The Wall of the Acclaimed Donators!
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Amanda (12/25/11)
“Something… something is wrong,” Amanda whispered, slowly backing away from the sensors. Through six feet of leaded glass, the path of the accelerator began to glow blue. Then white. Then Amanda had to turn away from it lest it burn out her eyes.
“This doesn’t make any sense! What the hell is causing that?” a man in a white lab coat barked.
“The public’s general ignorance as to how particle accelerators actually function?” offered Amanda.
Teri (3/16/11)
“Damn it Kevin, answer that!” Teri shouted, the clacking of her keys like galloping horses even over all the ringing phones in the office.
“Gee, Teri, I think we oughta get outta here.” Kevin had his coat in his hand. The elevators and stairwells were already flooded. The phones continued to ring unchecked.
“I have a deadline to meet, Kevin. And no terrorist is going to get in my way.”
“But he’s going to blow up the building!” Kevin shouted, anxiously.
Teri continued typing calmly. She paused for a moment to open the old dictionary on the side of her desk, as she had a chronic distrust of spellcheck. You couldn’t trust a word that didn’t smell a little bit of mildew.
“No he won’t. You know who’s going to stop him.”
As if on command, a sonic boom shook the building.
Teri rolled her eyes, clicked her tongue, and thumbed to the “T” section of the dictionary. Inside, she began to count down from 30. She swore sometimes that she was the only person in the building able to count anymore.
“Teri, we really ought to go!” after ten seconds had passed.
“Twenty… nineteen… eighteen… seventeen….”
The building shook as bodies hit the walls of the upstairs. Teri knew the sound well as she herself had often been the cause of it at her own Karate matches.
“Sixteen…. fifteen… fourteen… thirteen… twelve… eleven…”
Gunfire. Bullets ricocheting off of something very hard and then embedding themselves in the floors and the walls. Teri rolled her eyes. Same shit different day.”
“Seven… six… five… four….”
“You’ll never stop me, Ultrus! I’ll–” someone yelled
“Three… two… and one.”
Teri looked up to see Ultrus in his skin-tight golden and crimson suit, holding a terrified and villainous looking man by the collar. She nodded once and went back to her dictionary.
“Hey Teri,” said Ultrus.
Teri grunted, not looking up.
“I caught the villain.”
“That’s nice, Ultrus.”
“Yeah, well, you know. Least I could do.”
“No, the least you could have done was testified against him the first time you caught him so that we wouldn’t have to go through this every week.”
Ultrus turned red, stammered, dumbfounded.
“Hey Teri,” said Sacre Boom, the French explosives expert and terrorist.
“Jean Paul,” Teri said, refusing to play into their games. “I heard your aunt is sick. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Is life,” said Sacre Boom.
“Well, I’m rather busy then. Good day to both of you,” said Teri, straightening her skirts. Kevin was collapsed in a sweaty panting heap. He did that every time Ultrus “narrowly” saved the day. How utterly useless.
“Umm… say Teri… I’ve been wondering… would you….”
“Would I what, Ultrus?” Teri snapped.
“This Friday there’s a concert in-”
“No.”
“But I could fly us there! It wouldn’t cost you a thing!”
“Ultrus, I have a job. I have to be part of the economy that fixes the buildings you smash when you ‘save the city.’ I have no interest in flying off to some concert when there’s work to be done.”
Teri observed Ultrus gulping and staring down at his feet from the periphery of her vision.
“Ouch,” whispered Sacre Boom.
*****
Once at home, Teri spared no time in going to her punching bag and laying out a few good blows. She’d always been good at martial arts, good at moving the weight in her body, and good at channeling her aggression constructively.
“Damn, stupid, melodramatic idiot! Knocked out half of the upper floors again! That means more lay offs! Probably killed some people with the debris! Worse than if the building had exploded!”
No one really thought about what super heroics MEANT for the community as a whole. They were too caught up in the heroic aspects of it.
“Now insurance rates are going to skyrocket again, and that means renting space in a skyscraper is going to get even MORE expensive so we’ll have more businesses choosing to move elsewhere, causing more lay-offs and MORE people being forced to move out of the city.”
Anyway you cut it, Ultrus was bad for the city. Yes, he fought crime. But he fought crime he created by fostering such an economically uncertain environment that larceny was one of the few jobs that offered stability.
“Integrated police forces representing the entire community, active political bodies in the lower economic classes, a system of fair rules which ensures that everyone has a stake in the prosperity of the city, economic growth based upon steady increase in manufacturing sectors…” Teri muttered these under her breath as she unloaded on the bag.
All of these were things that would have stopped more crime than Ultrus. Unfortunately, none of them came wrapped in big shiny costumes.
“Umm… Teri, are you there?”
“Go away! I have a restraining order!”
“I can’t see through these lead blinds, how am I supposed to know you are okay?”
“Creep!” Teri shouted.
“Teri, are you okay?” Groaning metal. Mortar breaking loose. He was tearing off the fucking blinds again. “Is someone in there with you making you say those things? Teri?”
“Ultrus, as a citizen of this country I have an absolute right to my privacy and not to have my home invaded by you without reasonable cause! Leave me alone!” The blinds, and about one-eighth of the wall was now held in Ultrus flying hands.
“Where is he Teri?”
“There’s no one here, Ultrus! And you’ve done over twenty thousand dollars in property damage, AGAIN!”
“Just come close, Teri. I’ll keep you safe from him wherever he is!”
“I have a restraining order, damn it!”
“I see…. so HE’S INVISIBLE wherever he is?!?” Ultrus flew past her in a great big gold and crimson blur. A whirlwind seemed to blow for a moment through her whole house, knocking over everything not nailed down, and sent an explosion of paper she didn’t even know she had soaring into the air.
“The bastard must have used a teleportation device the second I showed up!” Ultrus said, slamming his fist into his hand.
Teri regarded him from the other side of her couch. Unfortunately, the “things not nailed to the floor” had included her. Her back hurt.
“Get. Out.” She hissed like ice.
“Teri, what are you talking about? I’m here to save you.”
“No, you’re here because you’ve decided I fill some kind of void in your personal life story. You’re here because you’re a narcissistic asshole who can only ever see other living, breathing, thinking human beings as background extras in his own maniacal saga.
