A GRSTALT Fiction

We are bumping around inside a Nawab APC – fresh off the line from Kroch Labs – as it negotiates difficult terrain. The Brand Alignment Team (BAT) from UrbaSE (Urban Systems Enterprise) hang on to the handrails and clasp their knees together. We are wearing navy blue uniforms with embroidered name tapes. Weapons are stacked in racks above our heads.

The BAT is one of many Departmental Effectiveness Cells (DEC) sent into the townlets run by Kroch Industries to rectify lapses in cellular operational capacity. It is hoped that by placing the DECs in a high-pressure scenario, a renewed sense of unity and focus will be engendered. Statistics show a 40% uptick in grind among those DECs sent in to a townlet complex.

UrbaSE was rocked by a Q3 Minus-Clout Warning when its Chief Directioneer, Adam Sleeve, appeared on Business Seer Singloss H1D105’s Miit-streamed show, Deep Scan, and expressed sympathy for the rioting dreamstakers on the Gliese Orbiter. The BAT’s Outcomes Co-Ordinator, Hira Jan, was the operative responsible for briefing Sleeve on the booking, so now the BAT must set out into the townlet housing new arrivals from submerged Tamil Troika islands. They will seek out scenarios, whose successful completion will restore their cell’s departmental standing, and restore their company’s downgraded position in the Clout 1000.

We’ve been moving for around two-five mins, and the periphery of the townlet has been quiet. Screens relay the surrounding outside, below where the weapons are stacked. There are rows of squashed-looking grey units with no clear entry point, surrounded by pocked concrete and scorched grass, no tree unbowed by the tide or unblackened by sorties, pink streaks winding up half-built turnoffs, the only passable route being the scarred tarmac we are on. 

The screen detects movement and zones in on one of the units: a curl of smoke barely clearing the roof. Tomáš Reguly – Trend Envisioneer, three tours and a Special Commendation Ribbon for Tactical Disruption during the Second Gliese Evacuation – takes down a weapon and goes ahead. The rest of us watch as Reguly follows a pink streak until the ground gets unsteady and is required to crawl clumsily to reach the grey exterior. Reguly is set to advance when bodies flee from the rear of the unit, seven scatter across the grass, three in our direction.

Reguly sets off after two fleeing figures who have made for the treeline, fires into the air, and repeats the liability mantra we were told during induction to remember and recite before entering a kinetic scenario. The decision is made for Perspective Consultant Kevin Stetler to lead off, with Contingency Wonk Goh Beng Neo bringing up the rear, and Jan shadowing me [as per an agreement between UrbaSE and New Pragmatist’s parent company, the SOLIP Group]. Weapons are unlocked from racks and armour patches are applied to bodies.

The three fleeing figures make it to the tarmac before we have achieved formation, and the APC lets off a Trouble Pupa. The fleeing figures crouch, then squirm on their stomachs through the thickening smoke. If they don’t move quickly, they will be incapacitated within a semisolid cocoon, and they try to shrug off the gel that is beginning to cling to them.

We turn when a shot is discharged behind us. Goh is lying on the tarmac, head tilted up, moaning and gasping. (Goh’s boots malfunctioned when they were unable to establish a secure connection with the surface.) The shot lands in the woods and lights up the trees.

This is when Reguly returns, with a bundle of fabric under each arm. Reguly stamps on the backs of the fleeing figures, struggling to disentangle his boot from strings of gel, and drops the bundles in front of them. Reguly unwraps the bundles. Inside each bundle is a foot, hacked off at the ankle. Reguly asks the fleeing figures who’s going to be next for the collection.

Reguly tells the BAT that they have to go back into the woods and finish off the other two. The feet are just proof of capture. To accrue the maximum clout score, the scenario must be seen through to completion. Jan should go with Reguly, and Stetler should stay with Goh.

