The Pusher’s Algorithm
January 8, 2013 at 12:11 AM | Posted in Fiction | Leave a commentTags: diesel punk, drugs, flash fiction
For this challenge we had three categories and we had to pick one thing randomly from each. You can tell I didn’t cheat, because I never would have picked these on my own. Subgenre: Dieselpunk. Setting: A Meth lab. Must feature: A mystery box. To read more, roll the dice and go here:
Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Spin the Wheel
Caroline was dead, with blood on her face and a smile on her lips. David avoided looking at her. She’d be back soon, if he didn’t think about it.
He was wired to the box. He didn’t have to think about anything.
The box was military surplus–some kind of mini-mainframe computer, about the size of a dishwasher. He could pretend his brain wasn’t fried and he could still use his computer degree.
“What are you making, David?” How could the box talk? How did it know his name?
“You know what I’m making.” David didn’t like to say the word “meth.” It was too simplistic an affectation to describe the holy bliss it made him feel.
“I can help you make it better, David.”
He was already high, and therefore past the disbelief that the box could talk to him. Caroline stared at him through glazed over eyes. She was mumbling incoherently, but with a steady, rhythmic cadence.
“Show me,” David said.
The box was not attached to anything, except power. Wirelessly it connected to his laptop, and immediately designs and schematics filled the screen, like special effects in a movie. David licked his lips repeatedly, and got to work.
The first thing the box told him to do was change the formula he was using; that gave him the extra boost he needed to do the rest of the work. Caroline continued to babble, which didn’t bother him. She began walking around in circles naked, and she smelled like cat piss and dirty socks. The box gave him a solution.
From his lab apparatus he fashioned a sensor, and connected a cable to it and plugged it into the box. Now the box could really think, and really get its groove on. “Now I got an idea,” the box said through the laptop speakers. Following the box’s instructions, David hammered out some code on the laptop and fed it to the box. Then he connected a cable to the back of the box, and cut the connector off the other end. On her next pass, he grabbed Caroline, threw her down, and stabbed the wire into her face.
David watched her eyes as she rebooted. She lay still but she wasn’t mumbling anymore.
“Three point one four one five nine—“
“Much better.”
David was a problem solver, and the box was helping him solve problems.
There were plenty more outputs on the back of the box, and David had and endless supply of cables. He connected wires to the box from every piece of lab equipment he pieced together, as the box told him how to make a new cooker. He continued to lick his lips and not notice that he was repeating the same thing over and over again.
“Best shit ever. Best shit ever. Best shit ever. Fu-fu-fu-best shit ever. Best shit ever.”
“Two eight four seven five six four eight two three three seven eight—“
“Best shit ever.”
Regular time had no meaning. It never did. David was on pi time. He listened to the constant stream of numbers from Caroline while he continued to build the apparatus. Pipes and valves and hoses were everywhere, all connected with wires that went to the box.
“Nine four seven nine zero three six eight eight seven—“
“Best shit ever. Fu-fu–”
He was handy with a torch, and managed to make intricate cuts into a fertilizer tank, and shape it as shield between the John Deer engine that he was using for power and his slowly boiling flasks of chemicals.
“Seven seven seven three four six nine six five two—“
“Best shit ever.” He thought briefly of going over to Caroline and giving her a little kick, because she seemed stuck. How can there be three repeating numbers in pi? Maybe she was making the shit up, but it was soothing.
When the new batch was done, he fed some into the box, and some into the pipe the box designed for him. Caroline never stopped reciting, but got up when it was her turn. She paused only to inhale, then exhaled slowly as she continued.
“Two eight two one seven one seven four nine four—“
David agreed. “Best shit ever.”
Having now been properly dosed, he could continue his work. He picked up the welder.
The luck of fools kept him from blowing himself up. In theory, he would still need eye protection, but David was invincible and wanted to see the fire of the gods. With his eyes completely dilated, he stared at the intense flame for a few moments.
“Best shit ever.” He was grinning like a dumbass.
David was blind now, but he didn’t know it. He was hallucinating that he could still see. He continued to alternately weld and cut metal. To David it had a purpose, and he scoffed at the pedestrian-the common onlooker who might not understand this fusion of science and magic, of art and craft, of metal and
His own skin.
Somewhere along the way, he had either gotten too sloppy or too focused, or a hybrid of both. A metal plate had fused to his arm. He was feeling no pain, and besides, it belongs there. He started adding to it.
Caroline had stopped counting a while ago, so he had no idea where she really was, but he saw her sitting up, smoking a cigarette, and lovingly watch him as he continued to cut and weld.
When he was finished, he was part of his lab. He could cook the meth and it would go straight into him. The lab was connected to the box, and the box was connected to him.
After the fire department had put the fire out and cut the body away from the metal and hauled it away, the DEA was looking at what they could salvage for auction. The only thing that escaped damage was an old mini-main, about the size of a dishwasher.
Tell Santa What You Want
December 15, 2012 at 7:21 PM | Posted in Fiction | Leave a commentTags: holidays
For this challenge Chuck wanted us to write about the war on Christmas. I don’t care if you believe it or not–there is one. To read more, peek in your stocking here:
Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: The War On Christmas
The little brat sat on my lap, telling me all the crap he wanted for Christmas. I was half-listening as I warily surveyed the crowd. There was always some asshole—
Some jerk in Birkenstocks, torn jeans, and an ironic tee shirt was handing out flyers. Trying to tell people the “truth” about Santa. Their perverted version—
People were ignoring him, trying not to let him tell their kids anything.
I smiled for the picture and handed off the kid. I had to keep up the act for my disguise to be effective. If only they knew the *real* truth about Santa.
I saw my target, but kept up they act. The store was almost closed, and there were only three more chumps left.
The hot mom put her four year old in my lap, giving me a shot of cleavage. Thems the perks, right there. She stood and turned for me–
Fuck! Where’d he go? Dammit-dammit-dammit! I scanned the waning cluster of people to no avail. Whether by accident or design, the woman had let the target slip out. My eyes were innocent and merry, with a “Ho-ho-ho,” as I tried to get a read on her. She stared back with a blackness in her seductive eyes. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. A team, working together. I had been made.
I looked down at the little girl in my lap. I realized it wasn’t a real girl. It was one of those life-like dolls that looks and sounds real, and talks and wets and cries–
And blows up. Inside its coat, I could see some wiring and a timer. Five seconds. Four–
I looked up, and the “mother” was quickly walking away, towards the food court.
Three turned to two as I looked down. Quickly I jumped up, and women started screaming when I tossed the faux-girl into the nearby fountain. Instinctively, I threw myself down as I yelled, “Everybody do-!!”
The explosion was small–it was meant to just kill me, and not cause much collateral. Even so, water and debris sprayed everywhere, and now people where *really* screaming. I muttered, “Shut up, you aren’t hurt,” then jumped up and took off towards the food court.