“And BEFORE you go on and on about talking about the burdens of being a superhero AND a tv news anchor- and oh yes Chett, parting your hair to the other side and taking off your glasses was SUCH an effective disguise- are overwhelming, thinking about the MILLIONS of other people in the world. Like people who are nurses AND mothers, or teachers AND fathers, or police officers AND little league coaches and do all of it without using superpowers or inflicting wanton unsanctioned violence on unsuspecting masses!”
Ultrus paused for a moment. There were tears in his eyes, Teri saw.
“I… I… I hadn’t even…”
“Do you see it now?” Teri asked, pleadingly, “Do you see why I don’t love you Ultrus?”
Ultrus walked toward her gently, softly as if the ground were made of eggshells.
“I hadn’t even dared hope that you loved me as Chett Rastleman, Anchor of the 6 o’clock news, instead of as the superhero Ultrus. Now I know why you were so distant all of this time.”
“God damn it,” sighed Teri.
Steffen (3/14/11)
“Dee dardy dur dee dar!”
“Speak English, damn it!” Steffen roared.
“Hurdy furdy?”
“Because otherwise this will be very difficult to understand!” Steffen turned his back on the subordinate, pressing his looking glass against his eye. After only a moment, he took it down, his face pale.
“Ah, so the orcs are here. Damn.”
“Glocken frocken, schmocken,” the lieutenant agreed.
Steffen put his hand on the stone, closed his eyes, and concentrated. It was ever so slight, but there was definitely a vibration there. It was impossible to guess the size of the swarm making its way toward Castle Swemark.
“Where are the cannons?” Steffen asked.
“Freeloken,” replied the lieutenant.
Steffen pounded his fists on the stone of the castle.
“Damn!”
“Shmarble barlge gleeglokenfrocken!”
“I will say damn as much as I choose! And stop speaking in that racist nonsensical version of Swemarksih. We have a proud, rich language and I will not listen to you slander it anymore. Especially not in the face of this orcish threat!”
“Wooven schmooven duven.”
“That’s more like it,” Steffen said.
A twang came from behind Steffen’s shoulder as a giant arrow came flying from an arbelest. Steffen crouched instinctively.
“God damn it!” Steffen hollered, “How many orcs can you possibly hope to kill with one giant arrow? I know it’s romantic, but use the fucking machine guns please!”
There were murmurs of “Yurdoon moorden” from above, followed by the sound of men setting up machine guns.
The rough machine clatter sounded only moments later, just in time for the first bullets to catch the giant winged Fjordenburgenschmurgen (also known as demonic giant winged Poodles). The fjordenburgenschmurgen fell into well-groomed bloody heaps before the walls of the castle.
Steffen winced as far away, a lurgaa roared. Luckily, someone had brought out the spent uranium shells by then and it… well, it did what anything would do when struck by spent uranium shells.
Steffen sighed in relief.
“Status report!” Steffen demanded.
“It’s still a very bad idea for creatures armed with medieval weapons to use land combat techniques that have been outmoded for hundred of years, sir!” a helpful lieutenant offered, as the men next to him launched missiles into the oncoming horde killing hundreds upon hundreds of orcs.
“And is this racist? This killing these things because they’re different from us?” Steffen pondered.
“Oh no sir, not at all.” The Lieutenant replied.
“Why not?”
“Because orcs are… arabodoken jenaraldiddendoo fenslapptuur.”
“Wow… that’s a totally unassailable argument, lieutenant.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the lieutenant.
All of the sudden the ground trembled, causing Steffen to lose his footing. He stared out into the field of battle, his jaw going slack.
Wooble fooble macdoogle oogle! Naremushnargendargen, bluubluu bleekinbleekin hinialglobree luminlumin separafinkle! Gheerobengaard bimbreefrock cottendotten!
Steffen chastised himself as he retook his feet. It was horrible beyond imagining to even think such terrible words. For now, there was a giant Hampster to deal with, and it look like it had come fresh from the bowels of… Richard Gere.
*****
Steffen was once again amazed at the stopping power of a .50 cal machine gun firing spent uranium shells.
“I mean, these monsters are so big, you’d never think the bullets could actually stop them let alone cut them all to tiny little bits but… well… I mean look.” The gunman pointed out to the field of battle.
A gerbil monster, driven mad by what it had seen inside Richard Gere, was scattered over approximately the length of a football field.
“I mean, you see the videos of these bullets cutting through buses and mac trucks but you always assume oh no the monster has to be harder than steel. Physics always wins in the end, I guess.” Steffen agreed.
“Yeah, modern weaponry really ruins this,” said the gunman.
“Yeah, battle is over I guess,” said Steffen.
*****
“Do we have any idea of how to stop these things from coming at us again?” Steffen asked, “I wouldn’t ask but it’s getting annoying to keep having to spend this much money on defense.”
Around the conference table, a panel of scientists looked at their stomachs and twiddled their thumbs.
“Are they just assholes? We’ve tried to reason with them. There’s no logical reason they should want to eradicate the city but they keep coming back. There’s nothing we can use to bargain with them and we’ve tried everything.”
“Have we even figured out how their physiology works? They don’t make any sense. How are they eating enough to stay alive? Where are they reproducing?”
“We still don’t know,” murmured one scientist.
“Fuck!” said Steffen.
“Is that the Swemarkian fuck that means, we shall always never surrender and keep trying in the face of adversity, or the English fuck which means… well, fuck.” Asked a stupid scientist, his big stupid face full of stupid thoughts.
“It means fuck!” said Steffen more forcefully.
“I don’t understand,” said another stupid scientist.
“They must have some kind of economic stake in this adventure is all I’m saying. How could they just keep blindly killing themselves on our castle’s defenses?”
“Perhaps it is their biology?”
“No, I fear it is something worse,” whispered Steffen, “I fear it is their religion.”
*****
The problem with religion was that it tended to be rather a lot like bricks. You could do a lot of brilliant things with bricks. Some so brilliant as to suck the air out of your lungs, bring you to your knees, while putting tears in your eyes. Sometimes you could use bricks to do a similar thing, but usually only after bashing someone’s head in with one.
“What if we engineered a virus that made people act reasonably, and achieve Zen-like contentment with the whole universe?” asked Steffen.
