Are there other people out there who wonder when they'll forget the lyrics to Ice, Ice, Baby? Besides Robert Van Winkle.
It's one of those songs where I'll never do it for karaoke, it never comes on randomly in people's cars or on the radio, it's just a dark stain of the hip-hop boom of 1990. When MC Hammer pants and Cross-Colors were the shiz, right before Ice Cube told us we could New Jack Swing from his nuts. But really, I think that Ice, Ice, Baby only exists as bad fever dreams in the minds of white kids that love '90s hip-hop, even if its video has 151 million+ plays. After all, the man himself symbolically wrecked the tape in the presence of Janeane Garofalo, Jon Stewart, Dennis Leary, and--for some reason--Chris Kattan. No offense, Chris. Just, let's be real. Your cultural relevance in 2007 was about as strong as Vanilla Ice's, and he released a Nu Metal album
Okay, mid blog-writing I ended up in a Wikipedia hole. Did you know that Vanilla Ice is a Juggalo and signed to Psychopathic Records? He's also invited to be a part of the Juggalo March on Washington come September. Miracles, yo. Water, fire, air and dirt.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if the Juggalos are the ones that truly end up healing America? But like, hilarious in the actual way where it would make you laugh so much it would drive you almost insane. It only could take a clown to make America smile again.
 |
| "Smile!" |
The film was great without all that pointless, winking, nodding, opening hour. Like, they even open the movie by going, "oh, bet you didn't expect it to open this way." *waggle eyebrows* *winkwinknudgenudge* *smackpunchkick* *dropanvil* DID YOU GET IT YET? THIS IS ALL NEW STUFF THAT HAS NO CONNECTION TO THE SOURCE MATERIAL! And then proceeds to have a completely separate and not even worked into the narrative hour of Batgirl/Batman erotic fan-fic. Like, it wasn't unwatchable, but it really had nothing better to do than oversexualize Barbra Gordon, and reframe the Joker's actions for a less ambiguity. Regardless of the weird overly sexual and violent criminal chase, Tara Strong is just as great as ever voicing Barbra, with emotion and that bit of cocksure swagger she has. She did amazing while working with unfortunate consequences of an ill planned stitch-job onto the beginning.
Which is really weird, because the second half, the actual comic portion of the film, was perfect. Oh sweet baby jane, it was like coming home again. Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill's performances were amazing, much as they have been. But Hamill's Joker now carries a whisp of age, and palookanishness, borrowed from John DiMaggio's work in Under the Red Hood. Much like the DC Animated The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke is lovingly recreated in fluid motion on the screen in an almost shot for shot translation from the recolored version. It captures the already cinematic essence of Brian Bolland's artwork, coupled with the framing of each shot. It was just as chilling and unnerving as the comic itself. The supplemental material unfortunately recontextualizes The Killing Joke into a definite statement, instead of an ambiguous one. It takes away the mystery by giving answers. Which is bullshit, because what makes the original piece so great is that, while it overtly shows one path to madness, we peak into plenty of other doors along the way. It leaves the notion of Batman as a tool of justice or a dispenser of vengeance hanging in the air, letting the reader take their own interpretation from it with what's in their hearts.
If Bruce Timm and Brian Azzarello wanted to make that into a stand alone, I'd watch it. It was one of those things that was well done, but just kinda enforces a Running the Asylum type of feeling to Batman. At this point, the character has no true canon outside the characters and origins. Everything that happens in between is made up on the fly within a rough context of loose Batman tags. Dresses in black, rich kid whose parents were shot in Crime Alley and it made him want to fight crime, has an invincible butler named Alfred. You can fill in the logic in between depending on which comic Age you're in. But really, this was not the worst appearance of Batgirl/woman in cinematic history (thank's, Batman + Robin. Sorry, Alicia Silverstone) and anyone who says otherwise is trolling for internet points.
 |
| "It takes a real wildcard to come up with that." |
I really don't know why I get so fired up about The Killing Joke. It's one of my favorite comics, and I've seen so many people pushing their team's agenda in arguments about it over the last few years. Internet comments sections are were dreams go to die.
So, aside from more Batman related actions, I'm reading back through To Slice The Sky now that it's complete. I'm really enjoying it. I know it's egotistical to praise your own work, but I just find it hard to believe that I wrote something so fun. To be fair, I pretty much wrote it to entertain myself. I'm halfway through reading, at chapter 19, and there's thankfully only one glaring plothole I wrote in at the end that I need to fix. Most of the stuff I want to fix is cosmetic to help with flow.