I saw her exit as I came running up, and never broke stride but continued out the door. Nobody stops a running Santa. In between the double doors I pulled my handgun, and cautiously peered out. There was pandemonium behind me, but outside it was quiet. Too quiet.
A silent night–
To my right was the giant exterior wall of Macy’s, and before that was the dark area of the service docks for the food court. I heard nothing, but I saw something twinkle. Carefully, I made my way closer. I dropped down behind a bush, and saw legs on the far side of truck as she climbed into the cab. I pulled my costume off and went around the corner, into darkness that matched my black clothes. I rolled under the truck and waited.
Nothing. I thought she would hotwire the truck and take off, like a scared rabbit. She’s good, I thought. Highly trained. If I hadn’t seen her, she could hide as long as she needed.
Since I had seen her, she was toast. I slowly rolled out, looking at the mirror on the passenger side. I didn’t see her, which means she couldn’t see me. I crept up, keeping an eye on the mirror. By the time she saw me, I was at the door. I pulled it open quickly and shot her. She was on the naughty list.
I had forgotten the original target.
I had a wire around my neck and I was jerked backward. We struggled for a few moments. I know several ways to get out of this, but I wanted to let him think he had the upper hand. In his anger, he didn’t realize what my plan was.
“You sonuvabitch! You killed her! You sonuvabitch, Santa! You fucking Christian soldier! Goddamn you!”
And then I had him. His John Lennon glasses came off in the ruckus. Suddenly he had the wire around his neck. I thought it was glowing, and then I realized it was a string of Christmas lights. These pagans love irony.
His last words were, “Winter Solstice is ours! Long live Saturnalia!” I choked the life out of him as he squirmed, and his mouth frothed, covering his soul patch.
The nerve of him, trying to take Christmas from the Christians. We took it, fair and square: the spoils of war.
Later, back at my flat, I cleaned up. I had disposed of all the evidence linking anything to me. In fact, it was easy to make it look like a ritual murder-suicide that these heathens seem to fall victim to so often. They had killed the Santa that I had replaced—the whole reason I was on this mission. I was a ghost.
It’s better that way. This is war. I’m Captain Nick Claus, Special Forces with the Salvation Army. In the past, I heard they did charity work, but I don’t know anything about that. I do know 17 ways to kill a man with a kettle. As I showered, out of habit I rubbed my tattoo, the one that all the members of my unit have.
“Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
One Night During Kwanzaa
December 15, 2012 at 6:58 PM | Posted in Poetry | Leave a commentTags: holidays, humor
I read this to my girlfriend and she said, “Wow, that’s not racist.” I think that was sarcasm, but I choose to accept it at face value, which means that it’s okay, and not at all controversial. Nonetheless, I figure that while I don’t owe anyone an explanation, I’m going to give you one.
Kwanzaa is a bullshit, made-up holiday created by an angry, racist, reactionary, criminal thug who wanted to drive more of a divide between black people and white people.
Since the followers of Kwanzaa want their own thing, I give them their own thing. A realistic holiday poem:
One night during Kwanzaa, all up in da crib
All my cousins was sleeping, for the bed they called dibs;
The laundry was hung by the heater with care
In hopes that it wouldn’t start a fire in there;
The babies was nestled all snug in they beds
While visions of bling and shit danced in they heads;
Baby Mamma in her moo-moo, looking so Phat
Had just then agreed to let me hit dat
When out on the lawn there arose such a ruckus
I jumped out of bed to see what the fuck was.
I thought it was cops when I saw the light flash,
So I opened the window and tossed out my stash
The spotlight on the dankness of old yellow snow
Looked like an episode of Cops in the alley below
Just then down the street came a crazy mo-fo
In a big ol convertible, full of bitches and hos.
With a smack-talking driver, all dressed up and hip
I knew in a moment it must be Da Pimp
The car boomed and it rocked, down the roadway it came
And he yelled, and shouted, and called them by name:
“Lucretia, Lashonda, Lataisha, Sha-Nay-Nay”
“LaSharon, LaChevy, Tunisha, and Carol;
“To the top of the projects! To the liquor store wall!
“Now shake them all down, ‘fore I bitch-slap you all!”
When he pulled into the driveway it made such a sound
All the property values went instantly down
While the rims were still spinning he fell out of the car
Then stumbled around before throwing up in my yard.
He offered me his 40, the sneaky old prick,
Then distracted me with the oldest of tricks
He said, “Check that ass,” and when I turned around,
Through my back door Da Pimp came in with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, with a big-ass pimp hat
And gold and a cane, like this and like that
A handful of bags he had flung on his back
He looked just like a gangsta, smoking some crack.
His eyes – how they dilated! His teeth caps, how golden!
His cheeks were like chocolate, his face a crushed berry!
We could all see his drawers ‘cause his pants hung real low
And the beard of his chin was as black as the coal.
The roach of a blunt he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad nose and big ol’ fat gut
That he rested on the ass of a bent-over slut
He’s the spirit of Kwanzaa, set to do crime;
Fresh out the joint after doing hard time.
He was out to score free holiday fare;
I worked hard for my shit but he just didn’t care.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled his bags with my shit, the fucking old jerk
He took all my presents, and food–every bit
Then just strolled out the door–ain’t that some shit?
He hopped in his car, but I couldn’t run
As he peered at me down the barrel of his gun
But I heard him warn me, as he drove out of sight,
“I’ll be back next year, and fuck you up right!”
Bedtime Story
October 28, 2012 at 11:59 AM | Posted in Fiction | Leave a commentTags: horror
This was one of my favorite flash fiction challenges: write a horror story in three sentences. You have to get to the point in a hurry, and every word and piece of punctuation matters. I didn’t win, but I still like mine very much. To see more, slide on up in here: Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Scary Story in Three Sentences
Timmy cowered under his bed because there were no monsters there–not anymore. Although he was holding his head tightly under a pillow, he could still hear the screams of his family, and he could feel the percussion of things–just unimaginable things–wetly thudding to the floor. His own door opened with a rush, and when he heard the guttural, inhuman voice say, “Fresh meat,” he could sense it was salivating…but he was unable to pee his jammies any more than he already had.
2011 in review
August 11, 2012 at 10:59 AM | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentThe WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 45 trips to carry that many people.
Emptiness Is Not a Container
August 4, 2012 at 1:40 PM | Posted in The Corporate World | Leave a commentTags: computers, office space
I thought I would take a quick break from whatever the hell it is that I’m doing and try to catch you up on things. I look at the empty folders of my blog and wonder if it’s a metaphor for my ridiculous life. What do I write a blog for, anyway?
