ManateePunk Untitled Volume 1 of 218

Steampunk is everywhere. Just how far can we take the legacy of Cyberpunk? Here’s a not exactly serious proposal for the next big somethingpunk. And why not let us know which somethingpunk you’d like (or hate) to see.

ManateePunk Untitled Volume 1 of 218

Chapter 1 Upload

Someone had Uploaded. She could sense the new information in the Flow; rich, organic, faecal. She shifted her bulk, as light as her shadow in the Water, so that her whiskers could pick up the faint warmth in the cool of her world. Filter, interpret. But the message was faint, indistinct. It had come from too far Upstream. The soft waves from the aimless meanderings of the cat-fish, the static-hiss of the restless freshwater shrimp caught the meaning in a wash of white-noise. She turned slowly round again, stirring silt. The message lost in the rhythms of her slow mind.

Had she known then what she knew now she might have paid more attention. Listened to the nagging voice. But what is youth except a joyous refusal of the future?

And Chloe was a very young Tee. Only Bipeds called them Manatees. Just like they called the world the Mangroves. They saw well, but they only saw surfaces. Skimming across the top of the world on their thunder, seeing only the sun bouncing off its surface tension. They thought they knew everything. Heard it all. But sound travels faster in the Water. The Tees heard first, Man was the last to know.

The Upload flowed past Chloe, its fragments tickling her hide. Further Downstream someone else would pick it up, Download the news. And they, they would act…