Fifty Years From Now

King of the Californias Pt. XIII

2009-07-28T09:51:00.001-07:00

by Monk Eastman, Uptown, NYC, USA

I tag Blue/Horse. As collectives go, mine is connected, with mobile journalists in almost every urban center on the planet. I'd be denied them if Cecilio Goncz hadn't slipped me a communication safeguard. Whatever jamming agent he's anticipating would probably block even a prosumer implant like mine. Whatever his reasons, they've left me a lifeline to the rest of the world. Cortical implant translates my eye movements into text, lets me interact however I need to with Blue/Horse. Doesn't suck up much bandwidth, little discrete 56k bursts. Five minutes later, my man in Anatolia gives me as close a rundown as he can before linking me with one of our editors in Halifax:

Yonge Street Ali. Born Ali Buryäk, maybe forty years earlier. Grew up in Ankara at the cusp of The Troubles, when the radicals were just gaining real traction. Long line of soldiers, the Buryäks, going all the way back to Atatürk. Secular, the way the French used to be: rigid, nationalist. When the JDP was put out of government and the army stepped in, Ali's dear poppa was apparently leading the charge. No one anticipated the severity of the riots that followed, nor that of the internal conflict that chased it. Ali came up in one of a dozen paramilitaries that succeeded the army: nationalists every bit as zealous as the religious fundamentalists they clashed with. As the conflict slogged on, and The Troubles turned into a full-scale civil war, Ali Buryäk established himself as some kind of logistical wizard, securing more arms even as his budget shrank. By the time he was twenty, he'd made connections with everyone from the Kurdish Workers Party to the Azeri Republican Front. Things get fuzzy around when Ankara falls, though.

Our editor in Halifax tells a less glorious tale, two years down the line. This one is of Peg-Leg Ali, who limped off a refugee boat in Nova Scotia alongside a troupe of disillusioned veterans. Set themselves up as a local syndicate before being rounded up by the RCMP. Turned up, alone, in Toronto, after a seven year stretch in Kingston Penitentiary. Started quickly working both ends of the longest street in the world: spreading mysterious wealth around the suits at One Yonge Street, then moving guns at the other end, out by Jane and Finch. Somewhere between Halifax and Toronto, Ali Buryäk had his leg replaced. Got a smart haircut. All the right implants, and even better connections. Theoretically hasn't picked up a gun in years, even to sell. These things just sort of move around him at his behest. When Alaska wanted out of the Union, it was his munitions that somehow found their way into secessionists' hands. No linear connection, of course, but The Word is The Word, and that is: Yonge Street Ali makes guns happen. Whenever, wherever. He's become one of the lowest profile high-end gunrunners in North America. Lives in one of those mobile low-orbit habitats. Hyper-exclusive. Never know where he'll be next week. Total anonymity, absolute freedom of movement.

Must be a nice way to live.

Especially compared to Oakland, Northern Republic of California. Growth market here, by all accounts. But not without risk. My contact at University of Michigan says Ali also armed the U.S.-backed Republica Libre party during their overthrow of Los Angeles, a coup that wiped away the old confederation of criminal cantons -- including that of Cecilio Goncz, my host and father. Not to mention Montoya Dred, who even now, twitches and shudders, almost foaming at the mouth from his Pilkner's Condition. So how is here here, now, without Goncz's teeth on his throat?

"Yonge Street," Goncz hails. "What it is."

"What it will be," Ali says, sliding into a chair opposite. He's got a soft face, lines around his eyes like he smiles a lot. He nods at Dred. "How you doing, Monty?"

"Duh-don't be fucking calling me that, yuh-yeeeew you..."

"Play nice," Goncz warns.

"Fuck you, CeCe." Rain of white spit arcs across the table when Dred talks. "And you tuh-too, fuckface."

"Still a lover, Monty?" Ali smiles. "You still talk to me like a lover. Would that help, maybe? If I gave you a little?"

"Fuh-fuh-fuuuuuuuuuuck yuh-yuh-yuh --"

"Don't be giving yourself a heart attack," Goncz says. "We're all friends here."

"Friends? Wuh-with him?"

"Oh yeah," Ali says. "Best friends. Especially today." For the first time, he turns his attention to me. "We haven't been introduced."

"Don't worry about him," Goncz says coolly.

"Yuh-yeah," Dred chuckles. "He's a peach, that one. Nothing to worry about at all."

Ali shrugs, folds his hands on the table. "If that's what you say, that's what you say."

"Do you have them?" Dred snaps.

Ali sniffs, looks slightly stricken. "Poor form, Monty. Whatever happened to etiquette? I've been sitting here five minutes already, no one's offered me a cup of coffee, a glass of water, not even a half decent hello, how's things?"

"Oh," Monty says. "I'm sorry. A cup of coffee? Maybe I could fetch you some water? How about wine. You like a little vino? A nice red? Nah, it's hot out today, you'd like a nice white. Maybe some of that good Sonoma? Stay right here, let me get it for you. No, wait, what am I saying -- here, let me get one of the fine waitresses at this wonderful establishment that is so obviously NOT a fucking glorified fruit stand in the middle of this dinkhole Fourth World fucking republic to bring you a glass of finely purified water in a crystal fluted glass, you screaming piece of --"

"Monty," Goncz growls, and Dred deflates. Goncz waves over the Okie with the coffee pot, takes off his shades, showing off those eerie nictitating eyes that belong on some kind of dead animal. "Let's get the man a drink, then get down to it."

Which is exactly when the other shoe drops, and America lowers its foot onto the neck of Northern California.

Applebaumology Part I

2009-04-14T12:59:00.001-07:00

by Rabbi Ben Newman, The Bronx, NYC, NY

Manendra Applebaum sat at his cubicle desk. His computer interface, the electronic desktop superimposed over his normal vision, flickered that it was 9:25 am. He reached for his paper tea cup holding a macha-ocha blend. He sat back and mentally scrolled through his video and text messages. Twelve from the Mayor in the past week cluttered up his in-box. All of them were asking for modifications of Chu's Artificial Intelligence computer advisor, SOPHI. A full year of this dreck. Why won't this guy leave me alone!?

Manendra blew on his hot green tea. The smoke momentarily fogged up his vision and obscured the visual desktop. Every message from the Mayor was a request for a new Belief Subroutine. When he initially designed her program, before the Mayor was sworn in, he used a Buddhist model when programming the spiritual subroutine, thinking that the philosophy of the Middle Path perfectly suited the needs of an AI of this manner. Then, the Mayor began having a 'relationship' with the Construct, seeking its council, and getting angry at it for not giving the advice he wanted. First Manendra reprogrammed the construct to hold the beliefs of Sun Tsu, then it was Hinduism, then Christianity, then Judaism, then back to Buddhism, Satanism, Pragmatism, Existentialism, etc...until he exhausted pretty much every philosophy in the book. At first it was difficult for Applebaum to untie the knots in the program to insert a whole new belief system. After a few times through, however, he developed a shortcut. He knew that he would probably have to come back and do it again, so he found a way to make the Belief Subroutine a detachable function of the overall program, and though a bit less stable over time, it successfully changed the subroutine with only a week's effort. He would have loved to walk away from this particular job but his boss would fire him on the spot--So he continued detaching and reattaching new beliefs to SOPHI. The Mayor of NYC is crazy, he thought to himself. I can't handle this on my own. I'm just a programmer. I need someone who can help me make sense of all this. He scrolled down, and opened the first message he saw that was not from the Mayor's office. He gently sipped at the paper cup containing the bright green liquid. It was a text based message. It read:

To: IHS Employees
From: IHS Management
Subject: New Mental Health Coverage Benefits

Message: Due to the increase in funding we have received from the city, we are now able to provide every technician in the company with full metal health coverage. Any visits to metal health professionals will be reimbursed by the company's insurance company only upon receipt of the doctor's bill and diagnosis. All information will be held confidentially and will not in any way effect an employee's standing.

Thank you for your continued service to our company,

The Management.

Why not give it a try, he thought, drinking heartily from his cup. He wiped the green residue from his lip as he metally scrolled through listings of psychologists in the NYC area. He dialed the first listing-- Aardard, Dr. Sean. An IA receptionist designed by his own company picked up the call.

"Dr. Aargard' office, how may I help you today?" inquired the affable electronically generated image of a brown haired girl.

"Hello. I'm Manendra Applebaum."

"Oh, Manendra." the computer offered, "I remember you. How may I help you today?"

Manendra put down his cup.

"I'd like to make an appointment." he said.

*

* *

The office of Dr. Sean Aardard was nestled into the basement of an old brownstone on 77th st. and Broadway, amid high end shops, bars and restaurants. Only the priviledged few could pass the subway security checkpoints to enter this part of the city. Only the elite minority could afford to shop there. Ordinarily, Applebaum was neither, but now, due to his recent relationship with the Mayor, and the success of IHS, he was able to pull some strings with his very grateful boss, Mr. Braithwaite, and obtain a priority level security rating on his Metrocard.

Manendra swiped his card at the turnstile, a green light went on, and a poorly synthesized electronic voice sounded for him to proceed.

He descended the steep steps to Dr. Aardard's office and rang the bell, looking up at a small security camera. The door buzzed, Applebaum opened it, and walked into a short corridor, at the end of which was another door. As the buzzer continued to sound, Manendra quickened his step for fear that it might stop before he got through the second doorway. As he turned the knob and walked through, the buzzing stopped. He found himself in a living-room type atmosphere. Comfortable couches and side-tables brimming with magazines lined the walls. A short blond woman sat at a pine desk with US Weekly in her hand. A small name-tag with the name Mrs. Theresa Bishop engraved on its surface rested on the desk.

"Mr. Applebaum, I presume?" She inquired, barely looking up at him.

"Yes. I'm..." Manendra bit his thumbnail absently. Maybe this was a bad idea. he thought.

"Here for your three o'clock?" she pulled out a piece of chewing gum and began masticating.

"Uh. Yeah..."

"Dr. Aardard is with another patient now. Sit on one of the couches and I will call you when he's ready."

Manendra picked out a fuzzy brown couch, and sat down. He engaged his ocular implant, and began scrolling through his electronic mail. After a few minutes, Mrs. Bishop spoke his name.

"Manendra Applebaum!" she called out, as if she hadn't actually met him before, 5 minutes earlier.

"Yes." he stood up and gathered his backpack.

"The Doctor will see you now." she said, and went back to her US Weekly, and fruity gum.

* * *

Dr. Aardard's office seemed more of a small museum of antiquities to the technician Applebaum, rather than what he had imagined a shrink's office to be. African tribal masks, strange looking pipes and swords were littered about on tables throughout the dark room. Dr. Aardard, a blonde haired Norwegian looking man in a blue pin-striped suit sat at one of the tables. He looked at Manendra inquisitively, and gestured to a comfortable looking chair.

"Please, sit, Mr. Applebaum," he said, "make yourself comfortable."

In Search Of...Pt. X

2009-02-10T07:31:00.003-08:00

by Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

Screeching vocals radiated off the walls, swirling around Keenan Archer in his booth near the club’s entrance. He could feel the bass rippling up his spine, punching through his gut. Archer had been hitting up clubs across the city for weeks hunting for the Kaczmerak girl. He’d found little to help so far.

Keenan swirled the ice cubes in his glass, took another drink. The barkeep claimed it was bourbon, but Keenan found that claim dubious. At least it wasn’t as watered as other places.

It took a moment for the detective to recognize the buzzing in his pocket wasn’t coming from the stage. Reaching up, Archer tapped the earpiece once and spoke: “Take a message.”

Lifting his glass again, Keenan knocked back the last of his drink. Sliding the empty glass to the edge of his table, Archer made eye contact with the woman singing on stage. She held his gaze for a few seconds and then smiled before dancing away to the opposite side.

Archer smiled too. He wouldn’t be spending the night alone.

The waitress came over to retrieve his glass. “The same?” She thrust her hips forward as she spoke. Whether working for a tip or something more Keenan couldn’t say. He considered breaking the news that her efforts were a waste of time – skin taut over wasted bones, sunken eyes falling into shadow, devoid of the forced smile in her voice. It all said junkie, and in a better light, Keenan imagined her track marks would be visible. He didn’t look at her as he replied, “sure” and returned his gaze to the stage.

As the girl pranced off, Keenan’s pocket began to vibrate again. He reached to his ear, but this time as he tapped an angry voice shot through.

“Archer! What the fuck are you doing?”

Keenan fell back in his seat as if punched in the chest, eyes wide and unfocused. “Who are you? And how did you override my phone?”

“I’m your employer, you fuck! Now answer my question!”

The detective paused. “Mr. Kaczmerak?”

“Well. You do have some detecting skills after all.”

“I didn’t recognize your voice, sir.”

“I don’t care! Excuses aren’t worth my time, Mr. Archer,” the old man continued.

“Yes, sir,” said Archer, sitting up.

“Where is my daughter?” asked Elijah.

“I don’t know,” Archer yelled, barely audible in the club. “I have some leads I’m following right now. But it’s going to take some time.”

“A month. Which is more than you deserve. Have something by then Mr. Archer,” spat Kaczmerak.

“Yes, sir,” but as Keenan uttered “sir,” the line went dead.

“Fucker.”

•••

Sylindra walked through the foyer to the library, stopping just at the doorway. Across the room, sitting in a chair with his back to the doctor, Elijah Kaczmerak stared out the window. Beyond the deep green of the pines and firs bordering the grounds, a blank slate rose above everything daring Kaczmerak to come outside and mar its serene countenance. Winter was coming fast, and the skies were dressed accordingly.

Dr. Ziantara cleared her throat, but the old man gave no indication he’d heard anything. Sylindra knew better, but said nothing, preferring to wait him out.

A minute passed.

Then another.

Dr. Z shifted her feet, relieving the pressure settling in her heels.

Another minute passed, the steady ticking of the mantel clock – a family heirloom – calling out the seconds that Sylindra now counted silently.

Four hundred forty-two seconds. Over seven minutes. That’s when Elijah finally spoke.

“Yes, doctor.” The wheezing was gone, replaced by a soft baritone Elijah and his physician had not heard for some time.

“I just came to check on you. How are you feeling?” asked the doctor, still standing just beyond the threshold of the library.

“Unsatisfied,” he said. “I do not care much for your prognosis.”

“Well, I’m not sure what I can do about that, Elijah. Would you rather I lie about the time you have before we need to take more serious action?”

“What I would rather, doctor,” said Elijah as he lifted from the chair turning to face her, “is that you would do your job. I expect results Ms. Ziantara. Failure is not a concept with which I am overly familiar.” The lines were gone from his face, the stoop with which he’d walked (when he was able) a memory, and the fire in his eyes burned brighter than it had in years. The stem cell therapy had worked, stimulated by the steroids added to this new cocktail. But it was only temporary.

“If you hadn’t been so reckless with your body, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. You understood going in that this probably wouldn’t be a permanent solution, but at least it could be a stop-gap while we searched for something else.” Dr. Ziantara had her hands out, palms up, sick inside about the deficiencies of her science.

“It’s like a virus,” she continued. “Becoming stronger, mutating and evolving to counteract the old remedies so that we have to come up with new ones. Your body has become accustomed to the therapies we used before. It recognizes them and burns them out faster now.

“You did this to yourself, Elijah!” Dr. Z’s voice was even as she thrust her finger at her employer, her patient.

“Your job is to cure me, doctor, not render judgment upon my lifestyle. That will come later from someone far more qualified than yourself.”

Elijah stepped around the chair and moved toward the foyer, stopping at the doctor’s shoulder as he reached the doorway.

“You have managed to forestall your dismissal for a while longer. But do not fail to understand that your time with us is limited. So long as you are useful you have a place here. But otherwise . . .”

The old man walked off as Sylindra watched him go.

“fucker.”

The Meditations of Jimmy Chu Part IV or The Meditations of Jimmy Tzu Part I

2009-01-30T10:30:00.002-08:00

by Rabbi Ben Newman, The Bronx, NYC, NY, USA

For 3 weeks Manendra Applebaum and his over-weight friend Howie had been working on reprogramming SOPHI's Belief Matrix. On the 21st day, the work was complete. One week later, Jimmy sat in his office smoking a cigar, and reading the book The Art of War, which Manendra had given him as a gift.

Manendra had handed Jimmy the worn leather volume covered in Chinese characters on his final day of work opened to a page somewhere in the middle. There was one sentence that the technician had highlighted for the Mayor's benefit-- "The more you read and learn, the less your adversary will know." Manendra had explained to him that Sun Tzu was a Chinese general and military stratgist from the 6th century BC. Chu had played it off as if he had known all about the author of the great work all along, but in truth it was a split second decision. I made the decision, he thought, and if I have to call Manendra again, who the fuck cares anyway. I own him and his company. They're my pawns. So far, the new SOPHI has been very helpful. He ashed his cigar.

"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness, " the Mayor read. I think I'll change my last name to Tzu, he thought.

The Mayor put down the book, and laid his cigar in a pewter ashtray.

"SOPHI!" he said. He stood up and began pacing the room. The holographic image of a young dark haired girl in samurai armor appeared before him.

"Yes, Sir? Would you like some strategic advice?" the flickering girl moved closer to the Mayor.

"Actually its a personal and practical thing. I would like to change my last name to Tzu. How hard would that be?" he asked, picking up his cigar again.

"Not hard at all sir, you are the Mayor after all."

"Do it." he said. He took a long drag off of his cigar, and grabbed the leather volume.

"Yes, sir." She said.

"Great. How long will it take?" he inquired.

"Its already done. Afterall, " SOPHI said, "Speed is the essence of war." an uncharacteristic smirk appeared on her holographic visage.

* * *

Mayor Jimmy Tsu sat at his desk, his copy of The Art of War in one hand, a vial of Cobol, the new drug on the street in the other. He sniffed the intoxicating aroma of the vial and began reading from the book.

Suddenly, a gong sounded and SOPHI appeared.

"What now?" roiled the mayor.

"Mayor, with all due respect, I am but a lowly servant," she said, "but does not Sun Tsu say: 'the consummate leader cultivates the moral law, and strictly adheres to method and discipline; thus it is in his power to control success?' the AI queried. The image of the samurai woman approched the mayor at his desk. She reached for his hand, where he held the drug, but it passed through. She said "This Cobol is a distracion, and it prevents you from maintaining your method and discipline. Please put down the vial. I have MARGE from the 50th Precinct on the line. Lt. Dunwitty wishes to speak with you. You need to be focused."

Remind me to have her belief subroutine reprogrammed again. Call Applebaum. But she does give some useful advice...

"Fine, have it your way." He took another swig off of the vial and put it down again.

"Yes sir, I am asking MARGE to put the Captain on now. Just remember, 'A leader leads by example not by force...'" the small girl disappeared but her voice continued to resonate from a speaker on the mahogany desk. I have Lt. Dunwitty on the line now, shall I put him through?"

"Yes, by all means," the Mayor said as he wiped his nose with his sleeve. He put the Sun Tsu volume onto his desk.

"Hello, Mayor Chu?"

"Actually, Tom, I legally changed it to Tsu, but I may change it again," he said. "How can I help my favorite law enforcement officer today?"

"I know, Mr. Mayor, that you owe me a few favors, you said you would never forget what I did to help get you elected. I need you to help me."

"Yes?"

"Its my friend, Captain Ranjitsinhji, I owe him big, and he's asking a favor for his friend Tiny."

"Schwartzbaum-- of course I know who he is you idiot." the Mayor opened the desk drawer, and pulled out a Cuban cigar. He bit off the end, and then lit it.

"Well, sir, his synthetic limbs are slowly malfunctioning, and the only way to help him will be to get him a new body." the timid voice wheezed from the speaker.

Mayor Tsu blew out a plume of smoke. "How do you expect me to do that?" he asked. "I don't know a thing about medicine."

"Only you have the resources at your disposal to help him."

"So what can I do for you to nullify the favor you did for me?"

"Can you get someone to help him?"

"Not sure. I'll think about it. " he put his cigar down on the desk.

"Thank you, Sir."

"SOPHI, hang up call." he said, he picked up the vial of Cobol and held it to his nose, sniffing generously.

The holographic image of the AI appeared before him, arms crossed disapprovingly.

"I think you should help him. The Master says, "If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity. I Think you should help the Soldier Schwarzbaum" she intoned.

"Who asked you, you fucking algorithm?"

Shit, I'll probably have to have her reprogrammed again. Mayor Tsu mused.

In Search Of... Pt IX

2008-12-22T08:55:00.003-08:00

by Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

Elijah Kaczmerak’s throat rattled, his coughs insistent as he spit blood into his handkerchief. Gregory stood close by, fearful the old man might collapse.

“Where’s that *cough* goddamn doctor?” In the weeks Dr. Ziantara had been at the house, she had yet to find a new mixture to help the old man.

“I’m not sure, sir.” Gregory winced as he spoke.

“Fuckin’ cunt.” Tears slipped from Kaczmerak’s weathered eyes as he gasped for air, pounding the console on his chair in frustration.

“Fuck!!” The word echoed off the high ceiling as the leather-bound books inhabiting the shelves absorbed the rest of his cry.

Sylindra Ziantara walked into the library, soft shoes masking the doctor’s approach. “Elijah, I’ve told you to stop acting like a child. You can’t expect to get better if you insist on being foolish.”

The old man glared at the doctor as she approached him. “What the fuck *cough* have you got for me?”

“I decided to try something different. I took one of the vials left and mixed Methandrostenolone with your DNA sample. Theoretically, it should bolster this sample enough to cultivate a new batch of stem cells.” Her voice trailed off, the final word hanging between them.

As wasted as he was, Kaczmerak still caught the hesitance in her voice. “What the hell are you not telling me? *cough* And don’t bullshit me doctor *cough* I don’t need that from you.”

“If it works – and there’s no guarantee it will – I don’t expect these cells to hold up very long. You need a donor if you want to see your next birthday, Elijah.”

“Don’t fucking cry over me *cough* I’ll most likely outlive you.

*cough* “When the fuck *cough* will it be *cough* ready?” Kaczmerak doubled over as another fit took hold of his body. Blood spattered the back of his hands as mucous trickled from his nostrils. Sylindra knelt beside the old man “it’s okay” and rubbed his back as she took one of his hands “it’ll be all right” in hers, trying to will the man’s pain away “I will find something.”

Gregory watched for a minute and then exited silently from the room.

It was nearly four minutes before Elijah was able to catch his breath, the air rattling in his throat as it passed over his scarred esophagus. “How much time?” he whispered.

“Three months. Maybe six –”

“No, you dumb bitch. How long until the batch is ready?” Elijah dropped his head, closed his eyes, wouldn’t look at her.

“Oh,” she said. “It should be ready by the end of the day.”

“Good,” said Kaczmerak. “Get me a glass of water. Then you can leave.”

“Okay.”

•••

“Hey. Wake up.”

Karen Kaczmerak opened her eyes, squinting at the harsh light that streamed through the window.

“The rain stopped. We’re headin’ down to the square, check things out. You should come.” Jamal had a big grin on his face like some little kid that just got his first ice cream of the summer.

“No. I don’t think so,” said Karen as she brushed the hair from her face.

“What is that? You been here weeks now, that airsplint’s kept your ankle in place, an’ it should be healed already.

“So why can’t you come down to the square?” Jamal’s smile had vanished.

“I just don’t feel like it.” Karen pulled away, wrapping herself in her arms as if warding off the chill of a winter morning.

“Hey.” Jamal’s features softened as he crouched beside the mattress Karen was using for a bed. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just worried about you bein’ cooped up here all the time.

“It ain’t healthy. And it ain’t no way to find your brother.”

“Don’t talk about him!” Karen snapped and pulled her chin into her chest.

“Ehn.

“Whatever.” Jamal stood up, throwing his hands in the air as he shook his head. “You wanna keep feelin’ sorry for yourself, go ahead, but I’m not about to help you with your pity party. You decide you wanna see the world again, come on down and let me know. Maybe we talk then.”

Jamal was pulling the door closed as Karen spoke up. “Hey,” she said from beneath a mop of blond hair, her voice pulling the tall man back around the doorframe. “Are you leaving right now, or do I have time to freshen up?”

Jamal smiled thinly, curiosity filtering through his eyes. “I can prob’ly wait a couple minutes. But don’t take too long. Had a girl once was like that. Never could get anywhere on time, and she was a bitch anyway, so I had to drop her.

“Don’t make me drop you,” Jamal said with a wink.

Karen smiled as she got up from the mattress. “Don’t worry about that.

“I’m not a bitch.”

To be continued . . .

King of the Californias Pt. XII

2008-12-18T09:31:00.004-08:00

by Monk Eastman, NYC, NY, USA

I've drank everything from Gayo Sumatra to Ethiopian Horse Harar, and the black pudding swirling at the bottom of this tin cup is as likely coffee as it is drain cleaner or shaving cream. Nonetheless, at Cecilio Goncz's urging, I drink. One doesn't wisely turn down the man who bit the Vice-President of the United State's nose off and politely mailed it back to him.

The stuff tastes like someone boiled hot dogs in it, mixed with rancid anise and cardamom. My tongue tries to escape down the back of my throat. I immediately know what I'm drinking. From that time in Postville, following a White Supremist insurgency, and again in Jamaica when I covered the Maypen riots. This is not coffee. This is technology I'm drinking. Soluble communication safeguard, some call it. A friend at Interpol used to call the stuff 'baffle-aid'. It's basically a counter-jamming agent. With so many ways to record and transmit a conversation in the modern age, people have come up with jamming techniques that range from light-bending umbrellas that block satellite imaging, to personal radiation generators that create a EMP field, crashing most sophisticated technology (while incidentally giving cancer, as I understand it). What I just drank reinforces any kind of personal transmissions from the human body. In my case, that qualifies as the tracking culture I took before I left Chicago. That tells me we may be leaving this Oakland market soon. And that Cecilio Goncz wants people to know where we are.

"It's good, yeah?" Goncz says. "Best coffee in Northern California."

I choke out something like an affirmative. My gag reflex is dancing.

Montoya Dred gnaws his ragged, bleeding pinky nail. "Stuff tastes like something you'd season a rotting whale with."

"Subtle as a machete, Monty."

"Told you not be fucking calling me Monty," Dred says, spitting out a shred of fingernail. "I don't be calling you 'CeCe', do I? And shit, you know I could. Me and Kelz called you that all the time, back in the day. Cute little thing like you, back then. Shit, 'CeCe' was the least we called you, remember?"

"Ha," Goncz says, showing off his sharpened teeth. "Monty, my man, let's you and me be straight with each other for once, yeah? Because that mouth of yours is testing new fuckin' waters, homes, and that ain't exactly someplace you wanna swim. We ain't in L.A. and you ain't got the chops here that you had there. And even when you had 'em, you ain't had the chops to do much by me. Not once I was grown. And that's a long time, Monty. Long time. Maybe ten years back, you coulda got away with that mouth. Now? Shit, homes. You can't go ten minutes without throwing a fit. Man like you can't even shave without it turning into a suicide attempt. So keep that wiggly little prick of yours in your pants, yeah? You don't want a pissing match with me in front of the kid."

Dred barks something in Los Angeles pidgin. Goncz tenses, says something back. What I can pick out of the exchange amounts to mutual threats and something involving Mr Goncz's mother. And a Tijuana mule.

It's the same question I keep coming back to, listening to conversations like these. When The Little Big One hit, Los Angeles became this tiny island, run by over a dozen belligerent, dangerous pricks just like Goncz and Dred. How did anyone survive as long as they did out there? How do you keep any kind of balance of power in that kind of environment? Like a madhouse out there, everyone juggling chainsaws. And here they are in NoCal, the madhouse brought with them.

"Any time you wanna go, fuckface," Dred sneers in English, "I'm right here."

My father just smiles, those expensive shark grafts showing off every edge and barb. He waves at the coffee cart, and the scabrous old Okie limps over to refresh his cup with genuine coffee. Goncz passes it to me, lets me cleanse my palate. Second cup shows up in his hand. Nothing for Montoya Dred née Baruch Melman, who glares at us sidelong. His Pilkner's Condition appears to be flaring, left shoulder ticking as his eyes start blinking asynchronously. Keeps biting his nails.

"Get anything at the market?" Goncz asks me.

I tell him of the army surplus dealer down the way. How his salvage from Sacramento included American materiel.

"That's crazy," Goncz says. "You really think Los Nortes sent soldiers into Sac-town? That's just crazy. That'd be like declaring war or something, yeah? Illegal, if the Montreal Accords are right. And Hell, Los Nortes helped write Montreal, so why would they break it? Nah, that guy must be selling bootlegs. Couldn't be right."

He doesn't exactly sound convincing. I say as much.

Even Montoya Dred chuckles, like I've just said the obvious. Maybe I have. Goncz laughs too.

"Where's your boy?" Dred asks, chuckle dying.

"Why you call him my boy? You made the introduction, esé. I just made the link with Whitehead."

"He's your boy because he's late," Dred says. "And these ain't exactly things we should be talking about around..." He thumbs at me.

"The kid's here to interview me. Same thing he did with you, Monty. He knows what's what." Goncz turns to me. "Some things is News, some things is Shut-The-Fuck-Up. You know the difference, I figure, don't you?"

I nod.

Dred sneers. It is not comforting knowing that a man like this has anything but the best intentions.

"Don't sweat it, Monty."

"I told you not to be fucking calling me 'Monty', mother-raper."

"I'll stop calling you 'Monty' when you stop calling him my boy."

"Does that mean I'm not?" a new voice asks.

I turn to face a squat, tanned man in a single-piece suit, swirling blue and green pattern gliding across its surface. I know the face from my mobile journalists' collective. A few months back, I edited a retrospective one of our members did on the Alaskan Secession. Videos of this exact man pepper the story. Seven years ago, this was the premier arms dealer in North America, the man who put guns in the hands of the Great Kodiak Party.

Yonge Street Ali.

The Turk.

And me. Sitting between him and two of the western hemisphere's biggest celebrity war criminals. All the while, decompiler bombs drop in East Oakland. Sacramento takes on the wartime characteristics of 20th Century Mogadishu. Northern California's Prime Minister holds his country together with string and resin. And this.

I can actually feel history about to take a terrible left turn.

With me in the passenger seat.

Meditations of Jimmy Chu Part III

2008-12-07T12:33:00.001-08:00

by Rabbi Ben Newman, the Bronx, NY, USA

Manendra Applebaum glanced around the tight space into which the slightly unhinged Mayor of NYC had led him. The room was a world of dust and artifacts of a lost age. An Obama-Biden '08 pin was displayed in a mahogany japanese china cabinet next to a bottle of '08 Macon Villages Chardonnay. Next to the chardonnay laid an unboxed ipod holo, and several other rarities. All of the furniture followed this pattern. Japanese tansu chests filled with treasures from decades past aligned the walls. The floor was covered with tatami mats. 4 zaisu chairs surrounded a small japanese chest which served as a table on which sat a bottle of '09 Aberlour scotch.

The Mayor gestured to one of the zaisu and Manendra sat down uncomfortably and cleared his throat. Mayor Chu bent down over the chest and picked up the bottle of scotch, pulling two glasses out of the china cabinet. He poured one for Manendra and one for himself.

"Here." he said, handing the glass to the awkward looking man, "it looks and sounds like you really need this."

Manendra accepted the glass.

"Nice chest." commented the young technician from IHS, gesturing toward the piece of furniture in between the 4 zaisu chairs.

"You have nice taste, kid." the Mayor remarked, "you wouldn't know it, but its Karakuri tansu, traditional Japanese shit. The Mayor pulled open a drawer in the chest and took out a box of cigars. He took one out, lit it, and took a drag. "Such a chest of drawers, of tansu, in Japanese might look like ordinary Japanese furniture," he blew smoke in the IHS tech's face, "but, it has a trick drawer which can hide what the user puts inside as if by magic. The trick is for security, to keep valuables safe." he tapped on each of the sides of the chest, and a secret drawer popped up. "It took enormous amounts of time and effort to develop and manufacture these chests," he said, "and I keep only my most valuable secrets here. My inner sanctum, or something." he smiled at Manendra, who took his first swig of 49 year old scotch.

"Better than Lansky's '50 Talisker, that's for sure." he said, "Now Mr. Mayor, I'm sure you didn't bring me here to your inner sanctum to share 49 year old scotch.

"They got some smart ones at IHS," the Mayor spat out in a plume of smoke.

"You're having problems with SOPHI?" he asked.

"Does the Buddha shit in the woods?" the Mayor farted and took another drag, followed by a sip from his glass.

"Like I said over the phone, I only talked briefly with SOPHI, but she seems fine to me. I mean, what do you expect from a simulated intelligence?" the orange hued skin on his face seemed to sparkle with an enigmatic smile.

"Well she's not! She's been spouting Buddhist proverbs at me indiscriminantly, and..." the Mayor of NY blew up like a puffer fish.

