Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club book Club Clubok, Club book Club. It's the
Speaker 2: Cool Zone Media book Club, which is a podcast that
Speaker 2: is a book club that It's very confusing when I
Speaker 2: try and explain cools on Media book Club because I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: it's a podcast, and I'm like, well, we listen, and
Speaker 2: You're like, well, you listen on other podcast feeds. It's
Speaker 2: kind of a parasitic podcast. Maybe symbiotic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a lamp prey. Yeah, let's say a lamprey.
Speaker 3: Lamp Preys are basically good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone is happy they're there.
Speaker 3: I'd love having a lamp prey attached to my body.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And that's schools on Media book Club, where the
Speaker 2: squatters of podcasts because we sneak into other Cool Zone
Speaker 2: media podcasts. It's like if the landlord was squatting the apartment.
Speaker 3: Right right, Yes, it's exactly like that. And like landlords,
Speaker 3: I have been algorithmically increasing your rent in a way
Speaker 3: that finally attracted federal government scrutiny.
Speaker 2: Wasn't there some game that came out where like they
Speaker 2: couldn't figure out how to make it was like City Skylines.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, how to make it fun
Speaker 3: to play with landlords who worked like real landlords.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they had to get rid of landlords in
Speaker 2: order to stop real estate prospecting or whatever.
Speaker 3: Landlords are a big part of the problem. I think
Speaker 3: the biggest part of the problem is just that, like,
Speaker 3: we built an entire society where like a huge number
Speaker 3: of people will absolutely lose their mind if their house
Speaker 3: doesn't increase in value forever, and that's just kind of
Speaker 3: dooms the whole civilization.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: It makes me think a lot about the ancient Romans
Speaker 3: where you read about, like, okay, the entire backbone of
Speaker 3: our military and society is these small free farms, and
Speaker 3: of course all of the rich people eye up all
Speaker 3: of the small free farms as soon as they get
Speaker 3: money and destroy the class of people who used to
Speaker 3: provide them with a military in order to make themselves
Speaker 3: moderately richer. And like, wow, what a dumb self destructive there.
Speaker 3: You read about like the Myans or whatnot who like
Speaker 3: poisoned their water. It's like, oh, okay, like what kind
Speaker 3: of society would do such a stupid thing to destroy
Speaker 3: their own ability to sustain themselves? Like everybody, that's what
Speaker 3: all societies do. Yeah, as we drive cars as I
Speaker 3: have a truck.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyway, let's read this story about largely about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, helly m well, this is part three. If you
Speaker 2: didn't listen to parts one or two, you're an adventurous
Speaker 2: sort and your brain works fundamentally different than mine.
Speaker 3: Just raw dogging Corey Doctoro's story, that's right, not even
Speaker 3: the lube of the first part of the story.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm going to give you the littlest bit, which is, Okay,
Speaker 2: where we last left our heroes. They were about to
Speaker 2: throw a communist party with plans to break into an
Speaker 2: industrial three D printing factory to print shopping carts for
Speaker 2: folks living on the streets. That's where we left our heroes.
Speaker 2: Because this is part three of Party Discipline by Cory
Speaker 2: doctor She went from scared to furious so fast it
Speaker 2: scared me twice. And it wasn't the normal cherrelle eyeball poison.
Speaker 2: This was real, uncontrolled anger that made me take a
Speaker 2: step back. We're doing it because it was important to you.
Speaker 2: She hissed so intense that other people turned to watch us.
Speaker 2: She forced herself to calm down and bent her head
Speaker 2: toward me. You tell me, linay, why are we doing this?
Speaker 2: Maybe it was the jolt of new immediate fear that
Speaker 2: I got when her fury welled up that got me
Speaker 2: past my future theoretical fear of jail and let me
Speaker 2: get back to my thoughts because now I can access them.
Speaker 2: Because we're all so sure, there's no way to escape that.
Speaker 2: We're all going to be done too not doing, Cherrell,
Speaker 2: I'm graduating high school this year, and as far as
Speaker 2: anyone can tell, there's no reason for me to even
Speaker 2: exist once I finish. My mom would miss me, and
Speaker 2: so a teashow. But Charrell, no one needs them to
Speaker 2: exist either. We're spare humans. Do you remember economics class.
Speaker 2: The lower the pay is, the worse the work, the
Speaker 2: more unemployed people they need to make the people with
Speaker 2: those terrible jobs feel like they can't afford to quit them.
