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[uberlin-sternspeier]

SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF TRANS REBELLION (Part 4)

SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF TRANS REBELLION

PART 4

Content Notes:

suicide

Looking like shit in the U-Bahn at 4 am is one of the many traditions of Uberlin. So much so that when I threw myself onto a seat, no one even batted an eye, even tho I looked bigawful and had a lump in my jacket that was suspiciously shaped like one of the poison guns those Reunion Carbide cops had used.

My memory from there on is fuzzy. I was half-dead. Also, it was getting really darn late ... Still, I remember some stuff.

I remember: After sitting down, I fell asleep for a few seconds. It was comfortable, extremely so.

Then, I am sure, I used the pager. I wrote: "imma get home"

No reply.

I wasn't connected to the Ubernet anymore, so I got real bored real quick. That was kinda a good thing tho. The boredom was so quiet and the screetching of the U-Bahn so soothingly loud. It drowned out the noises my exo made.

Then there was a thought I had which I still distinctly remember: "What was all that? What just happened?", but I stopped worrying about it right away.

A friendly AI voice announced my stop at Hermannplatz was coming and I smirked, thinking of a friend. I had to change trains there. Standing up, the poison gun almost fell out of my jacket, yet I didn't even flinch. I just slowly grabbed it and held it in place.

Hermannplatz was all yellow tiles ... still is, actually, even after everything. It is beautiful. It is bright.

I bought a bread roll there, at a bakery that was just now opening up shop at the station. This was the best thing I have ever eaten. The outside was so crunchy, the inside so soft.

While eating I waited for my train.

For some reason, I felt really stupid for standing there. It felt wrong, somehow. It felt meaningless.

Suddenly I got real sad, like I had never felt before.

---

As the train finally came, I had an intrusive thought. Not that I would've done it, but U know how U get sometimes. It just happens. U just think it. Even tho U're ashamed of it.

I wanted to die and that is all I remember.

---

Suddenly I was lying in my bed. Or rather, I was waking up in my bed, unsure if it had all been a dream.

Of course it hadn't.

Next to me lay Valentina, in a sort of huggy, semi-cuddling position. The whole bed was dirty, cuz I hadn't washed up and I was still wearing the clothes from last night.

The same didn't seem true for my friend, who was in fact mostly undressed, wearing nothing but a shirt and a slip. She made me kinda nervous, if I'm being honest. Valentina was Black, had a small frame, rough black hair and a cute snub nose. Her breath was calm and slow. Whatever she did, she looked incredibly pretty, like from a fairy tale or something. U could stare at her for days and not have Ur fill, which was one of the many reasons I hated her.

Without much care for how much she had or had not come onto me while I was sleeping, I pushed her aside and got out of bed. At first she pretended to still be asleep, but my Ubernet was connected now and I knew. For as to why I waited for her, I don't know.

My head hurt. The electric lighting was super bright, it must've been midday.

I waited. I waited a long time, I think.

Valentina had always been stubborn when pretending, but even she gave up after a while. She opened her eyes, silently staring at me; then she sat up. The shirt she was wearing had a ridiculous cat face on it. At last, with dramatic surprise, still staring at me, she shouted: "Astre, U're alive!"

I sat back down on the bed. "Je."

She: "O, I missed U so much." She gave me a short hug. A real awkward hug, as all hugs are awkward when U wear an exo. I didn't like it. "U were being a real zombie when U got home, U know? And cold. Freezing ... I was actually worried your cute little face was gonna freeze off. That's why I acted the human radiator."

"... what?", I asked, avoiding eye contact.

"The name, dummy. I used my name to heat up the room", she said. She let herself fall back into bed. "Frankly, U should be grateful, but I know U're not and je, whatev, it's fine. I mostly did it for Ur face anyways."

I didn't know how to reply to that ... in general. This was the second reason I hated her.

Car noise came from the window. It was closed, but the noise made it thru anyways. U cannot avoid noise in Uberlin. Valentina tilted her head towards me, asking: "Sooooo ... are U alright?"

This question frightened me. The exo felt cold against my skin. Just this umcomfortable piece of metal sticking to my back, my army, legs and nerves. My jamports itched. "I really don't want to talk about it."

"Figures", she said.

My room was the only one in the apartment reserved for a single person: me. Everyone else had to share, but I had the exo and that took up enough extra space to warrant getting a room of my own. Maybe my attitude had helped as well. It was a small room anyways. Barely enough space for a bed, a window through which U could hear the lärm outside, and, of course, piles of clothes scattered upon the floor. I said, absentmindedly: "Sleeping with the exo is always uncomfortable."

