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by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: Chameleon III

May 19, 2013 in Articles

Scene One: This is covered in PB: Chameleon II.  A clever title might by ‘Chemeleon’ which would suggest that the process of shapeshifting or identity hiding/theft was chemically induced.

Scene Two: Our heroine is just finishing a task, and is about to rappel down a building two weeks later when she gets a message on her unbreakable (which is hidden because too obviously unbreakable would draw attention) tooth phone which gives me a chance to mention her dazzling smile.

Its the girl she rescued by talking to her dad.  It seems that something nasty is coming down her new boyfriend’s way.  Young Mr. Cordovan has totally overreacted and has gone from the Smashhammer.

Scene Three: PB: Chameleon 1, with some changes.

Scene Four: Arriving in the private office of the First Bad Guy, and telling him to back off.  Which he does promptly.  Too promptly.  It suggests he is hiding something.  So she hangs about and looks for data.  He’s soon talking to his boss, telling about a private detective who threatened him, and being audibly grateful she did not find out about You Know What.

Scene Five: Curiosity killed the cat.  Wondering what he’s up to, she breaks into his house, and searches it.  In the process, she finds some bugs.  Its seems the CIA has an eye on him too.  And they are coming through the front door!

Scene Six: A Fight in a Dark House.  With the CIA hit team.  She does not want to kill them.  They have no such limit.  There is a phone call on the eranswering machine to the effect of ‘I know you and my father said to back off, but I’m not backing off…this little snot took my girl, and he’s gonna pay.”

Scene Seven: Racing to the cafe’, and finding the girl hurt, and the guy missing.  He’s been luired out back and several goons are beating on him, from the local crime syndicate.  She gets them to back off by pretending to be a Local Capo with her Chemeleon powers.  She then has them call the capo…and he knows from Certain Unnamed Parties that the guy is off limits.

Scene Eight:  Now she has to track down a local numbers guy and quiz him.  With that information, she’s able to get onto the yacht of a drug kingpin…and stealing his cell phone and diving off the yacht, and going down a hundred feet to walk across the harbor bottom (the place looked very hard to escape).  Now she knows who Certain Unnamed Parties are.  And she has a clue as to what the goal of the Evil Plan is.

Scene Nine: Going overseas to a Multinational.

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by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: Red Hills

