outside w/ laptop
oh medley of stars frogs, crickets, and cicadas my alien hum
exuvia
cicada shell weird exuvia through and through welcoming new yous
climb brand new
full moon eyes and cries at the strange men with the couch now i climb brand new
carrion priorities
what was your last thought before you turned carrion what did you love most
The Ugly Organ Is the Brain
The Ugly Organ is the most self-loathing album I have ever heard in my life, and I love it.
The album starts with a slide of organ keys into a carnival melody that sounds like riding a merry-go-round on the second circle of hell—“The Ugly Organist”—complete with faint screaming that builds to a shrill fever pitch before being abruptly cut off by four angry cracks of a snare drum into a burst of discordant guitars asphyxiated by an oppressive cello being bowed at breakneck speed. Within the barely two-minute runtime of “Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand,” Tim Kasher sings—atop frantic cello, organ fire, and violent drums—over 150 words comparing himself to a hypocritical reverend who “spews his sweet and salty sermon on the audience” whilst not following a single word of his own advice; Kasher then asks himself: “Why do I think I’m any different? I’ve been making money on my indifference.”
“Sing along, I'm on the ugly organ again. Sing along, I'm on the ugly organ, so let's begin.”
This is the crux of the record: a vicious attack on the self. The Ugly Organ is a record that hates itself—and I mean, really hates itself—led by a frontman who despises everything that he’s doing and more, which is namely selling his own heartache via records and show tickets, drawing inspiration from his own recent bitter divorce#1 and sometimes just manufacturing his own misfortune, all to keep the fans screaming his band's name at shows, which makes him feel sick. And even though he hates himself for it, he keeps doing it anyway. The Ugly Organ is an exploration of the concept of selling out, told from the perspective of a self-aware sellout who wants to stop selling out but just can’t help himself. The Ugly Organ is an album about creating art not for yourself, but for others—for fame, fortune, and validation. This is a concept album through and through, written as a tragedy to be performed on a stage, with each sorry track transitioning into the next like one scene to another. But it’s not just a concept album—it's a message that any artist can relate to. It feels autobiographical. It feels deeply personal. It feels real.
“A couple hymns of confession, and songs that recognize our sick obsessions.”
“Some Red Handed Sleight of Hand” flows into “Art is Hard,” and this is where the gloves come off and all is laid bare. “Art is Hard” fully utilizes Gretta Cohn’s mastery of the cello to create a bleak baroque tragedy, like looking into a circus mirror and seeing only a twisted monster staring back—a twisted monster that claims they’re an artist but is actually a total fraud playing pretend. Kasher yells scathing rebukes in the third person, but he's not kidding anyone; he proclaims that he “falls in love to fail, to boost his CD sales” and that “the crowds may be catching on to the self-inflicted songs” and that he has to “sink to swim” and that he has to keep “regurgitating sorry tales about a boy who sells his love affairs” and that he has to “impersonate greater persons” because “we all know art is hard when we don’t know who we are,” because, at the end of the day, when you get on the stage and the crowd screams your name—“Oh, Cursive is so cool!”—it all just feels so good, and you are driven to repeat yourself over and over. This is all laced with thick irony, and wrapped in both post-punk and hardcore sensibilities with staccato cello edge and jarring, banshee-like guitar tones, amounting to a full-on attack of the senses, equal parts aural and psychic as hell. And this bitter questioning of self—this sordid tale of self-loathing and selling out—is one of the most popular songs on the record, the type of song that inspires real people in real crowds to shout “Cursive is so cool!” during the “Cursive is so cool!” part, without realizing the irony made manifest by doing the very thing that the lyrics are so contemptuous of.
“Keep churning out those hits, 'til it's all the same old shit.”
Cursive came to prominence in the early 2000s alongside groups like The Faint and the now-legendary Bright Eyes, the latter of which led by Conor Oberst, all of which were on the same label, Saddle Creek, founded by Justin Oberst—Conor’s brother—which formed a small collective of talented musicians from Omaha, Nebraska. Bright Eyes, with their soft acoustics, dubious saccharinity, and Conor’s uniquely poetic lyricism reminiscent of a drug-addled schoolboy with well-off parents who is also incurably white and very much wants to be Bob Dylan, landed Saddle Creek smack dab in Midwest Suburban Whiteboy Emo Music of Middling Quality territory, which wasn’t far from the truth at first. But after about three minutes into The Ugly Organ, anyone familiar with Cursive's previous three albums could tell something very weird was going on; we weren't in Nebraska anymore: this wasn’t the High School True Love Break Up music people had come to expect from Saddle Creek; this was Hate Myself for Singing High School True Love Break Up Music music accompanied by a crazy talented orchestra of ego-shredding strings and hellfire organs.
“Cut it out, your self-inflicted pain, is getting too routine.”
With the fourth track on the album—”The Recluse”—Tim Kasher goes right back to his old tricks, singing of the same sordid love affairs that he criticized just moments ago. “The Recluse” is a softer composition more reminiscent of what Saddle Creek listeners have come to expect, only with a jarring sparseness like that of The Cure’s “Lullaby,” with a picked guitar lead that lulls you into an intricate web and long-drawn cello notes like the theme song of the black recluse that's about to eat you. The whole thing is like being blissfully unaware that you're being devoured after being slowly swathed and made stupid with venom.
“You're in my web now. I’ve come to wrap you up tight 'til it’s time to bite down.”
I fell into the web of The Ugly Organ early in life. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1991, where I was surrounded by a confusing dichotomy of So So Def hip-hop and deep south country music, of which I’ve had my fill. (And decades later, these genres converged into the horrifying chimera of “country rap,” which I try to avoid like a pox.) When my mother moved closer to Florida in 2004, to a town with its own venue for hardcore shows, I fell in with the burgeoning “scene” crowd and discovered a multitude of bands I had never heard before, many of which were either too loud—Underoath, Alexisonfire, Chiodos—or too soft—Bright Eyes, Dashboard Confessional, Iron & Wine—or just too embarrassing—The Starting Line, Hawthorne Heights, Matchbook Romance—for me to truly get into. But, of course, as an impressionable thirteen-year-old kid, I pretended to like them all. I was a chameleon. I wanted to fit in so badly. I pretended so hard that I got a full-body picture of myself on a two-page spread dedicated to the “scene/emo phenomenon” in my school’s yearbook—I was the only picture—with labels and arrows pointing to my ripped-at-the-knees skinny jeans, long-in-the-front-short-in-the-back swoop haircut, patched-and-pinned messenger bag, and forlorn expression as if my still-beating heart had just been torn straight from my chest. (No, I am not making this up.) And, of course, I was embarrassed by the whole yearbook thing immediately after agreeing to do it and, as such, didn’t buy a copy; and I couldn’t find the thing online—so, unfortunately for you, dear reader, I don’t have that very mortifying picture to share with you, but the whole thing does illustrate that I had some self-awareness of my own fakery, even at a young age. But, regardless of all that, I liked to think that I was more than just some scenester, as I had a broader taste in music than the average “emo” kid, having dabbled in 80s pop and art rock for some time after a brief obsession with in-game just-driving-around-listening-to-the-very-80s-radio in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City for hours while being high on child-approved amphetamines. What I’m trying to get at is: I was ripe for The Ugly Organ when it was released in 2003, but it was very much the black sheep of the emo scene at that time; everyone liked “The Recluse” and “Art is Hard,” but the rest of the album was considered kinda strange by the scenester elite, a bit too high-brow, a bit too artsy. But it wasn’t too high-brow for me—I was primed for The Ugly Organ, and it quickly became one of my favorite albums; and, at the time, I thought I understood it—the fact that Tim Kasher could point to himself and say what I heard as, “I’m a monster, haha! Look how self-aware I am! It’s cool to hate yourself!” was, to me, very cool indeed.
“They want to hear my deepest sins, the songs from The Ugly Organ.”