Done? Good job, gold star!
But, yeah, I know where I want to go with the story finally. Now, it's a matter of writing it. Though it feels like my memory has been slipping recently, even though no one around me seems to have noticed. I should probably get it down faster than I am.
I've also given myself a lot of extra work regarding releasing shorts and such. I'm looking into different Patreon strategies, granted that would require me to be consistent and think of realistic prizes. Now that I have access to better desktop publishing features, I'm spending this year trying to expand my brand and actually have people know who the hell I am and what I do.
All of this is guided by faithful readers like yourself, looking at the process before the product. I'm sure most of the clicks I get are from bots, but if there are for real people out there reading this, that I don't know personally, thank you. And for my friends that give me pity clicks, you're all winners in my book. No, really, you are. And no I won't pay you for likeness rights. I'm not even getting paid for your likeness.
So, after all that book and reading talk, here's what's going to earn all those hashtags when I share this post. When I was coming up with names for our heroes, I knew I was going to name a chapter this title. Part 3/4 of the thrilling climax of To Slice The Sky! On tonight's exciting episode: Tripping the Light Fantastic, Trip descends into the bowels of Roplaxive Pharmaceuticals Headquarters with naught but a bucket of tools and a trusty robot companion. Can he and Decker succeed in their plan of shutting down the Biodroid's hive mind? Continue on, dear reader, and find out!
dawg
 |
| "Won't you play with me...forever?" |
C:\>28_Tripping_the_Lights_Fantastic
12/31/2099 14:20 OST
Pain swelled
around the eyes of a face that felt sticky with dried blood. Trip breathed deep
against bruised ribs and instantly regretted it. He creaked and popped upright
on the toilet to exit the stall.
In the mirror, his gory face was like a horror show. He
couldn’t feel anything but confusion and throbbing pain, endorphins running dry
to distract from the pain pain. He found his skin as he washed away the blood. For
the second time that day Trip’s facial structure was altered. Randy walked in
and locked eyes with the beat-up clone, then made a b-line for the nearest stall.
Trip cracked
open the restroom door and peeked. The coast was clear. He dropped his shades
over swollen eyes and tried to walk casual with his bucket of tools. Instead,
he hobbled through the cube farm, head down, pretending to check already empty
trash cans on the way back to his old desk.
His old cubical buds where gone on a late lunch and only
a few heads peeked through the diamond glass walls. First order of business,
Trip dialed up medgel on the MR. It closed the burst parts of his skin and
soothed the sting. Trip logged in on Alan’s open terminal to access the mail
client while it was still online.
‘Hey dude. Heading down now. I look like
Fight Club. Link up to me when you get
this. Make it soon. -T’
12/31/2099 - 14:26 OST
Trip hit send
and scanned the horizon for a path to the elevator. A Ro-Phar guard escorted a
cluster of suits deep in conversation. The Guard caught Tripclone’s eye and pulled
the group from their whispers. Trip ducked under the desk like a nuclear bomb
dropped. He grabbed the trashcan like a coveted treasure. His shades chimed in
his ear, “Follow the arrow to a waste disposal center. Please do not converse
with employees.” He ripped off the shades, shaking them, trying to get them to
shut up.
Audio shut off on its own, displaying the nearest
recycling station across his field of vision. Trip looked through the cubical
walls beneath the desk to catch feet converging on his location. He booked it
through the farm, holding the trashcan in a squat, heading in the opposite
direction than suggested. Another guard’s cap bobbed into view through the
translucent wall panes, on the way towards the elevator. Trip pumped his
brakes. Using the trashcan as leverage, he made an about face and ran in towards
the map arrow.
The group had converged at his desk by the time Trip
exited the cubicle farm, narrowly avoiding another encounter with former
co-workers. The A(l)lans were greeted by the group as they returned from lunch.
The buds were taken into custody as Trip reached the double doors that led to
the maintenance corridor. Swiping his ID, Trip questioned the safety of his
card after today’s track record. They opened with a confirmation tone and
closed as Trip passed the threshold.
The hallway was linoleum and stucco. It smelled like
Trip’s primary school gymnasium. He thought it’d be a great idea to check out
one of the servebots he’d seen follow maintenance around the office. He plotted
a course to the nearest utility room on the map and started walking.
12/31/2099 - 14:44 OST
A tap of Trip’s
fake ID woke a servebot from the rack. It wheeled itself beside Trip, ready to
assist. It was time to get on with the plan, so he packed up his servebot and a
new bucket of tools and made tracks.