May 18, 2013 in Articles

The native guide cracked his eyes open at the tent flaps slither, and felt for his pukka, his killing blade with a heavy tip for chopping through bone.
“Ten-Hut!’ The sergeant, an old fighting man and averse to startling any veteran from sleep, said from the entrance.  Wayneright snapped up to his feet and to attention.  The sergeant stepped aside, and the outpost commander, Captain Singh walked in with calm assurance despite being a full head shorter than Wayneright.  The native guide, a burly man with wild auburn hair and gray eyes, sharply studied the scene wondering whether he had been caught snaking the hooch again.
“Guide.”
“Sirrah!”
“You’ve been brought to my attention as the best of the Native Guides.”
Wayneright felt a sudden surge of relief, but then he realized with a sinking feeling that this meant trouble.  The Aratervian Empire, like most empires throughout history rewarded excellence with the toughest jobs.
“Tell me what you think of us Aratervians.”
“Ah, um.” Wayneright’s face betrayed his worry.  Speaking frankly to one’s bosses, especially when they could order the gauntlet, or even the strangling cord was not good sense.  Those of Wayneright’s kin who could not get that message had died.
“Speak frankly. I will, on my honor, not hold it against you.  And the sergeant is here to guard this promise to you.”
“Well, uh, you smell.” Wayneright blurted the first thing on his mind, and then winced.  Even his people, who were not known for their social graces would have been appalled at that.  The Captain however, just smiled faintly.
“Its the hot spices. Your people prefer thyme and mint.  We prefer the burning flavors of the pokiberra plant and the chile bean. We were born of the jungle lowlands, and you are a people of the high, dry hills.”
Wayneright nodded, agreeing, but then he would have agreed if the Captain had called him a four-legged sloocanthi.
The Captain waved him to go on.  Wayneright composed himself and spoke honestly as was his tribe’s way.  They might hold their tongue, but they did not lie.
“You are our conquerors, and our liberators. Before you came, we served the Desnoix.  They were evil in most things they did.  With your help, we drove them from our lands, but unlike some of my kin, I know we could not hold the Desjarnier Hills against the Desnoix.  Even the very name gives the lie to that, for Desjarnier means ‘of the ruler of the Desnoix’.  It was his private hunting preserve, a hundred miles square while people in his capital city starved for lack of licenses to work.  I would be free if I could, but as conquerors go, you are generous and fair.  You keep your word, to even the least.  Your laws are often harsh but you tell all the laws so that no one commits crime from ignorance unlike under the Desnoix where every man was a criminal for no one, not even the scribes understood the Million Rules.  I will take your coin, and fight for you and for my kin.”
The last words were from the oath taken as a new made soldier of the Imperial Army of Aratervier to all the recruits from the lesser states.
The Captain nodded, pleased.
He raised a hand, and into the room with silent step came the strangest looking man, Wayneright had ever seen.  If he towered over most of the Aratervians, they towered over this man.  But more, his skin was a pale brown, and his eyes…slanted.  Demon!  Wayneright grabbed for his charm bracelet, and the strange silent figure in the dull spottled reds and greens suddenly moved and a knife was in his hand.  But when he saw Wayneright was holding a bag of beads, he bowed.
“I am neither a servant of the Dark Power, nor a wild mischief making spirit, but a man, much as you.”
Wayneright stared at him, wide-eyed, and  listened to the strange accent of the speech, and made as if to touch the man with his bag.  The man bowed and let him touch him on the arm after putting his knife up.  Wayneright was not surprised when the man turned out to be a man, and not a wild jibbering or a makil.  Wayneright had seen one such once, and it had retreated at the Holy Name, but it had taken blessed powder from a shotgun to make it go away permanently.
“My apologies. You must think me a fool.”
“On the contrary, I think you wise.  You risk offense to see whether I am trustworthy.  Since we are to go to war together, it is needful for you to know whether you can trust me.”  The words were low and calm, almost still, like the little man himself.
Wayneright thought about it, and then nodded in agreement.
“Excellent.” The Captain said, clapping his hands together. “Guide, this man is a Sniper First Class.  But while he knows his gun, he doesn’t know the Hills.”
“And that is where I come in.  For I know these hills like I know my own wife’s beautiful face.” Wayneright rumbled as they seemed to be waiting for him to say such.  Meanwhile, he was impressed.  He had met a Sniper Third Class once and seen him shoot a tank commander in the head at five hundred feet with one shot.  It had turned the battle.  Second Class was better, and there were very, very few First Class.
“How far?” He found himself asking the little man with the very big reputation.  The man smiled as if the question were expected.
“A mile and a half.  But the air was very still and very clear.  It was early in the morning before heat rises caused air currents.”
Wayneright blinked and then awkwardly mimicking the man, bowed.
“It will be an honor to guide such a great warrior as yourself, then.”
“War does not make one great.” Ken Takasuda, formerly of the USA of New Jersey, and now an interdimensional wanderer and quasi-immortal laughed, and clapped the young giant on the shoulder. Everyone looked startled, and rather than explain, he stepped outside and began to look out at the red clay hills with their heavy leaves on short droopy bushes, and the wind bent thorny trees underneath an alien sun.  It was time to practice the reason that the Almighty had made him a verser, killing the wicked at a thousand yards and more.

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by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: The Chameleon II

May 17, 2013 in Articles

Our Heroine: Leslie Ann Vroslnn
She’s from a future world with high tech, and suspicions of what scriff might do (which they think is an urban legend….actually, the gov’t sees scriff as too useful to give up).
She’s well aware of the Last War in her world, and the devastation that it brought to her parents, although by the time she was born things had stopped, and were well on their way to being put back together, but there were still scars on the land and in people’s hearts.  So she’s determined that the Last War won’t happen here.  And if that means she has to bend, break, or mutilate Law or Justice then she’s ready for the job.

Positive: Highly intelligent, has a strong intuitive understanding of the underpinnings of Society.  She sometimes knows what she needs to do without knowing why.  This she figures out later.
Negative:  She’s been scarred by the Last War and its aftermath in ways that she doesn’t realize, and sometimes she overreacts, or flips out .  She has PTSD.
Interesting: A love of that which is well done, even if its a well planned bank robbery.

Scene One: Her job is somewhat detective, somewhat spy, some specwar person.  She goes to the living room of a customer who hired her to look into the situation with his coed daughter because of ‘unease’.  She reports that his unease is well justified.