"It's always a devil's bargain, isn't it? U must exchange comfort for power or die like a dog", she said. Then she added: "But I suppose it is not real power then, is it? Imagine a hero with the super power to barely scrape by ..."

I just stared at a spot on the wall.

She: "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that."

Cuz I couldn't really reply, I tried moving on. I started to change clothes, picking new ones from the 'mostly fresh'-pile.

She was unimpressed: "I'm not gonna leave just cuz U get naked."

I said: "I don't care anymore. I need to burn these." The shit I was wearing had become thick with mud, blood and sick. "Actually, U burn them."

Valentina looked away, stealing occasional glances at my horrid body. "Well, U can talk about it if U're ready. Everyone was worried about U. We even searched for U." When I didn't say anything, she added: "It gave me quite a shock to see U like that."

I said: "I don't care anymore. Can U burn these clothes for me? Please?"

A sad expression flickered across her face and then vanished. "Not in here. I know the neighbors are terrible and that dog a floor above us starts barking at 3 am, but that's no reason to commit arson now, is it? Or at least it's not a GOOD reason."

I said: "Burn them outside, then."

She did. Or at least she took the clothes and went outside, who knows what that little creep actually did with them. After I took a shower and changed, I sat down in the living room. Well, it was more of a meeting room + the room where Magehunt lived. They weren't present. I sat down on his bed-couch and did literal nothing for probably half an hour.

Supposedly C-Witch asked me if I wanted some coffee, but I have no memory of it, just of us fighting about it way later. The crate was right there with me, next to our small glass table.

It is scary, extremely so, to be unable to form a thought. But only in retrospect. At the time it is happening, it is nothing, and I had yet to feel anything at all. As I half remembered the face of the pilot when he fell, I thought he had looked somewhat like C-Witch, actually. Could've been her sibling.

She was with me in the room, C-Witch. I stared at her, a tall and haggard creature. She was white and had terrible blonde bed hair. The circles around her eyes darkened as she took another sip from her cup of coffee. "U know, when that gu-" I stopped myself. When that guy fell, he had this weird look on his face. Something between despair and serenity. I don't know how to describe it, in fact it was kinda beyond words.

I said: "Did U make coffee? I'd actually like some as well."

Apparently C-Witch mistook this as a sign that I was now ready to receive speech. "Noah went off to work, Brick went to visit their family."

I didn't understand why she told me this. Then, upon realizing I hadn't responded at all for a solid 5 seconds, I quickly said "Yikes!" without putting any meaning behind it.

She said: "Valentina went outside just now. Rue is sleeping. We kinda panicked when U stopped responding."

Now it was clear to me that I wouldn't get any coffee. "What do U mean?", I said.

"The pager. U fucking moron, U just said U were gonna come home and then didn't. U don't remember?"

I remembered the person that had been crushed by the megadrone. There was nothing I knew about her, except for what her body had looked like after being crushed. What a strange way to know a person, knowing only the hard truth of what their body looks like when split open and apart. What a strange way indeed ... "No", I said, "I don't remember much, honestly."

"O", she said, "... understandable. U had a rough night yesterday. We all did, but U had it the worst. We were all worried ... that's all I wanted to get across."

I forced a smile. "Thanks."

She said: "If U want to talk about it, I'm all ears."

How often would I have to hear those words or some variation of them, I wondered. No, I did not want to talk. In fact I didn't want to do much of anything. My jamports itched.

I asked: "Is Destroya here? U haven't mentioned her, I think."

She said: "Emily is asleep. Don't wake her up." Then she took another sip of coffee.

"Ah."

I stood up and went to Destroya's room.

I woke her up immediately.

She was still half asleep when I shouted at her: "Take off the fucking exoskeleton!"

[uberlin-sternspeier]

SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF TRANS REBELLION (Part 3)

Ever since I was a small child, I've been convinced my life would end in some horrible way. I distinctly remember when I was 5 and walking through the city, all I would think about was ninjas following and killing me in a back-allay. Je, literal ancient Japan ninjas. Look, I was a child, it wasn't rational. In fact, I was a distinctly irrational child with no brains whatsoever. Being braindead didn't help the fear of being actual dead, tho.

Once I saw the exit to the stupid ass garden I was in, I rushed. I was way too exhausted for any complicated thoughts, so it took quite a while for me to recognize that there were people waiting at the exit. But I did in fact notice. Running, then walking, then stopping as I realized it. I couldn't make out much detail in the dark. To my tired eyes, they looked like literal shadow people, like the ones U get when U got sleep paralysis.

I hid behind a dead tree.

