+Piro arched an eyebrow."It's tradition."
+
+"Seriously?"
+
+Piro sat at the keyboard clacking away. Simple, declarative sentences.
+Topical assertions.
+
+"Nobody cares about this stupid newsletter," offered Thomas.
+
+Piro remained silent. Typing.
+
+"Nobody's even going to read it."
+
+Silence.
+
+"Your spelling sucks."
+
+Piro flicked on the radio and turned up the volume.
+
+Thomas grimaced."I hate reading."
+
+Piro leaned over the mimeograph machine, making small adjustments to
+various knobs and switches while Thomas fidgeted in the doorway.
+
+"There's literally no way I'm going to help you fold all of those
+things."
+
+"I don't care."
+
+"This whole side-project is stupid. You really think the value-added
+is necessary? This stuff sells itself. No'free gift with purchase'
+required."
+
+Piro stopped what he was doing and turned to face his twin brother.
+
+"If you're not going to contribute to the newsletter, please go into
+the kitchen and start bagging up rocks."
+
+Thomas shrugged and wandered out of the room.
+
+2
+
+Ken steered the Actron Team's 1978 Lincoln Town Car through the
+streets of Alphabet City. Trash on the sidewalk reflected in the car's
+fresh candy paint. Passing some children, Ken boosted the volume on
+the custom sound system. The children giggled and pointed. He smiled
+and mashed the gas pedal. Shining.
+
+Destination: The G-Spot.
+
+Ken rounded the final corner and slowly brought the outsized car to a
+stop. He lowered a tinted window and inspected his immediate
+surroundings. The parking lot was deserted save for two NYPD cruisers
+and a 1979 Chevrolet Monte Carlo (sky blue metal flake, white
+interior, whitewall tires; that would be John). Ken popped the collar
+on his polo shirt and exited the vehicle.
+
+Inside, the club was all but vacant. Smoke from an abandoned cigarette
+snaked upward towards a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. The two
+police officers were inspecting a briefcase full of cocaine. One of
+them turned around and smiled dumbly, coke caked in his mustache. John
+Ratcliff stood nearby, a duffel bag full of money slung over his
+shoulder. When he saw his partner he frowned and shrugged.
+
+Ken stood in the entryway and surveyed the empty stage. Strobe lights
+clicked rhythmically, strangely loud in the otherwise silent environs.
+
+"Where the white women at?" he finally asked.
+
+The cop with the coke mustache started to giggle, but never finished
+his outburst. Ken activated his super-speed and closed the distance
+between himself and the two officers in a hundred milliseconds flat.
+He slammed the meat of his open hand into the first officer's chin,
+then rolled with the momentum into the second officer's chest,
+following him to the ground. Both cops collapsed, unconscious, Ken
+straightened himself and dusted off his knees.
+
+"Hmph," he he remarked, unimpressed.
+
+John hoisted both men from the floor and hung them by their jacket
+collars on coat hooks near the front entrance. Each would see hospital
+time but neither would suffer permanent injury. John tossed the bag
+full of money at Ken and made his way over to the bar to pour himself
+a drink.
+
+"Tired of this grind."
+
+"So quit."
+
+"You're funny."
+
+Ken sighed.
+
+"Yeah."
+
+3
+
+Outside, some children had wandered into the parking lot and were
+peering inside Jon's Monte Carlo, noses pressed up against the glass.
+
+"Boy, is that white leather?"
+
+"Sure is."
+
+"My brother's car is like this, but his doesn't have leather."
+
+"Sounds like your brother needs to find himself a better paying job."
+
+Ken flopped the briefcase full of coke onto the hood of the car.
+
+"Take this to your brother. If he brings it back in a week, filled
+with money..."
+
+"We have great health insurance," interrupted John."Dental and vision.
+Also, free car detailing. We'll see what we can do about his vinyl
+seats."
+
+"Wow, mister! Thanks!"
+
+John patted the boy on the head and then got into the Monte Carlo and
+peeled out. Ken smoked a cigarette, wandered back to the Lincoln and
+rolled over a beer bottle on his way out of the parking lot. There was
+no damage to the Town Car's bullet-proof tires.
