[Original Novel] Metal Fever 2: The Erasure of Asherah, Part 13

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At least I didn’t have a dream family in that one. At least I didn’t have a dream wife. That always makes it a good deal more bittersweet when I awaken to the reality of my existence. Which, right now, is the meager solace of instant noodles and the flickering computer screen before me.

I clicked on a local news stream. It was some dramatic social concern piece about the increasing trend of celebrity worshipers to integrate themselves into a hive mind with their idol. Hive mind may be a harsh term, but also essentially correct.

The musician, or athlete, or whoever else forms the nucleus of the neurally-networked collective becomes something like the ego of the resulting meta-personality. It’s still distinctly, recognizably them, as if they’ve become the head with all of their followers comprising the body.

Their followers become like appendages, both physical and cognitive. Their own personality still present, but subdued by comparison. It reminds me somewhat of how male anglerfish are totally absorbed into the bodies of the females, becoming nothing more than a new internal organ for producing sperm.

Or slime molds. Billions of single celled organisms working together as a single large super-organism, though any individual is free to come or go as they please. Perhaps an atavistic leftover from the stage in evolution where life went multicellular.

A glimpse of a different path life might’ve taken, where participation in the larger organism was voluntary. Instead the cells in my body are locked in place, unable to leave. Assigned specialized tasks from birth, be they lung cells, fat cells or neurons.

A reflection, in microcosm, of the country around me. The beautiful suited host was grilling a K-pop idol about the ethics of inviting her fans, mostly young impressionable girls, to sacrifice their individuality in order to be connected more directly and intimately to her.

There was also the matter of her judicious rejection of middle aged male applicants, of which there was apparently an embarrassing abundance. The two had a laugh over that, pictures of sweaty bald salarymen who’d applied to neurally merge with her scrolling by in the upper right portion of the screen.

They looked a lot like me. I suddenly felt self conscious and wished I’d been a touch choosier about which body I bought. I looked down and gripped as much belly fat as I could in each hand. Fuck it. Everybody knows “You break it you bought it.” But if you already bought it, then break it!

It’s settled, then. I’m gonna run this fleshy mass into the ground before I pour that kind of money into a body again. For better or worse this is who I am, for at least the next five or ten years. The next story was something about genetic engineering.

The host gestured to an inset image of genetic scientists working on what she described as plastic eating bacteria. “Shining Tomorrow Corporation has been identified as the creator of a cutting edge microorganism that rapidly devours plastic waste...a species recently found many kilometers outside of containment.”

The image changed to a feed from the bay. A trash barge like the one I got my ebike from floated there totally exposed, most of the trash once glued to the outside having evidently been gobbled up by this super-bacteria.

There were police robots cuffing resentful looking criddlers on the barge, though I didn’t see Crazy Dave among them. “The outbreak of plastic eating bacteria recently resulted in the discovery of a large electric bicycle fencing operation taking place right under the nose of law enforcement...cleverly camouflaged as a garbage scow.”

I hope Crazy Dave is watching this. I bet he’s shitting his pants right now if he is, not that it could make them noticeably filthier. Then again it’s bad news for me too. After everything I did to get my foot in the door with those creeps, they’ll be shut down for sure now...and all I got out of it was an ebike.

When I made my way up to the front, rays of morning sunshine pouring in through the lobby windows stung my eyes. A consequence of the dark little cave I live in for the time being. I glanced behind me. Through a few partly opened doors I spied lost souls like myself, transfixed by the dancing colored lights of their computer screens.

“How you sleep, American customer? So big belly! Are you pregnant with burger child?” The manager laughed uproariously at his own joke, grabbing my midsection and jiggling it around. “No more package today for you. You want add more days?”

I shook my head, slipped on my pollution mask and emerged into the open. I can’t say it’s fresh air I was after, since there’s not much of that to be had. It’s more that I couldn’t bear to be cooped up in that cubicle all day. I had no particular place to be until the apartment building repairs completed, so I just rode around to get the lay of the land.

Shenzen is dazzling at night, but not much to look at during the day. From street level it looks more or less like any other modern city. That said, there’s still a handful of eye catching landmarks. Distinctly Chinese architectural oddities that remind you which city you’re in.

The swooping roof of the surreal looking civic center is an irresistible photo op. Shows up right away in any image search for “Shenzen”. There’s also a number of theme parks, “Window of the World” probably being the most famous for its miniature replicas of famous international landmarks.

This whole city is like a theme park, in a sense. It puts on a flashy show for visitors during the day, but after the sun goes down, the park staff don’t leave. They’re already home. Many of them tucked out of sight, out of mind beneath street level in what amounts to human warehouses.

To my surprise, I once again caught myself enjoying the ride. The exhilaration of wind whipping through my hair, the endorphins released as I pumped my legs, the appetizing scent of street food somehow making it through the mask’s filter.

This is what it means to live, surely? Not hunching over the computer in that dimly lit chamber, slurping up plasticy noodles from their steamy chemical broth. But that’s my future, isn’t it? Hiding away like vermin, plugged into whatever rig I can cobble together, working my way back up from the bottom.

Maybe there’s room in my life for both. A balance to be struck between the computer and the bike, between shadows and sunshine. I couldn’t afford the bike without the computer, nor could I bear what my life has become without the bike.

The dodgy pile of parts was growing on me fast, as anything on two wheels tends to. For all its shortcomings, it was something to work on. To upgrade, to maintain. A focal point and outlet for my nurturing energies.

There’s something primal and pure about having a machine to take care of. I think men need that in their lives. It’s like a zen garden, something to maintain and keep perfect. If you do a good job taking care of the machine when it most needs you, then the machine will take care of you when you need it most.

