From: st3uy@jetson.uh.edu
Subject: FICTION:  gabber.
Date: 18 Nov 1994 10:55 CST


     gabber.


[formatting.]
an overlayering of shadows; where she stands.  not exactly the
center of such 
a flower, dense black, essence of burnt soap.  the water is all
she hears.

demogirl stays collected in the spot, outside the gabber, within
a specific 
locus of movement, no echoes, no light--sensation only of gray
sand below silk
 atmosphere slipping between sandal and foot.  she watches the
bodies flux on 
the beach.  each a vertical shift like depolarized light, all
mixing in the 
afterthought of a hacker pressing delete.  they all phase before
her eyes, the
 throb of noise, gabber base, droning ambient metal over trance
pulse.  she 
watches the bodies collect as one like a television between
stations.  not yet
 seeing anyone she sent flyers to though.  sunrise in maybe a few
hours; the 
sea smell lodges below her lungs, like breathing in reverse. 
before she moves
 a hand wraps around her shoulder.  pulls away, demogirl's eyes
focus.  
slave's nasa gloves burnt from spinning vinyl over decks, water
on her 
equipment; she doesn't complain, just states, merely spills
reality, "none of 
the patrons have showed have they."

demogirl looks to the other young woman, wondering why she
decides to wear the
 cumbersome orange flight suit; something necessary for the
gabber culture
 maybe, something rotterdam birthed before the year's flip. 
demo's words, far
 enough back, can be heard easily, "didn't' know if they'd like
such an overt 
display of culture.  most of them enjoy, seem to enjoy
introversion.  maybe 
this won't work."  slave doesn't decode her own facial features,
"maybe they 
won't.  you seem always to promote too much alienation on anyone,
most of all 
them.  not all of them enjoy actually immersing themselves in the
fast forward
 culture they so much desire.  maybe you'll be surprised though. 
don't know."

demo looks to the dark bubble beyond the rave mass; slave's
deckhands  helped 
push the recess together, a stitching of aluminum thread braces
hardened by 
fullerene shelling, minimal nylon stretched from the dome, at
midpoints: 
gravity disagrees with the fabric's disregard for nature; the
material taught 
like dragonfly wings.  inside demo left instruction with the
smartbar to be 
able to serve anything.  she dropped more bills and a physical
favor than she 
had before.  knows some of the patrons are very partial.

demogirl breaks from the detail, watches slave pick through the
trash in the 
sand.  she understands absolute is only a liquid left in stacks
of bottles.  
the sand grit on slave's fingers, demo kneels for curiosity.

"i shouldn't be away from mixing too long... get... scope you
later," slave 
picks up and runs back into the pulsethrob.  demo stares at the
bottles, 
watching only grays and light reflect off the beach foam, her
face away from 
the rave.

["here finally,"]

she turns to the static vox.  an illusion peels from the center
of a man, too 
quick to see the former, the image collapses to male--complete
pitch, wire fur,
 a dog sitting--panting, scratching an ear.  aluminum fleas pop
and heat on 
the sand, pools of glass harden from the violent atomic
excitation.

"e.," demogirl grins, running a hand over her dreadlock nibs.

the dog barks, smiles if possible, ears perk turning away from
demo's 
outstretched hand in mischieviousness.  runs towards the smart
dome.  

demogirl stands, walks to follow the dog.

[recess.]
man behind the smartbar.  eyes are of sight given to him at the
edge of the 
millennium, prosthetic perception dripping into his gray, his
mediation of me 
can't be more than fucked-poetry.  the supermodel flesh drops,
ash equations 
fed into my brain hundreds of months ago--now spit on the floor. 
every other 
patron's eyes turn, watch the female skin fade, revealing truth
and boredom.  
not ever a secret before so much as a hidden agenda, observation
by distorted 
inclusion.  a crashed street kid gathers the shell of demogirl
like a 
collection of hardware vector graphics.  stepping over his motion
i search for
 e.

i can only walk so far, only ignore the methane laughter a short
instant; i
 not so much wave as nod at the satirical man to my right.  a
story currently 
between his teeth, usually one for every moment, reality assault
and
 now-distortion are his choice delicacies.  a cradle of blank
ravers sit near 
him in the sand, he in a disembodied booth stripped of nineteen
fifties cover 
and the background of jukebox.  every word from his mouth, a
shaving of steel 
to be collected by the unlimited hands into a subjective
certainty.  i just 
watch for other patrons in a gauze of shadows near the smartbar.

