Is Evelyn Boatman a Mary Sue?
On an Alternative History site (which no longer exists) I posted a story titled Step Back. I based the central character on myself, with a gender neutral name. The story details the interaction of people from the 24th Century interacting with people from the late 20th Century. It gets violent in places.
Showing posts with label Alternative History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alternative History. Show all posts
Friday, July 21, 2023
Question
Monday, June 29, 2020
Transfer
He dreamed of fire.
The cities of his Nation, and of his Civilization, were on fire. And that someone, a group of hostile men, had set those fires. He dreamed that the soldiers who were under his direction had entered the cities. To hunt down and kill those who set the cities on fire. And when the soldiers under his command were done with the killing, the People of his Nation and his Civilization could begin to rebuild.
He dreamed that he had a life, again. He dreamed that he had a wife, a son, and a daughter.
And he dreamed that there was an explosion.
And that there was blood. There was blood, all over, everywhere.
He regained consciousness.
Once upon a time ago, on one of his more cynical days, Evelyn Alexander Keller said to his older half brother that the history of the Early Twenty First Century would be written in human blood. When he originally said that he did not imagine for a moment that the blood would be that of himself, and his wife and daughter.
The glare of the overhead lights came through his remaining eyelid.
He opened his remaining eye.
Even though he wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses, it was very readily apparent that he was laying on a hospital bed in an intensive care ward. It was also apparent that only his right eye was functioning.
He raised his hands into what was left of his field of view. Apart from stitches and some bandaging it appeared that his right hand was completely intact. The left hand was completely bandaged over and it appeared that the little and ring fingers were missing.
Keller began to look around the room.
The room of the intensive care ward was walled in glass and that four paratroopers wearing their full British pattern uniforms, combat load, maroon berets, and holding their L85A1 assault rifles, were standing outside the door. The maroon beret was still worn by the paratroopers of the American 82nd Airborne Division and the British Parachute Regiment of the Federation Armies.
There were also two Presidential Protective Service agents visible outside the room.
Someone was sitting inside of the room. Even with the disposable isolation garments over her civilian clothes, and her eyeglasses she could still be reasonably described as attractive.
It also helped that the wig and makeup covered her burn scars.
She was also Sonya Newman, she was once a reporter for Fox News, then she became the press secretary for President March. Alex and his wife Susan had met her during the presidential campaign eight years ago. And they became good friends.
And she was here and alone.
She stood up and walked over to the side of the bed.
“Hello Evelyn.” She said. She was one of the few persons who could address him by his given name. And now she was only one who could do that. Even the President and his own Mother did not do that.
“Hello Sunny.” He replied.
He thought for a moment, and then spoke again.
“What happened and where am I?”
Sonya answered.
“There was a suicide bombing, roughly a week ago.” She said. “Apparently the bomber was a Caucasian American convert to Islam and you’re now in the ICU of HCMC.”
The Intensive Care Unit of the Hennepin County Medical Center in the city of Minneapolis.
Keller had to ask a question about his wife, son, and daughter.
“Susan, Anson, and Alice?”
“Anson was in the school building when it happened, he’s safe and with your Mother now.” She said. “We buried Susan and Alice yesterday. And John was there for the funeral.”
John Andrew March was one of Keller’s oldest friends. He was also the last President of the United States and the first President of the Federation.
“Where is John now?” He asked.
“He’s checked into the Presidential Suite at the downtown Radisson Hotel.” She replied.
The downtown Radisson was on the south side of Seventh Street between Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues. The hotel shared a parking ramp with the Macy’s department store on Nicollet Avenue, and the ramp exited on Eighth Street. It would be a straight drive from the hotel ramp to the HCMC.
Sonya had something else to say.
“Oh, and Rush Limbaugh is still complaining about Affirmative Action.”
“Really?” Said Keller. “I thought we banned it.”
“Well he isn’t really,” replied Sonya, “but I felt like I had to say something humorous.”
“Okay.” He nodded and replied.
From his bed Keller could see a PPS agent pull out a cell phone out of a pocket, dial a number, and start talking.
Keller lifted his right hand and pointed at the paratroopers just outside of the door.
“We have Paras here?” He said, using the common name for the British Parachute Regiment.
Sonya responded.
“Bravo Company of the Second Battalion of the Parachute Regiment has secured the hospital. John has brought the entire Federation Airborne Corps up to the Twin Cities. He’s using them to turn the area over looking for the Hidden Mosque and the Hidden Mullah.”
“If it’s who The Unit thinks it is,” said Keller, “I don’t believe that we’ll find him up here at all.”
Roughly ten minutes After the PPS agent made his call, Keller had two visitors, his Mother, and his son.
Keller’s Mother was eighty years old and her hair was completely white now. She was was barely able to walk by herself and had to use a wheelchair or a cane to move around most of the time. Anson was barely seven years old, and apart from his red hair, greatly reminded Keller of himself when he was that age.
The ICU staff helped them put on isolation garments and gloves. And an ICU nurse pushed his Mother’s wheelchair into the room.
“Hello Alex.” His Mother said.
“Hi Mom.” Al replied.
Al looked at his son and spoke.
“Hello Anson.”
“Hi Daddy,” Anson smiled and replied.
Mother spoke.
“We buried Susan and Alice yesterday.” She said.
“I know.” Al replied.
Mother continued to speak.
“We haven’t heard from Gabriel yet.” She said.
Allan thought that he to reply to his Mother with more gravity in his voice.
“I’m not at all surprised. Mother, you better face it, Gabriel is no longer your stepson, and as a result of what he chose to become, and what he has chosen to do, he is no longer a member of our family.” Alex said. “And anything else I have to say on the subject is covered by a security clearance.”
“You can’t say that!” Mother replied.
“I have to.” Said Alex. “For all practical purposes Gabriel is already dead, and you may as well morn for him right now.”
Mother could not believe what she just heard.
From his position in bed Alex could see a dozen more PPS agents and The President of The Federation enter the ICU. John March began to put on the isolation garments that were provided to him.. Alex looked back to his son and spoke.
“I have to talk to The President now,” he said, “I’ll try to get out of here as soon as possible. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.” Anson replied.
With his right hand Alex patted his son on the head. Sonya pushed Al’s Mother and her wheelchair out of the room. Anson followed them.
And then The President entered the room alone. Al spoke first.
“Hey, John.”
“Hey, Al.” He replied.
John March had attended Oxford to obtain his Doctorate in History. He picked up a wife and a slight British accent in the process. And now he was the one who was making history.
John spoke again.
“You’re angry?”
“I’m sedated.” Said Al. “I’ll be really angry when this crap I’m on wears off.”
Al then spoke with a clear degree of seriousness.
“You know that the Airborne Corps aren’t going to find the Hidden Mullah.”
“I know.” Said John. “The Paras are being used to secure this hospital, your home in the Uptown area, and the hotel. The rest of the Airborne Corps is up here to perform some political theater. To give the impression that we are actually doing something. And who knows, they may actually catch some Muslims in hiding.”
John leaned down to say something else in a whisper.
“I also have Uri and the Special Unit doing the real work on catching the bastard.”
Uri, and the other members of the Special Unit were Israeli soldiers who survived the Second Holocaust. The Special Unit operated under Keller’s control and were tasked with hunting down and killing those who were responsible for the annihilation of Israel. And also with eliminating the other confirmed enemies of Rational Civilization.
John spoke again.
“Uri says that he has a lead on catching the bastard.”
“Good.” Said Al. “I want to be kept up to speed on this.”
John nodded.
“John,” said Al, “I have another request.”
“Yes?” Said John.
“I haven’t had long to think about this.” Al said. “But I think it’s time to move on.”
“What?” Said John.
“I understand that the position of Governor of the Mars Colony is still open.” Said Al. “I want it.”
“Al...” said John, “Al, you are fifty nine years old, and you were not in the best state of health to begin with. And I still need you here on Earth.”
Al waited a bit before answering John.
“If you will pardon me for being selfish,” said Al, “but I would be doing poor job of being a father if either I or my son were to be murdered by a Jihadist. I would think that about thirty five million miles of hard vacuum should be an effective barrier to that.”
John was stunned into silence. Al continued to speak.
“We just discovered the hard way that the Quarantine is not perfect. There will continue to be leakage and individuals outside who covert to Islam.”
Al continued to speak.
“And even if our successors in government were able to maintain the Quarantine, someone else may very well cook up another toxic ideology and start another global war. Given that most of the easily accessed resources on this planet have already been used up, that means that a technological collapse would condemn any of the remaining people to being stuck on the Earth and condemn them to eventual extinction.”
“You know,” said John, “You used to be an optimist.”
John and Alex had met during the first year of the Reagan Administration at The Little Tin Soldier Shop on Lake Street in Minneapolis. John was a spoiled rich kid who was into Dungeons And Dragons. Alex had introduced him to hard science fiction and a role playing game called Traveller. And in spite of efforts by his politically Leftist parent’s to dissuade him, John had also followed Alex in enlisting in The United States Army on the same day.
“We are now, for all practical purposes, in charge of the most powerful government on the planet.” Said Al. “If we didn’t think up worst case scenarios and work out plans for dealing with them, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs.”
“Yes, of course.” Said John.
Al continued.
“And we have to move on.” He said. “We, The Human Race, have to move out into the Universe. And I always wanted to take a part in that.”
“Yes,” said John, “you always did.”
John had something else to say.
“Okay, I’ll push your appointment.” He said. “You do know that this will be a bitch to push through?”
“I wouldn’t think so.” Said Al. “There are so many people who hate or fear me that you should be able to get a simple majority just from the folks who want me off the planet.”
That thought surprised John.
“In a strange way,” said John, “you are still an optimist.”
“And there’s another issue.” Said Al.
“Which is?” Said John.
“The Special Unit.” Said Al. “The members of the unit and their families will need a place of sanctuary after this ... this incident ... is properly dealt with.”
“Mars?” Said John.
“Yes.” Said Al.
“Why?” Said John.
“After all that has happened, you’re asking why?” Said Al.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.” Said John.
Al nodded.
“Of course not.” He said.
Al thought for a moment before answering.
“I gave the orders.” He said. “The Special Unit carried them out.”
“Al.” said John. “you shot my predecessor, yourself.”
“Okay,” Al replied, “I did provide him with a round in the head in the old Soviet style. Apart from that, the Special Unit did most of the wet work. And they will get most of the blame in the histories written of our conflicts.”
John nodded, and Al continued to speak.
“In the Internet era, The winners, or more accurately, those who are politically dominant, can no longer control the general historical narrative.”
“If it were not for the net, we would already be dead.” Said John. “And anyone still alive would be under the boot of the new ruling class and singing the praises of The Big Zero. Or worse, learning to speak Arabic the hard way.”
Al nodded. And then spoke again.
“What was done, what we did, will be remembered, in an adverse fashion. And those who did it in The Unit, as well as their families will need a place of sanctuary, too.”
John again nodded. And then he answered.
“Okay then,” he said, “they will have a ticket to Mars too.”
“Is there anything else?” Said John.
“Yes, I want to be kept up to speed on the Hidden Mullah case.” Said Al. “And if I think of anything else, you’ll get a fax or an e-mail.”
“Of course.” Said John.
That was all they had to say.
Later in the day Keller was eventually moved to a private room. The two PPS agents and the fire team of Paras went with him. He received a visit on the subject of security from the medical center administrator. The PPS agents stood in the background.
“I want those thugs removed from this facility!” Said the Administrator.
“What thugs?” Said Al.
“Your security detail!” The Administrator shouted.
The Lead PPS Agent spoke up. He had dark brown hair, was constructed like a bodybuilder, and spoke with an obvious Scottish accent.
“There have two attempts on your life sir, since you were admitted to this facility.”
“Only two?” Said Al.
“Yes, sir.” Said the Lead Agent. “Only two, so far, by supporters of the late President Null.”
Well that’s no surprise, thought Al, some people are bound to be a bit upset when you apprehend and summarily execute the Glorious Leader of the new ruling class. And, of course, the latest manifestation of the Ubermensch mentality really doesn’t like to be subject to the same laws as the rest of us and to be legally compelled to treat us mere mortals as fully Human.
A proper chewing out of the Administrator would require the services of a Marine Corps drill instructor. Al would just have to make the best response that he could from the hospital bed.
“First,” said Al, “there have been attempts to take my life, that means that the security detail stays, regardless of how you feel about it.”
“Second,” he continued, “these gentlemen are not thugs, and I will not tolerate them being spoken of as such that in my presence.”
“Third,” Al said as he pointed his right index finger at the Administrator, “we are now living in a proper Capitalist Civilization, and if you don’t like your present working conditions, you are free to go find a job somewhere else.”
The Administrator was stunned into silence.
Al gave the Administrator a chance to speak up, he remained silent.
“Well,” said Al, “If you have nothing else to say, then this meeting is over.”
The Administrator walked out of the room.
“Good one, sir.” Said the Lead PPS Agent.
“I try.” Said Al.
Eventually Al was released from the hospital.
The event was what in some respects could be called a cluster of fun.
A mixed motorcade of Federation Army Humvees with Minneapolis Police and civilian Ford sedans was parked on Seventh Street under a section of the HCMC. A mixed group of British Paras, PPS Agents, and uniformed Minneapolis Police officers had blocked off the street. Reporters and camera teams from the remaining local stations and national networks had placed themselves at the ends of the block. Present at the time of Al’s discharge were Sonya, his mother and son, and a man who was dressed in casual civilian clothes.
Al sat the back seat with the civilian gentleman.
Uri was the field commander of the Special Unit. He gave Al a large manila envelope.
Al began to read the contents. The top sheet was a copy of a syndicated comic strip. The award winning leftist comic strip had begun publication in 1970 and its author had gone into exile as a result of the political reformation in the United States. Most of the characters in his newspaper and now online comic strip had been depicted as having been executed or forced into exile as a result of The Reformation. One character, a former Viet Cong terrorist, had to witness the return of Vietnam to being a proper Capitalist society.
The sheet that Al held in his hand was a Sunday strip that celebrated the assassination attempt on himself and the murder of his wife and daughter.
Al thought for a moment.
If I was the kind of monster that this idiot insists on worshiping, I could have him terminated with one phone call.
But no. Al thought. I’ll do something worse. Far worse.
I will just let him live. I’ll let him witness the intellectual dismantling of his holy socialist doctrine. I’ll just let him see as the truth about the death and destruction brought about by those that he worshiped comes to light.
And I’ll just outlive the son of a bitch.
The rest of the document was a progress report on the search for the Hidden Mullah.
Uri spoke.
“Sir, I have a request.”
“The ancient tradition?” Said Al.
“Yes, sir.” Said Uri.
“Yes.” Said Al. “Go ahead.”
The motorcade departed from the section of HCMC that was built over Seventh Street. The motorcade turned right on Third Avenue and crossed the Third Avenue Bridge onto Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis.
Susan had been raised in the Catholic Church. She and her daughter were buried in the Catholic cemetery on Central Avenue just north of Twenty Seventh Avenue. The Minneapolis Police blocked off the entrance of the cemetery.
The motorcade turned left into the cemetery and parked as close to the grave site as possible.
Roughly half of the security detail took up positions around the parked vehicles. The other part surrounded Al and the other visitors to the burial site.
As Al and his other family members stopped before the graves. Uri stepped behind the headstones, took two pebbles from his coat pocket, and placed one on each headstone.
“What is he doing?” Mother asked.
“It’s an ancient tradition.” Said Al. “I believe that it goes back to the Book of Judges of the Old Testament.”
Mother started to ask a question.
“Is he a...”
Al softly but abruptly cut her out.
“Stop it!” Said Al. “I will not have you embarrassing me here in front of everyone.”
Al brought his tone of voice down before finishing his answer.
“I will explain later.”
When Al was finished with the visit to the graves of Susan and Alice he returned to the car. The motorcade crossed the Mississippi River at the Hennepin Avenue bridge. They continued southwest down Hennepin Avenue to the Uptown Neighborhood and turned right at Twenty Fourth Street to the house where Al had once lived with Susan.
When the family entered the house, Al spoke.
“Sonya,” he said, “Please take Anson upstairs, I need to speak to Mom alone.”
Sonya took Anson upstairs. Al pointed to the sofa in the sitting room and said one word to his mother.
“Sit!”
His mother sat down on the sofa. She spoke up.
“That was a Kike? Wasn’t it?”
Al cupped his right hand and brought it up to his right ear as if were hard of hearing and replied.
“I’m sorry Mother, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“You know damned well what I said!” She replied.
Al stared at his mother for a moment. She had been an old school Democrat all of her life until the election of President Null. And then he replied to her.
“Uri is a Jew. He is the head of a group of former Israeli soldiers who work for President March under my direction.”
“What do they do?” His mother asked.
“Wet work.” Al replied. “It’s a euphemism, look it up yourself.”
Al had something else to say to his mother.
“Shut up and listen,” he said, “I have a story to tell.”
Al remained standing as he spoke.
“When Governor March was elected President, his predecessor, President Null, decided to not to surrender the office to him as required by the Constitution. And Null ordered the Secret Service detail that was guarding Governor March to place him under arrest.”
Al decided not to mention the firefight that occurred in the State Capital Building between the Secret Service detail and members of both the Minnesota State Patrol and the National Guard. Or to mention the two Secret Service agents that he was credited with killing with the semi-automatic rebuild of the Austrian SA-58 battle rifle that he usually kept in the trunk of his own car.
“Needless to say, our armed forces stuck with the Constitution, and accepted John as their Commander In Chief. We set up our headquarters at the Strategic Command base outside of Omaha.”
“The what?” Said his mother.
“It used to be called the Strategic Air Command. A bunch of movies were made about it, including one starring Jimmy Stewart. He flew bombers during the Second World War and was also a General in the Air Force Reserve. And he also got to fly a B-52 on a mission over North Vietnam.”
