King of the Californias, Pt. VIII

by Monk Eastman, New York City, NY, USA

The walls of my room pulse with Turkish ouds, soft bassline from a Tijuana garage, and Gregorian wails. Latest from Ç1Q, my favorite band. Of course my room knows it, and at the Palma de Baís, it even has access to the pirate tracks from the legendary Gastown Sessions. 'Rare' is not the word. 8 Feather and Rafiq Angeles took Ç1Q's first release (arguably the most listened-to album of the past fifteen years) and battled each other with it, remix for remix, in front of a live audience in Gastown, Vancouver. Ç1Q's stuff is normally like scented oil poured over silk. Kind of music that starts baby booms. At Gastown, they inverted it, turned it into godclash: what was in the Lord's ears when He razed Sodom. I thought data sieves at the venue meant no recordings made it out alive. Somehow, though, my room plays it, at a volume that accents my foul mood without exacerbating it. My elevated blood pressure, eye movement, personal kinetics, and listening history give the room just enough information to strike such a vital balance.

I'm reminded, very acutely, how little I like this sort of thing. Being under a microscope. Dissected without a single cut.

And I find myself desperately missing Chicago.

Wandering aimlessly along the green belts of Englewood. The great glass ziggurat of Kennedy King University, where I spent my latter days cultivating this (almost) useless mobile journalism degree. Countless midnights at the Tibetan food kiosks of Archer Avenue, served warm pockets of momo with volcanic, greasy red sauce on my way home from the artists' lounges of Bridgeport. Whisper of the Orange's Line's maglev trains sweeping past, kiss of ghostwind as it twisted into the night, snakelike and graceful.

But mostly, the Appleville Quiet Zone. Lone concrete tower, sanctuary from the continuous avalanche of a world where a song listened to on your way to work is logged in the depths of the nebulous Network, alongside your love of lung-scorching Central Asian cuisine and snarky Lebanese newsfeeds, odd collection of vintage '40s footwear, and baffling predilection for 20th century rap music. All there, always updating. Only private in the sense that you don't know who else is looking at it. Your tiny vein of personal data, mined endlessly by faceless, nameless things, scattered across the globe, feeding on the minutiae of daily life. Masticating the delicate ephemera of your life with great insectoid jaws and expelling it out over vast, intersecting planes of data, picked through by shit-merchants, sold to the highest bidder.

All so the Palma de Baía can play back the music I lost my virginity to, in the witching hours of that sweatless, fog-breathed Gastown night.

Now, as then, Appleville was the only place that felt real. Substantial. Single telephone per floor. Voice-only, hardwired into Chicagoland with copper-and-spit. Newsfeeds replaced with passive content. An actual hard library, where I read Upton Sinclair for the first time in print. Analog music, on antique standalone machines. An oasis of silence in a world of endless, low-intensity chatter. All right there, on W. 24th Place, just under the Dan Ryan. In retrospect, my nineteen months there was a gift. To live in such blessed antiquity...

And all because Chicago is the holy land: unique as a city that cherishes cloistral peace almost as much as the wild howl of its own progress. A place where tranquility is sown with the practiced hand of a Zen gardener, in Quiet Zones just like Appleville. Or Dalton. Markham. Bronzeville. The Low End. Modern day ashrams in the financial capital of North America. Such peace I'd never known...nor have I since.

And I compare it now to Oakland, where the night screams with attack drones, and the hills crash with artillery thunder. From Chicago to Toronto is a two hour trip by SonicRail. Here, it takes just as long to travel from Jack London Square to San Antonio Park, because the old 880 Freeway has been bombed to its component molecules by so many overlapping armies. Federal Unionists. The 321st Nevada Counter-Insurgent Insurgents (U.S. Volunteer Irregulars). The Alameda Independence Army. The Northern Aztlan Front. The New-New Wobblies. White Power Militias (Orthodox and Reform). The Golden Bear Unity Party. The Party For the Dignity of Angeleno Refugees. All of them mixing in the flats of East Oakland, trading shots with Prime Minister Pivens's choice assortment of heartless eye-gougers and ear-pullers. A fellow mobile journalist made note the other day that the Republic of Northern California proudly advertises itself as a nation without POW camps.

That is because the NoCal army is no longer taking prisoners.