“Herald! Frankenstein” and “Butcher the Song” follow “The Recluse” as a return to the introspective self-loathing from earlier on the record, as if apologizing for regurgitating the same sordid-love-affair bullshit that he so strongly lambasted just minutes before. “Herald! Frankenstein” serves as the interlude to “Butcher the Song,” which is three minutes of the most woe-is-me, self-revulsion ever captured on an early 2000s emo-adjacent recording; the introduction, with cello like the stalking of a great white shark accented with echoing steel percussion, creates a harrowing atmosphere of anticipatory dread before exploding in the same dreadful cadence atop Kasher’s lyrical butcher knife that relentlessly hacks away at his own contrived persona. Before this, it could have been argued that the songs were about a character—The Ugly Organist—but this facade slips away as Kasher tears down the fourth wall and starts referring to himself directly: “So rub it in with your dumb lyrics. Yeah, that's the time and place to wring out your bullshit. And each album I'll get shit on a little more, 'Whose Tim's latest whore? Now, that's not fair—no, that's just obscene. I'll stop speaking for you if you stop speaking for me.” The veil has been lifted. The Ugly Organist is speaking directly on behalf of Tim, or vice versa—it’s impossible to tell because they’re both the same person.
“What a day to sever such ugly extremities. ‘What a lovely day,’ says the butcher as he raises his arm.”
Tim then turns around and does the exact same thing he was so critical of—again—belting out two more ballads about failed relationships. “Driftwood: A Fairy Tale” churns with the same lullaby energy as “The Recluse,” only this time comparing himself to Pinocchio in a relationship in which the spark has died, and he is now bored of his partner but insists that nothing is wrong while continuing to lie about still being in love, his nose growing each time he “proves it,” before being found out and cast out to sea as driftwood. “A Gentleman Caller” follows like a hurricane of punches to the face, the cello being bowed so aggressively that it sounds like a trumpet and the distortion on the guitar amp turned to eleven in what amounts to my favorite song on the record; a three-minute mood swing, the first half representing the visceral beginnings of a love affair both musically and literally—”You say you want to get even? You say you want to get your bad man good? Well, are you in the mood?”—where the guitar and the cello converge so well that it’s almost impossible to figure out where one ends and the other begins; and the second half representing the somber morning after, regretfully lying in bed next to the gentleman caller who just smooth-talked you into one of the biggest mistakes of your life.
“I'm not looking for a lover, all those lovers are liars…”
“A Gentleman Caller,” “Driftwood: A Fairytale,” and “The Recluse” can be taken as examples of the sellout songs Kasher bemoans on “Art is Hard”; songs about personal love affairs and misery that cash in and boost record sales, all designed to be chanted by an audience of sycophants; and considering the context these songs find themselves in bed with, it’s not a coincidence that they function in this manner. These songs were perfectly positioned to be catchy, emo-adjacent, chantable hits containing subject matter that the fans wanted, but they are positioned within such a clever milieu of self-awareness and loathing that it makes the songs feel as if they’re tongue-in-cheek and fully aware of themselves. Tim Kasher knows what he’s doing; he’s playing the audience a little bit, but he’s also using this vehicle of self-hatred to continue doing what he has always done: sing about the misery he so hates to sing about. In a way, he’s found a clever way to cheat the system. The Ugly Organ proves this out with every song; it is one of the most self-hating, woe-is-me albums ever recorded—and, in a way, one of the most self-indulgent albums ever recorded because of it. It is so steeped in Tim Kasher’s own self that, on the surface, it’s hard not to see The Ugly Organ as some sort of post hoc justification of his own bullshit. But is it really that shallow? Is it that easy to hand-wave away? Well, I’ve only covered the first half of the record—and I’m not about to come to your own conclusions for you.
“My ego's like my stomach, it keeps shitting what I feed it.”
In many ways, Cursive’s The Ugly Organ and I were made for each other. We're both unflaggingly self-aware, cynical, and critical of everything—especially ourselves. If you have read any of my previous work, you know that it's steeped in self-hatred, self-mockery, and critical—sometimes unfair—analysis of my own bullshit, while at the same time bemoaning the fact that I can’t seem to shut up about those same things; as if one of the many reasons I hate myself is because these are the only things I have to talk about, and The Ugly Organ sits in that same psychic space. The Ugly Organ and I are a match made in heaven. And when I first heard The Ugly Organ—when I was much younger—I thought I had the album all figured out. I thought it was very cool to hate myself, to point out my own flaws and revel in the fact that I was able to detest myself with such poignant clarity; in a way, I still think it’s cool: I have the utmost respect for those who are brutally honest about themselves, those who know their own bullshit and call it out, and this is certainly one of the appeals of The Ugly Organ. But simply being able to point these things out isn’t cool in and of itself—it’s only cool when you do something productive with that information. You can't wallow in self-hatred forever—you would stagnate, get nothing done, and drag everyone down around you. You have to do something with the negative energy—you have to use it to build a better you.
“The organ’s playing my song, but this song’s gone on too long.”
It tracks that the more self-aware an animal becomes, the more they tend to hate themselves. Surely, the human condition is a complicated thing, counterintuitive almost. We are born into these flesh balloons packed full of mushy organs, all working in tandem to keep us alive, but one of these organs seemingly works against our best interest, enabling us to hate ourselves, makes us want to die; that ugly organ is none other than the brain. The fact that the brain can make us loathe ourselves with every fiber of our being seems to contradict the perhaps evolutionary drive to not suck on the end of a revolver and end it all. But underneath great ugliness is often some terrible truth just waiting to be uncovered. Maybe the brain, when it tells us something horrible about ourselves, is trying to show us something, something true about ourselves, something that needs to be addressed, something that needs to be changed. Maybe the ugly organ is only ugly so that we may use that ugliness as motivation to better ourselves and the world around us.
Or maybe Cursive’s The Ugly Organ is literally just about large keyboards with pipes—who knows?
You have to listen to the record in full to find out.
References:
The Egg | Chapter 2: Peggy Wolf Mouse
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
A mass of people, resembling a legion of corpses absorbing each other then spitting each other out only to absorb each other again, blobbed before a dimly lit stage of swirling vapors. Faint colors spotlighted the crowd in a pattern indistinguishable from random. People of all sorts: some in bright neon clothing with afros and mohawks both faux and spiked, some with undercuts and faded stripes, some with pieces of metal grafted into their skulls and eyes made entirely of machine parts, others pristine like mod royalty in dapper suits and flowing dresses, all the genders and more, some wearing holographic projections—cats, reptiles, koalas, a red mouse, little green men, pandas, and even a fox or two, some on leashes held by other holo animal people—all screaming and shouting and yelling and pushing each other around. Weightless and very glowy letters of pure energy floated above the masses, spelling “THE IDYLLIC GARDEN.” The whole place smelled arterial: sweatshop-esque, synthetic wine, slime, grime; some were having a good time, others were not; the walls of the place randomly illuminated to reveal those in the fetal position wearing thick headsets, some rocking back and forth, some just splayed out drooling. Truly there were all kinds.
An uncanny voice, both comical and intimidating, a few octaves too high, blasted on the loudspeaker:
“Introducing The Peggy Suicides!”
The announcement controlled the chaos for a moment. There was a brief round of hesitant, muted clapping and some faint cheering as a shadow, obscured by great veils of smog, drifted onto the stage. The shadow was tall, spindle-shanked; they sauntered through smoke to a bent stand, then sensually wrapped their arms around it while hanging over the bend like a nymph starting a pole dance; the shadow’s hair fell over their silhouetted chin before being flipped away with some grace. The shade’s foot started tapping, and after a few taps, the shade spoke; the voice was neither deep nor high, neither feminine nor masculine—somewhere in between.