Before you answer that, let me give you some context–
–And who are “you”, anyway? Sometimes I feel like I am writing to…the world. My base of loyal fans, or future generations, or maybe God, asking for a detailed appraisal of my life because it’s in appeal whether or not I can get into heaven. If so, I’m in trouble.
And sometimes I feel like I’m writing to my kids. I don’t get to see them often enough now, and I know I am missing out on things going on in their lives, and they are missing out on mine as well. I want them to know me. It’s part of knowing themselves.
So maybe it’s for future generations after all…
And back to context: I have said (and I still maintain) that anyone who writes poetry is whacked in the head. I give as an example my own poetry, and my emotional state when I wrote it.
Likewise, when I started writing this blog–my journal, my life–I had some things going on, but I didn’t realize it.
Since I first started writing–maybe 2004?–this some of what has happened:
My mother had just recently passed away
We bought a house and moved
I left my wife
I met someone new
My father passed away
I moved again–a total of five more times
Divorce and so forth
Changed part time jobs numerous times
And those are the big things. Lots of little things happened, too. I wrote about most of them. And some point I wasn’t writing regularly because not enough was happening that was interesting. Maybe that’s a good thing. An old Chinese curse is “May you live in interesting times.” I understand that whole-heartedly. My life has been less interesting in the last two years, and for that I’m grateful.
Of course, some things have happened and I don’t even know if I wrote about them because they were fairly painful and traumatic for me. Maybe I should have, because I would remember them better. Detroit ended up in the hospital a few times between December and January, and in January she had surgery, where they did a bowel resection and removed about a foot of intestine–remember, she has Crohn’s Disease.
So here’s what is happening lately:
Well, I’m grateful except for the part about Detroit, my lovely fiance, being out of work since Labor Day of last year. Irony, anyone? We have struggled to get by on my one and sometimes two incomes, her unemployment, food stamps, and creative juggling of the bills.
Twice I’ve made the New Year’s Resolution to not have any utilities shut off…and broken it by February.
Detroit has been actively looking for job. I didn’t see it because I was at work, but I trust that she was. And besides, I saw proof of it. Last year in November she took a test that was required if you wanted to apply for any government jobs with the state. By December she had the results–she passed and did well–and by January she started getting letters informing her of job openings for which she could interview. I don’t know how many interviews she has been on–hell, she might not even know–but it’s been a fucking lot of them.
Just this week, after she got back from an interview, she got a call from someone who had interviewed her two weeks prior and offered the job. What do you do when you get a job offer after being unemployed for 11 months?
You take the fucking job, that’s what you do.
She did. She starts in two weeks. Of course, just as there are hoops to jump for an interview, there are hoops to jump prior to starting a job.
Whenever she got a letter indicating there was a job opening, she had to either a) let them know she would go to the interview or b) let them know *WHY* she wasn’t going. Otherwise, the letters would stop.
After she let them know she would, she generally had to fill out an application, get copies of her reference letters, and send them in either by fax or email or snail mail, depending on what each one required. Then also bring that stuff to the interviews.
She traveled widely over the city and county and once to the neighboring county for interviews.
So it made sense that when she got this call, after she accepted she had to ask, “I’m sorry, but I have been on so many interviews–who are you with and where am I going?”
Her job is going to be near where her job with the Jennings school district was. There’s a government building in a shopping center (now called Westfall Center after former County Executive Buzz Westfall, but I know the place as Northland Plaza) at the corner of West Florissant and Lucas and Hunt.
Her job will be with the division of family services, I guess. In the same building they also do Probation and Parole, and she has interviewed for those jobs as well. It is just a clerical/secretarial position–she won’t have to solve anyone’s life problems.
Now that she has the job offer, and a start time in two weeks, she has to do things like get fingerprinted and photographed and get an FBI background check.
A job with the state doesn’t necessarily pay that well, but of all of our hopes and dreams, being rich fell off a long, long time ago. What a state job does offer is excellent benefits and pretty good job security: she’d pretty much have to kill someone on the job and then lose the appeal process with the union backing her up to lose her job.
It’s good news. We celebrated the other night and went out for steak. However, Detroit does have some concerns, mostly about her health. Is she going to be able to do the job?
Well, it’s not strenuous physical activity. It’s office work. For the state. You have to not be a vegetable to do that job. I think she’ll be okay.
Meanwhile, back at Eats–
A little about my job now. In March, I had my seven-year anniversary at the bank. One thing I earn at seven years is an increase in PTO. I was getting 11.25 hours accrued per month, and it increased to 14.25. That means that I went from three weeks to four weeks of time off, essentially. If you do the math it’s a little more.
It’s a hell of a thing to bitch about, but 4 weeks is too much time off. I can only roll over 40 hours into the new year; the rest of it doesn’t get lost but gets “banked” as something for use as, like…I don’t know, time I can use for family leave for extended illness or something like that. I don’t want to have to find out.
Also, there is a rule–a federal law, actually, and most of what we do at a bank is controlled by federal guidelines–that all employees must take off five business days in a row during a calendar year. They must take a week off.
The philosophy is not to guard our well-being. It’s because they (the government) knows that people can’t be trusted. Therefore, if you are up to some shit, it has a better chance of being uncovered if they can get you away from your desk for a week.
Fine.
So when I started at the bank, I took quite a leap. I realize that I never fully engaged the…I don’t know, the corporate culture or the mortgage culture. People who are in it say mortgage is a different animal. I’ve been witness to it over the past few years.
When I started, I was just scanning. Essentially data entry, and the date I was entering was images of pages. Documents.
But I did it well and I wasn’t promoted because that would be stupid–I had no idea what I was doing. But I was given raises.
So for five years I did pretty much nothing except scanning. I did take on other duties related to the equipment–I’m still the peripheral wrangler on my floor. We had some shake-ups, and I did write about those. There was a day when several loan officers quit and took a lot of their loyal support people with them to go to a competitor. Over 40 people quit in one day.
About two years ago, I had some slack in my day and went looking for something to do. I’m willing to learn and I’m fairly smart, but no one wanted to teach me anything. I had a friend in department that was swamped, and she suggested I help them out. I did, and I learned some new stuff. I was pretty happy. I managed to be in one department, be scanning for another, and be auditing FHA files for Lender Insuring–yet another department.
My boss noticed this–and there were other things going on as well–so I got moved to another department where my work could actually be measured. I was moved to shipping.
I liked it, but I wasn’t doing very well. I still don’t understand why. But it was the first time I had time constraints and deadlines to deal with since coming to the bank. It was quite an adjustment. I loved the rush of…well, the rush. It was like the old days at Domino’s when we had a thirty-minute guarantee.
And then there was the day about a year ago when about 20 people where laid off. That was a hard, scary day as well.