In order for Prime Minister Pivens to give Los Angeles' expatriate war criminals respite without embargo or censure, he must provide the Hague at least an illusion of respectability. He is crafting that illusion with ashes of the dead and the blood of dissidents.

And my mind keeps wandering back to Chicago. To Appleville. Where I slept at night wrapped in the sweet impenetrable cold of anonymity. Ignorance. Perfect disconnectedness. Back in it now, tangled at the center of a burning web, (perhaps not surprisingly) threaded of all the weird, bad moments I'd sought to escape in Chicago; tied together to create this poor, weary author, eking out his literary pittance to a mixed soundtrack of Californian massacre and Ç1Q's remixed ouds. And I sadly recall this web has always been, and I always at its center.

And I wonder for the first time if I will ever enjoy the blessed silence of Chicago again.

Or if that silence ends here.

In Oakland.

In Search Of... Pt IV

By Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

“Soup again?” Tim slouched in his chair as he tossed his stained cap onto the sideboard. He’d just come in off the fishing boat and the smell of the sea was strong on him.

“Not anymore!” Karen Kaczmerak stood up from the table, knocking her chair to the floor, and seized both her bowl and Tim’s. Walking to the back door, she kicked it open – squeaking on its old hinges – and dumped their supper into the refuse bin.

“Jesus, don’t be like that. I was hungry.”

“Could’ve surprised me. You cook tomorrow.” Karen dropped the bowls into the sink as she passed through the kitchen marching for the bedroom at the far end of the trailer. Wiping his sleeve across his face, Tim got up from the table and went after Karen, his long strides closing the gap down the narrow hall.

“Will you come back here? What the hell’s wrong?” Tim caught his girlfriend just as she stepped into the bedroom.

Karen didn’t even look back. “Fuck off.”

“No!” Tim grabbed Karen by her right shoulder.

“Ow!” Karen pulled her arm away.

Tim’s eyes widened. “What happened to your arm?”

“It hurts, dipshit.”

Tim, stuck between anger and confusion, kicked the wall. “Fucking aye! What the Hell’d I do?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t help,” said Karen as she backed into their bedroom sliding the door out from its recess in the wall.

“What can I do so you aren’t so fuckin’ mad?”

“You could start by listening, but I’m not sure that’s even possible.” Karen slammed the door shut and turned the lock. Tim paced in a tiny circle for half a minute before pounding his fist against the bedroom door. Waiting for a response, he stomped back up the hallway when none was forthcoming.

•••

Tim Suffolk first laid eyes on Karen in the local diner. She arrived in South Harbor in the early evening, slim and young; the way her blond hair fell around her shoulders sent a shudder through Tim’s midsection. The fact that she had reciprocated his furtive looks that night was a surprise. Though by no means an ugly man, Tim knew his receding hairline and weary face were not generally appealing to the fairer sex. They’d ended up getting dessert together, and when Tim discovered Karen was alone with nowhere to stay, he was more than willing to put her up for the night.

That night stretched into weeks, and for the most part, Tim had been nothing but happy. But recently Karen had changed. She didn’t smile like she had at first, and she seemed restless. Tim had tried to infiltrate her stern façade, but no explanations had been shared. So, Tim just went about his normal business hoping it would work itself out.

•••

The digital clock read 1:43 am. Outside, the chime of the buoy helped bring Tim out of his slumber. He rubbed at his neck, stiff from falling asleep in the recliner. Slivers of moonlight slit the blinds, giving form to the shadows. There were soft footsteps in the kitchen. Turning, he watched Karen go to the fridge and pull out the pitcher of water. Lifting it to her lips, she took a long swallow and then returned it to its shelf. Closing the door, she walked back down the hall without giving him a look.

Tim strained to hear the lock click in the door as Karen shut it, but the only sound that came was that of the mattress springs yielding as she lay back down. With little deliberation, Tim got up from the chair and walked down the hallway himself, trying not to make a sound as he entered the bedroom.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could see Karen lying on her side turned away from where he stood in the doorway. She gave no indication she knew he was there. He pulled the covers back and slid in next to her.

Adjusting the sheets so that they fell over his back, Tim lay there waiting for Karen to say something.

But she remained silent.

Tim watched as two minutes passed on the clock, and then deemed it safe to move closer. Nudging up against Karen, he draped one arm over her shoulder and she jumped, biting back the pain before taking Tim’s hand and moving his arm down to her waist.

“Shit. Sorry,” whispered Tim, afraid of breaking the silence encompassing them.