The map showed Trip between two elevators. He chose the
one to the left, which would put more distance between him and the farm. It
didn’t matter which elevator he popped into, since every car was a portion of
the central shaft. He wasn’t sure how the intricate network of moving elevator
cars was going to work after he shut down the core, but that was a bridge to
burn when he got there.
Alone with his bot, Trip pushed the call button, tapping
his foot till it arrived. Inside the elevator, he punched in the maintenance access
code for Sub Basement 7. The car dropped into the floor and moved on its
pathway towards Roplaxive HQ’s server farms.
12/31/2099 - 15:48 OST
Some people
have fears of dying in elevators. Frightened of being trapped, of the anchors
giving way and the brakes failing, or having to listen to muzak for eternity.
Trip never fell into any of those categories until he was stuck in an elevator
for fourteen minutes. In all the time he worked at Roplaxive, the elevator
system was a marvel that made arriving at work somewhat more fun. Now, it was
someone else’s nightmare played out in his borrowed life.
To take his
mind off the lingering pain, he tried to converse with the servebot. It was
very one sided, and filled with stiff gestures. On the verge of clawing apart
the diamondglass walls, the elevator doors dinged open on SB-7.
Trip stepped
into a hall of doors. It reminded him of the opening shot in Akimbo, the one
where Akimbo gunkatas his way through a NeoTokyo brothel hallway. To his left
was 001 and the right was door 101. They went on consecutively to an end Trip
could not see. The hall was lit in soft greenshifted LED above each doorway,
caged in by a claustrophobic ceiling studded in camera domes. Trip poked his
head into 002 and saw dual rows of racks and wires stretching onwards and
upwards towards a vanishing point. Trip closed the door, took a step back and
shook his head in disbelief. The enormity of the task overwhelmed him, feeling
he’d never locate the fabled door 000. A push notification chimed in the corner
of his display.
‘Dig. I’m set up. We’re getting hit
hard. When you get this go to here.’
Trip poked at
the area of ‘here’ with the haptic response. A voicechat icon popped
into the corner. At first, nothing happened. Then more nothing happened. Concerned,
Trip took a step into the hallway.
“Hey buddy,” came from the servebot. Trip jumped,
startled by the scratchy digitized voice.
The bot moved its eyes up to look Trip in the face, “It’s
okay man, it’s me.” The servebot took a bow.
Trip looked down at the industrial cleaning robot with
relief, “Man, Decks, you sound like I look.”
“Thanks, I think. Good news: we’re on the path to
shutting down our big problem. Bad news: you’ve got a bit of a walk ahead of
you. Check your map for triple-zero.”
Trip checked the map Decker updated for him. “I’m at 001,
and 101. Great. Where the frag is 000?” he flicked his fingers to advance the
automap, tracking the waypoint Decker sent, “Oh, that’s not going to be fun.”
“Nope, so we better get moving. It’s not gonna come to
us.”
“I don’t like your point.” Tripclone sighed with his
whole body and started walking. The Decker possessed servebot zoomed behind
him, leaving behind the tools.
“You know, the servebot was holding the bucket.”
The servebot stopped and panned its head from tool bucket
to Trip. “What, you too good to hold your own tools?”
It hurt Trip’s face to frown that hard. Eventually,
Decker wheeled back and picked up the bucket, muttering the whole way. They
continued on down the hall of doors with distant worlds just on the other side.
Trip said, “Sooo, anything neat happen since I left?”
Decker said, “Had a quiet Holiday at Das Komplex. Nothing
exciting there. Parties are a little tame under martial law.”
“Happy times,” Trip felt a twinge of unexpected anxiety.
“Are you sure I’m not on like, every security display right now?”
“All anyone’s seeing is an empty hallway like always,
mmkay? 1n1te1nch1na coded the video feeds. That asspony copy and pasted it from
some bodega where they set up the CCTV. Don’t pop a vessel, dude. Just relax”
“I am relaxed, ‘member? I have no choice but to relax. But
inside myself I want to tear my hair out and run in a circle.”
The servebot wheeled alongside Tripclone, “Thank goodness
for small wonders in medicine, right? Wouldn’t be good to have you setting off
pheromone detectors and failing BPM biometrics every time you walk into a
secure area, right? Think of all the potential lives you’ve saved with that
little miracle.”
“I think the A(l)lan’s got busted for all the trouble I
caused.” Trip said to the servebot.
It responded, “Sellouts got sold out? How poetic.”
“They were late from lunch.”
“Was justice served?”
