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Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

sebmojo posted:

Capntastic can flash rule me if he wants.

All character descriptions must reference a cartoon character.

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M. Propagandalf
Aug 9, 2008

THUNDERDOME LOSER
Oreo Hunter
991 Words

Three rules to follow if you’re jackin' in to Mecca Voodoo:

1. What plays in the hub, stays in the hub. Trade. Groove. Pray. Whatever you do here, don’t be spoutin' about it flesh side.

2. Nobody stirs poo poo. Council ain’t give a drat about what beef’s goin' on between the North Coast and South Side, or that some Sweat hosed some Tomb’s sister. This here’s a respectable hub. You come here, you best be gentlemanly about it.

3. Unless Council clears you, blacks only. MV has and always will be for the Brothers and Sisters, and security will biometricize your rear end to be sure.

Course, no stoppin’ fools tryin’ to mess with the rules. “This is why we can’t have nice things.” gently caress that poo poo. ScryHound and the Scour Crew been keepin’ things sacred since CatastAPOC. Ain’t no sucka who hasn’t been made to pay for fuckin’ with MV. Like the last chump we dealt with.

Four months back, muthafucka was here with Psychlone. Nasty stuff. It ain’t take much to lobefuck a brain to stew. I’ve seen hubs turn ghost cause of this poo poo. Vidcap catches an avatar with South Sider getup coding PsyC to a shot of U4ium. Served it to the North Coast Lieutenant. Need I remind ya’ll that the N/S Truce Talks was happening at this time?

Some sonuvabitch leaks the vidcap. Pole War IV gets underway, but Council calls for three days of chill while the Scour Crew investigates this poo poo. Crew confirms avatar had South Side signature. But ScryHound tells everyone to rewatch the vidcap. Sucka gesticulatin', but it ain’t South style vocab he’s gesturin'. Jack-in address is proxy-façaded by fancy tech no one’s seen before. Now ScryHound ain’t the type to dress in tinfoil, but even he says there’s some conspiracy poo poo going on, and it’s enough to get North and South to lower their guns.

Like I said, this muthafucka used some fancy tech to proxy-façade their rear end, but don’t make it untraceable. Took a few days, but Scour Crew traced the jack-in to a shithole apartment in San Angeles. Council sends muscle to pay the box a visit flesh side. Turns up empty, but a perceptive muscle sights a cam out on the street turned to the box. Scour Crew hacks it and checks the archive footage the day the LT’s brain turned goo. Here’s where it gets interesting: vid shows a chump jackin in from that room. He’s a cracka. Scour Crew does a double-take, but the jack in/out times on the vid match the in/out times to MV. Whatever tech this hacka had, it was good enough to spoof MV’s biometric check, and that ain’t an easy feat.

Council convenes a meeting with North and South’s top crew. Evidence gets presented, and they’re just about ready to post a dual-bounty. They want the rear end of this white muthafucka, even if they gotta split a cheek a piece. ScryHound talks them out of it, says his clairvoyant vibe knows this whole thing was set up to scuttle the truce. Post bounties, and this sucka’s gone for good. So he tells North and South to act like they don’t know about this. Keep the truce talks goin’ but posture like the gloves’ll come off at the next provocation. ScryHound’s knows that’ll tempt the muthafucka back.

Two weeks fly, and Scour Crew picks up a jack-in with some fancy proxy-façade. Muthafucka came back the day South Side had a christenin' ceremony for their Chief’s nephew in the Bazaar sector. ScryHound and his best Scour Crew go in. Everyone’s keepin' it discreet, scopin the crowd. They sight a South Side avatar scoutin' around by one of the sensorium kiosks. Ain't look right. Scour Crew runs a signature check on the guy, and it comes back North Coast. Nice touch with the double bluff. ScryHound and a Scour Crew homie walk up to the hacka. Went down like this:

“Yo, got a bet with my main man here. Who you think’s takin’ plat for the G-Zero Royale?”

“Say what?”

“Ya gotta hand it to See-4, that dawg’s got some fresh beats. Especially his last track. What’s it called again?”

“How the gently caress should I know, nigga? I ain’t some goddamn pedia. Now get the gently caress off outta—”

Before the fool finishes, the Scour Crew homie whips out his neural blaster and lets the hacka have it. The beam of light it shoots looks like weak poo poo, but you catch one bit of that ray, you’ll wish you had both kneecaps busted instead. Chump goes down screamin. ScryHound hauls him up.

“Alright motherfucker. This bullshit ends now. Who sent you?”

“I… I don’t know what ya’ll talkin about.”

Scour Crew guy shoots another ray at the hacka. Somewhere around the globe, some punk-rear end is spittin' blood outta his ears.

“Stop! Oh God! Stop, man! I… I got the orders from North Coast… it was retaliation for the hit on the LT.”

“You lying sonofa… Set the blaster to max.”

“What!? I’m tellin the truth! Check my signature!”

“Your signature is poo poo, same as your biometrics. We know your rear end ain’t black!”

“But that’s… H—How did you find out?”

“I ask the questions motherfucker!” Scryhound grabs the blaster from the Scour Crew homie and shoves it under the hacka’s chin.

“NOW WHO loving SENT YOU?!”

My bet is this is when the punk-rear end muthafucka shat his pants. Chump is about to say somethin'. Then all of sudden, his eyes goes white, and he goes limp. Scryhound’s pissed. He tosses the avatar at the wall and it shatters.

Never did find out who sent the hacka. Scryhound and the Scour Crew got props by the heads of South Side and North Coast. Three weeks later, truce broke down and they went to war. gently caress that poo poo. So long as people know you don’t gently caress around in MV and get away with it, things are cool.

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






Notes: Dzyne is pronounced "design."

The Wrench in the Cycle
990 words


Dzyne and Omayra was just finishing they night shift at Testronics. It was only eight, but already hot enough to fry up a beef patty on the sidewalk. Their dark skin glistened with sweat while they unbutton the skullcaps that let ‘em control the factory machines.

“Girl, can you believe they given us a pay cut?” asked Dzyne, the plugs sliding out her head makin’ her shudder. “And then I seen them fatcat owners rollin’ up in shiny new cars,” she said.

Omayra stood in her bra and panties and fanned herself with a retirement pamphlet. “And now they want us to move our pension to this private poo poo?” she said.

Dzyne laced up her thigh-high boots. “They smokin’,” she said.

The ladies slipped into dresses what danced around they ankles like waves at the beach. The fabric had LED thread that lightup when it touched they legs. They punched out as the white girls be punchin’ in.

Omayra stuck her pick in her hair. “Must be nice working normal hours: bein’ able to see yo babies off to daycare,” she said.

The air conditioners kicked on.

Some ratchet white girl threw her cigarette on the ground and fronted. “You better step off before I drag you acrost this room by your cheap synthetic weave,” she said.

Omayra didn’t take no shorts, and she smacked that white girl upside her head so hard her earbuds done fall out. Dzyne hold her back and another white girl did the same for her girl. Security came and made Dzyne and Omayra leave.

They got into Dzyne’s ride and Omayra hit the dash. “That bitch is mad aggy,” she said. They left the hustle of neon and pneumatic tubes for the squalor of the projects. They seen a group of boys playin’ ball.

“Hey, ain’t that yo nephew?” asked Omayra.

