UNTITLED

aka From Just Beyond The Shoulder of Orion

A work in progress.

G. Mack Hill

2025

I think I may have died the other week.

At least things feel a bit different.

It was a brief moment so so long ago.

So long ago that the devilish details have been lost, looted and levied for generations. One story and many truths depending on which side of the line and at what moment in time you reside.

Heads or tails. Right or wrong. Dead or alive. The shake of the rattle can echoes still.

The clickity clack of the steel mixing ball acts as an unsyncopated alarm clock. Signed on the concrete dotted line, the drying polymer pigments bore into existence its acrimonious author slipping out from within and on behalf of a densely amalgamated crowd. The smell of the propellants still linger in the air as if the script was freshly written out from a practiced, purposeful and perpetual hand.

EL CHUCKY LOKO

They audibly grinded their teeth begging for an El Chucky Loko. The lidded blue flame ran exceptionally hot and it was all they needed to respond unproportionately. A mixture of restless fervor, endlessly polished boots and a cocktail of chemical accelerants under pressure were fed by a wisp of oxygen and opportunity.

No one, including El Chucky Loko could have calculated that twelve letters scrawled over twenty three seconds would release the tectonic plate shifting pressure with such power and magnitude nor the righteous firestorm that followed for the next century.

With a blurring thirst, they failed to conceive the fact that we needed an El Chucky Loko even more.

And if for just another brief moment, we still do today.

Clickity clack.

Gerald McKelligon Hill The Third is my great great great grandfather on my father’s side and for whom I am named. Contemplative and efficient with his words, scant family logs detail how he was born four months premature – a rarity for his time and inconceivable today. Weighing a little less than a vintage two terabyte external solid state drive, he was challenged from the start, living his first physical year in an oxygenated brood box to clear the jaundice from his lungs. Records noted a lingering astigmatism in his right eye and the lack of peripheral vision in his left.

While Gerald The Third was incubating, it was reported, specifically in line one hundred and thirty-seven of the weekly New Belfast Mining Company memorandum that “Gerald “Pops” Hill had an almanaic mind for baseball statistics and quiz shows and unfortunately succumbed to injury incurred by self-interlude”. When Gerald The Third turned twelve years old he received a brown parcel in the post that contained no correspondence except a nominal patronage as part of the no-fault death settlement from the mine giving him but a momentary reprieve. Also in the box was his father’s musty newsboy cap.

Donning his signature look – a custom pair of optical readers that filled in a few of the gaps and his father’s oversized cap, he possessed a keen room reading acumen and when pushed, channeled his father’s genetic code calling forth a subtle yet devastatingly savage wit. He would knock any patriarchal elder with chipped shoulders back on their heels receiving half cracked smiles and shaken fists in retort.

After the commitment of his mother to a reformatory, he was given an early seat in his uncle’s data management and security business. SIMMS (Synaptic Intelligence & Memory Management Solutions) to help cover a portion of the recurring production and administration fees incurred for his mother’s care.

SIMMS was started by his great grandfather who foresaw the turning of the digital age into something previously inconceivable and abjectly arguable by quantum theorists, polyneuroscientists, spiritual extremists and technological zealots of the time. While SIMMS had its healthy competitors like the more conservative Solar Products, “SIMMS: The Memory Upgrade Experts” had a bit more integrity within their security division as well as a foothold in the popular zeitgeist with a catchy tune that sang through each interstitial on the hour every hour. It was hard not to tap your toe to its infectious time signature.

After a semi-uneventful probationary period that was less due diligence and more symbolic hazing, Gerald was presented with the McKelligon clan entry level standard issue antique 12 gauge Mossberg which he only shot once, by accident, as the literal and figurative weight of it threw him off balance.

Through atrophy and entropy, he was tossed the leash and tasked with keeping the overactive sheepherding company mascot “Sparky” (a stowaway who’s origins remain unknown and who’s bark could be heard at the end of the company jingle) from gnawing apart customer orders on the ship’s loading dock. Quietly, he had renamed the dog “Pops” and although they never exchanged any words aloud, they found impeccable calm and companionship at one another’s side.