“All you listless souls out there tonight, high on pop and snowcrash—creating nothing yet complaining about everything; watching holos, jacking in, being here, injecting hecatonic pop straight into your veins to tear your troubles in twain; all you lost souls with sockets all over your bodies, filled up with credit content only to be sucked dry; waxed nostalgic; filled up again at a premium; repeat infinity.” The shade twirled around the mic stand, wrapped one leg around the pole, leaned far back all contortionist-like, mic to mouth nearly making out. “Welcome to the factory farm, I am your host: another nameless cow. We are all Old Earth cattle, cheap product, cogs in the machine of our own ruin.” An esoteric hand gesture: arms like a gentle breeze, fingers formed the letter L atop the forehead. “They want us to be losers, and we dance to the beat of their drum like good little losers. Snowcrash, The Idyllic Garden, Neutron Wave, Stacie Goes to Avalon, that synthetic nicotine you’re sucking down: you think it’s anarchy, but who do you think is supplying?” The shade rooted one foot on the base of the mic stand then leaned themselves over the side of the stage; their shadowed face poking through a light blue field that appeared upon contact. “Your reverie is a nightmare in disguise. It’s time to wake up. Kill your nightmare self. You are better than you. We are The Peggy Suicides, and we are about to play some real wake-up music for all you torpid animals.” The crowd groaned collectively, someone was chanting an ancient curse, but the shade continued unfettered: “After you hear our music, I want you to become inspired: write a song of your own, draw a picture, paint an Old Earth sunset, and then I never want to see you here again. You are better than you: pulverize your presumptive self.”
The shadow's ramble stopped, and with it, so did the crowd’s cheering; in fact, the cheering had stopped much earlier, dying down even before the “torpid animals” bit killed it completely, replaced with a malaised mixture of frustration, confusion, some violence, audible groans, some heinous screams; someone threw a glass real hard and it shattered just inches away from the shadow. If the shadow flinched, no one could tell; they only hunched over and scanned the masses as if measuring the crowd’s collective soul.
Someone yelled, “Like you’re any better! Just play some damn music!”
As if on cue, the shadow lifted their arm, and a twilight guitar materialized in their hand; as the instrument appeared, so did four other shades, rising like zombies from the grave—two ax-wielders, one flutist, one drummer—completing a reverse five-point star with the first shadow as the tip near the edge of the stage.
There was an anticipatory pause before the loud crack of a snare drum killed the silence; a bass drum started kicking silence’s dead body, deep alternating bass notes like bombs going off underwater played over silence’s funeral procession, quavering guitar chords with fluttering flute mixed into a wall of sound that washed over silence’s grave like waves of heartache and torment and longing and regret. The music was steeped in deep purple bruising and cool blue asphyxiation.
As the vortex of noise churned, the shadow’s fluid voice fuzzed as they practically ate the microphone: “This one's called Death’s Little Brother Sleep Died Dreaming and Woke Up on Fire Screaming.”
The crowd groaned, roared, and cursed their ancient curses; they were disinterested in guitar music, and they made this very apparent. But the band seemed acutely aware of this, only playing harder as if trying to stoke the flames of hell. Someone in the crowd yelled, “Retro garbage! Play some ‘tonic!” But the request was ignored, and the band only added three more bars to the noisy funeral dirge out of spite. When the bars of spite ended, the shadow threw their hand up while simultaneously snapping their fingers; light erupted onto the stage: sharp oranges and violent reds awoke on fire, screaming.
The light revealed a protean youth behind the shadow: their skin both light and dark at once; baggy tan pants hung from their waist, tight fishnets clung to their slender yet curvy body; a single gloved hand glew blue while playing a holographic hollow body; posing seductively yet oozing unapproachable causticity; a mythic presence more nymph than satyr, yet somehow both; fine hair of muddy gold swirling in rhythm and time; a sculpted face neither ugly nor beautiful but something else entirely; an undead presence more vampire than zombie, yet somehow both; sunken eyes of slightly differing shape and dilation; an energy both bubbly and sullen, both wise and foolish; an uncategorical.
The other four shadows were revealed to be holos of moving color: pre-programmed projection people.
With another snap of the fingers, the tempo shifted from mellow to manic; earthquakes of tremolo billowed from the nightclub speakers; the harsh noise moshed the druggy clouds like fluffy pillows engaged in cellular fusion; thin pillars of electric-laser light impaled the clouds; colors flashed psychedelic in cumulus bellies. Everything was in time with the beat. The once-gray clouds were now a storm of rainbows, and that storm grew something fierce over the heads of some hundred people stirring in what could have been a mosh pit if not for the look of aggravation upon their collective countenance. The crowd was becoming unruly, mirroring the music’s abrasiveness but none of its beauty.
A barely noticeable light blue barrier prevented the angry mob from climbing onto the stage, but the barrier made an exception for thrown items by design—pop stars love their offerings—which allowed one hollowed antifan to hurl a dagger at the band’s nymph-satyr frontperson, nicking the star’s face and spilling first blood onto the stage. This brought the music to a halt and caused some lumbering human-shaped automatons to usher through the crowd, dragging people—both corporeal and holographic—into dimly lit corners of the nightclub, never to be seen again.
Amplified laughter rang out. The projection people had vanished, leaving only the former shadow on their knees, holding their bloody face in one hand and the mic to their mouth with the other. The artist’s giggling mania ushered silence through the crowd; those remaining were anticipating something grand. The laughter stopped long enough for the musician to speak, “I, Jules, hereby submit to the will of the people—the death of the artist!”
The spectacle caught the attention of an umbral-haired young man sitting at a bar overlooking the stage. Holos surrounded him, floating in the air and playing upon the walls, advertising everything imaginable; some were interactive, others assertive, many both. The young man swiveled in his hover stool to watch the scene unfold below him; he took a sip of pale-colored liquid from a tall glass imprinted with dual holo A’s that moved as if swimming in the liquid itself. A picture of a cat’s face, winking occasionally, danced upon the glass before morphing into an attractive woman with an alluring sway to her hips, striking C’s billowing out from her body; this did not distract the young man, whose attention remained on the stage, and as he peered down at the scene below, a red holo mouse peered back at him, but he paid no mind to this, focused only on the ambiguous musician.
Jules dropped the mic, which echoed a loud crackling thud through the club; they then grabbed the thrown dagger and stood up all poised heroic. They looked out across the crowd of punkers, poppers, princes, princesses, vegetables, and holos, then fixed their gaze on the young man far up in the bar, who was gazing back, as if familiar. The young man was shaking his head at Jules as if to say, “Whatever you're thinking—don't,” in extrasensory.
Jules grinned a manic grin, then yelled, “Infamy, infamy! They’ve all got it in for me!” and—crowd gasping in collective—swung the dagger hard into their own creamy torso. Blood geysered from their side like a clogged hose that had accumulated way too much pressure; they immediately crumpled, one hand still clasped on the hilt of the dagger, wiggling, writhing, just freaking out bleeding in a pool all their own.
The protective barrier lowered as lumbering automatons approached the stage. Those in the crowd who were leaving returned to witness the spectacle; those who were groaning were now cheering and chanting:
“Peggy Suicide! Peggy Suicide! Peggy Suicide!” et cetera.
Back at the bar, the young man coolly placed his glass down and eyerolled a mumble of, “You’ve gone too far this time.” He sat up and removed a rectangular device from his long black coat—the device was smooth and white, emblazoned with a red cross that formed the T for TatNos, with viridescent glass covering a portion. He then waved away a floating advertisement for HypnoGoggles—the only official goggles of the HyperNet—and hurriedly slid his way down a spiral staircase accented with strips of neon. “Sorry, gotta get through,” he said as he narrowly avoided someone in red holo like that of a cartoon mouse. But the mouse said nothing; it only turned its head to follow the young man’s movement, its eyes like two huge black dots, its smile cartoon-like in its unchanging permanence.
Jules was wiggling and writhing still, now all surrounded by tall automatons that kept the crowd from storming the stage. The automatons were faceless machines modeled in human form, with tan silicone stretched over their metal casing to give them that fleshy-human look, nearly uncanny on purpose so that Complexers were less inclined to pay attention to them—out of sight, out of mind. A single A-shaped light shone through their fake-flesh faces; colored red, white, or blue for danger, contained, and all's-good, respectively. Their prime directive: protect and serve through apprehension first, physical violence second, and deadly force only if necessary; this frequently required them to make calculated trolley-problem decisions that were as cold as the hecatinium-infused metal they were made from—earning them the tongue-in-cheek nickname “Moral Agents” by Complexers all across Thessaly.