“Your daughter is very attractive, well mannered, intelligent, literate, and witty.  This is to your credit.  However, she is being sought after by two different men.  One, is a young executive from Cordovan Inc..  The other is the leader of Resident, a political action group.”
“Well, that’s good.”  The wife says.  She is well groomed, and her hair nicely and precisely styled, but on the short side.  Her eyes though are dark and hard.  No smile or grace attends her.  She is like a column of steel.
“Unfortunately not. The exec intends to ‘date’ her until she is around twenty-seven and then dump her for his real wife.  The Cordovan family will not accept a wife from a family of your diminished prospects.”
“Diminished!? I mean my husband could have done more, but really we have a nice home, and…”
“Ma’am, the Cordovan’s have a nice home in the suburbs, a nice apartment in the city, a nice home at the beach, and a nice home in Hawaii.  And by nice, I mean something about four times the size of your house.  I do not agree with their viewpoint on things, I merely report it.  They will not accept what they would consider ‘white trash’.”
The man chuckled, and his wife glared at him.
“Two cars, a boat, a four thousand foot house and I’m white trash.  Well, I guess I can see their point of view.”
“Donnie!!”
He smiled placatingly up at her, and she stared hard back at him.
“The other situation is more troubling.”
“I’ve met Jeffrey Gladsen.  He seemed a real nice boy.”
“That is the last thing he is.  He’s cute, I’ll grant you, but he’s not nice, he’s not real, and he’s definitely not a boy.  He’s a ruthless man.  I talked with him a bit, and met his group and came to the conclusion that two of the females in his Resident group had been recently raped.”
“And how did you know this? Did some floozy tell you?”
“No ma’am.”
“See, Donnie, I told you this was a waste of time.”
“Now, Jemina.”
The wife threw her hands up in the air, and stalked out of the room.  The husband made as if to leave and follow her.  Not wanting to stay any longer due to artificially created drama, our lady continued on as if oblivious.
“Sir, you raised your daughter well.  Unfortunately, too well.  She’s a target.  What you need to do is carry the rearing on to the next step.”
He blinked.
“Ah?? And that would be?”
“Find her a man.  At least eight years older than her.  Healthy, strong, raised eright, and on the fast track to business success.  She needs a firm hand…”
“You get out of this house at once!  No medieval nonsense about my daughter not having her choice is going on while I’m here!”  The wife had slammed back into the room like the gust of a hurricane, and her finger was jabbed out, and she stood there rigid.
Our heroine just sat there, and then leaned back in the sofa upon which she sat.
“Get this witch out of my house, Donald.”
“Donald, I will remind you of the penalties in the contract if I am not able to give my full report.  I assure you, they’re quite painful.”  She spoke again to his puzzled face.  ”Its in the fine print.”
Donald’s eyes narrowed as he took in her calm demeanor.  His wife began to speak again in outrage, as if rage was all that was needed to ever carry the day, and he shocked her by speaking her name in quiet objection.  This provoked a ‘well, I never’ and another stomping retreat to the kitchen.
“Ok, say your piece, then get out.” Donald said flatly.
“Your wife wishes to vicariously live through her daughter, and redo what she feels are the mistakes of her life in that she ‘settled’ for you instead of going after a bad boy.”
Rage glittered in Donald’s eyes, but the genuine sympathy and the quiet tone of our heroine undid him, and he collapsed into his chair across the room from her.
“What she doesn’t realize is that the likelihood of her marrying some high flyer desired by a couple dozen girls was minimal.  And the likelihood that he would have stayed with her is also low.  She made the correct choice.”
“You sound so cold.”
“Love is a choice, sir.  And your wife is choosing to be a bad wife because its easier, and a bad mother because she’s gotten herself locked into a death spiral.  You need to straighten things out.”
“How?”
“Its going to take some time, but start by putting some pressure on her.  And start by making decisions on your own.  But while you probably have time to rescue your marriage, you don’t have a lot of time to rescue your daughter.  I’ve compiled a list of eight eligible men, all of them at least four inches taller than your daughter, ten to thirty IQ points smarter, hard working, fiscally disciplined, traditionally religious, and not bad looking, if you may permit a woman’s opinion in such matters.”
“What…how…?”
“Cold call them.  You’re a salesman. Just call them up and say you have a lovely daughter who needs a husband with a strong hand to keep her in line.”
“You’re crazy.”  But the words were without conviction.
“Ask your daughter if she’s mind going on a date with a guy who at age twenty-eight owns two auto parts stores, rides in a rodeo a few times a year for fun, and has an excellent baritone voice in church choir.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
The tear-stained face of the wife came around the corner, and there was a new softness to it.  Our heroine got up, bowed, and let herself out while they looked thoughtfully after her.

==This is the intro scene to the novel.  Its largely separate from the novel.  Its a form of a promise to the reader.  If you continue on, you will read a story of an unconventional and brilliant woman investigator who has great powers.  The aim is to fulfill this.  One of the scenes in the novel would be PB: Chameleon.

She is going to follow a trail of conspiracies from one bad guy to the next around the globe and through various businesses and gov’ts and other groups until she pulls down the whole wretched mess of them.  That’s the novel idea.  Perhaps more on this later.

