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 The Night Shift  (26 ratings)by Paul A. Ogilvie Page 3 of 10 [Warning: Adult content. Do not read if you are under 18 and/or if it is illegal in your area to do so] "You total fat bastard, Dobey! You complete cu - " I pressed the key, and sent him to MurderNet. I kill all of my TuringPals, sooner or later. If, by some miracle, Nigel survived the Crimean, I'd kill him anyway. Or maybe just send him to war after war and see how he did. If he did really well, maybe I'd farm off his ROM state to one of the TuringPal retirement sites on the net, where I could pick him up again whenever I wanted to. But I'd probably just kill him. I certainly didn't want him around the flat any more, the miserable get. So one way or another Nigel would die, and I could set up a new TuringPal. That was the fun bit, setting them up. I liked doing that more than I liked actually having the 'Pals around, which was presumably why I kept on killing them. I scanned the lists of current TuringPal fashions, and noticed that female German nymphomaniac movie starlets were popular. I spent the next hour or so searching for suitable patches and downloads. After I had gathered a promising collection and started my PC stewing up a personality, it was time to go to work. My movie starlet would be ready, for better or worse, when I got back. The Crimean War would be over, too. That was tomorrow morning's entertainment taken care of, anyway. I got dressed in my powder-blue uniform, my big shiny boots, my peaked cap. I'm a security guard. It gives me a licence to carry a non-lethal firearm, which sat in a holster on my right hip, and a electric baton, which sat in a holster on my left hip. I sprayed myself down with deodorant, then went out the front door and clumped down the stairs with big, booming steps. # "Ooh-ooh-ooh! Monkey man! Fuckin' primate!" the loudest kid shouted at me from across the street. There were six of them, decked out in silver flash-gear and Celtic football shirts. The oldest was maybe twelve. "Do ye want a fuckin' banana? Ooh-ohh, ye fuckin' funky gibbon! Chimp bastard, Darwin says to kill yersel!" And fair enough, you know? They had been implanted since birth. The only reason they even knew how to talk was because the law said they had to. They didn't need to talk. They could communicate in more subtle ways than I could imagine, they could dredge up any information they wanted in a half second. And me, deaf and dumb to all of that, a blank spot in their minds, what must I be like to them? Just meat, just meat that talks, a walking TuringPal, not fully human at all. So fair enough. But I'm sufficiently primitive to feel all the monkey-rage and monkey-anger, and flaring bright in my mind was the possibility of charging in at them, head down, arms flailing, grunting out a territory-roar. And they would have run, too. Because I'm a big man, big all over. Taller, wider, thicker. Big all over. And with my hair clipped down to fuzz the way it is, with the scars and broken nose my wild youth earned me, with all of that I look pretty mean. But the main reason they would have run is because I'm big. Chimp, they call me, but let me tell you, pal: I'm a fucking gorilla. I got into my car and started it up. The motor hummed and the vehicle shifted, trying to work out the best ride-height and suspension configuration for driving in the snow. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2001 Paul A. Ogilvie, sffworld.com. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the author. The author has submitted the work in accordance with and in agreement with the following Submission Guidelines. |
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