With the protective field lowered, the young man pushed through the gawking crowd and vaulted himself onto the stage, the skirt of his long black coat swirling like a cape out of a comic book. He was holding the same device from before, dangling from a cloth handle. But before he could reach Jules, he was stopped by the outstretched hand of a Moral Agent. The automaton spoke in a voice that sounded like a hyper-intelligent parrot imitating a human but stressing all the wrong syllables, white A flashing in time with its janky voice: “Please Stand Back. Pending Response From Complex 42 MedCo. Subject’s Vitals Indicate an 85% Chance Of Survival; Favorable Odds Allow For Protective Lethal Force On—” the thing twitched its faux-fleshy face, “—One Point Five Individuals.”
The young man raised a single eyebrow at the robot, then dug his free hand deep inside his coat and pulled out a black card with a liquid crystal display that was roughly the size of his palm. He held the card up to the Moral Agent’s face; the automaton spoke in jank once more, reading from the card’s display:
“Autolycus Grayson M.D., Age 27. Graduate of The Polytechnic of Hippocrates. Highest Honors. Excelled in Athletics, Chemistry, Subterfuge, Gluteal Augmentation. Employer: TatNos Heavy Industries, MedCo Division. Occupation: Medical Doctor, Board-Certified Diagnostician, Double Specialty of Infectious Fecal Diseases and Gastroenterology. Residence: Complex 42, Floor 3, 578D. No Criminal Record. No Fines. Whitelisted. Also Very Handsome.”
“You May Pass, Autolycus Grayson.” The group of automatons sidestepped in unison to allow for an opening in their shield wall, white A’s all aglow. The young man snapped back with acerbic twist, “That’s Doctor Autolycus Grayson, thank you.” He then spun the identification card between his fingers before sliding it back into one of his coat’s many interior pockets.
Doctor Grayson approached the injured artist, whose fishnet-exposed skin was now stained light red from all the blood rolling. “Jules, try to stay still,” the Doctor said as he lifted the white device and started tapping some buttons, little bleeps and bloops sounding off as he did so. Jules stopped squirming and turned just enough to look at Doctor Grayson from the corner of their dark blue eyes; any indication of pain vanished. They both exchanged familiar looks.
“Oh—Gray! My MedCo knight in shining armor,” Jules said as they turned over completely, exposing their checkered black fishnet belly, still holding the dagger tight into their side. “I didn’t know you were a butt doctor also!” Jules’ tone was characteristically agender but also silly-serious and nearly impossible to read. “My cheeks are fine, I think. But you can inspect them if you want.”
“You know, I can never tell when you’re being serious,” Gray spoke in a laid-back baritone, still fiddling with the buttons on the white device. “I can never figure this thing out.” The device suddenly chimed then jingled. “Ah, there we go. Take the dagger out as quickly as possible, then try to be still. This might sting a little.”
Jules adjusted themselves then pointed at their own head, “It’s all psychic up there, not physical.”
Gray snapped back, “Just because you can’t feel pain doesn’t mean you can’t die. Now be still.” He then got down on one knee, leaning over Jules, examining the artist’s wound. “I think you hit a vital organ this time—there’s more blood than usual—maybe your colon?” He vocalized the sound of a thought bubble popping. “That’s probably why you can’t get up.” He paused for another moment, then spoke in a tone no longer smooth but somber, “Were you actually trying to kill yourself this time?”
Jules ignored Gray’s comment, closing their eyes instead, composing themselves. Then: blade flash. The dagger yanked from its fleshy sheath; blood quickly jetted from the wound, then just as quickly started seeping into pools. Jules’ speech slurred, “Doctor Autolycus. I appear to be bleeding.” A cutesy smile formed on the artist’s full lips before their head started to drift back and forth as their eyes blinked independently of each other, “I feel kinda sexy, Doctor. Do I look sexy right now? Did the crowd go wild? Do they love me? Do you love me? We should get married. I’ll lick the envelopes; do they still do envelopes? I would be a good husband. Or wife. Or whatever you want. Is it getting darker in here?”
“Yeah, yeah. Just try to stay still.” Gray groaned dubiously as he bleeped and blooped the device one last time.
Jules followed orders by involuntarily slipping out of consciousness; this put a pep in Gray’s figurative step, who hurriedly pulled the soggy fishnets over Jules’ belly button, exposing the gash in full, then pointed the viridescent glass of the device at the wound from a short distance away. He held a button down on the device, causing the thing to emit a low hum as it pulsed emerald light over the gash. Gray watched as a necromantic ritual timelapsed before his eyes: bewitched strips of flesh birthed like worms from muddy plasma then morphed angelhair and threaded themselves; blood bubbled, clumped, clotted, formed dark reds and mucus yellows and viscous whites before browning hard and swirling into a quicksand of fully healed—albeit faintly scarred—flesh.
When the operation was finished, the medical unit beeped rapidly. Gray observed a thin display on the device, which flashed the text HECATINIUM CRYSTAL DEPLETED. The beeping persisted until he flicked a small switch on the side of the device; a panel opened and discharged a foggy gray crystal the size of Gray’s pinky finger. He pocketed the inert crystal, slipped the medical unit back into his coat, then cursed under his breath. “You owe me, if you’re not dead for real this time.”
Moments passed before Jules opened their big ocean eyes; a few more and they were able to sit upright, cross-legged and painless. They observed the circle of automatons around them with an expression of youthful wonder made even more youthful by their cheeks all rosy with dried blood. Then, Jules’ face contorted into an exaggerated clown frown. “Is this an intervention? I promise I won’t do it again.” Jules paused, lifting a finger to their mouth and biting down softly. “Actually, I can’t promise that. But I can promise that I will try not to do it again!”
The automatons turned in sync as if responding to the artist’s joke, but they did not find it funny: on the contrary, their white A’s turned red, and one stepped forward, speaking in jank: “Code Violation 9982: A Complexer Shall Not Attempt Suicide Without Proper Written Approval From A Licensed Medical Doctor.”
“Wait, wait.” Gray approached the Moral Agent, holding up the same identification card from before. “Did you forget already?” The automaton paused, cocked its head as if processing information, then janked once more, “This Is Not A Suicide Approval Letter.” Its red A blinking furiously.
Gray squirmed, turned his back to the automaton, and removed a small pen-shaped object from his coat. The pen made a sharp whirring noise when fiddled with, and he pointed it at the identification card; after a few whirring seconds, he put the pen back into his coat. Gray then faced the Moral Agent with an exaggerated, child-like smile on his face, card outstretched. “How about now?”
After a quick scan of the identification card, the Moral Agent’s light shifted from red to blue. “Very Well. We Thank You For Your Participation In This Altercation. You Are Both Dismissed Without Charges.”
The group of Moral Agents dispersed, but one stayed behind; it held out its hand, and from its palm, a holo appeared, displaying a list of options numbered one through ten. The automaton provided context from behind the glow, “Please Let Us Know How We Did Today! On A Scale Of One To Ten, With Ten Being The Most Ethical And One Being The Least Ethical. Additionally, If You Have Feedback, Please Leave A Voice Recording With The Details After The Survey Has Ended. Remember: We Are Here To Protect And Serve, And We Cannot Serve Ethically Without Your Feedback!”
Gray responded in a dry tone, “Skip.” This caused the holo to flicker out, and the final automaton followed in the footsteps of its metal colleagues, back to the dark recesses of the nightclub—out of sight, out of mind; watching, waiting.
Gray turned to Jules, who was now sitting cross-legged in their own goopy blood pool, meditating with their eyes closed. The young man bent over, tapped Jules on the shoulder then helped them to their feet. “I’m glad you’re OK, but can we stop doing this? You also owe me an H Crystal.” The two exchanged competing glances before Gray added, “C’mon, let’s get out of here and grab a drink before those autos figure out my creds were fake.” The pair exited stage left as the lights went down and the fog came out and another act was gearing up to take the stage.
The nightclub crowd was as quick to anger as they were to forget, because when Jules and Gray moved through the masses, only a few made passing jeers at Jules, who only smiled real wide and waved at anyone who gave them the slightest bit of attention, even negative attention. It was impossible for an onlooker to tell if Jules’ aloofness was contrived or earnest; they even wandered off to a few people who made passes at them, conversing merrily under a cacophony of cheers as the next act was being announced—”Next up: Draconic Tonic!“—and Gray had to grab Jules by the wrist to get them back on track—many times—as if chaperoning a very tall child.
