28/5/2288. The four hundredth anniversary of the first Old Firm game. A huge event in the Scottish Soccer calendar (‘football’ or ‘fitty’ or ‘fitba’ or whatever the ancient traditional linguist still called the game having become universally known as ‘Soccer’ when the yanks had bought the global rights to the game two centuries earlier) and a day that would long be remembered for more reasons than anybody could ever have bargained for beforehand. The day rain stopped play in the most important Soccer match in the history of the game in Scotland.
And there wasn’t even a cloud in the sky…
Sean Scott was watching the religious neurovid channel with jaundiced disinterest as he ate his nutrical lunch of powdered smoked sausage and chips. A Triptych of Sport, the channelgram in question, was blethering on once again about the big Rangers-Celtic match scheduled to start in a couple of hours.
The culmination of four centuries of clashes between the two largest and most important Soccer clubs in Scotland! The neurovid screeched in a frenzy of synthetic excitement.
The Huns versus the Bhoys!
Green-and-white versus blue-and-white!
The Tims versus the Prods!
A sectarian spectacle of never-before-witnessed magnitude!
Religious battles on a grand scale!
Foot-soldiers of the Roboqueen and Robopope laying down their lives for the greater good of god and country!
Half a million spectators expected at SupaHampden Park!
Live coverage exclusively on CaledonianCom!
Pre, during and post-match analysis by the vidshadow of Archie McPherson, Patron Saint of The Pigskin and Disseminator of the Holy Rules three centuries ago!
Guest Heavenly hosts!
Players and punters and professional pundits!
Competitions!
Prizes!
A dip into the Holy Waters of the post-match bath with the Holy Warriors for lucky Jocky McGraw, winner of last week’s Soccer Saints and Sinners draw!
The C>A>G>E (Citizens And Great Enemies) Gladiatorial Games shown in edited highlights and a Signed Ball presented to the Disciple to guess the nearest Death Toll on both sides!
All brought to you by Buckbass, Bionic Tonic and choice of a new Electric Soup generation!
Stay tuned!
Don’t touch that dial!
The C>A>G>E Combat Zone is filling up even now and the Gladiatorial Games start in five!
Only on this station!
CaledonianCom!
Scottish neurovid at its finest!
Sean switched off the neurovid in disgust and stretched out in his airchair, which floated back to accommodate his movements. He sighed expansively. The litany of Pigskin Preaching never failed to piss him off. And no way was Sean about to watch the Gladiatorial Games. He’d never personally witnessed that particular Martyr Ritual and even the mere thought of it made him sick to the pit of his now-full stomach. The words of Zander, a haunted friend who’d seen the atrocities committed in the name of Soccer, came back forcefully to Sean:
"Oh aye Sean, it’s a tasty prospect, likes. Ye see, whit they dae is git these Disciples thit ur looking tae be Martyrs, tae die fir the cause, n they pit them through a kinnay boot camp oot by Easterhoose. They teach the mad bastirts how tae yaise the surgodrills, the laserchibs, the burrowknives, aw that shite, n they stick them intae the C>A>G>E thegither. Thir’s a thoosint boys on each side wi a weapon each tae represent the amount ay fowk it the first gemme, equal amounts Proddy n Tim, n they gie the twa sides fifteen minutes tae fuckin annihilate each ither. Twa thoosint wide-os rippin fuck ootay each ither wi aw they weapons is some fuckin mental sight, let me tell ye. Ah’d nivir want tae see it again, by ra way. Ma auld man took me tae see it when ah wis jist a laddie n ah refused point blank tae ivir go tae a match wi him again. Kinnay got the feelin he wis tryin tae raise me tae be a potential Martyr, he couldnae be yin himself cause ay ill health. They dinnae want sick or disabled punters tae be Martyrs, thir wantin nothing bit the strongest. Guid fir the aesthetics ay the thing, ae no? Mair neurogenic. Nothin like seein twa thoosint Scottish Disciples tearin each ither apairt fir nae guid reason tae git the blood n aldrenalin pumpin, that’s thir twistit fuckin logic. Makes fir guid viewin figures. Jist gie the cunts a shot ay Buckbass, lock the gates ahind thum, n watch thum fuckin go.”