[further in.]
boot tightens in exponential force; between every step the sole
thickens, 
polymer liquefies seemingly, such allows me to lift over the
fleshmech easier.
  simpler than passing eyes through lewis-text, seeing his skin
burned with 
shells of armor barnacles cracked away from body.  lying before
me, the 
infinite wire thin guns and rearrangible weapon components opened
near his 
face, all re-enacting depthless philosophy into a covering like
tin dust over 
flowers.  no poetry to life.  exactly how a group of gabbers took
to his 
attitude; i only watched them hoard the kid's mechanica, i can
only walk over 
the skincrap, still as echoes on the back of the tongue.  i'm
only pulled 
aside before completing thought.  a hand is held out, the first
of its kind 
from anyone here, before closing my fingers in return, i brush
the ladybug 
from the company man's palm.  i'd forgotten i'd left such in the
government.  
hurh does complete the motion, rather human in contiguity.  i
like watching 
his thoughts, dreams exaggerated from mainstream collages, he
holds other hand
 to chin over white button starch shirt, cheer color-guard
detergent breaking 
from dark blue pants, all above a blur of feet.  his words greet
me in genetic
 frankness, his facial expressions more universal in isolated
cultures than 
the reel of text he slips from his wrist into my own.  i pocket
the new idea 
to always read but not necessarily react to.  i nod past him; he
knows i'm 
here to make a presence known, he backs away with a new
integration sneezing 
from his tongue.  a text of lewis-oil still clings to my throat.

i touch the tent post at eye level, watch the lattice of wire
uncurl like a 
fur cone from the shaft and shift into a circular disk, thin legs
sink into 
the sand near several edges.  i sit on one side watching younger
kids harass 
the smartbar for candied acid, a few other net patrons i sent
flyers to mingle.
  several australians wrongly anticipating a breakout of some
violence-disease,
 more of a chance they'll be assaulted by phrases or fragments of
babylon.  
several pieces of UNITY flicker near a tighter edge of the
bubble, not 
participating, more or less guessing at who will next stare
across the room 
and meet eyes with kendelhardt or his friends.  

i close my eyes from the smoke burned from bar-code cigarettes; a
man from 
south africa appears seated beside me.  i rearrange myself to
look at him.  
listen to him regurgitate mixed phrases, cuts of text
re-embroidered on 
selective non-sense.  i can't exactly interpret all of it, nor
exactly succumb
 to his manner.  it is difficult and always has been.  he's never
so much 
dressed himself inwards as walled himself in intense expression. 
every gaze 
towards him only allows a perception of word static to collapse
around him.  i
 just watch the slow drool of words from between teeth filling
over every area
 of his physiology as if the jargon were a self manipulative
masturbation,
 body fuck, self ecstasy by his own creativity.  i push gloves
on, pushing him
 off the seat, swatting stray digital letters from my wrist. 
eventually pull 
the gloves off and watch them disintegrate as their insides
become exposed to 
oxygen after contact with my skin's oil.  galvanic reaction.

i try to turn my eyes toward the bar, but they're caught, hooked
by a 
difficult concentration of thought.  a heretic walks by.  my hand
yanks his 
arm, swings him hinge-like onto the disk-grate at my side.  i
watch him blow 
remnants of schwann-data from the lattice.  for every motion he
reveals he
 hides an encyclopedia's worth more.  i try to speak, but i can
only notice 
the fingers in his fists continuously scratching.  only to
realize he's typing,
 recording everything, commenting on each snapshot situation; on
the slick of 
his palms, laced under callous and the map of his hands lies
keyboard sheaths.
  the infinite sweep of his dusty fingertips input words.  the
static in his 
eyes isn't technification or falsity but each of his words
appearing over 
contacts before writing to permanent memory.  he smiles, under
the influence 
of his own creative drug.  self informed arousal like a placebo
of emotions 
through monochrome graphics.  i can't look into those eyes too
long without my
 own words seeding the floor, sprouting to burn like crayola
paper.  his walls
 exist through forced philosophy yet mechanized for mainstream
pleasure.  at 
least when he speaks in our direction.

[freebased data.]
i haven't the insanity of most of the patrons.  the younger
gabbers left for 
the bodytrance outside; the bubble nylon partitions the noise
except the base
 form outside leaving physical waves in the sand.  the smartbar
closed, near 
sunrise i'm sure.  the heretic banters lists with me, we each
construct a map 
of our achievements, his the length of his arm, my own the wasted
edges of 
holed computer printouts.  we both deal in subjective philosophy;
something 
bites my foot.  the dog implodes, skin ripping from flesh inward
near chest; 
the metavision collapses.  e sits casual in t and jeans, legs
crossed on the 
sand at our feet.  i move down to sit with him while the heretic
continues his
 intake.  