As the two made it to the spiral staircase leading to the bar, a young woman stopped them; she was all draped in shadows and shade, wrapped in belts and buckles and chains, and her hair was dark purple flames. “Jules, you changed my life tonight. When you stabbed yourself up there—oh my god—I could see the passion pouring out of your body; others saw blood, but I only saw stardust and rainbows. It makes me so mad that people are trying to shame and kill artists—throwing knives even—what is wrong with people these days? You care so much that you’re willing to die for your art.” She took both of Jules's hands in her own and stared deep into their weird wide eyes. “You won’t see me here again until I’m up there—” She pointed back at the stage, “—performing as a true artist.”
Jules didn’t need to smile to show that they were radiating with love and affirmation; they moved in and embraced the young woman, who embraced them back. A few others joined, creating a group hug of sorts. Some of the participants were even dressed in holo suits, and one of these hollowed people appeared as a bright red mouse, all rounded, chubby, smooth, and bipedal, with an unsettling smile painted across their face, which was made of three large circles like the famous mouse from those Old Earth cartoons. The mouse hugged for a moment, then stepped back and observed, motionless.
Gray noticed the mouse, thought the mouse odd, as if he had seen the mouse before, but quickly forgot when someone in the hugbox turned on a bright white light, which lit up the collective embrace like a hot white star; this caused Gray to cover his eyes with his wrist, and when he brought his wrist down, the mouse was gone.
The hug stopped. Those few people who remained started asking for Jules’ autograph; thus, Jules started twirling fingers through holo papers projected from people's palms, signing away with glee. Gray, leaning on the railing nearby, trying to hold back the biggest eye roll of his life, shouted, “Jules! C’mon, I don’t have all night.” And this prompted the artist into one last group hug before following Gray up the spiral staircase.
Before they vanished into the neon stairwell, the purple-haired fan who started all the hugging shouted up at the artist, “Jules! My name is Sue! Don’t forget about me! Sue!”
Gray and Jules sat at the bar: Gray on a hover stool, Jules cross-legged on the countertop. The only light in the place came from the flashing of mounted screens and the ocean of holos all around them. Plasma marquees listed every synthetic beverage known to humankind. There was only a small crowd, as the majority of the patrons left to see the next musical act. There was no bartender, only an interactive menu per seat that could be toggled on or off; patrons' selections were generated and served through square panels that opened up to translucent glasses presented on small drink elevators which used a complex system of conveyor belts and pulleys underneath the gunmetal bar exterior.
Four automatons shadowed each corner of the room; they stood statuesque, analyzing the awkward silence between the two youths sitting at the bar.
“We need to talk about your stupid bullshit.” Gray broke the silence, his typical wry tone: awry. His elbow was on the bartop, thumb on his chin, index and middle on his cheek, propping his head up as he peered down into a mug of fuzzy pale bubbles that morphed into caricatures of cats that fizzed and popped one by one, some managing to splash dots of liquid onto his face. “It’s one thing to do the whole performance artist bit—maybe even some minor self-harm—but you took it way too far this time. I used most of an H Crystal patching that wound; those things cost a small fortune, you know.” He paused, dug the faded crystal out of his coat, glinted it at Jules, put it back. “We aren’t making any credits doing this—in fact, we’re losing credits. We’re already way behind on dues. I don’t want to live down there in the Great Latrines again.”
Jules was twirling a strand of blonde hair around their fingers between picking dried blood from their cheek. “I don’t want to make credits with my music.” Pouting.
“Obviously.” Gray’s lips contorted and scrunched, revealing the aggravation he was trying so hard to conceal.
Faded electronic music pulsed in the background; syncopated buzz, bolts of blue bass drops, unforeseen shifts in tempo and time.
Gray peered down at the band on stage, which was really just a single holo; a four-armed dragon with massive wings miming four keyboards. “Why can’t you make music like this?”
Jules’ twirling stopped; without moving their head, their asymmetrical eyes shifted to Gray; a radical side-eye being given. “Because it's not real.”
“Sure it’s real. It sounds like music, doesn’t it?”
“It sounds like music, but it’s not real.”
“Yeah, you said that—but, how is it not real?”
“There’s no artistry behind the sound.”
Gray took another sip of pale; swished, swallowed. “But it sounds alright, isn’t that all that matters?”
“No.”
“Look: you can’t just say no, that’s not how argumentation works.”
Jules shifted, observed the stage below for a moment, then turned lotus on the countertop to fully face their interlocutor, hair fell all over their face but otherwise fully engaged.
Gray continued, “I bet that dragon doesn’t have knives thrown at them—that’s a plus.” He gestured toward the crowd below; masses of flesh and holo bounced and swayed, their cheers echoing. “See? They’re even cheering. Maybe if you didn’t call them all ‘torpid animals,’ they’d cheer for you too, and then we’d have enough money to afford our place.”
“The torpid piece was part of the poetry.” Jules whispered with understated defiance.
“Yeah, sure. But I still don’t get how Draconic Tonic’s music isn’t real.”
“Music, like all forms of art, is not only about the finished product, but also the person and the intent behind it. The thing down there is algorithmically-generated, presenting itself as a dragon, performing an algorithmically-generated series of notes. The programmer is asleep somewhere on floor twelve. It’s music in label only—but really, it’s just noise, a distraction. I can’t make music like that because that’s not music. It’s impossible. There’s nothing to make.”
“But didn’t someone intend to make the program and run the algorithms? I mean, someone did make that big dragon and the music, they just didn’t put much effort into it, right? It’s playing notes and stuff; that’s gotta be music by definition.”
“Not by my definition.”
Gray laughed dismissively, tossing his shaggy dark bangs out of his likewise eyes. “Well I bet they make credits, at least.”
“That’s all they make, or care about.”
“Why does that even matter? Who cares if they’re only in it for the credits.”
Jules tapped the holo pad on the countertop with swirly fingers, and a glass of water appeared from a sliding panel. A small display nearby showed the text 2C, then faded. The water was gone in one mighty Adam’s apple-less gulp.
Gray was tapping his cheek with his index finger as he watched the otherworldly musician, a fatigued look on his face. “Well—why does it matter? The credits thing.”
Jules ran long hands through long hair and took a long breath in what amounted to one long pause for one long think, then answered, “When you make art for credits, you compromise and corrupt. The art becomes more about the credits than the art itself.”
“What if the point is to make credits?”
Jules hid a sigh poorly. “No one really makes anything for credits. The credits are a proxy for something else: rent, vitamins, power, holo games, dying mothers, HyperNet access, H Crystals, a new pair of faux-leather pants, maybe an Auto-Cat or two or three or four.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“Credits manipulate. Say there is an artist: a pixel artist, but they only make pixel paintings for credits. One day, they complete a pixel painting of a sunrise; they take that painting to the local art store, but the owner says they only buy nighttime pixel paintings, not sunrises. So the owner asks the painter to paint a nighttime scene—the painter hates nighttime scenes but paints one anyway to make some credits.”
“OK—what’s the problem with that? I don’t get it.”
“The problem is: when does it stop? Their motivations—their creations—are subject to the whimsy of those with credits, not their own whimsy. In a way, they’re not even motivated by credits; they’re motivated by other people with credits. Think, what if the buyer asked the painter to paint forgeries? Would the painter do it? What if the buyer didn’t want paintings at all, but instead asked the artist to kill competing art-store owners? Who knows what the painter would be willing to do. The painter who is only motivated by credits will do anything for credits because credits are more important than painting.” Jules paused for a quick think. “And credits corrupt; at first, the corruption is small, but after a while, you will start to wonder to yourself, ‘Why am I a dragon with four arms and big wings pretending to play keyboards? What sort of monster have I become?’ and you will weep; you will take face in palms and weep; you will cry tears of longing for paradise lost; innocence now all corrupted by credits, unrecognizable, deformed, grotesque, monstrous—” Jules paused, fiddling with a gold hoop dangling from their right ear; they flicked the earring and it chimed, “—there are more adjectives I could use, I think.”
