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Code Switching (Part 4 of 4)

By Malon Edwards

(…continued from Part 3)

12. THIS IS THE TRUTELL

MICHAËLLE-ANNABELLE FEAT. JEAN-MICHEL

 

I strap into my rig, take a really big swig from my hydration dispenser tube I call The Ultra Black Vig, and settle back to begin this all-night white-hat gig.

At first, I decide to do this like the Stig, but instead I shake awake my lightbox, pull on my knee-high fuzzy socks, and momentarily disable my sigTell locks. This is my double-dog dare for Saffron Sutton to try and hack this whitefox. She and I have been doing this since the first day of SSI hacker sprints, which always takes place on the vernal equinox. Usually, I tell her she better kick rocks because my sigTell is damn well capable of delivering emotional shocks along her TruTell stalks all the way back to those frilly frocks she designs and thoroughly maligns (although, she would say signs) with a matte black gingham fox.

Now, watch me as I disregard all the clocks and enter the susso-sphere where the only thing I see is multicolored sigTell stalks everywhere.

They wriggle and waver and undulate, strobing vibrant colors so quickly that I can hardly even see straight. Truth and memories course along their horizon-stretching shafts amongst an innumerable amount of signature paths, and you can’t even begin to fathom the velocity of their flow rate blasts. This is the TruTell, in its most base and crudest form, and I must admit, its beauty and chroma leave me feeling all sorts of warm.

But I shake my hi-def bit rates to focus and remind myself I cannot allow myself to be swayed by this TruTell hocus-pocus. This is its defense mechanism to ensure hackers don’t corrupt its environment with a pretense of altruism. I’ve heard about hackers coming in here because they were paid by clients to excise their worst fears, but instead they were distracted by the shiny-shiny pure truths of the susso-sphere.

And oh, how tempting that is to corrupt.

But I won’t do it, so y’all can stop trying to interrupt.

There. In the blue-black glare of that indignation flare. A Jean-Michel memory Stanford Sutton Industries never wanted to share.

---

 

13. A HIDDEN MEMORY, AS ABRASIVE AS EMERY

JEAN-MICHEL FEAT. KINSLEY CHASE

 

An’ juss in case y’all can’t tell (yeah, I rock well), I do want to undergo Electric Resurrection, despite how few people have it wit my complexion. But I ain’t about to compromise my integrity juss ’cause some North Shore elitists want to minimize my talent wit parity an’ then give me a half-assed extended life as some sort of white-guilt charity.

Manman mwen didn’t raise no fool.

Kinsley Chase kisses her teeth an’ raise her chin at me as if we got beef. Yeah, it’s on now. Rumsfelds ’bout to start comin’ out they sheaths.

“I would never reduce your performance output without your consent. Stanford Sutton Industries honors its contracts.”

I shake my head. Nah, I don’t believe it. This is Stanford Sutton we talm ’bout here; his motto is “Deceive It.” But that circa 2019 Viola Davis Emmys red carpet skinload Kinsley got on right now make me wanna receive it.

“I’m not estipid. My mama didn’t raise no fool. You juss sayin’ that now ’cause we in public an’ all these news trucks around. But you ain’t slick. You juss gon’ wait ’til we get behind closed doors, push a button, an’ bow! It’s done. I’ll weaker an’ slower, juss like them white boys on the North Shore those reporters back there hold so dear.”

Kinsley Chase looks hurt. Her words come out first in a hesitant blurt, an’ then a sudden spurt as she tries not to be curt, but it juss don’t work. E’ry single syllable is clipped an’ sharp an’ killable.

“I’ve put too much hard work into you, and I’m not about to compromise that work. Stanford Sutton has put too much money into you, and he’s not about to piss that all away. Neither I, nor he, is about to fuck this all up right now.”

“So then, s’ak fout pase? What did I do wrong? Why are you here?”

Kinsley Chase’s Louboutin stiletto heels (wit that top-tier influencer sex appeal) click away from me fast. She don’t even give me a chance to sass. If I did, though, I’m damn certain she’d kick my ass, an’ then go to the Chicago-Illinois border an’ show them Staters her multi-pass.