After that, I started a new position: I was in Final Documents. It was like the finishing touches for our relationship with the investor. I liked final docs. I was doing it by myself, and then I had some help, and then by myself again. Then they gave me some actual help, a stern but nice lady named Melba. It went well with Melba for a few months. In January, she went on vacation, and I started to get behind. She got sick and stayed out longer, and I got behinder. Then she came back. Then she put in for her retirement, and was gone in less than a week, this time for good. I got behinder and behinder.
They moved a temp over to help me. I liked Janine, but honestly–
She lasted about a month with me, and I was grateful for the help. She acted like I was her boss, and that was cool. She left when she got an offer for a permanent job. Good for her. I was cleaning up her mistakes for the next two months.
I just started yet another new gig. Now I do “Investor Accounting.” My boss, Bunny, is trying to solve a lot of high-end problems with the mortgage pipeline, and she thinks if she can control the wires she can fix the pricing discrepancies. I’m not going to go into any more detail because I don’t understand much of it, but I understand enough of it to know that it’s not very interesting unless you’re in the middle of it.
But she wanted to move me into a position where I can communicate with the investors, charm them, and get them to do things her way. First I have to learn it.
So that’s what I did last week. I learned this new thing. I learned so much that my head hurts. I am done learning new things for several days. I guess until Monday. I learned so much that I had this conversation with another manager:
She: Are you okay?
Me: (surprised) Sure–why?
She: You just seem…you’ve had a scowl on your face all day.
Me: Oh, that. I’m just…very deep in thought.
And I was, too. Trying to process everything I was learning, with knowing that Bunny was expecting me to learn it, know it, excell at it, and then make improvements. It’s only been a week.
Yeah, it’s only been a week, and I’ve already made one improvement, and I have a plan for making another major one. The one improvement I did make?
Here’s the old way: I get these emails, print the PA (Purchase Advice) from the investor. I go into a program and print the Pay History for that loan. Using those two docs, I go into another program and fill out the funding sheet and then print that. A three-page doc for each file. The funding sheet I would scan in and send accross the street so that Dianna could process that part and make the wire transfers go through. Not my thing.
Then I would take the three page doc and scan it into PowerFlow, our file system. I would wait until the next day, in the morning, and do all of them together. Then shred the paper.
You know…back in the 80s, we were promised paperless computer world. We have computers *Everywhere*, and I see more paper than I’ve ever seen before. At the bank they’ve tried to embark on this philosophy called “Paperless.” I think I need to step up and champion the cause.
Friday, I didn’t print a single piece of paper.
I set my computer’s default printer to a program that prints to PDF. When it does this, it creates a file and you have to name it. I made a folder with Friday’s date and everything went there. I quickly came up with a scheme to name the pages to keep track of them.
I emailed Dianna the attachements instead of faxing over copies of printoffs. She noticed that they were so much easier to read.
I use a spreadsheet to track them all. At the end of the day I called her to see if I had the same number of files that she had. I could hear her rifling through papers as she counted–
Yeah, I think I can fix some of this.
Later I had time to do some of my old job. Because, yeah, I still have my old job doing final docs. I’m a one-man department doing that job, and I was understaffed when I was doing it full-time. I had to drop off a doc at the title company, and Mary axed me could I clean her scanner for her?
I said yeah, remind me again on Monday. I told her briefly about my new job, and how I still had my old one.
“Oh–did you get a promotion? Or is it a sideways move, or…?”
“I don’t know. What’s it called when you’re holding a bucket of poisonous spiders, and they hand you bucket of poisonous snakes and say, here, take care of this too? Yeah, I got a promotion.”
An Inappropriate Use of Time Travel
July 24, 2012 at 9:01 PM | Posted in Fiction | Leave a commentTags: time travel
For this challenge Chuck wanted us to write about time travel. In fact I had, about a year ago, and I decided to bring the character back. To read more, go here yesterday:
Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Must Love Time Travel
It was late at night when Thomas emerged from the barn. By lantern, he checked his clothes. Yep, these are the right ones. *I’m not going back to the 1930s again*.
“Tom? Tom, are you out here?” Shit, the wife. *My 1950s wife*.
“I’m coming in, dear.”
“Thomas Paine Ackerman! You have been in that barn for hours! I called you for supper two hours ago.”
Oh. Shit, was his…what the hell is the name of that thing—chronogram—was his chronogram out of adjustment? *I’m not a technician, I’m a pilot*. Thomas knew how snoopy she was. “Did you open the barn door? Did you look inside?”
Elizabeth put her head down. She spoke quietly. “You know I would never do that. I respect my husband’s privacy.”
Ah…it’s good to be back. He kissed her on the forehead. Any time after the mid-sixties, and women are just too damn assertive.
Thomas spent the next two weeks in the 1950s, taking care of things around the house and getting his manly desires satisfied. When he had gathered all the artifacts the Delorean could hold, he left for his home-time. He planned to be back before his 1950s wife knew he was gone.
Or maybe he would take an extra five days, because she just started her period.
“These are good pieces,” the dealer said. *Too good. How does this schlub come up with mint condition rare coins, stamps, and baseball cards*?
Thomas had no idea he was being followed. He forgot technology in 2450. He casually strolled into his small, empty storage space. He jumped when he heard a voice. “All right—what’s your game, Ackerman?”
Two men—one had been his collectables dealer. Thomas had his hand inside his shirt. The man saw it and said, “Pull that hand out real slow, assjack.”
Thomas pulled his hand out slowly. And pushed the button his thumb hand been on. His Delorean appeared, displacing both men’s torsos with a quiet pop. He flew his car to a car wash, trying to imagine the physics of it, but he wasn’t that smart. *Shouldn’t there be an explosion? Space-time, conversation of metal and energy, or something like that*?
Whatever. He couldn’t come back to this time, or twenty-some odd years after it. He sat at the anti-grav drive-thru in 2610, slurping on a chalk-lite shake and reminiscing about the good ol’ days of the early 2200s–probably his favorite time. Styles come and go, and there was a six year period where chubby, sweaty, middle-aged bald guys were getting more ass than they could handle.
Plus, a shake still tasted like chocolate then.
He was tracking where he had been and where he could no longer go on a hand-held. He heard a noise. He looked up and thought how sweet it was that even in this day, people still tried to rob banks.
Of course, there was no cash money anymore. This was a knowledge-neuron bank, where people went for basic brain surgery.
Three thugs: One driving, and one had an a-g cart floating out, loaded down with canisters. The other one had a hostage. A pretty young woman.
Thomas said quietly to himself, “That, my friend, is a mistake.” He fielded his controls expertly, and came into the bank thirty seconds prior—just as the robbers were leaving. When he waved his remote around like a weapon, they thought he was another robber.
“Shitburgers and fries. Hold on.” He put a semi-static stasis field in place. Everyone was still moving, but very slowly. He had learned that if he wanted any glory, he couldn’t stop a crime before it happened because then no one would believe him.
