#FridayFlash: Zombie Wrangler

I think I got the idea for this one last summer, from an off-the-cuff silly comment on Twitter.

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Zombie Wrangler

“Have a good day, Paul.”

Paul Contera hugged his wife. “You too, Laurie. If you can.”

“It’s not so bad, mostly.”

“Yeah. I’ll be home as soon as I can. We have that Dairymen’s Association thing to finish, but maybe we’ll be done early.”

“Okay. Bye.” They ducked into the garage and Paul backed the Acura out, leaving Laurie to the day ahead.

Laurie sighed and looked over her equipment hanging on the back wall of the garage. They wouldn’t be moving much for another half hour, so she had time for her coffee and danish.


8:00. Time to get started. She put on her gear: headset video/audio, jacket, kit bag, cattle prod (which she never had to use, but got a verbal reprimand the one time she left it). She turned on the headset and faced the big QR square pasted up next to the gear hangers.

Robin’s Western accent twanged in her audio. “Laurie Contera, confirmed check-in. How’s the audio?”

“Sounds good, Robin,” she replied. “How about mine?”

“Great. You ready?”

“I guess so. Your other victims on line yet?”

“You’re the second. Swamy’s already in… whup, there’s Mike. Shirley’s always a little slow, and Marilyn called in sick. I’ll pop in to chat a little later, gotta check in Mike. But I’m watching.”

Laurie stepped outside, locking the door behind her. She stepped to the curb and looked down the street. They were already shambling this way, keeping to the yards on either side. A herd of forty, or close to it, calling to each other.

Her zombies.

Bovine Behavior Syndrome victims, said that asshole Franklin inside her head. They are Americans, suffering from a dreadful malady. Our job is to help and protect them until we can cure them.

Funny how she used to worry about Paul’s job security. A year ago, she was in line for the CFO slot at Burger DeLuxe and expected to arrive there about now, while he worked in a struggling ad firm. Then that BBS bug got loose, and nobody was eating beef anymore, no matter how organic or upscale it might be. Meanwhile, Paul’s agency was swamped by dairy and poultry associations who wanted to tout the safety of their products. Working as a zombie wrangler — BBS Victim Scanner — was a huge letdown from upper management, even in a fancy-ass regional burger chain. But it paid well enough, and beat the hell out of trying to find another finance job with a third of the population gone zombie.

The bad part was, she had to be out here with them. Not that there was any danger, unless you were a blade of grass. Or a landscaper’s income, with grass-eating zombies cleaning up lawns for free. She could see them bending over, pulling up handfuls of grass and weeds as they approached. Laurie looked through the binoculars: they were mostly tagged already, and she recognized many of them. The zombies tended to herd together, working their way around a particular territory, occasionally swapping members when two herds met. She walked up the street to meet them.

They looked healthy enough — whatever the BBS virus did to their brains, it let them metabolize plant matter as well — and it was Laurie’s job to make sure they stayed healthy. She gave the herd a quick scan for runny noses and open sores, letting her scanner ID each one as she checked them over. Two of them had minor cuts that she disinfected and bandaged. All of them got vitamin supplements, soft plant matter soaked in nutrients. The zombies, as always, let her do her job as long as she walked with them.

“Mooooooo!” Some idiot leaned out of a red pickup truck and spotted Laurie. “Hey cowgirl! Wanna give me a ride?”

Laurie turned to face the truck, touching her headset to zoom her scanner in to record the driver’s face and license number. The truck took off, but she already had the ID. Franklin would send one of his drones, accompanied by a couple cops, to deliver a lecture (first offense) or take the moron in for mandatory sensitivity training (second offense). At least Franklin’s good for something, she thought, and went back to work. Only idiots bothered BBS scanners these days.

Several zombies had no ID badges, so they needed closer scrutiny. She ran the first woman’s fingerprints, and the database returned a match for a Carolyn DeJong. She pinned a new badge to the woman’s blouse and scanned her again, assigning the badge to her. The second woman was not listed among the BBS victims, and carried no ID on her. She badged, scanned, and fingerprinted the woman; ID’ing her was the department’s problem.

She turned to the un-badged man and caught her breath. “Steve?” If this wasn’t Steve Artinian — an accountant at DeLuxe, and her boy on the side a few years ago, until he’d quit his job and left her — it was his double. She managed to badge and scan him, then fished the wallet out of his back pocket.

“Laurie?” Robin’s voice came over the headset. “Your telemetry is showing stress. Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Laurie sighed. “I just ID’ed an old co-worker is all.”

“Ow. Can you stick with it?”

“Yeah.” Laurie scanned Steve’s driver’s license as positive ID, returned it and his wallet, and turned away. “Just need a couple minutes to get my wits together.”

“Right. You’re taking tomorrow off. I’ll schedule you a counseling session for the morning, but after that you can pamper yourself. Remember, we’re trying to cure them. Don’t give up.”

Laurie sighed again. “I won’t.”

“Good.” Robin clicked out and Laurie was on her own again. With Steve. She cleaned his face with a wet-wipe, then kissed him. He ignored her, chewing his vitamin stick.

“I won’t give up, Steve. I’ll get you back.” She took a few deep breaths and returned to work.

Making a Virtue of Necessity

It’s Virtual Monday at FAR Manor, having come off a 3-day weekend. Mrs. Fetched has been working on a video (for a — wait for it — poultry convention!) and the client said they wanted widescreen after she showed them the first (standard screen) cut. Oops… we never did get around to upgrading her system (a G4 dualie “Quicksilver” that is only now showing its age after 7 years), but a copy of Final Cut Express 4 has been sitting around in an unopened box. Given the requirements, it had to go onto my MacBook. I plugged in my 1TB external drive, pulled all her stuff over, and let her get at it.

Of course, since we were starting with a standard (4:3) project, moving it to widescreen (16:9) involved more than opening the project and continuing. It isn’t much of an exaggeration to say the project fought us every step of the way, but Mrs. Fetched wanted to get it done so we did manage to wrassle it to the ground and hogtie it in the end. One of the hassles was that I had to install and run FCE as the admin user — a rather unpleasant surprise for a Mac user, especially when it’s one of Apple’s own products. We’re used to things not being so cranky. The upshot was, I was fenced off from my writing files for most of the weekend while Mrs. Fetched worked or left things for me to deal with.

Undaunted, I picked up my new replacement Kindle and finished reading Walden. Then I started on another book I transferred to the Kindle, one I hope you’re familiar with. I wanted to give it a once-over to note a few awkward passages, but then I remembered the note-taking capability…

This actually has worked pretty well so far, and I’m 2/3 of the way through the book. So not only did I make a virtue of necessity, it was a happy virtue. You don’t find many of those.

I’ve found that the AppleTV thing has been really helpful when Mason is tired but still fighting sleep. I can stream Groove Salad or Ambient Alternative, then the photos of the animals start a few minutes later. Mason watches them, gets still… and zzZZZzzzZZZzzz…

White Pickups, Episode 70

Contents

Friday, February 10, 2012

“Endure.”

The single word reverberated around him. Cody turned: there stood Delphinia in the pre-dawn shadows, in front of the boarded-up guardhouse. Her hood hid her face, her cloak making her little more than another grey shadow among the shadows. Beyond him was a truck, waiting in nearly the same spot where the old one sat before they pulled it up to the street. This new truck had been whispering all along — End your mourning. Find eternal peace. — but Cody now noticed it and tried to tune it out. It was harder than usual, and it pulled at him.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked her.

“I go where I am needed. But what of you? Why are you here?”

Cody heard the welcome smile in her voice, could imagine it on her face, but shrugged it and the question away. “I dunno.”

“Were you thinking of giving in?” She inclined her head toward the truck.

We give an end to sorrow.

“Hell no!” But what am I doing out here? He’d been gnawing at the riddle of the trucks while trying to sleep; it was better than thinking about Sondra. But he’d dreamed of her anyway… and now he was out here. And so was a truck. Pulling at him.

“This one is yours.”

“Huh?” Cody looked over his shoulder at the truck. Nothing different about it, except the pull. They all looked the same.

“You summoned it.” The overtones in her voice hinted at a gathering power.

“Summoned?”

We are ready to hear your call.

Delphinia slipped back her hood and stepped forward, leaving the ball cap in place — but still Cody stood transfixed in the deep blue of her eyes, even in the near-dark, as she approached. “Thus says the Oracle: Endure, Cody. For the sake of the future. This is also Sondra’s desire.”

Cody tore his gaze away from her eyes and glared, crossing his arms. “Is her desire? She’s dead!” His vision swam for a moment.

“Only the body perishes.” The fencing and trees whispered an echo. “The soul lives on, but can be devoured. By hate. By despair. By unrelenting grief. And…” She turned her gaze to the truck.

“They really eat your soul?” Cody gasped —

And sat up in his nest in front of the fireplace. He shook his head, but Delphinia’s words still echoed in his skull. Habit made him check his fire: coals glowed behind the glass doors. He wrapped his robe around himself, opened the doors enough to throw two more pieces of wood in and enjoy a wave of warmth, then closed the doors and tottered to the bathroom.