“That sounds reasonable, but we must be very patient with its development” said a wise old scientist with a butterfly dancing at the end of his nose.
“Is that possible in a reasonable time frame?” asked Steffen.
“Blue jello lollipop!” shouted a scientist with an impulse control problem.
“Does anyone else feel like this is going nowhere?”
“Yes!” said an agreeable scientist.
“Then maybe it’s time we just employed the nuclear option and stopped all this skirmishing so we can go back to rebuilding our city.”
“But that’s a cheat crappy way to win a war!”
“Who cares at this point?” hissed Steffen, “this whole war is stupid anyway.”
Eileen (12/24/10)
“Art theft is a strange business for an art teacher, isn’t it?” the curator was doing his best to remain calm despite the suppressor pressed to the back of his head. Eileen would almost have believed the balding man held no fear were it not for a slight tremor in his fingers.
“I’m not an thief and I’m not an art teacher anymore for that matter, either.” Eileen figured people ought to keep better track of these facts given her new found notoriety.
She cocked the gun.
The curator gulped.
“Mom! The cage dropped around the jewels!” a voice called from the next room.
Eileen casually struck the curator on the back of the head with the butt of the gun, knocking him out cold, and cursed under her breath. Not at the curator, who she had just been trying to scare but at the alarm being triggered.
“Who triggered the alarm?” she shouted, knowing the answer..
“Who do you think?” Tess asked, appearing out of breath in her skin-tight cat burglar outfit.
“I didn’t mean too!” Erin insisted from the next room.
“I’m sure it wasn’t your fault, honey,” Eileen shouted.
“It wasn’t!” Erin said, leaping on the way out.
“I sat here and watched you do it!” Tess shouted back.
Eileen groaned. Despite what she’d said, there was a great deal of thievery involved in her line of work, and thievery ought never to be a family business.
“Then that means it’s your fault too!” Erin hissed.
“Girls!” Eileen hissed, “be quiet! Do you want our competition to hear you?” That got them both quiet. Eileen figured they only had fifteen minutes till the bad guys showed up. Then the cops would come and just mess up everything like they always did.
Eileen ran to the gallery room where the jewels were kept. A cage of steel with three inch thick bars had sprung up around it. Eileen favored Erin with a very angry look, but remembered herself before she started yelling. Erin had poor enough self-esteem as it was.
“Someone get me the oxy-acetylene torch.”
This was rather more difficult than Eileen had hoped it would be, as the tanks were quite heavy and there were several flights of stairs they had to be walked down. It was fortunate no one broke their ankle.
After a few moments, she turned the torch on, pressing it to the bars.
“We’ve got to hurry, mom! The Illuminatus will be here any second!”
Somewhere close, there was an explosion.
“Girls, get the guns!”
Eileen focused on the blue-white flame through her goggles as Erin and Tess variously cocked and loaded the machine guns.
“Come on. Come on.” Eileen stared at the chalice through the bars. An ugly cup amidst all the sparkling jewels. So close. She would have it any moment. That’s when the bullets started to fly.
One ricocheted off the bar just to the right of her head, and Eileen swore she could feel it flick her earlobe. Still, she did not panic, only dropped to the floor. She’d crawl to the damned chalice if she had to. Eileen stared at the bars, watching for it to turn golden red. Then she sharpened the flame and began to cut.
“Mom!” Erin whined, “are you almost done?”
“Not yet, dear!” Eileen shouted.
“Well, how much longer?” Erin asked.
Sparks flew by Eileen’s ears, drowning out Erin’s voice. A few minutes more and enough bars would be out of the way for her to get through.
An empty gun hit the ground, clattering.
“Running low on ammo, mom!” Teresa shouted, followed by the unique sound of a banana clip ramming home into an AK.
“Moooom! How much looonger!” Erin said.
Eileen breathed deeply under her hood, grateful that neither of her daughters could see her face. Oh the weight of the world, always on her shoulders.
*****
Erin blinked and felt frustrated. Then she bit her tongue and felt conflicted. When that was done, she whimpered and felt conflicted about her frustration.
“Mooom! I’m scaaaaared!” Erin said.
Someone had thrown a tear gas canister into the room. Erin kicked it toward Teresa, who picked it up and threw it back down the hallway.
“Gosh Erin, couldn’t you have just thrown it back down there yourself!”
“No!” Erin shouted back, “because this is mom’s story and I don’t want to do anything so awesome it distracts from that!”
“Good point,” said Tess.
*****
The bars melted like melting steels bars, which was good, as this was how Eileen had planned they should melt from the very first. She spared a glance down at her watch, as another section of the cage fell to the ground.
“Eileen, this is Gilderoy Fancypants McGillickutty the IV, we have you surrounded!”
“Why does it feel like this has taken so long?” Eileen wondered aloud.
She reached into the cage, grabbed hold of the treasure, put it in her black canvas bag and sent a flurry of gunfire in the direction of the voice. Someone shrieked.
“You shot me!” said Gilderoy Fancypants McGillickutty the IV.
“That was the point,” said Eileen.
Then she ran off to grab her daughters and get the hell out of the museum.
*****
“God, it felt like that took FOREVER,” Erin whined from the backseat.
“Yeah, it felt like that took months,” Eileen acknowledged.
“I felt it took exactly as long as needed,” said Tess.
Thunder boomed in the distance, as if some unseen narrator wanted to signal agreement with Tess’ statement.
“It dragged, and felt discombobulated as if God were trying to constantly remember what it was all supposed to mean and where it was supposed to go,” said Erin.
“That was melodramatic,” Eileen murmured.
“What mom?” Erin asked.
“Oh nothing,” Eileen replied.
“Does anyone else feel like this was supposed to have been over a long time ago?” Erin asked.
“No, I don’t think we could have forgotten something this important” said Tess.
“Just shut up, girls! I’m a grown woman and I deserve just a second for myself to think and relax every now and again!” Eileen shouted.
“Yes mom” the girls said in unison.
Then Eileen looked at the treasure in her black canvas bag and thought about all the ways she was going to spend it. On herself. For once.
Andrea (12/1/10)
“The Hole in the Wall” was a speakeasy about as imaginative as its name. The bar was a fortress of crates with a few planks for a tabletop, the lights were dim, and the ‘shine was kept in kegs marked “XXX.” Andrea reckoned in her line of business there wasn’t a better place to meet with clients.