Manendra raised his glass to his mouth, "Well that can't be all bad,"

"You have no idea. I just want you to program her, it, with a different philosophy" replied the Mayor.

"Oh, you mean to reprogram the Beliefs Subroutine..."

"Yeah. Whatever. Just do it."

"Well, it might be a bit complicated. I mean all of her systems are connected. It'll be like untangling a big ball of string..."

"Can you do it?

"I guess so, sure..."

"You assholes at IHS have been dicking me around for years. If its not SOPHI, its glitches in the security system. All I can say is, if you don't do this, the city's going to just have to find another contractor, and you, Mr. Applebaum, are going to have to find a new job."

"Do you enjoy intimidating people, Mr. Mayor? Because its totally counter-productive to actually motivating your people to get the job done. I developed the greater portion of the programming for every piece of technology you use." Manendra reached for the box which held the luxury cigars.

“Then why are you doing high-end plumbing?” the mayor opened the box and gave Manendra a stogie.

“Touché, Mr. Mayor.” Manendra lit the cigar as the Mayor held out an ancient Zippo flame.

"So you can do it?" the Mayor held up his glass as if to toast the new endeavor.

"Of course." Manendra said, raising his glass to meet that of Jimmy Chu. "So what do you want her new belief subroutine to be, once I untangle it?" He began to suck on his stogie.

"I don't fucking care," the Mayor was slurring his words through scotch scented lips, "just make it something that works."

"What do you mean 'something tht works'?" the technician asked, enjoying the unique situation that he had found himself in. "Mr. Mayor, you need to be specific, so that I get it right next time and you don't end up calling me in again." He took another drink of his ’09 whisky.

"Something that's practical, that gets the job done." The Mayor gestured inquisitively with the burning tip of his cigar.

"So... you want that I should program it to be a Pragmatist?" Manendra drawled.

"I need something with a little more umph. You know, SOPHI does give me advice on a day to basis on matters ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. I thought Buddhism was the thing when you guys first installed her, but now I'm thinkin' Buddhism's too tame, too dove-ish. A castrated tiger...I don't wanna machine that's gonna make me feel uncomfortable about my choices, my lifestyle, if you know what I mean." he took another deep swig from his glass, and then a long drag from his cigar, inhaling the smoke slowly. "I don't need a conscience or a fucking mother or a fucking wife, I need a trusted adviser. An Intelligence that will give me solid, practical advice that I can act on...." he paused for a moment, reflecting... "How about Sun Tsu?"

"Who?" Manendra asked.

"You know, the Art of War guy. Could you program her using that book?"

"I mean sure, in theory. But why bring me all the way in here to ask me? Why all the secrecy? I mean, I appreciate the scotch and the cigar..." a puzzled look scrunched Manendra's face.

"Fuck, you really are fucking dumb for an engineer. If 'she' knew what you were going to do, she'd try to defend herself."

"With all due respect, Mayor, I do know my business. She's not programmed to defend her ego. I should know," he said, "I'm the one who programmed her."

"Yeah, but I live with her." the Mayor remarked, finally relaxing down onto his zaisu.

"You're the one whose in charge, Mayor." Manendra said.

Caja Caliente

2008-12-02T08:49:00.001-08:00

by Castro Oakland

Baltimore, MD

April 14th, 2052, 11:22am

The man bellowed while wobbling on the edge of the curb at Broadway and Orleans. ““Big shiny ass buildings. I can’t see shit, I ‘ont even know where the damn liquor store at…they sell Schlitz in there?” he asked, pointing at one of the gleaming facades of the University Eastside Medical Village.

The soaring, demure curvature of girders and glass imparted an air of confidence in the cutting edge healing modalities contained therein, at least to the visionaries responsible for its creation. In reality, it was too big for healing, better imagined for profit, the intended function undermined by the overbearing scale of the campus. In the midst of it all was 1825 E. Monument Street. On the University’s map, the building is identified as Building 77, but in the streets of East Baltimore it’s known simply as Caja Caliente…the Hot Box.

Stella Koffla-Herrera sat in the bowels of the Hot Box in a mild state of panic. Her caseload was light today but Roger’s words from their morning conversation rang in her ears. “Stell, I don’t need you to love them, I need you to fix them, and document it…starting with the Favors file.” She tapped her fingers, waiting for the soothing effect of her Camophedrine™ to kick in. The intersection in her moral map where her disdain for corporate dictates crossed her need to engage in community service was jammed with unresolved decisions. Tameika Favors had become, as Roger so blithely stated, “a wrinkle to be ironed out”. The University’s intention to declare its 25-year Neighborhood Rejuvenation project a success was in its final stages, and cases like Tameika’s could make or break the quantitative value of the reports it planned to release.

“Ronny.” He looked up from his phone and frowned. “You look like you just finished a triathlon, you okay?” Tameika chuckled and thought, hardly. Her contractions were still about 15 minutes apart, but when they arrived, they felt like they were carrying four suitcases. Her Nana had suggested walking to the store to get bread, and even gave her cash, but promptly went mute when Tameika asked her to walk with her. The only thing she wanted to do now was purchase minutes for her phone so she could call Sedrick. “Ronny, I need some minutes and…” she gripped the counter and gasped as a contraction arrived. “And I need to sit down for a bit.” ‘Sit down?” “Yes, dammit, sit down.” “What are you having a baby or something?” Tameika scowled in response. Rujrajnee eyed her pensively as he opened the cashier area and slid a chair out. “How many minutes?” “400” she replied as she managed to slide an ancient bill under the slot. Rujrajnee sighed; this was too much excitement for him- Meeka looked as if she may have the baby right here. “Meeka, do you want me to call somebody for you?” Tameika sat up quickly. “Hell no! That’s why I bought those minutes, I’ve got some folks to call.” Rujrajnee could see the fear through her glare; he had seen his business shrink with his customers being ‘relocated’. The fact she used legacy bills to purchase things indicated to him that if she was pregnant, this baby was a risk.

September 18th, 2051, 9:45am

Stella pulled up to the curb and glanced at the screen on her workbook. The id-bot had scanned and found that Tameika’s id was present at the address, 418 N. Luzerne Avenue. Since the inception of the National ID law over 40 years ago, it has been illegal to be outside your home without your id, thus making the id-bot utility, initially patented as a lost pet finder, as the de facto people locator for government and corporate agencies. Stella rubbed her temple; she had not seen Tameika in two months, and Tameika had not called until yesterday. Tameika left a succinct vmail, “Stella, seriously, fuck you …you know why.” Blip. In the University database, Stella saw that Tameika’s public assistance funds were frozen, and the family file was marked ‘relocation needed’ because two of Tameika’s cousins, Troy and JoMarr, listed 418 Luzerne as their primary residence. Both had returned home from prison and were identified as carriers of Bay Disease. Now she was standing on the stoop of the Favor’s row home, listening as Google, the family’s Rottweiler, barked and pawed the inside of the front door.

LaTreese Favors was incredulous. She looked back at the security channel on her TV and couldn’t believe that the girl had the gall to be standing on her stoop. Her vmail was inundated with messages from the Research Annex’s relocation assistance office. “These motherfuckers think it’s a done deal,” she seethed as she ambled towards the door. LaTreese grabbed Google by the collar and shooed him down the basement stairs. She then called out to Dell, her brother. “Dell, make sure Meek stays upstairs; I gotta deal with the door.” LaTreese Favor’s smile when she opened the door was disarming. “Well, Ms. Stella, the school sent you here to help us poor darkies pack?” The smile turned cold. “Mrs. Favors, I-I-I-uh, know this is awkward, but I’m really here to help.” LaTreese held up her finger, “And how is that? With moving vouchers?” Stella’s mind was blank as the older woman stepped onto the stoop. “Let me tell you something, my family has OWNED this house for 113 years. Since June 5th, 1938, to be exact. Six generations of Favors have lived here, and another six will, whether you, the University, or whoever like it or not.” “I don’t want you to have to leave, Mrs. Favors,” Stella interjected. “You may not but who are you? You are the priest to their slave trader, coming up in here talking about helping, but where were you when the Moody’s were ‘relocated’? The Sanders family? Morelands? LaTreese held her ear in front of Stella’s face for effect. “You talk about working hard to help, but when families needed help, where were you?” She poked Stella, “You people have the nerve to walk around talking about ‘Not in my backyard’, while snatching our homes out from under us. Well guess what bitch, not in my yard, house, wherever. I don’t want to see you around here anymore, because all you’ve done is brought trouble.” The door hadn’t even slammed before Stella’s tears fell. LaTreese reopened the door momentarily to shout, “What kind of people freeze someone’s card when they buying vitamins?”

April 14th, 2052, 12:15pm

Sedrick got off of the bus and was crossing the street to the store when he saw the car. It was familiar, but he couldn’t pull into his mind who it was until he saw the driver. It was that woman from the University that used to always be around Tameika. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was posted up on the same block. “Ooh, that’s why I can’t stay around here’, these University people are a trip,” he mused. He wanted to get to the store, scoop Meek, and get a hack over to Titi Mirabella’s in Park Heights. Meek could have the baby at Titi’s and then they could figure out how to deal with things from there. Sedrick stopped to call the hack. “Damn,” he said as the vmail came up again. “You are Sedrick, right?” he hadn’t seen her walk up. “Yeah, I know who you are too, and if I were you, I’d get right back in the car.” “I know Tameika and her family are angry, but the only way I can help is if you let me, because there are other people I work with who don’t care about her like I do.” Stella cursed herself on the inside for being so close to tears. Sedrick glared and walked into the store, closing the door behind him.

Tameika was relieved. Sedrick grabbed the mop Tameika was holding and looked at Rujrajnee, “What the hell is this?” “My water broke.” As he wiped the floor, the door opened again. Tameika’s legs went limp. “Sedrick we need to leave now.” Stella steeled herself, “Tameika, I know you don’t want to hurt your family, but you can’t just have this child in the street…” “In the street?” Tameika yelled. “So you want me to go to your hospital, so they can stick me full of drugs, take my baby and send me and my family out to the county? Sedrick…” Sedrick put the mop to the side and called the hack, “Where are you man? Cool, we are at Lakewood and Fayette. Yeah that one.” Sedrick gently took Tameika by the waist with one hand and grabbed her backpack with the other. “You want to help?” he said to Stella, “then get the door.” Stella pushed the door open, her eyes meeting Tameika’s as she walked out. “I wish you would let me help.” Tameika turned to her just before she got into the cab. “You just did.” With that the door shut and the car sped away.

Meditations of Mayor Chu, Pt II

2008-11-17T07:26:00.002-08:00

by Rabbi Ben Newman, The Bronx, NY

Mayor Jimmy Chu was curled up on the floor of his office in front of the statue of the emaciated Buddha, his eyelids glued shut. The soft gong of the interoffice connection sounded repeatedly, and he began to stir. He sat up and wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"Good morning, Sir... or should I say good evening...?" Sophi's calm voice mocked from the speaker on his desk.

"What time is it?" the Mayor got to his feet and began to disrobe. He smelled the putrid odors of the previous nights' binge and winced. I must have fucking fell asleep after my meditations. Another day wasted.... I need to get control of myself, he thought.

"Seven thirty PM. You have been sleeping for the past 13 hours." Sophi's image looked warmly at the Mayor from the screen on his desk, and smiled coquetishly.

"Why didn't you wake me earlier? You have strict instructions to not let me sleep more than 4 and 1/2 hours at a time." he commented, grimacing at the screen.

"I thought you needed the rest after yesterday, and there was no urgent business, so I let you sleep."

Fucking piece of shit, Mayor Chu thought, it can't even follow simple instructions. He reached into the cabinet next to the Buddha statue, pulled out a stick of incense, and lit it.

"Fine," he conceded to the compiled intelligence, "just let me complete my nightly meditation, and then you can fill me in on my schedule. I do have a city to run, after all."

"Yes, sir. You do have a city to run..." Sophi's icon faded from the screen replaced by pictures of a bamboo forest.

How can she treat me like shit and get away with it?! At the very least, I've gotta call IHS and have her program re-written to be more subservient, he thought, as he sat down on the cushion in front of the Buddha. He bowed three times, and began intoning his mantra...

* * *

Manendra Applebaum sat in IHS cubicle 5A, a single tensile strand of wire protruding from his brainstem, snaking itself along his desk
and up into the switchboard. He glanced at the digital time display in the upper-right corner of his field of vision. 7:59pm.

"You ready da go home?" A voice sounded from the cubicle in front of him.

"You bet, Howie, just let me finish up, grab my jacket, and we're good to go." he chewed absently on his fingernail, and looked over at his black overcoat.

"Where you wanna to go," Howie, a plump blond haired blue eyed samoan in a blue tie and striped suit, peered into Manendra's cubicle, "Lansky's?"

"Why would today be different?... I sure am ready for a pint!"

"You ain't kiddin," Howie said, then quickly disappeared again like a mole popping back down into its hole.

"Oh, wait," Manendra said, looking up into the left corner of his vision, "I have to take this call--it says the boss is putting it through on his own authority--must be a VIP. Oy, its from SOPHI-- means its the Mayor's office."

"Hello, Tech Services, Manendra Applebaum speaking..."

Hello, Manendra, I have the Mayor here, please hold, he is briefly indisposed as he is finishing his nightly meditation...

SOPHI's voice was familiar to Manendra, as were the voices of all of IHS's compiled intelligences.

"What seems to be the problem SOPHI?" Manendra spoke to the air in front of him, responding to the electronic voice in his ear.

Its a technical problem, Manendra,

"Of course its a technical problem," replied Manendra, "you are calling tech services...what is the exact nature of the problem?"

I cannot...I cannot identify the nature of the problem.

"How can this be, don't you have self diagnostics?"

Self diagnostics show no abnormalities in my hardware or software.

"So why are you calling?"

You had better talk to Mayor Chu.

"Ah, I see, its one of those unknown unknowns, a thing you don't know that you don't know..."

"Are you talking to me?" the stern but faint drawl of the mayor of NY interrupted.

"Oh-- no sir. I was talking to...to...the... compiled intelligence sir"

"You were talking to the program? Well that's why I'm calling, she's got a major problem. Didn't you notice?"

"It seemed to me that she works very well sir," Manendra glanced nervously up at the clock in his upper right field of vision.

"In that case, all you have to know is that she is malfunctioning, and that your boss told you to do whatever I say. I thought Sophi was supposed to be state of the art technology. Get up here immediately and fix her, or replace her, or whatever, or I'll replace you and your damned IHS Corporation." The voice whined in Manendra's left ear, and he automatically grabbed it to muffle the sound. "I'll be there immediately sir...end call" Manendra took his hand off of his ear, breathed a sigh, and glanced one last time at the upper right hand corner of his vision. 8:14pm.

"It looks like you'll have to go to Lansky's on your own tonight, Howie," he yelled through the wall, but there was no reply.

* *
Though Manendra Applebaum was disconnected from the network, he was still able to access his desktop from his eyepiece and he saw in the upper right hand corner of his vision that it was 9pm. He looked up at the office building that housed the Mayor's office, and took a deep breath. Ok, here comes the housecall of my life, he thought.

The mayor's mansion looked like it had emerged from an art deco Medieval castle that had been transported into the 22nd century, technological steeples which overshadowed the granduer of nyc, and Manendra felt small. As he walked up to the doors to the building, he looked up at the laser camera. It scanned his eyepiece, and the glass doors snapped open.

"Manendra Applebaum, please go to the 5th floor," a synthesized voice suggested. Applebaum remembered having helped engineer that security system's voice several years earlier in his first few years at IHS. Now where am I, he thought, doing tech-support house calls for the mayor during my free time? I was once an artist. I helped design all of this. Now, I am a glorified janitor.

He emerged from the elevator and stood in the front hallway of the mayor's office. There sat the holographic image of Sophi on a holographic chair.

"Please sit down, the mayor will be with you in just a minute, Manendra," she said, pointing towards a chair.

"Is it real?" he asked.

"Why don't you sit down on it and see for yourself." she winked.

Manendra squatted his legs like a flamenco and wiggled his butt towards the chair, and when he felt it was solid, sat down.

"Thanks," he said, and then after a pensive moment, "do you remember me?'

"What do you mean Manendra?" asked the compiled intelligence, "Of course my memory banks hold a lot of data about you."

"That's not what I mean." he said, looking directly at the holographic woman. "Do you remember how I helped design you, and that I was there when you were first activated?"

"What makes you think that I would not still contain a recording of those experiences in my data banks?" she said simply, "Do you want me to show you an audio-visual reproduction of those events?"

"No, thank you," commented Applebaum, "I was looking for something more emotional, I guess."

A gong sounded.

"The Mayor will see you now," Sophi looked at Applebaum and gestured toward the mayor's byzantine doors.

"Are the doors holographic too?" Applebaum joked as he pushed open the double doors of mayor Chu's office.

* * *

"Hello Mayor, my name's Manendra Applebaum, and I'm from IHS--we spoke earlier..." he held out his hand expectantly.

The mayor of NY met his gaze but not his hand. He smiled at the man from the computer company and whispered like a conspiring thiief,

"I think we need to go somewhere else..."

"What?" Manendra began to absently chew the cuticles on his thumb, now that he had already bitten off the nail.

The Mayor's eyes indicated a small door behind a statue of the Buddha that sat in a corner of his office that served as the meditation area. The door was just big enough to fit a grown man in a stooped position.The mayor put his hand on the door, there was the soft sound of a lock releasing, and the door opened. The Mayor entered, stooped over, and beckoned Manendra to follow.

They walked, stooped over down a narrow hallway which opened on to a room, which appeared as if it had emerged from the 20th century, where they could stand up straight. The mayor placed his hand on the doorpost from which they had emerged, and the door shut.

The Working Man's Blue's, Pt III

2008-11-08T07:33:00.002-08:00

by R. Soon, Atlanta, GA

I-75 Southbound, between Cincinnati and Lexington

“*wheeze* …where are we?”

“Oh, you’re awake, good…we just crossed into Kentucky. You were asleep for a while.”

“I wasn’t asleep, I was knocked out by your soundbox,” Barry grumbled irritably from his supine position in the back seat. He coughed and wheezed again. “Did you give me bronchitis too?”

Arash chuckled. “No, Grandpa, it’s probably the altitude—“

“And how do I know you’re anyone but some crazy terrorist? The hell kind of kid kidnaps his own grandfather against his will?” Barry’s voice began to rise, accompanied by him sitting up and leaning forward accusatorily. “Not to mention my son didn’t have any children when he died, so as far as I’m concerned, you’re some lowlife who’s ruining my chance at a peaceful retirement—“

“Ssshhh…Saif is asleep,” Arash said quietly, directing a meaningful glance into the rear-view mirror at Barry, who glared back but fell silent, save for a controlled wheeze. Inwardly, Arash was ready to start a shouting match with the almost-toothless, infuriatingly stubborn old man, but he ignored the prickling heat and focused on driving, ignoring his nauseatingly sandpapery-feeling eyes as he strained to see the road with the car’s failing headlights.

After a moment, he continued in a low voice, “Grandpa, your son’s name was Thomas, right?” He felt Barry staring at him icily, now, even as he kept his eyes on the road ahead. “My father’s name was Thomas. And his girlfriend, soon to be his wife, her name was—well, is—Rashida. My mom’s name is Rashida…and she was carrying me when Dad died.” The stories she told him were all Arash knew of his father, but as he spoke, he could feel the older man’s emotions spilling into the car, and her words began to churn in his mind with a sense of loss he hadn’t felt before.

“My God…Rashida,” Barry half-whispered throatily, his irritation gone and replaced by the welling of tears in his eyes. Poor guy’s been through so much, Arash thought, even as he felt himself having to choke his own back.

In no time the older man was sobbing. “She was going to make him such a great wife, Rashida was…and they had already started looking at houses in East Cleveland, when that damn factory….” He faded into soft weeping punctuated by hoarse breaths. Arash felt himself regain control, and he stole comforting peeks at his son in the passenger seat, fast asleep.

They had captured one of the metal-tentacled guards a while back, and experiments on it yielded an immobilizing soundbox hack which granted Arash’s team a way thru the patrol line under cover of night, and two fences and four sleeping barracks tents later, they found the man who matched Mom’s painstaking description, albeit disguised by 30 years of time since she had last seen him. He had been taking a piss off of a slope down to a railroad, and nearly fell when he turned around and saw what probably looked like four ninjas creeping up. Arash had tried to calm him down and tell him about the plan to break him out, but the blustery old man was acting like he didn’t want to leave. “I don’t have a grandson!” he had shouted, red-faced, taking off at a fast limp toward the prison camp’s center. “I don’t know who the hell you are, but security won’t care—“ and one of the guerrillas had moved in swiftly and put a peaceful, meditative soundbox up to Barry’s ear. While not being particularly large, he was amazingly heavy; and squeezing him through the fences while keeping nervous eyes out for patrolmen fatigued everyone thoroughly.

Arash had dropped the team back off at the Shaker Square base, picked up Saif and a few supplies, and with hushed farewells to his comrades, set out toward Atlanta in his hideously ancient ’12 Cherokee. Atlanta was where Mom was, and just south of Lexington was a forward base for the Cleveland Reclamation Project, probably the only safe place to get gas for most of the trip down. Halliworks apparently had no idea they existed, and as far as they had spread out, Lexington was as close as the Project could operate on a larger scale while preserving that invisbility. The tiny, camouflaged hideout at Shaker Square was hardly more than a library and temporary supply depot, and the men still there were already packing up to head down a couple of hours behind the Cherokee. On the silent highway, two vehicles together would have been too suspicious, so the timing was good even if coincidental.

Nevertheless, he had worried for a few miles before finally settling into the journey, and of course Barry had come to not long after.

As Arash drove on, he thought back to when he’d first found out that his grandfather, now once more asleep in the back seat judging by the subdued, regular wheezing, had been alive and supposedly a prisoner at the Halliworks camp. That had been what…a year ago? Around that. Naturally he had started drawing up a rescue plan almost immediately, but it had taken forever to get the camouflage generator needed to set up a camp right in Cleveland. More importantly, it had taken some convincing of the Project leaders to let him undertake the operation, even taking badly needed men with him, on the eve of an assault designed to strike a decisive blow against Halliworks’ military assets. In fact, because of the rescue, he would probably still be in Atlanta when the Project moved north into Halliworks territory.

And yet here he was, having had to carry his target, his until-recently-mythical grandfather, out unconscious! He hadn’t wanted to be rescued from that hellpit!

Grandpa would adjust soon enough, Arash decided for the twentieth time. After all, his veritable daughter-in-law was waiting for him, he had a great grandson to spoil, and he wouldn’t have to work anymore. What better retirement was there than that? Arash glanced at his son, smiled inwardly, and returned his attention to the dark highway, entertaining thoughts about how happy his mom would be to see all of them.

King of the Californias Pt XI

2008-07-14T09:22:00.003-07:00

by Monk Eastman, NYC, USA

I recognize Montoya Dred by his painfully chalky skin, visible from the other side of the market as he reclines by a tiny folding table, chipped little espresso cup balanced on his egg-shaped belly, coffee splashing all over his flower-print shirt. When I say chalky, let me be clear: Dred's skin is ashy, like a fine dust has settled on him. Dull as marble, undercut only by the Niagara of sweat crashing down his face and neck. Soaked up by thinning mud-colored hair, looking like he's spent the day hiking in a rainforest, followed by a perpetual funk of fermenting milk and orange peels. Facial tics, nail biting, constant palsy in his hands, insomnia, scratching until his skin is raw--Pilkner's Condition, they call it. Damage to his thyroid. Ongoing nervequakes. Developed back in LA, when he strung himself out on supamedrin and thurgoprexin to stay awake for weeks at a stretch.

This was when he was Kelvin Black's war chief, of course, lean muscle swabbed in camouflage and body armor. These days, it's kind of difficult to imagine this palsied, stuttering ghost as the man who forced submission from a professional baby-killer like General Li Shen (affectionately known as 'Genocide Li' to the survivors of Taipei). The same man whose tactics are studied at West Point, King's War College, the Robb Institute. Montoya Dred: holy terror of southwest Los Angeles, reduced to a spastic hobo, fallen and lame--although (perhaps thankfully) not under his real name. 'Montoya Dred' was something Kelvin Black cooked up in the aftermath of a khat-and-gangrape binge, most likely atop the ruins of Universal Studios. The man who turned back five armies at Laguna Beach was born Baruch Melman, originally of Royal Oaks, Michigan.

How do I know?

He was one of the first expats I interviewed for my project. Eighteen months back, in a musty motel room, wallpaper peeling, shouting over the boom of transports leaving orbit from nearby Newark Liberty. In between flights, he told me he was consulting with a few different people. 'Little things,' he said, which I suppose was a polite way to say 'training death squads'. Since that interview, Melman has popped up in Hanzhou, Naxalstan, Brunei, Wahabi Arabia, Juarez and Iowa, always just ahead of some noteworthy crime against the species--and now he's here, which does not auger well for the Republic of Northern California.

Sometimes it feels as though this project of mine has made tracking these creatures my primary function. Meticulous records of even their most casual antics are shared and updated by a network of people you could characterize as a cult, I suppose, who determined from Melman's travel patterns and spending habits that he is never paid more than travel costs and a hot meal, and never stays in one place more than a few weeks. The price of his life, it seems, is to be indentured servant to the world's quiet kingmakers and their backroom bureaucracies. No trials for Baruch Melman. Much too valuable an asset as he is.

Seeing him here, sipping coffee with Cecilio Goncz, curdles something in my stomach. There's a fundamental wrongness to them taking coffee in the middle of a crowded market, children chasing each other around their ankles, families shopping, lovers laughing, kissing, holding hands...

Realistically, Goncz and Melman would slaughter the whole market between sips of their coffee, if need dictated. Yet here they are, politely slurping Guatemalan Antigua like they're functional, healthy members of the human tribe, discussing the weather, current events, energy prices on the Chicago Wind and Fuel Exchange...

I reach the table, find Mr Goncz in his trademark sunglasses, shirtless, body a mosaic of living tattoos, grinding together across a scarred, brown body starting to show the sag of age. Starched, creased khakis, held high on his waist by black suspenders. Vintage canvas trainers on his feet. Jesus bleeds perpetually from the cross on his chest, crown of thorns dragging furrows into his brow every time he shakes his head. Some people add audio to their animated body art, little generic screams radiating from their tortured Jesuses as they pass you on the street. Mr Goncz has thankfully foregone this feature. As livetattoos go, his is almost tasteful.

"Funny running into you like this, huh?" Goncz chuckles. "You know my man, Monty, I think."

"Don't be calling me fucking 'Monty'," Melman grumbles, "I God-damn told you, already."

Goncz replies in a mash of maybe eight languages. Whatever he says, Melman rolls his eyes, throws the rest of his coffee back, and stares absently at his fingernails, which I see have been chewed to bloody nubs.

"Take a seat," Mr Goncz offers. "Have some coffee. It's excellent."

"Don't be listening to prickfuck, over here," Melman warns. "The coffee tastes like it was made by boiling a pack of rat terriers."

"You'll like it," Mr Goncz says smoothly, pouring me a cup from a dented metal pot. "Trust me."

Melman laughter sounds like a mule choking.

I swish around the nicked cup. The coffee's thick as horse spit. I let it cool on the table, and casually ask Mr Melman what brings him to NoCal.

"Eh," he mutters, left cheek twitching like a butterfly with a pin through it. "You know. Little things. Consulting. The usual."

I think of last night's bombardment of the Far East End, and something tightens in my throat. How would I tag this story? What would it net me to air this pair out to the press? Allied Info would pay me a panda's weight in gold to publicize two of the century's greatest atrocity-makers in Oakland, operating in plain sight of the authorities. Goncz would gut me like a trout, of course, but I'd die a rich man, having done my civic duty outing him and his cohort. Because given the less than jovial basis of their relationship, I'd venture their coffee klatsch has nothing to do with catching up on old times. There are plans in the ether for NoCal.

And I genuinely wonder if any of us will survive them.

In Search Of..., Pt VIII

2008-07-06T07:19:00.001-07:00

By Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

Karen landed on the branch below, air lurching from her chest as her head cracked against its surface, stars cascading before her eyes. Her laptop dropped onto her chest, held tight with one hand as the other searched for purchase, anything that might halt her descent.

Hitting another branch, she slipped around its circumference as bark grated skin, ripping away the outer layers. Shivers ran up her arm as her fingers clenched onto the rough bark. Nerve endings screamed as the nails of her left hand bent back, torn from the skin. Pain seared through her fingers, and for a moment the knot growing at the base of her skull was forgotten. The skid slowed as Karen’s body fell open to the world, dangling from her tree house.

Karen’s ankle felt like it was being held in a vise. A gnarled grunt fell through the leaves and her anxiety escalated.

She kicked and shook, trying to dislodge her attacker, unmindful of the consequences. The grunt turned to a laugh, and the grip on her leg was released. Karen toppled over the edge of the branch, pinwheeling around its fulcrum. Her eyes opened wide as she fell through the lower branches, the ground rising to meet her.

Lungs collapsed once more as pressure wrapped around Karen’s skull shooting fireworks across her vision.

She struggled to push off the ground, arms pulsing with pain as they gave out dropping her back into the earth, soil and grass caking her teeth. Lifting her head, Karen spit hard and scanned the ground. She eyed her computer, which had fallen to one side, and dragged herself forward, her knees digging ruts in the soft earth.

Karen’s attacker dropped from the tree onto her leg, snapping the bone just above the ankle. She writhed, screaming in pain. Curled into a ball, she reached for her ankle, trying to hold it together as bolts of agony rippled across her body. Nausea washed over Karen as she struggled not to pass out, dropping her head back to the ground.

“Din’t no one tell you, ya gotta pay a tax to sleep here?” The voice was deep and harsh.

“So where’s payment?” Tears came to Karen’s eyes, slid down her cheek. She looked to her laptop. It had a taser app in its skin, but the short distance seemed like miles. Karen couldn’t speak, had no money even if she could bargain. Her body went limp, and she gave up.

“Hey, fucker!” Another voice, almost as deep, just above her.

The first voice countered as words jumbled together, an aural crossword that made no sense to Karen. She tried to decipher words, but her body pulled away, hearing muddied as if she were being submerged in water.

And then Karen remembered nothing.

•••

“hey. wake up.” Karen’s mind rose from consciousness. For a minute she was unsure where she was, but the pain throbbing across her leg brought everything back into sharp focus. She moaned reflexively and tried to talk but nothing came out.

“Hold still. I got friends comin’. You can crash with us. It ain’t much, but you’ll be able to rest.” Karen recognized the second voice from earlier, but it was softer now. Its baritone reverberated through her fingers, soothing her just a bit.

“Why,” Karen whispered.

His voice became animated. “Someone got ta take care of our city. Ain’t no one else steppin’ up.

“Now be quiet, rest.” He sounded almost ministerial and Karen smiled despite the pain. She opened her eyes to look at him, but they were beneath the oak’s wide canopy and his face was painted with shadow.

“What about – ah!” Karen sat up quickly and pain railed across the left side of her body. Her head swam as she clutched her ankle, panting with the exertion.

“It’s here. I din’t unlock it.” His voice was stern, frustration creeping around the edges. “Now lie down or we can’t help you.”

Karen did as she was told. She fell back into his hands and gave in to the pain, allowing her eyes roll up into her head.

“There ya go. Just rest easy.” Karen felt he must have given her something for the pain. Images swam before her eyes – some familiar, others lacking context.

And she latched on to one, forcing a final gasp. “Do you know Cedric Kaczmerak? Can you help me find him?”

But her voice trailed off and she slept before a response was forthcoming.

To be continued . . .

In Search Of...Pt VII

2008-06-17T09:46:00.002-07:00

By Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

It was later than Karen would have preferred. Three weeks in the city and she had yet to acclimate fully; she couldn’t remember landmarks, seemed unable to focus. Anxiety followed her like a stray dog. Karen would catch herself looking over her shoulder, hoping not to get caught staring. It was more than she had expected and Karen wondered if coming here was a bad decision.

Retracing her day, Karen tried to find the time that had gone missing. As she’d wandered a derelict building near Highbridge Park a heavy veil had fallen across the city. Even with the constellation of lights burning from shops and bodegas and above the odd street corner, there was something in the night that clutched at Karen’s stomach. For years she had refused to give in to her father’s bullying, but this feeling in the pit of her stomach wouldn’t go away.

Karen’s feet beat out a rapid staccato on the pavement as she weaved through small crowds of people, head down, holding tight what items she’d found, her mind continuing to roll back over the day.

She had been scavenging, and there was so much to go through up at Highbridge. Unlike her struggle with New York’s maze of concrete and broken tar, Karen had adapted quickly to the barter system on the street, though it was still difficult at times for her to differentiate items of value from ones of little import. Indecision had kept her occupied, meandering through the refuse of others’ lives, the taint of this peculiar voyeurism clinging to her long after she left.