Dim light filtering through the living room blinds suggested early morning, and Cody took a peek outside. Nobody moving around out there, but the early risers would be getting dressed — maybe someone was already making coffee in the Laurel Room? He felt like he could use a cup or two; last night wasn’t restful. First there was a dream about Sondra, then the one with the weird bag lady there in front of the guardhouse… that one felt almost real. What had she said? Something about enduring. And the trucks eat your soul?

“That’s some nasty shit,” he said aloud. “Gotta get some guys to push that thing back out on the street — oh yeah.” That was just a dream. Wasn’t it? Dreams and reality had a bad habit of mixing together these days. “Coffee,” he said. “Get my head on straight, then I can go have a look.” He picked up his shoes —

They were wet and cold.

“What the…?” He sat on the hearth, letting the fire warm his back, and thought. He woke up from the dream about Sondra, threw some wood on the fire, laid back down… hadn’t he? The wet shoes seemed to stare back at him, and he propped them against the fireplace glass. Could he have sleepwalked out to the gate? He didn’t remember going out there… or coming back, either. Then again, Delphinia had a way of pulling everyone around her into her crazy world. What did the preacher say about her that day? She has a gift, and I fear it has driven her mad. But she sure didn’t act crazy out there.


A few minutes later, Cody left the Laurel Room, hands wrapped around a warm coffee mug, black hoodie snugged up against the cold and damp of early morning. It was a short walk to the gate, even with the customary pause to look at the spot where Sondra died. He trailed a hand along the side of the guardhouse, looked up for a moment, then slipped through the gate and looked at the pickup. He could feel the pull from yards away, the strongest ever.

This one is yours. You summoned it.

There it was, exactly where he’d seen it, dream or not. He glared at it, sipped his coffee, turned to look at the ground in front of the guardhouse. The depressions could have been footprints, but Cody was no tracker.

Life is too short for endless speculation. There is a better way.

Drive. Consider your questions for eternity.

“Like hell. You can fuckin’ starve to death for all I care.” He gave the truck a middle finger and pushed himself back into the subdivision, swimming against the tide, making a mental to-do list: Get some guys together. Find the hooks they used back around Hallowe’en to roll the old one out, then get this one off the place. Spread the word.

And keep an eye on Delphinia. She was more than she seemed. And she knew more than she was letting on.

to be continued…

Rocks vs. Sucks: a Tale of Two Helpdesks

Bottom line up top: Amazon rocks, State Farm sucks.

As I wrote earlier, my Kindle screen went Tango Uniform early this month, a couple weeks after the warranty expired. Amazon was really helpful — after going through some troubleshooting measures that didn’t work, they agreed to replace it under warranty anyway. Very cool. They overnighted me a replacement — with a bum charging circuit. Back on the phone, Michael said I already tried all the stuff they would have walked me through anyway, and said they’d send a replacement for the replacement. But with the snow, the “overnight” delivery didn’t happen until Friday. Not Amazon’s fault, obviously, or even UPS’s. But I have the new Kindle, it works wonderfully, and I’m working on trying to keep up with the growth of my reading pile.

On to some less wonderful support. I took my car in to get the bumper fixed on Friday, then called State Farm (the other guy’s insurance) to let them know the car was in the shop and I needed a rental. Now earlier chats with the claims people led me to believe that was all I needed to do. Now I learned why State Farm can be anagrammed into Fart Steam, because that’s what I got: Kristen tells me “their policy” is that they don’t do a rental until the parts are in stock and the work is ready to be done. “That’s why we don’t recommend taking your car in on Friday, unless we can confirm your garage is working through the weekend.” Well, DUH… what with the snow, that was something else I was planning to do Monday that didn’t happen until Friday. And it would have been nice to hear about this “policy” before I took the car in. I barely managed not to take it out on Kristen; after all, she’s stuck having to deal with the idiot State Farm policies with no control over any of it.

And that’s the lesson for today: give your helpdesk people a way to chuck “The Book” in the trashcan and use their heads. Amazon obviously does that; their support staff can stretch a warranty and thus I have no regrets about having a Kindle or buying my mom one. State Farm just sucks… their rigid stances on stupid things is one reason we switched our car insurance to Progressive a few years ago after 20 years with State Farm.

#FridayFlash: Pre-emptive Claim

“Vik, would you come here a minute?” Vikram Pinto dreaded hearing that — it usually meant his wife was puzzled by one more thing he knew nothing about — but shuffled into the den where she sat at their computer.

“What?” he said, thinking It’s little early for this, especially on Saturday. He sipped his coffee and looked at the monitor, filled with BudgeTrack sprawl.

“I was catching up on the checking account,” Jaya said, “and a deposit for $250,000 came in this morning. That’s not right, is it?”

“What?” Vik nearly dropped his coffee, but managed to recover with only a few drops sloshing onto his hand. “Did we win the lottery or something?”

“I don’t think so,” Jaya shook her head. “The deposit is from a ‘Saturn Ring’ — does that mean anything to you?”

Vik took a sip of his coffee. “It sounds familiar… oh! It’s insurance! Let me see if I can find a number.” He opened the file drawer in the computer desk and removed a folder — Vik was almost obsessive about organization. “Ah. Here it is.”

The agent at the local office murmured, “Um… I can’t help you. Let me put you through to Claims,” and switched before Vik had a chance to object. He turned on the speaker so Jaya could hear. After a few seconds, a recorded voice informed him that there may be a delay of up to a second during this call, please be patient.

“What does that mean?” Jaya asked.

“It might be going to an orbital station,” Vik mused. “Isn’t Saturn Ring that insurance company the Pilf bought from the government?”

The Pilf — the closest most humans could get to saying their actual name — entered the solar system a few years back, offering interplanetary travel technology in return for permission to settle into orbit around Jupiter. After they bought AIG from the US government, they renamed it Saturn Ring. Then they realized they needed company representatives at least in Earth orbit.

The rep came on the line. “My condolences, Mr. Pinto.” While one part of Vik’s mind tried to process that, another considered the Pilf’s accent — almost like his own. “As you may know, it is our practice to pay a term life claim the moment we see the lifeline associated with that policy terminated.”

“What?” Vik’s stomach fell, and kept falling. “I am to die? How? How do you know? How soon?”

“Perhaps you have heard that it is the ability of our species to see lifelines. Your species is unique, in that we are unable to see your lifelines more than an hour ahead.” Vik did remember hearing that some time ago, and remembered wondering about beings that were born knowing when and how they would die. “As for how: are you on an airliner? We have several clients’ lifelines terminating all at once — in about thirty-five minutes — and one of them is a flight attendant.”

Vik stared at his wife. “I need to leave now,” he said, handing the phone to her. “Perhaps it is too late to save myself, but I can go away. There is no reason to endanger you and the neighbors!” Jaya had no chance to protest; Vik was already heading for the door. “I love you!” He jumped in his Jetta and roared away.

There was an old farmstead a few miles from their subdivision. A developer had bought it, but had no more than laid out a few streets before the housing market collapsed. With one eye on the road, and another on the dashboard clock, Vik drove as quickly as he dared (no sense in getting pulled over and taking an innocent policeman with him) out of the subdivision and down the side road. Checking the time, he drove right past the entrance and lost another two minutes turning around and coming back. An orange construction barrel blocked the entrance; he turned the car off and flung himself out the door, not bothering to close it behind him. The streets were first unmarked, then unpaved, but Vik ran until a cramp in his side forced him to stop.

Taking long, whooping breaths, he opened his cellphone and looked at the time. Only a few minutes left. Scanning the sky, he saw his personal Shiva: a jet, low and off the normal lane, trailing black smoke instead of a white contrail. Nobody else around. Perhaps it would be far enough. He punched a familiar number.

Jaya took the call as she stepped into the back yard. “Vik, I need to tell you —”

“It is alright,” he said, “whatever it is. I am alone here. Perhaps nobody else will die on the ground.”

“Listen: remember when we filled out the benefit package? We both got policies!”

“What?”

“I talked with the Pilf after you ran out the door and asked him to identify the lifeline associated with the policy,” Jaya said, standing in the back yard, watching the airliner plummet toward the ground. Toward her. “It was mine. Not yours.”

“Run, Jaya!”

“Why? It is too late now, there is nowhere to go. You were very brave to take yourself away from other people… I —” she wiped away a tear as she watched a piece of the airliner break off and tumble away. “I am proud to have been your wife. I love you, Vik.” She let her arm drop to her side, the phone dangling from her fingers and still connected.

Vik could barely hear his own scream above the scream of the airliner. It roared overhead, and the phone cut off a few seconds before he heard the explosion.

All the Extras in One Shot

One thing you can say about the snow: it gave me the opportunity to get all the extra people at FAR Manor together in one shot!

From left to right: M.A.E., Moptop, The Boy, Lobster, Mason, and Snippet. If you’ve wanted to put faces next to the names, here they are.

The Boy and Snippet built the snowman. I, um, accessorized it.

White Pickups, Episode 69

Contents

Tuesday, February 7, 2012

“You leave him alone!” Caitlin’s shout rang across the Laurel Room. Everyone turned to see the little redhead pushing up against Kelly, fists balled up at her chin, her face as red as her hair. “Why are you so mean all the time?” Behind her, Cody sat hunched over himself. He put his palms to his temples and sighed.

“Caitlin!” Jennifer rushed to the scene, Tim and Sara right behind. “What’s going on!”

“You just stop!” Caitlin hissed at Kelly. “I— I—” Tears finally broke through as Jennifer pulled her away.

