Awards: The Distinguished Service Star, Privilege Redaction Commendation—First Class, Gender Projection Service Medal—Provisional, with Butterfly Wing Cluster, Purple Heart [six awards]
Outstanding Community Service Debt: 1,626.72 hours
Oldschool Johnson, an NFL linebacker before The Crash, who lost his legs battling reactionary White Nationalists in New Jersey in 2036, mans the turret above me in the main hull, over the central axil. His weapon array is a dual Fifty Cal and grenade launcher, with 5,000 rounds of Fifty Cal and 500 grenades. We’re loaded for “Polar Bear,” as he says, having taken care to chase the Latino loaders away at the Union Station Depot, with court martial-worthy verbal offenses that I will no doubt be called upon to testify for as a witness after the Op.
Oldschool is armed against regulations with two .44 magnum revolvers, which he claims are “battle prizes,” and a sawed-off, double-barrel ten gauge shotgun, which he insists is a family heirloom—oh yes, and he keeps a straight razor in his afro. The other men will call him “Crispy” in reference both to his dark skin and burn marks, when exercising what passes for levity among them.
Oldschool Johnson has a voice like baritone gravel, insists on bringing a 10 gallon can of rum for emergency fuel and medicinal use and has, as senior crew member, been called upon to assign me my call signal.
They call me Sunshine, “Captain Sunshine,” despite the fact that the Justice Service retired that designation as too sexist for tolerable compassioned operation before I entered the academy.
Not to cast judgment on my compassioned mentors, but a heads up would have been nice.
Just sayin’.
Onboard Array
Oldschool Johnson is seen emerging from his turret with a sawed-off shotgun and blasting at a flock of geese, two of which fall. The vehicle then suffers an override, ploughs over a field of gloriously purple orchids, painstakingly transplanted from a Japanese nursery. The onboard violation counter begins ticking with a fine designated at 240 hours of community service for Oldschool and 24 hours of community service for Crankshaft Witherspoon, who overrode the Ecofriendly Navigation Program to facilitate retrieval of the two downed geese as Oldschool thundered,“Dat’s ma bird-dog—fuck dis Vegan-Ready-to-Eat bullshit.”
Ten hours of community service were added to Justice Server Johnson’s sentence for insensitivity to avian victims of dietary oppression.
And the Ghost Catcher rumbled on, through fields of crushed dreams…
The World is Our Widow