Letting You Know

May 16, 2013 in Blogs

Today’s temporal anomaly article at the Examiner is entitled Looper part 10:  Notification, and deals with the complication of sending a message to the past before sending the victim.  It is a complication overlooked that does not have a simple answer, as it requires a considerably more complicated time travel method.

Meanwhile, Eric Ashley has given us Practise Bits:  Diplomacy 2, set in one of those popular but odd futuristic worlds with elements of feudalism.  Oddly, I can’t find a record of an original Diplomacy, but the article doesn’t appear to require any recollection of the prequel–oh, no, there it is, somehow I failed to mention it in the Blogless Lepolt that followed it a couple months back, but obviously we had a significant discussion of it then, and the new piece addresses some of what we discussed.  Mea culpa.

Busy day, I think, so I’d better keep moving.

–M. J. Young

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by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: Diplomacy 2

May 14, 2013 in Fiction

The reason why Red Shirt Terror World is full of RSes is because some ancient Genius of Evil wanted his brethren to have plenty of playtoys.
========================

Cadet Jeremiah Lewis Custer
Positive: Plans for the long scale
Negative: Dithers, Unsure of self

Interesting: Hard life experiences

Custer is a human verser.  He versed out from a computer malfunction.  He went to two other worlds and has basically figured out being a verser.  He decided that learning how to understand and manipulate humans and other sentients was the best item he could bring with him on his trips.  He attempts to ‘do well by doing good’, but unlike the hypocritical stance on such, he is sincere in both.  He takes a long scale view on doing good for the worlds he visits.

HIs previous worlds helped him reach these conclusions.

He’s practiced at learning to fit in., and getting better, deliberately at it.

Scene One and Scene Two: PB: Diplomacy

Scene Three: Meet the Sneering Rival.  An Entitled Child of the Westcourt Families challenges Our Hero (In Harry Potter this is Draco Malfoy/ of course Draco is the stereotypical blonde haired villain….is it that Viking thing?  People really hold grudges.  No, its actually Leftism.) jKazun Lazar Kreitat (Martins)  <the Westcourt Families keep the name of the mother’s family in parentheses because ‘Family is important’.>

jKazun sees him studying the difference in the general study lounge between iRilakai from two different star systems (as mentioned by Mark). and calls him a grind and a kiss up.  ”The Families are born knowing.  Its in our genes.”  Problem is, there is some validity to this, as the Families have done some gengineering.

“Let’s say you’re right.  That just means that I, having no such advantage, need to work harder.”

Blink, blink. Some laughter from nearby students, including an attractive human female, and an alien ambassador’s son.

Our hero does not want this fight, and tries to duck it.

Scene Four: Virtual Reality Game.  This is a pass/or get knocked back a year in the Diplomatic School test.  There are two issues, supposed to be in the test, and an actual third.  1. There are several cultures in an alien race.  Dealing with group A like group B means a failure.  2.  Fleeing from conflict will cause further conflict….fight a little now, or fight more later….which will be a failure.  3. There are multiple players, and the AI running things has given different factions to the humans because its privy to their private feelings….so jKavun has his goal as stabbing our hero in the back.

This is possibly several scenes.

And then back to school…

Maybe Crazy

May 14, 2013 in Blogs

So the original question, quite a while back now, was why we didn’t register crazy people and keep them from owning guns, and part of the answer was that we do, to some degree.  But then, in today’s Examiner article, under the auspices of my political hat, we look at the problems this is likely to cause in our mental health field.  The simple title, Gun control:  Mental health, doesn’t really do the topic justice, but when I thought of it I wondered why no one else had addressed the issue yet.

Meanwhile, Eric Ashley has given us more to read with Practise Bits:  Pulped, which seems like an interesting beginning and perhaps stretches Mr. Ashley’s character sketching a bit.

I, however, have much to do and little time, and in fact am not even at this point entirely sure how much I have to do in how little time, so I’d better get moving.

–M. J. Young

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by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: Pulped

May 13, 2013 in Fiction

Our Hero: Josh McCallister is tall, a bit overweight, spiky pale red hair with a reddish countenance, he’s a computer and electronics salesman for currently a Big Box Electronics Store, but he’s done it for small companies and for cold calling as well.  He made enough money from his private company that he was able to sell it off and if he lives frugally, he can do fine.  He serves as a Little League coach on  a football and soccer and baseball teams.  He lives in a small town preferring such.