“Okay, okay,” said Kelly, not sure if anyone heard, and stalked away.

“What was that about, Caitlin?” Jennifer asked through Caitlin’s sobs.

“It’s my fault.” Cody sighed again and turned to face them. Tim watched all three of them as best he could, while Sara reached and caressed Cody’s shoulder.

“What?” Jennifer gave Cody a dubious look.

“Kelly. She’s always runnin’ her yap at me. I just try to ignore it. Damn if I’m gonna give her any reaction. I guess Caitlin thought I needed defending.” He gave Caitlin as genuine a smile as anyone had seen since the day of the gunfight. “Hey. Just ignore her, okay? That’s what I do, ’cause she’s lookin’ for a reaction. But thanks. Thanks for caring.” Caitlin nodded. “You still workin’ on your moves?” She nodded again. “Good. We got class tomorrow.”

Caitlin gave him a thin smile and let Jennifer lead her away. Once they got some distance, Cody looked down and shook his head.

“You gonna be okay?” Tim asked him.

“Yeah. I guess. As okay as I’m ever gonna get.” He stood, still looking down. “I need a project, I guess. Somethin’ to do where I don’t have to think about stuff.”

“There’s a lot of things going on,” said Sara. “Jason’s trying to find more seeds for our gardens, Johnny and Max are clearing up all the downfall from the ice storm outside, there’s the patrols…”

“Yeah, and I help with all of that.” Cody stuck his hands in his pockets. “It ain’t enough. I still got too much time to think.”


“I’m sorry, Jenn-mom,” said Caitlin, looking at Jennifer’s feet. “But Kelly’s just so mean to Cody. She’s jealous because he married Sondra, and I —” she shook her head.

“You what?”

Caitlin grimaced and spoke in a rush. “I was jealous too, but I’m not mean to him like that.”

“I know,” Jennifer said, with an inward sigh. “But Cody’s right about this. It’s best to ignore it. He’s got a lot of stuff to work through with losing Sondra, and you don’t want him worrying about you too, do you?”

“No.”

“Good.” Jennifer paused for a moment, considering. “You know Cody’s too old for you, right?”

Caitlin sighed. “I know. But that doesn’t mean I can’t care what happens to him!”

Again, Jennifer paused for a moment. “You’re right, Caitlin,” she said at last. “We all have to care about him. But don’t let caring about him get in the way — no, that’s not right. Caring and… infatuation. They’re two different things. Okay?”

Caitlin shrugged. “I guess.”


“What is your problem?” Tina asked from Kelly’s bedroom door.

“What problem?”

“With Cody! What the hell are you trying to do, make him commit suicide? Even a ten year old girl can see it!”

“Caitlin has the world’s biggest crush on him, Mom.”

“That doesn’t matter! What matters is that you’ve been doing the equivalent of picking at an open sore, ever since Sondra’s funeral! You need to just back off, young lady.”

“Fine. I won’t say a word to him from now on. Satisfied?” Kelly turned and glared at her mother, her robe tangled up in her crossed arms.

“If you can’t be civil, anyway, that might be for the best. I hope this matter is closed; I’m sure Ben is wondering what’s going on down here. Good night.” Tina stalked away.

Kelly huffed, shook out the robe, and wrapped it around herself before undressing. From the living room, she could hear low voices, Mom probably telling Ben that they had a “discussion” and it wasn’t anything to worry about. She didn’t care. This evening had been one long embarrassment: a girl half her size had come at her and backed her down, everyone asking what was going on, then Mom having to come in and give her two cents. Dad would probably want to talk about it tomorrow, so it wasn’t over yet.

She slipped on her flannel jammies, still under the robe, and pulled on her thick sleeping socks and house shoes before ducking into the bathroom. At least she’d learned how to keep exposed skin to a minimum; guys were lucky that way. She returned to the bedroom and burrowed into the nest of blankets and comforters on her bed, pulled her book out from under the pillow, cranked her flashlight. The nest would warm up soon enough, then she could ditch the robe. Ben had it easy; the living room was the warmest place in the house as long as he woke up in the night to throw a few more sticks in the fireplace, and he was pretty good about that.

She tried to think. What was it that set Caitlin off? She honestly couldn’t remember what she’d said — probably just the usual smack talk, nothing to get so crazy about. Kelly was convinced she wasn’t in the wrong — didn’t anyone else see what Cody was doing to himself? He might not kill himself like Mom thought, but he might as well be dead already, the way he just lived in his own shell.

And now she’d cut herself off. How could she help him now?

continued…

Just Ahead of the Storm (Kindle version)

The forecast has Winter #3 bringing us 4–6 inches of snow tomorrow night and Monday. This forecast triggered a much easier prediction: widespread panic on Planet Georgia. So the story goes, the local Mal*Wart ran out of bread, the truck brought only a small supply, and that disappeared pretty quickly as well. For whatever reason, a weather emergency means people strip the shelves of bread and milk. I made a loaf of bread this morning, and some rolls, so we’re set there at least.

Of course, this was the perfect time for my Kindle to fail (look at the top of the screen):

As you can see, the top half-inch or so of the screen is goobered. I can’t see the battery charge icon or the signal strength meter. I had a look, and called Amazon, and (even though it’s a couple weeks past the warranty) they decided to replace it. Yay!!!!


So they sent out the new one overnight, I received it yesterday… and it doesn’t charge. I tried my old cable and the one they sent with the unit, on both the wall charger and the computer, no luck. On the phone again… and they quickly agreed they’d sent me a bum replacement. The third one (which I hope is the charm) would be here Monday, except that I doubt much of anything will go anywhere on Monday.

So I get to use the iPad as an eBook reader for a couple of days. It’s not as comfortable as the Kindle for reading, but it works.

#FridayFlash: G-5

I knew he was already onboard, but it was still jarring to see G-5 in the pilot seat, one foot on the copilot’s armrest and the other on the edge of the console, face buried in a reader. He looked up as I floated to the locker.

“About time,” he said, and turned his attention back to the reader.

“What’s got your attention there, G-5?”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.” That’s not exactly what he said, but close enough. Being a throwback, he uses what he calls “the F-bomb” as a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb — often more than once per sentence. We agreed to clean up our language about a century ago, but he slept right through that. I’m not going to get vulgar for the sake of accuracy here.

“It’s a little easier than great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.” I shooed him out of my seat. “You stowed?”

“Yeah yeah.” He scooted over, still reading.

G-5 is hard to describe to anyone who doesn’t have a throwback in their own family, starting with his age. Depending on which metric you use, he’s age sixty (experiential), seventy (medical), or 197 (chronological). The medics said he’s got a good thirty years of full-function left, now that they’ve overhauled him, then maybe ten or twenty of slow decline before something critical gives out. His speech is late-21st, he’ll wear suits like a teenager, and his shaven head makes him look ageless. Not long after he thawed, some of my friends made the mistake of taking him to a bar and using his F-bombs as the basis of a drinking game — we were all nearly comatose in an hour.

He looked up from his reader. “Your gram isn’t exactly a fount of data. We’re doing an ‘ice run,’ she says. What does that mean?”

“It means we’re going Out, finding and processing an iceball, and taking it to Mars orbit.” I pulled up the revised flight plan from Control, OK’ed it, and the pilot tug hooked up and took us out.

“Out. How far out?”

“All the way. Kuiper Belt, anyway.”

For the first time, he looked alarmed. “That’s gonna take a while?”

“Five years. But we’ll be in cryo for four of that.”

“Five years?” He scrambled to stand and the reader floated free. Like anything on a space freighter, it immediately used puffs of air to send it toward the nearest magclasp. “I can’t waste five more years! I’m outta here!” He kicked toward the airlock.

“Too late,” I said. “We’re already underway. They won’t let us go back unless someone needs immediate medassist.”

“That could be arranged.” He gave me a grim look. “Your gram did this to get rid of me, didn’t she?”

I shrugged. He could be right. G-5 was the founder and technically the owner of ECF, the family business he built from several bankrupt railroad and freight companies after the Crash of 2074. But so far, he was the only throwback to wake up to find his company thriving. Legal minds and computers were overheating, trying to untangle the implications. He went into cryo 135 years ago, partly because of pancreatic cancer and partly to escape an ex-wife who had left him after his first fortune evaporated, and insisted that she was entitled to a large share of the second.

He woke to find a cure and his company still around, but much changed. His great-great-grandson (gram’s dad) expanded off-planet, and that quickly became ECF’s primary business. Heedless of both technical and social changes, G-5 wanted to take up the reins and run the company again — and gram wasn’t exactly ready to let a relic from the past push her aside.

G-5 poked his head into the airlock, maybe to see if I was lying about being underway. “She could’ve told me.” He shrugged. “I could’ve gotten laid.”

“If you’d known, you wouldn’t be on board, I guess. As for the other… your grad student friend didn’t give you a send-off?”

“Eh. She got what she wanted. Dissertation written and accepted. No more need for the throwback.” He retrieved his reader from the magclasp and took the co-pilot chair.

“Cold.”

“Yeah. Seems to be my luck in women. I run out of what they want, and bye-bye!” He laughed and stowed the reader. “At least this one won’t be back lookin’ for more later on.”

“What were you reading about?”

