NOVEL NEXT Chapter 56: Hunting the News Cycle IV
Even caught under the heel of a regime obsessed with informational hygiene, the corners of the Protectorate-Intraweb (as revealed by the 'menu') was everything he was familiar with. The chathubs were filled with invective against the government, against the terrorists, against the feminists, against child-diddlers and demented-granny-fuckers and scat-rippers, replete with accusations of corruption, crammed with 'inside info' from a minimum of seven perspectives for every politically-significant affair 'uncovered' by sources of dubious authenticity. Verbal wars raged interminably between 'niggerskins' and 'cholershits', 'eunuchs' and 'slut-ducks', 'fucks' and 'cucks' and a multitude of other expletive-designated groups whose raison d'être was to offend and take offense.
The most popular topics in the chathubs—routinely boasting ten million or more hits, if the viewcounts-widgets were accurate—related to the 'kinky parties (PICTURES INCLUDED)' in which immense multi-story penthouses in the Vines figured as week-long 'getaways' for the well-heeled and well-connected to engage in bacchic, brain-blasting coitus on mass, orgiastic scales. Tales of the Vines orgies were legendary (and very popular), and the most detailed information was found on the chathub commicube.
There were a multitude of posts citing a chain of 'inside sources' that were essentially traceable to older and older posts, all the way back to unsubstantiated megaposts by the 'top chatters' obscurerants, chunkLE5boi and PiesOnlyMonger, amongst others. As these sources disclosed, the Vines 'getaways' were kept fed by thousands of Gehennite women aged from 12 to 80 (some, like obscurerants, suggested the age-threshold was in fact as young as 9). There were only two rules these 'service girls' had to follow, on pain of extreme punishments that generally resulted in debilitation and permanent damage to the brain and body—firstly, they were to be completely nude for the duration of the getaways (or if they wore any sort of clothing, such clothing had to reveal their vulvas and areolas/nipples), and secondly, they were forced to consent (an oxymoron in terms, it was not lost on Betelgeuse) to any request by a patron, so long as such request did not result in immedicable injury or disability.
Needless to say, trawlers of these chathubs ate up any and all information pertaining to these pussy-buffets, whether substantiated or unsubstantiated, and comments on these topics typically spanned every shade of vitriol, lasciviousness, admiration, disgust… so on and so forth.
There were religious types calling down every plague and cosmic punishment known to man, virtue-signalers whose typical reaction included exhaustive descriptions of disgust and various accompanying physical reactions amounting to abhorrence and revulsion, moralizers and pseudo-historians who sighed at this monument to 'late-stage decadence' and threw descriptive tantrums scoping out the trajectory of societal collapse and welcomed the fantasy creation of a future utopia, and traditionalists and feminists lambasting this 'travesty of nihilism' (and attracting some powerful insults from those who called it dangerously stupid to label this 'nihilism' rather than 'hedonism') and calling for a return to the purer, nobler times which it was the Legacy of the Sul to have created. And who could forget the contribution of the fair-complexion-loving ambitionist-bros and the mystico-anthropological blackpill-physiognomists, all of them hankering for the chance, in some wished-for future (for the ambitionists) or other universe (for the blackpillers) where they were rich and upper-class, to join these 'getaways' and "cream allo dose pussies nonstop bareback" if only to dilute the seed of "Gehennite whore darkness" and sire future issue that was 'marble-white', 'fair', 'clean' and 'pure', and to avoid the otherwise "coal-black dirt of the skin that accumulate on these mongrel breedlets that are shit out indistinguishable-like to standardisement blackdog children".
It was a kaleidoscope of perspectives, ideologies, life experiences all jostling and crashing and melting into each other. It was a Mandelbrot of endless patterns and endlessly fascinating manifestations of chaos, obsessions, cathexes, neuroticisms. It didn't matter whether it was Earth or Mars or the Frontier—the Intrawebs made of all fragile human psychologies a recursion of self-indoctrination and alienation and para-socialization and radicalization.
Cogs in the machine unhappy about being cogs in the machine. Betelgeuse—as his newly-created online persona, BeetleJooz—lost himself in navigating the chathubs, delved into the trending discussions relating to inflammation-caused depressions of the mind and the role of anti-inflammatory medications in resolving them, and then browsed strategically placed advertisements touting Artificial Serotonin Neurosynaptic-Suspenders.
