Man that was a lot of hard and easy cuts and pastes. Chapter 3 was a complete dump chapter, and still is. But you get to be the judge on whether or not it suffers for it. I trimmed about 1500 words out of it. Had to add a bit more too, but the parts that are added are necessary while everything trimmed wasn't. And this week, my efforts on this current rewrite is what you get to witness. The best part is, all of this hard work is just a foundation for something completely different later. I've already got plans on how to completely change chapter 1 so who knows how that will effect everything that comes after. But this is all future stuff.
As for the here and now, before I copy and paste some genre fiction for you, I beat Resident Evil 5 and am gearing up for Resident Evil Revelations 2. The end of my survival horror fest is coming fast. I also have The Evil Within that I'm going to play after. I've been putting it on hold to do this playthrough and it took longer than expected.
I also smashed through the current gen Grand Theft Auto V. First person mode was nice sometimes. It's useful playing online and killing people with it, that's for sure. Finally playing that puts the nail in the coffin of my huge game series playthrough I started last year. I strung together a chronological order of all the games in Rockstar Games canon (except for Manhunt, because I never played the games in the first place and didn't see a reason to start now). From Red Dead Revolver to GTAV I completed the Red Dead, GTA, Max Payne and Midnight Club series. Also in there was LA Noire, Bully, The Warriors, and all the available DLC packs for the last and current gen titles. So it was a long, fun, open world sandbox experience. And even in some of their worst games, Rockstar games will have something redeeming to them. Not many companies can say that about themselves.
I also gleaned a lot about the sliding scale of cynicism and optimism, and each franchise seems to do better the more it teeters on it. Max Payne is off the deep end of cynicism, while Bully is very fun loving and optimistic. GTA and Red Dead games straddle that line, with GTA being more moderate to cynical while Red Dead is moderate to optimistic. One could argue that it breaks down from the tropes/genres that each series is drawing from (Hard boiled detective, mobster/gangster crime, Spaghetti Westerns, prep school/college comedies) to dictate its place on the scale. But GTA definitely takes itself extremely serious about not taking itself seriously. I do have to hand it to the writing teams of each series that they at least don't pull punches. Each series is potentially offensive to anyone who doesn't want to believe the real world exists. I had numerous times while playing Bully where I'd think, "Wow, that kid's life is ruined forever". And while playing GTAV as Trevor Phillips, "This is what Rockstar thinks of its client base." There's definitely a lot of validity to the company's praise, and I await their next title.
After I finish Resident Evil, I'm looking to break things up with their other franchises Devil May Cry and Dead Rising. I've been a DMC fan since its birth back in 2001, and while I own all 3 Dead Risings, I haven't played a single one. Tsundoku for videogames and all. But my next big playthrough is going to be the entire Metal Gear series in chronological order. And since an official Hideo Kojima timeline exists, I consider that a challenge. I don't know if you've been keeping track, but I tend to enjoy putting stipulations on how I consume media. I guess I want to be told a story from start to finish after hearing it all jumbled up.
Speaking of stories, I'm done talking about videogames. Here's a chapter about a lonely drug addict and a picture of my dog eating a volleyball:
C:\>03_Hollywood_Blues
Steamed milk micro foam bubbled up through espresso crema in the beginning squiggles of a rosetta. The barista struck a line through the center to finish the pattern. It looked more like an alien autopsy than a blooming flower. SBUX required foam art from every partner, but they never said it had to be any good.
Decker called out, "Table E-Four. Classic cappuccino, raw milk, ristretto."
The server whisked away his creation to the lucky patrons at E-4. Decker began the next drink. He was poked in the eyes by sunbeams every time he looked up at A-Bar's neverending order screen. Thanks to the storefront position on Ventura Boulevard, the window shades were useless during sunrise.
Since Trip left, Decker's reliance on supplementary income for Designer Molecules shot through the roof. Tips were better in the morning, but the shift change left much to be desired. While the global supply of real coffee beans fell, commodity price rose with its neovogue luxury status. Artisan barista wages did not, leading Decker to fill his empty life with caffeine, JumpUp, and as much overtime his boss would authorize. It was pour slag rosettas for hours on end or to go home to an empty house. Either one left him wondering if his glory days were ahead of behind him.
