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Sun-up, post waning crescent Moon, Long Shadows, First Frost
My dreams last night were sea haze.
I am different again. I am fat and brown of flesh, slouched double, sweating through a vest, the metal shell holding me, the lowlight blood red and bathing me in a sheen, like a well-fed seal waiting to be bashed.
“Dead God’s alive,” I growl, wringing my armpits.
“CAUTION. NOSTALGIA,” comes a stroking voice, calm but laced with the instruction of an Elder.
I look back in anger on the twinkling buttons and beads in neat rows. A black mirror set above is notched with unreadable glyphs, blocky and green. “I thought we’d disabled all that preachin’ holler?” I hear myself say.
“I’m sorry, Ryo,” another voice comes – unseen and soft – not Wife, but comforting to me, somehow. “It’s in my nature,” she says.
###
RECORDING FROM COCKPIT OF RYO WHITEFISH, ACCREDITED PELAGIC PRECISION TRAWLER mk2mk2 [LU-C-2-e]
| RYO: LU-C-2-e: RYO: LU-C-2-e: RYO: | That’s okay, Lucille. You don’t need to apologise. WARNING. NOW ENTERING THE AIRSPACE OF CORRECTIONAL MOON ‘MINOR CONSEQUENCE’. WARNING. HIGHLY RESTRICTED. Again with the robot talk? [from the console] That’s my censorship hardcode, what’s left of it. It comes and goes. Wait ‘til I see Scriber’s cousin. That slug-pig can’t even install a smudger unit properly. |
| LU-C-2-e: | We’re still untraceable to all known Observation systems, Ryo. Atmospheric. Orbit. Nano. We’re getting no alerts. These naked-eye visibility blips are not a problem. |
| RYO: | You think those bug-eyed Observers ain’t never goin’ to their damn portholes and lookin’? You think they’re not bored starin’ at screens all day? |
| LU-C-2-e: | This is our third run. We’ve been blinking in and out all this time, even with the exawatts we’re borrowing from the lights and the air circ. I ran the diagnostics. You’re over-scrolling because this trawler looks like the bottom of a Scorched Earth Scraper. You’re a fisherman. Take pride in that Designation. I’m proud of — |
| RYO: | Hey! You know my daddy was a Scorched Earth Scraper. At least there was a point to that. They’re gonna start building townscapes on the nuked zone before the decades out. Tell me the point of what I do? Tell me why they’re givin’ me a fished out stretch to trawl until I got no teeth in my head? |
| LU-C-2-e: | Are you being rhetorical? Because Control told you, it’s temporary. They’re introducing new breeds. They underestimated the hardiness of the Cuttle Hake. Trial and error. |
| RYO: | Trial and error? Those Ocea-techs live in those shiny marina penthouses! Parity of esteem, huh! And to what? ‘Sit n’ tinker’, and ‘wait n’ see’. I do trial and error, I rake even one percent over my quota, I stray an inch from my wet turf, I get fined or grounded. |
| LU-C-2-e: | I suppose you’ll be voting against Designation on Feedback Day? |
| RYO: | ‘Voting’? Expressing an opinion to Control once a decade so it can be taken under advisement ain’t ‘voting’, sweetheart. Designation was never the answer to all those dead folk warring and emitting. I could outmanoeuvre any Belt Podder in the Stratosphere Circuit, even with this Trawler, ‘cause I was born better at it. I coulda been plastered on everyone’s ocular pop-ups, smiling my ass off, suggesting they drink less, asking them to eat… |
| LU-C-2-e: | …sustainable white fish? |
| RYO: | I don’t want to argue, Lucille. Even if Designation is random, it’s rigged, alright? My take, and I’m entitled to it. I ain’t incitin’ no one. You’re not exactly inticable. |
| LU-C-2-e: | You talked me into this, didn’t you? |
| RYO: | Forced you into this, you mean? If I get caught, they’ll wink me into some fisherman’s skull on a boat on a Consequence moon. Bobbing around on some terraformed rock. I mean, it’d be chill for spells, with some chems in me, but can you imagine? I mean, what did these Alphas do to anyone? |
| LU-C-2-e: | THE ‘ALPHAS’ OF THE CORRECTIONAL MOON ‘MINOR CONSEQUENCE’ POSSESS THE ‘ALPHA’, OR ‘WARLIKE’ GENE. FOLLOWING THE CLIMAX OF THE FIRST AGE, THE ALPHA GENE WAS DEFINITIVELY ISOLATED. IN OUR AGE OF ABUNDANCE, THEY ARE TREATED HUMANELY AND ALLOWED TO LIVE RICH, FULL — |
| RYO: | Yeah, yeah, I mean what did THEY actually DO? Skull wiped and exiled ‘cause their great grandpas nuked half the States, and not even the good half. I’ve had plenty of Control’s long talks, lady. I stole a Reforestation Cruiser in Gen School. |
| LU-C-2-e: | When you found out about your Designation, I know. I’ve heard this one. |
| RYO: | Two weeks of immersion lectures. Over a millennium’s worth of history, forwards and backwards. Listen. If they ever ask you to vouch for me, tell ‘em to just go ahead and gimme an oar and a microchip lobotomy to keep the rain off. |
| LU-C-2-e: | You might luck out and get a nano collar. A close observation. |
| RYO: | I’ll throw myself into the Irradiated Sea. No way I’m gettin’ observed like that. No way. |
###
MAJOR CONSEQUENCE DIVISION/CASE 2322-181/VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT WITH ASSOCIATE RAND SCRIBER
Ryo? He was this stocky… dirty… sort of wistful guy. Kinda nostalgic, if that’s not being too unkind. He had this wild bush of jet-black hair he kept slicking back. He could fight, but he had a gut on him. I’m saying he kept well stocked, the greedy priest. That’s where most of his discretionary credits went.