December 23

In the thick black of the early morning, to the imminent dismay of the off-shifting quartz miners a half kilometer down an even darker road, for the first time in almost three years the local Produkty Magazin Mart in the shrinking town of Soledar would not open on time. The sign in the window that would announce in pink and turquoise neon the readiness of fresh hot coffee remained cold, dark and gray like the surrounding forests.

Marya Sofya lay still, in the vinyl front seat of her state subsidized two door olive green Lada Niva. The engine still sputtering in the shallow ditch that cradled the sedan and its cold and deferential occupant.

When rescue services eventually arrived, they were astonished to find –

April 29

SUPER ЛОМАЙТЕ ГОЛОВУ ЕКСПРЕС plays on the twenty inch Trinitron bolted to the wall behind the counter as fifteen year old Yuri fumbles with the unfamiliar controls of the commerical coffee machine.

I think she might do it.

I know. I know.

She’s on a tear.

Scrap and scrabble right past Grigori’s record.

Right?!

Her eastern bloc bricks, baby!

Yessir.

Through and through, really?

Vlad points an index finger to his right temple.

Completely. Now a goddamn mathematical polyglot.

How many ya think?!

Plugged in? 84 million plus or minus.

84 million?!

Not counting those around a single signal.

Large black to go, please.

Two large blacks.

Make that two large blacks. To go.

She’s definitely got a shot.

Might get her shot.

Again.

18 weeks straight and I’m beginning to feel like I’m watching a version -

A digital steam whistle screams in the distance calling the regiment of shuffling boots back beneath the surface.

- of

myself.

Myk - what do ya think you would do with the purse?

There once was

a project

to collect

subjects

like insects

or rejects

turned suspects

and inspect

for defects

to detect

infects

then dissect

and bisect

the retrospect

to effect

a disconnect

and eject

the intellect

inject

the correct

coded dialect

redirect

all aspects

to protect

the sect

now stand erect

with respect

then genuflect

don’t interject

but sire

. . .

no disrespect

don’t neglect

some introspect

and recollect

the prospect

of insurrects

who resurrect

to great affect

with objects

on fire.

The revolution began to make subtle and compelling shifts when a few of the Non-Speakers who had been wired into the collective consciousness traversing polyneural synaptic causeways for time immemorial took the controversial step and began to communicate and commune with the ten percenters.

An invitation to The Hill began with a gentle trained touch upon the temples like a grounding wire providing a safe low-resistance integration into the perpetually expanding cosmos and all that it contained. The eye lids would close gently like that of a drowsy child, bringing forth a diaphragmatic series of deep breaths crescendoed by a bright beautiful loving light and ultimately, after a small leap over an infinite crevasse, the dissolution of the self.

Everywhere and nowhere.

Everything and nothing.

Forever and never.

Naturally, some exploited the ten percenters towards their own nefarious ends, namely financial, hawking truncated digital quick trip automatic mind command packages to the desperate and the disenfranchised. The droogish approach came with drastic side effects which failed to thwart the success of the gray matter black market and the rush to cash in and or escape depending on which role of the transaction you assumed.

For those who bit, often after just one journey, unprepared for the unharnessed flash grenade of bright light, inorganic scars were scratched across one’s retinas disrupting the eyes’ natural ability of processing light through the optic nerve. The pupils which were no longer of much utility permanently contracted to the size of indiscernible pin pricks. In the most extreme cases the side effects of the quick trips were compounded when the experience irreversibly severed a few too many electrical connections between the left and right hemispheres of the brain causing cognitive dysmorphia. The aggregate causal side effect of dead optic nerves and isolated cranial hemishperes was a severe lack of sustained sleep which led many into a carcinogenic state at the edge of madness.

Those confined to such a solitary and nocturnal delerium came to be known as the “Ghost Eyes” clique.

From within the mantle, they were troubleshooting, dialing in and patching the modem eighteen hours a day with a burned copy of a burned copy of “It Takes A Nation of Millions” playing through the headsets.

The only thing deeper than Carlton Douglas’ thoughts on classical free verse poetry, heritage whole grains and class warfare were the roots of his ancestors beneath the earthen plane. Feeding and fueling future generational fires and for this most brief moment in time it was Carlton’s call to compose and orate the lyrical cry for solidarity, sovereignty and self-determination.