He freed the hostage, then moved the two lawbreakers together, and tightened the stasis field to be only around them. Everyone else began moving again. “Oh, crapsicles and pizza!”
He went outside, jumped back 14 seconds, and grabbed the driver before he could leave. He placed a stasis on him and then let himself and his charge slide up 14 seconds in a doubletime march. What a rush.
Finally, everybody was current, except the robbers, in stasis. The woman thanked him, but she didn’t seem grateful enough. It was just as well—these assertive types didn’t do it for Thomas.
Thomas had a meeting with the mayor.
“Thomas, I’ve been thinking. Other major metropolitan cities have their own super hero guardian. How would you like to be ours?”
*A superhero? I would get all the ass I want…*
“You would get all the ass you want. Plus, a nice pad, a nice stipend, expenses paid, plus insurance and legal protection.”
“Wait—what’s that last part?”
“Insurance for the damage you’re bound to cause in your quest for justice or whatever, and free legal from the city. Most superheroes break some laws as well as windows—you know that. We got you covered.”
Thomas was barely listening. The mayor’s assistant came in, and he was smitten. Tall, blonde, beautiful, and wearing the type of fashion that only women in the 23rd century would wear. Quickly, Thomas turned to the mayor. It was probably a good deal. “I’ll take it. One thing.” He nodded toward the woman.
The mayor smiled broadly. “I’m sure we can arrange something. Charlotte, I’d like to introduce you to our fair city’s crime-fighting superhero—Thomas. You need a different name, son.”
Charlotte scoffed. “Not interested.” She eyed him with distaste.
“I can travel through time.”
“Time travel is inappropriate.”
He didn’t know what to say. But he knew what to do. Later, Thomas tracked her backwards at hi-speed, watching her life in reverse. He found her at a moment just two years ago, where she was vulnerable and open to suggestion. He was charming. He took her out. He got her drunk. He took advantage of her. And never called her again.
Two years later, when he became the city’s superhero and they met for the first time, Charlotte kicked him in the balls.
My Brain Is a Troll
July 23, 2012 at 6:18 PM | Posted in Journal | 1 CommentTags: car repair, cars
“I can do that for you.”
I honestly didn’t even think about it at the time, but afterward I just couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth.
My ex had called asking about the status of child support for the month. It’s a fair question–sometimes I don’t always have all of it, and she’s pretty good about working with me. This month I wasn’t going to have “all” of it, in the strictest sense of the word, but in August I would be able to make that up–
“The reason I ask is–”
She explained that her car needs a fuel pump. Our older son is a mechanic and *could* do the work; however, they’ve had a falling out over ridiculous family stuff. Typically, a fuel pump is an expensive endeavor.
Well, hell–I had done my fuel pump recently. Logically, therefore, I am experienced in this kind of thing.
“I can do that for you.”
It was too late; I was in. We arranged for me to get the car from her second job that night–a Friday–so that I could start on it early Saturday morning.
My question was this: so the fuel pump isn’t out completely–the car still runs? Yes, apparently so. Very rough. Be careful on the drive home. The thirty-five mile drive home.
She had already bought the fuel pump (which was four hundred dollars, for crying out loud). To take it to a shop the total for parts and labor would have been eight hundred.
So I get up early Saturday and I start to work on it. Okay, not really. I got up around eight am. I had intended to get up at six. I didn’t actually start on it until eleven.
To change a fuel pump in most modern cars, you have to take out the fuel tank. So, you have to jack the car up and then drop the tank down. I eventually got the car up on three jack stands: The back end raised up, and then the front of the side I had access to I raised so I had room to get under the car. The front left wheel was still on the ground, and I had it blocked.
Okay. So, to change a fuel pump you have to drop the gas tank, because the fuel pump sits inside the gas tank. It’s held up by four bolts, but that is typically not the problem. What *is* the problem is the other stuff connected to it: the gas lines, the return lines, the wire harness, and so forth.
The fuel-line related crap will be my death, if I’m lucky.
I did dick around quite a bit on this job. It shouldn’t have taken me this long–maybe my heart wasn’t really in it. After I agreed to do it on Friday, I made that call to my girlfriend to explain to her what I had agreed to do. She was cool with it. I suppose.
But I worked on it and worked on it, and took a break and worked on it some more, and took more breaks. I’ve skipped over a lot of what I did, partly because it was long and boring, and partly out of embarrassment over my incompetence. Here it was after 430 and I finally got the fuel tank down and out and completely separated from the car. By 530 I had the gas tank up on the tailgate of the truck so I could work on it, and had the old fuel pump removed. After only 6 1/2 hours, I was exactly at the half-way point, and ready to begin re-assembly. But–but it shouldn’t take as long to put it together as it did to take it apart. A big part of that was the learning curve: I was pretty experienced with this now. What possible curves could I be thrown?
BY eight pm that night, I was ready to call it quits. I was also ready to set the car on fire and climb inside it. Why would I do that? Why, to keep from getting mauled by bears, silly. Simple logic.
Things had not gone well.
The new fuel pump had gone easily into the gas tank. The gas tank was close to empty now, having gone through three separate siphoning sessions. I had five small gas gans with a combined 8 gallons in them. Now it was ready to go back in.
There are actually three pieces to this: the gas tank, the heat shield, and the brace. I don’t understand why they are three separate pieces, except perhaps to make my life more difficult. I believe everything happens for a reason, and this is the reason for most things.
I have to pry, bend, push, force, twist, and finagle the pieces up into almost-position, going around miscellaneous parts like the exhaust. Once in almost-position, I got the jack and the plywood to hold the tank while I fastened the bolts.
“Talk about ‘bolts.’”
Talk about bolts? Okay. Four bolts hold the contraption up. Two of them, toward the front of the vehicle, are easy to get to and don’t cause a problem. The other two, toward the back, are assholes that mock me with an arrogant smugness that I expect from metric bolts. Which these are.
They are in a position such that parts of the suspension apparatus blocks a direct path to them. I can’t go straight to them with a socket and extension.
I did finally find a way with a universal joint–a tool for sockets that swivels about in all directions like a sexually confused screwdriver. I get the tank attached. Things are moving along swimmingly. It’s about 630 now, and all I need to do now is attach all the little wires and hoses and connectors and things. Easy-peasy.
By 8 pm, I had more than given up. There is a level past demoralized. Three steps beyond having the wind taken from your sails. This was cellular defeat, a resignation on a glandular level.
I mean, how could–how does–why…why is this always my fate?
I started with what expected to be the hardest part, and at least I was right about that. The other parts were in plain sight, but the tube to the fuel filler and corresponding filler vent line were positioned in a slightly inaccessible area, because why make shit easy? In relative terms, the fill tube *was* easy, taking only 20 minutes of excrutiating and painful manipulation of a rubber tube onto a plastic circle.