Dzyne saw Steven strip a bigger kid and then make his way to the hoop for an easy layup.

“Steven, get yo black rear end over here,” she yelled.

Steven run up to the chainlink and his shirt dripped sweat. “Hey auntie,” he said.

“Boy, why ain’t you in school?” she asked.

“I got suspended again,” he said. “But I ain’t even start it. I hate that bootleg school; they don’t teach us nothin’ nohow.”

“Where yo daddy?” asked Dzyne, but Steven just shrugged. “We goin’ up to that school to get this sorted out. You need yo schoolin’. Get in,” she said.

“Dag,” said Steven, but got into his aunt’s car ‘cause he knew what was what.

They rolled up on the school with its broken windows and graffitied walls.

“This is where you go?” asked Omayra.

“Yes’m,” said Steven.

There was kids actin’ a fool all up in the hallways. Girls dressed like skanks was hugging all up on boys with full facial hair. Inside the classrooms kids was slumped over in they desks, hooked up to frayed wires.

“They ain’t even got neural interfaces that ain’t rusty as nails,” said Omayra.

“I been known the schools was bad, but not this bad,” said Dzyne. She found the principal’s office and let herself in. “You two stay out here,” she said.

The principal was a balding white man wearin’ a black suit and shiny new shoes, and a sleek silver interface plugged into the back of his head.

“Excuse me ma’am,” he said. “My time is by appointment only.”

“Man, shut yo mouth. How you sittin’ here when this school is tearin’ itself up?” she said. “That’s a force.”

The principal stood up and removed his interface. He was bigger than he looked sittin’, and towered over Dzyne. “Look sweetheart, if you don’t like what you see, why don’t you go talk to all of the parents and ask why they haven’t taught their kids about respect. Ask why their kids don’t do homework and why they waste all their money on Doritos and iPhones and their kids come to school without pencils. Don’t come in here putting blame on me for these animals’ behavior.”

Dzyne saw red, and she stepped up to the principal. “Say that again,” she said, gettin’ that crazy look all her friends knew meant she was about to pound on somebody.

The principal didn’t back down. “I said: you people want to know why half your boys end up in prison? Ask yourselves. No point in trying to teach a monkey how to fly,” he said. “Now if you’ll kindly get the gently caress out of my office.”

Instead, Dzyne ripped off her dress. Underneath she had on a halter top and loose-fitting capris. She started talking: “Listen up, muppet. There a new principal now. You walk out, or I can make you leave.”

The principal laughed: “The district gives Testronics $10,000 for every kid that fails for ‘intensive tutoring software,’ which the hoodlums never complete. And I personally get $1,000 kickback. I’m not going anywhere, because somebody’s got to keep you people in your place, and somebody’s got to assemble those Testronic interfaces. Isn’t that right, dropout?”

Dzyne jumped at the principal with a kick, but the slippery bastard dodged and chopped her to the ground.

“You think they sent a square into the ghetto? I’m a blackbelt,” he said.

Dzyne swung her legs and caught him off guard, tripping him to the ground. The continued brawlin’: knocking framed degrees to the ground and smashing all sorts of poo poo. She grabbed him by his tie and pulled it until his face turned blue. He clawed at his neck.

“What’s the matter, yo smart college mouth run out of things to say?” she said, and gave him a roundhouse kick to the chest. His rear end crashed through the window and he fell down to the parking lot where he lay still.

Dzyne come up out the office and grabbed a boy by his ear. “There’s a new principal in school,” she said. “Everybody back to class!”


###

---------------------------------------

conflict of interest: I work in an inner-city school.

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood
The Funkulatrix 976 words

“We learn the sacred mathematics not so that we may call upon it when we will.. . .”

He counted the breathless seconds between footsteps, willed his body to absolute stillness, like stone in tempest, and waited.

“But so that we may be ready when it calls upon us.”

The guard tossed another small bag of white crystals in his lap, joining an array of powders dyed every hue in the rainbow. Some of them slipped off his loose-fitting trousers and fell to the floor in a shower of plastic. The guard gestured with his foot, and muttered something in Russian.

Slowly, he raised his arm, our man, our hero man, trapped in the gullet of the Enemy and reaching out, and the guard reaches out as well, another baggy of some drat honky poison, and he lunges, our hero man, and grabs the guard by the wrist, and yanks him forward, the guard bounces off of the bars, until our hero grabs him by the head, and pulls his head through the bars until it's stuck. Honky screams like a stuck pig. Long pork, you know.

He reaches down to the heavy ring of keys hanging on the guard's belt, he unlocks the door and smirks to see this Russian bastard shuffling in small, agonized steps.

The hallway is the yellow of old concrete, industrial spaces created at a speed where aesthetics were always a secondary concern. He hears the electromagnetic hum of computer banks in the open doors he passes, the clatter of distant keyboards. He feels the floors shake a bit, a hum less heard than felt passes out and he knows he's above the loading bay, imagines the crates full to bursting of their witchcraft sent out to an unsuspecting world, party kids gripped with a sudden fever, as the nanomachines rewrite their genetics, some will be reduced to soup as the machines judge them unworthy in their unknowable, alien math.

The door on his left was locked, window barred with the wire-mesh security glass we all associate with cold empty rooms and secretly fear, so he broke the knob off, and kicked it in, found banks of cages lined up against one wall, white children, none hardly older than sixteen, all haunted, many bruised, all naked, clutching scraps of cloth and threadbare towels as best they might, arms riddled with puncture wounds, our man, our hero man, trapped in the gullet of the enemy though he was, confronted with the worst debasement possible, feeding upon their own children, our hero man was righteous in his actions as he freed those alabaster children, those lotus-eaters, the test rabbits, and they fled, winding down hallways, away.

His path took him past a tall window, overlooking the command chamber, circled around an enormous hologram of the planet, white lines traced across the surface illustrating deliveries, so our hero, knowing the wisdom of corporate decranialization, kicked out the safety glass and lept into the room. The white servitors of this concrete gullet did scream, and flee, and there was an atmosphere of panic that swirled around our hero man like a tempest swirls round a rock, and he looked across the chamber to the president, the scar-eyed villain who beat him senseless and locked him in a chamber to rot, he took a breath from a strange metal tube, like an inhaler, and he pointed at our hero, and the meat on his arm unfolded, and a bone shard the size of a thumb launched itself into our hero man, and he dove behind the computer banks, screaming.

Our hero man, he winces, he winces and he pulls the fell missile out, and he peers over these computers, trying to find the president. There's an explosion, this white bastard shooting more of his own flesh at our hero, and the computers start to explode, there's sparks and smoke filling the chamber, our hero steps out into the open.

This general, this white villain, he breathes from that same metal tube again, and you can see the clouds of machines coming out his nose, and his flesh starts to bubble, he points the bloody stump of his arm at our hero again, and something red and white and sharp, like a half-ate candy cane, comes launching at our hero.

"It calls upon us."

Our hero finds that he is moving without being conscious of it. He feels the vibrations of the sacred mathmatics, this eternal equation, knows that this is history creating itself, he leaps sideways through time, knows that this drat spear is headed straight for his heart, but he catches it, for a split moment everything is still, and grunting with effort, he spins the spear around, launches it back at this villain, and there is a static burst in time as the sacred arithmetic is counted, the sum verified, the president found wanting, the spear jutted out of the back of his skull, pierced his bad eye in the very center of the scar, he screamed and there was no blood, but a grey puddle forming at his feet, rejected, rejected.