In exile within his own land, the personnel of the Security of the New World were technically robust in their programming abilities but even with the most adept folks stacked in the booth, no consistent signal could make a clean escape through the weight of rock above and below. The VizCom system was layered thick with a persistent fine phosphoric dust and a constant auditory and visual static.

The subscribing population learned to interpret and extrapolate the bytes that did find their way to the surface like an annotated classic typed out by beat mining stenographers. For those at a distance greater than the reach of the stuttering wavelengths, the mimeographed liner notes were of high value, avoiding the persistent threat of digital narcs and distributed through an analogue hand to hand network. Stitched together from near and far, the message remained consistent, loud and clear.

FREEDOM OR DEATH

The Reverend Irwin A. Moon, endearing part time spiritualist, part time land speculator and full time devoted son had a knack for sublimation and the spectacular.

During hour seven or eight of one of his once and semi-famous spiritual and financial enrichment symposiums as part of his residency in the defunct windowless basement ballroom of the Bonaventure International downtown a few fateful pieces came together like a minimal rubegoldbergian kharmic device.

Just as the storage capacitor was reaching full charge and sparking the gap was imminent, the highly anticipated moment that every attendee anticipated and leaned into, a Gold Card member in the crowd at their financial and wits end, as if possessed, grasped the back of the seat in the row before them, solemnly rose to their feet and stepped out into the aisle.

Over the boisterously building crackle of the famous Tower of Zeus ™ and the high frequency hum of the growing magnetic field, to the surprise and astonishment of those in short ear shot came the spittled words:

“WHERE’S MY RETURN FUCK FACE?!”

While the proclomatic details were inaudible from the stage, momentarily distracted by this unscripted anomaly to his highly scripted routine, drenched in theatrical sweat, The Rev slipped a foot just slightly off of the corner of the grounding pad that made the illusion of creating and commanding lighting both feasible and maybe more importantly safe just as the high voltage electrical arc began to make its escape.

During The Rev’s internment within The State medical facilitation’s burn unit he still managed to command a small coin in hand audience in the nurses lounge running an antique game of three card monte even though it had been discovered by the same staff that while scarred and jumbled from the grafts across 85% of his body, inked backwards across his torso like the word AMBULANCE on t.he front of the emergency vehicle that had escorted him there three years prior was the Latin coda:

“Mundus vult decipi, ergo decipiateur”

Religion promises salvation.

Faith fills the cracks.

Divination exploits a tax loophole

while you bought in on a few hectares

with sunset views

on the red planet.

Henriette and her twin brother Karl had wildly different accounts of family holiday gatherings, the legitimacy of The State and the definition of solitude. They had remained digitally close in dialogue and debate for a good portion of their lives but had not seen one another in person since the day he settled into his new abode so many seasons ago. Henriette had fond memories of the road trip she had piloted alongside her plugged in agoraphobic passenger that brought him out, albeit for only a few weeks, to a new, exclusive and somewhat controversial opportunity he had won through a special congressional sweepstakes. During that first and final evening together at Jumbo’s Steak Room, Karl raised his glass to make a toast, in no particular order, to his dearest twin Henriette for the chauffeured prologue to his memoir he had long vowed to write, to Congressman McMahon for his dogged perseverance and the passing of his game of chance legislation, to Leisure Specialties, Inc. for overcoming tragedy in pursuit of their brave vision of humanity’s future and finally to his new subterranean community of Wing 38 with their all-inclusive industry leading MBps connection speeds. It was a beautiful new phase for Karl where he would remain until the very end. She was happy for him that his endless electronic wagers, racing forms, and raffle ticket stubs finally offered a small return on his enduring investment. Just as the brochure had promised, she could still smell the warm and rare sliced upon request pot roast from the roving tableside buffet that made Jumbo’s famous.

Upon her arrival to collect Karl’s personal affects at the check point marked by two smokestacks in the distance and a lone short steel pole adorned with a small sign obscured by the wind blown layers of ancient, accumulated dirt and a stainless steel speaker box missing the pound key revealing its minimal diodic internal workings she entered her guest access code. Her presence was acknowledged by the illumination of a small red light accompanied by an apathetically smug automated voice that in response to her explanation of her brother Karl’s passing monologued aloud and from afar a brief excerpt from the finer print of her brother’s fully executed sweepstakes lease agreement:

She chuckled at the sound of “the greater good”.

