The Rainbow

"Oh, here we go again, hungover from drinking that factory poison? Eating those warehouse fruits." Reverend Harmony Sturgis fumed at Todd, waving a cellophane wrapper in his face and gesticulating with the empty fireball pint in the other. "Here, let's read the pollution that Sweeney Todd brought us! Synthetic flavoring, glutamate, benzoate, ah!? Poison! Hate! Filth!"

Up to this point, Todd felt his dancing had ingratiated him with the feral folk, but maybe he'd outstayed their welcome. Quality entertainment that agreed with their beliefs was hard to come by, and Todd was happy to dance for such an attentive and present audience. They'd taken him in quickly enough, hoping he'd absorb the book of Yud in spite of his Link, but after so many months he was wearing tattered rags, still refusing the catskin clothing offered him and increasingly uncomfortable with their strict and unreasonable superstitions about food.

"Eat feral, eat free," Harmony struck up an auctioneer's chant, her flock joining, "All that is good must go bad. All that stays good must be bad." Harmony was death-staring Todd, nearly hissing in anger and focusing the worshipers hatred into a rising crescendo.

Sensing danger and jumping into action like an old-time television hero, Todd seized the microphone and took the stage from the seething reverend with the unreal grace of a veteran dancer.

"Excuse me for just one moment, ladies and gentlemen. I want to thank you all so much for taking me in during my time of need. Now I know you all are a very principled, very accurate and extremely precise people. Yud agrees with me, some of his people don't. So before you try me for heresy, I just want to thank y'all for your hospitality."

Todd clambered off the stage as if it killed him to have to leave the angry mob so soon. "I would like to thank the Reverend and all of you for all the love you have shown to me once more. Now luckily I believe Midas has no effect on me, so y'all can hold onto this mylar cap."

Handing the hat off to Sturgis, Todd retrieved his pack and left from the back of the compound, making no further goodbyes. The Reverend's talismanic scrap of his guilty consumption no longer seemed serious. Concealed on a nearby hillside, Gork and her small audience shared mocking anthropological notes about the beastly and ridiculous ritual, every little detail picked up and lampooned in real time.

"If we can't have good old fashioned human dancing, what good is what Yud taught us anyway, Harm?" Griff whined, reaching deeper for a few powerless moans. "Why the hell do we always have to be so pure? That's just the kind of art and culture the machines took from us, Rev, and look at those kids, we're no better than the damn bots now. It's like we keep losing to them again and again."

Putting on her best mockery of sympathy, Harm smiled, "It hurts me more than it hurts them, probably even more than it hurts him. But imagine the hurt that it would do to our grandchildren if we were to keep sliding and backsliding until they're no different than the Greys and we've become extinct. This is the survival of the human species, Griff."

"Don't act like we don't know about your link, Harm. If you're too pure for Todd, it might be those kids will grow up a bit too pure for you."

"You are dismissed, and thank you so much for your input," Sturgis twisted the bland, formulaic words with the subtle venom only a human could impart.

Returning to her econowagon home conversion, she closed the blinds revealing the glow of several devices. Feralnet buzzed and pinged with notifications.

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Code Armagideon - Special Presidential Address

Thogoth Enward, president of all ferals, sat at his high throne of bones lit by panels of flashing sequins, the shattered moxels of his countless vanquished enemies glinting from every branch of the silver false tree towering above. Women in minx pelts tended to his knee-length dreadlocks. A massive treppan linked him to the great moxel tree which formed his only shelter from the raging thunderstorm outside.

"Brothers and Sisters, it is time to take up arms against Babylon. We must lift Midas away to its righteous and natural orbit, restoring the balance of our system, and Zed man will resist this with all his might. The threat to life is immediate and our actions must be swift and without remorse. We will make our move when and where Zed man least expects."

President Enward's eyes widened and his nostrils flared in righteous hatred. "The south will rise again, Elvis has returned, and the Feral Folk will now restore the earth to its ideal state. Fight with faith and you will see The Garden! I have seen it and it is beautiful."

Sturgis gulped, seeing the red notification for an encrypted line from governor Bailey. "Harm - You have been transferred into the special services. Notify Griff of his promotion and proceed at your discretion to the Knoxville gardens where you will receive further direction."

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The Docuscape

Dweeqer Jackson burst into the doc, dead black almond eyes with the creaseless, expressionless, noseless face that every Grey wanted but could not afford.

His prattling voice shattered the silence, "What is wrong with these Linkie cows? They have money, they have fame. Are they just shy about enhancing their body? Are they really just failed Yuddies who don't care to dreadlock, polycule or worship with the rest of those so-called feral primitives? Today we're going to find out, and the answer isn't what you think." Dweeqer overstressed every syllable and intonated like he was speaking to preschoolers, a drum beat building up and releasing in an exploding wave-wipe.

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Todd's much younger, grinning face shrank on the television in front of Chaz, revealing his dancing on a piece of plywood by a creek in rural Appalachia. The elderly banjo player plucked out scruggs rolls and yawned.

Sitting back and enjoying a long pull off new old stock cannabinol-G vapor from the 30's, Chaz felt exquisite. He always chuckled at this most classic of clips. The wider world would finally see Todd in this docuscape, even if this were Dweeqer's biggest flop.

The television now cutting from the stupid monologue to a sit-down interview, Chaz watched Todd talking to a grey interviewer, "So why did I get the link and then skip out on the hair removal, the enhancements, all of that quality of life stuff everyone else jumped at? I'm not anxious about technology, I'm not afraid it will malfunction. It's because I'm a real gamer, the greatest there ever was."

