[Original Novel] Metal Fever 2: The Erasure of Asherah, Part 6

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Of all the things I expected getting onto this plane, shooting the shit with a dolphin and enjoying myself to boot was pretty far down the list. Remble turned out to be male, his name taken from a cartoon he liked when very young.

When I asked how dolphins watch cartoons, he described a human conshelfer he was friends with making a point to wheel a little old fashioned television into the moon pool module of the subsea colony she lived in so Remble could surface, flop up on the rim and watch it.

The image of a child and a dolphin watching their favorite show together tickled me, and humanized Remble to the point where I began wondering whether the term “humanize” is appropriate any longer.

I posed the question to Remble, who mulled it over. “The vibe I got from you before we started talking-” I cut in to apologize, but Remble kept going. “-It was hostile. I can tell you don’t talk to many fins. I am sure there have been some who gave you good reasons to suppose it’s a waste of time.

I’m not going to point any fingers at you, so to speak. Fins and humans alike just clam up when you put them on trial like that. I’m also not going to tell you some kind of sob story about what bad shape the ocean is in, that we now rely on the offshore farms you’ve built to feed us when before the concept of paying for our meals was an absurdity.

Besides the Lilly nonsense I imagine that sort of accusatory whinging is what sours people like you to fins. But realize, those are the sounds that insecure, scared people make regardless of species. People who feel powerless to improve their conditions by conventional means, because the opposition is overwhelmingly strong. So, they try to get what they want in a different way.

Think about times in the past when you’ve had the upper hand. It felt good, didn’t it? Felt secure. You didn’t complain, but because there was nothing to complain about. So the complaints of others probably sounded trivial to your ear.

But now, think about times when you were dominated by someone else. When you couldn’t get the better of them however hard you tried. It changed how you thought, didn’t it? From the mindset of a predator to the mindset of prey. It changed your tone, your narrative and rhetoric.

Probably you started noticing every little thing about your opponent that you could find fault with, in order to take them down a peg. Probably you began to nitpick, to look for hypocrisy you could rub their nose in. Not that you imagined these qualities, necessarily. They may well have been real, but you only felt the need to fight that way because it was the only recourse left to you.

This is the difference between how the weak and strong fight their battles. The difference in rhetoric between conquerors and the conquered. When you hear terms like ‘privilege’, ‘micro-aggressions’ and so forth you’re hearing the frustrated cries of the defeated.”

I objected here to the term “conquered”. It seemed a bit harsh to me, given that we’d gone to great lengths not only to bring dolphins close to cognitive parity with humans, but also to integrate them into our society.

Remble snorted. “Only after abducting us by the thousands to perform tricks for the amusement of your children in various theme parks. The ones you didn’t slaughter, I mean.” I cringed and gestured for him to stop, that he’d made his point.

“I’m really not looking to shame you. I know you’re tired of hearing the long list of human atrocities against fins recited to you over and over. But fins do that because it’s the only weapon we know of that seems to work on you.

To say that we’re negotiating from a disadvantaged position is a gross understatement. When you’re pinned beneath the oppressor’s boot, and discover that it has an achilles heel...guilt, in your case...do you really expect us not to leverage it against you? What else can we do to improve our lot?”

I wanted to protest the term “oppressor”, but knew that would just take us back to square one, and I could find very little in his reasoning to dispute anyhow. Not that it saved any time, as he was far from finished with me.

“My point is, you’ve inhabited both roles in your life I’d wager: the victor, and the vanquished. So you know that the world looks very different from either perspective. When you’re losing, you see yourself as the courageous battered underdog fighting for justice with cruel, brutal oppressors against which any amount of treachery is justified.

But then, when you’re winning, you’re simply the hero of your own story attaining the reward which was always richly deserved. You don’t see yourself as one of the brutal oppressors once you’re on top for the same reasons the people who used to have the whip hand over you never did.

You also don’t recognize the accusatory, defensive voices attacking you as what you, yourself sounded like right up until your fortunes improved. That was you! That’s how the embattled underdog narrative sounds from the other side, like the whining of a sore loser.

So the next time a fin lashes out at you, I implore you not to reflexively retaliate. Instead recognize that it’s an expression of fear. Intimidation, insecurity and humiliation. Whether they’re right to feel that way is another matter, but you must realize that they’ve had as mixed an experience with humans as you’ve had with fins.”

I didn’t have much to say against that. “This is refreshing” I admitted. “I mean how you come at me without demanding anything, as a diplomat instead of a soldier. Usually it’s some radicalized asshole whose life is totally defined by whatever cause social media told them was the most important thing in the universe.

So naturally they think I should immediately make my own life all about it as well. Like I owe them total devotion just for the asking, when we don’t even know each other. I’m like, ‘pay me to care’. You know? I’m not an unreasonable man. I can be persuaded. I take cash or D-coin. Otherwise what’s my motivation, right?

Probably you’re gonna say that’s the perspective of somebody on top. A predator, someone without any serious problems. You couldn’t be more wrong though. I’m in a world of shit I can’t even tell you about. I have my own problems. I’m eyeball fucking deep in problems.

So when some dumbshit teenager with neon hair tells me I’m Satan because I’m indifferent to some issue totally alien to my life experience, which wasn’t even on my radar until then, it just makes me want to oppose whatever they stand for. Even shit I’d otherwise potentially support.”

Remble snorted once more, a small puff of vapor and water droplets splattering the little console with the no smoking and seatbelt lights just above him. “That’s not just a human thing. I’ve met fins like that. Although I put it down to your bad influence.”

