Helen is LondonLouder. Louders are usually male, coz of their pre-existing thoracic volume advantage, but sometimes a female Louder is needed, to target specific demographics or notes. Well-paid jigs: the feminine undertones she can deploy a specialisation one degree higher on rates-scale.

            Today’s script easy to remember&broadcast, the sky is dry, the air is clear: one can see three streets ahead. Not a bad day to be outside. F’course, London doesn’t need Louders anymore than it needs Claws or MultiTools. London doesn’t need Mods. They’re pretend menial jobs. Jokes, really. It’s that or the dole, a step lower in the noo capitalcaste system, just above streetbum.

            Louding is half her mind, the other composing noobeat (stance&stanza).  She even sways a bit to inner rhythm, the way some say is sexy but: it’s just the way she moves. Maybe it’s because she’s a little bit Black and a little bit plump? Stereotypes, hey?

            She is allowed to take the implant off at regular Union interval, to eat and spit and breathe. She does so now. She bends forward and gently unhooks the Cylinder’s thin clips from the fleshy sides of her cheeks, from under her chin and over her philtrum, where it bit into her top incisors. She looks groove-moustached. She holds the device between quickly slicking fingers, saliva and phlegm dripping to the ground like pink lavalamp globules. She spits and coughs downwards projections of thickened fluids and mucus.

            The area around her mouth is exhangue, bruised, starved of oxygen, its scarring delicate. She dabs at her yearlong scabs with a soft handkerchief: paper towel shreds and leave fragments like shards of beached kites on jagged sea-rocks. Her jaw muscles are distended, her teeth, filed into a circle to accommodate for the metal&electricity Cylinder that fits her mouth, taste of chrome and stale gingival paste. 

            Mandible joints are sore, as if capillary wires inside her skull were pulling her ears closer together. Her neck muscles are taut, her shoulders are tense, her tendons are tired, she’s been wearing for five straight hours, Louding for a grand total of three, 3/4 hour rest now for lunch, then two more, no seizing. Her feet are painful, her soles wooden, walking around the crowd to dispense her message as close as.

            The Cylinder she tucks away in a sterile container hanging at her belt. She blows out some air, performs physical therapy grimaces to retrieve elasticity, grabs the corners of her mouth and stretches them out as wide as the skin allows, a horizontal toothy slash. She touches her edges gingerly, applies some neutral cream and conductive unguent, sucks in air in wide rasps. Tongue out-out-out, then twirl, extreme cheek-blowing, switches to prognathous, whole face for a final scrunch up and… yame.