Fatigue weighed heavy on her eyelids as Karen turned east on to MLK Boulevard. Rubbing at the sleep setting in, Karen glanced around at the fires now dotting the alleys. Gathering places for scores of pilgrims in search of the American dream, they – like Karen – had encountered little more than a nightmare. She could not stand it for long and had to look away, raising her head to the dim moon above, its ghost image piercing the gray clouds skimming by.

What was she doing here?

Money stolen during passage to the city had long since evaporated. Karen had expected to find work easily; anything would have been acceptable. She only needed enough to keep afloat while she searched for Cedric, but there seemed even less opportunity here for Karen than if she had stayed in Maine. She tried turning tricks but was lacking an exotic look with no body modifications, which most of those she’d encountered were looking for. So she got by, rummaging through garbage piles and rusted dumpsters for something to trade – or worse, something to eat. It had sustained her so far, but each day was tougher than the last.

Things weren’t going as planned.

One Hundred-Twelfth Street loomed ahead (where had the other streets gone?) and her steps became lighter. Closing the last two blocks, she turned onto Central Park North. She wanted to run but her legs resisted; the Thai noodles from earlier had long since burned out.

A tall man was approaching from the opposite end of the park. He wore a ball cap, his face lost in shadow. Karen’s pace slowed as he passed her, his smile making the hair on her neck stand up. She turned to follow his progress, the glow of the street light falling on a tattoo at the nape of his neck, coruscating in a swirl of Asian symbols. Karen had no idea what it said, but was happy to see him continue on without giving her a second glance.

She gave the man a few more steps before turning back toward her goal, stepping from the hard black onto soft green and walked west to a close clump of trees. In the middle, a massive oak rose above them all, its trunk unlike anything she’d seen in Maine. Karen was home.

Ignoring the tension still resting on her shoulders, Karen mounted the lower branches and climbed a third of the way up. Two large branches crossed at this point, forming a cradle for Karen’s tired body. Pulling what she’d found from inside her jacket, she slid the items into the small opening just above her head.

Pulling down her backpack, she slid her laptop out as leaves below her rustled. Karen’s breath caught in her throat as a lower limb creaked and someone grabbed her ankle, dragging Karen from her perch.

To be continued . . .

King of the Californias Pt X

2008-06-04T20:23:00.016-07:00

by Monk Eastman, New York City, NY, USA

The corner of Broadway and Embarcadero smells like fresh earth and mother ocean. The sea breeze is signature California: rolls across me like Nirvana. My shoulders unbunch. The tension in the middle of my forehead loosens. Suddenly I'm grinning like some kind of drugged idiot. Back in the 20s, a professor at UC-SB theorized the local flora stimulated human production of endorphins––California as pheromonal Feelgood Factory. Only the Department of Tourism was sold on the theory, but fresh-faced tourists from every corner of the globe still walk, bicycle, and skate past, that same subtle grin on their mugs. It's got mythical qualities, California, and when you've got it good, the place is Eden.

Across the street, construction on the Memorial Promenade continues. They wanted antique, sun-bleached cobblestone walk, and have actual workmen digging up Embarcadero all the way to East Street: picks and shovels, grunting and sweating. What they used to call 'honest work' before that kind of labor became pointless. Some would argue when I say 'pointless'. After all, could an engineering firm wave a magic wand and generate the same rustic artisanship? Would there be the quaint imperfections of hand-quarried stone? Any good fabrication engineer would agree with me and tell you that science has square-rooted the subtlety of natural-looking limestone down to the final decimal. That as a civilization, we're so far removed from even knowing what natural quarried stone looks like; the fabricated stuff is indistinguishable. Antiquarians swear we'd know the difference, though. Normally, I'd ridicule, except I can taste the difference between locally-farmed coffee and the fabricated stuff, which isn't supposed to happen. Score one for the antiquarians, I suppose. They get their hand-crafted promenade.

I'm just glad the men are working by the waterfront and not sitting idly in the East End, waiting for the rain of decompiler bombs.

The Promenade falls in the shadow of what locals call the Embarcadero Curtain: a brand new skyline that blocks the sun. The Palma de Baía is one of twenty luxury hotels on the strip, and one of the few with rigid construction: solid frame for the hotel, but a liquid interior, meaning its iconic, candied shell is constant, but the interior layout and decor is customizable and programmable. Al-Ansur/Menschowicz+Yiu (realspace Saõ Paolo, Caracas, Buenos Aires, Boston, and Kingston) maintain the interior fabrication based on designs by the Hubert Vokker Firm of Soho. Its immediate neighbor, The Bacon-Yeates, is a growth culture, shaped like a giant green jellied dome. Yesterday it was a beautiful blue 35-story porcupine quill. Beside that, the Auld American looks like the Washington Monument. The owners are Japanese, and keep a rigid, highly-publicized schedule. This time next month, the hotel will look like Mt. Rushmore. My mother's wife has an alarming desire to spend their anniversary in Theodore Roosevelt's nose, and who am I to deny her? There's a world of frenzied tourists looking to cash in before the Republic of Northern California falls apart, crashes the economy, or both.

I turn up Broadway, towards one of a dozen markets, marked by bright pastel tents and kiosks made of stray bits of wood, plastic, and corrugated steel. Sounds of farmlife bleating and the somber capitalist mewling of people with nothing useful to sell. A bent crone offers recycled cotton from the back of a mule marked 'property of NGen'. The company leases clones all over NoCal. 'Telefauna', they call them. 'The ultimate renewable resource.' NGen has been banned in Europe and South America for usury. There's even a bill waiting in Congress to penalize the company, but it's pretty toothless, by all accounts. New England, the Greenbelt and Florida have banned clone leasing, but otherwise, there's not a lot regulating NGen in the States--or here in California. If the old lady sells every scrap of cotton, she'll probably still owe money on the transportation she used bringing it downtown. Rough market, Oakland.

I purchase an orange from a toothless Okie no older than fifteen, swastika and crossbones in the middle of his forehead, little black lightning bolts dancing across his knuckles. I wonder if he even knows what they mean. The orange is bitter, probably grown at one of those terrible organic farms up in Mar Verde. Buy coconut water from a Jamaican woman shrouded in full hijab, smile visible even through her veil.

Mill past stalls offering scavenged junk from the ruins of San Francisco, stalls selling hand-carved wooden toys, stalls selling home-made housecleaning robots, stalls selling 'salvaged gourmet' from luxury hotel garbage...block after block of stalls, voices risen in English, Gonja, Ewe, Portuguese, Spanish, Farsi, Cantonese, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Arabic, Russian...every exile in the world, here. Say what you will about Prime Minister Pivens, but his open door policy for refugees has probably saved more lives than his domestic agenda could ever ruin.
Stop at a tent selling military surplus, supposedly from Sacramento. Cracked pieces of ceramic armor, optic fragments from siting equipment, scraps of camouflage. Hunks of metal, twisted by unimaginable fury. I linger over the military patches. Mostly Golden Bear stuff. A few animated paramilitary patches. Then I spot the sword with three lightning bolts. U.S. Special Forces' patch.

America in California.

It doesn't even sound natural. I'm about to ask the price of the patch, when I spot a great terrible smile beaming at me from across the market, made of alligator's teeth grafted into a human mouth.

Cecilio Goncz raises an espresso cup in my direction, seated delicately at a small folding table by a steaming coffee cart pushed by a crusty-looking Okie with flat eyes and a bent nose. The subject of my project's smile is ghoulish in dusk light--in daylight, it's positively frightening. He waves me over, pointing to his drinking partner, a creature I recognize on sight.

Montoya Dred.

The Devil of Laguna Beach.

Sitting for a cup of afternoon coffee with my father.

King of the Californias Pt IX

2008-05-26T19:16:00.005-07:00

by Monk Eastman, New York City, NY, USA

I am pleased to wake up without my throat slit. No warnings painted on the wall in my own blood, no severed horse's head laid artfully at my feet. Just the warm, familiar smells of roasted coffee and steaming plantains. For a moment, I am almost fooled into thinking I conjured Cecilio Goncz from the bottom of a shot glass, and that I am actually hungover in my bed back on Pitt Street, Mississippi lapping a lazy tattoo at my door, Althea in the kitchen, preparing chickory and mofongo. Smile faintly, thoughts of sunning in my garden, watching the river roll by, maybe going to the French Quarter for some afternoon shopping.

Then I see the amber bedposts, the crennelated diamondine doors, great blue emptiness where Althea should be beside me, and the smile fades.

This is not Pitt Street and I am not in New Orleans.

This is Oakland. It is not my home.

The room knows my favorite smells, music, and foods; the room knows my news habits. So, before I'm even out of bed, I've seen Northern California's armies continue their police action on the East Side, because Sgt Enrique Pernil of the Golden Bear Republic Guard is broadcasting, with attendant maps and footage dancing across my skin. I listen to Khaled Bhargouti snark New York City's mayor for his latest public cocaine-and-ladyboy binge, bug-eyed mug-shots spinning three-sixty in the space behind my eyes. I chuckle as Eiko Orizumi's scathing assessment of Alaskan President McMenniman's foreign policy trickles through my left cochlear. That chuckle dims when my other ear echoes with news of sabotage on the Minneapolis SonicRail en route to Chicago (still counting the dead, aerial view of the disaster splayed beneath the skin of my right thigh). Above the chorus of morning news, word from the east, where The Voice of Free Sacramento declares his insurgents' victory over Prime Minister Pivens, images of the gutted city rolling across the palms of my hands.

Having met the Benny Pivens, I have a very clear vision of the tantrum he must be throwing right now. He had planned on parachuting into the wartorn city from California One, make a media event of it, sound the horn of the Golden Bear. After all, he made reclaiming Sacramento a keystone of his domestic policy; the whole 'Project: Normal' phase of his Golden Bear Initiative, ending in a single, functional government. Given the resources he's thrown at it, Sacramento's continued disobedience has become this terrible hemorrhaging gut wound in public perception. A Padanian commenter whispers seductively of regime change as the quick fix. His counterpart in Bogota cackles that regime change implies swapping heads, leaving some kind of system intact. As all his opponents have been dispatched with russian efficiency, Benny Pivens is the only system left. Somewhere in the chorus, I hear an economist moan of the next global contraction. Guandong's investment in the NoCal peseta, she says, hangs around the economy like a lead weight. Others hope at reconciliation with America to offset the creeping chaos. Or some kind of deal with Canada. Or Alaska. Or even Federal Mexico. A thousand geniuses light the dark with their brilliant analyses. It is, after all, the age of the prodigal amateur, and we are only too eager to engage.

I rise, shower, let the sonics flow over me, through me, shaking the filth off like a shaggy dog. It's not the same as a water shower, where there is at least a loose sense of baptism, renewal. The soundbath just insures no one gets me by spiking the pipes. Paranoid? Not after Ottawa, where the subject of my story tried to very politely shake me off his track with a tailored H-621 virus in the plumbing. I reason that if you're running among wolves, why tempt them with an exposed throat?

I throw on a simple white kaftan and orbiter boots, grab my gobag and let my luxury quarters go about cleaning and sealing itself from prying eyes. Once I'm out of range, the newsfeeds slough off like dead skin.

This morning, the lobby is a vaulted cathedral of white Italian marble, its streetside entrance a psychedelic animation embedded in diamond doors. Tomorrow it could be an angular ice palace made of sharp crystal and topaz. Or a replica of Napoleon's Court. Or a kitschy remix of Katz's Delicatessen on New York's Lower East Side. The whimsy of the Palma de Baía is legendary.

Onward to Oakland and a day without the specter of Cecilio Goncz and his pall of rape camps and genocide.

I hope.

In Search Of...Pt VI

2008-05-01T09:09:00.006-07:00

by Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

“Don’t you fuckin’ toss off an email when you’ve got information, Archer!” Elijah Kaczmerak spit the words out, his breath catching in his throat with the effort. “You get on the damn phone –” (breathe) “– and you talk to me like a man.” (breathe) “Do you understand me?”

Kaczmerak’s chest rose and fell with each labored gasp. The old man closed his eyes, listening to the private detective on the other end. He worked to remain calm, regulating his breathing as withered muscles uncoiled.

“I don’t’ care what you think–” (breathe) “– You consult with me, and do the job for which I am paying you –” (breathe) “– Find my daughter–” (b-r-e-a-t-h-e) “– Bring her back.”

(breathe)

“Now, have you anything worthwhile to share?” His voice little more than a whisper, Kaczmerak slumped back, his body collapsing in on itself.

The old man was unsure how long the phone had been silent. He opened his eyes and rasped into the still room, the chair’s receiver funneling his voice back to Keenan Archer. “So you don’t really know a fucking thing, do you? –” (breathe) “– Please remind me why I am paying you such an exorbitant sum.”

The old man held a rag up to his mouth coughing into it, the searing pain given voice by the grating sound in his throat.

“WHERE ARE MY RESULTS!”

A long silence enveloped the room as Kaczmerak listened to the detective’s excuses.

“I deal in certainties, Mr. Archer–” (breathe) “– Not fucking hypotheses.” Kaczmerak could barely free this final word, his body rebelling against the strain.

Wheezing loudly, the old man’s eyebrows arched as a response came from the detective. “Do not fucking patronize me, Mr. Archer.”

(breathe)

Kaczmerak paused, dropped back into his chair once more, listening with more interest. A smile curled at the edges of his mouth as his fingers began to tap on the arm of the chair – slowly at first, the pace quickening as the detective’s monologue continued. Finally, the old man slapped his hand down on the chair arm, the sharp impact skittering across the room.

“She’s gone to New York?”

(breathe)

“Would it not be prudent to ascertain the veracity of your hunch?”

“I expect a report tomorrow evening–” (b-r-e-a-t-h-e) “– And do not make me call you this time.” Kaczmerak tapped the console on the chair’s left arm cutting off any more discussion from the detective. The old man closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh.

•••

“Mr. Kaczmerak.

“Sir.

“Are you awake, sir?” Gregory was standing above Elijah as the room came into focus. Kaczmerak couldn’t remember falling asleep and had no idea how much time he’d lost. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand he looked up at his butler.

“What is it?”

“The doctor is here, sir. She’s been waiting in the vestibule.”

“Set her up in the –”

“Already done, sir. The doctor unpacked and organized her belongings before having me call on you. I told her that might be best.”

“Well send her in for Christ’s sake.” Kaczmerak ran fingers through his thinning hair as he worked to sit up in his chair.

A minute later, Dr. Sylindra Ziantara strode into the library, concern crossing her features. Kaczmerak didn’t like that. “What the hell is wrong, doctor?”

Dr. Z, as she was commonly addressed, always found Elijah Kaczmerak’s hostile demeanor off-putting. “The tests came back negative.”

“What the fuck do you mean negative?” Kaczmerak turned away and rolled over to the window. Outside slate clouds crowded out the sun’s warmth, dropping a monochrome haze over everything.

The doctor reached Kaczmerak’s side, setting her hand on the back of his chair. “We can’t produce any more stem cells. Your body’s too full of cancer. They metastasize rather than grow healthy cells.

“We tried difference cocktails, but the results are always the same.”

“Why don’t you go back and try again, doctor!” The final word dripped off Kaczmerak’s tongue like a virus as he turned and stared up into her eyes. He held her gaze for a moment but had to turn away when he was overcome with a hacking cough once more, the heavy phlegm burning deep within his throat, refusing to move.

“Elijah.” The name landed solidly between patient and physician. “You know you don’t get to push me around. Try it again, and I’m out that door.”

Elijah Kaczmerak looked out at the heavy clouds sitting on the horizon, his final sputtering coughs subsiding. It was nearly two minutes before he replied, the doctor waiting him out as she wandered the room admiring his book collection.

Finally, his voice barely audible – “So what do I do now?”

Dr. Z walked over and knelt beside him. Taking his hand, she lifted Kaczmerak’s head so that she could look him in the eye. “We keep fighting. Maybe another cocktail will work, but I’m not holding out hope.”

“Best case scenario,” she continued, “is that you find a donor that shares your DNA.

“Otherwise, there’s not much else except bio-modification.”

“Fuck that,” he spat as he pulled his hand away.

To Be Continued . . .

East Harlem, Fifty Years From Now, Pt I

2008-04-24T18:15:00.002-07:00

by Improvian, Bronx, NYC, NY, USA

The crave came again.

It's to the point where I can't seem to function without lighting a hitter every few hours. It's interesting how the company increases your wages based on the fact that you smoke CM-45 grade marijuana. That caused many a problem with false claims popping up like moles, HR steadily whacking at them. So now when forms came in from those claiming to smoke, you have to take a same day drug test. Poor saps think toking before the test would help, but that only cause the test to come back negative, thanks to modern government sponsored science.

But the craving was getting stronger. No time to worry about Sherman & Shin and definitely no time to go for CMs. Heh. Look at me. I looked rough, in need of a shave and a shapeup. My left fingers and lips a purplish black, no longer pink and healthy. Must have gained at least twenty pounds since all I do is sit on my ass and eat. I should stop, but…

I looked in the phone's call log and saw a name that would help with this craving: Bekka. Bekka was this twenty year old from the Taino Towers I used to tutor at Hunter. Intelligent girl; would be a knockout if it wasn't for the scar from the bottom of her left ear to her lower lip. Guess that comes with the territory if you happen to be the sister of a known hood dealer and slanging on the side, which is why I smiled. I pressed the send button and placed the earpiece in.

"Who the fuck is this?" the slightly husky voice questioned.

Interesting greeting.

"Ain't it? So…who the fuck is this?"

Brian

"Mr. Nichols?"

Yeah

"Holy shit, I mean, hey Mr. Nichols! What's up?"

Everything and nothing, but I told you, call me Brian

"Eh…Can I call you Brain?"

Only if you don't mind Becky

"Eww no. Anyway I know you didn't call for small talk. What's the deal?"

L's secure?

"Hold tight...yeah. Two?"

Three

"Oh my. We're got a lil check in the mail, huh?"

Nah, been saving up

"I like a man who plans for the future. Ok the usual?"

The usual

"Sweet. See you at five"

Can't make it earlier?

"Umm…nope. See ya" *clicks*

The usual was a Cuban restaurant on 2^nd Avenue between 116^th and 117^th. That was the spot because it was usually low lit and 75% of the customers have sold illegal drugs. However the public and on some occasion the cops, turn a blind eye to the activities. I sat there reading the news on the PAD, which I took out of my messenger bag. I heard a voice from behind me, "I don't know why you read that shit." Turned around and there she was, the Afro-Cuban from Nuevo Purple City, sister of Big Key, my savior.

What it do, Bekka?

"Nothing much, Mr. Nichols," she said as she placed two mini-envelopes next to the french vanilla ice coffee I was drinking. Took one of them, moved it under the table, and placed the cash card inside. Once I was finished, I placed it back next to my drink.

She leaned over to take it and said seductively, "You know, I could see myself on top of you….hahaha just fucking with ya. Eww you're like 50 or something?"

Eyes opened wide. "35?!? Wow."

Wow?

"I mean when I was just a thought, you were probably stroking a couple out."

I almost forgot how wonderfully vulgar you were.

"Sorry, Mr. Nichols, this," she stood up and spun,"is Bekka. Anyway listen to this," she took off her earpiece and placed it near my ear. It's playing a hip hop track from 1988 and the only reason why I knew is because…

"Can you believe that's what your grandparents listened to? It quakes, but anytime I had to Swikki lyrics, it's so not worth it" She started to sip the cola she had ordered. As she was doing that she looked up and plainly said, "So…Constipated Monkeys not working for ya?"

Keep it down

"Umm…you know where we're at, right? Almost everyone here slang plus they know who I am. We safe."

I think CM-54 has something in it that takes away people's memory, but since that's a "natural" side effect of marijuana, no one notices. I notice and everyday I have to keep a journal just to remember if I took a shower or not.

"Why not just…you know…stop? I mean you know we appreciate your loyalty, but dude, it's so not worth it."

It's…it's not that easy

"You're shitting me…"

Nay, that's something else I'm trying to determine. Is it another effect of CM-54 or have I become addicted?

Continued...

In Search of...Pt. V

2008-03-30T07:25:00.004-07:00

by Christ Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

Weeks to get a proper tracking code for the outdated chip Kaczmerak gave me. Nothing like starting down a trail already colder than your dead mother’s tit. You’d think someone like Kaczmerak would be able to keep up with this stuff. Old fuck thinks he has it all figured out.

With the way things fractured after the Arab-American war, life’s an even bigger pain in the ass than it ever was. Government’s in the shitter, different factions pop up every hour on the net; it’s a minor miracle we haven’t been wiped clean by some raghead army yet. ‘Course, the more difficult the job, the more I can charge. And at least the old fart pays on time.

Crossing a narrow bridge, I enter the small town as the sun drops behind a row of bare hills off on my right. A tinge of salt carries on the moist air as bells ring methodically somewhere in the harbor. Footfalls slop through the mud behind me; men in overalls, stained and torn, discuss their day on the ocean. They pause a moment to give me a challenging glance, passing without a greeting. I raise my hand and nod sarcastically as I continue to scan the feeble surroundings.

If she wanted to get away from Daddy, she might have gone a bit farther.

•••

I wait an hour in the dark for Suffolk to return. He tries his key but doesn’t seem bothered that the door slips open without it. Walking through the main room, he doesn’t switch on a light. Idiot.

Booted feet clomp down the hall for the bedroom and soon a dim light trails back up toward me. Suffolk gasps. It brings a smile to my face as I hear him curse under his breath. Apparently, he’s never had his room tossed. Good.

Running back down the hallway, he makes straight for his landline computer across from where I stand in the shadows. Springing the overhead light on, Suffolk is momentarily blinded, giving me the seconds I need to knock him on his ass.

“AAhhh, shit!”

I punch him in the nose once for good measure and then lift him onto the ratty couch nearby. He’s still gingerly cupping his nose when the tears subside. The fear in his eyes is gratifying. This should be easy.

“Mind if I sit down?”

“No. Go ahead.” His speech is halting. He’s confused.

“I’m trying to find a girl – Karen Kaczmerak. You know her.”

“I don’t recognize the name.”

“That wasn’t a question.” I slap him hard on the side of his face and continue, “I tracked her here, but the place was empty. I think you’d remember, she’s the type’d stand out in this shithole.”

I slip out my palmcard and pull up a holo of her. He responds. “Okay. She said her name was Kay.”

He makes to get up from the couch. “Uhn-uh.” I set my gun on the table between us.

Suffolk raises his hands above his head, sweat spotting his brow. “Whoah. I just want to get something for you.”

I glare at him a few seconds before nodding. “Slowly.”

Suffolk steps into the kitchen and pulls down a cookie jar from on top of the refrigerator. Returning to his seat, he hands me a small microchip. “She told me to give this to you when you arrived. She knew you’d be coming, but didn’t say much else.

“You know that father of hers touched her, did things to her?” He’s pleading, begging me to give a damn.

“Not my business. Taking her home is.

“How long ago was she here?” I look up from the tiny chip, catching his eyes before they drop to his lap.

“I don’t know,” he mutters.

“Don’t get brave now.” I pick up my pistol and set it in my lap. His eyes follow the movement.

“Four days,” he says. “She didn’t tell me where she was going, but I expect it was as far from here as possible.”

“Why’s that? She finally get tired of you?”

His fists clench, but he’s not that dumb. He keeps his mouth shut and just stares through the frayed carpet on the floor.

“Do you really expect me to believe that you have no idea how to find her? If she knew I was coming, she wanted you to contact her, let her know how much of a head start she has. Come on.”

“No, no. She didn’t give me anything. Just left without saying a word. I came home last week and she was gone. I swear.” Waving his hands frantically is supposed to add some credence to his statement. Whatever.

I stand up. “Listen. I don’t want to kill you. Despite some prevailing sentiments, that would be bad for business.”

I walk into the kitchen, searching for the biggest knife I can find. “That doesn’t mean I can’t leave you in a shitload of pain though.”

I come back into the front room with a huge fucking blade, probably used to gut fish. It’s good to have the right tools for a job.

“Now, are we going to do this hard or easy? Your choice, but don’t take too long deciding because I’m an impatient man.” The smile on my face doesn’t seem to reassure Suffolk.

•••

I pull out my palmcard and shoot off an email to Kaczmerak. Relatively speaking, Suffolk chose an easier path than most – he only lost one finger in the process. Seems little Karen wanted to see the big city. I should be able to hop a transport once I make it back to civilization, and then we’ll see what we see.

To be continued . . .

King of the Californias, Pt. VIII

2008-02-24T19:01:00.010-08:00

by Monk Eastman, New York City, NY, USA

The walls of my room pulse with Turkish ouds, soft bassline from a Tijuana garage, and Gregorian wails. Latest from Ç1Q, my favorite band. Of course my room knows it, and at the Palma de Baís, it even has access to the pirate tracks from the legendary Gastown Sessions. 'Rare' is not the word. 8 Feather and Rafiq Angeles took Ç1Q's first release (arguably the most listened-to album of the past fifteen years) and battled each other with it, remix for remix, in front of a live audience in Gastown, Vancouver. Ç1Q's stuff is normally like scented oil poured over silk. Kind of music that starts baby booms. At Gastown, they inverted it, turned it into godclash: what was in the Lord's ears when He razed Sodom. I thought data sieves at the venue meant no recordings made it out alive. Somehow, though, my room plays it, at a volume that accents my foul mood without exacerbating it. My elevated blood pressure, eye movement, personal kinetics, and listening history give the room just enough information to strike such a vital balance.

I'm reminded, very acutely, how little I like this sort of thing. Being under a microscope. Dissected without a single cut.

And I find myself desperately missing Chicago.

Wandering aimlessly along the green belts of Englewood. The great glass ziggurat of Kennedy King University, where I spent my latter days cultivating this (almost) useless mobile journalism degree. Countless midnights at the Tibetan food kiosks of Archer Avenue, served warm pockets of momo with volcanic, greasy red sauce on my way home from the artists' lounges of Bridgeport. Whisper of the Orange's Line's maglev trains sweeping past, kiss of ghostwind as it twisted into the night, snakelike and graceful.

But mostly, the Appleville Quiet Zone. Lone concrete tower, sanctuary from the continuous avalanche of a world where a song listened to on your way to work is logged in the depths of the nebulous Network, alongside your love of lung-scorching Central Asian cuisine and snarky Lebanese newsfeeds, odd collection of vintage '40s footwear, and baffling predilection for 20th century rap music. All there, always updating. Only private in the sense that you don't know who else is looking at it. Your tiny vein of personal data, mined endlessly by faceless, nameless things, scattered across the globe, feeding on the minutiae of daily life. Masticating the delicate ephemera of your life with great insectoid jaws and expelling it out over vast, intersecting planes of data, picked through by shit-merchants, sold to the highest bidder.

All so the Palma de Baía can play back the music I lost my virginity to, in the witching hours of that sweatless, fog-breathed Gastown night.

Now, as then, Appleville was the only place that felt real. Substantial. Single telephone per floor. Voice-only, hardwired into Chicagoland with copper-and-spit. Newsfeeds replaced with passive content. An actual hard library, where I read Upton Sinclair for the first time in print. Analog music, on antique standalone machines. An oasis of silence in a world of endless, low-intensity chatter. All right there, on W. 24th Place, just under the Dan Ryan. In retrospect, my nineteen months there was a gift. To live in such blessed antiquity...

And all because Chicago is the holy land: unique as a city that cherishes cloistral peace almost as much as the wild howl of its own progress. A place where tranquility is sown with the practiced hand of a Zen gardener, in Quiet Zones just like Appleville. Or Dalton. Markham. Bronzeville. The Low End. Modern day ashrams in the financial capital of North America. Such peace I'd never known...nor have I since.

And I compare it now to Oakland, where the night screams with attack drones, and the hills crash with artillery thunder. From Chicago to Toronto is a two hour trip by SonicRail. Here, it takes just as long to travel from Jack London Square to San Antonio Park, because the old 880 Freeway has been bombed to its component molecules by so many overlapping armies. Federal Unionists. The 321st Nevada Counter-Insurgent Insurgents (U.S. Volunteer Irregulars). The Alameda Independence Army. The Northern Aztlan Front. The New-New Wobblies. White Power Militias (Orthodox and Reform). The Golden Bear Unity Party. The Party For the Dignity of Angeleno Refugees. All of them mixing in the flats of East Oakland, trading shots with Prime Minister Pivens's choice assortment of heartless eye-gougers and ear-pullers. A fellow mobile journalist made note the other day that the Republic of Northern California proudly advertises itself as a nation without POW camps.

That is because the NoCal army is no longer taking prisoners.

In order for Prime Minister Pivens to give Los Angeles' expatriate war criminals respite without embargo or censure, he must provide the Hague at least an illusion of respectability. He is crafting that illusion with ashes of the dead and the blood of dissidents.

And my mind keeps wandering back to Chicago. To Appleville. Where I slept at night wrapped in the sweet impenetrable cold of anonymity. Ignorance. Perfect disconnectedness. Back in it now, tangled at the center of a burning web, (perhaps not surprisingly) threaded of all the weird, bad moments I'd sought to escape in Chicago; tied together to create this poor, weary author, eking out his literary pittance to a mixed soundtrack of Californian massacre and Ç1Q's remixed ouds. And I sadly recall this web has always been, and I always at its center.

And I wonder for the first time if I will ever enjoy the blessed silence of Chicago again.

Or if that silence ends here.

In Oakland.

In Search Of... Pt IV

2008-02-19T03:45:00.001-08:00

By Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

“Soup again?” Tim slouched in his chair as he tossed his stained cap onto the sideboard. He’d just come in off the fishing boat and the smell of the sea was strong on him.

“Not anymore!” Karen Kaczmerak stood up from the table, knocking her chair to the floor, and seized both her bowl and Tim’s. Walking to the back door, she kicked it open – squeaking on its old hinges – and dumped their supper into the refuse bin.

“Jesus, don’t be like that. I was hungry.”

“Could’ve surprised me. You cook tomorrow.” Karen dropped the bowls into the sink as she passed through the kitchen marching for the bedroom at the far end of the trailer. Wiping his sleeve across his face, Tim got up from the table and went after Karen, his long strides closing the gap down the narrow hall.

“Will you come back here? What the hell’s wrong?” Tim caught his girlfriend just as she stepped into the bedroom.

Karen didn’t even look back. “Fuck off.”

“No!” Tim grabbed Karen by her right shoulder.

“Ow!” Karen pulled her arm away.

Tim’s eyes widened. “What happened to your arm?”

“It hurts, dipshit.”

Tim, stuck between anger and confusion, kicked the wall. “Fucking aye! What the Hell’d I do?”

“If you don’t know, I can’t help,” said Karen as she backed into their bedroom sliding the door out from its recess in the wall.

“What can I do so you aren’t so fuckin’ mad?”

“You could start by listening, but I’m not sure that’s even possible.” Karen slammed the door shut and turned the lock. Tim paced in a tiny circle for half a minute before pounding his fist against the bedroom door. Waiting for a response, he stomped back up the hallway when none was forthcoming.

•••

Tim Suffolk first laid eyes on Karen in the local diner. She arrived in South Harbor in the early evening, slim and young; the way her blond hair fell around her shoulders sent a shudder through Tim’s midsection. The fact that she had reciprocated his furtive looks that night was a surprise. Though by no means an ugly man, Tim knew his receding hairline and weary face were not generally appealing to the fairer sex. They’d ended up getting dessert together, and when Tim discovered Karen was alone with nowhere to stay, he was more than willing to put her up for the night.

That night stretched into weeks, and for the most part, Tim had been nothing but happy. But recently Karen had changed. She didn’t smile like she had at first, and she seemed restless. Tim had tried to infiltrate her stern façade, but no explanations had been shared. So, Tim just went about his normal business hoping it would work itself out.

•••

The digital clock read 1:43 am. Outside, the chime of the buoy helped bring Tim out of his slumber. He rubbed at his neck, stiff from falling asleep in the recliner. Slivers of moonlight slit the blinds, giving form to the shadows. There were soft footsteps in the kitchen. Turning, he watched Karen go to the fridge and pull out the pitcher of water. Lifting it to her lips, she took a long swallow and then returned it to its shelf. Closing the door, she walked back down the hall without giving him a look.

Tim strained to hear the lock click in the door as Karen shut it, but the only sound that came was that of the mattress springs yielding as she lay back down. With little deliberation, Tim got up from the chair and walked down the hallway himself, trying not to make a sound as he entered the bedroom.

His eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he could see Karen lying on her side turned away from where he stood in the doorway. She gave no indication she knew he was there. He pulled the covers back and slid in next to her.

Adjusting the sheets so that they fell over his back, Tim lay there waiting for Karen to say something.

