Thursday, July 15, 2004

Inner Joke

That's enough for today, Joey. I'm somewhat sorry that it didn't turned out as you may have planned. It's not exactly my fault, as I'm here, as silently promised, package at hands, life at risk, panic at heart. It makes me think even a smartass like you could fail. How much have you scored in your last percentil test? 0-dot-nine-nine-nine-nine-..., errr, I hardly can remember your exact number of nine-digits. Now I stop mumbling and start to act. I don't expect you to forgive me for opening your package, as I feel miserable about that, but I want to know a bit better the kind of trouble I have jumped into.

Whoaa.

A pistol. Joey, I can't believe you sent me to blindly sneak throught a restricted area carrying a gun! Surely there isn't the slightest chance of the powers that be sparing my life for this. Not for invading a highly secret zone with loaded...? fuck, yes, with a exotic, military gun loaded with EX/level-9 bullets. What now? It would be futile to blow up some cops. In this complex, Colostel cops are going to eventually... wait, there's a note inside, it reads "Yeah, I knew you would make it. Later, all you have to do is to search and terminate El Ramiro. Unfair, but please do it. Right now, don't think, protect your body as much as possible with your funny suit then shoot the glowing bars. --J"

Wednesday, July 14, 2004

The Bitch Back Home

I guess I’m to blame. The guy came, and he was so impressive. From Kusari, the Japanese colonized sector. I’ve always been a fan of Japanese action movies, sabers, samurai honor and style. So here is this guy dressed like a hero from Star Trek, his amazing Dragon heavy fighter ship docked to the right of the bar, we can see it’s fins through the glass. He is frantic:

- Here is what Joey told me you could do for the Order, you gotta get to their depot and check dock number 37, access codes here in this transponder, get the suit and deliver the packet in 4G, Sigma III system.

- Hey man, I love Joey more than anyone, more than that bitch back home if I have to tell you, but I ain’t throw my life away, hell, not even the bitch, just because Joey got his brains soft and gave in to conspiracy theories.

- THIS IS NOT – and he calmed down as quickly as he had become red and crashed the table with his fist with his bare hands cracking it as if it had been a hammer – conspiracy theories, Hispania REALLY is plotting to establish massive intervention! Prices will be indexed, taxes will be raised, monetary exchanged will be twicked with! Hell, they will trash all the prosperity generations have given their sweat and their blood to build! You gotta listen, there is no fooling around in space, a crash in space will certainly claim lives, and there is no telling how many will be lost until production flows get reestablished. And it’s cyclic, meaning, once it stabilizes, it will be just counting down to the next crash.

Damn. The bloody ronin was talking serious issues. I sure as hell didn’t want Hispania, or any other sector if you wanna know, riding my back and telling me when to take from my kids to feed their thirst for power. But I ain’t no idealist either, just wanna get my sorry life going. Hell, I’m balding and losing teeth, I sure don’t get to dream about big pictures too often, just wanna get through the day to my beer and every once in a month to that bitch who wastes all my money. But hey, this is Joey’s message. When did Joey ever let me down? I sure owe him one for taking me from ultra heavy booze into my pilot license when nobody anymore believed I could learn anything. So yeah, I’ll have to find a way to say yes to this joker without making it seem that his cracking of this five inch thick granite table made me soft:

- Ok, Toru san, ok, let’s not get arguing the sex of the angels, hand down the codes, prepare the bounty and wait for me. I’ll be back before you can say hyperthreading deep pipeline.
- (…)
- You were supposed to say hyperthreading deep pipeline.
- Just be on time at 4G, and you will have been worth of Joeysan’s high appraisal of you. And that’s not saying little.
- Yeah, whatever.

But here I am, pinned down in this depot with this wacky homo looking PTT alien shit suit and hearing the Colostel officers working their way through the door locks and wondering what is the amazing solution Joey would come with for when the officers realize all they have to do is to cast an override over the consoles. Hell, I could use a night’s rest with that cold bitch back home, a beer and football.


Runaway Anniversary

For almost six pleasant years I have been driving heavy carrier-class trucks. Despite the huge size, in competent hands, those ships can exhibit unexpected agility. Ok, it's conceivable their InGrav engines help more than skilled hands. Point is, I often managed to find lots of fun delivering bars of pre-processed PTT to every factory that requested them. Most enjoyment comes directly from my recognized ability to quickly reach buyers before the fourth decayment cycle of the PTT, which starts roughly 2 hours once the containers are sealed. Customers usually show with money their happiness on being able to work with "loosely interlaced PTT", whatever it means. Of course no-one of them would like to approach the PTT during the first stabilizing cycle, unless they were equipped with very little appreciation for living. Or at least, they say so, because the containment cylinders have prevented me from insanely playing with the raw material just out of curiosity.

Poli-Tachionic-Tissues were a very new technology when I first landed in Venaris, then a planet uniquely famous for being unheard of. As a current major producer of PTT gadgets, this place has been experiencing a steady economic growth. Thanks to that stupid Sectorial Law prohibiting any kind of EG (short of Engineered Ghosts, for outsiders), there is plenty of jobs for people like me. As you have probably guessed, fragile devices based on electronics, or even optics, couldn’t really function anywhere in the solar system neighborhood, due to the intense and generalized field distortions inducted by the PTT decayment. Apparently having no idea about whether such effects could hurt human people, the local corps felt quite comfortable in hiring some of us for several roles, such as drivers.

Now tell me how was one supposed to guess I would finish locked into this ill-coloured room, pursued by Colostel officers under orders to burn my ass at all costs. I bet they are breaking in the main door real soon now. Can be this freaking suit, presumably made of refined PTT attached to some alien-like technology, is causing all of it? At the center of the room, I fear those unsealed, glowing-and-humming PTT columns are definitely an unavoidable doom, unless I find a way out, fast enough for a desperate travel to thousands miles away from any nearby mine.

The Voyksed Starcraft Collective Stories

It all begins here.