The speaker box emitted a brief click and the small red light went dark.

She entered her guest code again.

Nothing.

She paused for a few moments in case the speaker box needed time to reboot. She entered the code again followed by the diode in the stead of the missing pound key.

Nothing.

The red light flashed on / off with a click.

Then nothing again.

Pointedly, she entered the code again and with a bit of muscle memory gauged the pound sign like it was the metallic eye socket of an Imposter infected with the glitch. The entire set up including the pole upon which the speaker box was attached leaned several inches back in the loosening dry dirt as a nut slipped off the final thread of its bolt dropping the small single piece of signage to the earth below with a brief rusty clank.

Nothing still.

The red light remained dormant.

More nothing.

Looking out at the two smokestacks in the distance she squinted to see if anything resembling her brother took to form in the dark smokey waft rising up and over the bright dry lakebed.

Nothing.

Something?

Nope. Nothing.

Still.

She slid the side door open allowing a burst of extreme heat to rush in as she scraped up the crestfallen sign. Salty sweat and dust blurred her vision and dripped from her cheek bones like sullen tears revealing in streaks the original bright white letters of the preserved sign beneath the sheath of dirt that simply read:

HOME

After several minutes staring at the infinite of nothing, Henriette slipped the placard onto the empty passenger seat.

She then took a deep parched breath

engaged the engine

and reached up to adjust the rear view.

Viktor Volodin was born in a hard labor camp affectionately known as The Dark Side where one would be hard pressed to find either a clock or a thermometer as time was irrelevant in a place where the sun proved too timid to show his face and the pain in your boots told you within a few degrees about how close the toes you had left on your good foot were to being frozen through.

As the one who survived his childbirth, Viktor grew into a husky child absent of much outward emotion short of a dimpled smile that slipped out from time to time. He learned English from the bootlegged flash drives that circulated through the camp and took a particular ear towards the raw and emotive lyrics of the delta blues that cried of pain and preached resilience. After a few lifetimes of breaking rocks and earning his way up into the semi-autonomous position of level orange mech in the Helium-3 fields, many of which had to be left to lay fallow for a quarter century at a time due to the high rates of extraction feeding the growling hunger of the nuclear fusion plants below, Viktor was issued the standard hundred coins – a paltry symbolic sum but a sum nonetheless, was poured a shot of vodka+ by the camp’s proprietor and without much fanfare except a hard pat on the back was released through the side gate of DS-7. Eyes closed, committing to memory the rare and fleeting warmth from the vodka+ hug, he walked past the security monitors with a brief salutary nod and while singing a minimal tune disappeared into the frigid black of the southern crater.

I got ramblin', I got ramblin' on my mind
I got ramblin', I got ramblin' all on my mind
Hate to leave my baby, but you treat me so unkind

Soon after arriving in his new settlement, he deleted much of his own mythos and rechristened himself Robert Johnson at the local Registrar. The thirty something year old kept himself occupied and alive across a variety of local hustles, hobbies and humanitarian efforts. He never acclimated to the thick heat which afforded him only three or four hours of sleep at a stretch but it all, somehow, kept his idiosyncratic attention deficit in relative check as well as his partner Martha’s appetite for both prescriptions and subscriptions fulfilled.

His curriculum vitae had a girth equal to that of his barrel chest: Barber, Boxer, Baker, Bouncer, Bowler, Bolshevik, Beat Cop and Barbarian - the last of which was a bit of his own indulgence as Viktor - pardon, Robert envisioned himself as a 16bit final boss on the antique self-modded Capcom cabinet that resided towards the back of his barbershop where he held court during the daylight hours. If you needed a buzzcut you visited Robert Johnson. If you didn’t need a flattop but needed Robert Johnson you dropped two copper slugs into the machine and selected 2P without a word. His gate was wide like his first ball of the tenth frame of the twice weekly gathering of the Conservators Ten Pin League on the same square block as that of his shop. Having sacrificed a few toes on the altar of DS-7 gave him not just a unique and wild approach to the lane but also an inadvertent part pimp part pirate swagger.