If there'd been anything left in my bladder, I'd have pissed myself. Lucky me, there wasn't, and the freeing sensation of not pissing my pants calmed me down a little. Really, I hadn't seen much of them. Maybe they were just a bunch of randos, assembled right at the exit of where I had crashed, coincidentally. Extremely coincidentally. Je. And maybe a truck. Had I seen a truck? A van, maybe ... I don't actually know the difference. Cautiously I dared to take a peek from behind my dead tree. Then I snapped back!

Je, there were 2 trucks. That and like, maybe a megadrone. A bunch of fuckoid, idiot bullshit cops were there. Either that or some gebbeth youth with some godgore guns who just happened to be here with 2 vans and a megadrone they somehow bought out of pocket ... so ... je, thems were cops and I was fucked.

The frozen bark pressed against my exo. If the fuckoids were a search party, they'd come searching soon. It wasn't really my specialty, or even something that I had ever successfully done, but I tried sneaking anyways. Rushed from dead tree to dead tree. Hoped that the exo didn't screech too much. If there was an exit, there must be a wall or fence, right? I was trying to move around them and then just climb the damn wall. Or fence.

The tree hopping actually worked for a hot minute. Maybe they didn't have an Ubernet-connection? Or they just thought it funny to watch me scramble. I was starting to feel my heartbeat when I took cover behind the thirtieth frothdead tree. It was then when the people in the distance suddenly started coming closer.

They were spreading out, all casual like. "O", I thought then. I literally thought this to myself. I thought "O, they're connected to a monkeybrain" and just then they started firing.

Ratatatatat. Before, there had been silence. Now there was the t-t-t-t, the grrrrrrrrrt, the tssssssssssssss. I cowered. Behind my tree. Held my ears. Screamed my true name and couldn't hear it for the noise.

Then there was silence again. The pain of bullets hitting my skin made itself noticed. It invaded my back. They had hit me. But the spell still stood. The dead tree fell over to the side.

I ran! Towards the (presumed) wall or fence. Not towards them, not away from them.

Someone shouted: "He's getting away!", presuming all criminals to be men, as cops are often wont to do. However, the voice came from somewhere around the exit, not from the people who had actually moved towards me.

They shot again. I hid behind a tree again. Shouted my name through gritted teeth.

This one lasted for a solid minute. A minute of nothing but nonsense noises, a minute of t-t-t-t and the like. After the lärm subsided, my ears were ringing. Somewhere underneath the ringing was the sound of my own breath.

Feeling nothing, I stood up. I stared at them like deer would stare at a car, so afraid that U get curious.

Their bullets could hurt like shit, still they couldn't kill or even severely injure me. What I feared more was being shot by a bunch of rapid machine guns and feeling every bullet and breaking from the torture. What I feared even more than that was whatever other cruel weaponry they might have.

Such a horrible nightmare. They stared back, a square logo on their equipment, reading in minimalist letters: "Reunion Carbide". They were corpse. Actual fucking police from a straggot company, out here just to kill me.

And I knew they would succeed.

When I was 8, I had just learned what poison is. Naturally, I thought I'd die from poison. Why would someone have poisoned me? I don't know. But why wouldn't they poison me if they'd get the chance? 'They' being my teachers, the neighbors, my parents and, of course, anyone producing food. I mean, had my 8 year old self had the ability to poison someone, she probably would've. Why not? She would've poisoned all the people mentioned above and I cannot hold that against her.

Reunion Carbide was not a food company, but they were, in fact, a poison company. No surprise that the next wave wasn't bullets.

One of the people who was monkeybrain-controlled (I figured the ones in the back weren't) dropped their gun. Then, boom, pulled out a different gun.

Shot.

I dodged to the left. But the thing hadn't been aimed at me and hit the ground instead. Then, a hissing came from the hole it had made. A sizzle, then silence. That was the moment I decided to connect to the Ubernet again, fearing my lack of senses, fearing all things unseen, the blunt terror of death inside my frail little heart. And indeed, once connected, the Ubernet colored the overwise invisible gas leaking out from the the ground where the projectile had hit.

Blue mist started to surround me. I held my breath.

Whilst dodging I had left the crates lying on the ground, back at the last tree. I couldn't abandon them now, right? As I picked them up, the corpse fired again with the rapids. Hit me right in the thigh. Thus I exhaled, yet I somehow managed to not inhale and die immediatly. A single crate was all I was able to grab in my haste. With it in hand I just ran as fast as I could.

Running in the very same direction, not stopping. On exiting the blue mist, I inhaled again. I shouted so loud my lungs almost popped: "ASTRE!" Only to then hold my breath again, seeing blue mist capsules being shot into the ground around me.