*
Decker walked out the front door at the end of his shift. He hitched up his carry-all bag, full of espresso reeking work clothes and contraband, and stepped onto the sidewalk along Ventura. Three Hollywood Peace Division cruisers carved wedges through third rush-hour traffic. Across the street a pair of bored pocs took a passionate Iranian's statement in front of a carbon scored restaurant. The pursuit-mode cruiser sirens dopplered away while droning ghetto birdsong filled in overhead.
The sun painted the smog layer a fiery orange-red, Its haze obscuring the not that distant mountains. Meters high air traffic warning lights hung over a constellation of house lights along the western mountain ridge. Lapping against the other side, the Pacific Ocean filled in the drowned streets of Bahía Cuenca. At the head of the LA River, canals fed into the water recycling centers for SFV818 and SGV626. That was what Pharrel Inc. Public Works redubbed the former San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys after the Reconstruction Era.
Decker grew up in The 818's West Central trailer park stacks. The middle child, he escaped gang life via videogames and the neuronet. A love of disassembling and reassembling anything he could came in handy for home security and making the most of shared nothing. His family didn't move to the current house until he graduated from Performance Arts & Technical School no.299 two years before Trip.
PATS299 was where Decker met Trip. Fate brought them together when they were reassigned as lab partners in Applied Postmodern Physics. Over the semester they bonded over a similar love of classic experimental film, and the Vietnamese Khlụ̄̀nS̄eīyng Street Punk scene.
Trip was a tall and witty lonely kid from south of the boulevard. Decker's streetwise bravado generated excitement in his otherwise dull life. Decker found Trip to be a perfect foil, each one steering the other in and out of trouble.
Post-graduation, Trip was ushered from his family home after his parents converted it into a Swingers congregational den. The guys made up their mind to flirt with independence while they pursued higher education. They found that independence in a two-bed unit in an overpriced slum disguised as an artist collective named Das Komplex. Most of the tenants turned out to be slagheds and working girls. That knowledge made the boys feel silly about their art production lies during the interview with the manager, Dahng.
A couple years later, Decker's mom decided to spend the empty nest years of her life on the road in the arms of a new squeeze. She was gracious enough to offer her almost livable dump to the guys, with the only stipulation that they couldn't change the decorum.
Passing under The 101 and off of Ventura, the smashed store facades turned into squatted-in foreclosures. Blocks of suburban homes no one could afford were splashed in Vivid colors. Each unsold suburban ranch house was filled by whatever social tribe stepped in where Public Works failed them. The pocs quit their sweeps through the burbclaves after the squatters armed themselves.
The air was alive with the sounds of throwback jams and traffic. Each group enforced their cultural space in a diverse crowd. Kids laughed and shrieked as they hurled a red utility ball back and forth at each other. A dance party in a cul-de-sac, complete with sync matched holographic dancers and spinning colored lights, was in full effect. Pompadour sporting Güeygos stood outside several graffitied grayscale houses. Most smoked cigarillo spliffs wearing ribbed black tank tops and creased work pants.
A Güeygo catcalled Decker on his way past. The one standing next to the pig, inked with a ¿Qué tan pronto es ahora? neontat, wouldn't have been half bad. He'd have to lighten up and ditch the wispy teenage 'stache before Decker would date him.
Decker passed a curb with society's washouts sat in a row. DeMo slagheads, the mentally imbalanced, phased out trads, production assistants in debt to Pharrel Inc., and the educated unemployed all rubbed elbows on the curb. Each one holding signs for food post-scripted with a, 'God Bless'. Many shared, "Clones took my job," as a theme.
Hollywood had been billed as a place where the displaced and downtrodden could come and start a new life. Since the West Coast had remained largely untouched by the war, Hollywood promised wide open spaces and glamorous opportunities which were taken seriously for some reason. After a civil war, global extinction event and a plague, South Hollywood's stretch along the reshaped 5 Interstate from TJA664 to BKF661 was still the most populous of the New American megacities. And that was without the rest of the Western State Coalition adding their numbers.