“That’s not funny.”
“Yes it is.”
Trip gave his robot companion the side eye. “Maybe a
little.”
“I win,” horrid approximation of laughter again.
“Decker, please don’t laugh. It sounds like a mummy
hacking up a lung.”
“And one day I hope to be just as honest with you about your flaws. Did anyone mention you look
fat as a custodial caste?”
“How swiftly time flies.”
“Speaking of time, where you at?”
Trip looked at the nearest door plate, “012.”
“See, it’s not so bad.”
“No, it’s worse,” Trip growled. “They seem to be getting
further from each other.”
“C’mon, dude, buck up. You’ll be there in no time.”
“Easy for you to say, wheels.”
“Hey, do you know the mental effort I’m expending right
now? This ain’t as easy as it looks.” The servebot raised the tool bucket, “I’m
carrying a heavy load and everything.”
“Oh, poor you.” Trip looked behind at the already vanished
elevator. “How am I gonna get out of here again?”
“I imagine the reverse of how you got in. Just gotta
hustle to the elevator once the grid kicks down and emergency systems take
over. OC’s gonna be a circle pit without power.”
“Nowhere near that orderly.”
“We knew that when we came up with this plan.” Decker
danced about in a figure-eight, spinning rolling backwards in front of his
friend’s path. “Where are we?”
“020, 120. For frag’s sake, Decker, don’t you have like a
window with my map in it or something? Or, like can’t you read the numbers on
the doors?”
“Yeah, but I just like the way you say it.”
Trip gave a painful smirk to his friend inside the robot.
“I told your mom, you’re not my type.”
“Yeah, RoboClones seem kinda tasteless these days.”
“Ours is a forbidden love.”
12/31/2099 - 16:45 OST
Trip—and his
stalwart botservant, Decker—stood before 000. Trip inhaled, exhaled, and
stepped into the main server room. His bracing breath was wasted as he gawped
at the sheer massiveness of everything. A peek into 002 was nothing compared to
being at the center of Ocean City’s backbone.
Before him, the path stretched to a wall of smooth metal
with a dark spot towards the bottom. Flashing LEDs raced along the walls,
quavering behind exhaust run off, accompanied by the drones of cooling turbines
at work. Trip put one foot in front of the other, the servebot silently glided alongside,
continuing towards the glowing interface at the far end of the walkway.
Trip stood before the wall of old media fashioned
displays. A tactile interface was laid out, forgoing the usual holodisplay of
the workstations above ground. He pressed the spacebar and a high-low-medium
tone sequence played before the displays blipped to life.
“Here we are.
Log in screen,” Trip looked down at the servebot.
He pulled a screwdriver from the tool bucket and felt
underneath the console station for the first screw head. Trip removed the
screws and set the panel cover on the floor. An interface jack for a USB and a
nest of wires took up most of the space behind the panel.
“Alright, dude,
remember how we set this up?” said the servebot’s mouthbox. Trip pulled a USB
cable out of it’s center and plugged it into the console.
“I’m gonna do some slicer stuff. You gotta manually
shutdown the servers on your end in thirty seconds.”
Trip groaned, “Thanks for the refresher.”
“Are you ready or what?”
Trip cracked his knuckles. “Let’s go.”
The servebot slumped over. The login screen danced with
an expanding and contracting number of stars in the password field below the
name Dick West.
“Log in accepted”
A twelve by twelve grid of movable tiles, set at random,
loaded onto the monitor. Trip recognized the layout from video games that clung
to the pipe dream of extending playtime through tedious mini games. Trip
completed the lame puzzle game with five seconds left. Heathcliff Johnson’s
login blipped into view.
Another half a minute of expanding and shrinking rows of
******’s passed. After the login verified, Trip was presented with a block of
nucleobase sequences to place in the correct order.
Trip fumed inside as he realized it was his own genome
work on the biodroid program he was assembling into the correct sequence.
Trip muttered, “CoFS riddled prickfaces,” while
highlighting the final string of alternating letters.
He felt a pang of pride under the perturbed. After all,
his work was deemed worthy enough to
guard the server shutdown protocol of a citystate corporate government
headquarters.
Brett Richardson’s name appeared over ******** for a
flash. The center console keyboard retreated into itself. Trip grabbed for it
too late.
“Decker, did you do something wrong?”
Trip jumped backwards as the floor opened in a small
circle. Through it rose a column of brushed chrome with a plastic gripped
handle on top. He grabbed the handle, gave a hard twist and it sunk into the
ground as the lights began to go out around Trip.