Lucky bastard. Thought Al.
Al continued to lecture his mother.
“John and I both got offices in the old SAC command bunker. And we were working the late shift when the Final War started.”
Mother was left speechless.
“So what happened?” Said Al. “The president of we now call Frogistan had a problem. There were a mob of Muslim immigrants rioting in the streets of Paris. He could have called out the army and machine-gunned the rioters. After all, their first emperor had put down a riot by essentially doing the same thing with cannons.”
“And, of course,” said Al, “Islam is an ideology that calls for the enslavement and murder of nonbelievers. Killing a Muslim would be no more an act of murder than killing a National Socialist or a Soviet Communist.”
“A what?” Said his mother.
“Otherwise known as Nazis and Reds, the motherfuckers who wrote the history of the last century in human blood.”
Al continued the lecture.
“But their president, unlike his predecessor, decided to act like a typical present day Frogish leader and appease the mob. He did this by nuking the State of Israel.”
“John and I were in the bunker when the alarm went off.” Al said. “I made the call to Prime Minister Netanyahu to notify him of the attack, and I made the promise that his people would have a sanctuary here in the United States.”
Mother’s eyes widened.
“If you want to know why we had the sudden intake of Jews, that was my doing.” Said Al. “And President March put me in charge of the project.”
Al decided to skip the part about the full nuclear retaliatory strike on the French.
“But the remaining Muslim states were actively interfering with the evacuation effort, they just wanted to serve Allah, never mind the real world consequences, so I called John and asked him to nuke the other Muslim states.” Al said. “With that one phone call I managed to rack up a body count greater than that of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined.”
“Hitler and who?” Said Mother.
“Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, they were Communist leaders, and they also loved children.”
Mother was openly shocked.
“You did all that to save a bunch of Jews.?” She said.
“Yes Mother, I did.” He said. “And I’m not ashamed of it at all.”
His mother was stunned into silence.
Al spoke again.
“I think it would be best if you went home, go pack your things.” He said. “I’ll have the PPS detail drive you to your home.”
Mother lived in an old farmhouse in central Minnesota, outside the town of Alexandria. And he would never see her again.
Later that night Al sat on his side of the bed he once shared with Susan. He was reading another report on the hunt for the Hidden Mullah by the light of the lamp on the night stand. Sonya came into the master bedroom and she was wearing a robe. And as far as Al could tell she was wearing nothing else. Not even the wig and makeup she used to cover her burn scars.
Sonya and her production team had been standing outside of the city of Jerusalem when the attack on the State of Israel began. She had provided a literal play by play account on the air as the Israeli anti-ballistic missile system tried to intercept the in incoming warheads.
One of the warheads got through.
Even though she was outside of the city and there was something solid between her and the point of ground zero, she still received serious burns as a result of the attack.
“I put Anson to bed.” She said.
“Okay.” Al replied.
When she was rescued from the smoking ruins of Israel, Sonya was allowed to stay at Alex and Susan’s home. She now effectively knew it like the back of her scarred hands.
Sonya climbed onto the bed and knelt beside Al.
“Why are you on my bed?” Said Al.
“I don’t like to sleep alone.” Said Sonya.
“Neither do I.” Said Al.
This is too soon. He thought.
Al set aside the report and brought the remains of his left hand to the back of Sonya’s neck. He gently pulled her head down and he kissed her. They continued to kiss. And then they went beyond kissing. And when they were finished Al turned off the lamp.
It was, even by the standards of the present day, an indecently short interval that had passed between the funeral of Susan and Alice, and the wedding of Alex and Sonya.
Alex married Sonya in a civil ceremony, which was performed by a Federal Judge and in the Presidential Residence in Omaha. John and his wife were present, of course. But neither Al’s Mother nor members of Sonya’s family were present. Al’s Mother had responded to the invitation by writing that she was too ill to travel. And Sonya’s immediate family, her parents, brother and sister, had died with the city of Jerusalem.
Alex, Anson, and Sonya went on the honeymoon together.
Al decided, for obvious security reasons, to stick to the English speaking part of the world. Even though London had been effectively erased during The Final War, the remainder of the old United Kingdom was open to tourists.
Al got to go into the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where The Beatles once played. Al also had to explain to his son who The Beatles were.
They also got to see the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank.
“What are they listening to?” Anson asked.
“Everything.” Al replied. “Stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, lots of things.”
Then Al remembered something.
“But the big mystery is, where is everyone else?”
“Everyone else?” Said Anson.
“Yes, everyone else.” Said Al. “It is generally expected that there should be other worlds like our Earth in the universe, and on these other Earths there should be people very much like ourselves.”
While Anson was listening intently, Al continued to speak.
“And these people should have a civilization very much like what we have here on Earth, and a civilization like ours should give off all sorts of radio noise.”
Sonya jumped into the discussion.
“There should be radio and television stations, communication satellites...”
Then Sonya thought of something.
“The electrical power grid!” She exclaimed.
“Yes.” Said Al. “If someone were to listen to Earth on their radio telescope they would hear the hum from our power grid at sixty cycles a second.”
“Except here in England,” said Sonya, “where their system runs at fifty cycles a second.
Anson had another question.
“Why do the English use a different...um...”
“Frequency.” Said Sonya.
“Why do the English use a different frequency?” Said Anson.
Al was a bit embarrassed to answer.
“Why do the English still insist on driving on the left side of the road?” Said Al. “As far as I can tell they insist on being different, really different, and they’ve been bloody militant about it ever since they were brought into The Federation.”
Eventually Alex, Anson, and Sonya returned to Minneapolis, to begin to prepare for their journey to Mars.
It was on another morning Al received a phone call concerning the Hidden Mullah.
On the previous day Al and Sonya were going through their personal libraries and choosing the books that they would physically take to Mars, and those which would be electronically scanned and copied.
From his own personal collection Al chose to bring along hardcover copies of the complete works works of Ayn Rand, and her successor as the Leader of the Objectivist Movement, Leonard Peikoff, and rest of the official Objectivist Canon. He also chose a work by Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers.
Al also chose to bring along a a really old and beat up copy of a paperback novel.
“Galaxy 666 by Pel Torro?” Said Sonya as she picked it up.
“Yes.” Said Al. “It is, by reputation, the worst science fiction novel ever published in the English language. It took a great amount of time and trouble for me to acquire a copy.”
“Surely, you can’t be serious?” Said Sonya.
Al avoided the obvious response but still answered anyway. He took the copy from her hands, opened it to a bookmarked page, and pointed to a paragraph.
“Read that.” He said.
The paragraph was an example of purple prose which illuminated the absurdity of using the word “terrain” to describe the exogeological features of the alien planet that the characters were walking on.
She read the paragraph.
Having become acclimatized to the pink-tinged light, which gave everywhere a strangely roseate appearance, and which had the effect of lulling their senses into a rather dreamy false security, the four explorers looked down at the ground beneath their feet. The ground beneath their feet was a very odd sort of terrain - - though “terrain” is not, strictly speaking, the kind of word that ought to be used to describe the ground of a planet that was not earth. Like so many of the old earth words, it has crept into the vocabulary of the empire. So they examined the terrain.
“Oh, my God!” Exclaimed Sonya.
“You could say that.” Said Al.
“Somebody actually wrote this?” Said Sonya.
“Yes. Under a pen name” Al replied. “His actual name is Robert Lionel Fanthorpe, he’s about five years older than my Mom, he managed to not get vaporized along with the City of London, and he’s still at it.”
“At what?” Said Sonya.
“Writing.” Al replied.
Sonya was stunned into silence.
Al had to say something.
“If I learned anything from reading it,” he said, “It’s to avoid science fiction novels written by bikers, martial arts instructors, and members of the Anglican clergy who are a bit short on cash.”
“And you’re going to take it to Mars?” Sonya said.
“Yes.” Said Al. “I’m bringing along the best works ever written, I may as well bring an example of the worst fiction ever published. It should take up no more payload mass than a good pair of socks.”
“Well, as long as they’re your socks.” She replied.
That was yesterday.
This morning, in the office and library of their home the telephone rang.
A diode in an unmarked button on the primary part of the phone emitted a red light. This indicated the encryption system built into the phone had been activated. One other person in the world had a telephone that could do that to his phone.
Al picked up the receiver and spoke.
“Yes, John.” He said.
“We got the son of a bitch.” Said The President. “He’s being held in the Fort Benning Stockade. Everything else that you asked for is being arranged. A car is on the way to your house to pick you up.”
“Thank you, John.” Said Al.
The line went dead.
The first thing that Al did was to take a shower. He expected this trip to be a long one. The second thing he did was to pick out and put on a suit. He chose one that was basic and comfortable. He also decided to wear a shoulder holster under the jacket.
The last thing was to pick out a firearm.
He chose a M1911A1. It was a commercial copy of the weapon made by the Springfield Armory. And just because he thought it would be cool, he had three words in ancient Latin engraved on the top of the slide.
VLTIMA RATIO CIVITVM.
The ultimate resort of citizens.
He inserted a full magazine into the pistol grip. But he did not pull the slide back to chamber a round.
He placed the weapon in the shoulder holster.
Sonya came up the stairs.
“There’s a car waiting for you downstairs.” She said. “What’s going on?”
Al answered her.
“One last ride with the Special Unit.” He said. “Then it’s over, it will be all over.”
Al kissed his new wife and went downstairs.
Anson was waiting by the door. He had seen the car waiting in front of the house and reached the correct conclusion. That his father was going somewhere.
“Where are you going, Daddy?” Asked Anson.
Even though it would hurt like Hell to get up again, Al knelt on his knees on the floor to answer his son.
“I’m doing one last thing for the government, and when I’m finished with it, then we can go to Mars.”
He managed to tell most of the truth without mentioning any of the nasty parts.
His knees hurt when he stood up again.
The vehicle was a plain government issue Ford sedan. The ride to the airport was relatively short. The driver took the Hiawatha Avenue exit from Minnesota Highway 62 and drove onto the Minnesota Air National Guard Base.
The aircraft was a Gulfstream business jet in civil colors with a British civil registration, it was flown by a Federation Air Forces flight crew.
The flight attendant gave Al bottle of Coke Zero and something to read. It was the report on the interrogation on the prisoner.
The Gulfstream landed at Lawson Army Airfield, near the Main Post area of Fort Benning. The aircraft was met by a group of men in civilian clothes. Even though the men were dressed as civilians it was obvious to any experienced and intelligent observer that all of them were veteran soldiers. Al stepped off of the plane and walked over to the group. No one the group saluted him as he walked up. There was a standing rule in the Special Unit prohibiting that.
Uri, the leader of the group spoke.
“We are ready, sir.”
“Fine,” said Al, “let’s do it.”
Apart from a white Ford Econoline van the motorcade consisted of standard issue Ford sedans. Al
was led to the second car in the line, where he sat on right side of the back seat.
The motorcade began the drive north out of the Main Post area.
During the flight down to Fort Benning, Al had only read the interrogation report. Now on the final ride did he begin to think about what he would say to the captive.
Mom was worried about you. My Mom, but she was still worried.
You know, I thought it was really bad when Sergeant Steve Barry, I’m sure that you remember him, had renounced Objectivism and completely destroyed the credibility of The Resister and the Special Forces Underground, and that we had no choice but to go on without him. But that wasn’t far enough, you just had to go further.
You didn’t just renounce reason and reality, you had to go all the way and completely dehumanize yourself.
You were there at West Point when Ayn Rand gave the commencement address. I followed you into The Objectivist Movement and The United States Army.
I had looked up to you.
I had looked up to you!
There was no excuse. There was no possibility of an excuse for what you did.
If you had just only returned to the worship of Jesus Christ, that would merely be a cause for disappointment, from my point of view, but you had to convert to the worst religion ever invented by a predatory con-artist.
You had to just degrade yourself in the most utterly disgusting way to the most utterly fake deity ever conceived by the mind of a mere mortal. And you had to degrade yourself to a figment of a pedophile criminal’s imagination.
Perhaps I may be incorrect, but I do recall that a German Marxist intellectual once wrote that each of us perceives of a divine being as a reflection of our own values. To a productive person who wanted to worship a god it would feel right to follow a working guy like Jesus Christ. But a serial predator like the Big Mo had to invent and promote a deity that was a power tripping and destructive monster like himself.
Actually, the Big Mo didn’t invent a deity, he just stole and recycled an old old Arab pagan deity for his own use.
The motorcade had reached the Buena Vista Road and had taken a right turn.
Seriously, God is supposed to be, by definition, an omnipotent being. If he wants something to happen, it happens. If he doesn’t want something to happen, it simply will not happen. And an omnipotent being simply can have no needs that go unfulfilled.
God did not need to create us to in order to serve Him.
We were not created by God as fully human, we had to evolve to become rational and intelligent beings through a natural process. In short, WE had to do it THE HARD WAY!
So why does an alleged deity need to create a bunch of mere mortals like us to worship Him and to serve Him?”
And let’s for a take moment to a look at what the religions of our world are offering to us. Most of the religions of the world are calling to us to morally and spiritually grow up and to become members of the divine community. Basically to move in and eternally live with God, or with their gods if they’re a bunch of Pagans. But in Islam, those who submit to the obviously false god Allah, and obey the obviously false prophet Big Mo, and who in their supposedly holy names go out and conquer and abuse the unbelievers, will get to eternally rape a bunch of eternal victims as if they were a bunch of eternal animals in Allah’s eternal whorehouse.
And speaking on the subject of murder, you were a Special Forces sniping instructor. Was it too much trouble to just train the moron you sent out to murder me to just simply shoot me and not harm anyone else? Why harm any innocent bystanders?
Oh, that’s right, as far as Allah and the Big Mo was concerned there are no innocent bystanders. There is only the property of Allah, or there are those who refuse to be the property of Allah, who, as far as the Livestock of Allah should be concerned, are just vermin fit only for extermination. And if the Livestock of Allah want to go out and rape, rob, and murder some infidels? Well Allah and The
Big Mo says, go ahead.
And have fun doing it.
The Motorcade passed the northern end of the Malone Complex, a series of infantry weapons ranges. They now entered a disused section of the Fort Benning Military Reservation. The section of road they were entering looked like it had not been maintained in forty years.
The rearmost vehicle in the motorcade stopped and turned to block any further traffic from using the road.
So why are we taking care of this instead of letting the courts deal with you?
Why not? Why shouldn’t we?
The doctrine of Islam claims that the entire body of laws made by men, thousands of years of effort by mankind to create a just society, thousands of years of effort by of good men, who wrote legal charters and laws, including our original Constitution and our Bill Of Rights, are simply nullified by the mouth droppings of the Big Mo.
On what grounds can those who deny The Rights of Man can claim protection the under those very same rights.
None whatsoever.
So what we are doing to you is basically covered under the Saigon Rules.
Perhaps. thought Al. It would be best to just not say anything at all.
When he enlisted in The Army and was stationed at Fort Benning, Al had seen a full terrain map of the post. Out of curiosity, he drove around to look at things.
On the map he had noticed a dirt airstrip. When he went to look at it he found that it had been converted to a training area, with old tanks and other armored vehicles, some dating from the Second World War, parked on the strip.
Now in the time since Al was discharged from the Army the forest had grown back onto the strip and the old vehicles had completely rusted over. The training area appeared to be completely abandoned.
The motorcade pulled into the remnant of a driveway and onto the abandoned airstrip.
Roughly half the men in the group brought out their M24A1 bullpup configuration and optically sighted assault rifles from the car and took up positions around the spot where they parked. The other half of the group brought out some shovels from the cars.
“Right,” said Al, “let’s finish it.”
A man-sized hole was dug. The sod and the dirt from beneath it were placed in two separate piles.
When the hole was completed the men who were in the van brought out their prisoner.
Gabriel Keller was brought to the edge of the hole.
Gabriel had adopted a Muslim name when he converted to Islam and became a mullah. Al and just could not be bothered to remember it.
And then he did, Gabriel had adopted the Muslim form of his given name.
How convenient. Al thought.
Gabriel had been bound and gagged with duct tape. His head and facial hair were almost as white as his stepmother’s. If his eyes were showing any emotion at all, it was a state of rage at being found, being arrested, and being in the custody of his atheist stepbrother and the group of Jews under his command.
He was dressed in the ragged remains of the clothes he was arrested in and showed signs of having been physically interrogated. He gave off the scent of urine and feces.
Al looked down at Gabriel.
At this point he didn’t really have anything to say. He just brought out the pistol from the holster, grabbed the slide and pulled it back to chamber the round.
And then he thought of something. It just popped into his head. It was Biblical, but at this point he didn’t care.
Al quoted from the English Translation of the Catholic Edition of The Bible, from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 10, Verse 21.
“The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death...”
Al aimed his pistol at Gabriel’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The report of the weapon was deafening.
Gabriel’s brains sprayed out of the back of his head.
Gabriel fell backwards to the ground.
Al holstered his weapon and spoke.
“Gentlemen, you may finish the job.”
As the group began the task of burial, Al saw where the bullet casing had fallen. He picked it up, looked at it, and then tossed it in the hole.
Al heard one of the men say a prayer for the immortal soul of his deceased stepbrother. He did not even think of berating or interrupting him.
It was later in the week the ship that was taking the first group of colonists to Mars had completed the burn that placed her into the transfer orbit. The captain said that it was now possible to unbuckle and take a look out the porthole.
Al had waited for everyone to look out before he floated over in free fall with Anson and Sonya.
Out of the porthole they could see both the Earth and the Moon. From their position in space both worlds appeared in be in a half phase. Equally dark and illuminated by the Sun.
Anson had a question.
“Will we ever go back?”
Al was surprised by the question. He quickly responded.
“Why would we have to?”
The cities of his Nation, and of his Civilization, were on fire. And that someone, a group of hostile men, had set those fires. He dreamed that the soldiers who were under his direction had entered the cities. To hunt down and kill those who set the cities on fire. And when the soldiers under his command were done with the killing, the People of his Nation and his Civilization could begin to rebuild.