"i didn't know if you'd ever get here."

["a showing was needed.  nothing you didn't already think of,"] e
turns to 
watch the other patrons, then back.  he grins at the heretic,
interested for 
him to join.  the other disinterested for the moment.

"true.  but we've never met in person; always been mediated in
some fashion.  
never heard your voice nor seen a complete image of you."

["neither i of you, but it doesn't matter.  your character is
already 
established and so is mine.  think though of what the others see. 
never what 
you and i really imagine for ourselves.  well, only if they read
the words, 
but then only partially for them.  some use .gif's or .pcx's. 
that doesn't 
always work, usually a layer from reality or stolen images."]

i nod, looking to the small bundle of wires hung in a stalk from
e's neck.  i 
recognize them for the media cameras they are.  he laughs, ["it's
been rude, 
but i'm paid well.  potential for ruining my love life though."] 
the camera 
stalks telescope out and focus in on his face, capturing each
glance and stare.
  he flips his lower inner lip to show me the row of network
emblems sewn into
 the skin, like tattoos but actually quantum dyes relaying each
word and taste
 sensation back to studio and media shack.  he has to be paid
well, i hope.  

"my question is are you still maintaining the mythology?  i just
seems before 
i sent the flyers out that you dumped your icon or at least part
of it."

e's brow condenses, ["ridiculous, that was all it was becoming. 
all the 
other's try to compete in character, strung out dialog or
action... all slow 
motion.  it was just becoming the same."]    

"yes, but it just looks like they're feeding better now.  kill
one belief 
system they'll code a new one around your remains... they've been
doing it all
 night.  you know you love it."

["you would too.  but we all have the same sickness, you can't
deny it.  not 
even motley, though his hasn't manifested as much across the net
as yours or 
mine.  but we all have some fucking seed that makes us want to
re-represent 
reality.  it's as if the idea of america has bled everywhere, no
longer a 
nation so much as a culture of victims.  we're all reacting to
something, 
something that made us shun the outside."]   

i shake my head, "you know that's bullshit..."

["maybe..."]

"no, i mean you can't be serious... "

["it's too simple, no one really saw it.  like darwin, what he
nailed down as
 unconscious domestication.  we've all succumbed to it...
accumulated our lack
 of desire for the real world and shifted that focus into a
distortion by 
posting on the net.  it's all there.  we're just pack animals
gradually 
acclimatizing to one chunk of information.  seriously."]

"but that would mean everyone is contributing.  even the bad
stuff, you're 
saying it all becomes apart of the collective chunk?"

["could be, yeah.  you know sites exist everywhere and there's
got to be 
someone, the government, someone that collects everything.  like
the 
recordings that banks and convenience stores make when you check
out, images 
of you in banal reality, but also adding to the collective chunk
of history...
 kind of like shoving bullets in the gun even when the barrel's
full.  the 
question's when will it backwash."]

"evolve or disintegrate?  anti-entropy that at least is the
net...  the big 
information chuck self-specializes.  everyone just leaves the
data out there 
and it aggregates, groups and reiterates into information clubs. 
but you're 
saying it's all added up to some overflow?  where will it spill?"

["i don't want to know and i'm surprised it hasn't already
happened... it's 
all exponential, the net is an exponential reality, data
collecting infinitely,
 or does it... something you should ask the heretic..  but the
whole system is
 a perfect anarchy.  i think people'd freak if they heard the
term anti-entropy
 used with anarchy, but they're possibly the same.  things can
freak only so 
much before they re-organize, layers and layers, then it erupts;
there aren't 
any new ideas, marx-synthesis.  but information is social,
biological.  just 
like our mental processes are extensions of our geographical
conditions, 
though influence is accumulated over the years of our lives, it
is only 
sensible.  everyone living in strange attractors of association,
circles of 
friends and acquaintances that actually attach to others, feed on
the 
information, reiterate, evolve, domesticate and re-specialize...
god."]

i cough as sunlight slips under a hole dug in the sand, under the
bubble's 
edge, "i think i'll just sit here for a moment."

e keeps grinning against the threaded cameras retracting into the
media stalk 
around his neck.  he yawns somewhat in character with the
technomyth he is.  
the dog icon ruptures from his chest, illusion carrying him from
the tent.  
the heretic asleep against the bubble shaft, his fingers still
typing in some 
subconscious routine, still recording life.  

i rotate a bar-code cigarette into my mouth.  cadmium turbulence
breaks from 
the tip; i watch the smoke aggregate then disperse.  i can only
laugh as heat 
from other thoughts cross my memory.

ray Ogar 11/16/94