Nymphomation(15)
Trash fly. He sold that first specimen to a drug dealer down in Moss Side. Homie Winston was his name. ‘Homie Winston! He sure do make the trip! Smoke to win!’ Jazir got a full five punies for the sale, all of which he used to fuel another two fly specimens.
In business!
Because Jazir’s bedroom was now an Asian computer, the Spicelab, wired to the world and crazy. Even as he chewed on another slice of the good garlic, even as he glided down the imagined streets of Manchester. The fractal map he had stolen from the council’s motherbase. Jazir loved the fractals, those twisting shapes between the normal dimensions, where an infinitude of knowledge made play. Naanchester, along the burgernet.
Jaz hated the fact that the Whoomphies owned the space inside his computer. Information should be free. He had his own special devices to carve out a secret plot. A ghost in the machine, fighting the enemy, and teaching his latest copyblurb the knowledge of the streets. Jazir made it through in flying colours, only to find Miss Sayer waiting for him.
Play to win
Jazir Malik first shook the joystick back in 1994, at a kids’ arcade on Oxford Street, Central Manchester. He was only twelve years old. In those days, playing games was a clumsy affair, moving your image slowly through the mechanisms. So frustrating. But by the age of thirteen he was the Number One All-Asian Champion of Ganga Jal: Space Trooper, a dream of a game in which the participant battled against the white imperialists on the planet Bhangra. The whites had colonized the planet in order to mine for ultragarlic, a bulbous drug that could easily control the universe in the wrong hands, making the dream too real. What else could the Roganites do, after 100 years of servitude, but finally fight back? It was all an illusion, of course, but Jazir found himself hooked to a winning dream, in which he could always regain his independence. Hooked enough to win the championship.
Two years later he found an intruder in one game, a little inserted face that kept puzzling him. Eventually he pressed on the insert to let it come large.
The intruder’s name was Miss Sayer; she called to Jazir from far away, in typescript, ‘Grab the Wings’, and then disappeared.
Jazir answered, as only he could, because he had heard rumours of these mystical intruders – Game Cat being the most famous – that popped up to bring the player to the next stage.
It took him a whole week and a whole other load of game-won nanopunies to find the games mistress again. All the time and expenses in the world were just a feather in the wind when Jazir finally bowed down at the great teacher’s inset. ‘Most revered Miss Sayer,’ he stated, ‘if it pleases you, I have travelled many games in order to prostrate myself thus. I am your most pitiful subject.’
The great teacher was seventy-seven years old, made young by the computer. ‘My child,’ she type-whispered, ‘I understand your journey, for I myself once made the same sacrifice. Is it the knowledge that you seek?’
‘I am too pitiful for such a gift,’ said Jazir.
‘But only the most pitiful shall interest the wise, and I am growing old. Soon I shall die, and my knowledge with me, unless I take on a pupil. I believe you have an inkling of the numbers involved.’
‘The tiniest of inklings, great mistress. I am most unworthy.’
‘Your journey has only just begun. You must grab the dream by the wings.’
Jazir heard the message.
Play to win
Present days, Miss Sayer was waiting for him on the computer screen. ‘Time is nearly,’ she whispered from nowhere. ‘Come grab. Find a wing.’
This virus had been visiting him ever since way back. Turning up at random, like some unwanted hippy-death Game Cat mag cheatmode. And at every appearance her voice becoming more limited, more painful.
Whatever, Jazir closed down the inset, undocked the new blurb’s flight path from the computer’s mouth. The pseudoblurb itself was still lying on his workbench, its belly wide open. Jaz slotted the new flight-path disk into the blurb’s stomach. Now it was complete. He slid the completed creature into one of the Golden Samosa’s takeaway trays and crimped down the soft aluminium holdings. Jazaways he called them, these nice little earners. Enough work for one night. Deliver this one tomorrow morning. Of course, it would crash in a few days or so, being only a pseudofly. But that was money in the bank, five lonely punies a fly. More bones, more bones! If he could only find a way to make a real fly! How much would he earn? How many bones could he buy? And always, in these moments of rest, Jazir’s mind went back to Daisy, the sweet and innocent Miss Daisy Love. Her sweet voice calling to him, dismissing him. If he could only persuade her of his faithful intentions.