novel excerpt || John Pursch

Hip-Deep

Momo boots MLK-14, feeds him shredded history, unblocks dialectic ports, and discards every other phoneme, tuning down to treasured lowland imitation chatter. “Drink up, Marty, else you’ll never pass QC, end up stuck at barnyard babbler, fit for local watering hole gibberish, like slobbering loadie Reagan-83.”

A few more shreds and Martin’s speaking perfect Latin, polished English, composing sonnets on the fly, breakthrough theologies ready for final facelift. “So much for lingual grooving; let’s install the orator,” Momo suggests, uploading pre-configured content, tweaked to equal bias. “OK, let’s hear that dream again.”

The lobot’s eyes flip up and open, fixed on textured holographic millions, Watchingstoned’s Refracting Pool thronged and shimmering below. Instinctively, he sits up, adjusts his tie, smooths his hair, clears his throat, now decides to stand; the hologram recalibrates, fills the room with feed from early ’68, crowd cheering, and Martin leaps right in: “I have a dream today!”

“Nice energy,” Momo nods, raising an eyebrow. “Continue.”

“…one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its credo, ergo, illimitable reductio ad Absalomo, foregone connubial sandhogs sifting sense from referential presto, hovering in vocal context, melting into diagnostic meals, timing silent laughter, climbing to a smoke-filled auction of decimal fins…”

“Slipping off topic,” Momo observes, looping her right index finger. “Tighten it up, Marty.”

“…Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, simian constituencies, donuts of the demolition quartets fondling demitasses, spindling woven thoughts in frozen lakes and missing hotel sinks, clipping croutons from the Royal Mayonnaise Gazette, Issue 42, Volume e…”

Momo sighs, raises her finger, and MLK-14 goes silent, gazing into holographic sinkage. She thinks a moment and spews code: “Linearize on theological segment 37.4285, spin to seeker-centric, tail off humanizer femme flagship, pin to retro-tracheal minimizer, follow loosened autonomic listener, fallback to tonal motion flux. Retry and iterate,” leaving the room.

“How’s he look?” Emily asks, glancing up from JFK-21’s nascent torso.

“He’ll be ready for Montauk tonight,” Momo replies, entering the lab. “Working on his speech…”

“Excellent. Hey, this new Jack’s quite an upgrade; reduced womanizer, pegged charisma, double IQ, unlimited libido… Let’s set him up with MM-23 before we take Marty to the lighthouse; she just finished off that row of drooling Bobbies, barely broke a sweat. What do you think of that, Jack? Would you like to meet Marilyn?”

JFK-21’s eyes light up: “Well, having been trimmed by scarcity’s flippant league of bellicose brethren, I flounder as gracefully as ignorance allows, hip-deep in hypocrisy and halitosis. Who can tolerate, let alone absorb, the bilious ramjet spittle, the fleshy flux of gibbous gawking and flailing that crowds of craven characters routinely regurgitate, in thoughtless tureens of cellular wastage? Not a concept given, not a consequence considered! The uhh current global situation is an incredibly profligate mess, a wildly inefficient, sprawling debacle, taking down continental jungles, ice caps, planets of neglect, barren moons yawning and winking, admiring the incessant, insatiable repetition of creative destruction, of deadly reproduction, of mindless lunacy.”

“Great, that’s just fine, Jack. Marilyn, this is Jack. Jack, Marilyn.”

“Good evening, Mr. President,” MM-23 coos.

“I uhh well uhh welcome to my laboratory, Miss Monroe.  Emily, perhaps you and uhh Momo here-ya would be so kind as to take our good friend Martin for a little spin to the lighthouse. Marilyn and I will be happy to uhh mind the store, so to speak.”