(thought excercise) Scenes from a terrible alternate universe.

[HappyMcWonderful]

So I woke up this morning and immediately lit the boiler under my 2017 Ford Griefbox. Given that literally everything runs on coal including my appliances it takes about two hours to get everything warmed up. My previous apartment had central steam but I moved to one where I had to invest in individual boilers for everything.

Since it was cold out I had to let the car heat from nearly frozen, I ended up running a bit late. I stopped off at McDonalds and ordered a 20 piece Beef McNugget box for breakfast with a side of horseradish sauce. The coffee tasted like it usually does, you can't make good coffee for that price.

Pulling out onto the expressway I shot across the bridge and made it to my office with moments to spare. I logged into the servers and immediately began uploading cat pictures for people to "google." Once that was done, I spent the rest of the morning posting random and incoherent often contradictory posts to Facebook, which really hasn't done well since Geocities took it over in 2008. Shortly after the merger between them and Lycos, they took on Google and then Yahoo and since then people really haven't given much though to "social media." My job as a content provider pays well and satisfies my creative writing urges but I have to wonder... is this internet thing really going to catch on at all?


(Rules: Either continue building off of this alternate universe, or create your own for others to expand on. Try not to get too political or controversial, the goal is to have fun.)

 

[XCV330]

Topbox Eddie waited on the quay dock's, eyes peeled through the coal smog for some the sign he was looking for. Amidst the fog horns, the noise of the cranes and the chatter of the longshoreman not using nearly as much colorful language as they were were famed for, the triangular red sail came into view, guiding lasers coming through. Eddie took out his Red Squad badge and held it for the laser to hit and scan while the dhow pulled in closer.

These were Maldivean privateers, refugees from the warming times when all the coal smoke of the past hundred years helped flood their islands. The French wouldnt take them, the Saudi King feigned interest, and a smiling Georgian peanut farmer in the White House said "Y'all come on over, ya hear?". He was gone by the time they made it in on sail power, so now they had a half existance, never allowed past haven port cities, but willing to do whatever was needed for hard currency.

An immigration toadie came up to take their papers. Half his body was bumps and trike wheels, so a war vet that got a government job and actually took it seriously. Rare commodity. He pulled out two Kennedies and raved it at the clerk "Get lost. State Affairs, official biz."

"Fuck you." said the fellow masshole, but he took the bills, rotated quickly and was gone.

Eddie waited for the skipper to step onto the docks. "Asamalakaam or whoever the hell yuse people say. Welcome to the People's Republic of Boston."

Eddie say the skipper hadn't yet started untying the cargo. Fair enough. "Show me" he said.

The Maldivian said something in Dhivehi to a young man on deck who opened a crate with a crowbar, pulling out styrofoam peanuts and finally tossing some of the contraband to his captain, who handed it to Eddie.

He unboxed the thing with an old French Opinel knife and pulled it out. It was sleek. Japanese. The damned thing didn't even need batteries. Supposedly it ran on body heat differential, tiny little efficient stirling engine technology that the PRB had to sell to Japan dearly during the revolution, keeping it running.

"Three Yankee coast guard cutters we past." the skipper complained, "This is a bargain."

"Yeah yeah." Eddie said, turning on the controls the way he'd been trained. He'd never seen the internet. Boston was cut off from the outside world in many ways, with that freak Clinton cutting the undersea cable in 93. "So. wireless. Let's see. "

After some fumbling he brought up some animated picture of a cat looking grumpy on something called Geocities. "So much for the struggle" he said to himself but he snapped his fingers to some longshoreman further up the dock, the signal to exchange.

They started hauling crates of submachine pistols to the captain, who would likewise check one out. It was a fair deal, no matter what the captain said. He'd take them to Belfast, make a killing from whoever was making a killing there, and go back to the States complaining that he'd not made his fishing quota yet.

And in a world where people sat on their capitalist asses watching cat videos, did any of it matter? He shrugged. This stuff was going to intel.

 

[publiusr]

Meanwhile, back on de blanche, the cat’s meats man was humming “t’pokita, t’poketa’