Gray’s hand lay in his busy mess of hair as his elbow propped his head up on the bartop, his eyes half-closed until Jules finished rambling. “You’re just being ridiculous. Credits make the world turn; that’s just a fact of life. And besides, none of that—”
Jules hopped off the countertop, then pranced into a dark corner, then they were gone.
“—explains how the music’s not real.”
Gray sighed a familiar sigh. He took a sip from his glass, leaned his head back, then stretched his arms out. As he rotated his head to stretch his neck, bright red consumed the corner of his eye. He turned to face the red glow, and that’s when he saw it: the mouse; the same mouse from the crowd, from the stairwell, from the hugbox. It was smiling the same way still.
The mouse’s wide grin took up half its face, its black-circle eyes lensed gravitational, and its red glow was condensed like a blinding nova, as if whoever was wearing the thing had turned up the brightness tenfold on purpose. It just stood there. Silent. Towering. Peering down on the dark-haired youth as if the predator had finally caught up with some helpless prey.
“Yeah?” Gray said, nonchalant.
The mouse said nothing.
“Are you one of Jules’ weird fans? They’re not here.”
Silence.
“They left, or something. I don’t know. I can take a message, though, if you—”
Something felt off. Gray’s eyes shifted around the room. He noticed that the Moral Agents were all white-watching while the rest of the patrons had cleared out. He was alone with the mouse. He became nervous and started to ramble as he slyly slid a hand into his coat. “Are you from the Great Latrine? Because I don’t live down there anymore. I’m clean, you know; the sewers are beneath me. I’m moving on up in the world now. Maybe Marcus sent you? I don’t owe Marcus anything—if he said something, he’s mistaken. Marcus and I are cool; I even gave him my spot down there before I moved. I can clear up any confusion, too. I have the transfer papers and—”
The mouse’s claws flashed, grabbing Gray by the throat; it was a light squeeze, but enough to choke him out. Gray’s eyes widened, his jaw tensed, and the veins in his neck and face bulged. He lifted his own hands to the mouse’s, digging his fingers into the small space between the thing’s red mitts, trying to pull the big hands off his throat between raspy, strained gurgles; spittle sprayed, sprinkled.
“AUtoLYcUS gRAySon: The WOLF iTSElf. We HaVe REaCheD Out MANY TiMEs. YoU Don’T JuSt STOp woRKInG fOR thE conSOrtiUM. wE mADE yOU. yOU OWE ThE ConsORTium yOuR lIfE. yoU knOw tHiS; YeT yoU IgNoRe us. YOuR DEbt ComPOuNds. PErfORM. pAy. pERisH. giVE yOUR ANsWEr Now: pERFoRM; PAy; PERish. thE CHoIcE iS yoURS.”
The mouse’s voice was modulating, high-pitched, electronic, shrill.
Gray violently struggled off the stool to his feet, shaking the best he could to get the mouse to loosen its grip, but it was all in vain; the mouse’s grip was tighter now, allowing only some syllables through.
“G—” Gray rasped; the mouse’s grip tightened.
“Ga—” Gray gurgled; tighter now.
“Gac—” Gray croaked, his face trembling, skin rippling, eyes bulging.
The mouse’s grip was so tight now that Gray lost his hold on the mouse’s hands. The mouse then lifted the young man straight into the air by the throat, its unnerving smile unchanged. Gray’s gurgling stopped, and he made no sound as he kicked his legs hopelessly; then his vision went dark, and he went limp, all his limbs flailing like happy worms as the mouse shook him violently. Electronic music lightly pulsed in the background, as if in time with the thrashing.
“YOU HaVE MADE yOUr CHoiCE. YOU wILL BEcOME FUEL fOR thE COmpLEX’S EnErGY gEnERaToR, NO bETTER ThAN thE hUMAn wASTE BURNED TO PoWER OUR HoLO tAbLES. bY thE AuTHorITY oF tHE cALLiSTo CONSOrTium, I sENTENCE thEE tO—”
Suddenly, the mouse’s holo turned wireframe, flickered a few times, then vanished, revealing an older man: muscular and bald with a burly white mustache that sank into handlebars; he was wearing a faded green jacket over a black top, baggy cargo pants. The man’s pudgy face flushed red, eyes wide with shock, an almost comical expression as he realized that his disguise was compromised. He dropped Gray and turned around as if to run, only to be met with the sight of one even taller than himself: Jules.
Jules was there, a holo advertisement of a white bunny waving playing cards lit their eldritch figure, revealing all their alien features now pristine and bloodless, washed. Their right hand was outstretched in a poking gesture, a curious twist to their lips as if they had just poked something they were not supposed to and were very surprised by the results.
Jules spoke pontifical. “I thought to myself: what does this button do? Mouse died; then: mustache person appeared.”
Gray was on his knees; one hand on the floor, the other nursing his purple neck; gasping like he had never gasped before.
“Now that we know about mustache person, you surely can’t let us live or whatever, right?” Jules said all aloof.
“Precisely!” yelled the mustache man, his voice now very human, as he launched himself at Jules; but the lanky musician only slipped to the side, as if by accident, causing the man to tumble into a nearby hover stool. Jules then observed the bunny holos floating around them, reaching out to poke one, but before they could, the man was back up and launched a mighty punch at Jules’ face, only for Jules’ outstretched bunny-poking arm to absorb the force of the blow entirely. Jules shook out their hand then snapped back with an annoyed glance—“I wanted to touch the bunny!”—and then pushed the man back with both arms; the push was stronger than the man expected, causing him to stumble backwards before regaining balance, but by then Jules had stepped one foot behind the other for momentum and power and then launched a powerful sidekick; the kick whooshed in tandem with Jules’ poofy pants, producing a loud crack upon connecting with the mouse man’s jaw, launching him backwards into the bar, all crumpled over with jaw askew.
Gray had managed to stand himself up, leaning against the bar, catching his breath, digging through his pockets while watching the scene intently; the room all illuminated by colors random and flashing and holo, the electronic music now breakbeat and manic.
The former mouse stood up. “You know—you’re more competent than you seem. If I had to guess, I would say you’ve had formal training.” He wiped blood from his lip, then cracked his own jaw back into place. “But you messed up, freak.” And as if in a single motion, the man slid a long-barreled handgun out of his jacket, pointed it at Jules, then pulled the trigger; there was a high-pitched pew followed by a crisp red bolt that vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
The ceiling clanged, sizzed; Gray had seized the man’s arm, forcing the aim of the barrel away from Jules. “You really should stop talking so much; you could have killed us like twice now,” Gray said, sounding as if he was back to his old self as he wrestled for the gun, the barrel now puffing light red vapor. Jules also grabbed the man, but the man was much stronger than both of them combined and managed to shake them off; as he shook them off, he elegantly grabbed Jules by their long hair, twirled them around into an armbar headlock, kicked their legs in to force them to their knees, and then pushed the barrel of the gun into their head, twisting it hard.
“It’s your freak friend here or you, Wolf.” The man stared at Gray with a stoic confidence that was only undermined by labored breathing. “Perform, pay, or perish. The choice is yours.” He twisted the barrel even harder now. “Don’t think I won’t do it. The Moral Agents don’t care what happens here. This is our jurisdiction now.”
Gray’s eyes narrowed at the man, whose eyes narrowed in turn. The electronic music had reached a downtempo section as a monotonous sine wave evened out into what sounded like a test tone.
Gray broke the silence, his tone lacking typical sarcasm. “Go ahead then: kill them. They want to die—didn’t you see the performance?”
An uptempo drum loop slowly faded in over the test tone as the man’s face contorted into a twisted grimace. “Are you sure about that, Wolf?”
Gray managed to slip one shadowed hand into his coat pocket. His eyes focused, narrowed even further, and his expression was deadly serious. “Yeah, I’m sure.”
“So be it,” the man drooled with murderous intent, and just as his finger tightened on the trigger, a flicker of light glinted into his face, followed by a terrible scream, his hand spasming as the gun fell to the floor. A faded crystal, about the size of a pinky finger, had skewered itself into the man’s left eye. He screamed wildly, lifting his hand over the wound, blood pouring down and around his knuckles.
