The planet on my holo-screen leered out behind dirty veils of cloud. I gawked. ‘Is all that brown stuff… water?’

Crusty Carl’s retinas wobbled as information terabytes pumped into his cortex. ‘Porn rush! Faaark!’ Carl’s eyeballs, rimmed with more salt than the margaritas he’d gurgled the night before, pulled focus ‘Here we go. Planet Earth. Brown stuff. Yep, that shit’s water, all righty.’

My nose wrinkled. ‘I can smell Earth rotting from here!’

‘Heh. That coulda been me.’ Carl’s ears popped, blowing out matching waxballs. ‘And cop this! My brain-chips reckon this turd-ball’s the ancient farken home of surfing! Yeah, bloody right. In the 21st Century, after George Greenough-Clone discovered worm-hole travel, they reckon humans spread like hot Vegemite from here across the bloody universe, discoverin’ alien civilizations like the Zriggles and Giant Amoebae, and settlin’ on planets like Dense and Megamounts. Earth was also home to legends like Simon Thruster, the original Occ, the mythical Duke-Hawaiians and some bloke called Killy Staker, who’s connected somehow to Darth Staker.’

‘No more, please. This is almost like school!’ I mock groaned.

‘New Tahiti must be that fly-speck to the left.’ Carl jabbed the omniglass. ‘The contest wave’s called Toxic Teahupoo. Pronounced: Cho-poo. The–’

I snickered. ‘You just said: ‘poo’.’

Carl rolled his eyes, and a Megamounts cigar. ‘Are you seven or 17, Zack?’ I clamped my mouth and Carl continued. ‘Seems the original Teahupoo was a coral reef that bleached, karked and got buried under a risin’ ocean. The surf company Genocide built an exact reef replica made of ultracrete, right in the path of globally warmed mega-swells!’

‘Woo!’

‘The worst news? The Black Pacific’s a toxic, radioactive soup. If you surf without wearin’ a radiation suit, your skin’ll dissolve in minutes. Within an hour, there’ll be nothin’ left but bubblin’ bones. So no bloody skinny dippin’!’ Carl’s head spun. ‘Now where’s that farken stewardess gone with my gonad bath?’

*                  *                  *

Outside the shuttle terminal, a teardrop of locals waved arms, deformities, mutated genitalia and signs. One read: ‘La owana, Zack Kava.’ Beneath the sign, a stocky local beamed, ‘I am Poto-27! Your host!’

I tried not to shudder. Poto-27 had an afro-sized tumour growing through his cracked skull; a swollen udder filled with pus and cancer. Poto-27 thrust out his hand. Pustules throbbed. I gulped, and shook firmly.

‘Come!’ Poto-27 hefted my head-high board bag and charged into a maze of alleys.

I swerved around a pot-hole. My gaze strained through the rusting planks. Dark water surged below. ‘Whoa.’

‘Expect more of that.’ Carl’s retinas wobbled with data-rush.’ New Farken Tahiti’s an overcrowded village turned slum raised up from the Black Pacific on stilts.’ Carl jogged on and jabbed Poto-27 in the tumour. ‘Oi, twin-heads. You have bro-thel?

‘Sure!’ Poto-27 embraced Carl, who squirmed. ‘Bro tell!’

Above, through skidmark clouds of sulfuric acid, a network of see-through sky-tubes zip-linked to a diamond-bubbled resort. Tourists inside the tubes, wearing the latest Genocide, Ripaquikbong and Deathstar radiation-suits, pursed their lips downward. I waved back.

‘Poverty fetish tourists,’ Carl muttered. ‘What can I say? Stayin’ down here with Poto-27’s family was ten thousand times cheaper.’

Carl looked like he expected me to protest, but I just smiled. ‘Closer to the surf is always g... Ack!’ A tang like fried condoms blended with rancid vomit assaulted my sinuses. I felt it next, rumbling through my feet. Then I heard it… THOOOM!

THOOOM!

Poto-27 pointed between huts. One by one by one, a set of three-metre tubes spat past. ‘Today, only small waves.’

‘Small?’ Carl chuckled. ‘Zack doesn’t mind the size. He just minds lefts.’

‘Then Poto-27 will teach Zack backhand!’ Poto-27 slapped my backside. We emerged onto the pier. ‘Poto-27 love big lefts! But first, we make welcome banquet from traditional cans!’

*                  *                  *

Poto-27 did indeed love big lefts. The maniac rode Teahupoo’s bucking foamballs of doom with his hands behind his back, grinning like he’d just won a month on Planet Botox.