He’s gotten crossways with the local newspaper when he found himself the only one to stand up in a local town council and suggest that having a homosexual coach for young boys was not a good idea.  Afterwards, many people thanked him, but as he’s gotten used too, nobody stood with him.  So now the editor of the Local Times newspaper has in mind making a public example out of him doing things like when a local pol says something stupid, the editor will write ‘And Councilman Joe Smith pulled a McCallister last night in his speech…”

Positive: He’s quietly brave, both physically, mentally, and socially.
Negative: He does not prepare enough.
Interesting: He really likes coaching youngsters.  ”I can help them grow, and thats for next week, but for today, its a fun game, and for some over the course of their life, why I see some that have such awesome potential.”….this confused manner of speaking is his usual…a manifestation of his Negative.

One advantage he has in his duel with the editor is that while calling him independently wealthy would be a serious stretch, he does have the ability to keep on eating even if he gets fired.

I might do a Better Angels of Joe Paterno moment.  Also have a ‘he goes home and sees newspaper on front stoop with his pic on the front’.  Also have his Facebook page be hacked and he goes to visit some neighbour lady and asks her daughter who is on the soccer team to sit at the dining room table and fix the page.  Despite warnings of grossness which he is bothered by letting her see, he did not realize there was a death threat on his FB page, and so when the daughter hacker sees it, she is horrified, jumps up, spills over the ginormous glass of ice tea her Mom gave her…..and scriff out for our hero.

Scene Two: He wakes on a cigarette scented couch in a house in Harlem in the 20′s with ‘When the Saints Go Marching In’ blaring in his ears.  He looks up and sees a bunch of well-dressed in suits and dresses, black folk.  The lights are incandescent.  The phone on the wall is dial.  He’s not sure what to do, or where he is, so he decides to sneak out.  On his way out to the front porch he gets approached and is worried….but all the guy wants is ‘rent’ for the hat for the musicians.  He drops in a five, and leaves for the street and hears some yelling behind him (they think he gave them fake money).

Scene Three: Up and down the streets as he sees what should not be.  Its gets hammered home to him pretty quick that either he’s in a very large Greenwhich Village stage setting of a city or he has gone to the past somehow.

Scene Four: He is tired and sits and notices this ‘tug’, his scriff sense, and decides for lack of better to do to follow it.  It leads him to a long line outside the Savoy Ballroom.  And one of the fellows tells him he can’t get in without a suit and tie.  He gets the guys name, and leaves, and finds a flophouse where he can sleep the night.  Clearly he needs better clothing than his sneakers, brown pants and terry cloth coaching clothes.

Scene Five:  He’s traded a stopwatch for some stylish clothes.  He heads to the Savoy, and a couple tuxedo suited bouncers escort him after they find him snooping about, up to the general manager’s office.
“Rumor has it that my boss is a gangster.  That being the case, he could find a way to get rid of you.”
“I just want my stuff.”
“Most curious stuff.   A photo of Mom and Dad I suppose, hideous shorts.  And that shirt, its either brilliant ;or awful, I can’t decide which.”
He’s speaking about our hero’s father’s Hawaian shirt.
“And then there’s this weird fake money…”
“You caught me.  Its an act.  I’m like a time traveller from the future, and I do my little number on stage.  I got some friends to make me some gimmicks that look flashy but don’t do anything.  I , ah, sure could use a job.”
The ballroom manager blinks and then nods.
“Its original, clever.  I like it, but this is a dance hall, no room for acts.  However, I know someone wno has aspot and can fit you in tonight.”

Our hero leaves, and the assistant says ‘you letting him go?’
‘He’s not going anywhere.  We can keep an eye on him, and find out how he did his magic trick.  Those items just appeared out of nowhere in my office when I was in the john, and I swear nobody opened the office door.  So, Mr. Magic Act has some secret, and I want it.  Keep an eye on him.”

Scene Six: Getting ready for the act, which means dressing in his uptime clothing.  Worrying about the lack of power of his devices. He does not properly prepare for his act and stumbles through the first bit. He decides to leave them off, but later when he gets heckled he uses the light on his cell phone for a few seconds as a big finale.  His act is to tell of his arrival on stage, comment on a few of the weirdities, answer some questions, turn back a heckler or two, and that’s it.  Its an act that makes you think.
But the light on the cell phone attracts the attention of the guy following him.

Scene Seven: He’s invited to a table after the meal, and meets a couple of famous people including Nora who said that racism astonished her because who would not want to spend time with someone as great as herself.  He also argues with W.E.B. DuBois.  He also gets advised to have an opening round memorized for his act…and then you can improv after that.  More music is listened to as well…stride music by Fats Waller.  And there is a cutting contest which is a form of a musical duel like duelling banjos.

Scene Eight: On the way to the car, he and the rest are accosted by some KKK thugs.  Happily, he’s armed.  There’s more than six of them and they point this out to him….’so, my pistoli is a Glock and its got thirteen bullets, jacketed hollow points too.’  This is definitely anachronistic, but it succeeds.  And one of his hosts says he’s going to take the NRA up on their offer for a free revolver.  Another laughs at him for his ‘time traveller act….like you have a gun with thirteen bullets, hahhahaa’.  But Nora is watching him more closely and sees past at least partially the clown act.