“The ship. Operations, troubleshooting protocols, that kind of thing. Might be good to know about.” He paused. “You know, this might not be so bad. Looks like I’ll need a prybar to get your gram out of the driver’s seat. I need some time to figure out what kind of leverage I’ll need. And how much. Besides, this trip will give me some front-line experience that I bet she don’t have herself.”

“Huh. Good luck with that. You remember what comes after the pilot turns us loose?”

“Yeah. Deploy the solar sail, slingshot maneuver, then we go popsicle for a couple years.”

“Popsicle?”

“Oh, come on. Frozen treat on a stick? They don’t have those now?” He shook his head. “And they think I’m the throwback? Eh. Let’s get to work. The sooner we get under way, the sooner I can get my company back. And if that don’t work, maybe I can bring the popsicle back to you benighted heathens.”

The Epic Ancestral Power Struggle was on. And I was caught in the middle.

Wednesday (cough cough) Wibbles

OK, that’s enough of that. The “new” Blogger editor was sitting and spinning so I gave up and went back to the old one.

So it’s after midnight, and thus technically Thursday morning. Oh well, it’s still Wednesday night somewhere.

Mason has an ear infection, brought on by his back teeth coming in. I have some unspecified virus, according to the doc, that’s been going around Sector 706. Two different causes, but we’re both feverish, congested, and we both sound like we’re about to cough up a lung on occasion. I was well for about four days between shucking the first whatever and catching this one. I’d sleep all night anyway, or most of it, if Mason wasn’t waking up miserable.

Today (that is, Wednesday) was Mrs. Fetched’s and my 26^th anniversary. We had a dinner out, just the two of us. Kind of nice for a change. I bought us an AppleTV to go with the new HDTV as an anniversary present, and pulled some YouTube stuff in just to show off. The Boy has a Netflix account, and he said he’ll punch it in so we (Mrs. Fetched, really) can pull down movies to watch. Me, I’ll probably use it to stream Groove Salad or some other ambient station when I’m trying to put Mason to sleep.

With White Pickups pretty much wrapped up, I pulled it (episode by episode) into Sigil, a Free authoring tool that uses ePub as a native file format. From there, I gave it a more novel-like format, including actual chapters, and added some more story toward the beginning. There’s still a lot to go, but I pulled it into Calibre (a free ebook manager) and convert it to MOBI so I could load it onto my Kindle. I’m busy reading Thoreau’s Walden right now, but I’ll be soon marking places where the story needs more fleshing-out. I’m sure the ending (and other parts) will need a little work, but that’s what drafts are for, right? Whether I find a publisher or go indie (still trying to decide), the novel will have editing improvements and extended material.

Speaking of writing, I’ll have a #FridayFlash ready to go. It needs a little work as well, but that’s the beauty of flash fiction — it can be fixed up well enough in an evening or two.

I can’t wait to get better… I have stuff to do outside. I never did get the winter garden started, although the rain (and snow) never did let the patch dry out enough to dig up. I still need to finish clearing up the bank out by the road and hacking back the vines there. At least I managed to lose four pounds compared to June (at my last checkup), even with Eating Season. But I need to get exercising too. Maybe I’ll stay healthy for more than four days this time. :-)

White Pickups, Episode 68

Contents

Monday, January 30, 2012

“Have you looked outside yet?”

Cody stood in the door, giving Tim a bleary look. He shook his head and pulled the thick green blanket tighter around his sweatsuit. “You wanna come in? It got cold again last night.”

Tim stepped in, holding a thermos. Cody’s place smelled of wood smoke and inadequate bathing — like every other occupied townhouse — and he had a warm-looking nest in front of the fireplace. “I brought us some coffee,” he said, “if you want some.”

“Sure. I’ll get us a couple of cups. You can have the recliner if you — holy…” Cody trailed off and went to the window overlooking the pool, dodging the bedding. The blanket slid off his thin shoulders and piled itself behind his ankles.

“Pretty, isn’t it?” Tim grinned, watching Cody watch the morning sun sparkle on the ice. Last night’s rain had turned to freezing rain, and ice covered anything it could cling to, nearly a half-inch thick. Water and ice shards dripped where the sun shone.

“Yeah. I bet the power would be out if it was on to begin with.”

Tim laughed. “Yeah. Fortunately, there’s no big trees around the townhouses. We’ll have to take a ride — or maybe a walk — through the subdivision after lunch, just to see if any trees are down.”

“And need cutting up for firewood. People will like that, anyway.”

“Yeah. And if any houses are damaged, we might as well tear them down too.”

“Yow. I didn’t think about that.”

“At least if power lines are down, we won’t have to worry about them being live.”

“Hm… what about the roads?” Cody picked up his blanket and wrapped it around himself again, then ducked into the kitchen and returned with two coffee cups. “If anything’s down out there, we need to clean up some of it just so we can get around. But anything that messes with the trucks… I don’t want to take that away.”

“I don’t think people will care about the trucks if they get easy firewood, Cody.” Tim filled the cups. “Hey, you got any creamer?”

“Just that crappy powdered stuff.”

“Better than nothing. Sugar too, if you have any.”

“Yeah.” Cody retrieved the requested items and two spoons from the kitchen, handed Tim the creamer and poured a little sugar in his own cup. “When it comes right down to it, I guess I’d rather have a warm apartment too.” He nodded at the bedding. “I sleep in front of the fireplace most nights. Me and Sondra talked about doing that when… you know.” He looked at his feet for a moment, then looked up and smiled. “But we managed to keep warm in the bedroom.”

“I’ll bet.” They traded the cream and sugar. “So — how are you doing now?”

Cody sloshed his coffee, sending a little over the side. “Dammit.” He watched the spillover drip to the carpet, and wiped a hand on his grimy sweat pants. “Okay, most of the time. During the day, anyway. At least when I’ve got something to do, then I don’t have to think about it. Nights aren’t so good.” He trailed off and looked down again, then sipped at his coffee.

“Did you give any more thought to moving in with some other people? You’d be welcome at my place, even if there’s not a lot of room.”

“Thanks, but… well, you know about Caitlin. I keep hoping she’ll get over me, sooner or later. That whole thing is awkward.”

“Heh, yeah. People have been joking all along that she could be my daughter.” Tim flicked his red hair. “Especially since we’re in the same townhouse now.”

“Hey, she’s not all bad. She’s one of my best students in skate class. She’s probably trying to impress me, but she pays attention and works on her moves outside of class. That’s impressive by itself.”

Tim laughed. “Yeah, she was showing me she could ‘ollie’ — is that what you call it? — over a shoe last week.”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean. She can ollie higher than the other kids, because she works at it. I was thinking, when it gets warmer, I’d like to take them over to the skate park. We’d probably have to spend half a day cleaning up all the leaves and junk, but maybe we could take some camping gear and spend a couple of days. I could show you a couple of stunt-bike moves if you wanted to come too.”

“Might be fun.” They sipped their coffee and watched the ice.


“Well, the bad news is that we gotta clean up this mess,” Johnny told the cutting crew he’d gathered after lunch; they stood looking at a big oak that the ice brought down into the street. The air was full of odd sounds: a near-constant whisper of dripping water, the patter and tinkle of falling ice, an occasional crack-hiss as another limb — or entire tree — succumbed to the weight of the ice. “The good news… this’ll make plenty of firewood, even if it is kinda green!” He picked up a chainsaw from one of the bike trailers. “Let’s start with the branches.”

“Looks like it’s gonna roll once we get workin’ on it,” said Cody, pointing at the boughs on the street, bent under the weight of the trunk.

“Good eye. Which way, do you think?”

“I dunno. Probably it’ll roll toward whoever’s cutting those branches underneath. Murphy’s Law.”

“Yeah, but Murphy has logic on his side for a change. Too bad we don’t have a tractor with an end-loader, we could lift it right up when the time comes and there wouldn’t be a problem. But we’ll make do with the jacks. Let’s get started — Tim said there’s at least two more like this inside the fence, and more out on the roads. We’ll be cuttin’ for a few days. Or weeks.”


The Laurel Room was well lit for supper; a day of bright sun had charged all the batteries nearly to capacity. “There’s stuff down pretty much everywhere,” said Tim, hands wrapped around a soup mug. “The trucks are getting around it, but it’s really slowing ’em down. We need to get at least some of it cut and out of the way, just so we can get around ourselves.”

“Well, at least we’re set for the rest of the winter,” said Johnny. “What we’re cutting inside the fence should get us all through March. What’s outside will give us a head start on next winter.”

“What are we gonna do about all those power lines?” asked Janet. “They’re down all over the place!”

“Not like they’re live or anything,” Palmer grinned. “We can just pull ’em off the road and outta the way. Maybe we’ll think of something to use ’em for later.”

“Yeah, whatever wood we cut up out there we can leave to dry too,” said Cody. “Maybe it’ll be a little lighter when we bring it in later.”

“If other people come around and see wood stacked up, they’ll know someone’s here. Or they could just take it themselves,” Cleve warned.

“So? Not everyone out there wants us dead. Rob knew we were here all along and he just moved in last week.”

“We can’t assume. Yeah, I know, we can’t assume the other way either.”

“Hey Palmer,” said Stefan. “What do you think we’d use those downed power lines for?”

“Hey, people used to steal phone lines just to sell for the copper. We could probably use it for wire — especially if we get more people in here and have to start running power into houses.”