+
+As soon as the adults were gone the boys pounced on the briefcase,
+numerous hands scooping out coke and heaving it carelessly over their
+shoulders. As it happened, directly into the wind. Some of the powder
+blew back and caught in their teeth and hair. Undeterred by this minor
+annoyance, the boys wiped the backs of their hands across their faces
+and soon discovered the rows of individually wrapped crack rocks that
+lined the bottom of the briefcase. Immediately, they went to work
+removing the wrappers.
+
+Tossing the pebbles of crack aside, each paper wrapper was inspected
+closely, compared carefully with the others. Soon it became apparent
+that all of the wrappers were identical. Worse, the material was
+immediately recognizable. Not just predictable, but in fact an exact
+duplicate of an issue they had all read before.
+
+"It's a fucking reprint," said one of the boys.
+
+He flipped over the wrapper, frantically scanning for the publisher
+information. There, printed in bold Helvetica, was the name of their
+nemesis:
+
+Massive Fictions. Piotr Bright, Publisher.
+
+The Chrysler Building.
+
+NYC.
+
+One of the boys produced a brick phone from his backpack and put in a
+call to headquarters.
+
+Calling in for backup.
+
+YOU ARE NOT A GADGET, HE CLAIMED, VIA CELLPHONE
+
+tags: 1990, eva_bright, freeway_ricky_ross, jaron_lanier,
+ken_thompson, piro, tab1, tab2
+
+1
+
+Dreamed I was a tomcat.
+
+Trundling along the side of the road, fur matted with dirty snow.
+Searching for illegal narcotics.
+
+My women were nowhere to be found.
+
+Which was fine.
+
+I happened to be armed. As I ambled along, a car sped by and splashed
+sludge in my face. I fired three rounds into its rear-right tire and
+the driver went over an embankment. An excruciating crashing noise
+followed. It rang in my ears.
+
+I approached the vehicle and emptied the rest of my weapon into the
+driver's chest.
+
+I found part of a hollowed out cantaloupe and slipped it over my head.
+
+Cute.
+
+No one would prosecute a Persian cat.
+
+2
+
+"Oh, great."
+
+"What?"
+
+"I accidentally saved an image of Spider-Man in my porn folder."
+
+"So? Move it. Or delete it."
+
+"But I clicked'Save' without seeing the name of the file."
+
+"So?"
+
+"So, how am I supposed to find it? This folder is 5TB. I don't want
+that Spider-Man image to someday be found amongst my archival porn."
+
+"So, go back and start to save it again and see what the suggested
+filename is. You probably just hit'Enter' when you saved it."
+
+"That... is a very good idea."
+
+"I think I once helped your dad with a similar problem."
+
+3
+
+Jaron Lanier scooped up a handful of the white powder and inspected it
+closely.
+
+"This appears to be cocaine."
+
+"No shit, Lanier," said Piro.
+
+Lanier peered into his hand, face wrinkled in concentration.
+
+Piro turned to Thomas."He's always like this."
+
+"He doesn't get high out of our supply, does he?"
+
+Piro stopped Thomas before he went any further with that line of
+thought.
+
+"No. At least, not that I'm aware."
+
+4
+
+It turned out that my son had the drugs.
+
+Nepeta cataria. Fifty grams. I'm certain his intent was to sell.
+
+I left ten grams with an I.O.U.
+
+The rest I put in my nose. I then put on dark sunglasses to mask my
+dilated pupils, the visible redness in my eyes.
+
+A car drove by and its pilot tossed an empty beer can at my head. It
+bounced off the cantaloupe and skittered into the grass by the side of
+the road.
+
+I peered at the exhaust trail over the top of my sunglasses.
+
+Then I pulled out my gun.
+
+5
+
+It was Ken on the phone.
+
+"Lanier, I need some help with these verb tenses."
+
+"Not now, Ken, we're... weighing... the drugs."
+
+Piro snatched the phone away from him and barked into the mouthpiece.
+
+"Ken! Not on this phone!"
+
+He jammed his thumb on the'End' button and then turned back to Lanier.
+
+"Are you damaged? He can study on his own time!"
+
+"Sorry, sorry," said Lanier, taking a kilo off of the scales.
+
+Piro extracted the SIM card from the phone and crushed it in his hand.
+
+"Card," he said.
+
+Ricky tossed him a replacement and Piro snapped it into place, booted
+up the phone. He dialed New York.
+
+"Eva, patch me through to Nicaragua."
