Ribofunk (21 page)

Your loving guest-son,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070465/1610

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear Host Mother,

What a jangle-tangle! The brass-skulls and swellheads stopped by with a crew of noahs from the GEF wanting to evaluate the oceanic/atmospheric contamination produced by this latest Short War, and Penguin and I were kept busy bending molecules during what should have been our downtime. (At least one of the noahs, a Xuly Beth Vollbracht, was nice enough to bring along a dose of recreational tropes to share with us.) Anyhow, they finally finished with us, and since Penguin wanted to go offline for a while, I thought I’d pick up my transmission to you where I left off.

Now, I know you and I have had our disagreements about the IMF’s policies. Why, sometimes you actually sounded like a rifkin or greenpeacer! I can remember you saying, “I never got to vote for the World Bank board.” But we all got to vote for the politicians who voted for them, whether we hailed from a big polypax like the NU or the EC, or a little one like our own McMurdo, so we can’t really blame anyone else when the IMF does something we don’t particularly like. I’m thinking of the mess they made in what used to be Yongbyon—the “Pyongyang Gang Bang” I remember you called it—and the way they handled (or mishandled) those renegade cricks and transgenics hiding out in the Azores. The Atlantic will recover faster from that one than the IMF’s reputation will!

But those incidents took place before I joined, which you’ll recall was right after the big command shakeup. My own unit was purged of all its officers, and Oberjefe Ozal received a field promotion, which he still holds. I think you’d like Ozal, he’s a smart, goodlooking probe—the NYC gals in our pod all call him a “streetbeat gamete,” which I guess is some kind of compliment—but he’s not conceited. His main philofix is music. He plays his qawwali tabs whenever he has a spare moment—mostly thru earwigs, since no one else really enjoys the holy Slammer wailing.

Anyhow, I can’t say I feel any personal responsibility for any of the IMF’s previous goo-screwing cockups (pardon the language), and nothing I’ve taken part in since I signed up has led me to regret my decision.

I’ve got to cut this short now, since one of my proxies is waiting to use the ’vox unit. I’ll be right back.

Your loving guest-son,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4501P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070465/1918

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear Host Mother,

Sorry about the delay. My buddy got an incoming ’vox right after he sent his. It was a “Dear Juan,” wishing him a nasty hasta luego. Seems his target had joined the antiwar movement since he shipped out and now wants nothing to do with “bloody imperialist murderers” like us. It took some major tropes and a lot of talk to calm him down.

I just can’t understand these protestors, Mom. It must be that they don’t know what’s really going on here. If they did, they’d realize we’re just doing what has to be done.

I’m real proud of this operation, my first major action. We made the enemy “cry onco!” faster than ribozymes. I wish I could tell you all about it, since I understand the metamedium coverage was somewhat limited. I’ll try, and see what the chip lets thru.

The IMF issued its unconditional surrender ultimatum at 2300 hours on the second of this month. By 2400 hours, when the enemy had still not replied, the operation commenced. First in were the smartskin bombers, scramjets mostly under AI control, but a few being gloved by pilots offshore in MHD subs. These planes released burrowers, antipersonnel midges, thermites, core-borers, glass-masters, virtual ghosts, and CENSORED. The enemy responded with Raid-Plus, bouncing buckyballs, fractal shrubs, moletraps, CENSORED, and kaleidoscopes, but were mucho outclassed. There was never really any contest.

Hot on the first wave’s heels, the APV’s loaded with transgenic troops moved in for whatever close fighting might arise. The Fourth Wolverines really distinguished themselves, as did the CENSORED. Once I-Cubed reported that things were pretty much under control, approximately CENSORED of us fifty-oners went in, the only humans involved in the whole shootup.

When the enemy’s AI’s committed silicide, we knew the latest Short War was history.

Mom, I’ll tell you now that what we found once we occupied the enemy’s territory—in confirmation of the rumors that prompted the assault—is enough to make your cells metastasize. These guys had developed a whole armory of aerosol-borne neurotropic weapons which they planned to use shortly on their immediate neighbors, and afterwards on whoever got in their way. Of course this is entirely against the Minsk Conventions, which they are a signatory to, and these gnomic jokers had to be stopped.

I don’t imagine the next few days will see much excitement. We’re just riding herd on the civilian populace while the experts from the essays, peltsies, beeves, and gembaitches—Textron, Rhone-Daewoo, Toyobo, Ciba-Kobe, EMBRAPA—dismantle the armament autofacs.

I’ve got some I&I leave coming up after this is over and expect to spend some of it with you and Dad and Mom2 and Dad2 and Mom3.

Crank those photoharvesters up—I’m used to the tropics now!

Your loving guest-son,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070565/0325

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear Host Mother,

We just stepped down from Fever Alert Status.

It appears that some autonomous remnant of the enemy is still functioning.

Most of us were sleeping when our earwigs gave the alarm. I never thought the words “perimeter breach!” could sound so chilling. We all scrambled into our Affymax millipore gear, praying that we hadn’t catalyzed anything contrametabolic. Almost before we could grab our high-kinetics and lyzers, the “all clear” came thru. The tinmen and transgenics had neutralized the invaders, who amounted only to a handful of Gorilla guerrillas. Examination of the corpses revealed nothing out of the ordinary—except for one thing. The vars had CENSORED incorporated into their bodies, right next to their CENSORED. These add-ons were empty, indicating they might have had time to spray something before being smoked.

