Chapter 23 #3
He wonders if the parrots will suddenly all start taking advantage of it, or whether they will continue their long lives of phasing in and out of intellect, for the mystical insights it brings.
Madparrot Alley becoming sane would change the landscape a great deal.
Weirdly, he feels he’ll miss the chaos of it, if it goes.
The newt with the eyepatch left a while ago with its remaining cohorts, after a few words with Nimoy.
The Baron of Waste Sector Three will, Skotch judges, be pleased with the result.
He has a sense of a shadowy conclave that’s going to be guiding Gehirner Neuwien through the changes the near future will bring.
The Baron, Nimoy, maybe Mother Murnau. Those who speak for the lowly, pushing back against the armies and the Country Clubs and the most exploitative of the guilds.
Raising the bar on a minimum standard of Gehirner life.
Smuggling Plangent—and the means of its manufacture—out to the Farm Projects.
Skotch has a feeling that the iron hold of the Country Clubs is going to start rusting pretty soon.
“I mean, going to be a laugh if it all comes down,” Loui says philosophically.
“Let it,” Herr Fischer says flatly.
“What then, though? The guilds stop work. The humans notice. Rule One.” Loui makes a grand gesture, or as grand as you can really get, from a rat. “I mean we’ll be fine. Nobody does well out of chaos like a gangster, right? But you guys?” Prodding Nimoy in her injured arm.
She snaps at him in a flash of chrome. “The big lie of the big powers,” she says. “Make our lives comfortable, the work does not get done. Not so, yes? Only done with less misery.”
“You know how the great of the guilds live? The lords of the Country Clubs, Herr Ratten?” Fischer adds.
“Very comfortable indeed. Let them dispense some of that comfort downwards. Much as we might like it otherwise, the work will always get done. Gehirner do not like to be idle. But it is a step towards true freedom that we are not kept in poverty.”
Skotch listens to the debate go back and forth, and decides he isn’t the animal to wrangle it.
He’s just a raccoon, investigator for hire.
And if he can freelance for buttons and geneware updates, and not need to worry about running out of the ability to think, then that feels like a win to him, but it won’t mean he’s just staying in bed all hours living the life of luxury.
After all, the humans out in the green cities all have a basic standard of life handed to them on a plate, and it doesn’t mean they just sit around having grapes fed to them.
He’s seen them, spied out their lives from hidden vantage points, from the cracks in their world.
They’re always bustling somewhere, always working at something.
So it will be with the Gehirner of the future, to whom the idea of having to score a tab of Plangent to get through the week with an intact brain will be utterly alien. Or so Skotch hopes.
On his way out of the Chapel, all that high-minded talk left behind him, he runs into Tybelle.
She’s gathered her cult—all six of them miraculously unharmed—and they’re making their exit for very similar reasons.
Because the situation, as it now exists, has no use for them.
Tybelle is an edge-case creature, like Skotch.
Now there’s peace and quiet, it’s time to move on.
“Off to report to Mother Murnau?” he asks her.
“Oh, probably.” And she looks him over, as though a little regretful they didn’t get a chance to have a proper throwdown.
And, implicit in that, the acknowledgement that he’s bigger than her usual prey items. She’s a hunter of rats, by nature.
He’s a bear in miniature. Just as with Szerky, it would be quite the battle.
He wants to ask if she really has an owner to go with that belled collar, or if it’s all an elaborate freelancer’s masquerade.
He wants to ask what her votaries are, to her—valued friends or just a packed lunch on legs for if times get lean.
He knows she’d never give him a straight answer, just as he knows their paths are surely going to cross again.
Probably not on the same side next time, but there’s a weird comfort in knowing who you’re up against. Maybe this little moment of camaraderie will stay her claws in the future.
“Give Mother my regards,” he tells her. “I’m sure I’ll be paying my respects in person soon enough.” Precious little he gets hired for that doesn’t involve the Rattenkonige at some level.
“Be seeing you, Herr Washbear. Stay out of trouble.” And she’s off, tail held high despite the cuts and bruises, her diminutive retinue scurrying after her.
Skotch heads off to Unterroot 93 and his nook, because what he needs most in the world right now is sleep. He’s just completed a job that’s going to make every Gehirner life in the green city better, and he’s damn sure he’s not going to get paid a single button for it.