He dreamed that he had a life, again. He dreamed that he had a wife, a son, and a daughter.
And he dreamed that there was an explosion.
And that there was blood. There was blood, all over, everywhere.
He regained consciousness.
Once upon a time ago, on one of his more cynical days, Evelyn Alexander Keller said to his older half brother that the history of the Early Twenty First Century would be written in human blood. When he originally said that he did not imagine for a moment that the blood would be that of himself, and his wife and daughter.
The glare of the overhead lights came through his remaining eyelid.
He opened his remaining eye.
Even though he wasn’t wearing his eyeglasses, it was very readily apparent that he was laying on a hospital bed in an intensive care ward. It was also apparent that only his right eye was functioning.
He raised his hands into what was left of his field of view. Apart from stitches and some bandaging it appeared that his right hand was completely intact. The left hand was completely bandaged over and it appeared that the little and ring fingers were missing.
Keller began to look around the room.
The room of the intensive care ward was walled in glass and that four paratroopers wearing their full British pattern uniforms, combat load, maroon berets, and holding their L85A1 assault rifles, were standing outside the door. The maroon beret was still worn by the paratroopers of the American 82nd Airborne Division and the British Parachute Regiment of the Federation Armies.
There were also two Presidential Protective Service agents visible outside the room.
Someone was sitting inside of the room. Even with the disposable isolation garments over her civilian clothes, and her eyeglasses she could still be reasonably described as attractive.
It also helped that the wig and makeup covered her burn scars.
She was also Sonya Newman, she was once a reporter for Fox News, then she became the press secretary for President March. Alex and his wife Susan had met her during the presidential campaign eight years ago. And they became good friends.
And she was here and alone.
She stood up and walked over to the side of the bed.
“Hello Evelyn.” She said. She was one of the few persons who could address him by his given name. And now she was only one who could do that. Even the President and his own Mother did not do that.
“Hello Sunny.” He replied.
He thought for a moment, and then spoke again.
“What happened and where am I?”
Sonya answered.
“There was a suicide bombing, roughly a week ago.” She said. “Apparently the bomber was a Caucasian American convert to Islam and you’re now in the ICU of HCMC.”
The Intensive Care Unit of the Hennepin County Medical Center in the city of Minneapolis.
Keller had to ask a question about his wife, son, and daughter.
“Susan, Anson, and Alice?”
“Anson was in the school building when it happened, he’s safe and with your Mother now.” She said. “We buried Susan and Alice yesterday. And John was there for the funeral.”
John Andrew March was one of Keller’s oldest friends. He was also the last President of the United States and the first President of the Federation.
“Where is John now?” He asked.
“He’s checked into the Presidential Suite at the downtown Radisson Hotel.” She replied.
The downtown Radisson was on the south side of Seventh Street between Nicollet and Hennepin Avenues. The hotel shared a parking ramp with the Macy’s department store on Nicollet Avenue, and the ramp exited on Eighth Street. It would be a straight drive from the hotel ramp to the HCMC.
Sonya had something else to say.
“Oh, and Rush Limbaugh is still complaining about Affirmative Action.”
“Really?” Said Keller. “I thought we banned it.”
“Well he isn’t really,” replied Sonya, “but I felt like I had to say something humorous.”
“Okay.” He nodded and replied.
From his bed Keller could see a PPS agent pull out a cell phone out of a pocket, dial a number, and start talking.
Keller lifted his right hand and pointed at the paratroopers just outside of the door.
“We have Paras here?” He said, using the common name for the British Parachute Regiment.
Sonya responded.
“Bravo Company of the Second Battalion of the Parachute Regiment has secured the hospital. John has brought the entire Federation Airborne Corps up to the Twin Cities. He’s using them to turn the area over looking for the Hidden Mosque and the Hidden Mullah.”
“If it’s who The Unit thinks it is,” said Keller, “I don’t believe that we’ll find him up here at all.”
Roughly ten minutes After the PPS agent made his call, Keller had two visitors, his Mother, and his son.
Keller’s Mother was eighty years old and her hair was completely white now. She was was barely able to walk by herself and had to use a wheelchair or a cane to move around most of the time. Anson was barely seven years old, and apart from his red hair, greatly reminded Keller of himself when he was that age.
The ICU staff helped them put on isolation garments and gloves. And an ICU nurse pushed his Mother’s wheelchair into the room.
“Hello Alex.” His Mother said.
“Hi Mom.” Al replied.
Al looked at his son and spoke.
“Hello Anson.”
“Hi Daddy,” Anson smiled and replied.
Mother spoke.
“We buried Susan and Alice yesterday.” She said.
“I know.” Al replied.
Mother continued to speak.
“We haven’t heard from Gabriel yet.” She said.
Allan thought that he to reply to his Mother with more gravity in his voice.
“I’m not at all surprised. Mother, you better face it, Gabriel is no longer your stepson, and as a result of what he chose to become, and what he has chosen to do, he is no longer a member of our family.” Alex said. “And anything else I have to say on the subject is covered by a security clearance.”
“You can’t say that!” Mother replied.
“I have to.” Said Alex. “For all practical purposes Gabriel is already dead, and you may as well morn for him right now.”
Mother could not believe what she just heard.
From his position in bed Alex could see a dozen more PPS agents and The President of The Federation enter the ICU. John March began to put on the isolation garments that were provided to him.. Alex looked back to his son and spoke.
“I have to talk to The President now,” he said, “I’ll try to get out of here as soon as possible. Okay?”
“Okay, Daddy.” Anson replied.
With his right hand Alex patted his son on the head. Sonya pushed Al’s Mother and her wheelchair out of the room. Anson followed them.
And then The President entered the room alone. Al spoke first.
“Hey, John.”
“Hey, Al.” He replied.
John March had attended Oxford to obtain his Doctorate in History. He picked up a wife and a slight British accent in the process. And now he was the one who was making history.
John spoke again.
“You’re angry?”
“I’m sedated.” Said Al. “I’ll be really angry when this crap I’m on wears off.”
Al then spoke with a clear degree of seriousness.
“You know that the Airborne Corps aren’t going to find the Hidden Mullah.”
“I know.” Said John. “The Paras are being used to secure this hospital, your home in the Uptown area, and the hotel. The rest of the Airborne Corps is up here to perform some political theater. To give the impression that we are actually doing something. And who knows, they may actually catch some Muslims in hiding.”
John leaned down to say something else in a whisper.
“I also have Uri and the Special Unit doing the real work on catching the bastard.”
Uri, and the other members of the Special Unit were Israeli soldiers who survived the Second Holocaust. The Special Unit operated under Keller’s control and were tasked with hunting down and killing those who were responsible for the annihilation of Israel. And also with eliminating the other confirmed enemies of Rational Civilization.
John spoke again.
“Uri says that he has a lead on catching the bastard.”
“Good.” Said Al. “I want to be kept up to speed on this.”
John nodded.
“John,” said Al, “I have another request.”
“Yes?” Said John.
“I haven’t had long to think about this.” Al said. “But I think it’s time to move on.”
“What?” Said John.
“I understand that the position of Governor of the Mars Colony is still open.” Said Al. “I want it.”
“Al...” said John, “Al, you are fifty nine years old, and you were not in the best state of health to begin with. And I still need you here on Earth.”
Al waited a bit before answering John.
“If you will pardon me for being selfish,” said Al, “but I would be doing poor job of being a father if either I or my son were to be murdered by a Jihadist. I would think that about thirty five million miles of hard vacuum should be an effective barrier to that.”
John was stunned into silence. Al continued to speak.
“We just discovered the hard way that the Quarantine is not perfect. There will continue to be leakage and individuals outside who covert to Islam.”
Al continued to speak.
“And even if our successors in government were able to maintain the Quarantine, someone else may very well cook up another toxic ideology and start another global war. Given that most of the easily accessed resources on this planet have already been used up, that means that a technological collapse would condemn any of the remaining people to being stuck on the Earth and condemn them to eventual extinction.”
“You know,” said John, “You used to be an optimist.”
John and Alex had met during the first year of the Reagan Administration at The Little Tin Soldier Shop on Lake Street in Minneapolis. John was a spoiled rich kid who was into Dungeons And Dragons. Alex had introduced him to hard science fiction and a role playing game called Traveller. And in spite of efforts by his politically Leftist parent’s to dissuade him, John had also followed Alex in enlisting in The United States Army on the same day.
“We are now, for all practical purposes, in charge of the most powerful government on the planet.” Said Al. “If we didn’t think up worst case scenarios and work out plans for dealing with them, we wouldn’t be doing our jobs.”
“Yes, of course.” Said John.
Al continued.
“And we have to move on.” He said. “We, The Human Race, have to move out into the Universe. And I always wanted to take a part in that.”
“Yes,” said John, “you always did.”
John had something else to say.
“Okay, I’ll push your appointment.” He said. “You do know that this will be a bitch to push through?”
“I wouldn’t think so.” Said Al. “There are so many people who hate or fear me that you should be able to get a simple majority just from the folks who want me off the planet.”
That thought surprised John.
“In a strange way,” said John, “you are still an optimist.”
“And there’s another issue.” Said Al.
“Which is?” Said John.
“The Special Unit.” Said Al. “The members of the unit and their families will need a place of sanctuary after this ... this incident ... is properly dealt with.”
“Mars?” Said John.
“Yes.” Said Al.
“Why?” Said John.
“After all that has happened, you’re asking why?” Said Al.
“I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.” Said John.
Al nodded.
“Of course not.” He said.
Al thought for a moment before answering.
“I gave the orders.” He said. “The Special Unit carried them out.”
“Al.” said John. “you shot my predecessor, yourself.”
“Okay,” Al replied, “I did provide him with a round in the head in the old Soviet style. Apart from that, the Special Unit did most of the wet work. And they will get most of the blame in the histories written of our conflicts.”
John nodded, and Al continued to speak.
“In the Internet era, The winners, or more accurately, those who are politically dominant, can no longer control the general historical narrative.”
“If it were not for the net, we would already be dead.” Said John. “And anyone still alive would be under the boot of the new ruling class and singing the praises of The Big Zero. Or worse, learning to speak Arabic the hard way.”
Al nodded. And then spoke again.
“What was done, what we did, will be remembered, in an adverse fashion. And those who did it in The Unit, as well as their families will need a place of sanctuary, too.”
John again nodded. And then he answered.
“Okay then,” he said, “they will have a ticket to Mars too.”
“Is there anything else?” Said John.
“Yes, I want to be kept up to speed on the Hidden Mullah case.” Said Al. “And if I think of anything else, you’ll get a fax or an e-mail.”
“Of course.” Said John.
That was all they had to say.
Later in the day Keller was eventually moved to a private room. The two PPS agents and the fire team of Paras went with him. He received a visit on the subject of security from the medical center administrator. The PPS agents stood in the background.
“I want those thugs removed from this facility!” Said the Administrator.
“What thugs?” Said Al.
“Your security detail!” The Administrator shouted.
The Lead PPS Agent spoke up. He had dark brown hair, was constructed like a bodybuilder, and spoke with an obvious Scottish accent.
“There have two attempts on your life sir, since you were admitted to this facility.”
“Only two?” Said Al.
“Yes, sir.” Said the Lead Agent. “Only two, so far, by supporters of the late President Null.”
Well that’s no surprise, thought Al, some people are bound to be a bit upset when you apprehend and summarily execute the Glorious Leader of the new ruling class. And, of course, the latest manifestation of the Ubermensch mentality really doesn’t like to be subject to the same laws as the rest of us and to be legally compelled to treat us mere mortals as fully Human.
A proper chewing out of the Administrator would require the services of a Marine Corps drill instructor. Al would just have to make the best response that he could from the hospital bed.
“First,” said Al, “there have been attempts to take my life, that means that the security detail stays, regardless of how you feel about it.”
“Second,” he continued, “these gentlemen are not thugs, and I will not tolerate them being spoken of as such that in my presence.”
“Third,” Al said as he pointed his right index finger at the Administrator, “we are now living in a proper Capitalist Civilization, and if you don’t like your present working conditions, you are free to go find a job somewhere else.”
The Administrator was stunned into silence.
Al gave the Administrator a chance to speak up, he remained silent.
“Well,” said Al, “If you have nothing else to say, then this meeting is over.”
The Administrator walked out of the room.
“Good one, sir.” Said the Lead PPS Agent.
“I try.” Said Al.
Eventually Al was released from the hospital.
The event was what in some respects could be called a cluster of fun.
A mixed motorcade of Federation Army Humvees with Minneapolis Police and civilian Ford sedans was parked on Seventh Street under a section of the HCMC. A mixed group of British Paras, PPS Agents, and uniformed Minneapolis Police officers had blocked off the street. Reporters and camera teams from the remaining local stations and national networks had placed themselves at the ends of the block. Present at the time of Al’s discharge were Sonya, his mother and son, and a man who was dressed in casual civilian clothes.
Al sat the back seat with the civilian gentleman.
Uri was the field commander of the Special Unit. He gave Al a large manila envelope.
Al began to read the contents. The top sheet was a copy of a syndicated comic strip. The award winning leftist comic strip had begun publication in 1970 and its author had gone into exile as a result of the political reformation in the United States. Most of the characters in his newspaper and now online comic strip had been depicted as having been executed or forced into exile as a result of The Reformation. One character, a former Viet Cong terrorist, had to witness the return of Vietnam to being a proper Capitalist society.
The sheet that Al held in his hand was a Sunday strip that celebrated the assassination attempt on himself and the murder of his wife and daughter.
Al thought for a moment.
If I was the kind of monster that this idiot insists on worshiping, I could have him terminated with one phone call.
But no. Al thought. I’ll do something worse. Far worse.
I will just let him live. I’ll let him witness the intellectual dismantling of his holy socialist doctrine. I’ll just let him see as the truth about the death and destruction brought about by those that he worshiped comes to light.
And I’ll just outlive the son of a bitch.
The rest of the document was a progress report on the search for the Hidden Mullah.
Uri spoke.
“Sir, I have a request.”
“The ancient tradition?” Said Al.
“Yes, sir.” Said Uri.
“Yes.” Said Al. “Go ahead.”
The motorcade departed from the section of HCMC that was built over Seventh Street. The motorcade turned right on Third Avenue and crossed the Third Avenue Bridge onto Central Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis.
Susan had been raised in the Catholic Church. She and her daughter were buried in the Catholic cemetery on Central Avenue just north of Twenty Seventh Avenue. The Minneapolis Police blocked off the entrance of the cemetery.
The motorcade turned left into the cemetery and parked as close to the grave site as possible.
Roughly half of the security detail took up positions around the parked vehicles. The other part surrounded Al and the other visitors to the burial site.
As Al and his other family members stopped before the graves. Uri stepped behind the headstones, took two pebbles from his coat pocket, and placed one on each headstone.
“What is he doing?” Mother asked.
“It’s an ancient tradition.” Said Al. “I believe that it goes back to the Book of Judges of the Old Testament.”
Mother started to ask a question.
“Is he a...”
Al softly but abruptly cut her out.
“Stop it!” Said Al. “I will not have you embarrassing me here in front of everyone.”
Al brought his tone of voice down before finishing his answer.
“I will explain later.”
When Al was finished with the visit to the graves of Susan and Alice he returned to the car. The motorcade crossed the Mississippi River at the Hennepin Avenue bridge. They continued southwest down Hennepin Avenue to the Uptown Neighborhood and turned right at Twenty Fourth Street to the house where Al had once lived with Susan.
When the family entered the house, Al spoke.
“Sonya,” he said, “Please take Anson upstairs, I need to speak to Mom alone.”
Sonya took Anson upstairs. Al pointed to the sofa in the sitting room and said one word to his mother.
“Sit!”
His mother sat down on the sofa. She spoke up.
“That was a Kike? Wasn’t it?”
Al cupped his right hand and brought it up to his right ear as if were hard of hearing and replied.
“I’m sorry Mother, I didn’t hear what you said.”
“You know damned well what I said!” She replied.
Al stared at his mother for a moment. She had been an old school Democrat all of her life until the election of President Null. And then he replied to her.
“Uri is a Jew. He is the head of a group of former Israeli soldiers who work for President March under my direction.”
“What do they do?” His mother asked.
“Wet work.” Al replied. “It’s a euphemism, look it up yourself.”
Al had something else to say to his mother.
“Shut up and listen,” he said, “I have a story to tell.”
Al remained standing as he spoke.
“When Governor March was elected President, his predecessor, President Null, decided to not to surrender the office to him as required by the Constitution. And Null ordered the Secret Service detail that was guarding Governor March to place him under arrest.”
Al decided not to mention the firefight that occurred in the State Capital Building between the Secret Service detail and members of both the Minnesota State Patrol and the National Guard. Or to mention the two Secret Service agents that he was credited with killing with the semi-automatic rebuild of the Austrian SA-58 battle rifle that he usually kept in the trunk of his own car.
“Needless to say, our armed forces stuck with the Constitution, and accepted John as their Commander In Chief. We set up our headquarters at the Strategic Command base outside of Omaha.”
“The what?” Said his mother.
“It used to be called the Strategic Air Command. A bunch of movies were made about it, including one starring Jimmy Stewart. He flew bombers during the Second World War and was also a General in the Air Force Reserve. And he also got to fly a B-52 on a mission over North Vietnam.”
Lucky bastard. Thought Al.
Al continued to lecture his mother.
“John and I both got offices in the old SAC command bunker. And we were working the late shift when the Final War started.”
Mother was left speechless.
“So what happened?” Said Al. “The president of we now call Frogistan had a problem. There were a mob of Muslim immigrants rioting in the streets of Paris. He could have called out the army and machine-gunned the rioters. After all, their first emperor had put down a riot by essentially doing the same thing with cannons.”