Scene Nine: He’s mentioned that he needed a job as a coach and so he gets a job teaching basketball. He’s astonished by the lack of paperwork and by the work ethic of the players.

Scene Ten: He gets interviewed by a reporter from a neighbourhood paper who asks him some insulting question about what chances blacks have in basketball.  He responds by saying…’in the future…’ and then he pauses.  ”Hey I recognize your voice.  You’re one of those goons from last night.”  This leads to a tussle in his office.

Scene Eleven: Against advice from his players, he goes to the newspaper office to tell the boss there that one of his reporters is a KKK goon. This leads to some laughter, and the news reporters lead him by force to the editors’ office.  In the window is a KKK sticker and the shove him in so that he can talk to the editor and the local Democratic Party councilman.

Scene Twelve: At first because one of the news guys says something about ‘blacks’ they think he is there to complain about blacks and both heartily agree.  They thank him for his Southern voice and wisdom. He grits his teeth and accepts their thanks and skedaddles.

Scene Thirteen: Its too late.  He’s drawn attention to the new basketball league and there is a gang of rowdies showing up.  He gets them free by turning off the lights and having them follow his cell phone light like a will o wisp, but this cannot be done regularly…leaving the patrons in the dark to stumble home.

Scene Fourteen:  He goes to a gun shop.  He finds that the cheap guns are illegal because of fears of immigrant, like many of those KKK thugs.  And he doesn’t have a lot of cash.  But there is an NRA guy there, and he remembers what that guy said about free revolvers, so he asks.  The NRA guy says that he probably wouldn’t give him a gun as he does not know our hero, but he’s definitely not giving ten guns.  To which our hero blurts out that he’s a lifetime member of the NRA….the NRA guy laughs, and asks to see proof to which our hero shows him the plastic card….and then the NRA guy says ‘hey, I remember you. You’re that time traveller comedian.  Heh, sure, we can help you out.”

Scene Fifteen: More basketball toward the end of the game.  Thugs stand up, and all the players on the far side put on their gun belts.  At which point the thugs decide that discretion is the better part of valor and leave peaceably.

Scene Sixteen:  Finishing his act, he sees Nora waiting for him.  He’s added sensing quarters from the future to his act.  She’s beautiful and perceptive and discrete.
“So, how come I get the feeling you’re telling the truth, that you’re Cassandra to poor Web and the other idiots?”
He shrugs.
“If I took you out to a late night breakfast of fried chicked and syrup on waffles, do you think I could finagle the truth out of you.”
He laughs.
“I’d be willing for you to try.”

The End (but there’s a guy following him at a distance.) 

Timing and Delivery

May 13, 2013 in Blogs

I was up somewhat early (not four, thank the Lord) to deliver someone to work, and so while I was getting dressed I was also uploading and announcing the latest Examiner temporal anomalies article.  Looper part 9:  Clockwork, about the complications of site selection for the process of delivering victims to their appointed assassins at the correct times.

Thus I found that the two Eric Ashley articles I read yesterday have been supplemented by two more, giving me a bit of reading to do before I return to bed (or not, we’ll see how that goes).  Yesterday I read Practise Bits:  Download, about a smart Russian tough guy in a technozombie world.  That was followed by Practise Bits:  Credential, about a skilled hacker/programmer who can’t get work, ending with his unanticipated departure from his home world.  Today the sequel, Practise Bits:  Credential 2, which continues the story as the hacker lands in a cyberworld.  Finally, we have another entry in the Torchthrower series, Practise Bits:  Torchthrower Again, either a prequel or a parallel tale in the same setting, not sure which, involving planet colonizing.  Eric seems to have written half the article as an article, and then the second half as a comment on the first, which is probably due to interruption.

So that’s where I am, and I’m thinking that it would be impractical to go back to bed at this point, given that I have to be up soon to get others where they need to be.

–M. J. Young

Avatar of Tadeusz

by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: Torchthrower Again

May 12, 2013 in Fiction

Harold Skarsgard, age mid-twenties.
Positive: Noble
Negative: Out of touch, beat of a different drummer, etc,, etc. Being Da Vinci in the wrong century for it.
Interesting: Loves adrenaline rush.

Harry was a millionaire by age eighteen.  He started by listening to a radio scanner to get news of disasters in Baltimore, and taking his self-built hot rod racing out to get vid of the event, and then selling it to news companies that had gotten there too late.  He used his fame to connect to folk on the Net, and serve as a broker for their vids.  This led him to starting his URTHere.com (You are there or Earth Here depending on which day it is when you ask him).  He’s not famous, except in media circles (he’s met a dozen famous news guys).