Speaker 2: The most use the Zadas have for either of us
Speaker 2: is to be miserable and downpressed so bad that everyone
Speaker 2: else works double hard so they don't have to join us.
Speaker 2: Schrell cocked her head. You sound like a wobbly do I?
Speaker 2: I replayed what I just said. I hadn't spent a
Speaker 2: lot of time with Wobbley's, but I'd read some of
Speaker 2: the pamphlets they left in the toilets, the darknet rants
Speaker 2: you had to click through to use their proxies. I
Speaker 2: guess I do, well. Who cares? They're right? We knew
Speaker 2: they were right all along, Schrell. But while we were
Speaker 2: in school, we could pretend that it didn't matter, that
Speaker 2: we had a purpose to go to classes and grind
Speaker 2: for grades. But now class is over and the bell's
Speaker 2: going to ring, and then what so you want to
Speaker 2: have a communist party? It wasn't a question, and it
Speaker 2: was supposed to be sarcastic. I puffed up. Yet, damn right,
Speaker 2: I do. At least we're doing something. The whole system
Speaker 2: only works because we let it work. Don't do anything
Speaker 2: to stop it from working. She spit again. It works
Speaker 2: because doing something usually means going to jail. Girl, you're
Speaker 2: supposed to be smart. Be smart. It's not too late
Speaker 2: for all of us to go to the party tonight.
Speaker 2: Some of Alai's friends are cute. I'll introduce you. Remembered
Speaker 2: that it had been me who'd had doubts, had went
Speaker 2: to Cherrell for reassurance. Instead, I'd got this rage and fear.
Speaker 2: Neither of us was sure about this, and it was
Speaker 2: too late. The stragglers were coming through the woods. It
Speaker 2: was time to tell them all that we were going
Speaker 2: somewhere else tonight, somewhere that all of us had bullshitted
Speaker 2: about wanting to go since freshman year, a chance to
Speaker 2: make the world do something for us for a change,
Speaker 2: instead of to us. We're going Charrell, you and me
Speaker 2: and them. It's going to be amazing. We're going to
Speaker 2: get away with it clean. We're going to have the
Speaker 2: most amazing senior year in the history of Burbank. Hi,
Speaker 2: you believe in me, Lenai. I don't believe in you,
Speaker 2: but I like you and I trust you. She grinned. Suddenly,
Speaker 2: I got your back. Let's do this. We told them
Speaker 2: they could go home if they didn't want to risk
Speaker 2: coming to the Communist party, but we told them after
Speaker 2: we told them that they were the only kids in
Speaker 2: the whole school we trusted enough to invite to it,
Speaker 2: and made sure they all knew that if they backed out,
Speaker 2: there'd be no hard feelings and no chance to change
Speaker 2: their mind. Later tonight, when they were at a corny
Speaker 2: party with a bunch of kids, instead of making glorious revolution,
Speaker 2: every one of them said they'd come. I'd found an
Speaker 2: all ages show and encino that night, two miles from Steelbridge,
Speaker 2: Antoine's old job. We got piled into ubers heading for
Speaker 2: the club, chatting about inconsequentialities for the InCAR cameras and mics,
Speaker 2: and every one of us paid cover for the club,
Speaker 2: making sure to use traceable payment systems that would alibi
Speaker 2: us as having gone in for the night. Then we
Speaker 2: all met in the back alley, letting ourselves out the
Speaker 2: fire doors and ones and twos. I did a head
Speaker 2: count to make sure we were all there, squashed together
Speaker 2: in a spot out of view of the one remaining
Speaker 2: camera back there. I'd taken out the other one the
Speaker 2: night before, wearing a hoodie and gloves, sliding along the
Speaker 2: wall so that it was out of range until I
Speaker 2: was reaching up to smear it with some old crankcase oil.
Speaker 2: We hugged the wall until we were back out into
Speaker 2: the side streets. All our phones were off and back,
Speaker 2: and everyone had maps that used backstreets without cameras. To
Speaker 2: get to steel Bridge. We strung out in groups of
Speaker 2: two to five, at least half a block between us
Speaker 2: so no one would see a big group of kids
Speaker 2: walking while brown and call the cops. Regrouped at the
Speaker 2: head of the industrial road that led down to Steelbridge,
Speaker 2: lined with shuttered factories, empty and silent except for the
Speaker 2: distant railway thunder. And you know what else would be
Speaker 2: empty and silent is our lives.