I tell Jan I want to go with them, but Reguly isn’t sure, there could be more out there, and they don’t want to complicate the relationship between UrbaSE and the SOLIP Group. I remind Reguly what they told us at induction, that you rarely encounter anyone on the periphery; occasional bands of young men try to get out, but this is a freak event they’ve lucked into, they’ve found their scenario without having to set foot in the centre (though part of me is disappointed that I won’t get to sample the stacked camps and tin can emporia of the central divisions, thus robbing this piece of the emotive culmination I’d been planning).

The trees are so brittle that branches snap off in your hands, leave a black carpet that cracks underfoot. I am walking between Reguly and Jan. Reguly’s gait suggests frustration. The back of Reguly’s uniform is stained with tree soot. Reguly’s gloves are black with dried blood.

The bodies are draped over each other in an X. Reguly tells Jan to drag the top one off and do that one (deferring to Jan’s superior status in the BAT by gifting the clout to the Outcomes Co-Ordinator). Jan stops before bending to lift the body, raises a hand to keep us back. 

There is a crack, though it is dampened. Only the tail end of it reaches us, as if the volume has been hastily toggled down. We stand listening, unsure what we heard. Then a less definitive sound, but enough to send us retracing our steps with co-ordinated care, shuffling in reverse. Then they come in quick succession, and we throw up a black dust that clings to us.

There is a deep grinding sound that shakes the trees apart, and my ears ring. I drop as I see shapes crossing the tarmac and diving into the piles of soot at the treeline. I look behind me, and see that blood is oozing from Jan’s ears. And from mine, it turns out.

The fleeing figures are gone. So are Goh and Stetler. The APC is juddering, listing, and starting to melt at the front, spilling onto the tarmac in a silvery slurry.

The Kroch Industries jingle plays on a loop:

We are Kroch Industries

Giving dreams the chance to fly

But lowering in pitch and slowing until it is a deep grumble, choking on bubbling metal.

The curl of smoke behind the unit has grown into a column of flame that twists up to form the shape of a giant mantis whose claws tear off the facade of the unit to reveal hundreds of tortured faces crushed together and screaming in pain as the walls of the unit begin to constrict.

Stetler comes out of the trees, covered in soot, and things seem to have returned to normal. Stetler speculates that it was some kind of improvised pharma bomb, while Reguly believes it was an AR attack. Jan asks Stetler where Goh is. Stetler points in the direction of the trees.

Goh is shivering and refuses to stand upright, crawling on all-fours in the mounds of soot. Jan tries to lift Goh, but Goh slips away, scurries onto the tarmac, and huddles against the APC.

Jan gathers Reguly and Stetler together on the tarmac. They project possible outcomes. Jan wants to go into the centre for a more substantial scenario. The bundles are still lying on the tarmac, and Reguly goes to pick them up. Reguly argues that the feet must count for some clout. Reguly even offers to share out some ‘clout nuggets’: each member of the BAT will receive two toes (with the big toes going to Jan and Reguly, on account of their seniority).

Reguly takes out a bloodstained knife and goes to the edge of the tarmac with the feet. Reguly looks at Jan before beginning, and Jan nods. Jan tells Stetler that they probably shouldn’t go any further with Goh in that condition, that at least they’ve got something to take back.

Jan opens a rear door of the APC. Goh hops inside and curls up on the floor. Jan asks Stetler where Goh’s weapon is. Stetler hesitates and goes to the treeline, kicks through the mounds of soot, then turns to Jan and says that possibly Goh had left the weapon when they retreated.

Jan tells Stetler to keep looking. The shot comes from deep inside the woods. It misses Stetler’s head by inches, igniting the surrounding trees, and strikes the side of the APC. Reguly returns fire as the rest of us scramble into the APC. Clout will be deducted for the lost weapon. Reguly lets off a round before getting inside and resetting the APC’s CO-ORDOS to return. Another shot pings off the body as the APC manoeuvres to perform the new CO-ORDOS command.

The toes are distributed by Reguly. Jan takes Goh’s share for safekeeping. The screen scans for traces, but brings up nothing solid. From where we sit, the woods are still, silent, secure.