The bike chose to interrupt this sentiment by breaking down. It rolled to a stop, throttle no longer responding in front of what used to be an indoor water park. There was an electronics shop next to it, and between the two an alley in which various covered booths were set up.

A marketplace. For those of us who can’t afford the prices at the electronics shop, and don’t care overmuch about where the merchandise came from. Shady looking scum all competed to drown each other out, loudly beckoning me to inspect their wares. My kind of people.

First, I had to diagnose the problem. The display was still on, but freaking out, all the different indicators blinking spastically. I plugged my phone into the motor controller. These things are often programmable so they can ship it electronically limited to whatever the legal max speed is, but the customer can then remove the limiter if they like.

I did no such thing, intent as ever on avoiding the wrong kind of attention. Besides, the one time I’ve seen a cop pull over somebody on an ebike, he plugged a cable into it from a gizmo which I assume checks to see if the limiter’s been disabled. They’re no fools. Instead I ran diagnostics with a free, ad supported analyst program I found after a minute of searching. Burst capacitor it turned out.

I found a long list of forum posts in the search results, people bitching about the low grade capacitors on this exact model of bike. They all recommended just replacing all of them at once rather than waiting for them to inevitably go bad one by one.

That would depend on what a capacitor of this size goes for around here. I used a part identifier app to determine whether the capacitors on offer were any good. The scraggly, wrinkled old man selling them crossed his arms and furrowed his brow, but didn’t object.

“These are top quality caps” he eventually spit out. I nodded. “Looks like it. I bet the bike you took these from was a good deal more expensive than mine.” Rather than take offense as I expected, he laughed, slapping his knee.

“Funny guy. For you, special price.” What was special about it turned out to be that it was only two times the market value of those particular caps, instead of three. Am I really the clown here? I showed him the price listings for the part on my phone and eventually haggled him down to market value.

There’s no way not to get ripped off here, all you can do is limit how much. The other booths were mostly selling knockoffs of American toys, games and clothing. I smirked at a t-shirt with English text on it reading “BORN TO DIE / WORLD IS A FUCK / Kill Em All 1989 / I am trash man / 410,757,864,530 DEAD COPS”. That’s a classic.

Next to it were action figures. “Sense of Right Alliance: Super Crime Solving Partnership”. A Batman figure, Superman, Spiderman, Shrek and a toy car for some unfathomable reason. Why is Shrek there? Is he lost? Do they all ride in that little car? I feel like there must be more efficient ways to solve crime.

Opposite him, a competitor was selling “Robert Cop” figures, patterned after a classic movie character. Not that you’d know it with their crudely sculpted, malformed little faces. “The furniture of law enforcement!” the packaging proclaimed. “Collect enemy and friend figures! Optical Prime! Robert Cop 2! Ray Liotta!”

Ray...Liotta? It just went on like that. Row after row of bootleg backpacks bearing the image of Sonic the Hedgehog with “Harry Potter” written across the top, and “Obama” written down the side. Just a wee bit past the point of cultural relevance.

Next to it, backpacks bearing Lisa Frank style cartoon lion cubs, with “ANUS” written just above. Come on, really? That had to be on purpose. Another depicted some sort of comic book cyborg hero surrounded by dramatic, stylized text reading “Black man loves the school.”

Who buys this stuff? Just then, someone edged around me to get to the last booth. A middle aged woman in a raincoat. She bought one of the “world is a fuck” shirts in small. I’m sure that’ll look sharp on her grandson.

There really is a market for everything, isn’t there. I couldn’t help but have a look at the games as well. “Super Wonderful Mario!” Loads of them were Mario knockoffs, in fact. One of them cryptically titled “Grand Dad” with a picture of Mario dressed up as Fred Flintstone. Sure, I guess he could have a grandson nobody knew about. Deepest lore. Next was “Super Plumb Mans.” Indeed, that’s an accurate description of their job.

I asked the fellow manning the booth what manner of beastly, high tech console I’d have to buy in order to play any of these absolute masterpieces of modern game design. It turned out I had a choice between Nintendo Polystation and Super Megason III.

Still not done amusing myself, I inquired as to whether he had a version of Ultimate Redneck Battle for either machine. To my sincere shock, he did. Except this one came on a lime green cartridge titled “Super Unhygienic Rude Country Men Fisticuffs ‘96”.

Tragically, I didn’t have enough for both the capacitors and the game. I’m sure that my every waking moment after this will be haunted by not knowing what fabulous wonders I missed out on. Just how unhygienic were those rude country men? Now I’ll never know!

Just then I passed a booth with a part I recognized. “That’s a motor controller, isn’t it?” The woman selling the smattering of undoubtedly stolen ebike parts nodded and smiled. “Variable voltage! Can work with many motor, big or small. Accept any input voltage between 24 and 72.”

I looked down at the capacitors I’d already bought. God damnit. Then I checked how my mining rig was doing. Up to .2 of a single SeaCoin. I did some quick math in my head, and worked out that I could either afford the variable motor controller...or I could eat dinner tonight.

My stomach gurgled, as if casting its vote. You don’t get a vote you little shit, papa needs to soup up his bike. I emerged from the alley with a pocket full of capacitors, and a brand new motor controller. Well, new to me.

I wasted no time swapping out the old motor controller, still stinking of burnt PCB, then installing the new one. It needed some light soldering though. I frowned, mulling it over. Then took the old controller and capacitors back to the woman’s booth.

“This controller needs new caps. I’ve got some here and can solder them in just fine. Then you can have it, if I can keep the soldering pen.” She rubbed her chin, considering the merits of the exchange I proposed...then quickly set me up with what I needed.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 14!}