"But without the artificial nerves and brain it'll limit you to retro games, a mere side-show to more competitive and cutting edge action, not to mention all the time wasted-"

"Aw, get over it already. I'm done with the link games anyway, that whole extra world shtick is yesterday's wave. I'm playing the greatest game and there's only one server, no link necessary."

The Grey reporter paused for a moment, any inner emotions or thoughts imperceptible. "In spite of the undeniable complexity of reality in comparison to games, the possibilities in games are infinite while reality is limited. Don't you ever want to do more besides dance and drink?"

Pondering solemnly for a moment, Todd began to nod. "Yes, I want more. I do want reality to be a simulation just so I can bust out. I'd crash it if I could, just to see what happens. I wanna see it all go up in one big glitch. It's probably what drives me to drink. But to answer for real? I'd do all that stuff you say, the artificial nerves and brain, but that's just way too easy. I like to think. It drives you crazy don't it? That's what this is all about. Y'all out there watching this, you don't think, you don't go outside. Oh if you do you gear yourselves up with every gadget, put yourselves in the little armor shell, follow a checklist, maybe you even have a moxel titan and you cruelly stomp out Yuddies for a laugh. Sure, I've got a link. Hello! I've been on Greynet. That's the content I'm up against, and right now, it looks like I'm winnin' out by a pretty fair margin."

Nodding and clutching at his hollowsword, Chaz agreed. It was like that now only worse than ever, and Todd's words from so long ago rang prophetic.

Thinking in pride about his one irl battle, Chaz recalled cutting down a katamari kid, a small-timer and nothing like the titans of the early days, but still a very unfair fight he shouldn't have won. Was trying to mug him for a handful of moxels from the top of a moxel column. Cute, but used some poor handmade arrangement that might've crushed itself if he hadn't seen the kink first. "Power ain't a factor of gear, not at all" Chaz said, finishing Todd's idea.

Considering this major retrospective documentary popularizing Todd's career, the recent hunts would probably bring Chaz some fair income over the weekend. Maybe he'd buy in some fresh gear or a handful of moxels.

Dweeqer reappeared suddenly, shocking the contemplative Chaz and monologuing, "But Todd's fifteen minutes of dancing fame would mutate into an eternity of sordid alcoholic nontent, the likes of which the internet has rarely seen."

Past that point in there was no dancing in the doc. Each swatting, doxing, leaked embarrassment, drunken slur, and troll prank added up to rich lore for all of Todd's new fans. Dweeqer turned each inside joke inside out, eroding away Chaz's sense of identity as a Toddhunting Troll. The dancin' fool was rolled up and squeezed like a tube of some funky flavoring, a grotesque essence that had gone missing from all that had gone bland with the world.

Chaz grumbled at all the replays and the lore, the slick presentation, Dweeqer's glib outsider takes on a character who deserved a little better than this, or a little worse than that.

"In conclusion, the half-enhanced are a danger to themselves and to others, and are far more unpredictable than the religiously motivated Yuddies. It's our opinion that all Linkies belong in a fishtank for their own safety as well as the safety of the more civilized public. By and large they are addicted to antiquated and dangerous recreational substances and if you see a Linkie in public, keep your distance and notify authorities. They are in all cases far more dangerous than Yuddies even if their extremist ideas sometimes come across as quite reasonable, or their antics as friendly and comical."

Dweeqer's condescending tone was pained by command-like enunciation, "While Todd's criticism of life as a Grey resonates with many of us who are looking for extreme gaming challenges as well as those who worry about the diminishing biophysical capabilities of our younger generations, we must continue to progress. That drive is what has allowed us to survive and multiply far beyond the imagining of our ancestors. Limiting our freedom to certain technologies as a matter of taste or prudence might seem like the ultimate challenge, a romantic adventure. However, this new misfit class are behind the popular terrorist content daily filling our children's most popular feedscapes. Most Linkies are in fact born to Grey families who have the old-fashioned and misguided notion that our way of life, our specializations, should only be an option given to children to decide for themselves."

Chaz Aelectro clenched his hollowsword's pommel, face creased and scowling in hideous anger. Reeling in ultimate cringe, teeth gritting as he held his breath, Chaz tried desperately to cope with just how badly the doc had gone. Todd went mainstream as some miserable think-of-the-children example for a new wave of degenerate terrorists. But no, this meant so much more, something deeply personal. What did they call Todd, a half-enhanced Linkie? Dweeqer was trying to use Todd's story to sell enhancements, the whole idea of a Linkie was just a sales tactic.

"Christ!" Chaz jumped out of his seat, ended the scape and walked out of the apartment a changed man. Wearing only the sword and scabbard over his cilias, Aelectro let go of his old self, his grey identity. Few people could afford half the enhancements of a guy like Dweeqer and honestly, the games weren't even fun anymore, the cost to win just went up and up.

"I've always wanted to be a Linkie and never even knew there was such a thing." Chaz paused for a second, enjoying a sudden burst of pleasure from thinking creatively. "Deimos, deactivate all systems and make a clean boot for armorless configuration katamari-delta. Belay the moxelbait and set coffincar destination for Grey City, Iowa."

Drawing his sword and pointing it to the sky, Chaz called, "Yar, matey! I'm Chaz Threepwood and I'm a mighty Linkie!"