#15 The Altercationist

| November 16, 2011 | 0 Comments

the altercationist

The Altercationist

“I rather fancy myself an altercationist. Perhaps the best — that is what I aim to find out. And so, you see, I am drawn – no, driven to find the most unusual, peculiar, and dangerous altercations one can have. Winning an argument with a robo-tree by means of Kantian synthesis, or a knife fight with a tiger, if there are any tigers left lying around, you know. Your garden variety conflicts — fighting over a woman in a bar, a gun battle with bandits, a game of ‘chicken’ in flying tanks — these have their place as stolid, staple pleasures. The salt of the earth.  But I–” and here there was an umistakeable and slightly malign twinkle in the woman’s eye– “I am after other altercations, altogether, I should say. The more ‘other’, the better.”

The Altercationist acts like a Southern gentlewoman (it’s an affectation, of course – The American South Themeplex collapsed ages ago). Manners and geniality are the way she copes with living in a post-Singularity world of high weirdness. The world is apocalyptic to the average fearful human, but if the chaos bothers her, she’ll never tell. Prone to tall tales – she’s a lesbian Mark Twain.

The Altercationist is powered by biotech. Everywhere she goes she carries her Old-Timey Traveling Medicine Show with her, full of notions and potions, toughness-amplifying viruses and delightful adrenal cocktails for the discerning combatant and sophisticated survival aficionado alike. They are mostly administered by her lover, Rose Remedy, a belly-dancing cyborg gypsy.

In her search for thrills, the Altercationist has not lost a battle yet. However, as she heads towards The Island of Ultravia to face the top fighters from around the globe, she may yet find herself in an altercation from which she cannot escape.

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Category: 2011, Scifi

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