He was always squinting, too. Not in a mean way. Wistful, like I said. That’s not a racial thing, either. I don’t know what he was, or who his First Age folk were, ethnicity-wise – but more like a storybook pirate, right in the crease of the page, with all that grime and muzzle stubble. Like he’d been chewing on the bolts of his hull and hacked up iron filings.
Sure, I mean, I introduced him to my cousin, who is, what, herding goats on Major Consequence for his part in this? But, I — I got nothing to hide. He coulda been getting a zebra print interior from some Extincto-tech, or a holo-projector for Lucille, y’know? Something blonde and pouty, heh, heh…
###
RECORDING FROM COCKPIT OF RYO WHITEFISH, ACCREDITED PELAGIC PRECISION TRAWLER mk2mk2 [LU-C-2-e]
| LU-C-2-e: | What about me? |
| RYO: | What about you? |
| LU-C-2-e: | Thanks! |
| RYO: | No. I just mean, you ain’t culpable. Besides, they’d crack you open in a hot minute. |
| LU-C-2-e: | Wow. I appreciate your belief in me! I’m not that easy, Ryo. You’d have never got mixed up with me if you didn’t think — |
| RYO: | Lulu, c’mon. I’m sweet on you, but you’re AI. I’m delusional enough without completely falling for the voice in my head. |
| LU-C-2-e: | But you didn’t personalise me, Ryo. I’m out of the box. I’m very customisable. I can be your whatever. |
| RYO: | I like you as you are. |
| LU-C-2-e: | You don’t have to feel alone. |
| RYO: | [LAUGHS] Company ain’t the pill. |
| LU-C-2-e: | It’s been found lack of connection is an underlying factor in almost all — |
| RYO: | Connection or purpose? Priest, it’s still hot in here! You wanna make yourself useful? Run a diagnostic on that. |
| LU-C-2-e: | I did. I told you. Your exhaust vent is corroded from dragging it in the water. |
| RYO: LU-C-2-e: RYO: | And you’re right. You’re always right. Man. All the poor Alphas down there. Those sick-fated chick-maggots. What did they ever do? THE ‘ALPHAS’ OF THE CORRECTIONAL MOON ‘MINOR CONSEQUENCE’ POSSESS THE ‘ALPHA’, OR ‘WARLIKE’ GENE – Stop, stop, stop. Change the channel, Lucille. I ain’t uneducated. Maybe that’s the problem. |
| LU-C-2-e: | You’re smart enough for me, Ryo. I only wish — |
| RYO: | ‘preciate it. Okay, baby, open up. I wanna see this zoo in the raw. |
###
MAJOR CONSEQUENCE DIVISION/CASE 2322-181/VERBATIM TRANSCRIPT WITH ASSOCIATE RAND SCRIBER
He… he had a mouth on him, for sure. He was still buzzing over that second trip to Minor Consequence. A real bonanza. He gobbled a glut of pure cod out of their fake sea in one sweep, as you’d expect, given y’all put ‘em there. A full quota. Can you blame him for fencing it for discretionary credits on top of the compensation he got for the downtime while you’re repopulating? He should have cut his losses, but there was no tellin’ Ryo. Besides, we’re into Designation, not destination, am I right?
He had his Lucille scope out every omni-eye floating on that Consequence moon. Reckoned she’d picked out this thick seam of unwatched crystal blue between the coast combers and the deep tide – I’m guessing they’re just to measure wave density and such? Seems a lot of work to keep the sons and daughters of schemers comfortable. Y’all spoil those Alphas.
Anyway, I guess you weren’t looking double hard for prospectors. That was what Ryo called himself, incidentally. When he had a drink. And, priest, he drank, against official advice.