In the line-up, I asked, ‘What’s your secret?’

Poto-27 roared, ‘Go hard, or go hungry!’

So I paddled hard… over the falls. SLAM! My board’s flotation tanks exploded. SLICE! Whitewater seethed me across the reef – JAB! –Fake coral gouged my rad-suit. STAB! My bones may be denser than granite, but my skin can still tear. I can still bleed. In fact, I bled so much I filled my rad-suit with crimson Zack juice.

Poto-27 towed me to the pier. Hovering above the channel, tourists in see-through spheres ­recorded my humiliation from every angle. I swayed up a ladder, smoke pouring through my shredded suit, the Black Pacific gnawing my skin and pubes.

‘Soon Zack look like local!’ Poto-27 chuckled, his tumour bouncing and sloshing merrily.

*                  *                  *

I wandered the village deck with Carl, gazing over moonlit Teahupoo. ‘These people are so generous. But they live in sheds and wear rags.’

‘Could be worse.’ Carl spat. ‘The annual Surf War makes New Tahiti the richest farken village on Earth!’

I shook my head with disbelief. ‘If this is rich, what do the poor Earth villagers eat? Each other?’

Carl’s phlegm sizzled on the ocean. ‘You don’t wanna know.’  His eyeballs wobbled. ‘My brain-chippie reckons, before the ice caps melted and the ozone layer disintegrated, this Earth joint had a lot more… earth. Farken get it? Packed with amazin’ critters and almost a million kays of coastline, Earth was the so-called jewel of the bloody universe.’

I shook my head. ‘You must be reading the wrong brain-chip.’

Toxic Teahupoo cracked.

*                  *                  *

I sat in the line-up, my body and radiation-suit freshly stitched.

Poto-27 asked, ‘Mister Zack try this stick maybe?’

‘Why not?’ I climbed onto Poto-27’s board and lead sinkered to the ocean floor. My rad-booties glowed and spat.

That’s why not.

Back on my super-floaty helium shortboard, a set loomed. Poto-27’s badly grammared hoots goaded me to, ‘Up, man!’ I upped…and downed into a face-plant reef-burley combo and paddled out for more. I kept wiping out all day until my muscles screamed. Then I paddled out again.

Every night, Poto-27’s family emptied can after can onto our plates and sang hymns until I wished I had no ears. And Carl would hiss, ‘Canned crap again! There’d be more nutrition in a steel-cow turd! And farken flavour!’

One night, after I’d helped wash up, Poto-27 placed a rotting brick of material on the table. ‘It called poto al bum!’ The brick opened at his touch.

My jaw thunked table. The perfect wave inside was a clone of Toxic Teahupoo, except it glowed – not deadly brown-black – but dazzlingly blue-green. I pointed at a silvery wedge on the next page. ‘What’s that bloke holding?’

‘Was called fiss. Food from ocean.’ Poto-27 shrugged. ‘Long gone.’

Every crumbling page revealed new old-school, non-holo-image wonders. Mountain ranges carpeted impossibly green with rainforest. A rainbow explosion of fruits. Tanned surfers wearing boardshorts; not a radiation suit in sight.

Could these young gods really be hideous Poto-27’s ancestors? Could they be mine?

With every page-turn, I felt myself inching closer to a pit of loss so deep it was beyond measure. I didn’t cry when I was five years old and Ma told me Pa would never be returning from his Wild Coast solo session. I didn’t cry when Darth Staker sliced open my twin like he was a slaughter-house chainsaw. But as I gazed on those rotting yet indescribably beautiful images of a world forever passed, water queued up behind my eyes until I had to look away.

Poto-27 returned the al bum to its shelf. ‘Come, we ride big fricken tubes beneath full moon!’

‘Why not?’ I felt an ancient craziness stirring.

‘Mister Zack?’ Poto-27’s sister Hoho poked her 1.5 heads and 4.7 breasts through the dangling plastic strips in the doorway. ‘You have visitor.’

Leaning on a walking stick, her stomach wrapped in bandages, my sister hobbled in!

‘ANNIE!’ I wrapped my twin in Zack hugness.

Annie croaked, ‘Don’t pop… a stitch.’

I stepped back. ‘You look better with your intestines on the inside!’

‘YOU look like you’ve been working on some new scars.’ Annie grinned. ‘And what’s with your eyes?’

‘Mister Zack, he so funny!’ Poto-27 slapped his tumour. ‘He cry so much! Like baby in acid rain!!’

Next: the Great Rematch! Darth versus Zack!

Art: Pat Grant