Sean had been surprised that the Soccer Saints could get two thousand men willing to rip each other to shreds for what seemed like little or no reward, but Zander had pointed out that the wives and families had it made: free housing, privileged servostatus, jawprog appearances, the lot. The widows of Martyrs were highly sought-after mates and they didn’t even have to pay for their husband’s funeral. Buckbass paid for that, asking only to be allowed to advertise their product on the side of the coffin in return. And, what the hell, they even threw a lifetime’s supply of the Bionic Tonic – a bit too late for the Martyr to enjoy – to help them on their merry way.
Yes, life was sweet for those the deceased left behind. And the Martyrs themselves? Well, they got to die in battle (continuing a proud and ancient Scottish front-line soldiering tradition) and thus were guaranteed to go straight to Pigskin Heaven and hang about with the Soccer Spirits of the team of their choice. Communing in the Aftermatch with ancient greats like McCoist and Johnston, Souness and Marshall, Smith and McNeill, Larrson and Viduka, VanMann and Guttenberg - just imagine it! Who wouldn’t kill – or be killed – for the opportunity?
Well, Sean for one. He burped and tasted fake sausage, wondering idly what the real stuff had tasted like all those centuries ago. He wasn’t even too sure what the meal had looked like either. All he knew was that it tasted damned good.
“Finished wi the neurovid doll?”
“Whit?” Sean was roused out of his culinary contemplation by the voice of his wife Mhairi off somewhere behind him. He craned his neck to the left and the airchair swung round accordingly. In a split second he’d made a 180-degree turn and was staring her in the face. Sean met his wife’s inquisitive gaze with a wide, easy grin. She was his everything: his wife, his life, his better half, the centre of his universe…the whole shebang. Which may have sounded like slushy romantic crap to some, especially his single friends, but it was undoubtedly true. They’d been together a three years, married for six months, and things just kept getting better and better.
They got along seamlessly, brilliantly, every inch in love as they had been on their Alternowed day, their relationship bonds strengthening beyond unbreakable bounds with every hour that they spent together. M was also the reason that Sean had come up with the plan that the two of them would instigate in a couple of hours. This would be a day that the mindless bastards would remember for a long time to come, that was for sure.
And not just because it was an important anniversary for Rangers and Celtic.
Oh yes, Sean would show those intolerant genetic debris the consequences of battering and innocent man and woman for no good reason, with a veneer of religious justification thrown on top as a cheap excuse.
Revenge would be sweet.
And sickening.
“Ah said, ur ye finished wi the neurovid yit? Ah’m wantin tae watch ma soaps afore we dae this this efternin. We’ve still got time, huv we no?”
“Aye, we’ve still got time darlin, we’ve still got time. Hop up here aside me n ah’ll watch thum wi ye.” Sean slapped the plastileather airchair and shifted across to allow M to slide onto it next to him. She did so and he ran his fingers through her lavaburn hair, playfully twisting and twirling the strands as she switched on the neurovid and changed the channel to Rich in Space. She was gorgeous, the best woman in the whole wide world; twenty, and she barely looked a day over nineteen. The two of them had no children yet but they were working long and hard – and often – to rectify this.
“Sean doll?”
“Hummm?”
“Ur ye shair this’ll go awright this efternin? Ah mean, we’ll no get caught or nothing, ae no?” M’s features contorted into an uncharacteristic frown that did her no favors whatsoever.
In return, Sean flashed her a smile that displayed a lot more confidence than he actually felt about the whole scenario. There was a lot at stake here, no doubt about it. They’d be violating airspace regulations, public health decrees, blasphemy statutes and a few sundry minor cybercore byelaws thrown in for good measure. They would be in deep shit if they got caught. Sean almost laughed. No, they wouldn’t be the ones in deep shit this afternoon. They had to go through with this plan. It was a grand gesture, and one that would never be forgotten.
Plus it would be a damned good laugh too.
“Naw, we’ll no get caught, nae chance whitsoivir. We’ll be ootay the air n back in the hoose afore the Skycops kin even scramble fae the station. N when we get back, ma dear, we ur gonnae spend the rest ay the day, n ra morra, in bed. It’ll be gallus, so’n it will. Smashin. Pure dead brilliant.”