“It’s okay,” said Karen. “I’m sorry for earlier.

“I’ve just been uneasy.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Tim as he propped himself up on his other arm.

“Thinking about home . . . Dad . . . what he did . . . to me . . . to Cedric.” Karen started to cry into her pillow. Tim tried to roll her over, but Karen refused, pushing his hand away.

For a long minute Tim stared down at Karen wondering what she’d gone through and what he could do to get her to stop crying. Finally, he laid his head on Karen’s pillow and whispered into her ear, “Tell me about it.

“I’ll listen.”

To be continued . . .

In Search of... Pt III

By Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

Keenan Archer stared out the windows as they flew over the thick green expanse below. It was a stark contrast to the scorched earth that had greeted them as they’d come in off the Atlantic five minutes prior. Flying as low as they were made it seem as if this new verdant area went on forever. He shifted in his seat and leaned forward to the pilot.

“How much longer ‘til we’re there?” he asked.

The pilot didn’t turn, but grunted his reply, “You’ll know.”

Keenan leaned back in his seat. His hard features tightened as dark blue eyes turned to slits; he didn’t like being in the dark. Running his fingers through the short bristles atop his head, Keenan returned his gaze to the treetops skimming by below him.

•••

It was only a few minutes before a large cut in the trees became visible. A huge mansion rose from the middle of the clearing, which appeared to have no exit routes spoking off from the residence.

The sleek chopper set down easily, and Keenan pulled open the door and stepped out. A tiny lump clenched in his gut. He tried to ignore it as the chopper rose into the air, leaving him in the middle of a wide lawn.

Keenan surveyed his surroundings. There was a lot of money here. The ornate lintel above the front doorway, the delicate woodwork framing the many windows, and the meticulously trimmed hedges illustrated that. But the guards standing behind the tall shrubs at either corner, as well as the four stationed on the roof, told Keenan all he needed to know.

Satisfied, he proceeded up the small incline toward the marble steps.

•••

“You do understand. You will do this.” The old man wheezed as he steadied himself against the banister. The stilted movements of Elijah Kaczmerak were subtle, most people wouldn’t have noticed. The old man was wearing a sophisticated exo-skeleton under his finely pressed suit.

Keenan had been going back and forth with Kaczmerak for twenty minutes now, and they seemed no closer to a resolution than when he’d first entered. The only commodity worth trafficking in was information, but the old man refused to give an inch.

Kaczmerak wanted his daughter found, but had no idea where she would have gone. Keenan had prodded him for anything that could help – hobbies, friends, online avatars, strange behavior, family history – and Kaczmerak clipped off any discussion as if he were hiding some thorny secret. And that knot in the pit of Keenan’s stomach continued to throb lightly as he worked to remain focused on the withered face before him.

“Listen. Mr. Kaczmerak. If you’re unwilling to give me some shred of information, I’m not sure how I can be of service to you. It’s really as simple as that.” Keenan could hear the frustration rising in his voice and silently criticized himself for starting to lose control.

“Young man. I cannot see how trivial incidents in my daughter’s past might assist in discovering her current whereabouts. She has grown past any indiscretions of her tender years and you would do well not to probe any further.

“I do not think you realize with whom you are dealing.” Despite his obvious ill health, Elijah Kaczmerak spit out these final words with such venom that Keenan was momentarily taken aback.

“Now,” continued the old man, “I do have something of which you might be interested, if you can get past your affinity for tangential matters.” The old man’s eyes narrowed as he stared down the investigator.

“When my daughter was eleven she took ill – the details are unimportant – and she was rushed to the nearest hospital. It was necessary for her to undergo surgery, and I arranged for the doctor to implant her with a microchip, the better to keep track of her. I wasn’t sure I would ever need it, but felt it prudent to take such a precaution. I will share the frequency with you.

“But in doing so, you must understand that you will be agreeing to a contract that can only end one of two ways. I would suggest option A, which would be to return my daughter here. To me.” The menace in Kaczmerak’s voice was laced with a derision that Keenan had rarely encountered.

“And just to make sure you do not feel I am treating you wrongly . . .” Elijah Kaczmerak snapped his fingers and Gregory stepped into the atrium. The old man turned to his butler, who nodded subtly and told his employer, “It has been taken care of, sir.”

“Good,” rasped the old man. Turning back to Keenan, as Gregory softly removed himself, Elijah told the investigator to “check your account.”