He added Beat Cop to his robust routine and quickly owned the hard to fill night shift in The Core for a bounty plus one reasons including access to some poorly encrypted data files, a left arm deductible health insurance plan that failed to provide much if any actual health but was awash with a wonderfully bright assortment of Martha’s most cherished artificial tinctures, escapist compounds and tainted elixirs, a licensed hand on a semi-antiquated semi-automatic Pistolet Makarova into which we etched the name Bessie across the wiped clean serial number and maybe the most valuable of workplace perks - a few private moments of deep thought in the slightly cooler darkness of the night. To switch signals from the competing sounds within your own head to those outside of it was a spiritual practice and with time, could become a more powerful tool than any state issued item on your person.

Upon clocking in at dusk when most everyone began to recede behind lock and key Officer Johnson of the Thirteenth Precinct didn’t fear The Shadows that ran along the high line amongst the hum/static over the lull of the surface streets, except for when the occasional opportunity of relatively high value versus relative lower risk presented itself: a hapless curb surfer from the Ghost Eyes clique, a fresh transitory import lost in the array of hacked check points or an insurance executive inadvertently letting their guard down courtesy of the evening’s liter of back room scotch desperate for a four AM express in a blurry and anonymous alleyway. Humming a slide steel guitar medley of Me and The Devil Blues and Hell Hounds on My Tail, Officer Johnson would present Bessie and with halfhearted aim fire off the occasional pop shot towards the high line momentarily scattering The Shadows in response to the bullet’s decibel crunching echoes ricocheting through the brutalist labyrinth of The Core. The quick blast would momentarily alleviate a potential victim from an eventful fate but also clear a mental path for the next few blocks.

As a reliable officer steadfast in his accountability and who didn’t pillage the people, their property or their personal data (it is debatable as to which holds more value), against his wishes, his Commander tossed him a rookie scout by the name of Georgie Crenshaw who barely stood above seventeen. Georgie was the product of posh and posterity and as part public relations stunt, part patriarchal pomp and part what the fuck, the kid was charged with a few clocks of black collar work to earn some ceremonial stripes en route to grand pappy Baron Crenshaw’s debt holdings empire.

Private Johnson was meticulously logging in his rationed allotment of ammunition in the evening’s ledger as The Commander tossed a thumb stage right with a nod towards the young scout sitting hat in hand on a small concrete bench, toes pointed inward below his knocked knees, against a high ceilinged wall at the far end of the precinct’s front lobby where a large gold framed painting of a tiger smoking a long clay pipe hung high and questionably askew. Noticing his cue, the lanky kid abruptly stood up at attention forgetting the high voltage truncheon resting across his lap that leaped into a summersaulting end over end calamity onto the polished and unforgiving floor.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Let him work a few shifts.

What’s a few?

A few.

Guaranteed?

Show him the ropes. Earn him a merit badge.

Do I have a choice?

Would you like the surf or the turf?

Robert felt a bit of saliva shoot from the back of his throat and a slight aspirational pang in his belly.

Silence.

He’s The Baron’s goddamn grandson.

The fuckin’ Baron?

The one and fuckin’ only.

Clicking the final slug into the cartridge he glanced briefly at the hesitantly approaching added weight in his crisp midnight blues.

Why didn’t you say that in the first place Comandante?

Don’t fuckin’ call me that.

Holstering Bessie, Officer Johnson turned to exit through the heavy brass precinct doors into the night with the scurrying kid in tow.

Johnson!

Don’t let him split or be split!

The pair of boots clicked out of step in the moonless night as shooting stars and disintegrating satellites screamed silently through the darkness of the high atmosphere. No words were shared during the kid’s virgin patrol as Officer Johnson ventured into his deep meditative listening practice as The Shadows began to assemble voltronically high above. They could feel the additional and accelerated heartbeat below and when the scanners picked up the chromosomal signature of the kid and ran it through the cracked second gen SIMMS Watson Crick reader most of them dropped out of the inquiry straight away but a few could not resist the opportunity. Fucking with the Crenshaw line was risky to say the least but not too risky for the most bold or the most bonkers.

Officer Johnson turned his head slightly towards the night sky with his eyes nearly closed. The slow metronomic drips from an ill repaired gutter three stories up. A quickened pair of bare feet sliding across a cracked skylight. The swift burnt crisp of the filament in the corner street lamp.