“You sure you’re a PI? I ain’t never heard of no lady PI.” Joe Mooner said.
Andrea, ignoring the question, slapped the table and the bartender slid a drink down to her. It slid off the counter halfway on its journey. Bruno, the bartender, was a street tough who couldn’t mix or serve a drink worth a damn and was there mostly in case the coppers raided the joint and someone had to run out with the till.
“Worst damn bartender in history,” Andrea muttered. She stood up, pretended not to see Joe Mooner object to her departure, went behind the bar, and poured herself a drink. She drank it in one shot.
“Boss says no one is ‘sposed to come behind the bar,” Bruno scowled.
Andrea patted his head gently.
“Don’t make a long night any longer, Bruno. If I had to wait for you to pour a drink it’s going to be another six hours before I can get drunk enough to pretend I’m not in this pisspot.”
Bruno muttered but the volume was pitched too low for Andrea to hear, she figured by design. Bruno looked tough but a good kick to his knee and he’d drop just as quick as anyone else.
“So, what you got? Cheating wife? Kid run away?” Andrea slammed three of the shots she had poured, one after each question. “I ain’t got all day,bub and I hate melodrama.”
The color ran out of Joe Mooner’s face, his mouth chewed the air for a few moments as he prepared to speak.
“I… need somethin’ moved.”
Andrea snorted into her glass.
“I ain’t a smuggler, pal. And I ain’t just a set of tits either so put your eyes back in your head.”
Joe Mooner suddenly sat ramrod straight.
“It ain’t like that… what I need moved… it ain’t really somethin’ more like…”
“Oh fuck. It’s a person isn’t it?” Andrea groaned.
Joe Mooner’s head shot around, quick as an owl, then bent low over the table.
“Be quiet! I don’t know who’s listening!”
Andrea stood up, wobbling ever so slightly. She really ought not to drink so much anymore.
“I’m going to look into what you’re doing and if it ain’t kosher I’m turning you over to the coppers.” Andrea put on her hat, missed, then tried again.
“Lady, you gotta help me! It’s…” he looked over at Bruno, then rushed over to her side, “It’s my daughter and if we don’t get her moved she’s gonna die.”
*****
Andrea shut the blinds in her office, and set a steaming cup of coffee down on her table. When the blinds were closed she collapsed into the chair behind her desk, a torn and over-stuffed leather monstrosity. A puff of air escaped through cracks in the leather, like the sigh of a corpse.
“All right, spill.”
Joe Mooner wrung his hat in his hands and gulped. He shuffled his feet nervously. Andrea opened her drawer, took out a flask, and drew a pull.
“Well?”
“What do you know about extraterrestrials?” Joe Mooner let out in a rush.
“I’m not a geologist if that’s what you’re asking,” Andrea snapped then took another pull.
“No, I mean little green men.”
“Like martians?”
“In this case, no. We’d be speaking of the residents of the fourth planet from a star in the Andromeda galaxy.”
“Oh, I suppose that makes a difference, does it?”
“No, I suppose not,” Mooner admitted.
Andrea thought about the phone on the first floor of the building. One of those new two-piecers where you put a special cup to your ear for sound. She figured it might be time to call the men with butterfly nets.
“I… well, you see. I mean, you can’t judge a man if they look human. Right? I mean, my Betsy was a looker no matter where she was from and our Jessica, well, she’s a good little gal too.”
Andrea rubbed the bridge of her nose.
“Do you mean to tell me you had a daughter by a little green man?”
Joe Mooner nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, but she was a little green woman, actually. And, umm, not green.”
Andrea unceremoniously lifted her cup, poured half of its contents into a nearby potted plant, and replenished that half with whiskey.
“Well, bub. Go ahead and talk.”
“We went to high school together. They bring them over here young, you see, so they have time to assimilate into our culture. My Betsy was runner up for homecoming queen. I didn’t place you know… on account of looking how I do. But luckily, in their culture, they don’t admire physical beauty as much as we do. Not to say that I only loved Betsy for her looks!”
“Heaven forbid,” Andrea muttered into her now Irish coffee.
“She was a real whizz at math. Knew all kinds of stuff. Say, you know she told me about that Einstein fella long before he ever got published?”
“I’m incredulous,” Andrea muttered again.
“Well she did. They say they move to planets like ours to help nudge us in the right direction. Help us keep on track. Help us make progress toward joining the civilizations among the stars.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But there are some among their species who were dead set against our race being moved along. They said we were too primitive. Too violent. Well… that’s why they’re trying to take my little girl, see? They think she’ll pollute their race.”
“Where is your daughter right now?”
“Oh, she’s in my pocket.”
“Uh huh.”
“Here, I’ll show you!”
Joe reached down into his pocket, making comforting sounds as he did so and pulled out a handful of something-or-other. His hand hovered a moment over Andrea’s desk before it let loose a few bits of loose change and a bit of lint.
“Well, where is your tiny daughter?”
“She’s invisible!” Joe Mooner beamed.
“I fucking knew this wasn’t going to go anywhere.”
Andrew (12/1/10)
Andrew sat for a while on the bench, turning the bracelet over in his hands. It was a silver bracelet, with sharp bits at irregular intervals. None sharp enough to break skin, but sharp enough to be uncomfortable. After a while, a man in a trench coat and fedora sat down next to him.
“You know when bus 147 comes by chance?” the stranger asked.
Andrew sighed. The stranger was no stranger, and Andrew hated morons.
“The bus comes at 6:10.” Then, leaning closer “And if someone goes through the trouble of setting up a code phrase, how about you try not to dress like a spy next time?”
The spy stood bolt upright, looking from side to side.
“Hey, you watch your mouth, that kind of talk can get-”
“Shut up. I don’t have time to listen to you.” Andrew said, and pushed the bracelet into the spy’s hand so that the sharpest bits struck him first. The spy tried to pull his hands back, but the injury had already been done.
“My daughter went missing at eleven o’clock last night. Sons of bitches came right into my own house. I need company resources to track her down and get her back.”
The spy straightened at this, “This sounds like a civic matter. I suggest you go see the police.” The spy stood to go.
