They only try you once, these men, these sex gods; these walking examples of masculinity.
Gio’s personal barriers had shut down any attempts to cross the line. Her first day had been fraught with tension; the normal societal newcomers anxieties compounded by the now; it was the late twenty-teens and they still hadn’t paid any attention to the information that had been fed them by the various social trends pronouncing the battlegrounds of gender and sexual politics.
Not all men – that was the counter argument.
But most men – that had been the sad truth.
To the degree that they were willing to learn.
Gio broke the fingers of the guy that groped here arse on that first day on the job.
Emancipation is ancient history so why the fuck hadn’t they learned the lesson.
Bigg Mama backed her all the way – it is that which makes Gio hopeful for the future.
The future.
Such as it is.
But then it’s not just the men; not just the white folk; not just the just: the nuances of history’s proud bigotry are but symptoms of the greater poison that we are fed.
Gio knows this since way back when…
…when in those dark days her mother was begging to clean for the gentry; iron their shirts and scrub the skid marks from their toilet bowls; taking their tips and their condescending words of understanding.
Their financial liquidity and charitable contributions were, after all, not a bottomless pit; not a money tree.
This is an image that is personal to Gio since the public image of her mother is that of a revolutionary who had not been afraid to get her hands dirty.
There are no official figures; no statistics – all of that shit died with the empire – but syn-haptic history has Isabella Ngomi single-handedly taking down a whole apartment block; burning her erstwhile employers while they slept through that dark January morning.
That was the day it kicked off all over London and spread like Isabella’s fire throughout the country.
She was killed when the fire brigade called in the cops after their first engine was fire-bombed by some crazy woman in a high-viz vest and cleaner’s apron; she was shot 47 times - you can count the shots if you play the footage in slomo but it’s not a pretty sight.
Not that Gio’s ever going to share her heritage with anyone; not after the first time; not ever.
“Same as last time, these points aren’t engaging properly and that broken piece there,” John D points with the torch, “knocked the fucking guide gyro out of orbit. Catastrophic fail.”
“We’ve got,” Gio checks her overlay, left eye flickering white in the gloom beneath the carriage, “25 minutes before the next one’s due”
“Schedulers gonna have to be be pissed off; ‘cause this’s gonna take a few hours to fix”
“What do we need from the van?”
“Bring the imager and a cutter; we gon’ have to reprint that whole section”
“Okay” Gio crawls out from under, nudges the com interface top left on her overlay “Bigg Mama, we’re on the District Line breakdown; it’s going to be at least an hour before we clear”
“Just stick with it Gio – Make it good for Bigg Mama”
“Gio! Bring the EM too; we gon’ need to realign this fucking gyro”
“One thing at a time JD, I’ve only got 2 hands”
“Yeah and lucky for me, only one mouth”
They work in grunts and hisses, manoeuvring equipment into place, using their bodies and their skills.
The rail is cold against Gio’s hand as she lifts the EM Pulsar onto the gyro casing.
“Fucking thing won’t fit” John D’s words descend into a muttering of crude curses.
“I can’t hear you JD” over her shoulder as the Pulsar slips into its mount, “but I see your lips moving on an unhappy face”
The carriage rocks as the clunk from below signals that John D had successfully cursed the printed replacement into place.
“Fire her up, let’s get this fucking thing back on track”
Bigg Mama watches from the vantage of one of the drones as the stricken Magtrak, now released and returned to duty, accelerates away from the Gunnersbury cutting; then cutting away herself, Bigg Mama re-synx and reschedules the system.
JD looks sidelong at her; she turns her head to face him,
“Keep your eyes on the road old man”
He hisses between his teeth, eyes on the road, squinting against the glare of the trackside LEDs, shakes his head almost imperceptibly, whispers
“Pice”
“Yeah, I know: peachy; everything’s just peachy”
Gio’s personal barriers had shut down any attempts to cross the line. Her first day had been fraught with tension; the normal societal newcomers anxieties compounded by the now; it was the late twenty-teens and they still hadn’t paid any attention to the information that had been fed them by the various social trends pronouncing the battlegrounds of gender and sexual politics.
Not all men – that was the counter argument.
But most men – that had been the sad truth.
To the degree that they were willing to learn.
Gio broke the fingers of the guy that groped here arse on that first day on the job.
Emancipation is ancient history so why the fuck hadn’t they learned the lesson.
Bigg Mama backed her all the way – it is that which makes Gio hopeful for the future.
The future.
Such as it is.
But then it’s not just the men; not just the white folk; not just the just: the nuances of history’s proud bigotry are but symptoms of the greater poison that we are fed.
Gio knows this since way back when…
…when in those dark days her mother was begging to clean for the gentry; iron their shirts and scrub the skid marks from their toilet bowls; taking their tips and their condescending words of understanding.
Their financial liquidity and charitable contributions were, after all, not a bottomless pit; not a money tree.
This is an image that is personal to Gio since the public image of her mother is that of a revolutionary who had not been afraid to get her hands dirty.
There are no official figures; no statistics – all of that shit died with the empire – but syn-haptic history has Isabella Ngomi single-handedly taking down a whole apartment block; burning her erstwhile employers while they slept through that dark January morning.
That was the day it kicked off all over London and spread like Isabella’s fire throughout the country.
She was killed when the fire brigade called in the cops after their first engine was fire-bombed by some crazy woman in a high-viz vest and cleaner’s apron; she was shot 47 times - you can count the shots if you play the footage in slomo but it’s not a pretty sight.
Not that Gio’s ever going to share her heritage with anyone; not after the first time; not ever.
“Same as last time, these points aren’t engaging properly and that broken piece there,” John D points with the torch, “knocked the fucking guide gyro out of orbit. Catastrophic fail.”
“We’ve got,” Gio checks her overlay, left eye flickering white in the gloom beneath the carriage, “25 minutes before the next one’s due”
“Schedulers gonna have to be be pissed off; ‘cause this’s gonna take a few hours to fix”
“What do we need from the van?”
“Bring the imager and a cutter; we gon’ have to reprint that whole section”
“Okay” Gio crawls out from under, nudges the com interface top left on her overlay “Bigg Mama, we’re on the District Line breakdown; it’s going to be at least an hour before we clear”
“Just stick with it Gio – Make it good for Bigg Mama”
“Gio! Bring the EM too; we gon’ need to realign this fucking gyro”
“One thing at a time JD, I’ve only got 2 hands”
“Yeah and lucky for me, only one mouth”
They work in grunts and hisses, manoeuvring equipment into place, using their bodies and their skills.
The rail is cold against Gio’s hand as she lifts the EM Pulsar onto the gyro casing.
“Fucking thing won’t fit” John D’s words descend into a muttering of crude curses.
“I can’t hear you JD” over her shoulder as the Pulsar slips into its mount, “but I see your lips moving on an unhappy face”
The carriage rocks as the clunk from below signals that John D had successfully cursed the printed replacement into place.
“Fire her up, let’s get this fucking thing back on track”
Bigg Mama watches from the vantage of one of the drones as the stricken Magtrak, now released and returned to duty, accelerates away from the Gunnersbury cutting; then cutting away herself, Bigg Mama re-synx and reschedules the system.
JD looks sidelong at her; she turns her head to face him,
“Keep your eyes on the road old man”
He hisses between his teeth, eyes on the road, squinting against the glare of the trackside LEDs, shakes his head almost imperceptibly, whispers
“Pice”
“Yeah, I know: peachy; everything’s just peachy”
2 comments:
I'm feeling a bit lost with the end of this one ...It'll come good, I trust.
mmm, maybe the references are a bit obscure.
Post a Comment