He got arrested for driving too fast to catch disasters and lost his first and second cars that way.  And his third got flipped and he broke some bones in the process.

Halfway through this, he started another web exchange and car festival for hot rods.

After getting Urthere.com going, he moved on to running a race track, and then a race car computer game, and then he helped in financing Dread Knight, a rather complicated war game that lost big money for being ‘too hard’. He is currently trying to create a racing circuit for cars, and he has a computer lab that he is financing because this absolutely brilliant guy has an ‘idea that will totally revolutionize computing’….scriff.

“Now, ah, boss, let me show you something…if you electrify this scriff substance I discovered…”

Scene Two: He wakes in the New Golden Age world. He wakes to see himself in a park surrounded by concerned citizens.  Its a very nice park.  Very clean, elegant geometrical shapes of the perfectly groomed flower beds, and children’s play areas that have jumping areas (you jump from a tower into an airflow cushion) among other things.  Everyone looks very healthy.

He’s told that he just appeared out of thin air, and he’s told the date….May 10, 2180 (or two.three generational cycles in advance).

Scene Three: He’s bundled off to the hospital and has a discussion with Doctor Rosen about his health and about the legal issues…no he cannot be confined, yes, the gov’t is very curious how he just appeared out of nowhere, and yes, he needs significant amount of shots because he’s already coming down with several killer diseases created in the Last War which they will enforce.

Scene Four: He studies the history files with the help of a helpful agent from the gov’t..  He learns about the Life War, and the Robotic ID War, and the ongoing problems with longevity.  He’s also informed that he’s immortal.  And they had Scriff but ‘dissappearances’ happened and its on the Banned Items List.

Scene Five: Going out for a bite to eat and it just underscores how far out of touch he is.  He ends up breaking down in tears.

Scene Six: The recomendation from the Pastor.  ’Join the Torchthrowers’.  Explanation of the Torchthrower Group.

Scene Seven: Induction.

Scene Eight: Welcome to Hell aka Boot Camp where everyone else is genmodded to ninety percent or better of human maximums.
Meet the Cyberpunk Gen aka New Gen X officers or cadre.

Scene Nine:  Learn how to use and explanation of Powerered Body Armor.  Fitting the armor to the user.

Scene Ten: War games in armor.  He proves that he has what it takes to make the cut by using some out of date information the rest don’t have.

Scene Eleven: Parting is such sweet, sweet sorrow….for the rest of them.  He has nobody to miss him as he gets frozen in his container aboard the Double Jump Enabled SS Torchthrower.  They don’t have warp drive, they have one use jump drives.  He and the rest jump to a location central to a dozen other planets.  Each of those planets gets something jumped straight to it, and a colony set up.  SS Torchthrower is the cream of the Golden Age, with an AI to watch over them and listen to radio signals through the long centuries of sleep, of colonial growth and then moral collapse.

Scene Twelve: Waking and a Mission Briefing. Here is where we describe what is known about the problem Space Colony.  Details of its landing, the reports sent back to Earth and then rerouted to the Torchthrower by lasercom.  This means the lasercom is about a century out of date. Then there is the Message Torp with a one use jump drive….it tells a small bit of data from one pov.  It was damaged and so the data is damaged.

The intro of the Visionary, the group leader.

“There is obviously some sort of conflict.  The missile torp was launched.  But it has laser burns on it.”

Fear of their being not able to remachine the jump drive and being stuck there at the colony is mentioned and set aside as something not likely to be a problem.

Situation (not included in book):  The County of Orange is a wonderful peninsula of Florida like weather.  It has orange trees and stucco homes and ranches full of aurochs.  It has the following problems…

Scene Thirteen:  

Avatar of Tadeusz

by Tadeusz

Practise Bits: Credential 2

May 12, 2013 in Blogs

Scene Two: He enters the Steak Shah, and spots a number of yummy steak burgers under glass.  He decides to take the Maharajah’s Burger with its motto of ‘Keep Calm and Curry On’.  The place is robotic and he talks to a female holovid.  Everything is going fine until ‘she’ asks for his credit card.

He tries to explain that he’s a visitor from another world.  That does not get him anything.  So he looks about, hears the rumble in his tummy and jumps the counter heading back to the kitchen.  Sirens go off, and he gets his hand on the steakburger while burning his hand on the grill.

Then a security bot gives him a wedgie and dumps him outside.  Its a crane like thing on a human ish scale.