Andrew reached out with one hand, grabbed the spy roughly by the shoulder and slammed him back down into his seat. “I didn’t defect to deal with bureaucratic little pissants like you. Where’s Agent Honeycut?”
“Dead. Shot right between the eyes last weak.”
Andrew’s face grew pale. “It’s them then. They’re back.”
The agent guffawed, “Honeycut was mugged while soliciting prostitutes. He had a drinking problem and his wife left him three months ago. Sorry about your daughter but–”
Andrew rubbed his mouth. He knew Honeycut had been having personal problems, as the man hadn’t reached out to him in over six months and during their last meet he had been fraggled and prone to distraction. But Andrew was a good judge of character. Honeycut hadn’t killed himself. Every instinct he had ever honed as an assassin told him there hadn’t been an ounce of suicide in Honeycut.
“What about General Wellington?” Andrew insisted.
The agent rolled his eyes.
“Don’t you follow the news? He hasn’t been a general for four months. Your out of friends, pal.” The agent stood up to leave.
“Then who’s left that knows about the Legion Initiative?”
“Me and a bunch of file clerks probably. Down where all the old cases are that nobody needs to worry about anymore.”
“Welll… who can I contact about this?”
The Agent shrugged, walking off into the distance.
Andrew stomped and rushed home.
*****
Andrew couldn’t remember the first man he’d killed. Literally. The first twenty or so years of his life were a vague sort of haze, often red with violence. He only knew that he had been doing it for a very, very long time.
As he leaned in front of his air duct, preparing to take out the weapon cache he had hidden there in direct violation of government order, he pondered again the secrets those years might have held. Was it possible there might be a clue there that could help him get his daughter back?
Where had she been taken? What were they doing to her? Was she still alive?
His hands trembled with uncharacteristic weakness.
The trembling stopped once the glock was firmly in his hand. He stared at it curiously, frowning. Horrible how a simple show of humanity could be beaten down by training so reflexively. Even willing his hand to tremble wouldn’t bring the shaking back.
He inspected the contents of the black canvas bag. All there. All as he’d left it. He slung it over his shoulder.
Mrs. Potts stirred inside the house. His maid. The one who’d discovered that his daughter had gone missing. The first one to see that horribly empty bed. Andrew bit his lip, tucking the glock in the back of his pants. He’d move it to a holster once he’d taken care of Mrs. Potts. No matter what the movies said, tucking a gun into your waistband was asking to get shot in the privates.
“Mr. Andrew sir? Are you home?” Mrs. Potts called.
“Out here!” Andrew responded.
“Did you see the police yet, Mr. Andrew?”
“Yeah… yeah, I’ve got someone on it.”
Oh, that gun had never felt so cold as it did right then.
“Oh good! What did they say?”
Andrew coughed. He teared up. It wasn’t hard to affect.
“I’d rather not talk about it right now, but I’m going over there right now. There’s some business I’ve got to take care of.”
“You’ll keep me informed, won’t you?” Mrs. Potts begged.
“Absolutely. I should have some answers soon.”
Oh yes, that gun had never felt so cold. Nor so clean, or powerful, or sleek.
*****
There’s always someone in every city who knows everything. Someone who keeps tabs on all the moving parts. That was Vinny the Twitch, in this town. Andrew blew his toe off in the first shot.
Vinny screamed as the sound of the shot ricocheted off the walls of the alley, then jumped up on one foot and started hopping around. There was a great mess of blood everywhere, spurting out of Vinny’s shoe with every beat of his heart.
Andrew threw some bandages at him to help staunch the bleeding.
“Still don’t know anything, eh?”
“I told you I don’t get caught up in none of that government crap! I’m a simple business man!”
“Vinny, do you really think you’re going to be able to run away from the cops if don’t have any toes at all? Isn’t that going to screw up your ‘business?’”
“You can’t just blow off a man’s big toe, you fuck! It’s the most important toe in the whole foot! You literally just crippled me for life as your opening move to hostilities?”
“Yes,” said Andrew.
“Okay, fine! Then this has all been a conspiracy all along and your daughter was never even kidnapped because she doesn’t exist and this is all a dream or something.”
“Well what about some random facts which would seem to indicate that is not true?”
“Take into consideration this perspective that actually makes that support the premise that your life is a lie.”
“Well damn,” said Andrew.
Graham (10/28/10)
Waking up on a bed of reeds, explorer, soldier, and world-renowned pianist Graham Muldoon reached toward the empty place by his side. His head hurt. That was funny, because he had no recollection of his head having hurt when he went to bed.
His hand scrambled around the empty place. The place where his travel-pack, saber, and journal had been set every day of his life since this damned adventure had begun. Except… they were not there.
Graham sat up so quickly that his vision faded to black for just a moment. Still in a scramble, he jumped to his feet reaching for his boot knife… which was also missing.
“Damn” Graham said, blowing out his walrus-like explorer’s mustache.
“Ah, Mr. Muldoon, how nice of you to wake up and greet your guests,” said a familiar voice from just behind Graham.
“You!” Graham shouted. He realized all at once he was in nothing but his boots and undergarments, and then grabbed his blankets in a wild panic to cover himself. “I should have known!”
“Oh Graham, modesty? Really?” Elizabeth laughed, and threw her red hair out of her face with a gentle toss of her head.
“Where are my things?” Graham demanded.
“With my man, but don’t worry. You’ll get them back. Tell me, have you ever heard of the Stone of Jeru?” Elizabeth asked.
Even standing there half-naked, Graham still managed to gather the dignity to scoff. “The stone of Jeru? The stone with the power to control the sun? Yes, I’ve heard of it. I’ve heard of a lot of legends.”
Elizabeth walked around Graham, humming to herself. Graham made sure to spin around, his blanket held over his intimate bits, with the sort of gentlemanly swagger to which he’d become accustomed in the jungle. Which was to say, none at all.
“Still such a stick in the mud, Graham? You always were such a droll boy, even when we were children.”
“I suppose my childhood should have been much freer, were I not constantly required to keep you out of trouble!” Graham smacked his lips, suddenly realizing what the cottony taste in his mouth really was.
“My God, you drugged me! Didn’t you?”
Elizabeth laughed.
“Come now, Graham, of course I did. If I didn’t have you in such straits would you have consented to talk to me?” A man appeared out of the jungle, dressed only in a loin cloth holding Graham’s missing materials.