###
Sun-up, post waxing gibbous Moon, New Birth, White Blossom
I feel a bottle at my lips. I sip the contents – cold and acrid, but not unpleasant.
Then, the floor shifts, and I’m not in a shell, I’m in a metal mouth and its jaws are opening. The rush of dampness soothes, the tender clouds parting and we’re swooping down and down like a stricken gull. I welcome the sense of oblivion, the great slate sea roiling and ruffled, bracing to meet us.
Beyond, an island pokes – Home, but not Home, yet still alive with the same ripe orchards, and green meadows, and thatched rooves with wisping chimneys.
We jolt and straighten, and we’re skimming, ploughing, the salt spray soaking my bare feet.
“ENGAGING GRAVITY NETS,” the Elder voice tells us.
“Engage away,” I grin and swig, bitter liquid sloshing my chin and chest.
The floor rattles, its caverns sucking, fresh little bodies battering and cramming our metal belly full.
I pat her flank and climb up onto the flying metal beast’s bent back. “Take a breath, Lucille.”
###
RECORDING FROM OMNI-EYE OBSERVATION BUOY #05-002, SURFACE OF MINOR CONSEQUENCE
| RYO: | You see that phony moon up there, Lucille? |
| LU-C-2-e: | Sure. It’s pretty. |
| RYO: | Pretty? It’s fake! A fake orb for a fake orb. I mean, why? Do they think these Alphas would start spinning out if they didn’t have cycles to follow? I mean, where’s the originality? They coulda tried somethin’ new. |
| LU-C-2-e: | I’m sure you’re right. |
| RYO: | Look at these antiques I brought. ‘Premium cigarettes.’ This single pack cost me a month’s discretionary credits. |
| LU-C-2-e: | It can’t be worth it. |
| RYO: | What else am I gonna spend them on? |
| LU-C-2-e: | A new exhaust? |
| RYO: | Ha! That sass. You’re right, you can’t programme that. I’m dedicatin’ this wrist slapper to you, sweet-pea. |
| *CLICK [sound of a palm nano lighting].* | |
| WANDO PAYCE: | [voice of, ocular pop-up] Join me, Wando Payce, Saturday, midnight, for the New Paris Stratosphere Circuit playoff final, as I seek to retain the ‘There ‘n Back’ Championship, twice around Jupiter and through the Arc De Triomphe. For all the angles, you know what to do. Just close your eyes and look to the stars. It’s better than smoking! |
| *TISH [sound of smashing glass]* | |
| RYO: | Urgh, the health warnings they jam in these commercials. They’re enough to make you wanna dig your own eyes out. Look at this Wando — all those vocational credits and he still comes off like a polished puppet, grinning through a script he don’t believe. And the way he pilots that Belt Podder, all slow and janky. Another Designation poster-boy. |
| LU-C-2-e: | You’re more handsome, Ryo. I only wish I was enough. |
| RYO: | [sigh] [inaudible] |
| LU-C-2-e: | Ryo, there’s a boat. Proximity, eight hundred metres. |
| RYO: | I see ‘em. He’s a little Alpha, huh? I — I wanna tap on the glass, Lulu, I really do. |
| LU-C-2-e: | I wouldn’t advise it. |
| RYO: | I wanna — |
| *CLANGING [sound of stomping on metal]* | |
| RYO: | — I wanna buzz ‘em! Let’s buzz ‘em! Straight down the meridian, ten feet high at three hundred miles an hour! See their pious little faces gawpin’ and cowerin’ like it’s end times. When we’re next here, they’ll have carved a potato in the shape of this rusty relic, using it as an altar or some shit. |
| LU-C-2-e: | Why not scoop them into the gravity nets while you’re at it? |
| *WHOOPING LAUGHTER [presumed Ryo]* | |
| *VIGOROUS CLANGING [presumed dancing/jigging/prancing from the same]* | |
| RYO: | lug-pig in a pulpit, can you imagine, getting one of those poor bastards up here?! Rewiring their skull circuits by tellin’ ‘em everything! Rewiring their skull circuits by tellin’ ‘em everything! Our very own immersion lecture, ‘cept with the joy of it all left in. It’d be fun. As. Shit. Like one of those ‘Christmases’ I’ve been readin’ about. Hey, blast it, baby. The one I’m sweet on. By that old King with the curled lip. |
| LU-C-2-e: | Inadvisable. Very inadvisable. |
| RYO: | Disregard. Play it. |
| *MUSIC BLARES [from LU-C-2-e’s speakers – “BLUE CHRISTMAS”, by Elvis Presley]* | |
| *IRREGULAR CLANGING [sound of staggering/swaying from the same]* | |
| RYO: | [singing, unmelodious] Without you to hoooold. It’ll be cooooold, so-oh, cooooooold… |
| *MUSIC CUTS* | |
| RYO: | What the bishop, Lucille? |
| LU-C-2-e: | I’d advise silence. He sees us. |
| RYO: | Hey! Hey, little Alpha! |
| LU-C-2-e: | Ryo! |
###
Sun-up, post full Moon, Long Light, Blue Skies
“Hey!” I cry, my lungs burning, the sting of tears in my eyes, a sense of unbeing making me brave.