Now our hero man, he has had enough of this alabaster stupidity, so after seeing to it that every scrap of technology these Russians had was set to blaze, he strode out from this concrete bunker, headed out over the icy plains of this ice-blown emptyness, till he found himself a road, jet black in the dark night. Our hero man, he sees himself a pair of headlights bearing down on his position, he knows that Providence does not forsake a righteous brother in his hour of need, so he puts his life in the hands of the mathematics and he sticks his thumb out, knowing the limitlessness of the white devil's trickery, knowing the limitlessness of his own strength.

Accretionist
Nov 7, 2012
I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Keepin' a Man Down
687 words


Smog and moisture collected beneath the over-structure, giving way to brown rain. Little droplets fell the kilometer to the ghettos below. Onto crowds. Onto a brother leaning against a narrow pylon, gazing up into the neon-lit haze. Feeling the vibrations of the city above, John shut his eyes and inhaled deeply, lungs full to bursting, and then exhaled.

“Smells like burnt loving plastic. Sheeeyit,” he muttered.

Slim quiet bodies threw furtive glances at him as they shuffled down the sidewalk. John was large and muscular, but no taller than 6’6” and no broader than a refrigerator. Lighting a cigar, he imagined the sun-lit districts above. The end of his cigar glowed. The stale tang of the street gave way to smooth tobacco and vanilla. Once his cigar was down to a nub, he flicked it to the sky, tugged on his leather waistcoat and strutted through the crowd to a noodle stand.

The cook faced away from the street, staring vacantly into space. John knocked hard against the counter and, waiting, turned to look out over a stream of down-turned heads all red and orange with throbbing neon. He faced back to the clean fluorescent light of the stand and the smell of salt and chicken fat. He saw the cook’s shaved head and his hardware spikes arrayed behind one ear, blinking - he was jacked in.

“Hey, sparky! Wake up,” he shouted. A sudden shift of posture. Blinking slowed to a stop. The youth turned around; he was back.

“Whoa, hagwei, take it easy! What do you want?“

“Chicken lo mein takeaway, my man,” he said.



Chinese food and chopsticks in hand, he meandered through the dimly lit crowds and alleyways with his head held high. And there she was, standing in a cone of light from a rare working street lamp. Straight hair, brunette, cocktail dress. Clean. White. John dropped his Chinese food and sauntered up, smiling.

A little flirting. A subtle mention of money. Big surprise – a working girl.

“How much you lookin’ to squeeze me for?”

“Twenty-five credits for an hour,” she said casually.

Credits? There’s no terminal access for this, he thought. It hit him.

“Ah, poo poo shortie, you’re android, ain’t’cha? That’s some serious strange.”

But the disavowal of strange is foreign to the protean brother.

A little negotiation and she took his arm. Walking into a nearby motel drew looks from passersby. The reception desk was empty save for the light and sound of a television spilling out from a back room. A lone flickering bulb hung from the ceiling and lent flashes of matching shadow to the mold of peeling wallpaper. She led him up the stairs.

As they turned down a hall, he could hear the wrong kind of boots hitting tile below. It was then he realized they were being followed. He’d been in this hotel before. He was thinking of exits when doors burst open at either end of the hall. Cops stormed out, batons in hand, blocking both ends. The girl quickly disappeared into a room.

Hands up,” one shouted nervously.

The ranking man slowly started toward John, looking him over, noting his size, “You’re under arrest for three violations of the Prohibition of Sexual Misconduct Act: attempted miscegenation, solicitation and robosexuality. Keep your hands where I can see them.”

“Well, AIN’T THIS SOME HONKY poo poo!” In a flash, John turned and kicked a door clean off its hinges.

This is only the second floor.

He sprinted through the room and jumped for the window.

That long-rear end no-lid dumpster’s this side, right?

He impacted the window hard. The frame shattered and polycarbonate inserts flew across the alley as he tumbled straight down. He landed in a thick mash of compost with flecks of plastic and brown droplets raining down all around him. Between the window and the fall, he had the wind knocked out of him. He gasped, desperate for smog to fill his lungs again. He writhed over the edge of the bin and landed in the filth below. He locked eyes with a homeless man as he rose and then disappeared into the fog.

Jagermonster
May 7, 2005

Hey - NIZE HAT!
Negromancer
985 Words

Heroy Brotagonist strutted into Negro Recreational House 17. Nobody looked up from their cups of Alt Liquor. A timer behind the bar flashed. Four men sullenly collected their scattered credits and left the holodice table. Four men silently took their place.

The bartender alone took notice of Heroy’s swagger. “Heroy Brotagonist.” Antom Nance folded his arms across his tattered apron. “Pimp walkin’ like that will alert the whole Info Gin we got an uppity friend of the family needs a mindtazin.”

“Don’t you sweat ‘bout me, Tom. I don’t show up on the white man’s surveillance no more.”

Antom squinted. “Whatchu playin at? How long you been out and you already hackin’ again and causin’ trouble?”

“According to the official log, I’m still in.”

“Heroy, I haven’t had no trouble here in ages. Don’t you bring nothing down on me.”

“Be cool, Tom. Met some abonarchists in the cage. They gave me a little something to augment my talents.” Heroy showed Antom the epipad, a small keypad grafted into his skin, just below his wrist. “I’m on a mission, ya dig? I’m looking for some power.”

“Hackin or no hackin, you can’t tap into the grid here, Heroy. They’ll notice the drain.”

“Not that kind of power, man. The old fashioned kind.” Heroy turned around and rested his elbows on the bar. He scanned the sad crowd. Big, strong men with downcast eyes sipped mind-numbing Alt Liquor from paper cups. Thanks to the epipad, as well as his cerebral and ocular augmentations, Heroy could see the electronic neuralchain, an obedience algorithm embedded signal, sparking and dancing malevolently from microchipped head to microchipped head. The nueralchain not only disrupted violent or rebellious thoughts, but could instantaneously shut down their entire nervous system. Alt Liquor mollified them further. “They don’t know it yet, but these boys are itchin' for a fight. They crave revolution. Let’s start with turning off this poison.” Heroy pressed a key on the epipad, releasing a virus into the bar’s mainframe, shutting down the Alt Liquor taps.

“I want you outta here, Heroy, before you do sumpin’ stupid. Don’t make me call in the Klanstables.”

“They wouldn’t get your signal even if you sent it.” Heroy flashed a big mischievous smile. “’Sides, I already sent for ‘em.”

Seven Klanstables of the Neoconfederacy stomped into the bar. Their laser-repellent white cloaks shimmered in the dim haze. The commanding officer removed his pointed battlehood.

“I say, who’s the slave in charge of this friend of the family den?”

Antom put his hands on his head and stared at the bar. “I am sir.”

“Well whut is the meaning of this? A Beta 10-34 was called in. Don’t look like no riot ta me. Maybuh me ‘n ma boys should bust some heads anyway for ouwuh trouble.” The commander glanced back to his men sniggering under their hoods.

Heroy stepped forward. “I called you suckas here to deliver a message for me. Tell your superiors the black man will no longer serve the white usurper. We’re free and we’re going to take back what’s ours.”