“Elizabeth, by Jove, if I tell your father about this he’ll-”
“My father died earlier this month, Graham,” a sudden note of sadness in her voice.
“Lord Tremain is de– I’m sorry, Elizabeth. I did not know. Thank you for coming all this way to tell me.” Graham approached the pygmy when two more of his kind came out of the bush with spears pointed directly at Graham.
“Oh, I didn’t come to tell you that my father was dead, Graham. At least not directly. I came to help you find the Stone of Jeru before his killers do.”
*****
“Elizabeth, will you bloody well tell me what’s going on now?” Graham was half-running, half-falling, and half-trying to put his clothes on. If that was confusing, it wasn’t half so confusing as he felt chasing after his long lost childhood love.
“Have you heard of the League of Helios?” Elizabeth called over her shoulder. Graham snatched another article of clothing from her servant with a scowl.
“Yes, it’s comprised largely of a group of older gentleman who have a pressing desire to escape the company of their wives.” Graham had met a porter in Singapore who had been under the impression that the League controlled everything from stock prices to where highways would be built. Mostly, Graham knew, they just had charity dinners.
“Perhaps that was true at one time, and maybe for the larger membership, but Lord Patrick has recently joined their ranks and he seeks the Stone.”
“Lord Patrick is the worst archaeologist in the royal society. I shouldn’t be worried if he is your adversary.”
“He may be a terrible archaeologist, but he is a brilliant businessman. He’s hired Vernor Tucci to lead the dig. I should say we only have a month or so before he finds it.”
Graham grunted, wiping his mouth. “How did you find me out here anyway?”
Elizabeth laughed in her bright, golden tones. The laugh she used to dismiss all worldly concerns, and generally speaking, land everyone within earshot neck-deep in trouble. Graham frowned.
“Don’t you suppose that an English gentleman walking around the jungle in a pith helmet merits much comment?”
“My dear, if you had any idea how many Englishmen are walking around these jungles in pith helmets, you’d know I merit no conversation.”
“Well, you ought not to have tickled the ivories so often. Not many people play like you, Graham. You’re a curiosity even here.”
Graham cursed.
“Graham! Have you forgotten I am a lady?”
“Technically? No, I have no doubt you’re technically a lady.”
Elizabeth sniffed but let Graham’s insult pass. She’d no doubt find some way to make up for it later.
“I suppose you want me to lead some expedition for you?” Graham pressed.
“Why Graham, whatever gave you that idea?” Elizabeth retorted.
“Well, whatever you said I’m not exactly an easy man to find. So you must want something,” Graham frowned, tucking his shirt back into his pants.
Elizabeth stopped short, causing Graham to almost walk into her back. He stopped himself in time, but not soon enough that her hair didn’t brush his nose, filling his nostrils with an all too familiar scent.
“Daddy gave you a toy once. A little stone statue when we were children. Do you remember?”
“Who remembers toys they were given as children?”
“Really Graham? I remember you being quite fond of your toys. I remember you crying for hours when your father threw one of them in the fire. He called it a girl’s toy didn’t he?”
“Mister Elephantitis was not a girl’s toy! He was a biological model! And damn you, Elizabeth, you’re the one who planted the whole notion in his head that he ought to get rid of it!”
Elizabeth smiled coyly.
“So you still don’t remember the little statue with the long chin?”
“Yes, I suppose I do,” Graham sighed.
“Good, we’ll need it. It’s a clue.”
“How is it a clue?”
“It’s a relic of a lost civilization. The same people that made the stone of Jeru.”
“Is that why it said made in New York on the bottom?”
“Daddy put it there for camoflauge. The same reason he let you play with it. He always did love hiding things in plain sight.”
“Well, I dare say it’s in an attic somewhere back in our London estate. So good luck finding it.”
Elizabeth’s guide cleared the last of the brush between them and a clearing. On the other side was a small prop plane.
“Yes, Graham, good luck to you as well. Oh, and I forgot to bring you a book. I do know how much you hate to fly without a good book.”
More to Come!
New Donors
Nico Morley (11/21/10)
Nico Morley loves speed… the speed of the raceway! And to a negative extent, the kind that teenagers in trailer parks make when they have no money and even less hope.
Nico currently races for Meth, but in the sense that she’s racing to raise money against Meth addiction… I know it’s confusing. Kind of like when people say they’re walking “for Cancer” and you’re like “that’s horrible!”
But anyhow, she races cars and hates meth. One time even shot a couple of tweakers when she was convinced they were zombies. Everyone wondered why she didn’t stop when they cried for mercy, but then they all just laugh over how funny it was.
Chris (10/29/10)
Chris, world-renowned jewel-thief and general rapscallion, was born in one of those awesome monasteries that only exist at the tops of improbably high mountains in Tibet. He lived his life there with kindly looking monks, wearing a lot of yellow and orange. He also learned a lot about doing unto others, being kind, and blah blah blah. Mostly, it was the yellow and orange.
One day, he got tired of sitting down and humming in uncomfortable clothes. Using the Kung Fu he had learned from the monks he began a years long jewel-thieving adventure in Europe. But he only stole from made up pretend countries with European sounding names, that for some reason still had really rich royal families that loved to oppress peasants.
He retired to an island made up mostly of a volcano in the shape of a human skull, where he lives to this day. He enjoys decoupage, leather-craft, and improvisational human sacrifice which he finds more compelling than highly ritualized human sacrifice.
Ye Olde Donors
(7/28/09) Kima is perhaps most famous for her starring role in the film “Henry the Hapless Hippo.” The film takes place in the forests of Oregon, and features a lonesome mountain man who befriends a depressed hippo and in the process of helping the hippo recover discovers how to care about the world once more. Kima played the mother of two children who befriend Henry the Hapless Hippo as well as the mountain man, after running across them on a school hiking trip. Then, after a greedy zookeeper tries to steal Henry the Hapless Hippo for himself, Kima and the mountain man must team with one another to save the Hapless Hippo, and eventually find love in each other’s arms.