Keenan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his PalmCard. Tapping the screen, he accessed his professional account and saw the balance to be a million creds heavier than he remembered.

“Consider that a retainer,” said Kaczmerak. “I will also pay double your daily fee, plus all expenses.

“Just make sure you bring my girl home.”

Keenan’s head raced with questions – why hadn’t the old man offered the microchip information earlier being foremost – but instead he allowed himself a broad smile and told Kaczmerak, “It looks like we have a deal.”

To be continued . . .

King of the Californias Pt VII

by Monk Eastman of New York City, NY, USA

My subject steps onto the balcony as if his night just segued from a dinner party with foreign dignitaries. He sits, one leg folded delicately over the other, scoops up his abandoned martini, drains the glass in one gulp. Were it not for the pistol dangling from his free hand, there would be no obvious indication he'd survived an assassination attempt forty-three minutes ago, or that the sole survivor of the incident was perched in his hotel suite living room, pinned to the floor by a softknife. His livetattoos scroll by, a Gutenberg Bible worming across his brow, one prayer at a time.

I ask if he is alright.

Mr Goncz chuckles, extracts a vial of tobacco from his black linen jacket, some rolling paper, and reclines in a chair I reckon cost roughly the GDP of Guatemala. "I should be asking you the same thing, eh?"

I assure him of my condition, and ask who is attackers were, if he knows their motives.

"'Motive'," he says, popping the finished cigarette in his mouth, lighting it with a candle from the crystal tabletop. He inhales, brow furrowing. The livetattoos morph into a long line of question marks.

I tell him that if he doesn't know, it's an equally acceptable answer.

"Where you from, homes?" he asks.

I remind him of the dossier my employer forwarded to his press agent.

"I didn't ask about a presskit sent by some piece of shit necktie sitting behind a desk in Chicago. I asked where you're from."

Someone dumps a bucket of ice down my back. Heart rate spikes. Sphincter clenches. A battledrone built somewhere in Guandong swoops by. Someone has painted 'Central Coast Surfboy Nazis Say Hi, Niggers!' on its side. I wonder if whoever painted it thought the insurgents in East Oakland would ever pay that much attention, as the automated raptor dropped decompiler bombs on their nursery schools and churches. I think about the dead and dying just a few miles from here, and wonder if the Palma de Baís's security staff will be disposing of my body the way they disposed of Goncz's would-be assassins. I wonder if they would wake my mother from her voluntarily induced coma to tell her how her son died. Or if anyone would ever know.

I tell him where I'm from.

The answer pastes itself against Oakland's neon skyline, screeching ceramic warbirds flying past, bombing the Deep East End into a flatland of crushed mortar and powdered bone. Artillery thunders, cry of emergency sirens fifty stories below, soldiers clear Jack London Square; sound of bent-hip California thrashing in its bed. Cecilio Goncz, warlord and entrepreneur, still as a baby's corpse, his thousand-dollar-a-gram tobacco wasting away as his cigarette dangles idly from the corner of his mouth. The moon above seems to hold its breath.

"If that's the case," Goncz says slowly, "then you know 'motive' isn't always what does it."

I ask if he thinks the woman in his living room would agree with that sentiment.

"Ay," he growls. "Don't be getting smart with me now. Just because you're—" He stops, flicks some ash, uncrosses his legs. The livetattoos turn to lightning bolts. "Just because we're talking here, like people, doesn't invite you to get all fuckheaded with me, get it? It's a whole world out there, would kill you for something a lot less rational than 'motive.' Things in this world, you can't always put a name to them."

I agree, and tell him so.

He looks at me sideways. "Figured you might." He finishes his cigarette, flicks the butt off the balcony. Stares at me for a moment, then brandishes his pistol. "Am I going to need this around you?"

I ask why he didn't ask that before accepting my interview.

"Because I used to have an assistant. And a chauffeur. And a bodyguard."

And now he doesn't. He has to be his own security. Reminder that the old days of murder and pillage are not so far away, even at the Palma de Baís hotel. And that maybe, just maybe, he's grown tired of them. I tell him he won't need the pistol for me. He smirks, lays it on the table.

"For my peace of mind, then. Or maybe for mi amor in the living room."

When I ask him what he intends to do with his prisoner, his shoulders move a little. It's almost a shrug. Given his time in the bedroom, communicating with the shrinking community of expatriate Los Angeles warlords; I ask if there have been an similar precedents.