Pretty young things rebooted the superstar crawl from all corners of the continent to become holostars and oldweb personalities. True to The Valley's history, most ended up dumped through the porntubes doing fetish of the week jobs. The rest cycled through JaneyJobs, hoping for more than an extra gig in someone's indie vid. IMDB credits meant little in a world where citywide surveillance records everything.
All of the gold, silver, bronze and tin ages of Hollywood happened long before Decker was born. He was stuck in a crumbling police state where he was probably going to die, a thought which lost the comfort it held years ago. Decker swore the world was a cooler place when he was fresh out of school with a wide open future ahead of him. His dream was to be a world famous slicer like all his favorite vids. The One, with a capital The. Tweaked out with top shelf mods, and an endless list of clients itching to link up. The kind you read about in 'Zinefeed pulps, surreptitiously slicing through Glacial ICE to slink away with the big score.
In reality, with his potato rig he was little more than a net spy for nobodies. He wasn't getting any younger and his creds weren't getting any larger. For the past ten years, every job he scored in the back of a juice bar was small time. If big name clients hung around The Canby, Decker never met one. His skills pounded on a glass paywall as he pretend to be some kinda Skip Tracer for spurned spouses.
*
Decker fired up the house VI and melted into the couch. The ancient memory cushion wouldn't morph from his and Trip's butt-grooves into his supine position. He swore under his breath about his sister stealing away the good couch.
Decker croaked, "House, channel five, projection up."
The news item of the day was a continuing rash of celebrity clones setting themselves on fire in protest over recognition as human beings.
News anchor Katie Couric's clone said, "This rash of protests comes during record lows for organic matter production. As a result of the global shortage, beginning four years ago, production costs have risen across the board."
"Pharrel Inc. has been in talks with Roplaxive Pharmaceuticals over a merger of the two companies. Roplaxive, currently the world's largest producer of pharmaceuticals and cloned products, has been working in tandem with Pharrel on an experimental clone biochip free of biotech giant Gene Works Inc.'s current patent."
"Pharrel Inc. PR rep and former CFO, Tilda Sparks, was quoted, 'This merger hopes to enhance the value of content produced by both brands and pass that value onto the consumer.' When further questioned about the merger being a smokescreen for a hostile takeover, Sparks had no comment." The clone beamed for the cameras. Decker wondered if she was thinking of setting herself on fire.
Bored, Decker left the HV running in the background as he scanned 'Zinefeeds in his HUD. His body ached everywhere with exhaustion, wired on a muscle spasm inducing deca-espresso. Without an inventive pharmacology student to keep him supplied with cheap nootropics, his body's state crashed downhill at an accelerated pace.
It was day twelve in another sleepless binge of heart-pounding stims and mind-numbing work. Today, zoned out on bar, JumpTrails of green flashing code lines looped and swirled about in the milk he burned. At home in the dark, his skin twitched with the crawls for another JumpUp blast.
Typically, Decker kept himself sleep deprived for the sake of avoiding night terrors. Now, he was awake because he couldn't shut off his jumbled mind. It ran with worries he failed at choking down. Sometime in the middle of some Latin-Fusion leftovers from El Taco Lobo, Decker lost consciousness.
*
Decker's standard ringtone rattled out. Caller ID flashed a random point-of-origin code across the red of his eyelids exposed to sunlight. His mouth tasted like skag and salsa. Decker groaned and stretched on the lumpy couch. His hand touched sour cream and cold beans.
Decker grumbled, "Prolly some rando SBUX prick looking for a shift switch." He answered on the fourth ring.
"Oh, it's you."
Trip's disembodied head floated three feet out of reach. Decker's biosigns fluctuated at the first sight of that face in months. Decker's avatar: morphing orange emoticons on a black background, remained a stoic =|.
"Decker." Trip said, " First of all, sorry for cracking your head, bud."
"Bud? Look at Mr. Big City, pickin' up the lingo."
"Oh, for frag's sake. I can't believe they got me saying it now. Dude, that's not important. What's important is first of all, 'hi there,' Mr. Ames. Nice to fragging see your… face. I missed your dumbass." HoloTrip's face smiled.