“And, of course,” said Al, “Islam is an ideology that calls for the enslavement and murder of nonbelievers. Killing a Muslim would be no more an act of murder than killing a National Socialist or a Soviet Communist.”
“A what?” Said his mother.
“Otherwise known as Nazis and Reds, the motherfuckers who wrote the history of the last century in human blood.”
Al continued the lecture.
“But their president, unlike his predecessor, decided to act like a typical present day Frogish leader and appease the mob. He did this by nuking the State of Israel.”
“John and I were in the bunker when the alarm went off.” Al said. “I made the call to Prime Minister Netanyahu to notify him of the attack, and I made the promise that his people would have a sanctuary here in the United States.”
Mother’s eyes widened.
“If you want to know why we had the sudden intake of Jews, that was my doing.” Said Al. “And President March put me in charge of the project.”
Al decided to skip the part about the full nuclear retaliatory strike on the French.
“But the remaining Muslim states were actively interfering with the evacuation effort, they just wanted to serve Allah, never mind the real world consequences, so I called John and asked him to nuke the other Muslim states.” Al said. “With that one phone call I managed to rack up a body count greater than that of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao combined.”
“Hitler and who?” Said Mother.
“Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong, they were Communist leaders, and they also loved children.”
Mother was openly shocked.
“You did all that to save a bunch of Jews.?” She said.
“Yes Mother, I did.” He said. “And I’m not ashamed of it at all.”
His mother was stunned into silence.
Al spoke again.
“I think it would be best if you went home, go pack your things.” He said. “I’ll have the PPS detail drive you to your home.”
Mother lived in an old farmhouse in central Minnesota, outside the town of Alexandria. And he would never see her again.
Later that night Al sat on his side of the bed he once shared with Susan. He was reading another report on the hunt for the Hidden Mullah by the light of the lamp on the night stand. Sonya came into the master bedroom and she was wearing a robe. And as far as Al could tell she was wearing nothing else. Not even the wig and makeup she used to cover her burn scars.
Sonya and her production team had been standing outside of the city of Jerusalem when the attack on the State of Israel began. She had provided a literal play by play account on the air as the Israeli anti-ballistic missile system tried to intercept the in incoming warheads.
One of the warheads got through.
Even though she was outside of the city and there was something solid between her and the point of ground zero, she still received serious burns as a result of the attack.
“I put Anson to bed.” She said.
“Okay.” Al replied.
When she was rescued from the smoking ruins of Israel, Sonya was allowed to stay at Alex and Susan’s home. She now effectively knew it like the back of her scarred hands.
Sonya climbed onto the bed and knelt beside Al.
“Why are you on my bed?” Said Al.
“I don’t like to sleep alone.” Said Sonya.
“Neither do I.” Said Al.
This is too soon. He thought.
Al set aside the report and brought the remains of his left hand to the back of Sonya’s neck. He gently pulled her head down and he kissed her. They continued to kiss. And then they went beyond kissing. And when they were finished Al turned off the lamp.
It was, even by the standards of the present day, an indecently short interval that had passed between the funeral of Susan and Alice, and the wedding of Alex and Sonya.
Alex married Sonya in a civil ceremony, which was performed by a Federal Judge and in the Presidential Residence in Omaha. John and his wife were present, of course. But neither Al’s Mother nor members of Sonya’s family were present. Al’s Mother had responded to the invitation by writing that she was too ill to travel. And Sonya’s immediate family, her parents, brother and sister, had died with the city of Jerusalem.
Alex, Anson, and Sonya went on the honeymoon together.
Al decided, for obvious security reasons, to stick to the English speaking part of the world. Even though London had been effectively erased during The Final War, the remainder of the old United Kingdom was open to tourists.
Al got to go into the Cavern Club in Liverpool, where The Beatles once played. Al also had to explain to his son who The Beatles were.
They also got to see the radio telescope at Jodrell Bank.
“What are they listening to?” Anson asked.
“Everything.” Al replied. “Stars, planets, galaxies, black holes, lots of things.”
Then Al remembered something.
“But the big mystery is, where is everyone else?”
“Everyone else?” Said Anson.
“Yes, everyone else.” Said Al. “It is generally expected that there should be other worlds like our Earth in the universe, and on these other Earths there should be people very much like ourselves.”
While Anson was listening intently, Al continued to speak.
“And these people should have a civilization very much like what we have here on Earth, and a civilization like ours should give off all sorts of radio noise.”
Sonya jumped into the discussion.
“There should be radio and television stations, communication satellites...”
Then Sonya thought of something.
“The electrical power grid!” She exclaimed.
“Yes.” Said Al. “If someone were to listen to Earth on their radio telescope they would hear the hum from our power grid at sixty cycles a second.”
“Except here in England,” said Sonya, “where their system runs at fifty cycles a second.
Anson had another question.
“Why do the English use a different...um...”
“Frequency.” Said Sonya.
“Why do the English use a different frequency?” Said Anson.
Al was a bit embarrassed to answer.
“Why do the English still insist on driving on the left side of the road?” Said Al. “As far as I can tell they insist on being different, really different, and they’ve been bloody militant about it ever since they were brought into The Federation.”
Eventually Alex, Anson, and Sonya returned to Minneapolis, to begin to prepare for their journey to Mars.
It was on another morning Al received a phone call concerning the Hidden Mullah.
On the previous day Al and Sonya were going through their personal libraries and choosing the books that they would physically take to Mars, and those which would be electronically scanned and copied.
From his own personal collection Al chose to bring along hardcover copies of the complete works works of Ayn Rand, and her successor as the Leader of the Objectivist Movement, Leonard Peikoff, and rest of the official Objectivist Canon. He also chose a work by Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers.
Al also chose to bring along a a really old and beat up copy of a paperback novel.
“Galaxy 666 by Pel Torro?” Said Sonya as she picked it up.
“Yes.” Said Al. “It is, by reputation, the worst science fiction novel ever published in the English language. It took a great amount of time and trouble for me to acquire a copy.”
“Surely, you can’t be serious?” Said Sonya.
Al avoided the obvious response but still answered anyway. He took the copy from her hands, opened it to a bookmarked page, and pointed to a paragraph.
“Read that.” He said.
The paragraph was an example of purple prose which illuminated the absurdity of using the word “terrain” to describe the exogeological features of the alien planet that the characters were walking on.
She read the paragraph.
Having become acclimatized to the pink-tinged light, which gave everywhere a strangely roseate appearance, and which had the effect of lulling their senses into a rather dreamy false security, the four explorers looked down at the ground beneath their feet. The ground beneath their feet was a very odd sort of terrain - - though “terrain” is not, strictly speaking, the kind of word that ought to be used to describe the ground of a planet that was not earth. Like so many of the old earth words, it has crept into the vocabulary of the empire. So they examined the terrain.
“Oh, my God!” Exclaimed Sonya.
“You could say that.” Said Al.
“Somebody actually wrote this?” Said Sonya.
“Yes. Under a pen name” Al replied. “His actual name is Robert Lionel Fanthorpe, he’s about five years older than my Mom, he managed to not get vaporized along with the City of London, and he’s still at it.”
“At what?” Said Sonya.
“Writing.” Al replied.
Sonya was stunned into silence.
Al had to say something.
“If I learned anything from reading it,” he said, “It’s to avoid science fiction novels written by bikers, martial arts instructors, and members of the Anglican clergy who are a bit short on cash.”
“And you’re going to take it to Mars?” Sonya said.
“Yes.” Said Al. “I’m bringing along the best works ever written, I may as well bring an example of the worst fiction ever published. It should take up no more payload mass than a good pair of socks.”
“Well, as long as they’re your socks.” She replied.
That was yesterday.
This morning, in the office and library of their home the telephone rang.
A diode in an unmarked button on the primary part of the phone emitted a red light. This indicated the encryption system built into the phone had been activated. One other person in the world had a telephone that could do that to his phone.
Al picked up the receiver and spoke.
“Yes, John.” He said.
“We got the son of a bitch.” Said The President. “He’s being held in the Fort Benning Stockade. Everything else that you asked for is being arranged. A car is on the way to your house to pick you up.”
“Thank you, John.” Said Al.
The line went dead.
The first thing that Al did was to take a shower. He expected this trip to be a long one. The second thing he did was to pick out and put on a suit. He chose one that was basic and comfortable. He also decided to wear a shoulder holster under the jacket.
The last thing was to pick out a firearm.
He chose a M1911A1. It was a commercial copy of the weapon made by the Springfield Armory. And just because he thought it would be cool, he had three words in ancient Latin engraved on the top of the slide.
VLTIMA RATIO CIVITVM.
The ultimate resort of citizens.
He inserted a full magazine into the pistol grip. But he did not pull the slide back to chamber a round.
He placed the weapon in the shoulder holster.
Sonya came up the stairs.
“There’s a car waiting for you downstairs.” She said. “What’s going on?”
Al answered her.
“One last ride with the Special Unit.” He said. “Then it’s over, it will be all over.”
Al kissed his new wife and went downstairs.
Anson was waiting by the door. He had seen the car waiting in front of the house and reached the correct conclusion. That his father was going somewhere.
“Where are you going, Daddy?” Asked Anson.
Even though it would hurt like Hell to get up again, Al knelt on his knees on the floor to answer his son.
“I’m doing one last thing for the government, and when I’m finished with it, then we can go to Mars.”
He managed to tell most of the truth without mentioning any of the nasty parts.
His knees hurt when he stood up again.
The vehicle was a plain government issue Ford sedan. The ride to the airport was relatively short. The driver took the Hiawatha Avenue exit from Minnesota Highway 62 and drove onto the Minnesota Air National Guard Base.
The aircraft was a Gulfstream business jet in civil colors with a British civil registration, it was flown by a Federation Air Forces flight crew.
The flight attendant gave Al bottle of Coke Zero and something to read. It was the report on the interrogation on the prisoner.
The Gulfstream landed at Lawson Army Airfield, near the Main Post area of Fort Benning. The aircraft was met by a group of men in civilian clothes. Even though the men were dressed as civilians it was obvious to any experienced and intelligent observer that all of them were veteran soldiers. Al stepped off of the plane and walked over to the group. No one the group saluted him as he walked up. There was a standing rule in the Special Unit prohibiting that.
Uri, the leader of the group spoke.
“We are ready, sir.”
“Fine,” said Al, “let’s do it.”
Apart from a white Ford Econoline van the motorcade consisted of standard issue Ford sedans. Al
was led to the second car in the line, where he sat on right side of the back seat.
The motorcade began the drive north out of the Main Post area.
During the flight down to Fort Benning, Al had only read the interrogation report. Now on the final ride did he begin to think about what he would say to the captive.
Mom was worried about you. My Mom, but she was still worried.
You know, I thought it was really bad when Sergeant Steve Barry, I’m sure that you remember him, had renounced Objectivism and completely destroyed the credibility of The Resister and the Special Forces Underground, and that we had no choice but to go on without him. But that wasn’t far enough, you just had to go further.
You didn’t just renounce reason and reality, you had to go all the way and completely dehumanize yourself.
You were there at West Point when Ayn Rand gave the commencement address. I followed you into The Objectivist Movement and The United States Army.
I had looked up to you.
I had looked up to you!
There was no excuse. There was no possibility of an excuse for what you did.
If you had just only returned to the worship of Jesus Christ, that would merely be a cause for disappointment, from my point of view, but you had to convert to the worst religion ever invented by a predatory con-artist.
You had to just degrade yourself in the most utterly disgusting way to the most utterly fake deity ever conceived by the mind of a mere mortal. And you had to degrade yourself to a figment of a pedophile criminal’s imagination.
Perhaps I may be incorrect, but I do recall that a German Marxist intellectual once wrote that each of us perceives of a divine being as a reflection of our own values. To a productive person who wanted to worship a god it would feel right to follow a working guy like Jesus Christ. But a serial predator like the Big Mo had to invent and promote a deity that was a power tripping and destructive monster like himself.
Actually, the Big Mo didn’t invent a deity, he just stole and recycled an old old Arab pagan deity for his own use.
The motorcade had reached the Buena Vista Road and had taken a right turn.
Seriously, God is supposed to be, by definition, an omnipotent being. If he wants something to happen, it happens. If he doesn’t want something to happen, it simply will not happen. And an omnipotent being simply can have no needs that go unfulfilled.
God did not need to create us to in order to serve Him.
We were not created by God as fully human, we had to evolve to become rational and intelligent beings through a natural process. In short, WE had to do it THE HARD WAY!
So why does an alleged deity need to create a bunch of mere mortals like us to worship Him and to serve Him?”
And let’s for a take moment to a look at what the religions of our world are offering to us. Most of the religions of the world are calling to us to morally and spiritually grow up and to become members of the divine community. Basically to move in and eternally live with God, or with their gods if they’re a bunch of Pagans. But in Islam, those who submit to the obviously false god Allah, and obey the obviously false prophet Big Mo, and who in their supposedly holy names go out and conquer and abuse the unbelievers, will get to eternally rape a bunch of eternal victims as if they were a bunch of eternal animals in Allah’s eternal whorehouse.
And speaking on the subject of murder, you were a Special Forces sniping instructor. Was it too much trouble to just train the moron you sent out to murder me to just simply shoot me and not harm anyone else? Why harm any innocent bystanders?
Oh, that’s right, as far as Allah and the Big Mo was concerned there are no innocent bystanders. There is only the property of Allah, or there are those who refuse to be the property of Allah, who, as far as the Livestock of Allah should be concerned, are just vermin fit only for extermination. And if the Livestock of Allah want to go out and rape, rob, and murder some infidels? Well Allah and The
Big Mo says, go ahead.
And have fun doing it.
The Motorcade passed the northern end of the Malone Complex, a series of infantry weapons ranges. They now entered a disused section of the Fort Benning Military Reservation. The section of road they were entering looked like it had not been maintained in forty years.
The rearmost vehicle in the motorcade stopped and turned to block any further traffic from using the road.
So why are we taking care of this instead of letting the courts deal with you?
Why not? Why shouldn’t we?
The doctrine of Islam claims that the entire body of laws made by men, thousands of years of effort by mankind to create a just society, thousands of years of effort by of good men, who wrote legal charters and laws, including our original Constitution and our Bill Of Rights, are simply nullified by the mouth droppings of the Big Mo.
On what grounds can those who deny The Rights of Man can claim protection the under those very same rights.
None whatsoever.
So what we are doing to you is basically covered under the Saigon Rules.
Perhaps. thought Al. It would be best to just not say anything at all.
When he enlisted in The Army and was stationed at Fort Benning, Al had seen a full terrain map of the post. Out of curiosity, he drove around to look at things.
On the map he had noticed a dirt airstrip. When he went to look at it he found that it had been converted to a training area, with old tanks and other armored vehicles, some dating from the Second World War, parked on the strip.
Now in the time since Al was discharged from the Army the forest had grown back onto the strip and the old vehicles had completely rusted over. The training area appeared to be completely abandoned.
The motorcade pulled into the remnant of a driveway and onto the abandoned airstrip.
Roughly half the men in the group brought out their M24A1 bullpup configuration and optically sighted assault rifles from the car and took up positions around the spot where they parked. The other half of the group brought out some shovels from the cars.
“Right,” said Al, “let’s finish it.”
A man-sized hole was dug. The sod and the dirt from beneath it were placed in two separate piles.
When the hole was completed the men who were in the van brought out their prisoner.
Gabriel Keller was brought to the edge of the hole.
Gabriel had adopted a Muslim name when he converted to Islam and became a mullah. Al and just could not be bothered to remember it.
And then he did, Gabriel had adopted the Muslim form of his given name.
How convenient. Al thought.
Gabriel had been bound and gagged with duct tape. His head and facial hair were almost as white as his stepmother’s. If his eyes were showing any emotion at all, it was a state of rage at being found, being arrested, and being in the custody of his atheist stepbrother and the group of Jews under his command.
He was dressed in the ragged remains of the clothes he was arrested in and showed signs of having been physically interrogated. He gave off the scent of urine and feces.
Al looked down at Gabriel.
At this point he didn’t really have anything to say. He just brought out the pistol from the holster, grabbed the slide and pulled it back to chamber the round.
And then he thought of something. It just popped into his head. It was Biblical, but at this point he didn’t care.
Al quoted from the English Translation of the Catholic Edition of The Bible, from the Book of Matthew, Chapter 10, Verse 21.
“The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death...”
Al aimed his pistol at Gabriel’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
The report of the weapon was deafening.
Gabriel’s brains sprayed out of the back of his head.
Gabriel fell backwards to the ground.
Al holstered his weapon and spoke.
“Gentlemen, you may finish the job.”
As the group began the task of burial, Al saw where the bullet casing had fallen. He picked it up, looked at it, and then tossed it in the hole.
Al heard one of the men say a prayer for the immortal soul of his deceased stepbrother. He did not even think of berating or interrupting him.
It was later in the week the ship that was taking the first group of colonists to Mars had completed the burn that placed her into the transfer orbit. The captain said that it was now possible to unbuckle and take a look out the porthole.
Al had waited for everyone to look out before he floated over in free fall with Anson and Sonya.
Out of the porthole they could see both the Earth and the Moon. From their position in space both worlds appeared in be in a half phase. Equally dark and illuminated by the Sun.
Anson had a question.
“Will we ever go back?”
Al was surprised by the question. He quickly responded.
“Why would we have to?”
Wednesday, February 05, 2020
Something Else I Wrote
It was March in Minneapolis and it was cold and wet. There wasn't a proper rain, only a drizzle from a low cloud ceiling. From where I worked the cash register of a parking lot one could not see the upper floors of the Wells Fargo and IDS towers. Or for that matter, the top of the skeleton of the aborted Starfire tower.
I was off duty at sixteen hundred (my employer, a security company, used military time). It had been in the Chinese sense an interesting day. We raised the half hourly rate for the second time in a month. Not unexpected given government economic policy and I was still receiving curses and dumbfounded stares from the customers. One woman called me a Consentist son of a bitch. I thanked her for the compliment.