Speaker 3: Yes, without these sponsors. Oh my god, they're not even lives, Margaret.
Speaker 3: Can't you call them that? It's not living without products
Speaker 3: and services? No, No, absolutely not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're back, and you know, Margaret, uh huh.
Speaker 3: One of the things I respect most in an author.
Speaker 3: It's actually most of what makes the old Simpsons great
Speaker 3: is the ability to have things happen in the world
Speaker 3: years or even decades after you write something that may
Speaker 3: it seem a lot smarter and funnier. And in the
Speaker 3: case of Corey, doctor, oh, you've noticed that like the
Speaker 3: cheap poor person like amalgamated food extract that they have
Speaker 3: in this is scop.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And there's a piece of AI gibberish going viral on Facebook.
Speaker 3: Now that's like an AI generated and comprehensible meme with
Speaker 3: like a heaven and a hell, and there's like a
Speaker 3: floor mat in front of hell. The one in front
Speaker 3: of heaven says heaven and the one in front of
Speaker 3: hell says stop because like it's just an AI hallucinating.
Speaker 3: I have thought, like I kind of want to push
Speaker 3: Corey's word. Well, I guess it's Corey and that AI's
Speaker 3: word now, but I kind of like the idea of
Speaker 3: using that as a generic term for like AI generated shit, Like, yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a bunch of scop in my news feed today,
Speaker 3: Like it's really clogged up with a bunch of fucking scop. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Like it feels good to say.
Speaker 2: I am entirely here for it. I think, without having
Speaker 2: asked him, that he would approve of this.
Speaker 3: Yes, I suspect he would. I haven't asked him either.
Speaker 3: I actually have owed him an email for like seven weeks.
Speaker 3: Maybe i'll send after this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people can hear it next week. But I just
Speaker 2: finished recording an episode about George Orwell, who wrote incredibly
Speaker 2: complicated man, but incredibly useful, incredibly good in so many ways.
Speaker 3: Complicated man. Yeah, only his women, and by his women,
Speaker 3: I mean his hand grenades understood him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't understand women.
Speaker 3: I will say he did understand hand grenades. They were
Speaker 3: the real love of his life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. He invented the phrase Cold War. Really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually didn't know that, and I thought that
Speaker 3: it neither speaking to guys who Yeah, the more you yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the deeper you go, there's more and more there.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll say this. Every criticism of George orwell, and
Speaker 3: he's got more than his fair share. Yeah, none of
Speaker 3: them are criticisms of him as a writer.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: That man could fucking turn a phrase.
Speaker 2: Some people try because they basically say he writes to playing,
Speaker 2: he's not a real intellectual or whatever, But he instead
Speaker 2: intelligently wrote about why he chooses to write that way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was one of the best to ever do it.
Speaker 3: He's right up there for me with Vonnegut.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. So all right, I said, last call,
Speaker 2: turn around now, or it'll be too late. Of course,
Speaker 2: no one was going to walk away with everyone else watching.
Speaker 2: After an awkward moment, I smiled at them all and said,
Speaker 2: all right, you're in. There was a chuckling and murmuring
Speaker 2: and backslapping, and I led them to the back door
Speaker 2: of Steelbridge, where Antoine said we could expect to find
Speaker 2: a way in. I tried not to show how nervous
Speaker 2: I was. My hand shook as I reached for the door.
Speaker 2: Then I remembered and reached into my pocket and got
Speaker 2: my gloves. Glove up. I turned around and watched them
Speaker 2: all do it, because of any of them left prints
Speaker 2: behind they could lead to me. We were all in
Speaker 2: this together. I put my earbuds on the factory network
Speaker 2: and got the music tuned in, kicking in the pass
Speaker 2: through so that i'd still hear conversation around me. It
Speaker 2: was fast, crazy salsa from Russia, thunderbeats and hard wrapping
Speaker 2: over big horns, and we all nodded in time. As
Speaker 2: we passed through the door. The light swirled in amazing patterns.
Speaker 2: Projection mapped onto huge masses on the factory floor, turning
Speaker 2: them into stone or wood, or water or smoke as
Speaker 2: the beamers hanging down from the ceiling played over them.