“Well, they’re gonna definitely notice that.”
12/31/2099 - 17:11 OST
It was pitch black. Silence was broken by the steady
heartbeat in Trip’s chest. He counted under his breath to fifteen. At fifteen the
sound of the backup generators echoed through the sub-basement. Emergency
powered lights clicked on, receding down the pathway from the inoperative
terminal. As the lights clicked on, shapes of people with guns formed out of
the darkness. Mounted flashlights lit up. Trip was blinded by the light.
Decker’s possessed servebot lay limp, still jacked into the terminal. The
person on point advanced, machine pistol drawn and laser sight trained where
Trip’s eyes couldn’t follow.
“You’re in a lot of trouble, meat.”
12/31/2099 - 17:30 OST
Going from sub-basement
7 to the top of Roplaxive tower made the journey down to the servers feel like
a sneeze. Being crowded by security didn’t help time move faster.
The penthouse doors opened upon an antechamber. Guards
pushed Trip out of the elevator car. The doors slid closed and they dropped
into the floor. Trip mashed at the call button, banged on the doors, and repeatedly
swore.
He gave up on escape, instead moving further into the
room where the walls were made of floor to ceiling windows. At the end of the
antechamber sat a pair of double doors.
The final confrontation lay on the other side. Trip couldn’t
feel the fear the way his body wanted. Unsure if it was the clone trait,
something else rose through Trip. It expressed itself with a determined
movement in the direction of the other end of the hall. Trip caught his dark
reflection in the windows over a sea of lights on all sides. His borrowed face
stared back at a hardened mask of defiance in each pane. He pushed both doors
from the center and stepped into the office.
In front of the
desk, each with their backs towards the door, stood three suits. Each haircut
belied its owner. A well sculpted blond pompadour meant Brett Richardson, DM of
Advertising and Marketing. A manicured tuft of dark curly hair laid atop, DM of
Organics, Heathcliff Johnson's head. Lastly, Dick West, DM of Synthetics, beneath
perfectly oil-slicked black hair.
On either side of the double doors laid a decommissioned
Biodroid. Each decorated with bullet holes leaking a viscous translucent pink.
Above the droids, walls and windows were painted neo-Pollockesque in the same
color. Silence hung in the air with a scent of sandalwood mingled with motor
oil.
"Who would have thought one clone could cause so
much trouble," Heathcliff's baritone said. One by one the Decision Makers
of Roplaxive turned in a choreographed line. Trip hoped they were about to ask
him to form a barbershop quartet.
“But you aren’t just a clone,” Heathcliff’s face curled
into a predatory grin, “are you?”
“We did run the numbers before extending your welcome
back into the company, Mr. Dawson,” Dick West said.
Trip’s heartbeat quickened.
“Chances of betrayal were incredibly high. You unfortunately
fall into the, ‘independent thinker’ category. We knew your outdated sense of ‘morality’
and, ‘the greater good’, would lead you and your cohort on some harebrained scheme
to get back at us for all the trouble.” Every time Brett Richardson made finger
quotes, it made his face more punchable.
“It only took half of your shift to follow your datatrail
and connect the dots.” The green light from Dick West’s ocs pulsed. “We do applaud
the short, dumpy one, with that awful haircut. He truly is a marvel at his
work.”
Heathcliff added, “And you are no slouch with your own
work as well, Mr. Dawson. We do hope you know we appreciate the efforts you
have put forth to advance Roplaxive Pharmaceuticals.” Heathcliff Johnson made
an earnest gesture, “Though for all of my own knowledge of DNA, I’ve never
quite grasped why humankind has such strong tendencies for self-destruction.”
“After all,” Brett Richardson showed his palms, “we were trying
to control the matter to remain a rebellious skirmish to quell. Not start a
whole new civil war. We finally closed the deal with Pharrel and their spin
division was going to dress this up all so pretty for the public. But then you
two just had to play Big Damn Heroes,” Brett scoffed. “Try to spin your hero
story to some family whose hundred-something year old nana just lost her life
support. All because you punched a few buttons.”
Dick West flashed his fluorescent smile, “We were making life support obsolete, and you
were helping that. Before today, that is.”
Trip pointed a thumb over his shoulder at the Biodroid
slumped in the corner, “Then why’d you put bullets in the life support?”
“You wrote the
behavior conditioning sequence to have primary reasoning removed from the
organic side.” Heathcliff’s brow furrowed.
“I guess I’d be pretty emotional about being cut off from
half my brain too,” Trip said non-chalantly.