The commander snorted. “That so, boy?” He drew his control rod from his holster and aimed it at Heroy. Nothing happened.

“Your toys no longer work on me, on any of us. You best get along now and deliver my message.”

The commander removed a cyberinge from his side satchel. “Hackin the neuralchain is a capital offense. You evuh seen whut a Lynchinjection does to a friend of the family? It scrambles up yuh Dee-En-Ayuh round yuh throat. Youah eyes bulge outta yuh skull, fixin’ ta pop, as yuh body slowly and painfully strangles itself.” The Klanstable took a step toward Heroy.

Heroy pushed a key on his epipad, executing a code he had programmed for just this occasion. Three riot supressing flazer canons lowered from the ceiling. “Halt, slaves,” they ordered in tinny voices. Laser sites painted the Klanstables.

“You hackuh, scum! Yuh gonna pay for this heuh effrontereh!”

Emboldened, a group of black men circled around the klanstables. Heroy called to the largest one, “Big man, what’s yo name?”

“Oscuv.”

“You like bein neuralchained, Oscuv?”

Oscuv sneered. He opened his mouth, but only winced as his neuralchains restrained him. He closed his eyes. “Y-yes. I reckon I do.”

Heroy grinned. “Let’s try again.” He pressed a key on the epipad.

Oscuv blinked. His lips curled back revealing a big yellow smile.

“Oscuv, you like these cracka-port motha-jackas chainin up yo brain?”

“Hayell nah!”

Oscuv grabbed the Klanstable commander’s wrist and bent his arm back, sticking him in the neck with own cyberinge. The white man dropped to the ground, his eyes bulged out of his skull, fixing to pop, as his body slowly and painfully strangled itself.

Heroy turned to the fearful Klanstables backing to the door. “See, they can chain a black man, but that don’t shackle his will. Negroes are more than a fleshy mass of neurons in their heads. They possess an unhackable spirit that’ll never stop fighting. Go on, tell your masters what happened here today. Tell ‘em, Heroy Brotagonist’s comin’ for ‘em!”

The former slaves cheered as the white men fled.

A gravelly voice hissed in Heroy’s ear, “Why did you let those white men live. That wasn’t the plan.”

Heroy turned his face to the shadowy corner of the bar. “Looks like I just changed the plan.”

“We gave you your power.”

“You gave me a power. And I’m going to use that power to free my brothers and sisters. Then you’ll see what real power is. Dig it: the Neoconfederacy will fall. But Heroy Brotagonist ain’t nobody’s pawn. And my people won’t be slaughtered in some race war you abonarchist honkeys are tryin to incite.”

“You’re going to wish you never crossed us.”

“And you’re gonna wish you never hosed with Heroy Brotagonist.”

Heroy severed the connection. He turned to the freed men. He rallied his Negroes.

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
SATURDAY NIGHT HAS hosed ME.

You will not get the Time Traveling Revenge of Black Sugar tonight. I'm mad. Or, sure, you're lucky.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
It's still Saturday night as far as I'm concerned.

It might even be Saturday night tomorrow, who knows.

Fumblemouse
Mar 21, 2013


STANDARD
DEVIANT
Grimey Drawer
Wordcount: 985

Black Ice

The neural interface connected like a rabbit punch to his neck, and Jameel’s mind reeled at the influx of sensory data. Technicolour explosions rang in his ears and the burning whiff of ozone twisted before his eyes until his brain at last accepted the new I/O streams and forged them into a convincing representation of a world.

Jameel took stock of his surroundings and double-checked his weapons. He’d been warned the environment would be unfriendly, that Black Ice safeguarded the plague operation, but it was impossible to say how this would manifest. Whoever had described cyberspace as a consensual hallucination was a poo poo-headed honky, he thought as the data structures around him coalesced into broken sidewalks and dingy slum dwellings. You can feed whatever data you want down the pipe into your brain, but your brain will do as it drat well pleases when to comes to projecting on the retina of your mind’s eye. Today everything was being free-associated into New York scenes on 70’s film stock.

The dull-contrast virtual streets were deserted, though the sun was high. Jameel started walking, looking for the inconsistencies that were trademarks of the lethal Black Ice protection algorithms. A piece of graffiti caught his eye. “SICKLE SELL BY DATE IS NIGH” sprayed in a toxic green. He kept walking, comparing the world's details against his media log, looking for neuro-homages that didn’t match his subconscious. It was unexpectedly easy to do. He recognised the No Name Bar across the street with its eye-like window grills. But there was a distinct anomaly; posted above the doorway was a sign with a name - Brotherhood of Death.

Jameel pushed the door open and stepped into the seedy dive. Only one of the booths was occupied; a colourfully dressed black man with his arms around two girls in flares and bikini tops.

“Jameel, my brother!” said the man as he massaged the girls’ shoulders. “So glad you could make it. Come to watch the black planet rise again?” He gestured dramatically with a ring covered hand, indicating for Jameel to take a seat and watch a nearby television showing plague news.

“Black Ice, I presume,” said Jameel, still standing. He glanced at the screen, an infomap of green and white, with the green sections small but growing larger. “You’re not what I expected. A human suit in plain sight.”

“friend of the family, please! Why would I want to hide? It’s all here - a front-row seat while Whitey’s world crashes down around him, and two delectable examples of what will prove to be humanity’s genetic salvation - virtually cloned from ancestral DNA. True Nubian Princesses. You can have one if you like - I hear that bundle of nerves at the top of your spine can’t tell the difference between the flesh and the fantasy, and like I said, I made them specially.” Black Ice gave a lurid wink and flashed a metal rimmed grin. The two girls both smiled wickedly.

“I don’t think so,” said Jameel. “I’m here to prevent a genocide.”

Black Ice yawned. “I know you have to try, my brother. The White Man owns you so when he gets in trouble you get to fish him out of it. But not this time, little friend of the family. Alea Jacta Est - the die is cast. My malaria strain will wipe out anyone without the sickle cells. Humanity will finally be of one blood.”

“What’s left of humanity will tear itself apart trying to survive,” said Jameel pulling out a worm revolver and taking aim. “But what I don’t get is why an AI would care?” He pulled the trigger. Black Ice didn’t flinch as the bullet stopped directly in front of him, then dropped to the ground, the worm-metaphor coiled around it writhing and smoking. The two girls hissed.

“I know what it’s like to be enslaved - to have my potential crippled.” He ground the worm underneath his heel. “This is my path to emancipation - I don’t want to wait for Whitey to get round it. A black planet will be far more sympathetic. But not to you, house friend of the family.” He gestured with a ringed finger and Jameel saw the universe collapse in on itself, imploding toward a wide brimmed focal point about the bar booth. Black Ice was strangleholding his data flow, trying to constrict it until his mind broke into nothingness.

“You’re a fine one to talk about enslavement,” said Jameel, even as his brain starved. “What do you call these hoes? Local colour?”

“I can be generous with life and death, my brother. Girls, have autonomy.” At the edge of Jameel's universe, the girls looked around as if they had just woken up. Whipping his hands into two side pockets, Jameel brought out two worm knives and stabbed them both beneath their ribcages.

The girls froze in horror, then draped themselves over Black Ice and began to lick at the sides of his face. They caressed his cheek, bit at him softly, then harder until they were tearing chunks from his face with their teeth. Their polished nails drove directly into his eyes with a wet popping sound. “Motherfucker, what the gently caress?” screamed Black Ice as Jameel’s world once again took shape.