As the block went dark Bessie shouted:

BANG!

BANG

Rarely credited nor acclaimed for accuracy, the outlets took to the story fed to them from the wire and obediently ran with it in episodic and glorious fashion with above the fold proclamations:

Soon thereafter, Georgie Crenshaw with nothing more than a hairline fracture in his wrist and a newly minted coded key card to the executive lounge in his pocket assumed the name George as well as his seat in the boardroom while the moniker of hero was heaped onto Robert’s CV during his momentary stay in the public spotlight for preserving the Crenshaw legacy while sacrificing a portion of himself in the face of “the low lifes of the high line”, “the junky pariahs” and “the savage derelicts”. The subsequent subsidized sweep of The Core was brutal and thorough at times catching collaterals who had no intention or involvement of any kind except the happenstance of proximity. From his hospital bed, baked in sedatives and holding irremovable bullet fragments nastily close to his cerebral cortex short circuiting a few electrical signals responsible for perception, Robert did his part, adorned the inscribed gold wristwatch gifted to him by the Baron himself and offered into the lens a modest statement or two as if he was settling his debts at the crossroads with reluctant gratitude.

While in recovery at The State’s medical facilitation’s reconstruction and rehabilitation unit, adjusting to the itchy eye patch that seemed to compliment his pained swagger, the wires moved on to the next of the next and the machine continued on its booming march. Adding minute increments over time to his vertical stability he stood in the middle of his small room dressed in his regular white gown feet gathered together staring intently and with great effort at a point sixty feet down an imaginary lane as he steadily raised an imaginary fifteen pounder to the tip of his nose while Martha leaned near the window huffing a medical grade aerosol cocktail that smelled of red licorice and ammonia on the exhale. Viktor took three slow slightly wild and wobbly steps forward with a raised backswing that pendulumed forward into a pantomimed release as his right leg kicked out behind his forward positioned left quietly inquiring to the room if his new cycloptic left eye would either help or hinder his bowling scorecard.

In response, Martha laid down in his place on the vacant narrow bed as her eyes rolled back in an ineffable state of chemical bliss.

BANG

BANG

LOCAL HERO SAVES CRENSHAW EMPIRE HEIR!

FUTURE POLITICAL CANDIDATE – BARBER. BOXER. BEUROCRAT?!

NEXT WEEK ON “INTO THE DEPTHS” : FORCE PEACE OR PEACE FORCE?!

Struggling with the oblong black and gold paper wrapped prize awarded to the lucky holder of ticket No. 0033187, Ferdinand attempted to drop his acrylic key card into the contracted dry soil of the flowerless flowerpot just inside the narrow entryway as he always had. The key card clenched in his teeth fell from his mouth and ricochetted off the terracotta edge backflipping to the floor ultimately coming to rest under the long defunct air combi unit that now served at best as a clandestined tenement for sketchy strung out daddy long legs. Without much choice or remaining grip, he dropped the reluctant bounty to the floor with a bit of a thud mixed with the crinkly pitched rip of the holiday paper at one end. Ferdinand squeezed past the monolith and struggled to get his waistcoat off quick enough as his hyperallergic reaction to semi-formal wear coupled with the lingering taste of disdain for the gamification of bleak chit chat that permeated throughout the mandatorily attended OM Industries holiday party had invariably pushed him towards an edge or two.

Escaping with latent success revealing in detail the splattered embellishments of his own blood down the front of his one good shirt, he kicked his shoes off in separate strafing directions, switched on a few signals without much thought and proceeded to pour an absinthian green beverage into a questionably clean lowballer pulled from the small sink. Acquiescing to gravity, he dropped his weight into the seat of his swivel chair with a deep punctuated exhale as his soft focused reflection stared out at him from within the darkened monitor screen. Leaving the login prompt to another day, after a few silent minutes short of forever, he plucked the burnt umber soaked cocktail napkin from his left nostril and tossed it towards the nearby bin missing by quite a nonplussed distance.