But she remained silent.

Tim watched as two minutes passed on the clock, and then deemed it safe to move closer. Nudging up against Karen, he draped one arm over her shoulder and she jumped, biting back the pain before taking Tim’s hand and moving his arm down to her waist.

“Shit. Sorry,” whispered Tim, afraid of breaking the silence encompassing them.

“It’s okay,” said Karen. “I’m sorry for earlier.

“I’ve just been uneasy.”

“What’s the matter?” asked Tim as he propped himself up on his other arm.

“Thinking about home . . . Dad . . . what he did . . . to me . . . to Cedric.” Karen started to cry into her pillow. Tim tried to roll her over, but Karen refused, pushing his hand away.

For a long minute Tim stared down at Karen wondering what she’d gone through and what he could do to get her to stop crying. Finally, he laid his head on Karen’s pillow and whispered into her ear, “Tell me about it.

“I’ll listen.”

To be continued . . .

In Search of... Pt III

2008-01-22T07:25:00.000-08:00

By Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

Keenan Archer stared out the windows as they flew over the thick green expanse below. It was a stark contrast to the scorched earth that had greeted them as they’d come in off the Atlantic five minutes prior. Flying as low as they were made it seem as if this new verdant area went on forever. He shifted in his seat and leaned forward to the pilot.

“How much longer ‘til we’re there?” he asked.

The pilot didn’t turn, but grunted his reply, “You’ll know.”

Keenan leaned back in his seat. His hard features tightened as dark blue eyes turned to slits; he didn’t like being in the dark. Running his fingers through the short bristles atop his head, Keenan returned his gaze to the treetops skimming by below him.

•••

It was only a few minutes before a large cut in the trees became visible. A huge mansion rose from the middle of the clearing, which appeared to have no exit routes spoking off from the residence.

The sleek chopper set down easily, and Keenan pulled open the door and stepped out. A tiny lump clenched in his gut. He tried to ignore it as the chopper rose into the air, leaving him in the middle of a wide lawn.

Keenan surveyed his surroundings. There was a lot of money here. The ornate lintel above the front doorway, the delicate woodwork framing the many windows, and the meticulously trimmed hedges illustrated that. But the guards standing behind the tall shrubs at either corner, as well as the four stationed on the roof, told Keenan all he needed to know.

Satisfied, he proceeded up the small incline toward the marble steps.

•••

“You do understand. You will do this.” The old man wheezed as he steadied himself against the banister. The stilted movements of Elijah Kaczmerak were subtle, most people wouldn’t have noticed. The old man was wearing a sophisticated exo-skeleton under his finely pressed suit.

Keenan had been going back and forth with Kaczmerak for twenty minutes now, and they seemed no closer to a resolution than when he’d first entered. The only commodity worth trafficking in was information, but the old man refused to give an inch.

Kaczmerak wanted his daughter found, but had no idea where she would have gone. Keenan had prodded him for anything that could help – hobbies, friends, online avatars, strange behavior, family history – and Kaczmerak clipped off any discussion as if he were hiding some thorny secret. And that knot in the pit of Keenan’s stomach continued to throb lightly as he worked to remain focused on the withered face before him.

“Listen. Mr. Kaczmerak. If you’re unwilling to give me some shred of information, I’m not sure how I can be of service to you. It’s really as simple as that.” Keenan could hear the frustration rising in his voice and silently criticized himself for starting to lose control.

“Young man. I cannot see how trivial incidents in my daughter’s past might assist in discovering her current whereabouts. She has grown past any indiscretions of her tender years and you would do well not to probe any further.

“I do not think you realize with whom you are dealing.” Despite his obvious ill health, Elijah Kaczmerak spit out these final words with such venom that Keenan was momentarily taken aback.

“Now,” continued the old man, “I do have something of which you might be interested, if you can get past your affinity for tangential matters.” The old man’s eyes narrowed as he stared down the investigator.

“When my daughter was eleven she took ill – the details are unimportant – and she was rushed to the nearest hospital. It was necessary for her to undergo surgery, and I arranged for the doctor to implant her with a microchip, the better to keep track of her. I wasn’t sure I would ever need it, but felt it prudent to take such a precaution. I will share the frequency with you.

“But in doing so, you must understand that you will be agreeing to a contract that can only end one of two ways. I would suggest option A, which would be to return my daughter here. To me.” The menace in Kaczmerak’s voice was laced with a derision that Keenan had rarely encountered.

“And just to make sure you do not feel I am treating you wrongly . . .” Elijah Kaczmerak snapped his fingers and Gregory stepped into the atrium. The old man turned to his butler, who nodded subtly and told his employer, “It has been taken care of, sir.”

“Good,” rasped the old man. Turning back to Keenan, as Gregory softly removed himself, Elijah told the investigator to “check your account.”

Keenan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his PalmCard. Tapping the screen, he accessed his professional account and saw the balance to be a million creds heavier than he remembered.

“Consider that a retainer,” said Kaczmerak. “I will also pay double your daily fee, plus all expenses.

“Just make sure you bring my girl home.”

Keenan’s head raced with questions – why hadn’t the old man offered the microchip information earlier being foremost – but instead he allowed himself a broad smile and told Kaczmerak, “It looks like we have a deal.”

To be continued . . .

King of the Californias Pt VII

2008-01-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

by Monk Eastman of New York City, NY, USA

My subject steps onto the balcony as if his night just segued from a dinner party with foreign dignitaries. He sits, one leg folded delicately over the other, scoops up his abandoned martini, drains the glass in one gulp. Were it not for the pistol dangling from his free hand, there would be no obvious indication he'd survived an assassination attempt forty-three minutes ago, or that the sole survivor of the incident was perched in his hotel suite living room, pinned to the floor by a softknife. His livetattoos scroll by, a Gutenberg Bible worming across his brow, one prayer at a time.

I ask if he is alright.

Mr Goncz chuckles, extracts a vial of tobacco from his black linen jacket, some rolling paper, and reclines in a chair I reckon cost roughly the GDP of Guatemala. "I should be asking you the same thing, eh?"

I assure him of my condition, and ask who is attackers were, if he knows their motives.

"'Motive'," he says, popping the finished cigarette in his mouth, lighting it with a candle from the crystal tabletop. He inhales, brow furrowing. The livetattoos morph into a long line of question marks.

I tell him that if he doesn't know, it's an equally acceptable answer.

"Where you from, homes?" he asks.

I remind him of the dossier my employer forwarded to his press agent.

"I didn't ask about a presskit sent by some piece of shit necktie sitting behind a desk in Chicago. I asked where you're from."

Someone dumps a bucket of ice down my back. Heart rate spikes. Sphincter clenches. A battledrone built somewhere in Guandong swoops by. Someone has painted 'Central Coast Surfboy Nazis Say Hi, Niggers!' on its side. I wonder if whoever painted it thought the insurgents in East Oakland would ever pay that much attention, as the automated raptor dropped decompiler bombs on their nursery schools and churches. I think about the dead and dying just a few miles from here, and wonder if the Palma de Baís's security staff will be disposing of my body the way they disposed of Goncz's would-be assassins. I wonder if they would wake my mother from her voluntarily induced coma to tell her how her son died. Or if anyone would ever know.

I tell him where I'm from.

The answer pastes itself against Oakland's neon skyline, screeching ceramic warbirds flying past, bombing the Deep East End into a flatland of crushed mortar and powdered bone. Artillery thunders, cry of emergency sirens fifty stories below, soldiers clear Jack London Square; sound of bent-hip California thrashing in its bed. Cecilio Goncz, warlord and entrepreneur, still as a baby's corpse, his thousand-dollar-a-gram tobacco wasting away as his cigarette dangles idly from the corner of his mouth. The moon above seems to hold its breath.

"If that's the case," Goncz says slowly, "then you know 'motive' isn't always what does it."

I ask if he thinks the woman in his living room would agree with that sentiment.

"Ay," he growls. "Don't be getting smart with me now. Just because you're—" He stops, flicks some ash, uncrosses his legs. The livetattoos turn to lightning bolts. "Just because we're talking here, like people, doesn't invite you to get all fuckheaded with me, get it? It's a whole world out there, would kill you for something a lot less rational than 'motive.' Things in this world, you can't always put a name to them."

I agree, and tell him so.

He looks at me sideways. "Figured you might." He finishes his cigarette, flicks the butt off the balcony. Stares at me for a moment, then brandishes his pistol. "Am I going to need this around you?"

I ask why he didn't ask that before accepting my interview.

"Because I used to have an assistant. And a chauffeur. And a bodyguard."

And now he doesn't. He has to be his own security. Reminder that the old days of murder and pillage are not so far away, even at the Palma de Baís hotel. And that maybe, just maybe, he's grown tired of them. I tell him he won't need the pistol for me. He smirks, lays it on the table.

"For my peace of mind, then. Or maybe for mi amor in the living room."

When I ask him what he intends to do with his prisoner, his shoulders move a little. It's almost a shrug. Given his time in the bedroom, communicating with the shrinking community of expatriate Los Angeles warlords; I ask if there have been an similar precedents.

"This is the Palma de Baía, homey," he says reproachfully. "They don't call it a 'bedroom'. They call it a 'sleepvault'. Bed's this bean-shaped fucking coffin, filled with warm saline and those acoustic things that shut your brain off. And yeah there's 'precedent', and yeah, I'm going to have a little talk with my new ladyfriend at some point, but you don't need to hear all that. Take your ass downstairs. Go to sleep."

I ask him when he will sleep.

The livetattoos fade. He raises his chin to California's sky, closes his eyes. "There is no sleep. I maybe rest, some time. Maybe later, if the night lets me. But the biggest maybe is maybe you fuck off 'til tomorrow, write up your little write-up. Let old Cecilio do what he does best without those eyes of yours on me."

I make for the door, pause as I look at the woman nailed to the floor.

"She ain't gonna hurt you. Just go."

Look back, and those organic, grafted alligator's teeth leer at me from the darkness. If he has not had me killed in my bed, and I am alive in the morning, I will continue the interview. Do my best to remain objective.

And find out exactly what kind of man my father is.

The Boulevard of Broken Glass

2008-01-08T10:13:00.000-08:00

by Nicolas Papaconstantinou , Southampton, UK of elephantwords.co.uk

Siân Hannigan crossed from nTown into nHigh via underpass, the carriageway traffic rumbling above her. She exited onto the broken-down street, paused to get her bearings, and moved on.

In some parts of town, the ground crunches underfoot—accumulated years of discarded glass, broken and ground down, coat the concrete pavements. The city gave maintaining these streets. Crossing the imaginary boundary from nTown to nHigh, Siân stepped onto one of these glittering pathways. Like a native, she took it in her stride.

You’re going to Northam High, you wear boots, you walk careful, and you try not to fall down. She thought.

Pretty good advice in general, she realised.

The early evening street was deserted, and well enough lit by the moon and the streetlights that she could see anyone coming from a mile off. The mix of buildings here was odd—local commerce jostled with worn red brick residences, the results of Noughtie gentrification that didn’t stick. Mumbling of music and raised voices came from behind pub doors.

She pulled herself in, hunching against the bitter cold. She had expected a lift to the gig, and wasn’t dressed for winter. Goosebumps prickled her bare tummy, and the fuck-me boots and lissom skirt left her legs exposed. She felt stupid wearing the skirt. The LCT material it was made of, designed to pick up and visualise ambient transmissions, and calibrated for local traffic, stayed a static, light grey. Every now and then, it would pick up some stray wireless activity, wordflicker shifting across it like a placeholder.

nHigh was a satellite dead-spot most of the day—very few locals had the means to make coverage worth providing—besides, they liked to keep things wired down and difficult to intercept. So here, after dark, the skirt was nothing but an impractical fashion glitch. At least her top was better insulated then it looked, bra well padded, black lace over it interwoven with temperature regulating micro-filaments. Her hair gave some comfort, too, long and feathered against her back, the black bushiness of it extending down almost to her arse.

October nights were cold this far from the remote-heated city centre, where Christmas crowds frenzied. Christmas was like a habit that the country got into years ago, and never thought to drop.

Not here on Mary Street, though. Here there were just drunks, hiding in the orange light of the pubs, vents spurting smoke out into the crisp air. Siân breathed it in as she walked. You weren’t allowed to smoke, most places—she felt comforted by the subversiveness going on down here.

The gig was going to be shit—she had known it since getting the assignment. The venue was an old converted church that acted as a rest-stop on the way to whatever mean fame real artists could muster now. The band, some fuckdog faux anarchists whose name refused to stick in her mind, were allegedly on the way into that particular celebrity cul-de-sac. Her editor wanted a positive review, but Siân already knew what she thought of their music—same as it ever was. She had heard it all before. They were a copy of a copy of a copy, like everything else in her life, the signal and the noise eroded through time by repetition.

Siân knew that she had to show willing. But at twenty two years old, she sensed that the music she was covering shouldn’t be making her feel so old.

Where the light hit the pavement, the glass looked like a million tiny cut diamonds, spots of crusted blood here and there.

No boots for pigeons.

She grinned, despite herself, and tried not to think about the dogs that lived in places like this - brutish, slab-headed things, pre-bred with hard, calloused paws and broad grins.

In the shadows, only the sharpest glass caught the light, glinting like stars.

Siân tried not to get pissed off, but it was hard. With so much of the stuff out there either estate-authorised tribute acts for decades back artists, or worse, digitally generated new songs from those same old, dead twats, bands like this one tonight should be a source of hope.

Slim hope.

Siân felt her hands forming fists, and stopped for a second. Breathing exercises, half remembered.

She heard glass break nearby, and pricked her ears in its direction. She could hear something, a sound from her childhood. Crossing the road towards the noise, she felt the cold prickles of a pressure drop on her face, and her skin flustering out toward it.

She stood outside a pub. The sound was voices, older voices, raised to sing, a piano being played, badly, inside. Not, to be fair, as badly as some of the singing. But the song... the song was one that she remembered sung by her parents, always in the winter.

Her dad was the kind of Irish that all English was around St Pats—envious and not Irish at all. Her mum was middle-class Winchester, married down. But this particular song was traditional to them, and to the people inside the pub - she could tell from the feeling that hearing it put in the pit of her stomach.

...Sinatra was swinging, all the drunks they were singing...

Fuck yes... she hadn’t put her finger on it, because it wasn’t there to touch in music any more, but this was what it was supposed to feel like. Triumphal. Tragic. Aspirational. Messy.

She wanted to know the name of the place, so she looked up. At around the same time that the sky opened.

In her four years in this dirty old town, it hadn’t snowed at all. Now, it came down. Millions of snowflakes, tiny and unique. The music played, and Siân felt young again.

She couldn’t read the name of the place, but didn’t suppose it mattered. The gig would not be good, she knew, but now that didn’t matter so much either.

What Is Lost.

2008-01-03T10:53:00.000-08:00

by Dr Reed Levine, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Tuesday. The South Shore of Long Island.

What transpires when an immovable object is confronted with an unstoppable force?

I returned home to find things oddly unchanged from what my memories told me. Even with water everywhere, it more or less looked the same, only greener. Floating above the house, looking down, it looked just like it had on Google Earth when I had last looked about 40 years back. Our house, unlike every other one for miles in any direction, was unique.

Prior to my family taking ownership, it had been the homestead of the man who was responsible for building 90% or so of all the other houses in the neighborhood. Those other houses were all from one of five cookie-cutter models. Over the years, various owners had made renovations and updates but behind the make-up was that same old face. As a child, it was bizarre going to various friends’ homes and discovering they all lived in the same home with different furniture and wallpaper. I could go to anyone’s house and know where the bathroom was or how big the closet in their sister’s bedroom was. How many stairs led to the basement…

My home though was different. It was a brick box, supposedly built for free courtesy of all the people the man who used to live there hired. You want the contract to supply copper wire to four hundred homes? Wire my home for free. Want to sell us the cement for this entire neighborhood? Lay my foundation gratis. And so on.

So it was a flat-roofed brick home I now floated idly above. Living on the shore Long Island, we had periodically heard of the threat of erosion slowly eating away at our property. The true end came much faster.

It had taken roughly eight months for the water to rise from doorstep to rooftop. Now it was deep enough that a motorboat could cruise over the roof without threat of damage to their submerged prop. A horseshoe crab scuttled menacingly through a broken window. Jellyfish in my kitchen, shrimp swarming in my parent’s bedroom.

Down there I once ate breakfast in an innocent warm summer sun, lost my first tooth, planted peas and smiled when their sweet pods swelled, vanished into comic books, played angsty drums after returning from high school, got splinters in my feet every summer running barefoot on the deck. I don’t have the heart to dive down and swim through my old bedroom. Instead I swim back up and surface. I climb back into the worn boat I chartered a mere 12 minutes after diving off.

“Back so soon”, the pilot asks, looking at his watch, “the boat is still yours for another hour and a half.”

“Take me home,” I exhale, my face dripping with a saline wetness that well conceals my tears.

What I say next is lost under the roar of the outboard’s motor as we turn and begin the long ride back to the mainland.

The Living Tattoo | Binghampton, NY

2007-12-20T21:43:00.000-08:00

by R. Soon, Atlanta, GA, USA

“Aaooooo…ahhh….ow! OUCH!”

“Hold still if you’re gonna make a racket, at least.”

“Goddam, that HURTS!”

“Didn’t I warn you it’d sting? Eh? I got a signature says you’s aware of potential discomfort, now you didn’t want to go under and I’m not gonna pay the price hearing you bellyache all night, so pipe down!”

“Shit, alright already, I’m piping down. If I knew you’d be stabbing me like that I’d’ve sprocketed up—”

“Bring that shit in my lab and I’ll kick your ass, beanie. Hold still. Now, after we’re done, you can shoot whatever you want, but whatever this stuff does, you’s to blame. You signed, you know the rules….”

nnp://wlcdb.la.net

Welcome to the World Languages & Cultures Database of Los Angeles, the only free and uncensored encyclopedia on the open ‘net!

(This site is being rendered in the high-resolution nanonet protocol. Here is the low-resolution http mirror.)

Your query for “livetattoo history” returned 643 results. Your filter “100% match” returned one result. Congratulations!

Livetattoo: body modification, external, primarily cosmetic

Top 3 related items: moveable tattoo, mindtattoo, net-tattoo

Abstract:

The first step towards the invention of the livetattoo is documented as having been realized in Binghamton, NY, in the year 2019, by a freelance biochemist named Berto Gomez. The first recipient, Atreo Pasquál, was a used car dealer at the time but eventually became an assistant to Gomez and continued his research after his passing in 2026.

Gomez first achieved his goal of a consistently moving tattoo image by mixing the latest dyes with components of a non-toxic, solarcatalytic chemical reaction. His first tattoo depended heavily on sunlight for catalyzation and quickly depleted its reactants, but subsequent efforts with newly developed organic capacitance, more efficient reactions, and specially formulated dyes brought far superior results.

By the time of his passing, Gomez was hailed as a pioneer in scientific and commercial industries, his breakthrough having won him the Nobel/Hawking Prize three months before his death. However, Pasquál took the original concept of the moving tattoo in an entirely different direction, convinced that advanced computer processing and miniaturization were the way to go. With the collaboration of a variety of software programmers and computing hardware designers and by experimenting liberally on himself, Pasquál eventually fathered the forerunner of the now widely popular livetattoo.

By far the most widespread permanent livetattoo configuration at present is the basic programmable organic dermal circuit layer (ODCL). By means of an integrated short-range transmitter, the user can design or upload images with most personal computing devices. The ODCL format was the first one to be standardized and made available commercially.

Also commonly found now are livetattoos that feature integration with various parts of the body, such as those that detect specific neurotransmitter firings (in effect displaying mood) or brainwave patterns, tie into the visual nerve bundles, or respond to touch, and translate the received data to visible patterns by program rules equally as available as common image packs. Numerous other configurations are possible, and thousands of ‘net sites are dedicated to them.

A more recent commercial development is the moveable livetattoo, similar to the ODCL model but attached to the epidermis’ exterior by adhesive and ergo designed to withstand the typical abuses to which the human skin is subjected. ODCL livetattoos, in contrast, can only be safely removed by a licensed surgical technician.

Very recently, spates of livetattoo hacking have swept cities worldwide, but have been considered a minor problem given the extremely limited scope of possible damage, and as of yet no livetattoo manufacturers have reported taking steps to remedy the issue. Additionally, the city of Nagasaki, Japan has explicitly authorized commercial retailers the use of localized livetattoo transmitter overrides for advertising purposes, and also boasts a flourishing industry of full-body advertising. (end abstract)

http://peoplesnews.ind.us.net/archives/brdcst~nwsfd:searchyear=2049;term=Pasquál+missing;result=6

--TPN INTERNET ARCHIVES--

The People’s News - Optical Feed Edition (Brought to you by US.Net)

Your region: SE United States

Today’s date: 3 Sept 2049

You are reading the top story for this hour.

More rumors of scientist sightings

The latest sighting report for missing scientist Atreo Pasquál has come from Taos, New Mexico. Three pedestrians in downtown called authorities around the same time, giving search teams confidence that they were on the right track.

At this time, however, no more evidence of Pasquál has surfaced, and the federal manhunters’ newfound gusto is fading quickly.

Atreo Pasquál is regarded as the father of the modern livetattoo and had dedicated his life to furthering their development ever since he began work with mentor and collaborator Dr. Berto Gomez in the late 20-teens.

Circumstances surrounding his disappearance are murky, and federal authorities are not at all forthcoming. A popular, though unverified, story mentions livetattoo-based camouflage technology that Pasquál had been researching and that a private military firm (unnamed here to prevent libel) had threatened to take by force; as it goes, he covered himself in the camouflage, destroyed all records of his research, and subsequently took to the shadows. It bears reiteration that this allegation does not have fully verified sources.

But whatever the cause, Pasquál has evaded discovery with apparent ease so far, and the nationwide manhunt continues.

The Man Who Couldn't Look You In The Eye

2007-12-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

by Nicolas Papaconstantinou, Southampton, UK of elephantwords.co.uk

"Seriously, though, look," your partner said to you, pulling down bookmarks and selecting the site in question. Within seconds, there was a guy on the screen, mid-twenties guy, an everybloke with a classic cut-and-goatee. Right there, looking out at you both, smiling, eyes flicking to one side.

Nothing much was happening, and you started to ask her "what?" But of course, you knew exactly "what?" - it was all she had been talking about for that past half-hour. Details started flickering into view, almost at the same pace that the everybloke started an accumulation of flickers himself, lids heaving, lips licking... low murmurs bubbling up to his mouth from the general area of his off-camera libido. You saw that his hair was flat against his face, he was hunched oddly, and, of course, it was because he was on his back... the camera, your eyes, looking down at him from the ceiling.

You and your partner, sitting there on the corner of the bed, fixed to the screen but not really, her casting nervous but not really nervous glances at your face every few seconds, trying to get a sense of your reaction. Both of you, stuck in place, for the five minutes and eleven seconds it took the unfamiliar man to reach orgasm.

"Like I said," she said when he was done. "Isn't it strange?"

"Isn't it though?" you replied.

"I mean, that this has been out there all this time, all these people, and we didn't even know?" she clarified.

"Hm," you said, but you weren't really sure that you felt it.

You never really considered yourself kinky, but really, what counts any more? You sense that the strangest thing about your sex drive is that you have to pretend to be turned on by the ever more complicated pornography that your partner nightly finds for you both. You haven't had the heart to tell her that for the last six years of your seven year thing, you've found sex with her to be quite arousing enough without it.

But that video, what it signifies, and the conversation following it, has stuck with you down through the weeks since.

"All those people, just... wanking themselves silly. For no reason other than to do it. As if they needed to prove that they did it."

Maybe back then, you suggested, they felt that they did.

"True. And... this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is from thirty years ago - people are still doing it now!"

Your partner was pretty blown away by the rush of discovery. The two of you watched seven more videos that night. You spent the next day at work red-eyed and vestigially horny. More than that, you were preoccupied with the thought that this was something out there, something that so many people must know about, and yet you'd been oblivious all this time.

Not kinky, no, but one thing you are, you are queer for patterns. And data? Data breaks you.

Since the turn of the century, people laying it all out on camera, slipping under the radar simply because they weren't naked on screen? What, how many, a hundred odd that first year, three hundred the next? And that's before the surface tension broke, between it being on the sub-cultural boundaries and it becoming vogue. Historians talk about the 'net being the beginning of the end for societal attention span, but one thing you notice, you notice patterns, and as far as you're concerned, on the 'net, no trend ever dies. Between the bleeding edge and the place where your grandparents are over it, an idea can last decades.

Your guilty secret quickly became that you were watching the vids sans partner. She wouldn't have minded if she knew, but she might have started to question the fact that they were no longer turning you on. You were becoming obsessed, and you knew it, but you figured, hell, it's supposed to be a valuable quality.

The men in your family, two or three generations back, had what would have been called hereditary mental health issues - OCDs out the arsehole and an attention to detail at the expense of all else that bordered on autism. In the new England of the early century, though, where nobody really knew what they were supposed to do or who they were supposed to be, your smart old grandad gift-wrapped his dysfunctions and became a vocational data-miner for one of the hot-shit new corporations coming out of London-as-was.

This is how it is and how it always has been in this country, as far as you know - one person does it well, they're made employee of the month. Just one of their offspring does it too, suddenly it's a family tradition. The English don't have much to offer the world these days, but we do have an ingrained willingness to become really very good at doing jobs that nobody else wants to do.

So you watch and watch and watch these videos of ordinary people orgasming, you've got them running in the background while you're at work, while you're brushing your teeth, and pretty soon you've seen thousands. You daydream about millions of these noisy, silent, wet, shy, invigorating cumfaces, gasping and crying across the 'net.

Then one day you're in a meeting with your supervisor, this dour old lady, in her fifties. And you realise that you've seen her cum - that she kept sweeping her then-long and flowing red hair out of her eyes as tears rolled down her face, smiling at you the whole time.

Once you notice her, you start to notice them everywhere, the familiar faces. Really, everywhere. But no one mentions anything, like they filmed their own, but never watched anyone elses'.

So now you're the man who can't look people in the eye. And they are starting to find it strange.

King of the Californias, Pt VI

2007-12-13T22:27:00.000-08:00

by Monk Eastman, New York City, USA

There is a story about Cecilio Goncz that comes to me as he rushes from the bedroom, chrome pistol in hand. It's a second-hand story, something I heard from a survivor in the Watts Refuge about three years ago.

The first wave of emergency workers descended on Southern California shortly after the Little Big One. Historically, the area known as the Inland Empire suffered the worst casualties. Nascent attempts to coral survivors into 'rescue stations' soured relations from day one. The Sharon J. Carter Center's archives have survivors' video records that show crowded camps hemmed by razorwire, without plumbing, electricity, or potable water. Security was provided by a dozen private firms, which in the days before the United Nations Private Military Oversight Committee, were quite literally at war with each other in hot zones across the globe, and only barely committed to defending the rescue effort. Such conditions made a difficult relief effort almost impossible. Movements such as the San Bernadino Popular Front, Claremont Defense League, and Twentynine Palms Irregulars were born in those days. But before Tweaks Neuman armed his first IED, or Kelvin Black organized his first slaver ring, there was the Moreno Valley riots, where BRK private security killed over 143 people, in full view of a busload of refugee children, up from Pico Union. By nightfall, those children were cycled into the camp's general population, while camp veterans were forced to pile their dead neighbors into funeral pits at gunpoint, and spray them with decompiler foam. It was all very unsubtly painted over. News was sequestered, video lost, blogs blocked by service providers. In later years, we would discover these were not isolated incidents. The ineptitude and corruption were persistent, institutional malfunctions that contributed more to the President's famous 'Southern California is no longer viable for reclamation' than the actual earthquake.

As the abuses at Moreno Valley continued, the children took it worse, without guardians or legal status. In the aftermath of the riots, these orphans were known as los polvos, dustbabies, raised on casual violence, systematic brutality, and sparse rations. Southern California had a tradition of gangsterism known across the globe, but its latest iteration, remixed in the deep shadows of the rescue stations, was perhaps its most vicious. Initiation rites were not complete until a child had taken the life of at least one person from their camp, with proof of kill. Rewards were usually meager: an extra ration bar perhaps, or a new blanket.

It is said that in exchange for a teddy bear, the sole reminder of his dead parents, a ten year old Cecilio Goncz returned one night with a guard's genitalia, removed with scalpel precision.

And that it, along with the teddy bear, is the one souvenir he left Los Angeles with when the provisional government took over.

Some take this as a tale of sentiment, or innocence lost.

I take it as a cautionary tale, of a man who knew even at ten what he wanted, and was quite capable of anything to get it.

The Working Man's Blues Pt II | Cleveland, OH

2007-12-06T16:00:00.000-08:00

by R. Soon, Cleveland, OH, USA

The little boy kicked a big, dry stick at the menacing green dome, shining with a peculiarly dull gloss and bearing warlike squared patterns. “Come outta there!” he yelled at it, angry that the fearsome beast would appear out of nowhere, then taunt him instead of attacking like a monster is supposed to. Nay, so far from ferocious talons and ghoulishly large and sharp teeth, this despicable offspring of evil wore merely an armored portcullis beneath the roof of its daunting fortress, and remained still, terrifyingly still.

Not that the little boy didn’t know his own name, but he knew that no name given him by mere mortals would suffice. Instead, he realized of himself, while out protecting his glorious homeland from the beasts of the wilderness, that he was the Guardian of the Dawnbreakers’ Legacy, a mighty name for a mighty defender. And thus, he was no little boy at all, but a fearless warrior redoubting his broken band of clansmen.

Yet this immense, unmoving foe unnerved him thoroughly.

Ever since he could remember, he had been doing battle with all manner of uncanny hellspawn. Every new encounter he made, he would fight bravely, and once victorious (for he was always victorious), he would ask his elder tribesman mentor of the type of demon that he had just vanquished: “Dad, what was that??” And the wise elder would consider the description yielded him, and maybe consult one of the precious few books he kept in a storeroom hidden far beneath Shaker Square, and then tell him, “Saif, that was a meerkat.” Or a white lab rat, or a ferret, or a squirrel-dog hybrid, or a skunk (a beast that fed on the souls of the unwary, did ye but know), or a miniature baboon, or a glowing designer cat, or one of so many other wicked opponents.

'Where did they come from, and why did they attack with such fury?' the Guardian asked the man of great knowledge. He had asked many times, soon knowing the gist of the answer by heart, but he loved hearing the story of the Tower of Case Western Reserve, a den of evil and madness that blighted the land. His father began the same way every time, “You see, Saif, years ago there was a great university not far from here, a place people came to from all over the world….” And the Guardian would sit rapt as the tale was told, and one or two enticing new details revealed about the Case Riots, and the discovery of the experiments carried out in Case’s vile dungeons, and how the huge and ghastly creatures that escaped spread out quickly and terrorized the hapless.

Not that there were all that many of the hapless out there for them to terrorize. “Saif, the wildlife aren’t the only things to be careful of out there,” the elder told him once, not long ago--

Had the soulless green thing moved? The Guardian was drawn back to the present; he had been letting his thoughts drift as he kept his eyes intently on the silent hulk. But no, he decided, it was surely still preparing a disastrous attack for him to overcome. He continued to concentrate on the patterned beast.

Just once, and recently, had his father declined to tell of the fall of Case Western Reserve University. The look in the wise man’s eyes had transfixed him, and he remembered his words too clearly…for the story told instead was very different, and his tone of voice very different.

“Son, there are people out there, bad people. They want to take you away, like they took away your cousin Farshad. Do you ever wonder why we only leave the Square when it’s late? Do you remember when we went to Thistledown, and we didn’t meet anyone till we got inside?” The Guardian nodded mutely each time. “There was nobody to meet, Saif. Those bad people took some of them, and the rest ran away so that they wouldn’t be taken, too. Those people are much worse than even the big bad skunk, you see…we’re trying to escape them too. We’re trying not to be caught by those bad men.”

His father’s expression was scarily intent. Saif had managed a voice, albeit a tiny, shaky one. “But Dad, why don’t we get out of here if there’s bad people?” And the elder revealed to him a great revelation, that the bad people had taken away a member of his clan, long ago. The man was the father of the father of the sage one, and ergo an ancestor to the Guardian. “Saif…your great grandfather’s name is Barry. And the name of the bad people who took him like they took Farshad, they’re called Halliworks. We’re still here because we’re going to rescue Barry, and we must show Halliworks that they aren’t welcome on our land and in our city.” And the great man fell quiet, and then just as quietly shooed the Guardian away.

The words shook the little boy, as little of it as he even really understood. For a couple of days afterward, he didn’t leave the bunker at all. But duty called, and he eventually took again to patrolling Shaker Square for freakish assailants to defeat…although he began to keep an eye on the streets out around the square, too, out beyond the camouflage line.

