Conversation · Noid

"The man picks up on stuff. And he knows a lot about the church. I got a lot to learn from him..."

"Good thing you didn't squash him."

"You mean all his sobriety stuff isn't too restrictive for you?"

"Talking to him, I realized that sobriety can be pretty hard core, too. I gotta respect it..."

"What do you mean?"

"Are you sure it's a crab he reminds you of?"

"Of course I'm sure. What? You think I'm confused?"

"Eight legs, walks upside down on the ceiling, spins webs sometimes..."

"Yeah, a crab."

"No, you're definitely right. That's entirely crab-like behaviour you're describing."

"You mean Tiago?"

"You say that as a carpenter yourself?"

He shakes his head. "I don't say much anything as a carpenter anymore. They tried to make me into a reckoner and a leveller. Made me a bit manic, y'know?"

"I regret the time I dedicated to that profession, and that worker collective. I say things more as a member of the hard core psi-dance community these days."

"You're not going to ask me how I knew?"

"Why? You're a cop. I carry carpentry tools."

"Understood."

"The material knowledge is mega, though." He looks around the hollow hall of the church. "Guild shit. Teaches independence."

"What did you mean by dead bodies?"

"Dead bodies of perennial plants." He taps on the wood. "Sigma functions have left this place. It's a good thing we came along -- the spiritual collapse has been total."

"Spiritual collapse?"

"'I saw some piglets suckling their dead mother' -- have you heard this one, cop-man?" He continues without waiting for an answer: "'After a short while they shuddered and went away.'"

"They had sensed that she could no longer see them and that she wasn't like them anymore. What they loved in their mother wasn't her body, but whatever it was that made her body live."

"End of quote. This is a high-quality carcass." He kicks the floorboard. "The power of anodic beats and hard bass is needed to reanimate it."

"What you're saying is: religion has stopped being hard core?"

"It never was. A three-thousand-year-old regime of History, built by hundreds of generations of self-appointed intellectuals..." He looks around. "It's false to the core."

The way he says it, the false in false-core is invested with twenty kilotons of disgust.

"But you guys said the Ecclesiastes were all about love and hard core -- before, remember?"

"I only said: Unity. One word. Figures of authority always misquote you." He points to his friends.

"Andre doesn't care about the Ecclesiastes. He just wants the operation to run smoothly. And Egg is a demi-beast. You shouldn't listen to what people say, you should listen to what they are."

"And you propose dance music will supplant this system?"

"Anodic dance music," he nods. "Regular dance music wasn't hard enough. And yes, I do."

You know what this kind of stuff goes well with?

I don't need to be a narc.

Your pleasure response was more like... just wondering if he has any?

"Don't you have to be on drugs for that though?"

"Only a little."

"Cool."

"It's a necessity. All large human gatherings are narcotic. It's just the way of the spinal cord."

"Khm," the lieutenant interjects: "There is a difference between narcotics and group elation. One kills you, the other does not."

"The supercharged humanism that the innocentic system has been feeding us, on giant city squares? That's not a drug? The sugar and wheat it feeds us is healthy?"

"Forget it." He waves his hand. "It would become an imbecilic discussion. You two continue. It's more hard core that way."

He does not feel left out. In fact he probably just wanted to say "hard core."

It does feel good to say it. Maybe the speedfreaks are on to something?

"Not cool." Shake your head.

"All large human gatherings are narcotic. Ask any such undertaking in history -- this included." He nods toward a human-shaped pillar nearby. "Chemistry is true to its word."

"I even agreed with you. About the Ecclesiastes being okay with this..."

"But were you wrong? The Founding Party is okay with everything. Look around." He spreads his arms. "They do not have enough love for the human crew to oppose anything anymore. We're on our own."

That's still a lie! RE-ASSERT YOURSELF.

That wouldn't be cool. I want to be cool.

Mewling wimp! Pathetic...

"Perfidy! You lied to me. I am tired of people lying to me."

"Well..." The young man pushes his chest out, the skeleton of suspenders rattling...

"Noid-man! Mellow out," the dancing hedgehog yelps at his friend. "Stop aggroing the law!"

His chest returns to its normal proportions. "I'm sorry."

"Then I did right not to agree with all that talk about the Ecclesiastes being okay with this then."

"The Founding Party doesn't give two shits about this place. Look around." He spreads his arms. "They do not have enough love for the human crew to oppose anything anymore. We're on our own."

"What you're saying is: you're not a big fan of the innocentic system?"

"A three-thousand-year-old tyrannical regime of History, built and maintained by hundreds of generations of self-appointed intellectuals..." He looks around. "It's false-core."

"What exactly are you saying?"