Anthology - From the Street

Atlantis sank on August 12, 3113 BC, thus marking the end of the Fourth World and the beginning of the Fifth. The Sixth World began on December 12, 2011 AD, and will end, according to the Mayan calendar, on April 4, 7137 AD.

We have the intervening time to enjoy what the Great Mother gives us and to use responsibly the double-edged sword of technology that our Human cousins have created. We must use both the energy of nature and the power of technology to try to fix the damage done by our short-lived relatives.

REX TREMENDAE

By Tom Dowd, transcription by Ken Web

The line outside Dante's Inferno was long, mean, and peopled with some of the most alien types I'd ever seen. I been to Seattle before, even to this very club, but the sights never failed to astonish. Sure, I understand dressing for style, for effect, but physical extremism repels me. Home, we run the shadows as hard as any, and our colors show it. We wear clothes that suit us, that make our work and lives easier, simpler. Every policlub has its own look, its special expression, but none of us would consider overt physical mutilation as a symbol of superiority.

Here in America, especially in this town, it seems you're nobody unless you can get people to notice you walking down the street. Yet for me, whose life is the streets anywhere in the world, to be noticed on those streets is almost certain death.

How little subtlety exists here. I pass this line of people, all waiting to get into the same place at the same time, knowing full well they're not wanted here. Perhaps they think waiting in line for all the world to see is as good as actually dancing on the glass floors of the Inferno. In Europe, we would simply find another club rather than play the fool by standing in line.

Reaching the door, I stifled a laugh. Dwarfed by the huge size of the doorbeing, a girl in black and red was trying to talk her way past the Troll. Unlike me, she wasn't known, so she wouldn't get in. Giving the troll a nod, I brushed past, and the gander-girl cursed me for it. The way she mangled City-Speak was startling enough to make me turn and look at her. She was shorter than I, but jacked up by a pair of razor-spike boots. Her long hair, its color moving from iridescent blue to white to black and back again, framed her face. A true looker, by any standards, if you ignored the hot, quick death in her eyes. She glared at me, waiting for an equally venomous response, but I held back. Far too much was at stake tonight.

I gave her the dead-face and was about to turn and be gone when she surprised me by cursing again, this time perfectly. I smiled in amusement. Her first curse had been sudden, impulsive, and fractured. The second was perfect, even down to the cross-talk inflection. She was chip-trained, no question, but trained only. If she had been wearing, her first shot would have come out like a veteran's.

I couldn't help but smile even more broadly as I looked her over more closely. The apparel was right: all the proper straps and chains tight or loose as the fashion demanded. Quad-colored earrings danced slowly on her ears, glittering in the lights of the street. Her corneal tint was near- phosphorescent, designed to pull your eyes to hers even in the darkest shag- joint. She was absolutely perfect, the ultimate gander-girl, and therein lay her failure to pull it off. But that was what intrigued me.

I weighed my options, her paradox versus my purpose tonight, and decided to take the risk. I nodded again at the troll and spoke just loud enough for him to hear, "Say, friend, she's with me."

The girl apparently heard me, and started slightly at my words, I motioned for her to take the lead. She glanced once at the Troll, but turned just as quickly away from his sudden, feral grin. As she stepped forward, I guided her with the gentle pressure of my fingertips at the small of her back. Once again, she gave herself away. Her jacket was real denim, not the cheap synthetic that a "real" gander-girl would wear.

We continued on into the uppermost level of Inferno. Though I hated the place, I always found myself becoming a semi-regular out of sheer habit whenever I was in town. I'd first met Dante in London, where I'd done a run for him involving his London club. Now he always made sure I got first class treatment, no doubt because the story of our dealings would leave him cut into little pieces if it ever leaked out. EBM[2] never forgets.

The band had apparently just taken the upper stage. A staccato riff from the lead ten-string triggered the sync-systems, bathing the levels in pulsating light and liquid noise. Shag-metal was rip in this town, which made my desire to go transcontinental all the stronger. It was enough that I could very well die tonight, but the thought of "Bangin' the Duke" as my funeral dirge was too much.

I wanted to believe that my people were different than these nighttrippers thrashing about me now. I wanted to believe that things back home were different, that my people had some memory, some honor, for the glory of our cultural past. I wanted to believe that even a shadow of our rich history and traditions still existed. I wanted to believe that we were superior to these Americans, with their all-consuming lust for the new. But I knew that our magnificent past had all but vanished from mind, as though it had never been. Technology had blurred the differences between nations, and chipped languages had destroyed Europe.

The Restoration may have revived our lands and our people physically, but it had almost totally destroyed us culturally. Worshipping the grail of unrestricted growth, the Euro-corps were the driving force behind this so- called Restoration. Erasing the national boundaries meant no more import/export tariffs. It meant the availability of vast pools of cheap labor. It also meant death to 3,000 years of dynamic social expression. That was why I believed that radical politics and a return to nationalism and radical politics were our only hope for rescuing the individualism, the uniqueness of our many peoples. The Neo-Europe District of the Global Village must never come to pass.

The policlubs had been born from the urgency many felt for another kind of Restoration. We, too, wanted to rebuild Europe, even if it meant a return to more contentious times. Ours would not be a Europe homogenized for mass consumption. For better or worse, it would be a Europa Dividuus. We alone kept alive the flame of political activism and expression. Without us, Europe would soon become a corporate Disneyverse. The various policlubs did not, of course, agree on the means or even the ends, but was that not just as it should be? The restoration might appear to be proceeding apace, on the surface. Behind the scenes, we were at war. In the streets, on the data-faxes, in the hearts and minds of those alive enough to listen. Europe would not become another Manhattan, not even another Seattle. I'd come to make sure of that.

I pulled gently on the girl's coat and she turned to eye me quizzically. "Watch the dancers," I said, moving a few steps away to lean against a light- filled pole. Relaxing my whole body, I focused my attention on the pulsating lights of the lasers, letting the rhythm fill me.

A moment passed. Then a longer one. Existence ended and I was free. My vision shifted beyond the confines of my body and I viewed the world as few others could. Oblivious to me, the ghosts of men and women locked in the mundane world were still dancing madly. I scanned this level quickly. There was some minor activity from the faint auras of chip trinkets hawked on the street corners by charlatans, but no bright blossoming or shifting images to warrant further interest.

The astral forms of the dancers on the glass floors at each level below me blocked much of my view, but I dropped quickly through all the levels to where I could contemplate my destination. I saw the cool green of the shield- wall enclosing it, but caught no sign of the person I was to meet there. The shield prevented me from knowing whether she was within its embrace. The only way to penetrate its mystery was to walk through physically. To break through the shield any other way was something neither I nor most other humans could do.