Major Karnage

Major Karnage by Gord Zajac Page B

Book: Major Karnage by Gord Zajac Read Free Book Online
Authors: Gord Zajac
Tags: Science-Fiction, Satire
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refrain from violent—”
    “Goddammit! What do I have to do to get you cheery bastards to
shut the fuck up?!”
    A voice shouted to him over the noise. “I can’t help you with that
voice in your neck, but I can get that music to stop for you.”
    “Who the hell said that?” Karnage whipped around. A grizzled
old man in an orange jumpsuit sat in the cell across from his. A
pair of reading glasses sat perched on his nose. He held a tattered
paperback in his right hand. His left hand ended in a stump. He
pointed to the monitor with his stump.
    “Tell it you’re hungry,” he said. “It gives you a fork you can use to
short the system.”
    Karnage did. A tray popped out of the wall. A bowl full of steamy
grey pulp was bolted to the middle of the tray. A fork lay beside it.
Karnage picked up the fork.
    “It’s attached to the tray with a cable.”
    “Don’t worry about that,” the old man said. “Just bend up the
tines and jam it under the bowl. On the other side. You want it to get
jammed up inside the wall when the tray retracts.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Perfect.”
    “What now?”
    “Empty the bowl.”
    Karnage eyed the oily grey slop. “I ain’t eatin’ that shit.”
    “I don’t blame you,” the old man said. “It tastes worse than it
looks. Like ground-up cardboard soaked in bacon grease. There’s
enough sedatives and hypnodrugs in there to kill an elephant. Scoop
it out and dump it in the toilet. But don’t spill any. The sensors in the
floor call the cleaning staff when it’s dirty.”
    Karnage scooped out the gooey grey mush with his hands, and
dumped it into the toilet. It was so heavily laced with narcotics it
made his skin tingle. Once the bowl was empty, the tray retracted.
The fork’s bent handle slid under the rim of the wall with a satisfying thwock . The tray seamlessly disappeared into the wall. The music
kept playing.“It didn’t work!” Karnage said.
    “Yes, it did,” the old man said.
    “Then why the fuck can I still hear music?!”
    “Tell it you’re hungry again,” the old man said.
    Karnage did. The edge of the tray appeared in the wall, then
stuck. Somewhere inside the wall, gears ground. Engines whined.
Karnage caught the faint scent of burning plastic. Something inside
the wall snapped. The tray shot forward an inch, then sagged back,
its bottom edge sticking out from the wall. The music stopped. The
monitor flashed blue. Three red Dabby Tabby heads appeared on the
screen.
    “Error 503. Please wait for assistance.”
    “See? What did I tell you?” The old man grinned.
    “Sounds like it called for assistance,” Karnage said.
    “Yeah. Tech support. Don’t worry about it. It’ll take them days
to get here.” The old man jerked his thumb toward his own blue
monitor. “Mine’s been like that for a week now and they still haven’t
fixed it.”
    “You mean nobody’s noticed?“
    “Oh, sure, they noticed. Nobody’s done anything about it, yet,
though. Other than charging me with cyber-terrorism.”
    “Cyber-terrorism?”
    “Circumventing security measures. Defacing public property. All
falls under the same law. Can’t say I was bothered by it. It’s what got
me locked up in here in the first place.”
    “You some kind of terrorist?”
    The old man snorted. “Yep. If you define terrorism as being
too curious for my own good. All I wanted to know was how those
biometric scanners worked. Is it my fault they’re so easy to get
around? All you have to do is pop the top off and twist the red and
green wires together. Bingo! Instant access.”
    “That’s it?”
    “That’s it.”
    “That doesn’t exactly sound secure.”
    “Of course it isn’t. But they’re not going to go around fixing these
things. There’s too many of ’em! It’s a lot cheaper to pass a law saying
its illegal to even look at ’em funny. Justice, my ass.”
    “That’s idiotic.”
    “That’s the Dabney

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