Part 44: 9:09-15:09: The Grand History Of The Fuckatoo
Chapter 44: 9:09-15:09: The Grand History Of The Fuckatoo
ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Still reeling from your latest “success”, you manage to shamble out of the container yard. Mañana sits on the rail beside you, same as ever. You catch his attention in a delirious haze.
CALL ME MAÑANA: “Los Ardies?” He smiles. “They’re an independent militant group. A bit too high-strung, but it comes with the responsibility. They’re sort of like you. Preserve the rule of law and all that. Except it’s Evrart’s law.” He takes a swig from his flask. “But, really, they’re just like you.”
AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] Is he actually comparing you—an officer of the law—to some neighborhood vigilantes?!
ARIST: [Medium: Success] You’re a little more lucid at this point, but you still have no idea what you actually want to do next, so you continue hiding your shame from the world by going to Crime, Romance, and Biographies of Famous People.
ARIST: [Easy: Success] Oh, right, pick up your die from Neha while you’re here.
ARIST: [Godly: Failure] And now you head back to the bookstore to keep browsing for some goddamn reason. What? Some of the vagaries of your decision-making lost on even myself.
Ooh, pale! We’re gonna learn homeopathic medicine and die of pneumonia! Yaaaaaay!
ARIST: [Medium: Success] You head back to the fishing village to talk to the drunks there. You have a *purpose* there, you can feel it.
IDIOT DOOM SPIRAL: “Can’t really remember seeing any women after losing my keys.”
ARIST: No, not asking about Ruby… Talk to the other one. The other *coherent* one, obviously.
ARIST: [Impossible: Failure] The spirits…
VOLITION: [Challenging: Success] No! You were getting sober!
ARIST: And we still are! Think about it: how better to know you’ve really committed to the path of sobriety than to cart around *this* much alcohol without drinking it! It’ll speed up your recovery by *years!* Probably! And if, by chance, you do give in and drink it, well, this concoction is so potent it’ll probably just fucking kill you on the spot.
ENDURANCE: [Medium: Success] That’s what we in the business call “incentive.”
VOLITION: That’s not how it works! That’s not how any of this works!
VOLITION: [Medium: Success] I fucking hate you guys.
We’ve never been over by this area of the boardwalk during the day. When we pass by it this time, we notice a man and his young son.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “You, officers! Come to investigate the historic subtext of West Martinaise? I’m Trant Heidelstam,” he turns to the lieutenant. “You must be Kim Kitsuragi, right? I was just telling my son about this building. Not a lot of people realize the historic significance here. Very rich in *hypertext*.”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “No, I can’t say that we’ve met before. But I’ve *heard* of Kim, of course. Mikael, say hi to the officers.” He rests his hand on the boy’s shoulder. The child stays hidden behind the hem of his father’s coat, clutching to his würm-themed colouring book. “Mikael’s a little tired today. We spent all night trying to run Orbis on his radiocomputer. Have you heard of it? It’s a programming language used in Graad. Quite tricky, but he wanted to play this Graad-made adventure programme. We’ve been getting *really* into würms lately…”
DRAMA: [Easy: Success] The man speaks in the artificial cadence of a professor—or someone who’s been on too many radio shows.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “But I assume you’re not here for giant würms when there are so many real things to see. Just as I was telling Mikael before—this is where the Coalition landed in ‘08. We could be standing on what is the most interesting landmark in Revachol West.” He points to the building again.
ESPRIT DE CORPS: [Medium: Success] This man is your half brother. You feel it. But *why*?
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “No, I’m afraid I can’t help you with this one, officer. It’s just a regular day off for me and Mikael here.” He pats his son’s head.
KIM KITSURAGI: “So you haven’t seen anyone around?”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “No, I’m sorry. As I said—this is just a day off. We just arrived anyway.”