Jules hurried to their feet, then rushed to Gray’s side. “Nice throw. You’re a doctor and marksman—who knew!”
“I was aiming for his throat,” Gray said, nervously scanning the room. “We need to get the hell out of here.”
Gray and Jules turned to the stairwell, but it was blocked by the red A’s of Moral Agents; then they turned to a door near the back of the bar, which was also blocked; then they looked at each other with expressions of puzzlement infused with fear. “It appears we’re stuck between a mouse and hard metal,” Jules noted, biting one of their fingers nervously.
As the duo fumbled, the mouse man had torn the inert crystal from his left eye, eyeball popping out along with it, leaving it just dangling there by a gooey red rope growing out of the otherwise empty festering socket, half of his face drenched in blood. It suited him. After a moment of moaning like a zombie in heat, he lifted one hand and slapped something on his back, causing the red mouse to flicker, wireframe, and fully materialize once again around his body. He then bent over to pick up the dropped handgun; his hands shook uncontrollably as he raised the gun toward his prey.
“O, MiSTreSs oF wAr, DeFeNdEr of AtHeNs, sTaR ToUChEd SeNtRy Of ThE sErEnDiPiToUs sTaRsHiNe. gIvE mE tHe StRenGtH tO TeAr My fOeS AsUnDeR. tO RiP ThEsE cHiLdReN lImB fRoM LiMb. I BrInG YoU A fReSh SaCrIfIcE.”
Gray, alerted by the modulated voice, turned to the mouse and groaned. He then noticed the handgun and shot an astonished look in Jules’ direction. “Why didn’t you grab the damn gun?”
Jules bit down harder on their thinking finger. “I thought I did.”
“tHe CoNsOrTiUm wAnTeD YoU bAcK aLiVe. tHe wOlF iTsElF iS a GoOd aSsEt, tHeY sAiD. bUt yOu aRe nO lOnGeR tHe wOlF iTsElF. yOu aRe a mAnGy mUtT, hOmElEsS aFtEr bItInG tHe hAnD tHaT fEeDs, AfTeR STeAliNg fRoM tHeIr OwNeR. tHeRe iS oNlY oNe fAtE fOr yOu, tHe fAtE oF uS aLL, OnLy EXpEDiTED, SwIFt—”
“This guy really likes to talk.” Gray’s tone was silly, but his face was grave; he was out of options—no unblocked exits, a gun fixed on them, and automatons closing in. And Jules, too, stood there, stupefied.
“—DeAtH! iT’s aLmOsT tOo GOoD fOr yOu. MAkE yOuR pEaCe wItH tHe bIoLoGiCaL mAtTeR CoNvErTeR tHaT yOu wIlL sOOn CoNVeRgE wItH.”
The mouse’s red mitts were clasped around the handle of the gun, his cartoon trigger finger twitching and his aim shaky due to the excruciating pain gushing out of his fetid face hole. Automatons drawing closer now.
Jules turned, looking his friend directly in the eyes. “‘Twas an honor, Gray.”
“Yeah, you too, buddy,” Gray said, smiling genuinely.
They jinxed a gulp together.
And that’s when the rumble started. Everything began to shake. The sound of metal grinding against metal and shattering glass echoed through the space. Someone below the bar screamed, followed by a chorus of panicked voices. The music stopped, the dragon on stage dissolved into a shower of pixels, the spotlights went crazy before vanishing, the holo advertisements glitched then fizzled away. A piercing siren rang out, oscillating steadily. And, as if a blackout curtain had been thrown over the entire room, the lights cut out, plunging the club into total dark, with only those in glowing holo costumes shining out in the void left behind.
The sound of a bell dinged twice, followed by a robotic female voice blaring over the intercoms:
“Today Is Gamelion 8, AH386. Please Remain Calm. There Has Been A Power Disruption. Aides Repair Automatons Have Been Dispatched. Auxiliary Power Will Be Enabled Within Ten Minutes. All Air Vents Have Been Locked For Complex Residents’ Safety. Secondary Air Reserves On. All Sewer Entrances Have Been Locked. HyperNet Has Been Temporarily Disabled To Conserve Power. Please Do Not Leave The Complex Until The Incident Has Been Marked As Resolved. Please Remain Calm. Return To Your Habitation Quarters. Please Remain Calm. Return To Your Habitation Quarters.” et cetera.
The mouse, who was now like a massive red nightlight in a vacuum, began firing his handgun in a frenzy; red bolts whizzing wildly through the darkness, zaps echoing off gunmetal walls, causing panicked screams from the blinded crowd with each shot. As if with one mind, both Jules and Gray ducked out and rushed the stairwell; they couldn’t see much in the darkness, but they could see the red A’s of the automatons and used those as reference points. They slid past the Moral Agents, down the stairwell in a hurry.
The mouse kept firing in a panic, which escalated the screams of the patrons into a shrill cacophony, before realizing that his prey had escaped, and he took off down the stairwell after them, his mighty redness trailing from several feet away, leaving ephemeral afterimages in his wake. The siren continued, but it was not enough to drown out the screams of mortals.
Gray and Jules identified the club’s exit by the mass of A’s surrounding it; as they ran toward it, they twirled, ducked, bobbed, weaved, and even slid through the legs of some brightly colored holo people shining out in the darkness; one of which—a purple dinosaur with a face that would have looked goofy if not for the situation—grabbed Gray by the torso, wrestling with him for a moment. “Trying to get into my pants?” the dinosaur said in a hungry tone, its face inching close; Gray could see the red blur catching up from the corner of his eye, so he headbutted the dinosaur’s face as hard as he could, which freed him, and he bolted off toward the exit once more, cursing and rubbing his forehead. As he approached, he slid the whirring pen out of his coat pocket and pointed it at the portcullis, which caused the circular door to slide open. Just as he was doing this, the siren stopped, and the club suddenly lit brighter than ever before; a harsh, white fluorescence washed over the entire room, exposing every grimy detail and the crowd itself, all lumped together in fear and panic, oozing like a disgusting ball of flesh.
The mouse, now able to hone in on his targets, lifted the gun and fired off several rounds. One of the shots came close to Jules’ face, whose eyes went wide as they launched over the portcullis lip, out of the club, and into a hallway. They were followed shortly by Gray, whose landing caused him to roll across the floor, becoming tangled in his own long coat; as he loosened his limbs and regained sight of the door, he lifted the pen, whirred it, and the portcullis shut, sealing the bright red monster behind it.
The hallway they found themselves in was as white and fluorescent as the club; the auxiliary power did not respect preference, leaving only the most necessary lights on, which happened to be the brightest and the whitest. The hallway wasn’t so much a hallway as it was a gunmetal concourse as wide as an Old Earth interstate, all black and gray with orbed portcullises and neon graphics—both business and profane—dotting the walls on each side of the concourse. Every twenty feet, there was a black marble column extending from the floor into the ceiling, twisting and all. Looking down the concourse made the way seem endless and one feel queasy. People dressed in suits, rags, or holos, all bright and reflective, walked up and down lit walkways with arrows flashing in all directions. Some people were very nonplussed by the whole situation; others were running into nearby portcullises, hurriedly closing and locking themselves away; some were sitting against the concourse walls, arms wrapped around their knees, headsets wrapped around their heads, others taking off the headsets and looking into them with sunken eyes as if their very souls had been torn from their bodies. There was an eerie silence outside of the patter of feet and the plinking of metal. Ragged merchants in open bodegas, complete with bodega Auto-Cats, looked around nervously, as if mourning their temporary loss of business. All the Moral Agents were marching off in a single direction, as if being repurposed for some other function.
The intercom ding-donged once more, the robot voice returned:
“Today Is Gamelion 8, AH386. Aides Repair Automatons Have Been Dispatched. Auxiliary Power Has Been Enabled. Incident Is Still On-Going. Incident Start Time Was 8:43 PM, Estimated End Time Is 12:35 AM. Please Return To Your Habitation Quarters. Thank You For Your Cooperation.”