And the latest devil’s seed to appear, clad in a maddeningly textured armor, filled him with loathing in its nonplussing outward slumber.

“Oh!” a voice behind the Guardian exclaimed. It was his father, the wise leader of their small band of remaining family. “Well, Saif, seems like you caught a box tortoise! I haven’t seen one in years…and it’s huge!” He laughed while striding forward, picked up the beast with both hands, and peered at the drawn gate at its fortress-like front.

And the Guardian filed this newest adversary away in his mind.

In Search Of...Pt II

2007-11-19T00:00:00.000-08:00

by Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

“Mr. Kaczmerak, you better come down and see this.” The crackle of the radio irritated Elijah every time it squawked. If he wasn’t already in a foul mood, it usually pushed him over that edge.

“I’ll be there when I can,” he spat into the comm. Sliding his finger forward, the old chair came to life and shuddered ahead, its nervous ticking announcing his passage.

Minutes later, the old man rolled into the large atrium at the front of the house. He could feel his ears starting to burn. Standing at the door, which was still ajar, was the captain of his guards, Seth Palmer. Slumped beside him, dark blood dried on one side of his face, was Dale, the one Elijah had sent to watch Karen.

“What the fuck happened here,” rasped the old man, his gnarled voice raising the hair on the back of Dale’s neck.

“I lost her,” was the guard’s feeble reply.

“What? I can’t fucking hear you.” Elijah lurched the wheelchair forward, stopping three feet from the two men. Lifting himself out of the seat, he leaned over, holding a hand to his ear.

The Captain shoved Dale harshly, sending the injured man to his knees. “Tell Mr. Kaczmerak what you did.” The Captain’s tone was heavy and even.

“I-I-I-I lost her,” he sputtered, hands shaking feverishly as he clasped them together to try and make them stop.

“You. Lost. Her.” Elijah’s eyes bored into the quivering guard as Seth took a spot beside his employer.

“Do I not pay you enough?” Elijah fell back into his chair as he spat the last of this question out, a coughing fit racking his upper body. Despite this, he kept his eyes squarely on the shivering excuse before him as the coughs passed.

“Yes, sir. You pay me good Mr. K.

“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Dale added, as if this made any difference.

“Have you ever been paid better?” Elijah acted as if he’d not heard the statement, his voice rising once more.

“No, Mr. K.”

“No!” The word landed like a hammer.

“And yet, you lost my daughter. How does that happen?”

“I don’t know, sir.” Dale was now prostrate, arms outstretched with clenched hands begging for a reprieve.

“Honest answer, but the wrong one,” said Elijah. “Now, take your gun out.”

Dale looked up, confused. His mind went over the old man’s words again, but he was unable to act.

“Take the fucking gun out, son.” Elijah’s tenor faded slightly. Dale did what he was told.

“Good. Now, eat that fucking gun or I will rend the flesh from your worthless hide.” Dale searched the old man’s eyes, but they didn’t waver.

“I SAID EAT THAT FUCKING GUN!!” Dale fell back before Elijah’s volume as another fit of coughing overtook the old man. Unable to process the absurdity of the order, Dale remained motionless.

After a long minute, Elijah finally relaxed and leveled his eyes at the cringing man one last time. “I need to keep order in my house. That is part of the reason for your substantial retainer. If you are going to fuck up royally, I cannot keep you on.

“So, eat. That fucking. Gun.” Elijah sat back, contentment finally crossing his withered features as he slid one hand up to the palm console of his chair.

Dale looked at Mr. Kaczmerak, then at Seth, and back to Mr. K once more. Neither one flinched, and Dale understood.

Instinctively, he turned the gun on the two men before him, and just as quickly, Elijah tapped a switch resting beneath his left index finger, sending a signal to microchips implanted within all the weapons in the house.

Dale’s gun did not discharge. He pulled the trigger multiple times, the frail click dissolving what hope was left.

A smile split across Elijah’s face. “I control everything in this house. You would have done well to remember that, you dumb shit.” The old man continued to stare at Dale as he reached across and pulled Seth’s own gun from its holster. Leveling the heavy weapon at the sobbing man in front of him, Elijah Kaczmerak quickly tapped the switch beneath his left hand once more and fired with his right.

Dale fell back, blood seeping from his midsection as he convulsed spastically, tears running over the dried blood on his face. He worked to say something, but the effort was too much. It was another fifteen minutes before he properly expired, but his last words had already been uttered.

“Shall I take care of him sir,” asked Elijah’s Captain.

The old man looked up with weary eyes and shook his head no. Then he raised the gun and shot Seth as well, point blank, blood and bits of skin spattering across Elijah.

“Ultimately, are you not responsible for your men?”

Dropping the gun, Elijah activated the comm-unit to speak to his butler. “Gregory. Get a cleaning detail to the atrium, please. And see if you can’t find a good investigator. I want him here by the end of the week.”

“Yes sir.”

To Be Continued . . .

Melting Pot

2007-11-15T00:00:00.000-08:00

by Adam Mayes, Copenhagen, Denmark

"BANGLADESHI?!!?" Rajah screamed.

The other gang-members flinched and edged closer to the fire. They'd not seen him his angry in months.

He stabbed his stubby fingers at the paper. "Do you see what they're writing about us? Do You!? We're not Bangladeshi! We're American! I'm fourth generation!"

"But Raj." A foot soldier who spoke up. Raja thought it was Abdul, but, really it didn’t matter. "We're proud of our heritage. We keep talking about the Motherland and…stuff."

Raja glared at him. "That doesn't matter! It's bad enough that they call us midgets! We're LITTLE PEOPLE! They're profiling us! Trying to set us apart. It's Racist."

Raja stomped across the yard. The paper he was carrying was a broadsheet, and his feet caught the trailing edge. He stumbled, and the paper ripped in his hands. He screamed in frustration, pulled a box over to a set of palettes and scrambled up. "Look at us - we're American's. We're not an invading army. Americans! We're as American as meatballs, as...as Bagels. Hell - we're as American as The Statue of Liberty!" He pointed a small finger at where he assumed it was.

One of the gang looked confused and drew a breath as if to say something, but another nudged him and shook his head.

"That bastard wants it like that, does he? We'll give him profiling."

***

Lacey stood in the old neighbourhood. It was a risk coming back to The Bronx, but she couldn't come without seeing where she escaped from.

She took a deep breath, coughed at the stench until her eyes watered and she thought she was going to be sick, then fitted her nose filters and tried again.

She looked up at the smog cloud - the blackouts had stolen the dull orange glow of her childhood. She looked at the broken rooftops, trying to make out landmarks from her youth but she didn't recognize a thing.

It was a waste of time. The Bronx had been taken from the girl as much as the girl was taken from The Bronx. She turned to go and collided with something. Looking down she saw a midget.

She started to apologize when another barrelled into the from behind, taking her legs out and pitching her backwards. Her head hit the ground with an alarming crack. She kicked out - her heel catching something soft that screamed. She rolled onto her hands and knees, and felt her head spin. She must have landed harder than she thought.

Someone hit her, then another. A third climbed on her back. She felt short, fat fingers press into her ears, another into her nose snapping her filters, which sliced both the invading hand and the lining of her nose. She heard someone cuss; slip the fingers away allowing her to
blow the bloody shards out. Then the hands were on her again.

She gasped for breath; she tried to stand.

But they were on her like rats. The combined weight of the gang forced her down.

There was a crack across the back of her already injured head and everything went black.

When she woke she was tied and gagged. She didn't know what was in her mouth - and she didn't like how it tasted.

She couldn't feel her legs, in fact, nothing below the knee. She tried to turn and see why but her hair was also tied and any movement was agony.

One of the midgets came up to her, grabber her hair and forced her head back. The gag stole her scream, but she coughed and choked.

He looked into her eyes and screamed. "You listen. You listen and remember this. Tell Ranjitsinhji that we're fucking American. Not Bangladeshi - American." He sprayed flecks of spit into her face.

Raja waddled over to a low table and picked up something sharp and metal. In another place she’d have laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation.

But when she saw how the implement was barbed she suddenly couldn't see the humor.

The midget came back. "You're lucky.” He said, scarier now for the calm in his voice. “You get to deliver the message personally."

For the next 3 hours, Lacey couldn't tell why she was lucky at all.

***

Captain Ranjitsinhji stood inside the private ward. He hadn't appreciated this call.

It came as he was about to shoot up and a late night run to the hospital was not on the cards. He didn't care if it was police business. Actually, he cared even less. The bastards had driven him to sticking dirty needles in his veins; let them work out their own shit. His missing wife stared at him from her photo. He put the needle down and grabbed his car keys.

The 50th Precinct had a monopoly on freaks. On his way over, Ranjitsinhji had wagered who was responsible tonight. He hoped it wasn't Cannibals.

***

He stared a mess of a woman.

It wasn't Cannibals.

Her legs were completely hacked up. It was their M.O. But the rest of her…he had to look away. He'd never seen them do anything like this.

She rasped something. He wasn't going to be able to hear from across the room. He was going to have to get up close and personal. He leant in and listened.

"American. He told me...they are American."

Ranjitsinhji stood up. He had no idea what she was talking about. Crazy talk from a Death Midget victim. And they pulled him away from his fix of sprocket for this?

"We'll do all we can, miss," he said, full of mock sympathy and concern. 'Which is absolutely nothing! Damn fool woman walking around The Bronx like a tourist,' he thought, driving home again.

It was about the time the fifth body turned up on White Plains Road - each with the words "We're American" carved on them - that the Captain realized he was in the middle of a public relations war.

And that he was losing.

In Search Of, Pt I

2007-11-01T19:16:00.000-07:00

by Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

“Get off that damn web and get down here!” Elijah’s cackle trailed over the carpeted steps of the ornate staircase. His daughter tried to ignore it but knew better than to challenge his resolve. Not replying would result in his blanketing the house, blocking any signals in the area.

Karen folded up her screen, dropped it on her nightstand and headed downstairs.

Reaching the bottom step, Karen could hear her father coming from the east wing before she saw him, his antiquated wheelchair ticking loudly.

“What the hell are you doin’? Sun’s up and pretty soon it’ll be too cold to wear those skimpy dresses of yours. Get out while you still can, I don’t want any of your complaining come winter.”

Karen had any number of wise retorts, but the past six years’ of constant fighting with her father had worn her down and her only reply was, “Okay.”

Turning to leave, she could feel her father’s eyes boring into her back, peeling away the layers she’d built up. She didn’t bother looking back.

The door slammed and Elijah keyed the comm on his chair arm. “Dale. She’s heading out. Keep an eye on her.”

“Yes, sir,” crackled the guard’s response.

Satisfied, Elijah slumped back into the chair and closed his eyes.

•••

Karen walked aimlessly over the expansive grounds, the tree line surrounding the mansion mocking her. With no real options, she soon found herself plodding into the tangle of branches.

The silence left her mind to wander. Karen couldn’t remember the day Cali slid off into the Pacific, but her father had told the story so many times she was able to conjure up her own memories with little thought. They had been living in New York at the time, her father doing well as an investment banker, but overnight, stock prices plummeted, sending the world into a panic from which it still had not extricated itself.

Her father fled, taking what he could with them and brought Karen and her brother up here to their vacation spot in Maine. In his mind, it was the only safe place for them. And for nearly fifteen years, he’d kept her captive on this green tract of land.

Her brother Cedric had gotten out a few years back, leaving in the middle of the night – no note, no goodbye, no way to contact him. Karen had trawled the web, searching for any indication he was still alive, but it was like he’d never existed.

•••

The first leaves of autumn crunched under Karen’s feet as she pushed further into the woods. She’d read about the clear-cutting that went on during the war, viewed images on the net, but never actually experienced it. Six year ago, soon after she’d turned thirteen, Karen had decided to investigate, see if it was really true. Getting up early one morning, she dove into the woods. What she had failed to take into consideration were the excesses of her father’s wealth and the depths of his paranoia. After two days of walking, with little in the way of supplies and no end in sight, she’d been forced to turn back.

Though Cedric’s anxiety had been etched across his face when she returned, her father made no mention of the incident, and this, more than anything, burned hot inside Karen. She was determined to find a way out the next time.

To one side, Karen caught a flicker of movement, stifling her reverie. A smile brushed her lips as she slowed her pace.

A minute later, the man her father had dispatched was easing up behind her, working hard not to raise her suspicion and doing a poor job of it. Still, she played along.

Rounding a large fir tree, Karen’s arm prickled as the guard took hold of it. She caught her breath as he pulled her back to him, raising his pistol with his free hand.

“What’s that for?” Karen asked mischievously.

“For if you get out of line.”

“Only if that’s what you want,” she purred softly, her mouth broadening into a wicked smile.

Dale bent down and pressed his lips hard against hers. Karen didn’t resist, wrapping her tongue around his as she slid her arms over his back. Breaking the kiss, Dale dropped his gun to the pine needles and the two frantically clawed at each other’s clothing, fumbling with buttons and snaps in their fervor.

Once naked, ragged breaths echoed in their ears as the cool air raised goose pimples on unprotected flesh.

“Take me,” Karen breathed as she spread out on the soft ground, staring longingly into her guardian’s eyes.

“Say my name,” he grunted.

Karen’s smile got wider as she whispered heavily, “Come over here and fuck me, Dale.”

•••

Afterward, Dale laid back on the pine needles and closed his eyes. Physically spent, he allowed himself the luxury of dozing off for a short time.

Footsteps crackling the autumn leaves jarred him awake, but Dale was content to keep his eyes closed, savoring the recent memory barely minutes old. He figured Karen was going off to find a place to reliever herself. It was amusing that she could be so vulgarly intimate with him, but refused to pee in front of him. Dale smile . . .

. . . and then everything went dark as something heavy and jagged crushed into the side of his head.

To be continued.

Indigenous Resistance and the Western Socialist Uprising.

2007-10-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

by Jeremiah Liebrecht, San Francisco, CA, USA

Little Big One?

Every time I hear what happened referred to as “The Little Big One”, my blood boils. I am a second generation San Franciscan. My grandparents had my mother there in 2007, stuck it out through the War and Second Depression. My parents lived there up until the pretremors, and moved up to the Sacramento Delta to join like minded socialist groups rallying at the Capital. We were always proud of our counter culture roots, when The City all but disappeared, I lost a lot of family and comrades, it was the biggest tragedy to hit the Revolutionary movement experienced since it was founded in 2035. I almost become violent with rage towards my comrades when I hear someone call the Quake that—it sounds like a joke, and it’s not cute.

Shortly after California’s seceded from the Union, my wife, two daughters and I joined my first cousin, Jorge’s family and a group of comrades to head towards Idaho. We were under-armed, and granted passage out of the state under the Objector’s Act. When we got to the Oregon border, we had to surrender all our weapons except a cleaning knife per adult male, and two Benelli R14 hunting rifles, with 12 rounds per gun. If we came across game, we had to be thrifty. We were also ordered to carry a white flag through Medford. We carefully fished along the random lakes and rivers as we headed to the Klamath Falls rendezvous point. Most fresh water fish were contaminated with mercury and had to be tested before consumption. Luckily, Jorge was a naturalist and his knowledge kept our little traveling clan safe. Our organization had made a trade/labor pact with the Indigenous Resistance Movement that had settled the northern Rockies. From, Boise in the west, to Laramie, Wyoming in the east, to Missoula, Montana and, Spokane in the north.

We knew the most fighting was going on along the southwest Colorado border, and Northwest, Spokane area, mostly from White Power groups. The Indigenous Resistance was born of the ancient American Indian Movement. Most of the Western Socialist Uprising, like my family, are mixed Mexican and Gringo, We had a lot of solidarity movements with the I.R.M. throughout the direct actions against the war, and the mass imprisonment of the non conformists.

What happened at the Klamath Falls train station was reminiscent of the European holocaust my Dad would tell me about. A freight train yard crowded with pacifist mixed-race socialists, being herded by U.S. National Guard for the 15 hour train ride to independent Boise. We were nervous boarding the train. I had the girls sit far forward of the freight car, huddled and hidden under a small Kevlar pancho. There had been a shaky cease fire between the U.S. and the I.R.M. for a few years, since the Union had been enveloped with the fighting along California, and Mexico. They had more or less left us to be victimized by the White Power Militias, who attacked the train relentlessly as we crossed state lines.

King of the Californias, Pt V

2007-10-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

As its guest book reads like a who's who of global atrocity-makers, disposal of dead bodies has become a premier feature at the Palma de Baía. Oakland's foremost hotel has an experienced staff of morticians, equipped with forensic-baffling equipment that would give the CIA a mile-long erection. That, and the hotel's love affair with municipal law enforcement, makes the three dead women on Cecilio Goncz's living room a nuisance instead of a felony. From the balcony, I watch the men in papery silver jumpsuits strip the corpses naked, and clumsily dump them into transparent bodybags filled with some sort of icy green fluid, vapor rising sickly. They throw the giant bladders onto gurneys, and trundle out of the room with all the gravity of errant bellhops.

Goncz's prisoner slumps over her crucifixion, long passed out from shock. Hands pinned to her thigh, she looks like a supplicant, bowed in prayer; though I can't imagine to what. Her breath is audibly ragged to even my cheap recorder's amplifier, some twenty feet away and separated by a pane of artificial diamond. Mr Goncz hasn't caught on that I recorded his initial encounter with the assassins, and as he is busy making calls from the bedroom, I have no plan on stopping. I see him in the distance, hands flailing wildly, livetattoos above his eyes dancing through a dozen languages, always the same message: Only God Can Judge Me. When he gets like this, his tone takes an undulating quality: loud one word, quiet the next. It's impossible for my little recorder to make any sense of it.

I observed the first such call upon my arrival in NoCal. I waited at Pivens Aerospace Center for five hours, bleary-eyed from intra-orbital flight, assured by Mr Goncz's assistant that a driver would be there for me shortly. When one finally did, it was the assistant himself, in a rental car. I was told in hushed, cautious tones that the driver, Silvio, had been picked up that morning by agents of the Carter Center. By that afternoon, he'd been tried for war crimes in Los Angeles, and by that evening, publicly sentenced at West Hollywood's Sunset Plaza. Shipped off to Angel Island for some time with the Big Chair: fifty years of sensory deprivation compressed into ten minutes, courtesy of a hack directly into the parietal lobe. Survivors tend to wear diapers, and have trouble producing complete sentences. Mr Goncz spent the bulk of that day screaming at the phantoms on the other end of his communicator, at his assistant, and finally at me: the Piece-of-Shit-Reporter-From-Chicago.

Three days later, Goncz's assistant disappeared.

Another cycle was wasted on Goncz's rant, blasted to his peers across the globe in every medium available. He was unsure if Glen had just run off, been killed by one of his long-standing enemies, or defected to Los Angeles in exchange for leniency. Goncz's greatest fear is still the Simone J. Carter Center for Peace and Justice. Based out of the Watts Refuge, its agents span the globe, wrangling expats back to the Republic of Los Angeles, where their trials have a circus atmosphere: defendants paraded about in bright orange jumpsuits, barefoot, shaven, starved, ball-gagged and drugged; the proceedings little more than a high-verbal horsewhipping before the inevitable sentence, always the same: the Big Chair at Angel Island. The prospect of which sends Goncz into nervous fits, making hour-long calls to anonymous power-brokers, demanding midnight assurances that his position is secure, and the vulture-beaked specter of retribution is well at bay. As he has pointed out, his once-vast wealth is heavily invested in the Northern Republic of California's reconstruction. His belief is that he is insulated from his enemies.

That assessment may have undergone a dramatic turn with today's events.

Assurances aside, it seems to me that Cecilio Goncz's life has become defined by a series of concentric circles, himself at the center. As each surrounding ring is worn down, his response becomes more frantic. I'm concerned that this has yet to translate as violence towards me. My host has a long, documented history of ending interviews at knife-point. Since my arrival, two of his closest companions have disappeared, and now, these assassins. By my own reckoning, I'm bad luck, writ large in neon. What Mr Goncz is thinking is beyond me.

But as he comes from the bedroom, pistol in hand, it is of rising priority that I find out.

Meditations of Jimmy Chu, Pt I

2007-10-12T12:58:00.000-07:00

by Rabbi Benjamin Newman, the Bronx, NY, USA

Reeking of expensive nameless liquor, hashish, and perfumed boys, the Mayor of New York City stumbled into his dim office just as dawn crept across Manhattan's delicate crystalline skyline. At this hour, his office was lit only by tea candles scattered haphazardly on the desks and ledges. Brushing cocaine from his lapel, he collapsed in front of his statue of the emaciated Buddha and lit a stick of jasmine incense. The statue of Shakyamuni seated in meditation was originally from the Sikri Stupa, bought from the Lahore Museum for a hefty price. Rather than the well-known fat Buddha, this representation was almost skeletal, the Enlightened One's reduced to a frame of bones, skin tautly stretched over it, veins and sinew exposed like a spiderweb. It showed the ascetic extremes the Enlightened One went to before discovering the Middle Path of moderation. As a creature of extremes, Jimmy Chu appreciated the statue, but the suffering prince's trials toward enlightenment taunted him.

"Temptation cannot touch the man who is awake, strong and humble,"he muttered, "who masters himself and minds the law." Chu had long ago decided Self was the problem. 'Eliminate the Self, eliminate the suffering. Eliminate desire, eliminate the Self...' This was one of his favorite mantras. He knelt in front of the statue and repeated the words for his third and last time of the day, until the gong of his interoffice connection sounded, interrupting his reverie. Although he was proud that he was among the few people without a bio-implant, his office was consequently littered with vintage tech.

"What is it, Sophi?" the mayor snarped at his secretary.

Sophi, or Sophisticated Operating Program of Heuristic Intelligence, was a prototype next-generation compiled intelligence he had received as an inaugural gift from Integrated Heuristic Systems, one of his major corporate donors. Their offices spotted downtown NYC, flagship factory and corporate headquarters centered on 9/11/01 St., site of the old World Trade Center. He brought them state money, they brought him fine rewards, including but not limited to Sophi. That's how it worked for Mayor Chu. What was governance without a little pork?

He put out the incense, and gazed toward the screen housing Sophi's child-like icon.

"How easily the wind overturns a frail tree, " Sophi said tonelessly. "Seek happiness in the senses, indulge in food and sleep, and you too will be uprooted. The wind cannot overturn a mountain. Temptation cannot touch the man who is awake, strong and humble, who masters himself and minds the law. If a man's thoughts are muddy, if he is reckless and full of deceit, how can he wear the yellow robe? Only whoever is master of his own nature, bright, clear, and true, can merit to wear the yellow robe." The computer's soprano floated out of the speaker on his desk.

Chu couldn't muster much more than a few faltered curses under his breath. Is she mocking me, or reproving me? he thought. His resentment lingered, in that he realized he'd started quoting her of late upon return from his late night binges.

"Was your evening satisfying?" Sophi asked.

Chu bit his lip. How do you combat that? She's impervious to sarcasm, and I can't just smack her in the mouth. I can have political activists imprisoned without bail or legal representation for days at a stretch and have Union leaders' legs broken. Why can't I just order this stupid machine to shut the fuck up?

"Your heartrate is recognizably spiking," she said. "Perhaps from pharmocological modification you indulged this evening. Equally as likely is personal agitation. Am I bothering you, Mayor Chu?"

'Just tell her to shut up, Jimmy,' he thought. It's easy. 'SHUT UP, YOU STUPID DAMNED TOY! SHUT UP BEFORE I HAVE YOU DECOMPILED!'

"An excellent way to reduce your heartrate is breath control, Mayor. Steady, even breathing. In through your nose, held for a bit in your abdomen, then released through your mouth."

'For the love of God, man, just SAY it! Tell her to shut up! Reduce her to binary numbers! Something!'

Instead, he bowed before the Buddha, repeated his mantra, and very slowly began breathing in through his nose, and out through his mouth.

Blissful

2007-10-03T21:04:00.000-07:00

by Nichole Perkins, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Blissful wanted to become invisible. Her parents were fighting, but they were being quiet because she was in the backseat. If they couldn’t see her, they’d talk, and she would know where they were going and why.

They’d been fighting since last week. Usually, after an argument, her mother would stay in the kitchen, cooking and shaking her head until her father came in and stood really close. Then they’d kiss and dinner would be really good that night.

The last few nights, Blissful’s dad only went into the kitchen when her mother wasn’t there, and her mom only cooked stuff her dad didn’t like. Blissful wished they’d tell her what was going on. She was ten years old; she wasn’t a baby any more. She pulled out her tablet and called up the journal. Ma’Marie had told her to write her thoughts down, but to use a password, so no one could take her thoughts from her.

In the passenger seat, her mother ran a hand over her belly, and her father reached out to her.

“Do you need me to pull over,” Ramón asked.

“No,” Sumayyah answered, testing the answer for truth. “No,” she repeated more confidently. She touched his questioning hand, and he linked their fingers. With the contact as a bridge, Ramón gained confidence.

“Sumayyah, I really don’t think this is a good idea,” he began in a tense whisper.

Hearing the hushed tones, Blissful perked up.

“She’s not a baby any more, Ramón.” Blissful sat even straighter, surprised at hearing her mother echo her earlier thoughts. “She needs to know about this.” Sumayyah readjusted her position in the seat. Blissful wondered if her little brother was kicking.

Ramón sighed but didn’t let go of his wife’s hand.

“I know she’s not a baby, but all that stuff happened a lifetime ago…”

“Yes,” she cut through his weak argument. “Her lifetime ago. If Marie hadn’t saved me, none of us would be here. You’ve seen Blissful with Marie. You’ve seen how close they are. I want her to know. ”

Blissful shifted curious eyes between her parents, her stomach rising against a wave of nerves. Was Ma’Marie in trouble? She wanted to move forward but was afraid to bring attention to herself. She looked out of the window as her father turned onto Wilshire. He hadn’t responded to her mother yet, and the waves in Blissful’s belly began to burn. She opened her mouth, maybe to be sick, maybe to ask a question, but her father finally spoke.

“Okay. Okay. I…I didn’t want it in her head. I wanted to keep her safe from all of that.”

Sumayyah turned to him.

“Protecting her doesn’t mean leaving her ignorant.”

He raised their joined hands to his lips.

Blissful had been too busy trying to follow the conversation and failed to notice the museum until the car came to a stop. A line of people covered the block’s length. She’d never seen so many queued up at the museum before. While her father waited for the light to change, Blissful watched a small crowd of men with signs, yelling at the people waiting in line. One sign said, “WOMEN AND HISTORY LIE.”

Her mother turned to her and the smile she gave was sad, like the one she gives when she’s about to give an accountability task. The fiery waves in Blissful’s belly rose again.

“Are you and Daddy through fighting?” she blurted the question, knowing that wasn’t the one she wanted answered.

Sumayyah’s smile relaxed and she shot a quick glance at Ramón, who let his own small smile smooth away some of his worry.

“Yes, BiBi. I think we’re finished.” She turned more fully and her face shifted into serious lines. “I guess you’ve figured out that we’re going to the museum today.” Blissful’s eyes began to eat away at her face, and Sumayyah tried to think of a way to lessen her anxiety. “There’s a new exhibit we think it’s important you see.”

By this time, Ramón had parked the car and was opening Blissful’s door. He walked her around to her mother who’d placed her feet on the ground but had remained seated. Sumayyah took Blissful’s hands and pulled her close.

“Does it have something to do with Ma’Marie?” Blissful asked, keeping her eyes on her mother’s fingers.

Sumayyah lightly shook their hands until Blissful looked up at her.

“Yes and no. In the exhibit, you will see something that Ma’Marie was a part of, something that she saved me from. There might even be a picture or two of her. The pictures… The exhibit will show some of the… the things she doesn’t like to talk about.” Sumayyah glanced up at Ramón who had turned his tight features away and watched teenage boys power by on their bikes.

“Ma’Marie won’t be the only person in the exhibit. There’ll be a lot of other women telling their stories about a part of our history here. I don’t want to tell you too much about it ‘cause you’re a smart girl and can figure out stuff on your own, but some of it will be very sad, and some of it won’t. I do want you to make me a promise, though, okay?”

Blissful nodded her head. Her stomach had calmed down, but it still felt shaky. The museum was going to tell her something bad, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know it.

“I need you to promise that you won’t ask Ma’Marie about any of this stuff until she brings it up, okay?”

Blissful looked up at her dad, and even though his reassuring smile was missing its dimples, she took it as a good sign.

“I promise not to mention anything to Ma’Marie unless she says it first.”

“That’s my girl,” Sumayyah beamed at her daughter. She eased from the car and reached back for Blissful’s hand.

“Come on, Bibi. Let’s go see why Ma’Marie gave you your name.”

Boiler | The 50th Precinct | Kingsbridge, The Bronx

2007-09-26T15:12:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

The 50th Precinct rises four stories above bullet-ridden aluminum walls, a soot-stained brick box only two blocks from the new W. 238th Street el station, itself a symbol of Mayor Jimmy Chu's urban renewal plan. Took two days for the train station's support branches to congeal, another three for its pollution-absorbing carapace to harden, then two weeks to install the responsive sub-flooring into the platform, made of blocks that depress slightly under the force of human steps. The blocks' slip against one another as people walk the platform, generating power through the dynamo principle, converting motion into current, fed directly to the third rail. Mayor Chu's motto is 'New York: Powered by the People.' 238th Street station, a twisting ceramic and chrome thing grown by Brasilian engineers, is a monument to that credo. By contrast, nearby Kennedy High School is 1,534 students over its legal limit, staffed by a skeleton crew of tenured crones and guileless substitutes. Chu closed the Senior Services office on 232nd Street, suspended weekday recycling pickup, stripped the 50th Precinct's staff to its bone marrow, and staged rolling blackouts all summer to plug his hemmoraging budget. That's just in Kingsbridge. Chu's privation of the central and northeast neighborhoods have become legends to scare children at night: abandoned ghost stations on the 4/5/6 line, home to bizarre subterranean monster tribes. Cannibals roaming the abandoned gardens along Pelham Parkway. Packs of mutant dogs on Webster Avenue. Rogue bands of Bangladeshi death-midgets pillaging White Plains Road.

Throughout the Bronx, Mayor Jimmy Chu is burned in effigy.

Detective Tiny Schwarzbaum steps over Mayor Chu's torched likeness and some lightly toasted protest signs, waddling through the 50th Precinct's security checkpoint at Kingsbridge Avenue. No one greets him. He is a breathing version of 238th Street station: segmented tentacles where his arms should be, flat red plates instead of eyes, weird metamaterials woven into the fatty tissues that make up most of his ungainly mass, and the pairing apparatus in his head that painfully emotes omniscient Big Bug's needs. He's a chimera, and not a cheap one. Real cops collect welfare so Tiny Schwarzbaum can wipe his ass with multi-million dollar snake-arms. Another reason he works his beat alone.

50th Precinct's lobby smells of piss, blood, and vomit. Biological decompilers keep the big white room sterile, but the stink predates the floor treatment. Wall straight ahead looks like ink pressed between sheets of glass. Ripple in the surface brings up the Precinct's compiled intelligence, really just an overgrown administrative routine written with generic, inoffensive front end. In this case, an ethnically neutral matron dubbed 'Marge', whose kindly monotone pours over the intercom.

"Detective Schwarzbaum," the lobby drones. "Your shift does not begin for another fourteen hours. Do you need assistance?"

"Left something in my locker," he replies.

"Very well," the compiled intelligence says. "Have a good evening, Detective."

Walls to the left give way to staff facilities. Door to the right is the booking area and holding cells. Off hours, Marge won't let him over there. Too many 'escaped' prisoners. 50th Precinct's staff facilities were offices until fifteen years ago, since converted to a single common space, dotted with modular data cradles where detectives process their case footage, and Marge processes forensic input. Cube-bunks for midnighters to sleep off their shifts. Plastic lockers for a few personal effects. Mixed command center/barracks. Schwarzbaum duckwalks past cot-like data cradles to his locker, where he grabs a heavy lacquered box filled with lead slugs, and swaps it with an equally weighted brown plastic bag. Marge keeps track of locker content by weight, which is the upside to Chu's cutbacks. Modern precincts down in Manhattan can actually smell personal items, and would know the brown bag is filled with half a pound of sprocket: black tar heroin stamped out with synthetic Sonoran desert toad secretion. Opiate and powerful hallucinogenic. Street value of a small house on the Long Island Sound. Schwarzbaum's swag from an earlier shakedown, and the gift his Captain has been expecting.

Because while Tiny Schwarzbaum may be a monster, he knows what loyalty is.