M giggled cheekily. “Is that a promise, o man ay mine?”
“Yin ye kin take tae the bank, ma dear.” Sean kissed the top of her head in emphasis.
“Sound fine tae me. Bit kin ah jist say yin thing, by ra way?”
“Whit’s that, M?”
“Ye’ve got tae stop eatin aw they high-fat foods. Thir nae guid fir yer arteries, n ye dinnae want tae be getting a gut it your age…”
Sean roared in mock indignation and shoogled his wife by the shoulders, pretending he was going to chuck her off the airchair, which did a sharp rockntilt to accommodate their centre of gravity. His wife let out a mock squeal of fear.
“It ma age? Whit aboot ma age likes? Whit ur ye telling me, thit ah’m a dinosaur it only twinty-one? That’s only a year older thin yer guid sel, let me remind ye. Yer nae spring fuckin chicken yersel, granny Scott…”
Mhairi snorted her displeasure. “Dinnae swear Sean, ah’ve telt ye aboot that afore. It’s common. Shows a limited vocabulary. N haud yer wheest the noo. Ye’ll hae plenty ay time fir expressin yersel later on the day. Rich in Space is jist startin.”
Time fir expressin masel later on aye nae doot Sean mused to himself, but maintained his silence. Rich in Space was Mhairi’s favorite channelgram and he knew there would be hell to pay if she missed any of the Astro Aristocrat adventures. And, besides, even though he would never admit it in public, Sean actually had a soft spot for this channelgram himself. Even Mhairi wasn’t aware of this deep, dark secret. After all, real men didn’t watch trashy space soaps. Every single time they were on.
Sean shrugged mentally and buried himself in the lifestyles of the rich and spacebound. Just what rubbish was that smarmy bastard Major Artery up to this week? It just didn’t bear thinking about.
Mhairi was right about one thing, though: he’d have to lay off the fatty nutrical foods. After all, he really didn’t want to be getting a belly at his age.
An electroportrait of Sean and Mhairi Scott to hang on the neuronic wall of your mind.
She: the youngest ever female custodian by three years at Glasgow’s Popular Music And Auravibe Museum, currently assembling a retroview of the late 20th century sexual revolutionary and iconoclast known as Madonna, now acknowledged by all but a few artsplinter factions as the Mindmother of the Estrogeneration Popcult. Mhairi an independent woman of the (22)80s in every sense of the word. Intelligent, beautiful and humorous…and with all her own teeth to boot. Widely respected and hotly debated for her dissections and analyses of Madonna’s lyrics and entertainment stratagem, her Myths, Metaphors And Meanings of Madonna Louise Ciccone’s ‘Like a Virgin’ already having become acknowledged as a classic in its field.
He: unemployed, happy, healthy and teetotal. Dentally complete. No tattoos, no protopiercings. Appendix scar. A healthy aversion to norrow-minded Scottish prides and prejudices; independent-thinking with an active, restless mind. Oh, and with one other scar: this one on his right cheekbone, where he was attacked by a Soccer Berserker with a burrowknife. See it? Ugly, isn’t it? Cost Sean a lot of blood, and the perpboy was never caught. Just another bombscare swimming in the polluted idiot river.
Sean and Mhairi Scott: just a young couple in love living in the shadow of SupaHampden Soccer Stadium, a Temple of Worship that had been massively extended in the early 22nd century to accommodate the rising numbers of Pigskin Disciples wishing to genuflect and let off steam there.
They had been living in the shadow of this huge religious national Mecca for two years now and were sick to death of it. Had been ever since about a month after arrival, but lack of funds and offspring meant that a CalCouncil transfer to a better housing area would be a long way off yet. So they had to grin and try to bear it.
Not that living where they did would have been any great hardship were it not for one thing: the boorish behavior of the Disciples, especially that of the Rangers and Celtic Worshippers. Although the Scotts could admit that not all the Worshippers were mindless Buckbass-fuelled idiots, they had still been living in Soccer-inflicted misery.