If knew how I escaped, I'd tell U, but I have no idea. I vaguely remember stumbling as they shot my legs and it hurt. I vaguely remember falling and enduring a wave of rapids while getting up again. Beyond that, the memory is hazy. There was a lot of pain, I remember that. There was a lot of holding my breath and very little thought. By all rights, I ought to have broken right then and there. I ought to have let myself die. Instead I climbed a half destroyed wall. There was a windmill beyond the wall, of all things. An old timey windmill is what I mean. Small and odd, full of character, surrounded by the indistinct square buildings, reaching towads the sky. Obviously, I must've lost my mind, and yet I decided that this windmill was real and hid inside of it. That was a bigawful idea, but ... U know, I really ought to have broken, I mean it. I wanted to cry more than I had ever wanted to cry in my entire life. Actually, I was so darn near breaking, that I could barely contain the jittering that I had only ever let out when no one was around. I wanted to become insane, to drive myself completely mad so that I wouldn't have to bear the burden of sentience anymore. It just never works out that way. U can scream but no one is around. I screamed my true name again, like a doofus.

At age 13, I was sure my classmates would kill me. Just pull out a knive or another sharp object, maybe even a lightcutter, and suddenly stab me for being born. Why did I not deserve to live back then? Who knows, but I certainly didn't. Why was I at school anyways? It's not like we could've afforded 10th grade and beyond.

Now, as to why hiding was a stupid move: I was still connected to the Ubernet, so I wasn't actually hidden. It didn't take long for some random asshole to climb over the wall as well. I heard them, in fact.

I was too exhausted to fight a corperate cop. But there was no other choice. Sluggishly I stood, waiting for them to enter the building or shoot poison inside or something. Maybe I really waited for death. This had gone on for too long and I knew it. My life, I mean. I was a child again when I waited for this person to come and kill me.

"Heat from fire?", I heard a raspy voice saying from outside the windmill.

I was so confused. "The fuck?", I replied.

The voice stressed the words: "Heat. From. Fire."

"O, fuck U. No way. Fuck off. Go die Urself in a corner!", I replied.

Nothing happened for a moment.

I answered, annoyed or dissapointed: "And fire from heat ..."

Again a pause.

The voice: "Ur a body snatcher, aren't U?"

Me: "Shut up. U trans for real?"

Them: "Enby, je." They paused some more, like we had all the time in the world. "U a body snatcher, I know it. Listen, U really helped me once."

Me: "I don't help cops as a rule. Fucking traitor ass, U think I'm delighted cuz my executioner is trans? Fuck U."

Them: "... But I'm not gonna do it, U know? Disconnect from Ubernet, Imma tell everyone I couldn't find U."

My breathing somehow got more heavy. "For real?"

Them: "Je."

Me: "U lying. U gonna shoot poison in here as soon as I disconnect."

Them: "... Nah."

... I disconnected. With shaky motions I took my crate and left the windmill.

Before me stood a monster.

They were almost 3 meters tall, probably corperate cloned and bred them to be. Their exo was like mine, but unlike mine it fit them perfectly. Plus they were wearing some thick body armor all over. Even their face was covered. Beyond that, they were carrying 3 weapons. One rapid, one of those poison thingies, and a simple knife.

They were truly pitiful. A human war machine. Existing to hurt others. I was boiling.

They said: "Hm. It wasn't U. But some other body snatcher helped me for sure. He hooked me up with T for a while."

Immediatly knowing and cursing who it was, I didn't reply.

They said: "That's the only thing I ever got to control about my life. Well, and now this, I suppose."

I didn't want to hear it. I was shaking with anger.

Squatting to get down to my level, they said to me, face to face: "Thank U. U're doing gods work ... Now go."

This is where I punched them in the face.

At the sweet age of 17, I had been convinced that I'd kill myself some day. Je, I was very depressed back then ... but that's not why I thought that. I didn't WANT to kill mysself, it was more like a prediction. An observation. In a way, I was the shitmonki long before I joined the body snatchers: reckless, driven by a lack of concern for the body I was controlling, just like strong AI controls police grunts. Just, U know, slightly more shit at the controlling part. Day in and day out I'd be thinking of what reckless stupid action I could possibly take that would lead to my self inflicted doom. Like, maybe I'd run through an Ubahn station and slip and the Ubahn would run me over.

They actually stumbled backwards as I hit them. "U stupid motherfucker", I said. "U doing this NOW!?"

When they didn't say anything, I just jumped them. I pushed them over and started beating their fucking head in! I whispered my name and my fist made a loud bang every time I hit their helmet. My facial expression must've been manic.

"I'm not a good person!", I shouted at them. I screeched: "U think Ur life is more important somehow, U monster!?"

