Dick Whittington's Kalishnicov (OF, [R])

yxnomei · Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 11

[Undergone alterations and expansion]

Chapter One,

When I was last in an interview, it wasn’t like this. The walls didn’t have funny flashing lights of garish ‘70s gay-pride colours and the table wasn’t a hollow physical projection of lime blues that mysteriously shimmered every time the word “certainly” was said. Which is a staple part of my vocabulary, I’ll be the first to admit, certainly. The last time I was at a job interview, I wore a grey pin-stripped suit and was asked to bring a portfolio and my curriculum vitae. Now I was dressed in what was supposed to be a hospital gown resplendent with dying sun emblem on the front pocket and an empty leather gun holster strapped to my waist. Sitting across the table is a man who introduced himself as “none other th’n Captai… ah, I dun’t really expect’cha to know who I be” before laughing profusely, a hoarse laugh cluttered with coughs and sputtering phlegm emerging from the side of his mouth before biting thick into his impressive beard. I didn’t know when we first met, he had lung cancer and I certainly didn’t know there was a cure for it. I wonder what kind of impression he would have made had I known. Perhaps he wouldn’t have looked as… invincible as I had presumed.

There isn't much of the interview to remember, I'll be honest. The hospital asked whether I'd like a translator, thinking I spoke French but I declined in stuttering politeness. When he arrived most of the questions asked were quite run-of-the-mill, a couple a little more invasive than I would have felt comfortable answering – most of which I didn't, by the way – until he suddenly sighed, quite loudly, and said;

‘I’ll be honest, I’m a little befrazzled, laddie. Ya wanna be a bluebird? Ya just sunk outta cold storage, after all.’ An accent measuring on casual ambivalence and his attempt at trying to sound Scottish in nought but pronouciation. Every word was shortened, every syllable cast aside in place of a grunt and yet there was no accent, no tinge, just a settled accent from nowhere.

‘Sunk out of old stor –a bluebird, erm, sir?’

‘Pirate, lad.’

What else was the hospital supposed to do? I had no friends, no family left. My generation had no children, my relatives all gone; my sister buried somewhere called Middlessex on Mars next to a 23rd century widow and a retrived 1980s submariner. I had no money, no personal belongings besides what I was wearing when I came to be… frozen, I think it should be described as, and nothing I had with regards to identification would be applicable nowadays. I was, for all intents and purposes, a nonentity. I was Leone’s laconic Joe. I was “the man with no name”. So they thought to get me a job.

Turn your attention to the man sat across me. His second name is Captain Jack Sprat. Captain Jack Sprat is the friendly yet horribly uncool uncle figure. A thick greying beard soaked with rum and bread crumbs crawling from the edges of his mouth. Not so much a patch around his eye as more so inside of it. And his scars, so much scarring around his face, his callous palms and his remaining eye dry as the Gobi. Thin body, very thin but not unmuscled. His outfit was traditional science fiction, I mean that in the sense of tradition pervaded by science fiction. He wore no less than five gun holsters on a warm day, each one outfitted with any of his twenty seven modified hand cannons. Scattershots, six shooters, automatics, machine pistols, stocks, scopes and cartridges slung beneath his arms and strapped around various limbs.

Captain Jack is illiterate.

A dark red tunic and neckerchief covering his 22nd century artificial neck, his 23rd century artificial elbow, both of which are increasingly rare nowadays, when the wound can just be regenerated rather than replaced. Black markings where gunfire and powder burn (self-inflicted, I imagine. Surely if someone is close enough to get powder burn on you, the bullet itself would be of more concern) had hit him so much that no amount of Persil could remove it. He wore what I knew as PDAs and palmtops like medals and that doesn’t include the medals he wore. Glistering chocolate, smooth textured yet as callous as his hands, torn ribbons and that special shine he always gave them night after night. When I got the job, I’d always tell him that the constant polishing would eventually wear away the markings but he didn’t listen. Never did.

‘Sorry laddie, you ain’t not got no vocational from no nobody.’

This took a second or two.

‘Sorry?’

‘I’m not hiring you. The Severed Arm has all the baby chicks it needs to swim and I ain’t in the whatnot to burden she anynomore.’

The Severed Arm, that clapped-out, burnt-out pile of delicious rubble capable of outcrawling the fastest linerunner in the whole arcsector. I hated it, no luxuries, no cold storage for food (as opposed to people), no consistent hot water, no consistent running water, sometimes no water, surrounded by countless prisoners, cutthroats, traitors and thieves, nothing could be kept, nothing could be treasured, if it wasn’t strapped down it was stolen. Or swallowed. It was Tolkien's own magic, nothing was secret, nothing was safe. It was everyone’s fresh new Hell and it was going to be my home for… well, I say thirteen years but Captain Jack protests it’s closer to seven. And I must’ve loved every second of it.

Captain Jack can’t count.

When he rose, slowly and carefully, the air of a man with stolen nonchalance that he might as well use it now before it’s taken away from him. He wore thick, loose khakis a little too big for his leg width, the ends spread over his brown leather boots. Everything he wore was ripped, dirtied and possibly humanly soiled. Trust me, it’s not uncommon in the business. But he stopped, just as slowly as he rose.

‘Silly me. I hadn’ey asked why ye wanna fly wi’ us, Cold Storage.’

I couldn't stifle a laugh but it came out as a throaty chuckle. Something uncertain. ‘I’m looking for someone. Her name’s Maria.’

‘Oh aye? So it's a passenger service ye be aft’r, ah?’

‘No, no, I want to pay my way. The job, the work will be payment for the transport, successful or otherwise. I just need to get out there. I need to start looking.’

‘Seems ta me you ain’t not thought this t’rough proparly.’ Head back, loose on the neck, a small smile seeping through before I could answer. ‘I like that.’