+
+Some moments passed and then Piro began shouting into the mouthpiece
+in gutter Spanish. He rung off and handed the phone back to Lanier.
+
+"Don't lose that."
+
+Thomas finished with his baggies and then dusted off his hands.
+
+"Ken's obsession with Japanese culture is becoming a problem. He can't
+keep his mind on his work. Someone needs to ship him back to Japan."
+
+Piro rolled his eyes. Not for the first time that day.
+
+"His parents don't want him back. At least not until he learns to
+speak Japanese."
+
+"Huh. That seems unlikely to happen. Couldn't we just do fansubs for
+them?"
+
+The men all shared a laugh and then got back to work.
+
+6
+
+Ken unpaused and then re-paused the DVD.
+
+He was at an impasse. The episode of DOUBLE CATS was only a quarter of
+the way through, but he was having trouble understanding the dialogue.
+Finally, he had given up and called Lanier for help.
+
+He was supposed to be translating these episodes for the torrent site.
+
+How could he admit that as a native Japanese, he couldn't even speak
+his own language?
+
+His mind raced. Activating his super-speed, he cleaned up his
+apartment and did the dishes in just under four seconds, moving so
+fast he knocked over a bookshelf and had to re-shelve the books. This
+added another two seconds to the tally. He started a pot of spaghetti
+noodles boiling and took some wine out of the refrigerator. Another
+half-second.
+
+The impending public humiliation would surely kill him.
+
+Unexpectedly, the phone rang.
+
+"Ken."
+
+It was Lanier.
+
+"I can't stay on here long, but let hear some of the phrases and I'll
+give you some quick translations."
+
+"All right, the cat is wearing a cantaloupe on its head, it just
+pulled out a gun and shot out the tires of a car. The car went into a
+ditch and crashed. Now the cat is smoking a cigarette and putting on a
+pair of sunglasses. The cat says: Baka."
+
+Lanier paused before answering.
+
+"What... What exactly are we translating here?"
+
+"It's an anime. I'm supposed to be doing fansubs. I committed to the
+first six episodes by tonight."
+
+"That's a lot of work, Ken. You're not a gadget, you know."
+
+"Yeah, but geeze, shouldn't I at least be able to handle this? I
+didn't even start learning English until I was six years old. How
+could I have completely forgotten my own language?"
+
+"Uh, I've gotta go."
+
+Lanier hung up.
+
+7
+
+"What are you doing? Give me the phone."
+
+Piro took the cellphone and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. He pushed
+Lanier out of the way and then locked the door to the kitchen.
+
+"Thomas. Set the timers. We need a good twenty minutes to get out of
+the neighborhood."
+
+Thomas set all the detonators and the team evacuated the little house.
+
+"Maybe I should call dad," he said, once he had finished loading up
+his gear.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He might have some good ideas about how to..." Now it was Thomas'
+turn to roll his eyes."Oh, never mind."
+
+The men climbed into their white van and pulled away from the safe
+house. As the vehicle accelerated into traffic, Lanier began to
+scribble in his notebook.
+
+Piro gestured towards him, frowning.
+
+"I don't want this guy coming along with us next time."
+
+"What did I do," Lanier protested.
+
+"Shut up," the rest of the men said in unison.
+
+"This is a business," Piro began."There's not time for dicking around
+with language studies and sketching portraits."
+
+Thomas pretended to ignore the scene from behind his visor. He brought
+up some sports scores and wondered at the meticulous pointlessness of
+the statistics industry.
+
+"Huh. It looks like the Bears have taken the Super Bowl."
+
+The van hit a bump and for a split second Thomas' visor slid up and
+exposed his face.
+
+"Oh God, what's wrong with his eyes?" asked Lanier.
+
+Thomas stuck out his tongue and went back to scanning the news.
+
+SENSE OF DEBT
+
+tags: 1954, 1990, coco_schwab, david_bowie, piro, ragnarok, tab2
+
+1
+
+November, 1954.
+
+Bowie picked up the envelope and ran his finger along its edge,
+holding it in his hand for a moment of silent admiration before
+tearing it open with his fingernail and devouring its contents.
+
+But inside was an actual piece of correspondence.
+
+He slammed the door to his dressing room and sulked in his chair. This
+was unconscionable.
+
+The note was from his mother.