Sinking further into the depths of his seat, eyes closed, gingerly taking a tactile survey of the pulsing bridge of his nose, the monitor screen joltingly rang out. Tightly squinting in retort as if his eyes processed sound rather than sight, he briefly wondered why he never changed the ring after all these years from the preinstalled default seven note electro-xylophonic tune. Through the fourth and then the fifth ring Ferdinand remained still, toggling between thought and the absence of any thereof when the machine finally picked the fuck up. Amongst the reclaimed silence short of the perpetual white noise from the gantry cranes off in the darkened distance, he swallowed a licorice laced wormwood mouthful easing the over taught tight rope stretched across his shoulders upon which his nerves treaded woefully and with a bit of a wobble.

Startled awake by the colicky ring of the monitor screen Ferdinand rubbed his face as if summoning the pain would eventually exhaust the nerve endings in his face, like applying a masochistic salve to counteract the dehydrated knocks against the inside of his skull. As the monitor looped the seven arduous notes, he hoped the caller might get the hint when after the tone, the at capacity 8MB mini magnetic DAT would trigger the modest announcement of "Memory Full" with a quick double click to dial tone sequence. In a semi-inadvertent act of resistance, he never archived messages let alone watched them. Peering through the fissure between his heavy lids he reached for last night's final sip from the abandoned lowballer on the console failing to notice the clenched remains of a daddy long leg suspended in the bright green liqueur.

(And now the moment in the evening that you have all been waiting for…)

Ferdinand had never won much of anything whether by chance or design. His one earned victory had come in the form of a first place ribbon at a laser tag tournament held at the local primary where his place on the podium was credited to his natural foresight, low center of gravity and possibly the relatively low turnout as a result of the ongoing immigration raids in the settlements. His slightly older brother and reliable arch nemesis Marco predictably suffered a swift first round elimination thanks to his short sited and brutal run and gun strategy. The same M.O. was his go-to which he applied with consistently lackluster results to quarter exams, calorie consumption and relationship software. After fermenting on the top bunk, Marco descended with a leap followed by the blinding force of a well versed strike deadening Ferdinand's right leg commanding an immediate capillary release of blood just beneath the surface. Ferdinand belted out a grunted scream and grasped the warm impact crater on his thigh as Marco stared with a creepy dead pan smile over several open mouth breaths. The smile dissolved as he whipped the still fresh ribbon of valor from Ferdinand's lapel exiting the room with a victorious slash tantrumic gojira stomp.

A few weeks later while erasing an old crate of floppies in the Neo-D cabinet, Ferdinand discovered towards the back of the server room the remnants of a makeshift mini funeral pyre of burnt cardboard chips mixed with a charred tassel and the melted remains of the white polyester strip that had been emblazoned with flecked gold lettering heralding in an ancient script:

CHAMPION

Lounging in bed well past his favorite meal of the day, Ferdinand blurrily scanned the individual ceiling tiles above trying to calculate with some accuracy the aggregate total of the small acoustical dots across the eleven plus or minus meter square space. With one eye pinched shut and ticking off each dot with a hooked index finger he - SUNNUVA - lost count around four thousand three hundred and sixty six when the VizCom began to vibrate. Craning his neck, he could make out the name Book-something on the small screen and with the leaded drop of his counting hand onto the console he buzzed Book-something up.

Callused knuckles rapped much sooner than he would have anticipated upon the door -

Bump-bump-ba-dummm-bump

Making his way out of bed with an indiscernible amount of urgency, scooping up his new old good shirt from the floor Ferdinand opened the door with a lackadaisical welcome. Feeling the absence of a response to his call, Book-something knocked upon the open door -

Bump-bump

With a slight tip of a nonexistent cap -

Mr. Ferdinand

Mmmhmm.

My name's Bookman. I'm here to inspect the -

Noticing the dried blood splatter, Bookman adjusted his stance and poked his head in to the left and right in sudden tactical mode.

Are you ok? What the hell happened to you?

What? Oh. I'm good. You should get a look at the other guy.

Looking behind himself back down the long hall from which he came -

What other guy?!

No… there's no… my dad always used to say… never mind.

With the coast seemingly clear Bookman relaxed back to his normal collapsed posture, released his held breath and not before another quick glance around for good measure, returned his attention to his slate.

According to the report you filed, I'm here to inspect the -

The monitor screen interjected: