WORLD OF GONZO
Cockroach
Well, my dear and near readers, this is Gonzo. Vegas was everything I expected: full of BD houses, flophouses with little Singaporean businessmen deep in the bottle and with only a suit on their back for their fortune. Of course, there were the Vegas standards: Gambling, whores, alcohol, and enough alleyways with men in suspicious trenchcoats for it to feel like home. Yet as I blew down the highway to Barstow, my mind on a cocktail of acid with a supreme addition of all-natural marijuana to relax me after Vegas, couldn't shake a feeling. Vegas stresses me out, and I'd forgotten that after five years. Spinning the wheel, counting the cards at blackjack, reminds me of the chances you take in life. You can just touch it. Horrible decision, but it's enthralling, to believe you have a chance. Now, I can't function on a cocktail of lowers on the way to Night City. Needed to get back into the mindset. Paranoia, energy, violence barely contained by resentment. Gambling gets me trembling, nervous. So, a dash of synth coke and amphetamines balanced out the downers. Now remember: Don't touch the combat drugs, kids, just touch the stuff that makes you go crazy. Better for your bodily health.
Now...as I could feel the wind course through my hair as easily as the booze in my liver, the coke in my veins, and the amphetamines through my heart, my thoughts turned to the humble cockroach. Lousy little insects. Managed to survive just about everything, little mutants. Middle East probably has some radioactive mutant roaches. In the road, a giant, ten-foot roach popped up.
"JESUS CHRIST!"
I swerved off the road, right onto a little patch of bones. Could hear them crunch as I sped through them to get away from the roach. Could hear that thing skitter after me, its antennae rustle against each other. It wanted to eat me, damn it! I had appointments to make in Night City! My fixer needed to hook me up with premium Golden Triangle authentics! Opium, morphine, prime organic marijuana. Stuff the DEA would burn, the philistines they are! Couldn't let that bug catch me, I needed to have the good stuff! Punched the peddle, and launched myself further to the sun, to get as far away from that goddamn thing. It screeched after me, but I left it in the dust, checking every few seconds to see it slowly turn into a blip.
So as I flew across the desert in that beautiful, pure-bred red creation of the 20th century of mine, with convertible top made of replica plastics, I could close my eyes and imagine it in the good old days. Just to clear my head of cockroaches. Back when the seas shined with the sun instead of sludge, and a man could have a car as big as his house. But my nose knew the answer. The car knew it as well. It was the 21st century of chrome and corps, not the 20th that caused all that. It was powered by wheat fit for kibble, instead of the kingly and aristocratic petroleum. so my mind sped as quick as my car. At roughly 90 miles per hour, I wondered what the hell it must've been like for the original to fly across the desert. He saw bats, I saw that huge roach. Must've been the acid. Or was it the mary jane? It occupied my mind for about five minutes, before I turned the radio on to dull my thoughts. Set it to an agreeable station, one mindless enough to let the brainwashing almost get to me, but not quite.
"This Neo-Sov Rock Hour brought to you by Sov-Oil, and..."
"Only with Millitech can you-"
"Arasaka-"
"Rocklin Augs-"
"Netwo-"
Turned the radio off. The silence of the desert seemed more agreeable than the blasting of those advertisements.
That cockroach was ten foot tall, all of those that spat onto the radio were fifty and up. I could almost see them on the horizon, rearing up to receive me. To eat me. I closed my eyes. Tried to believe they were imaginary, things made up in my mind due to the drugs. I saw them, their rusted brown carapaces, and I pushed the peddle down as far as it would go.
95, 100, 105, 110, 115, 140. The numbers jumped up as I looked forward to the cockroaches, their carapaces covered in corporate logos. I let out a howling yell, and plowed right through in a gap between them. They screeched like tires on pavement, but I had shot long past. I was sweating like crazy, but I had blasted past them. I was free of the corporate cockroaches. I flew through the desert at speed. I'd outrun the SoCal Highway Patrol, I could outrun the cockroaches.
It was about sunset when my radio picked up Night City, 'bout a hundred, hundred fifty miles away. Was at a fueling station, looking out towards the crimson glow of the sunset, as bright and red as a puddle of blood. Had the radio on, and had suffered through some good old europap from veritable antiques propped up by cosmetic surgery and more uppers than I was on. Then the news.
"...the mayoral candidate was seriously wounded, and been declared dead at the hospital." Hmm, politics. Never really enjoyed it. Especially Night City politics. The politicians were all well-heeled cockroaches, nice suits. Big talk, little realization of ideas. Voting rate's barely at double digits sometimes, and I understand full well. They're bought up by the corporate cockroaches. I'd thought of ginning up a "New Freaks" movement, to see how many denizens of that corporate park would be interested in something different. But there's 300 parties in the country, and what'll the 301st do different? Hell, maybe we'll just declare a revolution in the streets, pull up the street, form barricades. Shoot down an AV, rah-rah go America of old. Romantic images, but two centuries out of date slowly daubed my mindset, before I felt something on my arm.
I shook off the cockroach as violently as I could. At least it was a tiny one now, not covered in corporate logos.
"Christ almighty, how many damn cockroaches do I have to deal with!" A man with a flannel vest, six o'clock stubble, and a baseball hat looked at me confused, but shrugged. Like a stupid pig. God damn people don't understand how many cockroaches there are in the world. I glared at them, tried to make my indignation felt from behind a pair of sunglasses. He just ignored me. Lousy bastard probably shot nomads in the desert and called it "patriotic". So, with the cool wind of the West Coast to look forward to, scented with the smell of death and sludge, I pulled back into my cherry red convertible and rode out to Night City again. Wish there were less cockroaches in this world, but that's like asking for a cyberpsycho not to rip your body limb from limb and use it as a club. Just gotta squash them where you can.
Cockroach Exterminator
Gonzo
Chapter takes place between Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 of my story, A Man With A Heart.
All credit for this work belongs to BlackStar