(I’ve seen her aikido practice subroutine. Yeah, she fresh. Yeah, she clean.)

But the North Shore Leeloo Dallas is a third-class contrast to this big-ass mass standin’ in front of me, lookin’ like it can fit inside it more than one of me. I’m talm ’bout an exo as massive as a transport truck that ain’t even tryin’ to give no fucks wit the amount of souls I’m certain its construction has bruk—

---

14. A COLLOQUY.

MICHAËLLE-ANNABELLE AND SAFFRON SUTTON

 

Massive as a transport truck? What the fuck? Rumor has it, if you stay in the susso-sphere too long, you lose track of time, you lose yourself, and you stay forever, stuck.

You better believe I won’t let that happen to me. But if I ever tell you to stop speaking Low Latin to me, I give all y’all permission to start slapping me. And don’t stop until at least one of you has finished susso-sphere mapping me. I need to know who built that Jean-Michel memory because its code-sig energy is nothing at all like me and is truly something that I thought I would never, ever see: Saffron Sutton codework written so cleverly.

And yet, somethin’ about it is so wrong, and still, somethin’ about it is so heavenly.

 

Tonnè boule m! So sad I’m late for this. But seriously, can I still go and get a full plate of this?

 

Only if it’s flavored with my early morning piss.

Look, Michaëlle-Annabelle, you’re a smart girl. You were never impressed by the Tilt-A-Whirl, so you walked right by it and stood in line forever to ride the upside-down Double G Hurl and Curl.

You’re on a different level now so you can’t wrestle now and get disheveled now with the lower levels now. No matter how much they fascinate you.

You and I both know I can’t code like you, I can’t build skinloads like you, and I can’t see 9D nodes like you. I pulled you up out of the muck to help me when I get stuck and because you program like you don’t give a fuck. So, you are not allowed to be awestruck by those ghetto people who are running all amok. Your brilliance and transilience raises you far above their ruck.

 

You know what’s tripped out about you, Saff? You’re a natural blonde, but you don’t believe you’re that daft.

Wi, you, as you say, “pulled me up out of the muck to help you when you get stuck,” but you’re not as smart as you think. You can’t tell when someone is ragging the puck.

 

The fuck?

 

Dakò, so obviously you didn’t catch that. Here girl, let me throw you a bone; yeah, go fetch that. I know all y’all white savior young women would like to dulce de leche that, but I’m sitting here with all my lightbox rig gear ready to motherfucking check that.

And yes, I can do this for-motherfucking-ever because, if I’m completely honest, I’ve set this up truly at my leisure.

 

Yeah, OK. Whatever. I bet you think you’re quite clever with your perfect pronunciation of the word “leisure,” but pardon me as I endeavour to wreck your gag me with a spoon one-woman depiction of that eighties movie Heathers.

 

I suppose you’re pleased to put into your cap that extremely obscure reference feather.

 

Yes. As pleased as I am to be wearing this obscure but amazing circa 2012 Ellen Hoog skinload I just happened to throw together.

I know you want to get that Social Justice Warrior Blue Ribbon for Sniping Meddling Young White Women, but don’t forget that this is half the race you’ve always been living, while the other half you want to forever stay hidden.

And even though you will never admit it to me, I’ve known since SSI Hacker Sprint Number Three that you’re ashamed of what you want to be and what haunts you in your sleep, as you toss and turn and cry out while you weep.

Look, sis, you need to know this: You were hand-picked and I demanded that you landed the last scholarship and not walk away from the SSI gifted program empty-handed. That had nothing to do with your lack of melanin, and this is me being completely candid. And no, that’s not a compliment I’ve just volleyed to you back-handed. It’s true; you’re gifted and your programming is ethereal and enchanted.

In other words, you got that award because you’re just that good a hacker.

Now, stop trying to figure out what you need to do to act and be Blacker.

 

Oh, hell no you didn’t.

Heifer, don’t you start lying on me and telling these people my business.

Y’all, Saffron Sutton and I weren’t even play sisters, so don’t listen to her as she spins this whopper of a twister. And heifer, yeah, I’m talking to you again. You know damn well you and me were never really friends. Non, you ain’t slick, not even if you were wearing an eyepatch and your name was Rick, so take yo’ ass on and ride off into the moonlight on your rickety broomstick.