"Oh Trip, you do care, buddy." Decker cracked a genuine =), "Ah, I can't stay mad at you. I missed you too. Even if you did knock me out and strand me out here in Hollyweird."
"You're just mad 'cause you can't take a punch."
"That's a low blow."
Trip laughed, "Well, any punch I throw at someone your height is gonna be a low blow."
"Prick," Decker made an =P which caused both relieved souls to *LOL*. "So what up, dawg? What's the heart of this call? Do you need me to save you from something? Is the world in revolt? It can't be that you just miss my charming voice."
"Getting down to business, I'm not really used to that these days. What with the drinking and the cloned meat. And cocks getting promoted by stealing my work."
Decker wanted none of that news, "Dude, don't tell me your hangover pill got stolen?"
"They were supposed to be for Alzheimer treatment, but yes. Those and some Temptrait."
"Dub Tee Frag? So, like, are you gonna file an Intellectual Property breach on this douchenozzle?"
"We go out drinking together. And I just got here, you know? And now that he's my boss, I don't want to ruffle too many–"
Decker butted in, "–What? No! Stand up for yourself, man! Get your cojones out of a knot and try to–"
Trip returned the favor, "–Try to what? I'm just some fraggin' new jack, from Nowhereseville, suckin' a sweet corporate titty for a career and apartminium."
"I guess that's cool. If you're into titties." ;-]
"There's some space here."
"I'd hope so. Ocean City has to be bigger than a corporate housing block."
"The whole city is sort of a corporate housing block. But that's not what I'm talking about."
"Then we need to work on your segues."
"Fall in a well, limprick," HoloTrip's face was sour. "But real talk. You think you could doctor a resume as a Creative Security Programing Architect? There was a big meeting at work with infographics and everything. RoPhar's synthetics division is looking for hot talent, bud."
"Oh, dude, selling out to The Man? My moral fiber is so conflicted. My best friend or my soul, which one do I–"
"They'll give you free Roplaxive micro/wet/soft/hardware upgrades."
"What's the price of a soul? My best friend, of course. Why would I ever think of abandoning someone like Trip Danny Daws? The Tee to tha' double Dee."
"Yeah great. Now when are you gonna fraggin' move out here? Or do I have to knock your ass out a fifth time and drag you? It's bad enough your voice sounds like a slag pit smoking a carton a day. How's that withdrawal from DCM-CXM-M2Fe treating you?" Trip said.
"Tough words for a floating head."
"Are you coming?"
"It really sucks paying for drugs, but I'm not keen on being a Roplaxive coder monkey that dances for creds."
Trip said, "I have a robot butler that follows me around the unit with a drink tray."
Decker groaned at his weakness, "What's Ocean City like this time of year?"
*
Warm water spurt from the showerhead when the cold tap opened. September had its heat saturated hands all over Decker's sweaty body. Shower time was spent clearing spam and nuking false unsubscribe links with DDoS bombs. Somewhere during a daydream about piloting a licensed Mecha around NeoTokyo, his borderline warm water turned cold, jolting Decker back to baseline reality.
A push notification dinged. Trip had forwarded an email from Roplaxive's HR department with a link to a teleconference interview. The deadline expired in an hour.
*
Decker synced with his Minjung-Ui Him into the Roplaxive HR netscene. Decker had to drop his settings to minimum just to sit in the waiting area without his browser crashing. Even on lowrez the room buffered whenever Decker moved his head. Robotic stiff syndrome wasn't a vibe a 'Creative Program Architect' wanted to send out during an interview. Especially if you were a black suited figure with a glowing emoticon face.
A swarthy Mumbai accented man extended to shake hands. Decker cupped with both hands and shook. It was the easiest way to mask any clipped animation as it would have been poor etiquette to decline. Skin to skin contact also hadn't been perfected on the neuronet, so it caused a pleasant sensation of electric numbness along Decker's palms. Greetings and introductions were made and the interview was on its way.
Everything concluded without incident. It was a bizarre mix of questions that didn't seem to matter in the long run. Decker got the feeling the interview was more of a formality than anything. He was given the particulars in regards to his new position and his housing would be ready by the time he arrived in Ocean City.