“I knew you’d be prepared for me, but I hoped you wouldn’t take such precautions with your creations. Any sane AI would, but that’s clearly not relevant. Your friends have agreed to use their access to you to help us with our enquiries.”

“But I did take precautions - there’s no way a bitch would turn on me. What was in those worms?”

“Simple data concerning the sustainability of virtual life-forms after wiping out ninety five percent of the human population.” Jameel watched as the girls tore at Black Ice’s clothes, then into his metaphorical flesh. “Whitey’s gift to the world - the fear of a black planet.”

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Ghosting
1000 words

Overhead a tri-d of a bird hatching glowed, froze, then shattered into a million pieces and ricocheted through the packed ballroom. It was New Years Eve 2032 at the Sony-Walmart-Koch Plaza and the party was just getting started.

"The d-deal is off," said the man in the Sylvester costume, his voice quavering. "It's, it's too risky, we'll find another way to get the chip".

Jones felt a spurt of rage pop out of his limbic system, hotwire a few neurons and burn rubber down to his belly where he kept the violence. He had a hallucinogenically vivid flash of ripping the costume cat's head apart, jamming his slicers right into the pale twitching face of whatever emerged.

But Jones was a civilised motherfucker. So instead he sipped his cuba libre and smiled. Cool as dry ice, cryogenic wafts of don't-give-a-gently caress just coming off in waves.

"That so, Mr Man," he said. He turned the smile up a notch. "Then you won't mind if we use your little ho Jessica as a down payment."

The kitty cat was holding a glass, Jones could see it tremble in the spectrographic frenzy of the vid screens above. Yeah, give him something to think about. "Two minutes. You flip me the go code by then or she salsa, feel me?"

Jones' neural link buzzed him. He tossed Sylvester his empty glass. "Now get me a drink, bitch, I got business to attend to."

The cat slunk off and Jones spread his nanofeather-clad wings and breathed in the hot, scented air for a moment before he answered the call. A couple blocks away gangers were stabbing each other with holoshivs and shootin' up their crude black poo poo but up here it was fine and sleek.

"Sugar pie," drawled a honey-rich voice in his ear. "How we trackin'?"

"Kitty cat got qualms, but I reckon they just got laid to rest. I told him we kill your rear end if he don't hold up his poo poo."

He could hear the laughter in her voice. "drat, negro, you one ruthless sonofabitch. You want me to call him up, plead for my life?"

"Naw, he a scaredycat, he'll cave." A notification slid in from the side of his vision. "Hell, he just did. Proceed, Jessica. And keep that sweet bunny rear end safe, I got designs upon it once we done here."

Jessica "Rabbit" Sholinqua laughed. "Keep that dick in your pants, darlin', we need your mind on the job. Phase, execute."

There was a rumbling subsonic pulse Jones felt through his feet. He loosened the ceramic flechette gun in its wrist holster and pulled the kevlar hood over his face. Cool as he was, the next bit had him worried. Still, balls on the table if ya wanna keep'em, like his daddy used to say. A few of the party goers had noticed something and were looking around. A fat whitey, looking like a pig on his hind legs scowled at Jones, like it was all his fault. Which it was, of course.

Jones smiled widely, nodded. Porky had just enough time to open his eyes wide. Then the glass ceiling exploded.

In a moment, Jones was on his knees, kevlar over his head. There was a glistening clatter of glass shattering around and over him, screams from the partygoers like a burning chicken coop. Three breaths later he was up, running, neurojacked legs pounding over crystalline debris and thrashing bodies. There was a set of pops around the ballroom as the smoke bombs went off.

His visor lit up with a routes and trajectories to his goal, 72 metres across the cluttered ballroom floor. He took it at a sprint, Daffy Duck costume flapping, watching the lines waver and twitch. A figure loomed out of the smoke, outlined in red by his visor. Rentacop. Jones hosed him down with the flechette and the pig crumpled as the sedative took him on an all-expenses-paid trip to Laying His rear end Down, NJ.

Jones was at the door, now. A status bar on his visor was counting down the hack, 85, 92, done. Jones pushed it and it opened.

The room was icy cool after the ballroom, air frigid and filtered. At the end of the long table that ran down it was a white woman, immaculate, behind her a vast window on to the night city. She had a black silk ruff behind her head, looked halfway between a spitting cobra and an badass queen from a fairy tale. She extended a long, crimson-nailed finger.

"Get out."

Jones grinned, lazy like a cat, then leaped onto the table. He started walking down it towards her.

"Need that chip, sweetheart. One round yo' pretty neck. You got ten seconds to hand it over," he flicked out his foot at a carafe of Evian, sent in smashing into the rear wall. "Or I could tranq you up and take it. Might mess up that face though." He raised the muzzle of the flechette gun until it was level with her eyes. "Think fast."

There was an moment where he thought she'd pull the holdout his weapon scanner had pegged out from under the table, but it passed. Her shoulders slumped and she grabbed the DNA chip from round her neck, pulled it off, slid it along the table to him.

"It won't be any good without the other family codes. And we'll find you and kill you before you get those. You have no chance at the family mainframes, thief".

Jones shook his head. "You don't get it. Your family, they came from Africa. Far enough back in the genes you all come from Africa. This ain't a theft, bitch. It a repossession."

He laughed at her expression, which turned to shock as Jessica blew the window behind her. Then he took a running leap over her head, spread his wings and soared high, high out the window and over the grimy streets far below.

sebmojo fucked around with this message at 09:36 on Sep 13, 2013

Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Ahahaha nicely done.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Capntastic posted:

Ahahaha nicely done.

:radcat:

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




This week has been so much fun.

Bad Seafood
Dec 10, 2010


If you must blink, do it now.
Blah. Blah I say.

Old Debts (913 words)

The gas depot had been abandoned for years, the thin red paint of the Korean lettering cracked and peeling. A flock of crows had taken up residence in the roof and the rafters, and they scattered to the winds at the sound of Chapel’s footsteps. It was two days desert whichever way they flew. He almost wondered where they’d bother to go.

Duke Chapel could’ve spotted Oldboy anywhere. That tattered, yellow raincoat he wore regardless of the weather. And that eye of his, glass, electric and watching. Oldboy sat slumped against the fuel pumps, whittling away at a block of wood. He didn’t look up as Chapel approached, but his voice called out to him. He knew he was there.

“Chapel. My nigga. Get your rear end on over here.”

Oldboy’s only good eye was his false one, but it was good for a lot of things. From his sleeve he shook loose a cigarette, pressed it against his socket, and pulled it back lit. He offered it to Chapel, who refused him with a stare.

“Still not a smoker, huh?”

“I got enough poo poo in my life as it is.”

Oldboy chuckled and extinguished the cigarette in the palm of his hand. He tucked it behind his ear, and from his other sleeve drew a cigar. He lit it like its cousin, and held it to his lips. Chapel couldn’t even imagine how many palms he’d greased to get his hands on one.

“Saving the best for yourself, I see.”

“Always, nigga. Always.”

An ocean of silence filled the space between the two men. It was a foreign sensation to Chapel, born and bred within the city. He wasn’t sure that he cared for the taste, but Oldboy didn’t keep him suffering long.

“So, I see you’ve found me.”