+
+ Dear Son,
+
+it read.
+
+ I have received another notice from your creditors. This
+ cannot go on. I am going to give them your address. If you
+ do not write to them, I'm going to suggest that they call the
+ police. There is nothing more I can do for you. I will not
+ pay off another one of your debts. If that means that you go
+ to jail, then so be it.
+
+ Love, Mom
+
+
+Bowie crumpled the note and tossed it on his makeup table. He opened a
+bottle of water and poured it on the carpet, tracing an occult symbol
+that was only present in his mind.
+
+The bitch! I have overhead!
+
+A quiet knock came at the door. Then another, somewhat louder.
+
+He straightened, all trace of disquiet drained from his face.
+
+Time to take the stage.
+
+2
+
+Piro and Thomas hopped into the RAGNAROK and strapped on their
+seatbelts. The engine warbled softly as Thomas adjusted his data
+gloves.
+
+"What's the difference between a raven and a writing desk?" asked
+Thomas, gesturing through a cloud of invisible information.
+
+"By weight?" asked the other.
+
+"Sure."
+
+"I'd say bout fifty kilos."
+
+"Sounds about right," agreed Thomas, scribbling in his palm."Anyway,
+we ought to go further back and try to sell some of this stuff to all
+those 19th century artsy types who were hooked on heroine. Can you
+imagine?"
+
+"No, I can't," said Piro.
+
+"Aw, come on."
+
+Ignoring his twin brother, Piro accelerated smoothly into the clouds
+above New York City.
+
+Lately, Thomas was spending far too much of his free time reading
+children's literature.
+
+3
+
+Bowie stomped through the concert, affecting strange poses. Back in
+his dressing room, he unwadded the note from his mother and then
+wadded it back up again, lit it on fire with his cigarette lighter.
+Coco rushed over and doused the flames with a tumbler of scotch.
+
+Which didn't help at all.
+
+Bowie stripped off his Puerto Rican jacket and patted out the fire. He
+was careful of his shoes.
+
+"That was incredibly stupid," he said, icily."Now I've ruined my
+shoulder pads. What were you thinking about?"
+
+"Reflex," was all she could offer in reply.
+
+Changing tacks, Bowie started digging around in her purse.
+
+"You've got so much crap in here. Where's the coke?"
+
+"We're out."
+
+"What," he growled, turning back towards her, baring his teeth. The
+cigarette fell out of his mouth and landed on the carpet. Coco ran
+over and crushed it with her heel.
+
+She was out of scotch.
+
+Bowie also noticed that she had retrieved a baggy from a hidden
+compartment in her brassiere.
+
+"Only kidding," she said, waving it towards his face.
+
+Bowie snatched the baggy and sat back down in his chair. Engrossed.
+
+"We can't have any more of these close calls," he sighed, and dove in.
+
+4
+
+Piro piloted the RAGNAROK towards 1954.
+
+Thomas was dozing. Noticing this, Piro took the opportunity to put on
+some soft music.
+
+Suddenly, Thomas started awake. He shot forward and Piro heard a loud
+thump. He looked over and Thomas had hit his forehead on the
+dashboard.
+
+"WHAT! IS! THIS! CRAP!" he shouted. Piro couldn't be certain whether
+he was reacting to the noise or to the pain.
+
+"Bowie.'Golden Years.'"
+
+"You're one of those people who listens to every album by an artist
+while you're driving to see them in concert, aren't you."
+
+Piro remained silent. Piloting.
+
+"Plus, your chronology is off. In 1954, he hasn't even written this
+song yet."
+
+Piro reached for the dash and ejected the cassette.
+
+"Fine. See? I'm putting it away."
+
+5
+
+Coco had come up with a new supplier. She was on the phone with them
+now. Bowie stared nervously at her hands as she wound the phone cord
+around her finger. A knock came at the door while she was still
+talking. Now she was chewing on her pencil. She didn't seem to hear.
+
+Bowie glanced at the door, and then back at Coco.
+
+Oblivious, she kept on talking.
+
+Bowie coughed, quietly. His eyes were pleading with her to hear, to do
+something. Of course, he couldn't say anything. It was not his place
+to answer the door. Sweat running down his neck, he kicked over a
+chair. Then tried to look composed.
+
+The knock came again.
+
+This time, Coco noticed the disturbance. She picked up the phone and
+started towards the door.