"This is the Palma de Baía, homey," he says reproachfully. "They don't call it a 'bedroom'. They call it a 'sleepvault'. Bed's this bean-shaped fucking coffin, filled with warm saline and those acoustic things that shut your brain off. And yeah there's 'precedent', and yeah, I'm going to have a little talk with my new ladyfriend at some point, but you don't need to hear all that. Take your ass downstairs. Go to sleep."

I ask him when he will sleep.

The livetattoos fade. He raises his chin to California's sky, closes his eyes. "There is no sleep. I maybe rest, some time. Maybe later, if the night lets me. But the biggest maybe is maybe you fuck off 'til tomorrow, write up your little write-up. Let old Cecilio do what he does best without those eyes of yours on me."

I make for the door, pause as I look at the woman nailed to the floor.

"She ain't gonna hurt you. Just go."

Look back, and those organic, grafted alligator's teeth leer at me from the darkness. If he has not had me killed in my bed, and I am alive in the morning, I will continue the interview. Do my best to remain objective.

And find out exactly what kind of man my father is.

The Boulevard of Broken Glass

by Nicolas Papaconstantinou, Southampton, UK of elephantwords.co.uk

Siân Hannigan crossed from nTown into nHigh via underpass, the carriageway traffic rumbling above her. She exited onto the broken-down street, paused to get her bearings, and moved on.

In some parts of town, the ground crunches underfoot—accumulated years of discarded glass, broken and ground down, coat the concrete pavements. The city gave maintaining these streets. Crossing the imaginary boundary from nTown to nHigh, Siân stepped onto one of these glittering pathways. Like a native, she took it in her stride.

You’re going to Northam High, you wear boots, you walk careful, and you try not to fall down. She thought.

Pretty good advice in general, she realised.

The early evening street was deserted, and well enough lit by the moon and the streetlights that she could see anyone coming from a mile off. The mix of buildings here was odd—local commerce jostled with worn red brick residences, the results of Noughtie gentrification that didn’t stick. Mumbling of music and raised voices came from behind pub doors.

She pulled herself in, hunching against the bitter cold. She had expected a lift to the gig, and wasn’t dressed for winter. Goosebumps prickled her bare tummy, and the fuck-me boots and lissom skirt left her legs exposed. She felt stupid wearing the skirt. The LCT material it was made of, designed to pick up and visualise ambient transmissions, and calibrated for local traffic, stayed a static, light grey. Every now and then, it would pick up some stray wireless activity, wordflicker shifting across it like a placeholder.

nHigh was a satellite dead-spot most of the day—very few locals had the means to make coverage worth providing—besides, they liked to keep things wired down and difficult to intercept. So here, after dark, the skirt was nothing but an impractical fashion glitch. At least her top was better insulated then it looked, bra well padded, black lace over it interwoven with temperature regulating micro-filaments. Her hair gave some comfort, too, long and feathered against her back, the black bushiness of it extending down almost to her arse.

October nights were cold this far from the remote-heated city centre, where Christmas crowds frenzied. Christmas was like a habit that the country got into years ago, and never thought to drop.

Not here on Mary Street, though. Here there were just drunks, hiding in the orange light of the pubs, vents spurting smoke out into the crisp air. Siân breathed it in as she walked. You weren’t allowed to smoke, most places—she felt comforted by the subversiveness going on down here.

The gig was going to be shit—she had known it since getting the assignment. The venue was an old converted church that acted as a rest-stop on the way to whatever mean fame real artists could muster now. The band, some fuckdog faux anarchists whose name refused to stick in her mind, were allegedly on the way into that particular celebrity cul-de-sac. Her editor wanted a positive review, but Siân already knew what she thought of their music—same as it ever was. She had heard it all before. They were a copy of a copy of a copy, like everything else in her life, the signal and the noise eroded through time by repetition.

Siân knew that she had to show willing. But at twenty two years old, she sensed that the music she was covering shouldn’t be making her feel so old.

Where the light hit the pavement, the glass looked like a million tiny cut diamonds, spots of crusted blood here and there.

No boots for pigeons.

She grinned, despite herself, and tried not to think about the dogs that lived in places like this - brutish, slab-headed things, pre-bred with hard, calloused paws and broad grins.