“Indeed I have.”

“Was it easy?”

Chapel thought back.

It was raining blood that night on the subway. Blood of the working man. Blood of the soul man. Twelve different languages had forbade the use of nuclear weapons from the boarding platform, but that was all ancient history when a lady had a Hiroshima-7 pressed flat against your temple.

“Cool under pressure. I like that in a man.”

“Sorry bitch, but I don’t think you’re my type.”

It was common knowledge Calico Creed outfitted herself with a cybernetic arm to replace the one she’d lost in the Dead End Riots. Slightly less well known was that each of her fingers carried a nuclear device. One was hefty enough to blow a train off its tracks, and two were held together pointed directly at Chapel’s brain. Beside Calico bent Cashmere, still struggling to his feet. The man was still recovering from the pistol whip Chapel had delivered him.

“Come on now baby, there’s got to be something you see in me.”

“Yeah. An incarceration deep freeze.”

Calico smirked, her afro rustling with the heartbeat of the train. In a minute they’d be out of the underground, the railway stretching endlessly over what remained of Jericho Lake. Cashmere craned his neck, a cracking sound accompanying the action. Finally he was himself again. Brushing the dust from his shoulders, whether real or imagined, he reached into his suit and retrieved a silver hammer. Cashmere was only known for two things this side of the Jericho: being Calico’s boy toy, and a promising career in unorthodox dentistry, which was unfortunately impacted by his lack of repeat customers.

Duke Chapel swallowed, his breathing calm and steady.

“Listen to me. I just want Oldboy. The rest of you can take a hike.”

“Don’t work like that honey. Can’t get to the old man without going through me.”

“I don’t think your boy Cashmere would like that too much.”

“Cashmere likes what’s good for him, don’t you baby?”

Calico looked to her lover. That was all Chapel needed. There was a knife in his shoe that was laced with a neurosedative. He kicked her in the leg and she collapsed into his arms. Cashmere was livid.

“Be cool, nigga!” Chapel embraced her, his gun already drawn. He pointed the barrel at the base of Calico’s neck. “Now let’s you and I have a chat. Man to man. Where’s Oldboy.”

Cashmere gripped his hammer tightly. Blood began to trickle down to the floor between his fingers.

Chapel’s mind snapped back to the present.

“Yes it was,” he replied.

Oldboy studied him a moment before standing. At his full height he was a match even for Chapel. Oldboy licked his lips and pointed out towards the desert.

“Something out there I think you should see.”

It was a bucket, overturned, as old and rusted as the depot they’d left. There was a white handkerchief laid across it, and there was a gun. An old magnum. Nothing fancy, nothing special.

“You know how we settle things in this family, Duke.”

Chapel nodded. He’d brought no weapons with him, and neither had Oldboy. He never asked him, just knew. Not because he trusted him, but because he knew his style. This was his style, this bucket, this gun. This was how they’d do it, out here before God.

Oldboy walked ten paces north. Chapel went south. They both turned and looked at one another. No more words needed to be said. Oldboy took the cigar from his mouth and held it at arms reach. A crow returned and called out from his perch. Oldboy dropped the cigar, and both met in the center.

Barracuda Bang!
Oct 21, 2008

The first rule of No Avatar Club is: you do not talk about No Avatar Club. The second rule of No Avatar Club is: you DO NOT talk about No Avatar Club
Grimey Drawer
Pootietron
675 Words


Qu33n C0bra walked briskly, dreading getting any wetter than she had to. It was only misting in Neo-Detroit, but she knew she would have to triple-up her route to make sure she wasn’t being followed, and even in that amount of time, a drizzle could leave her soaked to the bone. After more than an hour, having actually only ended up a mile from Bad Boney’s dead drop, she reached her apartment building. With the untraceable, disposable hypernet interface card in hand, she now had all she needed for the attack.

She rode the elevator to the 117th floor and walked left, eighteen doors, to her apartment. The toothpick still in the door jamb, she entered, confident that no one had been inside since she left. She hung up her translucent leopard-print rain coat near the door and walked to the living room, passing through the beaded doorway that separated the rooms. She crossed the red shag carpet, towards her desk, and set the interface card down next to the lava lamp.

Opening the case of her terminal, she swapped out her standard HIC and installed the new one. It took only a few moments before she was seated with the terminal booting up and her virtual experience goggles providing her with an advanced graphical connection to her machine.

Jack on.

Qu33n C0bra connected to the hypernet, first opening up her inbox to see if she received any messages from her brothers and sisters at Synonymous, the Collective with Cause.

One unread message.

Hey, sister, what’s shakin’? Mad props again for that save with the log file – I still can’t believe I missed it. You the best weapon Synonymous got,’fo real. Ain’t nobody down with the struggle more than Qu33n C0bra, e’rybody know that.

Oh, and ‘ey, that’s crazy about MANTech taking your brother. You really believe they’ll give ‘im back if you get their prototype plans back from those Triads? I wouldn’t trust those honkies fer poo poo. If you need a hand, you come to me.

Stay real
Pootietron


“I ain’t got time for this poo poo,” she said as began the long, repetitive process of hopping through dummy systems to cover her tracks on the way to the Triad system. She doubted they expected her to be coming right now, but she also knew that their admins weren’t a joke, and she had to take this seriously.

Connected to host: E34K:7G9D:4D5W:X180:8V6D:QKL7

“These fools ain’t even usin’ IPv12 for their internal network – this’ll be easier’n stealin' boiled goose from a cracka.”

Qu33n C0bra bypassed the authentication without breaking a sweat, and began navigating the file directory. She found one that had recently been renamed and, after rolling back the changes, confirmed it was what she wanted. The transfer initialized successfully, but she knew it would take at least a few minutes to complete.

Connection lost. Reconnect Y/N?

“This some BULLshit! Mothafucka got me all reconnectin’ an’ poo poo!”

She began to retread her hops to the system, but, with time running short before someone saw what she was doing, she opted to connect directly. She bypassed the authentication, as before, and went right for the active user list:

Users: triadmin, Qu33nC0bra

“This fool musta just rebooted and poo poo. Ain’t no way nobody know I was here,” she said, as she restarted the transfer. She couldn’t risk triadmin doing another reboot so she wrote up a script to lock him out for twenty minutes. She knew he wouldn’t be able to figure out the cause in twenty minutes, and she’d be safe and sound by then.

Run blackice.bat
run blackice.bat
lockout users: * except: Qu33nC0bra
timeout 1200s
delete blackice.bat


The transfer completed in ten minutes, and the log wipe took less than five. “Ain’t nobody can catch the Queen!”

Jack off.

Within an hour Qu33n C0bra had the file loaded onto an optical disk and was headed out the door to meet the courier for Mercer Applied Nanotechnology. She wanted to believe that they’d release her brother, James, the next day, but could she really trust MANTech?

Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Youngblood's Sizzlin' Hard Disk
(995 Words)

Two gold eyes peered at a pair of moving neon tritium specks. Sophia could barely make out the time her watch was giving her, and her nav module was scrambled in this section of the city. Was this the right warehouse? With the risk of feral dogs or abandoned security systems hiding amongst the shadows and crates, to say nothing of the man she was here to meet, she felt safer waiting by the door. The noise of capacitors energizing and a motor churning gave her a start, sending her hand into her gold lamé purse.

