JohnnyGoodyear get your gun.
It's been
5 long years since the last
war, but here we are again. The faces have changed, but the fighting... the fighting never goes away. New faces lead by
grizzled veterans, chasing the dream. God, it all seems so
naive now, down here in the mud. I hear another newbie screaming for his momma down in the
No-man's land of
Catbox Alley while I search my pockets for my last smoke.
IWhoSawTheFace holds the lighter patiently while my hands shake in the cold nodey trench.
"Do you remember what we're fighting for any more?" I ask him as a nodeshell bursts high above us, raining hot letters.
"Not really man, I'm just in it for the
chicas."
I shake my head and adjust the helmet straps between
puffs. The
raygun is still hot in my hands, and the cheap blue plastic is starting to crack. We let the
Offendulon loose days ago and you can still hear it, late at night, howling
insults at the moon. It's better that way. Like
the old days.
They issued us
rose-colored glasses back at
boot camp, just after the draft.
Poll after poll got passed around, trumpeting doom and the end times. Waves of
immigrants poured in from foreign shores, shipped in by
Google smugglers while we worried about a
brain drain to the Commonwealth of
Livejournal and the
Wikipedia Republic.
Writing Quality Inflation ran wild, and people were trying to buy basic
votes with wheelbarrows of
low-denomination nodes. The
golden age of brotherhood between the wars was short lived. Politicians ramped up the rhetoric, electing fiery leaders with strong opinions, flooding the airwaves with
utopian visions and
screeds against the problem elements in society: The new, the old, the powerful, the powerless. When the
Borg deterrent lost its teeth, pent up aggression ran like spring
sap.
Democracies rot from the bottom up they say, and when
John Q. Noder got wrapped up in the debate over why his
vote should or shouldn't be for or against a node, I knew it was only a matter of time.
Editors changed to generals, the node-market crashed, and the
Gods on high stood back from the fray, just like the old days.
I was reading a daylog when Old Man
Halspal came on, decked out in his Sunday best, brandishing the note high for the cameras, promising "
Peace in Our Time". I put my
Pope Hat in the attic and fished out the old grey crate full of
firmlink grenades and short range
insulting softlink shells. I'd made my bed, now I would have to kill for it.
It was raining when I met
Jet-Poop down at the train station while heading for the front. He stood at the edge of the platform, getting soaked in the spray. When I asked him why he wasn't staying dry, he replied:
"You have to get used to being wet."
Then he smiled a
Cheshire Cat smile and hefted his
Knapsack lovingly. It was still dirty from the last war. "Do you know who is right?" I asked.
"Does it matter?"
"Probably not."
Jet-Poop whistled the theme from
The A-team and wandered off down the platform.
Also,
Roninspoon was totally there too. Wearing boots and everything. Seriously. I have pictures.