Although it was damp I walked outdoors. On the skyways, the enclosed bridges between buildings, some people would ignore the convenient informational signs. They would see my security uniform and assume I knew all the answers to their stupid questions: "Where's the elevator? Where's (a building demolished five years ago?) Are you toxic? And have you been saved?"
I crossed the plaza of the old Federal Reserve Bank and started walking south on the mall. A street person probably male demanded change for bus fare. He/she/it cursed the Universe and me for not giving him/her/it an unearned existence.
Beyond Seventh Street, under the Skyway to Nowhere, was a clump of people being haranged. I looked at the boarded up skyway for new graffiti. Yes there was some. On the bridge between the
IDS tower and the terminally incomplete Starfire tower, someone had painted: "BEWARE OF FALLING DRAGONS".
I hadn't the faintest idea of what it meant.
I didn't stop as I passed the crowd. The man standing of on a home built platform was describing the evils of material existence. If he really believed what he uttering, he could have jumped off any of the convenient bridges in Minneapolis, or off the incomplete Starfire building. The fence around the abandoned work site wasn't really secure. The City Council was tiffed about that particular mess, but they only had themselves to blame.
I was halfway between Ninth and Tenth streets when somewhere behind me a bomb went off.
My first action was to jump into the convenient alley. I leaned against the north wall and counted off ten seconds. No other explosions or gunfire. I looked out. The antimaterialist speaker and his audience were gone,. I saw rising smoke, broken glass, and lumps of what looked like well dressed hamburger.
I ran back to the mess. Some cops had already arrived at the scene. I could read their faces. The older ones, survivors of The Revolution showed no emotion. On the younger cops it was: "At
last someone who isn't a ghoul! Someone with first aid training! Can you do this sucking chest wound?"
Of course I could.
A Channel Four newsclown with his camera crew appeared. Many corespondents from that station are hired by the networks and one even got himself shot by a cop down in Guyana. The clown recorded his segment and left.
He'll probably get a Koppel Award for it.
After those who could be saved were evacuated, I gave a statement to the police. I described everything I saw and heard including the speakers platform at what was now the center of the
blast area.
The cops gave me a lift to my flat. I lived in a small apartment two blocks off of Lake of the Isles. I locked the door and took a long, hot shower. I have never really felt clean after messes like today's. Of course this time it wasn't a grunt hunt.
I opened a Diet Coke (the real thing was too sweet for me), switched on the anti-surveillance system, and booted up the PC. When I was finished, I placed the report on the day's incident with the data I had gathered on the local politicians.
And once again I had the thought that I should have stayed home and helped Dad on his hemp farm outside of Rockstone, Guyana.
I was off duty at sixteen hundred (my employer, a security company, used military time). It had been in the Chinese sense an interesting day. We raised the half hourly rate for the second time in a month. Not unexpected given government economic policy and I was still receiving curses and dumbfounded stares from the customers. One woman called me a Consentist son of a bitch. I thanked her for the compliment.
Although it was damp I walked outdoors. On the skyways, the enclosed bridges between buildings, some people would ignore the convenient informational signs. They would see my security uniform and assume I knew all the answers to their stupid questions: "Where's the elevator? Where's (a building demolished five years ago?) Are you toxic? And have you been saved?"
I crossed the plaza of the old Federal Reserve Bank and started walking south on the mall. A street person probably male demanded change for bus fare. He/she/it cursed the Universe and me for not giving him/her/it an unearned existence.
Beyond Seventh Street, under the Skyway to Nowhere, was a clump of people being haranged. I looked at the boarded up skyway for new graffiti. Yes there was some. On the bridge between the
IDS tower and the terminally incomplete Starfire tower, someone had painted: "BEWARE OF FALLING DRAGONS".
I hadn't the faintest idea of what it meant.
I didn't stop as I passed the crowd. The man standing of on a home built platform was describing the evils of material existence. If he really believed what he uttering, he could have jumped off any of the convenient bridges in Minneapolis, or off the incomplete Starfire building. The fence around the abandoned work site wasn't really secure. The City Council was tiffed about that particular mess, but they only had themselves to blame.
I was halfway between Ninth and Tenth streets when somewhere behind me a bomb went off.
My first action was to jump into the convenient alley. I leaned against the north wall and counted off ten seconds. No other explosions or gunfire. I looked out. The antimaterialist speaker and his audience were gone,. I saw rising smoke, broken glass, and lumps of what looked like well dressed hamburger.
I ran back to the mess. Some cops had already arrived at the scene. I could read their faces. The older ones, survivors of The Revolution showed no emotion. On the younger cops it was: "At
last someone who isn't a ghoul! Someone with first aid training! Can you do this sucking chest wound?"
Of course I could.
A Channel Four newsclown with his camera crew appeared. Many corespondents from that station are hired by the networks and one even got himself shot by a cop down in Guyana. The clown recorded his segment and left.
He'll probably get a Koppel Award for it.
After those who could be saved were evacuated, I gave a statement to the police. I described everything I saw and heard including the speakers platform at what was now the center of the
blast area.
The cops gave me a lift to my flat. I lived in a small apartment two blocks off of Lake of the Isles. I locked the door and took a long, hot shower. I have never really felt clean after messes like today's. Of course this time it wasn't a grunt hunt.
I opened a Diet Coke (the real thing was too sweet for me), switched on the anti-surveillance system, and booted up the PC. When I was finished, I placed the report on the day's incident with the data I had gathered on the local politicians.
And once again I had the thought that I should have stayed home and helped Dad on his hemp farm outside of Rockstone, Guyana.
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
Thought For The Day
I'm sometimes astounded by the sheer idiocy of the common liberal.
For example on an alternate history board I'm posting a bit of amateur fiction and some liberal posts a really stupid statement as a reply:
This twit makes no distinction between opposites and can't see the impossibility of compromise between life and death.
I responded:
Yes, this twit failed to see that a particular character was in fact a man. And having been expelled from at least two forums for flaming I am now adverse in entering a flame war.
So how does the twit respond?
Let's see? I object to despotism, death, and destruction, therefore I'm some kind of evil being?
And because I won't reinforce his delusion of virtue he departs in a huff.
Good.
The problem with evolution is that it doesn't act fast enough.
For example on an alternate history board I'm posting a bit of amateur fiction and some liberal posts a really stupid statement as a reply:
Question. Is Stone simply lying or is her background one of ardent conservatism/reactionism? Communism, like laissez faire capitalism, fascism and other extreme ideologies are responsible for a lot of evil and destruction but to automatically brand all forms of socialism as evil and ignore other creeds that cause similar problems suggests a very bigoted viewpoint.
Note this is coming from a liberal. I recognise even moderate social democracy as flawed when it assumes automatic and unchanging rules apply and prefer a more balanced mix of forces as the best basis for stable economic and social develop.
This twit makes no distinction between opposites and can't see the impossibility of compromise between life and death.
I responded:
I decline to enter into a flame war.
Go away.
(Oh, Evelyn is a gender neutral name and I described the character as being a young man.)
Yes, this twit failed to see that a particular character was in fact a man. And having been expelled from at least two forums for flaming I am now adverse in entering a flame war.
So how does the twit respond?
I think that answers my question. Since you seem to be saying your a bigot I will assume the story has no merit. Bye.
Let's see? I object to despotism, death, and destruction, therefore I'm some kind of evil being?
And because I won't reinforce his delusion of virtue he departs in a huff.
Good.
The problem with evolution is that it doesn't act fast enough.
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Step Back - Part 38
On the ground it was another bright and sunny morning in Nevada.
Evelyn Boatman had fully resumed his role as the Mission Commander at the ground base and it was now time for breakfast. The young woman acting as an assistant was reading the schedule for the day as he dug into a sausage and cheese omelet with hash browns, coffee and toast.
“Sir, the first item for this morning is a visit by a junior member of the British House of Commons for the Conservative Party,”
“Who is it?” He asked.
“Francis Urquhart from Southampton , sir.”
Boatman was sipping coffee when he heard the name. He suddenly spit out the coffee.
The assistant was visibly shocked.
“Sir, is there a problem?” She said.
“No.” Boatman replied.
It’s only a visit by a man who could give Big Bubba some serious lessons on how to permanently dispose of walking problems. He thought.
“Not a problem at all.” He said.
I’m over two centuries old with serious political experience and I should be able to handle a young Francis Urquhart.
British agent John Cross watched from his position of concealment as Evelyn Boatman greeted Francis Urquhart at the front gate.
Who the Hell is that bugger and how did he get in? He thought.
Boatman spoke first.
“Mister Urquhart, it is good for you to visit us.”
Let’s just keep this short and pleasant.
“Thank you, Mister Boatman.”
Urquhart was given the grand tour of the surface facility but it was very obvious to him that he was the actual center of everyone’s attention on the dirtside base.
“I didn’t expect this level of attention during the visit.” He said.
“Francis,” Boatman replied, “your counterpart on the original timeline was the longest serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom before the Final War and Planetary Unification.”
Urquhart was very shocked to hear this.
And there is the body count too, but we should not mention that.
“I wasn’t expecting to become the Prime Minister.” Said Urquhart.
Boatman replied.
“Unfortunately the immediate predecessor simply wasn’t up to the job and someone had to step in to clean up the mess.”
And over some cold dead bodies as well. He thought. And tossing poor Mattie Storin off the roof of the House of Commons was clearly an appalling move.
“Oh.” Urquhart replied.
“Francis,” said Boatman, “we’ve taken the liberty of putting together an information package for the Conservative Party, it’s a basic history of the original timeline plus some suggestions for things the party should do and to avoid.”
Urquhart nodded.
“And when you do return to London please say hello to Maggie for me.”
“Mrs. Thatcher?” Said Urquhart. “Why?”
“Her counterpart was second longest serving Prime Minister.” Boatman relied.
“Of course.” Said Urquhart.
Boatman thought as his British guest departed.
Well, that wasn’t too unpleasant.
Later in his official residence on Downing Street the current Prime Minister Harold Wilson was throwing a major fit.
“Who visited the base in Nevada?” He shouted.
“Francis Urquhart a Tory member of the Commons from Southampton, sir.”
“But they still won’t speak to the actual government?” Said Wilson.
“No sir.”
Fuck me. Thought Wilson.
Evelyn Boatman had fully resumed his role as the Mission Commander at the ground base and it was now time for breakfast. The young woman acting as an assistant was reading the schedule for the day as he dug into a sausage and cheese omelet with hash browns, coffee and toast.
“Sir, the first item for this morning is a visit by a junior member of the British House of Commons for the Conservative Party,”
“Who is it?” He asked.
“Francis Urquhart from Southampton , sir.”
Boatman was sipping coffee when he heard the name. He suddenly spit out the coffee.
The assistant was visibly shocked.
“Sir, is there a problem?” She said.
“No.” Boatman replied.
It’s only a visit by a man who could give Big Bubba some serious lessons on how to permanently dispose of walking problems. He thought.
“Not a problem at all.” He said.
I’m over two centuries old with serious political experience and I should be able to handle a young Francis Urquhart.
British agent John Cross watched from his position of concealment as Evelyn Boatman greeted Francis Urquhart at the front gate.
Who the Hell is that bugger and how did he get in? He thought.
Boatman spoke first.
“Mister Urquhart, it is good for you to visit us.”
Let’s just keep this short and pleasant.
“Thank you, Mister Boatman.”
Urquhart was given the grand tour of the surface facility but it was very obvious to him that he was the actual center of everyone’s attention on the dirtside base.
“I didn’t expect this level of attention during the visit.” He said.
“Francis,” Boatman replied, “your counterpart on the original timeline was the longest serving Prime Minister of the United Kingdom before the Final War and Planetary Unification.”
Urquhart was very shocked to hear this.
And there is the body count too, but we should not mention that.
“I wasn’t expecting to become the Prime Minister.” Said Urquhart.
Boatman replied.
“Unfortunately the immediate predecessor simply wasn’t up to the job and someone had to step in to clean up the mess.”
And over some cold dead bodies as well. He thought. And tossing poor Mattie Storin off the roof of the House of Commons was clearly an appalling move.
“Oh.” Urquhart replied.
“Francis,” said Boatman, “we’ve taken the liberty of putting together an information package for the Conservative Party, it’s a basic history of the original timeline plus some suggestions for things the party should do and to avoid.”
Urquhart nodded.
“And when you do return to London please say hello to Maggie for me.”
“Mrs. Thatcher?” Said Urquhart. “Why?”
“Her counterpart was second longest serving Prime Minister.” Boatman relied.
“Of course.” Said Urquhart.
Boatman thought as his British guest departed.
Well, that wasn’t too unpleasant.
Later in his official residence on Downing Street the current Prime Minister Harold Wilson was throwing a major fit.
“Who visited the base in Nevada?” He shouted.
“Francis Urquhart a Tory member of the Commons from Southampton, sir.”
“But they still won’t speak to the actual government?” Said Wilson.
“No sir.”
Fuck me. Thought Wilson.
Saturday, December 06, 2014
Step Back - Part 37
A very rare Sunday meeting was being held at the KGB headquarters off of
Lubyanka Square. Colonel Andrei Taganov, who was not related to the
head of the Baikonur launch center, would speak to Chairman Yuri
Andropov about the information gained on the mission to the Eagle.
“Quite simply Comrade Chairman, we are fucked.” Said Taganov..
“Fucked?” Said Andropov. “What do you mean?”
Taganov replied.
“The Soviet State will ultimately fail–there is simply no alternative.”
It was at that point Andropov could only stare blankly into space.
What would he tell the Politburo? He thought. And how would they respond? And then what will happen next?
Andropov spoke again
“So what would you suggest as a course of action, Colonel?”
“Comrade Chairman, we should lay out a plan for the peaceful transition to a non-communist society.”
Andropov blinked.
“Are you mad?” He said. “The Politburo will reject it!”
Taganov replied.
“It doesn’t matter what the Politburo believes, the Soviet state will eventually come to an end. How it will end is still an open question. We can see to it that the transition to another social order is peaceful. Or we could do nothing and have open chaos as a result.”
On a clear Sunday morning in Washington a mass prayer service was being held on the Mall. On the live television broadcast Katherine Grant first denounced the Uptimers as being the tools of Satan because of their peacefully meeting with the Soviet delegation aboard the Eagle and for continuing to hold her daughter on board their ship. And then she openly denounced the Nixon Administration for their continued contact with and support of them. The simple idea that the Uptimers were acting in accordance with simple courtesy and the actual facts of reality simply did not cross what passed for her mind and didn’t enter into her rant.
Alice and Judith aboard the Eagle silently watched the live broadcast of the prayer service.
President Nixon also watched the broadcast from the White House. On the ground the President had discussed the continuing issue of Grant and her followers with Commander Macdonald.
“Mister President,” said MacDonald, “we simply will not submit to their demands, and should the United States Government do so, we will pull out and go elsewhere.”
“Where would you go?” Nixon asked.
Without missing a beat Macdonald simply replied.
“Israel.”
Of course they would. Nixon thought.
Across the nation the broadcast was also seen by numerous college students, many of whom were suffering from serious hangovers on this morning. In the living room of a three bedroom apartment in the Dinkytown area adjacent to the main campus of the University of Minnesota seven seriously unkempt and hung over students of both genders and a their guest for breakfast were watching the broadcast as well.
“Can you believe this nonsense?” One of them said with a British accent. “The Uptimers are from the future, of course they’re not going to believe in God, or any other nonsense.”
“They don’t believe in Progress either.” Said another student.
Mark Urquhart, the first student who was a British subject studying Engineering, replied to the second.
“Because it’s not actually a doctrine of Progress, it’s simply a body of excuses to use force on other people.”
And then Mark’s guest for breakfast, his oldest brother, spoke up with a clearly polished Oxford accent.
“Your first president, George Washington, once said something on this point: ‘Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.’”
Francis Urquhart was a junior member of the House of Commons for the Conservative Party. He had come to the United States on party business and decided to drop in on his youngest brother during the trip.
Now everyone in the room waited for his next word.
“The fact is that those who want power will stop at nothing to gain it--even to personally commit the act of murder–so lying for power is not a serious obstacle at all.”
The Americans in the room and his youngest brother all nodded in response.
What Francis Urquhart had not mentioned in the conversation, or even to his own brother, was that there were already two dead bodies buried under his own path to power in Cyprus.
Later in the day Francis would drop in on his sister Mary, who was married to a member of a wealthy American family, Richard Charles March II.
At the ground base in Nevada a letter with an information package that included color photographs was downloaded from the Eagle, printed, and sent by air mail to Diana Spencer, a student presently attending a boarding school in the United Kingdom.
For Francis Urquhart the lunch with his sister and her husband did not go well. The fact was that Richard March, in spite of his inherited wealth, was a true believer in the Progressive cause. In fact the way that Richard consistently looked at Francis gave him the clear impression that he was looked upon as a mortal enemy.
Richard was particularly upset at the Uptimers for their clear rejection of the Progressive cause.
Urquhart replied.
“The thing is Dicky, these people came from the 24th Century. There is no question for them as to what works and what doesn’t. And routinely working in the vacuum of space would very strongly discourage the kind of wishful thinking that you routinely indulge in.”
No one ever addressed march as Dicky, not even his wife. And the truth as stated by Francis was simply too much for him.
For Francis Urquhart the next stop on his visit to America was the Uptimer Base in Nevada on behalf of the Conservative Party.
“Quite simply Comrade Chairman, we are fucked.” Said Taganov..
“Fucked?” Said Andropov. “What do you mean?”
Taganov replied.
“The Soviet State will ultimately fail–there is simply no alternative.”
It was at that point Andropov could only stare blankly into space.
What would he tell the Politburo? He thought. And how would they respond? And then what will happen next?