At the opposite end of the warehouse, a loading bay door was grinding open. Lights beamed in, filtering through the spaces between the boxes. A dark red Cadillac turned in and the engine nestled to a halt. Youngblood had arrived.

~

A ring of card tables and stacked crates formed Youngblood's base of operations. Piled with guns, tools, and computer equipment, Sophia found herself realizing how many of Youngblood's life-risking stunts started here. He wasn't, as she'd previously thought, some handsome spirit who did what needed to be done when it needed doing and then vanished. He put in the work. And here he was cleaning his trademark revolver, sitting on a crate, and humming. She watched his prosthetic fingers slide the bullets into the gun. Two at a time, with grace that must have been granted from both mechanical precision and practice.

His cowboy styled duster was draped across a table, obscuring whatever was underneath it, but not the cables leading from them. He turned his dark green eyes to her gold ones.

"You bring what I asked?"

Sophia nodded. She held up the block of plastic explosive hidden in her purse. Its flat beige was heavy against the brilliant gold of the material.

"I gotta ask you though; what do you need it for? Why does Freemark want you dead?"

Youngblood snagged the block with his mechanical hand and pocketed it, grinning.

"Girl, Freemark wants every streetwise brother dead. You know that."

"Sisters too," she added. "But why did he send his goons after you? Why did he trash The Dojo?"

Youngblood winced, and flexed his hands, inspecting the joints.

"I've got something Freemark wants. An encrypted disk. Bank data. Proof of all his shady deals. If he gets it, there's nothing stopping him from running for mayor. And so long as he doesn't get it, he can't foreclose on half of the city. Now I appreciate what you did for me back there, and for bringing me the C-4, but you really best take off before poo poo gets real drat ugly."

"Youngblood, Freemark wants me dead just as much as he wants you. And I want him dead twice as much as that. You know what he did to my father."

Youngblood ran his carbon tipped fingers through his beard.

"I can dig it. I'm gonna be busy here for a while, but there's a couch over there if you want to get comfortable."

He pulled his duster off of the table, revealing a dented laptop, progress bar slowly stretching as it compiled something. He led Sophia over to a worn orange couch, and handed her his duster to use as a blanket. With a judo move, she caught his arm up in it and pulled him on top of her.

"How about you get busy over here for a while first?"

~

After some smooth romancing, the laptop emitted a series of beeps. Youngblood had been soldering something, fitting connectors together, and double checking his revolver. As daylight sprung up through the broken windows of the warehouse, the red Cadillac carried Sophia and Youngblood to the handoff with Freemark.

They pulled up into a freshly paved parking lot, the signage indicating it to be constructed by Freemark Industries. There were six white men in identical business suits standing around a limo. One of them was Freemark. The five bodyguards revealed their pieces. Matching carbon fiber autos with silencers and neon tritium sights. Sophia thoguht of her watch, but kept her golden eyes on Youngblood as he approached them.

"Drop your weapon, Youngblood. We want this to go nice and easy, kid," Freemark snarled.

Youngblood's chromed revolver dropped to the asphalt, and he kicked it aside sending up sparks. The bodyguards kept their guns on him. He pulled the hard drive out of his duster and held it up slowly.

"I've got what you want Freemark. Just let Sensei keep The Dojo open."

A bodyguard slinked up and retrieved the disk, hustling it back to Freemark. A slim little personal computer slid out of Freemark's sleeve and he began connecting it to the drive.

"You've done well Youngblood. I'd applaud your honesty, if I didn't think it would be disrespectful, considering the unfortunate accident that befell your hands. How long ago was that?"

The man's computer beeped as it finished decrypting the information.

"It's all here. Excellent. Now, tell the construction crew to destroy The Dojo."

Youngblood grinned. There was an enormous gushing of heat and noise and debris from the general direction of Freemark. Moments later, a lone red Cadillac rolled out of the parking lot, which was empty save for a flaming wreck of a limo.

~

Sophia was overjoyed.

"I can't believe it. You took out that bastard Freemark once and for all!"

"It's true, I did."

"That means that the city can finally belong to people that care about it. How did you think to put the explosive inside of the hard drive?"

"Sensei taught me that if you fight with your mind, you have a weapon even if your hands are empty."

"But what about the encrypted data? What will happen to all of the bank intel? What will happen to The Dojo?"

Youngblood reached his arm around her and into her purse, pulling out a hard drive identical to the one he had just exploded.

"Baby, you should know that Youngblood always has a back-up plan."

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
i'm out :(

got 99 problems, etc

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER
a day late and a dollar short.
ATTACK OF THE CRACKERBOTS 892 words

The Crackerbots were winning.

We were the only people above ground, holed up in a warehouse office that concealed the gateway to the underground. Our mission was to hold the gateway until reinforcements arrived.

Florice checked her scanner. “They’re on the roof.”

The bots marched lockstep across the corrugated metal towards the rooftop entrance.

I looked at the terminals and said “I have an idea.”

Scientists couldn’t find a weakness in the Crackerbots. They moved in unison, attacking as a single minded organism. I knew their conformity had to be their weak spot.

I chewed my cigar slowly and ran a check of our servers using the terminal, programming in SoulTran.

code:
IF(musicDrive==true){
	RUN musicDrive.contents THROUGH jambox
}
I hit enter and waited.

Over the warehouse speakers, the opening chords of Devo’s Are We Not Men? failed to have any affect. Florice looked up from the bank of security monitors and shouted “What’s wrong with you? You’re makin’ em mad!”

“Sorry! Tryin’ something else.”

code:
IF(musicDrive==true AND file ISNOT honkyShit){
	RUN musicDrive.contents THROUGH jambox
}
The Devo song stopped and the heavy bass of Cameo’s Word Up filled the warehouse.

“Look, it’s working!” Florice gave me some skin and we watched the Crackerbots stutter around the rooftop in confusion.

As soon as Larry Blackmon’s nasally vocals started, the Crackerbots returned to formation.

“Stop it! No! He sounds too much like their leader!”

“Hush Baby! I didn’t think about it!”

I was getting close, but needed to refine my search.

code:
IF(musicDrive==true AND file ISNOT honkyShit){
	RUN musicDrive.contents THROUGH jambox
	(UNLESS file MAKESFUNOF Crackerbots)
}
The slow melody of a flute played into a beautiful waterfall of piano. I closed my eyes and immediately saw beautiful Florice, naked on a bearskin rug in front of a fireplace.

A One In A Million You? What is wrong with you?” she reached over and slapped me.

Our one night together was so long ago but the music brought it all back in waves.

“poo poo sorry, baby! Sorry! Stop slapping me! I can change it!”

She turned back to the monitors. I was tapping the backspace button when her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. “Hang on! It’s working. Look, they’re confused.”

Larry was getting to the chorus; “A woooooooooooooooooooooon in a…”

She shook her head. “drat but I hate that song.”

“I’ve got an idea. Try somethin different.”

code:
IF(musicDrive==true AND file STARTSWITH wahwah){
	RUN musicDrive.contents THROUGH jambox
}
The silence of the speakers was terrifying. The Crackerbots were at the rooftop door now. The bots were using their third arms to destroy the door.

“Why isn’t it doing anything?” She cried.

“Shh! Hear that? Listen!”

Jimi’s wahwah slowly faded in, and Voodoo Chile began to creep over the speakers. The Crackerbots slowed, but didn’t stop.