“We could use the wires we got now,” said Cody. “But we already got all the solar panels from that place. If we get more people in here, we’ll have to come up with another way to make more electricity. If we decide we want it.”

“Windmills,” said Johnny. “And of course we want it. If we got enough juice that we could afford to waste some — hell, maybe we could air-condition the Laurel Room come summer!”

“Sooner or later,” Jason said, shaking his head, “we’ll have to build new homes that don’t need so much heating and cooling. I always wanted to try building a straw-bale house, but building codes around here didn’t allow it. But who’s gonna enforce those codes now?”

“The lack of straw bales?”

“Grass will be growing all over the place, especially where we don’t want it. We just have to bale it up, somehow.”

continued…

The Fun Age, and a Power-Squabble

As Mason approaches 16 months, he’s hitting what I’ve always thought of as the “fun age.” For the next few months, he’ll be a constant source of hilarity as he explores, learns, and expands his vocabulary. Think of it as paying forward the Terrible Twos. He loves fruit, especially apples and oranges, and is equally happy to bite and spit out the skins of either one. He refers to both apples and oranges as “apple,” and it’s fun to hear him say it (sorry about the Flash trash):



He’s also learning the whole toy-snatch thing from Moptop, who is well into her Terrible Twos, and we sometimes despair of her ever getting out of them. While she annoys him quite often, he has learned to reciprocate — he got into a rather unpleasant mode yesterday afternoon, and bounced a plastic block off her head, and now all he has to do is hold his hand behind his shoulder to get Moptop to cut loose with that ice-pick-in-the-ear shriek. But when she ’s cranky and sitting on M.A.E.’s lap, he’ll come over and wiggle his fingers at her feet and go “tick-tick-tick” (tickle). Now that’s funny.

The Boy and Snippet weren’t going too far through the afternoon, and (after a morning run to repair two chicken house furnaces) I found myself with a little time to start clearing off the bank out by the road. There’s still a fair amount of snow laying around, but I either had to work around the snow or not get any of it done. I made both more and less progress than I expected — I got most of the small junk cleared out, but the bigger logs were immobile and I decided to come back with the chainsaw later. I hacked the vines off the trees and will whop them back with rake and weed-eater in the next day or so.

As I was working, Mrs. Fetched drove up and placed me in the middle of one of her & The Boy's power-squabble games, an act that I deeply resent. “You need to go up to the house. They’re not to take Mason anywhere,” she said. I think she was mad because The Boy didn’t dedicate enough time to helping her with the chicken houses — but that should be between them, why drag me into it? But the orders were given and, in her mind, that meant they were to be carried out or it was my @$$. I hiked up to the house.

“We’re taking Mason to my dad’s,” said Snippet. “He doesn’t smoke or drink” — yeah right — “and he hasn’t seen Mason since he was like a few days old.”

“Mrs. Fetched said no,” I said. “That’s all I know.”

“Well, we’re taking him,” The Boy snapped. “He our son and that’s that.”

“I guess you don’t give a care that your mom will be all over my butt if you take him, huh?” He had nothing to say about that, but Snippet went off on a tangent.

“I’m tired of him calling you ‘Daddy’!” she snipped.

“I never asked him to. I think he’s trying to say ‘Granddad,’ because it comes out different than the ‘Daddy’ he uses for The Boy.”

That mollified her somewhat, but The Boy was unmoved. I told him to call Mrs. Fetched and wait until everyone reached an agreement, but of course she wasn’t answering her phone. She tends to be incommunicado when at the chicken houses… or any other time, for that matter. I grabbed my phone and stormed outside to deliver a blistering voice mail, then saw my car sitting there. Hm… I’ll just pull a fuse or something, I thought, and opened the door.

Bee-bee-beep. Bee-bee-beep.

The Boy had inadvertently left the “key” to the whole problem right there in the ignition. I pulled it out, pocketed it, then stashed it off my person. They bundled up Mason and assured me they would be back by 9 (yeah right), and out the door they went. A minute later, The Boy came back in and went upstairs. A couple more minutes later, he came down and Snippet came in with Mason.

“Where’s the key?”

“I don’t have it,” I said, which was technically the truth. I emptied my pockets for him. “Your mom might have come and got it.” Snippet bought this, but The Boy is a professional liar and could see an amateur at work.

“Fine,” he said at last. “We’ll leave Mason here if you give me the key.”

“I’ll help you look for it,” I said, and he left. I again pocketed the key, dropped it on the floor of the car, and “found” it for him. They left… and their idea of “by 9” is 11:30. Whatever. At least The Boy wasn’t drunk — he has done that before; he gets one screen a week and yesterday morning was his screen, so he’s clear until next week. I’ve seen him come home hammered and confident he won’t get caught. On the other hand, one more violation and he’s in the clink for 90 days; he just has to stay clean for six more weeks and he’s done.

One encouraging note: he told me, “after I get done with this,” and said something that wasn’t some variation of “I’m going to drink an entire 30-pack.” He needs to grow up, not bang heads with Mrs. Fetched, and they both need to leave me out of their power-trips.

Christmas After Dark

But first, Andi asked me to get a shot of Mason and me out in the snow. Daughter Dearest took the shot, I fixed the tilt in Photoslobber.


After dark, the front yard turns into a miniature Festival of Lights. Mason loves to have me hold him up to the window so he can see. Sometimes, if he wakes up around 6, the lights come back on and he gets a little show while his comfort milk is warming up.


Moving indoors… Mrs. Fetched uses this time of year to cover most horizontal surfaces in the living room — at least the ones nominally out of reach of Mason — with fiber optic angels and related kitsch. This is a kind of traditional defender angel, wielding something a little heavier than a lightsaber… maybe a lightbroadsword? It turns different colors.


Not all angels prefer the traditional arsenal. This one appears to be wielding a laser cannon along with an astershield.



I have to admit I have a bit of a soft spot for this angel. She hangs on the wall, no weaponry. But you have to reach up her dress to turn her on. (Something that I like to point out because it annoys Daughter Dearest to no end.)


And that is how we roll after dark, coming off the bottom of the year.

White Pickups, Episode 67

Contents

From the diary of Ben Cho, winter–spring 2012

Things seemed to get a little better (except for Cody) after the bashers — maybe the universe decided it had shit on us enough for a while. We had an early warm spell, unusually long and dry for mid-winter, and people stopped complaining about being cold for a little while and started wondering if global warming had hit a runaway phase as some feared. The community grew a little — there were other people nearby, and curiosity (and running low on canned food) finally drove them to see who we were. Even better, two other women joined Sara in pregnancy, and Rita was happy to be the pre-natal nurse. We had occasional sickness and minor injuries for her to deal with, but (except for Sondra) nothing she couldn’t handle. One of the former homeless women moved in with Cleve, and everyone had to rib them about it because he’d arrested her back Before. The rest of Patterson’s crew started to truly become part of us as well. We had Cody on suicide watch for a while, but he made it. He ended up building a cairn of sorts over Sondra’s grave, with help from Patterson and several others.

The long dry spell got us a bit nervous about our water situation again. We’d had enough rain to live out of our rain barrels up to that point, but we were getting pretty worried before we got more rain at the end of January. It got us thinking about droughts and how we’d deal with them…

Part V
Water Shed

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Lanterns and oil lamps, hung over the card tables, augmented the dim light from the window over the pool. Outside, rain continued to pour down, with an occasional rumble of thunder.

“I guess I can live with this,” said Cody, sorting Tina’s pass into his hand. He laid his cards face-down on the table.

“It has to be better than what you gave me!” Sara grimaced.

“Yeah, this is an improvement.” Cody smiled and flipped the two of clubs into the center of the table. Sara sighed and played the ace that Cody had given her. Tim and Tina followed with the jack and king respectively.

“Aw!” Cleve groaned from the next table, “that pass was sloppier than this weather!” Kelly gave him a wicked grin. “At least the rain is doing us some good.”

“Let’s see who’s got the queen,” said Sara, leading the jack of spades. Tim sighed and played the queen; Tina and Cody played lower spades.

“Hey guys,” Lily called from the top of the steps, “they wanted me to ask how long the batteries are good for.”

“Hard to say,” said Johnny, taking the first trick at his table, with Cleve, Kelly, and Elly. “Even with the clouds and rain, the panels are still giving us a little power. It’s not enough to keep the batteries charged and all our stuff going, but you’re going to stop at four anyway. What are you guys playing?”

“Me and Ashley and Caitlin are playing Dance Fever. The boys are playing Barnstormer on the Playstation. Why do we have to stop at four? We can’t do anything outside.”

“We can’t let the batteries run too low. We have to have enough light for this evening, and we don’t know if it’ll clear up tomorrow or not.”

“God,” said Tina, playing the ace of hearts on Tim’s middle diamond lead, “I’d about kill for even a half-assed weather forecast!”

“Hey, Stef’s leg told us the rain was coming,” Rita grinned, standing behind Johnny as he dropped the queen of spades on a grumbling Cleve. “Now if it could tell us when it will stop…”

“I miss the Internet,” said Johnny. “It was made for a day like this. Just stay inside and surf. Besides, you could pull up radar and see if the rain was going away anytime soon.”

“Funny,” said Cody, “I don’t miss the net as much as I thought I would. You know what I miss? Going to my job at Breakbeat. I never thought I’d miss working!”

