop piece by piece from your butt-ugly skeleton as you swivel on a spit over the burning remnants of everything you've ever owned won't even begin to quench the Force 10 fucking shitstorm of loathing I've got brewing in my guts! You're an asshole Jones! You're a goddamn haemorrhoid farm! Your breath's like spoiled cheese in a morgue! You're like rolling over in bed and finding a crushed puppy on the warm spot! How d'you manage a fuck-up this colossal, huh? I'll bet every time that cheap carriage clock you call a brain grinds out a thought the mean intelligence of the universe drops several percent! Are you listening Jones? I want you to die the slowest most painful death karma's ever meted out while the whole world ignores you, you rotary-eyed schmuck! I ought to yank out your tongue, cram you into a beer keg then roll it downstairs and pay kids to whack the crap out of it with cricket bats! I ought to drown you in cat puke! Goddamnit Jones if you don't tell your spherical goon here to let me and Teeb go I swear I'll travel back to when you were a baby and stamp on your weird little head!'
'Afternoon, Solicitor.'
'Don't tickle my balls, you crotch-sniffing chucklehead! Just hurry up and tell the hired meat he's got the wrong guy! Been calling me Firework for damn near three hours now, the nearsighted moron! Don't they hand out eyes at Monkey School?'
'Columpton is¦ not the most refined of odd-jobsmen.'
'Cut with the social gravy, Fleshbroker! Me and Teeb want out of this limping fiasco and we want our goddamn code-arm back!'
'¦ "and we want our goddamn code-arm back,' mimicked Brahmini in a nasal falsetto. 'Do shut up, Solicitor. I'm more likely to be entertained by a swift clout round the noggin with a stringless ukulele than by your monotonous hamster-wheel twitterings. You have served your meagre purpose, leading my assistant to the Phase Vault, providing the relevant codes, and now, quite frankly, I can no longer be arsed to tolerate your dearth of elocution. Put Columpton back on, would you?'
'Okay Jones, I'm listening.'
'No. I said hand the phone back to Columpton.'
'Hmm¦ Sure¦ Yup, yup¦'
'Yes, all right. Very funny. Put Columpton on.'
'Is that so? Okay¦ No, no¦ Go on¦'
'Oh for the love of Jenkins. Must you be so childish?'
'You don't say? Wow¦ You don't say?'
'Please put my assistant on.'
'Yeah¦ No, I think that's true¦ Yeah¦'
'Put my assistant on.'
'Ha ha ha! You know that happened to a niece of mine once.'
'GET OFF THE LINE THIS INSTANT!'
'No, no¦ I'm not bored. I could go on listening to you all afternoon. Please, continue¦ Hmm¦ Hmm¦'
'I'll have your balls in a vice before sundown. Good day.'
And the audio clicked dead.
Delphine was on the booth mike in a heartbeat. 'Control ' get a techie in here pronto and patch me through to the Barracks.' She flipped a brace of switches and the wall-speaker hissed into life.
'Vice-Foreman Schulz here.'
'Listen up pinhead ' I'm going to need five-hundred Peace ready to move out within the hour.'
'What? B-b-but Madam Twelve, that's completely-'
'Shall we just skip straight to the bit where you nervously agree, knowing that failure means grisly evisceration broadcast to millions via the magic of television?'
'You're utterly without conscience, Ma'am.'
'So revile me. Twelve out.'
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