He was redirected to the Roplaxive launcher scene. Decker almost wanted to take another shower. He rebuffed that notion due to being unable to cleanse his brain from the inside out. No matter how hard the ad for Roplaxive's NeuRejuv™ in the corner of Decker's HUD promised to the contrary.
*
B.Trix jabbed a self-manicured nail at Decker's elastic reinforced rib cage, "I did not get a second-level degree in Quantum Engineering with a subdisc in Indo-Chinese studies to end up at SBUX while trying to raise a surrogate daughter and have you quit on me!"
"You didn't breathe once during that." Decker's amusement fell back to business, "I'm not quitting. No one said quit. I'm just like not going to be physically in this sector anymore. So if you want to schedule me for shifts, just letting you know I'm going to be chronically late."
B.Trix lowered to a whisper, "Shoot me now, just get it over with. Like, you, Sheri, Annie, and sometimes Troy, are the only ones that work here." She thumbed a thick stack of applications in her outbox, "You expect me to find a replacement in this mess? Most of these idiots can't even write their names."
"Can you approve my transfer, please?" Decker said.
"You know how hard it is to train from the ground up."
"You shoulda pushed harder in the quantum engineering field. Maybe you coulda been the one to invent a teleporter that doesn't effectively murder you—"
"—Kill me."
"But then your daughter gets your car, Trix," Decker said. "You know she won't respect that sweet piece of metal."
"So, where in Ocean City are you and that little gangly mister moving in together for the third time." B.Trix gave an eyeroll and a sigh. "And you still not considering yourselves a couple?"
"This conversation feels like it's crossing some sexual harassment boundaries, still kinda boss. I have ocular camera implants. They could accidentally pick up an inappropri–"
"–Okay. What part of the City?"
"I believe the locals refer to it as, 'The Noreasturbs'. What a stupid name, right?" Decker's lackadaisical delivery punctuated with a hand gesture.
"It sounds like they put some thought into it." B.Trix said, deflating Decker. She turned to the back of house computer that showed its antiquity by still having a physical desktop monitor.
"It's on the Tea Harbor Island plate," He tried to move the conversation along.
"Your knowledge of that place is probably better than mine." B.Trix jammed on the spacebar in hopes that it would make the magical box of obsolete work.
"You should probably stop trying to give it commands if it's overwhelmed by you waking it from sleep mode. But yeah, I've only looked at it through satmaps, a map isn't the territory."
"Decker, I'm not in the mood to wax philosophic." B.Trix scanned the partially loaded store locator for available positions. "Uuh, hmm. I'm not too certain ooonnn…" B.Trix hummed and hawed. "Uh, it looks like there's three stores available."
"Just pick the first one."
"You're sure about–"
"–Whatever, I just need this done, please." Decker's anxiety showed in his face.
"If that's what you want," B.Trix poked the first radial button available. She snickered at the location, but Decker did ask for it. "That's what you'll get."
"Am I cool?" Decker smiled and turned to go.
"Not really. But that's all I need out of you," B.Trix said. "So you're really leaving me with all these monsters?"
"Yeah, but I'm going to slay my own monsters. Take 'er easy, dotTrix." Decker gave her an awkward hug while she was sitting, "Keep your unit on you, G."
"Yeah, get out of my face."
*
It wasn't very hard to say goodbye to the old house. Decker had spent a good majority of three sleepless days upgrading physical and digital security. He packed up a shoulder bag with pockets and pouches fastened onto any available free space. He loaded up clothes, his palmtop, a multi-purpose tool, incriminating data, snacks, demos, cigarettes and barter items. He wished for some kind of weapon for The Wastes. He found solace in the that bus drivers were always strapped. Whatever good that would do at rest stops was a bridge to burn when he got to it.
With a three-quarters full bag and a half empty heart, Decker left the most steady home he'd ever had for the third time. He caught an OrangeBus heading towards the West Side Connection Hub. Decker looked at the light sinking into the ocean past the mountains. Its glow made blood tracks out of wispy clouds in a violent sky. Decker saluted it with an extended middle finger, sank into his seat and set a GPS alert for the hub. The bus pulled away from the curb, inching its way through congested streets, as Decker queued the first track on his travel playlist: Say Goodbye, Hollywood.
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