indi.ca

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I’ve been intrigued by the Transnational State Of Tamil Eelam. In particular the science fiction potential. This is a bit of fiction about the same.

…

They had painfully reconstructed Prabhakaran from brain fragments stored in a Paradise Road jar. One day the Colombo Swimming Club was disturbed by an attack on the Brigadier’s office next door. A crack team of Hungarian pole vaulters in hacked Nike exercise boots formed the suicidal vanguard, obliterating layers of military security amidst less terror than confusion. The ambulance which arrived immediately after carried out a safe on a stretcher and with it 7 ounces of Vellupilai Prabhakaran, minus preservatives.

KP had by now become an obscure entity suspended in cyberspace. None were sure if he was dead or alive, just occassionally something sounding like a human voice on a satellite phone. In reality he was buried behind a Phuket shipyard but his spirit had long since left the body. KP existed as a virus in the Expedia database, hovering somewhere between Frankfurt and Dubai, in gasps of code snuck into ordinary bookings. He controlled botnet swarms of Zombie PCs, hacked by spyware and viruses into a crude simulacrum of a global mastermind and smuggler. On weekends he used his million slave computers to sell penis pills for Russian mobsters. On weekdays he did the Sun God’s work.

Suspended in his Krang-like suspenders, Prabhakaran’s brain stomped the sewers of Menik Farm like Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. His brain floated in the stomach of a dumb terminal, the hacked remnants of a GM assembly robot, the mechanical arms retrofitted with Gatlin Guns and diarrhea inducing tasers. Menik Farm was long emptied of refugees, back to their eternal fishing and farming. It was now a concrete theme park for former aid workers and journalists, their jobs lost to locals and algorithms.

These laid-off knowledge workers cashed their residual stimulus/severance checks and took a mind-expanding break. It was like a boutique hotel, except with armed guards and more concrete. There was the dry ration buffet and historical indignation nights. They could even take the celestial overpass to Mullativu for a weight-loss camp.

Before the Hambantota elevator went to space you could disembark in a near-Earth lobby, have a Starbucks and marijuana cupcake (with a real Coke-A-Cola) and be in Mullativu for the long weekend. The grueling Tiger simulation camp included trench digging, abductive daycare and a late-night diathalon across land and the lagoon. After much consumer confusion it also included, inexplicably, a live tiger.

But Prabhakaran wasn’t getting residuals from any of it. Instead he was stomping the Menik Farm sewers stuck in a car assembly robot with only 7 ounces of original brain to work with. Stomping wasn’t quite the word. More like whirrr, click, rotate, making 19 point turns around particularly tricky curves. Once he entered the great underpass he could wheel about a bit more, stretch his legs. The caverns built for a Gangian river of shit now housed only a trickle. His GM cyborg paced the subterranean leagues, looking for decent signal.

He connected via some open WiMax leaking through an unclogged latrine. Dialling KP’s dynamic IP address he connected to some porn server in hypercooled Chile. Since Prabhakaran inhabited what was essentially a device for installing dashboards, his own vocal abilities were limited. Nothing spoke quite as elegantly as rounds from a Gatlin Gun, but for phone conversations he relied on a jerry-rigged smartbook embedded somewhere near his floating brain. Over an always-on celestial connection it too plugged into hacked server farms, harnessing whatever computing energy was necessary to say

“Vannakam.”

“Little brother,” came the reply.

The jist of the conversation was simple. The screech of a fax machine transmitting coordinates and detonation codes. Albeit for human bombs. KP had in his ethereal hand the Facebook Accounts of 13 high value targets – the sons and daughters of major UN representatives around the globe. Prabhakaran gave the orders. KP made the phone calls.

By Then

Someone’s Blackberry stirred, but it was already too late. The first Facebook account had gone rogue. Lydia Speldewinde, daughter of the Australian Ambassador, was checking her Facebook in the loo. The phone emitted a mixed audible hum, a screech really. She dropped it in the toilet. Meanwhile the dog had a three minute seizure, recovering only with a timely dispensation of adrenaline from its OnStar GPS collar. They tried to reach Ms. Lydia on the phone but that was unfortunately in the toilet, dialing number two.

“Oh my god,” she exclaimed, “Fuck my life.”

By the time it hit the nets the sight of the Ambassador’s peanut butter covered corpse was too much for any mortal or immortal to bear. Not the shock of assassination by his own dog, but more the scandal of a man doing such things with a German Shepard. And to be caught on on the NannyCam. On the very day the entire network was hacked by Russian mafia, trolling for saleable amateur porn. That day they hit the jackpot. The video had its 15 seconds of pay-per-fame, a brief, twisted orgasm, leaving the damage splayed across the belly of the media at large. Australia was fucked, in public, and quickly appointed Colbee Deedora his successor.

All it took was a few nocturnal visits and hissed threats from the cat for Colbee to get in line. He was ready to vote any which way on Monday, with nary a peep. He cringed in terror as the cat purred round the baby carriage. He’d report it to the police but the motherfucker seemed to have occupied his cell phone and was sending threatening odors through the coffee machine. Colbee had no choice but to accept the Manchurian candidacy and go to Geneva. Mr. Whiskers said he’d be in touch.

Photo of inflatable Krang by Ry-2K