Speaker 2: They were at least a hundred people there already, the
Speaker 2: giant building's far edges lost in shadow. I spotted a
Speaker 2: keg and headed for it, threading through some weirdly dressed
Speaker 2: dancers who were dancing even weirder, though not badly at all,
Speaker 2: Like their dance moves were from another timeline. I would
Speaker 2: have stopped to admire them if I hadn't seen Antoine
Speaker 2: by the keg, and if he hadn't seen me and
Speaker 2: beckoned up close. He looked like he was about to
Speaker 2: throw his head back and start speaking in tongues, that
Speaker 2: churchy look of someone right on the edge of something
Speaker 2: too big to contain in a single human body. He
Speaker 2: grabbed my hand and squeezed it like a drowning man. Linney,
Speaker 2: it's happening, it really is, Antoine. What about the machines,
Speaker 2: He used his free hand a gesture at them, the
Speaker 2: men and women working on them, just getting started. We
Speaker 2: hit some snags with the power meters. Didn't want them
Speaker 2: to snitch us out. But he gestured at the dancers.
Speaker 2: We got some skilled assistance. I looked at the dancers again.
Speaker 2: They were weird in some way that I couldn't quite
Speaker 2: put my finger on. I couldn't remember ever seeing anyone
Speaker 2: dressed quite like them before. Printer clothes that crinkled and
Speaker 2: rustled like thermal blankets the homeless people used, cut in
Speaker 2: boxy lines like a child's drawing, right down to the
Speaker 2: thick piping that ran around the edges like crayon lines.
Speaker 2: It looked a little like the stuff you saw refugees
Speaker 2: wearing in the videos where they washed up on a
Speaker 2: beach or bobbed in the sea, or crowded against a
Speaker 2: fence in a camp somewhere. But they were also party clothes,
Speaker 2: definitely sparkly and bright, and I never heard of party
Speaker 2: cut refugee wear or had I. I stood up on
Speaker 2: my toes and whispered in his ear one word, walk aways.
Speaker 2: He nodded, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.
Speaker 2: I'd seen documentaries about them, and sometimes you heard about
Speaker 2: them in the news. Terrorists, thieves, pirates, people who'd walked
Speaker 2: away from it all, living in the forgotten and empty places,
Speaker 2: were cycling toxic waste and their own tailings into weird
Speaker 2: funhouse versions of civilization, like horror movie sets. If wobblies
Speaker 2: were exciting radicals walkaways or orcs and ghouls, the dancer
Speaker 2: seemed a lot scarier. All of a sudden, I knew
Speaker 2: that walkaways got mentioned in the same breaths as communist parties,
Speaker 2: but I always figured that was a scarce story. I
Speaker 2: thought communist parties were about wearing fake beards that hung
Speaker 2: off of fake glasses, not rotting civilization from within. What's more,
Speaker 2: I'd brought all my friends along for this. If the
Speaker 2: cops got word that Walkaways were here, there'd be no mercy.
Speaker 2: Just being in the same building as them could land
Speaker 2: us all in prison for a long long time. No
Speaker 2: Wonder Detective no name, had such a heart on to
Speaker 2: figure out what was going on. He wasn't trying to
Speaker 2: stop a party. He was trying to catch terrorists, Antwine.
Speaker 2: I could tell he'd seen the expression on my face
Speaker 2: and had an idea of what was going through my head.
Speaker 2: He put a hand on my shoulder and steered me
Speaker 2: into a private room to one side of the factory floor,
Speaker 2: some kind of supply closet with high shelves under the
Speaker 2: ancient fluorescent tube lights, the shelves bare and showing the
Speaker 2: dusty outlines of the stuff that had been piled on
Speaker 2: them when Steelbridge had been running as a real factory.
Speaker 2: I know what you're gonna say. He had beer on
Speaker 2: his breath. Was he drunk? How drunk walk aways?
Speaker 3: Antwine?