“I miss hot showers,” said Kelly; the women, and several men, voiced agreement. “It might smell better around here if Cody could get one!” Cody hunched his shoulders but otherwise pretended not to hear; Tina gave her daughter the glare.

“Running water, period,” said Cleve. If we hadn’t got this rain, we’d have been in trouble in a day or so.”

“Cheese!” Caitlin called from the top of the stairs; Lily must have replaced her on the dance pads. “It made me fat, but I love it!”

“You’re not so fat now though!” Sara called back, making Caitlin grin. “But yeah, cheese. And dairy products in general. We’re about out of that nasty powdered milk, even.”

“Not to mention beef and chicken,” Johnny laughed. “We need to round us up some livestock! Yeah, the venison is okay, especially what we smoked, but there ain’t enough fat in it to make a good burger with.”

“I don’t suppose you know how to train a herd dog?” asked Tim.

“Well… I tried once. Let’s just say the results were mixed.” Johnny laughed at the memory. “He wasn’t much of a cow dog, but he’d keep the neighbor’s free-range chickens rounded up!”

“Speaking of chickens,” said Elly, “I’d love me a big ol’ plate of eggs! Over-easy or soft scrambled, with a hunk of sausage and a side of hash browns!”

“Careful, babe,” grinned Cleve, “I could put on a couple of pounds just thinkin’ about that kind of food!” Everyone laughed.

“Sondra said she was good, as long as the coffee and chocolate held out,” said Cody, with a rare smile. “I always knew when it was time to hide, she’d be digging into her private chocolate stash.” He sighed and studied his cards, finally playing a middle diamond.

Kelly broke the silence. “Cheese… sausage… God, I’d love a pizza about now. Even one of those crappy cheap frozen ones!”

“Plenty of ex-frozen ones around,” said Cody, “but they’re probably all rotten by now.” He wrinkled his nose. “Remember how much it stank when we cleaned out the Saver-Mart and the other places? And set those dumpsters on fire?”

“Yeah,” said Tina. “That’s one of those things we used to call ‘hidden dividends’ at Maxcom. In other words, stuff that had to be done but we didn’t see the benefits. We’d have seen all sorts of problems if we let them go, though.” She led the two of hearts. “If we’d just left all that crap in there to rot, we’d probably be overrun with rats by now.”

“Aw, man,” Cody said, playing the jack of hearts. “Yeah, good point. But what about all the places we haven’t been to? As far as we know, we’re the only group of any size out there.”

Sara looked at him across the tables. “If we made it, other people must have.”

continued…

White Christmas!!! [UPDATED with video]

First one in over 45 years!

The weather peeps said it was coming in at 1 a.m., but I guess it got hung up at the airport. It started at 9 and hasn’t stopped since (now 2 p.m.). Mrs. Fetched said the last time we had a White Christmas here, she was three or four.

Mason got lots of goodies, and Mrs. Fetched got the LCD TV she’s been wanting for over a year (Daughter Dearest and I got it for her).


[UPDATED] Just a little video from out front of the manor:

Mrs. Fetched was really happy with her present; Daughter Dearest and I chipped in on a 32" LCD TV. Instead of wrapping that monstrosity, we covered it with a quilt and stuck it behind the playpen and just wrapped the wall-mount bracket.

Hope everyone has a happy whatever-you-celebrate-this-time-of-year!

#FridayFlash: For This Night

Welcome all readers and fellow writers. If you’re participating in #FridayFlash, feel free to leave a link to your story in the comments. If you want to follow my blog, I’ll follow back when I notice. :) There’s also plenty of other fiction here:

• All the short stories on the blog
• The whole of a peak-oil novel, FAR Future, written as blog posts from 2012–2045
• A novel in progress, White Pickups, of people surviving in a depopulated world

Today I give you a Christmas-themed story, based loosely on the events described in Matt. 2:13–16.

For This Night

The soldiers stepped out onto the dark narrow street. They took their positions: back to back, waiting for their eyes to adjust. Their ears needed no time to adjust — throughout the village they could hear shouting and the screams and wails of bereaved mothers.

“This is no work for soldiers, Odo,” one said. “Thugs, perhaps. I may just fall on my sword rather than stain it with another drop of innocent blood.”

Odo was quiet for a moment, watching the shadows. “Others command, Kleon. It is ours to obey,” he said at last.

“And that is all this is to you? Obedience? No. No man could be unmoved by this… work.”

Odo was silent for a moment. “I must admit, Kleon,” he said at last, “I’m relieved that last one was a girl.” He paused again. “Upholding honor is not often easy.”

“Honor? Bah. We served in the Nile campaign, we faced the Saracen horde in the desert — and history will remember us for this night, if she remembers us at all. A night of killing innocent boy-children in a backwater town, at the whim of a mad kinglet.”

“Seditious talk is good for the soul, my friend. But one should take care where it is spoken.” Kleon heard the smile in Odo’s voice. “But is not this king Greek? Like you?”

Kleon spat. “Any barbarian can learn Greek. Even a Gaul.” Odo snorted. “But to be Greek — that is something more. A true Greek would not order all boy-children of a village slain out of hand, especially if that village had offered no rebellion.”

“Perhaps. But this barbarian Gaul can now see the street. Shall we continue?”

“I shall —” Kleon hissed. “Something ahead,” he whispered. “Forward, but quietly!”

The soldiers kept to the shadows, their quarry unaware of their presence until Kleon and Odo were upon them — a young man leading a donkey, which in turn carried a woman. In the dim light, Kleon saw she hid something under her cloak and sighed.

Perhaps seeing his Nemesis, the man dropped the lead and held his staff cross-wise. He hissed something at the woman, but she only sat and watched wide-eyed. Foolish woman, Kleon thought, her husband would buy her life — and their son’s — with his own, but she will sit there and lose her son as well.

“Caesar’s soldiers!” Odo snapped in the local language. “What is your business? Be quick about it!”

“We are… travelers.” Kleon was mildly surprised that he spoke passable Greek — a tradesman then, a tentmaker or carpenter. His accent suggested he was telling the truth. “From Galilee. Going to Egypt.”

“It’s past curfew,” said Kleon. “Bandits are out.”

The woman said something, too quick for the soldiers to catch. “What did she say?” Odo demanded.

The man looked amused, but did not let down his guard. “She said with all the soldiers in the streets tonight, bandits are the least of our worries.”

“Woman. What are you hiding in your cloak?” Their eyes grew wide; the man shifted his footing a little. His face was that of one expecting to die shortly, but would do what he could to buy the seconds needed for his family to live.

“If it’s not a weapon, it is of no concern,” Kleon said quickly. “Is it?”

The woman shook her head. “No.”

“Then go about your business,” said Kleon. “But do not travel through Bethlehem — things are unsettled tonight. The nearest gate is that way.” He pointed. “And things are much the same in Jerusalem. You would do best to go overland to the coast. Take a ship, if you have the means.”

The man nodded. “I give thanks for your advice. And your mercy.” He took up the lead and they departed the way Kleon had pointed.

“What have you done?” Odo demanded.

“I have followed our orders. To the letter, like a good soldier,” Kleon smiled. “Boy-children of Bethlehem under two years of age are to be slain this night. We were not ordered to slaughter Galileans.”

“I am not convinced. What if you just let flee the child that Herod was concerned with? Then all else we have done tonight is pointless.”

Kleon nodded. “True, my friend. And that is how it should be.”

Hell Hath No Fury…

Even in the alternate universe of Weirditude that is FAR Manor, there are physical laws and constants. One of them is anyone who undertakes to help Big V, long term, will come to regret it in about two weeks. That’s about as long as it took The Boy this time — yes, he’s been here before. So Spring #1 comes in with a BANG.

I think it might have been because Snippet wore out her welcome at FAR Manor some time ago, but they were spending most nights at Big V’s place — taking care of her grandkid Skyler (Cousin Splat and his wife make Snippet look almost like a halfway involved parent), driving her to doctor appointments and so forth. Actually, from what I heard, it was The Boy taking care of Skyler… like when she’s here, Snippet can’t get much motivation to deal with a baby, hers or otherwise.

Because of Big V’s lackadaisical credit history, she doesn’t keep much money in the bank — they have no problem using her deposits to make her payments for her. And somehow, she had something north of $1000 cash in her purse where it was safe… from bankers, at least. And that cash turned up missing some time on Saturday, while The Boy was at probation-mandated classes of one sort or another much of the day and Snippet was there at Big V’s at least much of the morning. The more Big V thought about it, the more convinced she became that Snippet was the culprit.

Now it must be said that Snippet isn’t exactly famous for her respect for other people’s property. Daughter Dearest found a ring that belongs to her (actually, M.A.E. gave it to her) down at Big V’s, among Snippet’s stuff while looking for something else (the money). So Big V has been calling the house, wanting us to get involved with Snippet while doing all the other things she thinks we should just be happy to do for her.

I made the mistake of trying to work at home the last couple of days, and with the phone ringing every few minutes, I found myself getting rather annoyed at the constant interruptions. This morning, I announced “I’m not answering the phones today,” and removed them from the bedroom. That didn’t stop the noise, of course… especially when The Boy started screaming upstairs, then came storming down into the bedroom.

“You need to talk to this $#@%!” he yelled, thrusting the phone at me.