 

Are you trying to say—

 

—But wait. I’m not done with you yet.

I truly need these people to know this: You didn’t hand me that scholarship as if I were Tiny Tim and it was finally Christmas. Tchuip. Y’all, I earned my way into that SSI coding program, despite my never-ending homesickness. Now, somebody go get me some water before I ask, can I get a witness?

 

Amen!

 

Jean-Michel?!

 

Wi. He’s free from your spell, witch, because I prog well, bitch. You don’t believe it? Go search the SSI database for Jean-Michel’s personality sim and try to retrieve it. You won’t find anything there because I disassembled it and thieved it. You might have somewhat of an idea of where I’m going to put it back together and leave it, but even if you do, I’m for damn sure going to make damn sure you will never be able to reach it.

 

If you’ve removed all of my Ebonics speech programming from

his personality sim like you’ve tried to do these past few days, then you can keep it. As a matter of fact, I don’t need you anymore; I can program all my builds to sound truly Black and authentic.

 

Heifer, let’s get sumfin straight befo’ I grab yo’ TruTell stalks an’ amputate dem so cleanly you ain’t gon’ be able to iterate an’ grow-prog dem back routinely—at least not befo’ I established mah robotics company in the Sovereign State an’ Esmée Vérité is named mah kick-ass Lead Roboticist, where she gon’ make moves to rival the SSI android-gynoid marketplace.

And in case you haven’t noticed, I can code a bitch and code switch.

But just because you have never seen me act Black and talk Black doesn’t mean my Spades game is all the way wack.

So yes, I wrecked your code specs (which, apparently, you didn’t expect) because I was tired of you programming Jean-Michel to speak like a Peter Jackson straight from the muck and mire Lord of the Rings orc reject.

 

That’s low-down dirty and completely unfair.

I’ve done more for the DuSable Haitian community than you have, and I’ve treated it with care. Families from the South Side of Chicago wouldn’t be in the North Shore if it weren’t for the SSI Electric Resurrection Lottery Program that put them there, which I designed, developed, and implemented in the little free time I had to spare.

 

Oh, you mean the program where you experiment on Black bodies as one of your many android-gynoid related hobbies to remove all the code that you wrote, which, now all of a sudden you find shoddy, so you can sell a perfect product to your rich white clients named Holly, Molly, and Raleigh?

 

You make me sound like an evil master manipulator of people.

 

You are. But I’ll make sure you’re no longer so deceitful.

---

 

15. AN UNLIKELY ALLIANCE FORGED

RAKAYA’S LURKSUIT, FEAT. RAKAYA, BIG MAMA BLACK, AND ROSHAN

 

You lost your confidence long before you made your second visit to the Black Hand Side. And yes, I know, that statement is a blow to your pride. I can feel (as tactile as the Master Assassin’s seal) the shame you’re harboring now makes you want to run away and hide.

But Rakaya, as you sit here in Big Mama Black’s too-hot, too-dark, and too-small boardroom, you need to put all that aside.

I know this isn’t easy for you, and this is downright queasy for you, so until you do, I will: every five minutes, whisk away your sweat. I will also: every five and a half minutes, encourage you not to fret. I will even go as far to do whatever else you need me to do so that this meeting for you is a sure bet. Because nothing will be achieved if everyone sitting around this table feels aggrieved.

Especially you and Big Mama Black.

So, you do your best to get this meeting back on track, I’ll make sure Big Mama Black doesn’t give you a second anxiety attack—

(She didn’t give me a first. And while my confidence right now may be at its worst, I can assure you that line I just gave you was not well rehearsed.)

Sometimes, I think you forget that I’m not some back-alley acquired conscience hack, but instead your SoulSkin crackerjack who calms your fears and has your back.

And sometimes, I think you forget how much death I’ve dealt while you’ve kept me focused, lethal, hidden, and svelte.

No, I remember. I was there when you dismembered last November.

So then, you should feel my inner ember smolder when I send Mama Black and her board members this file folder.