Andropov spoke again
“So what would you suggest as a course of action, Colonel?”
“Comrade Chairman, we should lay out a plan for the peaceful transition to a non-communist society.”
Andropov blinked.
“Are you mad?” He said. “The Politburo will reject it!”
Taganov replied.
“It doesn’t matter what the Politburo believes, the Soviet state will eventually come to an end. How it will end is still an open question. We can see to it that the transition to another social order is peaceful. Or we could do nothing and have open chaos as a result.”
On a clear Sunday morning in Washington a mass prayer service was being held on the Mall. On the live television broadcast Katherine Grant first denounced the Uptimers as being the tools of Satan because of their peacefully meeting with the Soviet delegation aboard the Eagle and for continuing to hold her daughter on board their ship. And then she openly denounced the Nixon Administration for their continued contact with and support of them. The simple idea that the Uptimers were acting in accordance with simple courtesy and the actual facts of reality simply did not cross what passed for her mind and didn’t enter into her rant.
Alice and Judith aboard the Eagle silently watched the live broadcast of the prayer service.
President Nixon also watched the broadcast from the White House. On the ground the President had discussed the continuing issue of Grant and her followers with Commander Macdonald.
“Mister President,” said MacDonald, “we simply will not submit to their demands, and should the United States Government do so, we will pull out and go elsewhere.”
“Where would you go?” Nixon asked.
Without missing a beat Macdonald simply replied.
“Israel.”
Of course they would. Nixon thought.
Across the nation the broadcast was also seen by numerous college students, many of whom were suffering from serious hangovers on this morning. In the living room of a three bedroom apartment in the Dinkytown area adjacent to the main campus of the University of Minnesota seven seriously unkempt and hung over students of both genders and a their guest for breakfast were watching the broadcast as well.
“Can you believe this nonsense?” One of them said with a British accent. “The Uptimers are from the future, of course they’re not going to believe in God, or any other nonsense.”
“They don’t believe in Progress either.” Said another student.
Mark Urquhart, the first student who was a British subject studying Engineering, replied to the second.
“Because it’s not actually a doctrine of Progress, it’s simply a body of excuses to use force on other people.”
And then Mark’s guest for breakfast, his oldest brother, spoke up with a clearly polished Oxford accent.
“Your first president, George Washington, once said something on this point: ‘Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.’”
Francis Urquhart was a junior member of the House of Commons for the Conservative Party. He had come to the United States on party business and decided to drop in on his youngest brother during the trip.
Now everyone in the room waited for his next word.
“The fact is that those who want power will stop at nothing to gain it--even to personally commit the act of murder–so lying for power is not a serious obstacle at all.”
The Americans in the room and his youngest brother all nodded in response.
What Francis Urquhart had not mentioned in the conversation, or even to his own brother, was that there were already two dead bodies buried under his own path to power in Cyprus.
Later in the day Francis would drop in on his sister Mary, who was married to a member of a wealthy American family, Richard Charles March II.
At the ground base in Nevada a letter with an information package that included color photographs was downloaded from the Eagle, printed, and sent by air mail to Diana Spencer, a student presently attending a boarding school in the United Kingdom.
For Francis Urquhart the lunch with his sister and her husband did not go well. The fact was that Richard March, in spite of his inherited wealth, was a true believer in the Progressive cause. In fact the way that Richard consistently looked at Francis gave him the clear impression that he was looked upon as a mortal enemy.
Richard was particularly upset at the Uptimers for their clear rejection of the Progressive cause.
Urquhart replied.
“The thing is Dicky, these people came from the 24th Century. There is no question for them as to what works and what doesn’t. And routinely working in the vacuum of space would very strongly discourage the kind of wishful thinking that you routinely indulge in.”
No one ever addressed march as Dicky, not even his wife. And the truth as stated by Francis was simply too much for him.
For Francis Urquhart the next stop on his visit to America was the Uptimer Base in Nevada on behalf of the Conservative Party.
Friday, November 21, 2014
Step Back - Part 36
Upon his return to Moscow Mikhail Gorbachev began the initial
handwritten draft of his report to the Politburo. As it was to be
factual be did not expect it to be well received. Although Boatman
meant to be helpful in providing a written transcript of the meeting in
Russian the last thing the Politburo wanted to read was the truth.
As additional commentary Boatman wrote:
The science of spaceflight works because those who practice it have actually made the effort to discover and apply the relevant facts of reality to their endeavor. The mishaps that do occur are usually the result of someone not paying attention to the relevant facts.
The theory of Communism was invented by a group of professional parasites in order to give the appearance of modernity and moral legitimacy to the stone-age practice of beating-up and killing productive people and taking the products of their thought and labor. Of course that is about the nicest description I could give to it. I basically think of the practice of Communism as being the behavior of those who chose to essentially behave as predatory animals. And as with any other predatory animal that attacks human beings it is clear that they should be hunted down and killed.
To the true believer a 100 million innocent human lives snuffed out in the pursuit of an invalid ideology is just not enough. Would they stop after killing 200 million or 300 million? Of course not.
The parasite mentalities of the Master Class as a rule see themselves as superior beings and that all other people, the productive population of a nation, exist solely as either tools that they can use to pursue their goals or as trash to be disposed of. Killing those who rightfully refuse to be the slaves of the self-appointed superior beings is not seen as an act of murder. In the minds of the Master Class is it simply the disposal of garbage.
I practical effect a Communist is a mortal enemy of Mankind. And killing a Communist is as necessary as putting down a rabid animal or destroying any other active hazard to human life.
This wasn’t about to be accepted by the Politburo at all. And Gorbachev expected their collective response to be very ugly.
Richard Charles March sat in the den of his home in the Kenwood section of Minneapolis and was reading the Friday edition of the Minneapolis Star, the local evening newspaper. The Star had published an editorial that denounced the Uptimers for their clear adherence to Capitalism.
An Uptimer named Jane March had responded to the editorial.
Your sneer is a clear indication that you may be part of a problem. Positive confirmation of this would of course require further observation and research for which I neither the time, patience, nor a research grant to perform. That would be a task that is ideally suited to an actual intellectual. As you may notice I will not condemn all intellectuals in my reply, I only condemn the false ones.
Intellectuals actually can be useful when they are honest or when they are actually paying attention to the facts of reality. The problem arises when someone assumes the position of authority in order to scam their way to survival and well being, or to further an adverse ideological agenda. As there is only one reality, which is commonly perceived by all individuals, the fraud is ultimately discovered, but all too often the disclosure occurs after innocent lives are lost.
One of the obvious indications that one is a false intellectual is their apparent blindness to the distinction between the states of Civilization and Barbarism. The State of Civilization is not only the collection of structures that people live and work in, and the tools that they use, it is also the moral condition that they live in. The foundation of the social order has a clear impact on the survival and well being of the people who live in it.
In the State of Civilization consent is the preferred basis of social, economic, and political relationships, and force is reserved as a response to the violent predatory behavior from such persons as common criminals and Communists. The barbaric social paradigm is dominated by those persons who, by tribal membership or by adherence to an ideology, assume the role of a superior being that forcibly uses other people as a means to assure their own survival and well being.
Obviously not all civilizations are perfect, which was clearly demonstrated by the Self Appointed Superior Beings who forcibly imposed the Prohibition of Alcohol on the United States in the early Twentieth Century.
To see the distinction between Civilization and Barbarism and act to on that knowledge does have an impact on the survival and well being of a person. Anyone who cannot see, refuses to see, or who actively obliterates, the distinction between Civilization and Barbarism in their work is either not doing their job properly or is part of the problem, and in either case has absolutely zero claim to being an intellectual. Though that doesn't stop them from trying.
But I'm just the commander of our surface base, so what do I know?
Richard Charles March clearly was angry. How dare this cunt in a military uniform call him and his fellow Progressives a band of savages?
As March read the evening paper and made hostile noises his youngest son watched from a position on concealment. John Andrew March had only recently begun kindergarten classes but he already knew that his father should not be spoken to as he read any newspaper.
On the morning of Saturday Evelyn Boatman had been released from hospitalization and was taking the shuttle down from the Eagle to the surface base.
Back to work. He thought.
As additional commentary Boatman wrote:
The science of spaceflight works because those who practice it have actually made the effort to discover and apply the relevant facts of reality to their endeavor. The mishaps that do occur are usually the result of someone not paying attention to the relevant facts.
The theory of Communism was invented by a group of professional parasites in order to give the appearance of modernity and moral legitimacy to the stone-age practice of beating-up and killing productive people and taking the products of their thought and labor. Of course that is about the nicest description I could give to it. I basically think of the practice of Communism as being the behavior of those who chose to essentially behave as predatory animals. And as with any other predatory animal that attacks human beings it is clear that they should be hunted down and killed.
To the true believer a 100 million innocent human lives snuffed out in the pursuit of an invalid ideology is just not enough. Would they stop after killing 200 million or 300 million? Of course not.
The parasite mentalities of the Master Class as a rule see themselves as superior beings and that all other people, the productive population of a nation, exist solely as either tools that they can use to pursue their goals or as trash to be disposed of. Killing those who rightfully refuse to be the slaves of the self-appointed superior beings is not seen as an act of murder. In the minds of the Master Class is it simply the disposal of garbage.
I practical effect a Communist is a mortal enemy of Mankind. And killing a Communist is as necessary as putting down a rabid animal or destroying any other active hazard to human life.
This wasn’t about to be accepted by the Politburo at all. And Gorbachev expected their collective response to be very ugly.
Richard Charles March sat in the den of his home in the Kenwood section of Minneapolis and was reading the Friday edition of the Minneapolis Star, the local evening newspaper. The Star had published an editorial that denounced the Uptimers for their clear adherence to Capitalism.
An Uptimer named Jane March had responded to the editorial.
Your sneer is a clear indication that you may be part of a problem. Positive confirmation of this would of course require further observation and research for which I neither the time, patience, nor a research grant to perform. That would be a task that is ideally suited to an actual intellectual. As you may notice I will not condemn all intellectuals in my reply, I only condemn the false ones.
Intellectuals actually can be useful when they are honest or when they are actually paying attention to the facts of reality. The problem arises when someone assumes the position of authority in order to scam their way to survival and well being, or to further an adverse ideological agenda. As there is only one reality, which is commonly perceived by all individuals, the fraud is ultimately discovered, but all too often the disclosure occurs after innocent lives are lost.
One of the obvious indications that one is a false intellectual is their apparent blindness to the distinction between the states of Civilization and Barbarism. The State of Civilization is not only the collection of structures that people live and work in, and the tools that they use, it is also the moral condition that they live in. The foundation of the social order has a clear impact on the survival and well being of the people who live in it.
In the State of Civilization consent is the preferred basis of social, economic, and political relationships, and force is reserved as a response to the violent predatory behavior from such persons as common criminals and Communists. The barbaric social paradigm is dominated by those persons who, by tribal membership or by adherence to an ideology, assume the role of a superior being that forcibly uses other people as a means to assure their own survival and well being.
Obviously not all civilizations are perfect, which was clearly demonstrated by the Self Appointed Superior Beings who forcibly imposed the Prohibition of Alcohol on the United States in the early Twentieth Century.
To see the distinction between Civilization and Barbarism and act to on that knowledge does have an impact on the survival and well being of a person. Anyone who cannot see, refuses to see, or who actively obliterates, the distinction between Civilization and Barbarism in their work is either not doing their job properly or is part of the problem, and in either case has absolutely zero claim to being an intellectual. Though that doesn't stop them from trying.
But I'm just the commander of our surface base, so what do I know?
Richard Charles March clearly was angry. How dare this cunt in a military uniform call him and his fellow Progressives a band of savages?
As March read the evening paper and made hostile noises his youngest son watched from a position on concealment. John Andrew March had only recently begun kindergarten classes but he already knew that his father should not be spoken to as he read any newspaper.
On the morning of Saturday Evelyn Boatman had been released from hospitalization and was taking the shuttle down from the Eagle to the surface base.
Back to work. He thought.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
Step Back - Part 35
Friday October 17, 1969
Evelyn Boatman was sitting back at the work station in his quarters and had just finished updating the report on the visit of the Soviet delegation when there was an old fashioned knock on his cabin door.
“Come in!” He shouted.
The door opened and Judith Grant stepped in. As a proper gentleman Evelyn stood up.
“Is there a problem?” He said.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, “maybe.”
Evelyn made the gesture to Judith to take a seat near the work station in his cabin. Once they were seated he then asked the next question.
“So what happened?”
“I just finished reading Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein.”
Oh bugger. He thought. Of course when jumping to a conclusion I can be wrong.
“And?” He said.
“And I read the part of it titled The Tale Of The Adopted Daughter.”
He nodded.
Of course being right isn’t always a good thing, either. He thought.
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
“That I may have a problem.” She said.
Evelyn nodded and then asked the next question.
“Which is?”
“I want to be with you.” She said. “I want to marry you and live with you.”
He thought for a moment before responding.
“Apart from the issue of maturity I really can’t think of a reason to say no.”
She blinked. He continued his answer.
“Obviously no rational man will take advantage of a child, but once you’ve hit adulthood there shouldn’t be a problem. Do you understand?
“I think I do.” Judith replied. “I basically have to grow up?”
“On the psychological level, yes.” He said.
She nodded and then her face brightened.
“Yes.” She said.
“Was there anything else?” Evelyn asked.
“Um, no.” She said.
With the end of the discussion Judith would return to her cabin and Evelyn went directly to see Alice about the issue.
At Baikonur both Gorbachev and Leonov would go through a long debriefing on the mission. More than once the KGB Colonel had to suggest to a party member sitting in on the session that he should take a break. Three times he had to make the suggestion to a member more than once.
When Gorbachev mentioned that Boatman had dismissed Lenin as a psychopath the senior party member lit up and had to be physically removed from the room.
With the party man removed the Colonel shook his head.
“And how are we to do our jobs?” He said. “Our mission is to discover and record the facts but we are not to actually pass them on to our superiors?. And Boatman is not unique in this respect, when Lenin’s behavior is described to someone in the medical field without mentioning any clue as to his identity the doctor always comes to the conclusion that he is a psychopath. Every single time!”
Gorbachev was completely speechless at this point.
Aboard the Eagle Evelyn and Alice were having a discussion.
“So basically,” said Alice, “you just told her to grow up?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s all? No other grounds for rejection?”
“Why should there be?’
Alice was struck speechless.
Evelyn continued.
“Judith has essentially embraced reason and apart from the maturity issue why should I reject her? And in the intervening time she could find someone else to marry.”
“Not bloody likely.” Alice replied. “She won’t be looking for someone else, and neither will you. Face it Dad, you have this thing about diving in and solving problems, and this one just screamed and leaped at you.”
Evelyn knew that was an old science fiction metaphor but he couldn’t recall from what work.
Alice now continued.
“I remember the arrival of the Integral. And I remember how you and mom responded when I...”
Alice couldn’t continue, Evelyn spoke up.
“When you had no idea how to live a real human life and assumed that nothing would have changed once you were on the ground at Eden. The first lecture to correct that error was a long one.”
“The whole process of correcting the damage was a long one.” Alice replied. “You and Mom had a lot of work to do on it.”
Evelyn could only nod in response.
“So what now?” He said.
“Well, it’s a bit early to send out the wedding invitations.” Alice replied.
“Yes, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble, we’ll be inviting Rand, the Heinleins, the Azimovs, Arthur Clarke and whoever he’s partnered with...”
“Dad, this will be the biggest social event of the century.”
“No it won’t, this will not be major event like a royal wedding.”
“No, I suppose not.” Said Alice.
And then she had another thought.
“And speaking of an actual royal wedding, can we warn Diana Spencer about what happened to her counterpart on the original timeline?”
“Sure, she clearly doesn’t deserve to be hooked up with that inbred moron the Prince of Wales.” Said Evelyn. “I wrote the letter warning LRH about that dickhead Miscavage, and you can write the letter to Diana about that dickhead Prince Charles and his mistress, what was her name?”
“Camilla. Yes I think it was Camilla.” Said Alice. “Okay, I’ll do that.”
It was time for lunch.
The Boatman’s had stepped right up behind Judith Grant in the mess line. And then Evelyn had a thought.
And no, it didn’t hurt.
He spoke to her.
“Judith?”
“Yes?”
Evelyn stepped up, took her in his arms, and kissed her. It was a deep and very adult kiss. And Judith felt like she was melting in his arms.
And when he stopped he spoke again.
“The answer is yes, I wanted to be clear on that.”
Suddenly everyone on the mess deck stood up and applauded.
Evelyn Boatman was sitting back at the work station in his quarters and had just finished updating the report on the visit of the Soviet delegation when there was an old fashioned knock on his cabin door.
“Come in!” He shouted.
The door opened and Judith Grant stepped in. As a proper gentleman Evelyn stood up.
“Is there a problem?” He said.
“I’m not sure,” she replied, “maybe.”
Evelyn made the gesture to Judith to take a seat near the work station in his cabin. Once they were seated he then asked the next question.
“So what happened?”
“I just finished reading Time Enough For Love by Robert Heinlein.”
Oh bugger. He thought. Of course when jumping to a conclusion I can be wrong.
“And?” He said.
“And I read the part of it titled The Tale Of The Adopted Daughter.”
He nodded.
Of course being right isn’t always a good thing, either. He thought.
“And what conclusion did you come to?”
“That I may have a problem.” She said.
Evelyn nodded and then asked the next question.
“Which is?”
“I want to be with you.” She said. “I want to marry you and live with you.”
He thought for a moment before responding.
“Apart from the issue of maturity I really can’t think of a reason to say no.”
She blinked. He continued his answer.
“Obviously no rational man will take advantage of a child, but once you’ve hit adulthood there shouldn’t be a problem. Do you understand?
“I think I do.” Judith replied. “I basically have to grow up?”
“On the psychological level, yes.” He said.
She nodded and then her face brightened.