“I don’t have anything to say to her.”

“You need to talk to her!”

Seeing as I wasn’t going to get any work done with him waving the phone and yelling at me, I finally took it and listened to Big V imply that she was going to hang The Boy right along with Snippet. I asked her what evidence she had, she told me, and it was all circumstantial at best — especially when Snippet is an expert at the poor-pitiful-me act, and has a face and figure that would get her the sympathy of any male jurors right off the bat. Big V started the sob story — I’m pretty sure she was trying to panic, guilt, or pity me into giving her the money to buy The Boy another day, but I don’t have any either — and I told her the sob story thing wasn’t going to help and she just had to do whatever she felt was best. I also told her I was trying to work, and got her off the phone.

And… I had an audience. I took the opportunity to announce that I was packing up, taking Mason, and moving out. “I’ll come with you!” M.A.E. offered. Um… no. Daughter Dearest, who was already upset by the crap, called Mrs. Fetched to tell her I was leaving and she had to come right home NOW. While she was on the way, I called The Boy into the bedroom.

“If Snippet took that money, you need to scrape her off,” I said. “You don’t need that crap right now.”

“She didn’t take it!”

“I said if. I’m not saying she did take it, but if she did you need to get her out of your life. Pronto. That’s all I have to say about it.” And to be honest, I’m not 100% convinced myself that she took it. There were other people running loose in Big V’s house, and I liken Snippet to a crow. She’ll snatch something sparkly if the opportunity presents itself — but we’ve had money in various quantities laying around here and there and it’s never disappeared without turning up (often after Mrs. Fetched tells me Snippet probably took it). On the other hand, given her recent behavior I’m not exactly motivated to step up and defend her.

Oh… and here’s a good one. Big V was trying to get a loan (a big fat “yeah right” given her history); The Boy and Snippet took her up to a place they’ve used in the past. While they were there, they decided to get a loan to pay their phone bill (um… what part of “recurring charge” are you missing here?), and got $500. As it turned out, they used my car for collateral. Without asking me.

Now… it’s personal. I think what I’ll do is contact the loan office, explain the situation, and remind them that they have lots of ugly lawyers to do their bidding. If Snippet ends up in jail, for that or for snatching Big V’s wad-o'-cash, I won’t shed a tear.

White Pickups, Episode 66b

Contents

“I need to know something,” Cody told Patterson as they shoveled, filling in Sondra’s grave. Her final resting place was in the vacant lot behind the townhouses; Cody thought she would have wanted to be close to the place she’d called their home. He also insisted on helping with the burial, although he had paused for a long last look at the freezer before it disappeared under the clay.

“What?” Patterson was certain what — he’d heard what Cody was about to say many times over the years — but knew better than to say so.

Cody didn’t look up. “You talk all the time about your god and how he loves us,” he said, pushing a big lump of dirt in. “If he really loves us, why did he let Sondra get killed? Why not me instead?”

Patterson paused for a moment. “I’m just a man, Cody,” he said at last. “I don’t know His plan, or how this all fits into it. But I do know He loves us, enough to let us go our own ways and even mess up His plans from time to time. And he even loved the men who came at us, even if they’d been led astray by false teaching.”

Cody pushed his shovel into the dirt, then stopped and looked at Patterson for the first time. “Huh. Those last two, talking to each other… they said the same thing. ‘False teaching. Led astray’.”

“Too bad — if they’d lived, perhaps they would have repented.”

“Nuh-uh. Next thing, they were planning to slip in and wipe us out. I heard ’em.” Cody give the preacher a defiant look.

“You’re right, of course. I knew of Carlton Worleigh — he’d written his name inside the cover of the Bible you brought me — and I knew he was still abroad in the land, before the Truckalypse. But his…” Patterson shook his head. “His margin notes were bad enough, but he had gone so far to strike through those passages that didn’t support his twisted beliefs. I don’t use the word desecration often, but I can’t think of a better word to describe what he did to that beautiful old book.”

“What are you gonna do with it?” Cody looked genuinely curious.

“I’ll burn it, with prayer and fasting. It’s the best thing, I think. And by the way, you did what you thought was the best thing at the time with those two men as well. You avenged Sondra, and you may well have saved some more lives. I won’t judge the rightness or wrongness of that, it’s done and over. But I want to go back to the other thing you said: why not you instead?” He gestured at the grave, now half-filled. “If you could change places, would you want Sondra to feel what you’re feeling now? She would have, you know.”

Cody scooped up a shovel-full of dirt, took a deep shuddering breath, and threw it in. “No. But better that than her…” he looked down. “She would have gotten over me, sooner or later.”

“And you won’t? What are you going to do? Do you know what Sondra would want you to do?”

Cody stabbed his spade into the dirt pile with a chunk, then crossed his arms to glare at Patterson. A gust of wind blew his hair over his eyes, and he made no attempt to push it away. At last he gave a long sigh and shook the hair away from his face. “She’d want me to get over it too, I guess. I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to do that, though.”

“Neither do I, Cody. But you’re making the right start. You were there for her at the end, you spoke at her funeral. And you’re here to make sure she’s laid to rest properly. Whatever happens, you won’t regret doing these things.

“Listen a minute,” Patterson continued; Cody paused, one hand on the shovel. “Delphinia… sees things, sometimes. She has a gift, I think, and I fear it may have driven her mad. She calls you ‘Father of Nations,’ and says you’re destined to be a legend —”

“Some father, lettin’ the mother die before she could have our kids.”

“— but legends are about nothing more than ordinary people who stepped up and did what had to be done.”

Cody shook his head and returned to shoveling, saying nothing for a long time. Patterson worked alongside, waiting for him to finish thinking. Finally, “I never signed up for this legend crap. All I ever wanted was to be me.”

“But if you’re to be a legend, you are signed up. For as long as you want to be yourself.”

Cody shoveled up the last of the dirt and poured it on the grave, now a low mound. “Yeah? So it comes back to the same question: what the hell do I do now?” He patted the mound with the flat of his shovel. “I guess first thing is to get some rocks from that stone place across the freeway and make some kind of monument. Some cement, if it ain’t all gone hard by now.”

“Continue to honor her memory, Cody. But don’t let it turn into an obsession. I’ll help you lay the stones, if you wish. Just let me know.”

“Yeah.”

continued…

White Pickups, Episode 66a

Contents

Thursday, January 12, 2012

The banging noise filtered through the sound effects of the game, and just wouldn’t go away. Cody finally hit PAUSE, pulled on a pair of sweat pants, and went to see what was what.

Tim, Sara, Tina, and Kelly stood at the front door of his old house. “What the fuck?”

“Sondra’s funeral,” Tina said. “We thought you would want to pay your last respects.”

“To your wife,” Kelly added; Sara elbowed her.

“Aw, shit,” Cody said. “Yeah. I’ll be right out. Come on in. Or something.” He walked away, leaving the door open.

Tim shrugged, then walked in and gestured for the others to follow him. It smelled a little musty inside, but better than most of the houses in the subdivision. The others sat on the couch; Tim walked back to the bedroom.

“Hang on,” Cody said through the closed door, “almost ready.” Tim waited; Cody finally opened the door. His black jeans perfectly matched the black t-shirt; the shirt had a picture of a little boy holding a huge power plug, with the caption “SKILLET - COMATOSE.” The clothes Cody had worn the night before were piled at the foot of the bed with uncounted wet wipes. All looked bloody.

Tim refrained from commenting and looked at the screen; it showed an aerial view of a farm and several biplanes frozen in mid-air up ahead. “You playing something?”

“Barnstormer. It was Sondra’s favorite,” Cody said. “I just can’t get into the shooters right now. Not that I’m getting into this one, either.” The 8/8 in the corner of the display confirmed Cody’s assessment.

“Yeah. I can imagine.”

“No you can’t.” Cody gave Tim a defiant look.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Tim said, suppressing the urge to mention Rebecca, “but that’s not the point. Sondra deserves a proper send-off, and that means you have to be there. For her.”

“F— yeah.” Cody turned off the display, then the Playstation.

“Where did you get the console?”

“Neighbor kid had it,” Cody said. “He lived a few doors down. Not like he needs it anymore.”

“What about the generator?”

“One of those camping generators we had laying around. It’s enough to run the game, not much more, so I pretty much forgot about it until last night. Let me go shut it off.”


Reverend Patterson stood over Sondra’s body, wrapped in blankets and plastic packaging tape, lying in the open freezer that was now her coffin. “I’ve never conducted a funeral under these conditions,” he said, “but I’ll do what I can to honor the memory of our fallen hero.” Everyone in Laurel waited for him to continue.

Cody stood. “I’ll say a couple of things, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course.”

Cody walked to the front and looked down at Sondra. He caressed her cold cheek, speaking too quietly for most to hear. “Sondra was… when the trucks came, and there were only three of us, I thought I was happy. The people at school who hated me, because I wasn’t like them, were gone. My mom and dad wanted me to be a different person, and they were gone too. Finally, I thought I could be who I wanted to be and not have to worry about anyone else.

“Then Sondra came. I don’t know what it was anymore… maybe it was the way she looked at me that kept me looking at her. But I knew one thing: I was in love. And she loved me back…” his face crumpled for a moment; he rubbed his eyes and continued. “And then I knew I was happy. I had a place here, and I had someone who loved me the way I am. What more could anyone want?