Gray was all spread out on the hard metal floor, staring up at the gray ceiling above; his dark coat open, exposing all sorts of knick-knacks and frivolous items; he was huffing and puffing, regaining composure. Jules stood over him, the harsh light causing their blonde hair to glow, looking nearly seraphic as they peered down at the young man who, at this moment, resembled an injured wolf, hair all dark and messy, a visceral strained look on his face, teeth showing and grinding, slobber. Jules offered their hand to the wolf.
“It’s hard-locked, but that door’s not going to hold for long,” Gray said as he took Jules’ long hand, stood up, and brushed at his legs. “We need to find somewhere to hide until all this blows over.” He then straightened out his coat and fidgeted with his hair as he mumbled to himself, “I didn’t think they would be able to find me again.” His hand fell from his hair to his eyes, where he pulled down on the skin, exposing more of the whites of his dark orbs, before slapping his own cheeks as if smacking himself back to reality.
The duo looked at each other, as if to verify that they were both ready, then took off down the wide concourse, checking every portcullis, nook, and cranny. Merchants yelled out to them, advertising wares, but these yells went ignored by the youthful duo, who continued to frantically scour the area, moving further down the concourse with every failed refuge attempt.
“Why don’t we check the Great Latrine?” Jules suggested, still on the move.
“Because the entrances are locked during outages—don’t you pay attention to the announcements?” Gray groaned as they continued, on the move.
They stopped for a moment to catch their breath. People were passing all around them. Jules bit their finger again, flicked their earring, twirled their hair, and stuck a finger up their nose so far that you could see the outline of the digit forming on the outside of the nostril; this was a thoughtful ritual—a scanning ritual—and then Jules saw it: a small marquee sliding the words MODEM FACILITY in bold green text. “What about the modem facility?”
“Not a bad idea, if it’s unlocked,” Gray said thoughtfully.
They pressed onward toward the modem facility. People continued to pass them in the concourse; one specifically, a hollowed man-bear chimera of glitzy yellows and sparkling blues, wearing only tight black shorts and exposed chest hair glittering, looked Jules up and down. “Hey girl, looking for some company?” But Jules only pulled down an eyelid, stuck out their long pink tongue, and shooed them away. The duo continued onward, and as they approached the turn to the modem facility, a familiar red glow caught their attention. They both turned in unison to catch a glimpse and just as quickly turned back and then broke into a sprint even quicker.
It was the mouse.
The mouse had spotted his prey once more; he shakily lifted his pistol and fired crimson bolts through the crowd. One of the bolts narrowly missed Gray but went on to strike the chimera provocateur square in the kneecap, blood and bone bursting forth at the point of impact, instantly severing the leg in twain; the chimera toppled over, howling. This prompted the concourse crowd into full pandemonium. The mouse rushed through the tumult, deadset on the duo, toppling anyone in his path.
The duo used the chaos to slip into a crowd of frightened people, sliding through bodies at high speeds, then turning a corner into a thin hallway where the modem facility was located. Rushing through the hall, they soon came upon the door—not a normal habitation portcullis, but a thick black-metal door—and it was unlocked; in fact, it was cracked open slightly. Gray then checked the interior of the door from some distance; he saw many small unlit LED indicators and let out one of those thought-bubble-popping noises. Jules watched their backside but saw no sign of the mouse. Gray then motioned to Jules, “It’s clear.” They then slipped through the door and closed it behind them. Gray whirred the knob, and there was a small click followed by a beep.
The modem facility was a massive room full of human-sized black megaliths that extended as far as the eye could see. Wires, like complex spiderwebs, hung between each megalith. The black dolmens flashed every color from their different openings and LED indicators, and these little color flashes were so numerous that they formed large splotches of weird color on the walls and floors in a computed cadence. Out of all these colors, the most common was red, as if indicating some fault in the machinery. Faint ticking and low-frequency purrs were the only sounds in the room.
“I used to work in one of these places,” Jules said nostalgically, wandering from megalith to megalith, observing all the complex but neatly organized wires.
“Yeah, I know. We both worked there. Sometimes I wonder about your memory, Jules,” Gray groaned, then continued, “It’s weird that this room would be unlocked, much less unguarded. Not only was the door open, but the trip-laser was disabled. And I guess the Moral Agents are all busy moonlighting as repair bots, but I can’t help but think that something weird is going on here.”
Jules was squatting near a megalith, fiddling with some wires between pushing blonde tresses behind their long ears. “The wiring on this one is all wrong.”
“Who cares about that right now, let’s just—” Gray's ears perked up from the sound of soft rummaging in the distance. “Is that you, Jules?”
Jules vocalized some sort of quiet two-syllable no-noise.
“I think it’s coming from further back. Let’s go che—” Gray was interrupted by a loud crash. He quickly turned to the source of the noise: the entrance of the facility. The door was wide open, and standing in the doorway was a redshifted nova. Gray shouted, “Jules! Get—” but before he could finish his sentence, a scarlet bolt pierced through his shoulder, blood spiraled through the air, and he fell to the floor. The mouse now stood over Gray, gun pointing at the young man’s other shoulder.
“foRgEt eye For An EyE. i’LL takE YOUR ARms. theN I’LL takE yOur lEGs. THEn I’lL TAKe Your spLeeN, yOuR kIDNeYS, YoUr StoMach. tHen I’ll RiP YoUr heaD ofF, cUt YOUr eyES OuT, anD GRafT One IntO mY OwN sOCKeT, sO you’Ll alWaYs BE wITH Me; pEerINg out AT aLl tHE peoPLe i WilL be KIllinG in yOUr NaME. I WAnt yOU to sUFfER bEFORe YoU DIE, WoLF. AnD ThEN i WaNT YoU tO sUFfer AfTeR DeAtH ToO. I WANT YOU TO SUFFER BAD.”
“Gray was right. You do like to talk!” Jules yelled as they recklessly rushed the mouse from some distance away. The mouse turned without warning; two bolts whisked straight through each of Jules’ thighs, flooring the musician, who landed on their side without a sound, turned themselves over, and started to crawl toward the mouse with a strained look of determination on their face.
The mouse laughed electronically as they turned away from the helpless musician, abruptly firing a bolt into Gray’s other shoulder. Gray yelped, and his body spasmed as if shocked electric. The mouse then turned to Jules, who was muttering Gray’s name, their crawling now picking up speed.
“nO PAiN? DOesN’T MAtTer.”
The mouse fixed the barrel on Jules’ back: Pop. Pop. Jules went silent.
Gray’s eyes were glazing over as he struggled to peer up at the red glow, his vision shaky and hallucinatory; the mouse’s smile ominous, growing larger and smaller, swirling and contorting.
“You know…” Gray coughed.
“I wanted to tell you…” Gray coughed again, this time blood.
The mouse watched intently, gun trained on Gray’s head.
“I wanted to tell you… to go… ga…” Gray’s eyes closed, breathing slowed.
It was then that a crackle of thunder boomed throughout the room, accompanied by an explosion of emerald sparks, which galvanized with the mouse’s red glow to create a yellow lightning storm around the rodent. The mouse flickered, wireframed, and vanished, revealing the burly man behind the holo, his still dangling eyeball convulsing violently along with the rest of his body as lightning coursed through his veins. The man could barely scream before he was charged to reticence, falling to the floor, gray-green smoke emanating from his crumpled corpse.
Within the shadow of two megaliths stood a young woman. Her bobbed hair like fresh rust, her skin like that of a white sheet discolored by the faintest of coffee stains, freckles, lots of freckles, and her emerald eyes were covert behind a pair of black-circle glasses of which she peered over the top. There was a thick messenger bag slung around her shoulder, snug to her hip. She was wearing baggy cargo pants and a dark green tank top with a single sleeve that trailed down into a gloved hand in which she was holding what looked to be a large metal spanner emitting remnant sparks of emerald light, easily mistaken for a fantastic magic wand. There she stood, wand outstretched, a surprised look on her face as if she was not expecting whatever had just happened to happen at all.
There stood Ellie.
Artwork by ComicFarm.
life or: the beginning of ff2
remember boss fights those unwinnable boss fights life is one of those
fuck disney
hidden agreements written in text very small now the mouse takes all
miles
he works at subway smokes weed with the boys out back plays halo at home
home depot
creed's playing on blast smell of wood, plastic, and dads this is home depot