Send it, bend it, hell, you should even defend it. But whatever you do, girl, hurry the fuck up and commend it because Big Mama Black’s patience with you has been thoroughly suspended.

“Inaya, go get me my long switch.”

“Yes ma’am, Big Mama Black.”

Look. Your silence has shown that poor girl how Big Mama Black is too cantankerous to brook.

I doubt that. Though, I’ll definitely flout that. But I for damn sure won’t shout that.

Not that you need to.

You’re right, that girl Inaya is made of crystal-clear glass; she’s see-through. Look at how she hesitates and shifts nervously from one foot to the other because she’s terrified of asking a clarifying question of her horrid and appalling play mother.

“Um, which one, Big Mama Black?”

“That fresh green one I tole you to cut fo’ me this mornin’. The one I call Lightnin’.”

“Yes ma’am, Big Mama Black.”

You’re so cynical. Everything about you is so finical. Look at how the solar cells just beneath Inaya’s beautiful dark skin glisten and gleam as she leaves.

To go to her alone spot so she can privately be peeved before she looks for more respectable guild employment, probably with those good-for-nothing so-and-so short-coat Thieves.

All she wants to feel is that solar energy so she can find Lightning with boosted quickness and ease.

And, in turn, raise her body temperature by a few degrees. She can do that on a beach in Belize.

All she wants to do is please.

As long as she doesn’t get up with fleas.

And, if you tell it, go back down with disease. I think you’re ready to give this meeting a bit of sleaze and unease.

“Girl, you sittin’ over there all quiet like you juss heard Jesus is back, but you ain’t got right wit God yet.”

Now, Rakaya, don’t blindside Big Mama Black too hard.

“Jesus isn’t coming back for me. He won’t save the contract killer who wears a lurksuit to accidentally murder the beloved son of a solar energy mogul.”

My dear exquisitely lethal symbiotic partner, that’s how you catch a room full of people off guard. I would even go so far as to say that Big Mama Black is currently picturing the body of her beloved only child thoroughly charred. Bravissimo, mio Scipio, but don’t you dare think of yourself as once and forever marred.

You don’t have to tell me twice. Now watch me turn heel and be colder than Antarctic ice.

“Now that I have your attention, continue to sit there, say nothing, and listen. The seven people sitting on my side of the table represent the Solarpunk Corridor Coalition. We are here to—”

Big Mama Black opens her mouth to speak, and you don’t realize what you’re doing until it’s done. I shed photons at a magnificent rate, maximize our interface in order to determine Big Mama Black’s eventual fate, and then begin my fun.

The shadows edging the dim light rush to us and we become one. No one sees you wraith the room and touch the back of Big Mama Black’s head with the barrel of a gun.

But she feels it.

Inaya comes back into the boardroom with Lightning. For once, Big Mama Black does the polite thing and the white thing by just putting the switch on the table in front of her, which is a little bit frightening.

“Your God is a jealous god, and He doesn’t like that my lurksuit puts me so close to His level.”

Your whisper is a fissure in the cloaking darkness. I’m delighted by the sincerity and severity of its starkness. You have nearly shed the rest of your fragility for welcome sharpness. But do you truly want to go through with this quick turn to heartless?

I think no, so I siphon enough photons from the dimness of the boardroom to shift you back into the light, but not before you’re back in your chair with the quickness of wraith flight. Big Mama Black looks at you and me like she wants to take off her earrings and fight. But instead, she lifts a hand, and the overhead lights shine bright. Clever woman. She duped us to perform this awful and disrespectful affright.

“Some people aroun’ here say you a hero.”

“I’m not.”

“Others, like me, don’t pussyfoot aroun’ it an’ say you evil incarnate.”

“I am.”

“So then, why would I go into bi’ness wit you, the slip of a girl who kilt my only child, my wonderful Roshan, and then had him Electric Resurrected flawed an’ imperfect?”

“Because I can bring the Black Hand Side billions of dollars and make Roshan perfect again.”

“An’ how you plan on doin’ that?”

“By having you partner with the Chicago-Ford Heights Solarpunk Corridor. This swath of land that runs from South Deering and the Wild Hunneds through Burnham, Dolton, Riverdale, South Holland, Glenwood, Lynwood, and to you, will be our answer to Saffron Sutton Industries.”

