Aethernet Magazine #9 by Ed. Barbara Ballantyne

Author:Ed. Barbara Ballantyne
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub

38: Mary-Ann

Mary-Ann was fully loaded. She was tooled up, she was strapped, packing heat, going heavy. She was hogging, she got flame, she was bored.

Mary-Ann had a bag full of guns.

She had another bag filled with knives and several others filled with miscellaneous other weapons. They were nice bags, such as all the bags were that were produced by Sidebotham-Cola-Mercedes. They were bags made of hand produced paper, lined with crepe or shot silk. The weapons were packed into neat little boxes, so well made the lids sucked vacuum when you tried to pull them off.

“I still don’t understand why I need so many weapons,” said Mary-Ann.

Jenny was in a good mood. She was in such a good mood that when the tall man with sea serpent tattoo growing from his crotch tried to pinch the unicorn tattoo on her bottom she only broke his wrist and rolled him into a pool of circulatory fluid that was leaking out into the street from a crack in the ground. The man’s friends gave a Jenny a cautious round of applause. It was, as one of them pointed out, fair play.

Jenny picked up her bags and rejoined Mary-Ann, the other pedestrians leaving them a respectful distance as they made their way through the Zoshull district.

“You’ve been attacked three times in the last few days and you don’t see why you need weapons? Mary-Ann, you really aren’t that smart are you?”

Mary-Ann didn’t know, there was a moat around her book table that stopped her seeing the answer to that.

“Nor do you answer back.” said Jenny. “They really did a job on you back at Mode Org. They turned the dials in your brain right down. I say all these rude things to you and you just take it.”

“It’s the way I am,” said Mary-Ann.

“Yes, it’s the way you are. The perfect stooge. You just do what you’re told.”

“What’s wrong with that? You’ve said it yourself, I’m not that clever. Other people know better than me.”

“Other people know better than you. I wonder what it would be like if everyone was like you?”

“The Rock would be a better place,” said Mary Ann, sincerely.

“I’m sure the people in charge would agree with you,” said Jenny.

They walked around another crack in the ground. Sewage, red fluid and clean water spilled out from it in different parts.

“You’re my mother’s dream, Mary-Ann, you know that? You’re dutiful and respectful, you put the good of the organisation before yourself, you take care of things.”

“Thank you, Jenny!”

“That wasn’t a compliment! Mary-Ann, I really wonder about you sometime. What must it be like to be you? No volition, simply going along with what the last person said. What sort of a friend are you?”

“A good one, I hope.”

“I don’t know, Mary-Ann. Act like that and you’re not a friend. You’re a pet.”

“Are you being rude to me, Jenny?”

Jenny was gazing at another crack in the ground.

“No. I’m trying to understand myself. I see the way you act, and I question my own motives.

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