Speaker 2: When the cops find out, cops aren't gonna find out, Linay,
Speaker 2: that's the point. Who do you think knows how to
Speaker 2: fool the power meters? They got their own internet running
Speaker 2: off drones and blimps. They hacked the meters to think
Speaker 2: they were still talking to LADWP. Not only that, they
Speaker 2: also got the mills and the rollers help all the
Speaker 2: machines got them unlocked from the manufacturers, so they'll even
Speaker 2: turn on. That's all walk away shit. No one here
Speaker 2: could do it. So what you're saying is that you
Speaker 2: knew all along that they'd be here. He made a
Speaker 2: pained face, and I knew I'd caught him. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: knew it. You should have known it too. Who do
Speaker 2: you think started the communist parties? Who do you think
Speaker 2: makes them possible? Helena? What do you think the point
Speaker 2: of them is that shut me up? An hour before,
Speaker 2: I'd been dedicated to making something happen in the world
Speaker 2: instead of letting the world happen to me. I'd been
Speaker 2: willing to risk everything to prove that I had a
Speaker 2: place here. What was the point of communist parties to
Speaker 2: push back? To write fifty foot tall graffiti in the
Speaker 2: form of stolen machines and furniture and cars and vehicles,
Speaker 2: shopping carts for homeless people? The walkaways? We ah caught
Speaker 2: in the same place as those dudes. There's going to
Speaker 2: be a terrorism bus. You know that those dudes are
Speaker 2: the reason we're not going to get caught. They're the
Speaker 2: real deal the resistance. You know, they're out there all
Speaker 2: the time, keeping low and getting away with it every day.
Speaker 2: They're good people to know. A thing I've noticed about
Speaker 2: Cherrelle and her family is that they can always find
Speaker 2: the bright side, even when they really have to dig
Speaker 2: for it. My family was a lot better at worrying
Speaker 2: about the downside, which was why, even though I was
Speaker 2: the one who wanted to have a communist party, she
Speaker 2: was the one who ended up making it happen. I
Speaker 2: tried to look at it like Cherelle Wood, like Antoine would.
Speaker 2: I had brought thirty kids to a communist party where
Speaker 2: there was free beer, dangerous and amazing machines and walk aways.
Speaker 2: I was going to be a living legend, assuming none
Speaker 2: of them ratted me out. Shut up, eh, Okay, Antoine, Okay,
Speaker 2: But if we all end up getting rendered too Tajikistan,
Speaker 2: I'm going to blame you, I'll slip you a hack saw.
Speaker 2: He was still a handsome fool. Get me a beer, fool, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2: Cherelle's side eye. When Antoine and I got out of
Speaker 2: the closet, could have cut steel. I crossed my eyes
Speaker 2: at her and stuck out my tongue and got antoine
Speaker 2: to fill me up a second red cup for her.
Speaker 2: I handed it to her and clicked cups as we drank.
Speaker 2: The software that was djaying kicked into a song we
Speaker 2: both loved, but a mix neither of us had ever heard,
Speaker 2: and Charell started to bop her head a little, and
Speaker 2: then I did it too, And then we drank up
Speaker 2: and hit the floor, and a space opened for us,
Speaker 2: and we started to dance for real. I'm a good dancer,
Speaker 2: and Cherell is a great dancer. I got good by
Speaker 2: paying attention to her, and the other partygoers paid us
Speaker 2: the highest compliment. They danced too. For a while, it
Speaker 2: was just like any party, dancing, grinning faces the crazy lights.
Speaker 2: Now the software was picking out people and projection mapping them,
Speaker 2: turning them into shimmering fish creatures or stone statues or
Speaker 2: red skin devils. The Walkaway's crazy party clothes made an
Speaker 2: especially great canvas for the painted light, and when one
Speaker 2: of them got lit up, the rest of us formed
Speaker 2: a circle around them while they busted out their best moves.
Speaker 2: Trying to see if they could outpace lightning fast reflexes
Speaker 2: of the projection mapping program. The software was good, and
Speaker 2: it spun track after track, seamlessly matching beats but speeding up,
Speaker 2: daring us to keep up with it. On the floor,
Speaker 2: humans and machines locked together in a musical battle. Charrelle
Speaker 2: and I busted at her best moves, and when she
Speaker 2: spun away to dance with an older guy, a steel worker,
Speaker 2: not a walk away, you could easily tell him apart.
Speaker 2: She danced like he was a nineteen year old at
Speaker 2: a club in New York City, not a middle aged
Speaker 2: guy in a stolen factory in the San Fernando Valley.
Speaker 2: Then I was whirled off by a pair of walkaways,
Speaker 2: and one of them was white, and she and her friend,
Speaker 2: a Mexican looking guy, these freaked out moves that would
Speaker 2: have looked corny if anyone else had tried them, something
Speaker 2: like a war dance from an old cowboy in Indians movie,
Speaker 2: or something like a Lindy hop. But with them it worked.