After all, the basement IED that tore him apart could have left him a cripple. It was Captain Ranjitsinhji who made it his personal mission to ensure Schwarzbaum got his due. Was it the sleek cosmetic job that legendary Tom Dunwitty got? Of course not, because Lt. Dunwitty caught an explosive shell to the torso, saving then-Mayor Abdullah, and worked the Financial District. Up in the Bronx, Schwarzbaum was lucky his prostheses weren't powered by rubberbands or wheel-spinning hamsters. But Captain Ranjitsinhji used his connections to get at Lt. Dunwitty, and finessed the public figure into taking pity on poor Tiny Schwarzbaum. Suddenly, the newsfeeds were running stories day and night about the poor cop up in Kingsbridge breathing through a tube after disarming a bomb in the projects. It became an election issue. Mayor Abdullah, who owed his life to a cop, was seen as ungrateful for not approving Schwarzbaum's medical procedures. Jimmy Chu's sloganeering pushed the public over the top. The three-time incumbent lost. Bitterly. And knew exactly who to blame. From the reaches of political oblivion, Abdullah reached out one last time, and sabotaged Tiny's future.

No sleek bionic arms.

No new miraculous, life-like eyes.

Just these horrific flailing things, flat plastic lenses, constant annoyance of Big Bug paired to his frontal lobe, and transfer from Anti-Terror into Vice: the NYPD's graveyard.

In the end, Schwarzbaum knows he got off lucky. The sprocket in his locker is his Captain's painkiller. Only thing that evens him out these days. Mayor Abdullah had a lot of people invested in his incumbency. Powerful people. When the house of cards fell, it mostly landed on Ranjitsinhji. Or more accurately, on his beautiful family.

Who have been missing since Mayor Jimmy Chu's inaugural address.

SOUTH SIDE

2007-09-05T21:40:00.000-07:00

by J. Cheek, Austin, TX, USA

The car looked out of place as it rumbled over the freshly paved, jet black surface of Manor Rd. The neatly manicured leaves on the little trees planted on the median stirred as it drove past, as if in revulsion at the small trail of blue smoke wafting sickly out of its tail pipe. All around, everything new and fresh looking, and here, a ‘41 Ford with a maroon paint job and a light blue right quarter panel lurched past, hung over on off-brand gasoline and oil oozing through cracked gaskets.

Marcos sympathized with it as he stood on the bright, clean concrete curb, watching as it drove through the intersection, around a bend, and out of sight. Thank goodness for a little cloud cover this morning, so that he could bear to be outdoors. In his head was a dull pressure and in his muscles, a jittery tiredness. His eyes had bags and his short, black hair was flattened and pushed upward at odd angles all over his head. In his mouth was an odd taste, a combination of morning breath, liquor, and her. Two flights of stairs were a chore, but he kept his head upright as he climbed up them deliberately, fumbling in his pocket for the keys to his condo as he reached the top.

Walking in, he set them on the counter, and crossed the hardwood floor to the fashionable sectional sofa, on which he dropped down unceremoniously, yawning. The clock on the TV told him it was 10:42 on this Sunday morning. He pondered this as his phone buzzed insistently in his hip pocket. According to the caller ID, it was Steve.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end came back far too enthusiastically for Marcos’ current state: “Southsiiiide!”

After a brief grunt, he replied, “What up, pimp?”

“Shit. Just tryin’ to be like you, man, gettin’ down with them freaks.”

“Shut up, puto. Don’t even hate. That’s what I get for goin’ down to SoCo.”

“Man, that shit was fun. I’m not even hatin’. ¿Que te pasó? How was it?”

Marcos wasn’t in a condition to relate everything that had gone on that night. Even if he had been, the exact details were a little bit foggy, due to the liquor and weed. A few details stuck in his mind clearly, however. He traced back the start of their evening to Fusion, a swanky lounge on 7th with glowing blue glass tubes and pricey drinks; the sort of place where one could meet a pretty, blonde personal banker or paralegal, hoping eventually to find someone a little higher up the food chain, but you’d do for now.

Austin had grown rapidly in the last 45 years. The technology industry continued to be good to the city, and brought tens of thousands of new jobs to the area, and people to fill them all. The city had nearly doubled in population since the millennium and there was a lot of money here, much of it in the interest-bearing checking accounts of young professionals such as Marcos and Steve. The University of Texas continued to be a major hub in the city, with a population of roughly 72,000 students. These two facts combined to make an ever-expanding demand for nightlife, and the already large downtown nightclub scene had nearly tripled in size in the last 50 years.

Thus, they had to take a train when they took the 13-block trek down to Florentino’s on South Congress Ave. to meet Steve’s cousin. The bar was dim, and a mix of Tejano, dance, and slow jams boomed roundly out of the jukebox. The crowd was a mixed bag, but the two young men stuck out in their dress shirts and expensive-looking shoes. Truthfully, they may as well have been white people in this crowd, because once you took the bridge over Town Lake, it was like a different city. Austin was always segregated to some degree, but gentrification on the east side, former home of its lower-income (and mostly non-white) citizens had pushed them south. Even Marcos’ luxury condo sat on land that had been check cashers and low rent apartments 20 years ago.

He’d taken a break from the loud, joyful, drunk conversation of Steve’s cousin’s friends to speak to one girl, however, and ten minutes later, found himself dancing to a sad, slow Mexican waltz with her. As the tune faded out in the flaccid jukebox speakers, she whispered something to him, and a nod to Steve was all the notification he gave that they were leaving.

“Oh you know,” he spoke into the phone. “We went back to her place, it was good.”

“Right on. Did you…?”

Indeed he did. Tiny ,one room apartment. Squeaky bed. Roach end of a spliff still burning in the ashtray. Heaven.

A simple “Yup,” was all he related of this to his friend.

“How was she?”

At this point he became slightly more animated, “Man, shit is crazy down there. You wouldn’t believe.”

“Right on, right on. Manchaca mackin’. I see you, pimp.”

In truth, she didn’t live near Manchaca Rd., but this was no time to get caught up in details. The ride home in that world-weary car hadn’t been too pleasant, but it was nice of her to offer, anyway. When he got out, he kissed her and said he would call, but they both knew that was unlikely. She was quite clearly from the south side, and he, equally as clearly, was not.

Steve asked, “What are you doin’ later?”

“Pssssh…sleepin’, fool. I’ll holla.”

“Holla at me then, guey!”

As he flipped the phone closed and set it on the floor, his eyelids were already closing.

Dry River

2007-09-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

by zesi, Atlanta, GA, USA

The Rio Grande, the border of Texas and Mexico

The name Trevor Reyes, Border Control glints off his badge in the unbearable sun, unsympathetic to all human life, regardless of lado. His green-blue eyes are the only safe water in sight; he has a Camelback IV keeping him hydrated. Otherwise, he’d be dead and stinking like the viejos he picks up, lucky enough to get through all the border shit, but run dry and ragged like so many of the creeks here. They flooded the Rio with all the water they could find around here; hired a biologist, who, in his supreme rational mind, decided that to make the territory more dangerous and less livable, they needed a river of waste to stay flowing, and the land around to die. It’s only Texas, after all. It’s only Mexico, tambien. Care has been carefully excised from his scientific method, the concerns of human life beyond that of a man beyond humanity. Green should grow in pockets.

Trevor’s badge is what keeps him and the others from being picked up here. Ex-coyotes, gangstas, gangsters, petty thieves, drug runners, and tejanos sin viviendas, como Trevor, whose town has turned into a gashed land, the land cracked deep enough to lose a baby or dog in, hemorrhaging its residents, who would pray at their altars if they still believed in the strength of altars, of gods. “Dios ya se fue,” said Trevor’s mother, and she, too, fue a otro lugar, al norte. At one time when she was little, she’d say, she could cross the border, see her other family, the home language ringing loud in her ears, the home food siting warm in her belly, the home people everywhere, to touch and to watch be. With the coming of la fuerza at the border, their voices became echoes, and with the land dead now, the home language just faintly sounded, and only between her two ears. She sent him a letter, Hijo, she said, I stay in Oklahoma, Hijo, she said, why are you still there?, Hijo, she said, why not move here with me? Hijo, she did not say in ink, but in the faint hum between her ears, don’t you remember me, the music I come from?

Trevor sits, sighs, no dead bodies today, their remains smell likes God’s farts, powerful, lingering. Reconnaissance, maybe they have moved further down the river. This is his favorite, to walk in an abandoned place, the work running in his subconscious, his alert mind contemplating dinner, a new shirt for his date, sex with air conditioning. They can run, but they can’t hide, his commander said and smiled, his gold tooth the same color as his sweating skin. He does not think of his mother here, he does not think of Mexico. He thinks of the border, of himself simultaneously as a cowboy, a vigilante of justice, a gatekeeper. He has never been to Mexico-Mexico, it does not exist at the border’s jointly-controlled no man’s land. He could never go because he could get stuck there, his passport stolen or his body held for ransom. Still, when he was little and the wind was right, the smell of Mexico would go over the river and reach him. But that his been some time now. And even with his mother’s food and her Mexinglish, he knew that there was not the same as here. He has convinced himself of this country being his patria, this Texas, this United States, his for the taking. Like his mother had, like los blancos that had crossed so long ago. While the taste of promised freedom had become bitter, acrid in his mother’s mouth, he ate it all, like a plate of meat and three. Consumed by the hunger, he digested without tasting. Maybe he could marry Brittany, Mexican in that 1/16th of her that is her last name, blonde, perfect, a could-be willing wife, a supplicant to his ambition. Their kids could have his eyes, her skin and pedigree, his smarts. Could live where they want, do what they want, take care of Mommy and Daddy when they get old.

His eyes search for the border language, directional signs, rosaries, shoes, worthless money of their home saying in its silence, come this way, you can get there this way. When he finds it, he pockets it. He searches for the satellite jammers, homemade from computer parts and stolen telecommunication parts, that the smarter ones plant to give themselves some lead time before they meet La Llorona™, the anti-illegal security system. He marks all that he finds on his map, beaming his data back to satellite, the data they’ve been collecting for twenty five years, an ever shifting collection of dots around the Rio’s expanse, moving like the desert this has now become. They joke on both lados and call it the Little Sahara.

He sits down for his lunch, unpacks some shade from his backpack. His alert bracelet sounds. Shit, he mumbles with mustarded bologna crumbs falling out his mouth. Illegals fucking up my lunch.

War in Her Absence

2007-08-31T06:27:00.000-07:00

by Alex Stone-Tharp, Austin, TX, USA

King of the Californias Pt IV

2007-08-27T00:00:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

A softknife isn't much more than a floppy length of plastic, malleable enough to tie in a bow until contact with electricity, when it goes rigid as aircraft-grade aluminum. At ease, the human body generates about 120 watts, and since electro-sensitive plastics aren't detectable by anything short of costly tight-bandwidth spectrometers, the softknife has become modern upgrade to the common prison shank. It’s not actually surprising, then, that Cecilio Goncz sneaked one past the Palma de Baís’s security. What's dazzling is that he got an actual chrome-and-ceramic pistol into his room, and used it expertly on the invaders who crashed midway through our interview.

From the balcony, I have a reasonable view of the suite’s living room, where Goncz confronts his attackers in the brutally forthright manner that death-proofed him against rival Los Angeles warlords. Three black-cloaked forms litter the floor, haloed by evaporating pools of their own vital fluids, decompiled by the expensive self-cleaning rug. Goncz stands over a fourth figure, bowed on its knees, hands pinned to a single thigh by the softknife, pistol to the throat. Goncz leans in, his lips moving. The lightning bolt livetattoos above his eyes flicker red and black, pale nictitating membranes blinking out of sync with his actual eyelids.

Distant bomb blasts over East Oakland remind me I was left outside for reasons apart from safety. Separated by a door of synthetic, grown diamond, I have a moment for contemplation. It is an important moment in my project. I have only gotten this far with Mr Goncz by being passive. History is littered with men like me, who maybe thought too much, pushed too hard at the wrong moment, and abruptly discovered just how disposable they were. Modesty has worked to my advantage thus far. So long as I balance my subject's monstrous past with my own clinical detachment, the project can continue apace. But as much as I want to remain in his good graces, I know this thing will never develop without some initiative. Scripted questions and canned answers won't get me my Pulitzer. Minor risks, I reason, will take me further than the safe route I've taken. I adjust the acoustics on my recorder, set it to use the balcony door as an amplifier, and am soon listening to my subject’s conversation.

“...did you find me?” he asks.

The survivor makes a moaning sound. I realize at that moment those aren’t black cloaks. They’re hijabs. Goncz’s attackers are women. When the survivor doesn’t make any meaningful sound, he twists the softknife. She shrieks.

“I’m asking nicely,” Goncz says evenly. “You can make this last five seconds or five weeks. I have all the time in the world to get an answer out of you.”

She shakes her head violently, mumbling rapidly under her breath. I adjust the volume. She’s praying.

Goncz clicks his tongue and shrugs. “Fine. Okay. I’m just going to leave you here to think it over for a little bit then, okay? Let me know when you want to have a conversation like a grown-up.” He presses the softknife to its hilt, effectively nailing her to the floor through her hands and thigh.

The soundproofing of the room is all that shields the rest of the hotel from the cries: piercing crescendo, tapering to gurgling sobs. Almost blows out my eardrums. I reduce the volume on the recorder. Loud enough still to hear Goncz smack his lips as he leans forward, kisses her lovingly on the veiled forehead. I see him pocket the gun, start sifting through his attackers’ bodies.

Hundreds of miles away, Los Angeles’ provisional government continues trying war criminals as they trickle in from the international manhunt, handing out lifetime sentences as soon as they step into the courtroom. They’ve imported thousands of counselors, therapists, medical groups, and health systems from mainland America to compensate victims of some of the most brutal human rights violations in modern history. Half of Los Angeles’s national budget is set to build a permanent healthcare apparatus to repatriate and normalize freed factory slaves, crippled Hollywood gladiators, and brutalized rape camp survivors. The women inside could have been any of these. Whatever their beef, they came to Goncz for justice, and leave this life disappointed. I watch Cecilio Goncz pick through their remains.

The ghosts of Los Angeles find no peace here in Oakland, a place where exiled kings dance atop crystal castles, and weak men sit at their feet, chronicling safely behind the wall of journalistic neutrality. The recorder's still going, animal grunts from the survivor as she desperately tries to un-skewer herself. Goncz whistles the tune from a children's show that was on in the background of our early interview. I'm sweating. At some point, I've squeezed the recorder tight enough to draw blood. Set it aside.

My project is mutating. I've lost my balance, fallen directly into Goncz's narrative, trapped as witness to another of his horrible secrets. Wondering how much longer I can hold out.

Before he discovers mine.

Keeping Up Appearances

2007-08-24T00:00:00.000-07:00

by Kwasi A. Kwakwa, Tema, Ghana.

From the look of the IACU's commander, Ato knew he was going to die tonight. The Indigenous Authenticity Control Unit had been tipped off to raid his father's house, and had found the tiny Omatek superprocessor he usually kept hidden in a screened compartment under his bed. He had been really careful to not show it to anyone, too. His father had warned him about it many times. Not that his father would be warning him about anything else, anymore: all that was left of him was a black smear, residue from the decompiler bullet they had put in the back of his head as he begged for his son's life.

All Ato really wanted was to be able to play the same computer games his online friend from Shanghai played. The government-approved aid laptops distributed to his village school didn't have enough processing power to allow anything more than a basic 2-D version of the virtual world his best friend lived in. Everyone else out there had full sensory support through neural interfaces or, at worst, feedback suits that transmitted decently close representations of sight, sound, touch and smell. Recent advances in quantum computing made that kind of stuff cheap and pretty freely available these days—unless you lived in an Indigenous Control Zone like Ato.

The Zones resulted from a trend in international aid back in the 2030s, when thirty African countries came together as the African Economic Community, and managed to show some fairly phenomenal growth. The AEC ushered decent chunks of their population into the same consumption conspicuous middle class as the rest of the 'First World'.

The following outcry came from all sides. People concerned about the loss of the 'authentic indigenous African culture', and those concerned with their own futures in light of another billion people voraciously consuming the world's limited resources. The proposed solution was brilliantly disturbing: independent federal states within AEC, offered money to maintain reservations in a state of 'Indigenous Authenticity'. A place where people lived with minimal amounts of technology in 'harmony with the ways of their revered forefathers'. Which was, of course, political bullshit. Open borders and a common language led to massive amounts of migration and ensured that the Zones ended up composed of people who willing to give up technology for large subsidies. It amounted to carbon trading, taken to its logical extreme.

The Zones have become great tourist destinations for people interested in a certain mythical kind of Africa, while assuring the global elite of minimum competition for the Earth's resources. Of course, Zone guidelines on how people were to look, dress and act were strict, enforced by the draconian IACU. The proscribed list of technology was pawned off as disruptive to the tourist experience. People looking for a slice of 'authentic' Africa to stare at for a few hours didn't want to see natives using palmtop computers or neural plugs. They paid to see an atavistic backwater before returning to the comfort of their secure, climate controlled resorts. Use of prohibited tech could cause cuts to foreign aid, as 'overuse of quota resource quota'.

Ato and his father lived in the Togoland State, a piece of the former Ghana's Volta region, that had been home to politicians agitating for secession long before the AEC came into being. They managed to get themselves statehood during the formation, and then found themselves in need of money. The result, several Control Zones packed full of people without the skills to get jobs in the Ghanaian State's mines, nanotechnology industries, or the giant Nigeria-Benin manufacturing plants. In exchange for aid, they rallied the Control Zones, which were policed ruthlessly. Beatings were common for minor infractions like upsetting a tourist. The use of forbidden technology usually ended in disappearances. The IACU had absolute power, and wielded it in a manner their worst predecessors would have appreciated.

Ato's father was a fresh university graduate when the new requirements and technological innovations hit Africa's education systems. One of the last to be failed miserably by the crooks running things at the time, who considered Jaguars for their teenage girlfriends more important than schoolbooks. The Togoland state gave him housing in an improved laterite accommodation block (ring of mud huts), synthetic grass clothing and training in drumming, dancing and basic fluency in the main Euro languages. On the side he had supplemented his income playing Mandingo stud for female tourists interested in exploring the wild side of life.

His son grew up a precocious mathematical prodigy, stuck in a small town where using anything more advanced than the equivalent of a slide rule could get him killed. Naturally, he did it anyway. Naturally, it got him noticed, and naturally, that was going to get him killed. Just another smear of carbon up against some nondescript wall, all for wanting to be like his friends abroad. And unlike his games and movies, there would be no hero to rescue him at the last minute, no God Mode, no reset buttons. Just a brief flare of light and pain before the darkness took him.

All to keep up appearances.

I Gotta Get Outta Here

2007-08-22T00:00:00.000-07:00

by Chris Beckett, Hampden, ME, USA

I need to get outta here. Winter ain’t even here an’ it’s already too effin’ cold even with the friggin’ global warming.

Sorry, but I won’t curse in front of my Ma, don’t matter how old I get. A mom takes care o’ you, provides for ya, keeps food on your plate. You gotta appreciate that and show some respect.

Of course, things changed with the Little Big One. We could feel it all the way over here. Some folks didn’t believe me. Little tremors, like a shiver runnin’ through your boots. And then when it hit the news sites. Nobody knew what to do. Sittin’ at home watchin’ crazies freakin’ out, killin’ their neighbors, drownin’ their kids. What the heck?!

We did what we do best up here – hunker down and cut ourselves off from everything else. It wasn’t too hard, livin’ on a farm an’ all. Generations before us had done all right with it, and with the government goin’ ta hell (sorry, Mom) it seemed the best thing to do. Most people never knew what to make of us up here anyway – ninety percent woods and nothin’ much ta do ‘cept drink and terrorize.

At first, things were good. We didn’t need for much, just had ta be smart, use what we found and not waste nothin’. Things’d be back to normal soon enough and then we’d get back to headin’ down to the mall and such.

That was a pipe dream.

Goin’ on twenty years now since it all went to crap, and still no end in sight. Most o’ the woods is gone now. At least around here. When the oil prices spiked durin’ the War, poachers swept in like huge vultures, layin’ waste to practically the whole state. Now we got no resources ta speak of. No forests. No topsoil. No birds, no animals. Nothin’ worth a damn. Not here anyway.

So I need to move. No way to survive another winter here.

Tonight’s my last night. I managed to gather a few saplings for one last meal before I hit the road. They’re still raw an’ smoke more than burn, so I didn’t even bother with a pan, just threw it on the fire. I like the skin blackened anyway, gives it more flavor.

Should be done soon. It was hard the first time, with Gramps. Everybody squeamish, not wantin’ to partake an’ all. My sister – she was always a bitch (sorry, Ma) – got up and walked outside. Wouldn’t eat nothin’ and upset my Ma no end.

It’s how Gramps woulda wanted it. He’d lived a good life and died o’ natural causes. He wouldna wanted us to waste away too just because o’ some old-school civilities. The rules had changed and we did what we had to do to live.

My sister was next o’ course, but that wasn’t for quite a few months. I dug right in that night. She’d fallen and hurt herself somethin’ fierce. Not much we could do. No doctors left, and little in the way o’ supplies. We did what we could. Made her comfortable. Said some words over her from the Good Book. But it wasn’t long before she was gone too.

That was last winter, which was pretty tough on all of us. Not many made it to summer. We all knew what was comin’ but didn’t talk much about it. How could we? We had to look each other in the eye every day.

Now I’m it. The last one. I put that off as long as I could. It was too hard. I mean, she’s my Ma. She brought me into this shitfuck (sorry, Ma) world. But in the end, she understood which one of us had a better chance o’ makin’ it.

And she knew that a mom takes care o’ ya, provides for ya, keeps food on your plate.

Best.Funeral.Ever.

2007-08-18T18:21:00.000-07:00

by James Peach, Nashville, TN, USA

I'm in the mood to kill everyone in sight. It's too bad that my job requires the exact opposite of me.

I've had a record number of shooting victims on my shift tonight. I had a record number of shooting victims last night. Tomorrow night I might just set another new record by myself. I wonder if they'd count me shooting myself at the end?

If it isn't attempted murders coming through my doors, it's drug addicts. Tonight I had a lady come through that tried self-aborting. She was never pregnant. Our lab can't even figure out what drugs she's on, but that's nothing new. We're usually about a week behind when something new comes out, and something new is ALWAYS coming out. WHERE DOES ALL THIS GARBAGE COME FROM?

I should be working more on my research, but Dr. Edgar has been pissing me off lately, and quite frankly I'm tired of doing anything that benefits him, even if it's benefiting others, also. Every day that I have to be around him I have one of those headaches that you get when the anger in your soul is too much for your brain to process.

Last week a bunch of people came in with symptoms that were kind of flu-like. All of them seemed to know each other on some level, too. After speaking briefly, though, none of them wanted to talk to each other anymore. It was like they remembered that they had a secret and shut up, rather than risk letting on. I couldn't shake the thought that something was wrong with the whole scenario. At first I thought that maybe someone had messed around and put some of the Cumberland's water in their drinks, maybe they were all at the same party or something. Someone's idea of a joke, maybe. I just can't get my brain off of it, though.

It probably doesn't help that I haven't slept properly in so long that…well, in so long that I can't remember. Last night I was too tired to eat before bed, now I'm hungry and there's no time for food. Gotta save lives so people can go back out there and find some new way to almost kill themselves.

I'm tired of doing surgeries that I don't even remember because my mind was elsewhere. 4th of July is coming up. Sure, it'll bring in a crap load more patients from Riverfront, but at least it will be more interesting. It's always funny to see what new ways everyone comes up with each new year to disfigure themselves with explosives. My favorite is still The Man With One Asscheek. He was hilarious. If I were more like him I could be happier. He lost a ridiculous amount of blood that year and has to carry around a phonebook to place under himself so that when he sits down he doesn't lean. The night we fixed him up he went right back out into the streets looking for more fireworks. He loves celebrating. He has no idea what he's celebrating, but he doesn't care. He just like blowing shit up and drinking.

Best damn funeral a country's ever had.

The Last Black Woman In Brooklyn

2007-08-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

by Tasha Hanna, Bushwick, Brooklyn, USA

Bed Stuy, NY

Bush died today...

I SAID Bush died today.

Who ma?

...the forty third president. You know when New York lost the first trade center and America went to hell.

Yes mother, we know. When companies ruled the world through the illuminati, when Brooklyn was invaded by white folk and Bush didn't care about black people.<

Don't mock me.

Would I do that?

I gave birth to your ungrateful behind, the least you could do is listen to me before I go senile.

You're already...

What?! I may have given you your trust fund already,but i'm still on the board, I'll have you out on the street so fast with those "closer nature folk"...

Relax mother I'm just tired.

Tired?! You don't KNOW tired. Taking a 45 min train to school, walking home during the black outs, working 8,9,10 hours works days, two, three jobs. Manually turning on the TV, AC, Physically opening doors...doors with KNOBS for that matter, actually talking to people. pssssht you don't KNOW tired.

But things are better now right? Could you turn down the volume on your headset mother? Your shouting at me and I have a headache...

If you actually listened i wouldn't have to 'shout'. Where'd all the black folks go?

Mother i'm right here.

Chile, you ain't black, you kinda look black if i squinted really hard

{Mumbles}... and you are?

I just miss the darker folk, I shoulda left NY when they said 'the people' were leaving. how you gonna have a migration and leave folks behind?! Even the brown latinos left i'm mean damn...

please watch your language...the grandchildren...and you're not the last black person in brooklyn?

well it sure feels that way

I love you too mother.

The Princess, pt. 1

2007-08-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

by Michael Collett, State College, PA, USA

I pulled the vanity mirror down and watched her, visor obscuring my view of the road. My face took up the majority of the pane, and I smoothed my beard, any excuse to let my eyes roam. Driver's side window down, my fixer/driver -- known only to me as Handler Willy -- puffed a joint. Smoke trailed behind him towards her, following the bangs that cut across her forehead, alighted by the breeze coming through the car. She caught me, acknowledging my not-so-sly spy game with a wink and held her left eye closed long enough to give the flippant expression a little more emotion. Something brilliant in her gray-green eye fought its way from under the unnatural blue of her LiveContacts.

We had met a few hours before, as I trawled Old Sacramento looking for something for my editor, who had lodged in my ass about deadlines the minute I landed in Oakland. I had strayed into the Cease-Fire Zone looking for a cross-street to meet a contact. Apparently the river relocation project of 2030 had changed what neighborhoods were east or west of the American.

Been a while since I've been home.

The Cease-Fire Zone--essentially what was left of Old Sac, downtown and midtown--was held together by a multi-lateral agreement made a few years back by the ruling Golden Bear Party, with as many insurgent commanders as the UN could get to sit together at the old Lake Merrit Hotel down in Oakland. The agreement pushed any remaining civilians outside the perimeter of the Capitol City MegaFreeway.

Like most of the cease-fires in NoCal since the Little Big One, it had accomplished its exact opposite intent, leaving the once beautiful downtown and state capitol a bullet-riddled no-mans land. Golden Bear paramilitaries, guerrilla forces and the ubiquitous Shock Police (whose presence was no longer shocking) battled incessantly for control of center city and access to the elevated roads. Bodies stacked higher every day, no side able to control any stretch of the still pristine MegaFreeway for more than a few days.

Ducked into an abandoned Motel 6 off Stockton Boulevard, out of the middle of an escalating firefight between pro-Pivens factions. Despite their ideological alignment, minor disagreements tended to escalate quickly. Could hear sirens: the Shock was coming, they would only make this worse.

Took the stairs two by two, kicked in the door of a room facing the fighting, and set up my tripod in a blown out window, intent on making the best of my time waiting the skirmish out. When the Shocks' 'BadNews' ordinance started dropping, I was already photographing. Figuring strays might hit the building, I folded up quick, and made for the ground floor.

Bounded into the lobby and saw her. She was toting an antique AR-15, firing at a straggler who had spotted her. She nearly shot me when I took her picture, but heard the ominous whistle of an incoming drone mortar, and decided to run. Hot on her heels, I raced out of the hotel, clearing the faux-Victorian façade just as it came crashing down, landing on her. We held each other wordlessly in the aftermath, our mutual distrust overcome by the simple realization of survival.

She joined us in the gray Toyota hybrid SUV, almost as dilapidated as Sacramento itself, clutching her rifle to her chest. Handler Willy piloted us out of the Zone towards Roseville. I grabbed my camera off the floorboard and snapped her picture again, capturing the haunting face in that vanity mirror.

She had mastered a hodge-podge style of dress, typical of many guerillas I had run into since covering the West Coast. In spite of this, her garments had an unmistakably regal nature that she had perhaps been born into, only to have lost in the violence. She was certainly on her own now, but still wore on her lapel a silver variation Jolly Roger, typical of the now defunct buccaneer syndicates from Oregon and Washington; she paired it with what appeared to be a rose, made of ballistic shell casings.

Physically, she was a sight to behold; in her boots, she nearly looked me in the eyes, making her at least 6 feet tall. A few well placed scars -- including one snaking out of the back of her shirt to behind her left ear -- showed she was no stranger to a firefight.

We made it past the MegaFreeways, eastern foothills rolling out ahead of us, sun setting at our backs as we climbed into the smog belt, avoiding the roadblocks, bandits and generally bad drivers on the main roads. Me, Handler Willy and my ticket to a Pulitzer Prize in the back seat.

From the hills, you could almost forget the central valley was on the brink of civil war. As the sun finally bid its goodbye and the golden-grey of the city night took over, Sacramento's visage felt particularly 20th century: downtown's high-rises, the arresting image of capitol dome cracked open like an easter egg, and the endless fields of lights, pockmarked with dark spots where insurgents had cut power. Lovely, just don't mind the sporadic tracer bullet fire crisscrossing the city like so many crimson lightning bugs.

Had Handler Willy drop us at a darkened café at the edge of an exterior suburb where I had a contact. It was the only structure left standing in what looked to have been a grotesquely decorated south-western motif strip mall.

Hopped out of the passenger seat and reached back behind it to unlatch it for her. Quicker than I, she reached the seat handle, swung her legs over my outstretched arm, landed feet-first behind me, reached around to the passenger side floorboard and grabbed my camera bag from me. She, apparently, was less concerned with the moment we'd shared -- or my Pulitzer -- than with how much she could sell my equipment for.

To be continued.

Bloodlines, Pt I

2007-08-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

by Dominick Brady, Atlanta, GA, USA

Statesboro, Georgia

The room was warmer than I thought it would be. Stiff steel chairs made the wait more uncomfortable. The interview table, a makeshift serving table with some grunt's raspberry jelly and cheese-egg stain clinging to the far leg closest to the slate-gray cement wall rattled under Trevor's nervous paradiddles. A column of ants descended the wall, spiraling the near table leg snaking along dutifully, orderly. Glancing at my watch, the irony of their military-like precision drew me deeper into misgivings about his impending interview with Lieutenant Brandt. Decisions were to be made. Today either a scapegoat would be chosen or I would become that scapegoat. As I ran my fingers over my Sergeant’s chevrons I began to wonder if I would be able to keep them. It wasn't fair. But since was life in Uncle Sam's Army fair?

The massacre began early on August 23rd- the day before the start of classes at nearby Georgia Southern University. Chow-hall talk had been consumed with cheeky braggadocio on the prospects of plump young co-eds, which condiments went best with their long, tan legs. Eager company had just come off day shift patrol responsibilities and despite the longer hours, many of the men looked forward to returning the Night Shift. With the night shift came cooler temperatures and extended patrols where a soldier had autonomy away from the ever watchful surveillance of O.C. It also meant that off-duty time back on base could be spent on campus taking in the local talent.

Regulations didn't permit contraband on night patrol, but the lieutenant often looked the other way, as he should. Night patrol is a shit detail and troop morale ain't found in the field manual. Temperatures in Da ‘Boro could reach near 85 degrees Fahrenheit at night. Couple the heat with the nightly stench from nearby Paper mills in Brunswick, Ethanol mills in Metter and Guano processing plants just outside of Hinesville and the orchestra of foul smells playing double time on olfactory senses was hellish. Night runners were aware of this advantage. Temperature regulating exo-suits and embedded personal area networks made the long nights more tolerable as we would often download contraband movies off hacked satellite feeds. The Net is a blister foot’s best friend.

The 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team had been stationed in Statesboro for a little over a year now. Interstate 16, highways 80, 24 and 301 made Statesboro a critical junction the Pentagon did not want over-run with indigents. Cities of import such as Atlanta, Macon, Charleston and Savannah could be accessed by these highways. Fuel resources have brought the Greater Statesboro area a gold rush of sorts.

Universal Build Out laws dropped like flies over the years, and none of us noticed until the Digital Divide widened further into an unbridgeable gulf of desperation. Urban and Rural communities were hit hardest. With UBO standards abandoned, many inner cities and rural tracts quickly became ghetto war zones. What no one expected was for gangs and labor interests to mobilize into a two headed political and paramilitary thorn in the side of the federal government.

On the rural front cotton and corn farms engulfed by Corporate Agri-biz and eminent domain became the front lines of domestic terrorism and illegal migration wars.