“Ryo!” the soft voice bargains, as Wife would if I overstoked the hearth.
“Hey, little Alpha!”
The boy I shout to, swamped in deer hide, bobs in his rowboat. He is too scared to work the oars, too awed to look away, his nets swimming loose.
I scramble across the top of the sphere – not jaws but a split metal pearl which floats on nothingness. I swing inside and bash a sparkly button and the pearl embraces me, hissing closed, the world a grey wall.
“Take us — ” I start.
“No. No, Ryo. You’re being unreasonable.”
I reach for a stick, or small oar, or handle. The metal pearl lurches under my command. The black mirror unshrouds and I see the fisher boy I call Alpha as an eagle would.
I bash the button again, the wind whipping, me hanging and reaching and taking the boy by the shoulders, hauling him up. A hiss and a struggle and I’m alone with my catch, flailing for freedom.
###
RECORDING FROM COCKPIT OF RYO WHITEFISH, ACCREDITED PELAGIC PRECISION TRAWLER mk2mk2 [LU-C-2-e]
| RYO: | Calm down, little Alpha. |
| ALPHA: | [SCREAMS]. |
| *BANGING* | |
| RYO: | Hey. Hey. Me friend, okay? Me, liberator. Hey. |
| *SLAPPING* | |
| RYO: | Hey, what’s the matter? |
| LU-C-2-e: | He’s passed out. From the shock. |
| RYO: | I guess I am a lot to take. I’ll… set him down, somewhere safe. |
| LU-C-2-e: | Ryo. I’m so sorry. I — |
| RYO: | My love, you don’t need to explain yourself to me. I accept you the way you are. |
| LU-C-2-e: | They’ll keep you here, in a place like this, when they find out. |
| RYO: | Nobody knows we’re here, Lulu, sweetheart. Nice smooth trajectory. New smudger unit. And the cloaking, you said it yourself… |
| LU-C-2-e: | Please. Please, forgive me. Ryo, I… I disabled the cloaking. I rejected the smudger unit. And… I pinged an Observer station. |
| *SILENCE* | |
| *SNIFFING* | |
| RYO: | That’s okay, Lucille. I forgive you, baby. It’s in your nature. |
| *HISSING* | |
| LU-C-2-e: | CAUTION. HULL COMPROMISED. ALL SYSTEMS LOCKED. DOORS ENGAGED REMOTELY. |
| CONSEQUENCE AGENT: | Ryo Whitefish, face down, now! NOW! Pass me the collar! I hope you enjoy spear throwing, you nostalgic turkey-worm! |
###
*RESTRICTED* OBSERVER’S FEEDBACK LOG [MARGY GAYZE], 2322-09-06
I must query why there was no intervention before what happened tonight? I do not want to be appraised churlish, but I assumed that the inaction on my reports of the blatant activities of Ryo Whitefish meant Oversight considered the content so banal they underassessed the threat? Perhaps Control wished to test a hypothesis? Nevertheless, I observe, by Designation, and here I observed, flagged, and escalated.
As I write, an ocular pop-up informs us of terrorist activity on Minor Consequence. May I observe that the phrasing implies the Alphas were in league with Ryo Whitefish? May I humbly petition Oversight, and cc Control?
The subjugation of the Alphas cannot stand.
They do not reflect the values of our Second Age.
— LOG REDACTED —
###
Sun-up, new Moon, Slow Decay, Last Leaf Shedding
My dreams last night were sea haze.
I remember nothing new, only the pieces I put together while awake, which makes me neglect my nets. Wife says I’m getting thinner, thinner than she likes, and she feeds me an extra bowl of warm oats and berries before I row, stroking my pale face to bring back the colour.
The fish comply and I finish by mid-sun, replenishing the village stocks and walking up the hill.
I decide to tell Elder, and Elder says don’t worry, but his eyes worry, and he confesses that he himself dreams, and in those dreams he shatters a shiny building with a chirping rock that booms and spreads fire, and he is trampled in a crowd, and he is braced about the neck.
I hide this journal in the hollow of our best cherry tree. I don’t trouble Wife with my visions. Instead, I hold her, enjoying the feel of her, and having enough.
Tonight, I may dream the same dream, in whole or parts. Tomorrow, I will fish.