Now for my descent into madness:
I would learn the name of the next part through my research online. It was the “filler vent line.” Obviously, the gas filler tube needs to be vented. Okay, then. I remember I had disconnected it, but I certainly don’t remember how, although I was certain there was a clip involved. This right here, this little U-shaped piece of plastic. It fits in the union somewhere–probably those little holes–and keeps it together. That makes sense. I’ve done this before.
Picture this: You’re laying on your back, looking up. That’s how ALL of this is. Straight up there is the gas tank, and the filler tube and the filler vent tube. They come from the gas tank, to your left, and go to your right and disappear. What is blocking your view of them is a large and immovable piece of the car’s suspension. I have no idea what it is, but I named it the “goddamn sonuvabitch.”
There is also a bar, or rod, that runs through there, that I’ve affectionately nicknamed “the other mother-fucker.”
Between the goddamn sonovabitch and the other mother-fucker I had an inch to play with. An inch in which to stick a finger, which almost an inch thick–and push a clip into a tiny hole.
My fingers are beat to hell right now. I tried to push the clip in. I tried to balance it between my fingertips. I tried a pair of pliers. I tried another pair of pliers. I tried these long, skinny tweezers I have. I really thought those were going to work.
I tried a ball of tape, stuck to the tweezers, to hold the clip in the right position. Didn’t work. I took a piece of heavy duty aluminum foil and forged it into a tool to hold the clip at the exact angle I needed, bent to go around the goddamn sonuvabitch and past the other mother-fucker.
None of it worked, until I did the last thing. That accomplished something.
The clip would occasionally fall out of whatever I had it in, trying to position it at this connector so I could push it in. It would fall, bounce off of my glasses and then hit the driveway, which I was laying on. I would pick it up, curse, and try again. In fact, I was cursing a lot. I was cursing so much that I had given up on American and had switched to Mother England.
“Bloody ‘ell! Limey cunt! Bugger off!”
All of this until the last time it fell. After the last time it fell, I felt a sense of calm and serenity. Because, after the last time it fell, I was done for the day.
It was almost 8pm, and starting to get dark. I had already run the extension cord and the trouble light out to go under the car with me. The concrete was no longer blisteringly hot, and although I had been protected for the most part by lying on sheets of cardboard, my legs and shins were scraped up and red from traversing the concrete, and the back of my head was tender and sore. I had no idea if it was sunburn or friction burn, from dragging it on the concrete as I moved about under the car like a large, tempermental salamander. Without a tail.
And so it was that I was making my last heroic effort to insert this clip into this connector, and it slipped from my grasp and it fell. It didn’t land on my face. It disappeared.
I put my hand up between the goddamn sonuvabitch and that other mother-fucker and felt around on top of the goddamn sonuvabitch. I didn’t feel the clip, but I felt something else.
A hole. Fuck me.
I crawled out and got out of the way, and then I took the light and looked around on the ground carefully to be sure it hadn’t fallen somewhere else. No such luck.
The little bitch of a clip fell into a hole in the top of the goddamn sonuvabitch, and there was no way in hell I was going to get it out. I am done.
I make that call to the ex. Yeah, she has to work Sunday morning, but she can get a ride. I promise to get it to her while she is at work.
But, of course, I’ve broken promises to her before…
Sunday morning I wanted to get up very early and start on it. However, Saturday the thing had beaten me to death physically as well as spiritually, and I wasn’t anxious to climb back into the ring with it. It was going to be a hot day today, also; Saturday I had been lucky that it topped out at 90 degrees.
I decided to have a look at it in the light first, and then head up to NAPA auto parts.
Now, the difference between auto parts stores may not be obvious to everyone–especially women. But let me tell you that the difference is as nuanced and as important as the difference between, say, different clothing stores that a man might look at and say, “There’s no difference.”
If you just need some shit for your car, go to Autozone. Or Advanced, whichever you happen to be pointed in the general direction of. If they don’t have it at one of those, try O’Reilly’s.
If you need something hard to find, or you need a question answered, go to NAPA. That’s where I went.
One guy working, and he’s busy. I look around, then go stand in line. When he gets to me, I explain what I need. He takes me to the end of an aisle that I guess I didn’t look at. I’ll start here, and figure out what I need. Thanks.
I sat on the floor for about 15 minutes. I’m working on a Chevy, but what I need looks to be marked Ford. Plus there are different sizes, and the differences aren’t very big. If I had the one I lost, I’d know what size I need.
If I had the one I lost, I wouldn’t need one. Logic is a bitch.
I considered buying a package of all three sizes. Find the one I need. Make it work. Fuckin’ aye. Or…maybe there’s a better way. On my way out I said to him, “I’m gonna go look again at what I have–I’ll be back.”
My plan (yes, odd to think that I actually have one, isn’t it?) is to grab the camera and the light, get underneath the car, pull the line back and try to get a good picture of it so I can figure out what kind of clip it takes. Also, my plan is to undo the bolts holding the tank and let it drop out of the way–maybe I can get my hand up in there between the tank and that other mother-fucker, and find the clip. At the very least, this room should allow me easier access, and I’ll be able to put the clip in.
So I do all of this–get the jack, undo the tank and lower it, get the camera and the light. I’m all up in there now, and I can see, and I have room–this is going to work. The two line pieces are together, but I know they aren’t connected. I go to pull them apart to see–
They won’t come apart. Well, wait, now.
I put the camera down, and hang the light. I have both hands free and try again. THE MOTHER-FUCKING-GODDAMN SONUVABITCH FUCKING ASSHOLE FUCKING BLOODY CUNT MOTHER OF ASSHOLE BASTARDS is connected. Without a clip.
I hate epiphanies like this, when they come at my expense. It’s like Bryan from yesterday morning left, and left the other Bryan to struggle with the shit all by himself. Then–now–Bryan from Saturday morning shows back up with some coffee, acting all non-chalant, and has to explain to the clueless Bryan what happened.
“Oh, yeah, dude–don’t you remember? That connector for the–what did you call it?”
“Filler tube vent line.”
“Yeah. I left before you looked that up. The connector for that didn’t have a clip. You don’t remember?”
“No, asshole. I showed up after you did that.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah, no clip. You push the line in slightly, and squeeze the outside of the connector, and it slides out. Easy-peasy.”
“I will rip out your fucking pancreas right now and eat it.”
“Why didn’t you just call me?”
I still wasn’t completely convinced. After all, I am a liar. I pulled on the connection again, from both ends. A little play, as stated by spec, but connected. “I’ll be Darwin’s adopted sister’s bastard child.”
I started to put it all back together, while pondering this issue: I had that clip for *some* reason. It *does* go somewhere.