“Yes.” She said.
“Was there anything else?” Evelyn asked.
“Um, no.” She said.
With the end of the discussion Judith would return to her cabin and Evelyn went directly to see Alice about the issue.
At Baikonur both Gorbachev and Leonov would go through a long debriefing on the mission. More than once the KGB Colonel had to suggest to a party member sitting in on the session that he should take a break. Three times he had to make the suggestion to a member more than once.
When Gorbachev mentioned that Boatman had dismissed Lenin as a psychopath the senior party member lit up and had to be physically removed from the room.
With the party man removed the Colonel shook his head.
“And how are we to do our jobs?” He said. “Our mission is to discover and record the facts but we are not to actually pass them on to our superiors?. And Boatman is not unique in this respect, when Lenin’s behavior is described to someone in the medical field without mentioning any clue as to his identity the doctor always comes to the conclusion that he is a psychopath. Every single time!”
Gorbachev was completely speechless at this point.
Aboard the Eagle Evelyn and Alice were having a discussion.
“So basically,” said Alice, “you just told her to grow up?”
“Yes.”
“And that’s all? No other grounds for rejection?”
“Why should there be?’
Alice was struck speechless.
Evelyn continued.
“Judith has essentially embraced reason and apart from the maturity issue why should I reject her? And in the intervening time she could find someone else to marry.”
“Not bloody likely.” Alice replied. “She won’t be looking for someone else, and neither will you. Face it Dad, you have this thing about diving in and solving problems, and this one just screamed and leaped at you.”
Evelyn knew that was an old science fiction metaphor but he couldn’t recall from what work.
Alice now continued.
“I remember the arrival of the Integral. And I remember how you and mom responded when I...”
Alice couldn’t continue, Evelyn spoke up.
“When you had no idea how to live a real human life and assumed that nothing would have changed once you were on the ground at Eden. The first lecture to correct that error was a long one.”
“The whole process of correcting the damage was a long one.” Alice replied. “You and Mom had a lot of work to do on it.”
Evelyn could only nod in response.
“So what now?” He said.
“Well, it’s a bit early to send out the wedding invitations.” Alice replied.
“Yes, but it shouldn’t be too much trouble, we’ll be inviting Rand, the Heinleins, the Azimovs, Arthur Clarke and whoever he’s partnered with...”
“Dad, this will be the biggest social event of the century.”
“No it won’t, this will not be major event like a royal wedding.”
“No, I suppose not.” Said Alice.
And then she had another thought.
“And speaking of an actual royal wedding, can we warn Diana Spencer about what happened to her counterpart on the original timeline?”
“Sure, she clearly doesn’t deserve to be hooked up with that inbred moron the Prince of Wales.” Said Evelyn. “I wrote the letter warning LRH about that dickhead Miscavage, and you can write the letter to Diana about that dickhead Prince Charles and his mistress, what was her name?”
“Camilla. Yes I think it was Camilla.” Said Alice. “Okay, I’ll do that.”
It was time for lunch.
The Boatman’s had stepped right up behind Judith Grant in the mess line. And then Evelyn had a thought.
And no, it didn’t hurt.
He spoke to her.
“Judith?”
“Yes?”
Evelyn stepped up, took her in his arms, and kissed her. It was a deep and very adult kiss. And Judith felt like she was melting in his arms.
And when he stopped he spoke again.
“The answer is yes, I wanted to be clear on that.”
Suddenly everyone on the mess deck stood up and applauded.
Friday, November 07, 2014
Step Back - Part 34
Wednesday October 15, 1969
Low Earth Orbit
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev sat back and waited for the retro-rockets of the Soyuz spacecraft to fire.
What was he going to tell the Politburo? From their perspective this mission was a complete failure.
“The basic problem,” said Evelyn Boatman, “is that the doctrine of Communism is based on a clearly false concept of human life and of reality in general, and as such is absolutely doomed to failure. There is absolutely no other conclusion possible.”
“But what about all the lives sacrificed in the pursuit of the Communist ideal?”
“The fact is that all the suffering and deaths inflicted in the cause of Communism were completely pointless.” Boatman replied. “And in the long run the Communist state, in all manifestations, has to end.”
At this point in time it appeared that burning up on reentry wouldn’t seem to be a bad thing.
The Eagle was back under spin as she coasted back to geosynchronous altitude in the transfer orbit. In his role as the mission commander Boatman sat back at the work station in his quarters and read the various reports from the staff on the ground. That jackass of a county commissioner, a Democrat of course, didn’t get the message the first time and had to properly dealt with. And it appeared that the way things in general were going in the United States the idea of moving out to Ganymede and establishing a permanent base was looking better and better.
Why?
As with the Reds, the self-styled progressives and liberals in the United States believed they had an excuse to use force to obtain their goals on the ground. The idea that their victims had the right to live by their own rational judgement as well as the right to the products of their own thought and labor was simply irrelevant to them. As with the Reds, the Democrats and Progressives in general simply saw common people as things to be used. The control and usage of common people was to be brought about through fraud if possible and by force if necessary.
In The Reformation the practice of using people and otherwise profiting through political force was brought to an abrupt end. From coast to coast in the United States there were mass graves filled with the dead bodies of the Users. There was simply no other option at that time.
In the primary timeline The Reformation was brought about in part because the virtual monopoly on the mass media held by the Users had been broken by the Internet. But at the present time even the military communications system that was constructed for nuclear warfighting which served as the foundation of the Internet simply didn’t exist.
Could the Users be brought down now?
Boatman simply had no idea, but it was now time for dinner.
It was late in the night when Senator Kennedy personally answered the door of his Washington residence. The man he let in was a long standing supporter of the Kennedy Family in the publishing business from decades back.
Geoffrey Warren spoke softly.
“So Ted, what’s the big hush-hush about?”
Kennedy answered.
“Geoff, I’ve just been given a copy of a book that was originally published in the future, and the story that it tells is nothing less than appalling.”
He handed Warren the copy of The Concept Of Government. Warren opened it as Kennedy continued to speak.
“This is the unexpurgated version.” He said. “It covers the extermination of our party in the future and those responsible for it.”
Warren looked up with shock.
“Yes.” Said Kennedy. “Our party will be wiped out and that book names those who will do it.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Said Warren.
“What I want,” said Kennedy, “is for copies of that book to be printed and distributed to our people, and it must be done secretly, can you do it?”
Geoffrey Warren nodded.
“Yes, I can do it.”
“And it must be an exact copy,” said Kennedy, “even the typos must be included.”
Warren open the book to the inside cover and pointed to the number stamped inside.
“Does that include this number?”
“Yes,” Kennedy replied, “it has to mean something.”
“Okay,” said Warren, “I’ll do it.”
In the White House President Nixon read the report on the visit on the Soviet visit to the Eagle. It had essentially gone off without any problems. The mission commander gave his guests a tour of the ship, including the main drive room, along with a brief explanation of the technologies. The Russians even got to view the quantum singularity that was the heart of the ship.
Or at least the visual effects of the gravitational distortion it generated by its very existence.
And then there was the dinner. It was as close to a formal meal that could be served in free fall as the Soyuz spacecraft had been brought aboard and the ship could not be spun for internal gravity as a result.
And at the end the Soviet delegation was told that the Uptimers could do nothing for a invalid social order. Absolutely nothing at all.
What Brezhnev and the rest of the Politburo would think about this could only be guessed.
And then there was the latest incident in Nevada. A dumbass politician, a Democrat of course, tried to put the legal squeeze on the Uptimers. And the Uptimers responded with their usual exercise of deadly force.
One would think that the folks on the other side of the aisle would notice that the Uptimers had a standard response to their nonsense. But then the folks on the other side really weren’t in the habit of actual thought.
Or so it would appear.
Low Earth Orbit
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev sat back and waited for the retro-rockets of the Soyuz spacecraft to fire.
What was he going to tell the Politburo? From their perspective this mission was a complete failure.
“The basic problem,” said Evelyn Boatman, “is that the doctrine of Communism is based on a clearly false concept of human life and of reality in general, and as such is absolutely doomed to failure. There is absolutely no other conclusion possible.”
“But what about all the lives sacrificed in the pursuit of the Communist ideal?”
“The fact is that all the suffering and deaths inflicted in the cause of Communism were completely pointless.” Boatman replied. “And in the long run the Communist state, in all manifestations, has to end.”
At this point in time it appeared that burning up on reentry wouldn’t seem to be a bad thing.
The Eagle was back under spin as she coasted back to geosynchronous altitude in the transfer orbit. In his role as the mission commander Boatman sat back at the work station in his quarters and read the various reports from the staff on the ground. That jackass of a county commissioner, a Democrat of course, didn’t get the message the first time and had to properly dealt with. And it appeared that the way things in general were going in the United States the idea of moving out to Ganymede and establishing a permanent base was looking better and better.
Why?
As with the Reds, the self-styled progressives and liberals in the United States believed they had an excuse to use force to obtain their goals on the ground. The idea that their victims had the right to live by their own rational judgement as well as the right to the products of their own thought and labor was simply irrelevant to them. As with the Reds, the Democrats and Progressives in general simply saw common people as things to be used. The control and usage of common people was to be brought about through fraud if possible and by force if necessary.
In The Reformation the practice of using people and otherwise profiting through political force was brought to an abrupt end. From coast to coast in the United States there were mass graves filled with the dead bodies of the Users. There was simply no other option at that time.
In the primary timeline The Reformation was brought about in part because the virtual monopoly on the mass media held by the Users had been broken by the Internet. But at the present time even the military communications system that was constructed for nuclear warfighting which served as the foundation of the Internet simply didn’t exist.
Could the Users be brought down now?
Boatman simply had no idea, but it was now time for dinner.
It was late in the night when Senator Kennedy personally answered the door of his Washington residence. The man he let in was a long standing supporter of the Kennedy Family in the publishing business from decades back.
Geoffrey Warren spoke softly.
“So Ted, what’s the big hush-hush about?”
Kennedy answered.
“Geoff, I’ve just been given a copy of a book that was originally published in the future, and the story that it tells is nothing less than appalling.”
He handed Warren the copy of The Concept Of Government. Warren opened it as Kennedy continued to speak.
“This is the unexpurgated version.” He said. “It covers the extermination of our party in the future and those responsible for it.”
Warren looked up with shock.
“Yes.” Said Kennedy. “Our party will be wiped out and that book names those who will do it.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Said Warren.
“What I want,” said Kennedy, “is for copies of that book to be printed and distributed to our people, and it must be done secretly, can you do it?”
Geoffrey Warren nodded.
“Yes, I can do it.”
“And it must be an exact copy,” said Kennedy, “even the typos must be included.”
Warren open the book to the inside cover and pointed to the number stamped inside.
“Does that include this number?”
“Yes,” Kennedy replied, “it has to mean something.”
“Okay,” said Warren, “I’ll do it.”
In the White House President Nixon read the report on the visit on the Soviet visit to the Eagle. It had essentially gone off without any problems. The mission commander gave his guests a tour of the ship, including the main drive room, along with a brief explanation of the technologies. The Russians even got to view the quantum singularity that was the heart of the ship.
Or at least the visual effects of the gravitational distortion it generated by its very existence.
And then there was the dinner. It was as close to a formal meal that could be served in free fall as the Soyuz spacecraft had been brought aboard and the ship could not be spun for internal gravity as a result.
And at the end the Soviet delegation was told that the Uptimers could do nothing for a invalid social order. Absolutely nothing at all.
What Brezhnev and the rest of the Politburo would think about this could only be guessed.
And then there was the latest incident in Nevada. A dumbass politician, a Democrat of course, tried to put the legal squeeze on the Uptimers. And the Uptimers responded with their usual exercise of deadly force.
One would think that the folks on the other side of the aisle would notice that the Uptimers had a standard response to their nonsense. But then the folks on the other side really weren’t in the habit of actual thought.
Or so it would appear.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Step Back - Part 33
Wednesday October 15, 1969
Nevada Desert
Robert Fisher was driving his own Kentworth tractor-trailer truck on a two-lane highway crossing the Nevada desert. He was carrying a load of corrugated sheet steel to the surface base of the Uptimers. Even though he was a Minnesota resident this was where the work was and the fact that he was an independent owner-operator was also a factor in his continued employment. The Uptimers continued their flat out refusal to hire anyone connected to a union, especially the Teamsters.
He was still ten miles out from the front gate of the base when a county sheriff's car came up behind his unit and started flashing the lights. Bob decided to pull over but as he did he hit the panic button on the GPS unit installed in the tractor as instructed by the Uptimers. Unless there was another emergency to deal with the alert squad of Rangers would shortly come out.
After both vehicles came to a full stop the deputy sheriff walked up to truck.
He spoke to Fisher.
“Sir, do you know why you were pulled over?”
“No.”
“You were speeding.”
Fisher shook his head.
“Deputy,” he said, “I’m carrying too much weight to be speeding.”
The deputy was clearly upset that Fisher had rebuked him.
“My radar gun says you were speeding!”
The GPS unit beeped. Fisher briefly turned to read the text message on the screen. The alert squad of Rangers was on the way.
He decided to talk the deputy out of this nonsense before the Rangers showed up.
“Deputy,” he said, “this tractor unit is fitted with a Global Positioning System unit.”
“So what?”
“The GPS was developed on the original timeline by the United States Navy to precisely track the position and speed of ballistic missile submarines. The People from the future brought a full set of GPS satellites and ground units with them in case they had to do work on the Earth. And according my GPS tracker I wasn’t speeding.”
The deputy was now visibly angry. He pulled out his service revolver.
“Get out of the truck! Now!”
Suddenly there were two sonic booms. The deputy looked up in shock.
Fisher spoke again.
“Deputy, I called for assistance from the Uptimers, you should place the gun on the ground and your hands on top of your head.”
The deputy raised his revolver higher and shouted again.
“GET OUT OF THE TRUCK! NOW!”
There was a sudden flash of light. Fisher looked down and saw that apart from the skull, spinal column and rib cage, which had turned to carbon, every part of the deputy above the pelvis had been turned to smoke.
“Shit.” He said.
Fisher had seen similar but far bloodier fatal injuries inflicted by the Communists on his fellow Marines in the Korean War.
The four Rangers stepped out of the squad lander as it slowly passed over the site. The landing jets on the suits slowed their descent to landing. The squad leader bounced up to where Fisher was parked. He then opened his helmet to speak.
“Damn.” He said. “He asked for it.”
“He was clearly not paying attention, Sergeant Burnette.”
Fisher could see the name and rank of the Ranger printed in black on the front of the suit. The insignia used straight chevrons similar to those used by the Israelis, but in this case the rank of Staff Sergeant was indicated by four stripes.
“Okay,” said Staff Sergeant Burnette, “this idiot pulls you over for speeding even though you weren’t, and then pulls his weapon on you when you argued with him.”
“Yes,” said Fisher, “and he got real upset when the lander and the gunship appeared.”
“Dumb,” said Burnette, “a real prereformation cop, a really stupid prereformation cop.”
Bob Fisher could only nod. He had not yet read the full story on The Reformation but from what little information he had it was clearly a cleanup of a serious mess.
Burnette looked about before speaking again.
“What we can do is this, we can have the squad lander and gunship fly overhead and my guys can ride on the trailer the rest of the way to the base.”
“That’ll work.” Fisher replied.
In his office Senator Edward Kennedy received a visitor. Douglas Green was employed by the Republican National Committee in Washington. But for some reason he needed to speak to the senator immediately and in private.
“So what is this about?” Said Kennedy.
“You’ve heard about the publication of The Concept Of Government?”
“Yes,” said Kennedy, “I’ve been told that it’s a load of fascist trash”
“There’s an unexpurgated version being distributed within the Republican Party. And it’s worse than that--much worse.”
Green opened a small brown paper bag like those used by certain bookstores, pulled out a copy of a soft cover book, and handed it to Kennedy. The title was the same but the name of the author was clearly printed on the cover.
The author was named Allen Keller.
“In what way is this version worse?” Kennedy asked.
Green answered.
“This version gives a clear history of the event the Uptimers call The Reformation, basically the extermination of the Democratic Party. And it gives the identity of those who carried it out, including the founder of the successor state, The Federation.”
“And who carried out the murders and founded this so-called federation?”
“The then sitting governor of the state of Minnesota, John Andrew March.”
As Kennedy paged through the copy he didn’t notice the four digit number stamped on the inside of the cover. And he had absolutely no clue that there was a printed computer chip incorporated into the spine of the book.
His thought at the time was that something would have to be done about those monsters.
At the Ground Base in Nevada Lieutenant March was meeting with Bob Fisher.
“Bob, when was the last time you went home to see your family?’
“About a month ago, why?”
“Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to leave the area until things calm down. According to my list here we have a load going outbound to Minneapolis. Interested/”
Fisher nodded.
“Yes.” He said.
“Okay, it’s going out tomorrow to Honeywell.”
At that moment a message popped up with a beep on her desktop screen.
March spoke again.
“Bob, I have to meet with someone, can you go out the side door?”
“Yes.”
Once Fisher was clear of her office she pressed down on the intercom button.
“Okay, bring him in.”
Two Rangers dragged a bound and gagged man in mock western attire into the office and dropped him on the floor. He was a member of the county board. March walked around her desk and bent down to pull off the piece of duct tape from his mouth.
She then spoke.
“So what do you have to say for yourself?”
He spat back.
“You fucking bitch!”
“Really,” she replied, “do you understand the concept of courtesy, let along the meaning of the word No?”
“You have nothing on me, bitch!”
“On the contrary, the county sheriff was very clear when he said that you ordered the harassment of truckers making deliveries here.”
“That lying son of a bitch!”
March shook her head.
“No. It’s amazing how truthful someone can be when a gun is placed directly on the forehead. Your effort to get a piece of our action has only annoyed us and resulted in the death of one of your deputies. Needless to say it has to end.”