Captain Jack wasn’t an easy man to read, a poker face steadily prepped, if only because the scars made it difficult to judge any expression he might have been wearing at any particular time but I remember I thought I recgonised. I recognised it was concern and understanding. I thought we clicked, I though he understood. Everyone understands what it’s like, to be looking for someone. At least until his response. Very 21st century.

‘Tssh, fly EasyJet.’ Talk about shattering a dream. This one could've ended before it began but it wasn't to be. Captain Jack Sprat is the man I accredit to my finding Maria and I will forever be grateful.

Captain Jack is dead.
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Viewtiful. It may not be a word but you know it when you see it.

yxnomei · Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 11

Yep, they still had an EasyJet and it still operating under the Easy branding but even in my day they had smaller franchises such as EasyHotels and EasyInternetCafés, more common in big cities like London. Walking around JSuffolk, the hospital I was transferred to after Cheltenham General Hospital was raided by bandits in 2136, was nothing if not an educating experience. Jupiter itself was uninhabitable, that much is fairly obvious which doesn’t go to explain why I asked someone in the street why we weren’t on the surface, but during the early expansions it was the dream that every planet would be colonised in our solar system. Jupiter was outfitted with two new colonies orbiting the planet at either end, using the other’s proximity as a measure of counter-balance to avoid falling into the planet’s somehow exaggerated gravity. Don’t ask me why, it’s just one of those things I haven’t bothered to check since being here. JSuffolk is the Jupiter’s A-colony, a thriving beehive full of esoteric costumes and more ‘70s gay-pride colours, rainbows everywhere. But no aliens.

Conspiracy theorists the world across rejoice, you were right. Modern life is dominated by corporations, everything a brand, every company or shop or store or market stall owned by McDonalds or Microsoft or the Time Warner Company. Everything is connected through the worlds by a mass system of satellites coursing through an invisible autobahn of checkpoints and throughways. Bluebirds often hijack the throughways, they’re good and easy points for Running in space despite being continually scanned by every satellite you pass but they don’t do anything. The autobahn itself belongs to the Apple Company.

I was still in my hospital gown so I suppose it was pity more than anything else that the staff at JGatwick picked up on when they let me on the shuttle for nothing more than the now-vintage Casio watch I happened to be wearing when I went into cryogenics. It amused me; apparently they would have upgraded me to first class had I worn something from Elizabeth Duke. Sarah from Admin said the only pieces worth collecting of any real value are those preserved through cryogenics because of their poor workmanship, most have naturally deteriorated through time and wear. She looked positively disgusted when I told her Elizabeth Duke jewellery was considered a little… how did I put this, “bollocksy” back home. I left before she threw something at me and cancelled my seat.

I would have enjoyed seeing what first class was like. EasyJet may still be EasyJet but this was absolute bliss. No screaming children, no invasive parents demanding certain seats because that particular seat was allocated to them or it’s a window seat. The carpet was not spoiled with sticky fluids which somehow travel up your own trouser leg and the stewardesses were not pouty-faced bitchesses and, at the risk of sounding extremely shallow, they were all extremely attractive. There are no more queues for check-ins and outs, there are no more tedious walkways that seem to lead and end in nothingness to get to your plane and – Heavens allow this bliss – no engine noise. The way Ports check your arrival onboard is rather strange, they measure your backside for shape and natural sitting positions when you sit, records they somehow have acquired onto their computers. We had a little difficulty there, my own precious and ungroped by prodding machines hidden beneath seats was not on their files, myself not on their files but a few Valls (sorry, video calls) to the JSuffolk wards cleared up any problems. Your seat is either inside its own booth should you request so or you can have adjoining seats and booths if you’re with family or you want to chat up some lovely young lady or gentleman (they even allocate you a seat should you request this and place you according to their company-records of attractiveness). Every seat is a window seat into the now-polluted vacuum of space and the bathroom is always free and slightly bigger than your booth.

I was going back to Earth. I would start my search for Maria there and, hopefully, find out whether I’ve some money somewhere.

Hmm, Maria. Think about Maria. Think about the only girl you know who might still be alive even now. Keep your hopes up, keep your spirits up. Without her… no, don’t even think about that. Think about Maria instead.
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Viewtiful. It may not be a word but you know it when you see it.

**Mari** · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:34 pm Post subject:

I cannot believe I actually missed the first chapter, being a fan of your work and such. How's the novel thing going, by the way?

Reading second chapter, will give you my impressions later.

ETA: nevermind, I'm half asleep, didn't see the whole topic. My bad.
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Currently fangirling Edgy Eft and mplayer1.0RC1 -- firefox 2 is just okay, those are pure awesome.

yxnomei · Joined: 14 Jul 2005 Posts: 11

Hey there, good to hear from you. How are you these days?

I'm afraid that Dick Whittington's Kalishnicov is something of a rarity these days and just a temporary setting at the moment, something to occupy my time. Truth be known, just like the last fiction I posted here, this could quite easily be dropped at any moment. And I'm afraid that's exactly what happened with the novel. Dropped it, didn't like it, didn't work, too confusing, too boring, too strange and it wouldn't have done so well with people unaccustomed to my writing and, well, my old fanbase seems to have moved on since... two years ago? Wow. Has it really been that long?

There are a couple of glaring omissions I forgot to include in the second section. Firstly the EasyJet Company does not have a franchise EasyInternetCafes but they do offer internet services in their EasyHotels so no complaints for 21st century inaccuracies everyone. Suffolk and Cheltenham are not-so-unknown towns in England and the Elizabeth Duke jewellery line belongs to a company called Argos who also sell sofas and children's toys.

Anyway, for the time being, I'll get on with finishing the first chapter.
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Viewtiful. It may not be a word but you know it when you see it.