Now I made a big dent in their helmet. I hit them. And I hit them. Again. "U botbrain." And again. "I saved." In the face! "A fucking murderer!"

They hit back. I barely noticed. "Fucking monster." And I hit them. "Inhuman." Part of their helmet broke. They hit me in the gut. I barfed, right in their face. They tried to shake me off, yet they didn't draw their knife. I hit them. "U don't deserve to live." I regretted those words, but I continued to hit them. "And I don't deserve it either." And I stopped.

They tilted their head to the side. With a slow motion, they wiped the barf from their face. Nothing more.

We stayed like that for while. Me on top, ready to punch them more if needed. All was silent now. Then I noticed they were quietly weeping.

I sighed. "I really wish U would've just fucking killed me."

They did not respond.

[uberlin-sternspeier]

Uberlin 01.03.2023

there won't be an update this time around for a bunch of personal reasons

see you next month!

[uberlin-sternspeier]

SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF TRANS REBELLION (Part 2)

SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF TRANS REBELLION

This, then, was the body:

A huge gray exoskeleton hugged its entire frame, like a lumbering monster half fused with a clump of flesh. It wasn't a vehicle-like exo as factory works got, but military grade semi-weaponry; stuff we had only managed to steal twice. The kinda stuff that made one question their humanity. It was all froth jammed directly into the bones, so it couldn't be taken off, like, ever. Destroya had had to readjust and repair the thing multiple times and despite all the nonsense talk and tinkering it was still too large and made the body look kinda tiny and hunched.

Underneath: the clump of flesh. The skin was soft, but it was white and blass, almost snow-like, and kinda sickly looking in the electric light of the midnight park lamps.

It had both good muscles and good fat. The pelvis was tiny however, the stomach bloated, and the tits were small. The hope that they might still be growing had been crushed long ago.

The face was the absolute worst. It was dominated by chin. The nose was a big ugly bulb. The hair was short and black and oily-rough and the hairline was receding in the worst possible way. It looked inhuman.

U could not really see its age, no matter how much U stared at it. It was a young woman from certain angles, but an old hag from most.

It was not pretty. It was not beautiful. It bore some dignity and it bore some grief. This, then, was the body which I had fought for my entire life and which yet still wasn't finished. Maybe it never would be.

Its sad green eyes looked back at me from the reflection in the small lake.

___

It wasn't actually a lake, I think. I dunno. Maybe it was. My sorry ass was standing there because the crates were too heavy and the tired had gotten thru to me, even tho I knew someone, anyone, must've heard the crash. My luck was simply too rotten for that not to have happened. There was probably cops right around the corner, worse yet it was probably corporate since far as I knew Britz was half bought. State cops I could probably take, I thought; at least the regular ones, cuz they were mostly scared and underpaid little shitlets. Corpse police were another matter entirely. They were well armed mercenaries, as much army as police, equipped with exos like mine and other, more dangerous junk. Fighting them would be a fuckfest and probably the end of my insignificant little life.

So basically, there was plenty of reason to leave and to do so quickly, as C-Witch had advised. No time for thoughts and suicidal ideations. Putting those things aside, together with my concience, I disremembered the awful thing I had done and still couldn't comprehend. Instead, the body started up.

There was a terrible screeching noise from the exo, as it heaved the crates. There was a terrible confusion where it might go. After all, there was a pathway leading around the lake, and all it could hope for was that this pathway would lead towards an U-Bahn somehow. This was a bigawful plan, but one without alter.

And so it moved, as the creates smashed against its face. The body was tiny and was obscured by the crates almost entirely. It couldn't look or think ahead, it could only watch as it moved.

A foot smashed some dead, frozen grass. My neck bent ninety degrees, looking towards the lake, half-frozen and beautiful and sad. Now my mood had become terrible. All the trees around had died from the cold, brought on by the human induced ice age and the trash cannons. The body, of course, started to freeze as well, as I dragged it along.

First was the exo, which was soon covered in frost. Internal heating prevented the important bits from malfunctioning, the thing had been build for war after all, so obviously the constant cold couldn't stop it, but the jamports were a different story. The area around them itched constantly even under normal conditions and now the frost crept stealthily across the steel. It marched right into the scars, right into the flesh, right into the bone. There it would manifest a deep, blunt pain, not dangerous enough to be treated, too hurtful to be ignored, another thing to be endured.

My blistered lips whispered my true name for the sheer comfort of placebo. Who knows, even in the abandoned parks and forests of this world, where the ubernet was scarce, Bight 31 might still hear and, for once, spare me. Yet no sparing came while the legs strut and the feet walked. No surprises there. The Body Snatchers had always needed someone to toughen it out for them and I was that someone. Gods never help. In a way it made me happy to be relied upon. In another way, it made me desperate and alone.