Sean had twice been assaulted by Rangers Disciples (the second attack being the one leaving him permanently scarred), twice by Celtic Disciples and Mhairi had been caught in the middle of a running street battle between the two fighting factions, receiving blows from Disciples of both teams. This was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. Sean could handle the odd kickin himself but under no circumstances would they touch a hair on M’s head, no fucking way. Not if they didn’t expect to get a bit of bother thrown back at them for their troubles, that was.
And quite apart from the unprovoked assaults was the fact that the Disciples treated the housing in the immediate area like one big public toilet. The problem of dogs and their messes was nothing when compared to the puddles of vomit, pish and shit left-behind arsefelt offerings to the disgruntled tenants of the area by drunk-and-bursting-to-go Soccer scumbags.
Two years. Two long, weary years of assaults and abuse and bodily fluids and religious intolerance (if Sean and Mhairi weren’t being called ‘dirty Orange bastards’ then they were ‘dirty Fenian bastards’ which confused them somewhat as they were neither religious nor of uncertain parentage) and the occasional broken window thrown in for good measure.
It had begun to get to the couple, as it had their neighbors, but the longer-term tenants just seemed to have given up and accepted the situation for the undoubtedly shitty one that it was. That was the way things had been for as long as anybody could remember, were now and would always be so there was no point in complaining, seemed to be the general concensus. Sean and Mhairi could understand this siege-mentality hopelessness and grace under fire, but could not fully accept it. Unreasonable fools that they were, they believed they had a right to live in peace and quite without being randomly battered or having their house used as a bog by violent scum. They still dreamed the impossible dream, even as it grew more feeble and muted by the day.
Three long bombshelter years in gallus Glasgow, Euronational City of Anti-Culture 2290. Fun yet to come. Sean had been musing over their housing problem and the recent assault on his wife a few days earlier when he had come up with an idea that had at first made him grin, then chuckle, then actually laugh out loud for so long that Mhairi had come running through from the kitchen to see if her man hadn’t gone completely off his head. Through tears of mirth Sean had explained the plan to her, sounding her out as to its viability and entertainment value, and by the end of the initial discussion of the ins and outs Mhairi had been in fits of laughter too. It seemed a grand, crazy idea, an unambiguous statement about everything they had been subjected to as atheist hostages in their own country, and it was something that would long be remembered and talked about in awed, hushed tones.
It was mental shit.
Today was to be the day that Sean and Mhairi Scott implemented their plan of revenge. The day rain stopped play.
Spectacularly.
The Old Firm game had kicked off after preliminary Prayers and Adverts and had been in noisy singsong progress got ten minutes when the Skymongrel carship appeared over the park. Nobody even noticed its arrival. Ace striker and Pigskin Minister John Holmes had just scored the first (and only) goal of the match for Celtic at that point, his Scoremark jumper turning itself every color under the sun as he did so in a proud electric peacock display for the delighted Bhoys, so nobody was paying attention to the blue skies over Supahampden. Rangers were winning the C>A>G>E games by forty fatalities at that point and the Buckbass-bouncing Support and Combatants were in full Worship effect. A stringer for the Daily CD floated on a skybike above the C>A>G>E scribbling down death tolls and wound descriptions, hoping that the bet he had on with the boys back in the office on the Gers would bear fruit. This really couldn’t get any better: Soccer and sectarianism and drink and death and a good old shout at the Roboref; what more could a blitzed body want from life?
The Skymongrel passed between the Union Jacks and Tricolors that ringed the top of the Stadium. It was a tiny vehicle as carships went, barely thirty feet long, but was renowned for its fuel economy, antiair braking system, low noxemission filters, cockpit comfort…
…and storage capacity.
The Skymongrels’ revolutionary spacecrush system meant that it could hold several hundred thousand gallons of whatever the pilot cared to store in it, which was one of its major selling points. And it was this facility, put to a use that could never have been foreseen by the proud manufacturers, that caused chaos at the four hundredth anniversary Rangers-Celtic game. For when the Skymongrel (ignoring radioscrambles that it was performing an illegal manoeuvre in restricted Supahampden airspace and it had better get the hell out of the area pronto, y’hear pal, pronto, or the SkyCops would have the pilot’s guts for a sporran) performed its second low-level sweep of the Stadium that the bottom bay doors opened and Sean and Mhairi Scott had their revenge, bombing shit onto the whole event – players, press, punters and pundits alike.