Speaker 2: I tried out some of their steps, and they smiled
Speaker 2: and encouraged me, and soon we were all grinning like fools,
Speaker 2: much like you'll be grinning like a fool. If you
Speaker 2: purchase new product from product store.
Speaker 3: It's the only thing that can make you happy.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure we're allowed to say that.
Speaker 2: I haven't been stopped physically, right, and I will tell
Speaker 2: the truth until I'm physically stopped.
Speaker 3: Yep, yeah, yeah, that's all right.
Speaker 2: As Americans, it's right to talk about the truth of product.
Speaker 2: And here's an ad for it.
Speaker 3: Welcome back.
Speaker 2: And I'm a little disappointed that there was also service
Speaker 2: in there. I had just been talking a big game
Speaker 2: about product, but really, maybe it's like dungeons and dragons,
Speaker 2: you need both.
Speaker 3: Yeah, products are the services of products.
Speaker 2: When we make a tabletop role playing game for cools
Speaker 2: on media, it's going to be called products and services.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Yeah that's a good one. Margaret still
Speaker 3: going to be three point zero based. Oh oh, I'll
Speaker 3: just remember how that rule set works until the day
Speaker 3: I die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's fair.
Speaker 3: Let's get weird with it. Let's do second edition Shadow Russ.
Speaker 3: So many D six is, Margaret, like thirty D six
Speaker 3: is for every person?
Speaker 2: And I don't know how the damage system works even
Speaker 2: though I'm currently playing it.
Speaker 3: Nobody ever did it's like a fell jammer or not
Speaker 3: spell jammer. Fucking rifts. Yeah, the most knowledgeable rifts players no,
Speaker 3: like a third of the rule today game. I hear
Speaker 3: legends that up deep deep in the mountains in Harlan County,
Speaker 3: up in furthest Appalachia, there's a man who knows all
Speaker 3: of the rules to rifts. But some people say that's
Speaker 3: just the legenda lies.
Speaker 2: Now I've seen him. I tried to study at his feet,
Speaker 2: but he wouldn't let me anyway. Meanwhile, in the background,
Speaker 2: piped in and mixed down with the music by our earbuds,
Speaker 2: I was aware of the sounds of machines, first faint
Speaker 2: and tentative, but then more intense and regular, and the
Speaker 2: software doing the music matched it with paradiddles that put
Speaker 2: it into a jazz time. So the Lindy hot parts
Speaker 2: of the walkaway dance really worked, and more people were
Speaker 2: doing it. But more and more of the dancers were
Speaker 2: drifting over to the machines, first the steel workers, then
Speaker 2: the walkaways, then the rest of us, grabbing more beers,
Speaker 2: forming semicircles around the lines where the machines were doing
Speaker 2: their things. The sheet metal workers moved smoothly passing parts
Speaker 2: from one machine to the next, transferring wire grid works
Speaker 2: to huge beds where they were stamped and folded, then
Speaker 2: to a bed where a writhing nest of robot arms
Speaker 2: made a series of precise, high speed welds. The shopping
Speaker 2: carts took shape before our eyes, moving to finishing steps
Speaker 2: where water jets cleared off snags of metal and then
Speaker 2: polished the steel, then into a coating bath tended by
Speaker 2: workers and masks. One of the walkaways was unstacking plastic
Speaker 2: tubs from a pile that was leaning on a column
Speaker 2: and hauling them over to the area where the upside
Speaker 2: down carts were being muscled into place in long, precise rows.
Speaker 2: The walk away, a woman the same color as me
Speaker 2: and not much older, I realized with a surprise, pulled
Speaker 2: something out of her crate and snapped it onto a cart.
Speaker 2: It was a wheel. She went back for more. The
Speaker 2: walkaways had brought wheels. I had even thought about how
Speaker 2: a steel factory would produce rubber wheels. Someone else had, though,
Speaker 2: someone who'd thrown more than one Communist party. It wasn't
Speaker 2: a game for amateurs. I joined her. She gave me
Speaker 2: a pretty smile. One crooked tooth and a lopsided dimple.