Eager company’s order were to hold the line.

“I say fuck ‘em all, man. Geechies runnin, Guerillas runnin’— fuck it. I don’t give a fuck anymore. Tired of the shit, Trevor. View finder on my helmet’s had it. And I don’t see why we gotta lug ‘round these MOLLE’s on patrol, “ Tank griped. “Tank, Gator y’all just make sure y’all keep your eyes on that line. 2nd Squad caught a barker and lost two drivers last week. I don’t need that headache,” I replied. “You right, boss.”

Tank had a point. No one really wanted to be here any more in the South Georgia night engulfed in humidity, mosquitoes and cricket calls. Guerillas routinely mixed in with night runners attempting to flee the low country. It was getting harder and harder to determine enemy combatants from civilian illegals. Unattended ground sensors and satellite feeds warned of any incoming activity, but without knowing whether to go hot with live ammo, or to load rubbers good soldiers have gotten hurt. The men were on edge, the safety buttons were off.

At first the steady beep of the UGS didn’t catch my attention. A herd of deer was known to travel feed at the edge of these cotton fields at night. The beeping persisted. And with it came Brandt’s orders.

I shook my head in disbelief. Squinting down the column of parked Infantry Carrier Vehicles, I observed a chorus of shrugs, scowls and sneers echoing down the line. Was Lieutenant Brandt serious? “Here we are on the brink of civil war, and he wanna go and command some bullshit like this? Fucked up in the game, aint it,” I said, turning to Gator. He shook his head and stared off into the high cotton. Gator didn’t say much these days. It wasn’t in him anymore. Some of these Night Runners were kin to him. I’m surprised his Geechie draftee ass ain’t gone A.W.O.L. already. I suspect he will any day now. That’s why I sleep with my Corner shot at a right angle. Just in case. You can’t trust much of anyone these days outside of the major cities. Everybody’s got an agenda. Labor, Agro-Activists, Radicals the shit is an unending list of the kind of scum you don’t mind cleaning off your boot after you’ve stomped on it a little, make it bleed. We’d been on patrol for just over an hour and Brandt is telling us to dismount already.

I didn’t like it. It didn’t feel right. Ain’t no telling what them Geechies and cousin fuckers had in store for us. We had to hold the line.

…to be continued.

Rico pt I

2007-08-09T04:55:00.000-07:00

by Nichole Perkins, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Rico leaned against a building, ignoring the bricks’ burn onto his back. His blue sarong, eloquently knotted below his navel, brushed the heels of his feet, while waves of overly-long hair hid his face from view. Cars circled the block a few times before taking a short trip with an additional passenger.

He tapped a bare foot impatiently. It would be dark soon. He thought he’d be gone by now, preferably with someone looking to extend happy hour. If he didn’t catch one by nightfall, he’d have to go back to the dorm and the guardians would tease him again.

The thought of their taunts pushed him from the wall. He refused to listen to their scolding any more. He’d heard it too many times already. They’d tell him he used his pretty face as an excuse for laziness and that he had to work in order to get work. What he wanted was a protector, but he wasn’t going to find one on a corner in K-Town. Rico started to walk to the lockers to get his bag. He wanted to make a list of what he might need to do in order to improve the quality of his clientele. If he asked the guardians for help, they’d probably ask for a cut, and he was tired of giving them his money.

He’d only gone half a block when he felt a car pulled alongside him. The black exterior was nothing unusual but the wide whitewalls brought him up short. The Benz was quiet, its french fry scent of biodiesel faint, and that was more than enough to stretch a grin across Rico’s face. The passenger window eased down, and he was careful not to touch the finish as he leaned close and asked, “How can I perfect your evening?” He raked his hair back, uncovering the bronzed features of his mixed heritage, opening his face.

“Do you service women?” the whisper was not one of disguise or enticement. Rico’s smile stumbled before righting itself.

“How many and do I get breaks?” he quipped.

“You are too young.” The ruins of her voice cast shadows over Rico’s anticipation. He reached between his sarong and hip and pulled out a thin, laminated card. His employment license listed his current age as twenty and his most recent physical, three weeks ago, as clean. He let his smile fall and rested his forearms against the doorframe. She didn’t want silliness.

“I’m not too young to give you what you need, amante.” Promise, edged with desperation, filled his eyes.

“Get your things and hurry.”

Watching him lope back to the standard issue grey lockers, Asiya ran a hand over her throat, an old, useless habit.

…to be continued…

King of the Californias Pt III

2007-08-04T13:08:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

Midnight at the Palma de Baía is surreal and alarming. Atop a fifty-story spire shaped a bit like a melted candle, you can still hear the artillery in East Oakland's flatlands as the Northern Republic of California continues its purge of the Deep East Side. Guandong, another breakaway republic across the Pacific, has long subsidized arms sales to NoCal in return for preferential shipping rights, and with all this money floating around, the Pacific Arms race is at full steam. Combat drones made in the factory hives of Guanzhou screech overhead like pterodactyls, dropping decompiler bombs on ghostly suburbia. NoCal's Army uses Guandong-made bioweapons and nerve bombs to 'pacify' great swaths of urban NoCal, against almost every recognized convention of human rights. And while the old men in Beijing stomp their feet in impotent rage, their dreams of Chinese hegemony stalled when the wealthy provinces quit the country. They, like their counterparts in Washington, have learned some hard lessons in modern politics the past few years. None could teach these old dogs new tricks better than Prime Minister Benny Pivens, whose Golden Bear Party made its bones reclaiming vast stretches of the country and putting them back on the grid. Yet as the country's largest city, Oakland has proven particularly difficult to tame, especially given meager police resources. While NoCal's constitution gives Pivens sweeping power to maintain order, using the Army to clear the Deep East Side seems excessive to my tender Yankee sensibilities.

Cecilio Goncz fancies himself a scholar of the human condition, and I haven't the backbone to dispute him. He thinks my outrage is cute. Amusing, even. His own human rights record consists of petabytes of footage that might convince Dante to re-write his portrayal of Hell. Goncz's former territories were among the most savagely oppressed in Los Angeles' history. He justifies this often by remarking on how his was one of the few enclaves on the island with electricity and clean, running water. People ate regularly. There was rudimentary net access. Running local newsfeeds. Hospitals. Relatively low murder rate. Lowest infant mortality rate in Los Angeles. But all that was alongside death camps and narcofactories. A burgeoning slave trade and vigorous gladiator culture, arguably unparalleled since the days of ancient Rome. To this day, the provisional government has found his the least manageable of all its cantonments. Cecilio Goncz's throne was built of human bones. In his mind, Benny Pivens is an amateur. He says so.

"If he was smart," my host says, picking at his sharpened teeth, "he'd arm a counterinsurgency. Get one of the other gangs to do his work, absorb the survivors into the police or army. It's win/win. Blooded vets loyal to the state, and you've cleared the streets of dissent."

I have nothing to say to that. Our silence is interrupted by a distant explosion that rains combat drone over Jack London Square. Rumors place U.S. military advisers in East and West Oakland, arming guerillas. Pivens' public rhetoric has heated up over the past weeks. I quietly wonder if North America can take another war.

He lights a little black cigarette and answers my unspoken question. "People can take anything, kid. Human rights bastards wring their fucking hands all day, but people are resilient. I mean, shit, we didn't always have electricity, the net, cars, mortgages, and a Bill of Rights. We lived a long time before that stuff. Loving, hating, fucking, killing, making babies, losing babies—the whole thing. I mean, shit, homes: you think the first caveman complained about human rights when the next guy tried to step on his neck? Hell, no. He picked up a rock and beat the guy to death, or rolled over and showed his belly. That's what it boils down to when you strip away all the fatty tissue. That's people, homey. Get yours or get got. You'd be surprised how quickly people get used to that, no matter how civilized they been brought up. They adapt to adversity. It's what makes us what we are. Our dreams are only as deep as our nightmares, yeah?"

The livetattoos in place of his eyebrows have translated into animated Japanese, kanji characters tracking across his brow: 'Only God Can Judge Me.' I ask if he's saying humanity is only as good as the evil it does. He smiles.

"Look at us, esé," he motions to the penthouse balcony overlooking the Bay. "We're sitting on top of a building that was grown out of the fucking shattered Earth, yeah? Brasilian engineers come up the coast, seeded the ground with nanocrap, and five weeks later, I have a private suite with spigots that pour any drink I want. Furniture that grows out the damned floor and changes color when I clap. That's pretty amazing, right? But flip it around. That same nanocrap goes into decompiler bombs and man-eater bullets. Side by side, homey. That's the human condition. One foot in the gutter, one on the curb."

My follow-up question is interrupted by a crashing sound from inside the penthouse. Shapes move on the other side of the balcony's crystal doors.

Goncz's alligator smile widens, livetattoos morphing to red lightning bolts above his eyes. He passes me his cigarette. "Hold this, and don't smoke it," he growls. "Pendejos found me. Only a matter of time, I suppose. Stay out here. This shouldn't take too long." He pulls a long narrow strip from his belt buckle, quiet buzz as the softknife goes rigid with electric current. A tiny pistol has materialized in his other hand.

I had no idea my host was armed with blade and gun.

Or that I would witness him use them.

Running From Daylight Pt II

2007-08-02T04:46:00.000-07:00

by Dominick Brady, Atlanta, GA, USA

Greasy with blood, my fingers fumble clumsily with the buttons on my cargo slacks, grasping for my mobile. I hand the phone to my wife. “Baby, I need you to call Doc. Tell him not to bother leaving. We’ll meet him at his place.” Glancing in my rear view-finder, my mother’s eyes meet mine.

“How’s he doing back there, Mama, ” I ask her. Before she can respond; I don’t have to zoom in to see Pops is fading, or to feel the panic in Mama’s grimace of a gaze.

“He’s getting pale,” she manages to utter.

Priority number 1 is for us to make it to Doc’s place, undetected. Priority 1.A is to keep Gideon calm. “Mama, you’re doing fine. Everything is going to be fine,” I reply to her, attempting to reassure us all.

The tunnel’s cement gray roofing gives way to transparent recycled solar cells as M.A.S.H’s eastbound connector approaches the Downtown Arts District. Off to the left Grady Hospital’s helo-port quickly rises and falls along the horizon line as we approach the assent onto the Edgewood Avenue exit. Doc’s place wasn’t far now.

Dr. Jean “Doc” Chera runs a tight ship. He has to. As a moonlighting Grady Hospital Cardiothoracic surgeon, Chera operates the most respectable 'chop shop' in the metro area. It’s a dangerous business, but if anyone uninsured, undocumented or unemployed needs to get cut cheap, quick and clean Doc is the man to see. City-wide Universal healthcare isn’t nearly as ubiquitous as many hoped it could be. Even with the overwhelming budget surpluses Atlanta has been spoiled with, the unemployed and illegal traffickers such as myself are not eligible for care. Chop shops may be illegal, but they remain as vital to the Atlanta economy and its untold thousands of ATLiens as the tunnels we traverse each day. Doc's celebrity as a childhood phenom secures him a provisional pass with the Juras. Everybody is a soccer fan, even crooked cops.

Doc, like many of my clients, enjoys not having to worry about annoying regulations and data licensing associated with registering for commercial internet service. US.net’s free bandwidth is fine for non-commercial use, but Google-Diebold’s cube mesh network is one of the few real bandwidth solutions for profit-seeking endeavors. I supply my clients with low-cost, high speed bandwidth by bypassing commercial data security systems. It‘s what pays the bills.

Doc and I have a special arrangement. As long as I keep Doc wired, my family receives free service.

We speed up the parking ramp of Doc’s chop shop at the corner of Auburn Avenue and Jesse Hill Jr. near the old Royal Peacock. For some reason, the Juras are not hanging outside the precinct across the street flirting with the Meth-head-crisps near the underpass. Vatos from the fighting Zone Five have a sweet tooth for Anglo putas. After making a quick dua for our stroke of luck I begin to ease Pops out of the backseat. What should take two minutes of quick work is taking the better part of ten minutes, getting pops secured into a wheelchair left next to the stairwell for handicapped patients. I never could get used to manual labor in the morning heat.

“You’re getting soft, playboi”, I laugh to myself.

Leaving Gideon in the truck with Mama, my wife and I struggle to pull Pops up the narrow stairwell into the chop shop foyer. The steady hum of generators and antiquated wall-unit air conditioners is almost soothing. We made it. Doc enters the room in a rush, and squats down in front of the wheelchair. Holding Pop’s left wrist he listens intently to Pop‘s respiration, before ordering the attendant to change the blood soaked dressing wrapped about Pop’s face. Mumbling something unintelligible into his voice pad, Doc scratches his head while walking away to his office.
I can’t read him.

“Well how’s he look,” I ask, growing impatient.

Doc pauses to give me a stern look, “There isn’t much time. Did you bring the boy?”

“Yeah. He’s in the car with his Grandmother keeping cool. When did you get these air cond-”

“We don’t have much time,” he barks, cutting me off.

Reaching into my pocket, I mobile Mama. There is no answer. With no time to waste, I touch my wife gently on the arm letting her know I’ll be right back. The stairwell’s sweltering heat is nearly unbearable as it harmonizes with the steaming stench of vagrant’s piss. At this point I just want the day to be over. With my sweat glistening forehead throbbing I enter the tiny parking garage wiping my brow. The car is gone. In it’s place is a sealed envelope. Quickly snatching up the envelope I sprint down the parking ramp to the street. “What if they were kidnapped,” I wonder aloud. I stumble down the steep descent, nearly falling into the street. Bracing myself against an old deserted Hyundai Genesis, my eyes search left along Jesse Hill Jr. before turning right to peer down Auburn Avenue. The streets are barren. No one but criminals, cops and fiends are on the streets at this hour anyway. What the fuck is going on here?

I open the letter. Marked with an official City of Atlanta police seal, it reads:

'Jeff,
We need to talk.
Sincerely,
Major Carlos Vasquez,
Zone 5 Commander.'

Browning

2007-07-31T18:23:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

Danny Felder hears his dad's girlfriend slam the front door, screaming Estonian in a pitch that scrapes the spectrum heard only by dogs and orbital surveillance equipment. His father meets her in the living room, where the battle unfolds something like this:

Her: "Little Indian bitch stole my phone!"

Him: "The one I got you last week?"

Her: "With a gun, she stole it! What kind of country is this where old ladies rob their social workers at gunpoint?"

Danny shakes his head. He helped his father pick that phone specifically because it was one of the few models with local memory. She insisted, 'In Estonia, all systems hacked. I want phone holds my information in hand. No netmemory. I want the real thing.' His father, technological prowess of a mildly intoxicated sea-otter, relegated research to his smarty-pants son. Who doesn't hate his prospective stepmother so much as reserve her to a pantheon of Demon Bitch-Goddesses, drawn from his father's generous lineage of mistresses and candy wives. Now Svetlana has lost all her contacts, afloat with some well-armed dowager in the Bronx wastelands who has either sold it for diabetes medication, or is making calls to the Pacific Rim. 'Which is what you get, buying high-priced toys for low-class hookers,' Danny thinks. 'Hey, dad, why not get her a new, more expensive phone to make it up to her? And maybe some jewelry, so she knows how petite you think her ass is.' He sighs, scratches his chin, comes away with a handful of mottled white skin, and smiles.

The treatment is working.

Brushing a curtain of skin flakes from his shirt, he disrobes, heads to the shower. The Felder penthouse is equipped with real water showers, a rarity even here, on the Upper East Side. Danny's private shower qualifies as a minor World Wonder, ranked just after World's Fastest Orbital Transport. Twenty-six individual jets of chemically purified water from delicate rotating pipestems blossom from the smooth ceramic walls. The twenty-seventh pours water from the ceiling with the tenderness of the Virgin Mary or the fury of Poseidon, depending on Danny's mood. Today he goes for gusto, those twenty-six jets working his body like a shiatsu, shower floor soon carpeted with great irregular sheets of dead white skin. Danny lets the shower work him while he motions at the wall for communication options. He goes for 'nonverbal', and is greeted by projected avatars that slide across the shower curtain like an oil spill. He spots a well-armed Orc, yellow canines dripping blood (Marty); a pulsing red sphere (Zhang); an ultra-retro Bugs Bunny (Amit) and finally; a balled up kitten (Diana!!!). He waves his fingers and the shower lights with a glyph for 'good morning! how r u?' The kitten uncurls, and Diana responds with a blueish, sort of unenthusiastic glyph indicating that she got his message, acknowledges Danny is indeed alive and marginally sapient, but doesn't really want to pursue a conversation. Satisfied he got that far, Danny signs off, enthusiastically scrubbing excess skin from his arms and thighs.

Diana is the living embodiment of all that is good and pure in Danny's universe. It took half of forever to get her chat ID, tortuous nights of playful coaxing before she added him to her buddylist, and he's not about to make the same mistake every other adolescent male has made by getting pushy. No, the goal is to get her to want him. He's gone weeks trying everything—anything!—to rubix cube his way into her life: livetattoos squirming all over his body, metal fins in place of hair, not bathing, webbed ear like batwings, flashy media embedded all over his face, organic grafted fangs, nylon muscle implants, androgynous traits, bullying other kids, sports, a replacement eye with built-in movie projection, and an on and on in almost infinite combinations. Combing her preferences had been damn-near impossible until she added him to her buddylist, gateway to her personal mediavault, which included all sorts of stuff on past lovers. She had a thing for desis—South Asians—in all shapes, sizes, and genders.

Danny is not South Asian by even the broadest definition.

So while he sleeps, a tiny signal transmitter in Broca's Region of his brain has been receiving modular wave signals from NYU's Eastern Language Department. He awakens each day with a new language mastered: Pashtun, Urdu, Gujarati, Punjabi, Indonesian, and Filipino-Creole, thus far. His dermatologist's gene therapy is clearly taking, and by this time he steps out of the shower and towels off, he will be a smooth brown. It'll take a few days for eye pigmentation to respond to treatment, so until then, his blue eyes will look sort of exotic; and yeah, it might look a bit like he has dandruff throughout the day. But otherwise, when he meets Diana in the cafeteria for lunch, he'll be able to pass as up to five different South Asian nationalities. It cost a lot of his dad's money, but what the Hell else is the old man going to spend it on: his Estonian whore? Danny's needs are greater.

It's not easy being 12 years old.

Last Stand in Red Hook

2007-07-30T18:22:00.000-07:00

by iago, somewhere in New York

"Ain't gonna hurt nobody…we're just dancing, baby…"

That's uh, that's some group, turn of the century, pre-turn of the century. Happy times. Happier times? Not for me, they weren't. Of course, my ass wasn't living yet, so ain't no happier times before I'm living, right? But ain't no happier times during I'm living than now I'm living, know it?

They forgot about us, know it? Wrote us off. Wrote us off early--Second Depression early. Worried about The Littler Bigger One coming down over here, worried about tsunami whipping us down, called us The First Line of Defense and pushed back inland. And oh, the folks living there thrashed their teeth and begged and cried about the need to stay protected, the need to come up, and the liberals, the liberals were just as bad, hollering and crying about abandonment, about New Orleans before Katrina, then before Alina, then before Gertude, and before Claxton did that last lick of what they'd call damage. We can't just abandon Red Hook. We can't just call it The First Line Of Defense and forget the people who live there.

But they did call it that. And they did forget us. And they saved us, saved our lives.

You're too young to know about any of those names. Hurricanes, they were. And earthquakes. Lots of storms, lots of earth, lots of shifting and shaking, just like Second Stand's hips. You saw Second Stand shaking when you came this way, didn't you? Fine woman. My woman. We got saved by being The First Line of Defense. Only we didn't look at the geography quite that way, know it? We inverted it.

We're making stands out here, not against nature, but against those folks back on the inside. And you know what? We live longer. And you know what? We live better. Know it. We live better. You know why? Because they wrote us off.

In the old days, the real olds, this country, this land is your land, this place was obsessed with frontiers. New places to discover. I think that's what killed the heart of it off, a lack of new frontiers. Sad the rest of the world got dragged along with it. But The Hook, that's our frontier. Once they left us out here, but they decided to still "protect" us--the way they say it, protection is what we need--once they left us but decided to keep us safe--haha--once they did that, we frontiered ourselves.

So me and Second Stand, we could do what we wanted, stand in the rain, sleep in the rain, make love in the sun. We walk at our own pace, hands in hers when we want them there, off to find others when we need, you know, others. We stumbled into utopia out of their disaster of having too much.

And kid, this is what I'm trying to tell you--there are pockets. You'll find pockets. I don't know what brought you here to the Hook, but you found the Last Stand. You found the Second Stand. You found The First Line of Defense, and for you, kid, I think it really is your First Line. You've got pockets to find.

I bet you're looking for a woman. Am I right?

Last Stand is right. Last Stand knows it.

She's out in the world, kid, know it. She's somewhere in the pockets.

The Working Man Blues

2007-07-28T19:55:00.000-07:00

by R. Soon, Atlanta, GA, USA

The Cuyahoga River had caught fire when he was a toddler; Barry didn't remember too much from then, but every day when his train crossed the chipped concrete bridge, with its supports mutely bearing their streaked scars, he was taken for a brief but often painfully interminable moment back to the second time it happened. He usually closed his eyes when the train came around that bend nowadays, but he could still feel with three decades twice daily of memory yielded up by his ever-aching body when it crossed over the river, and the fire lit anew in his mind anyway.

Barry had been a proud, dedicated manager of a temp agency at that time, and ironically one of the only people remaining in Cleveland even back then with a benefits package attached to his position; ironic, indeed, given that the only way to get a steady check these days was to sign up for Halliworks, and there wasn't a more permanent job than that, not unless you were able to escape the camps and get far enough away fast enough. Only the lazy bastards doing chemical reclamation at the river and around the Case site tended to run off, though, and neural running speed governor implants prevented repeat attempts. Halliworks was the only thing sustaining the remains of Cleveland's economy, both in providing work and in redeveloping the city's infrastructure from the ground up. Sure it was dangerous work, but it had to be done.

But Barry didn't think about all that. He was too old to escape arthritis and the occasional mini-malaria bout, nevermind the horrifying security patrolmen with metallic tentacle-things for arms, rumored to all come from the same recruitment office/lab in New York. Besides, at 70 years old, with eight teeth, bad knees, and no neural or physical implants whatsoever, he was happy just to have a comfortable bunk and regular meals.

Nah, better to keep his place as Senior Building Inspector with the Halliworks Westlake camp. He was the one who came up with the idea of using amplified soundboxes to pacify guerrilla residents who refused to sell their houses and business properties, and the 60% cut in surface operations casualties along with the huge boost in live-capture recruitments catapulted him out of the Erie Tunnelpass project, whose survival rate was frighteningly low, to a relatively cushy management job. So what if he couldn't leave? He was doing right by Halliworks, and they were doing right by him as far as he was concerned. Five more years and he would even be eligible for retirement if camp recruitment kept pace.

But five years was still five years off. Today, it was cloudy outside, though he knew as well as everyone crowded onto the incongruously sleek and clean passenger train cruising towards the mothballed Old Lakewood/W.117th St. Station that the clouds didn't do a damn thing for your skin. He studied as he did every day, through the Solaplex window, the quiet, dusty streets, where every single mailbox and old newsbox in sight was shorn entirely of its paint by the stealthiest but most dangerous of the sun's rays, further removing them from his more distinct childhood recollections. Things have sure changed, he mused for the thousandth time, and the train rocked back and forth lullingly on the warped track rails, encouraging his mind to wander. He often mulled over his day's work of testing buildings for integrity at this stage of the daily journey, but sometimes less comforting thoughts crept in.

The second time the Cuyahoga erupted in hellish flames was five years to the day after the first day of the weeks-long Case Riots. Barry shuddered, but nobody on the traincar looked at him; life in a camp housing 11,000 people taught everyone to mind their own business. The riots, they were bad. Bu the poor guy the news van caught staggering up Euclid, that monstrous eyeball-looking thing that took up part of his head….

The trees growing back along the tracks fell away, and earth gave way to gravel along the bridge's path. He had been more lost in thought than usual, and having not closed his eyes in time, they were now fixed on the mesmerizing landscape around the twisting, winding Cuyahoga River.

Dominating the view on the Flats riverbank, a tall, majestic experimental biofuel facility left much of its shell, though one wall had blasted clear across the river, four pieces smashing some cars parked along Canal Rd. and one biting deeply into the eighth floor, the eighth floor of all of them!, of the Federal Corporate Management center, right where his dear, hardworking son had….

Barry shuddered again, harder this time. The fire had spread from the contaminated cooling system, the news said, and the river had plenty of fuel topping it off to blaze on down to the mouth, violently combusting everything too close to the water's edge. A fine blue dust had begun raining on the Flats and along the banks due to some chemical mixture catalyzed by the fire, and it was later decided that this blue dust was why all the plants and trees down there, even those away from the water, had died off with nothing ever growing back. And he vividly recalled the bridges being blocked off by police for a panic-stricken month, and the reports of a renegade driver heading off across the Shoreway only for a 30-foot chunk of concrete causeway to break off and fall, taking him with it down into the deadly water.

Barry hated how clearly all the images glowed in his mind, even has he fought to pull his gaze away from the now-empty site of the FCM building, seeing so sharply the jagged brick disc clutching at the eviscerated tower's tattered, ripped Solaplex windows once again. He hadn't tried to identify his son's remains, on the advice of the rescue squad at the scene, but imagination-driven nightmares had plagued him for a full three years anyway.

His traincar shook over a rail joint, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he dared to open them again, the river was past and the train was off of the bridge, heading into the final tunnel leading to Halliworks Central Station.

Vermont Avenue + Adams Boulevard

2007-07-26T00:54:00.000-07:00

by Ike Moses, Los Angeles, CA, USA

"El Poco Grande," she began, carefully, with one hand commanding motorized blades and the other directing a laser. Concentration sweat laminated the faded serial number on her forehead, "It wasn't no earthquake."

"Oh yeah?" Jawan raised an interested eyebrow and urged the punchline, "What was it then?"

"Terrorismo."

Southern California remains a popular tourist destination, even after its incidental secession from the Union. Granted, most who come here really want to be in the States, but for some the Southland is as close and as far as they want to be from Sam. There are less Germans, with fanny packs full of euros, visiting the Walk of Fame; but there are more Sudanese Jihadis, full of American resentment, trying to win back the confidence of other Arabs. They were the CIA's dry-snitches for most of the Arab-American Wars, but Southern Sudan's liberation broke the alliance.

Jawan had to resist shaking his head. He didn't want that nonsense landing anywhere near his shoulders. The slightest neck swivel would fuck up his hairline, though. He ain't disagree that much. Holding very, very still, he screwed disapproval into his lips and said, "You on one, 'Maine."

"Think about it, Juan," Tremaine precisely traced the beginnings of an acute crescent above Jawan's left temple, "An earthquake is caused by friction. The friction is caused by placas going head up. They run into each other, not away from each other, 'stand me? They make mountains, not islands."

"They made this mountain fall into the pienche Pacific," Jawan didn't understand why he was getting so frustrated, "If Poco Grande wasn't an act of Allah; who did it, how, and why?"

"I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I know who," Tremaine paused, not for dramatic effect, but to review her head work, "Same fools who blew up them levies way back when."

Ready for a subject change, Jawan called out to the shop, "Who winning?"

A group of men shielded the wall-screen, only allowing Jawan to see the ball occasionally fly over their unshaped-up heads from his chair. The game was broadcast live from the Coliseum, about a mile south, so Jawan was unsure if the audience roars he heard came from the speakers or the stadium itself. Somebody shouted back, "It's tied. One up."

When Tremaine finished, Jawan surveyed his dome in the mirror, stretched, and brushed phantom hairs from his clothes. He tipped the barber in won and pesetas, grasped her hand, leaned an elbow into her chest, and said, "A'right 'Maine. See you next viernes."

Once outside, he heard the parlor explode with disappointment and celebration. Some asshole held a "Gol!" shout for like 45 seconds. Jawan didn't turn around to see the replay. He hopped on his bike, checked there were no trucks or tanks approaching, and swerved across all four lanes of Vermont Avenue, dodging opposing cyclists as he headed southbound. He didn't mind coming out this way for a cut, no matter how many foreign 'hoods he had to pass through to get here. He needed a Friday ritual: the weekly round-trip to Tremaine's shop and back gave the day some meaning. Besides, it was difficult finding a barber he could trust. Tilt your head back into the wrong sink and you'll sit up without it.

Jawan sprint-cycled until his bike was charged, then sat back to cruise, going easy on the twist grip. He tried, unsuccessfully, to find a pattern in the neglected asphalt's alligator cracks and potholes. At the corner of Exposición Bulevar and Vermont he was forced to yield to the drunken mob of 'stizos and negros that trampled Expo Park, the streets, and the reappropriated Universidad del Sur de California campus. He hated having to stop there, with the emerald dome of la Mezquita de Omar Iban Al-Jattab noticeably absent over his right shoulder.

He remembered the night it happened. Not just him, everyone who wasn't in the masjid that night remembers, because everyone was looking. Angelenos used to give stars jaded regard, but now stars made them anxious. The lights and the smog keep the heavens far away from the City of Angels, so if you see the sky, the sky is falling. That night the star came from the east, just above the palm tree horizon, and grew in intensity for a couple minutes. The star didn't come from heaven, of course, but from a coastal town that used to be Bagdad, California. It was the first American ballistic missile in a brief campaign that caught sleeper cells while they slept.

According to Sura 2:160, Allah is the relenting, the merciful. But Jawan needed a relentless, vengeful god. His faith had collapsed with the dome to his right, and this intersection was where the failed structures of his life stood, or laid, or whatever that mostly demolished building was doing. Instead of sitting there thinking about another missed Jumu'ah, he decided to slice through the crowd of cerveza-fueled football fans. Agitated by Jawan's intrusion, some spectators threw food and drinks at him. He caught a little with his shirt and khakis, but they missed his head, so he didn't really trip.

King of the Californias pt II

2007-07-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

With the promise of trials at the Hague's High Court of Human Rights, Los Angeles's warlords seem finally to have run aground. Recent captures of narcoterrorist Willis "Grip-Up" Tollridge in his Brentwood fortress, and Ricky "Tweaks" Neuman of the notorious San Bernadino Popular Front have stricken powerful blows to LA's infrastructure of violence. With elections around the corner and international aid pouring into the provisional civilian government, the beleaguered island nation seems finally to have found its footing, after close to thirty years of continual bloodshed. But even with these victories, many claim the war-torn nation of 12 million cannot truly begin its healing, as war criminals such as Kelvin Black, Lucien Cree, Darlanda Stuart, Jesus Cruz, and Rolando Montoya are loose. The infamous 'Inglewood Five' have been sighted as far away as Vanuatu, luxuriating in wealth generated over decades of brutal exploitation and oppression. And while the provisional government works tirelessly to rebuild and reconnect Los Angeles's diverse communities, they do so knowing the funds to effectively perform their job are sitting in banks on the other side of the globe.

Oakland, in particular, seems to have a lot of loose cash these days.

Ask anyone out West, and they'll tell you the monsters of Los Angeles made off with billions, leaving their countrymen in squalid, sometimes medieval conditions. Where have they gone? The nations of CariCom want nothing to do with them. The United States, Alaska, Canada, Brasil, and Quebec have all issued warrants to seize on sight anyone from the High Court of Human Rights' wanted roster. Hugo Ranieri's capture in Buenos Aires last month effectively flushed out the war criminal populace of Argentina. For the discriminating fugitive, the Western hemisphere has all but shut its doors. Yet nestled between Canada and Federal Mexico, the Northern Republic of California has taken a stance that has made it enormously attractive to Los Angeles's oligarchy-in-exile. With no official stance regarding the upcoming international tribunals, nor any existing extradition treaties with their neighbors, Prime Minister Benny Pivens has eliminated even the possibility of extraditing admitted war criminal against their will. And so Oakland, NoCal's largest functioning metropolis, has become haven to some of LA's wealthiest absconders. Paramilitaries, gangsters, murderers, narcotics cartels, and slavers have found new homes in any of the twenty luxury hotels to spring up in downtown Oakland these past three years. With all this new money pouring in, new banks pop up almost daily to accommodate new offshore accounts, and the Californian peseta is currently one of the most traded currencies on the international market.

Money, they say, makes the world go 'round. And that is the topic du jour as evening falls on Oakland's Palma de Baía hotel, where we watch the sun set from Cecilio Goncz's private rooftop suite. Overlooking the gutted shell of Goldengate Bridge Memorial, Goncz has set aside his trademark sunglasses, revealing milky white eyes behind nictitating membranesm installed for protection against pepperspray (and worse).

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages," he says, inhuman eyes set on the Bay. By the time it dawns on me that he's quoting Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, he's facing me, looking for some kind of response.