Raining shit.
Literally.
Shit! Thousands and thousands of brown and black and off-color tollies and turds and jobbies and shits and shites and nuggets and excrement and faeces and chocolate logs and torpedoes and crap and dung and offal and skitters and effluvia and bowel movements and human waste fell onto the human waste on the ground below in a septic slopsludge sewercurtain scumrain of ignorant as fuck emetic insanity, coming down in a steady stream, a semisolid diarrhetic sewagewash, a torrent of stink and slime from the sky above, and entering a universe of insanity and religious hysteria with sane ohshitwhitthefuckyacuntchegonnaebeseikfucksakeaggggg vileness.
Shit!
It was a puerile putrid pungent stunt, and it worked a treat. The people howled and were pelted, not a single body in the place escaping without being shat on. The first person to puke at the sludgescream horror of the event started a chain reaction that had hundreds of thousands of Rangers and Celtic fans covering each other in internal rainbow sickbursts that obscured their Soccer loyalty-plumages.
When you’re covered in shite, everybody is the same color.
This would become a Scottish saying of mythic proportions in years to come and was entering the language even as it was brown curtains for the lenses of the neurovid cameras covering the event. Even though there was no picture, armchair sports fans and 90-minute patriots could still hear the ramblerant that Sean Scott shouted and laughed his way through by way of the carship’s amplivocacone:
“That’s fir aw the shite ye’ve bin hittin us wi oor the years ya bunch ay bigoted mindless clueless Soccer-worshippin alcoholic arseholes! N fir makin me play Roboref in an inter-office match years ago when ah didnae ken the fuckin rules! Aye! Bastirts! That’s it! Get it ben ye! GAME FUCKIN OVER!”
With this proud pronouncement the Skymongrel disappeared rapidly from view, leaving the Supahampden shitpeople to wallow in their own mess. The entire incident had taken place in two minutes; the Supahampden Weatherbeater Canopy hadn’t even had time to half-close before the vehicle had been and gone. And, as Sean had predicted, they were long gone before the Skycops could get off their fat arses and into a pursuit vehicle.
The couple parked the unmarked vehicle a mile from their home and walked happily back, confident that they would remain anonymous, even on neurovid replays. Sean had used a scrambler to change the bass, timbre and even sex of his voice, and they’d both been wearing helmets, so visual or aural identification in any way, shape or form was extremely unlikely.
Acquiring the raw sewage materials for their plan had been extremely simple too: all Sean had had to do was hook up a suction pump to the human waste disposal device in the bathroom, fill the Skymongrel’s tank, and they had all the anal ammunition they needed from the city’s citizens; the cream of the crap, the shit-hot shit. The Pigskin Disciples had merely been thrown back a bit of their own dross and it had worked perfectly.
Sean and Mhairi were home fifteen minutes later and were closing their front door behind them when the first of the bedraggled and miserable-looking diarrhea-drookit disciples were filing out of their defiled place of Worship. Mhairi felt a bit guilty about spraying innocent punters with sewage but, as Sean rationalized, lie down with a dog and get fleas. And anyway, shit wipes.
The couple held hands and laughed and laughed at the expressions on the dripping-but-beginning-to-dry faeces-smeared faces that paraded past their tinted rose-tinted front windows, each more depressed-looking than the last. Mhairi noted how it was impossible to tell Rangers from Celtic Disciples.
“Aye, well, that’ll show the bastirts no tae spread thir Soccer shite ontae innocent fowk. Soccer should be fuckin banned onywey,” he sneered.
“Sean, ah’ve telt ye no tae yaise the ‘f’ word, it-“
“Ah ken, it betrays a limited vocabulary, ah ken. Kin ye ivir forgive me?”
Mhairi reckoned she could. Just. The couple closed the vibroblinds, stripped and began top make slow sweet langorous love as the last of the dirty fans shuffled dejectedly by outside.
That night Mhairi conceived. It had not been a shitty day for everybody.
END
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