At her Oscar ceremony Kima credited her inspiration to “Hungry Hungry Hippos” and told a delightful anecdote about playing the game for hours on end when she was young. She even used the chopped off fingers of small children in order to make the game more realistic, as statistically speaking, Hippos despite being bulbous are the most dangerous creatures in nature. Kima also is responsible for the famous PSA reminding children everywhere that “Cartoonishly round shapes do not a friend animal make.”
Kima is also credited with the invention of the “Hippo Saddle” as well as the sport of “Hippo Jousting” which is like regular jousting except that the lances can never get near the other person in armor, and the hippos generally end up trampling both contestants to death. Why did Kima invent this sport? Some would say it comes from a deep hatred of jousting, but still others would claim that its because the owner of this website has a strange fascination with animals.
(7/27/09) Marla was born in a small coastal village to an old timey sea captain and his goodly wife, the proprieter of the local tavern. She spent her childhood dawdling on the knees of her father’s haggard crewmen who regaled her with stories of the sea, their only mistress. “Aye Marla,” they would say “the land has many a fine lass and lady, but the sea… she be the only one who have me heart.” Which no doubt informed Marla’s doctoral thesis “Oceanophilia: And the Frustration of Intimacy with a Liquid.”
Marla’s only friend growing up was a manatee named Richard. Many were the days Marla and Richard would sit at the docks, staring into the depths of the bay, contemplating the mysteries of the deep. Then one day Marla made the mistake of making direct eye contact with Richard, and asked: “You reckon there are sea people down there, like old cap’n Byrd says?”
To which the manatee responded with a skin-ripplingly loud “UUUUUUFFFFPHHHHH!” Which is the sound a mantee makes when it wishes to express the fact that it is not sentient, but in fact a very large very dangerous sea mammal that could very easily crush a small child. That was the last Marla ever saw of Richard, for ever after she was too afraid of his weird manatee fangs and bulbous snout to ever near him again.
Marla currently ejoys two passions:
1. Editing, which is what it is called when someone has the kind of personality disorder requisite to look at something someone else has made and instead of experiencing it say “You used they’re when you should have said their.” She is very good at this.
2. The Kingdom Of Loathing, which is the best role playing type game I have ever played, combining sword and sorcery with sauce and sarcasm. Marla introduced me to this game which is why several months ago there were virtually no updates on this site.
(7/24/09) Josh began life as a mannequin in a department store, until awoken by the love of a hapless but somehow likable window designer. Was it strange the way this mousy haired woman stared at Josh? Did it make him feel weird to feel her hands running all over his hollow cardboardesque body? Yes, yes it did. So weird in fact that Josh had no recourse but to defy every law of biology and science, spontaneously come to life, and tell the lady to get fucked.
(7/24/09) Brad was born in the smallest possible increment of time it took for the master computer that controls the universe to fluctuate between 1 and 0. What lays in the sliver of infinity that lays between 1 and 0? The answer is Brad.
Brad appeared, fully formed out of the cosmic background data, on the doorstep of his parents house wearing only a brown fedora and a bullwhip.* Although he appeared out of the ether, Brad lived a normal life until his thirtieth birthday when he was bitten by a Native American with a great sense of direction, an eerie empathy for animals, and a feather in his hair. Once bitten, Brad adopted the Native American’s curse and became a stereotype.**
Yes, he could live a normal life in the 9-5 world of business…. but once every full moon, Brad is forced to exemplify all the quirks commonly associated with his race by people of low intelligence. As he was immaculately born of a fluctuation of computer data, this means that he must wear ironic t-shirts with in-jokes almost no one is capable of understanding. He drinks copious amounts of “Rock Star” and plays WoW for hours on end. For fear of passing on his curse to someone else, Brad chains himself to his gaming chair every full moon. In his stereotypical state, he possesses only a keen intellectual understanding of how the lock works, yet lacks the physical dexterity to pick it.
Some say on nights when the moon is clear you can hear Brad’s labored breathing, followed by the short burst of him taking a pull off of his inhaler.
*This is not to imply that he was holding a bullwhip. He was wearing it as clothing, similar to Sean Connery’s outfit in the film “Zardoz.”
**In his regular state this Native American is Mormon, hates the wilderness, and loves tofu.
(7/23/09) Eric the Amazin Hazen is an avid collector of exotic beetles. He loves the way their black carapace covered bodies scurry along his flesh with their six wriggly little legs. He says the bite of their pincers is more delicate than the kiss of a fair maiden. He wears clothes of sack-cloth covered with dirt and sugar water so his beetles can go with him wherever he wanders. This is not creepy at all.
Did you hear me? AT ALL!
*Stares at the army of telepathically controlled beetles crawling under the door suddenly stop, and reverse direction. Sits down wearily, and sighs*
(7/23/09) What can you say about Shawn Meyer that hasn’t already been said? You need simply dial any number in a rolodex of saints to get the following comments:
“Shawn Meyer makes me uncomfortable. No person is just naturally that nice. All she does is help people. Weird.” ~Fred Rogers
“I don’t know sometimes… I just think about Shawn Meyer and it makes me feel like I should be doing more for the environment.” ~Al Gore
“Every time I see Shawn Meyer, I die a little inside to know a spiritual beauty that I can never achieve. Out of all the masses of humanity, hers is the one life that has been lived without sin.” ~Jesus H. Christ
“I aspire to care as much about the truth as Shawn Meyer.” ~ Jon Stewart
“If I had half of Shawn Meyer’s ability to make intelligent, historically informed puns I would be a billionaire.” ~William Shakespeare
“Every day I wake up, I feel like I am laying on a bed of heaven. For I not only have a wife, but an artist, a genius, and a goddess.” ~Shawn Meyer’s Unworthy Husband
How was Shawn Meyer born? No one really knows. Some claim she sprung fully formed out of an Enya song. Other say she was sung in existence by Irish Nyads bathing in a crystal clear spring. Only one thing is for certain: there is no person on this Earth that is as uncomfortably nice as Shawn Meyer.
I want to lock her inside an invisible glass coffin and keep her safe forever.
(7/23/09) Rebecca is Australian… making her one of many refined citizens of the world, who read this blog to get a feeling what it’s like to be a resident of the Best of All Possible Countries. She spends many hours staring at my site, enviously dreaming of what it would be like to sleep beneath Spacious Skies. Also, like all people from abroad, she is surprisingly generous. Seriously.