In the shadows, only the sharpest glass caught the light, glinting like stars.

Siân tried not to get pissed off, but it was hard. With so much of the stuff out there either estate-authorised tribute acts for decades back artists, or worse, digitally generated new songs from those same old, dead twats, bands like this one tonight should be a source of hope.

Slim hope.

Siân felt her hands forming fists, and stopped for a second. Breathing exercises, half remembered.

She heard glass break nearby, and pricked her ears in its direction. She could hear something, a sound from her childhood. Crossing the road towards the noise, she felt the cold prickles of a pressure drop on her face, and her skin flustering out toward it.

She stood outside a pub. The sound was voices, older voices, raised to sing, a piano being played, badly, inside. Not, to be fair, as badly as some of the singing. But the song... the song was one that she remembered sung by her parents, always in the winter.

Her dad was the kind of Irish that all English was around St Pats—envious and not Irish at all. Her mum was middle-class Winchester, married down. But this particular song was traditional to them, and to the people inside the pub - she could tell from the feeling that hearing it put in the pit of her stomach.

...Sinatra was swinging, all the drunks they were singing...

Fuck yes... she hadn’t put her finger on it, because it wasn’t there to touch in music any more, but this was what it was supposed to feel like. Triumphal. Tragic. Aspirational. Messy.

She wanted to know the name of the place, so she looked up. At around the same time that the sky opened.

In her four years in this dirty old town, it hadn’t snowed at all. Now, it came down. Millions of snowflakes, tiny and unique. The music played, and Siân felt young again.

She couldn’t read the name of the place, but didn’t suppose it mattered. The gig would not be good, she knew, but now that didn’t matter so much either.

What Is Lost.

by Dr Reed Levine, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Tuesday. The South Shore of Long Island.

What transpires when an immovable object is confronted with an unstoppable force?

I returned home to find things oddly unchanged from what my memories told me. Even with water everywhere, it more or less looked the same, only greener. Floating above the house, looking down, it looked just like it had on Google Earth when I had last looked about 40 years back. Our house, unlike every other one for miles in any direction, was unique.

Prior to my family taking ownership, it had been the homestead of the man who was responsible for building 90% or so of all the other houses in the neighborhood. Those other houses were all from one of five cookie-cutter models. Over the years, various owners had made renovations and updates but behind the make-up was that same old face. As a child, it was bizarre going to various friends’ homes and discovering they all lived in the same home with different furniture and wallpaper. I could go to anyone’s house and know where the bathroom was or how big the closet in their sister’s bedroom was. How many stairs led to the basement…

My home though was different. It was a brick box, supposedly built for free courtesy of all the people the man who used to live there hired. You want the contract to supply copper wire to four hundred homes? Wire my home for free. Want to sell us the cement for this entire neighborhood? Lay my foundation gratis. And so on.

So it was a flat-roofed brick home I now floated idly above. Living on the shore Long Island, we had periodically heard of the threat of erosion slowly eating away at our property. The true end came much faster.

It had taken roughly eight months for the water to rise from doorstep to rooftop. Now it was deep enough that a motorboat could cruise over the roof without threat of damage to their submerged prop. A horseshoe crab scuttled menacingly through a broken window. Jellyfish in my kitchen, shrimp swarming in my parent’s bedroom.

Down there I once ate breakfast in an innocent warm summer sun, lost my first tooth, planted peas and smiled when their sweet pods swelled, vanished into comic books, played angsty drums after returning from high school, got splinters in my feet every summer running barefoot on the deck. I don’t have the heart to dive down and swim through my old bedroom. Instead I swim back up and surface. I climb back into the worn boat I chartered a mere 12 minutes after diving off.

“Back so soon”, the pilot asks, looking at his watch, “the boat is still yours for another hour and a half.”

“Take me home,” I exhale, my face dripping with a saline wetness that well conceals my tears.

What I say next is lost under the roar of the outboard’s motor as we turn and begin the long ride back to the mainland.

The Living Tattoo | Binghampton, NY

by R. Soon, Atlanta, GA, USA

“Aaooooo…ahhh….ow! OUCH!”

“Hold still if you’re gonna make a racket, at least.”

“Goddam, that HURTS!”

“Didn’t I warn you it’d sting? Eh? I got a signature says you’s aware of potential discomfort, now you didn’t want to go under and I’m not gonna pay the price hearing you bellyache all night, so pipe down!”