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] There’s something friendly and familiar in how he says that. A day off.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “A-ha, but it’s not just *any* empty old building!” He raises his hand to his eyes, springtime sun warming his handsome face. All four of you turn to admire the mural before you. “What not a lot of people know is—this used to be the R&D department of *Feld Electrical*. And Feld, which now sells ink cartridges, mostly, was once a top dog in the turn-of-the-century cybernetics boom.”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Apologies, it’s an acronym for research and development, they don’t use it anymore.” He smiles brightly, laugh lines around his eyes. “You’re probably more familiar with *RTD*, research and *technological* development.”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “That’s not surprising. Only a vestigial ink cartridge and ferrotape manufacturer remains.” He adjusts his suit jacket. “They started out as a midway electronics outfit in Köningstein two centuries ago. After an aggressive move to Revachol, Feld became a global player in the emerging personal electronics market of the pre-Revolutionary era.”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Mhm. An elegant folding mechanism of rollers and ferrotape ribbons, portable enough to be a take-it-home solution, revolutionizing business machine possibly even bringing them to the average consumer. Which is a feat of engineering even today’s giants Ream, ICN, and ZAMM haven’t achieved yet.” He grins, admiring the sentence he just produced.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Indeed, what?”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Unfortunately their moonshot project never made it to market. Feld’s move to Revachol backfired. The Revolutionary government liquefied their assets and expropriated those very advanced prototypes. Possibly from this very building… or one of the adjacent ruins.”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Yes, they even built a pleasure wheel, but that got destroyed in the war.”
KIM KITSURAGI: “A pleasure wheel?” The lieutenant looks wistfully at the horizon, as if picturing gondolas rising to the sky.
EMPATHY: Perhaps reminded of a childhood memory? It’s clear he would prefer there were a big wheel lighting up the coast.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Oh, I’m afraid it didn’t end well for the boys.” He smiles again, as if he’s somehow personally responsible for this bleak turn of events. “But this story is a bit too *dark* for little Mikael here. Now if you were to ask about *tape computers*…”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “What’s the March decree? I mean the radio transmission sent out to news agencies and world governments by the newly-created Commune of Revachol on the 7th of March in the year ‘02.”
ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Medium: Success] A short-lived legislative foundation for a short-lived utopia.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “It’s a beautiful piece of text, actually. A singer-songwriter I know—Charette—called it a love poem to Revachol on her political concept album ‘Bons baisers d’Insulinde’. You should read it. Every local library in Revachol stocks a copy of the decree. I tried to get Mikael to memorize it.” He looks at his son, who starts giggling, his face hidden behind the book. “*Tried to*. Someone was much too interested in würms to be paying any attention.”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Actually, no one knows. No one even knows what a computer made entirely of tape would look like! But word has it they were *very elegant*—exquisite, alien-looking turn of the century hardware…” He raises his finger, remembering something.
ENCYCLOPEDIA: [Medium: Success] Buckle up!
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Ten years ago I did a little… freelancing, I guess you could say. I was a special consultant for an exhibition at the Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre in Vredefort, Oranje. It raised the same questions, and we had lengthy discussions with Paul Ockermann, who was head curator at the time (this was before the twins Keith and Guy Joost joined the team), trying to…”
REACTION SPEED: [Easy: Success] Wait. Did he just say *Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre*?
SUGGESTION: [Easy: Success] He did it! He said *Wompty-Dompty-Dom Centre* like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “I do have some money, yes, but that’s not what’s really important here.” He brushes it off like it’s not a thing at all.
AUTHORITY: [Medium: Success] He’s not gonna give you money, what are you doing? Clearly you were just profiling.
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “Of course, detective, I wouldn’t have assumed anything else. Matter of fact,” he looks up again, a playful hint shining in his eyes… “I don’t know if you’re familiar with this, but the Vespertine Department of Justice has published a rather interesting paper on the criminal profiling in former socialist states. Have you read it? If not, then you definitely should—if not for tips and tricks, then just for theoretical curiosity. Anyway, that’s just a little something that sprang to my mind.” He squeezes his son’s shoulder lightly. “You were saying?”
TRANT HEIDELSTAM: “No, thanks to *you* for having me and little Mikael here to pick your brain… A very interesting conversation indeed.”
Man, what the fuck am I even looking at here?
ARIST: [Medium: Success] Next stop today is delivering the tape you found in that tree to Egg Head.