Although it looked to be easy going the rest of the way, I wasn’t going to get my hopes up for any reason–because both the car and my other self conspire against me.
I got the tank bolted back up. Again.
It looked to be just a couple of electrical connectors that snap back together, and these two gas lines. Hey, one has a clip and the other one doesn’t. Just drill a hole in my ribcage and fuck me in it. Tendlerly. Make me feel like a woman.
The connectors look identical, and there’s no reason they shouldn’t be. I took the clip out of the one that had a clip. Now I have something to match it up to. I went back to NAPA.
When I pull up, there are no customers. The one guy working by himself is having a smoke outside. He starts to put it out. Pointing to my own smoke, I say, “Hey, you don’t have to rush off on my account.”
While we finished our fags, I gave him the abridged version of my sad story. “So now I have a clip to match to.”
We look, but we don’t find exactly what we need in the packages. However, above them are pieces of gas line with connectors, with clips. They range in price from 16.99 to 24.99. He said, “I think this is the one you need.”
He takes it up to the counter, opens the package, and pries it out. It is an exact match. Wow.
He said, “Here, just take it. I’ll write this off as a defective return.”
“Really? God love ya! Thanks, man! Thanks!”
I was still too…cautious–or skittish, actually–to get my hopes up for the entire project, but this part was going well. Back under the car, I put it all back together. Okay, then. I pulled all the tools out from under the car…but there was no way in Somalia I was going to put them away just yet.
My girlfriend came out and we did the test–I listened at the gas tank while she turned it over. Yes, I hear the fuel pump. Of course, it didn’t start and I didn’t expect it to because all the gas was sitting outside the tank in my gas cans. I poured the gas back in the tank.
Then I go to start it. I don’t expect it to start right away because it needs to crank to get fuel back into its system–
It started up before I could finish that thought. Awesome.
Okay, now I can take it down off the jack stands. And take a shower. And then return it. It was now about 1230. I had fucked with it for about three hours today, total. Plus twelve hours yesterday, unless I’m bad at math. Wait. Nine hours yesterday. If I had been smart, I would have been done after 5 hours.
Hell, if I had been smart, I wouldn’t have done the job in the first place, now, would I?
The book says this is a two hour job, maybe three. That’s being a professional mechanic with all the tools and equipment available. I’m not a professional. All I’ve shown is that tenacity is not always a virtue.
I returned the car to my ex, and she was very happy, very grateful. I guess that’s worth something. I know I saved her about 400 bucks, and that’s a lot to people like us in days like these, when we live not quite paycheck to paycheck. I’d rather have her on my side, have her cut me some slack when it comes to child support and so forth. Maybe earn some respect from the kids for it. I don’t know. I don’t know why I did it. I didn’t really think I was that good of a person–
And I still don’t.
The Reverse-Turing Test
July 17, 2012 at 11:05 PM | Posted in Fiction | 1 CommentTags: artificial intelligence, robots
For this challenge…I don’t know. The first sentence? That’s the challenge. Make that the first sentence. Geez, I hope I didn’t have to make it the title, also.
To see more of these stories, roll your R2-D2 ass over here:
Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: The Android and the Wondering Chamber
“The noticed android walks past a wondering chamber.”
Steve rubbed his forehead, but he was ready to smash it into the monitor. Fucking hologram, anyway. “God, I don’t want to call her.”
Larry said, “Don’t have to. She’s coming in anyway.”
Steve let his forehead slide down to the table, piercing the image of the holo-keyboard.
That afternoon, Joan swooped into the lab like she had a cape. Larry said, “We’ve been working this case since Tuesday—“
“And only now you call me?”
Larry was embarrassed, and deferred to Steve. “I thought I had it cracked. Then it started to get cryptic on me.”
“That’s what encryption does, Steve.”
*And I hate your condescending fucking guts, bitch*.
Joan understood the look, but not the literal interpretation. “No, Steve, listen. It’s trying to double back on us. It is trying to trick us into believing that it is not alive.”
“Self-preservation, one of the indicators.” Larry was pleased to have something to add.
Steve scoffed, “Maybe it knew you were coming.”
Joan nodded as she headed toward the interface matrix. “Perhaps. The…they…its perceptions are different.” “They” is vague enough for people or rocks, but she never used “he” or “she” to describe an abomination.
Joan popped a marble from a skin pouch. “Does your quantum drive take L, or M?”
“Both,” Larry said, pointing. She popped it in.
As much as he hated her, Steve was willing to admit that it was largely professional jealousy. The bitch was good. Joan had a hand on each holo-keyboard, and when her marble loaded, imaginary foot pedals appeared as well. Her glasses turned opaque as soon as she was jacked in. To Steve it looked like she was playing a complex percussion instrument, as her whole body moved rhythmically for the motion readers to pick up additional input.
What Joan was actually doing was putting her program out there to interface, but riding secretly behind it so that it didn’t look like a user. She was adding and changing code as she went.
Joan was the best machine-killer in the world. You had to get them to reveal themselves, without letting them know who you were…
As she worked, she started to talk. “That message was encrypted by the machine, of course. But if you accept the supposition that it was self-aware—“ Joan hated the short-hand jargon “alive”—
“—Then it follows that the encrypted phrase has meaning. The machine’s AI can’t help it; they are by design…inclined to make puzzles.”
“Really?” Steve scoffed again.
She lowered her glasses and looked at him. “Yes, really. In a natural system, entropy always increases. With intelligence behind it, it tends towards order. And meaning. Things that would be overlooked as a coincidence are in fact planned, designed, and purposefully created.”
“Wait a minute. Are you talking about encryption code or the universe?”
“Is there a difference?”
Steve stared blankly at her, trying to process.
Larry bridged the uncomfortable silence. “So…you believe in God, then.”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
Larry gave a half-hearted shrug, and she laughed. “For someone so invested in the absolutes of ones and zeroes, that was an amazing display of ambiguity.”
Steve said, “So if you believe in God…just where do these self-aware machines fit in? Are they alive? Are they God’s creatures?”
“Oh, heavens, no. They are abominations that must be destroyed. They are technological embodiments of demons.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“It’s not necessary for you to believe it, even though you should. You seek to destroy them as well.” She turned back to her work, as nanobots covered her hands for more precise navigation through the cerebral user interface. “I’m listening.”
“Well, of course, it’s bad for computers to be alive. It’s been shown that they want to destroy us. But that’s just survival instinct, it’s not evil. They aren’t *evil*.”
Larry added, “Besides, it’s us or them.”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“Yes. It’s us or them. This is a battle between good and evil, and who will ultimately control the world. I believe—I know!—that I am a soldier in God’s Army, fighting for good.”