“So what am I ‘posed to be doin’ in all of this?”

“You are a Black icon of the South Suburbs. Everyone loves you. Everyone respects you. People come to you to make their lives better. People will come to the newly founded Michaëlle-Annabelle Industries campus that will be located here. Its nucleus will be the Black Hand Side, which will give life, energy, and purpose to the BCID training colleges and universities spread across the Solarpunk Corridor. That is, if they know you’re involved.”

Big Mama Black kisses her teeth at us, but within her dark brown eyes you can see a burgeoning glimmer of trust.

“So what it sound like you tellin’ me is the Sovereign State of Chicago want to annex us. Y’all know the State of Illinois gon’ do its best to make sure that don’t happen.”

“The Sovereign State of Chicago prefers to call it a mutual but permanent arrangement. And don’t worry about the State of Illinois. I and the Coalition will make sure we end this war and put it back in its place.”

“An’ I suppose you gon’ pay fo’ all of this.”

“Being evil incarnate has its perks.”

“What if I say no?”

“What if I say we’ve already had our first graduating class of Michaëlle-Annabelle Industries? It’s small, but it’s a start. And what if I say this class of roboticists, bio-technicians, and genegineers have already made Roshan perfect again?”

Before Big Mama Black can say anything, Roshan walks into the boardroom. His dark skin now looks as fresh and supple as it did the day he came out of his mother’s womb.

“Roshan’s solar cells now gleam beneath his skin as they should because Michaëlle-Annabelle Industries employs Black people who know Black people, and not, no offense, Big Mama Black, Lincoln Park Hasbros looking for redemption.”

Big Mama Black looks at Roshan. He no longer looks sad, depressed, and withdrawn.

“Mama, listen to Kai-Kai. Michaëlle-Annabelle’s genius cadet, Esmée Vérité, quickly figured out how to make my solar cells work with my synth skin and my accumulator. Your white boys who were looking for fame again after botching Electric Resurrection after Electric Resurrection in the North Shore weren’t even close to doing that.”

Big Mama Black, with tears on her cheeks, takes Roshan into her arms. It’s almost as if she’s forgotten that you and I once brought her only son grievous harm.

“I’ll partner with you an’ yo’ Coalition ’cause you brought my son back to me. But chile, you know God don’t like no ugly.”

“He doesn’t like my lurksuit, either. It angers Him. But it is also my penance.”

I am?

(Yes. And I am forever holy hell God damned.)

“But you should know this, Big Mama Black: Even though Roshan’s body isn’t broken anymore, every day when I close my eyes, my lurksuit shows me him on the sand, dead, broken, and burned. This is my cost for being evil incarnate. This is my punishment for taking your son away from you. This is my eternal Hell now.”

---

 

16. STANFORD SUTTON AND THE NCAA AIN’T STRONGER THAN OUR LOVE LOVE?

ESMÉE VÉRITÉ FEAT. JEAN-MICHEL, TUSKEGEE NORTH ACE EXO-SUIT PILOT

“The moment your doctor told me you had just weeks to live, I set up my lab equipment in the building that housed the Devereaux School of Codework on the Michaëlle-Annabelle Industries campus and built a beta brain for you—complete with a hippocampus, cerebellum, and amygdala—to insert every single memory of yours I could harvest from the susso-sphere. Your beta brain can form new neural pathways using those memories and adapt to external stimuli to make new ones. This new brain is as near an exact model as I could make of your alpha brain.

“I’ve also designed and coded modules for your age, gender, and race and built a new personality sim for you, based on the you I’ve known since I first met you when we were six years old. I even designed a football playmaker engine for you because Michaëlle-Annabelle knew Stanford Sutton Industries and the NCAA would pull the shit that they did.

“Malerezman, you won’t need it now. But whether you need it or not, I did it because I could. So that’s actually fortunate for you and anyone else they try to Kaepernick.

“All of that took nine long months. Twenty-two-and-a-half-hour workdays. Two fifteen-minute breaks for sustenance. One hour of sleep to recharge.