“But I guess… I guess there were people who hated the idea that someone might be happy. Or just not like them. They’re gone, but they took Sondra with them. And now… now I… I don’t know what I’m gonna do with myself.” He sank to the pavement and sobbed.

The preacher reached down and laid a hand on Cody’s shoulder. “Sondra was a hero, in the old sense of the word — her courage was superhuman, and some might say her ability with a gun was also superhuman. But she was also a hero in the sense that she was the one who saved the day for our community. Not just yesterday, but in the first days after chaos swallowed most of the human race.

“But there was more to Sondra than that. We honor her today not just for her heroic deeds, but for how she loved this community — and especially the love she had for her young groom. Had she lived, she would have no doubt been the mother of a new nation — as this young man may be destined to be the father of nations. So today, we consign the remains of Sondra Lucado-Sifko to the earth, along with the weapons of her enemies as befits a hero fallen in battle, but her soul has risen to join her Maker… and her memory will be before us, always.”

Cody stood. “Amen,” he muttered, and shuffled back to the others.

Delphinia worked her way from the back of the circle and approached the coffin. Her hood hid her face, but her slumped shoulders betrayed her sorrow. She looked down at Sondra and caressed her face, brushing back a wisp of hair a stray gust of wind had pushed out of place.

Caitlin, standing with her Jenn-mom, watched the Strange Lady. She looks so sad, she thought. I thought she didn’t like Sondra. But… I’m sad too. She must have been special, for Cody to love her like he did.

Delphinia removed her hood and ball cap; her golden hair cascaded to her shoulders. She looked at Cody, and he was lost in her eyes — a deep blue that could drown the world. Without realizing, he found himself approaching Sondra’s makeshift coffin again.

“Sondra,” she said, still looking at Cody across the freezer, “you were the first wife of the Father of Nations. Even though you bore no children, your deeds, your love for this young man, and his love for you, will be remembered through the centuries to come. Your story will be the root of legends for the new age.” Her voice rose, carrying to them all. “Thus says the Oracle: remember Sondra, all of you. Tell your stories to each other, and let them grow as stories do. Men of this place, remember her strength and bravery, that you do not claim such qualities as yours alone. Women of this place, do you likewise and strive to be like her. All of you, remember her love and devotion. Thus will you honor her memory.” She paused and looked down; Cody thought she was finished, but then she raised her face to the skies and sang. As at their wedding, it was breathtaking: a pure and clear soprano soared over them. Again, many swore that they heard it accompany itself.

True and brave, our fallen one,
Her final race has now been run
Take heart, all you who stand and mourn:
Her spirit has rose unto the Son.

She has gone, and we are left
We all mourn, we stand bereft
Our love, our light is gone away,
Taken by the cruelest theft.

In Heaven with her Father, dwells
Our fallen one, whose deeds we’ll tell
And as we mourn our loss below
We know with her soul all is well.

Rejoice, all people! Lift your face!
Our Sondra’s in a better place!
We shall see her once again,
When on Earth we’ve run our race!

continued…

Holiday Haircuts

It’s a good thing Mrs. Fetched scheduled everyone to get a haircut yesterday — Mason woke up with a case of Epic Bed Hair:

I tried smoothing it down a bit, to no avail. Oh well, he was more interested in eating breakfast than his appearance, so I got him (and me) some cereal.

Mason was the first to get a haircut. I sat in The Chair, he sat (then stood, by request) and did pretty well. He kind of flinched at the sound of scissors snapping around his ears, but he got the bed hair fixed then trimmed down. He no longer has Old Man Hair, which is his usual state. Then it was my turn. He sat on Mrs. Fetched’s lap and watched big hunks of my hair fall to the floor… and said “oh dear!” loud and clear. He’s really started talking a lot in the last week; he’ll often repeat words spoken to him or at least try (except he won’t say “grape” — he’s too busy eating them to name them).

So after we got our haircuts, and while Mrs. Fetched and Daughter Dearest were getting theirs, Mason started wandering around. The shoppe has a helpful basket of rollers that kind of stick to each other that they keep out for the kids to play with — “we had someone here with her 15-year old kid and he made a Christmas tree out of them” they told us — and he had a good time pulling them out and strewing them across the floor.

But that didn’t last too long… he likes to explore. He thumbed through a couple magazines out front, then found the bathroom area. They have this little flower fairy statue, and Mason was fascinated with it. I didn’t get the camera out quick enough to catch him rubbing “her” boobs, but at least he hugged “her” afterwards. DoubleRed came by later; I told her about that and she said, “Yup, sounds like Mason. He’s gone for mine a few times.”

Then he took a little nap on the way home.

#FridayFlash: Assignation

Beep. After a few months, Wes no longer jumped. It happened two or three times every lunch hour. Whoever it was, she was looking at his profile now: Age 51; Married; In-Program 6 mos; Preferences none; IQ 120–140; Confirmed impregnations 4 (a little above average); etc. Her profile was on his pad as part of the exchange; he’d look at it if she came around.

It was routine now: query, interview, clinic. Pete’s Deli was booming these days; between the clinic opening two doors down in the strip and lunches on the government dime for active donors, it was the place for lunchtime assignations.

A tall thin woman — the beeper — laid her tray on his table and sat. Wes pulled up her profile; her photo appeared as confirmation. He skimmed the parts that stood out: Age 27; Engaged; In-Program 1 mo; Vegan; etc. “Mild hypertension and elevated cholesterol,” she said. “What’s up there?”

“The usual. Not enough exercise, not enough paying attention to what I ate when I was younger. I’ve taken a little better care of myself since. Still on meds, but I think they’re for the doctor’s peace of mind as much as anything.”

She snorted around a mouthful of salad. “Yeah. Does your wife know?”

“She got me to join the program, even though she doesn’t like it much. What about your fiancee?”

“He’s not happy about it either, but he knows it’s necessary.” She scratched her forehead and took another bite of salad. “By the way, I kind of agree we needed a reduction, but not a total wipeout. This… sucks. Are you eating meat?”

“Not today. I cut back on meat for the cholesterol. Turns out I can live without it.”

She picked up his receipt. “Garden on a Bun? That’s got cheese.”

“I said I can live without meat. I didn’t say anything about cheese!”

She laughed. “Yeah. You’ll do. I think this one will take. I’m ready when you are.”


“You had one of those… those meetings today, didn’t you?” his wife Trina asked.

Wes nodded. “How do you know?”

“You always take a shower before you come home. I guess that’s better than you smelling like whoever.”

“It’s anything but romantic, believe me. You want me out? I’ll drop out.”

“No… I know it needs to be done.”

Two years ago, some genocidal fools released a gengineered virus. It targeted men, felt like a flu, and was gone after three days — leaving them sterile. It wasn’t perfect — it left older men and pre-adolescent boys unaffected — so they started a crash program to maintain a reduced birth rate while developing a vaccine to protect the boys. The assignation system stressed marriages and other societal norms, but was better than nothing.


The next day, Wes was looking at his pad when he got beeped, and the profile with the come-hither photo once again popped up on the screen: Age 22; Single; In-Program 4 mos; Assignations 0; etc. The same woman beeped him at least once a week. He stole a glance around the deli, and saw her a few tables away, reading her pad. What was the deal — four months and she hadn’t pulled the string once? An informal set of rules were already establishing themselves, one of which was that the woman made the approach, but that wasn’t happening here.

“Mind if I sit?” Wes held his tray over the table. She shrugged, saying nothing, so he sat. They ate in silence for a while.

“I’m in downtime right now,” said Wes — give the boys a couple days to reload, a friend once chortled — “no pressure.”

“So why are you here?”

“Well, you’ve beeped me six times in the last month, but your profile says you haven’t had any assignations. Makes me wonder if you really want to be in the program.”

She looked at him for the first time, and gave him a smug smile. “Or maybe I don’t like doing it in a clinic.”

“Kind of risky.”

“That just makes it more exciting. Don’t you think?”

“I suppose. But most of us aren’t doing this for the excitement.” Wes poked his pad and laid it face-down.

“Really.”

“Yeah. It’s kind of weird, only being wanted for your protoplasm. Some of us need pills to compensate.”

She laughed. “Now you know how women have felt forever.”

“Well… I never heard a woman complain that men were only interested in her ovaries.”

“Whatever. I want something else, and I happen to have a van outside. Save us a walk.”

“Um… thanks. But I don’t think so.” Wes stood, glanced up, saw the fertility cops at the door. “So what was the plan? Put me out of commission?”

“What?” She doesn’t fake innocence well, he thought, as she used a makeup mirror to look behind her. When she sighed and reached into her purse, Wes didn’t wait and see what she took out; he knocked his drink over and dodged for the front door. One of the FPs jerked him to the side as he came out.

“You okay?” the FP asked him. She had a little belly bump of her own.

“Yeah. I hope everyone else in there will be.”

“They’ll be fine,” her partner said. “She just bolted for the ladies’ room. We’ve got the blue suits on the way in case there’s a hostage situation, but I think she’ll come quietly. Good thinking, forwarding her profile — we’ve been after her for a while. She’s been spreading several STDs, any of which would put you out of the program for good. What got you suspicious?”

“She was coming on to me. You know the saying, if it’s too good to be true…”