(7/22/09) Ashlyn is like Ragnarok, if Ragnarok were instead of being the end of the world, a very pleasant place to go have a picnic. It should also be noted that Ashlyn smokes a corn cob pipe. She likes to smoke her pipe on her porch, rock back and forth in a swinging chair, and think about narwhals.
(7/22/09) Eileen is awesome. How awesome? Awesome as shit? Awesome as fuck? No, my friends. No!
To describe the awesomeness of Eileen we would have to invent a whole new swear word, with a meaning so vile and obscene it cannot even be reproduced for reasons both scientific and moral.
Eileen is awesome as @*%$
I can hear you pussies now, saying: “BUT BC! ALL I WOULD HAVE TO DO IS FIND THAT WORD IS WRITE A PROGRAM TO GIVE EVERY POSSIBLE FOUR LETTER WORD, SUBTRACT ALL EXISTING WORDS, AND THEN BASED UPON A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF PHONEMES WEED OUT ALL THOSE WORDS WHICH ARE UNPROUNOUNCABLE! THE EXTREME UPPER BOUND IS ONLY 26^4 WHICH IN TERMS OF MODERN COMPUTERS IS TRIVIAL! THE FINAL SELECTION POOL WOULD BE ONLY HUNDREDS OF WORDS LONG!”
Oh really? You really think so?
Yeah, you would be right… if that word were written in letters that a human being can even understand.
The letters that comprise the written form of the horrible unpronounceable word, are made of un-seeable unknowable symbols. Your computer can’t be given those symbols as inputs. How does it feel crypto-boy? Hmmm? How does it feel to know you cannot compute the awesomeness of Eileen?
Eileen is an art teacher, hero, and mother of two smoking hot as @*%$ twins.
If I weren’t socially awkward, sexually incompetent, and weirdly reclusive I would try to have sex with all of them. At the same time.
(7/22/09) Kjell Tore Sørensen was born in western Swemark, known as “Sweway” to the locals. His father was Æürdengaard Sørensen and his mother was Hildefodder Ëørindotter. Before the rise of King Clectic, Kjell’s village was burned to the ground by the terrible Horror Gnomes, who are like lawn gnomes but with fangs, and taller hats. He was found in a burned out attic by a group of Swemarkian soldiers, and sent to live inside of Castle Swemark with the rest of the children orphaned by the terrible Horror Gnomes. In time, he joined the King’s army and was raised to the rank of captain.
When asked how he feels about losing his family, Kjell’s face turns to stone and he stares out into the Horizon, his eyes empty like those of a corpse. He whispers “Dee dardy dur dee dur,” which translated from Swemarkian roughly means:
“The sorrows wreaked upon me by the inestimable beast of providence has perhaps made me a mournful man, given too much to reflecting upon the horrors of this mechanical bondage we call life… but I will always remember the love my parents gave me, the bond of common humanity, and I weep to know that I am still capable of partaking in the simple beauty of mountainous Sweway… for Nature itself, stripped of its mysticism, is such a thing as to fill a man with such awe and wonder that he may well create, from the loving blood of his own heart, a God be there none in existence. To all of Swemark I say ‘I would give my life in your service.’”
Like all the men of Swemark, Kjell is embarassingly generous. So generous in fact, that if there were, hypothetically speaking, a website run by a total moronic asshole, he and a fellow citizen of Swemark would contribute to this site, more money than this hypothetical asshole makes in an entire day at his actual job. For the riches of Swemark are unlike those of other places, and gold and mead flow there as if brought from Valhalla across the rainbow bridge of Bifrost.
Kjell is a brooding warrior, and in the modern age serves as the defender of all Swemark under King Clectic.Women who have lain with him remark that is a lover more emotionally cold than even the most arctic Swemarkian Ice Dildo, although filled with an animal passion for physical love that is hotter than Thor’s lightning and deeper than the roots of Yggdarsil.
It is rumored he may be the son of One-Eyed Odin.
(7/22/09) Icyclectic was born on the frigid northern plains of Swemark* to his mother Ilga and his father Umlaut. Icyclectic was like most other children from Swemark, and in unremarkable fashion spent his days raising barns with the help of the fiercely intelligent and loyal Swemarkian polar bears, and spent his nights doing battle with the terrible Horror Gnomes known to ravage the countryside. It was during one such skirmish that Icyclectic earned his fame… and a crown.
When the Horror Gnome Gragnar decided to pillage the local Swemarkian Ice Dildo** Factory Icyclectic knew that for once the Horror Gnomes had gone too far. Without the money earned from selling the Ice Dildos, the whole Swemarkian economy was in jeopardy and the people would surely starve. After a brutal battle, Icyclectic challenged Gragnar to a duel to settle the long standing feud once and for all. Knowing that he could never hope to best Gragnar with steel, Icyclectic surprised the Horror Gnomes by choosing no conventional weapons at all. Instead he chose rape. Yes, that’s right. Rape.
At first when the Horror Gnome Gragnar raped Icyclectic, the people of Swemark thought all hope was lost, for never before had they seen a man so thoroughly raped let alone by a Horror Gnome. Then, anus still sore form his own raping, Icyclectic turned this fearsome concept against Gragnar. Men wept, and women screamed as the very fabric of the universe rippled. Icyclectic had managed to rape Gragnar so well, that he had in a sense, temporarily embodied the Platonic ideal of rape. His self-esteem so thoroughly shattered, Gragnar huddled in a ball on the field of battle and wept. He revealed that once he had been the King of the Horror Gnomes, but after the humiliation he had suffered knew that none of his subjects would obey him ever again. He gave his crown to Icyclectic, who ordered the Horror Gnomes back from whence they came, forging a peace that lasts to this day.
Today, the children of Swemark honor Icyclectic every day on his birthday by melting an Ice Dildo in his honor. His name has also been adopted into the Swemarkian lexicon “Clecticgaard” meaning “to have raped very very very thoroughly so as to leave no bit of flesh unraped.”
*The super-country country containing Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, and certain parts of Poland. Once, these countries were separate, containing only people with only certain aspects of the racial stereotypes Americans commonly associate with Vikings… until Icyclectic was born and his glorious Norseness exerted such enormous racial gravity they all collapsed into one.
**The ice dildo is the chief export of Swemark