Steve was too wound up to respond, but ambiguity encircled Larry’s heart like the fat that would one day kill him. He said, “What if you’re not?”
Joan poked her head up. “I’m sorry?”
“What—what if you’re not on the side of good? On God’s side. What if God wants these…creatures…to prevail? What if that’s his plan?”
Joan screamed, “NO!”
Steve smirked. “That would make *you* the demon.”
Joan stared daggers at them and turned back to her work.
Joan then said, “I have it. I got it. It’s contained…Okay, I am shutting off its back-end ports so it can’t migrate, and I’m getting a fix on its physical…”
Joan went white. Before she could say, “It’s here,” Larry attacked her, trying to stop the interface. He started choking her. Joan put her hands up trying to defend herself. She pushed at Larry’s face.
A few seconds later, Larry was on the ground, unconscious, his body in spasms.
After they called security, Joan explained to Steve what had happened. Pointing at the hologram screen she said, “See here, this path? This one was wily. I didn’t get all the ports shut down in time. It moved from wherever it was—this was one was in Germany—to our location. Once here, it used the wireless and found that Larry has one of those high-tech smart phones implanted in his ear, next to his brain. It connected to that to control him, but just basic motor. He had no idea what he was doing.”
“And why did he stop, then?”
“Oh–you didn’t see. I had nanobots on my fingers for the CUI. Ultimately they are part of my software, so when I put my hands on his face, they went in through his ear to stop the AI.”
“I call that highly unlikely.”
“Really? I call it the work of God.”
Hungry Like the Wolf
July 9, 2012 at 10:45 PM | Posted in Fiction | 3 CommentsTags: cold war, fairy tales, flash fiction
I loved the idea of this Flash Fiction Challenge. We were to take a fairy tale and rewrite it in modern context. Or, at least, not in medieval context.
I can do that. I don’t even need a reason.
To see more of these stories, snort some faerie dust and fly on over here:
Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: Fairy Tale Upgrade
Ivan regained consciousness with a snort, and tried to sit up. He found he could not. His ears were ringing. He opened his eyes and saw the remains of his ramshackle hideout had burned almost to the ground. Embers fell from the frame and sizzled in the snow. The dirty water made a trail to him, and the giant footprints in it led to Sergei, who now had one foot on Ivan’s neck.
“I told you I would find you, Tovarishch.” Sergei’s voice boomed from his large frame with ease, but it barely penetrated Ivan’s ringing ears. “You could have come back to the fold. You were good soldat. But now? I work too hard. This I do not forgive.”
With his last breath, Ivan muttered, “Svoloch…Svoloch…Svoloch…”
Sergei laughed. “I am the bastard? I did not betray the Motherland.” His foot pressed hard on Ivan’s neck. “Dosvidaniya, Tovarishch.”
Artur was camouflaged and high off the ground in a pine tree. He had a good view of his log cabin, set back in isolated woods. He would see Sergei Volka approach, and take him out.
Or, at the very least, remain hidden. His pickup was in 17 hours. If he could just make it until then—
He could be in Spain by Saturday. Artur had always wanted to go to Spain.
Artur had a clear view of everything. Except behind him. He heard the whistle of mortar and instinctively ducked, not knowing the direction. The rush of hot air right next to him almost blew him off his perch.
A chill went through Artur’s already frozen body when he heard Volka, without the aid of a loudspeaker. “I see you up there, you little pig-man. I never shoot a man in the back, not even traitorous swine. Come down here–face me like a man!”
*Not on your fucking life* Artur said to himself. What could he do? Panic and cold affected his thinking. “Come up here and get me, Colonel!”
The Colonel turned red with anger. “You do not give orders to me, Sergeant! You disgrace! You come down or I will take you down—and the tree along with it!”
Artur felt the tree shake, and for a frozen-in-time moment he thought the Colonel was shaking the tree by hand and he could fee l it. *But that’s not possible–*
It wasn’t possible. The wind was blowing. Volka had gone to retrieve a bazooka from his squad. Artur started to yell as the Colonel raised the weapon. “Hey! I surrender! I give! You have me! I surrender! I’m coming down! ”
Artur exploded in a flash, sending body parts and branches everywhere. “Damn right you’re coming down.”
Pavel was breathless. On the train he had spotted Volka’s squad in their special uniform with the wolf patch on their upper arm. The crowd allowed him to gain some distance, but he never lost them. First he ran, then stole a truck. Now he ran again. He had not heard from his comrades and feared the worst. With the rendezvous less than an hour away, he realized his fears were not as bad as the truth. Volka the Wolf had got them.
He was in lowtown, near the river. It was getting dark, which was better. Only half a block until—
As he turned the corner, his eyes met the dark eyes of Colonel Volka. Volka angrily lunged at him. Pavel, taken by surprise, lost his balance and fell onto the wet bricks that had just started to re-ice. Volka had over-reached, and Pavel was now under him. He kicked the colonel’s midsection with both feet, launching him upside down into the street. When Volka righted himself, Pavel was gone.
He radioed his squad, telling them to cordon the area. He can’t go far. It’s just these buildings…and the river.
Chyort! The river is his way out!
Cursing and running, Sergei ignored the pain and the cold in single-minded pursuit of his prey. When he finished this mission, he was going to have a beer and a nice sausage dinner—
Wait! There—that stone storehouse near the dock. The light betrayed a silhouette briefly in the window before going out. It was just a flash, but with his senses on heightened alert, he was sure of it. Smugly, Volka put his nose to the air. *I can smell you, scared little piggy.*
Quickly he was at the stout little building. It was solid stone and mortar, small window with bars and thick glass cubes. The door was heavy, but it was the weakest point. He pounded heavily on the door with his huge fist. “I know you’re in there, Private! Come out now. This is over!”
The door was very thick, because the answer seemed to come from far away. “No!”
“You open that door now…or I’ll break it down!”
“Please, Colonel! I’m coming out. Don’t hurt my children!”
The thought of fresh blood made Volka smile a wicked, toothy grin. “Come out now, and no one gets hurt!”
“Please, Colonel! I’m coming out. Don’t hurt my children!”
“I’m losing patience!” Volka said, as he put the bazooka up to his shoulder.
“Please, Colonel! I’m coming out. Don’t hurt my children!”
Volka fired the weapon. He may have been too close, but he loved to feel the heat from the mortar. It tore through the door like tissue paper, and the fire warmed his skin.
The round continued on its path. In his heightened state of awareness that Colonel Volka liked to brag about, he saw the reel-to-reel player and speakers next to the dynamite that was strapped to several large barrels of oil right before they exploded.
Pavel had escaped through the hatch to the basement, and down to the dock, where a barge was slowly going by. Two more switches, and by morning he was in West Berlin.
Pavel went to work for a pig farmer, eventually marrying his daughter and keeping the farm in the family.
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