And he found the rage-baiters, goon-gators, agony aunts, am-I-the-asshole-ers, even joined in making one or a hundred facetious comments calling bullshit on what were most likely pity-farmers and fakesters crying about unemployment, dead mothers, runaway fathers, collapsing businesses, so on and so forth.
The commicube section on marriages were perhaps the most farcical, and one topic in particular, posted by bluemanbluelife, described in rather plaintive terms the keen sense of detachment that afflicted OP, that though he was trying, he couldn't really give a damn about work, about his wife's musings on Democratic interior design and fashionable Common idioms, about his son's upcoming rugby tournament, about his daughter's plan to abort her mongrel bastard of a child. His only passion was for cars and his secretary's large tits and larger ass, and his thoughts had increasingly revolved around deserting his family and eloping with his secretary and commiting suicide.
As might be expected, responses ranged from "what a fucking loser" to "that baby likely to come out shitstain-colored, should kill ASAP" to "divorce incoming; your wife sounds fat and ugly anyway, because if she were hot she wouldn't care so much about your stupid ass" to "GOD IN HEAVEN how can a slave-whore be such a nagging bitch. Divorce her ass NOW! Transfer all assets away as soon as you can so your fatfuck wife, low-IQ-retard son and public-urinal-spermbank-failure of a daughter can rot on the street. HIGHLY-RECOMMENDED to get them addicted to Proxy beforehand!". And there were those who whined about "titpicks of secce or calling BS", inquisitives who asked if "OP phucked whore-secretery yet if yes pls tell pussy-feel" and the standard, ubiquitous "kys now fuckface".
But amongst the mindless cacophony Betelgeuse found also valuable snippets of market information from self-proclaimed scrappers and riggers advertising their (unlicensed) services in bespoke 'prosthetology', and claiming they could replace a limb 'as good as new' for as little as 1000 Credits. Betelgeuse immediately thought of Douglas and his lost arm and filed this piece of information away for later consideration.
He spent an indeterminate amount of time trawling through the chathubs and eventually became convinced that he would be able to arrange for an illegal voyage back to Earth if only he possessed something in the ballpark of 2 million Credits. Although interstellar travel had been prohibited since the start of the Chimerae incursion, goods were still being imported from Earth, and this suggested to him an border that was porous and exploitable. 2 million Credits was what it cost to send a large object back to Earth over the interstellar shipping lanes, inclusive of the 'administrative costs' of avoiding (how the avoidance would occur exactly Betelgeuse couldn't tell) the sanitation checks required under Requisition Order No. 25 restricting data egress.
When next he glanced at the clock to the top-left of the terminal's UI, it was already 1346h, 2 hours and 14 minutes before his scheduled meeting with Edith, at the Detention Barracks.
Betelgeuse started, suddenly realizing how much time had passed. He'd been so caught up with exploring the wacky topography of the Protectorate-Intraweb that he found himself completely sidetracked from the most important thing.
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He needed money. He needed a facility to sell Incunabula, amongst other things.
He retrieved his scattering focus and sharpened his attention, navigating back toward the janky 'menu' page to find and visit, finally, the INC Marketplace.
It was several minutes of verifying his account name, BeetleJooz, when a pop-up blurb expanded to fill his screen. It introduced the INC Marketplace in garishly-colored graphics and explained that the site brought together prospective buyers and sellers of Incunabula and clarified that separate site-facilities existed on the INC Marketplace in respect of (1) 'verified' and (2) 'unverified' Incunabula. The pop-up went on to specify that the INC Marketplace also facilitated trade in respect of (3) a 'consolidated market'—an Information Market—in respect of various kinds of Incunabula-related information and (4) 'miscellaneous Incunabula services'. Betelgeuse made a mental note to explore, in future, what these miscellaneous services comprised, not least because he reckoned it may include something related to (or at least shed light on) the 'illegal grafting' phenomenon which he had felt when compelling the Nook barber and the Gimmarash cadre he killed.
After reading through the message, Betelgeuse moused over the relevant terms highlighted in the pop-up. A separate window flashed up onto the screen, explaining that 'verified Incunabula' were Incunabula that one verified with the INC Marketplace 'system' through the use of a proprietary scanner—which one could purchase at the currently discounted price of 5999.99 Credits. Betelgeuse couldn't help but roll his eyes.
The INC Marketplace gave representations to the effect that the verification procedure was totally 'decentralized' and that verification entailed 'blockchain immutability', but for reasons of security and due to the ease of Incunabulum-facilitated verification fakery there was no submitting a request to the INC Marketplace EGS-3097 blockchain protocol without the use of the proprietary signature all scanners came equipped with. There was no getting around the requirement of a scanner to trade on the 'verified' markets, was what Betelgeuse gathered.