“You bitch! You won’t get away with this!”
“I’m not getting away with anything.” She calmly relied.
Lieutenant March then drew her sidearm, a M1911A1, and placed a single round in the commissioner’s head.
And then came the paperwork.
Nevada Desert
Robert Fisher was driving his own Kentworth tractor-trailer truck on a two-lane highway crossing the Nevada desert. He was carrying a load of corrugated sheet steel to the surface base of the Uptimers. Even though he was a Minnesota resident this was where the work was and the fact that he was an independent owner-operator was also a factor in his continued employment. The Uptimers continued their flat out refusal to hire anyone connected to a union, especially the Teamsters.
He was still ten miles out from the front gate of the base when a county sheriff's car came up behind his unit and started flashing the lights. Bob decided to pull over but as he did he hit the panic button on the GPS unit installed in the tractor as instructed by the Uptimers. Unless there was another emergency to deal with the alert squad of Rangers would shortly come out.
After both vehicles came to a full stop the deputy sheriff walked up to truck.
He spoke to Fisher.
“Sir, do you know why you were pulled over?”
“No.”
“You were speeding.”
Fisher shook his head.
“Deputy,” he said, “I’m carrying too much weight to be speeding.”
The deputy was clearly upset that Fisher had rebuked him.
“My radar gun says you were speeding!”
The GPS unit beeped. Fisher briefly turned to read the text message on the screen. The alert squad of Rangers was on the way.
He decided to talk the deputy out of this nonsense before the Rangers showed up.
“Deputy,” he said, “this tractor unit is fitted with a Global Positioning System unit.”
“So what?”
“The GPS was developed on the original timeline by the United States Navy to precisely track the position and speed of ballistic missile submarines. The People from the future brought a full set of GPS satellites and ground units with them in case they had to do work on the Earth. And according my GPS tracker I wasn’t speeding.”
The deputy was now visibly angry. He pulled out his service revolver.
“Get out of the truck! Now!”
Suddenly there were two sonic booms. The deputy looked up in shock.
Fisher spoke again.
“Deputy, I called for assistance from the Uptimers, you should place the gun on the ground and your hands on top of your head.”
The deputy raised his revolver higher and shouted again.
“GET OUT OF THE TRUCK! NOW!”
There was a sudden flash of light. Fisher looked down and saw that apart from the skull, spinal column and rib cage, which had turned to carbon, every part of the deputy above the pelvis had been turned to smoke.
“Shit.” He said.
Fisher had seen similar but far bloodier fatal injuries inflicted by the Communists on his fellow Marines in the Korean War.
The four Rangers stepped out of the squad lander as it slowly passed over the site. The landing jets on the suits slowed their descent to landing. The squad leader bounced up to where Fisher was parked. He then opened his helmet to speak.
“Damn.” He said. “He asked for it.”
“He was clearly not paying attention, Sergeant Burnette.”
Fisher could see the name and rank of the Ranger printed in black on the front of the suit. The insignia used straight chevrons similar to those used by the Israelis, but in this case the rank of Staff Sergeant was indicated by four stripes.
“Okay,” said Staff Sergeant Burnette, “this idiot pulls you over for speeding even though you weren’t, and then pulls his weapon on you when you argued with him.”
“Yes,” said Fisher, “and he got real upset when the lander and the gunship appeared.”
“Dumb,” said Burnette, “a real prereformation cop, a really stupid prereformation cop.”
Bob Fisher could only nod. He had not yet read the full story on The Reformation but from what little information he had it was clearly a cleanup of a serious mess.
Burnette looked about before speaking again.
“What we can do is this, we can have the squad lander and gunship fly overhead and my guys can ride on the trailer the rest of the way to the base.”
“That’ll work.” Fisher replied.
In his office Senator Edward Kennedy received a visitor. Douglas Green was employed by the Republican National Committee in Washington. But for some reason he needed to speak to the senator immediately and in private.
“So what is this about?” Said Kennedy.
“You’ve heard about the publication of The Concept Of Government?”
“Yes,” said Kennedy, “I’ve been told that it’s a load of fascist trash”
“There’s an unexpurgated version being distributed within the Republican Party. And it’s worse than that--much worse.”
Green opened a small brown paper bag like those used by certain bookstores, pulled out a copy of a soft cover book, and handed it to Kennedy. The title was the same but the name of the author was clearly printed on the cover.
The author was named Allen Keller.
“In what way is this version worse?” Kennedy asked.
Green answered.
“This version gives a clear history of the event the Uptimers call The Reformation, basically the extermination of the Democratic Party. And it gives the identity of those who carried it out, including the founder of the successor state, The Federation.”
“And who carried out the murders and founded this so-called federation?”
“The then sitting governor of the state of Minnesota, John Andrew March.”
As Kennedy paged through the copy he didn’t notice the four digit number stamped on the inside of the cover. And he had absolutely no clue that there was a printed computer chip incorporated into the spine of the book.
His thought at the time was that something would have to be done about those monsters.
At the Ground Base in Nevada Lieutenant March was meeting with Bob Fisher.
“Bob, when was the last time you went home to see your family?’
“About a month ago, why?”
“Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to leave the area until things calm down. According to my list here we have a load going outbound to Minneapolis. Interested/”
Fisher nodded.
“Yes.” He said.
“Okay, it’s going out tomorrow to Honeywell.”
At that moment a message popped up with a beep on her desktop screen.
March spoke again.
“Bob, I have to meet with someone, can you go out the side door?”
“Yes.”
Once Fisher was clear of her office she pressed down on the intercom button.
“Okay, bring him in.”
Two Rangers dragged a bound and gagged man in mock western attire into the office and dropped him on the floor. He was a member of the county board. March walked around her desk and bent down to pull off the piece of duct tape from his mouth.
She then spoke.
“So what do you have to say for yourself?”
He spat back.
“You fucking bitch!”
“Really,” she replied, “do you understand the concept of courtesy, let along the meaning of the word No?”
“You have nothing on me, bitch!”
“On the contrary, the county sheriff was very clear when he said that you ordered the harassment of truckers making deliveries here.”
“That lying son of a bitch!”
March shook her head.
“No. It’s amazing how truthful someone can be when a gun is placed directly on the forehead. Your effort to get a piece of our action has only annoyed us and resulted in the death of one of your deputies. Needless to say it has to end.”
“You bitch! You won’t get away with this!”
“I’m not getting away with anything.” She calmly relied.
Lieutenant March then drew her sidearm, a M1911A1, and placed a single round in the commissioner’s head.
And then came the paperwork.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Step Back - Part 32
Starship Eagle
In Geosynchronous Orbit
The hanger was sealed and repressurized. The Soyuz spacecraft had been secured to the deck. To Boatman’s eyes it was clearly a relic of an ancient day. The green fireproof nomex fabric that covered the reentry and mission modules of the spacecraft gleamed in the light of the hangar deck.
The Ranger honor guard in their deep green dress uniforms had secured their feet to the deck with grip shoes. Both Alice and Judith as well as captain sterling were wearing communication headsets that were linked to the cluster of supercomputers that controlled the Eagle. For this event the headsets included a small speaker which would broadcast the translation of individuals speech in Russian. Evelyn alone was not wearing a headset.
The loudspeakers blared.
“Soviet Visitors, arriving.”
As if this were the signal to act the docking hatch of the mission module opened and the two men floated forth into the hangar.
Both Leonov and Gorbachev had changed to their mission uniforms for the meeting. Upon their egress in free fall Boatman spoke to them clearly in Russian.
“Welcome gentlemen to the starship Eagle, I am Evelyn Boatman.”
“You speak Russian?” Said Gorbachev.
“Yes, Mikhail Sergeyevich.” Boatman replied. “This vessel was originally designed to cross interstellar space at one fifth the speed of light. With acceleration and braking the journey to Alpha Centauri would take about twenty five years. As you can imagine this gives a new meaning to the concept of boredom. As I had time to catch up on some reading I chose to read Tsiolkovsky and Korolev in the original Russian.”
“And Lenin?” Gorbachev asked.
“No,” said Boatman, “of course not, I leave psychotics to the correct professionals.”
“Of course.” Gorbachev replied.
Boatman then stepped with the grip shoes towards Leonov and extended his hand.
“Cosmonaut Leonov,” he said, “it is an honor to meet you, sir.”
Leonov took and shook Boatman’s hand.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome” He replied. “Allow me to introduce these good people. First this is Captain Dennis Sterling, the commander of the Eagle.”
Captain Sterling nodded and put forth his hand to be shook. Cosmonaut Leonov and Gorbachev responded in kind.
“This is my adopted daughter, Doctor Alice Boatman.”
Alice said the word, “Hello.” This was translated into Russian and transmitted back by her communications set.
“Hello Doctor Boatman.” Said Cosmonaut Leonov. Gorbachev had simply said, “Hello.”
And Boatman made the last introduction.
“And this is Judith Grant, she is presently receiving treatment for some severe injuries she received on the ground.”
Both of the Russians had read of the incident in Dallas. And both decided at that point to simply nod.
Boatman then looked at the Soyuz spacecraft and spoke to Leonov.
“You’re flying with the standard heat shield on this mission?”
“Yes.” Leonov replied.
Boatman frowned and shook his head.
“While Russians do tend to be a bit conservative in engineering you still have more energy to bleed off during reentry from this altitude.” He said. “Would you accept a ride down to a lower orbit before attempting reentry?”
“Yes.” Said Leonov. “We would.”
“Yes.” Said Gorbachev.
“Of we’ll have to secure the spacecraft to the deck, with your permission.” Said Boatman.
“Of course.” Leonov replied.
“And while that is taken care of, we could do a short tour of the ship.”
“That would be good.” Said Cosmonaut Leonov.
“Yes, thank you.” Said Gorbachev.
After a set of grip shoes had been issued to the cosmonauts, the group made their way to the main engine room.
“And this is the primary control station for the Quantum Singularity Drive. “ Said Boatman.
He brought up and image on the primary large flat screen monitor. The grey image showed an grid with a distortion at the center.
Boatman spoke.
“What you are seeing on this image is not the singularity itself but the distorting effect of the gravitational pull.”
Gorbachev spoke.
“A physicist at Moscow University told us that you have recreated the gravitational effects of a frozen star on the subatomic level.”
“Essentially, yes.”
Gorbachev had used the Russian term for the phenomena. The English term Black Hole translated directly into Russian was unfortunately and commonly used as a rude anatomical reference.
Leonov then spoke.
“If I under stood the concept correctly you generate usable energy by dropping matter into the singularity?”
“Yes,” Boatman replied, “protons and electrons in the process of being gravitationally merged into neutrons give off photons which in turn are used to heat up normal matter. Which then leads to this...”
Boatman changed the image on the screen to a diagram of the larger drive section.
“...in the normal rocket mode for insystem propulsion at lower velocities we use ordinary hydrogen for the reaction mass, but for interstellar flight we scoop the mass from outside of the ship.”
“As in the Bussard Ramjet?” Said Leonov.
“Yes, but there are some difficulties.” Boatman replied.
“I’m sorry.” Said Gorbachev, “but what is a Bussard Ramjet?”
To Gorbachev the mission commander’s face had taken on the appearance of a university lecturer who had just joyously discovered a dullard in his classroom. Unfortunately for Gorbachev the dullard was him.
Boatman spoke.
“The ramjet was proposed as a means of starship propulsion by Doctor Robert Bussard, in this the system would magnetically scoop the hydrogen in interstellar space and use it as fuel for a fusion rocket. But there were two basic problems with the concept. The first is that artificial thermonuclear fusion requires neutrons in the nucleus of the fuel. Thus our use of Deuterium and Helium-3 as fusion fuels. The second is that maximum velocity of the system is limited to the exhaust velocity of the rocket motor. Which on the Eagle is twenty percent of the speed of light. Now this configuration of the system is generally known as the Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket.”
Cosmonaut Leonov had a question.
“As I understand it, Hydrogen is magnetically neutral, so how can it be magnetically scooped up?”
“Good question,” said Boatman, “In our system we use a laser to separate the electrons from the proton core. So the protons are then scooped in and used as the reaction mass.”
Leonov nodded. Boatman then looked at his watch.
“And it appears to be time for dinner.”
In Geosynchronous Orbit
The hanger was sealed and repressurized. The Soyuz spacecraft had been secured to the deck. To Boatman’s eyes it was clearly a relic of an ancient day. The green fireproof nomex fabric that covered the reentry and mission modules of the spacecraft gleamed in the light of the hangar deck.
The Ranger honor guard in their deep green dress uniforms had secured their feet to the deck with grip shoes. Both Alice and Judith as well as captain sterling were wearing communication headsets that were linked to the cluster of supercomputers that controlled the Eagle. For this event the headsets included a small speaker which would broadcast the translation of individuals speech in Russian. Evelyn alone was not wearing a headset.
The loudspeakers blared.
“Soviet Visitors, arriving.”
As if this were the signal to act the docking hatch of the mission module opened and the two men floated forth into the hangar.
Both Leonov and Gorbachev had changed to their mission uniforms for the meeting. Upon their egress in free fall Boatman spoke to them clearly in Russian.
“Welcome gentlemen to the starship Eagle, I am Evelyn Boatman.”
“You speak Russian?” Said Gorbachev.
“Yes, Mikhail Sergeyevich.” Boatman replied. “This vessel was originally designed to cross interstellar space at one fifth the speed of light. With acceleration and braking the journey to Alpha Centauri would take about twenty five years. As you can imagine this gives a new meaning to the concept of boredom. As I had time to catch up on some reading I chose to read Tsiolkovsky and Korolev in the original Russian.”
“And Lenin?” Gorbachev asked.
“No,” said Boatman, “of course not, I leave psychotics to the correct professionals.”
“Of course.” Gorbachev replied.
Boatman then stepped with the grip shoes towards Leonov and extended his hand.
“Cosmonaut Leonov,” he said, “it is an honor to meet you, sir.”
Leonov took and shook Boatman’s hand.
“Thank you, sir.”
“You’re welcome” He replied. “Allow me to introduce these good people. First this is Captain Dennis Sterling, the commander of the Eagle.”
Captain Sterling nodded and put forth his hand to be shook. Cosmonaut Leonov and Gorbachev responded in kind.
“This is my adopted daughter, Doctor Alice Boatman.”
Alice said the word, “Hello.” This was translated into Russian and transmitted back by her communications set.
“Hello Doctor Boatman.” Said Cosmonaut Leonov. Gorbachev had simply said, “Hello.”
And Boatman made the last introduction.
“And this is Judith Grant, she is presently receiving treatment for some severe injuries she received on the ground.”
Both of the Russians had read of the incident in Dallas. And both decided at that point to simply nod.
Boatman then looked at the Soyuz spacecraft and spoke to Leonov.
“You’re flying with the standard heat shield on this mission?”
“Yes.” Leonov replied.
Boatman frowned and shook his head.
“While Russians do tend to be a bit conservative in engineering you still have more energy to bleed off during reentry from this altitude.” He said. “Would you accept a ride down to a lower orbit before attempting reentry?”
“Yes.” Said Leonov. “We would.”
“Yes.” Said Gorbachev.
“Of we’ll have to secure the spacecraft to the deck, with your permission.” Said Boatman.
“Of course.” Leonov replied.
“And while that is taken care of, we could do a short tour of the ship.”
“That would be good.” Said Cosmonaut Leonov.
“Yes, thank you.” Said Gorbachev.
After a set of grip shoes had been issued to the cosmonauts, the group made their way to the main engine room.
“And this is the primary control station for the Quantum Singularity Drive. “ Said Boatman.
He brought up and image on the primary large flat screen monitor. The grey image showed an grid with a distortion at the center.
Boatman spoke.
“What you are seeing on this image is not the singularity itself but the distorting effect of the gravitational pull.”
Gorbachev spoke.
“A physicist at Moscow University told us that you have recreated the gravitational effects of a frozen star on the subatomic level.”
“Essentially, yes.”
Gorbachev had used the Russian term for the phenomena. The English term Black Hole translated directly into Russian was unfortunately and commonly used as a rude anatomical reference.
Leonov then spoke.
“If I under stood the concept correctly you generate usable energy by dropping matter into the singularity?”
“Yes,” Boatman replied, “protons and electrons in the process of being gravitationally merged into neutrons give off photons which in turn are used to heat up normal matter. Which then leads to this...”
Boatman changed the image on the screen to a diagram of the larger drive section.
“...in the normal rocket mode for insystem propulsion at lower velocities we use ordinary hydrogen for the reaction mass, but for interstellar flight we scoop the mass from outside of the ship.”
“As in the Bussard Ramjet?” Said Leonov.
“Yes, but there are some difficulties.” Boatman replied.
“I’m sorry.” Said Gorbachev, “but what is a Bussard Ramjet?”
To Gorbachev the mission commander’s face had taken on the appearance of a university lecturer who had just joyously discovered a dullard in his classroom. Unfortunately for Gorbachev the dullard was him.
Boatman spoke.
“The ramjet was proposed as a means of starship propulsion by Doctor Robert Bussard, in this the system would magnetically scoop the hydrogen in interstellar space and use it as fuel for a fusion rocket. But there were two basic problems with the concept. The first is that artificial thermonuclear fusion requires neutrons in the nucleus of the fuel. Thus our use of Deuterium and Helium-3 as fusion fuels. The second is that maximum velocity of the system is limited to the exhaust velocity of the rocket motor. Which on the Eagle is twenty percent of the speed of light. Now this configuration of the system is generally known as the Ram Augmented Interstellar Rocket.”
Cosmonaut Leonov had a question.
“As I understand it, Hydrogen is magnetically neutral, so how can it be magnetically scooped up?”
“Good question,” said Boatman, “In our system we use a laser to separate the electrons from the proton core. So the protons are then scooped in and used as the reaction mass.”
Leonov nodded. Boatman then looked at his watch.
“And it appears to be time for dinner.”
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