+
+Bowie fell back in his chair. A wave of relief swept over his sunken
+features.
+
+He lit a cigarette.
+
+6
+
+Piro pulled out his flip-phone and dialed the new customers.
+
+"I'll just make sure they're ready for us," he whispered.
+
+Piro talked for ten minutes. It seemed like an endless amount of
+chitchat. Thomas had no patience for customer relations, but Piro
+seemed to relish any opportunity to interact with a client.
+
+And this woman.
+
+Was Thomas actually jealous?
+
+He booted up his gun.
+
+Now Piro was knocking on the door. Why? Just tell her we're here.
+
+Hm. No answer from the marks.
+
+7
+
+Just as Coco turned the door handle, both of the doors blew violently
+inward, completely off of their hinges. Coco was thrown to the ground.
+Fortunately for her, the Bakelite telephone took the worst of it.
+
+Bowie stared in paralyzed horror at the shattered pieces of plastic on
+the floor. He was transfixed. There was something familiar here.
+Something about the pattern of debris... Abruptly, he snapped out of
+it. This was how it always was with him, he observed. One second in
+dreamland and the next fully focused.
+
+"Coco. Take dictation."
+
+"Rrrrm..." she moaned.
+
+"Get up," he insisted.
+
+Piro and Thomas entered, weapons drawn, targeting both adult humans
+with practiced efficiency.
+
+Bowie ignored them.
+
+"When the phone broke, I looked down at the carpet. The cracked
+plastic formed a picture. I saw the letters: s, h, n, z, n."
+
+Coco maintained her expression. It would take more than an explosion
+and a broken telephone to rattle her.
+
+"It's Shenzhen, China."
+
+"What?" asked Thomas.
+
+I see, Coco said with her eyes."Real estate or commodities?"
+
+"Real estate. Get Tony on the phone. We'll grab as much as we can,
+now, while it's still available. Sort it out later. I've got a good
+feeling about this one."
+
+"How much do we spend?"
+
+Bowie was rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, loosening his necktie.
+He snorted conspicuously and answered quickly.
+
+"All of it."
+
+8
+
+"I don't know, Mr. Bowie, it seems rather unorthodox to sign your
+mother's name to a cocaine bill."
+
+"She's my business partner. And we're going to need plenty of marching
+powder for the new venture."
+
+Coco arranged the paperwork on the table as Bowie signed his mother's
+name at the bottom of each page. She reached over and smoothed down
+his eyebrow as he worked.
+
+Thomas was smiling.
+
+Piro decided it didn't matter."I guess it will have to do."
+
+Bowie suddenly looked concerned."Are you sure you won't have any
+problems filling the standing order?"
+
+Thomas motioned with his thumb.
+
+"You wouldn't believe how much of this stuff we have back in the
+ship."
+
+At this, Piro decided to interject.
+
+"So long as you can come up with the money, there is literally an
+unlimited supply."
+
+Bowie looked please with himself. His yellow teeth shined a skeleton
+grin.
+
+"Friends. I think this is going to work out just fine."
+
+BIG PANTIES
+
+tags: 1991, 4086, christopher, eva_bright, ken_thompson,
+maude_mold, piro, plinth_mold, tab2
+
+1
+
+May, 1991.
+
+These memories simulate a very dark period in my life.
+
+2
+
+I had dumped an awful lot of money into Next Computer.
+
+For obvious reasons, this troubled the King.
+
+"Maryland Procurement Office," I would remind."We're just shoring up
+inventory."
+
+"It's easier to buy a judge than to ask for permission," the King
+would retort.
+
+Whatever that was supposed to mean.
+
+"Perot is our man. Remember who works for whom."
+
+But the King did in fact hold the purse strings. At least in this
+decade. I looked forward to a time when the man could be properly
+disposed of. Driven from the enterprise.
+
+At this rate, he would snort his way through our operating capital in
+a matter of weeks.
+
+3
+
+I grew weary of kings. After a short period of deliberation I disabled
+comms with 4086. It was an obvious measure too long delayed.
+
+4
+
+Christopher threw down his leaf in disgust.
+
+"This book is crap," he said.
+
+Ken checked the flashing index. BLACK GANGSTER, by Donald Goines.
+
+"So, what's so bad about it?" he asked.