The pathway now lead towards a metal bridge in mild disrepair. My feet strut as lightly as they could, which is to say not very, however I didn't fall and drown immediatly so I decided it was safe. It had to be safe, even as the bridge started creaking. The body, my body, was sweating from all pores cuz of the heavy lifting. My heart, my lungs, all the innards were insanely hot. At the same time the skin and cloth, now wet, froze at high speeds. I knew I would get hypothermia if I started to stand still. Despite that, suddenly, traitorously, the body stopped moving all by itself, right in the middle of the bridge, in the middle of the lake.

Locking up my exo by instinct, I stood still, having my entire weight supported by it. This got me stuck in an extremely uncomfortable position, like when Ur lover cuddles U the wrong way. My cheek was now glued to a crate and my legs were awkwardly bent. One arm, the right one, was stretched out, the other one slightly twisted. My stomach felt like a continuous gut punch.

It was a beautiful night, really. The sky was almost pure black and U could barely see the usual gray-brown. Silence was all around. The kind of silence U don't normally get in the city; the one where U can hear Ur own thoughts. The body, it gave in to the cold, softly. A deep breath filled my lungs. I was lonely. I was lonely in the way U can only be at night. I was lonely in the way of slowly dying. My brain was filled with things I couldn't make into comprehensive thought. A vessel, the body filled itself with half-thoughts and things I couldn't say, which others may or may not understand. Or worse yet, which others may understand but be just as helpless against.

I had doomed my friends. I knew that, though I didn't dare fully think it. The blood of the people I had killed that day did not just taint me, but them as well. Would they be angry at me? Would they be sad? Would Valentina cry and call me a murderer and be correct? I couldn't even imagine. Then I noticed that the heat was gone.

There was, I thought, someone who desperately needed the prostetics in my hands. Well, we would sell most of them, probably. But there were some disabled people who needed them, so they could extend their bodies. There were some trans people who would need them, so they could become themselves. None would get them now.

This made me tear up, but it did not move me.

There was, I then tried to believe, a better future. Perhaps there was hope, somewhere, somehow, not just for me but for humanity in general. I wasn't a very hopeful person, the opposite in fact, but Valentina had always hoped and I wanted to believe her more than myself, even if just for comfort. So je, maybe I could pull thru somehow and not die and maybe there was happiness in the future, despite all odds.

This, too, did not make me move.

However, I then figured if I was gonna die of hypothermia anyways, I might as well try to see Valentinas face again. Before I die, I could maybe have a fight with Priscilla or watch a sitcom with Rue. I figured I could just die later instead of now.

My finger twitched.

To go on anyways, to just simply continue despite dying, how could I have forgotten the necessity of it?

The shoulders straightened, the eyelids closed, the leg walked forward as I unlocked the exo again.

I was still dying, but at least I moved. Numbness had replaced coldness and it had settled in my entire body. Unfeeling, I walked the rest of the bridge.

My breath became unbearably loud, the wind was howling. Off the bridge, there was more path to walk.

And the body walked in silence for a while.

___

"GOD FUCKING STRAGGOT SPITRAT KNILCH! FUCKING BRAINOID SHIT!!! AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!" The body had moved and yet the pathway had not lead me towards an U-Bahn. Instead it just stopped in the middle of nowhere. Anger had now gotten the better of me, a more powerful force than depression.

I hated being unable to use tracking. I hated having to carry some shit prostetics around and I absolutely despised being out at night in the cold alone and depressed. I typed angrily into my pager: "how t h do I get back"

The pager replied: "get to ubahn"

"there is none. alls f-ing forest"

"walk one direction till u get out of forest"

"u f-ing kidding me?"

She did not respond to that. I started stomping thru the bushes and dead plants, some of my old self returning.

It was then when I accidentally stepped into a deep puddle. Brackish water went all the way up my knee. How unusual and how very concerning this was. Why had the water not frozen? I pulled my food out and walked around it.

As desperation filled me again, I grabbed the pager: "u thnk I dn't try that?"

C-Witch replied instantly, as if she had been waiting for this: "je."

"f u moron", I replied.

C-Witch: "u got time to type?"

I, the shitmonki: "je. if u being a shit"

"walk bitch", she replied.

"fuckoid", me.

"botbrain", her.

"bedpiss", me.

"idiot", her.

"git creative u suc"

She did not answer. She didn't know how much this meant to me, how much I loved her in this moment.