Brett Richardson smirked, “We have much worse in store
for you.”
Trip’s body flooded with a wave of nausea. His eyes
welled up and released a torrent of sobbing tears. His body doubled over, he
fell on his fattened belly, and wailed with reckless abandon. The faces of all
three DM’s were stone.
Trip tried to bring himself back to normal. His internal
chemistry was a cocktail of misfiring and overworking hormones. In his crying
fit he wondered how his endocrine system would be after the trait wore off. His
sole desire was to unburden his conscience to anything that would listen.
“We. Were. Just. Trying. To. Make things better,” Trip
wailed to the heavens. Only the trio of Decision Makers heard him. “I never
wanted to be a test subject, and now look at me.” tears couldn’t stop rolling
from Trip’s ducts. “We wanted everyone to be free. Without someone controlling
what to buy and where to shop. We don’t need someone to tell us what to do all
the time.”
Brett shuddered, “It’d be utter chaos.”
“Everyone free? Free for what? How would anything get
done?” snickered Dick. “Clones already don’t want to do the grunt work.”
Heathcliff said, “We’re trying to make this country great
again. We want to be united under one, safe, company banner.”
“You mean,” sniff,
“like a monopoly?” Trip pulled himself together.
“Ugh.” Brett Richardson made a stank face, “Monopoly is
such an ugly and archaic word. We prefer to call it, expanding our brand to
unite our consumer base.”
Tears still slipped from his eyes but he wasn’t breaking
down from chemical imbalance. Trip snorted back wet snot, “Sometimes, don’t
people need to divide to come together.”
“Is this where you share some trite little blurb that
sums everything up to try and justify your actions?” Dick West raised an
eyebrow.
Brett Richardson said, “That’s what I’d chose to do. Can
we get on with detonating his fragging slave chip, already? This is taking too
long.”
“When people are discontent with the way things are,
they’ll make sure to change it until they’re content.” Trip wiped the last
tears from his cheeks and rubbed his palms on his coveralls.
“You speak as if we’re unaware of the human condition,
Trevor,” Heathcliff Johnson touched a section on the desk behind the trio. “Why
do you think we have a marketing division? The public wants what we make it
want. We don’t create trends, we project them. We don’t make people want to
take drugs, we make drugs people want to take. You could have been a key player
in all of that. Maybe stand in my position someday. But now?”
The doors opened behind Trip. A demure serving clone
entered and handed Heathcliff a pillow with a control rod laid across. She
moved towards the exit head down, with a look of, ‘goodbye’ at Trip.
“Ah, the good ole Firing Rod. We so rarely get a chance
to use the poor girl.” Dick West rubbed his hands together.
Trip shook his head further regaining his compsure. “You
don’t get it. We’ve already won. Your side’s already been disconnected. The
Biodroids aren’t the next step of human evolution. Our next step isn’t to be
stuck as security guards for the intentions of a poisonous institution. Don’t
you get that’s what we want gone? We don’t want a civil war tearing our nation
apart either. We want to finally make a system thatwill benefit the many as
well as the few.”
Heavy silence.
Heathcliff Johnson took the Firing Rod from its pillow
and ran his fingers down the length of it, “We’re going to self-destruct your
head now.”
“Don’t worry, It looks like it hurts a whole lot.” Brett
Richardson wolfishly smiled, “And the sound is phenomenal.”
Trip’s empty stomach flipped over itself, “So after all
of that, you’re just going to kill me?”
“Why would we keep you alive when you’d just do something
stupid again?” Dick West sighed, “It gets expensive when top employees go
rogue.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Dawson. The star that burns twice as bright
shines half as long.” Heathcliff depressed the button atop the Firing Rod. Trip
closed his eyes.
The sound of meat hitting carpet followed a squelch. Trip
opened his eyes a bit to see each body slump to the ground with a deadweight
thud.
Three headless bodies with smoking neck stumps laid in a
pile where Roplaxive’s Decision Makers once stood. Trip moved with caution
towards the control rod and stared at it like a piece of alien technology. He poked
at their neck holes with the control rod, fearing any moment one would spring
to life. Who would have guessed the Decision Makers of Roplaxive
Pharmaceuticals were clones.
Trip looked at the control rod, depressed the index
safety on the hand grip and took a breath of resignation. Thumb down, button
pressed. He clicked the button a couple more times and gave it a good shake. His
clone chip still refused to explode.
“Geesh,” Trip belly laughed, “dodged a bullet there.”
No comments:
Post a Comment