+
+"Nothing. If you've never committed a crime in your life, and you
+don't know the difference between gorilla pimping and"
+
+"I don't know, I read it when I was a teenager. It seemed realistic
+enough to me."
+
+Christopher rolled his eyes until it hurt and snapped a new clip into
+his pistol. He decided to change the subject.
+
+"You got the crack?"
+
+"I don't know, Chris, I'm not so sure I can trust your judgment
+anymore. I'm starting to wonder if your political views are having an
+influence on your"
+
+Christopher pulled down his ski-mask and turned off his phone. He
+walked over and poked Ken directly in the chest.
+
+"I don't give a fuck who you think you can trust. Stop whining and get
+in the van."
+
+The two men took their places in the vehicle.
+
+"I'm in like Flynn," said Ken.
+
+Christopher punched Ken in the neck.
+
+"Put on your seat belt."
+
+5
+
+My organization ran with a minimum of friction.
+
+Piro handled operations. Eva ran comms. Thomas... mostly stocked
+shelves.
+
+I took notes.
+
+In this way, the years advanced, unrolling like paper tape from under
+one of my old shirts.
+
+I liked to stay hands-off. There could be no benefit to my constantly
+butting heads with the lower-level management. Besides, Piro was
+reasonably competent.
+
+We didn't fraternize, on the whole.
+
+My wife was a different story. She simply couldn't follow the program.
+I discovered her trail more than once.
+
+Unacceptable sloppiness. This was a business.
+
+In November, 1991, with some regret, I disabled her power source.
+
+6
+
+"Instead of improvements, we got features."
+
+"These panties are huge."
+
+"Just put them on."
+
+Christopher pulled into the driveway and withdrew his key from the
+ignition. He looked over at Ken and wondered how the man had ever
+passed a cursory background check.
+
+Christopher adjusted his costume panties.
+
+Without warning, the windshield exploded inward.
+
+Plinth Mold's hand extended well beyond its normal range, traversing
+the length of the van's hood and grasping Christopher's flack jacket.
+His other hand slithered into the cabin and found purchase around
+Ken's throat.
+
+Plinth yanked both men from the vehicle, trailing bits of shatterproof
+glass. He deposited them both onto the sidewalk.
+
+7
+
+"Boss! What are you doing here?"
+
+Plinth tapped Ken's face to the ground. The smaller man writhed
+mindlessly, firearm forgotten, oversized panties gathered around his
+ankles.
+
+Plinth examined the situation. It was a stuck process. Too late for
+circumcision, but too soon for canonization.
+
+And yet, he couldn't fire these men. Not exactly.
+
+"Why are you both wearing giant panties?"
+
+The two characters represented a significant investment of system
+resources. Several proven quantities from the writing pool had been
+used up, filling in their histories. It was likely that, once
+terminated, the processes would not even relinquish the memory that
+had already been consumed.
+
+"It's our body armor, boss."
+
+It was not the answer Plinth had wanted to hear.
+
+Never mind. He resolved to make yet more adjustments to the running
+system.
+
+He dialed the Chrysler Building and patched himself through to Piro.
+
+8
+
+The incompetence...
+
+It wouldn't have been fair to blame them, but still I couldn't look at
+their faces. Could I see myself in this?
+
+Never mind. I resolved to make yet more adjustments to the running
+system. Not premature optimization, but triage. The machine hadn't yet
+crashed, but experience had taught me to expect more trouble.
+
+Perhaps humorously, I still thought it possible to prevent a
+catastrophe.
+
+I dialed the Chrysler Building and patched myself through to Piro.
+
+9
+
+Plinth's wallet had deactivated itself due to suspicious activity. The
+King had emptied the last of the corporate accounts. As a result, it
+took more than two years to hup the errant processes. With his other
+resources tied up in acquisitions, Plinth simply couldn't afford the
+man hours needed to affect the required changes.
+
+In the end, as he suspected, the corrupted system memory was not freed
+when the processes restarted.
+
+Programs continued to hang. The big panties should have been a clear
+warning sign, but this was a realization that came little, too late.
+
+Eventually, the entire system bogged down.
+
+Plinth couldn't log out.
+
+10
+
+Fuck it, I'll reboot.
+
+11
+
+Years ago, the plane jerked.