“Shit, alright already, I’m piping down. If I knew you’d be stabbing me like that I’d’ve sprocketed up—”

“Bring that shit in my lab and I’ll kick your ass, beanie. Hold still. Now, after we’re done, you can shoot whatever you want, but whatever this stuff does, you’s to blame. You signed, you know the rules….”

nnp://wlcdb.la.net

Welcome to the World Languages & Cultures Database of Los Angeles, the only free and uncensored encyclopedia on the open ‘net!

(This site is being rendered in the high-resolution nanonet protocol. Here is the low-resolution http mirror.)

Your query for “livetattoo history” returned 643 results. Your filter “100% match” returned one result. Congratulations!

Livetattoo: body modification, external, primarily cosmetic

Top 3 related items: moveable tattoo, mindtattoo, net-tattoo

Abstract:

The first step towards the invention of the livetattoo is documented as having been realized in Binghamton, NY, in the year 2019, by a freelance biochemist named Berto Gomez. The first recipient, Atreo Pasquál, was a used car dealer at the time but eventually became an assistant to Gomez and continued his research after his passing in 2026.

Gomez first achieved his goal of a consistently moving tattoo image by mixing the latest dyes with components of a non-toxic, solarcatalytic chemical reaction. His first tattoo depended heavily on sunlight for catalyzation and quickly depleted its reactants, but subsequent efforts with newly developed organic capacitance, more efficient reactions, and specially formulated dyes brought far superior results.

By the time of his passing, Gomez was hailed as a pioneer in scientific and commercial industries, his breakthrough having won him the Nobel/Hawking Prize three months before his death. However, Pasquál took the original concept of the moving tattoo in an entirely different direction, convinced that advanced computer processing and miniaturization were the way to go. With the collaboration of a variety of software programmers and computing hardware designers and by experimenting liberally on himself, Pasquál eventually fathered the forerunner of the now widely popular livetattoo.

By far the most widespread permanent livetattoo configuration at present is the basic programmable organic dermal circuit layer (ODCL). By means of an integrated short-range transmitter, the user can design or upload images with most personal computing devices. The ODCL format was the first one to be standardized and made available commercially.

Also commonly found now are livetattoos that feature integration with various parts of the body, such as those that detect specific neurotransmitter firings (in effect displaying mood) or brainwave patterns, tie into the visual nerve bundles, or respond to touch, and translate the received data to visible patterns by program rules equally as available as common image packs. Numerous other configurations are possible, and thousands of ‘net sites are dedicated to them.

A more recent commercial development is the moveable livetattoo, similar to the ODCL model but attached to the epidermis’ exterior by adhesive and ergo designed to withstand the typical abuses to which the human skin is subjected. ODCL livetattoos, in contrast, can only be safely removed by a licensed surgical technician.

Very recently, spates of livetattoo hacking have swept cities worldwide, but have been considered a minor problem given the extremely limited scope of possible damage, and as of yet no livetattoo manufacturers have reported taking steps to remedy the issue. Additionally, the city of Nagasaki, Japan has explicitly authorized commercial retailers the use of localized livetattoo transmitter overrides for advertising purposes, and also boasts a flourishing industry of full-body advertising. (end abstract)

http://peoplesnews.ind.us.net/archives/brdcst~nwsfd:searchyear=2049;term=Pasquál+missing;result=6

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More rumors of scientist sightings

The latest sighting report for missing scientist Atreo Pasquál has come from Taos, New Mexico. Three pedestrians in downtown called authorities around the same time, giving search teams confidence that they were on the right track.

At this time, however, no more evidence of Pasquál has surfaced, and the federal manhunters’ newfound gusto is fading quickly.

Atreo Pasquál is regarded as the father of the modern livetattoo and had dedicated his life to furthering their development ever since he began work with mentor and collaborator Dr. Berto Gomez in the late 20-teens.

Circumstances surrounding his disappearance are murky, and federal authorities are not at all forthcoming. A popular, though unverified, story mentions livetattoo-based camouflage technology that Pasquál had been researching and that a private military firm (unnamed here to prevent libel) had threatened to take by force; as it goes, he covered himself in the camouflage, destroyed all records of his research, and subsequently took to the shadows. It bears reiteration that this allegation does not have fully verified sources.

But whatever the cause, Pasquál has evaded discovery with apparent ease so far, and the nationwide manhunt continues.