A Hashcompsci Fanfic

Summary
After a malfunctioning anal-fission module causes a catastrophic child porn explosion and forces the surviving inhabitants of ShadowFire underground, residents of the #compsci enclave find themselves facing the harsh realities of life, love, an increasingly decentralised system of governance, and the French.

Prologue
The summer always seemed to draw out the dusks longer than they should have been. It was not just the fact that they came later, mused DeFi, dropping the smouldering remnants of his joint on the ground next to his chair. It was as if the sun demonstrated a reluctance to set, preferring instead to cast the rays of its deep yellow death-throes for as long as possible. A fitting metaphor for the fate of mankind, as DeFi saw it. He blinked hard and squinted into the horizon, trying to ignore the dull scratchiness behind his eyes. The man should be here soon. It was almost as if he was already there somehow, watching him from some unseen vantage point over the horizon...

"Hey man," said a voice from behind. DeFi twisted himself back in his chair and saw him, houndstooth scarf and faded jeans. Gargablegar, the man who would help him realise his plans. "You called?"

"Yeah," said DeFi, motioning to the chair beside him absently just as Gargablegar took it. "I had some good stuff earlier. Just finished it though," he rubbed his eyes. Gargablegar shrugged.

"So, what's the occasion? Bumfuck nowhere, four o' clock," Gargablegar looked around at the flat plain, the loose red sand speckled with patches of grass and the occasional dying shrub.

"Yeah, makes you kinda think about where we're going, with the whole energy crisis thing doesn't it." Gargablegar thought about how much he *wasn't* thinking about that as DeFi reached into his hoodie pocket, pulling out a stack of papers. "Here," he said, thrusting it under Gargablegar's nose. "Read this and tell me what you think of it."

"Gotta be shitting me," Gargablegar shook his head, "That thing's at least 20 pages long."

"Just read the abstract then," said DeFi impatiently. "I reckon it's feasible. It's not too late. We could still do it."

Sighing, Gargablegar picked up the papers and scanned his eyes down the first page as DeFi stared off into the distance. "DeFi," he said at length. "You realise how utterly unclean hydrogen cells are, with present technology?"

DeFi blinked hard, brought to the present by Gargablegar's question. "Oh, no," he reached to the engineer's lap and pulled away the front page. "Wrong abstract. The paper I want you to read is that one." He pointed at the now completely different front page that lay in front of Gargablegar. The engineer sighed, resuming his reading.

"DeFi," he said slowly, as his eyes brought themselves lower down the page. "This is absolutely fucking brilliant. Pure goddamn genius. Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?"

"Fission," nodded DeFi solemnly. "Anal fission, done with the results of pure CP macrofiltration."

"Large-scale viability is a big problem though," Gargablegar stroked his chin as he read further. "It should be easily replicated under lab conditions, this. But I don't know if the immediate benefits outweigh the costs of its implementation. That is a big attractor for large companies..."

"Then let's build one ourselves," DeFi's bloodshot eyes glittered with conviction. "Build one for ShadowFire. Start the revolution." He seemed unaware that he had grabbed Gargablegar's hand in excitement. "After all...children *are* a renewable resource."

A smile spread across Gargablegar's face as he looked up at DeFi and tenderly took his other hand. "Yeah," he said softly. "Yeah, they are."

Chapter 1
ex_eternity's death came as a surprise to no one but ex_eternity himself. It began with the bloodstains he left on his chairs, small brown streaks that could have easily been mistaken for skidmarks, and gradually worsened until the dishcloths he stuffed into his ass bloodied within hours. Then the priapism began. Mildly startled, he has taken to wearing baggy pants and loose jeans to avoid the embarrassment, thinking that it was simply a phase; a by-product of the shock of the explosion.

The explosion had taken thousands of lives. Neither DeFi nor Gargablegar nor any of the maintenance technicians could tell you what went wrong that day, the day when one of the child porn modules had malfunctioned, causing the reactor to overheat and set off the catastrophic blast. Few had seen the mushroom-headed cloud and lived to tell the tale.

casted had built the shelter - or rather, he had inherited the shelter from his parents. 5 kilometers underground, the shelter was the size of a small town, shielded against the strongest child porn waves though the radiation still seeped into the groundwater. Death came quicker to those who were closer to the blast. Now, three months later, ex_eternity was the first in the shelter to perish from the fallout.

"Like a melon, apparently," said raxter_, dabbing rouge onto his lips and cheeks. "I mean he was fine before that, just bleeding out the ass and permanently aroused. Next moment, BAM." He banged his fist on the dressing-table with a firmness that suggested finality. "Ass. Split open, just like that."

"Yep," said Nomad010, straightening his tie. "Taejo told me. To be honest I didn't really know him. But it sucks."

"You ready?"

"Just about."

"Hold on," raxter_ motioned to Nomad010 to wait. "Just going to get my wig."

