Weapon le Monde was shitting himself. What with Dapto running late, evac counting down and the whine of the scarp shuttle now approaching the interexchange, chances were this day would turn out as shithouse as the last one. And the two or three before that. Okay they’ve all been shit, he thought, since the fucking analogue cut-off. Dapto’s text that morning had said it all, really: L8 leave w/out moi if U need. CU @ Lysaghts. Yeah, what?
Weapon rolled another number with shaking digits, sweat pouring like pixels from his steel-upholstered “forehead”, orbs tracking passengers like a betting man, hoping to fuckness he’d catch a glimpse of Dapto’s rubber beanie in the next what? Three seconds? Too late, sorry – L8. The whine of the scarp shuttle accelerated, its sound defeating, as the puter interfacing with the scoreboard texts spat out voice recog details, the stations on this shuttle’s last evac run clogging up Weapon’s auto recall with extraneous invader names scarborough fairy meadow coniston and revolving indigenous vowels woonona corrimal unanderra till the cheerful explosion of the train’s last door-opening deathrattle blasted Weapon out of yet another downtime reverie fucking jitch weed keep it together Weap all stations to Lysaghts American Creek rendezvous Mt Nebo fucking bong water cola.
A seat freshly sprayed with departure sweat, howling down the aisle trolley for a water ampoule, stubbing the jitchette out in a thoughtfully titanium tray between seats, lift that dividing arm up and sprawl doubly, ticketed stub in the fold of his “elbow” aisle side conveniently loaded up with ‘tude for the passing inspectors, tho there were none now. Like synthetic fucking what they called them ants busting a bombed out nest, these, Weapon nattered, jitched to the hitch now, making no sense even back at HQ, tho that must have been what was jamming him. Heh, chickens with the fucking what, heads? chopped off em. Had to download a library in order to make sense of that wordrot, coming out of the screaming bejesus pension entitlement holder as he rammed the sucker up against some station entrance, further north, well within the zone of do not pass go (op cit.). Tell that to those survivor cookies. A-and HQ!
He detects the moronic thoughtprint of a million human radiation traps in a race for people with no sense of direction. An edgy 1994 guitarwash embedded in his nasal soundtracks told Weapon someone was sitting in the seat opposite, chewing one of those rubber pellets the Commissioner for Peaceful Withdrawals was handing out like Christmas (op cit) yesterday as the clocks wound down towards an ultimate New Year deathwish, the harbours loaded with refuse and city corpses in the form of tidemarch, contrary drift and terminal sirens. Standing on the old woman’s rocky chair the passing observers told him (him itching for a jitching) that the jetsam was real, though the Chine Boss decided who went in and who didn’t, remained a mystery – the kind you never solve, he thought, or whistled. File that under future song titles. Along with “The Pus-Ridden One” and “File that under future song titles”. Time for another jitchroll.
Read the elegant fury of a dope machine caught up in a biological emergency care factor, shaking off the desperate slimy claws of the damned, who knew it. Even in his grille they could see a grin, and resented that, tapping his “cranium” smartly with their hammers, though what use was violence underneath the skirt of a pathological genderless deathworker? They knew this too, yes. Take a seat baby, let it all hang loose. As the white doors snapped shut, creating an airlock inside which none of them could breathe, the WORLD (op cit) took a break, sat down on its arse and mulled things over. Hee hee! Weapon chopped up some more jitch with the wastenot matic, his left arm draped over an aisle rest like a bird’s wing, while the white bird sitting opposite jacked into some reading paraphernalia. Tight! They’d given Weapon eyebrows and so he raised one now, almost parabolic in its tone of inquiry, hoping the ‘tude he was clearly showing might shut this freaking bird down, maybe switch her off even.