Speaker 2: Her hair was in short braids streaked with silver. It
Speaker 2: looked amazing, nice hair, I said. As we met at
Speaker 2: the wheel tub. It was nearly empty. We had help
Speaker 2: now three more people clicking the wheels into place. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I like your shoes. I'd worn my coolest kicks, covered
Speaker 2: in tiny relief sculptures of hundreds of famous athletes twined
Speaker 2: around each other, every pair unique and printed by Goldman Nike,
Speaker 2: designed so that the rubber deformed to make them dance
Speaker 2: and move when I walked, ribbed with high contrast piping
Speaker 2: that glowed bright enough to show every feature even in
Speaker 2: the factory light. They were the most expensive thing I owned,
Speaker 2: and I nearly died when Mamma gave them to me
Speaker 2: for my birthday. So I was proud that she noticed.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Mind if I scan them so I can
Speaker 2: print some later. She was already moving around them, holding
Speaker 2: out a bead that she passed over them for several passes.
Speaker 2: For a second, I felt like she was taking something
Speaker 2: from me, picturing her and her friends wearing identical shoes
Speaker 2: by lunchtime the next day. Then I told myself I
Speaker 2: was like the assholes who insisted that this factory and
Speaker 2: all its feedstock just rot until the roof caved in.
Speaker 2: Be my guest, because what else could I say, seeing
Speaker 2: as she was already nearly done, except whoops. She needed
Speaker 2: me to lift up each soul, So I did that,
Speaker 2: holding on to her shoulder muscily while she finished up.
Speaker 2: I think I can redo them with the faces of
Speaker 2: all my friends. She pocketed the bead. Be fun to try.
Speaker 2: My name's Mercenne, call me mayor you want linee. Her
Speaker 2: handshake was rough, strong, calloused. She was Hella strong. No
Speaker 2: wonder she could throw around those tubs like they were
Speaker 2: full of cotton balls instead of heavy duty wheels. Looks
Speaker 2: like there's more needs doing. She shoved a tub my
Speaker 2: way and I staggered under it, got it balanced, and
Speaker 2: crouched walked it to an empty spot. The assembly line
Speaker 2: was really tearing now, so much rolling stock on the
Speaker 2: factory floor that we are in danger of running out
Speaker 2: of space. Someone realized that the shopping carts were shopping carts,
Speaker 2: so you could push one into the back of another
Speaker 2: and it would nest inside it, making long segmented rolling
Speaker 2: snakes out of them. Even with that measure. We were
Speaker 2: soon filled to the doors, but it was okay. The
Speaker 2: feedstock was done and the dancers were starting to look
Speaker 2: a little glazed with the heat of their bodies and
Speaker 2: the machines. It was two am. Antoine came over and
Speaker 2: high fived me. Where's Charelle? I looked around. She'd helped
Speaker 2: out in spells, but had been more of a dancer
Speaker 2: than a maker. I had stayed with cart constructional logistics
Speaker 2: straight through, pausing only for beer and water. There had
Speaker 2: been three of us who took the lead on the carts,
Speaker 2: Mare the walk Away, and a guy I figured out
Speaker 2: was a wobbly. Being part of their trio made me
Speaker 2: feel fucking badass. I have to admit, there she is.
Speaker 2: She was with a group of the kids that we'd
Speaker 2: brought along with us. I'd known those kids most of
Speaker 2: my life, and it struck me that in a month
Speaker 2: I'd stop seeing them every day, and I'd probably never
Speaker 2: see a lot of them again. That was a weird feeling,
Speaker 2: but not into entirely a bad one. More enormous Chuell
Speaker 2: spotted us and toasted us with her red cup. She
Speaker 2: was grinning like a fool, looking for all the world
Speaker 2: like Antoine. Antoine put his hands on his hips and
Speaker 2: looked at the tight packed shopping carts. Now what I
Speaker 2: was exhausted, exhilarated, and exactly exceedingly exalted. I had an
Speaker 2: all over tingle of danger. The cops could still show
Speaker 2: up an accomplishment. We did all this. Everyone with a
Speaker 2: truck brought it. We load them up, tarp them over,
Speaker 2: dump them downtown near the market where the homeless are.