In the hours I spend walking in one singular direction, the sky gradually began to brighten up ever so slightly. This gave a yellow color to the puddles, which I encountered ever more often. No doubt was there something toxic in there, but I didn't have much time to think on why that was. On the horizon, a silhouette revealed itself. Something I had been looking for very desperately and for a long time. Perhaps I had been spared by Bright 31 after all. Perhaps my endurance had simply paid off. It was the silhouette of a building.

[uberlin-sternspeier]

SOUNDING THE TRUMPET OF TRANS REBELLION (Part 1)

"The Greatest Cruelty is this: A million people may be subject to the decisions of a single person or handful of people and we are always of the millions.

Our name for this is fate."

- Body Snatcher Manifesto, 2024

"Alright, Imma shoot U out the cannon in 57 seconds, ok!?" she shouted barely loud enough to outvol the city noise. Cars in the area usually had cranked up sound pollutors, that way the drivers would feel real big when they dashed through the narrow streets.

"Je!", I shouted right back, blending into the car cacophony.

"U hit that megadrone right on top! Shouldn't be any pilot! If there is ... well, there shouldn't!"

"If there is Imma yiff that fuckoids sternum and scat in their frothdead braintube!"

The night was watching closely. Just the night. Everyone else ignored or didn't see us.

"Bitch, what!?" she asked like she didn't know.

"U heard!"

"Je ... I just think like ... 90% of those words were illegal!", she made an unreadable expression. Couldn't really see her in the dark anyways.

"I don't care!", I screamed.

"... Whatev! ... The drone should be m2 serial m226448261-L! If thats true the stick'll land it!"

"What!? Be louder!"

"I SAID THE STICK WILL LAND THE DRONE!"

"OKAY!"

"IF IT AIN'T, GO MAKE FUCKOID OR WHAT! SAME IF THERE'S A PILOT!"

"I KNOW THAT! I GODGORE KNOW IT ALREADY. U THINK I DON'T LISTEN, BUT I CREAM."

"U THE WEIRDEST OF US ALL, SHITMONKI! ... ANYWAYS, IMMA FIRE THE CANNON NOW, SO GET READY AND DON'T DIE, PLEASE."

I strapped in all tit and neat into the casing. It was a big copper thing made from scrap and a shitty seatbelt, freshly stolen from some of those maggotbrain low tier wizard cars. The cannon was diy, using online tutorials for building space trash cannons, but with less power than those. Truly our pride and joy (and some of our shame, too). The metal was cold and itchy. The smell was oily and something else. Sitting there, adrenaline puffed up my face, contorting towards a mean old grin. I expected. Anticipated even. I giggled my true name and hit my chest, becoming as graphene. I felt unkaputtbar.

I shouted: "U BETTER NOT MISS, CUMSQUATSH"

"FUCK U!", she shouted back, and ...

Nothing.

FIRE!

My ass lit up. So loud that tinitus entered my braintubes. Pants literally burning. Melted with the casing, bottom broken through. I screamed like a cartoon freak, but the sound barrier was already broke. Adrenaline flooded now completely. All rushing, pumping, blood through my mind and bare think. No face but all faces. My minimum remained. I squeeled all silent, full tasmanian, and fucked right out my seat. A billion sparks thrashed through the air. Wind freezburned me, but my skin was real tough. Struggle to feel all everything at once.

Then it all calmed down for the longest of all split seconds. My eyes were crying, my blood and body floated, suspended in space, and I saw from the heavens a most beautiful and most horrific sight: the city, build, crashed, rebuild and recrashed, evercyclic: the place of sweet nightmares and grim: the city arm, aber sexy: Uberlin. In this tranquil moment, all my body went soft. Drool left my mouthhole, sticking to my face, and I pissed my pants right then and there. Strangely, I couldn't have cared less. All was good.

Then I fell. Softly almost, compared to before the least. There was barely any air tho. Couldn't breath enough, so I half passed out. Yet, the drone was there, right in front, closer and yet closer.

They had a delivery to the Charite, Uberlins most biggest hospital. Delivery by drone to the highest floor, cuz they thought we couldn't reach. Poor rich folk, always underestimating the power of a few very determined individuals. My whole body tickled, even the artificial parts. From my brain electric towards the nerves, through the jamports into external bones and over bluetooth, through the atmosphere, barely functional, to the non wired parts, I started the rocketboosters to slow my fall and target.

BAMM! With a bashing of metal against metal I arrived, a small crater in the hull! The drone strayed from the impact, two of the droneblades almost dying. My body felt numb to the touch, my soul was gross beyond. One leg at a time magnet stomped across the flying beast, slowly creeping itself to the head. My mind unthunk all thought and drove by instinct. The wind shrieked. Lightcutter in hand, I opened the hood up and found, of course, no wires. No ports or tubes, not even some fucked up bio experiment or a bomb with a middle finger on it, but a live fucking pilot.