EGG HEAD: “Yeagh, re-mix time!” His voice booms through the
ANDRE: “Intriguing. The way I see it… van Eyck based his remix on some famous original piece. Like, a folk song? Something local. Seems you found an initial part with the main melody.”
NOID: “I think it’s just happenstance. Chaos in action. Contingencies of our limited existence. That an Egg Head’s fantastic talent.” He nods to his friend behind the turntables.
INTERFACING: [Medium: Success] Noid’s right, Egg Head’s technical talent is the key.
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] No, this is definitely part of the same song. Something cut from it. It fits too well.
ANDRE: “What about the bass? Do you have any ideas for that?” Andre looks back at you.
ANDRE: “Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t figure it out. I think the jam’s already pretty ultra.”
Here’s a fun game, children: try to find all the hidden clues that I accidentally broke the scripting for that scene in a way the developers didn’t intend by not having that conversation after the ravers had moved into the church!
Wow, thanks for the insight there.
Let’s just head inside and give Soona the off-site copy.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Now I’m going to print it out to see what’s left of it.” She’s already inserted the filament into the radiocomputer’s core, ready to close the door.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I have a theory,” she says, as the filament clicks into place, “Lintel was able to divine the anomaly’s location from this broken copy. I want to repeat their calculation, only this time with better equipment. “Watch,” she says and presses PRINT on the machine’s keyboard, “what an intricate display of failure.” The paper starts filling out with ink, soaking it in a gleaming darkness. Not a single line of data stands out.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: Soona doesn’t reply, her hands running over the printout. She’s looking for something—for her morning star—eyes scouring the millimetres.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Shh… just give me a second, I’m almost…” She clocks up her typing speed.
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant leans closer to whisper: “I’ve never witness a programmer work before…”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I found the coordinates!” She lets out a celebratory laugh.
EMPATHY: [Medium: Success] She’s beaming—you can feel it in your heart.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “There.” She points at the other end of the church where a group of water bowls forms a ritualistic arch. “In the swallow.”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I need you to go move those water bowls for me, I need to double-check my calculations.”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Figure it out?” She shakes her head, grinning. “No, I don’t need you to figure anything out, I’ve got a computer for that.” She pats the mainframe. “Just walk over to the circle and follow my instructions: Move the third bowl 2 cm to the left and the fourth bowl 5 cm to the right. This should do the trick.”
LOGIC: What? She only wants you to follow instructions, nothing *intellectually stimulating* in this task… A child could do it!
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Eh?” She frowns. “Come on, it’s not about your brain—even I couldn’t figure it out on my own.”
Moving the water bowls, okay.
PERCEPTION (SIGHT) [Easy: Success] Measurements have been marked down around the bowls, each chalk-drawn line representing a centimetre on the floor.
WATER BOWLS: It moves like a ghost without creating a single trace of sound.
WATER BOWLS: Some water spills out of the bowl, wetting the floor.
Done and done.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Great, everything should be aligned now…” She stops, biting into her chapped lip.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Yeah,” she snaps out of the lull, “nothing. Now the only thing left to do is unmute the headphones.”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I don’t know.” She stares at the heart of her computer. “That’s what I’m scared of: I don’t know. It could be *anything*.” I mean, what sound does the nothing make? How can you even listen to something that doesn’t exist?” She turns to face you, the mainframe throwing shadows on her chin.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Maybe.” She rubs her face. “Maybe I’m just tired.”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Because it reminds us of death. And we humans tend to think that death is pretty scary.”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “Yeah…” She breathes in. “You’re right, let’s do it.” She puts on her oversized headphones, ready to press UNMUTE on the keyboard…
KIM KITSURAGI: The lieutenant takes a step back…
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: And then nothing. Nothing happens as Soona Luukanen-Kilde presses unmute on her keyboard. Nothing but silence.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “No, of course not,” she says, clearly disappointed,” nothing happened, let’s move on.”
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “No.” She rests her face on her hands, massaging her forehead. “No, my hypothesis was wrong. According to this I should have *heard* something if I got the coordinates right. Like I said: silence is only what surrounds it.” But this…”She raises her head, staring at all the machines that litter the church, cables coiling up on the floor like pests. “This is just another failure. Silence sounds like silence. That’s all it is.”
