Going Shogun Read Online Free

prison
cell.
    ***
    Machine hurtles down the interstate like a
green demon, headlights like flaming eyeballs, rear spoiler like a wicked cape.
    Forklift doesn’t say much.  The
music is off and he’s picking at a fingernail with one of his errant front
teeth.  I’ve got a hand over my mouth, head leaning against the window, and all
I can think about is the vacant gaze of that dead gonzo.
    He says, “I’m slumpin’ like heavy,”
then runs a hand through his zebra striped hair. 
    “Tell me about it.”
    “We should go chuzzle some suds and
flee the downies.”
    “I could use a drink.”
    “How about The Blue Sioux?”
    “Too hippy.”
    “Barney’s?”
    “Too last year.”
    “Um...Shaman’s Grill?”
    “You’re not allowed back in,
remember?”
    “Oh, right.  Hey, let’s try that new
place...what’s it called?  The one over by the restaurant?”
    “Elite?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Can we get in?”
    “11s and up.”
    “But it’s all gonzos and their
sheilas, right?”
    “If any jacked in screenboy knows
who The Minotaur is, he’d be there.”
    “Dude, I don’t think we should be
asking around about that yet.  Not after what we saw in the apartment.”
    “Board Agents find him, we’re bent
over the bar stool.  Why not?”
    “I seriously wish you hadn’t gone
in.”
    “Too late now.  Had to make sure my
boy was vertical.  Besides, they have no proof we did it.  The most they can bust
us with is inter-level trespassing.  That’s what, Cameo P12?”
    “And that doesn’t suck enough? 
That’s another four years getting back to R11.”
    “Well...”  He pauses and eases down
the ramp.  “‘ Come what, come may, time and the hour run through the roughest
day .’”
    “Ok, that’s it.  From here on out,
tone down your razzle-dazzle, beefcake, shogun dialogue.  I hate having to
translate everything you say.”
    “That’s Shakespeare, man, you ever
heard of him?”
    “He wrote smut movies for CineSkin,
didn’t he?” I ask, tossing a snarky jab right back at him.  But, truth be told,
if Forklift didn’t surprise me with a random bit of knowledge at least once on
a daily basis, I’d think something was wrong. 
    “Jackass,” he says.  “And I can’t
muzzle my chops without diddling my shiz from the back door, true?”
    “Yeah, I suppose.  Just...if we get
in trouble or have to run or talk our way out of a situation, anything like
that, will you try to keep it within a comprehensible area?”
    “Sugar.”
    I chuckle and it feels
good.
    About ten years ago, The Board
decided that Internet Access should be a privilege granted only to R10s and
up.  Supposedly, the group of people with the highest moral fiber.  “To
preserve the integrity of the human race,” The Board said.  You can imagine the
Molotov Cocktail-tossing chaos this created. 
    Cars burning, buildings burning,
people setting themselves on fire in protest. 
    Pure madness.  And it was
everywhere.
    The Flame Riots lasted for about
three weeks until the protestors either ran out of things to burn, or they eventually
realized it was doing nothing more than leaving a thin film of black ash on
every rooftop and flower petal in the country.
    Oh yeah, it was nationwide.  You
couldn’t turn on a television without seeing a news report about another protester
burning himself at the stake, screaming about how it was his God-given right to
surf for porn if he wanted to.  What I never understood about that was the
self-sacrifice.  If he was dead, he couldn’t log in regardless.
    The weather took one on the chin,
too.  There were times when you’d go for days without seeing the sun.  The cool
thing about it was, the lightning storms were amazing.  Streaks would flash
across the sky in bright blue and yellow and red spider webs.  I spent many
nights sitting on the roof of my apartment building, watching and being awed
until the black rain came and I had to duck back inside.
    This law passed down from The