"FUCK!", we both screamed in unison.

The pilot started cursing to himself like someone who was way too online. Maybe that's rich of me to say.

I paused. "ALRIGHT, GUESS U'RE A HOSTAGE NOW, HON! LAND SEESTRASSE!"

He seemed to pause, but he didn't. Instead moving his hand slightlike, my watery eyes didn't catch his motion. Right then, he held a gun to my face and before I could curse he shot me.

He fucking shot me! In the head, too! Bullet drumming my numbwit skull, I fell back. Almost off vehicle, but a reflex, a twitch, had me touch the hull again with one of my magnets. I felt dead, but wasn't. Hadn't even penetrated my skin, just shook the brain around severely and made a bunch of noise; and so my surface toughened yet more upon me rewhispering my true name. Only, the shock stuck: High pitch noise had filled my ears. Unable to control my body I vomited, all the way down, 500 metres below, on a very unhappy medical student. Then the will triumphed and my body moved again. I crawled on all fours to get a better hold for next when he shot me. He did in fact do that, a lot. Shit hurt like unimagination, but pure spite kept me up. My heart felt a trillion explosions.

As I neared, I wanted to say something. Perhaps something witty or at least fucked up. I didn't manage more than a gurgle. Eager, zoned out hands grabbed his skull. He struggled. I couldn't get a good hold. Then I managed to reach forward and unbuckle him.

He grasped my hand. I tried to throw him off, but he kept pulling.

Then, again unthunk, I shredded his back on the droneblades.

He let go

.

He fell

.

He cried for help

.

He cried o so terribly for help,

forever lost.

And I could do nothing but stare stupidly at the terrible thing I had done.

Altho I could not yet fully comprehend the doing of it.

That a person died right then and there, without much grace and with even less blame and I had done this.

Even the drone, in some grim acknowledgement of its pilots horrific fate, turned heel. One rotor blade now finally giving in from the added strain of cutting human flesh. There was no time to contemplate. I took the seat, now empty, searched the port and sticked it.

The megadrone did not like that. It wasn't the make the stick was intended for. Of course it wasn't, this one had had a pilot. It went by the side, gaining speed while half falling. And so we, too, crashed.

___

I woke up minutes or hours later, probably not days. Hopefully not days. At some point it must have rained, and stopped raining, cuz there were puddles all over. In fact, I was lying in one of those puddles, right on my back, where some sharp object was poking me. It was still night. The drone had crashed into a park of some sort or other. Maybe a forest, but probably not. My system was shitlike and I nonunderstoodly sobbed for half a minute. Life is rough, I suppose. Thankfully no one was around to see.

My mouth had a pelt to it, but I could whisper my true name well enough and pry myself from the mess. Standing next to the trashcan, I realized my fuckup had in fact taken a second life today. She(?) was crushed under the drone. Maybe more, actually. I couldn't really see.

I started sobbing again. "No," I then spoke aloud to myself. "Not yet. We can break down at home. Now we have to pull through." As always, I listened, knowing full well the day of sobbing would never come. My body shook and moved very slowly, but that it moved at all was good enough. With a bit of stubborn will, I managed to put a foot forward. Whispering my true name the second foot followed. I thought to myself that I had endured thus far and that I was, in fact, the best at enduring in the whole wide world. I thought to myself: Wow, I really AM the shitmonki. As if that meant anything. Still it cut somehow. My mouth opened, but I couldn't come up with a cuss, so I just shut up and walked away, maybe five metres.

We couldn't use any tracking and I sure as hell was in no state to look it up, so I didn't really know where I was. I asked C-Witch through the pager, which was a tech spell too ancient to be understood by mortals. But basically it was old and hacked and couldn't be easily tracked, which was good. It beeped with terror, answering immediatly: "u r n britz neukoelln grab w u can & get t h out." and wow, if that wasn't clear.

Magboots itching on my feet, I walked right back and tried and failed to not feel sorry for myself like a big stinking loser. My stares went towards the corpse again, paralyzed. This time I'd really done it, my life was now rightfully forfeit, I thunk. Doubly forfeit, even. Yet, despite the injustice of my continued existence, I somehow continued anyways. Looking unblinkingly at the megadrone instead, I moved again. Prying it open wasn't tough, cuz it was cheaply made. Still, what was inside truly wasn't: a metric shit ton of prostetics.

As my friendly witch had advised me, I grabbed what I could, which was exactly three crates and one cybernetic arm half tugged into my belt. Then I walked into the night.