INLAND EMPIRE: Silence is silence? You’re sure there’s more to it…
PERCEPTION (HEARING): It feels like flying on an aerostatic, or when your ears pop, or like a subtle difference in the atmosphere, a weather change happening in the air…
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “A better sound system?” she repeats. “Alright… But where would we get one?”
PERCEPTION (HEARING): Suddenly a rhythmic beat permeates the walls, causing a small patch of decorative stucco to crumble onto the wooden floor.
KIM KITSURAGI: “They should really allocate some renovation funds to this place…” murmurs the lieutenant, inspecting the damage done to the arabesques.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “You mean the *speedfreaks*?” She closes her eyes, as more dance music invades the holy silence of the sanctuary.
SOONA, THE PROGRAMMER: “I guess I could live through a week or two of peaceful coexistence.”
ARIST: [Medium: Success] Everybody wins! Go get those speedfreaks, they’ll be so excited!
ANDRE: “That’s fine, we can manage.” He grins, excited.
ARIST: [Easy: Success] The ice somehow feels a little lonelier without the constant thrum of anodic dance music…
ARIST: [Medium: Success] The speedfreaks said it would take a bit for them to move in, so… how about some reading?
If I haven’t mentioned it before, reading is the only way to quickly pass time (unless Kim isn’t present, in which case you can use a bench).
FROM A TO ZRIEEK! A GUIDE TO A WELL-BEHAVED COCKATOO: You’re right, cockatoos are magnificent creatures. They love to perform, cuddle, and show off, and will even scream for *fun*—often as loud as up to *135* decibels!
PERCEPTION (HEARING): [Medium: Success] Ouch. That must hurt.
LOGIC: [Medium: Success] Not great for the neighbors.
FROM A TO ZRIEEK! A GUIDE TO A WELL-BEHAVED COCKATOO: This is a yellow-tailed black cockatoo. Its specific name *Psittacus funereus* relates to its dark and sombre plumage. This bird looks as if it is dressed for a funeral, 24/7. There is something indisputably ominous about it.
FROM A TO ZRIEEK! A GUIDE TO A WELL-BEHAVED COCKATOO: Perhaps the most *impressive* of all the species, the endangered Major Majestic cockatoo is often described as the most flamboyant bird in the jungle, its pink-coloured winds and flowing crest embellishing its proud and *bumptious* nature. In the words of poet-explorer Sir James Fournier: “Few birds more enliven the monotonous hues of the verdant forest than this big, bold and beautiful species.”
How much time did that kill? ...About 45 minutes.
Let’s go for some harder reading then, shall we?
LOGIC: Every last alphanumeric in the files begins with it—and these are *your* case files. It’s safe to case H.D.B. are your initials.
DAMAGED LEDGER: This one is relatively easy to reconstruct. Overnight on 12.02, a graffito—nay, a mural!—appears on an eight story tenement overlooking Central Jamrock. The building is a sparsely inhabited ghost tower, part of a failed real estate development called Grand Couron.
RHETORIC: [Medium: Success] (Cause of failure: rent too high.)
DAMAGED LEDGER: The mural is enormous. Two silhouettes—a man and a woman—are kissing. The text cut into their forms reads:
TRUE LOVE IS POSSIBLE
ONLY IN THE NEXT WORLD—FOR NEW PEOPLE
IT IS TOO LATE FOR US
WREAK HAVOC ON THE MIDDLE CLASS
DAMAGED LEDGER: People call it *that thing* and *that fucking thing*. It’s visible for miles. In two days the Station’s complaints desk gets clogged with requests to remove *The Bummer*. You and your partner are assigned to the case.
DAMAGED LEDGER: The crew agrees to clean up after themselves. However, your partner JV is against the removal, citing public support for conservation. This leads to a debate in Precinct 41, which then spreads to the streets of Jamrock. Ending in a rare plebiscite—organized by you and the rest of Row III.