The worse part about his eyes is you can never tell exactly where he's looking. When the silence becomes awkward, he chuckles, grafted alligator teeth adding signature menace to his smile. Goncz's mythology swirls with tales of missing journalists. I sip my mochatini and smile back, trying to look impartial, unshaken, never happier in my life than for the tracking culture injected before I left Chicago. I ask about his money.

"Money?" he smirks. "Homey, I don't have two centavos to rub together. Money implies income, and baby, I have none. I spread it around. Charitable causes. Rebuilding efforts here in Cali. LA didn't want me anymore, hey, peace. Move on. That's life. But this?" He motions to the Bay. "This is California. Home."

I remind Mr Goncz politely that by his own admission he technically only lived in California for a few years before the Little Big One separated Greater Los Angeles from the continent, and devastated the rest of the West Coast. And that one night at the Palma de Baía costs two weeks my salary.

"You don't get it, do you?" he asks sadly. "California, that was the American Dream. 'Go West, young man.' Cowboys. Indians. The Gold Rush. Hollywood. Blondes. Money. Fame. Live fast, die young. All that shit. When you reached the Pacific, you knew you'd achieved something, you'd made it. The earthquake broke something fundamental, you know? In people's hearts. We felt that shit in LA, homey. Believe that. When the Little Big One hit Cali, that was the American Dream got strangled right there. Now, I can't fix things in LA like I want to, so I brought my money here. And yeah, I got a nice pad, but like I said, I'm paying to fix a lot of broken things."

I mumble something about nobility, which I hope isn't taken too snidely as I want to live to finish my drink. Then I ask how that relates to his quoting Smith.

His trademark smile resurfaces, tone reminiscent of the journalism professor at Northwestern who flunked me. Twice. "No one cares how the job gets done, homey, or where the money comes from. Just so long as it gets done, and the money's there."

They still sing The Yellow Rose of Texas

2007-07-22T09:57:00.000-07:00

by Zesi, Atlanta, GA, USA

Mexico/Texas border, the Rio Grande

La Frontera still sings her promises to sus amigos al sur, she, seductive, beautiful, dangerous.

The cruelest part is looking across the river, grand, the landscape no different than the one your feet are planted in, the promises loom larger than the life you had at home. A house of your own, big and clean, your kids, a dog even. A new car that purrs like a kitten as you drive it. Your career back, the schooling flooding back after years of disuse. Water in pipes, and streets that smell like air instead of the shit at home.

You look over, and you don’t imagine what’s coming to you. You creep as you’ve been warned, you steel yourself as you’ve been warned, you hear the sweet sucking of the mud and you are so close, and your foot is poised to go onto the other side, and you would take a breath and savor this moment if it weren’t dangerous and illegal, so you put your foot down al otro lado, and then you swear La Llorona has come to take you away, because there’s no other explanation, your brain beats like your wild heart in your skull, but you keep going, you made it this far and others haven’t, and you take another step and she cries some more, and your ears hurt from her singing, and your ears ring with her song but you try to keep going, slower now, and too late. The border patrol comes from out of nowhere, you think, but they’ve known you were coming for 10 miles now, were hoping that your burst eardrum would be enough. They pile you into their van and drug you, they tell you in español that they’re going to make you talk, these men who mostly look like you and your brothers, and you think “If only!” but before you could think “I could stay awake!” your brain slurs like the mud you were in before you took that step. They ask you about your name and where you are from, and you tell them more than they want, but they get what they need. You talk as if they were friends or cousins calling from far away, you tell them the good home things in your haze of euphoria. You talk about how you love to comb your lover’s black hair in that far town, you tell them that it is harvest time and they should come to visit you, because they make the best tortillas where you live, it’s the love they put in it you say. You tell them that they should look up Antonio, remember Antonio?, he’d be sure to show them a good time; he can drink, sing, and dance with the best of them, and he never ever gets tired, never. One says, “Shit! We got a talker,” and bemoans that the drugs they g ive aren’t strong enough to shut you up. They tap tap in their computer and out comes what looks like plastic toothpick. They slice your arm and put it in deep as they can in your flesh banks and blood rivers. It is sewn again with care, and they clean it, they are Americans after all, now, and your death on their watch could mean another job if the right person catches them. You cross the border back when you are not awake, you change hands into those of your own gobierno, who read the plastic chip and tie a yellow hospital band around your arm with your hometown and state typed in impartial Times New Roman. You wake, and hope that the Spanish you hear is that of the border, but the pain in your arm, the pus stained cotton ball you pull out your ear, and the hospital band let you know that you won’t be joining those who sing The Yellow Rose of Texas.

If you had been better off, you would have taken the Zen meditation class offered by the coyotes. If you had been smart, you would have pressed the ones with the scars on their arms and the double crossersm who gouge their chips out for a new chance at the dream. If you had been lucky, that might have helped. But they are shipping you home in the special Mexican postal service van for human freight returned to sender. And you will have to pay them back for your return trip. This has been arranged by the governments of your and the otro lado.

They know you’ll try again.

“When the Rio Grande is flowin’, the starry skies are bright,
She walks along the river in the quiet summer night:
I know that she remembers, when we parted long ago,
I promise to return again, and not to leave her so.

She's the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew,
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, they sparkle like the dew;
You may talk about your Clementine, and sing of Rosalee,
But the yellow rose of Texas is the only girl for me.

Oh now I'm going to find her, for my heart is full of woe,
And we'll sing the songs together, that we sung so long ago
We'll play the banjo gaily, and we'll sing the songs of yore,
And the yellow rose of Texas shall be mine forevermore.”

The Man who woke the Panther—Mason Dickson

2007-07-22T06:26:00.000-07:00

by David W Parrish, Jr., Ft. Worth, TX, USA

The organ rose and signaled for everyone to get quiet. David Parrish, III, his son David Parrish, IV and his grandson, David Parrish, V rose for the tribute to Senator Mason Dickson, the first African-American to serve as Mayor of Fort Worth, TX and the former junior Senator from Texas, again the first African-American to hold the position. It was at that moment the cybercast emanated from the big screen in the sky.

"Senator Dickson was arguably the most important Politcal Figure in the State of Texas in the 21st Century. Dickson was a former church pastor who took the Texas political scene by storm by coming from out of nowhere to win the Mayor's race in 2015. A task he accomplished by harnessing the power of the Web…which had been freed from the grip of Big Cable and The former Bells by Former President Obama.

Mason Dickson won his first election by knocking on the door of each and every resident of Fort Worth and explaining to them what his goals were. He talked about the years of Fort Worth and Tarrant County sleeping in the shadow of Big D, Dallas. He talked about how the Cowboys and the Rangers were already in Tarrant County. He talked about how most of Tarrant County's newest residents were former Dallas County residents. He reminded them how much positive press had come from a wildly successful hosting of Super Bowl XLV. His daily podcasts were entertaining, his position papers on how to move Fort Worth into the forefront of not just the Metroplex but the entire Southwest.

Once in office, Mason realized how powerless the people really were. He took the oath of office on a Monday and by Thursday he was awash in proposals from the big money establishment interests trying to build on the success of Tarrant County's tourism and natural gas proceeds to elevate the national profile of Fort Worth. While in the past, such objectives would result in ruthless gentrification, Mayor Dickson utilized the vocal nature of his constituency to hedge his bets. While detractors would say that he was in the pocket of big business, the reality is that after an entire history of neglect, never had a Fort Worth mayor even attempted to cash in the favors he garnered from even the side deals he brokered with developers and use that money to elevate things like mass transit. Fort Worth went from having one of the worst mass transit systems in the country to one of the best, despite having insufficient topography for underground transit. It was the risky move of utilizing the Solar Hybrid Bus, a technology that leaked out of a newly opened Cuba that Mayor Dickson embraced fully and without compromise. He arranged for a spinoff of Bell Helicopter to build the buses in the city of Fort Worth by exchanging tax breaks for a high school program that trained workers in high school and transitioned them right into college in exchange for a 4 year commitment from the company to work the assembly line. From there the development flowed fast and furious all over the county.

From there, the legend of Mayor Dickson lingered under the radar. In a national media still transfixed by scandal and celebrity, Mason Dickson stayed about the business of wielding the Sword of capitalism for as much good as possible. Aside from the Obama administration, the federal government had been on a non-stop descent into oligarchy, where the Dow stayed on the incline at all costs and no job was safe from outsourcing. The earnings divide between the rich and the poor went from a gulf to a canyon. Those in the underclass who could get their Evel Knevel on and jump the canyon did so by any means necessary. The middle class existed by sheer force of will. You had those in the middle class who scraped by just well enough to be included in the American dream, and you had those who were treading water, but had no hope of retirement.

Mayor Mason Dickson transferred his popularity with the big money interests and the people to a romp in the US Senate Race of 2028. Even on the National Stage, Senator Dickson kept Fort Worth Close to his heart, orchestrating similar exchanges to benefit both ends of the economic spectrum. Senator Dickson took the opportunity of the national stage to voice the importance of bringing Southern California back from the brink of complete anarchy. Mason Dickson was never an ideologue, which drove members of both parties crazy. He was a darling of the Independents, who never did get organized enough to start a third party, choosing instead to straddle the fence in either party as it suited them. While over the course of the 21st Century, politics grew to be more and more like bloodsport for public consumption, in reality, certain figures navigated the vast territory between the two extremes to provide enough leadership to accomplish enough basic reform to stave off the long rumored decline and fall of the United States empire. Very little was made of his race, despite the fact that race relations remain a flashpoint for much of society. Fort Worth and then Texas came to view Mason Dickson as a GOOD Black man, to be trusted, as long as nothing bad happened. That left Mason Dickson the unenviable task of navigating THAT divide as well, the divide between Blacks and Whites and others and the internal Divide between Blacks who had achieved and Blacks who hadn't.

While it should be noted that the United States on many levels has devolved into a hodgepodge of Hyper-materialism and strife between neighbors, The nation still stands tall as an ideal of democracy even as we approach our nation's tricentennial.

It is therefore on this the 22nd day of July, 2057 that we honor The Honorable Mason Dickson, Mayor of Fort Worth, and United States Senator from the State of Texas for his contributions over the past 50 years."

At that precise moment, a laser billboard lit up the sky in his memory….scrolling his accomplishments across the Fort Worth skyline.

Markham, Illinois

2007-07-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

by Dud Lawson, Columbia, MO, USA

(begin auto voice transcript)

"Illegal?

Naw, I wouldn’t say what I do is illegal. I mean, really, I think I’m doing more of a service than any harm. You can go ask any of the people around the neighborhood, and they’d probably agree with me.

Ever since the Second Depression, anything that stimulates the economy is welcome…so as long as you aren’t hurting anyone, pretty much nothing is illegal. That is until somebody starts enforcing laws against it. And trust me, the Feds got a lot bigger problems to deal with than anything I’m doing.

I mean, cigarettes are 'illegal', but I guarantee if you go down to the govvie-shop on the corner—right now—that the upstanding government employee behind the counter is gonna sell you a pack of smokes. Sure, it might ring up on the register as a pack of gum, and you might have to leave an extra hundred on the counter, but you can get whatever you want if you look to the right places. And for people around here, I’m the right place.

I guess the feds’ hearts were in the right place when they started the Government-Regulated Commerce Initiative, but by that point they had already dug a hole too big for them to climb out of. What was supposed to be a New New Deal really just destroyed more local businesses. So now, the only stores within walking distance are the equivalent to government-owned 7-11’s. Remember those? Nah, before your time. I mean, they should have thought this shit through. Really, people need more than beer, coca-cola and potato chips to survive. I tell you, this country does everything backwards. They just don’t know what to do with us.

What? Naw, I don’t deal with any of that. I don’t do guns, drugs, stolen shit. Just stuff you need. I make sure that I’m as legit as possible so that in case they ever do start locking people up for internet trading they don’t get me on anything serious.

So yea, I admit there is a risk, but so many people depend on me for things around here that it’d be selfish for me to stop.

Basically, I saw this coming like, 30 years ago. My wife likes to joke that I predicted the Second Depression, but really I guess I wasn’t that far off. Right after the President signed the papers to start US.Net, I knew something was gonna happen.

I mean, 'free nationwide wireless internet' sounds great. The future was supposed to be here for everyone, “eliminating the technology divide between the rich and the poor.” But all-in-all, US.Net did more harm than good. Because the Government developed their own networks instead of building upon existing ones, almost every internet provider went under. Hundreds of thousands of Americans lost their jobs, and who knows how many foreigners lost their outsourced ones. Who cares, even. Global economy my ass.

On top of that, the money to pay for all those micro-satellites and shit had to come from somewhere. And who had to foot the bill? Us. At first it was just going to be a 3% tax on all items purchased over the internet over state lines. That was doable. But then it was 4%. Then 5%. For a while, about ten years or so, everything was good. It seemed like things were gonna stay that way, but then the Little Big One hit California, and well, we all know what happened there.

20 years later and we’re sitting at 30.5% federal taxes on every Goddamn item you buy online from out of state. And that’s in addition to all state taxes already in place. And that doesn’t even include shipping. I tell you, (laughing) if the stock market were still functioning, anybody that had stock in UPS would be a fuckin’ gazillionaire.

So anyway, in around 2025 or so, when the increased internet tax was just rumors, before everything started going downhill, my wife and I took a couple years off of work, depleted our savings and traveled around the country. Then we quickly and quietly set up a legit bank account in all 48 contiguous states. She was against it at first, but she had no clue my plan would work this well. Hell, neither did I. While the govvie-shops hurt everyone else, all they did was make shit easier for us.

What happens is someone comes to me saying they want something they can’t find at any of the Govvie Shops. They pay me cash, bring me the link online, I buy it online from my bank account in that state, and boom. Only state taxes paid. Loopholes are great when they’re big enough to jump through

(laughing) Yeah, had I really been able to predict the future I woulda known not to even worry about staring accounts in California, New York and like 5 other states.

Huh? Well, of course I charge a fee. This is how I make my living. Look at it this way, you can buy something yourself and pay almost a third of the cost in taxes or come to me and pay a tenth. It’s a no-brainer. This community would crumble without me.

My name? No, I’m not gonna give you my name. What’d the point of that be? I mean, it’s not like I’m even gonna be able to let you live after stenog-recording this conversation."

(end auto voice transcript)

Running from Daylight pt. I

2007-07-21T16:22:00.000-07:00

by Dominick Brady, Atlanta, GA, USA

"Settle in there, y'all. Two outs, now. Two outs!"

I always enjoyed juggling coaching duties and manning the solar cooker. You know, being in command of things. The first Saturday in June is an informal family reunion of sorts for the Bobbs, and this one began no different than most. A post dawn breeze rustled in the
needles of sun-bleached pine trees bordering the Lena side of Washington Park, bringing with it temporary relief from blood-curdling heat. Children's laughter echoed across the park in-between rhythmic slams emanating from the knife fight disguised as a domino game in the
covered picnic area. A gust of wind pushed wafts of dust up from the infield as sweat poured from Karim's chin, and painted the corner of the leather base-bag, mixing with flecks of earth into a maroon paste before quickly baking into moon-like craters. Karim proceeded to inch
further and further from the bag toward second base.

"I see you! I see you, boy! No stealing today! Play fair, now! We 'posed to be kin out here," I said, infant son, Gideon, cradled in my left arm, attempting to shield him from the shriek of my voice.

The plumes of dust thickened. I strained to monitor the game from the inadequate shade of a dying dogwood near my post at the solar cooker. The crack of the bat pierced the early morning air, followed immediately by a dull thud. Making my way back to the cooker, I began
placing the leftover jerk chicken in recycleable containers. That's when I heard mama scream.

Hotlanta had become nearly unbearable over the past few decades. Bitter cold winters and sun-scorched summers paired to bring the reality of climate change harder than anyone expected. With the ozone depleted over the city, being exposed to sunlight during the daytime
became the venture of fools and the forgotten. Atlanta's bold plan for an underground highway system as an answer to traffic blight might have seemed backwards thinking five decades ago, but due to recent climate related events, the Metro Atlanta Subterranean Highway System
or M.A.S.H., made Atlanta the primary artery for shipping and the logistical hub for all things east of the Mississippi. Nowadays, Georgia 400, known to many as the Atlanta Autobahn, The Cobb Cloverleaf, and the i-285 Perimeter, made way for belated green space, housing for prisoners and the unemployed: the frying pan's saving grace from the fire of life unprotected above ground.

Speeding along the M.L.K Tunnel, my blood-soaked hands slide about the steering wheel. "It's going to be alright, Mama. Keep applying pressure to his head," I reassured her.

"I can't, my hands keep slipping. There's too much blood!"

When the fly ball struck my father it broke his nose. For most this isn't a major problem, but for an elderly man surviving on vascular nanites and blood thinners it could be deadly. I glanced over at Gideon to make sure he was doing okay. My wife continued to sooth him, her narrow fingers slowing stroking his budding locs.

"Mama calm down…you're scaring Gideon. Everything will be okay. Trust me," I said looking over at Gideon, wondering if he knew what would be expected of him.

The history of the baobab

2007-07-21T05:11:00.000-07:00

by Ibrahim Elkhalifa, Khartoum, Sudan

For as long as the semi-arid soil had existed, baobabs had stood tall. Wide and imposing.

Its deformed branches shaded animals and people, its trunk craved out to hold rainwater for the inevitable droughts.

Its sour chalky fruit was soaked for drinks, brewed for more potent drinks by moonshine brewers and enjoyed by children who sucked it and spitted out its black seeds.

Its bark was an essential ingredient for numerous remedies and its leaves soaked in water, alleviated period pains.

The baobab is associated with spirits, griots and assigned great spiritual Importance.
Most young people today have never heard of a baobab, let alone seen one.

The decimation began in 2026, when an Italian furniture designer on Safari was struck with the quality of the Baobab timber.

An international race for Baobab wood began and this rare tree slowly disappeared from the landscape.

At the present time no baobab trees are recorded as existing.

This decimation is noted as being the fastest of its kind, due to the rarity of the tree.

From the African Encyclopedia 2057 7th edition.

Manchester Boulevard + St. Andrews Place

2007-07-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

by Ike Moses , Los Angeles, CA, USA

"Where you from, loc'?"

Jawan didn't reach for his piece. The question came from close enough range to determine he had already come up short. Getting caught slipping like this wasn't what worried him—all Angelenos eventually fall on the active plate beneath them—he worried about who might catch him.

He turned and saw two young men approaching on a single hybrid-electric bmx. The man on the handlebars cradled an old-fashioned Russian assault rifle, making it fair to conclude that they weren't a pair of census takers. The rifleman was a lightweight with sinews and muscles woven so tight that Jawan almost thought his flesh was made of Kevlar. He convinced himself that even if he did get the drop on ol' boy riding bitch, the bullet would have been wasted anyway.

It wasn't until the bike stopped, a yard or so in front of him, that Jawan got a good look at the pedaler; another teenager whose wrinkle-free icegrill matched the cold clarity of his navy irises. The men were now close enough for Jawan to read the ink flashing across the gunner's bare torso: "TINY TOON W/S ROLLIN NIN3-OW3 NAYBAHOOD CRIP." Every letter "I" in this alert was represented by an arrow pointing down. He noticed live graffiti on the crumbling stucco behind the bike team was broadcasting the same information, in synchronization with Tiny Toon's tattoos. A never-ending R.I.P. roster scrolled up Tiny's left forearm.

"S'wrong, homie?" Tiny questioned as he jumped down from his perch with the rifle pointed in the general direction of Jawan's sinuses, "You forgot where you stay? If you can't remember, I got a place you can rest at. Right across from The Forum."

Jawan had family there. At least he did before strays scavenged the mausoleum ruins.

"The 89th side of St. Andrews," Jawan answered to the rifle barrel.

"Don't act ignorant, my nigga!" Tiny's patience waned, "Who you with?"

"I live alone, 'migo!"

Tiny pressed the muzzle hard into Jawan's clavicle valley and asked with even breath, "You ain't registered to vote yet?"

Jawan choked a "Nah," keeping his answer short in fear that an excuse would insult the man who held an AK point-blank at his Adam's apple.

"Wacco!" Tiny called back to the bike pedaler without breaking Jawan's eye-contact, "La tableta. Tráigalo aquí."

"Símon," Wacco obeyed. His loose t-shirt reluctantly followed as he hustled over with the tablet in hand. After thumping the transparent plane a few times he asked Jawan, "¿Cho nombre?"

"Jawan. Or just Juan. Jawan Morgan."

Wacco seemed irritated by the irrelevant information, but he continued recording Jawan's personal data with dutiful disinterest. The tab's clear interface allowed Jawan to see Wacco's hand movements from the other side. Images were only projected on the front, however, so Jawan squinted to read what was reflected in the kid's glazed lenses. Upon completing the application Wacco turned the computer over to give Jawan the opportunity to review his answers. Jawan nodded before glancing at the screen.

"Now, what set you claim?" Tiny directed the question with more muzzle pressure to Jawan's neck, darkening the hickey above his collarbone.

"Get this shit off me!" Jawan loc'ed out for a moment and slapped the rifle nose toward his shoulder, "We both know ain't no petró in that AK!"

"You sure about that, cuz?" Tiny replaced the muzzle at Jawan's neck and said, "Claim a goddamn party!"

"¡Soy independiente!"

Wacco sucked his teeth and sighed, "Mark-ass moderados."

Tiny flipped the rifle and thrust the butt plate into Jawan's solar plexus. As he did this he mocked, "¡Soy independiente!" He then knelt near Jawan, who now stood doubled over, and said, "Fuck you think you is? Americano? You think you a 'stizo or some'n? You a yamp-ass 'yate! An independent nigga is a dead nigga. Align yourself or resign yourself, home!"

Jawan didn't rush to catch his wind. He felt like his body was laughing at a joke he didn't get, leaving him painfully confused. He did understand that this sidewalk on St. Andrews was not the place to figure it out, though. When the air came back, he huffed, "What if I want to bang Trays?"

"This es democracia," Tiny shrugged, "Be a Tramp all you want. Just don't come on this side of Manchester 'cause it's Tray-K e'yday."

"Fuck that," Jawan said, knowing all other options would mean relocation as well, "I'll roll with Rollin'."

It wasn't clear if Tiny and Wacco approved or disapproved of this choice, but they allowed it.

"Hang it from the left side," Wacco said, handing a blue flag over to Jawan, "'Cause it's West Side, fuck the rest side."

There was no more ceremony beyond that. Wacco raised the computer to Jawan's face for a video signature. Seeing himself in the tablet's mirror-mode, unable to decide on an expression between his raised brow, flared nostrils, and twitching mouth made Jawan feel like even more of a buster. He composed his mug and gave his verbal consent.

With that the voter registrars extended the thumb, index, and middle fingers from their right fists, to signify N-Hood affiliation, then remounted the bike. Tiny said, "You still need to be initiated, so we'll swoop you in a few days. Until then, remember: Neighbors don't need favors."

Wacco chimed in, "And N's don't need friends."

The Deegan Pt. II

2007-07-17T12:16:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

A standard paingun is about the size and shape of an old billy club. Non-lethal, barring occasional heart attacks from the sudden, intense sensation of full-body burning caused by a 94GHz millimeter wave. It is the standard peacetime sidearm of the NYPD, powered by a fuel cell that nominally offers up to five days' juice, 2,356 yard range, and a networked targeting system plugged into the old ATHENA surveillance satellite for around-the-corner shooting and nighttime auto-targeting. It's a beast of a weapon, ruggedized for melee as well, with an enforced ceramic frame, integral shock baton function, and retractable bayonette.

Unfortunately for Detective Anton Choudry, those little beauties are tagged and tracked every time they're checked out of the 50th Precinct's weapon locker. So, for his purposes, he relies on the fallback: a twenty-four year old version with cracked plastic casing held together with duct tape. Thing's got the form factor of an old assault rifle and uses disposable batteries that have to be replaced every time it's fired, like a shotgun. It's also about as conspicuous as a samurai sword. He'd use the less obvious slugthrower he keeps as a throwaway piece, but he's saving it for an unspecified special occasion. Ballistic weapons are even harder to come by these days than disposable weapon batteries.

From the undercover police van, he spots his guy coming out of the Deegan Motel, dressed in dirty white kaftan, bright red Rocketeer™ boots, and one of those animated dragon belts everyone under 30 seems to be wearing. Bailey Avenue hasn't had more than three street lights since the mid-1990s, so the broad four-lane street is sort of ideal for an ambush, lined on the west side by a century of carbon monoxide-poisoned trees and the Henry Hudson Parkway, on the east by burnt-out old warehouses, a few trucks, and the two-story Deegan. Choudry's target tugs his robes a little bit to get them across his widening gut. He's gotten all the right body modifications, marking himself with blood red skin and goat horns jutting from his forehead. Very recognizable, Les Diables Nordiques, but not necessarily the smartest gang. All bodymods have drawbacks. Grafting external bone, for instance, increases sensitivity around the modified area, like a new piercing.

So when Choudry hits him with the paingun, it's like pouring lemon juice and saltwater onto fresh third-degree burns.

Guy doesn't even scream, just makes a gurgling sound before hitting the cracked pavement, clawing at his face until skin comes off. Choudry jogs across the street, kicks the guy in the face a few times to stop his thrashing, throws him over his shoulder, and takes him back to the police van. Loads a stimulant into the handcuffs, checks that the remote works, then snaps it onto the guy's wrist, looping the other hand to the van's back door.

Choudry sits back for a second, staring at his prisoner. 'This is the guy who killed you, Pete,' he thinks, reaching absently for the soundbox in his pocket, musing what blackout, the final mystery high, feels like. Consoled that he hasn't tried it yet, absently wondering if it's the last line to cross before he's beyond salvage.

"Okay," he croaks, fumbling at the tiny black remote, jolting the guy with a stimulant through his handcuffs. "Wake up, dickbag. We've got some talking to do."

When the guy rouses, his worldview has narrowed to the barrel of a gun. Choudry knows he's got his attention. "Remember me?"

"Oui."

"Then you remember my partner," Choudry smirks.

The guy nods. "Nous n'avons pas voulu dire pour n'importe quoi mauvais de se produire—"

"We're well past good intentions, jackoff. Pete's dead, you pulled the trigger, and you and I both know that as of right now, you're never going to see the inside of a courtroom. Your boss is lubricated like the fucking space elevator," Choudry says. His voice shakes. He's more surprised by that than anything. The guy gets very quiet, stares at the paingun. Choudry continues. "So here's how it's going to go. All Pete's accounts are mine now, you understand? Whatever you were paying him to keep out of your little thing in Melrose, you pay me now. Double. Once for me, once for my partner."

"Ce qui?" the guy spits. "Merde! Ce n'est pas juste!"

Choudry kicks him in the face. The guy spits teeth onto the van floor.

"Double, you understand me? Or I kick that fucking door open with you cuffed to it and go for a little drive," Choudry says. The guy nods mournfully, and Choudry smiles. Not for Peter Singh, who was a liar and a douche. But for the upgrade he's planning on the soundbox singing to him quietly from his pocket.

Ma’Marie

2007-07-14T15:10:00.000-07:00

by Nichole Perkins, Los Angeles, CA, USA

“They wanted more boys, you see,” Marie began, cradling her steaming cup of green tea like the treasure it had become. It was one of the bribes I had to use to get her to talk to me today.

“The war in Iraq, the Little Big One, all of it took so many of our boys, our men, and then the water became infected. Men started dying. Women began having…” she looked around, even though we were the only ones in her studio. “Women began having periods for months on end.” Her forehead folded on itself, the wrinkles hiding the ruins of her former identification number.

“I was 20, maybe 21. Had really started enjoying sex the way it should be, you know, and then I got my period and the shit just lasted and lasted. The third month, I cried myself sick for a week. They’d started rationing tampons!” She looked up at me, and for a moment, I saw panic in her wide eyes before she remembered the now. She lowered her untouched tea and reached out for the basket of peaches—another convincing gift—with her left hand, a hand with four tallies sliced onto its back.

She noticed my glance and tucked it beneath the table.

“Four miscarriages,” she confirmed flatly and turned her head to the window.
I waited, unwilling to speak. Her eyes chased dust motes dancing before the glass pane. I jumped when she abruptly pushed her chair away from the table and approached the window with a salt shaker from the makeshift lazy susan. She layered the grains against the windowsill before returning to her seat.

“The witches—they have to count the grains of salt before they can come in to steal your babies,” she advised, a tilt to her head.

I kept my face neutral. She sipped her tea.

“The bleeding stopped during the fifth month. They came for me during the sixth. My room was very nice, very comfortable. I yielded three, but there were four who knew the best way. They’d give us a month to recover when we lost one. Everybody lost one. So many girls killed themselves that they shortened it to two weeks, but then we’d die from bleeding. So they gave us a month again.”

Marie traced the final notch carved into her hand.

“I ran away after I lost Bliss. One of them—he liked me. I had to kill him, but I think I liked him, too. I made it to Refuge, in former Watts. It took three weeks. There were a lot of Sisters with eraser burns across their foreheads. I was home.”

She picked up her tea, and I knew the interview was over. It was as much as she was willing to give and more than I thought I’d get.

As I climbed onto my bike, I looked back and found her sprinkling the doorstep with salt.

W. 228th Street, between Kingsbridge Avenue + Broadway

2007-07-11T23:13:00.000-07:00

by Monk, New York City, NY, USA

With a kind of smoldering magnesium heat, Tiny Schwarzbaum is reminded once again why he hates pairing. It's not Big Bug he hates, pumping data from the TacWomb in the precinct basement. Tiny's never met his partner. As far as he knows, Big Bug is just some crippled shlub floating in a saline tub with nutrient feed in one arm, catheter up his putz, and sensor machines from the NYPD's Unified Tactical Platform where his face and shoulders should be. The poor bastard's whole world is a network of unmanned aerial drones, broad-spectrum scanners strapped to stationary balloons, and a time-share with the Port Authority for the antique Anti-Terror Hazard & Espionage Net Assessment satellite in geosynchronous orbit above the city. Somewhere in the maze of bacterially-grown circuits and artificial neurons that make up his prosthetic upper body, is the pairing mechanism that let's poor Big Bug communicate with Schwarzbaum. So how can he hate? Big Bug is just a messenger.

What six-foot-seven Schwarzbaum hates is the crawling sensation every time his partner squirts strategic goo through the ether: feeling of ticks and fleas at the back of his skull. For instance, Schwarzbaum feels fairly John Wayne-ish standing over his eighth kill of the afternoon, the middle of this big old abandoned mattress factory on W. 228th Street. Then Big Bug shoots him an overhead infra-red scan indicating the guy he actually came for is huddled behind an nearby aluminum door, with a heat source Big Bug announces as a Magnetic Accelerator Cannon. All of Schwarzbaum's three-hundred and eighty-four pounds of swagger evaporates into the creepy crawlies. Roughly then, the hate starts pumping, and his brain starts shutting down in segments, starting with Patience, then Self-Control.

"Such a way to make a living," he mutters, flexing the segmented metal of his prostheses around the the aluminum door's hinges.

By then, Big Bug drops a kind of siren alert that the MAC is powering up, and while he may mean well, it goes off like an instant migraine. Schwarzbaum, kraken of the fighting 50th Precinct's (nearly) vestigial Vice Squad, quite literally staggers. The segmented chrome tentacles where his arms should be writhe like garden snakes. Pairing doesn't give him eloquence to express himself meaningfully to Big Bug. Instead, he remembers what it was like to have hands, envisions callused hairy mitts clearly, and has them fold neatly into two great 'fuck yous', which he sends tumbling down the pipeline. Big Bug responds with something like bruise-colored lights. Schwarzbaum tightens his shiny tentacles around the door, and pulls.

And there is Mitty Baptiste, narcotics chief of Jesus Christ's Ecstatic Army of Truth, foxholed behind a desk that looks like some kind of military surplus salvage, the MAC's tripod planted neatly at its center. Schwarzbaum is stupid with hate at this point, and doesn't waste time with peaceable parlay. Baptiste's JCEAoT has run enough rainbow-colored powders through the Bronx's under-12 demographic to fuel a continuous hallucination through the next millennium. His addled minions have torched the Bronx's oldest masjid, three Mormon temples, a Sikh community center, and the regal old Catholic Church up by Castle Hill. The more mature members of his militia (which is to say, the ones who have survived Baptiste's unique cocktail of religious frenzy and low-grade chemical run-off) have turned to running numbers, hacking Federal data trunks, identity invasion, prostitution, organ-theft, and racketeering. The Organized Crime Task Force has tagged Baptiste as the kind of virulent human plague New York City can no longer tolerate.

But worse, he hasn't split his profits with the proper authorities at the 50th Precinct.

Meaning whatever gripes Tiny Schwarzbaum has about pairing will have to wait until he's got Mitty Baptiste by the throat.

And squeezes.