+
+FINAL REPORT OF TEAM 34
+
+tags: 1991, 1994, federal_grants, nana_mold,
+paris_mold, piro, plinth_mold, shit_mold, tab2, violet
+
+1
+
+August, 1994.
+
+Team 34, initial report.
+
+As dictated by Captain Paris Mold.
+
+Tear down. Clean up. Soft seductions.
+
+We're always called in on the quiet jobs. The ones with a lot of work
+to be done, preferably without a lot of noise.
+
+I have to admit, the world is a pretty big mess.
+
+My team is competent. We pack light, so we can cover a lot of ground
+in a short period of time.
+
+Reputation. Dependability.
+
+We don't deal in names, but we're well known to the people that
+matter.
+
+We do okay.
+
+2
+
+I task three assets to the South Pacific. One to the Chrysler
+Building. I don't trust anyone but myself with Plinth.
+
+Violet continues to elude us.
+
+We've laid down some perimeter product placement, biding our time.
+
+Nothing is coming up. It's difficult to predict emerging demographics,
+the interactions of different products. And Violet is a professional.
+Humans melt in her hands.
+
+I decide to call my mother.
+
+3
+
+"Barfight! Dipstick! Bricoloage! Go! Go! Go!"
+
+Mother screams at my men through her mouthpiece. They aren't used to
+hearing her shouting on the wire.
+
+"Nana! Where the hell have you been? We're on overtime!"
+
+A firefight is underway. Clearing old signage means engaging Plinth's
+aerosol defenses. We're prepared, but understaffed.
+
+"Keep formation, boys! I'm losing your signal!"
+
+At least Plinth is alone in this fight. We were careful to remove old
+man Jerrymander from the board, decades prior to the meltdown.
+
+For her part, Mother keeps a tight handle on the Mold family backups.
+
+4
+
+February, 1991.
+
+Federal Grants straightens his paperwork and peers deeply into Plinth
+Mold's single working eye.
+
+There is a subtle click and Mold's head inclines towards Grants. The
+gesture is all but imperceptible.
+
+"Why don't you tell me about your childhood."
+
+Dust plays in the sunlight streaming in through the library window.
+
+"Have you ever read a book called THE INDIAN IN THE CUPBOARD?" asks
+Plinth."A children's piece. Published around 1960."
+
+Fed stifles a guffaw."Please. I don't read kiddie trash. I've never
+even heard of it."
+
+"My brother Pennis and Iwe published that book."
+
+Immediately, Grants realizes his tactical error."II'm sorry."
+
+"It was a thinly veiled retelling of the origin of our family."
+
+This is no good. Grants panics, leaps from his seat."Sir, I"
+
+"I think we're finished here."
+
+Plinth rises, exits.
+
+5
+
+PLINTH'S LOG
+
+524780 SECONDS FROM THE EPOCH
+
+With the last hard boot less than a year in the past, the world is
+already growing crowded. Mostly with clean-up crews. I assume my
+brother Paris is amongst the rabble.
+
+There are many starting conditions to seed.
+
+Mother called, earlier today. Clean-up proceeds apace. Paris is
+amongst the rabble, but Violet remains hidden. I've asked her not to
+reveal my whereabouts, either, for the time being.
+
+I've also reinstated the Crown. And the Crown has renewed my funding.
+
+I'm thinking about re-spawning Thomas and Piro. They might amuse me in
+this new world.
+
+And, that's about it. For this month. More after the new year.
+
+6
+
+January, 1995.
+
+Team 34, final report.
+
+As dictated by Captain Paris Mold.
+
+Product placement has been completed. Rulesets have been configured.
+Once customers start populating the layouts, later this year, we
+should start to see good numbers. I think we can handle the traffic.
+
+We've decided to go with a variation on the initial predilections from
+the last iteration. Non-standard prejudices. These first new customers
+will find themselves inexplicably drawn towards the Asiatic races and
+the flickering of camp fires. There is some debate over whether or not
+a fascination with fire will hamper their survival rate. Will they
+fuck themselves to death before they even get a chance to starve? Will
+the flames and their genitals mix favorably?
+
+Ha, that's the test, isn't it?
+
+Still no sign of Violet.
+
+Or my brothers.
+
+Mother has gone quiet.
+
+Ping.
+
+END CRASH ORIGIN
+
+more
+
+textadventure.stanleylieber.com