And he wondered if centralizing the scanning technology didn't remove the whole reason for piggybacking blockchain technology, but decided not to think too deeply into it.
In any case, he decided that he had little business with the 'verified' section and quickly navigated to the site-section for 'unverified' Incunabula, wrangling with the dated UI (at least compared to what he was used to with Pecorino) and finally, after several tortuous minutes, managing to bring up the last-known estimated-prices at which ticker counter uAGS.1—'unverified Ash Incunabulum (good-quality, single previous owner, 1 Etching)'—were sold.
uAGS.1 - 6854.26 CHIT
'The charts specify all prices represented are estimated-prices. What does that actually entail?' he thought, scrolling back through the candlestick chart for uAGS.1 and finding that the data only ran back a year for 'free accounts'. Sometime in the past year, Incunabulum prices had skyrocketed by over 400% to 8000 Chit, although prices had fallen off over the past month or so and had sat around the 6.8k to 7.2k Chit range for the last week and counting.
Incursion-fueled volatility. Maybe I can find out more information about the 'estimated-prices' in the 'Help' section?
He scrutinized the drop-down menu and found it—a FAQster relating to 'estimated-prices' and explaining the procedure for delivery and disputes. He scanned the FAQster, reading it swiftly, then leaned back with his brows furrowed deeply, his finger tapping the side of his lip.
The market for 'unverified Incunabula' designates price as 'estimated-prices' because an order listed on the order-book is filled only when two criteria are satisfied: (1) firstly, a sell-order is matched with a buy-order at a prevailing estimated-price; (2) secondly, delivery actually takes place. If I'm considering this correctly, the market could have been run as a futures-market if not for the fact that Incunabula-trade is universally outlawed. The prohibition means all contracts to pay the currently prevailing price for future delivery at a specific date (i.e., futures contracts) are void for contractual illegality.
I know from my own prior knowledge that the validity of such a law on Earth is without question, traceable back to the Democratic Arbitration Courts' practice guidance (building upon its obiter dicta ruling in precedent cases) designating all trade in Incunabula illegal 'for all time'. It is likely that such a rule has also been promulgated in Desert, as well as all other Frontier planets, to ensure consistency with Democratic practice.
Of course, history tells us that attempting to prohibit trade in an in-demand good has rarely if ever been completely successful. Hence Pecorino, hence INC Marketplace.
In any case, I'm reading here that, procedurally speaking, a market's 'estimated-price' registers a tick only when (a) the order-book registers a fill, following which the buy-side monies are held by the INC Marketplace in escrow; (b) delivery of an Incunabulum from seller to buyer actually takes place; and (c) buyer acknowledges the condition of the delivered Incunabulum on his INC Marketplace account. Following which the buyer's monies will be released from escrow with any agreed-upon additions or subtractions added or subtracted from the monies to be released at that stage (i.e., seller actually receives the monies).
Disputes-wise, the site seems to provide a facility for raising a complaint-ticket in cases of abuse (for example, if the buyer receives the product but does not acknowledge delivery with his account, or the seller triggers an order-book fill without possessing a product of corresponding grade and quality, so on and so forth) although it does seem that unverified transactions are more risky in general. Looking at the higher prices on the vAGS.1 chart as compared to uAGS.1, it does look like the cost of verification is priced into the market—vAGS.1 prices a substantial 8% premium over uAGS.1, but it's not enough to make it worthwhile for me to purchase the proprietary scanner, unless I'm selling in bulk.
His mind absorbed with the logistics of a possible transaction, Betelgeuse shifted over to check a selection of other relevant ticket-counters: uHIS.0, uHRS.0, uHIM.0, and uHRM.0. The last-known estimated-prices (updated sometime over the past day) were as follows:
uHIS.0 - 9992.26 CHIT
uHRS.0 - 6405.80 CHIT
uHIM.0 - 2937.45 CHIT
uHRM.0 - 1198.09 CHIT
So these are the prices. I have two potentially saleable Incunabula: Frederica's Ash grade and the Hollow grade I obtained from the Prilogia. I suppose the specific wording of the Increments/Etchings will have an effect on the final price as agreed upon by a buyer, and as such it makes sense that I should find a way to translate the Hollow Incunabulum's Increment, get to know exactly what I'm selling.
The question still remains—should I monetize both Incunabula, or only one of them?