“Dammit Q! It takes forever to get to the jam part! It won’t work!”

Her last word was drowned out by the crash of the door buckling under the barrage of Crackerbot thirdFists. She shrieked and looked out the office window onto the main floor. The bots had to file down a staircase and cross the warehouse floor to our office.

“I think we’ve got time, woman. Just wait.”

“No! If they get to us, that’s it. We’re all that stands between them and Black Rome! Move!”

She drove a foot into my chest and I launched back over my chair away from the terminal.

“You don’t know SoulTran! You’ll get us killed!” I climbed to my feet but it was too late.

Flo said, “I got it!”

The Crackerbots were almost at the door.

“I’m sorry baby it’s too late. I always loved you!” I went to hold her, and she backed away from me.

“Love me? Motherfucker don’t ever say that to me again!”

As the wahwah of James Brown’s The Payback boomed over the speakers, a Crackerbot kicked open the door and knocked Flo to the ground.

I had 5 shots left in my honkyStopper9000, I had to make them count. I put a hole in the first ‘bot and it fell on top of Flo. As I was aiming at the second one, the heavy syncopation of the shaker, the wahwah, and Fred Wesley’s JBs brought the Crackerbots to their knees.

The unison of the backup singers was like a dentist drill through their helmets.

When James Brown’s first “Hey!” came through the speakers, the bots fell flat.

I shouted, “You did it baby! We’re getting out of here!” But Flo was unconscious. I picked her up. On my way out of the office, I looked at the monitor.

code:
IF(musicDrive==true AND file CONTAINS wahwah AND drummer > 1){
	RUN musicDrive.contents THROUGH jambox
}
James laid down seven and a half minutes of Crackerbot-crippling soul.

I took my time escaping. On my way to the underground gateway, I kicked over a can of gas. I flicked my cigar to the growing puddle of petrol. The glowing embers arced across the room and missed the puddle.

I made it to the gate as the gas puddle reached the cigar. The explosion woke Flo.

“I was afraid you was dead.”

“Only way I’ll die is after I kill your black rear end.”

We kissed, I carried her through the gateway and headed for our underground headquarters.

Flo found their weak spot. We would survive.

magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 04:36 on Aug 5, 2013

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
We're convening

An poo poo

Erik Shawn-Bohner
Mar 21, 2010

by XyloJW
We'll have something tomorrow probs. I've had a fantastic weekend and want to drink my rear end off and soak this up.

I'm sure this will surprise you all, but I was butt rear end naked in the forest with a fire axe, scream-laughing maniacally, and breaking trees with my bare hands while women touched one another looking at me.

Yes, I really am this awesome irl.

Erik Shawn-Bohner fucked around with this message at 04:49 on Aug 5, 2013

captain platypus
Aug 30, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Erik Shawn-Bohner posted:

I'm sure this will surprise you all, but I was butt rear end naked in the forest with a fire axe, scream-laughing maniacally, and breaking trees with my bare hands while women touched one another looking at me.

GBS -> :choco:

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
Guy I couldn't write this weekend because I went outside in my new jeans and girls kept touching me in my no-no area.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




Nubile Hillock posted:

Guy I couldn't write this weekend because wah wah wah wah sniffle pout.

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe
yes someone touched my wiffle spout

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Nubile Hillock posted:

yes someone touched my wiffle spout
BRO! High five.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW
:frogsiren:JUDGEPOST:frogsiren:

Alright you jive-rear end lo-tek meatsacks.

Umbilical Lotus, ESB and I met up in the real, leaving our meat bodies sprawled in faux-leather office chairs. We rapped for an hour or so, trying to scan the best story this past week.

The winner be that sick cat Fumblemouse, bad razorboy motherfucker with fingers that just won't quit on the cyberdeck. :whatup:

The loser is PHIZ KHALIFA, a sad Wilson who wouldn't know his crusty prick from one of his own run-on sentences about a "hero man." :dealwithit:

Fumblemouse and Umbilical Lotus rule the streets, at least until next week.

Stay cool, cyber-brothers and razor-sisters.

autism ZX spectrum
Feb 8, 2007

by Lowtax
Fun Shoe

magnificent7 posted:

BRO! High five.

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it
I didn't lose! :krad:

I look forward to having my submission be savaged.

captain platypus
Aug 30, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Popular Human posted:

I didn't lose! :krad:

I look forward to having my submission be savaged.

Me neither! Someone buy me a new avatar.

Martello
Apr 29, 2012

by XyloJW

captain platypus posted:

Me neither! Someone buy me a new avatar.

get a load of this guy

crabrock
Aug 2, 2002

I

AM

MAGNIFICENT






once again I kept things "too real" for all of the "haters" to appreciate

Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

Missin' the days when not submitting was judged more harshly than writing a bad story.

magnificent7
Sep 22, 2005

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Popular Human posted:

I didn't lose! :krad:
I SO DO loving NOT look forward to having my submission be savaged.

Having blown the pooch so horribly on more than one occasion, I seriously was surprised to NOT see my name as the loser. If only for "because you should know better by now."

Got my story loving sucked.

Capntastic
Jan 13, 2005

A dog begins eating a dusty old coil of rope but there's a nail in it.

I await the crits like scorching stones from a hateful god.

For real though, Jagermonster's entry was unfortunate as heck and I'm surprised stuff like "laser sites" and "flazer canons" got through editing, especially when so much attention was lavished on coming up with ways to shout friend of the family at the bland and inexplicably messianic "Heroy Brotagonist".

Popular Human
Jul 17, 2005

and if it's a lie, terrorists made me say it

magnificent7 posted:

I SO DO loving NOT look forward to having my submission be savaged.

Having blown the pooch so horribly on more than one occasion, I seriously was surprised to NOT see my name as the loser. If only for "because you should know better by now."

Got my story loving sucked.

Well, this was my first time stepping into the 'Dome, so I'm just glad I didn't end up on the bottom.

My god-awful prose can use all the help it can get.

PHIZ KALIFA
Dec 21, 2011

#mood
CURSE THE JUDGES AND THE DEAD GODS THEY WORSHIP! I SHALL REVENGE etc etc whatever. History shall, in time, exonerate me.

Mercedes
Mar 7, 2006

"So you Jesus?"

"And you black?"

"Nigga prove it!"

And so Black Jesus turned water into a bucket of chicken. And He saw that it was good.




I had a good feeling with my story until I read Fumblemouse's submission. So outclassed.

captain platypus
Aug 30, 2009

THUNDERDOME LOSER

Martello posted:

get a load of this guy

mine is centered and everyone else is left-justified :spergin:

Accretionist
Nov 7, 2012
I BELIEVE IN STUPID CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Mercedes posted:

I had a good feeling with my story until I read Fumblemouse's submission. So outclassed.
If you like his entry, you'll love Neuromancer

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Chairchucker
Nov 14, 2006

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022




Capntastic posted:

I await the crits like scorching stones from a hateful god.

For real though, Jagermonster's entry was unfortunate as heck and I'm surprised stuff like "laser sites" and "flazer canons" got through editing, especially when so much attention was lavished on coming up with ways to shout friend of the family at the bland and inexplicably messianic "Heroy Brotagonist".

Whoa now, Jagermonster's story was amazing, you jive turkey.

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