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Critical Mick Review of Adam McGrath's
Biochips With Everything
"You want chips with that?"
"NO!"
"Sor-ry!"
Nero the Riddler audibly ground his teeth.
"Don't have a cow, dude. My manager said I have to ask everyone that."
"I want neither a cow, young man, or any MENTION of those accursed
biochips!" Nero grabbed his Bucket-o-Soy and strode wrathfully over to a
relatively clean booth. "Biochips with everything, pah!" he muttered.
"Lousy ol' world, ennit?"
The Riddler glared up at the rapscallion who dared to interrupt him before
he could even take his first soylent bite.
"Cor, what, with biochips even inside our mildly-futuristic food! And random
cobbers like me, bending the ear at the least-expected times and places!"
exclaimed the stranger as, with hint of an invitation, he slid his slick
Cockney self into the seat opposite. "Blimey! Chips with everything!"
"I daresay," Nero protested. "While I agree with your disparagement
relating to the intrusive nature of our near-future authorities, I am trying
to eat my lunch! Would you mind-?"
"I could tell you are frustrated, what?" the young hoodlum ventured. "The
way you lost your rag with that counter blagger. 'That, Tipper McPocket,'- I
sez to meself- 'is one frustrated ol' cobber if ever you've seen one! A
fight with his trouble-and-strife? No... A bad day at work, that's it! That
gentleman's a fellow who could use a watt of Gabbo, if ever you've seen
one!'"
Nero was still enraged at the locatious thug's intrusion, but was
nevertheless intrigued at his shared disapproval of biochips and his
accurate assessment of his anger's true cause. Nero also wondered what this
aforementioned 'Gabbo' was.
Nero was still enraged at the locatious thug's intrusion, but was
nevertheless intrigued at his shared disapproval of biochips and his
accurate assessment of his anger's true cause. Nero also wondered what this
aforementioned 'Gabbo' was.
This Gabbo was surely of more interest than vanilla Bucket-o-Soy. Nero spoke
carefully, "Now, you wouldn't just happen to be a merchant in this Gabbo
comodity, would you sir?"
"Indeed I am, gov'na!"
"And how much will a jolt of Gabbo deplete my montary resources?"
"A mere three billion euros," spoke Tipper McPocket. "The price of a lowly
near-futurific dinner, such as you now enjoy yourself!"
This did not seem to be a great fiduciary liability. Surely the investment
was worth whatever mild diversion Nero gained! It would stand a fair chance
of being the highlight of this accursed day, what with the meeting his
supervisors had scheduled, later this afternoon.
"Done, and done!" cried the Gabbo dealer, just moments later. "Meet me
around back in two minutes. I'll have the wattage waiting for you."
Abandonning the rest of his green dinner in the proper waste receptical
moments later, the curious engineer left the establishment and circled to
its rear. Sure enough, there Tipper waited beside an extremely beat up old
roadhazard of a 2002 Lexus. "Now, close them peepers, guv'na!" Tipper
winked with a mad Cockney glint in his eye. Nero humored him.
Immediately thereafter, a searing jolt of electricity bolted throughout The
Riddler's body. Shocked motionless, he lay staring up at McPocket from a
pile of black rubbish sacks. Tipper smiled like a madman.
"That's good ol' Gabbo!" the hoodlum cried, disconnecting the jumper cables
from under the auto's bonnet. "Packs quite a punch, what?"
Too late, Nero realized that Tipper _was_ in fact a madman. He felt a fool.
"Nero the Riddler," he thought to himself, because he was too rigid with
paralysis to speak. "How many nineteenth century Eastend street dealers do
you encounter here, in this part of the world, in the near future?" He
should have realized it from the start. He also should have realized, as a
biochip engineer, that a surge of electricty of shock-treatment proportions
would overflow the currency buffer and allow the weird little graeseball to
withdraw far more than a mere three billion euro.
Which Tipper McPocket then proceeded to do.
"Ta!" the colorful, if confusing character cried as he leapt into the Lexus
and backfired his way out of this critique.
Nero should have regained feeling, but all he felt was a gradual building
rage. He began to climb to his feet. "Biochips!" he cursed. Then he cursed
again, in a voice that shook strongly enough to rattle the very foundations
of civilization. "Biochips with everything!!!!!"
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