Nomad010 stared at raxter_'s retreating figure as he went into the bathroom, hips swaying gracefully as he walked. raxter_ was wearing a simple black open-backed cocktail dress for the funeral, and as Nomad010 watched him he marveled at how well it outlined his shapely contours; how well it framed his smooth back. Even in the wake of a nuclear disaster raxter_ still maintained his practiced poise, although Nomad010 knew that he wasn't always like this, and although the cracks showed through more often nowadays.

"Should have just left your real hair," Nomad010 muttered, half to himself.

raxter_ sighed in exasperation. "You know as well as I do that it had to be done," he said, emerging from the bathroom, long auburn wig in place. "It marked the end of an era. The old raxter_ is dead. The old everyone is dead..."

"Lets go."

They stepped out of their shared compartment, a simple cavity in the wall of the shelter outfitted with the bare necessities for a semi-comfortable lifestyle. The inside of the shelter was littered with artifacts from aboveground, chairs, tables, remnants of food, UTP cables, all half-sunken in the soil. Nomad010 and raxter_ made their way to the gathering of people at its center, a scattered ring of people dressed in black around a makeshift pulpit and a large cardboard box.

"Is tumbleweed even qualified to conduct this sort of thing?" said a thin, bespectacled man, motioning towards the tall Linux enthusiast behind the pulpit, his other arm curled protectively around the squirming toddler at his side. "C'mon Markov, behave. This is a funeral."

"tibid: translate shit went sideways to afrikaans" babbled the toddler named Markov. The bespectacled man patted his head fondly.

"I'm not sure, Siggi," said a black-haired, Italian-looking man next to him. "But his surname is Rivera. That's kind of like a priest. It's the closest we'll get to one here anyway."

tumbleweed motioned for the gathering to settle. He was dressed in off-white t-shirt, priestly save for the oval in the middle of the shirt that read 'SPASTIC'. He looked around and nodded solemnly.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Today we are gathered to pay our respects to ex_eternity, who was cruelly taken away from us just yesterday by the aftereffects of the child porn blast. ex_eternity was a friend, a colleague, a son, and a fellow survivor..."

"NO ONE CARES" shouted a man who had previously been skulking on the outskirts of the congregation. "Honestly, nobody even knows this guy. What the fuck are you pretending to be sad about?" He rolled his eyes as the congregation turned to stare at him.

"Everyone, please ignore the troll," said tumbleweed evenly.

"Yeah, fine," said the troll loudly, "let's all just ignore the only person speaking any fucking sense here. You faggots are just too much of a pussy to admit that you don't actually give a shi -" He was cut off mid-sentence as a stout, black-haired man punched him clean in the face.

"Imbalanxd, what the fuck is your problem?" he demanded. Imbalanxd's hand went up, touched the corner of his mouth where the black-haired man's fist had connected.

"Rage and violence," he sneered. "Such primal impulses. You never really did evolve, did you, Sigh?"

"All I'm asking is for you to respect the fucking dead for once, Imbalanxd, and stop being such a fucking poes about everything," said Sigh angrily.

"C'mon guys, break it up," called tumbleweed from the pulpit, as people started shifting their attention to Sigh and Imbalanxd's skirmish.

On the other side of the pulpit, Markov started to cry. "Shhh Markov, it's ok, just a trollfight," whispered Siggi as he scooped up the toddler and held him close.

"no no you did invite me, I have the rest of us losers," sniffed Markov, burying his face in Siggi's chest.

"Sigh, come off it, he's trolling," a tall, curly-haired man stepped toward the two trolls. "You know Imbalanxd was in the way of the blast when it happened. He's not even suppose to be alive, given the amount of child-porn radiation he's probably absorbed."

"Don't you dare patronise me, Taejo," spat Imbalanxd. He turned to the crowd, knowing full well he was the center of their attention. "You goddamn cocknuts have the audacity to live when everyone else up there is either dead or about to be. Thousands of people have died and, all you guys care about down here is some stupid little ceremony, some random faggot who couldn't take the heat."

"We're trying to move past that. They made a noble sacrifice," said DeFi loudly, dressed in black plumbing overalls. "For the sake of SCIENCE."

"No," Taejo turned to him, voice suppressed in forced calm. "They made no sacrifice at all. They died, pure and simple."

"It's was an inevitability, a risk we had to take," contended DeFi. "A stepping stone that paves the way for the future -"

"Bullshit," said Taejo forcefully, "and you know it. Human lives did not even enter into your equation until you realised how many you'd lost to your poorly-planned experiment."

"People would have died anyway if we continued using our existing means of generating power," shot DeFi. "The deaths from investigating new technology were at least more meaningful than those that would have happened from an energy apocaly - "

"WE'RE LIVING IN ONE RIGHT NOW!" Taejo's clenched fists trembled with rage.

"DeFi, just go," sighed casted. DeFi's lips were set in a thin line as he turned on his heels and left for the pipes.

"I'm off to the pub, if anyone needs me," said Taejo curtly, striding towards the pub.

"If everyone is quite ready," said tumbleweed in the resulting silence, as the somewhat startled crowd returned their attention to the pulpit and the cardboard casket. "I'll finish the service..."