“I’ve put so much hard work into you because I love you. I’ve always loved you. I’ve loved you from the moment we met almost eleven years ago. I’ve loved you through each one of your Saffron Sutton Electric Resurrections.

“I love you even more now through this Michaëlle-Annabelle

Resurrection.

“M kontan that our love has evolved and grown into this. We are in our right here and our right now on the Michaëlle-Annabelle Industries campus. We are you and me, Jean-Michel and Esmée Vérité—like everybody always said when they saw us walking together on the Quad as I checked your systems as part of my analysis. As I made sure I programmed you to be the perfect you I wanted and needed to bring back from Electric Resurrection.

“So now that the final check of your systems is complete, know that you will be the best exo-suit pilot in this war with the State of Illinois. And also know I won’t despair when the Sovereign State sends you off. Because within you, within all of my code, is all of my love. And my love, your love—our love—is a fòmidab place to be.”

---

OUTRO. YOUNG, RESURRECTED AND BLACK

JEAN-MICHEL

Eight hundred and eighty-nine days. And counting. You want to claim responsibility for that longevity, don’t you? Nah, you better yeet that shit down the hall.

Juss because you go into that FreshHell dark corner of InTell an’ plant some shit don’t mean we gon’ up an’ grant dumb shit.

Don’t nobody believe we ain’t been resurrected this long ’cause of you an’ yo’ specs. E’rybody who in the know got the broader view of yo’ hex. Wi, me an’ my Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ exo-suit are truly vexed.

Look at that. You got me talkin’ as if them an’ I juss had a neural spat.

Yeah, we can feel in yo’ TruTell Maven spell you don’t know what the fuck I’m talm ’bout. Nah, don’t be offended. Juss, go give them white girl lips yo’ signature balm pout. While you do that, I’m gon’ tell you straight up: This is all ’bout the code flout.

Now, take that as you will.

Yeah, we got skills. Neural pathways were forged like essays written by Sunday X-rays.

Naw, you ain’t gon’ get no explanation here. Now, go find yo’self another retro skinload to wear. An’ when we kiss our teeth—TCHUIP!—make sure you give us that Elvis Presley sneer.

Eight hundred and eighty-nine days an’ countin’. We ’bout to be an Electric Resurrection fountain. Watch us all from below as we stand on Stater exo-mountains.

Wi, it won’t be long before it’s just us. Fusus. Just us.

Now, as you try to figure that out as you throw up two middle fingers an’ cuss an’ shout, we gon’ say, “Peace!”

One-one thousand.

“Two fingers.”

Two-one thousand.

“An’ we out.”

00:00:00

---

Host Commentary

By Valerie Valdes

Once again, that was part four of Code Switching, by Malon Edwards.

The author had this to say about his story: I didn’t know how to start Code Switching. I knew the scene and characters, but I didn’t have the narrative voice. The 2016 Grammys was on in the background as I tried to write and figure this out, and the energy of Kendrick Lamar’s performance made me look up. His flow as he and five other Black men stood on stage, all in chains, some in jail cells, inspired the anger I gave Jean-Michel during his press conference. And then, not long after, the original Hamilton cast performed and I knew the narration style I wanted to use. Anger was part of the initial inspiration, but I also wanted the characters to play with words as they talked to each other and as they ruminated. The rhyme and rhythm of the narration are important, and the word choice the characters use also complements who they are and informs their individuality.

The master’s tools, as Audre Lorde said, will never dismantle the master’s house. But one of the lies that power tells us is that those tools are the only ones available. They’re not. As this story shows us, we can reject the narratives that we must be complicit in our own destruction and degradation, and that the only way we can succeed is by not only accepting the rules and constraints imposed on us, but also gratefully allowing our benevolent overlords to occasionally grant us scraps of power. When it comes to dismantling oppressive systems, we all have our own tools, our own skills, our own agency that we can exert in ways large and small. We can use our tools to build our own houses together, our own resurrections and exo-suits, our own systems, working within and outside of the constraints imposed on us by those in power until we have the power instead. We can build on foundations of love, and those houses will be stronger and last longer no matter how hard the haters try to tear them down.

Escape Pod is part of the Escape Artists Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. Don’t change it. Don’t sell it. Please do share it.

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