Scene Three: He was only able to keep a small part of the burger in hand when the bot stripped the rest from his hand.  He eats it.  Its hot and spicy but good.  He goes to the next three restaurants, McDaffy’s, Softees, and Burrito Carrillon, but in all of them a secbot is ready and waiting for him to jump the counter, and he retreats, defeated.

Scene Four: Sleeping, he is rousted by a police bot telling him he cannot sleep here or he will be jailed.  Eventually he says ‘well then jail me’.  The bot then admits that the jail is not openable being damaged, and then it returns to its original programming which is to roust the sleepers.  It follows him around all night as he staggers with exhaustion.  But as dawn comes, it retreats back to the police station, and a bright idea comes to our hero.  He folllows it, finds the damaged police station, and uses the bomb damage hole to enter in, and find a place to sleep.  This works.

Scene Five: Waking, he looks for data as to what happened.  Its easy enough to find.  Pomegranate Corp defeated their Main Enemy, Doorways.  Then Curvex was outlawed.  Now with usage of Pomegranate enforced worldwide by Vespucian troopers, things advanced smoothly for ten years.  And then Pomegranate went from really greedy to insanely so.  They started promulgating a variety of neccessary upgrades which denied usage of this or that program unless one had the neccessary license.  But somehow, they lost track of their own licenses, and woke up one morning to find themselves locked out of their own systems with no one having the neccessary authority to let them back into their own systems.  This was several hundred years ago, according to the clock in the Police History File.

“You arrogant, idiotic, snotheaded morons!” He curses the distant corpers.

Scene Six: He uses logic to disable security bots trying to stop him from physically breaking into a computer.  The question is, who must go first in arresting him?  Since he’s committed crimes prosecuted by different groups?  This has the bots flummoxed and arguing with each other while he continues to break in. He has gained enough parts to make a small computer when he does something or says something that clarifies who gets to jail him first.

Scene Seven: Fleeing!

Scene Eight: He sees woodland and heads toward it.  The bots follow, but suddenly a storm of arrows and spears descend among the bots and drive the bots off.  He has been rescued by a tribe of humans that lives in the first greenbelt of the city.  They speak a slangy dialect of English.  He is welcomed as a brave explorer from another tribe.

Scene Nine: Not wanting to lie, he tells them he is from Beyond.  This impresses them more or at least some of them.  One big guy is not impressed (standard trope).  The Big Guy is the Chief’s Son and believes in credentialism as in “I’m the chief’s son and shoujld get all the good stuff”.  So our Hero gets dunked in the lake (a giant open air drain like in L.A., but it has been dammed off on both sides to make it a lake) by Chief’s Son and this sparks word fight, which CS loses to entertainment of Pretty Girl and her pals and the other tribesmen.

Scene Ten: He builds his computer and tells them he needs to connect to eledtricity.  They tell him that the gods say no, and then they list some ridiculous sounding names of gods.  Greenpax and his wife, the Lady Sierra of the Club….the whole pantheon is known as the College Board.

He snickers to himself and decides that he’s going to do these superstitious folk one better.  He tells them of another god, two gods, actually, the Great Meatball and Lord Murphy, and how they agree with him.

Scene Eleven: Seeking Communion with the Gods (in the crashed Uhaul hovercraft sweat shed) with drugs and candles and ….our hero goes along with this ‘nonsense’ as he tells himself out of lack of something better to do, and figures he can guide it, until, the Sacred Meatball shows up.  The Meatball chastises him for making up a god as a joke, explains how stupid he is, and explains that most anything he can think of does exist somewhere, somewhen in the Multiverse.  And the Sacred Meatball gives his blessing to using the computer in public to the whole tribe.  But, what no one notices is that the Lord Murphy is also watching from back in the shadows, and he has a smile on his face.

Scene Twelve: Praying to ‘All Relevant Authorities’ he gets his computer started, and starts hacking a way to give himself some authority.  He manages a few bits of seemingly insignificant and useless powers until he is forced to stop by secbots attacking the human tribe.  When he stops, they stop.  I’m not sure what these ‘authorities’ will be.  This is part ;of a place to explain how he’d like to be SysAdmin for the whole system, but he can’t get that authority.

Scene Thirteen:  Its Friday the Thirteenth and the thirteenth scene, and a holy day for Lord Murphy so he acts.  The Chief’s Son gives the secbots permission to invade human territory aka ‘human tended parkland’ which they do in force to grab our hero.  But they lied to CS, and they capture everyone.

Scene Fourteen: In prison.  Food is provided.  Unfortunately, its molded away centuries ago.  Chief’s Son blames Hero, hero figures out that CS is behind this.  Hero is now leader as Chief died in capture.  But the whole tribe including kids is going to die of starvation in prison.

Scene Fifteen: Hacking….