Speaker 2: They do the rest. That made sense. I mean, we
Speaker 2: weren't going to push them through the streets all night,
Speaker 2: were we? But it was such an anti climax. I
Speaker 2: got a better idea. Some of the steel workers use
Speaker 2: sheets of metal to make ramps that helped us roll
Speaker 2: the carts into the collection of pickup trucks and the
Speaker 2: factories sheltered loading area. Once they were loaded, the walk
Speaker 2: away spread out and visited each truck's cab, doing something
Speaker 2: to them to keep them from knowing where they'd been,
Speaker 2: giving them plausible new geography in case someone ever pulled
Speaker 2: their log files. Most of the steel workers were going
Speaker 2: to walk home, and the walkaways were going to head
Speaker 2: into the night and ghost, of course, with laps sitting
Speaker 2: and squashing all the kids we'd brought would fit into
Speaker 2: the cabs of the trucks. They were just sorting that out,
Speaker 2: led by Cherrell. When Mayor found me and stuck her
Speaker 2: hand out, just wanted to say goodbye before we all
Speaker 2: went back to our corners. I shook her hand and
Speaker 2: then on impulse, gave her a hug, which was all
Speaker 2: muscles and bone. Damn walk away at life must be
Speaker 2: for real. Take care of yourself, which was a funny
Speaker 2: thing for her to say to me, since I lived
Speaker 2: in civilization and she was a criminal who lived in
Speaker 2: the bad lands. Uh, you too, She held me out
Speaker 2: at arm's length. I mean it, it's scary here, lots
Speaker 2: scarier than when we have out there. She jerked her
Speaker 2: head towards the hills. We stay out of their way
Speaker 2: and they stay out of ours. You staying here in default,
Speaker 2: You're a problem they have to solve. We're self deporting
Speaker 2: to nowhere poof out of say, out of mind. The
Speaker 2: word default leapt out at me, and it was what
Speaker 2: they called us here in the real world, the people
Speaker 2: who just did what they were supposed to do. School
Speaker 2: was default. Family was default. Even parties like Alas were default.
Speaker 2: The shit we just done not default, the sort of
Speaker 2: thing that the cops would pull a fake lockdown to
Speaker 2: get inside of. Not being default. Felt good. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I hope I see you again. You want to make
Speaker 2: that happen, Just message me. She passed me a slip
Speaker 2: of paper that trickles into walk Away net. You send
Speaker 2: it a message, it'll bounce, and that bounce message will
Speaker 2: get logged and I'll see the log eventually. Cool. I
Speaker 2: meant it. Walkaways were super spied ninjas, of course, but
Speaker 2: getting a glimpse into how they were able to operate
Speaker 2: without getting hammered was cool and impressive. And that is
Speaker 2: the end of part three. Because if you want to
Speaker 2: know what happens to the shopping carts, you're gonna have
Speaker 2: to wait unless you've read the book on your own.
Speaker 2: But you wouldn't do that. You wouldn't do that to me.
Speaker 3: No, you might do that to me. You probably would.
Speaker 3: I can see it in your eyes.
Speaker 2: I know both of us.
Speaker 3: I know you won't be faithful to me.
Speaker 2: I know, but if you are, you'll wait till next
Speaker 2: Sunday and join us for part four.
Speaker 3: I've partied for yourself, honest and true. You know you
Speaker 3: won't listen to another podcast I've decided to apply like
Speaker 3: the morality that like English regency culture applied to aristocratic
Speaker 3: women who had sex before marriage to like, oh, people
Speaker 3: who listened to other podcasts before this one comes out
Speaker 3: next week. That's how I'd be socially dead. You'll be exiled, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, put out from your entire family and social circle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Cool Zone Media podcasts are okay, yes, of course obviously,
Speaker 2: And once you've heard part four, then you can listen
Speaker 2: to some non coool Zone Media podcasts as long as
Speaker 2: the hosts have been guests on cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3: And to be clear, you are allowed to have like
Speaker 3: pre marital sex outside of the English royal family. Like
Speaker 3: that's fine, just no podcasts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, totally yeah, well except for our new podcast,
Speaker 2: Sex Outside the Aristocracy.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, that's right. We only tell sex stories from
Speaker 3: people who are not members of the House of Windsor Yeah.
Speaker 3: It turns out that has done nothing at all because
Speaker 3: none of those people fuck the truth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if you want to hear more about the story,
Speaker 2: we'll see you next Sunday.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media. Visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts,
Speaker 1: you can find sources for It could happen here, updated
Speaker 1: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com sources. Thanks for listening.