DAMAGED LEDGER: A.k.a. LESLIE & BURKE, a.k.a THE PUBLIC INDECENCY DRUNK & THE PROPERTY DAMAGE DRUNK is a *cursed* case. It has been passed from unsuspecting officer to unsuspecting officer for ten years. On January 29 THE UNSOLVABLE CASE made its way to you. Why you accepted it is unclear. Every officer and indeed most civilians in Jamrock know it’s UNSOLVABLE. Leslie will always take his pants off when drunk. Burke will always trash everything. It’s just what they do. It is their nature—you cannot change the nature of a man. And you can’t lock them away, because public indecency and small scale property damage are not punishable by incarceration.
DAMAGED LEDGER: You would think that, but you’re wrong. Where’s the fun in exposing your genitals or breaking stuff in your own home? No, Leslie and Burke are on the corner of Main Street and Perdition, because that’s where the *action* is.
DAMAGED LEDGER: Threatening, fines, dragging them to the station, locking them up in the hell holes they live in, locking them up in the station, hypnotherapy—even trying to get a local gang of *zemlyakis* to take them out (the zemlyakis gave them ethanol so Burke and Leslie would expose and rampage even harder)—you tried it all. And the complaints still wouldn’t stop. As they hadn’t stopped for *ten years*.
DAMAGED LEDGER: Good, you’re learning. If the files are to be trusted—that’s all there is to it. That and Burke breaking things. And the fact that they’re both drunk. But then again, so are you. The case becomes *considerably* less comic one day, when Burke takes a swing at your ledger. He must have it confused with the *property* he likes to damage. But the joke’s on him—the officer is also drunk. Way more drunk than Burke there, and let’s be fair, you also have *party eyes*. You slam the hardened plastic board in his face, then proceed to beat him unconscious with it.
Uhhhhhhh
DAMAGED LEDGER: In the process the ledger sustains damage. The compartment within—reserved for permeable documents—is jammed shut. You stop your assault on the now-unconscious Burke to open it, but are unable to do so. *The officer began to cry*, reports Leslie, who at this point is tending to Burke. *He came at us*—*And at us*—*I think he was trying to kill Burke-o*. While trying to kill Burke-o, you slowly come around. The permeables’ compartment is open. You’ve smashed it open on poor Burke-o’s kneecaps. The good news is, Burke can’t walk anymore.
DAMAGED LEDGER: Can’t get out of his apartment. An invalid. With Burke to tend to, Leslie cuts back on the indecent exposure. Maybe he flashes his genitals to Burke, who knows, but both drunks are off the street. The complaints stop, the unsolvable case is solved.
ARIST: [Challenging: Success] Holy fucking *shit*, it’s probably a good thing you aren’t whoever the fuck that was anymore.
DAMAGED LEDGER: Who knows. Those pages are missing. What next?
DAMAGED LEDGER: Yes. As you’ve said here: insufferable rock and roll assholes. Young people are the worst. So anyway—you got a complaint about the damn sofa. Or couch. Or whatever it was. They were leaving it out in all these *unexpected and whimsical locations* they took it to. Where they also took photos of themsevles—on it. And smoked cigarettes. And drank coffee, because they felt it’s *intellectual*.
DAMAGED LEDGER: Joseph Mills was on this case that he just couldn’t solve. Was doing it solo. Said it was a real nutcracker. A real braintwister. Was on it for, like, a month—the captain got impatient. Shit or get off the pot, Mills.
SAVOIR FAIRE: [Medium: Success] Man, we gotta talk about what you think is cool these days…
DAMAGED LEDGER: Yeah, really lame. So anyway—young man, in his twenties, found with his skull busted open. Right on the floor of the hookah parlour. Only client that day. In perfect health too, some kind of movie producer. No one enters—no one exits. He’s just sucking on his watermelon hookah all morning, all noon, like he usually does (he’s a regular). No calls, nothing. Just sucking on the hookah, until 15.45. Then bam—he’s dead on the floor with his skull busted open, blood everywhere. What happened? How can it be?
We spent an additional 3.5 hours or so reading those case files, so let’s check out the church now that the speedfreaks have moved in. I know I’m typing the word “speedfreaks” a lot, but it’s really fun to say. Speedfreaks.
Man, these idiots rule.