PSYCHOPOMP (formerly Carnage.) Novel in Foment. Chapter One.
This bookling was haphazardly christened CARNAGE when I first posted it. It doesn’t fit and I want to change the focus before I put up chapter two. I here by give it it’s second name: PSYCHOPOMP. Of course this has been used before – I can think of one right off the bat by Brian Lumley. Obviously this will not be the last title change, but it puts the title in the right ballpark for the adventures within.
Thanks all.
V
PSYCHOPOMP
______________________ CHAPTER ONE[VS1]
INTRODUCING . . . MISS MEDIA! The Down-low Diva of Dirty Data, the Crowning Queen of Memes and one hell of a babe on the Vid Floor; Miss Mass Hysteria in My Living Room . . . I give you in the flesh
. . . Media!
Media waits for the Prompt to flash and when it stops she’s on every entertainment platform in the world. She is in a catwoman costume. She has a tail. Her agile hand dangles a set of keys hanging from unsheathed nails. The keys are ornate and bit map rendered in beautifully cast gold from a pattern stolen from the Vatican. There are six. They are on a ring encased in platinum and diamonds and the set hangs from the crook of her little blue finger.
The observing eye . . . the observing eye that is your eye, is frozen open. Your Avatar stumbles upon terraces of sculpted data, unable to draw away from its glitter. It is knowledge made flesh and it tempts at every turn, but you know your way, and you will not be daunted by cheap marketing tricks. As you step down upon data made flesh you cause patterns to ripple out. They are as aware as foxes. They coalesce and ripple away from you and you return your attention to the mystical hand. Her hand has become the world, and as the world is remade, you eagerly insert your key into the temple lock.There is a thick and satisfying thunk. The Game opens and Pac-man figures gang-bang the opening credits, exposing further depths.
You shunt them into temp storage so you don’t have to bother and click the yes box on the player release form. It slides into a sturdy grey file cabinet of indefinite era. Your hand pushes the drawer closed and you wait, considering your options. You are playing The Six Keys of Miss Media’s Garden of Earthly Delights; the most heavily populated Mass-Rez Game on the planet. Just a moment or perhaps eons ago you had two choices – the Blue or Red Hand. This time you chose the blue with the dangling keys. You can’t wait to see what she’ll do to you. Every time is new at Miss Media‘s.
Media’s Blue Hand is prim and the color of the dust of Shiva. From it descend six keys. Pull one and make a selection. The chosen metronomic key slaps into your hand. Colors bleed off under the gold. You’ve pulled the sex-dream key. Prepare yourself. Worlds of tacky carpet and crappy coffee and horrible people drop away. You are at work and must steal the time to ride so you do. There is an acceptable .25 second stutter between key-strokes graciously allowed by your employer, SCANEEZ Accelerated, as down-time. .25 seconds is all you need to be blasted away. The transfer is made and a statement is signed which releases any of your emergent data to the calc arm of the Miss Media franchise. It is sent to your file cabinet.
You have injected yourself with Media. Your name is Peter Polaris. You are at work. What you have done is highly illegal and, thus, thrilling. Miss Media says ‘There will be no data trail’ and you believe her. She says she needs you; this too, you believe. When you see her you see God.
The glossy candy-girl image dissolves under a wash of star-stuff and she hangs in the air before you and you metaphorically fuck her like a bunny. She is magnificently blue. She is Shiva hunting a new world and you are a tick, riding upon her flank.
The break-your-balls Advertising Bot of Media.HardCOre sashays a million miles to stand before the high-rez doors of the temple. Its bust-line inflates with scurrilous rants (Bigger! Plumper! Newer!) and it sends scouts out to scrub data from willing brains. Mile-high heels click over bits and bites as it shunts One Time Offers through cortical stems. This is what Peter is fucking.
A Burble of fractillating data crawls from the datastream and inserts its teeth into the A.B.’s delicately sculpted ankles. With every bite there is now a familiar ping. She sends minions across the plane of her knee to assault the intruder and fails to upend the beast. Her armies are absorbed by the Burble. She runs. She carries the pinging, gnawing messenger across mutating vistas. Her eyes measure the ambient creature’s bandwidth and is astonished. She now knows this is a bite of great opportunity, this gnawing demon. She will have to decode the invitation . . . or the threat.
Media becomes very still. She scratches a metaphorical itch, then finishes her lunch. She tips the peak of what she thinks of as her head up, and touches the blinding silver light of the Ionosphere.
END CHAPTER ONE
[VS1]MISS MEDIA
Magixx 