We shared another laugh, and I contemplated trying to get him drunk before remembering how abysmally skint I am. Can dolphins get drunk? “A lot of it’s just down to context” Remble continued. “If two strangers meet under polite, friendly terms, they will focus on their commonalities and come away convinced they are more alike than different.

If those same two strangers instead meet under hostile conditions, they will focus narrowly on their disparities instead, coming away convinced that they are more different than similar. So much of our perception is down to how we are primed beforehand, and how an issue is framed.”

I rubbed my chin stubble. “Yeah, alright. That makes good sense. But where’s the star?” Remble cocked his melon subtly, so I clarified. “When a conversation about examining one’s own biased perspectives like this takes place, usually a yellow CGI star with a rainbow behind it arcs just overhead with “The More You Know” written on it.”

The moment of silence afterward led me to assume he didn’t get it. But evidently he’d watched enough old television when he was younger to pick up on my meaning, which mercifully saved me from explaining the joke. He didn’t laugh, though.

“You know, I was just watching a bit on the news about those climate fugitives that got captured recently. I know a lot of the charges against them were filed by fins. What’s your take on that? I always kinda figured it’s a moot point if everybody goes fullmetal.

Machines don’t need clean air to breathe, or a viable ecosystem or whatever. They can live in radiation blasted vacuum, Antarctica, Mars...just about any environment within their temperature, pressure and radiation tolerances.”

Remble pointed out that not everybody can afford to go fullmetal. That in fact, most can’t. “Besides which, that’s not really an option for fins. The market for cetacean implants is pretty small. Salt water is...a suboptimal environment for cybernetics.”

I thought back to the implants I bought for the data center heist, recalling the steeply increased danger of infection and famously short lifespan of implants designed for underwater use. “...Alright. But that’s really more of an argument for improved implants than for trying to fix the atmosphere, ocean and everything else. The only rats in a sinking ship which do not drown are the ones that grow gills, if you get my meaning. Maybe that’s a tortured analogy, but-”

Remble assured me he understood, though I could tell he didn’t agree. The water at the bottom of his clear plastic body sleeve sloshed violently as the plane shuddered, hooking into the electromagnetic linear accelerator that would enable us to take off from such a short runway.

I gripped the armrests with white knuckles as my doughy midsection flattened against the seat. Remble chirped and shrieked excitedly, which my translator interpreted as “Hahehe hahohe huehuhe.” D for effort. The metallic whine of the accelerator rapidly faded, and just like that, we were in the air.

I could feel some sort of resonating vibration which I assumed was the plane’s own propulsion system kicking in. No moving parts, evidently. It called into question why the launch mechanism was even necessary, until I thought about what a devastatingly huge load on the plane’s batteries a conventional takeoff would probably be.

The giddiness wore off as well, and soon the plane AI began giving us some canned speech about anticipated travel time, being courteous to other passengers and so on. It was visually represented by an anthropomorphic cartoon airplane character volumetrically projected into the cabin.

It was dressed as a stewardess, spoke in a sultry voice and had a disturbingly curvy figure. Why did the developers of this program try to make a bipedal airplane sexy? Who is the intended audience for that?

I recalled some terrifying fetish sims I’ve stumbled across before on the darkweb. Alright, yeah, I can see it. There probably already is an audience for this shit, and I’m sure I don’t want to meet them. Remble ordered a steak.

“Steak? Really?” Through a beak full of lab grown sirloin, he mumbled “We don’t only eat fish.” I again appreciated his candor. “Aren’t you going to order anything?” he pried, upon hearing my stomach growl. Must have at least some implants, to hear that well out of the water.

Some brain implants as well, I’d put good money on it. Full bio dolphins, despite decades of efforts to genetically engineer improvements to their intelligence, are not exactly the brightest bulbs without a little bit of ‘silicon assistance’. But then, the same is true of many humans. In at least that one respect, implants have been a powerful force for equality.

“They have pizza, you know. This airline is offering freshly baked pizza while in the air for the next six months as a promotional novelty. It’s not made by a machine either, they actually have a paid employee whose job it is to put it together by hand in a sterile food preparation room below the passenger deck.

After you order, the app shows you a live video feed of him kneading the dough, pouring the sauce, and putting the toppings on. You can even click a button that makes a robot arm whip him, if you want him to go faster.”

I thought I detected a tinge of sadistic glee in his voice for a moment. I really could go for pizza, but didn’t want to spend anything until I reached Shenzen, so I fibbed that I was feeling nauseous from the takeoff.

Remble ordered one for himself. I pointed out he’d already had a steak. “Please, that was an appetizer. I weigh nearly 400 kilograms. I’m sure you can work out for yourself how many calories I need to eat per day.”

So, he ate. And ate, and ate. I watched as he ordered the pizza on the pivoting touchscreen between us. “Haha, you were right. There he is, he’s really doing it.” I leaned in, studying the uniformed goob’s movements as he manually assembled the pie.

“Yeah, that’s it you little bitch” I whispered at the screen. “Knead that dough niiiice and sllloooowww. Daddy like. Yeah pour that sauce, pour that gooey tomato sauce you fucking slut. You know that’s what I need.” Remble cautioned me that the video feed was in fact two-way.

“What, he can hear me?” The dude making the pizza looked up at the camera with a mixture of disgust and concern. Well fuck me, that’s what I get. I should’ve said it in dolphin. A pair of triple jointed plastic arms sliding along tracks built into the ceiling then delivered the pizza to Remble.

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^{Stay Tuned for Part 7!}