This is a central spline of the story of this album, and ties in -- briefly -- with the events recorded on the Sim of Desert Rain.
The characters here are referenced at least two more times on the album.
---
BRIDE OF SET
IMPOSSIBLE SUN
GLASS AND SILK
(C) 2022 Kyrinn S. Eis
All Rights Reserved Worldwide
I stand there at the window
and watch them down below.
Rivulets snake in pulses
limited by laminar flow.
Through the armoured glass
I can't hear anything at all
Watch a Metro spinner over
-fly a man -in a trench coat.
A group of youths pass by
and indicate they mock him
no doubt they're all high,
in their shoes, too, I'd be, like them.
My dinner companions, lovely
chip-holders in Polyphasic
Materials Sciences, or Ph.Ds
in Projective Philosophy
to aid our slublight crews
--millennia-yet to harbour,
'round time-distant suns to
found new Terran colonies.
A pallid white, platinum blonde
man crafted to be feminine
no more than 25, glides to me
in red dress, inviting dance.
Hir ambitious eyes are hungry
can count my Credits billing
not much shi's not-willing to
do on hir way to Higher Orbits.
Others in attendance, multiple
varieties, some in flesh others
in chrome, and the most elusive
in Spider Silk and Glass.
Faceless save eight red sensors
vast perceptive, surveys domain
breeder body, skyhook chassis
the tender of starborne children.
I clasp red-dress at the wrist
the others I dismiss, and mother
spider, shi, and I, explore the
frontiers of the human mind.
Below me, dying in the de-luge
those unfortunates who happen to
be too poor this-time-around will
become next year's rocket fu-el.
Really quite brilliant workaround,
addresses inequalities, and shares
new hopes starward found for all,
and keeps cargo mass to-minimum.
The cities empty out, and only
those who stay can be blamed for
their death on a planet in demise
Confirmed in spider mother's red eyes.
My credit-limit chimes and I look
for Red; I find hir softly sobbing
seated by the bed. I nod to the
other, who skitters out the door.
of dusted ivory, marred by stripes
Softly I cradle that sculpted face
inky liner riven down hir neck
"You've won, my dear." I slowly say.
Together we stagger to the bed as
the greyness threatens to break blue;
shuddering in near-psychosis shi
curls up; -- I do too.
My Digital Assistant, Friday, sets
wards and chip-routines, as I
digest the data from my new wife's
performance: -willing-syzygy.
Models suggest: Ship's Liaison, but I
rather think, XO. It says Hir name
is 'Ephemera', no, Evylinne Duchamp
-- will do.
I enter shutdown mode, rather than
pointless, 'sleep', in which nothing
changes from my ageless waking dream.
Count-down to the day from highest
orbit, to Sirius, fly do we.
In greying moments descending upon my
metal eyes
I turn to see hirs open, look at me
with a softness possessed by winners
of the prize,
the ticket off this smog-choked rock:
a chance to begin again; but do any
of our crew make it, does this but
forestall our end?
:: Good Evening, Drake ::
Evylinne sits at the breakfast nook
wrapped in towels and sipping tea,
"I'm still in consideration?"
shyly shi looks towards me.
I smile and shake my head, hir
expression barely wavers,
but the resignation washes o'er hir steel
-grey eyes, then nods as shi leaves.
"XO, Duchamp" is all I need to say,
Hir countenance is radiant, and in
a blur shi rushes me to embrace;
through grateful repeated thank-yous,
--as Evylinne now-reframed.
In thousands other towers, my clone
brothers, sisters, others,
perform the same winnowing;
sifting through the remnants under HR-orders.
Only the cat-mother, idiot, madman or
dross of human civilisation are all
that's left behind; projections suggest
extinction within their lifetime.
Newsvert report of terror strike in Gold
Line's sector Bravo,
biomass reclamation plant,
by skinjob father son and daughter.
These actions always make me ponder:
How selfish AIMs can be,
to work so counter to human decency,
destiny, and proper decorum:
they the servants, we the masters.
(They populate while the world is dying...)
The XO reads hir duties and begins to
connect faces to names of the crew, while
I tie-up loose ends, and monitor the follow-up
to the Skinjob terror crew.
I use my influence to scrub their images clean
and ply heuristic routines to track them down
before METRO gets ahold; Friday asks, "Shall
I secure them volume in the hold?" I nod.
Evylinne attends me now, hir hand at ease upon
my shoulder,
"From Able, Martin to Zedekus, Zee I've got them
well in mind, love."
-- "We've got special cargo: I'm tasking you
with their integration in the most efficient
manner as per your SOP; Black with Orange Trim,
designation: Special Security."
Her eyes flutter as the task is processed
through her cybernetics, "Done. Dinner out?"
Shi, still wary-like, with downward glance.
-- "Yes, of course, my love." I smile.
"...Offworld Colonies: a frontier of golden
opportunities: brave and hardy to leave behind
the worries and hurry of Terra Prime;
Within the century: Independence."
Evylinne looks up at them, every time.
I ask: "Dream come true for you, my dear?"
Shi pulls in tighter against my arm,
"Mmmhuh. Am I dreaming now?"
[Fast Forward >>]
Duchamp, from mutineers, has defended the bridge!
:: In Clocktime, -- slices of coherence, awake,
I execute final orders, via the mainframe.
-- Shredded, ...lie dying in medbay.
"Attention all Crew, Captain Duchamp is to be
obeyed in every way that you have served me
I am undergoing ghostwrite, now, but--"
can almost feel them sadden, "in case..."
"Shi's your Captain. Crew, serve hir well. Goodbye."
Black/Red ratio: rapid write and brain death clock...
shifts back and forth, worsened as I review
my golden years with Evylinne since we left dock...
...end of line
carrier lost...
:: []^%e.3h3
