The sky was the color of a bad check, bruised purple and leaking a sick, oily light over the Pacific. We were somewhere off the coast of Reason when the madness took hold—a full-blown atmospheric hemorrhage of legal tender.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The brief mentioned a “Disarm Liability Mandate,” some high-level bureaucratic exorcism to scrub the blood off the balance sheets. But looking at the deck of that steel behemoth, it looked more like a holy revival for the Church of the Almighty Buck.
The Great Green Hemorrhage
The air was thick with it. Not salt spray, but the crisp, manic flutter of Franklins and Jacksons, whipped into a frenzy by a gale that smelled like ink and desperation.
The Scene: A billion-dollar war machine turned into a floating collection plate.
The Crew: Professional killers and engine-room grunts, reduced to a pack of frantic scavengers, crawling on all fours across the wet rivets.
The Vibe: Total spiritual bankruptcy.
I watched a man—probably a Chief Petty Officer three days ago—drop to his knees in a state of catatonic rapture. He wasn’t praying to God; he was praying to the float. He was Aligned, alright. Aligned with the crushing gravity of the bottom line.
* ”When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,” Thompson used to say. But these boys weren’t pros anymore. They were junkies, and the sky was the dealer. *
Termination of the Soul
The “Jester” had finally pulled the ultimate prank. He’d issued the order to disarm, and the boys complied by tossing their dignity overboard to make more room in their pockets. You can’t fire a railgun when you’re busy clutching a fistful of damp currency. Liability terminated. Humanity… well, humanity was busy doing the “Wall Street Crawl” on a deck slick with seawater and greed.
It was a beautiful, hideous symphony of the Military-Industrial Complex eating its own tail. The ship stayed silent, its massive guns pointing at nothing, while the humans below them worshipped the very thing that paid for the steel.
God help us if the wind changes direction.