That something, they tell us, could be time-delayed in its effects.

We’re all just sitting around now on our hands while the mccoys and herriots go over us with their cell-sniffers and hormone hounds, squeezing our virtual platelets for anything nonsomatic. So I thought I’d ’vox you this letter.

Don’t worry.

Your loving guest-son,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070565/0800

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear,

Can’t find to refer to. Seem to have disappeared from. Made bad inside. Very bad. Hard to use common. Looks strange near and far. Because of made bad up inside. Hopeful to fix. Examine, then create. Reassurring.

But—partly running around crazy. Dangerous. Watch, shoot—how? Forget how to use without.

Sit still. Holding together, lovely and crying. Please don’t cry. Can’t convey. Too frustrating to go on.

Will ’vox soon.

Don’t worry.

Your loving,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070565/1200

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear Host Mother,

Whew! Am I glad the past four hours are over!

My last transmission probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense to you. That was because I couldn’t use any nouns! You see, everyone in the pod was experiencing a selective aphasia, kind of a language blind spot. A whole category of language had been effectively wiped from our cortexes. Or so the blood-dusters tell us.

It appears that the trope the enemy hit us with was something brand new. The experts have dubbed it a “multi-vector recombinant silicrobe.” It resembles our own CENSORED, only several magnitudes more sophisticated.

Apparently, the Gorillas discharged an aerosol of harmless individual components which were small enough to slip thru our millipore gear. Once inside our bodies, however, the individual pieces intelligently assembled themselves into larger agents that headed straight for our brains.

The first indication we had that something foreign had penetrated us was a senseless announcement we all got thru our earwigs. It sounded just like my last ’vox: strings of verbs and particles with no easy meaning. When I turned to discuss it with my bunkmate, Penguin (I haven’t really told you much about her yet, Mom; she’s a real old-fashioned target, with fewer than 20 percent bodymods, and I know you’d get quite close to her, given a chance), we found that we were limited to the same bizarre lingo too!

Needless to say, this kind of neural cockup—a “cortical abortical” the NYC posse calls it —could have caused us serious trouble if the enemy wasn’t so well under control. Though even then, we’d still have the tinmen and transgenics—the splices weren’t so strongly affected—to protect us. Still, how could we give them orders? …

Anyhow, the aphasia didn’t stop our stormin’ biobrujos for long! They soon strung together a megablocker antagonist consisting of a charge of enhanced microglials and catalytic antibodies, along with CENSORED, which seems to have wiped the cerebral invader out quicker’n teraflops!

Although there id a slim chance, they tell us, that the invader has simply self-mutated according to plan.

In any case, a Digireal conference on this bug is underway now with experts scattered around the globe, including last year’s Gengineering Nobelist, Doctor Sax, the guy who practically invented neurotropins.

So don’t worry, Mom—we’re getting the best of care!

Your loving guest son,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070505/1391

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Daring Hotel Mothballs,

The newest truest neural contradural manifestation in the implication is undersay they way to play can’t shay. Too few too blue words are now becoming excessive depressive stretches of letches and leeches and feel like my head’s exploding decoding. Broca’s aphasia in Asia is a lack of pack of parcel of morsel of words and turds. But Wernicke’s journey to meaning of seasons is to produce unreduce of fibbing gibberish that makes senseless of relentless squawk talk. There appears to be a component histonic of dyslexia distance instance ignorance, upon trying to writer communihesitation.

This stool shall pasture.

Your louvre question,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MODILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070565/1450

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear Host Mother,

The Wernicke’s is over now. It’s pretty evident that the MRS agent is staying one step ahead of the juice they shot us with. I just hope the bug isn’t baltimoring anything permanently into our genomes. Right now, all it’s doing is making auditory hallucinations. They’re kind of pleasant—I heard you talking to me just a few minutes ago—but tend to interfere with real orders thru our earwigs. I notice that Oberjefe Ozal has notched his music up to eleven. I’ll keep you posted. Hopefully, this’ll be licked soon.

Your loving guest son,

CENSORED

SEND: IMF MOBILE NODE

SYS01-4591P

RECEIVE: MC MURDO BIOSPHERE

DATE/HOUR: 070565/1500

TRANSMISSION STATUS: OK

Dear Host Mother,

The whole pod was sitting down at the rectangular surface raised above the floor level with four posts, ready to dig into a delayed meal—reddish oblongs streaked with white marbling, cylindrical orange tapering tubes, spherical crusted objects slit crosswise and topped with a melting square of yellow organic matter—when the newest trouble hit.

It seems that the bug in our brains has now produced a generalized visual agnosia. Nothing looks familiar. The sight of common objects produces no referents in our brains, emotional or intellectual. Everything seems an assemblage of basic, almost geometrical parts, out of which nothing whole can be synthesized, resulting in a generalized lack of affect.